(no subject)

[canonical_insanity]

Title: Familiarity
Fandom: Yu-gi-oh GX
Rating: PG
Warnings: Spoilers for the first duel of the Seven Stars arc, uses Japanese names.
Summary: Asuka is not impressed at the fact that one of the assassins had decided to use her brother's deck. To her surprise, it wasn't for the reason she was thinking of...



She could tell that something wasn't right.

Maybe it was the hair -so similar to her own style, but in a darker shade of brown with messier bangs- or the voice that first set her off. But when the member of the Seven Stars pulled out the first Red-Eyes Black Dragon from his deck, she knew exactly what was wrong.

He was using her brother's deck. She assumed he was doing it to mock her, specifically, as Fubuki's deck had never really been as balanced as one would expect from an elite duellist, and lacked the magic and trap cards to augment his army of evil-looking dragons properly.

She certainly wouldn't have expected anyone to try and use it to take over the world.

So, when he was defeated -after Judai finally 'getting his game on' and an attempt by her to stop the duel by challenging the Star before he'd actually beaten Judai- she decided to take the deck and give it back to Fubuki when she actually managed to find him.

What she wasn't expecting, but, in hindsight, she probably should have been, was that the mysterious duellist had Fubuki's deck because...well, he was Fubuki. And this meant that her carefree, ditzy, overly romantic and generally harmless older brother had just tried to kill them all, her included...and Asuka was seriously wondering why she came to Duel Academy at this point.

She probably could have just saved herself the trouble and checked straight into the mental asylum instead. Of course, this was only the beginning of her journey and things were going to get much worse before it got better...


Title: Loyalty is Contagious...
Fandom: Harry Potter
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Spoilers for Deathly Hallows, may or may not be AU.
Summary: In which Terry decides never to get a detention again, Michael's logic is proven fallacious and Anthony wonders if he can get a theory going as to cross-house dating...



Terry Boot, seventh year Ravenclaw and respected member of the DA, decided on the first detention that he wasn't going to get caught again. It wasn't the fact that he had been caught. Or that the Carrows had beaten him unconscious with their bare hands.

It was what had happened later.

They had decided to try and crack the Ravenclaw Triad (which was what he, Anthony and Michael had called themselves after finding out that the name 'Trio' had been taken by Harry and his two friends) by turning them against each other.

This, as Terry was about to find out, basically involved having the Cruciatus put on him for the first time in his life by his best friend. Afterwards, he ended up being the one taking a horrified and unresponsive Michael back to the Ravenclaw tower, while trying to convince him that the curse had failed and that he'd just pretended to be in pain for the audience's benefit. He's lying, it hurt more than anything that he's ever done or had done to him before in his life, but he figured that the truth won't help either of them at this point.

Michael had managed a weak smile sometime after that, and Terry went back to trying to forget what the Cruciatus felt like. He's the one that eventually told Anthony -after all, they wouldn't be an unstoppable force within both Ravenclaw and the DA if they didn't talk to each other about what was going on- and Anthony caught his lie immediately.

"You just said that to make Mike feel like he didn't just torture his best friend."

"Yeah. We don't need him to go off the deep end. Besides, I'm tougher than I look, see?"

Terry tried to show Anthony how tough he was, but ended up banging his already badly-bruised arm on the headboard. He winced in pain, holding his damaged limb and wishing that he could just get himself a Painkilling Potion, at the very least.

Anthony, to his credit, didn't laugh.

"You are. Although...that wouldn't be particularly hard..."

***

Michael Corner thought at first that Terry was actually scared of him.

It was a reasonable hypothesis, considering the facts. A) Michael had performed a Cruciatus curse on him only hours before, and despite his attempt at persuading him otherwise, there had to be at least some side-effects from that, even if they were only psychological. B) Terry had then proceeded to ignore fact A and the evidence that the Carrows had been pretty brutal with him beforehand, and half-supported, half-dragged Michael back to the Ravenclaw tower, even though it should have been the other way around and C) He had also convinced Anthony not to ask Michael what had happened, even though the three of them usually shared everything.

Well...almost everything. Everything within reason, anyway.

"Terry, do I scare you?"

The other Ravenclaw -Michael couldn't call him his friend anymore, because he wasn't entirely sure if Terry was still willing to be his friend- turned over in his bed to face Michael and glared at him, his face shadowed both by bruises and the pale light coming from the window.

"Nothing scares me. I'm just that awesome."

Michael snorted with slightly hysterical laughter.

"Except Hufflepuff girls."

This time, it was Terry's turn to chuckle.

"I notice that you haven't dated any Hufflepuffs, oh brave one. Besides, Susan's pretty damned scary when she puts her mind to it."

Michael, having seen Susan Bones hex Millicent Bulstrode as part of an escape from the Inquisitorial Squad in fifth year, said nothing.

"Mike, there is absolutely nothing that you could ever do to scare me. Now go to sleep. We've got a DA meeting tonight."

He passed out as soon as his head hit the pillow.

Terry continued watching him for about ten minutes and then pulled out a book from his bed on Occlumency -he was hoping to have it nailed by the end of the year in case the...well, in case the DA and the Order weren't enough. He flicked through to a chapter that he had yet to read -it hadn't seemed useful, and it was way beyond his modest comprehension of the subject anyway.

Chapter Nine: Occlumency and Nightmares.

He had a feeling that they would all need it by the end of the year.

***

Anthony had always been a terrible liar.

Never could get the hang of it, in fact. When he'd been interrogated by Umbridge back in the days of the original DA -he never thought that he would miss those days, but he did- he'd just flatly told the toad-human crossbreed that it was no business of hers what he did on his own time and in a school that, despite her attempts to convince herself otherwise, did not belong to her.

He still had the scars on his hand from the results of that particular conversation. As a reminder to him that some teachers did not believe in justice, truth and the victory of reason, tempered with as much compassion, bravery and ambition as the other houses were prepared to offer (this had later proven to be a lot of the first two virtues but not much of the third). An...object lesson, as it were.

Terry had laughed at his response, proceeded to lie outrageously to Umbridge and gotten matching scars on his hand. Then again, back then Terry had been the most...well, Ravenclaw of the three of them, lacking both Anthony's tendency to say exactly what he thought and Michael's unwavering devotion to whichever girl he was dating this month.

And then he'd started to date Susan, and apparently...well, loyalty was contagious. To be entirely honest, if the other houses qualities were contagious, this would explain a lot about Michael's streak of recklessness, since he had dated Ginny Weasley at some point, after all.

They don't come much more reckless than that. He liked that idea. Maybe, once the War was over, he could write a thesis on it, force Susan and Terry into being primary sources for his research...of course, this was assuming that the three of them would survive the war.

That could be a problem.


Title: What Tangled Webs We Weave
Fandom: Crossover, Battle Royale (manga) with Power Rangers elements.
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Severely AU, will make absolutely no sense.
Summary: Yutaka had to say, honestly, that when he joined their team, he hadn't seen this one coming.
Notes: This happens before...all of the fics that I've written so far, at the beginning of the timeline that future!Hirono comes from.



"Any last words?"

"Yeah. Shimizu's going to kill you, you do know that, right?"

A smirk -so familiar, even it was a lot more malicious than the ones he was used to- appeared on his attacker's face, and a mocking laugh filled the small, padded and uniformly white cell (it'll be painted red soon, he thought, slightly abstractly and wished that he didn't know why) as he turned away, not wanting to look upon the face that was so familiar and yet barely recognisable.

"I doubt it. She's talented...for a girl," he added -the prisoner would laugh at him for underestimating his teammate, but there was nothing to laugh at in this situation- and continued when his only response was an uncharacteristically hard stare, "but she's nothing special. She'll die as easily as the rest of your team. Or should I say 'our team'?"

"Say whatever you like, it won't change anything. You're going to kill me, then Shimizu will kill you. Maybe she'll kill herself afterwards due to the 'star-crossed lovers' thing and then Hiroki will take over as team leader and destroy this entire operation. But...you won't get away with this, you know?" The last part is a cliché and he knew it, but he delivered it in the most cynical and world-weary tone that he can manage -which somehow still sounds more chipper than Shinji (the actual Shinji, accept no substitutes! ...And he can't believe that he thought of that pun in this situation) or Shimizu's normal voices- to make it sound less like he was saying it to reassure himself and more like he knew it as a fact.

Another peal of cruel laughter followed that statement.

"I was hoping that you'd say something like that! After all, you're the hero of this little story now. Or at least, that's what you, Hiroki and Megumi seem to think of your little group, isn't it? That you're the heroes fighting against the evil government?"

"If you want proof of that, look in the mirror sometime. Take note of the glowing red eyes, because I honestly doubt that I've seen many heroes wander around with those."

He didn't raise his voice -because he knew that his enemy could shout louder- and what he had to say would be best delivered in a quiet and dispassionate manner of speaking.

"As I was saying, Hirono's not going to be able to do a thing to stop me. Because I know her weaknesses better than you do. I can make her vulnerable, and I can kill her. It may take a while, but by the time I've finished with her, she'll be begging for me to kill her."

"Dream on." Back when he was just Yutaka Seto, full-time student and expert sidekick, he never thought that he could put so much defiance into those two words. But then, he had never thought that he’d be tortured to death by his brainwashed best friend and one of his teammates either. If he had, he would have been somewhat less enthusiastic about the concept of joining the -for lack of a better term- good guys.

And then the pain came and he didn't scream, not even when his blood was all over the cell walls (he's not sure that he liked the paint job, but he doubted that they did the same kind of paint in green) and he was still desperately breathing (because every moment that they were both attacking him was a moment more for his teammates to prepare).

It seemed like hours before it finally stopped.

Maybe it was.


Title: Fourth Day Blues
Fandom: Crossover, V7OC does The World Ends With You
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: May or may not be AU (you can't prove that it isn't).
Summary: While Kazuki muses on his entry fee, Yukio wonders why he has to be stuck with this partner.
Notes: I should have made it clear that I own absolutly none of the characters in this. Therefore if Ian, Rob, Kristin or Jamie want this taken down, I'll do that.



They weren't doing that badly.

There had been a nasty incident with a spider-like Noise on the second day, and they hadn't seen any of the people that he had actually liked back in the RG yet, but Kazuki was actually starting to get used to this whole 'being dead and getting into random fights using Pins' thing.

Sakura seemed to think that Kazuki's memory of his friends had been his entry fee; that even if they were there, Playing this game -which was somewhat less heartless than the last one he'd been in, although that was saying less about the kindness of this game, and more about the lack of it in the last one- Kazuki wouldn't recognise them as his friends. They'd only be another pair of anonymous Players, just like them.

Sakura wouldn't talk much about what she had sacrificed for her own entry fee. He'd asked her several times, but she had always shook her head and reminded him of the almost constant time limits that they were under. They still had three days to go. Most people would be somewhat unnerved by this, but at this point, Kazuki Hoshikawa just felt kind of lucky that he wasn't wearing a collar (with inbuilt explosives guaranteed) around his neck. And not just because it wasn't a particularly fashionable item of clothing.

They run out of time on their challenge. It's his fault, he spent too much time in the clothing shops trying to pick out a useful hat for Sakura to wear when they should have been running towards their mission.

Hopefully, another pair of Players will finish it first. Otherwise, this might be the final end of him...

To both his and Sakura's relief, they do. The timer disappears on his hand, and Sakura breathes a sigh of relief.

He sees a pair of girls wandering out of the building that the objective was in. He doesn't recognise either of them, but Sakura does. Sounding more than a little shell-shocked, she hisses:

"Hey, Hoshikawa, is that...Ishibashi and Takahashi...working together?"

He doesn't know anymore. It's an odd choice for an entry fee -not being able to recognise anyone that you used to have more than a passing relationship with- and it makes him wonder. Has he already seen his friends but he hasn't recognised them? Have they recognised him and wondered why he didn't talk to them?

No.

He's not willing to believe that.

He hasn't seen them yet because they haven't been there. Not because the memory of what his friends looked like...acted like...everything but their names was gone.

Three more days.

If Kazuki didn't stop to think too much -which he should be sort of used to already, seeing as how he hadn't been known for thinking that much while he was alive and rarely ever stopped for breath once he'd become interested in something- it would be over before he knew it.

He hoped.

***

On the fourth day of the Reaper's Game, Yukio Inokuma just wanted it to stop.

He was sick of the random blackouts after completing missions (not that he had actually been able to complete any of the missions yet because Yuasa deliberately took his time and slaughtered as many Noise in the area as he could before letting Yukio move to the next part of the map), he despised his partner (they had yet to get a single Sync and he thought that Yuasa was blocking him on purpose because he wanted to get Yukio erased) and this entire chain of events just...wasn't logical at all.

This couldn't be real. Any moment now, he'd wake up in his bed, back in Haramichi, to find that none of this had happened. The way he died (he couldn't remember anything after the video that they were showing back in class, but he has a horrible feeling that it wasn't a particularly peaceful death), the Reaper's Game...nothing.

At this point, he'd even accept it if he woke up to find that he was late for his first class (he isn't entirely sure, since he doesn't know how much time has passed since they showed the video in class, but he thinks that today should be Thursday, so it would be math and that meant he could forget about this entire thing in the simplicity of fractals) or that his room-mate had dyed Yukio's hair pink (again) or something. It would be better than this.

Three more days.

Three more days, and then he can go back to school.

Unfortunately, this meant keeping Yuasa around for now, and he's not sure that he can actually last that long without going completely insane.


Title: The Unwinnable Game
Fandom: Battle Royale (movie)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: AU, some spoilers for Shinji's subplot.
Summary: After some theorising, he decides that he doesn't want to know.



He ran into Keita on the first day.

To be entirely truthful, Shinji had never really been that sure that Keita was completely sane on a normal day, without being stuck on an island and told that the only way to get off it was to kill your classmates. To make it worse, his friend was bleeding, but Shinji wasn't entirely sure that the wounds on Keita's body (they looked like bullet wounds, but he wasn't particularly good at identifying the cause of injuries, so he might have been wrong) were entirely responsible for the amount of blood that stained his school shirt.

So he was cautious about their encounter, kept his gun in reach -although, crazy or not, he isn't particularly fond of the idea of shooting anyone, least of all one of the few people that he'd done more than flirt with (not that he would flirt with Keita, because he was absolutely hopeless and wouldn't understand the concept even if Shinji did swing that way, which he didn't)- and made attempts to convince Keita that he wasn't going to shoot him except in self-defence.

Keita had shaken his head, muttered something about being a bad judge of character and sprinted off again, leaving Shinji wondering what that had all been about.

He hadn't seen anyone alive since then. He had managed to think up a way to hack into their systems on the first day, but there wouldn't be any point if all he could do with that was storm into the school on his own with a pistol. The book his uncle gave him had instructions on how to make bombs, but he couldn't do that and hack into the school in three days.

Keita Iijima's name was announced on the 12am report of the second day.

Shinji still didn't know why his friend had ran away instead of trusting him. Keita had always been ridiculously laid-back and rarely ran anywhere, even if he was late for something. And he'd always been able to tell when Shinji was lying -all in the eyes, he'd told him once after beating Shinji five times in a row at poker- so he must have known that Shinji wasn't going to hurt him.

He found Yutaka's body slightly later.

For an odd reason, there was a gun lying near Yutaka's hand (empty, he checked). Yutaka himself had been strangled -there was a student's tie wrapped around his neck- but, apart from the fact that Yutaka was dead (but he had known that already, hadn't he?), that didn't really worry Shinji.

What did worry Shinji was the fact that, for one thing, Yutaka wasn't the only corpse there. Haruka Tanizawa's body lay just off to one side of Yutaka's. Unlike Yutaka, she had been shot. And, if he remembered rightly, Haruka's name had been on the report just before Yutaka's.

For another thing, Keita's ID card -there was so much blood on it that he could barely make out the details, but the picture was clearly him- was on the ground some distance away.

And the gun was closer to Yutaka than Haruka.

It was likely that the three of them had joined up (since Keita had a way with people, despite being the laziest human being that Shinji had ever met, and Yutaka just exuded harmlessness), Yutaka (or Keita, but Yutaka was the only one of the three that didn't seem to have any bullet related injuries and the gun was right next to his hand, as if he'd dropped it just before he died) had snapped, killed Haruka and tried to shoot Keita, who had strangled Yutaka with his tie, probably due to not having any better weapons on hand.

Shinji refused to believe that assessment, waving it off as his own paranoia as a response to being alone in this game for days.

It wouldn't have happened that way.

And if he kept repeating that to himself, maybe he'd eventually believe it.


Title: The Sky is a Lie
Fandom: Crossover, Battle Royale (manga) with Power Rangers elements.
Rating: PG
Warnings: Severely AU, will make absolutely no sense.
Summary: Between missions, the team decide to relax. This leads to them regretting letting Megumi choose the game.
Notes: This happens between the two story arcs (after Evil!Yutaka and before Future!Hirono) and therefore Mitsuru has gone on his date with Izumi and is not in the fic.



Hirono, can of soda in one hand and D20 in the other, was not happy about the way the evening had progressed. Mainly because she'd never played D&D before and was not used to having Megumi tell her what they're supposed to be doing. So, she decided to be a little more...creative about her roleplaying.

"I feel like I'm betraying my delinquent roots. Okay, I choose to attack the sky."

Megumi dropped her DM book. Across the table, Shinji and Yukie started laughing.

"Wait, WHAT?! What do you mean, you choose to attack the sky?"

"Are you implying that I can't attack the sky? As far as I can tell, there is nothing in the rulebook about not being able to attack the sky."

Megumi sighed. Not even Mizuho was this crazy at roleplaying. Although, Hirono had yet to make a point about how her chosen deity had given her the right to attack everything, so she guessed that wasn't entirely true.

"Fine. The sky attacks you with a precisely aimed meteor. Roll 50d6, Hirono."

Shinji interrupted, still smirking.

"No, because I'm going to use the Amulet of Attack Reflection that you gave us for beating that tentacle monster last game, on our entire party, meaning that it now has 1 charge left and the attack does 50d6 damage to the sky."

"How many hit points does the sky have, DM?"

Megumi glared at Yutaka as a response and rolled her dice, regretting ever having offered to set this game up.

Of course, if she hadn't been DM, one of the others would have.

She still had nightmares about the last tabletop game Shinji had ran, which had been a horror based adventure (she had ended up getting killed when her nurse character failed her search check and got eaten by a monster that used to be a laundry basket; being Shinji, he had told her that she had passed that check only moments before) and the one time Hirono had ran a game, it had been sci-fi and after Shinji had rolled a 1 when he tried to hack into the AI causing their spaceship to crash (using a virtual reality interface that both Megumi and Yukie had warned him about, as they had suspected that Hirono was going to trap it), she had proceeded to inform him that because it was a 1, not only did he fail to reprogram it, it traced the attempt and hacked into his mind instead, meaning that his character became a living equivalent of a 'zombie computer', now under the complete control of the AI.

Being Hirono, of course, she had only said 'you feel a slight buzzing sensation, as if you were holding on to an electric toothbrush' and only told him about the hacking in the middle of the final battle, when he'd almost forgotten about it.

This had started an argument about if it was theoretically possible to do that (with Hirono arguing that it didn't matter, as DM's law was god and she hadn't complained about being torn apart by an organic sewing machine, which had happened to her during Shinji's game, so he couldn't complain about that) and eventually they had forgotten what they were arguing about and went back to playing poker.

"Fine. Okay, you destroy the entire atmosphere. Rocks fall up, everything dies. Game over."

"But what if I...?"

The glare that she shot Hiroki was worthy of Mitsuru.

"I SAID, GAME OVER."


Title: Retcon is a Cruel Thing
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Spoilers for 'Adam'.
Summary: He didn't get her those flowers, but he isn't completely sure why someone would go to all of the trouble to set him up like that.



He didn't get her those flowers.

Sure, the note was in his handwriting, but Ianto was excellent at forgeries, and it would be just like the sneaky git to embarrass him in that way. And he had noticed that particular bouquet on his way to work and thought, if briefly -because he didn't do romance, or love, or anything that implied that he was more than the snarky medic with absolutely no compassion or warmth- that Tosh would like it, but he couldn't have bought it, because he had an almost perfect memory.

If he had bought them, he would remember buying them.

Just like he would remember why his glasses -he hated those glasses with a passion, and hadn't worn them since he had been able to earn enough money to get contact lenses- had been on the table next to him when he woke up.

So, since he couldn't remember buying them, he had to conclude that this was all an elaborate set-up to lead him and Toshiko into a relationship that would kill one of them (since they both had the same doomed Torchwood luck when it came to romance, and that was why he tried to avoid it whenever possible), if not both. That someone else had bought the flowers for him, and someone else had put his glasses on the table in order to screw with his head.

Yes.

That must be it. But since he's always been one to finish what other people start -and Toshiko looks so much better when she's actually happy, and he knows that she isn't going to let him blame it all on Ianto- he can't actually do anything about it.
He just has to hope that her misfortune with romance cancels his out.

Of course, this being Torchwood, there wasn't much chance of that happening.


Title: Capturing Kira is Like Playing Capture the Flag With Gods of Death
Fandom: Crossover, Battle Royale (manga)/Death Note (manga)
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Spoilers for the Near/Mello arc. AU in both places.
Summary: Satomi Noda is about to be in the unenviable position of being blackmailed by both sides (Ties into 'Unexpected Twists', day 2 number 2).



She works for Kira.

Sort of. She doesn't kill people, she just...keeps him informed of their medical records so that it looks like they died of fairly natural causes. If it's a gangster, then they get stabbed, shot, have a fridge dropped on them (she probably shouldn't have told him that he had no sense of humour, in retrospect) and he takes care of that on his own. If the person just happens to have a family history of some sort of illness, she tells him and he makes sure to change their deaths.

She doesn't have a choice.

If she doesn't -he told her at their first meeting- he'd kill Yukie, who had become a vocal anti-Kira spokesperson (Satomi never knew her crush on Nanahara went that far) and he'd make sure that the last thing that Yukie ever saw was proof of Satomi's affiliation with Kira.

And she had thought that Kira was working for justice.

As she gets into a taxi on her way home -she doesn't drive, got pissed off at the instructor on the day of her test and yelled at him until he told her to go home and banned her from the driving school- she notices that the person in the passenger seat is pointing a gun at her.

"Hands where I can see them, Noda."

Shit. She should have expected this, but how could she when she covered her tracks so well? She had known that there were people opposed to Kira -and not all of them were as pacifistic about it as Yukie- and she had taken care not to get caught.

So, she might have to do a bit of acting. Hopefully, she can fool the attacker into thinking that she's just a normal doctor -which she had wanted to be, even if she'd harboured faintly pro-Kira sympathies- with nothing to do with the case.

"I...erm...what...what is this? Why are you doing this?"

The man -the only way she knows that is because of the voice, as he's masked and wearing baggy clothing, possibly to avoid getting killed by Kira- clicks the safety off the pistol.

"Don't play this game with me, Noda. I know that you're with Kira. Start driving." The last comment is directed to the driver, who had also slipped on a mask -she saw the face briefly, but she doesn't know how to kill people like Kira does- who gives him a nod and drives.

In the opposite direction to her house.

"We're...sort of with Mello. You've heard of him?"

She nods. It wouldn't help her chances of escape to feign ignorance of that part, as pretty much everyone in Japan had heard about his abduction of Chief Yagami's daughter.

"The mafia leader? Sure. But...I fail to see what any of this has to do with me."

The driver -she knows that the driver is both a girl and familiar, because she did see a small part of her face when she pulled up- starts laughing.

"We know that you're not worth much as far as information's concerned. We're going to offer you a better deal than Kira's offering, Noda. If you take it, you and Utsumi might even make it to your next birthdays. Sound good?"

"How? If I go against him, he'll kill her."

She drops the act, thinking that if they know about the threats against Utsumi, then there's no point in lying any longer.

"So that is what's going on? I knew you wouldn't be deliberately doing this, Satomi!"

The driver unmasks to reveal Yuka Nakagawa, slightly thinner and less cheerful than she remembers -but then again, she remembers everything from back then in a haze of the nostalgia that only comes when you're stuck in the present having to help a psychopath kill people in order to protect your friend, so she guesses it's probably fine- but still smiling in that bright, kind way that made everyone feel better for just being around her.

The man in the passenger seat swears loudly.

"Now, look what you've done, Nakagawa. You've blown your cover. I hope that you're happy with your death."

Yuka gives him one of those teasing looks -Satomi remembers those looks with an equal amount of unease and fondness- and turns back to stop the car from crashing into a lamppost.

"You're just jealous because I was right about Satomi being blackmailed. So, if you'll just keep an eye on Kira for us -you do still have my number, don't you? I can give it to you again if you want...- and tell us when he starts acting nervous -our profile of him shows that he cracks easily under pressure, so it shouldn't be that hard to tell- and inform us of anything interesting that crops up, and we'll make a deal with the Japanese police force to grant you immunity and hush it up so Yukie will never know about your involvement. And Yukie won't die because he'll never figure out that you're passing information to us."

There is a hole in Yuka's plan. A big one.

"I thought you said that you were working for Mello? How do you intend to make a deal with the Japanese police force?"

For the first time since she got into the car, the man in the passenger seat actually sounds amused at this, rather than angry.

"I know someone who knows one of Near's accomplices. Since Near is helping the police force, we can probably get you that deal. But if you tell the police that Nakagawa kidnapped you, I will be coming back to your flat, Noda. I know where it is. I know how to get in, and I know how to kill you without your neighbours ever hearing anything...maybe that was a little over-dramatic, but I think that you may get the picture. Do we have an understanding?"

She nods.

"We'll give you two days to think our deal over. After that...we'll need an answer. Nakagawa, you can drive Noda back to her flat now."

"Will do. Nice seeing you, Satomi. We'll be in touch!"

As soon as Satomi is out of the taxi, Yuka turns to her companion, who unmasks to reveal himself to be Yoshitoki Kuninobu.

"You know, you owe me lunch for this. I don't like kidnapping my friends. Even if they are working for Kira."

He shrugs.

"Duly noted. I'll phone our superior, tell him to inform Mello that we delivered the message and then we can get something to eat, okay?"

The fake taxi speeds off again, and Satomi watches it go from her window, wondering just how her life turned out to be like this.


Title: The Abyss Stares Back
Fandom: Death Note
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Spoilers for the Near/Mello arc. AU in both places.
Summary: Mello is well aware that he isn't the hero. None of them are.



Sometimes he sees Kira in the mirror.

It isn't Kira -because logically, it has to be him, and he really isn't Kira, so therefore the mirror image of him can't be either- but it looks so similar to how he expects Kira to look (there's absolutely nothing behind those eyes but cruelty and he can't remember a time when it was any different) that it might as well be Kira.

He might as well be Kira.

He despises Lidner. He knows that isn't fair of him, seeing as how he's hiding in her shower -and she's been more generous to him than he deserved, to be fair, considering that he organised the slaughter of most of the SPK- but he can't help it. He hates her. While Mello, and Near, lest he try to pretend to ideals of justice and the heroes always winning over the villains -L had believed that and all it had brought him was his own death- they were both doing it because they were spiteful, competitive and both wanted to be better than L.

To take the prestige from beating the one person who was cleverer than L. To outsmart him the way he had outsmarted so many other people.

Lidner was helping Near out for revenge against Kira. Some people might call that as petty a reason as theirs, but he doesn't. To want revenge, she had to have felt something for that other person -the one that Kira killed- more than hatred, more than dislike, more even than the blank indifference that Near showed to absolutely everyone because that's all he had ever been able to show. More, in fact, than either of them were capable of.

It was an interesting contrast, when he thought about it -although he didn't, often, since he was usually busy with the whole 'anti-Kira terrorist' concept to have time to worry about philosophy- that Kira had started with the apparently noble goal (he doesn't think it was that noble, more that Kira was scared of people that didn't conform to rules that they were forced into agreeing to because of society) of getting rid of all criminals and had become the villain, while both him and Near were selfish and supposed to be the 'heroes'.

Near can delude himself into believing it, but Mello doesn't have that luxury.
The only difference between him and Kira is that he's not stupid enough to believe that he won't get caught for it.


Title: The Flowers in the Aftermath
Fandom: The World Ends With You
Rating: PG
Warnings: Spoilers for the entire game.
Summary: Rhyme doesn't know everything that happened during the Reaper's Game. To be honest, that's probably for the best.



Raimu (she always insists that everyone had to call her Rhyme, much like her brother always preferred to be known as Beat) doesn't know everything that happened during the Reaper's Game. She knows that she got Erased because she shoved Beat out of the way of that Noise -probably not the cleverest thing that she's ever done, in retrospect- and that Beat survived the week because Shiki and Neku won, but...the doctor told her that she had been unconscious for three weeks.

And...how did she come back from being Erased?

She doesn't ask. For all she knows, her brother punched out the Conductor's teeth out one-by-one until he agreed to bring her back to the RG with them (she doesn't put it past Beat, actually). What she is really wondering about is the spray of flowers that a confused nurse brought into her room saying that they had just appeared next to her door and the envelope attached to them by what looks suspiciously like a Player Pin.
The envelope is addressed to Neku.

When he opens it, he looks a little shocked, then smiles.

"It's from Uzuki and Kariya."

"What would Pinky and Lollipop be writing to us for? I thought they'd be glad to see the back of us, yo."

Raimu agreed with her brother. Why would a pair of Reapers -the ones that had Erased her, no less- be writing to them? But Neku shrugged, still smiling a little.

"It said that they were grateful about the pair of us not Erasing them last time we saw them in the UG and that they hope we live long, prosperous lives...and never come into the Game again. Although, Kariya said that all of Kitaniji's decrees had been made invalid by his Erasure and therefore I could become a Player again when I die. And Minamimoto's now the Conductor, apparently. Uzuki hates it, but apparently the Composer wants to keep an eye on him at all times and they are suffering a major shortage of personnel due to pretty much every low-level Reaper getting wiped out, so they're stuck with him."

She doesn't recognise the name of the new Conductor, but Beat looks confused and even Neku seems to find this statement a little strange.

"Wait. We saw Pi-Face under that heap, aight? That prissy kid crunched him, so what's he doing still in the UG?"

Neku shrugs.

"I trust my partner. But that doesn't mean that I understand him."


Title: Hate on Valentine's Day.
Fandom: Torchwood
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Spoilers for 'Adam', again.
Summary: Owen does not like Valentine's Day. This year, it is even worse.
Notes: Inspired by a conversation with versipellis based around information on the TARDIS wiki about Owen's birthday and my intent to write mind-raped Owen at least once.



Owen does not like Valentine's Day.

Several of his co-workers -Gwen and Ianto mainly- usually wouldn't believe that their quiet and timid medic actually had enough of a backbone to dislike anything. They're wrong. He hates Valentine's Day, and not just because it's an excuse for everywhere to hang heart-shaped decorations.

Today, Valentine's Day, will be Owen's twenty-eighth birthday.

And he gets to spend it in work, watching the girl that he loves (he does love Toshiko, make no mistake about that, and it isn't just because she's got curves in all of the right places, it's because she's clever enough to challenge him intellectually, but sweet enough to still be worth having a relationship with) in love with another man.

He should hate Adam for it, he knows that -and he tried, on more than one occasion, to bring out the sarcastic and unlovable part of him that he knows is there in his personality if he looks hard enough- but Adam would always put his hand on Owen's shoulder and Owen would forget about it and get back to whatever he was doing.

He spends most of the day feeding Myfanwy -since she's lonely too, been waiting 65 million years for something that she wants to come along, and he has to admit that he can't beat that- and avoiding the rest of the team as if they had the plague. Of course, this wasn't a particularly useful cliché for Owen, who, as team medic, would have to come near to them if they actually did have the plague.

When Jack tells him, what seems like six months later, that Adam isn't real, Owen wonders if that still happened. It turns out that he skipped work that day and stayed at home on his own without talking to anyone for the entirety of the day, and got angry with Gwen when she asked him the following day how it went.

Even though Adam wasn't real, Owen still hated Valentine's Day.