Preface: I like stupid AU's. Most of the reason I write is because there are a lot of ideas in my head and nobody else is ever going to do them, sadly. 8D (Which means I don't technically like most of my fic for being any good, but whatever. xD xD As long as they're amusing enough I am happy.)
edited 6th Jan '09
Body: This
zero sum mix was
silver_lined's first. :D Loveless!verse. As usual, she did KinKi and I remixed it for Juniors -- actually, we hashed out a great deal of pairnames beyond that. I can't even remember why half of these happened (since it is from months ago), but oh well. It's all in the gmail archives... 8D;
Ordered like:
Name: Figher/ Sacrifice
Peerless: Domoto Tsuyoshi/Domoto Koichi
Boundless: Tackey/Tsubasa
Timeless: Okada/Inochi
Reckless: Nagase/Taichi
Flawless: Nakai/Kimutaku
Groundless: Yonehana/Maachin
Heedless: Yara/Akki
Faithless (Zero*): Yara/Ikuta Toma
(*after akki's forfeit D:)
Dreamless (Zero): Ryo/Uchi
Guileless: Mass/Tego
Brainless Senseless: Jin/Pi
Seamless: Nakamaru/Koki
Faceless: Kame/Ueda
Priceless: Taiyou/Shoon
Merciless: MatsuJun/Oguri Shun
(I don't know why there's an Oguri Shun. 8D; Except Arashi has five people, and unless I was going to exclude MA's Akki, it couldn't be Maachin/Ohno, Yara/Yone; Sho/Nino, Jun/Aiba instead.)
Sleepless: Kitayama/Totsuka
Ruthless: Fujigaya/Goseki
Fearless: Tsukada/Kawai
Weightless: Yokoo/Iida
Shameless: Nikaido/Senga
Pointless Useless Hopeless Ridiculess: Miyata/Tamamori...
Johnny is Ritsu. :0 Believes in the old way of natural chemistry. Domoto Tsuyoshi is his crazy artsy Soubi Kinki are his top pair. Conversely, Mary is Nagisa -- the Zero's system advocate, who believes in just sticking any old whoever with each other and making them work. NewS, HSJ. LOL. If you'll believe the rumours anyway. 8D God knows.
Enticement.
The shared room of Totsuka Shota and Kitayama Hiromitsu was generally a pleasant place, relatively quiet. Calming, compared to their neighbours'. The pair could talk about anything for hours on end but more often than not passed time in amicable silence, Kitayama asleep while Totsuka strummed on his guitar, a muted movie playing in the background.
Being a pair, they didn't have to live in the dorms anymore-or not the ones with twelve bunks in them, anyway. And so it was pleasant, generally.
When it wasn't morning.
In the mornings, Kitayama's alarm went off-first once, and then again some minutes later, tinny and raucous and loud. Each time, Totsuka's ears rang.
The first one or two were usually fine. But while Totsuka didn't sleep much, he did appreciate some Zen, and any benevolence in his system tended to fade pretty quickly when his fighter slept on, deaf and oblivious.
A third alarm blared, and Totsuka took two deep breaths. "Micchan..." he tried.
Silence, and then a fourth alarm over the sound of Totsuka's gritting teeth. He burrowed under his pillow, pressing it to his head. "Hiromii..."
A fifth alarm. "Mitsu." And a sixth. "Hiromitsu."
At the seventh, Kitayama finally stirred and Totsuka almost felt grateful-until the other merely rolled over, snuffling quietly.
Totsuka slowed his breathing with a sigh. Desperate times called for desperate measures: as a sacrifice, he held just as much power over his fighter as any of those spellwords used in battle. Occasionally it was necessary to wield it.
"Kitayama Hiromitsu," he ordered, quiet. "Wake up and turn off your alarm. Now."
Kitayama sat up on command, barely fumbling with his cellphone as he muted its cry.
"Thank you," Totsuka said. That was much better.
"..." Kitayama swayed where he sat for a moment, before flopping over. "Ugh. My head." Still, he didn't go back to sleep-couldn't, really-instead rubbing at tired eyes. "...you woke me up again!" he accused, voice sleep-rough and slurring.
Totsuka shrugged. "That's what you get for staying out so late."
"You know that's not the reason I don't hear my alarms," Kitayama complained.
Totsuka ignored him with a smile. "I think you should stay in more often."
"What, and rewatch old DVDs with you?" Kitayama scoffed affectionately.
"Oh, I don't know. Something." Totsuka gave a languid shrug, casually conscious of how the motion drew Kitayama's half-lidded eyes across his shoulder to where the curve of their name disappeared over his back. Sleepless. Totsuka smiled. "Might be nice."
"Mm..." Kitayama shrugged, ostentatiously unaffected as he pushed himself out of bed. But he couldn't help a grin on the way to the bathroom. "Guess we'll see."
Initiation.
"Hey!" a voice said, husky, rough.
Senga looked up from where he was crouched in the bathroom and tilted his head. "Nn?" he said carefully, never trusting strangers too much despite how people always called him stupid (-- or maybe because of that).
But the boy just peered at him through squinty eyes. "...are you alright?" he asked at length.
Senga blinked. "What do you mean? I'm fine...?"
The other shook his head, scrunching up his nose. "Nevermind. You're like, covered in sweat and curled up next to the sink, is all. If you're fine then go have a shower or something, geez."
"I can't!" Senga wailed in a small voice, standing self-consciously. He hugged his schoolbooks to his chest. "I've got class next but it's my first time going 'cause I just transferred here so I'm really nervous and--"
"Wait, which class? Tackey's Spellcasting-101 thing?"
"...Takizawa Hideaki-sensei's?" Senga blinked, tentative.
"Yeah, we call him Tackey around here," the boy grinned toothily, and held out his hand. "That's my class too, so if you're going you can stick with me. I'm Nikaido by the way. Takashi."
"Oh cool," Senga said, relieved as he reached out. "Thanks! I'm Sengahh!"
They jerked back.
"Fuck," Nikaido glared as he shook his tingling hand out. "That hurt, you bastard!" It felt like he'd been zapped. But the anger soon faded... replaced by a growing horror. One hand flew to the right side of his neck.
"What--?" Senga asked, eyes half panicked. "What? Nika?"
"Nika already?" Nikaido scowled -- an expression that only deepened as he realised they'd have to get to know each other just that well and better, real quick.
"What?"
"Our name," Nikaido said, and pointed irritably to the mirror above the sink where Senga stood.
Bewildered, Senga turned to spot his reflection; his eyes widened, immediately drawn to a messy red scrawl running dark from ear to clavicle down the left of his neck -- it hadn't been there before. The letters reflected backward, but slowly, slowly he made them out: s... ha ...
"Shameless," Senga said softly and reached out, almost reverent. "...is that us?"
"Wouldn't the world like to know," Nikaido snapped -- but his glare stopped short at the way Senga traced a tentative hand down the mirror, his fingers skirting the letters of it, their name, oblivious to Nikaido's ill mood. "I..." We...
Shameless. The way we are, without fear or remorse: together.
"It feels like fire..." Senga murmured, fingers straying then to his neck, brushing his skin. "So hot..."
Nikaido stared, and felt the same slow burn stirring deep across his own brand, spreading lower as his eyes followed Senga's fingers -- over that same fire, that same heat. He swallowed a thudding heart. "...yeah." Dizzy at the thought of their bond, their name. Them.
Theirs...
Mesmerized, his fingers curled against his neck, nails scraping down the letters he could feel bleeding burns into his collar, Shameless -- and stood transfixed by the power of it as Senga shivered, wide eyes sliding shut.
"Nika..."
The plea was nothing articulated, but Nikaido understood, reaching out.
(( ...you're mine, )) he whispered. And cast their first spell.
True devotion.
"Stay safe, Koichi-kun!" Machida said, gazing doe-eyed'ly over Yonehana's shoulder.
"You should worry about yourself, Machida-san," Koichi told him, merry and amused. Tsuyoshi waited wordlessly two paces in front, adjusting the straps on his single glove.
"I'll be fine, since you'll be watching~" Machida gushed.
Yonehana just shook his head with a wry smile. If Machida was happy, then so was he -- even if they were going to be caned. But it wasn't every day they got to face arguably the strongest pair in Academy history anyway. Stepping up, the Groundless fighter gave a formal bow. "Yoroshiku."
One didn't need to be a sportsman or statistician to know how one-sided this match would be, and yet Yonehana felt good. Not scared at all.
"Fight well," Domoto Tsuyoshi said, with a nod.
Well Yonehana was rarely scared, but...
"Don't roll over and die too soon or anything, Yone!" Yara jeered from the sidelines.
Glancing over, Yonehana grinned back. "No sooner than you, Faithless." No matter how sure Peerless' victory, Groundless would give them something to look at.
"Be strong, Maachin!" Akiyama hollered, waving a home-made Peerless flag. "Koichi-kun's watching!"
From the next seat, Yara hit him. "No shit, Sherlock."
Turning, unconcerned, Akiyama also shouted: "I LOVE YOU, KOICHI-KUN!!" waving his flag with vigour.
Yara hit him again, harder this time.
Tsuyoshi gave a look of disgust. Plebeians with no understanding of the word... "I grow impatient," he said. "Let's start."
In acquiescence, Yonehana called the challenge: "Battle systems engage!" He punched a raised fist to Machida's outstretched palm, their voices one in declaring, "We are Groundless. We can't be held down."
"We accept the battle," Tsuyoshi said alone, speaking for Koichi, "as Peerless. Standing alone."
"...our aim isn't to win, but to show them what we're made of," Machida murmured to his fighter. "It's a pride battle."
"I know," Yonehana said, focusing his gaze on their opponents with a lopsided grin. "Because he's watching."
"I won't fall," Machida promised. "We'll show him."
Across the area, Tsuyoshi gave a sardonic smile. "So naive. Vision is power, isn't it?" he said. What isn't said cannot affect; what isn't seen cannot be feared. Be blind.
"Hey--!"
"Koichi!" Machida shouted. "Koichi!"
"Maachin, focus," Yonehana snapped. "It's not a damaging restriction--"
"All restrictions are damaging," Machida cried. "How dare he-- to Koi-- to his own sacrifice--"
"Maa, Tsuyoshi..." Koichi pouted, scratching at the edge of the tight blindfold around his eyes. "I wasn't scared, you know."
"Believe me, it's worse for them than it is for you," Tsuyoshi said dryly. "Please bear with it."
"Of course."
Machida gritted his teeth. It wasn't right for a fighter to have that much autonomy, that much control. How or why Tsuyoshi did was something those who weren't Peerless would never understand, but that didn't mean they had to like it.
"...bind him," Machida ordered quietly. And though both he and Yonehana knew he wanted to mean Peerless' fighter unit rather than sacrifice, it didn't matter. Pairs were one like that. "End this battle."
"Understood," Yonehana said, and raised his voice. { Ignite! Hellfires, steal the air. Suffocate and burn--
"Yone--" Machida said, but was cut off by Tsuyoshi's defence:
Flames to heel, he said, words resonating with melodic power: We are above your wavering resolve. We cannot be touched by your attacks. Vanquish.
Yonehana bit his lip as his spell was deflected, the backlash burning raw across his skin. "Maachin..." he warned, quiet, "please don't second-guess us. Not even for Koichi."
"You're wasting time," Tsuyoshi said. I call upon darkness and light. To bind hands and steal sight.
{ Divert--, Yonehana began, but Peerless' pure, white-hot energy shot by too fast, the speed of Tsuyoshi's spells legendary; Yonehana shouted instead, { Defend! Defend! } too crudely, and bit back a curse.
Peerless were far above such simple countermeasures, the strongest current pair. Even without turning, Yonehana knew the restriction had hit and held. He could hear Machida's suddenly shallow breath, feel the tightness in his chest, the rankling chains. Proud though he was of his partner for making no sound even under that burden, he knew they could only take one more attack.
Sever thin bonds-- Tsuyoshi began -- and here it came.
Brace yourself, Maachin, Yonehana thought.
{ Fated end meets fiery birth, } he called, clear. { Fly! }
--by the power of true devotion. Obliterate.
"...oh." Domoto Koichi blinked as his blindfold fell away, restriction lifted. Fire flowers faded out around them and he gave a deceptively delicate cough amid their clearing smoke. "It's over already?"
"Of course," Tsuyoshi said, turning away. Without pause, he walked from the arena. "We won."
1- i don't know how many of you guys know loveless in the first place? ah well.
2- the sacrifices may order their fighters if they choose. fighters must obey. pairs battle each other with wordspells (that fighters cast). the sacrifices take the damage...
3- I REFUSE TO HAVE MENTION OF CAT EARS ;;; except tottsu would either have his still, or wear fake ones. mitsu's would be long gone... um.
4- GO READ
silver_lined'S STUFF. INCLUDES
PIRATE NEWS ♥ AND SUCH CLASSICS.