Alphabet Ficsnippets, Obscure Japanese Fandom Edition.
Back in June of 2012, I posted the first six ficlets for a self-imposed challenge: a ficlet for each letter of the alphabet, each concerning two characters whose names begin with that letter.
Now, eleven months later (I am the slowest person in the world), here are the second six ficlets! Fandoms represented are DN Angel, Princess Tutu, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Katawa Shoujo, Dangan Ronpa, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy XIII, Once Upon a Time, Full Moon wo Sagashite, Revolutionary Girl Utena and Harry Potter.
D: Daisuke Niwa (DN Angel)/Duck (Princess Tutu)
“Oh!” Duck exclaims. “G-good morning, Satoshi!”
Satoshi gives her a nod. “Good morning.”
“Ah, I’m sorry, were you hoping to see Daisuke instead? It” - she laughs awkwardly, scratching the back of her head - “it’s just me, I’m afraid!”
“So I see.” His stare feels... very intense. Duck can feel herself turning a steadily deeper shade of red. “Is there a reason I might have expected to see Daisuke rather than you?”
“Ah!” This is bad! “Ah, no, I just - I mean, maybe you might have expected to see him with me because - well, I suppose you’ve never seen us together - not that there’s anything suspicious about that! I mean, sometimes people just aren’t in the same place at the same time - but maybe you heard we were friends, because we are - I mean me and Daisuke, not me and you - ah, not that I’m saying we’re not friends! - and if you’re friends you really have to be in the same place sometimes, right?” She laughs, much too loudly. “So maybe you thought he would be with me, or maybe you were just hoping Daisuke would be here anyway because I know you like to see him - no, I mean-”
Satoshi is already halfway down the corridor.
Duck, Daisuke says in her head. He sounds mortified. Can we... can we change back, please? I think it might be best if I stay in control until our performance tonight.
I: Iroh (Avatar: The Last Airbender)/Hanako Ikezawa (Katawa Shoujo)
“You’re... a Firebender.”
“A charge I cannot deny,” the man said. “Please, sit. Have some tea.”
She didn’t know how to refuse. She sat on the grass, hesitantly, and accepted the mug he handed her, but did not drink.
“My name is Iroh,” he said, with a smile. “You may tell me yours, if you wish.”
Hanako said nothing. He had noticed her scarring, she thought, but it was hard to be sure; he wasn’t staring or pointedly looking away. But he must have noticed. It was impossible not to. She half-turned away from him.
“Do not hide yourself,” Iroh said. “You are a beautiful young woman. If I looked like you, I would parade through all the streets of the Earth Kingdom.”
Was he making fun of her? She shifted uncomfortably, brushing her hair further over her scars.
Iroh’s eyes lingered there, just for a moment. “A Firebender did this to you.”
“Y-yes,” Hanako whispered.
Iroh closed his eyes. “I am sorry.” He took a long sip of his tea.
Hanako sat in silence, tense and uneasy, wondering whether the conversation was over, until Iroh opened his eyes again.
“I would like you to meet my nephew,” he said. “I think you may find some common ground.” He smiled. “Besides, I think meeting a pleasant young lady would be good for him.”
“Uncle?” a voice asked from behind her.
Hanako twisted around, startled, and suddenly she understood why this man had not stared at her scars.
K: Kyouko Kirigiri (Dangan Ronpa)/Sazh Katzroy (Final Fantasy XIII) (note: this contains major Dangan Ronpa spoilers)
They weren’t sure how easy it would be to find others, out in the ruined world, but people are crowding around them almost as soon as they step out of Hope’s Peak, asking questions, offering shelter. They must have seen the broadcast and come to meet them. Kirigiri supposes that means the machine guns that were preventing would-be rescuers are no longer in operation. How obliging of these strangers to test them.
Naegi, of course, seems happy to trust these people. It falls to Kirigiri to draw him aside and remind him that they don’t know them. These could be agents of Despair, here to stamp out the last of the Hope’s Peak survivors.
“I think they’re okay,” Naegi says, but there’s a flicker of doubt there. After everything they’ve experienced, it seems, not even Naegi has survived unscarred.
“We can’t trust anyone who comes to us,” she says. “If we want help, we need to find it ourselves.”
-
“Is it all right if we stay here tonight?” Naegi asks. “I know you might not have room, but...”
“Sure,” the man says. He’s tall and dark-skinned, maybe in his forties, seemingly the leader of this little camp. “Food’s running low, so I can’t promise you much of a meal, but I’m not gonna leave a load of kids out there to fend for themselves.” He pauses, frowning a little. “Wait, have I seen you before?”
Naegi laughs uncomfortably. “Well...”
“Whoa!” the man exclaims. “You’re the Hope’s Peak kids, aren’t you? I’m not imagining this, right?”
Naegi looks over at Kirigiri. She nods. No point in denying it; Hagakure’s hair isn’t exactly difficult to place.
The man shakes his head. “You kids. You’ve been through more than any of us. Not much words can do, really, but I’m sorry. You stay here as long as you need.”
-
The camp leader’s name is Sazh. Kirigiri sits up with him to keep watch when the others have gone to sleep.
“You’re not Japanese,” she says.
He laughs. “Guess you really are a Super High-school Level Detective,” he says, and then, when Kirigiri looks coolly at him, “Kidding! Kidding, kidding. Sorry. I don’t even want to think about what the others would’ve done without you.”
The air is dark and heavy, and there are fires in the distance. The camp’s other inhabitants are behind them, bedded up close together. Kirigiri can hear Asahina crying quietly in her sleep.
“Your Japanese is good, but I don’t get the impression you’ve been here for very long,” Kirigiri says. “A year or so, perhaps. Did you come here after the incident?”
Sazh looks away. “Just after it broke out,” he says. “Before the rioting spread to other countries. Thought I could do my bit to help out.” He takes a long, slow breath. “Then it started back home.”
“And nobody would operate flights from Japan by that point,” Kirigiri says, watching him shrewdly.
Sazh’s shoulders slump. “You got it.”
She doesn’t need to ask whether he has a family back there. She knows better than to ask whether he’s heard from them since.
R: Rinoa Heartilly (Final Fantasy VIII)/Rumplestiltskin (Once Upon a Time)
“Oh, dearie. Isn’t this a shame?”
She raises her head, blinks back the tears blurring her vision. Squall’s body is cold in her arms.
The man shakes his head and tuts. “Such a handsome young man.”
Rinoa swallows, painfully.
“I’ve seen you before,” she says. “You said you could help liberate Timber.”
“Ah, she remembers me,” he says, smiling widely. “I’m touched.”
“Wh...” Every word is an effort to force out. She takes a breath and tries again. “What else can you do?”
“Oh? You turned down my generous offer, as I recall.”
“I didn’t know if I could trust you.”
“And you know now? Or are you so desperate you don’t have a choice? He’s only one boy, you know. You’d put him above the whole of Timber?”
She looks away. She hates to say this, it makes her feel like a horrible person, but... “You know I would. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
He breathes out slowly, still smiling. “I know you would.”
T: Byakuya Togami (Dangan Ronpa)/Takuto Kira (Full Moon wo Sagashite)
Togami tilts his head, not looking up from his book. “You’re still here?”
“Huh?” Takuto asks. “Us? Well, yeah. I mean, this is our job.”
“For beings with no need to walk or breathe,” Togami says, turning a page, “you certainly make a lot of unnecessary noise. Remove yourselves. You have no real business with me.”
Takuto closes his eyes and breathes deeply - he doesn’t need to, true, but it helps to calm him down sometimes - and then he snaps, because this is not one of those times. “You’re going to die! We’re here to take your soul! Is that not real enough for you? What the hell is wrong with you?”
Now the kid does put his book down, finally, and gives Takuto an extremely bored look. “You’re obviously incompetent,” he says, “but I suppose I can take the trouble to explain your job to you, if you’re entirely incapable of working it out for yourself. I have no intention of dying. I am going to win this game and leave this school alive.” He turns away. “I suggest you stop wasting both of our time and go to hover over someone who isn’t going to survive this. They’ll all be executed at my trial, of course, but I’ll be surprised if the hacker girl lives to see that.”
-
Naegi is starting to panic. The trial’s been going on for what feels like hours and they have no idea who the culprit was. Everyone has a solid alibi. They don’t even know how Togami was killed; there were no signs of damage to the body. All the Monobear File said was ‘The body was found in the library. There were no traces of poison’, followed by seventy question marks.
“Kirigiri-san?” Naegi asks, desperately.
Kirigiri is looking at Monobear. “Monobear,” she says. “I don’t believe you know any more than we do about this.”
“Huh?” Naegi asks, looking sharply over at their captor. If not even Monobear knows what happened, how can there even be a right answer?
Monobear giggles. “Ah, you caught me!”
“S-so we - we don’t have to hold this trial, do we?” Fujisaki asks. “It can’t have been any of us.”
“Wrong!” Monobear exclaims. “You bastards still have to find out what happened, because I don’t like not knowing. If you can’t come up with an answer for me, I’ll just execute you all!”
Naegi swallows. “W-we’ve just got to think it over again,” he says, trying to keep his voice from shaking. “I’m sure, if we all-”
A soft toy cat pops into existence in the middle of the trial chamber.
Naegi doesn’t really know how to react to that.
“I did it!” the cat exclaims, in a voice somehow deeper than Naegi would have expected of a magical talking toy cat. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t supposed to be now. I’m a shinigami; I took his soul a little earlier than scheduled.”
“Shinigami are real?” Kirigiri demands, looking shocked.
“Shinigami are adorable,” Asahina half-whispers, very audibly.
“Earlier than scheduled?” Monobear growls. “So there was going to be a real murder, and you prevented it? And you’re trying to usurp me as the cute animal mascot? I’m going to have a lot of fun executing you.”
“I’m already dead, moron,” the cat says, turning away from Monobear. “Hey, kids! I’ve already broken one shinigami rule; might as well break another, right? I mean, I’m going to be punished anyway.”
Naegi stiffens. This shinigami took Togami’s soul; what’s he going to do to them?
“Wh-” Monobear begins, and then he suddenly falls silent.
The cat winks. “My partner’s restraining the mastermind,” he says. “We’re breaking you out of here.”
U: Utena Tenjou (Revolutionary Girl Utena)/Dolores Umbridge (Harry Potter)
“I’m going to challenge her to a duel,” Utena said. “She won’t get away with this.”
Ron gave a half-laugh, although the situation wasn’t funny. “Blimey. Don’t know why the Hat didn’t go ahead and make you head of Gryffindor right there at the Sorting.”
“You can’t!” Hermione exclaimed, looking horrified.
“Why can’t she?” Ron asked. “Umbridge mutilated Harry, Hermione! I know you’re a fan of the respecting-teachers thing, but...”
“It’s not that,” Hermione said, twisting her hands together. “It’s just... there’s a rule from the sixth century. If a teacher is challenged to a duel by a student, that teacher may use lethal force.”
The others stared at her.
“Nobody actually has for hundreds of years,” Hermione said. “But I bet that woman knows about it, and if she’s evil enough to do something like this...”
Utena swallowed. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, keeping her voice steady with a powerful effort. “I have to challenge her.”
“Don’t,” Harry said. “It’s not worth it. It barely even hurts any more.”
He was sitting on the lower steps of the staircase to the boys’ dorms, cradling his injured hand between his knees. As he shifted, Utena caught another glimpse of the inflamed letters carved into his skin and a flash of hot anger burned away her reservations.
“Can’t say I wouldn’t like to see her get hit with a hex or two,” Ron said, “but they’re right, you know. It’s not worth risking your life over.”
“Okay,” Utena said. “You’re right.”
That night she knocked on Umbridge’s door.
At this rate, I suppose I'll be finished at some point in 2015.
Now, eleven months later (I am the slowest person in the world), here are the second six ficlets! Fandoms represented are DN Angel, Princess Tutu, Avatar: The Last Airbender, Katawa Shoujo, Dangan Ronpa, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy XIII, Once Upon a Time, Full Moon wo Sagashite, Revolutionary Girl Utena and Harry Potter.
D: Daisuke Niwa (DN Angel)/Duck (Princess Tutu)
“Oh!” Duck exclaims. “G-good morning, Satoshi!”
Satoshi gives her a nod. “Good morning.”
“Ah, I’m sorry, were you hoping to see Daisuke instead? It” - she laughs awkwardly, scratching the back of her head - “it’s just me, I’m afraid!”
“So I see.” His stare feels... very intense. Duck can feel herself turning a steadily deeper shade of red. “Is there a reason I might have expected to see Daisuke rather than you?”
“Ah!” This is bad! “Ah, no, I just - I mean, maybe you might have expected to see him with me because - well, I suppose you’ve never seen us together - not that there’s anything suspicious about that! I mean, sometimes people just aren’t in the same place at the same time - but maybe you heard we were friends, because we are - I mean me and Daisuke, not me and you - ah, not that I’m saying we’re not friends! - and if you’re friends you really have to be in the same place sometimes, right?” She laughs, much too loudly. “So maybe you thought he would be with me, or maybe you were just hoping Daisuke would be here anyway because I know you like to see him - no, I mean-”
Satoshi is already halfway down the corridor.
Duck, Daisuke says in her head. He sounds mortified. Can we... can we change back, please? I think it might be best if I stay in control until our performance tonight.
I: Iroh (Avatar: The Last Airbender)/Hanako Ikezawa (Katawa Shoujo)
“You’re... a Firebender.”
“A charge I cannot deny,” the man said. “Please, sit. Have some tea.”
She didn’t know how to refuse. She sat on the grass, hesitantly, and accepted the mug he handed her, but did not drink.
“My name is Iroh,” he said, with a smile. “You may tell me yours, if you wish.”
Hanako said nothing. He had noticed her scarring, she thought, but it was hard to be sure; he wasn’t staring or pointedly looking away. But he must have noticed. It was impossible not to. She half-turned away from him.
“Do not hide yourself,” Iroh said. “You are a beautiful young woman. If I looked like you, I would parade through all the streets of the Earth Kingdom.”
Was he making fun of her? She shifted uncomfortably, brushing her hair further over her scars.
Iroh’s eyes lingered there, just for a moment. “A Firebender did this to you.”
“Y-yes,” Hanako whispered.
Iroh closed his eyes. “I am sorry.” He took a long sip of his tea.
Hanako sat in silence, tense and uneasy, wondering whether the conversation was over, until Iroh opened his eyes again.
“I would like you to meet my nephew,” he said. “I think you may find some common ground.” He smiled. “Besides, I think meeting a pleasant young lady would be good for him.”
“Uncle?” a voice asked from behind her.
Hanako twisted around, startled, and suddenly she understood why this man had not stared at her scars.
K: Kyouko Kirigiri (Dangan Ronpa)/Sazh Katzroy (Final Fantasy XIII) (note: this contains major Dangan Ronpa spoilers)
They weren’t sure how easy it would be to find others, out in the ruined world, but people are crowding around them almost as soon as they step out of Hope’s Peak, asking questions, offering shelter. They must have seen the broadcast and come to meet them. Kirigiri supposes that means the machine guns that were preventing would-be rescuers are no longer in operation. How obliging of these strangers to test them.
Naegi, of course, seems happy to trust these people. It falls to Kirigiri to draw him aside and remind him that they don’t know them. These could be agents of Despair, here to stamp out the last of the Hope’s Peak survivors.
“I think they’re okay,” Naegi says, but there’s a flicker of doubt there. After everything they’ve experienced, it seems, not even Naegi has survived unscarred.
“We can’t trust anyone who comes to us,” she says. “If we want help, we need to find it ourselves.”
-
“Is it all right if we stay here tonight?” Naegi asks. “I know you might not have room, but...”
“Sure,” the man says. He’s tall and dark-skinned, maybe in his forties, seemingly the leader of this little camp. “Food’s running low, so I can’t promise you much of a meal, but I’m not gonna leave a load of kids out there to fend for themselves.” He pauses, frowning a little. “Wait, have I seen you before?”
Naegi laughs uncomfortably. “Well...”
“Whoa!” the man exclaims. “You’re the Hope’s Peak kids, aren’t you? I’m not imagining this, right?”
Naegi looks over at Kirigiri. She nods. No point in denying it; Hagakure’s hair isn’t exactly difficult to place.
The man shakes his head. “You kids. You’ve been through more than any of us. Not much words can do, really, but I’m sorry. You stay here as long as you need.”
-
The camp leader’s name is Sazh. Kirigiri sits up with him to keep watch when the others have gone to sleep.
“You’re not Japanese,” she says.
He laughs. “Guess you really are a Super High-school Level Detective,” he says, and then, when Kirigiri looks coolly at him, “Kidding! Kidding, kidding. Sorry. I don’t even want to think about what the others would’ve done without you.”
The air is dark and heavy, and there are fires in the distance. The camp’s other inhabitants are behind them, bedded up close together. Kirigiri can hear Asahina crying quietly in her sleep.
“Your Japanese is good, but I don’t get the impression you’ve been here for very long,” Kirigiri says. “A year or so, perhaps. Did you come here after the incident?”
Sazh looks away. “Just after it broke out,” he says. “Before the rioting spread to other countries. Thought I could do my bit to help out.” He takes a long, slow breath. “Then it started back home.”
“And nobody would operate flights from Japan by that point,” Kirigiri says, watching him shrewdly.
Sazh’s shoulders slump. “You got it.”
She doesn’t need to ask whether he has a family back there. She knows better than to ask whether he’s heard from them since.
R: Rinoa Heartilly (Final Fantasy VIII)/Rumplestiltskin (Once Upon a Time)
“Oh, dearie. Isn’t this a shame?”
She raises her head, blinks back the tears blurring her vision. Squall’s body is cold in her arms.
The man shakes his head and tuts. “Such a handsome young man.”
Rinoa swallows, painfully.
“I’ve seen you before,” she says. “You said you could help liberate Timber.”
“Ah, she remembers me,” he says, smiling widely. “I’m touched.”
“Wh...” Every word is an effort to force out. She takes a breath and tries again. “What else can you do?”
“Oh? You turned down my generous offer, as I recall.”
“I didn’t know if I could trust you.”
“And you know now? Or are you so desperate you don’t have a choice? He’s only one boy, you know. You’d put him above the whole of Timber?”
She looks away. She hates to say this, it makes her feel like a horrible person, but... “You know I would. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?”
He breathes out slowly, still smiling. “I know you would.”
T: Byakuya Togami (Dangan Ronpa)/Takuto Kira (Full Moon wo Sagashite)
Togami tilts his head, not looking up from his book. “You’re still here?”
“Huh?” Takuto asks. “Us? Well, yeah. I mean, this is our job.”
“For beings with no need to walk or breathe,” Togami says, turning a page, “you certainly make a lot of unnecessary noise. Remove yourselves. You have no real business with me.”
Takuto closes his eyes and breathes deeply - he doesn’t need to, true, but it helps to calm him down sometimes - and then he snaps, because this is not one of those times. “You’re going to die! We’re here to take your soul! Is that not real enough for you? What the hell is wrong with you?”
Now the kid does put his book down, finally, and gives Takuto an extremely bored look. “You’re obviously incompetent,” he says, “but I suppose I can take the trouble to explain your job to you, if you’re entirely incapable of working it out for yourself. I have no intention of dying. I am going to win this game and leave this school alive.” He turns away. “I suggest you stop wasting both of our time and go to hover over someone who isn’t going to survive this. They’ll all be executed at my trial, of course, but I’ll be surprised if the hacker girl lives to see that.”
-
Naegi is starting to panic. The trial’s been going on for what feels like hours and they have no idea who the culprit was. Everyone has a solid alibi. They don’t even know how Togami was killed; there were no signs of damage to the body. All the Monobear File said was ‘The body was found in the library. There were no traces of poison’, followed by seventy question marks.
“Kirigiri-san?” Naegi asks, desperately.
Kirigiri is looking at Monobear. “Monobear,” she says. “I don’t believe you know any more than we do about this.”
“Huh?” Naegi asks, looking sharply over at their captor. If not even Monobear knows what happened, how can there even be a right answer?
Monobear giggles. “Ah, you caught me!”
“S-so we - we don’t have to hold this trial, do we?” Fujisaki asks. “It can’t have been any of us.”
“Wrong!” Monobear exclaims. “You bastards still have to find out what happened, because I don’t like not knowing. If you can’t come up with an answer for me, I’ll just execute you all!”
Naegi swallows. “W-we’ve just got to think it over again,” he says, trying to keep his voice from shaking. “I’m sure, if we all-”
A soft toy cat pops into existence in the middle of the trial chamber.
Naegi doesn’t really know how to react to that.
“I did it!” the cat exclaims, in a voice somehow deeper than Naegi would have expected of a magical talking toy cat. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t supposed to be now. I’m a shinigami; I took his soul a little earlier than scheduled.”
“Shinigami are real?” Kirigiri demands, looking shocked.
“Shinigami are adorable,” Asahina half-whispers, very audibly.
“Earlier than scheduled?” Monobear growls. “So there was going to be a real murder, and you prevented it? And you’re trying to usurp me as the cute animal mascot? I’m going to have a lot of fun executing you.”
“I’m already dead, moron,” the cat says, turning away from Monobear. “Hey, kids! I’ve already broken one shinigami rule; might as well break another, right? I mean, I’m going to be punished anyway.”
Naegi stiffens. This shinigami took Togami’s soul; what’s he going to do to them?
“Wh-” Monobear begins, and then he suddenly falls silent.
The cat winks. “My partner’s restraining the mastermind,” he says. “We’re breaking you out of here.”
U: Utena Tenjou (Revolutionary Girl Utena)/Dolores Umbridge (Harry Potter)
“I’m going to challenge her to a duel,” Utena said. “She won’t get away with this.”
Ron gave a half-laugh, although the situation wasn’t funny. “Blimey. Don’t know why the Hat didn’t go ahead and make you head of Gryffindor right there at the Sorting.”
“You can’t!” Hermione exclaimed, looking horrified.
“Why can’t she?” Ron asked. “Umbridge mutilated Harry, Hermione! I know you’re a fan of the respecting-teachers thing, but...”
“It’s not that,” Hermione said, twisting her hands together. “It’s just... there’s a rule from the sixth century. If a teacher is challenged to a duel by a student, that teacher may use lethal force.”
The others stared at her.
“Nobody actually has for hundreds of years,” Hermione said. “But I bet that woman knows about it, and if she’s evil enough to do something like this...”
Utena swallowed. “It doesn’t matter,” she said, keeping her voice steady with a powerful effort. “I have to challenge her.”
“Don’t,” Harry said. “It’s not worth it. It barely even hurts any more.”
He was sitting on the lower steps of the staircase to the boys’ dorms, cradling his injured hand between his knees. As he shifted, Utena caught another glimpse of the inflamed letters carved into his skin and a flash of hot anger burned away her reservations.
“Can’t say I wouldn’t like to see her get hit with a hex or two,” Ron said, “but they’re right, you know. It’s not worth risking your life over.”
“Okay,” Utena said. “You’re right.”
That night she knocked on Umbridge’s door.
At this rate, I suppose I'll be finished at some point in 2015.