Anon Meme Part 3
Now that we have moved the meme to dreamwidth, all commenting will be moved there as well. The community and posts still work exactly the same and are in the exact same order. Additionally, commenting anonymously works just like on livejournal
( Read more... )
Anju frowned at her son and granddaughter as the latter tried to remove a whisk from the abdomen of the former, and after a few minutes of squealing and torture, she finally sighed.
"Muramasa?" she asked flatly. "You know there's a much more simple way to solve this."
Looking up from his task of removing the whisk from his niece's stomach, Muramasa blinked. "Ma? What do you mean?"
"You know exactly what I mean, young man." she said curtly, turning her back to them to resume cooking. "You don't have to be so stubborn about it. You should have a mindset like your brother's."
Muramasa scoffed. "Destructive?"
"What's she talking about?" Kaede whined, wiggling her shoulders. "Get this thing off me, if you know how!"
This wasn't the first time that Kaede had accidentally let something metal stick to her while in the house. She figured, what with her dad being a Hero and all the people she bumped and brushed by during the day, that she could be stealing powers from anyone, but she never thought to look at her home first.
Staring at his niece like she was some complicated equation that needed solving, Muramasa frowned. Kaede glared over her shoulder.
"What?" she asked, agitated. "Do I have something on my face?"
Muramasa looked to his mother one more time, pleading with his eyes, but all Anju could do was smirk at her son. She had this sort of tenacity about her that could only be fully understood by her sons. If Muramasa didn't know, well, Kotetsu definitely did.
"Show her, Muramasa."
"Ma --"
"I don't want any sass from you, mister." Anju pointed the wooden spoon at him. "There's no point in keeping it secret, like your brother did. Just stop being stubborn and help your niece."
He looked incredibly uncomfortable for a few moment, but finally, he sighed. "Fine, fine, only to get the whisk off of her, though." He could feel Kaede's eyes on him and the telltale rush of energy from all around him -- suddenly, he could feel everything, every metal, the polarity of every object in the room, could feel the iron running through his veins like wire.
Kaede spluttered. "It was you, all along?!"
"I was just lucky to get two NEXT sons, sweetie." Anju laughed, turning the stove off so she could turn and observe her son. "Your father may be the Hero, but your uncle's got a few tricks of his own."
"Don't move." Muramasa mumbled, putting one hand against Kaede's shoulder and another on the handle of the pan. "I've got a better control over this NEXT than you do, I know what to do."
"Which is what?" Kaede squeaked.
He sighed. "You're not gonna get hurt. I'm just reversing the pan's charge, so it'll stop sticking to you. It's simple chemistry." As he spoke, the pan popped off Kaede's back as if suddenly repelled by some invisible force. Muramasa grunted, then set the pan aside. "Similar charges repel."
"He always was a big geek deep down." Anju mumbled to her granddaughter.
Muramasa scoffed. "I'm sorry I'm versed enough in the field of science to understand my own superpower. All Kotetsu ever had to worry about was gym. And not causing collateral damage, I guess."
Reply
"Why didn't you ever tell me?" Kaede asked quietly, looking more petulant in her anger than actually hurt. Muramasa told himself not to worry. "I mean, I can get why dad would, cause it's his job and everything, but why would you? It's not like you're a Hero."
Well, that stung. Muramasa shrugged. "I just don't like using it, I guess. It feels weird." He waved his hand vaguely in the air. "It's like... there's metal everywhere, Kaede, you can feel all of it and it's really... surreal. I never got used to it. It wasn't something that sat well with me, like the Hundred Power did with Kotetsu."
"He's just being a baby." Anju laughed. "He's jealous of his baby brother."
"I am not!" Muramasa snapped. Kaede laughed, as did Anju, but Muramasa bit his tongue because he knew it was a lie.
He felt every ounce of iron that poured from the cut in his mouth.
---
Later that night, it was raining in Oriental Town. Muramasa sat in the living room, watching the water pour down the windows with slight disinterest, using the sound more as an ambiance for his thoughts than really listening.
Did he really mind all that much?
"Uncle Muramasa?"
He looked up, smiling at Kaede as she walked in the room. "Aren't you supposed to be in bed?"
She shrugged. "I couldn't sleep, and I don't have school tomorrow." She smiled sheepishly. "Don't start acting like dad. You're supposed to be the cool brother, remember?"
Muramasa laughed dryly at that, for lack of anything better to do. "That's right."
There was a sort of heavy silence that sat between them at that point, and Muramasa was unsure as to how he could break it. He could ask her if she was still having problems with the whole magnetism issue, or why she couldn't sleep, but then...
"Why is dad a Hero, but you aren't?"
He looked up again. "Pardon?"
She shrugged, walking closer to him and sitting cross-legged on the floor in front of the armchair. "I mean, you both have NEXTs, and yours is just as cool as his is. Why didn't you want to become a Hero like he did?"
Oh, he'd wanted to. It was just a question of whether or not he had done it.
Which, of course, could be answered with a resounding and bitter, No.
"It wasn't where I was supposed to be." He shrugged. "I wanted to, trust me, but..." he paused, "your dad's NEXT showed up before mine did, even though he was younger. He made up his mind about being a Hero before I even had the chance to realize I could rip the iron straight out of someone's blood, if I wanted to." He was glad to hear an awed "ooh" from Kaede at that, and he grinned at her.
She patted her hands on her legs. "Why couldn't you both be Heroes?"
"Don't you think it would be such a downer, going to the same school and becoming the same thing your brother did?" Muramasa laughed. "He'd already made his decision, and somehow, I thought," he leaned forward and winked at her, "that there would, some day, be something else for me to take care of while he was away."
Reply
"Well, no, of course not. I was thinking about your grandmother."
She laughed and playfully punched his shin. Getting to her feet and brushing the back of her pants off, she yawned. "You would have made a cool Hero, you know that? Magneto, that's what you would be called."
"Kaede, he's a bad guy." He laughed. "And that's plagiarism. I'm not an X-Man."
"Neither is Magneto." she exclaimed, then laughed. Muramasa bit his tongue -- she outsmarted him on superhero comics, how did she even do that?
He got up from his seat and put a hand on her back. "Up to bed with you. You need sleep, or your dad will kill me."
"You really think he can do that?"
"Course not." Muramasa said, getting close to her ear. "Nobody can hold a candle to the immense power of Magneto." She burst into giggles at that, and he figured that, yeah, it was all worth it.
And he thought, well, if there was one thing, he'd always be there to make corny X-Men jokes with his niece.
[GRATUITOUS X-MEN JOKES FOR THE WIN. I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself. :D]
Reply
Your Muramasa is poignant and lovely, and I didn't really like him as a character before. I'm not the OP, but this is a phenomenal fill. Way to go, W!Anon. Way to freaking go. You're awesome.
Reply
Reply
Thank you, wanon.
Reply
Reply
Leave a comment