PoT Fic: Recombinant Chapter 15
I have been so distracted lately, I have been totally not paying attention to my fandoms! I'm starting at a new school this semester (eep!) and am going nuts trying to figure out what breed of puppy to get. ^^;; So no good excuse really! I apologize for taking so long to post this. And I really want to thank you all for your kind replies to my last post, I really appreciate it. :)
Title: Recombinant
Author: Dolly (universal_doll)
Rating: PG to PG-13
Characters: Echizen, Tezuka, Fuji (primary); Tachibana An, Tachibana Kippei, Momoshiro (secondary); and the rest of Seigaku.
Genre: Adventure, Fantasy, AU (or rather, Alternate History/Timeline)
Summary: “Why couldn't you have been magical girls?”
Full Story Notes & Previous Chapters
New Chapter:
Chapter 15
“Unya, where'd everybody go?” Eiji wailed, undoubtedly clinging to whoever was within reach as the darkness covered them. “Oishi, we've got to stay together!”
“Stay calm,” Tezuka said authoritatively. “Try to direct your powers towards the middle of the shikigami. That should produce some light as well.”
“This should do it,” Momoshiro declared, but Fuji only felt a bit of heat from the junior's direction. “Eh? I can't see the flames!”
This was no ordinary darkness. Fuji couldn't even see his own hand, but the pitch-black stalks that suddenly popped out of the shadowy shikigami were strangely visible; and so were the razor sharp teeth at the end of each one.
The slim stalks shot out in all directions, lunging and snapping at them. Fuji heard alarmed shouts and the odd grunt from his teammates nearby, and there was no mistaking the quiet but undeniably female voice among them. But before he could even move, Fuji felt one of the slick tentacles start to slither around his own waist. Starting at the cold touch, he reached down into the darkness to pry it off. But the tentacle wouldn't budge when he pulled at it, and he couldn't see well enough to try and blast it off. A sharp yank from the thing nearly jolted him off of his feet, and slowly but surely it began to pull him closer to the source of the darkness.
But before it could drag him too far, a soft white light spread across the courtyard, turning the pitch black to dim twilight. He could see again, and the first thing he noticed was that the other Guardians were in more or less the same predicament as he was. But not for long. Gathering power in his hands, Fuji aimed very carefully and blasted himself free of the tentacle, sending the thing recoiling back as he shattered its end.
“Take that, you slimy thing!” Momshiro called out triumphantly as he set another one on fire.
“BURN, EVIL DARKNESS!”
I was good to see that someone had given Taka a racket this time.
The others made short work of the projections from the dark shikigami, which seemed to be no match for their powers now that they could see, thanks to Echizen's light. Fuji's eyes widened slightly at the thought of his young teammate, and he whirled around only to see that Echizen was still trapped by not one but several of the dark tentacles, which appeared to be constricting around him as they slowly drew him in. At the same moment, Fuji could see several of the others looking that way as well, but Tezuka and Tachibana were on the other end of the courtyard and Momoshiro and Oishi were having problems of their own.
“Ochibi! Don't worry, I'll save you!” Eiji, who was closest to the freshman, deftly scampered over, easily dodging the maze of tentacles that the shikigami was putting out. With one last vicious blast at them of his own, Fuji followed.
“Aah, they're all over you Ochibi!” Eiji hovered beside Echizen, looking anxiously at the tentacles that were latched onto the younger boy. They covered nearly half of his body, wrapping around his ankles, thighs, torso, and even the lower half of his face as they squeezed and tore at his clothing; but still, light emanated from his hand. Just as Eiji looked as though he was thinking of blasting the things with his powers, yet another one started to wrap itself around Echizen. “Stay away!” Eiji threw a stream of fire at it, effectively warding it off.
“Keep them away while I get him free.”
Eiji nodded determinedly, and Fuji set to work. Fleetingly, he couldn't help but think that it was a very good thing that Echizen was wearing his boys' uniform and not a girls' one, or this would be very awkward indeed. Fuji swiftly cut the tentacles off from the shikigami by shattering them with pulses of cold energy, but even disconnected the remains still clung to the small body tenaciously and seemed to squeeze even tighter in response. Echizen let out a muffled cry, and Fuji resorted to using his hands to pry the writhing tentacles off of the struggling girl body. The tentacles had a strong grip - but Fuji's was stronger now.
“Thanks,” Echizen said faintly as Fuji wrangled off the last pieces of tentacle.
“Ochibi! Are you okay?” Eiji asked over his shoulder, still sounding upbeat despite the tension in his voice.
“Yes.”
Fuji pulled Echizen to his feet, and turned to see the others still battling the tentacles. “Stay behind Eiji, okay?” As he turned to join the others in their attacks, though, he was stopped by a small hand on his arm.
“You have to hit its center,” Echizen said haltingly, and raised his eyes to meet Fuji's.
“You mean the middle?” Fuji asked curiously, not at all sure what Echizen meant.
“No. You have to hit the center of its power, its source. The paper that the shikigami was made from,” Echizen said slowly, apparently not understanding why there would be any question. But all Fuji saw was a nebulous black form.
“Show me.” Without bothering to say anything further, Fuji scooped Echizen up and began to run towards the dark body of the shikigami, half-carrying the injured boy, or rather, girl, as he used one arm to fend off any tentacles that got in the way. Echizen made a small noise of protest, but as Fuji felt a slim pair of arms wind around his neck he knew that the stubborn freshman would cooperate.
“There.” Echizen pointed to one of the small, lump-like projections on the upper right side of the shikigami.
“Ah.” It looked just like the rest of the shikigami's body, but Fuji trusted Echizen's instincts and sent a stream of cold fire towards the spot Echizen had pointed out.
But Fuji was on the wrong side of the huge shikigami for it to reach its target, and he missed. Tezuka, who was just below the spot, looked questioningly at Fuji as he saw what he was doing.
Fuji pointed to the spot. “Aim there!” he shouted, but before he could say anything else he felt Echizen's arms leave his neck as a pair of tentacles grabbed at the freshman. Echizen scowled and uttered what sounded like an incantation, sending small shocks jolting up the dark stalks. They recoiled but quickly came back, and Fuji wasted no time in blasting them away. But they kept coming, more at Echizen than at him, and Fuji had no choice but to fend them off rather than try to get at the shikigami's center. Kaidoh came up beside him and gave what sounded suspiciously like a hiss of disapproval before joining him.
Suddenly, the tentacles stopped their attacks and began twitching spasmodically before the main body of the shikigami began to throb. Tezuka had apparently listened to him, and was hitting the spot with his energy pulses.
“Hit it there,” Tezuka called tersely to the others as he sent another pulse at the spot that Echizen had pointed out as its center.
Now that they no longer had to deal with the tentacles, the rest of the Guardians blasted the shikigami's center with their own powerful attacks, doing as Tezuka said without question. Fuji joined their efforts, though didn't release his hold on his young teammate beside him.
The dark mass of the shikigami's body began to throb more rapidly and unevenly. Following Tezuka's lead, they slowed and then stopped their attacks as they watched it start to shrink in on itself.
“Did we get it?” Eiji asked hopefully.
“I think we--”
Oishi never finished his sentence, as the shikigami's body suddenly exploded in a cloud of tiny black blobs. And they were very sticky black blobs, as they all soon discovered. Fuji calmly wiped a glob of the stuff off of his face, and watched his teammates reactions with thinly veiled amusement.
Echizen absently swiped at his cheek, but otherwise ignored the slimy goo as he pulled away from Fuji and stepped gingerly over to where the shikigami's center had been. He bent down awkwardly and slid to the ground, and started feeling around in the black mess as if he was looking for something.
Tachibana, meanwhile, was the first to head towards the pagoda. The others hurried after him, and Tezuka caught his eyes for a moment before glancing pointedly in Echizen's direction. Fuji gave a slow nod and hung back rather than joining them, instead walking over to kneel beside Echizen.
“Is there something there, Ryo-chan?” he asked lightly, though his expression remained serious.
Echizen didn't even spare him a glance at this, though nodded distractedly as his small fingers fished something out of the muck. Peering over his shoulder, Fuji saw that it was the original black cut out paper from the shikigami, which gradually lightened in Echizen's hands until it was pure white. The sticky black remains of the shikigami then dissipated into little black puffs before vanishing into the air completely. Though it was hard to tell, Fuji suspected that Echizen was just as surprised by this as he was, if the small frown on his face was any indication.
Any thoughts about what Echizen had done to the shikigami flew from Fuji's mind as he heard a loud thud from inside of the pagoda. “Wait here.”
Fuji ran into the pagoda, and was greeted by the sight of the two demons slammed up against the wall. Red and blue flames twisted around them, and they appeared to be trapped in a transparent shield held up by Tezuka, Oishi, and Tachibana. The blonde demon let out an unearthly shriek, and Orias raged silently behind her as the flames consumed them both. Slowly, his teammates let up, and the fiery red and cold blue flames died down.
A fine sprinkling of dust floated down to the floor, all that remained of what had been contained by the shield.
“Yosh! We did it, we saved the fifth point!” Eiji cheered and danced around a bit, warding off the silence that had threatened to descend.
“I can't believe we turned them to dust.” Oishi looked at the pile of dust with a mixed expression of disbelief and guilt.
Inui adjusted his glasses and bent down to inspect the pile. “Actually, it is only their physical bodies that we destroyed. Since they were not properly banished, their main spirit forms were only sent back to wherever they came from.”
“Heh. We probably don't want to know where that is.” Momoshiro chuckled, glancing apprehensively at Inui.
“We did what needed to be done,” Tezuka said, practical as always. Fuji was inclined to agree. Demons, from what he'd found in his research, were simply evil in that they had no moral sense at all. They may have human attributes, but certainly none of the positive ones like empathy or compassion.
Rather than being jubilant, the atmosphere was subdued as they filed out of the pagoda; though it was a good sort of quiet that was between them. Echizen greeted them with his usual bland expression, though it just didn't work the same when he was in girl form.
“Ochibi we did it! Hey, you're clean!” Eiji, predictably, noticed this only after grabbing Echizen in a hug.
“So are you, senpai.”
“Um, I think I need a new racket.”
Hopefully, things would go back to normal now. But Fuji caught the small frown that flitted across Echizen's features, and couldn't help but doubt that they had seen the end of this.
------
Chapter 15 Notes:
In many anime/manga series, demons (or youkai, as they are often called) are just another race, one that is very human like but with cool pointy ears, slitted eyes, etc, and that feel human emotions and act very human. In this story, demons are not all nice and cuddly like this. They are a more “traditional” sort of demon, in that they are inherently amoral, often evil, and come from a region that could be called hell (think of the “bad” demons from Buffy the Vampire Slayer - they're not nice!).
Another reminder - if the POV is of someone who knows that Echizen is really a boy, the male noun and pronouns will be used to refer to him even when he is in girl form. Think about it: if a boy you knew turned into a girl sometimes, wouldn't you still think of him as a “he”?
And this chapter came out kind of short, sorry about that!
Chapter 16 is much longer, and since I took FOREVER to post this, I promise it will be up this week (barring the death of my internet, of course)!
Title: Recombinant
Author: Dolly (universal_doll)
Rating: PG to PG-13
Characters: Echizen, Tezuka, Fuji (primary); Tachibana An, Tachibana Kippei, Momoshiro (secondary); and the rest of Seigaku.
Genre: Adventure, Fantasy, AU (or rather, Alternate History/Timeline)
Summary: “Why couldn't you have been magical girls?”
Full Story Notes & Previous Chapters
New Chapter:
Chapter 15
“Unya, where'd everybody go?” Eiji wailed, undoubtedly clinging to whoever was within reach as the darkness covered them. “Oishi, we've got to stay together!”
“Stay calm,” Tezuka said authoritatively. “Try to direct your powers towards the middle of the shikigami. That should produce some light as well.”
“This should do it,” Momoshiro declared, but Fuji only felt a bit of heat from the junior's direction. “Eh? I can't see the flames!”
This was no ordinary darkness. Fuji couldn't even see his own hand, but the pitch-black stalks that suddenly popped out of the shadowy shikigami were strangely visible; and so were the razor sharp teeth at the end of each one.
The slim stalks shot out in all directions, lunging and snapping at them. Fuji heard alarmed shouts and the odd grunt from his teammates nearby, and there was no mistaking the quiet but undeniably female voice among them. But before he could even move, Fuji felt one of the slick tentacles start to slither around his own waist. Starting at the cold touch, he reached down into the darkness to pry it off. But the tentacle wouldn't budge when he pulled at it, and he couldn't see well enough to try and blast it off. A sharp yank from the thing nearly jolted him off of his feet, and slowly but surely it began to pull him closer to the source of the darkness.
But before it could drag him too far, a soft white light spread across the courtyard, turning the pitch black to dim twilight. He could see again, and the first thing he noticed was that the other Guardians were in more or less the same predicament as he was. But not for long. Gathering power in his hands, Fuji aimed very carefully and blasted himself free of the tentacle, sending the thing recoiling back as he shattered its end.
“Take that, you slimy thing!” Momshiro called out triumphantly as he set another one on fire.
“BURN, EVIL DARKNESS!”
I was good to see that someone had given Taka a racket this time.
The others made short work of the projections from the dark shikigami, which seemed to be no match for their powers now that they could see, thanks to Echizen's light. Fuji's eyes widened slightly at the thought of his young teammate, and he whirled around only to see that Echizen was still trapped by not one but several of the dark tentacles, which appeared to be constricting around him as they slowly drew him in. At the same moment, Fuji could see several of the others looking that way as well, but Tezuka and Tachibana were on the other end of the courtyard and Momoshiro and Oishi were having problems of their own.
“Ochibi! Don't worry, I'll save you!” Eiji, who was closest to the freshman, deftly scampered over, easily dodging the maze of tentacles that the shikigami was putting out. With one last vicious blast at them of his own, Fuji followed.
“Aah, they're all over you Ochibi!” Eiji hovered beside Echizen, looking anxiously at the tentacles that were latched onto the younger boy. They covered nearly half of his body, wrapping around his ankles, thighs, torso, and even the lower half of his face as they squeezed and tore at his clothing; but still, light emanated from his hand. Just as Eiji looked as though he was thinking of blasting the things with his powers, yet another one started to wrap itself around Echizen. “Stay away!” Eiji threw a stream of fire at it, effectively warding it off.
“Keep them away while I get him free.”
Eiji nodded determinedly, and Fuji set to work. Fleetingly, he couldn't help but think that it was a very good thing that Echizen was wearing his boys' uniform and not a girls' one, or this would be very awkward indeed. Fuji swiftly cut the tentacles off from the shikigami by shattering them with pulses of cold energy, but even disconnected the remains still clung to the small body tenaciously and seemed to squeeze even tighter in response. Echizen let out a muffled cry, and Fuji resorted to using his hands to pry the writhing tentacles off of the struggling girl body. The tentacles had a strong grip - but Fuji's was stronger now.
“Thanks,” Echizen said faintly as Fuji wrangled off the last pieces of tentacle.
“Ochibi! Are you okay?” Eiji asked over his shoulder, still sounding upbeat despite the tension in his voice.
“Yes.”
Fuji pulled Echizen to his feet, and turned to see the others still battling the tentacles. “Stay behind Eiji, okay?” As he turned to join the others in their attacks, though, he was stopped by a small hand on his arm.
“You have to hit its center,” Echizen said haltingly, and raised his eyes to meet Fuji's.
“You mean the middle?” Fuji asked curiously, not at all sure what Echizen meant.
“No. You have to hit the center of its power, its source. The paper that the shikigami was made from,” Echizen said slowly, apparently not understanding why there would be any question. But all Fuji saw was a nebulous black form.
“Show me.” Without bothering to say anything further, Fuji scooped Echizen up and began to run towards the dark body of the shikigami, half-carrying the injured boy, or rather, girl, as he used one arm to fend off any tentacles that got in the way. Echizen made a small noise of protest, but as Fuji felt a slim pair of arms wind around his neck he knew that the stubborn freshman would cooperate.
“There.” Echizen pointed to one of the small, lump-like projections on the upper right side of the shikigami.
“Ah.” It looked just like the rest of the shikigami's body, but Fuji trusted Echizen's instincts and sent a stream of cold fire towards the spot Echizen had pointed out.
But Fuji was on the wrong side of the huge shikigami for it to reach its target, and he missed. Tezuka, who was just below the spot, looked questioningly at Fuji as he saw what he was doing.
Fuji pointed to the spot. “Aim there!” he shouted, but before he could say anything else he felt Echizen's arms leave his neck as a pair of tentacles grabbed at the freshman. Echizen scowled and uttered what sounded like an incantation, sending small shocks jolting up the dark stalks. They recoiled but quickly came back, and Fuji wasted no time in blasting them away. But they kept coming, more at Echizen than at him, and Fuji had no choice but to fend them off rather than try to get at the shikigami's center. Kaidoh came up beside him and gave what sounded suspiciously like a hiss of disapproval before joining him.
Suddenly, the tentacles stopped their attacks and began twitching spasmodically before the main body of the shikigami began to throb. Tezuka had apparently listened to him, and was hitting the spot with his energy pulses.
“Hit it there,” Tezuka called tersely to the others as he sent another pulse at the spot that Echizen had pointed out as its center.
Now that they no longer had to deal with the tentacles, the rest of the Guardians blasted the shikigami's center with their own powerful attacks, doing as Tezuka said without question. Fuji joined their efforts, though didn't release his hold on his young teammate beside him.
The dark mass of the shikigami's body began to throb more rapidly and unevenly. Following Tezuka's lead, they slowed and then stopped their attacks as they watched it start to shrink in on itself.
“Did we get it?” Eiji asked hopefully.
“I think we--”
Oishi never finished his sentence, as the shikigami's body suddenly exploded in a cloud of tiny black blobs. And they were very sticky black blobs, as they all soon discovered. Fuji calmly wiped a glob of the stuff off of his face, and watched his teammates reactions with thinly veiled amusement.
Echizen absently swiped at his cheek, but otherwise ignored the slimy goo as he pulled away from Fuji and stepped gingerly over to where the shikigami's center had been. He bent down awkwardly and slid to the ground, and started feeling around in the black mess as if he was looking for something.
Tachibana, meanwhile, was the first to head towards the pagoda. The others hurried after him, and Tezuka caught his eyes for a moment before glancing pointedly in Echizen's direction. Fuji gave a slow nod and hung back rather than joining them, instead walking over to kneel beside Echizen.
“Is there something there, Ryo-chan?” he asked lightly, though his expression remained serious.
Echizen didn't even spare him a glance at this, though nodded distractedly as his small fingers fished something out of the muck. Peering over his shoulder, Fuji saw that it was the original black cut out paper from the shikigami, which gradually lightened in Echizen's hands until it was pure white. The sticky black remains of the shikigami then dissipated into little black puffs before vanishing into the air completely. Though it was hard to tell, Fuji suspected that Echizen was just as surprised by this as he was, if the small frown on his face was any indication.
Any thoughts about what Echizen had done to the shikigami flew from Fuji's mind as he heard a loud thud from inside of the pagoda. “Wait here.”
Fuji ran into the pagoda, and was greeted by the sight of the two demons slammed up against the wall. Red and blue flames twisted around them, and they appeared to be trapped in a transparent shield held up by Tezuka, Oishi, and Tachibana. The blonde demon let out an unearthly shriek, and Orias raged silently behind her as the flames consumed them both. Slowly, his teammates let up, and the fiery red and cold blue flames died down.
A fine sprinkling of dust floated down to the floor, all that remained of what had been contained by the shield.
“Yosh! We did it, we saved the fifth point!” Eiji cheered and danced around a bit, warding off the silence that had threatened to descend.
“I can't believe we turned them to dust.” Oishi looked at the pile of dust with a mixed expression of disbelief and guilt.
Inui adjusted his glasses and bent down to inspect the pile. “Actually, it is only their physical bodies that we destroyed. Since they were not properly banished, their main spirit forms were only sent back to wherever they came from.”
“Heh. We probably don't want to know where that is.” Momoshiro chuckled, glancing apprehensively at Inui.
“We did what needed to be done,” Tezuka said, practical as always. Fuji was inclined to agree. Demons, from what he'd found in his research, were simply evil in that they had no moral sense at all. They may have human attributes, but certainly none of the positive ones like empathy or compassion.
Rather than being jubilant, the atmosphere was subdued as they filed out of the pagoda; though it was a good sort of quiet that was between them. Echizen greeted them with his usual bland expression, though it just didn't work the same when he was in girl form.
“Ochibi we did it! Hey, you're clean!” Eiji, predictably, noticed this only after grabbing Echizen in a hug.
“So are you, senpai.”
“Um, I think I need a new racket.”
Hopefully, things would go back to normal now. But Fuji caught the small frown that flitted across Echizen's features, and couldn't help but doubt that they had seen the end of this.
------
Chapter 15 Notes:
In many anime/manga series, demons (or youkai, as they are often called) are just another race, one that is very human like but with cool pointy ears, slitted eyes, etc, and that feel human emotions and act very human. In this story, demons are not all nice and cuddly like this. They are a more “traditional” sort of demon, in that they are inherently amoral, often evil, and come from a region that could be called hell (think of the “bad” demons from Buffy the Vampire Slayer - they're not nice!).
Another reminder - if the POV is of someone who knows that Echizen is really a boy, the male noun and pronouns will be used to refer to him even when he is in girl form. Think about it: if a boy you knew turned into a girl sometimes, wouldn't you still think of him as a “he”?
And this chapter came out kind of short, sorry about that!
Chapter 16 is much longer, and since I took FOREVER to post this, I promise it will be up this week (barring the death of my internet, of course)!