Izuocha Week 2018 Day 7: Tranquility

AND SO THE WEEK ENDS!!! I tell you guys, these past few days have really reminded me why I love writing for these two adorable dorks. There’s so much to explore and say with them, and I would like to thank @izuochaweek for giving me, and so many other, this opportunity to express that love.

Here’s hoping next year is just as good! But for now, enjoy this one last fic for the week!

Izuku has a broken leg, a dislocated shoulder, one eye so swollen he
can’t open it, and also possibly a concussion.

Despite all that, he can’t help but feel profoundly at peace. Perhaps it
was because he had finally managed to bring down the League of Villains once
and for all, the final battle with Shigaraki being to blame for most of his
injuries. Maybe it was the fact that he was able to sit down and breathe
for the first time in the literal weeks since the final assault on the league
began.

And what a place he choose to finally sit his (incredibly sore and
bruised) ass down, on top of a wrecked League combat machine in the middle of a
field and direct view of the sun slowly sinking into the horizon.

The soft and calm sounds of Eri by his side didn’t hurt either. The
girl’s kidnapping at the hands of the League was what spurred on the final
operation, and when Izuku burst into the heart of their home base and saw her,
she was in rough shape.

Now though, she rested boneless and exhausted next to him, having
dropped there an hour ago before placing her head on his shoulder for what she
promised would only be “a minute to rest my eyes.” She caved to her
fatigue almost as soon as she said that, and has been snoozing quietly ever
since.

Izuku himself was in no hurry to wake her, knowing that reinforcements
would come shortly to clean up any remaining stragglers and drag them to jail…and
possibly take him to a hospital once they had the time.

For now, he was content to wrap a limp hand around the young girl’s
shoulder as she rested, quietly waiting for whoever showed up first to take him
home.

“DEKU-KUN!”

Izuku blinked before turning to the sound, a frantic call to ascertain
his whereabouts and condition, no doubt, but his lethargy (and possible
concussion) was making it hard to place both the owner of the voice, and where
exactly they were shouting.

“DEKU-KUN WHERE ARE YOU!?”

The volume suggested Kacchan, but kun dismissed that
notion right away. Not to mention that he was fairly certain that, regardless
of whatever improvements had occurred to their friendship, he would likely not
care enough to come looking for him.

If Izuku had to guess, Kacchan probably figured he would drag himself back
eventually, so why bother looking?

…not to mention that, now that he was listening to the voice more
closely, it sounded distinctly female.

“IZUKU!”

“…Uraraka?” He shook his head and leaned over the edge of his
perch on the fallen machine to look down, seeing the very same heroine running
about the scorched battlefield, whipping her head back and forth to find him.
“Uraraka-san! Up here!”

Her head whipped upwards, her face lighting up when she caught sight of
him. She quickly touched various points on her person, pink flashes erupting
when her quirk activated as she did. As soon as she started to float above the
ground, the raised her legs for a second before kicking at the ground as hard
as she could, sending her rocketing upwards towards his perch.

She overshoot only slightly, putting her hands together as she passed
him. “Release!” Soon she slowed her ascent and began to drop
downwards, rolling as she hit the metal surface of the robot, bringing her face
to face with him, noses inches apart.

“Uh…hey?”

“Hey?” She muttered with a shake of her head. “We lose communication
with you for 3 hours and all you have to say is hey?”

“…I have a concussion?”

She shook her head again in disbelief, “you are unbelievable Deku…”
She looked left and right a few times, looking for something. “Where…where’s
Shigaraki?”

Deku’s expression sobered and he nodded towards another wreck to the
left, beneath laid the unconscious body of the leader of the League, arms tied
in a way his quirk would be unable to free him.

“Is he…ya know.”

“He’s alive.” Izuku said firmly, shaking his head as he
thought back to the raving rants the man sent his way during their battle,
“but he won’t be hurting anyone anymore.”

Uravity nodded firmly, a fiery look on her face as she looked at
Shigaraki. The look vanished as she suddenly realized something, “wait!
What about-” She stopped as she caught sight of the young girl sleeping at
his side, the sudden tension in her shoulders vanishing. “Eri-chan…”
She sighed and put a hand on Eri’s head, slowly moving her fingers through her
white hair. “Thank God you’re okay…”

The girl leaned into the touch in her sleep, mumbling contently,
“Ochako-san…” She turned to nuzzle her head in the palm. “I’m
home…”

Uraraka smiled wide enough that it looked like her cheeks would start to
hurt, eyes shining with tears, “that’s right Eri-chan.” She looked
back at Izuku, who felt a warmth spread up the back of his neck as he locked
gazes with her. “You’re home.” A few tears went down her cheeks.
“You’re both home.”

Before Izuku knew what was going on, he found himself wrapped up in a bone-crushing
hug. A few wet spots formed on his neck where Ochako buried her face and wept
in relief. “U-Uraraka?”

“You have no idea how worried I was.” She mumbled into
his neck, tightening her grip slightly. “How worried we all were,
just about the whole class rushed off to go find you.” She laughed
a bit deliriously. “Even Bakugou ran off before anyone could stop
him.”

Izuku would have to remember to apologize to Kacchan later. If he could
get his brain to work long enough while it was stuttering over the fact that Uraraka
was hugging him that is.

“Some of the pros started talking about the worst case…and I just
couldn’t take it and rushed off.” She tightened her grip again, to the
point where it actually somewhat hurt. “Don’t you dare scare me
like that again!”

“Uraraka-san.” Izuku choked, half because of the pressure of
the hug and half because of its simple existence. “I promise I won’t,
and I’m really happy that you-you and all the others came to find me but…”
He took in a thin breath. “Could you please let go? I kinda have a
dislocated shoulder.”

“Oh!” She leapt off of him, face flushing from embarrassment
and worry. “Sorry! I was just…I’m just so happy you’re okay.” She
looked at his shoulder and his leg, which bent in the wrong way. “Well…as
okay as you can expect.”

Izuku chuckled a bit at that, wincing as the action moved his injured
shoulder.

Ochako winced in sympathy, “that doesn’t look good…want me to help
with that or do you wanna wait until we find Recovery Girl.”

He shook his head, “no, no need to bother her with this.” He
grabbed his belt and put it between his teeth. “Do it.” He paired the
muffled request with a nod.

Ochako sandwiched his shoulder between her palms, took a breath, and
quickly pushed his shoulder into place with a firm crack.

A sharp groan escaped Izuku before he spat out his belt. “That’s
gonna hurt in the morning.” He leaned against the robot behind him with a
gasp. “T-thanks, Uraraka-san.”

She shook her head again. “Don’t mention it.” She glanced at his
leg. “Too bad I can’t do anything about this though…” She looked at
the sleeping Eri. “And I think Eri has had enough to do today.”

Izuku curled the arm he had over her shoulder as she mumbled in her
sleep, nodding mutely, “yeah, I think we all did.”

Uraraka pressed a finger to her ear, activating her communicator.
“Command do you copy? This is Uravity, do you copy?” A muffled voice
sounded from her earpiece, slightly panicked and causing her to laugh
nervously. “Y-yeah, sorry about that Aizawa-sensei…but yeah.” She
looked at Izuku again with a soft smile. “I found him, along with Eri-chan…they’re
okay.”

Izuku made himself comfortable as Uraraka made her report and requested
for extraction, eyes once more drifting to the softly glowing red sunset, heart
and mind calming at the sight…before drifting back to her, the red glow framing
her like a halo of fading embers.

Has she always been that beautiful? How could he not have seen it
before? Of course she was beautiful…did he ever tell her that?

Izuku blinked. Wow, he really needed his head looked at.

As she finished her report, she looked back to him as he was still staring,
raising an eyebrow at him as a faint pink bloomed on her cheeks, “is
everything okay Deku-kun?”

“Yes!” He squeaked out before clearing his throat and repeating,
much more calmly, “I mean…yeah, yeah I’m okay just…” He lingered on
her still, framed by the sunset, before he gulped the sudden lump stopping him
from breathing. “I was just…admiring the sunset.”

“O-oh!” She laughed nervously as she looked behind her,
expression softening as she laid eyes on the setting sun, “…I don’t blame
you…” She slowly walked backwards until her back hit the wall and she slid
down, making herself comfortable next to him, “it’s really
beautiful.”

He gazed at her for a long time, the wind blowing her hair as the fading
glow of the departing day shone on her face and glimmered in her eyes like
stars. He smiled softly to himself as he settled down, leaning his shoulder
against hers, “yeah, really beautiful.”

And so they waited for the rest of the class to come with the rescue
team, promises of reports and an extended stay at the hospital looming beyond
the fading sun.

Their victory today was no small feat, it was hard fought and hard won,
but it will be far from the last. One day another threat will come to threaten
all they hold dear, and they will stand again to fight it back to defend those
they love and those unable to protect themselves.

The future was rife with promises of peril and danger that he would need
to prepare for…but for now, Izuku contented himself with where he was right
now, calm and at peace, taking in a gorgeous sight.

Whatever the following days and years and decades my bring, they will always
have this sunset.

Izuocha week 2018 Day 6: Longing

A little shorter and a lot fluffier since yesterday was…yeah

Enjoy!

It took Izuku a while to get used to his dorm room.

The room was a few feet larger than his old room, the ceiling a bit
higher up, the window sitting at a different wall. It all left him a bit off
center, even when he finished covering the one wall with all the All Might
merch he brought with him he felt out of sorts.

Even being a floor taller than he was used to, seeing the ground so far
away when he looked out his window throw him off.

Every little detail of his new living arrangement seemed intent on
reminding him of one important fact: he was not at home anymore. He would not
wake up in the morning and be sure the bathroom was available for an early
morning shower; the quiet mornings were gone, replaced by the sounds of his
fellow students rushing off to get ready in time for classes.

The most disheartening thing, childish as it sounded even to him, was
that he would have to get used to getting by without his mom’s homemade katsudon.

Realizing that fact didn’t take long at all, and the pang of
homesickness soon followed. He did not let it get in the way of his schoolwork
or his training, he couldn’t afford to. Still, his mood did take a hit for a
while.

Naturally, this fact didn’t escape his friends’ notice one bit. Iida and
Uraraka especially.

Iida had been insistent in trying to get him to open up about it, but
had relented when Izuku simply said that the Kamino incident was still weighing
on his mind. (Which, well, it was, but as much as it had been before) He
soon left him be with a genuine declaration that he was available at any time
if he wanted to talk anyway.

Uraraka was not so easily dissuade. She didn’t hound him exactly,
but she made a point of taking a minute out of the day when she could to talk
to him, gently prodding at the subject of his failing mood.

He remained rather tight-lipped, dodging her questions and putting on a
fake smile, assuring her (and himself) that he would feel better after some
time passed. This did not convince her,
so she simply changed her tactics.

During breaks and the evening before lights out, she invited herself
over for study session and to goof off, sometimes bringing Tsuyu, Ashido or
Kirishima with her while she was at it. She didn’t ask any question about his
mood then, simply content to get his mind off of whatever was bugging him.

He was a bit shy the first few times, but soon the calm air of comradery
managed to put him at ease and helped him feel…more at home, essentially. It
helped that the others shared the same worries that plagued him.

“I tell ya,” Kirishima muttered one night, “I know it
sounds kinda…kiddy, but I kinda miss my place back home sometimes.” He put
up his hands in placating gesture. “I mean it’s fun here don’t get me
wrong! But…sometimes I kinda miss my ratty old bed y’know?”

“I miss my siblings back home, kero.” Tsuyu said after he
finished, sighing quietly. “Not having to cook for them after school feels
a little…like something’s missing from the day.”

“Oh yeah.” Ashido nodded with a dramatic pout, “but
really, what I miss most is my mom’s food.” A chorus of “aww”
floated in the room. “Oh come off it! My mom’s cooking is the best! You
haven’t lived till you tried her rice omelets!”

“Not as good as my mom’s ramen!” Kirishima said with a note of
pride, puffing out his chest. “Manliest dish in the world!”

Soon they devolved into comparing their favorite dishes from back home, unfinished
homework forgotten. Izuku couldn’t help but feel a weight drop from his chest,
knowing he wasn’t the only one dealing with being homesickness.

“What about you Deku-kun?” Uraraka asked with a curious note
to her voice. “You’re mom probably has something super tasty right?”

Deku hesitated for a moment, before sweeping his eyes to see the rest of
the room looking at him with rapt attention. “Katsudon…” He mumbled
before shaking his head and clearing his throat, “my mom’s katsudon is…the
best.”

“Eh!? Isn’t that super basic though?”

“Basic is manly! It means you don’t need anything fancy!”

“Fits Midoriya-chan at any right, kero.”

And so conversation moved on easily, Izuku feeling more at home in his
dorm room than he has in the past two weeks. He looked back to Uraraka, who a
pleased smile on her face. “Uraraka-san?”

She smiled knowingly but hummed innocently, “yeah Deku-kun?”

“Thank you…for sticking your nose in.”

Uraraka looked confused for a moment, before laughing. “That’s what
heroes do right?”

How could he argue with that?

–

The next evening, he limped back to the dorm after an extra long
training session with All Might, his limbs aching and sluggish as he made his
way to the kitchen to make himself a quick and simple sandwich before he went
to sleep…and that’s when it hits him.

The full and salty smell of katsudon, wafting from the kitchen at 8 PM.

“What the…?” He mumbled as he walked into the dining area, and
saw Uraraka in front of the gas, stirring a large metal pot full of…something
that smelled like heaven.

“Deku-kun!” She called out when she looked behind her to see
him standing awkwardly under the threshold. “You came just in time! Sit
down I’m almost done!”

He was in a daze as he sat down, the sight of Uraraka cooking striking
him as oddly…domestic. Even more so as she took a sip, nodded in
satisfaction, and filled up a bowl with a thick broth that made Izuku’s mouth
water.

She filled up a second bowl before picking them both up and walking to
the table next to Izuku, “c’mon! Try it!” She went to get two pairs
of chopsticks as he stared into his bowl, transfixed at the sight of meat and vegetables
floating serenely in the broth, islands in an ocean. “It’s the first time
I cooked something like this, so it’s probably a bit messy.”

Izuku nodded and broke apart his chopsticks, muttering a blessing before
digging in. The broth was a bit more watery than it looked, the vegetables a
bit over down and the pork slightly stringy…it was delicious.

“It’s amazing Uraraka-san.” He said around a mouth full as he
slowly savored the flavor. “Been a while since I ate katsudon…”

She laughed good naturedly, “yeah I figured after last night you
could do with some uh…home cooking!” She flushed slightly as she turned to
her own bowl. “I know it’s probably not as good as your mom’s but-”

“Uraraka-san.” He said kindly, smiling at her. “Just the
fact that you made it is enough.” He flushed a bit as he realized what he
said. “Y-you know, it’s really thoughtful of you, to do this for me.”

“It was nothing.” She shook her head as she eat a bit of her
own meal. “I know how it feels to miss your parents cooking…I was living
out of the house even before the dorms, so it’s been a long time since I
had any of my mom’s cooking.” She adopted a nostalgic look on her face.
“Especially her mochi…I always loved that.” She shook her head.
“Oh well, I guess that’s what happens when you grow up right? No more
parents to cook for you, gotta make the mochi yourself.”

Izuku nodded absentmindedly, “right…” He looked down on his
phone, typing in “mochi recipes” where Ochako couldn’t see it.
“But it doesn’t mean you can’t get help!” He motioned to the two
bowls with a smile.

Ochako laughed, “just don’t tell anyone else okay? If Mina-chan
found out about this she’ll have me making her food too…”

They spent the rest of the evening in fond silence, slowly eating their
way through their food.

When they finished, they departed to their separate rooms, and when
Izuku reached his, and sat down to sleep….he felt, finally, fully at home.

Izuocha week day 5- Strength/Weakness

Okay so this one is SUPER LONG one shot somehow instead of a drabble. Yay!

And it’s super angsty! Yay!

…what? At least one of these things needed to be.

“It wasn’t your fault.”

Izuku paused in the middle of unlatching the lock on his front door at
the sound of the soft mumble behind him. His grip tightened around his ring of
keys, his heart thundering in his chest as he bite his tongue to keep from
screaming.

“None of that was your-”

“Can we not-” Izuku muttered between his teeth, voice chocked.
“Not now, please?” He looked behind him to look at Ochako, her hero
costume burned and covered in soot much like his own, her face a picture of
grief despite whatever encouraging words she tried to use.

She looked like she’d been struck, and he cursed himself for doing
nothing but hurting people today.

He shook his head. “No wait I-” He took a deep breath and
looked at her again, voice slightly clearer. “I just-don’t think either of
us wants to hear something like that…right now.”

(Concrete shattering and buckling under its own weight, fire licking at
his face, people screaming)

Ochako eyes lost focus for a moment, opening and closing her mouth at a
loss at what to say to that, before letting her head drop in a quiet nod.

An apology burned in Izuku’s stomach, but he just couldn’t bring himself
to say it. “Let’s just…let’s get out of these clothes.” If he took
one more breath laced with the bite of smoke, he was going to lose his mind.

He unlocked the door with a soft turn of his key, pushed open the door
and waited for Ochako to enter. She looked behind her for a few minutes, eyes
focused on the distance, before sighing and slowly padding into their home,
already working on taking off her shoes as Izuku locked the door behind her.

Half an hour later, Izuku was standing in front of his bathroom mirror
as he placed one last bandage on a burn in his left thigh, eyes twitching from
the sting of disinfectant. He looked up when he finished, spying the many
elastic pads and off white bandages adorning his face, trying his hardest not
to think about what put them there.

(The flames deafening around him, the heat boiling him alive, smoke in
his lungs he can’t breathe he can’t breathe-)

“Izuku!” He flinched away from the hand on his shoulder,
whipping his head to see Ochako clad in nothing but her slightly damp underwear
and her wet hair framing her face. Any other time the sight would have sent him
sputtering, but the various angry red spots and lines marring her body only
sent a dull chill down his spine. “Are you okay? You spaced out there for
a minute.”

He shook his head harshly, scooting a bit away from her, the sight of
her wounds digging a pit in his gut. “I’m okay just…still a bit out of
it.”

Ochako frowned, raising a hand to brush away some of the hair stuck to
his forehead, revealing a bruise that traveled up into his hairline. “Are
you sure that hit didn’t…do anything bad?” Her face scrunched up in worry.
“Maybe we should call Recovery Girl-”

“I’m fine.” He snapped between clenched teeth, moving his head
away from her touch (doesn’t deserve it-this-her-never deserved anything
especially not tonight) and letting out a harsh breath. “The paramedics
already cleared me to go home…I’m…fine.”

“O-oh…” Her hand wilted to her side as she looked away, eyes
down cast. “S…I’m sorry.”

(She shouldn’t sound like that she shouldn’t not Ochako not her
she should be smiling and happy what’s wrong with him-!?)

“No.” He ground out
past his screeching head. “No don’t be I shouldn’t have…” He loses
what he means to say before he finishes his eyes wondering back to her, head
still down cast and eyes hidden under her wet brown locks. “Do you…”
He looks at her wounds, every angry red mark a tally mark of guilt stabbing
into him. “Do you want help…patching up I mean?”

She runs a hand over one bruise on her shoulder and winces, which brings
out a broken chuckle out of her. “Yeah.” She looks up with a sad
smile. “I’d like that.”

He reaches into the medicine cabinet for another bottle iodine and
rubbing alcohol along with a few more rolls of bandages, sets them on the sink
and gets to work. They spend a good half hour like this, Ochako quiet and pliant
under his hands as he covers her wounds one at a time, only making a sound when
disinfectant touches a particularly sore burn.

He walks around to reach her back, and the sight of the long, jagged red
marks on her back makes him want to jump out of his skin.

(Ochako screaming, a large woodan beam engulfed in flame fell right on
top of her. She doesn’t fall, a crying bundle in her hands as she simply shrugs
off the burning wood off of her and runs full tilt to the window to jump.)

“It looks worse than it feels.” She mumbles lamely, hugging
herself mutely as he finally sucks it up and takes another cotton swap into the
iodine. That takes a good five minutes, partly because Ochako asks for half a
second to catch her breath from the pain every few swipes, and half because
Izuku needs to make an effort to keep his cool and not crush the bottle in his
hands.

He finished wrapping the last bandage on her back over her shoulder,
hands shaking slightly as he put them against his knees. “We’ll…go to
Recovery Girl in the morning.” He said, unsteady. “Just to make sure
everything’s okay.”

Ochako nodded. “Okay.” She went to the laundry room and picked
up a random shirt to pull over her head. She went to the hallway connecting the
bedroom and living room and found Izuku standing stock still while looking at
the door to the bedroom. “…Ya know…” The sound of her mutter caused
him to look over his shoulder at her, eyes unfocused. “I…don’t think
either of us are going to be sleeping tonight.

Izuku could only nod bleakly, barely responding as Ochako took his hand
and led him to the couch in front of the TV. The both of them sat heavily on
the cushion, staring straight ahead at the black screen, hands stiff at their
sides.

Izuku lost track of time staring into the TV, mind blank and
unresponsive, before he felt Ochako lean her head on his shoulder and wrap her
hands around his forearm. Taking in a shuddering breath before he leaned his
forehead on the crown of her head, taking in a lungful of her shampoo.

(Vanilla and green tea, typical Ochako. Stronger than usual…must have
used half the bottle washing her hair…couldn’t blame her.)

Another long stretch of silence went by, nothing but the sound of cicadas
crying in the night air coming into their apartment through an open window in
the kitchen. Izuku feels one of Ochako’s hands leave their grip on his hands
and sees it reach across the couch…and come back with the remote.

Izuku’s eyes nearly bulge out of his skull. "Ochako we don’t-”

“I need to hear it Izuku.” She says her voice raw and
impossibly fragile (not fragile never fragile never how why didn’t help-)
as she grips the remote. “I need to see if sh-if everyone made it out
okay…I just need to.”

He opened and closed his mouth, struggling to find some way to stop her,
afraid (cowardcowardcoward- ) of what the news would do to her…to
him.

“Please.”

Every single half argument he had shriveled up and died. He reaches with
his hand to clasp it around hers and squeezes, but doesn’t say a word.

She presses the ON button, and a picture of a news anchor flickers to
life.

“-and continuing on from there, we have an update on the fire
that broke out in midtown Musutafu a mere two hours ago.”

Ochako nearly crushed his hand in hers.

“For those just tuning in, a villain with a fire quirk escaping
capture by local heroes entered a residential complex, and, in what police say
was a desperate last attempt to get away, started a fire that quickly over took
both him and the heroes pursuing him when it overheated a gas pipe and caused
an explosion.” The news anchor adjusted his glasses with a disturbed
look on his face. “The fire quickly grew to consume the whole building,
leaving fighters with little to no way to enter and rescue whatever survivors
remained.”

Ochako worried her lower lip with her teeth, Izuku squeezed back.

“Soon enough, several heroes arrived on the scene to assist,
among them the veteran pro hero Backdraft, and relative newcomers
Uravity and Deku.” A video of the fire as it happened appeared on the
screen, making Izuku’s heart jump to his throat. “Although it seemed
the rescue attempts were proceeding smoothly, the building soon began to
collapse inwards due to the damage of the fire and gas explosion.”

He could feel Ochako shaking and shivering under him, but when he
reached for the remote, she yanked it away from him with a firm shake of her
head. Her eyes stayed glued to the screen, refusing to budge.

“The heroes on sight were
quick to save as many as they could before the building fully collapsed.” The
picture changed to several still pictures of the heroes carrying out civilians
before going back into the flames, including Izuku with a man and a woman on
his back and Ochako with a bundle of clothe in her hands that she gave to a
nearby paramedic just as the building caved in on itself. "Five people, including the villain
and heroes, were killed in the initial blast. Another 10 perished in the
flaming building, with at least a further 15 still unaccounted for.“

Ochako bit her lip hard enough that she opened a cut and blood trickled
thinly down her chin, Izuku could not move, a deep dread settling in the back
of his head.

”…And unfortunately,“ The news anchor continued with a
bitter sigh, ”not all those rescued survived the ordeal.“ Ochako
froze. ”About five had succumbed to smoke inhalation and injuries
caused by the fire…including among them five month old toddler Minami Ako, who
passed away from smoke inhalation just minutes a-“

The remote flew out of Ochako’s hand and embedded itself firmly into the
television, sparks and smoke sputtering out of the cavity.

Izuku couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe, all he could do was slowly look
back to Ochako as she breathed heavily and slowly started to make distressed
sounds as she hugged herself and rocking back and forth in a panic.

"O-Ochako…” Izuku pushed back his panic as far as he could
manage (help help her HELP HER YOU MORON-) and put his hands on her
shoulder to still her, “Ochako please you need to look at me please-”

A soul shattering, spine-freezing scream tore itself out of Ochako’s
throat, shocking Izuku stiff before she flung herself at him and clung to his
form like he was the only thing keeping her from drowning. She sobbed and
screamed into his chest almost incoherently, Izuku only barely able to get his bearings
enough to hold her close and run his hand through her hair and rock her gently,
his panic coming back in full force.

“She was-I had her-” She gasped and sobbed into
his shirt, her nails digging into his back as she cried. “I had her! I
had her in my arms!” She started screaming in earnest, voice going
hoarse. “I saved her! I got her out of there! And it didn’t even
MATTER!”

“Of-” Izuku mumbled, still in shock himself before he shook
himself straighter. “Of course i-it mattered Ochako-”

“NO IT DIDN’T!” She swung her head to look at him, tears
streaming down her cheeks. “I HAD SOMEONE IN MY ARMS AND THEY DIED! AGAIN!”
She slammed her face back into his chest, shaking from her sobs. “IT’S
NIGHTEYE ALL OVER AGAIN! I HAD HER! I HAD-” She collapsed into
helpless sobbing again, her words cutting Izuku to his core.

It’s been years, over a decade now, since that fateful mission against
the 8 Precepts, since the day the great Sir Nighteye perished, but not in a
blaze of glory, but attached to dozens of tubes and on a hospital bed as he
breathed his last.

Ochako was the one who carried him to safety, who was depened on to get
him out of danger fast enough to save his life…and in the end it didn’t matter.

Izuku had vague memories of the days following that incident, focused as
he was on Eri and Togata, but he could recall Ochako being…quiet, in those
first few weeks. She smiled less, laughed less, talked less…he wondered
if, when she was alone, she broke down like this…like she did during the sports
festival.

He could not stop her tears, not then, not now…but that didn’t give him
the right to do nothing.

“Nighteye didn’t die because of you.” He said of a sudden,
voice clear and sure despite the tears that have started to gall down his
cheeks to match her own. “Ochako that didn’t happen because you weren’t
fast enough.”

Ochako only buried her head deeper in his chest, refusing to look at
him.

He grasped her shoulder and hauled her up to meet her eye to eye.
“Nighteye died protecting his student and a young girl, he died doing
his job.” His words felt bitter on his tongue, but this is something
she needed to hear…that he needed to hear. “There was nothing you
could done to save him.”

Sniffed miserably. “If I had been faster-”

“You weren’t.” He stressed, squeezing her shoulders.
“You went as fast as you could, pushed yourself to the absolute limit
to save him…he was just…too far gone.” He looked at the broken TV set for
a split second before looking back at her. “…and so were the people in
that building.”

She sobbed weakly. “Izuku stop-”

“You went at it like you were mad.” He shook her so she
couldn’t ignore him. “You were surrounded by fire and smoke and had a wooden
beam fall on top of you and you just kept going.” He put her faced
between his hands, feeling her wet cheeks on his palms. “You tried,
you never gave up, you saved everyone you could reach.”
Izuku smiled wetly. “Not even All Might…was able to save everyone.”

Ochako stilled, Izuku’s words getting through. To hear him place trust
in her was one thing…but comparing her to All Might?

“You didn’t fail.” He said, voice warm and cheeks growing
wetter as his panic gave way to his own sorrow. “I froze up in
there Ochako, people needed me and I froze up…but then I saw you…charging
through the fire.” He smile shrunk by an inch. “You saved me there
too.”

Ochako, hiccupped before another sob left her. “All those people
they…she died because-”

“Ochako.” Izuku exclaimed, resolutely. “This…” He
took a deep breath, the tears in his eyes clogging up his throat. “This…wasn’t
your fault.”

Ochako let out a chocked sob, covering her mouth with her hands, looking
at Izuku, seeing her pain reflected in his eyes as he held her face in his
hands. She reached out for him, running her hands through his hair while
minding his bruise, gulping the lump in her throat. “It…wasn’t your fault
either.”

Izuku opened his mouth, to agree, to refute to argue, it didn’t matter.
Ochako flung herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck as she kissed
him desperately, the salty bite of their tears where their lips met.

They soon stopped as Ochako hugged him closer, her head next to his as
he squeezed closer as he shook, their sorrow melding together in their embrace
as it came pouring out.

They spent a while on the couch like that clinging together as their
shared sobs quieted and slowed, until they sat silently in a calm embrace,
their arms so limp one of them could just get up and leave…which they wouldn’t,
even if they had the strength.

“Sorry.”

Izuku looked at Ochako for a moment, not sure he heard her right an
account of her sore her voice sounded, “what was that?”

“I’m…sorry for just…” She gestured vaguely with one hand.
“Just…falling apart like this.” She shook her head. “I feel
kinda…selfish for doing that.”

“Don’t be.” Izuku smiled with a weak chuckle. “I was
doing the same as you…after a night like this…I think it was a good thing we
both, uh, fell apart like that together.” He buried his head in her head
again, letting out an easy breath. “I was actually gonna apologize for the
same thing so…don’t worry.”

Ochako was quiet for a while, taking in the smell of him this close and
safe, before sagging against him and sighing. “Thank you, by the way, for
being here when I…I really needed it, really thank you Izuku.” Her head
was jarred for its comfortable position by Izuku laughing of all things,
which she responded with a quick jab to his stomach. “What’s so
funny?”

“Nothing.” He chocked and laughed, rubbing where Ochako hit
him. “It’s just…are you going to steal the words from my mouth all night
or what?”

He laughed again, and this time Ochako joined him.

She shook her head, and rubbed one of the many bandages covering her
form. “We should…probably go find Recovery Girl…we kinda did a lousy job
on these.”

“You mean I did a lousy job.” He hugged her with a
tired smirk. “But yeah…we should probably find her sooner rather than
later…who knows how she’ll react to us just…leaving without getting
proper medical attention.”

“Not in a fun way…that’s for sure.”

He laughed again, this time with a bit more strength behind it.

—

Recovery Girl, did not, in fact, react well to them running off. The
only reason they didn’t get an ear full for running off while having several
first degree burns was that she simply had far more people to deal with
than them, so she sent them off with a reprimand and a promise this
would not be the last they hear of her and the subject.

Ochako felt the spot where the large wound had been, a phantom sensation
of where the wooden beam landed on her as she-tried to save the child
from the fire. She felt a frown tugging down on her lips before she felt
someone hold her hand.

“You okay?” Izuku smiled down at her worriedly, only mollified
when she squeezed his hand back. “…I think we had enough excitement for
one day…wanna go home?”

Ochako nodded, feeling dead on her feet. “Yeah, I could use a long
nap after-” She stopped, the sound of inconsolable sobbing reaching her
ears and making her heart drop through the floor.

“Ochako?” Izuku fretted, seeing her look somewhere to her
left. “Did something hap-” He stopped, his face falling. “…oh.”

Right there, across the hall, were the two people Izuku had managed to
get out of the burning building…the parents of Minami Ako.

“Ochako…” Izuku whispered in her ear, they were in civilian
clothes so they had not yet been spotted, they could still walk away. “You
don’t have to-”

“I do.” She said firmly, though her voice still shook. She
clenched her fists as she saw the mother cry and sob for her lost child, a stab
of shame going through her at her own display of grief earlier while the woman
had been going through so much pain. “I must do this.”

Izuku was quiet for a moment, before he nodded. “Okay, I won’t stop
you.”

“They need someone to be strong for them.” Ochako muttered,
some doubt in her voice if not her words. “I need to be that strong
someone.”

“You don’t have to be strong alone though.”

Ochako looked back at Izuku at those words, a warmth floating through
her as she met his brilliant smile. “Do you…” She mumbled quietly,
“do you really think I can do this?”

“Of course.” He stated confidently. “You’re Uravity, the
hero who picks people up.”

She saw a flash of sadness in his eyes then, and she grabbed his hand.
“And you’re Deku, the hero who can save anyone.”

They shared a scared but determined smile, took a breath, and walked
towards the grieving couple.

Tomorrow, they would need to file an official report, coordinate a
public announcement towards the victims and their families…but today, tonight,
they fulfil their duty towards Minami Ako.

And they do it together.

Izuocha week 2018 Day 4: Domestic

yeah I know I didn’t make a day 3 but whatever I’ll post it on the catch up week next month.

For now, have this short and sweet thing!

Ochako knew that she needed to get up. She knew that she needed to take
a shower, brush her teeth, eat breakfast, and go out to face the day and all
the challenges and joys it might bring her.

Well, she was currently snuggling against her husband as he mumbled
softly in his sleep, the both of them buried in a large wool blanket that
staved off the late November chill. So the day can go stick it.

To spite the day further she tightened her grip against the muscular
frame of the snoozing Izuku, pressing her face against his shoulder with a
content sigh. He must not have been as asleep as she thought, because the arm
around her shoulder squeezed her closer in response, and soon his second arm
joined it as he turned to face her fully, tucking her head under his chin.

Ochako was in heaven.

“‘Chako…” A mumble came from above, “shouldn’t you be
getting ready for work?”

And hell came a-knocking.

“Izu, they can handle me being late for five minutes.” She
stopped, “…or fifteen.”

“Ochako.”

“It was supposed to be my free day anyway.” She muttered,
still pressed against his chest and the lovely little nook under his chin.
“Ayumi called in sick at the literal last minute.”

She didn’t blame her for that of course, getting sick is hard to
prevent, but she still felt a bit bitter at having to give up this one day
she had planned for five months to spend lazing around with Izuku. To
sleep in, to lean on the couch for a short movie marathon, ordering pizza for
dinner.

Not to mention all the sex she was planning on. Who knew that the modern
existential horror of an office job could so thoroughly fuck (pun intended)
with your sex life? Two economy packs of condoms for absolutely nothing.

As petulant as it sounded in her own head, it wasn’t fair.

“We still have Christmas to look forward to.” Izuku whispered
in her ear as he threaded his hand through her newly long hair. “I know you’ve
been looking forward to today for a while.” He pressed a soft kiss to her
forehead, as if hearing her buzzing thoughts and wanting to calm them.
“But the Ochako I know is responsible enough to get up, and face the world
with a smile.”

Ochako huffed and didn’t budge.

Izuku chuckled kindly and scooched down on the mattress to lean his
forehead against hers. “Tell you what, you get up and work hard, and when
you come back I’ll have an extra large helping of homemade mochi waiting for
you.”

Ochako looked up at Izuku with an adoring smile, though still a bit
tired and hesitant. “We don’t have enough ingredients for that.”

“I’ll go shopping.”

She giggled. “My car’s still in the workshop.”

“I’ll drive you there and get you back.”

She puffed up her cheeks and poked him on the nose. “You’re being awfully
insistent about getting your loving, not to mention barely dressed, wife
out of bed this morning.”

He brushed her barely subtle accusation and even less subtle proposition
and smiled honestly at her. “Only because I know she wants to do her
best.”

“She wants to stay in bed with her, also barely dressed,
husband for the next two hours.” She glared at him with very little actual
heat, before sighing dramatically and untangling herself from both his embrace
and the sheets, “but since he apparently thinks so highly of me, I
suppose I can suffer one more day of white collar hell.” She sat up and
looked down at him from over his shoulder with a charming smile. “If only
for the promise of delicious mochi.”

Izuku leaned his head on his pillow, put one hand to his heart, and
raised another with its palm outwards. “And a promise it is, I assure
you.”

She picked up her own pillow to smack in his (handsome) smug face.
“Dork. Just make sure you follow my moms’ recipe this time okay.” She
laughed as she get up from the bed and headed for the bathroom. “Last time
you tried to freestyle it I had to call in sick.”

“It wasn’t that bad!”

“For a whole week!”

As Ochako closed the bathroom door behind her with a chuckle (leaving it
unlocked in case her husband decided to pamper her just a little bit more
this morning), she reflected on how…comfy she felt, how her heart felt
content and warm from the moment she woke up and all throughout her sleepy
conversation with Izuku.

Domestic life wasn’t always exciting…but it seemed to suit her,
either way.

All the more because she had someone to share it with.

Izuocha Week 2018 Day 2: Photograph

ALMOST LATE BUT FINISHED LOOKING OVER THIS THING SO YEAH!

MORE THAN TWICE AS LONG AS THE LAST ONE SO YOU BETTER ENJOY IT NERDS!

(seriously though I hope you like it! Week going great so far! ~~knock on wood knock on wood)~~

Few things can strike fear into Izuku’s heart, especially now that he
had been a pro hero for a good half a decade now.

A large group of villains bearing down on him with their quirks on
display? Easy.

A building on fire with multiple people inside on the verge of
collapsing? A bit harrowing, but nothing he hadn’t faced before.

His girlfriend holding one of his mother’s dusty photo albums while they
were cleaning out the attic? That sent a bolt of lightning racing down his
spine, paralyzing him on the spot as she flipped through the pages with a look
of abject awe.

A quick flexing of muscle and he felt One For All blitz through his
limbs, and with a push of his feet against the floor he flew towards Ochako,
hand reaching out…

And missing the album completely as she saw him from the corner of her
eye at the very last second and leaned away from his grip, his momentum
carrying him all the way to an impact with the wall that resounded in the room.

“Oh no you don’t!” Ochako laughed as she hugged the heavyset
book to her chest with a wild grin. “This book is a treasure trove
and I intend to get the most out of it!” She flipped it back open to a
random page, her eyes lighting up with unbound glee, “oh my God is that
an All Might onsie!?”

Izuku leapt forward again, face stretched wide in panic, “No it
isn’t!” Ochako skipped out of his grip again with a manic gleam in her
eye, “C’mon Ochako it’s not that funny!”

“Yes it is!” She laughed brightly, shooting one arm out to
wrap around his shoulder so she could get his face in front of the multitude of
pictures his mother had taken of him as a young boy, “and adorable
to boot! Look at those widdle cheeks!”

Izuku narrowed his eyes at his giggling girlfriend, a small frown at how
much joy she was deriving out of this whole affair. He glanced at the pictures
with a visible cringe of his shoulders, “I can’t believe mom actually kept
all these.” He shook his head before pointing at one of the pictures of
him with the aforementioned onsie, “I mean look! I was like…three!”

“That’s what moms do!” Ochako laughed again, curling the arm
she had around him to snuggle her nose into the crook of his neck, making his
frown smaller by inches, “mine has like…5 of these albums, and that
was just for grade school!”

Izuku let out a chuckle despite his embrassment, which was diminishing
in favor of enjoying the feeling of Ochako rubbing her nose under his chin,
before pointing out another picture. “Hey I remember this…” He picks
it out of its place in the album, a picture of him and his mother at a theme
park, the both of them wearing matching “ears” that resembled All
Might’s famous haircut. “Mom and I had this jar in the kitchen where we
saved up money for day at that park.” He laughed with a tinge of fond
nostalgia. “Took us like, a month, but we managed.”

Ochako blinked at him for a moment before a smiled warmed her features,
“she’s a good mom huh?”

Izuku grinned with no small amount of pride. “The best.”

Ochako let out a sputtering laugh and slapped him on the shoulder none
too roughly, “you’re such a momma’s boy.”

The grin didn’t budge an inch. “And proud of it.”

She laughed aloud, leaning her head against her broad chest as she did. After
a moment she stopped and glanced down at the book, before looking back at him
to see his eyes creasing a bit at the edges as he gazed at it himself, and
smirked as an idea came to her head, “I propose an exchange.”

The sudden seriousness in her voice made him raise an eyebrow, “oh
yeah?”

She nodded, bringing up the book into view, “if you let me look at
the rest of this album.” She patted the page they were currently on,
“then the next time you and I visit my folks, you’ll get to see all of my
embarrassin’ baby pictures.”

He raised an eyebrow at her, meeting her hopeful grin for a few long
moments before sighing in defeat, “fine.” He brought his face
close to hers, “I’ll never be able to say no to you will I?”

She kissed his nose, “never.”

They spent a while like this, flipping through the pages of the aging
album, Ochako cooing and giggling over the younger version of Izuku while
sitting on the dusty floor of the attic between his legs as he hugged her from
behind. Every now and again Ochako would point to a particular picture and
demand a “backstory”, which Izuku was always glad to provide.

This went for about half an hour before she spotted on picture that gave
her pause. The picture contained a younger Inko Midoriya holding onto what
appeared to be the youngest Izuku yet, little more than a newborn.

But what really caught her attention was the older man standing next to
Inko, face in a gentle smile as he wrapped an arm around her shoulders, his her
a puffy mess of dark green curls that reminded Ochako of the man hugging her
from behind.

A man who had turned oddly silent.

“…is that?”

“Yup.” Izuku said quietly, his voice strangly level and calm,
“Hisashi Midoriya, my dad.”

Ochako looked behind her to meet his eyes, “you…never really talk
about him.”

“Because there’s nothing much to tell.” He shrugged easily,
his face blank and calm. “He left when I was about…two I think?” He
shrugged again. “Went overseas to work and just…never came back.”

Ochako bit her lip. “Izuku…”

He hugged her a bit tighter and put his face in her hair, “its
okay.” He mumbled from between her locks. “I barely knew him. He
hardly called, never visited.” He was quiet for a minute before he sighed.
“There was never anyone to miss.”

Ochako didn’t say a word for a long moment, letting him breath in the
smell of her shampoo from where he rested his head (enjoying the feel of his
breath on the back of her neck while she was at it), before she chuckled
weakly, “well, least that explains why you got so attached to All
Might!”

Izuku hummed deep in his throat, “yeah probably.”

She meant it as a joke, Izuku very much didn’t.

She stared for a long time at the picture, taking in how stiff the man
seemed in the picture, how Inko’s smile felt smaller than it should have, a
frown growing on her face before she slammed the book shut, scaring Izuku out
of his reverie as he leaned out of her hair to look at her, “Ochako are
you-”

“We’re going to have lots of pictures.”

Izuku blinked, “huh?”

Ochako turned where she sat to face him fully. “You, and me.”
She pointed to the both of them in turn, “are going to have a ton
of pictures, together, apart, doing stupid stuff we’ll laugh about years
later.” She grabbed his hands and squeezed his fingers, “and lots of
pictures with our kid too, so many they won’t know what to do with them.”
She nodded resolutely, Izuku staring at her awestruck. “That’s a promise.”

She tipped forward; catching his lips in a firm and tender kiss, Izuku
pushing back after the shock wore off. Soon they stopped to catch their breath,
leaning their foreheads against each other as they huffed mildly, their faces
flushed red.

“….our kid?”

“Huh?”

Izuku grinned wickedly, “you said our kid.”

Ochako flushed a bit brighter, but didn’t shy away from him, “well…yeah,
eventually.”

“Eventually huh?” Izuku leaned forward again, inching closer
to her lips, “why not right now?”

“Maybe because your mother is literally right here?”

The two of them froze, slowly inching their eyes to the source of the
voice in unison, finding Inko Midoriya tapping her foot with her arms crossed
over her chest, an incredibly amused smile on her face.

They jumped apart so quick and stood up so straight they nearly lost
their balance and tipped backwards.

“Mom!”

“Inko-san I swear we didn’t-!”

Inko cleared her throat and both
young adults clamped their mouths shut in embarrassment. The older woman gave
them a moment to stew in it before shaking her head and pointing behind her,
“if you two are quite finished goofing off in here,” the two
somehow flushed an even deeper red, “then I could really use some help
setting up the dinner table.”

The two couldn’t get out fast enough, the sound of Inko’s amused
laughter nipping at their heels.

Inko took a step to turn around, but caught sight of the photo album
Ochako dropped in her haste, the large book still open on the page where the
only picture she had left of her husband laid, image open to the air.

Inko stared at it for a long second, before shaking her head with a
small smile and walking over to pick it up and put it back in its place.

As she did, she found something else that had been up here for a
long while.

Miraculously, it still worked.

She picked it up, made sure everything was in its proper place, and
rushed down the stairs until she reached the kitchen, looking at the couple
placing plates with a cheeky grin, “say cheese!”

They barely had enough time to fumble a confused response before a soft click
resounded in the room followed by a quick flash of light.

“Mom?”

“Inko-san?” Ochako asked at the same time, rubbing her eyes
from the sudden flash. “What did you just do?”

“Well.” She said easily, holding up the old digital camera
aloft like a prize. “You did say you wanted a lot of pictures Ochako-chan.”
Her grin shrunk but grew warmer. “Consider this the first of many to get
you started.”

When Ochako blinked the wetness from her eyes and turned to Izuku with a
beatific smile, which he matched with a delighted grin of his own, Inko
couldn’t resist snapping one more picture.

Izuocha week 2018 Day 1: Stars

I’ve long since come to the conclusion that I’ll only be able to offer meager drabbles for this blessed event, so that’s all you’re getting from me.

On the other hand, this time I actually have enough for the whole week!!!….or at least 5 days, let’s not get our hopes up.

Since Ochako could remember, she has always loved stargazing.

Her mother would bring her up to the flat roof of their humble home when she was younger, sit her down on her lap, and spent hours pointing out constellations and tracing patterns of her own in the night sky with a lit match.

When things had gotten tougher for her family, when they had to pinch pennies and cut corners to make it to the end of each month with their heads above water, Ochako would still allow herself that one small indulgence. Those precious few moments before she went to sleep where she could gaze up into the sky and let herself be lost in the hundred million lights above her head.

One of the reasons 13 was one of her favorite heroes was because they were space themed, as petty as that was. The infinite black simply fascinated her, always has. There was a brief period where she wanted to be an astronaut, just so she could see those lights just that bit closer.

In light of this, Ochako supposes that it isn’t that much of a surprise that she often finds herself staring at Deku’s freckled face. At first, it was simple fascination, a mild interest at the dusting of tiny spots on his pale face, more noticeable out in the sunlight.

But it grew, as the two of them grew closer she found herself counting his freckles in her head, tracing constellation with lazy swings of her finger in the air as a teacher rambled on the background about something she had memorized before.

He noticed eventually, of course, and she was beyond mortified at being caught, infinitely more so when she tried to explain herself by saying that she was only doing it because, “they remind me of stars!”

They spent a good minute or so burning bright red at each other, unable to say a word.

After recovering, Izuku surprised her by asking if she really stargazing that much, which led to her explaining her love of the night sky, which led to him requesting that she show him.

Which led, somehow, to the two of them being where they were, on the roof of the dorm building, a good long while after lights out, laying on their backs as Ochako pointed out constellations.

“See there? That line of stars there?”

“That one?”

“Yeah! That’s Ursa Major, big dipper.”

“Whoa…”

Ochako very pointedly ignored how his eyes shone as she moved from one star to another, the light there matching the ones above.

“Those three? That’s Orion’s belt, and you find the rest of him around like,” she moved her finger for a moment, struggling to remember how her mother showed her, smiling as the memory came to her, “like this…do you see?”

He followed her movements with his own hand, though much less confidently, finger sluggish and imprecise, “like this?”

She laughed. “No, here,” she grabbed his hand without thinking, helping him map out the stars as she had, “see? One…two…three!” She turned to him with a bright grin, taken a bit aback when she saw the red flush to his cheeks and noticed, as if just now, how she had grabbed his hand, “…like that!”

“Y-yeah! I see it now.”

They both looked at their connected hands, fingers interlocked still around each other. Then turned back to each other’s eyes, identical flushes of red on their cheeks.

Ochako felt her heart rumbling loudly in her chest, but despite that a smile persisted on her face, which eventually led to Izuku mirroring it with one of his own. They shared a quick chuckle before Ochako turned back to gaze up at the sky, pointing with her free hand to one particular star, “you know about this one right?”

Izuku followed her gaze and grinned. “The north star.” He moved his fingers against hers before he lightly tightened his grip, “a fixed point in the sky, so long as you can see the north star…you’ll always find you way.”

Ochako didn’t miss the half glance he threw her way when he said that, heart growing louder in her ears. She turned her head to look at him with a cautious smile, a smile that grew across her cheeks as he met her gaze fully. “Always.”

Unthinking, she reached out a hand to touch the star dust on his cheeks, tracing constellations with her fingers, pulling herself closer to see them more clearly.

Under a moonlit sky, filled to the brim with stars, they shared a kiss.

Hollownest No More

Fandom: Hollow Knight

Summery: The
shadows consume the light, the screeching of old gods are forgotten.

The
regrets that weighed down every soul turn away, peaceful silence replaces them.

Stone
turns cold once more, and the ravages of infection subside.

The
cost has been paid.

Now
there is nothing left for anyone in Hollownest.

Author note: Guess who wrote a Hollow Knight fanfic~~~?? 😀 Okay okay I know another thing from a fandom I just dipped my toe into, don’t worry this won’t be like my Guilty Gear kick, I’ll do like…4 chapters of this and I’m done…maybe

–

Hornet wakes up with a shock-induced twitch of muscle, the taste of dirt
in her mouth.

The temple is cold and silent around her, the choking smell and
oppressive heat of the orange infection missing. She sits up and looks around,
pockmarks dot the walls where pulsing pustules of madness had been before she
lost consciousness.

(“Do it now!”)

She stands in one swift movement, darting her eyes back and forth to
spot the little Ghost, or the massive body of the Hollow Knight, and finds
neither. She notices for the first time that she is in a crater, the concrete
of the stone cleaved away starting from a central point…where she finds it.

The mask, small twin horns marking it instantly. Empty. Cracked open
down the middle like an egg.

She stares at the mask for a long while, a disbelieving numbness
coursing through her as she realizes what this all means.

They have succeeded. The Radiance is dead. Her sibling is free of their
shackles. The Pale King had finally paid his cost, and he had won.

And she, all alone, is left standing.

Something begins bubbling from deep in her gut, and climbs it’s way up.
Bits of it escape as scoffs and quick peals of laughter as she begins to fully
understand, fully see what has actually happened.

She is free.

She falls down on her backside as her laughter grows louder and louder
in the empty temple, her eyes flying up to the ceiling, the weight of her
destiny so suddenly yanked off her shoulders she can’t find her balance.

Her laughter slowly dies down as she looks back down on the broken mask
of her would-have-been sibling, a thousand different emotions and courses of
action knocking around in her head.

She thinks back to her fights with the little Ghost, the memories
causing some of the old wounds they had inflicted on her to flare up for a
moment. She thinks of the odd impulse that drove her to dive into the crumbling
corpse of the great wyrm to drag them out, thinks of seeing them climb out of
the abyss…changed.

When they looked at her before the branded door as she spoke, she could
swear they could see her, truly comprehend her presence in a way
altogether different from when they first met her in Greenpath.

They looked at her like that when she held down the Hollow Knight so
they could strike it with the dream nail, those tiny black holes focusing
on her, and for a short moment, she felt her heart clench in a way unfamiliar
to her.

She stared at the broken mask, the last remnants of the one who saved
her once-home, and willed for that feeling again, so she could understand it.
But all she could feel was a sense of…finality.

The vessels were created to stop the infection, to contain the old god
of Hollownest who refused to die in peace and planned to drag all around it to
destruction.

Their purpose was to save Hollownest, to bring back the glorious
golden age of the Pale King.

Instead the chosen vessel was unsuited to their task, and everything
went straight to hell. The bugs of Hollownest fell into insanity and violence,
the great knight fell one by one, and even the Pale King himself holed himself
up in his tower to rot.

Three of the greatest minds Hollownest had ever seen chose to use their
own minds as shackles and chains for the failed savior. Hoping that, one day, a
vessel will come to fix what they could not.

That left Hornet, alone, to make sure they were strong enough.

She lost her sense of time at some point, her duty bearing down on her
day and night, some part of her convinced that it was just her own personal
prison, doomed to stalk the halls of her home until the very tunnels collapsed
around her.

Enter little Ghost.

It all took place in under two
days, they trekked across the ruined Hollownest, defeated its corrupted denizens…and
finally fulfilled what their ‘father’ had long since attempted.

Only the Hollownest they saved was long dead.

The Crossroads have broken down, the Greenpath over grown, even the
Deepnest had fallen silent and feral (even more than it was before), and the
City of Tears has long been empty of all but the dead and the insane.

There’s nothing left for anyone in Hollownest…and if Hornet was being
honest? There wasn’t anything left for her either.

She walked over to the broken mask, lifting the pale white shards with
care, the emotions in her head beginning to settle. She turned on her heel to
leave the ruined temple before it fell on her head, stopping only to pick up
her nail.

She heard whispers of settlers in Dirthmouth, she needed to climb up and
tell them there’s nothing more to be found down here…and see if anyone of them
knew little Ghost.

The least she could do was make sure that someone would mourn them.

She is their sister, after all.

(A single drop of water fell at her feet as she walked passed the
threshold of her siblings’ prison, she dared not look back.)

Swipes of Sword and Fan 9:

After a long, long while, another Baiken and Anji drabble! Yay!

And it’s angsty! Yay!

Title: Graves and Names.

Word count: 927

Baiken remembers very little of her parents.

She remembers their names (Kimura and Ryuko), and what they did for a
living (her dad was a construction worker, her mom was a homemaker), but
besides that only vague impressions of the people who raised her remained.

(The smell of fresh rice as she woke up, the sound of her mother humming
in the kitchen.)

The years had been a blur of blood and hate, she could barely afford
time to find a place to rest her head, much less reminisce about people she
would never meet again. She can’t say for sure if they were good parents, or if
they were harsh. She hardly remembers their faces.

(The feeling of her father gently shaking her shoulder, the sound of his
laugh when she only buried herself deeper in the covers of the futon.)

Anji, in contrast, never had any parents to forget about in the first
place. Barely 11 months old and found on the steps of an orphanage. Being raised
by someone who wasn’t paid to do it was a novel concept for him, so he tended
to ask about hers when he thought she was in a good mood.

(A large, calloused hand on her shoulder gently guiding her to the smell
of rice, her mother started to sing.)

She indulged him eventually, if only to shut him up. He asked her some
ordinary things and she answered from what she could remember. His joy and
wonder over the tiny, bleary details of her parents was just this side of
absurd. The most interesting thing she had to say about them was that her mom
was, supposedly, an Enka singer for a few years before she married.

Boy did he love that tidbit.

(A warm bowl in her hands, the rice slowly rousing her as she ate it,
her father swaying off tune to the song with a smile.)

Eventually she ran out of answers for him, and he stopped asking. She
doesn’t miss them, she can’t. How can she miss people she barely knows, that
she barely had the chance to know before it all got taken away.

(The sound of something exploding outside the house. The feeling of
being knocked off her feet and the roof collapsing on top of her.

Pain. So much pain.)

She still visits their graves every year, more for tradition than
anything else. Not that there’s anything beneath the makeshift tombstones, no
time to carry such useless things as dead bodies in the middle of the chaos,
but it has their names. That should be enough. It needs to be. It’s all she can
give them.

(The smell of fire, the sounds of screaming, the sounds of everyone
screaming. She can’t hear her mother singing beyond all the screaming, can’t
see her father dancing from behind the flames.

A monster in the sky in gleaming armor.

Hate. So much hate, building up in her chest to the point where she is
sure it will burst out and split her in half.

Nothing, absolutely nothing. She can do nothing.

Not yet.)

“How can so much dirt build up in one year?” Anji
grumbles as he cleans soot from around her father’s name on the stone, breaking
her out of her reverie as she glances at him from the corner of her eye,
“Doesn’t this place have a groundskeeper?”

“Not for twenty years.” She says lightly, glancing down at the
base of her mother’s gravestone before reaching out to brush a few stray leaves
away. “No one left in the colonies that wants to deal with the corpses
here, that generation is long dead.”

“Except for us.”

“…Except for us.”

He traces a finger on the last name on her father’s stone, carefully
moving along the groves of each character.

(The first thing she threw away, she didn’t need it, didn’t deserve it.

Kimura and Ryuko’s daughter died along with them, burnt to ashes until
there was nothing left and then sank to the bottom of the ocean with the rest
of their home.

She is Baiken. That is all she
will ever be.)

Anji sighs and pats the stone gently, “I always wanted to meet you,
sorry we never got the chance.”

“The stones can’t hear you Anij.”

He looks at her from the corner of his eye, hand still on her father’s
marker, “the stones are all that I have to speak to.” He frowns.
“Soon not even that, at the state their in.”

She clenches her jaw. “Stones wither away.” He faces her fully
now, an unspoken challenge in his gaze as she keeps her gaze on her mother’s
name. “Everything withers away, eventually.”

For a long while, he says nothing, turning away to stare at the
gravestone again. A gust blows through, clearing away what was left of the dead
leaves.

Eventually he sighs, and groans as he gets up on his feet. “Yes,
eventually.” He offers her a hand with a soft smile. “But not for a
long while yet.”

She looks at her mother’s name for a moment more, lifting her hand to
trace it on the stone, before reaching for Anji.

She doesn’t look back as they walk away, her hand holding his until the
horizon swallows up the stones.

(The first anniversary of their death, she stopped for a moment to
wonder if they would be proud of her if they saw what she amounted to.

The day after, as she slit a man’s throat open, she decided that it
really didn’t matter.)

rex101111:

sevi007:

rex101111:

sevi007:

rex101111:

sevi007:

Why did
nobody tell me that Dante gets a literal cowboy
hat as his weapon in DMC 5, this is incredibly
important!

… Mainly
because I headcanon since DMC 4 that Dante likes cowboys (look at his outfit in
that game) and was especially enthusiastic about them when he was still a kid
(in that “Mum I’m gonna be a cowboy when
I grow up!” kind of you, you know) and that he would be absolutely delighted
to have a real cowboy hat.

If Dante
doesn’t say at least one dumb cowboy pun while having the weapon equipped,
like, a “yeehaw” or “steady on!” or “there’s only space for one of us in this city” or something, I’m
gonna sue.

Also now
Capcom needs to give us an extra skin for Dante so you can switch into his DMC
4 outfit and equip the cowboy hat on top of it, just to complete the damn look.

Dante gets so into it he challenges Lady to a duel, “Pistols at noon! You and me cowpoke!”

Lady stares at him without a word for a whole two minutes.

And then she shoots him in the head.

And then she walks over to him, still grumbling about how much that stings, and yanks the damn hat off of his head and starts stomping on it despite his protests.

She shoots it a couple of times too for good measure.

Dante picks up the remains of his poor, abused, hat, cut down in the prime of it’s life, “Why?”

Lady stares him dead in the face, expression stone still, “I made a vow to destroy evil.”

Silence.

“Also, you’re annoying enough without having an excuse to talk with that godawful western accent.”

He waits, (clearly not pouting, what do you mean, he is a grown man, he does not pout, thank you very much) until Lady seems to be out of earshot, before he leans over to Nico.

The young woman is barely holding in the loud laughter threatening to spill, but manages an inquiring noise as she catches his gaze.

“Do you think you can fix this up?”

A smothered sound, a giggle, then a cleared throat before she becomes stern again. “Count on me, cowboy!”

Dante’s grin goes from ear to ear as he puts on his best (worst) drawl. “Don’t know what I would do without ya, lassie!”

Nico snorts, a loud, delighted noise. “Oh my god, you’re worse than grandma told me.”

“That a good thing?”

“The best. Now give me that mistreated thingy, I’m gonna make it better than it ever was.”

“Off you go,” Dante pauses, considers, “Make it more durable, perhaps?”

“Demon-durable or Lady-durable?”

“Both. Mostly the later.”

Lady has never felt such utter and complete betrayal in her entire life from another human being (except the obvious, of course) as she starred at the offending headwear, patched up and reinforced with carbon fiber of all things.

Dante saunters over, thumbs in the waist of his pants and a tooth pick in his mouth-oh for the love of god are those spurs on his shoes–and grins so smugly she is tempted to shot him in the teeth on principal alone.

“Well howdy there pardner.” His grin grows when one of Lady’s eyes twitches. “Fancy seeing you around these parts.” He pointed up to his hat. “I see you eyeballin’ my hat, purdy ain’t it?”

“Dante for the love of God that’s a fucking trucker accent-”

“Now I know you must be hankerin’ to bust it up like before,” He continued, ignoring her, “but you should know-”

Lady whipped out one of her machine guns, and unloaded the entire magazine directly into that vile piece of leather and demonic metal.

Damn thing didn’t even flinch.

“-My associate here gave it an upgrade.” He pointed to Nico, who was standing by his side this whole time, nearly bent over in held back laughter.

“Bullet proof hat!” She exclaimed at Lady, eyes shining with excitement, “I love working with you guys I never would have thought of this one.”

“You,” Lady started, eyes digging through Nico as well as any bullet, “are a traitor to the whole of humanity.”

“Oh relax.” Nico waved her off with little care. “Just let the man have his dumb fun, besides I made this thing 100% Lady-proof, there ain’t a damn thing you can do to it to damage or destroy it.”

Lady raised an eyebrow, holstered her machine gun, and reached back to put a hand on Kalina Ann.

“…Except that maybe.”

Dante whipped his head to Nico, “You forgot about the damn rocket launcher!?”

“She has like twenty different guns!” Nico protested, panic seeping out of her voice. “How do you expect me to keep track!?”

“Nico.” Lady intoned mildly, aiming the large barrel of her prized weapon directly at Dante’s face. “Take ten steps back.”

Nico took one look at the bazooka, than another look at Dante, switching between the two a few more times before turning on her heel and legging it.

“Later partner!”

“Lady was right! You ARE a traitor!”

A soft click of a trigger reached Dante’s sensitive ears.

“Oh dagnabbit.”

A massive explosion rocked the immediate area, sending plums of smoke and fire into the air along with a few chunks of concrete, charred black from the blast.

Lady put Kalina Ann back on the strap on her back, crossed her arms, and nodded her head in satisfaction, “The evil is defeated.” She yelled into the smoke cloud where Dante was standing, probably grumbling about his lost hat. “Let that be a lesson to you! You should always know when to let a joke die.”

She turned away to get to the nearest bar in order to drink the memory of this nonsense out of her head as soon as possible…when she heard a few surprised peals of laughter.

“Well, waddya know!” Dante stepped out of the smoke cloud, outfit scorched and ruined, with more than a few wounds rapidly healing on his skin…

And the hat in his hand, utterly unscathed.

“She really did make it Lady-proof!”

Lady’s eye twitched again as she gaped at the utter ridiculousness of what she was looking at, before she growled and walked away with an angry stomp.

“Aww, what’s the matter? Giving up?”

“I’m getting Trish!”

“Woah nelly….”

“… so I might have pissed her off a little bit
with that and what do you reckon are the chances that she’s going to shoot me
if the hat doesn’t get destroyed in that one?”

Keep reading

Nero had long since come to the perfectly reasonable conclusion that the crew of Devil May Cry were completely out of their minds.

From Dante’s constant disregard of his safety, Lady’s overly sensitive trigger finger (which was especially dangerous when she brought out the damn canon strapped to her back), and Trish…well, being Trish, there was no shortage of reasons to thing the gang were long overdue for a few appointments with a shrink.

This…was something else though. He stared down at the hat in his hands. A hat that was given…alright less given and more slammed into his hand with little warning while he was working, by an especially angry looking Lady.

It seemed…well, it was a cowboy hat, with a long brim that curved upwards near the end, a leather band surrounding the center along with a few red gemstones that glowed with demonic power.

So, not the strangest thing Nero had ever held in his hand, but the way Lady was glaring down at it you’d think it was the spawn of the deepest pit of hell.

“…hello-?”

“Destroy it.”

“Huh?”

Just then Dante burst into the workshop (scattering the tools Nero had spent an entire hour cleaning up goddamnit old man!) with a look of unrestrained panic, “Kid! Don’t let her lies drag you to cruelty!”

“…what.”

“Quiet Dante!” Lady whirled on the older half demon, jabbing a finger in his chest, “This has gone on long enough!” She pointed at the hat still sitting serenely in Nero’s metal hand, “This thing has got to go!”

….were they seriously having an argument over a damn hat.

“Just because you can’t appreciate the style-”

“I saw cockroaches with more style than that tourist trap reject!”

This is why his work was interrupted so rudely? He was being subjected to all this drama because of a damn hat?

“You kidding!? That’s rich coming from a chick who rode a motorcycle in a tartan skirt and thigh high boots!”

“That thing is bad enough sitting on a coat hanger! But you put it on and, impossible as it may sound, you turn into an even bigger pain in the ass!”

“GUYS!” Nero yelled out, rubbing his temple with his free hand to try and stop the headache that rose into his head, “Are you serious?” He waved the hat around in exasperation, “What’s all this for?”

The two looked at eachother for a moment, Lady with an impatient scowl and Dante with a challenging raise of an eyebrow, before turning to the younger man and absolutely unloading on him with silly complaint after ridiculous justification.

By the time they were done Nero was ready to grab the heavy piece of weaponry he was working on and using it to get them to calm the hell down but tried to control himself.

“Okay…” He said, through his teeth, hand still rubbing his forehead, “So, let me get this straight, Dante got a cowboy hat and got it into his head he has to use a really lame accent with it-”

“I think you mean authentic accent-”

“-Lady shot it to hell so Dante somehow convinced Nico to patch it up and make it stronger-”

“-a traitor, a traitor and a fool-”

“-making it strong enough to withstand bullets and a blast from a freaking rocket launcher-”

“-that there spooked me right good it did let me tell ya-”

“You’re not even wearing the damn thing what is wrong with you-!?”

“And Trish, for some reason, doesn’t think she can destroy it either.” Nero finished, his eye twitching with ever interruption from the other two, looking at the hat that started all this with disdain and general annoyance, “And now you want me to destroy this ugly thing, right?”

“It ain’t ugly-”

“Yes it is! C’mon Nero you gotta be on my side on this one!” She pointed at Dante, “Doesn’t this guy annoy us enough without this extra ammo!?”

“Don’t appeal to his emotions!” Dante made a motion towards Nero with a hand, “The kid’s smart, I’m sure he can see proper solution to all this,” He sent a charming smile to Nero, complete with gleaming teeth (all it accomplished was make Nero’s headache worse), “Right kid? What do you think about all this?”

Nero looked at Dante, gleaming smile still stretching his face, and then at Lady, her face sending off an endless amount of threats of horrible and slow death (both towards the demon hunter and his hat), and sighed.

“I think that the both of you are crazy and that this is, bar none, the most idiotic situation I have ever found myself in.”

Behind the door, Morrison, Trish and Nico had to try their hardest not to burst out laughing.

“…is everything okay in there?”

The trio near the door looked behind them too see Kyrie, dressed comfortably and carrying a few bags of groceries in her hands, and a rather worried expression on her face.

“Let me get those for you.” Morrison offered quickly, stepping up to her to take the heavy overfilled bags out of her hands and onto a nearby table, when he turned back and saw her still a bit anxious and looking at the workshop door. “Oh that? Don’t worry little lady, just another silly little argument between Dante and our resident Gunslinger.”

Kyrie sighed and put a hand to her cheek, “Oh, what did he do this time?”

Morrison tried not to grin at the sound of exasperated affection in her voice, it still surprised him how such a seemingly delicate looking girl got used so to the madness of the half devil so easily.

(Though he supposed she had practice with that boyfriend of hers.)

“Nothing too drastic, Dante just got a new hat.”

The sound of crashing metal and gunfire, followed by loud yelling and cursing, erupted from behind the doors, Nico flinching back a couple steps away while Trish just shook her head with a chuckle.

Kyrie blinked twice at the door, then looked back at Morrison. “A hat is causing that?”

The old man laughed. “Well, the hat and Dante having a little too much fun with it, Lady in particular seems to disapprove.”

“I WILL DESTROY THAT LOATHSOME PIECE OF LEATHER IF IT’S THE LAST THING I DO!”

“OVER MY DEAD BODY!”

“THAT CAN BE ARRANGED!”

a few explosions rocked the building, followed by the unmistakable sounds of Dante whooping and hollering as he dodged gunfire from an increasingly angry Lady.

“…I’ve guessed…” She looked over at Trish, who was still sitting near the door with a sly grin and enjoying the fireworks. “You’re not going to stop them?”

“Better to let them get it out of their system.” Trish waved off her concern easily. “As soon as Dante gets bored of this joke he’ll drop the damn hat and we can all move on.”

Nico side-eyed the door as more noise filtered through the wood. “Assuming there’s anything left by the time they’re done.”

Kyrie narrowed her eyes at the door…before she recognized it as the door to Nero’s workshop.

“Guys come on I just finished cleaning up! Would you two relax!?”

Kyrie’s heels made a very distinct sound on the wooden floor as she stepped her way to the door and grabbed the handle to open it.

Trish grabbed her wrist gently to stop her. “Hold on now,” She said calmly, “no need for you to get in the middle of this, they’ll burn themselves out soon enou-”

Kyrie looked Trish dead in the eye, raised a single eyebrow, and waited.

Trish blinked in surprise before letting go of Kyrie and putting her hands up in mock surrender. “Alright then, go save your boyfriend.”

Kyrie nodded and opened the door, stepping briskly passed the threshold.

(She didn’t catch Nico whispering, “I keep forgetting how scary she can be.” as she walked away. She didn’t catch Morrison chuckling or Trish shrugging either.)

The first thing she saw as she walked in was the burning wreckage of the motorcycle Nero had been tinkering with for the past six weeks embedded in a nearby wall. The second thing she saw was her boyfriend grabbing Lady from behind to hold her back from trying to wring Dante’s neck, who was standing a few feet away and sticking his tongue out at the raging hunter.

“White haired pain in the neck!”

“Why don’t you admit you’re just jealous of my fashion sense?”

“Why don’t you shut it before she shoots you with the rocket launcher again!?”

She cupped her hands over her mouth and took a deep breath. “HEY!”

The trio froze in place and whipped their heads to look at her, expressions suddenly sheepish.

“I heard there was an argument about a hat?”

Dante blinked, before a mad grin bloomed on his features, “Indeed there is.”

Nero’s eyes bugged out and he glared at Dante, still holding Lady back. “Oh no don’t you drag here into this nonsense!”

“She is the perfect person to settle this once and for all!” Dante shot back, walking calmly towards Kyrie, who was crossing her arms and looking a little tired already. “She’s a neutral party, plus the only person here with a sense of style.”

Kyrie shook her head, though a little smile was pulling at the sides of her mouth, since the whole incident at Fortuna, the veteran devil hunter had never ceased to surprise her with his antics, but this was on another level all together.

“Well howdy there little lady.”

A groan of supreme displeasure rose from Lady, “oh God it just keeps getting worse.”

“Me and my companion over yonder are havin’ a dispute over fashion and style.” He continued, his drawl ever present and even posing like a cowboy, on hand on the brim of his hat and the other on his hip. “I think this here hat makes me look mighty stylin’, while Lady over there-”

“Thinks that hat and the accent you put on with it is a raging garbage fire.”

“-Well yeah, and we’ve been tryin’ to settle this for a while now, and all our other friends are refusing to comment.”

“They like watching us squabble you mean.”

“Well yeah obviously.” Dante said easily, losing the accent for a moment, “I know that, why do think they’ve been outside that door listening in on us this whole time?”

The sounds of people scrambling came from behind said door, along with a muffled curse.

“Assholes!”

“Like you wouldn’t do the same.” Dante laughed, before turning back to Kyrie, who has been holding back her own laughter, and turning the drawl back on, “So, I reckon that you, being the most honest and straightforward of our bunch, you’d be able to settle this once and for all.”

“Dante…” Lady started this again, this time sounds more than a little tired, “please don’t drag her into this, this is just a stupid joke-”

“Look,” Dante intoned diplomatically, “if Kyrie says something she means it, if she says the hat doesn’t suit me, I drop it and the accent, fair?”

Lady grumbled for a moment before throwing her hands up in surrender, “Fine, so long as this idiocy stops already.” She then looked down at Nero, who was still holding her back by the waist, “…and kid?”

“Yeah?”

“If you don’t want to see how bulletproof you are compared to Dante, you will put me down.”

He quickly put her on her feet and took a good 5 five steps back with his hands up.

“So, in your honest opinion Kyrie, how do I look?”

Kyrie looked at Dante, very closely, taking in his smug grin, confident posture, and the laughter in his eyes as he tried to hold back from showing how much he was enjoying himself in this farce.

She peered behind him to look at Nero a bit helplessly, and he could only offer a shrug in reply as he mouthed a ‘sorry’. She looked back at Dante with a curious expression, at a loss.

Suddenly his expression softened, “you don’t have to get involved if you don’t want to.” He grin easily and took a step back, “no pressure, it’s just a little joke.”

Kyrie caught something as he stepped back, a look in his eye that she recognized.

“Dante…why do you want to be a cowboy anyway?”

Dante looked incredulous for a moment, before scoffing. “Oh come on, I can’t be the only one who wanted to be a cowboy when they were a kid.”

Lady raised an eyebrow at him, “Seriously Dante?”

“Yeah seriously,” Dante said with a laugh tinged with nostalgia, “when I was a kid I used to watch all these movies about desperadoes riding into the sunset, firing six shooters, and leaning on bar stools, looking cool without even trying.” He laughed again, “hell, especially Clint Eastwood, I must have watched The Good The Bad and The Ugly like a dozen times with my-”

He stopped dead, voice catching in his throat as something dark passed in his eyes. Lady and Nero gaped at him, Lady in particular looking at a loss for words as what he didn’t say start to sink in.

Kyrie felt something clench in her chest, but said nothing, waiting for him to continue.

Instead he sighed and took the hat off with a dismissive chuckle, “nah, nevermind, like I said.” He put the hat on Kyrie’s head, “just a dumb joke that I took a bit too far.”

“Dante…”

“Could you put that in the weapon storage?” Dante called out easily as he stepped away from her, “if I need it I’ll know where to find it.” He looked at the mess he and Lady made of the workshop and sucked in a breath through his teeth, “yikes, we really did a number on this place huh?” He looked at Nero with a small grin, “sorry ‘bout that kid.”

Nero shook his head and scowled lightly, “if you’re so sorry you can help clean up.” He pointed at Lady, “and you too!”

“Gotcha.”

Kyrie felt her chest sink at the look of Dante, grinning and joking but in a subdued way, like he was hiding something.

She knew what he was hiding of course, they all knew, but discussing such things in Devil May Cry simply Did Not Happen. If she left it be he would back to his old self in a few days and never bring it up again, never put the hat on again either, no matter how happy it made him.

She grabbed the hat off her head and started stepping towards him with purpose, tugging on his coat so he would look at her.

Before he could even ask her what she wanted, she put the hat back on his head.

“Huh?”

“I think this makes you look very handsome, Dante.”

She smiled warmly at him as he blinked down in surprise, reaching a hand up to rub the brim of the hat, “R-really?”

She nodded easily, smile still lighting up her features.

Dante blinked a few more times before his usual grin lit up, “Well I’ll be darned-”

“Although,” Kyrie said again, grabbing the hat off his head before he could react and put it back on her head, “the accent is a bit much.”

Dante blinked again at her, before he bent over in laughter and looked at Lady, “See? At least someone has some fashion sense around here?”

Lady rolled her eyes and shook her head, “yeah, but she also has some common sense.”

Dante laughed again and shook his head, grinning at her, “Sorry about busting your chops all day, couldn’t help myself.”

Lady punched him on the shoulder, “yeah yeah, and I’m sorry for shooting you with a rocket.”

“Twice.”

“Alright twice ya big baby.”

Nero walked over to Kyrie and hugged her while the other two bickered lightly as they cleaned up, kissing her softly, “You are a blessing, you know that right?”

Kyrie laughed as she blushed from her boyfriend’s attention, “Just keeping the peace.”

—-

Kyrie walked into the weapon storage with the hat in hand (she was still having trouble wrapping her head around the idea that a hat could be a weapon), and closed the door behind her, looking for a place to put it where it wouldn’t be too out of the way to be hidden.

She walked a few steps in, admiring a few of the pieces already on shelves and hanging off hooks on the walls, eventually finding a free space on a shelf where she could put the hat.

Along with a mirror.

Kyrie looked at it for a moment, seeing it was just an ordinary mirror (Dante probably kept it in there to check out his looks), and looked at the hat in her hands.

She looked left.

Right.

Back at the hat.

Slowly, she faced the mirror, and put the hat on, admiring the visage in her reflection.

Making a finger gun gesture, she pointed at the glass with a self indulgent grin. “Bang.” After a moment, she used both hands and affected a slight southern drawl, “Reach for the sky.”

With a giggle she took the hat off and put it on the shelf and made for the exit with a happy spring in her step.

As soon as she closed the door behind her, she noticed the whole of Devil May Cry looking at her with very amused smiles.

Kyrie blushed and chuckled nervously.

“Oh sure,” Dante grumbled from somewhere in the back, “it’s cute when she does it.”

sevi007:

rex101111:

sevi007:

rex101111:

sevi007:

Why did
nobody tell me that Dante gets a literal cowboy
hat as his weapon in DMC 5, this is incredibly
important!

… Mainly
because I headcanon since DMC 4 that Dante likes cowboys (look at his outfit in
that game) and was especially enthusiastic about them when he was still a kid
(in that “Mum I’m gonna be a cowboy when
I grow up!” kind of you, you know) and that he would be absolutely delighted
to have a real cowboy hat.

If Dante
doesn’t say at least one dumb cowboy pun while having the weapon equipped,
like, a “yeehaw” or “steady on!” or “there’s only space for one of us in this city” or something, I’m
gonna sue.

Also now
Capcom needs to give us an extra skin for Dante so you can switch into his DMC
4 outfit and equip the cowboy hat on top of it, just to complete the damn look.

Dante gets so into it he challenges Lady to a duel, “Pistols at noon! You and me cowpoke!”

Lady stares at him without a word for a whole two minutes.

And then she shoots him in the head.

And then she walks over to him, still grumbling about how much that stings, and yanks the damn hat off of his head and starts stomping on it despite his protests.

She shoots it a couple of times too for good measure.

Dante picks up the remains of his poor, abused, hat, cut down in the prime of it’s life, “Why?”

Lady stares him dead in the face, expression stone still, “I made a vow to destroy evil.”

Silence.

“Also, you’re annoying enough without having an excuse to talk with that godawful western accent.”

He waits, (clearly not pouting, what do you mean, he is a grown man, he does not pout, thank you very much) until Lady seems to be out of earshot, before he leans over to Nico.

The young woman is barely holding in the loud laughter threatening to spill, but manages an inquiring noise as she catches his gaze.

“Do you think you can fix this up?”

A smothered sound, a giggle, then a cleared throat before she becomes stern again. “Count on me, cowboy!”

Dante’s grin goes from ear to ear as he puts on his best (worst) drawl. “Don’t know what I would do without ya, lassie!”

Nico snorts, a loud, delighted noise. “Oh my god, you’re worse than grandma told me.”

“That a good thing?”

“The best. Now give me that mistreated thingy, I’m gonna make it better than it ever was.”

“Off you go,” Dante pauses, considers, “Make it more durable, perhaps?”

“Demon-durable or Lady-durable?”

“Both. Mostly the later.”

Lady has never felt such utter and complete betrayal in her entire life from another human being (except the obvious, of course) as she starred at the offending headwear, patched up and reinforced with carbon fiber of all things.

Dante saunters over, thumbs in the waist of his pants and a tooth pick in his mouth-oh for the love of god are those spurs on his shoes–and grins so smugly she is tempted to shot him in the teeth on principal alone.

“Well howdy there pardner.” His grin grows when one of Lady’s eyes twitches. “Fancy seeing you around these parts.” He pointed up to his hat. “I see you eyeballin’ my hat, purdy ain’t it?”

“Dante for the love of God that’s a fucking trucker accent-”

“Now I know you must be hankerin’ to bust it up like before,” He continued, ignoring her, “but you should know-”

Lady whipped out one of her machine guns, and unloaded the entire magazine directly into that vile piece of leather and demonic metal.

Damn thing didn’t even flinch.

“-My associate here gave it an upgrade.” He pointed to Nico, who was standing by his side this whole time, nearly bent over in held back laughter.

“Bullet proof hat!” She exclaimed at Lady, eyes shining with excitement, “I love working with you guys I never would have thought of this one.”

“You,” Lady started, eyes digging through Nico as well as any bullet, “are a traitor to the whole of humanity.”

“Oh relax.” Nico waved her off with little care. “Just let the man have his dumb fun, besides I made this thing 100% Lady-proof, there ain’t a damn thing you can do to it to damage or destroy it.”

Lady raised an eyebrow, holstered her machine gun, and reached back to put a hand on Kalina Ann.

“…Except that maybe.”

Dante whipped his head to Nico, “You forgot about the damn rocket launcher!?”

“She has like twenty different guns!” Nico protested, panic seeping out of her voice. “How do you expect me to keep track!?”

“Nico.” Lady intoned mildly, aiming the large barrel of her prized weapon directly at Dante’s face. “Take ten steps back.”

Nico took one look at the bazooka, than another look at Dante, switching between the two a few more times before turning on her heel and legging it.

“Later partner!”

“Lady was right! You ARE a traitor!”

A soft click of a trigger reached Dante’s sensitive ears.

“Oh dagnabbit.”

A massive explosion rocked the immediate area, sending plums of smoke and fire into the air along with a few chunks of concrete, charred black from the blast.

Lady put Kalina Ann back on the strap on her back, crossed her arms, and nodded her head in satisfaction, “The evil is defeated.” She yelled into the smoke cloud where Dante was standing, probably grumbling about his lost hat. “Let that be a lesson to you! You should always know when to let a joke die.”

She turned away to get to the nearest bar in order to drink the memory of this nonsense out of her head as soon as possible…when she heard a few surprised peals of laughter.

“Well, waddya know!” Dante stepped out of the smoke cloud, outfit scorched and ruined, with more than a few wounds rapidly healing on his skin…

And the hat in his hand, utterly unscathed.

“She really did make it Lady-proof!”

Lady’s eye twitched again as she gaped at the utter ridiculousness of what she was looking at, before she growled and walked away with an angry stomp.

“Aww, what’s the matter? Giving up?”

“I’m getting Trish!”

“Woah nelly….”

“… so I might have pissed her off a little bit
with that and what do you reckon are the chances that she’s going to shoot me
if the hat doesn’t get destroyed in that one?”

Keep reading

Nero had long since come to the perfectly reasonable conclusion that the crew of Devil May Cry were completely out of their minds.

From Dante’s constant disregard of his safety, Lady’s overly sensitive trigger finger (which was especially dangerous when she brought out the damn canon strapped to her back), and Trish…well, being Trish, there was no shortage of reasons to thing the gang were long overdue for a few appointments with a shrink.

This…was something else though. He stared down at the hat in his hands. A hat that was given…alright less given and more slammed into his hand with little warning while he was working, by an especially angry looking Lady.

It seemed…well, it was a cowboy hat, with a long brim that curved upwards near the end, a leather band surrounding the center along with a few red gemstones that glowed with demonic power.

So, not the strangest thing Nero had ever held in his hand, but the way Lady was glaring down at it you’d think it was the spawn of the deepest pit of hell.

“…hello-?”

“Destroy it.”

“Huh?”

Just then Dante burst into the workshop (scattering the tools Nero had spent an entire hour cleaning up goddamnit old man!) with a look of unrestrained panic, “Kid! Don’t let her lies drag you to cruelty!”

“…what.”

“Quiet Dante!” Lady whirled on the older half demon, jabbing a finger in his chest, “This has gone on long enough!” She pointed at the hat still sitting serenely in Nero’s metal hand, “This thing has got to go!”

….were they seriously having an argument over a damn hat.

“Just because you can’t appreciate the style-”

“I saw cockroaches with more style than that tourist trap reject!”

This is why his work was interrupted so rudely? He was being subjected to all this drama because of a damn hat?

“You kidding!? That’s rich coming from a chick who rode a motorcycle in a tartan skirt and thigh high boots!”

“That thing is bad enough sitting on a coat hanger! But you put it on and, impossible as it may sound, you turn into an even bigger pain in the ass!”

“GUYS!” Nero yelled out, rubbing his temple with his free hand to try and stop the headache that rose into his head, “Are you serious?” He waved the hat around in exasperation, “What’s all this for?”

The two looked at eachother for a moment, Lady with an impatient scowl and Dante with a challenging raise of an eyebrow, before turning to the younger man and absolutely unloading on him with silly complaint after ridiculous justification.

By the time they were done Nero was ready to grab the heavy piece of weaponry he was working on and using it to get them to calm the hell down but tried to control himself.

“Okay…” He said, through his teeth, hand still rubbing his forehead, “So, let me get this straight, Dante got a cowboy hat and got it into his head he has to use a really lame accent with it-”

“I think you mean authentic accent-”

“-Lady shot it to hell so Dante somehow convinced Nico to patch it up and make it stronger-”

“-a traitor, a traitor and a fool-”

“-making it strong enough to withstand bullets and a blast from a freaking rocket launcher-”

“-that there spooked me right good it did let me tell ya-”

“You’re not even wearing the damn thing what is wrong with you-!?”

“And Trish, for some reason, doesn’t think she can destroy it either.” Nero finished, his eye twitching with ever interruption from the other two, looking at the hat that started all this with disdain and general annoyance, “And now you want me to destroy this ugly thing, right?”

“It ain’t ugly-”

“Yes it is! C’mon Nero you gotta be on my side on this one!” She pointed at Dante, “Doesn’t this guy annoy us enough without this extra ammo!?”

“Don’t appeal to his emotions!” Dante made a motion towards Nero with a hand, “The kid’s smart, I’m sure he can see proper solution to all this,” He sent a charming smile to Nero, complete with gleaming teeth (all it accomplished was make Nero’s headache worse), “Right kid? What do you think about all this?”

Nero looked at Dante, gleaming smile still stretching his face, and then at Lady, her face sending off an endless amount of threats of horrible and slow death (both towards the demon hunter and his hat), and sighed.

“I think that the both of you are crazy and that this is, bar none, the most idiotic situation I have ever found myself in.”

Behind the door, Morrison, Trish and Nico had to try their hardest not to burst out laughing.