Sort of missing-scenes. Three possible ways Diamond’s attack on Rufus’ office might have gone, two possible explanations for the look in Rufus’ eyes, one possible explanation for Jenova exposure. (And a partridge in a pear tree~. Or maybe that should be a president in a penthouse…).
“If you want to commit suicide, sir, I’m afraid we’re going to need advance notification.”
Rufus gives Reno an assignment; or tries to. Written because I don’t, for an instant, believe Reno doesn’t take his job seriously.
Rufus looked like he wanted to run a hand through his hair, except it would mess up his styling. “Goddammit, Reno, when you think it’s a bad plan, can’t you just say so?”
Reno talks about Rufus a little to Tifa and Cloud.
“I’m not saying he’s nice, Tifa. But the old guy… he was a slime. Rufus-shachou is an ice cold bastard, but he’s honest about it. Always.”
Young Zack has a tough day; so does Sephiroth. Sex ensues.
“I just wanted to be around someone I could talk to. Who would understand.” A grin suddenly flashed over his face. “And who could sit on me if I lost the argument with my gonads.”
After the first trip to the Forgotten City, Aerith comes to reassure Tifa and ask a favor.
Tifa reached out and felt her fingers brush through a soft, wavy wing of hair, and lost it completely. The tears rushed back and hit her in the chest, and her knees buckled, and she found herself curled up again pressing a fistful of Aerith’s skirt to her cheek as she cried.
After calling up the Lifestream, Aerith recovers and Zack teases.
“How… can I be out of breath… if I haven’t got a body!” she panted. “This is so unfair.”
What if Sephiroth had been a little quicker on the uptake during the first encounter at the Northern Crater, and kept Cloud?
This copy was definitely not like all the others.
Reno distracts a tense Rufus, as, really, only Reno can.
Reno liked danger and dangerous things; he’d long ago figured out what he stayed in the Turks for.
A bit after game-end, Cloud broods over Zack’s sword and gets a visitor.
“Cloud, you idiot, you were sicker with transition than anyone else I’ve ever seen, and by the time you could put two words together in a row all the physical evidence and memories you had pointed to you being me. Why should I be mad at you about that?”
After Advent Children, Tifa visits the church and finds an unexpected Zack.
“I remember.” She closed the last few steps between them, eyes fixed on him. He looked so real, so there, that her hand lifted to touch and make sure. The amusement in his eyes brought her back to herself before she quite groped a stranger (mostly stranger), and she pulled her hand back quickly.
Zack and Aerith meet.
She tipped her head. That couldn’t have been what it sounded like. This guy was so obviously a SOLDIER, enhanced strength and reflexes and everything. He couldn’t possibly be ticklish enough to squeak.
An exercise in rewriting canon, in cooperation with Kizu. Atobe does it himself.
Kizu’s part of this project:
The first true drabble I ever wrote. For Athena, in a drabble exchange.
Possible origin of Rikkai’s “law”, and what it means to different people.
“We can’t lose.” That surety sings through him, like the blood through his muscles; he feels it.
Setting, background, titles.
A new, young samurai arrives at the central castle of the Uesugi clan.
Echizen Ryouma had been in Kasugayama for a week, and one of Uesugi’s warriors for three and a half days, before he ran into trouble.
The young women of the castle sneak a look at the new warriors.
“Oh, oh, over here! Come here, Sakuno, you can see the new warriors from here!”
Echizen cleans his sword and thinks about his new place.
Ryouma sat in his rooms in the middle town, with his sword over his knees, cleaning it. His hands moved automatically, years and years of familiarity guiding them while his eyes rested on the blade without seeing it.
Echizen escorts Sakuno and deals with a little trouble. Other sorts of trouble, he misses completely.
Or, she admitted to herself with a silent sigh, maybe he hadn’t done it for her at all. He was a samurai, after all; she was young, but she knew how the men of her own class could be about fights and challenges.
Tezuka watches his newest warrior and wonders about him.
Kaga would be a good place to see Echizen’s real mettle. Kunimitsu’s mouth tightened.
Echizen’s form was beautiful. Deadly.
And wrong.
Echizen enters his first battle as a samurai of Uesugi, against the forces of Kaga under Tachibana.
They would probably have been fine if Echizen’s opponent hadn’t seen himself about to be caught between the two of them and panicked. Momo reacted automatically to the man’s desperate, circling slash.
So did Echizen.
Tachibana’s officers renew their bonds in the aftermath of their battle with Uesugi.
Akira hovered beside his friend as Shinji flexed his arm. He wanted to go on to recheck the rest of their injured, but he was wary of the thoughtful expression on Shinji’s face.
Tezuka tries to break through to Echizen.
Ryouma knelt where he was, staring up at the General. He could feel the deadly thin line of Tezuka-dono’s sword against his throat. It didn’t move when the General spoke.
Fuji decides to try his hand against Echizen. It provokes a lot of thought.
Shuusuke felt a touch of excitement flicker along his nerves as they moved out into the open, feet scuffing up tiny puffs of dust to mark where they set themselves. Echizen was good. Not good enough to make Shuusuke lose, but perhaps…
Al wakes up, restored. Not all the news is good, though.
He and Nii-san were going to have to come up with whole new equations to talk about what had happened to him and probably some new technical vocabulary too. The thought steadied him, and he smiled.
Back with his teacher again, Al takes up his studies; this time, though, he already knows some things won’t work.
He dreamed of the color, sometimes, nights when he woke up sweating and threw open the window just to look up at the sky and know the whole world wasn’t red.
Watanuki’s and Doumeki’s first kiss—the way you know it would really happen.
Kimihiro’s thoughts jumbled around inside his head, and one that didn’t usually get loose made it to the surface. Doumeki always waited, like this.
Waited on Kimihiro’s choices.
Daisuke thinks Satoshi should get a little more enjoyment out of life.
Satoshi-kun was silent for a moment, and Daisuke tried not to squirm under his level gaze. At last Satoshi-kun looked back down at the food and extracted a piece of tamagoyaki to chew, carefully and without any change of expression Daisuke could see. He watched hopefully anyway.
D opens the shop on his own for the first time.
One of the cockatoos nibbled on his ear. “Your feathers will get ragged if you preen them any more,” she told him, winding her arms around his shoulders.
Leon manages to catch up with D—in Shinjuku. Contretemps ensue.
D felt that he should have expected this. Orcot had gotten to more than one city ahead of him, and he’d been here in Shinjuku for months. Besides, life had probably been going too smoothly.
If humans can’t stay with the shop, then…
No one gave him as much trouble as the dogs.
Yui tries to process what happened to her. Tetsuya is an exceedingly nice guy.
“At least that’s what all the stories about gods say. When someone tries to do something at the wrong place or time it just twists.”
Yui has to deal with some changes in what she wants out of life.
“I don’t have to be a god,” she whispered, finally, “to not be a useless little kitten.”
A quiet moment between Ryuuki and Seiran, balancing between truth and pretending.
“Let me play pretend? Just for a little bit?” Ryuuki begged, and Seiran’s resistance fell all in a heap.
A might-have-been set during Ep. 15, as Shuuei takes a drunk Kouyuu home.
Shuuei made a note to himself to remember that drink unhinged Kouyuu’s knees as well as his tongue.
Shuuei has an encounter with Seiran, one evening and comes away with a new appreciation of the Emperor he has.
The weight of Shuuei’s armor pressed over his shoulders, and it still felt like he was being stripped naked. And not in a pleasant way.
The point of divergence from canon, when Seien chooses blood over peace.
It was good, if a little strange, still, to sit in the sun, warm and safe with nothing to worry about.
The Great Secret is Revealed!
“Seiran,” Shouka-sama greeted him with a smile. “Isn’t it a lovely evening?”
“Yes,” Seien said quietly, “but I have something I have to tell you. I’m afraid…” he looked aside for a moment, “it isn’t as lovely.”
Shouka and Seien talk, some secrets are revealed, and Seien gets a shock.
Surely someone that deadly should show it, the way it showed in his brothers’ eyes, or in Meishou’s smile.
Seien sneeks a look in on Ryuuki and gets a lesson from Shouka into the bargain.
The Archives were the only place he dared try to catch a glimpse of his brother.
Shoukun and Seien talk about freedom, and she gathers a promise from him.
She sighed. “My little Seiran.” Very quietly she added, “If the palace will be such a cage to you, I will be sad to see you walk back in and pick up your chains again.”
Civil war erupts, and Seien returns.
There were screams in the roar of voices, now, and Shuurei flinched from the sound, drawing closer against Seiran, looking up at them both with wide eyes. “Is it…” she had to stop and swallow, “is it really going to be all right?”
Seien is re-introduced to the court. Familes are reintroduced to each other.
Seien’s jaw tightened, but he did stand and turn to face the Court. The roar that greeted Shou-taishi’s gesture of acclaim was distant in his ears; it reminded him of the sound of the riots, a year and a half ago.
Seien works, sometimes reluctantly, at fitting himself back into the courts. So do some other people.
Being heir seemed to Seien to be one trouble after another, but there were occasional good points.
Shuuei and Kouyuu pass the Exams and meet the princes.
“Why would you want to get rid of your best friend, the one who’s always ready to help you out?” Shuuei asked, innocently. “Or help you back to where you were trying to go, anyway…”
Shuurei likes her life but wants it to be something more.
“Shuurei?” Seiran came to stand beside her, leaving his own scrolls. “Is anything wrong?”
She mustered a smile for him; Seiran always worried so much when she was upset. “No, it’s all right. I was just…” her voice wavered a little, despite everything she could do, “wishing I could be an official and do something good with all this.”
Shuuei transfers, Kouyuu broods, Ryuuki gets a new friend.
“I’m transferring.” Shuuei leaned back and looked out the window of Kouyuu’s office. “I think I’ll be more suited to the military.”
And Koku-daishougun had caught him practicing with Sou-taifu and pounced on him like a wolf on tasty prey, and he still wasn’t positive that Sou-taifu hadn’t set the whole thing up. But he wasn’t saying that part; it would be bad for his image.
Seien is learning how to deal with the ministers.
Seien sighed; some days he felt more like a nursemaid than any kind of ruler, even one in training. Keeping the ministers away from each other’s throats sometimes reminded him quite a lot of trying to keep a five-year-old Shuurei from dunking herself in the fish pond.
Shuuei is selected as Prince Seien’s bodyguard, and the two get acquainted.
Shuuei’s lips quirked. “Shou-taishi was certainly right that you don’t much need anyone else’s sword to guard you from attackers,” he admitted. “But I hope, my prince, that you will allow me to guard you from this.” His gesture took in their match just finished, the blood that had come very close to being spilled.
Shuuei writes a letter to his family about what he’s just discovered.
My Dear Most Honored and Respected Elder Brothers Who Almost Got Me Killed,
