Splintered Machinations - Pts One & Two
splintered machinations - pts one & two
Mer!Dabi x fem!Princess!Reader (SFW)
Hi guys! I've never done anything for MerMay before--I've never written any mer!characters/content before--but @meliapis graduated, I wanted to write something for her, and she mentioned mer!dabi...so, I just had to write a (not so) little something. This is still ongoing and will be updated periodically throughout May, but this is just a fun little idea I got from her and I wanted to share it as a graduation gift! Go check out her MerMay requests, too! <3
Synopsis: Boarding a ship per your father's orders, you begin the voyage across the deep blue sea toward Haliware Island. Despite the easy sailing the first few days, it seems the last isn't going to be the smoothest sailing.
Warnings: descriptions of spooky sea creatures in the deep ocean, descriptions of drowning, a hint of sailor!hawks, story will also contain: lots of future nsfw content, sexual tension, mer!dabi being a teasing & dirty talking kinda rogue, courting, idk what to call it but it kinda has regency era vibes but in a fantasy setting and not as stuffy, political stuff/politics between nations, a bit of reader x OC (but it's for the plot, I promise), and more (tbd as I write)
Word Count: 4.2k
A/N: This is my first time writing mer!stuff. I hope y'all like it! This is for you, @meliapis!!
There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. No wind. No birds. Just sun. Beautiful, warm, wonderful sun. A soft creaking came as the boat beneath you gently bobbed; the nails holding it together stayed firm amongst the calm waters. One more day.
You’d be at the castle in one day.
Your dress fluttered in an unmistakable breeze as the crew maneuvered around you. Ropes were pulled, sails were checked, a wheel was steered. Crates were secured firm to the deck, a thick cannon had its wheels stopped so it pointed out at sea regardless of the waves' strength, and songs were sung around bottles of liquor.
“Your Highness,” a smooth voice said, a head almost blocking the sun. “Care to join us?”
The blond, with cheeks that always seemed to burn and gain freckles than ever tan, peered down at you with a cheery smile. He wiggled a mug of beer that sloshed at the brim, his playfully slurred words fell across the empty span of where you sat. Two protective guards stood behind you. As if you were some treasure meant to be protected, not cargo.
“I’d prefer to have my wits about me when at the mercy of the ocean,” you cooed, pushing up to your forearms. “You should know that, Keigo.”
“Mhm.” He raised his glass and glanced back at the group chugging down theirs below him. “But, surely, you ought to have a little fun before we arrive.”
Behind you, the guards shifted. A warning to him. His sharp golden eyes quickly stared back at them. A shhhh came as a sword was pulled partially out of a sheath, but Keigo remained. His sharp canines showed in his smile.
“Hence why I decided to look for shapes in a cloudless sky.”
You motioned up, but your point went unproven. A few puffy white clouds crept onto the scene. One looked like a barrel from a shootout, the cloud breaking the wood as bullets shot through the sky; another resembled your castle back home. Tall peaks, overlapping points with red and white flags attached, a door that often stayed closed until ceremonies.
Keigo’s eyes narrowed at the sky.
“Well, Your Highness,” he said with a teasing bow. His slender frame curved, his oversized white shirt dropped down to expose his chest, and the tight fit of his brown pants stretched. “Enjoy the show, then.”
You threw up a sarcastic wave before sinking back down. The flash of skin was nothing new on the ship—the crew walked around only caring if their skin burned beyond repair. And as a few more clouds joined the castle in the sky, even more shirts were opened while beer was spilled, humidity rose, and laughter shot across the open air.
Keigo raised his glass when your eyes danced from the sky to the group. Some sat on barrels, others on the edge of the ship, more on the floor. The clinking glasses sounded like the chains around your wrists. The chortle was met with gruffs behind you. Under the breath comments idiots and pigs. Their royal breastplates had refused to be removed unless it was underneath the hottest suns.
Breakfast could’ve been cooked on them—sprays of water sizzling as they were propped up on the side of the boat.
“I rather think you two are,” you murmured, glancing back at the two soldiers. “They’re drinking while you think I’m somehow going to jump ship in the middle of the ocean.” They stared daggers at you like always. “What? Where am I going to go?”
You shoved up despite the eyes from the crew turning your way. A playful hint joined your tone as you spun, shade casting itself across the desk. The soldiers, sunburnt and peeling, glowered and tightened their grips on their swords. Just like the concept of you jumping ship, there wasn’t a chance they’d raise a blade to you. You were precious cargo. No harm could come to you before you got to the castle. They simply just had to make sure you got to the castle.
“We’re still a day out; there’s nothing here.”
You ignored the grumbled version of your name and their stiff movement toward you as you trotted to the edge. Carefully yet swiftly, you hopped up on the thick edge and threw your arms out, the blue ocean sloshing against the boat just behind you. A gust of wind caught your thin dress, throwing the thin skirt up. Despite the decorum—or lack thereof—on the ship, all eyes were glued to the glimpse of your legs.
“Get down,” one of the soldiers—Hyatt—said. His hand tightened on his blade. “Now, princess.”
You bowed slightly with a smile that made a few of the crew holler and laugh. More glasses clinked together, and more chattering crawled across the dark deck. The loud thump of your feet hitting the thick wood made Hyatt and Thorne–the other soldier–both relax slightly. But, still, their hands remained on their blades.
“Have you always been so defiant?” Thorne grumbled to himself as he shifted, peering out over the ocean.
“Yes,” Hyatt muttered softly.
“No,” you corrected, walking over and looking over the bow. A soft sigh snuck out at the sight. The vast ocean was a rich, dark, deep blue. Bluer than you’d seen during the past three days. “But waking up and being told I’m going on an involuntary trip tends to make the demure vanish.” A soft sigh snuck out as you closed your eyes and took in the salty air. “The sea is beautiful, though.”
Wait.
Something caught in your chest as you cracked your eyes open. The low rumble crawled up the back of your neck. It seemed to make the boat shake, yet the water remained undisturbed. The dark water turned into an unknown shadow beneath you—what creatures swam below made your hair stand on the back of your neck—but you were safe on board.
Another low rumble.
The clinking of glasses got a little louder and laughter grew heavier.
“Hey, Princess, get away from the edge,” Hyatt said behind you, but your eyes remained down on the ocean.
You couldn’t normally see the bottom the far out, but this felt different. Maybe there was no bottom. Maybe the rich dark blue found itself attached to a creature ten times the size of the ship. In moments, it would open its eyes and blink up at you, encompassing the whole expanse of the color. One flip of its tail would split the boat into two. Or maybe thousands of splintered pieces.
Your heart thumped faster.
“Princess,” Thorne tried.
The ocean remained undisturbed as something wet splattered against your skin. No. Not undisturbed. By living creatures, yes. There weren’t any eyes blinking back at you or massive jaws unhinging to swallow the ship whole. No dangerous tentacles to rip you to shreds or even carnivorous fish aiming to nip at your legs.
But there were waves. White-capped waves.
You made the mistake of shooting your eyes upward. Dark clouds had gathered into a dangerous conglomeration. Where they’d come from remained unknown, and that bright sky felt permanently out of sight. The sudden movement of your head, accompanied with a strong wave below, knocked you backward. Even Thorne and Hyatt lost their sea legs, staggering away from the boat’s side and trying to regain their stances. Hyatt, still, called for you, his hand finally leaving his sword.
Air was thrown from you as your back collided with the floor. There was that low rumble again—it crawled across the sky like a serpent waiting to strike. Lightning flashed bright in the sudden darkness. Gone was the sun, and pouring, pelting, painful rain swallowed everything. The sound became too loud to bear while blinking up at the sky, and as Hyatt and Thorne loudly cursed, it went unheard.
It all went unheard, even when they stepped toward you and yelled at you.
But you couldn’t move. The way the boat jerked, the thought of it falling apart at its seams came far too easily, and those creatures that could be lurking below would devour you the second you were overboard. Their sharp teeth would sink easily through your skin and tear you apart without hesitation.
“Princess,” a familiar voice whispered. It drew you from your sudden choke-hold in your throats while a hand went to your wrist and hoisted you up. “We need to get you inside.”
Keigo’s gold eyes blinked down at you, his smile unwavering even as yours twisted in fear. You nodded.
“Move carefully and quickly,” he said loud enough for you to hear, both hands going to your waist. In otherwise less life-endangering scenarios, Keigo would’ve been reprimanded for even considering touching you, let alone on your waist. A sailor putting his hands on the Princess? Blasphemous. Yet you leaned into him as he balanced you and guided you down the stairs. All you had to do was get inside the Captain’s quarters, then you’d be safe. You both knew that. “Keep going, Princess. We’re almost there.”
But almost there wasn’t a simple turn around a corner and through a sturdy door. Multiple steps descended onto the deck as water gathered upon everything. It slickened the boards that normally kept you steady; it weighed your dress down and made it cling to your legs; it pushed a ringing in your ears that sounded so high-pitched, it hurt.
Your eyes went overboard as the ringing got worse. It was unwise to never heed a sailor’s warning. Just as it was unwise to never heed any warning from anyone so well-trained, experienced, and skilled in their field. You wouldn’t tell a world-renowned chef how to cook. You wouldn’t ignore a soldier’s careful heed before going out on the battlefield. You certainly wouldn’t ignore the stories told around the crew that the ocean was as beautiful as it was untrusting. It could be a person’s life and so obviously their death. Whether the fins and tentacles they saw after days of travel were real, it was always smarter to not take the chance.
So when Keigo braced you against his chest as the ship jolted, you leaned into him more. When he muttered to hold still for the next few seconds, you did. And when he told you to go, you trusted him. His gut.
But he was still only a man. One without the blessing of foresight.
The wave hit the boat harder than the others while a gust of wind knocked you back as if you were nothing more than a piece of paper. A slippery board caused your demise as Keigo’s grip struggled on your wet skin. They skated over you, his short nails barely scraping, until he threw his other hand out for you. Desperation clawed at him the way it did you, but his fingers only got a grasp on your dress. And that silky material was hell in his grip–slippery and betraying without a moment’s thought.
There was fear and panic in those golden eyes as the thick banister meant to keep you safe dug into your back. The unkempt splinters snagged on your clothing as the world went upside down, and there was no ground beneath your feet.
Was the rain coming from the ocean or the sky? Which dark sea was which?
It felt like falling onto the floor when Keigo became a small speck on the boat. The air was knocked from your lungs so ineloquently, and you barely managed a gasp before you knew what was coming next.
Darkness.
Soaking wet, impenetrable darkness.
A sharp pain caught your back, then your arms, down into your legs. Cold. It was cold. Perhaps shock? Swim. You felt yourself sink deeper as you blinked through the salty water. The ache got worse, your body threatened to stop, and farther away the boat got. Swim, (Y/N). The surface distorted the image as you tried to see if anyone would save you, but alas—you couldn’t even get yourself back up to the surface.
A burst of bubbles caught your attention to the right, heart rate spiking. You blinked into the abyss looking for those massive eyes, the tentacles, the carnivorous predators. Something touched your foot beneath you, and you screamed, the sound lost a mere inch in front of you.
Another splash of bubbles got you as you threw your arms up, kicking your feet and praying what’d touched you had been your imagination. Please. A silent plea that burned your lungs. I don’t want to die. Although, it’d be fitting, wouldn’t it? You clawed at the water until your nails would’ve bled. You kicked until the current simply laughed in your face. A harsh swirl that tore you further down like an anchor chained to your ankle.
Please. If your eyes weren’t burning from the salt water, you were sure you were crying. I don’t want to die. I don’t.
A gulp of water entered your mouth when you begged for oxygen. The fear skyrocketed as a barrel fell into the sea, sinking just low enough to get caught in the edge of the current. It smacked against your arms as you tried to reach for it, but as it bounced back up, you were shoved down. Another breath of water sent death knocking on your door.
Colder. The water got colder.
Your body stopped moving as you replayed the only pivotal moment that mattered, your father’s words pressing for you to get on the boat without a fight. Do what must be done, or you are not truly my daughter. A shove from Hyatt as you boarded the ship while the crew stared, never once having royalty aboard their boat. But your father had needed the royal sailors for his voyage. It’s a three-day trip; see her there safe.
You felt a sickening smile as the world went blurry. Safe. If he only knew.
- ch two -
There was once, when you were younger, you got to see snow. A family “vacation” to visit some Duke. A business meeting your parents often tried to pretend wasn’t that. You’ll get to meet his children. They’ll show you around the estate. But the prospect of something other than the dead winter so known in your kingdom was what drove you to be one of the firsts inside the carriage that morning.
But it’d been a long trip into the mountains; your father switched between talking with your mother about the necessary duties upon arrival and departure and discussing with the soldiers to maintain protocol. And, desperately, even as you tried to maintain some composure, the long, exhausting, impatient ride could only keep a child still for so long. The second the doors opened and you saw the snow, you were off.
The snowy scape had been otherworldly. You’d known nothing that beautiful before and all you knew was that you had to touch it. See it. Taste it. Follow it to what other beauties it could produce.
They yelled your name, but there’d been a little white rabbit hopping through the forest outside of the mansion. It called to you as the snow did, beckoning you further as cold seeped through your fur-lined shawl. With only about ten years of knowledge then, you hadn’t known why, as you tripped and fell into the icy tundra, tumbling down a hill and out of sight, how dangerous the chill was. Only that when it turned warm and your eyes got heavy, something was wrong.
The soldiers—a young, sixteen-year-old Hyatt with his superior—found you hours later. It’d felt like an eternity, a hurt arm that was the first to go numb in the snow and a spiraling warmth shooting over your skin. But when you felt like you were close to falling asleep beneath a warm blanket, they appeared at the top of the snowy cliff you’d fallen down.
Hyatt carried you back to the mansion, wrapped in his coat, while his superior ran ahead. A fire was started in one of the living spaces where your mother and father stood. You barely heard the scolding from your father as you sat in front of the burning flames and given a cup of warm milk. Stay by the soldiers’ sides from now on. Do you understand me? You merely nodded so softly and politely, the tone pressing its way inside your head as you kept your eyes down.
Demure. It felt stuffy. But still, you nodded.
That cold. That was different than the one violently permeating your bones. Were you shivering? Your vision going dark made bubbles around you move. Your arms wouldn’t reach, your legs wouldn’t kick. And that rumbling, vibrating every part of you, was it above or below? Was an eye about to open, or maybe some jaws aiming to end it quickly? The pressure pushed hard against your head, and that was all you could take as seawater went down your throat again.
The surface disappeared behind closed eyes. What would get you first–the Reaper or a hidden predator on the brink of starvation?
Perhaps both.
Warmth.
Were you dead? Where there was warmth, as your father so woefully explained, there was death. In the cold, at least. Perhaps the Reaper had found you and tore you down to his level, your soul rising—rising? You tried to open your eyes, but all you were met with was pale contrasting the darkness.
Had you been able to move, you would’ve done something other than peer up. There were arms wrapped around you, shoulders in front of you, the curve of a neck, hair that blended in with the sea, but those eyes. You blinked yours hard at the rushing movement. It made the pressure in your head dissipate far too quickly, and bile rose in your throat. But those eyes, outlined by sharp features, a mouth pressed into a fine line, spiky dark hair pushed back from the momentum; they were so bright they nearly glowed. Never had turquoise look so beautiful.
And when he dared to glance down, taking what felt like a dreamy moment before death and making you remember that your heart could still beat, he smiled. One of secrets. Of knowing. Of saving as you suddenly broke through the surface and the rain pelted your sore skin.
Your pulse ticked higher while those eyes stayed on you; the sudden gasp for oxygen became you barreling over, vomiting into the sea. Puke and mouth-drying seawater mixed into the darkness as your guts heaved, lungs burned, and throat tore with every hack. What the hell was going on? Who– Again, the world spun as the stranger moved, and your eyes widened as you tried not to vomit once more.
He wasn’t from the crew, even delirious, you knew. Two days with them, you knew most of them. Not all by name, but you knew them. Their faces, their demeanor, their connection to your home. And this stranger…he moved you closer to the boat at a speed unfathomable to you, even on your best days in the water.
You tried to speak, but as your vision grew blurry and your eyelids heavy, the pain in your throat became a blockage.
Who are you?
“Don’t,” his cool voice murmured. It would’ve shocked you had there been any feeling left in your body. He spoke. “Save it for your real rescue party.”
For some reason, you did as he said. He held you closer, arms swallowed in areas of dark ink you couldn’t make out. Glinting jewelry that managed to shine through the storm clouds. Over his fingers which pressed firmly into you, on his nose in a little trio to create a triangle, and over his ears. And his entire upper body—bare.
Had your guts not been twisting into a fine tornado and you stopped tasting the salty mix of your lunch on your tongue, you would’ve been scandalized. But as you were draped over that devilish barrel, the wood managing to bob in the water, you felt nothing but grateful as his hands slid down over your back, waist, hips.
“Scream,” he whispered beneath the rain, and all you could do was glance back. Those otherworldly eyes were all that poked out of the water for a moment as he slinked back. He kept them locked on you, burning with an intensity you could barely understand. He popped up just enough to speak again. “I won’t save you again.”
His grin revealed sharp canines before he disappeared beneath the water. A beat, two, three of piercing rain dropped down around you. Then it surfaced. A sparkling tail of black scales, a mix of blues were dulled without sunlight, and a silver ring on one side of the arcing flipper.
The silence roared in your ears as you stared at where he’d disappeared. Tail. But as you tried to call a thought, tried to piece together a puzzle so desperately right in front of you, you hacked up another breath of water.
Tail.
A scream followed it as black started to dot your vision. The cold water froze your body stiff, and you clawed to stay on the barrel through another wave. It was broken and choppy, no way audible through the storm, but the boat was right there. You could almost touch it.
You screamed again.
Louder.
Until you tasted something metallic in your mouth.
Hyatt, Thorne, Keigo. One of them had to be looking for you.
A splash in the water gathered your attention as you started to slip off of the barrel. Your nails ached as they pressed into the fine wood. Stay afloat. But as your body went limp, that water crept higher toward your mouth. Weakly, you screamed again.
This time, as a wave threw you off the barrel, it was met with two arms and two legs going out for you.
“Gotcha, Princess,” Keigo’s voice whispered in your ear. “You’re safe. I gotcha.”
A thick rope was tied around your waist and wrapped as skillfully as possible around your legs. A seat of sorts was created as Keigo swam you back toward the side of the boat, dragging you with your head never dipping back into the water. Those golden eyes were sharp first at the ship and then softer down at you.
The world went dark as Keigo tugged on the slack of the rope and yelled upwards. His mouth was pulled away from your ear, yet his volume should’ve carried. How your scream was heard all the way up to them, you weren’t sure. Keigo’s was nearly drowned in the violent pitter-patter of the storm.
“Hey, hey. Stay with me, Princess.”
His lean arms were strong as they gripped you. The rope went taut, and everything moved. But the world, as you blinked one last time, never returned to the gray-scaled color scheme the storm created.
“Princess. Stay with me.”
There was sun. A cot. A blanket. A dress that reeked of sea, storm, and something clean. The ceiling looked familiar. The blinds on the window were cast open to shine the sun on your cheeks. Clouds shot across the sky in the opposite direction the whole room seemed to lurch toward.
A wrap of gause went around your right forearm.
One blink. Two. Three. Four. Pain throughout your whole body burned as you sat up, a thin blanket falling from your upper body. Dress. It was dry. The thin material bunched up and wrinkled in places that pressed the same patterns into your skin. Storm. You tried for a long breath and were met with the same burning sensation in your throat. Overboard. Sea. Drowning.
Outside, there was commotion. Some yelling, hollering, excitement. Orders were shouted. The captain, some burly guy whose name was out of reach, yelled to slow. Again, the boat lurched.
“Oh, finally, Princess.” Hyatt’s voice came through from the corner. Thorne was asleep next to him, both in a change of clothes, their weapons discarded. Worry pressed into Hyatt’s tanned and peeling skin. “Are you okay?”
Turquoise. You stared at Hyatt’s rich green eyes and turned back toward the window. Anchor was dropped as you coughed, hacking up something sweet in the back of your mouth. Your fists tried to rub sleep from your eyes, but it barely helped. Yawning only accentuated the pain in your throat.
“The medic gave you some medicine to assist you in sleeping. I think the bastard misjudged the amount.” Hyatt nudged Thorne’s foot. “Wake up, idiot.”
You coughed again, eyes stuck on the window. The cold of the water stayed with you in a shiver, the smell clinging to your dress and seeping through your skin. Thorne said something half-asleep and under his breath. Are we there? Your gaze, stuck outside, watching the sky grow into an island. A castle that stretched larger than your father’s. A town filled with buildings of every color of the rainbow. A spread of docks with ships docked within and a harbor waiting for new arrivals to shop and sell.
A tail.
“Yeah,” you croaked, the word tearing at your throat.
A sense of purpose and dread coursed through you as the boat came to a halt.
“We’re here.”
More Posts from Zukowantshishonourback and Others
“Nerd (Affectionately)“ SMAU Master List
Bakugou Katsuki x Gn!Reader
Summary} You’ve been in love with Bakugou since you two were little. Pining after him for years gets tiring when all he does is push you aside. Maybe it’s best for everyone if you two stayed friends. It’s not like he’s going to have a moment of realization of his feelings for you…right?
Warnings} Quirkless!Reader, Angst, Fluff, Cursing, Asshole Bakugou, Humor, there is no Twitter Handle in this SMAU, also bad memes that humor me, SLOW BURN. (Please let me know of any typos/mistakes)
Status} Completed!
Chapter 1: It’s Simp Time
Chapter 2: Designer Boots
Chapter 3: Izuku Said “Ass”
Chapter 4: Friends It Is
Chapter 5: A Smelly Kind of Smell
Chapter 6: Movie Night
Chapter 7: Super Secret Plans
Chapter 8: The Photo
Chapter 9: Firework Show
Chapter 10: Lunch
Chapter 11: She’s Good For Him
Chapter 12: Back and Unpacked
Chapter 13: Plenty Of Evidence
Chapter 14: From Now On
Chapter 15: Pop Off Izuku
Chapter 16: Not Ever Again
Chapter 17: Effort, The Bare Minimum
Chapter 18: Making It Count
Chapter 19: By A Millisecond
Chapter 20 (Final): About Damn Time
Final Words
[Blog Master List]
Sleazy
Dabi x F!Reader smut
Warnings: +18 MINORS DNI! Nonconish/dubcon, blackmail, gaslighting, manhandling, Stockholm syndrome, smut, penetration, biting, bruises, creampie
Synopsis: Dabi blackmails you, a sidekick of a famous pro-hero, into a relationship, which in his terms mean that whenever he texts you time and place for a fuck, you obey no questions asked
Word count: 2.4k
DISCLAIMER: Characters belong to Kohei Horikoshi
Shame is unavoidable when crossing the border into the city’s seedy underbelly. With a hood over your head to shield yourself from the rain and more importantly, prying eyes, you sneak to the reception of a rundown motel. As you mumble awkwardly that you’re in need of a room, the sour receptionist hands you the key and out of pure embarrassment, you grab it without another word. Going upstairs to search for the room, you wanna convince yourself that the employees must witness worse secrets than what yours is.
You spend the rainy evening standing by the window, waiting, and staring at the neon signs flashing outside, their lights reflecting from the puddles on the ground. Brows furrowing, you sigh heavily as despite your agreement, Dabi is once again late.
Because of him, you had to make up another excuse for your boss of why you needed to leave early again, but since your working time ended a while ago, it was all in vain. You are running out of good reasons and using the last proper ones for nothing is beyond frustrating.
Dabi’s carelessness towards you isn’t anything new though. He doesn’t mind causing you inconveniences or even serious troubles since he sees you as mere entertainment.
Draping an arm over your belly, you begin to pace back and forth nervously and bite your nails, wishing you could come up with a plan how to get out of this.
His mean schemes have been messing up your life for months. You’re constantly under pressure to manage hero-work and close relationships without anyone finding out the dark deal he blackmailed you into. Your sleepless nights have become countless in numbers and your heart pounds whenever his name pops into your screen.
Suddenly a key twists inside the lock and ceases your agonizing thoughts. You turn to see Dabi entering like he just didn’t force you to wait unreasonably long.
“What took you so long?!” You ask while storming closer to him.
“Yeah, sorry about that,” he says with a lazy grin, while shutting the door, “Guess I just lost track of time.”
“I had to leave work early for nothing and I’ve been waiting for hours! I’ve told you I could lose my job over this!”
“Relax hero,” he responds and throws his jacket on the floor, “It’s not like there ain’t a line of heroes ready to replace you,” he adds and shuffles up to you.
“But it’s my livelihood and you know that!”
“Your good looks goes to waste in that profession anyway,” he shrugs and puts his hands in his pockets, his dismissive attitude ticking you off.
“My whole life could be ruined! I could lose everything and you act like this is just some game to you!”
“It is,” he replies carefreely and with an unbearable smirk. Your hands ball into fists as rage bubbles up in your gut.
“You are insufferable,” you retort through gritted teeth, but it does nothing to that sardonic smile on his face.
“No need to be so hostile, sweetheart. I’m just playing here,” he responds innocently.
“It’s not funny!” You shout, finally ready to stand up for yourself, “You’re purposely trying to ruin my life and I’m sick of it! I’m not gonna tolerate it any longer!”
“What other choice do you have?”
You freeze at the question. It’s a problem you haven’t found an answer to, even during all these months. Your reaction causes a conniving grin as he slightly tilts his head.
“Or rather— What makes you think you have any other choice?” He asks. You stare up at him with lips little agape, unable to come up with a response. He then takes a step forward, forcing you to back away.
“There’s absolutely nothing you can do,” he points out. His usual husky tone remains, but the way his turquoise eyes bore into yours appears threatening and reminds you of who you’re talking to.
“You’ll show up whenever I tell you to,” he says and continues to back you against the window sill, “Even if it’s in the middle of some shitty hero-work and for a sleazy fuck in an alley,” when your back hits the sill, Dabi places his hands on it, trapping you.
“You are my toy. And I’m not done playing with you,“ he says with the most wicked smirk and for a moment you can only stare up at him, your heart sinking at the thought of continuing this forever.
He then tilts his head, “And why is it that you’ll comply?”
Your gut twists from the painful reminder that makes you lower your head. Tightness spreads in your throat, making your breath hitch a little, “B-because—“ you reluctantly stutter, and your words come out as nothing more than a sad mumble.
“You’ll hurt my loved ones...”
“That’s right. Because I hold the lives of your loved ones over your head. Don’t you think it’d be a pity for them to get incinerated just because you wanna act like a brat?” He asks with a tone that’s nearly berating. Feeling ashamed to have even considered disobedience at the possible cost of their lives, you keep your head lowered.
“Besides—” He cups your chin and makes you look up at the mischievous glint in his haunting eyes.
“We both know you’re far too weak to fight me anyway. You should just focus on what you’re good at and that’s spreading your legs for me.”
Your lips purse in frustration as your pride takes another hit. Dabi is far more stronger than you, but pointing out your inferiority is a taste too bitter to swallow.
“...When you’ll get thrown into Tartarus, I’ll make sure to be there to lock the cell myself,” you growl, but your voice breaks as tears threaten to fall.
“Dream big, sweetheart,” he replies with an encouraging tone as he obviously doesn’t take you seriously. You keep glaring up at him, not wanting to grant him the satisfaction of reducing you into tears, unfortunately though, one manages to roll down your cheek. Dabi reacts to your misery like it’s a mere tantrum. He puts his hands on your waist and hoists you up on the window sill.
“You get cute when you’re angry,“ he points out while tucking stray strands behind your ear.
His remark humiliates you, but since there’s indeed nothing you can do about him, you leave any comments unsaid and lower your gaze. Dabi is pleased with your submissive reaction. While holding his hands on your waist tenderly, he starts planting soft kisses down your neck, which makes you face away in discomfort.
“Please.. Don’t leave any marks… They’re so hard to cover,“ you whine.
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he murmurs, but you know he won’t.
Bringing his lips on yours then, you don’t pull away but answer it bashfully. His lips move against yours gently, calming your resistant heart. Shifting your trembling hands, you hesitate but place them doubtfully on his chest and hum softly as his tongue invades your mouth. It’s warm and a little dominant when rubbing against yours.
Slowly his hands slide on your hips and down on your thighs as he carefully lifts you in his arms. You wrap your arms around his neck as he carries you towards the bed and places you on the mattress. With your lips still attached, he starts peeling the clothes off of your bodies.
He’s considerate of your comfort in the beginning. Removing garment after another, his touch is skillful, discreet and easy to melt into. The demureness of your whines turn into subtle moans as his hands roam on your naked skin admiringly.
A gasp, tormented in bliss, escapes your lips as he sucks one of your peaked nipples. His tongue sweeps against it, sending pleasurable vibrations all over your squirming body. While groping your breasts, he starts littering your body with kisses.
He loves to hear your soft moans. They are proof of how he can tame you from reluctant and hateful into this sweet little mess. Just a moment ago you were spewing bitterness, but now with heat on your cheeks, his name rolls off your tongue smoothly as he pulls down your panties.
Moving himself on top of you, you wrap your arms around his neck, your hooded eyes meeting his briefly as he presses another kiss on your lips. Grinding his hardened cock against your fluttering entrance, you moan into his mouth as your arousal coats the head of his cock.
Lining his cock with your sloppy hole, he pulls away from your lips and starts pushing past your tight walls. Throwing your head back, agony spreads on your features momentarily as your pussy adjusts around his cock.
Dabi loves watching your face scrunch as he penetrates you. Your pussy wrapping around him while he enters deeper, your back arches as your whole body reacts to him. Whimpering quietly, you hold onto his forearms for comfort when he presses his forehead against yours.
“Nnh, you feel good, baby,” he groans and starts to rock his hips gently.
A breathy moan leaves your lips as a shiver of pleasure runs through your body. It’s a cue that you’re ready. Dabi intertwines his fingers with yours and starts thrusting into you steadily. Your other hand caresses his back, nails scratching his skin while he pants into your ear.
As his pace becomes faster, your moans get louder, desperate. Closing your eyes, your other senses numb as you only focus on the pleasure that surges through you. He continues to fuck you, soon placing his weight on his forearms to see the blissful look on your face.
When you open your eyes, you meet his mesmerizing gaze as he pants above you, then slowly, his lips twist into a debauched smirk that tugs at the staples on the corner of his mouth.
“How’s my cock feeling inside you, hero?”
“Mmh.. G-good,” you moan. Suddenly he slams inside you hard, making you throw your head back and cry out.
“Oh yeah? Nngh, then scream for me, baby,” another ruthless slam of his hips against yours. Hands gripping the sheets, you try to suppress your voice that comes out as choked screams, your vision blurring as he abuses your sweet spot so sinfully good. Your eyes screw shut as you bite your bottom lip, feeling him getting more rough with you. His hands groping your chest, teeth sinking into your delicate skin, despite his earlier promise.
It’s sudden when he decides to pull out and flip you on your stomach. There’s no more consideration in his motions as he grabs your hips and forces them up. Wrapping a hand around his cock, he guides it back into your warmth, no longer expressing any gentleness as he starts pounding into you roughly.
Your brows furrow and lips fall agape as the pleasure surges through you in powerful waves, making your legs quiver. The obscene sound of your squelching pussy and his skin slamming against yours echoes in the dim-lighted motel room. Your tormented moans piercing the thin walls into the ears of whoever happens to listen.
Another gasp tumbles down your lips as Dabi grasps a handful of your hair and presses your head down on the mattress. With your cheek squished against it, he holds you there and gets on top of you, supporting himself with his other hand that he places next to your head.
Tears of overstimulation fall from your eyes, your hands gripping the bed sheets in sheer desperation as his pace is merciless. Your bodies covered sweat that makes strands of hair stick onto your face as he keeps fucking you.
Dabi pants in pleasure with a look of depravity on his face, pleased by the sight of you and the jolts your body gives whenever he smacks your ass. You shut your eyes, feeling his thrusts becoming faster and sloppier as he nears his climax. Your legs give in and he leans himself over you, continuing to pound into you.
“Fuck, ahh— I’m gonna cum inside you, baby,” he pants. You don’t want that, but know better than to defy him, especially when he’s on the brink of an orgasm. Sinking his teeth in your shoulder, his hot breath fans your skin as he grunts, releasing his seeds deep inside you.
Holding still, a tiny drop of sweat trails down your temple as you keep panting quietly, waiting for him to empty himself inside you. Soon he loosens his grip and frees you from his grasp, allowing you to collapse on the bed with bruises and teeth marks on your skin.
You both lie on your back and pull the covers over yourselves, staring at the ceiling while basking in the afterglow. Dabi, with his every possible need satisfied, has his arms folded behind his head and he still pants quietly. You adjust the covers around your naked chest and turn on your side as guilt is quick to settle in.
You know Dabi is forcing you to do this and you adapt yourself in order to survive, yet at the same time you can’t help but be disappointed in yourself for enjoying it. Sighing deeply, you reach for your pants that were discarded on the floor in the heat of the moment. Digging your phone from the pocket, you check up for any notifications.
Your face goes pale when you see a bunch of emergency calls and texts from your colleagues and even your boss, urging you to hurry up as there’s a major incident in downtown Musutafu.
“Shit!” You jump from the bed and start quickly gathering your scattered clothes.
“What?” Dabi asks, but seems uninterested to hear the answer.
“My phone was mute and we’ve been summoned downtown!” You panic while dressing yourself up.
“So?”
“So! Even my boss has tried to call me, which means since he contacted me personally, he’s fed up with me!” You add, quickly fixing your hair and grabbing your purse from the nightstand.
Dabi merely scorns in boredom, “Just tell him you had more important shit to do,” he says which makes you stop and whip your head around as you open the door.
“Endeavor’s a strict man! He’s not gonna tolerate me much longer if I keep failing him like this!” You shout before slamming the door shut.
As an ironic smile spreads on his face, Dabi turns his gaze into the ceiling again.
“Yeah. I know.”
balancing act, masterlist ; satoru gojo
“I’ll double your bonus pay if you let me court you for three months.” “Court me?” You’re laughing at him again. He eats it up, savors it, lets it settle on his tongue and warm his insides. “If you’re so convinced I’d be horrible and only prove you right, wouldn’t you jump at the chance to make some easy money?” He’s trying to bait you into accepting; you know it. You also know that nothing from Gojo comes easy . He makes it entirely too convenient to forget that he’s razor sharp and cutthroat, the things he needs to be in order to remain on top of the finance scene, but he’s always joking, always teasing, that it feels like he almost doesn’t like being taken seriously. “Like I said, I don’t deal with men with commitment issues.”
gojo bets that he can get you to fall in love in three months, and you bet that he can't go three months with staying committed to one person and not bang them. neither of you plan on losing, just like how neither of you saw the other coming.
COMING FEB 2024! pairing satoru gojo x f!reader word count 4k posted, estimated 50k upon completion content contains/will contain modern/no curses!au, finance bro!gojo, fuck it - everyone works in finance here, resolved sexual tension, he falls first AND harder, pussywhipped!gojo (even before he gets any pussy), mutual pining, falling in love, getting together, eventual smut, slowburn? (about as slowburn as a four part fic can get LOL), other tags may be added
⊹ 🎀 ࣪ ˖ ZERO > PROLOGUE ⊹ 🎀 ࣪ ˖ ONE > MONTH 1 ⊹ 🎀 ࣪ ˖ TWO > MONTH 2 ⊹ 🎀 ࣪ ˖ THREE > MONTH 3
As You Command Masterlist
Status: Ongoing
Pairing: Dragon king! Bakugou x Fem Reader
Summary: Since you were children, Prince Bakugou has taken a special interest in making your life as hellish as possible. As his future advisor, it's your job to grin and bear it, no matter how much you wish you could teach him a lesson. When the chance for you to leave the kingdom presents itself and the Prince stops it, you're sure it's just another one of his poorly planned pranks that will end badly for the both of you. But could there be more to his actions than you realize?
Genre: childhood friends to lovers, slow burn, romance
Series Warnings: (I will add specific warnings to each chapter) this series will contain smut, cursing, violence, kidnapping, character death, drinking, and may mention dark themes (non-con/dub-con)
Based off this blurb
Schedule:
Chapter 1: February 1st
Chapter 2: February 7th
𝓲𝓷𝓴 & 𝓻𝓱𝔂𝓽𝓱𝓶 𝓶𝓪𝓼𝓽𝓮𝓻 𝓵𝓲𝓼𝓽 『 band au | strangers to lovers | slow burn 』
pairing // artist!reader x drummer!bakugo status // coming soon! rating // explicit (18+ themes) #✩.ink&rhythm + crossposted to AO3
✩ summary // Distortion is the hottest band in town, making waves in the underground scene with their unique sound. Led by your college best friend and music prodigy, Kyoka Jiro, alongside her misfit group of friends, they've been playing shows every weekend for the last few months and have gathered a decent following. You're whisked into the whirlwind of their rockstar lives when Jiro commissions you to design a band logo for their merch, reconnecting with her and meeting the members of the band. Your eyes immediately gravitate to their powerful drummer, Katsuki Bakugo. Fresh out of a nasty three year on/off relationship, he's not looking for anything or anyone while shutting out the world around him. He's focused on the one thing that keeps him sane; music. You're six months free of a breakup as well, looking to repaint your world with new colors and experiences, but turns out it's more tumultuous than anticipated. Explosive fights, newfound fame, clashing egos, dive bars, stolen kisses, black out dreams, messy exes and hard lessons; but somehow, love finds a way to bloom like a flower in the desert - deep in the hottest, driest wasteland of two broken hearts.
✩ tags & warnings // rock/punk/alt band au, slow burn, meet cute, strangers to lovers, various smut, smoking/drugs/alcohol consumption, talks of emotional & physical abuse from past partners, angst with a happy ending, emotional hurt/comfort, mild violence, mentions of cheating from past partners, miscommunications, jealousy, long distance, stalking, attempted sexual assault (not from bakugo or the bakusquad!), bakugo & reader suffer from relationship traumas (cami & dabi are nasty exes), bakusquad are in a band, friend breakups & makeups
꒰ track list ꒱ ✩ Prelude: Holding onto Hope is a Different Kind of Pain ✩ Track One: Shine a Light into the Wreckage ✩ Track Two: Flowers Filled with Vitriol ✩ Track Three: Boulevard of (Broken?) Dreams ✩ Track Four: You Can Throw Me in the Deep End ✩ Track Five: Every Canvas that I Paint is a Masterpiece (of My Mistakes) ✩ Track Six: Band-Aids Don't Fix Bullet Holes ✩ Track Seven: Good Girls Stay Alive ✩ Track Eight: The End of Me, The End of Me ✩ Track Nine: If It Means A Lot To You ✩ Track Ten: Hand on the Throttle ✩ Bonus Track: We Are Distortion, 1-2-3-go!!
꒰ info ꒱ ✩ all characters are 24/25 years old ✩ reader co-owns an art gallery and has a BFA ✩ reader's artist alias is "glxtch" (glitch) ✩ bakugo drives a custom built orange & black Kawasaki Ninja ZX-6R ✩ relationships: momojiro, kirimina, ex-bakucamie, ex-dabi/reader
✩ band name: Distortion ✧ Kyoka Jiro | lead singer, electric guitar (Barista - Degree in Music Production) ✧ Denki Kaminari | electric guitar, backup vocals (Waiter) ✧ Eijiro Kirishima | bass, backup vocals (Bartender) ✧ Katsuki Bakugo | drummer, backup vocals (Bike Mechanic) ✧ Mina Ashido | keyboard, backup vocals (Makeup artist) ✧ Momo Yaoyorozu | band manager (Marketing assistant)
✩ vocal inspirations ✧ Kyoka Jiro ⇢ addie amick (halocene) ✧ Denki Kaminari ⇢ rory rodriguez (dayseeker) ✧ Eijiro Kirishima ⇢ tim mcilrath (rise against) ✧ Katsuki Bakugo ⇢ eric vanlerberghe & acoustic (i prevail - harsh vocals) ✧ Mina Ashido ⇢ maggie lindemann
꒰ mood board ꒱
✩ pinterest board ✩
꒰ playlist ꒱
⇢ tag list ; @/bells-28 @/simp-plague @/nemisimp @/hotttamalee @/mymysenpai @/ttulipwritezz @/bakunianadecorazon @/yoyolovesdaiki @/eeeeeevesstuff @/alloueate @/dollukisposts @/Rikakhai ♡ last updated // 08.09.24 dividers, banners & moodboard by taurus-magicka
BETRAYAL
a/n: happy (belated) birthday my burnt chicken nugget. also @ninjamomo is my personal hype-woman so thank her for this too, thank you
warnings: prohero!reader; literal m*rder; major character death; dabi’s real name; choking; violence; swearing; 4k of angst
“i should have seen this coming,” dabi snarled, his black boot pressing onto your chest as he towered over you, hands in his pockets, “i should’ve known”
you stared up at his dark figure, eyes narrowing at him. the damp ground underneath you was cold, you could feel your clothes absorbing some of the water, sticking against your skin. pebbles pressed against your back, the weight of the villains foot drove them deeper into your body with every passing second.
“any last words, hero?”
you couldn’t see how he had his fists clenched, fingernails digging deep into his skin. he looked at you with hatred, disgust — a look you knew he would send you sooner or later and yet hurt so much.
would he believe you if you said you didn’t want this? would he believe you if you said you never wanted it to be like this? would he believe any word that would hush over your busted lip anymore?
“you don’t have to do this,” you replied calmly, completely contradicting your irregular heartbeat and pressed breaths.
you looked up at his hunched form, his jacket flowing due to the slight wind in the alley. dabi held his head high, his eyes looking at you with disgust and hate.
it has always been only a matter of time until you‘d be subjected to this look of his — a look that was reserved for his enemies and everybody else that would even dare to stand in his way. it was inevitable, obvious that one day you‘d be on the receiving end, you had told yourself this the moment you first came in contact with him. dabi was a villain, a threat to society, a threat to every person that was just peacefully living their life. he was your enemy.
you couldn’t die here. you had a responsibility, a duty to protect the people of this town, this country.
and yet you failed, disappointing everyone in the process. your colleagues, the commission, the civilians. your friends, your family.
“maybe i don’t. but i fucking want to,” the villain huffed through his clenched teeth, putting more of his bodyweight onto your chest, making you wince in pain, “theres nothing i want more than to see you cry out in pain, begging for me to make it stop. to put you out of your misery”
you should have never agreed to this mission, not like you had a choice anyways; not like you would’ve declined anyways. they needed you and who were you to turn your back on them?
looking back, you maybe should have. maybe then you wouldn’t be here with an infamous villain threatening you — killing you. you wouldn’t leave anybody behind, you wouldn’t have violated your duty and you wouldn’t have betrayed your colleagues and your cause.
you wouldn’t have played with the thought to turn your back on them.
how did it get this far?
the weight on your chest lifted and you greedily sucked in a deep breath, filling your lungs with air. yet before you could take in another, you were forcibly grabbed by the shoulders and pulled up, your back soon crashing into a brick wall. you pressed your eyes shut, forcing yourself to not wince in pain.
“maybe i should just set you on fire right here, right now,” dabi continued, one hand on your throat as he stretched the other one out dramatically, “do you think your little hero friend would manage to save you in time?”
you clenched your jaw, hands weakly pulling on the one on your throat.
he turned back to you, his second hand now also closing around your throat, pushing you further into the cold wall, a sadistic smile on his lips. “he’s supposed to be the fastest one after all, isn’t he?”
you kept quiet however, only struggling against the villain‘s hold. you could feel his hands heating up on your skin, eyes slightly widening when you felt the rise in temperature.
“i’m curious”
how could you let it get so far? how could you allow yourself to fall so deep, to betray everyone and mostly betray yourself? and how were you even supposed to live with yourself after this — if you somehow managed to get out of this hopeless situation, that is.
“then kill me. kill me right now and find out,” you managed to reply, keeping your eyes on his face. you knew that you had no way of possibly getting out of this. dabi knew what you did, he knew who you were and he knew why you were with the league, with him. and no matter what, there was no way dabi would forgive you for this.
yet you couldn’t stop yourself from hoping that he would.
the villain tilted his head, his heated hands cooling down. he scoffed. “so willing to die after all?”
no. yes. maybe. you weren’t sure.
no, you didn’t want to die. but could you live on like this, knowing what you did, knowing what you had thought? could you continue your life like this, mentally trying to convince yourself that you did the right thing, that you did what you had to, that no matter what, you did your duty and your duty as a hero came first. waking up every morning to the blank ceiling in your home, your blanket wrapped around your legs, as you tried to believe the mantra you repeated to yourself every day.
how could you stay a hero, smiling at clueless civilians, saving them from villains, knowing that you were no better? knowing that you had considered leaving your hero self behind, leaving your entire life behind? knowing how your entire life you romanticized a flawed and corrupt system and even chose to become a part of it?
but did any of this even matter? at the end of the day, it wasn’t your choice, wasn’t it? your life laid in the hands of the villain in front of you whose hands were literally on your throat.
you closed your eyes in resignation. maybe it was for the best, you thought, slowly coming to terms with your reality. was this your punishment for betraying your morals? “if you could do me one last favor? do it quick”
dabi slightly furrowed his eyebrows. he didn’t want to admit it, but this was the first time he had seen you so passive. it wasn’t like you to not fight, to not yell, to act so defeated. where was your fire, your passion? how dare you not fight back? how dare you be so dejected? you were supposed to give him everything you got, you were supposed to show him just why and how you became a hero, you were supposed to protect yourself and defend yourself, your honor, your pride? how dare you to give him nothing?
how dare you to betray him for nothing?
“give me one reason why i should” dabi clicked his tongue, squeezing your throat. “one fucking reason”
he wanted to hear you plead, beg for your life. give him any reason, your duty, your family, friends, anything and he wouldn’t care. he wanted you to be hopeful, he might even play along and consider allowing you to walk away with severe injuries but still alive. he wanted to see the hope rise in your eyes before he would crush it with his own hands.
you should feel hurt, hopeless, betrayed.
however, what you said, caught dabi by surprise. “you love me,” you stated calmly, eyes piercing through his turquoise ones.
you don’t know what you expected, you don’t even know why you said it. after all, you embodied the very thing he despised more than anything, the one thing he swore to destroy. a shiny hero, adored by the public, that is nothing more than a cruel puppet, willing to do anything to bring the very same people down, that the system you protected with your life, failed to save.
disgusting. why would he love you?
“i don’t,” the villain shot back immediately, voice filled with fury. bringing his head next to yours, you could feel his warm breath on your ear as he continued. “i never did,” he spat angrily.
there was something about him that made you question him. the way his eye twitched, how he pressed his teeth together, how his grip on you tightened, pressing you hard against the concrete wall, like he wanted to bury you inside of it.
“i don’t believe you,” you managed to choke out, shaking in his hold. in return, dabi narrowed his eyes at you, before throwing his head back and erupting in chaotic laughter.
“since when do heroes believe villains anyway? all we do is lie and betray,” he proclaimed, one of his hands letting go of your throat as he gestured into the empty alley, like he was on a stage, reciting a dramatic monologue.
after a few seconds dabi huffed and turned back to you, his lips curled into a sadistic smile, his eyes cold. “didn’t know a hero had it in them too,” he mocked you.
“you’ve lied a lot in your life, touya,” you stated, your words coming out pressed and barely audible as you gasped for air.
“but you can’t lie to me”
dabi — touya — was a lot. a criminal, a villain, a murderer, you knew that. just like he said, he was a liar too. he lied to get his way, he lied to lure people in and he lied just for the fun of it, just because he could. he lied to you too. he tried to put you on the wrong track, he lied to conceal the league’s plans from you because he didn’t trust you when you met, he lied just to annoy you.
but dabi forgot that after all the months you have spend together, you got to knew him and his habits. you inevitably grew closer, talked more and dare you even say understood each other‘s mannerisms. as much as he hated to admit it, you knew him just as well as he knew you.
“i always lie, to everyone,” the villain claimed boldly, the cold smile still on his lips. he sounded so condescending as he continued to mock you. “surely you’re not so arrogant to think that you’re an exception”
how dare you tell him that you know him? how dare you tell him that you don’t believe him? you lied, deceived, so why would you think he wouldn’t do the same?
“i’m going to fucking enjoy this”
“what’s there to enjoy”
much to your surprise, a laugh erupted from dabi.
“i wanted to kill you the moment you were brought to us,” he claimed, face inching closer to yours as he placed his hand on your cheek, the warmth of his palm sending shivers down your back. dabi hummed. “see the life drain out of your eyes and hear you scream like the pathetic thing you are”
“but you didn’t,” you replied stiffly, staring at the villain in front of you. his breath was hot on your lips, he was close, way too close given the situation you were in.
but you knew this look, you were familiar with how his scars looked up close, his triple pierced nostril and every patch of burned skin on his flesh.
“i didn’t,” he confirmed, nodding slightly. he ripped himself away from you right after, eyes narrowing again as he examined your face. the cold air hit you immediately, you felt like your cheeks were burning. “but no one can stop me now”
you tried to take a deep breath again, holding your chin high, trying your best to stand your ground. “then get it over with”
and again he laughed, his voice booming through the dark alley.
“why? i should drag this out, shouldn’t i?” he asked rhetorically, his mind already made up.
dabi wanted you like this. resigned, afraid, hopeless, at his mercy. looking at him with watchful eyes, over-analyzing every movement, no matter how small, and bracing yourself for the moment he would strike. you looked like a cornered animal, completely helpless. pathetic.
“a pro hero, right here, just willing to die by my hands. what a sight for sore eyes”
he smirked, inching his face closer to you again, only stopping when you could feel his hot breath on your ear. “that’s not something i get to enjoy every day”
“you’re torturing yourself”
dabi hummed again, much to your surprise even nodding his head slightly at your statement before shrugging. “who cares? nothing will satisfy me more than to kill you myself”
“then do it!” you screamed back, resisting against his hold of you again, only to earn a raised brow from the villain.
you knew he wouldn’t let you go, no matter what you were to say. threats, promises, nothing could persuade him. you were mere minutes away from death and nothing in your power could stop it from happening.
no one could stop it and no one would come to save you.
“go on. kill me. leave me here to rot for all i care. but when i‘m gone, there will be no one left who ever loved you“
from the very first moment you saw him, you knew who he was and what he had done, obviously you did. you had every piece of information available on every member of the league that you knew of. you knew their stories.
but him?
dabi was a blank space, a mystery. it was like he had just appeared one day, desperate to cause chaos and destruction wherever he went. and as much as you hated to admit it, that was what was so interesting about him, what almost drew you in. you wanted to know more, you needed to know more. what could make a person drive to kill innocents with seemingly no motive, haunt the streets of the city at night, causing panic wherever he went just because he could?
it wasn’t easy to find out more about him — mostly because nobody, not even the people that called themselves his friends, knew anything. he was a closed and locked book, nobody having the key to even read one page of him.
“shut up,” he shouted back, violently pushing you against the wall again. your head began to spin at the impact, vision flooding with a few tears before it cleared again. “shut the fuck up”
you didn’t know how you actually got closer to him and you certainly didn’t know why he decided to open up to you. was it some form of bait? was it genuine? at this point, you weren’t sure what you would prefer.
if it was nothing more than bait, trying to make you feel safe around him, trying to lure you in, you had to accept that the villain managed just that. he pulled you in and dragged you down, just like he had planned.
but what if it was genuine? what if he confided in you because he trusted you, because he believed that even though you were his enemy, something was different? that somehow you could leave this behind, that it didn’t matter and that you were someone he could trust. someone that wouldn’t ever betray him.
but at the end, you did. at heart, you were a hero after all, the commission‘s puppet, willing to protect the fragile legs your system stood on — not caring if you hurt people in the process and certainly not caring about the ones your system kicked away like trash.
all you knew was that he told you. he told you of the little boy touya. he told you of his family, his father. he told you about the shoes touya had to fill and how at the end it was so easy to just toss him aside.
and you comforted him, as much as you could. you showed sympathy and you felt pity. pity for the boy that wanted to become a hero more than anything, the boy that was turned away. a boy that was hurt so deeply that he had nothing left anymore.
“no one, touya”
what kind of person were you to exploit this very part of him?
“don’t call me that,” he demanded immediately, expression changing to one full of anger. there was no touya.
“that’s your name,” you only stated.
what were you trying to do? trying to appeal in the hopeful and ambitious boy inside of him? were you seriously hoping that this would change anything?
“touya died the day dabi was born,” the villain claimed loudly, eyes shut tightly as he spoke.
there was no more touya. touya died on a hill, leaving his childish dreams of being a hero and proving himself behind. dabi was all that mattered now. he found a new purpose, a goal in him and he would allow nothing and no one to stand in his way.
“i don’t believe you”
“i don’t care,” dabi spat back immediately, voice still booming as his palm heated up against your throat, your eyes widening when you felt the rapid rise in temperature, squirming in his hold. “it means jack shit to me”
you could hear how shallow his breathing was, how he tried to regain control of himself. slowly but surely his palm cooled down again.
“just like you” his eyes scanned your face again, narrowing slightly.
“hero” you knew of his, and frankly, the league‘s, distaste for you and your fellow heroes. the supposed protectors of society, yet the ones that cause the rise of villains in the first place. you saw how they rolled their eyes whenever someone even dared to mention a hero name, how their jaw clenched and how they loudly proclaimed that heroes were the true villains. but this was the first time that dabi had spat your profession, your cause, your entire being right at your feet.
“what are you waiting for?” you asked again, trying to ignore how heavy your chest felt.
the villain clicked his tongue and shook his head. “i’m surprised you care so little about your own life,” he said sighing. “aren’t you supposed to fight till the end?”
wasn’t this already the end? what was left for you to fight for? and even if you did, even if by some wonder you managed to escape what would you do? how could you return knowing you had betrayed everything you ever stood for?
“scared to kill me after all?”
and again, dabi shook his head, looking at you almost like he was about to claim that you didn’t know him like you claimed to after all. “scared?” he repeated, tilting his head. “i’m practically dying to see you go up in flames”
with a sadistic smile on his lips he looked around, eyes halting when he looked above you, analyzing the terrible state the building was in. “who knows, maybe i’ll set the house on fire too”
“you’re cruel,” you spat, shaking in his hold again.
dabi wasn’t surprised to see you attempting to fight back, even though you knew the fight was lost. a true hero at heart after all, willing to do everything in their power and even more to protect innocent civilians.
“and yet you love me,” he stated, eyes turning back to you. “now tell me, isn’t that cruel too? loving a ruthless murderer?”
it was. you hated it and you hated yourself for it. he was a villain, a murderer just like he said, someone who actively fought against everything you stood for, someone who was about to kill you and yet you loved him.
“you’re pathetic,” dabi spat, throwing your weak body onto the ground. you groaned when you collided with the wet asphalt, pain shooting through your every limb. your chest moved fast with every shallow breath you took, trying to regain your composure and clearing your clouded senses.
meanwhile dabi crouched down beside you, feigning sympathy at your pained expression. he reached out, his fingers softly caressing your cheek before gripping your chin harshly and forcing you to look at him.
“guess that is goodbye,” he sighed, purposefully giving you a sad look, before a smirk adorned his dry lips. igniting the palm of his hand he pointed it towards you. “after all, i never liked it when anybody interrupted us during our fun times”
the villain stood up, looking down at you with a cold expression, his earlier smile nowhere in sight. “burn in hell, hero”
you closed your eyes for just a second, silently apologizing for the things you‘ve done and the things you failed to do.
you apologized to your friends and family for leaving them behind like this, knowing the only closure that they were going to get was that you were murdered in an alleyway, supposedly by none other than the infamous dabi.
you apologized to your fellow heroes, because you knew how hard it could be to lose another hero, a colleague, a friend.
you apologized to hawks for compromising not just your but also his image with the league, effectively ending his cover and endangering your mission.
you apologized the hero commission, disappointed in yourself for failing them.
you apologized to touya for hurting him, betraying him. you never wanted for it to get this far.
you apologized to everyone because no matter how you looked at it, you betrayed them — hero or villain.
and lastly, you apologized to yourself, wanting nothing more than being able to forgive yourself for your inner chaos.
and yet, you couldn’t help but just wonder about how things might have been if you hadn’t agreed to this. you could have prevented so much pain on every side, so much distrust, so much hurt, so many lies.
you wouldn’t have forgotten who you were, what you stood for and what your duty was. you wouldn’t even have considered not only retiring as a hero, but going underground, fleeing from every promise you ever made, escaping from your duty. and if all of this wasn’t enough, you weren’t even ashamed to admit that you wanted to to it with a villain.
leaving this society behind, leaving everything behind that made you who you were to live out the rest of your days with a person that was the embodiment of everything that was wrong with the system you protected.
“i’ll wait for you, touya”
shortly after, dabi turned his back to the now charred body on the dirty floor, closing his eyes as he lazily walked away. kicking a pebble away with force, he hushed around a corner, disappearing into the shadows as he heard the first terrified scream from the poor soul that came across what used to be a beloved pro hero.
the image of you smiling as you spoke his last words to him clouded his mind, not allowing him to think about anything else but you.
you betrayed the league, you betrayed him. you used him. you lied to him.
the villain huffed in disgust, clicking his tongue. of course he was happy that you wouldn’t be there to bother him anymore. you couldn’t lie to him anymore, you couldn’t use him anymore.
you couldn’t hurt him anymore.
dabi was glad that you were gone — dead — and he was more than elated that he was there to see you as your life force burned away. after all, you were nothing but a way to get information, a puppet he could use to achieve his dream one day. you were part of a corrupt system, a willing participant, that used their shiny imagine to lure people in and prevent them from seeing what a bunch of hypocrites was actually hiding behind it.
only a dead hero was a good hero.
the sound of dabi‘s fist clashing with the tough concrete wall disrupted the comfortable silence he was walking in. with dull eyes the villain looked at his bruised knuckles, his already bloodied skin now turning even darker.
but why did you have to be a hero?
reblogs are appreciated
𝐈 𝐃𝐎𝐍’𝐓 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐈𝐅 𝐈𝐓 𝐌𝐀𝐊𝐄𝐒 𝐒𝐄𝐍𝐒𝐄 𝐁𝐔𝐓:
Dabi picking up your pieces and taking your hand as you’re laying on the bed because feelings have been too heavy today. He picks you up and helps you get dressed up and takes you to a car ride while blasting music in the background. He drives to your special spot, so that you can both look at the sky full of stars and the bright moonlight. He hugs you from behind and he takes your hand to point at the stars “When feelings are too hard to handle, I look at the stars and the moon because they remind me of you. No matter how much darkness and emptiness you feel inside, you exist and shine so bright that you brighten up everything and everyone around you.“ “But I’m in a horrible state right now, I doubt I can shine.” “Wrong. You’re tearing up and the spark in your eyes is much visible.” “But it’s because I’m crying.” “Tears are shiny, look at the stars …they look like glitters and glitters are sparkly. You love stars so much, right? So do I. Your tears are sparkly and they are precious, like the glittery stars in the sky.” “I love every tiny piece of you, I’ll be with you so that you can dance with me under the moonlight forever.”
“𝐈’𝐥𝐥 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐜𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲𝐨𝐧𝐞 𝐞𝐥𝐬𝐞, 𝐞𝐱𝐜𝐞𝐩𝐭 𝐦𝐞…”
Part 1 | Dabi x fem!Reader
CW: yandere themes, some mentions of noncon, gaslighting, manipulation, kidnapping, complicated feelings, stockholm syndrome (?), this part contains only reader’s memories.
SYNOPSIS: you are finally saved from the hands of your captor, who was now locked up, far away from you. But to this day, the memory of him still haunts you in your dreams, still so present in your life, still reminding you that you are his girl.
Part 2 / REBLOGS ARE APPRECIATED!
“Baby..come to me”
“.. don’t leave me waiting”
“Pretty girl~”
“Wherever you are, I will come find you”
You awoke with a jolt, sweat dripping down your face. Your own heartbeats filled your ears, almost pumping out of your ribcage, as the voices you were hearing faded into the distance. Trembling, you pulled yourself out of the bed to grab a glass of water, your throat dry and sore. As the coldness of the water shook the tense feeling off your body and gave you some clarity, you took in a deep breath, calming yourself down from whatever nightmare, or sleep paralysis you had. Your eyes wandered around your apartment, at every corner and every furniture.
“You are alone” you whispered to yourself, repeating the words over and over. “You’re alone and safe. Nobody is here, nothing can harm you”
Nothing can harm you anymore.
It had been a year since since everything changed, since you finally managed to escape the claws of your captor, your lover. And yet you still get haunted by those events, still afraid of the darkness, often having panic attacks and anxiety hitting through the roof whenever you are alone. Paranoia was part of your life, to the point you had to consult with a professional and get help. Everywhere, at any time, you felt like you were being watched. But nobody was there.
Not anymore.
“I am safe” you repeated once again. “Nobody is there. It’s all in my head. Everything is okay. He is not here anymore”
Those piercing blue eyes that almost glowed in the darkness were not watching you anymore. Those eyes that could burn you just by looking at them, making you feel smaller and smaller, afraid to even move an inch as they studied you, devoured your appearance from head to toe.
“A sight for sore eyes” he would always say, his hand coming to grab at your chin, gently, making you look at him. And there it was again, a sly grin plastered on his scarred face, a grin that held nothing but danger. You knew just in that moment how much he wanted to hurt you. It made him feel good he said, the way tears rolled down your cheeks whenever he marked your body, the way you were so weak beneath him and broke so beautifully. The more you screamed, the more he hurt you. And as he hurt you, he would whisper sweet nothings in your ear, kiss your face so gently while his hand gripped your thigh and left a nasty burn mark. He would kiss your forehead and shush you, while he rammed inside you so ruthlessly, tearing you apart. He would lick off your tears and tell you how pretty you were as he took every inch of your body.
“P-Please… I-I can’t do this anymore!” the memories came back in your mind, clear as day, one of the many horrible things you had to endure from his hands.
“Hold on a bit longer for me baby..” he growled, his eyes rolling back in pure bliss. “Ngh-Jus’a bit longer..”
“N-No that’s enough!” you whined in desperation. “Stop it..”
Stop it Dabi.
Dabi.
Even the memory of his name made your skin crawl and your hands sweating, you couldn’t even say it outloud anymore. Because the only times you said it outloud were when you were begging for him to stop, to not hurt you anymore, to let you go.
And each time, he always replied by saying how good his name sounds rolling down that pretty tongue of yours, say it again, a bit louder this time for him.
“Dabi..” you whispered, not even aware that you said his name, completely lost in your memories as he ordered you to repeat his name again. You brought your hand on your mouth, realising what you just did.
You were alone in the living room, far far away from his reach and yet he still had a great impact in your life, as if he was still living with you everyday. You could still hear his voice in your dreams, you could see his shadow lurking, his tall figure towering over you, the scent of burned flesh lingering around.
It had been a year since he got locked away in Tartarus, a prison for high ranked villains which was said to be worse than hell itself. Though that had little to no impact on the devil.
You used to call him that, an evil man beyond words, how much you hated him, and yet..
Yet he made you believe that he was your true love. That no other person in this world could ever make you feel this way, fear, arousement, passion, warmth all at once. To Dabi, you were his goddess, the light of his life, as he used to say, the prettiest girl in the world, only for him to use. You were the cure to his heart, if he ever had one, your touch made his burnt scars feel less painful, it made all the pain go away. Your voice, your moans, your cries and your laughter were music to his ears, he wanted all of them. Dabi wanted all of you. He wanted you at your best, he wanted you at your worst, he wanted you broken, only for him to fix you as he pleased.
“You’re mine” Dabi would say, a possessive grip on your waist as he brought you closer to himself. “Don’t ever forget that. Even if we are far apart, even if years go by, you are forever mine princess..”
You gulped while remembering his words, those words he would always repeat until they were engraved in your brain.
He was locked away, with no chance of ever coming out of there, everything between you both had ended, you were a free bird.
And deep down you still felt his. You were afraid to not be his. You were afraid of what would become of you if you weren’t Dabi’s girl. Because you had forgotten who you were before him. He made sure of it. You could never be a normal functioning human being. He turned your brain into mush, designed you just the way he wanted to, to the point that no matter how much you hated him, your desire for him kept growing stronger.
You hated him. And you hated that you missed him. You should’ve been happy, this was what you always dreamed of, right? You always wished for him to just die, to disappear, you wished to be free. And now you were free.
And empty.
Was he really your true love?
“Tell me that you love me..” he grunted, sweat dripping down his chest as he continued to thrust in and out of you, your cunt greedily swallowing every inch of his cock.
“I-I love you..” you whimpered.
“Louder” he ordered, giving you one harsh thrust that made you yelp. “C’mon!”
“Love you. I love you, Dabi. I love y-you…nmmmhf I love you!”
And it did feel like love for a moment. When he kissed you through your orgasm, saying that you’re doing so well, both your bodies sticky and sweaty as you held into one another. As you fell asleep in his arms while he caressed your hair. It all felt good, it made you forget that in reality you were actually his captive.
You were cut off from the outside world, your friends, family, work colleagues, nobody could get in touch with you anymore. Dabi created a new world for you, and in this new world of yours he would be the only person in your life. Nobody was ever that worthy of you, he got rid of anything and anyone that got in his way.
“It’s not safe for ya out there baby..” he would tell you. “The world is ugly, and it can hurt you, just the way it hurt me. Just the way it hurt all of us that society calls villains today.. but I won’t allow it. Don’t you realise how much I am protecting you?”
He made you believe that you were much safer with him, yet he was the only one to hurt you. But he made that clear as well.
“You are not protecting me! You are hurting me!” you screamed at him while he had you tied down on the bed after another failed attempt of yours to escape and run away.
“Didn’t I tell you princess? I’ll protect you from everyone, except me..” Dabi smirked at your teary face. “I am the only one to love on you, the only one to hurt you and make you cry, the only one to break you. Nobody else. You were just made for me, dollface..”
You went back to bed, trying to make those memories fade away and fall asleep. Little did you know that tomorrow morning, another letter would arrive at your doorstep. The pile was slowly growing. You didn’t throw them, nor did you open to read them. They stayed in the box, unopened, you were terrified of what the letters would contain.
Letters from Tartarus.
It was clear, he never gave up on you. To this day, he would send you letters from time to time. You had the opportunity to call the prison and make it all stop of course, so he would never send you any letters again.
But you didn’t. You wished he would stop, and yet you couldn’t make him stop. It’s like one part of you wanted him, found comfort at the fact that you were not alone, that you still were his girl. And that very same fact made you throw up as well, you hated it so much.
What’s wrong with me, you wondered.
“Nothing’s wrong with you princess, you just miss me that’s all..” you could hear his voice answering in your head, amusement in his tone.
Maybe if you read all his letters it will go away, this feeling would disappear. Read them and then burn them. And then cut off contact for good. He won’t haunt you anymore, right? He can’t get out of there.
Dabi definitely will get out of there. And he won’t be pleased knowing that you have ignored him all this time. What will you do then? How will you explain yourself to him?
“Tomorrow morning I will read them” you whispered to yourself. For now, you decided to empty your head from all the dark thoughts and just go back to sleep.
During the same time, far away, to the heavy guarded area of Tartarus, he sat there on his cell, his eyes glued to the door, waiting. Patiently waiting, contemplating, while his fingers fixed each of the staples decorating his hand.
Finally a guard passed by, stopping right in front of the cell. Dabi stood up, approaching the door, peeking through the small hole to look at the guard’s face.
“So..” Dabi spoke. “Got anything f’me?”
“Nothing” the guard replied. “I looked through all the letters the prisoners received, though none of it was sent to you nor had your name. You sure your girlfriend hasn’t ditched you? You’ve been sending letters for a while and yet no reply”
Dabi chuckled, turning away and ignoring the guard’s words. “She’ll come around, little angel is just nervous..” he whispered to himself.
“Hey” the guard called him again. “Ya sure you don’t want one of us to check on her?”
The guard was in fact one of the PLF’s men, surely on Dabi’s side, making sure to check on him until the escape plan is executed.
“Send one of our people on her way” Dabi said. “Just to notify her that I’m looking forward to our reunion soon~”
🏷️ tagging some of the people who were interested in this fic + people from my taglist: @baby-tini @hunajan @touyalove @irinangels @marlenemckinnonsleftfoot @murderous-snail @holydayaria @cherryflavoredkisses @syrenkitsune @mossy-opal @dabislittlebeaniebaby
chapter 0 : top-ultra-super-ultra-secret-mission.
no quirk au, mentions of fighting and violence, the yakuza and my very little knowledge of it (msorry yall,,i know about the video games :>..!), gang violence, found family trope my love, crime syndicate boss daughter! reader, badboy bodyguard! katsuki x fem reader, sunshine reader, reader is a sweetheart but a little bratty, CHILDHOOD FRIENDS TO LUVERS TROPE MY STAR, almost polar opposites, you get off on the wrong foot at first so kinndaa enemies to friends, reader has a last name but it will be explained later, original characters, all might is a fictional character, one piece easter egg lol, food n cookies ! katsuki gets recruited into a crime syndicate at eleven years old, but he doesn't do any fightin till a years later !, lemme know if i missed sum (might add more in future chapters !)
katsuki doesn't remember anything besides his own bloody and bruised knuckles.
it's all he remembers and all he's known his entire life. where he comes from you gotta fight to survive and every dispute was resolved with conflict. bloody fists and busted lips was all he grew up with until the age of 11 years old.
the orphanage he'd lived in for years didn't help in reinforcing that point : the place was neglected, faded and crumbling like a mansion in a horror movie. he'd heard so many rumors going around the halls that the place was haunted. none of the adults bothered to shut it down but they didn't bother to take care of them either, so katsuki didn't expect much from them. katsuki wouldn't be able to count the amount of times their caretakers, if you could even call them that, let him and his housemates run off without supervision on both hands and feet. their disinterested eyes occasionally glancing at the poor kid getting ganged up on by kids twice his size and age.
"if you don't pull your weight around here, you're deadmeat." katsuki remembers an older boy, his roommate at the time, saying to him. he hasn't seen the boy in years and katsuki is sure that wherever he fucked off to was miles better than the shithole he currently lives in.
fights weren't uncommon either. petty fights over pudding were often brought to the communal area, ranging from food fights to all out brawls. power struggles between kids where mostly for dominance, to show others who was the boss. it was all for the sake of a survival kids their ages shouldn't have known, one that they shouldn't have been desensitized to.
the disinterest of the staff members meant that the kids could run wild, running amok around the city streets as if they owned them. stealing and fighting, forming groups and alliances only for those who lagged behind to be betrayed and ganged up on by their pack members.
he recognized it whenever people where trying to get something out of him. katsuki knew he was strong and he knew others knew it too and it got him nothing but enemies and wannabe lackey's acting like errand boys in exchange for services. beating up some guy who had owed them money, some people simply wanted to be around him, hearing that his name had gotten notoriety around their neighborhood and simply using him to scare people off, like parents telling their kids about the boogeyman.
it worked out fine whenever they'd stay out of his way, but katsuki was a lone wolf through and through and didn't like people sticking to his heels, so after many more bloody knuckles, the sound of bones crunching and broken noses, people knew not to mess, or associate themselves, with the rage that was katsuki bakugou.
" i heard he beat some guys face in so bad he never left his house again.." "if you look at him for too long, he'll kick your ass !" "that little brat thinks he's the shit just because he beat some shrimp’s ass." he'd heard whispers like these for years. scared fleeting glances and nasty glares was all people offered him and he learned that striking fear into others was the only way you'd be respected. beating people up was the only way others would leave you alone. stealing from others was the only way others wouldn't steal from you.
being a monster was the only way people would listen. and just like how continuing to spread legends kept horror movie creatures alive. other people spreading rumors about how ruthless he was kept katsuki safe.
until that man showed up.
one of their caretakers had announced that someone would be coming to visit, meaning they should be on their best behaviour so they could find a new forever home. katsuki scoffs, the idea that anyone would choose him to bring home was laughable to him. all the grown ups that came by came for the golden boys: the push overs or the crybabies, was what they were called amongst the other kids.
the man that appeared infront of the line of young boys was anything but what katsuki could’ve ever imagined. tall, extremely so, with a long leather jacket draped over his shoulder, rings could be seen adorning his fingers when he cracked his knuckles. he was completely decked out in black : black coat, black pants, black belt and dark, hardened black eyes that had all the boys shivering. unconsciously having them stand up straighter by the heat of the man’s stare alone.
katsuki and his housemates had all gathered around the windows minutes before to see the man arrive in a big black cadillac escalade, peeking the curiosity of everyone in the room as they wondered what the hell this person could want from an orphanage like this one.
katsuki for the first time in years, feels a hint of fear wash over him when the man stops right in front of him. he feels the eyes of his other mates on him as well and feels himself sweating a little when he gulps.
the mysterious man offers him a large, friendly smile and katsuki doesn't know if he should feel threatened by the warmth he feels in his chest. the tall man kneels down until he's at katsuki's height and his deep, honeyed voice catches him off guard, because he thinks such a man shouldn't have such a..welcoming voice. especially with the multiple men he saw surrounding his car outside looking anything but welcoming.
"hey, kid." the man starts, sharp canines on display as he grins "how would you like to come home with me ?"
katsuki, wide eyed and mouth agape, can only think of one response,
"..huh ?"
katsuki's shocked expression has not changed once. not since the grown ups had talked about boring grown up stuff he'd barely tuned into, only hearing the scritching of the pen on the paper when the mysterious badass man had signed the adoption papers.
and now, inside of the big black cadillac escalade surrounded by other huge badass guys, his expression has yet to change, though he’d managed to clamp his mouth shut.
katsuki is currently gripping onto an apple juice box, (frankly he prefers orange but he doesn't think he can form a correct sentence right now) offered to him buy a stoic man--who was introduced to him by another huge man, although not as scary looking as the other one, who told him not to be frightened by his straight-faced friend as he was "a scary lookin' dude, but a big teddybear once you get to know him ! " katsuki hadn't taken a single sip of the juice yet, juice that he didn't steal but was given to. without having to threaten anyone for it. a strange feeling grows in his stomach that he's not familiar with. and in katsuki's experience anything unknown is bad, so he doesn't like this.
the scary men all pulled a complete 180 from what they were like outside, going from being quiet and serious to extremely loud. so loud katsuki wonders how it's possible that four men in one car can be just as loud as an entire communal area at his now old orphanage. the thought of not having to step foot in that cursed building ever again has him holding back a little smile. he squeezes the juice box in his hands a little tighter.
the men who's names he doesn't know yet are cracking jokes. they smack his shoulder randomly, causing him to basically fly forward and he's sure that if he weren't wearing a seatbelt he'd have flewn right through the windshield. they laugh and tell him they're excited to start working with him. this has katsuki tilt his head in question.
" working with you ?" he asks, it's the first thing he's said and the two more expressive men in the car brighten up. one of the guys, who's squeezed next to him speaks. he has bleached hair with black roots still peaking through. his sunglasses are pulling his hair back and perfectly showing off the scar running over his left eyebrow.
"yeah, starting today you're a part of our clan, little buddy !" he grins. their clan ?
the boss man, he assumes, speaks up from the drivers seat " takashi, don't just jump that on him so suddenly," he reprimands jokingly. he looks at katsuki through the rear view mirror and smiles, katsuki simply looks away. he doesn't know how to react to situations, or people like this well. or at all. "you'll frighten him."
katsuki's head shoots up at that, eyes squinted and brows furrowed "i'm not scared of shit !" he exclaims "what do you guys even do ?" he glares around at everyone in the car. it's silent and he sees the ringed hand of the boss guy turn the radio down. then after a beat passes everyone bursts out laughing again and katsuki jumps despite himself, even the stone faced guy cracks a smile.
"you're a fiesty one, huh ?! you're perfect for the job !" the bleached blonde man, who is apparently named takashi, speaks. he wraps an arm around katsuki and doesn't notice how he tenses and growls, that or he ignores it. "you see, we have a very special job."
"what special job ?" takashi responds with a mischievous smirk.
"we beat up bad guys !" he chirps happily.
katsuki can't help the gasp that comes out of his throat nor can he control the sparkle in his eyes, yet he tries his best to sound cool " y-you beat up bad guys ?" he asks carefully.
"u--huuuuuh" he squeezes katsuki between his bicep tighter, apologizing when katsuki punches at his arm, loosening his extremely tight grip. he offers him a little apology that katsuki only graces with a stinkeye. "we find guys who mess with us or our turf, and we fuck 'em up good !" he makes punching motions at the air with his free arm " y'know, like all might !"
" all might isn't real." katsuki shoots back.
"well, yeah. but he's cool isn't he !" the bleached man whines, giving katsuki a slight noogie. he shoves at his arm and looks away with a huff and a pout. unwilling to admit that the tv show superhero had been his idol for years now. takashi chuckles knowingly at the boys pink cheeks before finally releasing him from his grasp.
katsuki suddenly remembers the conversation before he'd trailed off "so..you guys beat up bad guys ?" the young blonde starts "and i'm part of your clan now ?" he eyes everyone curiously and they all offer him firm nods.
"why me, though ?" he hates how..desperate he sounds, it reminds him too much of the other loser crybabies that he used to share a space with. he peers at the rear view mirror only to be met with the boss man's eyes already on him. he jumps despite the warmth in said man's eyes.
"i like you, kid. you've got this look in your eye." he explains, he focuses back on the road once he finishes " makes me think of myself when i was your age."
katsuki sits stunned as the rest of the men in the car start up again calling their boss superficial for "going for someone who reminds him of himself" they say, yet katsuki can't find it in himself to feel insulted. he's been told time and time again the looks he'd give people were rude, cocky, scary and every other adjective in the book, none of them being exactly positive one's.
but for someone to say they like the look in his eye is shocking. the lack of any praise besides about how much of a monster he was when he got into fights was something completely unknown to him.
during the entire ride, katsuki grips his untouched apple juice box to keep from smiling.
when he arrives into a large office like room, following closely behind the boss man, who's name he found out during the car ride was kento matsumoto, he's surprised to find the room empty once the door slammed behind him. katsuki's immediatly on his toes and ready, already in a fighting stance, his eyes zipping around the room ready to attack should any bad guys show up.
"what're you doing ?" the older man hums in amusement, slowly creeping towards his desk in the middle of the room. katsuki's too focused on a surprise attack to bother noticing.
"where are the bad guys ?!" the unruly blonde asks, adrenaline already running through his veins, a smirks growing on his features until matsumoto laughs and--wait why is he laughing ?
"there are no bad guys here, you can rest easy." he chuckles when katsuki's shoulders immediatly drop, a pouty frown etched onto his features. "you won't be fighting any bad guys today," the more he continues the more katsuki's eyebrows drop lower and lower. he finally realises how quite and gentle he's been and tilts his head in confusion. he walks up to his desk chair which is turned away from katsuki's eyes. mr. matsumoto walks up and kneels towards the chair and whispers softly. katsuki can hear someone whisper back if he strains his ears hard enough and his brows furrow harder.
after a bit more back and forth, the tall man stands back up, and limps a little as he has two tiny arms arms dragging along with him. along with two tiny legs following along at his pace.
"i'd actually like you to meet someone today." the man chuckles to himself lightly. he presses his hand to the back of the little person behind him. and katsuki finally makes eye contact with them.
the girl looks about his age, maybe a year younger. she keeps alternating her gaze to him briefly and longer towards the floor. her socked feet rubbing at the other as she grips the taller man's pant leg.
katsuki holds back the urge to scoff. she would've been eaten alive if she spent one day back at his orphanage. pushovers don't survive long before becoming someone's lackey unless they pull their weight. you mutter something under your breath and mr. matsumoto scolds you gently.
"you don't wanna be rude to your new friend don't you ?" he encourages. both of your eyes widen and while a grin breaks out on your face. katsuki's mouth drops in near horror
"huh ?!"
"bakugou, stop moving !"
katsuki doesn't know where that old roommate he had fucked off to, but if it's someplace like this, he feels bad for him.
he'd found out that you were mr. matsumoto's daughter, which was shocking news by itself but you can imagine how much more shocked he was when the older male had asked him to spend time with you.
"i'm not a babysitter !" katsuki stormed "i thought i was fighting bad guys !" mr. matsumoto raises his hands up in surrender from where he's knelt down to diffuse tension.
"you'll start your training soon enough, and then you'll be able to fight as many bad guys as you see fit." he compromises. katsuki's somewhat satisfied, but still crosses his arms across his chest, awaiting further explanation.
"i'm just asking you to keep an eye on her. spend some time with her, stuff like that..you'll be like her bodyguard !" he offers.
"more like babyguard." katsuki scoffs. the older man chuckles nervously.
"my job's real dangerous, so a lot of people wanna hurt me, and my family. i can't have that, you get what i'm sayin' right ?" he speaks sincerely. katsuki's eyes soften the slightest bit as he readjusts his arms. "i want her to be able to spend time with kids her age. not some old guys in suits, you know ?"
katsuki doesn't say but he thinks that reasoning is stupid. he thinks constantly being around men like your dad would be cool as hell, but he digresses. the unruly blonde stares at the pleading man pensively, mr. matsumoto had gotten him out of the wretched orphanage, he owes it to him to atleast help him with this easy sounding request.
katsuki heaves a long, deep sigh and looks down at the ground.
"fine..i'll do it."
he wishes he could punch his past self in the mouth for agreeing to this torture.
he grabs your wrist when you try to sneakily press a tiny flavored lip balm stick to his lips. you pout and whine at him and he growls and furrows his brows at you in response.
"c'mon !" you whine. straining your arm still tightly clutched in his grip to press the lip balm to his pink lips. “it tastes like peaches !” you try.
"no ! i already let you put these shitty braids in my hair, m'not putting your stupid makeup shit on." he throws your arm to the side and you gasp. before crossing your arms,
"swear." you mumble grumply. you shake your head and lean towards him with new found vigor. you’re stubborn and usually he’d at least give you that, but you’re the annoying kind of stubborn, so you’re not getting anything from him.
"it's not makeup, it's just lip balm ! dad let's me put it on him all the time !"
"yeah, well i ain't your dad."
"yeah you're not. cus my dad's not a jerk !" you stick your tongue out at him and katsuki scoffs at you, looking away from you. he bets you wouldn't act all cool if he shoved you once, you look like the type of wimp who'd cry about tripping over your own shoelaces.
"i'll tell my dad you're bein' mean to me." you announce. katsuki's head whips towards you and he feels a vein on his forehead when you turn your nose up at the sky with a 'hmph !". you make his head hurt.
"don't go lying on me !" he fumed.
"but i'm not lyin', you are mean ! i asked you nice an' you won't lemme put the chapstick on you !" you bite back. katsuki inhales through his nose in anger.
"you didn't ask me sh—anything !" he stops himself mid curse, your father doesn't like him swearing around you for some reason and he'd rather you not snitch to your dad about his cursing habits.
you suddenly stop, then roll your eyes like the brat you are. "well, i'm asking now..please ?" you bat your lashes at him and give him, what katsuki assumes, are your best puppy dog eyes.
you're so much more different than when he'd first met you two weeks ago and he definitely doesn't mean it as a good thing. he almost wishes you stayed the quiet, meek little mouse you were. that would've been way less annoying than the bossy bratty princess you are, despite being a few months younger than him.
katsuki groans, loudly to himself, than turns to you again. gripping at his criss crossed legs to control his nerves.
"make it quick, princess." he spits, glaring at your bright smile, obviously pleased you'd won the argument even though you didn't play fair at all. katsuki had won every fight he'd ever been in but you were making yourself out to be his toughest opponent yet. he grits his teeth and sucks his loss in for another day. you make a happy noise and press the sweet stick to his lips. it tastes like peaches when he briefly licks his lips to get a taste. he let’s out a quiet pleased grunt.
"it tastes good, right !"
"shut up."
katsuki looks at you strangely when he sees you sneaking around corners.
he's stuck on babysitting duty again while your dad and the others get to do fun stuff like beating the shit out of people. from what he'd gathered from mr. matsumoto and when he 'accidentally' listened in on his passing conversations with his coworkers, your father was the boss of an underground yakuza organisation. the men he'd sat in the car with being his most trusted companions.
they all bore a similar tattoo’s somewhere on their body : some had them on their arms or hands, others were more showy and had them on their necks or on their backs like your dad did. katsuki was bummed to find out he wouldn’t be able to get one yet, he scoffs at the memory of your dad ruffling his hair and telling him to wait a few more years.
he was dreading having to put up with your whiny tantrums and sticky flavored lip balms, although he guessed it was kinda fun to guess the flavour. but today you surprised him by beckoning him over and telling him you needed his help with something. at 9 in the morning.
“a top-ultra-super-ultra secret-mission ”, you’d called it. and from the moment you’d pushed him out of the huge spare room he was currently using as his bedroom, you’d been sneaking around corners even though katsuki would look ahead (he has to take some risks, he is your bodyguard after all) and see no one there.
the prospect of a secret mission did peak his interest, it was the reason he had followed you without making a fuss. but even though ‘patience’ wasn’t an unknown word in katsuki’s documentary, it wasn’t frequently used. so it shouldn’t have been a surprise when he started complaining.
“what are we even doing ? and why the hell are you sneaking around like that?” he asks, the urge to go back to bed still clinging to him as he rubs at his eyes sleepily. katsuki doesn’t know how you can navigate this huge house so well and he feels like he’s been following you through a maze.
you quickly, after peeking around another corner, shush him. “shhh !” you hiss, placing a finger over your lips. if katsuki weren’t so tired he would’ve rolled his eyes at you but he simply decides to narrow his eyes at you.
“i told you, it’s super secret ! i’ll tell you when we get there !” you huff “swear, by the way.” you chide playfully, giggling when he grumbles at you.
if katsuki could compare you to anything, he’d compare you to rubber. it’s weird because it’s an object rather than a living thing, but he thinks it’s pretty fitting. he pokes and prods, throws snarky comments and mean names at you, pulling at you like rubber, yet all you do is snap right back into place. like that rubber man you like on tv ( he prefers the sword guy better).
you pout about his mean spirited ‘princess’ nickname after he tells you he doesn’t mean it as a compliment because to him it means your snobby, bratty and spoiled, but you never let him get you down. often just saying that princesses we’re super pretty “so therefore, you’re just calling me pretty !” you’d grin. he thinks your reasoning is more than stupid and rolled his eyes hard when you’d first told him that, but you intrigue him in ways he doesn’t wanna admit.
you’re so annoying and bubbly it puzzles him, he wonders how someone like you could exist in the same world as his. the world he was raised in was cold and unforgiving, quickly stomping and crushing pretty bright flowers like you under its heel before they were even given a chance to fully bloom.
you’re something he’s never seen before and you piss him off. but that’s mostly because you’re annoying though.
after sneaking around for a bit more, you get to what katsuki recognizes as the kitchen. katsuki hears the sound of chopping and sizzling before he rounds the corner and the smell of food fills his nose and his mouth waters.
you put an arm out to hold him back from rounding the corner and point towards something, katsuki looks up at where your looking to see..
a fresh batch of chocolate chip cookies.
his eyes widen like he’d just seen a stack of gold. back at the orphanage, they were barely allowed to have any sweets besides during holidays, two for everyone. katsuki didn’t really mind much, since he doesn’t really like candy, but your home chef nakazawa really knew how to cook and katsuki would gobble up anything the man cooked.
the long white haired man never commented on his table manners and messy eating, only smiling brightly and always telling him it made him happy to see people enjoying his food so much.
katsuki would never say it out loud, but he would sometimes sneak around to watch mr. nakazawa cook. he’d never had any time to be interested in..anything back at his old hell hole and it’d taken him a while to admit he’d taken a liking to not only nakazawa’s cooking, but also cooking in general.
he bets those cookies would be fucking delicious. he gulps.
“those are our objective !” you whisper, turning back to him with a determined grin “your job as my bodyguard today is to help me snatch up those chocolate chip cookies mr zawa made.” you explain.
katsuki almost exclaims before begrudgingly remembering this is supposed to be a secret mission and you were supposed to be inconspicuous “huh ?!” he hisses. you nudge him away from the opening and place your finger against your lips to shush him again, katsuki growls at you.
"just cus i'm your bodyguard..or whatever," he grumbles, rolling his eyes "doesn't mean i'm your errand boy. i'm not anybody's errand boy." he spits, glaring at you. you don't look the least bit scared, instead your eyebrows furrow and you pout.
"but you're not my errand boy, we're doing it together ! you're helping me out !"
"i don't help anyone." he shoots back "what am i getting from this anyway ?" he scoffs, shuffling on his feet.
" you don't like sweets, right ? so the least you could do is help me get some cookies !" you declare, crossing your arms." but if you want, i guess i could share the booty with you." you say with a roll of your eyes. katsuki wants to be surprised that you remembered something he’d mumbled to you in passing once but he ignores that to sneer at you, eye twitching at your brattiness.
"gross. don't call it that." he snarks, you roll your eyes again "don't be a baby, bakugou." you quickly flip around and sneak towards the main kitchen doors. bakugou glares at your back as you slip away and throws you one last snarky comment under his breath before following you "you're one to talk."
mr nakazawa’s back is to the both of you still, he seems to not have noticed you both yet. even though katsuki hates being ordered around by you, pointing at where he should go so as not to be seen, he ignores it in favour of the giddy feeling in his chest. you're holding back a laugh too, he can see it on your face and as annoying as you are, he can't help but hold back a snort with you when the cook stops in his movements to scan around the kitchen, you both still going unnoticed.
he hasn't been allowed to go out on missions with your dad and his squad yet, simply undergoing training starting from every wednesday, to going monday through thursday for a few hours and though it was fun, it was pretty irritating seeing the grown ups do all the fun stuff while he's stuck carrying you around on his back and watching dumb disney channel original movies with you (he won't admit he enjoys most of them, though. never.)
but right now that's all been forgotten, adrenaline is pumping through him but it's different than the adrenaline rush he gets from when he beats up some no name kid that wanted to start a fight to prove he was some type of big shot, surrounded by the choruses of cheering kids and screams. instead, he's simply sneaking closer and closer to a tray of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. accompanied only by you, who's covering your mouth trying not to make a single sound so you don't get caught and scolded for getting to the cookies early.
it's different, it's unknown. but katsuki realizes it's not bad.
it actually feels really warm, and nice. and good. it's good to have fun with you. it's good to be able to bicker and playfight with you without it leading to his knuckles being bruised up. he hates to admit it but he has to hold back a snicker at your dumb jokes and antics. and maybe he can admit that some of the movies you pick out are kinda fun.
he doesn't have to fight for the remote with you because you let him pick whenever he wants. you've set up a system where you pick one night and he gets to pick the next night and you hadn't broken your promise, always handing him the remote when it was his turn to pick a movie, though you huff about it sometimes, but that's cus you're a brat.
but when katsuki finally reaches the tray of cookies and you silently cheer for him with a smile so bright you could rival the sun itself and two thumbs up in the air, katsuki has to admit you're not so bad to be around.
"may i ask what you kids are doin' ?"
both you and katsuki stiffen at mr. nakazawa looming over him, he doesn't look the least bit angry. he's trying to, but he can't fight off the smile on his mock dissapointed face.
"mr. bakugou is a newcomer, so i can't really be mad at 'im" he starts, katsuki gulps when the white haired man's frosty blue eyes land on him, then zero on you "but lady yn should already know what happens to misbehaving children.." he slowly stretches his arms out towards you, making a grabby motion and you start uncontrollably giggling, eyes widening as you slowly stand up and back away.
"they go...into the oven !!"
"mission complete, cookies obtained, get outta there !" you exclaim, hightailing it with your laughter trailing down the hallway. katsuki starts up and dashes for the door to follow you. mr. nakazawa barely makes any effort to catch both of you and katsuki knows he's stopped following you but he doesn't bother telling you about it.
he's having too much fun right now.
he's holding the tray of cooled off cookies to his chest to keep them safe and he can't stop laughing especially because you're basically hollering next to him, cheering loudly and katsuki mimicks you. it's probably still around nine in the morning and you're running around like headless chickens, screaming around the hallways, but katsuki's having too much fun with you to care.
you get to your bedroom door first and katsuki would usually blame it on your hands being free, but he doesn't care about being first right now. you quickly wave your hand around, signaling for him to run inside before you slam your door shut and fall to the ground, helplessly snorting and giggling with your fluffy pyjama pant legs kicking in the air.
katsuki sits down next to you, placing the cookies down between you both slightly above your head. he's calmed down more than you have, but he's still buzzing, chest rising and falling. he snorts and giggles some more looking at you and after you finally calm down you sigh. you take a deep breath before looking up at him with stars in your eyes.
"that was so fun ! we booked it outta there so fast !" you giggle. katsuki sits more comfortable, cross-crossing his legs. he hums in response "mr. nakazawa always says he's gonna put me in the oven when i sneak a cookie, but he's super nice, so i knew he wouldn't do anything if he caught you !"
katsuki scoffs pridefully, turning his nose up in the air "he wouldn't have been able to do anythin' cus i woulda kicked his ass !" he smirks. you giggle in response.
"that's expected of my bodyguard !" you chirp. he rolls his eyes but doesn't complain. you sit up and look at him all starry eyed and katsuki's eyes widen in turn.
"you were awesome, bakugou ! no wonder dad likes you so much !" you beam. it's too bright, you're too bright. katsuki wants to look away, wants to go back into his shell and pull the curtain shut on the sun that you are. he wants to be scary and feared by all and yet for some reason he likes that you're not scared of him. he wants it to stay that way. he knows he shouldn't and yet,
"..you can just call me, katsuki. i don't mind.." he mutters, looking away from you and towards the wall. he doesn't dare look at you or he'll have to acknowledge your expression, acknowledge the fact his face is burning alarmingly hard and fast. "i don't care..if you do." he rephrases.
a beat passes and he feels the cold metal of the tray against his hand, he looks down to see your hand pushing the cookies towards him.
"since you did the most work, you can have the first one." you say shyly, fiddling with your soft sleeves.
katsuki feels his heart beating and thumping hard in his chest. he can faintly hear it in his ears, can feel it softly bumping in his head. he's never felt this before.
he doesn't like the unknown. but he can't find it in himself to care when he reaches out and takes a big bite of a cookie. it tastes heavenly and his eyelashes flutter as he munches away, his eyes snap open when he hears you giggle.
"s'good, right ?" you grin, leaning towards him to grab a cookie before popping a piece into your mouth with a hum. katsuki gulps a bite of his cookie down.
"mm.." he hums in agreement. that's enough for you, so you lean back more comfortably and you both continue silently munching away at the slowly dwindling tray of cookies. until you speak up again.
"usually i eat all of mr. nakazawa's cookies on my own. dad and my other uncles are always gone before i can share with them." you explain, katsuki sees your puppy eyes shining with sadness. they're the same as the pushover's at his old orphanage who'd cower in corners and cry as the bigger predators of the institution prey on them.
"they're really good.." the happy tone in your voice is gone and is instead replaced by a more bittersweet one. "but whenever i eat too many, my stomach hurts. and that's not fun at all." katsuki feels his chest tighten at your words, and it tightens harder when you look up at him and send him the sincerest smile he's ever seen.
"but today, i ate a lot of 'em and i'm completely fine, cus i shared them with you !"
katsuki only remembers the feeling of fighting. of bloody and bruised knuckles and the rush of adrenaline that eventually fades away and all he feels is the stinging pain in his body. and that's not fun at all.
but sitting here with you, he hopes and he hopes with all his might that the way he feels when his chest blooms with warmth never fades away.
"yeah..." is all he says, looking down at the ground. tugging at the carpet.
"y'know, you're my fifth bodyguard." katsuki's eyes widen "fifth ?" he parrots and you nod, stuffing the last bit of your cookie into your mouth.
"why so many ? you go out on missions or something ?"
you shake your head "no, but dad says it's safer because a lot of people could wanna hurt me." you say simply, wrapping your arms around your knees, wiggling your socked feet " 'i wouldn't let anyone hurt you, but you can never be too careful.'" you mimick, deepening your voice best you can to copy your father's tone.
"all my other bodyguards were super old, and they never talked, or played with me. no fun at all." you mutter bitterly, grounding your heel down against your soft carpeted floor.
"you're kinda mean, and very aggressive. especially for someone your age." katsuki scoffs at your doctor like tone like you'd just done an analysis on him. he kicks at your foot with his and you giggle and stick yout tongue out at him. katsuki wants to hold back the smirk growing on his face, but he can't. maybe because he isn't trying very hard to hold back at all.
"but you're funny..and you can be really nice when you wanna be." he hears it again, the thumping and beating of his heart at your words and your smile. "you're definitely my favorite bodyguard, katsuki !"
the thumping of his heart gets so loud he can feel it in the tips of his fingers, rhythmically beating away. he gets that feeling of adrenaline from when he wins a fight. when he's got a nasty bloody nose but people are inching away from him. whispers of his name and strenght all around and he feels like he's on top of the world for a while.
but this feels nicer. it's foreign, but katsuki feels like he can get used to that.
"'f course i am, i'm the best !" he exclaims. the warmth in his chest still present and burning harder when you smile at him brightly with a giggle.
katsuki unfamiliar with these kinds of burning feelings that aren’t accompanied with pain. they’re unknown and foreign, but he thinks he likes them. and, maybe, he can admit that he thinks he likes you a little bit, too.
soooowww...whatre we thinkiiinnnn..personally i like this alot and would love to hear whatyallthinkaboutthisconcepttttquestionmark... i was inspired to post this after getting back into akabane honeko no bodyguard, and my love for delinquents mix in some childhoodfriends to lovers and i HAD to write this, i rlly like this and i hope yall enjoy !!
LONG LIVE THE VILLAINESS !
amidst the tale of sweetest love and bitterest revenge, the fallen empress is cast back ten years into the past to correct her sins and avoid eternal damnation, even at the price of betraying her once husband, the very cause of her downfall.
♱ pairings. gojo satoru, fem!reader
♱ genre. enemies-to-lovers, period piece, medieval au
♱ tags. ooc, regression, crown prince!gojo, noble lady!reader, politics, classism, clan wars, religion (catholicism), misogyny, violence, war, rebellion, suggestive, smut, gore, double life, explicit language, more to be added
♱ notes. this fic draws heavy inspirations from the webnovel ‘sister, i am the queen in this life’ and manhwa of the same name. it’s basically a fanfic of that series bc i am obsessed with it :’D
♱ status. on-going (slow updates)
♱ THIS SERIES WILL SERVE AS THE THE SECOND TIMELINE -> READ HERE FOR THE FIRST TIMELINE (ORIGINAL STORY) ♱
PROLOGUE.
ACT I. THE LADY
ACT II. THE CROWN PRINCE
ACT III. THE KNIGHT
ACT IV. THE STAR CROSSED LOVERS
ACT V. THE BLESSED
ACT VI. THE SIN
ACT VII. THE REVELATION
ACT VIII. THE ENEMY
ACT IX. THE LOVER
ACT X. THE EMPRESS
EPILOGUE.
PROLOGUE
Like plunging beneath the surface of water and then, abruptly, breaking through to the air above—your body jolted as if awakening in a new world altogether. You drew in a long breath, your eyes fluttering open to reveal the ceiling, both familiar yet unfamiliar in its greeting. Swiftly, you surveyed your surroundings, noting with growing recognition the confines of your old room within the De Roma estate. The estate!
You were not in the palace of Caelum, but in the estate of House De Roma. A surge of realization flooded through you as you dashed towards the nearest mirror, confronting your reflection with wide, startled eyes.
No... could it be... that you have returned to your body, ten years prior?!
In the mirror, the reflection staring back at you was not that of the notorious wife of the tyrant Emperor Satoru, but of a 20-year-old maiden, the eldest daughter of Duke de Roma, with fuller cheeks and a more youthful appearance. You could not shake the feeling of disbelief, wondering if this was all just a dream, so you reached out to touch your arms and felt the flesh beneath your fingers, trying to convince yourself that this was an unexpected reality.
Oh, you were back. You found yourself returned to your former self, a decade younger, but now armed with the knowledge of your past life's actions and their consequences. Alongside this newfound understanding, the gift of clairvoyance had also been bestowed upon you.
And for what? Why had the heavens above returned you to your body? Was it for revenge, a second chance, or perhaps punishment?
Suddenly, a loud, deafening sound pierced your ears, and a blinding white light enveloped your vision. Your body became as still as a statue, and it felt as though your soul was transported to a fourth dimension where divine intervention seemed a lot more plausible to exist.
As your soul hovered in the liminal space between life and death, you found yourself standing before a figure cloaked in billowing robes, her presence commanding and her gaze piercing. This figure was Fortuna, the ancient Caelan goddess of fortune and fate, her visage austere and unforgiving.
“Are you aware of the sins that stain your soul?”
“Have you felt the weight of your transgressions, the consequences of your actions that have wrought suffering upon your people and brought ruin to your empire?”
Her voice echoed through the realm with the divine judgment that weighed upon your conscience, while her gaze penetrated to the core of your being and demanded honesty and accountability in the face of your past misdeeds.
“Will you atone for your sins?”
“Will you seize this opportunity for redemption, or will you squander it in self-pity and remorse?”
As you stood in the presence of the ancient goddess, grappling with the heaviness of your sins and the daunting task ahead, a brilliant light had all of a sudden illuminated the space around you. From the heart of this radiant glow emerged the figure of Archangel Raphael, his presence heralded by a chorus of angelical voices and the stirring of celestial winds.
Clad in robes that seemed to shimmer with the intensity of celestial light, Archangel Raphael's presence commanded attention, his wings unfurled behind him in a display of resolute authority. If Goddess Fortuna was intimidating, the archangel was fearsome all the more. His gaze, intense and penetrating, swept over you with a gravity that left no room for evasion or deceit.
“Empress of Caelum,” he spoke, his tone firm and unyielding, and his voice carrying a billion years of heavenly existence, “You stand accused of grievous sins, crimes that have shaken the very foundations of your empire and brought suffering upon your people.”
There was no trace of softness in Archangel Raphael's demeanor, no room for mercy in the face of wrongdoing. His presence was a testament to the uncompromising nature of divine justice, his strictness a reflection of the solemn duty entrusted to him as an Archangel of the Almighty. This, no doubt, was the face of a true and formidable executor of justice.
And you, the subject, had angered the divine beings that guarded the Caelan Empire, so much so that God himself sent the goddess of the land and one of his archangels to mitigate your rightful punishment.
“By the decree of the Almighty, you are granted a second chance to amend your sins and redeem your soul. You shall return to the mortal realm, to live your life anew and correct the sins that have stained your soul.”
“Should you fail to rectify your past transgressions, should you stray from the path of righteousness and succumb once more to the temptations of darkness, know that the consequences shall be severe and eternal.”
“For those who squander the gift of divine mercy shall be cast into the deepest depths of hell, where they shall endure a punishment of unending torment and suffering.”
In the presence of Archangel Raphael and Goddess Fortuna’s equally stern gazes, you were keenly aware of the magnitude of your transgressions and the severity of the judgment that awaited you. But even as you trembled beneath the weight of their scrutiny, you knew that their presence also offered you the opportunity for redemption, with your only task to prove yourself worthy of divine mercy.
Indeed, it was by your very hands that hundreds and thousands of Christian souls shed their blood. Innocent lives, both young and old, were cruelly taken at your command. The citizens of Caelum who fell sick from the spread of the plague. The esteemed Caelan advisors of your husband’s primogenitors, skinned alive and speared in pikes by the Tiber River. The wrongly accused maid who suffered the indignity of serving your husband, paraded unclothed through the streets and subjected to the brutality of the pear of anguish. The gallant and dignified knight, tortured mentally and physically in the atrocious dungeon. Now, you find yourself thrust back into the horrors of your former life ten years hence. A life of a noble lady who ought not to be blinded by her destructive love for the empire’s crown prince.
Yet, could you truly navigate this life without ascending to the position as his empress?
As you tried to commune with the divine beings afore you, a haze in your vision transported you away from the heavenly space, realizing that you were already drawn back into the reality of your chamber, inhabiting the youthful frame of a twenty-year-old daughter of a duke. You found yourself too astonished to move, too shaken to speak, and too afraid to take any action in this new lease of life blessed upon you. At that very moment, your state of reverie was disrupted at the arrival of your maid, who entered your chamber in a humble servant garb.
Milena. The maid whose life was cut short by your hand in your past existence due to petty thievery. “My lady,” she spoke with a hint of respect and urgency, unaware of the ill-fate you had given her in your past life, “A visitor has arrived at the gates and requests an audience with you. Shall I show them in?”
Too soon? Need it truly be so soon to engage with the people from your past life immediately after awakening to your old, yet younger body? Gazing upon your maid through the mirror, you asked, “Who is that intruder you speak of?”
She bowed her head, her stance shifting into one of apologetic deference. The way she firmly stood by your door was a message to you that the intruder was not someone you could easily reject the presence of.
“The visitor is His Highness, Crown Prince Satoru.”
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