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Rating:
Teen And Up Audiences
Archive Warning:
Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Category:
Gen
Fandoms:
BakemonogatariParahumans Series - Wildbow
Characters:
Araragi KoyomiAmy Dallon | PanaceaOshino Shinobu
Additional Tags:
Canon-Typical ViolenceDramaMystery
Language:
English
Stats:
Published:2019-08-09Updated:2020-04-09Words:77,966Chapters:19/?Comments:16Kudos:117Bookmarks:21Hits:4,844
Hot-Blooded
frantic
Chapter 3: Cognition 1.3
Chapter Text
I woke in pain.
Let me rephrase that.
I woke in mild discomfort. Sort of like this constant feeling of an itch you can't scratch. I woke under a dumpster, which probably didn't help. Seriously , was last night some sort of fever dream or something? I reached out with my hand to crawl out from under the dumpster. My hand promptly caught fire. I withdrew it.
What the hell? People don't just catch on fire. It's definitely not something that happens in broad daylight.
I decided to check my phone, and groaned as I looked at the time. I'd totally missed school, completely and utterly. It wasn't as if my parents would care, but I took pride in my never skips, never late status. This took away some of that pride. I had messages, though. That was new. My sisters never bothered to text me, because I never bothered to reply. My parents…
Let's not talk about them.
Panacea
Where are you?
Araragi
I'm under a dumpster.
Panacea
Just because people treat you like human garbage doesn't mean you have to live up to it, Araragi.
Hey, that hurts, you know? I didn't do anything to deserve such statements.
Araragi
When I stop being human garbage I become a human torch.
Panacea
You're ten thousand light years away from being that attractive, Araragi.
Araragi
No, I literally catch on fire.
Panacea
There's no way that a human being can gsjkahgsdfaknsfgmxcoisjgi saertj kssdaa
It seems that Panacea had a mental breakdown at the impossibilities of my situation. As such, she is unable to help me in this scenario.
I tried to move the dumpster. It didn't move. I was trapped under here for the forseeable future. I put my hand out from underneath it again, wondering if anything had changed.
I pulled my hand back after watching it burn for a few seconds. It's seriously incredible, how fast the flames appear and disappear. Is this a parahuman power? What a useless power I've been gifted. 'The ability to catch on fire and feel incredible pain for several seconds when under sunlight.'
...Hey isn't this a really dangerous situation? I'm a parahuman who can't leave the confines of 'beneath the dumpster'. Anyone could find me right now, you know? Well, they'll probably just think of me as some homeless vagrant who chose the best place he could find to sleep, but this isn't a good look for the future. I'm in serious danger here. There's a really high chance that anyone in the nearby area could uncover me and I wouldn't be able to do anything to stop them.
Someone's kicking the dumpster.
I peeked out and see feet covered in sandals. A man knelt down, put an unlit cigarette into his mouth and didn't light it.
"Maa maa, Araragi-san. You look to be in a bit of a predicament," he said, then smiled like a shark, his hawaiian shirt a bit too large for him. "Did something good happen?"
"There's no way this situation could be called good," I replied, suspicious. "Why aren't you lighting your cigarette?"
"It's so that way fan-artists have a really easy sketch prepared. Not lighting my cigarette lets them draw me without having to worry about the smoke. Also, there are kids around, Araragi-san. I can't smoke around them, you know?"
"That doesn't even make any sense. Apologize to every smoker in the world."
"Maa, they should quit while they're ahead. Even if quitters never win, a person who quits can always beat someone dedicated to the wrong path."
He sucked in a drag of his unlit cigarette.
"You're not human."
"Was I really ever?"
He didn't reply, instead looking at me as I stayed beneath the dumpster, and sighing. He sounded really aggrieved by my declaration of inhumanity, even though I was always far closer to being a corpse than a human.
"You can't just throw away your humanity like that, Araragi-san," he finally said, smoking a cigarette that remained unlit. "It's not good for you, you know? Don't you want to fix it?"
I paused, thinking it over. Without my humanity, I couldn't attend school. I couldn't see Panacea, or my family, or anyone else ever again. I weighed it in my mind, before smiling.
"Isn't that totally fine? I'll be the minion of Kiss-Shot until the day I die."
He looked at me.
I looked at him.
He threw away his cigarette with a laugh.
"Well said, Araragi-san. Now let's get you out from under that dumpster. It's not cool to stand up girls, you know?"
hotbloodedcoldbloodedironblooded
"Heeeey!"
The first words I heard upon entering the abandoned building that the man had converted into a workshop were cheerful beyond any reasonable belief. And the person attached to them was about the same height as my sisters, waving cheerfully with a blonde head and a smile on her face. Red eyes pierced through my soul, and I raised a hand as I smiled.
"Yo."
Kiss-Shot punched me in the arm, and glared at me. I didn't really know what I'd done wrong, until she grabbed it and inspected my hand, before dropping it with a sigh.
"You're not really clever, are you, Araragi Koyomi? Even though I, the great Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade, the hot-blooded cold-blooded iron-blooded vampire, have made you my minion, you immediately tried to kill yourself."
Neither of us mentioned my request. Not in front of this person we didn't know, who watched us while leaning back in a schoolchair. Hey, wait, isn't that seriously dangerous? You could break your neck doing stuff like that, you know? Don't give our readers bad influences! You already smoke, can't you tone down the rest of the stuff?!
"Stop breaking the fourth wall, Araragi-san," the man said, the chair clanking down as he spoke. "The name's Oshino Meme, and you two are in quite a bit of trouble."
We looked at each other. Why would be in trouble?
"See, there's a delicate balance in Brockton Bay, you know? Lung watches the district. The district watches the city. The city watches Lung. Parahumans and the supernatural…"
He pulled out a lighter and lit his cigarette. It would look really cool once this was animated.
"Don't mix at all. That's the only reason nobody ever tries to go deeper in your district, you know? Maa, but with you two now, there's going to be serious consequences."
"Consequences?" Kiss-Shot said with a haughty tone, leaning against my stomach. "Whatever for? My minion declared himself for me. He is mine until the day life leaves both of our eyes."
That was definitely true. I could feel a mental link in the back of my skull, that told me where Kiss-Shot was, and she nudged it back. I jolted and looked at her. She smiled.
I tried not to blush, and succeeded.
"Maa, that's great and all, but you two are seriously way stronger than the rest of the supernatural occurrences in the area. You'll attract more. They'll come. You'll kill them. Hunters will figure it out. They'll come. You'll kill them. The PRT will get involved, because even Lung can't cover up five deaths before they find out. This isn't a good look for either of you, you know?"
I shivered, already knowing in my gut it was true. There was absolutely no way for either of us to go undetected for long.
Especially with the way my phone was buzzing.
"So, I've got an idea for the two of you. It's a fight, a fight."
"A fight?" Kiss-Shot asked, tilting her head. "Between who?"
"Your minion," he said, pointing at me. "and the hunter who cut off all your limbs. If he can prove that he can beat even that sort of existence, then Lung will back off. The PRT won't figure it out. And you two can be free to stay in Brockton forever."
I frowned, already finding a problem in the plan. What if we just left? Oshino laughed at my face, waving his hand as I glared at him.
"Sorry, sorry, but your face is seriously an open book. I'm not reading your mind or anything, it's just obvious to me," he said smiling, before his face turned serious. "You can't run away from a hunter with your master's limbs. They respond to her. They're part of her power. She needs them or she'll begin to fade away."
Oh. Then I really can't just leave it alone, can I? I have to fight. I looked at Kiss-Shot, who blinked up and me warily, before nodding.
"Okay."
"Seriously? That's it? Okay?" Kiss-Shot looked at me, confused. "You're totally fine with risking your life for mine? We just met you know."
"That's fine."
"I might not even go back to being that onee-san you liked so much. I might stay like this forever."
"I'll manage."
"You'll never get to see anyone you care about again. You'll live in a world of darkness, separate from the light of parahumans. You'll be in the supernatural for the rest of your natural and unnatural life."
"It'll be okay."
"Uggggggh, you're so hard to deal with! You're nothing like my last minion, you know?!" She shook her hand in my face, glaring up at me. "He brought me new toys all the time! He would laugh at me when I was angry, and play jokes on me when I was sad! You can't just agree to everything, alright?! You have to have some opinions of your own!"
She made an annoyed sound, and stalked away from me. Throwing me glares the entire time as she walked in circles around desks, I shifted my attention back to Oshino.
"Who took Kiss-Shot's limbs?"
He looked at me, and I shivered a bit. Those eyes… They weren't kind eyes, or smiling eyes. He was really serious about this. Dangerously so. Then he smiled and leaned back in the chair again, smoke drifting from his lips.
"Alabaster. Empire 88 cape. Every 4.3 seconds he resets to his 'default state'. Totally ordinary combat stats for a human. Honestly, if it was a parahuman fight this would be a complete stomp, Araragi-san. Your stats are so much higher than his right now it's ridiculous."
I blinked. "So what's the problem?"
"You're not a parahuman, Araragi-san. You're a vampire. He'll know you're Kiss-Shot's disciple in an attosecond at most. The limbs are probably already vibrating to inform Kiss-Shot of her newest subordinate. And the instant you ask for them, he'll absolutely drop the pretense of being 'Alabaster, the distractable', and become 'Weiss, the magician'. A magician is strongest when his capacity is full, right? His capacity resets every 4.3 seconds. Even if magic and parahuman abilities don't mix, it doesn't matter when your body resets to default every 4.3 seconds. Weiss is one of the most dangerous magicians on the turnside of the world. Breaking contracts with powers is seriously insane, Araragi-san, and he does it casually."
Kiss-Shot jolted at that, and Oshino looked at me, the smoke dangling around his face, before rubbing his eyes. "Even she gets it, Araragi-san. Breaking a contract is dangerous, but he isn't breaking them. He isn't 'contracting with a power and then breaking it", he's 'wiping the slate of his existence so clean it's as if the contract was never made in the first place.'"
I thought idly about breaking my contractual unlife with Kiss-Shot. Something crawled into my soul and stabbed at it as I did so, and I quickly banished the thought from my mind.
"Do you understand how dangerous this person is? He hunted Kiss-Shot, alone. He took her limbs, alone. He let her live, alone. Can you match him, blow for blow? Can you beat him, Araragi-san?"
I thought it over. It was hard to decide immediately if I could defeat him. It was made harder when a blonde head popped underneath me, pointing at my face, and a glare that almost matched Panacea's looked at me.
"I've got it! If you win, I'll make you a human again! So do your best, okay?"
I laughed, scratching the back of my head. Seriously, how likely is it that I would make more friends after I died then before?
"Even if all your limbs are cut off, they'll grow back! If your head is crushed, it'll be fixed! If your heart stops working, it doesn't even matter! You're the scion of the strongest supernatural existence in the world! You're not just Araragi Koyomi, you know?"
She clenched her fist, glaring at me with determination.
"You're my minion! The Kiss-Shot Acerola-Orion Heart-Under-Blade has declared to you that you will be victorious, and return with my limbs and the heads of my foes under your arm! So go, Araragi Koyomi! Kill Alabaster! Reclaim my limbs! And show this city that the two of us are most certainly not going anywhere anytime soon!"
hotbloodedcoldbloodedironblooded
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