pinnedbangs | 7th Struggle [Action/Video] New Bark Town ... Again

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7th Struggle [Action/Video] New Bark Town ... Again

[SUN. BRIGHT, SUNSHINEY SUN. It's so bright, it's almost as bad as getting blinded by snow. But that lasts for only a minute before the gear swings into focus on a face.

A very familiar looking face. Or maybe he wasn't familiar at all and those bright blue eyes, wild black hair, and somewhat sharp teeth were a new and unusual sight.

That person with the familiar looking face had an equally familiar looking Poochyena that had, lovingly, sunk her jaws into his skull. He's dealt with worse before, but he obviously wasn't too happy about his situation.

The Poochyena on the other hand, looked absolutely thrilled to be gnawing on her trainer once more.]

She's been doing this for fifteen minutes... [Fifteen minutes before he was just getting kicked out into New Bark and realizing that he had not dreamt up his time in Johto.]

... How do I make her stop? I can't feel much of my head anymore.

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Oh, right. It is a demon. Cat thing.

[Girl, he doesn't read anything unless it had pictures. Lots and lot of pictures. And he barely paid attention to all that translation stuff! ~~GHOST CHOMPER DOESN'T HAVE ENOUGH DRAMA FOR HIS TASTES. Yukio likes it better since it has all those gags in it.~~

But wow, the way she talks about demons is strange. Not strange bad, just... like she didn't really see demons as a threat.]

So ... besides the bakeneko, you've never really met a demon. [. . .] In your world.

[Because if she did, she wouldn't have sounded so... flippant.]

[troo, though p sure yukio would have objected to all the boob jokes at the end. just too much gag for his tastes]

[To be fair, Maka doesn't really see anything as a threat, or if it is, it's a challenge to overcome.]

No. There was a god that became so corrupted we started calling him "demon god" and sometimes when humans start eating other humans' souls, their forms change to something monstrous, but I've never met what's traditionally considered a demon.

[A beat, she sort of cocks her head at him.]

I'm not saying they don't exist in other worlds, I already talked to a boy that seems to know demons personally. He told me not to judge them all as bad. Pretty insistently, actually. [In that he said it in tandem with reading is bad, which is a fallacy, but whatever, boys are dumb.]

[~~BUT YOU KNOW YUKIO LIKES HIS BOOBS BIG AND BOUNCY~~

"Demon god" just stirs up an unwanted memory. Rin's frown returns with a vengeance. She was from a different world. There was no way they were one in the same. And besides, Kuro was a god at ne point too. But humans eating human souls? That's trippy and it sounded pretty damn demonic to him.

Shit, he didn't expect to talk about demons now - especially not so early on. ...But, if there were people who knew about demons, maybe it was stupid to bother not talking about it.

FORGET IT. THAT WAS TOO MUCH THINKING FOR ONE DAY.]

Never met the guy, but he's right about demons. A shit-ton of them are bad but there's about as much who are good. Even "demon gods" can vary. [Will it help that Rin is also against books and almost all forms of studious manners?]

[And very suddenly, a dark expression crosses Maka's face.]

The kishin is not a variance.

[She says that so stonily, with such conviction that she hardly seems like the same girl that was happily chatting about books before. This is a girl that's seen things, fought monsters and faced down fear itself, somehow coming out alive.]

He ate the soul of everyone that was ever close to him, had a chance to be close to him. He ate gods in a bid to make himself feel stronger, more in power, to infect the world with fear. Gods have variances, I can accept that demons have variances too, the sole god that was given the title of "demon god" does not. Asura is the incarnation of fear, born from Death, and that's all he intends to be.

[Clearly we're having a confusion of terminology here.]

[But then the moment passes, and she looks...tired.]

Gods are real in my world, they're not a construct of "faith." Nobody would apply the term "demon god" lightly.

[DID SHE JUST --

IS SHE GETTING MAD?? AT HIM?? THE HELL DID HE DO? SHE WAS THE ONE WHO MENTIONED DEMON GODS FIRST. WHAT THE HELL WAS UP WITH THAT FACE -- but he knew there had to have been something up. She had seen something.

Maybe. Just maybe. She was like him, in that regard. Nah, no maybes. She had seen something. Didn't matter what, but it was something bad.]

The ones from my world vary - there's a god who became a demon because he lost everything important to him! He's a nekomata, a respectable one! He only wants to help out and to have people to care about! He has nothing to do with -- with a demon god.

[And with hardly any hesitation -- ] But that's Kuro. There are demons who just spread horrible things wherever they go. They're like demi-gods. ...Then, there's the demon god who takes everything away. He's only considered a "god" among demons because of the kind of monster he is. [A beast, much like himself -- ] He's a god among monsters.

[He really doesn't want to talk about this right now. Or ever. And yet, here he was. It almost seems like a physical discomfort for him to even speak about it, almost as if he were trying so very very hard to hold himself back. Because it wasn't like he could -- yeah, fuck it. He's not about to hold back the snarl that entered his voice, not about to consider mincing his words. That option left a long time ago.]

Demons are real in my world, damn it, and a demon god isn't just about Death or being an incarnation or fear! He's not satisfied with just that! He doesn't bother getting close to people since he just wants everyone to suffer. He wants the whole fuckin' world and to make the shitty parts shittier and it doesn't matter who you are, even if he did know you or not - if he does, it's only so that he can have "fun". I don't know about your Asura, but he sounds like an asshole either way! But don't assume that I'd take demon gods lightly either!

[There wouldn't be a chance for him to suddenly ignite but he could already feel as if the fire was burning behind his eyes, that he was getting out of hand. Flames or not, he still had emotions to deal with. Emotions were easier (sometimes) to deal with than flames. Neither could easily be extinguished.

Ah, terminology. Such a tricky, tricky thing.]

...[Honestly, boys and their egos. She's not angry with him, the memory of Asura and how Crona is still trapped within him--]

Your world, my world. They're not the same.

[Big "duh" there.]

If there were demons in my world, I don't know that, they're gone now. Blair's the only one I've seen that matches up to traditional demon qualities, but it's possible she's been around for so long, hiding in her little house in the woods, that she forgot about being remotely demonic.

It's also possible that the gods wiped out the demons, out of fear that something like what Asura is would happen. But then...Lord Death created Asura from his fear, he thought banishing his fear would make him a more orderly god, but that...

[Didn't happen.]

It's not that I thought you'd take it lightly, you can't take something like Asura lightly when just being around him makes you see halluciations of your own death. But demons aren't a thing where I'm from, I wouldn't know about any demons that are on par with gods, they don't exist. Just the same, you wouldn't know about the fear and horror that comes from when a god starts using his power over you to manipulate your emotions and devour your soul.

...He's way more than an "asshole" he ate one of my best friends, and he's going to eat the rest of us if we fail to kill him.

Yeah, I know. It hurts to lose someone and you can't do anything to save them.

[She was doing it again, underestimating him. As if he didn't understand or didn't know. Well, maybe she wasn't doing it on purpose. Still. He wasn't going to talk about this anymore.]

What's your name?

[She doesn't say anything more about it, since he changed the subject.

But at "you can't do anything to save them" she raises her eyebrows.

It's a "who said I can't?" look.]

Maka. You?

[After getting literally beaten beyond recognition, Rin was ready to keep training before he went around boasting about what he was going to do to a certain demon god's unholy ass.

He gives her the "maybe in your world" look.

Though it looks silly on him, especially when combined with the "Maka must be an American name" look.]

Rin Okumura.

[...His face is a confused mess and she must summon up all her willpower to not crack a smile at it.]

I'm sure running into a lot of Japanese people around here, do you prefer being called Rin or Okumura?

[That --

-- that was the last thing he expected to hear. He was ready to go grump somewhere, cool his head (WITH POOCHY STILL ON IT), and then move on and away but. But names had to happen.

BRILLANT.

Most peeps in Johto hardly ever asked so. He just went with it???? And then there was Shiemi but. She was flan. Flan was special.]

Whichever? Any? I don't know, whatever you want... It's my name either way. Is Maka your whole name?

[If so. Then. That would make her pretty bad-ass. Or something. Like a samurai. The "they call me Maka. /whips out twin blades from hair" sort of samurai.]

...Maka Albarn.

[She didn't realize the full name was so important.]

I'll call you Rin. Okumura's a mouthful and it seems weird to call a friend by his surname. [Even if she does it with Ishimaru. Ishimaru is...special. Not special like flan, special like crazy.]

[If she never told him, he would have run away with the Ruroni Kenshin spin-off, featuring Asura as Shishio.

Huh. Cool beans.]

Sure. How's it -- [HOLD THE PHONE] -- friend? [And suddenly it hits him like a ton of bricks.

This is a girl. Who wants to be his friend. Who isn't Shiemi, Paku, or Izumo. And who doesn't think he's going to juvi.]

Seriously?

What seriously? To call you a friend?

[She blinks, seeming honestly perplexed that he would question it.]

You think because we had a disagreement that we shouldn't be friends? My friends hold no qualms about punching me in the face, what makes you think a little argument's going to scare me off?

[Well okay by "friends" she means Black*Star, but everybody else in Death City is so casual about violence it's kind of an unspoken thing.]

What? No! Not about that. That's nothin'.

[He's had disagreements before. And yeah, he did sorta think that she was going to be upset but he was willing to be her friend, even with that. It wasn't like a barrier or anything...

...It was more along the lines of how hard it was for him to make friends. And even though he had so many now, it was still a joy to make more.]

Just. Forget about it.

...

[Ah, she sees now, somehow he's not a person that's used to the friendship thing. Not as bad as Crona, but still present.]

The way I see it, everyone needs a friend, and there's no excuse to reject making bonds with others. Particularly not in a place like this, I mean...I'm the only one from my world here.

Same here. ...Not now and not before. [But he did have friends last time he was in Johto. They're mostly gone now.

But wow, she was a mind reader. Or a shonen protag. One or the other.]

I just thought that you'd be... ["ew no delinquent I only talk to nerds with big, thick glasses"] ...y'know. ... What're your friends like?

[Subject change? What subject change?]

One of my best friends is super pretentious when it comes to music sometimes and a sarcastic ass other times, one's a ninja that just can't stop proclaiming his greatness no matter where he goes, another's an obsessive compulsive god.

[A beat.]

Another one's a ninja but she's the only sane one out of our group and two others are twins that came from a thuggish background in New York.

[Another beat.]

That's who I mainly hang out with anyway, we're a team. [She can save the "also some of them turn into weapons" thing for later.]

[Wow. She talks a lot. But damn were her friends cool sounding! It only strengthened the idea that Maka was really a samurai. Shark girl. Thing.]

And in your world, people eat souls and fight the humans who eat souls? [Making a hypothesis here since she mentioned something like that and she seemed to be against things that were bad.]

So what does that make you? So since you hang out with ninjas and thugs, does that make you a samurai?

[He really should talk about himself. ...Maybe.]

Ahh...sort of? Demon Weapons eat the corrupted souls that ate good souls, it gives them more power. Our duty is to protect the world from corrupted souls and people that would bring chaos.

[She blinks. Samurai?]

No, I use a scythe.

[Obviously, silly, samurai are swordsmen.]

It doesn't matter, does it?

[Gurl. Your world cray-cray.

Especially that annoying bit about demon weapons. Didn't she just say her world didn't have traditional demons or whatever? But he's not going to get his boxers in a knot over it.

But. Truth be told. He's yet to meet a girl who wielded a scythe.]

That's really cool! But what is it that doesn't matter, the scythe part?

Demon Weapon is a title, they're humans with the ability to turn into weapons.

[The history behind them is just so convoluted and look at his face already, he might be exceeding brain capacity.]

Who I hang out with or what I'm called. It's not special or anything.

[da fack]

They - what? That doesn't even make sense - [Damn, she might explain anyway BACK UP.] - and I don't want to know right now either!

[He reaches up to scratch his head, but gets a handful of poochyena fur instead. Poochy has shifted her weight so she's resting on his head and shoulder. Her jaw isn't viciously clamped to his head, but she's letting him know that she's just taking a break. He scratches her behind the ear and under her chin.

Rin never really thought he would be asked. He contemplates his answer for once before speaking. Poochy was more than happy to have his attention.]

... I wanted to know more about you. [Don't mind him feeling all awkward. He's new to this whole GIRL WHO ISN'T ONE OF THE THREE PREVIOUSLY MENTIONED. And he didn't want to be so closed off with a friend.]

I made a broadcast on it before since people were just going to keep questioning it whenever I mention terms from home. You can just look at that whenever you recover from the information you're getting now.

["When you recover."]

I think I've already talked about myself enough, what about you?

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