⚡️TRUCK BY LIGHTNING: A ZENITSU ZINE

The day met him with a gaggle of women. All beauties of varying looks and figures, who’d appeared the moment they’d caught a whiff of a wonderfully handsome stranger rolling into town. Two women had stopped him first, giggling coyly behind their sleeves. Two became four became more until the town’s women were all clawing at his haori clamoring for Zenitsu’s attention. They snapped at each other, ravenous and wanting.

“Please! Please, marry me!” one cried. “I couldn’t bear to be without you!”

“Get your hands off him! He’s mine! I saw him first!”

“A man so fine, so delicious. I have to have him!”

Zenitsu was floating along a sea of limbs, hands and fingers moving him in a current. The hairs at the back of his neck tingled The faint sensation of nails digging through his clothes made him squirm. The rising shrill voices of wanting women made his heart pound. All along his body he was humming with energy. He laughed a soft eh-heh-heh, trying to reassure each woman that there was enough for all. They didn’t seem to agree. They grabbed him, pulled him down and in. Soft lips and supple hands, the squish of their bodies holding him close, and the gentle waft of perfume; all the things he loved about women.

The vortex of women was just shy of suffocating, and Zenitsu found himself actually floundering for a moment. He could barely move. He needed to get the situation under control. Surely they could come to a proper compromise that left all happy. Zenitsu planted his feet firmly into the dirt. He felt the crackle of lighting in his toes, zinging in his thighs, and zipped out of their grasp.

They all watched in awe. Eyes and mouths agape; the sheer want radiated so strongly Zenitsu was becoming weak. Still, he shot them his most charming and enticing smile, content when they almost seemed to drool.

“Ladies, please, there’s enough for everyone,” He said.

“Zenitsu!” They all cried. Agony and want rolling across the syllables of his name. Zenitsu found he couldn't deny them. He shrugged and leapt towards them — and tripped.

Zenitsu groaned when he lifted his head up from the dirt. He scrambled up and pressed his hands to his nose with a disgusted wail as a horrid scent permeated the air. He looked around, ready to complain, when he spotted the demons painting the ground. Their blood swept messily across the grass and trees. A few eyes madly swiveled in their heads until they were nothing but ash at a campfire, carrying along on the wind with angry screams.

Zenitsu clutched at his hair, and let out a shriek. “WHERE DID ALL THESE DEMONS COME FROM?”

It was obvious in hindsight, he realized. Gramps had dragged him kicking and screaming to be served up as an appetizer to demons in the Corps’ twisted excuse for a final exam. He looked around, trying to piece together what the hell had happened.

Trees were leveled. Footprints were marked deep into the barks of the ones still standing. Mixed in with the scent of blood, Zenitsu could make out what might have been the smell of ozone. A storm must have passed overhead while he’d been cowering and unconscious. The ground wasn’t even damp, though. It was obvious a massive fight had taken place, but Zenitsu couldn’t find evidence of the army that had vanquished the demons, despite all the destruction left behind.

Ichor slammed up into his throat. Had they just moved on once they deemed the place cleared out, uncaring of Zenitsu’s prone, unprotected body just laying there for any demon to snatch up for a meal? Zenitsu felt a wave of tears stream down his face.

“Why’d I let that old man drag me here?” He wailed, clutching at his hair harshly. If he tugged any harder, he wouldn’t have to worry about Gramps’ haircuts. He wailed louder. “I’m not tasty enough for this!”

He was near screaming when he noticed another boy backed up against a tree, mouth agape. Zenitsu sniffled, shakily rising to his feet. He pointed to him. The other boy looked back, bewildered.

“Did you do this?” Zenitsu yelled, nearing hysterics.

It was the only explanation. The other boy was clutching his shoulder, but the evidence spoke volumes of what occurred. His sword was still covered in blood. Zenitsu’s own was safely sheltered in its scabbard, hardly aware it was even a sword. Zenitsu always croaked at the moment of truth.

“Oh my god, you must be strong.”

He slid across the dirt to clutch the other boy’s ankles, crying down the forest the moment his belly hit the dirt. “Please, I’m begging you! Protect me! There’s no way I’m going to survive this place!”

The other boy just kept looking at him like a fish yanked from the water. His brows furrowed as he glanced back and forth between Zenitsu and their surroundings. Surprise turned to annoyance as the boy made a face, wrestling free of his grip. Every time the other boy shook off his grip from one ankle, Zenitsu flew to latch onto the other. It was a strange dance, and, like a bawling eel, Zenitsu slithered across the forest floor, kicking his legs frantically.

“Please, please, please! That crazy old man thought I was cut out for this stuff! Can’t he see how wrong he is? I’m going to die! I haven’t even been confessed to yet!”

He said something Zenitsu couldn’t really make out over the garbled drum of his own crying before disappearing into the underbrush, alone again.

He lasted a good five minutes before a deep roar in the distance had him bolting up a tree. He pressed his face into the hard bark, willing the exam to end. Some time later, when exhaustion from terror and crying had finally worn him out, Zenitsu latched onto a faint sound. A hopeful tune that he was not sure really existed.

It was strange, Zenitsu thought, that a forest drenched in terrifying noises might hold a sound so kind at its heart. Maybe he was just dreaming. His head thunked against the tree trunk.

Zenitsu was screaming before he had realized it, pitching backwards towards the forest floor as a demon came slicing through the branches. A long, horrid tongue and a row of curved teeth stared back at him. But, before either demon or ground could meet him, he had been snatched up.

Zenitsu was halfway to begging for his life when he caught sight of the haori before him. A familiar lightning pattern checkered across it. The last he’d seen it, Gramps had presented it to that no-good bastard, neatly folded with a bundle of snacks for the road.

Gramps had dyed it himself, until the rough pads of his fingers had been stained blue for a full two weeks. Zenitsu could still hear the loud tremor of his fingers as he wrung out Kaigaku’s haori. Some days he shook like that, all clattering bones interrupting the strong ballad of his heart. With a warm fondness, he’d hung it to dry, clapping Zenitsu on his shoulder with a wide, crooked grin.

To Zenitsu’s knowledge, Kaigaku had never worn it.

In his mind’s eye, he might even have thought he’d seen it once, stashed away in a little hole in his foster brother’s room; a typical hiding spot he’d always had that kept the best candies worth raiding.

Kaigaku didn’t look over his shoulder, but he did click his tongue. Zenitsu felt all the previous terror in him evaporate in a loud rush of indignation.

A discordant bundle of sounds knocked at his ears. Kaigaku’s obnoxious beat, the demons, his own rising heartbeat, weared away at his shortening patience. He couldn’t place them all and it made him all the more frustrated.

The demon dropped down, rumbling away about something Zenitsu wasn’t in the mood to hear. Kaigaku spared him a glance, mostly shielded by his hair. Despite the dim lighting of the forest, Zenitsu could see his familiar, semi-permanent sneer, his chin tilted upwards like he was deigning to speak to him. Zenitsu felt heat boil just under his hairline.

Zenitsu wondered if Gramps had sent Kaigaku in, knowing his younger pupil was probably as good as demon chow by now. Gramps may have been harsh, but he wasn’t cruel.

“You little shit, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” Kaigaku said.

Or maybe Kaigaku came just to show off and make Zenitsu feel the lengthening gorge between them. The asshole.

Trying not to die, was what he wanted to yell. Since I’ve got no other choice in the matter.

He was on his feet before he could think of it, annoyed and tired when more demons dropped around them. He had no thoughts then.

The air around them turned humid. The scent of ozone poured past the trees. Zenitsu could hear the lightning building Kaigaku’s scabbard before he lunged into fifth form, and Zenitsu quickly stepped into first. A storm rumbled at their clearing, loud as a train dropping from a mountain. The ends of Zenitsu’s hair stood up, feeling the wild pressure of Kaigaku’s breathing. With laser precision Jigoro’s pupils made fast work of the demons. They passed each other, in synch, breathing at once, slicing in time, and tearing through the demons like paper.

It was surreal. He’d dreamt of this often. What it might feel like, what it might sound like.

The wild beat of Kaigaku’s heart and the hymn of their blades played in Zenitsu’s head. He could imagine a sheet of music. The beats met each time they grazed the ground, giving way to another note as they slid off, sparks of electricity sizzling behind.

The final time they both landed, it was calm. Zenitsu had been through a typhoon once. He’d thought it over once when everything had gone calm, coddled by its all seeing eye, but even that had given way to the rest of the storm lying in wait. He held his breath, willing his heart to quiet as he strained to hear. No other sounds met him.

Zenitsu shakily resheathed his sword. He breathed a sigh of relief. All the panic of before warred with the swarm of warm pride inside of him.

He wondered for a moment if he might be dreaming. If he had been, he reasoned, he’d already have busted out the new move he’d been working on rather than rely on his first form.

It must have been real.

He couldn’t impress Kaigaku this time, but at least one hope had come true. They were good together, like Gramps had always wanted, like he had always wanted. Zenitsu turned, shoulders squared to address the other boy — and stopped.

Kaigaku’s head was gone.

Terrified, Zenitsu approached him nevertheless. A dreadful scratching like swarming beetles invaded his ears. Gramps’ haori still hung from his shoulders; Kaigaku’s body, back still towards him, stood firm where it was.

“Hey,” Zenitsu called, shakily. Kaigaku turned.

Cradled in his hands was his head. Zenitsu wasn’t sure if it was his or Kaigaku’s eyes bleeding black, the sound of the outer wall of a storm tearing at his eardrums. His sickle-sharp smile moved dissonantly around a laugh. Zenitsu was eating his own heart before he realized he’d fallen to the floor.

When Zenitsu looked up, he could see the faint stretches of dawn. He hopped to his feet, running to the edge of the forest where the light was strongest. There he saw only three other participants. To his great and horrible dread, he’d made it out alive.

Zenitsu was going to be a slayer.

The sound of one more person approaching skirted at his ears.

I’m so sick of this! Zenitsu thought to himself.

-

AN:

I wanted to explore how Zenitsu becomes so "competent" when he is only sleeping. That instinct aside, his dreams must play a hand in how he handles whatever situation he's in.

There were in fact two versions I did and a ton more scenes planned but we had a word limit. But I'm very happy with how this turned out. I have the biggest thanks to give towards to Mods for being so attentive and kind and open throughout this whole project.

Title taken from Hamlet.

"To die, to sleep — To sleep – perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come When we have shuffled off this mortal coil…”

here are the other quotes I used as inspo for this fic.

“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake up in the day to find it was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible.” - TE Lawrence