wordcubed writes

Apparently by “tomorrow” I meant a week later, and by two OCs I meant "four, but each gets a separate post because jeeeezus this’d be too long otherwise”.

Inko has her own journey in Libra, going from homeless single mom to respected villain. Due to how the timeline works out, I needed to create some OCs for her to interact with, since none of the other canon characters’ histories line up with AU!Inko’s in the way I needed them to.

Also, the point of Inko’s character is that she can’t survive on her own. She’s a villain, yes, she breaks the law, and as she grows into her role she even knowingly hurts people. But she’s unusual among villains in that she doesn’t pretend to be strong by herself—her real strength is in the many connections she makes. Inko becomes the surrogate mom to a generation of young villains. A key part of her story is found family.

Hence her organization’s name: the Underground Family.

Today’s character: Kangen Kutsurogi

You can tell this one's important because she has a proper name!

Kangen's role: Inko needed a companion, someone she can interact with through her journey. I wanted them to be younger than her, so Inko is still definitely The Adult in the relationship, but old enough to babysit Izuku, old enough to spend money without raising too many questions, old enough to have political opinions, and old enough to know how to bullshit their way through some things.

(Fun fact: this role was originally going to be Dabi's, but he’s just too young at this point—11 at most—to credibly do some of the things I’d need his character to do. Don’t worry, he still joins Inko's family, just at a later date.)

I also wanted someone to provide an alternative kind of character development. Inko is already a mother, already carrying responsibility, already intensely compromised, and her character growth is about things more grounded than destiny and bigger than personal vengeance. Kangen, however, wants more shonen-esque things: she wants to solve mysteries, she wants to make herself into something.

And boy howdy, does Kangen have a mystery to solve. Because her Quirk isn't hers. And, possibly, neither is her name. This is BNHA, you can probably guess how she has a Quirk that isn’t hers...

Kangen wants to solve the mystery of herself, Inko wants to take care of the people she cares about. All For One can either be the antagonist in Kangen's personal story or he can be the monster who generously tolerates the small fry swimming around him. He cannot be both. Kangen's story is that she must learn to temper her wants and grow around her own scars—like Inko already is.

If Kangen pursues the things she thinks she wants, she'll destroy the things she actually values. (Sometimes, you have to let go of your personal dream narrative to realize the one you've actually been living this whole time.)

Kangen's Quirk: Nonthreatening.

Kangen's Quirk prevents anyone from seeing her as a threat. No matter how hostile or violent Kangen acts towards someone, she can never provoke them. They will never panic, get angry, or get stressed about her. Confrontations become friendly chats and deadly fights become laid-back play-fights.

Nonthreatening allows Kangen to challenge people who are normally very dangerous and walk away without few-to-no repercussions. She’s also used it to steal stuff right in front of the owner's eyes. (At most, they'll sigh exasperatedly and get around to filing an insurance claim. Chasing her or calling the police would mean they’re worried or angry, and that’s not possible with her.) Or brazenly assault people in broad daylight and walk away without anyone trying to stop her. (It is not a stealth Quirk; people can see and remember her normally, they just can't be fucked to pursue/confront her while she's present.)

The exact mechanics of Kangen's Quirk are the mystery, though. Is it an always-on field affecting everyone around her? Can it be suppressed with concentration? Or is it the reverse, and takes work to keep activated? Is she the sole focus, or can she prevent anyone from provoking anybody? Does it work on robots? Can a recording of her have the same effect?

The little answers are ever-changing. The big answer is that her Quirk is very, very old: one of the first-generation Quirks from 200 years ago. Its original user was taken by the government, and used in “Project Kangen”, a series of experiments in "pacifying" large crowds, or potentially even entire populations. Her Quirk is (sometimes) strong because it's actually many Quirks—one of the first amalgamate Quirks forged by All For One—but it's unstable because, well, he was pretty young himself back then, and not nearly as skilled with his own Quirk as he is now.

And Kangen Kutsurogi’s name? Given to whoever the Quirk subject of Project Kangen is.

Kangen's name: It's literally the Japanese phrase "kangen", which according to at least one Japanese dictionary means "leniency and severity", making her name ~meaningful~ by Horikoshi standards. Kutsurogi means something like "comfort" or "relaxing".

Her villain name is Peacemaker, and yes she is going to carry a Colt Peacemaker revolver, because irony.

Kangen's backstory: The desirability of certain Quirks means human trafficking is a big problem in this AU, and Kangen got shuffled all over the place as villain groups tried to use her Quirk for various purposes (anything from petty crime in broad daylight to negotiation to infiltration).

Eventually, All For One decides that the Project Kangen Quirk is his creation and therefore belongs in Japan, kidnapping her. Then, not having much use for her (AFO has far more potent telepathy Quirks under his command) he put her where he dumps all the Quirks he collects but doesn’t use.

That is, he gave her to the actual designated antagonist of my villain!Inko fic: a cult leader villain who worships All For One (and doesn’t realize he’s merely caretaker to All For One's human collection of salvaged Quirks). Kangen’s job there was mostly to suppress the more violent Quirk-users and help raise the younger kids.

Pleased to announce that my untitled AFO!Izuku and villain!Inko fics are no longer untitled.

Series title: Let Justice Be Done

Summary: Let justice be done, though the heavens fall. A reconstruction of My Hero Academia where choices have consequences and worldbuilding matters.

Villain!Inko fic title: Libra

Summary: Inko "Big Mom" Midoriya wasn't born a villain—she was made. She didn't ask to be homeless and desperate. Justice is supposed to be blind, and heroes impartial, but Inko is no hero. For her son, for all the people that heroes forget, she will break the law, and tip the scales of justice as far as she has to.

AFO!Izuku fic title: Let the Heavens Fall

Fandom: My Hero Academia

Fanfic: untitled AFO!Izuku AU

Context: As promised at the end of my AFO!Izuku AU timeline, here is the first of several posts about my fic's villain OCs.

Today's bunch are minor characters I created because I needed to solve a problem. They don't get much, or any, development. They exist simply to enable the plot to happen, and most only appear in one or two scenes. They’re so unimportant, I only have placeholder names for them at this point.

While their Quirks are all incredibly useful, many also have side affects that make them impossible to use without hurting people. 

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The Universal Translator

One of the goals of my AFO!Izuku AU is making the world feel bigger. I can't have Japan be the heart of hero society if we never see anything outside Japan, can I? But that raises another problem: how the heck can I have people from different sides of the planet casually talk to each other? Easy! A universal translator Quirk.

Babel works for the Consortium. With a touch, he can make a person fluent in every language (that has living fluent speakers on Earth). Obviously, this is so incredibly valuable that it needs one hell of a downside to explain why he can only find work as a villain. (Not that he's reluctant. Babel is totally okay with his Quirk's cost; it's not like he's the one paying it.)

For every person Babel "gifts" this way, he has to assign another person to lose the ability to speak, write, and understand language—any and all language. This victim is left unable to understand or communicate with any person or media around them, for the rest of their life. (Babel's villain name makes sense now, doesn’t it?) And that "rest of their life" is usually short, because no victim of this has ever lasted more than a couple years before killing themselves—being that isolated, that alienated, is unbearable for a human being.

But it gets worse! Victims and recipients are paired. Within several hours of choosing and touching a recipient, he needs to choose and touch a victim, or else suffer the downsides of his Quirk himself. When a victim dies, their paired recipient loses their universal fluency (and vice versa if a recipient dies before the victim, though this rarely happens). Thanks to the high suicide rate of his victims, Babel needs to constantly create more of them.

Obviously, the only people who'd be okay with this cost are pretty awful. The Consortium is canny enough that they help Babel choose victims who either won't be missed or that the Consortium needs silenced (which they can literally, thanks to Babel).

Random bit of backstory for Babel: his personal paired victim is the only one he's forcibly kept alive. He hasn't lost his universal fluency for almost twenty years now.

The Medic

Hurtswap exists because I felt that Inko's faction needed a healer on their side. Hurtswap's Quirk allows them to swap an injured body part with someone else's healthy body part. This has obvious downsides: they need access to uninjured people to heal any injuries. And unlike Babel, they can't delay the exchange for very long; if Hurtswap heals someone, they need to assign the injury to someone else within a few minutes, or else suffer the injury with their own body.

Inko takes Hurtswap in when they're still a kid, but by time Izuku starts at UA, they're in their twenties, and they're pretty skilled. They've gotten creative, and can swap injuries onto animals, provided the animal has the right anatomy. For example, Hurtswap can give a human's broken femur to any animal with a femur (and the human's femur will be healed), but they couldn't do this with, say, an insect, because insects don't have that kind of skeleton.

I've been going back and forth on how to write them. Sometimes I think it'd be interesting to make them a Mad Doctor(tm) who enjoys using their Quirk, mostly because I like the idea of giving Himiko an adult in her life who sympathizes with, or even adores, how creepy and stabby she is.

Other times, I lean towards making Hurtswap a woobie who hates hurting people or animals, but still feels obligated to save other people. Someone who reluctantly swaps your broken arm onto a rat, then completely ignores you and cries and dotes over the now-injured rat. This version obviously allows for more angst, and possibly more character development, but I don't want to write Inko pressuring a kid into using a Quirk they hate.

We'll have to see which direction I take them.

The Wealthy Sponsor

So like, where is homeless single mom Inko getting the money to establish a found family villainous empire? Answer: somebody rich is using her shelter to launder money.

I also wanted to address an issue that canon BNHA doesn't really touch: class. In-canon, Shinsou has a "villainous" Quirk, and needs to follow the straight-and-narrow rules just to get a fair shake. In this AU, Inko's sponsor also has villainous Quirk, but he’s rich and powerful. The law protects him, but it does not bind him—the inverse of Shinsou.

Secret Thief's Quirk lets him know the secrets of the people around him. Its strength is based on distance. Across the street from you? He can learn secrets that would be mildly embarrassing to you if the wrong person learned them. Shaking your hand? He knows the secrets that could destroy your life if they got out.

Secret Thief got booted out of UA for being a real mean son of a bitch. (Not by Aizawa; Secret Thief is actually slightly older than him. Also he was, naturally, in the management course.) But Secret Thief's family was also rich, so he had options; he ~redeemed~ himself by going on an apology tour, donating money and even personally volunteering at various charities. At one of them, he meets Inko, and immediately picks up on all the secrets she's keeping.

Secret Thief sees Inko as easy prey. She works in a sketchy part of town with sketchy people (her shelter is one of the few with a "no questions asked" policy, so a lot of people with "bad" Quirks, or who're skirting the edge of the law, end up there), and she treasures her son, Izuku.

As far as Secret is concerned, he's being very nice: Inko gets legitimacy, money and aid she needs to continue her work, a contact among rich and influential people, and a more robust cover for her illegal activities.

All he gets out of it is a pet project to build his reputation and skills with, a legally-separate organization to funnel and hide resources in, easy access to desperate people willing to work under the table, and plausible deniability if anyone finds out. Oh, and Secret makes it very clear that if the public ever learns what Inko has done, she manipulated him, and she will take the fall.

Secret Thief comes the closest to getting a character arc. He's obviously in a position of power over Inko, capable of destroying her life. But later, after Inko's gang has built ties to powerful groups like the Consortium (and even dangerous people like All For One), Secret Thief realizes she's outgrown him—he's just one of many influential contacts she has, and the rest have power he can't touch.

The Secret Keeper

So with all sorts of secrets to be kept, and especially with Secret Thief and other mind-readers prowling around, how do villains keep the wrong information from getting out to the wrong people?

Censor is a freelancer for other villains. Her Quirk, Classified, makes it so that if you learn any new information when it's activated, you become unable to share that information with anyone else—unless the other person themselves already knows it. This applies to everything, not just important secrets.

For example, if you learn a new fact about octopuses, you won't be able to talk, write, or otherwise signal it to another person unless that other person already knows that same fact. Now replace "octopuses" with any information you don't want people finding out.

Her Quirk is one of the few counters to psychic Quirks, outright blocking information from them. Censor's character debut is when the Consortium reaches out to Inko, and they want to share information with her despite the possibility that she may refuse to join them.

Random bit of backstory for Censor: she's from a big family, all with similar Quirks. They have close ties to the Consortium, and were some of the few "civil servants" of the supervillain dictator era to side with that group instead of All For One's League of Villains.

The Teleporter

It gives me a lot more options in the story if characters can just sometimes appear where they need to be.

Tesseract can shift the space within a thirty-meter-across cube around himself into a higher dimension, both surveying and quickly relocating to any other spot of his choosing. He is very busy, since teleportation Quirks are rare and obviously valuable, so it's not like he hangs around the Important Characters moving them whenever. There are plenty of times when someone has to shrug and take a 12-hour plane flight.

Tesseract's Quirk has no major downsides, aside from the fact that he doesn't look human—just a vaguely-humanoid shattered pane of multi-colored glass. He's relatively young (late teens), but he's been groomed since he was a kid by CORE's own longtime (and elderly) teleporter to be her successor.

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Notes: I’ve put way too much thought into these, despite how unimportant they are.

Fandom: Naruto

Fanfic: A Different World

Context: "The Uchiha and Senju are descended from ancient aliens and their mom is the final bad guy” plotline in Naruto... kinda sucks. So I’m just going to throw the whole canon out and substitute my own.

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Hagoromo slew the monster. Then he ended the war. He ended the war because he said so, because he was a god, because he held the Ten-Tails and he could pull all the world’s chakra inside himself. For a thousand years, he ruled over the world, carefully laying the foundations for a just and peaceful future.

Then he died.

His sister shook her head and called him a fool. Always distant, ever aloof, she took her half of the Otsutsuki clan and left. She left for the moon, to guard the Ten-Tails’ corpse, and to watch. Hagoromo might be able to hold all the world’s chakra, but Hamura could see the world with a clarity her brother never had. She would, she decreed, give her awful nephews two centuries to make peace, and if they failed, her wrath would turn them to dust. If they failed to uphold the glorious Otsutsuki name, then she would simply ensure there weren’t any left to ruin it.

She’d never been particularly fond of the Impure Lands. They were merely a sinkhole for unworthy souls, after all. She’d humored her little brother anyway, like she always had, but now Hagoromo was dead. Worse than dead, he was stuck in the Grey Lands. What a fool.

Then she died. It was inevitable, really. Like her brother, she’d stayed for far too long in the Impure Lands. Her body became corrupted, and wasted away like a mortal’s. It was embarrassing. Also, painful. Dying was unpleasant, and she was fond of her children, however pitiful the world they called home was. Now she would never see them again.

“Have you learned anything?” he asked as she marched past him, towards the Pure Land. “That pain was only a taste of what all mortals go through. They’ll reincarnate over and over again, hurting over and over.”

“Is that why you wanted me to stay?” she stated more than asked. “To learn? I don’t need whatever it is you think I need. Not in the Pure Land. I am going home. You are free to waste your time in the Grey Lands. Enjoy watching your insufferable children ruin your legacy.”

She never spoke to him again. The Pure Land was short one god, a gap that could never be filled, but she put it behind her.

~oOo~~oOo~~oOo~~oOo~

The first time Hagoromo Otsutsuki used Creation of All Things was to put away the Ten-Tails. He found it less memorable than seeing the look on Hamura’s face. She’d tried destroying it outright, and found it was beyond even her power.

That she needed help with something was such an affront to her dignity. When she’d grumbled that they might have to work together, while looking so offended at the very thought of admitting weakness, he’d actually snickered. She’d glared at him for that. Her eyes made it a very formidable glare indeed. (It was like the whole world, heaven and earth itself, was made of eyes and all of them were looking at him at once.)

Between the two of them, the greatest monster to ever wander the Impure Lands was crushed. The full power of two of the greatest gods from the Pure Land, the twin wielders of all destruction and all creation, was brought against it. Its spirit was shredded and torn and its body rendered to dust, and even as it simply rebirthed from the Grey Lands the monster found itself reshaped and remade into something less vile.

When it grew weak from their assault, Hagoromo stayed her hand. He would not let her destroy it. Instead, he locked it inside himself. Hamura called him a fool and warned that it would destroy him. He’d looked at her and said that this way, he could try and understand it.

It was bewildering.

But she could see everything, and she watched the monster from the outside in as it changed. He tamed it, somehow, and when he let it out and created nine new shapes for it, she let herself believe that it was no longer a being of pure loathing and cruelty, of violence given boundless form but no function beyond itself.

She was a fool because she’d forgotten how foolish mortals were, and how foolish Hagoromo’s half of the Otsutsuki clan was. If the monster could be tamed, then it could be untamed.

Hamura belittled her brother’s compassion, but she was wise enough to recognize that his heart was big enough for the whole world. The problem was, nobody else could ever measure up. Strife would return as soon as Hagoromo died.

It did.

~oOo~~oOo~~oOo~~oOo~

The third time Hagoromo used Creation of All Things was when Hamura declared that he owed her for her help with the Ten-Tails, and therefore he should create offspring for her, much as he had done for himself. (That’d been the second time he used Creation of All Things.) In her image, she was careful to specify. Hagoromo had made his own children in his image, and they were every bit as foolish as he was. If her children were crafted after her, they’d at least be sensible.

(They were indeed very sensible, though Hagoromo felt that had little to do with worshiping reason and everything to do with looking down on others. It was easy to disclaim emotion when you thought yourself superior. Hagoromo held others close and grew to care too much. He liked his approach a lot better.)

Their children had children of their own—with, ugh, mortals, though Hamura found mortals tolerable enough if they simply shut their mouths and deferred to the superior Otsutsuki. Hagoromo actually liked them, presumably for the same reason he wasted his time on the tailed beasts.

~oOo~~oOo~~oOo~~oOo~

Hamura found her nephews grating, but in different ways. Asura was the younger of the two by a full century. He was a weaker version of his father, with the merest sliver of his father’s power but most of his kindness. (“Kindness” was Hagoromo’s word for it, though. Hamura called such a thing by its proper name: shameful indulgence of others.) He was weak, but never seemed to fail. He had... companions? Friends? Family? Whatever it was, Asura possessed some quality that drew others to him, and another, equally strange, quality that compelled him to raise them up, to treat them as equals, to see them thrive alongside him.

Hamura could not understand this—this drive to indulge others even when they had not earned it—but she respected it. Somewhat. Asura’s power lay, not in himself, but in the people around him, and in the world itself. Asura was a fool, but a fool in the same way as his father. He had the same heart, and as soon as she realized that, she understood that he was meant to be Hagoromo’s heir. (If nothing else, Asura respected her wish to be left alone.)

Indra worried her. His eyes were so different from Hagoromo’s and from hers. She wasn’t frightened—Indra could grow in power for a thousand thousand years and still never touch her—but she worried for her brother’s sake. Indra seemed less like Hagoromo’s son and more like the Ten-Tails’.

Indra used his eyes to destroy, like hers. But he used them poorly, and to torment. Hamura was detached from the world as much as possible, to better judge it, and to better destroy what was necessary to keep All Things in balance. Indra held some too close, much like his brother and his father, but pushed some others away, and he was cruel to them. His eyes did not show him All Things, but instead Us and Them.

He seemed driven to power, much like Asura, but only for himself and the tiny handful within his Us. Indra had approached her many times, seeking power, and on the sixth time she laid out her will. She told him that while his brother was a human seeking human power to embetter humanity, Indra was a human seeking divine power only for himself. She warned him that if he continued his pursuit of ruinous power, if he ever became a monster to replace the Ten-Tails, she would destroy him. Hagoromo’s son or not, Hamura would remove him from All Things and place him into Nothing.

She had not been looked at with such hatred since she fought the Ten-Tails. It worried her even more.

~oOo~~oOo~~oOo~~oOo~

Hagoromo Otsutsuki died and war came.

Indra failed to see what Hamura had seen centuries ago. He hadn’t realized Asura became Hagoromo’s heir the moment Indra paired limited compassion with limitless cruelty. So when he heard his father declare Asura the inheritor of his will, Indra attacked his brother even as their father lay dying.

Hamura was furious. How dare they make Hagoromo’s last sight in the Impure Lands be his own children fighting! That fury was precisely why she did not strike. Being too close to something was a mistake. It was not her way. She waited until she was calmer, until her divine will to destroy could come crashing down out of necessity and not anger.

Indra brought suffering and violence to a thriving and peaceful world. He was like a new Ten-Tails, feeding off loss and pain even while destroying others. And the tailed beasts responded. Some fled, either to the deepest ocean or highest mountains, while others became untamed, the foulness around them seeping into their very being and changing them to match.

Almost two centuries later, Indra still fought Asura at every turn. Indra fought to destroy this usurper, this traitor, this once-brother, now-deceiver of their late father. He understood that Asura was weak because he couldn’t stand on his own, because he drew on others for strength when he had none.

Asura cried and cried over and over again, begging Indra to stop. He begged because he was weak. Indra knew this. Asura claimed to fight for something greater than himself, for a world that was better and kinder than the one now at war.

It was vile. Indra and Asura were gods among mortals. How dare Asura defile that heritage. There was nothing greater than them, no principle worth obeying beyond their own greatness. Indra sought power because he alone deserved to have it. The entire world was his inheritance, it was owed to him, and if it wouldn’t be given then he would simply take it by force.

It took Indra two centuries to win, but he still won. He’d eaten of Asura’s flesh—a prize stolen in battle. Asura might’ve had the whole world’s chakra and righteous fury for countless victims living and dead, but Indra was great in a way Asura could never be. That was why Indra had the Samsara Eye and all nine of the tailed beasts, while Asura merely had mortal powers and mortal anger.

When Indra won he ate the rest of Asura’s body, too. Then he raised his hand for Divine Subjugation. He didn’t need to use it—his enemies were already defeated—but he wanted to impress upon his dominion the power he held.

Hamura Otsutsuki swept down from the moon. Indra became dust. As Indra had destroyed the Otsutsuki under Asura for being degenerate and weak, she too destroyed the Otsutsuki under Indra for being too cruel, for embracing the worst of all possible qualities and seeking to purge all they saw as less than them.

As her eyes held Indra’s spirit before her, she said to him: “I will give you eight chances to redeem yourself. Eight chances to understand your brother and learn to value others. You will be reborn once every 900 years—the length of time you lived alongside your brother in peace without ever learning anything. And when those chances are up, if you have failed, if you became a monster in all eight, if you can’t live even one life as nobly as your brother’s, I will remove you from existence, as I promised all those years ago. The heavens will fall and justice will be done.”

Hamura Otsutsuki herself died very soon after that.

She made her last divine order as she lay dying. Her eldest daughter was to come down from the moon. Her own descendants were to safeguard the world from Indra’s worst, should it ever come to that. They were to utterly destroy any new monster that rose up.

Centuries later, from the Pure Land, Hamura was very disappointed. Her daughter had died, as was inevitable. None of her great-grandchildren had inherited her eyes. Instead it was a strange, twisted derivative, no longer the Rebirth Eye but now the White Eye. What was worse, as the centuries passed, as more and more of the original Otsutsuki died, Hamura’s descendants grew more and more mortal.

Soon, the name Otsutsuki was forgotten. Hamura’s daughter’s reincarnation was left to start her own clan from nothing.

She named it after the sun: Hyuuga.

It irked Hamura, that her own descendant should forget which celestial body she came from. But the Hyuuga at least remembered their purpose, if not their name and origins. They treasured the carved stone she’d left them, which told them:

Hold yourselves apart and above the world

So you can judge it all the better

And destroy that which unbalances the world

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Notes: Setup! Now the Hyuuga also have a tablet giving them terrible advice—just like the Uchiha!

Fandom: My Hero Academia

Fanfic: untitled AFO!Izuku fic

Context: This is the history timeline I’m using for my villain!Inko and AFO!Izuku fics. It’s definitely not compatible with… whatever canon thinks it’s doing.

What I’m trying to do with this is make the My Hero Academia world feel bigger (there is an entire world! It’s not just Japan!) and ground its history in… I know “historical materialism” sounds really pretentious, so I’ll just go with “shit happens for a reason”. I’m also trying to answer obvious problems that are never addressed in canon, like “how come heroes get to do the things they do?” or “Why are they considered separate from the police?”

It’s so fucking long. I’m sorry. Yes this did take me a week to hammer out.

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Fandom: RWBY

Fanfic: to be revealed later :-)

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“Hm.”

“What?”

“Oh, it’s nothing,” said Ozpin. “Just wondering why this year’s application has a line for ‘public social media accounts’.”

Glynda looked at him over the top of her scroll. “Our students represent the next generation of hunters. It’s important for them to exemplify the qualities we value, and important for us to check that they do.”

Unfortunately, Glynda wasn’t especially plugged-in to social media. She was not prepared.

“For example, this is the most recent tweet from Yang Xiao Long’s Tweeter account.” She cleared her throat and read aloud.

“Yang_Bang_Gang tweets: ‘can not pick this burrito up bc its heavy and im scared it’ll bust a fat burrito nut if i lift it so its positioned like a meat obelisk for me to deepthroat’.”

Ozpin just nodded solemnly before turning to face the screen at his desk. “Humor in the face of obstacles is a good quality for a huntress to have.”

Glynda sighed and checked Yang’s Chapsnat.

hmu if your hot, read the caption. In the photo, the young lady had the camera zoomed in, with barely enough room to show her sunglasses, her grin, and the big finger she was flashing.

Glynda was already feeling tired.

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Fandom: Naruto

Fanfic: Naruto Chooses Love

Context: Naruto dies during the final battle against Madara and meets his mom in limbo. (Limbo looks like a pre-genocide Land of Whirlpools, for maximum symbolism.) This particular bit takes place immediately after she tries to convince him to ascend to the Pure Land.

This fic was inspired by the final issue of All-Star Superman, and several lines are lifted verbatim here.

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The other hand must be weighed. This was a choice, after all. "Or," she continued, "you can cling even harder to the world. You can face down evil once more—and drown in the world's quagmire."

"The first option sounds, uh, nice and all," said Naruto. "But my family—I mean, the rest of my family—still needs me. I just… I don't want to let them go."

She'd wanted, so very much, for his suffering to end. For him to let it all go, in the way she never could. Even so, she knew he never would.

"I know," she said.

The sky, the ocean, the land split open. Death poured out. Hundreds, thousands of ninjas, wielding every element, sweeping everything aside as they bore down on the two of them.

"Mom?" said Naruto, stepping closer to her, scared and putting all his questions into that one word. It broke her heart. She'd never wanted to hear him say it like that.

"This is the world you're going back to," said Kushina, desperate to keep her son safe, knowing she couldn't. "The ninja system is built on the very worst of everything."

(Zabuza) Ambition forged with the lives of others.

(Neji) Heritage as a prison.

(Gaara) Family defined by blood and pain above all else.

(Itachi) Choices narrowed to death or more death.

On and on, a wasteland of suffering, a system utterly depraved and beyond saving.

"The ninja system saw Whirlpool as the lynchpin of peace, and dreamt only of destroying it. War is the only path it walks."

Five corners of death, them in the center. Towers of fire, water, wind, earth, and lightning burned, drowned, cut, and crushed forward. Some blotted out the sun, others roared with their own light.

"You may be the sun, Naruto, but you're still just one star in the universe. Just one point of love in a sky of hate."

Naruto looked at this battlefield, then looked at her again. He smiled, and even though he looked so, so scared underneath it, she knew his choice.

"Then I'll keep loving, even if I die. Again and again," he said.

The pillars of might collapsed, crashing down on them.

"Mom," he said, gripping her arm. "Come with me."

She smiled at that. Her sweet, sweet boy. She took his hands in hers. She would never see him again.

"For me, for Whirlpool, even for Minato, it was always too late. We lost to the system itself."

The tower of earth hit them and he staggered but didn't let go.

"But the best in us, the gold in us, will survive," she said, "in you."

"What about you, Mom?!" he yelled.

"The Uchiha are half-right, you know," she said, calm in the face of her second death. Fire hit them and god it burned.

"'All that is impure will be burned to ash'," she quoted. Lightning seared into them.

"But they forget," she said, softly cupping his face in her hands, "what is gentle, and kind, and true, can endure."

Wind cut into them a thousand times.

"And be reborn."

Now, they drowned.

On another battlefield, where Sakura tried to heal a dead body and Sasuke readied to die, Naruto woke up.

Madara—ascendant, immortal, unstoppable Madara, cloaked in white, black spheres hovering around him—saw Naruto still alive. He paused, letting his impending victory hang for a moment. "Who are you?" he demanded.

Naruto ignored him for a moment, pulling both Sakura and Sasuke's hands into his.

"Just some kid who loves a little too much."

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Fandom: My Hero Academia

Fanfic: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Context: none needed

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People made a lot of assumptions about Todoroki. They saw his good looks and his career track, and assumed he had a personality to match. That he was nice, or warm, or considerate. He wasn't. Todoroki was rude as hell.

Ochako thought this as she watched Todoroki and Midoriya at lunch. Midoriya had been chattering about their classes nonstop, and had barely touched his food. She watched Todoroki turn Midoriya's own food tray and push it in until the corner jabbed Midoriya in the chest.

Midoriya winced. "What?"

"Eat," said Todoroki. (Was he concerned? Or annoyed with the other boy's talking? Todoroki managed to sound curt at all times. Who knew.)

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Fandom: Naruto

Fanfic: A Different World

Context: This is my take on the Madara vs Hashirama fight at the Valley of the End.

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"We don't have to fight, Madara," said Hashirama.

"We're fighting because it's my will that we fight. That's how it's always been," Madara said. "I choose my own fate, Hashirama. And I'm choosing yours, today."

Madara opened his right eye for Amaterasu. Hashirama gestured and uprooted the forest. The fire that consumed everything met the tree that could never die.

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It came down to little things. Hashirama's healing, Madara perfect physical and imperfect chakra control. Every tiny nuance, the precise mechanics of bloodline techniques and practiced skills, mattered.

[unfinished]

His sword swept down.

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Two little boys met on a river bank. They didn’t have to fight, so they didn't.

[unfinished]

[Note: Continue in this pattern, current violence alternating with peaceful flashbacks. Flashbacks progress from their first meeting to when Madara leaves just before this battle.]

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They could've had everything.

"We could've had the world, Hashirama."

"We could've had peace, Madara."

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Notes: The next A Different World chapter that needs to be written is a slog, so I’ve decided to focus on completely different chapters that I actually enjoy writing. (Hey, writing in the wrong order is better than no writing at all.) FYI, I’m considering removing the paragraph about battle finesse. It feels too exposition-y in the middle of what should be a fairly intense scene. We’ll see if it stays.

What you see here is what my half-finished scenes typically look like. I have a full paragraph or two, plus a couple of important lines in isolation, paired with notes on how I want the scene structured.

Fandom: My Hero Academia

Fanfic: untitled comedy fic series

Context: This is like all the other chatfics out there, except good.

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Kaminari: Real names only?!

Iida: The school permanently stores everything you say in this chat app. If any of you ever becomes a villain, I absolutely do not want to be the one explaining why a criminal went by the handle "fart sound (with reverb)".

Asui: That's a very specific example and I wanna know the story behind it

Iida: I was volunteer moderator for one of Ingenium's fan chatrooms. Some unpleasant things happened.

Midoriya: *thats* why you're so good at moderating!

Iida: Thank you, @Midoriya.

Midoriya: why would you join Ingenium's fanchat though? he's your own brother??

Iida: It's important for heroes to know what their fans really think of them! And heroes, like it or not, are seen as responsible for their fans' behavior! I was trustworthy and, unlike my brother, had the spare time to keep an eye on things.

Kirishima: wait wait, go back. @Iida's more worried about our chat names than us going villain?

Iida: If you turn villain, I won’t worry about it.

Iida: Because I will have already killed you with my own hands.

Asui: *legs

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Notes: It’s no mystery why chatfics are so popular with the fandom. The characters are the right age, their world has more or less the same level of tech as us, and in real-life, Discord is incredibly popular with both writers and readers right now.

Unfortunately, most chatfics also kind of suck. Sure, many of them start promising, but they run out of steam fast, because nothing happens. It’s just teens chatting amongst each other—now continue for 10,000+ words. They also lean into the most flanderized one-note character interpretations produced by fandom.

In short, the drama is absent, the comedy is weak, and the characters are flat.

My approach to this genre is much, much different. The main character(s) of each chapter will be written as more than fandom’s stereotype of themselves. And each chapter will be short (what you see here is about 90% of a complete chapter), building up to one decent joke and then promptly ending.

Fandom: Naruto

Fanfic: A Different World

Context: Kushina survived the Nine-Tails’ attack.

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"I'm not a babysitter. That's genin work," said Kakashi. He was laying on a roof, just outside the Hatake compound. He never looked away from the clouds, even as Kushina spoke to him.

Kushina raised an eyebrow at that. "He's my kid—an Uzumaki—, the Fourth Fire Shadow's kid, and a living sacrifice. His very existence is an S-rank mission. Besides, you're on leave. You got anything better to do, kiddo?"

Kakashi shrugged. "I don't work for free. File a mission request with admin."

Kushina gave him a sly look, though he was too busy seeing shapes in the clouds to notice. "It's what Minato would've wanted."

She watched him tense up at that.

"Think of this as an unofficial extension of your mission to guard me. Except you're guarding my kid now."

Kakashi forced himself to relax. He sighed and sat up. "Will I at least be getting paid like an S-rank mission?" he asked, finally looking at her.

Kushina somehow looked shocked, offended, and victimized at the same time. "You... you'd squeeze your old teacher's widow for money?" she said, looking ready to cry big crocodile tears.

Kakashi knew what she was doing, but it still worked. He felt bad for even asking. "I'll... Uh, see... Sure."

A half hour later, as Kushina showed him how to change Naruto's diaper, it occurred to Kakashi that he'd been conned. Yes, conned.

He also felt more than a little inadequate. Kushina, he had no doubt, was a good parent. She loved her kid too much to be anything less. Minato would've been a great dad. Obito had loved kids, and from what Kakashi had seen, been pretty good with them. Rin had preferred her peers' company, and was never as over-the-moon about kids as Kushina and Obito were, but she'd handled them well enough. And then there was Kakashi, stuck filling in for three dead people, all of them better than him.

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Notes: Kakashi always struck me as being the worst with children out of Team Minato.

I hate when fics write Obito as being bad with kids; it doesn’t match what little early characterization we do get of him. Obito went out of this way to do favors for old people! Thus showing two traits: he is patient (old people don’t exactly move fast) and kind. Young Obito was also a relatively expressive person. These are qualities that go a long way towards being good with kids.

Fandom: Naruto

Fanfic: A Different World

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Obito was a failure in every way that mattered. He was a talentless weakling who shot his mouth off, derailed his last mission, got killed, then worshiped every word of a man who plotted to enslave the world. He'd attacked his village, killed his teacher, their family, and his teammate, attacked his best friend, and had come this close to destroying the world for nothing. Now, he had no plan, and very little skill.

So of course, he was stuck trying to save the world.

(Oh, he had abilities—space-time techniques, wood release, sensing, Copy Wheel illusions—but they were cheats, enhancements grafted onto a ninja who, at his core, had never really measured up.)

But he'd had a breakthrough: he was going to fake it.

He was a fraud. But, he was a fraud who was determined not to be found out. The alternative was taking no action at all. As appealing as that was, as nice as letting go and spending his days in kamui sounded, Obito knew he shouldn't. It meant letting Nagato make the Eye of the Moon, letting him harden against the world as the utterly outclassed Akatsuki broke against Hanzo.

Also, Rin wouldn't like it if he did that.

____________________

Fanfic: A Different World

Context: Rin and Obito are members of Akatsuki now. Rin tries healing Nagato’s injuries from the fight against Hanzo, and it doesn’t work.

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I am not a failure. She thought this to herself, over and over, as she weaved her chakra in and it did nothing.

"I'm sorry," Rin said, "it's not healing." She pulled her hands back and stared down at them.

I can heal you, she'd told Nagato. The strange statue had crippled him, left him tired and hurting, but Rin was a medic, the best of her class. She was used to success. Some miracle worker she was.

"I didn't expect it to work," said Nagato. (Oof, that stung.) "But thank you for trying." Rin kept her face blank. She was grateful he made it easier, that this one time he wasn't rude or suspicious towards her.

_______________

Rin's life had been derailed and it was never getting back on track.

She wasn't lonely anymore—Rin had been lonely before, with a bitter old man and a slowly-breaking friend as her sole human company for eleven months.

But she still felt isolated, separated by death and livelihood. To her, being a ninja meant power and confidence. To Dawn, ninjas were monsters.

(Obito was the only part of her past, the only one who could understand, so of course he was rarely around. He wasn't doing anything—at least, she didn't think he was. It's not like he was busying himself saving the world or anything. He just... disappeared. For hours at a time.)

Dawn was a family, but it wasn't—couldn't be—Rin's. She missed her real family, her real home, and she ached every time she thought of how distant she was, how she couldn't go back—not yet. She refused to let go of the idea of going home. Because if Leaf couldn't be her home, where was it?

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Fandom: Naruto

Fanfic: A Different World

Context: Rin and Obito are both members of Akatsuki now. (Reminder: I translate a lot of terms that aren’t normally translated, and Akatsuki just means “Dawn”, which is how I’m writing it.) Danzo and Hanzo, recognizing the danger posed by these revolutionaries, have temporarily joined forces to crush them.

____________________

Eagle stood in the center of the town. Her forces were arrayed through the small village, and packed into the town's center were over 600 civilians—everyone they could find in a ten-mile radius.

Danzo had sent his best against Dawn. Hanzo was busy fortifying the fields and lakes around Hidden Rain itself, and rounding up Dawn's sympathizers within the cities. But the borderlands were troublesome, and Hanzo had given Root a map (naturally, stripped of anything useful to ninjas—Eagle had thrown it out and ordered Root to make a better one) and more importantly, permission to cleanse any resistance on the far edges of Rain Country.

Eagle knew Dawn was comprised of battle-hardened rebels, and were not to be underestimated. But at forty years old, Eagle was the oldest and most experienced field ninja in Root. She'd reviewed the intel on Dawn and understood: Dawn was lucky, nothing more.

If Hanzo had seen Dawn as anything other than useful idiots from the start, they would've been utterly crushed. Root was just here to make sure Dawn's ideals died with them.

Before, Hanzo had treated Dawn as a useful magnet to draw out potential traitors within his ranks. Which was ludicrous. If you suspected a ninja, you removed them from any position where they could damage you. You certainly didn't encourage them. Rebellions should be put down, not tolerated indefinitely to give "false hope" and lure out traitors. This was why Hanzo was a tyrant and Danzo was wise.

But Dawn had grown too loud and too strong. Danzo recognized them for the threat they were, while Hanzo no longer saw Dawn as dupes but as dangerous ninjas in their own right.

That Eagle's trap would lure Dawn was a given; they regularly patrolled these areas. She'd even worked out Dawn's patrol schedule. (What amateurs.) But who would show?

Would it be the Uzumaki with the strange eyes? (Hanzo wanted those eyes destroyed. Danzo wanted their wielder dead but the eyes themselves taken for Leaf.) Would it be the paper ninja? (No one knew of any still-living clan that used paper weapons. She was either from a clan so obscure no one had heard of them, or an innovator on par with the Second and Fourth Hokages.) Would it be Yahiko, the man who thrived against tyranny?

Or would it be Obito Uchiha?

If Obito showed, Eagle would retreat. Her unit didn't stand a chance against an S-level wielder of wood and space-time techniques. (That Great Wood Dragon used against Hanzo's army last year was frightening, but also a dead giveaway towards the white-masked man's identity. Intel had found the remnants of two back when he'd fought the Fourth.)

Even Hanzo had had trouble with him, though like Root, he'd simply been unprepared to deal with him. But the Traitor's appearance had made Danzo send his best against Dawn, alongside Hanzo.

Still, Eagle was certain she and her unit could handle anybody else.

"Two ninjas approaching from the southwest," said Hound, standing next to her, one of several sensors assigned to Eagle's unit. "Two minutes away."

Eagle nodded. Right on time. She cast out voice illusion and repeated what Hound had told her to the rest of the unit. Three dozen Root jounin were now ready to move or fight.

[Note: This section unfinished. Konan and Rin show up at some point.]

Eagle narrowed her eyes at Crane's protector. Another traitor. An unknown traitor, at that. Rain's ninjas had gleaned enough from villages that Crane had passed through earlier to know she was from Leaf, a medic, and young. Even working out her height hadn't helped; there were simply no living rogue ninjas who matched her description.

Before, that would've been the end of it. But Obito Uchiha had been verified dead, and still attacked the village. Now, even death didn't clear suspicion. Eagle had a list of a dozen ninja who matched Crane's description, all dead.

____________________

Notes: Root is so progressive, letting a woman lead their death squads!

Fandom: My Hero Academia

Fanfic: part of my untitled comedy fic collection

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Katsuki Bakugou was pissed. Well, he was always kind of pissed, but right now he was super-pissed.

He didn't ask to get hit with some bullshit time loop quirk. No, alternative reality? Something like that.

Deku was slightly different each time. Blind. Deaf. Still quirkless, still beating his ass. Sometimes Deku had an even stronger quirk, like turning into a giant sea monster. Sometimes having more than one quirk, including one fucked-up universe where Deku had telekinesis, fucking angel fire-wings, and super-strength.

Fucking. Bullshit.

And the worst part was, Bakugou was always number two. No matter what Deku he went up against, he could never climb past him. (The worst realities were where he was in third.)

So you know what? Fuck it. Katsuki's gonna be a winner, and if that means changing the game, then that's what he'll do.

Time to be a villain. The number one villain. The greatest villain of all time. Extras were extras whatever side they fought on, but Bakugou would always be the best.

(He told himself.)

Which is how he ended up bleeding out after getting stabbed in a back alley.

"Fuck," Bakugou said with gritted teeth, trying to stand again. "Fuck."

"Sorry kid, but after you botched that heist... You're one hell of a liability," said the older woman. "Big, loud, and aggressive is for heroes. Villains gotta know how to keep quiet. No valor here, just discretion."

The villain turned around to leave, then, over her shoulder, spoke again. "I feel kinda bad for you, so here's some advice: we're not heroes.

"This isn't a game. There're no ratings, no ranks, no tiers. There's no cushy government system letting you challenge number-ones straight out of high school. If you challenge the big dogs, you better have a whole pack backing you up. Lone wolves get torn apart by bigger packs or state dogs.

"This is a fight to survive. And you suck at it."

Bakugou died—again—and promptly resurrected in another universe.

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Fandom: Naruto

Fanfic: A Different World

Context: My take on Naruto going with the toad elders Shima and Fukusaku to meet the Toad Sage. I’m also using this is an opportunity to get some original worldbuilding in.

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"Hm, that's interesting," said the Great Toad Sage. "Normally 900 years pass between the births of the Blessed Pairs."

"Uh, what?" asked Naruto. Was he supposed to know what that meant?

"Shima," said the Great Toad, "Have 900 years passed since the previous pair were born? I'm afraid I don't keep track of time very well anymore."

Shima shared a look with her husband. "No, Lord Sage. It's only been about 60 years since they died," she said.

"Hm. Unusual. How many pairs have there been before this one?"

"Seven, Lord Sage," answered Shima.

"Oh, that's right! I remember now. Congratulations, Menma!" the Great Toad said, with the blasé excitement of a great-grandparent hearing about the birth of their hundredth great-grandchild.

"My name is Naruto!" he shouted. Nobody was telling him what was going on, and now this wrinkly old gasbag gets his name wrong? Menma was gross!

"Oh, dear. I knew it had something to do with ramen," said the Great Toad, mustering up a very tired shrug. "Anyways, you're the last Blessed Pair. You get to bring world peace, child!"

Fukusaku's eyes widened. "You mean that prophesized child?"

The Sage scrunched up its face in thought. "I think. The eighth are supposed to be born when the last of the Seventh Pair die. Are you sure they were both dead 60 years ago? At least one had to have survived until... whenever ramen boy here was born. Maybe they were holed up in a cave somewhere?"

There was some wiggle room. After all, if the last of the seventh set to die was the predecessor of soup child's counterpart, then well, it was the counterpart's birthdate that was strictly set. Soup child just needed to be born within a few months of that. Supposedly. It had been a very, very long time since they'd spoken with the Sage of Six Paths, and some of the nuances of his prophecies were a little hard to recall. Actually, what year was it in the first place?

"What year is it? I'm so very confused," asked the Sage.

Naruto was fuming. Ramen boy.

"It's the year 87 A.F., Lord Sage," said Fukasaku.

The Toad Sage stared blankly at him.

"Er, the 87th year after the founding of the hidden villages?"

They kept staring. "I'm afraid I don't keep up with current events these days."

Shima counted on her fingers. "It's been 5,717 years since the death of the Sage of Six Paths," she said once she was certain.

"Hm. How old are you, boy?" asked the Sage.

"I'm. Seven. Teen," he bit out. He was so very close to screaming.

"Oh, yes!" they said, once again wearily excited. "Soup kid here is definitely the one. Born 5,700 years after the Sage of Six Paths up and died. Also, one of the Seventh Pair's death dates is wrong. You better check on that."

"What are you guys talking about!" Naruto screamed. "And my name is Naruto!"

"I assure you I'm a toad, and not a 'guy', whatever that is," they said.

Naruto threw up his hands and stomped off.

"Is 'guy' what younglings say these days?" they asked, ignoring broth boy's tantrum.

The two elder toads shrugged. The last person to regularly summon them among humans was the Crystal Sage, one of the Fifth Pair, and she'd died more than 1800 years ago. The only things they knew about the ninja world nowadays was whatever Gamabunta or Jiraiya shared.  

"Hm, I'll have to remember that," said the Sage.

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[Context: This is a follow-up bit that comes after the previous scene, thought I don’t know where to place it in my fic right now.]

Jiraiya bowed.

"Hello... you, guy!" the Great Toad said.

Jiraiya raised an eyebrow and looked at Fukasaku. The elder toad just shrugged.

He turned back to the Great Toad and cleared his throat. "I'm here to ask who, among my students, the Child of Prophecy is,” asked Jiraiya. “I...  I’m not sure what the path forward is anymore."

"Oh, it's definitely the broth child," said the Great Toad.

Broth child? Was this a new prophecy?

Fukasaku nodded. "I believe they mean that Naruto kid."

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Notes: I don’t just write angst! I can also be funny sometimes!

About the worldbuilding, canon having only one pair of Indra/Asura reincarnations, and the entirety of ninja history only going back 1000 years, always felt very thin to me. So I’m expanding on the number of cycles, and how far history stretches. (Asura and Indra themselves, plus 8 reincarnations. All spread across about 5700+ plus years.)

Before anyone asks how I can have a “the system is fucked and revolution is good” moral paired with a literal prophecy: I’ve mentioned this elsewhere, but Naruto and Sasuke can subvert the prophecy. Everybody assumes it’s a fated battle, that the end of the cycle will come with one of the reincarnated pair finally, permanently (violently) defeating the other. But this is a NaruSasu fic, so they don’t. There is no grand climactic battle between them (like in canon, bleh). Love, guys. It’s the power of love.

Fandom: Naruto

Fanfic: A Different World

Context: During the Uchiha Uprising, the Uchiha hypnotize young Naruto into releasing the Nine-Tails. Like in canon, Minato’s appears as a sort of guardian spirit to his own son, and stops him from completely undoing the seal. (Also Kushina is still alive in this AU.)

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"Naruto," he said, "I need you to be strong. The Nine-Tailed Fox hates everyone and everything. It'll do everything it can to make you release it again."

 Naruto tried to look up at him, but it was hard with Minato crushing him against his chest. "But—"

Minato cut him off. "I chose you to contain the Nine Tails because I knew you'd grow up to be a good person. I knew you'd be strong enough. I trust you, and your mother does, too."

Minato pulled back, not really letting go, but enough to let Naruto meet his eyes.

"But I suck. I almost let it out," Naruto said.

"You've already controlled it for eight years," Minato said. "You're already so strong that it could only take over after someone else forced you. You've already made your mother and me very proud. And you'll only get better. Okay?"

Naruto sniffled. "Yeah."  

Then Minato just... held him. For a little while. For as long as he could—he'd only gotten to hold Naruto twice before he’d died.

Minato regretted more than anyone knew. Jiraiya had said he was the Child of Prophecy, but he couldn’t believe that. Minato had killed thousands—sometimes in one battle, so many he wasn’t really sure. In the eighteen months he’d spent as Fire Shadow, he’d sent hundreds of ninjas off to their deaths. More than a few were barely teenagers. He’d signed off on policies that would destroy entire livelihoods. Minato had been harsh because the world was harsh, and he’d realized, a long time ago, that that was why he wasn’t the one.

“Naruto, I know you won’t really understand this, but I need you to hear,” said Minato.

“Okay?” answered Naruto, unsure.

“Jiraiya once told me I was the Child of Prophecy. But I can’t be. I’ve killed too many people, sacrificed too many others as Fire Shadow, and... and I was so bad a father that I made you a living sacrifice.”

“But I’m used to th—“

“I saw the world was harsh and I embraced it,” Minato said, cutting him off. “I know this is unfair, and I know this is another terrible burden for you, but you’ll understand one day.”

And he was again being an awful father, because he was spilling out his heart to his eight-year-old son, and it wasn’t something a child should have to bear.

“It’s you.”

Naruto stared up at him, quiet, not understanding.

“You’re the Child of Prophecy. I know it’s you. You’re not corrupted like me. Not yet. Don’t ever let go of that. Don’t let the world break you.”

“Dad—“

He saw the fear and the tears in his son’s eyes.

“Be brave, Naruto. Be brave, and more than anything else, be kind,” Minato said, and now he was crying too, damn it. “The world is harsh and cruel, and kindness is the most precious thing you have to offer. In a fucked-up world, it’s the most revolutionary thing there is.”

“Dad, please,” cried his son.

“I’m sorry, Naruto,” he whispered. Minato was quiet for a minute, just holding his son, crying with him. He took a deep breath.

"I'm sorry, Naruto,” he said again. “But I need to go now."

"Will I ever see you again?"

"No,” Minato said. “The only way you'll see me is if something's gone terribly wrong." He forced a smile. “But I won't really be gone. I live on inside you, and your mom, and even a little in Kakashi."

"That's dumb," Naruto said. "You're not really there."

Minato sighed. Naruto was right; metaphor was worthless compared to the real thing.

"I'm so, so sorry Naruto. I...," he said, trying not to cry anymore, "I was so happy when you were born. You mother and I wanted you so very much. And I wish, more than anything else, that I could've been there for you, not just in your dreams but for real. All I can really do anymore is say that I love you. I love you more than I can ever say."

He held his son tightly, one last time. And Naruto woke up.

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