Kevin the Bored
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43 Flirting Is Fun Too
🕑 Added 2025-06-20 11:58:35 +0000 UTCIt was pretty late by the time we arrived, too late for dinner, so we were lead straight to the building we would be staying in. It's a nice place, and I find myself baffled that 'nice' is the first word that comes to mind to describe it.
In my previous life, I would have considered this one of those billionaire's mansions that no normal person would ever have the chance of even seeing, let alone living in. It would have been like one of those dreams you have, a fantasy. A life you could never live.
Yet now I have started to become inured to living in giant, spacious compounds, full of art an beautiful gardens and enough space to house hundreds of people. To be honest, I feel a slight sense of loss at that. The knowledge that I likely won't ever be able to truly feel that same awe I once felt when I was first introduced to the wider world outside of my home.
Not that I am not feeling any awe at all of course. The architecture is magnificent, and the first thing I did upon arriving was to take a slow walk through the building to admire everything. From the art painted onto the walls to the very walls themselves or the various examples of masterful pottery.
But as beautiful as I find it, there is a part of me that knows with a certainty that I could have found it even more beautiful. That if I was introduced to this building a year ago, I would have been at a total loss of words. Incapable of doing anything but stare in wonderment at everything around me.
If it were twenty years ago, the me of the past would not have even gotten to the point of feeling wonder. It would have been nothing more than a fantasy to me. A living dream that I would be waiting to end, knowing that life could not be so beautiful and refusing to give it a chance to be true so as to save myself the disappointment.
As I sit in my assigned room, watching the sunset through the balcony, I ponder on how I am not entirely sure how to feel about it all.
It's one thing to know that people can change, and to see it and understand it. But it is an entirely different thing to experience it. I have changed so much, and I can't be certain if it is a good thing, a bad thing, or neither.
"Is something-"
"GAH!!" I yell at the voice suddenly appearing at my side, feeling my heart hammering in my chest as I almost flinch bad enough to fall over. "KAMI!! Fffuck!!"
Turning warily to the source of the sound, I bear with the sound of chittering laughter as the air seams to unravel besides me, revealing a woman with straight black hair, dark eyes and fair skin. She's wearing a black robe with blue waves sewn into it and has her hair tied up into a half bun that flows over the front of her shoulders.
My first instinct is to complain about the laughter and ask who she is, but before I can speak, there is just... Something about her that gives me pause, and I find myself tilting my head and squinting my eyes instead.
"...Have we met?" I ask, feeling my heartbeat return to normal speeds. Evidence against is that I do not recognise her, but I like to believe that her sneaking into my room like this is evidence that we have met, somehow. Because the alternative is that she would simply do this with strangers. Maybe she's that ninja. Ninjas can probably shapeshift, that makes about as much sense as anything else.
I don't bother getting up though. Because for all that she snuck up on me, I don't feel like she has any nefarious intentions. Then again, she has already deceived my senses once, so who knows. Not that I was really focusing that hard at the time, but I'm not going to say that I would have noticed her if I was trying to. That would feel childish, even if it could be true.
And that is a strange thing. I never realised how much I'd become used to being able to just vaguely feel the locations of everything and everyone around me. It seems that that has just made me even more susceptible to being scared shitless by anyone who can sneak passed those senses. Evidently.
Seriously, I've never felt more jump scared before in either life, holy crap.
"My my, you should be more careful with your words, dear Narauko-kun~. A lady's confidence is a fragile thing, don't you know~?" The lady leans down at me while laying a finger ponderously against her bottom lip in a manner that is most suggestive.
...I recognise this flirtatious tone.
"..Tamamo?"
Her teasing expression transforms into an impish smirk as the illusion woven into her body unravels, revealing golden locks and fluffy fluffy bonus features.
"Tama-chan!" I immediately and without hesitation throw myself up at her and tackle her into a hug, spinning her around and ignoring her surprised squawk.
"Wha-! Narauko!" Tamamo's exclamations only make me laugh, but I do show mercy soon enough and let her down. Not that she was exactly struggling to be set free.
Looking now at her, I find it incredibly amusing how from what limited time I've spent with her, I've noticed that she is normally a rather composed person. The only exception seems to be when she is caught by surprised. That's the only way I've seen her flush like this.
It's cute.
She huffs when I release her and takes a step back, coughing into a fist while glaring at me over her fading flush. "I thought I told you not to refer to me with a suffix," she says, apparently choosing to pretend that the last ten seconds ever happened.
"But Tama-chan sounds so cuuute~," I whine at her like a complaining child and she looks at me as if I am dirt.
A moment of silence passes between us before I can't hold the pouting face anymore and start to laugh. Her glare fades into a soft smile and another moment passes where we simply observe one another.
"It really has been a while, Tamamo."
It really hasn't, honestly. It's only been about half a year. Realistically, that is not all that long at all. An yet, her smile is just as nostalgic as my own.
"Yes. It has."
"Haaah, well, won't you share a drink with me?" I ask after a moment, gesturing to my side. At the same time, my other hand reaches into my shadow and pulls out a bottle of saké.
"Gladly."
///
Tamamo-no-Mae
///
Sitting under the setting sun with Narauko by her side, Tamamo finds herself feeling a sense of peace that she didn't realise she had been lacking ever since her arrival in the human capital.
As she sips at the saké he poured for her, she finds herself feeling somewhat contradictory. It is a mediocre saké to be blunt, yet, it's strange but she finds that it tastes delicious on her tongue.
"By the way," Narauko breaks the silence while her thoughts idle. "Do you know if I will get in trouble for decorating this room? I have been practicing my calligraphy, so I drew the word 'gullible' on the ceiling."
He is lying about something. The thought is immediate and certain, but she checks regardless, assuming that he had actually written something else on the ceiling. Yet, when she looks up she sees nothing on the ceiling at all.
It is only when her eyes start moving to the different corners of the ceiling that her brain makes the connection to what is happening.
With a deadpan expression, Tamamo's eyes fall back on Narauko, who is looking at her with a stupid grin on his dumb stupid face.
"That is for scaring me earlier," he informs her, and she decides that it's not worth it to even try arguing, so she just sighs.
"You are so childish."
"I take that as a compliment you know?"
"I continue to remain unsurprised."
"Mhm," he nods as if she said something wise. "After all, when people use the word 'childish' as an insult, a lot of the time what they really mean is 'You are happy'. That is what makes it childish, right? Because only children can pick up a stick and live a fantasy as some noble, heroic warrior. Only a child can laugh so freely at nothing at all. So is it really a bad thing to be childish if it means you are happy?"
She can only smile at his words. "You have not changed at all, I see."
Unexpectedly, her words cause an awkward air to grow between them, and she looks over to see Narauko wearing a hesitant expression that really doesn't suit him at all. A smile is far more natural on his face than this.
"Ah, about that.. I am not so certain anymore." She hasn't seen him so uncertain before. He won't even meet her eyes.
"What do you mean? Does it have anything to do with whatever was leaving you with such a melancholic look earlier?" She was originally going to ask about it before his scream distracted her.
"Yeah." He doesn't say anything more for a long moment before letting out a rueful sigh. "Emotions sure are contradictory. My brain is telling me to be quiet and keep my thoughts to myself, even though I know is it good to vent your emotions. It truly is strange. I am not sure if I have felt this emotion before, but some part of me feels... Ashamed?"
A bitter huff leaves him, and even though the melancholic air, as he raises his cup to his lips and watches the setting sun, she finds his nihilistic smile to be quite charming.
"To be honest," he continues in the silence that followed when she failed to come up with any words t say, "I find it rather embarrassing that I would even feel so hesitant to speak openly about my feelings. I would not have thought myself capable of feeling like this."
"Do you not love experiencing new things?" She asks. "I would have thought you would have enjoyed experiencing a new emotion?"
"Ah, yes." He trails off, staring at his reflection in his drink. "Unfortunately, the joy that I am feeling at this new experience, is only making me feel ever more ashamed."
She waits for him to elaborate, but he does not.
She doesn't like seeing him like this at all.
She recalls walking through the woods with him, the smile he would wear. The way his eyes would dart to every spot of colour or burst of movement. The way he would collect flowers and show them off to her, asking if she new what they were called or if she wanted to keep them.
She recalls a human who would smile even to a Yōkai like her.
He looks best with a smile.
A sigh leaves her.
"'It is not good to bottle up your emotions you know? It is bad for your health, and that goes for me and you too,'" she quotes, causing his eyes to finally meet her own once more, and she greets them with a smirk. "You said it yourself back then. 'Emotions are not some simple thing.'"
Turning herself to fully face him, Tamamo gently takes hold of one of his hands between her own and does her best to smile at him the same way he once did for her.
"You chose to ease the burdens of those humans, back then. Now, please allow me to ease yours. I do not wish to see you crack, Narauko."
Her words cause Narauko's eyes widen and lips part as he stares into her eyes, and then his shock fades and a brilliant smile lights up his face, even as a tear trails down his cheek.
A brief chuckle leaves him before he leans forward and wraps her in another hug, this one much softer than the last.
"Ahh, thank you, Tamamo," he whispers to her, quietly so as to be considerate of how close his mouth is to her sensitive ears. "To tell the truth, I was worried that I was being greedy. I realised that the more of this world's beauty that I see, the less it will be able to stun me in place. It felt like I was insulting all of the beautiful things I have experienced so far by saying that their beauty will diminish every time they are witnessed."
An amused huff leaves him. "But.. Now I just feel relived. You helped me realise the mistake I was making. I was just needlessly confusing matters. Overthinking and jumping to silly conclusions. You helped me realise that."
He pulls back, leaving his hands on her shoulders while looking deep into her eyes. She is happy to see that he is finally wearing the right expression once again. He truly does look best with a smile.
"Because you are as beautiful as the day I met you."
She sort of expected that he would say something like that, honestly. It is so very him to do so.
And yet, that does not help the tightening of her chest nor the hitch in her breath as an eternity seems to pass within his eyes.
The air feels electric and she finds herself leaning ever closer to him, her eyes flickering down to his lips, an act that is reciprocated in kind, as if a spell has bound them together. Closer and closer.
Yet, right before their lips would have met, Tamamo snaps out of her trance and blocks Narauko's advance with a single finger, as much as she hesitates to do so.
Narauko blinks, as if sapping out of a trance of his own, but she speaks up before he can come to the wrong conclusion or feel any embarrassment.
"Not yet," she says to him, quietly in the intimate air between them. "Let's fight." And then, just for fun, she leans in until her mouth is right over his ear and continues with what she hopes is a sultry tone, "Winner gets to be on top~."
"Haha!" She pulls back to see him grinning widely at her, though she is satisfied to find a faint flush on his cheeks. "It's like you want to lose, motivating me like that."
"Hmmm~? I would not be so sure~," she returns, smiling with him as their hands remain interlocked. "The me of today cannot be compared to the me who lost to you last time~."
"That so~? Well, I guessed that much when you snuck up on me, but so what?" His smirk turns cocky as he abruptly wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her close until their noses are almost touching. "I am The Strongest."
His shameless boast pulls a peal of laughter from her throat, and she finds that she just loves seeing the expression of satisfaction that passes by his face at making her laugh.
When they first fought, she thought that she had finally met an equal. Someone who could match her talent and keep up with her. It was such a joyful realisation.
And then he lied when he called her strong and she realised that they were not equal.
She understands the loneliness that comes with strength. She understands how it feels to live a life without ever being able to be truly pushed to your limit.
She does not want Narauko to have to keep feeling that. She does not want to leave him unsatisfied again. So she has been training and absorbing the ambient Negative Energy that engulfs the capital, all for this moment.
She has already grown her sixth tail. A feat that no Kitsune before her has ever managed in such a short amount of time. Her power and talent are abnormal to the extreme. Great enough that she would have been considered an impossibility to any Kitsune before her.
She even feels that she is verging on the edge of her seventh tail, the gateway to becoming an Ultimate being.
Other than Gods, who are born Ultimate, she is unsure if there has ever been a being in any realm to become Ultimate in less than a century by purely their own merit.
And yet... She is still incapable of feeling any manner of certainty in her victory of Narauko.
It truly is absurd. She can only bitterly laugh in her heart, wondering how a human of all beings could be so monstrous.
"There is a large lake North-East of here," she speaks into the intimate air, "We can fight there without disturbing anyone."
Narauko nods his head. "K- No, Divine Dog."
With his words, a large wolf crawls out of his shadow and immediately dashes away, heading North-East.
She is curious what he interrupted himself from saying, but even more than that, she is distracted by how different that Shikigami looked to how she remembered it. As she recalls, he had two wolves, one white and one black, until she killed one of them.
However, this one is both larger and has both black and white fur. It doesn't take a genius to make some assumptions, and so she turns sly eyes up to Narauko.
"Your dog seems to be in good health," she says, a teasing note to her voice that makes him grin in turn.
"I might have forgotten to mention a thing or two when I asked for compensation for destroying my Shikigami." He doesn't seem apologetic, but she only chuckles at his playful smile. "I figured out how to teleport to my Shikigami, by the way."
She nods her head, accepting the unsaid that they will wait for said Shikigami to arrive at the lake before moving. It is not a massive distance, so it shan't take too long, yet even if it took hours, she wouldn't mind. She is finding that she is quite comfortable here, with him.
"By the way," Narauko starts as if he just noticed something odd. "Who even are you? In your disguise I mean. It can't have been easy to have gotten access to the Imperial Palace."
Ah. She had hoped that he would not question that.
She feels a knot in her throat as she looks up to his inquisitive eyes. A large part of her doesn't want to answer. Reluctant to face the expression he will make. But she doesn't want to lie to him either. She knows that he won't hold it against her, but she still feels guilty, like she's taking advantage of his forgiveness to act in ways he would disapprove of.
"I am taking the place of Fujiwara no Nariko," she says, but she hesitates to say anything more, even though she just resolved herself to. Feeling so hesitant is unfamiliar to her.
"Then, what is the actual Nariko doing?" Narauko asks, not a hint of judgement on his face even as he continues, "Did you kill her?"
Once more, she finds herself hesitating, though only for a moment. "Yes. Does that upset you?" Tamamo inwardly cringes at the slight challenge in her tone, wondering when she ever acted this insecure before. What is wrong with her?
"A little," Narauko admits with a half shrug, and she is starting to get annoyed by how her emotions are swirling in her gut. "But I am not going to lecture you or anything. You are not even a human in the first place. Ah. Not in like a bad way, I do not mean that derogatorily or anything, just in the sense that there would not be the innate aversion to killing your own kind. People always find theriocide easier because there's less familiarity, I wasn't trying to imply any..."
His rambling words trail off when he notices her staring at him with a raised brow and an amused deadpan.
"Aha," he sheepishly scratches at his cheek. "Sorry, you were just being really forward earlier and it has got me feeling nervous. I keep second guessing everything I'm saying and doing. It's kind of funny to be honest. I'd feel less nervous facing a God in battle than just sitting next to you right now."
He punctuates his words with a chuckle, but she is too busy forcing down a blush to join him.
She supposes that it is nice to know that she is not the only one, but really. It is unfair of him to say something like that so easily.
With that being said, she does find her swirling emotions calming at the comforting realisation that he is feeling them as well.
"I feel the same," she admits to him with a small smile before scoffing with amusement. "What a shameful pair we make~. Who ever heard of a Kitsune feeling nervous about a man? Or of The Strongest feeling such over a woman? What would your peers think?"
He chuckles and squeezes her hand. "The would think 'Wow! Look at that cool and sexy pair over there! I'm so jealous I'm gonna die~!' And then they would clutch their chest and swoon to death."
She laughs with him. "Perhaps," she agrees with a nod. "Personally, I believe they would be more concerned about your association with an evil Yōkai~"
He grins down at her, seeming genuinely delighted. "I do not know about that actually. I spoke with a man called Abe no Seimei earlier. Apparently his mother is a Kitsune, though she unfortunately seems to have died recently."
The unexpectedly familiar name has her raising her brows, but the revelation of her death has her eyes blowing out wide.
"Hagoromo died?!" She exclaims without thinking.
"Hagoromo? Is that Seimei's mother? Did you know her?"
"Y-yes," Tamamo answers distractedly. If she really is dead then it would explain why Tamamo hasn't had to deal with the woman recently. "Hagoromo Gitsune.. I suppose you could call her my teacher."
"Oh, then I am sorry for your loss," Narauko consoles her, seeming genuinely remorseful, but she just shakes her head at him and waves a hand dismissively.
"It is fine, we were not close. She is a self proclaimed teacher who always seemed suspicious to me. I am sure she was trying to manipulate me, so I am not really bothered by her demise. I am just surprised. She was strong, after all. I cannot imagine how she could have died without me knowing about it. Ultimate-class beings simply do not go quietly."
"Oh. Well, okay then." Narauko awkwardly blinks. "Uh, right, Seimei. It seems to be pretty well known and mostly well received that he is half Kitsune. At least no one was trying to kill him or anything, so I do not know if my peers would really be all that concerned by our association."
She shakes her head at him, already moving on from Hagoromo's death. She honestly finds herself feeing mostly ambivalent about that. Mostly she is just slightly concerned about the fallout. What will happen with the West Yōkai Faction, for instance. She should probably visit her village soon to make sure nothing goes horribly wrong.
"Your peers are Jujutsu Sorcerers," she informs Narauko. "Jujutsu Sorcerers only fight Cursed Spirits, so they mostly do not care about Yōkai. Onmyōji and members of the Principle Clans would kill me on sight."
"Well, I cannot argue with that," Narauko agrees with a sigh. "I met some Sorcerers from Nakiri a couple of days ago. They were pretty unreasonable. Oh, do you want o hear about the little adventure I had a few days ago with some Yuki-onna and Kappa?"
She raises a brow at that. "Do not tell me that you started a war or something? Kappa and Yuki-onna famously never get along. Their natures are not compatible at all."
"Actually, it is the opposite," he tells her, smirking. "I beat them up and made them friends."
"I can tell that you believe what you are saying, yet I cannot help but feel that you must be mistaken."
"Having such little faith in me is going to hurt my feelings you know?" He says, matching her deadpan. "They definitely will be friends though. Just give it a few decades... Or centuries. I do not know Yōkai as well as humans so I cannot be quite as confident on a timeframe, but just you wait!"
She shakes her head in fond exasperation. "Well, you can tell me the details later. Your Shikigami should have reached the lake by now, yes?"
"It has ben there for ages," Narauko admits. "I just did not want to leave yet."
She huffs at him, but feels pleased on the inside. With a shake of her head, she moves forward until she is leaning against his broad chest. "I suppose there is no rush."
They stay like that for a while, she doesn't know how long. Long enough for the sun to finish setting. Simply enjoying one another's presence in peaceful silence. The only sounds reaching her ears being the rustling of the wind and the steady heartbeats coming from Narauko's chest.
Eventually however, she moves away from him and pushes herself to her feet. She has started feeling excited for what is to come. She really wants to show him how much stronger she has gotten, and even more than that, she wants to provide him with an opponent that he can truly push himself against.
She doesn't want him to feel alone.
"Ready to go then?" Narauko comments as he too rises to his feet. "So eager to lose again~?"
"Life is all about balance," she counters with a smirk. "I have Karma on my side wanting to even things out."
"No fair~," he jokingly whines, "Calling on metaphysical concepts of the universe to help you is cheating~."
"Ohh~?" She coos at him, "Is The Strongest scared~?"
At that he just laughs, and she joins him. A moment later and Narauko's shadow expands out in front of him and then rises from the ground until it stands before them like a door.
"It will feel like you are underwater, so hold your breath, it only lasts a moment." He retakes a hold of one of her hands and steps forward. "There is not actually any water, so you won't really choke even if you do breathe in, but it will feel like it. I do not really know why."
Taking his warning to heart, Tamamo takes a deep breath and holds it in. Then, as one, they step into the inky blackness. A strange sense of vertigo hits her like her stomach just got flipped upside-down, and then, before she even really has any time to observe the darkness surrounding her, it disappears.
The rapid change from light to dark and then back to light again causes her to flinch minutely, but then she recognises the expanse of water around them and realises that it is already over.
"So you really can teleport huh?" She finds herself commenting, getting a tilt of the head from Narauko. Knowing of his curiosity, she explains, "With the exception of Innate Techniques, Humanity has always lacked. Most Yōkai cannot teleport simply because we rarely hold much desire to do so. My kind are often somewhat secular, but plenty of other, more roaming beings can teleport freely and easily. Only humans lack even the potential to do so. It would cause quite the ruckus if you could invent a method of teleportation that any human could learn~."
"I will have to keep that in mind then," he smirks at her. "But does that mean that I, a human, am capable of teleporting while you, a Yōkai, are not~?"
She sends hm a deadpan look. "I can teleport."
He freezes. "Eh? Since when?"
"Since always."
"So you could have just teleported us here right away?"
"I was going to offer, but you sent off your Shikigami before I could do so."
"Ah... Well, all's well that ends well, right?"
She exhales an amused breath from her nose and turns to observe the lake around them. It is very large, tens of thousands of metres wide and even longer across the length. Plenty of space for them to fight without too much collateral damage.
"By the way," Narauko says, breaking her out of her musings. "About Nariko, have you at least apologised for killing her?"
She blinks at the random topic switch. "Sorry?" She says it like a question, unsure what he is going for exactly, since he already said he wouldn't lecture her.
"No no, not to me. To Nariko. I doubt it would be enough for her to forgive you, but it does not hurt to at least be polite, right?"
"Narauko..." She wonders how to word this. "She is already dead? How could I apologise to her?"
He looks at her like she's asking the most obvious question in the world, and it makes her wonder if she really is missing some blindingly obvious point. And then he opens his mouth and she remembers that using common sense when dealing with Narauko is a fool's errand.
"Just send a prayer to Izanami-sama and ask her to pass a message across?"
For a long moment she cannot even respond, stunned in place by just how... Wrong that process of thought is. She can't even- It is just so blatantly wrong. Like he just sucker punched her worldview.
"Narauko," she begins, slowly to make sure he gets the point. "One does not use Izanami-Ōkami as a messenger. Are you insane? And do not say 'You are a Jujutsu Sorcerer', this is a different type of insanity."
"Why not?" He asks with a tilt of his head, and she wonders how he could possibly fail to understand this basic fact. Who in Yomi raised him?! "It is not like Kami do not have free time. Probably. If she is busy then you can always apologies to Izanami-sama too for imposing. Actually, you should probably do that anyway."
"Are you trying to get me smote? What gives you the confidence to act so casually with Ōkami? And do not say 'Because I am The Strongest.'"
He sticks his tongue out at her, a childish gesture. "Stop stealing my lines, I want to say them~. But really, it will be fine~. I have already told Izanami-sama that she would be my Mother-in-Law someday, so I am sure she would be willing to look out for you for my sake. Family looks out for one another after all."
"You what!?!?" How can he admit these things so calmly, like the words he is saying are totally normal?
Narauko sheepishly chuckles and rubs the back of his head, smiling but not meeting her eyes. "In my defence, I was kind of loopy at the time since I had just been killed, so I did end up just talking without thinking haha~."
"You had just been what???"
"Ah, yeah, no need to worry, I revived myself."
...Whatever. Sure. She isn't even going to question it right now. In fact, she is just going to pretend that this conversation never happened. She has a fight to win, that is what requires her focus right now. Not dealing with Narauko's... Narauko-ness.
She will still send a prayer to Izanami-sama later.
///
???
///
Deep inside of a cave that is not marked on any map, a sparse room is lightly illuminated by a number of burning candles. Enough to light up the space, but not enough to banish the crawling shadows.
In this room, there is only a low table and a seated cloaked figure leaning over it. The figure's entire form is covered by their simple brown cloak, with their hood leaving their face as nothing more than an outline in shadow.
Sitting on the table is only a single item. A crystal ball.
Reflected in this crystal ball is the image of a bowing man. A nameless servant.
"That is all I have to report," the nameless servant's voice filters through the crystal ball with only a faint distortion, "Great Prophet."
The so called Great Prophet does not respond, and the image of the nameless servant flickers before disappearing from the crystal ball, leaving only a cloud-like canvas behind.
The Great Prophet considers the information that their servant provided.
With his great gift of Sight, he is unused to being caught off-guard. It was only a few days ago that he even realised that the future he once saw had changed.
When he began looking deeper into matters, he realised that it all began wit Sugawara no Michizane.
The Great Prophet went through great pains to plan out that man's demise. He spent decades scheming and manoeuvring puppets through the Imperial Court. Years spent carefully balancing the opinions and greed of worthless Nobles and foolish Sorcerers. Not to mention getting the right Shinobi to act at exactly the right time.
So much time. So much effort. All for the sake of creating the perfect catalyst. All for the sake of taking the fist step in bringing about the birth of the true King of Curses.
Yet, what he saw did not happen. Sukuna did not fight alone. He fought with another. A man named Narauko.
And now his carefully laid plans are falling apart. The steps he has spent so many years paving for Sukuna to walk have been rendered useless by the actions of one fool offering an alternative path without even realising it.
How such a thing could even happen is a mystery to him. His Sight has never failed him like this before. It is not like his Sight has never failed him before, but it is the manner in which it now has that unsettles him so. If he were to try and peer into the future of a God, his Sight would simply fail. But with Narauko, it is as if the man simply does not exist. As if he was somehow born outside of Fate.
Such a thing should be impossible, but so are all things until they happen.
Still.. It is irritating.
However, it is not the end of the world. He can improvise, even when he is forced to work around an anomaly that is not bound by Fate.
Already, the second step has been missed and the third is in danger of failing. The next stage of his play was not designed with the existence of Narauko in mind, so it will have to change.
Luckily, not all is hopeless. An opportunity has arisen that he is confident will allow the plan to continue. It will however delay the plan, but he has waited for decades already, a few more years are no issue. As long as his Grand Vision becomes reality in the end, then nothing else matters.
Alas, this does mean that he will have to continue the political balancing act past the point that it should have fallen apart for another few years. The thought has him grinding his teeth together in frustration.
A hand rises from the figure's cloak towards the table and a long, gnarled finger is revealed, with a long and sharp black nail that taps irritably on the solid wood. The sound echoes through the cavern, while the Great Prophet's mood only continues to worsen. His irritation at the disruption of his life's work only growing the more he thinks about it.
After a while, his finger finally comes to a stop. One last tap echoing through the cave with a sense of finality behind it.
From underneath his hood, two crimson orbs open, glowing in the shadow of his hood and glaring down at the crystal ball with vertically slit pupils. With all of the anger and resentment in his heart, the Great Prophet sums up his thoughts with a single phrase.
"How annoying."
///
A/N: He~llo! Dear readers!
6k words and I'm actually feeling pretty good about this chapter, which is honestly kinda rare. Makes me think that maybe stressing about other, real life stuff instead of my writing has somehow reset some of my burnout or something? Idk, I'm not complaining tho.
Could just be that I'm too tired to be critical of myself tho, I'm goin straight to bed after posting this.
Also, thanks again for the continued support even with these sparse updates, it really means a lot <3
Comments
Lucy Edwards
When the sun stops melting my brain into a goo probably. The weather should be better tomorrow but who knows
markiz di
When we will get a new chapter of this masterpiece
Aca Purp
I love characters with blue and orange morality like Narauko, particularly when that leads to them not following what others would consider “basic common sense”. I like how Narauko never even considered that asking Izanami to be a messenger to someone you yourself killed would be perceived by most as INCREDIBLY sacrilegious and smite-worthy. He’s a walking mindfuck to your common everyday Sorcerer, Human or Youkai. It’s good to see Tamamo and Narauko interacting again, it’ll be even better when the hands start flying as well. Great Prophet? Red eyes with black claws? I wonder if this is an established DxD character or just an OC. I’m really looking forward to seeing the unbridled chaos kick off when the Jujutsu event actually starts and people realise the difference between a regular Special Grade and The Strongest. I wonder if (with sufficient skill and knowledge) you could structure the Shadow Travel portal into something resembling the Dangai from Bleach, it’d help with the whole “feels like breathing water” thing. Although, you could use that sensation as a distraction by forcibly transporting an opponent through the shadows. Can’t wait to see how things progress from here. TFTC.
Kz3838
Thank you for the great chapter, stay safe out there and keep up the good work!
Shorter than joe Mama
Tamamo-no-Based
