[X] Tortoise of the North
Puella Magi Caterva Bella: A Game of Magic, Memories, and Memes
- Thread starter Jemnite
- Start date
Hyacinthium
Writing about sad cannibals as we speak.
- Location
- Bedroom
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Dragon of the East
We should probably remember the wolves, but that isn't as fun!
We should probably remember the wolves, but that isn't as fun!
- Location
- The Land of Many Bregrets
- Pronouns
- They/Them
That shift key getting away from you by any chance? Also christ IT WAS IZAYA I knew we should have been wary ;_;
As for the vote, I admittedly have no leanings either way, so I'll say:
[X] Nothing (Remember the Wolves)
The other four options are presumably high-tier puella, and the wolves are probably their subordinates, but I'm still curious.
8. Orimura is a Jerk Part 1
Jemnite
CVN-69 Fella
- Location
- 清源书院
Answering
Saturday 2:14 PM
Ikebukuro, Tokyo
June 13, 2015
The four gatekeepers of Kyoto. From order, Black Tortoise, Blue Dragon, Crimson Phoenix, and White Tiger. The four magical girl dynasties which had sworn their loyalty to the Emperor of Japan ages ago, and helped him conquer the island nation, and from then on forever watched over the old imperial capitol of Kyoto.
"Yeah." I nodded. "I know of them."
"Really?" Orimura leaned in, showing what looked like genuine true interest for the first time in this entire meeting. "Tell me about one."
"Tell you?" I asked and leaned back, suspicious. "Aren't you supposed to be the information broker here? Why are you asking me about information- that's common enough that you probably already know about it? You're not screwing with me, are you?"
"Humor me." Orimura smiled a slow lazy smile. "Talk to me."
"...alright." I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. "So, who do you want to start off with?"
"White tiger." Orimura instantly replied.
"White Tiger of the West." I replied. "Most aggressive leader of the four gatekeeper clans, and guardian of western gade of the city. It is mostly she who has been pushing for expansion of Kyoto's authority and aggressively moving for usage of the Wolves to... persuade other power factions."
"Yep." Orimura nodded. "And what about her personality?"
...I wasn't surprised that he knew that, but I bit back my reaction. "What makes you think I know that?"
"I can't tell you everything, you know." Orimura was infuriating as always. He seemed to know everything, and revealed almost nothing.
"...she's rude, and aggravating. She possesses an annoying blueblood composure which makes her view anyone not born of noble birth as lower than her. She's spiteful, and will aggressively go after people for slights. Basically, she's a huge bitch."
"Yeah she is." Shizuka grunted. "A super huge bitch. I got beef with her, you know?"
I didn't respond. Interrupting Shizuka was a dangerous proposal, one that might end in my death.
"When I find her, I'm going to put one right in her face." Shizuka swung at empty air, and the room vibrated with the force of her swing. I shivered at that raw power. Shizuka was good at one thing- and that was pure strength. Like a road roller, anything in her way stood a good chance of being pulverized. "I'm going to smash her face in with a giant fucking hammer."
"Indeed." Orimura nodded. "Byakko, also known as the current White Tiger of the West is not one of the most friendly people to get along with. She's rather unpleasant, but that's not her role in the Kyoto families. She is there, to provide the combat prowess."
"Combat prowess?" That...was interesting. I walked forward and slide back into a seat, facing Orimura.
"Aha!" He grinned. "I see I've caught your attention."
I gave him a simple nod for an answer.
"Byakko is renowned as a strong aggressive military commander in the upper circles of the Imperial faction." Orimura continued revealing sensitive information was probably kept dear to the chest of the imperial families and that a lowly Tokyo information broker like him shouldn't have even known of. "In most of the small conflicts that the four guardian families of Kyoto have fought within the last 40 years, she has been involved in every single one of them. It's part of how she worked her way up the ranks of her clan so quickly. She is aggressive, skilled, and capable of carrying the mantle command."
So... what he was saying that Byakko was the military strongarm of the imperial families of Kyoto. That was easy enough to understand. What bothered me, however was-
"If White Tiger is the military arm of the imperial families, what are the wolves for?" I asked.
"The wolves." Orimura smirked. "The wolves are the down and dirty combat unit of the four Imperial families. Made of rejects, commoners, bastards- all sorts that they don't want to have any dealings with, but are too useful to throw away."
Then he dropped the bombshell.
"But you're probably asking why they're the one who killed your friends if Byakko is the one who takes care of enforcement."
"Yes." I replied, watching him intently. His propensity for knowing things he wasn't was something I didn't question at this point. The atmosphere was getting tense in here- I was hearing things which bit almost too close to home, but I needed to hear if I ever wanted to learn the pieces of that puzzle which had happened years ago.
"Do you know what Byakko considers the dividing line between the Wolves and the glorious forces of the White Tiger to be?" Orimura asked in a sudden and slightly annoying change of topic. I shook my head and he continued. "The wolves are disposable. They're lowly. They're dirty. They're the forces that Byakko relies upon when she doesn't want to waste her noble White Tigers on a task that she considers to be dishonorable or below them, or when she thinks it might unnecessarily deplete their numbers."
"Which of those three reasons do you think is the reasons she sent the wolves to kill you and your friends instead of doing it herself?"
...I didn't like any of those implications, and I told him so in a soft whisper. "Orimura, what are you asking here?"
"Just a question, just a question." Orimura asked. "So, what do you think the answer is."
I didn't answer. I really didn't like where this question was going.
"It's because you and your friends were below White Tiger's attention." Orimura uttered absolutely unforgivable words. "You were just trash, and the only proper way to deal with trash is with trash."
First, I didn't react at all to those words. I suppose I was just so shocked at what he said. I didn't respond for nearly twenty seconds. Then, I trembled with what I didn't know. Fury, or maybe rage. But Orimura's words were absolutely out of line. I almost banged my knees against the bottom of the table as I stood up. My chair clattered to the ground behind me.
"Take that back." I stared that asshole straight in the eyes.
"Careful." Orimura chuckled. "You can't let that hot temper of yours control you. After all, isn't that what got Keiko killed?"
I was in motion before I thought about it. Wiry smokey strings of dark blue and black shot out of my soul gem and I snatched them out of the air as they manifested. Twisting and wrapping around each other, the wires became a deadly scythe which I swung at Orimura's neck.
Or they would have if Shizuka had not interplaced her arm between the blade and Orimura, who sat there casually still as blood splashed all over his face. The edge of the blade dug deep into Shizuka's arm, to the bone and I could the wound flush with red.
"I thought you wanted to kill this guy." I growled to Shizuka. She was in my way. "What the fuck are you doing?"
"Yeah, I wanna kill the guy." Shizuka stared back defiantly at me. "Specifically as in I. I want to the be the one who kills him. And no girl who's managed to make it a year or two after the average is going to steal my kill from me."
Fuck. I didn't want to fight her. In terms of strength... Shizuka was some sort of monster. Even with this grisly would, she'd probably just power through any attempts at finesse. My odds of taking her and surviving were pretty bad- I would probably be able to do it once out of maybe six times.
My odds of being able to kill Orimura before he weaseled away if I managed to fight off Shizuka and survive was even lower.
"What if I just maim him a bit." I tried to bargain. "You can be the one to kill him."
"Fuck off little girl." Shizuka flexed her wounded arm, and my scythe blade snapped in half like a twig- impressive considering that I had once managed to prop up a falling building with three of them as supports (long story).
I felt the sweat bead on my forehead, as I shifted the stance of my back leg.
"Haha, this is getting a little bit too intense for a poor information broker like me." Orimura broke the silence with a bad quip. He still looked so infuriatingly relaxed. "Why don't we all calm down and enjoy a nice cup of coffee?"
"Shut the fuck up." Shizuka growled at him, as fed up with his shit as I was.
"Oh my Shizuka-chan." Orimra tittered. As in he literally tittered. What the fuck was wrong with this dude? "Are you perhaps mad about having to defend me?"
"The. Fuck. Up." Shizuka repeated herself- and it was at this point I realized that I had fallen astray of the rule I had only just exposed to those junior magical girls just less than four hours ago.
Don't take the fucking bait.
"Nice bait mate, I rate eight out of eight." I whispered under my breath. And then the chuckles came. Slow and breathy, they grew harder and heavier until I was just laughing.
Shizuka looked at me funny. Orimura actually looked stunned for a second- a joke he wasn't in on? Then, he started laughing too.
"Ahahaha." His laugh was fake sounding. So fake. "I'm glad you've learned to appreciate humans too."
"I've learned to appreciate how much of an asshole you are." I shot back at him. "So- White Tiger and all that. Is there any point yo told me this, and is that all you wanted to tell me?"
"The first... would be telling~" He hummed. "The second, yes. For anything else you'll need to pay."
"Cool." I stood up from my half crouched, and dismissed the remnants of my scythe. "In that case, I'm out. You can screw around with Shizuka or whatever. I'm going."
"Where to?"
"A bar." I closed my eyes wearily. "I'm going to get piss-drunk."
Time to pick a poison
[ ] Sanya's Grill and Bar: For those times when you want a weird fucking Russian girl suplexing you as a greeting
[ ] Seishuu: For those times where you want to get drunk with class and also burn a lot of money
[ ] Blitz and Chips: Drunk party games await you at this magical land of whatever
[ ] Just find a random seedy bar: Cheap, no questions asked, probably hella illegal
[ ] Literally pick your own sort of poison, this be the write in option arrrr
Notes: mfw i realize that i typed tokyo instead of kyoto last update
lol no problems, i went back and fixed it. In fact, I'm probably going to fix up most of the updates later if and when I find the time. I'm the sort of person who will write something and then it will irk them so intensely that I go back and rewrite the entire section- except that takes too much time to do regularly with updates. So yeah...
Also the alcohol choices will affect the scene probably meaningfully, maybe. This is the last round of the character introductions. Next update ends with the start of the plot- and let me tell you, it's going to hit hard.
Like a fucking train.
Saturday 2:14 PM
Ikebukuro, Tokyo
June 13, 2015
The four gatekeepers of Kyoto. From order, Black Tortoise, Blue Dragon, Crimson Phoenix, and White Tiger. The four magical girl dynasties which had sworn their loyalty to the Emperor of Japan ages ago, and helped him conquer the island nation, and from then on forever watched over the old imperial capitol of Kyoto.
"Yeah." I nodded. "I know of them."
"Really?" Orimura leaned in, showing what looked like genuine true interest for the first time in this entire meeting. "Tell me about one."
"Tell you?" I asked and leaned back, suspicious. "Aren't you supposed to be the information broker here? Why are you asking me about information- that's common enough that you probably already know about it? You're not screwing with me, are you?"
"Humor me." Orimura smiled a slow lazy smile. "Talk to me."
"...alright." I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt. "So, who do you want to start off with?"
"White tiger." Orimura instantly replied.
"White Tiger of the West." I replied. "Most aggressive leader of the four gatekeeper clans, and guardian of western gade of the city. It is mostly she who has been pushing for expansion of Kyoto's authority and aggressively moving for usage of the Wolves to... persuade other power factions."
"Yep." Orimura nodded. "And what about her personality?"
...I wasn't surprised that he knew that, but I bit back my reaction. "What makes you think I know that?"
"I can't tell you everything, you know." Orimura was infuriating as always. He seemed to know everything, and revealed almost nothing.
"...she's rude, and aggravating. She possesses an annoying blueblood composure which makes her view anyone not born of noble birth as lower than her. She's spiteful, and will aggressively go after people for slights. Basically, she's a huge bitch."
"Yeah she is." Shizuka grunted. "A super huge bitch. I got beef with her, you know?"
I didn't respond. Interrupting Shizuka was a dangerous proposal, one that might end in my death.
"When I find her, I'm going to put one right in her face." Shizuka swung at empty air, and the room vibrated with the force of her swing. I shivered at that raw power. Shizuka was good at one thing- and that was pure strength. Like a road roller, anything in her way stood a good chance of being pulverized. "I'm going to smash her face in with a giant fucking hammer."
"Indeed." Orimura nodded. "Byakko, also known as the current White Tiger of the West is not one of the most friendly people to get along with. She's rather unpleasant, but that's not her role in the Kyoto families. She is there, to provide the combat prowess."
"Combat prowess?" That...was interesting. I walked forward and slide back into a seat, facing Orimura.
"Aha!" He grinned. "I see I've caught your attention."
I gave him a simple nod for an answer.
"Byakko is renowned as a strong aggressive military commander in the upper circles of the Imperial faction." Orimura continued revealing sensitive information was probably kept dear to the chest of the imperial families and that a lowly Tokyo information broker like him shouldn't have even known of. "In most of the small conflicts that the four guardian families of Kyoto have fought within the last 40 years, she has been involved in every single one of them. It's part of how she worked her way up the ranks of her clan so quickly. She is aggressive, skilled, and capable of carrying the mantle command."
So... what he was saying that Byakko was the military strongarm of the imperial families of Kyoto. That was easy enough to understand. What bothered me, however was-
"If White Tiger is the military arm of the imperial families, what are the wolves for?" I asked.
"The wolves." Orimura smirked. "The wolves are the down and dirty combat unit of the four Imperial families. Made of rejects, commoners, bastards- all sorts that they don't want to have any dealings with, but are too useful to throw away."
Then he dropped the bombshell.
"But you're probably asking why they're the one who killed your friends if Byakko is the one who takes care of enforcement."
"Yes." I replied, watching him intently. His propensity for knowing things he wasn't was something I didn't question at this point. The atmosphere was getting tense in here- I was hearing things which bit almost too close to home, but I needed to hear if I ever wanted to learn the pieces of that puzzle which had happened years ago.
"Do you know what Byakko considers the dividing line between the Wolves and the glorious forces of the White Tiger to be?" Orimura asked in a sudden and slightly annoying change of topic. I shook my head and he continued. "The wolves are disposable. They're lowly. They're dirty. They're the forces that Byakko relies upon when she doesn't want to waste her noble White Tigers on a task that she considers to be dishonorable or below them, or when she thinks it might unnecessarily deplete their numbers."
"Which of those three reasons do you think is the reasons she sent the wolves to kill you and your friends instead of doing it herself?"
...I didn't like any of those implications, and I told him so in a soft whisper. "Orimura, what are you asking here?"
"Just a question, just a question." Orimura asked. "So, what do you think the answer is."
I didn't answer. I really didn't like where this question was going.
"It's because you and your friends were below White Tiger's attention." Orimura uttered absolutely unforgivable words. "You were just trash, and the only proper way to deal with trash is with trash."
First, I didn't react at all to those words. I suppose I was just so shocked at what he said. I didn't respond for nearly twenty seconds. Then, I trembled with what I didn't know. Fury, or maybe rage. But Orimura's words were absolutely out of line. I almost banged my knees against the bottom of the table as I stood up. My chair clattered to the ground behind me.
"Take that back." I stared that asshole straight in the eyes.
"Careful." Orimura chuckled. "You can't let that hot temper of yours control you. After all, isn't that what got Keiko killed?"
I was in motion before I thought about it. Wiry smokey strings of dark blue and black shot out of my soul gem and I snatched them out of the air as they manifested. Twisting and wrapping around each other, the wires became a deadly scythe which I swung at Orimura's neck.
Or they would have if Shizuka had not interplaced her arm between the blade and Orimura, who sat there casually still as blood splashed all over his face. The edge of the blade dug deep into Shizuka's arm, to the bone and I could the wound flush with red.
"I thought you wanted to kill this guy." I growled to Shizuka. She was in my way. "What the fuck are you doing?"
"Yeah, I wanna kill the guy." Shizuka stared back defiantly at me. "Specifically as in I. I want to the be the one who kills him. And no girl who's managed to make it a year or two after the average is going to steal my kill from me."
Fuck. I didn't want to fight her. In terms of strength... Shizuka was some sort of monster. Even with this grisly would, she'd probably just power through any attempts at finesse. My odds of taking her and surviving were pretty bad- I would probably be able to do it once out of maybe six times.
My odds of being able to kill Orimura before he weaseled away if I managed to fight off Shizuka and survive was even lower.
"What if I just maim him a bit." I tried to bargain. "You can be the one to kill him."
"Fuck off little girl." Shizuka flexed her wounded arm, and my scythe blade snapped in half like a twig- impressive considering that I had once managed to prop up a falling building with three of them as supports (long story).
I felt the sweat bead on my forehead, as I shifted the stance of my back leg.
"Haha, this is getting a little bit too intense for a poor information broker like me." Orimura broke the silence with a bad quip. He still looked so infuriatingly relaxed. "Why don't we all calm down and enjoy a nice cup of coffee?"
"Shut the fuck up." Shizuka growled at him, as fed up with his shit as I was.
"Oh my Shizuka-chan." Orimra tittered. As in he literally tittered. What the fuck was wrong with this dude? "Are you perhaps mad about having to defend me?"
"The. Fuck. Up." Shizuka repeated herself- and it was at this point I realized that I had fallen astray of the rule I had only just exposed to those junior magical girls just less than four hours ago.
Don't take the fucking bait.
"Nice bait mate, I rate eight out of eight." I whispered under my breath. And then the chuckles came. Slow and breathy, they grew harder and heavier until I was just laughing.
Shizuka looked at me funny. Orimura actually looked stunned for a second- a joke he wasn't in on? Then, he started laughing too.
"Ahahaha." His laugh was fake sounding. So fake. "I'm glad you've learned to appreciate humans too."
"I've learned to appreciate how much of an asshole you are." I shot back at him. "So- White Tiger and all that. Is there any point yo told me this, and is that all you wanted to tell me?"
"The first... would be telling~" He hummed. "The second, yes. For anything else you'll need to pay."
"Cool." I stood up from my half crouched, and dismissed the remnants of my scythe. "In that case, I'm out. You can screw around with Shizuka or whatever. I'm going."
"Where to?"
"A bar." I closed my eyes wearily. "I'm going to get piss-drunk."
Time to pick a poison
[ ] Sanya's Grill and Bar: For those times when you want a weird fucking Russian girl suplexing you as a greeting
[ ] Seishuu: For those times where you want to get drunk with class and also burn a lot of money
[ ] Blitz and Chips: Drunk party games await you at this magical land of whatever
[ ] Just find a random seedy bar: Cheap, no questions asked, probably hella illegal
[ ] Literally pick your own sort of poison, this be the write in option arrrr
Notes: mfw i realize that i typed tokyo instead of kyoto last update
lol no problems, i went back and fixed it. In fact, I'm probably going to fix up most of the updates later if and when I find the time. I'm the sort of person who will write something and then it will irk them so intensely that I go back and rewrite the entire section- except that takes too much time to do regularly with updates. So yeah...
Also the alcohol choices will affect the scene probably meaningfully, maybe. This is the last round of the character introductions. Next update ends with the start of the plot- and let me tell you, it's going to hit hard.
Like a fucking train.
Hyacinthium
Writing about sad cannibals as we speak.
- Location
- Bedroom
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Blitz and Chips: Drunk party games await you at this magical land of whatever
FISH AND CHIPS
FISH AND CHIPS
CompassJimbo
Where’s Your North?
- Location
- The former Rubber Capital of the World
[X] Sanya's Grill and Bar: For those times when you want a weird fucking Russian girl suplexing you as a greeting
- Location
- Leeds
[X] Sanya's Grill and Bar: For those times when you want a weird fucking Russian girl suplexing you as a greeting
- Location
- The Land of Many Bregrets
- Pronouns
- They/Them
Yup, that sure is Izaya...
Typo
[X] Sanya's Grill and Bar: For those times when you want a weird fucking Russian girl suplexing you as a greeting
Partly because I suspect it's the Durararararussians, partly just because suplexing
Typo
[X] Sanya's Grill and Bar: For those times when you want a weird fucking Russian girl suplexing you as a greeting
Partly because I suspect it's the Durararararussians, partly just because suplexing
[X] Sanya's Grill and Bar: For those times when you want a weird fucking Russian girl suplexing you as a greeting
Somewhat tempted by getting drunk with class, but IIRC we blew a lot of money on introducing the kids to the broker and spent time with mom instead of doing the extra delivery, so unless we want to start off with money problems we should probably refrain.
Somewhat tempted by getting drunk with class, but IIRC we blew a lot of money on introducing the kids to the broker and spent time with mom instead of doing the extra delivery, so unless we want to start off with money problems we should probably refrain.
notthepenguins
Neither Spherical Nor Frictionless
- Pronouns
- He/She/They
[X] Sanya's Grill and Bar: For those times when you want a weird fucking Russian girl suplexing you as a greeting
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
[X] Just find a random seedy bar: Cheap, no questions asked, probably hella illegal
Pretty sure getting drunk at all is illegal for us.
Pretty sure getting drunk at all is illegal for us.
UrsaTempest
Don't Panic!
We're 24 years old, Winged One. Or 28. Can't remember.
[X] Sanya's Grill and Bar: For those times when you want a weird fucking Russian girl suplexing you as a greeting
It sounds sufficiently drunkish.
Hyacinthium
Writing about sad cannibals as we speak.
- Location
- Bedroom
- Pronouns
- He/Him
We had a huge chunk of an update talk about how adult we are. How can you forget this?
Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
Lots of practice.
[X] Sanya's Grill and Bar: For those times when you want a weird fucking Russian girl suplexing you as a greeting
Hyacinthium
Writing about sad cannibals as we speak.
- Location
- Bedroom
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Why does everyone want to be suplexed?
UrsaTempest
Don't Panic!
I figured it got strong, cheap alcohol. Because RUSSIA.
... alright, that's stereotype.
Because they hope to also get a Sushi discount out of it.
[X] Blitz and Chips: Drunk party games await you at this magical land of whatever
