work: not a word or bone
fandom: kagurabachi
rating: T
relationship(s): shiba tōgo & mashiro shūji, shiba tōgo & azami sōshiro
tags: chapter coda, manga spoilers (chapter 121: the irishima talks - end), angst & tragedy, canon compliant, major character death, ambiguous relationships
work summary:
It’s all so much noise. Much ado about no thing that matters. Tōgo was bled on Irishima; Tōgo has not stopped bleeding; this isn’t about his blood.
Or: Which way, walking dead man?
work preview:
Tōgo doesn’t glance down the slope of his own nose. Doesn’t follow where Azami is long hesitating. Not yet. He’s not ready. He feels, very acutely, as though he’s been opened from collar to navel, no anaesthesia or sedation to be found anywhere. For a long, very long—irrationally long—second he’s downright terrified to even think to look down; he doesn’t want to bear witness to his own gory vivisection. The sectioned meat of himself. The spread ribs. His pulped heart.
work: kneel in loose dirt
fandom: kagurabachi
rating: E
relationship(s): uruha yōji/misaka natsuki
tags: canon divergence | relationship study | manga spoilers through ch92 | explicit sexual content | wet & messy
work summary:
The lure of going there was enticing in the way of giving into anger and inflicting bloody murder; like wedging a blunt nail beneath a barely-healed scab and tearing. Exhilarating like exerting your emotions was, just before you chose to act on them: that split second before your actions took you somewhere you could never come back from.
Or: for Misaka Natsuki perennially, always, Uruha Yōji.
ch_01 preview:
It couldn’t be him. Uruha was dead. Natsuki’s thoughts stalled out on that tangent, He’s dead, Uruha’s dead, it can’t be— He felt the words tactile enough to touch, a near-tangible mantra, each individual character so impressed upon the fore of his mind that they soon appeared nigh-visible before him. Superimposed over the tall, clean lines of the ghost who now stood before him.
It couldn’t be Uruha. Uruha was dead.
But it was, and Uruha wasn’t.
ch_02 preview:
“Really—why the hell does it matter? Why do you care?”
And then Natsuki turned his chin up and his head to the side, and he faced Uruha for what might’ve been the very first time by own volition. Relented to look at him and see him. See what the humiliation ritual, corpse excavation, two-fold vivisection wrought as they rendered it expressly alive, let it loose to wreak havoc.
I'd be genuinely apologetic, bc I am, but truthfully this is just how I am. helaas pindakaas, as I've unfortunately taken to saying. anyway tl;dr here I am? back for the lone purpose I did serve when I was here last, i.e., to yap abt fic
none of the below mentioned are finished, and putting an actual hard time frame on them is just asking to make people disappointed (sry ... .) so I'm not!
what I I figured was, a) to update this space & b) if someone gets rly hyped to know that I'm working on X fic for Y ship, should I not try to inform them that I am
anyway tl;dr wgaf: please find 4x current projects below the cut (appropriately separated & tagged, I hope) && I hope I get to be more active here come spring, summer, fall, all of that which comes next. you get itttt
x
2026_aosc_wip_bonanza_1/4
WORK: the heart from the rib of it (the rib from the God of it)
FANDOM: kagurabachi
RATED: M
RELATIONSHIP(S): soga akemura/yura
TAGS: experimental style, spoilers through ch107, POV differing, body horror, psychological horror, dubious modes of exposition, religious imagery & symbolism
WORK_SUMMARY:
In the liminal space that was most likely the purgatorial in-between life and death, you found that you were falling.
Or— This is the place where many ghosts of those who have perished will now gather.
In that visual reenactment of a past you did not recall, and only vaguely knew to be a past—once the fire had turned into steaming curliques of ashes and a heap of black coals, the two of you got to your feet.
You noted the weight and feel of your attire: the scrape of seams against your skin, the slack noose of your tie at your collar. Your hero dusted himself off: sheets of fine sand powdered from the rigorous lines of his hakama, the ghostly lines of his kosode. He jerked his head towards the murky forest that juxtaposed the shore and turned on his heel.
Together you climbed the squat bank of sand serrating the ocean from the inland. You cut through a thicket of recently decimated, spindly-fingered beech trees, then veered left. At first glance it appeared as though there was nothing there save soft moss and a perennial plush carpet of rotting leaves, but you quickly found yourself retreading a shallow, not quite-staked out path, which you followed more or less straight upwards.
The true black of the old forest at night did not wait long before it swallowed you whole. Traversing that deep swathe, most of your mind channeled towards listening to His words, you felt that you ought to watch your feet, and the ground for obstructions, though you walked second behind him. You encountered none, but you remained unable to quite shake the feeling, ventured deeper and darker into the heart of the woods. As you walked, he began to talk.
He said— What I’m saying is, there was a reason we went to war, and there was a reason we won that war. And there is a reason we never have to win it, or run the risk of losing it, ever again.
He said— In the aftermath— It’s all done with at this point, peace treaties are being sued, troops and embedded agents are en route home—what’s left is counting bodies, burying your dead—imagine that at this point you have a vision. It’s not per se a vision, but for simplicity’s sake, it is. For this vision you see that you can do something in order to end this conflict forever. This war is over, yes, but for it to be over—what you’ve done here and now, it isn’t enough. There are reasons for this war that go beyond whatever set it off this time around.
He said— This vision shows you the root cause of the war. And you understand that you’re just perpetuating the cycle of war and misery. You’re nothing but the latest iteration of cyclical victims and perpetrators in an impossibly long war of blood. You've only won the battle. Achieving peace here is a stopgap in a history that cycles on, is never-ending. It’s not your fault that it is so, but you realize then and there—you’re not addressing the gnarled root issue of the conflict by simply laying down your arms and going home. You can’t.
You were well removed from the shore, and an indeterminate but generous amount of time had passed, that your blunt, undiscerning gaze caught on something which your brain couldn’t quite make sense of. Something that stood out from the uniform black of everything else. You could in fact see it. You blinked. Could you be certain to trust your own senses? It was still so dark.
[[[END_THE HEART FROM THE RIB OF IT_PREVIEW_050326]]]
WORK: kneel in loose dirt
FANDOM: kagurabachi
RATED: E
RELATIONSHIP(S): uruha yōji/misaka natsuki
TAGS: wet & messy & furious, canon divergence, spoilers through ch92, explicit sexual content
WORK_SUMMARY:
The lure of going there was enticing in the way of giving into anger and inflicting bloody murder; like wedging a blunt nail beneath a barely-healed scab and tearing. Exhilarating like exerting your emotions was, just before you chose to act on them: that split second before your actions took you somewhere you could never come back from.
Or— For Misaka Natsuki perennially, always, Uruha Yōji.
“It’s not the goddamn injury,” snapped Natsuki, as much as it was possible to snap anything around panting and sucking viciously on Uruha’s bottom lip, when his every breath, word, affect was turned gravelly and thin, drawn stringent with gut-punch arousal. “It’s you. It’s always you. It’s always been you!”
“I know it’s always been me,” muffled Uruha, bottom lip trapped between Natsuki’s teeth, his tongue slicking briefly against Natsuki’s gums. He dug a thumb into the joint of Natsuki’s jaw, tugged on the short hairs on his neck with the other. Natsuki failed to quell the ultimate reaction it produced—the slack-jawed affect, the groan that bubbled up his throat.
An unfortunate outcome overall, since Uruha used the opportunity to pull slightly back, put a sliver of space between them. “It’s always been me,” he reiterated, gaze boring into Natsuki’s. Arousal showed black and sucking in his eyes, pupil blown up dark with only a crescent of verdant remaining.
Natsuki bristled. “This is what you want to spend precious breath on? Reiterating what I’m saying?” He snapped his right hip downwards, ground the flat of his thigh meanly amidst Uruha’s thighs. The straining bulge of his cock there. At the same time, he fisted a handful of Uruha’s hair and cramped his fingers harshly, pulled and pulled and pulled.
Uruha wheezed a breath that sounded like it’d been punched out of him and jerked his hips upwards. “Natsuki—” he panted, breathless but fighting it.
Natsuki tugged again. Pulled backwards, for all the limited space there was between the slope of Uruha’s head and the mattress, harder and harder for all that Uruha refused to submit, refused to relent to follow Natsuki’s lead.
“Nearing forty and you still haven’t learned to shut up,” Natsuki sneered. He tugged again. Ducked his head till they were sharing the same immediate air. Till the point he could tilt his jaw and they’d be kissing. Uruha pulled upwards, tried to close the distance. Natsuki held him in place. “That’s what’s always been about you,” he hissed into Uruha’s mouth, sharing Uruha’s breath. Speaking into him.
“You took something from me, but you didn’t—whatever. It should’ve been someone else. Maybe it shouldn’t have been me. But not you.”
He bit Uruha’s bottom lip. Uruha bucked his hips. His cock twitched against Natsuki’s thigh. He felt himself pulse in response. A hot-cold clench from gut to pelvis. His own cock pulsed in his underwear, kicking into a burgeoning wet spot just below the waistband. A brilliant streak of nerves alit in his soles. He grit his teeth against it.
“Maybe not,” murmured Uruha, dragging his attention back right, prodding the wounded nerve cluster of his pride to the fore once more. Natsuki was almost thankful. “But Rokuhira chose me. And the Kumeyuri accepted me. And no one gave it a second thought—they also accepted me.”
He paused. Cut his black, black, green gaze up to trap Natsuki still and focused on only himself. “Everyone accepted me—everyone except you.”
One breath, two, three, amidst them—and then Uruha blurred into motion.
WORK: catabasis
FANDOM: kagurabachi
RATED: M
RELATIONSHIP(S): samura seiichi & uruha yōji, samura seiichi & rokuhira kunishige, samura seiichi & soga akemura (&&& more)
CHARACTER(S): kagurabachi seitei war ensemble cast
TAGS: pre-canon, seitei war, samura seiichi-centric, a long winded attempt at sketching a more-or-less complete picture of samura seiichi (wielder of tobimune, horrible father, lesser husband) blood & gore, body horror, tw: magatsumi
WORK_SUMMARY:
The bulk contents of the JGSDF summons to war were mechanical, bloodless, from content to tone to letterhead. One letter out of a litany. It served to thus convey:
You are no longer a person, no longer a body. Now you are a country—you are your country, as your country is you. And when you bleed, and you will, you will do so in service of that which has been—that it may yet be tomorrow, and every day henceforth.
Or— Not for Samura Seiichi the long life, the natural death: for him the blood, the war, the catabasis.
The kid remained mum as a mouse. Seiichi found it within himself to eyeball him meanly in return. Because he was an adult, and that was the way of adults.
“Go. Get out of the sun for a bit, drink plenty of fluids, you’ll be right as rain. Do that for the rest of forever, and you’ll be good till the day you die. Even if you don’t—just don’t do anything where I can see it. I don’t care, moreover I don’t want to care. This isn’t a damn rec center. We’re a dojo.”
“I wasn’t being stupid. I was waiting on you.”
Seiichi, well fed up then, and thus en route to the hell away from the snot-nosed, black-and-blue-and-red blistered sliver of a boy, stiffened and held that thought. Half-weighing on one heel, he slowly spun back around to face the not-stray.
“Pardon you?” he asked, blatantly miffed but far too much so to have the space of mind to consider hiding it.
“I wasn’t being stupid. And I know what this place is,” said the child, slowly this time. Enunciating like he’d sized Seiichi up just then and deemed him mentally lacking, and/or possibly hard of hearing.
Shirakai-sensei clicked his tongue following a hefty exhale of smoke. “Alright, you have fun with that, Seiichi-kun.”
He shuffled leisurely off of the tatami and out from the dojo, headed into the courtyard and trailing smoke and a vague, exponentially irritating hum as he went. Seiichi resisted the urge to channel his aborted stress into a muttered tirade; his master was an awful person, but he was Seiichi’s master. That counted for just about everything.
The Kid, as Seiichi had thus dubbed him, age approximately six and a half at the time—not actually, but what the hell did Seiichi know—currently shivering with overexposure to the sun, endeavoured to square his shoulders—the whole feeble slip of his torso, and clamped his jaw so hard Seiichi heard his teeth click.
“I said what I said—Samura-sensei, sir,” he said.
Seiichi blinked. And again. Samura-sensei, sir, knocked about the circumference of his frontal lobe like a cat scrambling across a scorched tin roof.
The Kid pursed his lips once, then twice. He snorted a reedy exhale through the nose like cattle. “I’m Uruha Yōji,” he said, measured and far more weighted than Seiichi at that time would’ve thought him capable of.
“I want to study the White Purity Style. I know Shirakai-sensei doesn’t take on just any student beyond the basics, so I want to train under you, Samura-san. I want to learn from you, until such a time I’m accepted as a disciple of Shirakai Itsuo-sensei.”
The Kid Uruha didn’t so much as blink, but he did pause then.
(Seiichi wondered, once or twice or so and long after the fact, at a point far in the future, whether that half-pint of back then-Uruha had done so on purpose. Whether he’d had the guts and know-how to wield his speech so consciously.)
“I’m good enough. I’ll show you. I won’t let you down.”
WORK: rubycon
FANDOM: kagurabachi
RATED: M
RELATIONSHIPS(S): shiba tōgo & soga akemura, shiba tōgo/azami sōshiro, shiba tōgo/rokuhira kunishige, shiba tōgo & samura seiichi
CHARACTER(S): kagurabachi seitei war ensemble cast
TAGS: pre-canon, seitei war, shiba tōgo-centric, a long winded attempt at sketching a more-or-less complete picture of shiba tōgo; 1/3 katana heretics; fic plot: guy w no concept of familial commitment inherits son & situationship (also nukes) from no 1 family guy OAT; guy w awful timing tries to reset his wrist & phone watch; blood & gore, body horror; tw: magatsumi
WORK_SUMMARY:
Appropriately humbled is anathema to the work persona he’s been cultivating for the past however long, moreover counterintuitive to the overall business of intimidation, torture, and murder.
Tōgo is good at what he does. This is nothing.
(Tōgo is good at what he does, yes. It isn’t nothing.
It is or it isn’t; that’s not a concession he can afford to make. Tōgo chokes out and stuffs the corpse of any remnant pessimism somewhere deep down, distant far back of the brain. Whether he’ll cut it among the imperial elite, if he’ll manage as the shield when for so long he’s functioned as the spear; yes he will. There’s no fucking doubt about it.)
Or— A life lived and attested by Shiba Tōgo, 19: triple parallel government contractor, triple-platinum certified imbiber of, i.e., the national leading expert on foul coffee sludge.
From his vantage point it smokes and wavers amidst the unseasonably wet fog, a pale revenant hulking in the distance. He leans onto the steering wheel and squints to see, as if that’d help any against the overnight shock of warmth that’s caused the atmosphere to solidify into a uniform white smog. The allegedly palatine structure is a hazy mirage at best, and it’s pointless to try and gauge exact distances, or much of anything, so for now he’ll take people’s word for it. He will concede to its mammoth size: from the reinforced front gates to the main building it’s a sizeable stretch, even by car.
Well. Doesn’t much matter, the details, he supposes. There is only the one road, single file, freshly paved and minutely swept, that bisects the well-manicured estate garden into equal scenic parts, left and right. He’ll get to be up close and personal with all of it soon enough; house, history, the people. If he ever gets to drive on, that is. He’s idling just across the property line, waiting on the graveyard shift perimeter guard to give him the all clear to proceed.
Tōgo peels his gaze wide, turning his head over his shoulder to glance aside and towards the rear bumper, farther back towards the since-sealed gate and squat guard station. The innate quiet of dawn persists, no live movement or bodies to speak of. Not yet, no.
He isn’t per se expecting to be on his way swiftly. He’d come face to face with two out of the three-man large guard just clocking in upon his arrival: looked both men in the eye as they came out and round to signal him out the driver's seat and to face away, first patting him down warily, then having him pop the trunk and hinge all passenger doors. In turning over his summons and various requested personal data he’d noted a common sluggishness, shared gingerly dispositions—uniform bloodshot gazes scrubbing blankly over the fistful of laminate IDs and field permits he’d forked over, silence bloating all the while they appeared to struggle with the what, who, why, of it all.
Tōgo had thought, slightly peeved— That’s not just getting a slow jump to the morning. But in a showing of great and impassioned restraint, he quelled the urge that’d threatened to overcome him to exacerbate their no doubt nauseating hangover; get loud about a delay, cause a racket like screwing a mean thumb into a livid bruise. Alas, the man Shiba Tōgo is nothing but a gracious fucking guy.
He’d said to take their time about it, he’s here with plenty to spare— No point in takin the plunge lest you’re sure to be able to swim, y’know?
Neither had seemed to really understand that, either, but at that point it wasn’t Tōgo’s problem anymore. He’d turned on his heel, waving a leisurely see ya’ll over the shoulder, and went to while away the no doubt slow impending minutes in the car. While you’re all dragging your feet, and none of us getting any younger, felt well enough implied.
Not that he’ll admit to it, much less show it, but if he’d want to he would certainly be able to call upon a sliver of sympath and empathise with chewing through life as glorified crossing guards on temp minimum wage-contracts, who’d shown up to rotate onto helming the graveyard post-booze addled all-nighter, stupor-addled liniment to combat the grim monotony of a sad fucking existence—and the first thing they’re met with upon clocking in, is the one guy of all time who’s thought to show up clucthing a stack of papers to the local sword convention.
so @caiternate and i saw the literary references & abundant poetry in harrow the ninth and thought “you could make a commentary out of that”
this is a short guide to the quotes and references throughout the book, and a slightly longer guide to the mechanics of the original poetry, in case you want to be spared constantly looking things up while reading. memes not included; you’re on your own for those. where the line between a meme and a more serious reference is blurred, we leaned towards counting it as a serious reference.
this is not a literary analysis; it’s more of a reference sheet.
spoilers for the entirety of harrow the ninth below.
work: room for every girl’s locket
fandom: kagurabachi
rating: T
character(s): samura iori, ro, samura seiichi, rokuhira chihiro
tags: samura iori-centric | character study | ch66-70 coda | general manga spoilers through ch71
work summary:
Samura Iori, daughter of a hero, soldier, sinner, murderer—opens her eyes to find herself, the world around her, the past behind and the future ahead of her, viscerally and irrevocably changed.
work preview:
The core image wobbles, a mirage on the horizon clearing up, a cloud bank fading to reveal the clear lines of the skyline—
Dad, finally—
She remembers. She knows. As sure as she is of anything, has ever been of anything, she knows this:
A swordsman’s hands. The anatomy of the swordsman’s hands: the knob of his wrist, the solid length of his forearm, the stretch of his upper arm. She knows his face. His voice.
work: antimatter
fandom: kagurabachi
rating: M
relationship(s): rokuhira chihiro/sazanami hakuri
character(s): sazanami soya, sazanami tenri, sazanami family ensemble, yura, shiba tōgo, azami, sojo genichi, hinao, kyonagi char, hishaku ensemble (further cast tba)
tags: alternate universe | toukuri AU | canon-typical violence | enemies to lovers | implied/referenced child abuse | slow burn | minor mixed media (more tags tba)
work summary:
A STATEMENT FROM THE FAMILY AND THE OFFICE OF THE RAKUZAICHI AT THE TIME OF SAZANAMI KYORA’S DEATH
Sazanami Kyora, eleventh patriarch of the Sazanami and Head of the Rakuzaichi, passed away yesterday morning, Monday 7th December, following a longer period of illness. He died in his home at the Sazanami Estate surrounded by his immediate family and closest confidants.
In all matters of the family and the Office of the Rakuzaichi, it has been decided that Sazanami Hakuri will succeed his late father, effective immediately.
The ascenion, reign and downfall of Sazanami Hakuri, twelfth patriarch of the Sazanami and Head of the Rakuzaichi—alternatively: how to topple an Empire in eleven months.
chapter preview(s):
ch01 | ascension pt I
Tenri shrugs, a jerk of a thing. “We’re the Tō,” he says. What he means is, it’s our job to do this, not yours. “We’ll see you on the other side.” He slaps the roof of the car, two perfunctory snaps of his rigid palm. “It’ll be okay, big brother. We’ll protect you.”
Hakuri fingers the sluice of his seatbelt, still lax and tucked away on his left. “We’ll be okay,” he says to himself, then repeats it out the window to his siblings. “The Rakuzaichi above all else.”
“The Rakuzaichi above all else,” chorus Tenri, Soya, Enji and Tamaki.
ch02 | ascension pt II
Hakuri’s father is dead, and the dead don’t talk, but Hakuri knows how little Kyora would have thought of any son of his thinking any of it. Sometimes he imagines that he can feel his father’s voice on the inside of his frontal lobe—the thrum and cadence of Kyora’s disappointment hammering bloodless, blithe reprimands into the marrow and bone of him. Encouraging Hakuri to be nothing he is, to always strive for everything he isn’t.
everything u need to know about me can actually be explained by the fact that i read that poem about the serving girl wearing the pearls so they're warm for her mistress when i was like 11 and it rewrote my brain chemistry forever
yes the uruha copium dried up & I can’t see anything but The Worst Timeline occurring from here
cut 2 spare anyone who still retains some measure of hope for plot advancements more positive than samura murdering uruha in cold blood in front of hakuhiro
hakuri uses the last wisps of strength & power to transport chihiro, then collapses. chihiro materializes on site just as samura cuts uruha down, dangerously fatigued & increasingly unstable, can’t believe wtf he’s seeing—hakuri passed out in a pool of his own blood, uruha cut down like a dog, senkutsuji razed to the ground—
and just snaps
chihiro vs samura as a brutal battle of ideologies, sojo 2.0 except this isn’t a vicious arms dealer nursing a parasocial obsession w his dad, this is a man he trusts: chosen by kunishige to wield an enchanted blade, a lauded hero of the war—the first man to teach him how to properly swing a katana—and one of few bastions of hope vs the hishaku
chihiro (at this point already increasingly aware his crusade may rest on a very biased, shaky foundation) is abt to take on the strongest enemy he’s ever faced, whilst that same enemy likely barrages him with his experiences as a wielder & the reasons for his betrayal, bruised exhausted betrayed, and cut him down
peak doom theorizing but I guarantee hokazono is cooking the biggest & most important battle of the series thus far, a seismic shift, and whatever happens in ch58 & onwards—based on the end of ch57—I only see chihiro coming out the other end fundamentally altered, his person & outlook on the blades, the war, his father, his role as an avenger—everything radically altered
