I love how the huron “superpowers” in Desert Punk are treated with such restraint for a lot of it, being rarely used, draining on the user and potentially dangerous to those around them if they lose control. But then post time skip Kosune gets her fucking clairvoyance, which is a danger radar with a range of miles, let’s her pickout enemies even if they have stealth gear and allows her to make absurd trickshots, all without seemingly any negative side effects.
A drabble based on a conversation @norageonlypancakes and I had about Kosuna meeting Mitsuhide
@nexu101, you’re gonna wanna read this too.
Kosuna spotted the caravan before the guards surrounding it noticed her. This was scarcely odd-- the dirt and filth she had accumulated helped to camouflage her in the brush as she stalked them. Kosuna kept the branch she was using as a club low, but was careful not to drag it-- careful not to make any noise. For a woman of her heft, Kosuna moved with amazing stealth and predator-like grace, her focus on the guard at the forefront. Something about this was off, she would think in the future, but in the meantime, she had bigger fish to fry. There was something of an invisible line in the road that she denoted as the start of her territory, and she waited for that line to be crossed.
And it was crossed… now.
Kosuna charged, gripping her makeshift club so tight her knuckles were blanched from the effort. There was no warning, no demands… no remorse. The upswing from her club was so hard it broke the guard’s jaw with a horrid crunch, the downswing hitting his helmet at just the right angle to lodge part of it into his temple. The other guards flocked to surround her as Kosuna grabbed hold of the fallen man’s katana in her left hand, the troop’s demands unheard through her berserker-like rage. The sword had found itself lodged in one man’s chest after having slit another’s throat. The rest didn’t receive such swift or comparatively pleasant deaths, their limbs and ribs broken before having their skulls bashed in or their throats crushed by nothing more than a particularly heavy tree branch.
The palanquin was next.
Kosuna plodded over to it, her breaths heavy, almost bestial. After this, she reasoned to herself, her family would at least be able to put food on the table. The sound of the merchant screaming rang through Kosuna’s ears as she took a mighty swing. The sound of the palanquin splintering under the strain, however, didn’t happen-- it seemed like the palanquin fell apart on its own in three neatly-cut pieces as Kosuna staggered back, barely missing on being cut apart, herself.
She had expected the guards, yes, but she didn’t expect the merchant to have hired someone to be in that cramped little cart with him.
The figure loomed over the remnants of the palanquin, white locks of hair draped over his face. A smile, trying to pass for being warm and inviting, spread across his face as he looked down at Kosuna-- Kosuna, who was wondering whether she had really survived the encounter after all, thinking she was looking up at the face of death. She impulsively took a swing at him--
--only for her branch to be caught between the twin scythes, blades firmly wedged into the wood.
“Don’t you know,” cooed the man with white hair, his voice like poisonous honey, “that it’s rude to attack someone that may want to make you an offer?”
“Don’t you dare talk down to me!” Kosuna tugged at her club, trying to free it from the two scythes’ grip to no avail. With another yank, the club fell apart into not much more than three splintered pieces, nothing more than a useless knob of wood left in her hand.
“Oh, thank gods,” the merchant said, his voice hoarse from screaming in terror. “I’m going to get to live after al--” His voice was cut off by the blade of a scythe held to his throat.
“Be quiet,” the tall, pale man hissed, glaring back at the merchant, before softening his gaze, looking down at Kosuna. “Never mind him, my dear. Let’s talk business.”
“I didn’t come here to talk,” Kosuna said, glowering up at the man. “I came here to feed my family.”
“I can help you with that.” The man sets down one of his scythes, offering Kosuna a hand. “All you have to do is come with me...”
Kosuna’s resolve wavers. After some consideration, she replies, “How do I know I can trust you?”
The merchant lets out one last stream of confused blathering before his head rolls, his mouth resembling one of a fish taking desperate gulps at the air before dying. “There,” the pale man says, smiling. “No one has to know about this little… incident. Now, what do you say? Will you come with me, and help to feed your family? Or will you continue this life you lead, praying for another merchant to bumble through this pass?...”
