AU where the Rainbow Honmoon chooses these three as "backup hunters" so Huntrix wouldn't have to handle everything alone (they're not the new generation, they hunt together with Huntrix).
How Huntrix finds them?
Same way in canon, they meet on the street, EXCEPT the girl in the middle tells Rumi about her birthmarks that look just like Rumi's and she was so happy to find out Rumi also had them!
The girls, of course, explain to her what it means and support her in telling her friends about it.
After that happens, the girls start looking for demons to learn more about them and getting themselves in trouble, and one time they're saved by Huntrix, and Rumi's like "If we teach you about demon stuff will you stop almost getting yourselves killed???"
And they basically take the younger girls under their wings.
I'm calling this AU "Huntlings AU" shxjshjd let me know if you guys wanna hear more about it :)
what if Rumi just walked towards Mira's woldo while she and Zoey silently argue when they lifted their weapons at her. hahahah imagine (as i beg for a ficlet)
Anon??? Hello? Did someone put ANGST in your cereal? Pain? I'm sure I've read a few of these but it surely doesn't get any better!
Well shit, your wish is my command. TW. I guess. Idk some type of warning coz its just mentions of death/ highkey s*ic*dal Rumi. (she doesn't really die guys, just injured haha)
-x-
Rumi watched as Mira's eyes instantly met Zoey's. They had been doing that for a while now, ever since she had pulled her entire presence back and watched fondly from a distance as her two best friends get closer. Her heart ached towards a connection that could bind them together like that. To communicate without words, to be understood without explaining and to be loved oh so deeply.
That was why Rumi made the decision. Her shoulders heavy with the weight of everything she had tried to protect crumbling down on her like boulders promising to break her at each impact, her mind filled with unforgiving acid that boiled to the brim threatening to spill over, and her heart shattered into millions of pieces, the size of grains impossible to put back together.
She let her eyes shut, with the promise that it would be the last blink she would ever give to this world. With a sigh that echoed relief through her body for the first time, she stepped forward with a speed that took the two hunters by surprise.
If anyone had told her this was what it felt to have a blade from the Honmoon pierce demons, she would have maybe felt some type of pity towards all of them throughout the years of being a hunter. She wondered if the hate for her demon self wouldn't have been so strong.
The starlight scorched her abdomen, the pain searing skin, carving a promise of freedom through her, free from the pain, free from the burdens of just existing, free from this. She let herself fall deeper into the blade, her own hand gripping the weapon as she pushed it deeper inside her, eyes still shut, not wanting to ever open them anymore till she could taste the end.
But of course, as most things in her life, it never went the way she wanted.
She felt the tug before she saw it. The tip of the gok-do immediately left a small gap (not enough) in where she had forcefully pushed inside her, she almost wanted to pull it back but the fire that spread throughout her body as she felt cold air hit the open wound left her utterly breathless. She watched as the gok-do disappeared tauntingly back to the Honmoon.
Her own hands weakened, as it flailed in the air reaching and begging for the relief to come back. If she thought the initial pierce hurt, god, feeling the blaze of where the starlight had carved inside her ignited merciless pain to sear throughout her entire body. This must be what Gwi-ma's flames felt like towards the eternally damned.
She let out a broken gasp, her own knees finally giving out from under her. Ironic how she still braced herself to hit the cold floor even after pulling a stunt like that. But the cold never came, instead hands, hands she was only acquaintances with, hands she would never let get to know her in fear of them getting tainted by her existence.
Hands that felt too soft, too firm and that moved with intention to protect her from the ground that promised to make her extend her suffering. She suddenly remembered that there was a world outside her loud, intrusive and venomous thoughts. She let herself tune in for a second,
"Rumi?! Ru- Fuck! Fuck- why would you- Why?!"
The strangled cry itself was so strange, so unfamiliar, to be directed towards her. She had never heard something so broken with care and desperate with conviction directed at someone like her. It was enough to snap her back to reality.
She forced her bleary vision to focus momentarily, letting herself finally look around and what had stopped her from tasting the only solution she could think of.
She felt the tears hit her cheeks before she saw them. She watched as the faces she had come to learn and love so deeply for years shed tears for her intensely, it almost hurt as much as the gaping wound on her stomach.
"Why Rumi? I would never - I didn't ever want this!"
The voice, usually so confident and relaxed, was overtaken by the broken sobs barely coherent enough to be understood. It made her heart ache more, chest heavy. She wasn't sure anymore what pain was from the wound versus what she was hearing.
She tilted her head at the blurred faces in front of her,
"I was just helping you finish the job, s-so it's easier." She could only hope that it came out as clear as it did in her head. But it did come out as a heavy whisper, that was good enough for her. Her own lips quirk upwards, a ghost of a smile resting there.
The response she got was a firm press on her wound, she realized the jacket fabric was being held against her to stop the bleeding. She was confused, her own patterns flared in response, head tilting as she tried to look for familiar pink hair.
"Why didn't you push deeper?" Maybe she was being unfair, but her mind was already set as the flash of anger and betrayal imprinted in her brain, familiar doe eyes that carried agonizing hurt, and god she never wanted to see them like that ever again.
Weakly, she tried to push the jacket away, feeling the sticky blood coating her fingers but the familiar hands caught her stopping the movement. Next thing she knew, her left hand was being led to soft skin, Mira's cheek, and the other was being led to a warm surface, Zoey's chest right above her heart. They didn't care that her blood now stained them. They only pulled her closer as if that was the only thing holding them together.
"We're so fucking sorry, Rumi."
"I'm so, so sorry. Please, please, please don't go."
"Please, stay."
They implored her to have mercy. Their voices merged into one piercing her heart and holding it together. The caresses she felt on her wrists, the warmth of their body close to her own, suddenly, she was thankful she didn't meet cold cement.
She let the sobs and whispers envelop her in warmth as they got impossibly closer, the edges of her own vision threatening to fade, her stomach bleeding slowed but the agonizing burn relented. She let herself be held, let herself be taken. She wondered if this was really an option. An option where they wanted her, that they may even love her. The thought itself secured her reluctant decision, maybe she would let it.
Just this once.
With every strength she had left in her body, she pressed her hand closer to cheek and to heart, then- she nodded.
