#umihebi

[nokaru]

if evil why so pookie shaped

[landofanimes]

If I had a nickle for every time a red haired anime protagonist was a prisoner in a human traffic ship, together with a pretty boy and at least one other woman, in a plot where one or more of them had to let themselves be captured to help save the others - all of this in the middle of a longstanding feud between pirates (led by a woman) and the local government...

I would have 2 nickles - which isn't a lot, but it's funny that it happened twice!

[what-plant-metaphor-am-i]

@nokaru dearest, here are some practice sketches of Umihebi from when I was doing your prompt~ 💚

[traditional-with-a-twist]

lxxi. Beauty and Her Beast

<<Previous || first arc || second arc || third arc || fourth arc || AO3 || Next>>

Trust the Crab to foul up even what was in his own interest.

Umihebi had ensured that it would be to her old associate’s benefit to serve her on this occasion. She had made a business of such transactions (with and without the other party’s knowledge) in her old trade of human flesh.

Many a sale had satisfied a client by burying an enemy of hers — or, more often, her enemy’s daughter.

Today’s affair, insofar as she had intended it, had promised much the same, with only slight variations on the theme.

Her maneuvers had cost the Crab some property damage, but that was fair trade for the trouble he had cost her — leaving her and her men little option but to flee in search of another bolthole, a new hideaway.

Besides, she had granted him the pleasure of venting his spleen on a most deserving target.

...

Umihebi enjoyed a little destruction, a little exercise of brute power now and then, though still sweeter was to make the threat and watch the fear it inspired. 

Then there was no doubt who held the reins — who was in control.

In this case, however, the sport of her vengeance paled in importance when compared with the consequences of the Crab’s anger.

She was relying on him to perform one last little service for her, to make her escape complete.

...

When evading pursuit, it was not choosing a secure stronghold nor selecting the slipperiest route that tipped the scales.

No, Umihebi could say from long experience that the game turned on covering your tracks.

It was not enough to vanish in the dead of night with all her men — she must ensure that no one could follow … on foot, on horseback, or with their tongues.

...

The Crab’s silence she had purchased long ago, but those two men, they who had taken a hand in robbing her of rule over the high seas – those she would see silenced permanently.

She would not run the risk of their wandering away, this side of the border or anywhere else, with wandering tales of a pirate queen gone astray on land.

She had set and baited a snare for them — arranged to bring them to the Crab’s attention in a way that could not be overlooked, first by flushing them from the hole into which they had so readily cast themselves.

They had all taken the bait magnificently, one after another. Nothing more obliging could be imagined.

...

The neatness of the plan exacted its price, however: now that Umihebi had forced them into the public eye, it became all the more essential to destory them before they could speak.

After her usual fashion, she had gambled it all on a make-or-break play. With stakes like that, she could not afford to trust blindly to an accomplice, no matter how carefully placed — particularly not an accomplice as oblivious and blundering as the Crab.

He would act in his own interest, of that she felt confident — but would he choose the surest means?

...

Umihebi gambled big, but she also provided herself with alternative means of escape: if not the seas, then whirlpools; if the vortexes failed, then she made for the caves.

She had guaranteed the success of today’s venture by the most straightforward of means: personal supervision.

The wisdom of this choice became immediately apparent when the women arrived. 

...

From her vantage point overlooking the square, Umihebi watched in disbelief deepening to amazement as the apple-haired girl once again materialized as if from thin air, right in the middle of her plans.

The court case unraveled. Her prey was slipping from her grasp.

When she saw the prisoners actually on the brink of release, and her chosen emissary too impotent to intervene, Umihebi waited no longer.

Without revealing her position, she signaled her men: “Attack!”

...

Exiled pirates oozed from the shadows: in the alleys, on the roofs, among the crowd, they emerged and unmasked.

A motley crew, they dressed in a ragged assortment of local robes and wrappings for camouflage, mixed with the leathers and metals more suited to their trade.

Ill-matching as they were, they converged on their target as one, with a predator’s instinct.

...

Kiki fell back at once, putting herself between Shirayukki and the crowd.

It was no real defense — she could not cover her friend from every direction, with hostiles advancing from all sides.

Kiki acted as much from instinct as stratagem: facing away from the tribunal, she stood with her back to Mitsuhide, and what could be safer?

...

She had drawn her sword from beneath her cloak, but not yet from its sheath. Kiki knew enough of this country’s laws to suspect that the authorities might not look kindly on a stranger baring a sword in the crowded square.

She wielded the flat instead, slamming the blunt hilt with merciless precision into anyone who pressed too near.

The melee was all confusion: the guards, divided between attack and retreat, had at last formed up around the tribunal’s elevated seat where they immediately clashed with the Crab’s retainers.

Panic-sticken bystanders pushed, punched, and screamed fear and insults as the pirates felled anyone who stood between them and the scaffolds.

...

“Kiki!” Shirayuki’s voice sounded in her ear. “Kiki, we have to help them!’

Kiki cast an unwilling glance back, expecting to see the hapless guards embroiled in some mischance, but her stomach dropped as she realied her mistake.

While she was sheltering Shirayuki, the remnants of the ambush had flanked her.

They swarmed the platform now, where Mitsuhide and Obi stood yet bound immobile.

...

The thugs kept a prudent distance, with due respect for Mitsuhide’s manacled fists, but their raised weapons left no doubt as to their intentions. 

Any moment now, Kiki knew, they would gather the initiative for a rush.

Her muscles tensed to spring to her partner’s side, but she hesitated.

She must not leave Shirayuki undefended.

...

The moment Kiki’s attention was divided, Umihebi’s hand chopped the air like a hatchet, summoning the archer she had held in reserve alongside her. 

“Shoot!”

...

Obi saw it all. 

He had barely spared a thought for the pirates menacing his position because he had fixed all remaining power of concentration on Shirayuki and the currents of danger that surrounded her.

With that infallible, almost superhuman sense that had made him a faultless personal guard, he felt the arrow before it was launched.

Eyes snapping to a partially concealed window, he twanged with the string and knew its trajectory. 

In less than a heartbeat, he acted.

...

If Obi’s hands had been free, he might have cut the arrow down mid-flight, but as it was, he would take the surest means of deflecting it from its intended target.

The shaft arced down, and Obi leaped, allowing the restraints to spin him around so that he stretched full-length, arms wrenched over his head in a tortured gymnastics.

He caught the arrow before it descended into the crowd, before it could touch the red-haired woman below.

...

It struck him under the arm, at an angle that sank deep into his chest.

The ropes anchoring him gave way, and Obi crashed to the ground before his wife, pale and still.

[ans-incorrect-quotes]

Subordinate, enters: Oi, boss!

Umihebi, annoyed: What is it! Can't ya see I'm busy?

Subordinate: You have a visitor.

Umihebi, raises an eyebrow: Who is it?

Subordinate, pauses: It's the Red-head.

Umihebi, pales: I-I'm not here!

Subordinate, confused: You're not here?

Umihebi: NO! I'M NOT! I went for a swim!

Subordinate: But you're here?

Umihebi: Not anymore!

Umihebi: [Quietly opens cabin window, grabs rope, and leaves.]

Subordinate, pales: B-But doesn't that mean that I'M going to be alone with Red Hair... by MYSELF?!

Subordinate: W-Wait for me, boss!! Don't leave me here!! [Jumps into the ocean, too]

[infinitelystrangemachinex]

AnS, Umihebi, respect the sea

“Here’s some advice. Shit I needed to hear when I was your age.”

Kids’ve got no gratitude these days. The Toghrul chit just stares into the pounding storm, her drenched hair plastered across her stony face.

“Wanna do business with them?” She spits west into the churning waves and prays the curse chokes Wisteria in his sleep. “You won’t. In a few years, you’ll fold up your sails for the last time. Climb into bed with one prince or another, west or east. Maybe both.”

Tough crowd tonight. Toghrul simply watches her little wooden fleet, emptying by one chest of wax-wrapped goods and one Claw sailor at a time.

“You’ll be rich, foreign- not too foreign- and your boats’ll fly a castle’s colors. Your orchards and fisheries doled out as party favors. Your island full of yellowhaired men and their homesick wives and hunting dogs. You think I’m in the skin trade? You haven’t seen shit, kid. You don’t know how fast villages can disappear.”

Something hits home. “I’m guessing this is where you tell me what you really want?” Oh, Toghrul’s a princess in her own right, that’s for sure. She’s got the glower. “Now that you’ve finished robbing me.”

“Take their gold, girlie, I don’t give a damn. But giving them the sea? The sea’s gonna come for you one day.”

Toghrul snorts. “Unless I give you your cut.”

“So accusatory.” Umihebi gestures- come along. Finally, an interesting dinner guest. “But I’m a businesswoman too, at heart.”

[kitkat1128]

The many earrings of Akagami no Shirayukihime pt. 2

Part 1

[redmemoirs]

hi. me again

who would

umihebi

torou

Voting ended onFeb 4, 2023