Yeah, so besides me whining about how much I/my writing sucks, nothing much to mention. It looks like a few newly-named BNF's getting too big for their britches, but the only thing new about that are the names and fandoms involved.

Well, since I swore to myself that this thing was going to only be whining about my artistic endeavors and not whining about life in general, this brings us to today's update. We have two fandoms this time, one that I think will stay as a Chofi-verse, and another that wants to be a Chofi-verse but I'll make too much my own, and... argh.

Fuck it, on with the fic.

Title: Solution
Fandom: Final Fantasy IV
Characters: Edge, Rydia, Cecil, Kain, Rosa
Rating: PG-13
Notes: Edward Geraldine is ninja!Zack. Only worse. Fic takes shameless advantage of the new dungeons, and is set after Kain's. Watch the pairings.




So not only did Kain have a spear up his ass, he was crazy, too. They'd all seen him go in, and then out he comes, looking like something had wanted to step on him and with some new loot. He described the whole thing around the fire later, a murder mystery that lead him to fight himself--here Cecil looked like he understood. What the fuck, Cecil?--and led to said new loot.

Rydia was happily going over the new grimore--God, she looked so cute when she was happy--while Kain concluded his tale. "I had to face my own Mount Ordeals in there. It--he--I--showed me what I wanted, or used to want. I had to face my own darkness." It was touching. It touched Cecil and Rosa, certainly. Edge hated being last to the party. Like now, when everyone else was at least a little clued into what was up.

That didn't stop him from putting two and two together for interesting results.

The best time to announce his findings was when they were eating. Everyone's hands were busy so no one could attempt to harm him when he started talking. Rydia most especially. Any type of spell she had that he didn't have a variant jutsu for hurt most of all. Somehow, though, it sort of felt good. Maybe it was because of spending all this time in these weirdo ruins. Maybe not.

"I've been doing some thinking," Edge began, mouth half full. Gramps would have a heart attack if he knew the Prince of Eblan was acting like this. Fuck that. "Kain, you know how you said that the darkness-thing showed you all the stuff you wanted?"

Kain nodded.

"Maybe--this is kind of a strong 'maybe' here--if you'd told him you were in a bisexual threesome then maybe he would have left you alone."

Kain choked. Cecil leapt up and struck him a few times on the back, and afterward Rosa handed the dragoon something to drink. Edge decided to ignore the murderous glares in Cecil's and Kain's faces and continue, citing his evidence.

"Guys, I'm a ninja. I'm supposed to be attuned with my surroundings, right?" Small nods, and no lessening of the murderous glares. "So, when I'm asleep, I'm supposed to be up at a moment's notice, ready to attack, right?" More nods. "So, when Kain starts sneaking out of his sleeping bag and goes off into your and Rosa's tent, Cecil, you think I'd be able to hear it, right?" More nods. Rosa looked mortified. "And, when the moans and groaning start, I'd be able to hear that, too, right?" Back to the small nods, with the death-looks. Cecil looked embarrassed. Rosa looked ready to die. Kain was probably wishing he'd kept his helmet on.

"The darkness said that Kain wanted Rosa, and wanted Cecil out of the picture. Well, he's getting Rosa, and giving Cecil--whatsit those bards call it?--'the little death'." Edge was rather pleased with himself, he had to admit.

"If we were doing anything," Kain hissed. "Then why didn't Rydia hear it? Isn't she attuned to her surroundings, as a summoner?"

"Oh, that's an easy one," Edge replied. "I was helping her summon the beast with two backs."

Edge honestly saw Rydia coming for him from a mile off, but he still let her hit him. That's what people in love did. Even if the Grimore Lunar Bahamut seemed to be the heaviest of the lot, and hurt like a bitch. While Rydia, blushing, screamed at him not to lie about awful things like that, Edge caught Cecil murmuring something about how, next time, they should all try to keep things a bit more quiet.

---

Title: We and the World (1)
Fandom: Final Fantasy VII
Characters: Cloud, Sephiroth, Zack
Rating: PG-13
Notes: This next selection was part of a challenge that was posted on various FF7 yaoi communities: what if Cloud's mother had settled in Wutai instead of Nibelheim, and Cloud meets up with Sephiroth during the last days of the war? I'd started writing something, soon to scrap it and whine to artimusdin about it. So, she basically fed me this plot. The way we went about it, it screams out "Hey, new Chofi-verse!" Which is the problem. FF7 + Chofiverse = those annoying-ass OC's that always tend to show up and the eventual Tarquin/Zack pr0n. Sigh.

Anyhow, since there's no slash, I can't very well post it up to the slash comms until there is. So, I start.




Cloud trudged though the Capital, package in hand. Now that the war was over, errands to and from the Capital had increased. He and his mother were eating well for once, and there wasn't any more schooling to interfere with getting more. Most of his jobs paid in rice and salted vegetables, but few merchants would have taken the old money or the new Shinra gil. He still trudged down the road, however, because of the problems that would eventually show themselves.

Cloud had never understood why it was that his mother had decided on moving here, to one of the few places in the world where blond hair and blue eyes stood out like a beacon. They were too strange, too... foreign. Everyone used that word like a curse. Foreign. It was even worse now, when strangers saw him and thoughts raced towards the Silver Ogre of the victorious Shinra. He was very lucky, everyone said, that he even had this job of sending packages and news back and forth. It was only because of his looks that the Shinra had left him alone, they said. We Wutanese would never be able to do something like that.

Being successful was another thing to be looked down for, if you were foreign. Never mind being born here. He was different, so that's how things were.

Ahead of him, close to where he needed to round a corner, was a knot of boys. He may of gone to school with them, he may have not. Their faces all ran together. If he stopped, they'd come to him, and going ahead was what they wanted. "Foreigner!" one of them called. Going to them was implied.

There really was no other choice but to do what they wanted. Cloud just hoped they left the package alone.

---

Of all the things that the Wutanese could hate him for, Zack thought, and they go for his being Gongagan. Well, at least he picked up a few new curses that way, what with their figuring he didn't know a word of standard Wutanese. As the meetings for surrender went on and on, the curses got more and more creative. He'd have to remember a few of them after they went home.

The General should've gotten it worse, but they were too afraid of him to do anything to his face. Yeah, their soup was cold or watery, the streets weren't as clean for the Shinra delegations as they were for the barons, but never anything to their faces.

Zack guessed that they had to take it out on someone, so they took it out on him, even when he was out stretching his legs with Seph after a long day of boring ass-kissing and comma placing.

"Traitorous chocobo-fucking whoreson Gongagan!"

Yeah, someone to take it out on. Zack didn't even bother to see who said it. It was just funny as hell that they tacked on "Gongagan" like it was the worst thing of all. Maybe for them, it was. Of course they forgot all about the shitty annexation deals and two hundred years of weapons control shit when they needed the help. So now, Gongaga was a part of Wutai instead of a trading post, and he was a traitor. Fuck politics sideways.

---

Sephiroth had heard the curse, and mentally sighed. They were just here to do what was asked and expected of them. He'd tried to keep acceptable losses down on both sides of the conflict when he could. It still wasn't enough, it seems.

Zackary took things in stride, as he always did. Insults real or imagined would not topple him. His fortitude, Sephiroth had to admit, was something that had attracted the young Soldier to him in the first place. The fact that he was so blissfully different was another. He would never be able to expand on the sentiment, were he to be asked. Defining personality was a language he wasn't well versed in yet.

"Foreigner!"

Not directed at him, and definitely too plain to be addressing Zackary. It came from a few streets away, somewhere parallel to here. Some delegate's scion brashly going off to do some slumming, perhaps. Company personnel at any rate, and so his responsibility was to protect them.

"So, boss, do we go and rescue the brass's brat?" Zackary could always be counted on to read his thoughts.

Sephiroth nodded.

"Let's hope she's hot. Then maybe one of us can get lucky."

Perhaps not so accurate on reading motivations, though.