2011 April 14
Brockton Bay
Today was a good day in Brockton Bay. Well scratch that, this city never experiences good days.
Whether it was because of a dragon man spewing flames and muttering Asian curses on a daily basis. Or I don't know the fact that a 1920 political party led by a weird mustached man who decided to throw the world's most dangerous temper tantrum just because his university application was denied still exists to this day.
Or the fact that at any day now the world's most dangerous monsters could decide to stop by to say high. And give the people a little surprise.
Death, that's the surprise you're getting.
Though By monsters, I'm still uncertain whether I'm talking about the Endbringers.
Kaiju-tier nightmares that show up just to flatten cities and remind us all how pointless insurance really is.
Or maybe the real monsters are the Slaughter house nine. Murder hobos.
Yeah, I couldn't think of a better way to describe them. 9 homeless people with a talent for mass murder. That's who they are.
And you might be asking, where are the heroes?
Let's see …. The world's most strongest and the first hero would be….. saving kittens.
Yes, you read that right. When hundreds of people are getting killed by a living tsunami, the man who should be there helping is on the other side of planet rescuing kittens from trees.
But, I'm getting sidetracked here. Those things are everybody's problem.
Right now we're focusing on Brockton. The city with Nazis, child soldiers, paedophiles dressed in skin tight suits and someone who calls themselves Lung.
Like seriously Lung? Out of the many names to give your villain persona you went with a human organ?
But To be more specific were focusing on Brockton Bay bank where a great tragedy is taking place.
A robbery.
Yes, the bank's getting robbed. Surprising right?
Anyway, It started off as an ordinary Thursday morning then afternoon. People were in line, pretending they didn't hate the smell of old carpet and cheap coffee drifting from the little break room in the corner.
A middle-aged guy in a suit was nervously tapping his pen against the counter, probably wondering how much of his paycheck was going to vanish into child support.
A mother was juggling a screaming toddler like she was defusing a bomb. A one sided screaming match between one teller and some woman. The teller was giving the thousand-yard stare that only minimum wage and crippling student debt can produce.
In other words: all was perfectly normal.
And then the doors slammed open.
Now, a normal robbery has rules.
Some loser with a ski mask shouts "nobody move!" waves around a gun that may or may not be loaded and hopes the cops don't show up before he stuffs a sack with whatever cash hasn't been converted into ones and fives. That's amateur hour.
This? This was different.
The people who stormed into the bank weren't amateurs.
They were capes. Which means instead of your standard "hand over the money," we got theatrics. Smoke. Shadows moving like they'd been yanked out of a bad horror movie.
The kind of entrance that screamed we watched way too many comic book movies and took notes.
One of them, a guy in black with a biker helmet that has a cool skull on it: Grue, for those keeping track of the local villain scorecard , spread his hands, and the entire front lobby dissolved into inky blackness.
Screams erupted as people tripped over chairs and each other.
The toddler stopped crying, probably out of pure shock.
And just like that, Brockton Bay's "ordinary Thursday" turned into a hostage situation.
The shadowy haze thickened, swallowing the lobby until you couldn't see your own nose. Screams rose and fell, the kind of panicked sound people make when they realize that money is about to be the least of their concerns.
"Stay calm!" a voice boomed from the dark, distorted like it was echoing out of a cave.
Grue. His whole gimmick was terror with a side of sensory deprivation. From the way the screams doubled, I'd say it was working.
Then came the barking. No, not barking , the kind of guttural, chest-rattling roar that says this isn't Lassie, this is something you see in a nightmare right before it bites your head off.
Hellhounds' dogs. They surged into the lobby, each one mutated into something that looked like a biology textbook got drunk and decided to stop caring about natural selection and proper evolution.
Chains rattled as she yanked them to heel, but even on a leash, those beasts were pure terror fuel.
"On the ground! Hands where we can see 'em!" Hellhound barked. No pun intended.
Some people listened. Some people froze. One guy thought he could play hero and bolted for the door, bad idea. A blur of shadow caught him, and he went down screaming.
And then there was TattleTale.
While everyone else was going big and scary, she strolled forward like she was heading to grab a latte. Smiling. That sharp, all-knowing smile that said she'd already worked out every person's secrets in the room.
"Relax," she cooed, "this'll be over faster than your last relationship. Less painful too, unless someone's stupid."
The crowd shrank back like she was more dangerous than the giant murder dogs.
Which, to be fair, she probably was. Nobody wants their deepest darkest secrets exposed to the world.
And then there was Skitter.
Not quite as flashy as the others. She stood a little behind them, mask on, posture rigid.
But the bugs were already there. Crawling, swarming, filling the corners and ceilings in ways most people wouldn't even notice until it was too late.
Tiny scouts marking every hostage, every guard, every potential problem.
She didn't have to shout or posture. Her power did the talking for her.
And if you were unlucky enough to notice the faint skittering at the edge of your hearing? The faint brush of legs across your arm? You'd get the message.
The Undersiders weren't robbing a bank.
They were owning it.
While everyone was losing their collective minds, another voice chimed in from the back, lazy, almost bored.
"Wow. Real impressive," Regent drawled, leaning against the counter like he was waiting for a bus. "Screaming, crying, wetting yourselves… seriously, this is the easiest audience I've ever had."
He twirled his taser idly in his hand, not even looking at the crowd. Just letting it dangle there, buzzing occasionally like a wasp. The sound alone was enough to make a few hostages flinch.
Someone whispered, too loud, "They're kids."
Regent tilted his head, smirking under the mask. "Oh, you figured that out? Gold star. Want a cookie, or should I just fry your nervous system now and save us both time?"
The whisperer shut up fast.
Skitter couldn't help but glance at him, even as she kept her bugs in motion. Regent wasn't intimidating in the same way as the others, no theatrics, no snarling dogs, no suffocating darkness. He was just… detached. Like none of this mattered. And somehow, that made him scarier.
Or I don't know the fact that he dresses as a Renaissance Faire clown. Or maybe what truly made him a scarier was that he could puppet your body. But the general apathy he showed was also kinda scary.
Because you could reason with someone who was angry. You couldn't reason with someone who didn't care.
Tattletale laughed quietly at his jab, tossing him a look that said maybe try not to push them into heart attacks just yet. Regent only shrugged and clicked his taser on again.
Meanwhile, the lobby was a mess. People huddled on the floor, too scared to move. A guard who'd been reaching for the silent alarm now sat frozen, swatting at phantom bugs Skitter had left crawling across his wrist as a very deliberate warning.
The Undersiders had the room locked down.
For the moment.
Because in Brockton Bay, good things never lasted long.
And When people thought they're day definitely couldn't get any worse they were proven wrong in the worst way possible.
The air tore.
Not like glass breaking, not like metal shearing , it was deeper, cosmic. Reality screamed as a rift opened above the lobby of the Brockton Bay Central Bank. A dozen people screamed too, though much less impressively.
Two figures stepped through the breach.
The first was a pale, statuesque woman, robes flowing unnaturally, hair cascading like liquid silver. Her expression was serene but heavy with menace, the kind of presence that made hostages instinctively avert their eyes and try their hardest to pick up religion again.
The second figure… was me.
I was in sandals, a stolen red fisherman's rod slung over my shoulder like a beach umbrella, and a pair of oversized chakra-forged sunglasses perched on my nose.
"This," I announced, surveying the scene, panicked hostages, masked robbers, piles of stolen cash "is not a hot spring."
Kaguya's golden Byakugan-Rinnegan hybrid eyes swept the room. "You miscalculated."
"Don't say it like that's new. Navigating interdimensional lattices is tricky, okay?" I muttered, twirling the fishing rod. I pointed at the Undersiders. "Also, is it Bring-Your-Teen-To-Crime Day? Why are children robbing a bank?"
Grue's shadows surged instinctively, drowning the lobby in darkness.
Kaguya blinked once. The shadows evaporated like mist under the sun.
Grue froze.
Tattletale's mind raced at terminal velocity. Every alarm in her head went off at once: wrong, wrong, wrong. These weren't parahumans. These weren't even human.
Regent twirled his scepter nervously. "Uh, Grue? I think the cosplay convention's upstairs."
Bitch growled something incomprehensible. Her dogs, warped by power into monstrous beasts, snarled and lunged.
Kaguya raised one delicate hand. Space rippled. The dogs froze mid-air, caught in a gravity well, suspended helplessly.
I sighed and waved my fishing rod. "Down, Cujo. No chewing faces while we're vacationing." The gravity released, dropping the beasts gently to the floor. They whimpered and cowered, suddenly aware of the predator hierarchy in the room.
The hostages didn't move, didn't breathe. A little boy clutched his mother, eyes wide, whispering, "Are they… heroes?"
I winked at him over my sunglasses. "We're on vacation."
Kaguya's head turned toward me, ever so slightly. "This is not a "vacation" spot."
"Well, no, but …." I gestured at the cowering villains, the trembling civilians, the piles of cash "it's… entertainment?"
Grue tried again, voice cracking behind his helmet. "Who…..what the hell are you?"
Before I could answer, Kaguya spoke, her voice quiet but resonant, carrying a weight that made even the hostages bow their heads.
"Gods."
The word echoed in the vault, undeniable, absolute.
I grinned. "She's not wrong."
Tattletale's brain short-circuited. She stumbled back, clutching her head. "No… no, that's…..You're not...this isn't possible..."
"Story of my life," I said cheerfully.
Way too cheerful. Cause one I was kinda irritated at the moment. I promised to introduce what a vacation is to my wife and this is what I end up with. The other half of my brain that wasn't fuming was trying it's hardest to recall where do I remember this scene from.
For a moment, silence. Villains too scared to act, heroes nowhere in sight yet, hostages trembling.
I tapped the fishing rod against the marble floor.
"So… do we stop the robbery? Or rob the robbers? Or…." I leaned closer to Kaguya, lowering my sunglasses. "…..hear me out. We open a spa in this dimension? Less murder, more relaxation."
Kaguya looked at me with that familiar, inscrutable expression.
The one that meant: I tolerate you, but only barely.
I beamed back at her.
And somewhere outside, as sirens grew closer, Brockton Bay prepared to meet its newest, most incomprehensible arrivals.
But you be wondering again, what the actual heck is happening right now?
Two goddesses crashing through a wormhole into a bank robbery, casually flexing on superpowered teenagers?
Yeah, fair question.
To answer that, we've got to go back. Way back.
Year (The year before Kushina was born)
Hidden Eddy Village
The first thing I remembered was drowning.
Not water, not fire, not arrows or seals, just the heavy weight of ending. My body sealed, my consciousness shoved out of it, searching for somewhere to land.
And then, crying. Not mine. A baby's.
I blinked awake to the smell of woodsmoke and sea salt. A village. Red hair everywhere. Laughter. Singing.
Uzu.
I was… small. Hands tiny, body weak. Not the goddess-monster I'd been beside Kaguya, not the maid playing house in some forgotten village. Just a baby, reborn.
A woman leaned over me, freckles across her face, hair a wild crimson. "You've got strong lungs, little one," she said softly. "Welcome to the clan."
And in that moment, I realized: I had time.
Time to learn, to wait, to plot.
Time to find Kaguya again. And time to teach my stepsons that mother knows best.
I clenched my little baby fists, red hair already messy around my face.
This world thought it could bury me?
Ha. Try again.
Still confused?
I admit that was the wrong starting point. To truly understand everything we'll have to go further back.
Earth
Year?
Some random city
You know, when a man loves a woman, and the stars align, and all that, well, let's just say that's how it all technically starts. But, oh boy, that's a whole lot of details that I'm not even sure I'm qualified to explain. So let's skip ahead.
So, fast-forward to a cold January morning, the kind where you can see your breath, but it doesn't make you want to leave the warmth of the blanket. That's when it all went down.
My mom, God bless her, was probably just trying to enjoy her last peaceful days before her life got dramatically more chaotic. And then, there was me, doing my little baby thing, not knowing what was about to hit her.
Okay, wait. Let me back up. That's too far, way too far back. You don't need the prequel to understand this.
Let's just say, I was born. That's where this story starts, alright? Just take it from there.
But even then it's still to far back. Let's fast forward some more.
Year: ????
Area: Some nameless village
The first thing I learned about ancient ninja prehistory?
They don't have toilets.
Not outhouses, not latrines, not even a polite shrubbery arranged for privacy. Just… bushes. Do you know how humiliating it is to wake up in the middle of nowhere, realize your phone has no signal (and is now a very expensive brick), and then promptly realize nature is calling?
Not my proudest moment.
When I finally finished wrestling with leaves and my dignity, I noticed the other problem: this wasn't my forest. Or any forest I was used too.
The air was too clean, the trees too tall, and the ground was weirdly springy, like the earth hadn't yet decided it hated humanity.
I stumbled for hours before I heard voices.
People. Thank god. I was ready to beg for water, food, and maybe WiFi. I just prayed that I didn't stumble into some cannibalistic tribe.
I hate the fact that the last movie I watched was The Green inferno.
I graciously stumbled out of some bushes and that was when I saw them, cloth wraps for clothing, stone tools, hair tied up with actual twigs, my brain short-circuited for a moment. This wasn't cosplay. This wasn't even LARPing.
It was like I'd woken up inside a caveman documentary narrated by David Attenborough.
And then I saw her.
A woman standing apart from the villagers, pale as moonlight, eyes strange and heavy like stormclouds. Everyone gave her a wide berth, whispering like she was both sacred and cursed.
I, with all the wisdom of someone who had binge-read Naruto fanfiction at three in the morning, recognized her immediately.
Kaguya Ōtsutsuki. The Rabbit Goddess. The future end-boss of the entire shinobi world.
And me? Just a random, very-mortal human girl with no chakra, no plan, and a stomach growling like a feral cat.
So naturally, I did the only thing my sleep-deprived brain thought reasonable.
I walked up to her, bowed dramatically like some kind of medieval butler, and said:
"Hi. Would you, uh… like to marry me?"
She blinked at me. Slowly. Like a predator debating whether to eat or ignore me.
The villagers gasped. A few crossed themselves. One old man dropped his gourd of water. And I'm sure another just experienced a heart attack.
I smiled weakly. "Or, you know, I could make tea. Tea's good. I'm very… employable."
Her expression didn't change.
But she didn't kill me either.
And that, my friends, is the story of how I accidentally became the maid of the most terrifying woman in history.