Work Text:
Shinri didn’t like to make a big deal of it, but he’s technically a published author in Utopia.
It’s a relatively new thing. One day, he was looking over all of the notes he’d made after joining TEMPUS about Corruption Beasts, and realized it would just be easier to compile them into a weekly report of sorts. Something to read over at the guild meetings to keep everyone up to date.
After a few weeks of this, Altare suggested he go and make a proper monthly journal for public use. Plenty of folks stopped by the guild on a daily basis to make use of their library, after all, and it would help keep the masses informed of the current threat of Records Corruption and total data loss.
Well, it’s been almost a full year since then, and Volume 11 of was currently giving him hell.
He’s on his second pot of coffee of the afternoon, and has been staring at his field notes strewn about the table in the guild hall's public library for the past hour and a half. Maybe less, maybe more. Time got a little funny after cup three.
Shinri can feel his eyes starting to glaze over as he reads and rereads his hastily-written, mid-combat chicken scratch. There’s something scribbled in the margins about when a Beast is to be considered a Class E threat… Or, wait, was that a T, or a really, really bad F?
He doesn’t even know anymore. He’s past the point of caring.
Behind him, he hears the grandfather clock strike the hour, and he takes that as his cue to finally look away from the parchment and blink his dry, dry eyes after what feels like years. They sting like hell, and a sharp ringing kind of pain forms between them as he rubs his face with his hand. Hasn’t felt like this since his days as a student back in Xenokuni, before he ever learned how to fire an arrow, and boy, did he not miss this kind of headache.
He takes a second to stretch upward, feeling every vertebrae of his spine snap, crackle, and pop to attention, and gives a deep groan when he finally feels that last bit of tension release from his shoulders with a particularly loud crack.
“Holy shit, did you just wring out your spinal column? The hell was that?”
Shinri looks up and sees a man in a bright red coat staring at him from between two bookshelves nearby. Big and broad with short, messy black-and-sandy hair — he’s got the kind of rough edge that looks better suited for a bar brawl than a library.
It takes a second to put a name to a face. A bounty hunter named Ruze hailing from the Southern Elysian Badlands, Shinri had seen him around the guild hall here and there, but never ventured to say more than a couple of words to the guy.
That is, until now.
“Uh, sorry…” Shinri rubs a sore spot on his neck with a sigh. “One of the many quirks of getting old, I guess. Everything just starts cracking for no reason.”
“Yeah, I know that feeling.” The man, Ruze, smiles a grin that’s all teeth. He looks to be a strange cross between too young to really know the feeling… and just weary enough in the eyes to make Shinri believe maybe he isn’t too young after all. “Weather’s makin’ ya rust up, huh?”
“Rust? What?”
In lieu of an answer, Ruze points to the window behind him where sure enough, a steady rain runs down the glass panes, with only the occasional strike of lightning illuminating the dark, hazy sky outside.
It's only then that the world and the rest of the ambient sounds of the library come flooding back to him, in addition to the sound of rain hitting the roof above and the low rumble of thunder outside.
Rhythmic ticking of the grandfather clock. Soft shuffling of books as a few of Vesper's bat-like companions organize the shelves. Footsteps on the old stone floor as people come and go, accompanied by the sound of the giant wooden doors opening and shutting.
“When did it…?”
“Must’ve been at it for a while then, I’m guessin’.” Ruze takes one last look at the bookshelf in front of him before plucking a large tome and adding it to the three other books he’s already got in his arms. “Storm’s been goin’ on since before I got here.”
“Oh, really?” Shinri yawns as he stretches out his arms next. “And how long ago was that?”
“Uh…” The bounty hunter looks up in thought, then at the grandfather clock. “About… what, four hours ago?” He pauses to give a short snort. “Wasn’t really keepin’ track of time, I’ll be real honest. A bit more focused on not gettin’ soaked out there.”
“Ah. Fair.” And maybe that could have been the end of their conversation, the end of their interactions all together. But one of the books in Ruze’s hands catches his eye as he exits the bookshelves and makes his way past Shinri’s table.
“A Ronin’s Field Guide to Elysian Data Corruption...” He mutters aloud without thinking. Volume 8, from the looks of it.
“Hm?” Ruze pauses mid-stride and holds up the book. “Oh, yeah, I’m making my way through the series. What, were you plannin’ on checkin’ this one out?”
Shinri blinks.
Once. Twice. Three times. He waits for Ruze to pull out the ‘Psych! Gotcha’ card. But the bounty hunter just stares at him, head tilted in question as he gestures again with the book as if to say “This one, right here?”
Oh, Shinri realizes in dawning delight. He’s serious.
A chuckle slips past his lips as he rests his chin against his palm. “Go for it. Already read through those ones plenty of times.”
Wasn’t technically a lie — proof-reading is a pain in the neck, after all. Plus it makes Ruze’s eyes for a second as he sets the books down and takes a seat across from him, and a different kind of look crosses his face that Shinri could only describe as ‘thoroughly intrigued’.
“Oh, really? You a fan of the series?”
“A fan?” He couldn’t help but laugh. “Of a research journal?”
Ruze shakes his head. “Nah, dude, it’s way more than that.Like, there’s research journals out there that will just blabber on about the cold, hard facts. The things anyone can learn just by looking with their fucking eyes or some shit. But this Josuiji Shinri person?” He taps the topmost book. “They get it.”
“Hm?” Shinri can only hope his delight doesn’t show on his face. “‘Gets it’ how, exactly?”
“I mean, c’mon, you’ve read their works! Dude doesn’t just tell you what a Corruption Beast is — they go outta their way to write up all of their observations. Behavior patterns, habits, hunting techniques, the way the environment affects their biology, everything!” The man’s smile grows more and more enthusiastic as he rambles on. “There’s a lot of technical stuff that caters to the serious hunters out there, but then they still manage to make it easily digestible for the average schmuck who wants to do a lil’ light reading.”
It’s… an odd feeling. He never considered himself much of an author really. Just a simple field reporter making his notes public. As long as others could make use of it, that was enough for him. But hearing he has a fan, and an energetic one at that…
Shinri can feel his smile widen and his face growing warmer with every word of praise Ruze unknowingly sings of him.
He finishes the note he was making earlier (deciding the mystery letter was an E, after all), and looks back up at Ruze. “And here I was worried no one would be interested.”
“Well, joke’s on you, I’m interested as fuck.” A pause as Ruze closes his mouth. Opens it again. Squints at him. “… wait.”
“Mhm?”
“Does that mean…?”
Shinri smirks into his palm. “Mean what?”
“Wait.” He watches in real time as Ruze’s brain stutters. “Wait, so you…! Wait! Wait, oh God, no fucking way, holy sh—!”
There’s a loud shush from somewhere on the other side of the room and Ruze immediately recoils.
“Ah, fuck, my bad, shit…”
“Shhhhhh!”
Watching Ruze sink down into his chair like a scolded child is what does it in for him. Shinri bursts into a fit of wheezing giggles as he doubles over in his chair. His eyes prickle with tears, his sides ache, and all the while, Ruze’s face reddens enough to blend in with his coat.
“Alright, laugh it up, you fucking dickweasel.” The bounty hunter pouts and crosses his arms across his chest. “Is this just how you introduce yourself to people, huh? Just fuckin’, let them make utter asses in front of you before swoopin’ in to say ‘hey’?”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” Shinri finally chokes out, wiping his eyes. “You were just so excited!”
“Yeah, well, excuse me for wantin’ to talk about shit I like!” Despite his taunting tone, Ruze still cracks a smile. “So. You’re the Josuiji Shinri, huh? Ronin and field reporter of TEMPUS?”
“Mhm.” He nods, casting his eyes back down to his papers casually as he adds, “And you’re Crimzon Ruze, of the bounty hunter unit ARMIS?”
“The one and only, baby.” He hears Ruze shift in his seat, and in a flash, the papers in front of him are snatched up in a single gruff hand. “Beast Classification, huh? I take it you’re workin’ on a new one?”
“Trying to, at least.” Shinri sighs.
“Writer’s block?”
“You could say that.” Sitting back, he glances back out the rainy window, watching the way the wind outside makes the limbs on the courtyard trees wave back and forth. “Just feels like what I’m writing isn’t enough.”
“Says the guy who’s written ten fucking volumes,” Ruze retorts. It gets a small huff of a laugh out of Shinri, but still he keeps his eyes focused elsewhere.
“Nearly eleven.” He corrects. Another deep sigh passes through his lips as he looks back to his new companion. “Nearly eleven volumes, and still no closer to understanding what Records Corruption is.”
It was maddening to have so much information and yet nothing at all at the same time. To know the right spot to strike in order to dislodge a Corruption Beast’s core mask, but not knowing where the masks come from or why they wear them. To understand that touching a Corruption Beast’s body spreads Corruption to a person, but not knowing what Corruption itself is.
Still, this wasn’t the sort of thing to just dump on a stranger, and he admits as such, “Sorry, didn’t mean to be a downer.”
Thankfully, the bounty hunter waves him off with his free hand, keeping his eyes on the papers in his other hand instead. “Hey, it’s all good. S’what you TEMPUS nerds are all about, right? Figuring this Corruption shit out so the rest of the world doesn’t fuckin’ explode, or whatever else y’all think is gonna happen.”
“Is it not the same for you in ARMIS, then?”
“Hm.” Over the top of the pages, Ruze meets his gaze. It’s sharp, quick, and it makes a sudden shiver run down the back of Shinri’s neck as the man finally sets down the note pages. “Lemme ask you this: what do you know about the Southern Elysian Badlands?”
Shinri racks his brain for a bit. “Uh… just that it’s mostly desert and that it’s been heavily ravaged by Records Corruption.”
A dry, humorless laugh. “Ravaged.”
“Is… that not right?”
Ruze shakes his head, still snickering. “Nah, you hit the nail on the head with that one. Can’t go two meters without running into some kind of big fucker that wants to kill you.”
Something in his tone tells Shinri he’s not just talking about the Corruption Beasts.
Still, the man continues on. “The Badlands… They're called that for a reason, you know? ‘Cause if it ain’t the heat, the Beasts, or the people that kills ya, it’s some ungodly combination of the three. Or some other secret, fucked-up eldritch fourth thing that was just invented.” Ruze throws his head back to laugh again. “The average Joe doesn’t give two shits about what Records Corruption is or what Corruption Beasts are — they just need strong bastards who’re either stupid or greedy enough to fight them off for a bit of coin.”
“And what does that make you?”
Another cheeky smile. “I’ll let you decide.”
Shinri hums, looking the man over once more and toying with the edge of one of his papers. And sure, he sees those scars that litter Ruze’s body (at least, the ones that aren’t hidden by his clothes), hears that edge the bounty hunter keeps in his voice that acts like a warning or a dare to test him.
But he wouldn’t be much of a field reporter if he just looked at surface level details, would he?
“I don’t think you're either.” He says with a shake of his head, and meets the other’s eyes head-on. “You want me to think that, but you’re not.”
“Heh. Damn, gonna psycho-analyze a guy after just meeting him, huh?” Ruze leans back and drapes an arm over the back of his chair. “Alright, I’ll bite. What’s your logic, archer?”
He smiles. “I don’t know too many people who read my books, and even fewer people who analyze them like you clearly do, so clearly you’re not stupid. And if you were as greedy as you say, then I doubt you’d care about learning this sort of thing either.”
“Oh yeah? And how do you know I’m not just trying to learn you TEMPUS dweebs’ trade secrets for fighting off Corruption Beasts?”
“That’s true, I guess.” Shinri relents with a shrug. “Honestly, I don’t really mind. As long as I’m making things even a little bit easier for whoever comes along next, as long as people aren’t using this information to harm others… that’s fine by me, I think.”
“Yeah? But they could, though.”
“...They could, yeah.”
It’s a possibility he’s been aware of since the beginning. That someone might abuse the research he’s done thus far, twist the things he’s learned to their benefit somehow. Just how, exactly, he’s not sure, but it’s still something he thinks about constantly. It’s simply a risk that Shinri has come to accept.
A small ping-like chime sounds from Ruze’s side of the table, and the man grumbles as he fishes out a small communicator of sorts. A rough-and-tumble, slapped-together piece of equipment, Ruze has to fiddle with it for a moment or two before the display shows, and even after he reads the screen, he’s still grumpily harumph-ing as he stows it back in his pocket.
“Everything okay?”
“Just my crewmates being dumbasses, nothing new.” Ruze grouses. “I tell them to go into town, get supplies for the trip back home, and meet back here so we can head out together. And somehow, our so-called leader’s gotten everyone so fuckin’ lost, they’re practically at the border of Xenokuni.”
“Oh, god, no…” Memories of Vanguard’s expedition back home flood back to him, and Shinri chuckles in that sad, ‘I feel your pain’ kind of way. “How long does it take to get back home for you all?”
The bounty hunter shakes his head. “About half a day or so, but that’s coming up from the Badlands and without navigating through this goddamn squall of a storm. Even if they all show up, like, now, there’s no way in hell we’d be making it back before sundown.” He pauses to shudder. “And lemme tell ya, you do not wanna be out in those dunes after sundown.”
“Well, the guild does offer temporary room and board for travelers.” Shinri offers, and the laugh that Ruze fires off is full of mirth and sarcasm.
“Yeah, I’m sure Hero Boy Blue would love to have a rowdy pack of noisy bastards bunkering down in his precious guild hall.”
“I’m sure you all are not that bad.”
“You’re right. We’re so much worse.”
“Oh, can’t be as bad as one of our first quests together as a full party.” Shinri chuckles as he takes up the coffee mug he’d nearly forgotten at his side and finally sips the last of his now-cold coffee. “We still tease Hakka about it.”
“Hakka, huh? He’s the purple-haired birdy-lookin’ guy, right?”
“That’s the one.”
“Well, now you gotta tell me more.” Ruze says with another rousing cackle and a nod to the door. “Especially if I’m gonna be crashing here for the night.”
“Hm… I just might.” He pauses. “On one condition, though.”
“Hit me.”
Shinri sets down his mug with an amused sigh and fishes his field journal and pen out from underneath a stack of papers. “How about…you tell me more about the Badlands?”
Ruze raises an eyebrow in amusement, eyeing the pen and papers. “What, you planning on making a travel guide?”
“Something like that.” He taps the top of the page, and notes to himself how Ruze tracks the movement. “Is that alright with you?”
There’s humor in his voice as he answers back: “...You know I ain’t an expert on anything ‘cept monster-hunting, right?”
“I’ll be sure to credit you accordingly.”
“Oh, you’d better.” Ruze smirks. “Or I’ll get big academia on your ass and they’ll chase you down for sure. You’ll be a wanted man in at least two countries.”
“I mean, they kinda already do, on account of the student loans. But, you know, at the same time,” Shinri shrugs. “They may want me dead, but at least they want me, right?”
The man in the red coat stares at him a moment before throwing his head back in a mighty cackle, one that gets another shush-ing from somewhere within the library. He doesn’t bother apologizing this time though, as he calms himself enough to flash Shinri yet another toothy grin.
“You’re a strange guy, Josuiji Shinri.” Ruze sits forward. “Alright, alright, I’ll give you your little opinion piece or whatever. But first you know I gotta hear about this Hakka story you were teasing me with earlier.”
Shinri chuckles and nods as he sets his pen down for the time being, steepling his hands together.
“So, we’re at this dungeon entrance, right? It’s man-made, with the door to the dungeon resembling some kind of a face or a mouth. And Hakka, the excitable guy that he is, sees this thing, and just shouts out loud, ‘Open up, I’m coming!’ as he rushes inside, completely forgetting to check for any sorts of triggers or traps…”
“Oh, no…”
“Oh, yes…”
And as Shinri recounts the rest of the tale, the two of them end up laughing along so much that they get shushed again. And again, when Ruze starts telling his own story about the leader of ARMIS nearly costing them a bounty with his antics. He isn’t sure how times they go back and forth with these stories, or how long they spend talking since the rain never stops once throughout the evening. But it doesn’t really matter when the company’s this good, and his face hurts from smiling.
It’s only when Ruze finally retires and goes to find a free room to crash in for the night, that Shinri looks down and realizes with a bemused smile that he hadn’t written a single word down after all.
Next time, he notes to himself mentally.
Because if he can help it, there absolutely will be a next time.