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“Oh no no no no no no no no no No NO NONONONO! We’re going to be LATE!” Akko screamed, darting through the halls of Luna Nova at Mach 20, half-finished papers flying from her grasp left and right.
She rounded a corner and bolted straight for her door. Kicking it open, she found Lotte hunched over a little black typewriter at their table. The room was a total mess with sheets and brooms and books and potions anywhere but where they belonged. Lotte herself was closer to a zombie as far as looks went; she hadn’t had a lick of shuteye in the past 72 hours.
“Lotte, we’re out of time! What do you got?” Akko asked, faint of breath.
No response.
“Lotte?!”
Akko hopped over, grabbed her shoulders, and shook her violently. The girl was totally limp. When the brunette let go, she fell face-first onto the typewriter, making it ring like a knockout bell. A translucent and fluorescent Lotte ghost rose from her dead body, hands cupped, looking to the heavens.
Akko jumped back in shock. Her best friend was gone. And she had killed her.
“No! Lotte!” she yelled. “Now’s no time for dying!”
She lunged into the air, teeth grit, and tackled her ghostly form. Wrestling it like an alligator, she crammed it back into Lotte’s body like it was an open suitcase.
“Ah!” Lotte shrieked, shooting awake.
“Lotte, we’ve got negative twelve seconds to make the post! Tell me you’ve got something. Anything!”
“Sorry! Writer’s block hit at the worst possible time. I’ve got nothing,” Lotte explained.
Now Akko was pulling her hair out.
“What are we going to do?! I’m going into full-blown panic mode trying to put something together. No one has any idea of what we’re going to do. And Diana is nowhere to be found!” Akko fell back against a wall and sighed. “This Diakko Week is a total disaster.”
Lotte hummed to herself and tapped a pen against her forehead.
“Wait! Akko, what were the prompts again?”
“Seriously? You don’t remember?” Akko rolled her eyes and flipped through the wad of papers in her grasp. “Oblivious/Romantic Idiots; Video Game AU; Secret Relationship; Soulmates/Fate; Meet the Parents; Myths & Monsters; and finally, a Free Day.”
“Just do em’ all!” Lotte cheered an incredibly sleep-deprived cheer.
“Uh, duh. That’s kinda the whole point to do all of them,” Akko said. “The thing is. We. Don’t. Have. Time! It’s the final day and we haven’t even done one of the prompts.”
“Exactly! It’s the Free Day. Let’s just do all the prompts in one chapter.”
“That…” Akko began to say. But then she thought about it. The more she did, the better it sounded. “…isn’t a bad idea.”
Then Amanda poked her head in through the door.
“I have a feeling that’s gonna take too long.”
The two girls turned around to face her.
“Go away, Amanda.” Akko shooed at her. “We don’t have the time nor the word count to spend on your antics. You’re just a comic relief character; you’re not supposed to give genuine advice.”
“Hey, forth wall breaks are a kind of humor,” the redhead retorted.
“Get out!”
Amanda groaned and shut the door, but not before winking at you with a smirk as she left.
“Ok, Lotte. Six prompts in one fan fic. What’s the first prompt?”
Lotte looked at her weird. “Akko, I’m the one who momentarily forgot what the prompts were. You’re in such a panic you forgot about continuity.”
The little witch stood there as a dumb look grew across her face. She glanced down at her stack of unfinished works in progress, then back up at Lotte.
“Whoopsies. Oblivious/Romantic Idiots, right. Diana! Where are you?!”
The door swung open, Diana marching in with her usual grace and beauty.
“What is it?” she asked.
Akko, in all her reluctance to accept that Diana Cavendish, the most talented, most stuck up, most infuriating witch she had ever met, as her one and only object of affection, she twiddled her fingers and blushed. With a few fleeting glances, she was completely enraptured by her luminance and alluring aura; both body and mind.
With the faintness of a dying breath, the lovestruck protagonist spoke to her queen.
“I… I…” she stuttered out. “I love you!”
Diana was a little confused. “I love you too, Akko. But we’ve been dating for months now. What’s with the theatrics?”
A sparkle shined from Akko’s eyes. She knocked herself on the head, the sound of a coconut ringing from her noggin. She stuck her tongue out and smiled. “Oh yeah, we have been dating! Look at me; being a big ol’ goof ball again. I’m so quirky and hilarious.”
“I want you so bad,” Diana uttered out, desire dripping with every word.
Akko grabbed a pen from the desk and crossed the first prompt off the list.
“Ok. One down, five to go.”
But then Lotte butted in. She waved her hands in the air as if everything that was going on made no sense at all.
“Akko!” the Finnish witch yelled. “Diana’s been missing this whole time, remember? You can’t just establish that she’s, quote “ nowhere to be found ,” then not follow through on that plot thread! The readers are going to wonder why she suddenly just showed up!”
Akko stamped her foot. “Well, we don’t have enough time for Chekhov's suggestion! The weirdos out there just want to see me and Diana freak it. The sooner we get to that, the better.”
“I also want to add that Akko’s lack of continuity is a sort of continuity in and of itself,” Amanda said, peaking in through a crack in the door again before disappearing.
“Yep exactly. Just ignore the fact that her still being there to give genuine insight undermines the overarching lack of a narrative throughline in both theme and tone because, as previously stated, we don’t have the time for that.”
Lotte fell down to her chair and sighed. “The irony in this room is giving me a headache. Whatever happened to Diana being the voice of reason? Or are we just flanderizing her too now?”
Though, of course, Diana was nowhere to be found. Lotte glanced from wall to wall, wondering where she went.
“Ok. She was here just a second ago. Don’t tell me we’re doing a Fight Club reference now.”
Akko shook her head.
“No, I just couldn’t think of a way to segway into the next prompt. Diana’s in another castle and I need to go save her.”
“Honestly, at this point, I’m not even going to question it.”
“Hey, this was your idea in the first place. Don’t knock me for getting it done.”
Lotte turned around and waved her off. “Yeah yeah. Whatever. I’m tired. Just write me back into the story at the end. This isn’t Lotte Week after all.”
And with that, Akko ran out of the dorm. She stomped on Goombas and Koopa Troopas, hopped over death pits and lava pools, and climbed flagpoles until she made it to Bowsers castle. Except it wasn’t actually Bowser, it was Andrew Hanbridge because it wasn't just a video game, it was a video game AU .
Inside the dark and dusty brick halls of the sinister castle, Akko staired into the boy’s eyes.
“Why’d you kidnap Princess Diana?!” she shouted. “…Uhm… I mean… Princess, uhm… Cavendish . I probably should have led with calling her Princess Cavendish instead of that other thing. Princess Diana was a real person most people are familiar with. I don’t want to confuse people or be disrespectful.”
“Wanna try that again?” Andrew offered.
“Yeah. Thank you,” Akko cleared her throat and began again. “Why’d you kidnap Princess Cavendish, Andrew?!”
“Because, Kagari…” he said, snickering to himself maniacally, “I’m a straight love interest in a predominantly LGBTQ fandom!”
*gasp* “You wicked monster!”
Andrew then proceeded to shoot 5-7 fireballs in one of a couple predetermined patterns. Akko, the brave hero, did a full hop over all of them and landed behind the evil menace. There was a conveniently placed axe on the other side (a side Andrew didn’t have the capacity to turn around and look at) that the brunette touched. And with that, the bridge beneath Andrew collapsed and he fell into a pool of lava.
“AHHHH!” he screamed as flesh melted off his bones, “We should have done a Pokémon reference instead!”
Akko wasn’t the most fond of that idea.
“Eh, I don’t know. It’s already been done before, and by authors much more talented than us.”
“Well,” Andrew went, “I was just spit balling. Any game where I’m not flash-cooked in a mechanism of my own creation is what I was more so getting at. Like um... Mario Cart. Or Mario Party. Something like that.”
“Do you only know Mario and Pokémon games?”
“I’m gonna be honest, I’m not much of a gamer.”
“Yeah, that tracks.”
The two just sat there for a moment; Andrew floating in the pool of lava and Akko on the ledge watching him float in the pool of lava. The witch sorta lost track of what she was doing and started tapping her foot rhythmically.
“Y’know, you weren’t even a villain. We’re good friends in canon. Why does it seem like everyone hates you?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m an easy target, I guess. I don’t take it to heart.”
“Ok ok,” Akko nodded along.
Another beat of silence fell between the two.
“Are you going to go save Diana now?”
“Yeah, I should probably go do that. Seeya!” Akko waved goodbye.
“Seeya.” Andrew waved back.
As she walked away from the boss room, she soon came to the hall where Princess Dia—I mean Princess Cavendish was patiently waiting. Her radiance and beauty amplified by the soft torchlight and an attire fit for a royal.
Akko ran up to her.
“Diana! You’re safe!”
The blonde stood there only half acknowledging her savior. She hummed to herself and tapped her chin, deep in thought. “I feel like... I was making a surprise gift for you... when I suddenly appeared before your bedroom door. And now I’m here, which doesn’t make much sense at all. I think I must be dreaming.”
“Oh, Diana. Being by your side is better than any dream.”
“Aww...” Diana flushed red, pecking her little Japanese witch on the forehead. “But seriously, something’s up that I can’t quite put my finger on.”
Before Diana could contemplate any further, a buzzing rang from Akko’s pocket. The girl yoinked her phone out to stop the alarm and checked the time. It was 15 minutes until midnight! Sunday was right around the corner! She needed to hurry if she was going to make this Diakko Week on time!
She stuffed her phone away and took ahold of Diana’s hand before sprinting into the next prompt.
“Now’s no time for starting plot threads, Diana! We need a secret relationship, A.S.A.-fucking-P.!”
Before you could say “moderate pacing” three times backwards, the girls were already in a different time, location, and art style. Everything was cel shaded; black and white, like a 50s noir film. It was a 50s noir film, and they were in a locked office. The shades were down; most of the smoked-filled room was shrouded in thick, bar-shaped shadows.
Diana was the sheriff round’ these parts, donning stylish overalls and a white button up that was purposefully left not all the way buttoned up. In front of her desk, in handcuffs, was the charming and allusive Crimson Shade~; this towns most wanted criminal.
What the town didn’t know was that their villain was “seeing” their one hero, the sheriff. The one person they could rely on, betraying them all. And it ate Diana up to the core.
But then again... so did the Crimson Shade~.
The sheriff looked left, then right, then at the criminal she knew she was going to secretly release.
“Ok. Something’s definitely up. What happened to all the color? And what am I wearing?! What are you wearing, Akko?!”
Akko (a.k.a. the Crimson Shade~ in case you somehow missed that) was wearing this beaten-up old timey dress with puffy shoulders and an even puffier waist.
“Oh, don’t worry about little things like that,” she cooed seductively. “I can take these duds off any time you’d like. Just say the word.”
That’s around when it hit Diana. “Wait. This must be a spell you’re casting. A spell that brings us into different realities. Or at least one that messes with the one reality we have.”
“Darlin’, time pressure casts all sorts of spells on your brain. Don’t forget that,” Akko replied with a cheeky wink.
With the blondes mind slightly more at ease, while still somewhat restless given the fact Akko was in control of reality with no one keeping her in check, Diana took a moment to relax and enjoy the moment. This world, this one where she was alone in a locked room with a frisky Akko wasn’t something worth panicking about.
She leaned back in her chair and spun a shiny six-round revolver around her finger. A sly smirk found its way to her lips. “You little vixen. I ought to lock you up permanently for the trouble you keep causing~”
Then Akko alarm rang again.
“It’s already been 10 minutes?! Alright we gotta move!” the Crimson Shade~ shouted in disbelief, breaking free of her handcuffs, and snatching Sheriff Cavendish to move the plot forward.
Diana sighed. “Come on, that one was getting interesting. Can’t we play that one out?”
“Maybe if the comments demand it. Right now, we’re doing a speed round of the last three.”
Akko whipped out her wand, switching back to her Luna Nova attire, and cast a spell she promised to never use except for all the times she did it anyways.
“Entering script format!” she shouted.
*Poof*
Diana: What did you do?
Akko: Don’t worry about it.
Akko dragged Diana through the halls of Luna Nova until they got to the art room which definitely existed before just now. Akko grabbed some red string, wrapping one end around her pinky finger and the other end around Diana’s.
Akko: Is this soulmate enough?
Diana: I mean... it’s more of a rushed cosplay. But I feel anyone could tell at a glance what we’re doing here.
Amanda (briefly peaking in through a crack in the door) : Hey, is that the red string of fate? Cool. I always got the feeling you two were soulmates. Later.
Then, and quickly as she came, Amanda left.
Akko: Amanda is being strangely helpful this fan fic. It’s making me nervous.
But then Akko slapped herself to refocus.
Akko: I’m getting distracted! Don’t take your eyes off the ball again, Akko. We need to move faster.
Diana rubbed her own cheek.
Diana: Ow... why does it feel like I’ve been slapped?
Akko: I don't know; must have been the wind. Anyways, this is the part we act surprise that we’re soulmates even though being soulmates with literally anyone else makes zero sense.
*She cleared her throat.*
Akko, in all her reluctance to accept that Diana Cavendish, the most talented, most stuck up, most infuriating witch she had ever met, as her one and only soulmate, she twiddled her fing---
Diana: Hey, why does it feel like you’ve done precisely this just a few moments ago? Like, down to the exact description.
Akko: Be serious, that’s literally impossible. And to answer your question, “Now’s no time for [being original], Diana! We need [to finish this story], A.S.A.-fucking-P.!”
Again, Akko’s phone buzzed. It was three minutes until midnight. She was running out of compromises to make in order to get this done. Still though, she hadn’t given up everything.
Akko: Screw itt. No more splel chek!
With her phon stil in her hand, she navigated to the messenger ap. She scrolled threw her contacts untill she came across the 1 that siad “Mom” . Tapping it, she put the phone to her eer and let it ring.
An she waited...
And waited som more...
And she was tapping her foot impatently
Her mom wasnt answering.
Akko: Come on! Tis plot inconvenience is soo contrived!
Diana; What are trying to do now?
Akko groaned and pulled those papers she was carrying earlier out of nowhere. She handed tham to Diana. To which she begain to read them.
Diana: Unfinished fan fiction plot lines?
Akko: Not those. Read further.
And so Diana red farther as Akko gave up and tried calling her other parent. Quickly, Diana go tto the list of promtps.
Diana: Oh, this is all for some internet thing? Diakko Week? That... actualy explains alot. Why didnt you show this to me any sooner?
Akko: IDK I figured you were already in on it. Guess not.
Diana : We must be on this “Meet the Parents” part, yes? I might be able to help with that.
Akko: Diana. You’re an orphan. Shut up.
Diana: Ok, for one: Ouch, that hurt. And too: I was going to get a certain someone you promised at the beginning of the story to bring back towards the end; someone who just so happens to speak with ghosts, specifially the ghosts of my dead parents.
Akko: Thats actally a decent idea. Its got serious hurt/comfort potential. But my dads picking up right now so were doing this instead.
Akko held her phone up at arms length so that her father could see her over facetime. Soon enough, he picked up. The guy looked pretty much exactly like Akko if she were a dude in his 40s working a non-descript job in Japan.
Mr. Kagari: こんにちは。私が見えますか？
Akko: Hey dad, it’s me, your daughter. Remember me?
Mr. Kagari: Daughter? Which one?
Akko: Y-y-your only one.
Mr. Kagari: Atsuko. What you want?
Akko: I gotta say this quick cause we are on a time crunch. This is my girlfriend and probably future wife...
She turned her camera to Diana who was not ready and hadnt put on makeup yet and whose hair was still frazzled from being rushed around everywhere. The witch put on an awkward smile and waved.
Akko: Her name is Diana Cavendish and youre gonna see her at family dinners from now on.
Mr. Kagari: You like girls?
Akko: Oh... uh yeah... I do. I guess I never told you. I'm into girls.
Mr. Kagari: Same.
Then he hung up. It made Diana scoff a bit and cross her arms.
Diana: That was awfuly dismissive of him to just hang up like that. And after you came out to him.
Akko: Yeah, hes jus like that sometimes. Just dont hold it against him for--
Then her phone’s alarm rang again.
Akko: 11:59! We got 60 seconds left!
The brunette frantically scanned the entire art room for something, anything she could use for the last prompt. On a desk there were some papers and a pensil. She ran over, tugging Diana along by the red string that was still attached to her, and began doodling.
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/ _)
_.----._/ /
/ /
__/ ( | __( |
/__.-' |_| |_|
Akko: Alright, we made it on time. 11:59 and all prompts are done.
Diana looked down at the little dinosaur Akko had drawn. Disappointing? Yes. Underwelming? Absolutely. Cute? Kinda. She guessed it was good enough for the Myths & Monsters prompt, especially since she knew the girl had time for literally nothing else. Still though, she did feel like mentioning one thing...
Diana: It isn’t a good story if it doesnt adress the things it set out to address. Shouldnt you, y’know, tie up loose ends?
Akko: Oh yeh! Uhmmmmmmmm... Lotte is still sleping! Amanda wsant ploting anything she was jus being nifce for some unexplainable reason! The forth wall breaks werent a spell, they were just for comedic affect! And ummm... am I missing anything?
Diana: Youre missing the suprise I was making for you. The reason I was nowhere to be seen before you broke reality and pretty much teleported me to you dorm for a quick punch line.
Akko: Oh yeah, that. Eh whatever. Thta can wait until nexttime. Thanks for reading everyone! Diakko forever! I love you!
Diana rolled her eyes.
Diana: You still need to upload the fan fic. That’ll take a few minutes.
It was already past 12 at that point.
Akko: FUCK!