Thread by @Hey_There_Satan

Shinkami Month 2022 prompt - Mythology

In which Ancient Greek Denki fantastically misunderstands a request to put a stop to the "Mina Tour." He suspects it will be easy to ask his friend to stop scamming tourists, but he's in for a monstrous surprise when he meets Shinsou.
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@shkmevents #shinkamimonth2022 #shinkami Greek mythology AU with human Denki and Shinsotaur/Minotaur Shinsou.

CW: sexual humor, threat of danger but let's be real Denki and Hitoshi will both be fine and live happily ever after cause I'm writing this fic.

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“WHO AMONG US IS BRAVE ENOUGH TO CHALLENGE THE MINOTAUR? THE INFAMOUS BULL OF MINOS LIVES REBORN AND TERRORIZES OUR FAIR CRETE ONCE AGAIN! WHOEVER PUTS A STOP TO IT WILL RECEIVE THOUSANDS OF DRACHMAE!”

Denki’s ears perked up at the promise of wealth. He wasn’t exactly living on the street, but Kaminari was not a rich man. Born to a large family where too many mouths to feed meant you had two jobs as soon as you could manage one.

Denki’s trade seemed to change every month, for despite his best efforts his clumsiness and attention span were his biggest obstacles.

He was currently on a trip to Knossos from his considerably less populated town a few hours walking distance, picking up a collection of goods for the merchant employing him.

Bakugou had ‘pulled a few strings’ to get Denki this gig, but dear old Kacchan would have had to be Ariadne or the Fates themselves to pull as many strings as he’d need to get his once good name redeemed.

It’s not that Kaminari was a troublemaker, though he supposes he was to some extent, since he did his best to get every job finished. He simply wasn’t designed for labor where a wandering mind mattered.

Bakugou, one of his closest friends— although the other blonde would hardly describe them that way— often heard of his lost jobs and said, “don’t ask me for another until you’ve started praying to Athena for some fucking wisdom,”

before inevitably doing his best to connect Denki to another position. At this point, Kaminari owed Bakugou a lifetime's worth of favors, but every time he insisted on trying to pay him back, Kirishima would simply smile and say that’s what friends did for each other.

So when a chance to win thousands of drachmae appeared…well, Denki would be a fool not to take it, right?
He wasn’t exactly sure what the town crier had been saying, but the number certainly got his attention.

He’d be able to pay back his friends for helping him all these years, and also help his family stay fed for the rest of their lives! Denki pushed his way through the crowd and eagerly asked for details.

“You are volunteering to brave the labyrinth and put an end to the Minotaur?” The town crier asked, his eyes going comically wide as he looked at Denki’s shabby clothing and lack of weaponry.

“Oh, is she doing those again?” Kaminari asked. “Mina Tours can be a real mess. I remember when she was still doing them in Heraklion! They threatened to toss her into the Aegean sea if she kept using it to swindle money out of nobles.

Still, thousands of drachmae just to get someone to stop the Mina Tour?”

The town crier frowned, perplexed, “It’s been causing great strife for our king, and the people of Knossos live in fear that it might break out and overtake the streets!”

Denki snorted, thinking Mina’s little tour guide con must be pretty lucrative to have gotten such a reaction. He’d been on plenty of her tours before as a plant in the audience to help unknowing nobles spend more of their purses than planned

to see areas fully open to the public and buy fake relics. Mina was a top tier con artist when she put her mind to it, and all of their friends had chipped in over the years to help her pull the wool over the eyes of wealthy visitors.

Kaminari guessed that this time Mina had set up her little tour of some famous hero or maybe a completely fabricated story of the gods that ended up draining the pockets of a royal family member and now they were eager to be rid of her.

Denki was sure this would be the easiest drachmae he ever made.

“I don’t know about it ‘overtaking the streets’ but I’m happy to get it disbanded or moved elsewhere, as long as you deliver the promised drachmae of course,” Kaminari replied with a wink that he hoped was more charming than suspicious.

If this guy didn’t know he was Mina’s friend then he can’t try and wiggle out of paying when Denki stops the Mina Tour in minutes.

The man gawked for a moment before adjusting his chiton, “As long as you free us from its tyranny! The drachmae are yours however you manage it, but surely you’ll want to properly arm yourself for the minotaur?”

Denki giggled, these fancy Knossos royals and their people must live blessed lives if Mina being a scam artist was such a disastrous occurrence. “Nah, I’ve done a bunch of these before and I’ve never needed weapons.

I’ve got a small knife if anything gets out of hand but I don’t expect to use it, this isn’t my first time handling a Mina Tour.”

The town crier looked even more astounded, if that was possible for it seemed like he was in a perpetual state of shock when Denki was around, “You really fear no danger? You’ll face the Minotaur alone with naught more than a dagger?

Surely you understand it’s slain countless men who have tried so far!”

Kaminari scowled because this was still one of his best friends the man was insulting, “Hey, you’re making a really big deal over nothing. It’s not that bad. The biggest danger is getting bored or paying too much. I don’t have any drachmae so I’m in no danger.”

“Then surely you have some plan already formed. Will you be like Theseus and bring a golden thread to mark your path through the labyrinth?” the crier asked, deeply invested in his plan to free the town of Mina’s scams.

“Whoa, how’d she land Theseus as a client? Is he even still alive?” Denki asked, thinking it must be Mina swindling a famous hero that caused this degree of reaction from Knossos’ royalty. He shook his head at the thought of trying to figure out a clever trick through the path,

“Honestly I don’t even get why it’s happening in a labyrinth, but my sense of direction is so bad that even with string I doubt I’d find my way back. Might as well just go in blind and see where Tyche takes me! I’m due for a bit of good luck by now, I should think.”

Kaminari rubbed his hands together, gleeful at the thought of how much wealth awaited him simply for telling Mina to pack it up and move her con to the next few towns over.

He’d give her a cut of the money, of course, since it wouldn’t be possible without her and she’s loaned him enough drachmae over the years to deserve it anyway.

The crier merely stood in front of him, his expression gone from horrified awe to an almost resigned pity that confused the young man. Denki’s best guess is that all the people who’d volunteered thus far have been conned out of their own money, paying for some fake tonic

or a made-up relic from Troy. Mina was pretty as a nymph but clever as a sphinx, and that was a very difficult combination to outsmart. Denki doubted he would fare any better than the others if he hadn’t been her friend since they were children.

“So be it,” the town crier sighed. “You would not be the first young man sacrificed to its bloody maw. May your trip to the underworld be swift and painless.”

Denki simply laughed, "You're a real funny guy!"

He started to make his way to the large ornate doors of the labyrinth before he paused and remembered advice Katsuki had given him, “Hey, I want that drachmae reward promise in writing! I know there are plenty of witnesses who will back me up!”

Indeed, a gathering had already been present but had only grown with the addition of a challenger. Many watched him, pointing fingers and placing bets on how long he’d last before he met his fate.

Kaminari couldn’t understand the overdramatic nature of the upper class— and to think Bakugou thought /he/ was bad!

The town crier nodded shakily at him but didn’t lift a finger to write up any sort of contract. Denki would just have to be fast enough that some of the crowd was still there and could back him up so he wasn’t swindled out of payment.

Denki was already getting himself in trouble by straying from his original job for the merchant, the least they could do is pay him enough to make up for that.

The labyrinth was all eleven-foot stone walls covered in gnarled vines and crumbling rock. A dour and unpleasant place to be, but Denki guessed that the ambiance suited Mina’s flair for the theatric.

On her tours she usually retold a legend about a hero or god relative to the location, even going so far as to do funny voices for each character and acting out some of the action scenes.

A place like this was so dramatic on its own that Denki figured Mina could probably take it easy!
After slipping inside the first gate, which closed with a resounding thud and locking noise behind him, Kaminari considered his first move.

He could just yell in the hopes that Mina would hear him, Bakugou was always telling him he was louder than the god Homados having a fit, but something about the melancholy of the place encouraged quietness.

He’d give it a go without shouting and if he got horribly lost and couldn’t find Mina anywhere he’d be happy to holler his way out.

The first few turns he took at random, choosing a path based on nothing but a baseless split-second decision. Denki resisted the urge to whistle to fill the silence, a task made easier when he saw his first set of bones.

The skeleton was wearing some kind of old-fashioned armor and still clutched a spear as though it could save the owner from its fate even now. Denki wondered if it was a prop that Mina had placed to increase the already innate spookiness of the labyrinth,

but upon touching the bony fingers and watching them crumble to dust Kaminari began to suspect he’d /possibly/ misread the situation a bit.

He jumped back, looking around but finding nothing outside of now-familiar stone walls and silence.

He decided he’d take the path further away from the skeleton, and walked on. If he listened closely he could still hear the bustle of the town outside of the labyrinth. It was comforting to think that he’d probably be able to call for help if anything really was dangerous here.

Denki knew it couldn’t be Mina who was killing people, at least. She might be clever with words but she isn’t foolish enough to spill blood if she doesn’t have to. Now if Bakugou had been the kind to give historic tours there’d be a solid chance of corpses,

but he doubted they’d be asking him to stop the /Mina/ Tour if that were the case.

It only took Kaminari a few more blindly chosen turns and paths till he came to a slight clearing and stopped short at the sight of an incredibly tall man.

At least, he thought it was a man at first. Denki had been happy to see another person and was casually strolling up to the figure standing in the shadows of the labyrinth before the creature turned around and showed Kaminari the two impressive horns growing out of his head.

Denki felt the blood drain from his face as his brain slowly put the facts together, but not before he opened his mouth to shout loud enough to hopefully reach outside the labyrinth walls, “HEY, UH, THERE’S AN ENTIRE ASS COW MAN IN HERE?!”

The creature huffed, it could have been a laugh or a threatening gesture but Denki couldn’t tell the difference. He only saw the glint of the large gold ring in his nose and the sharp tips of the horns as it said to him, “Is there? I hadn’t noticed.”

Denki shrieked, a sound that someone would expect to hear from a small child on fire instead of a man in his early twenties, and pressed himself up against the wall of the labyrinth.

The creature towered over him even at a distance and Kaminari wasn’t eager to be mercilessly killed just yet. Though if he had to go, Kaminari would admit that a very handsome cowman would be one of the better ways.

“I’m a bull, not a cow,” the creature corrected, oddly polite.

Denki’s already wide eyes grew even more, startled that the creature could read minds on top of goring him to death.

The bull snorted, “No, you’re literally just talking out loud.”

“Oh,” Denki mumbled, afraid to move but happy to ogle the handsome creature while his body was paralyzed by fear.

Purple hair fell in voluminous tufts around the long black horns that curved from the creature’s skull.

His physique would have made some of the statues in the town embarrassed of their forms, the corded biceps and taut thigh muscles drew Denki’s eye in a way that would have gotten him rightfully slapped by a number of other people.

His chest was bare, but the perizoma wrapped around his waist fell to a few inches above the creature’s pale knees and leather sandals.

“Are you lost?” the bull asked, raising an almost amused eyebrow at the blonde.

“Well,” Denki began, drawing the word out as he tried to think of the least embarrassing way to describe how he got here. “I’m not exactly lost, but I’m definitely not where I thought I’d be either.”

“Then you’re lost,” the creature sighed.

“How did you get beyond the gate without realizing you were in a labyrinth?”

Kaminari finally pulled his eyes away from the bull’s impressive body, as he now realized the beast didn’t plan to eat him to death but instead wanted him to die of embarrassment first.

“Okay, so I have this friend Mina, right?”

“Uh-huh,” the creature nods, making a face similar to the one Bakugou wears when Denki has to explain how he lost yet another job.

“And Mina has this really cool thing where she gives tours in historical sites and then sells the tourists some snake oil tonics and fake relics, and the guy outside said he’d give a lot of money to whoever took care of it-”

The bull stopped his slow walk towards Denki, eyebrows now furrowed as he stared down the smaller man, “Gods above, please don’t tell me you heard about a Minotaur and thought he was saying a Mina Tour…”

Denki crossed his arms, face going bright red in shame as he shouted, “Okay, yeah sure it seems obvious in retrospect but at the time it was a totally reasonable assumption!”

Kaminari expected many things after yelling at the beast. Perhaps he’d be gored, or chased around the labyrinth till he collapsed from exhaustion, maybe even just a regular old strangling with those attractively large hands.

What he did not expect was for the minotaur to nearly fall over laughing.

The creature’s laugh was the deep belly laughter of someone truly amused, it took on a near mooing quality towards the end when he was mostly wheezing and Denki found himself unable to stop giggling too.

“I guess it’s a pretty silly way to get yourself killed, but this pretty much tracks with everything else I’ve done. My friends would murder me if they ever found out so it’s a good thing you’re going to do it first,” Denki said once his laughter had petered out.

The minotaur snorted, a bestial noise this time rather than one of amusement, “Why will you be murdered? Are you planning on attacking me?”

Denki looked at the minotaur’s chest, a hundred inappropriate thoughts running through his mind, “not attacking you in the traditional sense, no.”

The creature raised an eyebrow but seemed to at least understand Kaminari intended no harm, “Well, I have no reason to kill you unless you’re trying to kill me. I can’t promise you’ll be able to leave here, though. The labyrinth is designed to trap those left inside of it.”

Denki paused his lustful imaginings at that, “Wait, how long have you been here?”

The bull rubbed his nose ring, lost in thought, “A few years? A few months? They throw in ‘sacrifices’ sometimes but not regularly enough for me to count the weeks.

I lived in a field before this with my mother but she died and I came to town looking for work. Guess I picked the wrong town.”

Kaminari frowned, imagining how lonely it must have been and how scary to be locked up in a place like this for any amount of time.

“That’s awful, I’m sorry your experience with humanity has been like, one hundred percent shitty.”

The minotaur’s mouth curled up a bit on one side, practically a smile on such a stoic face, “It hasn’t all been awful.

My mother was human, and you may not be very bright but you haven’t tried to stab or cage me so that puts you above the others.”

Denki was about to argue the ‘not very bright’ part before he reflected on how he came to be trapped in this labyrinth as well and promptly shut up.

“Wait, your mom was human? Then how’d you get so horny?”

The bull looked at him with an expression of incredible disdain, his eyebags seeming deeper with exhaustion than before, and then muttering, “Alright, perhaps you’re actually /worse/ than the ones that try to kill me.”

“I meant in a literal way! You’ve got horns! Like, super cool horns and you’re taller than anyone I’ve ever met! Very sexy look, by the way. I wouldn’t change a thing, but that’s not exactly human either.”

The bull shrugged, “The age old story. When a woman and a God— pretending to be a bull so his Goddess wife doesn’t catch him cheating on her for the thousandth time— love each other very much… well you know how it ends.”

“Oh man, so you’re not just a minotaur, you’re a demigod too?” Denki asked, golden eyes bright with excitement.

“I think I’m just classified as a monster,” the minotaur said easily, as though it wasn’t one of the more depressing things Kaminari had heard so far.

“Hey, no talking like that! A monster would have just slaughtered me by now, he wouldn’t be all nice like you are! Let’s start over, yeah? We can be friends! Maybe even more if you play your cards right! I’m Kaminari Denki, it’s nice to meet you!”

The bull frowned, as though this was the start of an elaborate trick, before grunting, “Shinsou Hitoshi, and I don’t know how to play cards.”

“I’d love to teach you,” Denki said with a wink. “What’s a nice beefcake like you doing in a place like this?”

Shinsou immediately groaned, displeasure clear on his face, “You know at first I thought I’d like to have company but now I think the Gods are punishing me.”

“No way!” Kaminari insisted, stepping forward to take one of Hitoshi’s massive hands.

“I bet between the two of us we could totally get you out of this place! Unless you wanna stay, but from the sounds of it…”

The minotaur immediately shook his head, “At this point I’d rather go back to the field. At least the grass tasted better there. No screaming or spears, just a couple of wild cats and goats.”

Denki brightened up, “You could do even better! The guy outside promised me tons of drachmae if I got ‘rid’ of the Mina Tour— I mean the Minotaur I guess? But he didn’t specify how it has to happen!

We can just walk out of here and you can live in my nearby town with my friends and family! We’ve got this huge field in the back and with this much money we’ll never have to worry about food, I bet you could buy all kinds of expensive seeds for fancy grasses to eat!”

The bull seemed hesitant, asking only, “This town…does it have cats?”
“So many cats! It’s like cat central! I’ve only named half of them so you can name the rest if you want, my village doesn’t really have a lot of extra food to go around but cats keep the mice out

so we always make sure they have something to eat if we can. I bet you’d get along, plus if you weren’t there then my entire family would probably think my story of what happened today was bullshit...er, no offense.”

“I still have no reason to trust you aren’t just some wannabe hero leading the monster into an ambush,” Hitoshi pointed out, though Denki could see a bit of hope creeping into his eyes.

Kaminari pouted, “I’d never do that to a friend! You’re no monster, you’re just a kind guy who got caught by the wrong people but that isn’t a reflection of you it’s a reflection of them! If anything you’re closer to a hero than I am.

You had to deal with trials just like Heracles, and a journey gone wrong just like Odysseus! You’ve got a different weakness than Achilles but you’re not a weak person despite it.

You don’t have to believe me now, but maybe you could let me try and convince you? You know, over the years?”

Shinsou blushed, the rosiness of his cheeks looking a bit comical next to the murderously sharp horns, “A hero? Me?”

“Of course!” Denki insisted. “What’s more heroic than overcoming a challenge and saving someone while you do it? I’d rot in this place if you weren’t willing to help me escape, so you’re already my hero.”

“We’d still have to find a way out of the labyrinth,” Shinsou said with a pensive twist to his mouth.

“About that,” Kaminari started, mischief clear on his face. “I think I’ve got an idea…”

The town crier sat somberly outside the gates of the labyrinth. He knew it was his job to entice people to tackle the beast inside, but he still felt guilty every time some eager young man walked in and never came out.

He’d only heard the sounds of battle once, for the minotaur must have been close to the entrance when the man arrived, but the blood-curdling screams and the sound of wounded flesh had been enough to make the crier all too aware of the danger

Knossos faced if the creature got loose. It had been years since Theseus and King Minos had walked these halls, but the town’s memory was a good one and everyone feared a repeat of those tragic days. He hoped that a hero would appear who would be able to take down the monster

and free them from the danger at long last.
As lost in thought and morose as the town crier was, he didn’t hear the voice the first few times it tried to get his attention.

Finally, he realized it wasn’t the ghostly call of a murdered young man howling after him during his trip to hades, but rather the politely inquisitive voice of someone requesting assistance.
The town crier turned towards the gate, “Have you changed your mind?”

“Look up!” the voice called, and the crier rose his gaze to where the blonde man was peering out over the crumbling stone walls.

“Hey, up here! Yeah, think you could open the gate? We’re gonna head out now. Sorry it took so long, but the Minotaur won’t be a concern for you anymore!”

The town crier stood frozen, mind uncomprehending how the boy was floating a head’s height over the wall, “Pardon?”

“If you could just open the gate?” the man asked, before adding, “oh, and have those thousands of drachmae ready, please.”

The crier ran to the gate and activated the mechanism that opened it, and signaled for the guards to bring the drachmae, eagerly expecting the blonde to be carrying a bloody trophy of his victory, or perhaps some other sign that the beast was slain.

Instead, he fell right on his ass in fear when the gate opened and the minotaur itself walked out with the young man sitting on his shoulders and holding onto the beast’s massive horns like a horse’s reins.

The blonde smiled down at him, waving a hand genially as he quipped, “Momma always told me to grab the bull by the horns! So, do I get the money now or later?”

Right before the town crier’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, shock completely taking over his system and bringing him to unconsciousness, he couldn’t help but notice the oddly affectionate look in the monster’s eye as it groaned at the blonde man’s joke.

🐂⚡️~The End~🐂⚡️

((Thanks for reading and any QRTs and likes! For more of my fics -and they're nearly all as goofy as this one- you can check out my pinned post for plenty of shinkami, or my ao3))

https://twitter.com/Hey_There_Satan/status/1249028706535985152?s=20&t=APKX8PdbGOHxjn5UFWiKwQ

((Top of the thread))

https://twitter.com/Hey_There_Satan/status/1550564034507948035?s=20&t=APKX8PdbGOHxjn5UFWiKwQ

Outtake:

Denki: "Don't eat me! Though if you're gonna eat me, at least start with eating my ass."

Shinsotaur: "Actually, bulls are vegetarian."

Denki: "...it's cruelty-free ass?"

Shinsotaur:

https://twitter.com/Hey_There_Satan/status/1550581278323490816?s=20&t=zeKON3QdtJiNBz5rxuGI3w

PLEASE CLICK ON THE LINK AND LIKE/RT THE ORIGINAL PIECE OF ART. Cause @KeiStrawberry1 is a talented genius and absolutely rocked this shinkami moment from the thread.

https://twitter.com/KeiStrawberry1/status/1550630369489305603?s=20&t=zeKON3QdtJiNBz5rxuGI3w

Now on ao3 if you prefer your shinkami in that format
archiveofourown.org/works/40491078

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