#死/// Blood of the Covenant; Yanna.

[inun4ki]

🛁to help my muse clean blood / grime off up after a fight / injury / etc ! //Yanna and KAede bondin' ~

"You don't need to lecture me on the importance of pre-strategizing a battle-- So I got a little overzealous and damn near lopped off my own arm without much thought... It was only a flesh wound, really. I'm still in one piece and - look! Look - my arm is partially healed already and it's only been an hour. Yanna-sama, please, I'm okay, and all those curses-- Especially that special-grade-- I took care of everything no problem. I promise, stop- Hey, cut that out! Ouch - ah! That hurts!"

He had to jerk his arm away, the sting of a warm, wet rag dragging across still-raw, still-gashed flesh, blood oozing from downplayed injuries. Exposed nerves felt as frayed as they'd looked, and the quizzical upward curve of Yanna's brow made him huff, sputter, sigh, and ultimately look away. It hurt far more than he was readily willing to admit, but he relented anyway, rolling his eyes and blinking away a few tears before laying it back down on the table. At the same time, it didn't hurt quite as much as it should - after all, he didn't just almost cut the damn thing off; In his haste to get the job done and exorcise the special-grade curse he'd fought, he was not careful at all when using his Blood Sacrifice technique. Exposed muscle could be described as a rope that'd been poorly cut and snapped under the remaining tension, tendons, ligaments, and the like shorn from other forms of connective tissue.

Had it not been for 7th Heaven and the boon of power recieved from Inugami, he was fairly certain he would've lost his arm, and that they'd be having a very different conversation. Still, he would wince, frown, and grind his teeth intermittently, but he wasn't about to disparage himself over an injury when their joint mission had been a total success. He was quite proud of that, in fact. So while she toiled away at stitching him back together...

"...Did you see it though? I basically nuked that thing-- Well, I guess you couldn't see it... You'd have had to have been caught in my domain - which I'm happy you weren't, by the way. It could've been really bad, y'know. Hell Prism doesn't descriminate and it takes way too much outta me, so I can't really use it terribly often, but it was crazy! I sucked that special-grade in, scrambled its brain like an egg, and boof - accursed meat confetti. Absorbed some of its cursed energy, though - that's probably the only reason I'm still alive, honestly."

[inun4ki]

relationship tag dump

[inun4ki]

"I can see you struggling. Take your time. I'm listening." //Yanna

for muses who can't open up

They'd been sitting on a park bench for what'd felt like hours - talking, as if anything Kaede'd had to say had mattered. Maybe it was merely Yanna's nature to listen, to participate, to sit beside him and know something was wrong - she was good like that, maybe better than he deserved. Makeshift family, the closest thing he had to a grandmother that might've loved him once, found by chance circumstance long after the damage had been done and the dust had settled. There would be no repairing what's broken, burying the truth, ignoring the pain, pretending, hiding, sneaking, lying--

He owed her an explanation, he owed her something. Surely, Yanna could only take so much of his reckless abandon in combat, his incessant and inevitable self-mutilation as necessary and extra curricularly, his occasional blackouts and failing memory, crude and vulgar malcontent, flashbacks, anxiety--

What would she think of him, if he told her...? Would she still fight alongside him? Would she trust him to protect her as she protects him? Or would her opinion of him change, morph from the almost-tender and pleasant into paranoia, judgment, and uncomfortable tension that crackles and burns? Would she think him weak and foolish, clawing at himself to distract himself from his responsibilities and the pain he'd caused? Would she think him a coward...? Fingertips nervously tugged through long violet strands, catching on too many tangles at a time - he yanked his fingers through. Again, and again, silently drifting further and further into the agonizing cess pool poisoning his mind. He didn't want her to point all the same fingers at him as Kurai - he didn't want her to think he'd have been better off dead, too, that everything would be fine and everyone would still be alive if he'd never taken his first breath. He didn't want her to see his shame, his inaction, his cowardice. He didn't want her as the frightened and inept child he really was. He couldn't bear it. The idea of it alone caused his chest to tighten, his throat to sorely close, his body already screaming in its preparation to run.

But he owed her. He owed her something.

Gnawing on his lower lip, head bowed, gaze affixed to dirt and the sparse tuft of grass just beginning to peek through it, he made himself smaller. Shoulders sloped forward, thighs and calves firmly pressed together, spine slouching...with his hair to hide every bit of his face as his toes curled into the dirt. But his breaths caught on the knot in his throat and his teeth chattered, fear sparking into a roaring flame that burned and burned and burned in the pit of his stomach. Ripping the band-aid off and telling her was all he could do, and no matter how kind and gentle to him she'd been, she expected an answer... Why did this have to be so hard? Why couldn't he trust in turn, trust that he might be held with warmth and care and understanding and acceptance and-- Why couldn't he let it go?

He swallowed again, trying his damnedest to maintain any semblance of stoic composure, fingers shifting from his hair to the fabric concealing his wrists and picking at the seams, but he was failing - and he'd no choice anyway.

"T-twenty years ago," he rasped shakily, words like ash in his mouth. "Twenty years ago, there was... a massacre. Over sixty members of my clan were slaughtered and fed upon by curses and I...I watched them. I hid under the dining room table and cried, watching as my cousins were taken one by one and killed by my grandfather. I was stronger than they all were - I didn't know how to wield it, but still, I was stronger than them. I could've-should've done something, but I let them die... My grandfather was also killed, by the time the bloodshed had come to an end. He'd brought those curses into the estate and unleashed them upon us all, and no one knew why - but that was my fault too. He was already showing signs of severe mental instability, but the facilitation of my birth sent him spiraling. I only fanned the flames of his paranoia, the terror he already had that one day, he'd be usurped and any threats to his hold over the family must be dealt with. He planned to use me as a vessel in some desperate vie, to take my strength for his own, and in the midst of enacting this plan, the curses he'd aligned with turned on him and ripped him limb from limb. He left...a journal, outlining his plan in great detail. I found it hidden beneath the estate one night when I'd been punished for covering for Aoi and Terin again, tucked under the straw and floorboards in the cell - where no one else could possibly find it or bother to go looking."

He couldn't stand being vulnerable like this, couldn't stand talking about his family history, being seen, heard, known for even a moment. He wanted to trust her. Wanted to believe this would be okay. It was far too late to back out now. His heart and stomach lurched in tandem, his ears beginning to ring.

Please don't change your mind... Please don't turn your back on me.

His thoughts were beginning to get to him, a childlike urge to crumple and cry washing over him. The longer he dragged this out, the more pathetic and miniscule he felt, the more cowardly and weak. Kurai would've turned him away, and Aoi vowed never to speak to him again after Terin's death... They blamed him for it all, and rightfully so. Had he been able to do something, he could've used their techniques to exorcise the curses quickly and no one would've had to die... Had he not been born, Taisho would've been dealt with sooner. Terin would still be alive. Mom, too...

"I took the journal to my father - everyone deserved to know the truth behind what my grandfather was planning. I thought it would be closure for them, to finally have a real explanation... I even thought the same for myself. I didn't realize, at the time, that I was handing them my own confession. Everything begins with Taisho, but ends with me. I may as well have killed them all myself. I've no right to sit beside you now, when there's so much blood on my hands, because it's not just them I'm responsible for but countless others... People who were simply doing what they needed to in order to survive among curses and killers and the other perils of every day life, working to achieve their dreams no matter how benign or totally fucked-- I'm just as guilty. I fight to redeem myself, but I can't wash away the stains. Yet, even-even so... I don't want you to think of me as any lesser. I don't want you to see me as the sort of person who would condemn his family to death through inaction and cowardice."

[inun4ki]

"Y'know, granny, I've been wondering... Can you cook?" he asked, at first a bit cautious, words trailing off into childish curiosity. It was a silly question, to be sure - they'd much more pressing matters to worry about - but there was a vain hope she might be a master of confections, that she might stuff him full of cookies when next he suffered an injury and send him on his way. His mask of casual aloofness had easily morphed into an honest expression, something sweet lingering in his eyes that not even he had known was there; Perhaps awe and a strange assortment of other such emotions, but levvied at her all the same, and genuine besides.

He crossed his legs underneath the table, withdrawing his freshly sewn and bandaged arm, a slight flutter to his lashes. The sting of an old open wound had dulled to an ignorable throb, already horribly damaged nerves beginning to numb altogether, and it was for this he was most grateful as Yanna's efforts would help speed up the healing process. He didn't have enough cursed energy to activate Deliverance, but when he did, then he supposed he'd be right as rain before too much longer. She'd saved him a lot of time - she was much better at this than he was, no matter how long he'd been doing it himself.

"It can't always be wound-tending and lectures, right? What about cookies, chocolates, and cheek pinching? Maybe the odd bottle of whisky, or vodka? I can bring one 'round next time, if that's what you'd prefer-- Or maybe I could cook for you, instead? What are your favorites? I'll try to make them next time, as thanks." He'd babbled a bit too much, pursing his lips into a pout when he realized himself, but he continued anyway; It was a rare opportunity, being able to sit with someone like this, let alone someone he cared about. "You're like a very scary grandma, and that alone has to mean your baking kicks ass. Oh, but I'm only half-decent with savory foods..."

@nvrcmplt / yanna ofc!