#scandalous how the world thinks itself capable of holding you back;akina mori

[mythvoiced]

@wellfell | continued

Karube Daikichi, turns out, possesses no common sense.

All he's ever done for most of his relatively short life is pretend he does. And sometimes he doesn't even have to lie to throw it on, like a worn t-shirt he only pulls out to do the dirty work for someone else.

Being sensible, rational, responsible, he's not the oldest of his friend group - he's not even the oldest in this room right now, and their society demands some sort of s o m e t h i n g from their age difference, but Karube sits back and Akina growls and who could possible deter them from being whatever they are, right here, right now - but he sure acts like it sometimes, perennial older brother, perennial babysitter, perennial boyfriend.

Cigarette in hand, sharp wit hidden under his tongue, and a tight grip on someone's metaphorical shoulders when they need him to give again.

He acts mature.

He is, maybe.

But turns out, he has no common sense.

A man with common sense would have shied away from Akina's mewling as much as her hissing should have scared him off, the gentle tease of her claws and the tender feeling of her fingerpads. Soft and rough around the edges, Akina always played both sides of her own coin masterfully well, he could never guess if he was the lion or the lion tamer.

Meet her when she's not out to be nice and her smiles are about as pretty as a poisonous flower - just as enticing for the bug he is, as well.

Meet her like this, and suddenly she's as soft as her skin when he'd stopped to marvel at it, when his calloused fingertips had met it with the kind of tenderness he hides behind his sideways smiles and vulgar utterances of philosophies people smarter than him don't buy because smarter usually means better at winning in a world such as theirs.

The stupid kids are usually the ones who know it better, but only perhaps because Karube wrongly counts himself among them, the way too many abandoned by their world do.

He doesn't even wince, not really. The press of her nail in his thigh is more grounding than it is bothersome, enough to work as intended and drag his gaze off the emptiness of the air, refocus it on the world of Akina that breathes in it.

She's already perfectly dolled up. Karube should note down asking, perhaps one day, if she likes it or if she uses it only. He wonders if 'both' is what he'll get.

He watches the red of her lips and wants to chew it off.

Karube sighs. He grabs Akina's hand, moves it off his thigh to give himself enough space to shift and slip until he's seated next to her. It's a good angle to potentially find something, anything she'd use to wipe her face to kill the glow of his cigarette in. It's an even better angle to lean back, mimic her, put his weight into the elbow he shoves into the mattress - keep the glowing fingers far away from her face - and lean down.

He steals a kiss.

Slow, warning, just enough space, enough room to be pushed away.

A kiss to her forehead. Because Karube plays mean by being the opposite of what people expect him to be.

When he pulls back, it's to grin down at her.

"I like to keep you on your toes," he straightens his back with a strained sigh, half a stretch, even. "Don't deny you like to do the same."

[mythvoiced]

@wellfell | it's three am , when she licks her lips she still tastes blood . it's a place one of karube's friends let them stay in for tonight , at least nobody was following them anymore and at least they had time to check if akina had a concussion . turns out a tiny blade wasn't enough when it came to angry men that wanted their money back . she lays there with a crooked smile , faces the ceiling because she doesn't have the energy to turn sideways and watch karube instead . her eye will be swollen tomorrow , her bottom lip too . they've wrapped up her broken little finger and given her what akina was reassured was painkiller . ❛ you know . . . every time i got punched i also got called pretty . ❜ she raises a bruised finger , touches the veil that was hovering over the place she was laying on . ❛ i wish i could find out how their disgusting minds work . . . karube . ❜ she whispers the last part , still staring at her fingertips toyed with the veil . it looked like she wasn't thinking straight , looked like she was in another world .  ❛ i think you're the only guy who thinks i don't look pretty when i'm like this . ❜ / hi lena do you remember this ? well . . .

---

Akina Mori was probably born with a concussion.

It's only moments like these where he catches himself stumbling into thinking about her in ways he doesn't even his boss.

It's an easy matter to Karube, he either likes you enough to hold you in pleasant thoughts, or he dislikes you enough to lock you out of his mind, practicing defiance in the refusal to even acknowledge, or allow some fucker to occupy more space in his head than he felt like granting.

He had better things to do - not really - than badmouthing someone within a mind pretty preoccupied with pretending nothing was wrong while pointing out all the ways things will go wrong.

To have someone like Akina, who occupies his mind with fleeting and lingering images of her hair and the depths of her eyes, the way she speaks and moves, commanding a room and mocking you all the same for paying enough attention to her to get enraptured - Tomie, Tomie, Tomie - only to then also have a tight enough grip on him to get him to clench his jaw this tightly without blocking her out of his core, well...

He'd say it's surprising, but it's honestly only the latest in a long line of Akina Mori-related acknowledgements and her impact on his essence, all he can do is chew on his gums and stare up and live with who he is and how he is in relation to her.

Hypocritical, for one, as he listens to her with the stubborn refusal to turn his head in her direction, even here where she can't see him.

The place sucks.

He doesn't know anyone who lives nicely who he'd ask to keep Akina safe. Not Arisu, who has a nice home because he lives at home, not Chota who makes more money in a week, probably, than Karube does in a month, at the expense of worse mental health, not anyone he trusts to look at him once and know exactly what this is about.

He cares enough to offer aid and shelter to most.

But he cares more here. He doesn't take knives and punches for just anyone, even though he's hell-bent on allowing his self-destruction to show as a love language to all those he'd get destroyed for.

He doesn't sleep at someone else's place to keep Akina safe just because.

He's a good actor, all things considered.

Arisu is a better reader than he'd like him to be.

And... Chota, well...

There's more to it.

More to the way he closes his hands into fists and presses them into his eyes when she keeps talking, every pretty she got as she was taking seriously enough to be wounded, but never enough to be left alone. As much as her gaze tries to tell people otherwise, she's still nought but a human, a human who can't do anything with a small knife against a bunch of men who like it when women get feisty because that means getting to 'teach them their place' again.

If Karube had things going his way, Akina could do with a knife what she can with a smile when he's the target.

She could have the world if she wanted. Who is he, anyway, in the grand scheme of things.

Wouldn't a world in her palms look better anyway, bloodied and broken as it may turn out to be?

Who knows. Maybe she only stabs when threatened.

He gets to his feet with the aggression of a man who knows all he must do is kill the voice behind the veil for his nightmare to stop, no matter how adored the nightmare is.

But Akina isn't Tomie. He feels no compulsion to rip her apart and she doesn't work the way a monster who doesn't care, does. A monster indescribable, hungry for destruction simply because it likes the taste.

Akina destroys... in very human ways.

He imagines for very human reasons as well.

He rips the veil to the side and hovers over her. One fist at the edge, one hand next to her shoulder, he shouldn't, he mustn't, not getting close is literally the only rule he has and he breaks and breaks and breaks it all over again.

He stares down at the growing colour on her face and grimaces stronger than he'd already been.

"No, you're not pretty when you're like this." He pulls a hand back, shoves both his fist into the fabric beneath her, away from her body, closer to his, just a way to keep himself firm, composed, and his hands where they belong: away.

"You're not pretty at all, for fuck's sake. You look like... Fuck, Akina, you could have fucking died."

It doesn't mean anything to her.

The way it doesn't mean anything to him if he were the one... and he will be, soon enough. Similar position, similar outcome, and maybe, it'll be for her.

He leans down only to whisper, lowering the volume of his voice to keep a better control over a grip he doesn't have.

"Why do you want to know how their minds work. Why do you keep fighting with them."

[mythvoiced]

@wellfell | the GBEP

---

Would Karube be granted even a minute insight into her thoughts, he'd probably and relatively begrudgingly - while feigning the opposite - have to tell her that as of right now, the very moment her voice cuts through the evening again and he pretends he hadn't been hyper-fixating on the sound of her footfall on the pavement along him, he feels no reason to smile.

Not anything boisterous or cocky, a brand of smile so easy to offer especially if it's all people expect from you.

And nothing of the privacy he doesn't know she sees in other smiles of his - to think she spends any amount of time wondering his smile, not something he's quite ready to entertain anyway.

Karube does think about death more than what some consider should be the regular amount.

He thinks about his own death and the death of those he holds dear. He thinks about what he'd do, if left stranded in life by some accident or the other that had claimed his friends - and he scolds himself for those thoughts, opens a can of beer and pretends he cares less than he does.

He thinks about if his friends will stick to the slums of society for long enough for them all to stick together when the old age variant hits them.

And he thinks about how many people would mourn if he died tomorrow and how many would be better off with one Karube Daikichi-shaped entry in their list of concerns less.

But he never thinks about Akina's death.

The choice is semi-conscious.

It's semi in the part of him that halts in his steps when she breaches the topic, looking even more like the ghost of herself that had approached him tonight, as though her fingers had begun shaking too strongly to keep the puppet-case she'd wrapped around herself intact, as if this was closer for Akina to being Akina than what Fumiko and Emi constantly try to tell him.

The conscious is in the pretending he doesn't notice himself, doesn't notice the look in her eyes or the brushing of their hands, the conscious that always works hard to keep all the unhappy, the tragic possibilities of whatever was happening around them away from him.

Akina often feels as though death follows her like a stray cat she's fed one too many times. An extra layer to her shadow, maybe, a glisten of a different shade of black in her hair or someone else's reflection staring back at him when he gets lost in the pits of her eyes.

He doesn't feel like smiling, no. He doesn't even really feel like turning to face her.

But he does anyway because he always does.

He turns with a pinched expression on his face that he tries to mask with a confused frown and a tilt of his head. He tries to keep the grimace locked behind his teeth by darkening his gaze, hardening his jaw, keeping what he feels at bay until he figures out what the hell this is and where it's coming from.

He doesn't think about Akina's death.

He thinks about it too much.

Thinks about it because some part of him knows he'll lose her before she loses him, he just doesn't know how yet.

Some of the dam breaks, shows cracks in the deep chest-rattling sigh that slips him when he runs a hand across his face. He doesn't want to appear annoyed. But there's a lot he wants he feels he must chew into to get it anywhere near himself.

His teeth are starting to hurt.

His hand drops at his side.

She's serious.

She's serious but not in that deadly charming way that promises him harsh consequences if he fucked with her plans or strategies or ideas or whatnot. It's not like her anger.

And she looks so much smaller than usual.

"I promise. If you promise to let me know ahead of time if you're gonna die, so I can make sure it doesn't happen."

Keep them or sell them or give them to someone.

She's wickedly smart, can she truly not know that he'd cut his chest open and stuff all that was hers into every space left free by his bleeding organs? That he'll have her poking out through the stitches over his heart, breaking free through his ribcage, coated in the liver he's busting?

[mythvoiced]

@wellfell | the GBEP

He shouldn't feel this stunned, not really.

It wouldn't make much sense, to drop some much of his rage after a few sentences thrown into the space between them, the follow-up to the thrown towel he'd stared at as though he couldn't fathom the idea that Akina hadn't thrown it directly at his face.

It doesn't make sense for him to stop, halt in the static stuttering of his thoughts beginning in soft whispers and getting increasingly louder, until he has white noise blaring in his head to the volume of pig being gutted alive screaming directly into his head.

it doesn't make sense to react like that because isn't this more or less what they argue about way too often? Daikichi wants to keep Akina safe and risks getting shot and stabbed for it, Akina wants to keep Daikichi safe and risks the wrath of men who will never respect her simply because it's funnier to not respect her than to recognise how dangerous she has the potential to be.

It's not lack of trust or belief in the reality that Akina could hold her own. It's that he doesn't want her to have to.

And even less than that would he want to sit there and realise at the same time Akina does that she is mortal and one day, she'll piss off the wrong guy, the wrong rifle, the wrong asshole in a pack of heavily armed assholes.

And it had occurred to him, the thought, the possibility that Akina maybe just wanted the same. Keeping him out of harm's way he'd keep walking into.

He just hadn't assumed she'd be admitting it this easily.

His lips dry out with the seconds he keeps them parted, until he turns to face her fully, moving as close as he may, with only their miscommunication and a hand-width separating their faces.

"Not that," he hisses, finds himself sounding less angry and more... frustrated, the mellow more genuine cousin of raw rage. "What am I supposed to do if he gets you? Because you aren't his favourite person, either."

[mythvoiced]

@wellfell | the GBEP

---

"A simulation, maybe."

It's so fucking stupid that he hates it the instant it leaves his mouth.

Considering the overall circumstances of whatever the fuck they're stuck in, would it be that terribly far-fetched to consider the possibility, that they're not actually trapped in it physically, but rather via some sort of sci-fi technology he doesn't have the patience to think about?

He glances at Akina through the corner of his eye.

No, he doesn't think it'd be. The zombies thing was a joke, but a simulation? A virtual one, maybe, a physical one, even more likely.

Thrown head-first and without prior warning, let alone proper training, into some sort of dome where wherever they are has been designed to look exactly like Tokyo.

The only thing that would throw him off would be the amount of money required to put something like that together, though the idea that whoever has that kind of money would use it for something like this would definitely not surprise him.

He straightens his back, chooses to explore their surroundings some more with his eyes, taking in the green he'd always ignored and just how large such a place is when it's so terribly devoid of other people - how loudly steps echo, how unnerving the silence is, how attentive his growing paranoia is to corners, and how difficult it is to ignore her - all to avoid acknowledging the embarrassment of giving her the time of day by replying at all.

Akina.

"Like... maybe they put up a dome, worked some money-magic, threw us all in here after altering our memories," he rubs at his nose, almost obsessively enough for a second as though he's not addicted to smoke, but rather to worse. It's the nerves, he says, though he can't tell what around him could make him feel so nervous.

Well, for one, the fucking death games they're trapped in.

The near-certainty that they won't make it out alive, at least not all of them.

But he can't think about that. Can't think about the certainty of death, can't follow that thought and land in the territory of wondering, obsessively late at night, who this certainty will catch up with first; how willing he is to die for the others, how willing they are to stay behind for him if he needs them to.

How trustworthy Shibuki and Akina are, if they'd stab them in the back to assure their own survival, if Karube would be able to do the same, in turn or before them, if he could bear the thought of killing, if he could bear the thought of watching himself become someone who chooses it as an option above more difficult ones with the ease someone chooses to add more salt to a bland dish.

"That would explain the laser thing, too."

He doesn't react to the ease she finds at speaking about the people they'd seen get killed by those fucking lasers. It's easier to go along with it, to speak of this as mundanely as if none of it was real, as if they're discussing hypothesis only and this is just a story they're working through.

He could offer to take the basket for her but somehow he doesn't want to.

And somehow, he truly does.

Just a long line of contradictory desires Karube doesn't know he's kickstarted, all related to which rhythm his heart wants to beat to, every time he looks at her.

Karube has no idea about the blood he'll be willing to spill, has no idea how often he'll be standing there, wondering, just why and how and what and who in relation to Akina Mori.

And not because he doesn't trust her.

But because he'll need her, soon enough.

He turns toward her suddenly, a confused frown on full display.

"Religion?"

[mythvoiced]

# / foR KARUHBE

@wellfell | cell phone headcanons

---

- what your muse’s name is in mine’s phone 'A' to be inconspicuous and not show his feelings lmao

- what your muse’s picture is in mine’s phone This one that I stole from from your daikina pinboard, it's a lil unfocused but I like to think Karube snuck this pic while Akina was at the bar, or just outside of it, hanging out with Emy & Fumiko 😔

- what your muse’s ringtone is in mine’s phone lp - when we're high but i'm not sure if karube'd listen to lp, he would if he actually knew about her, but i can't imagine he knows her lmao, so instead king gnu - 泡

- my muse’s last text to your muse [txt | A | pre-borderland verse | 02:58AM] i can't tell how close you and fumiko are

[txt | A | pre-borderland verse | 02:59AM] you don't actually look like you're enjoying yourself much when you're out together

[mythvoiced]

@wellfell | the GBEP

---

Being in love with? obsessed with? protective of? confused by? enamoured? infuriated? reverent? close to Akina usually came with just the kind of rollercoaster Karube would have always claimed he wanted to stay as far away from as possible.

In spite of the smoking and the hair dye and the quick punch and the anger - it seeks hers out, finds validation in hers, two kindred spirits who are nothing alike but find solace in the knowledge that the other won't judge, oh no, because Karube will justify Akina and Akina? - Karube isn't a delinquent.

He plays the part if need be but truth to be told he prefers avoiding conflicts. He prefers resorting to his willingness to put himself in the line of fire and get the reputation of the quick punch rather than impose it onto one of his friends only when he feels he really needs to.

Because, against all odds and what he knows people assume about him, he does have a pretty established sense of self-preservation.

He's no kid - his jaw clenches minutely at the word, he knows she uses it for that reaction, he finds no reason she'd use it otherwise for and perhaps it's unnerving perhaps it's unnerving because he forgets about their age difference the way he forgets about many other things just to be saner in this.

He's not as strategic as Arisu or as quick as Akina, who fights as though she knows she won't come back up if she goes down and even then she'll come back up, a fury, a gorgon turned into a monster for being a woman in a man's world.

But he's not stupid.

He knows when it's smarter to walk away.

His sense of self-preservation only truly fails him when Akina Mori is involved, which makes all previously stated feel like a too long didn't read that should have been put as a disclaimer, and example of falsehoods to be encountered in Karube's self-analysises.

Because as much as he thinks to know himself, when Akina does something, says something, wants something, he burns in a colour he's never seen before. He doesn't truly know who he is with her.

Doesn't fully understand how much Karube Daikichi is real when contrasted to who he is with her.

Doesn't fully understand that perhaps he feels most himself when he drags her away from trouble and is then forced to stand there, unwilling to not meet her demand but still too cautious to dive into it headfirst.

His hesitation is useless, a waste of time, he'll always end up doing as she pleases. Yes, he'll fight her and argue her, he'll drag her away as he had. But when their breaths mingle by pure accident, when he watches the way her nails dig into her flesh and has to bite back the snarl at the idea of seeing her hurt, when she taps her foot and he feels his own tense with the desire to move closer, what can he do but admit to himself he'll always only do things that can guarantee this?

Moments away from prying eyes treated as such?

There's a sigh, there always is, because he has a reputation to uphold in his mind, as he steps closer and places his hands over hers. She might not take lightly to it, vulnerability is less of her forte than it is his, but he still tries, tries to loosen her grip, move her nails away from her skin.

He holds her hands, stares down at them, far too tenderly, too adoring.

He needs something stronger than whatever the Beach offers.

Her lips will do.

So he leans down, holds eye contact on the way to her mouth, there are half a dozen accusations there that he doesn't mean, echoes of times he'd tried to express genuine frustration in her regard that wasn't badly masked concern.

And half a dozen confessions he dares her to read, halting just a breath away. She can always choose to speak instead. Or ask him. Or insult him or push him away.

He doesn't know what he wants from her.

Except everything, maybe.

[mythvoiced]

 ❛ karube , don't you think you deserve someone who will close her eyes on everyone else and be with you only and isn't actually taken ? 💕 🔪 ❜

@wellfell | 👀😳🔪💕

---

Ah, this is what Eve must have been hearing, huh? This is the kind of ringing in her ears she'd tried to describe to Adam. Or maybe he is Adam in this scenario and maybe he's both, maybe Adam and Eve were one person all along, and where the side of him that is Eve had already bitten into the apple and allowed its flesh to stick between his teeth like regurgitated blood and was now trying to convince the rest of him, wholly Adam, that surely it wouldn't be so bad.

Except that Akina isn't the apple, Akina is not Eve, Akina couldn't ever be Adam, and in a way she isn't the snake either. It's easier to equal her to God, placing the tree in a spot so easy to reach, keeping a careful eye on him as he stares back, as they exchange looks written as reliably as the scripture itself, speaking silently of the truth that Karube will reach for it.

He breaks eye contact to pull his cigarette out of his mouth and throw it to the ground.

It's only half-smoked.

He tosses it to the ground like alien smile pulled out of his lungs, as if it burned him, as if it'd infected him, as if he didn't want to see the imprint of his unspoken words on the paper.

He doesn't quite have it in him to smile. Which is why attempting it only leads to something so wry, some part of him would suggest having put better effort into swallowing it might have tasted even sourer but would have turned his expression into something less akin to what he actually feels like.

This isn't a game they're playing. Not anymore at least. Not when he forgets about Emi for days but would know his way to Akina blind.

"What's with this 'deserving' shit," he misses the cigarette already, but he hadn't had anything else to throw. He shifts his back against the wall, slides down ever so slightly to make the balancing act of leaning against the wall like this even more precarious.

"Why?"

Why would you of all people say that? What do you have to gain from that? Why do we talk at all, why are we here, why am I always with you and never with her and why have I stopped giving a fuck-- why am I relieved when she's with him and not with me?

Least she could do is tell him what he already knows.

"Bad-mouthing Emi? Isn't she your friend?"

As binding a relationship as his to her.

[mythvoiced]

@wellfell​ | “don’t take this the wrong way, but you don’t exactly blend in.” more random dialogue prompts

---

“Really? Thought I fit in just fine.”

Sure as shit he did.

In the other world, maybe. There he’d somehow managed to fit into about any environment, so long as it was far away from all those who actually did something worthwhile all day, something other people at least commended for the seriousness behind it.

So, monks, and suits, mostly.

Everybody else and everybody in the areas he usually frequented and everybody he knew, was more or less designed the same way, or some other sort of brand of outcast, leather or mini skirts or far too thick lipstick or too tight pants or ugly Hawaiian shirts and all of that whether or not you claimed the gender society wanted you to associate with given items on this and an extended version of this list.

Hell, he’d even fit in just fine just outside the building, his favourite type of t-shirt slipped almost unacknowledged amidst all the bikinis and shorts, it was summer wear after all, beach wear, cheap enough to fill Karube’s entire closet.

But in here?

Yeah, no, in here Karube would only blend in if he took a gun and pointed it straight between Niragi’s stupid fucking eyes. And then he’ll most likely stand out because no one amongst the militants cared to find a way to shut Niragi up.

Karube assumed it had something to do with his predictable unpredictability being relatively useful to the militant’s whole ‘haha better do as we say or we’ll fucking kill you’ political messaging, so no, wanting to get rid of Niragi or the militants as a whole would make Karube look like a rotten cherry in a basket full of rotting apples whether or not he held a gun.

His scrawny, lanky appearance and the way he continues to start shit with the others are just part of it. Constantly starting shit because of something related to Mori Akina who, by the way, in contrast, seemed to fit in just fine.

Petite and not half as strong as even the more pathetic looking members of the Beach’s military regime, the Queen of Hearts looked just deadly enough.

Karube keeps glancing around the various shirts and cargo pants, assault rifles and hand-held guns amicably and comfortably held in the hands of maniacs and amateurs his own age. He looks down at Akina. “So what, you want to hang out with the Hatter on your own? Have a drink with these assholes on your own?”

A classic move on Karube’s part re: Mori Akina: it wasn’t that he underestimated her per se, on the contrary, he’s seen enough that he wouldn’t wish some of the men in here ten minutes alone with Akina for their own safety.

He just... overestimates Niragi. “Don’t worry about whether or not I blend in. Better worry about why Hatter memorised your name.”

[mythvoiced]

there was too much blood , not what bothered akina . impossible for her to care about anyone but daikichi when the game began . therefore , rather than the metallic stench of the blood , it was the fact that the crimson was bleeding out of karube that bothered her greatly . he made no promises to be careful , she knows . now laid on the bed with a bandaged side , staring at akina while she pointedly ignores his attempts to interact . shibuki had covered up the knife wound , she told her to give him painkillers and left them alone . the pill that was in the middle of her palm , held to him with a cold stare , and a glass of water . ❛ here , superman . this will get you up to your feet so you can jump in front of fucking knives better . ❜ said with a small smile , blizzards dancing around pretty features . the first thing she told him since they brought him here , back to where shibuki and chota were .

original | @rahge

---

He feels cold behind his ears and inside of them and along his spine and his chest and none of it makes sense but when you stumble violently enough down the stairs leading you straight from sharp pain to pain unbearable enough to knock you out, you’ll find yourself delirious enough that nothing makes sense.

A few hours down the line the only thing he might remember about lying in sheets drenching with his own blood was the softness of the sheet.

Or more likely, Mori Akina’s face.

Framed by the ink of her hair, her features took a moment to adjust. They swum in and out of his field of vision until he seemed to notice that he was the problem, eyelids drooping as if the mere idea to wake up and see another day had become too exhausting for his brain to condone.

Realistically, he knew he was just giving in to the heaviness of blood loss, and realistically, he could see the edges of his vision clearing, ever so slightly now that he’d been wrapped up safely enough that his heart could actually get his blood to where he needed it - which is to say, inside of himself.

But maybe it was the memories clashing with humanity’s innate desire to not recall them, or maybe it was her name on his lips pushed out to get her attention moments prior and the nothingness that had followed, or maybe he was finally losing his fucking mind, point is, that when he managed to focus on Akina’s face, for the first time since they’d met, he felt as though he had no idea who he was looking at.

Akina reinvented the term ‘fierce’. When mentioned as a descriptor reserved for her, it sounded ridiculous. It sounded like Karube had ripped it off the pack of a cigarette and half-assedly smacked it onto her forehead.

It didn’t encompass her. It didn’t encompass just how dangerous she was, the threat she posed as if shooting out constant warnings like energy waves off her stare and from her sugary voice. She spoke like a predator covered in leather and knives, she moved as though the world owed her attention and violence and she was so easy to get lost in that Karube had already started giving up pretending he wasn’t continuously distracted by her.

The way she promised only mercy in the form of a swift and effective end, the way she metaphorically stood over those she climbed over to make sure he she survived, it was like watching a vengeful goddess returned from the dead to have all of life pay for the crime of ever having thought her too small to wreak this much havoc.

But even knowing and witnessing all of that about Mori Akina had failed to prepare him for the unlikely scenario he’d ever be the target of that side of her, the rage and the fire within her.

Unlikely, had been the very first problem here. Thinking himself in any way, shape or form special enough that he’d never be her target.

Her eyes are so cold they feel like the openings leading to a bottomless well, two rings of blackness leading towards certain demise, promising that, if he were to actually find the bottom, he probably wouldn’t like what he’d find.

He wonders, what does she hide at the bottom of her well?

Is it as arctic as the frost in her eyes?

He hadn’t even spoken to her since he’d buckled over. Now with her staring down at him like that, the pill and glass offered as if they were forms of punishment, mockery rather than meant to ease some of the pain, made enough adrenaline surge in him again that he ends up blinking up at her, his mind clearing, a frown plastering itself onto his face.

She’s angry.

He’s only ever heard her cuss this violently when she’s angry. And he thought, well, could Mori Akina even get angry enough for it to show? Would she, the one standing above it all - according to the smiles she wears - ever crumble to show a more intimate form of disdain.

He tries to get one of his elbows to prop him up, but the pain shooting through his side only makes him groan. He forgot he needed to use his torso to sit up.

Well, fuck. Damn the human body for having its muscles work so united.

He stares up at her again. Somehow, even though she was offering him alleviation from his pain and he knew - somewhere, deep within him, let’s not assess it - that she doesn’t want to see him bleed out, with the angle he’s forced into, with the coldness of her smile, he feels utterly and helplessly at her mercy.

And somehow, that pisses him the fuck off.

He slumps back, tries not to wince at the slightest movement, and lets out air he didn’t know he’d been holding. “Hey, Daikichi, nice to see you’re still alive,” he bites, reciting a line he’d never actually genuinely suspect her to say. “Thanks for helping us win the game today...” he inhales deeply, exhales quickly. He stares up at Akina again. Sometimes, her hair reminds her of just how dark blood can get, if it’s old enough.

He inhales again, exhales again, more shallowly. Okay, he could really use that painkiller.

It’s just... so far away. Luckily, Karube had already killed all sense of pride, dignity, and self-respect he could have carried around with himself. “Think you could help me sit up?”

[mythvoiced]

@rahge | ♥

“Then throw sentimentality overboard and use every means at your disposal.”