chokuto

[Silence lapses for a moment as he considers those words, speculative, turning them over in his mind. When he speaks, it comes in a quieter tone between them—a susurrus of a confession.]

I didn't know for a long time. It happened in Stygia—do you remember those flowers? Some were afflicted with an illness triggered by emotion. They were trying to cure it.

[Only one person ever knew why Sasuke suffered, for whom.]

Mine was sunflowers. Bright yellow. [Eyes turn down to his own lap, right hand draped over the hilt of the wooden sword.] Did you meet Naruto? He was there, for a little while.

Fishcake guy.

（ he suddenly does feel uncomfortable, though not for the reasons sasuke might envisage. it's closer to — the discomfort someone has when they've walked in on the death rights for someone they don't know. he didn't actually need sasuke to talk about it, and now he feels like he's shoved the guy into a corner where the only option is to talk about something that's clearly still a wound, half-scarred in its newness. ）

We talked once. So, he...?

Yeah. [Sasuke lifts his head.] So that's how I knew.

[That's it. You survived the talk, Ichigo. And Sasuke survived the point-five seconds it took to express the most basic thing and then barely explain it.]

Maybe you'll feel that way or maybe you won't. It's not as big of a deal as it seems.

[And it's better, Sasuke is learning, to accept what he wants.]

（ longest five seconds of his life, actually. ）

I don't know that I was — like that.

（ the choking on flowers bit, anyway. ichigo draws his knees up, which makes the sword drop between the hinge of hip and thigh, and he wraps his arms around his knees. on him, it simultaneously feels like the gesture of self-soothing a kid might do, and a gesture of exhaustion an old man might do. ）

But I thought — sometimes, with Grimmjow. When we fought. It was... sometimes I thought about what would happen if we didn't stop there.

I understand what you mean.

[And he does. That kind of physicality—it's impossible not to slip under it, to imagine the roughness of the act furthered into something else. Back then when he fought Naruto, he didn't have the presence of mind or the self-awareness or even the knowledge to wonder... now, though, he doubts he could think of anything else.]

Try it, then.

[It's said bluntly. Free yourself to sexual experimentation, Ichigo.]

Like, now?

（ uhhhHHHHHH?

look my guy he just barely got the hang of tits actually???

(spoiler: he does not have the hang of tits) ）

[hello, what.]

No. Not now.

[HE IS NOT PROPOSITIONING YOU.]

Whenever you want. Is there a male person here that you're interested in? It doesn't have to be... like that. [Yet.] Someone you trust.

（ how did they get here again.

ichigo just scrubs a hand aggressively through his hair and then works his palm against the back of his neck like he's trying to wring out a... kink... (haha, jk... unless?) ）

No. There's no one like that. And you're the only asshole I trust.

（ this is the worst conversation he's ever had and HE HAD TO LEARN SEX EDUCATION FROM ISSHIN. ）

[Is there where he says "good luck" and leaves...

No, he wouldn't do that to Ichigo. Yet the discomfort sits in his posture, keeping his gaze off to the side. He doesn't know why it's so easy to talk about these things with Cy when it's so difficult literally everywhere else.]

You have time to figure it out.

[Tries for reassuring...]

It seems that you found someone, at least. A woman.

（ his hand spasms, and unselfconsciously he rubs his thumb against the opposite wrist, where the red diamond of his suit is just beginning to bloom anew. ）

I — yeah.

（ he's too private for this actually. is he even allowed to talk about girls now?? the idea of even having sasuke know her name fills him with an intense mortification not because he's remotely ashamed — he isn't — but because the idea of sitting across from someone who knows he touched titties is just entirely Too Much Actually (and also, women deserve privacy!!) ）

What about you? You find a dude that's all right?

[While Sasuke has no mortification wrapped up in the idea of sharing Cy's name with anyone, there is a part of him that feels—unwilling, still, to put it into the air. To have it be known. He doesn't understand his feelings surrounding it completely, but it's like so many other parts of his life, better held close and guarded from the rest of the world. As if to release it would be to endanger it.]

I did. He's a good man.

[He continues to pointedly not look at Ichigo across from him.]

I wasn't myself, and I didn't know if anyone else could handle me in that state, who had experience with the act itself. [Voice lowering, a more serious tone.] It was worse than how it felt back in Stygia. I was hallucinating. I had nightmares and strange dreams. I don't think the effects are the same for everyone.

（ he's silent for a moment, and then: ）

He better be, or I'll kick his ass.

（ this isn't oocly awkward at all. ）

Did you get... （ his left fingers tuck in against his palm, in memory. ） the petrification too?

[There's a slight twitch at his mouth, there and gone again.]

I did. My left arm and leg were entirely immobile. The color was dark, obsidian stone with veins of purple. It looked different from... someone else that I saw.

[Sasuke rises, but only to retrieve his shirt from the ground, pulling it back over his head one-handed.]

I'm concerned about that issue for a few reasons. There's a lot we aren't being told.

Edited 2024-01-25 04:57 (UTC)

The type of stone... or the colour, maybe. Is it something that's tied to your powers?

（ that might not make much sense out of context. ichigo shakes his head once, and then: ）

I have an ability called Blut Vene. It's... here, it's easier to show you.

（ he has trouble controlling it, still. that part of his quincy heritage, denied longer than the other patchwork things that have knit him together in a tapestry of uncanny fate. but stygia made it paramount to learn, and so he'd... tried, there.

he gets up, and goes to the weapons rack. selects something sharp, and then turns its edge against his palm. blue, glimmering leylines shift out and away from the point of contact, and when he holds his palm up to demonstrate there is no sign of injury there. ）

The stone was the same colour for me.

（ it felt like a mockery, somehow. but sasuke's the only one he knows that might understand that part. to the rest, he only shrugs. being kept in the dark about things is honestly a more natural state for him than anything else, so it doesn't occur to him to resent it. ）

Maybe. But there's not much to do about it for now.

[Blut Vene. Sasuke watches, attention rapt with the sort of focus curiosity toward another's abilities tends to inspire in him — and someone as powerful as Ichigo seems to be especially so — falling quiet at that demonstration. A knife to skin, no injury. The shimmering color of blue is strangely beautiful; he can feel it, the echo of something like a fluctuation of energy that remains foreign all the way through.

Thoughtfully, Sasuke shakes his head.]

I wouldn't say the stone held any special meaning. It was black and veined with purple. The latter, I guess — it's the color that my chakra takes on when it becomes visible.

[And the black stone, perhaps because of his connection to darkness. How desperately he'd tried to live in it.]

Was it an innate ability, or were you taught? Blut Vene.

Do you remember what I told you about the Quincy? My mom was one of them. It's a power they have.

（ 'they', a clear demarcation between himself and the quincy. even now that he knows the genesis of his heritage and the reason he ended up as he did, a patchwork of interwoven souls that should have been mortal enemies, he has a hard time claiming the quincy side. the love he holds for his mother is the only reason he's offered it any acceptance at all — but the memory of yhwach putting a hand on his head and calling him son taints it into a horrific pall over his life.

he can sympathize with the genocide of the quincy at the hands of the shinigami, and still hate what yhwach did with every part of himself. ）

It's innate, but only if you're powerful enough. I don't have a lot of control over it.

[A small nod, showing that he does remember — and particularly that Ichigo had mentioned a divide between shinigami and quincy. It's surprising to learn Ichigo is somewhere between, if his mother's heritage is quincy.]

I thought you were powerful.

[This isn't stated in a way as to be sarcastic, or condescending, or even critical. It's flat and direct, in question of how someone like Ichigo, who does boast so much physical strength, would struggle with this.]

What would it take to learn to control it?

I am.

（ just like sasuke's statement, it's quietly, calmly neutral. there's no real sense of arrogance to it. maybe once, but now he's just solemnly respectful of his own strength. it's been hard-won. ）

I think it's a mental block more than anything. My last enemies were the Quincy, after all. So... I think I just need to make peace with that.

（ it's just that his shinigami powers come to him that much more naturally. ）

[Hm.]

If you train against me with those powers, it could help you overcome that block. But only if it's something you want to do.

Sure.

（ when would ichigo ever say no to a training arc, actually??? ）

You're probably just about the only guy that could that I've met here.

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