chokuto

[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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