She was a robot? She was a ROBOT? (mithrigil) wrote in kinkfest, @ 2008-07-05 07:11:00 |
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Entry tags: | a: mithrigil, f: blade of the immortal, july 05, p: magatsu/manji |
Third Blood, Blade of the Immortal (Manji and Magatsu)
Title: Third Blood
Author: Mithrigil
Rating: Light R
Warnings: The thing is a fight scene.
Word count: 1400
Summary: Can you still fight like your soul's on the line?
A/N: New fandom, beloved characters, proud of this and that.
Prompt: 7/5 - Blade of the Immortal - Manji/Magatsu - weaponkink - fair and foul play
Third Blood
blade of the immortal
Mithrigil Galtirglin
“Arright.” Manji cracks his head side-to-side, listens to the air popping and the weapons up his sleeves clink and shift. “Let me lay down the rules.”
“First one’s that there aren’t any.”
Heh. He kind of expected that, looks across the charred lawn at Magatsu, whose mouthguard isn’t smirking any more than his eyes. “Let me guess, Itto-ryu dogma?”
“Common sense,” Magatsu says. “You cheat just by existing, so you’re gonna let me.”
Looking long and hard at Magatsu’s just confirmation. Of course the kid’s serious, it’s plain as the sky overhead. He stands the way that proves he isn’t stupid, isn’t cocky, isn’t looking for a fight but knows that the fight doesn’t give a shit. Manji’s been around him long enough to know that the kid’s weapon’s called the Grand Turk, and it’s out, down, clean, point to the dirt but not in it.
“You’re also not gonna stick to one weapon,” Magatsu says—you know, having that cloth around half of his face’ll probably be more annoying to Manji the more he tries to start conversations. “So there’s no point in fighting to disarm.”
“First blood, second blood, killing strike?” Manji huffs through teeth that might be smiling, if you ask someone who’s never seen a grimace. “Thought this was a spar, not assisted suicide.”
Aren’t many clouds up there, but there are other things that can cross the sun, and one of them does, quick like the snap of laundry on the line. If the shadow is the same thing that’s screeching, it’s some kind of hawk. Magatsu’s not looking, Manji’s not either.
Maybe Manji sighs, maybe he doesn’t. “Look, kid, either I hold back or I don’t.”
“You’re concerned about whether you’re still any good at this, aren’t you?” Magatsu slips a little closer to an actual stance, shoulders out, heels up, shadow longer. “Can you still fight like your soul’s on the line?”
Disarming question. Ha. “Third blood or killing strike, whichever comes first. And it’s not my fault if you don’t yield.”
Magatsu’s answer lowers his chin and raises his sword. Straight and to the point, this kid.
Manji starts it, though, flings out his arms until Shido’s a part of them, feels the chatter of the chain. He wants close, well, Manji’ll give him close, and when the Grand Turk’s up underhand and caught in the hooks of Manji’s crossed blades, well. Ain’t it just. They spring apart, dust flies, Manji’s sandals scrape through the dust with the force of going forward again, and this time Magatsu’s the one to block (fast kid, fast kid), the bar of his sword twisting and almost steady on the air. He swerves around it, leaps over it, uses the curves of Shido to scrape his blade on like it’s a spit. Manji could laugh but he’s already sidestepping the left-hand-chop to the back of his neck that he knows’ll be coming, once Magatsu lands.
Maybe he’s not as rusty as he thought, eh?
Magatsu doesn’t waste a breath, does lunge out after Manji with the empty hand but isn’t stupid enough to keep it there for Shido to hack off. The forked blade’s chain balances the swing and Manji follows it, aims a clear and level thrust of the left-hand blade right up into Magatsu’s face.
It connects. For a blink there, though, Manji doesn’t see that the kid’s mouthguard tears—the blood’s pretty close to black.
Neither of them stops to tally it—Magatsu twists or something Manji can’t quite see on his blind side, gets in a good grab, or one that would have been good if it worked. Manji swipes in from the sides—blood from the blade streaks through the air between them—Magatsu backpedals and brings the sword around, turns so damned fast that it isn’t baring his back. It connects, ringing, with the wrong side of Manji’s left Shido and damn near knocks it out of his hand.
Doesn’t, though. And there’s still the one in the right.
Manji lunges forward with that, staves off the Grand Turk with the left and figures he’ll get the second blood he’s after here, now. It’s not that the gambit fails, it’s that Magatsu’s still that quick, enough that the hooked blade only cuts cloth, this time, not the skin underneath. The kid springs up into the air and takes the sword with him, how the fuck he got the leverage Manji only knows by instinct, and the blade fans through the air like another hawk crossing the sun. Same keening noise, same shadow-that’s-not.
Damn near takes Manji’s arm off on the way down, not to mention.
—If he’s supposed to be fighting like it matters if it gets cut off, he really should actually care about that.
Magatsu lands, somewhere behind Manji that he isn’t anymore when Manji turns around, gets in the kid’s face with Shido. There’s a flash of black hair and black cowl and Magatsu’s neck is swerving, the mouthguard’s slipped down over the red cut—and he ducks, thrusts his elbow up into Manji’s chin. Manji doesn’t know which side. About a second later and at least a body’s length away with his knee in the dirt, he realizes that it connected.
Can’t feel a thing there, though, so he takes the time to ask. “You get me?”
“No,” Magatsu answers simply.
All that needs to be said, anyway. He doesn’t spare another breath and neither does Manji, both of them plowing forward through the dirt. Four swipes and a parry and a low, swooping dodge that brings the spikes of Magatsu’s hair scraping over Manji’s knee. There are tracks in the earth deep enough to trip in now. So Manji doesn’t, roots his heels in the ground and arches into a clean downward stab, a stripe down the back of Magatsu’s calf that would’ve crippled someone slower.
If the kid didn’t grunt, Manji might’ve had to wonder if he got him at all. That actually stalls Magatsu, it seems, blood clouding his socks and the print of his sandals.
Magatsu’s other foot comes down hard where Manji’s hand had been a beat ago. The sword flares out and both Shido fly up to block it, good thing too ‘cause Manji needed both to hold that strike off. There’s red and oil-grey and dust smeared across the half of Magatsu’s face that’s showing—what is it with these Itto-ryu kids and their eyes up-close, what the Hell happened to having something to prove?
Maybe sparks fly when Manji drops his right Shido, whips out Kotengu and stabs Magatsu in the side. Third blood.
—and then there’s something in Manji’s neck before the Shido’s chain stops rattling.
“Spar’s yours,” Magatsu says, and he’s close enough that Manji can see his mouth shifting, forming the words behind the cloth, like a worm pushing up dirt. He sounds like the pain’s gotten to him, just a little. “But yeah, you’re rusty.”
The hidden knife from the Grand Turk’s hilt’s jammed too far into Manji’s windpipe for him to say anything to that. So he doesn’t. Steps back, rips it out—fuck, does that hurt, throat wounds are a bitch even when they seal up quick—and hands it hilt-first to Magatsu.
The kid wipes it off on one of the darker parts of his obi—well, one of the darker parts that isn’t wet from under, where Kotengu got him good. “I’m gonna get this looked at,” he says. His breathing’s a little hard. His flesh makes a faint puckering sound when he sidesteps Kotengu, cracks his shoulders to make sure the muscle on that side still works. It does, apparently. He nods at Manji, turns, only slightly limps away.
Even when Manji’s sure he can speak again, he doesn’t. Still thinking, staring at the tracks of the footwork until shadows start to fill them from where the sun’s setting.
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