INCOMPLETE.
Who: Yamamoto Takeshi (kenspeck), Eko Hoshunin (temerate).
What: Oh, Yamamoto. Getting himself into trouble again.
Where: Somewhere around the city.
When: Backdated to a few days ago?
( Tell me, just how dangerous is second best? )
What: Oh, Yamamoto. Getting himself into trouble again.
Where: Somewhere around the city.
When: Backdated to a few days ago?
( Tell me, just how dangerous is second best? )
What he truly, truly needed was Wanyudo or Tsuchigumo standing by to clean up the mess if his control slipped, or to remind him by their silent presence that he must always set the example for his subordinates. A blood crazed Mikura was no better than a beast, no better than the hateful monsters Eko was determined his cadre would not become. He had not developed and then made the transformation from spirit flesh to cold iron to indulge in mindless cannibalistic frenzies.
Control. He gave no sign of struggle in expression or demeanor, now studying his sacrifice's face instead of jugular vein.
His partner's face. Eko was a traditionalist. If the others preferred to grind the bones of their prey between mechanical jaws, sucking the last particles from eviscerated corpses, that was their barbaric natures in play. Eko kept his skin along with his control, as befitting a Karas, and his victims always came willingly.
Even ones as young as this.
"Stand still," was Eko's answer, just as soft as earlier. "Yamamoto Takeshi."
It was a lazy, deliberate circle he then made around the boy, admiring clean lines that hinted at speed over bulk. Eko preferred this. It had been his own advantage, four hundred years in the past. He lingered fractionally over the boy's unprotected nape, breath so close as to stir the fine strands of hair, before moving on and back to where he could face Yamamoto.
Face him, gently tilt his chin up with two fingers, lips parted enough to reveal the gleaming length of ivory fangs, and--
Get smacked in the back of the head with the sense of being watched. Eko whipped around, teeth bared in a snarl and quite without thinking crowded Yamamoto behind him like any predator safeguarding the prey it had gone to the trouble of running down. This piece of flesh was his and he'd tear out the throat of any poacher.
He glared at the empty air suspiciously. The empty air glared back. If there had been movement in the very instant of his turn, it had evaded even the reflexes of a Karas.
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"All right, haha. If that's what you want."
He leaned his weight back again, closer to the cool and mossy stone of the fountain, as Eko circled him with a predatory sort of ease that reminded Yamamoto a little of a starved lion. Held still, with that smile still stubbornly stuck in its place, and it didn't even occur to him that maybe this was a little dangerous, that maybe this just wasn't a game. Because he never thought things like that, right? And even if it were dangerous, that didn't mean it wasn't a game, either, considering... well, wasn't the game that the kid and Tsuna and the others liked to play just as dangerous, too?
But not everything was a game. Most of the shit in his life, most of the things that he typically became involved in -- none of them were games, and Yamamoto supposed that if he thought long and hard enough about it, he knew this, too. He had to have known. Had to have realized just a little, tiny fucking bit, because there wasn't any other way to explain some of the things he'd seen, and some of the gut-wrenching situations he'd been thrown into (Squalo, and the water, and the way his blood dripped red and fierce into the puddle beneath his feet).
And maybe the fact that he considered everything to be a game, that he looked at the world and its trembling kingdom of violence and bloodshed with a helpless laugh and an oblivious smile, maybe that had something to do with the fact that it was easier to deal with, that way. Easier to pretend that everything was exactly as it should have been, that everything was fine, everything was all right, and he could do this. He could fucking do this.
Or maybe he just didn't know any better.
The strange, eerie man stopped in front of him again, and Yamamoto looked back up, blinking once at the fingers that slid carefully beneath his chin. Instinctively, his hand tightened around the bat, and just as he opened his mouth to say something, to ask "haha, what are you doing?" Eko was pulling away, was whipping around to hiss and snarl at the empty space behind him. Yamamoto faltered for half a second, then, paused as he loosened his hold on his bat so that he could peer around Eko's form, into the nothingness that stretched on beyond. His head poked up over his shoulder, leaning forward with a brow raised as he released the quiet laugh he hadn't realized he'd been holding.
"What are you looking at?"
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Nothing indeed. He had thought this gift of a willing sacrifice too good to be true, and Yamamoto did not respond to him in the usual manner of Eko's victims. Perhaps it wasn't simple fearlessness or ignorance, the blind acceptance of someone who had never before encountered a Mikura because they didn't exist in his world. Perhaps Yamamoto was not as clueless and relaxed as he wished to present himself.
Eko smiled down at him. Untrustworthy, treacherous human insects.
He was not so gentle this time, the motion blurring with inhuman swiftness as he seized Yamamoto's wrist, the hand holding his bat, in an iron grip. Not to hurt or force the boy to drop his futile weapon, but simply to make a point.
"You gave me your word, Yamamoto Takeshi," he remarked conversationally, still smiling that faint smile. "That you would come to me alone. A man's word is his binding vow."
Oblivious to any effort the human was making to free himself, Eko brought Yamamoto's wrist to his lips, lashes lowering, pressing a kiss to the soft and vulnerable skin there.
Then he bit. Shallow and stinging, ignoring the boy's reaction, delicately lapping the welling drops of scarlet as a cat would instead of sinking his fangs in and drinking deeply as his instincts demanded. Even the small taste was a drug, darkening his eyes and flooding his nerves as he let Yamamoto go and licked the traces of red away from his mouth.
Softly. "Thou wast followed, oathbreaker."
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He knew Yamamoto's tendency to be a complete and utter moron was going to bite him in the ass someday, and it looked like tonight was the night. No, he wasn't happy -- why the hell should he be -- and he was pushed way too much (haha, relax, relax versus are you fucking out of your mind?!) to even be remotely infuriated. There weren't even any signs of annoyance, or irritation, or any of the usual signals that tell people he was going to fuck your shit up. It was just an unusual sort of calm, of resignation, of yeah, yeah, I knew you were going to do something like this.
Sometimes he felt lucky he already had silver hair.
His chosen hiding spot was deep within the shadows the church managed to cast, and while it wasn't really enough to stop Eko from sensing him (vampires could do shit like that, right? he read up all about it a year ago --), the distance was far and close enough to make sure Gokudera could see everything and anything. He saw Yamamoto waiting, saw Eko glide right in, saw Eko glare at the empty air, and even glare directly at him, and all he did was barely move an inch. Eyes narrowed, and a scowl creasing his face. Worried I'm coming in to steal your prey, asshole?
Because you fucking should be.
For a moment, Gokudera thought about lighting up a cigarette, just one cancer stick to please his already relaxed nerves, but -- Eko made a move. And it was the wrong one at that. That was pretty much Gokudera's cue; time to crash this party -- or some shit like that.
He didn't look any happier.
Within a split-second, one of his rings was already burning with a determined, red flame, a box was pulled out, activated, and that all led to a familiar gauntlet encasing his arm. He didn't miss a beat, didn't bother charging right in -- just walked straight out of the darkness and into faintly lighted area. Once he was close enough, he stopped, and aimed automatically, the mouth of the skull pointed directly at Eko's head. There was silence, and he looked as if he could really fucking care less if he had to hurt Yamamoto in order to get him out of this mess, but --
"Are you going to let him go, or do I have to blow your fucking brains out?"
Heads or tails.
There wasn't a third option.
(You're pretty much just treading on thin ice.)
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( Which was kind of stupid, right, all things considered. Because, seriously, he'd been warned, hadn't he? But, well, Yamamoto was Yamamoto, after all. )
He noticed the change in tone, in execution, with the man's every word and action, noticed how the air suddenly seemed thicker even though it was much too cold, too chilly, to even be a little bit humid. He noticed the strange smirk, the strange little smile, and the quiet words spoken directly before his wrist was seized. But he hadn't expected the brush of lips along the steady pulse, the beating vein, right beneath the stretch of skin over wiry muscle, and Yamamoto jerked reflexively back, chin jerking skyward as sharp teeth sunk into the patch of exposed flesh.
And, for half a second, his smile shifted and faltered and completely disappeared as one foot instinctively slid back through the concrete and the gravel, as his arm was held steady by the other in return. Part of him thought to yank away, but then another part kept him frozen, kept him rooted, to the ground, because -- his teeth were in his fucking arm, and for all he knew, if he jerked away now, his whole arm could be goddamn taken off.
He might have been oblivious, but he wasn't fucking stupid.
But when he was released, when Eko finally dropped his arm and pulled his head away, Yamamoto had to keep himself from stumbling back, had to shift the majority of his weight back and forth between both feet, because he was afraid he was going to fall right over otherwise. The bat tightened in his fingers, and spots of blood dropped down along the wood as he sucked in a sharp breath, as he drew the bat up over his shoulder.
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"I'm a lot of things, guy, but -- "
And then the bat was dropping down away from his shoulder in something that would have been a casual move, if it weren't for how quickly it was done, and if it weren't for the fact that the bat shifted into the gleaming metal of his katana right as it slammed down against the concrete. The tip of the blade dug into the cracked stone, into the damp soil, before it was lifted, before Yamamoto's fingers slid right over the flat of the weapon, up and over the ridge in the middle until he could press his thumb against the sharp end.
The blood from his wrist trailed down over the grooves of his palm, over the lines of his hand, and then it was dripping from his fingertips down onto the ground beneath their feet, staining the dirt they stood upon. Yamamoto barely even noticed.
" -- I'm not a liar."
His expression wasn't necessarily severe, wasn't as hard and cold as it maybe should have been for someone who had just gotten themselves bitten. It was borderline serious, though, with drawn brows and a mouth quirked down into a hesitant frown. As serious as Yamamoto ever got, anyway, and it wasn't like that for more than a second before Yamamoto was smiling again, before the muscles in his face grew lax. The tips of his fingers drew away from the katana as he dropped the blade over his shoulder again, much like he had done with his bat. His stance grew relaxed, calm, as pleasant as it had been before, even if he had drawn back a few steps, even if he wasn't as close to the other as he had been mere seconds earlier.
Yamamoto just watched him. Rocked back on his heels once more, and just watched him with an uncertain, hesitant curiosity that was probably more friendly than it needed to be. A pause, and then:
He laughed.
"Haha, you kind of did a number on my wrist, though, see?" And here, he held it up as proof, held up his damaged arm so that Eko could make out the bloodstained jacket, the two little marks on the beating pulse that had calmed considerably. "So, what do you say we just start ove --"
Except, oh, there began situation number two that he hadn't seen coming at all, and once again, his expression faltered entirely, faded into a look of speechless surprise as Gokudera pulled himself away from the sticky haven of dark shadows, wielding something that Yamamoto was sure he'd never seen before. It hadn't even occurred to him that Gokudera would even think of following him, because -- haha, why would he bother, right? But then... he'd always been one to worry about these sorts of things, and Yamamoto's chin dropped down toward his chest as his chest collapsed with a soft string of uncertain laughter.
" -- Haha, whoops." His feet shuffled beneath him once more, and Yamamoto tried to ignore the blood that was still dripping down away from his wrist. The hand that wasn't holding the katana went up as he brushed his fingers over the back of his neck, as he cast a small glance between Eko and Gokudera both. "Looks like I was a liar, and I didn't even realize it. Imagine that?"
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It didn't make him angry, per se. Not that Yamamoto was armed or that he'd been followed. It was only to be expected of a human, and Eko would very calmly see their bargain through to the end before exacting vengeance. Anger would not play a part.
Except that they were interrupted. Loudly.
One would expect a person, presented with an obvious threat at their back, to move to face that threat. A cautious person would. An experienced warrior would.
Eko, being only one of these, remained facing Yamamoto and only turned his head the barest centimeter to the side that would allow him to watch Gokudera's approach. His pleasant expression had vanished into forced blank neutrality, his pupils dilated and breathing just a hair too quick for true calm, but he stood like a statue until the silver haired boy had finished speaking.
A paranoid partner, was it. Genuine surprise rolled off Yamamoto, Eko could smell it, and for a moment it irritated him to be reminded of the succession of enemies that always tried to attack when he was feeding. As if it was a personal insult to them that some human had desired Eko, who rarely took anything but the willing.
But it was something else, a spark of malice that made him snarl a little, silently, and then deliberately turn his back to Gokudera, ignoring him utterly. Interfering human, wearing hair the color of moonlight just like hers.
He smoothed his expression and spoke, forgiving and pleasant. "Perhaps I was mistaken, and thou were not at fault." Both hands went to his prey's shoulders, familiar and possessive as if they were friends or closer, Eko not minding the presence of live steel in Yamamoto's hand at all. "This location has become disagreeable to me. Shall we move somewhere more... private?"
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