(no subject)
More prose, spanning the time between when ninAxel and ninSora talk via communicator about sealing Xehanort, and a couple of days before Axel and Kai go down to randomplanet and start that whole thing (which is the next thing I'll post).
WARNINGS - General: italics abuse, swearing, general immorality. Hachibi-related: pseudo-beastiality, necrophilia, blood, gore, disturbing imagery mostly condensed into one big chunk, general omgwhy, and disorienting shifts from violent to playful. You have been warned, so don't come crying to me if you get nauseous or can't sleep tonight. >>;
The different nightmares start soon after Axel talks to Sora about sealing Xehanort. It's almost refreshing, after weeks of dealing with on again, off again nightmares, always about his imprisonment and torture, but that doesn't make it pleasant. At first he isn't sure what triggered the change, but he slowly clues in to the fact that Hachibi is quite angry about what the humans are plotting for his fellow being-sealed-in-a-host-body. Mind games are about all he can do with any regularity, trapped as he is, and he does them quite well when he wants to.
The first couple of nights, he digs up old nightmares for Axel, ones he hasn't had in years and years, since he first became a jinchuuriki.
he is seven years old, an orphan, woken in the middle of the night and ushered across the village to the kazekage's chambers. the kazekage himself is busy keeping a massive force of chakra barely contained in a younger child's body - a body already going pale and rigid in death. before he can even finish waking up and ask questions, he's been strapped to a hospital bed that's been brought in, and his shirt hiked up so a seal can be drawn on his chest, the ink stark against his skin. he starts struggling, but he's always been skinny and built for speed, not strength, and it's useless. the kazekage brings the dead boy over, laying him on the bed next to axel; he tries to wiggle away from the body, skin crawling from the closeness of it, but then the kazekage is muttering words in an ancient language, and someone else is holding his body still, and yet another is helping the kazekage activate the seal, and then. a being, old and powerful and angry, slips easily into his mind and body, circling a few times in its confusion about the relocation, like a lizard dumped out of a box into the sun. it speaks to him, but the voice hurts his head, rattles his bones, and makes his stomach churn. there are hands releasing the straps holding him down and hauling him off the bed and to his feet, but as soon as they let go of him he drops to hands and knees, and vomits, unfamiliar and too-bright chakra engulfing his own and sparking hot fire along his nerves, making him scream, high and thin in his pain. he's sobbing at the thing in his head, pleading with it to stop, to leave him alone, and it's raging right back at him, trying to claw its way out through his skull, snap his ribs and force its way out, sear his skin off and free itself. at some point he has collapsed onto his side, and through tears of pain, he can see the kazekage and the others, faces impassive and uncaring; the monster tries to seize control of his body, cursing them for doing this, but it is not used to its new prison yet, and just makes him writhe in pain from its efforts.
He wakes from those shivering, but is familiar enough with them to shake them off quickly and go back to sleep, curled up next to Kai in their familiar bed. Hachibi slinks to a far corner of his prison and sulks, disappointed that the old memories didn't have more of an impact. The next things he tries are more creative, tweaked memories that were moderately bad to begin with, and the new unfamiliarity is what makes them frightening.
his torture, the blank room in konoha, but he is not the one chained up. instead, he is off to the side, watching, and it is kaisoraroxasriku chained in the middle of the room, being whipped and bloodied, the flickering, shifting face looking up at him and begging him to save them.
He starts awake, distantly aware that his face is damp, that Kai is mumbling a sleepy question at him to make sure he's alright. He is, after a few minutes, and drops back into a restless doze for the rest of the night.
the time in the simulation room, when he'd been trying to work on his control, and hachibi had taken over. he barely remembers what happened, but hachibi does, and changes it. he watches hachibi-in-his-body circle around kai, talking to him, though nothing is audible, and close the distance between them, stroking his cheek and running a hand through his hair. hachibi leans in, and suddenly axel is in his own body and has a close, too-vivid view, accompanied by a violent crunching, cracking sound, of kai's throat being ripped out, blood spilling hot into his mouth and down his chest. kai is silent, but the stunned, betrayed look on his face is even worse than the rest of it.
That one throws him violently out of sleep, a scream caught at the back of his throat, a horrible taste in his mouth, and an urgent desire to scrub himself raw in the shower. He pushes the last bit away, his own memories of recent things involving water overriding it, and just goes to brush his teeth vigorously, returning to bed before Kai's even straightened things out and gotten out of their room to come find him. He tries to confront Hachibi about it before trying to go back to sleep, but the bijuu is being oddly reticent and secretive and doesn't answer him, so he gives up for now.
The simulation room one is replayed for him the next night, and the only thing he notices when he yanks himself out of sleep from it is that Kai Is Not There. He forgets all about the taste in his mouth, the sour chakra roiling around under his skin, and follows Kai by scent to the kitchen, half-awake and wild-eyed, barely noticing that Sora - the ninja one - is there, or that there's a Riku asleep at the table. He just needs to have Kai in his arms and know that he's alive and alright and not lying somewhere with his throat crushed and shredded. He clings, shuddering, while Kai pets his hair and speaks to Sora quietly. Hachibi is horribly smug in the back of his mind.
He has a couple of nightmare-free nights after that, enough to make him even more suspicious, which has its own effect of interrupting his sleep and slowly draining his chakra because he's on red alert all the time, wary of anything and everything that might put someone in danger because of him. Kai is amazingly wonderful about it, soothing his ragged nerves with hugs and hairpets and affection, but he's still braced for an attack from within, and it finally comes, after three days and two nights of nothing.
it is nowhere specific, the landscape changing and shifting, always vague and unimportant. axel is again a spectator, and the dream is just a dream, not a nightmare, for a long time. he is walking through the colorless landscape, eerie noises echoing around him. there is a closer noise, and he turns, and there behind him is himself. the other him looks all wrong, hair spikier than usual and only red at the ends, dark stripes across his back and hips, and eight tails lashing around, blending seamlessly into skin at the base of his spine. later on, when he can bear to look at this again in his waking hours, he will be amazed that those were the first things he noticed, but hachibi has always been self-centered like that.
hachibi is with kai. but not just with him; he is fucking kai brutally in a nest of flames, kai's skin and muscles peeling and blistering off layer by layer down to the bone as he screams and screams and screams, writhing in horrible agony as he slowly burns, the fire staying away from vital organs to keep him alive as long as possible, hachibi's cruel amusement and pleasure at this almost tangible. blood is seeping out around where hachibi is pounding into him, but it's sizzling away almost immediately. axel stares, horrified and stunned, and tries to move, to do anything to make it stop, to help kai, but he is as mute and frozen as a statue, helpless to even blink and break the image in front of him. kai's screaming eventually dies down into choked gurgles, and then into silence, his eyes burned shut, hair scorched off, limbs little more than scraps of charred flesh hanging off the bone, and still hachibi rapes him, finally looking over at axel with a wicked grin on axel's own face, plunging a sharp-fingered hand into kai's chest without looking away from him, and withdraws a feebly-beating heart. he snaps it free of its fragile connections to the body, blood gushing out of the hole in kai's chest to boil away in the fire, and lifts it to his mouth, biting into it with obvious pleasure. it is only when he holds it out to axel, grinning with bloody teeth, that axel can suddenly move, and he comes up out of sleep, heart beating so wildly it might explode, breath caught in his chest and a scream trapped so far down with his twisting insides that there's no chance of it escaping, at least not until he empties his stomach.
He does suffer a shower, this time, Kai following him to the bathroom and soothing his fears, erasing the horrible afterimages and the echoing screams lingering in his ears with quiet humming and gentle hands. Axel is practically gibbering in his terror, scared of himself, scared of Hachibi, scared that something will happen and he'll lose control and his nightmares will become reality, but Kai quiets him, reassuring and so beautiful in his honesty.
The next morning, after surprisingly restful sleep (though he has to shake himself out of the same nightmare twice more, thankfully before it gets too far into it again), Axel settles into the comforting heat of the engine room to clear his mind and have words with his bijuu. He tucks himself into a warm corner, back against the wall, legs drawn up and arms loose at his sides, and closes his eyes, heading for Hachibi's prison in his mind.
He has come here before, to learn and to argue and to rest while Hachibi is in control. This time, the sand under his feet is nauseatingly reminiscent of the nightmare landscape, but he grits his teeth and ignores it. The prison is a vast expanse of desert, though it's too smooth, too flat, and oddly lit, a sickly golden light cast over everything in spite of the the sky overhead being dark and starless. There are bars around the distant edges of the space, intangible and shimmering to Axel, but all too solid and strong to Hachibi. Axel slips between them and heads for the center of the prison.
Hachibi is lying there, sphinx-like, head turned away from Axel as if there is anything of interest to look at in here. He is smaller than usual, though still bigger than the largest horse Axel's ever seen; creating that nightmare must have drained him somewhat, and a smaller form would allow him to recharge faster. He doesn't even glance over as Axel comes up to him.
"That was some dream last night, huh," Axel says casually, still equal parts horrified and angry about it, and hiding it well, he thinks.
The bijuu snorts, flicking a long ear in his direction. So glad you enjoyed it, pup, he says in his bone-rattling voice, deep and violent.
"It was unnecessary. I know you don't like the plan to seal Xehanort, and I also don't give a fuck that you don't like it. It's going to happen anyway, and if you keep this bullshit up, people are going to start suggesting we do the same to you."
He laughs, the eerie giggle of a hyena threaded through it and raising the hairs on the back of Axel's neck. I'd like to see anyone seal me further. No one, since your kind started enslaving my kind, has ever been able to do anything more than trap us in a host body. We are much too powerful to be suppressed completely, and we would not be as beneficial to you puny weaklings that way. A grin, sharp and feral and cruelly amused.
Axel flaps a hand dismissively at him. "Not my point. I don't get what your problem with it is. You were never like this around the others."
The others were in the same boat as me, as the saying goes. A grimace, similar to the grin but with flattened ears. There are only so many ways to seal a bijuu into a host, but this, that you are researching, is something completely different. You are trying to further seal an entity which no longer has a form of its own, and which has powers none of you properly understand. There is more than a good chance that either you will not be able to create a sealing method that works, or it will fail because the three people performing the sealing are not strong enough, which is what I am aiming for. Another grin. At least he has a slim chance of having some sort of existence of his own, if he is stronger than his host.
"...you are the most unrepentant bastard I have ever known."
This is something you just realized?
He scrubs a hand over his face and sighs tiredly. "No, but it amazes me every time I'm reminded of it. Look, Xehanort is not stronger than Riku, and keeping me drained of chakra because I haven't slept properly in two weeks isn't going to stop us from doing this."
It's worth a try, Hachibi says, stretching his way to his feet, sharp hooves glinting in the odd light. He comes over to Axel, bumping his huge head, half of Axel's not-unimpressive height, at least, against Axel's chest.
Axel puts his arms around the bijuu's muzzle with its too-wide mouth, resting his cheek against the short fur with a frustrated noise. "You're such a pain in the ass. You give me nightmares, make me eat like I've got a tapeworm, you take over when I'm not paying attention and fuck with people, you watch me have sex, and you pay way too much attention while I'm pissing--"
Hachibi is laughing again, giggle-snorting in genuine amusement, not the malicious laugh from before. And you complain like a bitch with too many pups to feed. Accept it, you wouldn't know what to do without me at this point.
He reaches up and tugs sharply on one of the bijuu's ears, eliciting a yelp and a fierce glower. "That doesn't mean I have to like you. But... we are stuck with each other, whether either of us likes it or not."
So you have to at least tolerate me, Hachibi finishes, painfully smug.
"So you could be less of a dick sometimes."
I could. But that wouldn't be as much fun.
"And you have a twisted idea of fun. I should've left you with those assholes in Konoha." Axel reaches up again to scratch Hachibi's ears as a safeguard against any reaction to that, though he still gets narrowed yellow eyes for his trouble.
You wouldn't have dared, even if it were possible.
He drops the topic, knowing the trap of Hachibi's circular arguments when he sees it coming. "So are you going to quit it with the nightmares?"
Only if you stop researching sealing techniques. An eye for an eye, the way it is with most bijuu. They only accept deals if they stand to gain something from it; an ally, more power, freedom, whatever.
Axel opens his mouth to speak, but then realizes what he can say to make his bijuu back down, and it won't even be a lie, most likely. "...you do know you could kick Xehanort's ass, right? From what I know about his abilities and how he works within his host, he's probably only at... Junibi's level. He doesn't have size going for him, for one thing."
Hachibi looks surprised, jerking his head out of Axel's hands to peer at him suspiciously. ...are you sure?
"Pretty sure. I know he gave up his own body in exchange for power, and different stuff that's happened since he took Riku's body has weakened him. About all he'd have in a fight is whatever he can do through Riku, and probably pretty good survival reflexes."
Hachibi's eyes go distant, calculating, as he weighs his own interests against themselves. In the Organization he had only been of average power and stamina, compared to some of the others, but here, with only Xehanort as a similar being, he is clearly the strongest. Axel is relying on the bijuu's selfish, power-hungry nature for this, and his efforts pay off after a few moments of silence.
Perhaps it would be wiser to stifle him, then. Or not, I don't care anymore. He looks at Axel. You probably think you're clever, manipulating me like that.
"Not really. 's not like it's that hard," Axel says, and takes off running past him, laughing at the low growl and spray of sand behind him, the ground trembling under his feet as Hachibi bounds up behind him, snapping at his heels. He peels off to the side, twisting around and vaulting up onto Hachibi's back, tangling his fingers in the bristly mane as the bijuu trots to a stop, craning his neck to look at Axel.
Insolent pup. I should bite you, but it wouldn't achieve anything, so I suppose I won't waste the energy.
"I appreciate the thought," Axel says dryly, scratching at the muscled shoulders between his knees.
Hachibi stretches a little, turning to trot back towards where Axel came from, muttering to himself a little. Axel doesn't argue, knowing a dismissal when he sees one. He got what he wanted from this little exercise, anyway.
His bijuu leaves him at the edge of the prison, jealously watching him slip back between the bars, and then turning and loping away across the sand and out of sight. Axel returns to the waking world a moment later, feeling content and peaceful, knowing that he might actually get a decent night's sleep tonight, for once.
WARNINGS - General: italics abuse, swearing, general immorality. Hachibi-related: pseudo-beastiality, necrophilia, blood, gore, disturbing imagery mostly condensed into one big chunk, general omgwhy, and disorienting shifts from violent to playful. You have been warned, so don't come crying to me if you get nauseous or can't sleep tonight. >>;
The different nightmares start soon after Axel talks to Sora about sealing Xehanort. It's almost refreshing, after weeks of dealing with on again, off again nightmares, always about his imprisonment and torture, but that doesn't make it pleasant. At first he isn't sure what triggered the change, but he slowly clues in to the fact that Hachibi is quite angry about what the humans are plotting for his fellow being-sealed-in-a-host-body. Mind games are about all he can do with any regularity, trapped as he is, and he does them quite well when he wants to.
The first couple of nights, he digs up old nightmares for Axel, ones he hasn't had in years and years, since he first became a jinchuuriki.
he is seven years old, an orphan, woken in the middle of the night and ushered across the village to the kazekage's chambers. the kazekage himself is busy keeping a massive force of chakra barely contained in a younger child's body - a body already going pale and rigid in death. before he can even finish waking up and ask questions, he's been strapped to a hospital bed that's been brought in, and his shirt hiked up so a seal can be drawn on his chest, the ink stark against his skin. he starts struggling, but he's always been skinny and built for speed, not strength, and it's useless. the kazekage brings the dead boy over, laying him on the bed next to axel; he tries to wiggle away from the body, skin crawling from the closeness of it, but then the kazekage is muttering words in an ancient language, and someone else is holding his body still, and yet another is helping the kazekage activate the seal, and then. a being, old and powerful and angry, slips easily into his mind and body, circling a few times in its confusion about the relocation, like a lizard dumped out of a box into the sun. it speaks to him, but the voice hurts his head, rattles his bones, and makes his stomach churn. there are hands releasing the straps holding him down and hauling him off the bed and to his feet, but as soon as they let go of him he drops to hands and knees, and vomits, unfamiliar and too-bright chakra engulfing his own and sparking hot fire along his nerves, making him scream, high and thin in his pain. he's sobbing at the thing in his head, pleading with it to stop, to leave him alone, and it's raging right back at him, trying to claw its way out through his skull, snap his ribs and force its way out, sear his skin off and free itself. at some point he has collapsed onto his side, and through tears of pain, he can see the kazekage and the others, faces impassive and uncaring; the monster tries to seize control of his body, cursing them for doing this, but it is not used to its new prison yet, and just makes him writhe in pain from its efforts.
He wakes from those shivering, but is familiar enough with them to shake them off quickly and go back to sleep, curled up next to Kai in their familiar bed. Hachibi slinks to a far corner of his prison and sulks, disappointed that the old memories didn't have more of an impact. The next things he tries are more creative, tweaked memories that were moderately bad to begin with, and the new unfamiliarity is what makes them frightening.
his torture, the blank room in konoha, but he is not the one chained up. instead, he is off to the side, watching, and it is kaisoraroxasriku chained in the middle of the room, being whipped and bloodied, the flickering, shifting face looking up at him and begging him to save them.
He starts awake, distantly aware that his face is damp, that Kai is mumbling a sleepy question at him to make sure he's alright. He is, after a few minutes, and drops back into a restless doze for the rest of the night.
the time in the simulation room, when he'd been trying to work on his control, and hachibi had taken over. he barely remembers what happened, but hachibi does, and changes it. he watches hachibi-in-his-body circle around kai, talking to him, though nothing is audible, and close the distance between them, stroking his cheek and running a hand through his hair. hachibi leans in, and suddenly axel is in his own body and has a close, too-vivid view, accompanied by a violent crunching, cracking sound, of kai's throat being ripped out, blood spilling hot into his mouth and down his chest. kai is silent, but the stunned, betrayed look on his face is even worse than the rest of it.
That one throws him violently out of sleep, a scream caught at the back of his throat, a horrible taste in his mouth, and an urgent desire to scrub himself raw in the shower. He pushes the last bit away, his own memories of recent things involving water overriding it, and just goes to brush his teeth vigorously, returning to bed before Kai's even straightened things out and gotten out of their room to come find him. He tries to confront Hachibi about it before trying to go back to sleep, but the bijuu is being oddly reticent and secretive and doesn't answer him, so he gives up for now.
The simulation room one is replayed for him the next night, and the only thing he notices when he yanks himself out of sleep from it is that Kai Is Not There. He forgets all about the taste in his mouth, the sour chakra roiling around under his skin, and follows Kai by scent to the kitchen, half-awake and wild-eyed, barely noticing that Sora - the ninja one - is there, or that there's a Riku asleep at the table. He just needs to have Kai in his arms and know that he's alive and alright and not lying somewhere with his throat crushed and shredded. He clings, shuddering, while Kai pets his hair and speaks to Sora quietly. Hachibi is horribly smug in the back of his mind.
He has a couple of nightmare-free nights after that, enough to make him even more suspicious, which has its own effect of interrupting his sleep and slowly draining his chakra because he's on red alert all the time, wary of anything and everything that might put someone in danger because of him. Kai is amazingly wonderful about it, soothing his ragged nerves with hugs and hairpets and affection, but he's still braced for an attack from within, and it finally comes, after three days and two nights of nothing.
it is nowhere specific, the landscape changing and shifting, always vague and unimportant. axel is again a spectator, and the dream is just a dream, not a nightmare, for a long time. he is walking through the colorless landscape, eerie noises echoing around him. there is a closer noise, and he turns, and there behind him is himself. the other him looks all wrong, hair spikier than usual and only red at the ends, dark stripes across his back and hips, and eight tails lashing around, blending seamlessly into skin at the base of his spine. later on, when he can bear to look at this again in his waking hours, he will be amazed that those were the first things he noticed, but hachibi has always been self-centered like that.
hachibi is with kai. but not just with him; he is fucking kai brutally in a nest of flames, kai's skin and muscles peeling and blistering off layer by layer down to the bone as he screams and screams and screams, writhing in horrible agony as he slowly burns, the fire staying away from vital organs to keep him alive as long as possible, hachibi's cruel amusement and pleasure at this almost tangible. blood is seeping out around where hachibi is pounding into him, but it's sizzling away almost immediately. axel stares, horrified and stunned, and tries to move, to do anything to make it stop, to help kai, but he is as mute and frozen as a statue, helpless to even blink and break the image in front of him. kai's screaming eventually dies down into choked gurgles, and then into silence, his eyes burned shut, hair scorched off, limbs little more than scraps of charred flesh hanging off the bone, and still hachibi rapes him, finally looking over at axel with a wicked grin on axel's own face, plunging a sharp-fingered hand into kai's chest without looking away from him, and withdraws a feebly-beating heart. he snaps it free of its fragile connections to the body, blood gushing out of the hole in kai's chest to boil away in the fire, and lifts it to his mouth, biting into it with obvious pleasure. it is only when he holds it out to axel, grinning with bloody teeth, that axel can suddenly move, and he comes up out of sleep, heart beating so wildly it might explode, breath caught in his chest and a scream trapped so far down with his twisting insides that there's no chance of it escaping, at least not until he empties his stomach.
He does suffer a shower, this time, Kai following him to the bathroom and soothing his fears, erasing the horrible afterimages and the echoing screams lingering in his ears with quiet humming and gentle hands. Axel is practically gibbering in his terror, scared of himself, scared of Hachibi, scared that something will happen and he'll lose control and his nightmares will become reality, but Kai quiets him, reassuring and so beautiful in his honesty.
The next morning, after surprisingly restful sleep (though he has to shake himself out of the same nightmare twice more, thankfully before it gets too far into it again), Axel settles into the comforting heat of the engine room to clear his mind and have words with his bijuu. He tucks himself into a warm corner, back against the wall, legs drawn up and arms loose at his sides, and closes his eyes, heading for Hachibi's prison in his mind.
He has come here before, to learn and to argue and to rest while Hachibi is in control. This time, the sand under his feet is nauseatingly reminiscent of the nightmare landscape, but he grits his teeth and ignores it. The prison is a vast expanse of desert, though it's too smooth, too flat, and oddly lit, a sickly golden light cast over everything in spite of the the sky overhead being dark and starless. There are bars around the distant edges of the space, intangible and shimmering to Axel, but all too solid and strong to Hachibi. Axel slips between them and heads for the center of the prison.
Hachibi is lying there, sphinx-like, head turned away from Axel as if there is anything of interest to look at in here. He is smaller than usual, though still bigger than the largest horse Axel's ever seen; creating that nightmare must have drained him somewhat, and a smaller form would allow him to recharge faster. He doesn't even glance over as Axel comes up to him.
"That was some dream last night, huh," Axel says casually, still equal parts horrified and angry about it, and hiding it well, he thinks.
The bijuu snorts, flicking a long ear in his direction. So glad you enjoyed it, pup, he says in his bone-rattling voice, deep and violent.
"It was unnecessary. I know you don't like the plan to seal Xehanort, and I also don't give a fuck that you don't like it. It's going to happen anyway, and if you keep this bullshit up, people are going to start suggesting we do the same to you."
He laughs, the eerie giggle of a hyena threaded through it and raising the hairs on the back of Axel's neck. I'd like to see anyone seal me further. No one, since your kind started enslaving my kind, has ever been able to do anything more than trap us in a host body. We are much too powerful to be suppressed completely, and we would not be as beneficial to you puny weaklings that way. A grin, sharp and feral and cruelly amused.
Axel flaps a hand dismissively at him. "Not my point. I don't get what your problem with it is. You were never like this around the others."
The others were in the same boat as me, as the saying goes. A grimace, similar to the grin but with flattened ears. There are only so many ways to seal a bijuu into a host, but this, that you are researching, is something completely different. You are trying to further seal an entity which no longer has a form of its own, and which has powers none of you properly understand. There is more than a good chance that either you will not be able to create a sealing method that works, or it will fail because the three people performing the sealing are not strong enough, which is what I am aiming for. Another grin. At least he has a slim chance of having some sort of existence of his own, if he is stronger than his host.
"...you are the most unrepentant bastard I have ever known."
This is something you just realized?
He scrubs a hand over his face and sighs tiredly. "No, but it amazes me every time I'm reminded of it. Look, Xehanort is not stronger than Riku, and keeping me drained of chakra because I haven't slept properly in two weeks isn't going to stop us from doing this."
It's worth a try, Hachibi says, stretching his way to his feet, sharp hooves glinting in the odd light. He comes over to Axel, bumping his huge head, half of Axel's not-unimpressive height, at least, against Axel's chest.
Axel puts his arms around the bijuu's muzzle with its too-wide mouth, resting his cheek against the short fur with a frustrated noise. "You're such a pain in the ass. You give me nightmares, make me eat like I've got a tapeworm, you take over when I'm not paying attention and fuck with people, you watch me have sex, and you pay way too much attention while I'm pissing--"
Hachibi is laughing again, giggle-snorting in genuine amusement, not the malicious laugh from before. And you complain like a bitch with too many pups to feed. Accept it, you wouldn't know what to do without me at this point.
He reaches up and tugs sharply on one of the bijuu's ears, eliciting a yelp and a fierce glower. "That doesn't mean I have to like you. But... we are stuck with each other, whether either of us likes it or not."
So you have to at least tolerate me, Hachibi finishes, painfully smug.
"So you could be less of a dick sometimes."
I could. But that wouldn't be as much fun.
"And you have a twisted idea of fun. I should've left you with those assholes in Konoha." Axel reaches up again to scratch Hachibi's ears as a safeguard against any reaction to that, though he still gets narrowed yellow eyes for his trouble.
You wouldn't have dared, even if it were possible.
He drops the topic, knowing the trap of Hachibi's circular arguments when he sees it coming. "So are you going to quit it with the nightmares?"
Only if you stop researching sealing techniques. An eye for an eye, the way it is with most bijuu. They only accept deals if they stand to gain something from it; an ally, more power, freedom, whatever.
Axel opens his mouth to speak, but then realizes what he can say to make his bijuu back down, and it won't even be a lie, most likely. "...you do know you could kick Xehanort's ass, right? From what I know about his abilities and how he works within his host, he's probably only at... Junibi's level. He doesn't have size going for him, for one thing."
Hachibi looks surprised, jerking his head out of Axel's hands to peer at him suspiciously. ...are you sure?
"Pretty sure. I know he gave up his own body in exchange for power, and different stuff that's happened since he took Riku's body has weakened him. About all he'd have in a fight is whatever he can do through Riku, and probably pretty good survival reflexes."
Hachibi's eyes go distant, calculating, as he weighs his own interests against themselves. In the Organization he had only been of average power and stamina, compared to some of the others, but here, with only Xehanort as a similar being, he is clearly the strongest. Axel is relying on the bijuu's selfish, power-hungry nature for this, and his efforts pay off after a few moments of silence.
Perhaps it would be wiser to stifle him, then. Or not, I don't care anymore. He looks at Axel. You probably think you're clever, manipulating me like that.
"Not really. 's not like it's that hard," Axel says, and takes off running past him, laughing at the low growl and spray of sand behind him, the ground trembling under his feet as Hachibi bounds up behind him, snapping at his heels. He peels off to the side, twisting around and vaulting up onto Hachibi's back, tangling his fingers in the bristly mane as the bijuu trots to a stop, craning his neck to look at Axel.
Insolent pup. I should bite you, but it wouldn't achieve anything, so I suppose I won't waste the energy.
"I appreciate the thought," Axel says dryly, scratching at the muscled shoulders between his knees.
Hachibi stretches a little, turning to trot back towards where Axel came from, muttering to himself a little. Axel doesn't argue, knowing a dismissal when he sees one. He got what he wanted from this little exercise, anyway.
His bijuu leaves him at the edge of the prison, jealously watching him slip back between the bars, and then turning and loping away across the sand and out of sight. Axel returns to the waking world a moment later, feeling content and peaceful, knowing that he might actually get a decent night's sleep tonight, for once.