I am not a man to hunger for blood...
WHO: Miles Edgeworth bluffing_ruffle and Obi-Wan Kenobi taughttolisten
WHERE: The Jinn Memorial School of Complex Paragraphery
WHEN: Monday evening, July 19th
WARNINGS: Some violence. Possible violation of house sparring rules.
SUMMARY: Things have become... somewhat strained between these two. And on top of the delicate emotional balance of things, swords have become ( Read more... )
WHERE: The Jinn Memorial School of Complex Paragraphery
WHEN: Monday evening, July 19th
WARNINGS: Some violence. Possible violation of house sparring rules.
SUMMARY: Things have become... somewhat strained between these two. And on top of the delicate emotional balance of things, swords have become ( Read more... )
He had never left either of them behind for long, and after discovering his ice powers in the City, had practiced fencing almost every day... sometimes for hours on end, and others merely for what few minutes he had to himself before bed.
What von Karma had also taught Edgeworth was the value of learning to manipulate the emotions of others; if one could force a foe to lose control of themselves, one could then swoop in to take control. After all, hadn't that been how he himself had gotten trapped in his tutor's sick little spiderweb of vengeance? Fear, sorrow, pride, love, jealousy, anger... oh, especially anger. They were all easy enough to induce if one could just find the weak points in the opponent's defenses.
And that, of course, was what he had been raised to do.
It was true. Left unchecked, they could destroy a person; he'd come within a hairsbreadth of it himself. But without their touch, how could anyone know the good moments for what they were? What would drive them to do anything? It was, in his opinion, an incomplete man who could not feel them.
He tested the weight of the épée in one hand, thinking, and brushed the thin layer of frost off the skin there despite knowing it would only reform in a few moments. If all went well--and there was no point in believing that it would not--Obi-Wan would come temporarily undone under the weight of at least one.
Edgeworth rapped on the door of the studio, head held high, his cold, grey eyes narrowed in concentration. The duel had begun long before he'd even arrived.
[ooc//All future tags from me will probably be less than this. /nod]
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Remember what has served you best, a steady voice murmured inside his own head, and the voice was like Yoda's, like his Master's, like the chorused voices of the Council. Rely on the Code and you cannot fail; stumble into the trap of passion and you are lost.
Where Edgeworth possessed the cool of ice and snow, sharp and crackling with brilliance, Obi-Wan was as inscrutable and determined as a stone. His was the calm of the exile, the outsider with a single narrow focus.
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Once upon a time, he'd been the so-called Demon Prosecutor. There were whispered rumors and heavy suspicions that he had done whatever he'd deemed necessary to win his cases, like 'fixing' evidence. Although it had rankled him at the time, as he had done no such thing, he was capable of such actions. Being able to trap the criminal mind required an understanding of one, after all.
He gave a nod, and moved to step in through the doorway.
As he passed Obi-Wan, he flicked his wrist upward sharply, hoping to catch the other off guard and graze him with the tip of the thin, flexible sword. Attacks sometimes came from those a person might have thought most honorable. It was a lesson he himself had been taught the hard way.
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Perhaps, though, it was an experience other than practice. After all, he was a man damaged by betrayals and losses; the ideal of trust was not generally in his personal code.
Lightly, almost playfully, he moved back two steps, every bit as alert as Edgeworth was. Had the circumstances been different--had this been a sparring match with Fakir, or a long-ago session with one of his long-dead blademasters--he might have followed up with a gently humorous remark. But this was already too charged for wit. There was something very personal seething in the space between them, and it would take all of Obi-Wan's reserve and discipline to conquer it.
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Edgeworth didn't immediately press forward and take the territory he'd been given; he needed the time to firmly memorize his surroundings. Which wouldn't take long, naturally, but that wasn't the point. Instead, he waited, free hand held behind his back.
A sudden movement of the fingers there, and the moisture in the space both around Obi-Wan's hand, and between it and the handle of his weapon, abruptly condensed and froze--coating said handle with a thin layer of glass-smooth ice that had dozens of needle-sharp points protruding from its surface.
At almost the same time, he moved forward and struck out at Obi-Wan.
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There was a scraping sound as the cloth of his tunic tore, just below the shoulder. With a sort of distant puzzlement he registered a thin sting of pain.
Edgeworth was fighting with an unblunted sword.
He wasn't sure where the sudden burst of energy came from, but all at once he was shaking out his sword hand, pitching the saber towards the opposite end of the room and then hurtling over his opponent's head, tucked into a perfect backflip. The sword landed before he did, hilt first, with enough force to shatter and shake loose most of the ice; before it could fall, he'd landed catfooted, kicked the sword back up into his hand, and reached up to pull the fleuret off the end of his own blade.
"Violating house rules?" There was something darkly acidic in his voice now. "I wonder if Remus is aware that you cheat."
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Edgeworth also recognized that they were not playing by traditional fencing standards... but then, he'd never planned to.
The remark about Lupin stung him as much as the draw of blood; he felt wild anger flare up and just as quickly crushed it, replacing it with a sort of frosty haughtiness.
"Remus would know my intentions. He is aware of my past," he said, sharply. "More so than you. And I--"
There was the smile again as he savored his words, pressing the attack without moving.
"--I know yours. Tell me, Kenobi--do you think you might have had even half a chance against Maul if he'd expected you to give in as you did? Or did Jinn give you special clearance to break code?"
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Swifter than even he might have thought possible, he'd closed the distance between them, taken hold of Edgeworth's wrist and yanked him off-balance, twisting the entire arm behind his back.
"You know nothing about him," he hissed in Edgeworth's ear, squeezing that captive wrist just a touch--enough to feel the bones creak against one another, to let them both know that he could give as much damage as he received. Almost as an afterthought he brought his sword hand up so that the now-unguarded point of the blade pricked a spot just in the middle of the other's shirt collar: not near a major vein, but digging into the skin to draw blood nevertheless.
Obi-Wan could not feel it himself, but his hand was trembling, sending small shivers of motion up the length of the blade.
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Never show weakness in front of your opponent.
His stomach roiled, feeling as though he had swallowed a vial of poison; to act this way was to get unbearably close to his old mentor's methods... but he had already managed to replicate what the death of the other man's teacher had done. There might have been bigger ones, but Qui-Gon was the largest sore spot he knew of, and the result of jabbing at it certainly served his purpose.
Edgeworth forced himself to keep that same pleased tone in his voice, refusing to give Obi-Wan the satisfaction of knowing that he'd been hurt.
"I believe I... told you last night," he replied, attempting to shift himself just so, moving the focus of the point of that wretched blade. It was made a great deal easier by the shaky, imperfect hold. "I don't need a full case when someone is perfectly willing to convict himself."
There was a moment of silence, and then he jerked, letting the sabre-tip tear through the fabric of his jabot.
"You would have died if you hadn't felt that anger!" he shouted, free to duck away and turn, the ruined, blood-spotted, white silk and lace fluttering forgotten to the floor in his absence. "You had it in you to fight for yourself then! Where is that feeling now?"
He returned the favor from his neck by jabbing the point of his own weapon straight at Obi-Wan's back. Unlike the other man, he was well-used to directing and sublimating his darker emotions--his grip was iron-solid.
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Anger had driven him in those few terrible moments in his past. Anger, and grief, and something too deeply buried to name, something that refused to die in him even now, like a cancer.
But the reminder that he was a Jedi, that he could be more than those feelings, was what had brought him back to himself. What had allowed him to survive.
And Edgeworth could never hope to understand that.
Obi-Wan let his weight shift, bringing him off the point of the blade just slightly.
"I do not give that feeling permission to drag me down into the Dark Side," he said, and his voice was grim if still faintly shaky. "A selfish focus has no strength at all."
He still had hold of Edgeworth's wrist, and once again he yanked hard--only this time, it was his own body he twisted. He pivoted, barely even grimacing as the sword-tip wrenched and tore out of his back, and slammed his shoulder hard into Edgeworth's chest as the other man tumbled forward.
There was a clatter as his saber hit the floor, and then he was bringing his empty sword hand up and up, his fist hurtling straight for Edgeworth's eye.
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How odd, to believe so firmly that another was missing a half and therefore needed fixing, when he lacked one himself.
Edgeworth's face made fast friends with Kenobi's knuckles, and as a result, he collapsed to the floor with a bellow of pain that got out before he could stop himself. His own sword rattled and clanged against the ground as it fell away from him.
He breathed hard, sucking in a great gasp of air as if that might calm the pain radiating from his eye, aware that it was already swelling. He wouldn't be able to see out of it soon, and there was no doubt the Jedi had blacked it.
A penalty for carelessness--he should have removed his hand from Kenobi's grasp--but the last one he would give away, if he had any control over himself.
"For--for those who have no support, a selfish focus is all the strength there is."
When his childhood had fallen apart from under him, the only thing the faithless, lost, grey-haired young boy had to rely on--the only thing that could keep him from completely turning into Manfred even as he strove to live in his shadow--was himself.
Kenobi had long been a part of something Edgeworth could never dream of touching. Even if he were stranded on a desert planet, he could not truly be alone as long as he could tap into the Force. And because he was a Jedi... Obi-Wan could never hope to understand that, either.
Miles had been careful not to touch his friend for the duration of their fight. But his bare hands had been in contact with the floor just long enough--and the wooden boards rippled up in crooked waves in a straight line from him to the Jedi's feet.
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A sudden sick feeling of helplessness pooled in his gut, as it had in the moment he realized a reactor core room was too small for the expansive moves of Ataro, as it had when he'd realized Vader was too arrogant to assume he wouldn't deliver a crippling stroke. He felt his foot go into the floor, up to the ankle; splinters dug into the tough leather of his boots like claws.
And then he wobbled and fell heavily, his already-injured shoulder coming down squarely on the hilt of Edgeworth's discarded sword, the impact driving the breath out of his lungs. His ankle and knee both twisted dangerously, leaving him in a haze of pain.
Breathe, he told himself frantically, grasping at swiftly-vanishing threads of calm and comfort. Dammit, breathe. You cannot let him do this.
Wheezing, he extended a hand and reached into the Force, trying to call his sword back into his grasp.
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(It's under him,) he thought. There was no way he could get it out without getting within arms' reach--
--And then, he remembered that he didn't have to free it.
Staggering to his feet, unused to taking abuse of this nature, Edgeworth shook his head and pulled his concentration together long enough to create a new blade out of the same blue-white ice he used so often on everything else. Forcing himself not to Ruffle that as well was difficult, but he managed to turn it off again, ignoring the sting of the cold in the flesh of his palm--there was a reason he'd used a similar implement to practice with all these months since his discovery of the power.
"You... control your feelings." Edgeworth walked closer, stumbling a step, and hacked into his free hand again a few times, trying to clear his throat out. A second sword--a sabre this time--appeared in it when he rested it back at his side. "It isn't the other way around."
He pointed one of them at Kenobi, sucking in another breath. Almost... but good god, he felt like someone had constructed a small hill on his face.
"Thinking that you--that you're wiser than me because you're afraid you'll give in to what you feel. Instead of it giving in to you." Edgeworth wobbled on his feet slightly, and grimaced at the pull on his neck wound correcting his balance created. Damn hard for the average guy to do so much as stand up straight after going up on a Jedi, he was sure. Wasn't doing so bad, all things considered. He muttered, half to himself: "You're all cowards. That's your damned 'Dark Side'."
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"You're--nh--one to talk about cowardice," he rasped as he struggled upright, a tug of the Force bringing the hilt of the épée into his other hand. His voice was a harsh, broken thing, as if Edgeworth had somehow reached into his throat and Ruffled his vocal cords.
"I may not be permitted love, but at least I am brave enough to acknowledge its existence."
Obi-Wan shifted his stance, his body language almost daring Edgeworth to make another pass--but now the cold had vanished from his eyes. There was passion there, even if he would not acknowledge it: the start of something unraveling.
There had already been cracks in his reserve and his calm, even before he came to the City--hair-thin, spiderwebbed stress fractures from tragedies both small and vast, from emotions set aside and buried in times of war, from injustices never addressed and wounds never fully healed.
And now the Jedi Code was little more than a mantra in his head, an endless cycle of words that were rapidly losing their meaning in the context of this one duel.
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But this wasn't supposed to be about him. It was about Ben. He could deal with his own personal demons later. Alone. The way he liked it.
"I can not say the same of you. You are neither allowed to wield nor accept the presence of anger! I can do both and remain myself. Who is wiser, then?"
The dazed, cotton-stuffing feeling was beginning to clear out of his head; he focused on Kenobi's face, looking for something.
And found it.
He took the dare, pushing forward and swinging the heavier blade in a wide, distracting arc to allow himself room enough to stab at Obi-Wan with the other. Maintaining two was not something he had taken nearly as much time on, but at least with this material, he might yet have a card up his sleeve--or so Phoenix would say.
"There are no others from your world to force your old limits upon you! You failed to take this 'love' of yours for yourself--even when he came here, as free from them as you are now, you failed to take it. If you wish me to accept it, then in doing so, I must also believe it is worth nothing in the first place!"
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He nearly dove at Edgeworth, hardly knowing where his own swords parried and where they slashed at the air, whether he landed a solid blow or simply sliced through nothing.
There was no form to his attacks, and not a trace of his usual defensive style; something in him had tipped past the point of control, and now a dozen other failures blurred his vision, destroying his fragile calm entirely.
Anakin, screaming at him from a cradle of black sand, burning and not dying. Vader standing over him, a monster in gleaming armor, deeming him unworthy of a killing strike. Fakir's broken body, so small and still, on a pyre. The strange blinking-out feeling of Teddy vanishing, or Luke, Bakura, Mytho, Sarah. The deeply hung-over shame of waking next to the woman who was as close as he'd ever come to having a sister, and realizing that in their grief they had only made things worse. Phoenix lunging forward in rage to hit him, a hit he could not avoid because he deserved it. Desire smirking at him, leaving the smell of smoke and peaches everywhere, stealing control over his own thoughts.
And that smile. That gentle, damnable, irritating, lopsidedly perfect smile, the warmth and comfort of simply knowing he was near, and the words on the tip of his tongue the whole time but the longing held so strictly in check for fear that he might set off another cycle of failures, another chain of destroyed lives... all of it reduced to meaninglessness in a moment, when he'd felt the Force shift and that presence dissolve like a wisp of smoke.
The blame for all of it rested squarely on his shoulders.
"Shut up!"
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