Day 48: Courtyard

[thatdamnedninja]

"I could tell you some stories," Yuffie suggested brightly, "of unquestionable legality." Illegality, that was. Petty little things like the law didn't usually mean very much to her, except for the times when she had to uphold it. Always fun for the breaking, though, the law, and messy for the clean-up. Just the way she liked it

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[dreadofthegrave]

That statement struck a chord in Battler, enough that he was almost taken aback. For some reason, he couldn't tell if there was some hidden message in those words, or just a bit of unintended irony. Maybe it was both; even he had been doing that during the course of their conversation. It wasn't something intentional, just an unfortunate side-effect of what he was desperately trying to keep internal. Could it be the same for her?

"Hell? ... That may be accurate. That's what you'd normally call a sentence to eternal torture, isn't it? But a place like that is nothing but damnation and resignation. It's something else entirely, knowing that chain can be cut even though you can't quite reach it. But even so, that hope isn't something I can't let go of. I can only stumble forward, believing I can grasp onto it." It was something one would normally expect to hear with a certain sense of resignation, but that was something Battler lacked. There was certainly pain and sadness, but also an undeniable sense of confidence, as though he could create the result himself.

He had to swallow thickly when he saw her expression, pausing internally, almost wondering if he was going about this the wrong way, but it was too late to question the decision. At this point, slow steps forward were the best that could managed. Instead of pausing to overthink things, he took the hand he was offered firmly, only breaking away when there was a sense of mutuality to it.