12 ☀ Day; Video
[ Seems like a lot of these keep cropping up. Usually at the most inopportune moments. Today is no different, though all the video is showing is a bouncing, jostling blur of movement. Nothing but streets, buildings, and the occasional streak of blue sky as Ichigo alternates between plain shunpo, and mixing it with parkour
( Read more... )
[Ace is smiling, this is Ace, of course he smiles, but he looks sad when he does so.]
Reply
[ Curt, and belligerent as always, have a scowl. ]
Reply
[You're talking to the guy who fought a goddamn whale shark fishman for five days so he could try to kill Whitebeard. And on top of that he tried to kill Whitebeard, aboard his own ship, at least a hundred times.]
I hope you have good friends where you're from and here.
Reply
[ And he's sixteen, Ace. That pride is what keeps him going despite incredible odds, and makes him a royal pain in the ass. ]
I do, yeah. I've also got good friends here that I met here. What's your point?
Reply
[What happened to being sixteen and dreaming? Ace was still planning the last details of his voyage out to see.]
Your friends, if they're good, should make you see that this isn't going to lead anywhere good. You can keep fighting, getting hurt, healing and dusting yourself off and all you'll do is drive a nice big wedge between yourself and the world and fill it with all of your regrets.
[He pauses and sighs; he's misses Marco, Thatch, Jozu and all the rest right now.]
You'll hurt your friends if you do that too.
Reply
[ He was fifteen when everything went sideways, and he gained his first taste of shinigami powers. After six months he'd done the impossible, and actually managed to STOP Soul Society from carrying out summary execution of his best friend. When the dust settled after Aizen's betrayal, it was Urahara that realized Ichigo might just be the best chance of stopping Aizen, because his rate of growth was crazy, and he never seemed to run out of reiatsu. It's a hell of a lot of responsibility on his shoulders, and he's still figuring out how to balance it all. ]
I've got a few regrets, but my friends aren't one of them. And if they don't get why I'm doing this now, then they will eventually. I can't sit around this place, waiting for the next bad thing to happen, or to be able to go home! So what is there left for me, except getting stronger. I'll heal up, and keep doing it over, and over if that's what it takes, I don't care!
Reply
[He sighs again; it's so much easier when you're the angry one surrounding by people who care about your wellbeing and Marco was a lot older than Ace when he was figuring all of this for himself.]
Going home isn't always a good thing. [You might come back dead and know that no matter what happens, you'll be dead and buried and that'll be it.] You don't think that maybe talking to them, explaining things would help? Instead of just saying that you need a real fight?
[He looks up then and slips his own mask up - a jester mask with bells isn't really appropriate for this - and he isn't angry but his expression is far stonier than normal.]
Friends should be the important thing. You should trust them, reach out to them, support them and let them support you. If you still want to fight and think you can handle being burned, I'm there but don't push yourself.
[He will be so sad when he realises you're one of the knights Lior has :C]
Reply
[ Ichigo has spent a lot of his short life keeping the entire world at arm's length. When he's confused, or pissed off, it's sort of his default. ]
Going home is what I need to do! It's what I've needed to do for months, and now it's getting worse back there! What am I going to explain that I haven't already said, anyway? That there's a crazy bastard with a god complex destroying their home? That his foot soldiers almost killed most of my friends before we ever even got out of there? Yeah, that'll help. Let's scare the shit out of my friends so that fear can mess with their heads, and make them feel even more trapped than they already feel!
[ Ichigo isn't wearing his mask. He hasn't worn it for months, now. ]
I do trust them, and I do support them, but this battle is my job. It's always been my job and everyone who's tried to stand beside me has gotten cut down. If I don't ( ... )
Reply
[The palms of both hands rub at his eyes.]
It's not scaring them. It's preparing them. There's a way to do that involves actually acting rationally and calmly.
[It's not lost on him that there's something ironic or odd about him saying this; he is a pirate who can turn into and wield fire.]
You can't fight all the battles in the world on your own. Just ends up getting you captured or worse and leaves your friends with the mess, worries and doubts and targets on their backs.
Reply
I'm not getting captured, and I'm sure as hell not going to die!
I don't want to fight all the battles in the world, and I'm not so arrogant as to think I even could protect the whole world. But I do want to protect a lot of people. Which comes back to the whole point of this, because I am going to get strong enough to do all those things!
[ Ah, stubborn teenage determination. But, then again, Ichigo is of the opinion that if he allows even a shadow of a doubt to enter his mind, even in the name of 'being prepared' he might lose. Therefore, no doubts. No questions. Just the hard truth of what he has to do, and no matter how many people tell him it's not possible, he won't believe them. He has to keep himself focused, and never even admit the possibility that he might fail.
Because then the prophecy becomes self-fulfilling. ]
Reply
[Ace remembers that well and it's only his Devil's Fruit that kept him alive like that although in the end, it helped lead to his downfall. Forgetting how much it hurt to take a punch? Yeah, that fucking cost him.]
Like I said, the way you're going, you're going to burn yourself out. You'll push them all away. You'll be a stranger to them and it'll all be your fault.
Reply
Leave a comment