Log; Sephiroth and Yukimura
Who: Sephiroth and Yukimura.
What: Yukimura brings alcohol to room 1009; they drink and drink and drink and drink and drink and drink and FIGHT.
When: Today...ish. Today leaning towards yesterday.
Where: Sephiroth's room.
Rating: Rated PG-13 for alcohol (ab)use and violence. Good times.
Sephiroth was in his room, as usual. He was beginning to feel like he spent too much time here, unless he was out looking for things that people kept telling him he'd never find. It was too tempting when he was there to look at what people were talking about now--it wasted time (not that he had a better way to spend it), and it made him feel ineffectual.
Well, maybe he could go and extort something from somebody--that'd make him feel better. He picked up his sword and went for the door.
"1009~ 1009~" Yukimura repeated to himself. He was climbing the stairs to the tenth floor as quickly as one could be expected while carrying various containers of alcohol. He'd only meant to bring sake really, since it was what he preffered, but there had been such an assortment of bottles and smells....Well, he'd more or less had a free-for-all, grabbing this and snagging that before heading off.
There! Oh finally. Tenth floor! Now...Ninth room~
One....Three....Five....
Yukimura passed seven and approached the proper door.
Well, this was it then! He kicked in place of using his knuckle.
"Bottom-chan! Open up! My arms are full."
...Bottom-chan. It was all over the castle by now; it had to be. They were all out to make him miserable. Well, he'd just have to cut off the offender's head and leave it at the top of the stairs as a message. Sephiroth brandished his sword (although, really, there was no way he could get it out the door when he was holding it like he meant to cut something) and flung the door open, only to be greeted by someone holding a lot of alcohol.
The urge to kill temporarily receded. "Who are you?" he asked suspiciously. "And don't call me that. My name is Sephiroth."
Well now. Wasn't that fine and dandy? After all of his effort...
"I told you." Yukimura started in. "Sephiroth-chan is too long of a name. Bottom-chan is both easier for me to say, and more amusing. Now are you going to step back and invite me in, or am I going to sit here and drink everything in these bottles by myself and then break them against your door for being rude."
While he had been speaking, the samurai had stepped forward and was standing in as much as the larger man's personal space as possible. It would annoy the other sooner or later, and that's when Yukimura planned on walking in.
Sephiroth knew he shouldn't let such insolence go unpunished, and he was holding his sword--but then again, he did like his personal space. "Then drop the '-chan'," he grumbled, stepping back. "Off Sephiroth," he added quickly. He didn't really want to be called just Bottom, either.
When Sephiroth finally moved back, Yukimura moved into the room quickly (just in case the guy changed his mind) and sat down in the first chair he found, dropping all of the bottles with several -CLANG- sounds.
"Maybe you need a third name then." he stated. "Because if I really do stop calling you '-chan', I'll just be calling you 'Bottom' and between two men people would get all sorts of ideas."
This elicited a laugh from the samurai and he began opening up the first bottle he grabbed while glancing around for any glasses.
"Se-phi-roth is too hard for me to say."
Out of deep-buried instinct (he hadn't done it in seven years or so), Sephiroth began to search for glasses, and found them quickly. He didn't know why he had glasses in his room, and he hadn't noticed them before, but there were more pressing matters at hand: "It's not difficult," he snapped, "you just said it. Call me Sephiroth and I'll call you..." he paused, realizing that he didn't know the man's name. "...I'll call you by your name instead of Foolish Human Who's About To Die."
He set the glasses down on the end table, and then, since there wasn't another chair, leaned against the wall and crossed his arms.
Yukimura nodded at the glasses and, succeeding in getting the bottle of whatever-it-was open, poured what he deemed to be enough into the two of them.
"Just because I said it then doesn't mean it's not hard to say! It's hard to write as well, you know." To prove his point, he tried one more time. "Sefi-ro-su~" Oops. He'd more or less butchered it. Ah well. Close enough!
"It's Yukimura." he replied. "Sanada Yukimura, and your point isn't really valid because even my whole name is less effort to pronounce then that." he picked up his drink and handed the other to Sephiroth. One swig, and a wrinkled nose later, he asked.
"Where's my kimono?"
"It wasn't a problem for my soldiers," said Sephiroth, ignoring the kimono question for a moment. At least, he was mostly sure the soldiers hadn't called him Bottom-chan behind his back.
He also took a drink, looked at the glass curiously (ah, so that was what it tasted like--this was weirdly nostalgic), and said, "I told you I wouldn't pick anything up for you." Hopefully this wouldn't set him back with the nicknames thing.
Well your soldiers were your soldiers. And I bet none of them were from my world." Yukimura insisted. In all honesty he didn't have anything against calling Sephiroth by his name. It just was, as room 202 had pointed out, a way to get a rise out of the man. ...Wasn't he supposed to tell him that?
Yukimura opened a second bottle and mixed a little of the darker liquid with the one currently in his cup. He swirled it around some, and took another swig. It tasted...Hm. Not so bad. Having decided this, he reached up and tilted Sephiroth's own glass enough to pour some of the same in it.
"You also told me that you were going to kill me, but I'm still here, aren't I? Which reminds me. Did you ever figure out why Mizuiro-san enjoys your nicknames so much?"
"You said I could kill you later, so I will," said Sephiroth, sounding both completely serious and casual. He watched as Yukimura poured, then swirled the mixture a little, took a sip, decided it wasn't too bad (which was about as good as alcohol ever got for him), and tossed it back.
"Mizuiro...Kojima Mizuiro," he said, since that was the only way he'd thought of that as-yet faceless and infinitely irritating person. "He's trying to make me angry. Apparently it's amusing," he muttered. Seriously, how could giving him someone embarrassing stupid nicknames be amusing to anyone?
Sanada made a face, but directed it at Sephiroth instead of the alcohol. Fine. Later was better than now anyway. And that was only if the other swordsman actually -could- kill him.
"Yes. Mizuiro-san." He refilled Sephiroth's glass, and drank from his own. "Of course it's amusing! If you had taken it all in stride, it wouldn't have become such a big deal. But you know, now, he's not going to stop at all. I bet that, if you simply let the name be now, he'd come up with another one. A -worse- one."
The former general eyed him.
"But you know, Bottom-chan, he and I were right about one thing. ...It would be a pain in the ass to find a kimono that would fit you."
"A worse one?" pondered Sephiroth, frowning into his glass. He couldn't really think of anything worse than Bottom-chan the virgin circus dinosaur. "Then I will indeed have to kill him. I can't just allow him to mock me. And don't call me that," he added. He was losing his indignance, which was terrible and had to be corrected.
He shrugged at the kimono comment. "Then it's a good thing I have no use for one," he said.
Yukimura sighed.
"I am, evidently, the only sensible male here then. The rest of you refuse to look decent. Black isn't the only color in the world you know. And those kids, the ones with hair like your's? They should be informed that leather is not the only clothing material."
Drinking, apparently, made Sanada talk about clothing. Strange. Maybe it was because he wasn't sure -what- to talk about with the other man. Then, suddenly, he knew. He'd almost forgotten all about that conversation with the young girl.
"First of all," another swig. "and before I forget: You do know that you can't kill people here? Sefirosu. They just come back, and it would get boring without Mizuiro-san around. Now then. Business." Yukimura hardened his gaze as best he could and asked "....How old are you?"
Sephiroth blinked. How old was he? He hadn't counted the years in a while, and then, of course, there was a fairly long period of time for which he hadn't even been fully conscious. There was a long pause at he stared at his drink and tried to remember. "Thirty," he said slowly. He was reasonably sure he'd been thirty when his normal life had ended, anyway, and that was good enough. He didn't look any older.
"But how is this business?" he asked, narrowing his eyes. "...And what do you mean, they come back? I can't kill anyone?" That was going to put a serious damper on his plans to, well, kill people.
Well, shit. That was the pits. Thankfully, Yukimura was drinking. That helped...a little. But if didn't stop the somewhat childish pouting.
"You're thirty? ....You're only thirty!? Agh. That's not fair! I don't want to be the 'old man' of Paradisa! There has to be someone older than me!" The distaught man finished off his glass then, and made himself another from two different liquids. "Maybe I'll...I'll ask Byakuya...Oh, but he doesn't count! He's isn't human..."
It had all started as just a little joke, but now Sanada was really wondering if he was the only one in the castle over 35.
"No." he replied, and that was all he gave until he took another drink. This mixture tasted better. "You can't. Well, I mean, you can but then they just come back. Three...three weeks, I think it is?"
Sephiroth said nothing more about his age--he had no way of knowing for sure how old he was. It had ceased to matter to him some time ago, anyway.
But three weeks? That wasn't bad, he thought, nodding to himself. Three weeks without some of the more irritating people would be nice. "It's probably worth it to kill them anyway," he said thoughtfully. He downed the rest of what was in his glass and held it out to Yukimura. "Whatever you have," he demanded.
At the other's order, Yukimura blinked. He slowly raised his cup to his mouth, leaving his eyes locked on Sephiroth, and took a loud sip of the alcohol. He swallowed, and did this again. And a third time.
Sephiroth waited, hand outstretched, while Yukimura did nothing; but eventually he scowled and filled his own glass (with just one drink; unimaginative). "You poured them before," he said.
Put down the drink, put down the drink-!
Yukimura quickly swallowed what was in his mouth at the time and set his glass down before the wave of laughter hit him. He didn't get to do things like that enough! Kyo would never have let him, and none of the others would have been as much fun to tease!
When the last of the laughs receded, Yuki managed to get out: "You could have just said 'please', you know. Or does that word not exist where you come from, soldier boy?"
He stopped.
"Soldier boy....Hey, you know Bottom-chan, I think I like that!"
Great, another one. Sephiroth grimaced--it was a marked improvement over Bottom-chan, but still didn't have the godly ring to it that Sephiroth did. "I don't bother with pleasantries, and it's too late now," he grumbled, referring to the fact that his glass was full (woe).
Fortunately, there was a remedy for that. He took a drink. "Should I call you 'kimono boy,' then?" he asked humorlessly.
"No."
Came the quick reply. Yukimura was opening up two more bottles and reading what the labels said. They didn't look like the sort of bottles that he would normally understand (Westerners, really.) but since it was this castle~
"If you're going to give me a name, it should be a nice one."
He smelled the first bottle he'd opened, but capped it immediately after and pushed it toward Sephiroth. The second, however, wasn't so bad.
"Have you ever had...had...I can't pronounce this. This isn't even English...This!" Yukimura finally gave in, and lifted the tequila bottle up so the standing man could read it.
Sephiroth blinked at it. Tequila? "No," he said, shrugging. He grabbed the unwanted bottle and filled his glass again, although it hadn't even been half-empty.
"You know, I could just call you Yukimura, and you could just call me Sephiroth," he said pointedly. He took a swig of the new mixture and shot a glare at the bottle. Most alcohol tasted about the same to him, but that was a little offensive. He picked it up and moved it to the far corner of the table.
But what fun is that?"
Yukimura took the bottle of 'tequila' and drank a quick shot directly from the bottle. Ooh! That was new. And not altogether unpleasant either. He grinned as 'Soldier boy' moved the bottle that he didn't like away. Yuki would have to remember not to bring one that looked like that next time.
"What's wrong with nicknames anyway? Besides embarassing ones~"
He stood then, and tapped the back of Sephiroth's hand with his own, indicating that he wanted to switch their glasses. Sanada liked what he had in his, but it was the first time in a week he'd been allowed to have liquor at all! He wanted to taste everything.
"They're demeaning, of course," said Sephiroth blandly. Well, unless they were like 'Somebody the Great,' or something, but those didn't really count as nicknames.
At the tap on the back of his hand, he stared at Yukimura uncomprehendingly for a moment, but finally he offered his own glass and reached for the other man's with his free hand. "My soldiers would hardly have deferred to me if I'd allowed them to come up with nicknames for me."
Yukimura almost rolled his eyes, but refrained.
"Well I guess it's a good thing that we're not you're soldiers then, hm? Besides. It's better being around people who you can get along with then people who are always bowing and scraping, or cowering from you. It gives them more of a reason to fight for you too. Of course, you usually end up fighting for them as well, but what's one more fight in a lifetime of them~?"
He looked solemn for a moment after speaking. Yuki couldn't remember the things he'd done with Kyo and everyone from his world (or that damn battle...) but he did remember his Jyuyuushi. Being "General" Ravi's bodyguard was fun, but he missed the people who had become like another family to him.
The smile came back almost as quickly as it was gone and the swordsman took a tentative sip of Sephiroth's drink before asking
"You wouldn't happen to come from a world that had a 'Battle of Sekigahara', would you? I may not remember later, but it'd be nice to know, now, who won."
A little surprised by Yukimura's sudden (and suddenly gone) solemnity, it took Sephiroth a moment to answer, "No, I've never heard of it." He was silent himself for a moment, thinking that his soldiers would have been happy to die for him--wouldn't they? He had been feared and respected; wasn't that enough?
He was silent as he weighed the loyalty of those people he had gotten along with--one person, Zack--against the loyalty of the other people who had worked for him. He didn't know if there was a difference; he had never made it his business to find out what the soldiers were thinking.
The whole twisted thought made him want to forget about it. Conveniently, he was still holding a glass with alcohol in it. He took a swig.
Well, that was a bummer. Maybe he could ask one of the other people through the journals later. Some of the users had names that were distinctly Japanese, and possibly knew about.
But since they were on the subject of battles and soldiers and all things military in general, Yukimura decided to be nosy. Sephiroth was drinking anyway, so he wouldn't mind, right?
"You had soldiers, so what kind of leader were you? I mean, the military? Or a king of some kind? And are any of them here? Your soldiers I mean. Or the people you were trying to kill? I've been waiting for months now, and none of mine are showing up~"
Okay, so maybe he was passing 'nosy' by and heading straight first into 'rambling' but what the hell.
Sephiroth didn't mind at all. He loved to talk about himself. "I was a General," he said, settling against the wall like he was trying to get more comfortable (it didn't really work). "One of my soldiers is here, yes--my second-in-command, as fate would have it." He paused to take a swig. "There may be more, but I didn't know most of them."
Another pause while the last thing Yukimura had said got through the slowly growing boozy fog that was starting to cloud his mind. "Wait, are you also a General? You've been here for months?"
Yukimura was glad that Sephiroth didn't seem to mind at all. Drinking, he felt, should almost always be accompanied by some kind of chatter. Benitora and Yuya had filled that spot back home, but now he had someone else to.
"Oh, how lucky~" he commented, being brave and taking a big gulp of his drink, which wasn't as good as his previous one.
At the questions, he nodded twice.
"Not anymore, but I was. I was a General at the battle I asked you about, but because of this place, I can never remember who won. And you're right again! Some months now, yes. This place was actually very pretty back in December..."
"Months," repeated Spehiroth numbly. He gulped down the remains of his drink and moved to sit on the very edge of the table. In the scheme of things, it wasn't that long, but then again, no one had found a way out yet, to his knowledge.
At least there was another General here, though; that was something. "Did your subordinates call you kimono boy?" he asked--again, it was a joke, of sorts, but it sounded completely serious. He'd never been good at humor.
"No." Yukimura replied, and grabbed a bottle at random to mix a little into his cup. Then, in a completely serious tone devoid of the usual lilt that his words took on, he spoke "They called me, Prettiest-Lily-in-the-Valley-and-Most-Beautiful-Child-With-Ivory-Ski n-as-Smooth-as-the-Blade-of-a-Sword-and-Eyes-As-Black-as-His-Hear t-Who-Bathes-In-Holy-Moonlit-Waters-and-Dances-In-Fields-of-Flowe rs."
He paused, to let this all sink in.
"And they had to say it all in one breath, or I would cut off their heads."
"Ah, I see." Sephiroth nodded sagely. It seemed reasonable for a moment, but he cast a suspicious glance at Yukimura--bastard humans, always making subtle jokes!--and chuckled into his glass. Whoops, empty. He took the nearest bottle and swished it around to make sure it wasn't empty, then emptied it into his glass. "Didn't really need the glass," he muttered to himself.
Yukimura eyed Sephiroth.
"Was that a laugh? A chuckle? A not-a-giggle-because-giggles-aren't-manly-but-if-I-wasn't-a-man-yes- it-would-be-called-a-giggle?"
He breathed in sharply then, and pretended to wipe away a tear with his sleeve.
"I'm so proud of you, Sefi-chan. I...I always knew you could do it!"
Yuki wiped away one more fake tear,
"And yes, you do need glasses. Drinking straight out of the bottle after someone you don't know isn't safe! What if I had some horrible disease transmitted by saliva? What would you do then? " A 'tsk' followed. "Sefi-chan, and here you just did so well. Now does daddy have to educate you again?"
....This alcohol was a tad stronger than perhaps Sanada was used to.
Sephiroth stared at him through slightly dim eyes. That is, he didn't show any physical signs of being intoxicated, but his general awareness was dulled, and it was evident in the way he took a short moment before he blinked and said "What?" He eyed the bottle he'd just put down--disease?--and looked back at Yukimura.
"I don't care," he answered vaguely, shrugging and lifting the glass to his lips.
Yukimura blinked. He took a sip of his drink, and he blinked again. This was....very, very familiar. It was the kind of familiar that warmed up Yuki's blood and made him feel like he was going to die any second now, at the same time. Kyo. That must have been why he wanted to bother Bottom-chan Sephiroth so much. The man reminded him of his friend, his enemy, and his rival, all rolled into one.
He tossed his glass to the side and stood up on tip-toes to kiss Sephiroth somewhat sloppily.
This was the bastard he'd been waiting for.
Pulling away, Yukimura drew his sword.
"Fight me." he demanded. "Now. I don't care if it kills me~ I'll come back in three weeks and take your head~"
Sephiroth remained stock-still throughout, confused at the kiss but not too worried about it, either; what further confused him was the challenge. It seemed a little strange, even to him, to steal a kiss and then ask for a fight possibly ending in death.
Nonetheless, a slow grin spread across his face, and he grabbed his sword eagerly. After all, he'd been aching for a little violence since he got here. "I can't promise I'll kill you if you're good," he said, "I might not want to wait three weeks for a worthy opponent."
Yes, this was it.If he had been completely sober Yukimura might have started trembling from excitement. As it was, his body shivered, goosebumbs rising up along his arms as he held his sword at ready.
"You can't promise you'll even beat me. You shouldn't talk about killing me so easily!"
It was true, the last time he'd fought someone of Kyo's magnitude, excluding Byakuya, he had been beaten. But he'd had more training since then. More training with swordsmen from entirely new worlds. Surely, that would make some kind of difference?
He didn't wait long to hope for it, but lunged forward with his blade instead.
A surge of a adrenaline rushed through Sephiroth, but it was his natural speed that took him out of the path of the blade. He slashed to the side with his own, aiming for Yukimura's ribs--any thought of making this a non-lethal fight had been pushed to the background. It was so much more fun to be deadly with abandon.
Yukimura tried to pull his body out of the way in time, but maybe he'd chosen the wrong number of drinks to challenge Sephiroth after having. He tried dodging the strike, and was mostly successful, but took a slash in the side of his chest. It didn't feel very deep..No, it probably wasn't, but it was going to bleed and too much blood-loss wouldn't make this easier.
"Hmph." the samurai grunted and rushed Sephiroth again. This time, however, instead of simply aiming for a strike, he got as close as he dared before darting to the other side of the man, and waited to see if his feint would make the bastard swing.
It did--Sephiroth was affected by the drinks, too; his own movements were quick and instinctual, but his ability to read his enemy was neither. He brought his sword down where Yukimura's shoulder should have been, drawing back one step at the same time.
Oh that was nice. Yukimura liked it when a plan came together, even though he wasn't in a very good state of mind to appreciate it.
His next move was a fairly simple one, but also one of those he had been practicing. ...Or was it, "had been meaning to practice"?
Too late for that now.
The samurai dashed forward, head and sword held low and made it appear as if he was aiming straight for Sephiroth's stomach. The instant he got close, however, he would bring the blade around the other way and slash down across the chest. If, of course, he made contact.
Sephiroth was preoccupied with confusion for a precious half-second--he knew he'd made a mistake; his opponent was more cunning than he'd expected. But he couldn't expect another feint based on one incident, so when the next attack came he treated it like it was real.
His sword was pointed at the floor; he deftly flipped it so the blade pointed at the ceiling. He let Yukimaru come in close, holding his ground. He'd sweep up at the last moment, deflecting the blade and leaving his enemy defenseless for a moment.
The set up was perfect. Sephiroth really -was- a fool if he thought that Sanada would stop at one feint. He laughed out loud as he changed the direction of his swing to down.
He caught the change, and at the last second Sephiroth stumbled back--he still took the hit to the chest, but it was shallow. The sight of his own blood did nothing to clear his head; it was something he so rarely saw that it shocked him a little, and he retreated a few steps further as he tried to collect his wits.
"My compliments," he said through gritted teeth, lifting his sword again.
Shit! He should have known better! He should have been more careful! He turned it around just a moment too soon! If he'd only held out then, Ky-that is, Sephiroth, would have taken a much greater hit.
This time then. This time he would move exactly as he should and swing at the precise-
Oh. That was strange. His legs felt like they were going to give out underneath him. When had they decided that was okay without asking him?
If they just held out a little longer....
Yukimura made to throw himself forward at his opponent again, but didn't travel far from his starting point before his legs buckled under neath him. He sat there, trying to regain his senses from the fall. His head was swimming...
There was a moment then in which Sephiroth had to exercise a considerable amount of restraint to keep from finishing the fight with a swift and merciless blow to the neck, severing the head from the shoulders.
Instead he drove the point of the blade into the floor with a vicious thunk and left it wavering there. He stood over Yukimura--within the reach of his sword--and murmured, "Should I kill you now, or leave it for later?"
Stand up! Stand up!
His legs wouldn't listen to him. Yukimura raised a hand to his head in an attempt to stop the world from spinning and, in doing so, realized he no longer had his sword in hand. He'd dropped it. Where did it land?
"You can wait." he mumbled at Sephiroth, ignoring the large blade in the floor in favor of looking for his. "Help me find me sword firs-"
And with that, Yukimura passed out, his head thumping against the floor.
What: Yukimura brings alcohol to room 1009; they drink and drink and drink and drink and drink and drink and FIGHT.
When: Today...ish. Today leaning towards yesterday.
Where: Sephiroth's room.
Rating: Rated PG-13 for alcohol (ab)use and violence. Good times.
Sephiroth was in his room, as usual. He was beginning to feel like he spent too much time here, unless he was out looking for things that people kept telling him he'd never find. It was too tempting when he was there to look at what people were talking about now--it wasted time (not that he had a better way to spend it), and it made him feel ineffectual.
Well, maybe he could go and extort something from somebody--that'd make him feel better. He picked up his sword and went for the door.
"1009~ 1009~" Yukimura repeated to himself. He was climbing the stairs to the tenth floor as quickly as one could be expected while carrying various containers of alcohol. He'd only meant to bring sake really, since it was what he preffered, but there had been such an assortment of bottles and smells....Well, he'd more or less had a free-for-all, grabbing this and snagging that before heading off.
There! Oh finally. Tenth floor! Now...Ninth room~
One....Three....Five....
Yukimura passed seven and approached the proper door.
Well, this was it then! He kicked in place of using his knuckle.
"Bottom-chan! Open up! My arms are full."
...Bottom-chan. It was all over the castle by now; it had to be. They were all out to make him miserable. Well, he'd just have to cut off the offender's head and leave it at the top of the stairs as a message. Sephiroth brandished his sword (although, really, there was no way he could get it out the door when he was holding it like he meant to cut something) and flung the door open, only to be greeted by someone holding a lot of alcohol.
The urge to kill temporarily receded. "Who are you?" he asked suspiciously. "And don't call me that. My name is Sephiroth."
Well now. Wasn't that fine and dandy? After all of his effort...
"I told you." Yukimura started in. "Sephiroth-chan is too long of a name. Bottom-chan is both easier for me to say, and more amusing. Now are you going to step back and invite me in, or am I going to sit here and drink everything in these bottles by myself and then break them against your door for being rude."
While he had been speaking, the samurai had stepped forward and was standing in as much as the larger man's personal space as possible. It would annoy the other sooner or later, and that's when Yukimura planned on walking in.
Sephiroth knew he shouldn't let such insolence go unpunished, and he was holding his sword--but then again, he did like his personal space. "Then drop the '-chan'," he grumbled, stepping back. "Off Sephiroth," he added quickly. He didn't really want to be called just Bottom, either.
When Sephiroth finally moved back, Yukimura moved into the room quickly (just in case the guy changed his mind) and sat down in the first chair he found, dropping all of the bottles with several -CLANG- sounds.
"Maybe you need a third name then." he stated. "Because if I really do stop calling you '-chan', I'll just be calling you 'Bottom' and between two men people would get all sorts of ideas."
This elicited a laugh from the samurai and he began opening up the first bottle he grabbed while glancing around for any glasses.
"Se-phi-roth is too hard for me to say."
Out of deep-buried instinct (he hadn't done it in seven years or so), Sephiroth began to search for glasses, and found them quickly. He didn't know why he had glasses in his room, and he hadn't noticed them before, but there were more pressing matters at hand: "It's not difficult," he snapped, "you just said it. Call me Sephiroth and I'll call you..." he paused, realizing that he didn't know the man's name. "...I'll call you by your name instead of Foolish Human Who's About To Die."
He set the glasses down on the end table, and then, since there wasn't another chair, leaned against the wall and crossed his arms.
Yukimura nodded at the glasses and, succeeding in getting the bottle of whatever-it-was open, poured what he deemed to be enough into the two of them.
"Just because I said it then doesn't mean it's not hard to say! It's hard to write as well, you know." To prove his point, he tried one more time. "Sefi-ro-su~" Oops. He'd more or less butchered it. Ah well. Close enough!
"It's Yukimura." he replied. "Sanada Yukimura, and your point isn't really valid because even my whole name is less effort to pronounce then that." he picked up his drink and handed the other to Sephiroth. One swig, and a wrinkled nose later, he asked.
"Where's my kimono?"
"It wasn't a problem for my soldiers," said Sephiroth, ignoring the kimono question for a moment. At least, he was mostly sure the soldiers hadn't called him Bottom-chan behind his back.
He also took a drink, looked at the glass curiously (ah, so that was what it tasted like--this was weirdly nostalgic), and said, "I told you I wouldn't pick anything up for you." Hopefully this wouldn't set him back with the nicknames thing.
Well your soldiers were your soldiers. And I bet none of them were from my world." Yukimura insisted. In all honesty he didn't have anything against calling Sephiroth by his name. It just was, as room 202 had pointed out, a way to get a rise out of the man. ...Wasn't he supposed to tell him that?
Yukimura opened a second bottle and mixed a little of the darker liquid with the one currently in his cup. He swirled it around some, and took another swig. It tasted...Hm. Not so bad. Having decided this, he reached up and tilted Sephiroth's own glass enough to pour some of the same in it.
"You also told me that you were going to kill me, but I'm still here, aren't I? Which reminds me. Did you ever figure out why Mizuiro-san enjoys your nicknames so much?"
"You said I could kill you later, so I will," said Sephiroth, sounding both completely serious and casual. He watched as Yukimura poured, then swirled the mixture a little, took a sip, decided it wasn't too bad (which was about as good as alcohol ever got for him), and tossed it back.
"Mizuiro...Kojima Mizuiro," he said, since that was the only way he'd thought of that as-yet faceless and infinitely irritating person. "He's trying to make me angry. Apparently it's amusing," he muttered. Seriously, how could giving him someone embarrassing stupid nicknames be amusing to anyone?
Sanada made a face, but directed it at Sephiroth instead of the alcohol. Fine. Later was better than now anyway. And that was only if the other swordsman actually -could- kill him.
"Yes. Mizuiro-san." He refilled Sephiroth's glass, and drank from his own. "Of course it's amusing! If you had taken it all in stride, it wouldn't have become such a big deal. But you know, now, he's not going to stop at all. I bet that, if you simply let the name be now, he'd come up with another one. A -worse- one."
The former general eyed him.
"But you know, Bottom-chan, he and I were right about one thing. ...It would be a pain in the ass to find a kimono that would fit you."
"A worse one?" pondered Sephiroth, frowning into his glass. He couldn't really think of anything worse than Bottom-chan the virgin circus dinosaur. "Then I will indeed have to kill him. I can't just allow him to mock me. And don't call me that," he added. He was losing his indignance, which was terrible and had to be corrected.
He shrugged at the kimono comment. "Then it's a good thing I have no use for one," he said.
Yukimura sighed.
"I am, evidently, the only sensible male here then. The rest of you refuse to look decent. Black isn't the only color in the world you know. And those kids, the ones with hair like your's? They should be informed that leather is not the only clothing material."
Drinking, apparently, made Sanada talk about clothing. Strange. Maybe it was because he wasn't sure -what- to talk about with the other man. Then, suddenly, he knew. He'd almost forgotten all about that conversation with the young girl.
"First of all," another swig. "and before I forget: You do know that you can't kill people here? Sefirosu. They just come back, and it would get boring without Mizuiro-san around. Now then. Business." Yukimura hardened his gaze as best he could and asked "....How old are you?"
Sephiroth blinked. How old was he? He hadn't counted the years in a while, and then, of course, there was a fairly long period of time for which he hadn't even been fully conscious. There was a long pause at he stared at his drink and tried to remember. "Thirty," he said slowly. He was reasonably sure he'd been thirty when his normal life had ended, anyway, and that was good enough. He didn't look any older.
"But how is this business?" he asked, narrowing his eyes. "...And what do you mean, they come back? I can't kill anyone?" That was going to put a serious damper on his plans to, well, kill people.
Well, shit. That was the pits. Thankfully, Yukimura was drinking. That helped...a little. But if didn't stop the somewhat childish pouting.
"You're thirty? ....You're only thirty!? Agh. That's not fair! I don't want to be the 'old man' of Paradisa! There has to be someone older than me!" The distaught man finished off his glass then, and made himself another from two different liquids. "Maybe I'll...I'll ask Byakuya...Oh, but he doesn't count! He's isn't human..."
It had all started as just a little joke, but now Sanada was really wondering if he was the only one in the castle over 35.
"No." he replied, and that was all he gave until he took another drink. This mixture tasted better. "You can't. Well, I mean, you can but then they just come back. Three...three weeks, I think it is?"
Sephiroth said nothing more about his age--he had no way of knowing for sure how old he was. It had ceased to matter to him some time ago, anyway.
But three weeks? That wasn't bad, he thought, nodding to himself. Three weeks without some of the more irritating people would be nice. "It's probably worth it to kill them anyway," he said thoughtfully. He downed the rest of what was in his glass and held it out to Yukimura. "Whatever you have," he demanded.
At the other's order, Yukimura blinked. He slowly raised his cup to his mouth, leaving his eyes locked on Sephiroth, and took a loud sip of the alcohol. He swallowed, and did this again. And a third time.
Sephiroth waited, hand outstretched, while Yukimura did nothing; but eventually he scowled and filled his own glass (with just one drink; unimaginative). "You poured them before," he said.
Put down the drink, put down the drink-!
Yukimura quickly swallowed what was in his mouth at the time and set his glass down before the wave of laughter hit him. He didn't get to do things like that enough! Kyo would never have let him, and none of the others would have been as much fun to tease!
When the last of the laughs receded, Yuki managed to get out: "You could have just said 'please', you know. Or does that word not exist where you come from, soldier boy?"
He stopped.
"Soldier boy....Hey, you know Bottom-chan, I think I like that!"
Great, another one. Sephiroth grimaced--it was a marked improvement over Bottom-chan, but still didn't have the godly ring to it that Sephiroth did. "I don't bother with pleasantries, and it's too late now," he grumbled, referring to the fact that his glass was full (woe).
Fortunately, there was a remedy for that. He took a drink. "Should I call you 'kimono boy,' then?" he asked humorlessly.
"No."
Came the quick reply. Yukimura was opening up two more bottles and reading what the labels said. They didn't look like the sort of bottles that he would normally understand (Westerners, really.) but since it was this castle~
"If you're going to give me a name, it should be a nice one."
He smelled the first bottle he'd opened, but capped it immediately after and pushed it toward Sephiroth. The second, however, wasn't so bad.
"Have you ever had...had...I can't pronounce this. This isn't even English...This!" Yukimura finally gave in, and lifted the tequila bottle up so the standing man could read it.
Sephiroth blinked at it. Tequila? "No," he said, shrugging. He grabbed the unwanted bottle and filled his glass again, although it hadn't even been half-empty.
"You know, I could just call you Yukimura, and you could just call me Sephiroth," he said pointedly. He took a swig of the new mixture and shot a glare at the bottle. Most alcohol tasted about the same to him, but that was a little offensive. He picked it up and moved it to the far corner of the table.
But what fun is that?"
Yukimura took the bottle of 'tequila' and drank a quick shot directly from the bottle. Ooh! That was new. And not altogether unpleasant either. He grinned as 'Soldier boy' moved the bottle that he didn't like away. Yuki would have to remember not to bring one that looked like that next time.
"What's wrong with nicknames anyway? Besides embarassing ones~"
He stood then, and tapped the back of Sephiroth's hand with his own, indicating that he wanted to switch their glasses. Sanada liked what he had in his, but it was the first time in a week he'd been allowed to have liquor at all! He wanted to taste everything.
"They're demeaning, of course," said Sephiroth blandly. Well, unless they were like 'Somebody the Great,' or something, but those didn't really count as nicknames.
At the tap on the back of his hand, he stared at Yukimura uncomprehendingly for a moment, but finally he offered his own glass and reached for the other man's with his free hand. "My soldiers would hardly have deferred to me if I'd allowed them to come up with nicknames for me."
Yukimura almost rolled his eyes, but refrained.
"Well I guess it's a good thing that we're not you're soldiers then, hm? Besides. It's better being around people who you can get along with then people who are always bowing and scraping, or cowering from you. It gives them more of a reason to fight for you too. Of course, you usually end up fighting for them as well, but what's one more fight in a lifetime of them~?"
He looked solemn for a moment after speaking. Yuki couldn't remember the things he'd done with Kyo and everyone from his world (or that damn battle...) but he did remember his Jyuyuushi. Being "General" Ravi's bodyguard was fun, but he missed the people who had become like another family to him.
The smile came back almost as quickly as it was gone and the swordsman took a tentative sip of Sephiroth's drink before asking
"You wouldn't happen to come from a world that had a 'Battle of Sekigahara', would you? I may not remember later, but it'd be nice to know, now, who won."
A little surprised by Yukimura's sudden (and suddenly gone) solemnity, it took Sephiroth a moment to answer, "No, I've never heard of it." He was silent himself for a moment, thinking that his soldiers would have been happy to die for him--wouldn't they? He had been feared and respected; wasn't that enough?
He was silent as he weighed the loyalty of those people he had gotten along with--one person, Zack--against the loyalty of the other people who had worked for him. He didn't know if there was a difference; he had never made it his business to find out what the soldiers were thinking.
The whole twisted thought made him want to forget about it. Conveniently, he was still holding a glass with alcohol in it. He took a swig.
Well, that was a bummer. Maybe he could ask one of the other people through the journals later. Some of the users had names that were distinctly Japanese, and possibly knew about.
But since they were on the subject of battles and soldiers and all things military in general, Yukimura decided to be nosy. Sephiroth was drinking anyway, so he wouldn't mind, right?
"You had soldiers, so what kind of leader were you? I mean, the military? Or a king of some kind? And are any of them here? Your soldiers I mean. Or the people you were trying to kill? I've been waiting for months now, and none of mine are showing up~"
Okay, so maybe he was passing 'nosy' by and heading straight first into 'rambling' but what the hell.
Sephiroth didn't mind at all. He loved to talk about himself. "I was a General," he said, settling against the wall like he was trying to get more comfortable (it didn't really work). "One of my soldiers is here, yes--my second-in-command, as fate would have it." He paused to take a swig. "There may be more, but I didn't know most of them."
Another pause while the last thing Yukimura had said got through the slowly growing boozy fog that was starting to cloud his mind. "Wait, are you also a General? You've been here for months?"
Yukimura was glad that Sephiroth didn't seem to mind at all. Drinking, he felt, should almost always be accompanied by some kind of chatter. Benitora and Yuya had filled that spot back home, but now he had someone else to.
"Oh, how lucky~" he commented, being brave and taking a big gulp of his drink, which wasn't as good as his previous one.
At the questions, he nodded twice.
"Not anymore, but I was. I was a General at the battle I asked you about, but because of this place, I can never remember who won. And you're right again! Some months now, yes. This place was actually very pretty back in December..."
"Months," repeated Spehiroth numbly. He gulped down the remains of his drink and moved to sit on the very edge of the table. In the scheme of things, it wasn't that long, but then again, no one had found a way out yet, to his knowledge.
At least there was another General here, though; that was something. "Did your subordinates call you kimono boy?" he asked--again, it was a joke, of sorts, but it sounded completely serious. He'd never been good at humor.
"No." Yukimura replied, and grabbed a bottle at random to mix a little into his cup. Then, in a completely serious tone devoid of the usual lilt that his words took on, he spoke "They called me, Prettiest-Lily-in-the-Valley-and-Most-Beautiful-Child-With-Ivory-Ski n-as-Smooth-as-the-Blade-of-a-Sword-and-Eyes-As-Black-as-His-Hear t-Who-Bathes-In-Holy-Moonlit-Waters-and-Dances-In-Fields-of-Flowe rs."
He paused, to let this all sink in.
"And they had to say it all in one breath, or I would cut off their heads."
"Ah, I see." Sephiroth nodded sagely. It seemed reasonable for a moment, but he cast a suspicious glance at Yukimura--bastard humans, always making subtle jokes!--and chuckled into his glass. Whoops, empty. He took the nearest bottle and swished it around to make sure it wasn't empty, then emptied it into his glass. "Didn't really need the glass," he muttered to himself.
Yukimura eyed Sephiroth.
"Was that a laugh? A chuckle? A not-a-giggle-because-giggles-aren't-manly-but-if-I-wasn't-a-man-yes- it-would-be-called-a-giggle?"
He breathed in sharply then, and pretended to wipe away a tear with his sleeve.
"I'm so proud of you, Sefi-chan. I...I always knew you could do it!"
Yuki wiped away one more fake tear,
"And yes, you do need glasses. Drinking straight out of the bottle after someone you don't know isn't safe! What if I had some horrible disease transmitted by saliva? What would you do then? " A 'tsk' followed. "Sefi-chan, and here you just did so well. Now does daddy have to educate you again?"
....This alcohol was a tad stronger than perhaps Sanada was used to.
Sephiroth stared at him through slightly dim eyes. That is, he didn't show any physical signs of being intoxicated, but his general awareness was dulled, and it was evident in the way he took a short moment before he blinked and said "What?" He eyed the bottle he'd just put down--disease?--and looked back at Yukimura.
"I don't care," he answered vaguely, shrugging and lifting the glass to his lips.
Yukimura blinked. He took a sip of his drink, and he blinked again. This was....very, very familiar. It was the kind of familiar that warmed up Yuki's blood and made him feel like he was going to die any second now, at the same time. Kyo. That must have been why he wanted to bother Bottom-chan Sephiroth so much. The man reminded him of his friend, his enemy, and his rival, all rolled into one.
He tossed his glass to the side and stood up on tip-toes to kiss Sephiroth somewhat sloppily.
This was the bastard he'd been waiting for.
Pulling away, Yukimura drew his sword.
"Fight me." he demanded. "Now. I don't care if it kills me~ I'll come back in three weeks and take your head~"
Sephiroth remained stock-still throughout, confused at the kiss but not too worried about it, either; what further confused him was the challenge. It seemed a little strange, even to him, to steal a kiss and then ask for a fight possibly ending in death.
Nonetheless, a slow grin spread across his face, and he grabbed his sword eagerly. After all, he'd been aching for a little violence since he got here. "I can't promise I'll kill you if you're good," he said, "I might not want to wait three weeks for a worthy opponent."
Yes, this was it.If he had been completely sober Yukimura might have started trembling from excitement. As it was, his body shivered, goosebumbs rising up along his arms as he held his sword at ready.
"You can't promise you'll even beat me. You shouldn't talk about killing me so easily!"
It was true, the last time he'd fought someone of Kyo's magnitude, excluding Byakuya, he had been beaten. But he'd had more training since then. More training with swordsmen from entirely new worlds. Surely, that would make some kind of difference?
He didn't wait long to hope for it, but lunged forward with his blade instead.
A surge of a adrenaline rushed through Sephiroth, but it was his natural speed that took him out of the path of the blade. He slashed to the side with his own, aiming for Yukimura's ribs--any thought of making this a non-lethal fight had been pushed to the background. It was so much more fun to be deadly with abandon.
Yukimura tried to pull his body out of the way in time, but maybe he'd chosen the wrong number of drinks to challenge Sephiroth after having. He tried dodging the strike, and was mostly successful, but took a slash in the side of his chest. It didn't feel very deep..No, it probably wasn't, but it was going to bleed and too much blood-loss wouldn't make this easier.
"Hmph." the samurai grunted and rushed Sephiroth again. This time, however, instead of simply aiming for a strike, he got as close as he dared before darting to the other side of the man, and waited to see if his feint would make the bastard swing.
It did--Sephiroth was affected by the drinks, too; his own movements were quick and instinctual, but his ability to read his enemy was neither. He brought his sword down where Yukimura's shoulder should have been, drawing back one step at the same time.
Oh that was nice. Yukimura liked it when a plan came together, even though he wasn't in a very good state of mind to appreciate it.
His next move was a fairly simple one, but also one of those he had been practicing. ...Or was it, "had been meaning to practice"?
Too late for that now.
The samurai dashed forward, head and sword held low and made it appear as if he was aiming straight for Sephiroth's stomach. The instant he got close, however, he would bring the blade around the other way and slash down across the chest. If, of course, he made contact.
Sephiroth was preoccupied with confusion for a precious half-second--he knew he'd made a mistake; his opponent was more cunning than he'd expected. But he couldn't expect another feint based on one incident, so when the next attack came he treated it like it was real.
His sword was pointed at the floor; he deftly flipped it so the blade pointed at the ceiling. He let Yukimaru come in close, holding his ground. He'd sweep up at the last moment, deflecting the blade and leaving his enemy defenseless for a moment.
The set up was perfect. Sephiroth really -was- a fool if he thought that Sanada would stop at one feint. He laughed out loud as he changed the direction of his swing to down.
He caught the change, and at the last second Sephiroth stumbled back--he still took the hit to the chest, but it was shallow. The sight of his own blood did nothing to clear his head; it was something he so rarely saw that it shocked him a little, and he retreated a few steps further as he tried to collect his wits.
"My compliments," he said through gritted teeth, lifting his sword again.
Shit! He should have known better! He should have been more careful! He turned it around just a moment too soon! If he'd only held out then, Ky-that is, Sephiroth, would have taken a much greater hit.
This time then. This time he would move exactly as he should and swing at the precise-
Oh. That was strange. His legs felt like they were going to give out underneath him. When had they decided that was okay without asking him?
If they just held out a little longer....
Yukimura made to throw himself forward at his opponent again, but didn't travel far from his starting point before his legs buckled under neath him. He sat there, trying to regain his senses from the fall. His head was swimming...
There was a moment then in which Sephiroth had to exercise a considerable amount of restraint to keep from finishing the fight with a swift and merciless blow to the neck, severing the head from the shoulders.
Instead he drove the point of the blade into the floor with a vicious thunk and left it wavering there. He stood over Yukimura--within the reach of his sword--and murmured, "Should I kill you now, or leave it for later?"
Stand up! Stand up!
His legs wouldn't listen to him. Yukimura raised a hand to his head in an attempt to stop the world from spinning and, in doing so, realized he no longer had his sword in hand. He'd dropped it. Where did it land?
"You can wait." he mumbled at Sephiroth, ignoring the large blade in the floor in favor of looking for his. "Help me find me sword firs-"
And with that, Yukimura passed out, his head thumping against the floor.