Characters: Ichigo and Yuuko, and eventually Watanuki
Content: After getting shounen-speeched, Ichigo has found his resolve and is going to talk to Yuuko about some things that happened over fourteen years ago.
Setting: Yuuko's quarters
Time: B-b-b-backlogged to near the tail end of the ghost plot!
Warnings: Lethal amounts of cryptic. Also
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Before his knuckles could connect with the wood of her door, it swung open just slightly, the light aroma of opium flooding out into the corridor. From inside, Yuuko spoke, her voice as smooth as silk. "Come in," she beckoned in a purr from her place by the window, standing over an unlit candle.
She knew that eventually, one of them would come. It was inevitable, because it was imperative to them to rid of the spirits aboard the ship -- but how? With her help, naturally. Neither could do it on their own, no matter the will power they might have possessed. There was a time for determination and a time for surrender, when one had to admit they couldn't do something on their own.
And that time was now.
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...she probably heard me, he reproached himself, skepticism winning out once again. Kicking himself internally for being caught off-guard, he pushed the door the rest of the way open with the palm of his hand and stepped inside, moving to stand in the middle of the cabin, leaving the door open behind him. "There you are," he said, hoping his tone sounded lighter than he felt. "I've been looking for you."
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Yuuko cast a glance over her shoulder, a small smile gracing her features. "Have you, now?" Out of Ichigo's line of sight, she clasped two items in her palm before facing him fully, the material of her dress sweeping the floor. She appeared as though she was about to say something prophetic, but instead the witch tossed both the candle and matchbook at him.
"Catch! Light the candle and set it inside the holder in the corner, please. We wouldn't want any..." Cue the look that prompted more questions than it could answer. "... uninvited guests, would we?"
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He was willing to hear her out, yes, maybe even accept help. That didn't mean he was comfortable with her, or even trusted her.
Once the candle was burning brightly (of course she used things like candles, it was like Watanuki's wards and his seals and his other object-based spiritualism. Ichigo was used to a more down-to-earth approach, a way of doing things that suggested that souls and ghosts and energy could be quantified and experimented with by people like Urahara) Ichigo couldn't hold his questions back any longer.
"It's about what happened fourteen years ago," he said. "Watanuki told me...he told me you'd never take a life as a price for a wish. Is that true?"
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As Ichigo had been lighting the candle, the enchantress crossed the breadth of the room to quietly shut the door. To bolt out intruders. To give them privacy. In her fingers she held an antique candle holder by its handle, and from her robe pocket she produced another matchbook to ignite her own candle. However, moments after the wax had lit, the flame was extinguished and the holder placed in the center of the room. Tendrils of smoke wafted toward the ceiling, reaching out to the corners of the room like searching fingers ( ... )
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Maintaining eye contact seemed to be a requirement given their current conversation, and it was advisable to keep their connection strong as she said the next words ( ... )
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Was it some outside force that had took his mother from him? Ichigo still didn't believe in destiny. Even when he wasn't fiercely denying the idea to eliminate the possibility that he had wished his mother's death, the idea of one's whole life being fated wasn't one Ichigo liked.
But that wasn't what Yuuko was saying, was it...? The future can be changed by changing oneself. So it was not Masaki's death, but how he chose to react to it that had made Ichigo strong? Was that what the witch meant?
He didn't like that it had been necessary. That made it sound like she was some kind of expendable sacrifice.
...but Ichigo couldn't imagine a universe in which Masaki Kurosaki would not have given her life to save his.
Inevitable. Necessary. Outside of my control. I couldn't have changed it. It's in the past. Wasn't that the same conclusion he had come to with Watanuki? This was something he had to accept ( ... )
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Rather than immediately replying, Yuuko fell remarkably silent, content to admire how easily he had been willing to accept the explanation. To even listen at all. No, he didn't yet understand all of its intricacies, but it was marked improvement that he had found the answer he'd been looking for since the age of nine. Changes were afoot, and something was stirring within -- she could tell.
Both heels clacked against the floor as the witch stepped closer, dropping into a bow of her own with both hands braced against her knees. As she canted her head down by the level of his own in order to search for his eyes, that lovely ebony hair slipped like a torrent of dark water over her shoulder.
"She would be proud of you," Yuuko softly reminded him, risking a small, nostalgic smile as she remembered the child Ichigo once had been. "And you should be proud of yourself for coming this far. You may not comprehend the meaning of it all now, but someday you will."
It was certain.
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I'd like to think so, yeah.
How much did the witch know? How much did she understand? Just how far into the soul could those eyes see? Ichigo didn't know yet. Yuuko was a stranger to him. But for some reason, her speaking for his mother didn't bother him the way it would if he heard it from anyone else. He straightened his back and nodded.
Now that that was out of the way...
"There's something else I wanted to talk to you about."
He wanted to hear the price first, before he accepted her help, but he also wanted to know what she could do.
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