CLOSED LOG // We often give our enemies the means to our own destruction
Who: cakefesta, itsnotzura and themothdies
What: A pizza party, minus the pizza and no one in attendance really likes one another.
When: At 3 PM the day after after this message.
Where: In the hangar, near (but not too close) to Sakamoto's ship.
Warnings: Forthcoming. Swearing, for sure. Maybe fisticuffs.
( This had better be worth missing One Sploork and Otters Ten Thousand )
What: A pizza party, minus the pizza and no one in attendance really likes one another.
When: At 3 PM the day after after this message.
Where: In the hangar, near (but not too close) to Sakamoto's ship.
Warnings: Forthcoming. Swearing, for sure. Maybe fisticuffs.
( This had better be worth missing One Sploork and Otters Ten Thousand )
Comments 18
[the intermediary gesture is reminiscent of a time long, long past (when they fought with wooden swords, and the stakes were so, so much lower)]
And your concerns, Takasugi?
[the shortest samurai's estimate is all too correct -- he'd play the diplomat to keep his own desires paramount (the desire to build, if not a bond reforged, than at least a cease-fire tolerance)]
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[for once, truth rolls off his tongue as easily as the lies do]
What I had longed for all those years has come to pass. Edo is in ruins, and her rulers in lost in atropy, where they belong.
[but he can't keep untruth away forever, and he's just as good at lying to himself as he is to the very two who'd grown up with him (back then, perhaps, they were of smaller weight: "Zura did it", "I don't want to train with you", "I don't need your help", "...I'm not scared")]
I am satisfied.
[he never smiled this much during the war -- not when extending a gloved palm or when the blood had sprayed his face]
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[it doesn't get much more simple or complex than that, really. Takasugi had always lied, from the time they were children. and while Gintoki never really believed anything the shorter man said, he'd never called him out on it (didn't challenge the "Zura did it"s, the "Gintoki was eating cookies before dinner"s, or the "I'm fine"s)]
[just as Takasugi had his own way of worming out of undesirable situations, so did Gintoki]
[when he extends his arm, it's not talon-like or smooth or restrained at all -- more like someone trying to bat a mosquito away]
He speaketh. There. You happy, Zura? Can we all just go back to something that's not a waste of time? I'm actually a very busy man.
Reply
[he, too, hears the lie, and would respond to it, had Gintoki not made his own stance clear (as he did once before)]
[Gintoki wants nothing to do with the other man, and beyond concern for the safety of others, Katsura will do his best to abide by that wish within reason. whether Takasugi sinks or swims is of no concern to his comrade, and discussions of satisfaction and purpose are best left for those who care]
[he wonders if Takasugi himself would even choose to be a part of such a conversation]
[addressed to both men;]
Would you both honour a pact, then? Of -- [keeping blades sheathed, keeping blood unspilled] -- remote, non-violent tolerance?
Reply
Do you think I'm capable of such a feat?
[peace, pacifism, even stagnancy: he knows nothing of them, and cares even less for the lessons not in a green book]
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