voidtreckerexpress | there's more than meets the eye, there's more than meets the price [OPEN]

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there's more than meets the eye, there's more than meets the price [OPEN]

Who: Koumyou Sanzo, OPEN
Where: Carriage J: Music Carriage - upstairs, in silence
When: Forward-dated to Jelly 4!
What: Sneaky solo martial arts practice a couple days before the next mission. Folks are welcome to catch him doing his thing, despite his effort to be secretive. If you ask for lessons (in anything, ever), he will almost certainly say no... but folks are totally welcome to try to convince him. (Also if anyone wants to just ATTACK, he'll adapt accordingly.)
Warnings: Otoha thread has some sensitive topics (warned in the comment titles). Devero thread same and same, but also some kinda graphic self harm injury shit from Koumyou etc.

xxxxxif you can't see the sky there's too much artificial light

Muscle memory requires rote practice. Patterns mastered, then broken, to keep one's actions independent in a real fight. Even at his level, Koumyou needs to sharpen the blade once in a while, lest he lose his edge when he needs it most.

Koumyou Sanzo has picked a time when most of the train seems otherwise occupied. Maybe it's the middle of the 'night' and they're sleeping, or perhaps this is a typical meal time in the dining car. One way or another, he's gone out of his way to have as few witnesses as he can, tucked upstairs in the silent music car.

He stands still in the middle of the stage, and checks one last time that the room is truly empty, at least here at the start. Satisfied, Koumyou drops his center of gravity, bare feet sliding into position. One hand tucks against his shoulder, the other out before him, fists loose.

Breathing carefully, in through the nose, and out through the mouth... slowly, he lets his eyes slip shut.

And then he begins to move.

A block, a duck, a shift to one side. Another block; flowing, diverting an imagined attack away with the edge of an open hand. A step back, one kick at the level of a stomach. Spinning to the right, his braid and the long ends of his clothing flutter behind him. Fluid, each graceful movement morphing into the next without hesitation or pause.

There is nothing rigid here. Not until it's needed. A fist tightens at the instant of impact, not a moment before. The snap of force in the air, even without a real target, is audible in the quiet room.

If one watches him for more than a second, one can almost see the invisible opponents rushing him. They come from all directions; some are even armed. With a knife he side-steps, with a sword that he ducks beneath to rise again with the arc of an uppercut palm-strike. To a chin? A nose? ...A throat?

He flips as though it's easy, as though up and over someone who had been rushing to tackle him from behind. Landing, the heels of both palms snap out in a strike to their back, his whole body behind the movement. And then he's gone, rolling backwards, momentum changing directions as fast as a stray gust of wind. Up with another kick; that foot comes down, and he spirals out and up into a spin-kick aimed even higher than his own head.

Sometimes, he gets quite close to the drop off the stage. But he never actually touches the edges, and he certainly never falls.

Koumyou's braid whips behind him as he moves. His long sleeves flutter behind each sweeping attack or diversion of his arms. The hem of his robe skims against his bare ankles with every wide movement of his legs. Light though it is, the bamboo breastplate on his chest barely shifts on his thin frame. The sutra certainly doesn't go anywhere, though the ends and the back both flutter as if it were real paper.

It would be easy to turn this into a dance, and it would be equally easy to turn this into death. There is not a single second in which he isn't moving, flowing, striking, diverting.

If left alone, this will go on for a while longer.

His eyes do not yet open; his movements do not yet slow.

He will not lose his edge.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Devero takes Koumyou's hand unselfconsciously. "I probably should, shouldn't I?" he mutters, putting his face into his other hand. "I'm going to be a liability in a fight and I can't find my ass with both hands without a network connection. Maybe I should stay on the train and-- I don't know, roll bandages for when everyone gets back?"

That seems like such a waste, though. The train obviously brought him here to fight. But without the equipment he needs to do so, what is he supposed to do?

"I'll stick near you, if you like?" Koumyou offers, "If there's any tech involved...? There was a lot last time, and I don't know how to do anything other than break it. So..."

Koumyou can handle combat, Devero can handle actually fixing shit, or whatever it is they're in store for?

"I'm inclined to go with blue team since there's only nineteen of us on the train, but..." he's willing to veer off that plan if they team up and Devero feels like they should go with a different group.

"If there's only nineteen people on blue team, they'll need you with them," Devero says quietly. It's not that he's not touched by the offer-- he is and he badly want to take it-- but he can't. Not in good conscience. "And aren't a lot of the kids on blue? Much better if you're watching their backs than mine."

"Come run around with blue team with me, then," Koumyou doesn't give up that easily! "I can watch many backs at once, I assure you. I did last time!"

He hadn't sought out the kids in particular, but he'd saved several necks on that mission.

"From what I've seen, most of the tech-savvy people are on orange... and last time, there was tech shit everywhere to deal with. If the teams aren't close together again, we could be screwed."

...That literally hadn't occurred to Devero as a possibility. His plan for this mission, inasmuch as he had one, was to fall in line with purple team, go wherever he was told, and try his best to play his role. Sure, the folks in charge at that meeting had encouraged people to switch teams if they felt their abilities were needed elsewhere, but a: what abilities? and b: he hadn't thought to consider switching until anyone had an idea what their mission might be.

He lowers his hand, but he's worrying his lip and not looking at Koumyou as he does. "But we don't know what this mission's going to be like," he protests. "What if there's no tech shit at all? What if it's all-- all swords and magic instead? I'll be a dead fucking weight."

Which is true whether he's with blue or purple or any other time. Which, unfortunately, means he has to circle back to: "I just need to keep my useless ass on the train."

"Half the people on this train are tech-savvy," just... none of them are on blue, that he knows of. "I doubt the train's going to take us somewhere that unsuited to the crew it's personally plucked out of the multiverse."

Koumyou reaches up with his free hand to attempt to boop Devero on the nose.

"At the very, absolute, ultra worst, having you along will keep me out of the maximum amount of trouble I could otherwise get into?"

"This train doesn't give a shit about suitability!" Devero snaps. "If it did, my hardware would be sitting in the luggage car waiting for me to be deployed!"

He instantly regrets the show of temper, pulling away from Koumyou entirely, preparatory to scrambling back up to his feet. "Shit, I'm-- I'm sorry," he says reflexively as he does. "I shouldn't have yelled."

"It's fine," Koumyou doesn't try to hold on, and stays sitting where he is, hands dropping to his lap. "I wish there was something I could..."

Do.

Like.

Oh, maybe teach Devero to use something besides his missing hardware?

And now it's Koumyou's turn to hold his own stupid face.

Devero's too caught up in his own agitation to notice at first, scrubbing both hands through his hair so violently that he almost knocks his Interface all the way off. He manages to grab it before it falls and fit it back into place, at least.

"Listen, I'm going to go," he says, turning to face Koumyou-- and stops. "...Are you okay?"

If Dev's going to take off, then Koumyou must have really upset him with his clumsy suggestions. The priest sighs into his hands. "Sorry."

He's not even upset, himself. He's just... legitimately baffled at his own inability to do any of this right. Stick to what you know how to do for long enough, and any unfamiliar territory becomes wholly alien.

"I'm not any good at any of this," and he knows it. It's not even angsty, it's just facts.

"You didn't do anything wrong," Devero hasten to reassure him. "I'm just-- really stressed out about this." And really used to having to manage his own emotions.

He turns back around and returns to Koumyou, resting a hand on top of his head. "Try not to worry about it, okay...? This is my shit to figure out."

"I want to help," Koumyou peeks up at him from between his own bony fingers, expression serious. "I just don't know how."

Running his mouth sure hasn't been helping!

And teaching...?

Even if he dared, nothing he could offer would bear fruit any faster than just waiting for the train to allow large items, surely.

"Someone who actually knows how this shit works could help, I'm sure of it. If our situations were reversed, you'd definitely be able to help me! But if it's not Sanzo-related, I'm--"

Pretty much useless.

--Okay, he's not going anywhere now. As usual, his own agitation and distress are easy to put aside when someone else needs him, especially when that someone is as important to him as Koumyou is.

He goes down to his knees and then sits back on his heels in front of Koumyou. "It's enough that you want to," Devero tells him earnestly. "And you have to remember that sometimes no matter how much we want to help someone, we can't. That's just the way it is?" (He's been remembering and reciting these old creche lessons so often since he came on the train. His teachers would be so proud.)

Devero reaches out and snags one of Koumyou's hanging sleeves. "Being a Sanzo is the only thing you've had room for in your life for a-- for a long time," he reminds him. "Of course it's all that you know. Anyone who'd expect more of you than that is-- is inconsiderate of the burden you've had to bear."

"This isn't about me," Koumyou tells him gently, dropping his hands from his face to try to take Devero's hands, instead. "I want to help you. Is there really no way I can?"

'This is my shit to figure out', Devero had said. But...

"I'm the one who can't function off his own goddamn world," Devero says with a shake of his head. He laughs humorlessly at himself. "I'm starting to get where loteks are coming from when they whine about hardware being a crutch."

He drops his gaze to their hands, curling his fingers around Koumyou's. "Just bear with me," he says quietly. "I'll try not to let this get too much into--" He reclaims one of his hand to gesture between the two of them, then puts it back in Koumyou's. "--us, okay?"

After all, it's his own inadequacy causing him problems, which means it's up to him to figure out it. His shit is always his to figure out. Isn't that the way it's supposed to be? Helping people is his role to play.

"If neither the Seiten nor the Maten had come with me," Koumyou tells him quietly, "if it wasn't so portable -- if I didn't have a sutra to guard, I would be just as lost. I wouldn't even be able to call myself a Sanzo."

He'd be absolutely fucking ruined, identity-wise. What else was he, if not a Sanzo?

Literally nothing.

"Would you be able to just let me stew in that, without trying to help? If I said 'this is my problem', would you be able to turn away?"

Edited 2021-01-09 19:34 (UTC)

"That's different," Devero protests immediately, squeezing Koumyou's hands. "You can't compare your sutras to my hardware. They're entire orders of magnitude apart."

Koumyou squeezes his hands right back! "Is it not a similar sort of pain, a similar sort of helplessness?"

But comparing that side of things isn't going to get anywhere, he can see, so Koumyou deliberately changes to a whole other tactic--

"You must think I am so much colder than you, that I could turn a blind eye to your troubles."

That's not the sort of thing he'd normally say. He wouldn't normally go there, not deliberately like this. (And not long ago, he'd have said he was that much colder, too.)

But maybe that comparison might get somewhere?

"Am I not allowed to help you, like you would help me?"

Well played, Koumyou. The accusation strikes home, color draining from his face. "No, I don't think that at all!" he says, protesting again. "That's not what I mean, I just-- I just--..."

He just doesn't deserve that help, doesn't he? Koumyou would, if their situation were reversed, but he doesn't. That's what he means.

He yanks a hand free from Koumyou's and covers his mouth with it, suddenly feeling sick. "You can do whatever you want," he whispers from behind it.

"I want to help you," Koumyou just holds onto the one hand he's got with both of his, so earnest he's leaning forward a little, "please."

And his eyes dart away for a second, he can't help it, with what's about to come out of his mouth, "I... meant what I said at the Faire. I couldn't have-- have said that, if I didn't mean it..."

He still doesn't understand why. Why does this powerful, important man care so much about him? Out of all the people on this train, how could he have made the mistake of falling for the most worthless one of them all?

He reaches out and closes his fist in the front of Koumyou's robe, gripping the fabric as if he's afraid the priest will turn to smoke and dissipate through his fingers. "I know," he says, his own eyes downcast. "I believe you. I still don't know why me, but..."

But it doesn't matter why. What matters right now is what is. "If I go on the mission at all, I-- I want--" Fucking hell, he can't even say it. He can't be that selfish.

Koumyou lets go of Dev's hand with one of his, to reach up and cover the one fisting his robes. Not to pry his hand loose, either, but to just... gently encourage it to stay there.

If Devero's reaching out, literally or otherwise, he's going to encourage it!

And he watches Devero again, expression intent. "You want...?" A squeeze of the hand he's still holding, "Please tell me."

"I want to go with you." There. He said it. Supposed to be a good little soldier and here he is, falling out of line again, just like he always does. Putting what he wants, what would make him comfortable ahead of his service.

Needy boy, selfish boy. He seems to crumple in on himself, consumed with shame for putting it out there in the air. So before Koumyou can chastise him for his self-absorption, he continues in a rush, "But I'll go where I'm supposed to. I'll do what they tell me to do. I'll show you, I can be relied on to do my part, I swear it."

"Oh," Koumyou drops his hold on both of Devero's hands, but only so he can lunge up onto his knees and then forward, the motion just as fast and smooth as the martial arts Devero had just seen him doing. He grabs the bigger man around the shoulders in a tight hug, one hand already raising to cradle the back of his head.

"I want you with me."

Devero holds against the embrace at first, so stiff he's almost trembling in Koumyou's arms. That beaten hound is still so ready for the disciplining hand to fall, but as ever with Koumyou, it doesn't. And after that thrumming moment of fear, Devero all but collapses into the priest's arms.

"Thank you," he mumbles. "I'm--" His voice drops as he admits what's been hiding under the technology frustration and the crippling lack of self-confidence. "I'm scared."

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cw abuse trauma

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