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

"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."

And Koumyou's got him, more than strong enough to hold him upright in his wiry arms. He nods against the side of Devero's head, and murmurs, "It's okay to be scared, Dev. No one here expects you to actually be a machine, least of all me."

Now he does tremble a little his big body shuddering as he inhales deeply and then lets it out again. "Would just disappoint you if you did," he says. "Always a disappointment back home."

He shifts a little, enough to wind his arms around Koumyou's thin chest so he can cling on to him. "I don't know how to be at all, here," he says bitterly. "Can't be the person I am, c-can't be the person I want to be, can't even be sure who that person is. Never going to measure up to the rest of you anyway, not without the r-rest of my self, and I-- I--"

He turns his face to hide it against Koumyou's sharp shoulder just as tears start. "All I know for sure is I'm going to let anyone who r-relies on me down...!" And to a man like Devero, raised with the values he was raised with and intrinsically conscientious to boot, that prospect is intolerable.

Koumyou doesn't protest at all, either, just holding on, stroking his fingers over the back of Devero's head. The sutra isn't the most comfortable thing to cry into, but its keeper is hardly offended.

No, the priest is fine to just sit here and hold him while some of that horrible pain is let loose.

"...Why can't you be the person you are?" he asks quietly, "The person I've gotten to know is wonderful. I've never met anyone half so sweet and kind... I couldn't have even imagined someone like you existing, before. You're absolutely amazing."

"Because half the person I am isn't here!" His hardware-self, his exo, his Babysitter. He'd never bought too consciously into that philosophical Three Selves stuff that some of the more pretentious hiteks liked to peddle, but since coming here, he can't deny that his hardware is a big part of who he is. A bigger part than he'd ever realized, having never been separated from it before.

He pulls away from the priest now, retreating back to himself so he can try to mop away some of the tears. He still can't help but feel like all this sweetness and kindness that Koumyou likes so much is just typical, the same good citizen empathy that anyone in his world could offer. He only seems special because Koumyou's world is awful. The thought makes him laugh bitterly. "You wouldn't even look twice at me if we were on my world," he says. "Everyone's kind there. You'd be able to find someone who's actually worth your-- your l-love."

Because he sure fucking isn't.

Koumyou lets him pull away, but only so far, his hands staying firmly on Devero's shoulders.

"That's bullshit."

Hello bluntness, good of you to join us. His grip on Devero's shoulders tightens. "You see me, and you play along with me--! And... have I even ever pissed you off? Disgusted you? Confused you in a-- a bad way? You understand me in ways I can't even understand myself. How could I not... how could you not--!"

Koumyou gives him a shake, frustrated. "I can't even put it into words properly, not any of it! But I don't want anyone else!"

And, because their insecurities always seem to match--

"You're the one who should find someone-- someone younger, someone who can actually help you, someone who can-- can do the things you like with you as a partner and not a novice. Someone who can-- can say things and-- and say them right!"

It's a dam breaking, he can't shut himself up.

"You-- I'm not even worth your time! And you think you're so-- so far beneath everyone! Beneath me! A-- a washed-up, cold-eyed killer who couldn't even teach his own son the things that would help him after he's gone! A foolish, scared old man who doesn't know the first thing about anything, who can't even-- even say that word without-- without crumbling in fear!"

He hangs his head, that bruising grip only now loosening on Devero's shoulders.

"If I was any good at any of this, you'd know why I l-love you. You would. Gods damn me, my soul, my bones, I shouldn't even be alive to drag you into the muck. I'm a mistake. I'm a fucking tragedy and you deserve the real moon, the stars, the world. Everything."

As Koumyou starts to go off, Devero can at first only stare. He's hunched under the priest's hands, arrested by the grip and by the vehemence in his voice. He can't bear to look at him; he almost can't even bear to hear Koumyou talk about him like this. It's so contrary to what's been ground into him-- unintentionally by the society he was raised in and then with every intention by Valdana-- that it feels like a trap. Just build the big idiot up and then laugh at how hard he falls when the supports come away.

When Koumyou's deluge of words turns self-critical, that's easier for him to deal with, at least. It's so impossible to come to his own defense, and so easy to defend someone else. He grabs Koumyou's wrists and squeezes them urgently. "Stop it! Stop talking like that! Rust and ruin, Koumyou, the only virtue-forsaken tragedy about you is that you won't get to see your son grow up!"

He releases him again, burying his hands in his hair and taking up huge, painful fistfuls of it. "Your world-- your world is a hell and you did what you had to just to survive. What's my fucking excuse? My world is a paradise compared to-- to everyone else's, and what do I have to show for it?"

He finally looks up at Koumyou, and his face is just so full of sorrow. "You've been starved of the love and support that every fucking person in any world deserves, of course this shit is alien to you. You can't hold yourself responsible for that!"

"Listen to yourself for once! Your world may be nicer, but that monster who dragged you into the mud sure as hell wasn't! She starved you of what you need, what you just said everyone deserves, and she-- she convinced you that's all you deserve! Even as you support everyone around you!"

Koumyou has to scrub tears from his eyes with one covered palm, not even sure himself if they're sorrow or anger or something else entirely.

"If I could make you see that you deserve to be treated the way you treat everyone else, I-- I'd do anything!" It's said with the same intensity he'd once told Devero he'd self-immolate; string his own guts the length of the train, if it would help his son even the slightest bit...

And if he thought the fire his own body might fuel would somehow make Devero understand what he sees when he looks at the big man... somehow make him treat himself with any of the compassion he gives so freely to everyone else-- he'd do that for him, too!

"Don't talk about her like that!"

It comes roaring out of him, big and loud and driven by fear. Fear of her, fear of confronting the reality of what she's done to him, fear of what it says about the society he believes in so much that it let a person like this have so much power. It's so much easier to make it his fault, his problem, his failure, so as to preserve everything else.

Despite all the cracks that Koumyou's put into the facade covering his abuse, the shape of it still holds. Here and now especially, it holds; he's too upset to be thinking rationally.

"You just don't understand! You don't know what I deserve! You don't know anything about the relationship Valdana and I have-- you couldn't! You said it yourself-- you're a novice, right?"

Devero knocks Koumyou's hands away and surges to his feet. He can't be here anymore. He can't be around this dangerous man, who's talking about him with the same intensity as he talked about his own son, who's trying to trick him into thinking he's an actual person and not-- and not--

Koumyou doesn't say anything until Devero's turned his back and moved several steps away.

"...Are you running away?"

That sounds fucking livid, in that quiet, dangerous way that Devero's never once heard from the priest. He lunges to his feet, too, but otherwise stays where he is.

"It's true I don't know anything about relationships or sex or anything-- anything like that-- but I know about monsters! I know about people who exist to consume others, who can only see light when they rip it out of another person's soul and snuff it out in their hands!"

He's yelling loud enough to echo around the music car, now. It might even carry down stairs.

"And I know what it's like to-- to feel like the only person you're worth the attention of, is one of those monsters!"

Isn't that why he'd always egged Ukoku on? Isn't that why he'd encouraged the raven to sink his claws into his heart and twist, courted being consumed by him? The worst person he'd ever known? The man who'd tried to beat Koumyou's sick and dying friend in front of him--? Who'd killed his friend?

Isn't that why he'd let Ukoku in so close?

That's all he'd deserved! That sucking void, unendingly hungry, without a single shred of a heart--!

And if only it hadn't endangered his son, he-- he wouldn't even regret it!

The sheer fury in Koumyou's voice stops Devero dead. Fear hooks its claws that much deeper into his heart and he almost, almost goes down to his knees in response to that tone alone. Perhaps only the fact that it's a man's voice and not a woman's spares him.

He turns jerkily, as if being drawn against his will, to face the priest.

"Maybe that's why you like me so much, then," he says in a twisted, almost dead voice. "I am one of those monsters. Maybe you can't help yourself."

Isn't that what she always says? He's just as bad as any of those self-absorbed monsters who ended the world; he'll consume anything if his selfish appetites aren't contained. He's an emotional predator and a drain on the society that supports him. All he wants to do is take without bothering to give back.

No, you're not. That's what Koumyou wants to say, but he's tried so hard to tell Devero what he sees in him, he can't help but see those words as futile here in the storm they've generated between them.

So instead, the priest lifts his chin and fixes Devero with a flat look.

"Prove it."

He laughs, harsh and ugly in the empty space around them. "Prove what? That I'm a monster? That you can't help yourself?" He closes the space between them in a couple long strides, stepping right into Koumyou's personal space and looming over him. "I don't have to, do I? We're both right fucking here."

"Prove you're a monster. Here, I'll help."

Oh, that can't be good. Koumyou reaches up and yanks the sutra off his shoulders, and slings it over Devero's in one quick, blink-and-you'll-miss-it movement, far too fast to stop. The thing even adjusts to how broad Devero is, laying on him properly.

"All monsters crave power. Take it, I won't stop you."

And then he digs into his sleeve for his arms band, and produces a sharp knife he'd taken from the kitchen. He holds it up by the blade in the narrow space between them, fingers tight.

"Monsters love inflicting pain. Go ahead, I won't lift a finger. Or maybe you prefer inflicting fear? Take this knife to my eyes, then. Slow, like my nightmares."

He finally lifts his head to look right up at the looming Devero, and his face is so unbelievably calm in the middle of the storm-- "Or perhaps you're a monster who doesn't like to get his hands dirty? I can help there, too. Would you prefer that? Here--"

Those fingers, tight around the blade of the kitchen knife, begin to squeeze.

"I'll help."

Edited 2021-01-10 07:16 (UTC)

When Koumyou slings the sutra over Devero's shoulders, his aggressive posturing evaporates immediately. He startles and rocks back half a step, his hands lifting to snatch it off again. Only his fear of the power contained within the artifact stops him from flinging it away; he's more afraid to even touch it.

"Koumyou--" he protests, or tries, because now the priest has a knife between them and he's still talking and he's-- and--

"Don't!" Devero grabs at Koumyou's hands as those bony fingers test the blade. "Koumyou, stop, what is wrong with you?! You're going to hurt yourself!"

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cw abuse trauma

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cw abuse trauma

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cw abuse trauma

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