Pairing: Shunsui/Katen Kyoukotsu


En Passant

In the game of chess, she wins. Swift, she takes his knight, his bishop, and almost king (save the queen) without remorse. She is decisive, is inveterately contra to his stun then feint moves. But this round will be his. Shunsui spies an opening and takes.

wait

Katen Kyoukotsu smirks at him, her trademark one-eye glisten. "Your turn."

Shunsui weighs his options. She has outmaneuvered him yet again. The woman is a fiend, heartless in mischief.

"A gentleman never contradicts a lady," he says and advances his surviving knight.

"A true gentleman always defers to his lady."

Of both we are not.

With a sleight of hand, Katen Kyoukotsu deposes his king, leaving him dumbfounded.

...

She takes off his hat and peels away his clothes. Layer by layer, she bares him raw. Katen, he whispers as she goes down.

...

Shunsui is a teenager when she first speaks. Her voice is playful and silvery, a slow teasing that emerges only when he is inclining to forfeit.

"What's your name?" he asks.

He hears a laugh rumbling from the blade and intuitively knows that she won't be nice and pleasant (not like Ukitake's).

"Don't feel like telling me?"

And receives another explosion of laughter.

...

Her tricks are better than his, more sophisticated and crueler too. But he doesn't mind, not when it's her holding the blade.

...

She goads and he cajoles and neither one admits defeat.

They circle and pass. Then she strikes from the rear, blinding him.

Katen Kyoukotsu isn't like the other zanpakutou. Maybe except for Benihime (Urahara kindly informs him that she is a bitch as well).

She is capricious and lethal, prone to poisoning wounds. And effortless—a slip here, a touch there—she steals his breath.

"It seems I've captured your pawn."

And gladly he lets her.

...

He misses the weight of her touch, the whispery trail of her breath against his skin, and the tingle of her tongue abrading his lips, cheek, chest and navel.

Bewildered, Shunsui wonders why she hasn't come back.

(In the end, she always wins their little games.)