They always fought. There was no denying of that. Never could either one of them think like an optimistic fool and attempt to defy the wiles of the blood flowing through their veins. Time and time again they succumbed with ease to the intoxication provided by it and found themselves wading through carnage even more daunting than the corpses sprawled before them. Gradually, it became normal. The bodies meant nothing in comparison to the horrendous urges taking them by storm. The course of the Yato clan warped them whether they were aware of it or not. Or if they even cared for that matter. Looking back to decipher the true source of their plummet into an exhilarating chaos of pleasure in murder became an impossible task. Attempts to obtaining some sort of higher meaning or reason for their behavior unsettled them, frustrated them to the point that the body count began to climb purely out of the only outlet they could truly express themselves through once they had gone past that infamous point were return becomes merely a fantasy until that fantasy in itself decays into a nostalgic memory.
At some point, everything seemingly ceases to matter. What family, if any, bears no emotional content. There's no comfort to memories of mother, father, brother or sister. Suddenly they were obstacles, a means to test your strength in an endless cycle of self-genocide. They were helpless and willing at the same time, unable to decipher their true emotions on the matter while being divided and united simultaneously. Their meaningless fight gave them but one ideal to strive for, giving them what couldn't last for long yet they plot their way towards it as if it were attainable.
Maybe they were deranged and lost and misguided and corrupt and a whole lot of other things. There was the chance they were falling into some tradition tragedy that had succeeded for centuries and would continue to do so as long as they fell into the trap it laid out for them. The truth was they would never know, would never be able to distinguish between the blood and the heart the blood flows through and successfully washes away all opposition. Because of that, they endured the nothingness with the semblance of significance egging them on. And maybe they were wrong, but it felt far too right to be denied.
Even now, there was something completely naturally about choking the life out of one another. Locked in battle, the held each other by the throat with strength only possible by the hand of a Yato. Their grips grew tighter at the same time, spurred on by violent emotions reflected in their eyes of the same deadly caliber. The sensation felt familiar to them, the intertwining of their beaten bodies a natural molding of his body into hers. Neither of them had known how long they had gone on like this, but so long as the other squeezed out some form of a breath between parted lips, their hands tightened.
He wanted to see her continuously bleed because of him and could all but refrain of lapping at the streams of blood painting her scarlet. He knew the taste of it and desired it like no other. Who knew how long it would be until he could run his tongue along the gashes along whatever exposed portion of discolored skin sporting some sort of injury. They had already been at it for what seemed like an eternity. It could have been hours or days. Neither of them could tell the difference. All they were acutely aware of was the persistent beating of the other's heart. They despised that adamant organ and fought to silence it. They always wished for it, but somehow they wound up in situations like this again and again without successfully bringing their struggles to an end.
He could remember every blow she had dealt him as they all blended into one elongated experience of both frustration and pleasure. His hands were familiar with the sensation of pummeling every inch of her body that rebounded flawlessly every time. A measure of increasing strength lingered in his mind, a building intensity to their battles that excited him for every chance that they should run across one another. Opportunity had brought them together the first time and continuously proved itself to be the natural means for them to become entangled in one another. Hunting one another proved pointless when they were seemingly drawn together, set into a gridlock similar to that which they stood in now.
He started into her burning eyes reiterated the same death threat he himself emulated and had seen in those eyes repeatedly. It made him wonder what would happen when he finally succeeded in bringing her to her last breath. What there then be for him? Surely he would find another and the process would start again. It was hard to tell when this had been the first and only time thus far he had come across such a peculiar set of circumstances. His mind shut off shortly after such a thought manifested itself and focused on the slender column of flesh held in his strained hand. Their game would end when it would end. When it did, he could bathe in her blood until he was further maddened with giddiness. It would happen when it would. It could be now or later. Never or in the next minute.
In the blink of an eye, they acted with inhuman speed and fought savagely. They pounded and crushed; beat and pulverized until their bones sang from the effort. Death teased them while desire flushed their faces. Soon, they were locked yet again with fists caught in the corresponding hand of the other. Teeth grinded, wild hair blowing as it pleased in the wind. They glowered at one another, a sensation he had always found strange. Normally, he ran through his usual business with the belief that he would send his prey to the world beyond with a joyous smile. But she killed that smile, leaving him with either delightful madness or maddening rage. As of yet, he didn't know the face he would send her off with and he believed it would come with her last breath whenever that may be.
While thinking of his own face, he wondered would sort of emotion her own face would display at her moment of death. What would she look like when he extinguished her flame completely?
As if to find out, he drew closer to her. As if the same thought had crossed her mind, she too leaned in. It was strange to lean in like so when their limbs were shaking under the strain of fending off the other. Dirt crunched beneath their feet as they sank deeper and deeper as if they were becoming one with the nameless planet. Intimately close, their once basic expressions seemed to gain depth and he continued to wonder what story would her eyes tell when their energy failed and faded. What color would besiege her cheeks? Would the blanch like the visage of every other victim of his insane thirst? What wrinkles would crease her sweaty brow so smudged by dirt? What curve would her rosy lips make? Would she scowl or smile? The desire to know took him by storm and bound his existence to the answer he sought so desperately in their every encounter.
"What will you look like when I kill you?" he asked her in a subdued voice. Somehow the tone came out lower than initially anticipated, darker and rougher with something unknown and obscene.
Her efforts against him doubled and she came ever closer. What little space between them still existed permitted for the easy mingling of their breath, their faces on the verge of merging into one.
"You'll never know," she replied haughtily with a growing smile of an almost innocent joy, but filled with cracks. "I'll kill you first, Kamui. I'll make you bleed and drink you dry."
Oh, did she ever amuse him with her silly belief that she could ever bring him to his knees. They may fight tooth and nail and until the point that their joints were ground to the dust from which they came, but she could never win. He knew it better than anyone. It was his job to insure that she was well aware of the bleak destiny before her for no one aside form him would kill her. He would be her murderer and gravedigger, laying to rest their seemingly endless competition persevering purely from the vain attempt at dodging destiny.
Despite knowing that, there was definitely something about her. A deranged resilience of spirit similar to that he had been witness to at the defeat of Hosen by the hand of Sakata Gintoki. Kamui had once thought of her as the same as himself, a forsaken Yato all but walking the same bloody path they had walked since generations long ago. And yet had had found some developing substance within her. It reared its head out at him and made her immune to death one battle after another. Curiosity about that extraordinary endurance of hers piqued his interest. He had set his sights yet again on prey to sink his stained hands into until he could feel a beating heart writhe in his grasp. He would make her stronger and destroy her. Until then, he enjoyed and despised that look in her eyes. He enjoyed it for the excitement of insane combat it brought to their wasted battlefield bathed in crimson and hated it for the fact that memories of it and the exhilarating feelings induced by it kept him awake for hours on end some lonely nights.
Or maybe what he hated most about it was that it was a Yato bearing such a quality and that he had found himself suddenly wrong about her. Someone who had stumbled blindly down the same slick path littered with the dead had somehow discovered a means to produce antibodies to stave off the bloodlust. She had taken their greatest pleasure in slaughter and had made some sense out of it empowering her fists and prolonging their strife. He wanted to see how far that will could bend until it broke, test it until it leaked from her eyes with tears of blood and ripped out her throat in shrill shrieks.
So close together, he sought out that certain something, but couldn't seem to get close enough to uncover it. Just a little closer and maybe he could break into the melon of her head with his own to find the answer somewhere within the gray matter floating in her skull, find the root source of that look in her eyes.
And then their lips found each other somehow, contouring to the other in a feeding frenzy like sharks lashing out at a fresh meal, asking questions and denying answers.