150-review kiriban from my story Red Duty, Black Honor.
Winner: Whitecloud1
Request: Byakuya/Shuuhei, training scenario.
Overall thoughts; Not a pairing I'd worked with before, so I was excited to give this a shot. It came out feeling a lot like a character study, but I had a great deal of fun doing it and I'm looking forward to my next RDBH kiriban at the 250-review mark.
A MATTER OF CONTROL
Control was something Kuchiki Byakuya had in spades. He controlled his face, his voice, the deadly rain of his Zanpakutou's blades with a discipline that was as frigid as ice and as unyielding as stone.
That control was, in retrospect, probably what dragged him into this situation in the first place. He hadn't expected the orders - who in their right mind would assign him as a tutor? - but when they were handed down, he simply nodded as though they had been anticipated for months.
Eyes narrowed, he watched critically as his student danced across the air above the training fields. The sound of the chains whipping through the air was almost musical, but the sound was cold; a biting, shrieking music, one that cut through the ear and mind. Hard hands twisted, spinning the chains through a new pattern, changing the pitch of the music but not the tone, weaving a tapestry of sight and sound for Byakuya to observe.
Grace was not something he had expected from Hisagi Shuuhei.
The man looked like any brute from the combat lines; tattooed, spike-haired, the sleeves of his shitagi rolled up to bare tanned, muscle-corded arms. Judging by his appearance alone, Byakuya would have expected his fighting style to be raw and straightforward, with no concept of refinement or strategy.
He was surprised, therefore, when he watched the chain-bound scythes dancing through the air, deadly grace on such a thin tether, each spin and turn part of the cold music that the chains sang, and he wondered briefly why he'd been asked to train Hisagi at all.
Hisagi Shuuhei had restraint.
No matter what happened, he rarely raised his voice, lost his formidable temper, or struck an unnecessary blow against an enemy. He treated all of his officers, regardless of their skill or competence, with stern respect, and always made a point of conducting himself with steady composure that suggested an internal calm most people could only dream of achieving.
Anyone who had seen the release of his Zanpakutou, however, knew the lie of that calm facade.
Kazeshini, the Death Wind. The blade was something cold and deadly, something born of unstoppable rage and pure killing intent. It was the blade born of Hisagi's soul, something torn from the repressed depths of his self-hatred after the deaths of his friends at the hands of the Hollow in the Living World.
Clenching his teeth, he yanked sharply on the chains leashing Kazeshini's blades, bringing the scythes back to him. The handle of the first blade smacked into his left palm effortlessly, but the right one came in faster than he'd intended, and the edge of the blade grazed a paper-thin cut across his bicep, just below his armband. The blood welled up slowly, only a few miniscule droplets, but it was enough. Like a shark in the water, Kuchiki scented the blood.
"You do not have sufficient control over your own Zanpakutou to prevent it from injuring you?" The words were just barely laced with something that might have been contempt; not surprising, coming from a man who so flawlessly controlled the thousand blades of his Shikai and the millions that composed his Bankai.
"Kazeshini and I don't get along." It was the same excuse, the same cold, tired words that he'd spat at anyone who questioned him and the fact he never used his Shikai if there was any way to avoid it.
"That is irrelevant. It is your Zanpakutou; you must learn to control it. If it will not obey, force it to submit."
Hisagi snorted, an inelegant noise that nonetheless communicated his opinion of his mentor's words flawlessly. Easy for you to say, you stuck-up bastard.
"If you will not follow my words of your own volition, you will learn to follow them by force," Byakuya warned, one graceful hand already settling against Senbonzakura's hilt. Barely two strides away, Shuuhei tensed, his hands flexing, tightening their grip on Kazeshini's blades. His eyes, shadowed and dark, were angry and unrelenting.
'Chire," Byakuya said simply, and the fight exploded to life between them.
They were well-matched, something Byakuya had not anticipated. Despite what he had been told, Hisagi's control of his Zanpakutou was excellent even if his rapport with it was not. The scythe-like blades were incredibly fast - fast enough to cut through or disperse the wave of delicate razors and come out the other side, flickering threats towards Byakuya that he dodged easily. Still, the battle was beginning to tax him; the price that Senbonzakura demanded was heavy, in both energy and attention. He was not at his limits, not yet, but he dared not allow the fight to drag on until he was.
Raising one hand, he carefully centered his extended index finger on Hisagi's shoulder, carefully drawing reiatsu into his fingertip. "Hadou four -"
Out of nowhere, one of Kazeshini's blades hurtled in, nearly striking Byakuya in the side before he flashed away. The wave of Senbonzakura's attack that swept down on the attacking blade rendered it harmless for the moment, but the other blade was -
-directly below him, shooting upwards, and Byakuya jerked backwards so that the scythe rushed by him, close enough to ruffle his clothing, but then the chain rattled, jerked, and the scythe whipped around in a short, sharp arc that the laws of physics should have rendered impossible, twining the long chain it trailed around Byakuya's body before he could dodge aside.
The icy metal twisted about him, pinning his arms against his body; his right hand was trapped against his shoulder, and his left against his stomach, both in positions useless for casting kidou or directing Senbonzakura. The scythe, useless with its chain so restrained, hung below his feet like an anchor, and how anything so heavy could fly so effortlessly defied his understanding The weight of the blade was not a matter of consequence, however; the fact that he was bound by its chain, however, was. Irked with his own failure, he reached out to Senbonzakura's blades with his mind, meaning to direct them against Hisagi.
Kazeshini's second blade comes whirling towards him from out of nowhere, the whining hum piercing his eardrums as the blade will pierce his flesh in an instant, because he is constrained too tightly to move away, and Senbonzakura's blades will not reach his defense before the scythe can cut through him -
Shuuhei's shouted curse rings in his ears, echoing over the sudden screaming of the chains as the hurtling scythe is yanked backwards, away from Byakuya's pale flesh. Wide-eyed in astonishment, he watched as the blade spun backwards from Hisagi's frantic pull, too fast to control.
The leading edge of the scythe struck Hisagi on the right side of his chest, missing his shoulder by bare inches. Blood began to flow in the time it took to blink, and Hisagi dropped to the ground, landing on his feet before stumbling forward, dropping to his knees. The coils of chain binding Byakuya trembled, losing some of their constrictor-tightness, and he tore himself free with an agonizing wrench of his body against the bonds and a flare of reiatsu.
He didn't need to use Flashstep to cross the distance between himself and Hisagi, but he may have anyway. Dropping to his knees in front of the swaying form, he reached out, meaning to staunch the blood with his hands if necessary, and stopped short when he realized what he was hearing.
Hisagi was swearing.
Not gasping out his dying breaths or moaning in agony, but cursing, violently, and with the most creative and extensive vocabulary of profanity that Byakuya had been exposed to since Zaraki's last haircut.
"Hisagi?" he said, voice sharper than he intended, hand still hovering over the blood-splashed uniform.
Another medley of vitriol answered him, all of it directed at Kazeshini, as Hisagi raised a hand to his chest. The blade had left a deep, straight cut down his chest, running over the collarbone and pectoral. Although the wound was deep, it was straight and clean, and the curvature of the blade had kept it blessedly short.
"Kazeshini, you worthless piece of - I'm fine," Hisagi snapped, abruptly turning his attention back to Byakuya. "It's just a cut."
Byakuya raised his eyebrows slightly, favoring the younger man with a sarcastic gaze. The wound was only the length of Byakuya's palm, but he could likely have sunken a finger into the cut to the depth of his first knuckle, and Hisagi's collarbone was clearly damaged.
"You are a tremendous fool," Byakuya remarked, keeping his voice steady with a greater effort than he cared to admit. Inhaling deeply, he closed his eyes, forcing his unsteady emotions away from the forefront of his mind, and sought the steely calm that his training had enforced in him. The dull-green glow of an inexpert healing kidou bloomed on his hands, and Shuuhei stared in astonishment.
"What are you -"
"Remain still," Byakuya interrupted tersely. "Healing kidou are not my area of expertise."
"I can see that," Shuuhei muttered dryly, and bit back a wince as a stab of pain shot through him. The edges of the injury began to knit together, but the process was slow, and more than once Shuuhei had to bite his lip to stifle an angry hiss of pain. One glance at Byakuya's face, though, showed the noble tight-lipped, all his attention on the fiercely-controlled kidou flowing through his hands.
Pain stabbed through Shuuhei's shoulder again, and he bit back a curse, squeezing his eyes closed. An expert healer - Unohana or her medics - could dull or even numb the pain as they healed, tempering the response of the nerves around the injury as the flesh itself was encouraged to heal. Byakuya, for all his much-vaunted control, was not an expert healer.
"Ow, shit!" Shuuhei muttered, instinctively jerking away as Byakuya managed to reattach a rather sensitive batch of nerves. "Relax, would you?"
It was such an odd thing for him to say that Byakuya froze in the middle of reaching out, his hand hovering in the empty space between their bodies. "What do you mean, 'relax'?"
One dark eye slitted open, gazing narrowly at him from under a furrowed eyebrow for a long moment. "Who taught you healing kidou?"
"Why do you ask?" Byakuya retorted. When Shuuhei's only response was to open his other eye and level his full gaze on him, Byakuya relented with a pinched frown.
"I never received formal education in healing kidou."
"You're self-taught," Shuuhei repeated, and Byakuya nodded, his frown deepening.
"Why is that pertinent? My skill is sufficient to repair your injury. I assume you do not wish to report to Unohana the fact that you wounded yourself with your own Zanpakutou?"
"It wouldn't be the first time," Shuuhei answered wryly, raising his hand to probe at the injury. It was only half-healed, still bleeding sluggishly. Deep though it was, Unohana could have healed it twice over already. "You're trying too hard."
"I beg your pardon?"
Shuuhei made an exasperated noise, sitting up a little straighter and gazing at Byakuya with calm eyes. "Healing kidou are different from bakudo or hadou; they're not you artificially imposing your will and power on another subject. They're simply a way to assist the other person's own body in the healing it would be doing naturally." At Byakuya's mildly incredulous look, Shuuhei shrugged his uninjured shoulder and added, "My own skill with healing kidou is limited to minor bruises and paper cuts. I don't have the knowledge of anatomy necessary to heal serious injuries and I can't work on myself, but I understand the mechanics of it. It's not something you force; just relax and let it flow through you."
It sounded counterintuitive; kidou were meant to be controlled, structured, commanded - how could he simply set aside everything he had been told his entire life, on the word of one man?
He had slipped so deep into thought that he had to restrain himself from jumping when Shuuhei's hand settled on his shoulder, solid and heavy and warm, even through the layers of Byakuya's uniform. Startled, he snapped his gaze up to meet Shuuhei's eyes, an objection ready on his tongue - and then hesitated, looking closer at the man before him.
"Your eyes are green."
It was a ridiculous, pointless observation, and Shuuhei blinked at him for a confused moment before a small, wary smile edged its way slowly onto his face. "Yeah. They look black from a distance, but they're green. You hadn't noticed?"
"I had not," Byakuya answered slowly, his tone thoughtful. He remained still for a moment, considering how many things his noble training had taught him to ignore, and how much he wished he still knew. Then, keeping his gaze fixed on those rare eyes, he slowly drew a breath. As the air slipped into his lungs and out again, he allowed the rigidly tense muscles in his back and shoulders to slowly unknot themselves. Without thinking, he summoned his reiatsu again.
The green glow that surrounded his hand was a bright, clear shade, as vibrant as new leaves. When he reached forward again, settling it against Hisagi's wounded shoulder, he could feel the steady pulse of Hisagi's heartbeat, the rhythm of the energy around the damaged flesh. Gently, slowly, he allowed his own energy to sink into and merge with Hisagi's own. Almost instantly, the injury began healing, edges of the flesh meeting and melding together, until Hisagi's skin lay smooth and flawless beneath his palm.
The hand vanished from Byakuya's shoulder, only to reappear a moment later as it covered Byakuya's hand, trapping it against the smooth heat of Shuuhei's chest. Dark green eyes met silver, holding them for a long moment before Hisagi slowly raised his other hand to trace a callused fingertip delicately across the line of Byakuya's eyebrow.
"Your eyes are beautiful," Hisagi murmured softly, and Byakuya stared down at him, shocked into silence by the younger man's boldness and the heat of his hand. It had been so long, so many cold years, since he had felt the touch of another being, the warmth of another soul. Never since Hisana's death had he sought contact with someone else, and never had it been offered. Any desires for it that he might have had were bound down and controlled, just like any other aspect of his life.
Perhaps, Byakuya decided, staring down into those green eyes, losing control once in a while was not a bad thing.
~ END ~