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Either the town was full of jealous gossips, or Yumichika made quite a negative reputation for himself.
It seemed that everyone in the town knew who Yumichika was. Very few of them had a single positive word they wanted to share, but they all knew the flamboyant and beautiful man.
After asking scores of people if any knew where he was or where he might be, he finally got something. Not much, but something. An old man selling fish, hunched over and perpetually squinting said that Yumichika had just stopped by to talk. He was the first to seem to have anything nice at all to say.
"Oh yes, he's such a good customer. 'Says my fish be the best in the 'ntire town. How 'bout that. Who says young 'uns can't be 'spectful to the old folks?"
"So, do you know where he is?" Ikkaku asked irritably. He had a hangover from hell and no patience for a senile old man rambling endlessly.
"Sure 'nough. He's back at the ol' sword shop. Says he got somethin' for sellin'."
Bingo, Ikkaku thought. If he hurried, he could stop the man for selling his sword. He ran without so much as thanking the man who'd helped him, engrossed in the possibility of finding who had stolen from him and teaching them a lesson.
"Yumichika!" Ikkaku shouted as he ran into the second-hand sword shop.
"Hm? Why would you be looking for him?" The owner of the shop asked curiously. She looked at Ikkaku as if he were completely and totally crazy.
"Has he been here?"
She shook her head. "No. I thought I just saw him walking outside, though."
"Dammit! Which way?"
The woman pointed left, in the direction she saw him walk past her shop.
"Is there another weapon's store that way?"
"Yes, a very old one. About six shops down, go back into an alley between a bar and an antique shop, you should see a shop there with a sign in the shape of a sword."
"Great!" Ikkaku shouted and ran out of the store, following directions exactly. The town, for being so run down, had a plethora of stores and despite them all being run down and rotting, they were moderately busy.
All the streets looked busy as well as uniform, all the buildings seemed identical. As if it weren't hard enough to find your way around a place you'd only arrived yesterday, he had to deal with such a maze.
After two wrong turns and asking directions from someone who appeared to be a local, he found the old shop that fit the woman's brief description.
"Yumichika!"
"Don't yell in my shop," An old woman who was hardly four feet barked. "Could I help you, or are you simply looking for the local troublemaker?"
"Have you seen him?"
"Depends on why you ask."
Ikkaku would have ripped his hair out if he had any. "He stole something from me. Where is he?"
"Hm. I'm not sure why, but he was going back to the center of town when he didn't like my price for the sword he brought in."
Of course. Does Karma have no mercy? Ikkaku ran out of the shop and found his way back to the market. There must have been a merchant for every and anything anyone could have possibly wanted. Perhaps Yumichika was trying to find someone who would give him more than the grumpy old lady offered?
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"Thanks, Granny," Yumichika said, breathing a sigh of relief.
"Anything for my husband's number one customer. Stay out of trouble, would you?"
"Try to," he replied with a wink and proceeded to the back exit. "I'll bring you anything I find interesting, okay?"
"Thank you, young 'un."
Yumichika wondered just how persistent the bald man was. He doubted very seriously that he'd come back to the old lady's shop, but told her not to put the blade on display for a while if she could help it. The fact that he wasn't very fond of ugly people didn't apply to the old couple, they'd taken care of him whenever they found themselves able. It was the least he could do to sell them whatever he could find and buy their wares when he could.
But it might have been a stupid idea to rile up that pirate, he realized. A local was someone he never targeted, because they would never leave and therefore never be gotten rid of. Even though Yumichika was good at fighting, he couldn't deal with an eternal grudge. This pirate, though, looked particularly strong. He wondered what the man was really like when he was sober as he crept through the back alleyways.
"Found you," the very man Yumichika was thinking about said smugly and nearly gave him a heart attack. "It's a good thing there's plenty of people who ratted your relationship with those old bags of bones out."
"You shouldn't say such things, it's ugly. Besides, you should have realized someone as beautiful as myself has no interests in a person such as you."
"Is that so?" Ikkaku asked, narrowing his eyes.
"Of course. Now that you're sober at least, you should know things that are common sense, like that."
"I'm going to put this simply, give me back my sword and I won't kill you."
Yumichika scoffed. "You aren't serious, are you? I mean, of course I don't look like much, but I'm rather strong. I suggest you just walk away with your life."
There was no point in talking to someone like this, Ikkaku decided. Even without his sword, his fighting was somewhat effective in hand to hand. He lunged forward with a knock out punch.
The man wasn't lying though. He had enough experience in fighting to dodge the blow effortlessly and take the momentum of the strike to throw his opponent to the ground. "Don't use such weak techniques on a beautiful person like me. It's insulting if you think it's possible to hit me like that."
Ikkaku wasn't missing a beat. He rolled after the throw and picked himself up with more elegance than expected from a pirate.
Now Yumichika was interested. "You're not weak either."
"No shit."
"Well, this will be such an ugly thing, but I'll fight you. Seeing your eyes before death should be enjoyable."
"I didn't take you to be much of a fighter, pretty boy."
Yumichika shrugged. "The beautiful are always underestimated. But I didn't think you possessed even a small amount of skill."
"If you wanna fight me, then stop talking so much."
That was the best suggestion Yumichika heard in a while. He wanted a chance to use the style he'd work so hard on to perfect. It was deadly, graceful, accurate and almost so beautiful as to do justice to its practitioner. His movements were more like a dance that caught Ikkaku off guard, putting him into a daze almost while Yumichika closed the gap between the two and released a barrage of carefully aimed punches.
He had very little strength to go with his assault, but his attack managed to catch Ikkaku out of breath.
Retaliation was weak but put a stop to the volley of blows. Ikkaku grabbed the beauty's wrists and threw him against a wall in the small alleyway. The rotting wood creaked and nearly gave in as the lithe body was thrown into it.
To respond, Yumichika used to opportunity, though he could only barely breathe after being thrown like he was, to tackle his enemy. As good as Ikkaku was, the inevitability of losing a firm stance when throwing made him wide open.
Lunging for the throat, the beauty landed a firm hit on the Adam's Apple of his opponent. Even though he was still struggling to breathe normally and his back was screaming in agony, he didn't stop. A quick elbow to the chest and then tackle.
Ikkaku's endurance was as incredible as his adversaries. He threw Yumichika to the ground after avoiding the charge. They continued their battle with separate styles but equal power for hours upon hours until several walls had collapsed and neither were capable of so much as completing a sentence.
Both were crouching just off the ground and sweating buckets.
"You," Yumichika said gasping for air. "You aren't," pause again. "Too bad."
"Neither," Ikkaku replied, just as desperate for air as the other. "Are you."
"I," he paused to drink in much-needed air. "Told you."
"You can," Yumichika took in a deep breath. "Have the sword."
"Really?"
"Soon as," pause. "I can breathe."
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