Requested by The Crazy Chick In Black- thank you
Kensei x Mashiro
Grave
If you knew him well enough then you knew exactly what he was going to do- he was painfully predictable like that. When he moved his head to the right she knew he was planning to side-step away from her thrust to the left; when he tapped his knee with the flat of his blade he was waiting for her to turn slightly, so he could sweep her feet out from underneath her.
It made it very easy to defend against him when they sparred, which often turned to light bloodshed as they got more and more annoyed with each other. It didn't make him any easier to beat- she wasn't strong enough for that- but if he was ever up against anyone stronger than he, someone with a sharp enough intuition to notice, then he would be in some serious trouble.
It worried her, sometimes, as an abstract anxiety that she tried not to think about. If he died, then what would she do? The patina of memories that littered her skin with the uncertain silver of faded scars made her think of him, and not only because a lot of them were gifts from his blade.
They matched his own scars- some wide and short, given from a thrust of blades into skin; some fine and long, like spider-webs; some clawed slashes and stitched together gashes and the marks of a thousand conflicts- ones he had won, but that was no promise that he always would.
She knew that when she was slipping into sleep she could rest her head on his chest, curled up against him, and he wouldn't mind; she knew that he liked it when she traced all of those scars and tried so very hard to make a smile break his exterior.
It was always too obvious though that he would ruffle her hair as she began to sleep- it always made her smile, with the assurance of the movement.
He was entirely predictable, and she knew that one day it would take him to his grave.
For now though, she would listen to his heartbeat, and ignore the certainty of fate.