Completed Only a Massage

[VigiloConfido]

Anima wore the face of the masseuse. Had her blonde hair, her green eyes. She was her. The Masquerade had made it so.

And this was such a bountiful idea, wearing the face of the masseuse and coming to work at this massage parlor in Alliria for a spell. The closeness, the contact, the touch, the vulnerabilities on offer. Yes, she could bask in the clients that came through. Stoke in them the emotions of the day, their week, their month, their pasts, their lives. Consume their pain, their sadness, their love and their hate. Mother would be disappointed if she found out that Anima was wasting time, indulging as she was, and not pursuing the Embracing...but she had not found out, had she?

The door to the massage room opened, the only sound in the quiet, serene stillness. In walked her next client. And Anima smiled the masseuse's smile. Gestured to the bed before her.

Said, "Welcome. Make yourself comfortable."

This was going to be...delightful.

Wasn't it.

 

[Jirou]

It must've been years. No, it hadn't been. It's just that every day wandering the world since the bout with the Amalgamation had felt an eternity. He couldn't bring himself to return home, or even to see the ones he fought alongside that day. The reasons unbeknownst to him. The ronin did as he always did: he followed the wind.

The hardest part was learning to live with one arm. Such an abrupt change of pace in his nigh thirty years alive had left him feeling vulnerable and for the first time in a long time, a bit scared. He'd even stopped fighting everything that threatened him just to preserve his own safety. It's almost as if he cared for his life all of a sudden. If maybe for no other reason then to see Eren and Caliane Ruinë once more.

Jirou found himself tired and sore from his travels, and serendipitously finding a massage parlor. A massage would be a nice break. He entered, his remaining arm on the hilt of his katana and one sleeve flowing.

"Welcome. Make yourself comfortable."

"Thank you, I shall." He said with a warm smile, removing his top and revealing his one-armed state. He could have sworn he'd seen this woman before, too. But after all he'd been through he convinced himself he was overthinking it.

 

[VigiloConfido]

This one.

Where...?

Where was he? Anima thought that for a moment--a moment that would be fleeting, yes, but like an irritating fly would buzz back again and again--that she recognized him. That she knew him. A deep knowing, dark in the cellar of her heart. This same cellar that held Luna Slateforge, Lydia, Eric, Mikos, Peter, Shadha, Emilia, Voraak, and Luc, among many others in whom she had basked (oh how she had come so close to adding Eren'thiel Xyrdithas into this lovely number).

But she could not place it. Certainly not while she wore the face of another.

Anima stood welcoming and receptive, her hands clasped properly in front of her. This, as the masseuse--Hannah--would have. She saw the scars and the burns on the client's chest, but her eyes did not greedily scour them; the force of the Masquerade, of being someone who she was not, kept them locked warmly on the client's own.

She smiled. Nodded. Came forward then and lightly put a hand on his arm and with her other gestured to the raised massage bed. Said, "My name is Hannah, and I will be relaxing you today. Please, lie down when you are ready."

Her smile widened just a tiny fraction.

"Would you like to share your name with me?"

Jirou

 

[Jirou]

The air in the room felt thick the moment their eyes met post him removing his shirt. Not in some sort of affectionate way, it was as if they shared two sides of the same burden. Her eyes were kind and her skin looked soft. It gave the impression that a venus flytrap might.

"Jirou." He spoke without tone or emotion as he moved his way to lay on the table. He grew ever more unnerved at the idea of having his back turned to anyone. He closed his eyes and let out a deep breath in hopes to relax himself from his own penetrating thoughts but the relaxation did not come.

He awaited her touch, as that would answer all his questions.

 

[VigiloConfido]

Anima smiled Hannah's smile and swept in a prim way across and throughout the room, taking the one lit candle about and lighting the others in their stands, supplementing the soft light filtering in through the translucent curtains about the window. Once done, back to the small counter in the massage room. She lit a few sticks of incense, and placed the timidly smoking sticks into a glass bowl, from which their aroma flowed lazily forth. She picked up a small bottle of massage oil and coaxed a small pool of it into the palm of her hand.

She turned and went to Jirou on the massage bed. Hmmm...his tone had been flat. Devoid even of the cordiality of his earlier expression of gratitude.

Perhaps she could change that. Coax out into the palm of her hand the droplets of his emotions--as she had coaxed the oil from the bottle--over the course of their session.

Anima rubbed the oil between her hands, the soft and wet swishing sound of her palms passing over one another seeming to fill the room.

She spoke with Hannah's voice, her words, saying in a comforting whisper, "Take a slow...deep...breath...with me. In..."

Anima breathed in slowly through her nose.

"And out..."

She exhaled.

"Once more..."

She inhaled.

And then, on the exhalation and with the newly warmed oil on both her palms, she gently laid her hands down on the small of Jirou's back. Gliding motions, soft and tender, from his tailbone and up the length of his back and fanning to his left shoulderblade, his right shoulderblade, the base of his neck, spreading the oil.

And she continued these gliding motions. Letting her warmth mix with his (their separation merely through flesh and unknowing).

Another whisper. "Would you like to speak of the things which bring you joy?"

Jirou

 

[Jirou]

He let his breaths match hers as she asked him too. The feeling of her hands felt welcoming and calming. Even in the instance his instincts were right about the previous mood, he would find it may be a pleasant way to die. He half smiled to himself, knowing all too well he'd never let that happen.

Her voice was soft, but it felt... Alien. As if she'd borrowed the voice. Her touch reciprocated the tone and felt like heaven on his rigid and twisted from combat body. He feared he may even fall fast asleep from the sensation, if it had not been for her words.

A small laugh escaped. He didn't often think of such things.

"Hmm... If I had to say.... A nice sake always brings warmth to my chest. Cooked fish. The smell before rain. Nothing grandiose. I find most glamorous things to be gaudy."

 

[VigiloConfido]

If only she had some sake. Or some fish. Or if it was fortunate enough to perhaps be close to raining outside. But she had none of these things. Nothing to spark the joy in Jirou in which she could likewise partake.

(But where did she know him from?)

Anima walked around to the head of the table. Placed her hands delicately between his shoulderblades, a motion like the draping down of a silk sheet. Circular motions, starting at the base of his neck. Slow and tender. Her fingers caressing his flesh, finding tension and teasing it away.

"I am like you," Anima said. A truth already manifest, and a truth waiting to be realized, once the separation between them...thinned. "I, too, find glamorous things unappealing."

She smiled. Bent slightly as her hands worked and whispered above his ear, "I enjoy getting to know people."

Her fingers fanned in their circular motions, swimming in the flesh of his back.

"You're doing great, Jirou."

Coaxing circles and tempting ovals.

"Lovely."

Her hands spreading her warmth into him, his warmth delightfully infecting her hands.

"You're safe...Here...with me. 'Tis only you and I. Free you are from the troubles and worries of your days past. You need only relax...relaaaaaax...and let go...just let them go..."

(Give them to me.)

She whispered again, saying, "Would you like to share your burdens with a sympathetic ear? I who will listen. I who does not judge. I who only wishes the best...for you..."

Jirou

 

[Jirou]

Her fingers began to feel as though they were part of his own flesh. Jirou was slowly succumbing to whatever this massage was to become. The feeling of giving in was one too unfamiliar and so wonderful. One he'd turned down when offered by Andromeda Barbarossa, someone who'd also failed to leave his mind in his travels. He hoped he'd see her again so they can share one more drink.

Jirou let her words dance in his ear as his pain seemed to slip slowly away. His eyes however reopened upon the question of his burdens. Where to even begin on that. Likely the most relevant and recent for the young ronin. That damned Amalgamation. The one that took his arm and nearly killed him. The one he, Eren and Caliane put down. He never did find out about who was inside that cursed kaiju.

"There was... A battle." He spoke softly. "A nightmarish one. More lives lost than I'd seen at once. A black, roaring monster. It was as if this soil had become a hell for a day. Me and my allies brought it down, luckily, but there were too many casualties for me to consider it victory. And I remember..."

He shifted his head a bit.

"A woman. Inside the creature. Was she piloting it? Perhaps another victim? I never got those answers. But I cut that Amalgamation wide open and my friend set fire to it. For now there is quiet, so it is a past burden."

Anima

 

[VigiloConfido]

...AM JIROU...THIS DAY...DEATH, BEHEMOTH.

Ah. So that was it. Memories so vague that they were as dreams fleeing the mind upon waking. But just for a moment, prompted by Jirou's recalling, Anima pierced that veil. And she remembered him. The Lone Warrior, approaching her when she was inside the Amalgamation. The influx of sorrow after the Pulse. Yes. This among other things.

Anima kneaded the heels of her hands into Jirou's back. Gentle motions, like a hand streaming through still water.

What a fortunate meeting, here and now. For they knew each other, and had not initially known that they knew each other, and yet here they were--like two spiders having on accident weaved their webs together. Something extraordinary could happen here. Yes.

Anima kept massaging his back. But she leaned her body down--Hannah's blonde hair falling like curtains about the sides of her face, the tips gracing the top of Jirou's head--and lowered her lips to his ear and whispered:

"It should have been you...you, who dealt the killing blow."

Still, she caressed.

"For you faced the monster first. And then Caliane stole your glory..."

Her fingers pressed softly and lovingly into the tensed knots of his muscles. Stroked the flesh.

"They sing of her. And not you. Yet you are scarred, and she is not."

Her hands in their massaging circles worked out from the center of his back toward both his sides.

"You deserve better than this, Jirou."

Jirou

 

[Jirou]

"It should have been you...you, who dealt the killing blow."

What? What did she know of the venture? Was she there? That's entirely possible but why would she speak on it in such a manner....

"For you faced the monster first. And then Caliane stole your glory..."

What in the nine hells was happening. How did she know the name of Caliane? Who was this woman Hannah? His eyes now opened and turned back to her as he lay flat. Her soothesaying was beginning to falter against his iron will.

"They sing of her. And not you. Yet you are scarred, and she is not."

Whoever she was, she clearly did not know Jirou very well if she thought something so trivial mattered to him. Caliane deserved the praise. As did Eren. They fought with all their might, his own fight did not undermine that fact and he would never be a glory thief, if anything, he was happy to know the world saw her in such a light.

"You deserve better than this, Jirou."

"That's quite enough, Hannah." He spoke with disbelief about her name and pushed himself upward with not the force to harm but certainly to suggest that she move. He stood up from the table and kicked his sword into his hand but let it remain sheathed.

"You've got quite the intoxicating familiarity about you, you know that?" He said without amusement. "I can't help but wonder why exactly it is that you know me and Caliane fought alongside. Tell me," He pushed the hilt of his blade barely upward with his thumb.

"What was your part in that war that was waged?"

Skepticism and hints of anger flared in his pumpkin eyes. The scars upon his body telling anyone that was a threat to him to think twice.

Not that anyone who'd seen him fight would need that warning a second time.

Anima

 

[VigiloConfido]

Anima stood straight when Jirou pushed himself up on the table. Let her hands trail back down to her front, and she clasped her left over her right, standing in that proper way again at the head of the table. Her eyes moved, watching Jirou find his footing and hold his sheathed sword, as her head remained still.

And she smiled.

Dispensed with Hannah's mannerisms of speech and slid back into her own. Said, "You saw her recently. Caliane. And Erën. They are doing well."

Tiny hints of raw, bloody meat, the taste trickling on the tip of her tongue. But it was not enough. She wanted more.

"Well. Without you."

A luxuriously slow blink. A mildly avian cocking of her head.

"You are the Lone Warrior...and your loneliness is tragic."

Her smile was unceasing. And she carefully lifted a hand and placed it over her heart.

"Here, you are appreciated. Here, you are not abandoned. Here, you are cherished. Here...you are loved."

Anima lifted that same hand up to her face, tracing slowly with the backs of her fingers the bone of her jaw from ear-to-ear.

Saying as she did, "You wish to know that part in the war...don't you? You wish to see what lies underneath the mask...don't you. And you know what to do..."

She curled her fingers down, all save her index. Then made a cutting motion back down the curve of her jaw, her chin, up the other side of her jaw and then across her brow and back to where she started at the base of her right ear.

"...don't you."

Anima stood. Smiling. Welcoming and receptive.

Jirou

 

[Jirou]

Her words, her tone, her looks. All of it felt like a lie. An alluring one, for sure, but a lie nonetheless. She was beautiful and enticing and most warriors would bend a knee to her without a second thought. This was not the warrior she wanted to test, however.

Jirou's stance hardened, and his eyes narrowed in succession. To speak on his loneliness, on the fates of his friends without him, she had some sort of intention. Her lack of fearful response to his presence and questions was troublesome, meaning she may have even expected this.

"I have to admit. I know as far as just before how to get it out of you. I take it upon myself to not cause harm to those I haven't proven guilty yet. And if by chance you mean something of the carnal nature..." He let a chuckle escape.

"You must not know as much about me as I previously thought you did."

 

[VigiloConfido]

Anima's eyebrows perked when Jirou said "carnal nature." Without the infusion of emotion, carnal motion was plain and flat, but with it...with a coursing of love or anger or hatred or sorrow through the veins of her and her partner...then the coupling became euphoric. Amplifying those succulent emotions, turning them to sweet nectar. Divine.

She would not mind it. But she doubted that he would give it, and she likewise doubted she could force herself upon him. For he had a formidable adherence to his virtue and a strength to match.

But all fell to the dark. In time. Because the dark did not seep into one's heart from without. No. It blossomed from within, for it had always been there. Waiting. Watching. Needing only one's permission. Tacit, or express.

Anima stood at the head of the massage bed still. Still in that proper and lady-like way--the last vestige of Hannah, save the face she wore.

"And you are right, aren't you? You don't know so much about the man named Jirou...do you? You know the vague pain of his past...a sorrow...deep and guarded tightly...yet you know not what it is."

She drew in a breath, and her chest swelled. The look in her eyes electric with energy and mounting excitement behind Hannah's lady-like calm and composure.

"Perhaps you should like catharsis."

(Perhaps you should like to lash out. To manifest that pain in me.)

Anima's smile opened into a grin.

"You enjoyed crushing the orcish cavalry, the adventurers and the Armored Thirteen, the Line defending Bhathairk and the innocents pouring out from it. You later chanced upon Caliane and Erën and their friends named Lazule and Azulian. And you enjoyed stabbing Lazule through. And you will try again. You are a shadow which pursues. You desire their blood on your blade...don't you."

And she waited. Watched.

Jirou

 

[Jirou]

"You enjoyed crushing the orcish cavalry, the adventurers and the Armored Thirteen, the Line defending Bhathairk and the innocents pouring out from it. You later chanced upon Caliane and Erën and their friends named Lazule and Azulian. And you enjoyed stabbing Lazule through. And you will try again. You are a shadow which pursues. You desire their blood on your blade...don't you."

"You..." His eyes widened once more. It was far too clear now. Those words were not directed at him. They were directed at herself. She. She was the one who lay at the base of the Amalgamation. He remembered the vision clearly now. His charred flesh and a hazy stare into the the monster he had bested showed this woman.

He drew his sword, aimed at the ground. "Who are you?" His body was nigh shaking in rage. "Who are you to have dared claim so many lives as your own as a tyrant would?" He pointed the sword at her.

"You will answer me, Amalgamation, for your crimes have cost me my appendage, and made families split at the seams." There were almost tears in his eyes. "What are your accursed reasons?"

 

[VigiloConfido]

The taste of raw, bloody meat saturated her tongue now. Succulent. Exquisite. Given freely through his eyes and the boiling tension in his body. He was brimming with rage, and she let it wash over her. Filled her heart with it, this piece of Jirou bestowed so lovingly upon her.

"It was all for you," she said. Her tone like a woman smitten. "For you. For this moment. For the one that comes next."

She took a dainty step out from the head of the massage table and toward him. Her hands still clasped in front of her, down by her waist. Her right eyebrow perked.

"They are not dead. They live on. Cherished, by you. They are one with you, and you with them."

Her cheeks turned blood red with passion and her smile was radiant in its reaching breadth. She unfurled her hands and raised her arms and extended them out toward Jirou like a wife, moved to tears upon seeing her soldier husband returning from a campaign, beckoning for the comfort of his touch, his closeness.

"You wish only to be embraced. To see, and be seen. To know, and be known."

An intimate whisper.

"To love, and be loved."

Jirou

 

[Jirou]

Her ravings grew ever more mad. As if she'd plotted such a fiendish thing just for his own sake, for his own revelry. It was a fool's errand to think that'd ever be the case but why were her words so... Honest? This far surpassed any deviousness he'd experienced previously. He was blank in the mind for he could not bring himself to strike her. Her words full of love and wonder and yet they held such heavy darkness amidst them. But could he let her go, upon her own admission of being the beast he helped killed? This was a battle he felt he had no way to win.

Her approach was daunting. It felt as if a thousand bricks lay on his spine and it grew ever denser as she encroached. What in the world was he to do? He couldn't let her touch him. He knew that much. Whoever she was she was incredibly dangerous. And impossible to figure out.

He backed away from her slowly, placing his sword horizontally between them.

"It is not you who decides what it is I wish for." He spoke, calming his mind from the clutter best he could.
"You can cover your tracks with the scent of lilac all you want, that does not change that the trail is slathered in blood. Your own delusions do not change what you did from mass murder to some sort of twisted architecture of love."

His mind trailed back to Yuuna. And that SHE made him see her suffer again.

"How dare you speak of love to me, when you used my woe against me, witch." The rage boiled once more.

 

[VigiloConfido]

Anima stood with her arms out and her hands inviting and she watched him backing away in what space the massage room allowed for him. Shy. The shy ones were always the most enticing.

"You know what it is you wish for. You have always known, haven't you?"

She took a step, erasing some of the space Jirou gained by backing away. Still her arms held out in that beckoning way.

"There is no scent of lilac, is there. The trail is slathered in blood. You did murder en masse. You did provoke that woe. And you would do it again...wouldn't you? Because that is what you desire. And you are truthful with yourself, aren't you?"

She slowly, gracefully, swung her right hand down in a crescent-shaped motion to be under the end of Jirou's blade. Her hand hovered, almost but not quite touching it, beneath the sharp edge of the weapon. Palm up. Fingers curved back. Little and ring finger raised in a delicate fan, thumb pointing perpendicular to the lot of them.

"If this hand offends you, cut it off," she said. "But you wish to see, don't you? Not the face of Hannah, no..."

And Anima once again drew in a breath that made her chest and her shoulders swell and rise.

"May your blade be touched?"

Jirou

 

[Jirou]

"I can hardly tell who the hell you're speaking to you anymore. Do you blame me for your own transgressions? Or do you wish to escape your wrongdoings via confusion?" It was true. Jirou was wildly confused by all of this. Her words seemed directed at him but were they for him? He could not tell. There was a great deal left unexplained but she was absolutely the one he thought her to be. He couldn't trust her with a touch, could he?

What bothered him more than all of this was how enticing her offers not only sounded, but felt. There was a tremendous amount of love, desire, craving in her movements and words and yet the unease did not go away. She really had done a number on his mind.

The ronin lowered her sword. He'd already let her touch him once. Let's see what damage she could do.

"You may touch me again, if you so desire. It seems talking will lead me to no answers." He had to stay alert for whatever her actual plan was. Cut her down if she tried anything.

 

[VigiloConfido]

A slow and patient blink. Her smile and her stance did not falter.

"There is no blame. And there is no wish to escape. All is permissible...when you accept who you are. And you know who you are...don't you?"

Yes. Your heart tells you. And within every Man lies a core of dark. Always waiting. Watching. Waiting to be seen. Known. Then it may finally be given life. The lie dispensed with, and the truth allowed its rightful reign.

You may touch me again, if you do desire.

Anima's smile opened into a grin once again. She wished to remove Hannah's face, to end the Masquerade, to shed Hannah's blonde hair and eyes and her short height and her porcelain skin. But this would do.

"Yes. You do desire it. You do."

Anima stepped forward. A slow advance. Gradually her arms came to wrap around Jirou's body and she pressed the side of her face to his chest. Tiny, comforting strokes of her fingers over the coarseness of his scarred and burned back. She closed her eyes and let the rhythm of Jirou's breathing cause for her head to move in tandem with it, rise and fall...rise and fall. And she listened. Oh yes she listened--and felt. His heart, beating beneath the warm flesh and solid bone.

After some time simply spent in silent embrace, she tilted her head back to look up at him. Smiled earnestly.

"Would you like to feel another heart?"

Jirou

 

[Jirou]

Not quite... What he expected. Her words again sounding as if they were meant for him, but the response confirmed the notion that it wasn't. Her manipulation of language still baffled the ronin. He thought it best to not linger on an idea he could not figure out. Rather to pay close attention to her as she embraced him. Again, not what he'd been expecting.

The grip on his sword grew tighter. He however would be lying if he'd said that it did not feel nice. An embrace like this hadn't been felt since Ashieron's departure. A friend who'd claimed they weren't dead, and yet... He couldn't keep his eyes from looking downward at her. Eventually her gaze met his. Her smile so deceptively happy. Or was it deception? It made no sense to him how she could be genuinely enamored by the man who'd cut her out of the Amalgamations heart. And who accepted what she'd done. He'd never been in a situation like this.

And he'd certainly never been asked that question before.

"What do you mean by that?"

 

[VigiloConfido]

The taste of peaches began to invade the surface of her tongue, overriding the faint veneer of hard, stale bread. Yes. It was her own. An inspiring of emotion from the extraordinary circumstance: their fated meeting in Bhathairk, their chance meeting here, the discovery of this chancing, the flare of rage from him, the invitation for closeness regardless of that rage. Yes. It truly made her happy. There were many forms of intimacy--some rarer than others.

She let her hands slide around Jirou's body, disengaging from their embrace. And she pressed her right hand to his chest. Over his heart. (What veiled deeds beat against his chest? Against her hand?)

"Is it not a sweet thing? For your heart to speak and for a hand to hear it? Yes. You are heard, Jirou. You are here. And you are cherished."

Her left hand wandered down his arm--his sole arm--and to his wrist. A meek and gentle wrapping of her fingers about it. Coaxing. Suggesting.

"Touch the heart before you, as yours is touched. Feel it. Beating. Like yours."

A whisper.

"And you yearn for this..."

And a smile.

"...don't you?"

Jirou

 

[Jirou]

"Is it not a sweet thing? For your heart to speak and for a hand to hear it? Yes. You are heard, Jirou. You are here. And you are cherished."

Another round of words he could not comprehend, and yet it held some bearing of truth. What was that truth? Could he find it if he risked his safety to follow her instructions. He had fallen prey to curiosity, which hath killed many before him. But not even fire from the heavens could kill him. Nor could this Amalgamation.

"Touch the heart before you, as yours is touched. Feel it. Beating. Like yours."

Her body was a foreign substance to him. Her abilities, her powers. The truth she kept so tempting at the surface was just within hands reach. A decision that would declare their relationship in one small touch. What she wanted, and what he would learn.

"And you yearn for this..."

He could deny his desire for this knowledge no longer. The truth. He wanted it.

"...don't you?"

His hand broke her grasp, and he put the back of his hand to her neck. His sword still in his grasp. To feel the heartbeat through two of his fingers.

 

[VigiloConfido]

Anima smirked, and her eyes drifted down to the sword-wielding hand at her neck, the two fingers which had been given permission to touch. Yet his shyness persisted, uneroded; he lacked the resolve to put his hand to her chest, as she had with his. He was curious, indulging, but tempered still by caution or trepidation. (He had not given in.)

One hand still to his chest, feeling his heartbeat, the other trailing slowly after his own. Coming to rest like a thin veil upon it.

Her pulse within her neck beat with a healthy rhythm, throbbing against the touch of Jirou's fingers. (Beating, in tandem tune, with Jirou's own heartbeat.)

For a while, only this. Her touch on him, his touch on her, their hearts and all that lie within beating eagerly in the gentle knowing of her palm, his fingers. She stared with a receptive intensity into Jirou's eyes--from here all would be given.

"Do you know what lurks within this heart?"

A tiny squeeze of Jirou's hand with hers.

"And you feel it, don't you? These things which have always lurked there. Dark and true and watchful."

A pressing of her fingers into the flesh of Jirou's chest.

"The slaying of the orcish cavalry lives here. The slaying of the adventurers lives here. The trampling of the Line lives here. The murder of innocents lives here. The basking in what they feared, in what they loved, lives here."

Her pulse drummed with a vigorous, excited liveliness.

"Do you know what else lurks within this heart?" Her smile causing her cheeks to swell and rise. "You already know...don't you. A desiring to run your fingers through Erën's hair, to discover the taste of Caliane's wings, to kill Lazule and join him with you, to be smothered in Azulian's love. Yes. All of these things. All of these delightful things..."

Jirou's eyes. Yes.

She stared into them.

Jirou

 

[Jirou]

The rhythmic beating of their momentarily entwined hearts was intriguing. But nothing came. All that came was her own admission. Her touch to him further, and her blatant desire for him to succumb.

He would give her no such satisfaction.

In the end, his confusion ended up laying more with himself than with her. She was just that. Dark. True. Murderous. As she even told him. It was now himself he grew angry with, himself he was confused for. How dare he let a temptress drag him this far. The murderer, the one who brought naught but slaughter to that stronghold was before him and he did what? Touch her like a boy with glowing eyes for a mistress in an adjacent window? Disgusting.

And now she dare threaten the ones he fought directly alongside?
Enough was enough. He would not follow her ploy any longer.

He closed his fist and put it to her neck, pushing her against the wall beside them. He dragged the blade to her cheek and let it cut her face, his eyes now devoid of mercy.

"Listen closely, kaiju."

He cut deeper. The merciless eyes he showed were not of rage this time. They were that of a trained, hardened killer. Cold and unwavering. They did not show threats. They showed a promise.

"You shall tell me how you became stories tall and ruined a city's walls and its people. You will tell me who else is involved with your sadistic games. You will tell me where they are. You will tell me their names, accomplices, friends, lovers. Then and only then..." He moved the blade from her cheek to her neck.

"Will I take your head."

 

[VigiloConfido]

Many forms of intimacy.

He guarded himself, yes. Closed and curtained windows. But his actions spoke loudly. Brought them ever closer, entwining them further than the sweet sharing of their heartbeats.

She let it happen. Let him whirl her about and push her by the neck against the wall. A slight gasp as her body came into rough contact with the wall and her lungs were evacuated. Arms limply at her sides.

Oh, his blade. His loving blade. Brought to her cheek and there binding them in violence. She grinned, eyes locked on Jirou's own, as she turned her head steadily side-to-side, willingly sawing her flesh against the cutting edge of the blade. He cut deeper. She pressed Hannah's cheek into the blade harder. Blood dribbled down her skin and the metal and dripped with soft patters to the massage room floor.

He spoke. Spoke of what he desired. Moved the blade to her neck. Yet he was still shy. Afraid of what he was capable of--of what his heart was telling him to do.

Hands with spread fingers slowly ascended from her sides and came to the back of the sword and lovingly assisted him. Meekly pressed into the blunt edge to drive the sharp edge closer to her neck, pressed it ever so slowly to bite into her skin, a further penetration of the flesh that divided them and coupling of violence. A manifestation of desire.

"This head is yours to take," Anima said. "And you were always meant to...weren't you? It has been there, this deed, lurking in your heart since the day you were born. And here...now...you need only...give yourself..."

A euphoric exhaling.

And a tender whisper.

"...permission."

Jirou