Title: Glory In Surmounting, Chapter Three: If Thirsty, Drink
Author: Lys
Characters/Pairing: Pre-slash now. Eventual Yumichika/Ikkaku, Kenpachi/Ikkaku/Yumichika.
Rating/Warnings: R this chapter for violence and themes of death (HOW NOVEL FOR BLEACH, I KNO). Past!fic, eventually coming up to present.
Status: Incomplete ongoing. 1,355 words.

a/n: mostly exploration, ikkaku getting his ass beat. more of ikkaku getting his ass beat next chapter.



Yumichika didn’t see don’t-call-me-Madarame Ikkaku-without-the-san for a week and a half after their first meeting, which was not to say he didn’t hear about Ikkaku. There were quite a few stories circulating around about the oni-man with the choking hands and the bokuto that could cut through stone if given the chance—decidedly exaggeration, but Yumichika appreciated a good bit of aggrandizing gossip as well as the next man.

Yumichika thought of Ikkaku even more than he heard about him.

He’d come to Soul Society ages ago on his lonesome, having died in a rather ill-fated little tsunami which had destroyed his family’s ancestral home outside of Edo. He recalled, if his memories were being correct with him, that his last words had been, “Well, damn,” as the wave rolled into view on the horizon. He hadn’t picked up and run from the beach where he was walking with his younger brother. Running from a force of nature was futile, and futility was generally uncomely. It destroyed everything, in the forgiving way that a giant wave had (not like volcanos or men in large groups with weapons), and Yumichika’s last thoughts were—

What were they, again?

Oh, yes. Yumichika’s last thoughts were, as the wave sucked his drowning body out to sea again, spinning through the tree limbs and that greenish glow of underwater light, this isn’t how I imagined it happening. This isn’t how I imagined it happening, in all the short years of my life, but I died young and attractive, and doesn’t it feel nice, in the water? So weightless.

Doesn’t it look beautiful?

(Of course, this wasn’t strictly accurate. Yumichika’s actual last thoughts on his untimely death occurred when he awoke as a ghost, jogging across wood planks and dog carcasses, and he spoke to himself out loud in the night-time air as he approached the pony-tailed shinigami, a crow from the mainland with a dopish expression, “I hope they never find my body in this mess. It’d have to be water-logged by then.”)

He’d arrived in a festive little number in silk, like he was going out to a festival with his younger siblings, and it was true that you Couldn’t Take It With You, but Yumichika came from a rich family, and one didn’t get rich by not knowing anything about how to acquire wealth.

So by the time the hunger-pangs started, he was pretty well-off and adjusted enough to the new surroundings that he had the presence of mind to help himself to a nice peach, knowing just what the hunger-pangs meant. The juice had dribbled coolly down his plump bottom lip, finger curling his long hair around its length, as children and their women stared at Yumichika and whispered. It was at this point that Yumichika realized he rather liked people whispering about him, not caring one way or another if it was Bad Whispering or Good Whispering, because both were interesting, and interesting people were beautiful people. Reputations were for the weak. Yumichika wanted rumors.

He could have Gone Somewhere, with his little bit of peakish but steadily growing reiatsu, but instead he chose to Do Something. Every day Yumichika walked the streets with a weapon shining over his shoulder, not so much stopping petty crimes as putting on a show for his own sake. Every night he polished his walk, and his talk, and his little affectations. Every month he moved slightly closer to the Nasty Parts of rokungai, moving away from the shining centerpiece at a steady rate, moving in clockwise circles.

Every year he grew stronger and prettier and found it easier and harder to dodge the old women trying to convince him to attend the shinigami academy in Seireitei. He could make it easy, they always told him, because he had real power, the sort that came from a lack of natural talent and a desire to do whatever the hell one wanted to, talent be damned.

Strength and beauty were the two qualities most desirable in a human creature; strength for the men, beauty for the women. Yumichika wanted to have both, and he kept the rumormill grinding. What a fascinating topic it was, the effete little man with the strike like a cormorant. He was bright and poisonous as a butterfly. The rainbow of flowers on his kimono served as a warning.

Run away.

And Madarame Ikkaku didn’t.

Obviously Yumichika needed to take the man under his wings. Take him under his pointy black seabird wings, enjoying Ikkaku’s company and Ikkaku as an ideal. What little bird didn’t want to show the crane what was what? Yumichika liked all of this symbolic bird-comparison, and decided to keep it. As well as Madarame Ikkaku. He wasn’t stupid—it would be a good investment of time, and avoid what could become a nasty encounter in the future. Ikkaku’s reiatsu was easily the equal to his already, though he’d only been in Soul Society for, oh…about a round month, if he’d judged correctly.

Fortunately for Yumichika, as he fell from the roof of a two-story residential building with an unimpressive but well-kempt little peasant’s sickle, in a battle between power and and finesse, finesse had the upper hand. He was on Ikkaku before the other man had a chance to shout about it, sadly. Yumichika always liked that look grown men got in their eyes right before they were struck, when they saw the blow coming but knew there wasn’t a shred of a chance of avoiding it at that point. Inevitability was hilarious.

They looked just like they were about to piss themselves.

Ikkaku rolled along the center of the street, finally catching himself and curling onto his feet, hand flashing to his wooden sword. He drew it and held the comparatively dull side of the practice weapon in front of his face, guarding his eyes and nose. The light wound on his shoulder opened, oozing blood for just a moment before it congealed in the mid-day heat. Yumichika’s nostrils flared at the sudden steel-smell of the liquid as he met wood with wood, attempting to force Ikkaku backward with the hilt of his small kama. Ikkaku snarled, shoving Yumichika’s slighter frame away a good six feet, unconsciously adding non-physical force to his shove.

Yumichika laughed, bell-like. He brushed a strand of his long hair away from his face, where it had stuck to his damp lower lip.

“You’re a goddamn cheater,” Ikkaku smirked, standing to his full, lanky height, sword slung over his injured shoulder to hide the way he was favoring it, just slightly. Yumichika stared at the wound like a pet cat at its recent handiwork on a chair leg.

“I’m nothing of a sort,” Yumichika said, rolling his wide eyes before racing forward, leaping at Ikkaku for a second time, balance practiced and weapon held at the far ends of the hilt, bringing the three foot length down against Ikkaku’s bokuto, testing the other man’s force and strength. The wood bowed beneath Yumichika. Ikkaku threw him off once more.

On the third lunge, Yumichika struck to wound. He brought the weapon down, sickle-blade first, putting some ‘oomph’ behind it. Ikkaku’s eyes opened wide, showing the whites like a threatened dog. He’d obviously understood Yumichika’s intent, deciding prudently that he would be better off just moving as quickly as possible out of the way, rather than block this strike. He slid his bokuto into the tie of his yukata as he jumped, not wasting a movement, catching the ground with two open palms and shoving himself off of it, flipping and skidding to a stop further down the way.

Yumichika was duly impressed. He eyed the wet hand-prints stained into the street, sweat and oil marking the dry red clay. “Where did you learn all that?”

Ikkaku gave him a rather disgusted facial expression, whipping the bokuto out again and holding it at the ready, bending at the legs. “Used to be military,” He growled, bunched brow throwing his eyes into shadow in the direct, noontime light.

“Yet you’re so nervous that you’re sweating like a pig in the summer. How very ugly, Ikkaku.”

“It’s no fair. You’ve got a nicer weapon, man.”

Yumichika simply winked at him.

Ikkaku blushed at his own double entendre, throat bobbing.