La Vie Est Drôle

“Of course not, my dear Nui. It was foolish of you to think that I’d actually die like I did. I just needed time to...Rejuvenate as they say.”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk, Ragyo, dear.” He tutted as he put some distance between them, twirling her around for a brief moment then pulling her back in. “I suppose I should thank you for such sloppiness, but still. Letting Kuroido take care of me? You must have known that wouldn’t go well. You’re many things, Ragyo, but you’re no idiot.”

Ah, for just one moment he could almost forget that this woman was a monster. That he had sworn his life to ending her reign of terror. For just one moment he could pretend that they were young and in love again (though even he doubted she had ever really loved him). The two of them… her, with her recent inheritance of what would become REVOCS; and him, the genius grad student buried in student debt. Back then, they both had something to prove, and had found that they could help each other do so.

It was a memory he tried not to dwell on, lest he become lost in happier times.

“I did wonder why you never annulled the marriage.” Soichiro mused as they continued their dance. “I suppose that answers that. Oh, Ragyo… Even after all this time I can read you like an open book.” He grinned widely, a smirk that would not have been out of place on the hunchbacked old man. “Was I really so good in the sack that you never got over me?”

“Letting Kuroido try and kill you was the first mistake of many. The second, and my most biggest mistake, is never realizing our oldest daughter would turn against me...” She frowned as she was brought closer to her husband once more. She wrinkled her nose before scoffing. “But that too is in the past...” 

There were times, she knew when she missed the years that had gone by. The hushed whispers they shared. The little things. She had loved him, once. In the beginning. But things changed. As they always did. She still had the happy memories... 

As did he. 

Ragyo rolled her eyes, shaking her head. 

“I’d love to see you try, truly I would.” He sighed wistfully. It was perhaps an odd thing to romanticize, but the idea of finally putting an end to her even if it cost him his life? It appealed to him. What else did he have to offer the world? He had promised himself that he would give his daughters the life they deserved. Perhaps not their childhoods, that had been sacrificed so that their adult lives would be spared.

He would die with Ragyo, and not a second before. It was a truth they both knew. It was just a matter of how long this dance of theirs would last. How long it would continue to hurt their daughters. If it had just been the two of them, then Soichiro might not have cared. He would have let her do as she wish, because he loved this amazing woman so dearly, even with all of her faults.

It’s just that he loved their daughters more.

He wrapped his free hand around her waist and pulled her close. His hand in hers, he began to sway and dance to music only they could hear. “How unlike you to be so careless the first time.” He noted. “If I didn’t know any better I’d say you were attached. Why not kill me now? I’m about as open as I’m going to get, and then you’d be free of your greatest adversary, the one man that knows you better than anyone. Ah, but that wouldn’t be as enjoyable, would it? You enjoy this runaround of ours.”

“I let that fool of a butler of mine to try and kill you. That short, fat, and poor excuse of a man. I should have taken you out myself... Should have choked the life right from your neck...” 

She hummed, letting him pull her close and lead her in a dance. It would be alright for this to happen. Just this once. She tilted her head to the side, closing her eyes. It was such a shame things had to end in the way that they did. 

“I do enjoy this runaround of our’s, Soichiro. I enjoy what we have, whatever this is. You are still my husband and I am still your wife. That will never change. But we will die together, you know this. I know this. And we will have killed each other...”

She gripped the back of his shirt tightly, smirking. 

There it was. Ragyo was so unabashed about her goals that it was so easy to be reminded of why he had decided to make her his enemy instead of pursuing some facsimile of a normal marriage. Which as why Soichiro couldn’t help but smirk. Honestly, he would be putty in this woman’s hands if she really tried, but she simply did not know him as well as she thought she did. Or simply didn’t care.

“I prefer neither.” He told her simply, a soft smile on his face. “I am neither predator nor prey. I am a hunter. And I hunt that most elusive and powerful beast, the one at the top of the food chain. I hunt the beautiful and sublime Ragyo Kiryuin.”

He raised her hand to his lips and kissed the back of her knuckles. It was almost like old times. Almost. “I am going to kill you.” Words spoken so casually and yet did nothing to hide the intensity behind them. He meant every word.

Ragyo licked her lips, watching her husband as he lifted her hand. And the kiss... Oh how it was like old times. From the first time she saw him to now. Their relationship was like a dance. A very deadly dance and it would be that way until the day they both died. Truly died. Not like the deaths they kept on faking. 

“So you say....”

i can get to a few things here now holy shit

my somnus blog blew up and i made him a wall and 

It was perhaps the worst idea possible to let her get this close, to let her grab his hand, to let her hold it… But he was also a man starved for physical contact and affection… And here was his wife, who he loved hated; one could forgive him for falling back into old habits so easily. Well, not completely. He still had his mouth on him.

“A guppy the size of a great white with razor sharp teeth, perhaps.” Soichiro commented dryly, for that was who he really was at the moment. “Isshin” was nowhere to be found. “The comparisons lend themselves easily to you. A predator who feasts on humanity.”

Admittedly, she was surprised that the man had fallen into old habits so easily. After all, this was ‘Soichiro Kiryuin’. He was supposed to be a genius, was he not? Then again, in her eyes, he was nothing more than a hack. 

“You look like a shark. And not a metaphorical shark, like in cards or something. I mean like a literal shark. One that found some prey to play with.”

“This is honestly the strangest mood. Paradoxical even. I’m both extremely delighted to see her…”

“And absolutely livid.”

“Blumenkranz… blumenkranz in the deep… We cannot get out. The rainbow moves in the dark. We cannot get out. She is coming.”