K/K arguments

[masked_god]

[Karakael rarely moves through the Overcosm quickly, and never relies only on instinct. It is too easy for the swirl of colors to take him where his mind would rather be going, rather than to the problem he needs to face.

So he doesn't arrive at Issie's temple at a run, but instead at a leisurely pace which takes only a few seconds of community time only because of the time differential between his galaxy and that of the community.

But he arrives immediately in front of Kefka, grabs him by the lapels, and tugs him backwards into his universe.]

We need to talk.

Comments

[sandinmyboots]

Kefka was sitting outside Issei's temple before everything started, ripping petals off a flower he found nearby with a searing intensity.

Now, the flower falls onto the tile of Karakael's palace as Kefka stumbles into it. He shrieks in wordless rage and shoves Karakael away from him, not caring if his clothing tears or if either of them would be injured.

[masked_god]

He stumbles away, falling heavily.

"Good." Is all the Inquestor says, gesturing to close the gate behind them. "You'll have to do better than that if you want to hurt me."

[sandinmyboots]

"I can do that!" Kefka howls, sweeping his cloak around in a suitably dramatic manner before starting the hand movements to cast Firaga. "You may want to kill me, but you can't! I'll kill you first!"

Because he knows Karakael wants to kill him, he knows, he knows, he's unreliable and he hates him and Kefka's going to kill him kill him kill him and strangle him and kill him and why is this happening against kill kill kill -

[masked_god]

"Go ahead."

He raises his hands, staring Kefka straight back in the face, eyes angry and defiant.

"I've already burned once before."

[sandinmyboots]

"Fi-ra-ga!" Kefka yells, shoving his hands forward. The fireball follows his aim, flying straight at Karakael.

[masked_god]

Karakael! A force-field snaps up around the Inquestor, which the fire-ball harmlessly bounces off of. You may make these childish gestures of affection on your own time, but I will not be bothered to revive you again.

"Damnit, Vara!" The Inquestor calls. "He needs to spend his rage on someone. It might as well be me!"

But the voice is gone, thought the force-field remains, engulfing the Inquestor completely, and he strikes it in frustration.

[sandinmyboots]

Kefka shrieks again, and proceeds to cast and toss a multitude of spells at the force field, from ice spikes to lightning bolts to crushing waves of water and more.

None of them pierce.

He tries destroying the floor of the palace to get to that Vara, wherever she is, which crumbles the floor but does not pierce. Kefka floats, screaming, his fingers digging so deeply into his hands that blood is starting to drip from them. He is a shell and his anger barely starts to fill the hole, he is a shell and he will fill himself with screams and blood and and and -

"Fine! If. That. Doesn't. Work - ! You, you, you awful sickening nosy busybody overobsessed cringing cat-faced I hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate hate you! I hate you! Hate you hate you hate you!"

He yanks his hair hard, staining some of it rusty with blood, then starts to do hand gestures for another casting.

[masked_god]

The Inquestor's hands tighten into fists, but he says nothing about the taunts, though they cut deeper than any blow could.

"Better for you to hate me than yourself. Or, even worse, that naive little girl."

A pause. If his question earlier didn't destroy their relationship, this certainly will.

"Tell me, Kefka. Are you in control now?"

[sandinmyboots]

"Shut up! I hate everyone and everything! It's all nonsense and it has to die! Die die die die die die! I hate it I hate it I hate I hate I hate I hate - !"

Kefka blasts the walls with fire, then drags his nails down his face.

"I don't care! I'll kill everything! You, me, her, all of this! We'll all die!"

[masked_god]

Karakael sits on the parapet, hands resting loosely on his knees, the perfect picture of nonchalance.

Never mind that it is only a picture, and behind the mask he's biting his lip hard enough to draw blood, forcing himself not to call out or struggle against the barrier. Damn Vara. Kefka was right there, hurting himself and there was nothing Karakael could do to stop him...

"You're right. All things die. Its a fact of the universe, and you alone won't change it."

[sandinmyboots]

"I know that!"

Kefka tosses another fireball at the barrier uselessly.

"That's why I'm going to kill everything now! I won't let anything else beat me to them! You, her, all of the community...I have called dibs on them! You're all mine to kill! I hate you all and you have to die!"

He's almost sobbing at this point. Kefka is an empty vessel; rage and frustration fill him like acid, burning, and he'll kill everything to show them exactly. How serious. He is.

"Get out of that, you coward! Cowards, cowards, all of you! Vara and you and everyone! I'll destroy you all! I'll give you death....the death you deserve!"

[masked_god]

"The death I deserve?" He stands and walks over to the barrier and places a hand on it. "Hah. I've already gotten that."

He looks up to the shaking man just a few feet away. "It turned out death is too good for me."

"Its to easy, to nice and pretty. People like me don't get to die, we're too corrupt and...and evil to let rest. No, we live so that we can suffer."

He strikes the barrier with one fist, making the whole thing hum.

[sandinmyboots]

"No, you haven't!"

Kefka flies over to the force field and slams his fists into it. It doesn't budge, but his knuckles split from the force of the blow. Kefka snarlsmiles, shaking, and rams his fists against the field again and again and again.

"You should get a nice, painful death," slam, "with lots of screaming," slam, "ordered and done by yours truly," slam, "and it will." Slam. "Be." Slam. "Permanent!"

A final slam, double-fisted, and Kefka drags his knuckles down the field, smearing blood on it, and rests his head where Karakael's hand rests. "Even if I have to kill every living thing in every living universe I find first...ha ha ha...and that Vara, and everyone on the community, and me....hee...hee...hee..."

[masked_god]

The Inquestor is watching the field. That distance in his eyes that appears when he dissociates is back and he doesn't even flinch when Kefka's knuckles slit.

No, what he sees the way the field bucks under the blows and the way the red runs in certain way. Ah. His hands tense over a certain space.

"Then hit here. I dare you to find a that will stick. If I was gone it would be better for both of us, right?"

[sandinmyboots]

Kefka hits it, shattering the field. He's breathing hard; his hair is haloing around his head with static and from him pulling on it, barely contained by his ponytail anymore.

And with the field gone, Kefka rams into Karakael, pulling him into a tight embrace. Kefka buries his face in Karakael's chest, his fingers digging into the fabric over Karakael's back.

"I'm the only one who gets to decide when you die, so shut your face right now."

[masked_god]

"Is that what you want? To be the only one who gets to decide? You already have that right."

He wraps his arms around Kefka, returning the hug with one of his own, and only now does he start shivering. He leans against the smaller man, a hand cradling the head buried in his chest.

"Kefka. I'm sorry."

[sandinmyboots]

"Good."

Kefka crumbles in Karakael's arms, his surge of energy draining along with his rage.

"Stop shaking. I haven't cast Quake. And I wasn't gonna hurt her...she's almost sixteen, she's practically an adult and I expected her to act like one. I didn't want to get called a crazy lunatic banana by you, of all people..."

[masked_god]

The Inquestor catches him and sub-vocs a command that transports them deeper into the ruined palace, into his private rooms.

"People shake when they are frightened for their loved ones." He says, hands tight in the fabric of Kefka's dress even as he collapses back into a chair-like floor protrusion.

"I...I would rather you be angry with me than harm yourself so." Another command, and an insect-bird hybrid appears with salve for Kefka's wounds.

"And...and it is not your sanity that I was calling into question. I - " He pauses, his eyes hooded beneath the mask as he fiddles with the cap to the aloe. "I was afraid you might do something that I would have done. I should have known you could control yourself better than that."

He looks away, the shakes slowly subsiding, still sending twitches into his finger tips where they hold Kefka close.

[sandinmyboots]

"It's not that bad. Just my knuckles," Kefka says, squirming into a better position in Karakael's lap - on Karakael's lap, one arm around his shoulders and neck, the other perched on Kefka's knee. He rubs at his first knuckle with his thumb, wincing.

"I think....if the Firaga had hit, I would have panicked and put you out after a moment. I think..." He huffs. "I try not to be around people when I get like that. I get stupid, and then Celes chews me out and-" he pauses, then shakes his head. "And then I get demoted."

He leans in and kisses Karakael's cheek. "I know better than to go around killing kids haphazardly. I'll only do it as a last resort, don't worry. You alright?"

[masked_god]

"Blood is blood. It should be taken care of." Though how the Inquestor deals with it might be a bit...unique. He wipes his shimmer-cloak across Kefka's face, letting clean the skin, before letting it loose to lick at Kefka's hands.

He runs a hand over the cloak, smoothing the folds. "I know you wouldn't have hurt me for long. And I would have deserved that pain. There have been too many times when I've come out of a similar rage, only to find what I care about in tatters."

A sigh. It has been a long time since he lost control, but he still remembers the overwhelming hatred - for himself, for the system - that was only ever alleviated through pain or violence. But unlike Kefka he always had somewhere else to run to - a bar or brothel where he could throw punches in losing fights until the rage subsided.

He shrugs away the memories. They are from a life long gone. "I...I will be. Just..." Another sigh. "I recently did something foolish to one of my own children, and its been bothering me. I shouldn't have let that worry spill over into my understanding of you."

[sandinmyboots]

"I could just Cure it," Kefka says. Nevertheless, he lets the shimmer-cloak clean his hands; when it's done, he offers it the palms of his hands, curious. "So, who's this little one..."

He doesn't get like this often. Maybe once or twice a year, blow ups that sent soldiers scrambling. Everyone knew when Kefka was in a mood like this. Usually, he spent it locked up in his room or out in the wild, killing things until he cooled down. No one was safe, and so Or, if someone was unlucky, he'd spread their guts over the floor. It didn't matter. It was.

His hate is always there, an all-consuming grindstone he sharpens himself against, and so his anger rarely gets too out of control. He's already angry. But when this happened, he'd get so caught up in hate that pain just made him feel more excited.

"What happened? Who got hurt? Do I need to kill someone for you?"

Safe topic. Safer topic. Yes. Good.

tl;dr - Depressing Story Time!

[masked_god]

"The same one as always. Shem remembers you...see?" The cloak flushes a purple pattern as it nuzzles at Kefka's hands. "But your magic will likely be more efficient than ker work."

Karakael...doesn't have the energy to get than angry anymore. Conquest is a young man's game, something that held no more interest or release for him anymore.

But if he could turn Kefka's anger at himself, rather than the world...well. Anger was something the Inquestor knew. It was something he could control (as long as you don't let yourself become involved, Hokh'Ton).

"No. Please, the boy is in enough pain already." A pause, while Karakael remembers. "It was a few years ago, community time. One of my child-soldiers had gotten involved in a fight, he being the aggressor, and I had been called in to tear the two apart. I was so angry I did the first thing that came to mind, snapping him into a tacheon bubble while I sorted out what happened."

His face tenses beneath the mask. "In the few minutes it took before I understood the situation, the girl he had struck became hysterical, terrified for his sanity. She was babbling about how he had snapped during a war-game and how he hated darkness. By the time I realized what she was speaking of, the damage had been done."

Another pause, this one taken up with a blank stare out the window.

"Most of my child-soldiers are from broken homes. They're the only parents willing to sell their children for the profit. Almost only, at least. Yen's mother had locked him in caves on his homeworld when he spoke out. And Tacheon bubbles are made of pure darkness. He assumed...I had sent him back there, when I got angry."

"It took five minutes to find that out and disengage the bubble. In that time he cut off all of the fingers of his left hand, using the digits as targets for his lasers. It was the only way he knew how to make light to keep the darkness at bay..."

"He was my responsibility, and I failed him. None of my children asked for this endless life - but they have served me over a thousand years as loyally as they would have under a two year contract. They deserve better than a fool like me as their leader."

"Do you understand, Kefka, why I am so afraid for those innocents we meet on the community? It takes barely a word, a mere instant of thoughtless action, for one to destroy a child's life. But they deserve a life of their own - a life where they can make friends and mistakes - a life where their choices are their own, not dictated by an outside force. That girl...I see reflections of so many of my own children, some of whom are dead or grown, in her."