The Miracle of Your Youth [Murasaki, Solo]

"Shikokai."

A single word, echoing through sunlit plains as a lone young woman sat in the grasses. The word had been meant to carry power, to bring her to the absolute height of what a Shinigami might be able to accomplish. But, it was simply a word. It carried no more meaning than the four syllables she had enunciated so forcefully, and with a frustrated sigh, Kagayaku no Murasaki laid onto the ground and watched the empty, cloudless sky.

"Keifu. What am I doing wrong?"

She spoke to nobody, at least no one physically present. But, of course, a zanpakuto was always present for its wielder, particularly when that wielder was one as practiced in the art as Murasaki was. But even at her degree of skill, she couldn't place anything specific, couldn't discern what was keeping her from mastering this aspect of herself even further. It was more than a little bit irritating, honestly.

"How honest would you like my answer to be, Young Lady?"

The familiar, gritty voice of Murasaki's zanpakuto came through the air from no particular source, though after only a few more moments, the spirit himself coalesced a few feet away from his master. His expression was plain as always, lacking any emotional display, but his back was to her as he, too, looked up to the sky.

"I already know the answer, of course. You wish for brutal honesty, but know that you will be displeased when you hear it. Not because it is unknown, of course. I can hardly know anything more than you do. But you will be quite upset by the truth you have denied for a long while."

His hands behind his back, Keifu finally turned to face his master, his expression hardening just the faintest touch as he watched her stare so relaxedly up at the sky.

"You live only for impermanence. You do not accept the reality that some things must become firm. You fear not simply stagnation, but basic stability. It terrifies you. Do you disagree?"

He knew she would, of course. But he also knew any disagreement would be based on an emotional response, an unwillingness to admit the truth. He was correct, after all.

"Mm."

Murasaki had already heard that answer from him before. Of course, she knew he was too polite to tell her that this exact same exchange had already happened several times in the past weeks, but his answer having been the same word for word was enough to let her know she ought to stop asking.

Did she disagree with him? What a question to ask herself. Murasaki couldn't deny that the urge to just go somewhere else was always in the back of her mind. If it weren't for her goal of becoming Captain Commander, she probably would have already left. Was that really so wrong? She just wanted to see the world, wanted to live her life.

"What's wrong with a keeping things new and fresh? Keeping everything exciting?"

That was a new question to be added to the mix. Normally she'd just sigh, acknowledge what Keifu had said, and move on with it, but she was tired of banging her head against that brick wall. It wasn't like she was stupid enough to think she could just avoid her zanpakuto spirit, of course. She just didn't like these kinds of conversations, especially after the last time she'd had to look inward.

"There is nothing wrong with maintaining a new outlook on life. But it becomes a problem when you flee from the very idea of settling down. How many happy lives have you simply left behind for the sake of your continued wanderlust, I wonder? Do you think the men you loved think fondly of the day you departed?"

A barbed question, and one Keifu knew all too well would irritate her. But that was the entire purpose of the question to begin with. He was perfectly willing to bond with Murasaki to the degree that was necessary for Shikokai. In fact, it was something that he longed for. But his honor would never allow for it, not when there was so much yet to be addressed, yet to be answered for.

"But let us not waste our time thinking about them. After all, this is a question of you, of what keeps you from reaching the height you long for. You, too, are a zanpakuto. But unlike myself, or your father, you are immature. Your own inability to commit your heart to anything has left you a mere asauchi. A child, nothing more than a little girl when compared to a proper blade. The epithet of Blade Maiden that you are so fond of still proves at least marginally true, I suppose."

Keifu's politeness did not necessarily fall by the wayside, but he was willing to be far more direct when it came to his master. After all, this was potentially the most important moment in either of their lives. He ought not waste their time with any half measures.

The fact that he'd brought up the past with such an attitude made Murasaki more angry than she probably should have been. It was one thing to point out that she ought to look at the present, that she shouldn't run away, but it was far more infuriating to hear him just bring up her personal life like it didn't matter.

"I don't like the way you're putting that. I haven't run from this job, have I? I've been doing everything I can to stay here. Don't you bring up other people and other times like I don't remember them all. You know better than anyone that I've got mementos from every single one of them."

But even as she said that, Murasaki's voice lacked conviction. It was hollow, though not near as much as it once had been during her lowest points. Still, there was some shade of that dark time in her expression now, a certain emptiness that she didn't much like to think about.

"So what, Keifu? I'm supposed to settle down? You want me to go tell Alastor we're gettin' married, we're havin' two kids and I'm gonna a housewife? I'm not doin' that."

"You make this quite needlessly personal an issue. You act as though I am attacking you, as if you do not know that you and I are the same. Is that insecurity, or mere delusion? Stop wasting our time with this, proving my statement more correct by the moment that you are a mere child."

If Murasaki were not so committed to this path, Keifu certainly would not have been either. He might simply have accepted that the conversation was going nowhere, and disappeared. But whether or not she was happy about it, whether she even knew it to be true at a conscious level, this was what Murasaki wanted. And Keifu would certainly comply.

"Let us focus in on the matter of your flightiness, your fear of attachment. Do not bother to correct me, as we both know it to be the case. What is it you think you are fleeing from each time you depart? You certainly do not lack for confidence, and your sense of self is wholly genuine. What might it be, then?"

She could have replied, but Keifu didn't necessarily care if she did. He began to pace in a slow circle around her, no small amount of judgement in his voice as he did so. This was everything to her, after all.

"Do you think that those you hold dear secretly think less of you? The thought that everyone you meet might secretly harbor that same disgust you still remember so vividly from your youth, forcing you to flee from some imagined reality. The thought that you might one day find your dear Alastor has all along considered you nothing more than an attractive way to pass the time until he finds a real woman--"

The sound of a blade being drawn, of the wind in the area being practically cut by the simple speed of his master's movement, was enough to tell Keifu that he had struck a nerve. Not that he needed that confirmation, of course. He knew everything that she did, and much that she didn't. It was easy to simply pick at those buried insecurities, and even the feeling of a blade at his neck did nothing to dissuade him.

"And then you would be left all alone. You would have no one left, but myself and your father. You would have no other choice but to continue honing yourself, creating a woman that you can be proud of even if there is no one there to judge you. What a hollow creation."

His eyes turned to his other half, and the verdant-haired young woman's gaze carried in it such malice, such genuine murderous intent, that for a moment he thought he was looking at her father. But, he supposed that was still progress.

"You know how much I've wanted to run. How much I want to just go away, just get out of here and go see the stars again. I haven't settled down like this in my whole life, Keifu, and it hurts not to just run and see the world. But I'm doing it for them, because even if I want to run, I just--"

Murasaki lowered her sword from Keifu's neck, her fury abating at least enough that she no longer felt it coursing through her veins. Yeah, she knew why she was doing it. She knew exactly what Keifu was getting at here, she knew why he was needling her about these insecurities. It wasn't about all her weaknesses as a person.

"I just... I feel like this is home, you know? I don't want to go."

She took a seat once more on the grasses of her inner world, and sighed as Keifu sat beside her. This was, in a way, the life she knew better than any other. Just the two of them, sitting here in the empty plains, sky above and winds at their back. For all her fears, Murasaki knew this wouldn't ever change. After all, she and Keifu were one and the same.

"So what, you think I oughta talk to people? Alastor, mom? Maybe even Shishiyuki, I guess... I'll figure things out."

"Do as you will. You know perfectly well that they will not run from you. And, if they do, you can give chase, or you can move on from them. But you've done more than enough running for a lifetime."

Keifu reached over, placing a hand on Murasaki's head. He'd certainly filled the role of a father that she'd never quite had. Of course, her father had been present in her life, but they both knew he wasn't much of a role model to her. Violent, careless, crass. A far cry from the fine young woman that he'd created.

"I think you already understand our bond well enough that I don't need to tell you any more, hm? Surely shikokai is in your grasp at this stage."

He looked out onto the empty plains, the place to which Murasaki would always return. It was her own nature, after all, her heart. She was a woman that could not be chained down, but now, at least, he suspected that she was a woman that knew as much. The only thing that had held her back was her own fear of that very thing.