WAR GAMES

[shinsengumi]

10...

9...

This year, you will be participating in teams. Your teams, as sponsored, are as follows:

Aeva and Ystelle; Ashleigh and Larsen; Aubrey and Kieran; Brigitte and Ellias; Cabel and Joss; Cyrel and Hollingworth; D'Ivann and Helene; Drael and Kristopher; Griffith and Xian; Fila and Lisette; Indra and Zacharius; Ivy and Reece; Kol and Laurence; Leonel and Solus; Lucinde and Visvaldis; Malis and Vox; Oberin and Odette; Shryke and Siegfried; Talbot and Thane.

Should both members of a team survive, you will both be permitted to leave the arena alive. May the odds be ever in your favour...

2...

1...

Comments

[fixations]

[Griffith very almost does strike, right up until he's outright challenged to. Then he freezes, caught by Xian's gaze, one fist half-raised and his eyes already feeling the first dangerous prickling of angry frightened tears.

It's pathetic just how quickly his resolve has crumbled. He's supposed to be reconciled to this by now, and here's someone damn deserving of it, and yet, yet...]

I don't... I don't want to.

[secretkeeper]

You don't want to~ [Xian sneers further, turning away from Griffith with a dismissive motion. His back to the other man, he bites his lip; he's not going to take part in this any longer than he has to, and he won't give up on his ticket out just yet. The question is which direction to take it in... prompt the kid to self-defense, or prick at his pride further.

Xian takes the second option, promising himself he'll strike at Griffith's face if it doesn't work.] You fucking brat, you've never done anything worthwhile in your life, have you? Never had to defend yourself, just had all these people who ~don't even like you~ to keep your ass alive. What a pathetic show. I don't know why they'd bring you here—you're boring as hell to watch. Going to cry now, boy? Cry until someone kills you, and still, no one will even care.

[fixations]

[Xian speaks, and he snaps.

Griffith lunges forward, fingers digging hard into Xian's arm and jerking him around to meet the strike of his clenched fist. It's hardly the first time he's ever hit somebody, hardly the first time he's heard the brutal sound of knuckles connecting to flesh, but it is the first time he's seen someone truly staggered by it, and Griffith doesn't pause to consider the adrenaline-fueled rush of pleasure that fills him with, only brings his hands together as one tight ball and hits Xian again. It's a vicious blow to the side of his head, and this time the other man is floored, and Griffith screams at him with no sense at all toward who else might be around.]

You fucking shit! You don't know anything! [And then he kicks, his boot connecting with Xian's already satisfyingly bloodied face, and that sight - that sound - should surely horrify him but he's just too furious to know or care. He is worth more than this skinny carcass of a man. He's worth more than any of this, and he'll fucking make them know it.]

[secretkeeper]

[He lets out a cry of surprise when Griffith's fingers reach him, and makes no move to dodge or resist the first strike. The pain that blossoms beneath those knuckles fills him with a strange mixture of relief and nostalgia, and he hardly manages to raise his hands in a weak attempt of defense when the second strike sends him sprawling with a louder shriek.

The boy hardly hits as his father did, or maybe he'd been smaller and more sensitive to pain as a child. He thrashes, the throes only half-contrived, and coughs around the blood filling his mouth as the boy continues to beat him, and just before the red blinks to black, he smirks. To the very end, he's had men doing exactly what he wants them to, and given the circumstances, he considers this a very well-earned death.]

[fixations]

[And he doesn't stop, drawing back to kick again and again, and only when his breath is hard and ragged from exertion does Griffith slow enough to recognise what he's done. What he's done and what he hasn't, because blood is still oozing over the split remains of Xian's lip, the body before him is still twitching in the spattered dirt, and suddenly quite suddenly Griffith doesn't even know if the man is alive or dead.

That, more than anything, recalls him to reality in a sickening rush of dread. He wants to run. He has to run, anyone could be closing in, but-- he swears, he swears Xian coughs, a strangled choke of sputtering blood, and Griffith kicks again though his legs feel hollow beneath him.]

Just die! Die, just die, please...! [His own voice is cracking raw and still far too loud, and he doesn't stop until there's nothing left of his teammate's face but caved bloody ruin and then he runs; from the threat of those who'd end him, and from the horror of what he's leaving behind.]