[ It is not to say that he misses Ashitaka’s surprise, the way his reaction falls across Ashitaka’s conversational customs, but Ryo is attentive when Ashitaka moves to the bindings that travel up his arm, something off in the gesture alone. As he pulls free the strings at his wrist, something instinctual catches at Ryo’s gut, at the short hairs at the back of his neck. He feels its impression before he sees it and –
There is no amorphous twisting of blood and bone – no malevolence in the way that Ryo typically felt it, but insidious all the same. Fear creeps in slow steps up his spine, ledged on each vertebra until it comes up unrecognizable in shape: laughter. It’s not quite the same as before, the sound dragging through something ancient, primal. It’s soft, almost breathless. It’s as if Ashitaka had shared with him something that someone would whisper to another in the dark, hands cupped about the shell of his ear. He too was marked.
His mouth twitches at the corners, the echo of a smile caught in the peculiar dip of it. There’s no name that comes to rest across his tongue, no knowledge of the creature’s shape – because the impression comes that Ashitaka himself does not house it. Not in full. It swung against him like an axe stroke, a pass of a pendulum. Where Ryo would have once went for his gun, it’s that realization that restrains him. It is as Ashitaka had said: a curse. A thing without consciousness, a life of its own – fused into human flesh as though any demon would, but this is not the same. This is not what he knows. This thing is a poison. It is not a manipulation of the heart, the soul. It is not the presence that burned through his father’s body. It is not the presence that lived on inside of Akira. This is not at all like Amon, Sirene. Kaim.
The tension is slow to work out of muscle, slower to work from his expression. In the gloaming, Ryo’s fingers slacken. The fabric of his trench coat as he lets his hand fall is hopelessly crumpled. For a moment, there’s only the residual echo of his own heartbeat in his ears, fever-quick. The coming rush of adrenaline brings up a secondary huff, just as soft and breathless as the first time. There’s almost something liquid in the way Ryo steps back to sit side-saddle the hoverbike he’s had with him all this time, as if grounding himself here would serve him any better in the end.
From here, he could do nothing at all. From here, had his initial presumptions served him, it would have not have been him gave the finishing blow. There was no being here that could have shielded him from that. Not this time. And that, too, weighs on him. It doesn’t matter what he knows about COST, the way this organization works. It doesn’t matter at all.
His expression is quiet, almost too still when he looks back up. The fearful animal housed within gone beneath a peculiar bitterness, both at odds with the Ryo Asuka that Ashitaka has encountered in the past and Ryo Asuka himself, fingers dug at his own tumult in efforts to keep himself above the current of his own labyrinthine emotions across the subject. ]
Ah. [ It’s a breath, but a breath enough to unspool something more. ] You’re right, of course. [ He idly slips his hand into the right pocket of his trench coat, comes up with a loose cigarette and their appointed lighter. He doesn’t need to pause as he places it between his lips, words muffled only just about the filter as he strikes the igniter. The flame is brief, but sharp against the blue of his eyes – almost too blue in any retrospect. The cigarette, thankfully, needs only one pass to be successfully lit. ] My time may be limited, just like yours.
[ He takes a long drag. It seems to almost steady him, though his eyes don’t stray far from the mark that Ashitaka’s revealed to him. It reminds him of bright, red scars. But, that’s not the same. He reminds himself of that. When he speaks again, the words shape themselves against gray smoke. His mouth quirks up, but the cynicism that typically pervades it is replaced by something more difficult to define – to crystallize into a singular and solid emotion. Within him, something roils and rages against the idea that there may be hope left. That humanity might prevail. That – ] It looks more likely, these days.
no subject
There is no amorphous twisting of blood and bone – no malevolence in the way that Ryo typically felt it, but insidious all the same. Fear creeps in slow steps up his spine, ledged on each vertebra until it comes up unrecognizable in shape: laughter. It’s not quite the same as before, the sound dragging through something ancient, primal. It’s soft, almost breathless. It’s as if Ashitaka had shared with him something that someone would whisper to another in the dark, hands cupped about the shell of his ear. He too was marked.
His mouth twitches at the corners, the echo of a smile caught in the peculiar dip of it. There’s no name that comes to rest across his tongue, no knowledge of the creature’s shape – because the impression comes that Ashitaka himself does not house it. Not in full. It swung against him like an axe stroke, a pass of a pendulum. Where Ryo would have once went for his gun, it’s that realization that restrains him. It is as Ashitaka had said: a curse. A thing without consciousness, a life of its own – fused into human flesh as though any demon would, but this is not the same. This is not what he knows. This thing is a poison. It is not a manipulation of the heart, the soul. It is not the presence that burned through his father’s body. It is not the presence that lived on inside of Akira. This is not at all like Amon, Sirene. Kaim.
The tension is slow to work out of muscle, slower to work from his expression. In the gloaming, Ryo’s fingers slacken. The fabric of his trench coat as he lets his hand fall is hopelessly crumpled. For a moment, there’s only the residual echo of his own heartbeat in his ears, fever-quick. The coming rush of adrenaline brings up a secondary huff, just as soft and breathless as the first time. There’s almost something liquid in the way Ryo steps back to sit side-saddle the hoverbike he’s had with him all this time, as if grounding himself here would serve him any better in the end.
From here, he could do nothing at all. From here, had his initial presumptions served him, it would have not have been him gave the finishing blow. There was no being here that could have shielded him from that. Not this time. And that, too, weighs on him. It doesn’t matter what he knows about COST, the way this organization works. It doesn’t matter at all.
His expression is quiet, almost too still when he looks back up. The fearful animal housed within gone beneath a peculiar bitterness, both at odds with the Ryo Asuka that Ashitaka has encountered in the past and Ryo Asuka himself, fingers dug at his own tumult in efforts to keep himself above the current of his own labyrinthine emotions across the subject. ]
Ah. [ It’s a breath, but a breath enough to unspool something more. ] You’re right, of course. [ He idly slips his hand into the right pocket of his trench coat, comes up with a loose cigarette and their appointed lighter. He doesn’t need to pause as he places it between his lips, words muffled only just about the filter as he strikes the igniter. The flame is brief, but sharp against the blue of his eyes – almost too blue in any retrospect. The cigarette, thankfully, needs only one pass to be successfully lit. ] My time may be limited, just like yours.
[ He takes a long drag. It seems to almost steady him, though his eyes don’t stray far from the mark that Ashitaka’s revealed to him. It reminds him of bright, red scars. But, that’s not the same. He reminds himself of that. When he speaks again, the words shape themselves against gray smoke. His mouth quirks up, but the cynicism that typically pervades it is replaced by something more difficult to define – to crystallize into a singular and solid emotion. Within him, something roils and rages against the idea that there may be hope left. That humanity might prevail. That – ] It looks more likely, these days.
[ God must hate us, he thinks. It’s fleeting. ]