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Hailing from a family of nobles and aristocrats, awkward silence at the breakfast table is not something Barok is unaccustomed to. Also hailing from a family of prosecutors and law practitioners, he can see that it is not something his apprentice is comfortable with.
It’s no surprise. If he had grown up with the Mikotobas, the very embodiment of kindness and goodwill, then shared his meals with Naruhodou Ryuunosuke who he still cannot believe is capable of making that much noise, his tables would have always been filled with chatter and conversation. Trying to withstand the frigid dinner table for Asougi would be as difficult as a man trying to withstand the cold beachside winter while wearing only a light shirt.
(Yet Barok cannot find it in himself to break the silence himself, the guilt still weighing him down. It is so tempting to drown his sorrows in his chalice, allow the alcoholic fog to sweep him off his feet. The only reason he does not submit to the temptation is because of the man before him, dressed in his brother’s regal white suit, misconstrued image of the man he’s systematically murdered. The representation of the two of his greatest sins that haunt his mansion like a vengeful ghost that yet still calls him a mentor.)
A week is all it takes after Naruhodou’s departure that Asougi’s adamant spirit to seem completely nonchalant in the face of silence finally cracks. He slams his cutlery against the table, making a loud slam. Barok belatedly raises his gaze to give the man a wary glance. Still utterly unapologetic, Asougi meets his gaze squarely, never ashamed, never fracturing. Unlike his father whose manners were ingrained to his skin, elegance in every step and his humility in every movement, the younger Asougi wears them like a cloak he can freely discard at his whim; his manners are what he must wear to join high society, or else something someone must earn from him.
The light in Asougi’s eyes is subversive and disparaging, but no scathing words leave his tongue.
“What is it?” Barok sighs.
“Do you know it has snowed over the night?” The words are perfectly polite, his tone completely neutral. It makes a sharp contrast with that look he keeps Barok trapped under.
“Hm?” Genuinely thrown off balance, Barok makes a curious sound. “Does it not snow over in Japan?”
Asougi ignores him. “Nothing so deep as that we will need to concern ourselves with being snowed in, but it’s up to about half of my calf.
He doubts Asougi is concerned about his state of dress, so he just keeps a blank eye fixed on the young man, completely lost on the point of this entire conversation. Is he trying to replicate the conversations that he must have had back in Japan? A desperate attempt for some normality between them?
“Still, it’s chilly enough that everyone has deemed it an indoors day. Only the servants are outside, cleaning off the layer off what can’t stand the snow,” Asougi informs him, all as he taps the table in front of him. His glare loses some of the disdain, in its place is caution. “So if you would not mind, I would like for you to spar with me, my Lord.”
Undeterred by Barok’s silence, he continues on his own. “Now that I have handed over Karuma to my trusted partner, I only have the blade you have given me. Yet the western blade is not something I’m quite adept at handling, so I would like your guidance.”
What Barok hears instead is get your shit together. “Must we duel when it’s snowing? Can we not do it at any other time?”
This time, Asougi does not bother to hide his contempt. “You’re going to let a blanket of snow discourage you from a proper duel? And you call yourself a swordsman?”
“I’m a prosecutor, but...” He rubs his forehead, too tired to retaliate to the blatant provocation. “Fine. Dress yourself appropriately and meet me outside in half.”
This is hardly the first time they have crossed swords, not even their tenth. When Asougi had been his nameless and wordless assistant, they would often cross swords to communicate. Neither of them were men of words, but they were both men of swords.
Now, Asougi once again stands across him, as Barok's apprentice that he had thought he had come to understand. The fluttering cape discarded, his suit glows white and blends effortlessly into the untarnished snow around him. Unlike his masked apprentice, who had held his blade practically and efficiently, Asougi holds it in his grip imperiously, congenital confidence rolling off his standing.
Barok retrieves his own sword from within its scabbard, allowing the light to reflect off the steel. “You may start whenever you see fit,” he says when they are both standing apart from each other, blade withdrawn and eyes locked.
His apprentice, scrambling through the fog of fractured memories and lost identities, had always stayed in full defensive whenever they dueled. Barok’s undefeated win record came from the simple fact that the man never countered, afraid to step out of the sanctuary of safety to counter. Barok knows the same cannot be spoken of Kazuma Asougi, the vengeful boy that’s dedicated ten years of his life for retribution, to become the reaper to take his life. Though the desire to claim his own spirit off his soul has been snuffed out, knows the demon within him hungers for blood.
And as expected, the moment Barok’s sentence lives his mouth Asougi’s boots immediately cut through the snow to close the distance between them, a single vengeful strike coming down from above. He raises his blade in high guard, sliding back to spread the impact of the blow. And even with his skillful redistribution of the force, his blade trembles at the sheer impact of it.
Asougi doesn’t seem particularly affected by the vibration that surely must have travelled back, gritting his teeth once before raining down a series of lighter slashes upon him, forcing him to stay defensive. As he parries off each of the blade and dodges out of the path of few, he chuckles to himself.
Extreme offense. Barok shouldn’t have been surprised at Asougi’s chosen style, considering how he’s operated in court, drawing his fangs against the Lord Chief Justice, their judiciary, and against all forms of authority he can challenge. After all, aren’t Japanese words for swordsman and prosecutor a mere sonant apart?
But there’s a desperation in his attacks. Asougi’s movements are one of a man who knows if he slows, he will yield victory over to Barok. Even now Barok can see the openings after each of his attacks that he could take advantage of if he didn’t need to fend away the slashes at the same time.
“Being on full offense isn’t a good idea, you’ll crumble if you exert yourself,” Barok warns. Asougi’s glance only turns darker at his words.
“I am on the offense because now is the time for it,” Asougi hisses, pressing the blade close against him, forcing Barok to hold his blade near-vertically to stop the weapon from piercing his throat. “Because I’m capable of perceiving that if we fold here, everyone who’s been complacent to Stronghart’s crimes could go unpunished. Unlike you, who’s lost all of his bark because you’ve found out the truth about your brother, that is.”
Barok’s grip on his blade falters at the mention of his brother, and through his veins runs all the rage he’s repressed because of guilt. “He was a killer, and I—”
“So what!” Asougi spits fiercely, as his blade takes advantage of his weakness to take control again. “I’ve believed that my father had been framed all my life. It was what propelled me into this demented country ten years after his passing. And guess what? He was a murderer, even if it was consensual. He chose to pursue his own selfish interests instead of revealing the truth to the world, betraying your brother’s final wishes. He was... he was everything I looked up to, but he was human.”
A powerful flick of his wrist accompanied with a harrowing glint of eyes has Barok’s sword flying out of his grip and across the field, beyond his reach.
“People aren’t Gods, Barok. They’re human beings with faults just like both of us.”
He stumbles back, but Asougi doesn’t relent, stepping closer with the blade drawn, pointed at him. Pain is a familiar friend of his, but this one catches him by surprise, the bite of Asougi’s blade into his shoulder. A stretched moan escapes his throat as he falls to his knees, clinging his injured shoulder in numb perturbation. Blood soaks through his uniform, through the leather of his grip, staining the unsullied snow around him. Asougi throws his sword aside, the steel sinking into the ice beside them, and slams him to the ground.
“So stop wallowing in grief and get your shit together, van Zieks. I can’t tear down your entire judiciary by myself right now,” Asougi’s breath is hot in contrast to the snow soaking past his cloak and into his clothes slowly. “Unlike people who are dead, I am here, and I need your help.”
Pressed close like this, it’s impossible to miss the dark circles stretching down his eyes, the slight trembling of his body pressed against his own. He blanches as he brings the body close to him, shielding him from the freezing snow. From his nose drips down a sticky line of sanguine blood. Barok blanches at the sight. “You—when is the last time when you have slept?”
“One of us needed to get some work done, van Zieks,” Asougi slurs, collapsing into his embrace.
Apprehensively, he bites into the leather of his glove to spit it aside, running his hand through Asougi’s head. He is hot against his touch, but since his own hand is freezing, he doesn’t think he is capable of making a proper assessment. “Are you alright?”
“Seriously? I stabbed you and you’re concerned for me? Bastard.”
“I’ve been stabbed far too many times with proper intent to kill to know that you haven’t cut through anything fundamental,” Barok shakes his head. “But thank you, perhaps this is what I exactly needed. The pain helps ground me.”
Then he tries to pull Asougi up, except even he is incapable of supporting a grown man’s weight with only a single arm. His apprentice watches him try to achieve the impossible pathetically, then rises to his two feet sluggishly, only to slide half of his weight over to van Zieks to withstand.
“No, no,” Kazuma shakes his head. His glare, vicious before, is now petulant. “Together. We’re going to do this together, got it?”
Understanding, he lets Asougi take the weight of his left shoulder, where he’s driven the blade. “Together,” Barok echoes back.
The snowy path back to the manor is decorated with droplets of blood from Barok’s flesh wound and coagulations from Asougi’s nose, but it’s a step forward, as shaky and awkward they are as a team. And no longer how long winter lasts, they will persevere through it. Together.