Kisuke grimaced as Rerugen retreated from his presence with his composure in tatters and the most incredible blush still painting his cheeks. He’d pushed the man too far once again, but he just couldn’t help himself some days. Rerugen kept himself so rigidly controlled that the flashes of emotion, of temper, that Kisuke could tease out of him were addictive, a taste of the man’s inner self that he refused to let just anyone see.
And that blush! He’d never seen the man blush like that before! Whatever thoughts had caused that response, Kisuke was determined to make it happen again.
(Maybe he did like the thought of being ‘shared’? Where had Rerugen’s mind gone in those moments…)
“That was certainly the definition of ‘could have gone better’,” Yoruichi declared as she dropped in through the window the minute Rerugen was out of earshot.
“Yes, thank you. I was not aware of how poorly that went until you so helpfully pointed it out,” Kisuke told her dryly, sparing one last glance at the empty hallway before he moved to get a closer look at the papers strewn across Rerugen’s desk.
He lifted a sheet and frowned at the shorthand that covered it, taking a moment to decipher some of the unfamiliar terms. The plan was… troubling, if he understood what Rerugen meant by ‘reclaim Silbern’. Hoping it was just a fluke, he set that sheet aside and picked up another, then another, then another, frown deepening with each one.
“You absolute fool,” Kisuke muttered while setting aside yet another plan that involved Rerugen giving up his freedom to lead a bunch of ungrateful assholes. There was a certain theme to it all, an ever-evolving attempt to somehow steer the Quincy down a less self-destructive path.
Kisuke could tell Rerugen with absolute certainty that it would never work.
Scattered amongst the self-sacrificing plans were a handful of ideas on how to escape it, but those were nothing compared to the level of detail that Rerugen put into the sacrificial ones.
It was like he didn’t believe escape possible.
Yoruichi draped an arm over Kisuke’s shoulder and leaned in, watching him sort through Rerugen’s papers. “Looks like you have your work cut out for you,” she teased, tapping a finger against another convoluted plan to outmaneuver the elders to avoid going to Silbern. “Sure your boy wants to stay with us?”
“He’s not my anything,” Kisuke grumbled as he elbowed Yoruichi in the side.
“Yet,” she said with a laugh. She pulled a sheet of paper free of the stack Kisuke was making and waved it in front of his face. “After all, he already came up with the plan you suggested!”
Kisuke scowled and swiped the paper from her, casting another look at the mostly empty page. All it said in Rerugen’s terse shorthand was: ‘marriage? Cleanest option -> Lexi? Convince father/fiance. Guildmaster best -> support/importance. But Lexi? Can’t abandon -> triad? Unlikely -> won’t work.’
None of that gave him confidence in convincing Rerugen to use that plan. His suggestion of sharing Rerugen with Alexis aside, she needed to first agree to the plan before Rerugen would even consider it. And ‘considering it’ didn’t mean he’d agree to it.
(Except… ‘cleanest option’.)
(Rerugen truly thought the idea of marrying an outsider was the best way to escape his duties.)
Kisuke lowered the paper to the desk, mind spinning with possibilities. He needed… he needed Alexis. Needed to let her know of these ideas. Needed her here to argue his case and convince Rerugen that giving in was the worst option possible.
(Not that he’d ever let the Quincy destroy Rerugen.)
(He’d destroy them first.)
“Oooh, who are we killing?” Yoruichi asked with a grin. “You have that glint in your eyes again, so who are we killing?”
“No one,” Kisuke said with a huff, leaving the ‘yet’ unvoiced. “Rerugen isn’t in any state to appreciate the assistance, I already asked.” He nudged Yoruichi aside and pawed through the last of Rerugen’s papers, exasperated by how few plans the man had made to get out of the situation. For someone who didn’t want to be a guildmaster, Rerugen was certainly determined to throw his life away in pursuit of being a good one.
(All the more reason to get Alexis’ help.)
He paused on Alexis’ letter, reading her words and taking a moment to appreciate her blunt warnings. The handful of times he’d met her, she’d been a sharp, sensible woman with a good grasp of tactics and an appreciation for subterfuge.
(He still didn’t know her last name despite all his efforts.)
(He’d only learned that she was Rerugen’s mysterious fiance in their last meeting!)
Summoning her to his guild would be for the best. The problem needed to be sorted out before too long, and letters were slow and could be intercepted. But how best to get her away from the Quincy without anyone being the wiser…
Kisuke frowned at her letter and then out the window.
“You’re being boring,” Yoruichi grumbled, letting go of him with a huff and dropping to sit in Rerugen’s chair. She slouched over and propped her chin on her hand. “Just tell her to come get her silly little fiance because there’s too few of us to escort him safely to their obnoxiously remote hideout.”
Laughter burst from Kisuke’s throat at her suggestion, and he waved a hand in a desperate attempt to make Yoruichi stop glowering at him. “S-sorry! Just… the elders want to go back to Silbern and you’re calling their current guild house an ‘obnoxiously remote hideout’.”
She huffed, nose in the air and expression affronted. “I see how it is,” she told him, amusement lurking in her tone. “In that case, I’ll leave you to your pining. Do try not to lose us our best paperwork person with your antics, Kisuke~” White smoke enveloped Yoruichi with a soft poof as soon as she stopped speaking, then a large black cat leapt from the cloud and to the ground, sauntering out the open door with head held high and tail bannered.
“Don’t you dare go bother him!” Kisuke shouted after her, then scoffed as her tail coiled into a question-mark shape. “Yes you! I know your habits and you’re hardly one to talk about me chasing him off.”
Yoruichi turned back, blinked her slightly-too-large eyes at him in faux innocence, then darted off before he could say anything else.
Kisuke shook his head and settled into Rerugen’s seat, clearing the last of the papers away and pulling a clean sheet towards him. He had a letter to write and a potential conspirator to convince to his side.
Dear Alexis…