Log; [Complete]

[thrifty-shadow.livejournal.com]

When; October 3, shortly after sunset
Rating; PG-13 (for violence)
Characters; Greed so_very_greedy, Tatsumi thrifty_shadow
Summary; After being insulted, Tatsumi challenges Greed to a battle with unforseen consequences.
Log;

Greed sat in the middle of a flowerbed, casually picking at the sea of irises around him. He so loved cool nights here.

"Yo!" he shouted, "where are ya'? Time to go for it!"

The sun was setting in the horizon, painting the sky with hues of blue and orange. In front of Greed, darkness - like liquid - began pooling and then rising like long pieces of paper blown upwards by wind.

"I'm here," Tatsumi said as he stepped out of the shadows, dressed in suit of earthen colors. The shadows slipped away from around his body and he pushed his glasses upwards, regarding Greed with his sharp blue eyes.

Greed stood up until he was, eye-to-eye with the gentleman, brushing himself off.

"Nice!" he said, clapping and giving an appreciative whistle.

"So, you do children's parties too? Can you do that trick where you pull a chick out of the hat?" he chided, patting him on the shoulder.

He danced back a few steps, taking a defensive stance.

"Let's go."

Tatsumi sneered and said nothing as he waved his right hand and commanded the shadows to gather and rise up like a huge tidal wave. He would not hold back on this one. Greed was purposely pushing his buttons and he would not stand for it. He sent the wave crashing towards Greed, while letting tendrils of darkness and shadows slice through the ground so the floor rumbled with a mini earthquake. He did not stop there and without bothering to see if his opponent had been hit, followed it up with thick, sharp tentacles of solidified darkness.

Greed was simultaneously pulverized, impaled and sheared by the dark power crashing into him. He let the wave bear him away, until his body came to rest in a distance park.

Soon, his headless body stood up, his injuries instantly repairing in a crackle of alchemical energy that lit up his body.

"Woo!" he said, raising his arms in excitement, "I like that! Feisty!"

He immediately took off for his opponent, tearing up earth in his path. He ripped out a tree from the ground during his trip, swinging it at his opponent like a bat.

"Batterup!"

Tatsumi leapt away, commanding thick waves of shadows towards Greed as he avoided the homunuclus' attacks. He'd stopped trying to hit the homunclus and instead relentlessly pounded shadow attack after shadow attack when the homunuclus' speed proved too fast for him.

"You're not human, are you?" he questioned sharply as he flew up from the ground and glanced down his opponent. A throbbing pain in his left hand told him he had been hurt and, glancing down, realized he had a nasty cut running from just beneath his middle finger up to about an inch above his wrist. It was deep, but he had faith in his regeneration abilities. He wiped the blood away and examined the wound. It was healing fast. Good."You got it, pal! Not human at all!" Greed yelled up at him, "But you don't exactly seem human yourself!"

He threw the tree like a javelin at Tatsumi, then ran around beneath him, hurling many different large objects into the air. Trees, benches, light posts, whatever he could find.

Tatsumi cursed to himself as he summoned the shadows around him to form a wall once it proved impossible to simply dodge each and every projectile hurled towards him. While being airbone looked to be a definite advantage for him, it also hindered his movements slightly. "I'm human, sir. Just dead." He dissolved into a cloud of shadows reappeared behind Greed where he quickly pressed his hands behind the homunuclus back and willed sharp spikes to form with the shadows, intending to pierce the creature's body over and over again.

"Just what would it take to kill you, sir? Your regeneration rate is admirable," he said quickly and was already planning to quickly leapt away, dissolve into shadows and appear back in the air as he did so.

Greed slid out of the way, whistling at the man's speed. He flipped and rotated in the air, trying to hit his opponent with a snap kick. He cursed loudly as Tatsumi disappeared, then looked skyward again.

"Not bad, NOT BAD!" he laughed, clapping, "And you don't have what it takes to kill me."

He stretched a few times, working out his legs, then bent down and launched skyward. He aimed for the other man during his jump, forming his second skin over his claws.

"Comin' at ya'!" he said, taking a swipe at him.

Tatsumi bit back the scream that erupted from his throat when the homunuclus' claws dragged across his chest, cutting cleanly through his suit and then rather deeply into his flesh. He briefly lost concentration and came crashing down to the ground. He clutched at his chest and shot a withering glare towards Greed. Then, he made a conscious effort to shroud himself in invisibility, confident at least that this human didn't look like he didn't have any spiritual ability.

Still. He feels different. Like a thousand souls melted into one melting pot...

"We'll see about that, sir," he whispered and then ordered more shadow waves to beat at the homunuclus.

Greed touched down much more gracefully than the Tatsumi did. He crosse his arms and casually strolled over to him, stopping when he saw Tatsumi disappear.

"Holy cow! That's great! Wish I had something like. Think of all the girls' rooms I could check out!" he laughed.

He soon began sniffing the air and closed his eyes to focus on any ambient sounds. Unfortunately, the first sound was that of a shadow smashing into his chest. The blow knocked him end over end, forcing him to then endure a series of blows the others.

"That's...not...COOL!" he yelled, forming his shield over his body.

The a loud "clank" accompanied every hit, now. He strode through them, throwing them off of himself and resuming his scan of the area. Upon hearing what sounded like breathing, he picked up a small batch of rocks on the ground.

"Hey, Tatsu-chaaaaaaaan! Do you know the principal behind how buckshot works?"

He cocked his arm back, tensing the muscles and aiming for where he thought the sound was coming from.

"It works on the principal that ya' don't need to be accurate to be dangerous!"

He hurled the rocks in the general direction of Tatsumi at a high velocity.

Tatsumi managed to keep himself from making anything louder than a sharp hiss as a few of the high-velocity projectiles managed to hit him and dig deeply into his body, cracking bones on his chest, arms and legs with a sickening crack. He had miscalculated. Knowing how his blood would not and could not possibly be hidden by the invisibility spell, he gave up on it and instead, shifted into a cloud of shadows once more, to reappear above Greed.

"I agree," he hissed between gritted teeth as he forced a dense pillar of shadows to pound Greed endlessly into the ground. "Yet accuracy is often more dangerous, sir."

Greed sensed the movement and forced his arms UP, against the force of the shadows.

"And there's something to be said for brute force!" he yelled, pushing with all his strength.

"I can keep this up all night, pal! Give up now and I promise I won't hurt ya'."

"I'll make it so you won't have to keep it up all night!" Never one to give up, Tatsumi pushed further, imagining limitless weight and strength as he strengthened the pillar of shadows. He ignored the pain and the strain on his body. He was shinigami, he told himself, he could still do this. He still had a chance.

To add to his current attack, he closed his eyes and willed tendrils of shadow to rise from the ground below and, using Greed's earlier principle, hoped he would wound the homunuclus enough for him to lose the concentration he knew the man was pouring into holding back his principal attack.

Greed skidded out just before being compressed by the large pillar of darkness, sliding several feet before digging his claws into the ground to stop himself.

"Once again, I commend your ballsy approach. But I wonder how long it takes to tire you out? You sure do use a lot of energy. Has to come from SOMEWHERE." he said.

He kicked his feet in the dirt a few times and stared at Tatsumi.

"Why not come down here we settle this wild west style? You and me across from each other. At the count of 3, we both attack. What do you think?"

"I'll admit. Against you, on the ground, I'm outclassed." Tatsumi instinctively moved a hand to push his glasses upwards only to find them missing. "And since I find I'm in an advantage up here, I think I'll stay until you give me a better reason to go down."

Using shadows, he lashed at Greed again.

Greed dashed forward and leaped off a nearby tree, aiming a kick for his side.

"You need to learn when to give up." he stated flatly.

Though Tatsumi was able to quickly put up his shields against the attack, the impact surprised him and he was thrown downwards to the floor.

He cursed underneath his breath as he rose from the ground, wiping the trail of blood beside his mouth. "So, I suppose it's your 'wild west style' now, huh?"

Greed came down right in front of him mid-sentence, stopping his fist a foot from Tatsumi's head.

"Almost forgot! Don't wanna' hurt that beautiful face." he said, stepping back.

"And yeah, that works."

Greed took a defensive stance again. He focused intently on the man across from him.

"You ready, pretty boy?"

Using the tone he used when he fully meant to frighten his colleagues, he said, "Don't call me pretty boy."

He stepped back wordlessly then and liquid-like shadow began circling his form. He intended to give it his all; his malice, his anger. As a shinigami and one of the only two kagetsukai in Meifu, he needed to win this.

1

2

3

He unleashed all the shadows he could.

Greed reinforced his shields and charged into the shadow armada, pushing off with enough force to destroy most of the flower bed at his point of take-off.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

He dove straight through, using his claws to part the dark wave as he passed through it, heading for the source.

He struggled, losing speed the whole way, until just barely getting within arms length of Tatsumi. He extended his left arm ahead of him and the wave threatened to throw him back, cocking his middle finger against his thumb,

"Don't like my pet names, eh? How about the name, 'knocked the fuck out'?" he asked, releasing his finger, aiming to flick him hard in between the eyes.

Tatsumi couldn't have anticipated the attack and he was thrown backwards. He blacked out momentarily and when he managed to recover from his muddled state, he realized he was on the floor. Collapsed. Vulnerable.

Greed breathed a sigh of relief as the shadows disappeared, then jumped over and sat lightly on Tatsumi's chest. He put a clawed hand around his throat and held it there, not quite squeezing, but not weak.

"So, you give up?" he asked.

Tatsumi gritted his teeth and then closed his eyes. He looked away.

"Yes," he said reluctantly.

"Great!" Greed practically sang.

He lifted Tatsumi up onto his feet, brushing him off.

"Now, first things first. APOLOGIZE."

Tatsumi glared. "What for?"

"One, for berating me. Two, for wasting my time." he said, matter-of-factly.

"Berating you?" Tatsumi scoffed. His eyes narrowed dangerously, but he knew he was sorely in the disadvantage. He didn't think dying would make things better.

Refusing to meet with Greed's eyes, he said under his breath, "I'm sorry for berating you." Pause. He sighed and then struggled to get the words out; "And for wasting your time."

"What do you want?" he finished.

"Next...hop up and down on one leg and bark like a dog!" he said.

Tatsumi's eyes widened at Greed's order. "You..."

"I don't see you jumpin'. Or are you a liar?"

"Fine," he hissed and, resisting the urge to try and kill the homunuclus in his unawares, folded one leg and began jumping. He barked like a dog and told himself if he was going to do it, he was going to bloody do it all out.

"Good, now say "Greed is the coolest, most attractive, intelligent, handsome, ballsy, intelligent, sexy, resourceful, brave being in existence."

Without resisting, he steeled himself instead and followed Greed word per word. "Greed is the coolest, most attractive, intelligent, handsome, ballsy, intelligent, sexy, resourceful, brave being in existence."

"One more thing!"

He walked a little closer.

"You have to kiss me."

"Are you insane?" Tatsumi began shaking. "In case you haven't noticed; we're both men."

"Unless you're not really..."

"Eh? I like both, human. I don't give a shit, as long as it's pretty and warm."

He leered at Tatsumi.

"But I'm mainly doin' it becuase I know how much you dislike it! Now are you gonna' keep your word, or do I have to come over there?"

"I'm glad to know I'm not pretty at least and that you won't be enjoying it." Tatsumi made sure he said that with much sarcasm.

As if his legs had suddenly become lead, Tatsumi forced himself to come closer. Close enough to be able to, he shuddered involuntarily, kiss. "Do you want me to kiss you or are you doing it yourself?" He tried not to bristle in anger.

Instead of talking, Greed grabbed him by the collar dipped him in his arms ala Gone With the Wind, and deep-kissed him, giving his rear a good squeeze at the same time.

"Ah!" he said, breaking the kiss and dropping him on the floor.

"Tastes sweet! Like victory! HA HA HA HA HA HA!"

It was simply one of the most humiliating things Tatsumi had experienced in his life. And to top it all off, he had done this to himself. If he hadn't challenged Greed, if he'd just swallowed the insults... He couldn't find it in himself to blame anything else but his own stupidity.

Breathing harshly, and keeping the all murderous intent down, he stood up from the ground. He gave Greed a carefully muted expression. "That's all, right?" he hissed and then without waiting a response, added, "Then I will be leaving."

"Bye!"