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[reallyaduck]

Fakir has made a very grand exit!

LET'S ALL STARE.

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[3nanashi]

Trowa's head snapped to the side -- he knows how to roll with a blow -- and he's turned a little away, and

(time to alter tactics)

Oh hey there's the sucker punch.

(If it hit hard enough, Duo might be jolted free of Duck! You're welcome, Duo.)

[maxwellsdemon02]

Duo staggers back a step, which does yank him away from Duck. For now, anyway. He doesn't bother with any more posturing, and immediately lets loose with a kick at Trowa's knee.

[3nanashi]

Duck's a civilian: an encumbrance, and a complicating factor. Staying clear of her is the sensible tactic. (For now, anyway.)

Trowa twists and moves in, to catch the kick on his thigh -- it'll bruise that way, but no worse -- and to grab at Duo's arm while he's on one foot.

Ideally, he'll manage a throw; if not, elbow strikes are always nice in close.

And Duo's face is at a nice convenient elbow height!

[reallyaduck]

Duck's gaze jerks back and forth from one to the other, growing more distraught and frightened every second.

"Stop it, qw-stop it, stop it!"

Holding onto Duo didn't seem to work; she can't think of anything else to do besides fling herself bodily between the two combatants, heedless of the risk of catching a stray punch.

"I know you don't want to hurt each other, I know it!"

[maxwellsdemon02]

Two hands reach out simultaneously to push Duck to the side. They aren't gentle, but they obviously aren't trying to hurt her.

Duo takes Trowa's elbow high on the cheek, but he doesn't back off. Trowa's longer reach is no advantage when Duo is in this close.

[3nanashi]

It's true.

On the other hand, most of Trowa's fighting skills were learned when he was a kid, without the advantage of longer reach on anybody.

What this means: dirty tactics all around!

Trowa's not trying to hurt Duck, but Duo is a different matter.

[reallyaduck]

Duck stumbles backwards, her heart beating fast.

She's never seen people fight like this. They're moving so fast, and hitting so hard, and someone is totally really gonna get hurt if she doesn't do something - but what can she do?

[maxwellsdemon02]

Trowa's latest hit drives Duo back far enough for him to circle warily around, looking for an opening.

There's a bloody cut above his eyebrow, and he spares a second to wipe at it with one hand.

It's...red. He blinks.

Something's wrong. This is wrong. Duo's fighting stance falters a little, his fists unclench.

[idolovestories.livejournal.com]

Somewhere someone is watching. Somewhere a voice rambles to its owner in amusement. That no one else is there to hear it is not something to be worried about, or even something to be taken as a sign of insanity. Everyone talks to themselves from time to time, after all!

"Two fast friends fighting one another? The tragedy. The horror." Oddly, despite the words, the voice sounds nothing less than delighted. "But the poor little duck, what can she do? She isn't a hero. The fighting friends barely notice even her most fervent efforts to intervene."

"If only someone else were there to help. If only... it were Princess Tutu!"

[reallyaduck]

Duck has just enough time to dive behind a tree before she's engulfed in shining yellow light.

(Fortunately, Trowa and Duo are both too busy fighting to pay any attention! Right? Right?)

CUE MAGICAL GIRL ANIMATION TRANSFORMATION SEQUENCE.

[fairytaleknight]

Fakir has dragged Mytho to a private lesson with Mr. Cat. Even Mytho couldn't get in trouble there, Fakir thinks. Fakir might as well go to the woods and brood.

Unfortunately (due to the demands of narrative convenience) the particular stand of trees Fakir chooses is already occupied. There are those boys, moving in a blur of elbows and knuckles and knees. One of them might be bleeding. It's hard to tell in the shadows.

Fakir informs himself firmly that he does not feel sick. They're just fighting, that's all. Warriors fight.

Warriors in stories don't fight like that.

I don't know how to fight like that.

Fortunately, at this juncture, Princess Tutu starts glimmering like a medium-sized and extremely irritating lantern. Fakir can be annoyed at her instead of ... whatever he was feeling before.

[3nanashi]

Duo's distracted.

Good.

If there's any other reaction, any inner faltering, it doesn't show. Duo's left an opening, carelessly, and Trowa takes it.

[maxwellsdemon02]

Duo's attention snaps back to Trowa, but not in time. Trowa's kick takes him right in the chest and drives him back. All his breath leaves in a whoosh.

So much for his impassioned speech about friendship, anyway.

Duck?

[reallyaduck]

Sorry, Duo - Duck is temporarily out of commission.

Which doesn't mean that there is no help to be had.

"Please," says a voice that doesn't really sound much like Duck's at all - "Stop!"

When Duck flings herself between the combatants, she gets battered away.

When Princess Tutu leaps between the combatants, on the other hand, she has magical ballet powers to back her up - not to mention some nifty hard-core battle fans.


"You must stop this fighting!" says Princess Tutu, her voice ringing sorrowful and musical in the air. "Do you really wish to harm a friend who cares for you?"

[3nanashi]

(No)

Yes.

The ballerina is between them; Trowa springs back enough to circle, watching for an opening.

[maxwellsdemon02]

WTF, says Duo's face.

The rest of him doesn't say anything but wheezing, sadly. He should have known. That's Duck, all right. And likely, her magic that she was so worried about giving up.

What is she doing?

[reallyaduck]

Tutu lifts her arms and pirouettes, and vines spring out under her feet, spreading until a thicket of green separates Trowa from Duo. Tutu keeps turning, en pointe, lifted atop the vines as they grow, until she stands about a head above Duo and Trowa.

"You don't need to express your feelings in violence and pain!"

She snaps the fans up in a graceful movement, and they vanish. Her arms rise further; her left hand and right twirl around each other over her head, before she extends them down in an imploring motion, one to Duo and one to Trowa.

"Instead - please, dance with me!"

[maxwellsdemon02]

Duo continues to stare.

She is a magical girl.

He is trapped in a shōjo anime.

[3nanashi]

What the hell kind of fight strategy is that.

[reallyaduck]

"Please," Tutu says again, and smiles - somehow managing to aim it simultaneously at Duo and Trowa, even though she is standing directly between them.

"When you fight, it's like a dance too, but a dance that causes each other suffering. Won't you try a different kind of dancing?"

She holds her pose without apparent effort, and her arms remain outstretched, in position, without moving a millimeter from their pose.

[maxwellsdemon02]

(No.)

Duo squelches that voice inside of him, it isn't his, and he can feel it now, it's subtly wrong.

And if it doesn't want him to, clearly the right thing to do is grab Duck's hand.

[3nanashi]

Well. Pretending to cooperate is an easy way to get back in range.


(And Tutu has the kind of shining earnestness in her eyes, an unflinching and transparently open friendliness, that you can't help but listen to, and that rings a chord somewhere deep in memory--)


He'll play this game. Until he chooses not to.

[reallyaduck]

Tutu's gentle smile brightens.

She curtseys to her partners; they may or may not feel a faint breeze as they rise in the air, until they stand once again on a level with her.

"Tell me," she says, as she leads them each in a turn under her arm, "what has caused you to turn your hands against each other?"

[maxwellsdemon02]

Duo may be sort of clutching her arm at this point. And eyeing the foot that separates him from the ground suspiciously. He is never believing anything Duck says again ever.

"Something's weird," he tells her. "And I don't mean the ostrich."

[3nanashi]

Trowa is silent.

There's a shocker.




If this is a dance, though, body language is louder than words; everything about him is motionless, assessing, controlled and inward-turned and waiting.