spira_rp | I know it's a shame

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I know it's a shame

It had not been hard to see how long it would have taken to devise a way to call on his scythe without Zexion's assistance. Marluxia had been better placed than others to learn, since mist manipulation and chakra control were already a part of his repertoire, but the process had still been slow at times, and frustrating. Zexion had guided where he could, and Marluxia had made sure not to let his frustration with the rate of progress show.

The first time he'd succeeded, and Graceful Dahlia had taken her familiar form and weight in his hand, there had been... comfort. It had felt as though a missing item had been returned to its proper place.

It had lasted a frustratingly short spell, and further practice had lengthened the time Marluxia could maintain the weapon by mere seconds. He required, according to Zexion, a sparring partner. Someone Marluxia could trust to push him in a fight, and help Marluxia train his control of the scythe under more trying circumstances.

He'd known the moment would come, of course, and it made Marluxia wary. The only person he could consider for such a role was Lumi, and Lumi was....

Marluxia did not like admitting his own weaknesses, but Lumi was in a league somewhat above Marluxia when it came to physical combat. They acted as partners, and Lumi was the closest thing to a partner that Marluxia had on Spira, but Lumi was the stronger. In some ways it was like having Larxene assist; Lumi was very much his own agent, who worked with Marluxia for his own purposes, but Lumi was more dangerous than Larxene because Larxene had been simple. Simple was not something that applied to Lumi, and Marluxia afforded Lumi the careful respect adopted by one who swims with sharks, which anyone who associated with Khamja did.

When it came time to bite the bullet, Marluxia ensured they were not in the Palace, or otherwise in range of anyone from Khamja. Though he was distantly aware that L likely had spies no matter where they went, L was not a problem. Aizen, Gin, and even Kuja, however, were not to become aware that Marluxia was currently at a disadvantage compared to the Order's members, or that he currently bore any difficulties. He was too strong to acknowledge a weakness, unlike Kadaj, who was too weak to be a real problem. Khamja was a dangerous place to occupy any of the intervening ground between those two points, and so Marluxia did not want the fact he was training in something to become public knowledge.

They'd gone on a journey to deal with a mark which, for them at least, would pose no real danger. It was in the Travel Agency, away from civilisation centres, and the Palace, that Marluxia had made mention of his need of a sparring partner to Lumi. Lumi could, if the mood so took him, erase Marluxia when he was vulnerable in such a session. Marluxia knew that, and yet Lumi was the only one Marluxia even trusted halfway. He was, at least, reasonably sure that Lumi would not take the opportunity to end him.

"It would require you to hold back," he said, knowing that holding back was something Lumi was more than capable of, but it was something Marluxia thought needed to be stressed. He wasn't sure if Lumi might realise how much he may have to hold back, although the possibility of sustaining injury was something Marluxia had made his peace with. "When it comes to combat prowess, I am good, but you are better," though he wasn't fond of admitting that, either, but Marluxia's advantage, up to now, had been in the magical aspects of combat, "and I require you to push me, but likely not yourself."

He hadn't told Lumi what ability he was trying to practice, as yet. That information need only come if Lumi seemed amenable to the idea of helping Marluxia train at all.

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A lesser man may have taken a step back when Marluxia's Chakra became visible. Lumi did not. He stood fast, his hair and coat blown back by the increased pressure of Marluxia's usually suppressed Reiatsu.

Lumi watched the display almost without expression. That his Chakra manifested as petals once it reached a high enough concentration to become visible to the naked eye didn't surprise him. It was ... unusual, but not entirely unknown. It was certainly not shocking for someone of Marluxia's devotion to his Element.

The moment that the weapon burst into existence, however, surprised him enough to make his eyes widen. He wasn't entirely sure what to expect ahead of time, but that had certainly never crossed his mind. It was an interesting piece of equipment -- green-stemmed and pink-headed, like a flower. There was no denying that it was almost deliberately decorative, but that did little to disguise the fact that it was designed with functionality in mind. It was handsome, yet lethal.

"Subtle," he said, the excess Chakra that had brought the weapon into being dissipating as he spoke. "Very you."

Marluxia's eyebrow twitched upwards at Lumi's response, and he eyed him for a moment. Marluxia suspected he was being got at, in a very quiet and adroit way. Lumi wasn't known for his sense of humour, but that didn't mean he didn't have one.

"Former members of Organization Thirteen all have a weapon," he said, "each unique to its wielder." He hefted the weight of the scythe again, "They bear our signatures in their shape; mine is a scythe, where Zexion's is a book." And not to be underestimated just because it wasn't a conventional weapon, Marluxia thought, to himself. Let Aizen and the rest focus on the alchemy, or the ability to hear the green word and control Malboros; the full extent of what a former Nobody could really do could evade their attentions, at least for now.

"The difficulty, right now, is that maintaining Graceful Dahlia like this is a drain. I can only hold it for so long at a time. Combat practice will help lengthen that time so it becomes a reliable weapon once more." He would like to be able to use the scythe again, as well as magic and geomancy. Having it dissipate in the middle of a fight was not something he would be able to tolerate; it was too risky.

"So," he said, finishing, "I require your assistance."

"You have it," he said, looking from the scythe to its owner.

So, all of the Organization XIII Ryoka were capable of producing a weapon -- a personalised weapon, at that-- from nowhere. No, not nowhere. From their own solidified Reishi. From their Chakra. Given Marluxia's difficulty with it, it was clear to see that it was an approximated version of some old ability he'd had. It was possible, then, that non-Ryoka could master such an ability, providing they had the necessary Chakra reserves and training. No wonder Marluxia wished to keep the fact that he had to learn it at such a late stage under wraps, especially if the rest of his number had already gotten to grips with it.

On its own, it was not a dangerous piece of information. Certain Ryoka had the ability to produce a weapon. That wasn't a problem, of course; Ryoka were known for having unusual talents. It was the fact that he had to learn it that was the issue. It was better for everybody if it was simply assumed that he came to Spira with the ability intact. Him being in the learning stages ... well, that was the risk. Should somebody like Aizen figure out that he could teach himself such an ability... no, that was best avoided. It would make more sense for him to have kept such a thing hidden from Clan Khamja than it be known that he had been taught by the Thirteenth Order's turncoat. As such, Lumi understood his reasoning.

"Do you wish to be pushed?" Lumi asked, tilting his head to the side very slightly.

"It is less of a wish," Marluxia answered, "and more of a requirement." He didn't wish to be pushed, really, and if he could do this in any way that did not involve combat with someone as dangerous as Lumi could be if he wished, then Marluxia would have taken that route. Instead, this was the only way, and Marluxia would have to continue to fight even when he was weakened.

And he would be weakened, he knew. He couldn't hold the scythe's form for long enough, yet, which meant he'd have to forge it again, likely more than once, and that was a drain on his chakra, to say nothing of actually fighting. At least when sparring he could refrain from using magic to focus his energies on the important thing, for now.

"Still," he said adjusting the weight of the scythe, readying himself, "the harder you push, the more effective this will be." Marluxia would have to trust Lumi, not only to know how hard he could push, but to stop short when necessary.

Lumi gave a single nod, a simple display of understanding.

Marluxia had misgivings, Lumi could see that. He was concerned that Lumi didn't have the control required to pull his punches, that he wouldn't be able to stop himself killing him in the heat of a sparring match. It was a valid concern. Lumi made a point of being dangerous and he didn't mind that fact being known, didn't . For now, he would have to make it clear that he could be trusted with restraint and composure.

"And if that," he glanced at the scythe, "loses solid form? Would you have me back off, or keep coming?"

Marluxia needed to be pushed, but would the loss of his weapon require a brief let-up, or would he need to learn how to re-form it quickly, even with a risk? Even with the latter, Lumi could stop short, but he intended to make entirely clear what was expected of him before he undertook such an ... unusual training exercise.

The corner of Marluxia's mouth pulled upwards into a twisted smirk. He could play it safe, or he could get the job done; and he was already placing enough trust in Lumi to refrain from using lethal force.

"When it loses form do not stop," Marluxia answered. An enemy would do him no such courtesy, and Marluxia couldn't afford to allow the illusion of safety to make him complacent. "I will simply have to trust that you will refrain from actually slitting my throat when the opportunity inevitably arises."

"You are of no value to me dead," he said plainly, giving a slight shrug of his shoulders.

That was the truth. Plainly set out. Lumi wasn't known for forming friendships with people. He made alliances. Marluxia was, as far as he was concerned, his ally. He trusted him as much as he needed to, probably as much as Marluxia trusted him in turn. He had no other allies besides, perhaps, Kuja, unlike Marluxia who counted Zexion among his own number. Marluxia was, quite simply, useless to him dead and killing him in a sparring 'accident' would only make his life difficult in the long run.

"Shall we begin?" He asked, pushing his coat aside to reveal the hilt of his sword, which he grasped.

How comforting, Marluxia thought, but didn't point out that Lumi would have no reason to claim otherwise even if it were the case. Lumi, however, didn't appear to be deceptive. If anything, it was said as a careless truth; one that wasn't dressed up as it required no further consideration than its existence as a truth had already been given.

Lumi was refreshing.

"By all means," Marluxia replied, moving into a ready stance, to the only part that really mattered. Lumi had never seen Marluxia fight with a weapon before, but similarly, Marluxia had never sparred against Lumi before, either. This would be interesting.

Lumi pulled the sword free of the scabbard with practised ease. The sword felt comfortable in his hand, even if he did prefer a firearm to a blade. It was a reassuring weight, something he suspected would be necessary to defend against an attack from Marluxia's ... whatever that was.

"Come," he said, narrowing his eyes.

He wanted to get the measure of Marluxia's reach from the off.

Marluxia suppressed a laugh, but his amusement was still evident. Lumi was too smart to walk within range of the scythe blade when he'd probably not seen such a weapon used before. Marluxia could get to like being too much of an unknown for Lumi to approach.

It wouldn't last, but for now, it tickled him.

Of course, the flip side was that Lumi being too smart to wade in to the unknown required Marluxia to step in first against an armed and ready Lumi.

He moved forward with a surprising amount of speed for someone who had, up to now, dealt in back row fighting, and swung Graceful Dahlia hard and fast, holding the shaft from a little over halfway down. He could extend his reach further and hold the scythe right at the end of the handle, but that was a good way to get it knocked straight from his hand against someone like Lumi right now.

Lumi watched the way Marluxia held the weapon. He took a step back as he surged forward, but was still forced to duck as he treated him to a far-too-close-for-comfort demonstration of a strike.

That was fast. Faster than he had expected, given the unwieldy nature of the weapon's shape and the apparent weight. The cutting arc was wide, but the shape of the scythe-blade limited the risk zone somewhat. That did little to disguise the fact that it was clearly a dangerous weapon that would prove extremely difficult to parry.

To push him, Lumi knew that he would have to stay close -- reach was meaningless against an opponent too close to use the blade on. Even so, Marluxia's speed was something that he would have to keep in mind.

He took in a breath, slow and calm, and lunged at him while the momentum of Marluxia's swing took it too far off to the side to be an immediate threat.

Marluxia backed off sharply, using the handle of the scythe to parry Lumi's lunge. Lumi was quick, and he'd apparently decided that getting close would make Marluxia's life harder right now.

He was right, and Marluxia gave the scythe a short swing in Lumi's direction, though the intention wasn't to strike but to push Lumi back a step.

He was having to concentrate on holding the scythe together already; he'd held it for some time while they'd talked, and now that they were actually trading strikes it was more difficult. Marluxia was developing an appreciation for the ease with which he'd witnessed Saix, in an Arrancar's memory, use the technique.

His short swing at Lumi was followed up by a faster one that left the blade a pink blur in the air as he let his hand slip further down the shaft, extending his reach with it in the process.

Lumi backed off when Marluxia swung to make him do so.

He was stronger than Lumi had expected. Marluxia, in Lumi's experience, had always been a back-row fighter, a mage. He had never displayed any kind of physical fighting prowess before, done nothing that would indicate that he had the ability to swing a weapon of that size, of that weight, with such effortless proficiency.

The weapon presented problems, yes, but Lumi had not missed some of the vulnerabilities presented by the shape. As well as the proximity issue that Marluxia was trying hard to negate by keeping him at a distance, he gave the scythe itself a weak point that grew more easy to exploit the further down the shaft he held it. The reach was improved, but the balance was thrown off.

Lumi made sure to keep just far enough away to avoid the cutting edge of the scythe and held his own sword two-handed and high. With one sharp move he drove the point of the sword down, aiming to catch the scythe in the right-angle that joined the blade to the shaft.

Graceful Dahlia caught against Lumi's sword, and Marluxia found his swing interrupted with a wince and a flash of teeth.

He nearly lost his grip on the scythe. It had been a while since he'd swung it, and familiar as it was to him, it felt as though he was rusty, and he was holding it low down, at extended reach. His grip slipped, and he lost his concentration for a moment....

He scowled, knowing it was going to happen before it did, and then he lost control. The scythe burst into petals with a flash, which dissipated quickly, and Marluxia was left unarmed and too near a fully armed Lumi.

He pulled back, trying to force the scythe back into existence again in a hurry, hand flung behind himself as he drew his chakra together once more.

Lumi felt the resistance of the solid blade against his own when their weapons clashed. Then the jerk of the scythe's sudden and unceremonious disappearance followed. He didn't allow himself to be distracted by the strangeness of the process, or by the petals that appeared in Graceful Dahlia's wake.

He pulled his sword back, switched to a more natural one-handed grip, and swung at Marluxia's neck, all in one smooth movement.

Had Lumi followed through, Marluxia would have been dead before he realised. As it was, he stopped short, the cutting edge of his blade barely an inch from the side of his neck.

For a moment that seemed to drag, Marluxia stood, neck bared and blade much too close for comfort. Lumi had stopped short of slitting his throat, as discussed, but that didn't make Marluxia feel any better about having got that close to the sharp end of Lumi's weapon.

He had his head and body tilted away from the sword, and flicked his eyes up from that, to Lumi.

A flurry of petals at his outflung fingertips signalled the scythe's reappearance, and Marluxia wasted no time taking a firm grip of the handle and swinging upwards, blade skimming the ground and doing to a few blades of grass what Lumi had refrained from doing to Marluxia's neck as it came up towards Lumi again.

Round two began with less hesitance than its predecessor.

Lumi, for the moment that hung between them, the pause between his stalled blade and the reappearance of Marluxia's, locked eyes with his opponent.

Then, out of the corner of his vision, he saw the petals.

He took that as his cue to get out of the way of the newly formed blade. He avoided the swing just in time and, this time, he launched the first attack, closing the distance between them with fearless ease.

Marluxia expected an attack from Lumi, and used the half second created by forcing Lumi back with a swing to take the scythe in both hands.

He could use it to defend that way, and braced himself against Lumi's first attack with bared teeth and a grunt. He followed it up with a short, two handed swing that should push Lumi back a step again, before letting go with one hand to bring the scythe back and then around again for a cross swing. In the Organization his nom de guerre had been the The Graceful Assassin, and there was a distinct grace to the way he moved with the scythe. He didn't pause, using the momentum from his swing to bring the scythe's blade in an arc around himself.

The small smile on his face gave away the fact that he was enjoying himself, despite his reservations.

The graceful movements and elegant execution of Marluxia's attacks were not lost on Lumi. He appreciated his skill with the unusual weapon, skill that showed in the ease with which he swung the scythe and moved around it as he advanced and withdrew. Learning how to avoid and counter his attacks, as well as find an opening in which to launch his own, was important, but it didn't stop him noticing the aesthetics of the situation.

Lumi took a quick step back to avoid the arcing cut and then stepped in close, aiming his blade at the area of snaith a few inches up from Marluxia's grip.

It was an experimental move executed to see whether the reishi that comprised the structure of the scythe as a whole was evenly spread throughout the weapon, or if it was concentrated and tempered in the blade as a focal point. He was testing for weakness.

If other ex-Nobodies could create similar weapons, it would be useful to know if they were likely to have any vulnerable areas he could exploit.

Lumi's blade made contact, and Marluxia felt the impact reverberate through the weapon and through his wrist and arm. He grimaced for a moment, pulling back. He needed the space to give him a chance to assess the state of Graceful Dahlia.

The blade was the strongest part, of course, since that was where it was designed to hit other things, but the rest was by no means weak. Fortunate, or Marluxia could have found himself having to recreate the scythe again. As it was, the scythe still felt solid, and he doubted he was going to lose it again too soon. He brought the weapon back, adjusting his grip slightly before he came at Lumi again, blade blurring through the air.

Lumi watched his reaction to the blow, pulling back while Marluxia took a brief moment to inspect his blade. When he came at him, he stood firm and did not move until Marluxia had already started his strike.

He didn't raise his sword to block the attack and instead stepped aside once the momentum of Marluxia's swing had taken him too far to redirect the blade to catch him. He was good, Lumi had seen that, but he didn't think he quite had the level of ability required to turn on a gil like that, not when he was so out of practice.

He moved in close and switched the grip on his sword to reverse. With the point of the blade safely out of the way, he stepped behind him and aimed a blow with his foot at the back of Marluxia's knees. Should he manage to throw Marluxia's balance off enough, he'd have a chance of disarming him.

Marluxia missed, and had expected nothing else. He wasn't out to seriously injure Lumi, after all. Minor cuts and scrapes were inevitable, but severe lacerations were to be avoided.

Still, he'd expected to miss by being deflected, not dodged, and the moment Lumi dodged, Marluxia knew there would be a follow up. He tried to adjust, and turn back towards Lumi, but Lumi's foot hit the backs of his knees, and they buckled under the impact. Marluxia hissed as one knee hit the ground, and he moved quickly to recover, pushing himself back up with his other foot the moment it did. He'd had Lumi's sword at his throat once already; he didn't want to provide a second easy opening so soon, even if Lumi had created one.

Lumi allowed himself a smirk at getting Marluxia so off balance. It certainly put paid to his earlier easy grace.

He put a bit of distance between the two of them and adjusted his grip on the hilt of his sword. He was starting to learn what he could expect of Marluxia's scythe. It was growing easier to push him. Time to stop holding back so much.

Marluxia was back on his feet reasonably quickly, and he turned to face Lumi again. Lumi was getting used to the fighting style associated with a scythe, he realised, which meant that things were about to get harder.

He could hold Graceful Dahlia's form a little longer yet, and he adjusted his grip, holding it ready, just a little over halfway down. If his grip was lower, he could reach farther, but was also at greater risk of losing the weapon to some well performed but aggressive deflection.

This time, he waited for Lumi to move.

And move Lumi did.

He darted forward, aiming a direct attack at him. It was a clean diagonal slash, starting from the lower left and going up. Lumi was fast. Such an attack would force Marluxia to either avoid his attack entirely, or defend against him with an overhead counter.

At least that's what Lumi suspected he'd be forced to do. If Marluxia had any other methods of dealing with such a straightforward assault, he would be interested in seeing them.

I know it's a shame

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