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She's laying on his fucking desk, silver hair splayed out all over his documents, giving him a smile that makes him want to shoot her.
Kuzuryuu and Pekoyama have always gotten most of their Despair from each other, each holding and playing their cards in order to gift each other the greatest misery. He almost won once and for all when they found Her body and he ordered her to cut his eye out. Fuck, that was a good day. Or a shit day. Same thing.
But she knows him inside and fucking out. She switches how she acts at a moment’s notice in order to accommodate him.
It makes him Despair (of course), but it also makes him fucking pissed.
"Get off of my fucking desk."
In response, she turns her head towards the ceiling, her long, uncontained hair sending some more documents flapping to the floor for good measure.
"Make me."
It's a tease. Both in the tongue-and-cheek reference to how she acts the other half of the time, but also because they both know that she can wreck him in a fight, and when she's in this mood, she doesn't hold back.
As he comes closer, she draws her sword with a lazy shhhhhhhhhhing and uses it to push his fedora up, so she can look him better in the eye.
"Why were your parents such pussies? Why didn't they just throw you into a river, or something?" He grumbles.
"Maybe I was always destined to serve you, Young Master." There was a twinkle in her eye, somewhere amongst the fierce swirls. "Once a tool, always a tool, hm?"
It was fucking annoying (Despairing) how she still struck at that exposed nerve in this state. Pawing at it, as if she was an inquisitive cat (and not a predator calculating each move).
"You're a tool, alright." He scoffed. "But seriously, an actual tool wouldn't be this fucking useless or annoying. This isn't even that Despair-inducing. Fuck off my desk."
Peko sits up in mock offence. "You question my duty, no, my existence? After all I've done in service to you?"
He knows she’s luring him into a trap, the way she’s testing each word on her tongue. But if it gets her off his fucking desk sooner, then so be it.
"Oh yeah? You're being my inanimate, uncomplaining means to an end right now? Even though I've ordered you to move twice?"
She's still smiling, but her gaze is more analytical now. "I am still serving you now, Young Master” (again, mockingly), “but in a larger sense. As I always have. Once a tool, always a tool."
"'Larger sense' my ass, you're stopping me from driving off those Future Foundation fuckers right now. The locations for their new camps are under your ass."
"They are only small, temporary. I am talking about..." She points to his eyepatch, Her eye. "This," her finger moves down, to his heart "and this."
"And you do this by being the most annoying little shit?" He slaps her hand away.
"Little? Look who's talking." She beams. "But yes, this is a lovely little personality I've constructed just for you, isn't it? Along with all the others. Well, the other two."
His blood runs cold. He doesn't let it show, instinctually, but she must know anyways, because she chuckles again and keeps on going.
"You know what I'm talking about. The, ah, Traditional Tool, I suppose... that heartless, thoughtless weapon."
"Yeah, that one. That's the one I'd like back, thank you." He folds his arms.
"And the one melded specifically according to your will. You know the one I'm talking about?" There is not a single sound other than her voice. "The brainwashed human."
"Alright, what the fuck are you getting at here?" He sits in his chair so that his legs don't give out. There's a deep dread starting to bubble in his gut.
"Don't act as if you don't remember." She shifts up so that she's staring him right in the eye, tearing him open with her red, red eyes. "The girl who got too much shit from your parents, who was a curious animal-lover at heart. Who could have been your equal, your friend, even.”
He lunges forwards, grabbing her by the lapels of her suit.
"Ah, so you do remember. Good." She grins.
"Stop making bullshit up, you crazy bitch." He's sweating. She is a tool, but that's just not true. That's the Despair in it all, he suppresses her as a tool because they both know it’s not true. Right?
"Remember what She taught you?” Peko’s voice fills up the room, “that believing I was anything other than a tool was a childish fantasy? That leaving it behind and accepting me as only an extension of your will would reveal you as the powerful and respected heir you had to be?"
She taps her chin repeatedly. "I wonder where that version of me went after that, then?" She does a mock gasp, bringing her face closer to his. "Did you simply not want her anymore? And so, as nothing but an extension of your will, your tool, she ceased to be?"
He let go of her, stepping back. The Despair came in waves, first as a spiny embrace, then biting into his chest. It ripped through every inch of his body, smothering all the fire until it was just hollow ash. He feels nothing but the cold sweat on his neck and it settling like a stone in his stomach.
"Get. Off. My. Desk." His voice was cold.
Immediately, her expression changes. She stops smiling and sheathes her sword. She gets off in one fluid motion and stands up ram-rod straight.
"Yes, Young Master." All flair has been ripped from her voice, leaving only steel.
He gets back in his chair and she moves behind him, to the bodyguard’s post. Out of his sight, there to be used. A heartless, thoughtless weapon.
The Despair goes off like an explosion of him, so fierce that his vision starts to blur. Even though he’s sitting, he has to put his hands on the desk to steady himself.
(She wins this time.)