The Hot Springs Truce

[Monsy]

Angelina was struggling to decipher why any of these questions mattered. It didn’t mean a thing now that they were done and locked in memories of thousands, for better or worse. Snakes have snake opinions. She found these questions stirring incorrectly in her gut the longer she played into them, feeling they lead to nowhere or answer some admission of guilt. What did Yuki even want? It was hard to say. But again. Did that even matter in any scope of events now? Was there some sort of peace to be grabbed? Solace? Some assuredness that yes, I need to be the one to end this girl's career -- Or that hey, maybe we don't need to fight this risk after all?

“Why...why...why…”

Angelina tilted her head back and forth to nudge each why in a different direction.

“Why...why...why…”

Left-Right-Left.

Her tone was drier. Eyes flatter. But she still smiled, as if calm and loose and enjoying some type of sleepy delirium. It was natural to slip into as she let her muscles relax, coax into a drift as her arms began to buoy. She rolled her lips in, perked her smile higher, then snapped her arms at Yuki to grab both sides of her little head.

She clawed into it with pruned fingertips and softened nails, jerked her closer, looked her dead in the eye and said…

“Be~cause~… I can.”

Then she opened her hands and let her arms flutter away.

“Anymore questions?”

[CaptainL]

That shifty look, that side-eye. She wasn't even making eye contact. And at the sight of it, Yuki sucked in a breath, her hand clenching tighter into a fist at her side. Really, she didn't know what she expected. She should have expected something like this from Angelina Tarrant. Was she really just going to agree to a rational conversation? Was she really going to have any interest in working this out in a sane and sensible fashion? No. No, of course she wasn't. This wasn't someone Yuki could deal with rationally. This was Angelina Tarrant. An agent of chaos. She was a woman who lived by no one's code but her own, and who had no qualms about the trail of destruction she would leave in her wake in doing so. She wanted to leave everyone dazed, confused, and probably bleeding. And she'd do it all with that smug, satisfied smile on her face.

Yuki knew she should've expected...well, anything but a straight answer. With Angelina, it was always best to be prepared for the worst. But even still, she wasn't expecting her to suddenly cross that boundary between the two of them...no matter how much she knew she should have expected it.

When Yuki saw her hands reaching out to her, her heart jumped in her chest. In a matter of seconds, she was back on alert. This was it, she thought. This was the moment she was waiting for this whole time. The moment Angelina would finally make her move. When she'd attack. She knew this whole time that she was in the perfect spot for an ambush; she figured it was only a matter of time before the redhead took the bait. She stood up straighter and stiffer, the color draining from her face as her breaths quickened. She was touching her now - she had her hands on her. And that, surely, meant bad things were about to happen. She was waiting for Angelina to swim closer to attack her, or rake her eyes, or...

...Well, for her to do just about anything other than say "because I can." That was it? That was...underwhelming. Not even a sneak attack. Not even a satisfying answer. Yuki blinked a couple of times, just staring back at her blankly. Had she really gotten this worked up...just for that?

A slow, dejected sigh flowed out of Yuki as she slumped back in the water, grumbling to herself. No doubt, this was exactly what Angelina had been trying to set up, and exactly what she wanted - and she'd played directly into her hand. Glancing back down into the water, she huffed under her breath. "...Yeah. I should have guessed that I wouldn't get a straight answer out of you...I don't know why I'd even try."

She drifted back a few feet in the water. A few moments of silence passed between the two of them, both of them staring off into the distance. Both of them knew there was something on their minds; something they wanted to say...but no one wanted to be the first to break the silence. Not until Yuki went and took that onus on herself, and address the elephant in the room.

"...So. Are you going to do...anything else?"

[Monsy]

Angelina melted into her personal space when she let go. The bubbling water levels now returned to its rightful place of chief concern. To not get water stuck up there and have the chemicals fry her brains in what she called a nose freeze. When the water burns the sensitive layers inside the nose and takes the whole face with it for a bitter ride for about five seconds, then tapers out. She’d stay above the waves. Focus on balancing on her toes rather than her doggy paddle. She was happier now that Yuki shut up about the line of thought. A non-straight answer, she says.

That’s fine. In a deeply aggravating sort of way. She was being accused of deception of some kind in a place of truce. And although it didn’t matter, it burned more goodwill like paper in a bonfire. If they don’t believe what she says, then they are worse than worthless to talk to. She kept herself occupied with the water, though. Cleared her thoughts, which were beginning to stray, thinking about how Yuki was choosing what made a straight answer, how she was trying to get inside her head and what a sick fuck Yuki was to ask all this for an accusation.

Angelina’s gaze flicked up to Yuki. Dull. A question, was it?

“That’s a you question.” Angelina said, suddenly feeling a curl in her nose and tension in her voice. Her head leaned forward. Her tone sharpened.

“If you’re done tryin’ to poison my head.”

Reset, reset. Angelina turned side profile.

Now she was thinking about it. Poison. The more the word coined in her head, the easier it was to open the vial and pour it all over this subject. An elaborate scheme of a psychopath trying to pick at her resolve before the big day. An evil plot. Just another wrong on the Kazikura pile.

Angelina raised her smile again, forced, as if trying to endear and flip her mood back around. She turned to face Yuki again. Now she wanted to ask something…

“What’s the point of this anyway? Ya lookin' for rapport or some imaginary common ground? Gonna take what ya know and decide whether I’m worth puttin’ through an extra table?”

[CaptainL]

Yuki didn't know how many seconds passed in silence between the two of them. She wasn't counting. It could've been a blink of an eye, or it could have been an eternity, and she would have believed either one. Everything went quiet - now, it was just the two of them, bobbing in the warm water, with only the silence of the empty room and the steam rising from the water around them. It should have been soothing; the quiet, the warmth. Yuki had come here to relax, hadn't she? To collect her thoughts, calm her nerves, and get her thoughts straight in the leadup to the night she most needed to keep her focus? Now, she had just that. A moment to herself, her body wrapped in a warm embrace. But she couldn't relax. Not when Angelina was here. Not when her guard was down, and she had nowhere to run to. She felt like she was right there in the crosshairs...and what twisted that knife even more was the realization that Yuki really shouldn't have thought this way. Was she really just getting too paranoid? Was she getting carried away there? Was Angelina right?

"...I...guess." Yuki sighed, and as she let out a breath, her body deflated, causing her to sink lower into the water. The surface swam up over her chest, rising to her collarbone, with her hair half-submerged. But Angelina's words stuck with her, and her eye twitched. Yuki hadn't intended this, of course. She wasn't trying to poison her head. She wouldn't resort to the same sorts of psychological tactics that her worst enemies would; not when she wanted to prove herself under her own merits...at least, not consciously. But was that succeeding? Or...was her desperation to stay relevant getting the better of her?

She looked back up at Angelina, then, as the redhead addressed her. For a moment, she looked at her with an eyebrow raised curiously; then, she let out another sigh when the weight of the words sank in. "The point of this? I was really just here to take a bath, Angelina. I didn't expect you to show up, too. Do I have to have an ulterior motive?" And no sooner had the words left her mouth that she bit her tongue. Why wasn't she heeding her own advice?

[Monsy]

Her head shook.

“That wasn’t what I was talkin’ about.”

No. She didn’t particularly care about why Yuki was present. They both had access to this amenity and she doubted it was planned. Didn’t really care if it was planned either. She was going to come here at this time no matter what. But Yuki’s note did strike a chord of sorts. Just here to take a bath. Yes. She weighed that against her own reason. Then she deliberated as she sunk. Was it worth picking the bark off this tree? She kinda wanted an answer, sure, but the moments of quiet lifted through her nostrils and started to massage her brain, coaxing into saying…

“Forget about it. Go enjoy ya bath. Ovah…” Angelina shooed them, then pointed towards their right. The side farthest away from the window. “There.”

As for Angelina, she was going to the side of the pool that had the view. The moon was overhead in a crescent shape between nature’s teeth. Mountains, snow-capped, arranged into a goliath lower jaw. The dark shadows far off, probably a kilometre or two, was nature’s body hair covered in snow. Trees, that being. Then the snowy skin itself. All pitch-black at this hour, leaving mostly the lanterns, rock formations and the stream at the bottom to be seen. Frozen, unfortunately.

She tried to think of an analogy for this. Blood? And what of the rock? Tissue? Maybe eczema. Or bone. Exposed bone. Earth was turning out to be quite a gross creature. Lots of exposed bone, teeth and blood. No wonder climate change is a thing, the Earth has sepsis!

She’d keep thinking about it.
Better this than to be asked the whys and how's of a situation Yuki makes for herself. Every bit of it.

[CaptainL]

Another sigh. No matter how much the two of them tried, Yuki and Angelina were no closer to understanding one another than they were at the start of this all. There was too much distance between them - too much suspicion, too much uncertainty. Both of them approached every conversation as though they needed to scan it for traps and hidden threats, saying each word with a hand resting on the pommel of a sword. Yuki knew how Angelina worked, and how many times she had engineered the situation to cut her low and catch her unawares. She knew that she would like nothing better than to see those cracks in Yuki's armor widen and spiderweb across her whole body, getting through to the soft, vulnerable underbelly beneath. She had to be on guard, she told herself, to make sure that wouldn't happen - to deny Angelina the satisfaction of knowing she'd broken her. But then, Angelina was watching her, too. It was a game of cat and mouse, and each one was waiting for the other to snap.

For a moment, there was silence between them. Yuki sank lower into the water, turning her eyes away from the Marauder. She tried to focus on the silence and the stillness...but she already knew all too well the serenity of this moment had been shattered the moment Angelina had shown up. As long as Angelina was here, Yuki couldn't find safety, and she couldn't find peace. Her very presence was a reminder she had to watch her back, and a reminder that everything could go wrong. Any attempt at solace Yuki tried to find in the water was marred by the fact that everything she was trying to find solace from was right there. The genie was out of the bottle. Angelina was there, and she would be felt wherever Yuki was. And wherever she was, Yuki couldn't rest easy.

But then...Angelina spoke up again. She said something else. Brushing Yuki away, and pointing her over to the side of the pool. That made her sit up a little straighter. At last, it seemed, Angelina had thrown a blow. Yes, for all she claimed to not have any ulterior motives, now at last she was trying to out-maneuver Yuki. She knew the raven-haired girl just wanted to relax. But now she was setting terms on that - she was claiming one side of the pool as her own, and pushing Yuki away to the other. Even here, even when no blows were being thrown, Yuki couldn't feel safe. She couldn't have security. She couldn't have something to call her own.

"...I'm sorry?" Yuki turned slowly to Angelina, raising an eyebrow and crossing her arms. Coming from anyone else, something like this wouldn't have even pinged her radar. But coming from Angelina? It was impossible not to read deeper into this. "Over there? Am I not allowed to be here?"

[Monsy]

It would’ve been better to do this from the start.
Terms of coexistence. They were technically in place already. Don’t be a crazy bitch for once. Sure, that was the ‘deal’. But now, Angelina hardly believed Yuki could keep her cool. She was an evil bitch. An animal. They needed stronger boundaries. A glass wall between them: keeping the uncivilised side over on Yuki’s end. And herself, now dancing with imagination and anything to distract herself from--

“Yuki.” Angelina straightened up. It didn’t make much difference in terms of stature. The water was still high up on her. She just looked like a robot doing a recalibration, receiving new commands, then turning her head towards Yuki. Her expression was monotone as she spoke bluntly, “No, you’re not. Because this is my side. And your side is ovah there. Wanna avoid problems?” Her hand shooed. “Then piss off.”

She lounged back onto the pool’s edge, propped her elbows on it and watched Yuki. Her hand shooed a second time. “Go. Take your crazy ass and bathe in your corner.”

[CaptainL]

...Really?

By all means, this should've been something Yuki wanted. Hadn't she been the one who felt threatened by Angelina's presence? Hadn't she been the one who just wanted to take a bath in peace - to get away from the inner turmoil that was wracking her brain, and have a moment that Angelina wasn't digging her claws into? Now, Angelina was giving her just that. She was disengaging; she was directing Yuki aside, vowing to stay out of her business. But even then, Angelina had poisoned it all. Even if Yuki should well have wanted all of this...to hear it from Angelina now, so flippantly brushing her off and declaring one side hers while she was relegated to the other, felt like a slap in the face. This seemed a play right out of a petulant child's playbook, and she had thought Angelina, for all her many faults, was at least above this.

Sighing, Yuki sat up a little straighter in the water. Her arms crossed just below her chest, she leaned in toward Angelina with her eyes narrowed in a disappointed glare. "Really? Your side? Is this really what you're doing, Angelina? How old are you again?" The corner of her eye began to twitch. The tension between them was rising. Even the water around Yuki seemed to flare up hotter. She really didn't want things to get out of hand now, but Angelina, as usual, was testing her limits...

[Monsy]

Yeah, really.

Angelina’s patience was getting thinner. But so did her energy. They could’ve done this any other day and she would’ve had all the zeal to make this fun. But as these things usually went between them, at some point: everything is losing and winning. And it was one thing to give her a conceded glare like that, crossed arms, leaned forward like a challenge, but to then call her immature. She wanted to giggle at it. Blow off steam.

A small smile pushed up instead. It hurt. “Oh, I don’t know. To be honest, everytime I talk to ya, I feel like I age ten years.”

Now she leaned forward too, arms in the water. Their foreheads touched. She pushed. Her smile grew. “So accountin’ for all the bullshit ya put me through, I’d say I’m at least sixty by now. That answah ya question, Yooks? Or are ya gonna swing first like always? Fuck-ing bitch.”

[CaptainL]

Maybe Angelina was hurting inside. But if she was, she certainly didn't show it. To Yuki, the Marauder was as calm, collected, and in control as ever - even if Yuki herself was like a boiling tea kettle. No matter where she went, or how she tried to disengage, Angelina was always there - always looming over her shoulder; always sinking her talons into her soul. Nowhere was safe and nothing was okay. Even when Yuki tried to call her out on her antics, it didn't even bother her. If anything, it just emboldened her. Yuki's teeth clenched, and her fingernails dug into her arms as she hugged them even closer to herself, the tension in her body pulling every muscle rigid. No matter where she turned, it seemed as though Angelina had her fully outmaneuvered.

Now, when the Marauder leaned in closer to rest her forehead against Yuki's own, her heart skipped a beat in her chest. She was closer than ever now; Yuki could feel the warmth radiating off her naked skin. She hugged herself tightly, desperate not to let her body tremble - no matter how much it wanted to; she couldn't dare show any sign of weakness or hesitation. She knew she couldn't look away, either - if she turned her back, Angelina would strike like the snake she was. At one moment, she was terrified of what Angelina might do to her next - and the next, as she thought about what Angelina was saying about her, accusing her of, Yuki felt herself bubbling up with rage. A shiver went down her arm. She wanted to lash out and slap Angelina right then and there...but she couldn't, she reminded herself. She'd just be giving Angelina exactly what she wanted to see. She was paralyzed. There were a hundred things her instincts were telling her to do, and all of them would lead to disaster.

Instead, Yuki sucked down a gulp, trying to redirect her attention. "Let me ask this," she said. "What makes you so certain you'll win, anyway? Would you really be so...so certain about all of this, if you realized this next match might well be your last?"