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When my Stormhowl breaks your sad reject again, you gonna piss yourself like last time?
Shigure wasn't going to let him forget it, was he?
The memory of Rokurou's fight with Shigure when he was nineteen often came back to him when he least wanted it. Everything was sharp, visceral: the metallic snap of Shigure breaking his sword, Shigure knocking him down and standing above him, pointing his own sword at Rokurou's throat. Terror burned from his chest through his entire body, more intense than any fear he'd ever felt before. All his muscles went slack, and he was barely conscious of anything, not the pain from his wounds, nor the familiar dropping feeling in the pit of his stomach that signaled that he was about to urinate. He wasn't aware of his bladder letting go until he felt the warmth puddling quickly down his leg.
Shigure froze- something he could afford to do, because Rokurou was in no position to fight back- and smirked. "Damn, Rokurou! You were, like, five the last time I saw you do that."
Finally, the fear parted its curtains enough to let him feel humiliation. Instinctively, his body tensed up to try to hold the stream, but he couldn't. He felt the warmth spread a little more, pooling on the cobblestones and wetting his thighs in one hot, desperate rush, and then stop.
Shigure pressed the blade against his throat, taunting, not hard enough to break skin. This close, Rokurou saw a drop of blood freckling Shigure's cheek. Rokurou's blood, no doubt, because Rokurou hadn't been able to land a hit on him. Their gazes locked.
Shigure's voice turned mocking. "Aww, are you gonna cry because you pissed yourself?"
Rokurou was too numb to be certain, but his eyes were probably wide and glassy with unspilled tears. He fought the urge to beg for his life. He wasn't going to give Shigure that satisfaction, wasn't going to become any more pathetic. A Rangetsu was supposed to accept the moment that a blade found its mark.
Shigure didn't press the blade any further into Rokurou's flesh. He cast the remains of Rokurou's sword aside, laughed, and said, "Train harder."
He would never know what had stopped Shigure from delivering the killing blow that day, but later, he figured that it was the same sentimentality that caused him to spare their mother's life the second time around. A tiny sliver peeking through of that long-ago Shigure who, on a good day, would give little Rokurou spoonfuls of his ice cream and tell him jokes to make him laugh when he was near tears.
He vaguely remembered slumping back down on the cobblestones, paralysis giving way to exhaustion- he was okay, but at what cost if it meant he'd lost to Shigure? The relief wouldn't come to him fully.
Distantly, he heard Shigure speaking to one of the nearby guards. "He's all yours now. Get him some new underwear while you're at it."