He tilted his head back, gulping down a bottle. Warm liquid rushed down his throat, and already his body tingled with numbness and his thoughts dimmed. The night breeze rustled playfully through his hair, tugging at the short strands that lay close to his head. Raking the hand that lacked a bottle through his short cropped hair, he sighed, raising the bottle to his lips again. Her face swam behind his closed eyelids, glaring and scowling. Her voice always at the corner of his mind, shouting or screaming, sneering or laughing, always saying that same phrase, "You are so weak." Always, always, the same phrase, same words, said the same way, falling from her smirking lips as she gloated over her victory over him. There was no one he hated more. He hated her blue hair and all knowing smile, hated the fragile being she hid behind her gleaming white sword. Her face flashed before him every time he blinked, breathed, or lifted that white sword to clench between his teeth. Her soul now in resemblance to this sword he washed with blood, and dried with blood. But, always, after that simple phrase she told him time and time again, always, he could hear her voice, murmuring low in his ear, late at night, on a windy hill, shadowed by only the sky. Those words whispered so quietly, so desperate, and so hopeless, it sealed his life with hers, "But I will always be weaker." This dream he proclaimed to the entire world, shouted out, craved out with his swords, was hers. He hated her for ruining his pride, to be the only one to beat him, but he loved her too, more than anything else, because she was his sword. He lifted the bottle above his head, and drank deeply. If he was fighting for her dream, what was his? Another bottle emptied and rolled across the wooden deck. Another lifted to his mouth. He drank his memories away, everything, until he could scarcely remember his own name, but her face, he could never drink away. It haunted him, hurt him, yet motivated him, and spurred him beyond his limits.

A platter of light footed steps tapped its way to the corner of his mind. He ignored it, welcoming the coolness spreading through his nerves. One last swallow and another bottle was empty. Before he could reach for another bottle, a glass was put in his hand. He peered beadily at another who stood in front of his, mused hair sticking out behind his ears, eyes wide and staring. And his face, as ever, smiling. The other raised a glass in his own hand, a creamy liquid splashing from the rim that he recognized as milk. Glancing down on his own hand, clutching the glass put there by the other boy, he sighed. The other boy laughed, and drained the milk from the glass, waving a hand at him to do the same. Raising his head, he watched the other boy finish his drink and grin toothily at him, laughter still gurgling deep within his chest. Kicking away the empty bottles, he smiled back at his captain, raised the glass of milk, and drank her face away.