Post Note/ Disclaimer: One hundred, unrelated, Final Fantasy XII oneshots. Or, that's the goal anyway. It may take a while, but I am determined to write all one hundred. Requests for themes, pairings, and characters are welcome.

Don't forget to drop a line :)

Prompt: Break.

Character(s): Basch.

Noisome Incendiaries : Break.

It is not until they are in Tchita Uplands, facing a pack of coeurl, that Basch realizes the full extant of his wasted condition. It seems odd, to say the least, that he has only just noticed all but the hardiest of his calluses are gone.

But then how -and when- could he? After two years of incarceration there had been so much to carry out upon his liberation (sweet air, confront the resistance, save Penelo, save Amalia, reach the Kilitias and, now, reach Archades). He has hardly had a moments' rest, let alone time enough for self-contemplation. He had pushed, and he had persisted, and, thus, the man had been steadily gaining muscle back from the fiends and foes fought along the way, that was enough for him. It had been enough. And whence the party had taken down not one but two judges with nary a scratch to their persons, Basch had deduced that he was very nearly back on par with his former self.

So when he rolls the sword hilt across his palm, switching his grip to an angle that would better aid the upward arc he intends to unleash upon the beast adjacent him, he cannot help it when he all but drops the sword in shock from the agonizing pain this simple move –which he has performed hundreds of thousands of times- causes him.

He grits his teeth and attempts the maneuver again - praying to the gods whom have never favored him - that it is merely a fluke… only to be met with the same persistent hurt.

And it is an ugly thing to have all of the knowledge, all the reflexes, all the experience, and yet none of the capability. It is a very ugly thing.

The beast, not forgotten but hazy in the man's peripheral, takes advantage of his wandering focus and lunges. Basch shifts the sword once more against the side of his palm…and yet that revolting pain is still there. A strangled cry and he kicks the coeurl's ribs, sending the monster sprawling back a few paces, "Gabranth!"

Except…except that is not quite right. It was not Gabranth whom had worn his face that night, now so long ago. It was not Gabranth who kept him, like an animal, in chains. It was not Gabranth, helmless, who mocked him, even as Basch wasted and festered and damn near disintegrated before his very eyes. The very same eyes they had always shared. The shape, the size, the color- they were their mother's eyes.

"No-"

No. It was not Gabranth. It has never been Gabranth.

"No-" he skewers the now whimpering beast, "ah!"

How, how, how, how could it be that after only two years of disuse his hands are as sensitive as those of a maiden? How can it be that all those years, all he has trained for, is now for naught? When he needs it most?

"No-" a feint to the right and then a devastating blow delivered with the blunt edge of his shield from the left, "ah!"

Why? How?

"No-" the second coeurl falls and he pivots on heel to meet the next, "ah!"

How does it all become as nothing? "No-ah!"

Every time, how?

A whirlwind of flashing steel and golden flesh, he twists and he turns and he purposely angles the sword hilt in such a way that it scrapes the piteously soft skin of his palms clean off.

Noah.

How?

Noah.

Why?

Noah.

…Why?

Noah, Noah, Noah, Noah, Noah.

Noisome Incendiaries : Break: End.