Sinners International

When he entered the building, the first thing he found was death. It rose up, cloying, as a part of the air. It stung his eyes and invaded his flesh, forced itself up his nostrils and made him retch with the smell of it. He knew it. He knew it well because it started it all, this smell; him and a strange man and a monster in a locked room as the man was torn apart, as he was blamed. This smell knocked his life off-rails and here it was again.

He bent over. His knees were weak and lunch--breakfast? When did he eat?--forced its way up his throat and out into the air, the scent of bile adding to the scent of torn intestines, of spleens and livers and punctured squirmy things never meant to see the light. Something whirled underneath him, a bucket coming between the contents of his stomach and the floor before whirling away again, black shoes and a jacket disappearing into the crowd, into the noise, like this was everyday, so common they prepared for it.

He could see it now. The fuzz of his senses faded until he saw the gore on the see-through walls, the ringing in his ears turning to the roar of the ground. He saw someone in the cage, a face he thought he saw once in a dream. He saw her eyes, he heard them chant for her, but they weren't cold, they were trapped. Those eyes were like mirrors even though she was the one in the cage.

It was... too big, too much. He was here and he didn't know what was next. He'd done his part and there was no signal, everyone was looking, there were so many people, and he didn't---how did they expect him to--he didn't know what to do. He didn't--he couldn't control this, it was too--the lights, the sounds, the smells, everything it was rising and he needed to, he staggered and--

Take a breath.

Breathe in, breathe out, breathe deep.

He'd done his part, for now. Let the fiction keep going.

"Well..." he said, trying to keep that edge in his voice before realizing it was useless, letting a bit of the weakness through that was just so hard to hide, "H-here we are, then." His body language, he tried to hide but the noise and the smell and the people everywhere jostling and yelling and looking and the closeness of the place... "You know what to do, don't you?" Eyes turning to Victor's, pleading, barely keeping it together.

"You can stop this, right?" He didn't know what would happen next, how long it would take the charade to play out.

Just that he was talking to a dead man.

Words: 459
GP: 9 (27)

The clothes?  Fit for shit.  They came off of some slab of dumb who was standing out back having a smoke.  Hired muscle.  Possibly not involved directly but a door is a door is a door, and while a black mandarin collared shirt probably would have fit in just fine inside, this guy already reeked of the humanity wafting out of the vents, windows, and cracks.  Soaked in it.  It was a smell you could not emulate and it took you over until it clogged every pore on your body and wrapped up every thread of your clothing.

Besides, rice hats were sooo last century.

His opportunity did not present itself quickly.  Three different ‘goons’ walked up to the back door while this bloke was on his smoke break, texting on his phone, occasionally punctuating something with an annoying horse-laugh.  Finally, a crack in the security.  *Thwack*  A 2 x 4 over the back of the head, just above where the neck becomes the head, send the welcoming committee to the ground for a long nap.

The gigai he had chosen and the limiter he had to wear had left his strength substantially shy of what he was used to, but Tokiyo was no stranger to carrying dead weight (or unconscious weight).

Now clad in slightly oversized security garb, Tokiyo only had to bide his time.

“Open the fuckin door, Mr. Clean!”

No one in this hellhole had the slightest idea how to spell manners, let alone use them.  He took a big eyeful of the ‘V.I.P.’, doing what he could to commit the face to memory.  The client list was hopelessly long and nondescriptly wide ; these people could have been anyone from anywhere and it didn’t seem to matter one bit.

The night had not been a total disaster at least.  The muscle-headed meat-sack of a man who had called him ‘Mr. Clean’ waved his card and the electronic pad on the side door clicked twice and released a magnetic lock.  Tokiyo dropped his eyes and pulled the door open, letting the man and the (probably strung out) floozy on his arm walk over the threshold and into...whatever sort of club this was.

He didn’t notice at first, the subtle but pungent odor that creeped out from the stairwell door inside.  Mr Bigshot went upstairs and Tokiyo jiggled the latch and entered a back hallway.  Immediately his senses were bombarded ; deep, resonating beats pulsed through the cinderblock walls, a nearby drain was carrying away a mixture of humanity, equal parts sweat, vodka, and vomit.  A barn-fan sat at the far end of the hallway, blowing hot air and a salty-sweet haze of revelry from the inner chambers.

If there was one thing he admired about Humanity, it was the ability to appreciate the brevity of their existence.

Winding down corridors, passing open doorways with horny 20-somethings fondling each other, guys in suits snorting lines of cocaine, two gentlemen apparently playing Russian Roulette...all well and interesting but none of it was what he was there for.

Finally…

He caught a glimpse, through a far hallway the din of the main room ploughed into him like a wrecking ball.  Girls dancing, drinks raised in the air, a spotlight over a central pit.  The humanity was thick...this was the test.

The organization’s latest ‘bouncer’ stepped through the doorway and slid off to the side, leaning against the wall and folding his arms as he took in the scene.  Tokiyo was not dumb, but all of this was new to him.  Small rooms, quiet lights, shady people who liked operating away from prying eyes...not this open intoxication and gloriously public invitation of debauchery.

All of ten minutes went by, before a small man with a poorly filled in beard and an off-white turban walked right up to him with a finger extended and placed it right on his chest.  Angry.  Curt.  Bossy.  This was likely the first rung on the ladder he would have to climb tonight although there was no way this cheesy suit this man of barely five feet was wearing would fit him.

“Deal with it!”, the man barked, his accent subtle but sounding vaguely Persian.  English was the language of choice in speaking to him.  Good.  He removed the finger buried in Tokiyo’s chest and pointed two a small, pudgy Asian man who was standing over top of a drunk woman bleeding from her mouth, contributing...just another body fluid to the syrup of untold hundreds that likely coated this floor.

There wasn’t any time to do much analysis about it ; He had blended in up to this point and this was no time to fuck it up on something so trivial.  He uncrossed his arms and strode over to the fat man, grabbing his right arm by the elbow and using his left hand to take a handful of shirt collar.

The man put up cursory protests but didn’t fight nearly as much as a young, drunk, college jock at a bar might.  Tokiyo’s best guess?  The woman turned him down in a less than flattering way and the satisfaction of decking her right across the fucking face was worth being tossed out.

So?  He’d give it to him.

A quick push through the door and a release of the collar send the man tumbling forward in the loose gravel out the front of the club, but he was able to remain standing.

God this is so cliche, I can’t believe I’m doing this…

“And stay out!”

He dusted his hands off and walked back into the club.  Neither of the men at the door paid him any mind, they just shot sideways glances as he passed, content to not know any more.  Tokiyo posted up by the front door this time, picking up where he left off.  

On the surface, it was a seedy fightclub.  But if the rumors were true….things were just getting started on weird-meter.

With everything to look at in from the dark corners, maybe it would be best to get a look at what was in the bright lights.

The light caught the unmistakable gleam of the porcelain-like white of a Hollow mask down in the pit.  An Arrancar.

Who the hell is running this place?

Word count // 1055 = 21 || 21

Victor was quick to act.

He envied that.

There was no being paralyzed by fear, no sitting and worrying, no hiding, just this frenzied barely-thought-out action that always seemed to work out, somehow. How did that happen? What was going on in his mind?

Why couldn't his mind ever work that simply?

He was overwhelmed by--was it guilt?--and fear and worry, so he barely noticed when Victor slipped away, peeled his eyes just in time to see him swap ethnicities and body mass like other men switch wardrobes and out of nowhere punch some poor woman in the face.

He still couldn't watch things like that without flinching.

But he did as Victor said and kept his eyes open, scanned around the room until he saw an exchange of words that he wasn't meant to see, men converging from multiple points but others fading back as a new one sauntered forward. He didn't want to watch the rest, but there was something, some little something that tickled his mind.

Here?

It didn't make sense.

When Victor returned, impossibly none the worse for wear (could he shapeshift those bruises away, too?), Colin just gestured vaguely in the direction of the man he'd first seen speak, but his eyes were on the one that Victor obviously knew. There was something there, something strange, it was like--out of the corner of his eye, it was like--he'd seen or felt it or something before, but he didn't know. It was like a million years ago, but...

It wasn't one of the monsters, but...

It wasn't human.

As he made his way through the crowd, the wheels in his mind kept turning, thinking of all the things he'd seen, the places he'd been. He didn't push through it the way Victor did, making others create space for him to walk through, he just kind of... slipped through the cracks. There'd been one time, when he'd seen something that wasn't human, wasn't demon. Right back at the beginning.

And here it was again.

Unassuming and small, he slipped up beside the taller man who'd manhandled his friend. He tapped him on the shoulder, and made sure his soft voice would carry over the noise of the crowd when he said it, made sure the man--the ghost pretending to be a man--was looking in his eyes.

"'Scuse me, sir?"
 
I hope Victor can use the distraction.
 
"I know what you are."
 
Words: 404
GP: 8 (35)

How dreadfully embarrassing for a a vaunted Lieutenant of the Seireitei.  The Special Reconnaissance and Operations division too.  Now that he actually cared about his career for the first time in a century, Tokiyo was finding himself decidedly unhappy with the potential political ramifications of his missions, action, and conduct.

Thank Buddha no one else saw this...

Why didn’t he even see the human walk up to him?  He must have been so focused on being focused that he...forgot to focus on his surroundings.

Tokiyo’s fear, in this moment, was that some cruel agent of fate had plucked on his string and decided that someone, from some time and place and background that he knew nothing about, had a grudge of substantial and profound proportions with a man of a similar face.  And not only did that grudge exist, but that the one half should think he see the other in Tokiyo.

His shoulders slumped and he sighed, the body language obvious to the man looking up at him but the crowd, and the music, and the punching, and raving, drowning out his frustration.

Pull it together, you geezer.  Doesn’t have to be a wasted moment.

Naturally, she was right.  Perhaps his displeasure with a mission that had gone so well until this...interjection was standing taller than it should have.  Perhaps.  His infiltration had been really good especially by his own standards and he had taken an extreme risk by coming out into the open, main room of this group he knew so little about.  The only potential saving grace might be the possibility this human wasn’t on the inside, that he wasn’t “part of the problem”.

But what if he was?

He returned his unfocused browsing into a focused evaluation of the man before him, meeting his eyes with whatever he could find that most approached a steely gaze.  Inside of them he saw...contempt?  Maybe.  Maybe not.

“And what’s that, kid?  Don’t tell me Pudge McHands was your pal?  Look if he was supposed to buy the next round or something, I don’t have time for that, and I can’t do anything about it.  Get back to your table and have a good time, eh?”

An attempt to make his voice more gravely was perhaps a bit over the top but he did not have a lot else going for him right now.  On his own, undercover, operating practically blind, and burdened by a limiter on his spiritual presence was a less than ideal combination.

Hopefully, his assailant would be so kind as to call him out for being a thug of whoever these guys were.  A name.  An organization.  Something.  Anything.

Word count // 450 = 9 || 30

A flurry of words and action washed over him.  First one Human, now another, right up in his face with the quick talk.  Tokiyo didn’t like quick talk.  But it was not deceitful ; the intent behind it was honest enough to make a point without trying to pull one by on him, so it seemed.

“A fight fixer?  Is he daft?  Who in their right mind would come all the way out here to fix a fight?  Then again, we don’t know much of anything about this place.”

Tokiyo furrowed his brow, not so much in confusion or concern but rather cautious optimism.  Although it was entirely likely he was coming off as a goofy, blockhead who was merely living up to the hired muscle’s image he was pretending to wear.

“You’re going to say yes, aren’t you?”  she said, not even pretending to hide her obvious disdain for the notion of refuting her argument.

“Okay.”  A simple affirmation paid out loud, to both Karaudo and the curiously fresh faced men looking at him.  His eyes and his mouth held back the dozen strings of logic flying through his head as to why he should do this.  He could afford to keep his cover and this pair of the living seemed to be here with enough of an agenda to cloak him.

“Oh...that was easy.  Okay.  Carry on.”  Nothing else need be said.  Just the way she liked it.  Tokiyo went back and forth between moments of impressive insight and overwhelming density and it was frankly difficult to predict which you would be getting of any given day.

“They might know more about where to poke than I could find on my own.  Besides, whatever these guys are up to, it’s better than waiting for...inspiration to strike.”

It would be a risk to appear to distant from the situation.  He needed to be liked, or at least be able to assure his ‘new employers’ that he was invested enough in their scheme to be relied upon.  The promise of wealth was a strong motivator for mortals and would suit his situation just fine.  Take the bait and move on.

“I work for winners.  Winners who pay better.  Than makes me a winner.  A rich winner.”  He wanted to gag on his own speech, but the effort it took to barf up such butchered grammar likely mimicked the effort it would take for someone in his position to respond intelligently.

He looked between the two, then over to the fighting ring as the crowds began to mill about for their bathroom breaks, cigarette breaks, drink refills, and other miscellaneous activities that their attention was better diverted from while the blood splattered down in the pit.  

“What needs doing?”

Word count // 459 = 9 || 39

Of course Victor came to take the wind out of his sails.

He felt that hand on his shoulder, gripping with just a little more strength than he'd ever be comfortable having, and the world expanded from a point of focused pain. He'd seen red, except it wasn't red but black and white. The red was boiled into the earth, dried faded stains on rubble. It was gone, and it'd never be back where it belonged again, so it was black and white. Not grey. The grey faded in the screams and her waving goodbye, vanishing into fire, just strong enough to die the way she wanted.

Here was one of the protectors. Here was one of the proud, the soldiers. Here was a man, a ghost, a creature, a useless caricature devoted to order and where was he when they were burning? HOW COULD HE STAND HERE SO SMUG AND COMPOSED WHEN THEY ALL FUCKING DIED AND HE WAS NOWHERE?

It was really very simple. He would die. He would die and feel that pain a thousand times, or for as long as Colin's nerve, his stomach held. He would understand what it meant to be abandoned. He would understand what it meant to be powerless in the face of something malevolent and angry.

He would understand, in the moments before he died, what Colin had felt.

Black.

And white.

But Victor's grip took him back down to a place where the world had color, where there were schemes and games to play and lies and things to keep in mind beyond his fingers tearing through that arrogant flesh. The touch reminded him of the knife at his throat, even though Victor didn't know it, wouldn't know about that knife at all until it stabbed him in the back.

Priorities.

One thing at a time.

Victor lost him in the details. Words poured from his mouth, spinning tapestries from whole cloth before he'd even seen the threads, and it was some time, a bit delayed, before he realized what was being asked of him.

He agreed without thinking about it because, what the hell, right? He'd done his part. Carried out his side of the bargain, eased along events until they reached the destination agreed on over a drop of blood, red punctuating a contract already signed. He was waiting now, powerless as anything. He wasn't told much.

Up until he found himself staring into a Hollow's four iridescent eyes, he was convinced he'd never have to fight anything. It buzzed away on dragonfly wings and he was still waiting for the hammer to drop. It spit gobbets of some kind of acid, guiding it with supernatural accuracy; he could see it wiggling its little, almost vestigial legs, as if it was pulling a puppet's strings.

Some of it splashed on his skin, and then--only then--did he know salvation wasn't coming.

He faded. The air thickened around him and it wasn't quite as easy to see where it began and he ended. Some of the acid was trapped in it, suspended in the air between thickening grey layers, oozing in or out as he moved around. Occasional droplets of pain. He was almost frozen for a while, faced with something that unreal. He'd never really seen a monster. All of the monsters in his life looked more or less human, could almost be trusted until betrayed him.

Then he remembered the rage.

This was what had started it all. The same color of, hunger for, flesh. Were things like this in Karakura, too? Did people die seeing this in their last moments?

It wasn't red. It wasn't red that he saw as he pushed himself into the air on a gust of his power that spread out through the arena, rustling the crowd. It wasn't red that he saw as glass crystallized out of nothing and covered his fingers just in time to crush those wings like brittle parchment, to send them spinning. When they crashed, when black exoskeleton crunched and red and yellow and things that defied easy classification slid out, he didn't see it.

He saw a necessary vengeance.

People had died powerless in the face of things like this. So many people had died and even the ones that lived would never live like they had before. Those of them that saw it, that couldn't write it off as a hallucination or delusion and slip luckily back into old lives they were suddenly more thankful for, they might even be like him. It might even lead them here.

Others might suffer as he had, and there was really absolutely nothing like forgiveness for that.

Black and white.

They had to tear him away from the corpse.

Days faded, weeks faded, and he subsisted on the adrenaline high. He didn't know anything else. Life had complications, everything was hanging in the balance and he didn't even understand what the balance was, so he didn't think about it. He did what was in front of him, because it was there. Because he enjoyed it, even though it probably should have sickened him. There was a joy in killing monsters.

Victor only ever made him fight monsters.

But one day... Victor came back and was different. Something in his eyes had gone cold, and... what was it he said? Mumbling something, something important as he pushed Colin into the ring, coated with apologies, he picked up on the tone but not the words because his mind wasn't there.

He was looking at her, and that's all his brain had time for.

He knew what the look in her eyes meant, because he'd seen it before. When she looked at him days ago, when he was out there instead of down here, he'd known it. It said, 'help me'. It said 'I'm trapped, I'm lost, I don't want to be here'. It said 'I don't want to do this but I can't get out.'

'Get me out.'

The gates slammed shut behind him.

Only one of them would get out.

Words: 1010

GP: 20

How long had she been here? How did I get here again? In this tragic “ring around the rosie” cage where we all fell down and fell only further still, why was she here? Why hadn’t I escape yet? What was holding her back? And what could I do anymore? Futile like the essence of dried blood and vomit, the permeated overdose of death, and the fragrance of that which was worse, that which was much worse than death. It was in the here and in the now, the here and the now, right now, happening to her but where? And when?

All of this just seemed… like Rania could only see darkness, even blinded by the overhead lights reflecting of the stained Plexiglas in the ring, there was ever only darkness still. There was no concept of time here, marked only by fight after fight after fight. From the big cage to another cage, like an ashen gloom, prevalent in the air, in her psyche, in her blood, and this… this was the torture that was worse than death. It had to be. The fighting to survive, the surviving to fight, was any of that bullshit worth it anymore? She was just so… tired. When was it time to let go? 

Ragged breath, cold against the moist air drenched in sweat, condensed into a fog as she was kicked forward, dragged down by the literal and metaphorical chains that kept her tied down. Something that suppressed her Reiatsu, something that nullified the energy she would have otherwise used to escape, making it so that she was kicked again. “Get up.” The epitome of vile thing that, for once, wasn’t Rania but was that voice. That soulless and scathing voice, surely paired with a set of eyes that judged, that hated her for what she was, even if he didn’t know exactly what that was. “Get up.” He repeated those words again and the woman could tell, he was losing patience as she still sprawled along, battered on the floor. “Are you deaf? I said ‘Get. Up. Bitch.’”

The pendulum was ticking to a stop. 

Three... two... one, this was the last chance card and slowly, Rania managed to her feet, ragged breath turning into a cough, hacking up blood onto her lips and onto her shirt. But there was no room for sympathy here and the eclipse grew blacker still. The doors opened and there was a roar, a dulled roar, muffled against metaphorical deaf ears and a conscience that barely existed anymore.

The fetters were released and once more—how many more?—Rania stood to fight for her right to live. Glassy eyes drifted over to her opponent for the first time in a while, too tired to strike like the violent monster the crowd now expected from her. There was a silence in the air, both literal and proverbial, like this was the end, like it’d all be over soon.

Vision that flitted in and out of focus was brought together upon the image of man—more like a boy from her point of view. From the far reaching depths of her mind, Rania felt like she’d seen him before, maybe not in a dream, but a nightmare perhaps. But that train of thought was soon broken by the sound of booing from the audience, glasses of red wine thrown at the ring, splashing over the already blood coated glass.

And he was so human. Because he was human. Had she fallen so low to depend on a mere mortal now? Was she so pathetic? Did she reek of that desperation? It must have flowed out freely, so obvious, as if it were the core of her being.

Can you just kill me now, she wanted to say. Won’t you make the first move and just… kill me… now?

But the fight began as a standstill, both figures frozen in their places, unmoving. The roaring of heckles and jeers grew exponentially louder. They wanted to see a fight because they paid to see a fight.

Well... that’s what they weren’t going to get this time because Rania…

Stepped forward into the ball of her foot, weight quickly falling forward, and the Arrancar took another step in front. Like clockwork, she pivoted and a fist came swinging from the right, but it was weak, it lacked power, barely grazed him if at all.

From there, Rania keeled forward as she fell to her knees. Out of breath and out of focus, she mumbled, “I’m so tired. Just end it now, won’t you?” 

- - - - -

Word count: 764

GP: 15

Total: 1786 / 15 (35)

Enjoy the lameness~

It doesn't go according to plan. He's already steeling himself, thinking of how she'll look when she's dead and broken, because he knows he'll make it real. She looks human, and it's hard to believe that her looks aren't everything, that she has a monster's soul. He knows it, but he can't convince his heart.

How many people? Those fingers (tiny, dirty, feminine) must have torn into flesh. How many times? Hundreds of years of it. More meals, more ended lives than he could keep straight. A mosaic of faces so large it became a red-and-flesh-toned blur, that weren't living because of her.

But it didn't look like it.

He tried and tried to make it stick, to turn those forlorn and desperate eyes into something callous and cruel, but he couldn't do it.

He couldn't kill her.

She was falling--And he was already covering the distance, wouldn't let her hit that concrete alone because they were there together, they were survivors and lost, caught and controlled and not themselves and he wouldn't let her die.

They were eye to eye, nose to nose, almost touching and her eyes were unfocused and blurred but she wasn't quite gone, not yet, wouldn't ever be gone, wouldn't ever leave him.

Like Sekai did.

He held her. He touched her clammy skin and felt the soul of a monster and knew he should've done it, knew that he was weak. He didn't care. Pressure under her chin brought her head up, lifted her eyes to his.

"No."

Because he wouldn't do it anymore.

"That's not what I'm here for."

He wouldn't become a monster just to stay alive.

"We're getting out of here alive. Together."

Somehow. He didn't know how. But he wasn't dancing on anyone else's strings.

"Just..."

It's not quiet. The conversation they're having is only personal because he's softspoken, his voice is trembling, and the change in her eyes that might or not have been understanding rapidly fades as consciousness recedes.

"Relax," he says, as if her slow collapse is voluntary. "Don't react," because he has what could almost be called a plan. "Trust me," even though no one should ever trust him. "It'll be okay."

He was always good at lying.

It's still not quiet. The noise is always there, has always been there since his first step into the club through the stairway off the rooftop. It echoed off the metal walls. It amplified. It sped up. Faster and faster, a mosquito-thrum, waiting.

It was the pounding of hearts.

Hundreds of eyes watched them. Candied delicacies played at the edges of painted lips. Popcorn crunched. Spittle flew as air rushed in and out of lungs, fueling murmurs, a rising discontent.

Nothing was happening.

They wanted blood.

"Really?" Soft-spoken no longer, his voice is steady and loud. There's an edge that wasn't there before. He's standing, stepping back, looking around with a sneer that doesn't seem to come naturally but fits, well enough, with the rest of his face.

"This is what you give me?" He can't make eye contact. They're colored blurs at best under the blinding ceiling lights, but they can't know that. He looks anyway. He spits at the floor and snarls.

"How many fucking times have I killed for you?" He swept his gaze across the crowd-shaped melding of shade. "Gotta be at least a dozen, right?" He wasn't yelling, but he knew his voice would carry far enough. The noise diminished. They were listening. "I know you loved it."

He didn't need to say, and so did I.

Because it was true, really, wasn't it? It felt good, removing monsters from the world. It felt satisfying and true and gloriously uncomplicated, the crush of impossible exoskeletal armor, the gush of fluids that made no sense and couldn't be real but were because they were there, staring, growling, wanting to eat, to rip, to tear, to kill before he did it to them. It was deserved. It was a kind of vengeance, even though he didn't know how she died, which one had

he couldn't think about it

everything went red when he tried to think about one of them doing it to her and

her hair

the way it

the way it died.

The way he felt as he made them die was the closest he'd come to right since Karakura fell, but it only lasted for seconds.

"So why." He walked over to the girl, still huddled on the floor. "The hell." Her breaths were shallow. "Do you give me something like this." He kicked her and she didn't even groan. "When you want a show like that?" He was glad he couldn't see her face.

"It's an insult. I'm fucking insulted."

When it was over, when his blood cooled and the fire in his chest dimmed back down to smoldering coal, he was left feeling as helpless as ever. As alone.

"Get me something I can fight." He always hoped it would last longer the next time, that he'd by some magical chance find the right one and know and she'd be avenged. "And don't disrespect me again." But it never happened.

"It's time for a fucking show."

And it never would.

Words: 870

GP: 17

Give me somethin’ to break

Just give me somethin’ to break!

HOW ‘BOUT YOUR FUCKIN’ FACE?