Detention - Mayumi

In the midst of combat, everything was simple. There wasn't much in the way of thinking, wasn't time for it between her and her opponent's blade. There was the pumping of their hearts and the sweat pouring from them and the energy that poured out as those blades clashed and that was it, that was the world. Harsh, but easy to understand.

Now it was like she'd come untethered. There was no clear anything, just a bigger world she didn't fit in. Her place had been and gone, atrophied centuries ago and now she was a photograph somewhere and other people were living in her home who didn't even know her name. Another blade at her throat would at least be clearer. It would be a direction. A distraction.

That's why the diminutive woman's grip at her hand was welcome. It was like, okay. This is the next act. Something else to overcome, and it's simple enough. She didn't have to think big, she could just be.

That's why she was smiling.

"Maya, please." The room was reminding her of something, but it wasn't quite clicking. "That other name doesn't..." She trailed off, looked closely at the woman's face. "Do I..." On the tip of her tongue, there was something. They'd been here before. They'd...

"Oh," and joy lit up her face, "it's you."

"Remember me?" She drummed her fingers against the table and slowly, cautiously, tiny worm-shaped extrusions of metal raised from the imprints of her fingertips, sniffed the air and started crawling. "We had a moment, in a room like this."

And that smile was wide enough to show teeth.

"Why should I tell you anything?"

278/5

For a brief second, she almost believed, heart beating fragile butterfly wings against the cage of her ribs. That flashpoint of blinding sky-rocketing surprise dulled just as swiftly as it arose as Kiriko stared down the woman across from her, eyes taking in so much that had been muted or hidden during Tanaka's battle with Aizawa. Soul taking in the twitch and swish of reiatsu, the shudder of tiny metallic dustmites as they wormed their way across the tabletop.

She knew what Mayumi was talking about, referring to, and it wasn't their past together as Shinigami. That was done and over with. An impossible dream that was far too ill-fitting for her new persona to cling to. Honestly why she even cared anymore was a mystery, probably some vestigial emotions from the time before. From her humanity. In the blistering light of her heightened awareness she knew what she was doing, what she had been doing. Engaging in that pesky weakness that had forced her down the tragic path she had been set on. Her own insecurities ensuring that she would end up right where she was today.

Whether she had been damned at birth or damned herself with her actions, neither really mattered. Only that she recognize when she was faltering, returning to the familiar hesitation of her life before. There was no need for such weakness, no reason to let it remain. Not here amongst the fires of Hell that she hugged to the empty cavity that was her chest and interned amongst her skeleton like will-o-wisps of judgment.

And so with a casual flick of her fingers, a smoothing of her right sleeve into a perfect blood red drape, Kiriko shrugged off those old feelings and burned them to ash beneath her gaze. She had no regret that would enable Tanaka to control her. Mayumi was no more, no matter what this wraith from the past did or said. The woman she had struggled to compare to didn't exist anymore, and this was a new person. Maya, as she called herself. Maya, as she had been so many months before in that irritatingly chaotic interrogation room.

She recognized the facial structure almost as quickly as she placed that odd power, the mannerisms and speech pattern, and Kiriko let her weight press down on the back of the chair. A line of pressure digging into her forearms, a delightful reminder of shadowed pain.

Something crawled in the back of her throat, rising up to jab at her eyes. Oh, this was going to be so annoying. She could already tell. Taste it, like the bite of red ants and the wash of blood over her tongue.

“Why? Because, Maya-chan, I'm the first thing between you getting to do what you want here and getting locked up forever and never having the chance.” She deadpanned, wondering if anything she even thought to say could have an effect on this woman. Now that she knew, connecting the dots with rapid speed, she couldn't believe she hadn't seen it before. Maya Tanner. Mayumi Tanaka.

Life was about to get complicated in ways that Kiriko never enjoyed. But despite the upheaval there were ways to capitalize on the surprise, to shift and redirect so that this little bundle of astonishment was in her favor rather than the Captain Commanders or even Aizawa's.  "And as a friend I can make your life a lot easier, but as an enemy... "

WC: 577 | GP: 11 | Total GP: 20

She didn't like this feeling of fragility.

She'd felt it before when she'd been abandoned in Japan, left behind in the aftermath of Hi-to's betrayal. She had the clothes on her back, stuck in a derelict amusement park with a dormant monster. She'd found a lever then.

Where was it now?

"And if I tell you and I choose wrong I'll never have a chance."

There was a different kind of light in her eyes than there'd been in the old days. She was judging her words carefully, because each action had meaning. The stakes were high. She was present, not fooling around on some kind of madcap caper that mostly meant something to somebody else.

"You'll blow me away or lock me up and throw away the key and no one will ever know I was here."

She wasn't just along for the ride.

"I'll be a mass hallucination. A forgotten ghost, here and gone again, and," her voice changed, the mask slipped, "it would be nice to trust a stranger but I can't, Kiriko. I don't know that you are whole." It became too intense to match eyes with someone who could be an enemy, whose mind could be poisoned, so she looked away.

"I promise you, if nothing else, that Soul Society has nothing to fear from me."

221/4 (9)

Kiriko sighed, a low gusty exhalation as her eyes narrowed and her shoulders slumped. Normally, in an interrogation, she was the picture of control. Of perfection. A woman carved out of cold stone that moved only when she willed herself and expressed only what she deemed useful. But there was something about Mayumi that made her feel exposed, honest, almost free. This was a secret from her own past, a raw nerve, and she was capable of facing it without lies simply because they both knew too much. Besides, the whole power-play had never had much of an effect on a person like Tanaka Mayumi. Tanner Maya had been no different, despite the new skin and personality. Like recognized like, as painful as it was to admit it. And she still had respect for this ghost of a woman. 

“That is not enough, Maya-san.” She shook her head slowly, hair swishing back and forth as it tickled her collarbones. She looked back into those dark eyes, her own filled with a deep silence. “It might have been, if I was a stereotypical villain, perhaps. I could blackmail you into servitude, taking my risks with the safety of Seireitei and assuming myself all-powerful. Assuming myself able to control you. But I know that I cannot foresee what you will do, what you want to do, or if you would ever be controllable. And this is not a story.”

“As it stands, you are a threat to Seireitei. The mystery of your return, of your death, of your motives. You are unconnected to any division, you have no superior officer or any report of your past doings. You literally sit before me charged of treason for walking away from your post. For abandoning the Gotei and your oath of service and loyalty. There is absolutely no reason for me to take you at your word, that you are no threat to us. No reason for me to trust you either, and indeed you are far more of a risk for me than I am for you. Because if you are wrong about me, maybe I will lock you away or kill you. But you are one person. If I am wrong about you, you could destroy Seireitei, all of it. And your life is not worth those of my thousands of comrades.”

She lifted one hand, the one resting near her elbow, a tiny flick of her fingers as an easing of their impasse. “That is simple logic. Perspective. But I understand your dilemma. The Second is not the one you tell your secrets to. Not willingly at least. I am not asking you for everything. For all the details. But I need something, enough to make a judgment on your case. You need to tell me why I should not lock you up for defecting, and why I should not kill you for betraying your comrades.”

Kiriko hated traitors above all else, and as things looked right now Mayumi was nothing if not a traitor. To live with this power, even if in a changed state, it meant she could have been serving the Gotei this whole time. She could have been here, within the ranks of her friends and family and allies. She could have shed blood and sweat and tears with the Gotei as they all suffered and went through trials unimaginable. But instead she had run, disappearing for whatever selfish reason and hiding out this whole time.

“You need to tell me why I should trust that you still hold your oath dear, despite years of hiding and shirking your duty. Despite abandoning your post.”

That was hubris and unforgivable cowardice. To have the power to make a difference, the ability to protect people, and to chose not to use it... That was something she could not allow or permit. It went against everything Shinigami swore to do. To sacrifice themselves for the cause, for the lives of innocents and the souls in the cycle. Kiriko was not normally idealistic, but this was the one tennent she still held as true. People needed something pure to cling to, to believe in, and this was a truth of their realities.

Her eyes hardened, coarse as black obsidian and twice as sharp, “And do not lie to me, Maya-san. Our last meeting might not have gone so well, but do not think I did not know when you were lying even back then.” At least this time things seemed to be moving forward. She could see it in the slow dread beating a bloody tempo beneath Tanaka's skin. This was serious, and they both held something the other wanted. Kiriko more so, with the ability to absolve Mayumi's sins and rewrite her entrance into Seireitei. To reinstall her into a position of authority and or respect. 

WC: 806 | GP: 16 | Total GP: 36

She had to laugh, didn't she? That reckless, broken laugh that meant sanity was slipping away, that meant she was hiding from the truth. Hide in humor, hide in anything, because it was better than facing the life she was living. Go on the attack, because it was better than admitting how vulnerable she was.

"Oh, I'm the traitor, am I?"

Those words sounded innocuous, coming from her lips. They weren't loud. They weren't grand or influential, didn't have any immediate effect, but they were the start of something. The stop of secrecy.

"Which of us fought when Tova Diabló came to earth? I didn't see you there." She paused, slowly looked across Kiriko's face in search of a reaction. "I could have missed you, though. I was getting my hands dirty. Have you done that recently?" She glanced at the woman's perfect hands and grinned.

"The Primera and I, we had a chat. Do you know him? I used to. He was a man named Artix von Creg, once upon a time. We served together. He wasn't bad. I recruited him, in fact. But," the grin faded, turned into a parody of sadness. "He caught, let's call it a disease. You know what I'm talking about, don't you? I can't imagine you don't, being a Captain and all. And you know what?" Was there anything in her eyes, now? Was this where it ended?

"He's not the only one."

"So," she leaned forward, elbows against the metal, "tell me, Kiriko-chan, which of us is the threat? Which of us serves a man with a Hollow in his mind?" A slow, languid laugh. A shake of her head. "Not me."

"The way I see it, in fact, I'm the only person that can be trusted in all of Seireitei. Because I've been gone that long. I'm untouched, and you're tainted. So, you're right." There was that grin, crawling across her face again. "I'm very much a threat. To you. To Kenshou. To anyone else I can sniff out, anyone else trying to kill our people from the inside. But not ever to Soul Society, because I didn't betray us." She leaned back, folded her hands in front of her.

"That was the rest of you."

375/7 (16)

Curious. Curious. It was all so very curious. The brittle pain in Maya's eyes, the twitch of her mouth, the barely not-there shake of her delicate wrists. Kiriko had seen that look before, that dark and twisting tunnel downward. It was a path that never ended, filled up to the brim with blades and thorns to cut you as you slid down. Maya had dragged paranoia across her shoulders like a cloak, fingers ranking through the prickly cloth as if she could press it into her skin. Imprint it into her soul, clutching with her calloused hands and that scarecrow hair.

That was not what she had been expecting, that little rant about taint and corruption within Seireitei. No, she had honestly thought that no one else knew of the rotten core. Artix was dead, his memories lost to the experiment of Central 46. Mitsutaka had moved on and shed his Hollowed mind. Amai was missing. Kachekiwa had abandoned the Seireitei. Sakamoto was dead. And Tsukimiya-taichou... he had retired.

All that left was Ine-soutaichou, and other than Jomyaku and Hi-to, Kiriko had not heard a trickle of that damning knowledge from any of her various streams of intelligence. So... Who had told this little birdy? A woman who had been living as a human for years now? A human who should have been cut off from Seireitei gossip as well as intel for the past decade at the least.

Those eyes stared up at her like burning firecrackers, bursting and crackling as if the sparks were meant to sing and burn. What Maya didn't know was that Kiriko didn't run away from painful words, she embraced them as the gift they were. Another reminder of mistakes, just as useful as the glowing poker she regularly shoved through her own chest.

Tilting her head slowly, an elegant slant of her chin, Kiriko's lips curled upward into something resembling a metal trap more than a smile. “Ahhh-h, so you are here to cleanse Seireitei of the Vaizards? I'm afraid you'll find that both easier and harder than you might expect.”

Knowing that... knowing that as Mayumi's intentions and her drive, for it was impossible to look at that pinched face and not see the truth or the burning intensity of that goal. It made things easier. Far easier in fact. The only Vaizard left was Ine. Sure, there had to be plenty of Shinigami running around with Inner Hollows, but it was one thing to develop an Inner Hollow and another to turn that into full blown transformation. And while Kiriko had her own oath of loyalty towards Ine, her own dreams resting on his shoulders, she had always believed in trial by fire.

This might be the way to maintain her own control... To assert her own power. Because while she had sworn loyalty to that man's dream, if not himself or his orders, she knew that he believed them to be one and the same. And maybe it was time for him to learn that she would do what was good for the Gotei, no matter who it burned in the doing. That when she had said the future, she had meant it. It wasn't some paltry lie to hide her desire to serve another man again, to be a tool once more.

Chinda Kiriko was no longer simply Chinda Kiriko. And Penance did not restrict itself to ties of loyalty or obligation. “You are right, Maya-san. We're all tainted here, but not for the reason you think. We've all seen things that shouldn't have been allowed to pass. We've all made mistakes, errors of judgment and power. We all have sins to pay for. And that taint will be called in, the debt recorded until judgment day.” And it burned in her blood, that promise, that calling. She was marking it all down, every tiny infraction, until the time when she could unleash true regret on this world. And after the fires had died down a new dream would build itself up, rebirth...

“But you have not escaped it yourself, and you must know it. Oh, your story is pretty indeed, off gallivanting around like a rebel to fight that which could not be fought inside the system. But how many friends died because you were not at their side? How many men suffered because you were not there to lead them? How far has Soul Society slid because you were not there to voice your dissent? How much did you achieve out there on your own? From up here, it doesn't look like much. Do not tell me you are innocent, for no one lacks taint.” Maya might have been off saving humans, but Kiriko had been here protecting Maya's old comrades. It wasn't so simple as the girl seemed to be trying to pass it off as. 

She shrugged demurely, her smile turning soft and modest, “Be that as it may be, we all fight taint in our own ways. If that is your goal here, to root out the Vaizards, we may be able to come to an agreement as to your return...” she trailed off speculatively, letting every hope and dream hang in the air between them. Oh yes, Kiriko could imagine plenty of ways to set up Tanaka Mayumi that would benefit her, even several that would allow the woman to do what she was here to do. But she would not speed up the conversation, cherishing this taste of sweetness for the first time today.

Lips folding into a firm line, Kiriko straightened a bit almost instinctively, unable to stop herself from saying one last thing, “And for your information, I spent the invasion of earth fighting Sakamoto Miki, not that I would expect you to know what that means.” To me. To her. To us. Sakamoto.   

WC: 974 | GP: 19 | Total GP: 55

She didn't know what to expect. She hadn't been thinking, a thinking mind wouldn't blurted out such life-or-death secrets so quickly. She'd just acted, just leaped off a cliff because of, what, a hunch that she'd sprout wings?

She had, though, somehow. She was still breathing. The woman was still sitting calmly across from her, smiling and talking rather than killing. A minor miracle, even if she didn't know where she stood.

Maybe it was time to stop leaping off cliffs and face herself.

"A long time ago, I made a choice. I thought... I don't know what I thought. I don't even know what I wanted anymore. It wasn't much of a betrayal, just a few small lies, a broken heart, a day's absence. That's all that was supposed to come of it, but what happened..."

And the scary thing was, it wasn't hard to speak of it. There was emotion in her voice, but only because she put it there. To sound convincing. It wouldn't ring true if her voice carried what she finally felt like, like this happened to some strange girl she could barely remember. Her sadness was just a gesture.

"What happened was I never came back. A part of me died. My Zanpakuto, my spirit, a part of my soul was taken from me." While that loss didn't have much of an impact anymore, the hopelessness did. She remembered when it felt like her life was ending and she was still alive, a loose end that would never fit in again.

"How would you expect me to report?" She wasn't looking at Kiriko any more but through time, at despair. "If there was a method through which I could have returned, I was negligent in finding it. I was trapped there. I was stuck. I." Her voice was choked with emotion. "Did not." She leaned in closer, her eyes wide. "Abandon this place." She shook with a quiet fury.

"It was taken from me."

Her hand strayed to her side, caressed the hilt of her new sword with a cross between love and hate. It was her demon and her savior, but she'd found it again. Slain it, and made it hers.

"But I took it back."

There was pride in that, if nothing else. It made her feel real again.

Her lips split in a genuine smile. "Sorry it took me so long."

400/8 (24)

She had never wondered at the pain of ripping her own soul apart. The horror had been ingrained, a tacitly understood awareness. The simple shock of her bodily transformation after Severance severed her Zanpakutou and Inner Hollow had left her empty and numb for days, months even. But that searing ache, that echoing patter of not-quite forgotten remembrances, of a presence that had always been there even if it was hated or loved in equal measure, that had never left her. She had stood before that precipice, stood there tall and serious, begging for the freedom, begging for Severance to Sever her. And yet she had never fully understood the rigid terror of losing that part of yourself, not until the deed had been done. And now, broken as she was, she could not entirely compute what it had been like to be whole. Could never replace the pieces and slide them back beneath the old snake-skin. She was what she was, what she had never been before, what she could never be again, and that was a confusing slurry of feelings that were no less stagnant for the recollection of paralyzing fear.

What would it have been like to have had that done to you? Not of your own choice? Not of your own desire? Not of your own punishment? Not of your own penance? Kiriko had done what she had to do to make herself pay for her crimes, to ensure that she would never stop paying, never stop fighting simply because things got easier or she wanted to retire like Tsukimiya-taichou. She had made sure that the pain would always linger, constant and piercing, that she would never be content or happy or satisfied until this whole world was burnt and she herself was dead and gone. She had chosen that path for herself, knowing on some level what it meant.

But if Maya was to be believed, and that voice did not waver or break like a falsehood, then she had made no such choice. Made no such commitment. There were many things that had to be paid for, that had a price in blood and suffering and pain. But Kiriko would not wish this sort of punishment on even the worst of her enemies, not beyond their own desires. To be cut in half, in thirds, to be fractured beyond repair. It had left her clean, but oh so narrow, with the material of her soul sliced to a thin ragged line. A line she had sharpened into a blade. She would do what she needed to do, she would suffice for her job, her goal, her duty, but nothing more. For there was nothing more left to her, no extra material to go around, to be used for something else, some other pastime. She was Chinda Kiriko, but that was just the veil, the pretend at normalcy, for beneath that there was only the sliver of Penance left of her soul.

And Maya, what of her? What slivers were left of Tanaka Mayumi? What had she been narrowed down to? Kiriko began to understand the shift, all of them, not just the name itself or the rasping rawness that stared back at her.

So painfully alike.

“I see,” her words were dull, grey rocks dropped unceremoniously to the floor. And there was really nothing more to say, nothing more to hear, because this was an understanding that surpassed all words or feelings. To have that done to you... to suffer through that... if there was ever an excuse for leaving your post, for abandoning the Gotei, that would be it.

“In that case, if you want to be reinstated as an active duty Shinigami you will need to be placed within a division. I will file a report to the Captain Commander as to your loyalty and dedication to the Gotei, that will suffice for the formal channels and absolve you of your 'crimes',” she spoke with industry, dusting off old legal tomes in her mind and bustling through the mechanical motions as Kiriko leaned forward against the table and began rifling through several ubiquitous forms that sat ensconced in bland manilla folders.

She looked up, her hands reaching unerringly for the pen she knew to be nearby, “However the world is not as you left it before, and you will need support if you think to step back into Soul Society as it is now.” Neat letters rolled out in ink across the page, a name, a title, a registration code.

“So, Tanaka Maya, can you follow orders? If they do not interfere with your goal, will you be able to follow my orders? I find myself sorely in need of a Lieutenant, my last one got a bit lost and seems to have forgotten the dream that I see you know well.”

WC: 810 | GP: 16 | Total GP: 71