Swords were not made to be Sheathed [Closed/M]

She couldn't help that immediate flush of irritation the moment her soldiers appeared at the door, manhandling a heavy lump of human flesh between them as they dropped their cargo before her desk and swiftly bowed. Low enough to hide their eyes from hers, a small mercy as she took in the duly bruised and bloody prisoner who had moved only so much as was needed to settle into a neat seiza. The imprint of violence on his skin was surprising, though it shouldn't have been. She had dictated perfect silence, utter darkness, a lack of human contact. Those were the ingredients meant to soften the target before this meeting. She had given no leave for a physical altercation and it was not standard procedure to beat a prisoner unless they had good reason.

These two fools quickly slipping out the door had had no such justification. She could taste the rage in their reiatsu, tinged green with their natural fear of a superior. It was interesting that cowards could be so afraid of her wrath and yet still break very important rules so long as they were out of sight. As if anything in this place could be kept a secret from her. As if she wouldn't notice that the prisoner was far more bloody now than he had been when he'd first arrived. She committed their faces to memory, already certain that the two would last no longer under her command.

Men who let emotions dictate their actions were of no use to her. Cowardice could be overcome, the simple factor of them being beaten in combat, that too could be forgiven. But such a corrupting weakness as they had shown today, the inability to follow orders, that was something she would not permit.

The rage scalded her, so much so that she held silent and still for many long moments. Her mind turning back to paperwork before her as her hands flicked through several files. She was just finishing penning the two's dismissal when she finally looked up, coal black eyes taking in the huddled form of her newest curiosity.

His body was hunched, curled over due to the tight manacles and the rough position he had been placed in. Despite that naturally subservient posture and the grimace in his eyes there was nothing broken about his spiritual signature, floating calm and certain in a sea of minor pains. What should have been erratic fear and a skittish presence was nothing more than placid patience, and she took a long moment to decipher the various pieces of his body language to gain a better understanding of just what she was looking at.

The man had been dragged in in the middle of the night, part of a botched cleansing of the Rukongai. She'd taken one look at the soldier reporting to her and demanded that this particular prisoner be sent to isolation for the time being. Several hours later and the story fully explored and transcribed, her curiosity had been piqued beyond just the fact that a nobody had managed to defeat several of her highly trained men nearly twice over. From afar she had let the boy stew, careful stewardship over his quiet reiatsu the only form of monitoring she performed for that particular cell block.

And yet instead of cracking from the emptiness, the total void of isolation, his willpower had only grown stronger. A thready mix of well removed fear and anger thickening over time into rock-solid certainty. Had he come to some grand conversion in that silence? It wasn't unknown, for people going through high strain or trauma to have transformative experiences. Still, the interrogator in her wanted to see just what made this man tick. Just why he was able to defeat her soldiers and then sit so quietly for so many hours without the slightest rattling of his psyche.

And so she had waited, finally calling for him, only to be surprised by the man sitting so complacently at the foot of her desk. There was no wailing, no begging, no bursts of anger or bravado as one might expect from a Rukongai-tough. There wasn't even the shifting edgy nerves of a man broken by silence or mastered by fear. Sitting there under the full force of her voluminous aura, a dark and deadly pressure that she had released the moment he entered the room, there hadn't even been a twitch of the eye to signal that he felt anything along the lines of remorse or atavistic terror. His posture was that of a statue, only the barest hint of the chest cavity stirring giving her physical proof of his life.

She had pioneered the art of studying body language to determine a total profile of those around her, but for cases such as this her ascension had given Kiriko one more tool in her versatile kit. As Penance she could read into a soul in ways that she never could have by studying body language. And what she saw here, when she actually looked, was all the more shocking because it showed that the outward stillness was not a masterful act like she had first believed. It was possible, though difficult, to achieve such a high level control over your body that you could still even the fear based reactions which were most intuitive. It was also possible to be so broken, so numb, that you simply didn't present these things to the outside world.

What she saw in the man though was neither of those covers, but instead an empty chalice of thin glass that comprised his mind. It was perfectly transparent, nothing obscured or hidden by so much as a tinge of inky color as would be natural in a mind trying to hide or obfuscate. That blurred color was even natural in a mind consumed by deep thoughts or heavy emotions. To have such a crystal clear clarity... it was like no other soul that she had peered into, the openness that even children lacked.

Leaning forward, across her desk, Kiriko grabbed the man's chin roughly, turning his face upwards towards her so that she could stare him directly in the eyes. There was no need to be delicate about this, not when she had already gone so far as to unleash her Sovereign aura on him. She had realized soon after accepting her transformation into Penance that the shattered state of her heart had given her a new way of looking at the world. It had given her powerful insight into opponents, into their very souls in fact. She could see now without even trying the crimes and regrets of those around her. The things that caused their souls to cry out with an ugly desire for penance.

But it wasn't enough to passively glean this information. She needed more. She had to learn it all. And that was what had brought her to the stunning comprehension of the full extent of her powers. Kiriko stared deep into those blank eyes, and with a heavy punch of her Broken aura shattered the very chalice that was the barriers around his mind as she rammed her way into his thoughts. Immediately accosted with a flood of information in its base form she dredged up exactly the details she was looking for while brutally casting aside all else.

In that moment she could feel the truth in his reiatsu, reading his needs and fears as she forced her mind to understand all that was required for this man to commit his penance. She everything. The need for a master. The regret of being used badly. The fear of rusting away, or worse, being melted for spare parts or broken to bits. His hunger was so deep and guttural that she could feel it threading its way throughout his entire personality, a thrumming vein of need. The way he had contorted himself into this empty monster just to be mastered by another, just to avoid his own responsibility, it was a consummate display of the pitfalls of the human spirit.

And it was intriguing.

Carefully pulling out, leaving his mind a shambles of broken over thoughts, she tightened her grip on his chin until it was enough to bruise bone. Those utterly blank eyes stared back at her, and she felt the corner of her lips twitch at the knowledge of what exactly lurked behind them. Such a very broken man, emptied of all that was human in some desperate desire to be voidlike.

She could understand that need. Could respect what he had done to himself. Could even see the ways in which she had almost fallen into the same trap. But despite that familiarity when she looked upon him, what she saw most of all was an opportunity.

He wanted a Master and she needed a Sword. Wasn't that just the perfect predicament.  

Releasing his chin with a light shove, she pulled back until she was straight and precise in her chair, towering over the empty-eyed man.

“I have to say, I was not expecting you,” she hummed softly, long tactile fingers brushing against the shadow of a bruise that had bloomed alongside his cheekbone. “Tell me. Why did you follow that idiot of a Master?” Her voice was playful, a cavorting summer’s sun, and yet it held the whiplash of a demand. She was not asking for his cooperation, was not waiting to let him decide how he felt about her. She simply took what she needed and expected him to keep up. It was important to understand the distinction between needing to serve and how he chose to align himself with his superiors. If the need grew so deeply that he would accept any order, that was a flaw she might be unable to overlook in this potential weapon.

And yet, despite that glass mind, the thoughts were not sluggish. There was a simpleness to his understanding of the world, but it did not veil a lack of intelligence. Rather he had chosen his world view and all else had fallen into place around it. Still, for all that Kiriko had ascertained in burrowing into his head she wanted to hear his own words.

WC: 1709 | GP: 34 | Total GP: 34