Hell Comes Knocking [Maya/Kiriko]

Her pen skittered across the page, drawing dark angry lines like bloody slashes as she crossed out and blacked out whole sentences at a time. Her desk was the last stop for all the formal reports that were cataloged in the Second, and while it ensured that the Captain was kept up to date on all information flowing throughout the division it also reminded her just how starkly incompetent some of her men still were. Unable to see through the shadows of faces and into the heart of the matter, through masks into truth. It couldn't just be that she was better at reading. Better at reading people, at reading intentions, at reading power. This was a skill Kiriko had always claimed, and so it was natural that those around her, the best and the brightest, would be able to achieve a similar plateau.

Eyes narrowed to angry slits, she leaned back in her chair with a fiercely controlled thump. The whole world had turned soft around her these days, as if the best she could do to feel that violent thrill that hummed through her veins now was the childish movements that hid her true nature, these weak little flutters that did nothing to expend the wound up tension of her heart. It boiled and writhed inside, a ball of anger fused with impatience. An endless knot of displeasure. She was oh so used to letting it out, to letting that emotion flood and suffuse, a hot flush on her cheeks as she raged and ranted. It had been nice, freeing, like running through an endless field, never having to check her pace or her force.

But the illusion had been broken, broken just like the pieces around her that she had shattered with her sheer anger. And with Kohara's reminder still ringing softly in her ears Penance had made the commitment to pull herself back into that shell of a Shinigami, curling up tight and heavy beneath that thin veneer of skin that made Chinda Kiriko an entity on the chessboard. Familiar, frightening, but still human. Still relatable. Still professional.

Chinda Kiriko was a mask she had to wear, clothes she had to confine herself to, because no matter the freedom inherent in Penance, the price she paid for that freefall was damning. Kiriko had no wish to follow Severance into insanity nor Nothing into death. She would be the one to prove to the world that broken did not always mean shattered. She could cobble together the shards of her soul and make something of this last sacrifice because to do otherwise would mean it was all worthless.

The drumbeat of wary awareness had done nothing to weaken the rage inside, for all that she now realized she needed to reign it in it seemed as if that molten flame had turned up the heat instead of submissively receding. Kiriko was not used to her emotions disobeying, flaring up like fireworks against an inky sky, so close they singed everything that was beautiful about that initial burst of light.

She was still angry. Still mad. Still filled with an empty aching bitterness so deep that at times it was as if there was nothing but need. She was still jealous, hating the glittering eyes around her that looked back with such contentment. What right did this world have to enjoy when she had given everything up for them? What right did anyone have for innocence when she had carved it all away from even the best of those around her?

So the anger stayed, interned like a prisoner in the cage made from her twining ribs, flicker-bright and surging strong just when she felt most in control.

And yet, control had returned. In fits and starts. She could remember now, what it was like to hold back the sea, to focus on the point of the issue instead of letting that fire flow forth unchecked. She could remember the blessed cold that would surround her when it was only logic that mattered, when results were all that changed the calculations in her mind. Crazed she might be, drawn to cinders and tatters in the flames of Hell, but that force of her personality had returned just as strong as it had ever been. Kiriko was driven by a cause, and nothing, not even herself, would get in the way of realizing it.

The door snapped open with a quiet pop, the vagaries of reiatsu having long since heralded this particular child's return home. The flow of reactions had been harsh and swift, like a waterfall over broken rocks when first she had sensed Tanaka Maya's return. And yet, as the hours ticked by, as her mind had space and time to pour through old reports and cobble together half-truths, Kiriko realized that she wasn't actually angry. No, that fierce flush had softened as the water poured into calmer eddies, twirling around and around until all that dire force had been spent.

Tanaka had been the proverbial thorn in her side for so long that Kiriko had almost forgotten what those brief few weeks of synergy had been like. But with that reiatsu tickling the edges of her senses, with the curling twine as it melted into Kohara's, Kiriko had consciously let go of her anger and allowed the other emotions to filter through.

She had honestly thought the woman dead. A moment of sharp grief, not yet staggering but enough to pierce her carefully laid plans. One more sin to pin to Nothing's coffin. In the time that passed, reports had come across her desk, much like the one she was amputating now. And in them had been shreds of a story, tidbits of meat that hid the truth like moonlight dappling a dense forest. So she had wondered, but without hope, having spent all of her emotional capital on the momentary setback of Maya's death.

To have the woman returned to her, whole, and perhaps even whole in a way she hadn't been before, was not so much a relief as it was an awakening of her ambitions. Maya had been central to a great many things before her disappearance. The betrayal of a fake death was not all that important in the face of a tool returned to its roost. And Maya had changed, that Kiriko could tell from the swirling energies coating so close to the Shinigami's skin. There was something a little less ragged, a little less gaping, and the end result was as close to useful as things were going to get.

An improvement all around.

So when Tanaka Maya came bursting into her office, a contained storm with those blazing eyes and that laconic voice, Kiriko merely leaned back further in her chair and raised an eyebrow in an otherwise bland face. The anger she should have felt, the need to punish, to prove, to make a traitor beg for forgiveness, it had all been washed away by a pale sort of relief. Maya was one of hers, and as such her return was only right. Only correct. Because now, with Maya and Kohara at her side, she was complete. The set had been made, the pieces all in place. And it was only logical, only right, that Tanaka Maya was once more in her office ablaze with all that fierce glow that made her so particularly useful.

“Considering you've been around for quite a few hours before this meeting, I would have to say my answer is no,” the words were flat, unemotional, but for the quirk in her lips that belied the smallest amount of humor. Tanaka was always prickly, proud, perfect. And in a way they couldn't help but clash, their own ideas of protocol, of need, constantly at odds with each other. But time had mellowed that anger out, Kiriko was once more in control of it, and she didn't need to go to bat for each little implied insult any longer. Not when the important prize was just within sight.

The woman across from her was the picture of power, so poised, perfectly held in a position of rage. She embodied the strength that came with the free-flow of emotion, held on the cusp of betrayal for whatever little details had struck her as wrong. Perhaps it was the way time had moved on in her absence. The way Kohara had sunk in and all around, filling a gap that was meant for two souls. Or maybe it was just the way that Kiriko had forgotten about her, replaced the weaknesses in her plans with new people, new toys, as if she had never needed a Tanaka Maya before. As if Tanaka Maya had never even mattered.

Kiriko leaned forward just a bit, shoulders pushed off the back of her chair as her elbows came to rest on her thighs and her hands clasped casually above her lap. Eyes eager and dark, fathomless pits that stared right back into that whirlwind of rage, and then she smiled, a flicker of dark emotion for half a second that was swiftly discarded. Yes, the prodigal child had come home, back to Kiriko's side where she belonged. A knife in the dark, precisely poised for the most damage.

“How did it go, then? Your mission? I shall assume success, since it is you we are talking about, and because I doubt you would have returned was it a failure.” Kiriko was never fully in the dark, though the shadows of reality often clouded out the details. She knew with a bright certainty that Maya had been up to something. Knew as soon as the whispered-rumors had made their way in her direction that there might be a soul on earth who fit the dead-woman's description. Now, with Tanaka full-bodied and real right in front of her, she had to give some credence to the far-flung reports. She might not know what the woman had been up to, but she could assume, and in assuming she could get real answers.

The truth of it though was that mission or not, whatever Maya had been doing in the human world, no one would be fool enough to return to Kiriko without some sort of accomplishment to smooth out their mistakes. She was magnanimous in her reign over the Second. Everyone was aware that success outweighed any mistakes. If you could show that something had come about, that you had something to offer to overpower the distaste of a broken rule or a transgression, it would all be okay. Acceptable even, because she expected subterfuge from her soldiers. It was the cardinal rule. Sins were to be expected, with ones such as them, dipped as they were in the blood of their crimes. But it was this very blood that would wash away the taint of the world and usher in a new era, and so long as you contributed to that flood anything could be forgiven.

WC: 1833 | GP: 36 | Total GP: 36

Half of her wanted to laugh. To throw her head back against her chair and just let loose, a heavy rumbling chuckle escaping from deep within the crevices of her withered heart. It was tempting too, because with Maya the more you pricked her pride the funnier she got, and so instead of resulting in an explosion that was all shards and pain you got some flash for the bang mixed in. Still, as much as Kiriko felt an odd tendril of age, a slender rod of bony wisdom lifting her spine, she was sorely tempted to do just that. Maya's return reminded her rather too much of a sulky child, so cock-sure that she was ready to blast away with her assumptions before checking to see if they were even correct. Oh, the anger was real. Justified too, in its own mortal way. Anyone would be made to feel the pain of being discarded if they had been in Tanaka Maya's place. That was if they were unable to see the intricate linkage of the Second, the logical give and take that dictated such things far beyond the emotional scope or need of her men.

The Second was a force made up from soldiers. And in a way Maya was unused to the entirety of what that meant, though she had adapted well. It was part of the reason Kiriko had decided on a system of two lieutenants. For all that Maya was best equipped to teach the recruits and instil a sense of readiness into the men, she wasn't Second. Not in the same way that Kiriko was. Nor the same way that Kohara was. It was a mental quirk, a shift in their blood perhaps, an unlucky change to their souls. Some people were born with it, some people learned it, but it wasn't something to be faked. And Tanaka Maya, in all her glorious rage and power, in all the darkness of her soul, was never going to bleed for the Second in the same way.

It didn't make her a wrong fit, indeed most of Kiriko's soldiers were closer to Maya than Kohara. But it did mean she had to be handled differently, coaxed and coddled in ways that Kiriko had no need to use with Hi-to. He knew, always, and understood the whys on an intuitive level. It was dark grim work they set their minds to and not everyone could grasp the immensity of that fall. She truly wished no one else would have to.

So in that way Kiriko took in the whirling storm of Maya's anger, those buzzing eyes and bitingly calm words, drinking up every last biting glance and stare of betrayal. Because here and now, with Tanaka Maya, it was not insubordination, not a fatal flaw of emotional weakness, it was simply a sign of the strength of her dedication. And Kiriko could appreciate facets in the gems she had acquired so long as they did not turn into defects, so long as the cut never marred the overall use of the gem. Maya's emotions had, at one time, been what Kiriko would pointedly call a liability. Perhaps that threat still remained, lurking as always under an unpredictable veneer of civilization. And yet, things had changed, enough had settled from the broken remains of a once fallen Shinigami, enough had come to rest in new and better places that she could see the improvement. This dervish of flame and anger was spinning fast enough to scald, but that flame was turned outward for once. Maya was no longer under threat of burning herself up in the stretch for success, for an answer. Whatever she had accomplished in the human world, whatever it had meant to come back to Kohara, it had done good for girl who burned from the inside out with a burnished flame some would call madness.

She tapped the bottoms of her palms against her knees, once, twice, thrice, her stare softly unconfrontational as the woman 'explained' herself. The silence stretched, long and thin like pure gold strands, pressed and beaten on all sides by that whirling rage, but Kiriko wanted to be sure that Maya had her space to speak. That she had the time to express what she felt was necessary, that there was nothing Kiriko was cutting off when the time came to stem the flow of vitriol.

“I see,” and in some ways she did, while in others she never truly would. This irrational territoriality that had caught Tanaka up in its grasp wasn't exactly complementary even if it could be understood. She straightened her chin, lips in a perfectly frozen line as one eyebrow arched above those coldly glittering eyes, “Are you mad at me because you feel I usurped your position, removing it as I did when I had reason to believe you were no longer either functionally capable of fulfilling it or conversely misaligned to the cause? Or is your true fear that I am not going to give it back, now that I can clearly see neither of those two cases apply?”

“I wonder, you see, because both would be curious cases. Neither you nor I know each other as well as a Captain and their Lieutenant should. We were in the beginnings of that very intricate introduction when you seemingly perished, or disappeared, whichever explanation you prefer. I don't fault you for the anger, I merely wonder which it is that drives you to such worry.” Indeed, the answer was clear enough when she stared into that embroiled soul. And yet she wanted to know, needed to hear from Maya herself, what the woman believed to be her goad. She was somewhat enigmatic, despite Kiriko's ability to pierce the veil around a human's heart. Did she understand what pushed her, did she carry the self-awareness that was necessary to ensure those deadly blades of her heart would not cause her to shatter into madness along the way? That was the true question, and in answering it they would both receive the response they were looking for.

Was it just anger that she felt, heedless to sense its origins or channel it to better uses? Was she still consumed by the agony of her own descent into Hell and climb back out? Or could she, when she needed to, look right back into that very reflection of herself with honesty and understand the whys that made her entire world spin. It was self-awareness that separated the monster from the mad and the mad from the monster.

“Though perhaps when you consider what hangs in the balance, or rather whom, it becomes more straightforward.” Not that she was too high and mighty not to enjoy needling where she could, and Hi-to was such an easy target. What was the fun in having two Lieutenants so closely intertwined when you couldn't twist and prod the use the relationship for your own amusement?

WC: 1162 | GP: 23 | Total GP: 59

It was true. She'd only been back in Soul Society for a short time; more than the hours spent since her second return from apparent death, but not much. Subtracting the hunt, the time spent defending her home, it was about two weeks. Three, at the outside.

She had to blink, sometimes, to convince herself it was real.

It'd been such a remarkable sensation that part of herself was lost to it, gripping too tightly to nostalgia, forgetting why she'd come. It was not self-serving. The enjoyment of familiar faces, more permanent people that would be there day-in and day-out, that wouldn't dry up and die after mere decades, was a distraction. A welcome one, yes. Something she thought she'd never see again, yes.

But not the goal.

It felt like she needed to reach into the past and take time back, time that was spent remembering. She'd spent it chasing down people and places she knew for the sheer joy of seeing them again, something that didn't help anyone but herself. Soul Society didn't care if she learned every nook and cranny of her newly-returned home, only that she was there to save it.

She'd learned next to nothing. She'd made no new allies, unless she counted the woman across from her. She'd spent most of the time rediscovering childhood haunts, feeling happy, forgetting herself. Being weak again.

Standing here, staring at her, she realized she hadn't taken the time to get to know her Captain at all. The position that had appeared in her lap had fallen there as if by divine provenance; an opportunity she took advantage of, but not one she made for herself. Now, as it was hanging in the balance, she had no idea which levers to pull.

Would she have to be honest again?

The fire in her eyes had burnt out, replaced by calculating smoke.

"Two things." She took a seat across from her taichou, laboriously cracked her neck as she reclined. "You're good at that, you know?" Two fingers found their way to her eyebrow in a mock Xavier salute. "The mind-reading thing. Looking into people's souls, telling them their secrets. I bet it goes far with the underlings." Her fingers fell away, her voice still soft. "Not perfect, but good."

"I was... mad, not because of either of those things, but because you thought I died at all. Because really, that's ridiculous. I'm like a fucking cockroach, I'll probably be here when the world fades." She was looking at Kiriko with a curious expression, free from the arrogance her words implied. "But you didn't know that, did you?" She was absolving Kiriko of guilt. "You barely know me at all." Whose fault was that? "It was a perfectly reasonable assumption, given the knowledge you had." Only hers, not her Captain's. "Perfectly reasonable, too, to appoint Hi-to in my place."

And here they came to the second thing.

"He's really better for it, isn't he?" Her voice was snake-like, slithering around, not quite touching the truth. "He's been here the whole time, not like me. He's stronger than me now, or so he claims. You even know him, don't you? I remember, back then. You were both there." Dry and factual words, not quite right or wrong. "There's a lot you can do, with a man like that."

"You probably think he's perfect."

"You probably think, like he thinks, that he's flawless. Or at least doing his best. The perfect soldier, giving everything to keep his country strong. Ignoring that there's nothing left inside."

"I know him." Her voice was harsh, emotion bleeding into it. "I am only here because of him. If I thought he was strong enough to handle this, I would have let him do it." Her eyes were wild, but they refocused and she looked away.

"He'll break, you know. When you need him most. Did he tell you about the time we met on Earth?" She waved a hand dismissively when she realized what Kiriko would think she meant. "Not that time. I know you were there. He recognized me then, of course, but that's not what I'm talking about. After that."

"We met in Karakura's ruins, after the Espada attacked Japan, after I'd learned what I know from the Primera. I told him. He knew what I told you, and you know where I found him next?" She laughed, and if there was a hint of bitterness there, only she knew it. "Certainly not in Soul Society. I mean, that would be my first instinct. It was, really. But, I mean, if someone tells you your commander's mind has been usurped, I certainly think the first thing to do has some relation to the realm in which he resides."

The look in her eyes wasn't pain, it was more like incredulity. That wound, the raw feeling of betrayal she'd felt that day, had been given ample time to scab over. The faint pain she felt just served as a reminder. Anything that needed doing, she had to be the one to do. Even the ones she thought she could trust were worthless in the end.

"No, he was trying to kill some Arrancar that wasn't even worth his time, because this bitch of a mortal woman had him coiled around her fingernail. He'll do that. He looks like a model soldier but he'll break when he's needed."

She was alone, as ever, but appearances mattered, and hers didn't inspire much confidence.

"You want to know what I'm mad about? Nothing. It's not anger, it's fear. I'm scared of what will happen if you pin our people's fate on someone who failed me when I needed him." It was not quite a naked truth, but it served her. "There are many things I am, Kiriko. We know I have flaws. What good is a ruined ghost to you when you have someone so much better, a former Captain, sitting right there?" She looked to the door, as if expecting him to suddenly appear, before laughing and looking back. "I mean on paper it's so obvious."

She met Kiriko's eyes and didn't blink, didn't look away.

"But the obvious choice is wrong, this time, because I won't fail you."

The fire in her eyes was roaring.

"I will never fail you unless you fail me first."

1059/21 (37)

Kiriko tilted her head, one hand lifting almost lazily as she rested her chin against the backs of her fingertips. That steady pressure was a reminder, the drumbeat of her pulse dragging her downward, stilling the reedy spikes of irritation that threatened to swamp her chilled perspective. She wrapped that awareness around her, heavy chains of rock and blood, heartened by the slow and repetitive beat of her heart. Maya had to always be right, something that Kiriko could recognize as a shared flaw when she was being generous. Or honest. It was not the best of faults, something she herself had forcefully shed during her younger years and then reacquired as if the flaw had wiggled its was silently back into her soul. Only now, in situations like this, did she realize how glaring it was. How irresponsible. How utterly and completely it ruined exactly what she was trying to be, what she had strived to become.

Maya was right in that Kiriko saw more than most. She always had, and likely always would. The veil of red that had come about, falling over her vision and tainting it with that copper tang that was more a need for bloodshed than a true sense, that had stalled her for a time. Reducing, hiding, obscuring. And yet it was ingrained as much as anything else could be, her ascension to Sovereign cutting away even those last few threads of humanity that had shielded her previous sight. She saw now in ways she never had, in ways no one else could, and yet that did not mean she could not be confused. Could not think something was one way when it was just her own projection.

This was true, she would be the first to admit to herself. But it was not true today. Maya's anger, that bubbling cauldron of rage that had sent her cascading into Kiriko's office, that wasn't important. Hadn't been important. Of course she was enraged that Kiriko thought her dead, that was clear as the words on her lips and the particular crazed light in her eyes. To a child that would have been obvious to connect, and it was also superficial, the foremost layer that was really just window dressing instead of content.

It wasn't anger she had been talking about, with her previous words meant to probe Tanaka into speaking up. If she'd wanted to draw out that emotion she would have gone about it in another manner. No, it wasn't anger she wanted. It was the truth, and the best way to get that from someone like Maya was to reflect back a mirror image just a shade off from the truth. Did she suspect that Maya truly was afraid of losing her post? Yes, it was there in the tension in her shoulders, there in the flex to her fingers, there even in the swirl of her reiatsu that Kiriko could trace backwards in time as it curled around Kohara. Did she honestly think Maya was upset about being replaced? No, despite never being close to the woman Kiriko could claim to know her that well at least. It had been said to create a comparison, to pull forth the details she really had been searching for.

Still, knowing all that, seeing it all, it hadn't prepared her for the impact of it being spoken aloud. “I doubt that anything I would say to you about yourself would be a secret, Tanaka-san,” she drawled, giving vent to at least some of the frustration she felt internally for being so type casted. She hadn't been trying to lock Maya into a box, to explain the other woman to herself, or unveil some unacceptable secret. It was an easy read though, since all Maya had to go on was that one botched interrogation back when such a tactic had been a big part of Kiriko's repertoire. Still, it stung, just a bit. To be colored in such a way by the girl that Kiriko rather liked, a brilliant shade of some smaller part of herself. It was rather like what she imagined it felt to have your younger self reject what your older self had become. That was the tangle of emotions that cropped up in that moment, an ugly smudge below her breastbone that ached dully the more those bland eyes sliced her down to bite size pieces.

“No one is perfect, though we can all try. And, while you might claim the closer personal bond, I can assure you that Kohara holds no such illusions about himself either.”

She paused, her gaze stilling as she looked to something in the past. Lips parted just barely, eyes a downward track of thought.

“Is that what you've missed then? The thing that he and I share, that you seem to not understand about either of us... I wonder.” Her voice was soft, airy, a murmured thought more than a continuation of the conversation.

She returned to it briskly, squared shoulders and formal posture, “You speak as if no one else has made mistakes, as if the mistakes don't shade in the sinner, as if they don't complete us, Tanaka-san. Emotions are complex, we all have our weaknesses, our lapses. You can't remove them, and you can't expect perfection from the flawed vessel that is humanity. Thinking that you can is just a folly, and I promise you it leads somewhere far darker than the issue of half-breeds.”

“This is the hardest thing to understand, in the Second. We all struggle to grasp it fully, but rest assured that Kohara is one who knows. How can he not, when those sins are such that he can never take them back? Failure, transgressions, doing what is wrong, what is horrible, what is ugly and dark and evil. These are all aspects of our jobs. And it makes us who we are, what we must be. If you give me a soldier who has never erred, who has never gotten an innocent's blood on his hands, who has never made that deadly mistake, I would throw him out. Because without the guilt of the crime you can never be driven hard enough to ensure it won't happen again. You can never be ridden by the master that is penance, the unholy desire to gain strength, to protect, to change this world that allowed such a sin to happen in the first place.”

She wondered if this could be understood by someone like Maya, or if it was truly just the Kohara's in the world that would seek out her bloody dream as their own. “For you see, Tanaka-san, what the Second does is not spoken of openly. We are the blades in the dark, yes. We watch, we prepared, we enforce. But above all we lay the groundwork for the purge. And no one who has not yet fallen is going to be able to do the work that is required to remove the taint of this world from our society.”

“Can you understand that, in a world where the depth of your transgressions is in fact the strength of your conviction, that in such a world Kohara Hi-To is as close to perfection as we're going to get? And that your light, while a powerful tool, a cleansing force, that it is not the type of darkness that will ever truly be what the Second needs? Not until this whole damn world is overrun, not until the corruption and sin are routed at their source, not until we've rebuilt that which has been destroyed time and time again.” The glitter to her eyes then was not one of anger, nor even passion, it was simply determination. The soul-searing sort of determination you got when you spoke of the inevitable, of your life's purpose, of the thing that you had sacrificed everything for.

“So let me answer your fear, if I can. You're right, Kohara will break. Just as I will break. Just as you will break. Just as the whole world will break. But we, together, as the Second, will fill in those gaps. We will carry each other upon our very backs, because the dream is not held by one central figure. It is not a lofty motto. It is not some law engraved in scripture. It's simply the blood under our nails, the blade in our hands, the mantra in our minds. The dream is the only way we can live, us motley crew of sinners. And because of that, because to turn back would mean it was all worthless, would mean we could never even make the smallest of reparations, could never even begin to give our penance, because of all that, we will not fail. We might break, we might falter, but in doing so the strength only increases. The dedication only surges forward.”

“That is the bond of the Second. That is our creed. And that is why I want you at Hi-To's side. Why I want you at my side. Not until the first of us fails, but until the first of us succeeds.”

WC: 1524 | GP: 30 | Total GP: 89

Every word that came from her Captain's mouth sounded like a compromise, like something someone would say if they couldn't do any better and knew it. Nobody's perfect? Everyone will fall, people have to commit sins to be strong? She wouldn't accept that. She didn't even think Kiriko did, deep down. It was just an excuse to avoid accepting whatever mistakes lurked in the woman's past, some post-hoc rationalization that kept her world together.

It was believing that everyone could only be as strong as she was, so she wouldn't have to admit that she couldn't be stronger.

It was fine. It was far from the first time that Maya had dealt with inferior people. She knew how to smile and nod, to keep the worlds in their heads turning, getting on with her business while avoiding their flaws. She almost did that, this time. She was close. It would have been the wise thing, the right thing from a point of view of strict adherence to her goals.

She would be granted more freedom, perhaps more trust, if she pretended. Making up some story of sin in her own past, the same kind of devilish drive the woman across from her felt, would clearly put her in her taichou's good graces. Hi-to's flaws had done that. She couldn't stop singing his praises. The perfect man? 'The depth of your transgressions was the strength of your convictions'?

It would be an easy tune to hum.

"None of that is right, though."

But she had always been one to shoot for the stars.

"I can see why you like him. You're just like him, aren't you? I mean, what he's become. I can see it." She waved her hand around, couldn't help but grin. "The whole tortured angsty soldier routine, trying to cut out your heart because you think it means something. I've got news for you." She tried to keep the smirk off her face, but couldn't.

"It doesn't. It weakens you. If someone had told anyone I served under that nobody could be perfect, they would have had the words slapped out of their fucking mouths. Your heart makes you strong. My heart makes me strong. I've been trying to tell the stupid fuck that for longer than I can remember and he seems to get it, sometimes." Her gaze grew distant but her smile didn't fade, remembering the way he'd been over a century ago. How his soul had shone. "But never for long. I have to keep pushing him back."

"I don't need my own horrors to drive me, taichou. All I have to do is think of the world." Her eyes glazed over, thinking of happy memories. Little things, nothing grand or extraordinary. Sunlight on a new day. Her blade digging into flesh, the conclusion of a hunt. Being loved, being seen, living, every nerve thrumming with the joy of being alive.

How could anyone need anything more than that?

"All I have to do is think of what will happen to the world if I ever stop."

The sky broken over Seireitei, dark clouds and fires forming. A cessation of the little joys. People crying out for help; lives, ones that had gone on for centuries, vanishing in the dark. The sun would never set for him again. Nothing would. Nothing would for anyone, they would all vanish to the fire and the black.

What could keep her going except for love for them?

"Look at the Seireitei of my day, Chinda-san, and look at yours." They had been stable for so long, back then. Everything had seemed simple. Things like Vaizards, traitorous Captain Commanders, whatever the thing was that had attacked that day on the stage, were all just fairytales. Her people were supreme, and there were no monsters in the dark that could stand against them.

"Which of our philosophies did better?"

But she would protect them from today's darkness, if no one else could stand that strong.

"Thanks for the job back." She was getting up, already throwing her jacket over her shoulder because there was nothing really more to say. Her Captain was more set in her ways than Hi-to had ever been, and her words wouldn't change a thing. She'd hoped, at first, to do to Kiriko the same as she'd done to him; making her live again, to spark her back into that glorious flame that she knew Hi-to could reach if he tried.

It wouldn't happen, though. In her eyes were only coals.

"I'll be the one, you know." She said it quietly, but it had more concrete resolve than anything else she'd spoken. "You won't need anyone else. I'll carry you all if I have to." Her steps were steady, her heart light, as she walked out of Kiriko's door.

"I don't have any sins weighing me down."

811/16 (53)

She straightened, her hands dropping to press lightly against the wood of her desk. Fingertips digging into that smooth material as her joints played out white against the ivory of her skin. She truly hated fools, and hated herself all the more for listening to Maya's spiel. Hated the whole world even for that moment of almost-understanding that passed between them. That second half skipped beat when she felt herself agreeing, ever so slightly, with the words from that girl's mouth.

The sad thing was, none of it was true. Reality was grim, it was bloody, it was hell in the form of broken morals. And it wasn't as if she liked it that way, she'd just come to realize it was the truth. This little, “angsty-soldier thing” that Maya was talking about, it was about as real as Kiriko's disgust with everyone around her. It was like the complacent idea you held just to keep going, to struggle not to understand the true depth because that would take time.

Maya just kept at it though, her conviction shining on through, those fierce eyes staring and daring Kiriko to prove her wrong. Once upon a time she would have been the type of woman to wring this girl's neck for the mere insult of those eyes. Once upon a time she would have simply thrown her out of her office, cut her out her life entirely. She hadn't had the time for disobedience or for idiots back then. Once upon a time she might even had listened quietly and nodded, before reaching out with sticky hands to twist and turn that mind into exactly what she wanted from it. She'd been good, in the past, at manipulation. Especially when it came to those as broken and needy as Tanaka, those who were filled with the drive to succeed before their world imploded.

Today she wasn't like any of those past selves though. Today she was fresh and new, certain in the central belief that control was what would create what she needed. So she listened, attentively too, running her fingers along the edge of her desk as she followed those thoughts to their natural conclusions. And when Maya finally ceased her passionate diatribe, when those lips closed tight and those eyes burned up at her with a familiar dare, that was when Kiriko closed her own eyes and sighed as she leaned back into her chair.

“If it was that simple, Tanaka-san, this world would be a better place already,” she murmured, a whisper to her past self as easily as it was meant for the girl before her. Tanaka was turning even now, her stride taking her for the door. As if simply leaving would shut out Kiriko's own response.

She knew, with that soul-searing understanding that struck her from time to time, that Maya wouldn't ever get it the same way she did. Tanaka wouldn't simply understand through conversation alone, no matter how witty or articulate Kiriko became.

Without a sound, without any true indication other than the opening of her eyes, Kiriko let her aura flare up. Unfettered by the bounds she normally kept it under the true pressure of her soul came to bear on the other Shinigami. All those shades of regret, the pain of stumbling again and again and knowing it was your own damn fault. The color of forgiveness, the brighter shade of burnished suffering. Penance meant repenting for your sins, it meant admitting just how dark those depths were, just what a monster you were, but moving on because the world needed better. Penance was letting go of that illusion of perfection. It was admitting that you were weak. That everyone was weak. That the whole world made mistakes and all you could do was stumble back to your feet and work harder. That you owed the world to work harder. Penance was a promise to never give up, to never let those crimes wash off your hands just as the blood would never leave your eyes. Penance didn't mean forgiveness, and it never would. It never should.

It just was. The pressure that caused you to fight for one more step forward. The pain that reminded you of your guilt, that you had no right to sleep or dream when there were innocents out there who needed you. That you had no claim to your own life, no claim that the world didn't have in higher stakes.

Penance was the pain of Hell and the willful understanding that it would never leave you. That you fucking deserved it for what you'd done. But that it would push you just that much further, again and again, until you could see a world where penance was no longer Penance.

As that power flowed around them, the very air crying out for forgiveness, she cleaved into Maya's soul and drew forth the deepest of regrets. Everyone had made mistakes, everyone had sinned. It was a lie to claim otherwise, and she would force Tanaka to remember this even if she wanted to pretend to be some perfect warrior.

“Your heart makes you strong. Sure, it makes all of us strong. But strong enough is the question. Because despite your assurance that all you need is this world to give you motivation, the truth is that's not how everyone else functions. You should see this, just by looking at the people around you. We lowly beings need more than that, and if the price is to make mistakes, then I'll damn well accept those mistakes.”

Kiriko lifted one hand, holding it aloft before clenching it tight into a fist, “This is what most of us need to keep going. This pain, this remembrance. Laugh all you want, scoff if you must, but you don't understand what it's like to need this to keep fighting. We're not all good people, some of us are even monsters lurking under these human skins. But if we can make the world better, for all of that, what does it matter to you? Or does it upset your sensibilities too much, to be surrounded by the “heartless”. I've always found that a humorous phrase, when in truth we lost souls hold to our hearts all the more deeply, refusing to let go of old pains because of the strength we can glean from that suffering.”

She paused, silent, letting the truth of her soul seep into Maya as her aura pounded away at that insipid little lie. Did she really believe it could be that simple? The world itself would push everyone to protect it? To be good? To do what was right? Hadn't she herself seen the darkness of this place? Didn't she understand that most souls needed more than that to drive them forward?

“You want to know the difference between your time and mine? The monsters were hiding back then, and now they've come out to play. All those people who fought just for the sake of the world they lived in, they're all already dead. You want to tell me this motivation is wrong? That it's not the right way to go about things? Fine, go prove it. Go fight the world like that, and tell me how many people you have at your back like yourself. Tell me how many monsters you destroy like that. And we'll meet in the middle and compare, because I swear to you we might be horrible broken little creatures, but we're winning. I've already destroyed more than my fair share of this world's evils. Just watch me continue.”

WC: 1268 | GP: 25 | Total GP:  114

Her steps were steady, her heart light, as she walked out of Kiriko's door. In that moment, everything was right. She was prepared to take on the world if she had to, sure that she'd succeed. She'd punctured her Captain's warped philosophy, expressed her fears, accomplished something even if she wasn't sure that Kiriko would listen. She'd done enough to regain her status as Lieutenant, at least; secured the foundation she'd started to build, the progress she'd made, that had started to slide away from her while she was off chasing murderers. It was a good day. She'd done a lot, in such a short amount of time.

She was flying high when Kiriko's reiatsu struck back her down.

It was unimaginable. The closest thing it felt like was that day, that day, when there had been a monster in the sky. When she'd been paralyzed. When it sent her scurrying back to Earth, like a coward, and she'd almost given up if not for those precious words that she'd been clinging to, repeating like a mantra every time the thoughts came crawling back again.

You can kill these things too.

It made her think of things. It crawled deep into her mind and brought things forth that she'd rather keep buried. Her mistakes, her flaws? There were certainly enough of them. There was leaving Soul Society for her personal gain, a chance at glory and fulfillment that left duty behind. There was staying on Earth, not trying harder to get back here, content enough in exile. Even when she found she was needed again, she trusted Hi-to to take care of it for her, that nothing bad would happen if it wasn't done with her own two hands.

She thought she was unremarkable, see. She believed in her people. She was one brightly shining star among many others, among supernovae, and they'd shine without her. She could be removed from the picture, she could fade, and the sky would still be bright. Hi-to, at least, would carry on.

Right?

The only mistake she'd ever made was trusting anyone. The only mistake she'd ever made was in assuming that things would be fine if she laid her weapon down, quietly took her exit from the world. That she wasn't needed. That she wasn't important enough to matter. That her two hands would not rip the world apart or heal it again because there were others, so many stronger others that would be there to fix anything that went wrong.

The only mistake she'd ever made was counting on anyone else.

"I know." When she spoke them, the words were absolute truth. "I know I am alone. I understand that everyone else is broken and lowly, these things are not news to me. You are right that they have died, that the world is the way it is because the monsters are out in the light, the soldiers have fallen."

"But I am not dead, Taichou."

She was shivering. Kiriko's onslaught of power and emotion had left her shaken, turned around, clinging to the side of the door for support but still standing, unbowed and unbroken.

"I am here even if they are gone, and I am enough."

She pushed away from the doorframe and stood there unsupported, looking into her Captain's eyes. The eyes of a monster, she knew now. Another problem to solve, another name for the list, but an ally for now.

"If I have to, I'll stand with no one at my back. I'll drag the world back into light with my own two hands, alone. This is what I'm prepared to do, Taichou. I don't care what's in your heart because I don't need it. You go on with your pain, with your 'broken little creatures'. We'll see how far you get."

She turned, the ghost of a smile appearing on her face, and ran her hand through her hair. It was almost a reflexive gesture, something she'd do dozens of times on any normal day. Because that's what this was, a normal day. Facing these things, situations like this, was what she lived for.

"Let's compare notes, in a hundred years' time."

It was when she felt alive. It was when the mundane day-to-day unfulfilling nothingness of life faded away, and let her soul sing. It wasn't frightening. The frightening thing was the thought of life without these moments, of being a cog in a machine, affecting nothing. Her two hands being meaningless.

Fortunately, that wasn't the case. She'd pulled herself back from unique oblivion, corralled a monster, conquered the spirit that sent her there to send her home. She'd more or less bested a Captain her first day back, stopped a civil war not long after. She could do anything if she found the right way to do it, breaking it down into a series of steps.

All she had to do was find the right thread to pull.

All she had to do was never let her will falter.

"Know that when you stop making the world better, I will come for you."

She paused, standing still, half-obscured in the doorway.

"And I hope you do the same for me."
 
867/17 (70) - thread exit