Burning Wings [Closed/Takua]

It'd been a normal enough day. Patrol Tokyo, keep Hollows away, keep an eye on a few Shinigami. The works. Dropping by Karakura to check up on the status of what Sekai had constructed under the surface. Each of those in turn had been easy enough to do- to distract him, give him something to do, make him feel better about himself.

He still didn't have answers. There was a ticking bomb in his soul that would demand his life- and Takua had no idea if he should still give his life, even now after everything...or fight. The wish he made didn't seem to cover this- maybe it wasn't a sacrifice. Maybe it was just him being stupid. He wanted to fight. He wanted to live. To...make up for everything he had done, redeem himself, become something that wasn't a waste of space. But the Arrancar didn't have the answers, couldn't refute everything the Heart had said...but even worse, he still didn't know what to say about the questions he himself had posed.

Was what he had done pointless? Was who he was only the guilt of a monster doing its best to be human?

Who was he?

Those were the questions he wanted to be distracted from, so here he was. Walking down this lovely road while dodging pedestrians that couldn't see him. That was, until he felt someone else's reiatsu coming down the street. Quincy. Weak really, although strong enough that he could have become a high numbered seated officer in Seireitei.

Were the other boy a Shinigami or an Arrancar, Takua would never have let them get close. He'd have ducked away into a side street, Sonido'd away, or any of another thousand tricks. As it was...as a human, there was no real need to. Part of him wanted to see what the reaction would be, part of him wanted to know what another human would think of an Arrancar living in the city...

Or maybe it was just plain playfulness that caused him to turn around at the last second to prevent the man from walking into him. To watch, with a polite smile on his face, as the man began to apologize- and then fear and anger broke through the automatic response.

Takua's lips twitched, smile deepening as the man immediately began shouting in a tantrum that rivaled that of Sekai's.

Was this a trait of humanity he'd forgotten about? Or just...some very weird happenstance.

The Arrancar chuckled at the barrage of self-righteous questions, “I can hear you just fine you know, no need to shout. I'm blind, not deaf.” Rich amusement colored his words as he looked about at all of the people backing away from this young man. Well of course they couldn't see Takua- for all they knew, this man was shouting at thin air. It was actually quite an embarrassing situation to be in.

Snorting gently at the man's “invitation”, Takua grinned. Maybe this was what he needed to distract himself- a rather foolish human to be confused about reality. “Well sure.” Turning, the Arrancar led the away from the circle- a circle that parted as Raph got closer, the people backing away from a crazy man who'd shouted at air. “Well, first,” Takua started, “I live here. In Tokyo. So that's what I'm 'doing' here. Very specifically I'm just enjoying the day and making sure there aren't Hollows hunting humans at the moment.”

The street rolled past slowly, cars whizzing by as they put some distance between them and where the Quincy had his outburst. “Oh,” he added with a slight grin on his face, his voice dry, “And I haven't devoured a human or even Shinigami soul in about...oh, say, sixteen times how long you've been alive. So I don't think you have to worry so much about that. But who knows!” He really shouldn't have been sarcastic. He knew that.

But it was just so damn hard not to respond to that accusation.

WC: 665 | GP: 13 | Total: 13

The arrancar’s overall sarcastic response was a bit annoying. Well, yeah you’re blind but when you’re a monster that usually hunts people for food and tons of people that the person you’re talking to has… Oh, screw it! It didn’t matter in the end. The arrancar decided to go with Raph rather readily, something which elicited a rather confused face from Raph. That wasn’t something that monsters did… What in the world did this mean? Had Raph been wrong and this thing wasn’t as crazy as he first though?



“What do you mean that you LIVE here in Tokyo? And you HUNT the hollows that attack the people here?” The surprise in Raph’s voice was obvious and he didn’t even try to hide it for once. Since when did a hollow, let alone an arrancar, hunt their own kind, other than to eat them?! It made no sense. Perhaps he was an exception to the rest of his self-destructive kind. Or, as with many of his kind, this was some kind of trick and he was just trying to lull Raph into a false sense of security. There were too many possibilities, as always and so Raph had to simply go with his gut. Unfortunately his gut and he hated each other at the moment and so he decided to simply trust the arrancar. A dangerous decision? Perhaps, but he’d have to find out later.



A pastry truck sped past them as they walked and people gave Raph space as he spoke to himself, or perhaps the air beside him, they didn’t care which one. They just didn’t want to be anywhere near the crazy guy. Raph sometimes envied them. Occasionally he wished he could be one of those people that stared at the crazy guy talking to the ghost, instead of BEING the guy that that talked to the ghosts. How life had changed by all of these powers.



Finally they came to an area that was relatively devoid of people and Raph came to a stop. “Ok, so more question time: Don’t hollows normally live in Hueco Mundo? Been there once, don’t recommend it. Too much sand and it set off my allergies a bit. I don’t really remember much. Didn’t learn as much as I would’ve wanted to about the hollows. But now I don’t tend to worry about it. We’ve got our own problems. People growing well beyond their means, know what I mean?” He chuckled. “I sometimes wonder what each world likes like to the other races. How do you like our world? Is everything to your liking?”



Words: 433
GP: 8
Total: 19

Takua took a long glance at the boy next to him. Once again he was reminded just how little human races knew about the world of spirits. Not surprising really, but sometimes he just assumed that people knew the basic facts of Hollows. As though they were somehow widespread and taught like they should be. Well screw it, it seemed like he was going to have to be the teacher once again.

“Actually,” Takua started in the tone of a man who was sharing a useless bit of trivia, “Hollows eat each other pretty exclusively for most of their lifespan. Once you get to a certain point, human souls just don’t taste good. Only ones with power do. So we emigrate to Hueco Mundo, where you have several million Hollows out in the desert trying to do nothing but survive and feed. Much better prospects for prey, wouldn’t you think?” As though Hollows that hunted other Hollows were the exception instead of the norm. Maybe once they got rational enough it became more rare, but up until that point you could even say that a Hollow’s usual meal was their own race. There were other options of course, but they had a lot of risk.

Forming a hunting pack to track down and devour low ranking Shinigami being one of them.

Takua smiled, “And I mean that I live here. Bought a home using human money. It’s quite legally mine. And no, I didn’t steal that money. I earned it legitimately.” And this young man could stick that in his craw and choke on it, the Arrancar thought cheerfully, if he wanted to say that Takua didn’t belong here. So far as the human world was concerned, Takua belonged here just as rightfully as anyone else. He was even a contributing member of society.

They came to a stop at last, finally at a point where the man could talk without being looked at like he was psychotic and talking to thin air. The thought made Takua’s smile turn into a bit of a grin, but he kept the more mischievous one inside for now.

It didn’t last too long.

Had this man been a prisoner after the Incursion? Now that he thought about it, the reiatsu was a little familiar. He could very well been there. But it wasn’t a direct match. Maybe it’d been a bit different then, and his powers had developed enough to change how his reiatsu was composed? Either way, the man deserved a little less sarcasm in that case. “Sure. And if you saw any of it, you saw all of it, or nearly so. You’ve got one giant ass fucking desert under a perpetual moon, one city called Las Noches, and a massive cavern where most of the Gillian hang out to devour each other.” Really, it just fucking sucked as a plane of reality. As desolate as the hearts of the souls that lived in it- and usually as cold as them too, his toasty temperature notwithstanding.

He raised an eyebrow at that last question though. Not exactly what he thought the man was going to ask. “Well it’s a hell of a lot better than Hueco Mundo, that’s for sure.” His smile relaxed a touch and Takua rolled both shoulders in an expressive shrug. “Honestly? The only downside to Earth is that the air is too thin. Hueco Mundo’s air is thick- Reishi rich. Hollows can live off it, don’t even need to eat technically. But…” Takua trailed away, looking out far beyond the young man in front ofo him before continuing, a soft smile on his face, “It’s so much more beautiful and vibrant here. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.”

WC: 621 | GP: 12 | Total: 25

Hollows ate each other? Well that’s certainly one reason as to why they were so fucked up… They devoured themselves in a pointless battle for survival. Much like humans did in the metaphorical sense; only made sense after all that they would try and devour each other as monsters… He supposed. It was then that the arrancar went into his specifics of living in the human world, contributing, making money blah blah blah. Raph didn’t care about that. It made much more sense with him living in the human world like he said he was.

“Look, buddy, I wouldn’t suggest that you stole money. And in the end, it doesn’t matter if you stole the money; I mean shit happens regardless. People make and lose money every day.” He paused for a moment and then replied, “Partially thanks to, well, that whole thing with the arrancar attacking Karakura and getting kidnapped... Things always happen. So ya know, I don’t tend to worry about appearances anymore. I mean look at me! I don’t even know what I am anymore…” Raph laughed halfheartedly. “It’s kind of funny, sometimes when you think about it; life’s twists and turns. If things had turned out differently…well, you might’ve known me as a hollow… But thankfully I’m not.”

They came to a stop in a desolate clearing, somewhere in some of the more...hollow infested ruins of Karakura. Nothing nearby, though, thank god. He didn’t want this conversation to end. It was strange running into an arrancar that he didn’t want to kill, or that didn’t specifically want to kill him. But as he listened to the man’s description of Hueco Mundo… Yep, didn’t sound like it got much better with any word. Well, at least it didn’t get much better the further in you went.

“Sounds pretty awful,” he replied. “One castle, a desert and a…what the hell’s a Gillian?” He shrugged. “Whatever it is, it sounds pretty freaking ugly.” The thing about reishi was certainly interesting. “I remember the air being almost…like a soup. If that’s what you mean. Moving that shit around was a pain in the ass half the time. I always wondered why it felt like powers became so much stronger in Hueco Mundo.” Slowly he also looked off into the distance. “It is quite beautiful. That’s one of the sad things about mortals, I’d say. They don’t know how good they have it with the world the way it is. Always starting wars…killing each other and trying to destroy it. Jesus... History’s an asshole, people never learn from it and no matter how hard you try to protect them they form gangs, shoot each other, and are, generally speaking, dicks to one another.” He stopped. “But for every jerk, there’s another two nice people that want to do the right thing, or someone that leaps to the defense of the oppressed and the beaten down. People like me, that want to help.” He paused again before continuing. “In the end, I agree. There’s nowhere else I’d rather be either. Even being turned into a quincy, didn’t change that.”

Words: 517
GP: 10
Total: 29

Takua snorted as he glanced at the human. That was almost adorable the way that he was trying to pin the crime in the area on Arrancar. “I hate to break it to you kid,” he said with derision, “But that problem was around for a long time before my race ever got involved. Don't pin that problem on my kind. If you're going to accuse us of anything, just accuse us of any of our actual crimes. Not like there isn't enough of them.” Glancing down at the young Quincy, the blind man just shook his head. Right. Because the Incursion had totally increased the rate of robberies around here from what it had been before.

More likely it was just that the boy had become aware of those crimes more and more now.

The terrible irony of it all was that with every criminal element in Karakura dead because of the Incursion, and most of the town destroyed...well, some types of crime would have gone down. Looting destroyed shops was one thing, but...

Well, you needed people to commit crimes.

Continuing in a more normal voice, Takua shook himself out and stretched, “All I was pointing out was that I've complied with human law. No worries.” In the end the boy had utterly missed the reason why Takua had said it, but it was way too late to worry about that. Either he'd given off the wrong impression or the Quincy simply wanted to take the conversation a different way.

Especially because, apparently, he wanted to vent about life to the Arrancar. The blind man just smiled, raising an eyebrow toward the sky, “Well you're certainly not wrong. You could be a Hollow right now. Or a Shinigami. Mundane, dead, powerful, whatever. Those are all possibilities.”

But instead, here we are. Funny how the world works. He could have been anything, but he was an Arrancar. His life had followed this path...and he had learned lessons that he might have learned anywhere else because of it. Because, in a twisted way, of his mistakes. If events hadn't played out exactly as they had, he might not be here...and certainly wouldn't be the same person even if he was. One slender, winding road that had taken him to this point, to this Takua, wrestling with these problems as himself.

If you considered it like that it was enough to make your head spin.

Thankfully, you could also just consider it as life.

“Take a Hollow about four stories high, make it all black with a white mask. That's a Gillian. They all look pretty much the same, and it's one of the stages of evolution necessary to become an Adjuchas or Arrancar,” Takua explained, a faint smile on his face. Quite a confident man, wasn't he? So sure that he was on the right and good side of the world. Amusing in some ways. Concerning in others. People who were utterly convinced of their own righteousness often made for the most overzealous crusaders. Or at least hopelessly closed minded.

But he smiled regardless, small and gentle even as his words were firm, “And yet despite that, they persevere. Work to make life better. For every asshole trying to beat someone down, there's another person rising above what that asshole is doing. It's quite a remarkable quality of humans, don't you think?” Resilience, even in the face of adversity. The town they stood in was testament to that ability to recover.

Press them down, but they would only spring back, hardier and more brilliant than before, no matter how they stumbled.

WC: 601 | GP: 12 | Total: 37