Cowards [closed]

He shouldn’t be doing this.

All precautions aside, he’d only attempted this much in search for the missing thread was left lingering, the answer he had not yet found. Every foot he ventured further into their territory was a risk, one that ultimately would gain him nothing. His flesh suit would only do so much to mask his energy and those few modifications he had made to its appearance, brown hair instead of the usual color amongst a dozen others, would only throw off any physical description that his Beloved Thanatos might have provided, if no one else had as of yet. If need be there were other steps he could take, but all too significant to be of use for long, too revealing to employ for no real gain. The only consolation at the moment was that many of the poor reapers were caught up in events he already knew the outcome of, and sadly, no place in.

Maybe he would see his Bearer of Needs afterwards.

And yet he ventured further into the ghettos that defined their heaven, stunned but not surprised at the squalor of it all. It only made a certain amount of sense in world they existed in that it would be this destitute. A sad sort of sense, but one that did not shock him as it should have.

Unimportant, though. It was not his place to be concerned with it, nor was it important enough to make return trips short of some spectacular necessity. What was important, now that he had opened himself to the waves of the world, was the siren song of familiarity that had been drawing him further from the shores. A soul, some dark potential in it that sang in whispers and danced in flashes of one moment or the next, had called unexpectedly out to him. Instinct told him it was important. Need expressed a desire to have it. In the end he had little choice but indulge the both of them.

Perhaps it would be interesting.

There’s precious little else he could do but follow the sensation like an addict. It was in his veins by then, a little stronger with each step in the right direction. It was…exciting. It was the sort of excitement that had not been genuine in the madman for some time, at that. Everything else fell out of focus as the fluttering in his stomach grew more intense; the confused looks or passing pleasantries hadn’t really mattered to him in the first place but were all but ignored now. He felt his breath draw in once, held in his lungs like he had forgotten to breathe, and stepped through a doorway.

A voice welcomed him.

He’d definitely forgotten how to breathe.

In that moment he went still, the sway in his movements becoming stone while admiring the woman that greeted him. She was beautiful, but not in the traditional sense. It was not about appearance, not that she was homely or undesirable. It was in how she carried herself, not the figure she concealed. Though her lips merited notice, stolen glances that abruptly washed his mind with the sort of thoughts his Need did not provoke but approved of all the same. She was disorienting, whether she realized it or not, and if not for the bellowing of his instincts would have lost himself in her sight for a time. Though instead when his eyes caught hers, if only for an instant, and felt the color in his own churn into a dark brown to match such a deep gaze, he saw far more in her than most would be comfortable with.

She was painted with such lovely smoldering cracks.

At once he collected himself, a small smirk and nod before removing his hat. He bowed deeply, placing it against his chest, but did not lower his eyes or head in the gesture. She’d had asked him such an important question as if it was just another banal introduction. How could he do anything else but grin, razor-wire and wickedness in his lips? He kept his hat to his side as he straightened; let the lilting joy of his tone speak for itself.

“Tea would be a welcome start, but your company as well. If you wouldn’t mind me stealing a bit of your time.” There’d be no attempt to hide the deviousness in his voice, playful as it was. That he had begged anything else, even tea, had been an after thought. But it was so fragrant around him that he had to partake or risk it distracting him from more important things. There were a dozen different flavors each as potent as the next and thick in the air around him, and all of them differing just enough to be overwhelming. It was difficult enough with all the scents filling the air, sharp citrus tang and a subtle but intoxicating floral aroma that made his mind wander to another woman who had far more effect on him than she should have.

Rude, perhaps, but not something that could be helped.

A brief pause and on the edge of that realization his lips curled in an almost embarrassed way. Always so easy to forget that just because he could pluck the name out of her pretty head did not mean she could do the same. Surely, he could make her know it, could do many things along that line, but none of them would be as enjoyable as a conversation.

If only for the moment.

“Nazomi, by the by. I’m a fortune teller of sorts, and I think you may want to hear what I have to say.” He smiled, that bright and wolfish grin, and for once actually felt it to be real. If only those poor little souls around him, though the madam in particular, didn’t make him feel so damned hungry. Whether for one sort of feast or another he hadn’t decided…

But he had time yet to decide.

=====================

WC: 1002

His brown hair is by no means alien to her; she sees people with this shade of hair frequently. It is not the eyes either, not entirely at least, as they glimmer with a shade of chocolate similar to her own, if maybe a hue lighter. There is a bit of disturbance in the pupils, an unsettling static, jittery and tinkering, thoughts churning, but not enough to set her off. It is not even his clothes, foreign, tight and in too many pieces for her to care. Not his smile, his gait, his peculiar bow she can only attribute to belonging to a simpler culture.

The air that surrounds him is what gets to her; it's tense and electric, a gust that blew open her door as he entered, carried by the wind like some goblin king.

The very notion of the social energy this man exudes, with his brimming, but subtle confidence, confuses her. This is not the kind of person who has just entered a business dictated by the customs of foreign culture and seeks to adhere to the doctrine of norms it imposes on its visitor, not at all. On the contrary, this is the sort of person to waltz in, bow with utter defiance and defecate all over a cultural standard the owner has worked so hard to maintain. He is worse than the blond outsider kid who dropped by a fair few times, and he has only just entered the building.

Even so, she finds herself smiling once more, however, placid and plump lips forming an agreeable grimace to greet this cold creature from the sphere outside of the isles that matter. Besides, it is not like this is a man that has come asking for trouble immediately. He seemingly carry no arms, tricks up his sleeves perhaps, but no open threats or any sort of hostility is presented; she has experienced worse with people belonging to the group she likes to call "us".

Yet she still finds herself developing an aversion to him that steadily grows as she gesticulates for him to approach with her tantalizingly long fingers, red paint shimmering as the fingers fold towards the palm with the gesture.

Gradually, as the man's visage becomes more clear to her, black strokes start covering his face. Where the intense eyes, the fishhook grin and the sullen face had been, two symbols gradually replace, leaving little of his face left. The black ink drips, running down his face as her spirit speaks a silent language.



"Outsider". That much is obvious, Tomie replies with dour afterthought, as if her companion is some simpleton. Perhaps she is as far as she knows, given the fact that she has only known the spirit for approximately two weeks. Well, this is not strictly true, as the creature had frequently invaded her vision and made cryptic gesticulations in order to make her do what she wants for years. However, she excludes all occasions prior to first contact as true interaction: the true personality of this cretin has only recently started to shine through with the symbols she carves.

The old symbols wash away from his face, two new take their place, angular and foolish.



"Like". So she likes him to. I suppose not everyone can have excellent tastes when matters come to an end. I don't even know what he did that so thoroughly impressed you. She receives no answer, but knows she has been heard, as per usual.

After feeding her personal little oni, she turns her attention towards her guest once more, smile growing slightly wider as she starts writing down details in her little brown book, pages torn and ripped. "Of course," she notes, a reply of trite blitheness, as her brush caresses the page with the cryptic symbols of her language. "What sort of tea do you want?" Her eyes peek at this most strange of guests, stealing glances in between the writing on the pages.

"A pleasure to meet you then, Mister Nazomi," she absentmindedly remarks, writing the first pair of symbols her spirit had suggested when describing her customer, this Nazomi. What sort of name is that even? And on top of that, he claims to be a fortuneteller. Her crescent smile, a prop stuck to her mask, glides out of its usual shape, into a lopsided smirk, still red and toothless.
"A fortuneteller, you say? You must have traveled a long way, then. I suppose you might be tired."

Only when she finishes writing does she look up. The same smile, the same intense eyes greet her rueful marble facade as she gesticulates for him to move towards a room to the right. "Please have a seat in there. I will be with you shortly, after fetching the tea." Even with wooden shoes on wooden tiles, she makes no sounds as she passes the room and heads down the hallway to gather the necessities for this encounter with a barbarian.

In the kitchen, on the jar with tea leaves, two Hiragana are firmly planted in bold black, dry and bastant. "ばか". Fool. Who is the fool now? Him or me? Yet again she receives no answer.

She arrives in the room about as swiftly as she had abandoned her guest to his own whims, with instructions par for the course, but eyes him cautiously with a golden smile. "Do elaborate about your fortunetelling, please. Where did you learn your craft?"

It’s all polite business on the surface, but as always he knows better; whether or not it’s something that he truly wishes to or not. Even then he plays to the role she has cast him in, makes it simple enough for her in the moment. It’s been some time since he partook in the frivolous little joys, things like tea, and so his response is as decidedly boring as his life has been without those things. Whatever she thought best suited him, as he had told her, and if only so he might wring just a bit more definition the image she had presented.

Again he is lost in the cold confidence of her, the reaction to her commanding gestures immediate enough to split his lips in a husky breath, quiet and quick as it was. His excitement was not all a physical matter. There was always more, the intimacy that came with time and insight. Knowledge that would have use soon enough, but with no need to rush the madman decided tea would be better in the immediate.

She addresses him like any other patron, the mild annoyance of it nothing he had not grown used to given the other constants in his life. At least it hadn’t been honorifics; they were tiresome for their wholesomeness and attempt to be politely impersonal and personal all at the same time. It’s the rest of it that startles him, whether she noticed or not. Lips parted in uncertainty, a grimace that he masked once again with a smile as quickly as could be considered genuine. He closed his eyes, broke the connection between them with modicum of effort, and opened them again with dull silver smoldering in place, flecks of what had been now the embers dying in his gaze.

More weary than she might be able to appreciate.

The noise he made in response is agreeable confirmation to her question, but otherwise extending no more effort than that. There was still the uncomfortable sense of familiarity pressing into his spine like needles, a terrible dread he had somehow long forgotten unburying itself from the grave soil of past history. It was the failing of his insight that it worked two ways. It shouldn’t have affected him like that, not anymore, but that it had was a distinctly uncomfortable indication as to either his loss of control or the enormity of her sudden importance she might have. Whichever it was, or even if it was a consideration that he had not yet thought of, did not really matter. Whether he should be there or not was also no longer of importance. That he needed to see it to the end was.

A slight incline, not quite a nod, and his smile twisted a bit higher. The show in this was not to make a show of it. Her estimation of him had been quite clear already, and in that he had desired to be contradictory. At the hostess’ behest he entered the room, simple and windowless, the only furniture to speak of being a meager table and shelf. The moment he entered, however, he was met with an old smell he used to surround himself with constantly. Enough so he imagined that his skin might have reeked of it once; tainted him down to the core. Exposed to it again it was only then that Nazomi realized just how much he had missed it.

First, he tended to the matters at hand. Casually he slipped out of his shoes, which he should have done at the door but preferred them closer by in case necessity should require a quick exit instead. The thought of leaving behind something that could be used to easily track him did not sit well. His coat too, folded neatly and sat to the side of the table next to his shoes, hat placed atop it so as not to lose track of it either. With that done Nazomi turned his attention to the shelf and the small wooden boxes that adorned it. Plucking one from place he opened it, the stink of ink assailing him almost immediately and he was only better for it.

His head spun. Not the sort of spinning that comes from the high fume or narcotics might bring but a dizzying twist that felt like the whole of the room tumbled and turned in his perceptions. If he wasn’t careful it very well might. As it was he realized it for what it was, his insight again, touched by the world he stood in, rather than the soul he had anchored himself to all too briefly. It was there and gone in an instant, not enough time for him to make sense of the details for more than a moment. A different place, a different cultural aesthetic, and the few items, most that had to have been comforts given the shabby state of the place, and a woman…

Then all of it was gone.

She was standing in the place he had seen someone else, question still fresh on those hypnotic lips. And as much as he found himself distracted by the thought of trapping them between his teeth, she had caught him unprepared. Startled like that and the madman had turned, the stone spilling out of his hand and drawing a reaction from him that was more instinct than he cared to admit. It hadn’t been any real feat for him to snatch it from the air before it could break, but he imagined that the speed with which he had acted must have come across odd. Then again, he had presented himself as a seer, so perhaps that would be sufficient explanation enough for her.

“I didn’t learn it, as such.” He spoke sheepishly and by god he felt…something. Elated, maybe embarrassed? It was nice, if he could call such a thing that. It was light in his chest, suddenly able to breathe as if he had been denied to the right to do so for far too long. When he smiled, could not help but, it was a small and wistful affair he wore while placing the lid back over the box the stone had been in. He brought it to the table with him, kneeling in place where he seemed appropriate, and laid it nearby. This time it was Nazomi who gestured, towards the other side of the table, and asked her as politely as he was capable of for her to join him. Saying “Please?” may not have seemed monumental to the docile world, but manners were the last thing he considered or entertained in any other situation.

Why it merited it in this one might be worth revisiting later.

“It’s the one consistency of both lives. I simply didn’t understand what it was when I was alive. Imagine, if you would, what it might do to a young man when he sees things he cannot explain.” The smile wavered just a little bit. He considered, if only for a moment, attempting to show her. The ink would have been a perfect medium, but not one he was yet prepared to entertain. It was far too early in their encounter to be so brazen. But he stared at her, through her, and the light in the room danced across his face but did nothing to diminish the spark that changed the dull grey into shining silver and gold. This time when he took a breath he made it deep, held it tight in him as he watched and let it out only after there was enough time between for his theatrics to play their part.

“I see the truth of the world and the souls in it, whether I desire to or not.” Perfectly monotone, it came out a cadence of that sounded almost like a spell being chanted. But he wore a razor-wire grin, teeth a little sharper against the curve of his lips and lost a moment later when the shadow finally darkened across his features. A good lead in, perhaps, but he did not expect her to be convinced easily. That was the point of adopting ominous feature and actions. All con men needed to sell themselves to an extent and she seemed jaded enough to appreciate that, being she was someone who had faked enough of her life to get by as well.

But he relaxed again, seemingly without acknowledging the passing of his action as he pulled his pocket watch out and laid it across the table. He touched it, briefly, opened it, but did not hear it. For a moment he worried he would find the hands stilled and the moment arrived, but saw instead the chaos of spinning hours and minutes that had not been a part of it for years. He smiled again before shutting it, leaving it where it had been placed for the moment.

“That’s how I found this place.” Quietly as it had been said, his voice managed to fill the room and only the room.

“How I found you, Miss Tomie.” He frowned, a dozen images filling his head and all too mangled or mixed together to settle on any one outcome. But he saw blood, felt it in him, could single out the bloated smell of carrion in the air and knew, with some certainty that things were going to get more interesting, dangerous as well, but he couldn’t quite decide for whom that might be.

“It’s why I’ll do you the kindness now of telling you not to because the consequences are not what you think they will be.” He’d meant that, which was odd enough. He’d never considered trying to use what he saw as a means to help anyone. But then again he knew enough of the classics to know why that was a pointless endeavor. Cassandra had tried it and that had ended so poorly for her.

This time when he spoke it did not echo through the room. His mouth moved, but he did not. All the same his voice was in her ear, the sensation he added of his lips against the skin of her ear was more for his indulgence though. His senses extended across her, such as they were, it was just a selfish little desire he had felt inclined to sate. It was likely the only pleasure he’d be allowed from that point out, sadly. But somehow he had known that well before setting things into motion.

“That’s how I know about your pet oni.”

=============================

WC: 1762

So this is apparently a game of undressing to this man, this fortuneteller. Having removed a considerable amount of his outer wear, garbed only in strange layers of clothing concealed underneath the already bizarre rags, he stands in the room she had guided him towards with his lanky limbs and ruffled feathers, spelunking to the beat of his own leisure as he has also apparently picked up an ink stick which is now dangerously far up his nostrils. Is this some sort of barbarian party game? It seems most peculiar to indulge in it in solitude. I digress...

Her thoughts trail as the man notices that she is standing beneath the archway, tray with two steaming cups of tea on in hand. She thought he would have heard her coming, felt her coming with his perception of the future. Yet there he stands, squiggling and staring, not much different from a schoolboy caught with a hand firmly planted in a box of rice cakes as his mother enters. The charred stick with ornate symbols drawn onto it plummets from his grasp, then straight into his other. Perhaps there is something to his claim of being a fortuneteller, even if he cannot look further than past his own tall nose.

Or maybe he just anticipated where it would fall and snatched it with his grimy talons as a demonstration of his reflexes. She certainly does not know, nor does she rule out either as valid options.

But Tomie says nothing. She walks past the charade of folded clothes, removed hats and juggling frauds disguised as entertainers with a stiff smile and fluid movement. "It's sencha with cherry," she remarks after posing the question about the acquisition of his abilities, pointing into his cup, dyed green by the dried leaves and spices with the occasional petal between. Both hands wrapped around the vessel, she guides it towards her lips, then lets a single sip enter her mouth. The scalding sensation overtakes her seasoned palate briefly, letting the liquid sit for a while as the earthly flavors seep into her taste buds, then briefly followed by the salty texture the blossoms leave.

This Nazomi seems to be able to read the atmosphere with the abilities of a Japanese child, which certainly is a compliment when talking about a stranger whose understanding of Japanese culture is minimal, as there is something about his face, his smile in particular, that leads her to believe he is feeling at least something vaguely similar to shame. She has many a times pondered if these outsiders even possess the same emotional capacity as the one true race, but even more than many a times doubted they do. Most of them seem to have such small heads too, so that likely means they are not as intellectually capable as her people.

A bit of pity stings her as she looks from the man to the jar from which he had retrieved to ponder whether this is the first time he has ever seen an inkstick. Perhaps he was unable to help himself and just snorted it upon noticing it inside the box.

The way he elaborates about him "seeing things he cannot explain" doesn't leave her particularly convinced about his alleged gifts given at birth. Great. Maybe this man is just insane in addition to a foreigner. If the gods, which likely do not even exist, saw fit to play a cruel joke on her today, then it is a very poor one; she's definitely not in the mood to entertain this sort of patron who likely doesn't even have money. She briefly ponders if anyone would even miss him if he is never seen leaving her tea house. He doesn't seem to be the kind of man to leave a family behind.

"Truth, you say?" She speaks with a vague interest, still mostly occupied with her tea where she sits, treating his tales and eccentric mannerisms as entertainment accompanying the drink. His misaligned teeth, horrid and ugly she notes, rest against his lips as he smiles, the telltale signs of a commoner.

Some sort of strange contraption is suddenly placed on the table, pried open to reveal the machinations underneath the lid, her eyes drawn onto it. Something moved, throbbed like a heart as an arrow idly drags along a display of unfamiliar symbols. Then he locks it again, lets it rest on the table between the two of them. He has yet to touch his tea.

She is pretty sure her heart skipped a beat there.

She hadn't introduced herself to the man, had she? That was a mistake, too. The madam should have given him her last and first names when she told him she would be keeping him company today. But she hadn't. He had introduced himself with that strange gesture of his, then she had forgotten to do so. Yet, he knows her first name and addresses her with that, likely to irk her.

"It's Magahara to you, Mister Nazomi," she says with a smile, stretching her red lips as she puts down her cup, eyes frantically moving between him and the odd metal disc he had removed from one of the pockets on his clothing. In the midst of this, one of her hands travel down to her lap, while the other maintains its firm grip around the cup. "I'm afraid I have to insist."

Then more cryptic remarks follow, a warning of sorts regarding the future. What had he seen? What sort of consequences did they have for her? And most importantly: did she believe him? There are many con-men out there, and she certainly is not the type to be fooled by them. She is a fairly notable figure in the district, so this traveler had likely heard about her in advance.

Did his eyes change color? She hadn't paid attention if she is to be honest. Other things had been occupying her mind than what his stupid face looks like; it is not like it will last for long anyway.

In her hand, a swirling torrent of air is gathering, condensing into a ball resting in her palm. It gathers the winds from outside, through cracks in the window, spaces in the floor, the excess in the air. It is a vacuum-loaded gift she intends to give him for his foolish misdemeanor. Perhaps this is what he is referring to?

His voice is tickling her ear, but his mouth is nowhere near her. He still sits where he had been situated after she had brought the tea to him, wretched and mangled. The intimate sensation of someone else's murmurs in her ears makes the minuscule hairs on her arms and neck stand to an end, as sensual as it is inappropriate.

Alas, she does not even move, much less flinch, where she sits. Her eyes are locked with his, immobile, cold, unfeeling. They have already made peace with the situation that is about to unfold.

"待って".

With sloppy haste, these letters form across Nazomi's face, dripping with the urgency of freshly grinded ink. "Wait". But she doesn't heed the command.

Like a wave, her arm undulates from underneath the table, swings upwards, then presses the gem of dancing air forwards, aiming it towards her guest. It stops, just for a second, before she gently pushes the orb.

It darts forwards with momentum in stark contrast to the soft gesture of the caster, blasting through the scene while gradually expanding and contracting, a winged heart with only intent to destroy. The blistering speed makes it so that it takes a while until she notices that it has not collided with her intended target. Instead, it has carved a neat hole in the door and flown straight into the foyer.

The whistling breeze and the cracks of sunshine from the windows betray that this is an otherwise nice day, she notes.

Then it all explodes with howling winds of winter, the searing of tornados, wrath of Raijin all at once in the entrance, expanding outwards as it tears through the thin paper door to their room, leaving a plethora of slices in the thin cellulose before ripping large holes in it, cutting the wooden frame and blowing the window inside open. Her hair flaps everywhere in the wind, sleeves dancing as they reveal her bony arms, tugging at the clothing. Her cup falls over, liquid spilling on the wooden table. Sheets of paper, shredded by the threads in the yarn she had thrown, flails into the room, confetti accompanying her failure.

It all dies down to the sound of fluttering paper, then a loud thump. As silence settles in, the same determination rests in her eyes, slowly blinking as Tomie raises her chin, still staring into Nazomi's eyes.

She had missed, but not entirely.

The area from the left side of his scalp down to his arm are all covered in cuts of varied severity; nothing lethal, but it definitely has to hurt. Bleed, too. The light thuds of red droplets from his arm is the only sound she can hear.

Until she hears the dripping outside.

She hadn't noticed the foyer until she heard the sound. Noticed that the walls are stained with red, oozing even down from the ruined hinges of the door. From what she can see, it is spread sporadically, like a red rose blossoming in the garden, delicate petals with only fine edges. The entire scene is not visible from her angle, only parts of it.

Another droplet drums as it hits the wooden floor, enticing her to investigate; who had been in the foyer when the bomb exploded?

Ignoring her guest entirely, the madam strides past him, eyes intently aimed forwards, the unwavering resolution still present. She slips on her wooden shoes as she pushes the remnants of the door aside, causing it to collapse and fall to the floor with a loud thud.

The fragments of what was once a proud room filled with her tasteful decor greets her as curious eyes examine the roof dotted with splatters of blood, gashed open by her vile magic, the sky peeking in from the above.

What once used to be furniture lays scattered about, tattered and torn by the force exerted. A book lies in the corner closest to the hallway, unreadable due to red liquids staining the remaining pages.

A body.

Bloodied, clothed in garbs mutilated by the harsh winds and oozing fluids on the floor at an alarming rate. The head is slumped to the side against the floor, chest rising hastily as it heaves for breath.

Is this a visitor? A regular customer? A traveler? One of her girls?

Shuffling ever closer, the hem of her robes barely hovering above the destruction on the floor, she attempts to discern whose face this used to be. But she doesn't need to. Because amidst the red, there is orange, sticky and glued together by the clumping blood. Something crunches underneath the heel of her thick-soled shoes: glass from the drinking vessel she had been given earlier.

Her nose is nearly entirely torn off, hanging on from a single strip of flesh. A large gash runs from where her left eyebrow had been to the hairline on the opposite size, pumping blood into her curly hair. A cut runs parallel to her cheek from the lip, the inside of the mouth visible from it. The throat is mangled beyond help and the primary source of creeping red on the floor. The rest of her body shares wounds of a similar scale, too many to count.

Except for her eyes.

Mai's eyes shine with the same intensity and against all the crimson, with even stronger contrast than they used to as they meet her own. Confusion is the very first thing that hits Tomie as she starts to analyze them with her stern eyes and pursed lips; the girl does not even understand what has just happened. It had passed too quickly for her to do so. Panic is the second thing she notices as she tries to gasp for air, blood convulsing in her mouth. Time is ebbing out.

Does she have anything to say? What would Mai even want her to say in a situation like this, in a place where she had been promised protection from violence? She deserves words, as it is the least the marble statue can offer her in a situation like this, where even magic cannot help her. Her best employee deserves honesty on her death bed. There are only two words that can be attributed as genuine when coming from her, words she seldom express with heartfelt emotion.

"Thank you."

As soon as these words cautiously escape Tomie's lips, Mai exhales, eyes still firmly attached to the woman garbed in purple. They hold her gaze for a while, as the struggle ceases entirely, head tilting entirely to the side now, cheek resting in a pool of her own blood. The eyes follow soon thereafter, rolling towards the floor. There is nothing in them now, only an empty color against the slaughterscape.

A single piece of lemon, completely intact, lies next to her, yellow in a red world.

Again he had to admire her. Possessed of a calculating grace, such stillness the virtue of murderers, even the madman would have to confess to a slight chill in his spine when she stared him down. It was with similar detachment he had studied her. Perhaps then, if he endured the attack, that would be enough even if it would mean wounding a Witch’s pride. Better to have Will bled, to have been used for its intention, than to deny her that. He hadn’t come for any other reason to see someone interesting, had no interest in his habits at the moment. They would not have fulfilled here any better than they had in the waking world. She was…so familiar. His brain still ached with a dozen thoughts, holes widening just a bit more so that anything that might have been of substance fell through them.

He took his tea, covered the top of the cup with his palm, and let his lips curl in a slight but somber smile.

It swept over him, glancing across his skull and arm like a dozen little knives. The pain of it barely registered, itched and irritated more than hurt, actually. Somehow he had expected the impact of it to be more solid, certain that her power should have inflicted more upon him than it had. From that distance, so close but not nearly enough, she should have had no trouble with it. She had not flinched nor been startled from her course. The idea that power she wielded so expertly would have jarred her with the recoil of it also seemed unlikely, given Nazomi’s measure of her. She had not meant it as warning. There was only confusion left to distract him from a scent that was a hundred times more potent than any that had lingered in the tea shop thus far.

His stomach curled in on itself, twisted with need for the taste of copper delight filling it.

She moved, largely a tragedy playing out now he had already warned her of. Cassandra’s tears, as he had imagined, were as bitter and wasted a thing as he had experienced. So what good had he done? Even this slight diversion from his course had created nothing of value, gave him no sense of purpose. Really, all he had of any worth at the moment was the tea.

Moving his hand he noticed the red stain on the back of his knuckles. Another droplet, no doubt from the rivulet of blood that ran the contours of his face without blinding him just yet, landed against his hand and bloomed. His flesh suits were certainly getting more convincing; they’d never bled that color before. Found no trace of his power writhing in it. How alien, that he looked at his own life spilled out and thought it was odd not to have it clawing, pulling back his skin together with angry stitching and threads of newly grown flesh.

He drank his tea. Took his time to focus on it, the flavor of it, and delighted in the distraction for a moment. It was best to do it now while he could appreciate it. Once finished he would gather up his things, dress again, and see how the rest of the show would play out.

He took his time between that moment and the next; well aware that something in him had broken by the time he left the lingering taste of tea and the smell of ink behind. With every blink the rooms shifted, changed, became another time and place. Where there had been emptiness in the small entryway, he saw a colorless bar and its patrons stretch out before him while making his way towards a door way that obviously sat below street level. There was music, though nothing modest or beautiful. It was loud amateurish plodding against the keys that tempted him to remove the player and commit himself to the task of it in their stead.

He blinked and it was the same area the Witch had greeted him in, though redecorated by the aftermath of her power expelled out into the world. It was a terrible and beautiful display, but one he already knew the end result of. Again he shut his eyes, stepping through the door, and found stone pavers under his feet, a street covered with wintry film A few footfalls later and he saw her, a woman carrying herself with the same stillness of before over a body, details raw and lost beneath the scarlet stains that were the only source of color in this waking dream.

Whoever they had been…there was pang that stirred in him a wretched sensation that forced him to snap his eyelids shut to be rid of it. Opened again and there she was, not much different than the phantom he had seen, the body at her feet worse off yet than the one that had hidden it.

If he acted, there might be enough left to save the poor girl. The repercussions of what he might be doing, without the mortal body there to alter the course of its influence, and it seemed all too obvious what he would be damning the little soul to. So he watched, allowed the Witch her final words then moved closer. He ignored her at first, the horrified glances of others that had come to watch, everything really but the broken remains of what had once been…

Several words came to mind, all tinged with the color of her lips.

Briefly, his eyes fell on the Witch, glittering gold and inhuman now. He spared her the indignity of reminding her of his warning, of the brief moment he had considered pretending to be anything else other than what he had always been at his core. That glance was all he spared her at the moment, before a gentle motion pulled what remained of eyelids into place, his coat laid across the featureless form soon after. Taking a white handkerchief from his pocket he pressed into the- just a child, really- soft still hand that would never move again, dragging the other to lace lifeless fingers together and allow at least the appearance of peace, no matter the impermanence of it.

Suddenly, he no longer cared about whether he should be there or not. Nor who might come calling when the madman acted on his current desires.

They would quickly regret the interruption.

“Well then, Miss Tomie.” Damnedable itch wore on his senses, reminding him of life, heat, of every soul around him. She stung brighter than the rest, making the irritation grow all the more frustrating. Absently, when he cared to look on the Witch again, he reached up to scratch at his scalp. A simple thing he had done countless times. Felt wet muscle greet his fingertips, flesh trapping his fingers against the layers underneath it, bulging beneath the skin as each little twitch drew new streams of red from the gash. She came into focus, the features of the woman from his memories bleeding into her own until she too lacked color.

Save her lips.

By the time he had dug his fingers out of the wounds they were smeared with oily black. What had been red on him had slowly pulsed; found itself the same, and squirmed violently to reunite itself in his veins. It flowed in reverse back into each wound and pulled them close. A moment later they were all but gone, sealed seamlessly with small impressions being the only indication they had ever existed. And those would fade soon enough. He didn’t bother with his clothing. The effort would have been minimal if that, but he felt neither point nor promise in flaunting it. He had not come to teach or test, not her, not any of the bleating idiots that racked him with the embers of their existence.

“You should have listened to your spirit. She uses your instincts better than you do.” It came out cold, indifference in his tone and face while sweeping his hair back with his hand. Brown shifted between the gaps in his fingertips, shades of it slipping by and still changing by the time the gesture had run its course. A few seconds more and the dark green that had been hidden underneath was back where it belonged.

He held nothing back.

The air around him grew heavier, thick with the pressure that he let hemorrhage out. He shared his soul with the sheep, the madness that composed it, and the Hunger that defined it best. It was more than the predatory grin made of razor-wire, the intent he had once turned his pointless instincts towards, for better or worse. It was more than the Need that had driven him to consume, to fill the emptiness that had created him. It was the one thing that had torn the ragged wound in his soul that eventually subsumed the mortal remains of what had existed before. It was the cause, the source of his every sin and psychosis.

He allowed himself the Hatred this time.

“Do you deserve to live more than she did?” Static sound shrieked in the air and he stood before her, body pressed to hers for an instant, a hand tangled in her hair and held tight as he whispered it into her ear. His free hand settled against her stomach, raking at it the moment his teeth sank into flesh, and let a torrent of Will, rage given pure and physical weight, hammer into the Witch without restraint he might have otherwise shown.

In the aftermath of his anger he hummed, sang wordlessly beneath his breath before looking towards what remained of his pretty little Witch to ask after her:

“Tell me your answer true, won’t you, my Magdalena?”

==============================
WC:1644

He doesn't even leave her be to watch over the body for a minute or so to let the impressions of her very best employee's death sink in. No, he waltzes over to the scene in his ridiculous clothes, retains his silent demeanor as his eyes try to meet hers. Unrelenting, the madam refuses him the satisfaction of acknowledging that he might have been right all along.

Her eyes are still directed at the carnage before her, at the remnants of her memories that she had destroyed with such minimal hesitation. Paintings, scrolls, books, instruments, century old vases. All of them have been ground to waste, littering the room and covered in the foul-smelling iron.

She is accustomed to it, the smell of death; pungent and heavy stenches are usually something she can ignore. The streets of some of the villages nearby smell just as foul as this, so it shouldn't be this bad. But this is her home, her residence. It's not the place for anything but perfume, spices, tea and the occasional aroma of cooking. Moyamoyasumi is no place for murder and blood, although the latter has become somewhat of a regular much to her chagrin.

But that, as she knows all too well, is also the fault of Shinigami who seem to be incapable of staying out of her business. Not this time, however. The amount of self-righteous military bastards she has had the displeasure of socializing with is limited, certainly, but she can tell that this is not one of them. Nazomi is different, even though she cannot properly reason why. Even the spirit seems to have a rather agreeable disposition towards him, interested at least.

Spreading out his jacket, the gloating fortuneteller promptly lets it descend upon what remained of the redhead, concealing the most gored parts of the body. Only tufts of orange stick out on one end, tattered shoes on the other.

She is, admittedly, interested too. He is different. A person of characteristics she had yet to observe beneath the act of a simple con-man; a figure from a world of nightmares never-before-seen. Maybe he comes from her dreams too, like the faceless mummy.

Only when he speaks her name, once more using her given name to address her, does her eyes trail over to him in a side-glance. Golden eyes greet brown as they lock for an extended period of time, no blinking involved. Black ooze, thick and viscous, slides down from where his wounds have been, erupting like some sort of tumorous crater. It seethes up and down, in and out, as the top of his head pulsates like some sort of massive pustule. It eventually settles like bumps under his skin, reminding her vaguely of cysts.

"I don't think you understand," she rebuffs, chill in her voice as her eyes depart from his repulsive visage, finding the covered corpse next to the ruined counter once more. Her lips seal themselves shut for a while as she folds her arms across her abdomen, watching the blood seep. "I did listen. I shouldn't have." The vivid rapids of caramel in her eyes are frozen, as lifeless as the pupils as the icy eyes of the fire-kissed Mai.

Nazomi thinks he understands. He thinks himself superior, an apex predator of sorts, hunting the bleating masses of sheep before him, toying with the yipping dogs that protect them.

But he doesn't see her for what she is.

She is neither sheep nor dog, shepherd nor wolf.

She is the ancient crow, a gargantuan black bird who watches, waits, never forgets. Someone who won't hesitate to prowl upon the even the strongest from her world above to feast when they least expect it and most deserve it.

She is an animal foreign to his ecosystem, an patient hunter and occasional scavenger, ready to swoop down to steal the crown from dying kings.

"I hesitated. If I hadn't listened to her, I wouldn't have struck my employee." The explanation that follows is simple, but might seem implausible to someone without insight. That is to say, not this man, this fiend with green hair. He must have noticed. Yet, it seems as if he does not care. What a shame.

The air is heavy with heat and not of the physical variety. Something burns, and it is not the corpse. Distortion flows from the fortuneteller like a summer heat, like foul herbs burnt as incense accompanied by sour music. The sound of an explosion follows. He is in front of her, pinning her with a might she has only once more felt before.

It happened long ago, but she still recalls it all too well, centuries later.

Claws dig into her ornate updo as the other appendage finds her abdomen, no longer covered by her own hands. A hungry mouth finds a way to her ear, whispering the lies he perceives as reality into them. She jerks away slightly as fangs dig into the nape of her neck and claws shred through her clothes, trying to for her soft innards.

He lets go soon thereafter, words of contorted synth reverberating in their bubble.

She hasn't moved or made a sound.

Both her stomach and the area of the bite ache and throb, insolent heat pulsating through her skin as something warm oozes from the former. There definitely isn't much fluid, the paws having never reached deep in, but the sting is still present.

With the flick of wrists, dancing elegantly around the injuries, fire is released, singeing clothing in the process as the heat cauterizes the wounds, leaving red marks where the wounds used to be. In the same movement, but in reverse, blobs of water follow her palms, hovering above the areas, lessening the burns. As they dissipate and fall to the floor, the marks left by the foolish man almost entirely gone.

If by "Magudareena" he means her, she certainly will give this giddy songwriter her answer.

As she raises her arm briskly, the floorboards underneath the dancing fool crack as a lance of solid rock rises up from underneath the building, heading straight for the man's chin. It continues to travel upwards after greeting his face, impaling him straight through the mouth, shattering these misaligned teeth of his until it almost hits the already damaged roof, sharpened tip pointing upwards proudly as black goo trickles down its length.

"Do you deserve to live more than she did? Than I do?"

With these departing words, she turns her back to him as the doves, her employees, flock out of the hallway, surrounding him to investigate this man whom their "Mama" surely must have killed. Some scream as they point at the body, others chatter loudly and sob.

The head honcho herself departs towards her personal quarters, to the right, knowing that this is likely not the end of the beast. He will come back for some more Kabuki theater, so better props are a must.

And she knows just the thing.

"あたしか".

Black paint accompanies her eyes as they change direction upon reaching the room, rummaging through it with her eyes to remember where she put it. They only briefly dwell on the purple parasol resting against the closet. No, not you.

Fingers shuffle through the mess on her table, trying to locate the trinket. Nothing matches the texture she's looking for; it's either too soft, too circular, too long, too smooth. Only after shoving the majority of the tables' occupants on the floor does she spot it: the tiny jade shard. Her hands brush against her abdomen, causing her to grimace ever so slightly as the pain jolts through her. While it might still be mostly healed on the outside, the soreness is still prevalent.

Some of the blood finds its way to her hand as she grips the petite crystal and wraps her fingers around it.

It still feels strangely warm, as it always has. Not unpleasant, though. It makes her feel at peace, more comfortable, but not too comfortable, knowing what is waiting for her in the hallway.

Now, she only hopes that she managed to get it in time.

A sigh departed, muffled and split into hideous discord by such ignoble offense. A colliery taste, mixed from the dirt and thick tar of his own blood, was the most immediate thing he noticed somehow. It joined together as a thick sludge that choked him given the angle his head had been forced to take with the impromptu piercing. While not immediately suffocating it still managed to be extremely unpleasant. It didn’t matter, really. As far as wounds went he had suffered far worse at his own hands. Not that he appreciated the contents of his skull being rattled like that, but it wasn’t as if they could be damaged any more than they already were.

With slight annoyance he touched the jagged earth and shattered it with a slight effort. What remained of it that did not dislodge as a matter of gravity he spat on the ground with Bile still writhing upon it. The harm that the witch wrought took more consideration to tend to than it had to be freed from the embarrassing display. Unhinging his jaw once, then twice, it settled back into place fairly quickly each time. Everything else restored itself shortly thereafter, though, did nothing to remove the foul taste. Otherwise, as far as he could tell, everything worked as it should have.

So where had his power been when his rage had dictated his actions?

If it had swelled through the witch as it should have then she would never have been able to act as she had. She should have been laying in pieces, what little remained that could be called a corpse laid out beside the life she had wasted. But what had she said? Some small piece of him had heard it and rebelled, upsetting the control necessary to exert his will upon reality in the crucial moment between thought and existence. It seemed the disturbance she caused him ran deeper than realized. Or she was simply stronger than he could perceive. It wouldn’t matter which in the end, only that he had a choice to make in the moment.

The color and life drained out of his features, replaced with a neutral mask that held nothing of the maddening grins or delightful insanity shared thus far. It’s then he notices the crowd, the others that had poured out to see what was going on. Instinct drove him to act, bloodied hand seizing one of them by the throat before the rest of him realized what was happening. His body, his Need lobbied for a number of things in response to such easy prey surrounding him. None of it was particularly friendly, but it wasn’t as if he felt particularly compassionate at the moment either.

Another of them beat upon his shoulder and the arm that restrained their friend, or coworker, whichever unimportant value they assigned one another. Power stirred up in him in response, painful inclinations forming in his head as best manifest it. This was, after all, as much a part of his nature as anything else. But watching one wane, eyes floating back in her head from the lack of air and the other still desperately trying to free her, and he found any further idea of entertaining himself fading entirely. He tossed one against the other, alive, and pushed his way back into the tea house in a steady, almost ethereal march.

It doesn’t take long to find her but he doesn’t rush, does not use the speed he could avail himself to move. She hears it, though. She has to hear it; every footfall slow, deafening, and dragging against the floor. If nothing else, she has to because a subtle pulse of will spreads out from the Arrancar to alter the very acoustics of the teahouse to make each damning step louder than the last. He doesn’t enter the room, though. Stopping short there is nothing but silence, lingering and awful while he considered for a moment what it was that drew him to her in the first place.

“Curious, don’t you think?” Again he sighs, the sound almost like a death rattle in his throat.

“I would have let you hit me, wanted you to in fact. It wouldn’t have killed me.” It came out almost apologetic. Somber even as clearly as it was spoken, Nazomi felt the odd pang from before stab at his nerves. He moved again, pressing up against the wall near the entryway while his fingers curled around the door’s frame. Almost thoughtfully he drums them against the wood, an out of place rhythm that that abruptly halts as he drags himself a bit nearer to the threshold.

“You could have done anything else. But you use hesitation as an excuse. You can’t admit it yet, can you?” He dragged himself into view, standing like steel in the door way but making no attempt to move inward or even look at her. His dear witch struck so many familiar cords that he was only just beginning to understand the song. The edge of his lip curled ever so slightly when he realized what it was he wanted to say.

“A part of you just likes hurting others. You play hostess while that part of you craves more; wants to sate dark impulses that you think no one else sees.” He turns that grin towards her again, quieter this time and filled with less of the fire and madness of moments before. A half-step into the room and he reached up, tearing at his shirt to show her the hole, neat and bloodless, sitting in his chest. He took the moment to trace his finger along it, shuddering at the impossibly alien sensation it always managed to provoke when he did.

“I understand that better than others, being what I am. So let’s not waste the time. I didn’t ask my question to judge, but to put it in perspective for you, my dear witch.” His fingers twitched when he held out his hand. The motion, when genuine, felt akin to watching someone else manipulate his nerves. Somewhat sad if they should feel the need to invest in such a fucked up puppet, but that was something that merited thought another time.

“If you stay here it will just be more of the same. More lives, more death, more pretending to be some banal thing you are not. Those few things you value sacrificed in the name of satisfaction. Will your life mean more than each one of them; than when you’re stripped down to Need and nothing else?” Disappointment trailed every bit of what he spoke, the bleeding stigmatization of his own mistakes shown to someone else for a moment in the misguided belief it would be better than putting on yet another play.

He looked up, stepping closer with his hand still offered, lightly as it was.

“Or come with me. Let me have whatever pain you wish to inflict, beautiful witch, free to find whatever meaning you wish to have, than what will be forced upon you by hunger or obdurate whims of a pathetic heaven.” He didn’t mention that there was one more choice she could make, but it was wretched to explore and repetitive. They were just stand-ins, after all, for a poor stupid boy and a madam who had already seen to one another’s ruin. It seemed trite to repeat a performance no one cared to watch the first time.

============
1245

He has weaseled his way loose from the earthen rod rather soon, broken it in half with his mere fist, she notes, as she sees the tip of the spike from the archway of what used to be the door. One of the doves lies on the floor, the flock running rampant around her, scooting away from the man as he paves his way through the red rink, tramping the blood of babes, black clots reforming on his face from where he had been struck.

He had tussled with her employees only briefly, much to her admitted disappointment, as the one girl the other flocks around is the only casualty; if she even is dead she doesn't know. It doesn't matter now.

They are expendable, pieces of cotton to chuck into a spindle to keep it going as she weaves with little talent, as she waits for an opening to do something. She has no particular plans right now, aside from getting away from this situation, away from the thoughts that are nagging through her head. Not necessarily away from him.

He is a red oni, she can tell that much. There is an unyielding passion burning within him. She had felt it when he grasped at her flesh, tugged at it and tried to make it rend beneath the force. Even the daze he surrounds himself with feels hot to her, riling the ashes beneath her milky skin.

She is blue, a pale corpse thrown into a river to rot, opening her eyes and heaving for breath with a slashed throat to spite death. Even in the heat the oni brings her heart cannot be defrosted. Bitterness and two thousand years of ingratitude cannot be undone by a day in the sun. The glacier is to stay the way it is; ashes might smolder, but fire will never truly be rekindled.

Perhaps that is why she doesn't see fear in his ghastly guise. Perhaps she's just used to monsters, she, the ancient belle.

She doesn't even deny it anymore. Wherever she goes, she sticks out like a sore thumb among the blood and guts and glinting eyes and shining smiles. She's demure and cold, retaining a grace ill fit for a world ravaged by battle. Even in a battle in her own house, surrounded by dolls mimicking her, she is a Heian alien.

He has come to take pity on her for the crime he is responsible for, pushing an agenda of condescending apologies thinly veiled as explanations. Even where he stands, drumming incessantly with his fingers against the mangled wood, below her where she stands, with some stilts of shoes supporting her statuesque frame. Frozen eyes look down upon the green man, who still manages to be so red where he stands, meshing into the floor as a puddle come to life.

"And how could I have known that?" Frosted breath, words that could easily freeze the tips of the locks on the deceased not even five meters away from where they are standing. It's a perfectly logical question as an answer to another question, but here, in a world riddled with passion, it seems so cold.

A crack in the facade, a cheeky smile follows as he goes along with his poor understanding of her, of her hesitation to push forwards and commit to the kill. She is no killer like him. It's not her everyday life, nor has it been. Death rests on her hands, certainly, but even in death, the lives become numbers on the fingers, counting and calculating, tallying and sighing. Death is an end station for usefulness when they are no other options available, not a source of pleasure. Not anymore.

He simply didn't understand. He had sniffed out a scent and followed it like a mad dog, but the source confounds him.

She briefly feels pity for his reaching.

"I had no idea she was there. Granted, your cryptic warning should have been heeded, but it can't be helped." The philosophy of a hated person drips from her carefully drawn lips as they move with a frozen drawl.
"I would have done it again." Even in death, the scales have to be examined. More specifically, the scales of interest; in whose favor they tip is obvious.

"Need".

He speaks of it as if its a lust that encompasses her very being and pushes her forwards, drives her towards the harm of others or to sate her curiosity. Certainly, she is curious, more so than anyone she has ever met. Dark desires. They are there, without a doubt, but it is not "need". She might be a crow, but she is no simple animal. Uninhibited desire without any control just results in an untimely death; it certainly is what awaits him and her if she follows.

After two thousand years of waiting, she simply cannot have any of that.

"Life is droll," she replies, a simple answer, looking down to her left as she rolls the stone in her hand, it feels as if its on fire briefly, almost exasperated by the distorted reply without any connection whatsoever to the conversation.

Even in his attempts to dig for dark gold, where he has frequently just hit large rocks, he had managed to touch a single vein of ore which he so desires: He is partially right. If she is to stay here permanently, nothing would change. It would just be the same trite waltz over and over, fanning to the beat of a dead drum with many holes, as she smiles until her face shatters.

Something needs to change.

He tries to woo her into accompanying him with an outstretched arm, still vaguely pulsating from the incident wherein her killing intent had become wind and marred it. It's flattering that he thinks her unique, thinks her different and deserving of more than what life beyond life has to offer.

Slowly, with the deliberate undulation her superiors had taught her to utilize, she raises her hand, swinging it away from her side, upwards, then stretches out, reaching for his hideous appendage.

She gazes through the hole in his chest, the one he had traced earlier, leaving her certain in his origins. In the multiple millennia she has spent here, she has only heard rumors of them, these Hollows.

So when she sees through him, and beyond him even, she feels nothing but fascination akin to that of an anthropologist running into an unknown tribe.

Then she darts forwards, the puppet hand she had constructed while raising her hand, located behind the green-haired man, shoots forwards and grabs Fuuyuko's face, then sends her hurtling into the crowd.

She had seen the girl approach the man from behind his shoulder and through his chest, spade in hand, in an attempt at ambushing him. Only when she had seen the frazzled hair and determined mouth and muscular legs move strenuously across the stained floor had she felt an inkling of worry. If her spells do not harm him, the daughter of Ren Suwa stands no chance.

She had killed her best apprentice and felt nothing.

Yet, this hooligan of a girl, she harbored concerns for, almost cared for even.

Life is droll, her mind echoes, as she ponders the logistics of her own mind.

Her arm had stopped right next to the man's, not quite touching it, the long finger outstretched in a manner mimicking the marionette hand's movements. Her eyes trail up from the stigmata on his chest and into his golden eyes, still ever determined, as she pulls back, retracting her hand.

She cannot accept the offer. Not now.

"My place is here, Nazomi," her voice speaks with uncharacteristic familiarity, dropping the honorific in a level of intimacy she is hardly accustomed to when it comes to outsiders. "Not necessarily precisely here, but in Soul Society."

The glacier moves forwards, crushing those beneath.

"I have matters to attend to. People to take care of. Things other than this place." He is right. This is just a pretense for what she wants, the things she frowned upon fantasizing about. She still doesn't intend to fully devote herself with heartfelt desire to this cause without thinking about it, but she has an idea now.

She has seen it with her own eyes, the utter collapse of Seireitei's system around her. They have failed the people in every possible way, letting criminals infest their organization while utilizing genocide when necessary. Tyrants is what they are.

And she intends to make them pay.

"正義か"

Proud words in ink stain the air between the man and herself, seemingly born from the spirit's utter confusion.

She laughs at this, a hearty laugh, out of place in the primal scene of murder, positive Fuuyuko can't hear her from where she is splayed on the floor, feet in the air.

"No," she rectifies with tundra protruding from her brazen eyes. "They killed justice long ago. I intend to see to other things done unto them."

Her eyes peer deeper into his glittering soul chambers, mouth protruding ever so petulantly. "I cannot accompany you. If possible, however, I wouldn't mind the means to go to the places you intend to take me. We might meet again, then."

She is in no position to negotiate, but yet she does.

She wants things done her way now. No more compromises.

She has a vision.

Things would have to take their natural course at some point.

His hand fell in measures, a bit at a time in a motion that was wearier than immediate. Fingers stretched, seeking out a comfort that simply wasn’t there. A few more convulsions drew them into a fist, before flexing them out after into perfect stillness. He’d felt the answer leap up his throat and leaving an acrid taste on his tongue as he swallowed it back down. The question was no longer important then. Certain of it now, the corners of his lips twitched ever so slightly, pulling tighter until his smile became razor-wire decorating a mask of human seeming. Ever so slightly he turned his head to see the girl that had attempted to sneak up on him from the corner of his vision before his eyes snapped back to the witch without further moving the whole.

In the silence a lazy and slithering hiss surrounded them.

“She would have done it, I think.” His approval was clear enough with the husky little chuckle that came out ever so naturally. Everything fell into place just too perfectly to ignore. Just one more time, it seems. Except it does not feel forced or wanting this time. Not his first choice but what was left of his time was relative only to him. It would have to do, then. Was it the intent that made it different? Or was it simply the effect she had on the madman? Neither promised a different result from any other time, given what use his good intentions were, but then again, that was the very sort of madness that composed him to begin with.

His eyes glistened with a surge of color, shades of silver and blue flashing in his gaze. It makes the particular shade of amber they resolved into all the more disorienting because of it. There was another part, a briefly lived moment that came and went in his face. All too quickly his mouth parted, what almost felt like an apology on his breath before he shook his head.

It was necessary.

She spoke of something dangerously close to a purpose.

“I’m an actor at heart, you know. Break someone’s expectations and then make them see the ones you want them to.” His body eased with slithering simple motion, not looking aware from his dear witch, but not allowing the same intensity as before. There was no fun in plucking the answer, the truth, from her head. It lacked the intimacy of conversations like this. If she had meant everything she said, and he hadn’t needed his insight to known that it was as much as she could convey without breaking a very necessary part of herself, then it was only fair he did the same.

So many things were wrong with him at the moment, but the most obvious was the uncomfortable state of exposure he indulged in; all for want of long legs and ruby lips.

But she wasn’t the only one worth paying attention to.

“But nothing quite captivates me like seeing the truth of someone in action.” His smile lessened, but only in that it became smaller, rather than the grinning tragedy mask he so enjoyed. It shined, though. It was as more than what it felt, as close to the sort of emotion that the Arrancar rarely experienced even in those small instances he would have allowed himself the luxury. If this was droll then he would have split their false heaven in half just to allow the witch a chance to see what he saw. But his was a small part in her play. If there was anything left for him to do now…

Privacy would be needed.

It happened all at once. Other times he might have spared the flash and pomp to make the moment more than what it was, but that implied it would serve some point this time. His Will, his presence extended well past his lithe frame and stifled the air with a sudden pressure. Uncomfortable, he imagined. There was no helping it, but that did not merit more consideration than what it had already been given. Revealing himself was not an option, not when they were still exposed. So he began with that.

It didn’t seem like much. Not at first, anyways. Given enough time he suspected they would both notice the absence of voice and bodies that had so inundated themselves into daily routine. It was very much the same teahouse as before, but now without the blundering bodies or blood to get in the way. They were alone in that stillness. That much he was certain of. The damage wrought by his dear witch’s hand was gone, nothing to mark if it had ever existed. It was by no means perfect in replication if only because his mind would not allow such a thing to exist.

But as far as pocket realms went, it would serve its purpose well enough.

“I would have given you such a thing to begin with. My willingness to go along with it was…practical, purposeful for both of us I had hoped.” His head lolled lazily in a motion that was less about stretching than it was maneuvering closer to her in increments small enough that it might go unnoticed. Always some little game, and the joy that surged up in response to it in greedy desire to fulfill any of a hundred different Needs. That proved a little too intermingled with Want in this case to be practical, though. So just a dance then, just his own little way of playful courting that couldn’t be allowed to go further.

What a shame.

“But the way you put it gives me pause. What you do with that power is, ultimately, my responsibility. Because if the purpose in your voice is even half-true…” And of truth…well he didn’t care to find out if she had meant what had been offered, even casually, in that exchange. Either it was meant to make a fool of his intentions or, somehow worse, it had been genuine. It seemed beyond possible at this point no matter what it was anyways. There wasn’t a choice in it. There never was, now that he considered it.

“Then you reveal yourself too easily in both your actions and your attachment.” He moved with sound, not motion. It cracked in the air and he was simply there, beside the tiny girl that his witch had flung away from him. He crouched, his Will falling between himself and the witch as a blanket of pressure in the air if she thought to try and deny him again. His smile curled into something sweeter while offering his hand to the pretty young thing this time.

Some delights were still worth having.

“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure yet. Shall I tell your fortune too?”
=====================================
WC: 1155

There came a long lingering moment where he stared at the meek and mild girl, admiring her for all the aspiring audacity she maintained even in a moment of weakness. In her defiance she thought she had insulted him, but if she only knew. He raised his hand to his face and dragged his tongue across the spit; a small taste of her that sang through his senses in ways neither she nor the old witch could imagine. It told him everything he needed to know of the girl, no need for memory or prying to sort out such a fine essence. She is the street flower, having grown up through the strangling pavement to reach for sunlight. And for that…

But he cleaned his hand with a piece of cloth from his pocket, stuffing it away just as hastily before holding his hand out in the air. A small but gentle current of power rolled out of him, his eyes flickering in color once more as he summoned a small pillow out no where. It was with a special sort of care he slipped the pillow underneath the child’s head, mind busily working on other matters. It wasn’t the most potent option at his command, but that went with a choice he would not make for her.

“Haven’t had cause to do this much, but she should heal quickly given some rest. She’ll be hungry, though.” That came with its own implications, but if the girl was not already awake then being around the two of them as she had been thus far would have been more than enough to change that. Whatever tampering he did now was as, for as inappropriate the idea could be, was far more natural than the child’s exposure to them had been. All he had done was encourage her body to heal quicker than normal. Compared to everything else, an overactive metabolism was hardly the worst exchange.

A moment lingered where he rubbed his eyes, muttering about how tired he was before he attention returned to the witch, to her lips, and to the madness that sang from her so clearly that he almost sank into it. Like sleep, by seconds and then all at once. It swam around him, swaddled him in comforting insanity, telling him just how sane his responses had been in a world that was not. That was yet another empty hunger, gnawing and begging, but never fulfilling.

Always Hollow.

“You don’t know what it’s like, do you?” He gestured to the girl with a small sad sway, a quick laugh bubbling and then dying on his lips. In spite of himself his limbs, muscles continued to twitch with violent spasms, aching when denied, so deep and so completely into every nerve that it felt like being crushed. That was another pain, though, and like every other one he had ever experienced it was less with every experience. Fitting, he supposed. If he was going to speak about the weight of purpose, then it was only fair to be reminded of it.

Maybe he’d grown too comfortable with it, though.

“A purpose does not exist as a person. It exists as a thing, an ideal. It cannot have, cannot want. It can only need that which completes it.” A shallow smile came and passed, and he choked down the very same urges he spoke about discarding. That was the right thing to do, after all. His place was not to be among the people he saw but to be the crucible they passed through. Contentment with the process was not important. A darker part if him grinned at the thought, but it wasn’t entirely honest. So it slept, lulled away with by boredom of his struggle a moment later.

“So, this is my warning to you, my witch.” His face became empty, an emotionless thing that fell into a mask with dull colored eyes and a hiss in his frown.

“Don’t become like me. Do not start down a path like that unless you can become a monster, forsaking everything but purpose or the power that drives you now. Otherwise you will falter at the moment it matters most, and you will end, a footnote. Or you will lose what has become precious to you.” He waved with a half-hearted gesture that dismissed the seriousness he had worn. He played his part well. He always did. He wore the smiling stranger he had been when he first appeared to her, counting his breaths in order to keep from floating away. His eyes sparkled with red and gold.

Reaching up he forcefully dislocated his jaw about a moment before his throat bulged.

It fell, open talons waiting, onto his open hand and dug them deep into his skin. Already it grew in size, swelling several times as large as any natural crow. It blinked with beady red eyes, let out a splintering cry, and opened bleak black wings that seemed to stretch several times larger thanks to gathering shadow. He lifted his hand to push his jaw back into place, while the creature hopped onto the floor and made a slow stride up to the old witch.

“This is my gift to you, regardless of your path.” The bird cawed in agreement, before melting into her shadow like liquid. His mistake previously had been leaving too much of his own personality in such things. This needed to be free of his influence, more than what he had already done, at least. It needed to be more like its would be master if anything.

“Spill your blood with it to seal the creature to your will. It will be your guide, your spy, and your carrier should you wish to leave this place behind. It will answer truthfully to the name you give it.” He shrugged, summoned his things to his hand while his suit knitted restored itself to a more natural state with stray motes of light. He straightened his hat on his brow and turned to leave, speaking as he swayed with each step.

“Or don’t. It will die after an hour or so without my presence around to keep it alive. Make your choices, witch, and don’t let them make you.” He waved with the back of his hand, disappearing as color and damage began to creep back into the world around them. All the squawking and noise of the banal life that she had entrenched herself in, been comfortable in, before he had happened upon it. What he had seen in her had not mattered. Neither had what he had wanted.

There was only ever purpose.

And cutting those strings that would have held him from it.

If only it were that easy. What thin barriers had separated them from the ghetto fell quickly, but not before he could be tugged away and afar that place. Old sensations anchored him where he stood, stole what momentum and motivation that he had been touched with a moment before. It arrived too quickly to be anything, anyone, else. He turned back to look at the old witch, stunned only long enough that it delayed the obvious a few moments longer. Either she had been called or she had been there in the first place, somewhere nearby and somehow quick enough to catch things regardless of his precautions.

Before he could settle on fault or fact that interrupting cow dashed between Nazomi and the Witch.
=============================================
WC: 1245

She doesn't necessarily feel bad when the fist greets Fuuyuko's facial sphere with vehement force. She doesn't even necessarily feel particularly bad for hurting the foolish girl who stood up to titans with a simple shovel.

But she does feel something of a sort, empathy to the pain perhaps, when the back of the girl's head lodges into a wooden pole several meters behind her with a loud crack; not enough to wince or even slightly shut her eyes to avert them from the impending sight. Yet still sufficient enough so that she does feel something jolt in her chest when the noise rumbles through the establishment and Fuuyuko rolls on the floor, blood splattered in gory petals in the pale, unfamiliar room that was like a hollow image of her previous surroundings.

The air is still a thick, viscous soup, difficult to breathe in, as if this box suddenly had been placed on the top of a mountain. She is acclimatizing, however, drawing less and less frequent breath as the boggy air should have been as fresh as summer breeze. That is clearly in contrast to the situation of the shovel-wielding hooligan, who had struggled to even remain standing amidst the pressure.

In spite of the rather pathetic manner in which the girl had taken what the perpetrator personally had perceived as a weak push, the bushy-haired hussy is up in no time--suspiciously, to add--while there is clearly blood pumping out of the wound. Well, perhaps it wasn't so much of a weak push, after all, she ponders, retaining the characteristic serenity she always covers her face with, while gazing at the woozy floozy with an unsteady gait. She cannot see the entirety of the girl's grey eyes, only twinkles of the crazed rush brought on by adrenaline.

It's not sustainable.

That is the very first thought that jumps into her mind when she observes the flickering light that is Fuuyuko Suwa, bushy-browed seductress extraordinare. It's even more unsettling than watching a customer who has had ludicrous amounts to drink, because she knows that this isn't self-inflicted or even comical in the slightest. The fault lies with her, and her alone this time around, but she consoles herself by repeating that the alternatives might as well have been worse.

She wobbles ever closer to the glitter-eyed silhouette, who is cautiously observing the petite shambling figure alongside the crow herself. He is standing closer to the girl and the makeshift weapon she had brandished earlier to do harm unto him, but makes no clear effort to intercept her, merely letting the injury do its deed before doing anything drastic.

The imminent collapse occurs earlier than anticipated. She falls to her knees, head rocking back and forth in a vain effort to stabilize whatever the girl is perceiving now. Tomie attempts to move her foot a step forwards, a single strategic step that might make the difference between a lethal and a nonlethal move, but a thick bog keeps her in place, shoving her foot back.

Clearly, he doesn't want her to interfere.

So she refrains from even resisting the urge to defy him. This is his world, his little corner of wherever, a place which he commands. She'd be a fool, like Fuuyuko, to go against his wishes.

She merely observes what transpires next, the insult, the defiant act of spitting before total relapse into unconsciousness, with hands folded across her chest.

He grants her, the bog-dwelling denizen of dreamland, something the madam herself seldom grants her toys: mercy. It is not compassion, hardly so, but a sort of pity, perhaps; no, even calling it that wouldn't do this justice. This is like a child throwing scraps to a dog after making it sit, a treat for petty entertainment.

She gets to rest on a tiny pillow, fluffier in appearance than those she is accustomed to, but still remains firmly planted on the floor. What a kind gesture.

Her lips remain a dour pout, sealed shut still, as the madman talks to her, urges her to share her feelings in regards to the unconscious Fuuyuko. She sees his attempts, his wishes and fleeting feelings, but says nothing. The green-haired rail of a man, who she quite literally sees right through, claims to warn her of the treacherous path she's walking on.

She doesn't know whether to scoff, laugh or roll her eyes at his notions. So she ultimately does nothing, challenging him with an absence of even minor reactions.

But then he cracks his own jaw down, gulping up a feathered amalgamation, accompanied by the sound of retching and flesh stretching, plopping down into his hand like half-digested snake feed. It expands, feed digging deeper into Nazomi's skin, black goo oozing, as it gradually starts to caw, taking on the familiar shape of a crow.

Only now does she raise her eyebrow, ever so slightly, more intrigued than disgusted.

Eyeing the hopping avian approaching her great caution, red eyes glistening the the mad grey surroundings, she completely neglects her 'guest' until he once more speaks, now granting her instructions on what it can do for her. A gift of sorts? From the bowels of a demon? Perhaps only witches are eligible for those.

As the corvid skips ever closer, the dark-haired woman mutters words of gratitude to the gift-bearer, observing her new familiar over her shoulder until it merges with her own shadow.

The man restores his own clothing, seemingly on whim, fixing any fragment that might have been damaged in the brief tussles and self-mutilation that have taken place in this locale. "So you are leaving, then?" Unlike most other times where she would pose this question, this is now intended as just that, a question, not a presumption.

It feels like he had only just come into her tea house with the gait of a foreigner and the presumptuous nature that comes with that, and now he intends to go?

She cannot let him.

Not yet. It's not time.

A warmth brews through her hand as she clenches her fist hard, luminous almost. "You should wait." It's a meek suggestion, the same as that of her shopkeeper persona, the same of the subservient painted doll. Dainty, not as steeled as her eyes are. She makes no effort to stop him, knowing that the twitching madness he had unleashed upon her earlier could manifest anytime.

But she stalls still.

"Arise," she commands, directing the imperative towards the creature previously drenched in dark matter. The hoarse protests characteristic to the amalgam born within the barren body of a creature with no womb echo as it trots out of its resting place, bobbing and hopping until between the two persons.

With a decisive swipe of her finger across the cauterized wound, which still stings, fresh as is, she scoops up a single stray droplet of blood and lets it fall on top of the creature's cranium. It flaps its wings frantically, screeching as if in agony, as the spot starts to bulge and split, a cherry red orb manifesting where the contract had been sealed, a third eye. "I name thee Yatagarasu in the name of rebirth and guidance." Her voice is monotonous, unveiling little to no emotion about the ritual that has just taken place, letting silence fall until her familiar resumes its position in the shadows and the sound of women squabbling becomes audible again as the world regains color.

However, now she knows for certain that it worked. The green luster within her hand is grand, nearly searing in terms of heat as well; it has come through.

Her fingers part. The jade's splendor makes the man's hair look like pastel seaweed, easily muting all other colors in the room.

Then it fades, like a dying star.

And Tomie turns around, towards her room, where she had heard the sound of footsteps emerge. She clutches her abdomen and the drying blood dyeing her precious robes. Aiming to say as little as possible, she intends to let the situation speak for her. So she only greets the freshly arrived individual with the bare minimum. "I'm glad you came."

Betrayal knew her name-- though it no longer wore itself so readily apparent upon her flesh.

Settled ashes and dust rose from the box’s impact against the floor and elicited a series of startled gasps and a subsequent coughing fit. Scowling, she waved her hand in front of her face and flicked her fingers to the right, guided the remnants away from her streaming eyes and, more importantly, her lungs. She had to move forward, and the first step in doing so was being rid of the destruction that'd marked the most painful of turning points and reclaiming the space for her own. Just being there in the stale smokey air-- tainted with pain, loss, and anger-- was enough to bring those bitter memories to the surface. Fighting off the echoes of weeping and crackling flames, the white haired woman threw herself into cleaning with the kind of intent more suited to a battlefield; full of killing intent and determination to make what was ruined into something worth salvaging.

He really did do a number on this place... even petrifying the wood didn't help all that much. She lamented, sat back on her heels to gauge just how much was left to do-- and how little she'd actually accomplished. There wasn’t much worth salvaging, unfortunately. Even her little hidden compartments and their contents beneath the floorboards hadn’t managed to escape unscathed and most of that was currently melted waste she should probably figure out a way to dispose of properly.

Three boxes of items she'd managed to salvage thus far; some half-charred photo albums, her shiromuku-- thankfully she had another storage place for the wedding photographs; she didn't want to miss out seeing how hilarious she'd looked trying to wear the montsuki.-- clothing that she’d liked, a couple of kimono for formal occasions, two yukata complete with obi and cord, and… some books. A few games scattered here and there in half melted cases-- the system would need to be replaced entirely. And her computer… She glanced at the melted slag and twisted metal with long suffering sigh and shake of her head.

Two hundred and seventy-three thousand yen gone in mere moments-- and she didn’t even want to think about what’d been under the floorboards and how long some of those would take to reorder and replace.

It could have been worse, she tried to coax herself into believing with a heavy heart. It could have been the entire shrine and its occupants. It could have turned the entire mountain into an inferno and wiped out the village too. It could have been-- Heat against her hip flared, she frowned, and drew the thrumming crystal up from the little pouch she’d tied through her hakama. Communicator, the reiryoku coloring it and feel was most certainly that of the immensely tall and elegant, if capricious, mistress of the tea house in the outer Rukongai.

One flash, a second, a third and-- well, that was an emergency signal if she’d ever seen one.

Oh good, maybe we’ll see some action instead of moping. Amenonuhoko muttered sullenly. She too didn’t care for the overwhelming amount of cleaning that had yet to be taken on before they were comfortable living in the place again.

”Obviously, or she wouldn’t have summoned us thusly.” Sekai countered, slipping through one of the walls, pausing to catch her reflection and order the grime and soot off her clothing. Amenonuhoko shimmered into existence, called to her hand, and the howling winds signalled the opening of the gate that would take them to Seireitei. They snapped shut, no one in the Fujimura Shrine any wiser as to where the woman had vanished to.

--

”What in the--” Seka hesitated. Head turned toward the rather large cluster of high tier auras in the distance with a furrowed brow. Was… that where she was supposed to go? Her grip on Amenonuhoko tightened, feet began to turn in that direction and the myriad number of emotional fluctuations-- a disturbing variation of them, at that-- and the communicator pulsed insistently all over again. She closed her eyes, focused on weeding out the noise-- and there was a lot of it-- to find where Magahara Tomie was--

Well, shit.

”And he yelled at me for being suicidal.” Sekai muttered under her breath and locked herself down as tightly as possible. Time to pretend to be a ghost and slip in unannounced before anything particularly obnoxious could happen, or worse; they’d get caught by one of the few big names not currently doing whatever the hell it was over in the opposite direction. Frightened faces, one barely recognizing her, and a large number of the staff weeping over injury and death that had taken place greeted her outside.

The mistress and her familiar were in with the demon, she overheard as she gently pried fingers off of her sleeve and slipped inside-- after leaving her zori, of course, and padded purposefully across the sleek boards and tatami as she crossed through rooms as if all doors were open to her. It would be okay, she assured them, their mistress would be okay-- she’d been sent for, after all. The last blaze of light to herald the call her stone put out faded, letting her know she’d found the right place, and stepped into the line of fire as easily and readily as she could have.

”I came as quickly as I…” Her apologetic tone, still respectful and deferential toward the older woman, cut itself short alongside her voice as she took in the scene before her; and more specifically, where she’d stepped out.

Between Tomie and Nazomi.

Her eyes fell upon the sleeping form of the girl and her pillow. Drifted to the bloodied front of Tomie’s kimono and the manner in which the proud woman’s rather harried form was hunched-- as if protecting a wound from being worsened. And, finally, rose to study the expression on the green haired Arrancar’s face. An unwelcome surprise, unpleasant, really, and the grip on her naginata didn’t shift in the slightest as she straightened her back.

Sighed wearily.

”Again, Nazomi-san?” She asked, rhetorical really, but with a note of rebuke and exasperation in both tone and expression that suggested she wasn’t exactly pleased to find him doing the same thing that’d gotten him and his fellow Arrancar chastised the last time they’d had their little run in.

She blamed him?

No, of course she did.

Lips fell into a tight frown, head lowered and shoulders tight, hunching forward as a tremble began in his fingers and rolled up through his arms. Just for that instant he sucked in a breath, held it in his lungs until it hurt. Then it all faded. Just as easily he lived the lesson he had given the witch before. Everything was an act, after all, and so one final gift, one final lesson, before he would quit of the place. So his smile stretched wide, teeth crisp and sharp and large like barbed-wire settling across his features. He looked up, eyes smoldering red and gold, and looked at the Shrine Girl, through her, to the old witch.

Watch he hissed in his hidden voice; sang to her sweetly in her ear. Play your part or I will return to take from you what this cost me. A poison lay in his words before he shut everything else away but the stage. Closed eyes fluttered, head lolled back, and the Arrancar held his arms open in a gesture that filled the air with his strength. He wore it like a beacon, as it could only be at that point. It didn’t compare to hers. It never would, but that wasn’t the point.

And it wasn’t for the Shrine Girl that he set the stage.

“Of course!” Lilting laughter leaked out of the madman, danced in his eyes and on his lips before sudden piercing stillness overcame him. Truth where it was unwanted, perhaps but not lessened for it.

“After all, I am inevitable if nothing else.” That was enough time, enough to spread his Will around them, the area itself. It wasn’t an effort that required his usual flair, but it would suffice in dealing with the Shrine Girl long enough to mak…oh, oh that wouldn’t do, would it? The Witch might die and the girl most certainly would. Little lungs would pop like fleshy balloons. What a waste. Just a bit of an overreaction on his part, maybe. But still he fed his power into the air to make the fire of his existence there brighter and bolder. A few moments more wouldn’t matter. Not when he had a chance to indulge in all the things that had so far been neglected.

A croaking, crooked little laugh and the madman shook his head before disappearing in an instant. Reappearing almost intimately close against the shrine girl he stared her in all too red eyes and tilted his head with a curious frown. It startled him, disoriented since it reminded him similarly of the witch’s lips. In that moment Nazomi went to lay his hand across the shaft of her weapon, pushing it aside gingerly to when his lips parted to speak some curious or witty thing, only to feel a sudden and violent force repel his touch from it.

He’d felt no Will rise from her when his hand went tumbling some twenty feet away sans the wrist it should have been attached to. And much more interestingly, he heard an angry buzzing that rattled in his brain when he had made contact. Half words that had been hidden by static, made his brain ache as something that didn’t belong there had accidentally reached out and touched some small piece of his being, and equally startled, had reacted so unpleasantly. He looked between the weapon, his stump, and the shrine girl, often flitting back and forth between them all with an unhappy noise in his throat.

“You’re different.” It was a statement, inquisitive but not accusing in spite of the words. He sighed, loudly, and shut his eyes as filth flowed up into the shape of the missing appendage and then sank back into newly created pores. The disembodied hand quickly melted into a more liquid state that slithered back and up into his pant leg. Testing each newly created digit, he flexed his fingers a few times before reaching for his pocket and pulling another piece of cloth from it. A small smile flickered on one corner of his lips, a distant pride about that he didn’t understand and was too quickly gone.

“And how are you even here for that matter, shrine girl?” He snorted a simple laugh, somewhat fond but foreboding. It was…strange, now that he thought about it. Swirling sickness and scented flowers that made it feel like the layers beneath his skin had swollen, marinated, and bloated with drunken sensations. It was pain, distant enough that he barely noticed but odd enough that he could not let it go. It felt wrong, but his pride would not allow him anything else with their present company.

Then he saw it, a smudge of ash on her cheek. Flecks of what had been part of him stained against her skin from where his hand had been so rudely separated. Being so close to her something in the madman recognized why it might be there; the soot, not the blood.

“I suppose it doesn’t matter. My business was done anyways.” Gingerly he pressed the cloth to her cheek, rubbing away the stains and the soot in a motion almost unfamiliar. It would have been nice if it had remained so, if it hadn’t bored into his head with flashes of lives best left forgotten. It couldn’t have been helped, only catching himself after he begun. He wanted to stop, should have, but couldn’t. She was so warm. It felt like his fingers would blister before finishing, that the fire might finally swallow him up. Nothing did, in the end. He was slow to remove his fingers, even with the fabric a small barrier between them, but he did eventually.

“Either go back the way you came or I’ll take you myself.” It came out quietly, not a threat though he was sure it may have sounded like one if left to ponder too long. But there he stepped away and gestured towards the door, daring not to turn his eyes back to with lest he start to slip away into yet more empty hunger.

“You don’t belong here.”

========================
WC:1031

"You... You know him?" There's not much shock to her voice where she stands, straightening her back with minimal pain following, hands trailing away from the scorched abdomen, baring it to the audience. She had hoped for more, for better from someone like this. From someone she might even occasionally consider a friendly acquaintance, someone who understands where she comes from, where her culture, her exquisite culture, had shaped her.

But she was wrong. She was so, so wrong.

Because instead of jumping to her aid like she had initially hoped, despite the brief confusion and the lines directed towards her, concerns of her well-being and that of the people surrounding them, she ultimately receives nothing but a verbal slap in the face from the white-haired imbecile.

She chides the invader like he was some sort of child, her younger brother who just broke an expensive vase and gives him a notable stink eye.

Is this what she is to Fujimura Sekai? Is this what the corpse and the unconscious Fuuyuko are to her? Just a petty, broken everyday object? More shards to sweep under the carpet to further ignore while blood seeps out of every corner, every minuscule hole in the fabric. More shards of a broken future with the flesh of innocents and the undeserving welded into a grisly mosaic.

She had placed a bit of trust into the girl and it had come back to bite her--no, gore her, ripping off a proverbial hand in the process and leaving a mere stump behind, blood gushing out of the socket. This is the sort of thanks she gets from housing a refugee, a person who had vaguely similar feelings to her in regards to the oppressive regime she has been loathing in secret.

To think that a compatriot would abandon her like this, in a house of bloodshed with a murderer.

He doesn't seem too pleased to see her, though. His entire body has tensed up, shoulder uptight, fingers shaking spasmodically, as if he is about to burst from pure anger. But then he is back at it again, with the same placid bear trap grin and sparkling eyes, evidently back to his normal, deranged self.

She sees beyond the act, however, from above the interrupting piece of mochi in the shape of a gnome, deep into the sockets of his eyes, the tiny tics of his face. The irritation she caught when the girl had been summoned is still there, brimming and boiling beneath the surface.

But his emotional state is the least of her worries now.

She's caught in a sticky trap alongside two adversaries now, alone with a flock of squabbling sacrificial maidens and a snoozing tramp, cooed to by a sweet umbral corvid in secrecy. She needs to get out somehow.

Why is the place tilting all of the sudden? Why does her head feel so light?

She catches herself reeling ever so slightly, tilting to the sides as a familiar serpentine voice whispers her sweet nothings her memory cannot retain. The ground seems so close now, the air so foggy. There are voices in the distance, silhouettes of figures she should be able to recognize, but cannot. Everything sounds as if distorted by massive altitude; as if she's been locked in a bubble of sorts with the sounds travelling around her, deafening yet meaningless all the same.

There are black dots before her eyes now, dripping and slowly taking form, remaining ever present even when she shifts her gaze. Is this what dying is like? She hasn't even been struck by anything, not that she knows of, nor felt any stings that could indicate any sort of poison. It's not even a painful sensation, merely heavy.

Eventually, as her eyes are forced to meet these dots, does she realize what they are: letters, symbols given to her by a venerable spirit. It takes a while before she manages to decipher what the Kanji mean. "落ち着け" The message is clear as day: 'Calm down'.

She retains her posture, growing steadily more aware of how crooked it is while taking generous amounts of breath, inhaling and exhaling with a mental metronome taking the counts. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale... It eventually becomes a mantra, repeating in her mind as the sounds grow ever clearer around her.

The air is still heavy, an antipode of hot and cold simultaneously, scorching and freezing her nostrils with every breath she takes, but she can deal with this, grow accustomed to this. She's not going to let some three-holed reptilian get the better of her, nor the bumbling buffoon who thinks she can get away with betrayal.

Straightening her arms, she extends them out in front of her, sleeves sinking down towards her shoulders, leaving the blackened marks on her right biceps bare briefly. She sizes them up, judges the situation. They are too occupied with each other to interfere. Is he wiping off a stain on her face? The coast is clear. She hasn't really tested this one extensively, but with the ugly honesty naked upon her contorted face, now is as good a time as any.

"Ruptured earth, iai beheading of the invading cat, two stones of fantasia, light of the moon in the dunes of forest," she chants with murmurs, moving her hands into various positions as dust particles surrounded by a muddy hue float around her. "If the earthquake is noticed, erase the floral heaven; for the fate of every blooming sunflower is to wither and die. Come, despair-like earth goddess sleeping on the highest plains of heaven. Upon thy divine appearance, descend and impale the infidels." There is no shouting, no grandiose finish to the spell's text as she draws her palms forth, directly at the two invaders. "Todō: Hizōkankyoseki."

The earth rumbles, shaking the establishment, causing the fragile, shelved items to plummet and shatter against the wooden floor, which is creaking and protesting under the wrath of nature. Drowned by the sound of the mantle's forces are screams and pleas for help, but with a callous determination, she shuts them out.

The floorboards burst, sending splinters and chunks of tatami all around, through the foyer, into her room and to the flowerbeds outside as the wall too caves in as a massive pillar of blackened rock drills towards the skies, crushing the roof in the process. The humongous base continues to broaden as the stretches into a conical shape, leaving only trails of black blood from where the madman had been standing; his cleaning of the human had been futile, as she too had been in the splatter zone. The former madam has been hit by some debris herself, but she remains unfazed.

But she is not done yet.

With the same puppet hand she had used to save the sleeping girl, she punches a solid hole in the fragile paper of a window, before dragging Fuuyuko by the ankle and tossing her out through it, sending her hurtling towards the trampled road, pillow in tow.

"Hizōkankyoseki: Deijin Sōaku." Her hands slide outwards, purplish energy boiling around her and the monolith she had constructed, once more instigating rumbling. Porous holes emerge from the pillar, vomiting up copious amounts of dark sludge. But as the torrents of mud hits something solid, they stiffen and extend, becoming saw-like tentacles that pierce most materials. The full-blown riot is in effect, accompanied by a cacophony of voices, blood and the shredding of whatever life she had built here.

She knows the odds of inflicting permanent hurt upon her attackers is not just slim, but minuscule, so she settles for mayhem that could just as well leave them disoriented.

While the box of vile earthen gifts is still opening, she prepares the curtain call for Moyamoyasumi. In the chaos, her words are barely audible, her face covered by hair as she bows down to concentrate, hands trembling. "Forest of cannibals, flesh of the animals, impregnable castle of wood. If you devour the crow, you must then also bite these pitiful living creatures to death." As if in a trance, her delicate fingers sway back and forth around an invisible orb, covered by a ghastly hue of lilac, blooming with ghoulish intent.

"Grass, bind the arms." Her left hand shoots forth, fingers pointed downwards. "Flowers, choke like the life out them." Her right mimics. "Grand tree! Cover the blue sky’s silken veils." She raises her head, the morbid determination bustling within her pupils. "I, the regent of nature, command my subordinates to crush the lives of one and all! Spare no one! Kodō: Toyūkitsu!" It is a defiant shout, loud, proud and maniacal, beckoning to the great below.

Gnarled roots, twisted and barbaric, grow from the underground, sprawling like tendrils as they dig into their surroundings, burrowing through furniture, pottery, pictures, scrolls and mud alike. Wherever they touch, a translucent pinkish mist wafts through the air, accompanied by a sickly sweet scent. It's only a matter of seconds until buds with the same pastel color as the mist start to sprout, swiftly undergoing years worth of arboreal growth as they grow into massive trees that penetrate the ceiling and sends more pollen into the air, repeating the process.

The plants are not picky with their soil, be it mud, part of the housing, clay, dirt, plants, flesh of people or animals. Whatever is weaker than the source they emerged from, they attach to and transmogrify.

The witch herself, immune to the frenzy induced by her own hand, has started her ascension, robes fluttering as she lets the wind carry her out of what remains of the life she has built. They are becoming increasingly ant-like, the people down there, those who survived the show she put on. She shifts her condescending stare from directly below to slightly ahead, beyond the forest of eerie trees growing out of manor and the mountain behind it, at a sprawled dot located on the stony road.

She's safe, likely out of reach for the vicious plants.

It would only keep growing and leave nothing behind, only the two intruders who sought to destroy her life. A sly smirk pops up in the corner of her mouth; they had failed. She has taken destiny in her own hands, ready to abandon this pond which has done nothing for her.

The crow has come out of her shadow too, having flown from where it had been cast on the ground, now perched upon her arm while incessantly cawing. She whispers her command to the creature, feeling the coarse feathers against her mouth as she leans in. It zips across the skies, wings carving a hole through the air, which then gashes open like a wound in the fabric of reality. A whirling space of outright nothing greets her from within as she slowly floats towards it.

She peeks over her shoulder one last time, however, at the world she is abandoning, before entering the portal, which seals shut behind her as soon as she enters. She has only one thought on her mind, namely her desired location.

Home.

It fell apart so fast. It felt like the world split in half, but in spite of the magnitude of what soon arrived his thoughts fell quiet and his body acted of an accord he did not quite understand. Chains rattled in his ears, a quick and subtle shifting of old battered links that had not been raised from the floor in some time. He wore the softest smile when he reached up, pulling the hat from his head, and placed it atop the shrine girl’s. A quick tug yanked the brim of it down over her eyes, and the contact was enough to work his Will through. She was gone with that touch, carried away by his power from the site of the old witch’s vengeance and out into the streets where she would be needed. His place was there, accepting of the labor that had been cast to him.

That great and terrible monolith sheared away his left arm and torso as he turned to greet it. Coldly calculating he watched it, flitting back and away from the spire before it could rip yet more from him. Debris caught him several times, each bite of shrapnel a petty harm caused by the force that had uncaringly shattered it. Still, unflappable, the madman watched when the witch’s tower when it finally stilled its ascent. A larger scale of what she had already done to him, but he knew the measure of her now. The old witch would not have been so boring as to simply increase the scale of her stone pillar. It was with purpose she had chosen this, a monument to her disdain, and it had yet to accurately convey that regardless of the damage that had been wrought to him.

When holes began to ease open across wicked creation there was nothing to be surprised about. It belched out muddy puss, vomited it into the world around them where it became a means of extending her disgust farther. Nazomi, for his part, stood still and allowed it to crash against him, to pierce him when it changed. It cut through his guts with despicable ease, held back from anywhere more vital by sheer force of his will than anything else. It had been enough to move him, to pin him against the remains of one of the walls, through it, when it was no longer sturdy enough to prevent it otherwise. He clutches to the dark claws she had extended and allows them to carry him away.

The madam had wasted what he tried to give her. She had made her choice. It deserved to be remembered, to be carved into him until it could not be forgotten. This was a lesson, both for him and eventually one she would come to understand as well. He deserved this. And she too, would deserve what would eventually fall upon her. If it were not the course she had set herself to then the Arrancar might have cursed it on her if he had felt any of the fire or hate necessary to do so. But in that moment he did not know what to feel or what it would matter if he could. None of it was necessary to doing what was before him at the moment. There was only enduring it and trying to pluck the old witch out from the background that blinded him with so much Will spilled out into it.

Never enough time, really. His senses were too muddled by the sensations to accurately seek her out. Cloyed, instead, by a dozen small agonies and sweet sickening stench, the madman would have to change the course of their engagement. Beside, pride would not let her wound him so many times without some sort of answer to her rebuke. But those roots, probing and pushing and penetrating everything they came into contact with quickly buried him within a crushing claustrophobic sea of trees that grew haphazardly from many places and many angles too quickly to navigate through. It smashed, smothered, and squeezed him into a quickly disappearing space. Old roots tried to pierce him, to further breed more of those wretched trees, but withered in the attempt. It was destruction on a scale he hadn’t expected, but could appreciate.

Because that meant it was something worth the response.

The madman grinned as he drew his will in, reached for his pocket watch, and muttered the words that made his body sing and shift and change. Against his Will her trees did not stand long, evaporating against the invisible swell of power that erupted outward around him. More fell as he moved back towards the great monolith that had preceded everything else. If the two were not linked that merely meant a bit more effort on his behalf, but it was finally something on a scale that merited using his abilities more seriously. Not for himself, granted, since he could have left it the way it was and been on his merry way. That would have been the intelligent thing to do. It was not the responsible one, though.

His senses extended well past his body as it was. He pushed them further. It was all in the details, the things that required more complexity than the phantom use of his sight or touch. There were matters of dimensions, of shape and width that needed to be known. And ever so close to those were the faint strands of time that would only sever if his efforts were honest. So much information to gather within those confines, but what else could he do? Leaving the witch’s hatred to fester behind was not his style. If she had wanted to wound him she could have, had been offered as much, but to punish others for his presence was unacceptable.

In a scant few seconds his brain burned with the information he needed. With that, the Arrancar held out his hand and felt his power spread, focused on the hateful spire and spreading quickly to the roots that had erupted not long after. He poured himself into the effort to match the witch’s own and then some. When it was sufficient, when all was as needed to be, Nazomi shut his hand and watched reality bend, snap into place, and swallow whole every tree, root, and with them the vile grave marker that had bore them into the ghetto. It did not restore the damage that had been done. Those furrows and holes her craft had torn around him still remained. Those fading lives that had driven him to distraction by tempting his hunger were still gone, but he left no trace of what she had cast behind.

Hopefully the shrine girl had prevented the witch’s power from straying too far from his influence. If she had been capable…well he knew enough of her to keep his expectations modest. True, that had been before when her eyes hadn’t been so heavy nor had she carried a weapon that had screamed, leaving an echo of faint cursing and indecipherable scorn behind in his head. She had changed. And not minding his curiosity had already been the source of enough trouble, he went to seek her out. At the very least to be done with this place and back where they both belonged.

They were overdue a conversation anyways.

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