Iniquity II [Closed | Levi]

Levi was as giddy as a schoolboy as he walked down the darkest hall in Las Noches. The false sunlight faded into false moonlight as he walked into the bowels of the dungeon. The dome had been made, so long ago, to have a sun as a reprieve from the darkness surrounding them. This dungeon had that luxury removed, which served both as additional torture and to hide a prisoner’s true location.

It was there that Levi would torture a foolish shinigami for information. Another fool who had wandered into the realm of the hollows, and killed their people. Rufino Tauro, the man who had once introduced Levi to the queen, was dead. Levi didn’t care much personally, but many hollows had loved Tauro, and so the shinigami would have to suffer horribly. Or at least they would all have to be told that he had suffered a painful death. If he cooperated, well, he would probably still die painfully, but less painfully.

Levi smiled wickedly as he opened the door to the torture chamber, finding the pitiful shinigami fully awake, and fully aware of his situation. The man looked like utter garbage. He was weak, beaten and bloody, dressed in torn rags that used to be a proud uniform. He was shamed, and his body was already broken. Hopefully his spirit would follow without too much trouble.

“Well hello there, shinigami. You look like you’ve had a rough day.” Levi said mockingly. “I guess Rufino did pretty well in his last fight, didn’t he?” He manufactured a bit of bitterness into his voice. If he could get the shinigami to think Levi was angry about Rufino’s death, it might scare him a little more. It was fear, not pain, that made torture successful. Fear of what was to come if the victim did not cooperate. The pain was just a tool to create that fear. Of course, it was also necessary to establish that there would be a reward for cooperation. A release, or at least a lack of punishment.

“Let’s start with something easy.” In order to establish that reward. “What is your name and rank?”

WC: 358

As the stranger entered the dim room, Shigure managed to return a vacant look when greeted somewhat condescendingly. Mentions of a ‘Rufino’ then put a faint look of confused recollection on the Shinigami’s face as he strained his fragmented memory on the events leading up to his capture.

A dull thud then erupted at his temples as if the experience in question rejected his attempts to remember. As he winced, Shigure felt a contradictory combination of both numbness and pain throughout his conscience but failed to pinpoint what it really was and how such a sensation came to be.

In the disorientating quiet of the cell, he could only recognise the Arrancar’s words in isolation; the precise meaning of spoken language at phrase-level was already being lost on Shigure as conscious thought threatened to leave him once more.

Looking back to the bespectacled man who presently appeared like some scholar or critic scrutinising the works of a rival, Shigure coughed to reaffirm to himself that his throat was still functioning.

“Takanashi Shigure. Unseated medic of the 7th Relief Team. Third Division.” Each word was emitted in monotone as he struggled to even command his own voice in light of his numerous injuries and waning consciousness.

Being held hostage was hardly a situation Shigure had prepared for. After all, being a medic generally did not warrant such a circumstance ever happening at all. Even on the front lines, the bulk of enemies faced by Shinigami tended to be base Hollow whose minds harboured no such concept of capture -- only consumption.

Coupled with the fact that the sentient Arrancar had no interest in the mundane and had no reason to prey on the general public, encounters with such advanced Hollow-breed on Earth were few and far between; consuming souls out of necessity was apparently a primitive need and not one that the Arrancar shared with their less-developed cousins.

And if that were indeed the case, what manner of cruelty could an Arrancar enact upon a simple medic?

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335 | 770

“Oh, good. You’re cooperating already, Shigure.” Levi didn’t even have to fake his surprise. He honestly expected some resistance to even this simple question. Maybe not a refusal per-say, but at least a generic insult or a disrespectful tone. Instead he just answered in monotone, like a trained soldier. Or a machine. The strain in his voice was a bit worrisome though. For obvious reasons the shinigami hadn’t been given any water, but that could backfire. If he had trouble talking Levi would have trouble getting the information he needed. Furthermore, his apparent half-consciousness could work in his favor, or detriment. It seemed to be making him more cooperative, but it would also fog his memory. It would also wear off soon.

Reaching a decision, Levi used one of his phantom limbs to slide open a slot on the door, and ordered one of the two innumerable outside to bring a bucket of water and a cup.

“I hope you stay this civil throughout this ordeal, Shigure.” Levi said honestly. “I’m sure it will surprise you to find out that I’m not a sadist. I don’t actually enjoy hurting people. No, not even shinigami.” It wasn’t a lie. Levi didn’t enjoy causing pain for the sake of causing pain. He enjoyed feeling powerful, as everyone did, but it wasn’t the pain itself that brought Levi pleasure. Causing pain had always been a means to an end, and in this case that end was information. If Levi could actually get the shinigami to cooperate with him, he could get that information much faster than forcing it out of him.

“Neither is our ruler.” He continued, carefully choosing his words to reveal nothing about the queen’s identity, not even her gender. “I’m certain I could make you quite comfortable if you cooperate.” Right on cue, there was a knock on the door. On Levi’s curt order, the other arrancar entered the room, set the bucket and cup on the floor, and left again, closing the door behind him.

“Let’s start with a drink.” Levi filled the cup with water and pressed it to the shinigami’s lips. “A small reward for a small question. I think next I could arrange a decent meal for you, in return for say...” Levi paused for a moment. He needed to pick his next questions carefully. It couldn’t be something useless, but on the other hand if he asked something too serious, too quickly, it could cause the shinigami to fight back prematurely. He needed something that wouldn’t seem too bad, something that wouldn’t seem like it would actually hurt anyone. The rest could come later. “How about the names of the captains? Does that sound fair? Five names, for a decent meal.” The names themselves wouldn’t help much, but it would be a start. It would also set in some feelings of guilt, which would in turn lead to despair, which would weaken the shinigami’s will. And if he refused, Levi would just have to skip to the torture.

WC: 503
TWC: 861

With great effort and mental deliberation, Shigure willed the muscles involved with swallowing into action — but none of them obeyed. Instead, the water simply spilled from the sides of his mouth as if it were an overfilled vessel. He was too tired and too weak; too tired to even retain the liquid in his mouth and too weak to do anything about his failure. His jaw seemed adamant on hinging just so slightly while this was happening and likely gave him the appearance of a fool or a goldfish. His throat was unresponsive and nothing more than a dead cavity. Too weary to even consciously shut his epiglottis, what little remains of the water trickled down the wrong chute and sent Shigure into a coughing fit.

Swallowing, even in states of extreme stupor, was generally a simple procedure and perhaps one many took for granted. In Shigure’s current state, however, it had somehow become a mission in and of itself and no longer an instinctive action; it had become a series of steps that required conscious execution.

Given his more immediate troubles, the Arrancar’s words were barely being registered and while the cold water granted Shigure a shock of temporary clarity, he would need additional time to recuperate properly. Pondering on what he could make out of the man’s address, the Shinigami began exaggerating his cough to buy himself more time.

Disclosing his own personal information was within the boundaries of his code for reasonable behaviour. After all, doing so was unlikely to endanger the lives of anyone other than himself. However, betraying the details of the Gotei was a different matter entirely. Besides the obvious legalities, Shigure also had no intention of letting down his friends, colleagues, and superiors. He had been foolish enough to get caught so he would be the one to bear the bitter fruit of his recklessness.

No one else.

Having come to this conclusion and after drinking what he could, Shigure began his gradual shift from corpse-like detachment to apparent delirium. First came the convulsing and shuddering as his already pale face became an unusual watercolour of ashen grey and splotches of red. He then held his breath and rolled his eyes back into his skull until nothing but the whites could be seen.

Feigning rapidly-amounting hysteria and exaggerating his cough even more, he took the opportunity to violently shake his head. A gravelly sound escaped his lips as he awaited his interrogator’s response.

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410 | 1180

When Levi saw the water just spilling out of the prisoner’s mouth, he was a bit worried that he might actually need medical attention before they could begin. That would have taken time and equipment that Levi didn’t want to waste on a shinigami. It could be done, of course, it wasn’t like they didn’t have time or resources to spare, but for some reason the queen seemed insistent that Levi work quickly.

The sputtering cough of a man remembering to swallow was quite a relief. Then the cough didn’t stop. Then the shinigami started convulsing, going pale, and coughing even harder. Levi’s harshly squinting eyes stared at the shinigami as he stopped breathing and his eyes rolled back in his head. If the shinigami went into shock it would cause an indefinite delay as they restored his mind enough to dig into it.

With a frustrated sigh, Levi sat the cup down, picked up the bucket, held it right in front of the shinigami, and used his Manos Fantasmales to dunk Shigure’s face in the water. He held it so that his mouth and nose were both submerged, but the ears were above water where they could hear Levi.

“Not bad, Shigure. Might have worked on most other hollows. Unfortunately for you, I have quite a bit of medical knowledge myself. I know what to look for, and some things are harder to fake that others. Clammy skin, for example, or rapidly fluctuating reiatsu, or convenient timing.”

Levi idly wondered how long Shigure could hold his breath. The average was two minutes, but that wasn’t counting any kind of training, or sense of self-preservation. It also wasn’t factoring in panic.

“I tried to be nice to you. We could have been friends, Shigure. But I guess your damned shinigami pride just wouldn’t allow that. So Plan B it is.” Levi’s voice slowly cooled as he spoke, from faux friendly warm, to an ice-cold whisper. “Have you ever been tortured, Shigure? Or tortured somebody else? Do you imagine It’ll be quick or easy? That I’ll just sit you in this chair and try to punch you until you give up? I don’t have time for such amateurish methods, Shigure. I’m a busy man. Not that there won’t be any of that mind you, but there are so much more effective ways of torture, if someone has the time and patience. And Shigure, I am a very patient man.” Hopefully the shinigami’s head still being held under water as they approached the one minute mark would be evidence enough of that threat.

“You know, the Chinese and Vietnamese are famous for their brutal torture methods. Shoving bamboo spikes under your fingernails so that they will swell up, and then lighting them on fire. The infamous death of one thousand cuts, things like that. But I’ve always been a fan of the Soviet Union’s subtleties. The real horror there was when the torturer was nowhere near the prisoner. When they were in storage, you could say. Set up in tall, tight cages with spikes on every side, so that they just have to stand straight up for hours and hours and hours. Or put in a very cold room, wet and naked, with nothing but the metal walls and the AC going full blast. The thing you don’t expect there is how hard it is to sleep. And the longer you go without sleep, the weaker your mind becomes.” They were at about one minute and forty seconds now. The prisoner had to be wondering if Levi was ever going to let him up. And for now, the answer was still no.

“But why choose between them, when I can do both? I’ll put you in a Soviet style storage when I’m busy, and try out some Asian torture when I have the time. Maybe I’ll even make something up myself? After all, we could have days, weeks, months, years, even centuries if you’re stubborn enough.” And with that, Levi’s invisible hands grabbed ahold of Shigure’s hair and snatched his head out of the water.

He allowed the prisoner a few moments to get over the inevitable coughing fit, before putting his nice guy face back on. “Or we could just do things the easy way. Think about it Shigure, a mean for five names. Why don’t we skip all that time and agony and just get to the good part?”


WC: 739
TWC: 1,600

The tendril –unseen and unannounced- had Shigure’s head utterly at its every whim like some phantom puppeteer. This suddenness of motion caused a gasp which was cut short abruptly and violently by the submersion of his face in the water. With the Arrancar’s arms still seemingly idle, Shigure had not anticipated such an approach, with his surprise leading to a sharp intake of breath that sent a torrent shuttling down his airways, at which point there was no longer any need to fake his convulsions. Myriad thoughts came and went: moments of clarity interspersed by seemingly endless blankness.

Vaguely registering his captor’s words, the Shinigami cursed his own carelessness – had he made his fit more convincing by means of Kaido, perhaps, then he might have bought more time for himself. But then again, was his fate not already decided?

The mental equivalent of static threatened his consciousness once more as the water continued seeping into his entire being, panic and adrenaline causing sensations within that were simultaneously frigid and searing. Echoes of a forgotten past colliding with the urgency of the present.

A minute passed. Or several. Or maybe it was only a handful of seconds; in the isolation of his own tortured existence, Shigure was none the wiser to the passage of time.

His lungs swelled. Shrank. Fluttered like flags. His abdominal muscles clenched, unclenched, heaved and became empty.

Then, as if dragged the same distance between the depths of the deepest ocean and the highest clouds, Shigure felt his face being torn from the bucket and gulped desperately for air – all the while coughing the remnants of excess water from his innards.

As his mind slowly settled into a strained calm, he allowed what little reserves of energy he had left to pool within – ready at a moment’s notice to numb his body and senses should the Arrancar proceed with further torture.

“Thank you,” Shigure whispered with the beginnings of a smile forming on his face. “I was worried my sudden onset of delirium would not subside. I am more than happy to cooperate, but-”

Then, a convenient cough to fill the delay in his thinking. Changes in subject were never easy but Shigure had his own bait. But would this barracuda of a fish bite?

“But you see, Arrancar-San, weaker Shinigami such as I truly struggle –both physically and spiritually- when parted with their Zanpakuto,” Shigure lied. “It is a peculiar relationship –one you may wish to study, perhaps- but the truth remains the same...”

More coughs. A few deep breaths. Another.

“If I can have it in my general vicinity, that would put me at ease and help me think straight,” He offered a tortured chuckle before continuing. “I don’t even need to touch it. Even if I was smart enough to have a ploy up my sleeve and somehow got my hands on my Zanpakuto, the thing's blunt anyway. I’m harmless either way and you lose nothing granting me this incredibly tiny wish. Then, like you say, we can get to the good stuff.”

Shrinking back into the chair, Shigure closed his eyes and enjoyed the few spare moments of respite as the Arrancar considered his request. Maybe it would be taken for effrontery. Or maybe his false admission of some nonexistent vulnerability would pique some cruel, twisted interest in his captor who, despite his prior actions, still seemed a man more concerned with knowledge and information than meaningless harm.

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575 | 1755