Absit Iniuria [Challenge][Closed | Shigure]

Green eyes stared unseeing at what lay overhead of the Songbird. Smoke and ash drifted through the air, the already strong smell of sulfur made worse on the drafts after the spell. Her mind struggled to stay conscious as she lay in the remnants of her failure. Rubble strewn over the exposed soil lay beneath her broken body as the spell fully faded and heat finally stopped radiating from the Earth. Already flakes of charred flesh began to fall away, mixing in with the ash already present.

'How foolish.' the voice was distant, like long forgotten memory. 'You can do so much better.'

'...' she couldn't even formulate a response to the spirit's quips. What had once been her pride had lead to her downfall. Instead of standing victorious, she was laying beaten by her own hand.

'You know it, too.' the voice was stern, beating the already bruised ego of the shinigami. 'How could you make such a mistake? You're so much better than that.'

The world, blurry though it already was, began to fade to total blackness as she relinquished her hold in the face of the berating. In her heart Mirabelle knew the spirit was right. Much as she hated to admit it, she made a mistake in letting her focus on the spell waver. Anger boiled through the veins and arteries that still carried life sustaining blood to her body. Not just at herself, of course, but at the spirit who continued her tirade. 

'He is nothing more than a simple medic, and you can't even best him?!' 
'Your Bakudo would have held.'
'How could you ever hope to lead the division like this?'
'If only I were there. If only you'd used me.'

Her mind teetered just this side of unconsciousness as she felt a cooling sensation on her abdomen. She couldn't know for sure but the Songbird had no doubt that the man to whom she'd issued the challenge was now healing her. Her eyes rolled more to herself than to the spirit, who was so clearly watching, as she recognized that yet again she was at the mercy of someone else's hand. 

'and now he's healing you.'
'Someone else has to save you again.'
'If you had only focused, you wouldn't need saving.'

She was alone. Her mind was torn between the body she knew was laying beneath the medic's hands and the realm where the Witch resided. Neither was the place she wanted to be. On one hand, she had to deal with her spirit, while on the other she had to deal with her very public mistake. Of course she knew she had to own up to it in the end but when the wounds were still so fresh, the mere idea almost hurt worse than her burns.

A familiar numbness fell over her body, the cooling sensation of kaido working at her burns fading away. At the same time, the voice that'd been berating her seemed to fall silent. The blackness that she'd felt herself in suddenly didn't feel so vast as she began to remember. Flashes came to her mind as she drifted in the void. The first was of the tail end of her interrogation by the young Commander and the strange numbness that had set in over her wounds. The next being of her hospital room as Kasumi began working her own kaido to undo the injuries, and the effect of the numbness finally fading.

What had been a hunch then was finally confirmed as she looked back on those memories. The numbness was a sign, her other spirit reminding her she wasn't alone. Even in her cell and the hospital room, she'd not been alone.

Even now, she wasn't alone.

"--ReE-" something of a choked groan escaped the confines of her ash filled throat "-miNDDDd mE,"

Albeit painfully slowly, green eyes fluttered open to meet the gaze of the head medic. "Sadako."

Through the already cracked skin bits and pieces of what appeared to be bone made their way to the surface. Amidst the dirty, charred hair and blackened, blistered skin they seemed to stand out like jewels. A painful fit of coughing wracked the frail body of the injured Mirabelle as she still lay beneath the medic's hands. What looked like white phlegm and blood speckled her face, as she made no move to cover her mouth. Fresh waves of tears that one could have attributed to her immense pain trekked through the caked on grime of her skin and in their wake came yet more white fluid.

In a matter of moments the semi-solid pieces hardened and the fragments around her head began to take shape. A ghastly clatter of bones grinding against one another filled the air around the two shinigami as neither she nor the medic had yet to speak to one another since his approach. Her eyes never left his as the mask formed, even as she could begin to make out it's beak.

"You've done well, Shigure-san." sitting herself up, she gently brushed away his hands from her midsection. She would not show more weakness than she already had. She would not wince at the pain, even as her body still screamed at her to place the soothing hands back. It would, no doubt be a while for the effects of her own still developing powers to unfold as she came to understand them but she could live until then.  "I shall concede that you are fit to lead us. For now. Though, I do wonder how well you'd lead us knowing that one who serves under you is one of the rumored half breeds."

Standing was a struggle, and she almost fell face first back into the pile of rubble before she righted herself, but she eventually managed. Turning, she looked into the plumes of smoke that were beginning to dissipate. Her heart beat with the idea of what would come next but she didn't hesitate. Her steps were sure as she began to stride away from the victor, her mask already beginning to fall to the ground in pieces. Her face was completely cleared of the mask as she made it through the smoke and called to the crowd. "Shigure is the victor! He's done well and surpassed me for the time being, I concede to his leadership. The man is talented and was even gracious enough to sufficiently heal the injuries from my own self inflicted burns."

"I'd like to thank those who supported me," she coughed once more before glancing back at the medic once more before moving toward the exit, smiling at him and offering a sly wink. "but I gained more from my loss than I believe I would have from a victory."

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