Guestbook Tokei Aruki Page 1 (OPEN)

He let out a long sigh. This was the one thing that he hated: Ignorant people. It always about their material desires and never their own existence. Granted that the home is their castle – a folly, a simplistic petty dream that people cling onto to prove that they have worth in this world. Nine palmed the right side of his face, lightly rubbing his face. Sometimes he wondered why he is even doing this? What is the point when he constantly bombarded with sickening face of the people. All he ever wanted was just one person to take his warning seriously.

But then again: If Humanity doesn’t need saving, then why bother?

He watched the pathetic excuse of an Arrancar, putting on her long coat without a care in the world. It’s fine. The Arrancar is going to go eventually. Either by accepting the fact that the reinforcements will arrive and leave or be dead. At least whatever soul trapped within her be free of the endless torment. The human however was not crazy or at least pretends to be crazy. He couldn’t care less. He glances over to the hostess with a dull look on his face. Deep down he just wanted to throttle her, sap all her air from her mediocre looking neck and let the Shinigami sort it out.

No.

He counted down, he mustn’t let his thought get the best of him. There was truth in her words, “So what? Whatever get burnt down will be rebuilt and refurbished?” He spoke coolly, pulling the plate of whole pizza towards him and began to scoop a slice. A light bite before laying on a separate, smaller plate. He licks his thumbs discreetly before continuing, “If you don’t have one, then you should. Either way, whatever happens next is not my fault,” he doesn’t care about being a bad guy. He likes people who refused to look at the book by its front page and he’s struggling to see that in Janus.
He let out a faint sigh – another data dump came and went like a rollercoaster, loud and pressing. “I will stress that she is a danger to your existence and you shouldn’t take her as face value. However, if you accepted the Arrancar’s offerings and knowingly assisted them. You will be under surveillance.” A flaunt, but even he, the one who converses with technology is always surprised by how many ways he can collect data of ones’ background. Not now, there’s little need to dig up her past.

He began to rise up off on his chair and a business card slip out of his inner pocket like second nature and onto the table just beneath the half-eaten pizza. He been in this business for years now and he had learned that there’s one thing that he’s certain of: It’s better to be a Monster than to be a fool. He clarified that verbally in English laced with a stubborn Celtic accent.

“And aye, I am a monster. Better to be one than be a fool. Call me if you want protection.”

He wasn’t sure why he spoke in English. Was it out of impulse or was it something else? It doesn’t matter, he was willing to hear her response one more before going onto his weekly chore.

Janus took the card and flicked it between her fingers as she sighed.  Janus was not good at stuff like this, it had taken her two years since the last thing that went around ravaged her place the first time.  Now she had to have visions of it happen again because people apparently had prejudices and whatever else.  She was not trying to be mean to anyone, she just cared about all the work she had put into something like this.  She sighed and wondered out of the restaurant, now annoyed with herself.  She did not want to piss off her customers, she was not usually like that.  The issue was that everything seemed just wrong.  These people and their fights were each other?  She did not really know what to do.

She wondered around in the lobby for a bit and sighed.  Janus had messed up, there had to have been a better future outcome, that was it, she had just missed it.  This was getting under her skin and driving her slightly mad.  She went back over the options in her head and just saw the destruction.  "Shit."  She said out loud to no one in particular.  She wanted to be somewhere, anywhere else.  She sighed again and wondered outside for a breath of fresh air and looked back at Tokei Aruki and decided there was little to no sense in dealing with this right now.  She went back into the restaurant.  "I'll call if I need it, can I get you anything else?."  Janus wanted to say more but this was all beyond and above her.  She did not know how she was going to deal with all of it.

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Entering her rented room, she closed the door and fell back, leaning onto the door, she let out a breath as she locked the door without looking at it. She just wanted the night to be over, humans with power, they were a nuisance and an asset in Phoenix's eyes. On one hand, they can be quite useful pawns if inducted early enough, for anyone. On the other hand, if they develop too much awareness they can be quite ignorant, as they only lived a fraction of a spirits time. 


Taking out the bottle of wine from her long coat before throwing into onto a chair, she made her way to the bed. Flipping a pillow up, she sat on the bed leaning, her left leg bent up while her right leg straightened out.  Looking at the bottle of wine, she forgot to ask for a corkscrew. Reaching into the back of her gigai, she leaned forward and pulled out the Wakizashi part of her Zanpakuto, grabbing it by the sheathe, before grabbing the tsuba and shaking off the sheathe.  Pulling the bottle away as she aimed the blade as she aimed carefully, she stabbed the cork and twisted until the cork. 

"Hmmpth, Asatsuyu would freak if Chie did that."

Taking a swig straight from the bottle, she leaned her Zanpakuto against a wall and looked towards the ceiling as she waited, either for time to pass, or someone to try and take her down.

"Humans meddle too far out of their reach."

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He’d walked out to his car and was still sitting there, mulling over everything that had happened. It hadn’t been long after he’d arrived that an arrancar had. Shortly thereafter someone from the KSN had appeared from within a room not too far away. That only made Raphael more curious. When the hell had the KSN begun developing full blown agencies? When the hell had they become such a commanding presence in the world of spiritual abilities? That said, the arrancar that had entered the scene didn’t make him feel much better. What reason could an arrancar have for being out here, in the middle of BFE on Earth? And at a small inn, no less! It just didn’t add up…

Raphael watched from his car, slightly apprehensive about further conversation or simply saying fuck it and peeling out of the parking lot as fast as he could. No… He had come out this way with a purpose, a mission. Though that mission had now been derailed, somewhat, he’d already started this. He couldn’t just abandon it now…

“Ok,” he muttered sitting in his car and watching the interactions which seemed to be getting a bit heated. “On the one hand you have an arrancar and apparent KSN agent in your inn. You’re trying to deal with both at once while trying not to get your place blown up. On the other…” He slumped forward sighing. “Jesus I just can’t deal with it right now.” What was the point of overthinking? He shoved his car door open and got out, walking back in with something of a sigh. He walked up to the innkeeper.

“Excuse me,” he said in a rather cool voice. “I know that I was in here a few moments ago, but do you have some water or something? I’m incredibly parched…”

{{cue Vegeta "i'm back bitches" memes}}

Nine said his words and passed on the details via his business card. There’s no point loitering around, he already paid for the time he spent in a room over the past few days and now he’s going back to work – where ever that may be.

He let out a half-arsed wave upon his exit. He really doesn’t care what will happen to this human being. If she was left dead in a ditch or eaten, then that’s like duck’s off water back.

[84 words]
[Exit]

Janus looked at the future of giving the young man sparkling or normal water and settled for opening the small fridge to the side of the wine case and pulling out a bottle of water and then heading to her glass rack and grabbing a glass for the parched young man.  "Yes sir, can I get you anything else?"  Janus asked in a polite tone as her mind wandered looking for that presence that could have blown up her entire world in seconds.  It was gone, silent again.  That was a little weird.  She was extremely confused as she looked around as if searching for something invisible that would never actually be there.  She shook her head and looked up at the man again.  "Sorry about that." Janus said as she wondered what to do now.

Janus was used to making friends and repeat customers, not having them fight and potentially drive them all away, she felt annoyed and blocked.  Like she had done something horribly wrong because she did not understand why she was in trouble, or what she was saying to begin with.  She could have made a comment about how she was Donnie and had absolutely no frame of reference whatsoever and realized that was a bit cliche even for her.  She pulled her button up back down to remove the apparent wrinkles in her dress and hoped that someone would come up with a better answer for something for her to do, or not to alienate everyone. 

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From the corner of her window, she saw the man from earlier leave in a surprisingly boring method, just walking out the front door.  She scoffed at his exit, thinking what a waste of time for him to bluff the threat of back up then not even stand around. She didn't know much about the enhanced human alliance, but she figured they had protocols about sticking with the situation. Taking a swig from the wine bottle, she started to think.

"Well, at least I can find peace for the night."

Her propped leg slide down as she slowly passed out, letting the little things slide by. The mortals can do what they want, she had no interest in them for now. The bottle of wine slipped out of her fingers, shattering on the floor as Phoenix wanted to pass out drunk, but didn't have enough alcohol. Feeling a headache coming on, she could feel something itch at her, but couldn't tell what.

"Bloody hell, why is this town so boring."

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The person in front of him was still rather androgynous and Raph wasn’t exactly certain what to call them, and to ask would’ve invited further embarrassment, either to them or himself. Instead he took the water from her, graciously, and drank down the water in a few seconds shaking his head when she asked if there was anything else she could get him. He panted a bit as he finished the water.

“Thank you so much!” he said with a smile and then extended his hand. “Sorry about earlier, but there were just too many people for my taste. My name’s Raphael Laurent. I’m a proxy to the Quincy kingdom, in a way…” He paused for a minute and waited for her to shake his hand before pulling it back. “Oh! Shit, I’m sorry,” and he dug into his pocket grabbing for his wallet and pulled out ten dollars, setting it on the table. “You can keep the change.”

He watched, in only mild interest as the other man got to his feet and left. “I’m…sorry?” he looked back at the innkeeper. “I didn’t… interrupt anything did I? He left the moment that I came in. Though she apologized after seeming to be a bit distracted. He shook his head. “Don’t worry about it,” he said, waving his hand. “Things happen. I get distracted by things all the time.”

No sooner had he said that when he heard the shattering of glass on the floor and winced. With an annoyed expression, he concentrated a bit, and waved his hand. The wine bottle would put itself back together, resealing, before the liquid went back inside. “Please be more careful!” he shouted. “That sound hurts my ears so badly!”

Then he turned back to the innkeeper. “You’ve had some rather…” And he glanced at the entrance and then at the arrancar’s room. “Interesting guests tonight, haven’t you?” He studied her face. “Just kinda makes me wonder what makes you unique? And not how difficult it is to tell your gender, so much as…why would an agent from the KSN and an arrancar be here at the same time?” Before she could respond he said, “I’ve been at this game a bit too long to believe that something like that would be random coincidence.” And he flashed a brief smile.

Janus shrugged, looking blankly at the words that made no sense or care mind to her.   She shook his hand and looked extremely confused. "A what of the who and a what?" Janus said completely confused as she shrugged.  "I'm nothing special, I just run and own the place."   She said to the young man and then shrugged.  Janus could not sense anything anyway and she was not unique, unless you considered Diviners unique but mostly they were just crazy as hell.  "They talk a lot, and the real issue I have is having my place get destroyed... again.  I literally just finished re-opening the place."  She said as she tried to process the fact the bottle fixed itself.  That was a little weird.  She chalked it up to time displacement, the bottle had not broke, she had seen a future where it did and she was reeling in her time distortion.  

"I'm not unique Mister, and I have no idea what any of the words you just said are.  If they're racial slang, then I don't think I've head them before."  Janus stated as she nodded back at him.  "As for my Gender, you can call me whatever you like to be honest.   I'm pretty normal, a bit insane but owning a place up in the mountains of Karakura which is regularly hit with disasters will do that to you." She said as she avoided saying anything about the fact she had been tossed into institutions more often than not.  "Pleasure to meet you Mister Laurent.  My name is Janus  DiNapoli." She said tipping her head to the young man.

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