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[aibolition]

N/A
UN: USERNAMEHERE

STATUS: Student, starting Grade 11

ACCOLADES: Straight A student. Once ripped a guy's arm off.

BIO: Fluent in Japanese, learning English. If all those juicy details didn't satisfy you you're about to be sorely disappointed.

© TESSISAMESS

Comments

[badinfluenza]

"Don't be mean to me, I'm injured." Him swatting her hand away makes her pout and whine to emphasize this fact, but it's only half faked. As much as she wants to mouth off to him some more, she really doesn't want to push him into actually dropping her so she'd be left in a crying, writhing heap of pain.

Maybe it's just that she seems more inclined to behave at the threat that there's a moment of peaceful silence before she responds. "Well, he very nicely asked me to stay where I was."

Boy, does she wish it was another sarcastic comment like how she frames it. Boy, does she wish that the hunter hadn't told her to stop, making her wait for him and listen while he repeatedly commanded she hold still, stay where she was, stand there and wait, don't move. Even with all her struggling, she'd barely managed to get a grip on her knife by the time he was swinging at her. He'd known to treat her as anyone treats a golem, but at least he hadn't known that cutting her off from her arm wouldn't keep it from hurting him. She'd severed his Achilles' tendons and when he dropped from the pain and surprise, cut and stabbed with all the viciousness he'd beat her legs in with that her limited dexterity as a disembodied arm allowed.

"It's harder to see when it's daytime. I wasn't planning on being out for long, or I'd have brought a sun hat. Keep my leg in place while I'm doing my injections. It would be a bother to have to keep positioning it again because it's in all different directions, and it'll probably spasm."

She's patched herself up enough times, even with as careful as she was, to guess that it would hurt as little by little, more of the leg got set in place.

[aibolition]

"In the clinic I lived in," He says dryly, "The patients followed our rules or they could walk themselves to the hospital and wait it out there." This was not a threat that needed to be said often or acted upon, but it was still true.

They don't talk of things they don't want to. They don't share feelings or any of that ridiculousness and he doesn't feel the desire to change that. It wouldn't do either of them any good. But, her flippancy with this makes a growl settle in his hollowed-out chest. It's obvious something happened. He wouldn't have to be here helping her put herself back together if there wasn't.

She should have been more prepared. What was the matter with her? This should not have happened. And she's talking about forgetting a freaking sunhat.

"Looks like I'm dropping you anyway. I'm not going to be able to pin your leg down like this."

But at least the "drop" will be more slowly setting her down. He passes her back that syringe.

[badinfluenza]

If she had a heart that worked properly, it probably would have beat a little faster when he says he'll be dropping her, with how fear jolts through her. But then he's setting her down, and it hurts still, but not nearly as much as she was afraid of. He's not like her, and it's times like this -- times she was always so determined to not let happen -- where it really showed. Pretty foolish of him, when the world wasn't guaranteed to show the same kindness in return, but...it was hard to be too mad at that or how much better he was than her in the moment.

Instead of commenting on it -- what's she supposed to say about that, anyway? -- the girl busies herself with deep breaths to stop her hands from trembling with the anticipation of pain she knows will be coming, and goes to jab at the hunter with a much more practiced precision. So, he'd lived in a clinic... Either he was awful at paying attention or he didn't much care, with how he was going about the blood retrieval before she took over. She barely pauses when the hunter weakly stirs, eyes opening just enough to notice they weren't alone anymore and croaks out, "Help..."

There's no force behind it, and it's not directed at her, anyway, so she doesn't feel any compulsion to try. Instead, her voice kicks into chipper mode and she flashes him the biggest, fakest smile she can. "Help myself? Wow, thanks! I'd be happy to!"

"She's...abomination..."

Tell them something they don't know, jeez. What a waste of some of his last breaths. What would really help her out is if he quit bleeding all over the pavement and saved more for her, since each leg was going to take multiple injections... She can't maintain the cheery attitude for long, though, because wow! Making your mangled legs not mangled anymore sure does hurt! Good thing she's not particularly strong and also doesn't...really have means to shove him away with anyway, as her self-preservation instinct overrides her common sense and along with her legs trying to correct themselves further through her magic, she struggles to make them work enough to kick him off.

[aibolition]

It's better to keep such thoughts to herself. He knew full well how the world was and could be. But he doesn't offer a hand to just anyone. It takes just a moment for him to find that his hands are in the wrong place. The flat gold light of his eyes behind the mask seems to flare for a moment.

He stays silent and still, holding her down long enough to finish this. Her kicking does nothing. Not to him. The trouble is that he wants to let go. Every day he pours his limited self-control into one single thing and it turns out spreading that resource even thinner is tiresome. The moment he can, the moment he's sure she'll be still enough, he addresses her.

"Wait. Stay still."

So help them both if she doesn't listen to him now, because the next moment, he seems to have vanished from her side, appearing by the pleading hunter in a flash. His hand all but crushes down on their throat. The jaws of his mask part in time with his bared teeth behind them. His hand seems to shift, nails extending into sharper black claws, each knuckle jutting to something jagged. He leans in.

"You're going to die," He says to the hunter, and the reverb of his voice seems even stronger now. "When you do, I'll have the power to obliterate you, tooth or claw, or send you on. Whichever way I choose, you won't outrun me. But instead, you're going to send a message. You're going to find your other stupid little hunters and anyone else you think might interfere with her business and you're going to haunt them until they listen. You're going to send the message that if this ever happens again... I'll rip all your throats out. And I'll devour you." His teeth are nearly close enough to scrape flesh. He could take a chunk out now. His claws squeeze, leaving pricks in the skin. And he whispers, low, "You think she's an abomination? She's got nothing on me. Now die quietly."

And then, in a flash, like he left, he's back at her side. The only sign of otherwise are his slowly retracting claws and the scratches on the hunter's neck.

"Are your legs about done?" He asks her.

[badinfluenza]

Instantly, she stills at his words, even though she still wants to fight, kick, and cry about the pain. Maybe 'want' was a strong word for that last one... But either way, she stops struggling except for a persistent tremble and a clenched jaw, and she listens.

She doesn't need his help. She doesn't, despite so very obviously needing him now, and he shouldn't even want to help her anyway. Idiot... He didn't make any sense, even when he was one of the only ones that came close to making sense to her at all. It's easier to focus on the ragged, scared puffs of breath than his words.

Once he's back, Lotte moves again to numbly nod, her expression and tone heavy with tired annoyance from having listened to him. Even in this short time, and though they were more bruise than leg, really, they should be okay enough for her to limp her way around. "I just need to line up my arm and put blood on it, and one more syringe..." That one she can get for herself, at least. The other one would go faster if it was left up to him.

[aibolition]

He makes little more than a noise and he moves to direct his attentions on her arm, shifting and pushing it in whatever way he needs to it's the way it should be. Really, the worst sort of regeneration, he thinks again.

The hunter is back to being ignored. Ichigo would have been furious with him, simply letting someone die. Ichigo wasn't here to do anything about it.

"I'm guessing you only use fresh? Otherwise, you could simply carry some and I can't imagine you'd be dumb enough that you wouldn't."

[badinfluenza]

With the arm, once blood is washed over the place it was severed, her pale skin starts to stitch itself back together. Unlike her legs, there's no purple-blue-yellow of bruising, just a fresh pink line that would fade as time went on. The blood fades much faster, and must be sinking in through her skin like it's some weird absorbent.

"Awh, you're such a charmer!" Pushed to be perky, which drops again instantly. "Yep. There's not many uses for old blood in blood magic, and that's the only blood I've got. Barely any circulation, you know."

She flexes her fingers experimentally. They're a little stiff, and it hurts in that pins and needles way, but it should be good enough for proper use in a little bit. It's not like she wants to stay exposed out here for much longer, anyway.

"Upsy-daisy..." Which would take an excruciating long time on her own, whoops.

[aibolition]

If he weren't bone white himself, he might say something like "no wonder" regarding the apparent lack of circulation. She's basically a walking corpse. At least she's no longer roadkill.

The shining light of his eyes dims just enough that she can see them roll even behind the mask. He mutters over her idiocy once again, but then moves to lift her up. He's got a mind to throw her over his shoulder but, considering her injuries, he imagines she'll make a fuss and that would be even more annoying. In his arms she stays then.

He casts one last glance back at the dying hunter. In truth, he thinks, even if he'd wanted to, there'd likely be no saving them.

"So where the hell am I dumping you?" He asks her.

[badinfluenza]

Even with this, it takes some effort not to screech at him. It was bad enough when she couldn't move, but now it was basically just for kicks!!! (It wasn't.) Still...this would be faster, and hey, if she decided that him knowing where she was staying was a bad idea, she'd just move on to somewhere else. She should probably be getting to that soon anyway, since she didn't know what other hunters this one might be working with, or how much they knew.

"There's an apartment building back that way, about a block once you follow the alley back. It's on this side of the street, with a white door that has a window that looks like a weird blocky heart. Are you going to stay like that?"

All Hollowed up...

[aibolition]

He's already started walking as she begins her explanation. He starts heading out of the alley, toward the open street, then she asks about his mask. He stops.

Damn. He probably does have to get rid of it, doesn't he?

His pause makes it very clear he didn't consider this at all and for that he eloquently says, "Shut up."

He shifts her in his arms so he can lifts a hand just enough to wave it over his face. With that, the mask starts to dissolve. As it does, the hole in his chest seals up-- nothing more than an illusion, really, it doesn't give him a heart-- and there's just the briefest catch in his breath. He hurries then out into the street, looking for her stupid heart window, tempted to kick in the door when he finds it. He doesn't look at her, as though without the mask, the closeness has become suddenly unbearable.

[badinfluenza]

Ha. There, she watched out for him when he was being stupid, it wasn't just going one way, this time. She doesn't have to feel...quite so ashamed of herself. She takes comfort in him sassing her, too, smirking and allowing herself to sink against him and start poking at where the hole had been. If she's annoying, then she doesn't have to think about how much he was taking care of her or wonder why he's all the more on edge. When they reach the front of the steps leading up, her legs swing despite the fact that doing so makes her want to scream and break something. Chop them off so she doesn't have to deal with them until later, when she knows managing the pain won't...well, come along with the urge to chop them off.

"Alright, put me down. I'm not going to let you carry me over the threshold like some creep with a child bride."

She just needs to unlock the door and stumble over to the nearest piece of furniture and damn it she's starting to regret not having any fucking furniture. Just a blank slate of a home she was ready to abandon at a moment's notice, a series of rooms with white walls and no decorations, sometimes with a chair or table or bedframe, and two stacks of all white clothes, one neatly folded and one a discarded heap.

In the end, she ends up setting her back to a wall and sliding down it while she fumbles with the white buttons of her white button-up blouse.

"Make yourself at home~ Someone should."

[aibolition]

She prods his chest which makes him jostle her. Is it on purpose or on accident? Guess she'll never know. They get to the door and he drops her immediately.

"Don't be disgusting," He huffs. Tall order. It seemed everyone around him was hellbent on being so.

He takes in the absolute utter blankness of the room she took up for herself. Anything he could think to compare it to was far from homey.

"You sure that's a good idea? You and I could become so camouflaged we'd never find each other again."

He could probably use a sink. He's got her blood on his hands and that's neither appealing nor going to help him out in public.

[badinfluenza]

Hardy har, smart guy.

"You've got your spooky glowy eyes. I can find you that way." As for her... Yeah, she wasn't exactly her usual perfect porcelain self. Even if she hid herself in her long fountain of white curls, she wouldn't be able to cover up every part of her going through a whole range of colors. She doesn't bother bringing it up or wasting more attention on him, just finishes opening up her top to inspect how deep into her side the hunter had gotten when cutting her arm off and test the state of her skin around there. Yeah, getting rigid... Great. She loves bleeding internally, especially with her disgusting sludge blood that shouldn't even be able to flow enough to pool in other places anyway!! Well, that's what she'd gotten that last syringe of blood for, which she gets out of her inventory again before jabbing it in.

The sink, whether he finds it in the kitchen space open to the main floor, or in the small bathroom, is white and surrounded by -- surprise! -- more white! She's kind of got a theme going here.

"...It's unbelievable you were passing by when you did."

That might...be her version of saying 'dang I got lucky, thanks so much'.

[aibolition]

White, white, and even more white. Now he knows what this place reminds him of. Frigin' Hueco Mundo under Aizen's shitty taste.

He simply makes a face as he rinses his hands clean. He doesn't want to think about that bastard. He still remembers the brush of Ichigo's pity for the guy who screwed them all over and it makes him want to kick things too. He'll take his time with that to avoid whatever she's doing with her shirt for a while, then lean outside the door rather than walk back in.

"I guess I have a talent for it," He says. "Try not to make a habit of getting nearly killed though. I happen to have a job that keeps me busy."

Not a paying job, no, but a thing that he does.

"Are you entirely healed?"

[badinfluenza]

But it's so clean, so pure. 'It's the people we meet who give us color.' It had been a long time since she first heard those words, but times like these she remembers them. That hunter sure had added a whole bunch of color to her life between the bruises, her blood, and his own. Since the man's out of view and she can hear the sink running, Lotte may as well take this opportunity to change out her clothes for a clean set. This time, a white hoodie over a simple white dress and tights to try and hide the discoloration from her own view. It doesn't work completely, of course, but hopefully it would be enough that it wouldn't catch her eye so much and she wouldn't have to think about it.

'Try not to make a habit of nearly getting killed' is an instruction she doesn't need spelled out for her. She was already planning on it.

"Healed enough. Might take a few hours for all my insides to sort themselves out perfectly again. Where do you work?"

Give her the deets!!

[aibolition]

Clean and pure, yeah, that's what Aizen said. It almost made him want to get a tan. Well, if she's expecting color from him it's probably just going to be more monochrome.

He doesn't like the lack of assurance. But, he probably wouldn't like hearing her planning either. Her planning hadn't helped this time.

"Everywhere. I hunt monsters that go bump in the night. Didn't you know that?"

Maybe he never actually told her. That's... possible. Woops.

[badinfluenza]

"Hmm. I remember you eating ghosts and demons. It sounded more like a fun hobby," she muses, faking a yawn and wandering over to a countertop to hop up on and sit to be closer to his level. Kind of a shitty job, when he is what he is, and she is what she is. She tried not to go bump in the night, though.

Also there was that whole he could have left her to die earlier, or made it happen quicker, but his instinct had been to cradle her close. Still not...entirely sure what to do with that information, because even if part of her thinks it's extremely handy, the other part is...disappointed, maybe, for even thinking of possibly exploiting it.

[aibolition]

He did threaten as much, didn't he? And he was fine with others thinking that. It was better that way, than them thinking he was weak. Better than her thinking it. He turns and leans back against the counter next to where she sits.

"Wrong hunting. The other kind." He holds out his hand. In it, his sword materializes, a great butcher's cleaver with a cloth that winds around his arm. "And it's not just any monster." In his other hand, he materializes his mask. He waves it a little, out of her reach. "The other guys with these are a spiritual pest problem." He waves both the sword and mask away. Then, he leans back.

"Not that it isn't fun, but it's still a job. We can call it a purpose of existence. I can technically do the boring stuff too, like send souls on peacefully but, psh, every side thinks I'm on the other side's team."

It's a lot of information he's giving her. He's aware of it. He's not sure where the impulse comes from, really.

[badinfluenza]

She's not used to it, this...sharing thing. Usually when she gave out details, they were things she'd made up or carefully curated for a particular person. She'd been pretty sure he was the same way... Well. No matter. She leans forward to watch him better, bracing her elbows on her thighs even if it means she trembles a little to keep the pain from affecting her tone.

"Wow! I didn't know you hated yourself so much you had to take it out on the people like you. Impressive."

[aibolition]

His first instinct is to protest, to give her a flat look and say he's nothing like any of them. But, then the reality of it hits him. The irony of forgetting Ichigo for just a second and then the full wave of remembering.

All at once, he barks a laugh. It's a sharp and high cackle of laugh. It's loud and long and unpleasant. It has him throwing his head back until it's done and even then a wide and manic grin lingers.

"You crack me up sometimes. There's only one person like me, and I left 'me' behind a while ago. Everything else is just minor similarities. It means nothing."

[badinfluenza]

Not used to hearing a lot of laughter in response to what she says, she doesn't much know the difference between a pleasant or an unpleasant one. The ones she offered were usually that fake cheerful kind, sounding positive but at the same time, resting in the uncanny valley. It means that when he tells her she cracks him up, there's a brief flicker of pride, or something like it, that she has to quickly stamp out. No way. She doesn't care if he finds her funny or not. Back to the bickering, which was safer.

"Sure, sure. Whatever you say, right?" If it was true, though... She sure wishes she could say the same.

[aibolition]

In all fairness, his delighted laughter and his furious fake laughter sounded pretty much the same. His grins, too, could be hard to tell apart. Especially nowadays when his bitterness came through in just about everything.

Almost everything.

"You don't believe me," He notes, genuinely amused. "Well, I guess that's no surprise." And also probably for the best. "But still, I mean it when I say I'm not like the ones I hunt or the ones who usually do the hunting. I'm not like the ones in between or the ones on the other side of that. I'm nothing and everything."

[badinfluenza]

"I get it," she admits before really thinking about it. It's not something she would have wanted to share, so maybe it's being thrown off-kilter by that weird feeling a second ago, or to do with the bashes to the skull she'd taken earlier. Most of them had been focused on her jaw, but that didn't mean she was exempt from a concussion or brain damage or...whatever. She takes a moment to think about it. The signs were either normal for her, something she couldn't test, or hadn't come up yet, outside of doing something out of the ordinary. Could she even be concussed? Another thing to keep track of, she supposed.

Besides, it was just something small and related to what he'd said. Related to a lot of today, actually... She might as well continue. "Even if my body didn't come from a lot of different kids, I wasn't the first one to be made by my parents," she practically hisses the word, with the venom she speaks it with. "But it's my body, and I've made this my life. Who and what they are doesn't matter. It's got nothing to do with me."

[aibolition]

It's a bit of seriousness from her that he's not sure he's really seen. Usually, if she were being serious, she was angry. She didn't like resorting to it. At least, that was his guess.

The way she hisses "parents" isn't far from the venom he has regarding Aizen's interventions. But then, it was less personal in that way. What really stung was everyone else's stupidity in between.

Everything that comes after that hiss of a word may as well have been spoken by him. He grins wide.

"No one's stupid pet-project. No one's shadow or curse. No one's tool or mask or trick up their sleeve. No one's alibi." Nothing to do with any of the past. Any of what was. "It's nice to be free, isn't it?"

[badinfluenza]

She'd like to agree with him. She'd love to feel that way, but her face remains flat and her eyes are fixed on the wall like there's something, anything different there to focus on. She might not be any of those things he lists or a lot of things left unsaid, but...

Don't move. Hold still. Wait for me. Stand there. Keep quiet. Stop struggling. Obey.

"Yeah. Free."