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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]

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."

[aibolition]

His smile drops away. Short lived that one was, but that seems to be the case these days. His own expression is back to seriousness.

"Hey," He says sharply. "If you've got shackles left, we'll break them. We've got all the time and means to do it. If there's someone pulling the chain, yank back. See how they like it in the cage."

His eyes close. His arms rise up in a stretch before slipping back down into his pockets.

"If I could get out you sure as hell can."

[badinfluenza]

Her jaw, still sore, clenches with the effort of not lashing out at him in a way he didn't deserve. He'd saved her when he didn't have to, and here he was offering himself up for some quest that didn't affect him without knowing the stakes, or any other details. It's probably the kindest thing anyone's ever done for her. She was never one to stay quiet for too long, and she glances over at him with a thin smile.

"Yeah? Some things don't get the luxury of changing. Sometimes you don't get a fairytale ending. What do you think you can you do that I couldn't in 84 years? Call me that bitch from Titanic, because that's how long it's been. If you really want to make this stop, you should go ahead and do to me what that hunter did."

[aibolition]

"Don't be so pathetic as to say something like that. Putting you in the ground doesn't do a thing."

It comes out sharp, but then, after that, he shrugs his shoulders. He pushes off from the counter to look at her properly.

"I don't know. But I've changed things older than you and probably more impossible. So grab a friggin' liferaft. I didn't drag you out of an alley for nothing."

[badinfluenza]

Imperative words, for some, but too abstract to make her feel like she needed to do anything about it. She stares back, smile maintaining like he had neither snapped at nor encouraged her.

"And if you end up like Jack because of it? Could you say it was worth it?"

[aibolition]

If he ends up Jack? If he ends up stuck in cold waters, essentially killing himself so someone else could live, begging that person to live because, despite everything, they were everything to him... Has he been able to say it was worth it...?

"Jack's a sucker. I'll swim."

[badinfluenza]

As if delighted, as if she wasn't thinking about stabbing him or maybe herself to see what he would do, Lotte claps her hands together.

"You know? Moving around in freezing water is only useful if there's somewhere in reach to move to. If you're stranded out there with nothing but the hope in others on your side, you should really just curl up on yourself and wait to either die or not die!"

Fun facts with Lotte! Who wouldn't be able to manage being in freezing temperatures at all, seizing up and sinking until she hit the bottom, never to be seen again, so she really is being so nice, sharing something that has nothing to do with her with him. Getting to ignore having to sort out her feelings about all this is just a fun little bonus.