IC Inbox CW: THREADS AT TOP UNMARKED FOR VARIOUS TOPICS INCL. MENTION OF MURDER, INCEST,etc.

[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

[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.