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tampered2008-01-25 12:37 pm
anti-buttons.livejournal.com) wrote in tampered2008-01-25 12:37 pm
LOG; COMPLETE
When; 01.25.08 ; v. early morning
Rating; PG-13
Characters; Ishida Uryuu![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
anti_buttons & Cirucci Thunderwitch thunderwitch
Summary; It's power swap day and a pair of muns are a l-little unoriginal. (Seriously guys I NEED TO LOG ISHIDA WITH OTHER PEOPLE TOO, ANY TAKERS?). The Thunderwitch refuses to return Ishida's pendant, and bargains for something else.
Log;
Ordinarily, it would have woken him up immediately. The shock of the difference, the swell of spirit pressure, but with that supposition came the limitation, a clause. Pressure might have the quality of smells; one would be less inclined to notice their own. When his spirit pressure swelled, closer to sky-rocketing than an increasing tide, Ishida stirred, made an unflattering sound in his nose, and rolled over.
It was twenty-nine minutes later, the clock ticking toward three-AM, when he woke with a jolt. For half a minute he felt dizzy, nauseous, the intensity of his own spirit pressure too strong, overwhelming, crushing against his skin and leaving his nerves to quiver. But these weren’t genuine, his body couldn’t weaken his body – his mind insisted on it, and as it eased, as it shaped itself around the new reality, his head cleared, he inhaled, tremors ceased.
Before falling into confusion or panic, Ishida suppressed his reiatsu, subdued it, lest he exhaust himself or attract unwelcome attention. Then, blinking bleary and blind into the night’s darkness, he groped for his glasses and almost crushed them. Truth began to filter, seep through the edges of his consciousness, as he carefully put his glasses on, as he realized the cloth of his pajama top fell strangely over his skin.
Ishida looked down, his chin near to hugging his collarbone. He shifted his hand, pressed it against the fabric. Air sucked rapidly in through his teeth; his eyes widened, white in the dark, and the sheets moved to reveal a shadow-shape that became familiar too quickly.
Golondrina.
And one didn’t even have to be a genius for the pieces to fall in place.
“Shit,” air, sucked in, and Ishida was out of bed, the spirits gathered so quickly, easily, immensely under foot that he nearly went spiraling head over foot and into the wall, such a despicably embarrassing rookie mistake. As it was, he skidded, barely retaining control, diminished the spirit and crashing into the doorframe.
At least the shock reminded him to get dressed – as if he had time<, she had his pendant, and yet – better to be dressed.
--
Cirucci had woken immediately, because Golondrina was a part of her. Sealed, even, the sword was a part of her. Because the lack of heart was also part of her, and the minute she lost these things, her eyes opened, harsh and dilated from the start as she felt the sudden and inexplicable loss.
The Thunderwitch had lost a lot of things in her long life. She'd lose her rank, her pride, her respect, her wings, and her very life. But throughout all of these instances, she had still had Golondrina. Even when Nnoitra had taken it, that time, she had still felt the blade, the sealed up true form of hers, the avian beast she truly was beneath the flattering guile of woman. But now… she felt nothing.
Slowly, it seems she was moving far too slowly, her small hand moved, traced beneath cold, unforgiving sheets and pressed with a wince against her breasts. There was no hole between them. There was a heart. Her hand moved farther up, trembled softly up the smooth skin of her throat and against the line of her jaw, to hairline, smooth and unbroken by the fragment of her mask.
Beneath the sound of her teeth gritting and her breath hitching in her throat, she felt a soft clink. When she stopped to pay attention, she felt the cool touch of metal on her skin. Sharp nails curved, and touched the delicate chain of bracelet, a pendant, really, she doubted he'd want it called a bracelet, but at this point, what he wanted was the last of her concerns.
Cirucci Thunderwitch knew Shiro-Megane-Kun, and she knew this pendant.
Her jaw clenched tight, the Privaron rolled over and buried her face in the pillow. Perhaps if she stayed like that, she'd smother to death, and not have to think about the aching loss she felt without the comfort of her Hollow form. But more logically, she flared the Quincy's power as much as she could muster without hurting herself, and with the limited knowledge she had of its actual workings, trying to force it out like she did her own, all harsh attack, which didn't blend well with the Quincy's way of work, resulting in a tremulous, fluctuating energy signal.
And her nails dug against the pendant, her snarls muffled in the sheets.
--
With a mission, Ishida could avoid the emotional backlash. With an objective around which to center himself, he need not feel his stomach curl in disgust at the changed nature of his reiatsu, at what had changed while he remained the same, ill-fit.
His reiatsu, the weight of the weapon (his in a way the pendant never had been) sheathed on his hip. He could not approach his uniform like this, but the dark slacks and neutral turtleneck felt strange, too; Ishida felt as if he was slipping in somebody else’s skin. As he reached the electric-lit streets, he gathered the spirits beneath his feet again, awkwardly, slowly at first, because it was only nearly identical, what the Quincy did, what the Arrancar.
Slowly at first, until he had familiarized himself with using that much of his own reiatsu as well, and his speed increased though not with his spirit. He could have relaxed, let go of the objective, indulged in the rush of power he could feel struggling against the vise of his suppression, as if his hands were against a ready to burst faucet, water needing to trickle through the cracks, between his fingers. It might have been a high, dizzying and wonderful, but that – should he do that -- let it trickle, fly with it, do that, and the hunger prickling at his spine might become difficult to ignore.
Reaching her door, he knocked three times and waited. Another three, his knuckles hard against the wood.
--
She'd been waiting for him, too.
Slowly, the Privaron rose, dragged her heavy, mortal feeling body out of bed and paused to look at herself in the mirror. She didn't look different, despite the lack of hole in her chest and the mask on her skull, but she felt as if she did. As if she looked more weary, looked more weak, because she felt weak, unable to draw the reishi from the surroundings as a Quincy did, unsure of how, used to her own seemingly daunting reserve of spirit power, and Golondrina-
With a soft noise, a huff, the Arrancar drew a short white robe closed about petite frame, tied at the svelte curve of her waist and paused to check the Network. … Curse.
When Cirucci opened the door, she didn't speak. She stared, and her eyes immediately went down, straight to the sword at his hip, and her lips twisted into a disgusted, angry, curl, and her own fingers, in response, tightened into a fist around his pendant, looking back up at him stiffly, as if accusing him of theft.
--
Ishida liked to think himself above petty, eye-for-an-eye responses, often a product of instinct and immaturity. Yet, at the contortion of her features, at the clutch of her fingers – his eyes moving, as instantaneously as had hers, to search it out, the glimmer of metal chain and the angular cut of its charm – his eyes had narrowed. Wordless as well, in that moment, his hand slid to cup his palm over the hilt, his lips pressed thin.
The City had it out for every one of its “citizens”; he had long known that. Ishida would have much preferred to be powerless for the day, nearly anything. And he had avoided her so well to date.
The muscles of his jaw worked in silence, though he fancied he could hear them shifting over bone. Stiffly, so stiffly,
“Apologies for waking you,” he knew she had been waiting, “at this hour. I’d wondered if you would be interested in a trade.”
His eyes never left the curl of the chain around her fist, where the pendant had disappeared. He couldn’t know how to describe it, just yet, the feel of something so separate being so necessary, so much a part, Golondrina, his, in a greater than the sum of his human parts. He would give himself no chance to like it, to do anything but reject it.
--
Her lips pursed immediately, and as immediate reaction to his gesture, daring to lay hands on her Golondrina, her own fingers curled tighter around his pendant, moving her arm back, curled protectively under her breasts, to assert her own claim on his property in retaliation.
"Get in here." She hissed, opened the door wider and reached with her other hand, grabbed his arm and yanked. Cirucci became suddenly, all at once, startled, at her own… weakness. As an Arrancar, she was ridiculously stronger in the physical than a human, even with the tiny frame and lithe muscles she possessed, but now… this was ridiculous.
Once she had him in the door, though, her possessive, hoarding nature took over, and, careful to keep the pendant tucked at her palm, she immediately laid hands on the echo of her mask, spiked at his skull, hissing softly under her breath, fingers running over the familiar ivory like a long lost friend, recently returned. Her fingers moved down, poked hard at his chest and bit her lip when his clothing gave way to nothing. But upon reaching the sheath of her blade, her fingers just barely brushed it before she recoiled, snatched her hand back as if burned and glared at him accusingly.
"It's not mine any more."
--
The advantage of surprise, and his not being entirely against it, enabled her success in yanking him inside. His feet allowed it, tripping into motion, though even his most reflexive resistance proved impressive when compared to the typical dynamic of physical power between them. It was only then, with the abruptness of her motion, that he tore his eyes grudgingly from hispendant.
Whatever the City thought was irrelevant. She had no right to it. His teeth gritted, his neck jerking back and pressing his skull against only door as her hands sought. Queer, enough to freeze him, sending an involuntary sick shiver down his spine: he could feel it, her touch on the mask, his mask, her mask. The sensation left him numb and frozen, until her fingers pressed at cloth, into nothing, cloth into nothing an the sensitivity of the surrounding skin; muscles in his abdomen clenched as something lurched, strange, he struggled to collect himself.
At least his breathing had remained normal. A scowl, defensive, rose, and he needed to resist the compulsion to take hold of her hand and force it free. The thought, the knowledge that was almost primal: he could use his strength, force her fragile, human, woman hands. He could take it, snapping bones as they resisted. Whether it was the thought, or something in the vacancy that wanted it – Ishida felt sick.
“I don’t want it. There’s only one thing I want, and it’s none of –“ lips curling, disgust almost spitting, “this. It’ll reverse by tomorrow, anyway.” Hopefully.
--
"And until tomorrow, it's not mine." Cirucci hissed back. She was bitter, far too bitter, and it showed in her voice, how acutely she knew what a disadvantage she was at, showed because she took the pendant and tucked it between her breasts. He wouldn't go after it there, she knew that.
"I can't release." Her voice, it could be thought, had lost something of it's avian quality. "I can't use it." Would probably have trouble wielding it, too, even if she could release it, even to the first stage. Without the hierro on her skin, the steel wires would rip straight through her soft flesh, and without the raw physical power of an Arrancar, she couldn't heave the heavy whirling blade about anyway. Her shoulders stiffened, bristled with anger.
"And you-" She paused, and suddenly, a look of sadistic , vindictive justification passed her mouth, curled the corners of her lips up as her hands ran down hips, smoothed the short hem of her robe.
"… You're hungry, aren't you?" Because she had been hungry, always hungry, the bottomless pit of her stomach needing souls and never quite filled.
--
There it went. He watched with widening, then swiftly narrowed eyes as his pendant disappeared beneath her clothing, between her breasts. The thought of following it there was swiftly stamped out, and yet, the muscles in his arm trembled with the need to seize it.
At least, as he listened to her speak, he knew she would have no ability to use his weapons. The fighting style of a Quincy opposed that of a Shinigami completely, and opposed the Arrancar in a
different way. The Quincy drew power from their surroundings -- Arrancar and Shinigami relied on their own power, and he knew he would have more ease learning that, relying on shifting instinct and the theory he understood, than she ever would mastering his tools.
It was a relief, and yet, stomaching her as a Quincy was near impossible. It linked to the worst of it: Ishida Uryuu the Arrancar. His stomach turned, yearned. The expression on his face was stiff, hewn from ice, as she smirked her triumph. He could not blame the sudden strength of the emotion in his gut on this transformation; Ishida knew Arrancar existed who did not live by instinct, caving to harsh, base emotion. He could blame any loss of control only on himself.
"No," he lied, because he needed to lie, couldn't face that every moment, every beat out second, it magnified. His throat constricting, though the hunger went beyond the physical. His shoulderblades were hard against the door, through the fabric of his sweater, and everything felt strange, didn't feel strange enough. Like a hypochondriac he willed himself ill, pale, resisting every breath.
"I can't release, either," a necessary truth, "so you might as well take it."
--
Cirucci's lips twisted, from a smirk to a half sneer, violet falling to her blade once more. She wanted to touch it, and she did. Her delicate fingers traced the hilt before his fist, the tips of her nails skimmed the wrapping. Normally, she would shiver, because it would feel as if she herself was being touched, in a way, because it was part of her, connected to her closely, closer than any lover could ever be.
"Don't lie to me." She grit out, her hand withdrawing. It disconcerted her that she felt nothing when she touched it, that she had no bind to it anymore. "I was hungry-" She wasn't hungry anymore, not hungry like that. She wanted real food, bread, fruit, something to fill her belly.
"… You are hungry." Her hand traced up, using that she had him backed up to her advantage, her fingers found where his hole would be- Where her's was, and she traced it, a teasing, rousing touch that would normally have her shuddering softly.
"Because I haven't had a soul in days."
--
Inexpressibly bizarre; to know, not quite feel but know that her fingers grazed the hilt, brushing against a separate but inextricably linked piece of soul. His fingers jerked, too, a brief spasm along his arm that needed to throw off her touch, but the game currently begged him to keep still, as always, to never react, to reveal that she had ever affected him.
Yet, no, he would not stand idly, numb by as she touched what had been hers, what he repelled. As her hand moved up, his moved, locking around her wrist and holding it apart from his body, disallowing her the opportunity to trace the hole, to leave him shivering.
Prying his teeth apart, he took a step forward, the intention to push her back with his hold on her wrist and let his other hand leave the hilt, seize the doorknob from behind.
“It’s irrelevant. Whether I am or am not, I have no need to act on it.”
Or to remain here, if she would not relinquish his pendant, then he would have to wait twenty-four hours. Plain, simple.
--
Her eyes opened a bit and she winced a little, at how the grip on her wrist felt right now, ground delicate little avian bones against one another and made her lip twitch into a protesting hiss, her thin fingers spasming in his grip.
"You should just give in and eat-" Just because of the type of person she was, self-destructive and far too proud, she let the thrum of his power release as much as she could manage. It was like wafting a meal in front of a starving man, like that, flaring her soul, the soul she possessed now, that belonged to him. Fuck, he always made her so hungry, and it was all she could do when she was around him not to try and devour it.
"I can't have that sword like this." Because to hold it and not feel it would hurt her more than most things, disconnected from the one thing that always loved her, herself. Her other hand's fingers fished between her breasts and drew out a hint of fine chain.
"And you can't have this like that. Rather. I'm not giving it to you." She was all to aware of her own power, and the knowledge he could take it, if he were so inclined.
"So what do we do?~ If you leave me alone with this, well… who knows?"
--
It would be easy to break her bones; what had, before, felt fragile in a way that belied their strength, now might have well of been as hollow-boned as they seemed. Twigs, cracking underfoot. He tightened his grip, just so, testing less his strength and more her resolve, it was less sadism, more a threat.
The swell of reiatsu, familiar and yet foreign, tangible in a way he could almost smell, almost taste, roll it on his tongue like his oldest and most favored meal, scent, but more familiar yet. His fingers gripped harder, bruising, and a new threat: don’t play with this, with me.
“I could take it,” he reminded her, stating the obvious dryly, unamused, as his stomach curled, a physical demand for his beyond-physical hunger. “We aren’t doing anything. You can’t use it.”
Not meant to be a challenge, and of course, he couldn’t be certain that she would not figure it out to some extent.
--
Curse humanity and their ridiculously weak bodies. But even as she thrashed slightly, just the barest jerk back of her hips, hand, even as she let out of a soft whimper of pain, she didn't quiet the filling swell of reiatsu and soul, wafting flavor scented steam in his nostrils, her sense of souls.
"You don't know that." Of course he knew this. "If you leave-" Because a part of her desired company, beyond the fleeting warmth of the few lovers she scrounged up, beyond the fleeting satisfaction of torturing or maiming others, she wanted the more lasting satisfaction he offered her, because he was the only one who'd truly taken away everything she was.
"I could break it." Possible. "Or hide it." Also possible. "Even eat it. I can eat solid food now."
--
Slit-eyes, as he could not help but inhale, tasting the scent like his favorite stew as it simmered on the stove. Stop, he wanted to hiss, almost moved his lips to do so, almost shook her and squeezed harder, but not.
All this because he wouldn’t stick his hand down her shirt?
It wouldn’t be so easily broken, not the pendant or the chain, but at her threat of swallowing it, his eyebrows jumped and he could not help a sardonic laugh. “And risk the hell on your body come tomorrow?”
Not for the first time, not for the last, his mind teased that exhausting question of why she felt so compelled to do this to him. In one fashion or another. Her goal was obvious; he tried to brace himself for the only alternative, for the only way to take it back.
--
Her lips still curled in that little whimper of pain, in bruising grip and the soft grind of far too delicate bones, she managed to look him in the eye, no fear, no anger, even, the only thing readable maybe being a sort of disgusting desperation.
"I'd do it." Was all she murmured. She didn't want to imagine what would happen to an Arrancar body in possession of, let alone surrounding, an artifact of Quincy make.
But she'd do it.
--
He would have rathered not look her in the eyes, forced to identify that single, sick emotion. It wasn’t, no never, because of that that his fingers slackened – that was due to the whimper, due to his weakness, even that fear of becoming the corruption marked by the hole and mask.
Ishida shook his head, felt his hair move smooth against his cheeks. He dropped her wrist, almost flinging it back at her, disgusted, exasperated. Why him, he wondered, but his hand had already fallen from the doorknob.
“I won’t stay here. I’ll take it back then you – why not visit Alfons?”
--
She stiffened, snatched her wrist back and cradled it gently, chain dropped back between her breasts for her fingers to soothe her other arm, the materializing purple tint that clearly marked the grip of his fingers, backed by strength he was most unused to.
"I don't want to." She nearly spat. Why'd he bring that up? Why, why, why? "Just because I have a heart right now-" Goddamnit, "Doesn't mean I forgive him for what he did to me."
Forgiveness. What a disgusting…
"It's not like-" What? That she'd bother him the whole time? That she couldn't truly be that repulsive? That her powers couldn't truly be so either? She didn't know. She didn't care to.
"… I could feed you in return." What an offer. More desperation thinly veiled in a false sadism. Not hard to believe, as Cirucci Thunderwitch was indeed among those of sado-masochistic bent. "You won't be hungry, and you won't risk snacking on any good people." Her lips twitched. "It's hard, you know. Not eating. Knowing you're starving and then consciously deciding not to eat. To starve."
The soul fluxed.
--
Alfons loved her – Ishida assumed that, in any case, a probable truth, even after time and murder. He would want her around, when Ishida did not. The virulence of her response he couldn’t completely dissect, but his lips thinned, his words came dry, “Nor have I.”
Because, of course, he had been as inconvenienced by what Alfons had done to her.
She made her offer and for a beat, for a few, Ishida stared. His eyes were not quite wide, but they were unmoving, the words sinking past his thicker skin, his unchanged bones, through hole and mask, words streaming and emphasized with her last swell of spirit.
Ishida prided himself on his self-control. He could be utterly impassive, stolid, inexpressive. That was, after all, cool. Any number of factors could have contributed to this, then, the way rage flooded, and like in an inexperienced child, anger rushed with a swell in reiatsu, enough to stir the airs along his arm and whisper through his clothing as he moved, swift and hard, to seize her arns, to shift in the small hall space and slam her against the wall, to keep his voice level but in vibrato with suppressed fury.
“Don’t you dare,” he said, low, meant to be snarled but resisted, swallowed, “don’t you ever suggest that I’d sink so low. One day won’t starve me.”
--
… Had she thought about how weak human bodies were? Yes, she thought she maybe had. Before her legs had time to tense, to move, her shoulders slammed back into the wall, followed closely by the crack of her head, the spill of her dark hair against white and her eyes rolled back in momentary alarm, in the cry that ripped from her before she had chance to stifle the shriek of surprise, pain, both, bruised wrist clutching, gripping that pendant he wanted so dearly between fingers he'd have to break to remove.
"St-" With the rage, her reiatsu was crushing. "Stop releasing my-" It had never bothered her of course, and it wouldn't bother a Quincy. Or, a Quincy who knew how to use their powers to combat that. But the more the tried to pull, instinctively, on a power source she didn't possess, instead of pulling it from the surroundings, the more she floundered, and beads of sweat had already formed on her neck, the strain showed in the dilating of her eyes and the weak, (seeming, seeming to her) thrashing of her body in his grip before she froze to listen to his words.
"Arrancar-" She hissed loudly, "Eat souls." If she could move, she imagined she'd fight back. It was a nice thing to imagine. "And you're-" Cirucci couldn't even manage a smirk. "An Arrancar." The soul he possessed, now she, trembled against the less suppressed might of her own reiatsu, now his.
--
But Ishida was not violent, Ishida was not a victim or proponent of superfluous, discharged rage, and he let go even as he wanted to shake her, let go, ashamed (though he needed to dismiss it), ashamed of his lashing, of the sound her skull had made against the wall, of his strength and her human weakness.
It was self-disgust that took him a step make, made him want to reach again for the door. “Today it’s mine,” he said, almost hissing, bland but matter-of-fact, using her argument. “I’ll release it if I like.”
Only he didn’t like. Even that had left his soul pining, as if there were digestive acids clashing through his entire body, keening, leaving him a shade paler, unaccustomed to handling this kind of hunger.
“I’m not, “ he insisted, and it sounded weak even to him. “Only for the day. It’s temporary, a trick.” Not genuine, not actual, not staying. The sheen on her skin, perspiration along her brow, made him recognize the feel of his own, dampening his hair, the result of suppression and overexcitement.
--
It was a testament to her twisted nature, even without the lack of heart, that though she now played the role of victim, of food, she still held no pity for her own meals, even as her chest heaved and she fought the suppressing sense of power that had settled over her body, made her cold sweat and seize, made her slip to the floor when he released her, to catch her breath, recover, eyes in tiny pinpricks of black on violet.
"Right now-" A slight pant, "You are. And right now you're hungry. I have… what you want." Pale hand clutching that precious silver chain. "And you… well." She smiled too sweetly. "If you eat it-" Eat the soul. He couldn't kill her like that, just as she couldn't here in this City, but it would hurt.
"You know, maybe if you feed, I'll give this to you, right now." Because that would be satisfaction enough. "You can't leave me alone with this. So it's either that, or stay with me all day until the curse ends."
--
Turbulent; he felt not like a teenager with irrationally swinging emotions, but like a raft trapped in a stormy sea, a sea too large, capsizing beneath the force it was ill-equipped for – yet, he would never sink, let himself be tossed. He was far too obstinate.
Guilt, in the shaping of his eyelids when she collapsed, guilt that transferred like chemical energy into electric, potential into kinetic, guilt becoming greater levels of irritation, of anger (excess energy became shame). Scathing that brightened his blue eyes and shifted his lids closer. They focused on her hand, on the chain crawling around it, and his jerked out to seize hers, to try and pry her fingers apart.
“Shut up,” hissed, “don’t act as if you know what I can do, will do, won’t do. If the City made the exchange this far, there’s no reason to think it won’t put everything back where it belongs tomorrow.”
--
To say Cirucci was not happy now would be an understatement.
She was seething, and right now, losing her footing as it were, she really wasn't in the mood to lose fully. And though she couln't work his powers correctly, and knew it would probably be weak as hell compared to her normal strength, the Privaron tightened her grip and with the other hand slapped Ishida full across the face, her lips twisted into a dark frown.
--
With his body, with hers, her slap did not hurt, not conventionally. Her palm, fingers, struck his cheek and sent his face swinging back toward the opposite shoulder. It had not properly hurt, but surprise and what his mind expected took over, stunning him enough that his fingers loosened. He almost felt a second sting of shame, in a red hue in his cheeks (harsher where her hand had hit), in a briefly downcast glance. But simply because she was a human, a woman, didn’t excuse her.
“I could hide your weapon, too,” he said, quietly though not nonchalantly, aware that it would in some way affect him. “I believe the City would correct it.”
--
"I'll do more than hide it." She took the chance of his draw back to press the pendant fleetingly to her lips. "I'll break it."
Her chest heaved, from the sudden, weak, human desperation that had driven her to slap him so, even knowing how little affect it would have, and her own palm was red, her cheeks tinted as well, but hers more from the bodily reaction to crushing reiatsu.
"So pick one."
--
Whether she could or not, he couldn’t risk the faintest possibility. And there was no option, no choice, nothing to pick between. He would not feed, he would not resort to brutality against her, and Ishida looked at her, human and panting, as he suppressed his reiatsu even as bile threatened to rise up from his stomach, coating his throat, like the disgust he could almost taste, sticking to his teeth as he grimaced in defeat. He looked at her, something of a disdaining glower, as close to hating her as he’d even been.
Without another look, he walked down the hall, further into her apartment. Perhaps he could find a book, a means of ignoring her until the day was over. He planned to say nothing.
--
When he suppressed his, her reiatsu, her discomfort noticeably eased, and she sighed softly, body sagged, from tense to limp in seconds. She watched him, quiet, until he stalked off. Then, she tucked the pendant back between her breasts, adjusting the white robe and standing, tugging at it until it fell to her satisfaction.
The Privaron stalked after him, to the kitchen, and grabbed a small pastry from the counter. It would be actually filling now. On her way back to bed, however, she smirked, and tapped a pile of pillows as she walked past him, to go back to her interrupted sleep.
Beneath the pillows, she hid her books.
--
Briefly, he humored the thought that beneath the pillow would be a severed hand, would be something to turn his stomach, something ridiculous and obscene. When he shifted the pillows, one by one, to reveal the stack, a flash of dark amusement and frustration furrowed his brow. He didn’t like to think that she knew him so well, even if he was terribly transparent in some things.
It was late still, the lights off, and he knew he ought to sleep. But he couldn’t, not in this changed body, not in this place. With her smirk in mind, an unwelcome memory that he couldn’t quite shake off, Ishida reached back to turn on the lamp, so to better browse her titles.
It would be a long day.
Rating; PG-13
Characters; Ishida Uryuu
anti_buttons & Cirucci Thunderwitch thunderwitchSummary; It's power swap day and a pair of muns are a l-little unoriginal. (Seriously guys I NEED TO LOG ISHIDA WITH OTHER PEOPLE TOO, ANY TAKERS?). The Thunderwitch refuses to return Ishida's pendant, and bargains for something else.
Log;
Ordinarily, it would have woken him up immediately. The shock of the difference, the swell of spirit pressure, but with that supposition came the limitation, a clause. Pressure might have the quality of smells; one would be less inclined to notice their own. When his spirit pressure swelled, closer to sky-rocketing than an increasing tide, Ishida stirred, made an unflattering sound in his nose, and rolled over.
It was twenty-nine minutes later, the clock ticking toward three-AM, when he woke with a jolt. For half a minute he felt dizzy, nauseous, the intensity of his own spirit pressure too strong, overwhelming, crushing against his skin and leaving his nerves to quiver. But these weren’t genuine, his body couldn’t weaken his body – his mind insisted on it, and as it eased, as it shaped itself around the new reality, his head cleared, he inhaled, tremors ceased.
Before falling into confusion or panic, Ishida suppressed his reiatsu, subdued it, lest he exhaust himself or attract unwelcome attention. Then, blinking bleary and blind into the night’s darkness, he groped for his glasses and almost crushed them. Truth began to filter, seep through the edges of his consciousness, as he carefully put his glasses on, as he realized the cloth of his pajama top fell strangely over his skin.
Ishida looked down, his chin near to hugging his collarbone. He shifted his hand, pressed it against the fabric. Air sucked rapidly in through his teeth; his eyes widened, white in the dark, and the sheets moved to reveal a shadow-shape that became familiar too quickly.
Golondrina.
And one didn’t even have to be a genius for the pieces to fall in place.
“Shit,” air, sucked in, and Ishida was out of bed, the spirits gathered so quickly, easily, immensely under foot that he nearly went spiraling head over foot and into the wall, such a despicably embarrassing rookie mistake. As it was, he skidded, barely retaining control, diminished the spirit and crashing into the doorframe.
At least the shock reminded him to get dressed – as if he had time<, she had his pendant, and yet – better to be dressed.
--
Cirucci had woken immediately, because Golondrina was a part of her. Sealed, even, the sword was a part of her. Because the lack of heart was also part of her, and the minute she lost these things, her eyes opened, harsh and dilated from the start as she felt the sudden and inexplicable loss.
The Thunderwitch had lost a lot of things in her long life. She'd lose her rank, her pride, her respect, her wings, and her very life. But throughout all of these instances, she had still had Golondrina. Even when Nnoitra had taken it, that time, she had still felt the blade, the sealed up true form of hers, the avian beast she truly was beneath the flattering guile of woman. But now… she felt nothing.
Slowly, it seems she was moving far too slowly, her small hand moved, traced beneath cold, unforgiving sheets and pressed with a wince against her breasts. There was no hole between them. There was a heart. Her hand moved farther up, trembled softly up the smooth skin of her throat and against the line of her jaw, to hairline, smooth and unbroken by the fragment of her mask.
Beneath the sound of her teeth gritting and her breath hitching in her throat, she felt a soft clink. When she stopped to pay attention, she felt the cool touch of metal on her skin. Sharp nails curved, and touched the delicate chain of bracelet, a pendant, really, she doubted he'd want it called a bracelet, but at this point, what he wanted was the last of her concerns.
Cirucci Thunderwitch knew Shiro-Megane-Kun, and she knew this pendant.
Her jaw clenched tight, the Privaron rolled over and buried her face in the pillow. Perhaps if she stayed like that, she'd smother to death, and not have to think about the aching loss she felt without the comfort of her Hollow form. But more logically, she flared the Quincy's power as much as she could muster without hurting herself, and with the limited knowledge she had of its actual workings, trying to force it out like she did her own, all harsh attack, which didn't blend well with the Quincy's way of work, resulting in a tremulous, fluctuating energy signal.
And her nails dug against the pendant, her snarls muffled in the sheets.
--
With a mission, Ishida could avoid the emotional backlash. With an objective around which to center himself, he need not feel his stomach curl in disgust at the changed nature of his reiatsu, at what had changed while he remained the same, ill-fit.
His reiatsu, the weight of the weapon (his in a way the pendant never had been) sheathed on his hip. He could not approach his uniform like this, but the dark slacks and neutral turtleneck felt strange, too; Ishida felt as if he was slipping in somebody else’s skin. As he reached the electric-lit streets, he gathered the spirits beneath his feet again, awkwardly, slowly at first, because it was only nearly identical, what the Quincy did, what the Arrancar.
Slowly at first, until he had familiarized himself with using that much of his own reiatsu as well, and his speed increased though not with his spirit. He could have relaxed, let go of the objective, indulged in the rush of power he could feel struggling against the vise of his suppression, as if his hands were against a ready to burst faucet, water needing to trickle through the cracks, between his fingers. It might have been a high, dizzying and wonderful, but that – should he do that -- let it trickle, fly with it, do that, and the hunger prickling at his spine might become difficult to ignore.
Reaching her door, he knocked three times and waited. Another three, his knuckles hard against the wood.
--
She'd been waiting for him, too.
Slowly, the Privaron rose, dragged her heavy, mortal feeling body out of bed and paused to look at herself in the mirror. She didn't look different, despite the lack of hole in her chest and the mask on her skull, but she felt as if she did. As if she looked more weary, looked more weak, because she felt weak, unable to draw the reishi from the surroundings as a Quincy did, unsure of how, used to her own seemingly daunting reserve of spirit power, and Golondrina-
With a soft noise, a huff, the Arrancar drew a short white robe closed about petite frame, tied at the svelte curve of her waist and paused to check the Network. … Curse.
When Cirucci opened the door, she didn't speak. She stared, and her eyes immediately went down, straight to the sword at his hip, and her lips twisted into a disgusted, angry, curl, and her own fingers, in response, tightened into a fist around his pendant, looking back up at him stiffly, as if accusing him of theft.
--
Ishida liked to think himself above petty, eye-for-an-eye responses, often a product of instinct and immaturity. Yet, at the contortion of her features, at the clutch of her fingers – his eyes moving, as instantaneously as had hers, to search it out, the glimmer of metal chain and the angular cut of its charm – his eyes had narrowed. Wordless as well, in that moment, his hand slid to cup his palm over the hilt, his lips pressed thin.
The City had it out for every one of its “citizens”; he had long known that. Ishida would have much preferred to be powerless for the day, nearly anything. And he had avoided her so well to date.
The muscles of his jaw worked in silence, though he fancied he could hear them shifting over bone. Stiffly, so stiffly,
“Apologies for waking you,” he knew she had been waiting, “at this hour. I’d wondered if you would be interested in a trade.”
His eyes never left the curl of the chain around her fist, where the pendant had disappeared. He couldn’t know how to describe it, just yet, the feel of something so separate being so necessary, so much a part, Golondrina, his, in a greater than the sum of his human parts. He would give himself no chance to like it, to do anything but reject it.
--
Her lips pursed immediately, and as immediate reaction to his gesture, daring to lay hands on her Golondrina, her own fingers curled tighter around his pendant, moving her arm back, curled protectively under her breasts, to assert her own claim on his property in retaliation.
"Get in here." She hissed, opened the door wider and reached with her other hand, grabbed his arm and yanked. Cirucci became suddenly, all at once, startled, at her own… weakness. As an Arrancar, she was ridiculously stronger in the physical than a human, even with the tiny frame and lithe muscles she possessed, but now… this was ridiculous.
Once she had him in the door, though, her possessive, hoarding nature took over, and, careful to keep the pendant tucked at her palm, she immediately laid hands on the echo of her mask, spiked at his skull, hissing softly under her breath, fingers running over the familiar ivory like a long lost friend, recently returned. Her fingers moved down, poked hard at his chest and bit her lip when his clothing gave way to nothing. But upon reaching the sheath of her blade, her fingers just barely brushed it before she recoiled, snatched her hand back as if burned and glared at him accusingly.
"It's not mine any more."
--
The advantage of surprise, and his not being entirely against it, enabled her success in yanking him inside. His feet allowed it, tripping into motion, though even his most reflexive resistance proved impressive when compared to the typical dynamic of physical power between them. It was only then, with the abruptness of her motion, that he tore his eyes grudgingly from hispendant.
Whatever the City thought was irrelevant. She had no right to it. His teeth gritted, his neck jerking back and pressing his skull against only door as her hands sought. Queer, enough to freeze him, sending an involuntary sick shiver down his spine: he could feel it, her touch on the mask, his mask, her mask. The sensation left him numb and frozen, until her fingers pressed at cloth, into nothing, cloth into nothing an the sensitivity of the surrounding skin; muscles in his abdomen clenched as something lurched, strange, he struggled to collect himself.
At least his breathing had remained normal. A scowl, defensive, rose, and he needed to resist the compulsion to take hold of her hand and force it free. The thought, the knowledge that was almost primal: he could use his strength, force her fragile, human, woman hands. He could take it, snapping bones as they resisted. Whether it was the thought, or something in the vacancy that wanted it – Ishida felt sick.
“I don’t want it. There’s only one thing I want, and it’s none of –“ lips curling, disgust almost spitting, “this. It’ll reverse by tomorrow, anyway.” Hopefully.
--
"And until tomorrow, it's not mine." Cirucci hissed back. She was bitter, far too bitter, and it showed in her voice, how acutely she knew what a disadvantage she was at, showed because she took the pendant and tucked it between her breasts. He wouldn't go after it there, she knew that.
"I can't release." Her voice, it could be thought, had lost something of it's avian quality. "I can't use it." Would probably have trouble wielding it, too, even if she could release it, even to the first stage. Without the hierro on her skin, the steel wires would rip straight through her soft flesh, and without the raw physical power of an Arrancar, she couldn't heave the heavy whirling blade about anyway. Her shoulders stiffened, bristled with anger.
"And you-" She paused, and suddenly, a look of sadistic , vindictive justification passed her mouth, curled the corners of her lips up as her hands ran down hips, smoothed the short hem of her robe.
"… You're hungry, aren't you?" Because she had been hungry, always hungry, the bottomless pit of her stomach needing souls and never quite filled.
--
There it went. He watched with widening, then swiftly narrowed eyes as his pendant disappeared beneath her clothing, between her breasts. The thought of following it there was swiftly stamped out, and yet, the muscles in his arm trembled with the need to seize it.
At least, as he listened to her speak, he knew she would have no ability to use his weapons. The fighting style of a Quincy opposed that of a Shinigami completely, and opposed the Arrancar in a
different way. The Quincy drew power from their surroundings -- Arrancar and Shinigami relied on their own power, and he knew he would have more ease learning that, relying on shifting instinct and the theory he understood, than she ever would mastering his tools.
It was a relief, and yet, stomaching her as a Quincy was near impossible. It linked to the worst of it: Ishida Uryuu the Arrancar. His stomach turned, yearned. The expression on his face was stiff, hewn from ice, as she smirked her triumph. He could not blame the sudden strength of the emotion in his gut on this transformation; Ishida knew Arrancar existed who did not live by instinct, caving to harsh, base emotion. He could blame any loss of control only on himself.
"No," he lied, because he needed to lie, couldn't face that every moment, every beat out second, it magnified. His throat constricting, though the hunger went beyond the physical. His shoulderblades were hard against the door, through the fabric of his sweater, and everything felt strange, didn't feel strange enough. Like a hypochondriac he willed himself ill, pale, resisting every breath.
"I can't release, either," a necessary truth, "so you might as well take it."
--
Cirucci's lips twisted, from a smirk to a half sneer, violet falling to her blade once more. She wanted to touch it, and she did. Her delicate fingers traced the hilt before his fist, the tips of her nails skimmed the wrapping. Normally, she would shiver, because it would feel as if she herself was being touched, in a way, because it was part of her, connected to her closely, closer than any lover could ever be.
"Don't lie to me." She grit out, her hand withdrawing. It disconcerted her that she felt nothing when she touched it, that she had no bind to it anymore. "I was hungry-" She wasn't hungry anymore, not hungry like that. She wanted real food, bread, fruit, something to fill her belly.
"… You are hungry." Her hand traced up, using that she had him backed up to her advantage, her fingers found where his hole would be- Where her's was, and she traced it, a teasing, rousing touch that would normally have her shuddering softly.
"Because I haven't had a soul in days."
--
Inexpressibly bizarre; to know, not quite feel but know that her fingers grazed the hilt, brushing against a separate but inextricably linked piece of soul. His fingers jerked, too, a brief spasm along his arm that needed to throw off her touch, but the game currently begged him to keep still, as always, to never react, to reveal that she had ever affected him.
Yet, no, he would not stand idly, numb by as she touched what had been hers, what he repelled. As her hand moved up, his moved, locking around her wrist and holding it apart from his body, disallowing her the opportunity to trace the hole, to leave him shivering.
Prying his teeth apart, he took a step forward, the intention to push her back with his hold on her wrist and let his other hand leave the hilt, seize the doorknob from behind.
“It’s irrelevant. Whether I am or am not, I have no need to act on it.”
Or to remain here, if she would not relinquish his pendant, then he would have to wait twenty-four hours. Plain, simple.
--
Her eyes opened a bit and she winced a little, at how the grip on her wrist felt right now, ground delicate little avian bones against one another and made her lip twitch into a protesting hiss, her thin fingers spasming in his grip.
"You should just give in and eat-" Just because of the type of person she was, self-destructive and far too proud, she let the thrum of his power release as much as she could manage. It was like wafting a meal in front of a starving man, like that, flaring her soul, the soul she possessed now, that belonged to him. Fuck, he always made her so hungry, and it was all she could do when she was around him not to try and devour it.
"I can't have that sword like this." Because to hold it and not feel it would hurt her more than most things, disconnected from the one thing that always loved her, herself. Her other hand's fingers fished between her breasts and drew out a hint of fine chain.
"And you can't have this like that. Rather. I'm not giving it to you." She was all to aware of her own power, and the knowledge he could take it, if he were so inclined.
"So what do we do?~ If you leave me alone with this, well… who knows?"
--
It would be easy to break her bones; what had, before, felt fragile in a way that belied their strength, now might have well of been as hollow-boned as they seemed. Twigs, cracking underfoot. He tightened his grip, just so, testing less his strength and more her resolve, it was less sadism, more a threat.
The swell of reiatsu, familiar and yet foreign, tangible in a way he could almost smell, almost taste, roll it on his tongue like his oldest and most favored meal, scent, but more familiar yet. His fingers gripped harder, bruising, and a new threat: don’t play with this, with me.
“I could take it,” he reminded her, stating the obvious dryly, unamused, as his stomach curled, a physical demand for his beyond-physical hunger. “We aren’t doing anything. You can’t use it.”
Not meant to be a challenge, and of course, he couldn’t be certain that she would not figure it out to some extent.
--
Curse humanity and their ridiculously weak bodies. But even as she thrashed slightly, just the barest jerk back of her hips, hand, even as she let out of a soft whimper of pain, she didn't quiet the filling swell of reiatsu and soul, wafting flavor scented steam in his nostrils, her sense of souls.
"You don't know that." Of course he knew this. "If you leave-" Because a part of her desired company, beyond the fleeting warmth of the few lovers she scrounged up, beyond the fleeting satisfaction of torturing or maiming others, she wanted the more lasting satisfaction he offered her, because he was the only one who'd truly taken away everything she was.
"I could break it." Possible. "Or hide it." Also possible. "Even eat it. I can eat solid food now."
--
Slit-eyes, as he could not help but inhale, tasting the scent like his favorite stew as it simmered on the stove. Stop, he wanted to hiss, almost moved his lips to do so, almost shook her and squeezed harder, but not.
All this because he wouldn’t stick his hand down her shirt?
It wouldn’t be so easily broken, not the pendant or the chain, but at her threat of swallowing it, his eyebrows jumped and he could not help a sardonic laugh. “And risk the hell on your body come tomorrow?”
Not for the first time, not for the last, his mind teased that exhausting question of why she felt so compelled to do this to him. In one fashion or another. Her goal was obvious; he tried to brace himself for the only alternative, for the only way to take it back.
--
Her lips still curled in that little whimper of pain, in bruising grip and the soft grind of far too delicate bones, she managed to look him in the eye, no fear, no anger, even, the only thing readable maybe being a sort of disgusting desperation.
"I'd do it." Was all she murmured. She didn't want to imagine what would happen to an Arrancar body in possession of, let alone surrounding, an artifact of Quincy make.
But she'd do it.
--
He would have rathered not look her in the eyes, forced to identify that single, sick emotion. It wasn’t, no never, because of that that his fingers slackened – that was due to the whimper, due to his weakness, even that fear of becoming the corruption marked by the hole and mask.
Ishida shook his head, felt his hair move smooth against his cheeks. He dropped her wrist, almost flinging it back at her, disgusted, exasperated. Why him, he wondered, but his hand had already fallen from the doorknob.
“I won’t stay here. I’ll take it back then you – why not visit Alfons?”
--
She stiffened, snatched her wrist back and cradled it gently, chain dropped back between her breasts for her fingers to soothe her other arm, the materializing purple tint that clearly marked the grip of his fingers, backed by strength he was most unused to.
"I don't want to." She nearly spat. Why'd he bring that up? Why, why, why? "Just because I have a heart right now-" Goddamnit, "Doesn't mean I forgive him for what he did to me."
Forgiveness. What a disgusting…
"It's not like-" What? That she'd bother him the whole time? That she couldn't truly be that repulsive? That her powers couldn't truly be so either? She didn't know. She didn't care to.
"… I could feed you in return." What an offer. More desperation thinly veiled in a false sadism. Not hard to believe, as Cirucci Thunderwitch was indeed among those of sado-masochistic bent. "You won't be hungry, and you won't risk snacking on any good people." Her lips twitched. "It's hard, you know. Not eating. Knowing you're starving and then consciously deciding not to eat. To starve."
The soul fluxed.
--
Alfons loved her – Ishida assumed that, in any case, a probable truth, even after time and murder. He would want her around, when Ishida did not. The virulence of her response he couldn’t completely dissect, but his lips thinned, his words came dry, “Nor have I.”
Because, of course, he had been as inconvenienced by what Alfons had done to her.
She made her offer and for a beat, for a few, Ishida stared. His eyes were not quite wide, but they were unmoving, the words sinking past his thicker skin, his unchanged bones, through hole and mask, words streaming and emphasized with her last swell of spirit.
Ishida prided himself on his self-control. He could be utterly impassive, stolid, inexpressive. That was, after all, cool. Any number of factors could have contributed to this, then, the way rage flooded, and like in an inexperienced child, anger rushed with a swell in reiatsu, enough to stir the airs along his arm and whisper through his clothing as he moved, swift and hard, to seize her arns, to shift in the small hall space and slam her against the wall, to keep his voice level but in vibrato with suppressed fury.
“Don’t you dare,” he said, low, meant to be snarled but resisted, swallowed, “don’t you ever suggest that I’d sink so low. One day won’t starve me.”
--
… Had she thought about how weak human bodies were? Yes, she thought she maybe had. Before her legs had time to tense, to move, her shoulders slammed back into the wall, followed closely by the crack of her head, the spill of her dark hair against white and her eyes rolled back in momentary alarm, in the cry that ripped from her before she had chance to stifle the shriek of surprise, pain, both, bruised wrist clutching, gripping that pendant he wanted so dearly between fingers he'd have to break to remove.
"St-" With the rage, her reiatsu was crushing. "Stop releasing my-" It had never bothered her of course, and it wouldn't bother a Quincy. Or, a Quincy who knew how to use their powers to combat that. But the more the tried to pull, instinctively, on a power source she didn't possess, instead of pulling it from the surroundings, the more she floundered, and beads of sweat had already formed on her neck, the strain showed in the dilating of her eyes and the weak, (seeming, seeming to her) thrashing of her body in his grip before she froze to listen to his words.
"Arrancar-" She hissed loudly, "Eat souls." If she could move, she imagined she'd fight back. It was a nice thing to imagine. "And you're-" Cirucci couldn't even manage a smirk. "An Arrancar." The soul he possessed, now she, trembled against the less suppressed might of her own reiatsu, now his.
--
But Ishida was not violent, Ishida was not a victim or proponent of superfluous, discharged rage, and he let go even as he wanted to shake her, let go, ashamed (though he needed to dismiss it), ashamed of his lashing, of the sound her skull had made against the wall, of his strength and her human weakness.
It was self-disgust that took him a step make, made him want to reach again for the door. “Today it’s mine,” he said, almost hissing, bland but matter-of-fact, using her argument. “I’ll release it if I like.”
Only he didn’t like. Even that had left his soul pining, as if there were digestive acids clashing through his entire body, keening, leaving him a shade paler, unaccustomed to handling this kind of hunger.
“I’m not, “ he insisted, and it sounded weak even to him. “Only for the day. It’s temporary, a trick.” Not genuine, not actual, not staying. The sheen on her skin, perspiration along her brow, made him recognize the feel of his own, dampening his hair, the result of suppression and overexcitement.
--
It was a testament to her twisted nature, even without the lack of heart, that though she now played the role of victim, of food, she still held no pity for her own meals, even as her chest heaved and she fought the suppressing sense of power that had settled over her body, made her cold sweat and seize, made her slip to the floor when he released her, to catch her breath, recover, eyes in tiny pinpricks of black on violet.
"Right now-" A slight pant, "You are. And right now you're hungry. I have… what you want." Pale hand clutching that precious silver chain. "And you… well." She smiled too sweetly. "If you eat it-" Eat the soul. He couldn't kill her like that, just as she couldn't here in this City, but it would hurt.
"You know, maybe if you feed, I'll give this to you, right now." Because that would be satisfaction enough. "You can't leave me alone with this. So it's either that, or stay with me all day until the curse ends."
--
Turbulent; he felt not like a teenager with irrationally swinging emotions, but like a raft trapped in a stormy sea, a sea too large, capsizing beneath the force it was ill-equipped for – yet, he would never sink, let himself be tossed. He was far too obstinate.
Guilt, in the shaping of his eyelids when she collapsed, guilt that transferred like chemical energy into electric, potential into kinetic, guilt becoming greater levels of irritation, of anger (excess energy became shame). Scathing that brightened his blue eyes and shifted his lids closer. They focused on her hand, on the chain crawling around it, and his jerked out to seize hers, to try and pry her fingers apart.
“Shut up,” hissed, “don’t act as if you know what I can do, will do, won’t do. If the City made the exchange this far, there’s no reason to think it won’t put everything back where it belongs tomorrow.”
--
To say Cirucci was not happy now would be an understatement.
She was seething, and right now, losing her footing as it were, she really wasn't in the mood to lose fully. And though she couln't work his powers correctly, and knew it would probably be weak as hell compared to her normal strength, the Privaron tightened her grip and with the other hand slapped Ishida full across the face, her lips twisted into a dark frown.
--
With his body, with hers, her slap did not hurt, not conventionally. Her palm, fingers, struck his cheek and sent his face swinging back toward the opposite shoulder. It had not properly hurt, but surprise and what his mind expected took over, stunning him enough that his fingers loosened. He almost felt a second sting of shame, in a red hue in his cheeks (harsher where her hand had hit), in a briefly downcast glance. But simply because she was a human, a woman, didn’t excuse her.
“I could hide your weapon, too,” he said, quietly though not nonchalantly, aware that it would in some way affect him. “I believe the City would correct it.”
--
"I'll do more than hide it." She took the chance of his draw back to press the pendant fleetingly to her lips. "I'll break it."
Her chest heaved, from the sudden, weak, human desperation that had driven her to slap him so, even knowing how little affect it would have, and her own palm was red, her cheeks tinted as well, but hers more from the bodily reaction to crushing reiatsu.
"So pick one."
--
Whether she could or not, he couldn’t risk the faintest possibility. And there was no option, no choice, nothing to pick between. He would not feed, he would not resort to brutality against her, and Ishida looked at her, human and panting, as he suppressed his reiatsu even as bile threatened to rise up from his stomach, coating his throat, like the disgust he could almost taste, sticking to his teeth as he grimaced in defeat. He looked at her, something of a disdaining glower, as close to hating her as he’d even been.
Without another look, he walked down the hall, further into her apartment. Perhaps he could find a book, a means of ignoring her until the day was over. He planned to say nothing.
--
When he suppressed his, her reiatsu, her discomfort noticeably eased, and she sighed softly, body sagged, from tense to limp in seconds. She watched him, quiet, until he stalked off. Then, she tucked the pendant back between her breasts, adjusting the white robe and standing, tugging at it until it fell to her satisfaction.
The Privaron stalked after him, to the kitchen, and grabbed a small pastry from the counter. It would be actually filling now. On her way back to bed, however, she smirked, and tapped a pile of pillows as she walked past him, to go back to her interrupted sleep.
Beneath the pillows, she hid her books.
--
Briefly, he humored the thought that beneath the pillow would be a severed hand, would be something to turn his stomach, something ridiculous and obscene. When he shifted the pillows, one by one, to reveal the stack, a flash of dark amusement and frustration furrowed his brow. He didn’t like to think that she knew him so well, even if he was terribly transparent in some things.
It was late still, the lights off, and he knew he ought to sleep. But he couldn’t, not in this changed body, not in this place. With her smirk in mind, an unwelcome memory that he couldn’t quite shake off, Ishida reached back to turn on the lamp, so to better browse her titles.
It would be a long day.