ext_265117 (![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
therippling.livejournal.com) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
tampered2008-01-30 12:27 am
therippling.livejournal.com) wrote in tampered2008-01-30 12:27 am
Log; Complete
When; January 29th, early evening
Rating; R
Characters; Ophelia [![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thrippling] & Nnoitra [oneeyedhorror]
Summary; When a heartless man makes a promise to an insane woman, to kill her if she Awakens, things can never go so well when it comes time to fulfill that promise.
Log;
There was something wrong.
Ophelia knew there was something wrong even as she refused to accept the change in her appearance. Though her body slithered, the gray scales snapping branches and displacing dirt, her mind refused to accept that she didn’t have two legs, that she didn’t look exactly the same as she always did. Blood coated her mouth, still wet and dripping from her meal, the disemboweled corpse on the ground beside her, the same blood coating up the large talons that had replaced the hands she didn’t know she’d lost.
What was she doing… ? Waiting, that’s right. Waiting. What was she waiting for? … Nnoitra, that was right. He was going to bring her another meal, for her insatiable hunger. So she didn’t have to leave the forest, deal with that annoying man with no guts…
… She thought she remembered.
>>>
Nnoitra didn't really feel a lot of things, between his iron skin and his lack of heart. It took a lot to get to him, both physically and emotionally. But, this shit was starting to frustrate him. He gave the corpse another tug, jerking it over a couple branches.
He didn't know who the hell it was that he'd taken down, but they had been convenient. He didn't know what the hell Ophelia was supposed to eat when she was like this.
He didn't know much of anything right now and he really didn't want to. At least, he thought so.
>>>
She smelled the blood and the body before she smelled Nnoitra, even as used to his scent as she was. Slowly, it seemed so slow, when she moved sometimes, her long serpentine tail uncoiled from around a tree, her dark, gray body loomed, the upper half at least recognizable as her naked form, with the exception of the scaled and leathery skin.
“Ah… that smells so good…” Ophelia murmured softly, her eyes, golden and bright instead of her usual shining silver. She moved again, the brush of scale on scale rustled and then she loomed over the Espada, taller than him now with her tail’s height, staring down hungrily.
“For me… ?” There was a somewhat ethereal distance to her voice.
>>>
The voice made him tense, jaw tightening in response. That was the kind of shit he hated. He didn't want to feel weirded out by this shit. He didn't like finding out his regular fuck partner had disappeared only to reappear in a form he'd promised to kill.
More importantly, he didn't like the fact that she didn't know shit about it. And then...
With another yank, he tossed the corpse onto ground in front of her, "Like I'd eat it. All yours."
>>>
“Ah… that’s right.” She thought… she did remember, didn’t she? Yes, that was right. “Souls…” Her voice tapered off as she lost the train of thought and got distracted by the scent of blood.
Immediately she moved again, body twisted and she lowered her torso, bent down on carapaced arms and talons, mouth moving to the corpse’s stomach. Her lips drew back in a feral snarl, teeth sharpened before they sunk in to flesh, a soft, contented noise slipping out as she began to devour the guts of the dead human, tongue slicking with blood and licking her lips between bites, eyes fluttering half closed in ecstasy as she began to gorge mindlessly.
>>>
It wasn't as disgusting as it should have been to him. Too many dead hollows, too often seeing her covered in blood had dampened his senses. His one good eye lidded as he watched, his gaze drifting along her mishapen, inhuman form.
It'd almost be fun to fight if she knew she had it.
"Didn't know you liked that kind'a stuff," he murmured.
>>>
Ophelia paused, lifting her head and forgetting momentarily the gobs of intestines in her mouth, swallowing in a few quick bobs of her throat, letting the crimson lifeblood pool down her chin and drip down as she spoke.
“… I just…” Her eyes unfocused in his direction as she tried to remember, past hazy memory, what had happened.
“I was chasing Clare…” Clare wasn’t here, was she? No. “And then… I had her cornered, but… this other bitch showed up…” Slowly, her features shifted, scaled brow furrowed and eyes shifted softly to worry. “I can’t… remember what h-“
The former Claymore’s tail thrashed, splashed into the familiar pool in her territory and made her recoil from the reflective surface immediately, skittering fast around the corpse and to his other side, talons dug into dirt and propelled her faster than one would think that body could move, claws bristling and golden eyes focusing on the water before falling immediately to the body again, stopping to bury her face in the steaming guts.
“Br-“ She muttered around a mouthful, then shook her head, withdrawing again to snap and gnaw on an organ.
“… I can’t remember, Nnoitra.”
>>>
"Tch," he scoffed, rubbing off some of the splatter that had come with her sudden sharp movement. She wasn't finished yet, but he was already getting all the motivation he needed to make this fight short and sweet. Once she remembered they were supposed to fight, after all.
"I've noticed," he replied, reaching down to unhook the chain that hung from his waist, "But that shit doesn't matter so much right now, huh?"
>>>
“No…” Her eyes unfocused again, the mindless, bestial feeding, lowering her head to devour more guts. But slowly she noticed his movement, in that sluggish, out of touch manner, her tail slowly winding and unwinding around the corpse, heavy and thoughtful.
“… You wanted to fight, didn’t you?” Ophelia’s lips twisted into a bloody grin, nodding to herself. “I remember.” Because fighting was always fun, wasn’t it? Of course, and she just-
“I…” Her look turned to puzzlement again. “… Can’t find my sword.”
>>>
With a jerk of his hand, Nnoitra released his sword, not completely, because there was no need for that here, not yet. There wasn't a lot of room here, not like there was in the desert, but it was good enough and with her in this form, there was more than enough meat to go under his blade.
He hefted the blade behind him, letting it sink into the twig-covered bed of the forest and rested his hand on its long hilt.
"S'okay. You can fight without it," he shrugged, not bothering to try and explain. He'd seen the conversations with her on the network and didn't want to put up with that shit. She'd know when she had to that he'd done what he needed, "Don't think having it matters so much now."
>>>>
“Well, of course it matters…” Ophelia raised her hand to explain, to gesture that it would be stupid of her to fight without a sword, but her eyes met only the bloodied, gray talons, a quizzical look to her face as she examined her once small, near deloicate seeming hand.
“Huh.” She finally muttered, the bladed appendages along her spine arcing and writhing with her confusion. Slowly, she shrugged. Disimissed it.
And then she lunged.
>>>
That was more like it. Regardless of her form, a fight was still a fight and with her like this, it was really a fight worth getting into, something he doubted he'd get much of a chance to fight again, regardless of what she'd made him promise so long before.
"There!" Nnoitra laughed, jerking his blade up in a shower of dried leaves and giving it a wide swing in her direction.
>>>
Ophelia was grinning madly, she still loved the fights, the violence, even if there was some sort of haze in her mind, the denial of the shape she fought in and the denial of what she had become. But, despite denying the body’s shape, she knew how to work it, talons dug into the dirt and yanked her flat against the bloodied ground, beneath the arc of his blade, her tail whipping out ahead of her at his feet.
>>>
Nnoitra tugged back his blade, the chain links clanking against each other as he took hold of the long hilt in a spindly hand. The coil that smacked against his legs was unexpected, though, sending him falling back, body slamming against a tree.
He hissed out in agitation and at the same time, exhilaration. The fact that she hadn't fallen as easily as the others excited him. He lashed out, again, with his blade.
>>>
Ophelia smiled when she felt the tail hit, the end whipping about and writhing in pleasure as she coiled in on herself momentarily. Gray scales rubbed against scale with the rustled like shedding snake skin, She giggled, but it came out like a guffaw, her bloodied tongue slicking along her lips, smiling.
“Fun.” She noted, her talons clicking as she dodged, the tail propelled her faster than she normally could move, bowled over a tree when she made a sharp turn, the sharp crack of wood heralded anothr lunch, this time arounf, not over, his blade, talon aimed to knock it out of the air.
>>>
Nnoitra hissed, careful to keep his grip. She was stronger like this, more than she ever had been as a Claymore. He couldn't wait to send her bleeding off of him. He shifted his hands, letting one drop to rest on the base of its hilt and slam the blade up against the talon.
"Tons," he breathed.
>>>
Ophelia disregarded the slam of her talons against the blade, her natural carapace against his blade, until she pushed forward against it, talon scrabbling with the harsh gratign noise of scouring metal, before it dug in to her joint and sliced one talon clean off. How confusing-
“Ouch…” Ophelia whimpered, withdrawing her hand to eye it, golden eyes out of focus against the bleeding stump of one of her three talons. But he confusion didn’t last long, before she coild her tail harsh and lunged at him, the bloodied stump clutched close even as it began to regenerate, mouth splitting at the corners to widen, large, sharp teeth evealed as she went to bite.
>>>
It probably spoke more than enough about their relationship that he only grinned at her reaction, content to see that the fight was going in his favor. With another easy heft of his blade, he sent it flying towards her mouth.
"C'mon, you can do better'n this," he taunted.
>>>
“I can-“ Ophelia jerked back, recoiled at the sudden intercedant of blade, but didn’t have room to duck. Almost by instinct, her jaw split wider, down the line of where a bone would be, the cracking noise signalling her bones shifting as her jaw disconnected and she caught the blade in her mouth, sharp teeth digging in to try and break the metal, screeching metal but even as she tried to bite down it threw her back, flipped her until she tumbled straight back into the small pool.
“Pah-“ She spat the blade out, along with several of her teeth, water splashing about as she thrashed to regain her balance, a sudden freeze to her as she realized where she was.
>>>
Nnoitra laughed, jerking his blade back with a practiced ease, gathering the loops until the hilt was back in his hand. He shifted, ready to press forward, to continue his attack while she was still down, when he caught sight of where she was.
He didn't stop to think, to decide if it was better if she saw or not, and opening his mouth, he let his tongue dangle free, the darkness of the forest around them obscuring the black five against the pink of his tongue, "Don't stop."
There was a glint as the first glow of a cero lit the darkness.
>>>
“I-“ She stopped. It wasn’t the good idea, not in a fight, but she froze. Her golden eyes stared back up at her, and the grotesque, distorted face of an Awakened Being was reflected in the rippling water. Slowly, she lowered her face, looked at her reflection this way and that, her jaw seaming shut as she dipped her face into the water, looking for the Awakened Being before she recoiled, eyeing herself with growing panic.
“I-“ Ophelia’s voice was strangled, and her tail slowly rose to her view. With rapidly growing horror, the Claymore, former Claymore, followed the shape of her body, from the serpentine tail, up the gray scaled carapace, her humanoid torso lined with blades up the spine, her own taloned hands…
“I knew there was something wrong…” Her voice wavered, like a lost child’s, and her eyes dilated in growing revelation, utterly ignoring the sight of his charging cero for her own mounting disgust.
And then she screamed.
>>>
The scream frustrated him, made the pressure build along his body, and the light of the cero dimmed just a bit. He fucking hated this. He hated the stupid promise he made and it was getting on his nerves that he was hating this fight more than he thought he would.
This was wrong. This was all fucking wrong. This wasn't how it was supposed to go.
He growled beneath his beneath, reinforcing the cero, making it grow blindingly brighter than before with his spiritual pressure.
>>>
“THIS IS WRONG!” Her voice was too loud, too high-pitched to be hers, and she thrashed hard, her body writhed and twisted and rebelled.
“It’s Clare’s fault!” It had to be Clare’s fault, she knew that, her talons shoved into the water again and again, to disturb the image in the water, to break it and deny it, make it go away, make it not true, scrambling to get out of the water. She hated the water, she didn’t want to-
“I can’t have Awakened!” Tears were streaming down her monstrous face, the blades on her back moving of their own accord, back arching as she screamed soundlessly up at the sky. A few more and she was screaming again, loud, raucous screams of pain, mental more than physical, completely ignoring the dangers of his cero to scream. Jaw splitting again and gray skin slicked with tears.
It was the sound of someone’s world collapsing. Shattering. Because she had become the one thing she hated most in all the world.
>>>
Nnoitra closed his eyes, trying to drown out the sound of her scream, desperate and strange coming from her after so long. He flicked his tongue up, releasing the cero, searing trees and more as it shot brightly through the dark forest.
He reached back for his blade, dragging it behind him as he waited to see the damage.
>>>
The cero caught her off guard, she wasn’t paying attention, and by the time instinct cut in, the instinct to dodge, to run, it was too late to do it completely. Tears still spilling, she scrambled, managing to drag about half of her body away from the blast before the rest, the majority of that serpentine tail of her disappearing into that searing line of light and energy.
Ophelia screamed again, this time from actual physical pain, the talons clawing her body away from the damage, only the topmost tail still connected to her torso. But already it started to reknit itself, a disgusting, slick noise as her body moved, instinctual and bestial. Her torso caved in on itself, consumed itself, and then the lump of it moved down the reforming tail, until she emerged, small, untaloned hands clawed there way out of what used to be the tail end, her naked torso, a near normal her, discounting the serpentine tail that started at her waist.
“That hurt…” She muttered, wiping tears from her eyes, hands slick from the fluid of regeneration she’d worked her way through, still crying without noise, not making any more yet to attack even as he came closer.
>>>
Nnoitra's zanpakutou sounded louder than usual as he dragged it behind himself, moving towards her. Time was important. She could regenerate anything he got rid of and was. But, he couldn't fight her like this. It was irriting the hell out of him. He couldn't fight her when she was acting so... weak.
"S'supposed to, you know," he muttered, closing the distance between them, fingers curling tighter against his hilt.
>>>
“I’m not-“ Her head shook, she shook, crawling back over to the water, dragging her writhing, bladed tail behind her. Her hands dipped into the water, splashed the reflection and wiped her eyes again, crawling deeper into the water.
“I’m not supposed to Awaken, Nnoitra…” She cried, denying it with all the bit of humanity she had left to her, the bestial bit concentrated in her tail, the blades moved of their own accord, warily slicking at the approaching Arrancar as if in warning even as the human part of her bemoaned this fate.
“I’m not- I kill Awakened Beings… I’m not- I can’t Awaken…” Ophelia’s voice broke, and she floundered in the water.
>>>
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Nnoitra nodded. He reached out, eye shifting to watch the other part of her body. Carefully, he reached up to press a hand against the side of her face, the golden bangles on his wrist slipping down.
"But I also promised this shit ages ago. That if you did, I'd take care of it," he continued. Slowly his eye moved back to her face, "You know I did."
>>>
“I don’t want to die, though…” She whispered, golden eyes flickering upward to his face. He had always been something of a soothing presence to her, since she had first come to the City, and it was still somewhat soothing, the blades relaxed and she sagged into it, trying to recall…
“Was it-“ Her memory was so hazy, and she wanted to just… her eyes fell to the corpse, to the smell of the guts, and her eyes rolled back momentarily in hunger. “That one time… after the… aliens? That big fight?” She’d… lost her black card, hadn’t she?
The smell of blood was so wonderful…
>>>
Nnoitra shrugged, fingers holding still against her face, "Fuck if I remember. Probably."
He hated that this wasn't what he thought it'd be. He'd always thought that when she awakened, she'd fight him. It'd all be good fun and then he could kill her, because he knew he was stronger. This... Something was wrong about this. His fingers held tighter against her face as he reached for his sword.
He just wanted to finish this. He didn't want to see her like this anymore, with the crying and the feelings he didn't understand, the feelings he wasn't sure he even wanted to understand.
>>>
“I don’t remember anything…” Ophelia whimpered, golden eyes glistening with the tears streaming down her face. “I’m trying to remember, and I don’t-“ She had relaxed into the grip, lids heavy, lips still stained with blood and tongue flicking out to taste.
But then, from the corner of that eye, she saw him reach for the blade.
Immediately, her tail whipped around, the blades coming bear and slamming down in the Arrancar’s direction, though the human part of her didn’t move, still lay docile at his hand, the bestial bit fighting to live even as the human part of her longed to be free of the pain of Awakening, of knowing she had Awakened.
>>>
The blades ripped through his uniform, slicing into skin as he grabbed his own blade. He'd already decided what he was going to do, whether she protested or not. It was his goddamn promise and he was going to keep it, even if it killed him.
With a jerk of his hand, he brought the unweildy blade around, slamming the cresent shape against her neck. He had to kill her. He didn't know what else to do but kill her.
>>>
Her gold eyes widened, dilated hard as the blade cut into her neck, bared neatly against his palm. Even as the blade dug in, her own did into his flesh, the dying sparks had it thrashing, trying to dig deeper and deeper, weakening with each pump of blood through her body that spilled out of her neck.
Ophelia collapsed, neatly, lost control over most of her body, the blades weakening to near nothing as her mouth opened, blood coating her tongue no longer anyone else’s but her own.
“That-“ The tears dried on her cheeks when she stopped crying, too hurt to cry, her delicate hands moved to grip his wrist, hanging on tenaciously.
“That hurts, Nnoitra…” She whispered with a gurgle, the light slowly fading from her eyes.
>>>
Nnoitra ripped the blade back out, fingers curling in her hair to keep her from falling away as the blood bubbled with her last few words. He'd finished what he promised he'd do. He'd taken care of everything.
"S'supposed to. It's death," he muttered, watching motionless as she took her last few breaths. Somehow, this felt right.
>>>
“Ah…” She was near limp, her nails digging in to his wrist as her tail collapsed, writhed slow and curling, in the death throes of a beast’s end.
“I don’t want to be Awakened, Nnoitra…” Ophelia whispered wetly, hands beginning to slip from their grip. “I don’t… want… to…” The tail began to seize as she began to choke.
Her eyes dimmed, until she smiled somewhat wanely.
“That was a really shitty fight.” It wasn’t so much said as mouthed, cut off by the gush of blood from her neck and the knit of regeneration still working to piece her skin back together. The regeneration crawled over the blood until it fixed her vocal cords, and her grip tightened again.
“If you don’t… I’ll keep regenerating…” The former Claymore muttered desperately, neck bared and revealing the already nearly healed flesh, the tail beginning to loosen and uncoil to attack again.
>>>
Nnoitra strangled out a laugh, a low sort of scoff as he stared down at her, his one eye drifting from hers to the quickly regenerating wound.
"Yeah, you owe me a better one for getting my hopes up," he grunted, lifting his blade one last time and slamming the blade through her neck with a sense of finality.
>>>
“Promise.” Ophelia mouthed, squeezing his wrist hard before her eyes rolled back, blood choked any further words, and she seized up, blood overflowing around the edge of his blade.
Suddenly her grip faltered, and she let go of him, wavered supported by the tail but only for a moment before she collapsed back into the water, long blond hair wavering in a near halo around her face and bloodstained neck.
She rarely looked that peaceful.
Rating; R
Characters; Ophelia [
thrippling] & Nnoitra [oneeyedhorror]Summary; When a heartless man makes a promise to an insane woman, to kill her if she Awakens, things can never go so well when it comes time to fulfill that promise.
Log;
There was something wrong.
Ophelia knew there was something wrong even as she refused to accept the change in her appearance. Though her body slithered, the gray scales snapping branches and displacing dirt, her mind refused to accept that she didn’t have two legs, that she didn’t look exactly the same as she always did. Blood coated her mouth, still wet and dripping from her meal, the disemboweled corpse on the ground beside her, the same blood coating up the large talons that had replaced the hands she didn’t know she’d lost.
What was she doing… ? Waiting, that’s right. Waiting. What was she waiting for? … Nnoitra, that was right. He was going to bring her another meal, for her insatiable hunger. So she didn’t have to leave the forest, deal with that annoying man with no guts…
… She thought she remembered.
>>>
Nnoitra didn't really feel a lot of things, between his iron skin and his lack of heart. It took a lot to get to him, both physically and emotionally. But, this shit was starting to frustrate him. He gave the corpse another tug, jerking it over a couple branches.
He didn't know who the hell it was that he'd taken down, but they had been convenient. He didn't know what the hell Ophelia was supposed to eat when she was like this.
He didn't know much of anything right now and he really didn't want to. At least, he thought so.
>>>
She smelled the blood and the body before she smelled Nnoitra, even as used to his scent as she was. Slowly, it seemed so slow, when she moved sometimes, her long serpentine tail uncoiled from around a tree, her dark, gray body loomed, the upper half at least recognizable as her naked form, with the exception of the scaled and leathery skin.
“Ah… that smells so good…” Ophelia murmured softly, her eyes, golden and bright instead of her usual shining silver. She moved again, the brush of scale on scale rustled and then she loomed over the Espada, taller than him now with her tail’s height, staring down hungrily.
“For me… ?” There was a somewhat ethereal distance to her voice.
>>>
The voice made him tense, jaw tightening in response. That was the kind of shit he hated. He didn't want to feel weirded out by this shit. He didn't like finding out his regular fuck partner had disappeared only to reappear in a form he'd promised to kill.
More importantly, he didn't like the fact that she didn't know shit about it. And then...
With another yank, he tossed the corpse onto ground in front of her, "Like I'd eat it. All yours."
>>>
“Ah… that’s right.” She thought… she did remember, didn’t she? Yes, that was right. “Souls…” Her voice tapered off as she lost the train of thought and got distracted by the scent of blood.
Immediately she moved again, body twisted and she lowered her torso, bent down on carapaced arms and talons, mouth moving to the corpse’s stomach. Her lips drew back in a feral snarl, teeth sharpened before they sunk in to flesh, a soft, contented noise slipping out as she began to devour the guts of the dead human, tongue slicking with blood and licking her lips between bites, eyes fluttering half closed in ecstasy as she began to gorge mindlessly.
>>>
It wasn't as disgusting as it should have been to him. Too many dead hollows, too often seeing her covered in blood had dampened his senses. His one good eye lidded as he watched, his gaze drifting along her mishapen, inhuman form.
It'd almost be fun to fight if she knew she had it.
"Didn't know you liked that kind'a stuff," he murmured.
>>>
Ophelia paused, lifting her head and forgetting momentarily the gobs of intestines in her mouth, swallowing in a few quick bobs of her throat, letting the crimson lifeblood pool down her chin and drip down as she spoke.
“… I just…” Her eyes unfocused in his direction as she tried to remember, past hazy memory, what had happened.
“I was chasing Clare…” Clare wasn’t here, was she? No. “And then… I had her cornered, but… this other bitch showed up…” Slowly, her features shifted, scaled brow furrowed and eyes shifted softly to worry. “I can’t… remember what h-“
The former Claymore’s tail thrashed, splashed into the familiar pool in her territory and made her recoil from the reflective surface immediately, skittering fast around the corpse and to his other side, talons dug into dirt and propelled her faster than one would think that body could move, claws bristling and golden eyes focusing on the water before falling immediately to the body again, stopping to bury her face in the steaming guts.
“Br-“ She muttered around a mouthful, then shook her head, withdrawing again to snap and gnaw on an organ.
“… I can’t remember, Nnoitra.”
>>>
"Tch," he scoffed, rubbing off some of the splatter that had come with her sudden sharp movement. She wasn't finished yet, but he was already getting all the motivation he needed to make this fight short and sweet. Once she remembered they were supposed to fight, after all.
"I've noticed," he replied, reaching down to unhook the chain that hung from his waist, "But that shit doesn't matter so much right now, huh?"
>>>
“No…” Her eyes unfocused again, the mindless, bestial feeding, lowering her head to devour more guts. But slowly she noticed his movement, in that sluggish, out of touch manner, her tail slowly winding and unwinding around the corpse, heavy and thoughtful.
“… You wanted to fight, didn’t you?” Ophelia’s lips twisted into a bloody grin, nodding to herself. “I remember.” Because fighting was always fun, wasn’t it? Of course, and she just-
“I…” Her look turned to puzzlement again. “… Can’t find my sword.”
>>>
With a jerk of his hand, Nnoitra released his sword, not completely, because there was no need for that here, not yet. There wasn't a lot of room here, not like there was in the desert, but it was good enough and with her in this form, there was more than enough meat to go under his blade.
He hefted the blade behind him, letting it sink into the twig-covered bed of the forest and rested his hand on its long hilt.
"S'okay. You can fight without it," he shrugged, not bothering to try and explain. He'd seen the conversations with her on the network and didn't want to put up with that shit. She'd know when she had to that he'd done what he needed, "Don't think having it matters so much now."
>>>>
“Well, of course it matters…” Ophelia raised her hand to explain, to gesture that it would be stupid of her to fight without a sword, but her eyes met only the bloodied, gray talons, a quizzical look to her face as she examined her once small, near deloicate seeming hand.
“Huh.” She finally muttered, the bladed appendages along her spine arcing and writhing with her confusion. Slowly, she shrugged. Disimissed it.
And then she lunged.
>>>
That was more like it. Regardless of her form, a fight was still a fight and with her like this, it was really a fight worth getting into, something he doubted he'd get much of a chance to fight again, regardless of what she'd made him promise so long before.
"There!" Nnoitra laughed, jerking his blade up in a shower of dried leaves and giving it a wide swing in her direction.
>>>
Ophelia was grinning madly, she still loved the fights, the violence, even if there was some sort of haze in her mind, the denial of the shape she fought in and the denial of what she had become. But, despite denying the body’s shape, she knew how to work it, talons dug into the dirt and yanked her flat against the bloodied ground, beneath the arc of his blade, her tail whipping out ahead of her at his feet.
>>>
Nnoitra tugged back his blade, the chain links clanking against each other as he took hold of the long hilt in a spindly hand. The coil that smacked against his legs was unexpected, though, sending him falling back, body slamming against a tree.
He hissed out in agitation and at the same time, exhilaration. The fact that she hadn't fallen as easily as the others excited him. He lashed out, again, with his blade.
>>>
Ophelia smiled when she felt the tail hit, the end whipping about and writhing in pleasure as she coiled in on herself momentarily. Gray scales rubbed against scale with the rustled like shedding snake skin, She giggled, but it came out like a guffaw, her bloodied tongue slicking along her lips, smiling.
“Fun.” She noted, her talons clicking as she dodged, the tail propelled her faster than she normally could move, bowled over a tree when she made a sharp turn, the sharp crack of wood heralded anothr lunch, this time arounf, not over, his blade, talon aimed to knock it out of the air.
>>>
Nnoitra hissed, careful to keep his grip. She was stronger like this, more than she ever had been as a Claymore. He couldn't wait to send her bleeding off of him. He shifted his hands, letting one drop to rest on the base of its hilt and slam the blade up against the talon.
"Tons," he breathed.
>>>
Ophelia disregarded the slam of her talons against the blade, her natural carapace against his blade, until she pushed forward against it, talon scrabbling with the harsh gratign noise of scouring metal, before it dug in to her joint and sliced one talon clean off. How confusing-
“Ouch…” Ophelia whimpered, withdrawing her hand to eye it, golden eyes out of focus against the bleeding stump of one of her three talons. But he confusion didn’t last long, before she coild her tail harsh and lunged at him, the bloodied stump clutched close even as it began to regenerate, mouth splitting at the corners to widen, large, sharp teeth evealed as she went to bite.
>>>
It probably spoke more than enough about their relationship that he only grinned at her reaction, content to see that the fight was going in his favor. With another easy heft of his blade, he sent it flying towards her mouth.
"C'mon, you can do better'n this," he taunted.
>>>
“I can-“ Ophelia jerked back, recoiled at the sudden intercedant of blade, but didn’t have room to duck. Almost by instinct, her jaw split wider, down the line of where a bone would be, the cracking noise signalling her bones shifting as her jaw disconnected and she caught the blade in her mouth, sharp teeth digging in to try and break the metal, screeching metal but even as she tried to bite down it threw her back, flipped her until she tumbled straight back into the small pool.
“Pah-“ She spat the blade out, along with several of her teeth, water splashing about as she thrashed to regain her balance, a sudden freeze to her as she realized where she was.
>>>
Nnoitra laughed, jerking his blade back with a practiced ease, gathering the loops until the hilt was back in his hand. He shifted, ready to press forward, to continue his attack while she was still down, when he caught sight of where she was.
He didn't stop to think, to decide if it was better if she saw or not, and opening his mouth, he let his tongue dangle free, the darkness of the forest around them obscuring the black five against the pink of his tongue, "Don't stop."
There was a glint as the first glow of a cero lit the darkness.
>>>
“I-“ She stopped. It wasn’t the good idea, not in a fight, but she froze. Her golden eyes stared back up at her, and the grotesque, distorted face of an Awakened Being was reflected in the rippling water. Slowly, she lowered her face, looked at her reflection this way and that, her jaw seaming shut as she dipped her face into the water, looking for the Awakened Being before she recoiled, eyeing herself with growing panic.
“I-“ Ophelia’s voice was strangled, and her tail slowly rose to her view. With rapidly growing horror, the Claymore, former Claymore, followed the shape of her body, from the serpentine tail, up the gray scaled carapace, her humanoid torso lined with blades up the spine, her own taloned hands…
“I knew there was something wrong…” Her voice wavered, like a lost child’s, and her eyes dilated in growing revelation, utterly ignoring the sight of his charging cero for her own mounting disgust.
And then she screamed.
>>>
The scream frustrated him, made the pressure build along his body, and the light of the cero dimmed just a bit. He fucking hated this. He hated the stupid promise he made and it was getting on his nerves that he was hating this fight more than he thought he would.
This was wrong. This was all fucking wrong. This wasn't how it was supposed to go.
He growled beneath his beneath, reinforcing the cero, making it grow blindingly brighter than before with his spiritual pressure.
>>>
“THIS IS WRONG!” Her voice was too loud, too high-pitched to be hers, and she thrashed hard, her body writhed and twisted and rebelled.
“It’s Clare’s fault!” It had to be Clare’s fault, she knew that, her talons shoved into the water again and again, to disturb the image in the water, to break it and deny it, make it go away, make it not true, scrambling to get out of the water. She hated the water, she didn’t want to-
“I can’t have Awakened!” Tears were streaming down her monstrous face, the blades on her back moving of their own accord, back arching as she screamed soundlessly up at the sky. A few more and she was screaming again, loud, raucous screams of pain, mental more than physical, completely ignoring the dangers of his cero to scream. Jaw splitting again and gray skin slicked with tears.
It was the sound of someone’s world collapsing. Shattering. Because she had become the one thing she hated most in all the world.
>>>
Nnoitra closed his eyes, trying to drown out the sound of her scream, desperate and strange coming from her after so long. He flicked his tongue up, releasing the cero, searing trees and more as it shot brightly through the dark forest.
He reached back for his blade, dragging it behind him as he waited to see the damage.
>>>
The cero caught her off guard, she wasn’t paying attention, and by the time instinct cut in, the instinct to dodge, to run, it was too late to do it completely. Tears still spilling, she scrambled, managing to drag about half of her body away from the blast before the rest, the majority of that serpentine tail of her disappearing into that searing line of light and energy.
Ophelia screamed again, this time from actual physical pain, the talons clawing her body away from the damage, only the topmost tail still connected to her torso. But already it started to reknit itself, a disgusting, slick noise as her body moved, instinctual and bestial. Her torso caved in on itself, consumed itself, and then the lump of it moved down the reforming tail, until she emerged, small, untaloned hands clawed there way out of what used to be the tail end, her naked torso, a near normal her, discounting the serpentine tail that started at her waist.
“That hurt…” She muttered, wiping tears from her eyes, hands slick from the fluid of regeneration she’d worked her way through, still crying without noise, not making any more yet to attack even as he came closer.
>>>
Nnoitra's zanpakutou sounded louder than usual as he dragged it behind himself, moving towards her. Time was important. She could regenerate anything he got rid of and was. But, he couldn't fight her like this. It was irriting the hell out of him. He couldn't fight her when she was acting so... weak.
"S'supposed to, you know," he muttered, closing the distance between them, fingers curling tighter against his hilt.
>>>
“I’m not-“ Her head shook, she shook, crawling back over to the water, dragging her writhing, bladed tail behind her. Her hands dipped into the water, splashed the reflection and wiped her eyes again, crawling deeper into the water.
“I’m not supposed to Awaken, Nnoitra…” She cried, denying it with all the bit of humanity she had left to her, the bestial bit concentrated in her tail, the blades moved of their own accord, warily slicking at the approaching Arrancar as if in warning even as the human part of her bemoaned this fate.
“I’m not- I kill Awakened Beings… I’m not- I can’t Awaken…” Ophelia’s voice broke, and she floundered in the water.
>>>
"Yeah, yeah, I know," Nnoitra nodded. He reached out, eye shifting to watch the other part of her body. Carefully, he reached up to press a hand against the side of her face, the golden bangles on his wrist slipping down.
"But I also promised this shit ages ago. That if you did, I'd take care of it," he continued. Slowly his eye moved back to her face, "You know I did."
>>>
“I don’t want to die, though…” She whispered, golden eyes flickering upward to his face. He had always been something of a soothing presence to her, since she had first come to the City, and it was still somewhat soothing, the blades relaxed and she sagged into it, trying to recall…
“Was it-“ Her memory was so hazy, and she wanted to just… her eyes fell to the corpse, to the smell of the guts, and her eyes rolled back momentarily in hunger. “That one time… after the… aliens? That big fight?” She’d… lost her black card, hadn’t she?
The smell of blood was so wonderful…
>>>
Nnoitra shrugged, fingers holding still against her face, "Fuck if I remember. Probably."
He hated that this wasn't what he thought it'd be. He'd always thought that when she awakened, she'd fight him. It'd all be good fun and then he could kill her, because he knew he was stronger. This... Something was wrong about this. His fingers held tighter against her face as he reached for his sword.
He just wanted to finish this. He didn't want to see her like this anymore, with the crying and the feelings he didn't understand, the feelings he wasn't sure he even wanted to understand.
>>>
“I don’t remember anything…” Ophelia whimpered, golden eyes glistening with the tears streaming down her face. “I’m trying to remember, and I don’t-“ She had relaxed into the grip, lids heavy, lips still stained with blood and tongue flicking out to taste.
But then, from the corner of that eye, she saw him reach for the blade.
Immediately, her tail whipped around, the blades coming bear and slamming down in the Arrancar’s direction, though the human part of her didn’t move, still lay docile at his hand, the bestial bit fighting to live even as the human part of her longed to be free of the pain of Awakening, of knowing she had Awakened.
>>>
The blades ripped through his uniform, slicing into skin as he grabbed his own blade. He'd already decided what he was going to do, whether she protested or not. It was his goddamn promise and he was going to keep it, even if it killed him.
With a jerk of his hand, he brought the unweildy blade around, slamming the cresent shape against her neck. He had to kill her. He didn't know what else to do but kill her.
>>>
Her gold eyes widened, dilated hard as the blade cut into her neck, bared neatly against his palm. Even as the blade dug in, her own did into his flesh, the dying sparks had it thrashing, trying to dig deeper and deeper, weakening with each pump of blood through her body that spilled out of her neck.
Ophelia collapsed, neatly, lost control over most of her body, the blades weakening to near nothing as her mouth opened, blood coating her tongue no longer anyone else’s but her own.
“That-“ The tears dried on her cheeks when she stopped crying, too hurt to cry, her delicate hands moved to grip his wrist, hanging on tenaciously.
“That hurts, Nnoitra…” She whispered with a gurgle, the light slowly fading from her eyes.
>>>
Nnoitra ripped the blade back out, fingers curling in her hair to keep her from falling away as the blood bubbled with her last few words. He'd finished what he promised he'd do. He'd taken care of everything.
"S'supposed to. It's death," he muttered, watching motionless as she took her last few breaths. Somehow, this felt right.
>>>
“Ah…” She was near limp, her nails digging in to his wrist as her tail collapsed, writhed slow and curling, in the death throes of a beast’s end.
“I don’t want to be Awakened, Nnoitra…” Ophelia whispered wetly, hands beginning to slip from their grip. “I don’t… want… to…” The tail began to seize as she began to choke.
Her eyes dimmed, until she smiled somewhat wanely.
“That was a really shitty fight.” It wasn’t so much said as mouthed, cut off by the gush of blood from her neck and the knit of regeneration still working to piece her skin back together. The regeneration crawled over the blood until it fixed her vocal cords, and her grip tightened again.
“If you don’t… I’ll keep regenerating…” The former Claymore muttered desperately, neck bared and revealing the already nearly healed flesh, the tail beginning to loosen and uncoil to attack again.
>>>
Nnoitra strangled out a laugh, a low sort of scoff as he stared down at her, his one eye drifting from hers to the quickly regenerating wound.
"Yeah, you owe me a better one for getting my hopes up," he grunted, lifting his blade one last time and slamming the blade through her neck with a sense of finality.
>>>
“Promise.” Ophelia mouthed, squeezing his wrist hard before her eyes rolled back, blood choked any further words, and she seized up, blood overflowing around the edge of his blade.
Suddenly her grip faltered, and she let go of him, wavered supported by the tail but only for a moment before she collapsed back into the water, long blond hair wavering in a near halo around her face and bloodstained neck.
She rarely looked that peaceful.