Noblesse Oblige [Shio/Sachiko]

Much of the room's ambiance and mystique was lost on Shio; even had he been in his normal state, even had he been able to see and fully comprehend the form of things in front of him, he would've been too busy preparing himself for the impending battle of words and wits.  He wasn't, by and large, a man that dedicated to the verbal arts.  He was fully expecting to stumble over his words, to find himself...coming across as somewhat of a schmuck.  And he very much didn't mind that.  He was normally quite happen to be seen as the fool, or better yet as the nobody.  It helped very much to go places if no one ever thought you could.

And so here he was, walking into the room with his shikai en tow, carrying it around with the wick wound halfway around his body.  Now that he was indoors and a door could be closed on him at very nearly any moment, he needed the option available to him for a speedy escape...just in case the most important of the doors was shut in his face.  He probed around slowly, his cane touching upon a chair, and leading him to approach it slowly, carefully...before all but dropping himself into it, as if he had walked a very long way and was grateful to get a heavy weight off of his feet.  He folded them together, and then nodded towards Sachiko slowly, his eyes far too closed to make out find details of the woman across from him.

"First off, let me thank you for seeing me today.  I would've worn two eyepatches, but that would've been silly.  As is, one moderately functioning eye isn't that different from two, and I have the added benefit of being slightly more attractive this way.  In my experience, I need every leg up I can get when it comes to making friends, so..."  He shrugged slightly, dismissively, and then leaned forward, on his cane.

"I come to you because I'm in a spot of trouble.  There are some...people out there.  Hoping to blackmail me.  Not to put too fine a point on it.  I've recently run afoul of one or two of the Soul Society's more...obscure and esoteric laws.  And now there are some individuals who are doing everything in their power to ruin my life as a result.  I realize it's...very unorthodox for one to come to an individual such as yourself for aid in a time like this.  But I wanted to extend my most sincere hopes to you that you would at least hear my case and...do me the honor of considering it.  It's quite possible this would earn you a high degree of standing amongst your family, were this problem to be...resolved with switfness and style."

Shio paused for a second, his face retreating and knitting itself into a grimace purely on instinct.  Telling -everything-, every little detail...there was never any reward for an act like that.  All that could possibly come from revelation was pain and disappointment.  But he was indeed on her territory, and he had given her the reins in their conversation...so he had little option but to cooperate.  Shio paused, hands sliding into his lap before he spoke once more.  His tone was slow and careful, but even so he had to stop and start over once or twice, as the words stumbled over themselves.  As his thoughts crowded in, trying to get past the filter.

"I don't expect you to rush to my aid.  I don't even expect you to -care- much, in the grand scheme of things.  But I need you to understand.  All of this...everything I'm telling you now.  I speak in confidence, with the...hope that you will understand.  Perhaps it means little to you, perhaps you don't...particularly care.  But -I- do, and...that's important.  I need you to understand that, going into this.  However stupid you may think this entire topic is.  It's...I...This is important.  To me.  And I'm honestly not sure who else I can turn to about this.  It's...unfair.  And it's cruel.  That this be allowed to happen."

He paused for just a moment, his eye opening wide enough that the thick cloudy disturbance on the retina was now clearly visible, almost unsettling to behold.  His hands ran over the length of his robes slowly at first, carefully, as if probing for wrinkles or crumbs to be wiped away.  Ye gods, how a simple problem like his uniform would've been a nice distraction from all of this.  But he inhaled slowly, exhaled slowly...and then nodded ever so slightly, one hand beginning to rub around his chin and cheek as he spoke.  He was clearly starting to work himself into something nearing a frenzy...and yet he seemed in no particular hurry to speak.

"I was born in the Rukongai, sometime back.  I dealt with...well, to be frank I dealt with the scum of the spirit world.  For...fifty, maybe fifty five years.  And every day of my life I dreamed, I...I hoped.  I wanted to become something.  I wanted to get -away- from that life.  And I finally did.  And no one from my past life was...was there.  When I left.  No one wished me a fond farewell, no one told me they...they hoped I'd do something great.  No one even seemed to notice my passing.  And then I was in the academy, where it was all so...so -simple-.  It felt almost like I was being set up for some big practical joke.  The kido lessons, the kendo courses, the stepping regiments.  All of it was just so...so intuitive.  And I didn't even notice it, I didn't see it happening.  I can't even say it was gradual, I was so...blind.  But all of a sudden my classmates were throwing...roadblocks.  In my way.  They were doing everything they could to waste my spare time, to keep me from studying, to press their bad habits onto me.  I could -feel- it, every day.  I could feel them...trying to pound the spark out of me.  And I tried my very hardest to...endure it.  To let it all just slide off without changing me.  And then in...in the end."

He paused at this point, all of the life draining from his face.  His mouth moved wordlessly for a few seconds, as if he were trying to find some way to explain it.  Or as if he were trying to find some way to -remember- it.  He knew what had happened, naturally...and he had the scars to prove it.  But all of the details were so...muted.  Greyed out.  It was hard to follow any of it, hard to really keep a clear series of events.  It was like...he'd been told about it, rather than living it.  And while he sat there, one of his hands dropped down to the back of his leg, running over it slowly, rhythmically...seeming to focus on a spot just behind his knee.

"And in the end.  I'm...In the end, I managed to fuck everything up.  Royally.  I'm not sure how to...explain it.  Suffice to say that the proceedings were grossly illegal and grossly inappropriate.  And then...things got better. I...graduated.  Right on time.  I was even accepted into division one.  I remember so fondly the day I got the letter...even before I'd finished my examinations.  And I remember less fondly the looks on my classmates' faces.  Not a single one of them were happy for me."

He paused once more, brow knitting when he leaned forward, hand pressing to his cheeks, obscuring his face and muffling the next words ever so slightly.

"So...so believe me.  When I say that no one in this world has ever been on my side."

Again, Shio's gaze seemed to grow distant, his facial expressions...twisted and knotting in unpleasant ways.  There was no clear word for what he was feeling just then, his lips and eye finally setting in a position that was nothing so much as unsettling.  Yet his voice was a bit clearer; there was doubt and anger there, concern and hatred and wild untamed hope, all rolled into one.  Whatever was going on, it was something he wanted very much to be true, and yet knew couldn't be.  It was like he had just seen a unicorn, or was trying to admit he had seen Santa Claus.

"I'm...Yes, Sachiko.  I understand.  I just want to make sure you don't take any of this the wrong way.  It's...I'm not sure, myself.  I don't know what's going on anymore, I don't know what they...want from me."

Again, Shio paused.  His hand slid towards his mouth, thumb pressed ever so slightly against his teeth, so he could roll the nail between his teeth ever so slightly, biting down gently but not quite enough to break the keratin just yet.  He -did- know what they wanted from him.  It was the same thing anyone wanted, the same thing he'd grown so used to up to now.  It was humiliation, plain and simple: They wanted to see him on the crucifix for daring to have a reach that exceeded his grasp.  For taking "be all you can be" to heart.  He was the sacrificial lamb by which equality could be established.

He just couldn't understand their angle here.  There was...no way he could see, that this would end to his detriment.  But his brain was gently simmering away, trying to find a way to make sense of it all.

"I was called on a routine mission a few weeks ago.  It was nothing that unexpected, or difficult.  Me and a few others were to set a perimeter for a hollow invasion in the Rukongai.  Observe, minimize casualties, and keep the hollows from escaping.  But it started going out of our control very quickly.  There were...too many Menos.  And we needed the...we held on long enough for Blodeuwen Hirashi to arrive, and deal with the threat.  Except for one.  An...adjuchas."

He paused, his hands clasping against the robes over his knees, clutching them for dear life, his very knuckles turning white as if he were trying his very hardest to avoid reliving the experience.  As if whatever had happened was something horrible and unpleasant, as if he were...terrified of reliving that event.  He finally spoke in a slow, quiet, almost...airy tone.

"My comrades said it would be suicide.  Blodeuwen demanded we eliminate the threat.  At any cost.  I...paid the cost.  To do my duty."

He finally tilted his head back, a tear rolling down his eye.  It was hard to tell if it was due to the pressure and strain, or the grief.

A swear on her sword.  What good would that do?  What did she expect him to do, simply break down into sobs and start revealing his every life's wish to her?  No, no.  That could only ever truly become ammunition for whatever convoluted game was being played here.  Some ridiculous thing he could hardly understand, something that made Shio into the butt of every joke, that left him sitting here, left him simply watching with a slack jaw as the world passed him by.  And now she wanted him to trust her, to just...believe that something like an oath would make the entire world right?  He paused once more, rising from his own chair and placing a hand on it to stablize himself.  No.  No, it was time to start getting to the real issue at hand.

He began to speak, in a slow rhythmic tone that sounded almost like whispering at first.  But after a second of droning it grew even louder, taking on the intonations of a kido.  And if his tone was any indication, then whatever was about to happen would be very impressive.  He leaned on his cane for support, feeling the words boiling over in his skull.  To think he'd one had trouble speaking them...that the incantation had eluded his attention.  Now it seemed to pound away at the confines of his skull, demanding to be spoken.  It was as if his mind wouldn't let him live down this stupid fucking day.  As if the -world- wouldn't.

"The crest of turbidity, seeping out. An insolent vessel of madness."

He inhaled once more, allowing himself to leverage his weight off of the ground with the cane, shoving himself forward into something resembling a stumble.  A kido like this wasn't one that a man normally did idly, wasn't something a man threw around simply to prove he could, but he couldn't allow this conversation to continue to go in circles.  He -needed- Sachiko's help.  He -needed- this to just...go away.  And he needed her to understand that no matter what she was told, he wasn't going to put her hard work to waste.  He turned towards her, speaking a few more words, and picking up a piece of paper from her desk.  He examined it for a second, as if trying to make out the details on it.  All he could see was white...but if there was no ink, that was a good sign it hadn't been written on.  He set it back down, and then closed his eyes, clasping his hands in front of his chest, allowing his reaitsu to unfurl and release.  Like a lion stretching its muscles, his spirit energy began to flood the room, unfettered now.

"Boiling up, denying, numbness, blinking, obstructing slumber. The steel princess who creeps."

He paced a circle of the room slowly, with his hands remaining clasped just at his side, the cane tucked under one arm.  His movements were slow and meticulous, but not nearly as much as they had been a few moments prior.  Either he had grown familiar with the layout of the room, sight or no, or something about this conversation and the discussion of his...circumstances, was filling him with certainty.  In either case, he looked almost excited now, as he pointed a finger at the chair he had just been sitting in, his eyes closing tightly, and his voice coming out in a slow, hypnotized murmur.

"Please, Sachiko.  Step back.  Hado Number 90: Kurohitsugi."

He clasped his hand tightly, his index finger the last one of them to tighten...and as it did, a familiar black-and-purple shape formed around the wooden piece of furniture, engulfing the substance entirely, and then skewering it several dozen times over with thick, ethereal blades of flame.  It was a sudden, noiseless process...and it was absolutely surgical.  Even as close as she was, not a bit of the heat washed over onto Sachiko's face.  Shio slumped ever so slightly, hand resting against the wall, as he placed the other one against his face, murmuring to himself.

"I never...intended to show off.  I never wanted this to happen.  I wasn't trying to...trying to hurt anyone.  I don't even know when I expected to use it.  I just...wanted to prove I could.  To...myself."

Shio whirled on the intruders, his expression almost immediately soothing out into that self-same mask of bland ignorance.  Whatever happened next, he'd deny as fervently as possible.  It would likely only compound the charges, make things even worse...but worse was really the only direction left for his life to go at this point.  He opened his mouth, prepared to speak out in his defense-

Only for Sachiko to beat him to it.  His mouth, already opened and poised to speak, simply dangled as he lost control of the muscles entirely, simply...going slack.  He slumped against the wall, glancing towards Sachiko in dull, sullen silence as he could hear her shouting and berating her subordinates, forcing them outside.  Shio's entire brain was ringing, both from the expenditure of reaitsu, and from the fact that this entire conversation had just taken such a sudden turn.  He wasn't...sure what he'd expected there.  He didn't know why he had bothered to cast that Kido.  All he knew was that it shouldn't have been dealt with so...swiftly.  And so reasonably.  It almost seemed like Sachiko was trying to cover up for him.

He swallowed once more, pacing a small circle around the room, his hands running through his hair, over his chin, across her table...it seemed like he was trying to keep himself anchored now.  As if he were afraid he'd just float away if he didn't have something to keep his hands on.  He plucked up another piece of paper from Sachiko's desk, rolling it up slowly, and beginning to wave the cone around as one would a baton.  He did this for a few seconds before he stopped entirely, inhaling once more and letting out a soft, wet noise.

"That's just it.  I'm...not even sure what's going on anymore.  Apparently Blodeuwen Hirashi isn't even -mad-.  She's trying to get them to -drop the case-.  She watched me break one of the most important laws in the Seireitei, and she's -on my side-.  She hardly even knows my name and she's already fighting for my sake!  All so she can drag me into the -wretched- Kido Corps!  Where I'll no doubt be...the circus freak the...the floor decoration.  Where I'll spend the rest of my life on display, for everyone to...to ogle.  I'd rather -die- than be part of that organization!  I'd join the Onmitsukido first!  But I will -not- have anything to do with that bunch of...of...freaks!"

He whirled back away, placing his palms against the wall, baring his teeth and worrying away at his lower lip once more, with renewed vigor.  His mouth seemed to find some patch of dry and flaking flesh, ripping it away with a spectacular surge of pain that brought fresh blood bubbling up to the surface.  He lapped away at it for a few moments, no longer even sure what he was doing, where he was, what was...going on.

He only knew one thing for certain.

"No therapy.  It'd be worse than becoming a captain.  I just want all of this to...end.  No more questions, no more prying.  No more feeling like I'm...stuck under a microscope."

Shio turned towards Sachiko, his eye opening ever so slightly, trying to make sense of the blotches on top of one another, of the faint blurs of motion and color that he saw.  There she stood, but she seemed...wider than before.  Something wasn't right, and for a second he wondered if she had somehow gained weight while they were talking.  But finally after a second or two something connected in his brain, and his lip curled back in an expression of distaste, as if he had just taken a big bite from a bar of soap.  He shook his head, and curled one arm around his waist.  No, there wasn't going to be any hugging today.  Not while he was still trying to make his business pitch.

Business, yes.  Keep this all business.  This woman had no obligation towards him, no need to...to care.  That was why business was so important.  Nobles were notorious for putting themselves first, and that was why he needed to frame this perfectly.  He inhaled once more, looking over her shoulder, not even acknowledging her attempts to console him as such.  He simply swallowed, seemingly lost in his thoughts, trying to find a way to express this all properly.  How could he convince her that going up against the Kido Corps and coming out on top was something she -wanted- to do?

"I don't need help.  I just need...time.  Time to myself.  Like always.  It'll be fine, if she just...just goes away.  If this all goes away.  I can make it work.  I don't need anything but for things to go back to normal.  I...I just need..."

He stopped once more, wracking his mind.  The words weren't there anymore, or if they were they were too clouded and crowded to come out.  He seemed to be rolling words over his tongue, finding the one that sounded right.  His spare hand rose, running over his face once more; a purely subconscious motion of frustration, as he was so clearly tired of not having the right words.  Why couldn't he just make this all make sense?  It was so -obvious-, and he couldn't even explain it right!  He paced in a small circle once, twice...and then finally seemed to relax.  Finally, the words were there.

"The Soul Society isn't as flawless as everyone likes to claim, Sachiko.  I came in here as a...as an outsider.  I came in here fed on years and years of...propaganda.  I was led to believe shinigami were -gods-.  I thought that when I came into this place, I'd be part of a well-oiled machine.  I thought that each and every person would be a force of nature in their own right.  I thought I was being chosen for...greatness.  And that simply isn't the case.  The Seireitei -needs- someone to stir the pot.  To break the...the crust.  The film, that's begun to form on the top.  Aizen was just the beginning.  We need -reform-, Sachiko.  And if you help me, if you can...get me in touch with the right people.  Then we can make the Gotei 13 what it deserves to be."

Shio had to pause for a second.  He hadn't -really- expected her to buy his excuse, but he had at least expected her to refute it.  But here she was, simply acting as if none of it had come.  And he could feel a pounding sensation in his chest, could feel his body already reacting to some imaginary threat.  What, though?  Sachiko?  She was doing nothing but offering her services, her aid!  And so here he stood, clenching his hands so hard the knuckles popped, in utter silence, trying to figure out how he was supposed to respond to all of this.  He wobbled over to a chair, hands probing about.  The fingers trembled just a bit as he finally managed to find the proper area, and all but fell into it this time.  His hands dangled between his legs, and he slumped forward, staring at nothing.

"I'm -not- mentally unstable, Sachiko.  I'm just...under a lot of stress right now.  And that's -her- fault.  It's what she -wants-, I bet.  She's trying to...make me sweat.  Soshi Hirashi is off in her quarters, crowing to herself that she's finally found a proper way to stick it to such an arrogant fool of a shinigami.  She doesn't see my potential...she's..."  His lip curled up in a gesture of distaste, as he stopped himself.  He'd almost said something very very dangerous.  He'd almost tried to showboat, in this woman's house, after he had proven himself a dangerous element...and where would that get him, in the long run?  Thrown in prison, or worse.  No, there was no good result from expressing his thoughts right now.  He needed to think it through.  He needed to just wait for things to make sense.

And yet his mouth was moving, before he could do anything about it.  The tone there was...totally off, was far too laid-back for a situation like this.  It was the tunes one only really used when they were doing everything possible to pretend what was going on had nothing to do with what they were saying.  And as always, it was patently false.

"No one sees my potential, Sachiko.  I've worked hard to make sure of that.  I'm not...interested in recognition.  I don't want a parade thrown in my honor, I don't want...everyone to know my name.  I don't want to walk through the streets and have to hear everyone murmuring just a little too quiet for me to hear, whispering their petty spiteful wretched rumors.  I don't want to...Sachiko.  I'm not kido corps material.  I'm not...anything material.  I'm just a guy.  I'm just a shinigami.  And I just want to do my job.  I want to be left alone.  Why can't the captains just leave me alone?  I did nothing wrong, nothing b..."

His breath hitched, his shoulders crumbling ever further.  Yes, he had done so much wrong.  He had spoiled everything in a single, sharp moment.  He had done everything entirely the wrong way, and now he was being made to pay for it.  It was the only thing that made sense.  It was the only thing that could keep the situation simple enough to handle.

"I should've died to that adjuchas, Sachiko. If I hadn't been a criminal...if I hadn't taught myself that Kido. I'd have died. That's what this is really about. I was -supposed to die-. That's why Soshi Hirashi is doing all of this. I was...I'm. My survival is a crime to her sensibilities. People like me shouldn't get to be this strong."