Boy meets Girl Again (Nessa/Plot)

Vanessa's room had already been vacated by the time Aoi had hit it with a fireball. All the same, she cursed his reckless lack of control and poor ability as she slammed the door, declaring it a write-off. She'd forgotten about the encounter, where the boy had demonstrated his immaturity; not necessarily in skill with kido but in how he fought. She'd heard complaints of his unrelenting attitude from acquaintances in the Kido Corps. Nessa seldom kept friends in places she didn't frequent. She'd have to go and tell one of the higher-ups what exactly had happened.

"Oh look." she said snidely. "It's the butterfly boy." she struggled to contain her overwhelming reiatsu. Regardless of the status of her and Aoi, she had more raw power than him by a long shot; it wasn't often a shinigami could claim spiritual energy that was literally uncontrollably strong. "I'm glad to see they fixed your injuries up, kid." she told him with a smug smile. "I don't think even your mother could love you, the state I left you in." she laughed shrilly. Nessa, of course, had no idea that comments about Aoi's mother would likely be very distressing for him. It was simply a case of her running her mouth. As precocious as he was, and as gifted in the arts of kido, he was weak of character; weak of spirit. He'd been beaten by a two-bit transfer from the 2nd squad who wasn't even cut out to be a spy, let alone a magician. And she wouldn't let him forget it as he run rampant through the Kido Corps and played officer.

She looked at him, and blinked once. Perhaps an ordinary person might have felt some form of pity at Aoi's stark comment about his mother hating them. They might have felt bad for what they'd said, or at least felt a little awkward. In this regard, at least, Vanessa Vårjen was no ordinary person. There was no care for his woes in those jade eyes, no recognition that he was worthy of her affection in such a way. She laughed at his assertion before he started scratching his head. She had to stop herself laughing at his second question. It was an obviously transparent attempt at psyching her out.

"Well, Sora-kun, while Mistress Blodeuwen gave you a "promotion" to a job no-one else wants to do to stop you pestering people who actually have real jobs," she felt that was particularly cutting and she felt that it was almost too harsh, "Some of us don't have time to skip around... Exploding things." she said with obvious distaste. "You might not have seen me training kido anywhere as I've been working with the Shinigami Research and Development Institute; that is, Juunibantai, as well as reporting to Mistress Blod." it was true. Working as a Gotei 13 liaison officer was almost like trying to hold down two full time jobs, but much to her chagrin sometimes, Vanessa found that she was actually rather good at it. She had been so resentful to the Soshi when she'd been "promoted" but... In hindsight it had been a wise move. While she didn't agree with all of their captain's little quirks, she could admit that she had much to learn from her.

"And besides, you should know how reiatsu is a poor measure of an individual's strength if that's what you're referring to." she said, and as if to emphasize her point, her reiatsu diminished to barely a flicker from the pressure it had possessed before. "This zanpakuto of mine... It stops me from keeping it in check, but I've gotten just a little better at controlling it. Ought you not to congratulate your elders when they succeed?" she asked, her tone and face accusing him of rudeness.

She rolled her eyes. She'd seen the jigokucho lately. Unreliable, slow, dizzy, despite Aoi's strictness. His holier-than-thou attitude was really starting to piss her off, and she tried with little success to stop that being reflected in her ever wavering Reiatsu which would blast Aoi with a wave of intense sustained pressure that would make even him quail, before floundering to a mere trickle, barely noticable. She cursed her ridiculous zanpakuto internally. Now was not the time for that, though.

"You can keep believing that Aoi, but I know for a fact you haven't spoken to the Soshi since your promotion." she told him with a smug grin. Nessa had learned that particular tidbit talking to Blodeuwen after she'd helped her smooth over the whole Meilin-Byakuya situation. "If you're spending time on personal projects that would explain why you're doing such a terrible job at herding butterflies, despite it being literally the easiest thing in the world." she rolled her eyes. "And Shiori-san beat me? We're not exactly in competition. In fact just recently the two of us trained kido together. You see Aoi, when you're grown up perhaps you'll understand that adults respect one another, though you might need to learn some respect for your elders and betters before you do that." she still hadn't let go of her grudge against Shiori but her fellow ex-spy was so undemanding that it was quite hard to actually hate her, just the circumstances that had brought them together in a particular way.

Nessa didn't enjoy letting other people have retail space in her head and so she'd actually not thought about Shiori or indeed Aoi since the last time she'd seen them. While she might have rolled her eyes, or told him to respect his elders at his internal comment that she was missing something, perhaps he would have been right.

"By the way, I've talked to Nakamura-sama." he was one of the boffins in the Kido Corps, he was the one that had recruited Vanessa and Shiori originally. "You'll be paying for the damage you did out of your salary, he told me it was upwards of half a million Kan. He wanted me to pass on the message." she said, her voice completely free of inflection. Money didn't matter to Vanessa. She had enough to give her parents, and she had all that she wanted. "It's quite steep. You should ask Mistress Blod if she can help you out, since you said your mother isn't likely to and if you try to pay it out of your wages, you'll have to eat nothing but 200 Kan ramen. I could as well, if you'd like." she offered.

She scoffed. Nice? As if. Why was she offering to pay for his fuck up though? Mostly because it saved drama and meant that her room would be fixed sooner. Apart from that it wouldn't exactly be of anything but detriment if it had to come out of the Kidoshu's coffers. She re-examined herself. Was this truly altruism? She let herself believe that it was, that she was helping this annoying twerp as a result of nothing but the supreme goodness of her heart. That was not true however. Nessa cared not for money, nor for Aoi. She cared for the Kido Corps and how their success could benefit her. She cared for strength. Of course, she wasn't a sociopath. She didn't merely use people- she could care for them too. But often that care was tied to their strength, their maturity, their intellect. Aoi might have been talented but he was still a child and as such, even if he had all the power in the world she would not see him as an equal until he had grown.

"Sure, Aoi." she laughed, without the derisive sneering this time. "God, you're such an annoying little dork you know that?" she said, as he looked up at her with puppy dog eyes. She cracked her thumbs within her gloves, the clicking noise amplified by the contact with the metal. "Well since your job is apparently just as busy as the grown ups Aoi, you should hurry along and get working." she said, before turning on her heel and marching off, not really having the time to stand around talking. She stopped after taking several steps. "Oh, and Aoi?" she asked, before turning her head over her shoulder so that he would see the profile of her face.

"Nice robe." she said, her voice dripping in sarcasm so thick that even Aoi should have been able to spot it. She paced off at that point, cackling gleefully.

She looked behind her once more, and her face fell as she saw Aoi following her. Even worse he asked her if he would work with her. The hell was his problem? Of course she didn't want to work with him and his stupid butterflies. She had things to be doing, things other than wasting her time babysitting. Not only that but she didn't especially even like Aoi all that much. She found him aggravting in the extreme, she wasn't like Blod who doted upon him because he was "cute". Children had no place in a branch of the military as far as she was concerned. Nor did they have any part in her life, though Aoi seemed to be oblivious to that idea.

"Get the hell away from me you little freak!" she said, speeding away from him with a shunpo, rounding a corner. If he tried to pursue her, she could easily simply throw a bakudo or a hado back at him. She quickly went to the exit, shouting for Junta to let her through so she could go to the SRDI where Aoi would be forbidden to follow her, as her lab was highly classified and top secret.