LOG; BACKDATED; COMPLETE
When; October 26th, midday (lkadmas late because I SUCK)
Rating; PG?
Characters; Cirucci Thunderwitch (thunderwitch) & Ishida Uryuu (anti_buttons)
Summary; It's been done before. Little details have changed, a few notes, but it's the same song.
Log;
Ishida Uryuu was a man, if a young man, inclined toward reason. With even a bit of good common sense, never mind logic, he could have deduced how this encounter would go, and only in part because he had already experienced one very like it. Once again, he headed toward a place of the Thunderwitch's choosing, so to perform an act meant to humiliate him that would serve the far more important purpose of ensuring another person's safety. Uryuu had little worry about the actual terms the Arrancar had set: his pride wasn't of such a shoddy quality that this sort of thing could make an impact. It hadn't then, and it wouldn't now.
What would have given him worry would be what else she would do; remembering what she had done then, the way it had promised the entirety of the following year's discomfort, the escalation of her obsession. An obsession that should have ended, been sworn to end, but for her own selfishness. (He wasn't surprised, at the end of it. Little could surprise him now, he suspected; the City had a way of being uniquely miserable for him, and expecting only that, drudging to the depths of his best efforts at pessimism, tended to keep him satisfied in some small way).
Pursing his lips, as if to thin them out and press out of the physical memory of then, Uryuu did not allow himself the worry. His mind as clear and determined as it had been, only, as he raised his hand, curled his fingers, and rapped his knuckles against the wood, he felt a measure of cool confidence in this: deja vu and retained recollection would arm him well. She could hardly catch him off guard this time; he had already seen it all from the Thunderwitch.
The Quincy had seen it all, and the Thunderwitch could only dream of it.
Once, she had known all of it as well. She had known her own glory, and her own shame. She'd been able to take sick comfort from her little victories, and sick disgust from her more devastating losses. Everything and nothing had been the 105th's claim, and now, she was back to square one. She knew it, she did, as often, as this point, she denied it.
The queen of denial, her little reign in Tres Cifras, and still, she was able to cloud her own eyes. So many had said it, and so, she did believe. She had been here before. And she had done so many things. She was almost sad she didn't remember them.
Almost.
For now, Cirucci was too occupied with her triumph of the moment, the way she smirked when she said come in~, arms behind her head and fumbling with the catch of the necklace she was donning.
Idly, while his hand met the cool metal and twisted, Uryuu wondered if this moment would stand out to him later. Small, insignificant things often did, not that he made a habit of thinking back on this sort of thing, but before, a certain design on a teacup would summon the feel of her leaning against him, the fabric of her couch arm digging into his. Would the metal against his palm summon a feeling of tired dread, nothing like giving up but entirely like an out of body experience, watching himself go through the motions, a broken record that played again and again.
The thought didn't last, lingering only as long as it took for the door to swing open and reveal her. Just as then, she wasn't wearing her Arrancar uniform. Though this exposed more, no doubt for the sake of the dance, Uryuu was not surprised. The record played on, skipping back, and back, and back.
"Last time," he intoned dryly, "You insisted that the boots be on your feet. Will kissing those shoes suffice, or will you be changing?"
"Last time, last time~" Cirucci drawled, casting a look over her shoulder that was more full of venom than her light and flippant words were. There was always a cold fury lurking behind those violet eyes, even in the moments of her greatest triumph. Because no matter how she proved herself, the scar, five, on her breast, would never leave her.
A scar that was not in the exact same place as she remembered. A scar that had a companion, the jagged line across her abdomen that she remembered not. Another, on her shoulder, viewable with the backless gown.
"Everyone can't seem to say anything else to me, Shiro-Megane-Kun. I'd hoped you'd be different."
"That was stupid of you."
His expression remained utterly severe, not a trace of amusement playing. That part was easy. He could feel the exhaustion like a weight on every pore; in the back of his mind he remembered one exchange of many, remembered stepping over pieces of wood from her decimate door, inching around blood stains, remembered sitting across from her, threats against her powers sinking with his shoulders, sinking beneath a simple confession: I'm tired of this.
She had promised it would be over. Even knowing better, he felt better, and it kept his expression hard, unforgiving. Always, always. This place really was hell, the liver pecked out, growing again to be devoured again, the boulder pushed up the hill only to roll down.
"Answer the question."
Her expression soured, a small pout, and she turned her back to him, though the mirror in front of her revealed her still, pretty porcelein face, a deadly doll with purple lipstick, purple nails running through her hair as she arranged the dark curls about her face.
"These will do." She tossed it back, a cascade of deep purple about pale shoulders and white dress. A turn in her chair and legs crossed, one over the other, pure white heels.
Her eyes slipped over him, pursuing, analyzing. For her, as if for the first time. Last she remembered they were fighting, and though she wanted to leap at him, straight to her release the curse's behavior held her back from that overt violence.
In and out. This could be quick; he doubted it would be, but at least he could get the gist of it over with. Crossing the room, Uryuu paused only once before kneeling. His eyes slid toward her, looking at her properly for the first time. His heart did not skip; she was a monster. But the beat felt slower, because the monster was still beautiful, because -- he focused on the jagged things in her eyes.
"Try not to kick me in the face, or something, won't you? And I wouldn't try anything; don't think I won't sever it. In fact, I could right now. Then I won't have to do this, or worry at all."
He considered it as he dropped to one knee. Why not? Why risk what she would do to Doumeki-san? And she wouldn't have much to trade; this time it might really be finished. The thought wouldn't leave him as he knelt, his hand not frozen but not moving to hold her foot, a framing for his kiss. Uryuu would undo her mistake in thinking she could go back on her word, could remove the record, shatter it again.
"I'm not so graceless as that, Quincy, don't mistake me." Her voice had a quiver of anticipation to it, however, the lines of her leg, muscles taught, breath caught. It was testament, that even this small, inconsequential victory, it could arouse such a response from her, the swell of her pride and ego. Perhaps because she needed it, the pride, that she was so easily susceptible to it.
"And please." A smirk, to disguise the uneasiness of the idea. But thank the curse once more, that she was in a role, now. A proud dancer, not a fighter per se, and her mind was only slightly less violently inclined at the moment, or she might have- at that comment, ground the heel in to his glasses.
As is, purple lips twisted up, the tears on her cheeks rising with the sadistic smile.
"But you make it so easy," he retorted before he could resist. And he would have stopped himself; though the remark was a hostile one, it contributed to more time passing, to a deviation from the one-two-three. In truth, the right thing to say would have been a reprimand, a correction; he hardly needed to mistake her, when she did plenty of it for herself.
If it had been a matter of courage, of having the backbone to do it, it would have been done. When choosing between what she might do to Doumeki-san and her pride, there was no choice. Wasn't it his responsibility to do it from the beginning? To take off the record before it could begin to spin.
It had to be the curse, and nothing else, that refused the attack. After all, she had to go on next, and all he found himself doing was lifting his hand, cupping it beside the heel. Uryuu bowed his head, kissed the toe.
The Privaron might have replied, but she was too busy absorbing the moment. She was a role now, part of a cursed schedule. The schedule said she was up next, and who were they, two players, to defy the city's plans?
With a content look, a diva satisfied, she withdrew her foot, switched her crossed legs to proffer the other.
Leaning back just enough to allow the change, Uryuu resumed his position. Again, he steadied and directed himself with his hand by the heel, again lowered his head and pressed his mouth to the toe of the shoe. With that finished, he let his hand fall and stood. This time, unlike the last, he did not bother with wiping his mouth. This would be devoid of theatrics, of emphasis.
"There," he said, a somewhat unnecessary verbal punctuation. If, though he could not physically attack her, she could still find a means of hurting Doumeki -perhaps when the dance had finished and the terms ceased applying, though he could then intervene - he would at least live. Provided she was a creature of her word, something which he already had cause to doubt.
"Unless you've fabricated something else, some further act to exchange for a little more security, I'll be on my way."
"There~" She dipped, light playing down revealed pale skin as she ran her fingertips over her shoe, leaned back up in her chair and smirked at him, nails plying at her bottom lip as she eyed him.
"You've just insured his life." Later, once the curse released her, she would question this clothing choice. She would be more angry with why she was not pulling out her sword and attacking. Why he did not attack her. But until then, she was content with this victory, despite how composed he was. Surely, beneath, he was seething, longing to strike her-
"But just that."
How convenient. Despite the futility of it, Uryuu was tempted to take a moment to consider how thoroughly the City loathed him. As interference had not been allowed during the fighting matches, no doubt anything now or during would be perceived as sabotage. The proof being his inability to lift his hand. And the City hated him by allowing her to do what she did, by then pairing her and one of the few people he'd been foolish enough to consider a friend.
Like that imperfect record, his thoughts were repetitive. Because he was tired of it, and tired was in the repetition, tired of the beginning that was very like the end, he found his face pinching into a tight smile, more a jeer than a thing of kindness.
"Last time, you were far more troublesome. The circumstances were different, of course, but there you are."
Last time, the first time, she had kissed him and it had been his first. Thinking of that day still made him sick, but tasting the memory was like looking at a newspaper so old, the words were no longer legible.
Immediately, her smile turned down once again, a tight, white lipped expression accompanied by the nails curling, clenching in to her palm. White, short, hem swirled around her thighs as she stood abruptly, eye level, now, in these heels, unlike when she wore her usual boots, the cold fury from before sparking up in her eyes.
"What did I tell you about that, Shiro-Megane-Kun?" That she hated it, last time, last time, snarling it out at him. "Unless you're going to be fucking specific, you can stop with the last time~ I don't remember it- and half of the shit Nnoitra told me I did, I would never-"
How could she? Cirucci Thunderwitch with a heart? Cursed? Love? It had to be his idea of a sick joke. She knew it.
Was this what she drew out of him? An immaturity, a swell of dark satisfaction at the rise he had created. It was too easy, it shouldn't have pleased him. At least if he was irritated, dissatisfied, so would she be. Aside from that smile, he schooled his features, preventing the depths of his approval from reaching expression.
"But you did," he challenged, his voice all but dry, looking her in the eye. "I know more than I'd like to about it, about all you did. You certainly came to me enough. And..."
His eyes slid down, to her shoulders, below, not focusing on her chest but where the scars would beneath the flimsy material of her dress. His mouth opened, prepared to question it, to prod for her explanation for the marks. But the words stalled in his throat, began to shrivel. Taunting her with this, enraging her with the truth; it wouldn't help Doumeki-san any.
Uryuu took a step back, began to face the door. "And I'm not really interested in specifics. Let's get back to the task at hand."
Oh, it worked alright. Her shoulders shot up, stiffened even further, and thankfully, (for her, because the end would always be the same, wouldn't it), the curse kept her back from violence again, because if not, she'd have been on him in a second. Instead, her reiatsu fluxed heavily, and her eyes dilated.
"Me? Come to you?" A brave front, that she laughed raucously, stepped forward as he stepped back, a dismissive gesture with her arm and completely ignoring his attempts to back away not only from her, but from the subject. His glance had not gone unnoticed, but-
"Now I just know you and that son of a bitch Espada are full of shit."
"You don't know that,'' Uryuu returned, conceding at least that he could not beat a quick get away, his attention entirely on her, retrieved from the door and an imminent escape. "No," he said, affecting a casual air, as if he were discussing something as obvious and commonplace as the typical color of grass (which, after all, diferred in their different worlds). "No, I think you know that I, at least, am telling the truth."
"After all, aside from the obvious aspersion cast on my character by such an accusation, what reason would I have for lying?"
When it was one of the things he'd most like to forget; that bitter fact narrowed his eyes, sloped his mouth. But Uryuu had far too much sense to ever envy the Thunderwitch. "But I see you've retained your talent for denial."
"I do know that." She spat, finally touched him, because her nails stabbed in to his chest, gestures becoming more agitated. But then she paused, and stepped back, face disgusted. Because which one was true? What did she know? Something, deep with her, resonated.
"Either way-" The Privaron moved to cover, turning her back to him, straightening dress and heels. "Denial isn't something I need. I know my own strength."
Not sharp enough to pierce, her short attack, and though she was a monster and he had been tense, on his guard, he did not instinctively act against it. Uryuu, though with sharp reflexes, was too much the reflective type, analytical; while Kurosaki lashed out, punched and kicked and charged and seized hold of confrontation, had yanked him by his collar, Ishida acted after consideration. And though his stomach pulled in, he did not move, simply looked with a blank disdain.
Consideration; now he considered her back. Her turn had allowed him to note the scars there, too.
"Which hasn't ever been enough," he reminded her, not kindly. With his old exhaustion came the feeling of age. It had been something like a year; but Uryuu had always been older than his sixteen years. Sometimes, looking at her made him feel ancient, but now he just felt petty.
"..." Silent, cold, and deadly. Deadly, but not to him. Never to him, she had learned in the City. Oh, she had learned time and time again that no matter how she tried, her victories were all hollow. Her pride, a sham. Her strength, enough, but not for him. Incessantly, without fail, always thrown back in to her face. But forgotten, now, shed behind this new self, but still shadowing her in the echoes of others. "You used to", "I thought you", "Weren't you", "Before, you", and all of them.
"Liar."
Cast off, because without her powers, the cloak of her nature, her pride, and her blade, Cirucci Thunderwitch could not stand the pain of her empty existance.
"Now give a woman a hand, Shiro-Megane-Kun." The Privaron snapped, holding the ornate necklace to her throat, complicated clasp left undone at her nape, beneath the curls about her head.
As many times as he might protest, Uryuu knew, were as many times as she would blithely ignore him. He chose to save his breath, and only though, resentment too overused with time to have much tangibility, I don't lie. (Though that was a lie; but though the seemed to often lie to people, it was less deliberate. He lied mostly to himself, so well and so completely that the mistruths he believed spread into what he told other people).
Her request was simple. Though he should have left the moment she accused him of lying, he hadn't, wrestling with his quiet indignation and working over how to handle her not-so-clean slate, and now there was something else. With a wry twist of his lips, he asked, "What will it earn Doumeki-san?"
It would be ungentlemanly to refuse, but he couldn't simply bend into a subservient role. Waiting, his teenaged eyes looked with appreciation at the contrast of her black curls against the slender curve of her neck.
Her hip cocked, visible in the mirror, her lips pursed, eyes rolled.
"He won't bleed." She drawled, heels- kissed heels, tapping impatiently. A part of her was roiling, the part that screamed of his closeness, that she should take advantage, should run, should lunge, should attack, and yet, something held her back.
Something she wanted badly to rip down, and destroy. It made her muscles taut in preparation for something, for something she couldn't take.
"Knowing what you can do, that isn't much," Uryuu noted, unimpressed but not refusing the term. He closed the distance with a step and made quick work of the clasp; despite the care of his deft fingers, he hadn't been completely able to avoid brushing her skin. Aside from a tensing in his shoulders, he retained his composure; the chain fell, warmed by his touch, connected.
Even as he stepped back, even as he moved to the door, Uryuu made the mistake of looking at her. If she were any other woman, were an actual woman, he would have complimented her, utterly earnest, terribly blushing. It was a dance competition, and for once Uryuu felt the jarring between what should have been normal and what had become life-or-death. It had never bothered him before; before he had been keen to initiate it. What the City's effect on him had been, then, he didn't have the time to consider.
His hand turned the knob.
She slunk to her seat once more, legs crossed, one heel aloft, bobbing neatly as she looked to the mirror. She didn't look at him, at first, even as he made to leave, but she did, finally, turned her head.
"You feel it too, Quincy." Cirucci murmured, eyes keen, too keen- an eagle on a mouse. "Next time we meet... I won't be held back."
A moment, hung in the air to dry, before she smirked and a heel clacked on to the counter.
"Now, don't forget to watch the competition~"
Rating; PG?
Characters; Cirucci Thunderwitch (thunderwitch) & Ishida Uryuu (anti_buttons)
Summary; It's been done before. Little details have changed, a few notes, but it's the same song.
Log;
Ishida Uryuu was a man, if a young man, inclined toward reason. With even a bit of good common sense, never mind logic, he could have deduced how this encounter would go, and only in part because he had already experienced one very like it. Once again, he headed toward a place of the Thunderwitch's choosing, so to perform an act meant to humiliate him that would serve the far more important purpose of ensuring another person's safety. Uryuu had little worry about the actual terms the Arrancar had set: his pride wasn't of such a shoddy quality that this sort of thing could make an impact. It hadn't then, and it wouldn't now.
What would have given him worry would be what else she would do; remembering what she had done then, the way it had promised the entirety of the following year's discomfort, the escalation of her obsession. An obsession that should have ended, been sworn to end, but for her own selfishness. (He wasn't surprised, at the end of it. Little could surprise him now, he suspected; the City had a way of being uniquely miserable for him, and expecting only that, drudging to the depths of his best efforts at pessimism, tended to keep him satisfied in some small way).
Pursing his lips, as if to thin them out and press out of the physical memory of then, Uryuu did not allow himself the worry. His mind as clear and determined as it had been, only, as he raised his hand, curled his fingers, and rapped his knuckles against the wood, he felt a measure of cool confidence in this: deja vu and retained recollection would arm him well. She could hardly catch him off guard this time; he had already seen it all from the Thunderwitch.
The Quincy had seen it all, and the Thunderwitch could only dream of it.
Once, she had known all of it as well. She had known her own glory, and her own shame. She'd been able to take sick comfort from her little victories, and sick disgust from her more devastating losses. Everything and nothing had been the 105th's claim, and now, she was back to square one. She knew it, she did, as often, as this point, she denied it.
The queen of denial, her little reign in Tres Cifras, and still, she was able to cloud her own eyes. So many had said it, and so, she did believe. She had been here before. And she had done so many things. She was almost sad she didn't remember them.
Almost.
For now, Cirucci was too occupied with her triumph of the moment, the way she smirked when she said come in~, arms behind her head and fumbling with the catch of the necklace she was donning.
Idly, while his hand met the cool metal and twisted, Uryuu wondered if this moment would stand out to him later. Small, insignificant things often did, not that he made a habit of thinking back on this sort of thing, but before, a certain design on a teacup would summon the feel of her leaning against him, the fabric of her couch arm digging into his. Would the metal against his palm summon a feeling of tired dread, nothing like giving up but entirely like an out of body experience, watching himself go through the motions, a broken record that played again and again.
The thought didn't last, lingering only as long as it took for the door to swing open and reveal her. Just as then, she wasn't wearing her Arrancar uniform. Though this exposed more, no doubt for the sake of the dance, Uryuu was not surprised. The record played on, skipping back, and back, and back.
"Last time," he intoned dryly, "You insisted that the boots be on your feet. Will kissing those shoes suffice, or will you be changing?"
"Last time, last time~" Cirucci drawled, casting a look over her shoulder that was more full of venom than her light and flippant words were. There was always a cold fury lurking behind those violet eyes, even in the moments of her greatest triumph. Because no matter how she proved herself, the scar, five, on her breast, would never leave her.
A scar that was not in the exact same place as she remembered. A scar that had a companion, the jagged line across her abdomen that she remembered not. Another, on her shoulder, viewable with the backless gown.
"Everyone can't seem to say anything else to me, Shiro-Megane-Kun. I'd hoped you'd be different."
"That was stupid of you."
His expression remained utterly severe, not a trace of amusement playing. That part was easy. He could feel the exhaustion like a weight on every pore; in the back of his mind he remembered one exchange of many, remembered stepping over pieces of wood from her decimate door, inching around blood stains, remembered sitting across from her, threats against her powers sinking with his shoulders, sinking beneath a simple confession: I'm tired of this.
She had promised it would be over. Even knowing better, he felt better, and it kept his expression hard, unforgiving. Always, always. This place really was hell, the liver pecked out, growing again to be devoured again, the boulder pushed up the hill only to roll down.
"Answer the question."
Her expression soured, a small pout, and she turned her back to him, though the mirror in front of her revealed her still, pretty porcelein face, a deadly doll with purple lipstick, purple nails running through her hair as she arranged the dark curls about her face.
"These will do." She tossed it back, a cascade of deep purple about pale shoulders and white dress. A turn in her chair and legs crossed, one over the other, pure white heels.
Her eyes slipped over him, pursuing, analyzing. For her, as if for the first time. Last she remembered they were fighting, and though she wanted to leap at him, straight to her release the curse's behavior held her back from that overt violence.
In and out. This could be quick; he doubted it would be, but at least he could get the gist of it over with. Crossing the room, Uryuu paused only once before kneeling. His eyes slid toward her, looking at her properly for the first time. His heart did not skip; she was a monster. But the beat felt slower, because the monster was still beautiful, because -- he focused on the jagged things in her eyes.
"Try not to kick me in the face, or something, won't you? And I wouldn't try anything; don't think I won't sever it. In fact, I could right now. Then I won't have to do this, or worry at all."
He considered it as he dropped to one knee. Why not? Why risk what she would do to Doumeki-san? And she wouldn't have much to trade; this time it might really be finished. The thought wouldn't leave him as he knelt, his hand not frozen but not moving to hold her foot, a framing for his kiss. Uryuu would undo her mistake in thinking she could go back on her word, could remove the record, shatter it again.
"I'm not so graceless as that, Quincy, don't mistake me." Her voice had a quiver of anticipation to it, however, the lines of her leg, muscles taught, breath caught. It was testament, that even this small, inconsequential victory, it could arouse such a response from her, the swell of her pride and ego. Perhaps because she needed it, the pride, that she was so easily susceptible to it.
"And please." A smirk, to disguise the uneasiness of the idea. But thank the curse once more, that she was in a role, now. A proud dancer, not a fighter per se, and her mind was only slightly less violently inclined at the moment, or she might have- at that comment, ground the heel in to his glasses.
As is, purple lips twisted up, the tears on her cheeks rising with the sadistic smile.
"But you make it so easy," he retorted before he could resist. And he would have stopped himself; though the remark was a hostile one, it contributed to more time passing, to a deviation from the one-two-three. In truth, the right thing to say would have been a reprimand, a correction; he hardly needed to mistake her, when she did plenty of it for herself.
If it had been a matter of courage, of having the backbone to do it, it would have been done. When choosing between what she might do to Doumeki-san and her pride, there was no choice. Wasn't it his responsibility to do it from the beginning? To take off the record before it could begin to spin.
It had to be the curse, and nothing else, that refused the attack. After all, she had to go on next, and all he found himself doing was lifting his hand, cupping it beside the heel. Uryuu bowed his head, kissed the toe.
The Privaron might have replied, but she was too busy absorbing the moment. She was a role now, part of a cursed schedule. The schedule said she was up next, and who were they, two players, to defy the city's plans?
With a content look, a diva satisfied, she withdrew her foot, switched her crossed legs to proffer the other.
Leaning back just enough to allow the change, Uryuu resumed his position. Again, he steadied and directed himself with his hand by the heel, again lowered his head and pressed his mouth to the toe of the shoe. With that finished, he let his hand fall and stood. This time, unlike the last, he did not bother with wiping his mouth. This would be devoid of theatrics, of emphasis.
"There," he said, a somewhat unnecessary verbal punctuation. If, though he could not physically attack her, she could still find a means of hurting Doumeki -perhaps when the dance had finished and the terms ceased applying, though he could then intervene - he would at least live. Provided she was a creature of her word, something which he already had cause to doubt.
"Unless you've fabricated something else, some further act to exchange for a little more security, I'll be on my way."
"There~" She dipped, light playing down revealed pale skin as she ran her fingertips over her shoe, leaned back up in her chair and smirked at him, nails plying at her bottom lip as she eyed him.
"You've just insured his life." Later, once the curse released her, she would question this clothing choice. She would be more angry with why she was not pulling out her sword and attacking. Why he did not attack her. But until then, she was content with this victory, despite how composed he was. Surely, beneath, he was seething, longing to strike her-
"But just that."
How convenient. Despite the futility of it, Uryuu was tempted to take a moment to consider how thoroughly the City loathed him. As interference had not been allowed during the fighting matches, no doubt anything now or during would be perceived as sabotage. The proof being his inability to lift his hand. And the City hated him by allowing her to do what she did, by then pairing her and one of the few people he'd been foolish enough to consider a friend.
Like that imperfect record, his thoughts were repetitive. Because he was tired of it, and tired was in the repetition, tired of the beginning that was very like the end, he found his face pinching into a tight smile, more a jeer than a thing of kindness.
"Last time, you were far more troublesome. The circumstances were different, of course, but there you are."
Last time, the first time, she had kissed him and it had been his first. Thinking of that day still made him sick, but tasting the memory was like looking at a newspaper so old, the words were no longer legible.
Immediately, her smile turned down once again, a tight, white lipped expression accompanied by the nails curling, clenching in to her palm. White, short, hem swirled around her thighs as she stood abruptly, eye level, now, in these heels, unlike when she wore her usual boots, the cold fury from before sparking up in her eyes.
"What did I tell you about that, Shiro-Megane-Kun?" That she hated it, last time, last time, snarling it out at him. "Unless you're going to be fucking specific, you can stop with the last time~ I don't remember it- and half of the shit Nnoitra told me I did, I would never-"
How could she? Cirucci Thunderwitch with a heart? Cursed? Love? It had to be his idea of a sick joke. She knew it.
Was this what she drew out of him? An immaturity, a swell of dark satisfaction at the rise he had created. It was too easy, it shouldn't have pleased him. At least if he was irritated, dissatisfied, so would she be. Aside from that smile, he schooled his features, preventing the depths of his approval from reaching expression.
"But you did," he challenged, his voice all but dry, looking her in the eye. "I know more than I'd like to about it, about all you did. You certainly came to me enough. And..."
His eyes slid down, to her shoulders, below, not focusing on her chest but where the scars would beneath the flimsy material of her dress. His mouth opened, prepared to question it, to prod for her explanation for the marks. But the words stalled in his throat, began to shrivel. Taunting her with this, enraging her with the truth; it wouldn't help Doumeki-san any.
Uryuu took a step back, began to face the door. "And I'm not really interested in specifics. Let's get back to the task at hand."
Oh, it worked alright. Her shoulders shot up, stiffened even further, and thankfully, (for her, because the end would always be the same, wouldn't it), the curse kept her back from violence again, because if not, she'd have been on him in a second. Instead, her reiatsu fluxed heavily, and her eyes dilated.
"Me? Come to you?" A brave front, that she laughed raucously, stepped forward as he stepped back, a dismissive gesture with her arm and completely ignoring his attempts to back away not only from her, but from the subject. His glance had not gone unnoticed, but-
"Now I just know you and that son of a bitch Espada are full of shit."
"You don't know that,'' Uryuu returned, conceding at least that he could not beat a quick get away, his attention entirely on her, retrieved from the door and an imminent escape. "No," he said, affecting a casual air, as if he were discussing something as obvious and commonplace as the typical color of grass (which, after all, diferred in their different worlds). "No, I think you know that I, at least, am telling the truth."
"After all, aside from the obvious aspersion cast on my character by such an accusation, what reason would I have for lying?"
When it was one of the things he'd most like to forget; that bitter fact narrowed his eyes, sloped his mouth. But Uryuu had far too much sense to ever envy the Thunderwitch. "But I see you've retained your talent for denial."
"I do know that." She spat, finally touched him, because her nails stabbed in to his chest, gestures becoming more agitated. But then she paused, and stepped back, face disgusted. Because which one was true? What did she know? Something, deep with her, resonated.
"Either way-" The Privaron moved to cover, turning her back to him, straightening dress and heels. "Denial isn't something I need. I know my own strength."
Not sharp enough to pierce, her short attack, and though she was a monster and he had been tense, on his guard, he did not instinctively act against it. Uryuu, though with sharp reflexes, was too much the reflective type, analytical; while Kurosaki lashed out, punched and kicked and charged and seized hold of confrontation, had yanked him by his collar, Ishida acted after consideration. And though his stomach pulled in, he did not move, simply looked with a blank disdain.
Consideration; now he considered her back. Her turn had allowed him to note the scars there, too.
"Which hasn't ever been enough," he reminded her, not kindly. With his old exhaustion came the feeling of age. It had been something like a year; but Uryuu had always been older than his sixteen years. Sometimes, looking at her made him feel ancient, but now he just felt petty.
"..." Silent, cold, and deadly. Deadly, but not to him. Never to him, she had learned in the City. Oh, she had learned time and time again that no matter how she tried, her victories were all hollow. Her pride, a sham. Her strength, enough, but not for him. Incessantly, without fail, always thrown back in to her face. But forgotten, now, shed behind this new self, but still shadowing her in the echoes of others. "You used to", "I thought you", "Weren't you", "Before, you", and all of them.
"Liar."
Cast off, because without her powers, the cloak of her nature, her pride, and her blade, Cirucci Thunderwitch could not stand the pain of her empty existance.
"Now give a woman a hand, Shiro-Megane-Kun." The Privaron snapped, holding the ornate necklace to her throat, complicated clasp left undone at her nape, beneath the curls about her head.
As many times as he might protest, Uryuu knew, were as many times as she would blithely ignore him. He chose to save his breath, and only though, resentment too overused with time to have much tangibility, I don't lie. (Though that was a lie; but though the seemed to often lie to people, it was less deliberate. He lied mostly to himself, so well and so completely that the mistruths he believed spread into what he told other people).
Her request was simple. Though he should have left the moment she accused him of lying, he hadn't, wrestling with his quiet indignation and working over how to handle her not-so-clean slate, and now there was something else. With a wry twist of his lips, he asked, "What will it earn Doumeki-san?"
It would be ungentlemanly to refuse, but he couldn't simply bend into a subservient role. Waiting, his teenaged eyes looked with appreciation at the contrast of her black curls against the slender curve of her neck.
Her hip cocked, visible in the mirror, her lips pursed, eyes rolled.
"He won't bleed." She drawled, heels- kissed heels, tapping impatiently. A part of her was roiling, the part that screamed of his closeness, that she should take advantage, should run, should lunge, should attack, and yet, something held her back.
Something she wanted badly to rip down, and destroy. It made her muscles taut in preparation for something, for something she couldn't take.
"Knowing what you can do, that isn't much," Uryuu noted, unimpressed but not refusing the term. He closed the distance with a step and made quick work of the clasp; despite the care of his deft fingers, he hadn't been completely able to avoid brushing her skin. Aside from a tensing in his shoulders, he retained his composure; the chain fell, warmed by his touch, connected.
Even as he stepped back, even as he moved to the door, Uryuu made the mistake of looking at her. If she were any other woman, were an actual woman, he would have complimented her, utterly earnest, terribly blushing. It was a dance competition, and for once Uryuu felt the jarring between what should have been normal and what had become life-or-death. It had never bothered him before; before he had been keen to initiate it. What the City's effect on him had been, then, he didn't have the time to consider.
His hand turned the knob.
She slunk to her seat once more, legs crossed, one heel aloft, bobbing neatly as she looked to the mirror. She didn't look at him, at first, even as he made to leave, but she did, finally, turned her head.
"You feel it too, Quincy." Cirucci murmured, eyes keen, too keen- an eagle on a mouse. "Next time we meet... I won't be held back."
A moment, hung in the air to dry, before she smirked and a heel clacked on to the counter.
"Now, don't forget to watch the competition~"