Log: COMPLETE
When; Roughly 11:30 PM - 12:?? AM, Feb 24-25th.
Rating; R- heavy violence, blood, etc.
Characters; Ishida Uryuu {anti_buttons} & Cirucci Thunderwitch {thunderwitch}
Summary; Cirucci challenges Ishida while the latter is affected; being affected, his knowledge of his own power is limited, and he loses the fight. *
Log;
He was losing.
It didn’t fit, whatever she was, with what he knew, the blurred remembrance of City and Karakura Town and the time lost in the boundary. What he knew of her sat incongruous, something familiar but walled, restrained, in the way his muscles moved. He could move swiftly, he could fire his bow, which had a capability he had been pleasantly surprised by, and throughout the day he had been learning it, all the while feeling as if he slid in a skin a different size from his own, somewhat larger, somehow greater.
His shoulder stung, a sizable injury soaking the surrounding white with red, and he could only just see out of his left eye, from a similar wound above it, cutting from hairline to just above his eyebrow. Ishida Uryuu had no knowledge of the Seele Schneider he possessed, thought it left behind in Quincy documents, and only a beginner’s hand at the gintou.
Ishida Uryuu was losing, trying to wrap his mind around what was Hollow and yet greater, but not resigned to loss. No, he would work it out, devise his winning strategy - but for now, he pressed his back against a wall earlier broken by, possibly, a Hollow, and caught his breath. He lifted a gloved hand, wiping at the blood, pushing at his glasses, which slid almost immediately again in blood and sweat.
Looking down, at the way the red blossomed over his not-so-white fingertips, Ishida sucked in breath and thought furiously.
--
“My, my~” She was toying with him. She shouldn’t be toying with him, she shouldn’t be, should just be killing him. But how could she? Killing him would be pointless, he’d just come back, and what? He’s spared her, and she would spare him.
And he’d hate her for it. If it killed her, she’d hate him as much as she hated, wanted to hate, him.
“Shiro-megane-kun, you’re not doing so well~” The crack of Golondrina’s whip in her hands, the wires sang between her thin fingers. She wasn’t uninjured herself, thanks to an earlier fight, with a score of claw wounds down her spine, but she had a much more potent fuel than he had. More than pride, she had revenge. And a bloodied back wasn’t preventing that, even if it made her sweat, made her pant to keep it up.
“That win is looking a little… mm…” She paused, alighting on the windowsill on the next floor, above her target, her Quincy, her dear, dear, Quincy.
“… Like a loss.” She leaned over the sill, her lips splitting into a bloody smirk, staring down at him like a bird of prey.
--
“I have a name,” he snapped, unable to resist falling into the taunt of that nickname. His words were breathless, cut short by the limit of his air, his strained lungs. Less than a statement; his vitriol was limited to a whisper, under his breath, stabbing at a hole in the ground because he couldn’t reach the sky.
She spoke with a familiarity that unnerved him, that struck muffled, blurred chords of déjà vu. He fought not to be distracted by the stains on his gloves, by the harsh lilt in her voice, the avian croon.
He felt her pressure before her heard her above, but still, his face didn’t whip up until her voice reached his ears, taunting, taunting, and he needed to remain cool. It was true - this greater Hollow, it would be his greater victory, his greater proof of the Quincy over the Shinigami. He would kill her, even with her human face. He didn’t bother to reply; merely shot, as soon as he looked, a series of arrows up, at her, launching away with reishi spinning beneath his feet.
“Don’t decide things on your own, monster!”
--
“Oh, I know your name~!” Cirucci crowed, small booted feet hit window ledge and she kicked off, the reverb of a sonido the only sign she has sat there moments before, that, and a few drops of blood. No, she reappeared, for a normal human’s sight anyway, behind the Quincy, faster only because of his greater wounds.
“It’s Ishida Uryu, isn’t it~?” Her voice was too cruel, too sweet, and the wires quick, looping out with the spinning blade to entrap, to snare, more than slash or wound.
To her, it was a game. Defeating him wasn’t a goal anymore, but a game. What else did she have here, besides him? What else to prove herself but him? Killing shinigami was nothing, when you’d been defeated by a Quincy. And killing a Quincy was not as hurtful to him as crushing his pride.
And Cirucci Thunderwitch wanted it in pieces in her talons.
--
Too close, too close. The Quincy hirenkyaku should have been more than sufficient, his body knew it could exceed this, could outstrip this greater-than-Hollow, knew even as his mind clutched at a rising sense of dread. Not of giving up, but of irrational self-underestimation.
If he could keep ahead of her, the wires were something else. His eyes widened, and with them his legs moved, and the reishi swelled, as he tried a swift dart left, his arm and bow swinging up to deflect them, an inferior shielding. No time to respond, properly, to the shape of his name in her mouth, to the queer effect on his spine, something lingering, like a scent he could almost remember.
The wires curled around his wrist, up his arm, somehow past the web-like bow for all its size, some inches above his bracelet, tearing through his sleeve. Already restricting him, he couldn’t fathom shaking free of them, and instead grit his teeth, narrowing his eyes (seeing only a flow of red through his left). As the wires sought him, ensnared his arm, yanked with his little human strength (some little helped by spirit support), or tried, tried pulling the bow into himself and aimed as if along their trajectory to her, firing some consecutive ten shots, nothing.
There was a familiarity he could almost place about that-embracing pain for some further act, even if small and above all futile.
--
Cirucci smiled, too triumphant, and yanked back against his pull on her wires, her whip, the spinning blade still humming on the taut metal string. And with a flip of one wrist, she sent that circular death whirling down the wire again, his arrows dashed a bright flare as they died on it, against the steel and reiatsu.
She let a moment pass, the blue light of the arrows die, before she spoke, fingers curling around her wire, keeping his arm taught as she could, near breaking.
“Ishida Uryu, Quincy.” The Privaron repeated, a too proud look in her eyes that mirrored the one he was capable of.
“How’s it feel?” She murmured, approaching with even steps and reeling in wire as she went. “Those wounds? This loss?”
--
Her answering pull took with it an involuntary gasp, a sound that become guttural, a suppressed scream. It hurt, like the defeat of watching his arrows disperse, of looking at his arm and the bow made useless at its end. His arm ached, throbbing, and he kept his teeth pressed together beyond the first click.
His eyes glowered like coals, or blue fire to match the iris. “I said don’t,” gritted out, “decide things-“
If his own, inferior human muscles couldn’t fight it, he would push with ransoutengai, concentrating particles of reishi into thick strings, pulling his arm, struggling to manipulate it into one better suited for firing again, to try again.
“I have yet to lose,” he hissed, that proud look ever-present in his eyes, even as pulling his arm stabbed through his shoulder, and he might have sprained his ankle earlier with Doumeki, and sight was one-eyed - all the rest of it. His feet dragged against the ground, his body following his arm following wire, even as he tugged and tugged with the reishi.
Perspiration beaded down his brow, watered his bleeding, pressed his shirt damp against his back.
--
“Mmm… not yet.” Cirucci whispered, dark look on her face before she yanked again, ignored the pain in her own back, the half clotted blood from the Krsnik, and leapt, straight into sonido with that tell tale sound before she was in front of him, and smiling so sweetly.
So sweetly, with her hand in his gut, talons of nails buried to the second knuckle and slowly seeping blood around her punctures, coating pale skin crimson red.
“How about now, Uryu?” Cirucci murmured. Her voice shaking she was so excited, her blood thrumming, humming with pleasure, and she trembled, her other hand still tight, now straight on his forearm, wrapped around hilt and arm both, holding him to her and her hand in his body.
“Do I win now?”
--
Another strangled yelp on his arm, and his focus on the reishi diminished for a moment in passing. Then, it was impossible to concentrate at all, not on that - in less time than a blink, than eyelids down and up, she was close enough that he could feel her breath as it clouded in the air, though before he could absorb that his eyes bulged and his knees buckled.
His hand clutched instinctively at her forearm, above where her fingers had disappeared, puncturing too easily through cloth and skin and clear into his abdomen, so pain erupted in sharp, blinding sparks in his eyes, behind his eyelids, and his mouth gaped and shut and sputtered open, sounds choked and strained falling over his tongue -- briefly, he shook.
“Wh-what-“ his hand slid, stained glove on stained glove, working to pull free, to remove what shouldn’t be, barbaric and violating and his throat convulsed with his abdominal muscles.
“No,” he insisted, stupidly, finding his feet, his eyes moving between his dissipating bow and her face.
--
“No?~” Cirucci laughed, breathy and happy, vindictive and happy. She didn’t yank further on his arm, instead leaned forward, mouth at his ear.
“You really shouldn’t say things like that, Uryu.” She whispered sweetly, her nip, a lover’s move, accompanied by a vicious thrust, shoving her fingers deeper into his stomach. So close, so close, and here she was, had him trembling, nearly on his knees before her, and that made her high.
“I think I win now.” She kissed him when she did it, when she shoved her fingers deeper into skin, muscle, organs, gave a good wriggle and felt it squelch beneath her. Beg me. Her mind was racing, full throttle revenge. Beg me to spare you.
The fact that she couldn’t manage this usually, when he remembered his new powers, abilities, didn’t occur to her. It wasn’t a factor, as long as she got her revenge.
--
No, but he only mouthed it. His voice was lost in the effort it took to understand hers, filtered through pain and something that also couldn’t belong, a stirring, heavy, musky feeling, like her breath hot on his neck, and her teeth on his ear before that was erased by, again, a cycle, pain.
Ishida screamed, and it was like watching someone else, made quivering and curled and pathetic. Her fingers moved wrong and stabbing, like knives that became worms, curling inside him. It hurt in ways he shouldn’t have to describe, his hand clawing up to her shoulder, keeping himself up. He was coughing up blood when she kissed him, blood sticking hot up his throat, flecking on his lips as his second scream was lost in shock and pain. Through the surprise of it, he felt sick, still beneath her lips.
Pushing, as his one hand pushed (spirit worked, tugged on his other, but he couldn’t focus), against her was futile, but he wrenched his head back, spinning dizzy.
Damn his pride, but shaking, he licked his lips and glared one-eyed, grinned a pink-saliva grimace and said, hoarsely, “Think again.”
Letting go of her shoulder, of her arm, Ishida let his legs give, let his arm be yanked as if to dislocate above his head as he tried to fall, to try and trick her fingers from his gut.
--
She let him fall.
Who was she, to stop him from falling. After all, he’d made her do the very same, and she wouldn’t rob him of the pleasure. No, but she’d follow him down, and she recoiled the wires, tucked hilt in, and ripped her talons back into his shoulder, shoved him down to the stones below and slammed, assisting him in his fall, but her other hand grabbed hair, made sure his head didn’t crack too hard. Didn’t want him losing consciousness on her. No fun.
“Oops.” She giggled, arms moving to pin his own, straddling over him, a few drops of her own blood hitting his uniform, dripping down her sides. She moved close, so close, so he could feel her breath on his neck.
“I win, now, Uryu.” Cirucci whispered, her limbs shaking, not so much from exhaustion, not from fear, but from utter, breaking relief.
Happiness.
--
Again, the rending of his shoulder, flesh and cloth ripped, and again, Ishida screamed. The sound was cut short, the breath thrown from him when he hit the ground, hard enough to send reverberations and spin his mind again, even as his skull was saved by the harsh grip she maintained in his hair.
It was too quick, all too quick - he could barely begin to comprehend before she had him stuck to the ground, her giggle thrumming through his skull, echoing in unwelcome dissonance.
He stared, not quite at her, but at the night sky above her. He could see stars without recognizing a constellation. “Don’t be so familiar,” he said, blandly, the intense fury of his earlier moments fallen into a dull haze of aftershock, of pain and coping and struggling against defeat, for a moment, for this moment, a calm. The eye of the storm; he looked at it, eye to eye, and saw unfamiliar stars.
“Will you be killing me, then? Devouring my soul?” He asked it, flatline and bloody-mouthed, even as his eyes narrowed. He wiggled his fingers experimentally, his arms pinned but his mind beginning to work. There were gintou, he knew, and words to them, and the chance of summoning again his bow. Somewhere, a clock ticked closer to midnight.
--
“Mm, but I am so familiar.” Cirucci breathed, made sure to do it on his skin, on his throat, with hungry little presses of her lips, like she would devour him, like she would consume his soul in all its entirety and leave nothing left. Oh, but she could kill him, and it would be the most lovely thing… but it would be even lovelier to see him broken.
“I won’t kill you.” She whispered, nails digging in. “I won’t even eat your soul.” Her voice was too dark, but she finally seemed to withdraw, just a moment, as if considering, before she kissed him again, roughly, possessing, dominant, before she just rose, superior, and winced, when half clotted wounds grew wetter.
“I’m sparing you.”
And she couldn’t have looked more happy about it. She should take advantage of him, maybe, but she decided not to, it was better of her not to. He’d beg her for it later.
--
How? His body betrayed him, involuntary muscle spasms, shaking first in fear, then in something else, something he would refuse to define but centered on the pressure of her mouth, lips on his neck. This wasn’t fighting; his mind fought to connect the pieces that would make sense of it.
His breath hissed out, not a scream, suppressed, as her nails insisted through his flesh. His breath seized when she kissed him, and all that moved were his fingers, red-tipped and going black as they clawed into the dirt below him. It was surreal. It was unreal; her mouth on his and he stared past her, unfamiliar stars, drawing invisible lines with his eyes to make an archer.
Surrealism shattered on sparing. Later, time with “friends” and time beyond himself, later, Ishida would begin to think of things beyond war, think of meaning that didn’t revolve around pride and hatred and vengeance. Later, it wouldn’t have been a blow to live another day, because his sparing her hadn’t been intended, entirely, as humiliation - but now, in this mind, everything clenched, his teeth and his eyelids and his abdomen so it hurt, and his arms strained against her hold.
“No,” he said, not with a death wish, but fighting that, the connotation of spare, and how could he prove the Quincy superior if a Hollow spared him.
“No,” again, and wildly, he pulled at her arms with haphazardly (that word) gathered reishi, pulled to give him enough leeway to reach for his gintou, concentrated the shape of the bow to erupt around his wrist and force space between them.
--
Cirucci leapt back immediately, with a quiet croon, to a crouch, her hilt in hand, on the ground, and the other hand at her lips, her tongue, devouring his blood off her fingers with lidded eyes, sparkling wild with pride and overwhelming victory.
“I win, Uryu.” She spat, painted lips twisted up, around a wince and cringe, from the tilt of her spine, arched and splitting the claw marks down her skin.
“Look at you.” The Privaron leisurely licked between her fingers. He was a mess. Wouldn’t last more than a few more minutes. And he knew. He knew he was only alive right now because of her generosity.
Because of her.
--
He watched her, at first, not long enough to react with more than instinct, with disgust that curled in his gut with disturbed blood, as if it could ooze out with it, drained into his uniform, sopping whites and blues. Watching her lick at his blood could only be disgusting, watching her as he clumsily sat up, forced himself to at least his knees, pain coming from too many places to focus on one. Watching her, a twinge of what was like pain but deeper, lower, thicker, heavier -
Ishida shook his head as if that, alone, could erase it. As if he could simply not know, to simply shake it out through his ears, lose it with his blood in the dirt he’d scratched up.
It was too heavy. Knowing it was too heavy, as if a Shinigami had come to save the day, because Hollows and Shinigami had both killed Ishida Souken. It was too heavy, and the weight of it would crush him, shaking, dizzy, nauseous, bleeding too much, from there and here and there. Ishida coughed and nearly fainted, the sucking blackness resisted by his mind that said no, not like this.
Favoring his ankle, he stood up, looked at her, shaking not with fear, less now with pain, more with rage. “I’ll-“ he began, seeking the words, as his fingers sought and pressed reishi together, brought it to the bow. “I’ll-“
The clock struck midnight. He didn’t overthink it, at first - his hand forgot the reishi to pluck four gintou from above the holes in his abdomen, tossing them, hissing the words to activate Haizen, willing the energy beam to cut her.
--
“You’ll-“ Uncursed, she couldn’t feel any difference, between 11:59 and 12:00, from cursed to uncursed, from one day to the next, only knew it as night, from one moment to the next. But that movement, and that word, was familiar to her, and she barely had time to dodge, to throw herself to the side, ouch, ouch, crimson staining the white of her uniform before she stood again, hilt over shoulder and wires loosened, but ready to flee, any moment now.
“Remembered, now, Uryu?” Cirucci asked with a little smile. “You’d be better off lying there on the goddamned floor, you know, thinking about how I spared you.” The last bit was spat, robbed of the satisfaction of standing over his body, and so bitter. But too proud, and too happy with her victory for that to bother her.
“We’re even now.”
--
The rest of the day had yet to catch up with him.
More gintou had been gathered in the time she took to dodge, held between his fingers, ready for the toss and eruption. Ishida looked across to her, muscles quivering, perspiration soaking through his shirt, yet struggling to maintain some façade of cool.
“You should have killed me,” he retorted, somewhat breathless, words and air difficult to find. “You’ll never understand, Thunderwitch. You’ll never understand the difference - I might have hated you for killing me. Instead, you thought to attack my pride. Is it a victory, when I wasn’t--”
Wasn’t what? His words were meant to hold scorn, but he couldn’t shake the emotion from the minutes before, he couldn’t simply sink into his more mature mind. It was still infuriating, still humiliating, detestable, and yet it was more important to live, wasn’t it? But rage still shook him.
“I’ll sever it,” he told her, features almost contorted, when next able, he would. “Think of it as a promise on my pride.”
--
“And you should have killed me!” Cirucci retort was automatic, accompanied by the accusing finger pointed in his direction, her likewise contorted features, and the hurt, avian, shriek of her tone. “You should have killed me, first, Ishida!”
She quivered in anger, and she’d meant to flee, but- She couldn’t just leave that, unanswered, like some coward who couldn’t even face her own defeat, being spared by some weak ass mortal- It wasn’t fair, that he could lord it over her, that’s why- That’s why-
“Now, I should have killed you!” Blood dripped from her fingers. “Now you know what it’s like! You know how it fucking feels!” She’d started screaming.
--
Too much emotion, conflicting, too much knowledge, rushing, too much pain, suffocating - Everything rushed against everything, everything cancelled everything. If Ishida somehow remained standing, somehow remained staring at the woman who was a monster, he felt as if he stood in water, stared through water, heard through water.
Her screams reached him dull; he was drifting from her, while pity and anger and spared, spared, crashed. It was almost all he could do, to keep standing, gripping the gintou.
“Do you feel glad?” He asked her, dry at first, until it sank to him, spared, and he spat it, too, “Victorious? But I’ll be able to do it to you, again, and again, and aga---“
The words broken by a fit of bloody coughing, his hand seizing toward his abdomen, almost dropping the gintou.
--
“I’m not glad, you stupid son of a-“ Sonido, again, and she slammed into him, with a muffled whimper, her own wounds protest, before she slammed him down again, didn’t bother protecting, coddling his head this time, snarling into his face.
“I’m not glad!” Straddling him, small hands fisted in his quickly bloodying shit and she shook him, hard, near spitting she was so enraged. “I’m not glad, you-“
She paused, half a whole moment, before she shook him again, her expression kept faltering. “Why won’t you just give it to me?!” Cirucci begged. It wasn’t begging, but it sounded so desperate. “Why won’t you just give this to me- Just stop. Let me spare you.” Her eyes were dilated, harsh purple and black on white, with his blood flecked on her lips, and still slamming him back into the ground, over, over, like some way to pound it into his head, unheeding of his gut wound, shoulder, arm, ankle, just the rhythmic pound.
“I don’t want to be in your debt- I don’t want you to be better than me- I don’t want-“
--
In his condition, Ishida had little choice but to fall, had little time to do anything, even brace himself. His hand curled around the gintou and his body hit the ground, his skull banging without the slightest protection against the half-frozen dirt. His eyes were closed; bells rang against his ear drums. Ishida saw stars.
She shook him, and at first he couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t feel anything, the galaxy moved behind his eyelids and his stomach lurched, blood pooled between his lips, a red, saliva slick drool down his chin. When he could open his eyes, dazed and exhausted and everything still canceling everything, he squinted, still mostly one-eyed, at her impassioned face, her pitch beginning to absorb through to understanding.
If she was the sky, and he sunk beneath the waves, she looked desperate, she looked pathetic. He pitied her, but whatever else he felt still, tumultuous, wasn’t anything kind, so Ishida laughed. He choked and laughed.
“Too bad,” he forced out, laughing, more a rough choking chuckle, “Again and again and again, I could, I’ll always be better.”
Or he thought he forced it, but she shook him, and slammed him, a rag-doll in the hands of a tantrum manic child, and he tried to mouth the words, to tell her, to look down (up) and remind her that he was better. He tried, but the stars merged into a white ocean, and white became black, and Ishida knew no more.
He fell limp; small, silver tubes slipped from his fingers, hit the ground rolling.
--
She kept screaming for a long time.
Over and over, how pathetic he was, and how weak, to pass out like that, just look at him, bleeding out on the floor, how annoying, how so like him, a man like him, such a weakling, a fool, and- and-
Cirucci stopped shaking him after five minutes, but didn’t pull away, slapped him a few times, but lost the fire when he couldn’t respond, finally ended up sulking, disconsolate, fingers digging idly at his gut wound, reslicking her fingers in his blood.
“… You should just let me spare you, Shiro-Megane-Kun.” She muttered, Golondrina at her side and then in her hand, as she sat back on his hips, picked up his right hand and cradled it in her lap. She examined each calloused finger, each one that had done things to her, had severed her saketsu chain, and handed her cups of tea, had destroyed her, and had sewn her back together.
She only hesisted a few seconds before she sliced that finger clean off, the one he used to draw back the bowstring, the one he’d used to strip every ounce left of pride she had possessed. She took it. She hadn’t planned to, but… I’ll always be better than you.
“No, you won’t, Shiro-Megane-Kun.” The Thunderwitch muttered bitterly, standing, his blood having soaked up the hem of her skirt, slicked her bare thighs and stockings, and gathered up his gintou, his cracked glasses, and the finger, tucked them neatly in her crimson hands, ready to place them back on her mantle, among her trophies.
“… I won’t let you.”
*DISCLAIMER: 1) TL;DR. Duh. 2) I'm not really a sadist, nor do I intend to keep getting him hurt, I swear. I didn't want to force Cirucci to go easy on him just to spare him some pain, y'know? Plus he knows someone who can RAISE THE DEAD in canon. A finger ain't so bad :D;
Rating; R- heavy violence, blood, etc.
Characters; Ishida Uryuu {anti_buttons} & Cirucci Thunderwitch {thunderwitch}
Summary; Cirucci challenges Ishida while the latter is affected; being affected, his knowledge of his own power is limited, and he loses the fight. *
Log;
He was losing.
It didn’t fit, whatever she was, with what he knew, the blurred remembrance of City and Karakura Town and the time lost in the boundary. What he knew of her sat incongruous, something familiar but walled, restrained, in the way his muscles moved. He could move swiftly, he could fire his bow, which had a capability he had been pleasantly surprised by, and throughout the day he had been learning it, all the while feeling as if he slid in a skin a different size from his own, somewhat larger, somehow greater.
His shoulder stung, a sizable injury soaking the surrounding white with red, and he could only just see out of his left eye, from a similar wound above it, cutting from hairline to just above his eyebrow. Ishida Uryuu had no knowledge of the Seele Schneider he possessed, thought it left behind in Quincy documents, and only a beginner’s hand at the gintou.
Ishida Uryuu was losing, trying to wrap his mind around what was Hollow and yet greater, but not resigned to loss. No, he would work it out, devise his winning strategy - but for now, he pressed his back against a wall earlier broken by, possibly, a Hollow, and caught his breath. He lifted a gloved hand, wiping at the blood, pushing at his glasses, which slid almost immediately again in blood and sweat.
Looking down, at the way the red blossomed over his not-so-white fingertips, Ishida sucked in breath and thought furiously.
--
“My, my~” She was toying with him. She shouldn’t be toying with him, she shouldn’t be, should just be killing him. But how could she? Killing him would be pointless, he’d just come back, and what? He’s spared her, and she would spare him.
And he’d hate her for it. If it killed her, she’d hate him as much as she hated, wanted to hate, him.
“Shiro-megane-kun, you’re not doing so well~” The crack of Golondrina’s whip in her hands, the wires sang between her thin fingers. She wasn’t uninjured herself, thanks to an earlier fight, with a score of claw wounds down her spine, but she had a much more potent fuel than he had. More than pride, she had revenge. And a bloodied back wasn’t preventing that, even if it made her sweat, made her pant to keep it up.
“That win is looking a little… mm…” She paused, alighting on the windowsill on the next floor, above her target, her Quincy, her dear, dear, Quincy.
“… Like a loss.” She leaned over the sill, her lips splitting into a bloody smirk, staring down at him like a bird of prey.
--
“I have a name,” he snapped, unable to resist falling into the taunt of that nickname. His words were breathless, cut short by the limit of his air, his strained lungs. Less than a statement; his vitriol was limited to a whisper, under his breath, stabbing at a hole in the ground because he couldn’t reach the sky.
She spoke with a familiarity that unnerved him, that struck muffled, blurred chords of déjà vu. He fought not to be distracted by the stains on his gloves, by the harsh lilt in her voice, the avian croon.
He felt her pressure before her heard her above, but still, his face didn’t whip up until her voice reached his ears, taunting, taunting, and he needed to remain cool. It was true - this greater Hollow, it would be his greater victory, his greater proof of the Quincy over the Shinigami. He would kill her, even with her human face. He didn’t bother to reply; merely shot, as soon as he looked, a series of arrows up, at her, launching away with reishi spinning beneath his feet.
“Don’t decide things on your own, monster!”
--
“Oh, I know your name~!” Cirucci crowed, small booted feet hit window ledge and she kicked off, the reverb of a sonido the only sign she has sat there moments before, that, and a few drops of blood. No, she reappeared, for a normal human’s sight anyway, behind the Quincy, faster only because of his greater wounds.
“It’s Ishida Uryu, isn’t it~?” Her voice was too cruel, too sweet, and the wires quick, looping out with the spinning blade to entrap, to snare, more than slash or wound.
To her, it was a game. Defeating him wasn’t a goal anymore, but a game. What else did she have here, besides him? What else to prove herself but him? Killing shinigami was nothing, when you’d been defeated by a Quincy. And killing a Quincy was not as hurtful to him as crushing his pride.
And Cirucci Thunderwitch wanted it in pieces in her talons.
--
Too close, too close. The Quincy hirenkyaku should have been more than sufficient, his body knew it could exceed this, could outstrip this greater-than-Hollow, knew even as his mind clutched at a rising sense of dread. Not of giving up, but of irrational self-underestimation.
If he could keep ahead of her, the wires were something else. His eyes widened, and with them his legs moved, and the reishi swelled, as he tried a swift dart left, his arm and bow swinging up to deflect them, an inferior shielding. No time to respond, properly, to the shape of his name in her mouth, to the queer effect on his spine, something lingering, like a scent he could almost remember.
The wires curled around his wrist, up his arm, somehow past the web-like bow for all its size, some inches above his bracelet, tearing through his sleeve. Already restricting him, he couldn’t fathom shaking free of them, and instead grit his teeth, narrowing his eyes (seeing only a flow of red through his left). As the wires sought him, ensnared his arm, yanked with his little human strength (some little helped by spirit support), or tried, tried pulling the bow into himself and aimed as if along their trajectory to her, firing some consecutive ten shots, nothing.
There was a familiarity he could almost place about that-embracing pain for some further act, even if small and above all futile.
--
Cirucci smiled, too triumphant, and yanked back against his pull on her wires, her whip, the spinning blade still humming on the taut metal string. And with a flip of one wrist, she sent that circular death whirling down the wire again, his arrows dashed a bright flare as they died on it, against the steel and reiatsu.
She let a moment pass, the blue light of the arrows die, before she spoke, fingers curling around her wire, keeping his arm taught as she could, near breaking.
“Ishida Uryu, Quincy.” The Privaron repeated, a too proud look in her eyes that mirrored the one he was capable of.
“How’s it feel?” She murmured, approaching with even steps and reeling in wire as she went. “Those wounds? This loss?”
--
Her answering pull took with it an involuntary gasp, a sound that become guttural, a suppressed scream. It hurt, like the defeat of watching his arrows disperse, of looking at his arm and the bow made useless at its end. His arm ached, throbbing, and he kept his teeth pressed together beyond the first click.
His eyes glowered like coals, or blue fire to match the iris. “I said don’t,” gritted out, “decide things-“
If his own, inferior human muscles couldn’t fight it, he would push with ransoutengai, concentrating particles of reishi into thick strings, pulling his arm, struggling to manipulate it into one better suited for firing again, to try again.
“I have yet to lose,” he hissed, that proud look ever-present in his eyes, even as pulling his arm stabbed through his shoulder, and he might have sprained his ankle earlier with Doumeki, and sight was one-eyed - all the rest of it. His feet dragged against the ground, his body following his arm following wire, even as he tugged and tugged with the reishi.
Perspiration beaded down his brow, watered his bleeding, pressed his shirt damp against his back.
--
“Mmm… not yet.” Cirucci whispered, dark look on her face before she yanked again, ignored the pain in her own back, the half clotted blood from the Krsnik, and leapt, straight into sonido with that tell tale sound before she was in front of him, and smiling so sweetly.
So sweetly, with her hand in his gut, talons of nails buried to the second knuckle and slowly seeping blood around her punctures, coating pale skin crimson red.
“How about now, Uryu?” Cirucci murmured. Her voice shaking she was so excited, her blood thrumming, humming with pleasure, and she trembled, her other hand still tight, now straight on his forearm, wrapped around hilt and arm both, holding him to her and her hand in his body.
“Do I win now?”
--
Another strangled yelp on his arm, and his focus on the reishi diminished for a moment in passing. Then, it was impossible to concentrate at all, not on that - in less time than a blink, than eyelids down and up, she was close enough that he could feel her breath as it clouded in the air, though before he could absorb that his eyes bulged and his knees buckled.
His hand clutched instinctively at her forearm, above where her fingers had disappeared, puncturing too easily through cloth and skin and clear into his abdomen, so pain erupted in sharp, blinding sparks in his eyes, behind his eyelids, and his mouth gaped and shut and sputtered open, sounds choked and strained falling over his tongue -- briefly, he shook.
“Wh-what-“ his hand slid, stained glove on stained glove, working to pull free, to remove what shouldn’t be, barbaric and violating and his throat convulsed with his abdominal muscles.
“No,” he insisted, stupidly, finding his feet, his eyes moving between his dissipating bow and her face.
--
“No?~” Cirucci laughed, breathy and happy, vindictive and happy. She didn’t yank further on his arm, instead leaned forward, mouth at his ear.
“You really shouldn’t say things like that, Uryu.” She whispered sweetly, her nip, a lover’s move, accompanied by a vicious thrust, shoving her fingers deeper into his stomach. So close, so close, and here she was, had him trembling, nearly on his knees before her, and that made her high.
“I think I win now.” She kissed him when she did it, when she shoved her fingers deeper into skin, muscle, organs, gave a good wriggle and felt it squelch beneath her. Beg me. Her mind was racing, full throttle revenge. Beg me to spare you.
The fact that she couldn’t manage this usually, when he remembered his new powers, abilities, didn’t occur to her. It wasn’t a factor, as long as she got her revenge.
--
No, but he only mouthed it. His voice was lost in the effort it took to understand hers, filtered through pain and something that also couldn’t belong, a stirring, heavy, musky feeling, like her breath hot on his neck, and her teeth on his ear before that was erased by, again, a cycle, pain.
Ishida screamed, and it was like watching someone else, made quivering and curled and pathetic. Her fingers moved wrong and stabbing, like knives that became worms, curling inside him. It hurt in ways he shouldn’t have to describe, his hand clawing up to her shoulder, keeping himself up. He was coughing up blood when she kissed him, blood sticking hot up his throat, flecking on his lips as his second scream was lost in shock and pain. Through the surprise of it, he felt sick, still beneath her lips.
Pushing, as his one hand pushed (spirit worked, tugged on his other, but he couldn’t focus), against her was futile, but he wrenched his head back, spinning dizzy.
Damn his pride, but shaking, he licked his lips and glared one-eyed, grinned a pink-saliva grimace and said, hoarsely, “Think again.”
Letting go of her shoulder, of her arm, Ishida let his legs give, let his arm be yanked as if to dislocate above his head as he tried to fall, to try and trick her fingers from his gut.
--
She let him fall.
Who was she, to stop him from falling. After all, he’d made her do the very same, and she wouldn’t rob him of the pleasure. No, but she’d follow him down, and she recoiled the wires, tucked hilt in, and ripped her talons back into his shoulder, shoved him down to the stones below and slammed, assisting him in his fall, but her other hand grabbed hair, made sure his head didn’t crack too hard. Didn’t want him losing consciousness on her. No fun.
“Oops.” She giggled, arms moving to pin his own, straddling over him, a few drops of her own blood hitting his uniform, dripping down her sides. She moved close, so close, so he could feel her breath on his neck.
“I win, now, Uryu.” Cirucci whispered, her limbs shaking, not so much from exhaustion, not from fear, but from utter, breaking relief.
Happiness.
--
Again, the rending of his shoulder, flesh and cloth ripped, and again, Ishida screamed. The sound was cut short, the breath thrown from him when he hit the ground, hard enough to send reverberations and spin his mind again, even as his skull was saved by the harsh grip she maintained in his hair.
It was too quick, all too quick - he could barely begin to comprehend before she had him stuck to the ground, her giggle thrumming through his skull, echoing in unwelcome dissonance.
He stared, not quite at her, but at the night sky above her. He could see stars without recognizing a constellation. “Don’t be so familiar,” he said, blandly, the intense fury of his earlier moments fallen into a dull haze of aftershock, of pain and coping and struggling against defeat, for a moment, for this moment, a calm. The eye of the storm; he looked at it, eye to eye, and saw unfamiliar stars.
“Will you be killing me, then? Devouring my soul?” He asked it, flatline and bloody-mouthed, even as his eyes narrowed. He wiggled his fingers experimentally, his arms pinned but his mind beginning to work. There were gintou, he knew, and words to them, and the chance of summoning again his bow. Somewhere, a clock ticked closer to midnight.
--
“Mm, but I am so familiar.” Cirucci breathed, made sure to do it on his skin, on his throat, with hungry little presses of her lips, like she would devour him, like she would consume his soul in all its entirety and leave nothing left. Oh, but she could kill him, and it would be the most lovely thing… but it would be even lovelier to see him broken.
“I won’t kill you.” She whispered, nails digging in. “I won’t even eat your soul.” Her voice was too dark, but she finally seemed to withdraw, just a moment, as if considering, before she kissed him again, roughly, possessing, dominant, before she just rose, superior, and winced, when half clotted wounds grew wetter.
“I’m sparing you.”
And she couldn’t have looked more happy about it. She should take advantage of him, maybe, but she decided not to, it was better of her not to. He’d beg her for it later.
--
How? His body betrayed him, involuntary muscle spasms, shaking first in fear, then in something else, something he would refuse to define but centered on the pressure of her mouth, lips on his neck. This wasn’t fighting; his mind fought to connect the pieces that would make sense of it.
His breath hissed out, not a scream, suppressed, as her nails insisted through his flesh. His breath seized when she kissed him, and all that moved were his fingers, red-tipped and going black as they clawed into the dirt below him. It was surreal. It was unreal; her mouth on his and he stared past her, unfamiliar stars, drawing invisible lines with his eyes to make an archer.
Surrealism shattered on sparing. Later, time with “friends” and time beyond himself, later, Ishida would begin to think of things beyond war, think of meaning that didn’t revolve around pride and hatred and vengeance. Later, it wouldn’t have been a blow to live another day, because his sparing her hadn’t been intended, entirely, as humiliation - but now, in this mind, everything clenched, his teeth and his eyelids and his abdomen so it hurt, and his arms strained against her hold.
“No,” he said, not with a death wish, but fighting that, the connotation of spare, and how could he prove the Quincy superior if a Hollow spared him.
“No,” again, and wildly, he pulled at her arms with haphazardly (that word) gathered reishi, pulled to give him enough leeway to reach for his gintou, concentrated the shape of the bow to erupt around his wrist and force space between them.
--
Cirucci leapt back immediately, with a quiet croon, to a crouch, her hilt in hand, on the ground, and the other hand at her lips, her tongue, devouring his blood off her fingers with lidded eyes, sparkling wild with pride and overwhelming victory.
“I win, Uryu.” She spat, painted lips twisted up, around a wince and cringe, from the tilt of her spine, arched and splitting the claw marks down her skin.
“Look at you.” The Privaron leisurely licked between her fingers. He was a mess. Wouldn’t last more than a few more minutes. And he knew. He knew he was only alive right now because of her generosity.
Because of her.
--
He watched her, at first, not long enough to react with more than instinct, with disgust that curled in his gut with disturbed blood, as if it could ooze out with it, drained into his uniform, sopping whites and blues. Watching her lick at his blood could only be disgusting, watching her as he clumsily sat up, forced himself to at least his knees, pain coming from too many places to focus on one. Watching her, a twinge of what was like pain but deeper, lower, thicker, heavier -
Ishida shook his head as if that, alone, could erase it. As if he could simply not know, to simply shake it out through his ears, lose it with his blood in the dirt he’d scratched up.
It was too heavy. Knowing it was too heavy, as if a Shinigami had come to save the day, because Hollows and Shinigami had both killed Ishida Souken. It was too heavy, and the weight of it would crush him, shaking, dizzy, nauseous, bleeding too much, from there and here and there. Ishida coughed and nearly fainted, the sucking blackness resisted by his mind that said no, not like this.
Favoring his ankle, he stood up, looked at her, shaking not with fear, less now with pain, more with rage. “I’ll-“ he began, seeking the words, as his fingers sought and pressed reishi together, brought it to the bow. “I’ll-“
The clock struck midnight. He didn’t overthink it, at first - his hand forgot the reishi to pluck four gintou from above the holes in his abdomen, tossing them, hissing the words to activate Haizen, willing the energy beam to cut her.
--
“You’ll-“ Uncursed, she couldn’t feel any difference, between 11:59 and 12:00, from cursed to uncursed, from one day to the next, only knew it as night, from one moment to the next. But that movement, and that word, was familiar to her, and she barely had time to dodge, to throw herself to the side, ouch, ouch, crimson staining the white of her uniform before she stood again, hilt over shoulder and wires loosened, but ready to flee, any moment now.
“Remembered, now, Uryu?” Cirucci asked with a little smile. “You’d be better off lying there on the goddamned floor, you know, thinking about how I spared you.” The last bit was spat, robbed of the satisfaction of standing over his body, and so bitter. But too proud, and too happy with her victory for that to bother her.
“We’re even now.”
--
The rest of the day had yet to catch up with him.
More gintou had been gathered in the time she took to dodge, held between his fingers, ready for the toss and eruption. Ishida looked across to her, muscles quivering, perspiration soaking through his shirt, yet struggling to maintain some façade of cool.
“You should have killed me,” he retorted, somewhat breathless, words and air difficult to find. “You’ll never understand, Thunderwitch. You’ll never understand the difference - I might have hated you for killing me. Instead, you thought to attack my pride. Is it a victory, when I wasn’t--”
Wasn’t what? His words were meant to hold scorn, but he couldn’t shake the emotion from the minutes before, he couldn’t simply sink into his more mature mind. It was still infuriating, still humiliating, detestable, and yet it was more important to live, wasn’t it? But rage still shook him.
“I’ll sever it,” he told her, features almost contorted, when next able, he would. “Think of it as a promise on my pride.”
--
“And you should have killed me!” Cirucci retort was automatic, accompanied by the accusing finger pointed in his direction, her likewise contorted features, and the hurt, avian, shriek of her tone. “You should have killed me, first, Ishida!”
She quivered in anger, and she’d meant to flee, but- She couldn’t just leave that, unanswered, like some coward who couldn’t even face her own defeat, being spared by some weak ass mortal- It wasn’t fair, that he could lord it over her, that’s why- That’s why-
“Now, I should have killed you!” Blood dripped from her fingers. “Now you know what it’s like! You know how it fucking feels!” She’d started screaming.
--
Too much emotion, conflicting, too much knowledge, rushing, too much pain, suffocating - Everything rushed against everything, everything cancelled everything. If Ishida somehow remained standing, somehow remained staring at the woman who was a monster, he felt as if he stood in water, stared through water, heard through water.
Her screams reached him dull; he was drifting from her, while pity and anger and spared, spared, crashed. It was almost all he could do, to keep standing, gripping the gintou.
“Do you feel glad?” He asked her, dry at first, until it sank to him, spared, and he spat it, too, “Victorious? But I’ll be able to do it to you, again, and again, and aga---“
The words broken by a fit of bloody coughing, his hand seizing toward his abdomen, almost dropping the gintou.
--
“I’m not glad, you stupid son of a-“ Sonido, again, and she slammed into him, with a muffled whimper, her own wounds protest, before she slammed him down again, didn’t bother protecting, coddling his head this time, snarling into his face.
“I’m not glad!” Straddling him, small hands fisted in his quickly bloodying shit and she shook him, hard, near spitting she was so enraged. “I’m not glad, you-“
She paused, half a whole moment, before she shook him again, her expression kept faltering. “Why won’t you just give it to me?!” Cirucci begged. It wasn’t begging, but it sounded so desperate. “Why won’t you just give this to me- Just stop. Let me spare you.” Her eyes were dilated, harsh purple and black on white, with his blood flecked on her lips, and still slamming him back into the ground, over, over, like some way to pound it into his head, unheeding of his gut wound, shoulder, arm, ankle, just the rhythmic pound.
“I don’t want to be in your debt- I don’t want you to be better than me- I don’t want-“
--
In his condition, Ishida had little choice but to fall, had little time to do anything, even brace himself. His hand curled around the gintou and his body hit the ground, his skull banging without the slightest protection against the half-frozen dirt. His eyes were closed; bells rang against his ear drums. Ishida saw stars.
She shook him, and at first he couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t feel anything, the galaxy moved behind his eyelids and his stomach lurched, blood pooled between his lips, a red, saliva slick drool down his chin. When he could open his eyes, dazed and exhausted and everything still canceling everything, he squinted, still mostly one-eyed, at her impassioned face, her pitch beginning to absorb through to understanding.
If she was the sky, and he sunk beneath the waves, she looked desperate, she looked pathetic. He pitied her, but whatever else he felt still, tumultuous, wasn’t anything kind, so Ishida laughed. He choked and laughed.
“Too bad,” he forced out, laughing, more a rough choking chuckle, “Again and again and again, I could, I’ll always be better.”
Or he thought he forced it, but she shook him, and slammed him, a rag-doll in the hands of a tantrum manic child, and he tried to mouth the words, to tell her, to look down (up) and remind her that he was better. He tried, but the stars merged into a white ocean, and white became black, and Ishida knew no more.
He fell limp; small, silver tubes slipped from his fingers, hit the ground rolling.
--
She kept screaming for a long time.
Over and over, how pathetic he was, and how weak, to pass out like that, just look at him, bleeding out on the floor, how annoying, how so like him, a man like him, such a weakling, a fool, and- and-
Cirucci stopped shaking him after five minutes, but didn’t pull away, slapped him a few times, but lost the fire when he couldn’t respond, finally ended up sulking, disconsolate, fingers digging idly at his gut wound, reslicking her fingers in his blood.
“… You should just let me spare you, Shiro-Megane-Kun.” She muttered, Golondrina at her side and then in her hand, as she sat back on his hips, picked up his right hand and cradled it in her lap. She examined each calloused finger, each one that had done things to her, had severed her saketsu chain, and handed her cups of tea, had destroyed her, and had sewn her back together.
She only hesisted a few seconds before she sliced that finger clean off, the one he used to draw back the bowstring, the one he’d used to strip every ounce left of pride she had possessed. She took it. She hadn’t planned to, but… I’ll always be better than you.
“No, you won’t, Shiro-Megane-Kun.” The Thunderwitch muttered bitterly, standing, his blood having soaked up the hem of her skirt, slicked her bare thighs and stockings, and gathered up his gintou, his cracked glasses, and the finger, tucked them neatly in her crimson hands, ready to place them back on her mantle, among her trophies.
“… I won’t let you.”
*DISCLAIMER: 1) TL;DR. Duh. 2) I'm not really a sadist, nor do I intend to keep getting him hurt, I swear. I didn't want to force Cirucci to go easy on him just to spare him some pain, y'know? Plus he knows someone who can RAISE THE DEAD in canon. A finger ain't so bad :D;