damned_institute | DAY 26: Men's Showers (Second Shift)

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DAY 26: Men's Showers (Second Shift)

Gluttony didn't want to leave his Lust, not after he'd just found her! But the mean tasty nurses said he had to. "You can't join her in the women's showers" was a bad excuse. He didn't like the mean tasty nurses. Maybe Lust would let him eat them later. Still, he knew he would see his Lust again, and that was good. He liked Lust. She was good and beautiful and smart and kind. Why did they have to take him away from his Lust?

Still, he would see her again. And she would tell him it was okay to eat the tasty nurses, and that would be good. His new friend liked eating people, too. That made him happy to find a friend who shared a love for eating people. Today was a very good day.

As he entered the showers, he stood under a shower head and opened his mouth wide to drink up the water. It wasn't as good as eating people, or eating waffles that didn't scream when he bit into them so weren't nearly as good as eating people, but it was still swallowing something, and that made him feel better.

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Renji found what Daemon had to say a little confusing; why would people be aware of their spiritual threads? But maybe it was a little different where the man was from. He shrugged. "Most mortals don't have the strength to even see the threads," he said. "And if they can, they don't know what to do with them. It's not very surprising. And I would think many of the people here have very strong souls, but they don't seem to know the technique. Perhaps it's different."

"Perhaps it is," Daemon answered, looking momentarily confused, but shaking his head with a solemn look.

"We don't refer to this as soul back where I come from," he explained, hoping he could explain this in a way that made sense. "It's called Self. And everyone is interconnected through psychic webs. We can recognize each other by the... well, feel of another's thread. Landens, who possess no magic, aren't aware of these threads because they lack magic, but those of the Blood know them for what they are. Probing the threads in this room, most are unaware of them, but there were a few I brushed over who felt as if they had an awareness of this link."

"Interesting," Renji said. It was a welcome distraction. A very welcome one. "It's probably different then," he said. "Maybe. I... don't know much about how spirit techniques or any of those things work." He gave Daemon a rueful smile. "I fight. That's all I'm really good at. But it's enough." He shrugged. "And maybe... well, you're alive. Maybe it's different for you." He wasn't really bothering to hide what he was any more; Daemon seemed like the sort that wouldn't seem too weirded out by it. Or so he hoped. It was nice to talk about vaguely normal things, even if it still was just comparing battle information. "I died too young to ever find out what it was like from that side."

Daemon blinked for a moment at this twist in the conversation. Renji was dead? There must be places with something similar to demon dead, then, since Daemon didn't get that sense from him at all. At least, having a father that had died over 50,000 years ago and several long-deceased relatives wandering about made this revelation not so weird and frightening as it might have to some.

"I'm sorry," he replied inanely. "I didn't realize. You didn't feel any differently, but my senses are more muted here than they are normally."

"You remind me of my brother," Daemon added with a slight chuckle. "He always prefers the fighting himself. He's an Eyrien warlord price with an Ebon-gray Jewel. That's a fairly high rank where I come from. He tends to attack first and apologize after, if necessary."

Renji shrugged. "They've bound me in to a false body and suppressed my reiatsu so much that I can barely look at the spirit threads. I'd be really surprised if you could tell anything was different." He chuckled. "We can pass for human if we have a reason to."

He had an all-out grin when Daemon mentioned his brother. "Sounds like a guy I could really get along with," he said. He also caught on to the reference to the color. He wasn't sure quite how it all worked, but he was willing to admit, with Daemon talking about something black, that it probably meant he was significant in strength too. Which made sense, considering how many extremely strong people had been brought here. "I recently achieved my bankai... the final release of my sword. It puts me level with a Captain. It doesn't really get higher than that, where I'm from." His smile took on a wry edge. "I guess the assholes here were shopping for everything high-powered they could get." He gave Daemon a curious look, wondering if the man would confirm his unspoken guess as to how powerful he was.

"Well, they've certainly gathered quite the collection, then," Daemon remarked dryly. "Where I come from, you're often born to a certain rank. For males, there are those of just simple Blood status, then Warlord, then Prince, then Warlord Prince, which is the highest and most dangerous. Our jewels also play a part in our power itself. We're given a jewel when we are young that signifies our level of power - My Birthright Jewel is Red - and when we reach adolescence, we make our Offering to the Darkness, and often get a darker Jewel, which is when I descended to Black. That's the power level most stay at the rest of their lives, though there is always knowledge and physical strength one can add for additional power."

So, he had been right. Daemon was powerful. Probably as powerful as it got unless his world had a color darker than black. Which was a concept that Renji couldn't even begin to wrap his mind around. As for the rest, he didn't find what Daemon said all that confusing. Power just got given different names, supposed, and it wasn't a big leap to go from something like that to terms like initial release and bankai. And he also kind of liked the idea of calling people Warlords, not that he would ever admit it out loud.

He nodded. "I understand." It sounded like the way they did things where Daemon was from was just a lot more regimented than the way the Shinigami did things. Though the Shinigami still sort of ordered things by rank, at least at the top. And strength was something that did have a set limit, though you spent most of your life chasing where that limit was. "So you have ranks. Which are you?" And he had to ask, because that was always in the back of his mind, "What about women?" He'd run across enough to know that the way he viewed women, and the way Adel did, was hardly universal.

"I'm a Black-Jeweled Warlord Prince," Daemon admitted, ducking his head under the water again. "Females have ranks similar to males, although they are Witches and Priestesses as opposed to Warlords and Princes, and they have a few additional ranks, such as Healer and Black Widow - they work with dreams and Seeing, among other things - and the highest rank of all, which is Queen. All powerful males seek a strong Queen to serve under and to protect."

The last statement received another small, genuine smile. Renji couldn't quite imagine an entire world like that, but it sounded like a nice change. "I see," he murmured.

"Where I'm from, it's not really that regimented," he said. "And... a lot more military, I guess, though I never really thought about it like that. You're either just another dead person, or you're a Shinigami. The Shinigami are in 13 divisions, which each have a different specialty. Each has a Captain and Vice-Captain and a 18 officers below that. You only get to the top if you have the strength for it." He shrugged. "There's nobles, but that doesn't seem to do much for power other than give them something to make the rest of us feel like shit about. Maybe they're a little stronger than most... commoners don't normally get to their final release. You're not allowed to address them as equals unless you're a Vice Captain or Captain." Another shrug. "I'm Vice Captain of the sixth division, but I can challenge to be a captain if I feel like it. There's only one higher than me here - Captain Hitsugaya." That was said with a certain amount of pride, but not smugness. He'd worked his ass off to get where he was, and he'd had a good reason to. It'd let him be close to Rukia again, in Soul Society.

"Each Queen has a Court," Daemon explained. "Some can be huge, but there's no set number, that's usually left to the Queen. The First Circle are those closest and most trusted, and then there are larger Circles that follow down a tier after them. They usually contained an equal number of males and females, but not always. Usually the defense and fighting is left to the males - although Lucivar trains most of our Coven's women right along with the men every morning - but that's not to say the witches aren't powerful in their own right. Often, we fight so they don't have to, because the results they can produce can be devastating."

"Heh." It seemed a bit odd at first, but when Renji gave it a moment and thought about it, he could see the reasoning. Rukia had always been far nastier than him; the worst he ever did to someone was beat the crap out of them. If she was actually angry, she was a lot more... creative. So if women where Daemon was from were even a little like her... yeah, just a little scary.

"Makes sense," he said. He shrugged, chuckling softly. "I just figured women are more important. It pisses Rukia off to no end." He grinned, thinking about some of the choice words she'd had to say about that tendency of his in the past.

There was a lot more that it made him think that he didn't say. Like the fact that no one, Rukia or Sora or any of them, seemed to realize that he needed someone to protect. Even if they could fight for themselves, it didn't mean that they had to. When all he could offer was himself as a shield, being that became the only way to express himself. And Rukia, especially, didn't get that.

Without her, I am nothing.

"Rukia?" Daemon echoed with a small smile, curiosity piqued from the tone of voice Renji's voice had taken on as he spoke that name in.

Renji shrugged; out of habit he looked away. He was a bad liar anyway, and it was only worse if he was looking someone in the eye. He concentrated on finally washing his hair. "We grew up together," he said. "Went to the academy together, too, until she got adopted by a noble family." Shrug. "She's here, unfortunately."

Even if they'd admitted their feelings for each other now, he didn't feel entirely comfortable speaking about it. And now, things seemed so uncertain again and he couldn't even begin to explain why, only that it was his fault entirely, and he was pushing her away even as much as he wanted to cling to her like there was no tomorrow. Trying to understand what was going on just brought him back to something that he didn't want to think about and...

He shook his head again, that sharp little twitch that was the outward sign of him forcibly dismissing a line of thought. "She always sort of ruled with an iron fist when we were kids," he said. "Me'n a bunch of the other little strays. But I don't think any of us minded, not really."

There was an entire tale there that Renji wasn't telling, but the tone of his voice when he spoke of her told a story in itself. Daemon knew that tone of voice. He was sure he used it often enough himself. His lips curved into a faint shadow of a smile as he echoed Renji's movements, washing out the dark hair that fell to his shoulders.

"She sounds like a woman to be respected, and worthy of protecting," he commented mildly, glancing at Renji from the corner of his eyes.

"She is," Renji said quietly. He laughed softly. "And she doesn't realize any of it." Even after he and Ichigo had almost died for her, she really didn't seem to understand why. She didn't understand her own strengths.

For a long moment, he looked straight ahead, up at the top of the wall as the water ran through his hair. He couldn't reconcile that he desperately wanted to hold her, touch her, everything, and at the same time he didn't want to go near her, not now.

He snorted, his smile becoming bitter. "We've been separated for the last forty years," he said. "Hell of a time to come back together now."

A wistful expression crossed Daemon's face at that. "I suppose it is. Even a year is too much when it's someone you want with your entire being."

"Still," he countered, glancing over at Renji, "at least you've come back together at all. The location is hardly perfect, but it is better than nothing?"

For a moment, he almost objected to what Daemon said; it was habit. Common scum weren't even supposed to look at the nobility, after all. But it was also true. Every year, every day was too long.

Not that he felt like it mattered now. It was too confusing and upsetting, something he didn't want to - couldn't deal with right now. All he knew was that it was far more painful than the nothing he'd had before.

He didn't answer; he closed his eyes and bowed his head, the water running in streams from his face. His expression became closed and still once more.

Daemon recognized that expression as well, even though he didn't know the other man very well yet. He still had no trouble reading it.

"I take it things aren't all well and resolved with Rukia yet, then?" he asked, his voice low and quiet as he studied Renji from the corner of his eye.

He didn't have an answer for that. Because in a way, things were resolved. He loved her; she loved him. And it had seemed so simple, so direct...

Enjoying yourself, pet?

His eyes were still closed; a brief look of of loathing and disgust crossed his face, before his lips curled back in a silent snarl. He drove his fist into the wall, like he had last night, so hard that it made the bones crunch; with all the background noise of showers and talk, it was masked. At least here it made no dent.

He turned to leave.

"Wait," Daemon said quickly, shifting his stance with a graceful ease, sliding in front of the other man, golden eyes dark with worry as he glanced from Renji's face to the fist still clenched at his side.

"I'm sorry," he apologized, his voice low and hushed as water dripped down his face. "I should have anticipated it being a touchy subject. My instincts are off here. We don't have to talk about it, there's plenty of other topics if you'd rather. Unless there is something I can do to aid you?"

Renji's fist raised for a moment before he managed to reassert rationality. It wasn't this man's fault, he told himself. He didn't deserve to be attacked, as Ichigo hadn't deserved it, either. He dropped his hand back to his side, forcing his fingers to relax.

"There is no help," he said, quietly. It was already done, and it had been his own fault, for being so weak.

The offer of other topics of conversation seemed laughable. No matter how he tried to escape this, it always seemed to come back to her, to his errors, the very thing he wanted to forget. He had nothing to offer, because there was only one thing he could think about, no matter how hard he tried to avoid it.

Daemon hated the fact that he couldn't connect with Renji's psychic thread enough to hears his thoughts clearly. The emotions and vague snippets of disjointed thoughts made little sense to him, and he felt there was something seriously wrong here. If he could only figure out what it was...

"You'd be surprised where help can be found," he answered quietly, golden eyes searching Renji's face intently. "Something has happened to you. Recently? Something that has you upset and uncertain."

Renji opened his mouth to protest, or simply to tell the man to shut up. It hit far too close to home, far too close to the very thing he wanted to forget. Before he'd even made more than a choked, angry sound, he lose his grip on rationality. It felt like he went hot, then cold in an instant, and then his teeth clenched together for a very audible snarl this time.

Then his fist was going for Daemon's face.

While Daemon wasn't exactly prepared for that reaction, he wasn't exactly surprised by it, either. Renji seemed to have as volatile temper as his own, and he'd pushed too far. Hand cupping his jaw, he staggered back a step, but caught himself, feeling his jaw throb as pain seared along his nerves.

Mother Night, he had as hard a fist as Lucivar!

The observation was torn between exasperation and ruefulness as he took another step back, body instinctively shifting into a defensive stance in case there was a second punch coming after the first, even as golden eyes darted back to Renji, preparing to hold the other man off should he need to.

When he had attacked Ichigo, Renji had only regained control of himself because Rukia had been there, yelling at him, and because she'd grabbed his arm. She was nowhere to be seen now, and in fact he didn't even know if she was okay; perhaps that pushed things just a little further.

He closed the distance between them, coming in for another attack. It was instinct now; he wanted to take his opponent down, and kill.

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