Ready, Set, Insanity? [Yoruichi, Orihime]

Imitsu let the others speak for him since they seemed to be so adept at it. His appetite had dissolved somewhere along the way and he merely pushed his breakfast around, a dark mood beginning to brew in that pessimistic mind of his. While Kisuke had indeed explained the origins of the Vizard, he had failed to specifically mention how Haishiro had become a Vizard since his circumstances had been a bit…different, to say the least. However, Haishi wasn’t about to volunteer his personal history if no one touched on it or asked so he could care less what Orihime was told. The less everyone else knew about him, the better. Knowledge was power and he preferred having the upper hand.

Listening to Yoruichi talk stirred a sense of bitterness within Imitsu. The anger and pure hatred he’d experienced as they had tried to hunt him down and exterminate him like an animal practically poured off of him in roiling waves. His reiatsu changed slightly. The hollow in him began to scream from his soul’s depths, urging him to give in to the darkness, telling him how easy it would be to continue down a path of unnecessary violence and bloodshed. In his mind’s eye, Haishiro saw the beast, his twin mouths open wide for him and ready to swallow him whole.

For once, Imitsu did nothing to clamp down on his feelings and it was obvious to anyone that could sense spiritual pressure that his was black and foreboding. As Yoruichi stopped talking, he spoke up. His voice was quiet and frigid, “We don’t take sides because we hate everyone, equally. I don’t consider myself a Vizard since I’m shunned from that group of people as well. You asked if I’m a good guy or a bad guy. Does it really matter in the end? Good and bad are like black and white…I prefer to think of myself as the gray.”

Haishiro excused himself from the rest of his companions. Collecting everyone’s’ dishes and utensils, he left the room without a word. Back in the kitchen, he muttered to himself as he sat there, staring out the window. It hadn’t taken much to get him in such a sour mood. A flood of emotions were whirling about within him, threatening to drown him lest he keep his cool and maintain a collected head.

With a practiced motion, he took off his blood-red glove, looking at his adjuuchas arm hatefully. He sighed. “Thirty-six years and it’s still the same shit…”

It was obvious to Yoruichi to her now, after Haishiro's small outburst, that the events leading up to this point from thirty-six years ago hadnt help his outlook on things in the least. For a brief moment, she saw the man Haishiro once was the first time she truely spoke to him in her office back in soul society. If his release of spiritual energy was of any indication, that side of Haishiro had returned to an extent, perhaps it had never left at all. She turned to look at him as he spoke of his hatred, plainly seeing the rage burning in his eyes and feeling it in his simmering aura.

As Haishiro left the room without another word, she gave a brief greeting to her Vice-captain who had choosen to barge inside the room at the time and introduce her foot to kisuke's head, and excused herself from the table and room to quietly follow Haishiro into the kitchen. She meant to calm him if she could but she was stopped in her tracks as she laid eye's upon his revealed left hand, her mouth opening in slight shock as she gazed upon the limb that was definatly not his own. "H...Haishi?" she spoke with hesitation in her voice as her eyes refused to leave the strange limb, the dark unsettling feeling it gave her without end.

"Oooh... I'm sorry... I messed up, I guess, didn't I?"

Orihime's face fell at Haishiro's sudden anger, having assumed - As he replied primarily to her own comment - that she had somehow carelessly triggered it. Hence, it was with conflict emotions that she looked sheepishly up from her now-empty plate to the arriving Shinigami, slowly nodding her head.

Though her saddened expression hadn't changed, she tried to sound and look as cheerful as she could, and got about halfway there.

"Hey Kuchiki-chan. Things have been really weird lately here. There was this person with a broken mask and their hand started glowing and I most got blown up! And then I met a strange man, who had to go, and then I came here and he was here with her..."

Slowly but surely, Orihime worked herself up as she went, becoming more expressive and talking more quickly as she went, her hands beginning to show the first signs of their usual energeticness as they began flailing about to illustrate her point, ending with a finger pointing in the exiting Yoruichi's direction.

"...and she was really hurt so we took care of her and now she's all better, but everyone's sad and mad for some reason..."

He’d felt her coming; yet, there had no action on his part in an attempt to hide the arm from her. Perhaps his sub-consciousness was speaking to him, letting Haishiro know that there couldn’t…no, there shouldn’t be any secrets between him and Yoruichi. If he couldn’t depend on her and trust her, then who else was left? A feeling of comfort from her presence washed over him, momentarily dispelling the negativity that surrounded him in a suffocating shell. Then that feeling was gone, replaced with a rising despair as he recognized the signs of shock and hesitation in her voice. Oh no. Oh god no. Imitsu’s worst fears seemed to be coming true. Yoruichi was…frightened of him.

Haishi didn’t turn around. His left arm dangled limply in the air as he sat, with his back to her, eyes vacant and unseeing. The right arm was resting in his lap as his entire body slouched down in the seat. A defeated aura had replaced the malicious one from before. “Yoruichi…” He whispered it so quietly. “Please don’t be scared of me. Please…don’t look at me like that. I’m not going to lie to you and pretend that this abomination is of no concern. But, at the same time, I…I don’t want to lose you again because of it.”

He stood up and faced her. Downcast eyes cried out for understanding as he gazed at Yoruichi. “This damn arm has already caused me to be away from you for thirty-six years. I refuse to go through that again…” The words faltered as he saw her expression. It broke his heart to see Yoruichi looking at him like that. Not for the first time, he cursed his position in life and the circumstances that had led him down this dead end of a life’s journey. Every time it started to look up, things quickly went down hill and the old saying was true. Trouble came in not ones or twos, but threes.

At a loss for what else to say, he merely looked at her, pleading with those light blue pools of sadness for her not to go away.

"Haishi..." Yoruichi managed to say after a moment, resolving herself to understand what the ruling 46 refused to even acknowldge. Her expression changed as she began to take measured steps towards Haishiro until she came face to face with the other, her eyes set on his own for a moment before turning down towards the strange arm. "What....h-how?" she asked in a near whisper as she slowly reached out and took his left arm into her hands, examining every inch in both curiosity and slight horrer at what had become attached to him. "I....I dont know what to make of this but..." Yoruichi paused for a moment to look back into his eyes, "Perhaps...you should have a little more faith in me." she continued as she managed to force a small smile.

Swallowing nervously as she began to walk towards him with her eyes locked onto his, Haishi felt a sense of déjà vu. The scene reminded him of the first time he’d been in her office. Yoruichi had come around her desk with those long legs, walking towards him as she lectured him about his bleak view on life. It’d been an interesting encounter and not one easily forgotten. As he stood there now, her words resounded in his thoughts and he couldn’t help but smile a little.

He tensed suddenly as she took his left arm into both her hands. Resisting the urge to pull back from her, Imitsu waited patiently, slightly curious as to what she was going to say. When Yoruichi finally did speak, Haishiro hung his head in shame. She was right. What was he thinking? This was Yoruichi, after all. To have thought so poorly of her…it merely reflected a lack of trust on his part. That thought alone cut through him harder than anything she could have said or done.

A few tentative steps were taken by Haishiro. He put his glove back on, hiding the arm again. There was a crestfallen look on his face as he mouthed the words, ‘I’m sorry’, before he hugged her tightly, trying his best to fight back tears but he could do nothing about the slight trembling in his body as they embraced. Grabbing a hold of her left hand with his right, Haishi led her over to a chair and asked her to sit down while he scooted his own chair over next to hers.

They were sitting around a small table in the kitchen and he rested his elbows on its surface, trying to collect his thoughts. Eventually, he began to speak and spilled out his entire story to her – from the point when Aizen ambushed him to when he’d had his arm cut off and the Ex-Captain had attempted to fuse an adjuuchas arm onto him. He told Yoruichi everything up to the point where he was left for dead in the severing world and picked up by that Shinigami patrol.

“After that…I ran and kept running. I hid myself in Karakura Town where the high concentration of spiritual energy helped hide me. Hunter-killer squads came after me relentlessly…you probably know as much about that as I do. I finally even asked the other Vizard for help and I was ignored, berated and ostracized for my physical differences. In the end, I still wound up alone. For thirty-six years, I carved out a new life for myself here…until last night, when you showed back up. Yoru…there’s so much more I want to say but…” He left it at that.

Just as Haishiro finished speaking, there was a quiet knock on the kitchen door - Faint, tentative and in triplicate. It was obvious even before the creeky thing slid open partway who it was.

As the door opened, Orihime's concerned face appeared in the space previously occupied by the door as she cleared her throat and tentatively attempted to catch the couple's attention.

"Umm... Gomen nasai, but everyone's waiting for you guys outside, when you're done..."

And with that quiet comment, the door slid back shut as Orihime padded back over to the table to plop back down, looking sheepishly at Rukia and Urahara as if to say 'Well, I tried.' After all, it wasn't like she could've done it any other way... Was there?

Rukia sighed, Noting that she came at a wrong time. She stretched and removed her foot from Uraharas face.

"Ill see you at school Orihime, I gotta go see what that lazy Ichigo is doing"

Rukia waved and walked out.

Urahara was extremely irritated at this point. Why in hell had he had to get kicked in the face if Rukia-chan was going to leave right away? He went into the bathroom and tried to wash the foot-mark off his face, grumbling,"Trust Rukia-chan to inflict pain for no apparent reason."He rolled his eyes and went back into the dining room.

He then knocked on the kitchen door slipping his head inside. "I'm gonna go look for Tessai, Jinta, and Ururu. Might as well start the shop up while I'm at it-" He stopped upon looking at haishiro's exposed adjuuchas arm. "Um.... riiight, can see you're in a moment. Forgive me." He bowed his head in apology, grabbed Benihime, and set off, using her as a walking stick and whistling a cheery tune.

"Im sorry..." Yoruichi said in a tone just barely above a whisper after Haishiro ended his story, it being all she could manage after what she'd just been told. The basterd ex-captain known as Aizen Sousuke had singly handely ruined the lives of not only Haishiro but almost a whole division worth of people for his own ambition, and she herself was at a loss for words at what the man before her had been through. The reasons for his outburst earlier and his hatred became quite clear in that instant, and Yoruichi, for the most part, sympathized with it all, even his hatred of the shinigami.

"You dont have to say anymore" she spoke after a pause, it was hard enough for her just to hear the story while she didnt want to force him back to those memories after having lived through it already. "I...Im not sure what else to say, I knew things were bad but from what you tell me, it might as well have been hell itself." Yoruichi said as she reached across the table and laid her right hand over his, "Im just glad your okay now, and that I found you before another did, even if it was technically the other way around." she continued as she offered a small smile.

Turning her head towards the door after hearing the knocking, Yoruichi spotted orihime as she slowly slid open the door. "We'll be right there" she replied to the young girl with a nod as she turned back to Haishiro, "Perhaps we should catch up more later on in a more...secluded place" she said genuinly as she began to stand but mentally facepalmed when she realized how suggestive that sounded.

Orihime's expression went through another series of metamorphosis as she waited... and thought. If yessterday had ended with Japanese class, then...

"Oh no, I'm going to be late!"

There was a loud thump as Orihime's bookbags slapped into the table in her hurry to rise to leave. This, of course, only served to fluster her more, bringing a fresh sheet of red to her face as she apologized profusely, backing out as she did.

"Sorry, sorry! I almost forgot what day it was! We have a test today! Say goodbye to everyone for me!"

With that over and done with, she rushed out as quickly as she could run, stopping only to close the door after her on her way out... Oh, how she would've preferred to say, but what could she do? Grades were important, and her teachers wouldn't keep giving them remedial tests forever.

Soon after, Orihime's reiatsu faded into the distance, hurrying footsteps carrying her rapidly towards the school.

Even though it was Yoruichi, the words coming from her still sounded empty and forlorn – the lack of any real substance painfully clear. It was obvious to anyone listening that even the one person in the world Haishi cared for the most was at a loss for what to say. The silent void between them was like a vortex attempting to pull him down into its maw. Her touch, usually a comforting feeling, barely registered in his mind. Her smile had always seemed to brighten any room she was in, but now, it came across as distressed and bereft of any real happiness. Imitsu gamely tried to force a real smile but failed hopelessly so he just squeezed her hand gently.

The two interruptions were acknowledged, disregarded then brushed aside. Yoruichi said something to Orihime but Haishiro wasn’t really paying attention. It wasn’t until she made her comment about going to a more secluded place that he looked at her again and oddly enough, Imitsu began to chuckle before it turned into a full-blown laugh. As his lover was mentally face palming from the sexual innuendos she’d inadvertently blurted out, Haishiro was physically face palming. It was refreshing to see her slip up and the small action – while seemingly insignificant – eased some of the tension in the room.

“It’s nice to see that you’re not infallible, Yoru.” Haishi stood up and came over to her, putting his right arm around her slender waist, pulling her in close to him. The bleakness and anger that Imitsu had exhibited from before was now gone. An earnest and amused look had taken over his face as he looked down at Yoru lovingly. “You know…I still remember when I could barely look you in the eyes and I kept fidgeting whenever we were together. And I couldn’t…and still can’t figure out why you like me as much as I like you.” Another chuckle came from between his lips.

Trying to think of a secluded place where the two of them could talk together without fear of being interrupted, Haishi’s first automatic thought was his apartment. It offered exactly what they needed but after Yoru’s comment, he figured it wouldn’t be a good idea to bring her there. That would probably make the situation just a little bit awkward. Crap. So where else could he take her? Anywhere in the Dangai District was always crowded with high school and college students and Haishi was reluctant to go to the park or lake. Lately, it seemed like that was a very bad spot for him to hang out in. If it wasn’t for the fact that there were probably quite a few Shinigami looking for their Captain, Haishi would have just gone somewhere downtown but he couldn’t take that chance. A sudden thought crossed his mind.

“How do you feel about going to a four-star restaurant? The food’s not as good as what I make but it’s passable.” He winked at Yoru before turning her towards the door and patting her on the butt to get her moving. “Go grab a Gigai body and we’ll get going.” As he waited for her, Haishi made a reservation – after some arm-twisting and bluffing – and realized that both of them weren’t exactly dressed for the occasion. Hmm, it looked like they would have to make a quick stop in Dangai Alley…

Relaxing with his back to the wall by the front door, Haishi called back into the shop, “You almost ready, Yoru?”

"That'd be great" Yoruichi replied to Haishiro's restaurant suggestion. While she didnt doubt his cooking was better than any establishments in the area, she didnt mind eating out some place nice once in awhile not one bit. "Perhaps you could give the restaurant staff a few cooking tips" she said in a humerous tone and a smirk as he turned her to get a gigai body. She blinked in slight surprise when Haishiro actually spanked her towards the door, making a mischevious mental note to pay him back in kind when she got the chance.

After retrieving a body from urahara's storage room and making her way back to the front room, she nodded her reply that she was ready but noticed that they couldnt exactly go to a resturant the clothes the wore now. "While I dislike wearing anything at all, I do believe were going to need something a little more......*fitting* to wear to whatever place you have in mind." she spoke as she slid open the front door of the shop and stepped out, "You wouldnt happen to know a place where a woman like me can get a nice little outfit now would you Haishi?" she continued with a bit of sarcasim in her voice as she turned to look back at Haishiro.