Heroes and Nobodies (closed/Raph)

Karakura's park was as empty as Hotaru Yoshitsune had ever seen it. The overcast sky and humidity foretold of rain, but she didn't really care at the moment. She had to make herself scarce for a few hours, and this seemed like a cool place to do just that. Her mother was bringing some stupid guy home, and Hotaru would have none of it. Why did her mother even need to date? That would just ruin everything! Sure, it wasn't like her mom was going to kick her out if she found love, but it would still make things way worse than they were. They had a good thing going living in the apartment together. She didn't want to share her with anyone!

She had half a mind to go back home and ruin the stupid date for them. Still, she thought better of it. Ruining it means actually witnessing part of it, and that's gross! It wasn't fair at all. Still, the park was empty at least. The place was deserted, which Hotaru was fine with. She liked having the whole place to herself. She found herself drawn to the swingset. Feeling like she was flying would be totally awesome!

She built her momentum up quickly. Up and down. The trick was all in weight distribution. She'd just shift herself at the right moment and the swing built up more speed still. She'd stick out like a sore thumb to anyone who happened by, but she was at least 90% certain she was alone. She could never be sure considering the supernatural stuff she could witness. Someone or something could always pop out of the shadows when she let her guard down.

It hadn’t been that long but Raphael still felt the loss, still felt horrible after hearing the screams of those that he’d failed, those that had been sacrificed for him to awaken. But, as much as he wanted to spend all day feeling sorry for and/or angry at himself, he didn’t have the time for that. He’d taken a few days off from his analytics position to grieve for those that were lost, he’d avoided Sam like the plague and the other man likewise. The memories of what had happened at the warehouse that day still seemed to be fresh in the mind of them both.

Regardless of who might say otherwise, Raphael had actually been quite disturbed by what had happened that day. Watari, a Shinigami that was supposed to protect the souls of the living, had used them to instigate an awakening, rather violently, in Raphael. Despite the fact that the only thing that he had was this odd…kinetic force thing and the power to move MUCH faster than normal, he couldn’t help but think about how behind he was. Shinigami no doubt had education on shit like this and here he was, despite having it, floundering in the dark with it. Most were probably laughing at him. Well, that or they were wondering what the hell kind of human he was.

Still, it beat the alternative. They at least looked at him with confusion and intrigue, the humans, that found out what he could do, looked at him like he was some kind of monster. How in the hell was he supposed to be friendly around people. Sam, Joe and Harry all knew what he could do, even though they’d promised that they wouldn’t, they could talk about what happened with anyone. So he was spending his time, walking through the park, hoping not to run into anyone that seemed to know him. Though, as he passed through he saw someone sitting on a swing, swinging.

“Uh, hi there…” Raphael said, hoping that she had never heard of him nor recognized him in any capacity. “How are you doing today?”

Hotaru was entirely content to ignore the stranger. She wasn't in the mood to talk to some stupid adult who walked by the playground. If she didn't start feeling something from him, she'd have just kept swinging until he went away, but when he made himself known, something just clicked. Her radar for other ghost-fighters was weird. She didn't notice this guy until he made himself be noticed. Yeah, whatever, I just wasn't paying attention, so it doesn't count. She dramatically jumped out of the swing and landed on her feet, a maneuver she'd practiced hundreds of times. "Sup." she said, trying to sound like she didn't care about anything.

She wasn't in the mood for normal people, but speaking to a fellow fighter of ghosts was something she was always in the mood for. "Pretty shit." She blurted out. She wanted to lie, but that would require energy she didn't want to spend. Her only hope was that he wouldn't pry or correct her for swearing. "How bout you? Fight any ghosts lately?" She tried to lean nonchalantly on a piece of playground equipment. It seemed like the cool thing to do at the time.

Her greeting was pretty flippant and nonchalant. It felt almost a little off putting hearing her being so casual about what meeting. First impressions, unfortunately or not, were literally everything and in a world where you could be hunted by the next spirit being you run into, Raphael would’ve thought she’d have tried at least a little bit harder. But that wasn’t his place, in the end, and he only had to work with what he was given. Worse still was the way that she spoke about her day. Pretty shit was a fascinating way to describe it. This girl’s mood was making his a bit worse, though it had been a good day so he couldn’t really say much there.

“No,” Raphael replied, despite knowing quite well to the contrary that he had. Here, where it seemed purposeful for her, Raphael had done so without know quite what in the hell he’d been doing. “I’m…going to take it that you fight them often, then? What kind of abilities do you have? And…what kind of kill count, is what I suppose you’d call it.” He watched her for a few seconds, not entirely sure what to expect. This was really one of his first meetings with another human with spirit powers, other than Vance, and Vance wasn’t exactly the normal case.

“I’m not exactly a ‘ghost fighter’ to be fair. I don’t have much reason to attack any of them other than the ones that attack me.” He tilted his head a bit, curious as he was, as he studied her. “How long have you been doing this, exactly? You don’t look that old, about the age my brother was when he first started hunting hollows, in fact…”