Misfortune Follows! [Closed/Anatoly]

"Well, well, what do we have here?" Breaking the silence, a faint whisper like voice could be heard, speaking with a dose of excitement and something interesting has befell in it's clutches. From within the shadows of the narrow streets Anatoly would show himself in the light of the street lamps. He could not believe how lucky he was, managing to find a Shinigami on the verge of death but not yet dead. Dead ones were of no use to him as what he needed from them would disappear at that point, he needed them alive and kicking. Well, this one barely fell into that category and he was not really in a shape where he would be of use to him as he was more than likely not going to survive the execution of the contract.

However, luckily, after his last Shinigami encounter, Anatoly was also on the lookout for something else. He needed information, something that he could not ask the girl which he met recently. She did not seem to be skilled enough to know what he wanted to know. Then again, perhaps this was something that all Shinigami knew so he actually let an opportunity to pass him by. But, now he had this guy who wasn't going anywhere anyways so might as well stop by to ask him a few questions. What was he going to do, cough blood at him? Nasty, but most certainly worth the information that Anatoly could obtain from him.

"I know you are hurt and everything but, would you mind having a bit of a chat with me? I promise, I won't do anything, I might even help you get better." The Shaman wasn't actually the best when it came to torture, so bargaining was the best he could do. Trying to sound as sincere as he could, he decided to make an offer that might work in both of their favors.

"My name is Anatoly. I don't know who she is but no, I'm not a healer. I can still somehow help keep you alive." This man was not joking, he needed some serious help. There really wasn't much Anatoly could do in such a situation except maybe stop all of that bleeding and make sure he doesn't move too much or else those broken bones on the inside might cause additional damage. Even moving in such a state was incredibly risky and yet this Shinigami got here on his own, whatever he was fighting must have been quite a monster. Perhaps a Hollow of some kind? Either way the Shaman hoped that it would not come chasing after them as that would force him to abandon this person and the information that he may have.

"What did cause all of this?" He would curiously ask, unable to contain himself. If it was a powerful Hollow it might prove useful and he could use what was left of this Shinigami as bait. Maybe it wanted the rest of it's meal? Figuring that he might as well do some patching up as he let the Shinigami answer his questions, the Shaman would get to work. After all, he could not let this potential source of information die, especially if he did end up having to use him as bait for something even better. Hollows were after all souls and they too could prove to be useful with what he was trying to accomplish. Anatoly wasn't quite fond of them but, they fit the description of a Spirit Guardian better than Shinigami did as most Shamans had Guardians in animal forms.

Resting his palm onto the ground next to the Shinigami and mumbling some words to himself, the Shaman would cause quite the growth spur in the plants beneath. Sprouting from between the bricks, the concrete and even the asphalt, numerous vines and overgrown grass would surround both of the men. This was most certainly not one of Anatoly's trademark spells, but it was the only thing he could think of in this situation. It was an earthly spell that he was taught on his journey and it included binding a target with vines and plants. However, in this situation it could most certainly provide a method to stop someone from bleeding out. He did not want to get his clothes dirty with Shinigami blood.

With not so precise control over the fauna, Anatoly would quickly make the foliage cover the Shinigami's scratches and cuts, while the vines would help out dealing with what was or wasn't left of his missing arm. As he did not have the best control over it, he decided not to deal with the broken bones, that was something that he might mess up if he tried to help. After all, he had no medical knowledge whatsoever, stopping the bleeding was perhaps the most he could do. Hopefully it was enough to keep him alive while he got what he needed.

"Demons disguised as men? What? A mortal did this to you?" The Shaman would question, quite surprised with what he was just told. He was completely unaware of the fact that, besides himself. mortals with that much power even existed. The only reason why he had gained such skills was due to traveling around the world and soaking up spells and the knowledge of other Shamans instead of staying home and being a local healer. Such a boring destiny did not interest him after he had seen the outside world and it's marvels. He wanted to go out and help even more people, his little Siberian village was fine as it was, the local doctors could handle what they needed as the time of Shamans was long gone. However, that was not the case for this town, it was a spiritual marvel, there was much more to be done here.

While fixated on his thoughts for a moment, he would miss the gratitude that was being offered, only to hear what followed with even more of a surprise. Apparently this Shinigami knew who he was, or at least it seemed that way. He was called by a odd nickname. "The Spirit-Binder? I do admit having such talents but nobody ever called me that. Where did you hear that?" There really weren't that many people who he had seen or met ever since he arrived to Japan, especially not ones that could talk about such themes. There really was only a single person who might have shared information about him to this man. With a bit of a smirk, he would calmly ask: "Was it Miss Nao who told you about me?"

It was incredible how word of him traveled this fast, to think that the second Shinigami who he would meet in this town would have already knew who he was. Their network most certainly was something. Did this meant that he would have to be careful around them in the future as well? If more people knew what he was doing that would most certainly make things a bit more difficult.

"I see," was the choice reply for Anatoly who was quite a bit surprised with the Shinigami network. In fact, he wanted to know more about it as apparently he was now on their naughty list. It was something to be expected after what he did but, he did not expect them to share their information so soon and so quickly. Only a few days passed since his meeting with the female Shinigami named Nao and her spirit Murat. After all, their traditional outfits and methods would not imply to him that they were technologically advanced. He was obviously wrong and now that meant that he was going to have a hard time continuing with what he had intended as apparently they were on a look out for him. On the other hand, that also meant that he was going to have a much easier time finding new targets as they would be coming after him.

Taking a small pause after his initial reply, not wanting to arouse suspicion, Anatoly would quickly continue with: "I do apologize about that and as you know I did let her go when it was all done." Not much of an apology but then again he really wasn't sorry in that regard, he was sorry that his attempt did not succeed. So, in a way, what he said was true. It would be practically impossible to discern the difference, Anatoly was a Russian and he did have quite the poker face. Perhaps if he did outright lie about it, then maybe, but in this case there was truth, just a different meaning to it.

However, apparently this Shinigami did have his doubts about this encounter so with a few tricks of his own he began to prepare for an upcoming battle. Considering that he was standing right next to him it really wasn't that hard to notice what an injured man was doing right in front of him. That posed a problem for the Shaman. He really did not want to have a conflict here, that would make it so much harder to extract information from this man, he really was not good when it came to torture. Resolving things peacefully was the only way to follow up here. With that in mind, he would chose his next words with extra care and the speech that followed was what he considered the best way to resolve this.

"If you are worried that I might try something here, you really don't have to. I am not here for you, I just need some information that might be basic knowledge to a Shinigami but not to me. Once you answer this, that would be it, I would leave and you could do whatever you want. Besides, if I wanted to do something to you, I already would. You know me as a Spirit-Binder so, what do you think those vines are for?"

The last part might have been too much perhaps, but if he wanted for this person to believe in his intentions he figured that he needed to show a sign of faith. And if words were not enough, a gathering of vines emerging from behind the Shaman in a serpentine form with wide open jaws was probably a good visual representation of what this spell really was. Especially since he was already covered with these. Imagine if Anatoly actually decided to constrict those vines that were covering his wounds? That would not be such a pleasant experience.

"So, what do you say?"

"Splendid," Anatoly would reply, quickly sitting down and leaning onto the wall next to the Shinigami. They were now just like two buddies sitting on the sidewalk and chilling. Except they were not friends and both of them were making sure that the other one would not try to do anything that they might regret. In Anatoly's case, he really did not have any intention of doing anything to Zenji, especially now that he knew that a mortal had did this and that he would not be useful as a bait for a pretty strong Hollow. That was a shame but at least now he could focus on why he approached the Shinigami in the first place. The encounter with Nao left him with quite a few questions and now was the time to ask some of them and perhaps get some answers.

Now that he was well positioned and comfortable, Anatoly would glance at the man next to him and begin his questioning. "I am aware that you Shinigami have a spirit inside of you as I actually met one unintentionally. It was Nao's and he called himself Murat. What do you call these spirits and what is their relationship with the Shinigami? Where do they dwell? Do you have one of those as well?" Speeding up a bit after each question, he would unleash a barrage of questions one after the other, not sure where to stop. From one to the other, with each question he asked, the other came up right away. In a way those questions were all a part of one big mystery that he wanted to know so asking one without the other would give an incomplete answer. So he could not stop himself.

"Sorry about that, do answer them at your own pace. As you can see I am not asking you about top secret Shinigami business." Realizing that he might have went a bit overboard, he would quickly apologize and let the Shinigami take his time with the answers. Hopefully what he had asked wasn't actually top secret Shinigami stuff. It most certainly didn't seem so.

Luckily for Anatoly, what he asked truly was rather basic information and therefore the Shinigami was apparently more than willing to answer basically all of his questions. It was quite a lot to take in. During the entire explanation he would just stare at Zenji and try to piece together everything that he was being told with what happened in that encounter that he had with Murat and Nao. So Murat was actually the Zanpaktou spirit of Nao, in other words he was the source of that word binding power that caught the Shaman off guard. That did explain how he was able to freely use that power and she did not, perhaps what he did there actually helped Nao finally come into contact with her Zanpaktou. Poor thing, that guy was terrible.

However, he could still not connect what he was just told with what happened with the contract that they had. Why did they simply exchange places? Perhaps by trying to transform their soul into that of a spirit guardian caused for the Zanpaktou Spirit to move into the place of the Shinigami. That certainly did make sense considering the nature of a spirit guardian and what he now knew about the Zanpaktou Spirits. Well, that was most certainly annoying. In other words no matter how much he tried to, he would never be able to turn a Shinigami into that of a spirit guardian for himself. That would most certainly pose a problem for him if his encounter with Nao did not bring about somewhat of a plan B, that was now going to become plan A.

Now that he was given all of the information that he needed, was there any need for him to stay here with this Shinigami? He really couldn't use him for anything else. However, considering the fact that this man did know of him and was probably going to come after him in the future, was letting him walk away a wise decision? He was quite weakened and it really wouldn't take much effort to end his life, that much was certain. On the other hand letting him go might prove as a testament to the fact that he was not as bad as they thought and maybe they would not pursue him as much. Both options had their merits and downfalls. No matter what he decided to do, things were not going to remain the same, especially since he did not plan to stop with what he was doing.

Getting up from his sitting position, he would pause for a moment, standing next to the Shinigami and looking at his beaten up body for a brief second before turning around. "That's all that I wanted to know," was all that he would say before finally taking that first step signifying his departure from the scene. In the end this Shinigami did prove his value with the information that he gave the Shaman and in the case of a future encounter, he could provide more, perhaps in the same way as Nao did. It was always nice to have a few more pawns to play with. On top of that, his mercy on this day might prove a good bargaining chip in the future as Zenji could consider him to be a not so bad mortal. The possibilities were there and Anatoly was not going to erase them here.

Or perhaps there was more to this Shaman that one may initially see.

She had been in a personnel review meeting with the Lieutenant when the message had first come in. She didn’t know what he was doing in the world of the living in the first place as he was supposed to be preparing for a possible challenge for the Third Seat, but Zenji was hurt, and he felt the need to come straight to her. There was only one explanation as to what he had run into if he were skipping over his new associates in the medical wing of Third Division.

With many apologies to the Lieutenant, she made her way from the meeting. If anything, it seemed that the news that she would have to leave brought a sign of relief to her superior officer’s face. She had been going rather hard in her new position as Chief Administrator. Perhaps he was tired of the multitude of review meetings she had scheduled for them.

She didn’t linger around the halls of First, rushing out of the main administrative offices and demanding that the technician from Fourth see to it that she get as close as possible to the coordinates she had been given. Relieved that her new station made the need for supervisory approval essentially non-existent, she departed for the world of the living, consulting her Denreishinki and finding Zenji’s signature.

Nao moved with the utmost haste, sprinting down city blocks and passing by several emergency vehicles going in the other way. She stopped her run when she saw the man near him and a trigger flipped in her mind.

Anatoly.

Murat was in her hand before she could even think to draw her blade, and ”Murat, Inin-jō” had already crossed her lips a few seconds later. She was going to get that son of a bitch and bring him to justice. He wouldn’t be able to torture any more Shinigami, not if she had anything to say about it.

Taking off with a sloppy flash step, she landed in front of Zenji and very nearly kept on chasing down the Russian, but one sideways glance was enough to stop her dead in her tracks.

Zenji was hurt, bad. Whatever had happened to him, she could tell that he didn’t have much time. If she went after Anatoly, there wouldn’t be anything left of her new friend by the time she came back. No intelligence on whatever threat he’d run into, no more collaboration on reports with a trusted and capable friend, no more planned afternoons in the Hatayama gardens.

Shooting the figure of Anatoly one final glare as she watched him round a corner, Nao bent down and cradled Zenji’s head in her hand. ”Zenji, are you okay? What did he do to you?” she asked, brushing his hair back and assessing his mental state before she could set to work on the physical.

He was either the sweetest person ever or he was horrendously delirious for saying he’s sorry and asking after her well-being when he was so injured. He even practically glossed over the fact that he’d managed to achieve his Shikai in order to show compassion for her. She couldn’t decide if it was pain or kindness that caused him to act that way, but it was enough to bring a sad smile to her face. ”Oh, Zenji,” she half-chuckled out, ”You don’t have to apologize. Come on, let’s get you fixed up.”

She’d healed worse injuries than this. Tetsuya had been practically dead when she brought him back, and she was still an Academy student. Moreover, she had recent experience with repairing a significantly injured hand, albeit from the other side of the operating table. After gently removing her hand from his head and rolling up her sleeves, Nao removed her barrettes and used them to pin her robe so she’d have total freedom of movement from her hands. To hold her hair in place, she set her still-released Zanpakuto behind her ear.

Whatever the Quincy had done to him looked painful. She would have imagined, from what she’d heard about their weapons, that they would have left clean cuts. It ought to have been a perfectly cauterized slice where that part of his soul had been obliterated, as neat as it was heretical. This was far from that, though. The wound was as brutal and hateful as the foul soul that had inflicted it, looking almost as though his hand had been torn off with all of the ragged skin and blood.

Still, that ought to be easier to repair. Nao set to work with a basic restorative Kaido, focusing first on the bone and working out from there as she had been taught. She smiled at him as she worked, his wrist growing back under her care. If this was all they had to worry about from facing off against the Quincy, this was going to be easy.

Her growing confidence was shaken as she heard a meaty thud on the ground. Nao’s gaze shifted down in time to see the beginning of the hand she had been growing back for him dissipate into thin air, dissolving from the wrist outward. ”What? No,” she muttered in alarm, redoubling her efforts and staying focused on the hand instead of his face.

Small beads of sweat grew on the Third Seat’s forehead as she channeled her will into mending his limb again, and she soon saw the problem for herself. No sooner had she set the framework that the soul-rending destruction of the Quincy reasserted itself. The wound was coming back and eating away any of the work she had done.

Two more thuds accompanied her next attempts, the slapping of Zenji’s would-be replacement hands sickening her both because of their very visceral reality and their role as an auditory reminder of her failure. Uncertain of what to do, she looked up into his face to ask if he felt good enough walking that they might be able to get to the medical wing in Third Division and felt that sickened feeling increase tenfold at seeing his head drooping.

”No, no, no,” she muttered in a panic, clutching back at the stump and trying to wrack her brain for ideas. It wasn’t that her healing wasn’t working, she was certain of that. Perhaps the Quincy’s attack had some lingering quality to it or, possibly worse, Zenji himself was losing the energy to fight it.

What could she do to stall the leakage? She couldn’t repeat the stunt she’d done with Tetsuya all those years ago. They’d been saved by other Shinigami then, and there weren’t going to be any relief squads coming to back them up here. What she needed was a way to keep the hand set in place while he recovered, something to stop the limb from falling off and keep him held together.

The idea came to her as she nervously took a step back and pressed her hands to her face, the tip of her finger brushing against the point of the quill tucked behind her ear. It was crazy, but it might be just the kind of crazy that she needed to make this work in such a terrible location.

Twirling the quill in her fingers, Nao pulled the handbook revisions she’d been meaning to go over with her Lieutenant out from one of her inside pockets with her other hand. She’d have to rewrite the changes, but she’d gladly redo the work she’d put in if it meant that Zenji was safe. With a steadiness that surprised even her, Nao spelled out the word ‘hand’ in a flowing calligraphy.

No sooner had she finished than the handbook pages ripped themselves out of the binder in her other hand. She the now empty shell fall to the ground, kneeling back down and taking Zenji’s good hand in her palm while the other remained aloft to control the sheets. As she felt out the contours in order to size it properly, the pages drifted in and set into place over her friend’s wrist.

As the little finger completed binding around the air, she moved her free hand up and, wincing slightly, pricked her palm with the quill tip. Not wasting any more time, she pressed the steady trickle of blood on the back of Zenji’s paper hand and intensified her healing efforts, picturing the area underneath the makeshift bandage and pressing an intense green energy through her draft on the changes to the fraternization guidelines.

She could feel it threatening to tear away as the hand reformed, but she kept her quill hand tight, squeezing the new sinew, muscle, and bone to the arm, compensating for Zenji’s weakened state with her own lifeblood and will. Beneath the bandage, she heard the muffled stretching of the fresh tissues over the low hum from her Kaido.

She held herself there for several minutes, their spiritual signatures mixing together around the hand to create a strange greenish-orange swirl smelling of sweet flowers mixed with a slightly-off mint. Finally, her own energy all but spent, she collapsed by his side, the pen shifting back to its tanto form as she settled in next to him on the side of the street. As she did, the papers lost their cohesion, peeling away like an onion and drifting away on the night breeze.

The life-giving cocoon shed, Nao put her hand back on Zenji’s to feel it. The skin was raw and tender, but there was comforting warmth there, and it didn’t look as though the tear was going to be reforming any time soon.

”I think it worked,” she sighed out, still trying to catch her breath after the ordeal. She didn’t let go of his hand, keeping it gripped in hers gently as she relaxed. ”I need a few minutes before we can go back. Whatever that Quincy did to you, their weapons are not a joke.”