Silence is so freaking loud [Open]

Slevin was rubbing his face. He was standing around in one of the practice areas after having finished a daily routine of generic exercises he always did. Slevin had a very specific routine, and it didn't change much. From his wake up time, to when he went to sleep, the Mute constantly had his time scheduled down to the wire. It wasn't like he was ever going to have to do anything. He had long been removed from ever getting a decent job or task from any superior simply because he had not one but two crippling problems. First, not only was he a Mute, but it also seemed like he couldn't communicate with any kind of Zanpakutou spirit either. Apparently no voice simply meant you couldn't talk to anything. He never figured it out and he lightly didn't mind.

The second, was far worse. Slevin Vivet was probably the only shinigami, who had an extreme case of Hollow-phobia. He would freeze up and be able to do nothing, just hearing their screams was enough to basically put him into slightly catatonic state. That meant he couldn't actually do the job of a Shinigami. Hollow didn't appear in other places, so Earth was pretty much off-limits. So, he kept doing his normal routine and decided he would continue it as long as he could. After all, getting stronger may not have mattered, but it would still get things done to some extent.

So, Slevin refocused and opened and closed his fists, moving his reiatsu along his body slowly, then into his fists and slamming them against the bag in front of him. It wasn't like when someone was punching, Slevin's strikes were quick and decisive, they were focused on the fastest way to cause damage versus knock out power. He could use knock-out power, but it wasn't something he started with in practice. He twisted his body after a few quick strikes and slammed a quick elbow into the bag before kicking it with a simple straight kick. Slevin's moves showed no basis in art, they were simply strike designed to inflict punishment by using short distances and straight shots.

Watari was passing through the training ground when a figure caught his eye, a lone Shinigami punching a sandbag, it was a bizarre sight mainly because this particular Shinigami was the only one that could be seen in the surrounding area . His side twinged, it had been a few days since the events of that noble meeting and Bezaliel had been quiet since. The Suzumei Head didn’t mind, he preferred his spirit to remain quiet unless spoken to - he was still recovering from the spirit’s incessant screaming upon release of it’s shikai state and the tragic whine still echoed in his mind.

He’d wanted to work off the aches of combat with Yuki Kameko but realistically he had also wanted to do this alone. The stitches that were in his side had worn down his usually flexible physique and that bothered him more than he had let the healers know.

Watari raised a hand as he approached “Hail friend, what are you doing?”

Slevin was concentrating for a second, the slow waves of reiatsu mixed with kido surrounding his body as he punched. Then he heard a voice, and immediately released all the tensed up energy and found himself barreling into the ground from hearing the voice. Slevin didn't get talked to a lot so it had been a shock. He looked up from his new perch on the ground at the person who had hailed him and blinked, before wincing in pain and shaking his head to stand up.

He rolled the shoulder that the backlash of energy had started on and rolled his neck as he looked at the noble shinigami and bowed. Slevin immediately thought about pick-pocketing him but decided there wasn't a good reason to get closer to the other shinigami at the moment. Slevin blinked at him and pointed at his back and then fists. He was trying to invent a technique, not sure what, he had been trying for twenty years. Slevin had started getting the idea back when he had failed for the third or fifth time in the academy. What was normally six years or so had taken him, fifty. The mute thing was the reason for that.

He pointed at the noble and then the training ground before looking questioning and shrugging. Slevin was sure all the bad asses had their own areas to practice.

Eh? Was he that noticeable? Why was he bowing? Watari checked himself just to make sure whilst sliding a cigarette from a compartment in his sleeve out and lit it, a small flame sparking at the tip of his thumb as he did so. Some subservience complex maybe? Yeah, probably that. This guy was one of the noble fanboys. Great. Because nothing excited Watari more than dealing with somebody from the Rukon who collected trading cards on all the major noble houses. His eyes rolled internally - or at least that’s what he had heard from his servants excited whisperings in the kitchens.

“You don’t talk much then?” Watari was sure if the man was capable of speech he would be cheering him on or something equally as degrading for him as it was for the Head of the Suzumei. He reconsidered what the man had been doing at the punching bag, focusing energy? The disbursement of which seemed a little . . . off, but Watari wasn’t good enough at Hakuda to understand the finer points of whatever the Shinigami was trying to do.

“You know if you’re going to focus energy like that you should start small - like - at your thumb. That way you can light cigarettes” the observer added as he flicked a small flame to life at the tip of his thumb. It couldn’t really do much, was a neat party trick for lighting cigarettes and that was about it. Nobody ever really asked how Watari lit his cigarettes, most just assumed he had a lighter tucked somewhere that was for a good use.

“Anyway, been nice, guess I’ll wander off . . . “

Slevin looked annoyed at the comment mainly because saying he didn't talk was pretty ignorant. He sighed because most of the time he was too busy to care about explaining that he was a mute. He wanted to say he could already do that, after all he had learned it the better part of ten times failing the academy over and over, but he couldn't make fire. So that was impressive. Slevin gave the man a thumbs up for being able to light a cigarette. Wasn't a skill he had, so no reason to not appreciate it.

Slevin looked at him as he began to wander off before collecting energy near the end of his fist and simply swinging it in a quick set of jabs. What happened was actually the opposite of the young mute shinigami should have been. Each strike produced a minor sound wave, and together, they formed a small beat. Now, Slevin couldn't make fire or lightning, but sonic vibrations on a small scale were pretty easy. The issue was he was trying to make that, work everywhere, and a lot bigger.

He pointed to his arm and then to his shoulder, as if trying to explain that fact.

Maybe it was because Watari was walking away? Maybe it was because in the prehistoric era, apes randomly smashed two sticks together and created fire. In this instance when the mysterious fighter smashed his fist into the punching bag, it made a vibration and almost sonic boom of sorts, it was as if he was trying to project his spiritual pressure into a strike.

“Yeah but bear with me here my silent compadre, wouldn’t it be easier if you had a point in which you focussed your shockwaves? Like right now it’s a flow on of your spiritual pressure forming a weird shell around your hand, start small” as if it to demonstrate Watari gathered the flame at the tip of his finger and redistributed the spiritual pressure, at the ends of the tip of his finger they began to smoke as a flaming shell began to form but then it vanished.

“Yeah see, you’ve gotta focus on the dispersion of the spiritual pressure. You start with a large surface area you’re going to be smacking your head . . . err . . . your hand against a wall” Watari held up his hand and smoke seemed to gather around his fist as his spiritual pressure condensed and the surface area of his arm attempted to control the gathering force of heat. Then it was dispelled like that, in a gust of smoke.

“Well sorta like that”

Slevin thought about that as he watched the other shinigami's hand light up and down. Slevin wondered how that didn't burn the other shinigami. Then again, Slevin wasn't the brightest either. He put a hand up and looked at his fingers after the puff of smoke went out from the man's hand and thought about it. Doing things on a small scale just seemed like it wasn't going to help when you needed to quickly adapt to large scale changes quickly. Though, Slevin took advice, even if he couldn't really give in turn. Which he kind of felt bad for.

Slevin looked at his fingers and let his reiryoku slide around them and then moved only his ring finger which let out a soft bump sound. Then he tried two fingers and once again, it exploded into a small mass of uncontrolled kido that made him make a face of pain and shake his hand. It felt like pins and needles, which made him shake the thing for a few more seconds before attempting the entire experiment again. That gave two bumps. It was slow, but at least it was getting some where.

He wondered if he could make it elemental, like this guy. Though when he tried to instill a change of the Kido state it simply sounded like a sour note. Slevin made a face about that and looked back at the other shinigami and pointed to his feet with the hand that wasn't being used to mess up.

“Yeah but you achieved a result right?” Watari had observed the explosive blast of the kido that came from the brawler's hand. Yes it was unstable, yes it was explosive, but it was a reaction. If there was a reaction that meant something was going right. There was something there that made the opposing forces of power that the Shinigami was trying to operate somehow mix.

“You use words to channel Kido right? You just have to work out the language of the body. You made energy explode from your hands now make it explode from your fists. Fundamentals, you went from a sound wave to an energy boom in a couple seconds” Watari wasn’t sure why he was coaching the mute, maybe it was because he was interested in some lessons he’d taken from Titus that were brought up in his encounter with Yuki. As the man had demonstrated there were other ways to manipulate the forces of the universe than just chanting a few demon arts.

“In fact it should be easy for you right? You don’t speak. You don’t use kido. Therefore you should have an affinity to touching what regular Shinigami can’t” once more the smoke coiled around Watari’s fingers and flowed down his hand before evaporating as he tried to focus his spiritual pressure. The truth was he couldn’t grasp it, not the intensity of spreading the flame. Nor the focus required to harness the heat.

What the advanced shinigami stated made sense. Though Slevin wasn't actually trying to cast kido. He was trying to coat himself in it. The theory was something he had come up with over fifty years. He just, never got to use it in practice. Which kind of lead to points like this. Slevin bowed politely to Watari as if to thank him for the advice. There was something Slevin was good at, it just wasn't a skill you could show everyone, without them wanting to beat Slevin up.

Plus, Slevin took advice very well, even if he couldn't reciprocate it. Slevin then made a few punching motions and then pointed at the smoke near Watari's fingers and then once again to his back and fist. He was basically trying to say, I want to do that, everywhere. Though he wasn't really sure how to explain that without a piece of paper. He really wanted to ask Watari, who had the overall power of a noble, how they moved reiatsu easier through their bodies.

It wasn't a thing normal shinigami learned until they had a lot of experience, so he was trying to ask about that as well. If all went well, soon Slevin would be able to coat his entire body in kido, and beat stuff with it.

“No idea, thought I could maybe coat my sword in it one day” At that Watari drew Bezaliel and ran his finger down the edge of the blade, attempting to transpose the energy required from his hands to his Zanpakuto. It stuck for a bit, making the edge of the weapon smokey but much like how he had done it with his fists this was the same result. He simply didn’t understand the manipulation of energy at a fine enough level to be able to correct the ratio of spiritual energy distribution to Zanpakuto.

“Doing it with your body is a cool idea. I’m just more a sword guy you know? I’m sure you’ll do it someday, you’ve got the whole explosive fist thing going. Thunder always comes before lightning right?” Watari could almost imagine the sonic boom as the man swung his fists harder and harder until they moved with the speed of lightning bolts. That would be terrifying and fun to fight, you would almost have to anticipate the blows coming your way before they even came.

“You just need to feel it in your toes friend"

Slevin wanted to say he had the explosive thing going but it was exploding in the wrong dam direction.  Which was true, feel it in your toes... Slevin thought about that and wriggled his toes as he looked down.  Shinigami who knew what they were doing really were on a different level.  He shifted and thought to himself.   Slevin moved some of his latent reiryoku down to his feet and started slowly forming it into coalesced energy.  It felt really weird, like stomping after a jump for no reason at all.  

Slevin shifted and took a small step and found himself on the ground after flipping over backwards with a resonating thrumming sound as the energy dissipated into the ground.  He pushed himself up and shook his leg as if to say owe.  That gave him a bunch of new ideas though.  Most of them were pretty stupid but that wouldn't stop the kleptomaniac from trying anything and everything he could.  He needed some way to be able to fight, even if it wasn't those things.

He brushed off again and bowed to Watari, as if to thank him and then tried again.  The effect was much less the second time, simply rocking it his leg up as opposed to flipping him heels over head.  Which was, in Slevin's opinion, progress.  He then shifted as he stretched out his leg, as that hurt a bit and looked questioningly at Watari's Zanpakutou before pointing at it.  As if to ask what it did.

While he listened, Slevin continued concentrating Reiryoku over his entire body quietly, before having a slightly dangerous thought and wandering away from Watari with a small grin on his silent face. He then turned and bowed to the noble and nodded as if to thank him before bolting off in another direction. He waved politely and decided not to take Watari's wallet as he left.

//Exit

Watari couldn’t help that he felt that he just gave nuclear launch codes to a mute. There was just something in the way the mute did his movements that seemed a little off to Watari, maybe a little unhinged. Or maybe he was just imagining it? Either way he had probably made himself an ally after all of this so was the investment really that bad? Well, he would probably find out much, much later. It seemed the mute had literally taken his saying about feeling it in his toes to heart, and Watari had no qualms with that.

“It slices, it dices, it’s a multipurpose tool” Watari gestured to his Zanpakuto on the mutes request. You know it was bizarre that this Shinigami didn’t have a Zanpakuto but he wasn’t going to dwell on it, maybe he just preferred to not have one - opting for close combat like Meili Baozhai did. That made sense to the Head of the Suzumei.

Then as the mute walked away, Watari wondered how that particular gear would spin in the future.

//EXIT || THREAD END