Noble Meet-Up (PRIVATE | NOBLES)

A dress was no fit garment to fight in. Silky, sleek, and fetchingly classic as it was it would expose parts of her not at all fit for public observation if she were to try to run or fight while wearing it. All of this complicated by the roar of her heart, pumping blood five-fold harder than but a few moments ago as the reality sank in: she'd been poisoned.

Kameko's bestial rage interrupting a perfectly good and reasonably villainous monologue was not unexpected but that did not absolve it from being trite. Of course, the little pup broke the peace. This is why the beast clans were not taken seriously by the refined sensibilities of those who had mastered politics. Swordplay had its place but it was never actually about swordplay when it did happen, always something else. Something more. Fittingly, this is what Helena imagined to be the beast clan equivalent of line up and sniffing each other's anus. Was Watari bluffing? Did he have the mettle?

Best to let the quarrel play out.

Scooping her martini in the punch bowl, filling up on delicious antidote, she practically leaped out of her very tasteful heels as she recoiled in a flash step away from Yuki's arcing strike. As she blurred out of the way, she grabbed Memnoch's haori in a big handful and dragged him with her; not far, as it was much to ask to move the two of them without preamble, but far enough away that any blood, fabric, or spilled punch would safely miss them without some serious intent.

Using Memnoch to steady herself as they stopped, she quickly raised her glass, wide-eyed, and began to chug. Every eye in the building would be on them in but a moment.

Meili had been carefully watching the discussion, waiting for a moment for her to chime in. However, when she heard poison, her mind started racing. Had she eaten anything at the party? She knew she hadn't touched the punch other than when she'd first come to this corner, so she didn't know if she had the antidote in her system yet, nor did she know if she had any of the poison either.

Using her small size, she casually slipped away from the group and slipped back into the party proper. She had to do something, anything. However, before she could even fathom of doing anything, she heard a sword being drawn, followed by more swords as she soon heard shouting.

Several women in qipao's centered around Meili, dragging her away from the party. As she was being dragged away, she heard a voice in her mind.

"You did the right thing child...you are a warrior...an honorable one at that...it's only fair that you choose to fight like one, rather than like the coward that proposed this plan."

She'd heard this voice before, but never understood from where.

"Perhaps soon, you'll be able to hear my name child...then your mission in life...would be so much easier."

She would pull away from the guards, wishing to see how the fight would pull through.

"Do not try to take me again. I may be the 'prostitute's daughter' as you all so eloquently put it, but I am still a Noble. Touch me again, and you'll lose your hands."

She had fire in her emerald eyes as she, now a balcony above the other partygoers, turned to see how the fight would go.

"Good, good. See how that coward fights. See why he deserves your trust, but not your respect."

Yes.

Yes.


Yes.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Watari’s hand dropped to his Zanpakuto and his katana snapped into his hand stopping the blade but the force of the blow sent him sliding back a few feet - his back resting against the wall. You know he hadn’t thought about it before but he did find blood lust attractive. Then it clicked, it made sense. Well, it was a twisted sort of sense.

Helena moved, dragging Memnoch away out of harm's reach as the fiery beast woman sprung forward at his insistence. That glowing red eye staring pure judgment and malice into his own and then for a moment -


---

Five years ago.

Suzumei Estate.

“Watari,” his butler shook his shoulders and snapped his fingers. The eldest son of the Suzumei family stood in a blood spattered room in front of the corpse of his mother. His father's pack of cigarettes lay on a table nearby, exactly where he had left them before the beatings began.

Butcher . . . butcher . . .

“Watari” his butler hissed but then the eldest son of the Suzumei moved. Across the room towards the pack of cigarettes he picked one up and popped it into his mouth, mirrored actions that he’d seen time and time again. A small spiritual fire flickering to life at the tip of his finger to ignite the cigarette.

He inhaled.

Watari Suzumei, now Head of the Family looked up.

“Yes?”

----

Her Zanpakuto still stopped by his own glinting menacingly beneath him, mere moments had passed and in that time Watari deftly with one hand had popped a lit cigarette into his mouth. Back then, that was when he had first met Bezaliel, back then was when he had first become Head and his plans had sprouted into his mind.

The trading favors with mentors to gain access to books about the history of Soul Society, the going to the human world to secure routes of trade so that he could get particular toxins across the border and the assemblage of the noble families to this estate so he could have them all in one place. This has all been a game to Watari Suzumei.

“But this isn’t a game Watari”

His eyes widened.

His spiritual pressure like many arms began to wrap around Yuki’s limbs and the limbs of the nearby partygoers and asphyxiating pressure with the desire to give you all you wanted and then remove it just because it could. For fun.

“Bezaliel” Watari Suzumei, Butcher of the Suzumei Family snarled.

“Pluck their eyes out”

---

His Zanpakuto screamed as the smokey hands burst free passing through Yuki and screeching around the room, smoke billowed from the Zanpakuto as the wood that formed the hilt bent and blended into the steel mixing into the surface of the blade. The smoke that coiled from Watari’s cigarette began to blend into the dome that formed from Bezaliel’s power.

It was a weird experience speaking his Shikai’s name for the first time, it was as if the moment those words passed his lips he understood the implications of its power. Bezaliel was an extension of himself and by rights he was Bezaliel.

In those few fleeting moments his eyes snapped upward to where Meili Baozhai stood looking down at him, that poor damaged child could still be saved. She could by rights not turn out like him and maybe that was the kindest thing Watari would do for her through all of this.

Don’t become a monster Meili.

Do not become this man.

Then Watari’s eyes would snap back downward, sooty smoke coiling from his lips as all Watari did was inhale more and more of the smoke that was made from his cigarette. It wouldn’t kill him, it was him.

That burning red eye.

That dainty pale neck.

He would marry her.

He’d just break her into the right fit first.

Then Watari’s clawed hand shot from his side and wrapped around Yuki Kameko’s neck and he catapulted them both out of the window into the gardens outside.

---

At the party.

All that would be seen by a few key guests would be the sudden movement of a beast girl charging the head of a noble house and then in a few seconds, everybody within ten meters of Watari Suzumei would vanish.

It was as if, nothing had happened at all.

--

Meanwhile upstairs on the balcony a figure in a Suzumei Haori approaches Meili from behind, she reminds him a lot of a young Watari and he had been keeping an eye on her for the young master for much of the night.

“Do you understand the lesson a young master is teaching you child?” the balding butler asked the young girl as he stepped passed her retainers and ignored the howling smoke that resulted in them cowering on the banisters. So this was the master’s shikai, a terrifying sight from the inside that was for sure.
--

Steel crashed against steel. Watari managed to block her attack! But she had pushed him back up against a wall. As her blade scraped against her foe's Yuki's grin widened further. Was this all the strength he could muster?

Even so, not terrible. This is going to be fun!

"Yeah. Fun" growled the wolf. But then she felt something. Ears perked straight up as she hopped back, bringing her weapon to bear in front of herself. Something in Watari had changed.

What is this?

Her blade swung out, aiming to cleave through the hands which crawled their way up her body, hands which pushed right through her body. Even her tail moved, swiping at them with her sheathe. Was this some sort of kido? It was difficult to say. But didn't they also require an incantation?

Whatever it was also seemed to be reaching out for others nearby. It was on the man's weapon too. Was this some sort of attack? She didn't feel pain. In fact she felt hardly anything from the limbs. There were no wounds left behind. Nor did she smell anything off about them, save for the fact that they had no smell.

A brief internal clash brought some pause. She wanted to fight. Needed to fight. But whatever this was might end that fight too quickly. Did she go for a killing blow? Try to drag this out? Wait and see?

He's not taking my eye. Can't wait to find out.

That settled it. She began to lunge forth once more, blade pointed straight towards the Suzumei's heart. Her intention was obvious: to run him through! And if she happened to be just a little bit off, well, he could still fight! Hopefully!

At least, that had been her plan. The sudden influx of hands, a wall of dark swiftly moving limbs, briefly shielded her foe from her sight. She'd taken but a step forth before Suzumei emerged, hand grasping at her throat. Her eye widened in shock, body smashed against a window as they finally departed from the festivities. A searing pain erupted from the few shards of glass now imbeded within her back.

He's quick!

Once more her sinister grin returned.

Good!

Fingers moved for the man's wrist, aiming to lock her grip upon it, claws searching for flesh. Her blade flickered inwards, aiming to cut against her foe's leg. Not to remove. Oh no. She wanted this fight to last. Of course her tail was already moving to defend her, ready to place her sheathe between Suzumei's blade and her body and, equally as important, to move it for her inevitable impact with the ground.

Clumps of grass were kicked up as that awaited impact came to fruition. She cringed for a moment mainly due to the hand at her throat, but her smile returned shortly thereafter. Did he not desire a crowd? Not that they'd be much of a crowd for very long.

Meili's emerald eyes stared down at the fight, a grin upon her face as she watched. At first, it appeared that the Kameko girl had the upper hand. Small as she was, Meili could tell she was strong, powerful. A good person to become allied with, or at least that had been her initial thought, but now that it was down to a fight, she would side with the victor.

Then...something happened. Specs...no...Suzumei did something. It took a few seconds to click, but Meili realized it must be his Shikai. Releasing a Shikai, at her party? She'd have to berate him for that later.

With Suzumei releasing his Shikai, he instantly gained the upper hand. Meili watched as he wrapped his hand around the Kameko girl's throat, taking both of them outside...through the window. Meili would have Suzumei pay for that when this was all over with.

"See what I mean child? He deserves your trust, for he is powerful, but he doesn't deserve your respect."

"I do see..."

She had meant to think that internally, but instead had spoken aloud her thoughts, not realizing she had answered the elderly gentleman's question. She casually turned around to see the elderly gentleman and gave him a polite bow before jumping down from the balcony and casually walking over to the shattered window. She wanted to see this fight unfold, see the blood, the sweat, the combat.

Watari’s grasp tightened around her windpipe, crushing it further. She wanted dominance? She wanted a fight? He’d give her it. She thought he didn’t understand what it was like to suffer at the hands of another? He’d been doing it five hundred and forty one years, he had counted! This smoke? This smoke was his suffering, it was his ashen cloak and he would burn her away.

As she went to swing at his leg, he twisted mid air letting the blade trace a long thin bloody line up his chest and torso before it snapped away. His suit loosely falling away around him, the scarred torso of the Suzumei Head was revealed. A motley of burns and faded scars seared into the surface of his flesh carved in layers in the pursuit of the perfect heir. It was true Watari was the eldest of his brothers, eldest of the brothers that had survived as long as they had.

Watari’s chest and torso was completely hairless, scar tissue obscuring any opportunity for hair to grow his chiselled muscles from training were almost hidden by the deep overlapping scar tissue that twisted Watari’s figure.

He drove the hilt of Belaziel upwards towards her ribcage, he would drive the breath from her as they neared the ground. In mere moments they would hit the ground but she and him were tangled in a lovers embrace. Watari would be damned if they would be separated.

“Smile dear, I’ll take care of you now”

---

Meanwhile up above the old Butler of the Suzumei turned to the two cowering retainers.

“Arigato Gozaimasu” he said bowing as their throats ruptured spouting blood and they collapsed at his feet as the butler slid his Zanpakuto back into it’s hidden sheath under his haori.

“Young Master’s Shikai will need to be kept quiet for all those that are not our esteemed guests”

Try as she might, she simply could not draw in a breath. Claws dug into the Shinigami's wrist, worming their way past flesh, seeking out more important things. Veins. Arteries. Whatever might do the most damage. Spill the most blood.

Her sheathe pressed in towards the man's weapon, doing its best to deflect the strike. While it did end up making impact it was a glancing blow. Even so, more breath was forced from her lungs. Things were already getting a little hazy.

Fuck. Fuck! No! This isn't how this fucking ends! You bastard!

Forced against Suzumei's weapon, her sheathe aimed to pin it between their bodies. Her left leg pressed in between the larger Shinigami's, hooking around the back of his knee to lock him in place. With all her might she pushed off with her right leg, forcing her right side up, aiming to give her arm a little more room to work with as she expertly spun her blade around in hand, aiming the tip towards her opponent's back.

"This fight. . .just gettin. . .started!" she forced out, only to plunge her blade down, hoping to skewer the man through his lower back and straight out through his gut! Every ounce of power she could muster was utilized. And while she did try to angle it to miss her own body, she didn't really care if she ended up hitting herself.

She was confident in her ability to outlast her foes.

“Do you really think of me so little, that I wouldn’t let you get what you wanted? Even a tiny bit” the thoughts hissed through his mind as Bezaliel screamed in his ears. Was this what having a Zanpakuto spirit was like? The first time you release it, it just screams incessantly until your eardrums burst? The Shinigami was fortunate he did not suffer from migraines.

Momentum was against him and that was okay, his wolf needed blood, Watari would suffer for her. He suffered for all of them. His body needed another so that his love would be appeased? So be it. Another one for their sins.So he let the Zanpakuto cut into his side just by twisting slightly, feeling the brush of the blade as his turn minimized the damage. He had suffered at the hands of his father, why not the hands of his lover?

This was what love was.

Watari drove his fist wielding his zanpakuto up and under her ribs towards her lungs.

“You lost the moment you didn’t believe in us”

She was damaged but that was ok, she was angry and that was ok! She hated him but that was ok because she didn’t understand. To this point he was giving her his kindness because if she knew what he had done in the past, what he was? She would have wished for him to drive his zanpakuto so far into her body that her soul wouldn’t make it to the other side.

“Sleep dear, you’ve earned it” now, now? Watari was satisfied. He had bled for her. He had fought her. He had dominated her.

She was his.

And he loved her.

It had been an awkward attack in the first place. Unfortunately this man was, at the very least, her equal. Her better? No. She wouldn't admit to that. Never! Never! Never!

The twist did the trick. Her blade did not taste as much as it had desired. Even so she pushed upon it with as much strength as she could muster, plunging the tip into the ground. Claws continued to squeeze and tear at the man's wrist. And then she felt his weapon, driven again into her ribs, only this time it was a direct hit.

Her eye widened, breath forced from her lips in a haggard, struggled cough.

I should've removed the arm. Fuck. This was supposed to be a good hunt! No! I don't want to sleep! I can't sleep!

Already the light within her eye dimmed. Her grip started to weaken. Everything was growing darker.

I lost? I lost.

No. He doesn't get off this easily! You don't quit! You never quit!

With a push from her tail she leaned up, snapping teeth at the man's throat! It didn't help that he was holding her down, but she had to give it one last concentrated effort! All of her remaining strength was pushed into the attack, the hand gripping his arm tugging to the side, hoping to break his hold! Nor did her other hand remain idle. She released her grip upon the zanpakuto, driving claws towards the noble's face!

No! Not like this! This is pathetic! You can do better! More! Come on! More!

But already everything was going black. While her claws and fangs were certainly sharp her attacks were starting to lack power.

His head was swimming. What was even going on any more? Akimoto-sama moved toward Shimazu in a flourish, her fiery locks dancing through the air as she made her move. With a fistful of what Shimazu considered his finest haori, he was pulled away from the escalating conflict between Suzumei and Kameko. Their little gathering became the spotlight, attracting the attention of just about everyone in the room. The intensity of the moment and the ensuing flurry of action and life as everyone scrambled to get away, guards escorting people away to safety. None daring the get between Suzumei and Kameko.

“Guys, come on,” then, the outside world seemed consumed in a thick dome of smoke, presumably Suzumei releasing his zanpakuto. The partygoers somewhere beyond the smoke’s reach. He had the small girl by her throat and took her through a window to the grounds below. He looked helplessly back to Helena, “uh, I’ll be back.”

He stumbled off toward where Suzumei had taken her through the window, leaping out the opening himself. His landing was not graceful, and he rolled on the ground and crawled back up to his feet. Nearby, Suzumei had Kameko as helpless as before, choking the life out of her much smaller figure. It was a horrible sight, and an unworthy one at that. He had already won, all the other nobles would soon be dead and there was little he or any of the others graced with survival could do to change that. That Suzumei would resort to tormenting the poor beast clan girl was reprehensible. In his drunken stupor, he rose to his feet and took aim at Suzumei’s form, hunched as it was as he strangled poor Kameko.

“Let her go, Suzumei!” He worked hard to grasp at his inner energy while in a drunken state. He attempted to craft an on the spot hado spell, and ignite the alcohol in his body, expelling it as a torrent of flames. As he expelled the blast, targeting Suzumei, he became less and less impaired until finally returning to sobriety and consequently running out of material to continue the improvised hado. The return to sobriety was jarring and accompanied with an uncomfortable headache. Plus a charred taste in his mouth he just couldn’t seem to get rid of, now.

“Enough! You’ve already won, haven’t you? Stand down!”

“You’re beautiful” Watari whispered as he watched that light begin to flicker and fade. That wonderful burning red light he would most definitely pull from her again. The snarl had left his face now, the edge in his words dulled. They finally hit the ground as she reached upwards towards him, to try do anything, to attempt. . . anything. Watari was being honest however when he had said the fight was over before it had begun.

Then behind him a flourish of spiritual pressure. Shimazu? His hand spun his release Zanpakuto into a ready position and he spun from his place on top of her parrying the torrent of flames and soot up into the sky. Was this an attempt to snap sense back into him? But he was in full control . . . wasn’t he? Watari tilted his head towards the now unconscious Yuki Kameko and let her crumple to the ground out of his grasp.

“My, my, Shimazu-san, I was just defending myself surely you can respect that?” the Head of the Suzumei family pointed Bezaliel at his noble compatriot and then spun and sheathed the blade. He couldn’t seal it yet, unfortunately with the damage and the state of Yuki it would create more uproar than it was worth also it’d be a handy tool in escaping the party whilst everyone fell dead.

Watari took the time to look around at the spinning globe of smoke and hands that comprised his released Shikai, it was a thunder dome of stealth and security. Of course it was flawed, but wasn’t that all Shikai’s? If he could fix that inane screaming that would help but unfortunately it seemed like Watari was the only one experiencing the nonsensical sound.

“I wasn’t going to kill her anyway, if you notice not a single hair on her pretty head was hurt, outside of the bruising on her throat but that was unavoidable” he frowned at this, maybe a Kido? No, her physical strength would’ve far outmatched his spiritual potential and the girl needed to be taught a lesson about respect.

“I’ll take her back to my estates and she’ll receive the highest medical care. After all I believe now she won’t break our agreement” Watari tucked his hand into his ruined suit jacket and tutted at the tear that exposed most of his torso and chest. His scarring visible? How unfortunate. Luckily the only people here were people he didn’t care about knowing that truth anyway. Watari pulled out a pocket watch and checked the time, his foot tucking under Yuki’s Zanpakuto and flipping it into his grasp,  it still dripped with his blood.

“Twenty minutes,” he observed.

As the fight continued to unfold, with Suzumei looking to become the clear victor, Meili was surprised at Shimazu jumping into the fight and...belching fire? That was new, she'd have to ask him later how he ended up doing that. But for now, she had someone to yell at.

"Hey! Specs!"

Without waiting for a response, she would rush out onto the grass, grabbing between her thighs for her Zanpakuto.

"No child, it's too early for that. But...perhaps soon..."

She held her sheathed blade in one hand and readied a punch in the other as she continued to walk towards Suzumei, a fire in her eyes. Meili was, for once, truly angry and upset. Her party had been ruined, her guests had been poisoned, and soon, everyone there would be dead, save for a few.

Approaching Suzumei, she moved to punch into his gut with the full force of her small body, skillfully stopping he punch a mere centimetre from his body.

"That's for ruining my party...and this..." She slowly pushed her fist forward, gently tapping against his bare stomach, "is for giving me the opportunity to claim my birthright."

She held her closed fist there for a second before pulling away and holding her sheathed Zanpakuto before her.

"Swear to me you'll never do anything stupid like this again at one of my parties. Swear it on the blade."

He was still in a bit of a stupor and hadn’t noticed the Baozhai girl until she darted past him and attacked the offending nobleman. He was still busy lapping at the roof of his mouth in a desperate try at ridding his mouth of the bad leftover taste his impromptu spell left him with. After Suzumei was dished out a little justice of their own, he’d remember to practice the spell again. Maybe perform more fire with less substance, that would be a good start.

He watched Meili stop just shy of exacting the revenge she rightly deserved. Shimazu reasoned that she was under a great deal of duress when she allowed him the opportunity to swear away party ruining, or else. “Enough of this!”

“Your sense of justice is twisted. You’ve forsaken many for your own self interests. What you’ve done here, I think will return to haunt you.” In time, Suzumei would face justice, but unfortunately that time was not now. He had neither the clarity of thought nor vision to fully let loose against him in any meaningful way. “You’re going to sit here and watch them as they go, aren’t you? Or were you just going to poison them and leave the rest of us to deal with the fallout?”

Everyone scattered, everything was chaos. Smoke, yes. Fire, no. Screaming, panic. A few opportunities here and there for people display the last possible shreds of character at their disposal by running away to the last thing they wanted to see before their eyes fluttered shut forever.

Some made a dash for loved ones. A husband of wife and a life lived together for years, decades, and even centuries in some cases. To feel that type of a unity with someone, even as it twisted around growing thinner and thicker in some parts, it still grew. People like this are what gave Helena hope for some. It was something experienced at all levels of class and nobility if one could merely allow themselves to ever be vulnerable enough to feel it. She loved that they ran to it but she hated that she could not. Her husband, long since dead and gone, gave her as much comfort as a memory could in the face of the inevitable march of time.

Some made dashes to their superiors or their subordinates, desperate for answers from people they had sworn their lives for. This was the most amusing of the options; the look of panic on the faces of the Heads of House or the crowned princes as they grabbed their trusted bodyguards and handmaidens, clutching at their silks for a miracle. They'd had it so easy their entire lives, someone else bred, born, raised to fulfill all of their needs. They didn't even know how to die on their own. Contrast that with the subordinates who idolized a head of house, supplicating one last time as they groped for the hem of a robe hoping that their master would wave their absent hand and spare their life. They didn't know how to die on their own either.

Of course, there were then the realists.

Those few who faced their impending fate with dignity. Of course, they did not want to die but they understood that to live, to breathe, to thrive by the rules of this noble game was to accept that they were slaves to all of the rules and not just the ones they sought to ring and twist for their benefit. Watari Suzumei had played them, investing what must have surely been every last dollop of his personal capital and resources to ensure that tonight came to pass just as he had wanted. For if it did not, he had no future anyway.

A man like Watari Suzumei left nothing in reserve save for his self-satisfied smile.

Baozhai and Shimazu approached him, indignant at this display but failing to come to terms with the fact that they would be the only witnesses in but a few more minutes. Here, now, their true character had no choice but to burble and separate from their noble's facade.

Helena sipped her antidote-tini from the upper level. She was on her second one, for good measure. Although the moment of duress seemed to be over for her, she had removed her heels and set them at the ready on the balcony railing at her side in case she needed to make a quick getaway from the madness going on behind her.

At this point, everything would work out as it should.

Across the courtyard, her adoptive sister and the Head of the Akimoto Clan worn a stern face as she comforted her younger sister, the crowned princess of the clan. They waited, surrounded by house guards who would have absolutely no idea what to do other than head home when they both fell dead. Their line of succession was, for lack of a better term, fucked.

Helena thought about circling around to say her last words to the woman that had held her back for so long. The woman that only extended the well-meaning gesture of "allowing" Helena to serve as a handmaiden when it had politically suited her. The woman who, upon gaining Head status, denied her adopted sister her vengeance for a dead husband three times. The woman who had coldly offered nothing but condolences in calligraphy when she truly needed a family.

Helena also thought about jumping down off of the balcony and joining Memnoch and that Baozhai girl in some kind of pinch of Suzumei. He seemed cornered, with blood on his hands and his new 'bride to be' in a heap at his feet, but she seriously doubted that any part of this, even their righteousness, was unexpected.

She thought real long and hard about a lot of it. And she stayed put.

---

Unless addressed directly, Helena is just going to "wait" out of the way for thread end.

You know, Watari was pretty certain if it hadn’t been for Meili Baozhai running towards him and throwing a mock punch at his chest, Memnoch Shimazu might have actually ran him through. That would’ve been fun. Perhaps he had miscalculated a few of their emotions just a tiny bit, Watari’s gaze dropped to the unconscious girl at his feet. Yeah, maybe a tiny bit. The bait had worked though hadn’t it?

“I swear” But did he mean it? Watari wasn’t sure. Maybe he was over poison however, next time he’d kill them with Bezaliel in hand, the fight with Yuki Kameko had awoken some sort of pleasure in him he didn’t know he felt. She was right, Meili Baozhai was right, poison was boring! Next time he did this, he’d take all their heads with his blade. He would dance! And it would be glorious.

“Bezaliel” Watari commanded his Zanpakuto which immediately stopped screaming. Like a genie into a bottle the smoke that formed the dome poured back into the blade as it began to transform back into its sealed state. The blade itself, spoke no more, as if content in it’s screaming and it’s silence.

“Next time I’ll actually use my blade I think, since you all seemed to take such great offence to the use of poisons” Watari noted in his head he would need to burn that one warehouse in the world of the living if that were the case. It was far too traceable if people decided to look too deeply into the Suzumei affairs over the prior weeks.

“Haunt me? No Shimazu-san, I won’t be haunted. In my estate I hold records of every crime and transgression that the people in that house ever did. Sin upon countless sin. You should be thanking me, you and this Yuki Kameko - I am the storm, so I ask of you. Be the sun” the world needed a man to cut off the rot and to cauterize the wound. It needed a man who wouldn’t be afraid to kill the few for the good of many, nobility? Honor? What were those words while people suffered at the hands of these many? How ignorant.

Watari felt Helena’s spiritual pressure from somewhere within the mansion, but was put at ease. At least he was certain, she understood. They all needed to die so a new world could be reborn, a noble society where people could change.

“We stand on the brink of a new age, make the most of it!”

An elderly gentleman with a bald head flashed into view beside Watari. The Head of the Suzumei Family waved a hand at Yuki and then at the old man, who seemed reluctant but then picked her up and flash stepped away, taking her zanpakuto with her. Titus was efficient, Watari always liked that about him.

“So yes, I’ll watch, I’ll watch like they did for all those years and I’ll do what needs to be done”

And with that, Watari Suzumei, Head of the Suzumei Family, walked back inside the estate to watch what he had wrought.

/THREAD END