The innocence is a lie.

[schitzo7830]

Every town has that one house where no paper boy, no police officer and no one else wants to go to. The place is notorious for evil and bad deeds. The house is probably old and decrepit with its occupants to match. Soul Society and the Gotei 13 is no exception. Division 9 is home to some of the darkest minds and personalities of the Gotei 13. Kubi shuddered as he made his way towards there building. He had been tasked by division 13 to simply deliver a message to the taichou of the ninth. This wouldn’t have been a problem had it been any other division.

It was usual for Kubi to messages back and forth between divisions trying to make himself useful in his downtime. He sighed as he thought about having to walk down the halls of the divisions quarters. The screams of pain and agony, the sound of men and women being tortured for “information”. Kubi had heard that the shinigami of squad 9 liked to torture, they enjoyed it. Not his idea of a good time.

Kubi made his way towards his destination. It seemed the closer he got the more everything appeared to be dead. No plants or souls or nothing; just an eerie silence and the wind to keep him company. Kubi wanted to get his thoughts off of everything. Just recently he had been running through the Rukongai’s many bars and pubs looking for someone to chat with. He had met this one man in his late teens that was thinking of joining the academy. Kubi giggled as he remembered the night. Getting drunk and flirting with practically every pair of legs he saw. Fun fun.

He could now see the buildings; large and Japanese with rotting exteriors and though he couldn’t see he knew the interiors where just as bad. The smell of decay and the visual rot gave the theme of an overall negative no matter how Kubi looked at it. He just wanted to drop off the message and leave. Picking up his pace Kubi was now at a slight jog. Thought there were no real sounds he could imagine the sounds of pain and anguish that just got increasingly worse as he neared the building.

“Rognoki… This is soooo creepy!” Kubi complained to his zanpakutou “ I shouldn’t… I don’t want to go!” It sounded like he was talking to Rin He had complained when he first received the assignment but let it pass. Now Kubi just had the need to huff and puff about it. Secretly he had always wanted to see if the rumors are true. Since in the back of his mind he knew that some of the darkest things can be the most fun and most pleasurable of all.

“What do you think will-“ Kubi was cut short mid sentence as he tripped over his own feet and went sprawling to the ground smacking his face off the ground. He could taste the coppery metal in his mouth. He lifted himself up onto his hand and knees and looked at the ground. In front of him he watched the crimson drip from his lips and smack onto the ground. Blood. Kubi was silent, he didn’t often see it and there was something fascinating about it. The blood; Kubi wanted it. Biting his lip now he stood up. Kubi sucked at his open wound on the inside of his mouth and continued walking.

As he reached the door of the divisions main head quarters he pushed it open. The door was much bigger than him so he had to put a bit of force behind it to open it. When he entered he observed a dark room with a desk in the center and a man sitting behind it. The man was skinny and…creepy. Kubi never judged someone by their appearance but this man simply threw him off. He felt a shiver and his spine tingle as he heard the door creak closed behind him. He was now, in a way, trapped inside of division 9. Did Rin know he was here? Did anyone know? If he went missing would they search for him!? What if the Shinigami here decided to torture Kubi!

He was scarring himself now. He slowly inched backwards stepping slowly his eyes widening. His hand reached back but his eyes stayed centered in front of him, looking for any possible threats or people or- His hand touched cloth… Kubi turned and saw a large male shinigami standing in front of him looking down at him. Kubi was to scarred to scream when the man decided to speak.

“This is no place for brat children you know… Why don’t you scurry along out of here! Or maybe… come with me instead huh?” The man’s face was covered by cloth and he could only see his devilish eyes. Yet Kubi knew the man was smiling with some sort of sick delight.

“ I… uhm.. I- am” Kubi was choking on his words. He had ever been afraid of anything before. He bit down harder and tasted the blood again. It calmed him slightly yet he still couldn’t speak. He could feel it pool and dribble down his lip.

“Well spit it out already brat we don’t have all day. What is your business here?”

“Im… here to deliver *gulp* this message” Kubi reached inside his pink shirt covered by his black shinigami robe and pulled out an envelope. “It’s for the captain…sir” Kubi could see the man was starring now. Not at his eyes but at his lip, at the blood. This made him even more scarred and he realized his hand had not yet moved from the man’s cloth. He quickly yanked his hand away and the sudden action set him off balance. With a loud obnoxious thud Kubi hit the ground. He winced and then looked up. The man had disappeared. Jumping to his feet he began to look around. Someone was watching him. Someone was here.

“H-Hello?”

[GoldenKitten]

Though the sheer white light still filtered in from the windows that lead to the outside there was the sense that some time had passed. All was quiet and still, as if it had been allowed to settle and every time Kubi took of step or made a movement the floorboards beneath him creaked with a reverberating echo. When he called out nobody responded and he might notice that while there was indeed light right now there were still branching rooms to the side and even corners in the very room he found himself in that seemed far to dark for the amount of light filtering in. There was the undeniable sense that there were...things hiding in the ninth division head quarters and that they were watching and waiting for their chance, their chance to do what though was a question that went unanswered. And then, just as the silence was becoming overbearing the sound of fluttering paper from behind the nearby counter sounded out.

It was understandable how Kubi or anyone else could have missed the man sitting behind the counter. He was small-structured and since he was sitting in a short wicker chair his head had hardly gone over the counter, more-over he had been sitting perfectly still with almost gargoyle like features and had he not been reading a book and thus flipped the page his existence might well have continued to go unknown. However at this point he seemed to know that Kubi had spotted him and spoke out with a voice far deeper than his appearance might have suggested.

“You should be careful about passing out here. The usual guard was out on business so you just got that brute Aurelius but if it had been Aealo and you had fallen like that theres a good chance you'd have woken up with your limbs having been eaten and what was left tossed out the back door...”

Due to the height of the counter one couldn't see his face, but it was obvious he was smiling. He then spoke out in a more business like fashion.

“So why are you here?”

“I-er I already...” Kubi began.

“You spoke with a door guard, a dumb one at that, now you are speaking to me and I must know why you are here.” His words were cold as was the glare he gave out of the corner of his eyes before returning to his book.

“I have a message for the Taichou of 9th division.”

This seemed to get the mans attention and he swung around in his chair and stood up, he was clearly visible over the counter now but not overly tall. His skin was pale, his eyes a sickly yellow and his tattered black outfit in need of serious repair, it appeared as if his head was bald not out of choice or age but due to significant burns. He reached to a large pair of grandfather style glasses hanging around his neck and put them on which made his large yellow eyes bulge even further, he looked at the message in Kubi's hand and the symbol it was adorned with.

“Yes I guess you actually do don't you? Well then you are in luck, you caught her while she was still up here on the surface.” He turned around and disappeared around a corner for a few short seconds before he reappeared and following close behind was a woman who was both beautiful and utterly frightening. She looked mildly dangerous but the real key was a sort of aura she gave off, and to anyone sane that aura said 'Stay the hell away if you like sanity'. The blade she always wore on her back swirled with ruinous energies that made one both want to flee in terror and stare for eternity.

She approached Kubi but did not actually seem to see the boy, instead just towering over him. She was not in fact overly tall standing at roughly 5'8 but in this place and with her power actively out of check she seemed far larger than she actually was. She simply held her hand out and waited, no matter how long it took, for Kubi to deposit the letter in her hand. She then quickly unwrapped it, opened the paper and began scanning what was written, if she felt anything at the content she made no apparent emotions to suggest so. That was when a mighty slam sounded out from behind her and the door she had come through came bursting open as a man flew past all three of them and went for the front door, he was covered in bruises and slightly cut but did not seem particularly injured given 9th divisions reputation.

Without looking away from the note and in fact while still reading Laetitia reached with her free hand over to the counter where a pen sat next to a large ledger. She removed the pen and then tossed it toward the man who was almost to the door, it struck him in the shoulder and with force such a small object should not have carried it wheeled him around. It became quickly obvious it had done more than this, passing straight through his shoulder and into the wall behind him. He yelled out and screamed, “WHAT THE FUCK?!!!” before he calmed himself down and tried to pull away from the wall. It took more strength than seemed necessary and he let out a mighty roar but he finally pulled himself off of it and turned around to the door.

However at that point Laetitia crumpled the note in her hand and dropped it to the ground and in a flash was behind the man. He didn't even know she was there before her hand was wrapped around his neck, she then smashed his forehead against the door and began pulling him backward. He attempted to flail with all his limbs but Laetitia was stronger than she looked and she also had him in a compromising position in which he could not reach her. As she passed she looked down at Kubi and said rather neutrally.

“The message has been delivered.”

She then proceeded to drag the man again and he start yelling out, cursing her and whimpering all at once. Then they were gone, disappearing down a darkened hallway, apparently destined for a deeper part of the complex. On the other side of the room the man behind the counter thumbed through his book, clearly not caring to much now that his captain was gone and figuring Kubi could show himself out...or die...or do whatever, he probably didn't care.