revivalproject | [open] death made visible

Entry tags:

[open] death made visible

WHO: Kuchiki Rukia, open to all!
WHERE: around Tembra
WHAT: help the newb
WHEN: January
WARNINGS: none at this time

One would have expected Rukia to have learned a lesson or two about approaching glowing orbs. Especially absent the understanding of how she came to this place to begin with — a place more sparsely populated than the endless dunes of Hueco Mundo, in spite of its endless flora, inviting in its vibrancy. Some of her closest companions might have been the type to grab at it immediately, preferring to keep any danger in their possession and grasp rather than leave it to their enemies for the taking, but Rukia isn't normally so foolish. Too many lessons learned the hard way.

Still, as her mind and pulse alike race — Where is she? Where are the others? Why can't she feel the spiritual pressure of any of her comrades? Is Ichigo safe? — Rukia blinks, suddenly finding her fingers wrapped around the smooth, cool surface of the orb.

Everything changes.

Rukia staggers away from the orb with a stuttered breath, eyes roving in every direction as her hands return to the place they belong, tight around hilt and scabbard. She's been given an explanation, knowledge settled neatly in every corner of her memory, synapses firing in new directions. But Rukia has long since learned that reality has a way of being distorted.

With a distant drip of water ringing in her ears, Rukia pulls her lower lip between her teeth, worrying at the skin as she turns to head in the direction of the nearest spiritual energy she can sense.

[ Have a handy link for Rukia's current physical appearance. Feel free to hit me up on Rukia's Permissions Page with any questions or if you want to propose something specific for her interaction with your character! ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Even having lived out in the middle of nowhere away from the hustle and bustle of a busy place like New York City, being in a place so completely cut off from anything has just been...strange. It just seems like it's taken a while to actually sink in for Raphael, now that things have calmed down long enough to get an idea of what it's really like in a largely abandoned, ruined city.

The buildings around the place are either too widely spread out, damaged or of too varying heights for a proper rooftop run, but the turtle teen still prefers to be up somewhere with a view when he's left to his own thoughts. Leaning over the edge of Civic Center's roof, Raphael looks down at the empty square with a sigh that he cuts short as he realizes it's not completely empty at all.

"Huh?" He squints at the figure in black. With how few an amount of people there are around, it's not difficult to pick out a new face, especially not someone wearing Japanese attire.

Being part of the Kuchiki house comes with certain expectations. It would be unbecoming if Rukia were to be swayed by any little surprise that comes her way. It's one thing to be adaptable — a trait that comes part and parcel with being part of the military — and another entirely to handle matters with grace. That expectation, more than anything else, helps keep Rukia's reaction relatively muted as her eyes register a turtle hybrid in her path.

Her eyes widen for a second before she tilts her head in acknowledgment. Based on the information provided earlier by the orb, this individual doesn't look like a native of the planet. But she doesn't have any other point of reference to place them either.

Rukia's stance remains grounded as she forces her shoulders to relax. The last thing that she wants is to put this creature on the defensive in surroundings as unfamiliar as these.

"Are you a native of this land?" she asks, tone kept carefully neutral.

Yep. Definitely new. Raphael's actually impressed by her reaction to him, or lack thereof. It sure beats screaming or any amount of strange looks, but then that's been one of the upsides being here. No one's completely freaked out upon seeing him.

Still, her question does have him arching a brow. "Do I look pink with three eyes and fangs?" he replies, but then he has to consider just how much info had been given the first time he'd showed up. Folding his arms, he shakes his head. "I was brought here same as you. I think that's gonna be the story for anyone you see around here. The Agrii don't come planetside, not with the storms and stuff."

A slight flush rises on Rukia's cheeks in response to the turtle's wry words. She could easily counter with the fact that she's only just arrived — but to give up that information would only be exposing her weaknesses, and as her brother would note, a change in paradigm doesn't excuse a lack of logic. More importantly, nothing in the stranger's initial countenance suggests that they're hostile.

So she stamps down the humiliation, lowering her chin just a touch.

"It would be naïve of me to take everything that was shared with me at face value," Rukia replies. She nearly shifts to match the stranger's pose, pausing only when she realizes doing so would forfeit her hold on her sword. "Do you know how we were brought here? Has anyone been successful at making contact beyond the planet?"

The turtle shrugs at that. "Fair enough," he says. His green eyes flick towards the sword at her waist, briefly as he sizes her up. She's not that much shorter than him, and given her caution he can tell the weapon's not just for show.

"Not really. I mean, I'm guessing it's some kind of weird alien tech thing. As for your other question, I guess technically we have? Not that it's done much good, but if nothing else, it's proven the Agrii are real and not just some story."

"Meaning you've contacted... the Agrii?" Rukia asks, hazarding a guess. As a newly arrived stranger, she supposes it can't be helped that everything is being explained in broad strokes, but still the frustration grates. Weird alien tech thing doesn't get her any closer to an answer about motivation, about the strength of her captors—

—though it does carry a degree of acceptance. One that Rukia's not willing to adopt just yet.

Noting the stranger's glance towards her sword, Rukia silently releases her hold, having increased her confidence that whatever their true motivation might be, a direct attack probably isn't on the top of their agenda. She rustles around in her pockets, unearthing the device she found upon her arrival. It looks not unlike one of the cell phones she'd grown accustomed to in the Living World, though she hasn't taken much time yet to play around with the device. (She'd found cell phones to be quite the headache.)

"Can't help but feel like everything is set up to make pawns of arrivals," Rukia mutters, turning the device over in her hands.

To be fair, Raphael's not exactly a prime choice for offering explanations. He'd come fresh from a space experience of his own before being plopped into the Agrii mess, so weird alien tech about covered anything he couldn't specifically explain, so far as he was concerned.

If she'd gotten a headache with cellphones, she'd have even worse working her way around the Agrii's communication tablet. Their pictographs don't really help much, but even worse is their grasp of actual language any of them can understand. Raphael nods at the thing once the girl digs it out.

"Oh, I wouldn't be surprised if everything was a set-up here. The problem is I don't know who to punch in the face to fix it." He nods at the tablet. "You can contact anyone else here through that. I think supposedly you can do so to the Agrii too, but I haven't seen anything since the emergency message from however long ago."

At the mention of punching someone — or something — in the face, Rukia's expression cracks for the first time, a small grin passing over her lips. The statement is so blunt and direct that she can't help but think of her comrades back home. Her chest aches at the thought that Ichigo, however willing and eager he might otherwise be, wouldn't be so much of a help in situations like this anymore.

(But that's a good thing, she reminds herself. He deserves the rest. He deserves normalcy.)

With a small huff, Rukia turns her attention back to the device, frowning at the symbols and nearly indecipherable language. "Are there many of us here?" Rukia asks, tone slightly hesitant. "Have all the outsiders formed a working group?"

Seeing that grin, no matter how brief, does make Raphael ease up a bit himself. At least she didn't laugh at him or look at him funny.

"Eh, there's a bunch of humans and some robot guy. Little more than...twenty, maybe?" he guesses, squinting as he tries to do some quick math. "We all pretty much know we needa look out for each other and work with everyone else if we wanna get through this, so that's not a problem at least."

"Twenty?" Rukia asks, expression taken aback. Never has she found herself in any realm, apart from the space between worlds, that is so sparsely populated. Twenty seems hardly enough to keep everyone fed and safe, surviving from day to day, let alone capable of devoting any energy towards helping the former natives of the planet find a way to reinhabit their home.

Cheeks colored over her outburst, Rukia lets out a slow exhale. "Have you and the robot been the only non-humans here?" she asks, keeping the question relatively vague. There seem to be at least a few individuals with interesting spiritual energies, but Rukia wouldn't be surprised if they kept the true nature of their identities a secret. A beat later, she adds. "Sorry for all the questions."

Raphael smirks a bit, shaking his head. "Eh, don't worry about it. That's about the norm for anyone who's just got here. And hey, at least people are here at all. When I showed up, no one was around at all because they were all in some underground tunnel or something. And if you arrived like...man, I don't even know how long it's been now- a month? Two? We would've all been in space."

He scratches his head. "Anyway, so far as I know? Yeah, that's about it. Oh, and a catgirl. I mean, she's more human than I am but she's got like...the ears and the tail. And claws."

Rukia's eyes widen, trying to imagine arriving on a fully deserted planet. As strange as it might have been to run across a stranger so willing to disseminate information, Rukia can only imagine how much worse it would have felt to have shown up alone, with only a dubious orb to rely on for information. She shakes her head, as though to physically push away the thought.

"Yes, I... will consider myself lucky, then. As lucky as someone can be when dropped suddenly on a different planet," Rukia huffs, allowing herself a small grin. "Do you have any regular meetings? I'd like — I'd like to be useful to the group, as long as I'm trapped here."

That's a point Raphael has to agree on. He's not sure how the multiversal lottery works here, or at least the Agrii's requirements for pulling someone they deem a 'he row' to help them in their plight.

"Meetings? Not really. Guess I could see how something like that might be good now and then. Touch base and all that. I don't think there are too many set tasks around? Some guy's been working on planning for fixing up the city, other people deal with the food stuff. There's a sad little library. I dunno, I think any effort you put into things will be welcome."

After having spent years chasing after Aizen, to find herself in a place with no set goals and a lack of coordination leaves Rukia feeling unmoored. It's not that she's a stickler for plans — if anything, sometimes the existence of a plan seems to serve the purpose of breaking from expectations — but it feels a little like coming to a sudden halt in the midst of a marathon.

What's her purpose here? Should she focus on finding a way to leave?

Should she try to help those stranded on the planet?

"I suppose I'll scour the area and see what I can learn," she muses in an undertone, before raising her gaze to meet the turtle's. "Ah, I never introduced myself," she stammers, briefly bringing a hand to her chest. "My name is Kuchiki Rukia."

If he's taken notice of Rukia's uncertainty for the lack of direction given towards any specific tasks, Raphael says nothing about it. All he really wants to do is go back home to his brothers and his father. If helping these Agrii guys gets it done, he'll stick it out, and doing that means supporting the other people around here. He's no good at figuring out technical things, but survival's something he's familiar with.

"Huh? Oh, that's right..." The turtle scratches the back of his head sheepishly before he gives a nod at her. "Name's Raphael. Uh...Hamato Raphael," he adds.

"Hamato-san, it's nice to meet you," Rukia replies immediately, bowing her head. Although Raphael hasn't yet offered much information about himself or his background, there's a certain straightforwardness in his character that Rukia appreciates. Focusing on what's directly at hand helps to distance herself from the unease — a little trick she picked up from Ichigo.

With a quick exhale, Rukia lifts her chin and grins. "Anything you've been working on? I might look small, but I can carry more than my fair share."

"Likewise. You can just call me Raphael." Hardly anyone bothered to use full names for them that he's not used to being called by clan name. It'd just throw him off.

He laughs a little at Rukia's eagerness to do something, not that he can blame her. "I'll bet that sword's more than just for show too," he grins back. "If you ever need a sparring partner, I'm always up for some practice with my sai. As for general work... really wasn't up to much at the moment. Guess there's always stuff to clear out or move though."

"I know my way around it," Rukia admits, a soft pride pulling her shoulders straight as she pats her hilt with a hand. There were many years where she felt lacking, never quite meeting the high standards of her house — but with the pivotal role that she was able to help play as they brought Aizen to justice, Rukia understands now that one's usefulness can't be measured in exams or strength alone. Everyone has a part to play.

Maybe that same truth will hold here in Temba.

"I don't think I've sparred against someone wielding sai for some time, but it sounds like a fun challenge, Raphael-san," Rukia grins, before quickly holding up her hands. "Ah, don't let me pull you into work if you were relaxing. I don't want to be a burden. You've already been very generous with your time."

Satisfied at the response in regards to sparring, Raphael nods before he blinks and then shrugs at the latter. "Eh, don't worry about it. Wasn't really relaxing. Just had a lot on my mind."

It was kind of nice having the interruption. His thoughts usually turn towards home, so he's always glad for a distraction. "I'm sure you'll find someone who's got something to do though. Everyone's pretty cool so if you have any more questions, people will try to answer 'em."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[open] death made visible

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject