Unforseen Comradeship [Rukia/Yaksha]

Once more, there was that sense of horrible, patient, and above all -smug- knowingness. There was something oddly...persistent about that personality over the others, something that seemed to give the impression his baseline status was that of a man who knew just a little more than you, and would never hesitate to drive that point home. And now it showed in the gentle caress of his hand on Rukia's chin as he pushed her head up and towards him. His own smile was insouciant, delighted, as he leaned forward, whispering in her ear.

"You can't hide anything from me, Rukia. This is Vegas, baby. With a pokerface like yours, you're asking to be robbed blind. I saw the smirk on your face, the one that flickered there for the faintest fraction of a second. I sensed the wistfulness in your town. Wicked you may have been, but you were good at it. And you lived for yourself, and your comrades. You didn't have to represent the Kuchiki family, or anything else. You were your own woman."

He took a step away, his smugness all but radiating off of him, the same sense of delight and excitement that he had exuded in their first meeting. It was an almost palpable aura, something that hung around him and seemed to suffuse everything he touched, everyone he looked at. It was a look that said 'We're all in on the joke, aren't we, and that's what makes it even funnier, so laugh even if everyone else doesn't get it', a look that lanced through you and suddenly made you feel like you were...part of something. The way a leaf being swept along a river was part of the current. It gave the sense, very intimately, of having been weighed, judged, marked, and stored away for consultation.

"Could it be you've been keeping your distance from Renji so you could cut that chapter of your life from you? Could it be that you think Strawberry wouldn't like such a...fierce girl? He does seem to have quite the fixation on damsels in distress, and were he to know what a fighter you really are Rukia...were he to speak with Renji and find out that you were once a baaaaaaaaad girl...he'd want nothing to do with you?"

He leaned forward, hands folding over his chest, tongue sliding out to moisten his lips, as he spoke with the air of a magician revealing a great trick. Each word slotting into place slowly, with the dreadful finality of a puzzle being formed, piece by piece.

"Or do you fear that your sister would think less of you, from her lofty place in the...hereafter? That she would suddenly regret pulling you up from the muck, if she ever saw you start dirtying your hands again? It's not that irrational, you know. Even shinigami only have the assurances of their peers and superiors as to whether or not they persist after death. If there's one afterlife, why not two? And who's to say Hisana isn't waiting for you, even now...? Who's to say all of this isn't some...test, Rukia? To prove you worthy of succeeding her?"

He chuckled, ever so slightly, brows raising. It was such a small, self-satisfied chuckle, something deep and throaty...it almost sounded like a very polite noble, clearing their throat. And it seemed to cement, somewhere deep down, the certainty that Yaksha had somehow seen through one of the Seireitei's best actresses.