Turn Your Head and Cough[Shio/Kei]

Division two. This barracks was one Shio had worked ardently to avoid entering for years, since a time he would've preferred to keep to himself. There was simply nothing for him here; nothing but anxiety and concern, nothing but unwanted questions, and unwarranted gazes. He had never truly realized it until he'd graduated, but the very act of having someone else see beneath the surface of his identity left him feeling terrified. He'd let it slip when dealing with Mirja...or perhaps his zanpakuto spirit herself had gotten hold of his tongue, and made the words spill out. But that didn't feel quite right; Taroba's powers were great, he learned that firsthand, but something that overt simply didn't seem to fit.

He took a few steps inside, and cleared his throat, folding his hands behind himself, and clutching the wrists of either hand gently, just enough to make him look like he was patiently waiting, rather than nervously dreading what was to come. He'd already faced down a rampaging hollow, and even his own zanpakuto spirit, and strangely it was this part that scared him more than any of that. His own comrades, and the various things that they could be hiding, the knives hidden behind smiles...it was always the friendly fire that he truly dreaded. How could he expect any of these people to stand by him, when the heat got too much to bear? How was it the rest of them were able to handle that livewire tension, always wondering what would happen if their own comrades turned out to be monsters?

As Shio attempted to close his eyes, taking a few slow, rhythmic breaths, he touched a hand to his zanpakuto, drumming against it just once. As he did, the smell seemed to appear almost instantly, oozing out of his own pores. He'd been told before that those especially talented shinigami could exhibit their spirit energy in the form of flames, or ice, or even visual stimuli, but for him, the scents had always been normal. He would simply wake up each day, surrounded by some manner of soothing, relaxing smell. He'd considered asking Taroba about it, but on some level it seemed...taboo, almost like bringing up ones hygeine with another person. If she felt there was a good reason to shroud his form in these countless smells, there was no doubt a purpose.

He sniffed once, twice, nostrils flaring faintly, and then smirked. He stuffed his hands into the folds of his robes this time, and tilted his head back, eyes still closed, as he looked at the roof. The faint, earthy scent of pine surrounded him, bringing to mind a forest in the middle of fall or winter, the simple beauty of camping out in the wild. It was, he had to admit, one of the coolest things his zanpakuto had offered him to date. In many ways, he almost felt as if he'd been able to experience several dozen different things, simply by closing his eyes. The searing, almost painfully precise tang of a hot desert, the salty spray of an ocean, the simple smell of a cold winters' night, when you stepped outside and almost felt like the world was on pause. All of it stuck in his head, as strongly as anything else; the sense of smell, after all, was the quickest and most effective way to form memories. Perhaps that was it? Was Taroba trying to help Shio form new, more pleasant memories? To wipe away the old?

Perhaps. It seemed feasible, after all. But for some reason, the notion that a routine physical could ever be something Shio came to enjoy just struck him as...too infeasible. There was too much that could go wrong. Even just being here was too much of a risk, for him. But not to attend...that would've been a red flag he simply couldn't hope to hide.

"Nothing ailing me. I've been feeling quite fine. I'm told that medical shinigami are taught kido to ascertain the physical state of a shinigami's body without being invasive. Is that true? In the human world, they still need the person to strip off their clothing, and to do all manner of intimate investigations."

His expression was blank, his tone easygoing and polite, but there was something oddly hungry in his eye, some glint of passion that couldn't quite be hidden. Kido was a passion, after all; he'd mastered most of what he'd had access to with relative ease, the incantations and the gestures well-ingrained into him by now. And more importantly, if such a kido did exist, then he wouldn't need to answer any difficult questions about the scars on his body.

He straightened on his position on the table, looking over her shoulder at the chart, and then down at her. Still, there was that faintly detached expression, and the sense that even now he wasn't...in the room. Not truly. It felt more like he was observing from a far distance away, and trying his best to relay his messages through some sort of medium. Like a phone call, or a video delay.

"In all honesty, I don't really understand why this division transfer is even going on. Mirja Eola simply insisted I would do more good in the fifth division than the first. I wouldn't say I'm especially good at subterfuge, personally. But...well, I guess she just saw something in me that I can't see, I suppose."

The scent of pine was growing stronger, especially in such a small, confined area. He either didn't notice or didn't mind, as he watched Kei with that same easygoing, carefree expression. The sort of smile that one would expect from someone severely stoned, or a person of exquisite naivete. Seeing it from a soldier, even one as young as Shio, seemed...oddly wrong, as if he had somehow forgotten, or never yet experienced, the terrors of war in their fullest form.

"I suppose I -should- mention at this moment that I engaged in combat with a hollow recently. It pretty severely damaged my chest and abdomen. It's been healing well, but it itches quite badly sometimes."

All at once, Shio seemed to shut off. There was something distant about his expression now, something lifeless about his speech. Before, there had been a faint sense of easygoing humor there, some idea that he was always on the verge of laughing, or perhaps even breaking into song. But now, he just sounded like he was reading off of a script, or looking at the words, and reciting them to himself. They were as cold and lifeless as a knife, and wielded with the same precision as if to cut her statements to ribbons.

"I let my comrades down. I put people in danger. I wasn't up to the task. I had been sent to search and report, and I foolishly decided to engage. If it hadn't been for the intervention of two powerful humans, I would've died at the time. I forgot my orders, and took it upon myself to play hero. It won't happen again. I recieved burn marks on my arms and legs, from its attempts to restrain me, and several puncture wounds that went through my body entirely. Luckily, they missed all the major organs and bones. They've been healing well, no itching noticed."

The words came out, professional and unbidden, but Shio's mind had already retreated inwards, moving on a thousand fronts at once. It almost felt like a game of chess had begun, in his own mind; he knew, in a faroff, hazy way, that he was behaving far too absurdly for it to go unnoticed. His charm and vibrancy was gone, body moving on autopilot. His blood pressure, pulsating in his ears even now, would almost certainly go noticed when she went to take his vitals. And if he were to refuse to let her see his recovering wounds? Would that seem suspicious? If anything, wouldn't it be more suspicious when she used a kido to study his vitals, and noted his sudden rise in blood pressure?

He felt cornered, already victim to a force he couldn't combat, swept up in a tempest tide. He needed to buy time somehow, to make sure he could distract her long enough to let his own body deal with the fight or flight response, and calm himself. But how long could he postpone the inevitable? Five minutes? If that? How much could he really lower his blood pressure during that time?

His gaze slowly filled with life once more, as he spoke in a pleasant, almost wry tone, tapping a finger to his eyepatch.

"This actually isn't for show, you know. It was a tried and true technique used by humans some time ago, when they were forced to deal with very sudden shifts from light to darkness. If one eye remains covered, it remains capable of seeing in minimal lighting, and it remains protected from any attempts to blind or distract. I can't help but ask myself: If someone had only lain -one- eye on Kyoka Suigetsu, and kept that eye covered in Aizen's presence, would they have remained vulnerable to his influence? And so I always keep one of my eyes shielded from any attempt at influencing my sight. Never the same eye for an extended period. It hurts my depth perception, but I've found work-arounds. Motion parallax; when you're using shunpo, you can tell how close something is by how quickly it seems to move as -you- move. And it certainly helps that-"

Taroba

"My zanpakuto has made me well-versed at seeing in environments of low lighting. Smoke, dust, fog...there are very few forms of visual disturbance I can't cut right through. For me, one eye tends to be enough. I prefer to let people think that taking out one eye is enough."

Had he really almost let the name of his zanpakuto slip that casually? Why? To impress someone he didn't even know? Had he not learned his lesson about showboating by now? All it would do was attract attention. It would make waves. And those waves would inevitably crash under their own weight, leaving certain parties swept up in their aftermath. Could he really doom others to increased scrutiny just because -he- was 'special'? Because certain things came easier to him than everyone else?

He'd done his best not to lag too long on the statement, but...he wasn't sure he had been able to fool her. And was his blood pressure high again? Ladies and gentlemen, did the first division piss in his sake? That one wasn't even a question worth asking; the answer was ingrained into his very being, by now.

[color:3ceb=#brown]"As for the scars...I think it would be more preferable if you were to use the appropriate kido to examine my state instead. It could be awkward if someone came in here to see me shirtless while you were looking."

The winning smile was back, and this time it actually fit there, somewhat. He -did- find the notion of watching her squirm and try to justify the situation to a peer somewhat entertaining to imagine in his head. Or perhaps he simply wanted to believe she wasn't as good as him at talking her way out of problems. That was just as likely, honestly.

Can you remember, sweetling? Which hallucinogens, precisely, did you put in that foul brew of yours? How quickly do they fade from your body? Will her fancy kido detect their presence, do you think? The humans have methods to detect the presence of drugs for months.

...And just like that, Shio's blood pressure was high enough that he honestly thought he was going to have a stroke. Thanks, Taroba.