The Reality You Face [Magnolia/Henrex]

All of it seemed so long ago, the war that had raged over the surface of the world. The war that sought to take away the dominion of demon kind and return it to it’s rightful inhabitants. Not a day went by that she wasn’t reminded of the challenges, and the pain. Of the blood that dyed the landscape, and the many lives that had been lost. Yet, she had kept forging ahead. She hadn’t let the reality she had faced drag her down. However, she wasn’t everyone.

It was this harsh reality that had brought her to the periphery of vastime, a nation whose king had fallen far before the world had been ready to see go. Yet, when Magnolia’s eyes looked on the house before her, all she felt was bitterness. After all, this was one of the many comrades who had stood strong against those who had sought to suppress those who deserved to be free. This was one of the few that had slipped through the cracks, and had been left to fester in the pool of hatred, anger and despair.

Magnolia raised a hand to the door, the back of her fist softly coming into contact with the back of the door. Though there was no follow up knock. She knew the man inside would already have been alerted to the woman's presence. Much like that day she was dressed in combat fatigues, the armor worn and torn. She felt that facing the reality of his situation was what he needed. So she would force him to swallow that bitter pill.

”I know you’re in there henrex. Come on out.” Magnolia said in a soft, but firm voice. The weariness in her voice the only indicator of the state of magnolia’s mind, which was occupied by many other things. After all, she had so much more to lose these days.

”It’s been long enough, I think it’s time we talk. “ Magnolia spoke to the door, her rigid posture a reflection of the warrior that every fibre of her being was forged from. If he hadn’t responded by now, the womans gruff voice would echo out once more.

” If you don’t, I’m coming in Henrex, it’s your choice.” Magnolia said, a sigh unbidden on her lips. This would either be hard, or easy, it was completely up to Henrex which way this went. Either way though, she was done allowing him to fester. It was time to move on.

A soft click, then the door opened. Her golden eyes laid upon a broken man. It was clear in the somberness that surrounded him that he had very little left. The defeat, and the tiredness that sat upon his bones was an apparent truth to the woman whose eyes searched for the fire that had been within him before. Maybe it had gone out, but she still did not believe that it could not be rekindled.

”Life has not treated you kindly, has it?” Magnolia’s voice was soft, and tired as well. She hadn’t come here to bring him back. How could she after all? The smile that barely crept upon her lips was dry and full of self loathing as she spoke once more.

”You know I’m Vice Captain-Commander of the Gotei now right?” Magnolia said almost errantly, as if right now that title was simply a fact of life. There were no lingering sentiments of pride, or superiority. Infact, as weary as Henrex was, he could probably see the weariness within Magnolia’s gaze. As if something was eating her alive. It was for but a moment that she allowed it, the glimpse into her soul. Maybe if he knew he was not the only one suffering, that it would make the pain somehow easier to bear? No, perhaps not, but still.

Magnolia had made no move to pass the threshold into his house. Standing outside as the peal of thunder in the distance heralded one of those rare desert storms. Even when fat droplets of rain began to fall, and lighting resounded upon the heavens, arcing from cloud to cloud, she stood. The deluge like all things in the desert was sudden and harsh, warm rain bleeding from the sky like the tears of humanity washing upon the earth.

A few minutes of silence perhaps had passed, the thunder and rain having emptied the streets of life, all that had been out and about having bustled about to seek shelter. Magnolia swallowed faintly, the small smile on her face turning crooked as she said to the man before her.

”How long has it been since you gave up?” Magnolia’s words were soft, but they were the truth. She didn’t see a man content to fold himself away from the world he knew. No, she saw a man who had instead of pushing on and forging head, had decided to waste away. He wasn’t trying to figure anything out, and she had seen it too often in her old reality. Those who simply addled away their time, escaping from the pains of the cruel world they lived in. That was why Magnolia did not look upon him with disgust, but rather understanding. She knew what it looked like when a person was pushed too far to stand on their own.

”Magpie, Don’t. I know you, Dont.” Raijin’s voice remained as a soft warning in the mindscape of the vice-captain of the gotei. The rumble was steeped in concern, after all, he knew more than anyone else in the world how short the tether on Magnolia’s patience truly had grown. It was a voicing of concern to which Magnolia would give no answer though.

The rain had grown beyond a roar, a veritable curtain of water pounding the muddy earth below. Finally Henrex had acknowledged the truth, that the world had never been kind to him. Or atleast, in his eyes it hadn’t amounted to anything. It was an honorable truth, one that showed the willingness to be honest with oneself. It was so easier to rot in denial, than face the truth.

However, she could tell when the man’s honesty was a front. He had congratulated her for the position that she had gained through her unilateral strength. She was not disillusioned to this fact. The reason she was the right hand of the gotei was because she was the unclimbable mountain, the unilateral pillar of might in which the gotei’s order hinged upon. It was not because of her personality, not because of her integrity. It was because she had proven that she would dye the world in the darkest red if it was necessary. That she would wade through a mountain of the corpses of their enemies. That she would cast aside the heavens and tear apart the skies. It was for her strength, not for her.

A sigh escaped her lips as her vision was dyed red for a moment and the numbness settled in her bones. She took the proffered towel when he finally returned. However, it soon slipped from her grasp and fell upon the ruined muddy precipice before his door, and was crushed underfoot as she made her way inside. Her muddy boots tracking into the house before she walked into the other chair across from his couch.

”Magpie, this is a comrade you have come to help, dont.” Raijin warned once more. The tone more urgent this time, more acclimated to the emotional state of his shinigami. Yet, it wasn’t something that Magnolia responded to as urgently as she bent over to rest her elbows on her knee’s, and her chin on her interlaced knuckles. She listened to the words that Henrex spoke of, about the world that had failed him, of the ways he had been betrayed by everyone that he had loved, of the deaths that hurt him. On and on he expounded of his grief, and it brought Magnolia to a far darker place.

She after all had an extremely dark past of her own. Her parents killed by leaders who feared her, Clan’s annihilated because they wished her dead before she could upset the corrupt rule they held over the common populace. A revenge hundreds of years into the making that she had thrown away to live here. She knew better than almost anyone how it was to throw away every little thing, to having nothing but your name, and your power to carve out a place in the world.

More than anyone she looked upon this world and the people that lived in it, and she envied them. She envied the educations they got, she envied the support that the seireitei got from the soul society. It was part of why she had joined them, and why she so ardently believed in the truth that they upheld and abided by. To the point of nearly doubting the ideals that had kept her alive, she had continued to uphold that truth, and try to be worthy of it. However, she knew she would never be the emotional leader that could comfort and assuage the fears that lay within the hearts of subordinates. She would never be the one capable of giving them the false truths, the lies, the sugar coated outlook on a world that would always be steeped in some level of violence. She couldn’t give them that, but she could kill those that would threaten the world she wished to protect. She could give them that protection through death. She was very good at that after all.

So as much as she wanted to understand and tell her comrade it would be okay, when she finally heard him speaking of being unable to do it anymore, being unable to continue after the years he had tried. Of being able to continue, those words to her at least spat on the very reason she had continued to stand strong. Why she hadn’t caved and continued to push. Ice flowed through her veins as she released a cloud of steam from her lips. Her golden eyes studied the man before her. A man who she knew could do great things if only he tried, and let the past go. Yet, if he couldn’t do it anymore, she didn’t have the words that could coax him off that edge.


”Do you wish to die then? I will release you if thats what you wish.” Magnolia said after what felt like an eternity to her. There was no hatred, judgement, or anger. There was only the coldness that came with that promise. The whisper of death, that was all that filled her tone. If it would be a release for him, she would return him to the cycle of souls, to hopefully reincarnate into a better future next time. She was done trying to be something she was not. If death was what she could give him, then so be it. Only after she paused for a few minutes would she say.

”If not, then it’s time to figure out what comes next. What do you want to do Henrex? Fuck everyone else, what is it that you desire?” Magnolia would speak, offering him the next alternative. She would help her comrade, but she wouldn’t coddle him. She wouldn’t be the shoulder that he could lean on to mend the emotional scars of his heart. She didn’t know how to be that person. He would have to mend those scars on his own. She could help him though figure out what he was going to do next. That was something she could do.

So would he choose death? Would he choose to take the easy way out, or would he push past the pain of the past and begin to make his first unsure steps towards the future? Magnolia did not know, but she would help him either way. That was what comrades did after all.

Magnolia’s apathetic gaze remained upon him. The silence that spread between them was palpable and thick with tension. She hadn’t been kidding, if the words slipped from his lips, if he wished for that release, she would sever his head and burn him to ash. It was a battle of will, of nihilism versus redemption. Would he slide away into the nothingness of defeat, or would he take the harder path and push, claw, and struggle towards a better, different tomorrow? Magnolia couldn’t forge him that future, she could not force him upon that path, but if he chose it, she could be the whetstone in which he found his answer, the catalyst to forge his change.

”Magpie, you cannot take the world upon your shoulders. You will break.” Raijin said softly, the only being privy to her thoughts. The only being who knew her deepest, darkest intention. The only being who truly knew how far she was willing to go to see this through for a comrade who had fallen so far.

”We are nothing alone, power is nothing without a reason to wield it.” Magnolia responded with a tone of finality that would not be swayed to her oldest confidant, and dearest companion. There were many matters in which she might budge, but this would not be one of them.

Finally something changed in that silence, in that battle between the easy path, and the hard one. She could see it in his eyes, the defiance, the anger. She could feel it, and so when he finally said it, when the word No was uttered upon his lips? It was savage jubilation that sang within her soul. It was triumph that silently burned within her chest.

The beginnings of a smile crooked at the corners of her lips, the barest of upturned lines. A glimmer briefly sparked within her gaze, but then it was gone, the defiance, the fire, it was covered by doubt, and lingering regrets. It was tainted by the doubt in his own power, the doubt in his blade. That doubt was like a poison, and when he spoke of cirno and erna. When he spoke of being the person that another saw, she could see why he had ran astray.

He did not have his own view of who he should be, and so much of himself had been painted by another's hand. It now left him indecisive and crippled in with a myriad of regrets. Finally, Magnolia spoke, though her words came cold and slow, measured, guttural.

” If you are sure that you want that strength, if you are sure that you want to be able to look within yourself and know what drives you, then meet me in Hueco Mundo, atop the old palace of Las Noches. “ With those words a vast killing intent that could crush the heavens and rip apart the earth billowed forth from the shinigami. Her golden eyes were only pools of darkness held nothing but the promise of destruction and anguish within.

” But be forewarned, I will not stop till you find that resolve, there will be no stopping once you find me atop that palace.” Magnolia’s words held a finality within them that were law unto themselves. She didn’t need to make threats, nor promises, she simply let him know how it would be.

” I hope that you are the man I think you to be.” Magnolia stated simply as that behemoth presence only grew further until it was a cataclysm in the making, and at it’s very height, so potent that one might even think they would smell the odor of fresh blood upon her skin, Magnolia turned and a seikaimon that showed the starry desolate sky of hueco mundo opened, and she stepped through, vanishing to the place she promised to be, waiting to see if henrex would measure up to the challenge that had been put before him. Would he climb to the summit, or would he fall once more?