Sought For Conclusion [Kita, Klein]

Where once stood a nation did roam the Arrancar, her pace restless as her journey neared it's conclusion. Filthy with dried blood and the elements she'd waded through, no rest was allowed to come to the tigress. Throat dry, stomach empty, muscles aching, heart bleeding - none of these stopped her progression.

Heavy footsteps carried a weakened body closer to where she wished to go, arms hung and tattered. She had fought many battles between her start and here, moved many days, but she was thoroughly past her limit. Her shaking body looked like a strong breeze could topple it into nothing from how worn and restless it was, yet she still progressed.

...

Her feet shuffled onto unsteady ground, yet she quickly prevented her descent with her Zanpakuto embedding the ground, panting and grunting as she forced herself to her feet.

She was almost there, to that hole that spewed monsters...

"Hey there, tiger. Didn't expect to see you here."

Despite the playful choice of words from Klein, however, his tone was far from the usual chipper air he carried himself with. It was serious, almost stern even, but there was undoubtedly a hint of genuine concern to it, as well. For most women, he wouldn't have shown that. It implied vulnerability, after all, and suggested that he wasn't absolute in his status as top dog.

He wasn't quite as concerned about that when it came to Kita, though. She didn't exactly seem right, now did she? And she certainly didn't look like the lovely lady he'd taken in.

"Wanna talk?"

She had sensed him a moment before she saw him, but not even his voice was enough to motivate her to stop. Heaving breaths and pushing feet got her back up, about to proceed if it weren't for the weakness she felt in her chest and legs, tightly gripping the handle of her sizable weapon. She tried not to look at him, but a flash of her pained expressed could be received as she turned away, instead using the tip of her blade as a cane to continue. He was the last person she wished to see right now, for him to see her like this. It would have been easier without this.

"I have spent... enough words." Her dry, hollow voice spoke to him as her only meaningful response.

She only got a few lame paces away before her knees buckled from exhaustion, hitting the ground and kicking up dust from the dry earth. Pain twisted her innards, merely looking up at him should he approach her,

"Do not help me." She was too close to stop, her legs were commanded over and over once again to rise, but they refused to move. Frustratedly, she'd claw the ground with a small whimper.

Only when she'd looked away with Klein's expression turn more severe, a frown cutting its way through his usually relaxed features. This reminded him of what he'd used to be, of what he'd fought never to return to. A weak wretch, barely unable to do anything for itself. Seeing such a thing in Kita, a creature he'd found so genuinely captivating, was more distressing than anything else she'd suffered.

"No? Alright, if that's what you want. But you know I don't like seeing you upset, babe. And this looks like a little more than just upset."

He was smart enough to know that simply telling her to open up wasn't the way to go about it. She probably would, knowing Kita, but that didn't mean he wanted to do it. After all, if he did, she'd probably only get more upset. Klein liked empowering his women when it mattered, after all, and right now seemed like she could use it more than ever.

Claws scraped the bare earth as she made frequent and forceful commands to her body to move regardless of how many nights she had refused sleep and how many days she had gone both traveling and fighting without rest. Her muscles ached and wore with stress, but her mind was plagued with the shame of being seen like this by him, a weakness she couldn't fathom nor put logic to as she silently begged her legs to move. With hearing his words, a soft wince hit her features, before curling into frustration.

"You have not a need to fret over I. You are powerful, whereas I am not," With a forceful grunt, she brought her blade to stand vertical in her grasp, pushing herself off the ground in a difficult movement, "You certainly possess better... to concern yourself over. If not, there are plenty more... greater than I... To harbor such feeling toward."

Her shuffling footsteps continued, her posture low and red locks a mess over her form, "Leave the worthless to wither... in their inadequacy. Either death will take me... Or I will be made to serve my betters once more."

"Need? Power? What kind of guy do you think I am, Kita?"

Klein walked beside Kita casually, unwilling to simply let her necessarily get away from him, but also unwilling to actually go against her request to be left without help. For now, he'd just keep up, talk with her about whatever all this was.

"What did I tell you? I want you to be you, whatever that means. Being strong or whatever doesn't matter to me, but if it matters to you, then all you have to do is ask, you know. I'd help. I don't believe in stuff like doing everything on your own, you know that. If I did, I wouldn't try and spend so much time with you. I know I've been busy lately, but it's not like I don't miss you."

Despite the fact that Klein was opening up rather more than he usually did, he covered it in a veneer of casual conversation, not particularly wishing to overload her with weighty emotional speech. Besides, if he said it casually, that masked the degree of vulnerability he was actually allowing for her. Even for someone that mattered to him like Kita did, he wasn't the type to openly show his weak points.

"One infatuated with women," She hardly looked his way as that mumble of a response left her dry lips, "One in such a position to be selective."

Her heart sunk, fingers trembling on the handle of her weapon; she wished this was but another dream to wake from, that she would wake alone and unchallenged, unfortunate to not have been prematurely devoured whilst collapsed. Her lips formed a frown as he went on and on, a twist in her empty gut with his expression of missing her. Her advance stopped for just a moment, before she shook her head and squeezed the grip of her weapon,

"You have given unto me an impossible task," Her voice hardened, a labored breath from the welling of feeling in her chest squeezing her heart, "I do not know what 'me' is meant to be. I thrash and struggle and claw and tear, in my mind and my body again and again, a constant torturous spiral with no end. I have none to feel fury toward but myself, that fury as endless as my inability. I could not defeat that shinigami before he perished, nor that snake, what I considered a home was emptied of all I had forced into my care, I am unable and uncertain - I am nothing, I must be nothing."

Her weak tone picked up in urgency and panic as she spoke, fingers pushing into her hairline as she panted, "I am nothing until something beyond me fills me with a purpose - I am incapable of seeking my own, I-I must be. I had done nothing but fool myself into thinking myself powerful and meaningful, capable of leading my charge, capable...! I am incapable! I am unable, unworthy! It was nothing but miracle that the sands did not claim me, that I had conscious thought thrust upon me! I..."

She panted, slumping fully over, "..I am naught but a beast with human thought. A terrible error, I am, a paradoxical being. Is it not correct that I surrender myself?!"

"Maybe, but I've never stopped being infatuated with one particular woman."

Tch. That kind of summary of him didn't exactly make Klein the happiest to hear, but he supposed it wasn't completely inaccurate, either. He might have been angrier if anyone else had said it, or if the circumstances had been different. As it stood, however, it seemed best to simply let that matter pass for now.

"What do you think every Arrancar is, Kita? A beast with human thought. You're not any different than I am in that sense. No different from any of us."

Only as she'd collapsed so pathetically did Klein finally reach out to offer her support, whether she particularly wanted it or not, and looked into her eyes sternly but with obvious care. Pity? No, there was no pity. Pity was reserved for creatures Klein saw as being beneath his meaningful notice.

"Is that what you think you’re worth? You can’t handle everything on your own, so you should just die? Nobody just has purpose out of nowhere, it’s not some magic thing that appears in your head or anything like that. If that was how things should go, I’d have to let myself die too. You’re not alone, and you’re definitely not some aberrant weird creature who needs to let yourself get killed.”

A hand, surprisingly swift in her current state, would move to swat at Klein's attempt to assist her, her voice raising with a growl in that movement, "Do not touch me- do not touch this grovelling creature before you!"

Her eyes burned, lungs squeezing with a phantom's touch as she struggled to rise to her feet once more - she couldn't do it. Even her own legs abandoned her call. Those words did nothing but make the horrible twisting pain inside of her all the more intense, short of breath but still having the will to laugh out, and speak:

"You just will not cease... Is this a trick? A game? A fool's play to you?" Hair hung over her eyes as her dried, ragged voice questioned him, "I was feared as an Adjuchas, none would accompany me lest it was by force, and even then that was robbed of me. Taken and twisted into this shape, even then I was not desired nor needed, left to roam those horrid dark floors in the bowels of Las Noches, naught but the frigid stone beneath my feet. Even as I brought together those lost souls after the Espada's fall, they spat and cried ungrateful, until I came to an empty canyon... My despair must be delicious to one such as yourself; you are merely another soul stringing me along before discarding of me, are you not?"

Her wild gaze met his, a firm smile formed on her face. It didn't match the pure desperation in her eyes, the clamoring of thought tearing the mind behind them apart.

"Cease your pitying gaze... Laugh, howl, shred your lungs with the sheer joy you must be experiencing, bearing witness to I in this state!"

Please, her burning eyes begged.

"LAUGH!" Her hoarse voice spat, "You need not hide it anymore! Lay yourself bare!"

Mm. So that was how it was. Klein frowned more visibly, turning away as he shrugged.

"I want you to be happy. If you think I'm just pitying you, dragging you along so you have to rely on me, treating you like you're some object for my amusement, then I'd rather leave you alone. But I won't laugh at you."

And he began to walk, slowly, at a normal pace that gave ample time to converse. If she couldn't pull herself back, didn't want to be pulled back, then Klein had a lot of other things to commit his mind to, his emotional weight. He had clawed for so much in his life that he wouldn't abide seeing someone in a state like that just burying themselves further.

"Lay myself bare? I already did, the first night I showed you who I really am. If that meant so little to you, then what else would I show you?"

He didn't even turn as he spoke to her.