The Fuck Is That? [Catherine, Auerbach]

She watched the following scene with silent amazement, millions of questions swarming her mind about what this Arrancar was, or was going to be from the looks of it. His next spoken words after such a stunned silence fell the room confirmed her suspicions; the wracking of pain, him seeming to know where this place was by instinct, the jar... He was collecting organs? His organs? They didn't appear to be ordinary, either - it gave the same feel as... The space between realms?

She felt half tempted to gut this creature just to see for herself, but she stilled her investigative spirit - wouldn't want to be on bad terms with something so interesting.

"What's your lung doing in a place like this?" She rose a brow, expecting some manner of explanation - if he was up to scamper off, she'd be ready to gently stop him, "..How are you functioning without organs?"

Auerbach turned to the woman, his mind alight. A fresh perspective across his gaze, the walls peeling back in history. Beakers filled, light pouring from a floating ball, a figure shifting amongst them to place new objects amongst the old. A curiosity, if one had the time to consider it. The arrancar had no such consideration, focus shifting to Catherine. "You ask a lot of questions."

Auerbach's voice was blunted, older, somehow.

"I don't know. Something about..." His face scrunched, visible distress in the folds of skin. Auerbach had listened to his father's recordings countless times. Half of it nothing more than gibberish to his ear, the other half gibberish to his brain. Still he knew, instinctively, there was something important on there. Something important to remember. And in the moments after his reclamation, he could feel them bubbling to the surface, connections bridging to one another.

"Something about sequences. Teatro network. Reprogramming across..." And just like that, the bridges fell, the recognition fading from his eyes. His cadence and speech returning to normal - abnormal as he was. "Something."

"You're not giving me a whole lot of answers yourself." His voice changed a bit. Interesting, might have contributed to some vocal chord restoration. She watched him intently, every twitch and clench as he attempted to give some answer to her question, this curious thing in her company... But it only amounted to nothing, her rising excitement flattening as that recognition faded from his eyes.

What to do.. What to do, he can't explain it... Ugh, but she wanted to know so damn bad! Wait. She dug in her pack, pulling out her overstuffed notebook and hastily flipping to a clean page, placing it in front of him alongside clicking open and offering him a mechanical pencil,

"Alright, if you can't describe it properly, maybe give drawing a try," She spoke in a breathless tone, but slowed herself down, "..It'd, be harder to help you if I didn't know what you were trying to do, after all."

"Draw?" he parroted, a slow blink traveling between eyes. Even with his eyes adjusted to the dark, he doubted any artistic ability of his at the best of time. If he had considered his artistic ability at all; Auerbach knew how drawing worked, how music sounded, but memories? Nonexistent. Still he took the pad and pencil, holding one in each hand with a dazed look before speaking. "Maybe try upstairs."

With whatever response Catherine gave, he made his way up the stairs. Agreeable, and he'd follow behind. An attempt at rejection, and he'd scamper past her in a blink. Anything in-between, or close to hostility, and he'd outright flee. drawing be damned.

Best case, he'd squat down in the alcove, taking to the paper with a scrunched focus. Tongue poking from the edge of his mouth and knot forming across his brow, obvious concentration took him. Scribbles and scratches against the material, and a grueling hour later, he'd present the paper to Catherine. Stepping back as he let go, he sat pensively against the wall, staring at her unblinkingly.

"Well?" Auerbach's voice echoed, his drawing visible in faint light. Surprisingly detailed, if entirely lacking in craftsmanship. It pictured a man of some stature, his back strung out with Christmas lights. Circles swirled at the corners of the page, spiraling dozens in opposite directions indenting the paper. A table spread in front of the man, no detail on his face but poorly drawn glasses. The table was scratched over, a stick figure barely discernable underneath the wild markings. Above it all was an odd pear shape, split horizontally at its middle.

Of course she wasn't going to deny the little guy's request to go someplace with better visibility to draw in; she could've lit up her torch but she supposed natural light was what he wanted. Oh well, if she wanted any information from him she'd have to try any means of getting him to communicate. Once they were up the steps, she sat in a squatting position, at first watching him scratch at the pad... But nodding off after several minutes. The sound of his voice woke her with a quick prickle, stormy eyes flashing open to stare bewildered, then relaxed. Oh, he was done.

She carefully examined the photo; most would rebuff it and regard it as nothing more than a children's drawing, but Catherine was the one to look deeper. She just had to inspect it, and work backwards.

"So, is this your creator?" She'd tap the rather imposing looking man, "And this is... You?" She'd tap at the scribblings atop the table, "What is this, though?"

Her fingertip would linger on the pear-shaped form.

Staring at the edges of the paper he handed Catherine, Auerbach became awash with emotion. Melancholy of the memory mixed with a surprising pride at the depiction. As quickly as they came, dissapearing with her remarks to its details. Leaving in their wake his usual composure, scratching at the walls inside his skull.

"Creator?" Auerbach shook his head, frail strands of hair swinging against the alcove's spare lighting. "More.. Parent. See-say-ull." The name was clumsy on his tongue as he spoke, the semblance to its owner legible between the lines, but not much more. In part due to the corroding of the recording in Auerbach's possession; mostly due to his own poor memory. Pointing at the shape that Catherine gestured to, he shrugged.

"Teatro? All fuzzy." His hand pulled back, knocking it on the side of his head. A bottle being tapped on a wooden counter, echoing in the space. "Remembering around then very difficult. Like scratching through a big dune." Auerbach's eyes flicked towards the outside, a wary memory flashing across his face - obviously speaking from some experience, and by any observation, a poor one.

Given her experience, she saw little difference in the terms; your creator was your parent, and your parent was your creator. She kept mum about it though, it didn't have much to do with this and would just distract from figuring this drawing out. All she needed to know was that her assumption was indeed correct. With how little the guy managed to piece together, she wouldn't be shocked if he was somehow going without a brain up there. In any space that was free, she wrote down what little details she could catch...

"Teatro? That's... Theatre..." It didn't do much but it did confirm it was some kind of procedure... And that he definitely was empty up there too. Yeesh, it was a marvel upon a marvel he was even able to function. Maybe he had neurotransmitters dispersed differently in his body or something in place of a brain, couldn't imagine how the guy could be capable of speech otherwise.

"..Well, you definitely are a puzzling one Auerbach. I'm guessing your MO is to keep finding those organs, huh?" She'd utter the thought out loud, "...But why have you all broken up like that... Was it because whatever you were was catastrophic? What could it be..."

Not like she could sit in Hueco Mundo waiting for it to happen.

"MO?" The arrancar parroted, his attention flicking back to Catherine as she muttered to herself. From his arrival to now, Auerbach had no idea the kind of person she was, not that he had wondered, or even worried. But the muttering shifted that, his returned organ having fostered the chunk of memory it knocked loose -



Sentences trailing off into incomprehensibility, bathed in clinical lighting. A moment of static across Auerbach's mind, met with lightning down his spine. Reflexively, he leapt back, skin making contact with the alcove's wall. Mouth tight in expression, his words spat with indignation, and an unprecedented ferocity. "You're like him, aren't you?"

Frazzled hair framed his too wide eyes, pupils turning to needlepoints. A hand reached back, pressing against the wall as somewhere his heart raced. The sound of rushing blood failed to meet his ears, a sensation unpleasant in a dozen different ways - but nothing to deter his attention. "Experimenter." The word was dirty on Auerbach's lips, managing as much venom he could muster.

Raw vitriol.

Whatever of his mind could race began to; was she looking for his partitions too? What had put them here, together, at the same time? The same place? Panic mounting by the second, rationale spiraling with it. Was she one of his father's partners? Hunting him? Looking to tear him apart? Or worse - someone that wanted to put him in a jar, leave him on a shelf??

"Modus Operandi, your way of operat..." Her voice trailed off when she noticed the sudden shift in Auerbach's body language, the curious and fluid creature reduced to a fearful shadow on the wall in what felt like seconds, spitting accusations at her. Like who? His creator? The reaction told her that whatever relationship they may have had, how spare it may have been, it wasn't a kind one - who was she kidding, what freak disfigures their creation this terribly and sends them on a wild goose chase for parts of themselves back? It was like sculpting a statue only to break it into pieces, it went against her principles... Not that this guy would know that, though.

What she responded with next, she had to take care in, else she was losing her curious little specimen to his own anxieties. Her expression calm, body the same as when he seized, she'd sit up straight and look him in the general vicinity of his eyes, not quite at them to enforce contact but definitely in such a way that would be comfortable to gaze back at.

He was willing to share some of himself, and so it only felt appropriate to give back,

"Catherine Reed," She'd begin, with a slow and careful gesture to herself, "Though, my birth name is Anise Jasmine-Johanna Andersson. I am from two families of creators, their legacies only survived through me. What moves me to you is curiosity, nothing else."

Her gaze dropped with the acknowledgement of that fact, "...I only want to understand you. If gaining that understanding is in helping you make yourself whole, then i'll do so."

She was hardly doing this out of altruism, but a wondering of what the full picture looked like, "Are you able to go to the World of the Living?"

Breaths came shallow, one after another. Hyperventilating as toes dug downwards, a surprise of strength pushing into the stone. The spiel Catherine gave of little consequence, just words and names, nothing of intention or action. Auerbach's feeling could not be shaken that this woman was something dangerous to him.

But at the same time, what to do would not - could not - process. Maybe something to do with a freshly regained organ, or his own curiosity, Auerbach couldn't tell. Whatever it was kept his feet planted, his chest moving, and eyes darting; all the while words trailing from her mouth.

"I don't know what that is." he'd attempt to reply flatly, panic present with the crack of his voice. "If you want to help then leave me alone. I've been finding partitions by myself. Don't need you."