The Dog and The Witch [SAJIN/LYZA]

The sound of Lyza's least favorite thing that woke her up. The sounds of explosions roaring through the air while the kinetic energy shook the ground her wounded corpse lay upon, shaking her from her slumber like some kind of parent. And just like a parent waking up their sleeping child, Lyza's first thought while her eyes creaked open was that she probably had some kind of responsibility to own up to. What a drag.

Her vision was blurry for but a few moments as her mind reeled from being awoken from REM so soon, but it quickly sorted itself out as the searing pain of her charred body and missing flesh sent adrenaline shooting through her body at light speed. To say the aching made her miserable was an understatement, but it was nothing she hadn't dealt with before. Lyza was still able to pull herself upright onto her feet, albeit slowly. That was when she noticed she was still alive and that there was some clothing tied around where parts of her flesh had been blown off. Someone had saved her. That knowledge was enough to make her grimace.

Well, whatever. With a slow, deep inhale and a quiet huff of disappointment, Lyza began to focus her efforts on healing her body while she walked through the destroyed ruins of the Seireitei. She had felt a particularly strong spiritual presence in a certain direction earlier, but it was gone now. Last the witch had seen, Captain Komamura was there as well. So she'd walk her way there, slowly, but she'd get there. Limping slightly as she passed streets full of rubble and corpses. All the way to Sokyoku hill which was... no longer a hill.

Its destruction didn't mean much to Lyza. It probably should have, it just didn't. Her jaded nature kept her from feeling any sense of urgency in most cases. The only thing here that felt even slightly urgent was the bleeding out figure of Sajin Komamura. Lyza limped her way to his side, ignoring the pain in her arm, the exhaustion in her limbs, and the ever draining sensation of having used so much of her spiritual reserves while doing so.

"Captain." She said tersely, looking over his figure to examine his wounds before she set to work. "How bad is the situation?"

Ever since regaining consciousness, Sajin Komamura replayed the day's events in his head. Where had he gone wrong? Was that man truly just that much stronger? He knew he attacked one final time, but apparently nothing happened. Perhaps it had just been dodged or ignored or something else, but he couldn't know. All he knew is he somehow failed, yet again. He couldn't stop the invaders, couldn't protect the Seireitei. Coming was the right choice, but it evidently changed nothing. Self doubt crept into his mind just as it had a century prior.

Sajin's dark thoughts were interrupted by the arrival of another, a forlorn heart he could almost recognize through Reiatsu alone. As blood continued to seep from the terrible wound across his chest, Sajin's yellow eyes turned to the arrival's form and though he swore he had seen her before, her identity eluded him even as it was clear she knew him from his time in the Gotei from how she addressed him. What else eluded him was an answer to her question, but his resolve steeled itself as Genryusai-dono's voice chastised him for nearly surrendering to fate.

"I am no Captain, just someone who owes a debt." said Sajin, his voice firmer than one might expect from someone in his condition. "If you mean my wounds...they are negligible." A poor analysis by any measure, though compared to the wounds the Seireitei had suffered his words rang true. "If you mean the situation at large, there is still hope. The absence of the Captain Commander is troubling and I've sensed other disturbing happenings, but the Gotei, Soul Society, will fight on."

Even as the Heart of the Soul King purified any damaging Reishi and Reiatsu at his wounds, the state of his body would not make Lyza's job here easy.

"Sorry, bad habit." Lyza murmured the apology half-heartedly. "You were captain for so long I kind of spoke relexively." Sajin had been captain for a good chunk of her life, to the point it was actually sort of weird to refer to the man as anything other than captain. For the longest time, it was all she had known him as.

"Don't be so melodramatic." The witch said with an exhausted sigh as she lowered herself to sit cross-legged beside him, even if that was in a puddle of his blood. "The world will keep turning. All that matters is we survive. So, if you don't mind..."

The witch trailed off and reached her non-burnt hand out to hover it over Sajin's most devastating wounds. In the blink of an eye, all of her remaining spiritual energies blossomed forth from her body all at once, shaking the environment in an all-too-dramatic way for what was just healing. Her hand glowed a green so bright that it would be almost blinding to look at it directly, and anything beneath where she moved it began to rapidly and painlessly stitch itself back together. First came the sinews beneath his skin. Muscles and nerves starting to pull themselves back into place and reconnect as they otherwise would have been; like nothing had happened in the first place.

"Say, who was it that did this to you, again? I don't think I caught their name." The pointy eared woman wondered over the aged humming of her reiryoku being put to work. There were already patches of Sajin's body that were back in peak shape, but there was a lot more to be healed still.

Funny, Sajin thought, he had been Captain for "so long" but that tenure was shorter than the time since Soul Society believed he died. Almost a century as a Captain, and over a century as a ghost. He let out a deep sigh, still not completely at peace with what's happened since that fateful, terrible day in the World of the Living.

Sajin's eyes turned back to Lyza when she accused him of being melodramatic about the day's events. As she attempted to, in his eyes, make light of the situation, downplaying the consequences as being just something that happens, his left hand shot up and practically swallowed her forearm whole. As he spoke, a ferocity belying his injured state burned in his eyes "Thousands have died or were injured. Our survival is not the only thing that matters. The Gotei does not fight for its own sake, but for the sake of others."

After he finished speaking, Sajin's hand fell back to the bloodied ground at his side. He had not gripped her forearm with any real amount of force, not even enough to leave red marks. When she asked who did this to him, he stared into the dark sky in silence for a short time before answering "The Hollow who was once called Ichigo Kurosaki. He isn't the same person who once fought and bled for Soul Society." Perhaps because of all the explosions that had rocked the Seireitei, a light rain, no more than a drizzle, began falling, the drops hitting the thirsty ground with a quiet pitter-patter. The water felt good on Sajin's fur.

Once more Sajin's left hand reached up from his side, this time to trace along his fur where a wound had just been. He was impressed with the woman's skill with Kaidō "You're an expert healer...I apologize, I do not recall your name."

"Yes, that's the intent isn't it?" Lyza wondered in a monotone voice so heartless that even she couldn't tell if she was being sarcastic or not. The only emotive thing she did in the moment was hiss as her charcoal black forearm was grabbed viciously by the former captain. Yet even still her slight grimace easily relaxed back into fully jaded nothingness in a matter of seconds.

"There are bad actors among the Gotei. That much should be painfully obvious. Not everyone here shares the same noble goal. Whether they're bloodthirsty killers in noble attire, or once kindhearted fools turned jaded husks, there's a lot of dead weight that needs to be pruned if we are to be as noble as you think we are."

As for the revelation of who it was that invaded the soul society, just hearing that name made Lyza pause, her reiryoku flickering as the briefest moment of rage overtook her focus for but a single second. Yes, she was... aware *enough* of the situation to know who that was, what they had done, and what it meant to be the foe of that man.

"Lyza. Unseated First Division member, previously of the old kido corps." The witch said, letting the conversation move on so she could expel her negative thoughts for the moment. "I don't even know if I have a last name anymore. My family dissolved shortly after I joined the Gotei almost a millenia ago. Justuntested. Nothing special." Even in her own explanation the witch sounded unsure. Was that how that worked? She had never actually thought about her last name until now...

But she had to stop because Sajin's wounds were more important. By this point all of his bleeding had stopped, internal and otherwise. Most of his harsh wounds had stitched up on an internal level and his outer skin was following suit slowly, but some were still untended. That would change soon, but as always, these things took time.

Intent. That word stuck in Komamura's mind. Of course it was the Gotei's intention to do those things he said. To fight on behalf of others, living or dead. But he knew the organization he was believed to have died for didn't always succeed at doing it. Sometimes it was too slow, or was under the influence of nefarious forces, or just wasn't strong enough. It had to be saved by outsiders in the past, and maybe this time Sajin thought he could fill that role even if after all this time he still felt, in his heart, like part of the Gotei.

As Lyza talked about "pruning dead weight", Sajin turned his yellow eyes back to her, looking for any kind of tell on her face. He could sense the state of her heart just fine, but Sajin knew there was more to a person than just their heart. She was a tough read, he noted silently.

He did remember her after all. A woman older than himself, who always seemed satisfied in her position or unable or unwilling to move up. "I didn't always have a last name either, Lyza. The name "Komamura" was bestowed upon me by Genryusai-dono after I managed to join the Gotei Thirteen. I believe you will have a name you can be proud of too, as you continue forging your path. The question is, what path are you on now?" Similar words from Yamamoto rang out in Sajin's mind from so long ago.

Pride? Path? These were words Lyza understood but never applied to herself. What could someone like her have to be proud of? Even if things changed, she was still herself, and she always would be. There really wasn't anywhere else to go, or anyone else to be.

"I don't have a want or a need to tread any sort of path. I am where I am, as fate has always decided."

Her eyes were about as empty as her will, staring off to the side as she lifted her hand from Sajin's body. His wounds were healed already even as grievous as they were. Kaido was the one thing that Lyza kept up with. Advancements in it, brushing up on past knowledge, and with an almost millenia's worth of experience. There was a reason she was as good as she was. But that was as good as she'd stay. There was no reason to improve. No reason to be anything but complacent.

"I did my dirty work during the quincy hunts. Killing for killing's sake isn't my thing. I don't want to get stronger, or better, or more involved, because if I did then that would make me an asset worth bothering. I don't want to be bothered anymore. I just want to live."

Though exhaustion filled him from head to toe, both from his exertions and as a consequence of being nearly killed, Komamura pulled himself first up to a sitting position and then to his feet. Like almost everyone else, Lyza was overshadowed by his towering stature. He looked at their surroundings, seeing the flattened ground where the Sōkyoku Hill, which had stood through time as a symbol not just of executions, but of justice. Yet Sajin did not feel morose to see that symbol of justice gone...it represented another kind of justice, not his own.

Sajin turned back to the apparently emotionless woman and spoke firmly, though not aggressively "In my experience fate is how we choose to live, not a guiding hand that determines every outcome." Lyza referencing the Quincy genocide from three hundred years ago was something from before his time. He had been a seated officer at the time, but wasn't involved with the genocide and didn't come into a position where he could have advocated for one way or the other until over a century later.

"All of us have shadows looming in our pasts, Lyza. We must all do our best, for a brighter future where the shadows cannot remain. That is what it means to be a Shinigami."

Something about what Sajin said irked Lyza. It took a moment of silently staring off into space for her to even realize what it was, too. It wasn't often she had to justify her feelings, because she didn't often have feelings anymore. She'd spent the past few centuries burying those away under mountains upon mountains of paperwork.

"We do not deal in shadows, Sajin. We are death dealers. Arbitrators of the soul cycle because we are, currently, the only people able to do so in a way that matters." Lyza said firmly, eyes lifting up to stare at Sajin with a look of mild frustration. "What you fight for in your spare time when you are not killing for the sake of the realms is yours to decide. But please, while I am not a mindless killer like our oh so dearest Captain of 4th Division, we are still ultimately killers. It is our job. Not chasing shadows like lost pups."

Lyza didn't mean to get any form of harsh with her words but she was getting very tired of the twisted, incorrect view of what the Gotei existed for. Still...

"I say that, but we're still chasing shadows like newborn puppies chasing their own tails. Traitors in our midst, killers who kill to feed their vices, inaction when even hospitals get bombed and the balance is threatened, let alone so many innocent lives needlessly lost... No one convicted, no one stepping up, not a single person changing their ways for the nobility I'm sure you want, nor the balancing that we need..."

Lyza trailed off with a frustrated scoff. Not at Sajin anymore, but rather the situation of the Gotei as a whole.

Though initially she came across as almost emotionless, Sajin was beginning to understand there was an anger inside Lyza, maybe at the world or herself. Either way, he was taken aback by her reply; he was advocating for moving past the shadows, not chasing them. Perhaps, he considered, the very idea of moving beyond the past was something she struggled with?

All the things Lyza was saying about the state of the Gotei worried Sajin greatly, especially as he already understood at least some of them to be true. He knew of the lock down after the bombing, and given Soul Society had stayed this way for quite some time without change he could easily surmise the culprit had not been discovered or dealt with. And though he sensed a darkness in the Seireitei, being aware of it from all the way out in the Rukongai, he did not know much about whether there really were traitors or not in the Gotei.

"With my return, I must have a responsibility to investigate these claims for myself Lyza. It is surely no coincidence my return would coincide with all of these dangers." Though still sapped of energy, Sajin looked as if he was ready to take on the world as he made eye contact once more with the smaller woman. "I won't make any claim I am what Soul Society needs, but I will do what I can for its sake. For all our sake's. I only ask you allow me to support you as well, as you have supported me."