Sacred Stone [Murasaki, Ryouko]

There was a lot going on, both on Earth and in Soul Society, but that didn't mean Murasaki was going to stop involving herself wherever was necessary. If anything, this was all the more reason to push herself further. That was why she was here in the 2nd Division medical facilities, to visit someone that she'd already read no small amount of reports on. This was probably going to be a real incident if it got out, and the odds of it not getting out were low.

Well, that was just something she'd handle. Stepping into the hospital room, Murasaki's expression was friendly, a bit less energetic than usual but certainly still kind as always.

"Hiya, Miss Amou. Captain Commander Kagayaku here. Mind if I come in and have a chat with ya?"

If she said no, well, she'd leave. Murasaki wasn't so insensitive that she was going to just force a conversation with someone in a situation like this. But, even so, this was probably important.

She hated it here, everyone was looking at her and around her. Her head couldn't handle it. People staring at her. Was it pity, disgust, or fear? She couldn't tell from some of the shinigami that attended her. It had been nothing but pain so far, whether it was in her head or in her body. It was like her body was constantly deprived of nutrients and trying to find them elsewhere.

Ryouko couldn't tell them that though. She kept her mouth shut now and tried to get through this whole thing but then she was staring face to face with the captain commander which made her eyes water. It must be really bad if she's here, maybe she's here to say that she's going to be experimented on, that she'll be contained, maybe she'll say they'll try to execute her.

It could be good news, maybe they found a way to reverse whatever she'd done, maybe they knew what she had done. Isn't that just a little too optimistic though? How stupid of her to even consider things like that.

She didn't tell Murasaki no, who in their right mind told the captain commander no? Ryouko couldn't say yes either. Shrinking back into the bed meekly like inactivity was the safest course of action for her.

Murasaki held back a sigh as she realized Ryouko was definitely going to be reserved about this. Obviously, the woman had every right to be, so Murasaki wasn't going to push her any more than she absolutely had to. Taking a chair and sitting a fairly respectful distance from Ryouko's bed, Murasaki waited for a few moments and then began to speak, in a quieter and calmer voice than she usually used.

"I know this is all probably a lot. I read every report about what happened, and I'm sorry you're goin' through all this. I'll do everything I can to make sure we figure this situation out, alright? I'll be giving 3rd division a lot more leeway to prioritize this."

She knew that might have sounded menacing, though, and her tone grew a little more reassuring as she continued.

"You don't need to deal with all that though. You've dealt with enough. I'm not gonna let anyone bother you because of what happened, and I'm definitely not gonna let them keep you locked up in here or do any messed up tests just to get answers. This is a big deal, definitely, but you're a shinigami like anyone else. I'll make sure you can get back to as normal a life as possible."

She was a shinigami... Was she? She no longer felt like one. She had been leaking reiatsu uncontrollably since she had recovered. Maybe it wasn't problematic because it was just the constant flow of her regular power but the simple fact remained that it wasn't depleting.

The things around her were also different, instinctually she felt herself taking from them. It was like all the memories of all he people that had laid in this bed before her were being siphoned away, absorbed into her like a sponge. Did she say anything about that?

"No I can't."

She murmured in response to the reassurance, her eyes squeezed shut like she was upset from the words themselves. She couldn't be normal anymore, not like she was now. She wasn't even herself anymore so how did she even find some semblance of normality?

Even if she got out of this without being imprisoned or tested on to find answers, she couldn't imagine herself being anything but some kind of freak people would want to leer at. So her tears ran down her cheeks and she told the strongest shinigami in the whole wide world the situation for what it was.

"I want to be normal again but I can't!"

Some people might have responded "sure you can," or some other empty platitude like that. But Murasaki, at the depths of her core, was an honest woman. She prided herself on that, because honest wasn't just a mark of good morals or being a nice person or anything empty like that. Honesty was a sign that you respected the other person, a sign that you weren't going to hide your own beliefs from them.

"That might be true. I'm not an expert on these kindsa things at all, so I can't just tell ya you're wrong no matter how much I want to. But even if you're not normal anymore, that's okay. I still won't let anyone ever treat you different just because of that. I'm not normal either, ya know?"

Murasaki moved her seat over closer to Ryouko, reaching out to grab a few tissues and hold them out to her. If they were closer, she might have just wiped the woman's tears herself, but she could tell Ryouko was the skittish type. She didn't need to startle her at a time like this.

"I don't know what it's like to be where you are right now, but I know it's hard. If you hate it, then we'll do whatever we can to fix it. Okay? Promise."

Fix it... She remained guarded as she bit her lip in frustration and anger, the unknown part of it ate away at her. She did hate it, she was scared of it, but she also was aware that part of her felt happy after the shock wore of. She shouldn't be and it was stupid to be happy about feeling herself change, and yet she was prettier, she didn't feel tired as much, she had no health problems.

It was all too perfect though, like when people gave her food and she couldn't deal with the idea that they were doing it all out of kindness. There was always the suspicion that they'd treat it like a debt to make her give something up later or do something she didn't want to do.

"What if it's too late..."

She asked, a little rhetorically, she could overhear the people attending her speak sometimes. Statements like fused with her were thrown around. Ryouko thought she was pretty stupid but she felt confident in being able to guess that it meant there was something still in her.

The questions in her head were if it'd kill her, have awful side-effects, or something even worse.

That was a pretty valid worry, Murasaki had to admit, but at the same time she knew it wasn't something that they could really do anything about. She simply maintained her reassuring smile, though she couldn't ever even think to actually lie to the woman about her feelings about all this.

"We don't know if it's too late or not, so there's no reason to worry about anything like that right now. And if it turns out it is, then I'll make sure the resources go from figuring out what's going on to making sure that you're not hurt by it."

This was one of those times where Murasaki wished that she was smarter about this specific side of things. Sure, she knew a lot about a lot, but something like this was outside even her expertise.

"I'll personally do what I can for you no matter how it turns out, promise."

She was better than her, she could just think to herself 'oh, it could be fine so why worry haha' and it was all better. They weren't the same regardless of whether or not she was a shinigami or something else now. She curled up protectively, everything still felt wrong to her but everyone else would take care of it. The same people that she'd been looked down on all this time, they'd fix it.

Not her though, she couldn't fix it, and even if they could fix it. Why bother, those freaks probably wanted to study her more than help her go back to normal. Even if she did get better then what? Be eternally indebted to this woman the same way she felt when the nice woman gave her bread when she was younger?

Accepting help was in itself a plague.

This was tough. Murasaki didn't know this woman as well as she might have hoped, and she wasn't really the type to pretend she did just to help the conversation, either. Still, she was being genuine, and she liked to think that counted for something.

"Sorry, I know this is a lot. Not tryin’ to overwhelm you or anything. We’ll getcha through this however you’re comfortable with. I don’t wanna just tell ya what you need to do or anything like that unless we’ve got no other choice."

Of course she understood that could happen in this situation. This was a virtual unknown, and those preliminary reports hardly seemed promising. Even so, Murasaki wasn’t the type to put someone out to dry just because of things outside their control, and just as important, she understood that this could be something they didn’t want to be hasty about. It was just as much practical as it was ethical.

"At the very least, though, we oughta get you out of this hospital room. It's totally not somewhere anyone should just live out of."