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Another one. Another night, another bloodbath and he sits there with other peoples' blood, people that he barely knew, on his hands. Not just his hands; he looks like he just walked out of a shower of crimson. His hair, his clothes, his body – all he can see is red.
He smells the rusty copper in the air, frowns. It makes his nostrils itchy – it's a scent that he's all too familiar with yet he doesn't like it. He can taste the copper in his mouth now and he licks his chapped lips. The sour tang of it doesn't appeal to him in the slightest.
He takes to the colour crimson because that's all he can see when they're dead. The people who dared jest with him are now lying all around him in decapitated heaps, many with eyes still open, unblinking, glazed over. It's like they never saw the blade coming until the light – or the Fire – was staring at them straight in the eye.
He takes to red because it's rather comforting to know that once the blood has been spilled, those assholes are gone. There won't be anybody to pick on Yachiru any longer.
He doesn't want to look at her. He knows that she's there, just behind him, staring at him through those wide, inquisitive eyes of hers. Curious, always curious, like all the world's on exhibit and she's the only spectator there. Unbending, unafraid.
That's one thing that he likes about her. She's not a coward. She whines, but she's not scared to witness slaughter. It's already built into her, he guesses. The first time she opened her eyes and there was blood, there were bodies. And there was him with the blade clutched tightly in his right hand, ready to swing down into another unsuspecting victim.
But she's stranger to the other cruelties of this hellhole. She knows the pub, but not the brothel. She's seen and smelled and tasted (when he wasn't looking) the alcohol and witnessed bar brawls, but never has she seen the inside of an old bedroom, the dust that gathers in dark corners, smelled the musky, derelict stink of the bed. She's seen big, beefy guys beating up skinny little boys, seen the way a bloody tooth flies across the room and comes to land inside her glass of milk, but she's never witnessed the way sweat slides down a woman's body, the way she cups her breast and urges her client on. She's heard curses salty enough to make a sailor blanch, but never the small whimpers and moans, the soft growls and husky promises of a night of burning passion.
She's never known the darker side of the world and he doesn't want her to ever come close to knowing.
That's why he drove his blade into those men without a second thought.
He feels a tap on his knee, looks down and ignores the inevitable smile that tugs at the corners of his mouth.
"Hey, brat," he says softly, almost with a tinge of guilt. He never wants her to see such manslaughter again. Once is enough, especially for someone of her innocence, but he figures that it's unavoidable. The only way to keep her safe is to keep her with him and he's certain that he won't be letting her go anytime soon.
She sits down, but he quickly drops his blade and picks her up so that she doesn't plop right into a puddle of blood. He settles her on his knee and she reaches out her tiny hands to touch his face. He lets her, closing his eyes as she trails the smooth, soft tips of her fingers along his skin. It feels so much different. Her touch and the murder – they are like two different dimensions that have just fused together to create a bastard of a sentiment. The wild pounding of his heart seems to ease, slowly, with each passing moment until eventually it returns to its normal pace and he opens his eyes to see her staring in wonderment at him.
"What?"
She withdraws her hand and he refrains from feeling a slight disappointment deep within himself. She doesn't know how to speak yet, so he guesses that's why she's being silent. Or maybe the gore has finally gotten to her. But the look in her eyes says otherwise. She's staring at him like she has known him for countless years, like she's been with him since the beginning of time and he hasn't realized it. Like she knows everything that's going on within his mind right then and there.
"Stop that, brat," he hisses and, without even thinking, clasps a hand over her eyes, "stop starin' at me. I hate it." Sometimes he does wish that she didn't have so much courage. Sometimes, he just hates her guts.
She pries his hand away, and he withdraws only to have the area surrounding her eyes covered in blood. He makes to wipe it away before it drips into her eyes, but she ducks under his arm and crawls up his thigh and settles there with her face buried in his torn haori, tiny hands clutching the cloth. She doesn't seem to care that she's now as bloody as him.
Stupid brat. He leans back against the tree trunk and heaves a sigh, absently placing a hand on her back to secure her. The steady movement of her small body and her hot breath that falls upon his abdomen comfort him, reassures him that she's still alive – that the both of them are still alive and well and breathing.
"Yachiru," he taps her back gently, rhythmically, feeling the way her name rolls on his tongue, in his mouth sticky with blood, "did ye count how many people I killed today?"
She shakes her head, grip tightening on his haori as if in disapproval. He chuckles lowly to himself, running a hand over her head.
"Yeah, don't do that. Ye can practise counting other things, just not dead people."