This Sounds Like a Job For...[Hebika,JT]

[Douglas Everheart]

"Douglas-san, I have to admit to being somewhat confused.  Your resume is stellar, and your recommendations speak for themselves.  If anything, I'm a little concerned you're overqualified.  You could...well, honestly you could be working anywhere!  Why exactly did you choose this school?"

"There's too many reasons to really single one out, but we'll start with the obvious part.  This isn't about money for me.  I'd work for free if you needed me to.  I'll probably end up sinking more money into this school than they pay me over the course of the time I spend here.  I'm doing this because I believe in the power of a good education.  I'd like to meet your enterprising new students, to really see what the new generation is capable of.  I believe in giving back to the community."

"...Douglas-san, this is all fine and good.  But you..."

The principal of the school fidgeted in his seat.  There was really no good way to point out some of the burning questions he had, and in this situation it all felt completely wrong.  There was something inexplicably off about the situation, something about having a man who could probably have him fired easily sitting across from him, asking for a job as if it were the most natural thing in the world.  Was saying 'no' even an option when one stared into the face of a man this age?  A man who had gotten this far in the world of Wall Street?

"You are not from here.  Why would you wish to work in a place this far from your home country, Douglas-san?"

"I heard you guys get all the good anime a few years before America.  Thought I might get to meet some of the real big names in voice acting if I stuck around here.  As good a reason as any, right?"

"Douglas-san, you cannot be serious!  You moved this far from America so you could-"

"So I could -get away- from all that high-stress shit.  I've got investors in America, they e-mail me regularly.  I picked this city because the statistics led me to believe that there would be a good deal of problems I could solve in a short order.  I see a lot of children reported missing.  Runaways?  If so, no one has found them.  Why not set up some kind of trust fund to pay out to the families, for private investigators?  I see an inordinately high number of people that are in therapies.  Stories of sumo wrestlers with bazookas, and equally insane things I can only attribute to an epidemic of LSD or schizophrenia.  In either case, a more robust medical framework in this city could fix a lot of that.  It looks, to me, like money can solve all of your problems, in fact.  And I have no shortage."

There was a stunned silence, as the principal looked at him with a combination of disgust and anxiety, clearly wanting to rebuke the elderly man sitting across from him, and unsure if it would make any difference.  He settled for placing both hands on his desk, and then rising in one rapid motion, walking around the table, and then pointing out the window.

"Douglas!  You make it sound as if we're a third-world country!  We are not Rwanda or Syria or even Venezuala!  Karakura Town is a prosperous city, and if we suffer any such problems then it is no more or less significant than any of your American states!  While your desire to help us is welcomed, I cannot help but feel as if you are looking down on us as you do so!  Perhaps in America your money and reputation has gotten you a great deal, but this is not America!"

Douglas watched in silence for a few moments, his hands resting in his lap.  He hadn't moved for almost ten seconds, and he watched the principal's tirade with a quiet patience that made it seem like he'd expected that from the very start.  He rose slowly when they finished, his every motion projecting exaggerated caution and calm.  He seemed every bit the ailing octogenarian, struggling to maintain his dignity and composure despite his degenerative condition.  He even grabbed a cane that had been leaning against the side of the chair, leaning on it slightly as he sucked at his teeth.  The principal winced, for just a second, as he did so.

"I'm aware you aren't some war-torn wasteland.  That's why I'm here as an individual, instead of on television, lobbying for the government to intervene.  The statistics bear me out: Karakura Town has a problem.  Something that cannot be accounted for by saying it's the cost of business, or simply a first world problem.  Even Detroit doesn't have as many unexplained deaths, as many mysterious disappearances, as Karakura town.  Gun violence, drug use...but we know the -source-.  Here?  It all just seems to come from...thin air.  Something is not right here, and I can only assume one thing."

"Douglas-san, you cannot seriously expect-"

"Terrorists.  Or organized crime.  There is someone with an inordinate amount of time and resources in this city, and I can only assume that the best way to combat them is to have an even more inordinate amount of time and resources.  I'm retired, and I have no shortage of income.  Come hell or high water, I will find out Karakura Town's secret.  I would very much like to do so with your consent."

There was a second or two, before the principal bowed his head, almost trembling.  He walked towards the window, staring out it with an almost haunted expression.  Something in the principal's demeanor had changed when Douglas spoke, and he looked almost ten or fifteen years older.  The weight of running a school such as this one was showing already, and he spoke more slowly now.  Every sentence was carefully picked, clearly uncertain.

"Douglas-san.  I am glad that you are a canny person.  There is a very superstitious thread within this town.  For a moment I was concerned you were going to claim that this town, this...city.  Was haunted.  It is a conversation I must hear every day, from students and faculty alike.  The turnover rate in our school is...rather high, if I'm being completely honest.  A lot of our faculty will come to me complaining of sleepless nights, shot nerves, and any other number of distressing symptoms.  A few have even confessed to me that they have heard or seen ghosts on our campus.  It is most unbecoming for a place of learning, to have my faculty talking about the supernatural and the unverifiable as if it were worth serious contemplation."

Douglas nodded back, ever so slightly, and then spoke with a dry, silent confidence.

"I don't scare easy.  Believe me when I say that if I ran across a ghost, I'd handle it without issue.  You'd never hear so much as a peep.  I want nothing more than to keep your students safe, and help bring to light whatever is causing this city to tear itself apart."

"Douglas-san!  I cannot stress this strongly enough.  Our students are -safe-!  There have been no cases of disappearances anywhere near our campus!  The worst they worry about is the upperclassmen, and that is hardly a unique concern!  There are no-"

The principal's tirade was suddenly interrupted by the principal's door opening, and a pale-faced teacher popping his head in.  He was trying his best to maintain composure, but all the same his eyes told the true story.  He was terrified, and rightfully so: Douglas had felt his skin break out in goosebumps about two seconds after the principal had said the word 'stress', and he could feel the cloying presence of a hollow at this very moment.  He smiled coldly, and jerked his chin towards the principal.

"Go on.  If it's important."

"There is a student on the roof!  It looks as if she's going to jump!  She is speaking to herself!  Or..."

"I'll just see myself out."

Douglas waited for no response, before he began to shuffle slowly and purposefully towards the stairway leading up to the roof.  Already, he could hear the distant sounds of a wounded predator, clearly trying to scare off a threat.  Perhaps the principal was right, and the school was safe.  But it certainly wouldn't become -less- safe if there was a teacher on campus who could serve as an early warning system.

[Hebika Nara]

Ahhh, she had so missed her days in this school. Honestly it was a short commute from here to the college where Shizuka had been attending, it was almost all too easy. Plus she had needed to get into the groove of pretending to be a librarian, for various..... personal reasons. which were none of most people's business. And what better way to learn how to dress like a librarian than to actually be one? Of course, in reality, the source material lacked much that the imagination gave.

Rather than the thigh-length pencil skirts and bust-hugging blazers of pornography and other such materials. Hebika wore a simple long, hooded black dress, loose and very western to say the least. ever since she had cut her braid and let her hair become much shorter, it had come to be a bit more unsual. But with the...influx of foreigners in Karakura town, it wasn't too out of the ordinary as she walked around her library, peering over her reading glasses (Which she absolutely didn't need), in order to keep an eye on the students.

All the while she headed to the very back with an armful of returned books, reshelving them as she hummed to herself. Honestly it was a nice gig, part time at that. It was something to do when her duties in Xcution weren't in full swing. And truth be told, it also benefited the organization. Keeping an eye on the youths of karakura for any spiritual potential was something she'd been doing for a while.

ORIGINALLY she had set up shop at the College that Shizuka had been at. As the age at which powers awakened was usually just into adulthood. But with the heightening of the spiirtual concentration in Karakura, these days kids had their powers showing up earlier and earlier as more and more hollows flooded the area. Speaking off..... She had been in the midst of shelving when she had sensed it. A familiar reiatsu of a hollow.

She felt it approaching the school. No doubt in search of something to eat. And for just a moment, she allowed her spiritual pressure to be felt. She didn't flex it, but for just an instant, that STRONG power rippled out, and in addition to just about every spiritually aware kid in the school, the hollow BALKED at the feeling, suddenly stopping in its tracks and almost slamming into another building as it immediately changed direction. Hebika sighed softly as she could sense it crawling up the main administrative building.

That was no good... some of the students ate their lunch up there. If it was running from her, it may very well drive itself right into the path of the students while trying to flee from her. She set the books down and quickly made her way out of the Library, along with the other kids who had heard the odd scraping noise of the hollow's claws digging into the building. She, along with various other students would all watch as gouges appeared in the side of the building. Only unlike most of them, she could see what was doing it.

When that big, monster of a hollow got to the top of the building, it suddenly stopped and saw a girl on the very edge, trying to move away from it! In addition, several other students and teachers were trying to get her away from it. Mistaking her cowering away from the hollow as some sort of suicidal tendency as the hollow began salivating, drooling all over the rooftop as it momentarily forgot Hebika. Of course, she wasn't up at the scene, but she could tell things weren't going great.

She moved to the side, separating herself from the main area of the other students and faculty before she used a step tech. Air current. The wind around her manipulated as she extended her roots into the air, those soft, invisible reiatsu circuits that suddenly caused the air to SHUNT, propelling her far faster than any human could hope to see up to the rooftop. In that instant, she was suddenly up and to the side, dropping onto a portion of the roof that was opposite of the others in the group, supressing her spiritual pressure to confuse the hollow as she had the section of building with the stairs between her and the others.

This way, she didn't just appear in front of them. She could play it off as having just been here the whole time. She walked out int the open and glanced at the hollow, and then at the girl at the edge. For just a moment, she saw the look on the girl's face: Please see it. A deep need, a fear of that monster, and the worry that nobody else could see it. She desperately wanted to be free and even worse she probably thought she was going crazy.

But when she spotted that girl, she smiled, glancing from her, to the hollow, and then back. Silently, and subtly assuring the girl that she could see it as well. And she was pleased to see surprise, but even more important: Relief. What an adorable human. Seeing her, and from it's pposition, the hollow KNEW she hadn't been there only a moment before. Instinctively, it turned to her and opened up it's mouth. suddenly a lour RUSH filling the air, it's spiritual pressure SWELLING as a cero charged in it's mouth, immediately intent on obliterating Hebika.

In that moment, Hebika sent out a firm PULSE, a ripple of her reiatsu, as that cero stoped charging, twisted, and then plowed clean through the back of the hollow's head, condensing into an object. An object made out of spiritual energy, the Hollows' reiryoku. That object was a bird, a sort of cartoonish, sharp, needle-covered bird that promptly ended the hollow's life. Just as some more of the staff, and a man that Hebika didn't recognize, came out of the building.

The hollow collapsed onto the roof, making it vibrate slightly from the impace as it began gurgling and thrashing around. The girl on the edge of the roof immediately moved into the arms of the concerned teachers, asking to be let back into the school, which of cours,e she was. The staff were greatly glad to have her away from the edge, though one or two of them did look in the hollow's direction, simply because they could FEEL the roof tremble slightly from it's thrashing, or at least the floor was. The hollow wasn't nearly big enough to actually damage the building. but it was heavy enough for it's motions to be felt through the ground.

It was healing already, and Hebika frowned. If it could regenerate then it definitely was going to be a pain in her ass. Nobody would be able to see her bird, except for the spiritually aware, and it promptly landed on her shoulder as she glanced to the other adults. "What's all this commotion? She asked, sounding concerned and professional. The Principle, of course, immediately was relieved when he saw Hebika.

She did have a tendency to show up whenever these strange tendencies happened. And whenever she did, these strange occurrences tended to solve themselves. They had no idea that it was just her special ability, allowing her to dispatch hollows with very little evidence, and without so much as lifting a finger on her own behalf. All the same, the Principle had come to consider her a good luck charm. "Now that the poor girl's off the edge, we should probably head back into the school. It's terribly windy up here, and we don't want anyone being swept off the roof." She advised the rest of the staff.

Just about everyone would likely agree. After all, Karakura's freak gusts were legendary. Unaware that the shockwaves and wooshes of air were the result of spiritual battles, the forces that often shoved people off rooftops was often just attributed to freakishly strong winds. So at the mention of it, the faculty would rish down into the building for the most part, also no doubt worried to see if the girl from the edge of the roof was okay.

But as they did, Hebika herself spotted Douglas, and would notice the way he was. No doubt glancing at the hollow. It would be exceedingly easy for her to notice that his eyes actually lingered on the monster as opposed to simply passing through or over the beast, which still was struggling to regenerate itself. All the while Hebika stood calmly between the beast and the group fo staff and Douglas still up and on the rooftops.

She smiled warmly.

"I don't believe we've met."

[Douglas Everheart]

Douglas climbed the stairs with great speed and ease as soon as there were no witnesses: his cane was purely for show, and he even twirled it idly in his hand as he took the stairs three, sometimes four at a time. His eyes were sparkling with juvenile excitement as he bounded through the doorway to the roof, just in time to see a girl blow the back out of a hollow's head with some kind of glowing projectile. He said nothing, just slid to the side of the rooftop entry and waited for the other faculty to catch up. Once they did arrive, things started to go insane at breakneck speeds. The girl was rushed, sobbing, towards another portion of the roof, wrapped tightly in a blanket, and a woman who looked very much like a nurse was currently trying to calm her. And throughout it all, the librarian was next to the hollow that was still trying to recover.

Douglas took a few steps towards the ghost, his cane suddenly punctuating every movement with enough noise to turn heads. He stopped just over the edge of the rooftop, staring down for a few seconds, before twirling around and slamming the end of his cane through the eye socket of the struggling beast.  Its sudden attempts to recover or flop back onto its side were spontaneously turned into a staccato of limbs on the concrete, the sudden death throes of a creature unable to accept its fate.  There was an impossible amount of force there, enough to poke a hole in concrete. But Douglas covered the sound easily by shouting, eyes locked directly on the student.

"Young lady! What were you doing up here? They said you were planning to jump. To kill yourself. Why?"

"Is it not obvious Douglas-san? She was despondent over failing her examinations. -Again-. This is her-"

Douglas rose his hand abruptly, cutting off the principal as he stared at the girl, gesturing for her to speak. She flinched away, still watching with horrified interest as the hollow's purposeful repositioning became wild thrashing. She spoke, in a voice far calmer than Douglas had expected.

"I was chased up here. I was scared for my life, it wanted to kill me! I...if I jumped, it couldn't get me anymore!"

"D-Douglas! You cannot seriously be entertaining-"

"Oh, I'm hella entertaining. Wait for the Christmas party when I shake hands with Jack and feel like doing a few impersonations."

"But Douglas! This girl is a delinquent! She was likely smoking in the bathroom and began hallucinating!"

"All the more reason to find out who's selling it then."

He turned to the librarian, peering at her over her glasses, and then snorting softly.

"Whatever they're paying you, it's nowhere near enough. I'll talk to the district about doubling your funds."

[Hebika Nara]

Hebika paused as she noticed the man's traipsing about. Watching as he made his way over to the hollow and promptly ended it's life. Those blue eyes turned blood-red for just a moment from her reiatsu, but none of the other humans, the spiritually unaware, would see it. She tilted her head slightly, intrigued before she chuckled lightly and spoke. "Douglas, your name was? I'm not sure what you may have heard. But an increase in salary for a lowly librarian is entirely unnecessary. I'm quite happy with my wages as it were." She noted with a light and respectful bow of her head.

However, she then turned her attention to the principle for a moment. Lovely. Now this man was drawing unwanted attention to her. The last thing that she wanted. those eyes flicked back to him as she scanned him in a fraction of a second, her own reiatsu sense getting a basis for his abilities. The force with which he stomped his cane. The exertion he used. Signs of resistance in his body. How well his body handled the strain of the attack. It was all analyzed in a mere instant and stored up in her head.

He was weak. Strong for a human. But in the grand scheme of things he was weak. She didn't even sense any items on his person that had the spiritual werewithal to constitute a fullbring. Did he even have one? Probably not. But all the same, she lightly drummed her fingers along her opposing wrist. "With the issue handled, I think it would be best if we all left the roof, don't you think?" She reccommended and promptly made her way to the door and held it open.

She made sure that everyone headed downstairs, off of the roof. And of course, she would give Douglas a calm smile, still under her veil. And regardless as to wether he said soemthing, or tried to stop her, she would head downstairs as well. If he had anything to say to her, he would have to do so while she headed downstairs to the main section of the campus. It wouldn't be until she reached the library, presumably with douglas in Tow, that she would stop, just outside of the back entrance where she could pause and look at him.

She had quite a few things to say to the man. But she remained quiet, knowing very well that he probably had more he wanted to say at her. It would be disrespectful to not let the old man say his piece. Japan was such a fascinating place, she was rather glad she had been sent to this section of the planet. But all the same, she waited calmly, listening as she did. But already she had a few things going on in her head. Clearly he was some sort of willy wonka style old man. Of the dangerous kind.

He was talking about all sorts of ridiculous things. Making a spectacle of himself. And even worse, he had what felt like budding spiritual powers. A bit of a late bloomer wasn't he? Shouldn't he have had some sort of prowess at his age? Why did his abilities seem so immature and unrefined? Was he perhaps some sort of spiritual invalid? All the worse that this senile old man was making his discoveries so old. If he had any notions of being obvious about his abilities. Well that could present problems. Big problems.

[Douglas Everheart]

As a general rule, Douglas hated to quote old authors; it made him feel pretentious, and gave him the internal impression of one who was trying too hard to fall back on the achievements of others.  He'd certainly learned a lot from others across the years, and it would be foolhardy to say he'd gotten to his current position all on his own.  All the same, certain things just felt too easy to throw out there.  There were so many people who had already said things that he'd come to the conclusion to all on his own, but they'd lived long before him.  Even so, the quote sprang directly into his mind as he noticed the librarian noticing him.  She could be seen sizing him up, albeit very subtly.  Douglas, on the other hand, seemed completely uninterested by anything as the girl was marshaled back down stairs.  He could see the windswept hairstyle, the penetrating gaze that belied a wisdom well past her years.  He could see the certainty with which she replied when he brought up his insinuations of additional funds, and there was really no better response he could think of than old Nietzche.

He walked after her, cane tapping gently against the stairs in front of him, in a steady rhythm.  He glanced back up at her for a moment, raising a brow ever so slightly, and then shaking his head.  He didn't say anything at first, but his face did all the talking for him: There was a glint in his eyes, a set to his lips, that belied a sort of quiet certainty, a personal triumph that he was well aware of, and that she probably wasn't.  The whimsical delight in his face as he rose his brows was almost like that of a stage magician watching another, someone who had caught a fellow practitioner of a craft in the act.  Some people said that a picture was worth a thousand words, but this one was simply the same word, repeated ad nauseum.  It hung in the air unspoken, yet somehow holding a leaden weight, filling the silence as effectively as any spoken word could've.

Gotcha.

He didn't speak again for a couple minutes, just walking down the stairs with a level of care and patience that was almost infuriating to watch.  Every step was calculated, every movement careful not to disturb the spine too much.  It was, to many people, a picture-perfect example of how one would expect a man who was getting on in years, one who was well aware of his limits and was determined to bite the bullet all the same.  He had that white-knuckled grip on the cane he was carrying that made one imagine he was clutching it as tightly as he could, but it would've been easy to tell from anyone who had seen him using it just a moment ago that this was hardly a fraction of his true strength.  He took almost five minutes, moving in relative silence save a few grunts or pained exhalations here and there, before he made it to the ground floor.  He reached the bottom, stretching gaudily, and then tilting his head to either side.  There was a loud pop, that broke the silence for just a moment once more, and then he once more took off after her, ignoring her stare entirely.

As soon as they made it into the library, he set the cane just by the door, and spoke in the heavy southern drawl of someone who had grown up in the Bible Belt for a good portion of his life.  It was clear English, spoken at a rapid-fire pace that would've made anyone that wasn't a native speaker hesitate.

"Fucking incompetent dumbasses.  He thinks there's such a thing as a hallucinogen you -smoke-.  Are those weed propaganda videos still circulating here in Japan?  Jeeeezus fuck.  Don't know if that's a good thing or a bad one.  On the one hand, anyone that drug illiterate is easy to lead around by the nose.  Dump a few baggies of bleach in a drawer, that's bye-bye, or probation at the very least.  On the other hand, if he's that dumb, who's leading him around by the nose already?  Was she the one who cooked up the stupid drug angle?  Seems like it'd be up her alley, but that'd require -her- to know how human drugs work, and I doubt that one very highly.  Which would explain why he's that fucking dense.  Yeah, best to assume she's-"

He turned for a moment, looking at the librarian, and then tilting his head to the side.  He could see the visible confusion on her face, that tell-tale sign of someone who was trying their best to listen for anything familiar at all.  He smiled once more, but this time there was no humor in it at all.  His lips curled up, but his eyes remained cold and distant, filled with a venom that probably couldn't have been caught by any photograph.  He exhaled once more, a sigh that almost sounded smug, before clearing his throat and rising to his full height, addressing her.  His tone had suddenly taken on the cold, clipped edges of extreme formality, to the level that would've been near-archaic.  It was the tone you only ever got from someone who was murderously angry, and doing a damn bad job of showing it.

"Oh.  You thought, just because you were in the room with me, we were going to have a dialogue?  That you'd be part of the conversation?  I've already taken the liberty of filling in your side of the conversation.  It's always the same worn-out platitudes.  'Things man was not meant to know', 'for your own good', 'don't know who you're messing with', yadda yadda.  If you have something new to add to the conversation, I'll listen."

[Hebika Nara]

She honestly didn't really react much to him speaking in english. She could pick up a few words here and there, and based on pure context, a few words, and the fact that he was muttering to himself, she did have a general idea of what he was saying, or the realm of it. Something about drugs, so probably he was grumbling about what they had thought the girl from before was on. Was he some sort of police officer? Honestly he was a pretty awful undercover man if he was. No, a policeman would be far more subtle about all of this. And professional at that.

Once he was done, he took on a rather cold look about him, and she almost chuckled a little to herself. The man looked 70, spoke as if he were 400, and acted as though he were in his twenties. Ah, humans were such an amusement to say the least. The clear and blatant disrespect was met with a calm and relaxed smile to the older gentleman (Though in honesty she was probably older than him). "What is the reason you're in this school? I'm intrigued. After all, it's not often that someone comes here like this. And... Mr.douglas, one could say that you're a bit advanced in age yes?" she inquired in a very japanese manner, smiling warmly as she didn't directly and disrespectfully say that he was old, but was polite about it.

"All the same. I think it's time that you were honest. You seem like you plan on being very open about your powers. In a place of impressionable young boys and girls. As their librarian, I feel obligated to ensure that some thug has not made it a goal to insert himself into this place of learning." She noted lightly, and put a hand casually on her hip. She took a moment and gently put on a pair of black leather gloves and lightly flexed her fingers, as if to get a feel for them.

"You're not a normal human. Perhaps you think, that simply because the shinigami keep you safe, that I might be lenient. but if you intend on causing trouble. I don't have any trouble with dealing with you roughly. Your plans. Your intentions. All of it. I would like you to reveal to me that you will not be a threat to my precious students." She did not make any shifts in tone that would imply a request. This was, a gentle and polite command. Certainly this man was a lot more formidable than your average human. Possibly more than your average freshly-awakened fullbringer. But that didn't mean that he stood a chance against her.

[Douglas Everheart]

"Not nearly as old as you, I'll bet.  Besides, it's just my body that's advanced in age.  I got the soul of a 20-year old in this wrinkled old shell."

Douglas spoke the line with such ironclad certainty, without a change in expression, that it actually seemed possible for a second: that there had been some kind of mix-up in the cycle, and he had gotten his soul swapped out early or something.  Now that they were alone, he seemed to be shedding more and more of the hesitation, his movements becoming smoother as he walked around the room, picking up a book here, or drumming on a table with his fingers for a few moments.  It wasn't until she spoke the word shinigami that he turned his face to her, that vitriol and hatred present for a split second, before fading away just as quickly.  He tilted his head to the side, chuckling ever so slightly.

"Shinigami?  I haven't needed a shinigami to protect me in 50 years.  And here I thought they were the only ones that could hang out in those fake bodies for any extended period.  Don't tell me you're a hollow, then?  Cause if a hollow's talking to me about being a 'thug' and protecting her 'precious students', I might just die of the irony.  Besides, do hollows even -have- genders?  I get that deciding your own gender has been picking up among humans but...wait.  Was that -you- guys?  Did you start fucking around with your own genders, so you messed with us too hoping we'd all just write it off?  Man, that would be a fucking trip."

He defaulted back to a far more laconic form of Japanese almost immediately once he caught her own tone, walking towards a nearby bookcase and riffling through it, before plucking a book of the shelves, tossing it onto the counter.  It hit with a dull, unremarkable thump, as he ran his fingers along the spines for a few more moments, before tossing another one onto the table, right atop the other: it landed with uncanny accuracy, lying neatly atop the first.  As he continued to search for books, he spoke in an absentminded, almost whimsical tone, clearly more interested in what he was doing than actually answering her.

"1984.  Animal Farm.  Shooting an Elephant.  Hell of a track record for a human.  Lot of dystopian stories.  You a fan of Orwell?  Maybe more of a Pratchett type?  Or do you like the Xanth books?  I'd really like to know, miss librarian.  What books do you consume in your free time?  You a fan of the real crime novels?  I'd consider them as great as the fiction stories, except they read a lot more fucking scary when you know what's lurking behind the scenes.  Jonestown?  Did the shinigami -protect- those sad fucks?  Where were you September 11th, 2001 when you heard?  If you need to take more than a minute to remember, you'll never pass for fucking human.  Is there seriously not a -single- Butcher book translated?  Hell, I'll make that my first club activity once I get settled in.  Start an English book club."

He turned back towards her, his entire expression exuding overwhelming calm and composure, a strange comparison to her own spring-wound tight expression, making it seem as if he were already in absolute control of the situation.  He could sense it perfectly well, could tell from the way things had gone with the hollow.  She could probably punch a hole in his chest as easily as she had that hollow's throat, and he could do precious little to stop her.  All the same, he continued to speak as if it were the most natural, obvious thing in the world, as if she hadn't just made threats to destroy him.

"I don't need to be open about my powers, when every student around here knows the teachers are fucking ostriches, with their heads stuck in the sand.  Ignoring the obvious, coming up for excuses that sound extremely fucking lame even to my ears.  They'll come to me, talking about all the weird shit they've been experiencing of late, all the impossible things their parents and their teachers and their neighbors say can't be happening.  They come to you a lot, don't they?  They talk to you, because you listen.  And you never judge them, or tell them they should consider therapy.  They're so excited to have someone who doesn't nullify them, they don't even bother to pay close enough attention to wonder if -you're- part of the spooky shit, yourself.  You want to know my plans?  Same as yours.  This is a big school, and you're one person.  Probably have a huge backlog of kids wanting to bend your ear.  Difference is, they actually -are- my students.  Because I grew up watching TV, and I have over 10,000 karma on reddit, and I know all the Fortnite dances.  It's the little things that matter in the end, but the short answer is this."

Douglas finally shifted his stance, ever so slightly, hands dropping to his side.  He seemed relaxed, at home with the violent atmosphere, used to the tension in a way that many people would've attributed to Yakuza, or ex-military, or any other number of highly dangerous organizations.

"Don't you dare fucking insinuate you have any more right than me to help these children in their time of need.  Don't you pretend you're doing them any good if you walk them out those doors, making them doubt their own fucking sanity.  And don't you even attempt to tell me that humans aren't already perfectly capable of deducing the presence of some Big Brother conspiracy even if they can't see it with their own eyes and ears.  So if you want to know why I'm here?  I'll quote a little hidden gem of knowledge, to that one.  I'm a teacher, same as you.  Or anyone else.  But I'm teaching a very different lesson.  Should you meet God on the road...kill him."

[Hebika Nara]

Well. This man was certainly...... unusual. why did most humans have to be so weird? He apparently had quite a lot to say. And that was putting it lightly. The man had taken the opportunity to be on the metaphorical soapbox as it were. Preaching about how young he was. Which at no point did she ever entertain. And then of course he decided to go about scanning the shelves unnecessarily. She rolled her eyes just a little and sighed, watching as books that SHE would have to re-shelve were tossed onto the table haphazardly.

To make......what? She didn't even make not of any lucid point among his drawling. He seemed to be perusing about Shinigami being behind a lot of events in history. And surely no doubt they were, but as he swung into the kids themselves, she lifted a brow. So he thought himself some sort of messiah. That certainly explained his eccentric behavior. His own visions of grandeur seeming to have driven this odd persona and even more peculiar notion that he was some sort of savior for the children.

"I think you need your medications adjusted, sir. You're clearly distraught. All of this talk of the truth and understanding and lies. The children will be fine on their own. They will come to learn about reality at their own pace. Shoving their face into it will only traumatize them. Which is why you will be leaving this school." She noted and walked in, gently grasping the old man's bicep and nodding toward the exit of the campus calmly. Those leather gloves tensing a little.

"I'll inform the principle that you had business to attend to. That you had some emergency, and that you retracted your application onto the staff of this school. I'll be removing you from the premises, and you won't be returning. In the event that you choose to ignore this warning. I'll begin breaking your limbs until the message is made clear. If you continue. The limbs will be removed instead of broken. And well, if you can continue to bother my students as just a torso, then I will be very impressed indeed." She chuckled lightly, still sounding so kind and patient and warm despite the actual words she was speaking.

She remained her respectful tone and word use. She was being soft, and gentle about all of this, outside of the threats. But that was simply to motivate him. She would prefer not to have to destroy him, but unfortunately his thoughts and ideals were a bit too radical for her tastes. And Xcution didn't need the headache of this moron starting some sort of uprising among the students here. She'd have to inform Shizuka, incase he, or any students he managed to get a hold of, started propagating these insipid views.

[Douglas Everheart]

Douglas met her gaze for a few steady moments, that same easygoing sense of impending violence, as if he were perfectly happy smashing something with something else, and probably hadn't already done it for a very good reason.  He knew already where this was going, the moment she walked in close to take a grasp of his hand.  He sucked at his lip for a moment, making a faint ruminative sound, flexing the muscle there ever so gently; enough that it could've been a sign of an impending strike, or just a nervous twitch.  He had little real expression while she laid out her threats, blinking slowly.  There was no fear there, no real emotions to be sensed whatsoever.  He finally spoke, in a tiny, almost breathy whisper.  Only a few words, but they carried with them a depth of pain and detachment that was almost heart-wrenching.

"Wouldn't you be distraught, too?  If someone brought them up in a conversation out of the blue?  I was fully prepared to hear you out.  Apparently, you can't say the same."

He made no attempt to move, simply glancing down at the hand on his arm.  Her grip wasn't that strong, all things considered: He was fairly confident he could break it, but he had also seen what had been done to that hollow before he arrived.  She was probably a less physically-oriented opponent, someone who could kill him either from a distance or up close, and do it without ever breaking a sweat on her own.  It was nothing unexpected, but it still made Douglas's hackles rise just a bit.  She was clearly trying her best to remain calm and pleasant as she made her threats, and in a way that made it even worse.  It simply served to drive home the essential inhumanity lurking just beneath her skin.  Even so, he took a deeper breath, clearly doing his best to remain composed.

"I could lie, you know.  I could say whatever you want to hear.  You could walk with me, holding my hand, right up to the principal, and tell him I'm feeling ill.  Tell him I have to go back to America in a rush, never to return.  Then I could die my hair, get a face lift, pay a few guys to make a fake ID, and be back in a few weeks to apply all over again.  You'd probably sniff me out, and we'd have this conversation all over again.  Or you could lie.  You could tell me to go home safe and sound, forget we ever met, have a drink or two, and then have someone tail me to my hotel room.  I'm an old man, it wouldn't even take much to convince a coroner I slipped down the stairs getting ice for my room or something.  So here we stand, at an impasse.  You don't trust me, because you think of me as some unhinged old zealot, a guy incapable of reasoning.  And I don't trust you, because I think of you as a compatriot to a tyrannical regime who answers to no one.  This is a place of higher education, not a goddamn war-torn wasteland."

He reached down, ever so slowly, his hand pressing against hers.  A smile crossed his face, once more lazy and insouciant.  Without much urgency or force, but with a gentle insistence that almost would've brought to mind a man trying to pull out a thorn in a lion's paw, he moved to pull her hand away, placing it back by her side.  Whether or not she allowed him, he had no intention of being the one to throw the first punch here.  Certainly, he had come here prepared to meet some resistance, and this was more than a small amount.  If only she hadn't said the goddamn -s- word when she did.  He was already on edge, and then she'd come along to complicate things even more.  But he smiled all the same, and then pointed to the table.

"Compromise.  That's how humans handle problems like these.  Not by trying to destroy a person's life.  Can you at least let me explain my point a little better?"

[Hebika Nara]

Perhaps she had made some sort of mistake along this path? She had tried so very very hard to do the right thing here. But then, her feelings of duty were not from a place in her heart. No, that was reserved for a very specific individual. No she did not love her students. Not in the way that humans loved one another. She loved her students in the way a woman loves the spiders that eat the bugs that would otherwise hurt her garden. The way one might love the bees that keep their flowers pollenated.

Hers was a passive, unattached sort of love, and it was from that place in her shallow hear that this threat had originated from. But now she felt lost. KLike a failure. She felt as if perhaps she had made some mistake in these last few seconds. A Mistake in not expressing the gravity of this situation properly. A Mistake in her demeanor that had for some reason inclined Douglas to think that FOR ANY REASON, he could ever touch her. It was a sad sad day when she could not get her own point across.

True, she could have simply blamed this man's errant stupidity. But no that was the easy way out. She should have been more clear. A human would have hesitated in doing what she did next. But then, humans had that strange, weird respect for life. And Hebiika did not respect this man's life in the slightest. He was just in her way. So while he was on the way to touching her hand, before he even got remotely close to her, she used her ability. Not that he would be able to tell. She was more than capable of controling the flow of her reiatsu, and with no major alterations, there was nothing to notice.

When he grasped her hand, she narrowed her eyes, and still he would feel nothing, just that same confused and undertain look, the look of questioning her own decisions. Of course, he would likely assume that it was just her thinking about his offer. But in truth, she was wondering what she could have done to keep this filthy hobo of an old man from touching her. In the next instant, her grip on his hand tightened. Or rather. Her Glove's grip. The gloved hand he had grasped suddenly gripped him with a strength well outclassing his own. But of course, he would just assume that she was using her real strength.

No sane person would assume that it was the glove's strength.

Truly yours is a dizzying mind. You say to my face that you intend to just lie to me. and you think that things are just going to be fine? If I cannot trust you, then I'm simply going to have to break you. She sighed, and that glove CLAMPED down, promptly using enough force to break all of the bones in Douglas's fingers as she watched him, on her guard, expecting him to try something.

-25 Reiatsu, 5% HC to make 'Bad Deal' Level 2 Entity (850 SP)

SPOILER: Click to show

{Bad Deal's Stats}
Strength:400
Speed:150
Sppr:100
RS:50

La/DA:

Instinct:100
Senses:50
ES:0
HE:0

HC: 95%
Reiatsu: 2975/3000 Reiatsu

[Douglas Everheart]

"Mmmm....yeah, yeah that's a broken finger.  Fuck's sake, been a good few weeks since I felt that.  Bit disproportionate to the nature of the crime, but I guess I shouldn't expect anything else.  You zero in on the parts you want to hear, dismiss the rest.  I shouldn't be surprised, honestly.  This is exactly -why- this school needs someone like me around."

He glanced down at her, and then at the gloved hand that was squeezing his own fingers.  He sucked at his own teeth, wiggling the rest of the fingers gently, carefully.  It didn't feel like a true break, or a compound fracture, or actually much of anything.  He couldn't receive any input from the hand itself, which didn't really move so much as twitch like a stomped cockroach as he tried to get a response.  He knew that it was the endorphins running through his body, mitigating the pain of the initial damage.  He knew just as well that it would last all of a couple minutes, once the swelling started, and the body was able to finish its diagnostics of that appendage.  He could sense that she hadn't really been attempting to kill him or destroy him, simply trying to get a message across, to take back control of the conversation.  And right now, Douglas could sense the disdain and disgust in every fiber of her being as she gripped him.  He rose his other hand lazily, pointing it at the door.

"You don't even care about witnesses.  I'm not going to say any of that trite bullshit like 'don't you know who I am', because you either don't care or would take the opportunity to go on some creepy monologue about my life.  So instead I'm going to assume that you have the backing of someone influential enough to make me disappear.  So let me counter your statement by pointing out that -you- were the first one to make it clear you couldn't be trusted.  As is, right now, yeah.  I see no reason to go along with any of your little schemes.  Blackmailers, bullies, tyrants...they all work the same.  Appeasement isn't an option.  So no, I'm not going to walk out that door just because you tell me to.  Or because you break fingers.  Or even because you remove arms.  Prosthetics are pretty fucking advanced these days, I'll get by."

He clenched his other fist, biting his lip through the pain her glove had ingrained into his body.  It didn't seem like an aggressive action, but a patient one.  The reflexive motion of someone trying their best to grit their teeth and bear with an intolerable situation.  He met her gaze with steely resolve, and a quiet sense of rebellion.  It wasn't something proud, or ostentatious, like a child standing up to a bully.  Nor was it something meant to intimidate or unsettle.  He simply looked at her with the kind of certainty that came from a man calculating odds and returns at a staggering speed.  He'd already determined how many arms and legs it would take to get what he wanted, and he was fully prepared to pay the price.  This was the look of someone who'd managed to survive walking down the streets of some of the world's most dangerous places, and made it out ahead.

"I hate repeating myself.  I really, truly do.  When I have to repeat myself, it reminds me that most people aren't worth giving cogent arguments in the first place.  From this point on, any time you ask me a question I've already answered, I'm just going to not reply.  That said, just this once...I'll make an exception.  They aren't your students.  They aren't mine either.  They're people.  And you just proved you have no issue ruining a person's life to get what you want.  You asked me to talk, and broke my hand when you didn't like my answer.  Think about who's the thug here.  Think about how many of 'your students' might be watching right now.  Is this how you'd react when one of your students became a threat to another?  How long before you call the upperclassmen in here and tapdance on their sternum until someone -dies-?  What are you really protecting here; the students?  Or your perfect image of what a school is supposed to be like?"

He met her gaze, tears welling up in his eyes, as he once more gestured towards the hallway the students were walking down, and the small groupings of kids, chatting to one another as, not even a thousand feet away, a man was being subjected to some of the most horrifying tortures mankind could imagine.

"Did you go to school, before you came here?  Was this your first experience with our little mayfly methods in educating our young?"