The Hour of Ghosts (Luca & Raph JTT)

[Raphael Laurent]

At this point it was all that he could do to stand, despite his legs failing him faster and faster, he wouldn’t be able to stay up much longer and when he felt, he would get sliced like cold cuts. He heard something, something really loud and it sounded like Luca. Had…what happened? He couldn’t see and…then there was another sound, one that rang in his ears and as he fell to the ground, the reishi landed beside him, dropping to the ground and then dissipating. Raph’s whole world was upside down, and spinning…and blurry. He could barely make out the form of Luca as he fell to the ground. Wh… Why, though? You…won, idiot… S-Stand up… Yet even still, he couldn’t help but feel weak. He himself couldn’t stand… How could he possibly expect Luca to?

“L-…c’mon…Luca, stand…up… You… You won… You should…should stand up…” Raph, who was lying on his back, looked over at Luca and kept making gestures for him to stand, before trying to roll over onto his stomach for a few seconds. When finally he’d flipped over onto his stomach, he looked over at, what he thought, was Luca. “Luca…look I just wanted to…say that nothing that I said was actually your fault. None of…how bad I felt was cuz of you…” He coughed a bit. “But…at the very least… W-We learned some new…tricks… When we…get some rest… Tell me about the rest of your crazy idea… And maybe why you feel like y…” He took a breath. “Why you feel like…you need power from the Seireitei in order to be strong…” Then he exhaled and allowed himself to simply fall back, panting. “I… I think I’m gonna need a minute… I need to rest… I at least catch my breath and let my emotions catch up to the rest of me… Figure out what the fuck we both did after that… Sound good to you, winner?”

[Akira Hinosai]

Luca waited for the bliss of unconsciousness to take him, but it never did. Raph was going to collapse any second, so if there was a better time to lay down and enjoy the post-fight silence, he was going to take it. The stars were out, and were pretty as ever. Even resting on the concrete, bleeding, he could appreciate them. The moon had turned the cityscape into a tapestry of blues, silvers, blacks, and greys. My home. Luca thought. It was the only home he'd ever really known. Raph had fallen too. Unconscious. Guess this means I won. As if to answer his thoughts, Raph spoke up. Luca was somewhat embarrassed Raph was awake to see him collapse. "Yeah. Sure." Luca wasn't mad, nor was he sad, but this feeling of emptiness and lethargy was foreign to him.

Luca's legs and back still hurt, but he was thankful for that. It means I'm not dying. Besides...pain makes me stronger. He was beyond the strength and endurance of normal humans, and his wounds were surely not too deep. He'd be fine just to lay down and think for a bit. Raph wanted to talk after they got rest, for now, Luca could just rest and think next to his friend and rival. He placed his arms beneath his head and thought of words to say, fights to win, and some other third thing as he waited for sleep to take him, or Raph to ask him for his explanations, whichever came first.

[Raphael Laurent]

Luca seemed much more pensive, after their fight, and Raphael did his best to remain quiet so that Luca could try and get his thoughts sorted. His own breathing was shallow, but that was more for how much he’d exerted himself in the last several minutes, he wasn’t used to this much activity, nor the feeling of using up this much energy. Raph looked up at the sky, as he could only assume Luca was doing now, and watched the stars above, while sucking in deep breaths of air to slow his heart down and get cells working correctly again. It was a peaceful night, especially now that their blasts and light show had ended.

He raised a hand up and looked at it, unsure of what the hell that last thing that he’d done was. He’d never done anything like that before and it had felt like he was pulling on a part of his soul that he’d never known existed: a much darker part. In a way it scared him, but in another way, it excited him. It was as much a part of him as the laser was but it was another kind of power. He’d felt energy like that of a hollow and those stupid lasers that they used. Luca’s response seemed a bit depressingly dismissive, but the two of them had done a lot of work.

You won so why do you sound so depressed about it? Raphael simply stared up at the stars for a few seconds, trying to peace together the insane growth rate that the two of them had had. Luca and Raph had grown by leaps and bounds, in fairly short order, Luca just a bit faster than Raphael. But he felt a lot better than he had in a long time. The floodgate of emotion finally being opened and emptied left him feeling relieved again, like a long meditation session.

Raphael laid there for a few more seconds, staring up at the stars. “When you say you want Shinigami power, what do you mean? You mean like those weird…swords that they use?” He hadn’t meant to say it so tactlessly, but he couldn’t think of any other way to put it, those zanpakuto were weird and gave him the creeps, though that could’ve been just who he was. Maybe he was the one person that didn’t really like them.

[Akira Hinosai]

"No, no, it's not like that. Well maybe it isn't...Their swords are like our fullbrings, and I already have mine. But don't tell me you haven't considered this. We're humans, and we've got souls, apparently. Soul reapers are souls. There's really not much difference from a metaphysical sense. So we pretend to be soul reapers, sneak in, and get trained by them, learn about them, and leave. I know I guy who says an Arrancar trained him, but I'm sure as hell not going to Hueco Mundo. I don't have a death wish just yet. This is...kinda like that. Fullbringers...humans...We're on the bottom of the supernatural foodchain. You know that, right? That's why I have to purge myself of that weakness. I have to evolve." Luca didn't expect Raph to understand. He didn't expect anyone to, which was why he was bypassing any official UE protocol. He had to do this. There could be no fear in his mind. He had to take this next step into the unknown and extraordinary, elsewise, everything he sacrificed, his entire life would be for nothing.

[Raphael Laurent]

Raphael listened to Luca intently, nodding in understanding of where his friend was coming from. They did TECHNICALLY have souls, but it was the way that the soul was. Raphael had considered things like what Luca was suggesting, but only from a philosophical, and hypothetical, frame of mind. He’d never really considered anything like this in an applicational sense. But perhaps that was because that was the kind of person Raphael was. Luca, on the other hand, had this insatiable drive to be stronger and to be, at least from how he was talking, somehow more than human. Of course, Raphael wasn’t entirely sure that the same metaphysical laws applied to them as did to Shinigami, but he understood the gist of what Luca was saying.

The idea was to sneak into the Soul Society and…what, live there? For a few months or days or weeks? Learn from them? What was the point of that though? Their literal essence was different than the two fullbrings. They had gone through the filtering essence of the soul cycle while the two humans had not! Though the mentioning of being trained by an arrancar fascinated him. Then again I was trained by a quincy, so I guess it’s not beyond the realm of believability…

“I get what you’re saying, but to be honest there’s no guarantee that we’ll even be able to learn any of the abilities from them, right? Not to mention that, but on top of this training we’ll need to get this way to the Soul Society, as well as finding disguises as well as the weapons. Plus if they have any way of detecting our energy signatures there then we’ll need some way to disguise ourselves so that we don’t feel like fullbringers…” He then heaved another sigh, that amount of exertion apparently still a little much for him. “I’m not saying it’s a bad plan, or unfeasable, but we need to do some preparations before we head in there, ya know?”

[Akira Hinosai]

As Raph spoke, Luca stirred, pushing himself to his knees and then sitting with his knees as close to his chest as he dared. "Ok, yeah. We can buy some shitty black kimonos, and some imitation katanas. Plus, I'm basically already an expert on hiding my spirit energy. I'm UE's infiltration specialist for a reason." He made that last bit up, but he was stealthy. He could even control and mask his energy if he wasn't using any of his reiatsu. That was...something at least. "Ok, so we buy some shit...Hey Raph you've got money, right?" Luca looked over at Raph with one of his winning smiles. Luca was a lot of things but wealthy wasn't one of them. Sure, he had enough to not die, and to spend money of leisure, but all of this was a tad bit beyond what his pocketbook could handle. He was more than willing to borrow or steal if it meant he didn't have to work a real job for any period of time. That kind of thing was well beneath him. He was made to kick ass, not wait tables. 

[Raphael Laurent]

Raphael pushed himself up and back into a sitting position, and listened as Luca went on about what they would do to prepare, and that he was an “expert on hiding his energy”. Raphael watched him for a few seconds, confused. What in the hell did he mean that he was an expert? It didn’t really make much sense, based on what Raph had experienced. He watched Luca a bit longer, even more confused, as he said he was UE’s infiltration specialist. That made him a little concerned, if it was true, but he had an odd feeling that it wasn’t entirely true. Or maybe it was. Kazura HAD described that he was a little low on manpower, recently…

“Do I have money?” Raphael watched him for a few seconds and then shook his head, rather vehemently. “Uhm, no. I was working at Amazon, for a little while in order to stay afloat. If we’re going to get some of this stuff… Then we should probably get some jobs…or something like that. At least, after some rest. Do you have any ideas?” He looked over at Luca, leaning on his elbow, and hoping that Luca had some kind of good idea to make some money.

[Akira Hinosai]

"Aw damn it." Luca really didn't want to work a real job. Some part of him cursed fate for dictating that he would soon have to if he wanted to get stronger. Sure, he could try and steal money, but the last thing he needed was a criminal record. Getting convicted in Japan would mean extradition and Luca sure as shit wasn't living the life of a fugitive. If only Raph was rich, but alas, he was only a recovering wage slave. There was nothing that could solve this problem with minimal risk besides working a job. "Do we have to?" Luca whined, though Luca knew the answer to his question. "Honestly, it's completely unfaaaaair!"

It was his own plan that was going to force them into this, but that didn't mean he had to like it. "Well, since it's my plan, that means I get to pick the jobs for us." What Luca didn't say was that he didn't entirely trust Raph to find jobs that were suitably not soul crushing, or at least not as soul crushing as they could be. The last thing Luca wanted to do was some bullshit data entry position...or whatever Raph did with computers.This was absolutely not a point he'd back down from. "Yeah, ok, I'll find us something tomorrow. I'm bleeding from multiple places and I expended like half of my energy in that fight... And you nearly passed out yourself! I think we both deserve at least a few hours of sleep before we learn what stupid job we have to do. I promise I''ll find something not too boring...maybe one where we meet hot chicks!"

Some part of Luca was feeling better, but that was soured by the whole job thing. "Raph...I don't suppose you're tired, right?" The training was over, and there was little keeping them together if Luca wasn't finding a job until after he got some sleep. "Do, uh...You wanna stay here with me...just for a bit longer?" Just asking that felt wrong. Luca figured he should leave, but there was something about being with Raph he wasn't keen to give up. He didn't want to plunge back into the depths of solitude, and was willing to make some stupid heartfelt plea. Raph was infuriating sometimes, and he was just as much a rival to Luca was he was a friend, but Luca enjoyed being with him. He hadn't gotten close to many people, but with Raph... they understood each other, which was an odd feeling, but not a bad one. Luca was terrible at sappy moments, but after everything, he just wanted the moment they shared to go on just a little longer.

[Raphael Laurent]

Raph chuckled a bit when Luca swore and whined about having to get a job, but he knew as much as Raph that if this plan was to have any chance of success they’d need some actual money. Raphael nodded as Luca whined about if they had to, though he hadn’t even needed to do that. Luca knew, just as Raph knew and thus they would have to get actual jobs. Raphael wasn’t too enthusiastic either. He remembered having to work with tons of people, ignore the bitchings and bickerings of bosses that never really understood what your department was actually supposed to do…the whole shebang.

“You’ll find us something tomorrow? That fast? Geez, maybe you should start working as a temp service person. Ya know, find jobs for people that don’t have ‘em.” And he chuckled, but stopped shortly after he stopped cuz of how much it hurt just to laugh. Holding his sides, he just groaned a bit and rolled over. Eventually, when it stopped hurting, he listened more intently to Luca, and shook his head, laughing, as his friend mentioned “meeting hot chicks”. “Alright, but if we meet any then they’re gonna be attracted to you, and will let me just stand by in peace.”

He looked up, as best as he could. “I mean… I feel like I’ve just run a mile while carrying… two boulders on my back. So, yeah I’d say I’m pretty damn tired. Drained emotionally too, so don’t think I’ll be gettin’ up anytime soon…” He stretched a bit and used soul command on the cement below him, what little he could muster, to make the cement a bit more cushiony. “Luca, dude, I am…exhausted. I don’t mind staying here, even if just to rest my bones and muscles a bit longer.” Then he winced and placed a hand tenderly over his stomach. “Oooh… Not to mention this whole you tried to put in me. Mean ass attack, by the way.”

[Col Arana]

71 paragraphs between both of you! That's 355 TP to both participants!