He’s a little hurt. While yes, he wanted to offer her a little bit of softness and protection…what he really wanted was reassurance. His home is under attack, he’s being forced to flee it. Indeed if she was not here, he may have joined the vanguard who he knows is doing guerilla tactics in the outskirts. But he does have his children to think about, and while it hurts deeply to leave his homeland like this…it’s something that must be done. Without her there, he may have stayed. He may have died or been captured. So for now, he’s focusing on trying to be grateful for that.
He looks at her, somewhat achingly confused, purple clawed hand pawing gently at her shoulder before recoiling, the schism of needs, thoughts, identities evident in his eyes. He doesn’t understand, though at least he understands that he doesn’t understand. But they do need to move…and things need to happen quickly before there’s no possible way for them to leave unscathed.
Szayel breaks into sonido. He knows that Nanao will follow as he heads toward the west exit. The conflict there is like a lightning rod and draws him, predatory nature sharpened by the feelings of crisis and protectiveness. He doesn’t even need to think about where he’s going—he simply moves, hunting instincts honed and amplified by maternal tinged rage.
When he gets there, some things he’d felt but not understood leave him frozen for a few minutes. The quincy officer is there, but he’s surrounded by arrancar—arrancar that are no longer pure and perfect as they once were, but fit with quincy crosses and hybridized. His anger is explosive and the sound he makes in return is indescribable, a growl and a scream, supersonic screech behind it from the extra set of vocal cords he possesses in his release. It’s strange, he doesn’t remember having them, but he looks down and sees his body changing. His wings are beginning to change color and shape. If he runs breath through both sets, he hears his original hollow voice, disguised by his human one.
His form is changing. It’s strange as he wasn’t fully sure what it would take to make him grow once again…but now, he understands. Those before him are lost causes now. Maybe he could undo it, but right now is not the time, and it is survival of the fittest. He makes sure that Nanao is out of the way, and then his rage powers the single most powerfully crafted Gran Rey Cero, iridescent and fiery pink focused power and then released.
The officer dodges, but some of his batallion isn’t so lucky. The Western Gate behind them is blown open wide destroyed so that the sun is gone and replaced by the beauty of the starlight. Bloodlust fills his aura and he grabs and rips and rends and consumes the mutilated beasts—a merger of opposites that shouldn’t exist. Heresy. A false compromise before the ‘final solution’. But the quincy…he wants there to be nothing left of. He’s too angry to think straight and he activates Gabriel without thought of the woman behind him, just as she’s shown clearly that *she* has no thoughts of *him.* He violates him with the long grey tentacle that forms at will from under his gown while he howls in delight of being able for once to *indulge*. Violation, followed by impalement that becomes forced impregnation, and then dissolution. Its freeing. So freeing, feeding the lower parts of his nature that he’s tried so hard to hold back. The man he wants to be for Rose…but right now he’s not here either and doesn’t know what Szayel will do to get to him.
He injects himself in and eats him alive, sucking out the energy, the knowledge, the life, the will, the very identity of what this being is. It’s a gross, organic process, desiccation of the host and he’s reborn, angry-proud, dripping from rebirth. He can’t bear to take in what’s left of the body into him, so the distorted corpse, he jumps on, malicious energy radiating from him. It breaks, shattering under his weight, before becoming nothing more than the sand at his feet.
He stands there on what’s now just blood covered sand, panting, harsh dry air through his raw throat. He doesn’t have full command of his own voice now, both sets trying to develop and rewire in his brain. Catching his breath is hard, but he’s still impressively powerful, man and monster as he steps into the moonlight that streams in through the broken gate.
“Lets go home,” he says, his honey smooth voice back. “I…I think that’s all I can give to you now.” But the extra set is triggered by his emotion and screeches behind it. “I can no longer give you what you want or ask for what I need.”
His body is reflexive, and now, his wings have morphed while he wasn’t paying attention to them. He begins to open the garganta and without realizing, halfway starts to fly.
Szayel keeps up his attempts at closeness for far longer than Nanao would have expected him to. Even at the centre, at his most vulnerable and needy, he wouldn’t have clawed at her as he does now. The action doesn’t tally with the fearsome creature which currently stands before her, Nanao thinks. If she wasn’t so overcome with everything this mission has become, he might have been able to tug on her heartstrings enough to to give in and give him what he wants.
She feels a flash of guilt once his face falls and he finally pulls away. It’s still not enough to sway her heart though. Can’t he understand what she’s been through? Surely he can understand why now just isn’t the time for this.
Her guilt eases as he breaks into Sonnido. Nanao follows him without a second thought, stepping into shunpo and following a pace or two behind. This is the kind of progress she needs right now. Anything that gets them where they’re going is far more use to her now than the affection Szayel seems to crave. Despite the horror of what he’s subjected her too, she still trusts Szayel implicitly, convinced that no matter what he will get them home. That alone helps to steady her and by the time they reach the gate, she’s more herself and able to focus on the way ahead.
The area is swarming with quincy by the time they arrive and Szayel does what he does without wasting any time. He rushes in while Nanao holds back, sensible enough to turn away and not look. It’s fortunate that none of them pay her attention when faced with the threat of Szayel. The change in Szayel doesn’t go unnoticed either, although Nanao fails to fully appreciate it considering the circumstances. The best she can do is stare at the iridescent pink light and gasp at the magnificent being that emerges without warning from the slaughter. He’d be truly beautiful, she thinks, if she could separate this form from the horror of what bought it about....
She offers a weak smile as he approaches, fully ready to offer complements and thanks once he’s close enough. Any desire to do so sinks once Szayel opens his mouth. His voice stays smooth as silk, his tone even and betraying little emotion. The words tell a different story. Nanao’s smile fades, unsure what’s bought this on or how to make it better. As much as she wants to return home, she’d rather not do it with him like this.
