Your loss, my gain [Private/Itami]

[Honma Kotone]

Spoiler

Hidden away in a shy part of the Hospital, a ward long forgotten, homes the mischievous and twisted experimentations of Unohara Kasa. Of course, the blue prints of this section of the Hospital were completely removed and long erased from time. Even the people who knew about this ward were too long forgotten; guess where they ended up? Well, you get the idea what happened to any information regarding this section of the hospital, yes? The only entrance to this hidden ward was located within Kasa's own office.

Late during the night, where only a few night nurses hobbled around, Kasa entered with his soon-to-be Queen; Itami. They easily slipped into the darkness of his office and then were seemingly swallowed whole by the overcasted shadows. A strange technique developed by Kasa, perhaps? Who knew how it was even activated? He and Itami would appear at the end of a dimly, custard lit corridor; the wall behind them had no door, no way to enter the ward other than to be whisked away by the shadows. "Itami-san, can you smell that?" The smell of sizzled flesh, and with a tinge of salt in the air, one with very attuned senses would feel pressured by an invisible fist.

The yellow lights seemed steady. The corridor had many closed doors, about eight in total, but one in particular would cause their attention to be prized. At the opposite end of the corridor, a blue door hummed with activity. Kasa tightened his coiled grip on the bandaged hand and looked towards her dirtied, plastered face: "Are you ready to become something much more?"

 

[Kokomo]

The medical chief. There could be no doubt in her mind when she was with the medical chief, correct? The tile on the floor was familiar; it was always so cold she could feel it through the bandages. The heat from the artificial lights above her head made her black hair hot, and her lips moisten. Her hand was being held by the medical chief who lead her through the halls as though she would get lost without his help. Those who are ugly are lost. Those who are lost are ugly. He who did not understand beauty, did not understand life. The question was if these philosophies were really right. Itami was forced to base her appearance off of the way people reacted to her. They whispered as though she could not hear them. They spoke of burns, craters, and sickening marks. They spoke of how it would be better for her to cover up the scars. She made them sick to their stomach.

So she bandaged her body. Itami didn't want to upset people or make them gag--it wasn't right.

They made their way into an unfamiliar room, that Itami assumed was his office based by the way it smelled, but they entered another door which lead somewhere even more surreal. For a second, Itami thought she was in a dream. The sound of the humming lights suggested it was older and not very well taken care of, and the entire room smelled sickly--like someone had set people on fire. Tens and tens of people.

Itami knew what burning flesh smelled like. For a second, she feared it was her, and that she was on fire again. Her brain triggered the memory, watching the hurling cyclone of fire hurdle towards her, spinning and spitting out flames of fury. The way her father screamed for her to move out of the way. The burns did not hurt, they never did. Her nerves were singed on the spot--but the smell was sickening.

"...Y-yes...." Itami answered his question to if she could smell it. Her stomach churned at the smell. The enhancement of her nose made it so acute, she felt as though she needed to empty the containments of her stomach. Doors closed behind them, over and over, and Kasa's hand squeezed her hand and pulled her towards him. She could feel his eyes on her. She nodded again, her right arm still limp, and the right foot dragging slightly for balance.

"A pu-urpose....for...me...." Her breathing was still hoarse and unsteady. Each word was a struggle for her weak lungs, and she had a hesitant and shaky voice. Itami was uneasy...

But she wanted to be beautiful.

She wanted to be the queen.

To inspire envy.

 

[Honma Kotone]

The Unohara would remain quiet because he felt more pleased to be in the company of someone much mentally weaker than himself. Itami was a woman who selfishly desired beauty; which didn't make her a bad person, but rather an easily manipulated person. It was because of this fact that Kasa enjoyed her company - he desired to make this woman into his sword and shield. "Remember this putrid smell, it is what your senses will grow accustomed too over the period of our... odd relationship, my dear." Kasa would step forward, his heel clunking through the empty corridor, taking Itami with every step.

And it would be at that moment that a weak call for help would sound from the a closed room. It was labelled with a number, the numbers of these rooms extended to 13, and this was number 4. The girlish cry for help would cause Kasa to tighten his grip on the his bandaged bride's hand, and grin fiendishly. "Oh, marvellous," He said with an upbeat, but terrifyingly cold tone, "It's time to meet one of your..." He struggled for a moment to find the words capable to describe the meaning behind the owner of said cry "Let's just call them your children." Kasa shook Itami happily as he urged her closer to room number four. He opened the door and moved inside, where the smell of rotten flesh, urine stains and low moans would haunt the coldest of humans. Inside of this large room, like any typical hospital room which would home recovering patients (beds, really), there were twelve beds all with a 'patient' on them. Kasa had strapped these children to the beds, hooked them up to machines which would feed them like clockwork, and left them there to suffer. Some of them had passed away but other were frighteningly alive in such disgusting conditions.

"Some of them will be helping you obtain your beauty, my dear." The Unohara would stand behind Itami and place his hands onto her shoulders; squeezing his grip against her bandaged flesh. "Aren't you going to say hi?"

 

[Kokomo]

The smell would be easily remembered. It was the smell of all that is disgusting in the world compacted into one foul sense. The sound of Kasa's feet making cluttering sounds in the corridor echoed painfully through her ears. The world was so quiet and so tense that it was as though each moment of silence was deafening. His hand gripped on her's, the skin smooth and palpable to her deformed and sizzled skin. Had she been able to feel it, she might even of held it back. But alas, it was nothing but emptiness to her charred nerves.

A call for help had Itami stopping in her tracks as her head turned in the direction of the cry- behind the door that they were near. Kasa's voice was menacing, but oddly soothing to the mummified monster. He called the cry a child, her child, and claimed there were more. His voice suddenly having a chipper sound to it as he opened the door, leading her inside, and shutting it. He began to speak, but Itami could not hear him. Her head went light, as her acute sense of smell exploded all at once. Death, decay, rot, urine, blood, and the sounds of moans and cries of pain rocked her brain back and forth as her hand gripped his. The sound of her voice, beckoning her to say 'hello' was foggy and lost as the woman's eyes rolled back behind the bandages, and the 6'2" beast collapsed backwards onto the floor. Her head making an awful smack on the ground as the overwhelming smells choked her into the darkness.

[OOC: Uh. To be honest, I can't really go any further. -frowns at the short post-]

 

[Honma Kotone]

Unohara Kasa, Medical Chief of Sunagakure, noted Medical Ninja had came to a very intelligent conclusion: Itami had fainted.

Kasa rolled his eyes but kept a very disturbed smile clinched over his face. He promptly swooped down, like some kind of magpie eyeing up a piece of silver, and cradled the woman under his arm. Whenever the young woman would awaken, she would find herself rested in a delicately, femininely dressed room. It's pink floral with rich purples made every girly girls' eyes dribble. Itami would be tucked comfortable into a Queen sized bed; head well rested on a single pillow.

However, the room would have a very odd noise emitting from its walls. The noise would be that of a generator, which would sing to its frequent guests in a failed attempted to lull them to sleep.

"Wake up, Itami..." Kasa's voice would break into the room, sourced from speakers disguised as teddy bears on shelves.

 

[Kokomo]

"Wake up, Itami."

The figure sat up quickly, nearly toppling over into a summersault as she sucked in a quick breath. Itami was in a moment of shock. The tangent smell she had been so familiar with previously was not as bad anymore, in fact, it was almost nonexistent. Her left hand gripped helplessly at the sheets. In the unfamiliar room, she struggled to know where she was. The woman grabbed the bandages on her left hand and ripped them off in a panic. The hand exposed was a beautiful snowy-white color without a crease in sight.

Youth.

A side of her was beautiful. A side of her was youthful. But not enough.

Gripping the edge of the bed, she slipped off and ran into the little side table, bending over and grabbing the victimized hip bone as she leaned forward, and grabbed the wall with her other hand to keep her upright. The sound of the generator was drowning out her ability to hear the vibrations and sense where things were in the room. For once in her life:

Itami was truly blind.

'Ka....sa...' She breathed lifelessly, looking around. She could not sense his presence. She couldn't hear anything but the buzzing of the walls.

 

[Honma Kotone]

The distress was delicious to Kasa; it pleased him to find weakness and unease within a friend. It provided him with a sense of self-worth - how morbid. However, Kasa would only speak for a brief seconds before the next stage of his own personal take on indoctrination began: "Itami, do not fret, my lovely. I am simply going to introduce you to your beauty." A door would open, almost made invisible by the wallpaper and out would pop the freshness of a young girl.

The smell of her strawberry shampoo gently filling the room would give way to her presence. The young girl would be timid and scared to venture further into the room. She was just as fearful as Itami was, if the blind monster felt the sensation of fear through her scarred body. "A-are you hear... to help me?" The young girl would ask politely, dressed in moulding rags. "H-he scares me..."

The girl would twist her fingers nervously... and then, the sound that may ring familiarity: a chine of chain links chiming upon each step of movement that the young girl took.

 

[Kokomo]

Where was his voice coming from? Itami moved slowly, trying not to run into anything anymore, running her hand across the bed to round the corner of it as a door opened somewhere. The sound of it screeching and the smell of strawberries entering the room. The buzzing of the generator drowning out the sound of the girl's heartbeat--if there was much of one left. But nonetheless, she spoke, Itami turning her head towards her sharply as she stepped towards her, trying not to run into the poor girl, totally unable to see and all. Kneeling down (about four meters away from the girl), Itami reached out in her general direction. 'I don't k-know....about...help...b-but not...hurt...' She tried to sooth her with her ugly and raspy voice, beckoning her closer, the sounds of chains painful to her ears. But she neared none the less, Itami taking her arm with one hand, and then grabbing the chains with the other, as though to balance herself.

'Why...yo-ou have these?' She asked, slightly shouting, because she heard the buzzing louder than normal people did. Pulling at them gently, she tried to feel around them, as though looking for a hook of some sort. 'M-y....na-me...Itami.' She murmured as she took the girl's arms and 'looked her in the face'.

 

[Honma Kotone]

Before the girl could even whisper a word to the bandaged woman; her breathing turned erratic and her heart seemed to quiver. Suddenly, the girls condition had worsened as vomit began to force its way from her stomach up onto the nicely carpeted floor. "H-help!" She screamed to Itami, holding out her hand before fainting and seemingly passing into the silence that was death. "Oh dear," Spoke Kasa through the hidden speakers, "It appears that little... whatever her name was, had a little heart attack. I suppose the constant stream of drugs that I've been giving her as some side effects." He began to laugh quite mechanically before cutting out the transmission.

The Unohara would enter the room to collect the body, throwing it over his shoulder and then leaving momentarily.

After some time Kasa would return with the smell of antibiotics and other various smells attached to his natural odour. He would wear a smile on his face as he approached Itami, holding a pair of clasped hands contemplating what the bandaged lassie would be feeling like. Over time, the smell would seem normal to Itami (had she not have an unnatural sense of smell). "Did you like her? She'll be the little sweetheart that will give you back your beauty. I'm afraid that she won't be able to do any more introductions for the time being... her little ticker is all ticked out. What did you make of her?"

His voice was slippery like an eel, so hard to tell whether he was being sickly sincere or sarcastic.

 

[Kokomo]

It was the same disgusting smell that landed beautifully against her right hand and onto the floor, Itami pulled away, standing up and taking a few good strides backwards--nearly toppling over a teddybear on the ground. Kasa spoke through the walls again, as though he could see everything-- no. He could see everything. As the doors opened again, and the sound of shuffling moved and the door shut, Itami found herself sitting on the edge of the bed, with the sickening smell of vomit in the room, and on her arm. Prodding at it with her right hand, she slowly unwrapped the stained and infected part--afraid of it causing her scars to fester, and ripped the bandages off of her right hand and wrist, throwing them to the floor where the first mess at been made.

The burns were disturbing. She looked as though wolverines had been chewing on her hand for days. The flesh was mutilated and the skin a deep black color with ripples of scabbed blood. Her finger nails were the only live thing on her hand, and had managed to grow back after the accident.

Kasa re-entered the room.

'I...do-don't know...sh-she spoke no...not at all.' Itami said, as though Kasa could not hear and see what had been going on. Her hand was placed over her right hand, covering most of the wound as she looked up at where his voice had been coming from. Her lips threatening a slight and nervous smile.

 

[Honma Kotone]

"Oh bless," Kasa said stepping over to Itami with a hushing tone, "You're so feeble, it's cute." He would laugh as he wrapped his arm around her; avoiding eye contact with the unwrapping bandages. "It's an odd feeling isn't it? To be so selfish, desiring beauty over any morale obligation to the modern day codes..." He would inhale and then exhale with a satisfied, and sinister smile. "You're just like me, aren't you Itami-san. You are a woman, no a human being, so consumed by yourself. We will never recover from this disease of vanity and self-preservation... It's just what we humans do." Kasa would press his hand against her bandaged face, holding a somewhat gentle touch.

Kasa would step away from Itami leaving only but his words behind. However, the smell of baked goods would entice any being of flesh over to have a little nibble.

The fresh plate of food, or rather golden skinned red meat, was given to Itami so that she may keep her strength up. The Unohara was worried about her strength as she needed every ounce of it to survive the operation. Everything was falling into place, all of the pieces to his sick little chess game. But what really could he hope to achieve by giving Itami her beauty back?

 

[Kokomo]

If somone were to unwrap Itami's entire body, there would be something profound other than scars. Something else would be under those bandages that was, perhaps, more disturbing than the burns. The gaunt figure of a bony and starved woman. Her ribs stick out, her hip bones were deluctably palpable, and, her stomach slightly concaved. The problem was, when you couldn't taste anything, and when swallowing hurt, you didn't eat until you had to. You refused to eat until your stomach churned with acids and made you faint. Her esophagus and lungs has been badly burnned in the fire, along with her tastebuds singed off. Itami simply had no appetite.

Kasa's arms wrapped around her, and he would feel her go rigid. Affection was a stranger to her. Compliments and love were strange and awkward. She did not wrap her arms back, or even turn her head to face him. She sat still, his odd odor filling her nose as she bit her bottom lip awkwardly. His forms of 'compliments' were not exactly compliments at all. In fact, one might even consider it insulting. But it was when he said she was like him that made her heart radiate. To have someone willingly be compared to her disfigured self?

Why, it was a blessing.

The smell of food is what always got her. It smelled so delicious, fresh, and delectable--but it did not taste that way anymore. Itami always took a bite, simply for the smell, but her tongue would not react, and it would burn as she swallowed. It was a new version of a 'sore throat'. 'Wh-hy you...wan-want...to help...me?' She asked almost pitifully as she ate. Had he been watching her face closely enough, he would see the bandages move where her eyes were as she winced, and her mouth twitch with pain.

 

[Honma Kotone]

"Why do I want to help you?" Kasa looked at Itami as he leaned against the girly printed wallpaper. He would ask himself that question before giving her an honest reply, something genuine: "I pity you. You are a creature who has lost her cause... your way of dealing with your disfigurement is to hide your body in paper but have you asked yourself this: maybe people see you as abnormal and odd because you address yourself as such." Kasa shook his head and gave the woman a dry look, "I don't like feeling pity... these emotions are for the weak of mind, and yet a poor soul such as yourself has knitted them into me." He pushed himself away from the wall, folded his arms, and began to pace the room. "I'll fix you and rid myself of these feelings. However, I ask something of you." A smile would coil and stiffen.

"You will abide by my words and follow me in whatever I do. Do you understand, Itami-san?"

Kasa would turn away as his stomach would growl; his nose picking up on the smell of the delicious meat. The Uchiha couldn't contain himself for long, so he simply went over to the dish and began to tuck in (around the pieces of Itami nibbled at, not that he could see her discomfort). "It's delicious, isn't it? His name was Izanagi Kao. He was a sweet boy, so kind and always cried for his big brother..." W-what? Was this dish a former patient of his? What in the world would give reason for a man to do such a horrid thing?!

"Children are the purest, and tastiest, form of life." He would chuckle at his own statement; giggling with every moist bite.

 

[Kokomo]

He was wrong. Itami was blind. She did not know what ugly and disfigured was until everyone told her that's what she was. She did not understand youth and beauty except for comparing herself to other people. She was mauled, they were beautiful. Children of all ages, men and women alike-- hell, animals-- they were beautiful. But she did not speak her mind, she listened to him ramble about feeling pity.

Bah.

Emotions disturbed him? What a stran--

His next words caused her to stop, a piece of meat pressed against her bottom lip. He spoke about a boy and the purest form of life. The meat fell back onto the plate, and her burnt fingers pressed against her lips for a moment as she swallowed a good dish of vomit back down her throat, not wanting to make the room smell any worse. (You see, without taste buds or much feeling in your mouth, holding back such powerful acids didn't really hurt.)

Her stomach growled for more. Had she been able to see, well, perhaps the madness would encourage her to be just as insane. But her blindness gave her a sort of innocence and niave behavior. She was subject to feeling self-loathing and pity.

The sand would begin to form, too sick to speak as she bent over and held her stomach, her face against her knees.

"M O N S T E R."

 

[Honma Kotone]

"My, my," Kasa licked his lips and poised his eyes into slotted positions, "I don't know why I even expected you to be strong enough to digest that information." A creeping smile prowled along his face, a disturbing thing of sheer ugliness. Which was ironic considering, by most standards of normality, he was rather quite handsome - although this was an opinion that could differ from another. "I'm trying to help you, Itami-san."

He stepped away from the woman, knotting his arms behind his back; which his hands locked together. He placed around the room with the cluck of his boot filling up the silent room.

After a few moments of pacing, Kasa would find himself staring intently at a cute little teddy. With his deathly grasp, he held the pink fluffed creature in his hands; admiring the craft, care and time that obviously went into such a creation. "I think I'll call him Mr. Tickles." He would turn his head and grin, "Why don't you play with Mr. Tickles, Itami-san? I'm sure you could use the comfort." Loosely, he would toss the teddy towards Itami's general direction followed by a swift exit.

After a good few hours, Kasa would return with what could only be dressed as an odd looking suitcase. It's cold metal exterior gave off an unpleasant secret. "Are you ready to see what beauty you can obtain?"

 

[Kokomo]

Digest. The very word had Itami lurching forward to hold her stomach again. The surgeon had operated on various bodies, and clawed her way through blood and muscle--and she just devoured the ligament of a human being. Her stomach churned and growled as she put her head on her knees, listening to Kasa walk away from her and begin to pace back and forth. Her head lifting slightly as though to get a better listen to where he was going, but all she could hear was his boots. The buzzing drowning out the sound of his heart beat, the brush of the air against his hair, or what his hands were doing. Itami was sightless, completely. She had lost the most precious of her senses: hearing. The room made her feeble and helpless. She was truly, a pitiful sight.

Kasa began to speak, something about 'Mr. Tickles'. She tipped her head as he suggested that she played with him. At least he understood she wasn't feeling too well. As she thought to herself about what a 'Mr. Tickles' exactly was, she was hit in the chest by something softer than she had first anticipated. Being blind, throwing something at her and expecting her to catch it was a little...ironic. Itami put her hand down in her lap as the item slipped off of her lap and onto the floor. Bending over, she finally got a grip on it, and picked it up, running her left hand over it curiously. Her hands feeling it's face, arms, fur, and mechanics before finally realizing it was a teddy bear.

By this time, Kasa had left.

Itami sat alone, completely blind, helpless, and yet, slowly forgetting about the cannibalistic move she made earlier. Dragging herself up onto the bed, she laid her head down on the pillow and pulled the bear close to her chest, snuggling it as she pushed her lips against the top of it's head. 'Mr. Tickles....' She repeated quietly into his head as she pulled him closer, 'Kasa-San..m-make....me as be-beautiful...as...ot-othe-er girls...' It was a happy statement, but she said it with hesitation and almost a tremble of disbelief. Was he really going to help her?

~ * ~​

Hours later, Kasa woke the mummified creature again, the massive door opening to have her bolt into a sitting position. She sat at the head of the bed, her legs crossed, and the bear sitting in between her legs on the bed. Her right hand on her right knee, and her left hand stroking the top of the bear's head as her eyes stared mockingly ahead as Kasa spoke to her.

'I cann-not....see....an-an-anything....' Itami responded, as though Kasa had forgotten over the time that she had no idea what he was doing, and she couldn't see anything he was plotting to do. Her hand patting the spot in front of her for him to join her, 'Wha...wha-at are we....going....to....do?'

 

[Honma Kotone]

"Oh yes," Kasa said with a chuckle, "That's right! You're as blind as a bat." He shook his head mockingly, unflinching the locks on the suitcase. The loud clunks of the locks opening would signal an atmosphere of apprehensive within the room. Even Kasa felt a sort of tenseness within his own creation, the girly room designed for the most delicate of patients.

What Itami wouldn't see was a half mask:

"I got this for you, Itami-san." He said with a tone of pity, yet with sincerity attached to the tail end of his words. "The treatment I have planned for you is long, painful and perhaps will not even meet your own expectations." He smiled slyly, "It'll be a process that you can't escape from... If you stop your steroid treatment, or skin graphs, then the side effects would be subsequently disastrous." Kasa's words were meant to sting... He was basically informing her that she would be bound to him for the duration of her treatment. "This mask," He said with one hand holding onto the mask, and the other forcibly opening her bandaged sausages, to place said mask into her grasp, "Is meant to hide your disfigurement. You may reveal your beautiful side and hide away your... other face."


Whether or not Itami wore the mask was completely up to her but the value of him giving her this mask was meaningful.

 

[Kokomo]

Something. He got her something, is what he said. Itami tried to turn her head to see it, but as much as she turned her head, she could not see. Her hands played with each other as her fingers entwined nervously and excitedly. She wanted to see what he got. What did she get? The poor girl never got a present that was a solid. Sometimes she got songs sang to her, and that was what a Hashigaki present was. The blind family had no need for material objects.

He held it from her, taunting her as he spoke about something else. Itami played with her fingers more as she waited, and he spoke of pain. Pain wasn't something she felt much anymore, because it was rare that someone hit somewhere that still had working nerves--but it did happen sometimes.

Kasa was making a pact with her. Leaving him would kill her-- it was like some bad abusive relationship. Some horrible romance story that only the disturbed read about. Itami nodded slowly, reluctantly, but it didn't sound like she had a choice anymore. Itami was in the room of no-turning-back. She had entered with him and she would exit with him.

Finally, he told her. A mask. Itami pondered for a little bit as he pushed it into her hands and she ran her fingers across it. Something strange welled in her eyes, like a painful liquid. For the time being, Kasa was giving her half-beauty. He was allowing her to be partially beautiful until she could be fully gorgeous.

Her hands pulled at the bandages behind her head, and slowly unraveled it. Her eyes remaining shut as she unwrapped and unwrapped down to her neck, where she would rip the bandages to hid the burns that the mask would not reach. Slowly, her eyes--those beautiful, magnificent, and strange Hashigaki eyes-- opened.

"T H A N K--Y O U"

The sand would spell as her fingers toyed with the mask. The left side of her face was what was left of the beautiful and youthful creature she used to be. That side of her face was pure, smooth, white, and something she would never see--or would she? Slowly, she'd place the mask on her face, her eyes batting a bit, to see if anything blocked them, her lips pressing into a firm line as she gave the illusion of a smile.

'Bea--beautiful...?'

 

[Honma Kotone]

Kasa would take little notice of the swaying sand, having another set of emotions come into the fray. The Uchiha turned his head as the woman asked him a word worded question: beautiful? What was the man to say, what did she want to hear? At this moment, Kasa didn't know what his heart felt - it had nothing cold, nor malice to slyly chip into a conversation. What an odd sensation... He felt no coldness, only but a tingle of kindness. "Ita-" His lips parts and a half formed word escaped, however he quickly recovered from that blunder and moved over to the room door.

He would grasp his hand against the handle of the room and tighten his grip with every second. "Itami. Your scars are what make you beautiful and unique."

Very suddenly, Itami would find herself in a hospital waiting room. The smell of cleaning agents lingering in the air would notify her of her location. The noise of staff nurses, clunking heels and the odd bile odor would help back up her location. Now there she sat, with her mask armed, and (probably) readied with a few questions of her own.

But this mad scientist had to prepare his victims in order to prefect his treatment for Itami.

[Topic left]
[Chee-yaaa!]