Ink Stained

☯ Season 2 | 33: paint it red*

I can't protect you without holding a sword. I can't embrace you while holding a sword.

--Kubo Tite, BLEACH [Volume 05]

☯

それは赤のペイント

Pai taps the screen of the treadmill, her feet matching the slowing pace as the machine rolls to a stop. For a moment she stands still and leans over the small control screen in front of her, arms out and bracing the bars at each side. Her chest heaves as she catches her breath. She is dripping in sweat, her plain black workout clothes drenched from running for the last half-hour of her training session.

Before, she sparred with Akane, one of the few trainees who aren't scared stiff of being within a five-mile radius of her. They fought for a minute, and it ended with an easy under swipe of her leg that had Akane flat on her back with Pai's hand at her throat.

The other girl only glared at her as she begrudgingly muttered, "Good fight," before leaving without asking for another round, like Pai half-expected her to.

Pai didn't reply because it hadn't been a good fight for her. No fight ever is. She doesn't know why such a phrase exists. She hates it.

All around her are the other trainees engaged in their own training. Most are sparring, grunting as they jab at each other and tumble over the blue mats laid out over the white floor. Others are in the area cordoned off to the left from the rest of the large white training room, in the small gym. Yet others are scattered around the perimeter of the room, practising their skills and upper body strength against dummies made of steel. They are propped up on metal rods, stuck fast to the ground with alloy plates that keep them from falling over.

She avoids the steel dummies, when she can. They bruise, not enough to be of concern, but enough to be annoying. She is never sure when she will be assigned on another mission, and she doesn't want to take the risk of being unable to pull a trigger because of a surprise flare of pain in her hand from striking the metal of the dummies.

Out in the field, all it takes is one second of delay, and the whole plan can be derailed. All it takes is one unexpected pause, and she dies. The delay can be anything – a flash from the headlights of a passing car, a suddenly loud burst of noise, a cat running across the street, hesitation to do the deed.

It doesn't matter, in the end. It's all the same. Hesitate, and you die.

Pai looks up. Down. Left. Right. She stretches the tense muscles in her neck. Up, one white ceiling, ten lights. Left, then right, six white walls, one door. Down, one white floor.

"Dots...dots..." she mumbles under her breath. "People's heads are dots..."

Dots.

Target practise.

I haven't done my quota of target practise.

Kuniumi? It's white.

There is no response.

"White," she continues. "It's white."