[Aburame Azarea]

The Devil That You Forgot

"Other"

Higher and higher burned his chakra like a funeral pyre. Pressure in a kettle, gas in a well. Nothing, but a spark to light it all. His knife falling between them like a piece of silver sky as the blade hit snow. Then like the guttering of smoke the man calmed, but the static didn't return. Azarea's foot coming down on the hilt of his blade pinning it beneath her heel. Her hand catching his chin to drag his eyes up to meet her own even as Sozin grasped her wrist tugging her hand to his heart. Beneath her fingers he was solid his pulse jack rabbiting like long chased prey even as the two stared one another down scarlet eyes meeting luminous blue like two wolves in the woods as the silence stretched between them.

Could she tell if he was lying? "Yes." Azarea murmured voice blunted, but honest for his chakra held no lie, but whether it was because he utterly believed himself to be true or that this was in fact the truth only heaven or hell could tell. Yet to explain how she knew she couldn't begin to tell. How does one know a forest besides it's name? By the creak of the trees? By the smell of the earth? By the feel of leaves upon ones skin or the rush of running rivers and peeping of birds? A rose by any other name would still be as sweet and Sozin's chakra would still be the same absence of color violet and black unreal in it’s nature. The smell of weapon oil, blood, and the cool press of a blade. The scent of windswept peaks sky touched and holy in a way only jagged wild things are. Only now it roared unable to be made small again. The veil torn, the mask cast aside, and here Azarea found herself face to face with a monster of a different stripe.

"I believe you." She states words like a firebrand because they both knew no one in their right mind would ever believe her. As the woman cocks her head slightly to one side peering up at the towering creature wearing the facsimile of a man and asks...

"So are you going to try to kill me now? Because I'll be honest it'd be a damn shame to lose a friend who gets my especially fucked up brand of humor." She quips. Her boot doesn't budge from the hilt of his dagger nor do her fingers from where they grasp his chin. The two locked in the throes of this precarious moment like those long seconds before impact. Her scarlet eyes wry and expectant, but absent of fear. Fear came from the unknown. So for Sozin she just felt a healthy dose of wise wariness.

SA's

SPOILER: Click to show

Joō no Taikanshiki no Regaria [Queen's Coronation Regalia]
A mutated variant of the Aburame clans Yūdai no Omorejō ["Bewildering Grandeur of the Alpha"] resulting from the subsequent poisoning of Azarea's former Yūdai no Omorejō hive to prevent potential hijutsu theft. While the Joō no Taikanshiki no Regaria lacks the Yūdai no Omorejō size instead Azarea's hive has maintained the ability to produce alpha pheromones and commanding vibrations. Evolving instead to hyperspecialize in these two aspects allowing them to produce pheramones and vibrations strong enough to be detected by human hearing and sense of smell.

Reigning Chakra Control
Fine tuning her chakra control to a razor's edge Azarea is capable of performing delicate techniques with minimal to no wastage of chakra. Allowing her to conserve her reserves in prolonged combat and managed more finickity techniques and jutsu.

Kagura Mind's Eye
Born with a natural affinity towards sensing chakra like her Father before her Azarea has trained herself to become a capable sensory shinobi. Unlocking the Kagura's Mind's Eye, and with it, the ability to passively sense chakra signatures in the distance (when using the technique), thus allowing her to not only track, but also memorize a person's chakra signature, even if barely any chakra is being used. Due to her proficiency with this technique, Azarea can currently passively sense chakra up to 500 meters and actively at 2.5 kilometers.

Techniques

SPOILER: Click to show

JUTSU GOES HERE

流人

                           Made by Keen of FBNRP | Word Count: 443 | @akira

[Deleted]

Was it uncertainty in her own voice, or was it a blunt acceptance of the fact? The true interest was that in humanity it could be difficult to tell. He would never truly know without building the tools or the faculties to know the difference.

The cold was glacial, so his smell was more limited to that of the coldness piercing through his nose and human smells - Azarea smelt like cherries, or at least the sweetness: nutty, like trees in a forest in autumn, and leather and iron, iron from the blood that they had recently slain. There were contextual factors, but it only informed the situation as at their basest point, it was two mammals in competition with another.

Yes - it would be easier to disregard Sozin as deluded, as to live with a God complex in a ninja in a world of powers that defied reason. It would be easier to categorise a mental illness than to believe his truth as the truth. That was fair enough, and he would not blame her if that was the stance that she took: but she did not indicate what belief she held on the scenario. Azarea held herself well in the situation - without much fear, or if there was fear he himself did not sense it. "I am still very human, I promise you... but dissonant. No. I don't want, need or desire to harm you." Sozin was careful with his words, but had gained a new aspect of consciousness. It was the softest voice he had used yet, in part because of their proximity and lack of need to use his volume.

"You haven't done anything wrong." Sozin had no reason to. "I wouldn't have a neighbour otherwise," a reference back to their aforementioned joking.

"And you don't regard me as someone who wants to be prey..." Sozin didn't feel quite clear in the tension yet, knowing that two powerful Shinobi in their right capacity had the ability to flip a switch. The stare between the two closer to being akin to two predators waiting for one to pop first. "Do you?" Sozin did think that the answer would obviously be no, given her situation and her backstory.

[Aburame Azarea]

The Devil That You Forgot

In-Between

His words settle between them like the sparse snow that falls upon their head and speckles their lashes. The woman is wary enough of the cut of his teeth to not be so foolish as to be so easily lulled, but for all his power Sozin was in that moment at her mercy. His blade beneath her boot. Her hand over his heart. Her fingers grasping his chin mere inches from his throat. For a man so vulnerable he held himself proudly. "If you once were, but are no longer of this world, are dissonant, but human, dead yet alive... then what are you?" Her inquiry sounding more riddle then question as she holds his gaze and slowly, ever so slowly, steps back. Her feet crunching in the snow as one step, two, and finally three gives him the distance to bend to reclaim his blade.

"And if you wanted to be my prey you would have run already or asked me to buy you dinner first." She quips with a knowing smirk. The tension slowly easing between them. The danger momentarily past. Though his prior words had conjured old wives tells in the woman's minds. Stories of summons and stranger things that lurked between the realms of time and space.

SA's

SPOILER: Click to show

Joō no Taikanshiki no Regaria [Queen's Coronation Regalia]
A mutated variant of the Aburame clans Yūdai no Omorejō ["Bewildering Grandeur of the Alpha"] resulting from the subsequent poisoning of Azarea's former Yūdai no Omorejō hive to prevent potential hijutsu theft. While the Joō no Taikanshiki no Regaria lacks the Yūdai no Omorejō size instead Azarea's hive has maintained the ability to produce alpha pheromones and commanding vibrations. Evolving instead to hyperspecialize in these two aspects allowing them to produce pheramones and vibrations strong enough to be detected by human hearing and sense of smell.

Reigning Chakra Control
Fine tuning her chakra control to a razor's edge Azarea is capable of performing delicate techniques with minimal to no wastage of chakra. Allowing her to conserve her reserves in prolonged combat and managed more finickity techniques and jutsu.

Kagura Mind's Eye
Born with a natural affinity towards sensing chakra like her Father before her Azarea has trained herself to become a capable sensory shinobi. Unlocking the Kagura's Mind's Eye, and with it, the ability to passively sense chakra signatures in the distance (when using the technique), thus allowing her to not only track, but also memorize a person's chakra signature, even if barely any chakra is being used. Due to her proficiency with this technique, Azarea can currently passively sense chakra up to 500 meters and actively at 2.5 kilometers.

Techniques

SPOILER: Click to show

JUTSU GOES HERE

流人

                           Made by Keen of FBNRP | Word Count: 211 | @akira

[Deleted]

And her thoughts is what made her human to believe that he was at her mercy. He didn't believe it and he did knew that she was not religious: so the actual concern of her being of Jihi did not occur to him either. That being said, he was more than confident in his place in the food chain currently.

It was passing, but he did take a few seconds to pick up the knife and sheath it again. "Chosen." Was the simple answer he would provide, and that too was his truth even if it was going to be regarded as delusion by her: it was the truth. So even if she wanted to know what he was and he could have truly provided her an answer: would she have believed it? "A madman will believe what he does in spite of any falseness, the sky is blue, gold is grey... if it is their perception." Sozin was not so kind, nor easy. "The truth is, a monster... a human. It doesn't matter when that descriptor fits most Shinobi given what we do in our line of work..." The sheath clicked as the blade was fastened in.

It had past.

"Don't count on it, Azarea-san... you're not my type." He smiled. If she could truly tell the difference between a truth and a lie, she would have known that he was telling a lie. On the other hand, though, it was him also setting a healthy boundary that he could think whatever he wanted within the confines of his own mind, but sex and romance had not been on his mind for nearing a year, and while she had been so kind as to reactivate it, he held a healthy separation between his work and his friends - and she was the latter.

And call it a healthy suspicion: if she called him out on it, it would help his understanding of whether she could actually tell or not. Being a predator, that truth would likely fall to the confines of his imagination, but he wouldn't forget it. But if she turned, at least - for her to not see what was on his face, the smile would drop instantly, revealing the simmering boiling pot beneath the surface, unhappy that a discovery had been made so out in public and that he'd given away more than he had liked. People still talked, and enough stories eventually became myth - whether or not it was true.

SPOILER: Click to show

{Spoiler}Add any jutsu, relevant information here

[Aburame Azarea]

The Devil That You Forgot

Unmasked

She could press. Push his buttons, push his boundaries. Put him against a tree and see if he squirmed. Make him prove himself chosen and divine, but she was no longer the hot headed child she once had been so many moons ago who couldn't understand that what once was broken could not be undone. That and she liked Sozin.

He liked her too if his lie was anything to go by, but neither of them was interested in something more carnal. Though the wariness of which they watched one another did pang her. She had many kohai and acquaintances, but few friends old enough to understand. So she arches her brow at his lie refusing to do either of them the disservice of hiding now that their masks have been ripped off and gestures to the trail ahead. "Well then Chosen we've a ways to go yet," She quips voice light, but devoid of scorn as she steps back atop the snow with a careful application of chakra and tries to ignore the way Sozin's emotions boiled like a tea kettle overfull. Hopefully blood would ease the slight lingering tension. As the trail soon changes from snowshoes to the slim imprints of sled tracks.

SA's

SPOILER: Click to show

Joō no Taikanshiki no Regaria [Queen's Coronation Regalia]
A mutated variant of the Aburame clans Yūdai no Omorejō ["Bewildering Grandeur of the Alpha"] resulting from the subsequent poisoning of Azarea's former Yūdai no Omorejō hive to prevent potential hijutsu theft. While the Joō no Taikanshiki no Regaria lacks the Yūdai no Omorejō size instead Azarea's hive has maintained the ability to produce alpha pheromones and commanding vibrations. Evolving instead to hyperspecialize in these two aspects allowing them to produce pheramones and vibrations strong enough to be detected by human hearing and sense of smell.

Reigning Chakra Control
Fine tuning her chakra control to a razor's edge Azarea is capable of performing delicate techniques with minimal to no wastage of chakra. Allowing her to conserve her reserves in prolonged combat and managed more finickity techniques and jutsu.

Kagura Mind's Eye
Born with a natural affinity towards sensing chakra like her Father before her Azarea has trained herself to become a capable sensory shinobi. Unlocking the Kagura's Mind's Eye, and with it, the ability to passively sense chakra signatures in the distance (when using the technique), thus allowing her to not only track, but also memorize a person's chakra signature, even if barely any chakra is being used. Due to her proficiency with this technique, Azarea can currently passively sense chakra up to 500 meters and actively at 2.5 kilometers.

Techniques

SPOILER: Click to show

JUTSU GOES HERE

流人

                           Made by Keen of FBNRP | Word Count: 205 | @akira

[Deleted]

Sozin did carefully watch her response but beyond the raise of an eyebrow there was nothing. Unfortunately he was not skilled enough in manners of psychology or mind to understand whether it was out of curiosity, disbelief, disdain, and everything in-between. She offered to give them direction and he nodded. "Sounds good." She might've glided over the snow but he went through it, even if it did disadvantage him in energy, strength and speed.

While he was busy trying to regain control of his own mind, repeating a certain mantra and wondering how his eyes were blue, he tried to keep his sight to the floor. Watching for the tells that she had taught. Wondering whether or not she'd did it on purpose or if it was a pure guess to his eye colour before. She'd had visions of his 'colors' before - and blue made sense, but could she have made the connection by his question?

Kami, it bothered him. It had made him somewhat irritable like when she had first met him and Taki had intervened. Sozin needed time and space to ponder the thoughts he'd had, the visions he'd knew and experienced and more bandits to kill so that his Lord could be pleased of the work he was doing in defiling all the Good of the land.

[fin.]

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{Spoiler}Add any jutsu, relevant information here