With every heavy beat of his heart, he understood, could feel exactly what the woman had done and could anticipate what she was planning to show them. Every beat fed the unholy mixture that her blood had become deeper into his body, the venom spreading throughout his body, dormant as of yet. Silently, with each beat, as the heat of his own blood leaked from the small wounds in his chest, Sayis monitored the spread of tainted blood.
Head inclined forward, dark grey bangs obscuring his eyes, the Soutaichou let out a harsh laugh. "Restraint, Tsubaki?" His arms hung limply down at his sides and a sardonic grin spread on his shadowed face. "You keep on using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." He reached up with his free hand and gripped at the fold of the white, blood-stained shitagi over his chest, roughly pulling it open.
Visibly, Sayis was not a typically battle-hardened man. The only scar that most were even aware of was the minor cut through his left eyebrow, a souvenir from his first actual battle against deadly hollows. His bared left arm, though covered in intricate tattoos, did not show the rigors of battle or the hardening of intense training. Tall and broad-shouldered, Sayis still managed to retain the appearance of a wise old man or a bookish scholar. Beneath his haori, though, beneath that shihakushou, his body was a tapestry to the many deadly situations he had been in.
The rivulets of blood from his newest wounds drizzled down his chest. Neither sleek nor muscle-bound, his chest was only mildly toned. What it lacked in muscle definition was more than made up in the ridges and bumps, the gnarled flesh and discolored skin. A wide, fist-sized knot of scar tissue adorned his lower left abdomen. Higher, just beneath his ribs, was a wider, nearly perfect circle of thick white scar tissue. A thick, ragged line traced from the middle of his chest all the way around to his back. One of the most stark of all was the broad, straight line that cut from his right shoulder down clear to his belly button. Numerous smaller scars were mixed in among them, each one a testament to the trials he had endured to grow and to protect what was precious to him, many of them lessons learned and others prices paid.
He did not deign to remove the haori to display the scars on his back, including the worst of the scars he had earned fighting in Hueco Mundo.
"I can count on my fingers the number of times I have ever released Bankai. Less than that have I ever touched the nineties-level demon arts." Lifting his head slightly, Sayis met Tsubaki's eyes, his bangs still obscuring their fiery gaze. "There have been exactly three occasions where I was forced to my limits, forced to give every ounce of my strength, just to survive. At all hours of the day, I must keep my reiatsu in check, just to allow the people around me to continue functioning. When I fight, even in training, I must hold back, lest I maim the undeserving.
"I carry with me a knowledge of arts that have not seen the light of day for centuries, and I cannot show them frivolously now. I must be the representative of all of the Gotei Thirteen in front of those petty old men, must put down my desires, my hatred, my disgust, in the interest of preserving our sovereignty. Every word must be measured, to determine its impact on the listener. Every activity must be weighted, so as to give the correct impression.
"I must stand back, and allow others to face danger, to take on deadly and seemingly impossible tasks, in the pursuit of their own strength -- including people who I love as dearly as if they were my own blood.
"I can complete those missions. I can force the hand of the assembly. I can bend the laws of time and space and reality itself, can command power and weave spells that would tear this world apart. I don't, because for all my power, for all my knowledge, for all my authority, I am one man, and I cannot be everywhere, cannot do everything, cannot save everyone... and so I must trust in others to create their own strength, to be where I cannot be, do what I cannot do, and save those I cannot save.
"That is restraint."
The wan grin faded from his face and his expression darkened, his voice dropping lower even as his back straightened, as his head rose. "What would you, the personification of excess and destruction itself, possibly know about restraint? You, who unleashes Bankai as easily as you draw your sword; you, who attempts to protect her subordinates by fighting every battle for them; you, who threatens murder, genocide, to make a point?
"You, who took all the advice, the support, and the trust that was given to you, and used it toward your own selfish purposes."
[850/3000]
