scorched bcm

[regretter]

You hate the way they look at you; lustful and jealous. You don't even come up to their hips _{(such a small child)}, and they still stare at you, measuring you up. Your mama warned you about men like these, and you tremble. Not from fear, but with the exhausting effort of keeping your reiatsu from leaping out and demolishing the area around you. Soul Society was no Heaven, all the priests and the friars had lied, but you try so hard to keep control, you try so very hard.

The Academy was a hotbed of sex and fights, both of which you attempted to stay as far away from as physically possible, but they wouldn't leave you alone. Your turn a corner, eyes fixed firmly upon the ground, don't cause trouble, don't lose control (oh, it's so hard, the way your energy curls hungry and electric-tight under your skin; it doesn't hurt, not quite, but your skin feels too tight, your body too small to hold it all)—

"Oh, hey there, hollowbait." Your imaginary net strains suddenly, ropes creaking under the effort of restraining outraged emotions turned real – your instructors said that it'd help: it does, but only just – and you speed up, turning a corner. They're not going to leave you alone, but if you can out pace them long enough — it's a dead end. Your heartbeat speeds up, dread rising, and you turn; eyes still on the ground, you count five pairs of sandaled feet. They block the entrance, and you almost panic. Hollowbait, why, why do they use that as a nickname, it's horrible—

"Think it's about time we taught you a lesson, hey?" Ugly snickers from the posse, and every muscle in your body freezes. You think, they won't, they can't; and you know that they will, they'll only stop after you've been ruined utterly, and that snaps the last torn section of your control.

One of them stumbles back from the blunt shock of your reiatsu (they hate you for this, this power you can't command, it's more than they'll ever know), and he gets shoved forward again by one of his compatriots. "Don't," you beg, and they laugh it off, you are this close to killing someone by accident, and the leader draws his zanpakutou. "Nah, don't think so."

You exhale.

They asked for it.

The world explodes around you, reiatsu lashing out, tearing the enclosing walls apart like they were made from straw, tossing masonry around like a child's toy. The one who stumbled is hit in the chest by a block that weighs as much as he does; he goes down. You watch this dispassionately, no longer cowering. The discomfort is gone, and you stand there and watch as they try to draw their zanpakutou, and you deliberately flare your energy, inhaling, and forcing it out on the exhale. They fall to their knees, suffocating from the weight of it. Slowly, you take one step, and then another. The ground cracks and shatters with each of your steps, and the pavestone fragments whirl about like daggers in the maelstrom that surrounds you.

This is what they fear.

Another three steps, and you stare down at the leader. He is pitiful now, no longer a monster. You have declawed him, and he knows it as he claws at his own throat, the white of his eyes so clearly visible. You could kill him. All you'd have to do is stand there, as your reiatsu tore buildings to pieces around you. They'd laughed at you, as every attempt to perform even the easiest kidou blew up in your face. From the size of your zanpakutou to how you shied away from any kind of social contact, they'd gossiped and laughed over all your failings. Hollowbait, they'd called you. Only good enough to be used as a decoy.

There's a crowd gathering; other Academy students. They aren't laughing now. You smile. Their faces pale, and as you walk past the prone group who tried and failed to attack you, the crowd scatters in your path. You hold your head high, energy visibly surging over your skin. No one reaches out for you, no one dares think of touching you, and under your smile, your heart aches.