Characters: Nemu, Mayuri
Summary: Nemu developing the trait of compassion isn't something Mayuri planned for.
Pairings: slight implied Ishida x Nemu
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Timeline: Post Soul Society arc
Author's Note: Behold the result of my boredom; multiple short oneshots published at once. This, in particular, is a short Nemu character pieces. Read, enjoy, and review *hint hint*.
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
Compassion is a trait Mayuri has long endeavored to work out of his "daughter". It's not efficient, it's not appropriate, and it's not something he'll tolerate. Some things he'll tolerate: the way Nemu forms friendships with others such as Nanao and Ikkaku and Rangiku, the way she has (and Mayuri often shudders to even think about it) grown…attached to the Quincy who tried to kill him before, and the way she has come into Ukitake-taicho's confidence. All of this he tolerates, because it might prove useful later.
But if she chooses to allow the compassion of others to rub off on her, Mayuri will have to take issue with that, and Nemu knows, and is, she is a little frightened to realize, reluctant to follow Mayuri's demands that she shed this feeling.
Nemu is, at her core, submissive, incapable of saying no. It's how she was created, how she was bred. She has been born to follow Mayuri, to aid him in whatever capacity he sees fit, to never say not to him, and to submit when he deems it fit that she be punished.
She has never spoken a word against him, not to him, not to anyone else, not even to herself, after these punishments. It is simply not in her nature to object or to stand up. Through sprays of blood, beatings, rape, she has said nothing. Through dismemberment in which Mayuri may cut off a hand, a foot, a finger, a whole limb, and deign only to attach new ones when the smell of blood becomes too much for him to bear, Nemu has said nothing.
So it shall remain.
And also has Mayuri trained her to feel nothing. But that training, plainly, had its flaws, for how can it have been perfect, if she can feel pity, compassion for others? All other emotions are simply numb suggestions on the very edge of her consciousness, but they are growing stronger, permeating her just a little more now, sending her from blank slate to child experiencing sensory overload and not quite capable of dealing with it right now.
Obedience remains Nemu's defining trait. That's how it will always be, but there are some things that Mayuri simply can not filter out of her.
Such it is with compassion, and everything that goes along with that. Mayuri tries everything he can think of to snuff out the light, but somehow it remains indestructible. Somehow, it is still there, despite everything he does to kill it, and Nemu's green eyes are no longer so flat and dull and two-dimensional as they were when he first made her.
To say that it frightens Mayuri just a little bit would not be a lie.
Because he can't stop this, and Nemu knows it. No matter how much he drives the sharp edge—no matter what it is—inside and cakes her blood on his hands and threatens to make a new subordinate that will render her obsolete and even more disposable than before, and no matter how much she bows her head and nods silently and submits to his punishments, his experimentation, nothing—no one—can stop what is happening inside of her.
And maybe, Nemu thinks, not sure whether to welcome or fear the prospect, the logical conclusion of this process is that she will come alive.
