A/N: Written for Shinigamikender for the March round of Bleach flashfics on LiveJournal. Not my usual style, but not too bad I suppose.
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Kurushii
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Noitra couldn't remember who or what he'd been before. To be honest, he really didn't give a shit.
He was nothing like the others, except for perhaps Ulquiorra. The others, despite their blustery self-confidence, were tormented by curiosity and and imbalance of self. They wanted to know where they'd come from, how they'd been made, how much they were really worth. They were flashy because they weren't really certain they had the right to be strong, and wanted to prove that they deserved to be.
Ulquiorra was the first, and he'd opened his eyes to the perfect soul-deep certainty that power was his birthright and that whatever he did was acceptable because it was him doing it.
Noitra was the same, but he was harder and sharper than Ulquiorra even if he couldn't match him in outright battle capability. Ulquiorra was smart, but Noitra was clever. Whatever Ulquiorra could accomplish by walking straight forward and obliterating everything in his way, Noitra could do with trickery and mindgames, though it took a bit longer.
Neither of them doubted a single thing in their lives, and that made them strong.
Ironically, it was the two of them that the woman seemed the least afraid of. Noitra made a point of avoiding Ulquiorra whenever possible since the boy made him angry just by breathing, but he'd noticed it whenever he'd had no choice but to see. For some odd reason or other, she seemed to relax whenever he was present at her interrogations or the forced demonstrations of her ability. The others told him so, Grimmjow usually with a crude remark about how hot the girl was for him. Noitra ignored them easily, but it did puzzle him. The usual reaction to his narrow, sharp-edged smile was blind, unrelenting terror, and that was the way he liked it.
He caught her in the hallway with a tray in her hands. The food they gave her was sparse, only enough to fuel her efforts on their behalf, but she always smiled and thanked them for it. Either she was an idiot or she had some unfathomable and undoubtedly useless strategy. Again, Noitra couldn't give a shit which it was. He just hated getting smiled at.
The faint smile never left her face when he sent the tray flying with a flick of his fingers and pinned her hard to the wall. He leered in her face, bringing his one good eye within inches of hers so that she could see the true depth of apathy and cruelty in it. He could take her apart tendon by sinew and enjoy it, and he made sure she could see all of that as he curled his long, sharp fingers around her soft face hard enough to bruise flesh and bring pain.
Still she smiled, though not a happy smile.
"Why?" he hissed into her ear, slowly crushing her into the wall and feeling her bones groan and creak beneath the pressure. "I want to know why you aren't afraid."
There were tears standing in her eyes, but her lips would not turn down. "Noitra-sama, please let me go," she whispered with the half-breath of air she had left in her lungs.
He shook his head slowly and widened his smile, feeling the gash in his flesh that could optimistically be called a mouth stretch and threaten to tear at the corners. "Oh, I think not, girl," he said, "not until I find out why."
They were not far from her room, so he merely picked her up and slung her under his arm like a sack of flour. She did not struggle, evidently intelligent enough to understand the pointlessness of doing so, though she cried silent tears all the way. Her abilities, though frighteningly powerful, did not run towards doing damage, but rather towards undoing it. She could infringe on the territory of the gods, but she could not harm him in this slightest.
Noitra had a powerful taste for irony.
He was in a good mood, and so he gave her a choice. Normally he would have just thrust his fingertips into her pressure points until she gave in and told him what she wanted to know, but he felt like playing today, and so he merely circled her restlessly, crawling on the walls and ceiling and slinking through the shadows so that she had a hard time focusing on him. Not knowing what direction to expect attack from would make any sane person's heart race, and Inoue Orihime was saner than most.
He had a voice that took well to hissing, and so it was with that sibilant tone that he asked his question over and over again. "Why? Why? Tell me why." Like a serpent's tongue the questions wriggled their way into her ears and burrowed deep, but still she would not cave in and give him what he wanted.
No matter-- he had many tricks left up his voluminous white sleeve, and patience he had in spades. He could press her from thousands of different directions, and he could wait for her to break. There was no hurry since he was as good as immortal, at least with only her as opposition. If it were Ulquiorra facing him instead 'immortal' would have be a word to leave at the doorstep.
She would not give in. It was almost as though she did not know the answer, but though he regarded her with bone-deep disdain he knew she was smart enough that such a conclusion had to be false. She knew, even if it was subconsciously. There was a reason that she was not afraid of him, and he would know what it was... or he would kill her and end the issue completely. Aizen did not want her dead, so it was best that she explain.
He mentally tormented her every way he could think of.
She would not bend.
He tormented her physically, tearing and breaking everything that was not necessary to Aizen's service.
She would not bend.
When at least he resorted to the last persuasion and shoved himself down her throat until she choked and her eyes slammed shut against the world, he thought for certain he'd won. She would do anything to prevent this happening again, anyone would. It was violation, it was horror, it was pain and revulsion.
She refused to break.
He came to her when she slept and gave her nightmares, slicing her clothing away and tearing her apart from the inside out with his viciously angled thrusts. He bit her, strangled her, ravaged her, ruined her, tasted her blood in his mouth running over his ridge of preternaturally white teeth, broke her until she was only just whole enough to function, but absolutely nothing he did to her pushed her far enough to yield the answer.
At last, tired and frustrated and bored, he gave up and asked nicely.
She widened her eternal smile a bit and answered instantly. "I know what to expect from you. I know you won't be kind, you won't show mercy, you won't spare me pain. There's no mystery. I can just expect the worst from you, and I'll always be right. I'll never be surprised, so what is there to be scared of?"
As he'd suspected, she was an idiot. What moron would fear the unknown more than pain?
She was stupid, but she was stubborn so it was entertaining to keep tormenting her even without an answer to look for. It was all right, because it was him doing it. He had no fear of being questioned on his actions because he knew he was useful so whatever punishment came would not be fatal and so did not matter. He did not know why Ulquiorra had not already done as he was doing now, but he could really not care less.
The girl was a rag by now, a scrap of what she had been, but her power still burned brightly within her as long as she had enough energy to summon it, and they were making sure of that.
Every night he went to her room for lack of something better to do. He had little interest in sex or rape as concepts, but as weapons they were formidable. Nothing else could shatter someone from the inside quite so effectively as the traitorous response of their own body to an intrusive presence.
Noitra liked using his fingers. It was as impersonal as it was possible to be while doing something so intimate, and posed no risk for him. She would struggle so hard with herself not to respond, not to give in to the painfully pleasurable sensations he knew well how to evoke in the mindless tissues between her legs, and he enjoyed the way she failed painfully every time like a connoisseur would enjoy a particularly fine pinot gris.
Hueco Mundo was a dull place. She was an entertaining toy. Grinning sickly to himself, Noitra closed the door behind him and shut out the sounds of her quiet sobs.
He hoped she wouldn't break too soon.
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A/N: Ehhh. Violent smut is so not my thing.