Chapter Two: Postponed Interview
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
"Out of my fuckin way! I'm gonna miss the Goddamn bus!"
These two short sentences, roared out at the top of a madman's voice, who was undoubtedly very determined to reach the bus stop before his transport arrived, rolled down like thunder to the other corner of the street, alerting everyone for the imminent approach of Speedy Gonzales' enraged psychotic human (for form's sake) cousin: Nnoitra Jigura. Many people stopped in their way and turned around to behold this unique specimen of the human race. The smarter ones, most of them residents of the district and familiar with Nnoitra's violent resolution to have his way, pulled closer to the sides of the street, some of them even breaking in a run themselves, just to make way for this embodiment of natural disaster to pass through. And in no time, Nnoitra, the man himself, came shooting pass the terrified crowd, his hair flapping like a flag behind him and his clothes threatening to tear off from his skinny body.
One minute later, he skipped to the bus stop moments before the very bus arrived. Nnoitra got in and crashed in the first free seat his eyes caught sight of. He rested on it while trying to catch up his breath. He rubbed the sweat off his forehead and cursed mentally. Nnoitra did his best to look well for that interview and now there he was, soaking wet with sweat dripping from him like he had just finished digging a well on a July afternoon. He was gripping onto a green folder where his CV, high school and university diploma, health certificate and other personal files were located. Was there really any point in bringing the university diploma along when the thing he really needed was his driving license? He was going to drive a fuckin truck, not engineer new hardware! To think what his choice of professions would be after those five years wasted in university… Maybe if he actually put a little more effort in finding himself a job corresponding to his specialty, that pretty piece of paper in his folder wouldn't seem as useless as it was right now.
He opened a window to get some fresh air in, because he felt he was suffocating. The bus wasn't cramped as it would be most of the time, but the heat today was unbearable. Instead of oxygen, a cloud of carbon entered his lungs. His eyes turned red as he started coughing. Nnoitra felt as if someone had injected venom directly into his lungs. It took him five minutes to recuperate before flipping out the folder and browsing through the files, making another check if anything had slipped from the folder while he was sprinting like mad all the way to the bus stop. Thankfully, everything was here. He laid back on the seat once more and smirked.
It would be too much to say that he was excited. On the contrary, Nnoitra felt a little bored by the fact that he might actually get employed as a fuckin truck drive or whatever it was. The god-damn ad didn't give much detail about what he was supposed to drive and where exactly. The damn bastards might actually send him delivering parts to the other side of the fuckin country. Hell, he didn't care about it. Right now it seemed as trivial as going to the market to buy some food. The energy drink he gulped down last night still had its invigorating effect on him (and it was the reason why he couldn't sleep well) and right now he felt like Superman. He could be driving a tack or a fuckin plane for all he cared, because he'd still do it without breaking a sweat. Getting money was his top priority right now, how he got them didn't concern him, as long as whatever he was supposed to do wasn't illegal.
Sirens rang from the outside. Two ambulances shot pass the bus and disappeared at the end of the street. The bus was slowing down by the minute; probably there was a traffic jam somewhere up ahead. Suddenly, Nnoitra remembered that there was smoke coming out of some building not very far away from his home. A perturbing thought passed through Nnoitra's head that if the bus actually stopped moving due to firefighters cutting off the road to secure the area, he might miss his interview. Though that job meant nearly nothing to him, he wasn't the type of man who didn't keep his word. He stood up from his seat and moved to the doors, getting ready to get off the bus as soon as they reached the next bus stop. The vehicle was moving painfully slow and it seemed like an hour till the doors opened and Nnoitra pounced out on the street and ran as fast as he could. It felt like he was moving against a thick forest of people; the flow was turned in the opposite direction and it didn't take Nnoitra long to figure out that everyone was fleeing from something. As if to ascertain his speculations, he came to a police car parked in the middle of the road and four police officers redirecting the flow of cars to two smaller streets. When Nnoitra asked the cop what was going on, he was answered:
"The fire in the library has spread to an apartment building adjacent to it and the situation is getting out of control. There's no telling how long the firefighters will be occupied with it."
Nnoitra swore flamingly. He made a turn to the left and ran across the length of the street, pushing people out of his way and drawing the shortest route that would lead him to his destination. There was still a chance to make it there in time, as long as nothing distracted him...
Something swished deafeningly through the air and exploded in the fifth storey of the building above him. The entire building shook, the earth quaked like an earthquake was taking place and the windows of every building and car in a radius of several hundred feet shattered to pieces. People screamed in panic and fell on the ground when a large chunk from the wall and hundreds of broken bricks scattered like shrapnel all over the street.
"Terrorist!" Someone yelled in fear.
Nnoitra ducked and covered his head when more bricks and broken glass rained from the gaping hole in the building. He ran as fast as he could, leaping left and right over piles of rubble and dodging the falling objects. He was running away from this nightmarish street and this ruined building which was threatening to fall apart any moment now. He had never ran like this before; his legs were driven by the fundamental instinct of survival and fuelled by testosterone, for he had perceived how easily he could die by a random falling rock.
"Somebody! Help us!"
This cry came from up above, which surprised Nnoitra, who was expecting the people around him to be calling for help, seeing as some of them were seriously hurt. He raised his head: from the edge of the demolished fifth floor, a man with short grayish-blond hair and sunken eyes was leaning above the hole and screaming at the top of his voice. Nnoitra stopped in his run and yelled at him:
"You fuckin moron, don't stand so close to the edge! It may crumble any moment now!"
"Please, help us! My niece is seriously hurt! I can't bring her down from here… I… I'm too weak…"
Nnoitra stood where he was, staring at the man with anxiety and irritation. Of all the fuckin people who happened to be around this street, he was the only one stupid enough to answer to the old man's pleas. What the hell was he supposed to do now? Not only that he was going to miss the bloody interview, but he was expected to endanger his life for the sake of some bastards who had never met before in his life! Well, he might try to act as if he hadn't heard him or pretend that he was injured himself; he could come up with all sorts of excuses not to embark on this idiotic suicidal trip. There was no telling if the whole building wasn't going to collapse the moment he set his foot inside; he didn't want to fight against insurmountable odds to save a couple of wretches who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, he didn't want to act as a hero! It was so fucked up. If he went in there and came back alive with them, he would be a fuckin hero, but if he died in there, he would be a god-damn moron.
However, Nnoitra couldn't bring himself to run away. Not only he would sacrifice more of the scarce amounts of dignity and self-respect he had left and look like a giant pussy, but the eyes of that horror-struck old man would haunt his nightmares along with the rest of the pitch-black monsters for the rest of his life. He swore under his nose once again, threw the folder on the ground and ran towards the entrance of the apartment building.
He kicked the door open and rushed up the stairs. He loped pass panicky people going down the stairs and they all stared at him in shock and bewilderment. When he came to the fourth storey, he saw huge cracks in the walls and the stairs, dust and broken plaster covered the platform between the fourth and fifth floor. Without thinking much about it, he walked over the dangerous area and, making to the fifth floor alive, banged with all his might on the locked door where the old man and his niece were. The door didn't last long under Nnoitra's vicious attacks and was soon flung open. He entered the destroyed apartment, went pass the devastated kitchen and ended up in whatever remained of the living room, where a green-haired woman in her mid twenties was lying unconscious on the floor, her face pallid from the shock, with her uncle hovering above her, gone completely mad in his helplessness. Parts of the roof had collapsed on her, crushing her right leg under its weight and pinning her to the ground. A pool of blood was spilling under it. Nnoitra bit his lower lip and struggled not to throw up. What the fuck did he get himself into!? He brushed that thought aside and concentrated on the current situation.
"Old man, help me get rid of that!" He ordered while pointing at the large piece if concrete trapping her. He strode around the block, looking for a comfortable place to grab on to. He found one, bended down and gripped tightly an edge while thinking over his next moves. That rock had obviously broken the girl's leg from the knee below, which meant that not only they had to remove that rock from her without causing her more unnecessary harm, but they also had to move her out of the building with heightened care. Moving down the stairs in her condition would take ten times longer, but with her being unconscious the time spent getting out of this place would increase yet again; and right now time was against them. Nnoitra and the woman's uncle pulled with all their strength to get the concrete off. When he saw the bloody pulp her leg was reduced to, the urge to puke out his breakfast returned, even stronger than before. Nnoitra swallowed painfully and groaned out:
"Help me carry her out!"
They raised her limp body and rested her on their shoulders carefully. Nnoitra knew that this wasn't the best way to get her out, bearing her broken leg in mind, but he was sure that if she was forced to sacrifice her leg to get out of here alive, she wouldn't hesitate to do so. The cracks in the walls seemed larger now, there was a rumbling sound coming from the sixth storey. Whatever it was, Nnoitra didn't like it one bit. They climbed down the stairway back to the entrance without anything happening (for Nnoitra's immense relief) and strode with the unconscious woman towards the end of the alley. They were the only ones moving across this street, trudging through fragments and broken brick as far away from that building as possible. When they made it out on the street, they saw police officers, the fire brigade and two ambulances coming their way.
"About fuckin time." Nnoitra grumbled angrily. Medics came out of the ambulance, bringing a litter out of it. They carefully placed the girl on the litter and rushed her inside the ambulance. Her uncle was left to worry about the fate of his child while Nnoitra was sitting on the pavement, staring nonchalantly at the turmoil going about. A policeman approached him and started interrogating him. Well, it was supposed to happen. Nnoitra stood up with reluctance and started giving information to the police officer: his name, his address, what exactly happened, what he did when it happened, how he helped the family out of their destroyed apartment and out of the building. The cop thanked Nnoitra and walked away, engaging himself with other, more important tasks.
Nnoitra sighed deeply, as if a heavy burden had come off his shoulders. This day sure turned out to be something he'd remember for the rest of his life. He saved two people, one of them seriously injured, from a collapsing building. As long as there was someone else besides himself whom he could tell that story to… Everything up till now seemed like a dream. It felt unrealistic, because he hardly pictured himself as some hero emerging triumphant from a burning building with a girl in his arms. And yet, something very similar to that happened just minutes ago. And how the hell did all of this happen? A rocket or some shit like that shot through the air and blew a hole in the wall. Who shot that missile? The cop refused to say anything about terrorists or anything like that. The bastards were probably keeping this information confidential to prevent panic from spreading. But what for? Some douchebag demolished a fuckin apartment and a lot of people got hurt badly. Nothing could revert the damage and physical and psychological scars from that attack. It was going to be on the news for the next three months. The more interesting question was: why did they do it here and now? Why was an ordinary apartment building of such importance when they could have fired at the city hall, a bank or some other institution?...
His thoughts were interrupted when the uncle shuffled towards his rescuer and said with a weak voice:
"Thank you, good sir! You have my eternal gratitude! If it weren't for you, my little Nel and I would have surely been buried alive in there!..."
Nnoitra waved his hand dismissingly, obviously not considering his act some sort of a heroic feat. "Don't mention it. Shouldn't you be going to the hospital where your girl is?"
The man's face turned a shade paler when another wave of desperation and helplessness overtook him. "I left all of our money in home, along with everything else… the hospital is two miles away from here… I don't have any money for taxi…"
Nnoitra scowled. Why? Why did it have to be him? Why did he allow himself to get stuck with this bullcrap when it was obvious that after one thing followed another and a third!? He couldn't make an excuse because he'd look like an idiot, especially to himself, considering the fact that he was still carrying his wallet in his pocket. Well, there was no point of worrying about the damn interview now: he was covered in dirt, sweat and blood and he would never make it in time now.
He sighed and answered:
"Alright, alright… I've got the money for it. Just hold on a second… forgot something…"
Nnoitra ran over to where he had dumped the folder with his documents and came back a minute later. The two men wandered across the length of the street, looking for an unoccupied cab. Five minutes later they found one, got inside and told the driver their destination. They took off seconds later and went out of sight when they made a right turn.
From the Author: So much for this chapter. I screwed up the ending a bit, probably made a few typos here and there. Still have doubts if I shouldn't have elaborated on Nel's appearance. Review when done reading, feedback and comments are always welcome!