Failures (solo)

Well past midnight, Arawn's private quarters

The darkness was absolute in the bedroom, but Arawn's eyes had already adjusted to the lack of light. The room had been lit by the computer in the corner, but now it's was in sleep mode. The screen was now black as the computer did it's route maintenance. So now the only sounds were the machine's hum and his own breathing. He sighed. This was the fifth time this week. He envied the computer terminal; once a certain time of inactivity was reached it would go to sleep.
"A pity people are more complex than that." he said, breaking the near silence. Such a statement would get him scolded by Bryce and many others in his squad. Their machines were capable of multitude of amazing feats, and yet there was something those machines and humans had in common; the both keep memories. Arawn knew why he couldn't sleep; it was the dreams. Dreams are window to the soul they say, and what he saw there wasn't kind. Every night he would relive killing Tatsuya Okibi and Junko Tenshi. Even the thought of it made him wince and his heartbeat elevated. He hadn't gone to the gate since the incident. How long had it been since he'd gone to the human world? Getting near that place sent a chill down his spine and make his stomach bubble. A sick feeling that escalated the close he got to that place. They had been slow in the repair of the spot he had erased his friend from existence. When he saw that spot he got lightheaded. His head started to hurt and his stomach bubbled just from remembering it. He sat up in bed holding the sides of his head breathing heavy.

Trying to not think of it was impossible now. Arawn replayed the events of the day in his head, anything to get his mind off the dread in the pit of his stomach. It didn't help. Trying not to think of it was impossible. With a disgruntled sigh he rose from the bed and walked over to the computer. He needed something to distract him. He tapped the keyboard and the system came back to life. The low hum rose an octave as the power responded to it's master touch. The unfinished worksheets flashed upon the screen. Budgets and supply usage to be inventoried. If he couldn't sleep he might as well get some work done. The glow of screen pushed back the darkness. It stung his eyes at first, but he got used to the new light quickly. Arawn flopped into the swivel chair and cracked his neck. He reached for the lamp and flicked the switch. With that the spell of the darkness was broken. Looking at the stack of paper before him he started to transfer the information into the tables. Fingers flew across the keyboard the clicking of each stroke was welcome company. Even Arawn marveled at the skill in which he typed. He didn't have to look down to see what he was doing, even when he was correcting errors. Why was it he never learned the piano? The spreadsheet was done quickly, now he moved on to the report on their testing earlier that day. He was so engrossed in the activity now he didn't notice that he had successfully forgotten what he wanted to forget. The goal was lost out to his desire to finish his work. There came a crash from the next room the shook Arawn out of his trance. The sound had scared him, but quickly he recovered. Who was there? It couldn't be Yuki, she moved quieter than a whisper. He stood from the seat and suddenly realized his attire: A pair of boxers. Hardly a state he'd like to meet someone in. He grabbed his lab coat from the hook by the wall and threw it on. His zanpukto would be of little use in such an enclosed space. Silently he opened the door and inched out into the hallway.

The hallway was empty. Arawn had half expected to catch someone running away. But as he thought about it, why would anyone break into his building. For that matter who would break into the 12 squad barracks just to break into his home? If they could do the former the latter seemed pointless. It couldn't be a bandit. There was no chance a bandit would penetrate deep into Sereitei. If anyone could make it into the 12th division would have to be a shinigami or a noble. Still that didn't make sense. Putting the matter to the side he moved forward. The only light in the hall was from the room he just exited. Even with the door wide open only so much yellow light spilled into the hall. It was good he didn't have to go far. The noise had come from the next room over. There was just enough illumination to show him the door. Pressing himself against the wall he slide towards the closed door. It was quiet now, which made the whole situation more nerve wrecking. He could feel the blood pumping in ears. He could only hope whoever was in there didn't know he was awake. If he could get the drop on them, this would be over quickly. Even if he didn't have a weapon he was more than capable of subduing an intruder. Standing at the door he held his breath. Slowly his hand reached for the handle. What if there was more than one intruder? It was possible, but he didn't want to think about it. Act quickly and quietly. His hand turned the handle and slowly pushed. Arawn tried to peek through the crack in the door, but it was too dark inside to see anything. There wasn't any motion, and there still wasn't any sound. He stood there for several seconds trying to catch a hint of what he may be dealing with. Nothing, it was quiet, too quiet.

A deep breath and he pushed on the door with his full weight. He let his reiatsu out and focused it forward. The burst of spiritual energy was to get the invader's attention.
"Bakudo #5: Senko." The light exploded from his hand hopefully blinding whoever was in the room. Arawn's glasses turned to dark shades in an instant. The flash of light gave him a quick view of the room. To his surprise it was completely empty. Confusion followed. There was no mistake he had heard a noise from this direction. Still in the door way he felt on the wall for the light switch. Having a shades in a dark room wasn't exactly the greatest of ideas. He was practically blind. He tapped the metal on his nose and the shades returned to their regular viewing mode. Even then it took afew seconds to find the switch. Arawn flipped the lights on and examined the room. This was his miniature testing lab. Now lit there was indeed no one in there. Very odd. As he scanned the room a third time something felt wrong. By the fourth pass he figured out what it was. There was a mess upon the table by the wall. It was true the room was quite messy, but he remembered clearing that particular table off. As he moved closer he noticed the mess was more than it seemed. Arawn's mouth hung open as he looked at the mess. A very familiar machine was sitting on the table.
"This is impossible." he said aloud. The machine in front of him was the first matter distortion device he had created. His fingers gently touched it as if it was going to bite him. It was real, there was no denying that. But it was impossible, the testing of the machine had destroyed the device and the table. Moving around to examine it closer he noticed that the there were parts of the table were wrong. Part of he missing table was now embedded in the new table he had used to replace it. Arawn tapped the old table piece. It was real as well. "Impossible." he repeated. He moved over to the fall wall and took a chair. Retried to replay the events of that day in his head. While trying to fine tune his device he had stumbled upon matter destruction. But with the recent turn of events he knew that was wrong. The machine wasn't destroyed at all. So what had happened? Teleportation? No, this wasn't movement of matter. Actually the matter hadn't moved it at all. Invisibility? That wasn't possible, he knew for a fact the machine was gone after it exploded. Time travel? No, for some reason Arawn believed temporal manipulation would take more than extreme voltage and resonance. So the matter hadn't been destroyed, just hidden? It all seemed so odd. His mind struggled to grasp the situation. But failed to understand what exactly he had or hadn't done that day. End the end the best he could come up with was matter displacement. It wasn't possible to transport or teleport so it was a phase shift instead. A dimensional shift at that. It seemed obvious with the way it reappeared into the new table. All very odd. Shaking his head he turned off the light and left the room. As exciting as this was he rather look into it in the morning. Arawn had destroyed most of the files pertaining to the device since it's last use. It's last use.....? He suddenly stopped in the half lit hallway.
"The last use." There was a flash of memory of when he fired the prototype weapon. It all felt so vivid. The hum of the tiny engine in his hands and he roar as the light exploded from the barrel. But as horrific as it felt, the sudden thought pushed into his head; it wasn't matter destruction. The machine had some back in the condition it had left. Could a living being survive exposure? Impossible wasn't as impossible as it seemed. The weapon's shot might have just made Tatsuya and Junko invisible and intangible. There was a sudden rush of exhilaration though Arawn. It was possible. There was so much he didn't know. Worse yet was he couldn't tell anyone. If he was right, he had just helped two wanted fugitives escape Soul Society. Everyone had already asked questions about the invention he had used. Even now he could feel eyes upon him. He had thought that the noise just then was an attempt at getting his work. They had assumed that it had killed them. He had destroyed the data to prevent additional use of the technology. The thought of more people dying from something he made would have been too much. But now he needed to use the information to figure out if his friend could survive it or not. It was possible, at this point that's all Arawn could hope for.