Kisuke idly pokes at his food as he turns the past few minutes over in his head; for all he’d hoped that tossing the Hougyoku at the man — at Nier — would remove it from the world, the reality that it had actually worked is… is a bit more than he’d dared expect.

(It’s over now, or at least the threat of some greedy Shinigami getting their hands on it is.)

(Whether or not someone else creates a new one is a different matter, but his mistake is gone, erased in such a way that it can never be recreated, and it feels… it feels like he can finally breathe again, like he’s managed to finally correct a horrible error, and it’s just… it’s incredible.)

(Now, whatever the hell the Hougyoku brought into the world this time is something else to worry about, but for now he’s going to ignore it.)

(He thinks he’s earned at least that much leeway, especially with how relieved Nier seems to be over the return of this ‘Weiss’ of his.)

Across from him, Nier is steadily eating his way through the food that Tessai put in front of him; Kisuke has no idea if the food is familiar to the man or if he’s just accustomed to eating whenever — and whatever — he can. Nier’s earlier comment about ‘it’s the only way we can all survive’ is a telling one, one that definitely lines up with both the man’s attire and his truly fascinating sword.

If Kisuke has to guess, he suspects that Nier was one of the few people of his world capable of leaving safety and returning (at least mostly) unharmed, which bodes well for maybe being able to cajole the man into helping Kisuke with some very specific problems. He’ll have to be careful about how he tells the story, but with luck—

“Thinking about asking me to do something else for you?” Nier speaks up, a tiny, amused smile curling at the corners of his lips.

Kisuke starts, then hastily brings his fan up and flicks it open as he glances away, abruptly realizing that he’d been staring at the man. “Maa, only if you want to!” he says, forcing as much humor into his voice as he can. “You certainly don’t need to do anything more, especially after I already used you like that—”

“You’re damn right he doesn’t,” Weiss’ sharp voice speaks from the air just over Nier’s right shoulder. “Why, the nerve of some people…”

“Weiss,” Nier chides fondly, glancing towards the empty space where the voice is coming from and then back to Kisuke. “How about you tell me about it, and I’ll decide if I want to help or not?”

“That seems fair,” Kisuke agrees easily, mind already spinning with potential ways he can explain the whole mess to Nier. Of course, he’s going to need to discover if Nier can even see spiritual beings such as Hollows and Shinigami — just because the man is a void that devours all spiritual powers that touch him doesn’t mean the man can see what’s happening — and then he’s going to have to explain at least the basics of the Three Worlds, and then present his case about Aizen and hope the man doesn’t question too much, because for all he’d like to believe that a neutral party would take his side over Seireitei’s, he… really doesn’t have much solid evidence for any of it, just his own word, and he knows how well that usually goes over—

“Well? Are you going to start explaining, or have you just decided to stare at the table and ponder life’s mysteries?” Weiss asks archly, accompanied by the odd sound of pages rapidly flipping. “My word, this world has certainly not shown itself off to any great effect so far.”

Kisuke snorts, though he has to admit that Weiss has a point: so far, he’s really not done a very good job at being a traditional host of any sort. Between throwing an unknown object at the man before even introducing himself, to immediately plotting how to involve the man in a conflict not his own, well…

Kisuke’s objective enough to acknowledge how opportunistic he’s being.

(And shameless enough not to care, if he’s being honest.)

(He’ll do anything to get back at Aizen.)

(Up to and including taking advantage of a stranger from another universe.)

“To be honest, I’m not quite sure just yet if you can help,” Kisuke admits before Weiss can say something else. “It’s a bit of an odd situation, after all.”

Nier makes an amused noise and fixes Kisuke with a look. “Odder than being asked to figure out where the chickens are hiding their eggs?” he asks with a wry quirk of his lips. “Odder than having to pass messages between different people with only vague clues as to who each message goes to? Odder than making my way through a sandstorm and then a sacred site in order to save a prince?”

Kisuke blinks at Nier, a bit bemused by the man’s words, and then says, “Well… I suppose not, if those are the sorts of things you used to do.”

“All that and much, much more, to my everlasting annoyance,” Weiss declares with an exasperated huff. “I told you, the man is a busybody of the very worst sort, constantly involving himself at even the slightest hint of trouble. Why, he has even managed to involve himself in a world of text, not merely once but four times!”

“A… world of text?” Kisuke asks, trying to figure out exactly what Weiss means by that.

Nier sighs and reaches up to rub at the bridge of his nose. “Please don’t remind me of that mess,” he mutters, then shakes his head and says, “The first three times was an effort to clear out a strange malady the villagers in the Forest of Myth called the Deathdream. It was…” he hesitates, lips pursed and brows furrowed, and then slowly continues with, “Like reading a book, except it was… writing both my and Weiss’ actions and thoughts down as we made them? As if… as if we were part of the book, the world around us described by text alone.”

Kisuke opens his mouth to respond, hesitates, and then slowly closes it without saying a thing, completely bemused by what Nier is describing.

“Believe me, it was exactly as perturbing as you are no doubt imagining,” Weiss says with a huff. “And this fool kept diving back in until he managed to rescue all of them.”

“Well I wasn’t about to just leave them, not when the mayor went through the effort to send a letter before he was caught in it himself,” Nier mutters, before shoving another bite of food in his mouth and focusing on eating.

“Huh,” is about all Kisuke can muster in response, still trying to figure out the weird logistics of… of whatever the hell Nier and Weiss supposedly encountered. Not that he disbelieves them, precisely— it’s too weird, too specific, to be any sort of believable lie, which leaves the possibility of them being honest about it, or at least honest about what they believe they experienced.

(Maybe this won’t be so hard to explain after all.)

(Well, it’s at least worth a shot.)

“Well, when you put it that way, I suppose this situation seems a bit tame in comparison,” Kisuke settles on, then carefully sets his empty dishes aside and pulls out his fan to fiddle with. “So, let’s start with some background, since our worlds seem… quite different. This world is, in fact, one of three, though regular humans aren’t aware of that fact…”