Kona
Chapter 1
Written by: Chiburigami
(I don't own Bleach)
"Eclipse Granted"
eyelids fluttered
something is wrong
she is awake
"What. The. Hell." I murmured to myself. My voice wavered and cracked at the end.
A few minutes ago—maybe hours even. Who knows how long I'd been in a daze—I had awoken.
To find that I was not were I fell asleep—in my bed—and instead somewhere, on the ground. Probably in the middle of nowhere, judging by there being no signs of civilization nearby. I had checked.
I would've assumed that I had been kidnapped, as unreasonable as that sounded, had I not found out that I was not currently in my body. It took me awhile to figure that one out. After realizing I had to lie down for a moment to calm down. Which lead to where I am now.
Laying down didn't help by the way.
I felt close to having another panic attack. I had only had one once before, after my parents told me they were going to divorce. It had been late at night and it had been storming outside. I couldn't fall asleep. Then when I finally did, I was awoken by my parents whispering. I listened to their whole conversation. Once they quieted down I soon enough fell asleep again.
The next morning the first thing they did was telling me, point blank, "We're going to divorce."
I had been eight at the time. Thanks for being sensitive.
When I was alone, I broke down. It wasn't pleasant. Thankfully it worked out in the end and they didn't divorce, but after that I became ancraophobic.
...Thinking about that helped, actually.
I looked up at the sky, taking it in. Maybe all I had to do was to think about something else for a while and calm down. I took a deep breath then exhaled.
Where am I?
Somewhere. Anywhere.
Who am I?
Also unknown. I could be anyone.
...How did I end up here?
I hadn't thought about that one. Too caught up about the other facts. Now that I think about it it's a real good question.
I tried to recall anything. It seemed like I still remembered some things, as I could recall that storm, but things got fuzzy with the more recent weeks and...
...I couldn't remember my name.
I sighed.
It's no use.
My priorities should be finding the answers to those questions. Anything else could come later.
And with that thought in mind I stood up and began to walk.
I poked my cheek and watched as the girl in the pond did the same. The only thing signaling that the girl was merely a reflection and not a real person was the slight distortion in her image.
I couldn't believe it.
The face staring back at me wasn't mine, but I recognized it nonetheless.
Konahana Aoi
I knew her name because I created it.
I remembered now.
Atleast a bit.
I had been writing a self-insert for Bleach, when I blacked out and ended up here. The name, Konahana Aoi, was the translated and modified version of my Chinese name (I'd been adopted so I had both Chinese and Swedish names).
I considered jumping in the lake and hoped that everything would go back to normal. Then decided not to. It probably wouldn't work, and I didn't want to risk it.
I jumped in anyway.
Not to kill myself, mind you, but to clear my head.
The cold water hit me like a brick wall, quickly chilling me until I became numb. Once I felt I'd had enough and began to run out of air I began to swim upwards. I was slow at first as I was unused to this body and the excessive hair was weighing me down. Damn me, and my obsession with long hair. I promised myself to cut it once I had the chance.
I erupted from the surface with a gasp. The air felt even colder than the water, and once the numbness had gone away I was only left with pain as I crawled out of the pond.
As I laid beside it I kind of regretted jumping in. Stupid impulses. Now I was soaked through and chilled to the bone, not to mention dirty.
Did not think that through.
I was wearing a white dress for god's sake!
Plus I had white hair, which also had mud in it.
Hey atleast I didn't make it so I had curly hair. That would have been way worse.
I sighed and stared up at the sky again. The impulse swim had helped in clearing my thoughts.
I wonder if I'll ever get home...
No. Shut up. Not now.
I sighed again. I was sure it was going to become a habit now.
I laid there for a while, who knows for how long, the sun slowly drying me as I did so. But then a familiar feeling began creeping up on me.
Hunger.
Aww fuck.
Nobu had just been walking around doing nothing when he stumbled upon something unusual. A girl was passed out in the middle of nowhere.
He didn't like conflict, so he usually stayed out of what happened in the Kusajishi district. He had no actual need of eating, so he didn't, unlike those who did it anyway. He found it unnecessary to fight over something you didn't need. And then there were those who simply fought and killed anyway. No, he preferred staying out of it and moving around often, sleeping where he could.
Though that lead to him being bored often. So he was quite intrigued with this girl.
He slowly approached her with a stick he had found earlier on the ground and decided to keep. She didn't move. Once he got inside poking range he circled her and crouched so that he saw her face.
She seemed to be in pain. He poked her with the stick. Her brows furrowed for a moment, nothing else happened. He poked her a few more times and she didn't wake up.
If he had to guess why she was laying passed out in the middle of nowhere he would say hunger and fatigue. He had never met anyone that felt hunger in the afterlife though, then again he rarely met people at all. Somewhere he could recall that shinigami got hungry. Was she a shinigami then? Probably not. She didn't seem like one and she was wearing a white dress. He had heard shinigami wore black.
Absentmindedly he kept poking her with the stick while pondering about her situation and on what to do.
"Can you stop that?" Nobu yelped and fell backwards in shock. She had been awake?! He scrambled to get up on all fours and once he got up he stared at her in shock.
"Take a picture it'll last longer," she said quite irritated. Both of her eyes were now open, charcoal orbs glaring at him. They were stuck in a staring contest for a while, until the girl winced and pressed down on her belly. "Hungry..." she wined.
Nobu snapped out of it. He gathered himself and asked,
"You get hungry?"
She opened one eye to glare at him again and answered,
"Yes I do." She sighed and continued, "Now unless you have any food, please leave." Nobu blinked and poked her with the stick again.
"STOP THAT OKAY?!" she shouted, and curled up into fetal position as the hunger pangs grew worse. He was about to poke her again when an arm reached out lightning fast, grabbed the stick, snapped it and threw it at him.
"No," she stated and began to ignore him.
He then got up and proceeded to walk away. The girl keeping an eye on his back as he disappeared into the distance. Weird guy.
What she didn't know was that he left to find her some food. Because he needed some company and she didn't seem half bad, except for the fact that she had snapped his twig—poor thing didn't deserve such a fate—, but then again he kind of asked for that.
"Why are you here again?" I asked dryly as I stared at him. Just seeing his face again irked me. The arrogant smirk he wore makes me want to punch him.
"Oh. Didn't you say you were hungry?" he said in a sing-song voice, holding out an apple for me.
...
That bastard.
I glared at him and snatched the apple as fast as I could, surprising him. I was not going to have him take it out of my reach if I reached for it, like he probably planned.
"Myuh, 's mine now," I mumbled and began nomming on it quietly.
"Aww." He pouted and stared at the apple.
I stuck out my tongue at him and continued eating, sitting up as I did so. He sat down beside me, much to my displeasure.
"So I'll ask again. You get hungry?" I glanced at him and nodded.
"Why?" he then asked.
"...From what I've heard people with high Reiryoku need to eat because of that." ...I think it was Reiryoku atleast. Reiatsu is spiritual pressure, Reishi is spiritual matter or something and Reiryoku is spiritual... Potential? Something like that. Ugh, confusing stuff.
"And Reiryoku is?"
"Spiritual power or something."
He nodded thoughtfully and stared off into the distance.
"You're not a shinigami," he stated. The heck? That was sudden.
"Nope," I stated and finished the apple. I glanced at him and he produced another from somewhere, giving it to me. I let out a small squeal and began happily munching on it. It had somehow become a habit for me to make weird or cute noises from when I was bored. He only smiled at me. I glanced at him, taking in his features.
It seemed like he was in his late twenties or early thirties, although he was probably much older considering the aging in Soul Society. He had a messy mop of dark gray hair that seemed like it had never met a comb before and generally friendly features. I couldn't deduce how tall he was since I's gotten much shorter which greatly skewered my perception of things. Not that I'd been good at guessing depth or heights before. I's been almost blind back then. It also didn't seem like he had been through much trouble, which brought me the question...
"Where are we?" I looked up at him as I asked.
"Kusajishi, the Grass Deer district," he answered and handed me another apple as I had finished the other one. "I'm guessing you di—you're new here as you didn't know that." He caught himself midsentence, probably acknowledging that it wasn't a good idea to bring up a person's death. I looked younger too.
I nodded to his statement and diverted my gaze.
"Got here yesterday, can't remember how though." To my knowledge souls weren't supposed to remember how they died anyway. And while I might not have died—I knew I didn't—, I couldn't for the life of me recall how I got here. I wasn't even sure if I had anything to remember at all. It could've happened like if I'd been drunk, my brain could've stopped recording so there would've be nothing to recall.
Apple guy (as I decided to call him for the time being, I would have to ask his name later) handed me another apple as I continued to contemplate over my situation.
Kusajishi District...
Wait.
Kusajishi as in Yachiru Kusajishi.
As in the district Kenpachi Zaraki found Yachiru.
I hadn't really paid attention to it and I never got time to look it up before The Switch but wasn't that somewhere in the seventies to eighties range? Where people had no qualms about stepping on a baby.
Wow.
I didn't think about it before but I had been lucky I didn't spawn somewhere near people. I could've died. I winced at the thought of what could've happened. Apple Guy glanced at me and then diverted his attention to something else. I paid him no mind, caught up in thoughts.
People were ruthless here. I would have to learn to fight to survive.
...
No, I would have to become a shinigami. Considering I got hungry I had the power to become one, and before The Switch I had planned on OC-me becoming one anyway, so I was pretty sure I had the potential to become one.
...
Did I have the mentality though?
Even though I had the potential, I couldn't be sure of it. It also depended on me.
Before The Switch I had never even touched a blade with the intent to harm something, much less trained or something the like.
I had asthma.
And a computer.
That pretty much explained my lifestyle I think.
So would I be able to become one?
I wouldn't want to sit on my ass and do nothing, while I knew shit was going down. Then again I couldn't be sure I was before the main timeline, but following my belief that I'm in my own self-insert I should be. I had planned it so that she would join the academy, graduate and then end up in a division I hadn't decided upon yet and years would pass until the real plot began.
I sighed. I was getting nowhere.
Apple Guy handed me another apple then he brushed his hands off.
"That's the last one I have," he stated and held up his empty hands as if to show me. I nodded, distracted by thoughts.
"...Thank you." I couldn't deny being grateful, he had no reason to help me.
"Eh, no problem." He shrugged as if it was nothing.
"So who are you anyway?" I asked and looked up at him again, waiting for an answer.
"Nobu," he answered. "I don't have a last name," he added.
"Okay." I nodded. "Aoi Konahana. Call me Kona, Konahana's too long." I had decided that when I created the name anyway.
He chuckled and raised a hand to ruffle my hair, which I slapped away before my hair got completely messed up. I probably looked like a rugrat with all the dirt—wait, not probably, I definetely looked like one.
It wouldn't surprise me if I had a twig or something stuck in my bird's nest too.
"Not one for honorifics, are you?" he asked, seemingly amused by my forwardness.
I shook my head. "Where I came from we didn't use them." I stated. "I guess I will have to make it a habit now," I then added on, as an afterthought.
Damn, I forgot about those. Wait, were speaking English, are they really used here? Although since he mentioned them, probably. I will have to look more into how this world worked. I couldn't be sure if this is following the anime/manga, my own adaptation and thoughts while planning the fic or another thing entirely in which the Bleach plot doesn't happen or is different altogether.
Anyway, back to honorifics.
I knew them and how they should be applied but actually remembering to use them was another matter. I grimaced at the thought. I would have to make it a habit fast. I'd rather not get killed for disrespect or something.
"Nah,—" He waved his hand in a dismissive motion. "—you don't need to make them a habit with me atleast."
"Okay." That worked fine with me.
I would still have to learn to use them though.
Urgh.
So yeah.
I adore SI-fics so I decided to make one myself. (I have like 83782773 for different fandoms that are unpublished but yeah.)
Feedback and constructive criticism is appreciated.
Beta: I have none, and I haven't yet figured out how this works really.
(EDIT: God damn line breaks disappeared. They're fixed now but meh. UUUUURGHHH!)