Characters: Nanao, Lisa
Summary: She can still see her face when she looks in the mirror. /There are no ghosts in Soul Society./
Pairings: None
Warnings/Spoilers: Spoilers for Turn Back the Pendulum arc
Timeline: Post-Turn Back the Pendulum arc, Pre-manga
Author's Note: Get to the last two paragraphs and please tell me they made you think. Please?
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
Wipe away.
Mimic.
Imitate.
Erase.
Obliterate.
Efface.
Be.
Deny.
Become.
Destroy.
The office is only the start of it.
Nothing has been moved in the office Nanao now occupies since Lisa left it. The same incense diffusers are still sitting in the windowsill, long since burned down and cool, and they are the only things Nanao can bring herself to remove. She's never had much fondness for the smell of incense.
But still, the whole room still smells of incense, infused and imbued with the strong, warm scent. No matter what Nanao does to try to get rid of it—air out the office by leaving all the windows open, search all the nooks and crannies behind bookcases and window seats for any diffuser she might have missed—the office (her office now and not Lisa's anymore, no matter how much the woman's ghost chooses to frequent the place) still smells of the incense.
And everything else reminds Nanao of Lisa there too.
For whatever reason, a reason Nanao can't fathom she can't bring herself to remove anything of Lisa's apart from the incense diffusers. Even the scuff marks on the edge of the desk where Lisa would prop up her feet have been left intact, unchanged.
Everything is as Lisa left it.
Nanao supposes it is a good thing she can stand the color red, since the tightly woven, claret curtains still flutter when she leaves the window open. They won't be taken down, not now.
Nanao wonders if this isn't counter-productive. All her efforts to forget Lisa stop when she enters this room because it is the same lieutenant's office of her early years in the Gotei Thirteen. There's no hope in living for the future when she steps into a room and finds herself in the past, in a place where time has ceased to move forward and only stands still.
And things only become eerier when Nanao leaves her office and retreats to her quarters.
Her quarters (more an apartment than anything else), with it's single bedroom and tiny shower and equally tiny kitchen, have not been left the way Lisa had them. That much, Nanao can't tolerate. The bed is different, the curtains over the tall, narrow windows replaced by Roman shades, the wall hangings taken down and replaced by new ones.
Everything is different in this place.
…Everything except for the full-length mirror that leans against the wall, glimmering even in the darkest of night.
Nanao doesn't know why she doesn't get rid of it, except that she can't find a mirror of equal quality anywhere in Soul Society so it is kept for practical reasons.
And when Nanao stares into its depths, smoothing down her hakama and making certain that not a single hair is out of place and that no wrinkles exist in her clothes (since Kyouraku-taicho refuses to be anything but slovenly in his dress, Nanao knows it is down to her to carry the reputation of the Eighth division on her shoulders), the mirror becomes a pool of water in which the reflection is both Nanao and not Nanao.
Lisa's face stares out of the depths of the glass-water, eerie like a wisp of smoke. Ruby red lacquered glasses rims sparkle on the overhead light, cool jade eyes stare evenly from all the mist surrounding her.
Nanao's mind, mocking her, tricking her, showing her just how much she has come to resemble Lisa.
Everything she is, Lisa was first. Lieutenant, paper-pusher, object of her captain's desire (Though it's hardly as though she and Lisa are the only ones Kyouraku-taicho has ever chased after). And now, even the body Nanao has, Lisa had first.
Though Nanao has tried her best to minimize the resemblance between herself and Lisa there is no stopping it from growing prominent and noticeable as she grows. Different shape of the glasses, more modestly dressed, more conservative hairstyle, but even that's not enough to make them seem dissimilar.
Her hair is black, deep, inky black, shining blue in the light the same way Lisa's did. Fine, silken strands of hair wound around a scalp so close to Lisa's that it's startling. Pale, fair skin, long-fingered, clever hands, a thin, pink, prudish mouth that doesn't smile very easily (Nanao smiles even less than Lisa did). The eyes that are Nanao's are deep seas of blue violet, not tapestries of jade green, and they are softer and less angular in their shape, but this is impossible to see just as it's impossible to see that Nanao is shorter and more slightly built than Lisa and her face is softer in its design.
Everything she sees reads one thing.
Pale imitation.
Can't be her, can never be her.
Can only strive to be different but eventually be swallowed up by her reflection.
The memory swims in the mirror, like a fish with ruby and jade scales, never too far away, always ready to surface when Nanao attempts to divine answers from the depths, trying to find herself somewhere in the sea of glass and mist and water.
No, nothing. Never anything useful, just the mockery of me swimming in the water.
And when Nanao starts to walk away, she thinks she can hear footsteps ringing off of the walls behind her.
But this, at least, is nothing and only the construct of her own mind.
For there are no ghosts in Soul Society.
None.