Revised. I'm still not happy with the very first little bit, but the rest only had to be tweaked a little.
Chapter One- Memories That Make Us
"Oh, Haruka. Do you know how many people would kill to have beautiful hair like yours?"
The compliment of a loving mother: what else could a young girl want? That young girl was Haruka, and she was the youngest child of a high-ranking noble family in Rukongai. To her, her family was perfect. She had a beautiful loving mother, and a strong, handsome, brave father. Her older brother was a little annoying, but she had learned to deal with that over the few short years that she had been alive. And in moments like these, when her mother was combing her long, dark brown hair and telling her how beautiful it was, it was easy for Haruka to ignore him.
"Thank you, Mother," Haruka replied.
"Tch! It's the only thing pretty about her," her brother scoffed. Haruka knew that she wasn't the prettiest of children. She was pale and gangly, almost skeleton-like, but what people thought to be her most unattractive assets were her eyes. Her eyes had a lovely shape to them, but their color was a different story. Her irises were completely yellow in color, not gold like her mother's eyes, but yellow. Most of the people around her thought that Haruka's eyes reminded them of a wild animal's eyes, an untamable beast that couldn't be contained. She knew that she wasn't a pretty child, but was that really something that anyone could hold against her? Surely she would grow into her body someday…
"Zaku! Watch your tongue!" her mother warned, although it wasn't in a particularly scolding tone. It was like her mother wasn't angry at her brother for his comment; it was like she was acknowledging the truth of the statement but telling him not to say it in front of Haruka like that. And of course, Haruka noticed that small detail. She let it slide, though, because her family was perfect, right?
"There's a storm coming in," her father commented.
"Oh, yay. We get to hear the little baby cry some more," Zaku sarcastically scoffed. Sure, Haruka was afraid of thunderstorms, but she was a child. Could he really blame her for that?
"Zaku," her mother warned.
"What? Someone has to toughen her up," Zaku muttered. Haruka's father was about to say something else, but his statement was cut off when one of their servants ran into the room.
"My lord! We're under a-!" The servant couldn't finish his statement, probably due the sword that was suddenly skewering his abdomen.
"We're under attack!" her mother nearly whimpered, and Haruka could see the woman trembling.
"Damn!" her father yelled, standing up and running towards the back of the room, making his way to the back hallways to find the exit that was hidden there.
"Where do you think you're going?" Haruka looked up and saw one of the biggest men that she had ever seen in her life. His face was covered by a black mask, but she could see his eyes. They looked murderous; he was like a wolf hunting its prey, and his prey just so happened to be Haruka's family.
"Zaku, run!" Haruka's mother yelled. Before she ran off herself, she did something that neither the bandit nor Haruka was expecting: she pushed Haruka onto the floor in front of the bandit and she ran off. Haruka's entire family had abandoned her, left her to die at the hand of this bandit. Haruka was too shocked to say anything; she didn't curse her family's name or yell for help: she didn't do anything. For a moment, the bandit was too shocked to do anything, either, but the predatory grin slowly made its way back onto his face.
"Ah, poor baby! Did your mommy and daddy leave you all by yourself?" he mocked. Haruka's eyes grew wide and her whole body started to shake. This monster of a man couldn't even find it in himself to be merciful to an abandoned child.
"W-why are you doing this?" Haruka stuttered.
"Hah. You wouldn't understand, kid. You've been spoiled and cooped up in here your whole life. Not everyone gets a life of luxury like you, and sometimes, just to make it by, we have to take from people like your family. And if I have to kill you so that I can eat tonight, then so be it," the bandit told her.
"But…I don't want to die," Haruka whimpered.
"Tough luck, kid. You don't have the guts to save your own life," the bandit told her. He reached down and wrapped his hand around Haruka's throat. His grip was tight; it was like a snake had coiled itself around Haruka's neck and it was squeezing the very life out of her. She reached up and frantically tried to scratch at the bandit's arm, but he didn't budge, only tightening his grip even more.
"Is that it, kid? Is that how little your life means to you? At least try to make this interesting for me," the bandit snickered.
"I don't want to die," Haruka thought, a tear rolling down her face. She didn't want to die, and she surely did not want to suffocate to death.
"But what can I do?" Haruka asked herself, her panic beginning to set in. As a few more tears rolled down her face, she broke her gaze away from the man that was trying to take her life with his bare hands. She tried to look around the room, but it was useless: the bandit's grip was way too tight to let her move her neck. However, she did notice that the bandit had made a mistake. He had left his sword in the servant that he had just killed, and that was a window of opportunity for Haruka.
At that point, Haruka's instincts kicked in. It was almost like she wasn't completely in control of her body. She squirmed violently against the bandit's grip, and surprisingly, his hand loosened a little bit, letting her move her head down slightly. Once she had enough moving room, Haruka opened her mouth and sank her teeth into the bandit's hand as hard as she could, and once she tasted the blood flowing into her mouth, the bandit let go of her entirely.
"You little bitch!" the bandit shouted. Haruka quickly dived under the bandit and crawled her way over to the dead servant that lay behind him. She reached out and grabbed the hilt of the blade, pulling it with all of her might. Adrenaline gave her tiny frame the strength it needed to actually move the blade, and once the blade started to slide out of the servant's body, Haruka had to fight the urge to vomit because of how it felt. She knew that she had to keep it together if she wanted to survive.
"You're gonna pay for that!" the bandit yelled. Haruka couldn't even finish pulling the blade out when she felt the bandit grab her by the shoulders, but as he lifted her up, she kept a death grip on the tool that was her only means of survival. The bandit didn't even notice as the sword finally came out of the servant, or that Haruka had it in her hands. As the bandit started to try to throw Haruka, she quickly shoved the sword under her arm, stabbing it into the bandit's chest.
"Shit!" the bandit yelled in pain, dropping Haruka to the floor again. Without missing a beat, the young girl was back on her feet and reaching for the blade. As soon as the sword was in her hands again, she finished pushing it through the bandit's chest until only the hilt was visible to her. Blood showered out of the bandit's mouth, drenching Haruka's arms. She tried to let go of the sword, but as she did, the bandit reached up and grabbed them.
"Nice job, kid," the bandit coughed, making more blood land on Haruka. As her adrenaline started to fade away, Haruka started trembling again and a sick feeling crept its way into her stomach.
"I guess you had the will to live, after all," the bandit mumbled. "Tch, a grown ass man killed by a little girl. There's gotta be some higher power out there laughing its ass off at this right now. What shitty luck. Yours is probably worse, though. I imagine you'll die out here pretty quick on your own. It'd be a shame for that fire to snuffed out so soon, though…Take the stone symbol from my neck; there's a village of bandits north of here. Go to them, and they'll let you in when they see that. It'll be a hard life, kid, but take it as a dying man's last chance to do something decent."
It felt like she stood there for an eternity, eyes open as wide as they could go, watching as the man before her slowly died. He didn't say anything else after his initial monologue, choosing instead to stare at the ceiling. It looked like he was muttering something to himself, but Haruka couldn't hear anything beyond the ringing in her ears. His arms eventually fell from Haruka's, why he hadn't let go of her earlier she didn't know, and his body slumped to the ground. As the sword was pulled from Haruka's hands, she fell to her knees. Thunder cracked in the distance, but she paid it no mind. She couldn't keep her eyes off of the blood that was on her hands, the blood that stained her kimono, the blood that seemed to tarnish her very soul.
She had killed a man, and even though she had only been defending herself from a man that wanted to kill her, she still felt the urge to puke at what she had done. She felt dirty, like she needed to be cleaned down to her very bones. Maybe everyone had been right; maybe she was some kind of wild animal. But then again, if she was an animal, she wouldn't feel remorse for the life she had taken, would she? She wasn't an animal, but she certainly wasn't a bandit either.
"OY!" Haruka's eyes shot open. That dream…She hadn't had it in a long time. In all honesty, she didn't care about that part of her life anymore. By the time she was finally able to get up and leave her old home, there was no one outside waiting for her. She had figured that all of the other bandits had left to chase her family, if she could even call them that, so it wasn't like she had a difficult time leaving the place. The most vivid part that she had of that memory was when she first walked outside. It had been raining, pouring in fact, but that rain water washed away some of the blood that had been on her. It was like being born again, and as the thunder had roared in the sky above her, Haruka accepted her new life. She wasn't a noble anymore; she was going to have to fight to survive, but she wasn't afraid of that. Hell, at that point, she wasn't really afraid of anything anymore. She had nothing to lose.
As she looked at her surroundings, Haruka realized that she had dozed off. She had been sitting against a tree, and as the hours passed by, the tree's trunk had become a pillow for her. When she looked up in front her, Haruka saw the person that had yelled at her. It was one of her men, one of her bandits.
It had taken her a while, but Haruka had finally broken down and gone to the bandit village. She fought through everything that they threw at her tooth and nail to survive, and at the end of the day, they accepted her. Her rigorous training had allowed her to prove herself over the years, eventually being given her own troop of outlaws to lead.
"What is it, Kenshin?" Haruka muttered.
"Nothin'. I just thought it was high time that you woke up. What kind of a fearless leader are you, sleeping on the job?" Kenshin mocked. Haruka only scoffed at him.
"The bored kind," Haruka commented, standing up and stretching.
"You know, I remember when you first joined us. You were a skinny ass thing, but I'll be damned if you aren't fine as hell now," Kenshin told her. Haruka had grown into her body, quite well, in fact. She wasn't anywhere near slight and slender like people thought she would have been; she was short, and while she wasn't exactly stocky, she was still decently thick. She had a strong, fit body, which was easily noticeable in the outfit she was wearing: a tight, black bodysuit, which was a mixture of solid black cloth and a net-like mesh.
"I mean, seriously. You were flat as a board when you joined us and now…Whew. I mean, damn, Haruka. What did they feed you? 'Cuz they need to give it to all of the girls," Kenshin ranted.
"Kenshin, you do this every time. There is not a chance in hell," Haruka told him.
"A man can try, right?" Kenshin laughed.
"Man, she could have your ass killed at any moment. Are you sure that's a game you wanna try playing?" one of her other bandits, Kyuzo joked.
"Like you haven't tried before," his brother, Hayate grumbled.
"And you haven't?" Haruka commented, propping herself against the tree.
"I didn't say that," Hayate told her. "I just pointed out that he had."
"Mhm, sure," Kenshin mocked.
"At least my attempts are classy! You are just plain lewd around her!" Hayate yelled at him.
"I am a bandit. What else do you expect?" Kenshin challenged.
"Oh, I didn't realize. How foolish of me," Hayate grumbled, sarcasm dripping off of his voice.
"He's a bandit, too, Kenshin, but he still has some class," Kyuzo stated, trying to back his brother up.
"Hmph, I'm starting to doubt the fact that he is one of us," Kenshin muttered, trying to get a rise out of the brothers.
"Why you-!" Kyuzo started.
"I swear…I don't lead you guys: I babysit you. No one else wants to deal with you, and somehow, I got stuck with your asses," Haruka commented, cutting Kyuzo's rant off before it even got started. "At least Toshiie is behaving."
"Don't bring me into this," the said bandit commented, running his hand through his hair. He was the only one of them that wasn't on the ground: he was sitting on a tree branch several feet up, trying to get some good leverage on his surroundings.
"Ah, poor baby. Do you wanna take a nap like our leader did? I promise I won't wake you up. I'm not an ass like Kenshin," Kyuzo mocked.
"Your attempts to rile me are amusing, Kyuzo," Toshiie commented, with no emotion whatsoever in his voice and a blank facial expression to match it.
"Psh, quit trying to be like Dead-Eye," Kyuzo scoffed.
"Dead-Eye?" Hayate asked. "Who's that?"
"Me," Haruka told him.
"Where the hell did that nickname come from?" Hayate wondered.
"Have you ever looked into her eyes before? It's like looking at death itself because her expression is so stony. And if you're fighting her, it's like lookin' into the eyes of a predator, and if you see her with that expression, you really will be looking at death soon," Kenshin explained.
"Dead-Eye," Hayate repeated. "I figured your nickname would have something to do with an animal, 'cuz that's what I think of when I see your eyes."
"Animal, predator, same difference," Kenshin commented.
"Eh, with a look that dead in expression, I think Dead-Eye is the most appropriate name out there," Kyuzo added.
"Although, I guess it could have had something to do with her tattoo," Kenshin pondered. Everyone looked to Haruka, more specifically at the top of the left side of her hipbone, where her outfit had been cut to reveal the small tattoo that was there. It was the number '96', which was actually a very significant number to Haruka (Author's Note: As a matter of fact, for future reference, no, I could not resist, and I am rightfully ashamed of it).
"Should I even ask what that means?" Hayate asked.
"Sure, go ahead. I'm sure it won't kill you to," Toshiie mocked.
"It's because she-" Kenshin began, only to be cut off.
"Haruka-san!" a scout called out, running to Haruka as fast as he could.
"What's wrong, Jin?" Haruka asked him. "Is the caravan on its way?"
"It isn't a merchant caravan! It's the Shinigami!" Jin informed her.
"I see…Shit. They must be doing their little tour…I thought they weren't due here for another week," Haruka scoffed.
Due to recent uprisings in the outer districts of Rukongai, the Gotei 13, at the behest of the nobility, had decided to make a showing of itself to prove to any possible rebels that their attempt at a mutiny would be futile. To do this, they decided to gather some of their captains and lieutenants and march through the outer villages, and any rebels that refused to stand down were promptly silenced. Haruka personally thought that the whole thing was stupid: not only were the Shinigami leaving their base of operations majorly unguarded, but they were also sticking their noses in places where they did not belong. They needed to leave the outer districts to their business and worry about the damn Hollows that were plaguing the area. That was their job, right?
"That's what we were led to believe, but obviously that was wrong. But that's not all. There are captains and lieutenants heading our way, along with a few other officers," Jin explained.
"You have got to be kidding me," Haruka breathed, running her hand through her hair, that was so short that it didn't even go past her ears; she'd be lucky if she didn't rip it all out by the end of the day. "That means the damn Captain-Commander is here."
"He is," Jin confirmed.
"Oh, man. That is shitty news," Kyuzo commented.
"What are we going to do?" Hayate asked. "Run or hide?"
"Neither," Haruka answered.
"What?!" Kenshin shouted, shocked and horrified by her answer.
"They can probably sense us by now, so if we run, they'll think we were up to something. If we hide, they'll think that we're going to jump them, and I highly doubt that you want to fight ALL of those captains, do you?" Haruka explained. "So, we're just gonna sit here and look casual."
Look casual and try not to be 'silenced'. The old man really didn't mess around when it came to keeping order. That's why all of the smart bandits kept a low profile and stayed away from the Gotei 13. The rebels obviously didn't get that message, and instead of trying to obtain the change they wanted peacefully, the resorted to violence instead, and the Shinigami responded in kind.
"Our outfits are nothing close to casual. They'll know what we are in an instant," Toshiie scoffed.
"Obviously," Haruka stated. "But, if we do nothing to startle them or give them a rise, then there will be no need for them to fight us, will there? We'll just be here minding our own business. Who are they to automatically assume that we were up to something?"
"But we were up to something," Hayate commented.
"That is not the point," Haruka told him. "Just act casual and friendly."
"Friendly?" Kenshin repeated.
"Yes, friendly. Friendly in the crass bandit way, of course; we don't want to completely act like we aren't bandits. That would look real suspicious, you know?" Haruka explained. "Toshiie, you act real casual. I would hate for them to think you were trying to swoop down and attack them."
"You got it, Dead-Eye," Toshiie agreed, stretching out across the tree limb he was on, so it looked like he was trying to nap there.
"Good. Everyone else, stay as you are. Jin, go stand by a tree or something, but not by anyone else, so it doesn't look like you're grouping up," Haruka ordered. Jin nodded in agreement and walked a few feet away from her to sit on a nearby rock.
"Alright, everyone, make this look legitimate," Haruka added. Kenshin started to eat on an apple that he had brought with him; Jin started reading a book; Kyuzo started talking to Hayate, and Kenshin occasionally commented on the conversation between bites; Haruka, on the other hand, just started messing with her nails, like any good, average female bandit would do.
"We're fucked," Toshiie whispered, laughing to himself afterwards.
"You might be," Kenshin retorted. "We'll throw you to them and then the rest of us'll run."
"You guys know what to do if this gets bad," Haruka told them, giving them one last order before she heard the Shinigami getting closer. She had been in situations much more strenuous than this, but Haruka couldn't help the light fear that was rooting itself in her. These men were her responsibility, and she would be damned if she didn't do everything in her power to protect them. If things got bad, they were going to run while she distracted the Shinigami all by herself.