A/N: This oneshot takes place years after the actual events in Bleach, the last chapter being 423. This was completed thanks to Bookaholic711's Project Pull. Check out her profile for more information.
~ Shinigami ~
He creeps through the silent city, booted feet squelching through the thick mud of the slums. The rain falls softly, gentle in its touch, soothing and calming the violent city with its constant pitter-patter. Overhead, the new moon hovers, casting its sepulchral light on everything below, a blank pit of emptiness and despair. It suits the night, he knows. After tonight, everything will be better. The moon has waned, and so has his happiness, fading away, night after night. Now, after there seems to be nothing left, he will be born anew from his triumph.
He reaches the building, an abandoned office block, where he knows the man is. He pushes open the sturdy door, fear building in his gut, anticipation tightening his fingers on the trigger – only to find emptiness within. There are no pictures, no desks, no chairs – just dust and darkness and emptiness. The doorframes are empty, and the walls are barren. Dust covers everything, a thick layer of time made solid, and cobwebs drift gently in a breath of wind.
"You want us to go with you?" This is from one of the burly henchmen he has taken to keeping with him. He can't afford to die now, he knows, when he is so close. But he doesn't want them to be with him. Where he is going now is personal, a grudge only he can settle.
"Wait half an hour. If you don't hear from me afterwards, I failed. Go in and kill him." He doesn't need to speak the name of the man that is going to die. If he did, the men might not be willing to come in after him. They still believe he was who he said he was, that he was not a man but a god. He knows better, of course; no god walked and lived and killed like this man had.
He walks through the darkened hallways, gun in hand, fingers tight on the trigger. It was his father's, once, and now it is his. It has seen use, often, and the bullets it fires had long been feared and respected as the mark of a powerful man. No longer – his father, the man he had loved and trusted, was gone now. But the son would now save his father's memory and his honor by taking the life of the one who had killed him.
He turns the corner to find the hall leads out a window that has long since broken, leaving just the twisted frame. Here, at last, there is a sign of life: footprints in the dust, a chair, and a few photographs pinned to the wall. The man glances at them, not sure what sick, twisted images he might find in the house of a killer – but it is nothing of that sort. One of them shows a beautiful woman, laughing, with orange hair, standing next to a beaming boy that bears a striking resemblance to her. Another shows a black-haired man grinning goofily over the heads of two young girls, maybe ten years old.
The last photograph is the most haunting: a girl, perhaps fifteen, standing in a doorway, looking backwards over her shoulder, a sad smile on her face. Her hair is dark, and her skin is pale. Her features are timeless, ancient in their serenity, while dark blue eyes glimmer over the beautifully sculpted face. She wears a simple black kimono and a sword at her waist, much like the killer does. Atop her shoulder rests a black butterfly, wings gleaming, perfection in its every aspect. The man stares at it for a long moment, and then walks on.
Silently, he stalks down the corridor, squeezing through the broken window. He stands on a balcony, an exquisite piece of workmanship, a black marble platform set high over the city. But there are cracks in it, a testament to the hardships it has endured and the storms it has weathered. And the man's breath catches, for at the edge of the balcony, leaning on a steel rail, is the killer. He is sure that it is him – the orange hair and the black kimono are unmistakable, as is the blade on his back. Nobody else would presume to wear such things – but in his arrogance and his madness, the killer dares to don such attire and the legacy it carries. But now, no matter who he thinks he is, he is completely unaware, unknowing that death is hard on his heels. This, the man knows, will be the end of the line. No more pain, no more suffering, no more guilt – it ends now.
"Turn around slowly. No sudden movements," he instructs, pointing the gun at the black-clothed being before him. His fingers tremble with excitement and fear. Sweat drips down his forehead. But his voice is steady, and as he says the name, his lips curl in contempt for it. "Turn and face me, Shinigami." This person is no death god, no matter what his name is; he was a man, and he will die like one. He was a killer and a murdered, and he deserved nothing short of death.
Shinigami turns his head, and there is no fear in his amber eyes. His face is strong, but there is a pain etched deep within it. This, the man knows, is the face he saw, so long ago. There had been less pain in it, then, and more disgust and hatred. It had been easier to hate him when that was all his face had held.
"You got a problem with the name?" His voice is strong, but ragged underneath. It sounds as though he has wept recently, the man notes, and his heart gives an involuntary twinge of sympathy that he ignores. He cannot let himself feel sympathy for the man. He will not.
"You are only a man. Nothing else. That's all you ever were, and that's all you'll ever be. And you will bleed and die like any man when I kill you. You're no god, no matter what your name is." He raises the gun higher, feeling the familiar surge of hatred as he speaks the name. "Today is the day you die, Shinigami."
The hardness in Shinigami's face eases, and his features relax. He turns to face the man fully, spreading his arms as if in welcome. "Go on, then. Please."
The man frowns, unconsciously letting the gun droop slightly. He expects some trick, expects to see some desperate deceit or cunning plot in Shinigami's eyes, but there is nothing but sincerity. For many moments, they stare at one another, the grimy man in his mud-splattered tunic and the man in the elegant black kimono. Finally, he speaks.
"Why do you not fear your death, Shinigami?"
He throws back his head and laughs at this, but there is no humor in his laughter. There is only pain as he looks back over the edge of the balcony. "You're right, you know. I'm no Shinigami. Once… but not anymore." Pain fills him once again, and he bows his head, turning back towards the city. "Sometimes, I think it would've been better to die that day, you know. But then I see the people in the city, the people that would've died if I had. And still, I wonder if it was really worth it."
"I wish you had died!" the man snarls, brandishing the gun. "I watched you! I watched you kill him!" He is spitting the words in a frenzy of rage, and he points his father's gun deep into those amber eyes. "I'll kill you for it!"
Shinigami looks at him, and there is pity in his eyes, and the man can only hate him for it. "What was his name?" he asks gently, kindly, and the man shudders, barely keeping his hatred contained and his pain hidden.
"Romano Gonzalez," he whispers, shuddering with the effort of speaking the name. "He was my father, and you – you – you killed him, you bastard!" He raises the gun again, weeping, but the tears are angry and bitter, too, not just tears of sadness.
Silence stretches between them again, somehow unbroken by the man's sobs. Then Shinigami speaks again.
"Yeah. I remember him. He called himself El Jefe, you know. It's 'the boss', in Spanish. He made his life on the drug trade in Mexico, and came to Japan to meet with one of his sellers. When I found him, he was beating a man to death, with a lead pipe and three men helping him to do it." Shinigami's face is transformed; it is cold and hard, and there is no compassion in it. The only thing that remains constant is the pain underneath the hardness, the raw pain the other man can feel, despite his hatred. "I stopped him. And I killed the men that were helping him, while he ran from me. And then I followed him and I made sure that he would never kill again."
Shinigami's impassive mask of a face crumples in pain and sadness, and he turns back to the balcony, looking across the sea of lights. "Look at them all, son of Romano Gonzalez. Do you feel the life? What kind of man kills that for money? Life is precious, and when it is lost, the bonds that we form with others die, too." Shinigami turns back to the gunman, and the icy rage is gone; now, the pity and the compassion are there. This face is the face of a man that knows pain, and hates it, and wishes that others did not suffer it. It is not the face of his father's killer, even if it is the same person who committed the act. "I'm sorry for you, though. No matter what kind of man he was, you didn't deserve that. I know what it feels like."
"Like hell, you do." The man can hardly speak the words now, because there is too much pain and sadness and hatred in him. Why does Shinigami keep talking? He wants to stop the voice, to kill the man that killed his father – but how can he, now? Why does the Shinigami, he who holds death in his hands, have to be so human? The man has known him as the monster, the liar, and the hypocrite – but now, he isn't sure. His father's gun trembles in his grasp, the gun that he will not fire, the gun that he cannot fire.
"When I was young, my mother died. No – she was killed." Shinigami drops his gaze, and one hand trembles slightly as he puts it to his face. "It was my fault, really – she died so I could live." The sincerity and the emotion in his voice are too solid for the man to deny the truth. Shinigami's words are like whisper of the wind – so far away, and yet too real to be ignored, even if it cannot be seen with the eye.
"I could see the dead when I was young, you know. It sounds crazy, but I could see and talk to the spirits of the people still on the earth. Then, one day, I met a person from the other world. The Soul Society, it's called. Her name was Rukia Kuchiki. To help me save my family, she gave me the power to be one, too. I fought with her, I lived with her, I laughed with her… I would've died to save her."
The man is taken aback, and a little bit wary now. He has always believed in another world, one where souls went after death. He has to – without knowing his father was still safe, he could never have lived with himself. But he has never really expected anyone to really talk about it like this. One's beliefs are a matter for the individual, not facts to be forced upon another. But, again, Shinigami's pain is too tangible for it not to be real, though, and the man listens. Tonight is a night when the mystery of the death claims all, a night where the deepest of shadows can stir and come to life. Tonight, the man can believe that anything is possible, no matter how it may seem.
"She was a true Shinigami. Still is, as far as I know. And we knew each other so well, it was like we were the same person. But I stopped seeing them when I was seventeen years old – all of them, Shinigami and ghost alike. She disappeared, and I haven't seen her since. Two years was all I had with her before I couldn't even see her. I had lost her, just like I had my mother." With tears in his eyes, Shinigami turns back to the man, who is standing with the gun hanging uselessly in his hand. He knows he cannot kill Shinigami, now. He knows him too well; he knows his heart, the pain he feels, and he is angry with himself, because he wanted to kill Shinigami – but the Shinigami before him is not the hated enemy from the visions of his past. He cannot kill the man in front of him, because he knows he is a man, not a specter of the night. All he can do is to listen to the voice of the wind.
"I wanted to die, then. I had lost my friend – but she was so much more than just that. She understood me, like no one else did. She knew the darkest corners of my soul, the deepest pain in my heart – and still, she didn't hate me for it. And I knew her pain, and I knew her deepest secrets, and I still cared for her, too. It was unconditional. We fought, we argued – but that didn't really matter. She filled the hole in my life that I had never realized I had. And when she was gone, she took a part of me with her. I left school, left my town, left my name and my friends – because, compared to her, it really didn't matter. I travelled, I roamed the country – and I saw pain and suffering, wherever I went. And I missed her, and I called for her – and if she ever answered, I couldn't even hear her answer. And I knew that she could be doing the same thing, calling for me – and I could never go to her. Life was nothing, meaningless, and there was nothing I had left that was worth keeping it for. And if I died, maybe I could find her again." He turns away again, as if the emotion is too much for him to share. He stares out across the falling veil of rain, remembering, reliving the days, and through his words, the man can feel it with him. They are like the waves on a beach – so full of sound and feeling that, even if you are nowhere near them, they are real.
"I wandered the slums of the city, and, one day, I saw a man being killed. I watched him take a knife in the ribs, and I knew I couldn't let that happen. So I stopped it. No glory, no power of a Shinigami – just me. I hadn't gone there to save lives, and I hadn't gone there to take them. I went there to die, but I couldn't bring myself to let that just happen. I walked, and I slept, and I killed when they did wrong." There is no pride, no happiness in Shinigami's voice. He is remembering aloud, pouring out his heart to the man who had come to destroy it.
"People began to hear about me, then. Some loved me, some hated me, some respected me, but all were afraid of me. They saw the man who walks as though he is dead, the man without weakness, the man who brings death with him, wherever he goes. They began to recognize me, wherever I walked. They began to have a name for me, a name they called me." The bitter irony is clear in his voice, the loss and pain, and then the raw wounds opened again as he speaks his name.
"They called me Shinigami. And that name was everything I had lost, everything I could not have, and it cut me, more than anything else could. I knew that it didn't matter what clothes I wore or what weapon I carried. I would never see them again. I could never truly be Shinigami."
Shinigami sighed, defeated and despairing, and slowly, turns back to face the gunman, who just stands there, staring at him. Slowly, the man lets his fingers open, and with a clatter of cold, hard, steel, the weapon he holds falls to the cracked marble floors, never to be taken up again. He knows, now, that he cannot kill the black-robed man in front of him, no matter what he has done. He will not be able to kill any man, because he knows now the pain and the suffering every one of them could bear. And as he meets Shinigami's amber eyes, he realizes he has grown this night. His spirit, in some way, is more enlightened and understanding than it had been that morning. This being before him, in such a short time, has reached out and touched his life, changing his very being.
"Shinigami…" He is in awe, suddenly, of the black-robed man in front of him. He has borne pain that no soul can bear – and still, he bears it. He has lost all that mattered to him – and still, somehow, he can walk on. The man reaches out a hand to him – whether in conciliation or in pleading, he knows not.
And the door behind him crashes open, and harsh shouting and harsh yellow light all around him. A blazing of guns, and Shinigami is struck, as if by the hand of an invisible god, staggering backwards, blood flying as the volley of bullets smash through his body.
"Jefe! ¿Estás bien?" The man realizes he has fallen to the ground, breath shuddering through his body in sudden panic, and nods confirmation, not trusting his mouth to speak as he stares in horror at Shinigami. One of his men stoops to pull him to his feet, but he brushes his henchmen aside, reaching towards the black-robed man in front of him.
There is another crack, and fresh blood pours from the wounds on Shinigami's chest. The man calls for them to stop, voice cracking in despair and in shock, but he knows that it is too late to save him. His men hesitate, but he does not; he staggers forward, towards the dying man.
"Shinigami!" He is filled with regret and helplessness as he hears the labored breathing and the flowing blood, and knows death has come for the god of death. Impossibly, Shinigami is still on his feet, leaning on the rail for support as his lifeblood saturates the ground beneath him. The amber eyes, half-closed and distant, blink, and a tear falls, joining the constant downpour of rain. There is wonder in those eyes, and hope, as they stare blankly into space.
From far away, a light appears. The man blinks in astonishment, for he would have sworn there had not been a gate in the air a moment before. But now, there is, and from the gateway shines a white light, too bright to see. His breath catches as tiny creatures flutter through the door in the air, full of shiny ebony patterns and glimmering wings, and he knows that the butterflies are emissaries to another world. Then, as the gate closes and the light fades, a girl steps from the sky.
She is small and slender, dressed in a black kimono identical to the bloodstained one that Shinigami is wearing. She has dark hair, and calm blue eyes that shine like the skies. They have sorrow and pain, deep within them, but there is a peace in them now, and a joy as she walks from the heavens to the earth. In her hand is a shining sword, glowing white like the full moon, a soft and gentle beauty that will last for eternity. The man sees her, and a thrill of shock runs through him as he remembers Shinigami's words and the picture on the wall.
"Rukia…" Shinigami raises a hand to her, dark with blood, and she smiles tenderly and takes it in her own flawless one. There is such gentleness in them, intimacy so deep that the man can only watch and wonder at it. She manages a smile for him, and, despite the pain and blood, he manages to smile back. "You came… for me…" he gasps, and the joy in him as he chokes out the words is palpable.
"Of course I did," she murmurs, crouching next to him and resting her forehead against his, tears sliding down her cheeks, sobs shaking her body as she hugs his dying form to her. "I always knew I would come when it was time." As she speaks, the hope and the sorrow in her voice are too strong for him to understand, too powerful for the man to ever comprehend. She lays his head against the balcony, and gently touches the hilt of her sword to his forehead. It glows, briefly, and then fades as she takes it away again. Shinigami sighs in relief, and his body relaxes, head falling back, amber eyes fading, never to shine again, and the man knows that Shinigami is dead. And he feels sorrow and despair at the thought.
But now, he stands above his mortal body, immortal soul, kimono fluttering in the wind. His eyes are clear and sharp, and his face is without pain or bitterness now. He is younger, stronger, more vibrant and powerful in death than he ever had been in life.
"Come on, Ichigo. It's time to go home again." She raises an arm, pointing with the authority of death and life, and the door slides open, light pouring through the gateway to Heaven. She takes his hand, and the butterflies fill the air, twirling and spinning as the two Shinigami walk to the light. But as he steps through the gate, Shinigami hesitates and turns back, facing the man below once again.
"Thank you," he tells the man below. "Live well, live long, and live life. It isn't long that you have here. But when you're done…" He trails off briefly, but he meets the man's eyes again as the light begins to envelop his soul. "When the time comes, I'll be here to lead you on." The Shinigami's amber eyes, full of life again, are kind as they look down upon the awestruck man. He had come to kill, and, instead, he had been taught what it was to live and die. He nods, in stunned awe, and the Shinigami raises his hand in a final farewell.
He turns, and she walks at his side as they pass together through the gateway in the air. The pain is gone from them, and the rain has stopped falling, and the air smells clean and fresh again. They pass into the light, and then they are gone, returned to the sanctuary above the sky. The butterflies follow them through, a thousand gossamer wings and a thousand whispers of wind, and the ancient gate slowly closes and fades in the clouds and the sky. The full moon shines above, and with it shines the hopes and dreams of a thousand lives in the city lights below him.
He gazed at the body of the black-robed man below him, and wonders how he could have ever hated him. Gently, he reaches down and closes the eyes, bowing his head in respect for him, one last time.
"Farewell," he whispers to him, even though he will never hear.
And thank you… Shinigami.
Thanks for sticking with the story and reading to the end! Reviews are appreciated, no matter how short.