Friends
Kano Uyusei stood at the training grounds, patiently waiting for their appointed instructors to arrive. Today is special and they will be having specially assigned teachers, even consisting of seated officers in the Gotei Thirteen. There on the grounds, many students were already gathered around each other, enthusiatically discussing about the event that is yet to come. The air was static with excitment and even she was fired up at the prospective lesson. Indeed, Kano thought as she contentedly took the scene in, we will all be going on their first purification ritual today.
"You know, my senpai said that this is a once in a lifetime thing!" A girl babbled to her listening friends. "He said that the first time you guide a lost soul to Soul society will be most memorable thing in your shinigami career!"
"I am so excited. This is what is meant to be shinigami!" Another girl was heard to shouted.
"I am going to guide more souls than you will, Koda san!" A boy declared.
"Oh yea? Eat me."
"I heard you have to press the hilt of your zanpakuto onto the spirit's forehead you know."
Zanpakuto.
Kano looked down upon the katana strapped to her waist and gave it a fond smile. While an asauchi could substitute and perform the ritual just as well, Kano was proud to know that she was among one of the few who had their own zanpakuto and that her first Purification Ritual will be done using her very own sword. There was definitely a certain good feeling about that...
"KANO – CHAN!"
A loud shout of her name startled her. Before she knew what was happening, Kano Uyusei was roughly tackled onto the ground. As the dust settled, she could make out the prominent yellow hair of the shinigami girl that had crashed into her and with that, she knew who had just arrived.
"Oww... Fuda chan, mind telling Kinon to not be so violent next time?" Kano said as she tenderly rubbed her own head, looking at another black-haired girl who had just came.
"Sorry, Kano. You know how Kinon is." The newcomer sheepishly shrugged. "She won't listen to me when it comes to you."
Kano finally managed to disentangle herself from the over-hyper-tackle-obsessed girl. Standing up onto her feet, she hoisted Kinon up as well.
"You know Fuda chan. I swear you purposely allowed her to do this so you can get a laugh out of it." Kano accused irritatedly. After all, nobody liked to eat the dirt on the ground whenever they meet up with friends. She had wanted to berate them and let them had a piece of her mind but it was just so hard to be angry at them when they are both her closest friends.
The two of them were friends before her and they had opened up to Kano first, bothering to integrate her into their activities. In fact, it seemed as though they wanted to befriend her the moment they saw her. Sometime, Kano could not help but wonder what was it they saw and a quick question only earned her a "You give off a lonely vibe" from Fuda and a befuddling "Kano chan is just too cute to leave alone!" from Kinon. At first, Kano was unsure of their intentions, but she gradually accepted them and came to regard them with affection.
Fuda, perhaps knowing this particular fact, only grinned sagely in reply. Kinon on the other hand had already switched topic.
"Kano chan! You are going to do the ritual with Kepakku, right? It is gonna be so cool doing it with your own zanpakuto! You know you should teach me how to do it sometimes!"
"As Kinon had said, you better show us how to contact our spirits or I will let Kinon tackle you till you are nothing but a splat on the ground." Fuda jokingly added.
It might be a threat that would probably never come true and yet Kano could not help but detect a slight hint of jealously and sadness in her words.
"I will, of course. We are friends, arn't we?"
At that, Kano could see Fuda brighten up considerably. Kinon who was already pretty hyper just got more excited, making Kano wondered if she should have made that promise in the first place.
"Kano chan is the BEST!" Kinon declared before she tackled Kano yet again.
Under Fuda's giggles, Kano Uyusei sighed as she moved to untangle herself from Kinon again. As she pulled herself up from the ground for the second time, the crowd erupted into near frenzy and she could see why.
The instructors had finally arrived.
Spirit
Kepakku.
That is the name of her sword, her zanpakuto.
Innocence. It was what it meant.
The first time Kano Uyusei entered her spirit world, she was amazed. Actually, amazed would be quite an understatement. There in the middle of a garden so beautiful and rife with flowers of every colour, a gigantic tree stood, tall and regal, with a crown that could reach up to the heavens.
Kano unconsciously drew in a large mouthful of air. She could not helped but be entranced by the pure majesticity of the grand tree and before she knew it, she was already subconsciously making her way through the vibrant garden towards it.
It was calling her.
Kepakku. It said.
"Kepakku." She had repeated, only barely aware of its meaning.
It was not long before she made her way through the eden she was in to her destination. Kano remembered their zanpakuto instructor telling them that their first meeting with their spirit would hold a very significant special meaning to no one but the shinigami themselves, but this... The sheer scale of this was beyond both her expectations and comprehension. Emotions overwhelmed her again and again until she thought she would break apart at her seams.
Kepakku. It told her.
There was a slight rustle before a single leaf detached itself and started to fall. Kano could barely make out the descending leaf from the rest, and the glaring light that was non-existent before had started to shine through the canopy, blinding her as though to deprive her of her sight of her target.
This was a test. Deep down in her heart, Kano knew that the tree was judging her. She knew that if she were to be successful, her life would change from this day onwards.
Kepakku. It reaffirmed.
If this was a test, then she could not disappoint. With all her concentration, Kano fixated her eyes upon the falling leaf. The glare of the light seek to force her to turn away and from nowhere a breeze starts to blow, changing the path of leaf and yet, Kano persevered. Her eyes seared and her muscles ached from moving around but she did not care.
All she wished for at that present moment was that leaf.
Just as the leaf came within her reach, a sudden gale swept across the base of the tree. The leaf, which was almost her's, was instantly carried away by the wind and then deposited onto a flower bed meters away from her.
"Kepakku." Kano breathed.
The next moment she was unceremoniously kicked out of her dream as a result of her failure.
Every time she slept (or daydreamed) , Kano continued this routine in her dreams and each and every time she would fail right at that very last moment. However, she never ever thought of giving up. Night after night, she tried again, each time chasing after that particular leaf until that last gust of wind crushed her chance for that day. As it went on, she grew more and more nimble and her perception increased until the point she could instinctively guess where the leaf would be with every change of the wind.
One night, she finally held that leaf in her hands. Her hard-earned prize, achieved after numerous grueling games of Catch, was as pristine and beautifully shaped like the lofty entity that had shed it. While she laid upon the gentle flower bed that she had landed on from the attempt to grasp her prize, a wave of epiphany washed over her as the giant tree radiated an aura of warmth and approval.
Kepakku. It sang.
That night, Kano's eyes flew open and she declared in triumph and with pride .
"Nuru, Kepakku." (Paint, Innocence.)
Innocence
A sea of flames.
As Kano Uyusei took in the carnage wrought upon them around her, her mind simply failed. How had it came to this? It was suppose to be a simple Purification Ritual, of which the students would experience their virgin attempt at guiding a soul to the afterlife and feel a sense of achievement at becoming a step closer to a full fledged shinigami. It was supposed to be happy. It was supposed to be like an outing where they will have fun and create new memories.
So how had it come to this?
Before her, charred bodies that had previously been unlucky enough to be swallowed by hungry flames were still burning even after the people in the incandescence had long since stopped moving. The smell of sulphur and soot constantly assaulted her nose, making it difficult to breathe. Hell. This whole scene was like a place brought out from the burning depths of Hell.
Elsewhere, a demon of pure fire raged, battling the seated officers assigned to their safety and appearing to be actually winning. Those caught in its vicious fireballs were mercilessly incinerated, their flesh melting from their burnt bodies and eventually adding onto the death the inhumane being was bringing. Those fortunate enough to avoid the fire were then swiftly cut down by the monster's claws.
"Kano...chan. Cough." A voice shook her out of her stupor.
"Kinon!" Kano was glad the yellow haired girl was okay. "Where? Where is Fuda?
The other girl hung her head in reply and Kano felt her own heart stop. The fact that the girl was covered in severe burns and looked as though she had just barely escaped with her life, and that the two of them were never seen without each other, Kano assumed the worst.
No. It... can't be...
"She...she..." Kano began to say, but the words were stuck at her throat and simply refused to come out.
"They... they are gathering people over there through a senkaimon. We should...cough...go."
Without a second word, the yellow-haired shinigami turned and started to move. Nobody was fooled. Kano knew that. Kinon knew it as well. Her eyes might have been covered behind her yellow bangs, but Kano was sure that she would find tears.
Because she was on the verge of them herself.
After some time of forlorn walking, they finally reached the gathering point, only to find nothing but dead burning bodies and a demon there waiting for them. The both of them stared wide-eyed with horror while they watch the burning entity completely destroy the gate back to Soul Society. As the last bit of the senkaimon disintegrated into spirit particles, it sniffed and then turned to them.
"More shinigami." The abomination cackled. "More to burn then. Hahahahahaha"
With a leap so strong, the being closed the distance between them within a blink of an eye. Its ghastly mouth twisted to perform a mockery of a greeting.
"Hello." It spoke with a twisted smile.
Kano Uyusei could not act, or rather, she did not know how to act. This monster had deciminated an entire group of ranked shinigami, killed dozens of others and lastly destroyed their gateway back to safety. How is she to fight, much less run from something that could very well catch up to her within seconds?
However, Kinon had other plans. Kano only saw the deadened look the girl's eyes was giving her before she realized too late what she had decided to do.
No!
Using the crash-tackle she was so fond of using on Kano, the girl lunged at the being of fire. The moment she made contact, the living flames that danced about the demon enveloped her all. Even as her clothes burned away and her skin melted, she did not scream.
All she did with her dying breath was to shout at Kano.
"Run, Kano chan! I will cover you...Fuda chan would have wanted me to..."
Mere moments later, all that was left of Kinon was a charred corpse, her arms still tightly bound around the hollow as though to prevent it from reaching the remaining girl.
Goodbye. Kinon's unspoken last word lingered in the dying wind.
No! No! No! Why... why is this happening?
"Shinigami girl." It then said. The malice within its ungodly voice shook Kano to her very core.
Her very fiber of her being wanted simply disappear. However, she could not bring herself to run. How could she when this accursed bastard murdered so many of her classmates and her friends within a period of a single day? She had lost so much. So much... Her feelings must have showed, because the monster paused for a while as though surprised.
"You want to kill me?" It asked, this time with a tone that speaks only of mockery. "Foolish."
It then pulled the burnt corpse of Kinon away from its body, easily breaking the part that was once a girl's arm, now only solid ash. "Like this weakling here who charged in blindly and got herself killed and another from before who sacrificed herself so that this very same one could get away."
At the mention of Kinon and Fuda, Kano suddenly felt an overwhelming sense of rage. This monster here had robbed her of her dearest friends, and now it dared to defile their memories. Fuda... Fuda had tried to stalled for time by giving herself over Kinon and now Kinon had done the same for her. What had been unbound fear and helplessness before, there was now only a hauntingly serene calm.
Choking back a tear, Kano coldly said.
"Bakudo rokujuichi, Rikujōkōrō"
Instantly, six thin beams of light slammed into the midsection of the monster, stunning and immobilizing it. However, it immediately broke through the flimsy spell, shattering the beams into million of pieces.
"Ha! What was that? That was not even..."
The monster was cut off mid-sentence as it realized that Kano had charged right up to it, drawing her zanpakuto in the process.
"Nuru, Kepakku."
The moment Kano uttered the katana's name, it reformed itself into a sleeker version and the hilt morphed into a tree-like symbol. Gathering all her strength, Kano slashed downwards with a cold fury never seen before. The abomination of fire leap backwards by instinct, but was still nicked by the blade. There, its wound began to glow white with reiatsu before it starts to spread, albeit very slowly.
Kano, heartened by this small victory, moved in for another strike, this time only for her blade to be caught by the hollow's claws. Somehow, it seemed that she could cut him no longer.
Shit.
"I was surprised, but no more." It snarled. "Now, burn and be devoured."
At its word, the zanpakuto in its claws burst into flames. Kano could not help but let go of the heated metal, the fire soon encompassing her most precious possession in a matter of seconds. Her zanpakuto screamed, but she could do nothing lest she ended up the same fate as her friends.
Nothing. There was nothing she could do.
What happened next was totally beyond her expression by words. Kano could only watch in mortified horror as the monster opened its demonic jaws and began to insert her sword down its throat. She sought to protest as the burning blade was devoured inch by inch but found no strength to speak.
All these time, her zanpakuto screamed.
Kepakku! It thrashed about in agony.
"Kepakku." Kano found herself dazedly mouthing as the blade disappeared entirely into the monster's mouth.
A brief scene of a garden on fire flashed across her mind's eye. Kano Uyusei suddenly felt very lost, as though a facet of her soul had been forcibly torn from her. An emptiness began to settled in where it should not have been before. It was unsettling.
She felt hollow.
She did not care that the monster was closing in upon her, nor did she care that she was to be devoured in turn. All she cared about was that she had lost a part of herself.
She felt like dying.
And the last thing she saw was an ocean of red cascading all around her.
Mind
It was burning everywhere. No matter where she turned, all she saw was an angry cacophony of flames. The flowers in her garden of eden were dying by the dozens, swallowed and reduced to nothing but ashes as the waves of roaring flames swept across the field of flowers. Sweating in the blistering heat, Kano desperately surveyed the scene of fiery chaos for her sanctuary.
There was no call. No warmth. No soothing beckon. And it was with abject horror that she set her eyes upon what was once her most beloved guardian. There, in the place where her majestic tree had stood before, an epitome of death filled its place. The tree was charred back, scorched by heat and cruel flames. What had been a grand crown of leaves were ashen gnarly branches that reached into the red sky as though pleading for help that never came.
"KEPAKKU!" Kano shrieked, charging herself forward, not caring about the flames that painfully licked at her feet.
Reaching the dead tree, she instantly threw herself at it, wrapping her hands around the still warm trunk.
"Please... answer me." She pitifully murmured as she sniffed back tears she did not know she had shed.
Silence answered her.
"Please... Kepakku. Tell me you are still there..." She begged.
Still silence. Only the deadened tree stood tall, looking down upon her form as though blaming her, criticising her and ultimately rejecting her. It stood, as a monument to her sins.
"I am sorry I let you go. Please... I am sorry..."
As her cries went unheard, Kano Uyusei finally broke down under the overwhelming emotions that had threatened to drown her. It was her fault. It was all her fault. And now, she had lost her spirit forever.
"I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry. I am sorry..."
Kano awoke with a start, white-washed walls greeting her the moment her eyelids opened.
Where was she? Ow...
Dull aches plagued her entire body and even the slightest contact of each area with the gown she was wearing would set off a bout of painful agony.
"You are finally awake, Uyusei san." A man with the signature fourth division attire greeted her. "It was lucky you survived."
Survived... so she escaped from the demon? Demon...
"You know, you did be dead if one of the captains did not reach there on time. Now, you got to..."
Demon..
Kano immediately flew up from the bed she was lying on, not bothering to let the man finish his sentence nor with the fact that every part of her body seared as her barely-healed burns rub against the fabric. As the memories of the encounter rushed back into her mind, her heart started to grow heavy with dread. If her dream had meant what she thought it meant...
"Hey..hey! What are you doing you should be.."
"Asauchi. Give me an asauchi. Please."
Perhaps it was the tone of her voice, or the desperate pleading look upon her face, but the man stopped in his attempt to get the girl back onto the hospital bed. With a resigned sigh, he left the room and soon returned with an Asauchi, an empty zanpakuto that a spirit had not taken residence in. Kano took the blade over and immediately tried to call out her release.
"Nuru, Kepakku."
Nothing happened.
No...
"This was a joke right?" Kano turned to the man, forcing a trembling smile. "This... is Fuda chan's idea of a prank on me. Yes. It must be and Kinon chan is on it. What... what a cruel joke..."
But the look the man gave her told her otherwise. No matter how she tried to convince herself, the sadness and pity in his eyes bore through her devastated soul and broke through her denial again and again.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" She suddenly threw the asauchi in a fit of unstable rage, forcing the man to duck to avoid the vicious blade. "Why are you looking as though I had just become a crippled?"
"GO AWAY!" Kano screamed. Then slumping down onto the bed and covering the blanket over her head, she said again, this time nothing more than a whisper. "Go away." She pled.
The moment the sound of footsteps left the room, Kano started to weep softly, every tear mourning for each of the flowers that had burned in her Paradise.
Peace
"Have you heard? They say that she alone survived the massacre at the Purification Ritual the other day."
"Really? So that is why she is now in our class?"
"Yea, and I heard a captain saved her too. Wonder what she is going to do to repay the favour though."
"Spreading her legs I suppose?"
"Goddamn, you are SICK."
The group then burst into laughter, completely ignoring the blue-haired girl that was nearby. Perhaps they knew, and trying to get a reaction out of her was exactly their intentions. Kano however, had no wish to respond to their tauntings. She was tired and worn out from having to deal with recovering from both her physical wounds and her mental ones. Nights of wandering the dead garden in her mindscape searching fruitlessly for any other signs of life had stretched her to breaking point and the nightmares re-enacting the scenes from that faithful day that had started to appear did not help.
Today, right now, she is having her first zanjutsu class ever since the "incident". Her healer was skeptical of letting her out of the hospital so early, but Kano had been adamant if only so that the work from the academy could take her mind off the more terrible things.
There was a clattering of sandals as the scattered students hurried back to their seats, followed immediately by the instructor walking in.
"Alright class. We are going to practice some kendo today so each of you get an asauchi and a partner so that we can start." His deep voice rang throughout the classroom. "Remember, no hurting your opponents or I will make sure I expel you."
The students instantly got around to pairing themselves and it was no surprise that at the end, Kano was left standing alone. She could barely notice the instructor dragging a very reluctant boy towards her nor the concerned looks he was giving her. She did not even move when the class went to the front to collect their blades and only flinched that tiny bit when the boy she was paired with rudely threw the katana in her face.
As the unnamed sword clattered onto the floor, Kano Uyusei could only stare at it.
Could she ever draw a blade again?
She then found herself reaching for the sword, only to draw back her hand. Her eyes darted about as she remembered the scene back at the hospital.
No... Not again... She could not deal with it again...
"Sensei! She did not want to take up her sword!" The boy complained.
The instructor shouted back from across the room, "Take it easy on her okay? She will pick it up when she feels like it. I will come over in a second."
The boy appeared to be unsatisfied with the teacher's response. Instead of waiting on Kano, he drew his own sword and adopted a battle position.
"If you don't want to take it up, then it is your lost." He sneered.
The first time the blade pierced her flesh, Kano only winced. The second time it did, it was as though a monstrosity had been unleashed. For days, Kano had bottled up her feelings, not knowing where she could vent all her emotions upon. Her friends were dead, her zanpakuto spirit gone, and nobody wanted to go near her because of the "incident". There were only jeers, senseless teasing and looks of pity and disgust. She had no outlet and could only take everything upon herself.
But this changed.
"Bakudo Sanju, Shitotsu Sansen."
Instantly, three beams of light interconnected into a triangle slammed right into the boy, blasting the poor soul all the way back into the wall. It was not like the higher level spell she had used on the demon of fire on a whim as a flimsy distraction. This one was strong, and no matter how the boy struggled, he could not free himself. A split second later, Kano had flash-stepped to right in front of the stunned male.
"Hado Ichi, Shō"
The boy, already at the furthest end he could be, screamed in pain as the spell designed to push the target away whammed into his trapped self The force traveled through the body and then rebounded on the wall behind it, creating a backlash so painful that the cracking of bones were heard. All around the classroom, students and even the instructor stopped their activities and watched in horror, shocked that something like this had come to pass.
"Shō. Shō. Shō. Shō. Shō."
With every spell, the boy screamed louder and louder, until the point his voice was hoarse and he could scream no longer.
"Shō. Shō. Shō. Shō. Shō."
Every spell she cast upon the pathetic being, Kano put in everything behind it. Her anger, her despair, her guilt, her frustration. Everything.
"Shō. Shō. Shō..."
Even after the instructor had recovered enough to stop her, Kano was still casting. It was only when a hard whack on her neck knocked her out cold did she stop the torture of the boy, who by then was already bleeding from his orifices and reduced to a total bloody wreck.
It took quite awhile before the boy could return to his former state and despite the instructor's attempt to hush it up, the news still got out.
That month, Kano Uyusei was suspended and stayed in her now single dorm, visited by no one but an appointed counselor cum teacher and was haunted by rumors that had spread like wildfire.
Purity
The day Kano Uyusei discovered alcohol, it was like a godsend. It was right after she had fallen asleep and then subsequently woken up again by another bout of her endless recurring nightmares. It was annoying, and it was visibly straining her. Remnants of the scene of the "incident" would fill her eyes every time she closed them and if it was not that, it would be her being deposited to wander aimlessly in a garden full of death. They will always end up with her waking up in cold sweat, robbing her of her valuable sleeptime as she spent the rest of the night staring into the darkness of her room.
That night, Kano decided to take a stroll down the dormitory corridors. What she had expected to be a walk void of life was soon interrupted by audible shouts and cheers emitting from one of the rooms. Lights of various colors flashed from behind the door, outlining it with pretty patterns just long enough to illuminate the disorganised casks of half-drunk liquid scattered in the hallway outside it. Right on them, a label the kanji for "Sake" was prominently displayed.
They were partying. Kano bitterly realised. Without a care in the world. Without any troubles on their mind. As they should have been... As I should have been...
It was this that Kano was envious. For no other reason but to spite those inside, she sat herself down and began to glup down from those casks. The first time her lips touched the bitter liquid, it stung at her throat and mouth and she spat it out instinctively. Yet, she did not stop. Bit by bit, she forced herself to empty the bottles and as she drank, it became easier and easier for her to stomach the taste. The more she drank, the more drunk she became until she could barely grasp a bottle in her hands. At some point of time or another she must have puked, because her gown was suddenly wet and heavy and sticky.
It was only when she downed every single drop of the unfinished leftover sake did she let the alluring embrace of darkness take her.
And Kano Uyusei was found at the exact same spot the next day, lying in a pool of her own vomit, dirty and dishevelled. Groups of students were already gathered around the pathetic sight, pointing at her with looks of abhorrence and disbelief. Kano merely picked herself up from the mess that was her stomach fluid with as much dignity as she had left before slowly making her way back to her dorm under the stares of other people and a pounding headache.
No doubt fresh rumours would spread, and her already destroyed reputation would once again be shredded, but Kano did not care. She was long past caring. The only thing she cared about now was the fact that sake had been able to grant her a dreamless sleep.
From that day onwards, Kano Uyusei knocked herself out cold every night via drinking, no matter the discovery that she was a light drinker, nor the fact she could never get used to the hangover the day after.
Life
"Uyusei san. Won't you not pick up the sword?" Her counselor asked.
Kano remained silent and shook her head, which prompted the older woman to give a loud sigh. Even though her suspension had ended, it had been decided after a conference and by the girl's own request that Kano would continue to live in a private dorm and have a specially assigned instructor to get her up to the curriculum for the time being.
Takijawa san, the kind woman and ex shinigami academy intstructor who had been assigned to her ever since the suspension stayed on and Kano was glad for that if it meant that there was still a familiar presence to connect her to the outside world.
"I suppose we are done for today, Uyusei san." Takijawa sighed again and moved to stand. "I will come by tomorrow okay?"
With that the older woman resignedly retreated out of the room, disheartened by the minimal progress her ward was making. Weeks back, she had been alarmed when news of someone whose description resembled Kano was found drunk and in a mess outside one of the dorms but by the time she rushed to the scene, the person was gone. She could not help but feel worried for the blue-haired girl and yet, there was not much she could do for her.
For only she can save herself.
Because she is the one putting herself through all this.
********
After Takijawa had left, Kano mechanically reach under her bed to withdraw a bottle of sake. Uncorking it, she then headed towards the window where she slid open one of the glass pane before hopping up onto the ledge to sit. As she leaned on the side of the window, her hands reached for the nearby book placed on her study table and a swig of the bottle later, Kano started to read in the moonlight.
Ariel's shock was clear. "Only eleven days? I was sure we have for ourselves a season..."
She did not remember since when she had started this nightly practice, but ever since she got suspended, Kano had found solace in her books. Books. They had no mouth and they have no minds of their own. They did not inquire about her, nor do they laugh at her.
Most importantly, they do not judge her.
It was thus Kano found herself heading towards the Library more and more often. There, she would find peace and solitude as she read by herself in a discrete corner away from everyone else and whatever she could not finish, she borrowed back to her dorm. Left with virtually no friends and all the time in the world due to her suspension and then special arrangements, the Library became her world and its tomes of fantasy, fiction and reference materials, her silent "companions".
Then the sake incident occurred and she adopted the drink into her practice not long after, which ended up with her as she is now, leisurely relaxing under the light of the moon while enjoying the two things she had grown to like the most.
Kano took another mouthful from the bottle, this time pausing for a moment before swallowing to savor the bitter taste in her mouth. Was it why she had grown to favor the liquid so much, because it tasted so much like that which had weighed down her heart? Kano shrugged. It would do no good to dwell upon such things for too long lest the effects of alcohol took over earlier than she could finish her designated reading portion for the day or worse, make her fall out of the window to her gruesome death.
Idly, Kano wondered if that had been her intentions all along.
Gradually, the sake in the bottle depleted and the words upon the book she was reading grew blurrier. Slamming the book shut and putting it away, Kano supposed that it was about time she should be going to sleep. She was about to throw the bottle she was holding down the bin when the door suddenly creaked open.
"Uyusei san, excuse me, but I realized I forgot something in your room." Takijawa spoke softly for fear of waking up the girl she thought was sleeping. "I will just take my thing and be out in a ..."
There, right in plain sight of the counselor's view, was a Kano Uyusei flushed red and wobbling slightly on her feet from the alcohol looking like a deer caught in the headlights. The sake bottle in the hands did not help a single bit.
"Ano?" The alcohol-fuddled girl could only utter in confusion.
Everything seemed to explode next, double times for the poor drunken Kano.
"WHAT DID YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING, YOUNG LADY?" Takijawa thundered, moving forward and snatching the bottle out Kano's hands. "Drinking sake? So, it was you who was found in her own vomit that time!"
She then threw the empty bottle down the bin as though to make a point. All the time, Kano watched dazedly, until the actions Takijawa had done registered in her head.
"... Go awhayy...*hic" The girl slurred before she emotionlessly turned her back to Takijawa to move towards her bed. "You have noo rhightsh to do thish."
She did not get far, for the next moment Kano was swung around by the older shinigami and then held at the shoulders as a piercing set of raven eyes stared back at her.
"Listen to me, Kano. This is not the way." Takijawa whispered. "You are killing yourself..."
Her words however, triggered a reaction in a dormant part of Kano's mind that she thought she had long since buried.
"What...*hic... do you know? The crysh of my friends *hic and zanpakutoh... as they died? The dead garden I was forsh to waander every night? The void in my shoul that gnawed on meh *hic every thime? You dhon't know anything..."
Kano laughed as tears start to fell down her cheeks. Takijawa however, stood stunned. All these time, Kano Uyusei had kept everything to herself and yet, all it took for her to divulge these buried feelings was a fit in her drunken stupor.
"Yeshh! Maybe I wanted thoo die." She hiccuped. "I am nothing but a shinigami without a zanpakutoh! My reiatsu, I've tried *hic. It wash weaker than before... I am nothing buth a crippled! A crippled thath should have died back then."
Then, madness took over.
"So keel meh! I was so scared of killing myshelf *hic... do meh a favour and kill..."
A resounding slap echoed throughout the room, shutting Kano up before she could go down a path of no return. On her face, a palm print of bright red dully ebbed and the pain from the slap seemed to have sobered her up a little.
"Listen to me, Kano..." Takijawa half-plead, half ordered. For once since the whole tirade started, the blue-haired girl listened.
"You are not useless. You do not deserve to die. What had happened was horrible, yes, but your friends died so you could live right?"
Kano numbly nodded.
"Then please live and live well, for both their sake and yours. They would be so sad if they were to see you in your current state. You might have lost your zanpakuto spirit, but a shinigami is not defined by his or her blade!"
Tears were visible in the older shinigami's eyes.
"If you could cut no more, then don't cut. If you could run no more, then don't run. Sometimes, there is not just one way to continue on. So what if others have a sword and you don't? You will just have to beat them with kidou. So what if your reiatsu was weaker than before? You just have to train more and learn to use it more efficiently."
"So please, Kano chan." Takijawa uttered with utmost sincerity. "There are so many things out there you could still excel in, so many things you could still live for."
At the end of her words, Kano looked at her with an expression that could only be described as a faint spark of hope. Smiling serenely, Takijawa gently nodded to reaffirm the girl's silent question.
Suddenly, in an act that surprised the ex-instructor, Kano Uyusei ran into her arms and broke into full-fledged tears, hiccuping occasionally amidst the onset of unstoppable crying. The stunned woman took awhile to regather her composure before she spent the next moments comforting the girl sobbing on her shoulder.
That night ever since the "incident", Kano felt truly relieved of her burden.
Subsequently, the bottles of sake got smaller, and the books gradually changed to be mostly about the Kidou arts. She still read them in the moonlight on the window ledge and still drank sake before she slept much to the chagrin of the ex-instructor, but slowly and surely, Kano Uyusei was beginning to re-accept back her life that she had almost lost sight of.