Chapter One: Aquarius

The nameless emotion invoked by the image of fish swimming endlessly in circles, oblivious to the true width of the world while living their lives in small cages seemingly content with the knowledge that they were living in a perfect world wherein nothing ever changed, was somewhere between peace and a soul crushing despair. They would be incapable of living in the outside world, uncertain of how to proceed and where they should go. A similar fate shared by far too many youths across the world who knew not where they were going, how to get there, or what the next step truly should be.

Perhaps, if humans weren't intelligent there wouldn't be reason for such conflict to exist; borders, wealth, ownership, legacy, birth right, the things that started wars as ephemeral as the lives lost fighting them in the end creating unnecessary chaos in the process. Perhaps, if humans weren't intelligent the unconscious mind wouldn't devise ways to torment the soul: revealing inadequacies, uncertainties, every fault or blunder replayed endlessly in the mind's eye as one attempted to drift into sleep.

Those thoughts, the greatest of mental dilemmas created through internal conflict, only came when there were no distractions. The left a singular choice, a decision that could damn or redeem: whether to ease another's pain and drown in your own or to condemn yourself to ease another.

Such were things that didn't concern a fish; the radically different cognitive abilities were incapable of being compared. However, she was sure that if she lived the life of a manta ray she would find something equally as relevant to ponder with what little time she had to do nothing but breathe and think. She might ponder those abstract thoughts while watching humans sitting on the other side of the glass and wish to live such a seemingly "simple" life as the one that she saw and thought that she understood.

Down in the corridor between the fish tanks it was cool and quiet; soothing both the raging headache she'd had since this morning even as it quickened the ache in her shoulder that was slowly but surely migrating back into her bicep. She didn't know if the cold had agitated it or her current mood but now there was something for her to focus on that had nothing to do with her arm or the stupidity that had caused the injury.

That was the magic of the aquarium; they were full of fantastic creatures that seemed so detached from the busy world that she had to navigate. The aquarium was quickly becoming a place that she came to avoid the rest of the world, to mentally regroup and refocus her life in a passage where time seemed to stand still. She'd always been rather philosophical in thought and the belief that if the world would just stop, even for a second, that the pieces of her life would be easier to stitch together like a rough quilt.

The dull echo and scuff of shoes on the thick rubber flooring in the hall was the first indication that she was no longer alone. The Aquarium was normally all but deserted on Wednesday afternoons however, for the last few days she'd been met with a decent sized crowd here in anticipation of a newborn dolphin pup and no one was quite certain exactly when the cow would give birth. Few of the enthusiasts would stray to the other exhibits yet it seemed that at least one other was finding solace in the peaceful movements of the rays and sharks on the other side of the glass.

Quietly the young woman paused to examine her unexpected company wandering with the expression of one who was not truly aware of anything around them. At a distance she recognized her company in the way that one easily placed a face in memory but not the name, a product of a mind recovering from the dream like trance. The name came within heartbeats along with the emotions invoked when one misplaced the word for a familiar object temporarily, Arisawa Tatsuki. She was remiss to have forgotten it even for the slightest moment the Kakyuusei was the favored pupil, neigh protégé, of her oldest brother and a frequent subject of conversation where he was concerned.

There was a moment of decision with the inevitable hesitation as the next course of action was decided upon. She chose in those long moments not to decide and to once allow fate to once more make what would likely be a life altering decision. Despite the constant presence of the younger girl in her life through her two of her brothers the relationship between them was not casual. The young woman's existence seemed to be on the outskirts, at the edge of her awareness; however, it would be neglectful of her to ignore the friend of a younger brother and protégé of another.

Arisawa Tatsuki was caught somewhere in the chaos of reality, trapped in a vortex of insanity the young woman tried to coax the calm from behind the glass into herself with no success. Somehow life was radically different than it was before and now there was a sense of growing unease inside of her, the sense that she was going to lose something important and no one cared. It was a time in her life when she needed someone and there was no one.

It seemed as if her parents could see it but they didn't truly see what was there even if they did try. Her father's attempt to talk to her would be awkward and eventually he would become uncomfortable, he would lead the conversation elsewhere. And as for talking to her mother, somehow the topic would be drawn back to some experience of hers and anything sensitive would be thrown back into her face the moment her mother got mad at her. They lacked the proper skills to handle her situation in a positive way that didn't involve such criticism.

How do you explain to your parents that the source of your sudden string of "queer" and "rebellious" behavior because the things that you understood so clearly months before were like a city beyond the mist? The answer alluded her as surely as the calm she was usually capable of willing herself into. The frustration was growing inside of her, tension turning the muscles in her shoulders into solid stone. Once again it seemed as if Inoue Orihime had found a way to worm her way beneath the skin of others in such a way that it caused her victim to deteriorate.

Tatsuki winced as she pinched at her shirt, she was definitely losing weight. She winced even harder when she realized that Orihime would notice now, even if she didn't feel like eating she should even if it was to just maintain her weight. The depression was growing despite the considerable efforts of Honshō Chizuru to ease her mind. She thought that perhaps Inoue wasn't doing it on purpose, teasing but never actually going through with what she said she would, her not so secret obsession with Kurosaki Ichigo was all consuming. As nice a man as Kurosaki was he was in love with Kuchiki Rukia, even if he wouldn't admit it out loud, and so they all suffered.

Her body ached almost deliciously with twinges of her time with her mentor and he had not been gentle in her practice today. He hadn't asked her any questions when he first noticed, instead he worked her as hard as she'd ever been worked in her life. The merciless way he drove her left her in a state of mindless exhaustion which dropped her into dreamless sleep; Miyamaru Ginjo-sensei was a man of few words and his efforts would have been considered a colossal failure if he didn't know her any better. Somehow that soothed her, eased her consciousness and addled her mind.

Staring into the deep blue water on the opposite side of the glass she watched the manta rays flying through the water, so elegant and smooth she wondered if they would fly through the skies or open waters where people wouldn't gawk at them. She knew she would if she were one of them, even if the sky was lost to her she would swim away from her mortal problems. Unfortunately that was the flaw in the fish tank theory that crisis counselors seemed to favor, thinking about being a fish inevitably made you feel worse even if it did slow your pulse and lower your blood pressure.

Turning away from the tank she stepped bodily into the only other soul in the grotesquely serene environment of the shark tunnel, it took years of discipline hard won through martial arts to keep the bark of harsh laughter at the dark humor of that contradiction inside.

"Gomenasai." She managed instead, mortified by her actions like any good Japanese National should be.

"You are not usually so absent minded, Arisawa-kun." The voice was familiar, in that perfect speech that carried that specific tone that managed to remain regardless of what language it might be speaking.

The twisted emotions in the pit of her stomach pulled itself into a complicated mass; she wasn't sure if the knot that had been there for so long wanted to pull tighter or come unwound. She was holding her right arm like it hurt but Tatsuki recognized who it was immediately.

"Miyamaru-sempai…"

"I know that expression, Arisawa-kun. It's the face of someone contemplating something that causes great distress in their life. You're confused and you want to escape from your problems but if you do then people will know that something is wrong and things will get worse for you. They'll come with questions you don't want to answer." It put her in an unfavorable position, it would be neglectful for her to leave, unfair if she pretended that nothing had happened and that if she hadn't seen anything, so it left her with little to no choice in the matter.

"Constant vigilance." He would say to her, as if he were Alastor "Mad Eye" Moody; it had been his favorite character in the Harry Potter series. They seemed to share a similar paranoia although Ginjo's was limited to the mats.

Feeling instantly the fool as she came around, sliding automatically to her right but stopping mid-motion, steeling her spine and appraised the dark haired Jyoukyuusei with the same eye she examined any opponent on the mats. Dressed in a pair of well-loved jeans, washed so many times they were sporting holes patched beneath with black cloth, and an Endo replica home jersey she looked every inch the faithful soccer fan in the wake of the World Cup despite the fact that Japan had already been knocked out. And yet, those unnerving eyes like swirling mercurial silver marked her as something other, something to ethereal to be human yet grounded firmly in the flesh. They were eyes she was used to watching, eyes that said nothing.

Miyamaru Kururu, was six years Ginjo-sensei's junior and had come in second last year at the All-Japan Judo Championship. The dark haired woman was a frequent guest at her brother's dojo both helping out wherever she could or giving assistance to the younger students there. Appearing as a soft hearted individual, frequently helping out with bruises and cuts rather than fighting, though it was a mistake to assume that she was weak Kururu had helped Tatsuki with her footwork not too long ago and she knew that the older girl was titanium underneath silk, a finely honed sword of perfect balance wrapped and stored for the next master to come of an age.

"Miyamaru-sempai," She responded just as softly, bowing in respect of both of the other girl's skill and her status as an upperclassman. "What brings you to the aquarium today?"

Wearily Tatsuki focused on the space between the upperclassman's feet, unable to meet that almost solid white of her gaze in this light. Tatsuki understood that it was a combination of knowing that it was like looking into an eye without an iris and that the other girl could read people like a book. Making eye contact was a death sentence and it had unmanned many of her opponents on the mats, the impossibly pale color had been the source of many of Tatsuki's nightmares.

"It helps calm me to watch them." The black haired girl shrugged nonchalantly, her tone pleasant and smooth, her hand gestured to the enclosed hallway. "They've got quite the collection of fresh water stingrays from the Amazon. Why are you here, Arisawa-kun?"

Still avoiding those eyes, Tatsuki had read somewhere that your eyes cannot lie about your emotions and there were things that would surface with those emotions that she wanted nothing to do with it. There was a sense that Kururu would know that she was lying and press the matter. "My parents thought that it would cheer me up." Denying that she was upset was pointless; there was some sense of surety that there would be confidentiality despite the distance between Kururu and Ginjo. "I always liked marine animals, even as a kid."

A tension fell out of her as the Jyoukyuusei sat down carefully on one of the benches serving as a median in the hallway despite the heat of embarrassment was growing in her face. "What is troubling you?" the heat grew unbearably but Kururu looked away to preserve her dignity and pride.

For perhaps the first time Tatsuki saw the older girl as someone other than her mentor's younger sister, pale and beautiful and small but dynamic with those silvery eyes so prominent in the main house of her clan. "I…um…" plunging hands into her pockets she looked back into the tank despite the fact that Kururu had looked away. "It's really rather private."

"Arisawa-kun," her voice was softer, smoother, soothing, and colored with the tones of one who spoke at least two languages fluently, "today is a Wednesday afternoon and almost no one is lingering in this area of the park." The reflection gestured to the dim, cool area between the tanks filled with everything from the 'wish you were dead fish', The Short Tailed River Stingray of South America, to the Great Manta Rays of the ocean.

"You… you um… you seem to know something already. Did Ginjo-sensei tell you?" moving away from the tank she took a seat beside her sudden companion, the action was more for the sake of her own pride than any other reason… that and breaking her hand punching two foot thick glass would not be pleasant. If she was sitting she would have to check herself before losing her temper and there was very little around her to hit, Kururu would hit her back but the bench wouldn't.

"Aniki has been…" there was a pause though whether it was for emphasis or if she was actually searching for a word, "distressed as of late about his students, now that I see you I understand the source."

The idea that Ginjo hadn't betrayed her confidence was comforting and her experience within the dojo had told her that any information shared with Kururu was air tight. Inhaling deeply though her nose the calming aura that seemed to swirl around each of the Miyamaru clan that she had met, each of them wrapped in a core of secrecy but none were so much a walking enigma as the eldest girl.

Without any preliminaries, lest she hesitate, she dove into the story starting at the beginning when she turned thirteen and started seeing the world differently, mainly women, and fearing that she wouldn't have the strength to carry her head high like Kino Makoto. The sparring partner of her mentor moved through life with an ease that defied what Tatsuki knew to be the order of the world on top of being immensely powerful and more than capable of outlasting Ginjo in a battle.

Surprisingly, Kururu didn't speak or interrupt her as she revealed that which she had hidden from the world with varying amounts of success, there was no disgust or hatred in her posture and likely there would be compassion in those eyes if Tatsuki could summon the courage to look into them. Tatsuki had searched desperately for the sense of unrest or discomfort or even distaste in the woman sitting beside her but there was none, not even when Tatsuki had strayed so far as to tell of the heat of the dreams that had disturbed her sleep for the last six months.

Still there was nothing and her certainty that Kururu would react as society would dictate grew, she was terrified of what the Jyoukyuusei would say to her as if the compassion was hiding something underneath building like a volcano beneath the surface. Frozen to the spot Tatsuki couldn't bring herself to move and almost jumped out of her skin Kururu's hand covered hers, wrapping the rougher hand in her own with slow movements as if she was afraid of scaring Tatsuki away.

"Arisawa-kun," the voice was patient and almost… indulgent as if she was about to explain something very simple to a small child, "You're not disgusting, as you seem to think that you are, you're who you are supposed to be. Moreover you shouldn't be afraid of your feelings. If you truly are as good friends as you say you are then you can tell her and she'll respect your feelings. She's likely worried about you."

Her head snapped her head to the side, brown eyes piercing into the older girl as if expecting for her to suddenly change. "You say it like it's easy, as if society will-"

"It's not easy and I never said that it would be, matters of the heart never are," something about that planted a spark of suspicion in Tatsuki's mind concerning the older girl, "Nothing worth doing is ever easy."

"You don't seem surprised in the least that I like women." Tatsuki blurted suddenly. "I mean most people would have said something about that already."

"I am not most people, Arisawa-kun. Besides I have had to console one of your classmates very recently with her own plight with women. The one she has linked herself to is poisonous and she is a delicate girl regardless of how she tries not to be. I'll have to do something about it sometime in her future." That stoic mask of serenity returned, "Your class seems to blunder headfirst into heartache and trouble, I suppose that maybe it's your age."

With that the whimsical senior pat her on the knee and then disappeared down the hall headed towards the exit, stunned Tatsuki tried to find a reason for why she'd just spilled her guts out to someone who was a complete and total stranger most people and some of the members of her own family. Unable to find an answer she stood and made her way out of the hall trying to find the senior again and asked how to wring information from others, but there was no trace of her anywhere around the end of the hallway.

It seemed to be some inherited trait of the Miyamaru's to disappear and reappear randomly, moving on silent feet with skill and balance that belied what should have been possible. Glancing down at her watch she headed towards the entrance, unwilling to summon the courage to find the shark exhibits and ask again, removing her wallet to ensure that her train ticket was still tucked inside.

Her parents asked the same generic things but somehow failed to notice that the generic answers that they were getting were halfhearted, that or they didn't want to notice when she returned home. So she put on a false smile and added a little more interest on what she did excluding her conversation, better called a confession, to Miyamaru Kururu silently vowing to find out how the woman got information from her.

There was a certain quality that she had discovered within her friend that mimicked the ocean in so many ways. While standing on shore it was easy to forget that the ocean wasn't a smooth expanse stretching endlessly away from you, waves broke that perfect calm and made oceanic travel both tedious and dangerous. Even getting a mile off shore took time on a calm day, on the windy days you could watch a wave higher than your boat slide past. She had found that the emotions of Miyamaru Kururu were inherently like the ocean in that regard, if you weren't inside then you just didn't understand.

Even then navigating that sea was like navigating a mine fields hidden in rice, treacherous and more than a little lethal. A storm was raging in the eyes of the heiress and the call to calm it pulled at the marrow of the blonde's bones. There had to be some resolution before that incredible control snapped and the temper erupted, the rope was fraying and there was an idiot yanking at the bottom with one hand and sawing at it with a knife with the other.

She reached up and pulled the smaller girl onto her lap so that the black haired girl straddled her; Kururu leaned down and rested her forehead against the blonde. There was something there some aspect of some emotion prevented those pale eyes from meeting the blue green of the blonde's.

Her hands came up to cup her friend's face noting the difference in their skin tones in that abstract, incomplete way that you notice everything going on outside the pool when you were both in the zone and in the lead. There was a trail of anger like the first flicker of heat over the skin when a car's engine had warmed up enough that the heater came instantly to life, it was an uncontrollable emotion that made dark eyes darker and made light eyes lighter.

"No." the blond snapped and pulled her forward until Kururu was flush against her, as close as she could get and still look her in the face.

Tia could almost hear that brilliant mind rallying and suddenly talking wasn't something that appealed to her, the more that Kururu talked the further the heiress pushed herself into despair and the last thing that she wanted was to see their fearless leader crack just when they would need her most. So, she did the only thing that she could think of that would stop any argument in the near future and sooth fraying nerves.

"I know," she whispered harshly, "This time," the words came softer as Tia's right thumb stroked Kururu's cheek, "I know what is inside of you." And then Tia kissed her.

The kiss banished the rougher emotions and she sought to push away everything else in that raging mind, she sought to sweep away all of that self-hatred and anger and frustration and a deeply seated sadness. Without looking Tia knew Kururu was crying because what was inside of her wasn't what the blonde needed. There was no doubt in the blonde's mind that her friend did love her, did truly love her with all of her heart but there was another.

She didn't begrudge him that, couldn't begrudge him that as much as she wished she could. At the end of it all, Urahara Kisuke had got there first and would always be first in this gentle heart. Whatever rigidity, whatever power, whatever resistance remained melted as surely as the smaller girl melted into her touch.

Kakyuusei – a student in a lower grade

Aniki - big brother

Jyoukyuusei - upperclassman