Author's Note: Some credit in this chapter goes to my friend, Paul. I think he would know why if he ever read this, but the chances that he will are very slim!
Thanks to watchers, Shadewolf7, Truantpony, ForbiddenME, Pinky357, Immortal Vows, Chellythemadhatter, Insomniatic95, Sallythedestroyerofworlds23, UNTensaZangetsu, XDark FangsX, Superlynx, Ichigoforeverlove, Ennaalemap, Makaykay15, Kaze05, Splash into Forever, War90, Yellowwomanonthebrink, Bakane, Night Flower, Hallmarktrinity, Tiffany Park, Snowcrystals, Neristhaed, Splitheart1120, VanillaTwilight4, Nightfur, Happykiller93, Haildance, Ani-mimi, Mysticalphoenix-avalon, Jennyrdr, Goranr and Firebirdever.
Keep your head down and walk on.
There were ways to survive in this world and one of the most effective was to become invisible.
Hisana had taken up residence in a house on the New Road that cut through the Seventy-Ninth district of Rukongai. It was always busy here. Always noisy. Always crowded. But it was better to be lost in a crowd than to be alone in the alleys at night. There was so much anger in the people here, so much regret and resentment, that it was only natural they took it out on one another.
Another murder. A small crowd had gathered just yards from Hisana's lodging. They were not particularly perturbed by the sight of a dead man nor of his blood drying in the road. It had probably been a robbery, or someone's idea of entertainment. Hisana stepped around them with care and continued on.
She had to step down into the gutter as a coach and horses passed. But she was at her door now. It was probably safe to risk a glance back.
The carriage was very fine indeed, fashioned from polished black wood inlaid with diamond-shaped panels. It had been forced to a halt by the gathered crowd, whose presence had narrowed the street considerably, and the two horses were pawing the ground and jigging sideways away from the commotion. The driver rose in his seat and shouted at the bystanders to move out of the way, but they threw only cursory glances in his direction.
The New Road was used by people from many different districts, including the shinigami from the sereitei and wealthy citizens from districts One to Ten, but that didn't change the fact that this was Seventy-ninth and people here had little time for passers-by from any walk of life. The driver continued to shout. His employers were holed up safely in their vehicle, the windows shuttered as if they could blinker themselves to the depravity they were forced to pass through.
As Hisana watched though, one of the shutters shifted just an inch. She saw a single blue-grey eye pressed up against the gap, flicking this way and that. A child, she guessed. The curiosity of that pale gaze was too intense to belong to an adult. Like a spotlight, it fell on her, and Hisana found herself staring back, the unwilling subject of somebody's attention.
"What are you looking at, my little bird?" said a voice close to her ear. She started. She had been so intent on the carriage to notice the man who had approached her from behind. And now a hand closed over the back of her neck: "Have you never seen a dead body before?"
"No. Excuse me." She tried to slip away, but the hand tightened.
"Take a good look. You don't have to stand here, you know. Why don't you go and stand with the others? Or didn't you want to be associated with them? Maybe you think you know something."
"No. I didn't see anything."
"Are you sure? I don't mind." He slipped one hand around her waist and pulled her close to him. She went very still. "Aren't you going to fight me?"
No. She wouldn't struggle and she wouldn't run. The violence here was senseless. In a place where there were no final rewards or answers for the dead, people did what they did just so that they could feel alive again. She understood that. "Aren't you going to talk to me?" The hand on the back of her neck transferred to her chin and he tilted her head back, trying to make her look up at him. She closed her eyes. Just to feel alive. What he wanted was a response. A reaction. He wanted her fear. "Little bird?"
There was shouting; the sound of footfalls.
She was released suddenly, so suddenly that she had to catch herself against the wall of her home. The man who had been holding her laughed unpleasantly, but he didn't come after her and, against her better judgement, she turned around to see what had happened.
A boy was standing in the middle of the street, but a boy who looked so out of place that he might have been a bright apparition painted onto a colourless world. In all the filth and dust of Rukongai, he alone was clean and pale. His skin was smooth; his face soft. Yet his eyes: his eyes were old.
Aging was different here. She'd counted off the years since she'd arrived. By rights, she should have grown old. She'd have expected her hair to turn grey and her body to grow tired. Sometimes she felt all those decades crashing in on her, but her face was still that of a girl in her late teens and, in this boy, she recognised something similar. He was older than he looked, she guessed; possibly by decades. And he was holding a sword, the tip of which now rested against the throat of the man who had held her. The latter though was laughing, his gullet bobbing against the blade, rows of crooked yellow teeth bared in defiance.
"Do you know this man?" said the boy. It took Hisana several seconds to realise that he was addressing her. Even then, she knew better than to give anything away. She dropped her gaze to the ground.
"We have a live one here!" giggled the older man: "What, did you think you'd rescue a poor, helpless maiden? What business do you have with us? Better if you'd stayed locked up in your pretty carriage. I'll give you one chance. Your master is calling you."
There was shouting coming from the vehicle: the voices of a man and a woman. It had started forward again, but it was apparent that the boy had flung open the door and disembarked. Now, it was trying to execute a turn in the road. The door was opening and closing as its occupants debated whether to retrieve the boy themselves or wait for the driver to navigate back. One word was clear from their shouting though, and Hisana guessed that it was the boy's name:
"Byakuya!"
"Run along, Byakuya," said the man at the end of his sword.
"There are laws here, just as there are laws in the Court of Pure Souls," said the boy bravely.
"And whenever you find me someone to uphold them, then maybe I'll obey them."
"You have no business with that woman."
"And what would you know, of that kind of business?" He sniggered, then moved so quickly that Hisana missed the long knife he pulled from his belt. It clashed with the boy's blade an instant later, but not before the youngster let out a cry of pain. One of his hands fell away from his sword. "You don't get to be as old as I am without learning a thing or two," snarled the man, forcing his weight forward. All the pride had drained from the boy's face, replaced by fear as he realised that he was outmatched.
A strange thing happened then: the dust at the older man's feet began to shift, then rise as if borne on currents of air. Hisana felt a change in the air around her and, as if the two were connected, a marked difference in strength suddenly became clear between man and boy. Byakuya was forced backwards, his feet skidding on the road as he tried to find a point of balance. "You think families like yours are the only ones who know how to do this? Think again. I know what I am, Boy."
The street had emptied. In the sudden silence, a man's voice spoke words of command. Hisana didn't understand them, but she felt the thunderclap that followed and the heat of the flames that roared outwards from the carriage. Instinctively, she threw up her arms to protect her face. There was a strangled cry of pain, followed by the most terrible sound of suffering. And, when she dared to look again, the man was on the ground, clutching at his left arm. It was no longer recognisable; there was nothing left but charred bone and melting flesh, which dripped to the ground as he rose on his knees and railed at the sky. The boy was standing, untouched, his expression betraying nothing as he watched these horrors.
A man, who had leant out of the carriage door to deliver his attack, now stepped down into the otherwise empty street. He was dressed in pale blue silk and wore kenseikan in his hair and he strode over to where Byakuya stood and grasped the boy's arm roughly, like one unused to dealing with defiance, though he kept one eye always on his prone enemy.
"Idiot!" he told Byakuya, then turned to the writhing man: "If you so much as consider cutting my son again, the pain you will feel will be a thousand times greater than that which you are suffering now. Do you understand me?"
Spitting, he staggered to his feet, clutching the husk of his left arm. His breaths hissed between his teeth as he gathered what strength he had to back his words:
"You've made yourself an enemy today. What's your name, ki-sama?"
"My name is not for the likes of you." The nobleman drew his sword and the wounded man backed away, hissing like a snake:
"I'll come for you. I'll come for you when you're sleeping." He turned to stagger away down the road. Yet, as he did, his eyes caught Hisana's, committing her features to memory. She looked away, but it was already too late, and her blood turned cold in her veins as she realised what that meant.
With his enemy retreating, the man in blue turned to his son and slapped him hard across the face:
"You think a place at Shino and a few years training make you strong? There are souls with powerful reiatsu even here, ones that will never be granted entry to the sereitei, but that does not make them weak. I told you: it doesn't matter what you see here; you never leave the carriage." He glanced at Hisana: "There's nothing noble about saving souls that are already condemned."
As he fell into step behind his father, Byakuya's eyes lingered on her. When he did, at last, look away, it was as if the ropes that had been holding her were cut. She bolted into the house, slamming shut the door behind her and heaving the locks into place. That would do for now, but she would not be able to stay here. She stood, panting, in the middle of the square room that was her home. Sixty years, she'd counted off: sixty years of falling below the radar, all ruined in a single moment of carelessness. The shinigami would not let her leave Seventy-ninth. She could move to another part of the district, but there was a strong possibility he might still find her.
She looked around. There was nothing she needed here. She would leave tonight.
She had chosen to live on the New Road because there was safety in numbers. The merchants who passed through every day made it easy for her to become just another anonymous face in the crowd. She would stay on the New Road then, if she could, and try to find a place to live, perhaps on the far side of the district, where it ran into Eightieth.
