CHAPTER ONE: Nocturne Of The Forsaken Child
The wind swept through the lands with a startling force in comparison to the previous winds that had passed through mintues before. The sun began to rise in the distance as the many different creatures in the lands surrounding a mighty fortress. The sun began to slowly reveal the lands to the many beings that lived in and around the mighty fortress that stood brightly among most of the other buildings in the area, and many of the beings began to slowly come out of their slumber. The sky was a very dark grey still, there was only some light being revealed.
One of the many beings that lived in the outskirts of the huge fortress called the Seireitei, slowly climbing out of the rubble that formed a small little cover from the weather. Long, untidy waves of pale purple hair fell down the being's shoulders and back in cascading lengths, a lack of shine to the being's hair. The being straightened up carefully after a few moments, the form of a very weak, and frail looking girl, her skin was smudged with dirt and grime, and her whole body ached with pain that she couldn't seem to be rid of. Her pale, almost lifeless eyes slowly traced along the edges of the ground around her, dull, nearly grey eyes, as if she was trying to figure out where she was, and how she had gotten there in the first place. Her clothes hung from her body in rags, and her hands and feet were calloused and blistered from many a nights work to try and dig out a hollow in the rubble for her to take temporary sanctuary in. Her eyes slowly lifted to the towering white fortress that was the Seireitei, the place that many beings refered to as Shinigami resided in. The sight of the place meant nothing to her, as nothing much really did, she found no pleasure in thinking of a place that had no real meaning to her in the long run, unlike many of the other beings around that felt that their lives would be so much better if they were living in the Seireitei. Of course, she overheard a lot of people talking about these Shinigami and the Seireitei, but she had never been closer to the Seireitei than where she was right at that moment, and she had never encountered one of the beings that everyone called a Shinigami. She tended to think of the beings as something of the imagination, it meant nothing to her, so she didn't think about it.
The people slowly began to come out of their houses as she retrieved a small little bag that was her belongings, and she began to make her way out of the place she was in – she knew how the people here worked, as soon as someone found that she had built a tiny little hollow to serve as shelter, someone else would move in, and throw her out. She was weak, so she couldn't do anyhthing to stop them, the only thing she could do, was to leave once she had spent the night, before the being would deal damage to her. She couldn't even speak, so there was no point in even conversing with anyone, they'd just call her a stupid mute, and send her on her way. She wasn't mute, but rather, she was a little disadvantaged in that area, she had never been taught to speak, read or write, so she was essentially useless with anything like that. The only thing she could say, was the names of a few people she had met and didn't have an intense fear of, and her own name; Mizuki.
The children began to come out of their makeshift parent's homes as she began to walk down the roads towards the West Rukon District, somewhere she hadn't been in a while, and somewhere she wouldn't be recognised and picked on. She looked no older than six, her skin was very pale, and she was very, very frail just by sight, so she often always got picked on, because she was an easy target to steal from. Of course, she wasn't stupid, she moved place every day before anything like that could come over her. Childish as it was, running away was the only thing she could do, she had no means of defending herself against people three times her size and strength. She had a days worth of walking to do before she reached the West Rukon District, so she had best get going.
"Stay away from her, she's cursed!" Mizuki heard one of the older women of the place say harshly, and she vaguely noticed an old woman glaring at her from a house over to the right, and she was holding back a little boy with black hair that looked to be her age.
"Gramma, how come?" She heard the little boy ask, and she just shut her eyes as she began to run. She couldn't understand much of what they were saying, but she understood the hate there. She could feel her little bag dangling behind her as she ran, feeling it hit the backs of her legs every now and then when her hand would go forwards and pull the bag towards her. Her feet began to hurt badly, very badly, but, someone recognised her, she knew that much, so she had to leave. Unfortunately, her eyes were still closed, so she couldn't see the man with large tubs of items in the road in front of her, and she crashed into him.
"What the-- What the hell happened?!" She heard the man shout in sudden outrage, and she opened her eyes and looked around her. There were tubs of what she recognised to be Soba Noodles splattered over the floor, and she could feel her heart beginning to race as she hesitantly looked up at the man she had run into. "It's you!" She heard him shout, seeing his pudgy face contort into fury as he looked at her. Beetle black eyes bore into her near grey eyes, and she was too petrified to run away as he suddenly lunged forward and grabbed her by the hair suddenly, and he lifted her off the ground without care. "I thought I told you your kind is not allowed here!" He spat, and she flinched as she felt him suddenly tear her little bag from her wrist. "We'll have to see what you have on you to make up for the Soba Noodles you ruined!" She felt him essentially drop her to the ground, but then she felt him put a fat foot on the square of her back hard enough to make her whimper in pain. "Feh, even dirt's worth more than this!" she heard him spit, and then she heard the little bag hit the ground next to her head hard. She felt the foot lift off of her back, and then, pain, she felt him kick her in the side and send her crashing to the ground several meters away. "Get your corpse out of the street, filthy street rat! If I ever catch you here again, I'll skin you alive!" She heard the pudgy man begin to stomp away after a few moments. Silent tears cascaded down her face as she managed to sit up a little bit, feeling her ribs bend from the motion. She managed to clamber over to where her belongings were scattered, and she carefully began to recover them, the pain in her ribs beginning to dull as she focused on not crying anymore.
"Are you alright?" Came a gentle voice from right next to her, causing her to suddenly spin around in pure alarm. There, crouched just a meter away from her, was a woman in her mid twenties, long, reddish hair flowing down her form in cascading waves, and greyish blue eyes. She was looking down at Mizuki like she had just seen someone she thought kindly of receive some kind of maltreatment, a look that Mizuki wasn't used to in the least. She was wearing a black outfit that covered most of her form, asside from a great deal of her front, a chain ran down her front, and she was sporting what Mizuki immediately recognised as a sword. "It's okay, I'm not going to hurt you." She heard the woman speak, but she couldn't comprehend, and, she knew more than anything else in the whole of the world, what swords were used for. She stumbled away and got to her feet, her little bag in her grip as she began to run as fast as her legs could take her, tears still cascading down the sides of her face.
She stumbled as her legs began to give way, feeling her ankles roll on her as her bleeding feet hit hard gravel, and her feet slipped out from under her. She tried to get balance, but all she managed to do was fall forwards onto her side, her frail body crashing to the gravel ground, and she slid forward a several inches along the rough surface. She felt her body fall still, remaining sprawled on the ground as the tears slowly stopped, and she stared up at the morning blue sky above her head. Pain continued to course through her body, but she was vaguely aware of it as she remained in silence, her frail and worn down body slowly beginning to recover energy the longer she remained where she was. She didn't know where she was anymore, nor did it truly matter at that moment, she was just wandering around without a purpose, she even wondered why she bothered in living in this place when everywhere she went, someone was spitting in her face, just because she was there.
She dragged herself up with a whimper, the pain coursing through her body flared to her notice, and she looked down at her limbs to see that she had many descent ebrasions over herself, many of them were bleeding. She tried to wipe the blood away, but she could feel that she had gravel in a great many of the ebrasions, and it hurt a lot just to touch them, let alone wipe the blood away. She slowly closed her eyes as she dragged herself to her feet carefully, and she began tp pay attention to where she was heading. Many people as she walked, just pretended she wasn't there, asside from one or two of the older children that just thought teasing her would be a fun way to pass the time, that was, until they realised after the fourth minute, that she wasn't going to respond. How could she? She only knew one or two words in every sentence to know whether she should run, ignore them, or pay them attention, only, it was only ever the first two that she ever picked out.
Mizuki reached the West Rukon District upon nightfall, her eyes tracing the buildings as she walked, and the tiny bag of items she had was dragging along the poorly paved roads as she slowly came to a halt on the edge of the main road towards the Seireitei Gate. Why was the gate closed? She had never seen such a thing in all of her years living here. Her eyes eventually fell upon an orange haired man in a black outfit, and a black haired man in a green overshirt and black pants standing a few buildings down from where she was standing. She didn't recognise the orange-haired man as he threw a punch at the black haired man, which she did vaguely recognise from her last visit to the West Rukon District. She watched them fight, her eyes following their movements as she remained out of the way, hopefully so they didn't notice that she was there. She could hear people talking, however, she didn't understand much of what they were saying. She slowly took her eyes away from the two fighting people, and she began to make her way onwards. She could hear their arguing, their shouting, but it meant nothing to her. Her ebrasions were still bleeding, she could feel the liquid flowing down her limbs, although only slowly, the bleeding had slowed a great deal, and the ebrasions were only tender.
"Damn it! If Kuukaku realises we're late, we're screwed!!!" Came the sudden shouting as the sound of stampeeding hooves met Mizuki's ears, causing her to turn around as she stumbled out of the way. She could see four men riding boars, one of them was the green overshirt wearing man she saw fighting the orange-haired man. She pressed herself against the wall so the men on boars could pass without crushing her, and she felt the cold of the bilding wall begin to cause her injuries more pain.
"Hey! Short stufff!" Came a different voice, followed by the sounds of the boars coming to a dead halt. She recognised the word 'Hey' as a demand of attention, and she knew it was directed at her from how loud they suddenly spoke, so she hesitantly looked up at the boar-riding men, her legs shaking with the strain of being ready to run at any given moment.
"Ganjyu, man! We can't--"
"Quiet!" The black haired man in the green over shirt snapped to the one that had been speaking, Mizuki recognised the force behind the word Quiet to be one of silence, so she assumed the word quiet meant to be silent. She saw the green-shirt wearing man suddenly throw something to her, and she hesitantly caught it in her blood-covered hands. She looked down as the sensation of warmth ran through the palms of her hands, and she saw that it was a flat disk the colour of silver. "Use that to get yourself something to eat or something, you look like you need it." She vaguely heard the man say as she tried to figure out what the small disk of metal was, her weak hands slowly flipping the disk over in her hands. The disk had markings over it, a line, and lots of little circles, something that she had seen maybe once or twice up close. She looked up, to see if the man was still there, but, her weak gaze picked up nothing in the streets. No one was there, and she could feel the cold of the building continue to stab pain into her injuries. She didn't recognise any word in that sentence she heard that she actually recognised, so she was at a complete loss of what to do ... or what the flat disk was for. She took hold of the disk in her palm carefully, and she began to head down the odd street, looking down at her closed hand as she tried to figure out what the disk was.
"This is what you meant by something to eat?" Came the voice of someone sounding very feminine, causing her to look up carefully, so she knew whether she was about to walk into someone again. She saw a tall man and a smaller woman step out of a building, the tall man seeming to be holding a box in one arm, and the woman was clinging to his other.
"It's the first time in a very long time we've been able to eat descently, I thought it would be a nice change, for once." The man said, and Mizuki watched them disappear through the streets. She looked back at the building, seeing a pretty, small woman walking around inside where the two people came from, and she was moving plates, boxes, and other such items, all of which Mizuki recognised as food items. She looked down at her hand as she slowly opened it, looking down at the little disk that was in the palm of her hand. She wanted to go in there ... to get something to eat, it had been days since she had eaten anything ... but the whole place looked so clean, so pretty ... and the disk that had been in her hand for no longer than a minute was no longer the clean silver, but smeared in red and brown, just like she was. The disk had been in her posession for no longer than a minute, and it was already tainted. She knew things like this needed a trade, it was the way of the Rukon Districts, she didn't need to understand the language or the intentions to be able to pick that out, but she didn't have anything that she could trade for, she had seen so many of these coloured disks trade hands, trade holders, and many of the people had so many they could build a small little table out of them. She felt a prickling tear escape the confines of her eyes as she gave up, and she let the little silver disk drop from her grip, and to the ground where it stayed. She stared at it for a few moments, before she closed her eyes, and begin to walk away.
Far away, there was nothing left here for her ...
Or so she tried to ...