Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach or any of it's associated characters or fictional locations.
Before I Died
Forged In Blood
Everything was straight forward in the city. All buildings had their places. All people had theirs. You came and went when designated. No sooner no later.
And that was how it should be.
The Lord of the city enjoyed the order, he cut-and-dry way of looking at things. Order was law, and anyone who slipped out of the place he had made for them...Well, that was breaking the law.
And the only place for law breakers was the prison, a festering pit of disease and death whose very mention would cause fear to flicker in the hearts of the city-dwellers.
The Lord extended his rule to all aspects of his life. Everything was routine, set in stone. Up at five. Ready by seven. Exercise. Then to work. This rigid authority was held in place by a desire which swamped the Lord's heart, which made him tighten his hold over everything.
Nothing must change.
That was what he wanted. Everything must be constant, must be the same. He detested change.
After all, it was change which had robbed his beloved wife of her life. The birth of their daughter and the death of his wife were one and the same. Change killed her. Change was evil.
And change caused the birth of his daughter.
At first, the Lord tried to forget about her. He threw himself into his work and so, for a little while, the girl was allowed to flourish at the hands of nurses and maids terrified of the Lord but loving of this little child, a diamond in the dark.
But then she began to grow, began to be louder and more wild. She was warned against it, warned that she should not give in to her nature, and she would try not to. She would try.
And she would fail.
Then came the day that the Lord had had enough.
He called his daughter to his office, one which oversaw the entire city through a large window, out of which led a balcony. The balcony was dangerous and rarely used.
"You called me, father," the Lord's daughter announced herself in the rehearsed manner which sounded decidedly odd on the lips of a tiny child.
He had smiled. "So polite. Come in."
She came, feeling curious about this man who everyone told her was her father and who she should respect more than anything in the world. She felt no such respect, and that worried her.
"You have grown since you were a baby
This stating the obvious made her smile. "Of course I have, silly!"
A hand seized her arm. She winced. "Don't insult me."
"I'm s-sorry," she stammered, tears rushing to her eyes.
His eyes burned her. "Grown...Changed...I despise you, with all your noise. It must stop."
"Yes, it will," she told him.
"Will i?"
"Yes!"
"I don't believe you." He took her to the window, out onto the balcony. "Do you see that?"
"Yes, I see it," she cried.
"That is what I worked for, order! A place where you don't need directions, where you could just follow any sign to where you need to go without anything messy or disorderly!" With that he picked up the little girl and dangled her over the balcony. He had planned the day, planned it so that none would be on that side of the building at that time, planned it to perfection. "That is what you must be like!" he bellowed, her screams or terror meaning nothing to his cold, cold heart.
No-one would know.
He had planned it to perfection.
Or so he thought.
One person saw. One person was bellow, heard those wild screams of terror punctuated with even wilder screams of rage, and had looked up. The Lord had not taken into account the homeless people. The people his system did not cater for, who had to fight for everything they had. This one man had learned that, if he wanted to survive, he had to be strong, stronger than anyone else, so he could protect himself...
And, at that moment, he made a crucial decision.
That he would be strong enough to protect whoever was screaming.
He looked up just as the Lord brought the girl back onto safe floor. It was the only balcony in the building. The homeless man went inside and asked the first person he saw, a cleaner, "tell me...who does the balcony belong to?"
"The balcony...That would be the Lord."
The man nodded. "One more thing. DO you have a job going here?"
They did.
After the little girl was brought back into the room her father said to her, in a cold voice as if nothing had happened, "that is what will happen if I hear you carrying on in that disorderly manner again." With that he sent her to her room. For days she would do nothing but huddle up in a corner and cry, hugging and rocking herself to sleep when no more tears would come.
Until, soon after this happened, a knock sounded on her door. She said nothing, being terrified it was someone to take her to her father again, who would take her and dangle her until she cried or worse...wet herself, which she had been very close to doing that terrifying day.
Eventually the door opened. A gruff voice said, "I'm just here to clean, ma'am." For a few minutes he bustled around, cleaning up, while she sat, arms clenched around her as if in protection, sat in frozen terror. "Why is such a little girl locked up in her room crying?" asked the man after a while.
She didn't look at him. "P-please don't take m-me to see my father," she begged without turning around, without being able to stop crying.
"If you don't want to do something then don't," he told her. "I won't make you."
She turned to him with large, tear-filled eyes. "You...won't?"
"Never."
After he left, the little girl came out of her room. She laughed and played in the same manner as before, only with one thing different. She now had an illogical and immense terror of heights. A few days after she came out of her room, she found her father had changed the maids and nurses. He continued doing this, hiring new people and firing the old ones so that the little girl had no time to attach herself to any of them. He supposedly thought this would stop the little girl playing in the way he called 'disorderly'. Eventually he was correct. Eventually she learned not to play with those new people who smiled at her but had no time for her, told her to 'go play'. But, at first, this only made her more interested. She couldn't remember any of the names for the new people, so she gave them funny nicknames which she would always remember. She did this with the cleaner man as well, who would always come to play with her. She called him 'Bruises' because he was always covered with the things, covered with them. She asked why many times but he only told her ht he got into a lot of fights. One day she, being bored, asked, "will you fight me?"
Without hesitation he had replied, "never."
But something had been n Bruises' mind for a while. He had seen the little girl's immense fear of heights and knew the reason. So one day he told the little girl something she would never forget.
"Never let someone make you afraid of something. And definitely don't let someone make you so afraid that you can't do something you want to."
She was never afraid of heights again. Even when her father took her out to the balcony and dangled her over she would laugh instead of scream.
She would later regret not pretending to still be scared.
By this time the girl had stopped bothering with the ever-changing maids and nursemaids. None of them were around for enough time to like, so she didn't bother. This made her get bored easily, so eventually she asked Bruises, "what do you do for fun?"
"I fight," he had answered as he cleaned. "Urgh, I hate this job..."
"You fight? Where?"
"In a place near the docks."
"Can I come."
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"Pretty please?"
"No. It's too dangerous."
She pouted. "You said I shouldn't be afraid"
"You shouldn't be stupid either."
"Please!" she continued. "I'm so bored here! I promise I would stay right by your side!"
She continued on in this manner until, finally, Bruises said with a great deal of exasperation, "fine! But it will have to be at night."
This didn't deter her, as he had hoped. "Okay!"
That night he took her out, sneaking into where they had agreed to meet. He slipped her under his outer robe so people would assume there was one where there were, in reality, two. He walked down to the fighting pit and sat in a corner, at first determined not to fight and risk the little girl's safety. But he was known there and people would not leave him alone so that, eventually, he gave in, firs setting the little girl in a corner where no-on would see her.
She watched him fight with large, fascinated eyes, watched the blood flow form his opponents. The colour of the blood was so rich, vibrant, disorderly, that she had an extreme desire to reach out and touch it...
When Bruises was taking the little girl home, he was silent, afraid that she, having seen how ferocious he really was, would be afraid of him. But she was no such thing. She began talking, "I wanted to touch it."
"What?"
"The blood. Just to see if it was real."
"Were you scared?"
She gave him a trusting smile. "Nope! I knew you'd be safe."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah!" There was a brief silence before she started again. "Bruises...One day will you take me to a place where there's no always-changing maids. Where I can always watch you fight like that? Because I saw you have fun, and I had fun too."
He could have said no.
He should have said no.
Instead he said, "I promise I will."
They arrived home, he made sure she was safe before leaving and was relieved because he had seen no-one notice them.
But he didn't think that someone may have checked on the little girls' bed and, seeing it empty, alerted the Lord.
He didn't know that the Lord would begin to hate his little daughter more and more.
The next day the little girl was summoned to the Lord's office.
He began. "Where did you go last night?'
"Nowhere-"
Slap.
"Tell me," commanded the Lord coldly, but the girl's head was ringing so she didn't answer. Taking her silence for rebellious behavior, the Lord hit out again, with a closed fist. As he continued to beat her, she dimly noticed that she was being treated he same way Bruises' opponents had been treated.
And after, Bruises wanted to murder the Lord. He found her in the place they'd agreed to meet and saw her bruises. She smiled wearily and said, "now I'm Bruises too!"
He clenched his fists. "Your father did this?"
She nodded. "Bruises?"
He paused. He was torn before wanting to storm into that place and beat the man in the same way he had beaten his helpless daughter and listening to the child which had somehow captured his heart. The latter eventually won over. "Yes?"
"Will you take me away now?"
It wasn't a question. I was a plea.
"Of course I will," he said without hesitation. And he slipped her into that hidden place inside his outer robe, at his front, and walked out.
To see the police force waiting for him.
"Stay there with your hands up, kidnapper," yelled one. The Lord was behind this, behind them, Bruises knew it. The man had guessed this was the time he took out the little girl...And now he would die in the prison.
And leave the little girl unprotected and alone?
Like hell he would!
With a snarl he stepped towards them, holding the little girl tight.
Two words condemned him, and two words made him remember suddenly that, any harm that came to him would also come to the little girl.
Those two words came from the mouth of the Lord.
"Kill him."
He could have dodged the swords, but that would leave the little girl unprotected, so instead he turned his back on them. The swords ran him through, One by one.
He looked down as he fell to his knees, happy that he had at least kept her alive.
Then he saw the blood leaking from her little chest.
When the swords had run him through, they had stabbed her as well.
Pain.
He was dying.
They both were dying.
The little girl was obviously in incredible pain. But she put a hand to his chest and touched it, saying, "it is real," in a voice of wonder.
With that he vowed that, should there be a next life, anything beyond the current one, he would fight. He would fight to defend this girl, fight and fight and fight and FIGHT!
"I'm taking you there," he managed to mutter through lips which sprayed blood.
Vaguely they heard the words, Lord! Lord, there's someone there...Oh, god, it's your daughter!
"Where?" she managed, the sparkle slowly leaking out of her eyes.
"To a place...Where we," he coughed, spraying blood all over her, but she didn't seem to mind. Between he strange lights and his dying eyes her hair almost looked pink. "Can always have...Fun."
She smiled. "I would like that."
Then they died.
*****
In the Seireitei, someone awoke. He had no name. But all he knew was a keen desire to fight and to...There was something else...
But the desire to fight overwhelmed him. He stood and found someone to ask, "where am I?"
"You're in the town Zaraki, district Eighty."
He grinned, pushing that other niggling thought, the one which wouldn't really go until much later, down, and said, "know anywhere I can fight someone strong?"
*****
In district Seventy-Nine a little girl woke up. She smiled, stretched, looked at her hair in delight.
"Hey, it's pink..." she stopped, frowned. There was a name she was forgetting. Someone who was supposed to be there but wasn't.
She went to look for him, for some reason feeling a strong desire for blood.
Author's Note-
This is kind of random...I guess I wanted there to be a reason for certain Soul Reapers to act like they do.
Reviews are always welcome!
Peace and Love,
-XOX, Pangie