26th March 2012 update: SORRY! I am updating because my upload last week went very wrong and I had to rush this one from my work computer to get it on at all. The result was two embarrassing typos in the author's note (now corrected) and, my discovering that I'd managed to leave a reference to technology that did not even exist in the 1940s in one of the paragraphs. I'm not a historian, but that was quite bad! Anyway, here is the corrected version, although there's no need to reread if you've already read it. I'm putting chapter 2 up now.
Original Author's Note: I wanted to make this story feel familiar to readers, as if it could actually have happened in the Bleach-iverse. To do that, I've researched into what other people thought happened to Hisana and Rukia. We know they died together in a war, but that's about all. That said, there seemed to be a general agreement on the fan forums of which war, so I have gone along with them, even though the timing and Rukia's age don't totally make sense! Just... time moved differently in Soul Society, I guess.
Anyway, character 'death' and swearing probably deserve a warning here.
The baby was crying again.
Hisana pulled her knees up to her chin and wrapped her arms around her head, curling inwards, trying to block it out. It didn't stop. For a month now, on and on, it had wailed for the injustice of the world and for the parents it would never see again.
It was, Hisana thought, intent on driving her out of her fucking mind.
She was not a cruel person. At least, she had never considered herself so, but, right now, she was considering dashing its brains out just to make it quiet. They were both dead now, so, all in all, she thought, it might not even matter. She was a little hazy on morality in the afterlife. Unfortunately, she suspected, it might not be that simple. There were probably still rules to follow and laws to obey and, anyway, she was a good person. A kind person. Or so she had been while she'd lived.
It had been dusk, the air sweetly humid, the colour just starting to fade from the paddies where Hisana had been working, her yukata tucked up to her thighs, the baby in a sling across her back. The little girl loved the open air. Taking her to the fields meant that Hisana was giving her parents a break, which they both sorely deserved. Her little sister had been an unexpected arrival. Not unwanted. Not exactly. But there were twelve years difference between the two girls and Hisana's mother and father were too old to be bringing up a second daughter. Hence, today, the little girl had joined Hisana in the fields and she had been good as gold: silent, all throughout the heat of the day; engrossed in the clouds that had skimmed across the summer sky and the butterflies that flew up from the rice. Then, just when they had been about to leave, the sirens had sounded.
The war had always been a far away thing. Hisana and her family lived on the edge of the city, a city that was fat with politicians and power, so her father claimed, but they had no interest and took no part in a life that extended beyond the borders of Japan. What Hisana herself understood of the conflict had been gleaned from black and white pictures, but even they seemed distant and unreal. Glimpses into another world. All she knew for sure was that, when the sirens sounded, they had to get inside.
She started to to run as, all around her, the other labourers did the same, some falling into the water as their feet tangled in the crop. Many sprinted towards the road, but Hisana made for a path on the far side of the paddies. From there, she only needed to cross one field and they would be home.
A plane swept in low overhead, howling like a demon. She had heard the sirens before, but had never seen the planes, and she nearly stumbled as someone behind her screamed. To her left, she caught a glimpse of something falling from the aircraft. And then the sky exploded.
She had reached the edge of the paddy. The force of the detonation, even at such a distance, threw her forwards, into the bank of grass. The air was suddenly full of smoke. She choked, and, in the midst of it all, the baby started crying. Crying and coughing. The little sister she was meant to be protecting.
She knew she had to get up. Her body felt weak from the impact, but she wasn't in pain. Just shaken. And her head was ringing. And she had to get up, get back.
She crawled up the bank. The grasses were sharp. It was hard for her to catch her breath in the smoke, which had turned the air pitch dark. Surely there had been a path here, to the right. But, she realised, it would lead her back around the field, closer to the point where the bomb had exploded. If she turned left, she would have further to run: the full length of the paddy to reach the road, and then a longer journey home still. She stood up, starting to walk along the bank with no firm decision in mind, the baby screaming and screaming.
Another plane tore up the sky overhead. Hisana broke into a run again. Another came and another, their engines keening. Bombs began to fall on the city to the east. They lit the sky like sheet lightning, streamers of fire lacing through the clouds. Their targets were the government buildings. Yet, over to her left, one aircraft swept low over the paddy, fire blossoming in one wing. It dropped a line of explosives into the black water, sowing its own crop amongst theirs. As it howled over her head, it seemed close enough to touch.
She had stopped running though. She had turned towards the rice field. The time between two heartbeats seemed to last forever.
The earth erupted. It filled the sky. A sheet of fire chased across the shallow water.
The girl felt her body lifted.