Meet the Family

by Fading to Black

The Vizards, before they became the Vizards, had mostly all known each other. Mostly being everyone but Hachi. Hachi, by virtue of circumstance and being part of a mainly separate organization from the rest, was their loner. But sometimes he felt like he belonged. Angsty Fluff with a Happy Ending, Hachi-centric, Vizards, Canon-esque, but before Canon

I know I need to get back to Cease to Exist, but I've been on a Bleach binge lately and I had an idea for this just before I fell asleep, so I ended up staying awake two hours just to write this short bit of angsty fluff because it wouldn't leave me in peace.

The expanse that was the current hideout for the group that called themselves the Vizards was sandy and bleak like a desert, though slightly more colorful than Hueco Mundo. They had expanded on a warehouse on the edges of a town that was neither too large nor too small and had some spiritual energy in its vicinity to make them more comfortable. A stone construction heralded the entrance to their private quarters.

It was not a particularly uplifting place, but it was not meant to be. It was spacious enough for them to all do their own activities if they so wished, and small enough that they couldn't go so far that they couldn't return for barbecue or takeout or whatever had been procured for dinner that night. It was livable, even comfortable, and safe.

But still, Hachi mused to himself, it was a lonely place to be.

They had moved out of Japan these last few years, and they were actually somewhere in the Soviet Union at the moment if he remembered correctly. While they did not keep close watch on current events in the Living World, (though Transient World was perhaps the more fitting name-after all, the dead could come here and frequently did or stayed, and the lives of living souls were so short) they did try to figure out at least where they were on a map, if not only to know how they were relative to Japan.

He wasn't the only one fixated on Japan in general, and Karakura in particular. Though his reasons might be unique amongst his peers. Karakura was the place that housed his truest friend, his former Captain, after all, and even after all these years when they were a group, a unity, the other Vizards felt somewhat like a family to him, but they were not necessarily his good friends.

They all had known each other, many of them rather well, before they had gotten into this predicament. They had all been shinigami of the Gotei 13, and he had been the Vice Captain of the Kido Corps, after all. The two did not mix regularly, and he had only been called to aid the Gotei 13 that night because of the nature of the hollow itself, for all the good he did them.

Shinji and Hiyori, though they fought often, fought like family. They fought like Shinji was the older brother who was fond and protective and like Hiyori was the little sister who sometimes chafed and sometimes was just bluster but loved her brother just the same. They were both such parts of each other's lives that nothing, not even Hollowification could separate them.

Rose and Love, unlikely pair as they were, were the best of friends. Love could and would get along with everyone. He chastised Hiyori when she hit Shinji too hard, chastised Shinji when he's being too hard on Hiyori, reads magazines with Lisa, and so on. But Rose had not been known for having a prolific social life. Love had hit Rose on the back of the head (lightly, mind you) and told him what he felt about foppish attitudes and that he was going to be his friend. And that was that. No one had ever gotten between them ever since.

Kensei and Mashiro had something between an older-bother-younger-sister relationship and a father-daughter relationship. Not to mention that Mashiro had been Kensei's Vice Captain when they were still Captains and Vice Captains for and of the Soul Society. Kensei had always been protective of his squad, his people, in general and of Mashiro in particular. It was no wonder considering the childishness the girl had somehow managed to retain despite their profession and all of the things that had happened to them.

Lisa, despite not having anyone in particular she was particularly close to from the start still knew them all well enough to talk erotic magazines with Love, or (in the earliest of early days) make Rose blush, keep Kensei company, chat with Hiyori, argue with Shinji (though without Hiyori's kicks) and play games with Mashiro. Though she wasn't particularly close to any one of them, she was close to them all. The loss of her Captain through the loss of them to Soul Society and Soul Society to them had hurt her deeply, as well as the loss of the young girl she used to read to in the Eighth.

He, Hachi, did not really have a place of his own in any of that,

But sometimes, sometimes he felt like he belonged, when Shinji called after him with profanity spilling from his lips and a scowl on his face and eyes that asked Are you ok?. Sometimes, when he found sets of Lisa's erotic magazines where she knew he'd look, or when Hiyori cooked him an extra piece of barbeque, or when Kensei asked for a spar, he felt something akin to belonging.

Of all the Vizards, he was the one that everyone knew the least at the beginning. He was still the loner, by virtue of circumstance, but sometimes he didn't feel like he had to be.