A/N: Well, will wonders never cease! A new Bleach chapter! This one's taken me, almost literally, forever and a day to complete. You can thank the new (shippuden-style) Bleach for the inspiration to get me writing again- I only had about half of the chapter done before then (and that was a struggle, believe me). However, it's done now, and a full 5 pages without A/N's. :)
So- enough of my rambling (mostly, see the A/N after chapter title), on with the show!
Chap. 4 Childhood's End (A-N yes, I know both this and the last chapter titles are taken from other people's books. One is worth reading, the other imho, is less so- this chapter is named after a better book. It wasn't intentional, but there's only so many words that can get the message across- so my apologies to Sir Arthur C. Clarke, and Dan Brown.)
Before the door slammed against the wall next to him, Chad could not see what had made his new girlfriend cry out in what had sounded like abject terror. He could see her hands covering her mouth, her parents standing behind her, but no sign of danger, no outward appearance of struggle.
It was, in fact, Karin's thrown rock, engulfed in reiatsu, that jarred his senses enough to tell the difference between what he saw and what he expected to see.
They were, of course, still recognizable. In fact, they were almost totally still human- in appearance. But the trickle of tell-tale white had begun to flow from the tear ducts, nostrils, and mouth of first Tatsuki's father, and then her mother. The process was still slow, but speeding rapidly, while Tatsuki looked on, screaming silently now, her back shaking with anger, terror, and horror.
One massive, brown-skinned fist raised without even half a thought, then crashed forward, shattering the protective barriers and Lethality Stone holding the gate in place. There was a tingling numbness in Sado's arm that faded quickly, just as any sentience or rationality did.
There it was again. That persistent, scratchy dragging of something sharp across his flesh. It didn't hurt him, of course. His skin was as hard as diamond, his resilience underneath that something humans could only dream of. And yet, it irritated him so.
Another half-formed thought, an almost-involuntary reflex, and the crushing strength of his right arm twitched the creature- if a creature it was- off of him. Distantly, the man- or was he a man at all? Registered the receding, feminine scream of fear and then pain.
Another contact against his hierro, this one much lower, between his massive, armored legs. Some part of his mind recognized that, had he still been fully human, the blow would surely have been exceedingly painful. But any reproductive organs there now were either heavily armored, or not there at all, because the shorter, dark-clothed creature that had kicked him as hard as her small frame could, then leapt back, clutching her ankle and wincing, had barely even attracted his notice.
No, the only things he really had the mental energy to pay attention to now were... everything. To him, at least. The first was the blood- so much blood. It was everywhere. In the remnants of his man-clothing, in his tangled hair, even between the mask that was a part of him and his face. It was elsewhere, as well- splattering the distant walls, but mostly splayed like someone had poured red paint out at his feet, gallons of it, all at once.
The second... well, that was, if anything, infinitely more important. The... hunger. It was pervasive, all-consuming. For more blood, for flesh, for destruction, for souls... the more precious to him, in his old life, the better.
Yet another niggling, incessant buzzing at his consciousness- in his head, in his ears, in his mind. Sado-san! Please stop! Don't- don't hurt anyone else! Karin and Tatsuki-chan- they- they're-
With a grunt, and a save of his mighty arm, the Hollow dismissed the telepathic twin's pleading, and turned his attention to the most powerful smell in the room.
I know you...
He wasn't sure if the statement was groaned out through the boney mask, or purely internal, but to him, there was no difference. The only difference was that the tall man with long, white hair stood in the doorway, his hand resting gently on the one weapon in the room capable of piercing his mighty hierro, even his Giant's Arm.
"All Waves," the tall man spoke, his voice and gestures as the blade was drawn controlled and measured, though even in his maddened, hunger-consumed state, the Hollow that was once Sado Yasutora could see the righteous fury behind his enemy's eyes, "Rise now and become my shield. Lightning, Strike now and become my blade!"
Sōgyo no Kotowari. I know that blade- those blades. He is... Captain... my Captain... I cannot- no! He will... kill...
For all the rage, all the fury, and the power flowing through the once-man, he could no more defend himself from the sudden assault than could the new-born Hollows that had once been Tatsuki's parents defend themselves against him.
There was a final spray of blood that floated upwards past Chad's eyes as he fell backwards, the room spinning wildly, before darkness claimed him.
"I don't think you will need to worry, Miss Arisawa. Your friend is made of stern stuff. If our Ichigo could withstand the transformation into a Vizard, I'm certain that Lieutenant Sado can withstand... whatever it was that happened to him."
The words floated to him faintly, distantly, but there was some difference, something undefined, between the last time he'd heard that voice speak and now.
Perhaps it was the lack of hierro. Or the fact that his arms were now, once again, purely human. In form, at least. The power is still there...
Or it could be that the bloodlust was gone, and he was, once again hearing with his ears.
I killed Tatsuki's parents.
She came all the way here just to say goodbye, and I killed them in front of her.
I...
What have I done?
"He's awake now," a soft, quiet voice said, filled with regret and sadness.
"Ah, thank you, young Miss Kurosaki." Then the strong, but gentle voice turned directly to Chad where he lay, "I'm glad to have you back with us, Lieutenant. You had me worried for a moment- it's not lightly that I release my Shikai, but I feared against an opponent like yourself I had no choice. Even then, I hesitated, and it was that lack of attention that caused me to slip, injuring you further than I'd have liked."
Chad groaned, and to his left, the hoarse voice of Karin muttered, "Stay still, I'll get you some water. Don't move too much, you're in bad shape. This isn't like that time you got hit by a truck."
"Tats... Tatsuki?"
He heard, just barely, a half-drawn breath catch in a constricted throat, before slippered feet rushed away, and he heard a door slide open and slam closed immediately after.
A moment later, Juushiro sighed, "So sad. I think she needs a little more time, after... all that's happened. But don't worry, Lieutenant, she'll be all right. Miss Arisawa is made of stern stuff as well."
"But I... killed her-"
"You did not," Chad's broken, halting voice was interrupted by Yuzu's soft, measured, and somehow comforting- despite being nearly half Chad's age and much less than half of his size- voice, "you didn't kill her parents, Sado-san. They were already gone, I could feel the change coming over them. Karin said I was talking out loud. Didn't you hear me?"
Vague memories of sound and sight came back in flickers, but that simple action caused his head to spike with pain, which only worsened when his left arm tried to move up to his temple. There was a jarring flash of agony on top of the pounding headache, stretching from his elbow to his wrist.
"Don't move too much, Sado-kun," he heard Ukitake say from what sounded like a mile or more away, "especially that arm. That's where I did the most damage- fortunately your shield-arm protected you more on the other side."
Karin looked across Chad's body to meet her twin's gaze. "What's he feeling?" she asked, ignoring the fact that the large teen was conscious and in the room.
"Pain, mostly," Yuzu replied sadly, "physical, mental, emotional... he's a mess. But he's healing. I'm deadening what I can, but I'm getting tired. I won't be able to do it for more than a few more minutes. And I need to speak to Arisawa-san before I pass out."
Yuzu nodded, speaking over the white-haired Captain, who politely closed his mouth after only a syllable, "Take some of my energy. I feel fine, and I doubt I'll need to fight soon."
The younger twin frowned, but reached a hand over Chad's stomach to grasp her sister's and closed her eyes. During this process, the quiet hum of the pseudo-machines in the Squad 13 infirmary returned the injured man back to unconsciousness.
"Arisawa-san," Yuzu began about an hour later, "do you want to ta- wow! It's so beautiful!"
Tatsuki gave a sad smile, but didn't bother to acknowledge the younger girl's words or presence in any other fashion. Her eyes were locked on a single large cherry tree that occupied the lowest point in a shallow, wide valley in the center of Squad 13's training grounds.
According to what she'd been told, this spot was where Orihime and Rukia (amongst others, such as Shiba Kaien) had come to relax after training, or simply to spend some quiet time alone.
That thought suited Tatsuki just fine, though she wasn't sure if she wanted to explain the cacophony of her emotions and mental state to the younger girl- she wasn't sure if she understood it enough to do so, anyway.
Yuzu came to a stop standing beside Tatsuki, about a foot away and several feet shorter, on the edge of the saucer-shaped valley. "I can see why you came here. It's peaceful in a way we haven't seen in several days- longer, if you count from when Nii-san and Otou-san left with Rukia-nee-chan."
Tatsuki nodded, but said nothing.
"I know you don't want to talk about what happened, so I'm just going to say one thing and not mention it again until you're ready, okay? Then we can talk about whatever, or we can sit here in silence. Whatever you want."
This time, the martial artist didn't respond at all, but Yuzu took that for the tacit permission it was- there were benefits to being an Empath. "Your parents were already gone when Chad came into the room. He didn't kill them, that Espada did, as surely as he almost killed Chad. All Chad did was protect you from the monsters they had become."
Again, Tatsuki didn't visibly react, but Yuzu, her senses more acute in the soul-particle rich environment of Soul Society than they ever had been on Earth, was able to detect the slightest, subtle shift in the older girl's mental state that would, eventually, lead to healing.
I'm glad she believed me, Yuzu thought, I would hate to have to force her into accepting the truth. I never want to do that, if I can help it. It hurts too much.
Yuzu, for her part, would never forget the one and only time she'd ever had to forcibly change the way someone felt about an issue- because it had been her own father.
"Otou-san, why can't you just leave Nii-san alone? He has to do this!"
"You don't understand, Yuzu!" his words had been harsh, almost cruel, though she could sense the love behind them. It was the last time he'd ever yelled at her- at anyone except Ichigo, as far as she knew. "Your brother's going to get himself killed! He's already practically died three times in as many months! And now he wants to go all the way to the world of the dead and rescue someone who belongs there! I can't, I won't allow it! His place is here, with us, with his family!"
The argument had gone on for nearly an hour, until Karin padded into the kitchen doorway and muttered, softly, her own eyes showing- for her- indescribable amounts of pain- "Ichi's almost home. Better wrap it up."
A moment later, Yuzu's decision had been made- one way or the other, she knew she was right. Karin's approval of her plan- explained or not, they were twins and knew how the other thought better than anyone else- and her reiatsu, tiny though it usually appeared, flared to resemble her older brother's.
Isshin, though his own power level was truly immense compared to any normal human, was not prepared for the assault, an attack that he wasn't even aware his youngest child could produce.
Understanding and care washed through him, overriding his desire to protect and nurture his oldest child.
Where the need to keep him safe, home, away from danger had once been, there was now a desire- built upon the facade he had presented to that very son- for Ichigo to spread his wings and fly, to reach so far beyond the nest that, unless he chose to, his family would never be able to catch him again.
And that had been it. When Ichigo got home, Isshin greeted him in his usual fashion, and didn't say a word about him staying home. The next day, Yuzu distantly felt the soul-signatures of Ichigo, Uryuu Ishida, Inoue Orihime, and Yasutora Sado disappear far below the Urahara Shoten.
And Isshin said not a word against it.
That night, though, Yuzu cried harder than she could remember having done before, harder even than she had when she had first heard that Masaki had died.
"That must have been something, to overwhelm a guy with as much reiatsu as Isshin," Tatsuki said, pulling Yuzu out of her reverie.
The auburn-haired girl frowned. "I'm sorry, Tatsuki-san- was I talking out loud?"
The black-haired girl shook her head, smiling, though still sadly, "No... I saw it, I guess from the middle of the argument on. Felt everything you felt, I guess, too."
Yuzu nodded and looked away, a bit embarrassed.
"'s nothing to be ashamed of, really," Tatsuki said, not looking directly at the other girl again, "you made a choice and stuck with it. Who can say, now, if it was the right or wrong choice? Or if there was even a right or wrong to begin with? From what I heard, Rukia would've died if Ichigo and the others hadn't come to save her. But then again, maybe if Ichigo hadn't stalled the execution, that Aizen-bastard wouldn't have gotten to the Hogiyaki-thing- whatever Rukia had inside her- in time, and we could have avoided this whole war."
Yuzu nodded, but didn't look at the other girl all the same. Instead, she turned her eyes out where Tatsuki was looking, staring blankly at the distant cherry tree. "Do you approve of slavery, Tatsuki-san?"
She snorted. "'course not."
"But I made a slave of my father, that day. My own father. I overrode his ability to choose, forced him to make the choice I wanted him to. It doesn't matter that I did it for a good cause, doesn't matter that I think it needed to happen- I still do think it did- what matters is that I took away his choice."
Tatsuki nodded. "Yep. And... so?"
"So?" the normally-calm girl shrieked, spinning to glare upwards at the other girl, fists clenched at her side, "So I did something evil! I'm as much a monster as-"
Yuzu's words were cut off as the breath was pushed from her lungs by Tatsuki's bone-crushing hug.
The older girl whispered, just loud enough to be heard over the faint breeze in the tree, "We all do things we aren't proud of, Yuzu. We all make 'mistakes'. But we can only go one way. We can't go backwards- only forwards. So you think you did something wrong. I agree with it- slavery's horrible, and that method is probably the most despicable I've ever heard of. But good came of it, and it's intentions were good."
Yuzu sniffed, unsure of whether she wanted to hug the older girl or punch her, but forced a few words out her constricted throat, "The road to hell's paved with-"
The hug got tighter, "Do you think I'm evil for not letting you talk? For giving you a hug, doing my best to make you feel better? I don't want you to feel this way, if I could override your emotions, I would. What I want to do isn't really any different than what you can do. But that's not my point, anyway.
"My point is," she continued, her voice softening to a level that no one outside of Orihime and Chad had heard in over ten years, "You can't change what you've done, all you can do is make a choice for now, and for the future. Are you going to do it again? If yes, then under what circumstances? If faced with a similar problem, would you choose it again? If you won't do it again- then what could make you change your mind? If there's nothing, then... you will also have to accept the possible consequences of that choice."
Yuzu sniffed, but her arms finally circled Tatsuki's waist.
"I know, kiddo," Tatsuki said, able to feel the despair washing over her from the younger girl, "I can feel it, too. But I do have some good news."
"What's that?"
The raven-haired girl gave another sad smile, looking out over Yuzu's hair back towards the barracks, "Being able to understand that lesson is one of the first real steps toward growing up. And you're years ahead of the game, if you get it now. Most adults I know still don't really get it."
"Really?"
Tatsuki nodded, resting her chin gently on the other's crown, "Yep. I know just a few people that get it. Ichigo's one. Rukia, even Orihime kind of gets it. But that's about it. Chad hasn't really gotten it, yet, I don't think. But you do, I can tell."
There was silence for a long time, as both girl's emotions calmed.
"Growing up sucks, Tatsuki-chan."
"Ooh, now I have some bad news for ya, kiddo," she replied, grinning for real.
"What's that?"
"It gets worse- a lot worse- before it gets better."
Yuzu looked like she wanted to cry again as the pair started walking back to the barracks, hand in hand.
"They're coming back," Karin said to the Squad Captain, before ducking back inside Chad's infirmary room. Ukitake thanked her, but the black-haired Kurosaki wasn't really listening. Instead, she was telling a story of her own to the semi-conscious young man laying on the bed in front of her.
"So, there I was- a soul bound for torment as a Hollow, and a living, innocent old man. I only had time to save one, and I knew it. My powers had only awakened a couple of weeks before, and I hadn't really practiced any, so I knew- just knew- that no matter how much I wanted to, I wouldn't be able to save both. So I acted, one soul found peace in the afterlife, and an old man died a painful death- and he also found peace in the afterlife. But because of my, of my actions, he died. An innocent man died- I killed him as much as the hollow. Do you understand?"
Chad didn't react, but she knew he was thinking as well as he could through the kido-induced stupor.
"My point is," she continued, eager to make sure he understood before Tatsuki returned to the room, so that he would be all right if Yuzu hadn't been able to help the other girl and she ran again, "you had a choice- act to save Tatsuki, or not act and let her die. You made a choice, it was the right choice, and one less innocent, good person died. The fact that they were already Hollows just makes it easier to bear."
"That's... easier...?"
Chad's slightly slurred voice, already hard for Karin to understand sometimes due to his accent, was remarkably clear for those two words. "Yep, tons easier. Remember, my sister's ability? She felt what you felt, and showed me. I know what you felt, and it's not as bad as knowing you killed someone for real. Tatsuki... they're her parents. She might need some time, but she'll be okay. She doesn't blame you, not really. And she really does love you, Yuzu told me so. You'll be all right in the end, if that stupid, sappy song is right, anyway."
"What... song?"
"I donno the name. Something by the Bugles, or the Crickets, or something. Maybe the Beetles. Stupid band name. The line I'm talking about says "All you need is love", or something. It's a good song, if you like that mushy sorta stuff, but I only remember it 'cause of Yuzu. It's one of her favorites."
"Sing a bit?"
Karin snorted, but obliged, grumbling a bit before she began about never ever making her do this again.
Just four lines in, the door opened, revealing not only Tatsuki and Yuzu, but also Ukitake, Sentaro, and Kiyone.
Karin's face was redder than Kiyone's hair in moments.
A/N2: Ah, another chapter (finally) come and gone. As with the previous short, Seven days to Heaven (or did I call it 'from' on ?) this one will be 7 chapters. There will (likely) be a 3rd chapter dealing with Chad/Tats, but I don't know if I'll keep the name pattern going- I'm not sure how I can follow it, except maybe "Seven days out of Heaven"- which may actually work, now that I think on it, for what I have planned. After that (which, knowing me, will still be a long time coming), I'll likely start working on either the Orihime/Uryuu pairing, or get straight to the IchiRuki. For what it's worth, I have also all-but decided on some other, more minor pairings- like Chizuru/Rangiku (this is more of a favor to my sis than anything, since she's 'of Chizuru's ilk' and has a major jones for Rangiku- it's the boobs- than anything else), Hinamori/Hitsugaya, and Kiyone/Sentaro (I know, that's a weird one, but I kinda like it).
Oh, and Hanataro/I'm not telling, but he gets some love. (Spoiler: She has silver hair and is in his squad. If that's not a spoiler, I don't know what is.)
Anyway that's the 'plan'. Notice there's no dates- as far as Fanfics go, One Hour (Naruto) and Late Blossoms II (Naruto again) get the priority, but at least for the time being, Bleach ranks above Harry Potter- we'll see if that changes with Deathly Hallows movie 1 comes out- in two days, yay! But as I'm not posting a HP story till it's done, you haven't seen that, yet.
Of course, Fanfic writing still takes a back seat to for-profit writing, but eh- whatcha gonna do?
Till next time!