Chapter four: Dreams of Grey
As Rukia slept she drifted through her thoughts. Was she going to die? What would happen to the others if she did? How would her loved ones get through it? What would happen to her little one? What was her little one? Was there anything she could do?
"She's rather confused Rukia-chan". A soft and familiar voice spoke, breaking through Rukia's dreaming thoughts. "And she doesn't know what she is or what's the right thing to do."
Rukia opened her eyes and found herself in her land of snow and rolling hills... but the gentle snow fall was missing. Instead it was replaced by a raging maelstrom of power that threw the snow around her world with considerable and violent force. Far above her in the distant sky was a white and rapidly swirling vortex, but it was more a dirty white with the specks of darkness within it. As Rukia looked up and listened to the screaming winds as she thought she felt something like rage in its blowing.
"She need you Rukia-chan." Came Sode no Shirayuki soft tone. "Needs you to show the way. Needs you to make everything alright."
"Then I won't fail her." Rukia said with a determined tone. "And I won't let her down. I won't let suffer when I can stop the suffering, she mine and I'm going to protect her, even if it kills me, that I promise."
Rukia started to rise up through the air. Outside she might be bed bound and struggling to stand unaided, but her inner world she had all her abilities functioning perfectly fine.. in fact she felt stronger if anything. That familiar feeling of victory within reach that she strongly associated with Ichigo was running through her. She could and would stop her suffering!
As Rukia flew higher and closer towards the vortex, a change began to take place with it. The dots of darkness began to take on a more defined form. One that was both unpleasant and disturbing. From each dot of darkness, chains started to grow and soon dozens of them were descending from the sky, but it was the ends that worried Rukia, for each one was a hungry little snake like mouth full of sharp teeth.
As Rukia stopped and stared at the growing chains, it suddenly became very painful clear exactly how the Hollow part of her child was manifesting within the confines of her soul, and how it considered Rukia...
"You are precious to me!" Rukia screamed as she dodged the first dozen hungry chains that shot towards her. "And I am not your enemy!"
The kept shooting towards her and more worryingly seemed to be trying to wrap Rukia up, fortunately they were clumsy and easy to read. It didn't hurt that Rukia was rather fast either.
They were also persistent however. Time seemed to just disappear as Rukia dodged and evaded her child's clumsy attempts to catch her with ease. It was increasingly becoming like a dance, abet a creative one.
"You know I got over sixteens decades of experience on you don't you?" Rukia said in a voice far calmer than earlier. " And one of my combat specialties is speed. So why you wasting your energy on trying to catch me when instead you could learn from me?"
They stopped and then retracted, becoming nothing but black dots in a vortex of white.
"Good least your better at listening than your father." Rukia explained as she crossed her legs in mid air and relaxed somewhat. "Once he gets a idea to do something into his head, he doesn't usually start listing again until he finished.".
The dots reacted and formed a question mark above her, much to Rukia's surprise. It took a moment to click on to the question.
"Your father is the source of your.. little mouths." Rukia said tactfully after a brief pause of thought. "He's the one beside me who you owe your existence too. He's a lot taller than me and got orange spiky hair by the way. He's also male but I don't think you understand gender yet when there no references points in my world that aren't female."
The dots scattered again and a silence filled her world.
After a few minutes passed of silence, Rukia felt she should end it before her child got any funny idea's.
"No one quite sure what your going to turn out to be you know." Rukia stated. "I'm a Shinigami and your father's a Vizard. A Vizard is half Shinigami and half Hollow. And it the Hollow part where you get your little mouths from. But the point is that there never been a child born of a Shinigami and Vizard before."
Her child reacted and from one of the little dot of darkness a simple and undersized Zanpakutō took form. Some of then other dots formed a smiling face like formation.
"See?" Rukia said happily. "Don't things go better when you don't attack people on sight?"
The smiling face lasted a little longer and then from each dot of darkness small and simple, but still fundamentally dangerous, Zanpakutō's started manifesting.
"You got to be kidding me..."Rukia said with a sigh as she drew her own sword and took up a defensive fighting position. "I thought we had the basic understanding that you don't attack me?"
Then something unexpected happened. The blades all took up exactly the same position as her own.
"Oh I get it now." Rukia said with a relived sigh. "You want to learn how to wield your Zanpakutō's properly don't you?"
A few swords turned into dots again to form a happy face.
"Well if your are serous about it..." Rukia said tenderly. "Lets just go for one on one ok?"
Her daughter complied and now there was only one sword was before Rukia
"Lets see if I can teach you how to hold a blade right." Rukia said with a smile as started the training session.
"You learn pretty quickly you know." Rukia said as they took a break from the swordplay after what seemed to be hours. Her smiling face appeared above in the vortex causing Rukia to smile before adding. "Through I'm going to have to leave for a while now. Because I been here quiet a while and theres people out there who might worry if I don't go back to them soon."
The smile turned upside down.
"But I will be back." Rukia added quickly before adding in a soft and hopeful tone. "And maybe one day in the not do distant future we finally get to see each other face to face in the world outside my little one."
The smile returned and as Rukia woke from her slumber, she felt far more at peace then she had when she gone to sleep. She was rather serene right up to the point where her ears picked up the days first words...
"Rukia!"Yelled the voice of Karin in Rukia's ear. "I want to talk with you before I have to go back to my duties dam it, wake up!"