Tenth Moon, Twelfth Sun, Sixth Year (Metal)
"What do you miss the most?" Momo had asked, as we set out. When she asked a question like this, it was usually because she wanted to answer it without sounding too haughty.
"Miss? You mean, when we were alive or when we were in Seirentei?" Matsumoto was casually shoving something in her face that was given to her by her moth- relative. Whatever it was it smelled good, but I dared not ask for any.
"Seirentei."
"Good booze. Man, the sake out in Rukongai sucks, and I really miss a strong beer- but that's what I got when I kicked the bucket. And… well, never mind." Matsumoto said this so candidly I couldn't tell if she was joking or serious. And I had no clue what beer was, either.
"I miss Captain Aizen."
Somehow I knew where this was going. I was wrong.
"There is nothing greater than love for one's captain," This was a surprise, not because of the statement but the speaker. I could have sworn this was a phrase Momo repeated in her sleep several times a night, but… Matsumoto? Was she saying it to go through the motions or was that really how she felt? Towards shinigami… towards me?
It was that look in her eyes that gave me the answer no amount of words would ever be able to express. There was a clarity I could make out, and a strong pulse from her reiatsu told the remaining piece of the puzzle. Yes. A shiver shot down my spine. She was my older sister, but I? I was her confidant, her employer, her friend, her guide and her muse, rolled into one tiny portable thing.
I looked down in half awe and half shame and was face to face with Hyorinmaru.
Scratch that- I was not small. I was only as small as I made myself to be. I scratched him at the hilt and was met with a growl-purr of satisfaction.
Later I heard something, coming from a distance. We were just heading through the thirty-fourth district when I noticed an unruly commotion. For the first time in my life, I had no paperwork to be distracted from (or by) so after (very little) coaxing from Matsumoto, the three of us went to observe. As we drew closer, this time I had the sense to put on my veiled wicker hat as I sensed an uneven gathering of spirit energy.
What we had inadvertently walked into was… some sort of Shinto ritual. A festival, to be exact, with food stands, games and music from every age and continent that the living world had to offer. Jugglers stood on equal footing with acrobats, fire breathers, and fan dancing girls. I had lived in Rukongai long enough, but had never in the life… death… of me, had seen such things. I was appalled.
We all quickly decided that it might be a good idea to 'reconnaissance the area for any potential ruffians', and quickly split up. I saw Matsumoto 'search' very close to a booth marked with BIER in large red lettering, being able to smell the familiar stench of sake from where I stood. I decided to follow, if only for a moment, and noticed Matsumoto plunk down a few copper pieces for a drink.
"Bier is, of course, the German word for beer," she said to me matter-of-factly, like I knew every human language that ever existed. She looked down at me and wrinkled her nose a little. "Captain, I know you can't stand the smell of alcohol. Why don't you go watch a performance?" She wasn't saying this to be rude. She knew that I disliked her coming into the office drunk or hung over for more than just her work ethic. The scent, for whatever reason, made me want to gag and the drink she held now was no exception.
I decided to take her words no more than face value, and wandered off to a makeshift stage. Behind my veil, both my identity and my eyesight were severely compromised, but I discovered this performance to be only music.
'Only' really wasn't a good adjective for it. It was a single drummer, but the sound from his makeshift metal instrument was unsurpassed. It was a cool autumn breeze, the crackling fire from the sweet grilled yams and marshmallows mixed with the salted sweat from his passion. It was the night, closing softly and then in a crescendo of hazily muted colors from behind my veil. It was the breeze that carried the sounds of the human and bestial tongues, no one language really surpassing the others, except that these languages mixed into an incomprehensible, human anthem, backed by the beat of this lone drummer. He clanged for each of us, and as I smelled that horrible stench step forward and start emanating from behind me, I knew that Matsumoto came to find out the truth too.
A Thank You to a Person I Have Never Met
Normally, as you have noticed, I don't like to make chapter comments unless I need to explain something/someone culturally Japanese (or otherwise) or respond to a reviewer (especially when the comment is longer than the chapter itself). Here, I am doing neither, because I need to empty something that has been on my mind.
I want to thank Jedi Boadicea for writing the Bleach (Hitsugaya) fan fiction named Frozen Sky. It's on my favorites, and if you have some time to kill, or if you prefer to read anything of consequence, fan fiction or actual literature, this fits the bill incredibly well. I don't normally say something like this about ANY kind of writing, let alone fan fiction, but this is one of two titles that has truly spoken to me (The other, by the way, is He Who Searches For Himself, a World War Two piece just as much as a Fullmetal Alchemist one, also on my favorites)
There's a dire reason why I need to talk about Frozen Sky here, and I'm not doing it to boost that writer's stats. The story, as I read it, was about me.
I'm not taking this space to brag, but rather to talk honestly about my own character design. I learned to read at two, and would lose myself in anything with words since then, dressed or not. When I was in preschool, I hid a copy of Gulliver's Travels in the bathroom like it was the Bible. At the same time, I was helping my older brother do his math homework. At three. I consistently scored the highest marks, and teachers began to whisper behind my backs. They were watching me, expecting me to go somewhere that I could not yet fathom.
I even hit puberty relatively early; it came before I was even double digits in age, so my growth spurt was quick and minimal, and I remain short even today. I had few friends (read: one) and she quickly turned on me in high school because she wanted to be loved and respected by a higher authority that had used her to try and break me down. And yet, she continued to cling to them, leaving both herself and me in the dust. This person is real, her name is M---- (I'd like to leave her anonymous), and she is my Hinamori. (Read my "I Hate Hinamori" rant back in chapter 5.) Yet, what I feel for M----- is pity, not hate. I find it very hard to hate a real person, or even a fake one for that matter.
My Matsumoto is actually a melding of my two high school friends, C------ and A-------. A----- is the first facet to Matsumoto, the shallow side. A---- feels she is inadequate, especially standing next to me. I always try to put her in the light, show herself her strong points, but she seems to always run to my shadow and stay there, feeling both ashamed and secure. She has become, instead, the embodiment of lust. She is outwardly drop-dead gorgeous, while I am rather masculine in build and average in physical beauty for a woman. She often had affairs (yes, affairs, and of that nature, even in high school) with several boys at a time, forgoing the intelligence she never thinks she has for her ability to 'do'.
C-------, meanwhile, is the true side of Matsumoto, and ironically, the two girls were at one point in time inseparable and connected at the hip, so to speak. She is pious and pure, and began to have her first boyfriend at seventeen. I am a full year older than her, plus a year has passed since then, and I have not even dated, let alone had a boyfriend or kissed. Ever. Yet, she is the intelligent girl who knows how to party (responsibly) when she needs it. Her social life was one I wish I had. She spent Prom Weekend on the boardwalk and beach; I spent it holed up in my room writing a sixty-page thesis, reading mounds of books, before falling asleep in my clothes from exhaustion.
I was, and still am the embodiment of Hitsugaya. Typing away by myself now in an empty dorm room while my roommate hangs out with friends. I can't remember the last time I wasn't doing homework or writing. Making Hitsugaya female was not because of this, the first chapter was originally from another discontinued fic of mine called Laundry Blues, which was supposed to be a set of understated pieces set in the Bleach realm, but I thought this was good enough to stand on its own. Then I read Frozen Sky and realized I needed to say something. I needed to say a lot of somethings. So I continue to write. The only change I gave to Hitsugaya besides gender that I slowly decided to make a point of was her glasses. I myself am visually impaired (I have a longer comment about my condition in an EXTREMELY Mary-Sue-ish fic I wrote in Junior High called To Tell One Lie that I never finished, as I realized it was a Mary Sue after the seventeenth chapter or so). So this little piece was a reminder that I was writing a dual personality in each of the tree main characters. If Hitsugaya was going to have a little of me, (s)he would, to a lesser extent, have one of my flaws. As I have plenty of his.
I was paraded, from infancy on, as some sort of tensai ('genius', as Hitsugaya is called in the anime), and at the end of every speech someone made about me, they were quick to add at the end of it "…but did you know that she's legally blind, too?"
I have one thing I always wanted to say to this, "Yes, but did you know I know full well that I don't know who I am? I get perfect marks at school and I don't know the f---- why they matter? I'm just doing the motions. Even when it is a topic I like, if it is graded, I just don't put the same type of effort in as if it was something I just did to do."
My rebellion was in travel, to visit as many places as possible to try and find a culture that I belonged in. I went to Japan, to South America, to lots more, often alone or at minimum, separated from family and friends. I saw the world through a soundtrack of petty impromptu sidewalk music and idle street chatter in foreign tongues when sight failed me. And I did find my niche. I discovered that what I truly liked to do was write- fan fiction, for neither profits nor gain. I would get nowhere fast this way, I knew, but I would sure as hell enjoy the trip.
--Raven
