- Chapter VIIII: A Raven's Feast -
She had not set foot inside these halls for what might have been centuries and yet everything had remained the same. Without the light of the sun, the cool breeze of fresh air and the voices of your kind, what progress was there for these abandoned souls to imitate? They were left to live for all eternity, robbed the comfort of familiarity. An entity between their world and what was to come. But there was no salvation for those who had been declared sinners by the shape and nature they were born in. Their paths had stopped by the hands of those who'd bring peace to the innocent and protect the weak. They were threats to this world and it was the duty of Shinigamis to nullify that threat. At all costs.
Unohana lead her guards out of that dark room and gave the slender object a final look of serenity before she closed the walls and instructed her spiritual powers with such gentle a voice, her companions did not dare to speak out their fascination. 'I've finished the seal.' She announced with a kind smile, signaling the two Shinigamis that they may continue to speak. 'It is the first time that we come face to face with a captain of your reputation.' One of the guards spoke bashfully. Unohana gave the man a small nod and went back through those long halls, vanishing with as much elegance as she had appeared.
'She's just as mesmerizing as her division says.' The guard continued to give voice to his earlier astonishment. The Shinigami to his side had his mind however kept to something different.
He had tilted his head back to where the captain had just left an object, so familiar to all Shinigamis and yet strangely mysterious to them. 'Just what kind of sword could require such strict measurements?', the other guard turned around at those words and followed the man's gaze, his own expression growing dimmer. 'We are solely here to protect this room. But I would feel more at ease if they would tell us what exactly it is we are protecting.' The two Shinigamis thoughtfully stared at the stone wall, hiding the dark room that laid behind.
There wasn't much for the darkness to devour. Stone walls imprisoning void. All that stood inside that grisly dark room was a pedestal of average reach, finely crafted from smooth keyaki wood. The lonely piece of furniture would have been assumed to conflict its less well cared for surrounding, but within these lightless walls, there was nothing to reveal its extravagant beauty. And on top of its flat head were two wooden horns, holding the object that had earned itself such demanding arrangements. A sword, tightly in their grip. If it hadn't been for the large chains sprouting from the wall, strangling the slender figure, it might have been perceived as a place of honor. After all it was a rare occasion for men to hide something of poor beauty and value with such great care. But those thoughts did not help to still the guards' curiosity. Bravely they stood before what to their knowledge could have been the starving mouth of an ancient demon.
Fear was ever so such a strange thing. The more so in those who had the blessing of thought and common sense. Separated from their pure instincts, even a shadow could appear frightening.
Humans and Shinigamis alike, they shared many things. Feelings that I could not hold myself, but solely imitate. And yet, there were some things that even I would see to be true in all of us. One of them was fear.
The most primal instinct one could find in all creatures. I had never felt it as vividly as I had the moment I saw that stranger before me, a gruesome mixture of shock and fascination on his face. It was my master who taught me the word 'fear'. But I had known a similar feeling before we had met. Similar, but different.
If I had to compare it to what I felt now, I would say that it was less complicated.
Goshujin-sama had given me so many more reasons to be afraid. Countless reasons I had not even known to exist. I couldn't tell if this half-earned knowledge made me the more intelligent or the more defenseless.
Silently sitting at the edge of that pond, my surroundings had started to deteriate once the seal had been casted. It wouldn't be long until all would be devoured by nothingness.
All would vanish, but myself. And all I could do in this state, was to give way to those quite tears running down my cheeks, without being able to dry them, they would stay wet for as long as I could feel my own skin. Black thorns reminding me of Benihime's energy had been forcefully driven through my wrists, nailing them to the ever so more thickening air. The same had been done to my legs. Even after I had been terrified of my master's decision, I had not understood by what ruthless means the Shinigamis would ensure their safety. They let their seals devour this gloomy world into pure and cruel nihility. My heart started racing in panic.
'Goshujin-sama!' I ran away from the crippling landscape and tried to force myself to materialize, but it wouldn't work. 'Goshujin-sama!' I cried, my master's name carrying all of the strength and hope left inside my shifting world. Like a mantra, promising me peace and salvation, I repeated his name. I let them echo through the loosening realms of my own mind. Desperately looking around myself, watching the shadows approach me. I ran through the unyielding ocean of trees, branches slapping my face and legs like waves, cutting into my skin. But I kept running.
'Goshujin-sama!', my body was just trembling the stronger with each step I took. I tightly shut my eyes and stormed ahead, not knowing where to go. But whatever took over this world had scarcely any mercy for its victim's confusion. It chased me, soundlessly. Not roaring, not threatening. Wildly crumbling down whatever stood in its path. Like the strong breeze soaring over the ocean's surface waving back your hair, it just wrapped everything into its shapeless figure. Aware that it would eventually consume me along with this place that I once had feared.
I was too horrified to open my eyes. And still, the ever so slowly dissolving presence of my surroundings haunted me to my inner core.
Everything was dieing.
The tears smeared all over my face thanks to the rough slaps of the branches, long red lines and dirt accompanying them from my head to my feet. Helpless, I begged the pain to not stop. I begged them to stay, but the trees gradually grew less and so did the branches.
'Ple…ase, Goshujin-sa…ma.', once more overcome by an icy wave of terror, I whispered through my heavy breathing, begging for him to hear me.
The pond and the forest had been completely dissolved. Even the night sky and the ground beneath my feet had now been fully corroded and I suddenly felt my limbs turning numb. Shocked I tried to look down, but my head wouldn't move. Not a single muscle in my body would listen to my pleading. I wished to scream and cry out in pain. Yet nothing escaped my motionless lips.
The numbness was calmly climbing up my body and just as it reached my stomach I realized that my body wasn't just turning numb, whatever this darkness was I had been encaged in, it was slowly attacking my insides. It felt as if my organs were being peeled into thin shreds. Like, like they were decaying.
Horrified I pushed all of the air out of my mouth, the urge to scream rapidly raising, along with the numbness. I could feel it getting closer to my throat. I tried again and again to scream, to move, to stop this hellish torment. But before I could give up on my struggles, the numbness had put an early end to those fruitless efforts. It had finally reached my head and whilst tears ran down my still face, frightened of an eternity of suffering, I felt my brain undergo the same horrific torture. The air was now as heavy as gas. I desperately tried not to breathe, but the thick substance would still rush into my mouth and nose. Immediately drying out their insides it continued to push its way through my throat and all that I could do was to sense its strange taste of lead. My thoughts were entangled. I tried to focus on my master's face to calm myself and think. The smile that brought me comfort during all of these years, I yearned to see it. But the picture before my eyes was clustered in holes and my vision slowly turned black whilst I could still grasp onto consciousness. I had already lost my sight. Distraught I tried to tell myself to fight back, but even those thoughts would not reach me. Like threads, thinned by age, once torn they just fell back, overlapping parts that weren't their own. The darkness was pulling onto my mind, robbing all of the memories I promised to protect. One by one it would take what I frantically tried to remember until I no longer could understand what remembering meant. The wind had carried those tiny threads into the waves, letting the vacillation of great water distort them on his lap. The faces of those kind people, their voices and their reiatsu. They had snapped. My head hung loose, staring at the bottomless ground. The tears gradually stopped following the bitter plea for help. This mind did not know who to ask for it. It did not know who that 'who' would be. There was no one. There was nothing. No time. No space. Nothing. Only an empty shell sitting at the edges of sanity and sand.
It was too dim to see. No sense of orientation could be found in an exhausted mind. But without turning on the lights that would only scar his eyes into blindness, Urahara walked downstairs, not caring to close the door of his room to hide the mess that his restless motions had caused whilst he was asleep. 'To be so worn out by a nightmare, I could swear I had left behind such a childish mentality 100 of years ago.' He bent down to open the timidly-sized refrigerator and took out a bowl of sliced mangos his rather caring friend had brought him last night. Urahara sent him away, even though he couldn't remember what excuse he had made up that time. He knew he had not bothered himself to come up with something sensible.
It wasn't like he did not know Tessai to question his each and every word anyways.
Straightening his back again, Urahara pushed one slice into his mouth and bit down, letting its freshness hit the back of his throat. The pleasantly sweet juice covered the sides of his mouth, cooling what had just been spatting hot air in rapid gasps. He closed the refrigerator door and moved to the table in the neighboring room. With a tired sigh resembling that of an old man, the usually energetic seeming shopkeeper sat down on a soft cushion and placed the bowl before him. Urahara was certain that his friend was just being suspicious because he was worried for him.
Tessai had never even once asked him about 'it' after he told him what little he could to make his situation comprehensive to the shocked man.
'Not once, huh?' The blonde Shinigami stared down at the bowl, gently ruffling through his hair. 'As caring as a mother.', he mumbled, a slight hint of sarcasm in his raspy voice. He reached out for another slice, slowly munching down on the tender flesh. They no longer resembled the fruit they once were. They lost shape and skin, made into something new.
Would they have tasted better if everything had remained the same?
Would it be easier to swallow the body of sweetness with such tiring bites? He wondered.
Perhaps robbing them of their defining outer characteristics was necessary to bring out the best of their insides? Then again, it would only be an improvement for those indulging in their consumption. It did not matter to the mango if it was peeled or sliced. All that did was to rob it from its own protective walls. It was made vulnerable to please the appetite of those it would spare a final look.
Then again, it had been too late to wonder about that. The bowl had already been served and he was eating.
He gave a dry chuckle to the silence, expecting nothing to reach his ear in return.
He would be eating in complete silence. Nothing but his own noises.
'Perhaps the sole fact that the one eating did not bother with such questions, was part of accepting these fleeting moments in our lives? We don't need to care. As long as we don't doubt our intentions to be pure, we will always find comfort in our choices and pity in our failure.' He stared at the slices and narrowed his eyes, 'As cruel as it may be, we will continue to live like nothing had happened.'
The sun was just about to rise and cleanse the paths of mischievous shadows. The sluggish ones would not attempt to compete with such warm rays of light But, those who were quick would not let darkness be stripped off of their shoulders before they'd cloaked themselves twice in the long arms of nothingness. They did not fear darkness or light but sought the benefits in both eternal companions of this world.
Sly steps fell onto the roof like single droplets of rain. A rush of excitement in those bright yellow eyes and no sound to escape from her lips. Yoruichi led herself inside that lazy Shinigami's store, wondering if today might be the day he'd disprove her expectations and be awake for once. With a grin she poked her head into the empty rooms and whispered to herself, 'Not here.'. Rather than being annoyed, she seemed to find some amusement in this little game of "what if's?". Just as she pulled her head back from the kitchen door a familiar voice greeted her from behind, 'Good morning, Yoruichi-san.'. 'Oh?', with a bright smile Yoruichi turned around and greeted their friend back, 'Morning. Are you going to open the store on your own?' Tessai lightly rose his brows and glanced down at the box in his arms, understanding the woman's natural assumption. 'We are not open on Sundays.', He simply answered. He lightly tilted his head back to the stairs and whispered, 'I'm taking this to Urahara-dono's room.' Yoruichi's ears perked up at her friend's name. Curious, she stepped closer to the tall man and stared down at the distinctively long box. 'To Kisuke, huh? And what might be hiding inside this?' She lightly knocked against the box, the echoing sound giving her all the information she needed. Tessai knitted his brows as he watched the woman pretend to not very well know what this box once held. 'It is empty, as for the moment. He misplaced it last night, so I'm taking it back to his room.'. Yoruichi narrowed her eyes and stepped back again, the smile fading from her lips. 'I would have needed to undo every single little knot to clear whatever it is he got his mind tangled in.' She looked up at Tessai, her face glazed in disapprovement, 'Even if it led us here, you know that she had to take it back.'. Tessai stared back at her, silent. He wasn't angry at her for stealing the sword, but he did not believe this to have been the only solution under these complicated circumstances. He turned around without answering the woman and left for his friend's room.
Yoruichi watched as Tessai slowly ascended up the stairs. She let out a small sigh and decided to wait in the dining room for the blonde Shinigami to wake up. Before she could enter the room a strangely sour smell hit her nose and she immediately pinched it close in disgust. Puzzled what its source might be she walked inside the room and spied an empty bowl, right next to it sat an oddly oval-shaped thing. As she stepped closer to get a better look at that sad figure she recognized its glossy flesh and the saturated orange now clustered in patches of brown. Put together like a cheaply crafted puzzle, where some pieces just wouldn't line up or were completely missing.
Yoruichi tilted her head to the door, narrowing her eyes at the shadow-enveloped stairs. She left the poorly-looking ball behind and decided to wait at the entrance of the store instead.
A few minutes past until Tessai had woken his friend up. The blonde Shinigami slowly strolled down the stairs, stretching his arms and yawing without any false embarrassment. 'Morning, Yoruichi-san!', He half-yawned, half-greeted the impatient woman standing in his shop. Without fixing his eyes on her he casually walked over to the cash register and crossed his arms on the counter, making himself a somewhat comfortable substitute for a pillow.
Yet he could only lean his head against it, before Yoruichi walked up to him and pulled him up by the back of his collar.
'Good morning, Kisuke.' She emphasized each word with as much menace as one person alone should be able to wield. With a wry smile the tired shopkeeper tried to calm his friend's temper down to a safer level for him and for his fragile goods, 'What might earn me the pleasures of such an early visit?'. 'You may fault your own sluggishness for that.' She promptly replied and tightened her grip on his collar. 'When were you going to let me know that you've decided to seal her away?' Yoruichi narrowed her eyes at the Shinigami. Urahara's mien quickly stiffened and he carefully straightened his back, causing his former captain to let go of him. She waited for an answer that would justify this secrecy around that Zanpakuto. 'It shouldn't concern you.', Urahara spoke coldly. 'And yet it does.' She grimaced at the sudden change in his tone, 'So, this is not part of one of your long and convoluted plans? You're just going to let them seal her away?'. Yoruichi did not speak in an accusing manner, neither did she show any objection against his decision. She seemed to simply be concerned for her friend's inconsistent behavior. Urahara looked her in the eye, stone-like neutrality capturing his expression as he assured her, 'I would have sealed her away myself, if I still had her sword.'. For a brief moment something sparked inside the Shinigami's eyes, but Yoruichi could not tell what.
Urahara fixed his slightly dented hat and continued in a much lighter tone, 'Between executing her and sealing her away, I do believe I decided on what's best for her.' Yoruichi gave the blonde a long look and sank her shoulders with a sigh. She put her hands to her hips and took notice of her friend's slightest change in expression as she went on to speak, 'I guess they will keep her in the shin'ōchikadaikangoku in the First Division.' 'Probably.', He replied calmly and gazed to his side, 'Seeing as she's an artificial creation, incomparable to anything in the 12th Division's data base, they will have to treat her with utmost care. I doubt they will imprison her sword in the 8th level.' He pondered, 'I can't say for a certain just how dangerous they believe Hanekyo to be.'. Yoruichi kept her eyes on the careless seeming Shinigami and answered his monologue in a calm manner herself, 'Only as much as you've given them reason to.'. However, it certainly sounded more like a question to the shopkeeper. Urahara tilted his head forward again to look back at the woman, not changing in his facial expression, 'Then they've enough to keep her sealed for as long as those barracks stand.'
Yoruichi tried her best to understand her friend, but there was no one who could succeed in reading his mind. Even though he was powerless in this situation, she still felt like there was something he held back from her. Some sort of plan. But Yoruichi couldn't even say what kind of plan that would be. If it was to get that sword back or maybe hide it somewhere even more unreachable than the depths of that hell.
She finally gave up on trying to comprehend his specific type of strange and just brought up a question that had lured itself into her mind on her way to the store. 'Say, Kisuke.' She began calmly, gaining the Shinigami's attention, 'Do you know what happens to a Zanpakuto when it's sealed?'.
Wondered Urahara blinked at his friend, suddenly bringing a wide smile to his lips fitting his usual joyous personality. 'Intriguing, right?' He reached into his sleeve and pulled out a hand-fan, swiftly opening it before his face, 'I'll have to keep some secrets from you, or it would completely ruin my mysterious aura.'. 'Ha?' Puzzled and annoyed Yoruichi glanced at her friend. 'If I told you everything, you'd lose interest and stop coming by so frequently! And who else is going to wake me up with her stomping on the roof in the mornings?' 'Stomping!?' Yoruichi snapped and grabbed him by his collar, holding him up before her.
Never growing less overwhelmed or amazed by his friend's strength, Urahara let out a light-hearted chuckle and lifted his hands in front of his chest, 'I'm just joking, I'm just joking!' She glared at the unthreatened looking man and slowly let him down to his feet, silently waiting for him to answer her properly this time.
Urahara gazed into the vibrant yellow eyes before him, finding the shimmering inside those kindly-sized pupils to be quite curious.
For a brief moment he let himself enter the dazzling halls of light, forgetting for just a brief moment to answer the woman.
Without any distortion or shifting in the shopkeeper's rather untroubled mien, he addressed his friend with the same voice of the man she had talked to months before.
'Nothing. The seal simply builds a vacuum around its target, isolating them from any permanent substances. Nothing can get into it that room and nothing can get out of it. Those inside it will stay in a constant state between two different layers of reality. They are stuck in an undefined place between time and space.'.
Yoruichi lightly rose her brows at the Shinigami's explanation, 'I suppose you'll indulge in explaining, what exactly such an unstable state would incline?'
Urahara put a hand against the back of his neck and lightly brushed over it. 'Now, what would that incline?' He mumbled to himself, seemingly pondering on how to phrase his answer. Yoruichi felt the sting of his obvious sense of superiority. She spared herself the outbreak of fury and just accepted the Shinigami's attitude for now. 'Unstable might not be the right word for it.' He began and let out a thoughtful hiss, 'Perhaps "indefinite" would be more fitting?' Yoruichi had to think about the blonde's short yet informative answer before she could reply in her own simple-kept words, 'Cut and lousily put back together. A room like that will certainly protect them from whatever has been imprisoned inside it.'. She was careful to empathize the "them". It earned her a longer glance by the shopkeeper, like he was warning her to not attempt to weigh her words with more wit than they could carry. Yoruichi clearly showed no gratitude for her friend's subtle annotation. 'I just need to make sure that you're completely settled on this.' She casually leaned against the counter and took a strain of hair between her fingers, twisting and observing it like she was appreciating the finest porcelain. 'If you were half as brilliant as you believe to be, I wouldn't need to drop by every now and then to see what mess you've driven yourself into this time.' She slowly parted her fingers and let the strain gently fall back to frame her face. Her eyes looked right at the blonde Shinigami, their gaze too strong and their sight too clear to be deceived by tattered appearances.
'If you say you're sure about this, I'll stop asking questions. But if you feel the slightest hint of doubt, you will need to tell me, Kisuke. I need to know if I'm going to be involved in this.' She spoke with the same authority she emitted in her days as a captain.
'Oh.', Urahara responded wondered, an amused smile drawing to his lips, 'I had not known you to be such a jokester.' He waved himself some cool air with his fan, 'You make it sound like I had any control over what you're doing.'
Urahara narrowed his eyes and whispered with a smile, 'I think you've already decided to involve yourself, Yoruichi-san. But I won't ask you to go there and free Hanekyo. She is a threat to others, because of a small yet decisive flaw I made in her design. And without the complete knowledge on the correlation between her physical form and her incorporeal form inside her sword, I won't know what to change to fix it.'. 'Without risking to harm her.', Yoruichi added. With a small pause he nodded, showing slight objection to such an optimistic statement. 'Hanekyo is an artificial life form. If I operate on her without knowing exactly what it is I'm trying to change, I might end up corrupting something essential and alter it by accident.' Yoruichi understood her friend's dilemma, but she could not stop wondering about the way he described that girl. She was convinced he saw her as something more human than just a weapon, but perhaps he lacked the ignorance to dismiss reality altogether. In the end, that girl was a Pseudo-Zanpakuto that he had created. Personal feelings might blur that reality, but the former captain of the 12th division had never lost the ability to distance himself from such subjective views. He stepped back from the emotional and from the rational, into a state of mind where he could calmly assess the two and finally construct a plan to use both to achieve the most beneficial outcome for whatever it was he was aiming for that time. All of this happened within a single second it seemed so to his friend. When she did not have trouble following those endless chains of thought, it was only because she had consciously been ignoring them. Sometimes it was better to let him work on his confidential plans and not question his methods.
'Releasing her would only be detrimental to them and to herself.' Yoruichi summarized and crossed her arms, whilst thoughtfully staring up at the ceiling, 'It's really difficult for me to believe you, Kisuke.' She lowered her face again to look at the Shinigami, 'You made her, intending to create a Zanpakuto that could be used by anyone.' She narrowed her eyes, unimpressed by her friend's deceitful character, 'You would have already thought about the consequences before you begun the experiment.' She glared at the now silent man and whispered, 'You are still hiding something from me.'. But it would not achieve anything to attempt to guilt him into answering her truthfully. With such a long distance, kept between him and the reality she lived in, how would guilt ever reach that man?
Yoruichi let out a small sigh and closed her eyes, 'Whatever it is, I hope you won't regret it.' She turned around and walked towards the exit, halting in her steps right at the door frame. 'Neither of you.', with her back turned towards the blonde, he could no longer see those bright yellow eyes. The shimmering had been mudded with concern.
Once the woman's silhouette had been swallowed by the warm sun rays Urahara let his shoulders sink in exhaustion. This argument would have found no end, if Yoruichi had not so half-heartedly accepted his silence.
With a fair expression Urahara stared at the exit and for a brief moment he wished to throw himself to the ground, right in front of it.
'G-go…shu…jin…sa…m...'
The Shinigami's eyes widened at once and he stared in shock at the blinding light stabbing the ground before his feet. For a second he could not decide whether to blink or not. The familiar voice fooling him to step closer to reality. But when he looked up, the door was closed. It was still night. It was always night when he woke up from his recently more frequent naps. A mild headache hit the man and he immediately pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to sooth the turmoil inside his mind. He knew it to disappear in a moment. They had gotten more common these days, enough so that he grew accustomed to dealing with them.
The headache slowly melted into clearer thoughts. Yoruichi had come to visit him, he remembered. Urahara tilted his head to his right and stared at his arm, stretched out on the floor. His head was leaning against something hard. Yoruichi came by, but once he leaned his head on the counter, he had fallen asleep. She did not wake him and left.
The shopkeeper shifted his sight to his left, narrowing his eyes at the dusty bags and boxes behind the register. He remembered. She had left without waking him.
Tessai must have seen him, asleep, on the ground. Usually he would have carried him back upstairs to his room. So maybe, that conversation did happen and it's just the next day? Days just melted into each other. Time flew in a single stream and it became difficult at times to tell where you were heading. But all of this would pass and time would move on normally.
Time wouldn't be affected by their actions.
It was he himself, who had to return to normality.
Urahara stole another glance at the exit, laying on the floor. A strange sense of familiarity filling his chest with the warmth of soft flames swirling next to him.
He gently placed a hand on his chest and closed his eyes at the light pressure.
A small smile drew to his lips, 'Itadakimasu*.'
- End Chapter VIIII: A Raven's Feast -
*A Japanese phrase, usually said before your meal, literally meaning that you're thankfully receiving something
