ACT 1:
NOSTALGIC HATRED
CHAPTER 3:
RED AND BLUE
November, 1944; Rukongai District 75. Near the edge of the regulated soul society, law and order break down into nothingness while the horribly abused homes become abandoned slums and begin to fall apart upon themselves after the recent deaths of their sole owners. Then, to be taken up by squatters and vagrants that would further destroy it with their gang wars.
Only the strong survive here, and the shinigami of the Seireitei are both hated for their authority and respected for their strength. Families die quickly if they ever form at all, and the strongest bonds are regularly broken for personal gain.
Only the strong survive here, and the very idea of love is a commodity that few get to experience without becoming stoic from the constant betrayal.
Only the strong survive here, those who lack empathy completely and can throw everything they have away to attain even the simplest of goals.
Only the weak survive here, for those who call themselves strong are always renown for how easily they bend to the whims of others.
Only the powerful thrive here, who have the will and inhumanity to bend everything around them. "The bosses." They keep others away from them, and that is the only way that they can retain their power.
Only the truly strong leave here, for they are the only ones with the fortitude to let go of everything they knew and approach the gold-gilded future that wanders hopelessly further away with every passing second.
Childhood friends who stuck together to the bitter end, where one or both perish at the hands of a force out of their control, or of their own petty mistakes. While one may die, the other will wallow at the last thing they had to lose and so lose themselves. They never leave.
Families who came together either through their memories of life or a lack of any before death; to cope with their poor luck. Should they all die at the hands of nature or be plucked off one at a time by hostile forces — hollows or other people, — it doesn't matter. In the end, they are always taken and broken. The last will succumb to their guilt and follow.
Strong lovers will stick to each other until one makes a heavy-handed mistake to break them apart, and they will die going their own ways. One may betray the other, but they too will be betrayed and ironically meet the same fate. True, that word sums their fate up all too nicely: ironic.
The powerful warriors will wander the streets and follow their violent whims as that is their nature. They will cause suffering, and they will end it. Their only true purpose is empty and ever-increasing in scope. Eventually, they will too succumb to their self-determined fate and die at the hands of a more worthy opponent.
The strong live, and the weak die. Is that right? It doesn't matter; they all end up the same. The images held so tightly will burn. The fires that lit them will fade. The people who held them will fall. The world that housed them will wither. And it continues.
A young girl — looking to be a teenager or a young adult — sits against the outside of a building in a dim alley, abandoned and filled with trash unlike the rough and untended roads outside of it. Her skin is pale, hair curiously blonde, rather large but still looking frail from utter starvation. Both eyes and arms are bruised and scarred, already roughskin clothes torn into pieces.
A club whittled from a branch smacks against her face as the roughian in similar shape wielding it berates her, "Get the fuck up!" He still looks like a child next to the other and much older boys standing beside him like lackeys or bodyguards.
Of course, she doesn't get up. She stares down at the dirt, at her bloodied and dirty legs, then up at the boys whose faces are overcast with traitorous shadows from the bleached god rays above.
One of those lackeys picks her up by the collar and yells, "He said get the fuck up! Don't think you can just get away with what you did to Obura!"
She spits in his face, "That piece of shit deserved it!" and gets slapped across the face for it.
That one holding her by the neck slams her against the wall and scolds her in his deep and imposing voice, "You can cooperate and take your punishment, or we can kick your ass and leave you for dead. What will it be?"
She scowls at him, her pride taking over and not allowing her to say a single word in defiance. The other larger boy pulls out a knife carved out of bone and hands it to the younger one on the latter's command. He brandishes it in front of her face and runs the edge across her cheek to draw blood. She doesn't flinch despite desperately wanting to, but she allows the fear to turn into anger. It fuels her strength and allows her to kick the younger boy across the alley, then bite the larger one's fingers hard enough to break one. He lets go and she sprints down the length.
Hurriedly, the larger boy who gave the younger his knife picks up a nearby stone and chucks it into her back with enough force to knock her down while they sprint towards her.
She's almost out into the streets, but the impact was too stunning to get up in time. She begins to crawl and stand up with lost pace. They're right behind her, about to pounce, when a passerby observing the situation from that exit leaps forward. Another boy who looks slightly older than the girl but still very large; the type whose body is naturally large and round. Mature-looking and stoic, not saying a single word while he leaps in and blocks their path. The ruffians slam into him but are stopped, and they proceed to wrestle about like Sumo match without much success. The girl, too busy staring at him to run, is looked back at and nodded to. She nods back, shakes her head, then gets back up and runs like a crippled madwoman.
She keeps running down the street, gaining speed and ignoring her body's begging to stop. For several minutes, looking back every few seconds and still being convinced of the need to keep going. Eventually, she can't run anymore and has to settle with collapsing against the front of an abandoned bakery. It's there that she lightly sobs and falls asleep. "Thank you..." is the last word she speaks before passing out.
Each day after that was a living hell. Liberated from organized banditry, she was left without their support and rations that had kept her alive for years. She couldn't go back after such an incident and be welcomed, so she ran into unfamiliar grounds in a vain search for some form of pity. Every so often there would be a kind person who would share their home for a day, but none would dedicate themselves to a vagrant.
Every minute, she thought about how maybe that person who saved her would appear again. Maybe he would be the one to take her in, or maybe they would be able to survive together regardless. Despite how clearly stupid the idea, it was the only thing she had left to want.
A month passed. She lie in the streets like the dying homeless that she had been taught to ignore in the past. They littered the street, some had actually passed a long time ago and simply had nowhere to be buried. Out of pity, the carriages and pedestrians all averted their course to not run the child over. It wasn't an abnormal sight, but still one that everybody threw melancholy looks at, for it reminded them that even their afterlife was mortal; that everything still revolved around death.
She lies there, cheek pressed against the ground and staring at a water stand. The man managing it saw her pleading expression but did nothing. Then, a person approaches as a silhouette. They purchase a vessel of water wordlessly, as if it were a formality at that point. He turns to leave, but stops. She can only see his feet as he approaches and crouches beside her.
He grabs ahold of her and sits her against him, sitting up. She has the strength to at least retain posture, but couldn't possibly lift the water. He does so for her, untying the cloth cap and bringing it closer, tipping it towards her and nearly force-feeding the liquid. He decides not to spare a sizable amount, taking it and re-tying the cap after just several seconds. The girl who has regained some of her strength pushes her head against him and manages to mutter, "Thank you..." once more.
He reaches into a sack he was carrying and pulls out something wrapped in dried plants. Unfolding it, he holds up a compacted ball of white rice and tears off a piece to feed to her. She chews slowly and swallows weakly, then begs for more by clinging to him. Regardless, he continues to break off small pieces and feed them to her. As she regains strength, she starts to tear up. He ignores it and keeps going even after half of the rice he had is gone. He tries to keep going, but she quietly lowers his hand.
"You need this more than I do." he insists in a very deep and soft voice that she can tell is used very sparingly. Vision starts to come back into color and become clearer. She stares up at his face and memorizes it: Round, but also rugged; the slight growth of facial hair that usually only occurs later in life, faintly green irises which would blend with the ocean were he next to it. His hair has mostly fallen out and is mainly covered by a straw hat that only does so much to conceal that fact.
By the time she has finished looking at him, he has dragged her into the shade beneath the water vendor's stand. With newfound motivation and energy, she manages to stand herself back up and stare as he takes his leave. Of course, she follows.
She continues to trail him slowly for several minutes, eventually stopping when she realizes that he's going into a nearby house. She hides on that house's side-wall and thinks of what to do next. Some old woman opens the door and yells, "Jinpachi, you're late!"
He quietly apologizes, and she continues, "Quit apologizing! Just get in here and start on the floors!" and slaps him on the back of the head. He walks in and a commotion kicks up, with a couple yelling about at each other and that boy, Jinpachi.
She walks over to a neighboring demolished house and sits beside it, listening for the rest of the day and waiting for him to come back out. He doesn't. Each hour passes with more arguments, and the faint sounds of crashing; people slapping each other about.
"You little shit!" a man inside yells, catching Heidi off guard. She doesn't catch the rest, but can soon barely hear the boy apologizing to them pleadingly and without rest. Eventually, as the sun is about to fall on the horizon, she gets up and drags along the ground a splint of wood from the rubble, walking slowly towards the house.
"You can hate me later..." she whispers to nobody in particular before ripping off the flimsy cloth covering the front entrance. She slowly makes her way in and hoists the club on her shoulder, using the cover of their voices to inch through the claustrophobic hallway and towards their decrepit and nearly collapsed bedroom. She passes quietly by Jinpachi in the dark kitchen, who can't help but freeze in place at the sight of the girl he had saved earlier.
The two filthy looking adults clothed in bleakly colored rags are too busy arguing with each other over who took the woman's vase to notice Heidi sneaking up behind them. She raises one leg, primes the club in the air like a hefty pole-hammer and slams her entire weight plus the weapon into the back of the woman's head. Her face is completely deadpan, staring and uncaring like a murderous crow, but silently angry enough to have been hyperventilating; each breath bringing her closer to snapping and screaming. Before the man can even look towards her, she swings it sideways with both hands into his shins.
He trips, falling forwards and screaming in pain, grasping at the girl who backs up and hoists the stick above her head. She starts to breathe heavily again, then lets herself smirk despite holding it in. Her entire body trembles, gripping her weapon hard enough to deform it very slightly, and she can't even hesitate to slam it against his skull once more. A soft thud, then another as she beats him with it again. She keeps going, and going, slamming it against their unconscious bodies as if hacking them to pieces, but all the weapon she holds can do is slowly break until it snaps in two from sheer overuse. Its length and her hands — no, her entire body — are covered in numerous specks of blood.
She lets go, throwing it to the side and staying quiet. Her smile disappears, but her stressed breathing continues. She turns around, feeling her face and smearing the red about unintentionally. She attempts to walk out, but finds her entire body too wracked with shock and fatigue to move far. A weakness unlike any other, brought on by an inability to properly process her own actions. This wouldn't be the first time she had done something like this, but it certainly was the first time it had been driven by desire rather than duty.
Eventually, she finds the strength to walk out. Slowly. She uses the wall for support while staring at the ground, eyes widened and filled with the visible aftershock of adrenaline.
"Why?" she hears to her side, the familiar voice of that boy. He stands before her, pale and obviously scared beyond rational thought.
She lifts her head up and limply rests against the wall. She slowly but eventually responds, "They won't hurt you anymore..."
He backs away, staring at her like she's gone completely mad, but that may have fairly already been the case. She inches forward and grabs onto him faster than he can react, then whispers into his ear, "Run. Run far away. Take everything you need and follow me."
He can only gasp and stammer instead of formulating a coherent response, trying to push her away but not having the mental fortitude to do so.
She clings more tightly to him, "You can hate me after we're safe."
Hesitantly, he frees himself from her grasp and proceeds to silently raid the kitchen and other rooms for anything of real value: Food, water, a few sellable valuables, and a poorly made dagger; all mostly patched up into a bag. They meet outside, where Heidi nods to him, grabs his hand, and they simply run. Down the road, past the empty buildings and few hollow men wandering the street; past the dead trees and dirt clouds. With their last ounces of daily strength, they leave their forsaken past behind. Hand in hand, Heidi leading, no direction other than forward.
And after seven years, they still run like so, with haste and will unlike any they may pass along the way. Yet, it seems like it has somehow changed. No longer is the air they break through bleak and unsightly, and no longer do their steps and stares carry regret or disdain. Where they had fled nowhere in their youth, now they had purpose and a home to run to.
It was some form of bonding, that was for sure. A given, that those two would grow to love as they were alone together, but not just each other; the loneliness itself. They were the only ones to care about each other; the rest of the world would just sit by on the sidelines and have their own problems. They were not bothered by it; quite the opposite.
They had scoured the tallest hills and their forests that lay beyond the barren townscape and ruins; sitting there under the night sky at every opportunity and memorizing the feeling of the pure and unsullied silence.
They had found the paradise beyond hell, where rivers and waterfalls were unpolluted and sparkling with the incandescence of the stars above. They used it to cleanse themselves of everything.
Soaked of pure waters, they could bathe in life in the battles against the girl's past. Many sought her death; their vengeance, but laid across the ground in the end at the couple's feet. All would come to fail against them not for their superior tact and weaponry, but for their superior and indomitable will.
An insurmountable giant wielding a sword and shield twice the size of any man's, both arms of it working in tandem through all hardships to cover each other. Inseparable, unyielding, they were the sole necessary parts of the whole.
They came to an impasse, the sword wanting only to harm and the shield wanting never to harm. The idol threw both aside, only for them to recognize the futility of the inner turmoil, and accept it as it existed.
Soon the weapons were reclaimed by another idol, fairer than the last and the owner of many arms. It had cherished solitude before and soon rejected it, allowing its many arms to hold each their own swords and shields.
With time, it rusted, and it came to accept its age. Soon, it realized, that it would have to part and leave the sword and shield to their own devices. Then, when all hope seemed lost, they had become their own idols joined in union and fused. They looked back at the rusted statue and smiled, knowing the lessons that the two had taught them.
And then they realized that without more arms, the loss of one would mean the loss of the other. It would be unsurvivable, for any weapon without its complement is entirely inferior versus any odds. And so, reliant, after years had been spent in ignorance and immaturity, they sought a brighter light. They looked south, and the midday sun sat upon a high tower in the distance, where buildings of white and gold begged to be fought over.
And they chose to fight, as they always have. Peace would lead to eventual destruction, so they risked their peace for glory. Ever-consuming and all-embracing glory.
They lie next to each other in a broken down shack only the size of a single living room, cramped up in a tiny one-person bed under covers that were clearly ripped up sacks filled with cotton. Yet, they smile at one another, her lying halfway atop him, both ragged and sweating, and now grown nearly to how we know of them now.
Heidi whispers to her lover, "So what were you talking about earlier? Before we got into bed."
He whispers back, though not as carefully, "I was thinking that this place wouldn't be big enough. And I don't want to stay here forever. It's not a good place."
Heidi complains, "But we already beat off that gang, and we can just build onto the shack, right? Or go into the wilderness and do it there."
But Jinpachi argues back, "But we could be more than that."
"You mean...?" she becomes somewhat surprised, speechless, guessing what would come next and not knowing how to take it.
He elaborates, "Becoming one of them. Going to the capital. It would be better there."
She admits with some disappointment, "I guess it's more kid-friendly."
He can sense the sullen tone in her voice, "What's the matter?"
That tone intensifies, becoming nostalgic, "This place has a lot of memories. It's hard thinking of leaving it behind." She grips his chest tightly.
He immediately consoles her, "I know that feeling, but think about it: We'll have the same idea about wherever we go in the future. If we don't go soon, you'll never be able to let go."
She sighs fondly, "You're right. I guess being sentimental isn't always a good thing..."
They relax for a short while with their tunics in a mess until she speaks up again, "You've always been the smart one, haven't you?"
He grins, but tries to restrain it, "Don't imply that. You're smart in your own way. After all, who taught me how to fight?"
She grins at him lovingly, "That's enough flattery. We can start going tomorrow, so get some rest."
"I could tell you the same thing." he jokes. The two share a laugh, eventually falling asleep as close to each other as possible.
The rain falls heavily. Black rain, weighted with lead and sorrow. It pounds against the roof of the abandoned shack like a set of powerful tribal drums, and soon like shells of artillery going off in the distance. The glassless windows are soaked and dripping from the torrent outside and the roof drips, soaking the long rotten bedding.
Inside, looking out is a shadow. A young and short figure, caressing a vase of roses that sits alone by the window on the one table. They stare at the rain, allowing it to blend with the vanishing ruins of a once fair township. The drops patter on their head, and they don't react.
The drops continue to fall; intensify until one touches the roses in the vase. Its water turns into oil, and the red petals wither into ashes. They suffocate and blacken even as the shadow's hands touch them. The petals begin to fall from the ceiling, the drops becoming them.
Outside, in the flurry of ashes, the shadow crouches and holds its roses up into the sky, letting them be disintegrated by the bleeding sun above. The blackened petals and ashes turn silver, into a deadly snow. The lightning from the storm above strikes its hands.
The old shack collapses, water pouring in and destroying everything inside. Wood splinters and crashes, making a horrible thud. The only thing left unharmed in the end was the vase, housing its roses that had died long ago. Old and dead, they sit. The snow would soon consume this place, and so the shadow will be gone long before.
Now, with the background of Heidi and Jinpachi established, who is next? And what will become of the the couple? Only one way to find out.
If you enjoy my work, you can find more on my Tumblr page at: darkbeetlebot . tumblr . com
Additionally, it seems as though I've made a forum for this! If you wish to partake in discussions with myself, head over to:
forum/Bleach-Nikushimi-no-Ya-Discussion-Forum/196211/
Go ahead, don't be shy