Heart and Soul — XIII

Isane's and Nanao's voices drifted down the hall as Rukia approached the infirmary once more. "Honestly." Nanao was saying, her voice no more than a sigh. "There aren't that many people here, Kurosaki-kun didn't need to take so much…it's not like we're getting hurt on a daily basis or anything…"

"Speak for yourself, I'll use half these things on Sentarou and Renji within the next two months. Those guys are so reckless." Isane joked. "Anyways, who knows when we'll have a chance like he had again…if we ever do. He was right to take advantage of it." Nanao didn't answer. "Still feel guilty, huh?"

"A little." Nanao admitted as Rukia turned the corner into the room. Both had their back to the door and didn't see her.

"Need a hand?" She announced her presence. Nanao jumped, and the bottle she'd been holding slipped from her hands. Isane, on the other hand, smiled as she looked over her shoulder.

"Hey Rukia-san. Sure, if you feel like it. We've done more talking than working so far, so if you don't mind listening to us…"

Rukia tried to smile as she sat down. Nanao and Isane were sitting with the huge pile of medicine between them. Rukia sat down on the other side, making a triangle between them.

"Jeez, you guys weren't kidding. How much do you think there is?"

"Too much." Isane laughed. "Nobody here has the attention span to count it all either, so we'll never know."

Rukia shook her head, snickering. "Well one thing about Ichigo, he's thorough. His plans normally suck, but he never goes halfway."

She picked up a bottle, turning it over in her hands. The label said Heal. "They have very simple titles, don't they?" She commented generally as she set the bottle it's similarly labeled companions. "Artists, Healers, Comforters, Flowers, Bats, Bears…of course, when you get into the planets it's all foreign to me, but still…it's simple. Child-like, almost."

She was trying to get Nanao to say something without actually speaking to her so she could at least tell Ichigo she'd made an attempt. But the woman didn't seem interesting in speaking. She kept her eyes on the pile of medicine bottles, sorting them almost mechanically. "It's one of the things you have to appreciate about them." Isane seemed determined to keep a conversation going. "They don't cut corners the way we did, they're simple and to the point. Child-like, in a sense, just like you said. You have to admit though, if you ignore the fact that they mostly succeeded in wiping out the human race, they've actually done a better a job on this planet than we ever did."

Nanao made a noise in the back of her throat, as if she wanted to tell Isane to shut up but thought better of it. Rukia was interested now though. "You think they were right to take our planet?" She asked, amazed at how calm she managed to keep her voice, considering the anger simmering under the surface.

"Not really." Isane shrugged. "But you have to admit, Rukia-san, they're doing better. Face it, before the invasion, how common was it to open the obituary and find that half of the causes of death fell under the heading of 'murder'? How often did you turn on the TV and hear about bombings and terrorists threats and fighting and death? Do you think when souls turn on the TV now they hear things like that? I don't."

"Great, so there's finally world peace." Rukia shot back sarcastically. "And all it took was the destruction of the human race."

"Maybe humans were just never meant for this world. Maybe we were just borrowing it. Maybe it was just time to give it back." Rukia wouldn't admit that Isane was right. She wouldn't, she wouldn't…

But she was. And that was the part that killed Rukia. All humans had ever managed to do was drop the Earth into a big hole. A hole the souls had dug the planet out of. Too bad in the process they had to take everything away…

"You know, I think Kyoraku-kun has the right idea." Isane said out of nowhere. Rukia raised an eyebrow at the older woman.

"Meaning…?"

"Well you know, what he was babbling on about earlier. Souls and humans living together, without all the drama. I bet if the Seekers didn't make us free humans seem like such terrible people, and the souls got to know us, we could manage it." Great, another psycho. Rukia rolled her eyes and threw herself back into organizing the medicine. "You don't agree either? No surprise. How about you Nanao? Think if anyone ever gave us a chance we could manage it?"

Nanao didn't answer at first. She seemed very interested in reading the label on the bottle she was holding. "It…depends." She said slowly. Carefully. "If you take the Seekers out of the equation…maybe. Souls aren't completely unreasonable. But with the Seekers there always whispering in their ears about how terrible the 'wild humans' are, it'd be hard to convince them…"

"Propaganda." Rukia guessed without looking up from the bottles. "That's all it really is in the end, they're ruining us to justify their cause."

"More or less." Nanao agreed in a murmur. "Like I said…it'd be easier if the Seekers weren't around."

Rukia made a noise in the back of her throat. "Too bad there isn't a way to just get rid of the Seekers."

"Violence begets violence begets violence." As usual, Nanao was speaking in riddles. Rukia raised an eyebrow.

"What?"

Isane quickly explained. "I think what she means is that killing the Seekers will accomplish proving what they already think of us — that we're nothing but living, breathing, killing machines." Nanao nodded her silent agreement. Rukia made a face, seeing that she was going to lose this argument.

"We'd all be so much happier if we could find a way though." Isane said after a minute of silence. "A way to live together, I mean. The souls wouldn't have to be afraid of us, and we wouldn't be reduced to the very basics of our instincts to survive. Imagine if we could all just be together."

"It would never work." Rukia said flatly. Isane smiled lightly.

"You really don't think so, Rukia-san?"

"I really don't. Maybe Kyoraku-kun can be noble enough to look past the silver lining in the eyes, but I know I never could, not if it was my parents. Ichigo never could if it was his sisters. And I'm sure there are others who feel the same way."

"You never know until you have to actually make the choice though, do you?" Isane pushed. Rukia just scowled at the bottle she was holding. "I bet Kyoraku-kun would have said the same thing before."

Rukia didn't answer. She wasn't sure what to think at that moment. She just missed being able to hate the souls without it being questioned. She wished now more than ever that she and Ichigo could just go back to their cabin. But obviously that was no longer an option.

The silence dragged on for quite awhile once the philosophy discussion was done. Nanao looked fairly relieved; it was obvious she hadn't been enjoying the conversation at all. Rukia wished it had never even come up.

"Done!" Isane said after what felt like an eternity. Rukia looked over the neat rows of bottles they had set up. There was enough to last them the rest of their lives, at least. She sighed and looked over at the mattress in the middle of the floor. Her bunny blanket was sitting on top of it. She smiled as she scooped up, happy that Ichigo had actually thought to save it.

"You like rabbits?" Isane guessed with a smile. Rukia nodded.

"My sister and I used to collect these little glass rabbit figurines, they were so cute. We kept them on a shelf in our room, it was really high up so we wouldn't accidentally break it. And we had all kinds of stuffed rabbits too. Our dad use to joke about them breeding while we slept…" Rukia's voice drifted off, her smile fading as she remembered the happier times. It was silly, the things she missed now. Like those dumb rabbit figurines.

"They sound cute." Isane prodded, trying to get Rukia to talk again.

"They were. I wonder if they're still there…" Everybody said that the souls were just humans with someone different at the controls. Would the souls that had taken Rukia's parents have left their host children's rooms the way they had been that fateful day? Would they have kept the rabbit collection Hisana and Rukia had spent their lives collecting, or the stupid postcards Byakuya had collected on all the family vacations and day trips?

"You always wonder what if." Isane said quietly, interrupting Rukia's thoughts. "I still remember the day Kiyone and I ran. I was babysitting her, she was complaining because she was twelve, and she said she didn't need a babysitter, and our parents had started leaving her home alone when they went out on errands before, what was with the sudden change of mind? I didn't understand it either, actually. They'd made it sound like it was the most important thing in the world that I be there, I'd had plans that night, but they made it sound like I needed to be there, as if something was going to happen. So I cancelled. I remember…

"They came in with the Seekers. Kiyone and I were in the living room watching TV — Kiyone was complaining, of course. They told us we had to go down to the basement — we figured out later that they'd set up an insertion area down there when Kiyone was in school that day. We didn't understand, it kind of scared us. Then one of the Seekers walked under the light, and we saw his eyes…" Isane shivered. "It wasn't natural. Kiyone realized that before I did. Thank God for her outgoing nature, it might be the only thing that saved us. There was a cup on the table, she grabbed it and threw it at the Seeker near the door. And while the others went to see if he was okay, I grabbed Kiyone and we ran. None of them had weapons — who expects a struggle from a couple of female humans? And so we ran. When we didn't think we'd be caught Kiyone insisted on going over to find out if Sentarou was okay — they were best friends, though you'd never know it, all they did was argue—"

"That's all they do now." Nanao pointed out. Isane chuckled.

"That's true. Anyways the house was empty. We figured it was already too late, and we ran. Kiyone was heartbroken." Rukia opened her mouth to ask a question, but Isane went on. "We found him three years later. He and his father had escaped, but his father was captured while he was on a raid, and Sentarou escaped by himself. Kiyone was happier than I'd seen her since the day we ran. We found Ukitake-san about six months later. We've been here ever since."

Silence followed Isane's story. Like most, it had a very bittersweet ending. Sure, she and her sister had escaped, and hey, they'd even found her sister's best friend. But they'd lost everything.

"But hey, enough dwelling." Isane smiled, trying to bring up the mood. "We're here now, and we're safe, and that's all that matters, right?"

Rukia and Nanao nodded silently. "C'mon, it's mine and Kiyone's turn to cook supper — which translate into it being my turn." Isane rolled her eyes good-naturedly. She left, with Rukia and Nanao following, both looking at the floor.

"What about you Nanao-san?" Rukia asked finally, silently cursing Ichigo. He just had to put ideas in her head, didn't he? "Leave anything behind that you miss?"

Nanao looked a little surprised. It took her a moment to answer. "No…not really. Earth was just another world to me, just like the others. Souls are…simple, like you said before. It makes for a boring life here though."

Rukia couldn't stop herself from asking, "and what, you like adventure?"

Nanao actually chuckled. "Hardly. But humans do. These bodies just…don't adjust well. That's why you find so many souls going AWOL on Earth — their bodies are pulled in a different direction than their minds, especially humans who are caught who have prior knowledge of the souls existence — if, for instance, somebody here was captured, chances are they wouldn't be used for a host. A Seeker—" Rukia, much to her surprise, saw a shudder run through Nanao's body. Was she afraid of Seekers? "A Seeker would be put into the body to get information, then the body would be…disposed of."

Another shudder. "How do you know all that?" Isane was the one who asked the question. "You were only here for two years before you left as well."

"I heard some stuff. When Kurosaki-kun and I went to get the medicine. I ended up being the distraction. They'd just done an insertion that day — a rebel human they'd found, and they were telling me about the statistics. It's a bit frightening, if you think about it. Less then twenty percent of the souls inserted into rebel humans actually made it. They just fight too hard." Nanao sighed. "I admire them — you, really. All of you."

That surprised Rukia more than anything Nanao had said so far. "You admire us? Why?"

"Your drive to live, your will — it's amazing. Even after the end of your world, you still try to exist. Your tenacity is incredible. You fight, even when it's obviously futile. Some would say it's ridiculous. I think it's admirable though."

Rukia didn't have an answer for that. Of all the things a soul could have said, she was saying she admired humans. Talk about insane.

"It's a lot to think about." Isane said casually. She wasn't kidding. Rukia's mind was going a mile a minute now. She wished Ichigo was back so she could just talk to him about it.

Hopefully he'd be back soon.

Author's Note: IchiRuki reunion next chapter, promise…I planned on making it this chapter, but I felt like trying to develop some sort of friendship between Nanao and Rukia was more necessary than a reunion…so next chapter. Promise. Review, please? — Sam