"Do you understand Kotomi Natsu?"
Natsu blinked several times at the croaking voice that came out of the TV ahead of her. A dull drop of her head was followed only seconds by a heavy sigh as her shoulders dropped down on her form. "Yeah… I'll a pass 'em on ta Kisuke."
"I'd also like you to contribute and overlook his work on the matter."
"Course."
The old man gave a nod and then he was stepping towards the side. "You have someone else that wished to speak with you."
Natsu ran her eyes along Ayako's form as the Shinigami in the TV screen began to switch places. She was the same as ever with her hands locked neatly in front of her legs and her form standing proud and straight. Her eyes were clear of everything but warm concern and what appeared to be joy, as a small smile began to work along the older woman's features; a tiny crinkle at the corner of the eyes continuing the happy expression. She was wearing a pink-red sash around her waist this time and her hair looked just a bit messier than it normally was with it always flopping into her face.
The older woman looked over towards the exiting Sou-taicho with a small bow in her head and her features became hidden from view for only a few moments. The elderly man, who now stood by the doorway, left the room swiftly after giving out a few directions to close down the communication device once their conversation was finished, to which Ayako responded with another duck of her head. By the time it was just the two of them, Ayako turned around again with a serine type of smile that smoothed out Natsu's very ruffled feathers at the Sou-taicho's new commands.
More work, less sleep, and a very eager Kisuke was the only thing that was bound to be waiting for her when she got back to the Shoten. Kisuke was always one hundred steps too far ahead of most people, so Natsu could only imagine that he had already predicted the assignment that she had just been given. If for but a moment, Natsu could just pause as she stood in the room with her mentor.
A smirk came along her lips as she stared at Ayako's form. It was mainly those eyes which were roving over her again and again as if expecting limbs to be misplaced or scratches to suddenly become visible. Natsu lifted a finger up to her ear as her smirk seemed to become just a bit deeper. "Wha's up?"
"I see you've kept your promise," Ayako responded with a small roll of her eyes at the casual comment. "I requested an audience with you because I wanted to check in... I heard you had a fight with an arrancar."
"Yeah… Jus' tha' good ta win too."
Ayako let out a small huff of laughter as she visibly relaxed so that she was leaning onto one leg. She swept her fringe away from her eyes and then let her hand drop back down with the silence enveloping them. Natsu felt the eyes coming about her again this time in a distinct pattern of capturing as much as possible, spending time along all her limbs but particularly her face. The eyes were lens, a truth that most don't think about because it's blindly accepted, but this made Natsu really feel like she was being captured into some sort of eternity. The swamp of a look had her scrunching up her features with the sticky residue residing heavily around her.
Keeping the energy in her face, as she re-arranged from childish look to disgusting masks, Ayako let out a huff. "Stop that. I'm just making sure you're not lying to me."
Natsu grumbled and crossed her arms. "When 'ave I eva lied ta ya?"
"All the time." Ayako took only two seconds to respond, nearly jumping on the end of Natsu's sentence as the older woman pointed an accusing finger at her. "Well, you negate more than you lie."
"Ya suck."
"Yes, yes... I know."
"Whadda ya want?"
Ayako let out a small sigh. A small furrow made it's way between her eyebrows before it smoothed over. The crinkle in the older woman's lips - at the boorish personality of her underling - was also smothered away by a soft smile. All that was left was the tiniest tilt of her head, just after she shook it for a moment. And then as Natsu counted to three in the her head, Ayako let out a tiny laugh that had been expected. "You'll never change…. I wanted to make sure you're still feeling alright. You released all your seals so I just wanted to know if they're giving you trouble."
"Nothin' I can't 'andle." Natsu retorted with a petulant frown overcoming her skin. The shuffling of her hands into her pockets happened just as she sagged down a bit more around her shoulders and let the heavy weight drop from around her. "Been doin' it longa than ya know so I got ma tricks fo' dealin' wit' everythin'."
"I know you do but I also know that those same methods can really hurt you so I wanted to check in… Make sure that there's nothing I could do to help."
Ever since Ayako had discovered the three seals, around their twentieth year of knowing one another, she had always been very cautious with them and the damage that they could impart on Natsu's body if they weren't treated well. It had taken a lot of persistence on the older woman's part to figure out why they were needed at all. It was a stubbornness that was matched only by Natsu's refusal to mention anything that had to do with her weird medical condition, her history, or her zanpakuto. From there after, Ayako was always incredibly clear that she wanted to know how she could help out. Natsu had never called on her help, not even once, in the twenty years afterwards even if the older woman was constantly checking in and showing up. A tingle in the back of Natsu's head had her imagining a scenario where Ayako confronted taicho; a likelihood that Natsu both shuddered over and knew had probably taken place.
Natsu sighed again then waved off her comment very strictly with a flick of her wrist to go along with her ever-sly warped language. "I ain't sick ya know…. 'Avin' em released don't do much 'arm."
"It causes you pain, Natsu. You may not be dying from it but that doesn't mean you don't feel the pain from it." There was a serious frown along Ayako's face as her eyes crinkled up in concern from her reiteration to what she believed to be nothing more than a stubborn girl who refused to acknowledge the severity of the issue.
"Stop ya blatherin'… Ain't no need ta ge' so upset 'bout this. I'mma fine."
Ayako let out another sigh and then held up that deferential hand that had Natsu pausing her grumbling to look at warily from the corner of her eye; a snarky twist of her lips accompanying that sudden jam of complaints that were supposed to have left. Even with whole world and TV screen between them, the small palm and the long fingers were still heavy and notable in just that small action. "You wouldn't even mention if you were in pain at all so I have to ask."
"I ain't in pain," Natsu whined right back.
Ayako slotted her eyes to an almost close, targeting them directly at the younger girl who looked away just as quickly from the aimed gaze, and then pointed her forefinger at the mentee. "Don't make me force you to show me your stomach Natsu."
Natsu stuffed her hands deep into her pockets and stared longingly at the wood that seemed to suddenly become more interesting. Since her "technique" for punching holes into the overly stuffed reiryoku often left bruises, the obvious marks were something that Ayako was aware of. How the older Shinigami had figured that out was unknown, or a forgotten memory, but at some point it had been figured out. There had already been several occasions, after serious amounts of time healing at the fourth division, that the woman had forced Natsu to take off her top as proof of her clear, non-bruised skin. A test that she had failed many times before. It got her a serious telling off for not asking Unohana for help and instead dealing with it the 'wrong' way.
"I won't… Cause there's no problem."
"You liar." Ayako restrained the rest of her sentence as she let it fall over in a sigh. "But I'll stop questioning - Did you just say I was harassing you?"
Natsu grumbled again, more complaints falling into microscopically small waves of noise, and looked back over to the side. As if she hadn't tried to cough out those words without Ayako's keen ears hearing them, Natsu did her best to place a confused, somewhat innocent, uncomprehending mask on her face. When she risked a better glance at the woman's face again it was scrunched up into indescribable features but the more prominent emotion was frustration. The small voice in Natsu's head rang off that she should definitely work harder at mastering that 'innocent' look. Natsu continued contorting her face again and twisted them about until Ayako was jabbing at her to stop with the childishness.
"You win, Natsu." Ayako finally resorted to which had Natsu smirking at the woman. "I know it doesn't kill you but I know it's incredibly uncomfortable and it's hard to deal with so take it easy. How much have you been sleeping lately?"
Natsu stuck a finger into her ear and twisted it about. "Che…. Ya suck, Ayako. Stop wit' ya whinin'."
"I'm making sure you're actually taking care of yourself… You look too thin, actually, and there are bags under your eyes so don't bother trying to lie to me about everything."
Natsu 'tsked' underneath her breathe again and let out a long sigh at the furrowing in the older woman's brows and the sudden impulsive, incessant knit-picking that the older woman had set out to place back into order. It was true that, Natsu's sleep had dropped back to fourteen hours but the ramifications of all the training kept building upon her body. Her reiryoku flared every day and she spent hours getting it to settle back down again so that she could dump over in a peaceful sleep for the evening. It effected how much she could eat but she knew how to sustain herself at the minimum.
It was an effect that her reiryoku had ever since she had been a child. If she compared herself to human development - as souls born in Soul Society age very slowly since spirits often have longer lifespans than a human corpse - her body was no more developed than a four-year-old human child. At first, Unohana had supposed that it was because her body was too small, being born premature and therefore on the smaller end of growth developments, to handle the reiryoku at a young age. In time it was theorized that she would grow out of all the pain and the flares that attacked her own body.
The seals were placed on her body to help stabilize the amount of reiatsu that she could push out and how it left her body. This in turn would help to not force the reiryoku to flare out of control. The flaring was something which could have been detrimental to her body at the time as it would essentially crush her body from the inside out with the reiryoku trying to escape. The medics of division four, however, still couldn't stop her reiryoku from spluttering and growing. With the effects being stronger during the younger parts of her childhood, she had spent many days and nights in the fourth division; though she did slightly grow out of the situation when the sealing technique was improved later on.
Natsu's condition never passed even with age and her body growing naturally. Her reiryoku remained something of a sickness to her own body that kept her out of play in Soul Society and at the Kido Corps at times. At its worse it had her in the state about a week ago, if not down for much longer than three days. At its best it never effected her. Usually it was something in between where she had to beat it down before it could inflate too much and give her problems. It was the only reason she had left to become a Shinigami, because as a Shinigami she would learn the best way with dealing with it.
New symptoms started to crop up during her years in the Kido Corps and the Gotei 13. Not only were the intense moments of pain when it flared out in its odd splattering moments when the reiryoku grew too fast in her body, something different. Suddenly, there was the need for long and deep amounts of sleep that were the only way to keep a constant hold on the reiryoku. She also had to use her reiatsu a bit every single day to help push off excess, but if she used too much than her reiryoku would flare out again and it would cause her pain. In those moments eating became a hardship and she could force very little down. Her sleep also became more disturbed and not as restful.
"Stop ya worryin' Ayako."
"Obviously I still have to worry about you, Natsu," Ayako supplied as she shook her head. "I know you're probably training, which is good for you to do, but you don't have to push yourself so much."
Natsu let out a small sigh and then flattened her fringe along her forehead. "Ya too concerned. Cool off will ya."
It was annoying to be on the receiving end of lectures, particularly about her health, but all disciplining was boring to hear even when coming from Ayako. How many times had she been on the receiving end of these types of lectures? However, Natsu had to duck down in a small amount of submission to the woman's worry whenever the conversation cropped up. Her heart brushed against her own throat at such times, and her stomach would sink just a little bit. It was still warming in its own way, having Ayako looming over her with a waggling finger and know-it-all words, though to have her ear talked off all the time was a pain.
"I'll cut back on my lectures when you actually start taking care of yourself properly."
"When I'mma supposed ta do tha'?" Natsu grumbled and then kicked her foot out slightly along the floorboards. "I'mma in trainin' an' there's a war comin'… I'mma helpin' Kisuke an' Tessai. I jus' wanna sleep ya know?"
Ayako let out a little sigh and nodded while Natsu let out another typical sigh. The young shinigami fluttered her eyes to peer through her fringe as Ayako began in her cool tone. "I know you just want to sleep Natsu." There was a soft smile to accompany the words that came after just a small pause. "You've been doing good work and you're being trusted to do a lot. That's a great honor… Just also remember to take a few days off in between for yourself."
"Whateva."
"Yeah… Whateva." Ayako mimicked out slightly as she rolled her eyes and then smiled again; this time just a bit wider. "Good luck with all your work and keep your promise."
"Yeah, yeah…. Stop ya talkin' Ayako."
The woman let out a small huff of laughter and then signed off with a small wave. The screen went blank as the top and bottom of the visuals waved into the center to blink and allow the dark to replace the image of Ayako. Natsu stood watching her own reflection as her hands deftly moved into her pockets as she shrunk into her frame. There was a deep sunken-ness in her, she supposed. Though it wasn't too apparent since it was no more than a deeper slump in her shoulders and a tiny amount of gauntness in her cheeks. Ayako was probably the only one to really tell since the older woman had known her for so long now and was always yapping about how to better take care of herself. She was probably the only woman that was incessant about checking in on her health. Even Unohana couldn't beat her to that game.
Natsu flattened her fringe against her forehead and let out a loud sigh. Her shoulders rolled around until they sank back down, and then her feet started slithering over to the window that she had entered through. Since Orihime had left, Rangiku had been given the keys to the apartment to help maintain it in the interim. Why it couldn't have been Hitsugaya was beyond Natsu's reasoning, but it was all left to Rangiku. Since the blonde was out of the house for whatever reason she had invented for herself, most likely shopping which she happily did to avoid listening to the old man talk, only the window was forever open to exit and enter from with the front door being locked. At the very least, Natsu supposed, it meant that the TV was always easily accessed and Orihime's place wasn't open to unwanted visitors.
"Here."
Natsu turned over to see Yumichika who was holding out a small cup of brown something or other in his slim fingers. Natsu had seen a few humans walking around with it but had never figured out what it was. Her eyes turned over to her sudden companion as if watching his face would give her some clues. There was a patiently deceptive smile on his lips along his long, thin face. Her eyes slowly trailed over the dark wash jeans he was in and the red top which surprisingly didn't clash with his dark purple hair. The shade of red matched with that one set of feathers which were connected with his left eyebrow, which was probably why he could play it off so well. Yumichika was the only one that could pull of anything so ridiculous anyway. And he said she had atrocious style.
She took a small step over to the slender man and grasped the cup to stare at it a bit more. She circled the little plastic spoon around as she scooped up the interesting food, and then popped it into her mouth. It fell down cold and soft on her tongue, almost instantly dissolving in the heat of her mouth. There was something sweet about it, although the shavings were a bit too flaky and made the dessert a bit more watery. She took another taste tentatively as she pondered over what exactly she was eating
"Wha's this?"
"An icy… Or that's what the humans called it," Yumichika replied as he settled a bit of weight onto the wall of the building. They were at the backside of the apartment building, which made conversation very easy between Yumichika's gigai body and her soul body as there were no actual humans coming around. "What did the Sou-taicho have to say?"
"Nothin'… Jus' an orda fo' Kisuke an' fo' me ta 'elp out an' stuff."
"You've been doing a lot of work lately. I think you're complexion is changing, Natsu."
Natsu took in another bite as she shrugged slightly at the comment. She then held out a spoon for the man to take. He let out a small puff of laughter before dipping down and taking the spoon between his lips before retracting again. There was a pleasant hum as he leaned back into the wall, and so Natsu settled down into a squat by his legs.
"It's been a long time since we had time like this, right, Natsu?"
She shrugged slightly as she took another spoonful of the sugary snack. "I guess."
After her transfer to the Gotei 13, the separate divisions had been a bit hard to overcome. Natsu refused to do any sort of training with them, and at the start the two were almost ashamed to be seen around a weakling from the fourth. Additionally, there were changes to personalities that they had to take into consideration. Not that they had the same personalities to begin with but with the academy system they had found ways to arrange themselves well. However, it had been just over twenty years since they had really been around one another for more than a day and they had missed out on a lot. They had patched things up, but because of the nature of her work there were just things that kept her busy that she couldn't go around telling them about. So, inevitably, they had also drifted.
"When this war is done let's go out for some sake or a nice night off." Yumichika supplied with his eleventh division confidence not at all wavering at the aspect of fighting in a war. "It'll be good to really catch up."
"Sure."
He let out a sigh and then tapped down on her head. She slowly turned up to see the more flat expression on his face as his purple eyes kept her locked in her slumped place. She perked an eyebrow at that slowly and dropped the spoon down into the bowl. "Wha?"
"It's not beautiful to lie, Natsu."
"I ain't lyin'."
He slowly came down to his own squat just in front of her and dragged his fingers along the bridge of her nose and then across the plumpness under her eyes. He cradled her cheek slightly before giving it a smooth roll over with her thumb and then patted it gently. "I didn't mean about meeting up later on. I meant about your condition."
"Wh-"
"Your appearance is completely off. It's not beautiful at all." Yumichika huffed as he crossed his arms over his knees, with his eyes flickering between her two own. "I don't want to be seen with someone so unsightly."
Natsu blinked a few times before giving the man a smirk. "I ain't eva been much ta look twice at so don't worry, you'll still get all tha 'tention Yumi."
"Silly girl." Yumichika huffed once more as his hands fluttered over her fringe and then he had them moving about so that he could check the back of the hair cut. "It's because you're not caring about your appearance. Please tell me you're going to get rid of this horrendous Mohawk mullet piece you have going on."
"Don't knock artistic 'xpression, Yumi."
They both got off the ground with Yumi still fussing, particularly because he wanted to start to at least braid the long tails that she had. She waved him interloping hands away until they were making a game of "swat the fly away", with her making a slow dance from side to side to avoid him. He twisted about with her voicing his complaints so that he could nab at her hair.
She snapped a hand against the two tails, as if he suddenly drawn scissors out to cut off her hair, and stuck her other hand to stop him from coming close as they continued to look at one another. "I'mma gonna do somethin' different, when tha res' grows out."
"Will you finally take me opinion into consideration?"
Natsu stuck her tongue out immediately afterwards and Yumichika blanched a bit, leaving her chuckling at the vain man. The sides of her shaved head were already growing back in from the previous shave she had given them a while back. She'd probably cut off the tails as soon as the Mohawk was gone, but she had absolutely no wish to involve Yumichika in the designing of her hair.
"Nah… I'mma not gonna 'cause ya ideas suck."
"Natsu." Yumichika groaned out and then let out a strong huff while his arms went up into the air to send off his frustration. "I can't believe I'm friends with such a stubborn and disgusting child like you."
"Shuddup ya vain peacock."
A/N: Another chapter done and dusted, and it's an exploration into Natsu's illness. Poor girl always suffering.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed it. Thanks to everyone who has continued to read Dynasty!
Please leave reviews/comments/questions/ or pm me if that's preferred. It's always great to hear from you all.
