Hollow Dawn

The forest was peaceful that evening.

Juushirou scrambled carefully up between the uneven rocks that marked out the well-worn pathway, humming a soft tune under his breath as he made his way to the clearing where, two years earlier, he and his father had first begun the tentative forays into Kendou training. Since then, he had come to the woodland many times, sometimes to practice on his own out of sight of overly protective house staff, and at other times simply to sit on the ledge that looked out over Seireitei to marvel at the different colours the different seasons painted his homeworld.

As he stepped through the last cluster of trees, he caught sight of the small sapling which, two summers earlier, had been just bravely showing its first tiny leaves.

A smile touched Juushirou's lips as he crouched down before the small tree, reaching out to touch its thin trunk with the index finger of his right hand. It was still small compared to its companions, but it had grown almost threefold over the course of the changing seasons, thriving in the soft glen where rain and sun were both in plentiful supply.

Just like Otousama said, in the end. A seed becomes a sapling, and little by little, a sapling becomes a tree.

Juushirou sat back on his heels, regarding the infant tree thoughtfully.

I wonder if I'm any closer to becoming a tree yet. Since I began Kendou, my chest hasn't been as problematic as it used to be. Since Father spoke to me about Mother, I've felt less ill at ease about that situation, too. It's almost like now I feel her watching over me in some way. And somehow it's like Father's always said. Her life force is making me stronger. It's helping me break the curse.

He got to his feet, his fingers brushing the smooth wooden stick at his waist for a moment before he pulled it from its resting place, glancing at it pensively.

Even with all the practice he had given the art over the course of the past two years, he was still only about at the same standard as his younger brother, and something about this fact rankled against his pride. Hiroyuki was, after all, a good eighteen months his junior. And he, Juushirou was the family's clan heir, the one with distant Kuchiki blood running through his veins...the one who was going to protect his family in the future. He had to be stronger. And the only way to do that was to practice harder.

If Juushirou was honest with himself, however, a large part of his resolve was that he relished the freedom to at last be able to engage in some kind of physical activity. Having been shielded from so much for so long, he had thrown his heart and soul into learning every one of the positions and strikes that his father had taught him, building up his endurance little by little until he knew now he could hold his combat position for a good hour and a half without feeling as though he was going to cough. Though he was wise enough to know there was no cure for the Ukitake family curse, Juushirou had begun to hope that he could at least overcome it -pushing it to the back of his concerns until the attacks that he so loathed were nothing more than a rare and spasmodic occurrence.

Father wanted me to get strong, and I'm sure it was because he knew, if I did, I could fight it.

He stiffened his stance, preparing himself for a warm up run through of short, sharp parries and strikes into the clear mountain air.

If I did, then I'd be able to move past it. That's why he said not to worry about things in the future, but only about things as they come.

He took a deep breath, steadying his breathing in the way that he had learnt put the least pressure on his scarred lung tissue, and then he raised his stick once again.

Because in the future, I'll be different. In the future, I'll be able to fight for longer. I'll be able to be stronger. It won't matter, then, being the one with the family plague.

He thrust the stick forward against the lower branch of one of the nearby trees, watching in satisfaction as the bough shook, dropping leaves to the ground under the force of his blow. He paused for a moment, then bowed his head towards the immense plant.

"Thank you for the fight." He said properly, knowing that his opponent would not respond to him, but feeling the need to do things correctly in any case. They were grown trees, after all...things which had survived the battle of life, and therefore things he ought to treat with the utmost respect. In his Father's absence, therefore, many of the ancient local trees had become his impromptu sparring partners as he strove to put more and more endurance into his skinny body.

He moved across the clearing, pausing to gaze out across Seireitei once more as he did so. From that vantage point, almost the whole of the soul's land spread out before him, even to the walls that divided his home from the mysteries of Rukongai that lay beyond. Even now, Juushirou did not fully understand what kind of life the people in Rukongai lived. Kamikura had taught him little more about the place since that classroom lesson his Father had interrupted several years before. All he really knew was that the souls that lived outside the wall were different from the ones within, and as he squinted into the distance, trying to make out anything beyond the divide, Juushirou realised that this more than anything intrigued him. Why were those souls forbidden to enter Seireitei? Why could they not live the same way as he and his family did? Was it because of what Kamikura had told him - that they weren't a part of Seireitei in the beginning, and so never could be, after all?

A sudden chill on the air made him shiver, wishing that he'd remembered to bring a cloak as a cold wind blew through the clearing, piercing right through his kimono to the fragile body beneath. With a sigh he scooped up his Kendou stick once more, realising that if the weather was beginning to change, he would do better returning home. After all, he knew, a slight chill could turn into something much more serious, and he wasn't willing to risk putting his progress in jeopardy by letting himself in for one of his attacks.

It was Spring yet, after all. There was time before the sun would properly heat the landscape and provide long, temperate days in which he could fully hone his skills.

As he turned back towards the path that led to home, something else assailed his senses, and he stopped dead, a sudden sense of unease creeping up inside of him as he felt the hairs on the back of his neck beginning to rise. Where, a moment earlier, he had felt completely safe and secure within his training retreat, he now felt as though something was stifling him, and despite the fact it was only mid-afternoon, the sky above the treetops had begun to grow darker, blurring the pathway in front of him and making him doubt his instincts.

What was it, then? A sudden Spring storm?

But Juushirou knew it wasn't a storm. Ever since he had been an infant, he had never yet been afraid of thunder or lightning. Yet this blackness, whatever it was, had sent a heavy wave of fear rushing through his young body, weighing down on his heart and clasping itself almost around the boy's throat as he struggled to make sense of what he was feeling.

Then, from the ledge behind him, he heard a terrible, blood-curdling roar.

His blood almost freezing in his veins, Juushirou swung around, his eyes widening in horror and alarm as, in the growing gloom he made out the shape of something large and unwieldy, something which in his fourteen years he had never happened to set eyes on, yet in that instant, he knew exactly what it was.

A Hollow.

For a moment, terror ruled Juushirou's young body, rooting him to the spot as the huge beast turned its glittering eyes on him, letting out another soul-chilling shriek. Slowly it began to shift its immense, heavy claws forward, making the whole of the landscape tremble as it drew itself closer and closer to Juushirou's shaking form. As the monster approached him, plants and bushes were crushed in its wake, and something stabbed through Juushirou's young heart as he saw the sapling which he and his father had so often tended snapped in two like a mere dead twig under the monster's leathery paws.

This was enough to break the spell over Juushirou's young body and, as though his fear had given wings to his feet he turned on his heel, fleeing into the forest as fast as he could go. He did not know where he was going, his sense of direction overruled by his instinct to put as much distance between him and the Hollow as he possibly could, and from behind him he could feel the vibrations of the beast's footsteps, the suffocating stench of its aura still pervading his senses.

He did not know how long he ran for, or how far into the forest he had gone. But at length his chest could stand no more, and he collapsed down against the gnarled trunk of an old willow tree, gasping air into his lungs as he struggled to compose himself. The Hollow was not far away, he knew, even now, and fear pierced through him once again as he realised that the beast had come after him specifically. Their encounter had not been random, but deliberate - for some reason that he did not understand, the masked creature had sought him out in particular, and was in no mood to give up his pursuit just because Juushirou had run out of breath to run.

As the sound of the splintering tree trunks and heavy footsteps grew ever closer, Juushirou swallowed hard, knowing he did not have even a single scrap of energy left inside of him to flee with.

Was he going to die here, then? After everything, was he going to be consumed by one of these monsters, right here in the middle of his family's own land?

At that moment the Hollow broke into the clearing, roaring its intentions with a deafening screech that rattled through Juushirou's eardrums and beyond to the core of his brain. As the beast bore down on him, Juushirou clenched his fists, staring up at it in fear and dismay as he prepared for the monster to sweep its terrible claws across his throat, devouring his soul in one easy fell swoop.

As he did so, however, something surged up inside of him, ripping through his body with relentless, unforgiving force and he gasped at the sensation, suddenly feeling as though his entire body had been set on fire. As the sensation grew stronger, his vision began to blur before his eyes, pain stabbing through his chest and his throat as he felt the all too familiar sensation of blood rushing up through his vocal chords and into his mouth, spilling past his lips as he struggled to even breathe through the intensity of the spasm. He closed his eyes, willing for it to stop, but instead it grew stronger, pushing up and up into the air around and for the briefest of moments the Hollow seemed to falter, stopping a few feet from the hunched, pain-wracked form of the teenage boy as if he could get no closer.

"Juu-kun!"

The voice sounded so far away to Juushirou's ears, as though it had come from somewhere near the edge of reality, but faintly he was aware of something coming between him and the masked monster, a shadow falling over his huddled body.

"Get away from him!"

Now the voice was enough to bring Juushirou back to his wits a little, and he gazed up in disbelief, making out the outline of his father's strong form somewhere in the blur that currently formed his vision. He opened his lips as though to speak, but nothing more than a croak would come out, and every breath he took burned and scalded through his lungs as though, somehow, every single cell within his chest had been burst by the force of whatever had rushed through him. Too weak and confused to even move, Juushirou could only watch as his father shielded him, the man's frame stiff and resolute as he held up his hands to the beast.

"Shakka-hou!" He exclaimed, and before Juushirou's disbelieving gaze, a flare of red fire shot forth from his father's hands, hitting the Hollow square in the chest and knocking it backwards. It screamed as if burnt, swinging its immense claws around and catching the nobleman across his torso, tearing through the fabric of the Lord's kimono and through to the flesh beneath. Juushirou heard his Father's cry of pain as though it had been struck deep within his own heart, yet although he tried to struggle forward to help, he was no longer in control of his own body.

" Soukatsui!"

Somehow the Lord gathered himself, firing another blast towards the Hollow then, before the beast could recover itself, he had dropped down at Juushirou's side, clasping his helpless son to his blood-soaked chest and clutching him tightly.

"Don't worry." He gasped, his voice hoarse yet reassuring to Juushirou's wrenched senses. "I'll get you home. Don't worry, Juu-kun. It's going to be okay."

Juushirou was beyond responding, even as his Father closed his eyes, seemingly pulling them through time and space and back to the family estate. As the Lord set his burden down on the ground, he drew a deep breath into his lungs, reaching out to brush the blood from his son's lips with a Kidou-charred finger.

"You...pushed yourself...a little too hard, didn't you." He murmured. "But...you're safe...now."

"Otousama!" The door of the house swung open to reveal Hiroyuki, who darted forward, anxiety in his young gaze. "Juu-nii? What happened? Why are you covered in blood? What...?"

"A Hollow. In the forest." The Lord's words were getting more and more strained, his breaths coming in shorter and shorter gasps and distantly Juushirou was aware that the pool of blood around his Father's body was steadily increasing moment by moment. In contrast, his skin was an almost deathly pale hue, and Juushirou felt a sense of dread seeping through his severed senses.

"Otousama?" He croaked, and his Father glanced at him, shaking his head.

"Don't speak." He ordered. "It'll be all right, Juu-kun."

Somehow, Juushirou knew from the way his Father met his eyes that it was going to be far from all right, yet he did not have either the strength or the coherence to respond.

"Hiro, go inside and tell your...Mother what's...happened. Get Anika for Juushirou, and...and...tell Kamikura to...to go to the Kuchiki manor. Tell them...a Hollow...attacked Raiko's son."

Hiroyuki stared at his father for a moment. Then, as if appreciating the gravity of the situation, he hurried back inside, leaving Juushirou once more alone with his father.

"Your strength isn't ready...to be used against...monsters like that." The Lord spoke softly, as though he no longer had the ability to put any force or volume into his words. "And I'm sorry, Juu-kun. That this family's curse means...using it...can hurt you so much."

"Otousama..." Juushirou swallowed hard, feeling dizzy and nauseous. "What...you...are you..."

"Shh." His father shook his head. "Don't. It's all right."

Juushirou gazed at his companion, and from somewhere deep in his scattered consciousness, one realisation began to stir itself within his heart. Just as he'd felt his own strength surge up inside of him when the Hollow had attacked, now he felt his Father's slowly seeping away, and this truth sent waves of fear spinning through him.

His Father had taken a fatal injury.

He had taken on a Hollow, used skills that Juushirou had not understood, and had taken a wound protecting him that would not heal.

His brave Father had shielded him, but even his Father, who had seemed indestructible, was not equal to fighting a Hollow.

And he himself had been useless.

He himself had been cursed.

And because of it, his Father had sacrificed his life.

Tears glittered on his lashes, and he bit his lip, letting them trickle down his cheeks.

"Just...like...Mother." He whispered. "I'm sorry. I...I really...am...cursed."

With that his strength gave out, his eyes fluttering closed as darkness and fever rushed in to take control of his senses. The last thing he was aware of, as he sank deep into oblivion, was the final, fluctuating tremors of his father's reiatsu, as it too dissipated into almost nothing at all.

Then Juushirou's mind was full of only blackness, as dark as the sky from which the Hollow had come.


Author's Note:

Happy New Year everyone and thank you for the ongoing support!

Yeah, I know, it's not ending the year on a high note. Gomen...but at least it has dramatic effect...??

See you all in 2009 :D