A/N: It took a while with this one. First I had troubles in deciding whom to pick since I didn't want to just skip this chapter and re-work the numbers... Then I get getting distracted by anime...
I decided to make this a collection of snapshots from Mirai's life. One per year. With Dina and Kenji's parental bias shining through.
Created Life from Death 9
Kotobuki Kenji and Dina
They loved her. From the moment she was laid upon Dina's arms, they loved the little girl. And because they knew it necessary yet could see how pained Tomo was, they allowed the Shinigami to remain in the life of their daughter.
Mirai was wonderful. Almost perfect but that word was dangerous to use on anyone. But she was very, very close to that. She was cheery, kind, understanding, social, talented… And while that might've been parental bias speaking, Dina and Kenji rarely found anything wrong with her. They were delighted to be called 'mama' and 'papa' even when Tomo became 'kaachan' and Mirai's mysterious father was 'touchan'.
When Mirai was three, she made her first friend in young Kurosaki Ichigo. That brought the families together too. While that time was later stained by Masaki's death, Dina and Kenji couldn't have been prouder of their daughter when she helped Ichigo and the twins to overcome their grief.
When she was seven, she got to know Tatsuki who remained as her sole female friend for a long time. And Mirai did talk about some of her other friends but Dina and Kenji thought them just as products of active imagination.
"Mama, look! I'm a butterfly!" Mirai laughed when she was five and running around the backstage of the theater with a pair was fairy wings at her back.
"And such a wonderful butterfly you are." Dina laughed and scooped the blonde girl up. "Are flapping your wings really hard then?"
"Yes! And I'm causing hurricanes!"
"Such a hardworking butterfly is going to be hungry then. Should we go home and see what papa has cooked?"
"Un!" The girl nodded enthusiastically.
Mirai was a butterfly, fluttering from people to another, never staying in one place for long. She got people to watch her and admire her uniqueness. She wrapped the people at the theater and in the neighborhood around her fingers and made others smile just with her presence.
"Does it hurt?" Kenji asked gently when wrapping a gauze against the friction burn Mirai had in her arm. The girl shook her head but was biting her lips to prevent crying. She had been at the dojo practicing with the shinai when a bigger kid had pushed the six-year-old girl against the polished wooden floors. It had left red mark on her bare arms but afterwards one of the other instructors had laid onto the other kid.
"Just cry, if you feel like crying and then stand up and look forward. You survived, time to take the next step and not stop." The other instructor said gruffly. Mirai giggled.
"This isn't a battlefield, Kamenozoki-san."
The silverhaired man blinked but just huffed.
"Sometimes advise for battlefield works well outside of it too. The real warrior knows when to utilize them and when to lay them rest." He ruffled Mirai hair and made his way to the class that was about to begin soon.
"…Papa, I like him. You did well to employ him."
"I'm glad to hear that, Mirai-chan. I also think that Muguruma-sensei is doing well. If only he stopped calling the students recruits…" Kenji sighed. The girl giggled again.
"I don't think he ever will."
Mirai was perspective. She could read people well. Sometimes her choices in friends were strange but Dina and Kenji accepted them. She did know whom to trust and who she should avoid.
"I had a strange dream…" Seven-year-old Mirai muttered when she climbed between her parents on their bed. It was five in the morning. She had woken up earlier than usual.
"What was it like?" Dina asked sleepily, drawing her daughter's hair away from her face.
"I was at the theater… but the audience was flooded. The balconies were the only place for them. I was standing on the stage and there was whispers…" The girl muttered whilst lying on her stomach.
"Was it scary?" Kenji asked then.
"Nuh-uh. I liked them." Mirai shook her head against the duvet beneath her. "I felt safe. Even when the whispers made ripples on the water."
"Sometimes dreams are like that." Dina smiled. "Strange but not scary. I once dreamt of flying around the world with just an umbrella. The winds were strong but I was never scared."
"…I wouldn't mind seeing that dream again." Mirai hid a yawn. "It was so peaceful."
"Let's sleep a bit more. It's weekend after all." Kenji drew the blanket over Mirai and the family of three fell asleep once more.
Mirai was creative. She dreamt colorfully. She played tunes never heard before with her violin. She mimicked people around her and mirrored their mannerisms. She was a rainbow in a constant motion.
"Just don't take these off and you will be fine." Nakatomi Tomo said before leaving again. Mirai was eight. She looked down at her bracelets and frowned.
"…I don't like them." She whispered once the Shinigami was gone. Dina kneeled next to her.
"I know dear but if Nakatomi-san says that they'll keep you safe…"
"They make me feel stiff… and like I'm cut off from everything." The girl muttered. "And lately my gigai has felt too cramped."
"That's because you are growing, dear. Let's hope Nakatomi-san will visit soon to adjust it for you." Kanji comforted the girl.
At first the Shinigami woman had been 'Tomo-san' because giving them a daughter had warranted gratitude and closeness. But then the woman's …alieness had come forward. She knew nothing about children and about taking care of them. While showing affection to Mirai, she still marveled how fast the girl was growing and maturing. The affection wasn't maternal either but that of a distant aunt. No matter how much Tomo tried (and she did, really hard), she was always detached from Mirai in a way that no mother shouldn't have.
And the undercurrent of fear never helped the matters.
"It's alright, Mirai-chan." Dina drew her daughter into an embrace. "Would you like to go to park today?"
"…I feel tired. Could we just take a nap? All together?" The girl asked hopefully.
"Of course."
Mirai was vulnerable. She didn't like showing it but sometimes she teetered on the edge of exhaustion and shattering. She was doing so much and sometimes Dina and Kenji felt like they might be holding her back. But whenever Mirai smiled and reached for them, it was always genuine and lightened their hearts again.
"Hiyaah!" Hit, kick, block. Hit, hit, dodge, block. A light blue scarf was tightly wrapped over Mirai's hair as she sparred with Tatsuki. They were the strongest girls in their karate class. Ichigo was on his way to be the strongest of the boys but was still afraid of getting hit even though Tatsuki and Mirai were working on that on their spare time.
Mirai was strong. Both emotionally and physically. She stood up after falling down. She helped others to stand up too. And Kenji and Dina couldn't have been prouder of her.
"I will teach you how to use this knife if you promise to be careful and use it only when you are in danger." Kenji had a butterfly knife on his palm as he showed it to Mirai. The ten-year-old girl looked down at the knife solemnly and nodded. They were at the dojo with just the two of them and Kensei. There had been a rash of violent burglaries in Karakura and considering the trouble Mirai tended to get to with her friends on usual days… It was better safe than sorry.
"I promise to use it only in emergency." She smiled. It was a sad smile, out of understanding that shouldn't have existed yet. Kenji ignored it. He trusted his daughter.
That why he was surprised and scared that only a week later Ichigo came running to the dojo during lunch break and dragged confused Mirai outside. Curious, he followed the two, not realizing that Kensei came after them too.
"Do you remember? Please, tell me you remember last night!" Ichigo begged the girl. Kenji frowned. Last night… Mirai was home, wasn't she? He hadn't seen her in the evening but maybe she'd gone to sleep earlier. He had thought she'd had a sleepover at Kurosaki's but maybe he was mistaken…
"I… It's all fuzzy…" Mirai muttered. "What happened then?"
"Karin and Yuzu, they remember nothing of last night. They remember nothing of you!" The boy told her and Mirai froze, remembering.
"Kikashinki…" She whispered.
"A what?"
"A memory replacer. The… special ghosts use them on humans so they forget encounters with hollows and replace them with something else, like gas explosion or arson or car accident or something. Kaachan told me about them." Mirai explained nervously.
"But why didn't it work on us then?"
At that point a hand fell on Kenji's shoulder and steered him away, preventing him from hearing the rest of the conversation. He had no clue who could've used that… device on the kids or who he should even ask about the matter. Kensei gave him a stern look, telling him to drop the matter.
Mirai was scared. She told no one about what happened and on the next day disappeared for hours. Ichigo found her with their friends and got her home safely, soaked through but looking like she'd found something new to strive for.
"Test them now." Mirai gave a pair of light blue glasses to Yuzu to put on. The girl placed them on her nose and looked around. "Can you see this?"
She lifted her hand and formed a number with her reiatsu upon her palm.
"It's a number three!" The little girl smiled.
"That's right. If you can see it clearly, you can also see ghosts clearly now. In time you can leave the glasses but for now they are a good way for you to differentiate between the living and dead." Mirai smiled and packed her tools into a small box. She and the Kurosaki siblings were gathered around the table in the living room of the Kotobuki's home and Mirai had finished making Yuzu reaitsu enhancing glasses based on the two pairs that Tomo had made for Dina and Kenji.
"That's cool, Asagi. How did you figure to them?" Ichigo asked, turning over one of the model glasses in his hands.
"I wrote up the sigils and their sequences and then started figuring out what each of them did. The basic template already existed but I needed to tune them to Yuzu-chan's reiatsu so they'd work on her the right way. Not too strong or too weak, you know." She explained. "Bara-san and Neko-san have explained me bits and I've build up from there and actual science."
"Do you think I could do something like that too?" The boy asked with his sisters already gone to the window and peering outside for ghosts to see.
"Maybe… You need more control and we both need more information but you are smart enough." Mirai smiled and then turned towards the kitchen. "Papa, mama, I'm done! Where do you want me to put your glasses?"
"Just put them to the drawer in the bookshelf. You know which one. It has the cases for them in it too." Dina called back.
"Okay!"
Mirai was smart. She could easily figure things out and she had maturity and patience to wait until certain information or skills were needed. And she enjoyed teaching Tatsuki, Ichigo and his sisters too. Sometimes Dina was afraid that she was running too fast to the future. The uncertain future.
"Can you tell me about Soul Society?" Mirai asked the black cat in her lap. "No? Alright then. Maybe another time."
That was Neko-san. He never talked in Dina and Kenji's presence. Mirai talked to him though. Her long locks swayed in the wind coming from the open window. The girl was completely at peace whenever the cat visited and it also eased Dina's heart. There had been many times when she'd visited Mirai and found the girl asleep on her bed, hand frozen mid-motion in petting the feline when she'd fallen asleep.
Now, if only they found out her friend Bara-san so they could thank him for teaching Mirai and Ichigo…
"They just don't look alike." Mirai frowned at her mirror image after her thirteenth birthday.
"What don't?" Dina asked gently.
"My eyes. They don't look alike with… Tomo-san." The girl hesitated in addressing the Shinigami woman who had created her.
"Well, maybe they resemble your touchan's then? According to Tomo-san, the color is from him, isn't that right?" Dina laid her hands on Mirai's shoulders.
"…Maybe." Mirai muttered, not really agreeing with her though. Dina pushed the thought away and pointed out what had begun bothering her in her daughter's previous statement.
"Nee, Mirai-chan… Why aren't you calling Tomo-san 'kaachan' anymore?"
"She doesn't feel like mother anymore. I know that she is busy and she isn't that good with being a parent but I… I'm not a child anymore. I don't want to pretend that she means to me more than she actually does." The preteen pushed her hair behind her ears and looked up at the mirror again. "But she hasn't grasped it yet. Tomo-san… she is a scientist first, a Shinigami second, and a mother and a woman last. But mama… mama is my okaa-san and a woman and my dearest person all at first."
"Oh, Mirai-chan…" Dina embraced the girl who had begun crying. It meant a lot to her. To her and Mirai both. Mirai was rejecting Tomo's maternal role and placing her as mere creator for her while addressing Dina with less childish way. "Arigatou…"
Mirai was growing up. Dina didn't want to let go of her but she knew she would have to eventually. She only wished it wouldn't be so soon.
"Let's go to Rome." Dina announced. Golden Week was approaching. They had never travelled far from Karakura aside from Dina and Kenji's honeymoon that was spent at Okinawa and Dina's college years when she visited Paris, but with Mirai they had never gone anywhere.
"Why Rome?" Kenji asked.
"History! Art! Inspiration! One week there and then back. Good chance to go now when Mirai-chan doesn't have that much homework like she'll have in high school."
"Rome sounds nice." Mirai smiled. "Maybe I'll meet some Italian ghosts too."
Mirai did meet ghosts. And made another friend 'Kitsurubami'. And fought her first hollow.
"Distort, Sazanami!"
A/N: Alright... Next chapter will be Mirai's. It will have a couple of scenes that fit in between the previous chapters but most of it will be about Rome and Kitsurubami... Uhuhuu... I wonder who that could be. :)
After Mirai will be Tomo and Ichigo and then is Rukia's introduction.
Replies to Reviews:
-OTrizy:
Thank you!
-Girl-luvs-manga:
Well... he'll probably be at two minds about it. One, oh dear I have a child what should I do now. Two, oh dear my child is a scientific creation I need to find out there is no traps in her and then figure out what to do with her now... Or something like that.
-xenocanaan:
Thank you! I hope you like this one too.
-Guest + Silverlined Phoenix:
Oh, thank you for the info. It's alright though. :)
I think there is a marriage certificate but it's probably hidden better or something. With Isshin hiding things and not believing that his children will ask questions... yeah.
Great to hear I'm not only one with iffy feelings in regards Isshin.
I'm glad you liked Karin and Yuzu. In the end they had so little screen time, I understand why they remained one-dimensional but it still annoys me.
I'd believe slowburn love if it wasn't for Kazui. When he appears, it has been ten years since Yhwach's defeat. He looks at least eight years old and then we add the nine months in the womb before birth... Just how young did they marry?
But yeah... in the end there probably won't be that much romance in my fic.
You're welcome.
-Antex-The Legendary Zoroark:
(chapter 3) Thank you. And thank you for your opinion.
(chapter 4) They are cute but their love is... platonic yet very close.
(chapter 5) Tomo does care for Mirai in her own way. She just... it isn't maternal love through which she loves her. Mirai was originally created for Tomo to have a company. Someone to talk to in the insanity that the Twelfth Division is. But once Mirai existed, Tomo realized the mistake in the creation method and Mirai's uniqueness. But since Tomo cares, instead of destroying Mirai, she hid her and tries to keep her hidden even if it means scaring the girl with half-hidden threats. And Mirai needs to be more careful indeed.
(chapter 6) Thank you. Great to hear you thought them in character too.
(chapter 7+8) :)
-CallmeCrazylol:
Unlucky number? Thirteen is my favourite number! And Rukia is from the Thirteenth Division! It only fits!
And of course Karing kicks ass.