Chapter 17: Strange dreams and stranger people
A meadow. A forest. A nightly sky, lit by a beautiful comet, radiating a captivating blue light. And a voice, calling out to her, calling for her to listen to-
Kiara woke up. She got up from her matress, sweat dripping from her nose. That damned dream again. She'd been having it every night for the last week now and it was same parts annoying and concerning. It was pissing her off on one hand, because every time that person was about to tell her something, she woke up.
On the other hand, she was starting to worry, since having the same exact dream each and every day was kind of a red flag. She walked over to the waterbowl and splashed her face with some of the cold liquid. She would have to take a bath later this day, but for that she had to leave her hideout and visit the official women dorms.
She sighed, got dressed and opened the hatch to her little den. It was located in the only forest section that the 11th division had and served ist purpose as a hidden sleeping chamber rather well. Kiara didn't know how Makoto had managed it, but he did something to the area surrounding her secret privat space, since everytime somebody came close to discovering one of her hideaways, they just turned around and left. It had always seemed strange to her, but as soon as Makoto had introduced her to the mechanics of Kido, that mystery had lost most of its intrigue.
She stretched firmly and then started walking out into the day, readying herself for several flip-offs, provocations and insults. Though she couldn't possibly ready herself for what was about to catch her off guard. At first she just heard someone biting into an apple. She didn't pay it any attention, until immediately after, someone bit into an apple next to her right ear.
"What the hell?" She turned around to find out who just sneaked up on her without making any noise what so ever.
There were only two people who could get this close to her without blowing so much as a dustcloud on the ground. Until about a week ago, it had only been one, but since the twins were back in squad 11, they constantly tried to get the jump on her and one of them was so good at it, it was almost creepy. He did spend some time in the Onmistukido though, so his skills weren't really that surprising. The only other exception was…
"If you really want to be a fully fledged Shinigami one day, you gotta get better at this part of the job", her mentors voice resounded from her left side.
She spun around, just to see Makoto comfortably laying on a thick branch up in a particularily big tree.
"You're back", she exclaimed joyfull and also a little relieved. "You were gone for so long, did something happen?"
"Well, sort of yeah", he answered while rolling out of the tree and landing on his feet. "You could say that there was a uhm… revolt."
"Against you?"
"Yeah, unthinkable am I right?"
"Not really logical actually. You're helping these people, why would they turn against you?"
"They live like animals down there, to be honest it was only a matter of time until they'd try to get the jump on me. But don't worry, it was no big deal, just time consuming."
"Shouldn't you inform the captain about something like that?", she asked while the two of them started to walk towards the center of the 11th division grounds.
"Already did. Why do you think no one was batting an eye, even though I was gone for three weeks?"
That made sense. She had been asking that question herself, since Makoto had said he would only be gone for about one week.
"Seems about right. So how long are you gonna stay this time?"
"I was actually planning on not moving out again for a while."
A smile lit up her face. "Really?"
"Yeah. After some… reconciliation with a few additional parties I came to the conclusion that being on leave for such a long time isn't actually beneficial for your "education". Also, I got kinda scolded for being away for too long, even if it couldn't be helped, go figure", he said and shrugged his shoulders, to which both of them had to laugh a little.
"Soooooo, I guess you wanna start with the training straight away?", she asked while trying to sound optimistic. She wasn't really that crazy for another beating, but she really wanted to try out everything she had learned in the past three weeks.
"Oh, hell no", he answered contrary to her expectations. "I just came back from a three weeks trip full of distress, adrenalin and fighting, so that's gonna have to wait for now. I was actually thinking we could take the day off and just hang around a bit and relax, maybe you can tell me what I missed, for example your special training day with Abarai-sensei and so on."
"… this feels like a trap."
"Well it's not."
"It feels like it is."
"Yeah, but it ain't."
She squinted her eyes and looked at him suspiciously. He returned her gaze with a relaxed and honest one. "I'm not kidding you, little warmachine. I'm exhausted, at my nerves end and in desparate need for a break. And a bath. And some sake, not necessarily in that order. And from the looks of it, you could use some too."
"What, sake or a bath?"
"Yes."
"You know I'm underage."
"Never stopped me."
"Yes, but I have morals and you broke into the Shinigami-academy just to prove that you could."
"He told you that?", he said and chuckled a little.
"Among other things", she said mysteriously and dawned a faint smile herself.
"Anyhoodle", he continued, "this is what I'm gonna do for today. You can decide for yourself if you want in or not. I wouldn't really understand why you'd choose not to, but hey, I'd respect it. It's up to you really. You're free to join me, except maybe in the bath, for obvious ethical reasons."
"As if that was a real choice. I actually do need a break too, Akito and the twins have been unbelievably relentless the last four days."
"Akito and the who now? Also, Akito? I thought he was, to put it in your words "too spiritually taxing" to hang around."
"Yeah, but that was before I had no other choice than to spend some time with him, mainly to give him the fight he's always getting on my case about. Also to shut him up about it, mostly the latter. You were gone, the captain was busy being, well-"
"The captain?"
"Yes. 3rd seat Yumichika was too busy looking beautiful to nobodys surprise and vice-captain Madarame was busy getting drunk, so my hands were pretty much tied here. I thought to myself "if you gotta do it anyway, do it right now". Which worked at first, but then I agreed to go with him to welcome some people out of the prison back into freedom. Those people were the twins, who are your greatest fans by the way."
He stopped. "What?"
"Oh yeah, you have a fanclub now."
"… I'm gonna need some more details on that one."
"What kind?"
"The kind that explains why I have a fanclub. God, that sentence sounds wrong."
"Remember how you broke into the academy?"
"Yeah, good times, what about it?"
"They kind of became inspired by your, in their words, "act of pure savagery" and tried to top that. I think they succeeded, because they broke into the research department."
"They fucking what?"
"That's the reason why they're in prison. Or were, actually."
"That's weird, I thought all matters regarding the research department fell into captain Mayuris hands and from what I know, he would have done whatever it takes to get them in his fingers. Were there some exceptional circumstances, did the central 46 decide on anything?"
"Actually, they did. After the twins willingly gave them every bit of information as to how they managed to break into the complex, their sentence was reduced to only one year."
"Seems a little tame for the central 46."
"If they have any instances like that ever again in the next 20 years, major or minor, they will be "volunteered" as personal guinea pigs to captain Mayuri."
"Ah, there it is."
"My thoughts exactly", she said. "By the way, is he really as bad as everyone says?"
"Who?"
"Captain Mayuri."
He looked at her and started walking again. "Ah, him. Depends on what you heard and what you define as bad."
"Egotistical and maniacal science-freak?"
"Oh, if it were only that", Makoto sighed. "Sadly, that's only the tip of the iceberg. I'm wondering to this day as to how he became captain of anything in the first place. He's straight up bat-shit crazy, even compared to our captain."
Kiara raised and eyebrow gave him a disbeliefing glance. "You're kidding."
"Let's do a little headcount here shall we. Extreme sotiopathic tendencies bordering on psychotic sometimes, as well as narcissistic ones. Giant ego, infrequent outbursts, he uses piano tiles instead of regular ass keys for his personal computer, which is more for safety reasons I think, still weird though. The saying "my body is a temple" really only applies to this dude if you throw rational humane thinking straight out the window, he literally scienced the shit out of himself, his body is a minefield, a weapon arsenal, a poison factory and so on and forth. He once resurrected a few Arrancars and rigged them with electric charges in case they didn't follow his command, which again, could be seen as a safety reason if you can look past the fact that he literally created walking talking zombies. If a captain died, he wouldn't even bat an eye, on the contrary, I think he'd go fucking nuts over the fact that he finally gets to dissect a body like. He constructs weird superdrugs that cause major psychological as well as physical traumas that you couldn't even begin to understand and he tests them on his enemys for fun. Somewhat over six years ago he rigged his own subordinates with explosives as a diversion and when it didn't work, he blew them up anyway, and not even for shits and giggles, tormenting people is just fucking halftime entertainment for this guy."
He stopped talking and just sighed.
"The list goes on and on. I could write you an entire book in full detail about the things he did in the past few years and those would only be the ones I know about. Four and a half years ago he was up in the Soul Kings palace and only god knows what kind of sick shit he pulled there. But enough about our unsettling leaders", he said and pointed towards the building in front of them. "It's time for a bath", he said with joy and stretched his arms out. "I'll meet you in the dining room behind the bath house in an hour or so. Should be long enough, right?"
She nodded approvingly. Then he vanished, most likely having moved towards the bath house via a high-speed movement called shunpo.
Much to Kiaras displeasure, she couldn't do that (yet). She was hellbent on learning it though, since it proved to be a great quick-exit strategy, but also because it was cool as hell.
She sighed and walked towards the house in front of her. It wasn't particularly big, but big enough to be gender divided.
She entered and quickly got to the changing rooms, where she undressed and took a towel from the untouched staple, then walked towards the actual bath. It was a nice little room, carved out of stone with a little pool in the middle of it that was filled with water. No one else but her was using the room, which had its merits. It was the only place aside from her little hideaways where she could enjoy some peace and quiet. Though she was starting to get used to both the environment and inhabitants of the 11th division, she still valued every bit of alone time she could get. It wasn't really because she didn't want to be around those people but rather because they were pretty exhausting at times.
Especially the twins and they haven't even been around for a full week yet. When she had agreed to go wekcome them back into freedom, she hadn't really thought about the onslaught she willingly exposed herself to.
At first, they had seemed normal, pretty laid back given the fact that they had just been released from prison, but People tended to be pretty fucking weird here in Soul Society, so she slowly but surely started to just roll with it. And then they found out that she was the personal disciple of their idol, at which point shit went sideways. They were all over her every moment they could, asking her questions about Makoto, where he was, if she could introduce them to him and so on and forth.
At some point she had peaced out and got to her hideout, where she had lost them, only for them to immediately get the jump on her the next day as soon as they could. It wasn't even the fact that they were rude, on the contrary, they were very polite. They were just very excited. Like little children. Persistent little children. She was glad Makoto was back, now all she had to do was make them acquaintances and she had one problem less. Especially because it turned out that the twins loved to just fuck with people and somehow she knew it was only a matter of time until she also entered their target demographic.
It was really better this way, since she tended to have a pretty short fuse when it came to things like that and had already been on the verge of rediscovering her sadistic side. In that case, she would have just lured them to the captain and told him they flipped him off behind his back, which, admittedly, was a little extreme (well, not just a little), but Akito fought him once and he was still (sometimes too) alive and kicking, so the captain had to know some kind of restraint. Plus, the twins had broken into the research department, after having spent some significant time in other squads, so she was sure that they would have been fine. Mostly.
The water inside the bath was always heated, which again, had always fascinated Kiara until the point where she had been introduced to the concept of Kido. From that point on forward, she had just started to assume that everything unexplained in Soul Society was either Kido, or some mechanic she didn't know about. Usually both. She put her hair up in a bun and let herself slide into the water. It was hot, although not to an unpleasant degree. She took her time to fully engulf herself in the liquid. When she sat on the ground, everything but her head was in the water. She laid her head back on the edge of the pool and closed her eyes.
She was getting a bit hazy and she felt herself slipping into sleep. Her last few nights had been restless at times, so getting a bit more wouldn't be too bad, would it? She wouldn't sleep too long, but just five minutes would be okay right? She was just getting so tired…
A wide meadow surrounded by a forest. A nighttime sky lit by a blue comet. An oven with a chimney in the middle of the grassland and a blurry figure, calling out to her, trying to tell her something, trying to-
Kiara opened her eyes and jumped up wide awake standing upright in the pool and breathing heavily. Now she was already having that dream during a daytime nap. She sighed, calmed herself and sat down again, undid her hair and starting carefully washing it, until she heard a knock at the door to the pool room.
"Yes?", she answered.
"Are you ok? You've been in here for over an hour and a half", Makoto's voice resounded from the other side of the door.
One and a half hours!?
She needed this dream to stop, or things would start to get out of control.
"Yeah, I'm fine, just finishing up", she answered.
"A'ight, I'll wait outside."
She finished up, got out of the pool and started drying herself. She got into the changing room and dressed in one of the spare kimonos she always kept there in case she needed a change of clean clothes. She got outside and walked around the bath house to get to the smaller building behind it. She kept walking until she saw a sledding door half opened. When she took a peak inside and saw Makoto sitting at a table with the food already prepared she knew she had come to the right place at the right time.
The dining house was actually just the nickname Makoto had given it, since it was actually thought more of a community building, where people could meet up and play boardgames, drink in private, have private conversations or just hang out in a little more quiet environment.
But since this was the 11th division, this wasn't the case. The main building was actually the real community building, where people would hang out, drink or fight. Usually all three of those and in rare cases even at the same time, which was pretty impressive all things considered.
"Finally. What took you so long?", Makoto asked.
"I fell asleep", she said trying not to sound embarrassed.
"During the bath? It was almost noon when I saw you exit your "quarters", how can you be so tired to fall asleep this soon after waking up?"
"I'm not really sleeping that well lately."
He raised an eyebrow. "How come?"
"I've been havin this stupid dream over and over again."
When she didn't comintue, he tilted his head a little with intrigue and said: "Go on."
"It's always the same. I'm standing in a place I've never seen before and yet it feels familiar. In that place is a person that tries to tell me something, but everytime that person opens its mouth, the dream ends."
He murmured surprised and gestured her to take a seat. "I know what it is", he said while loading his plate with food.
"Really?", she asked surprised, while putting her sword next to her on the ground and also starting to fill her plate. Makoto had prepared a whide variety of foods, including the obligatory rice, several different sauces, raw meet to grill on the hot rock in the middle of the table, noodles, vegetables and so on. Of all the things Kiara would have never suspected about her mentor, it was that he was a pretty great cook.
"Yeah. Actually, most Shinigami experience what you are going through now. I even know the thing that's causing those dreams."
"That's awesome. How can I get rid of it?"
Makoto burst out in howling laughter before choking on the food he had so generously shoved into his mouth moments ago. After clearing his throat with some tea, he answered: "You can try to do that, but you can't."
She squinted her eyes and asked: "As in; I specifically am unable to, or it's generally not possible."
"The latter. That is, if you want to become a Shinigami", he answered.
"Is it a part of my spiritual body?"
"Yes and no", he smirked.
"Is this a philosophical thing?"
"Depending on who you talk to."
"Can you be more specific?"
"Yeah I can."
After he didn't continue for a few seconds, she asked: "…are you going to be?"
He laughed again, this time more calm. "Yeah, I will. Don't worry, I won't leave you in the dark with this one. What's causing your dreams, is actually right next to you", he said and nodded towards the side where her sword was laying.
She looked at the sword and back to him. Back to the sword and back to him again. "I don't get it."
"Ok, did Abarai-sensei teach you anything about the swords we carry around with us?"
"Yeah, a lot actually. They're called Zanpakutous, they're basically alive, they each have a name which they tell you after some period of time has passed in which you've grown strong enough."
"And there you have the solution to your problem."
"…huh?", she asked confused.
"Really? You don't- ok look. It varies from Shinigami to Shinigami how they learn their swords names. Some hear it during situations of extreme stress and/or pressure, others during hard training. Then there are rare cases like captain Toshiro Hitsugaya, who hear their names before they even get their sword. In his case, he heard his Zanpakutous voice through a dream. Kind of like…", he said pointed towards her with his chopsticks.
"Me."
"Yes."
"I'm having dreams about my Zanpakutou."
"Right again."
"My sword is trying to tell me its name", she concluded.
Makoto just hummed affirmatively with a full mouth.
Slowly dawning a huge smile, she almost squeed a little and then repeated with excitement: "My sword is trying to tell me its name. That is so awesome!"
She frolicked a little longer until she came to a halt. "But then why can't I understand what it's trying to tell me?"
"Could be because you're strong enough to start hearing its voice, but you still have ways to go until you can actually have a clear communication. By the way, you do know what it means when you know your swords name, right?"
"Yeah, with the name I get the Shikai."
"Oh good, you know about Shikai already. Guess Abarai-sensei covered most of the holes I left in your knowledge about Shinigamis."
"He went over the basics, yeah. Speaking of which, he said you'd become stronger when you get your Shikai, but what exactly does stronger mean in this case? Do you get a literal powerboost or something like that, how does it work?"
"In some cases it is that simple, yes. However, it's a little more complicated than that. With a sword release come unique abilities as well and those range from simply changing the form of your blade, to unlocking powerful techniques only privy to you. So until you unlock yours, you can only speculate what kind of power will awaken inside you once you get it."
Unbridled joy took hold of her once again as she started speculating just what kind of ability she would manifest, all while continuing to eat. There were so many possibilities, so many things she hoped for, so many things she'd love to have. It would be so damn cool if her sword would transform into a canon of sorts that could shoot energybeams, or if it would become a giant meatcleaver that would scare everyone shitless who would think of picking a fight with her (she was mainly thinking about Akito with that one). That got her wondering…
"What kind of abilities does your Shikai give you? Does it make you stronger? Or faster? Does it let you shoot lasers everywhere, or can you kill people with by simply looking at them?"
"While that last one sounds ridiculously awesome, I can't do that. Also, I don't think that kind of ability even exists. For the rest of your suggestions: yes and no", he said with a smirk.
"Could you be more specific?"
"Yeah I could."
"… are you going to-"
"No."
"Oh come on, that's just not fair."
"Never claimed to be", he remarked while loading his plate again. "I might tell you in the future, if you can actually push me to the point of having to use my Shikai in a training match."
"Which is gonna be forever."
"Who says that?"
"Uh, common sense does? You're bound to have had your Shikai for a long period of time by now and by the time I reach mine you'll probably already have achieved Bankai, if you haven't already."
Makoto remained remarkably quiet after that comment while his eyes took on a strangely absent expression for a few moments.
"… you already did, didn't you."
"Who says that?", he said in a relatively calm manner, but something just didn't seem natural enough, so she kept at it.
"You did, just now."
"I didn't say anything."
"Exactly. Which means you're hiding something. You would have flat out told me if you didn't have it yet, but you didn't deny or confirm my suspicion, which pretty much confirms it when we're talking about you."
"It's not wrong for me to be quiet once in a while."
"It is unusual though."
"Look kid, even if I had a Bankai, which I don't, I certainly wouldn't tell you. Who knows to whom you'd blurt that out on accident or on purpose. If that word gets around, I'd actually be summoned by the captain, so he could test it out. And once that happens, I'm royally fucked."
"Well, maybe you wouldn't tell me, but if you actually didn't have it, you wouldn't be so fierce on getting me to believe that", she said and dawned a self-statisfied smile.
Something weird happened next. Makoto stopped eating and just looked at her and while he didn't show it that much, she could tell by the look in his eyes that he was getting worked up over something. It could have only been her mind playing tricks on her though, because moments later he was back to his old self again and said: "Let's just agree to have this discussion another time, alright?"
"Oh, the only thing we agree on is that we disagree. You have a freaking Bankai, that's huge, why haven't you applied for captain yet?"
"Alright first, let's just assume that I'd actually make it to a captain's position. Whatever division I'd have jurisdiction over would be doomed since we hypothesizing about me getting a position of authority, except maybe ours, but for me to become captain of the 11th, captain Zaraki would have to be either ruled out, or bested in single combat and both of us know that none of those two are gonna happen, especially the latter. Poor bastard who tries that has my pity.
Second, a captain's seat demands more qualifications than simply having a Bankai. I luckily lack those, or they'd actually consider to put me in a captain's seat."
"Well, you may not have those qualities, but you do have a Bankai. You didn't deny it this time", she added when he attempted to say something.
"And why would I? You're already hellbent on believing that I can do it, whether I deny it or not. And since we're never getting anywhere with that, you can just go ahead and drop it."
"Not until I get you to admit it."
"Kid, it's not funny anymore, drop it", he said with a slight warning undertone.
"I will. After you admit it."
"Look, I'm serious, drop the subject", he said devoid of his usual lighthearted tone this time.
"Come on, it's not that hard. Just say "yes I have a-""
"Kiara!", he yelled and this time she stopped. He had never really been this serious before and it kind of scared her. He took a deep breath in and slowly breathed out again, then he said with an apologetic tone: "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have yelled at you. You can't possibly know this and it's kind of my fault for not telling you right away, but that whole Bankai thing is… it's a very personal matter to me and I don't like talking about it. I'm really sorry."
She calmed down herself and got it together again. "It's okay, I'm sorry too, I shouldn't have pushed you on it. It's just- you never tell me anything. You're never letting on and you're always full of secrets and "tell you sometime later"s and "you're not ready for that yet"s and it gets really frustrating. I'm sure you have you reasons for some of it, but I guess I was just excited that you finally made a slip-up."
He buried his face in his hands and sighed. "Oh trust me kid, I know what you mean. No matter what teacher you have, they will always keep something from you, but that's just the way things go. And there are valid reasons for most of it. I'd love to tell you all of it, but I can't, not right now. I know I sound like a broken record, but eventually, you will know all the answers to your questions", he said sincerely. "Can you accept that for now?"
"I'll try", she said equally honest.
"Great"; he remarked, back to his usual playful manner, "then let's get back to lunch, or else the foods gonna get cold."
They continued eating and an uncomfortable silence started filling the room. After a while it was almost as if it was suffocating her, so she tried to break the mold.
"But do you actually have one?", she asked and tried to put on a joking manner.
He just looked at her and raised an eyebrow, to which she replied. "Okay, okay just kidding."
He must have noticed the silence himself, because he didn't really let it expand again and picked up the word. After he cleared his throat a bit, he said: "So, your meeting with Abarai-sensei. How did that go?"
"It was very cool actually. He was pretty casual throughout the whole thing, not at all what you said he'd be like."
"Well, he was probably being generous since I'm your mentor-"
He was about to finish his sentence, but was interrupted by a knocking sound from outside the door.
"Fucking hell, what now?", he cursed and got up to open the sledding door.
"Listen pal, whatever it is, I'm sure it can wait until-", he started but interrupted himself this time, because he seemed just too confused to continue speaking.
Two people were standing outside the door. They both looked remarkably similar in terms of build, size and facial , but differed in other things.
Ones hair was almost shaved on the sides while the other kept it at an overall short length of about three centimeters. Both had blonde hair and brown eyes.
The one with normal cut hair wore a normal Shinigami kimono, while having weird tattoos on his arms, not unlike Makoto's.
The one with the sidecut stood out more. Instead of one zanpakutous, he was carrying two shorter ones on each side of his hip. The sleeves of his kimono were non-existent, instead he was wearing a shirt under it with tight sleeves reaching down to his wrists.
But despite all their differences, both had the same hyper-excited smile on their face. They didn't even say anything, they just smiled.
Kiara could tell exactly what Makoto was thinking right now.
First it was creepy.
Then it was concering.
Then it was creepy again.
Some time passed and neither side said a word, which created a very drawn out awkward silence. Makoto finally found his voice again and said: "Would you excuse us for a moment?", and slammed the door shut again. Then he turned around to Kiara and looked at her almost accusingly.
"What?", she said after he remained silent while continuing to stare at her.
"Explain please."
"Ah, right, you haven't actually had the time to meet them yet. Allow me to introduce you to your new fanclub."
"New fan- ah yeah, you mentioned the twins. Why are they smiling at me like they forgot what the purpose of a smile actually is?"
"Why don't you ask them?"
"I'm asking you."
"Dude, I don't know either. I've known them for like four days, I'm as lost as you are. All I know is that the one with the sidecut is called Kenjiro Kaemon and the other one is Hiroshi Kaemon."
Makoto frowned for a few seconds, until he turned around again. He opened the door and looked at the twins, who were still smiling (which was starting to go from creepy to concerning again).
"Look guys, from what I heard you're pretty excited to meet me and I'm really flattered and all, but right now isn't really a good time, so how about we postpone this little get together to a later point in time, alright?"
He waited a few seconds to give them time to answer but they didn't. It almost seemed like they were frozen.
"Uhm, guys, are you ok? Hello?", he asked actually a little concerned now and waved his hand around in front of their faces.
"Hey, snap out of it", he said and clapped his hands. That finally got a reaction from the twins. They both shook themselves loose, as if they had been in a paralysis or something.
Hiroshi, the normal looking twin was the first one to speak. "Yes, of course, forgive us if we made you worry there for a second, it's just…"
"…we're so excited to finally get to meet you, you know?", Kenjiro ended his sentence.
"I noticed", Makoto remarked a little dry. "Look, I appreciate your adoration, but I just got back from a three weeks trip full of stress, physical as well as psychological, adrenalin and severe anxiety. Don't take this the wrong way but I'd really like for this one day to be as uneventful as possible."
"Oh, yes absolutely. Well approach you tomorrow, if that is okay with you", Hiroshi responded.
"How about monday next week? I might not really be around the next few days."
"Yeah, sure, that would be awesome. Thank you for this opportunity", Kenjiro said. Another awkward drawn out silence started to fill the atmosphere, until Kenjiro made the even more awkward attempt to break it.
"Hey Kiara", he said and waved nervously.
"'sup guys", she responded and was already shoving food into her mouth again.
"Well, I guess we'll, uhm, leave you alone then", Hiroshi said and slightly bowed to Makoto, immediately followed by his brother. Then, they disappeared via Shunpo or flash step as it was also called and left the two alone.
Without a uttering a word, Makoto closed the door slowly turned around, sat down and stared at his plate for several seconds before looking at Kiara.
"Well, that was fucking weird", he said while starting to eat again.
"Yeah, no kidding. Even my first encounter with them wasn't this… strange."
"No, no, it's not just them it's… they were actually lost for words just from looking at me. I mean, that reaction is normal when you meet your idol, but considering that I am filling that idol position, is very concerning."
"You're not… that bad all things considered. I mean sure, you have your shortcomings, but I don't see how that would put you in the kind of bad light you constantly present yourself in."
He stopped eating for a second and his chopsticks were practically hovering in the air as he put on a suspiciously sheepish face, before he slowly continued.
"Ok, what did I miss?"
"The question is more what haven't you been told. Speaking of telling, Abarai-sensei did do that in regards to my time at the academy, right?"
"Yeah, he did, why?"
"Did he tell you anything else than that story?"
"A few things regarding the way you trained, but otherwise no not exactly. Why, is there more?"
"Oh, you have no idea."
"Seriously?", she said half amused, half surprised.
"Yup. One that I'm pretty fond of is the fight I had with the captain of the 6th division. Don't worry, it wasn't a real fight", he quickly added after Kiara dawned a somewhat shocked expression.
"It was more of a sparring session. He wanted to see how far I've come with my training. If that would have been a real fight, I'd be dead and he'd be laughing. If he'd ever laugh. I managed to surprise him and blew him off the fighting grounds, courtesy of my Shikai ability. Still not gonna tell you", he quickly added again, before she could even begin to word the question.
"He took some time to figure out what my ability actually was, and during that time I managed to break three houses by crashing him into it, chop 8 trees and attract captain Zarakis attention and once that was done, he immediately ran over to the 6th division grounds to see if there was some good entertainment to be had. Before he had arrived though, captain Kuchiki figured out how my Shikai worked and once he knew that he pretty much owned me. At that point we were interrupted by captain Zaraki. He and captain Kuchiki started to argue and after some time, they completely forgot about me and started their own fight, that had to be interrupted by the friggin' captain-commander himself. So yeah, that was pretty fun."
"Fun? Dude, that sounds legendary. You crashed a captain of the Gotei 13 through houses, that is so cool."
"Correction, I surprised a captain of the Gotei 13 through a few houses and when he figured me out, he schooled my ass. He didn't even use his own Shikai, he just spammed me with Kido. He could have simply won by evading all my attacks and putting his blade on my throat, because the dude is fast as hell, but he didn't, he just overpowered me with offensive Kido, or Hado as it's also called. He didn't even use any complicated spells, just the pure fucking basics, which became a force of nature with his spiritual pressure behind it."
"That sounds awesome"; she said and was glowing with amazement.
"It really wasn't", he responded almost a little bitter.
"I thought you were fond of that story."
"Yeah, but more of the fact that I was the indirect reason for two captains fighting over a pissing contest than anything else."
She just hummed as a response and thought about what other stories there were that she hadn't heard about, until she remembered something.
"Okay quick change of topic, before I forget it. You told the twins you wouldn't be around this week, but you told me you would. Which is it?"
"Both actually. I won't be around here this week, but I'll still be around you. We're making a field trip."
"To your working place?", she said hopeful.
"Nope", he answered nonchalantly and put his empty plate on the table.
Fuck.
"But something just as fun. We'll be visiting an old family member of mine."
"You have family?"
"Is that so hard to believe?", he said and raised an eyebrow.
"No, no it's just- you never mentioned you had relatives."
"I don't."
She grimaced in confusion and threw her hands up in the air, which caused him to chuckle a bit.
"I don't have bloodrelatives, but there is a concept called "foster-family"."
"See, now it makes sense."
"Yeah. We'll be visiting my foster… father? Grandfather? I don't know, one of the two. He's old enough to be a grandpa and he certainly looks the part, but he's been my fatherfigure ever since he took me in."
"And where is that fosterfather / grandfather?"
"A long fucking walk away."
She frowned and glared at him to prompt him into giving her an answer without having to ask for it.
He sighed and got up. "District 63", he then said and started clearing the table.
"That's a long fucking walk away!", she protested. She had only walked that distance once. When Makoto had found her months ago, just after she had become a soul. She remembered it taking days without end, or at least that's how it had felt.
"Funny", he responded. "I could have sworn I just said that."
She grimaced towards him again and got up to help clear the table.
"We'll be leaving tomorrow morning. In the meantime we could try to do something about your dreams."
"Yes please", she said, promptly motivated.
He gathered up most of the dishes and gestured her pick up the rest and follow him. "That world you constantly see. Describe it."
She took a few seconds to recall the beautiful scenery. "It's a meadow full of grass but without flowers, surrounded by a forest. It's always night and instead of the moon, a blue comet lights up the sky and the earth. There is always something floating over the trees, but I can never make that part out. In the middle of the meadow is an oven, or a chimney with a fire in it, I can never make that out either, it's always blurry."
Makoto stopped, turned around and looked at her with geniuene surprise. "That's fucking beautiful. Gotta say, I'm a bit jealous."
"Why?"
"Because what you just described is your inner world. To explain it more understandable, it's sort of an astral plane, where you communicate with your Zanpakutou."
"That's how I communicate with it?"
"That's how everyone communicates with their Zanpakutou spirit. Every Shinigami has an inner world. And if yours looks the way it sounds, then it looks very pretty."
"Thanks I guess."
"You don't sound very convincing."
"Well, having a beautiful inner world, or astral plane or whatever it's called is great and all but doesn't really help me sleep."
"Yeah, getting to that. Take some time later in the day to meditate. Sit down, legs crossed and put your sword in your lap. Focus on your inner world, or what you know of it and you might actually end up being in it again. Who knows, maybe you'll even understand what your blade is trying to tell you. It's not gonna work on the first try, but it will most likey shorten the time it'd take until you can hear your swords name. Give it a shot and let's see how it goes."
"I'll try", she said.
ooo
Makoto saw Kiara off and the two of them parted ways. She was getting back to her hideout to try and get into her inner world on her own, while he was getting back to his quarters to prepare a few things.
He was walking on the street and was about to take a turn when he heard a deep, raspy voice he hadn't heard in quite a while.
It started out as a small chuckle that slowly built up to howling laughter.
"She figured you oooouuuuuut", the voice said in a cheery sing-sang. "She figured you out GOOD."
"Well, you're certainly in a good mood", Makoto remarked.
"How can I not?", his zanpakutou responded. "That was just precious. All these months of carefull disguised mockery and all it takes for her to get on your case is one tiny slip-up. She's pretty sharp. Think you can keep your little sharade up?"
"If nobody rats me out, sure, why not. What do you want?"
"Oh what, am I not allowed to have a friendly chat with my partner anymore?"
"Oh, of course you are. You've just been so quiet the last few weeks, I thought the cat got your tongue."
"If the lieutenant from squad 10 was that cat she could have my tongue all day long."
"Dude!"
"What? She's hot."
"Still dude."
"Whatever. You should watch out for that little protégé of yours though. If you bring a few more of them wrong reactions she's gonna get you cold."
"Well aware buddy, well aware."
"Just a little reminder. Would be a shame if she got all angry up on our asses. She's growing on me."
"You and me both man."
"Little word of advice. Watch your excuses. It's not just her, but everybody else too. Talking about district 80 is really good an' all, but when they decide to go checkit out, and they will, then you're gonna have to think up more than just an excuse. Not to mention that the discussion / investigation regarding your little break-in five months ago is suspiciously quiet. One of these days those things are gonna blow up in your face and when they do the boy is screwed. If he isn't already."
"I know, it's not like I wasn't reminded two times already."
"Good. So long as you don't forget it. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go take a nap."
"Sure, go ahead."
Susanoo. That was the name of Makoto's Zanpakutou. He was the type to always wear a mischievous smile and even if Makoto didn't see him when they were just casually talking to eachother like this instance, he knew it was there. His blade was a friendly reminder of facts and priorities, depending on which he thought were more urgent at the time. He was also a little bit of a sadist and wasn't above laughing at Makoto or even himself.
If there was a situation where someone got hurt, be it physically or mentally, Susanoo knew how to take joy out of it. It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, sometimes a little laugh was desparately needed.
It could get annoying from time to time, but all things considered, Makoto was pretty glad to have him as his companion.
ooo
"This is agony", Kiara wheezed. "Can't you just carry me the last bit?"
"I'm not an express service kid. Besides, I already carried you the first 50 districts, so I don't see the problem."
"You're trained for this kinda thing."
"I was trained for fighting and not walking, there's a difference. I walked the entire distance with you, I even transported you a huge chunk of the way and you don't hear me complaining."
"You do this on a monthly basis, it's not the same."
"Yeah, but I do it by flashstepping, which is much easier."
"You're better built for this."
"Body structure doesn't really have much to do with it. If anything, you've got an advantage over me, since you're lighter."
She didn't respond to that and when he looked back to her she looked like she was in deep thought.
"Don't tell me you've ran out of arguments."
"…shut up."
Makoto burst out in laughter and turned around again, facing the direction of their destination.
They had left three days ago late in the morning, since the paperwork Makoto had to do regarding their leave and his three weeks absence had been a pain to deal with, which resulted in him oversleeping. To speed things up a bit he kind of "skipped" the major part of their journey, until it got a little bit too exhausting to carry Kiara's and his own weight.
He'd never admit that though, so there they were. The last few days they've been camping outside which hadn't been all that bad all things considered. District 63 was not that far away anymore and the sun stood already past noon. He just hoped Ousai was not out hunting or something, the old fox was rather… unfriendly to people who just invited themselves into his house.
"Is there anything I should know about this person before I meet him?", Kiara asked between two small gasps.
Makoto was about to tell her that Ousai was a wolfman, but decided not to at the last moment and just said: "Just don't overreact when you see him."
"Why, is he horribly disfigured or something?"
"No."
"… then why should I overreact?"
"He's pretty tall."
"I don't think that's something I'd need to keep in mind to not freak out."
"Well, then you have nothing to worry about", he said and kept walking. Later in the early evening he could finally see the lights of district 63. Walking had taken longer than he had anticipated, but they were finally here now.
"Lights. I can see lights. Oh, I can't wait to finally get something to eat, kick back, relax and sleep in a nice, cushy bed and-"
Makoto burst out in laughter again, he just couldn't help it. "You really have a vivid imagination."
"The hell's that supposed to mean?"
"It means that pretty much all of those things won't just be presented to you here, you gotta earn them. Remember, people stopped wearing shoes four districts ago, so don't assume the local residents are just gonna shower you with hospitality."
"But we're the Shinigami who protect Soul Society, doesn't that mean anything to the people here?"
"Emphasis on protect here. If there is nothing to protect them from, then we don't do a lot. Seireitei doesn't manage Rukongai, it just guards it."
"But we do more than that, right? I mean, you're doing something to contribute and last I heard others dedicated themselves to some of the lowest districts too."
"Yeah, but that's infrequent and rare. And these people haven't felt any of that so even if we went into the city, we wouldn't really be that welcome. Well, maybe I'd get some nice gestures, but only because I used to live there and still know some of the people."
"Guess you're right. Wait, "even if we went into the city"? Does this mean we're not?"
"Perceptive as always", he quipped and pointed to a spot to the right side of the city. "This is our actual destination."
"Somewhere in the woods?", she exclaimed. He just chuckled again and kept walking, eventually straying from the main path to a small trampeled one in the forest. They were going pretty slowly and by the time they finally reached Ousai-jiji's cave it was already night.
A fire was crackling in front of it lighting up most of the insides. Something was wrong though. Ousai-jiji was nowhere to be seen, but there was a fire out in the open that even had a pot on top of it. Makoto wanted to continue that train of thought, but his nagging disciple stopped it for him
"He's a caveman?", Kiara shouted exasperated. "Are you telling me I gotta sleep on rocks?"
As if that had been his cue Ousai Soukens deep and sonorous voice resounded from the dark behind them.
"Well, count me surprised. Didn't expect ye back this soon boy."
Both of them turned around, Makoto rather relaxed due to the fact tht he was still used to his foster-father popping up out of nowhere, Kiara rather jumpy due to the exhaustion of the walking most of the day.
And her reaction to seeing Ousai-jiji for the first time was just golden.
"Giant wolf!", she yelled and jumped back, her hand already on her swords grip.
"Haven't heard that one in a while", Ousai said with a sigh and looked at Makoto. "Did you not tell her what I look like boy?"
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry", Makoto said with a sheepish smile. "I just couldn't resist."
Meanwhile, Kiara was starting to get confused, also slowly turning towards Makoto. "Makoto who is that?"
"Oh right", he responded. "May I introduce to you, Ousai Souken, my foster-father."
That just seemed to confuse her even more. She looked up to Ousai-jiji, taking quick glances at his towering statue, then looking back to Makoto. Back to Ousai-jiji and back to Makoto.
"WHAT!?"
Makoto looked back to Ousai. The latter returned the formers gaze with a little exhaustion in his eyes.
"Well, first impression could be better. At least she's entertainin'. Yer lucky, it's almost time for dinner so we can talk over- girl, take yer hand of that sword, yer gonna hurt yerself."
"You- you're a wolf…man", she stuttered, almost fascinated and a little terrified by the concept of that word.
Ousai-jiji whistled with fake awe. "Ah, a perceptive one. Rivetin'."
She still had her hand on her sword grip, but took it off after a few more moments. She started massaging her temple, sighed and said: "I have so many questions."
ooo
They all sat around in a circle, each of them eating out of a handmade bowl. Kiara had gotten used to Ousai-jiji pretty quickly, once his heritage, his clans history and everything was explained. She also took pride in the fact that she naturally guessed him to be a wolf instead of a dog, as he took that as an insult. She looked pretty self-statisfied.
"So, yer bout to awaken yer Shikai? Yeah, I remember that."
"What was it like? I mean awakening it for the first time", she asked curiously, completely devoid the confusion she had been filled with earlier.
"A pain in the arse, that's what that was", Ousai-jiji responded grumpy. "The man was obnoxiously mistrusting with any information and only told me his name after I basically pulled it out 'is nose."
"Wait, swords have genders?", she asked.
"'Course they do. Why wouldn't they, their livin' beings."
"Huh", she muttered and nodded like that piece of knowledge should have been obvious.
Ousai-jiji emptied his bowl and said: "Ya should probably go ta sleep, girl. Tomorrow's gonna be a hard day for ye. Don't shit yer pants", he added before Kiara even opened her mouth. "There's a futon in there. Might not be what yer used to, but i's either that or the floor."
She looked like she wanted to protest there for a second, but ultimately let it go. She may have known Ousai-jiji for only about an hour, but that was enough time for just about anyone to realize that he didn't like to be argued with.
She mumbled something to herself and walked back into the cave. Ousai-jiji looked after her for a few seconds, then turned around to Makoto.
"So, I'm sure there're still plenty of things ya haven't told me 'bout Soul Society."
"What do you wanna know?", the latter said and helped himself to a second bowl. His fosterfather did the same and gave it some thought, before he finally said:
"There was a ruckus 'bout six years ago, ya wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would ye?"
Oh, he knew, he was there after all. He started at the beginning, with the disappearance of Rukia Kuchiki, the appearance of the Shinigami Substitute, captain Aizens betrayal and everything that happened after. He took it slow and went into detail as much as possible, which was impossible in some places, since he didn't know everything.
They had been talking for at least another half hour or so when Ousai-jiji turned around and directed his eyes towards the cave. Makoto stopped for a second, but the old wolf rolled his wrist and gestured him to continue.
Of course. He had wanted to stall for time, so that they could wait for the girl to fall asleep, probably to talk about more sensitive matters.
Makoto continued where he left off and slowly kept talking while his fatherfigure kept monitoring the cave. The latter had without a doubt expanded his "omniscience" to the sleeping quarters and was surely double-checking if Kiara was really asleep. Then he turned back to Makoto.
"She's asleep."
"Thank god. I don't know how much more I could have ecxagurated that story."
The wolfman let out a small chuckle and nodded affirmatively.
"I can't give ye the advice ya want", he cut straight to the chase. "At least not from an hour of knowing the girl. I'll test her a little tomorrow, so I can see how she thinks, how she reacts and so on."
"I figured as much", Makoto said sighed.
"Don't worry, boy. We'll get this horse back on track, one way or another. Ya should get some rest now too, 's not exactly gonna be easy for ya tomorrow either. Yea may have ta serve as example", the wolfman said with a sly grin.
"It's not exactly gonna be like back then, you know that right?", the son responded with a sharp smile himself.
A slightly menacing growl came from the father's throat. "I smell a challenge when I hear one. Get to bed now, we'll test that theory very thoroughly tomorrow."
"You got it, dad." And with that, Makoto walked into the cave as well. He made sure to be absolutely quiet. He saw Kiara sleeping somewhere in a corner and he had to smile to himself.
When everything began, he had felt alone, hopeless and was under the constant fear that he would fail both the girl and the boy. Now, after some time had passed, after he now had the support of someone he could trust and after seeing Kiara's constant growth, for the first time he had the feeling that he could actually pull this off.
That he could really save them.
Authors notes:
I'M BACK BITCHES! Or well, not really back since I never really left but- you know what, I think you get the idea.
For those of you who actually give a damn, here's the explanation as to why this one took so god damned long and no it's not 'cause it's the longest one yet. It's because of some personal issues I've had to deal with that preoccupied my mind so intensely that I even forgot to eat for a whole day once. During that time period which lasted a good two months or so, I was just not in the mood for writing, because I didn't feel like I could write anything remotely readable while in that somewhat depressive state. It was an intense and largely negative experience, but after having gone through that and having found back to my usual emotional state I just feel more like myself now. I know this is probably gonna sound like nonsense to the two or three people who read this, so I'm sorry for that, but I can't really put it into different words. In short: some emotional stuff happened, I did some excessive soulsearching because of it, feel more comfortable with myself now and I'm back to writing and my usual self.
I don't really have that many thoughts on this chapter to be honest. I personally like it a lot, but that's just my opinion.
If you`ve got your own opinion or ideas, PM me, or, better yet, review the story. I`ll always welcome constructive criticism.
(Hey, we hit ten thousand words in one chapter, look at that.)