Chapter 8
"Come," My mother had said to me a day after the incident where she caught me looking through her belongings.
She had handed me a bag and my traveling cloak. My mentor, Chiyotsuru, had told me by letter that I had the rest of the week off—per request of my mother. Now, I stared at her with wide eyes and a racing heart. She began to laugh.
"Don't look at me like that, Shizuko," She slipped on her own cloak and slid her zanpakuto into her sash, "We're going to where I grew up."
"I thought you had grown up here," I followed her as we set off from the estate grounds.
"What the hell was your Grandmother feeding you while I was at work?" She said this with a smirk, and she surprisingly wrapped her arm around my shoulders, "I grew up here until my mid-teens."
"And after?"
"I grew up in Kasajishi," She met my gaze evenly, "That's where we're going, Shizuko."
It was a long and harrowing journey. I had never walked for so long in my life, and we often stopped on the side of the road for me to catch my breath. I never was aware of how fit my mother was, though it made sense that this was nothing to any seated Shinigami.
After two days of traveling, my mother finally turned off the main road and into a pathway where we passed rundown shacks and campsites. I did my best not to stare but it was hard not to. Everyone I passed was flesh and bone, with a bit of stringy muscle.
My mother notably didn't leave my side since we had reached the higher-numbered districts. I held onto her cloak to make sure I didn't trail too far behind her.
"Pretty thing," Someone reached for my ankle but I quickly skipped out of the way, "Such a pretty girl can spare me some time. Come give me some of that pretty little—"
The man's words were cut off by the flat edge of my mother's sword. She kicked him squarely in the gut and sheathed her sword before carrying on down the path. I looked around and expected the people around us to be staring. But they were all carrying on with what they had been doing all along—as if my mother and the man's exchange was nothing out of the ordinary.
"Come," I quickly caught up to my mother.
We walked along the path until it was no longer occupied by any tents or squatter-camps. My mother headed down yet another path, but it was hidden by the brush. It soon opened into a small clearing where a cottage stood crookedly.
"This is where I lived," She said, pausing to stare the rundown building. It wasn't in terrible condition—not at least as worse as I would have imagined a building in Kusajishi would be. "Your father came here with me throughout our marriage to help me take care of it."
"Did you plan on moving here?"
She spoke as we made our way into the structure. Her hand was glowing green with reiatsu, as if she was expecting to be jumped, "We had planned on using it as a place to escape to. No one bothers us when we're out here—those in Kusajishi know what fights to pick and who to pick them with."
We set up a fire and started dinner. After collecting more water from the stream, we came back and finished setting up. It was all done while she told me about her childhood and how she had come to become a Shinigami.
"So Takahashi was your mentor?" I held the cup of soup she had made to warm my hands.
"He was."
"And he used to be a former Captain," I mumbled to myself, processing all the information she had told me. I hadn't really known that my mother had had such a history before I was born. It was strange to think that she had lived through so much and she wasn't much older than I was now.
"Of Squad Two," She spoke quietly.
"Why did you never tell me any of this?" I asked heatedly. Did she not trust me? Was that why she hid everything?
She simply shrugged and took a sip of her soup, "You never asked."
I could only stare at her incredulously. It occurred to me that I never had asked about my mother. My entire childhood I was so busy trying to find out about my father that I never asked about my mother. It made me feel incredibly childish.
"I'm a spoilt brat compared to what you were at my age," I moped, "You were having to taking care of yourself and I—"
"You are fine just the way you are," Her tone left no room for argument. She stared at the flames for a while, the fire flickering in her eyes before she looked at me, "I never wanted my children to go through what I had to. Life is too long to have to expose yourself unnecessarily to its horrors."
"So why are you showing this to me now?"
"Because I realized the flaws in my thinking. You're far too curious to be kept ignorant. It's a miracle I kept you from all this this long," She took my hand and smiled, "You're persistent, Shizuko. And that you got from me—not your father."
I withdrew my hand from hers and she looked on at me curiously. I needed to apologize for the other day…but I didn't want to. I wanted to know what she wasn't telling me about my father, no matter the cost. But I also knew how much it hurt her to talk about him.
"I know what you're going to say," She spoke, "And believe me when I say that I would love to tell you about him, Shizuko, but it's simply not possible."
"Why not!" I stood up abruptly. The cup of soup tipped over and spilt its contents on the fire.
She was so calm as she answered and it drove me insane, "Because it'll put you in danger."
"Was he so bad that—"
"Bad? I can't say. I honestly have no idea what truly became of your father. What I can say is that he willingly made his decision and stuck by it," She picked up my cup and handed me hers, "He doesn't deserve your longing, Shizuko."
"How can you say that? How can you talk about him like you hate him when you clearly still love him."
What she did next only confused me. She looked at me for a moment before she began to laugh. Laugh like I had said the funniest thing.
"My sweet, that's the ugly truth about love. You find someone who makes you feel like the pain and suffering was worth it—you were put on this path so that you would meet them eventually. You love one another and suddenly the world doesn't look so gloomy as it had before. Everything's the way it should be—the way you always dreamed your life could have been," Her chuckles were callous and I could only watch as she clenched her jaw, "And then they fucking leave you. Because that's what it's like to fall in love with someone, Shizuko. It's just another way of saying you were stupid enough to let yet another person disappoint you."
"You don't mean that—"
"I do though," She stood up and headed to her cot, "I love your father. But it's for his own good that our paths never cross again—I won't let him get away with the shit he allowed happen to us."
The fire popped loudly. She fell asleep while I stayed by the fire. I stared into its flames until they died out and the heat retreated into the white embers.
Was my mother's hatred like these flames? Would she eventually overcome the blazing resentment she felt? My only hope of finding out more about Kisuke was that she did.
In the meantime, I needed to make a better effort to focus on everything around me. I could see what being haunted by the past had done to my mother. I needed to start thinking about who I wanted to be. Not Shizuko Kuna, daughter of Kumiko and Kisuke, but Shizuko.
My mother's zanpakuto caught the light of the sun, and it bounced into the corner of my eye. I stared at it and felt like I was I seeing it for the first time. I had seen it countless times throughout my childhood. My mother had taught me how to fight with a sword since I was strong enough to hold one, and she often let me practice with hers.
I touched it and felt the engravings along its blade, and the hilt design. In its blade, I saw my reflection and my mind flashed back to what I looked like wearing that white haori.
In the years I had trained to become a geisha, I had served many Shinigami. They had shown me their swords and had even let me hold them. Nothing felt more powerful than those moments when I wielded a zanpakuto. I often felt a wistfulness, like I did now, that I may never have one of my own.
Shutting my eyes, I could see myself in the mirror of my mother's room. Wearing that haori, holding a zanpakuto…it all felt right. Just like when I struck the right combination of notes on my shamisen, or my kimono fell in the right way, I felt my heart yearning for a calling I had long smothered.
My mother woke up a couple hours later and I handed her a cup of tea. She gave me a kiss on the crown of my head and I waited for her sit down before I finally said.
"I want to become a Shinigami."
