Chapter Thirteen
It had felt like years since Yuzu went on a run. it was something she had always enjoyed to clear her mind. When she was younger, she imagined that just for an hour or so, it was okay to run away from her problems and forget they existed which is why it felt so liberating even if it was just for a moment. She was pretty good at it. She always won cross country races at school and her PE teacher noticed her times and suggested she try to move up the ranks but Yuzu never bit.
Her mind felt clear and at ease and even her zanpakutō felt soothed. So you do have something you are confident with? Yuzu ignored her but felt no contempt towards her. If only you were as confident with your skills.
I'm confident with running because it is what I know. Yuzu nodded.
You did not always know. You learned out of passion and strived to be better and faster. Why must your zanpakutō be different?
Because it is a matter of life and death. Yuzu said, trying her best to focus because her pace slowing down. This is not.
There you are right. The figure laughed.
You seem more jolly than usual.
The feeling is therapeutic almost. It's a good break from dealing with you.
You're tired of dealing with me? Yuzu laughed mentally.
You're just as exhausting as I am. Think of it from my perspective. Yuzu paused, realising that she had a point since this was basically an extension of herself.
My apologies. I have been difficult. Yuzu admitted. Can we meet halfway somehow?
Somehow… But you must still earn your right to learn my name.
Could you at least give me a hint?
… You saw Karin through the mirror. The figure said. That's more than enough to know my name. With that, the figure faded away and Yuzu finally arrived back home just as her father came back from a meeting.
"Oh! Yuzu-chan! My sweet girl is running again! I noticed you from all the way down the street." Yuzu smiled sheepishly at him before feeling the oxygen debt reach her and she started to gasp for air. She hunched her back to let the air flow a little bit better. She was the least embarrassed of her father out of all her siblings. She knew that they all loved their father deeply (especially Karin who just liked to hide her emotions) but he could be a little extra.
"Otō-san… how did you discover the name of your zanpakutō?" Isshin paused halfway through taking off his shoes.
"Well… Back then I was a Shiba and when I had a glimpse of my spirit, I knew its name because our bloodline have zanpakutōs of specific names."
"Really?" Yuzu asked as she entered the house and closed the door behind her.
"We have 30 in the Shiba bloodline. That's a lot compared to other noble families but we are also the oldest one." Isshin explained before walking over to the couch. "There are 15 major ones and 15 minor ones. The major ones show who the pure blooded Shiba clan folk are and who is going to rule over the others."
"Does that mean you are a minor one?" Yuzu asked.
"No… I just felt that my future wasn't in that family for the next few foreseeable years which is why I felt to marry your mother." He explained. "Zanpakutōs named -getsu are the major ones while -tsuki are minor ones."
"But how are we pure? Okaa-san was a quincey." Yuzu picked up her water bottle.
"There's no formula to it. The spirit realm is the one that decides."
"So… Karin and Ichigo are pure blooded as well then." He nodded. "What about me? Do you think you know who my zanpakutō is?"
"What did they say?" He asked.
"That I saw Karin in a mirror." Isshin looked confused. "Karin was in a disguise because of her zanpakutō."
"Mirror… Kyōgetsu." He said.
"Kyōgetsu ?" She echoed.
"It's the only zanpakutō I can think of related to a mirror in the Shiba clan." He said before getting a phone call and walking out of the room.
Kyōgetsu…
You cheated. Her zanpakutō mused to her. Now all that's left is my chant… I doubt father can help you with that one.
There was a knock on the door, taking Yuzu's attention away from her thoughts. She put her bottle down as her father moved to open the door. "Ah... Mayaka... Haruki!" He greeted
"Ojii-san!" Haruki greeted him with what sounded like happiness in her voice as the man hugged them both. The Kurosaki kids could never understand how their cool cousins found their cringey dad cool. It was something that just baffled them every time.
"Does your mother know that you are here?" He asked.
"Yes, we heard about Karin and wanted to come support you guys. We can always do our home schooling from dad's." Haruki said.
"Come in, must've been a long train ride from Kyoto." Isshin welcomed them in. Once Isshin moved out of the way, they spotted Yuzu.
Mayaka looked at her with her wide eyes and ran over to hug Yuzu wordlessly. "Hi Maya-chan." The red haired girl said nothing as she retreated from her. "Are you doing okay?" Mayaka nodded and smiled.
"I hope you still remember how to sign." Haruki said as she walked over.
"I'm a little rusty but I'm sure I can keep up." Yuzu said before engulfing Haruki in a tight hug. "I'm so happy you guys are here."
"Well, I'll be dead if you don't let go." Haruki coughed and Yuzu released her.
"Sorry, I'm just glad you are here." Yuzu said. "It's been... Difficult."
"I understand." She nodded. "So... Storytime ?"
Yuzu sighed. "It's a long one."
Tatsuki always felt like a wall at work. Like eyes imbedded in a wall. Working in the forensics unit meant you had to wait for police officers to call upon you. Even as an intern, she knew that this was not going to get any better. She studied criminalistics and yet, she would only ever study blood samples if she ever got them. With the police force, they never seemed to get their hands on crucial DNA evidence unless it was a 'high profile case' like murder which is why most cases went cold. They were slow and unresponsive.
Tatsuki didn't want to spend most of her life in a lab which is why she tried her hardest to excel in crime scene analysis — which she did — but the police officers had such a huge sense of pride that they didn't care much to call much on criminalists.
So she sat in a chair after finishing data entry and staring at the TV. "Here." She was surprised by a senior, Murakami Nana, giving her a cup of ramen from the convenience store near by. She was the only other woman in the criminalistics unit which made her happy to not deal with male testosterone on a daily basis.
"Oh! Thank you!" Tatsuki nodded as she carefully received the cup with hot water in it.
"Good job today." Nana nodded, sitting at her desk and turning to the TV
"Good job." Tatsuki replied before putting the cup on the desk and pulling out the packaged chopsticks on the side.
"Tatsuki-chan, why are you staying late here?" Nana asked
"I was just finishing entering the data." Tatsuki explained.
"But you could have come to finish it tomorrow." She insisted as she pulled the disposable chopsticks apart to pull. "Don't overwork yourself. You're still an intern." Tatsuki nodded.
"I just don't want it to pile up." She said. "I would have finished if Kakeru didn't come here constantly to interrupt me."
"Who, Renbutsu-san?" She asked
"Mm." Tatsuki blew at the ramen she collected to cool it.
"You know... I don't trust Renbutsu-san. He has a wife, doesn't he?" Nana mentioned
"Mm, but he said they're getting a divorce." Tatsuki said before eating.
"Are you..."
Tatsuki caught on and furiously shook her head mid slurp before finishing. "No, no, no. I think he is silly and odd but he is just my friend. His divorce has nothing to do with me and I don't want him like that."
"Hmm... I'm just warning you. He cheated on his wife which is why she wants the divorce in the first place." Nana said
"A man that cheats will always cheat, huh?" Tatsuki said. "It's common knowledge. Men are pigs."
"So you don't have a boyfriend?" Nana asked after finishing a bite. "You're still young and beautiful."
"No one." Tatsuki denied
"What about the one you live with? The medical student with the orange hair who always looks like he ate something bad."
"Ichigo?" Tatsuki scoffed. "He's my childhood friend. Nothing can ever happen between us."
"It's not natural for a man and a woman to live together and not be in a relationship." Nana joked
"Murakami-san, it's 2017 is it not?" Tatsuki asked
"Hai-hai." Nana said. "Indeed you are right." They turned to watch the news report as they talked about a woman who was arrested for abusing her 8 and 13 year old daughters. She plead guilty with no contest but claimed she did not know where the girls were. "How shameful."
"It sucks!" Tatsuki exclaimed in agreement to Nana.
"And claiming she doesn't know where they are." Nana scoffed. "What kind of evil woman is that?"
The news report proceeded to talk about the woman living in Akihabara and how her children were missing for months now. She speculated that they ran away from her abuse but her father was worried when the mother wouldn't let her see them. "Wait a minute... Akihabara, isn't Taito city in our jurisdiction?"
"It is." Nana nodded. "What are the names of the children?"
Tatsuki picked up her phone to Google. "Uh... Adachi Hana and Adachi Keiko." She paused. "I know these names."
"Really?" Nana asked and Tatsuki moved to her computer and booted it up to check through the database before finding it.
"Here." Tatsuki said. "A man submitted DNA evidence to us two months ago."
"... I think I remember him." Nana said. "He came into the police station erratic about how he didn't know where his girls were and no one listened to him because the mother had custody." Tatsuki frowned, remembering that story. "But now that the truth is out and she doesn't deny abuse anymore... maybe she'll come out and tell us where the children are."
"Maybe..." Tatsuki frowned.
Byakuya had no idea what they were looking for. This visit to the world of the living seemed incredibly futile. It was as though they were chasing nothing. He stared over the town on a building top. Everything was too... Hasty. It was as if... Soul Society was throwing itself into chaos in the first place.
"Can you feel it?" Hirako-taichō asked.
"Ah." Byakuya nodded. "The reiatsu is strange."
"It's... Too much." Hirako added. "As if there is an overabundance of souls."
"But we cannot sense them... That's the problem. We don't know what we are looking for nor do we have any clues to help us." Byakuya mentioned. "The sōtaichō sending us here was very hasty and ill-reasoned."
"What makes you say that?"
"The real answer to this is behind the senkaimon." Byakuya said. "The only person with answers is Kurosaki Karin."
"... So, as a noble, you know about Mashiro?"
Byakuya raised an eyebrow at him. "Every original noble clan has their family war art. Kuna Mashiro is no different."
"Are you not an original?" Hirako asked and Kuchiki did not answer. "Do you think the sōtaichō made a mistake placing Karin in the twelfth?"
Byakuya did not answer immediately. "The person who can answer that is Kuna Mashiro."
Byakuya heard Shinji go silent for a moment before swearing. While Byakuya understood the concerns of many captains that stood before him that day, he knew from personal experience that this would not end well and that she would have been better off in Mashiro's hands. But he did not speak because at the end of the day, his opinion never mattered. None of the captains' opinions ever mattered. It was never a democracy and it never will be unless it changes.
Karin was gone. She was gone into a deep sleep... But her body was wide awake. Angetsu thought that she would never go to sleep. She was stronger than they thought. Angetsu looked around and laughed as the scientist strapped them out of the straight jacket for more testing.
The scientist glared at them. "You're laughing... Why?" His anger was cut short by someone shooting through him from behind and he fell to the floor.
Tatsuki got home and found Ichigo on the couch, still in scrubs with a textbook on his face. He was snoring and Tatsuki giggled at him. At least he was taking school seriously. She was glad she graduated the year before. Finals were almost over then working on a thesis followed by residency in March. They had been shadowing doctors for sometime at the hospital and she was sure he was tired.
She took the book off his face and put a blanket over him before walking over to her room. The blood samples in the corner caught her eye and she stared at it closely, feeling as though she was neglecting something. It was a coincidence... lots of people go missing in Tokyo. It would make no sense for a shinigami to take people... and a bunch of children at that.
But if she was to put off that suspicion... she wasn't better than any of the other police at the station who turned away victims' families all the time.
So she picked up the items, left a note for Ichigo and went back to the police station.
Haruki may have been 14, but she was far from stupid. As Yuzu told her the story of everything that went down, all she could think of were how stupid the Soul Society fucks were. She knew what they had done to her people very well, they were mostly taken out due to overhunting but quincies knew the truth. They knew that Soul Society was incredibly corrupt and that the souls who were sent there were barely getting by. If they were going to have to go and land in extreme poverty with the only way out being to become one of them or die, then the quincies had done nothing wrong but help the dead souls skip that fate.
So when she heard about everything that happened to Karin and that it could potentially be a former captain from there behind it all, she was angry. Mayaka sensed this and looked at her before silently shaking her head. "I'm fine."
"No you're not." Mayaka signed to her and Haruki sighed, trying to release the anger.
"I'm calm." She said before turning to back to Yuzu. "... Yuzu... Something is incredibly off about this situation."
"What?" Yuzu asked.
"If Karin can't remember anything then... Why is she drawing places and people she doesn't recognise?" Haruki asked as she picked up the picture of Hueco Mondo. "Did that captain you're talking about say that this is an exact image of Hueco Mundo?"
"Yeah... Hitsugaya-kun said it's perfect. I even assumed so because the factory was just as exact."
"That can't be right..." Haruki shook her head.
"Maybe because of trauma." Yuzu shrugged.
"Trauma cannot cause images this vivid and clear and not this many." Haruki said and Yuzu looked confused. Haruki turned to take a picture to send to her mom. "I'm no expert but I remember okaa-san having a patient once and the pictures they drew were always blobs or simple. Something with a significance to the event. They draw how they feel because they can't remember what they saw."
"But..." Yuzu was interrupted by a phone call from Haruki's phone.
"Ma?" Haruki answered and put it on loud speaker.
"Where did you get this picture?" The woman in the other end asked in Spanish.
"Ma... Yuzu is here." Haruki pointed out.
"Hello obaa-chan." Yuzu greeted back. Being that Haruki and Mayaka were three quarters Japanese like Yuzu and her siblings but stayed in Japan their whole life, they were fluent in both. Their mother was Masaki's younger sister but she spent most of her life in Colombia and not Japan. Karin was the only one who learned Spanish as a second language after their mom died as an attempt to feel closer to her and her heritage so it helped that they had cousins to communicate with.
"Hello my dear. I heard about Karin... Did she draw that?"
"Yes, obaa-chan. Is it strange?"
"It is." Her aunt said. "It's very unusual for a trauma victim to have images this clear of where they were... No matter how good their art skills are."
"But... Why?"
"Because..." Her aunt stopped before trying to find the words for it in Japanese because the topic was becoming too complex. "She can only remember in flashbacks, correct?"
"Ah..."
"A flashback is... Not enough time to recall this much detail." Yuzu's eyes widened in realisation and Haruki could see it was starting to make sense. "I'll ask some friends as well but this is very strange behavior. May I speak with Karin-chan?"
"She... Um... Isn't here." Yuzu licked her cracked lips.
"Okay but make sure to call me when she is. I could possibly help." She said before she went silent due to an echo in the background. "Well girls, I have a patient to see now. Make sure to keep us in the loop."
"Okay. Bye..." Haruki hung up before looking at Yuzu.
"But... Karin-chan drew these." Yuzu sighed.
"Maybe... She has seen these places and people be—"
"No... She hasn't." Yuzu shook her head. "Then... It wasn't Karin who drew them. It was Angetsu."
Mayaka looked confused. "Her sword spirit?" She signed.
"Yes... Her zanpakutō." Yuzu said before her phone rang. It was Tatsuki.