6. Dream.
T: Nothing to say about today's chapter! Warnings remain the same and I own nothing here apart, in part, for Myagi-san.
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"Who are you then?"
"Kurosaki Hisoka."
"Have you come to take me from neesan?"
"No, I only want to talk to you for a moment."
"The other man said that and for a while I believed him…then he told me terrible lies and tried to force me from neesan's side."
"I promise that I shall not take you where you do not want to go." The child considers the words a moment and then, inclining his head back towards his sister, he says,
"I'm going to the garden for a while, neesan."
"I want you back in a half hour, Asato and wash your hands before you come to the table."
"Hai, hai."
The garden is beautifully arranged, each flower and scrub so healthy that they are all but glowing. He wonders, for a moment, which of the pair has put in the time and the care necessary to create such beauty, then Tsuzuki's voice stirs in his memory.
"I used to love tending to the flowers in the back garden, even when I was a little boy. Watching the plants thriving simply for the care I gave them made me feel like my life had purpose, made me feel better during the dark times."
He closes his eyes and in the darkness behind his lids he can see Tsuzuki as he had been as he spoke those words, can see the patches of burned skin upon the elder Shinigami's skin and the vulnerable smile on his lips.
When he again opens his eyes the world about him has shifted, the splendid greenery of the garden faded into the stark grey oppressiveness of the bureaux's infirmary.
"Where are we? Where is neesan?" The boy's fear sends pain coursing through his body and yet still he smiles for the other when he says,
"She is back at the house."
"Take me back to her."
"Can you not stay here with me for a moment?"
"I want neesan!" The boy's anger strikes him with the force of a physical blow and, his face bleeding for the 'strike', he falls to his knees.
The child comes to stand before him and remarks, "I hate you!" before he turns and runs off into the bureaux's corridors.
…………………………………………………………………………….
He watches Hisoka until his breathing evens out and then he steps from the other's side in order to make himself some lunch. When he returns Hisoka has balled into the elder Shinigami's side, the tension evident in his spine as a show that not all is well.
He settles down onto his knees and, schooling his mind into a blank canvas, he reaches out for his connection to the child. He is greeting with the image of flames, the smell of disinfectant and the sight of roses drenched in blood before Hisoka's subconscious pushes him away.
He knows that, if he pressed, he could re-establish the link and gain a clearer picture of what was truly troubling the other. However, he knows that such a thing would not only hurt the other, but also abuse the trust that the boy had placed in him.
He can not simply sit idle and, setting his hand to the boy's shoulder, he focuses his mind onto the thought of his mother.
………………………………………………………………………………
"Are you not going to follow him?" The question is voiced by the girl from his 'dreams', or rather from the woman the girl had become and, laughing at the confusion in his eyes, she says, "Perhaps I should start in a more sensible place. My name is Myagi Luka and I wanted to meet you for the longest of times, Kurosaki Hisoka-kun."
"Then you are not part of this illusion?"
"Correct."
"Then what are you?"
"A restless spirit looking for satisfaction and yet not angry nor driven enough to be re-born as a Shinigami." The explanation eases some of the confusion he had been feeling and, a little surer now of himself, he enquires,
"Asato-san 'sent' you to help me, didn't he?"
"Yes, but I need you to understand that I wished to come, that, I have want to be of aid to."
"I understand, Luka and thank you." She smiles then and offers him a hand up. As their hands touch he is greeted with Luka's emotions, yet they are muted things in his mind, the vaguest of impressions rather than the stronger sensation he had come to expect.
"I am not truly here, Kurosaki-kun and your empathy is reacting to that fact." She pauses and then, laughter clear in her eyes, she says, "You wear your mask well, Kurosaki-kun and yet I fear that you have yet to properly hide the emotions in your eyes." He recognises the veiled compliment all but immediately and, smiling pleasantly, he enquires,
"Might I ask how you know me?"
"Let us discuss that later, shall we? For now we need to find my brother."
He had become so swept into the intrigue that Luka held that he had all but forgotten purpose here. He is filled with a bitter self loathing at this realisation and, slumping slightly into himself he says,
"I do not think I can help him."
"Perhaps not as he is at the moment and yet if we help him recall his life with you, if we rid him of the foolish fantasies of his childhood, I am certain that you will be able to reach him."
"Perhaps it is better that he does not recall his time with me, that he forgets everything other than the life he led with you."
"Kurosaki-kun…" Her hand dips then to smooth the hair from about his face, the gesture recalling to him a time when he had been loved by his mother. "The world has not been kind to you, I know and yet that does not make you any less worthy of ototo's care than myself. I know that part of him is trying to help you in your 'mission', for what other explanation can there be for our presence in a place that belongs to the life he led after he 'lost' me?
"I wish for him to let go the guilt he feels always for my death…wish him to know how happy my life has been…yet those words can only heal him so much. You are the only one who can make him whole again, but before you can do that you need to believe in yourself and in the power that you hold right here." Her fingers move from his hair to rest against his chest and, though her sentiment is a little idealistic, he find that he wants to believe both in the words and she who had delivered them to him.