Title: Lysogeny
Author: jaylis
The First Stage ~
In the northern part of Rukongai, a silvery-haired boy hears the heavy tread of men who are unaccustomed to the forest and instinctively darts behind the protection of a barren tree. He has always been observant and spies curiously as a trio of black-robed men, no, not just ordinary men, but shinigami, halt their stomping at a clearing where one of them proceeds to unceremoniously dump a young girl's body. Through the slits of his eyes, the boy memorizes the men's faces, especially the one of their leader whose spectacles glint like the swipe of a blade.
No time to cry,
No time to hide,
They're coming for ten,
They're right outside.
When Hisana first hears the children singing, she smiles to herself. Amid the habitual cacophony of the Rukongai slums, a song carrying an actual tune is a rare sound. She tilts her head toward the window of the shop and listens more closely.
You can raise your fist,
Throw sticks or stones,
But they'll raise their swords,
And slash through your bones.
They're coming for nine.
Oh please don't take mine!
Hisana has seen horrible sights, starvation huddled in rags on street corners and exploitation in the constricting throats of alley ways, but she is not prepared to see two uneven lines of little ones shouldering between them a sort of makeshift stretcher. The outline of the body underneath the thin sheet is that of a child.
"One of their own," the shop owner mutters behind her. "They found the girl in the Inuzuri district, which isn't so surprising knowing that area. What's strange though is that she ain't dead."
In response to Hisana's questioning look, the shop owner explains, "This is the third time this month that someone goes missing and shows up like that. Nothing wrong with the body, and the breathing's all fine, but it's like something's taken away the soul, and the person just ain't really there anymore."
Hisana feels as if her own breath has been siphoned away. "The Inuzuri district?" she manages to choke out. The owner watches, increasingly alarmed, as this frail creature built of sparrow-like bones folds into herself, hands clenching spasmodically beneath her heart. Mumbling apologies, Hisana begs to leave work and after being granted permission, rushes out of the shop as if a specter were haunting her. She slows down only when she reaches the center of the market square where the carefully arranged tiles in the ground form a star-like compass. Twice, Hisana circles the square. Finally, her foot takes an instinctive step toward the southern direction, and she hesitates. You always were a coward, she scolds herself. After that, she moves swiftly past rows of houses until she sees the familiar wooden sign with faded paint depicting a dog howling at the moon. This is District 78. This is her home, but it has never been where she wanted to be.
Because here, after all, is where she committed her greatest sin.
And here, even though Hisana knows the odds are against her, is where she will try to find her redemption, grasping at every misleading clue.
Few honest jobs exist in the alleys of Inuzuri where the residents sell every commodity including themselves, but Hisana obtains one that consists of pushing a wooden cart made heavier by the jugs of water resting on it. Hisana's burdens are many, but she minds the physical ones the least and sells water with a cheerful voice. Her job keeps her on the move, and so she hungrily scours the neighborhoods for a sister that never turns up.
Shinigami are always slow to notice the passage of time, and so it is only after half a year that the old Yamamoto raises the topic of unusual occurrences in certain districts of Rukongai at a captain's meeting.
"Do we deem this situation pressing enough for an official investigation?"
The mild-mannered Lieutenant Sosuke Aizen, who is filling in for his captain Shinji Hirako, makes a soft ahem. "I would like to inform the captains that around a month ago, I took it upon myself to look into this matter. The civilians who live in those areas are rather superstitious. Some believe that hollows are behind the recent attacks while others are convinced that other supernatural creatures are to blame. Indeed, in their terror, they seem to have forgotten that we ourselves could be considered supernatural since humans would most likely describe us as spirits."
A few of the captains chuckle before Aizen continues, "I have closely examined some of the victims, and my conclusion is that the source of all this trouble is actually a contagion that first causes paralysis. In most cases, the disease unfortunately seems to be fatal. Considering the swift transmittance, I would like to strongly recommend that all divisions stay away from those districts for now."
"Tell me, Aizen, did you also investigate this glow in the forest that many of these reports include?" Captain Urahara asks, his voice a dissonant note amid the others' murmurs of agreement.
"Glow in the forest?" Aizen repeats, adjusting his glasses. "I'm afraid I don't know what you're referring to."
After the meeting is over, Aizen appears behind the blond captain and says with a smile, "Your concern for the lower masses is commendable, Urahara-taichou, but should we really bother to believe everything that a few insignificant souls said?"
The issue is not brought up again at the next captain's meeting. Urahara will later blame himself.
In the southern part of Rukongai, Hisana cries out in frustration when a gang of children steal a jug of water from her and scamper off with their prize. She does not know that the kid with a flaming crown of hair who distracted her is called Renji, and she does not see how the children, only minutes later, literally run into a resilient survivor of the streets named Rukia.
Water attracts many thirsty thieves, and it's not long before Hisana encounters more of them. This time, the thieves are not children. All three of the men loom over her, and her heart skips a beat when she sees the steel in their hands. She has only a hickory staff for her defense and somehow knocks down the first thief who advances. The second one catches her by the wrist and squeezes with such force that she lets go of her sole weapon. This is how it will end, she thinks to herself as she watches the third thief pick up her staff and raise it over her head. Closing her eyes resolutely, Hisana prepares herself for the finishing blow. Feeling no pain and perceiving a scream of agony that is not her own, she opens her eyes and realizes that her attackers are lying face down around her, their limbs splayed at grotesque angles.
Hisana takes a step back and feels her shoulder come into contact with a solid, immovable mass.
"Are you all right?" it asks her.
"I'm fine," she whispers and then adds, "Thank you, uh, sir."
"You're bleeding from the head," the man remarks dubiously.
Ah, maybe she did get hit in the head after all. Hisana dabs at her cranium uncertainly.
From the sleeve of his robe, he draws out a handkerchief and extends his hand to her. Silk, she thinks, becoming conscious of the texture as it glides across her marred skin. She feels coarse in comparison to this square bit of cloth, now tainted with her sweat and blood. Her eyes search for any wounds or injuries on the figure of her rescuer and find none. Does such a man even bleed?
"Vermin," he addresses the defeated thieves. "They are incredibly pathetic to ambush a woman in such a manner. I should kill them on the spot."
"Wait!" And when he stares at her in intense bewilderment, Hisana tries to explain, "People here are desperate. For water, for food, for the lack of every basic thing." Not wanting to sound ungrateful, she tries again, "You're not from this district."
"I come from Seireitei," he tells her after an unbearable stretch of silence. "I've come here to investigate the recent epidemic."
"Epidemic?"
Hisana's day takes another bizarre turn, and she later finds herself sitting in a tea shop with this nobleman who sits so rigidly and yet looks at her so intently as she tells him about the children's song, the rumors she's harvested from shopkeepers and fishwives and - she can't quite decipher if he is paying attention to the spillage of information or to the line of her throat.
Hisana has never encountered romance or love, and in the months that follow, all she can think as it gazes into her face is that it must terribly confused.
In another, less populated section of Rukongai, Sosuke Aizen kneels and presents a child's soul to his idol of worship, a thing which hungers, but never grows content.
"Ichimaru-fukutaichou?" the woman's voice inquires hesitantly.
Gin studies her face for a second before grinning and greeting her with an embellished bow. "Lady Kuchiki, it's very nice of you to honor me with your gracious presence."
Under the layers of ceremonial makeup on her face, Hisana winces. Surely, he's mocking her. After all, that's what everyone else here does, insinuating behind their fans or sometimes not so subtly. She has come here into this serpent's nest though for a purpose, and so she steadily continues,
"I have a favor to request."
It scarcely seems possible, but his smile stretches even wider along his jaw. "Of course, anythin' you ask!"
"I know that you originally come from Rukongai, where I also come from as you probably have heard. My husband though, he would prefer to make this fact as little known as possible so he has made it quite difficult for me to…visit there."
"Well, why would ya want to?" Gin teases. "Unless the Kuchiki estate is too boring?"
There is a strain in the delicate features of Hisana's face, and finally she forces out, "My shame is not that I come from the districts of Rukongai, but that years ago, I abandoned my sister in those hostile corners, and I would search for her every available hour for the rest of my life except that I am afraid I will fail. Perhaps, it is not my fate that I should find her. Perhaps, it is another's, and so I am here to ask that you, with your familiarity and resources, help me. Help me because she is the one I need to protect."
The vice captain is no longer smiling. He stares at this woman, so small, and remembers himself, small, huddled, and hunting for firewood but finding instead a girl left for the dead, a girl who needed his protection.
He turns his back to Hisana and says only,
"I will see what I can do."
Six months after the death of his wife, Byakuya Kuchiki enters her room, which is uninhabited but meticulously kept unpolluted by dust. As is his daily ritual, he kneels down before her portrait. Today though, rather than placing fresh blooms in the vases, he flattens a piece of parchment on her shrine and says in a low voice,
"It is done."
Slanted, loopy handwriting has been scrawled on the paper.
Shino Academy, Year 2066, Class #2, ask for the girl from the Inuzuri district, you'll know when you see her.