Chapter Twenty One: The Way I Are.
"You bastard." said a distraught Soi to Ichigo as soon as they had arrived at the Vaizard Headquarters.
Ichigo did not reply immediately. He first removed his cloak and mask, as well as his sword and second division gear. Now clad in only the lower half of a shihakusho, and a sleeveless white t-shirt, he let her have his full attention. Crossing his arms in front of his chest, he asked her, "And why, might I ask, am I a bastard?"
She could not me his gaze as tears began to pool in her eyes, threatening to fall down her porcelain face. After a few seconds, she managed to slightly regain her composure and reiterate, "You're a bastard. Did you really have to do so much harm to the Shinigami."
Ichigo shifted his weight slightly, "May I ask why you would care what I did to a few pathetic Shinigami?"
The tears started to fall freely down her face, "I care because they are my friends, Ichigo! Why did you have to cause so much harm to my friends?!!"
Ichigo's posture straightened as his face grew flush with anger. "Have you forgotten already, Shaolin?" He pointed a finger accusingly at her, "Have you already forgotten the things that those pathetic Shinigami have done to our people? Do I need to remind you that these so called friends of yours would turn on you in a heartbeat if they found out what you are?"
His face grew calm again as he crossed his arms once again. His expression grew sad as he continued, "I don't think you do, Shaolin. You know as well as I do that they would despise you the minute they found out that you were a Vaizard. Your closest friends would be obligated to kill you. The people you thought you could trust more than even your own family would suddenly take great pleasure in slowly torturing you. No Shinigami would be kindhearted towards us. Even the peace loving Fourth Division has been known to do sick and twisted things to our kind.
"So if you're asking why I did such things to the Shinigami, I am not doing it because I want to. I'm doing it so that they know that what they have done to our kind is immoral and wrong."
Soi took a shuddering breath, "I-I, g-guess I can s-sort of understand th-that, but…" She fell to her knees, her eyes shut, trying to stop the steady flow of tears pouring down her face, "Why did you use that Falcis Victus on Momo?"
Ichigo sighed and moved towards Shaolin. He knelt down in front of her, before taking her into his embrace. "Is that what this is about, beloved?" He sighed and tightened his embrace on her, "Did you know that at one point in Aunt Momo's life, she had discovered practically everything about our race?"
Soi gasped, "She what?"
Ichigo gave her a brief squeeze, "She discovered almost all of our race's secrets. Logically, it wouldn't do for a normal Shinigami to know of us, so a joint decision was made by both the current Dark One and the Nobles. It was decided that a complicated Kidou would be used to fool Aunt Momo into forgetting almost everything she had learned. A side affect of the spell caused her to think her husband's name was Aizen, the fake name he went by in the Court of Pure Souls."
He gently wiped the tears off of Shaolin's face, "Do you see, Shaolin? The former Nobles ratified the decision, but the reason Aunt Momo did not have all her memory was because of a decision made by my Okaasan when she was the leader of the Vaizard, the Dark One."
--------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------
Slowly but surely, the woman known as Momo Kurosaki awoke. She blinked her eyes to adjust to the lamp to the side of her bed. She tried to sit up, but found she couldn't, but kept on trying. On her third attempt, she managed to sit up slightly, but was falling back down almost immediately. However, a strong hand supported her upright for a few moments, before letting her rest on pillows that would allow for her to sit upright. She turned her head to look at the man that had helped her.
His face had both a guilty and sorrowful expression. He rested his head in his hands and said, "Please, Momo, forgive me."
She smiled sadly at the man, "And why would you need forgiveness, Sosuke."
"Because," he replied, "I should have never have hurt you like that. Even if my sister had ordered me to change your memory, I should never have done so.
"Even if I knew that it was foolish to believe that my children would be all right without a father, that they could take care of themselves, I should never have abandoned them in the real world like I did. I knew as well as anyone the types of emotional scarring this would cause them, yet I still abandoned Mizuho and Keigo when I became a Vaizard Noble, a rank equivalent to Captain in Vaizard society.
"And furthermore," he barely managed to choke out, "I should have never tried to kill you on my own nephew's orders. I'm so sorry, Momo."
He felt a pair of arms embrace him, and an angelic voice whisper, "And why would need forgiveness? I have already given it, my Sosuke."
Sosuke's eyes widened and his head shot up, "Momo?"
She smiled slightly at him, "It was my fault, my Sosuke. I should never have panicked like that. I know now that I scared you near to death when that happened. But you must know it wasn't because you are a Vaizard that I was frightened, I was frightened because I did not know if I could handle it, seeing my own children deal with an inner hollow."
He smiled at her, his tears trickling down his cheeks, "I'm relieved, my heart."
She giggled at the nickname, "You're always such a flirt, my Sosuke!" She hugged him tight, "Be sure to thank your nephew for me when you next see him."
His expression grew serious as he asked, "And why do you want to thank him?"
She touched his face with her left hand, "Because, my Sosuke, you trying to kill me, along with the Falcis Victus, helped bring me back around to you." She giggled at his bewildered expression, "Evidently he had placed a Kidou spell on me that would ensure I would not die, and would also make me question why the Vaizard have been persecuted for so long as I lay in a coma in the Fourth Division. The Falcis Victus then let me see an unedited version of my life, allowing me to have an unbiased view on the Vaizard people. That is why I find it so easy to accept, although I do agree that he might have made everything a little bit too overdramatic for my tastes."
They both hugged each other tight. For the next several minutes, they sat in each other's embrace in silence, before Momo spoke back up, "Uh Oh."
"Uh oh what?" asked Sosuke.
She gave him a look that spoke volumes concerning her worry over the matter,
"How are we going to explain this to Mizuho-chan?"
------------------------------------------------------ --------------------------------
"Are you all right now, Shaolin?"
She nodded her head slightly.
He then loosened his grip on her. He gently lifted her head up so that their faces now faced each other. "Are you sure?"
"Hai," she said. "I'm sorry I overreacted like that, Ichigo."
He kissed the top of her forehead, "I'm sorry I over dramatized the meeting with the Shinigami. I knew I didn't need to be flashy like that, but…I just couldn't help myself."
She giggled at this and buried her face in his neck, "That's one of the things that makes me love you, Ichigo."
"I love you too, Shaolin Fon."
She then lifted her head to meet his gaze, her face relaxed and gentle. Ichigo leaned down slightly, before capturing her lips with his own. Shaolin's arms wrapped around his neck, and his wrapped around the small of her back as she moaned and pressed herself tighter in his embrace.
------------------------------ ------------------------------
The two Vaizard men that were playing cards in the lobby outside of Ichigo's Doctor's office exchanged knowing looks when they heard an audible click and sensed that Ichigo had used Kidou to lock and bolt the door and close the blinds. As the younger of the two men began to shuffle the deck of cards, his voice grumbled,
"Lucky bastard."