18. The lost Temple
Sneezing, Kotetsu Isane awoke in an unfamiliar bed. A ray of light had been tickling her nose.
"Oh, good morning fuku-taicho. I hope you did not catch another cold", came a very familiar voice from the other end of the room.
"Good morning, Unohana-taicho. No, it was just the sun. How long have I been asleep?"
"You slept through the whole night for the past 12 hours, Isane. You really needed the rest", Unohana responded kindly while taking a seat right beside Isane on the futon and taking a thorough look at her.
"You really have to take better care of yourself, fuku-taicho. Who else is going to assist me otherwise?" the taicho scolded slightly.
"Unohana-sama, I am fine. And I do take care of myself."
"I see. And because you can take such good care of yourself, you neglected to sleep for over a week and before that almost killed yourself by using a forbidden kido while in order to learn that, you got sick several times over the past months and lied to me about your true health condition several times. Have I left out anything in your favor, my dear fuku-taicho?"
Was it just Isane's hurt pride or was her taicho really mocking her right now? Aside from that, it sounded so much worse what Isane had done over the past months, hearing it in such a wrapped up fashion. Then again, Unohana Retsu should be shouting at her, give her a severe punishment or several while she is at it, and not be sitting beside her on a bed, being kind and patient as ever towards her. These thoughts made Isane blush deeply and right now, she wished a hole would turn up in which she could hide along with her shame.
Being concerned about the sudden color change in her fuku-taicho's face, Unohana lifted Isane's chin with one hand to look straight into her face while using the other to feel her forehead.
"Hm, you don't seem to have a fever right now. Still, maybe I should examine you just to make sure, you are not coming down with something new", Unohana voiced her concern.
"No, taicho-sama!" Isane was close to yelling while jumping out of her taicho's reach and the bed.
"I am fine. Really. Trust me."
"I shall trust you? Now, why would I do that, Kotetsu-fuku-taicho? As I just said, you were not particularly honest with me in matters of your own health lately", Unohana retorted with a very dangerous smile on her face.
Isane gulped very hard, realizing that the time of her punishment was near and there would be no easy way out of this situation. If she wasn't careful, she would make the situation even worse for herself. Shaking her head as if to get rid of these scaring thoughts, the fuku-taicho tried to regain some self-control, kneeled down and lowered her face to the ground.
"Unohana-taicho. I apologize for what I have done. I swear, it was never my attention to hurt anyone, least you. I am very sorry about what had happened."
While saying these words, the fuku-taicho remaind in this humbled position. She did not dare to look her beloved taicho-sama into the face. If she did, she felt she would die out of embarrassment and guilt.
"So, what you are saying is, that you regret that I got sick, but not the fact that you did not tell the truth. Neither about your research or your health?", Unohana asked with a danger in her voice, Isane had never heard before.
"Of course..., of course I regret that too! It was never my intention to lie to you. Really."
"Then why did you do it? Why all this secrecy, Isane?"
"Because..."
"Yes?"
"Because I wanted to be of better help to you, Unohana-taicho. And I wanted you to be proud of me."
Finally the inner dam was broken and Isane started to reveal the whole story. How she began to feel useless to her taicho and her decision to become a better healer. What she had discovered in the library and how she had started to practice her new skills without anyone realizing it. And about her reluctance to tell Unohana about it before having achieved anything.
Hearing Isane's story the pieces finally fell into place: Isane's strange behavior, her untruthfulness, her constant sleeplessness. In fact, the whole story reminded Unohana of another young shinigami she once had known - herself. Feeling now a tremendous relieve that she had not lost her fuku-taicho's respect and trust Unohana got down beside her fuku-taicho and lifted Isane's head so that they could look into each other's eyes.
"Isane, please come with me. There is something I need to show you", she said smiling kindly at the younger shinigami.
Isane was now at a complete loss. Wasn't she going to be punished? She had to tell her story and that was it? Unohana must have seen the puzzled look on her face because she elaborated:
"Isane, due to your actions you got sick several times up to the point of almost losing your life. In addition to that you made a lot of people worry sick about you. Now tell me with that kind and loving heart of yours, how could I punish you in a more severe way than your conscience is already punishing you?"
Isane couldn't find an answer to that. It fact she was dumbstruck by these true words. She did feel bad: not so much because she had risked her own life, but because she had made Unohana worry about her and got her seriously sick. Of course she wouldn't tell her taicho about that particular thought right now. She feared, she would be in even more trouble then. Unohana on the other hand did not need to hear Isane speak these words: she knew very well what was going on in her fuku-taicho's head.
Isane always had a habit of putting the wellbeing of other people first, no matter what the risks would be for herself. That was the reason, she become such an excellent healer. However, now Unohana felt the need of setting Isane's priorities straight or otherwise she would really lose her beloved fuku-taicho some day. Smiling serenely and calmly at her again, the older woman put a hand on her fuku-taicho's back, thus leading her out of the room and her quarters.
"Please Isane, follow me."
Isane had no idea, where the two of them were going. As soon as they had left the house, both had used shunpo to leave the city. That had been an hour ago and now they were moving across an ancient looking wood. Suddenly Unohana's steps returned to normal speed and so did Isane's.
"Taicho-sama, may I ask where we are, or better, where we are going to?"
"We are going to the place where I had first learned about healing kido Isane."
"You learned here in these woods something about healing?"
This piece of information confused Isane slightly. How was it possible that Unohana-taicho had learned something about healing here, at this forgotten place? There was simply nothing the eye could see that could provide some learning material basis. Not that she would put it passed Unohana's abilities to always learn something, no matter where she was. But still, these old trees looked as interesting as the pebble stones right outside of squad four, and Isane had never found anything interesting to learn from them either.
"Not exactly here. But right behind those trees over there is an old temple where I used to study for a while."
Ah, now that made more sense. However, it did not answer Isane's question why her taicho was bringing her to this old place. They walked for another ten minutes until they reached the wood's border and stepped out into the bright sunlight again. The sight in front of them let Isane gasp for her breath.
"Taicho-sama, what has happened here?"
Isana had expected to see an old but beautiful temple, shinigami walking around or sitting on benches studying old scripts and books. Instead she was standing in front of huge ruins, scorch marks everywhere. The single pieces of walls still standing looked like breaking apart any moment. It was a devastating view.
"This Isane was the temple of Kurondai, a place for priests and scientists alike who dedicated their life to research the secrets of life."
"Why was it burned down?"
"Because the desire to manipulate life and death overwhelmed some of the men and women living here and thus it was decided to eradicate this place as a warning for future shinigamis never to attempt such a thing again. I wanted to show you something else beside the former main entrance - please come with me to the back of the old temple grounds."
It turned out that the temple grounds were massive in size. The two of them walked in silence for another 20 minutes until Unohana signaled the reaching of their goal. Right in front of them stood several tomb stones.
"Unohana-taicho, are these graves? Who is buried here?"
Isane could not make heads nor tail out of what she saw standing right in front of her. Shinigami do not bury their dead. When a shinigami dies - usually in battle - their soul would return to earth, where they would live another life and create new memories, while their bodies would simply disappear. Thus shinigami did not have a tradition of burying each other, though they grieved for their lost friends and sometimes built some kind of memorial for them.
"Inside these graves rest the bodies of the ten shinigami who died developing kido 113 - Phoenix of Hell."
"I do not understand. How can their bodies be buried here, if they are dead?"
"Fuku-taicho, have you figured out by now, how this particular kido spell works?"
"Well of course", Isane answered a little abashed. "At first, the healer has to transform his own reiatsu to match the patient's one. After that the healer is able to heal any wounds instantly and perfectly."
"Yes, but that is only half the truth", Unohana answered with a notch of sadness in her voice.
"Isane, do you remember your lessons at the academy, in which they taught you that for healing kido spells the reiatsu of a healer could never be as strong as the reiatsu of the patient himself and thus the healer always needs more of this energy than the wound would otherwise require?"
"Yes, Unohana-taicho. I remember that. The teachers said it had something to do with the body needing to transform the healing reiatsu so that it could work properly. But I still do not understand. Using this kido spell, I transformed my reiatsu so that it matched my patients'."
"Indeed you did. However, no matter how far you have accomplished this skill, your reiatsu would still never be 100 percent perfectly the same, because your soul is not the same. So, you still need to use more reiatsu to heal someone else's injuries than the wounded would have to spend healing himself. Apart from that, did you notice anything strange after having used this kido spell?"
"Let me think about it. Well, I found it strange that some of my patients thought I had healed them on parts I did not even examine and certainly did not treat."
"In truth you did Isane. By transforming your own energy you allowed your reiatsu to spread through your patient's entire body. And wherever something was amiss, it would heal. Now, this may sound great at first, but think about it. Your reiatsu is used to heal every tiny wound or injury, using up your energy at a level many times higher than the injury itself requires. And you as a healer have no way of foretelling, how much reiatsu you are actually going to spend performing this kido, because the more you need to transform it to match, the more you are going to spend. That is, why you got sick after healing only some minor injuries. Do you understand now?"
"I think I do, though I still do not know what that has to do with these graves you are showing me here Unohana-taicho."
"These ten shinigami died using Phoenix of Hell, Isane. They died the same way that I almost lost you, because they did not know how this spell exactly worked. Another side effect, the remaining scientists discovered later was, that when a shinigami dies spending his or her entire reiatsu, their soul would not return to the human world but would be lost for all eternity without a chance of ever living a life again."
At these words Isane's eyes widened in shock. She had not realized before how close she had been to lose her life forever. Now finally the message sunk in, why Unohana had made her promise to never use that kido again. However, one question remained:
"Unohana, if that spell is such a great risk, why have I been able to find enough information about it in the public library?"
"Ah, a very good question, my dear fuku-taicho. Am I correct that you only found basic information how the spell was supposed to work but not any specific information about how to manipulate your own reiatsu to match those of others?"
"Hai, taicho-sama. It was very confusing that this particular information was missing. It cost me a great deal of time to figure that part out on my own."
"Under any other circumstance I would compliment you on your achievement, but not in this instance. Before the temple was burned down, it was decided to keep a copy of the here gathered knowledge in the library. However, the scripts and books were modified in a way so that nobody, except those who were personally taught in these techniques, could use them.
To be precise only the head healer of Seireitei is supposed to know how to use this kido spell and of course my successor as soon as I would decide to have one. It never occured to me or our superiors for that matter, that a single shinigami could figure out the workings of this techniques through sheer stubbornness and hard work."
Isane could not help but blush at these words again. Now she finally understood, what she had actually done and why it had been so difficult to reach that goal. She was never supposed to get this far. Falling down on her knees, Isane started to apologize again, something she felt she would be doing for a long time coming.
"I am so sorry taicho-sama. I truly did not realize that I did something that was this dangerous and thus forbidden. I am very sorry."
Unohana leveled herself with her fuku-taicho, smiling warmly and gently at Isane.
"I know Isane. And I believe and forgive you. Now, I want you to promise me two more things. First of all, you must never talk with anyone beside me about what you have learned here today nor about the kido spell at all. You already promised me to never use it again, but you have to understand that no one is supposed to know about it at all besides me."
"Hai, Unohana-taicho. I promise."
"Second, and you better not forget this Isane, you have to swear to me, that you will never lie to me again, in particular when your own health is concerned. I want you to come straight to me, if you feel that something is off. Even if you have the feeling that it is something minor and does not deserve or require my attention. Is that understood?"
"Taicho-sama, that is not necess..."
And suddenly Isane found herself pressed down with her face on the ground again. Unohana-taicho had released a part of her own powerful reiatsu, signaling that there was no room for arguments here.
"Isane, I will not repeat myself. I want you to let me take care of you whenever you get sick and not only when you are close to losing your life. You are way too important for me to have you risk your own health in such a foolish way. Now, will you obey my orders?"
That of course was a rather rhetorical question as Isane could hardly say no in such a situation. The fuku-taicho managed to nod her head signaling her obedience and slowly she felt the pressure go away.
"I swear, I will never lie to you about my health condition and that I will seek your help whenever I feel getting sick", came the very quiet voice from the ground.
"Unohana-taicho, I still do not understand. Why had you made me swear that? I am not such an important shinigami, I am not even a taicho", Isane pleaded, confusion plainly showing on her face.
Unohana couldn't help but sigh deeply hearing this nonsense.
"Kotetsu Isane, you are my fuku-taicho. You are the person I rely most upon when there is a health crisis in Seireitei. Over the years we have worked together, you have grown to be the most stable factor in my life and work. Don't you see that I depend on your well-being as everyone else is depending on my skills to heal them?
That is why you are so important to me. And that is why I need to trust you to tell me the truth. Always. I know that I am only your taicho and sometimes your mentor, but you should know by now that you can always come to me and confide in me - not only when you hunted by nightmares or when you have trouble with your fellow shinigamis, but anytime you need someone to talk to."
At first Isane could not believe what she was hearing. She was important to Unohana-sama, her taicho? But it must have been true, because no matter how hard she looked, she could not find any opposing evidence in Unohana's eyes or face. Yes, she was the supporting pillar for her taicho. And she swore to herself, that this is, what she always wanted to be. And she would continue to improve her healing skills to be of even greater help and support. Just, from now on she would be working with her taicho together and not against her.
"Let's go home Isane. I think squad four had to hold out long enough without its taicho and fuku-taicho", Unohana said smiling kindly while slowly starting to walk back to Seireitei.
"Hai, Unohana-taicho", Isane responded with a genuine smile on her face, she did not have before in a very long time.
THE END