Cherry Petals ~サクランボノハナビラ~
貧乏な暗殺者 ~白哉~ (The Poor Assassin ~Byakuya~)
Dreams are usually incoherent and nonsensical.
They do not explain why things happen in a certain manner, nor do they try to make sense.
They are wild things you have no control over.
So, tell me the truth.
Look into my eyes and tell me.
I won't be mad at you, really.
Tell me that I would eventually wake up.
I guess it all happened too quickly. I wasn't even able to figure out how I managed to react in such a defensive manner the moment I opened my eyes. I flashed her a hostile look when she asked me if I was already feeling better; I hit her hand hard when she tried to reach out for my clothes; I yelled at her when she gave me something to eat. I didn't know what to do. I didn't like the way she approached me – I rather if she just left me alone to do whatever I should do.
The girl was pale-skinned and had slight gray rings under her eye as if she had not received enough sleep the night before. Her hair was straight and unkempt – she probably didn't have a comb to maintain a neater hairstyle. The light violet yukata she was wearing had morning glory patterns at the sides of her waist, accompanied by a pastel yellow-colored sash. She had very sharp and thin facial features; some parts of her face were not easily visible as they were concealed under her long, dark-colored fringe.
"I'll," She spoke again, this time a little less cheerful than her first few greetings.
"Don't talk to me. I don't even know you," I stared aimlessly at the scenery outside. It seemed like there were plenty of trees with really dark green leaves. The atmosphere felt like we were right in the middle of summer; the cicadas were chirping a common melody and the heat waves were penetrating the dilapidated hut mercilessly. All of these seemed a bit nostalgic, for a strange reason.
"I'll leave. I don't mean any harm but please eat something," She took a slight bow and went down the wooden steps in her clogs.
The hut was still filled with the cackling sounds coming from the burning of the firewood at the stoves. I wonder if I happen to have good hearing – I could hear birds flapping their wings as they depart their nest in search for food. It was perfectly logical to behave that way towards a stranger, isn't it? She might be an assassin hired by our envious distant relatives to get rid of the sole Kuchiki heir, right?
That's right, she must be an assassin sent down from those relatives who want the leader position all for themselves. Such incidents are common amongst families with high nobility; where the fight for power and foothold often led to gruesome bloodshed. Her innocent eyes, that shabby-looking yukata and this deserted rundown hut are all but a façade. This place, this entire scenery I am looking at, must have been some kind of preset plan to take my life.
Then again, if she was really an assassin…
And if she really was an assassin like the usual ones I've heard from the Secret Ops…
She would be lurking somewhere in those thick hedges, masking up her presence while she preys like a leopard. She would wait stealthily; savoring the moment I gobble up this bowl of runny porridge because I would be acting exactly as 'planned'. It must have been drugged so that I would be knocked unconscious and she could come back up here, tie me against the tree trunk and slit my throat with a hidden dagger in her sash.
There is something strange about this 'assassin' though.
Why is it I can still detect her weak reiatsu hiding under the window?
Why does she have to make it so obvious that she was peeping from the gaps of the wooden planks?
Are her assassination skills that amateurish?
Was she so terrible at performing something fundamental like camouflage?
I did the action of placing tiny spoonfuls of the porridge into my mouth when in actual fact I wasn't eating a single bit. I was luring her back into the hut in an attempt to rip her seemingly flawless bait into pieces. Even without looking at her directly in the eye, I could sense that she was smiling to herself as if her devious plan had worked.
Wait till you see what I have in store for you, you despicable thing.
As her wooden clogs echoed across the hut, I planned my ambush quickly. I knew she had concealed my blade somewhere in the house and I wouldn't have time to locate it – I hid behind the door with a pair of chopsticks and held my breath. I happened to create a momentary illusion of myself still enjoying the runny porridge with my clothes, so that she would be distracted for a while.
"Excuse me, are you feeling…" She called out courteously at the illusion with a pair of concerned eyes.
I dashed towards her neck and grabbed it with my left hand before she could finish her sentence. The low-level assassin froze in terror and trembled as soon as she saw my other hand pointing the chopstick towards her neck.
"Who sent you here?" I hissed coldly at the thin frame.
"Heh? You? " The girl recognized my voice and felt puzzled because she was staring at the life-sized illusion I created a split second ago.
"Hurry! Speak!" I drove the chopstick closer to her neck and grabbed it tighter.
"I don't know? Some Shinigami I suppose?" She gave a vague answer. An assassin wouldn't give me such stupid replies. This is really some cheap and rookie assassin, I guess.
"Name?"
"They don't have names? They just send you down to Soul Society after you die, right?"
Something that she said wasn't making sense. In fact, she's too thin to be an assassin.
"What are you talking about?" I frowned impatiently as I waited for her response.
"Shinigami…" Her breathless voice came out weakly. I could see that the neck area was about to turn blue very soon – I loosen a little so that she can continue to reply my questions.
"No," I have to be more obvious with my sentences because she's too dim to understand what's going on.
"I'm asking you who hired you to kill me,"
"Oh, haha. That, " She broke into a soft laughter.
This means…she's really here to kill me?
She's even mocking my statement!
"I'm not here to kill you, silly," She remained still, even when her voice was shivering in fear.
"Silly? How dare you…!"
Why are you calling me silly when you are the stupid one?
"Well, at least if you really think I'm an assassin then you should kill me now when you are able to," She didn't seem too afraid now. In fact, I wasn't too prepared when she actually phrased her words in a way she wanted to die real badly.
I suppose she's just some commoner then. An assassin would have reacted reflexively towards my offensive attacks just now.
"So you are not?"
"Of course…" She flashed a serious look for a while. Indeed, she's a…!
"I'm not. Did I manage to fool you?" She laughed again, her tears rolling out uncontrollably. I let go of my hand and splashed scoops of water on it. I couldn't believe how that girl couldn't stop laughing at the incident just now, perhaps it was her way of relieving herself from the shock she experienced just now.
"And you thought the porridge was poisoned, " She giggled as she placed one spoonful into her mouth.
"If I die, it means I really am an assassin, " She started laughing all over again.
"Stop that," I didn't like the way she was now mocking at my erratic paranoia.
"Urgh!" She grabbed her throat and rolled her eyes in a fashion as if she had taken some lethal poison. She rolled on the floor struggling to catch a breather. Then she sat up and looked into my frowning expression with a cheeky smirk on her face. "An assassin, huh." She smiled to herself again and crawled carefully towards the untouched bowl of porridge.
What an annoyingly rude girl.
"Eat. You need energy to get home," She looked up with her large violet eyes, and placed the wooden spoon on the tray.
"I…" I peered down at the milky colored liquid. Porridge in my context seemed a little more solid-like, with visible pounded rice grains.
"Or is it that fairies don't eat this? Then, what do fairies eat?" She looked at me with an eager expression.
So I mistook her for an assassin and she thinks I'm a fairy.
It isn't too bad being a fairy, is it?
"We eat really luxurious stuff," I lied to her with a deadpan expression, as if it was a matter of fact.
"Really? Like?"
"Anmitsu,"
"Sounds yummy. What's that?"
"You mean…you don't know what is anmitsu?" I stared at her with a sense of disbelief. How could a person not know what anmitsu is? Isn't it one of the more popular desserts in…
I realised that anmitsu was something only the noble families in Soul Society could afford.
A rundown hut like this, would definitely not know of such stuff.
"Nope,"
Somehow, we ended up chitchatting. It wasn't exactly a friendly conversation – she would ask a lot of questions and I would pick some of them to answer. I do not like to talk to her, but I know she wouldn't stop asking if I said nothing. From her responses, she seemed like a real country bumpkin, almost oblivious to every foodstuff I brought up. She still believes that I'm some being from a celestial realm and that is why the names sound so foreign to her. She would try to picture some of the descriptions in her head and would end up with nothing because she hasn't even seen the raw ingredients before.
"Ah! Shall we go out on the streets to search for your food?" The girl clapped her hands as she made the sudden suggestion.
"What?"
"I'm pretty sure if we look for it in Rukongai, we will find something similar!" She smiled as she placed her hands around the bowl. I grabbed those frail hands unconsciously. It seemed like she was a bit sad that I didn't touch the porridge at all.
"I'll…"
"Hmm? It's okay; I'll leave it on the basin. I can always heat it up later and finish it,"
"No, I'll eat it," I took away the wooden spoon and drank it down – I didn't know I was that hungry that the semi-liquefied food tasted really good even though it was just morsels of rice and a lot of water.
"It must have tasted terrible, right?" She stood up and rinsed the bowl with water.
"Not…really,"
"You are too nice. By the way, you passed out that day along with this sword," She brought out Senbonzakura from the drawer.
"It must be something really important to you because you held on it so tightly," She commented as she pushed the blade towards me.
I took the blade quietly and looked around. I couldn't find my Shinigami hakama – she must have stashed it away somewhere too, I suppose.
"Ah your clothes! I took it out to dry so meanwhile you can wear these clothes. It's from the granny's son who left for Seireitei some time ago. Go get changed and we'll head down to Rukongai okay!"
I couldn't quite understand what she was trying to say.
Head down to Rukongai? Isn't this place Rukongai?
"Rukongai, a place where you can find almost everything. Ah! They also happen to have some Obon festival going on in the evening – we can go visit it too! I'll dress something nice today then," She frantically searched for a better-looking yukata in her wardrobe.
"We don't have a room here, so…I'll change here while you change outside okay? No peeping!" She pushed me down the hollow steps and closed the door. I put on the spare summer yukata that she had told me to wear. The material used was coarse and the needlework was slipshod – it was not even close to the ones we have back in the Manor.
"Isn't this place Rukongai?" I asked curiously, hoping that she would be able to provide me with an answer.
"Ah, no it's not. We are at the suburbs of Rukongai," She shouted towards the window.
"Suburbs?"
"Yep. This is Inuzuri, to be exact, " The voice that came out of the window replied promptly. I climbed up those steps carefully while I tried to digest her sentence.
Jii-sama, could you do me a favour?
Could you shake me real hard and wake me up with a bucket of cold water and reveal that it was a test of vigilance? How can I, a member of the Kuchiki family, visit a low-classed place like Inuzuri?
Don't test me like this, Jii-sama.
"Can I enter now?" I asked with my head leaning close to the door. I told myself that I probably should feign ignorance about the operations of this world to find out what she's really up to.
"Sure,"
"So, girl from Inuzuri," I called out to her as I sensed her picking up her fallen sash on the floor. As the door opened, I thought my eyes were playing games with me. That beautiful yukata that she was donning must have been some stolen loot from a rich family. The intricate designs and embroidery didn't even resemble that of Rukongai – it must be from one of the Royal families' craftsmen.
"Ah. I have a name, you know?" She pouted and crossed her arms.
For an instant, I thought the patterns and swirls on the yukata looked a little too familiar. I have definitely seen them somewhere. Indeed, this must be some stolen item from one of the families.
"I don't want to know," I must have looked awkward when I turned my head away from the sight of her face.
Pink yukata, a pair of violet eyes and weird laughing habits.
Who are you? Why do you seem so familiar?
A part of me seemed to know the answer, but it didn't want to reveal the truth to me.
Inuzuri-girl, I would prefer if you just walk up to me now and tell me that all of these are not real.
That you are a figment of a distant past and that I would wake up very soon.
At least, it won't be too painful later.
"Oh," She pondered for a while before she looked at my face cautiously, as if she was waiting for a reaction to occur.
"In that case, let's head outside, Fairy-san! I can show you what's Rukongai is like!" She rushed out of the house as soon as she changed into the pair of dark wooden clogs from the cupboard.
Why do we always get curious over things that are located on the other side of the wall?
Why am I keen to follow this girl in the pink yukata as if we were never strangers?
Jii-sama, I don't know why I'm doing this.
If you are about to wake me up, don't.
Let me stay in this dream world a little longer.
yu-pon's notes:
In any case I shocked someone with an email notification that a chapter is back up, I apologise deeply (haha).
Hello~I'm sorry for keeping you waiting for a chapter.
Thank you for coming to this chapter, and thank you for reading!
I have to do some translations here.
Anmitsu is mentioned somewhere in the middle of the story. Well anmitsu is a Japanese dessert, with Azuki red beans, jelly cubes, syrup and fruits! (it's sweet) I know, Byakuya-san doesn't like sweet stuff right (there should be one chapter to explain why haha). It's not expensive, really - like 700 yen? Anmitsu just came up to my head because I had it like a week ago (oops) Let's just assume it's something really dear in Soul Society, okay? XDD
Last but not least, thank you for the reviews!
You guys are really sweet~ I hope to see everyone in the next chapter okay!
ほなおつー
yu-pon~