A Falling Star's Last Wish
C H A P T E R E I G H T
A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.
The room was dimly lit; only the outline of objects could be made. The door slid open; only the black silhouette of the person could be seen. Soft words were whispered to a maid servant before the silhouette stepped inside and the door was closed.
The room lay in silence, and the silence lay on the sore soul of the being standing near the door.
The room was small, but quaint. Many things littered the shelves and tables and floorboards. The figure stepped forward, knowing exactly where she was going in the dim lighting. Her satin covered feet muffled her steps as she quietly, but quickly, walked to her destination.
The room held many objects, but she was only looking for the long black box.
The room was silent once again, but soon filled soft whispered words.
"I have missed you very much, old friend."
The room held a small echo, but the sound settled into silence.
"How long has it been, fifty years?"
The room gave no answer.
"One hundred years?"
The room was in left in silence.
"Natsu has grown into a healthy young man. You would be proud of him…"
The room seemed to shift. She smiled.
"He shall make a wonderful taichou. Do you think He will recognize Natsu? See my features and then His own prominent ones?"
The room shifted again.
"It has been too long since I have seen Him… do you think He remembers me?"
The room laid still.
"Of course he does! You are right. How could I be so foolish?"
The room's dim lighting grew dimmer. She heard the soft knock on the doors wooden frame; the signal that someone was coming. A soft sigh left her lips but she didn't move her hand from the locked black box.
"I shall have you back, Hoshi. I promise you that."
The room stayed silent, but what she heard in her mind was like that of the wedding gong that had signaled the end of her life. But this sound, this sound was the hum, the echo, the word that brought meaning back into her dead life.
…Okitetsu-san…
-starlightstarbright-
Present Day
"Why did I sign up for this?" Tale shouted over the loud crash as she ran through the crowded, war littered streets of a small village. When she had first been given information on the mission in the Rukongai, they said it was a simple go in and exterminate a couple of Hollows that had been hanging around. The file never said anything about the Hollows (that's plural not singular) being as big as Shunsui's office and able to spit out acid.
"He owes me a week of vacation!" she hissed at her captain as she dodged another string of bright green liquid that would burn right through her skin. She had seen the outcome of what it did on the poor souls here in Rukongai and would love for that to not happen to her. Of all the years she had been a shinigami nothing this bad had ever happened. (No, wait, she takes that back. There was that one mission with an Eleventh Division member where she pushed him in front of a Hollow and he ended up losing a few fingers…)
Tale rolled out of the way as a shack came crashing down on her. She hissed when rotten wood block hit her shoulder; there was going to be a bruise there tomorrow. The Hollow that had been chasing her, jumped to another shack and caused the poorly made building to come crashing down in a cloud of dust and mildew. Tale coughed to get the pollution out of her lungs, but barely just dodged a sharp-clawed swipe going for her middle.
Where was that backup she had called for?
The Hollow gave out a high pitched screech, causing Tale to cringe and cover her ears. She didn't dodge the second swipe. Sickly yellow claws dug into her side; she couldn't hold back the scream. And then the vision of destruction was tainted by a bright pink of a floral kimono that she knew only one certain person would wear.
"I think it's my turn to play, now."
Tale let out a sigh of relief at the sound of her captain's voice. She lay on the ground, one hand pressing against the fabric just barely covering her bleeding side. Only one of the claws had done much damage, but the depth of the wound was what made it so bad. Tale winced when a tremor shook the ground and caused her to press on the wound harder than needed.
The last Hollow gave one more screech before Shunsui gave one last swipe of the sealed Katen Kyokotsu. Quickly, he resheathed his zanpakuto; Tale soon found herself being lifted into the strong, warm arms of her captain her fingers digging into the black kimono fabric barely covering his chest. Except something didn't feel right…
"Wait," she demanded, but her voice was weak. Her vision was growing blurry. Shunsui looked down at her, confusion causing his brows to furrow into the middle of his forehead.
"Yes, hime-chan?"
"My badge…" she mumbled, moving her right hand to grip at the bare skin on her upper left bicep. Shunsui chuckled, but understood completely. Kneeling down into the dirt beside the bronze badge, Tale reached over (wincing the entire time as the ripped skin on her side pulled) and grabbed it. She placed the symbol of honor against her stomach beside her zanpakuto, and simply let the rush of air whip her messy hair around.
-thefirststariseetonight-
When Tale began to reawaken from her lack-of-blood caused fatigue, there was a fury of different words. Many were yelled, some spoken on soft tones, other said in simple voices at simple pitches of an unknown octave. But the sounds were not what caught her attention; instead, the familiar rich smell of jasmine and vanilla sugar made her eyes blink open to find a familiar mocha skin-tone teenage boy grinning at her from under a mess of royal purple hair.
"Ryuu-kun?" she whispered, surprised to see her little brother.
"Onee-chan!" Ryuunosuke wrapped his thin arms around his older sister's neck, happy to finally see her awake. Tale huffed out a breath of air in surprise, but embraced the boy nonetheless. The conversations that had been going on stopped; she looked around, seeing four pairs of eyes looking in on the pair. Slowly, Tale sat up, wincing and grabbing her side. Ryuunosuke eagerly sat on the edge of the bed beside his sister, observing all the new things about her that he hadn't seen in the last few decades of not seeing her.
He held her hand, tracing the scars that wrapped around her wrists and forearm. He traced a few of them before touching the rough calluses on the palms of her hands. Ryuu glanced over at the yellow hilted kodachi that he had seen only a handful of times since his onee-chan had first been blessed with it.
"You bastard…"
Tale looked up, eyes wide with shock as she watched Shihouin Amishiko walk into the hospital room.
"You bastard!" Amishiko turned away from her daughter and to the nonchalant looking Shunsui. Her well manicured hand was balled into a fist raised above her well-groomed head. "How dare you do this to my daughter! Now she will never marry Keshemu-dono!"
The group of four (not including Ryuunosuke or Amishiko) stared in absolute disgust, shock, or a mixture of the two at the duchess.
"I will never marry that pig!" Tale shouted at her mother, moving Ryuu to the side as she moved to stand. Neither Shunsui nor Juushiro could stop the stubborn lieutenant before it was too late and she was standing. Amishiko turned back around, her face uglied with a look of rage. "The day I marry that beast is the day I die!"
"You will marry that man even if it means making you wear concealer to cover those disgusting marks that these monsters have put on you!"
Tale would not have any more of her mother's words.
"The monsters that put these scars on me were the ones I was protecting your royal ass from! It is because of me that you continue to live, mother! And I will continue to do so! Father put me into Shino Academy with my future in mind."
"And with your father now passed, his attempts on your future were made in vain!"
Silence seemed to have taken over the world.
Tale didn't know whether to cry or laugh in irony. Amishiko's hard expression softened, regretting that her only daughter had to find out such a thing the way she did.
"What has happened to my darling doll? You used to walk like a butterfly on a fresh spring morning. You used to speak with such elegance, and now you are dirtying your precious voice with curses of the warriors!"
Tale turned away from her mother, not able to look at both her mother nor her captain and his closest friend standing behind her. Ume Ioshi finally stepped in after seeing that the stress of the situation had caused Tale's wound to open up once again.
"I do apologize, Shihouin-dono, but I must ask you to leave. My patient needs to rest, not arguments."
Amishiko said no more before waving Ryuu to follow and walked out the door. Tale couldn't watch. And then the tears began to flow.
How long had her father been dead? She had been so out of contact with her own family that she missed her father's own passing. Ioshi sat beside the emotionally drained shinigami, placing a gentle head on the girl's shoulder to show she was there. Shunsui, not being able to tolerate watching such a young girl cry in front of him, stepped forward and rested his hand on her head. He felt the silk like purple locks of her hair.
Tale looked up, her topaz eyes dead to the world. Juushiro stepped out of the room.
"Whatever you decide on, I shall support you no matter what, hime-chan."
She couldn't hide the small smile of thanks before she began to cry harder.
It was an ultimatum that she could not make a decision on; she refused to make a decision! How could she pick between her life as a shinigami, fighting the evil forces of the Hollows and protecting the souls of the world, and that of a princess that was to do as she was told the first time she was told it? Tale had changed over the century she had been in the Seireitei.
"Ume-taichou…" Tale spoke soft, her voice laced with tears. She rubbed her cheeks, the salt making them itch. "May I go back to my barracks?"
Ioshi did not reply before giving a small nod that Tale did not see. Ioshi answered, "Of course."
Tale disappeared with the familiar rush of air that told she had done the quickest way to get away from someone – shunpo. Except Tale did not return to her barracks, or the Shihouin household; instead, she found herself on her knees, holding the aching wound on her side as she stared at the headstone of her just-informed late father. Five years… it had been five years since his death. How many times had she spoken with her family in the last five years? Once, maybe twice if she remembered to update them on things going on in the Seireitei.
Family was the most important thing to her, but she ignored her own like the human plague.
Author's Note:
Yay! Another chapter! Aren't you happy?
I would like to thank everyone who has reviewed and subscribed so far! You've all made me very happy. I might even get another chapter out by tonight… Just depends.
:iamsosneakyplz:
This chapter was a little slow, more of a filler, but there was a big foreshadow!
Did anyone catch it? ;3
xoxo. Apples.