Part Two: Whispering Pains of Rains Unknown
"Stop it! Stop hurting her I beg you! She didn't know, but I have it here! Let her go and I'll give it to you! Oh Rin! Oh Rin, you foolish woman! Why did you suffer this? Why didn't you give in, I would've understood! Oh, to hell with that oath and your protector's pride, they've half killed you!" The words had been quick, rushed out and yet filled with the sorrow in Ivann's heart. They had been some of the last he'd ever said, and she had done nothing but stare into the room like a zombie. She had seen Vladimir step into the room with Sergei in his wake, and she had felt her son grab her and the taste of his bitter tears had been present on the edge of her blood soaked mouth. But still she had done nothing, she was broken and torn and dead on the inside. The crystal had been given to Vlad and Dmitri had grabbed the screaming Sergei, who'd just kicked him in the shin. But from nowhere the blade of Vlad had pierced Ivann's chest and he had fallen in front of Rin as Shoji had so long ago; Rin had done nothing till then, only to realise that her right arm and both legs were broken, and as she had come around Sergei had been taken away to Hueco Mundo where the soul reaper rebels seemed to keep slipping!
* * *
"They're not behind Bernstein, not really! He's just hiding behind them, but I don't know what to do! Ivann, you were right!" Rin sighed as she stood beneath the blossom tree that shaded her from the May sunshine. Its purple and black coloured flowers were so unique that she could not help but notice how beautifully they bloomed as they dropped from the branches and onto the graves. "I would return but for my oaths! How could I look at my masters and betters there? How could I turn around and tell them my brother and my dear saviour died because I froze? How could I look them in the eye and confess that? How could I even dare to look at Kenpachi? How?"
There were four graves, though one was simply a stone column for Rin's own sake. They lay together just aside of the tree, silent and yet serene as she spoke her worries to them. It was not as if they could stand and speak back to her, but Rin wished them to! She stood in front of Ivann's grave, two-years-old though it looked freshly made; she was always talking to his grave as she had promised him. But though no voice of death spoke, the grassy patches and Glacier flowers around the raves seemed to strain in the wind towards her words.
"If I return, how will they react, huh? They'll probably think I ran away and will have exiled me! Or they'd think I was dead! If I did return I'd have to remain in my disguise, even with that on I still look like my brother…."
* * *
"That's an interesting use for your spare spiritual powers, Rin. I would never have believed you could manipulate excess spiritual pressure to do that! Not to mention there's barely a sense of your spirit levels with all of that on! It's a clever way to keep hidden, after-all; women are easy targets in mercenary squads!" The three scientists had mused over Rin's disguise, proud to have assisted at least in some of it, and proud that Rin was smart like them!
Rin had stared at herself in the mirror ad been quite amazed. The weighted jacket, the wrist and ankle bands, the spirit energy consumed necklace, the hat, the eye patch, the great heavy-shouldered coat, and the belt were not as heavy as she had thought. Her spiritual strength was still at a strong enough level to rival a lieutenant, but she was not feeling ill like she usually did when it built up with time. The mask was also doing a great task, though she had been surprised how well it had worked in forming an image over her womanly build to make her appear exactly like a man. As long as the mask was on, no one would ever know, but at the same time she could never remove the old collar that Captain Urahara had created and Akon and Mayuri had helped develop! But at the same time she could see something terrible in the mirror, something that made her eyes watery with tears.
"An amazing twist of technologies isn't it, Rin? I didn't think my Bounto powers would be of much help, but it seems they did quite a good job at hiding your spiritual pressure! Plus I think that eye-patch might help you out when your eye does that funny thing where you can't see in it! The coat and belt don't look too bad, and overall you do make a smashing man! Not that I mean anything by it, so stopping giggling Yarol!" Igor boasted happily as he gave the coat a little tug, and then he had a closer look of the bands that were coated in a thin layer of spiritual pressure repelling items, all needed by Rin to stop her pressure going mad. It was not unique for soul reapers to sometimes have a massive amount of uncontrollable spiritual energy, and some had good concentration skills for it, but with Rin she could only hold it so well before loosing her concentration in dangerous situations, and other times she could not even be around others because it was too strong! But now Igor had noticed something in Rin's face and was suddenly trying to bite his own tongue. He began waving his arms around as he panicked over what he might have done wrong. "What's wrong? I didn't mean you look better as a man or anything, I didn't man to make you space out either!"
"Thank you Igor, please excuse my day-dreaming. I was… I was just thinking about my brother…" Rin softly whispered in the gentlest voice she had ever had before she'd adopted Sergei. At that time she had only been out of the Seretei for five years, and the fact that she could see herself as her brother in the mirror was just starting to remind her of how she could never get back there. Tears streamed down her cheeks though she made no sound, something she was quite good at doing with the years, and Igor was starting to back up with Yaroslavl in case Rin wanted to be left alone. But it was Ivann who spoke and held her close to him as though he was not afraid of the insane fighting spirit and fiery temper within the seemingly fragile young woman.
"There's no need to worry, dear Rin, you'll not have to tell anyone about it here. A mistake was made, and we must learn from these things to prevent them continuing in the rest of our lives. Do not fear, and do not worry about crying either, dear lady!" Ivann's voice was not laced with a Russian accent, though he was from St Petersburg in the far northwest; instead it was the softest and most calming voice with an undertone of great wisdom and power, a voice like a guardian angel rather then a scientist from the Soviet Union's Soul Society. As he held Rin close to his tall but non-muscular form, his great and strangely golden eyes clouded and watered themselves as Rin pressed close into his side, weeping gently. Ivann then found himself staring into the mirror, at his curiously useless glasses and straw-like blonde hair that he was starting to consider tying up.
"Thank you… It means a lot for you to tell me that." Rin muttered softly and sorrowfully. She pressed in tighter to Ivann, almost slotting into place by his armpit, leaning her head on his chest as she wept uncontrollably. Her tears were making a grey patch on Ivann's white lab coat, but he was holding Rin in return, almost as if he had needed a hug too and he looked back in the mirror as the hat slid off of her head and the mask dropped with it, making Rin look like a woman again. Ivann gave another gentle sigh and then he wrapped himself around her, patting her back gently and swaying as they stood together.
"It's not a problem, and remember it well my friend. Though you've pledged your life to save mine, don't blame yourself if you cannot fulfil that. It is simply a joy to have a very smart young woman around us, especially when we were all a little worried that you were not going to survive in the first place."
* * *
"I don't know if they'd accept me, considering. I wanted to try and think I could return back then, but I knew it would never work, even when the boarders opened. Even when I met another soul reaper I'd thought was dead already! You knew I wanted to return, didn't you? Is that why you tried to stop me from keeping my oath so much? Is that why you swore at my vows and called me an idiot when I got injured? I know you only did that because you cared, but even you knew I couldn't have gone back. But then I wonder if perhaps you could read the future and knew both of your own death and of this arrangement…" Rin's voice was low as she looked down to the ground, standing like a statue in the lonely afternoon. The flowers on the grave seemed to strain toward her in the growing wind, almost as if trying to reach out and touch her boot.
Her eyes cast upon the grave and the beautiful flowers upon it; she was surprised they were still growing so well. But she ignored their stretching motions and turned around in a circled beside the grave's headstone, forgetting to read the words she had chosen to be carved upon it; the words that called him a hero, a wise man, and a father to everyone. Instead she looked toward the tree, that wonderful tree whose seed she had been given stuck to the back of her necklace. It had been a present from Shoji on his death, and Rin had wondered whether he had known of it. She placed a soft and slender hand, which was hardened in places by scars, and pressed it to the tiny shard of black that had once belonged to her own sword but that she had lost protecting and giving it to her brother. At the same time she remembered how the tree had grown only within the twenty years she had been in the German quarter of the Eurasian Soul Society, she remembered too that it was the only tree of its kind in that whole world, and that even in the Seretei it only grew in her home of Zaraki.
"Shoji, I know you would want me to complete my oaths, even though I cannot fulfil the original one to Ivann. But he knows I tried my best to prevent his death, just like he turned up at the moment I blanked out and slaughtered the hollow that had taken your life! But what do you want me to do? I cannot face them all and say I was stupid, scared, and froze when it was so predictable the hollow would attack. Oh, why dear brother was I such a fool to have gone with you? Why couldn't you have taken me to the living world some other day when that hollow would have been elsewhere? What should I do?" Rin's eyes clouded and tears dribbled off her cheek to the edge of the small stone column she had put up to represent her brother's grave, for she would never be able to see his true grave, let alone her own!
A wind rustled the leaves on the trees and Rin could hear the storm that had been building up further away coming closer, and she longed for the rains to return to her. Of all the many things in her life she had ever gained comfort from, rain was the best. It filled her heart with some of her greatest memories and most tragic, she could remember better with it too. There had never been a day without rain in her youth but the rain could be from the sky or from her eyes. She found herself thinking back on how she came to be in the soul society in the first place, or at least as far as she could remember. But her first thoughts just seemed to close on the one thing she always said about Zaraki, where she had been found; "there must be balance in every manner, and where the land of Zaraki is some of the most beautiful around, the people there are the harshest and most vile you could possibly imagine!"
* * *
The rain had been pouring for several hours and the two children had still been huddled together under an abandoned doorway to keep warm. They had not understood where they were, or how they had got that way save for the fire that had burnt their Russian father away from them. They were also confused by their hair, which had turned a sky blue colour and how their eye colours had managed to become so strange that each of them had a blue and green eye now, rather then his being blue and hers being green! But that had not mattered, they had been together and though they had heard the violence of the other people in that broken down little village area, they had found safety in the forests of blossom trees and the shadows of the flowering fields. They had not experienced the horrors of Zaraki first-hand, but only heard them. Until that moment they had not seen people either, but then they had spotted several figures amongst the misting rain as Rin and Shoji had together let out a gentle warming glow of spiritual energy, which they could not understand themselves.
"There are two children here my Lord Uso, and they are amazingly strong. Can you feel the spiritual pressure in the air around them; no other seven-year-olds could ooze such power unless they were truly powerful! Please master, come and see them." The voice had been that of a relatively smart, but old man who had been wearing drab brown servant's clothes and leaning toward them with strangely hopeful eyes. His voice had been harsh, but Rin had smiled at him though her brother had quaked. From behind the man had come four other men, three wearing large swords and looking like the typical hired thugs of the area that would do anything to keep money in their pockets, food in their bellies, and blood on their swords. The other man had been different, and he had nodded to the older man and stepped straight in front of the children, wearing great long and warm blue robes patterned with black and white blossom branches. But though he had seemed eager to look at them, his voice and face had been filled with anger and boredom.
"What are your names, children? Do you live here? How long have you been outside in this rain? Where are your parents? And… How do come you have this pressure around you?" His voice was cold and his eyes of grey were just as cold, especially as they gazed upon Rin. He had been a reasonably handsome man though, the typical noble blood that was tall and slim with soft pale skin and long hair, his had been a dark brown, almost black shade and he had a face like a statue, hard and emotionless. But Rin had not been afraid of him, she had felt a need to stand tall, yet be polite, when he had appeared.
"I am Rintakara Ninel, and this is my brother, Shoji. We only arrived yesterday and we can't find our father. He's not Japanese like our mother was, he's Russian, and we're afraid he doesn't know what he's doing here. There was a fire you understand, and we woke up hear. I think we're dead, but I don't know where we are or where he is. We don't know what you mean by pressure either? Is that what you call this strange throbbing in the air?" Rin had tried to speak graciously and yet she had been young and foolish. Her words though had impressed the two men that stared at them, and Lord Uso had blinked and lowered his head, almost in understanding. But Rin had not liked his words of response.
"I'm afraid you will not be able to find your father, but do not fear. I will take your brother on and give him a better name and a better life. I am Lord Uso, the only nobleman that dares live in the Rukongai area 80, Zaraki, and I wish to adopt you, boy." He had suddenly seemed to warm up suddenly in the rain, and he smiled softly as he knelt down in front of the nervous Shoji. But though Rin had known very well that this was the best way for Shoji, she had not wanted him to leave her. At that time she was not told until three months after the adoption that Lord Takeshi Uso had been the last in his family line left, that his wife had died giving birth to their child, and that the child had died too. Though Rin and Lord Uso had not liked each other, she would have understood if she'd been told, but he had been a strange man who had never re-married or even tried.
"But… But I don't want to leave my sister! She'll die if she's alone! No! I won't go!" Shoji had cried, something Rin had seen him do often, but this time it had been different. Shoji had been bullied no matter what rank or age he was, he was just a naturally sweet and friendly person who was unfortunately a little gullible; but he had tried to stand up for them both then. Lord Uso had been quite surprised at this, and his eyes had widened with shock, and even slightly wavered as if he were going to cry himself, he had been desperate of course to find a suitable heir, and to have a chance to raise a son.
"Don't worry about me Shoji, I can find some way to live. I'll still protect you, but you have a chance for a better life now. I don't need to be mummy anymore, and I'm sure I'll be okay. I know this will be scary, but we're both tough." Rin had almost cried trying to explain things to her brother, but only because as she had thought of it, she had always been jealous that he had been the wanted one. But Shoji had continued to complain and even gripped onto her arm until Lord Uso had bent right to his level and patted his shoulder, and then he had turned to Rin.
Lord Uso's eyes fell upon Rin, and he released a small amount of spiritual pressure, which would have been enough to knock a child to the ground if they could feel it, and indeed Shoji had cowered even more. But Rin had turned around to face him, and their eyes had become locked upon each other, and within a minute they had both summed up the other, and were annoyed. The lord gave a low sigh and turned toward his subjects, then he growled low and looked back at the children, his eyes warm to Shoji but harsh to Rin. He seemed to have struggled to say the words, he had paused to think, and then he had bowed his head and sighed before looking toward the older gentleman and then back to the children.
"I will take you both, I hear twins are better kept together, but you must both live by my rules and my names. Shoji, you will be named Ryuhiko, after my grandfather who was one of the best soul reapers when the order first began. And you, Rin, your name will no longer be Rintakara, such a strange name, instead you will be called Yachiru. I was once a comrade to a great fighter and man named Yachiru, and he was a good friend to me but a little too independent. I think it will suit you. It seems strange to name you after a man, but he was strange at having a rather more feminine name, perhaps it will fit. But either way, I am not going to let both of you drown in the horrors of Zaraki's undergrowth." Lord Uso had spoken with great authority, and the other men had nodded their heads in agreement to his words. Even Shoji, who had worded the name a little curiously, had nodded like an obedient servant. But already Rin had found herself filled with rage, and there was a strange but small burst of spiritual pressure as she responded with a much more authoritarian tone.
"NO! I will respect your rules but not that of a name change! My name was a mix of my father's work and my dead mother's name, I will not change it! I will be named once in my existence and once only. I do not care who you name me for, my name is more importa…." Rin had snorted but she had not been permitted to finish. With a quick motion and what had seemed like an eternal echoing sound, Lord Uso's hand had stretched from his robes and caught her swiftly around the face. She had stepped back, quieted, but filled with a stubborn rage, and he had looked at her with eyes harder then any metal, which shock with his own anger, and that had been that.
That slap had shaped their relationship from then on, though it had been filled with a harder time for Rin than she had assumed. Thinking back over her childhood it had never been happy or without trouble or restraint, unlike Shoji she had never been permitted to play with any of the other children in the area or study the same as him. In the early days, she had never even been allowed in the front of the house or in the gardens without an escort, and she had never understood that. But though in the earlier times she had kept to the rules and only done things under watch, one meeting when she had not done as her "father" had asked, proved to her it had been wrong. That meeting had given her the strength to be herself and to be brave against Lord Uso's scolding and beatings. In fact, the strength of disobeying him once had given her the courage to stand up and make sure she went with her brother to the Soul Reaper Academy, though she had taken ten years to convince him to let her go. He had made her life very difficult, but she knew he had loved her brother greatly and protected him as he had promised.
* * *
"I know he must have been very sad at your death, Shoji, but he would not have cared for my life. I was not what he wanted me to be, I had wanted to be a soul reaper and not some noble-brat's bride! Sometimes I wondered if you ever understood that, remember what he tried to do to me to stop me from even seeing other children, boys especially? He used to make me work in the kitchens and then when he realised they were just letting me do as I pleased, he used to lock me in my room when you went out to play! The foolishness of some people, but I sometimes wonder if he was just over-protective…" Rin mused, but quickly she dismissed the idea, feeling only hatred for a man that had never let her be herself ever! She gave a low grow and punched the air near the tree, only to step back in slight surprise, as if something had touched her.
The blossom tree began to sway as the wind picked up and the dark clouds swam overhead. Rin wanted to come up with a decision soon, before the party ended and she would have to cross paths with Markus to speak to Schatzstein again. The tree seemed to know this, and it dropped one of its curious flowers down before her feet, and she stared at it for a moment. Her mind pondered over the strange shape of the plants and their even odder colouration. She remembered that the flowers of the Zaraki Blossom trees were very strange and indeed very unique even amongst the strange spiritual pressures of the Soul Societies. It was like the Glacier flowers, they only grew around the edges of glaciers and around the deathbeds of the squad members, like the ones at her feet. But the Zaraki Blossom was the only beautiful thing in that whole horrid area of the Rukongai and yet she had managed to grow her own one. Their flowers were purple with black flecks on the inside of the petals and a strange red "inner" flower that coated blue pollen in the air. They were very strange indeed, but for Rin they were the epicentre of her happiness.
The rain came spilling down within a few seconds and Rin was reduced to a soaking figure of grey and blue as it thundered overhead. Most would never stand by a tree when lightning was present, but Rin knew the tree would protect her, and the sound of the storm was calming her more then she could have hoped it to. With the rain covering her body she could think clearly and thoroughly over her conundrum, but she fell to daydreaming of the past again. But this time she was touching the stone wall she had made around the edge of the tree, similar to the one in her old home in Zaraki. She always did that when it rained, it was just what she always did because no matter what the trees only told her of her greatest memory and her greatest friend! She could not help but chuckle at the air as she started to think about some of the funniest but typical childish things she had ever said. After-all, when she had first met him she had been eleven and he had been about sixteen or eighteen, a point her father had always pressed upon when she'd gone to visit him when it was dangerous!
* * *
"Why aren't you scared of me?" The voice had been deep, gravelly, but filled with a slight edge of surprise and unbearable loneliness, and Rin had understood him. The blood in the courtyard, the bodies of her father's hired thugs, and the terrible rain did not matter to her when she had found something wonderful. The young man had appeared from the forests of blood and fear outside the walls of the garden to Lord Uso's household to stand and fight him. Uso had been a soul reaper once after-all, but this young man had the soul pressure, the power, and a sword; but the lord had not come out and instead sent his thugs out there. They had been killed with one swipe and the stranger had then sat on the edge of the stones around the Zaraki Blossom in courtyard and stared into space. Then Rin had come out to see who he was because it was the time she usually went out and she was not going to give up her time because of her father's fear.
"Why? Is there any particular reason I should be afraid of a starving warrior? You're older then me, yeah, but not so much older I shouldn't talk to you, stranger." Rin had questioned cheekily with a beautiful smile on her face, and she had passed the umbrella into his great long-fingered hands without fear. The stranger had tightened his hand around it but seemed a little surprised that she would give up being dry to let him be dry. Then Rin had just smiled at him in anticipation, she had not cared about anything else at that time, just this curiously interesting stranger.
"Who are you?" The strange young man had questioned, and it had been then that Rin had looked properly at his eyes and felt the spiritual pressure. The eyes were large, but the pupil and colouring small and precise, like the eyes of anyone that could not trust anyone but themselves; but they had focused upon her intently as if trying to scare her. It was obvious he had never known kindness before, let alone been near a child that did not squeal and run off in terror. But Rin had looked at him with such kindness and delight his eyes had seemed to waver with tears of joy, but he never did anything else except sigh. Rin had just chuckled gently, later on she would here people calling his eyes the eyes of a killer, but she had thought them the most amazingly beautiful eyes in the world!
"My name is Rintakara Ninel, though around here my adopted name is Yachiru Uso. Here, I'll spell them in the mud here so you can see what I mean, a lot of people don't understand why I say the R in my name like an R, but that's because I'm not fully Japanese! But there we go, what's your name?" Rin had chuckled as she had knelt into the mud in her pretty little black and purple kimono, which had surprised the stranger enough for him to lean over. But Rin had quickly squiggled both her names down in the mud and then stood up with a smile looking happy once more. Then Rin sat up and smiled at him once more, noting this time how long his black hair was and how big his nose and chin were, she had never seen a man like that before. "But I prefer to be called Rin, it's just what I'm used to, stranger."
"I don't have one, I never have. Yachiru, huh, that's not a bad name to have, but I can see why you'd rather be called Rin, at least I imagine. But why have you given me the umbrella, you'll soak your pretty dress?" He had almost gasped the question as the rain had become a sudden torrent and flattened Rin's short blue hair right to the back of her neck. But Rin had never stopped smiling with the weather. But she was suddenly looking concerned and ignoring his question to look sorrowfully at him. Why? She could not understand why he did not have a name, and she was upset for him!
"You don't? Now I feel so selfish for having two, I'm so sorry for you! But don't worry about the umbrella, I like the rain, and I don't like this dress anyway! I don't like seeing people looking so wet and hungry or tired! You wait here, I'll go get you something to eat and drink! You look like you could use it, and you seem a nice person too. Don't go anywhere!" Rin had chuckled excitedly and then bolted back into the house before he had been able to say anything. Then she had hopped back outside with a tray holding a cup with some warm tea and three small sweet buns, which Rin had learnt to make earlier in the day.
She had watched him eat the buns and she had stood there smiling sweetly at him for a long time indeed. That day had been the very first of many occasions when she would meet that young man, who had only been seven years her senior, but already had seemed to regard her as a friend. Back then, he had not taken a name but later she learnt he had titled himself Kenpachi, Kenpachi Zaraki. When she had seen him after her childhood he had been a much more important person, but Rin had never been able to hang around him as much as she had wanted to.
***
The rain drummed against the trunk of the tree and as her spiritual pressure formed a red flame around her, steaming the air and drying Rin, she smiled softly. The meeting with Kenpachi had been the best thing that had ever happened in her life, and she missed him greatly. There were few people that had ever done so much and respected her in life, but he had been one of them, and she had owed him more times then she could remember. Her eyes had turned to the flowers and to the tree itself, and then she had looked at the storm and chuckled gently.
"That's it? That's the reason to return, to see him and confront my fear? I wonder about you all sometimes; you just want to tease me even when you're supposed to be dead! I hated how you used to tease and bully, but I know now I should go! You're right! I'll go tell Schatzstein I'll go there and when I do, I'll go and see my old friend and see if he is pissed off with me still or finally understood what I was on about!" Rin chuckled excitedly and bolted toward the door, forgetting that the door was made of glass and not open. She walked into the door with a high pitched swear and her guests were a little surprised!
* * *
Next Time: Part Three – Citadel of Grief, Sorrow, and Fate
The mission is accepted but someone needs to take the letter to the Seretei because no one can afford the postage costs let alone the pigeon! So, Rin takes her most trusted members of the squad with her to make the initial arrangements and meet with the thirteen court guard squads, but there's trouble in store. On arriving in the Rukongai, Rin finds herself caught in helping out some children with nothing to loose, and remembering even more of her hard times. But she has other jobs to do, and yet her mind is stuck wandering upon her past memories. She doesn't really want to remember most of it, but sometimes when you're nervous your brain goes wandering and Rin has a tendency to space-out for no reason!