One Moment
Chapter 19: Unfolding and Untangling, Part 1
Characters/Pairings: Gin, Orihime, Starrk, and Lilynette. Mentions of Gin/Rangiku, Shunsui/Starrk, and Lilynette/Rukia; some implications of Ulquiorra/Orihime.
Rating: PG
Words: ~9300
Chapter Summary: Orihime untangles Gin's thoughts. Lilynette unfolds truth within Starrk.
Warnings: Gin. That is all.
She was a vision with sunset hair and full curves. The sunlight streaming through the open window caressed the strands and set them to flames. He was almost surprised to notice that her clothes weren't burning up.
Her pale hand tucked a strand of behind her ear.
He stood there, watching her; her dark eyes were turned towards the window, looking outwards at something he couldn't see. How selfish of her, he muses. She should share.
"What are you straining your little head about, Orihime-chan?"
The girl turned around.
From behind, she resembled Rangiku so much that it had almost hurt to see her when he was in Las Noches. But whenever he saw her face, the illusion was broken – with those wide, innocent brown eyes, she was nothing like the woman he had given his heart to in childhood.
His smile widened and lost its vague sincerity. The knot in his chest loosened.
"Ichimaru-sama—" she started, and shook her head hard. "Ichimaru-san. I didn't see you there."
What a telling slip of the tongue.
"I didn't think you did," he said lightly. "You looked so busy thinking."
Slowly, he took a step forward. He kept his smile steady and wide on his face when she tried to not flinch from him.
"You can tell me, you know," he said. "I'm good at keeping secrets."
There was no one and nothing who would listen to whatever he said, after all. True, there was Rangiku, but even she took what he said with a grain of salt, the clever woman she was.
Orihime didn't know him nearly so well. She stared at him with uncertain eyes, white teeth set deep into her full, pink lips. Gin wondered, vaguely, about the face that she would make if he kissed her right now. Not that he would, of course – she was Rangiku's friend, and if she told her, then Ran-chan might cry, and hadn't he spent his entire life trying his best to stop that from happening? – but it was a sudden thought, like lightning flashing across his mind.
Suddenly, she smiled.
It was such a sweet thing, a small curve of the lips, and so utterly unexpected that Gin found his own smile wavering for the briefest moment. She took a step forward, and folded her hands behind her back. She was, he thought briefly, leaving herself completely and utterly open for any attack he might make.
How very trusting. How very dangerous.
"I was thinking about how nice it is that people are happier now," she giggled nervously. He couldn't see them, but he was sure that her hands were fidgeting behind her back.
"You see, Ichimaru-san, Kuchiki-san told me about what happened to Muramasa," she continued. "And I'm... I'm glad, because surely he's not sad anymore."
The white flashes of teeth as she chewed on the corner of her lip was distracting. It took him a moment before what she said sank into his mind.
"You have to start from the beginning, Orihime-chan," he said, steadying his smile. "I don't know who Muramasa is."
She blinked. "Oh. Um…" Even if she was too polite to voice it, he could still hear the unspoken question in her voice: Did no one tell you about what had happened?
No, Orihime-chan, Gin laughed to himself. No one did; no one bothered. Even though he was directly attacked by two of the zanpaktou spirits, he wasn't trusted enough to be invited to the the council in which their leader was judged.
The taste of bitterness was heavy on his tongue, but Gin had long grown used to the weight. Months would do that to you.
(At night, he dreamt of that moment when he was attacked Aizen. Shinsou was sweet to him, always, transferring the feel of blade cutting through flesh and ribs and lung straight to his arm. There was pleasure, too, in the look in Aizen's eyes, the mixture of surprise and rage that stripped the man of his godhood and turned him so startlingly human.
He always tried to wake up after that moment, but his dreams never obeyed. His body knew too well the strike of Aizen's sword, parting skin and muscle, nearly slicing his heart into two. His body knew, too, the feel of Unohana's reiatsu sliding under his skin and making his nerves scream as she healed him. The texture of Rangiku's hand was burned into his flesh along with the wetness of her tears as they fell onto his skin, like little droplets of warm rain.
When he woke, he would spend long minutes – sometimes hours – staring blankly at the emptiness of his hands. They were symbolic of the hollowness in his chest where Shinsou used to be; where his power used to reside. And he would laugh, and laugh, and laugh until he was choking on it, because if he didn't...
If he didn't...)
Reaching out a hand, he sidled one step closer to Orihime. He cocked his head. "Why don't you tell me the whole story from the very beginning?"
She moved backwards, an instinctive and purely human reaction when seeing a snake smiling, its forked tongue curling out of its mouth. Her arms tensed, and she backed away until she was once more at the window, half-turning to look out of it again.
And he couldn't help but think that she had learned well in Las Noches; not once had she taken her eyes away from him.
"I don't know the full story, because I wasn't there for most of it," she started hesitantly, her eyes constantly darting towards him. "But Kurosaki-kun and Kuchiki-san filled Ishida-kun and I on the whole story, and I don't think anyone would mind if I tell you..."
And she did.
The story untangled like a mass of knots under nimble hands, the threads oiled and smooth. Gin almost laughed at the irony at so many points: the Shinigami, all fighting against their own swords, against parts of their own soul, because of the interference of someone who was clearly the card-carrying villain of the story; someone whose greatest power was in the way he twisted his words and made use of people's assumptions.
It was almost enough for Gin to start wondering if Fate was running out of ideas. Or if their lives were scripted by an entirely unoriginal author.
But it wasn't the same: the villain this time had a sorrowful tale of his own. His actions were said to be born out of desperation, and he was believed. Then he was picked up and held close and forgiven, his slate wiped clean again. Despite all that he had done, the villain of the tale had his happy ending, while the villain's master – who had done absolutely nothing to cause the current crisis, whose only crime was small-mindedness and power-hunger – was killed without much ceremony by a little girl.
Pain. Gin blinked. He looked down. Blood was starting to well up on his palm in half-moon marks.
Now that was odd. What had he to be angry about?
"I just think that it's… really a wonderful thing," Orihime was saying. She gave him a shy smile.
Gin blinked again. Now that was odd. He knew that he hadn't missed a single word that she was saying despite his wandering thoughts, and yet he still had no idea what she was talking about; no idea what that smile was supposed to mean.
"Mm? What is, Orihime-chan?"
"Oh!" her hand flew to her mouth, and she gave him another nervous giggle. "I'm sorry, Ichimaru-san. I think my mind just went too quickly."
She shook her head, and her eyes were bright and earnest on his. "It's wonderful, isn't it? That people are being given second chances, and they are using them to help and heal those around them?"
There was a heat within him, a rage that had his blood skittering and boiling in his veins. His hand twitched at his side, and he stared into his eyes through heavy lids.
When he moved, it was almost too fast for his own mind to grasp. He only knew that, one moment, he was standing in front of her; the next, his hand was closed around her throat, pushing her against the windowsill. Her body was dangling half outside, her eyes wide and fearful, but Gin's eyes were fixed upon the red blood being smeared on her porcelain skin.
His blood, her skin.
"Second chances, mm?" he asked. The steady lilt of his own voice surprised himself. "Is that what you think it is, Orihime-chan?"
She didn't reply. He didn't expect her to, not with how tightly his hand was clenched around her throat.
"I wonder what kind of eyes you have, to see such prettiness in the ugly world," he murmured, his other hand stroking down the side of her face. "If I rip them out, will you see how the world truly is like?"
Orihime was trembling under him. Gently, so very gently, he wiped away the tears trailing down her cheeks.
"'Second chances' are just an illusion," he leaned in, whispering into her ear. Her skin was warm; his breath was cold. "He was forgiven because he could be used."
He chuckled, low and soft. "It's the same for you and Ichigo-chan and the rest. You are useful to the Soutaichou-sama," mockery practically dripped from his lips at the title, "and so he allowed you to live instead of executing you like he should."
She was slowly turning blue from the lack of air. Gin stared at her, head still cocked to the side. It would be interesting to see how she would look like in death, he knew, but at the same time… if she was dead, it would take far too long before he would know her reaction to what he said.
So he let her go, stepping back and folding his arms into his sleeves. His smile had not faltered, and did not falter even as she crumpled to the ground, gasping for breath, her hand trembling and butterfly-like on her throat. It was like music to his ears, the way she struggled to breathe, and Gin swept past her prone form to the window.
The leaves were a verdant green. There were budding blossoms, cherry and plum both, clinging onto the branches. Petals fell to the ground, littering the grass with light pinks and deep reds.
There was no beauty he could see.
"But…" Orihime was speaking, her voice tremulous and hoarse. "But what about you, Ichimaru-san?"
Slowly, he turned towards her.
She was leaning heavily against the wall, using it to prop her weight up as she stood on shaky legs. He caught her gaze with his own, and she met it squarely, not even flinching away.
"You don't have any power now," she said, soft and halting. "But you're still here, Ichimaru-san. You were still given a second chance."
His eyes opened, the barest slit. He knew just how terrifying it is – had made sure that the small movement was intimidating – but she still did not look at all afraid. And his hand was bleeding again. If he concentrated, he could practically hear the sound of blood dripping onto the concrete floor.
"Have I?" he murmured.
Orihime finally averted her gaze, fidgeting with the collar of her shirt. It was stained with red, and her hand was starting to shake.
"Yes," she whispered.
He cackled. "I really should take those pretty eyes of yours," he mused. "So I can see what is in them which makes you look at the world this way."
She flinched hard, her hands clenching in front of her. "What… what do you think about your situation then, Ichimaru-san?"
Gin stilled. What a question that was. No one had ever asked him that, not even Rangiku. They had simply assumed that he accepted his punishment, given that he had made no escape attempts and that he hadn't tried to kill himself.
(For that, Gin would like to point them to the fact that they had made Rangiku his jailer, and doing either would make her cry, either out of anger or sorrow. He had already done it once, and he would rather not do it again.)
"I'm a trophy, Orihime-chan," he told her, smile widening until his cheeks ached from the stretch of the muscles. "I'm the living proof of their mercy and fairness."
Gin's 'crimes' were lesser than Aizen's, and they couldn't execute his false master. And thus, they did not kill him. He knew that perfectly well.
Orihime cocked her head at him, her lips pressed into a line. Then she stumbled forward, clearly weakened from his attempted strangulation, and took his hands into his own.
He was so shocked that he couldn't move, not even when she whispered a quiet Souten Kisshun and healed the open wounds on his palms.
"Even if you think that, Ichimaru-san, the fact that you're still alive means that it is a second chance," she told him. Her gaze was searingly bright, scorching him deep into his soul. "Even if… even if they aren't sincere about it, you're still alive, and… and you can still change and become a better person."
Gin cocked his head. "And why would I want that?"
Tugging on his hands, he tried to force her to let go. But her grip only tightened.
"You love Rangiku-san, Ichimaru-san," Orihime said softly. Her eyes were wide and limpid and so very, very earnest. "If you love her, I'm sure you want to make her happy. And… and I think she will be happy if you become a better person. Or… or, well, if you just aren't always sad and angry all the time."
This time, Gin did burst into laughter. This was familiar, far too familiar. He could almost see the autumn leaves; could almost feel the roughness of Starrk's cheek against his hand. Was he really so transparent?
No, he didn't think so. It was just that Fate liked to screw with him, to expose him to people like her; like him.
"I'm not joking, Ichimaru-san," Orihime said. Was that a pout?
He shook his head hard, finally pulling away from her grasp and hiding his hands in his sleeves. They were starting to tremble. He told himself that it was simply because of the cold wind blowing in from the window; that it had nothing to do with how much she reminded him of Rangiku in looks, that it had nothing to do with how mercilessly Orihime had ripped apart his shields and defences to expose the parts of him that he kept away even from himself.
When he smiled, he knew just how strained it was at the edges.
"You're asking me to be someone I'm not, Orihime-chan," he said lightly. "That's so cruel of you."
Orihime blinked at him before she shook her head hard. "I'm not asking you to become someone else," she said. The conviction in her voice was stronger than steel itself. "Just... just for you to be... better. Happier."
She took a deep breath. "If… if he can find humanity, then…"
"He? Who are you talking about?"
"Ulquiorra-san," she said, her voice so soft that Gin, standing inches from her, could barely hear it.
"I don't know what you're talking about, Orihime-chan," he said.
Oh, Gin knew exactly what she was trying to say. But he couldn't help it; she had drawn away the veil covering that open wound, and he just had to pour salt upon it. How could he not?
She squeezed her eyes shut, letting out a breath hard through her nose. "Ulquoirra-san, he… before he died, he was already changing," she said. Her throat fluttered with every word. "He said… he said that he was starting to understand humans, and I'm sure that… I'm sure that if he had the chance to live, if he hadn't died, then he would've been someone better."
Gin didn't interrupt even though it was clear that she wanted so badly for him to say something.
"If…" she continued after a long pause, eyes still shut. "If Ulquiorra-san could understand, if he could overcome his Hollow nature to want to try to become someone human, then I'm sure that… I'm sure that you can become someone better too, Ichimaru-san."
But it's different, he wanted to say. He was falling for you, Orihime-chan. You never noticed, but the only reason why he was even beginning to understand humanity was because of what you make him feel just by your very existence.
He swallowed the words back.
No, it wasn't different at all.
After all, if Ulquiorra had Orihime, then Gin had Rangiku. And he had even less excuse than Ulquiorra, for hadn't he met Rangiku in his childhood while Ulquiorra had met Orihime when he should be long set in his ways?
Happier, she said. Was that even possible? There was no such thing in his world, built as it was upon burning hatred, its scaffolding formed out of a thousand lies and those aching, fading memories of Rangiku's smile. And now... now he was left with nothing but emptiness, a yawning void within his chest, a gaping wound caused by the tearing out of his power and his purpose.
He never did manage to get that part of Rangiku's soul back. He had worked all of his life for that specific goal, but now it was entirely out of his grasp, and he somehow still breathed even though he should by all rights be dead by now.
Gin was still breathing and Rangiku was still by his side, and he didn't know what to do with either of those facts. The void within him could never be filled, he thought, but... but was that what Ulquoiorra had thought as well? That there was nothing else but the emptiness, and he wanted there to be nothing else?
Ulquoirra's hand was the last to go when he faded away. It had been reaching out towards Orihime, towards... towards the woman who had shoved her way into the void was was trying her best to mould herself into that form.
Gin wanted to laugh again, because this was such a damned cliché: the beautiful woman who showed the flawed, fallen man how to become a better person. Perhaps Fate was a romance novelist.
Still… Rangiku hadn't smiled at him for a long time. Not sincerely anyway.
Slowly, he started to smile again. It was the same as any of his others – a wide, insincere thing – but he felt something inside him shift, and he wondered if Orihime could see it with those eyes of hers.
"Maybe," he said.
Orihime cocked her head. "Maybe?"
He pushed himself away from the wall, starting to walk away. He looked at her out of the corner of his eyes.
"Maybe I'll try."
She smiled at him, brilliant and bright. Gin stopped in his tracks, looking at the sweetness and wondering just why he wasn't poisoned by it.
Oh, yes. He had almost forgotten.
"You should use your powers on your throat, you know," he said. Grinning even wider, he tipped his head back until he caught her gaze.
"Bruises ain't fitting for that pretty skin of yours."
"Don't worry, Ichimaru-san," Orihime chirped. "I will!"
He continued to watch her until he turned the corner. Then, once he was out of her sight, he leaned against the wall, his hands reaching up to rub hard at the corner of his eyes with his knuckles.
If he let Rangiku occupy his entire being like she had already with his heart, would it make her smile at him again? Would those faded memories gain new life and shine bright and true instead of being grey, half-forgotten things?
Maybe he had been selfish. But then again, he always had been; but then again, was this not selfishness as well?
At the very least, it would alleviate his boredom.
(He didn't even try to fool himself into thinking that this was the only reason. Not when the memory of the first smile Rangiku had ever given him was hovering, colours leeched, at the back of his eyelids.
The problem of being a liar: you could never really lie to yourself, because you knew all the tricks too well.)
"It's brighter here now."
Slowly, Starrk opened his eyes. Lilynette stood in front of him, her new yukata – maroon printed with a series of orange and red leaves, colours perfect for autumn but strange for spring – shone in their shared inner world. He turned away from her, looking down and running his fingers through the grains of sand.
The shadows cast by each individual grain were still starker than his skin.
"I can't see the difference," he shrugged.
Lifting his eyes up, he looked at her. He didn't realise it the last time he was here – there were too many distractions – but the darkness surrounding Lilynette seemed to be deeper. Her shadow, sprawled over the grey-yellow sands, seemed to seep deep into every grain, turning them completely black instead of a more faded grey.
Reaching forward, he brushed his hand over the darkness, as if trying to catch Lilynette's shadow with his bare fingers. "Do you think we see this place differently?"
Lilynette snorted. She plopped down on the sand, right above her shadow, and Starrk had to move quickly so he wasn't crushed by her.
"Maybe we do, maybe we don't," she shrugged carelessly. "But it's something too stupid to talk about."
"Why?"
"I can't get into your head and see what you see anymore," she pointed out. "And neither can you. So it all depends on what we say, and you know better than I do the fuck ups that happen when it comes to words."
Starrk laughed; he really did. Shifting, he felt the grains of sand slide over the cloth of his hakama as he moved closer to Lilynette. They leaned against each other, shoulder to shoulder, and he wrapped his arm around her.
"Hey, Starrk," Lilynette said after a moment. Her mask fragment brushed over his shoulder as she nudged him.
"Mm?"
"Are you here because there's something you want to talk to me about without anyone else eavesdropping on our conversation?"
"Is that why you are here?"
Lilynette fell silent. Starrk closed his eyes, rubbing his thumb on her arm as he waited her out. If she was taking such a long time to give him an answer that he already knew, then there surely was something that had bothering her for a long time.
"I'm worried," she said, voice small.
That wasn't what Starrk was expecting. He blinked, turning his head to meet her single red eye. "About what?"
"There's someone I like a lot," she said, biting her lip. "And… and I know that there's someone you like a lot as well. I just… I can't help but think…"
She jerked her head away.
"You can't help but think…?" Starrk prompted, nudging her again.
"If we have other people we like, then we'll spend all our time with them," Lilynette said, the words spilling out of her so quickly that they were practically mashed together. "We're already doing that. I've… I've been spending so much time with her, and you with him, and…"
She bit her lip. "I can't help but think that we'll fall apart eventually, the two of us," she said, her voice dropping so soft that Starrk had to strain to hear her. "That we won't be interested in each other anymore now that we have other people."
Starrk looked at her. She was huddled into herself, arms wrapped around knees drawn to her chest. Her head was bowed, drooping hair hiding her bright eye, and Starrk's non-existent heart ached at the sight.
Reaching out, he took her into both of his arms, enveloping her smaller form entirely into his own. He buried his face into her hair, hands splayed upon her back as he traced nonsensical shapes into it.
"Look around you, Lilynette," he said quietly. "Look at this place."
She didn't move. But that was alright; he didn't need her to.
"This is ours," he murmured. "There is no one else who share their inner world with another like we do. There is no one else who can come here. No matter who else comes into our hearts, this is a place that is entire our own, and no one can take it away from us."
"We have to share it with Masamune and Los Lobos," Lilynette said petulantly.
"Mm," Starrk admitted. "But they aren't here now, are they?"
"They're probably just hiding in some corner, just waiting for the best moment to pounce on us."
"I don't think so," he shook his head. "I think we are the ones keeping them away, because we came here to talk to each other instead of them." He didn't say, that's not something anyone else can do, because there is no one else but their swords to speak with.
Lilynette already knew that.
Slowly, she lifted her head. She looked at him, still biting her lip, and Starrk knew, suddenly, that this was about something else, something far more serious that was bothering her than the fear of the two of them drifting apart because they had found others they cared about. She should already know that they would always stay together, that their connection to each other would never sever: no matter how many others surrounded them, they would always be each other's first.
He used to be part of her, and he would always be part of her. Just like she would always be part of him.
So he knew that if he pushed her, she would only run away. So he knew that the only thing he could do now was to change the subject.
Humming under his breath, he asked, "What is it about Rukia that you like so much?"
She blinked up at him, eye widening. Her lips parted. Then she closed her mouth with an audible click before she smiled.
"I don't know," she told him, shoulders shaking a little as she laughed at herself and her own answer. "Or… well, I just can't pin it down on one thing."
"Mm," Starrk nodded. "Is it because she likes you?"
Lilynette burst into a series of giggles, high-pitched and just a little hysterical. "I'm actually not sure about that," she said, wriggling around until she was lying with her back to his chest. Starrk obligingly threw his arm over her shoulders. "She hasn't told me that she did, but she didn't refuse me either."
Ah, he thought, a little dizzy. So it was Lilynette who fell in love first; who realised her feelings first. He dug within himself, trying to find his surprise at the thought, but he only found the weight of wryness, as if he had expected nothing else.
That was… odd. But at the same time…
"Was there a single moment when you realised that you are falling for her?" he asked, trying his best to keep his voice casual.
But it seemed that Lilynette knew him far too well, because she grabbed the collar of his kosode, pulling him down until their eyes met.
"Is that what spring water told you?" she frowned. "That there was one moment in which he realised that he was falling for you?"
Starrk turned away. "That he fell for me," he corrected.
"Hah," Lilynette said, and there was such a wealth of emotion in that single word that Starrk couldn't even begin to try to unravel it. "I guess… well… I guess there was one."
"Tell me about it?"
Lilynette tensed against him for a moment before she let out an explosive sigh.
"It was in winter," she began. "That day was the first time I managed to convince her show me her sword properly. Not just the basic kendo forms but… the true power of her zanpaktou."
Starrk opened his eyes, looking down at her. She was looking forward, staring into nothing, her hands slowly rising.
"I heard from Yachiru that Rukia's sword was the most beautiful in Soul Society, but… but I couldn't help but think that everyone else was looking at the wrong thing." Her shoulders shook again. "Starrk, you had to be there. She was wearing black, and her hair looked like… like fresh ink underneath the sunlight. Her sword was white, she was surrounded by ice and snow, and she… she looked like she was dancing as she went through the forms."
She took a deep breath. Her hands trembled. "Can you imagine it, Starrk? The way that Rukia's feet skipped through the snow, barely leaving any prints. The way she looked, all dark hair and pale skin, so striking against all the white. And her eyes… her eyes are so blue, so determined, and she looked as if dancing with her sword was the greatest pleasure she could ever have."
Tipping her head back, Lilynette met Starrk's eyes, giving him a crooked smile. The look in her eye made her almost entirely unrecognisable.
"I could watch her like that forever," she said.
Starrk's hand tightened on her shoulders. His head dropped on top of hers. When he breathed, the air felt like it was cutting through the skin of his throat.
"I want more, you know," Lilynette continued, her hand finding his and winding their fingers together. "I want to protect her and stand beside her and make sure that she is never, ever hurt. I want to touch her and dance with her and so many things. But… but, Starrk, you know, if she refuses me, I think I'll be happy if I can just watch her dance with her sword once in a while."
He shifted his fingers a little, clenching them around clothes instead of flesh, letting his nails dig into his own palms.
"Did spring water tell you something like that?"
The only answer he could give was a deep, hoarse sob. This was the answer he sought. It was so simple that his mind was spinning in circles; so very, very simple.
When he trusted himself to be able to speak again, he said, "Something like that."
"Mm," Lilynette said. "I thought so."
Starrk's head jerked up. He blinked, eyes widening as he stared at the girl who was the other half of him.
"What do you mean?"
She turned around, knees sinking into sand as she faced him. "I've been watching the two of you," she said, matter-of-fact. "I've noticed that… he does things for you without even thinking about it. And, you know, the way he looks at you… I think it'll be the same way that I look at Rukia."
Shrugging, she looked away. "Or, at least, I think it's the way I look at Rukia. I haven't checked a mirror yet."
There was, Starrk realised, a note of falseness in her words. Pieces were falling together – that strange look in her eye, the hesitation in the beginning of their conversation, the way Lilynette looked at him sometimes when they were in Las Noches and he had just returned from meeting Aizen… so many things.
"You're lying to me," he blurted out.
"I'm not!" Lilynette said, her eye burning fiercely as she looked back at him. "I really have been watching the two of you!"
"No," Starrk shook his head. "Not about that." He bit his lip, scrambling for words. "It's… it's not that you're lying to me. You… you're hiding something from me."
Again. The word hovered in the air between the two of them, thick and heavy enough to choke.
Lilynette closed her eyes. Her entire body tensed, and Starrk instinctively tightened his grip on her.
He ignored the thoughts screaming in his head about Shunsui and Aizen; ignored the revelation he had just came to about the difference between the two of them. Knots were rapidly untangling, falling into a mass that were rapidly being woven back into a full tapestry again. But he ignored them all.
This was Lilynette, and she was more important than anything – anyone – else. And he wasn't going to let her run away from this; not this time.
Not ever again.
"You are more whole than I am, and yet more Hollow at the same time," he said, forcing the words past a closed throat. "You know things that I don't. Even back in Las Noches, you were the one who kept feeling that what Aizen did was wrong. I never… I never understood, but you did, if only a little."
Starrk never knew what it meant to be Primera. It was Lilynette who helped him fill in the gaps; who told him that it was a form of trust and faith. And though… though that was wrong, it was still more than Starrk had ever known.
So how did Lilynette know? How did she always know?
When that red eye blinked open, it was filled with a maelstrom of emotions that whipped Starrk's breath from his lungs. She looked so old, so much older than her twelve-year-old body, older than even her released form.
"What did you actually come here for?"
She smiled at him, soft and sad, before her head dropped onto his shoulder.
"Promise me, Starrk," she said. "Promise me that nothing will ever tear apart this place that belongs to the two of us."
Starrk wrapped his arms around her, eyes staring into nothing. Could he promise that? She had hidden so much from him, and he could not help but think of Aizen again, about all the half-truths he had been told that had left such deep scars within his soul.
But this was Lilynette. And no matter what, she was still the other half of his soul. She was still the very first person whom he knew; still the same person who had kept him safe inside her soul collection until her loneliness had consumed her.
He closed his eyes. "I promise," he said.
Lilynette shook in his arms. At the moment, despite all that he had seen, she felt more like a young girl than ever.
"Rukia was right when she said that you will figure it out."
Rukia? What had Rukia had to do with… but Starrk's train of thought screeched to a complete stop when Lilynette spoke again.
"Your name was Randal. And mine was Lilian."
Starrk froze. When Lilynette pulled back, he could do nothing but stare into her eyes, into that sorrowful, knowing gaze.
"You were my brother, and you protected me for my entire life. You protect me so much that you died because of it."
She laughed again, the same hysterical giggle.
"All I wanted to do after I died was to return the favour."
Her fingers were cold against his cheeks.
"But I'm not nearly as good at that as you are," she whispered. "I was too selfish. I didn't want you to know to protect you, so I forced myself to forget. And I did, I really did, but by the time I started to remember, it was already too late… I had made myself helpless, and you were in the habit of protecting me again."
Finally, Starrk managed to find his voice.
"I don't understand," he croaked out. His hands found hers, pulling them away from his face, and he tried not to flinch at the sight of the hurt in her eyes.
"Tell me everything," he breathed out. "From the beginning of what you remember. Tell me everything."
She looked at him for agonisingly long moments; moments when he wanted to take those words back because the sorrow and hurt in her gaze was almost too much to bear. But he had to know; he had to understand.
He had to remember.
Eventually, she nodded, pulling away from him to sit down on the sands. Looking away from her, Starrk realised that the shadows she cast was lightening now, turning into a dark, brackish grey like his own.
"I don't know how old I am," she began, staring at her hands. "I don't know how old we are."
As she talked, something stirred deep within Starrk. Memories unfolded like an origami piece, revealing the secrets written on the paper that he finally found the key to decode.
Once, there was a town. It used to been green and filled with fields, and though lives were hard, people were happy. But then the machines came, and they leeched all colour from the place with their great, billowing black clouds that emitted from chimneys. The smoke stole smiles from people's lips, dulled their eyes, and drained all emotion from their faces except for anger and hunger and desperation.
There was a man who lived in that town. He worked as a tailor and, during the harvest season, as a farmhand. He had a wife, a quiet baker's daughter, and five children, two boys and three girls. He wasn't happy, really, but he was content, because he earned enough money to feed his family, and that was all a man could ask for in the times he lived in.
The machines took his livelihoods and his pride. He had contentment. Then he had nothing. Then he turned angry – at the machines, at the world, but he could not harm either. His eyes scoured all around him for something he could blame, and landed on his youngest daughter.
She was a strange child, born with white hair and red eyes even though both he and his wife had brown hair and grey eyes. He had once thought his wife had cheated on him, slept with some exotic-looking outsider, but he had never seen such a person. No human had colouring like his daughter, and so he decided one day that she was in fact no child of a human at all; that she was a demon's child, and all that was stolen from him was her fault.
Her very existence, he decided, was a curse.
So one day, after some liquid courage, he decided that he would kill her. Then all of his bad luck would vanish, and his good fortunes returned.
The man would have succeeded if not for his oldest son. That boy was a strange one too; quiet and gentle, more like the man's wife than the man himself. He leapt into the way of the man's fists as they rained down on the little girl, and shielded her with his own body. The man decided then that the boy was a demon's child too, for no son of his would defend a demon.
This is the end of the man's story. His son killed him with a pair of tailor's scissors, the tool of his once-trade.
Once, there was a boy. He was covered in blood, the scent of metal thick in his nose, and he didn't know if the red belonged to his sister or his father. He carried his sister in his arms as he ran and ran and ran, far away from his home, leaving everything he had ever known behind him. Somehow, he managed to find himself at the train tracks, staring at steel and wood and the approaching clouds of smoke.
He looked at the train as it came towards him, and wanted, in that moment, to stand in front of it and let himself die. But his sister made a sound, so he swung himself up instead, tumbling into a carriage. He landed upon sacks of cotton, the yellow-white tufts surrounding him, and he held his sister close and cried until the blood on his face turned pink.
The city they found themselves in was same-different as the town they had left. The buildings were taller; but they were still grey. The river was wider; but it was grey-brown and stank with no fish swimming in the water. The clouds of smoke were still there; but they were bigger, heavier, choking every single breath they tried to take in. The people were still desperate and hungry; but there was anger there, a dull-bladed thing that drew shadows underneath drawn faces instead of bringing it light.
The boy hated the city, but there was nowhere else he and his sister could go. In this crowded place, no one could find him. In this stench of urine and blood and grief and smoke, no one could smell the blood still lingering on his skin.
But he could. And so the boy decided to surround himself with smoke, in hopes that the fire would one day scorch the iron and copper completely from his skin. He found a job as a chimney-sweep – one of the things machines could yet manage to do – and though it was difficult for him as he was too old to climb up many of the narrow chutes, he managed to scrape enough money for food and a place to live. It was small, their home; a tiny room barely bigger than the outhouse they had back in the town, crowded with five or six others, but it was a roof over their heads and it was better than the days they had lived underneath the bridge over the great river.
So they spent years like this in the city. The smoke never did manage to scorch the blood from his skin; it lingered constantly in his nose, heavy in his mouth. The only respite he had from the blood was when his sister, the sweet girl, had placed her small hands on his face and giggled at the sight of the soot and filth covering him. She never recovered from the beating that their father gave her: one eye was gone, filmy-white, while the other stared at him with a childlike sweetness and innocence that had not changed no matter how much time whipped through their bodies.
There was no money for doctors, but the boy didn't think they would be able to heal his sister anyway.
He held her throughout the long nights. In the winters, he tried to convince himself that it was to give her warmth; but that excuse worked poorly for the sweltering summers of the city. He knew, deep down, that he held her for she was the only thing he had left in the world; the only thing worth protecting in this dark, grey, and rotten world of theirs.
The taste of blood came to him stronger than ever in his eighteenth year. His jobs were getting fewer and fewer then – he was far too big to climb up most chimneys – and there was a part of him, selfish and so very, very tired, that was glad when he saw blood in his hand every time he coughed.
When he died, his only regret was that he couldn't take care of his sister; that he no longer could keep away the monsters that always came for them both.
There were monsters; there always had been. This tale had shied away from them because the boy always tried his best to forget about them, to deny that the monsters existed. But they awlays were there – roaring animalistic things, wearing bone-white masks; creatures that none but the boy and his sister could see. The monsters dogged their steps, following them from the town to the city, always roaring and screaming in pain and sorrow and desperate, aching hunger.
They were not much different from the people who walked on the city's streets.
The boy pitied them though his heart should be too scarred and filled with his own sorrows for pity; though he should hate them for they were part of what drove his father to madness.
The monsters did not always look monstrous; there were some in the shape of men. They wore strange black robes with swords on their hips. The boy's sister asked why the human-like monsters always fought the monster-like monsters, and the boy told her gently that perhaps there was a war between them.
It seemed like a war: both monstrous things went after the ghosts, the human souls that escaped whenever someone died. The boy saw it so many times – there had always been death around him – and the human-like monsters used the hilt of their swords to eat the ghosts, while the monster-like monsters literally ate them, swallowing them whole.
He tried to keep his sister safe from the monsters. He learned to fight; he learned to hide. He thrived in the satisfaction it gave him, for it was easier than keeping her safe from the city, from the humans everyone could see but who were monstrous too.
Once, there was a girl. She loved her brother wih the simplicity of a child, for he was the one constant in her world. She thought that they would always be together; that he would always be with her, protecting her. And she was right – but, one day, her brother doubled. There was him, lying so still on the bed; and there was him, standing by the side, looking at himself and at her with a look on his face that she had always hated.
Death was not something she could understand. How could she, when her brother told her that he was gone – dead – while he was still standing there? So she did not understand, and she cried and cried, begging her brother over and over, but he no longer had any ability to give her the food that would ease the ache in her stomach, the ache that grew larger and larger until it consumed her entirely.
One day, the girl woke up and saw herself lying there on the ground. It was a strange sight. Were her stomach always so bloated, and her cheeks so thin? She knelt beside her other self, poking at the ribs showing beneath the pale skin, so starkly white beneath the pale, grey light of the city.
Her brother was still standing next to her, with that same look on his face. Except that, this time, it was worse.
Except that, this time, she understood what it meant. She understood everything.
Her brother had done so much for her, she knew now. And it was then that she swore, with all the vehemence of a child, she would do everything she could for him.
Not out of a debt she owed, but for the love she held for him, burning bright inside.
Lilynette finally stopped talking. She buried her face in Starrk's shoulders, her entire body trembling like a leaf. Starrk wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight even as he shook himself.
"I think…" he said finally, swiping his tongue over his dry, dry lips. "I think I understand why you didn't tell me any of this before."
He tilted her head up, meeting that single red eye brimming with tears. His finger brushed over the eyepatch, and he knew now precisely why her mask fragment had taken this form.
"Still, I wish you had told me earlier," he murmured. "Because this is such a heavy burden to carry alone."
Shaking her head hard, Lilynette bit her lip. "It isn't heavy at all," she said, voice small.
Starrk only looked at her, not even bothering to raise an eyebrow. He knew that was a lie; she was still shaking too hard in his arms for it to be anything else.
She looked away. "Would it make you feel better if I tell you that I haven't carried it for long?" she asked. "I didn't remember everything until…"
"Until?"
"Until…" she rubbed the back of her neck. "Until that time when we joined together and split apart again."
Oh.
Starrk almost laughed. It seemed that that one gamble he made when he saw Aizen attacking Harribel had far, far more consequences than he first thought. He swallowed, shaking his head to dismiss the lingering thoughts about just what those consequences had been.
"So much time has passed since then," he said softly. "Why didn't you tell me?"
Lilynette slumped. Her sigh wafted over his collarbone.
"I promised myself to protect you," she said. "And I… I didn't manage to do it. I made you protect me again. So I thought that maybe… just maybe… keeping this from you is a way of protecting you too. Then you don't have to be burdened with… with, well, all of this."
This time, Starrk did give in to his laughter. No matter how much Lilynette remembered, no matter how much she kept from him, it seemed that she was still a child.
"You should know better than that," he chided gently. "Keeping secrets isn't really a way of protecting someone. A cat will tear its way out of the bag eventually."
He blinked. "I have no idea why I just said that."
"It's a saying," Lilynette said carelessly. Then she jerked, narrowing her eye at him. "Starrk, are you remembering?"
It was such a temptation to say no, to give her a taste of her own medicine. But the urge disappeared almost immediately, and he gave her a lopsided smile instead.
"The town we were born in was called Manchester," he said, tipping his head up. The skies here looked brighter now, as if Lilynette's truths had cleared away the grey clouds and allowed the bright sun to burst through. "Our father's name was James, and our mother's was Mathilda. When our father lost his job, our mother supported us by working in a cotton mill for a while. She lost her job because I went to look for her when you were two years old or so, and the Hollows followed me and destroyed the mill."
He sighed. "You always had a habit of talking to ghosts as if they were real. Your first word was the 'grandmama', even though she died before you were born. And the both of us… we knew things that no one else did; things that the ghosts told us. Our parents never understood."
"And that's why Father tried to kill me," Lilynette said flatly.
"I don't blame him for it, you know," he said quietly. "I never did."
It was hard to blame a man for what he did when you were haunted by the smell of his blood on your hands for the rest of your life.
Lilynette huffed, rolling her eye. "You know, when we become Hollows, we're supposed to change. Become meaner or something. But you never did."
"How did that happen anyway?"
"How did what happen?"
"How did we become Hollows?"
There was a suddenly sheepish look on Lilynette's face. She rubbed the back of her neck, ducking her head down.
"I ate you," she said finally, voice so soft that Starrk could barely hear her.
He blinked. "… What?"
She looked up at him, lips white with anger. "I ate you, okay?" she burst out. "The Shinigami were coming for you and I didn't want them to, and I noticed that Hollows were made when chains grew shorter, so I yanked mine out and became a Hollow and ate you because I didn't want you to be taken by a Hollow! I thought I was keeping you safe!"
Starrk couldn't help it. He blinked again. "That's…"
"I know it's stupid," Lilynette continued, pulling away from him to huddle into a ball a distance away.
"Lilynette," Starrk tried, but she steamrolled over him, ranting.
"I know it's because I'm dumb that we became Hollows; that we grew so powerful, that we were lonely; that we met Aizen… I know, okay? I know that everything bad that happened to us is my fault."
She was starting to cry, and Starrk had enough. He reached out, grabbing her by the collar of her yukata and pulling her back, shoving her face forcefully against his chest.
"Shut up," he whispered fiercely. "It's not your fault."
"But," she tried to say, but he pressed her even closer, forcefully silencing her.
"Our power isn't your fault. It's not just you who had reiatsu. We both did. The Hollows came for both of us."
He took a ragged breath. "The reason why we were even in London was because I killed our father," he said, squeezing his eyes shut to try to not remember the smell of blood on his hands. Why was it that, no matter which world he lived in, he always had to kill even though it was what he hated most in the world?
"If we get down to it," he pressed onward, "the reason why you were afraid of the Shinigami was because I was, because I never spoke to them or tried to understand what they were doing. Everything you knew was what I told you, so how could you know? So if we're pushing blame, it's my fault."
"It's not your fault!" Lilynette protested immediately, yanking him down by his hair. "Don't take all the blame for yourself!"
"Take your own advice," Starrk shot back, lips twitching.
She stared at him for a long moment before she laughed. The sound was something too old for him, entirely unfitting the innocent, childlike girl Starrk remembered from both the Living World.
"How about," she said, "we agree that it's fate's fault, because it's obvious that she likes fucking around with us."
Starrk leaned down, laughing into her hair. Lilynette had grown up somewhere in between her death and the time when they stopped being one and became two again. And Starrk had missed all of it.
"Mm," he said. "That's fine with me."
She thumped him on the shoulder. "So let go already. I can't breathe."
"You don't need to," Starrk said, not letting go.
"You're crushing my ribs."
"You'll survive."
The huff of her laugh skimmed over his collarbone, and she wrapped her arms around his chest, resting her head on a shoulder.
"I'm so glad that you're not mad at me," she murmured.
He closed his eyes, stroking his fingers through her hair. "You should know better than that," he said. "I will never be angry at you."
Not for long anyway.
She smacked him again. "You mean that you will never be angry at anyone," she corrected, sounding both amused and resigned at the same time.
There was no way he could deny that, so he just nodded. "Mm, that's true too."
They stayed like that in silence, watching the sands of their inner world be whirred up into tiny storms by the dry wind that whipped through their hair and snuck beneath their clothes to skitter across their skins.
His mind turned towards Shunsui, about what he would think about all this; if he had any stories of Hollows who remembered their pasts. If he knew anything about the town and city that Starrk and Lilynette had lived in while they were still living souls.
"You're thinking about spring water, aren't you," Lilynette stated.
"Mm," he nodded it. There was no point in denying it.
Lilynette sighed. She untangled herself from him, her hands closing around his arms before she looked at him, red eye half-lidded.
"You did come here to talk to me about him," she said. "So talk."
Instinctively, he wanted to say no. He wanted to tell her that there was nothing for them to talk about and he could handle this on his own. But he knew that would be a lie, and he would be hiding things from her.
They had hid enough from each other for long enough.
"Alright."
Notes: This is half of one chapter. The next half will come next week, as usual. (Sorry!)
Tell me what you think about the backstory I created for Starrk and Lilynette?