Kohana twirled a fan in her hand, downing sake, her lips pursed as she thought. The crowd was thinning, though the din around them was enough to mask their conversation.

"Have you ever thought of becoming a Shinigami?" Hisa asked her friend.

Kohana cocked a brow, pouring herself more sake. "Sure, back when I was a kid living in the country. Thought I'd be some hot-shot with a Zanpakutō, adventures all over the Soul Society. Then Taku was born," Kohana mused, speaking fondly of her little brother. "I sorta dropped that dream. Didn't have time for dreams chasing him and his friends around. You?"

Hisa thought back, her childhood in Kusajishi. Her mother had lived in a single shack, caring for children that weren't even her own. Some had picked on Hisa for her red hair, others just shunned her. Disputes between the local gangs and the villagers were common. On several occasions, Hisa remembered her mother being kicked to the dirt, spat on, stomped. But her mother always got back up again. They moved farther away from Kusajishi, and Hisa and her mother took shelter with a shop owner and his son. Everything seemed to be going fine until one evening when Hisa's mother hadn't answered a question quickly enough.

"You lying to me, woman?!" the man had yelled, grabbing Hisa's mother by the front of the shirt. "You got some place else to go? Maybe you're not satisfied with the shit hole I have going here. Answer me, woman!"

Hisa had run from the house, only to be caught by the shop owner's son. Hisa couldn't remember his full name, but she had called him Toga.

"Don't run," Toga had said, pulling Hisa back to the house.

"He's scaring me!" Hisa cried.

"Running will only make him more angry," Toga explained. "Just stay in the bedroom and don't make a sound. There's a loose floorboard by where you sleep, hide under there if you get scared."

That's precisely what Hisa did. Every time the shop owner fought with her mother, Hisa would hide under the floor, waiting until her mother's cries died down and the man stopped shouting. Hisa spent her days running around with Toga and his friends in the sun. Hisa regretted not spending more time with her mother. One evening, a fight began, and all seemed relatively normal until the shop owner hit Hisa's mother just a little too hard. Hisa's mother dropped like a brick, and then the man left for drinks, leaving the bleeding woman on the floor. Hisa remembered coming out from the bedroom, finding her mother laying motionless. She shook her mother, asked her to wake up, to move, to speak, to do anything. Tears streamed down her face, leaving tracks of clean skin among the grime.

"Don't leave me, Mama," Hisa whispered at last. "I can't...I need you to get up."

She never got up.

Hisa ran to the bedroom, crawled under the floor and slept and cried and slept and cried. A thought crossed her mind and without any further consideration, she climbed from the floor, retrieving the sword she knew the shop owner had under his blankets. She couldn't face what was lying outside the room, so she climbed from the window, running barefoot into oblivion.

"Hisa?"

Hisa struggled against the memories drowning her, yet she breached the surface of reality and found herself staring at a buzzed Kohana, twiddling with a pink fan in her left hand. Kohana hiccupped, covering her mouth with her free hand, but her eyes never wavered from Hisa's.

"No, I never thought about becoming a Soul Reaper," Hisa said at last.