Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or any of the characters associated with it. All rights belong to the creator Tite Kubo. This is an AU story with some OCC
(AN: This is all set during 19th Century Japan.)
Chapter 25: A Beauty of Grace curse with a Great Gift
-X-
She was daydreaming again.
Dreaming about the sea; vast, open and endless. Dreaming about the untouched lands that humanity has yet to discover or left uncharted. She wanted to discover another culture's custom, wanted to meet new people, wanted to taste the most exotic food ever, but what she really wanted was for her mother to finish with these stupid lessons already.
Don't get her wrong, she loves her mother, but sometimes the woman would start ranting and going into too many details about her future job. A job that she'll probably be forced to take. Sometimes she wonders why her father visited such a boring village that's 80% of the time always pouring down.
Damn it!
She didn't want her mother's boring job! She wants to leave this entire place! But she can't... because of complications.
"Annabelles."
"Huh—What? Oh, yeah, yeah." Annabelles looked over at her mother. She was a gorgeous woman in her mid-forties with a few inches shorter than her and didn't need a touch of make-up to look appealing to the opposite sex; and it's not like she's exaggerating about it. She got plenty of her mother's genes to know that she has the same effects on boys around her age. Her soft brown eyes mixed well with her light green hair that's held together by a kanzashi. Her black and orange robes look both elegant and beautiful on her, it fit her form in a way that made her look graceful and gave her a mysteries charm that most men in her village can't deny that they love but were all... disgusted to try getting close to her because of their family 'curse'.
Her mother, Takka, looked down at her tea and sighed before taking a sip. When she looked back at her, she said, "What was I talking about then?" When she rolled her eyes, she could tell that her mother held back in mimicking her.
"About what you're always talking about." She took a sip of her tea when her mother's gazing eyes started making her nervous, but when her tongue tasted the awful flavor, she spat it out. "Ugh, I don't understand how you like this stuff. It tastes so bitter and salty."
Takka sighed again and sipped her drink as if it was water. "I told you a million times already. This special drink clears our mind and soul. That's how we're able to see the spirits." She glanced at her before closing her eyes and saying, "You should, at most, try to get used to its flavor. One day you'll be living this life."
No, please, she doesn't want to hear it again.
"The village will hold you in high regard."
NO THEY WON'T!
"Soon after I—"
"Yeah? After what!" Anna raises her voice and it echoes throughout the empty shrine. "After you die? Huh!? How much longer are you planning on living before the Amamiya's curse catches on to you!? From what I remember about grandma, she lived to her late-sixties before she died from the 'spirits'. I'm only 24 and you're already planning on leaving me and Lily behind so that we can serve this village as their Priestess! Is the duty that hard? Well, guess what? I don't want any of that and guess what, I'll make sure Lily won't do it either! I want to leave this shitty village and their shitty spirits!" Realizing that she was yelling, she closed her mouth and looked down at the bitter drink in her hands before gulping the tea in an entire go.
There was a pregnant silence in the air, and Anna couldn't help but feel uncomfortable and stupid because of her outburst. She looked down at the village through the window; where the shrine's built, it was pretty high to see most of the village and its residents. "How can you accept this? Have you heard about what they say about us? They think we're a curse family and not the spiritual priestess that's supposed to keep evil away. In fact, they think the exact opposite, they think we're the ones bringing evil to this shitty place." She looked at her mother to see that her eyes were also looking at the village. "Mom, why didn't you want to go with dad? Isn't he some big politician back at his homeland far up north? We could have been living a better life than this. But you stayed here, and he put another bun in your oven before leaving... I mean, I'm very grateful that he doesn't forget about us and he sends us currency and gifts, but... wouldn't we be happier if we had lived with him?"
Her mother smiles at a particular memory. "You father, Addison, knows what my duty is, he has seen what I'm supposed to do and even though I love him, I couldn't leave this village. Our family has been guiding the spirits to the afterlife for the past four generations, and because of it, we have been keeping peace between us and them. If we leave, then their blood will be in our hands."
Before the younger woman could ask the next thing in her mind, an icy shiver ran down her spine and she turned around. "Someone just got here." When she finishes, an elderly man phase through the closed door. "Old man Kai?" Annabelles knew this man as the local blacksmith. Like any blacksmith that worked even to their senior years, Kai wasn't a scrawny old man, he was of average height with a tanned, plump built with brawny arms carrying plenty of burn marks and scars that told stories of both failures and achievements, no sort of facial hair above or below his head since he had shaved himself bald. "Sheesh, did you die while working, old man?"
Kai's brown eyes looked down at his black torn-up shirt and leather trousers before snorting at Annabelles' comment. "For your information, a blacksmith is always busy and one must be ready for when a request comes forged." He sighed and rubs the back of his head as he looks up. "But I guess, I was nearing my end. All I did was take a brief nap and before I knew it; I woke up next to my corpse with a chain on my chest." When he looked back at the Amamiya family, he cast his eyes to the floor. "I'm... um, I'm sorry..."
Annabelles knew about what he was apologizing about. They all do once they pass away. She looked towards her mother to hide her expressionless face from the blacksmith. "What are you sorry about?"
"Annabelles." Takka spoke coldly as she knew what Anna was trying to do. She had warned her before to not ask such a question that she would then hurt them with. "We talked about this—"
"Yeah! And you know what else we talk about?!" Anna looked at her mother with such fury that she didn't care how she flinched from the look. "How you're going to die off and leave this job to me! So zip it! If you want me to do your job, then I'll do it, but I'll do it my way!" She then looked at Kai, the elderly man slowly backing away. "So answer my question so that I can send you happily to the afterlife! WHAT ARE YOU SORRY ABOUT!"
The blacksmith looked down at the ground in shame. His body feels heavy from the years of treating the family with ill-mannered intentions. "I'm sorry about how I treated all of you. I know I was one of the most vocal people in the village that's always scorching the Amamiya name, blaming every bad omens on all of you, the way we treated you for carrying the blood of a foreigner. The words I had said weren't the most... kind. I... did a lot of wrongs towards your family... and I'm sorry."
She rolled her eyes and obviously huffed loud enough for Kai to hear her. "All of you act differently once you realize you're dead and need to come and find us. That's what happened, right? Once you found out you were dead, you started crawling towards us." When she saw the man clenched her fist, Anna knew she had him right where she wanted him. "What? You got something to say!? Then speak up! Come on! Say it! IF YOU HAVE A PROBLEM WITH THE WAY I'M TREATING YOU, THEN SAY IT! REMEMBER THOSE WORDS!? HUH!? THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT YOU WOULD TELL ME EVERY TIME I WOULD CASUALLY WALK BY YOUR SMITHY!"
She waited for his reaction, not for the anger, she was waiting for the tears. They would always start crying, always, and Kai was no different. Now that he realizes his mistake—like all the others—he will start apologizing, and it didn't take long for him to break. His shoulders started shaking, and he was weeping softly before bowing down deeply.
"You're right. After I died, and realized no one could see me, I started... remembering the stories my mother would tell me, about the priestess that would guide me to the next life..."
When the old man started weeping louder, Anna looked away from the scene. No matter how many times she made them cry, no matter how many times they apologized, no matter how much she hated them. She could find no satisfaction from it. It was a hollow sensation to her.
"Are you happy?"
She heard her mother ask, and she looked at her to only shake her head. When her ears picked up a higher pitch wail, she stood up and walked towards the room next to them, but her mother stopped her.
"I'll calm down, Lily. You should go take Kai-san to the Jūreichi."
"... Fine, I guess I can do that. Come on, old man, the Shinigami will take you to the afterlife." She snorted as the old man panicked to his feet. She looked down at her clothes—the same as her mother's. 'I hate this job...'
"Sheesh. You sure had an attitude problem." Starrk scratched the back of his head and dipped his feet in the slow-moving stream. Though she was ready to talk about her relationship between her and Lily, the woman had decided in waiting—probably to find the courage to talk about it—before she brought him into his inner world in which he had waited for four full days and luckily for him, nothing had come up with the rescue-squad to stop him from going inside his mind to talk with Anna.
Putting her feet in the water too, Anna looked at the brunette and said, "If you have questions, then speak now or forever hold your peace."
"I'll wait towards the end."
"Is this the reason I sometimes saw you and Takka-sama walk through the village?"
Was that an honorific that she just heard? Oh Kami, it was. 'Don't start treating us differently!' Well, it seems he finally relaxed his nerves around her, she's honestly happy that he did. Their noiseless marching that has been going on for an hour was about to make her mind snap. "Yeah." Perhaps if she makes small talk, time would fly faster and she'll be back home to spend some time with her baby sister. "Every time you saw us, it meant that we were walking someone towards the Jūreichi."
"And what is this Jūreichi?"
"It's a sacred ground that the Shinigami showed our family a long time ago. They say that every time a soul comes to us, to take them there and they'll send them to their next step."
"A-about the... Shinigami... what sort of deity is he?"
"Well, just like all the people in the village, he's an asshole too, but it's not because of what we are, he's just an asshole."
"Look!.. I... already said that I'm sorry."
"You're only sorry now because we're making you eat your words." She stopped and took a breath. She needed to take a second to feel the Jūreichi's energy. The sacred ground was located further away from the village after an hour's walk through the woodlands, and for any normal person, the chances for them to find the Jūreichi would be by simple luck; but not them. The Shinigami once said that the Amamiya family seemed to have a natural talent of noticing the spiritual world. Which was why the Shinigami had tasked them to guide the souls towards the Jūreichi, because apparently the almighty deities have a busy schedule? 'Even Death's busy.'
When her mind felt a pull, she opened her eyes and started walking again for another 10 minutes before she finally found the sacred ground. There was absolutely nothing; no grass, trees or animals for over dozens and dozens of meters across the empty field. Yet strongly enough, Anna could feel so much energy. She took another breath and enjoyed the feeling before Kai stepped forward and looked across the field too.
"This is the Jūreichi? Why do I feel... oddly strange by being here?" Kai started flexing his fingers before puffing out his chest. "I feel 30 years younger! Why, I haven't felt this lively and energetic since the time I had to build the village—"
She tuned out the man's voice and simply enjoys the feeling of being here. The Shinigami always told them to not spend too much time in this place, but she doesn't listen to the man's advice. When she could, she would always sneak out at night to enjoy this exact feeling; freedom. 'If only I could find the way to break the shackles I was born with.'
She didn't want to be an Amamiya; she wanted to be a Gingerbuck like her father. 'The only thing he left behind for me are his pink eyes.' Her mind drifted to another and the most recent concern.
Lilynette, her baby sister.
Her father had visited them a year ago; he had visited them plenty of times before, so he was never actually out of their family picture. Besides the gifts and money that he would usually leave them with, this time around he gave them a little something more. Nine months later Lily came to this world to ruin her entire plan. Though she'll never say that she hated her father for it. Her father made the harsh boat trip from his homeland way far up north to them every five years, and the stories he usually brings along with him always make up for the lost years.
Again, she's always wondering why her mother never left with him. Maybe if she had, she wouldn't be planning on running away, trying to break the chains of her fate and live a free life.
She just can't stand the village and its residents anymore. Life was hard when she was growing up. When she was little, about five years old, she realized the looks and treatments villagers gave her family. They had never laid a finger on her, but the yelling and the glaring was just as equally abusive for her as a child. Her mother had kept her lock-up in the shrine for years too and she won't blame her, because she can't. It was in her mother's best interest that she lived her life a little more peacefully but the quiet life wasn't for her. She felt trapped.
Her mother possibly saw the stressful environment she was living in because at seven, she thought it was a smart enough idea for her to be ready for her 'future'. At seven years old, she learned that such things as spirits exist. It was at eight years old when she followed her mother to her first trip to the Jūreichi. It was at nine years old when she could finally see the spirits and at ten years old, she was sick of it. The life her mother wanted her to live was a fate worse than death. The daily routing of waiting for someone's spirit to come to the shrine before guiding them to the sacred ground wasn't why she hated it, it was the looks the villagers would send them when they walked through the village that she couldn't stand.
They would glare.
They would whisper.
They would shun them.
She would hate them for it. Glares that have no reason to be on their faces; the whispers of the harsh words that would break someone's spirit by just hearing them; the ignorance of their family's existence. It all pissed her off.
At 15, she had enough, and it was her first incident with Kai. Like any of her 'normal' days, she and her mother were walking a soul towards the Jūreichi when her ears heard the obvious, loud voice of the blacksmith with words such as 'curse', 'witches', 'crazy', 'whores' coming out of his mouth and when she looked at him—just a little look; no glare, no nothing—Kai would then say that awful sentence.
"If you have a problem with the way I'm treating you, then say it!"
Those words always seemed to be what the rest of the villagers wanted to say to them and sometimes she wondered why they hadn't tried to kick them off the village or possibly kill them because they really seemed to blame their family for every little bad thing that happens to them.
If the crops go bad, then blame the Amamiya.
If your most healthy livestock dies, then blame the Amamiya.
If the rain is ruining your business, then blame the Amamiya.
If someone you care for has died unexpectedly, then blame the Amamiya.
Everything was their fault.
But once someone dies and they come to the shrine, their attitude changes.
She hated that.
She hated this stupid, shitty life.
She was so close to leaving everything behind, but her father just had to visit and leave her with a baby sister... Which is why she can't leave... She doesn't want Lily to grow up in the same environment as her. Where people would blame her for simply carrying the Amamiya name. So she'll stay until—and Kami please forgive her for what she's going to say—her mother dies so that she can take Lily away from here.
She needs to be strong. Needs to stay strong for Lily's sake and future.
'Everything will be for Lily.'
When Kai was making himself known again by talking louder, she was about to turn around and yell at the man when someone with a low raspy voice beat her to it.
"Can it already, old man! I can hear you from a mile away!"
She turned to Kaneko Takeshi. He was a tanned, mid-thirty looking man standing at 6'4'' with broad shoulders and an athletic body type. His brown hair shaved from the sides with only a tail-like length of hair growing down from the back of his head and braided with its tipped dye a gold color. He's an 'asshole' that's really just trying to pretend to be a hard-ass by acting like an asshole.
When he turned his whiskey-colored eyes on her, he said, "Where's your mother at?"
"Lily."
"Ahh." That was a sufficient answer for him. "How many months have you been doing your mother's work? Five? Six?" He started walking towards the old man.
"A year. It's been a year since I've been doing mom's work. Don't you remember telling her how she couldn't come here anymore because then Lily might have been born Spiritually Aware?" Anna watched as the man pulled out his Zanpakutō before tapping Kai's forehead with his sword's pommel. She watched as the act of Konsō sent the old man to the afterlife. "I think the magic wand's broken. I knew the old man my entire life and I can tell you he deserved to go to Hell instead." She saw a few incidents when a soul goes to Hell.
Takeshi groaned before looking at her. "I told you about this already. The acts that he played overlooks the treatment of one person."
"So you're telling me it's okay for him to treat me and my mother any way he wants because as long as he does enough good, he can go live happily in Soul Society?! What kind of sick joke is that!" She pointed towards the direction of the village. "So what's going to happen to me when I die?! I hate this village and everyone living in it, and I'm planning on running away with my sister the moment my mother dies so that we can live a happy life. Is that going to send me to Hell or to Soul Society!?"
Sheathing his Zanpakutō, the Shinigami walked up to her with his arms crossed. "Don't do any wicked acts as a human and then you won't go to Hell."
Scowling at him, she turned around to walk back home when she noticed Takeshi stopped beside her. "More you want to say?"
"I'm just walking you home."
"Oh?" She lifted an eyebrow and started walking. "All this time and you have never walked me home." She smirked and leaned closer to his face. "Finally getting bold with me, Takeshi-kun?" *smack* "Ouch! What the hell was that for you jackass! Don't just smack me at the back of my head!"
"Oh please, that was just a ta—*SMACK*—OUCH! THAT ACTUALLY HURT!"
"Good! It's meant to hurt!" She rubbed head for a little longer before asking questions again. "Okay, jokes aside, why are you walking me home? You never did it before, so why are you doing it now?"
"There has been a Hollow sighted here. Usually they wouldn't go near your village since the only two spiritually aware beings would be you and your mother, but I rather not risk it." He looks at her and says, "That's why I'm going to tell you this right now; Don't try coming here for the next couple of months. I need to get rid of this Hollow before it harms anyone."
She looked forward before asking another question for the man. "Hey... do you think what I'm trying to do is me being selfish?"
Takeshi ducked under a tree-branched. "If you're talking about running away with Lily after your mother dies? Then, yeah, I'll say it sounds pretty selfish that you want to live a peaceful life and leave all the wandering souls to their demise." As he felt her mood drop, he added, "Although, I think it's for the best that you get to live your life now. The Shinigami have put humans' lives in danger by simply asking them to take Soul Plus to us. So Central 46 is trying to change that now by asking the 12th Division to create a gadget that can trace and alert us when a Soul and Hollow are born into this world."
"... Here's another odd question. Do you need to be a Shinigami to use the spell that can send someone to Soul Society or do you just need a Zanpakutō?"
"You're right, that is an odd question... Why do you ask?"
"... When the time comes, I want to be the one to send mom to Soul Society."
There was a silence after her words until the Shinigami opened his mouth. "I'll find out for you, Annabelles-san."
An hour of walking and small conversations through their walk, they found themselves towards the edge of the village; and with the sun setting down across the horizon, the world was dye in an orange hue color. With the back of her hand, she waves Takeshi off. "Well, here's where you can drop me off. I'll sneak myself around the village to get home."
"Alright, and Annabelles-san, remember what I told you."
"Yeah, yeah. See ya around, Takeshi-san." She started running as soon as her foot touched the village's ground. If she was lucky, she'll avoid everyone since they'll probably be mourning Kai's death. The old man wasn't just a simple blacksmith. Kai's family; the Miyamoto, and three other families, were one of the early founders of Miyamizu village. Predating back to over two hundred years of history. People will mourn and they'll probably have a party in memory of the old man.
She stopped and hid behind a house when she heard someones' voices; an old grumpy woman's voice talking to an equally grumpy man's voice. 'Shit! Is it them!? Why the hell are they over here?!' She heard the sounds of festival music already so she knew that the party had started. She waited for them to get closer to hear their conversation because just like Kai, all they spoke about is horrible things towards their family name.
"A shame that Miyamoto-dono had died, but now his daughter will lead their clan." The old man spoke.
A low, gurgle sound came out as a response first before words would. "At least his daughter has the brain to use the Miyamoto name to her advantage. That old fool Kai worked the life of a blacksmith instead of staying as Clan head and never raising a finger for work."
"A shame he couldn't help us by overthrowing the Amamiya."
What the hell did they just say? Her heart started beating faster. What the hell were these old fools trying to do to them? When she heard them come closer, she hid closer to the house's shadows and watched both of them walk by. To the right was an elderly woman of Kai's age with gray hair, an elegant silver Kimono dress with purple wisteria insignia running across the bottom of the dress hem. Right below her bottom lip was a mole and when her cold, steel-blue eyes weren't slitted then she would pass judgement on you.
Nakamura Shion gurgles again before saying. "Well, when you remember about certain events that happened within the Miyamoto clan ages ago, some things make sense in the long run."
The other elderly was of the opposite frame compared to Kai. He was scrawny and thinner, with pale skin and black eyes. A long, white beard stretched down to his neck and while he was bald, there was a large and round birthmark starting from his forehead connected with a much smaller birthmark on top of his head as if it was a peninsula. Opposite to the blacksmith, the elder wore some of the finest Yukata that his money could buy. The color gold and silver would always be present in his clothes, either in one fashion or another, but the theme would always be there. Tonight he wore a Silver Yukata with his clan's name; Miyazaki in a gold color.
Okamoto Shira caresses his beard. "That's right, especially when you remember that certain rumor."
Shion's eyes had opened only the slightest to reveal her cold blue orbs. "Indeed. The secret marriage between Miyamoto Kai and Amamiya Yotsuba. However, we now know that it was more of a forced marriage since Yotsuba's mother had threatened the Miyamoto clan with a horrible curse. Also, without a doubt they had to conceive a child."
"And there's only one person who's old enough to be their child; Amamiya Takka."
She stopped hearing after all of that. She made a haste to retreat through the back of the house and ran straight towards her home. What she heard couldn't be true. Kai couldn't possibly be her grandfather! She also knew there was a current heir to the Miyamoto clan that could be a relative to her mother. Which is unbelievable! There was no way! The shrine's basically deserted, with only she and her mother living there with no servants and such. She also had never remembered hearing her grandmother talk about her husband. Did her mother know about Kai?
When she made it to the top of a hill, she stopped running and looked back at the village.
...
She really hated this shitty place.
Looking up towards the path that led her home, her pink eyes found the banner with the Kanji words for 'SPIRITS' hanging across the gates to the Amamiya's compound. There's four founding clans that built Miyamizu Village; the Miyamoto, Nakamura, Okamoto and lastly—the one that actually found the village with the help of a Shinigami—the Amamiya. Though they're considered the 'founding' clan, no one respected them with such authority. She and her mother don't even see themselves as nobles either. The Amamiya is a family that's filled with priestesses. No outsider that had married or moved into the Amamiya's residence held power, and although there was no power, they had stayed as founders and 'nobles' since the beginning of the village's history. Because of the lack of 'power', no one bothers to marry an Amamiya. Then there was the 'curse' that was already bad enough for them.
As the years went on, their clan started dying out. Her grandmother was one of the two last remaining Amamiya before she had Takka; her mother.
'Which reminds me... If Old Man Kai was forced to be with Yotsuba-jiji, was the intention only meant to keep the bloodline alive?..' Anna scowled as she thought about her mother and father.
Could that be the case for her parents too? Her mother only wanted to keep the bloodline alive and to do so she threatened her father? Or could there possibly be a slight chance of love between her parents? There has to be, or else why would her mother agree in giving her and Lily foreign names? Or that her father comes to visit them?
... Unless her mother threatened him with a curse.
Or could it be that her mother loves her job more than her husband and she didn't care about what she had done as long as the bloodline keeps going? ... Are her parents even married? Was or is her mother expecting her to continue the family by bearing children from a possible stranger?... Guess that's why Kai would use those words.
'So that possibly means that my great grandmother blackmailed Kai to have a child with my grandma... Damn it.' Her legs felt heavy as she walked up the hill. Is that why her mother told her to get used to the job? 'I hate all of this...'
From the corners of her mind, her thoughts drifted to Lily.
Is her mother expecting Lily to do the same?
'... I hate this... I truly hate this...'
For once in her life and as twisted as it may sound, she really hopes her mother would just die already before she sets Lily through that path.
-One Month Later-
"Lily~! Come on! You need to eat your fruits!" Anna put a slice of orange close to Lily's mouth. "Come on! You're eight months old now! You should be ready to eat solid food." When she put the piece of fruit closer to Lily's mouth, her baby sister started pushing back the fruit. "Lily, I love you, but sometimes you're really annoying." Life has been recently quiet for her. Strange enough—and by that she means good, well, depending on your point of view—there hasn't been a single spirit come to the shrine in the last month, given her plenty of time to forget about what she heard and to spend time with Lily, which at the moment is a pain in the ass. "Lily, I swear I'm going to shove my hand down your throat and make you eat."
"Now you know how I felt."
She turned around to see her mother come into the room before picking Lily up and grabbing a piece of orange. She bit the orange in half and smiled at Lily before moving the half-bitten orange towards her child's mouth. Lily looked at the fruit and then at her mother before she put the piece of orange in her mouth and started sucking it as if it was a pacifier.
"How the hell did you do that?" Anna asked and her mother smiled at her.
"The first one gave me all the experience that I needed."
Anna was about to open her mouth before she felt a presence walk into the shrine, but before the spirit would come into the garden, Lily started crying. 'That's not good... Lily had never cried so suddenly before and when she does, it happens because of one of the Soul Plus that had walked into the shrine. Is she spiritually aware? Or is it some baby habit?' She looked at her mother and asked about it.
"Well, it's odd, but I don't think she's spiritually aware... You cried a lot when a spirit would come near but they couldn't touch or hurt you."
Again, she couldn't reply before the Soul Plus found them at their garden and she turned around to see their guest, Anna instantly noticed that this middle aged man wasn't from Miyamizu Village. His clothes were torn and she couldn't tell what color they could be because of all the dirt, mud and... was that possible blood on him? She looked at his chain to see how the man had little time left for him. Takeshi told them what would happen if the chain would vanish if he couldn't send the spirit to Soul Society. So that means that she needs to take this man to Takeshi, and fast.
"Once the chain comes off, he'll turn into a Hollow, right?" Curiously, she still asked about it. She looked at her mother since she didn't respond, and the look on her face was of pure horror. "Mom?" Then her mother's expression changed. She glares at the stranger and pulls Lily closer.
"Leave."
"What?" Anna asked with a weak smile on her face. "Mom, are you okay?" When her mother's glare sharpens, she scowls. "Are you serious right now, mom? Look at him! He needs our help!"
"Anna... this man's a lost cause."
"ARE YOU SERIOUS! MOM, WE NEED TO TAKE HIM WITH TAKESHI!" She got up and grab the man's hand. "Come on, we're taking you to heaven."
"ANNA, STOP!" Her mother stood up with Lily clinging to her and crying. "This man only has five chains! He'll turn into a Hollow!"
For her entire life Anna had never, never seen a Hollow before, but apparently that's what killed her grandmother. She also heard how dangerous they are, but that shouldn't stop them from doing the job that her mother wanted her to be ready for. "Then stop wasting my time and let me take him to Takeshi! At least he'll send him to Soul Society!"
"I forbid you from leaving with this man! Anna, you won't make it to the Jūreichi in time before he turns!"
Her mother pleaded for her to listen, but she didn't. "All this time you told me to get used to my job, well, this—" Anna gestured towards the man, "—is my job; to send spirits to the Shinigami before they turn to Hollows." She ran up to her mother to hug and smile at her. "Mom, I'll be back. I promise." She let go and wheeled around before sprinting to full speed when she finished and called over to the man. "Come on, pops! I'm gonna take you to Heaven!"
"ANNA!"
Her mother will be furious with her, but if she finishes the job before the old man would turn and come back safe and sound, then her mother won't be too mad with her. 'Besides, what's the worst she'll do? Ground me? Pfft. I'm 24 years old!' She ran through the village in broad daylight and for once in her life, she didn't care about the looks or whispers. She only kept on running for half an hour before stopping to catch her breath. Looking around, she notices two things. The first would be that she was closer to the Jūreichi. 'Well, I ran for 30 minutes.' And at last, she realizes she had left the man behind. "Shit!"
She turned around to go find him, but that's when he appeared right before her. "You're pretty fast for a dead guy." Her smirk dropped as she stared into the man's eyes. They seemed glossy like a doll's eyes and just looking at them made her feel uneasy. She looked down to the man's chain to see the number was still at five. Was it because the man was closer to becoming a Hollow that he was acting this way? 'I really need to get him to Takeshi.'
When her lungs felt full, she wheeled around and got ready for another sprint before the sound of leaves rattling reached her ears and she turned around to see the man's back as he made a run towards the opposite direction. "WAIT!" She ran after him. "That's not the right way!"
Chasing after him, she noticed the stiff posture the man was running in; his legs only bent enough for his feet to gain the right momentum to keep running, and his arms were by his side and stiffened as he ran too. After she got close, she reached out with her left hand to grab the man by the collar of his shirt and pulled. She was hoping to make the man lose his balance and fall over, but he stopped when she ripped his shirt and saw the... disgusting thing on his back.
There was a strange, white pulsing piece of flesh on the man's back. She could see that the flesh was, by Kami she hoped it wasn't real, but she was sure she was seeing the strange white meat tissue pulsing, as if it was alive. She could also see signs that the flesh had attached and spread root-like veins across the man's back. When the man turned around to look at her, he opened his mouth for her to see that white, root-like veins had replaced his teeth.
She stared at the... thing in horror after she jumped back to avoid the man from literally pouncing on her. When he started hissing at her after missing, she turned around and ran. "Shit!" She turned her head around to see the man still running in his stiff posture, but his mouth was open, "Shit!" Giving her the view of his tentacle-like teeth recklessly twirling and twisting before one of his strange appendages stretched and pierce a tree. "SHIT!" She dodged to the left and kept on running.
"TAKESHI!" She kept running back towards the direction of the Jūreichi because if Takeshi's here, then that'll be the only place for the man to be. When she heard a disturbing high-pinching hissed sound, she turned her head to see in time as all the man's horrific teeth lashed out. "TAKESHI!" Making a quick right turn, she got to dodge the attack but tripped over. 'Get up and run!' She pushed herself back onto her feet and ran. Her brain kept repeating back her dilemma; she's in danger and needs to find help.
Hearing that horrible hissing sound again, she dodge to her left to avoid the man's tentacle-teeth. She couldn't take the chance of turning her head around and tripped over some more forest's debris. So she kept her head straightforward, but that's about the time she realized she didn't know this part of the landscape. 'Whatever this thing is, it's driving me further away!' She tried turning back around, but the man saw her actions and shot his teeth towards a nearby tree. What scared her about the close encounter with death was the reaction speed; it could literally kill her with the speed it just used. Then she figured out that this thing knew what she was trying to do, and it had completely cut her off and driven her back into running towards unknown territory. 'It knows what I'm trying to do.' Her eyes widened as she recalled what Takeshi had told her. 'No, no, no! There's no way that thing's the Hollow!' There was no time to stop and think about her horrible luck because the slightest hesitation would kill her. Seeing a group of shrubs directly in front of her, she rushed towards them and closed her eyes so that the branches wouldn't hurt her eyes.
When she put her left foot back on the ground, Anna led forward.
When she felt gravity pulling her down, she opened her eyes.
When she saw that the ground was about a few dozen meters away from her, she realized how the Hollow had led her towards a cliff and how could she have known? She never ventured this far before.
When she felt gravity pulling her down to earth, she closed her eyes, clenched her teeth and waited for the pain.
"You... died." Starrk quietly and slowly stated it. His hand moved behind Anna's back to pat her—to comfort her—but with his poor social skills, he left his hand on her back instead.
Anna didn't mind his actions or words. She moved back a strand of her green hair behind her left ear and looked at him. "Yeah, I died." She looked back to the stream and moved her feet with the same lazy speed as the body of water was moving. "But I didn't notice right away. I'm pretty sure I smashed my skull or something 'cause I died instantly and when I woke up, lying on the ground, the first thing I did was going back to running as I saw that Hollow-spirit literally crawled down from the cliff to get to me."
She didn't stop to check on any injuries that she had suffered from her fall. Her body started moving again after seeing the Hollow. "TAK—!" She huffed as she felt a pull on her chest and feared the worst that the Hollow had caught up to her. She turned around and stared at the chain that got caught by a tree branch and followed the end of the chain to her chest.
Her skin paled and grabbed the chain with shaky hands. "...no... There's no way... this, this can't be real." When she heard the hissing of the Hollow-posses-spirit, she turned around to see a disturbing smile spread across his face with its strange teeth-tentacles twirling in excitement as if the man was a little too eager to get things started.
She ripped the branch and held it in a ready-swing action. "Come near me and I swear I'll break all your teeth!"
The thing smiled at the challenge and pounced. She was ready to swing her club when she saw the back of Takeshi as he swung down his Zanpakutō and cut the man's arm.
"Takeshi!" While she was happy to see him, he was not.
"Damn it, Anna! What the Hell did I tell you!" Takeshi didn't turn around to look at her. His eyes looked as the severed arm of the posses-spirit grew white vein-like appendages before the man grabbed his arm and reattached it back. "This is bad. If I knew the Hollow that was hunting these grounds was Caras, I would have called for back-up."
"Caras?" Anna peaked from behind the Shinigami's body. "Is this Hollow that dangerous? It's only some old man." When she heard the stories and descriptions of Hollows from her mother, she was expecting something more than just a weird-out man.
"This thing isn't Caras." The Shinigami glared over the man's body. "THAT'S Caras."
Before she could open her mouth, Anna felt a sinister power crash over her body like a wave. She looked past the man's body to see the silhouette of a creature slowly walking towards them. Its body was enormous, which was possibly standing at four meters tall. The creature's arms swayed left and right and it wasn't until a few more seconds when she could finally see the entire monster's body.
The Hollow's body didn't seem right to her. Its legs resemble those of a horse set backwards with uncharacteristically long and bony arms that end with only three, just as equally bony, fingers. Like its other limbs, the core of the creature's body didn't fit in with its look; In the easiest description that she could think of, the Hollow look obese with a hole found in his chest and—the creepiest thing she had seen—there were faces of different individuals across its stomach and chest. She looks up to its head and neck. There was a strange ox-like skull placed over his face with a black ring design over both of its eye sockets and its neck was unimaginably long with a horse's mane. White body plates accompanied his black pelt over its forearms, knees, neck, collarbone and around it's hole.
The Hollow looked at them and let out a laugh that echoed with hundreds of people's voices before it crouched down. Although vented, the creature was still taller than them. "Look at what we have here." It stretched its arms over the possessed man and grabbed him around the neck.
Anna watched as the Hollow absorbed the man. She could see the man's body travel through the creature's arms before reaching the stomach and right between its left breast plate and the face of a woman. The man's face appeared. "What the hell did this thing just do?" She whispered to Takeshi, and she took a step back when he took one.
"This Hollow is a crafty bastard. This thing can split the soul of any individual it has eaten and control them to lure out any spiritual beings." He looked at her and said, "Including spiritually aware humans."
"Soul splitting? That sounds awfully a lot like what I can do." Starrk couldn't stop himself from interrupting Anna's story to state the obvious. Some Hollows use the abilities of others to their liking after they devoured them.
"That's because it is." She moved her eyes to his. "Used your head, Starrk. As a Hollow, you were powerful, but the thought of splitting yourself never came through your mind. Why do you think that?"
"Because I didn't know how to?"
Anna shook her head at his answer. "It's not that you didn't know, it's because you couldn't... until I ate you."
Starrk furrowed his eyebrows as he understood things better. "But you couldn't have these abilities either... until the Hollow ate you. Did this Hollow eat Lily, too?" Things went silent after that and he almost scoffed himself when she opened her mouth.
"Yeah."
More awkwardness filled the area, and Starrk couldn't help but blame himself for the odd setting now. Was there a point for her story to continue after this? Annabelles already confessed what she'd done. There's no more need for her to continue this unnecessarily painful story of hers. He took his feet outside of the water and stood up. "I think that's enough. I really don't want you to hurt yourself—!" Anna grabbed his hand and pulled him down, slamming his ass hard on the ground. Grunting, he looked at her and said, "That really hurt."
"That's because it's meant to hurt." She glares at him. "Don't assume I'm hurting myself by telling you what happened to Lily and I. I'm way past the point to feel any self-pity, especially from someone else. So zip your mouth and listen."
After Takeshi's last statement, she says, "So this thing lures me out from the shrine to kill me? But what for? Couldn't it have come to the shrine and killed us there instead?"
"I don't—" He stopped when the sound of rattling chains reached his ears. He turned his head slightly to Anna and looked at the chain sticking out from her chest. "Anna... are you? Did that thing..." He looked back at the Hollow, then at Anna before deciding to grab her and using a Shunpo.
When the Hollow saw the action, it grinned throughout all its faces. "Leaving so soon? That's fine. I got somewhere else to go."
It was unsettling what the Hollow said, so she was unprepared for Takeshi's quick retreat. The moment they had exited the Hohō technique, Anna lost her balance and fell flat on her ass.
She groaned and started rubbing her behind. "Warn a girl the next time you're trying to do that—!" She silently screamed when Takeshi pulled her up by her soul chain. Pulling it back, she yells and glares at the Shinigami. "What the hell! That hurts you fucking asshole!"
Not caring for her unladylike mouth, Takeshi grabbed her chain again and pulled her towards his face. He hisses the next words through clench teeth "What. Did. I. Told. You." He pulled her chain more forcefully and knocked her down on the ground. "ANNA! YOU'RE DEAD!"
"DON'T YOU THINK I KNOW THAT ALREADY!" She stood up and took her chain back. "You think I wanted to die!? That thing lured me out here! I thought he was some lost soul that was looking for a way to Soul Society!... but now... now I'm dead." She let go of her chain and held her head with her hands. She wanted to cry. This wasn't how it's supposed to be. She wasn't looking for freedom by dying. When she heard the Shinigami walk towards her, she looked up to see Takeshi readying to use Konsō on her. "Please..." She started shaking her head. "Please... don't. I can't leave Lily behind!"
The man closed his eyes and sighed. "I'm sorry, Anna, but I need to send you to Soul Society before your Soul Chain disappears." He opens his eyes and taps Anna's forehead with his sword and waits for her to move on to the afterlife, but it never happens. "What?" He tried it again and met the same failure. "What's going on?" Another tap. "Why are you still here?" Another try. "I don't understand... why can't Konsō... Damn it!"
Rubbing her forehead, Anna didn't know if she should feel relief or slight trouble that she couldn't move on. "Takeshi, what happened?"
The Shinigami glances and glares at her. "I have a clue, but I hope it's not it. So I may need to ask for someone to check on you."
Need to ask?.. Doesn't he need to go back to Soul Society to do that!? "Are you insane?!" Anna yelled as she grabs Takeshi's arm. "You can't leave me here with that thing running around! Besides, I thought your job was to take care of those Hollows. Why the hell can't you get rid of that thing!? In fact, why the hell did you run away from it!"
Pulling back his hand, Takeshi said, "Because at this point that thing is not some regular Hollow. Besides," He looked at the ground and mumbled. "I'm only a 6th seat in the 7th Division. For a Hollow like Caras, I need to ask help from one of my supervisors." He looked at her and sighed. "I can take you home if that's what you want..."
Finally! Some good news for her, but then she remembered something horrible. "That thing knows... it knows where I live... Mom... Lily!" She heard the Shinigami curse before he got a hold of her before heading back to her home with Shunpo. Thankfully, it wasn't a long trip, only about two minutes thanks to Takeshi. This time, not feeling any distress, she left the man's side instantly and started calling out to her family. "MOM! LILY!" She rushed towards one room and yelled again before slamming it close. "Why the hell am I doing this! No one else lives here besides us. If she didn't hear me the first time it is because she's not here... Or could it be that she can't hear me because I'm dead..?"
"Don't talk like an idiot." The Shinigami said as he walked into the room. "Your mother has been Spiritually Aware for years now. She has been hearing and seeing spirits since she was younger than you."
Feeling somewhat better, Anna sighed and looked at him. "So what now?"
"I'm going to call for back-up."
"And leave me alone?"
"What are you talking about?" Crossing his arms in front of his chest, Takeshi said. "There should be a few barriers around your shrine. That's why Hollows can't harm you."
"... Takeshi." Anna started off slowly. "Does the barrier also stop those infected souls from walking through it? You know, since one of them must've walked through it to get to us." Hearing the man softly cursing, she follows him outside and towards a strange tombstone that she had seen a few times before. "Wait... I have seen the Kanji word for 'Barrier' carved there. That's what's stopping those monsters from hurting us?"
The Shinigami bent down and inspected the barrier. "That's right. Of course, Soul Plus, and Shinigami can freely come and go," he looked back at her with a worried look. "This part of the barrier seems intact..."
They both headed towards the back of the shrine to inspect the back barrier. When the Shinigami got there, he kneel in one leg and grimace at the crack the barrier had. "To my knowledge on Caras, since it actually splits and controls the spirit of whom he ate, then having a spirit walk through wouldn't be impossible... but Caras has to fuse his Reiatsu with the Soul Plus to control them properly which the barrier should have stopped them. However, it seems like this side of the barrier's damage... a Hollow couldn't have gotten close enough to break it, so my only guess would be that someone must have broken it on purpose. That allowed one of Caras' puppets to get through but not the Hollow himself."
Anna groaned as she figured it out. "So you're telling me that Caras' abilities passed over the barrier because someone in this village broke it out of spite towards us?"
He tried to open his mouth but stopped and things fell into silence. She sighed and tried thinking about any options that she could work with.
She could probably believe Takeshi's words that the barrier will protect her from the Hollow while she stays inside the shrine until he returns from Soul Society with help. However, she doesn't know IF the monster would send some of its puppets to attack her. She's pretty much defenseless and doesn't have any means of protecting herself. As well... she has a sinking feeling in her guts that her mother had headed out to go look for her. 'She probably took Lily with her.'
When she noticed that the sun was settling across the horizon, she looked back at the Shinigami and said, "Go back to Soul Society. I need to go out there and look for my mom and Lily." She saw him open his mouth, possibly to retort, before she cut him off. "Takeshi, this is all my fault. I should have listened to my mother and you. Now because of me, she's probably out there with that thing hunting her and since you're not strong enough to deal with Caras—your words, not mine—you need to go back to Soul Society to get help."
His hands went to his hips, and he looked at her with raised eyebrows accompanied with a stupefied expression. "When did I ever say that I was going back to Soul Society and leave you behind?" He turns his head and his eyes follow a black color butterfly.
Anna watched as the man lifted a finger up for the insect to land on before it flew away again.
"I just sent a message to Soul Society."
His words took her eyes away from the butterfly and back to him to see his index and middle finger pointed at her.
"Sai." With a calm call, Takeshi locked Anna's arms behind her back. "You're staying right here."
"Staying here?.." Left baffled at his statement, she said. "What are you talking about! YOU'LL NEED MY HEL-!"
"IT'S NOT GOING TO BE YOURS!"
He yelled at her on such a level that she was confident that someone must have heard him—spiritually aware or not. "Tak—"
"Enough already, Anna. You're staying here, you'll be nothing but a nuisance if I take you with me. I would rather send you to Soul Society, but something tells me you had become a Jibakurei... or perhaps a Tsukirei... either cases are bad news for me and you." He turned his back on her. "For whatever reason, your soul doesn't want to move on. There's something you regret... and because of that you had become a Jibakurei; a spirit bound to a place or a Tsukirei; a spirit bound to a person." He turns his head. "Someone will be here for you, okay, Anna? When they do, tell them where I headed. I'll come back with your mother and Lily, okay?"
Anna watched the space for a few more seconds before cursing out the man. "You could have at least taken me back inside my house, ASSHOLE!" When she got that out of her system, she breathed out and laid her head back on the ground and thought about what the Shinigami said. Jibakurei and Tsukirei, both are spirits bound to things. Jibakurei is bound to places, an impossible possibility since there's nothing that could bind her to this place. Tsukirei is bound to people and the only person she could become bound to would be Lily and no one else.
Her moping came to a halt when she felt a tingling sensation on... or in her chest. She couldn't describe the feeling as it came and left just as fast, but she swears she heard the chains rattling. Adjusting herself, she shifted so her knees could face the ground before pushing herself up with them. With both knees on the ground, she looks down to her chest to figure out the reason for the abnormal numbness and looks down just in time to see the furthest link finish chewing itself.
She kept staring at her chain to make sure she didn't imagine what she saw. 'Maybe everything is catching up with me and everything is inside my head.' But the more she thought about it, the more she started realizing something. 'The souls that I used to take to Takeshi always seem to have a lengthy chain, but I have seen a few with smaller chains. Does that mean your chain would shirk, but then what? What happens after that?' When she remembered her mother's attitude towards the old man this morning and what she said, she concluded. "The smaller the chain gets, the closer I'll become a Hollow."
"That's right."
Hearing a man, she turns her head to see an average height Shinigami with a somewhat bulky body built with frameless red sunglasses, black hair tied up in a ponytail with bushy black eyebrows and a black goatee. The man bends down and scowls at her. "Where the hell is that idiot Takeshi at?"
"And you are?" She asked the new Shinigami, and he replied without a change in his looks.
"Kotsubaki Jinemon. I'm a 3rd seat at the 7th Division."
He moved back as she finally stood and looked up to the man. "You're one of Takeshi's higher ups, right?" Her eyes widen and she points over to the direction of Jūreichi with her nose. "You need to head over there! Takeshi went after Caras alone to save my mom and sister!" The man nodded and was ready to go, but she rushed over to stand in front of him. "Wait! Can you please do something about this?" She turned around to show him her locked arms. "Apparently that dumbass thought it was a safe idea to keep me tied up."
"And he did this instead of sending you off to Soul Society because?" Jinemon asked, which made her scowl.
"Because I can't."
"Konsō doesn't work on you?"
She shook her head. "Your buddy thinks I'm a Jibakurei or a Tsukirei, which by the way I'm most likely the latter," She scowls and continues. "I think I'm bound to my sister."
Anna could tell that Jinemon was figuring out what he should do before going back at scowling at her. "Takeshi told you about the barriers?" She nodded and he walk behind her before grabbing a hold of her tied arms and use his much stronger Reiatsu to break Anna free from the spell. "Stay here and that's an order." He gave her a side glance glare as he walked past her before finally leaving her alone.
Somehow, Anna felt better now knowing that Takeshi won't be fighting the Hollow alone. She massaged her arms and looked out towards the direction of the sacred ground. She could probably—possibly—help them?
...
No. No, she couldn't. They, the Shinigami, their job is to slay Hollows and help the lost souls. She on the other hand is nothing but a lost soul now...
With one last look, she turns around and heads back inside the shrine for a long needed rest. Her mind and body seemed to realize how exhausting the day had been. Going to her room and laying on top of her futon, her eyes stared at the ceiling for about a minute before she closed her eyes and rested.
It was perhaps an hour later when something bright and annoying seemed to shine through her close eyelids. Then she heard the strange sound of crackling and popping noises. The annoying light should have been the first hint that something wasn't right but when the smell of smoke and burnt wood reached her nose, she panicked and opened her eyes to see her room was on fire.
Panicking, she ran and phased through her walls and straight into the burning living room of the shrine. 'Why is everything on fire!' Hearing burning wood above her, Anna looks up and crosses her arms above her head when burning debris falls. When the pieces of wood landed around and some literally went through her, she remembers that she's dead now so nothing by now could kill her.
Remembering how she phased through her wall, she ran straight outside of the shrine and turned back around to see her home go up in flames. She was about to ask no one in particular about what had happened to her house when the voice of a stranger reached her ear and she turned around to see a mob of at least a dozen people holding torches—the cause of the flames—and looking rather happy at what they had done. Then the man in front of the group took a step forward before tossing his torch and adding more fuel to burn the building.
"It's finally over." The man said with a tone that sounded too happy for Anna's taste. "After so many years, the last of them have died out." While the rest of the villagers didn't speak, they all agreed with him when they tossed their torches to the flames too.
"We should go back now."
"Yeah, we did our part. Hopefully, they started the bonfire."
Hearing the rest of the mob agree with the man, she turns towards the village. Since night settled in, she could see three enormous bonfires at the village's square. Watching the villagers rush downhill and into the village, Anna couldn't help but slowly follow behind them.
When she got there, there was a horrible feeling building up in her stomach. Everywhere she looked, all she saw was grinning faces. Everyone seems to be happy about something and it wasn't sitting well with her because by the looks of things, everything seems like one of those parting festivals the village would throw after someone had passed away... but no one has recently passed away.
Except for her...
Taking slow and small steps towards the middle bonfire, she edged closer to the fire without the fear of burning because of that moment; she remembers about her death and with the body tossed into the middle of the fire was a horrible wake up call to it. The body was mostly unrecognizable since it had started slowly appearing like burnt charcoal but the small patch of her light green hair that slowly burned away had made it incredibly hard to look away from. Her eyes would have stayed glued on her dead and burning up body if she had forgotten about the other two. From the corner of her left eye, she could see another body inside a fire.
Seeing her mother's dead body go up in flames, tears building up in her eyes, but when she remembers the third one, those tears start falling.
This time Starrk stopped her. "Anna." Throughout her story, she had kept her composure but getting towards this part of the story she has been slowly losing calmness and to help herself, she had brought her knees close to her chest and nested her head in between them. "It's okay, I got the picture painted." She looked at him with lifeless eyes. "This isn't necessary anym—"
Starrk looked down at the finger that Anna was softly pressing against his lips before looking back at her, and his heart skipped a beat. Anna was a lot like Lily and that helped him sort of deal with the older sister's more mischievous attitude. Sometimes he even wonders if there was any difference between the two, but right now it looks like he finally saw an entirely new side of her—and possibly a hidden side behind Lily too.
Her smile, in particular this one right now. He had never, and he means never seen this kind of smile from her. It wasn't her usual lopsided grin, or her usual grinning one. This smile was so different. It was a small, tender smile. Hell, if he hadn't noticed that the corners of her lips were the slightest centimeter higher from pressed lips, he wouldn't have guessed it was a smile.
But there it was, a smile that he hadn't seen from her.
Not only is this the first time he has seen a smile like that, but this feels like an enormous step in their relationship too. Anna always seems to focus on training, which made her a close book, and he had to wonder if he would ever get to talk about her past before. He wonders what has happened. What has finally changed?
"Starrk, I'm okay." She was even speaking softly too. "I already told you I'm not trying to self-pity myself or get sympathy from others. This entire confession is for me to get this out of my chest and all I need you to do is lend me your ears so that I can finally..." She took her finger back and laughed softly before nesting her head back in her knees. "Do... you think it's pathetic how I'm trying to share my pain with you? Would that make me a hypocrite cause it sounds like an excuse for me to find self-pity or sympathy? Or is all of this another one of my selfishness traits."
"... I don't see any selfishness for you wanting to talk about it." Starrk waited for her to look at him before continuing. "I also think that you should feel somewhat thankful for that self-pity you went through, but maybe you looked at it the wrong way this entire time for you to realize it."
"Thankful?" Her expression closed up, and she waited for him.
"You probably had never thought about it, but it was thanks to that mental scar that you could get Lily back, right?" Her eyes widened, so he nodded towards her to continue with her story.
"I... After seeing what they did to us, I ran towards the Jūreichi."
"Takeshi!" She called out his name the best she could through her sobs. "TAKESHI!" Tripping over a branch, she didn't bother getting back up and only kept crying harder. "Takesh—!" She sucked in a breath as a sinister Reiatsu crashed down on her body.
"Well, look what we have here."
"How... are you still alive?" Anna hadn't looked up towards the Hollow, but she could hear as its huge body moved past the branches.
"Oh, I'm a hard bastard to catch."
She clenched her teeth and fists before finally looking up at the Hollow. "Listen here you—Oh, well, look at this." Her narrow red and puffy eyes widen at the sight of the wounded Hollow. Throughout Caras' body, many of its faces seemed slashed or burned and up towards its left shoulder seemed to have some of its white veins acting like stitches in keeping the arm in place. While Caras still had its left arm, on the right side his bony hand was missing and throughout its legs she could see plenty of cuts on both of them. "Looks to me like you ran away instead."
The smile on Caras' face drops and growls at her before laughing out loud instead. "Why the hell am I letting a brat like you get under my skin?" He grinned and said, "Especially for someone who's going to be my next meal."
Anna quietly gulped and put on a brave front. "Sure, go again, kill the defenseless girl." Then her ears heard rustling leaves and her eyes looked behind Caras to see that someone was approaching behind him slowly. When the figure got closer and recognized who it was, she smirked and looked back at the Hollow. "But first you gotta go through my shiny knight."
Caras' eyes widen and he turns around to swing his right arm but stopped upon seeing who it was. "HAHAHAHAHA! You had me worry there for a while, brat!"
"What?" She looked at Takeshi and pointed at Caras, "TAKESHI! Don't let this asshole talk to you... like..." Her mouth slowly closed as the moonlight shone down at Takeshi's stitched-up body and his eyes were glossy, just like those possessed-Soul Plus. "He... you killed him."
The Hollow laughed again and used his good arm to grab Takeshi's body. "This Shinigami was rather easy to deal with since he was looking for my bait." He crushes Takeshi and swallows back his soul through its arms. "The other Shinigami's the one who gave me problems. No matter which soul I sent after him, he never hesitated to destroy them," He grinned and said, "However, once I pulled this Shinigami out, the other one hesitated in killing him and that was all I needed to get away."
"How could you use him for something like that? How can you use their souls with no care? How can you be so inhumane?" Anna genuinely asked.
"HAHAHAHA! What part of me do you see to still be human?" Caras spread his arms apart. "Besides, you wouldn't understand how been this feel like."
"Wouldn't understand what part exactly?"
Caras and all his faces grinned. "The adrenaline. The rush of the hunt. The high you get when you strangle them to death. AND THE EXPRESSIONS! HAHA those are always the best part. Oh, those sensations felt great when I was alive, but now as this monster, the feeling is so much better when you can get creative with the ways you kill people."
Recognition dawned on her face, Caras was a monster way before he turned into a Hollow; and until now, she's fearing him. "You're a lunatic."
The Hollow stretched its neck towards her and enjoyed how she flinched back. "Oh child, I was called worse things when I was alive."
Having such a terrifying being in front of her face, she averted her eyes away from the Hollow's set and looked at the creature's neck before gasping in horror at the sight of Takeshi's face on the Hollow's neck. "Where are they?" She asks quietly. The Hollow said he used bait to kill Takeshi; a bait that apparently he was searching for.
The Hollow narrowed his eyes at her question. "What are you... wait a minute, you look a bit familiar?" He smirked and displayed all his teeth. "All three of you actually look the same. I wonder."
"Where are they?" She asked again, already fearing the answer.
"Do you really want to know?" Caras asked with another one of its twisted smiles; already enjoying a great satisfaction in seeing her distress expression.
"Tell me." She asked softly as deep down, she already knew the Hollow's answer.
The Hollow lean its head closer to her and open its massive maw for her to see the face of her mother on its hard plate. But worse of all, right at the tip of its tongue she could see Lily's face...
That was the last thing she saw as the Hollow closed its jaws right on her.
For years, or perhaps even decades, she felt as if she was staring at a black wall with no other color and it would have stayed like that if she had ignored all the screaming of wild animals that suddenly the black void seemed to become full of one day. The screaming kept going on for days now and for whatever reason, she didn't bother turning around to see what was making those horrible noises. All she could think of—the only thing she seems to have been thinking about—since arriving at this dark world has been "Why."
Why was she here?
Why can't she remember her name?
Why does her heart hurt?
Why does she feel alone?
Why is it her fault?
Why... isn't she free?
Why doesn't she turn around?
'Just... a little... peek.' She ignored the chains wrapped around her body and for the first time since this strange dream had started, she finally felt in control and turned her head the slightest just so her dull eyes could take a peek at the horrific bath blood. Wraith-like creatures with strange white masks were fighting. Someone was always biting someone or was getting bitten, but they didn't seem to care about that. They just kept gorging each other. As the massacre kept ongoing, she lost the last remaining interest and was about to turn around when a familiar voice rang everywhere.
"This! Is! The! Best! THIS IS THE BEST!"
Curiously, she turned back to see one of the strange creatures biting and actually dodging another monster's attacks. When he dodges their attempts, he bit them back. "THIS HAS BEEN THE RUSH I BEEN MISSING FOR YEARS!"
The longer she kept staring at the creature, the more her head was slowly hurting. Figuring out that the pain had to do with looking at the monster, she turned back around and felt safe as she stared at the 'black wall'.
But the monster's voice...
It still rang everywhere, and it was making her head hurt again. She turns around and stares at the creature with a dull look in her eyes before it vanishes under a fire of burning hatred.
She hyperventilated under shock and anger.
She screamed, but no noise came out and no one paid her any attention.
She remembers why she was here.
'YOU KILL ME!' She remembers who she was.
Her anger faded. 'I'm all alone now...' And it was all her fault for what had happened.
The worst part however was the fact that even in death she didn't have any freedom, she was still someone's prisoner; she didn't even have any freedom over her body either... 'I should... just give... up.'
Give up and live... like this?
No.
One of her hands grabbed onto the chains and she started pulling.
Since when has she accepted any of her choices? NEVER! Because nothing she has ever done was her choice! Her mother always seemed to know what her life's supposed to be like!
HER MOTHER!
When has she ever made any choices?.. That's right, the choice to save a soul from becoming a Hollow... which cost her life; a life she wanted to use to save her little sister. 'Lily...' She forgot about her. After so many years of living in this world, she had forgotten her reason for enduring the village's treatment. This must be the reason her heart hurts. She wasn't even mad or sad about her death... it was all about Lily and now she's gone.
'NO!' She remembers about Caras' abilities. 'I'm going to get her back! I'm going to get Lily back and make sure she lives her life by making her own choices! AND UNLIKE MY MOTHER, I WON'T FORCE ANY CHOICES ON HER!' Her hand digs deeper into her chained up body until she feels the other end of the chain and with one mighty pull she removes her Chain of Fate. 'SHE WON'T HAVE MY CHAINS! SHE WON'T HAVE MY SHACKLES! SHE'LL HAVE THE FREEDOM I NEVER HAD!'
The instant the chain came off, she voiced her pain and her transformation started. Her body has changed to look like the other creatures. With a black, wraith-like body and a white mask resembling a deer's skull with a long narrow snout, two curved horns on top of her head and red flames design over both her eye's sockets. Soon after that, she lost all remaining sanity and jumped into the cannibalistic moshpit as an unfillable void forced her to eat. Her presence didn't seem to stop the rest of the creatures from continuing their acts, all except for one. From the looks of things, it seems like Caras was the only one that was aware of the newcomer, but his attention on her only lasted for the next couple of seconds before he, just like everyone, went back to the killing.
Everyone, including even Caras, has gone into a berserk frenzy which has gone on for hours, but she wasn't sure. After all, time hasn't been in her mind since the moment she bit one of those creatures, because that's when it happened. Something feral and primal took over, but there was also a strange sense of protective instinct that didn't and also made sense to her. She didn't know how much time had passed, but she never forgot about Lily. The entire time, she repeated her little sister's name as a mantra so that her mind could stay focused and remember why she was doing what she was doing.
Lilynette Gingerbuck; not Amamiya.
When one of her pink glowing eyes sees none other than Caras trying to claw her mask, she stops eating her current meal and dodges the claw swipe. She gave the Hollow a low, warning growl it ignored and tried biting her left shoulder. Well, it wasn't a try. She allows the other Hollow to bite down on her shoulder as it lets his mask unguarded. Her actions were like a blur to Caras. She bit the Hollow's mask from the top left corner and ripped the upper jaw of Caras' face off, effectively killing the Hollow. She breathed through her mouth and wolf down on the dead body, gaining the knowledge in using the Hollow's powers.
Then she felt a pull on the back of her mind and she found herself surrounded in a forest filled with large trees made of a silvery quartz substance. She didn't focus on her surroundings for too long, not when a hunger reminded her she's supposed to keep on eating and that's what she did for the next two hundred years as she looked like a strange hunched back deer monster.
A monster that occasionally forgot about her sister.
It was during the end of those two hundred years that she reached her next form and found her sanity again.
Her latest transformation has brought back a 'humane' more look with a hole below her breast. A slimmer and more feminine figure wrapped in bony armor replaced her old monstrosity looking body. Her left arm went back to looking mostly human except for her middle finger being a long talon but her right arm stayed just as it was and because of her much smaller body, her right arm reached just above her ankles with bony claws replacing her fingers. The deer-like mask has changed form and became more mask-fitting, which covers her mouth and nose. Her horns sprouted just above her external ears and still have the red flames over both her eyes.
After so long in following her hunger for guidance, Anna found herself lost, and she didn't know why.
... 'What was the whole point of eating?' She looked down at the sand as her mind focused on remembering. '... Why am I... this? Why...' Her head started hurting. 'Why?' After two centuries, she started asking back the same questions again. 'Why am I alone?' She held her head as she cried and cried out the same words repeatedly. 'Why! Why! Why! Why!... Where?' She stops to look around her and starts asking all additional questions. 'Where... is she?' She started remembering all her killings. 'I was doing all of that for her.' She was trying to get her back. 'Caras' powers, I was going to get her back using his power!'
She closes her eyes and focuses; she has to search for Lily's soul, which has to be inside her. She searched for two minutes, Lily's energy was unique. There was a similarity between all three of them—she had unintentionally found her mother's soul but never bothered retrieving it, not when she could feel how her mother blames her for what happened; she and Takeshi both felt the same...
She shook her head. 'Forget about them. Focus on getting Lily back.' She 'grabbed' Lily and started pulling her out, but... something felt wrong. Lily's power felt too weak, and something told her she would die if she pulled her out. 'My... Reiatsu would kill her?' How did she know that? Is that knowledge from Takeshi?
Stopping in pulling out her little sister, Anna tried figuring out what she should. 'How don't I kill her? Or stop from others killing her?' How could she protect her?
Or better yet, how could she help her? 'I should help her evolve.' But how to do that?
After a while, an idea forms inside her head.
Caras' powers let him separate the souls that he ate, but to keep them in control, he has to fuse some of his Reiatsu into the souls and that's how he'll protect Lily. With a plan in mind, she went back to pulling out Lily's soul, but right before she could bring her out; she fused her Reiatsu with Lily's. However, something went wrong. She gave her only a small amount of her Reiatsu, but Lily seemed to have taken over half of it and that wasn't her only problem either.
The split didn't work out as planned. She looked down to her stomach to see the upper half of a body. She could see that Lily had a helmet like her, but instead of curved horns, they were on top of her head and her left horn seems to have gotten cut off, however, she's wondering why Lily was... older? How did that happen? She was only a baby when she died? Also, instead of giving Lily her own body, she's sharing her body with Lily.
'But why did this happen?' She couldn't think too much about it because then an all too familiar came back. 'Hungry... I'm hungry? No, this isn't my hunger. This is Lily's!' Would that give Lily her own body? No time to think about it, Lily's hunger was now driving her mind and as she heard the low growl coming from Lily's throat, she rushed to do her sister's bidding.
"You were a Vasto Lorde already, but you kept on eating?" Starrk knitted his brows. "All because of Lily?"
Anna glanced up to the sky. "Yeah, I don't understand why it happened or what went wrong, but I felt Lily's hunger and went back to eating." She gave Starrk a brief once-over before looking back to the sky. "Starrk, do you remember how you died?"
His expression dulled. "No, I haven't had a single insight into what my Human Life was."
"No, I mean... as a Hollow, do you remember how you die?"
Starrk noticed her careful tone and shrugged. "No, but from what you told me two years ago, I'm going to take a guess and say we fought before you overpower me?"
"... No, that's not what really happened."
"Then," He studied her closely. "what really happened?"
"You let it happen." His eyes widened as she told him the truth and looked directly into his eyes. "I think it was only a year or two after I got Lily back when I found you. A Lycan-like Vasto Lorde with a wolf's skull surrounded by a mane of blue Reishi. Dead bodies surrounded you when I found you and when I sensed you; I knew you would have been enough for Lily to get her own body. But what I didn't expect was just how powerful you really were. As a Vasto Lorde with no natural predators, I approach you as if you were only another meal for me, but the closer I was getting, the more I felt your Reiatsu crushing me. I pushed past my limits to reach you and when I was finally close to you, I couldn't even feel my body.
"I looked at you and you look back with tired, dead eyes. The closer I got to you and showed you what my actions were going to be, you still didn't fight back. In fact, you looked really to accept your fate."
"No fighting?" Starrk interrupted her. "Are you saying that I let you eat me?" Was he suicidal? Well, he won't say how the idea had never crossed his mind before... He shook those dark thoughts. "Okay, I get it. But, why did you lie to me about it? You said before that we fought, but you won."
"To protect Lily." Anna glared at him. "I was trying to scare you by showing you how much stronger I was to make sure that you wouldn't try to hurt Lily."
"Then why didn't you strengthen her Reiryoku?" Now it was Starrk's turn to glare at her. "If you wanted to protect her, then you shouldn't have made her so weak."
Lessening her glare, Anna sighed before confessing. "When I ate you, I knew I had enough power for Lily. So that's when I split the Reiatsu to give Lily the power she needed to have her own body, but... that's when everything went wrong. Your Reiatsu was too much for me, I couldn't contain it and I could feel my body dying from the inside. So, I split your power, but it was still too much for us. So I thought, if I wasn't strong enough to control your powers, then the only person who could, would be you. So as a last-ditch effort, I separated you and Lily but to make sure I wouldn't die either, I split my soul between both of you. This was the only way I saw it possible to bring Lily back. If I split your power between Lily and I, we would eventually die under the pressure of your Reiatsu."
"I thought you wanted to be with Lily again, so why didn't you split my power between us three instead of only splitting Lily and I?" Starrk asked and she answered without missing a beat.
"Our power. Starrk, it wasn't only your Reiatsu. My Reiatsu, and the bit of Lily's Reiatsu all got stacked up. ALL of that power would have killed Lily, or anyone else who wasn't us two. But, I figured a way I could save her. All of her Reiatsu, every single drop, I took it away and now as an empty husk, I split some of your soul and gave it to Lily."
"Our soul connection." Starrk's eyes widened. "That's how Lily and I could feel each other. Because you use some of my soul and connect to her... but you also split some of your Soul too."
"Your Soul was also keeping her alive. She was utterly empty, Starrk. There wasn't anything inside of her besides her soul, and your 'soul connection' was more like an umbilical cord. It was carrying the 'supply line' that Lily needed to live."
With another realization, he said, "That's why she never needed to eat even though she was so weak. She was living off from my Reiatsu. So that's why you chose me?"
Her expression hardened. "I choose you because I don't think any other soul inside of me could handle your powers. If you were already living off with your monstrosity level of Reiatsu, then having more wouldn't have hurt you, and since some of your soul was inside of Lily, then she couldn't die from 'her' power either." Her face then softens. "But I still couldn't trust that you wouldn't hurt Lily, so I split my soul too. I made you feel what I felt and that was to protect Lily." Anna looked at Starrk tilting his head down to have his hair hide his expression.
"They were your emotions, weren't they? What I always felt from Lily, were your feelings? All this time I never knew how Lily really was thinking or feeling, right?" He lifts his head to look at Anna. "She honestly believes how she has been alive for a thousand years, MY THOUSAND YEARS! Do you understand how much that affected Lily? She went through an existential crisis because of you. All this time she thought she wasn't important to me or to herself. SHE WAS AFRAID OF SLEEPING!"
He should stop. "And you know what." There's no reason for him to say anything more. "You ended up doing exactly what you were stopping your mother from doing; you gave Lily a life she never asked for."
Anna looked away. "I know..."
He wanted to keep his anger going, but seeing her dejected face made him realize that maybe he went a little too far. He sighed to release some anger. "So why are you finally telling me all of this now? What happened?"
Looking back at the brunette, Anna pointed a finger at him. "What the hell was that chat you had with Lily?! Also, who gave you permission to say that Lily can date anyone, especially the carrot-top!? She's my little sister! I should be the one to make that decision!"
"What?" Starrk's struck utterly dumbfounded at the change of atmosphere. "That's why you finally told me about you and I?"
Blinking owlish, Anna lowers her finger and says, "I'm not talking about that last part. I'm talking about what you said to Lily. You said you love her as a daughter, did you really mean that?"
A blush slowly crept up his face. Telling Lily something like that was rather easy; it was basically only them two, but he had never expected to explain what he meant to anyone—especially not Lily's sister, whom he had never imagined was possible. "Um, well," Feeling embarrassed now, Starrk clears his throat and tries to stop the blush from spreading. "It was exactly what you heard. I'm sorry about what happened to you and Lily, but,'' He looked directly into her eyes. "I'm also very thankful for your decision. You gave me someone to spend my time with and because of that I started caring for Lily as she was my blood."
Smiling, Anna moves a strain of her hair back. "Then I guess I made the right choice too; even though I most likely scarred her, I really need to apologize to her about it. I'm... glad I could talk to you about this. Also, I'm sorry about trying to take over your body."
The brunette slowly realizes that this entire conversation has opened up their relationship more; a friendship had possibly been born. Smiling, he says, "It's fine, Anna. So, friends now, right? Not just partners who only train?" His smile slips as Anna stops smiling.
"Friends?" Her pursed lips then turn to a smirk. "I think we're a little more like roommates now, but... friends sounds good too." Just like Starrk, she was going to stop and let a comfortable silence fall between them but the teasing acts of Yoruichi pop into her head. 'No harm done, right?' She mentally shrugged and said, "OR maybe we're more like parents since we've been watching over our little girl together." With his blush spreading again, she started laughing softly before Starrk stopped her with a gentle smack at the back of her head.
Starrk probably wouldn't have done something like that to Anna about two years ago, or possibly ever, but somehow he felt as their friendship had opened different ways for them to interact with one another. Hell, he bets Anna has actually been very wary of him because she never knew if he was a threat to Lily or not, 'Probably the same reason why she kept her life a secret from me.' but thankfully everything will change.
Everything around them felt different and Starrk was happy about it, however, there was one thing that he wanted to do for Anna. "Hey, if you want to, I can get you your own body."
"What?"
Starrk lay back with his feet in the stream and closed his eyes, "I don't know if you were there to hear it, but Urahara made a machine that can take out the souls of the people we ate. So, I don't know, maybe Urahara's machine and with my abilities we can pull you out of my body and get you a Gigai for you to live in?" He shrugged his shoulders. "But, who knows if it'll work. Not a scientist to tell you if it's possible, but we can always try. No harm in trying, right?"
Anna's body shook from the shocking news before she lay down next to Starrk to calm down. "I would really love that. I guess that means we won't get to use that secret ability then, huh?"
"A shame, but yeah, I think we won't."
After a moment, Anna broke the silence. "Starrk. Please save my sister."
"Don't worry about it. Ichigo will get her back." Starrk opened his eyes as he felt a slight disturbance outside of his mindscape.
"It's Urahara. I guess he has some news for you." Anna watches him stand up before stretching a hand for her to take. She shook her head and smiled before closing her eyes. "I think I'm going to stay like this a little longer."
Coming out of his mindscape, Starrk's eyes found Urahara by the door of his office with a phone in his hand.
"You have a call, Starrk-san." Urahara hands over the phone to Starrk before stepping back.
"Hello?" Starrk answered before Ichigo started recalling everything the little rescue squad had been doing. "What? Szayel's past? ... Wow, wow, wow, calm down. Shiba clan? You have family in Soul Society? ... Wait, what? ... Ichigo you can't possibly do something like that! ... Beside the fact that they would kill Lily, that's going to be the reason they'll come and try invading Hueco Mundo. ... I guess that's a fair point. ... Alright, I get it. I'll go talk to him right now. ... Yes, I'm sure he'll be eager to help you. ... Yeah, okay, I'll expect you to be here then. Take care then, Ichigo."
The blonde Shinigami couldn't quite hear what they talked about, but the last bit was the only thing he understood. Receiving back the phone, he put it away as he asked, "So, Ichigo-kun's coming here tomorrow?"
"Yeah, so if you excuse me, I going to ask a favor fro—"
"I'll need Ichigo to stay here."
"What?" Starrk looked at the shaggy blonde with a frown. "Urahara, you know Ichigo won't stay here. Once he gets what he needs, he'll go back to Soul Society."
"Starrk..." Urahara knew that one day he needed to tell Starrk the truth. "I'm sorry." But he never expected that he'll do it now. "Lily's a trap."
"Made by Aizen so that he can capture Ichigo, right?" Starrk quirk a brow up.
"Aizen doesn't need Ichigo." The blonde lowered his hat to hide his face. "He never did."
"Urahara. You told me that Aizen planned Ichigo's death. Was that a lie?" Starrk watched as the Shinigami slightly lifted his head to look at him before lowering down again. "If Aizen doesn't need Ichigo, then why would he capture Lily?"
"Because that's how he'll get Ichigo to come to Soul Society."
"What for." This time Starrk asked with a more threatening tone. 'He has been hiding something from us this entire time.' When Urahara opened his mouth again and answered, the only proper way to respond was with a mean right-hook to the blonde's face. "WHY WOULD THAT BE THERE!" The punch has sent the blonde back by a step and nothing more. He watched him clean the blood from his nose with no expression in his face before clenching his teeth and fist. 'DAMN IT!' He walked past him and left his office. 'I have no choice now. I need to go to Soul Society.'
-XX-
Omake
Set during Chapter 11's timeline (A week after becoming an Arrancar.)
A Bat's Diary: III
"This is a rather irritating exercise." He glares at Mashiro since it seems like she's rather enjoying this. "Very irritating."
Her smile brightened. "You're doing it wrong. It's all supposed to be an internal monologue." She pursed her lips and hummed a tune. "See? That's how you do it!"
He looks down at the book that Urahara led him. "This book didn't help one bit." He folds the corner of the page he was reading so that he could come back later to it and flip the page to read the next chapter.
"Yeah, well, you won't learn everything from a book like..." She leans over to the dinner table to flip the book around for her to read the first sentences but stops and flips the book back at him. "Well, that's why you're not learning anything."
He quirks one of his thick eyebrows and looks down at the book. "How can't I learn anything from a book that's precisely informative?"
"I wouldn't call it informative, more like super boring~!"
"A book like this is boring to you?" He asked her and she replied with a somewhat of a shrug. He was about to explain to her that the book was nowhere at being 'boring' when an annoyance made itself known. His forehead creased and looked towards his right wrist. He could see that Mashiro followed his sight and she frowned gently.
"Is your Gigai feeling uncomfortable right now?"
He looks at her before his eyes follow to the end of the long-sleeve white dress shirt he was wearing. "No, the... clothes feel like an extra and uncomfortable layer of skin." He pulls up both sleeves towards his elbow. "It'll take a while for me to adjust to all of this."
"Give me your hand."
She requests but takes his hand before an answer comes out. "And she took my hand before I could say anything."
"Internal monologue, remember?" She smiled and started folding the sleeve of the white shirt towards his elbow before she moved on to the other one. "Feels better, right? But maybe you wanna change your choice of wear if you're feeling uncomfortable." She twists her head towards the kitchen and whimpers out loud. "Tessai-san~! You're taking forever!"
"I don't understand why I should eat too."
"Because you trained today."
He frowns and says, "I only train to control my Sonido better. I did nothing too tax worthy on my body."
Pointing a finger up and closing her eyes, Mashiro says, "Always prepare for the unexpected, so always have your stomach full... or that's how that saying goes in that one manga I read." She lowered her finger and shifted questions. "Hey, so like, do you finally remember?"
Ah, back to that question again. "Kuna-san, I don't understand why my name should be of any importance to you."
"Doesn't it hold ANY importance to you?" Her hazel eyes seemed to sadden. "Don't you want a name?"
Before he could open his mouth, Tessai had walked into the dining room with food. "I'm sorry that the main course is not ready, but I made some sweets for you two in the meantime." He walked to the table to set down the appetizer.
He lifted one of the Dango sticks and thanked Tessai, but when the tanned-man left; he put down the dumpling food. "Why do I need a na—"
"Not going to eat?" Mashiro said as she picked up one of the Dango, but didn't lift it up to her mouth.
"No." He looked down at the sweet food and thought of an excuse. "You're supposed to eat sweets after dinner." He looks down to the book and continues reading.
"Then you won't mind if I eat your share, right?"
"I won't." He replied to her without taking his eyes away from the book.
"What were you going to say about your name?"
"Ah, seems like she remembers."
"Internal monologue~!"
This time he takes his eyes away from the book to look at her. "Why do I need a name?" He'll make sure that this time around, the green-haired woman will get an answer that will fill her curiosity about him sufficiently. "What reasons do we need a name for?" Or rather yet, why not make sure she'll get distracted all day? He'll make her think. When she pursed her lips, he knew the question had driven her into one of those rare moments in which Mashiro has to stop and think about how she's going to answer him.
Those pursed lips of her turned into a pout. "Why don't you need a name?"
Again, she made sure to revert the question back to him, but unlike her, he already had an answer. "A name is basically a label and if you want to name me anything, then calling me Hollow will be fine."
"But having a name—"
"And there's no other better name than Hollow for me, because that's all that I am. That word defines me entirely." He waited for Mashiro's response before seeing that she gave up and looked back down to his book.
And that's how he's expecting to end this conversation; by driving Mashiro into a quiet corner. The woman may have those rare moments in which he left him more-or-less stunned, but once you challenge her thinking, she returns to her childish demeanor act and forgets the entire conversation. He saw her use that act on Muguruma-san and Hirako-san on one or more occasions.
But he should know better now.
"What's a Hollow for you?"
His green-eyed moves up and meets her dull hazel set. He looks deeper into her orbs, trying to see through the faux impression of those featureless eyes. "Hollows." He'll answer her question sincerely. "Hollows are a spirit that became corrupted and started eating souls to get stronger. They're 'monsters' that Shinigami need to purify. They are a danger to every soul; Living or dead."
"Do you feel like a monster?"
There wasn't even a space of silence between their words. Mashiro had asked her question the moment he finished, and he knew a question was coming because the entire time he stared into her eyes. Something had moved forward through the fog of faux dullness, but he wasn't sure what had come forward. It wasn't her typical sadness or happy-go-lucky attitude.
What expression was it? Which one has he read about and could relate to Mashiro's expression right now? ... "It looks like an uncertain expression... Are you having doubts about how I define myself, Kuna-san?"
She nodded with much vigor. "I do! You're nothing like those Hollows! You're different! Just like everyone else!" She lowered her voice and toned down her vigor into a more somber one. "You told me you were different." Then her stare intensified again. "You may be a Hollow but you don't act like one. That's why I won't call you Hollow. I want your name."
He was about to open his mouth, but that's when he saw that an idea had popped into Mashiro's head.
"I KNOW HOW TO HELP YOU!"
"Excuse me?" He watched her get up and ran outside the room. There was a fleeting thought that maybe he should excuse himself and return to his room to continue his reading, but he would deny the curiosity that he wants to see where this conversation with Mashiro might take him.
"She's awfully patient with you, Hollow-san." Tessai said as he walked to the table and sat to the opposite side of him with a cup of tea. "There must be something about you she's curious about." He took a sip of his tea before asking him a question. "Have you really forgotten your name?"
Had neither of the Shinigami listened to him? "I lost all interest in carrying a name. As far as I can remember, my earliest memories of my life come from a time when I woke up down in the depths of Hueco Mundo. I wasn't alone from the beginning of my existence but I was different, I knew I was different; the other Hollows saw me differently. So I left those depths, and I began wandering Hueco Mundo, which led me to lament my existence." He caught himself before he could talk more about his 'life'. "Mourning my very being made me question many things, and one of them was as to why I have a name when it holds little meaning to my empty life; to who I am. Because I never saw, heard or said my name, it held no value to me. "
"You're right, names should matter little to who we are. Especially to beings like us." Tessai took another sip before continuing. "But, when a Soul moves on to Soul Society, the only thing they carry with them is their name. Rather strange, don't you think? Why would they continue going by their given name even though they're dead? I like to think because it's the only thing we can carry after death; with our name on our back, we remember our life when we used to be alive and that gives our name's value because it was as that person who we live our life as."
"Do you remember when you were alive?" He closes the book and gives Tessai his undivided attention.
The tanned man smiled sadly. "Those memories have become lucid dreams for me. They used to be a life I had lived, and sometimes I feel like I'm still living them. Sometimes I wonder if that's the case because I can still remember my name, and vice versa is the reason I have memories of my human life." Fixing him with a more serious posture, Tessai said, "Names are important. They contain meaning for people. They define who we are, and usually we're not who we think we are. You're saying that it's okay to get called a Hollow—in your own words; a monster. Is that what you define to? Is that your value?"
"... No."
Tessai smiled. "Don't tell me that, Hollow-san," He then made a spinning gesture with his finger for him to turn around. "Kuna-san's the one that wants to know."
Nonchalantly, he turns his head to see that Mashiro was by the doorway holding what seems to be the bathroom mirror and he could see that she was gripping the edges of the mirror tightly. For how long has she been standing there? Should he ask her? "Ku—" But the woman marched over to the dinner table and set the 3 foot tall mirror right in front of him.
"What do you see?"
Is she literally asking what he sees? He looked at his reflection in his mirror. "I see an artificial human made body." Turning to look at her, he found Mashiro glaring at him; an actual glare.
"Not funny." Her glare loosens up. "Get out of your Gigai." She turned to Tessai and asked if the man could put a barrier around them. With a smile, the Shinigami had no problem and put a barrier in the dining room.
He looked at Mashiro and she looked back at him with a glare that told him to challenge her, but he didn't. He jumped out of his Gigai.
"What do you see?"
She asked again, and he did what was told. "I see..." but this time there wasn't any literal way of dodging the question, and that's why he's stuck trying to give her an answer.
"I see you." She said as she looked at his reflection in the mirror. "I can see a man's green eyes, white skin with black hair, and he's a curious, confused, and lost soul that doesn't have a name. He's also someone who doesn't know how to express himself and only knows emptiness. But he's there, I can see him. Do you know why he needs a name?"
"No." He looked at her, wanting to know more.
"Because I want to be his friend."
"Why?"
"Because if he had a friend from the beginning then he wouldn't feel like his life didn't matter, but now as a 'new' you, I want to be his friend so he won't live the same empty life again. So that's why I want to know my friend's name."
Just like that, he remembers one of their first serious conversations. The one which she figured out his life way before he turned into an Arrancar; a life in which he has still not told her anything about. That's why she was also treating him differently. She's not been careful around him for them to have some kind of mutual acceptance. Has this entire time has Mashiro been trying to be his friend by knowing and tolerating him?… All this time he thought that perhaps she'd been trying to teach him some sort of deeper meaning to the entire name calling, but all she wanted was to be friends? The thought angered him.
"Friendship? That's why you want to know my name? So we can be friends? Trying to have friends is useless. From what I see, we're acquaintances—at most. The value of friendship that you speak of has no importance to me since I know for a fact that it can't be real."
"Our friendship can be real and I can prove it." She challenges him.
"How?"
"By always being by your side, to show you how you can have a friend no matter what. That way you can see our friendship is real."
How or why can she make him what to see her follow through on her words? How can she challenge his entire lifetime of disbelief? ... Why has he believed in something like nihilism this entire time? Because he himself had to live a meaningless life.
Until now.
Now, someone wants to change that.
And all he has to do is share his name with her, "Ulquiorra." So that they can become friends. "Ulquiorra Cifer." So she can prove him wrong and that friendships matter.
"Mashiro." She beams at him. "Kuna Mashiro."
"Kuna-san, can you please return the mirror to the bathroom now?" Tessai turned and smiled at him. "Also, Cifer-san, can you please return to your Gigai?"
He did what he was told and his eyes followed Mashiro. "Can she do it?" He turned to see Tessai stop by the kitchen doorway. "Do you think she can change my entire fundamental beliefs?" The Shinigami turned around with the smile still on his lips.
"Cifer-san, just by giving her your name, you're already starting to destroy your nihilism beliefs." Tessai left into the kitchen and he had a thought; his first thought.
'She... I gave her a... my name?'
As Mashiro came back and sat closer to him, he kept on thinking. 'Prove to me that our friendship can be real, Kuna Mashiro.' He saw her gesture at the uneaten sweets and lifted one up with her before they both took a bite together.
OK, first of all, I want to apologies for this chapter coming out soooo late.
Alot happen.
So the last chapter was around... August I believe? So I wasn't expecting anything to really affect my time but Ta-da, it happen.
The first was work. November and December were super busy work days.
The 2nd was my worst nightmare; the infamous write's block.
So originally, Anna was meant to be Lily's mother but I was sort of stuck on how I was going to process the entire thing from human-to-Hollow and when an idea pop into my head, I sort of went a little too far and by what I mean by that, is how this chapter was going to contain cannibalism, act of the heavy R word, death. Also Lily's original death scene was going to be a bit more... brutal. So after I went back and read it, I deleted the work and restarted and made the change.
I continue the story but I got stuck again and I sort of gave myself a break before coming back to finish.
Now with that out of the way, let me talk about this chapter.
So on the first note, the whole priestess idea came from the character Don Kanonji. Y'all remember him from the series, right? Well, he sort of inspire me and gave me the idea that before Soul Society made their Soul Phone that told them when a Hollow or Soul Plus is born in the Human World, they needed the help of Spiritually aware humans (Also remember that this is all set around the 19th century).
On the 2nd note, well, this is more of a little fun fact but the Hollow Caras means Faces, but the 'Hollow' actually comes from my mother's village urban legend. In the legend Caras is a guarding spirit, it protects the families from evil spirits. It's apparently some large bipedal dog that takes the spirit's face and such.
3rd note, this entire chapter is suppose to show you how this is Lily 'origin' story AND it's suppose to show that Starrk and Lily are two different people and the only reason why they share so many thoughts and feelings is because of Anna. HOWEVER, because of that, this isn't Starrk's story, who's Starrk will be a different sort of origin story.
From the beginning of this story, I wanted to separate Lily and Starrk as different individuals, which is why I created Anna (OC) but I also wanted to keep their father-daughter/brother-sister chemistry too (It's what made them my favorite Bleach Characters).
On the last note, on the next two chapters, you're all going to see what Lily and Ichigo have gone through on the 4 days they been in Soul Society. First I'll start with Lily (I'm actually super excited about writing Lily's perspective since she'll be going through alot and gain some friends too.) Okay, and I think that's about it.
Well, till next time (I promise it won't take another 4-5 months!)
-Ten Out