Iwabee looked to Sakiya. He was now sitting on a chair in the living room after finding the freezer full of individually portioned meals she'd been cooking and dividing while he was off on his most recent mission. His eyes became down cast as he addressed the elephant in the room, "you're not coming back from this, are you? No matter how things go, you're leaving."
Sakiya who had been packing a small bag with her essentials and a change of clothing stopped gathering items and looked to him, he could not recall ever having seen such melancholy in her eyes before that moment. True to the nature he knew too well, she plastered a smile on her face and pushed her own feelings down as she replied, "It's not like I can keep staying with you much longer anyway, Iwabee. The most I can pass for is twenty-six, and even then, I get some backlash from people claiming there's no way I'm that old. I look too young."
At this revelation Iwabee felt his shoulders sag and he sat down, taking off his hat to show his long straight black hair. He held his head in his hands, his fingers laced in the raven coloured locks. It was her touch on the back of his head, and the appearance of her kneeling in front of him that pushed him to maintain his composure as he looked up to her.
"However, that doesn't mean that it's goodbye right now. I am going away for a while. There's something I have to do to help my mother's mission, but I expect I should return from it this time. After that, at least once more, if this one does go smoothly. So please, save your tears for now. Heaven knows if you cry, I will too," she informed him. The corners of his mouth tugged upwards slightly into a small smile as he gave a slight nod of his head in acknowledgement.
His dark eyes met her light grey as he added, "Thank you, for everything, Sakiya."
Sakiya gave a small giggle as she pointed out, "haven't we already gone over this?"
"Even still, I feel I need to repeat it," he replied. He blinked as he recalled something that she had said to him before and looking her in the eye once more requested, "promise me, if the worst should happen, you won't die alone."
Slinging the bag she'd packed onto her back, she smiled brightly and gave a small nod of her head as she confirmed, "I won't die alone, because I don't plan on dying."
Iwabee relaxed a little and gave a small chuckle when he heard her last comment before leaving the house, "No girls allowed!"
He could swear he heard laughter when he shouted back, "I wasn't planning on it!"
Then there was nothing. No sound from the other side of the door. No comforting mixed floral scent in the air that he was so accustomed to. No smell of acrylic paints, nor any sound of a pencil scratching against a canvass. He was alone. He had never been truly alone before.
Unsure of what to do with himself he went into his room and laid down on his bed, an arm behind his head, his dark hair sprawled out across his pillow. He closed his eyes as he thought to himself, 'don't die Sakiya—please. I don't know if I could forgive you if you were truly gone forever.'
After staring up at his ceiling in silence he sat up and groaned. Literally everything would remind him of Sakiya, cooking, training, even tv shows and movies although she preferred to read. That was one big difference between them. His disdain for reading and written text was why he repeated the academy three times.
His mind was settled on Sakiya, however, he couldn't get his mind anywhere else. Sakiya and this mission, just what was her mother doing in Konoha all those years ago anyway? Why had they been here so long? Why was she so tight lipped about the mission but open about her actual species? Okay, admittedly you'd have to be an idiot to not realize why she had told him a few things about shinigami, even still she wasn't exactly forthcoming with much about that topic. She kept mentioning that she knew who her father was but never addressed him by name or spoke of what his occupation was. Was he also a shinigami?
He scowled a bit, knowing that he'd be in for a world of misery if she ever found out he did what he was now about to do. However if he was going to be at risk of losing her, shouldn't he at least have some idea as to why?
His mind made up he stood up from his bed and made his way into the one room he rarely ever entered since he stopped getting annual stomach bugs when he was eight years old. He gingerly opened the door and almost laughed. This room was so floral it may as well have been a garden. Between the white and pink rose floral sheets, the matching window sheers, and the bluebell patterned wall design that he knew she'd painted herself. He walked over to a white book case and began looking through the titles, he wasn't too sure what he'd find, or what he was even looking for. He'd pick up random books and flip through a few pages before placing the book back on the shelf.
He picked up one book and glanced at the title, "Pride and Prejudice", he almost laughed, how typical. She was definitely a stereotypical teenage girl in more than a few ways. She cooked, she cleaned, but those were life skills that both men and women should know. Regardless, he wouldn't have thought she had a guilty pleasure of reading cheesy romance novels. The basic theme of the book was a woman named Elizabeth Bennet and a man called Mr. Darcy, having to overcome their personal biases to be together. In his opinion that was easy enough to do: get over yourself and swallow your ego.
Then he thought about how he had acted when his own ego had been injured by his reputation as being a repeater. He gave a small sigh, maybe there was some validity to a struggle to overcome a personal bias that he hadn't thought of and if overcoming that bias was the only way to be with someone you love, you'd certainly be motivated.
Opening the book however he was met with short note in kanji which read: "to Tama Shimizu, life bond. Byakuya Kuchiki."
'What does that even mean? "Life bond"? So was this Bya-' He began to think to himself then stopped mid thought as he recalled when he had returned from his mission to help rebuild a bridge that had been damaged, and the Byakuya Gang had attacked his group. He'd responded with anger and engaged them directly even though they'd been ordered not to engage the members of the gang without a Jonin present to assist and oversee them.
She'd been standing with her arms crossed over chest, the most intensely enraged glare he'd ever seen on her as she verbally took several strips off of him for his reckless and negligent behaviour, she only stopped raging when she heard the name 'Byakuya'. Then her eyes had widened slightly, there was a pause in her yelling before she resumed.
That was it! Whoever this Byakuya Kuchiki was, he was without a doubt someone who was very close to her mother. Perhaps, even Sakiya's father.
