He took the laundry off the clothes line, folding it and placing it in the laundry basket. He could smell her before he saw her, the usual floral mixture scent. He knew without looking over his shoulder that he was once again in her company.
He decided to take a cool headed approach to the reason she hadn't been home, " when are you next leaving?"
He could almost see her sad smile form on her lips as she gently chastised, "it almost sounds like you want me gone, Iwabee."
He was quiet as he bent down and picked up the laundry basket. Iwabee turned to face her so he could re enter the apartment and put his freshly washed clothes away. He regarded her as he inquired, "isn't that the eventual outcome?"
The sadness now reached her eyes as she gave a small nod of her head, and confirmed, "eventually, yes. For now, I'm still here."
"But you'll be leaving and you won't return," he pressed. The grey eyes met the dark eyes of the boy she'd known now for over ten years. In that time, she had physically only aged a year by human standards. She drank in the changes, not wanting to forget a single curve of his face, or where a strand of hair was placed.
She gave a very small laugh as she answered, "You underestimate me, Iwabee."
At this he blinked repeatedly, words escaped him but they were unnecessary as she already knew what he wanted to ask. She gave him a small smile as she answered his silent question, "when you've raised a young child into a teenager, you'll understand what I mean. For now, I'll give you the best comparison I can: if Boruto's little sister, Himawari was suddenly on her own, with no one left in her family to look out for her, and it was unknown if her parents or brother was going to return—could you stay away from her?"
"No," he replied without hesitation, he honestly couldn't. Admittedly he didn't know anything about the Hyuga, or the Byakugan. He knew next to nothing about caring for a child, but could he let her brave the world without someone even a little bit older to reach out to if she needed someone there for her? No. No, he absolutely couldn't. He couldn't even sit by during that apartment fire and not try to do something to help, especially when he found out that a woman's children were still inside. He'd gone in alone but found three kids. His first plan had been to escort them out through the stairwell, but the fire had trapped them. He'd used mud wall to block the fire and buy some time. It had been enough to get the fire suppression system working and for Denki to get to them. The two of them had gotten the three children out together.
He re entered the apartment and walked over to the couch, placing the laundry basket on the floor in front of it and sat down. Sakiya sat down across from Iwabee and stated, "I knew there'd likely come a time when you'd figure things out without my telling you anything. You already knew I wasn't a shinobi but something sort of similar. So, please ask whatever questions you have, Iwabee. I don't know everything, but I'll answer anything I can."
The silence seemed deafening and to Iwabee it seemed to drag on for eternity. Glancing at her, he could tell by how taunt her jaw had become, her piercingly focused gaze straight ahead of her, and how she clutched the hem of her dress skirt that she was as anxious from the silence as he was.
He then broke the silence by asking, "are you really the only one of your kind here?"
"The only one descended from one who'd sworn the oath of the Shinigami, yes. However, I'm not the only one here with Shinigami powers," Sakiya admitted.
At this, his own fists clenched against his hakama but unlike her, his response was from a sense of anger stemming from a feeling of betrayal. She knew everything about him, yet he was beginning to feel he knew very little about her. He swallowed the lump in his throat as he followed up with, "why didn't you tell me the truth?"
"The less you knew, the better I could hide you from them and keep you from danger. I have morals and an ethical code I operate by. They don't. I was trying to protect you but I realize I may have hurt you in the process—for that I am sorry," she answered.
He sat quietly, processing the information and then asked, "when I was a kid—I saw something that looked kind of like a bird but it had a white mask on its face—and a hole through its throat."
At this the teenager who had raised him for as long as he could remember seemed to stiffen as she recalled the day clearly, "yes—that day I nearly failed you. I hadn't realized that you were being targeted by it and in all honesty if I hadn't been there right when it attacked you—you wouldn't be sitting on that couch right now."
Iwabee observed her as he pressed, "what was that creature?"
"A hollow, basically it's what can happen to the souls that don't cross over if they stay earth bound too long or if during their life they committed an unforgivable sin," she explained. She caught sight of the worry that flashed across his face momentarily and waved it off while adding, "the unforgivable sin has to be done completely of the person's free will. Doing so under orders or to protect another person is entirely different. There's no malice present. It's the malicious intent that's unforgivable."
"I see," Iwabee acknowledged, relaxing a bit more with this knowledge. She regarded him before he asked another question, "I found a book in your room—Pride and Prejudice. The inscription inside it mentioned a Byakuya Kuchiki and a Tama Shimizu, who are those people?"
Sakiya's eyes narrowed at Iwabee as she stated, "first off: if you ever enter my room to snoop through my belongings again you'll wake up in the space age and the true eternal Genin who is over 1,000 years old but still resembles a fourteen year old teenager. Second—Tamiko Shimizu, otherwise known by her nickname of 'Tama' is my mother. Byakuya Kuchiki was her boyfriend—maybe at one point her Fiance, I don't know for certain."
She shrugged her shoulders at the last bit while Iwabee's mind was still reeling over the threat of being a Genin for 1,000 years if he ever went into her room without permission again. He then asked pointedly, "is he your father?"
Sakiya didn't verbally answer but nodded her head in the affirmative, she then revealed, "he's the Captain of squad six, and the 28th head of the first greater noble house in Soul Society. He was married but the marriage produced no offspring. I'm the only one. So even though I'm illegitimate, and female—if I return home I could be looking at one day being the head of the Kuchiki clan."
He observed her while posing another question, "Is that something you'd want to do, big sister?"
She smiled at the honorific, he hadn't called her that in a while but she knew things had been a bit tense between them with her having to discipline him, disappearing, and being elusive to his questions of late. She could understand him feeling as though there was distance between them. She gave a small sigh as she replied, "I may not have a choice."
"Someone once told me, we are the sum of our choices. She's quite intelligent," Iwabee reminded her. She smiled, understanding the logic and sentiment behind his reminder. She was also fully aware that he likely didn't fully grasp how high up the Kuchiki clan was back home.
"So your full name is what? Sakiya Nozomi Tsukiko Shimizu, or Kuchiki?"
"Kuchiki," She confirmed.
Iwabee blinked then gave a slight laugh as he breathed, "well damn."