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Annnnnnd Chapter Seven of Toward the Future
Chapter Seven: Simple Pleasures
Author: Me! Mario! No, not really... it is Cayt, though :)
Notes/Warnings: Still not mine… this chapter was written as part of my NaNoWriMo this year, so it’s a little longer than my normal chapters are, I think. This chapter is written mostly from Rose’s perspective, which was a nice change :) I hope that I did him justice!
Rating: PG-13, language and implied violence.
~*~
Some of life’s rare pleasures can sometimes be found through the simplest of means; throughout their years in the human realm, each of the renegade shinigami has had the chance to discover this for themselves. Admittedly, however, Rose isn’t quite sure everyone else has managed to find those pleasures for themselves just yet. Several of the others seemed eternally caught up with their preoccupations, never taking the time to simply sit and enjoy the world around them. It’s been a while since Rose has had the chance to simply sit out in the fresh air with his guitar and just muse, letting the sounds of the birds and nature twine and meld with his own absent strumming over well-worn wood… and even today, he isn’t out to enjoy the lovely weather.
With a sigh, Rose leans back against the tree trunk, gazing reflectively up toward the sky. He enjoys their most recent hideout, especially since the air is beginning to warm with the end of spring, sunlight dappling through the leaves in dancing flickers of light and shadow. The ever-constant shifting reminds him much of the constant battle within himself, the tides of dark and light warring over and within his soul, constantly-
“You daydreamin’ again?” Love demands, interrupting his train of thought. Rose frowns in response, indignant. Aikawa is certainly down to earth, but that’s no reason to constantly interrupt him, is it? Then again, Love has never been one to admire the aesthetics of dramatic presentations or artistic appeal, much less the beauty of nature, so then again, this isn’t entirely unexpected.
“I’m just taking the time to appreciate our surroundings,” Rose returns, raising his chin slightly. “This is one of the better places we’ve picked to stay; the least you could do-”
“Yeah, admire the scenery,” Love interrupts, and Rose suspects he is rolling his eyes behind those dark sunglasses. “We’re supposed to be checking out the property, not taking a nap under the trees already.”
“I wasn’t napping,” Rose replies waspishly, pushing his lanky frame off from the tree and falling into step with Love once more. One of the first things they must do with every move is survey the terrain, just in case, so that they can be prepared for anything that might happen.
Rose isn’t sure about the others, but he is personally beginning to hate ‘just in case,’ and the paranoia that comes with it. As a former captain, he certainly understands the need to be prepared for every contingency, especially considering their somewhat unique situation; however, since it’s been nearly ten years since they were forced to flee from Soul Society, he doubts anyone could possibly be pursuing them. More than likely, even Aizen hasn’t spared them a passing thought since then.
It’s easy to relax again, however, surveying the land and making note of this and that. It isn’t long, though, before the breeze begins to shift, swirling in a way that makes Rose take notice. Love seems to miss it, leaving Rose to study the area more intently, unsure. It doesn’t feel like a Hollow, nor like a shinigami, or even a human; so, what is it?
The breeze grows more intense, causing the shadows and light to shift rapidly across the ground. Something just feels off about the breeze, however, a sense of wrongness rankling at the back of his neck. Before he can mention it to Love, however, that niggling sense blossoms into a full-blown warning, brought about by the sounds of a frantic, terrified cry.
Without waiting to see if Love is coming-which he undoubtedly is-Rose races through the forest at the back of their property, making his way through the trees and lower foliage. It takes only a moment to register that the try came from a young child, but it takes longer to locate the child. The sounds of clumsy footsteps and crashing echo through the trees, distorting and warping the sounds until it becomes harder to decipher direction, something that he will remember to mention to Hirako later on.
A flicker of motion through the trees, and Rose responds, turning and watching as a child stumbles and falls to the ground, face dirty and streaked with tears. Behind the sobbing kid, there is an odd discrepancy in the flow of light and shadow, almost as if being bent around a figure the size of a tall, broad-shouldered beast. As Rose frowns, the huge form moves-and rips three trees from the ground right at once. As it throws the trees to the side, its ability to hide itself seems to melt away, revealing a Hollow the size of a well-built adult, though the head is tiny, the mask swirled with broad streaks of color in senseless whorls.
Reacting, the blond man materializes his zanpakutō. It had been odd at first, being able to manifest a zanpakutō while within a gigai, something that Urahara-san had admitted years ago that should have been impossible. He had created the gigai for a shinigami to blend in with humans, repressing their powers and allowing them to be visible to the living… but once again, their unique situation does seem to have a bright side, if only a very small one.
Crashing behind him alerts him of Love’s arrival, and Rose tensely asks, “Love, will you get the child out of here?”
“Yeah,” Love grunts, though he does spare a curious glance at Rose. Normally, Love is the one that enjoys taking care of the combat aspect, while Rose admittedly puts on the show for the soul they happen to be saving. There’s something off about this Hollow, though, the form distorted and not quite visible yet; Love hasn’t pulled his own zanpakutō out yet, which will probably make it easier for him to convince the kid that nothing untoward is occurring back here.
From the figure ahead, however, he can hear a sound like sniffing, and his mind races. How can he get this thing to reveal itself? If he looks closely, he can see the bend of light around the creature, but this still doesn’t feel like a Hollow; he’s fought Hollows that can hide themselves before, but something is off and wrong about this thing.
It lunges suddenly, clumsy and slow, and Rose easily avoids a slash of clumsy claws, the dance of light shifting for a bare second and allowing him a clearer view of what is clearly a Hollow. If it’s just a Hollow, though, why does the reiatsu signature feel so… awkward? Almost as if it’s uncertain, wavering between humanity, shinigami, and Hollow-
With disgust, Otoribashi avoids another clumsy lunge, and the Hollow utters a low, whining growl. He makes no move to dispatch the thing, however, as easy as it would be. There’s more to this… something about the way that the creature seems to calm for a moment after the lunge, settling, only to growl and lunge once it catches his scent once more. What on earth is going on here?
“You still playin’ around?” Love demands from the side, drawing Rose’s attention. He neatly avoids the Hollow once more, frowning, even as he meets Love’s gaze.
“I’m thinking,” Rose returns evenly, though his voice is a little sharper than normal. “Watch.”
Indeed, the Hollow is sniffing once more, but in a different manner, almost like a sniffling child, moaning lowly. The sound is different from the earlier howl, instead sounding almost… confused, lost in a way. It’s not right, and Love knows it now, too.
The thing catches their scent once more, lunging for Love, who now avoids it as well. As soon as he is out of sight, the creature begins to move off again, and Rose hesitates. It seems to be searching for two different things, two conflicting things… it’s not sure where to go, after the shinigami, or presumably the child that Love has removed from the area.
“Have the two of you forgotten how to dispatch a Hollow?” an irritated voice snaps, and Rose doesn’t even look away from the odd Hollow. Risa is standing off to the side, hand on her hip as she glares at them. The Hollow seems to ignore her, however, still moaning plaintively as it tries to move off toward the direction it had last seen its intended prey.
“… ‘znn,” it mutters, and Rose feels a chill travel down his spine. Hollows normally can speak fluently once they have fully degenerated from a Plus soul, settling into their new forms and forgetting who they once were. This muffled semblance of speech, however, indicates an immature Hollow, a soul who has only recently lost their remaining humanity in the throes of the corruption and degeneration of their souls.
“Where did you go?” The thing asks plaintively, startling Rose from his thoughts. Across from him, Risa’s expression has tightened, unhappy; she, too, realizes what’s going on.
For all that the creature before them is a Hollow, certain to do nothing but seek to devour other souls and harm the living, none of them can ignore this. Once upon a time, they would have been able to take care of this without a second thought, but the truth is that now, they can understand and empathize with the sad being in front of them, more than they ever thought possible. They have all come close to losing themselves to their own inner Hollows-a few of them coming closer than others.
“We have to,” Love says suddenly, his zanpakutō present in his hand. His stance is uneasy and wary, however-reluctant.
“I suck at this game,” the creature utters, then growls lowly and tenses upon catching their scent once more. “Get ‘em, ‘snn said find ‘em.”
“What?” Risa asks, voice and expression both carefully neutral and utterly unreadable. The Hollow starts to turn on her, then stops, shuddering and attempting to turn the other way.
“What’s that game the children play? Hide and seek?” Love asks, and the others nod, frowning as the Hollow seems to perk up slightly before sagging, moaning once more. “This… this was a kid.”
Unfortunately, there’s not much to contradict that realization. It casts the clearing into a somber silence, only broken as the Hollow howls once more, seeming to realize once again that it should keep moving. The movement is sudden, and Risa dodges-but she wasn’t the Hollow’s target to begin with. Instead, the Hollow rends a tree from the ground, hurling it at Love, catching him off-balance. He is knocked backward with the tree, even as Rose’s resigned expression makes itself known.
As much as he detests this, they have to help the Hollow pass. It is unstable enough right now, without the eventual loss of its last ties to humanity, and the danger it will pose then… the child is already dead. All that is left is this corrupted soul, one that deserves to move on. Rose has never liked dispatching a Hollow that resulted from a child’s soul, but it was part of the job, as much as it had always bothered him.
Dodging the next tree, he notes that Love is okay-not that he’d thought that the other man wouldn’t be-and watches as Risa evades, keeping her distance so that the three of them are relatively evenly spaced around the Hollow. Her zanpakutō is also in her hand, expression grim and focused. Distantly, Rose wonders how long it will be before Hirako or Muguruma senses their raised reiatsu and gets curious, and the thought of others coming out to check on them is distasteful in more ways than one.
Before he can allow himself to think, Rose decisively sweeps through the Hollow’s mask, severing it cleanly. He watches, sad, as the mask slips away, the Hollow’s body shimmering away to briefly reveal a small child. The boy appears to be small for his age, an odd contrast to the size of his body only seconds before. The child looks up fearfully, eyes wide in the moment before he disappears.
“This game wasn’t as fun as he said it would be,” he tells Rose pitifully, eyes tearing up. “It was cold! He said if I found you, I’d get a prize, but… that boy ran away. Am I scary?”
“Not anymore,” Risa tells him, eyes compassionate as she joins them from the side, Love still a few paces behind.
“Who said?” Love asks sharply, and Rose closes his eyes. He feels as if he already knows the answer…
“…’zn,” the boy whispers tearfully, crying now. “I just wanted to play hide and seek, but my friend left me ‘lone! Aizen said if I found people that smelled like he wan’ed, he’d find my friend!”
The clearing feels as if the temperature has dropped below freezing now, despite the warm breeze that has returned to normal and the bright sunlight through the leaves. Aizen… the man responsible for everything wrong with their lives-yes, Rose will even blame him for the little things like broken buttons and losing his place in books-is looking for them.
So much for enjoying the simple things this afternoon; any chance of that is far, far gone.
~*~
A.N. Sorry for the long wait, guys... I've been working hard, and just couldn't get my muse to give me anything to write about, so I had the hardest time trying to edit the stuff I managed to write for NaNoWriMo. So, here's this chapter... the follow-up to it should be edited and finished up within the week, and then another chapter is almost ready--promise! So, I hope you can forgive me for the long wait, and leave me feedback; it makes my muse happy :D Lemme know what you think, and enjoy!
Chapter Seven: Simple Pleasures
Author: Me! Mario! No, not really... it is Cayt, though :)
Notes/Warnings: Still not mine… this chapter was written as part of my NaNoWriMo this year, so it’s a little longer than my normal chapters are, I think. This chapter is written mostly from Rose’s perspective, which was a nice change :) I hope that I did him justice!
Rating: PG-13, language and implied violence.
~*~
Some of life’s rare pleasures can sometimes be found through the simplest of means; throughout their years in the human realm, each of the renegade shinigami has had the chance to discover this for themselves. Admittedly, however, Rose isn’t quite sure everyone else has managed to find those pleasures for themselves just yet. Several of the others seemed eternally caught up with their preoccupations, never taking the time to simply sit and enjoy the world around them. It’s been a while since Rose has had the chance to simply sit out in the fresh air with his guitar and just muse, letting the sounds of the birds and nature twine and meld with his own absent strumming over well-worn wood… and even today, he isn’t out to enjoy the lovely weather.
With a sigh, Rose leans back against the tree trunk, gazing reflectively up toward the sky. He enjoys their most recent hideout, especially since the air is beginning to warm with the end of spring, sunlight dappling through the leaves in dancing flickers of light and shadow. The ever-constant shifting reminds him much of the constant battle within himself, the tides of dark and light warring over and within his soul, constantly-
“You daydreamin’ again?” Love demands, interrupting his train of thought. Rose frowns in response, indignant. Aikawa is certainly down to earth, but that’s no reason to constantly interrupt him, is it? Then again, Love has never been one to admire the aesthetics of dramatic presentations or artistic appeal, much less the beauty of nature, so then again, this isn’t entirely unexpected.
“I’m just taking the time to appreciate our surroundings,” Rose returns, raising his chin slightly. “This is one of the better places we’ve picked to stay; the least you could do-”
“Yeah, admire the scenery,” Love interrupts, and Rose suspects he is rolling his eyes behind those dark sunglasses. “We’re supposed to be checking out the property, not taking a nap under the trees already.”
“I wasn’t napping,” Rose replies waspishly, pushing his lanky frame off from the tree and falling into step with Love once more. One of the first things they must do with every move is survey the terrain, just in case, so that they can be prepared for anything that might happen.
Rose isn’t sure about the others, but he is personally beginning to hate ‘just in case,’ and the paranoia that comes with it. As a former captain, he certainly understands the need to be prepared for every contingency, especially considering their somewhat unique situation; however, since it’s been nearly ten years since they were forced to flee from Soul Society, he doubts anyone could possibly be pursuing them. More than likely, even Aizen hasn’t spared them a passing thought since then.
It’s easy to relax again, however, surveying the land and making note of this and that. It isn’t long, though, before the breeze begins to shift, swirling in a way that makes Rose take notice. Love seems to miss it, leaving Rose to study the area more intently, unsure. It doesn’t feel like a Hollow, nor like a shinigami, or even a human; so, what is it?
The breeze grows more intense, causing the shadows and light to shift rapidly across the ground. Something just feels off about the breeze, however, a sense of wrongness rankling at the back of his neck. Before he can mention it to Love, however, that niggling sense blossoms into a full-blown warning, brought about by the sounds of a frantic, terrified cry.
Without waiting to see if Love is coming-which he undoubtedly is-Rose races through the forest at the back of their property, making his way through the trees and lower foliage. It takes only a moment to register that the try came from a young child, but it takes longer to locate the child. The sounds of clumsy footsteps and crashing echo through the trees, distorting and warping the sounds until it becomes harder to decipher direction, something that he will remember to mention to Hirako later on.
A flicker of motion through the trees, and Rose responds, turning and watching as a child stumbles and falls to the ground, face dirty and streaked with tears. Behind the sobbing kid, there is an odd discrepancy in the flow of light and shadow, almost as if being bent around a figure the size of a tall, broad-shouldered beast. As Rose frowns, the huge form moves-and rips three trees from the ground right at once. As it throws the trees to the side, its ability to hide itself seems to melt away, revealing a Hollow the size of a well-built adult, though the head is tiny, the mask swirled with broad streaks of color in senseless whorls.
Reacting, the blond man materializes his zanpakutō. It had been odd at first, being able to manifest a zanpakutō while within a gigai, something that Urahara-san had admitted years ago that should have been impossible. He had created the gigai for a shinigami to blend in with humans, repressing their powers and allowing them to be visible to the living… but once again, their unique situation does seem to have a bright side, if only a very small one.
Crashing behind him alerts him of Love’s arrival, and Rose tensely asks, “Love, will you get the child out of here?”
“Yeah,” Love grunts, though he does spare a curious glance at Rose. Normally, Love is the one that enjoys taking care of the combat aspect, while Rose admittedly puts on the show for the soul they happen to be saving. There’s something off about this Hollow, though, the form distorted and not quite visible yet; Love hasn’t pulled his own zanpakutō out yet, which will probably make it easier for him to convince the kid that nothing untoward is occurring back here.
From the figure ahead, however, he can hear a sound like sniffing, and his mind races. How can he get this thing to reveal itself? If he looks closely, he can see the bend of light around the creature, but this still doesn’t feel like a Hollow; he’s fought Hollows that can hide themselves before, but something is off and wrong about this thing.
It lunges suddenly, clumsy and slow, and Rose easily avoids a slash of clumsy claws, the dance of light shifting for a bare second and allowing him a clearer view of what is clearly a Hollow. If it’s just a Hollow, though, why does the reiatsu signature feel so… awkward? Almost as if it’s uncertain, wavering between humanity, shinigami, and Hollow-
With disgust, Otoribashi avoids another clumsy lunge, and the Hollow utters a low, whining growl. He makes no move to dispatch the thing, however, as easy as it would be. There’s more to this… something about the way that the creature seems to calm for a moment after the lunge, settling, only to growl and lunge once it catches his scent once more. What on earth is going on here?
“You still playin’ around?” Love demands from the side, drawing Rose’s attention. He neatly avoids the Hollow once more, frowning, even as he meets Love’s gaze.
“I’m thinking,” Rose returns evenly, though his voice is a little sharper than normal. “Watch.”
Indeed, the Hollow is sniffing once more, but in a different manner, almost like a sniffling child, moaning lowly. The sound is different from the earlier howl, instead sounding almost… confused, lost in a way. It’s not right, and Love knows it now, too.
The thing catches their scent once more, lunging for Love, who now avoids it as well. As soon as he is out of sight, the creature begins to move off again, and Rose hesitates. It seems to be searching for two different things, two conflicting things… it’s not sure where to go, after the shinigami, or presumably the child that Love has removed from the area.
“Have the two of you forgotten how to dispatch a Hollow?” an irritated voice snaps, and Rose doesn’t even look away from the odd Hollow. Risa is standing off to the side, hand on her hip as she glares at them. The Hollow seems to ignore her, however, still moaning plaintively as it tries to move off toward the direction it had last seen its intended prey.
“… ‘znn,” it mutters, and Rose feels a chill travel down his spine. Hollows normally can speak fluently once they have fully degenerated from a Plus soul, settling into their new forms and forgetting who they once were. This muffled semblance of speech, however, indicates an immature Hollow, a soul who has only recently lost their remaining humanity in the throes of the corruption and degeneration of their souls.
“Where did you go?” The thing asks plaintively, startling Rose from his thoughts. Across from him, Risa’s expression has tightened, unhappy; she, too, realizes what’s going on.
For all that the creature before them is a Hollow, certain to do nothing but seek to devour other souls and harm the living, none of them can ignore this. Once upon a time, they would have been able to take care of this without a second thought, but the truth is that now, they can understand and empathize with the sad being in front of them, more than they ever thought possible. They have all come close to losing themselves to their own inner Hollows-a few of them coming closer than others.
“We have to,” Love says suddenly, his zanpakutō present in his hand. His stance is uneasy and wary, however-reluctant.
“I suck at this game,” the creature utters, then growls lowly and tenses upon catching their scent once more. “Get ‘em, ‘snn said find ‘em.”
“What?” Risa asks, voice and expression both carefully neutral and utterly unreadable. The Hollow starts to turn on her, then stops, shuddering and attempting to turn the other way.
“What’s that game the children play? Hide and seek?” Love asks, and the others nod, frowning as the Hollow seems to perk up slightly before sagging, moaning once more. “This… this was a kid.”
Unfortunately, there’s not much to contradict that realization. It casts the clearing into a somber silence, only broken as the Hollow howls once more, seeming to realize once again that it should keep moving. The movement is sudden, and Risa dodges-but she wasn’t the Hollow’s target to begin with. Instead, the Hollow rends a tree from the ground, hurling it at Love, catching him off-balance. He is knocked backward with the tree, even as Rose’s resigned expression makes itself known.
As much as he detests this, they have to help the Hollow pass. It is unstable enough right now, without the eventual loss of its last ties to humanity, and the danger it will pose then… the child is already dead. All that is left is this corrupted soul, one that deserves to move on. Rose has never liked dispatching a Hollow that resulted from a child’s soul, but it was part of the job, as much as it had always bothered him.
Dodging the next tree, he notes that Love is okay-not that he’d thought that the other man wouldn’t be-and watches as Risa evades, keeping her distance so that the three of them are relatively evenly spaced around the Hollow. Her zanpakutō is also in her hand, expression grim and focused. Distantly, Rose wonders how long it will be before Hirako or Muguruma senses their raised reiatsu and gets curious, and the thought of others coming out to check on them is distasteful in more ways than one.
Before he can allow himself to think, Rose decisively sweeps through the Hollow’s mask, severing it cleanly. He watches, sad, as the mask slips away, the Hollow’s body shimmering away to briefly reveal a small child. The boy appears to be small for his age, an odd contrast to the size of his body only seconds before. The child looks up fearfully, eyes wide in the moment before he disappears.
“This game wasn’t as fun as he said it would be,” he tells Rose pitifully, eyes tearing up. “It was cold! He said if I found you, I’d get a prize, but… that boy ran away. Am I scary?”
“Not anymore,” Risa tells him, eyes compassionate as she joins them from the side, Love still a few paces behind.
“Who said?” Love asks sharply, and Rose closes his eyes. He feels as if he already knows the answer…
“…’zn,” the boy whispers tearfully, crying now. “I just wanted to play hide and seek, but my friend left me ‘lone! Aizen said if I found people that smelled like he wan’ed, he’d find my friend!”
The clearing feels as if the temperature has dropped below freezing now, despite the warm breeze that has returned to normal and the bright sunlight through the leaves. Aizen… the man responsible for everything wrong with their lives-yes, Rose will even blame him for the little things like broken buttons and losing his place in books-is looking for them.
So much for enjoying the simple things this afternoon; any chance of that is far, far gone.
~*~
A.N. Sorry for the long wait, guys... I've been working hard, and just couldn't get my muse to give me anything to write about, so I had the hardest time trying to edit the stuff I managed to write for NaNoWriMo. So, here's this chapter... the follow-up to it should be edited and finished up within the week, and then another chapter is almost ready--promise! So, I hope you can forgive me for the long wait, and leave me feedback; it makes my muse happy :D Lemme know what you think, and enjoy!