Omigod. Finally Done. [EDITED: 8.25.07]
This thing is a monster.
It tried to eat me.
Title: Royal Affairs
Author: bmw_remixed
Fandom: Bleach
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Byakuya, Senbonzakura (Mentioning of Byakuya/Hisana, Byakuya/Rukia. Other characters in passing.)
Summary: Senbonzakura was less of a weapon and more of a conscience. You know, the nagging little voice in the back of your head?
One: The Queen is Dead, Long Live the Queen
Life in the Kuchiki house had always been centered around status - their status as a noble house, their status as Shinigami in the Gotei 13, and each individual’s status in the house itself, from the stable boy (back when they had stables) to the Head of the Clan himself - and it didn’t change when a new heir was born.
In many ways, Byakuya Kuchiki’s early life resembled those of other boys his age, wanting to spend more time outdoors than inside, getting a new scrape or bruise every hour, refusing to go to bed on time… but there were also those things that separated him from the rest. Countless lessons on etiquette, language, arithmetic, history, people and places, kidou and hadou incantations, where to put your spoon after finishing your soup, which foot to start with when going out, which foot to start with when going in.... endless lectures that straggled on for hours at a time.
Contrary to popular belief, Byakuya was not a perfect child. More than a few times he could remember being called down to explain his absence to a tutor, or a the food that had mysteriously disappeared from the kitchen only to reappear months later and stinking in the advisor’s closet.
Byakuya might have not a perfect child, but he was a perfect noble. Growing up surrounded by people obsessed with status, he looked down upon anyone who wasn’t an immediate member of the Kuchiki family. Clan advisors, distant cousins, members of other noble houses - like the Shihouin. Even among his immediate family, the only ones he did admire were his parents.
He had known of his parents’ reputations, both in public relations and on the battlefield, and bragged about them often. But to the young Byakuya, his father was more a distant mythical figure than a person, having died so early in his son’s life. All he knew of Tezuko Kuchiki was of his legacy of turning the Eleventh Division into the most combat orientated division in the entire Gotei 13. It was only natural his mother became the most prominent figure in his life - a warm compassionate woman perfectly suited to her position as the Captain of the Fourth Division.
Despite her soft exterior, Hanaka Kuchiki was a strong woman and strict in her morals. She had stood by her husband when he ruled over the rest of the clan, and defended her husband against his opponents, both in the council and on the battlefield. When he passed away, no one questioned her succession as the leader of the Kuchiki. Nothing in the Kuchiki household went without her notice and approval; the servants obeyed her without a second thought, the lesser Kuchiki members revered her from the corners, and Byakuya himself - the prideful adolescent he was - had grudgingly admitted her onto a pedestal as a pinnacle of perfection.
She was the first woman in his life, the first person he had wrapped his ambition and love around. He remembered her love and support in every aspect of his life, from playing with him in the elaborate gardens of the Kuchiki mansion and kissing his bruises when he tripped over his own feet as a child, to her chastisements went he came home dressed as an urchin covered in mud and grime.
In Byakuya Kuchiki’s adolescent mind, no one will ever be able compare to the woman who had given birth to him.
The funeral took place in late summer. By then, the flowers were already gone and the nights had begun to empty of the endless chorus of frogs and crickets. The atmosphere was damp, without even a beam of sunlight to refresh the day. Time seemed to slow as well, in reverence to the final rest of a respected spirit.
As per tradition, Byakuya was expected to stay near the shrine, overly decorated with garlands of wilting flowers forced to live past their prime and sheets of obnoxiously colored silks that tried and failed to breathe life into a ceremony of death. There had been hundreds of mourners who came that day, a flood of elegant women with painted faces, stone countenanced men, and battle scarred warriors who refused to let go of their zanpakutous that came up to the shrine to offer their blessings to her and their condolences to him.
By sundown, he had lost count of how many people had bent down to look him in the eyes and smile that forced grimace of a smile as if they knew his pain. He didn’t need their pity, he felt it wasn’t sincere enough for him. They didn’t know her like he knew her, they didn’t love her the way he did, they didn’t know the bond he shared with his mother… they didn’t know what it was like having something that had been there all his life, a constant, ripped to shreds by one of those Hollows.
Byakuya didn’t allow himself to cry as the funeral pyre was lit; his mother wouldn’t have liked it, and it would’ve warranted another lecture about maintaining self-image from her. Only when the smoke blew thick and acrid across the gathering, did he allow himself to succumb to the choking lump in his throat and the pain in his heart.
Of course, he blamed it on the smoke - everyone did.
The days following the funeral were a whirl of activity, to put it in the cliché. Byakuya found himself dragged from one meeting with a clan advisor to another, each one repeating the same monologue over and over again about familial duty, continuing the legacy of his parents, brining honor to the family other seemingly trivial matters. The councilors were like scavengers, picking at him in his emotionally battered state, requesting this, suggesting that, pushing all remnants of the woman whose seat he had taken at the meeting room table out of their minds.
Just when he thought he was about to go crazy with family finances, arranged alliances, and the impartial attitude they spoke about his mother (after all, he was a kingdom without a ruler, lost within himself), she appeared.
First in glimpses in his usually unimaginative dreams, a ghostly figure watching him, scrutinizing him from the back of his mind, then beside him in the corners of his vision, disappearing when he turned around. Her form was human and annoyed, her dress was formal, consisting of layer over layer of expensive material.
And she was wet.
Clothes almost transparent with water, the expensive looking cloth coagulating into a pile at her feet. Her hair stuck to her face and her exposed back, and she kept hugging herself absently, as if in a half-hearted attempted to keep warm. Her movements were human-like, from the way she blinked as the water dripped into her eyes, and the impatient way she glanced from side to side, as if waiting for something.
But even all that, she remained distinctly ethereal and her eyes remained disturbingly empty. Her movements were a little too calculated, her posture a little too stiff, and her features too perfect.
He eventually dismissed her as a stress and grief induced hallucination.
Months later, in the midst of winter, with a storm echoing his emptiness outside, he saw her again. As he went over the budget expenses for the past week one night, he felt a light breeze in the room and the scent of flowers wafted in the air. Byakuya looked up, confused.
There she was, in all her finery, transparent, the lamps across the room reduced to wavering flickers through her image. She was dripping, beads of water rolling off her skin to fall on the floor below.
“One gets tired of the rain after a while, you know.”
A voice that touched the inner reaches of his mind, light but sarcastic, quiet but hiding a sharp edge.
“…Who are you?” he asked hesitantly, voice trailing off. He still wasn’t sure if he was hallucinating or not.
“Me? I’m you, of course. I had expected you to know.”
A feral grin with painted lips.
“I’m the best and worst of you, twisted, juggled, distorted into a caricature of what you really are.”
Byakuya saw her glance sideways at the properly neglected sword of an academy student at Byakuya’s side. Following her gaze, he gasped out loud, “You’re my Zanpakutou! Have you come to tell me your name?”
His question was met by laughter. Shaking the water from her bangs, she laughed, “Please. A little fledgling like you thinks he can have my power? Why, you’ve barely hit puberty! One shouldn’t give children such dangerous toys to play with.”
Feigning disinterest to cover his disappointment, he uttered dismissively, “Then I see no reason for this meeting, and there is much I need to do.”
“My, my, such a dutiful little boy you are! I‘m sure mother would be - excuse me, would have been -- so proud!”
“It is expected of me as the Kuchiki heir.”
He returned to the rows and columns of numbers, but before he could lose himself in the methodic mind numbing work of the calculations, her voice pierced through his haze again.
“Well, it seems to me your mother didn’t well verse you in the area of manners when dealing with your superiors.”
“My mother was -” he began indignantly.
“-So you do have a personality!” She gasped dramatically.
Mouth agape, still halfway through his previous sentence, Byakuya shot off his harshest glare.
“Excuse me, my apologies. It wasn’t proper for me to blame her. After all, you are a Kuchiki.” She sighed dramatically. “And the Kuchiki don’t believe in having superiors.”
“That’s not true, generations of Kuchikis have served in the Gotei 13 with very good reputations.”
“And yet hey all walked around with - to use the vernacular - sticks up their asses. Everyone else is just too unworthy for you and your pure, interbred, blood. A bit of an oxymoron, no?”
Byakuya glanced tiredly at her, having very little patience for arguing the attitudes, actions, or preferences of his ancestors, and finally sighed exasperatedly, “If you aren’t here to introduce yourself, then what exactly are you here for?”
“To save my garden, of course.” She stated as if it was the most obvious reason in the world, “The rain is flooding my garden. The plants are all drowning.” Her tone had softened.
“Your garden?” asked Byakuya, reluctantly intrigued.
“My garden,” she affirmed. “My realm, my kingdom, your soul. I watch over it, and it sustains me in return.”
She looked up absentmindedly, and mutters, almost to herself, “It’s never rained like this before. Drizzles now and then, enough to keep the soil balanced. But never this deluge. It’s like the entirety of my kingdom is fallen apart.” She glanced at him, and raised her voice for effect, and arched in a fake swoon. “The pillar that held the sky has been destroyed, and the sky is crashing down around me!”
She broke from her melodramatic monologue, and gave him a wide-eyed stare, twisting her neck around to look at him. Instead of providing her with the innocent countenance she was going for, it only served to make him realize how inhuman she was; dark empty eyes and white as death skin.
“Make the rain stop… please?”
Byakuya stared dumbstruck; he seemed to be doing that a lot during this conversation.
The waterlogged figure in front of him sighed, and bent down to sit on his desk. Her previous teasing countenance was gone, and she looked at him now with all seriousness.
“You’re far too young to drown yourself in grief, Byakuya. With my power, you have an illustrious career ahead of you. Instead, you live in the past and your memories."
He was not, after all, it has only been two months since the funeral. He closed his eyes, and defiantly answered, “I am only paying my mother the respect she deserves by keeping her alive in my heart and my memories.”
“Is it your memories keeping her alive, or her memory keeping you alive?”
Before he can answer, she whirled around, flinging illusionary drops of water about the room. Her voice was suddenly harsh, a savage light in her eyes. “How do you expect to become a Captain if you cannot even obtain your Shikai?” The question flung at him without warning.
“What?”
“Don’t be stupid. I can see your dreams and your fears, and I can see you picturing yourself with the Captain’s cloak. You do want to be Captain, don’t you? So, I’m asking, how will you obtain the rank of Captain if you haven’t obtained Shikai?”
“I haven’t even graduated from the academy yet, there is time. Most people learn their Zanpakutou’s name only after they enter the thirteen divisions, “he said defensively.
“But you aren’t most people, are you? Byakuya Kuchiki, son of Hanaka and R Kuchiki, two of the most illustrious Soul Reapers in the history of the Seireitei. You havesuch a legacy to live up to; to surpass, yet your passive spirit - your real problem - prevents you from doing so. Where is infamous Kuchiki attitude I have seen with your ancestors? You ex--”
“My ancestors?”
He couldn’t help but interrupt.
Glaring at him, she impatiently growled, “Yes, reborn countless times in countless forms with countless names, but it has always been my spirit in their swords.”
She waved her hand dismissively.
“Enough about that, don’t try to change the subject.” Pinning him with another intense gaze, she mused out loud, “You expect things to happen to you with time. Like how life will revert back to before the death of Hanaka-san. The white Shuhaksho of the Captain to just be handed to you like your meals. Tch, your family has spoiled you. You don’t know about hard work.”
Insulted, he argued back, “You don’t think I know about hard work? I am the youngest in the advanced classes, I am the Kuchiki head, and I -“
“Fine, fine, I admit it; you do have natural talent and luck. And until now you have relied on those, cruising your way through life. It isn’t as if you had to struggle to excel in the academy or to sit at this desk. Compared to what you are capable of, this is nothing.”
Seeing the unresponsive look on his face, she sighed, “Perhaps it is better if I show you.”
The world suddenly lurched sickeningly, and he felt a wrenching sensation in his chest before the ground disappeared beneath him. He fell for what seemed like hours, but he couldn’t tell; the darkness rushed past him, an endless cycle of repetitive muted colors, swirling sluggishly into another to create a murky black abyss. Suddenly he found himself facedown in wet grass, the smell of the muddy terrain permeating his senses. Driving rain assaulted him when he opened his eyes, and even drearier conditions greeted him as he was able to stand up.
He was in the remnants of a lavish garden, surrounded by ancient gnarled trees spreading their arms around him, extending farther than he could see. The trees were bare, with barely the hint of flower buds decorating their naked arms. Elsewhere, the plants and vines were drooping, weighed down with their bloated leaves that flaccid stems could no longer support.
Whatever was living was now being drowned by the rain.
“Well? Answer my question. How do you expect to attain the position of Captain?” Surprised, he spun around to see the strange woman shielding her face from the rain, brows furrowed in a mock of annoyance.
“You cannot possibly rely on your Kidou and Hadou alone.”
Another dramatic sigh.
“My presence is neglected here, my power is wasted, my name remains undiscovered, and my existence - and thusly yours - will be short-lived. Unless, of course, you submit yourself to me.”
She peered at him sideways, as if expecting.
Byakuya’s brows furrowed in confusion. “If you are truly the spirit of my Zanpakutou, then you are supposed to submit yourself to me, and your powers become mine. That is the way it works, the Shinigami commands the Zanpakutou.”
“You believe you can dominate over me?” She laughed, a harsh mocking sound. “You, who cannot even defeat a mere Hollow? I see no reason to lend my abilities to you.”
She slowly made her way towards the edge of the forest, fighting against the wind and rain, her absurdly inappropriate attire snagging on the rocks and trailing in the dirt; but she took no notice. Laying one pale hand on the trunk of a tree, she whispered, “These trees represent your growth and development, Byakuya. Look at them! They are bare, barely coming out of their winter slumber! It seems an awfully long time since Spring has come.”
She turned around again.
“It is true for some avatars to just give their name after a period of familiarity with their God, but I do not give my power so easily. Knowledge is easily given away, but difficult to take back.”
“Then what do I have to do?”
“Prove you are worthy; you believe it, but can you support those beliefs? You might have the skills and the knowledge, but do you have the spirit?” Her voice rose, and the hairs stood on the back of his neck. “Live up to the legacies of your forefathers and surpass them in strength and notoriety. Assert your ‘dominance’ on others first before you do so on me. Rule the clan with an iron fist; ignore those councilors, they’re nothing but windbags, blowing hot air around with nothing to back it up; train hard, become strong. It is what your mother would’ve wished for you.”
She stopped and looked at him straight in the eye, her gaze piercing.
“Most importantly, do not submit to anyone else. Your loyalty and your submission shall lie only with me.”
“And then you will give me your name?”
“We’ll see,” she answered airily, a guarantee lacking in her reply. She turned and began to walk away. “Now there is nothing else to discuss at this moment. Goodbye, my little deity of death. But hear this, I do not wish to wait for sun for much longer.”
Before he could voice a protest, she disappeared from view, and he found himself facing those rows and columns of numbers again. He glanced at the clock, only a few minutes since he last checked; the entire encounter with her had only taken a few minutes, yet it remained deeply ingrained in his mind.
The only indication of her presence was a fading damp spot on the wood where she had stood.
Prove you are worthy.
The words she spoke echoed in his mind.
Live up to the legacies-
Surpass them-
Assert-
Rule-
Ignore -
Train-
The long list of imperatives rang in his head.
It is what your mother would’ve wished for you.
But no matter how she aggravated him, no matter how her demands daunted him, Byakuya knew he would follow her wishes.
He gave the list of expenses one final peruse and gently placed it on the table, ready to retire for the night. As he rose from his spot, he picked up the family portrait sitting on his desk. A faded black and white, of him as a baby and his parents, it was taken decades ago, in the midst of his father’s occupation as the head of the Clan, and it had sat on that desk for that long.
As he stared at the frozen reflections of his parents, his gaze fell on his mother. A soft, resigned smile lighted Hanaka’s face, and a gentle glint her eyes, gazing lovingly back at him.
“I met her today, mother.”
She wasn’t anything like you told me.
His lip twitched in the semblance of a grin.
But I will follow her anyway…
Not because I have no choice, but because your expectations of me live on in her.
But don’t worry.
“She will never replace you.”
Start:4.1.07
End: 4.8.07
Word Count: 2,941
To Chapter 2-->
Yay for Fangirl-japanese.
I wanted to post this after finishing Part II's draft. But Part II is going as quickly and as painlessly as a slug marathon on a saltbed. Although I'm done with the Epilogue. ¬__¬
I've officially ran out of ways to say "Byakuya gave her a blank stare in response".
*night*
It tried to eat me.
Title: Royal Affairs
Author: bmw_remixed
Fandom: Bleach
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Byakuya, Senbonzakura (Mentioning of Byakuya/Hisana, Byakuya/Rukia. Other characters in passing.)
Summary: Senbonzakura was less of a weapon and more of a conscience. You know, the nagging little voice in the back of your head?
One: The Queen is Dead, Long Live the Queen
Life in the Kuchiki house had always been centered around status - their status as a noble house, their status as Shinigami in the Gotei 13, and each individual’s status in the house itself, from the stable boy (back when they had stables) to the Head of the Clan himself - and it didn’t change when a new heir was born.
In many ways, Byakuya Kuchiki’s early life resembled those of other boys his age, wanting to spend more time outdoors than inside, getting a new scrape or bruise every hour, refusing to go to bed on time… but there were also those things that separated him from the rest. Countless lessons on etiquette, language, arithmetic, history, people and places, kidou and hadou incantations, where to put your spoon after finishing your soup, which foot to start with when going out, which foot to start with when going in.... endless lectures that straggled on for hours at a time.
Contrary to popular belief, Byakuya was not a perfect child. More than a few times he could remember being called down to explain his absence to a tutor, or a the food that had mysteriously disappeared from the kitchen only to reappear months later and stinking in the advisor’s closet.
Byakuya might have not a perfect child, but he was a perfect noble. Growing up surrounded by people obsessed with status, he looked down upon anyone who wasn’t an immediate member of the Kuchiki family. Clan advisors, distant cousins, members of other noble houses - like the Shihouin. Even among his immediate family, the only ones he did admire were his parents.
He had known of his parents’ reputations, both in public relations and on the battlefield, and bragged about them often. But to the young Byakuya, his father was more a distant mythical figure than a person, having died so early in his son’s life. All he knew of Tezuko Kuchiki was of his legacy of turning the Eleventh Division into the most combat orientated division in the entire Gotei 13. It was only natural his mother became the most prominent figure in his life - a warm compassionate woman perfectly suited to her position as the Captain of the Fourth Division.
Despite her soft exterior, Hanaka Kuchiki was a strong woman and strict in her morals. She had stood by her husband when he ruled over the rest of the clan, and defended her husband against his opponents, both in the council and on the battlefield. When he passed away, no one questioned her succession as the leader of the Kuchiki. Nothing in the Kuchiki household went without her notice and approval; the servants obeyed her without a second thought, the lesser Kuchiki members revered her from the corners, and Byakuya himself - the prideful adolescent he was - had grudgingly admitted her onto a pedestal as a pinnacle of perfection.
She was the first woman in his life, the first person he had wrapped his ambition and love around. He remembered her love and support in every aspect of his life, from playing with him in the elaborate gardens of the Kuchiki mansion and kissing his bruises when he tripped over his own feet as a child, to her chastisements went he came home dressed as an urchin covered in mud and grime.
In Byakuya Kuchiki’s adolescent mind, no one will ever be able compare to the woman who had given birth to him.
The funeral took place in late summer. By then, the flowers were already gone and the nights had begun to empty of the endless chorus of frogs and crickets. The atmosphere was damp, without even a beam of sunlight to refresh the day. Time seemed to slow as well, in reverence to the final rest of a respected spirit.
As per tradition, Byakuya was expected to stay near the shrine, overly decorated with garlands of wilting flowers forced to live past their prime and sheets of obnoxiously colored silks that tried and failed to breathe life into a ceremony of death. There had been hundreds of mourners who came that day, a flood of elegant women with painted faces, stone countenanced men, and battle scarred warriors who refused to let go of their zanpakutous that came up to the shrine to offer their blessings to her and their condolences to him.
By sundown, he had lost count of how many people had bent down to look him in the eyes and smile that forced grimace of a smile as if they knew his pain. He didn’t need their pity, he felt it wasn’t sincere enough for him. They didn’t know her like he knew her, they didn’t love her the way he did, they didn’t know the bond he shared with his mother… they didn’t know what it was like having something that had been there all his life, a constant, ripped to shreds by one of those Hollows.
Byakuya didn’t allow himself to cry as the funeral pyre was lit; his mother wouldn’t have liked it, and it would’ve warranted another lecture about maintaining self-image from her. Only when the smoke blew thick and acrid across the gathering, did he allow himself to succumb to the choking lump in his throat and the pain in his heart.
Of course, he blamed it on the smoke - everyone did.
The days following the funeral were a whirl of activity, to put it in the cliché. Byakuya found himself dragged from one meeting with a clan advisor to another, each one repeating the same monologue over and over again about familial duty, continuing the legacy of his parents, brining honor to the family other seemingly trivial matters. The councilors were like scavengers, picking at him in his emotionally battered state, requesting this, suggesting that, pushing all remnants of the woman whose seat he had taken at the meeting room table out of their minds.
Just when he thought he was about to go crazy with family finances, arranged alliances, and the impartial attitude they spoke about his mother (after all, he was a kingdom without a ruler, lost within himself), she appeared.
First in glimpses in his usually unimaginative dreams, a ghostly figure watching him, scrutinizing him from the back of his mind, then beside him in the corners of his vision, disappearing when he turned around. Her form was human and annoyed, her dress was formal, consisting of layer over layer of expensive material.
And she was wet.
Clothes almost transparent with water, the expensive looking cloth coagulating into a pile at her feet. Her hair stuck to her face and her exposed back, and she kept hugging herself absently, as if in a half-hearted attempted to keep warm. Her movements were human-like, from the way she blinked as the water dripped into her eyes, and the impatient way she glanced from side to side, as if waiting for something.
But even all that, she remained distinctly ethereal and her eyes remained disturbingly empty. Her movements were a little too calculated, her posture a little too stiff, and her features too perfect.
He eventually dismissed her as a stress and grief induced hallucination.
Months later, in the midst of winter, with a storm echoing his emptiness outside, he saw her again. As he went over the budget expenses for the past week one night, he felt a light breeze in the room and the scent of flowers wafted in the air. Byakuya looked up, confused.
There she was, in all her finery, transparent, the lamps across the room reduced to wavering flickers through her image. She was dripping, beads of water rolling off her skin to fall on the floor below.
“One gets tired of the rain after a while, you know.”
A voice that touched the inner reaches of his mind, light but sarcastic, quiet but hiding a sharp edge.
“…Who are you?” he asked hesitantly, voice trailing off. He still wasn’t sure if he was hallucinating or not.
“Me? I’m you, of course. I had expected you to know.”
A feral grin with painted lips.
“I’m the best and worst of you, twisted, juggled, distorted into a caricature of what you really are.”
Byakuya saw her glance sideways at the properly neglected sword of an academy student at Byakuya’s side. Following her gaze, he gasped out loud, “You’re my Zanpakutou! Have you come to tell me your name?”
His question was met by laughter. Shaking the water from her bangs, she laughed, “Please. A little fledgling like you thinks he can have my power? Why, you’ve barely hit puberty! One shouldn’t give children such dangerous toys to play with.”
Feigning disinterest to cover his disappointment, he uttered dismissively, “Then I see no reason for this meeting, and there is much I need to do.”
“My, my, such a dutiful little boy you are! I‘m sure mother would be - excuse me, would have been -- so proud!”
“It is expected of me as the Kuchiki heir.”
He returned to the rows and columns of numbers, but before he could lose himself in the methodic mind numbing work of the calculations, her voice pierced through his haze again.
“Well, it seems to me your mother didn’t well verse you in the area of manners when dealing with your superiors.”
“My mother was -” he began indignantly.
“-So you do have a personality!” She gasped dramatically.
Mouth agape, still halfway through his previous sentence, Byakuya shot off his harshest glare.
“Excuse me, my apologies. It wasn’t proper for me to blame her. After all, you are a Kuchiki.” She sighed dramatically. “And the Kuchiki don’t believe in having superiors.”
“That’s not true, generations of Kuchikis have served in the Gotei 13 with very good reputations.”
“And yet hey all walked around with - to use the vernacular - sticks up their asses. Everyone else is just too unworthy for you and your pure, interbred, blood. A bit of an oxymoron, no?”
Byakuya glanced tiredly at her, having very little patience for arguing the attitudes, actions, or preferences of his ancestors, and finally sighed exasperatedly, “If you aren’t here to introduce yourself, then what exactly are you here for?”
“To save my garden, of course.” She stated as if it was the most obvious reason in the world, “The rain is flooding my garden. The plants are all drowning.” Her tone had softened.
“Your garden?” asked Byakuya, reluctantly intrigued.
“My garden,” she affirmed. “My realm, my kingdom, your soul. I watch over it, and it sustains me in return.”
She looked up absentmindedly, and mutters, almost to herself, “It’s never rained like this before. Drizzles now and then, enough to keep the soil balanced. But never this deluge. It’s like the entirety of my kingdom is fallen apart.” She glanced at him, and raised her voice for effect, and arched in a fake swoon. “The pillar that held the sky has been destroyed, and the sky is crashing down around me!”
She broke from her melodramatic monologue, and gave him a wide-eyed stare, twisting her neck around to look at him. Instead of providing her with the innocent countenance she was going for, it only served to make him realize how inhuman she was; dark empty eyes and white as death skin.
“Make the rain stop… please?”
Byakuya stared dumbstruck; he seemed to be doing that a lot during this conversation.
The waterlogged figure in front of him sighed, and bent down to sit on his desk. Her previous teasing countenance was gone, and she looked at him now with all seriousness.
“You’re far too young to drown yourself in grief, Byakuya. With my power, you have an illustrious career ahead of you. Instead, you live in the past and your memories."
He was not, after all, it has only been two months since the funeral. He closed his eyes, and defiantly answered, “I am only paying my mother the respect she deserves by keeping her alive in my heart and my memories.”
“Is it your memories keeping her alive, or her memory keeping you alive?”
Before he can answer, she whirled around, flinging illusionary drops of water about the room. Her voice was suddenly harsh, a savage light in her eyes. “How do you expect to become a Captain if you cannot even obtain your Shikai?” The question flung at him without warning.
“What?”
“Don’t be stupid. I can see your dreams and your fears, and I can see you picturing yourself with the Captain’s cloak. You do want to be Captain, don’t you? So, I’m asking, how will you obtain the rank of Captain if you haven’t obtained Shikai?”
“I haven’t even graduated from the academy yet, there is time. Most people learn their Zanpakutou’s name only after they enter the thirteen divisions, “he said defensively.
“But you aren’t most people, are you? Byakuya Kuchiki, son of Hanaka and R Kuchiki, two of the most illustrious Soul Reapers in the history of the Seireitei. You havesuch a legacy to live up to; to surpass, yet your passive spirit - your real problem - prevents you from doing so. Where is infamous Kuchiki attitude I have seen with your ancestors? You ex--”
“My ancestors?”
He couldn’t help but interrupt.
Glaring at him, she impatiently growled, “Yes, reborn countless times in countless forms with countless names, but it has always been my spirit in their swords.”
She waved her hand dismissively.
“Enough about that, don’t try to change the subject.” Pinning him with another intense gaze, she mused out loud, “You expect things to happen to you with time. Like how life will revert back to before the death of Hanaka-san. The white Shuhaksho of the Captain to just be handed to you like your meals. Tch, your family has spoiled you. You don’t know about hard work.”
Insulted, he argued back, “You don’t think I know about hard work? I am the youngest in the advanced classes, I am the Kuchiki head, and I -“
“Fine, fine, I admit it; you do have natural talent and luck. And until now you have relied on those, cruising your way through life. It isn’t as if you had to struggle to excel in the academy or to sit at this desk. Compared to what you are capable of, this is nothing.”
Seeing the unresponsive look on his face, she sighed, “Perhaps it is better if I show you.”
The world suddenly lurched sickeningly, and he felt a wrenching sensation in his chest before the ground disappeared beneath him. He fell for what seemed like hours, but he couldn’t tell; the darkness rushed past him, an endless cycle of repetitive muted colors, swirling sluggishly into another to create a murky black abyss. Suddenly he found himself facedown in wet grass, the smell of the muddy terrain permeating his senses. Driving rain assaulted him when he opened his eyes, and even drearier conditions greeted him as he was able to stand up.
He was in the remnants of a lavish garden, surrounded by ancient gnarled trees spreading their arms around him, extending farther than he could see. The trees were bare, with barely the hint of flower buds decorating their naked arms. Elsewhere, the plants and vines were drooping, weighed down with their bloated leaves that flaccid stems could no longer support.
Whatever was living was now being drowned by the rain.
“Well? Answer my question. How do you expect to attain the position of Captain?” Surprised, he spun around to see the strange woman shielding her face from the rain, brows furrowed in a mock of annoyance.
“You cannot possibly rely on your Kidou and Hadou alone.”
Another dramatic sigh.
“My presence is neglected here, my power is wasted, my name remains undiscovered, and my existence - and thusly yours - will be short-lived. Unless, of course, you submit yourself to me.”
She peered at him sideways, as if expecting.
Byakuya’s brows furrowed in confusion. “If you are truly the spirit of my Zanpakutou, then you are supposed to submit yourself to me, and your powers become mine. That is the way it works, the Shinigami commands the Zanpakutou.”
“You believe you can dominate over me?” She laughed, a harsh mocking sound. “You, who cannot even defeat a mere Hollow? I see no reason to lend my abilities to you.”
She slowly made her way towards the edge of the forest, fighting against the wind and rain, her absurdly inappropriate attire snagging on the rocks and trailing in the dirt; but she took no notice. Laying one pale hand on the trunk of a tree, she whispered, “These trees represent your growth and development, Byakuya. Look at them! They are bare, barely coming out of their winter slumber! It seems an awfully long time since Spring has come.”
She turned around again.
“It is true for some avatars to just give their name after a period of familiarity with their God, but I do not give my power so easily. Knowledge is easily given away, but difficult to take back.”
“Then what do I have to do?”
“Prove you are worthy; you believe it, but can you support those beliefs? You might have the skills and the knowledge, but do you have the spirit?” Her voice rose, and the hairs stood on the back of his neck. “Live up to the legacies of your forefathers and surpass them in strength and notoriety. Assert your ‘dominance’ on others first before you do so on me. Rule the clan with an iron fist; ignore those councilors, they’re nothing but windbags, blowing hot air around with nothing to back it up; train hard, become strong. It is what your mother would’ve wished for you.”
She stopped and looked at him straight in the eye, her gaze piercing.
“Most importantly, do not submit to anyone else. Your loyalty and your submission shall lie only with me.”
“And then you will give me your name?”
“We’ll see,” she answered airily, a guarantee lacking in her reply. She turned and began to walk away. “Now there is nothing else to discuss at this moment. Goodbye, my little deity of death. But hear this, I do not wish to wait for sun for much longer.”
Before he could voice a protest, she disappeared from view, and he found himself facing those rows and columns of numbers again. He glanced at the clock, only a few minutes since he last checked; the entire encounter with her had only taken a few minutes, yet it remained deeply ingrained in his mind.
The only indication of her presence was a fading damp spot on the wood where she had stood.
Prove you are worthy.
The words she spoke echoed in his mind.
Live up to the legacies-
Surpass them-
Assert-
Rule-
Ignore -
Train-
The long list of imperatives rang in his head.
It is what your mother would’ve wished for you.
But no matter how she aggravated him, no matter how her demands daunted him, Byakuya knew he would follow her wishes.
He gave the list of expenses one final peruse and gently placed it on the table, ready to retire for the night. As he rose from his spot, he picked up the family portrait sitting on his desk. A faded black and white, of him as a baby and his parents, it was taken decades ago, in the midst of his father’s occupation as the head of the Clan, and it had sat on that desk for that long.
As he stared at the frozen reflections of his parents, his gaze fell on his mother. A soft, resigned smile lighted Hanaka’s face, and a gentle glint her eyes, gazing lovingly back at him.
“I met her today, mother.”
She wasn’t anything like you told me.
His lip twitched in the semblance of a grin.
But I will follow her anyway…
Not because I have no choice, but because your expectations of me live on in her.
But don’t worry.
“She will never replace you.”
Start:4.1.07
End: 4.8.07
Word Count: 2,941
To Chapter 2-->
Yay for Fangirl-japanese.
I wanted to post this after finishing Part II's draft. But Part II is going as quickly and as painlessly as a slug marathon on a saltbed. Although I'm done with the Epilogue. ¬__¬
I've officially ran out of ways to say "Byakuya gave her a blank stare in response".
*night*