Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ Your Memory is My Revenge ❯ The Escape ( Chapter 4 )

Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or any Bleach affiliates

 

Chapter 4

 

“My search began that very day. Once I had met the men and had spoken with them briefly about our goal I dressed in traveling clothes and left the Kuchiki Manor.

 

The first place we went to search for her was the place where the two of us landed in Rukongai after our sudden and unwelcome deaths.

 

It is said that when people come to the Soul Society, their human memories are still a part of their lives. Sometimes, as people continue their lives, they can choose to forget those memories or keep them locked inside. If a death or a life was too difficult for someone, they might choose to ignore it, they could become completely consumed by their life in the Soul Society and forget that they even lived in the mortal world.

 

My death was not so simple.

 

I doubt that Rukia even remembers it, our life before the Soul Society. Some things were good, some things were bad, but I need to document them, for fear that they might be lost in the passing of time.

 

I was born in a small village just outside the city of Aomori, my father was a gentle man named Jin, and my mother was a loving woman named Keiko. When I was born the entire village celebrated, they said I was a lovely baby and had the gentlest soul in the village.

 

My childhood was a blur of contentment, I remember helping mother around the house, playing with the other village girls, swimming in a nearby stream, and going into town with Father to help him sell the vegetables he grew and the fish he caught.

 

When my mother grew pregnant, I was sixteen years old, and I was ecstatic.

 

When Rukia was born I was the one who washed her and tended to her and cared for her. Mother was ill after she gave birth and grew worse with each passing day. Father instructed me to care for the infant and to take her away, so she would not grow ill, as mother had.

 

It was the day it rained that we died.

 

The day began filled with sun and hope and new life, Father told me to take Rukia out once more, Mother was not feeling well again and she needed to rest.

 

I obeyed and bundled up enough lunch for me, fresh milk for the baby, and enough clothes so she might be comfortable.

 

I took her to the village first, the people cooed at her and cuddled her and pinched her little red cheeks while she giggled happily. I could not have been prouder of my baby sister; I had felt as though I were her mother and the compliments given to her were mine as well. I reluctantly pulled her away from the villagers and told them we would return later, I wanted to take her to the stream where mother and father met.

 

Swaddling Rukia and attaching her to my back, I made my way towards the southern end of the village and kept going. The stream was over two miles away but I was not daunted, I knew that when my parents met, they had walked six miles each day simply to see one another before they were married.

 

It was a beautiful spot. The stream is quiet and secluded in an area surrounded by scented trees. I can still remember the lovely smells that accosted my nose when I first reached the spot, Rukia too, smelled the lovely scent but sneezed instead of smiled.

 

Tiny dragonflies and small fireflies littered the area, flowers were in bloom and colored the green grasses that settled around my feet. Happily, I stretched my limbs after I put Rukia down on the ground, she wiggled around in her basket, annoyed at being stuck inside of the wicked contraption. I took her squirming form out and began to tickle her, she giggled and I smiled.

 

Throughout the day we wrestled and tickled and laughed and ate and played in the stream and rested. Rukia and I played all day until we were completely exhausted. Lying down in the grass I gazed up at the canopy, Rukia resting peacefully on my chest, sighing, I cuddled my arms around her and sleepily closed my eyes.

 

While we rested the clouds gathered overhead and an ominous presence came in through the North.

 

It was Rukia who woke me. She squirmed and began to cry. I woke blearily and hugged her closer to my chest.

 

In a moment she began to wail whole heartedly. My attention was more alert then than it had ever been before, and I sat up, staring wildly. Rukia was crying loudly and the sound was pounding into my ears and my heart was hammering with fear. The skies had just opened and the rain was beginning to pour upon us.

 

I learned later that it is the fate of children and young babies to see the unseen. Rukia saw what I didn't and she tried to warn me, only I did not run fast enough.

 

Quickly I gathered Rukia to me and began to follow the path as it grew slippery with mud, I could feel a rumbling behind me and when I glanced behind me I saw large indentations, in the shape of monstrous footprints, crushed into the earth, the rain filling it slowly.

 

I barely had time to cry out before I felt something slice down my back. I screamed and felt the rush of my blood splatter to the ground with the newly fallen rain. I bent down onto the ground, one of my hands still clutching my baby sister.

 

`Please,' I murmured, `Please, do not—do not harm us.' I remember whispering, trying to wipe the water and blood from my eyes.

 

It was then I heard the last sound from the living world.

 

`Not harm you?' The voice rumbled. `I am Hollow, you are food. I only wish to hear you scream.'

 

There was pain, I remember that, I remember the immense pain that shot though me when a single claw ran its length through my heart, and subsequently, the heart of my little, baby, innocent sister.

 

My eyes opened wide and the fear beating inside my heart was stilled. Blood spilled onto the ground and Rukia stopped crying forever.

 

Together, we dropped to the ground, rain and mud filling our mouths and eyes.

 

When we did not return to the village people were set out in droves, they searched frantically and by the time they found us, the rain had stopped and the moon was out in its full glory. Beams of light fell from heaven as the villagers came upon our bodies. Silently, they stood around us, watching as the light played with our eyes, making the hollow entities sparkle with fake light.

 

My father was brought to us, they say he howled when he held our lifeless bodies in his arms. It is also said that our mother, upon hearing of our deaths, died instantly. It is said that our deaths were mourned for years and a shrine was built as a memorial. It remained as a tribute to the deaths of two innocents.

 

When we were released to Rukongai we were brought to the sixty-eighth district, a grubby and a crime ridden area, but I stayed nonetheless…

 

…Until the day of my shame.

 

We searched for hours that day and I returned to the Kuchiki house exhausted. Byakuya did not say anything, he seemed to know the matter was delicate and still in its infancy. He stayed with me that night, pressing me close to his strong chest.

 

The next day it was the same, and the same after that, and after that, and after that… until I grew completely exhausted.

 

Obsessed.

 

Byakuya was growing more concerned as I deteriorated. A few days he would step in and stop me from searching, other days he would command the others to go on without me, he had even been going on the missions more and more himself.

 

`Hisana,' he told me one day. `You must slow down, you are growing weak.'

 

`I cannot stop, Byakuya,' I replied automatically. `I must find her.'

 

`Hisana,' he said, coming to stand before me as I prepared to leave. `I am telling you, not asking you.'

 

I remember staring up at him and opening my mouth to speak, to protest, when a whirling appeared in my head and I grew faint. My knees buckled beneath me and I fell. Byakuya lunged forward and gently caught me. He took me to our room and laid me down in the bed.

 

`Rest.' He commanded gently. `You need your strength.' Leaning forward, he kissed me gently and brushed the hair from my face.

 

`Rukia,' I murmured. `I need to find Rukia…'”

 

Rukia brought her hand up to her face and brushed a tear from her eye.

 

Keeping her current page in mind she flipped backwards a few pages and read one single passage: “I was born in a small village just outside the city of Aomori.”

 

That's not far from here. Rukia thought, closing the book and biting her lip. She was in her room—well, the room she shared with Ichigo's sisters anyway—and hidden under the covers, a flashlight in her hand. Blearily, she set the diary down and rose from the bed, reminding herself to be quiet as she jumped down the steps.

 

She stretched when she reached the fridge and began to dig inside, finding a juice box she poked a straw inside and sat on the couch.

 

So… Hisana had looked for her almost immediately after she married Byakuya. Rukia sipped the juice as she thought back to the pages in the diary. Even when she was sick she had gone out to look for her, well, if Byakuya let her.

 

Aomori… Aomori, Aomori, Aomori… So the place she was born was not far from here. A place with trees, with a stream, a shrine, and a rampaging Hollow. A Hollow that had probably been killed already, so it was no concern of hers.

 

Taking her cell phone from her pocket, Rukia looked blandly at the screen. Good God, when was she going to get new orders? She wanted to get out of here as soon as possible. She wanted to get her mind off of things; off of her boredom, off of the diary, and off of Ichigo.

 

“You must stay with Kurosaki Ichigo,” she muttered, mocking her captain's voice. After all, it was Captain Ukitake who gave the order to Byakuya that she go back to him. “The Shinigami representative needs to be supervised and put in line; you're the one to do it.”

 

Her mood worsening by the second with unwanted images, she flipped the phone open and quickly dialed.

 

There was a click on the other line. “Yes?”

 

“I need some information from the 12th Squad.” Rukia said clearly.

 

“What do you need?”

 

“I need to know if a Hollow has ever been detected and detained in any villages boarding Aomori.” She asked, teasing the tassels of a nearby cushion with her toe.

 

“Rushed information?”

 

“Yes.”

 

There was a pause on the other line. “But… Aomori is out of your jurisdiction, Kuchiki-san.”

 

Rukia's eyes narrowed and she seethed, “What does that have to do with anything? I need the information so get me the information, quickly.”

 

A gulping sound crossed the wires, “Hai, Kuchiki-san, I am sorry.”

 

“You better be; call me back immediately.” She snapped, closing the phone.

 

She sighed and leaned back, staring up at the ceiling.

 

She could go… she could check it out… she doubted her captain would mind, if it was a case of her personal interest. Besides, it would allow her to get further away from Ichigo.

 

Not that he would realize it, she thought sourly, he'd be to busy looking at Orihime's chest to notice if she went away.

 

She glowered; he hadn't even taken off his earphones when she came through his window. He hadn't wanted to talk to her then and he wouldn't talk to her now. He had probably been listening to erotic music and picturing Orihime naked.

 

Not that it should bother her…

 

…But it did.

 

Her phone beeped and she grabbed it instantly, welcoming the interruption.

 

“Yes.”

 

“Kuchiki-san, there have been reports of a Hollow in that area, but no Soul Reaper has been assigned to its case, it seems only to attack sporadically and then disappear into thin air, not to reappear for a long time, decades even.”

 

Rukia's heart began to pound a bit faster, “You're sure about this?”

 

“Yes ma'am. The attacks started about one hundred and fifty years ago, it is said that the first victims were a young girl and her infant sister… then they escalate, fifteen years later there was a small boy, twenty five years later it was an older man, ten years after that there was a young man, and about fifteen tears after that—”

 

“That's fine,” Rukia said, “Thank you.”

 

“My pleasure, Kuchiki-san.”

 

Rukia said goodbye and clicked the phone shut. She stayed on the couch for one more minute before bolting up and grabbing her school backpack.

 

Furiously, she dumped the contents onto the floor and rushed to Karin and Yuzu's room. She leaped over their beds and quickly found a few dresses and her soul candy.

 

Rukia fixed her hair and hurriedly ran down the steps. With no doubt in her mind, she slipped her shoes on and ran out the door, into the night.