Hisana part I
The Hisana sections and Byakuya sections were written separately and therefore could probably be read as separate stories. But it might be really hard to follow unless you've either a) read it all before b) are the person who wrote it, or c) both of the above.
Hisana: Sketches of Scarlet
These were the images she wished she had drawn for him, but each time the picture changed when she began to sketch.
No, if she were honest, it was because her courage failed her. She always made excuses, of course. The excitement of the rainbow of colors she now had access to, all the exotic purples and blues and yellows she had dreamed of - and many she hadn't: turquoise and magenta and coral and countless others - how could she possibly resist them and confine herself to drab browns and blacks? And red. The only bright color she saw for so many decades.
Too late now. Her hands were so numb she could barely feel the support of his sturdy hands around them.
* * *
She would have drawn a few sparse lines of brown and snarled knots of grey and black everywhere else.
All her mortal memories were so distant, and in nearly every way so similar to her Rukongai existence that they meshed together and became indistinct, save for a few grim recollections, like the perpetual gnawing pangs in her stomach that she had thought was simply a given in life until she arrived in Soul Society. She did not remember parents, so she assumed they had long blurred into the haze of all the adults she came across in those slums: dead eyes and dead souls trying to claw a decaying existence from their decaying surroundings.
She did not know if she would have had the courage to draw the two violet spots, the only burst of color there ever was in those memories. They were the only eyes that looked at her and saw her. She did not know back then this was the worst curse one could inflict on another and instead swore to never let those eyes vanish from her life.
* * *
Next, a page of black and orange and yellow and blue in a chaotic jumble. This was the only other distinctly mortal memory: her death. Bitter smells of singed flesh and hair and wood as ashes choked her throat. Cracked lips and raw throat remained when she woke, but there was something far worse in her nose. A putrid scent, an inhuman howl, an abomination headed towards her sister, a blinding surge of fear, seizing her sister and running, running, running without hope. It was drawing nearer - nearer - nearer, and she could feel that aura of terrible lust and hate and hunger crawling along her skin.
A hiss in the air. Then nothing.
She did not fail her sister. She saved Aoiko that time.
* * *
Sparse lines of brown again. A more furious tangle of black. Black like the uniform of the strange lying bastard who had sent them to an existence as wretched the one they had just endured while promising a heaven.
She never did believe in heaven. Hell was more like it. Same dry throat. Same squalid anarchy.
Several hours later, when she frantically tore through the bushes trying to find her baby sister, she realized this place was far, far worse than Hell. Hell was where they punished the wicked, and while she had certainly committed her fair share of wrongs in her life, Aoiko had not lived long enough to merit whatever fate she surely must have met.
Even if she carried the guilt with her forever afterwards, it would not be punishment enough.
* * *
Same bleak brown frames, but large swathes of crimson cut through the grays and blacks. The only bright color so freely available when she drew figures on the ground, although, as the blood dried, it dulled into a brownish-red and lost its luster. At least freshly bleeding corpses were hardly rare, especially those of children. She would know - she examined every single one, her heart pounding in her ears each time as she searched for traces of her own features, both fearing and needing the closure.
* * *
There was that one time when she had seen a lovely shade of brown; she never knew brown could be pretty. His hair was rich and glossy and even in the hazy light sullied with thick clouds of dust and smoke, she could see flecks of gold. It was a terrible shame to see it matted with blood as she left him lying in the dirt, a gaping knife wound in his neck.
* * *
Red, red, endless red. Dark flow of red drenching her hands. She could never wash it out anymore, or that faintly sweet, coppery smell. It was even in her water. She found herself choking each time she drank that liquid with its slightly acidic, piercing taste. Little by little, it had ceased to alleviate the persistent burning in her throat.
* * *
A circle of pale, pale yellow. She could finally see the outline of the sun in the sky. The air was a little cleaner, and amid the endless rows of discolored wood and broken planks, she would occasionally encounter a scrap of color that was not scarlet - rags of grimy blue here, of muddied green there.
It was here she first saw a living child with tousled ebony hair, so emaciated and dirty she could not determine the gender. Her heart beat so wildly she was certain it would burst from her ribcage as she approached the youngster, but at that moment, a blur of white and black passed her. There were thundering hooves, rhythmic lashes of whips, an eruption of curses, a sickening crunch of bones and a dull thud of flesh crashing into a flimsy wall.
The landau had long vanished into the distance, and left a mangled, broken body flung to the side.
These, she learned, were the vehicles of the shinigami, those lying bastards in black uniforms that had sent her and Aoiko here. Gods of death, they were called, because their carriages of black spelled brutal doom for anyone caught in their reckless paths.
* * *
A background of navy blue, faded unevenly around the arrays of lavender crocuses, dark enough to hide some of the damp blotches of crimson, but the other spots overpowered the washed-out color. The old woman crumpled beside her. The thin fabric she had been carefully placing over Hisana's shivering body fell from her fingers and into her killer's lap. She was smiling weakly even as the knife dropped from the younger woman's frozen hands. The sound of the metal clang against the cement floor reverberated against the bare walls of the storage room. The thud of the body against a rotted wooden crate resounded in Hisana's mind as the last traces of sleep vanished.
"I was dying anyway," the woman whispered.
"Oh my god," she choked out and could think of nothing else to say. The image of the ashen face of the woman and greying hair blurred with images of brown, blonde, white, and black locks soaking in pools of red, faces contorted in shock, stark terror, raw agony. But never forgiveness. Never this ghastly forgiveness and understanding. "I swear I didn't know - I didn't mean to - "
"Better at your hands than a shinigami's." She was still smiling. How could she smile? "Take care of that yukata."
She was dead. A bloodstained yukata lay in Hisana's lap, so limp, so terrible.
* * *
Irregular, pitiless gray lines in parallel. As far as the eye could see, the fence stretched on, cobbled together from barbed wires and broken bits of glass and cement and jagged planks. Two long lines of stony-faced men guarded the lone entrance, menacing pairs of swords hanging at their hips. The raging crowd pounded at the opposite side, a swollen wave crashing futilely against the brittle side of a cliff.
"Whadda buncha numbskulls," someone snorted from a few feet away. An unruly mass of curls hid most of his face. He was wearing a tattered tunic of coarse burlap, and his feet were caked in dried blood. Despite the wounds, he seemed more than a foot taller and about three times her weight. She tensed, furtively closing her hands around the handle of her dagger, but he did not move closer. "You'da think they'da learned their lesson by now."
She shrugged noncommitally but did not loosen her grip on her weapon.
"Those shinigami bastards are jus’ gonna keep sayin' their patrol efforts ain't quite 'nuff yet ta make ‘em keep spendin' more money on patrollin' ‘emselves. When they gonna finally jus’ see that those fuckers in Seireitei ain't never gonna give a damn 'bout us?" he said furiously.
"If they're so stupid, then that means there oughta be a way to break in," she pointed out. She didn't particularly want to hear more about the shinigami. The word always brought to mind fragmented images of a child's head bashed open and the deep grooves left behind by the wheel stained with blood, and rage would cloud her mind and she couldn't afford that.
The man stared at her. "Ya see any way ta break down that fence? 'Cause we ain't gettin' through that entrance. That's fer damn sure."
She surveyed the bedraggled, stormy faces of the rabble packed inside the dusty lot. The frenzied desperation was almost palpable - the guards knew it too. If she squinted, she could see the expressions of those standing nearest to the gates, a bit too taut, a bit too pale to be unreadable. "It won't take much for this mob to go ape-shit, and the guards know it. Look at the first two. They're fucking scared."
The man narrowed his eyes, staring at her intently. "Ya mean ta stir 'em up. Get a riot goin'. And use the rest of ‘em as shields ta slip in."
She looked back at him defiantly. "You got a better idea?"
The first glimmerings of something like respect entered into his eyes.
* * *
Broad strokes of eerie black beneath a thin layer of gray. She huddled under the dirty bundles of tatami mats riddled with holes that were rolled against the wall until long after the shrieks and howls and sounds of metal slicing into flesh and dying moans had ceased. The funereal silence clogged the air dank with the odor of blood and human waste and smoke and ashes. Her throat burned painfully.
She carefully crept out, taking care to not place any pressure on her inflamed ankle, which she had carelessly twisted in her haste to hide. She heard footsteps approaching and scrambled to find her knife. The man with wild curls stood before her. She fumbled with the handle but her fingers were cramped from supporting the pile of mats and with growing panic, she realized she wasn't going to make it in time. He was already in front of her, dark, large, and frightening in the sinister maroon of the sunset with the stench of death closing in all around them. She blinked as he stooped with nothing more than a strip of fabric in his hand and gently bound her ankle.
It was several moments before she realized her cheeks were damp with her tears.
* * *
A hint of blue, the quiet azure peeking through the sallow fog. All around her now, there were occasional traces of color: a small green field at the edge of town, the rare group of women clad in brightly colored kimonos of turquoise and marigold and peach. She was watching one who had sapphire ribbons woven through the thick waves of her chestnut hair.
"Ya want one?" the male voice next to her asked, his eyes following the direction of her gaze.
"No," she replied, plucking at a loose thread from an unraveling hem. "This yukata is my burden to bear."
* * *
Tight coils of a brown so dark it looked black, except when a single curl caught a sunbeam; then she could see a hint of a sandy tan. She had hardly noticed how he had somehow slipped so much into her life it was becoming difficult to remember a time when she did not know the precise shade of his hair, the exact way his fingers reached to rub his earlobe when he was tired, the way his nose flared slightly when confused. Ever since the day he had bound her sprained ankle, supporting her as she limped about, kept guard at night and shared the water he stole with her for the two full days it had taken for her foot to heal, she had felt her guard slipping.
It was an entire month before she let herself fall asleep around him without gripping the dagger concealed in her sleeve. But now she had memorized the pattern of his breathing, as he had hers. She knew just how many seconds she would need to distract a vendor for him to escape with their water, he knew how many hours until the scalding in her throat became unbearable. Yet it still shook her when one morning as they sipped their water, he looked her in the eye and said, "What's yer name?" When she did not reply, he said, "I'm Souji." No, she wanted to shout, don't tell me. But it was too late, he had thrust it upon her, and now she would forever attach a name to the unmanageable tangle of curls and hazel eyes rimmed with a band of gold and hands so large she was surprised they were deft enough to steal efficiently. Names remained even long after memories had dissipated, bundled with guilt and regrets, and she did not want any other name haunting her. One was more than enough for a lifetime.
"Ya don' hafta tell me now," he said quietly.
* * *
Small speckles of colors darting here, darting there. She had never seen so many children alive, small feet pattering on the worn cobblestone of the street. She stared hard at each one, but she had never seen the right shade of violet.
"What's 'er name?" Souji asked one day. She whipped her head around, startled. "What's yer sister's name? It is yer sister, right? Or s'it a cousin?"
"S-sister," she stammered, wrapping her yukata more tightly around herself, as though Souji's probing eyes could somehow see the guilt she guarded in her heart, the frantic fear as she clawed at the empty bushes that she felt as acutely now as in that harrowing moment so many decades ago.
"That's cool, ya know, the will ta keep hopin', ta keep searchin'." He patted her shoulder. The compassion in the gesture caused something to tighten in her chest, compressing the guilt and despair into an intolerable pain, but she could not bring herself to shake off his hand. There was something achingly wistful in his voice, and if she were stronger, braver, she would have asked him whom he carried in his heart.
* * *
Another page steeped in red, red, red, the color she detested the most. How fitting she was named after what she loathed.
His untamed curls were saturated with that awful, glistening scarlet as his face hovered near hers, tight with jaws clenched, refusing to let her gauge the depth of his pain. "Don' ya dare move!" he hissed softly in her ear, ensuring that no one else could hear as he crushed her beneath him, his large frame completely enveloping hers.
"Let me go, Souji! Damnit, you'll bleed to death if I don't -" She tried to struggle, but he froze her with a smile. Her last memory before blacking out as something struck the back of her head was the calm acceptance in his features that made her want to shriek.
When she opened her eyes, Souji's lifeless body had been dragged off her. Somber figures were piling together the corpses of those caught in the senseless altercation between the two warring gangs of the district. She saw in the corner of her eyes two men clad in black, long swords hanging beside them, dispassionate eyes sweeping coldly over the grisly scene. And she saw red again.
Lunging after them, dagger in hand, she screamed "You fucking bastards! You could've stopped this! You could've stopped this! You could've saved him!" Warm liquid streamed down her hands. The blade clattered to the ground, broken. The palm of her hand bled freely, torn open by the impact of the hilt against it. One of the shinigami turned towards her with flinty eyes, seeing right through her. "Rukongai is not within our jurisdiction," he said dismissively and, with a single sweep of his arm, flung her against a column.
* * *
Dull steel sky reflected on still waters, the surface smooth like a sheet of metal reflecting phantom shapes. She closed her eyes before she could see her own outline, slumping down and Souji's body with her. Her wild rage was spent, leaving her drained, but still she began digging, viciously tearing the roots from the earth. It was hard to recognize the bloated features and skin with blotches of sickly white, green, and carmine as she dragged it towards the hole. She shut her eyes tightly, but she couldn't stop the tears winding down the stinging path. She whispered to him, "Hisana. My name is Hisana." Too late. Always too late.
* * *
A dusty brown row of clay jars lined up on wobbly tables. She realized she had nearly forgotten how to steal them - she had become so used to Souji doing that part of the task. Suddenly, she felt the slow burn of ire again, at Souji for dying, at herself for letting him, at Souji for dying for her and leaving her alive, alone with the guilt, but mostly at the shinigami for everything.
Her hands were trembling so much and the effort of driving memories of Souji from her head left her movements so jerky and slow that she was amazed that half an hour later, the jar was tucked safe in her arms and she had shaken off the vendor’s henchmen in the labyrinthine twists and turns of the narrow alleyways. If this had been Inuzuri, the sloppiness of her robbery would have landed her in a ditch, gutted and with her arms sliced off.
* * *
Blue, blue, blue all around her, the blues in the sky, the blues in her yukata. Blue. Aoiko. Guilt, guilt coursing through her like her blood. The red of blood, the red she abhorred. Hisana. The red blood, the guilt, the self-hatred bled into her yukata, all her failures embodied there: the sister she failed, the woman she murdered, the friend she sacrificed.
* * *
Purple a shade too dark, a purple a shade too light. Never the right shade, never.
“Souji,” she said one day to the empty space beside her. “When did you give up?”
It was only then she realized with him beside her, watching her with eyes kind and pensive all at once, she could almost hope, almost believe in a happy end, so that the repeated failures weighed a little less heavily.
Hisana: Sketches of Scarlet
These were the images she wished she had drawn for him, but each time the picture changed when she began to sketch.
No, if she were honest, it was because her courage failed her. She always made excuses, of course. The excitement of the rainbow of colors she now had access to, all the exotic purples and blues and yellows she had dreamed of - and many she hadn't: turquoise and magenta and coral and countless others - how could she possibly resist them and confine herself to drab browns and blacks? And red. The only bright color she saw for so many decades.
Too late now. Her hands were so numb she could barely feel the support of his sturdy hands around them.
* * *
She would have drawn a few sparse lines of brown and snarled knots of grey and black everywhere else.
All her mortal memories were so distant, and in nearly every way so similar to her Rukongai existence that they meshed together and became indistinct, save for a few grim recollections, like the perpetual gnawing pangs in her stomach that she had thought was simply a given in life until she arrived in Soul Society. She did not remember parents, so she assumed they had long blurred into the haze of all the adults she came across in those slums: dead eyes and dead souls trying to claw a decaying existence from their decaying surroundings.
She did not know if she would have had the courage to draw the two violet spots, the only burst of color there ever was in those memories. They were the only eyes that looked at her and saw her. She did not know back then this was the worst curse one could inflict on another and instead swore to never let those eyes vanish from her life.
* * *
Next, a page of black and orange and yellow and blue in a chaotic jumble. This was the only other distinctly mortal memory: her death. Bitter smells of singed flesh and hair and wood as ashes choked her throat. Cracked lips and raw throat remained when she woke, but there was something far worse in her nose. A putrid scent, an inhuman howl, an abomination headed towards her sister, a blinding surge of fear, seizing her sister and running, running, running without hope. It was drawing nearer - nearer - nearer, and she could feel that aura of terrible lust and hate and hunger crawling along her skin.
A hiss in the air. Then nothing.
She did not fail her sister. She saved Aoiko that time.
* * *
Sparse lines of brown again. A more furious tangle of black. Black like the uniform of the strange lying bastard who had sent them to an existence as wretched the one they had just endured while promising a heaven.
She never did believe in heaven. Hell was more like it. Same dry throat. Same squalid anarchy.
Several hours later, when she frantically tore through the bushes trying to find her baby sister, she realized this place was far, far worse than Hell. Hell was where they punished the wicked, and while she had certainly committed her fair share of wrongs in her life, Aoiko had not lived long enough to merit whatever fate she surely must have met.
Even if she carried the guilt with her forever afterwards, it would not be punishment enough.
* * *
Same bleak brown frames, but large swathes of crimson cut through the grays and blacks. The only bright color so freely available when she drew figures on the ground, although, as the blood dried, it dulled into a brownish-red and lost its luster. At least freshly bleeding corpses were hardly rare, especially those of children. She would know - she examined every single one, her heart pounding in her ears each time as she searched for traces of her own features, both fearing and needing the closure.
* * *
There was that one time when she had seen a lovely shade of brown; she never knew brown could be pretty. His hair was rich and glossy and even in the hazy light sullied with thick clouds of dust and smoke, she could see flecks of gold. It was a terrible shame to see it matted with blood as she left him lying in the dirt, a gaping knife wound in his neck.
* * *
Red, red, endless red. Dark flow of red drenching her hands. She could never wash it out anymore, or that faintly sweet, coppery smell. It was even in her water. She found herself choking each time she drank that liquid with its slightly acidic, piercing taste. Little by little, it had ceased to alleviate the persistent burning in her throat.
* * *
A circle of pale, pale yellow. She could finally see the outline of the sun in the sky. The air was a little cleaner, and amid the endless rows of discolored wood and broken planks, she would occasionally encounter a scrap of color that was not scarlet - rags of grimy blue here, of muddied green there.
It was here she first saw a living child with tousled ebony hair, so emaciated and dirty she could not determine the gender. Her heart beat so wildly she was certain it would burst from her ribcage as she approached the youngster, but at that moment, a blur of white and black passed her. There were thundering hooves, rhythmic lashes of whips, an eruption of curses, a sickening crunch of bones and a dull thud of flesh crashing into a flimsy wall.
The landau had long vanished into the distance, and left a mangled, broken body flung to the side.
These, she learned, were the vehicles of the shinigami, those lying bastards in black uniforms that had sent her and Aoiko here. Gods of death, they were called, because their carriages of black spelled brutal doom for anyone caught in their reckless paths.
* * *
A background of navy blue, faded unevenly around the arrays of lavender crocuses, dark enough to hide some of the damp blotches of crimson, but the other spots overpowered the washed-out color. The old woman crumpled beside her. The thin fabric she had been carefully placing over Hisana's shivering body fell from her fingers and into her killer's lap. She was smiling weakly even as the knife dropped from the younger woman's frozen hands. The sound of the metal clang against the cement floor reverberated against the bare walls of the storage room. The thud of the body against a rotted wooden crate resounded in Hisana's mind as the last traces of sleep vanished.
"I was dying anyway," the woman whispered.
"Oh my god," she choked out and could think of nothing else to say. The image of the ashen face of the woman and greying hair blurred with images of brown, blonde, white, and black locks soaking in pools of red, faces contorted in shock, stark terror, raw agony. But never forgiveness. Never this ghastly forgiveness and understanding. "I swear I didn't know - I didn't mean to - "
"Better at your hands than a shinigami's." She was still smiling. How could she smile? "Take care of that yukata."
She was dead. A bloodstained yukata lay in Hisana's lap, so limp, so terrible.
* * *
Irregular, pitiless gray lines in parallel. As far as the eye could see, the fence stretched on, cobbled together from barbed wires and broken bits of glass and cement and jagged planks. Two long lines of stony-faced men guarded the lone entrance, menacing pairs of swords hanging at their hips. The raging crowd pounded at the opposite side, a swollen wave crashing futilely against the brittle side of a cliff.
"Whadda buncha numbskulls," someone snorted from a few feet away. An unruly mass of curls hid most of his face. He was wearing a tattered tunic of coarse burlap, and his feet were caked in dried blood. Despite the wounds, he seemed more than a foot taller and about three times her weight. She tensed, furtively closing her hands around the handle of her dagger, but he did not move closer. "You'da think they'da learned their lesson by now."
She shrugged noncommitally but did not loosen her grip on her weapon.
"Those shinigami bastards are jus’ gonna keep sayin' their patrol efforts ain't quite 'nuff yet ta make ‘em keep spendin' more money on patrollin' ‘emselves. When they gonna finally jus’ see that those fuckers in Seireitei ain't never gonna give a damn 'bout us?" he said furiously.
"If they're so stupid, then that means there oughta be a way to break in," she pointed out. She didn't particularly want to hear more about the shinigami. The word always brought to mind fragmented images of a child's head bashed open and the deep grooves left behind by the wheel stained with blood, and rage would cloud her mind and she couldn't afford that.
The man stared at her. "Ya see any way ta break down that fence? 'Cause we ain't gettin' through that entrance. That's fer damn sure."
She surveyed the bedraggled, stormy faces of the rabble packed inside the dusty lot. The frenzied desperation was almost palpable - the guards knew it too. If she squinted, she could see the expressions of those standing nearest to the gates, a bit too taut, a bit too pale to be unreadable. "It won't take much for this mob to go ape-shit, and the guards know it. Look at the first two. They're fucking scared."
The man narrowed his eyes, staring at her intently. "Ya mean ta stir 'em up. Get a riot goin'. And use the rest of ‘em as shields ta slip in."
She looked back at him defiantly. "You got a better idea?"
The first glimmerings of something like respect entered into his eyes.
* * *
Broad strokes of eerie black beneath a thin layer of gray. She huddled under the dirty bundles of tatami mats riddled with holes that were rolled against the wall until long after the shrieks and howls and sounds of metal slicing into flesh and dying moans had ceased. The funereal silence clogged the air dank with the odor of blood and human waste and smoke and ashes. Her throat burned painfully.
She carefully crept out, taking care to not place any pressure on her inflamed ankle, which she had carelessly twisted in her haste to hide. She heard footsteps approaching and scrambled to find her knife. The man with wild curls stood before her. She fumbled with the handle but her fingers were cramped from supporting the pile of mats and with growing panic, she realized she wasn't going to make it in time. He was already in front of her, dark, large, and frightening in the sinister maroon of the sunset with the stench of death closing in all around them. She blinked as he stooped with nothing more than a strip of fabric in his hand and gently bound her ankle.
It was several moments before she realized her cheeks were damp with her tears.
* * *
A hint of blue, the quiet azure peeking through the sallow fog. All around her now, there were occasional traces of color: a small green field at the edge of town, the rare group of women clad in brightly colored kimonos of turquoise and marigold and peach. She was watching one who had sapphire ribbons woven through the thick waves of her chestnut hair.
"Ya want one?" the male voice next to her asked, his eyes following the direction of her gaze.
"No," she replied, plucking at a loose thread from an unraveling hem. "This yukata is my burden to bear."
* * *
Tight coils of a brown so dark it looked black, except when a single curl caught a sunbeam; then she could see a hint of a sandy tan. She had hardly noticed how he had somehow slipped so much into her life it was becoming difficult to remember a time when she did not know the precise shade of his hair, the exact way his fingers reached to rub his earlobe when he was tired, the way his nose flared slightly when confused. Ever since the day he had bound her sprained ankle, supporting her as she limped about, kept guard at night and shared the water he stole with her for the two full days it had taken for her foot to heal, she had felt her guard slipping.
It was an entire month before she let herself fall asleep around him without gripping the dagger concealed in her sleeve. But now she had memorized the pattern of his breathing, as he had hers. She knew just how many seconds she would need to distract a vendor for him to escape with their water, he knew how many hours until the scalding in her throat became unbearable. Yet it still shook her when one morning as they sipped their water, he looked her in the eye and said, "What's yer name?" When she did not reply, he said, "I'm Souji." No, she wanted to shout, don't tell me. But it was too late, he had thrust it upon her, and now she would forever attach a name to the unmanageable tangle of curls and hazel eyes rimmed with a band of gold and hands so large she was surprised they were deft enough to steal efficiently. Names remained even long after memories had dissipated, bundled with guilt and regrets, and she did not want any other name haunting her. One was more than enough for a lifetime.
"Ya don' hafta tell me now," he said quietly.
* * *
Small speckles of colors darting here, darting there. She had never seen so many children alive, small feet pattering on the worn cobblestone of the street. She stared hard at each one, but she had never seen the right shade of violet.
"What's 'er name?" Souji asked one day. She whipped her head around, startled. "What's yer sister's name? It is yer sister, right? Or s'it a cousin?"
"S-sister," she stammered, wrapping her yukata more tightly around herself, as though Souji's probing eyes could somehow see the guilt she guarded in her heart, the frantic fear as she clawed at the empty bushes that she felt as acutely now as in that harrowing moment so many decades ago.
"That's cool, ya know, the will ta keep hopin', ta keep searchin'." He patted her shoulder. The compassion in the gesture caused something to tighten in her chest, compressing the guilt and despair into an intolerable pain, but she could not bring herself to shake off his hand. There was something achingly wistful in his voice, and if she were stronger, braver, she would have asked him whom he carried in his heart.
* * *
Another page steeped in red, red, red, the color she detested the most. How fitting she was named after what she loathed.
His untamed curls were saturated with that awful, glistening scarlet as his face hovered near hers, tight with jaws clenched, refusing to let her gauge the depth of his pain. "Don' ya dare move!" he hissed softly in her ear, ensuring that no one else could hear as he crushed her beneath him, his large frame completely enveloping hers.
"Let me go, Souji! Damnit, you'll bleed to death if I don't -" She tried to struggle, but he froze her with a smile. Her last memory before blacking out as something struck the back of her head was the calm acceptance in his features that made her want to shriek.
When she opened her eyes, Souji's lifeless body had been dragged off her. Somber figures were piling together the corpses of those caught in the senseless altercation between the two warring gangs of the district. She saw in the corner of her eyes two men clad in black, long swords hanging beside them, dispassionate eyes sweeping coldly over the grisly scene. And she saw red again.
Lunging after them, dagger in hand, she screamed "You fucking bastards! You could've stopped this! You could've stopped this! You could've saved him!" Warm liquid streamed down her hands. The blade clattered to the ground, broken. The palm of her hand bled freely, torn open by the impact of the hilt against it. One of the shinigami turned towards her with flinty eyes, seeing right through her. "Rukongai is not within our jurisdiction," he said dismissively and, with a single sweep of his arm, flung her against a column.
* * *
Dull steel sky reflected on still waters, the surface smooth like a sheet of metal reflecting phantom shapes. She closed her eyes before she could see her own outline, slumping down and Souji's body with her. Her wild rage was spent, leaving her drained, but still she began digging, viciously tearing the roots from the earth. It was hard to recognize the bloated features and skin with blotches of sickly white, green, and carmine as she dragged it towards the hole. She shut her eyes tightly, but she couldn't stop the tears winding down the stinging path. She whispered to him, "Hisana. My name is Hisana." Too late. Always too late.
* * *
A dusty brown row of clay jars lined up on wobbly tables. She realized she had nearly forgotten how to steal them - she had become so used to Souji doing that part of the task. Suddenly, she felt the slow burn of ire again, at Souji for dying, at herself for letting him, at Souji for dying for her and leaving her alive, alone with the guilt, but mostly at the shinigami for everything.
Her hands were trembling so much and the effort of driving memories of Souji from her head left her movements so jerky and slow that she was amazed that half an hour later, the jar was tucked safe in her arms and she had shaken off the vendor’s henchmen in the labyrinthine twists and turns of the narrow alleyways. If this had been Inuzuri, the sloppiness of her robbery would have landed her in a ditch, gutted and with her arms sliced off.
* * *
Blue, blue, blue all around her, the blues in the sky, the blues in her yukata. Blue. Aoiko. Guilt, guilt coursing through her like her blood. The red of blood, the red she abhorred. Hisana. The red blood, the guilt, the self-hatred bled into her yukata, all her failures embodied there: the sister she failed, the woman she murdered, the friend she sacrificed.
* * *
Purple a shade too dark, a purple a shade too light. Never the right shade, never.
“Souji,” she said one day to the empty space beside her. “When did you give up?”
It was only then she realized with him beside her, watching her with eyes kind and pensive all at once, she could almost hope, almost believe in a happy end, so that the repeated failures weighed a little less heavily.