Hisana Part II
Without reading Byakuya Part II, this section will be *really* hard to follow. You have been warned.
Hisana: Sketches of White
It was that lovely glossy brown again. His hair was arranged in slightly disheveled waves - arranged because there was nothing about this man that was not carefully constructed, from the feigned pleasantry in his eyes, the curve of his smile as shallow as the warmth in his expression, to his dress, immaculate but just bland enough to be utterly forgettable. She was too familiar with the hollowness lurking in eyes to be fooled; there was a dangerous edge to the isolation she saw in his and she involuntarily stepped back, suddenly chilled.
"Would you like a job?"
She had taken down men larger than he, but she instinctively knew this was not a man to cross. She normally ran from those with a presence like his on sight, but she had not even seen him approach her. More reason to not cross him.
"What kind of job?"
"I need someone to look after a candy store. You like children, don't you?"
"I don't have a clue how to run a store." She knew instantly that he had seen her glancing at the face of every child that crossed her path, though she had decades of experience in keeping her movements inconspicuous. He was easily the most frightening person she had ever met.
"Your job will be very simple. You just need to watch the store, make sure kids don't cause too much mischief, and collect the money. Others will handle the accounting, inventory, everything. There will even be a place for you to sleep in the attic, and we'll deliver water to you. You'll finally have a place to sleep instead of tree branches, and a source of water besides stealing." The gentle voice, like everything about the man, was a threat reminding her how many times he could have killed her. Not noticing one was being tailed was the fastest way to die in Rukongai.
"Pretty sure no one ever says no to you, and I'm not planning to be the first."
"You're mistaken. I have been refused. Just not by anyone still in existence."
* * *
She stared at the ghostly white of the sheet covering the tatami mat on the floor. The last time she had slept on something besides dirt or branches was when Souji let her rest on a tattered mat, guarding her at nights as they waited for her ankle to heal. Now, as then, she slept sitting up against the wall, hands gripping a dagger. Every creak, every breeze in the night woke her. But in time, Souji's breathing became the only sound that had ever lulled her to sleep. She would never sleep easily inside these walls, where every noise reminded her of that man and the solitude in his eyes with an edge so hard she thought that alone could have cut her to pieces.
* * *
An assault of hazel, brown, gold, black, blue, purple. Every color but the right one. She thought the steady barrage of reminders of her failure would never end. Just when she was finally alone with her paints and tears and guilt, she saw that man enter with that mocking smile. "That wasn't so bad, was it?" and she had never heard kind words sound so poisonous. She shook her head. After he left, she saw her nails had dug so deep into her palms she had drawn blood.
* * *
In the windowless dark of her room at night, she remembered poofs of lime and orange and teal and colors she had never seen before perched on dirty sticks, the way Souji's eyes followed every bob and shake of the scraps of cloth, how hoarse his voice was from cheering, the longing in his sigh as he told her he would watch the shows every day if he could, still staring at the empty spot where the puppeteer had been. She had never understood why anyone would describe smiles as bright until she saw his, and she couldn't help but return one tentatively. Someday, he said, when they made it to the first district, they were going to get rich and never have to worry about stealing again, and they would watch shows all the time so he could always see her smile. Her hands went clammy. There was that odd twisting again in her heart so she looked away as she retorted unsteadily that she couldn't even understand half of what the man had said, his accent was so thick.
She had made it, she whispered to the shadows. So where were the shows he said he would take her to? Why did she feel further than ever from smiling?
* * *
A square of lighter shadows opened up on her floor, tinted with moonlight. The hilt she clenched in her hands was knocked from her as she snapped her head around in time to see robes every bit as black as the hatred exploding in her heart.
* * *
There were no blazes of orange or blue or clouds of soot in the sterile beige of her cell, but that was all she could see through the fog of pain. When she bit the flesh she felt by her mouth, the asshole tasted as she always thought they would: a chilly saltiness, like cold sweat, with an aftertaste of ashes and dust and her memories of death.
* * *
There was never white anywhere she had been before, not even the snow, long stained shades of browns and coal before it ever touched the ground. She hated the way it made his robes seem blacker. She hated the way the chaotic panorama of lives and deaths she remembered in every metallic sip of water she took were no more than ink splotches to him on the endless scrolls of white to conceal or blot out at his whim. She hated the way all her fury, her anger were sucked into that vast emptiness, or whatever it was that let them look right past her even when looking at her.
She hated white more than black. More than red.
* * *
She had never seen a sunset so vibrant - jeweled tones of ruby and citrine. But a shadowy figure approached and in the silence she heard distant dying groans echoing in her ear and smelled musty tatami mats. She could barely swallow for the burning in her throat, but the glass of water in the outstretched hand struck terror in her.
That night, she dreamed of scarred hands and frayed scraps of bandages hovering over her and woke to find her bruises faded to a discolored yellow and the sharp stabbing sensation each time she breathed gone. A glass and jar of water were next to her.
"Don't bother," she told him, equally afraid and bitter. "Don't waste time on someone you're gonna kill anyway." She didn't want to memorize the patterns of callouses on his hands, she didn't want to hear the rhythm of his breathing.
* * *
Even gray or black paint would have sufficed; she would have painted cracks on the listless beige that, coupled with the unrelenting quiet, dulled her mind until she was always teetering at the edge of a stupor. She hated feeling so defenseless.
She hated that the only thing that could focus her mind was the stiffly arranged strands of onyx framing skin so pale it hurt her to stare. Everything about him was arranged as well, but there was no feigned pleasantry, just a stark honesty in the guarded loneliness of his eyes, in every taut twitch of his movements. Beneath the perfect discipline as he neatly stacked his papers, arranged every brush by length on his desk, organized cups by color and size on the shelves, she could see the tension in the boundaries between the whites and blacks he surrounded himself with.
* * *
There were mirror images of ivory locks and ebony ones, the same rigid set of the shoulders burdened by the effort of total control, same inflexible eyes of slate. But there was no hesitation in the movements of the older man as he lifted his hand and let her screams pour into the void between whites and blacks that he did not see.
* * *
She was not dreaming the pair of hands and gauzy bandages as soft as she often imagined clouds would be and that terrible crimson seeping through them. She reached to touch the heavily wrapped fingertips before she was aware of her own actions, and she realized she had not thought shinigami bled the same red.
"I do not stand by idly while the innocent die."
She remembered eyes as soulless as flint, the scorching heat of a Rukongai afternoon, her skin so slick she did not feel her hands sticky with blood, a broken blade and broken bodies strewn amidst the charred debris, and she wondered how long it would be before his eyes were stricken with the same blindness.
There was a heat stinging behind her eyes that hurt worse than her throat ever had.
* * *
A cocoon of soft warmth, like she imagined rays of sun on her face would be without the thick layer of smog interfering. A warmth that comforted rather than smothered, a warmth that floated gently around her rather than cling with layers of perspiration and damp cloth.
He had frozen to death, Souji told her once as they shivered beneath the pile of soiled rags scavenged from every corpse they had come across in the past few weeks. But there had been a few precious moments at the very end when he had felt so light, so snug, drifting into a comforting blankness. She thought it must have felt like this.
* * *
Souji had once described for her skies studded with thick bunches of tiny lights and a large flaxen orb. She had seen it at last through her cell window, but she preferred the view before her now: the murky charcoal of an empty night sky, but unmarred by metal bars. The familiar sharp smell of urine permeated the air, yet that was easier to breathe than the odorless air of Seireitei that somehow crackled, irritating her nose and throat.
She watched him standing dressed in pristine robes in the low light of the lamps that could not hide the peeling paint and threadbare furniture coverings, lips compressed tightly. Her picture of freedom, she knew, must be his vision of hell.
However, there was no derision in the eyes that followed her with a diligence that reminded her of hazel ones watching over her in dim corners of alleyways and warehouses as she rested her swollen ankle. It had been some time since she saw them slide past her with contempt. She found it made it harder and harder to meet his gaze.
He turned to leave through the doorway.
"My name is Hisana," she told him. It would be unacceptably stupid to be too late twice.
Hisana: Sketches of White
It was that lovely glossy brown again. His hair was arranged in slightly disheveled waves - arranged because there was nothing about this man that was not carefully constructed, from the feigned pleasantry in his eyes, the curve of his smile as shallow as the warmth in his expression, to his dress, immaculate but just bland enough to be utterly forgettable. She was too familiar with the hollowness lurking in eyes to be fooled; there was a dangerous edge to the isolation she saw in his and she involuntarily stepped back, suddenly chilled.
"Would you like a job?"
She had taken down men larger than he, but she instinctively knew this was not a man to cross. She normally ran from those with a presence like his on sight, but she had not even seen him approach her. More reason to not cross him.
"What kind of job?"
"I need someone to look after a candy store. You like children, don't you?"
"I don't have a clue how to run a store." She knew instantly that he had seen her glancing at the face of every child that crossed her path, though she had decades of experience in keeping her movements inconspicuous. He was easily the most frightening person she had ever met.
"Your job will be very simple. You just need to watch the store, make sure kids don't cause too much mischief, and collect the money. Others will handle the accounting, inventory, everything. There will even be a place for you to sleep in the attic, and we'll deliver water to you. You'll finally have a place to sleep instead of tree branches, and a source of water besides stealing." The gentle voice, like everything about the man, was a threat reminding her how many times he could have killed her. Not noticing one was being tailed was the fastest way to die in Rukongai.
"Pretty sure no one ever says no to you, and I'm not planning to be the first."
"You're mistaken. I have been refused. Just not by anyone still in existence."
* * *
She stared at the ghostly white of the sheet covering the tatami mat on the floor. The last time she had slept on something besides dirt or branches was when Souji let her rest on a tattered mat, guarding her at nights as they waited for her ankle to heal. Now, as then, she slept sitting up against the wall, hands gripping a dagger. Every creak, every breeze in the night woke her. But in time, Souji's breathing became the only sound that had ever lulled her to sleep. She would never sleep easily inside these walls, where every noise reminded her of that man and the solitude in his eyes with an edge so hard she thought that alone could have cut her to pieces.
* * *
An assault of hazel, brown, gold, black, blue, purple. Every color but the right one. She thought the steady barrage of reminders of her failure would never end. Just when she was finally alone with her paints and tears and guilt, she saw that man enter with that mocking smile. "That wasn't so bad, was it?" and she had never heard kind words sound so poisonous. She shook her head. After he left, she saw her nails had dug so deep into her palms she had drawn blood.
* * *
In the windowless dark of her room at night, she remembered poofs of lime and orange and teal and colors she had never seen before perched on dirty sticks, the way Souji's eyes followed every bob and shake of the scraps of cloth, how hoarse his voice was from cheering, the longing in his sigh as he told her he would watch the shows every day if he could, still staring at the empty spot where the puppeteer had been. She had never understood why anyone would describe smiles as bright until she saw his, and she couldn't help but return one tentatively. Someday, he said, when they made it to the first district, they were going to get rich and never have to worry about stealing again, and they would watch shows all the time so he could always see her smile. Her hands went clammy. There was that odd twisting again in her heart so she looked away as she retorted unsteadily that she couldn't even understand half of what the man had said, his accent was so thick.
She had made it, she whispered to the shadows. So where were the shows he said he would take her to? Why did she feel further than ever from smiling?
* * *
A square of lighter shadows opened up on her floor, tinted with moonlight. The hilt she clenched in her hands was knocked from her as she snapped her head around in time to see robes every bit as black as the hatred exploding in her heart.
* * *
There were no blazes of orange or blue or clouds of soot in the sterile beige of her cell, but that was all she could see through the fog of pain. When she bit the flesh she felt by her mouth, the asshole tasted as she always thought they would: a chilly saltiness, like cold sweat, with an aftertaste of ashes and dust and her memories of death.
* * *
There was never white anywhere she had been before, not even the snow, long stained shades of browns and coal before it ever touched the ground. She hated the way it made his robes seem blacker. She hated the way the chaotic panorama of lives and deaths she remembered in every metallic sip of water she took were no more than ink splotches to him on the endless scrolls of white to conceal or blot out at his whim. She hated the way all her fury, her anger were sucked into that vast emptiness, or whatever it was that let them look right past her even when looking at her.
She hated white more than black. More than red.
* * *
She had never seen a sunset so vibrant - jeweled tones of ruby and citrine. But a shadowy figure approached and in the silence she heard distant dying groans echoing in her ear and smelled musty tatami mats. She could barely swallow for the burning in her throat, but the glass of water in the outstretched hand struck terror in her.
That night, she dreamed of scarred hands and frayed scraps of bandages hovering over her and woke to find her bruises faded to a discolored yellow and the sharp stabbing sensation each time she breathed gone. A glass and jar of water were next to her.
"Don't bother," she told him, equally afraid and bitter. "Don't waste time on someone you're gonna kill anyway." She didn't want to memorize the patterns of callouses on his hands, she didn't want to hear the rhythm of his breathing.
* * *
Even gray or black paint would have sufficed; she would have painted cracks on the listless beige that, coupled with the unrelenting quiet, dulled her mind until she was always teetering at the edge of a stupor. She hated feeling so defenseless.
She hated that the only thing that could focus her mind was the stiffly arranged strands of onyx framing skin so pale it hurt her to stare. Everything about him was arranged as well, but there was no feigned pleasantry, just a stark honesty in the guarded loneliness of his eyes, in every taut twitch of his movements. Beneath the perfect discipline as he neatly stacked his papers, arranged every brush by length on his desk, organized cups by color and size on the shelves, she could see the tension in the boundaries between the whites and blacks he surrounded himself with.
* * *
There were mirror images of ivory locks and ebony ones, the same rigid set of the shoulders burdened by the effort of total control, same inflexible eyes of slate. But there was no hesitation in the movements of the older man as he lifted his hand and let her screams pour into the void between whites and blacks that he did not see.
* * *
She was not dreaming the pair of hands and gauzy bandages as soft as she often imagined clouds would be and that terrible crimson seeping through them. She reached to touch the heavily wrapped fingertips before she was aware of her own actions, and she realized she had not thought shinigami bled the same red.
"I do not stand by idly while the innocent die."
She remembered eyes as soulless as flint, the scorching heat of a Rukongai afternoon, her skin so slick she did not feel her hands sticky with blood, a broken blade and broken bodies strewn amidst the charred debris, and she wondered how long it would be before his eyes were stricken with the same blindness.
There was a heat stinging behind her eyes that hurt worse than her throat ever had.
* * *
A cocoon of soft warmth, like she imagined rays of sun on her face would be without the thick layer of smog interfering. A warmth that comforted rather than smothered, a warmth that floated gently around her rather than cling with layers of perspiration and damp cloth.
He had frozen to death, Souji told her once as they shivered beneath the pile of soiled rags scavenged from every corpse they had come across in the past few weeks. But there had been a few precious moments at the very end when he had felt so light, so snug, drifting into a comforting blankness. She thought it must have felt like this.
* * *
Souji had once described for her skies studded with thick bunches of tiny lights and a large flaxen orb. She had seen it at last through her cell window, but she preferred the view before her now: the murky charcoal of an empty night sky, but unmarred by metal bars. The familiar sharp smell of urine permeated the air, yet that was easier to breathe than the odorless air of Seireitei that somehow crackled, irritating her nose and throat.
She watched him standing dressed in pristine robes in the low light of the lamps that could not hide the peeling paint and threadbare furniture coverings, lips compressed tightly. Her picture of freedom, she knew, must be his vision of hell.
However, there was no derision in the eyes that followed her with a diligence that reminded her of hazel ones watching over her in dim corners of alleyways and warehouses as she rested her swollen ankle. It had been some time since she saw them slide past her with contempt. She found it made it harder and harder to meet his gaze.
He turned to leave through the doorway.
"My name is Hisana," she told him. It would be unacceptably stupid to be too late twice.