Hisana's Story 6 - A Place Like This

Hisana awoke in a soft bed, in a room full of sunlight and the scent of incense.
"I'm dead," she thought. "Again," she thought.
She waited for the inevitable pain that, if her memories served her well, should assail her from a multitude of injuries. But none came. And, tentatively, she touched the side of her face, ran her fingers through her hair and pressed them against her temple. There was no scar. No scratch. No sign that he had ever touched her. And she shivered. Perhaps she really was dead. Perhaps you died in one world and just went on to the next, and then the next and the next. She drew back the covers and slipped out of bed.
She was dressed in a silk kimono. The colour of orange blossoms, it picked out the sharp contours of her body, eccentuating the slimness characteristic of most citizens of Rukongai who lacked access to anything but the most basic foods. So this was her body; she felt sure of that much, though it felt new to her and a quick check found no scars, no burns. The one concession to her ordeal was a slight tightness in her chest, as if the smoke remained in her lungs. She coughed, but the sensation wouldn't fade so, clearing her throat to ease the discomfort, she crossed to the window. She felt no weariness; not even the after-effects of a long sleep.
Outside, there was a garden. The most magnificent garden.
It was almost too perfect to be real: every tree, every shrub, every pond and meandering path, breathed a new order into its symmetry. The otherwise flawless lawns were awash with blossoms. Even from here, she could catch their scent and she stood, for a long time, her hands on her chest, merely breathing in the fresh, bright air and staring.
A screen door opened.
A man stepped into the room. He was slender: long black hair and a narrow face, and grey eyes that, for a long moment, gazed at the empty bed as if he had lost something. Then he saw her and blinked:
"You're up," he said.
"Where am I?"
"This is my house." She frowned. "You don't recognise me?" And, all at once, several things fell into place:
"You're – you're Byakuya-sama!" She bowed: "I'm so sorry! You look so different!"
"I was a child."
"I'm sorry!"
"There's no need. You look" – he trailed off.
" – Older?" she second-guessed him, but he shook his head. He seemed sad:
"You look different too, Hisana-san. Your eyes. They do seem older."
She looked down and he continued as if the remark had carried no weight: "We were able to heal the injuries to your head and neck, myself and Isane-fukutaichou of Fourth Division, but you weren't breathing when we found you. The smoke. She said there was no way to fully repair the damage. She was afraid – I was afraid" –
"How did you find me?"
"Luck," he said, blinking at the interruption, but then offering an explanation: "If I choose to, I can sense someone's reiatsu and search for it over a broad distance. That day, I happened to be checking on you. When I couldn't find you and I saw the smoke" –
"It wasn't luck then. You were searching for me." She frowned at the thought.
"I often wondered what had happened to you."
"Byakuya-sama, when you found me, was there anyone" - ?
"There was a man, dead, in the house with you."
"His arm?"
"It was metal, yes."
She clutched her stomach and dropped suddenly into a chair by the window, overcome:
"He's – he's really dead?"
"Yes." Byakuya crossed to her, frowning and, when he reached her, he took her hands in both his own and knelt down so that their faces were nearly level. He spoke urgently: "That time you stopped me in the street, you saved my life that day and I never really listened to you. I sent out my men and they brought down the militia he had hired to attack me. We found one man with strong reiatsu and executed him. I thought that was the end of it. You'd spoken of one man with strong spiritual pressure; I'd never dreamed there could be two. But, when I found you, and I found that – that man with you, I recalled that you had warned me. It was the same man my father attacked all those years ago."
"But he's dead?" she said again.
"Yes. Yes, I promise, and I'm sorry." He reached out and wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb. She shivered and he took his hands back and straightened: "You're welcome to stay here, for as long as you need."
She glanced up at him, then at the blossom-strewn garden. The sunlight, the sense of order; even the sweet incense in the air; they threatened to overwhelm her, and she dug her fingers into the kimono as if to find traction.
Seeing her glance towards the garden, Byakuya pushed back a screen door that led out onto the decking and motioned for her to follow him, if she cared to do so.
The air was humid outside, but a refreshing breeze drifted down the side of the house, which, low and narrow, stretched away for the length of a Rukongai street on either side of her. The blossoms caught in eddies in the air and danced in a spiral over the lawn. The sounds of water running, the soft breeze and the scents of grass and flowers washed over her. A willow tree deposited its leaves, like offerings into a pond of koi carp that flashed away as ripples troubled the surface. It was too much like a dream and yet it was real and it was there, in a thousand delicate fragrances and sounds, pricking at her senses.
"I knew there were places like this," she whispered. He turned towards her:
"Like what?"
"When you die, you're meant to go somewhere peaceful." He frowned. "That's what they used to say: somewhere peaceful and beautiful, where nothing bad ever happens. I knew it wasn't just filth and violence. I knew this had to be somewhere."
"I designed this place," he said.
"We're in the sereitei, aren't we?"
"Yes."
She hesitated:
"You told me that you weren't allowed to bring me here."
"I'm not."
"Then why did you" –
"Because I wanted to."
She waited, but he said nothing more and she realised that, as an answer, it would have to suffice. Wealth and power, she knew, had a way of softening up even the most rigid laws; this man was clearly short of neither. "If you need anything," he said: "Please ask my servants. It's been some time since we've had a woman staying in the house, but if you specify what clothes you prefer" –
"This is fine," she said, running her hands down the silk kimono. He looked hard at her:
"That's for sleeping in and not wholly appropriate."
"Oh. What happened to my old clothes then?"
"They – were not wholly appropriate either."
"Oh." She flushed. Torn, dirty: she'd never bothered trying to see herself through another's eyes before. Byakuya was watching her expression:
"I'll choose something," he offered and, when she blushed even more deeply, a small smile flickered on his lips: the first she had seen: "I return to my duties tomorrow, but I'll ensure you have something by then."
"Your duties?"
"As a shinigami," he said. This time, he didn't look at her as he spoke and she recalled the time she'd told him she hated the shinigami. It had never occurred to her back then that there were men and women behind the black uniforms; least of all children who grew into men and men who found beauty in the fall of blossoms on a sunny day.
"Teach me," she said suddenly: "About them. I don't want to be afraid anymore."
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And he did.
He talked at length about training and traditions, about how the male heirs of the noble families were expected to enter the Gotei Thirteen. From him, she learnt that the shinigami had not come to the real world to take her life; they did not cause death, but they managed it. There was a balance between the world of the living and the world of the dead: a balance maintained by the arbiters, the Central Forty-six, or perhaps even by a greater power existing behind them. The shinigami themselves were not capable of perceiving the balance, but they responded to the directions of the Central Forty-six with unquestioning obedience. He spoke with passion about loyalty. Faith. Honour. Ideals that had had no place in her life.
But she learnt other things too, the things that slipped between his words. She learnt that he was alone, that his family had been killed and that he was the last of his bloodline.
She learnt that, if he didn't want to speak of a thing, he would not show discomfort in either his expression or his tone, but he would not meet her eye. She learnt that he preferred to look at her when she was looking away, that he smiled rarely, but that, when he did, it was a beautiful thing
She learnt that, despite a century of silence, conversation came naturally to her. She had slept for a hundred years it seemed and had finally woken.
Here.