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CHAPTER 8: The Cherryblossom and Dandelion
Fresh cut flowers now stood in place of the ones that were crushed underfoot by the vandals from before, meticulously arranged so that they would bear the outside breeze for at least a few days before they withered. Sakura did a quick look over the memorial; the photograph was straightened, and the frame wiped clean.
Sakura saw some people skateboarding down the path, but as they came closer, they stopped, picked up their boards, and turned, solemn as they came across, almost nervous. Perhaps it was such a regular occurrence for memorials like this to be trampled over, and perhaps there was someone who also defended the area more than once.
No one met her eye, no one even saw her shadow, as she had stepped into the area as a soul reaper.
"I know you're here,"
The ghost boy appeared almost translucent under the rays of afternoon sunlight. He couldn't have been more than eight years old, wearing a school uniform that. The chain extending from his chest made a rustling sound as he moved.
He was crouched behind the tree.
"Hey there," Sakura called softly. He looked at her with wide eyes filled with disbelief and wonder. He nearly stumbled over his feet as he stood up, looking at Sakura like she was the anomaly here instead of him.
"You... you can see me?"
"I can," Sakura confirmed, moving closer but not so close as to crowd him. This wasn't just a ghost; this was a child, and she approached him the same way she had been taught to approach scared young and scared patients, who weren't thrilled about being taken to a hospital.
"Who are you?" He asked, squinting. "Were you the lady I saw before?"
"That's right," Sakura said, placing her hand onto her chest, "My name is Sakura Haruno, what's your name?"
"Arisu," He answered in a tiny voice, shoulders slumping as he spoke his name. Like he was trying to deflate himself, like his name didn't hold any weight. Suppose, when you were considered dead, you were non-existent; everything you held in the living world had no value to you, even if you still remained in it, including your name.
"Tell me, Arisu," she led closer, flipping her hair off her shoulder, "What are you doing here?"
He looked out into the distance, "This is where I died. My parents visit me every Saturday, and sometimes after work, they talk to me, and bring me flowers and toys, and…." He wrung his hands together. "I don't want to leave them. I was riding my bike too fast down the path. I wasn't paying attention because I was mad at my parents for fighting again. I hit a tree root then…"
Sakura felt her chest tighten. "I'm sorry, Arisu,"
"Before I died, Mom and Dad were fighting all the time. Mom would cry. Dad would slam doors. I used to put my pillow over my head and try not to hear it. But after I died...they stopped fighting and started being like they used to."
Now Sakura finally understood, "You stay because you get to see them together. Happy."
"Yeah." Arisu nodded, fresh tears tracking down his cheeks. "Is that bad? Am I bad for wanting to see them like that? Even if it's because I'm dead?"
"No," Sakura said firmly, moving closer now, close enough that she could reach out and touch him, but even though she could, she didn't. "You're not bad, Arisu. You just wanted your family to be happy together, that's not a bad thing. But…they wouldn't want this. You can't talk to your parents, and they can't see you, but they wouldn't want you to keep hurting like this. What do you do on the days they aren't around? You're alone here, and you don't have to be." Sakura touched his cheek, showing him the sincerity in her expression. "Your parents would be happy knowing you were somewhere safe, somewhere you aren't lonely. Somewhere you could finally rest."
Arisu looked around again, "Are you gonna take me away?"
That's when Sakura finally took his hands and held them tight, "There's a place where you need to go, where you can rest and wait until your parents come for you. Where you can make friends and play,"
"What kind of place is that?"
"It's called the Soul Society. It's where everyone will return to someday, including your family. Some people just get there earlier than others."
The boy looked down at his hands, his chain clinked softly as he shifted position, the sound like a question mark made audible.
"Would it hurt?" he finally asked. "Going there?"
"No," Sakura said with certainty. "It won't hurt at all. I promise."
There was a long pause, then he spoke with a voice barely above a whisper, "Okay,"
"Okay?"
"Okay," Arisu repeated, firmer this time. "I'm ready. I want to….I want to stop waiting."
Took gave his hands a gentle squeeze, "Alright then, let's go-
"Wait!" Arisu held up a hand, his eyes flickering with urgency as something else came to mind. "I want to say goodbye to Ichigo."
Sakura blinked. "Ichigo? Is that another spirit like you?"
"No, no." Arisu shook his head, "Ichigo is a boy who comes here to make sure no one messes up my place. He's the only one who can see me. He has orange hair."
"Oh," Sakura said knowingly. Orange hair was all she needed to clue her in on who he was talking about. "I know who you're talking about. You have to go, but I'll tell him you crossed over and that he doesn't have to worry anymore."
Arisu's translucent face lit up with relief and gratitude. "Promise?"
He held out his pinky, Sakura shifted her zanpakuto to her left hand, and extended her right pinky, interlocking it with his.
"Promise,"
Sakura drew her zanpakuto, assuring Arisu again that he didn't have anything to be afraid of. She held the blade towards her and touched his forehead with the pommel. A soft light appeared beneath Arisu and started to take him down, sinking in before it vanished along with the boy.
And then he was gone. The light faded. The forest returned to its ordinary shadows and dappled sunlight.
Sakura stood there, her zanpakuto still raised, still held in the position. She'd just sent a child on to whatever came next.
Did I do the right thing? she wondered, the doubt creeping in now that the act was complete. Death wasn't meant to be thought about; it was meant to be accepted, but now, with her new powers and position, new thoughts were trying to creep into her. What if the Soul Society wasn't better?
She looked down at the nameless sword in her hand. Despite being a spirit, the blade was hit by the light of the sun, yet it had no warmth. Then Sakura felt the wind, a breeze brushing across her face. Carrying with it a voice that was not quiet.
'Well done'
"Hello?" she whispered. But as she called, she received no response.
..
..
..
The clock on the wall read 2:47 AM. The room existed in a space that shouldn't technically fit within the building's physical dimensions, dimly lit, existing in a space within Kisuke's shop that had been sealed away, with limited access to Kisuke's already small circle.
Glass tubes and pipes ran along the walls like veins, carrying liquids and colors. A monitor flickered with readouts. One entire wall was dedicated to filing cabinets and bookshelves, their contents organized according to a system that made sense only to Kisuke himself. Another wall featured a massive board covered in pinned papers.
On the monitor, a three-dimensional wire-frame model of a human soul rotated slowly. Except it wasn't quite human. Where a normal soul's structure would show smooth layers, this one displayed a patchwork of energy, like fabric that had been torn and then stitched back together with threads that didn't quite match. At its center, a faint darkness pulsed in rhythm with a heartbeat. This was Sakura's soul.
Kisuke's eyes tracked every fluctuation, every irregularity.
The sound of footsteps on metal stairs announced Tessai's arrival.
"Still at it, I see," Tessai rumbled, "Any findings of interest?"
Kisuke leaned back in his chair, intertwining his fingers. "Define 'interest. Because everything about Sakura's condition is fascinating and troubling."
"How is she progressing?"
"Physically? Remarkably well. I've been monitoring both her body and soul since we began training. No signs of degradation, no unexpected spiritual decay, no indication that the Hollow poisoning is advancing." Kisuke said. "In fact, aside from the obvious abnormality of her achieving the ability to convert her body into a soul, without any need for a substitute soul or forced ejection, she's showing stability. She's essentially become a living converter for spiritual particles."
"Is it perhaps due to….it's influence?"
"That's my theory, but then of course it means I've been missing something as well."
Tessai murmured, studying the readouts. "And her spiritual pressure?"
Kisuke pulled up another graph, this one showing a steadily ascending line. "Growing. Slowly but consistently. Five weeks ago, her spiritual pressure was barely perceptible, roughly equivalent to that of a spiritually aware human. Now? She's approaching the level of a seat member."
"That's..." Tessai paused, calculating. "Extraordinarily fast."
"Faster than any normal Soul Reaper, yes. " Kisuke's fingers drummed on the desk. "She's progressing at an accelerated rate, and that concerns me because I don't want to rush her through this training. Her soul is still fundamentally unstable."
Tessai's expression darkened under his ray-bands. "The Hollow,"
"It's still there, coiled around her soul like a parasite that's become part of the host. She's managing to keep it suppressed through sheer willpower and the control she's developing over her spiritual energy, but..." He zoomed in on the dark center of the model. "It's not gone."
Of course, they had considered this; the hollow's soul had intertwined with Sakura's, which had been what granted her these spiritual powers in the first place. But instead of having her turn into a hollow, they were able to make her a soul reaper.
"Does this mean she should be expecting those people to make contact with her?"
Kisuke shook his head, "No." The word came out sharper than Kisuke intended. "That cannot happen."
He stood up, walking around the dark room to look at a set of papers pasted all over the wall.
"The Visored's method works because they were originally Shinigami who were forcibly Hollowfied," he explained, not turning around. "Their training involves a brutal internal battle forcing the Hollow down, essentially beating it into submission until it becomes just another source of power. It works for them because their foundations were solid to begin with. They had decades, sometimes centuries, of experience as Soul Reapers before the Hollow corruption took root."
He turned back to Tessai, his gray eyes serious in the laboratory's cold light. "Sakura's situation is different. She wasn't a Soul Reaper who became part Hollow. She was dying when I used the Hōgyoku to stitch her soul back together. The Hollow essence and the Soul Reaper powers were introduced to her system simultaneously, during the most vulnerable moment of her existence. They're more deeply integrated."
"You're saying their methods might harm her," Tessai concluded.
"I'm saying their methods might kill her. Or worse, might trigger a complete Hollowfication that we couldn't reverse."
Tessai nodded slowly, accepting the logic even if he didn't like the implications. "So we let her spiritual pressure grow naturally. Teach her control before power. Give her soul time to... settle into its new shape."
Kisuke took another sip of tea, but his mind was clearly elsewhere. "There's something else that I just noticed."
Kisuke moved to the other side of the room. He tapped the wall, and it crumpled like ash. He reached in and pulled out a small crystal sphere, no larger than a marble. It glowed with light that swirled at its center. The Hogyoku.
"I've just examined this," Kisuke said softly, his eyes fixed on the swirling within the sphere. "And then I saw this…."
Tessai moved closer, and what he saw made him inhale sharply. "Is it…chipped?"
Just the smallest fracture, what could barely be considered a fragment, in fact, it barely left any space.
..
..
..
"I'm free today, right?" Kisuke held his chopsticks halfway to his mouth, while everyone else had also stopped shuffling about. "It's Sunday."
"Oh," Kisuke cleared his throat, "That's right. I just assumed you'd be sleeping in."
They had started extending their training hours during the day, and with Sakura barely getting more than a handful of sleep. So it made sense that she wouldn't be up at their normal time before the crack of dawn.
"I have something to do today,"
..
..
..
The ability to see ghosts, it sounds like such a gift on paper, something praised through a few texts and also condemned, but for Ichigo Kurosaki, it was like having a chronic illness, one that couldn't be cured or managed with any medication. Not that he hadn't tried. As he grew older, he realized that this could be nothing more than a minor inconvenience if he learned to treat it properly himself, perhaps the same way his sister did.
Instead, he foolishly chose to open his mouth and look directly at those floating specters who would just pitifully wander around. That's how he usually ended up as their bully.
Not the greatest way for a junior high kid to be spending his summer vacation, but that was life. His conscience just wouldn't let him leave that child be. He at least scheduled the visits until that spirit would leave. He went back to the park to look at the memorial, ensuring nothing was out of place from where his parents had placed everything.
Ichigo approached his eyes, scanning the area, looking for the boy, but he was surprised that he couldn't find him anywhere. The space felt empty.
Guess the kid finally moved on, Ichigo thought. He stood there for another moment, hands shoved in his pockets, not quite ready to leave but not sure what he was staying for. Paying respects to someone who was already gone?
He was about to leave, but turning around, he nearly jumped out of his skin when he met a pair of eyes that had been too close. He stumbled back
"SHIT!" The explosive left his mouth, his feet tangling with each other before he grunted at the feeling of his butt planting on the ground.
"What the hell do you think you're doing sneaking up on people like that?!"
The figure, because that's what they'd been, a shadow against the sun, stepped to the side.
Ichigo's eyes widened with recognition at the pink hair and bright green eyes.
"Hey, you're that girl from last week," Ichigo said, but he didn't speak everything he wanted to mention. The one who had intervened in his conflict, the one who could see what he saw.
"That's right." She extended her hand towards him. "Sorry about that."
But Ichigo moved to stand up on his own, dusting himself off while shooting daggers at her.
"What are you doing here?"
"Giving a message."
He frowned, "Message?"
"I made a promise," She gestured to the image of the child, "He said thanks for protecting him while he was here,"
Ichigo's eyes widened. He glanced around. "Where is he right now?"
"He's moved on, like he was supposed to," Sakura told him.
For a moment, Ichigo couldn't speak. He stared at the photograph of the smiling eight-year-old. Then he shrugged, slipping his hands into his pockets again, "Well. Guess that's that, then."
"Yeah," Sakura agreed quietly.
There was no invitation made by either, but it felt like one of those things you should just do. The two started walking, keeping pace with each other as they took the same path leading them out of the ark, knowing that they probably weren't going to have any further encounters, and not caring to force one either. However, there was one pressing matter, and Ichigo in particular didn't want to ignore it.
"What's your name?"
"Sakura Haruno,"
"I'm Ichigo Kurosaki."
"Ichigo," she said, using his first name. It wasn't conventional, but he didn't seem to care, so why should she?
"Did you know that boy?"
"Not really," Ichigo admitted with a shrug. "Just saw him around. Like every other ghost."
The words were out before he could think better of them. A simple statement for a ninja could be like a full encyclopedia or biography, and for Sakura, she realized that he was speaking as if seeing ghosts had become a regular part of his life.
"How long have you been able to see ghosts?"
Ichigo stopped, seeming to realize that he had just shared what had become a normal part of his life, but was fundamentally a freak show to everyone else, or something you would see on those horrible reality TV shows.
"I've only recently started being able to see them," She offered the information in trade. "It's been an adjustment to say the least."
Ichigo looked at her, "Since I was a kid. I've been able to see them."
"That must've been something else."
"Try not realizing what you were seeing, and everyone thinking you're crazy or too old for imaginary friends." He scoffed, "Constant spectators floating in your face, and following you around while you're trying to live your damn life."
"Well, that's something to look forward to," Sakura murmured, putting her hands behind her back again. "It's only been a little over a month for me."
"Yeah, then take my advice, don't acknowledge any of them, or you're gonna end up as an errand runner for the undead."
"You could just ignore them, couldn't you?"
"Yeah," Ichigo muttered, rubbing the back of his head. "I would if I could. How did you get the kid to move on?"
Sakura's expression shuddered slightly. "I asked nicely,"
Ichigo stopped walking and gave her a look like he smelled curdled milk. "Seriously?"
"Seriously."
Ichigo didn't want to believe that it was this simple, because none of them ever seemed to listen to him when he tried to get them to pass on and let him get some peace.
"Fine, whatever."
They walked in silence for another few minutes as they approached the edge of the park. Knowing that they were likely going to be taking separate paths from here on, Ichigo decided to take one more pry.
"What school are you at?" He didn't know why he tried for this small talk, but it was already out. Perhaps because he wanted to know if he could see her again, because she was the first person who could see what he saw, and wouldn't see him as mental for talking to air.
"I'm not from around here," Her tone carefully neutral. "Just staying in town for a while."
"Visiting relatives?"
He should've just said his goodbyes then, wished her luck with her future endeavors, and moved on.
Instead, he heard himself ask, "Are you going to be here again?"
He noticed her green eyes catching the afternoon sunlight in a way that made them almost glow. "What?"
"Here. The memorial. The park." Ichigo felt heat creeping up the back of his neck and blamed it entirely on summer sunsets. "Are you coming back?"
"Probably not." She said honestly.
"I see." Ichigo shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. "See you around. Maybe."
"Maybe,"
But probably not right?
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