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Jul. 22nd, 2004 05:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
moonsheenSo. I've been rereading Bleach (including some of the latest chapters) and struck down by sudden MASSIVE SHIBA LOVE, and this is what came of it. Along with the complete conviction that Kaien, in his prime, had to have been an utter LOONY. Just look at his siblings. JUST LOOK AT HIS SIBLINGS. Craziness is clearly an inherited trait in the Noble Shiba House. (along with, you know, being utter BABES--yes, yes even Ganju.) I'm not sure what this says about his lady fair.
This is what came of it, at any rate.
It went off with a boom and a spit of sparks. A boy squawked
Crack. “Don’t JUMP,” a girl growled.
The boy squawked again. “Ow--!”
“And don’t whine about it either. It’s only a rocket—and it’s small one too! How the hell are you ever gonna be able to do anything if you jump at something like THAT--”
“You didn’t have to HIT me!”
“WHINE WHINE WHINE. WHAT KIND OF BROTHER ARE YOU. YOU MAY AS WELL BE MY LITTLE SISTER.” The girl sighed. “It went far didn’t it?”
“…yeah, it did.” The little brother’s voice was sullen. “Not fair…”
“I’m gonna go find it. Stay here, Ganju.”
“Hey—wa---wait!”
“STAY.”
He stayed.
Kuukaku ran down the hill. She was light on her feet, and her eyes were sharp. She scanned the field for the sliver of smoke. She spotted it in the far reaches; a black sliver by a knot of unkempt bushes. It was lucky it had rained the night before, the ground and plants were all damp and green, and nothing had caught fire. Smugly, the girl ran to retrieve the remains of her rocket. It had gone far. The grasses were high on her legs, which were bare and filthy, something she’d be scolded for if anyone else were around to do the scolding. She crouched over the charred stain in the dirt. She poked the smoldering shell. It hissed, faintly, as though in protest. The girl crowed happily.
“Victory for Kuu-chaan--!” She popped her burned finger in her mouth. “Victory for Kuu--”
The grasses were long in the farther fields in front of Kuukaku’s home, but it was still flat enough a visitor could be seen approaching at a distance. She saw the man coming, as she kicked dirt over her dead rocket and stood with a triumphant stretch. She saw the man and his black clothes, and knew immediately: shinigami. A lone shinigami. Approaching at a steady speed, he’d spotted her before she had the chance to scrabble out of sight. Male, fairly tall, he raised an arm to hail her; a wide movement that made his sleeve fall. She could just make out the dark whorl of a tattoo curled over his wrist….
Kuukaku forgot about the rocket. She turned and ran, back the way she came, with the blades of grass nipping her ankles.
“Ganju!” She hollered. “Ganju! Get inside!”
The boy was sitting right where she’d left him, rubbing his head. He looked up in alarm when he saw his sister barreling for him. “Eh? What. What’s happening. What--”
“I said get inside! Clean up! Pick up all your shit! Dust!” and when he only looked more confused, she snarled and yelled louder, making he heard. “It’s Brother! Brother’s home! GO MAKE IT NICE FOR HIM.”
“Oh.” said Ganju. His eyes got very large. “Oh. Yeah! Right!”
He scuttled off to do just that.
That evening Kaien applied the salve to his sister’s face with his thumb. “I saw. Not bad. ”
Kuukaku beamed, which caused the burns on her cheeks sting and stand out more fervently, but it was well worth the effort.
“Ganju was scared,” she pointed out. The boy sputtered around a mouthful of tea and shot his sister a dirty, injured look. “He JUMPED.”
“H-hey…!”
“What kind of Shiba JUMPS.”
Kaien put a hand on her shoulder. “Oi, oi.” He looked over to his brother, who was slouched and flushed. He said, reasonably, “A good flinch reaction isn’t necessarily a bad thing. You do lean in awful close, Kuu. You’re going to get something blown off if you keep that up.” He laughed and pinched her nose. “Like this. Go easy on him.”
His sister muttered, and looked as though she’d like to shout at her younger brother and the stupid grin that now occupied his face--but she assented.
“…Now. Let me see what you did to your hands.”
She showed them to him. “Are you staying long?”
“Eh? The night, maybe tomorrow.” He shrugged, and shook his head ruefully. “Not long. Sorry.”
“Che! Is it that busy being a shinigami now!”
“…’fraid so. I’ll be back next week though. Hey! For a couple of days, maybe! …If I can clear it with my Captain, or my squad leader….”
The girl curled her lip.
“…but I will be back, Kuu. What, you think I’d forget about you two now? You think your brother’s turned into some kind of fickle guy--”
Kuukaku’s eyes widened. “No!” she started angrily. “The hell? No I don’t…!”
“Ah. I’m glad then.” Kaien smiled, put the ointment down, and picked up his drink.
“Can I see your sword?” Ganju blurted. It was the question he’d been screwing up his courage to ask all evening.
“GANJU.” His sister started sharply. “That’s not--”
“Sure.” said Kaien, looking never more pleased with the prospect. He pulled it from his side and laid it, sheathed, in his brother’s hands.
“--Brother disarms himself too easily.” Kuukaku grumped. It went unheard.
Ganju stared at the weapon, goggle-eyed. “This is a zanpaku, right….”
“Yup.”
“And it’s yours, right.”
“Yup,” Kaien said proudly and then leaned in, as though relaying information of the utmost personal nature. He touched the hilt. “Her name is Nejibana.” Even spoken softly, it left a funny shiver in the air.
“N-nice to meet you,” said his brother to the blade. Kaien unsheathed it slightly, letting the boy have a fair look at a sliver of the weapon’s dark gloss. He closed his eyes, cocked his head as though listening for something, nodded matter-of-factly, and grinned.
“‘Hi’,” he surmised.
“...It happened fast,” Kuukaku said, sitting up in her bedroll and giving the snoring Ganju a kick. “I thought it’d take longer.”
“Eh?” Kaien said from by the door. He was leaned against the frame, staring out into the hall. The lights were out, but they’d left a few lamps on—the ones he’d brought, from his last visit home. He’d come then in a uniform, but it hadn’t been black.
The girl scowled. That hadn’t come out right. “I mean. I knew you’d be better than all the rest. You’re you and all. But.” She eyed her fingers, which were still slightly red. “…no long breaks like in Academy, right? We’re not going to be seeing much of you anymore, are we.”
“Ah.” Kaien was quiet. He ran a hand back through his hair, and kept it there, the stubborn strands of it sticking out through his fingers. “No. Not as much.”
“You’ll be doing shinigami stuff now.”
“Yeah.” He dropped his hand. “Listen, Kuu--”
“I don’t mind!” The girl said hotly. Loud enough the boy sprawled beside her stirred and buried his nose into her side. She shoved him off; he rolled over and gurgled back into a deeper sleep. “I’m in charge with you not around! Why the hell would I mind that?! And anyway…”
She pushed her hair out of her eyes.
“…Brother’s doing what he wants to do. Can’t really say anything to that, can I.” She looked up. “So that’d better be your damn best! The Shiba men ought to be as tough as the Shiba women and THIS guy sure ain’t up to scrap yet!”
Kaien laughed. “Hey.”
“So set a good example!”
“I’ll try.”
“You’d really REALLY better--!”
“Thanks.”
“Bah.” said Kuukaku, she lay back and stared up at the ceiling. Eventually, she felt the blanket tugged up over her and Ganju. Eventually, she heard her older brother pace back down the hall.
Morning swept a butterfly in with the breeze. It woke up Ganju by nearly flying up his nose and he spent the better part of the hour before dawn chasing it around the house. Kuukaku found him trying to shoo it out the window. It wafted in the exact opposite direction. He shouted and barreled after it. For his troubles, he tripped over a table and skinned his knees.
“AGH. SHIT--!”
“Don’t swear, Ganju.” Kuukaku snapped as wings grazed her nose. “The hell…?” It drifted past. Ganju scrabbled to his feet. Kuukaku brandished two curled fists--
“...Nrrgh…” Kaien slurred in the doorway, rubbing his eyes. He yawned. The butterfly flew to him with such sudden speed and aim it was surprising that it stopped short of diving into his open mouth. He squinted. It bobbed in his line of sight. “Nrg?” he said. “... oh.”
“What is that, Brother?”
“That,” said Kaien, knitting his brows together in a rare, irritated look, “Is for me.”
“Now Ganju,” Kaien instructed carefully. “You’ve got to be a man.”
“Nevermind I’m more of a man than he is,” smirked Kuukaku.
“So don’t let this nut here--” Kaien patted his sister on the head. “--bully you too badly, all right?”
“Got it, bro!” Ganju said and immediately shrunk back from the toothy grin his sister threw him from their brother’s other side. Kaien shook his head.
“Shiba men have got to be tough as Shiba women,” he said, with a crooked, knowing grin. He sobered quickly. “So take care of each other, you two. When I come back--” He gestured. “--I want you both to be this much taller.”
Kuukaku tugged his sleeve. “That’s a lot to grow in a WEEK, Brother.”
“So you’d better get on it.”
“Will do, bro!” said Ganju. Kuukaku rolled her eyes.
“…you sure you can’t stay longer?” she asked.
“Order from my squad leader,” said her older brother. His lips quirked. “She’s kind of a toughie. Show me more of those rockets you made next time, Kuu?”
“There you go changing the subject—I will, Brother.”
“Make sure she doesn’t blow her nose off, Ganju?”
“Right! …she probably will anyway though.”
Kaien clapped his hands together. “Great, that’s great. You two are all a big brother could want, then. See you around. See you soon as I can.”
“Bye,” said Ganju, a little watery eyed.
“…yeah, bye,” said Kuukaku. She was slow in letting his sleeve go.
They watched their brother stride off across the field in those long, easy steps he’d always taken. He remained in their sights a long time and the farther he got, the less he looked like Kaien and the more he looked like a shinigami: all in black, with the faint shape of a sword at his hip.
“Hey, Sister?”
“Yeah, Ganju?”
“Got a few more of those rockets left, right?”
“A fuckload. Why?”
“Just thinking…we should get practicing. That’s all.”
“…Yeah,” said Kuukaku. “Yeah. C’mon. Let’s go get ‘em. AND NO JUMPING THIS TIME.”
“That wasn’t a JUMP that was a GOOD FLINCH REACTION. Sister is being unfair—OW.”
In this manner, the Shiba boy and girl made their way back to the house.
This is what came of it, at any rate.
It went off with a boom and a spit of sparks. A boy squawked
Crack. “Don’t JUMP,” a girl growled.
The boy squawked again. “Ow--!”
“And don’t whine about it either. It’s only a rocket—and it’s small one too! How the hell are you ever gonna be able to do anything if you jump at something like THAT--”
“You didn’t have to HIT me!”
“WHINE WHINE WHINE. WHAT KIND OF BROTHER ARE YOU. YOU MAY AS WELL BE MY LITTLE SISTER.” The girl sighed. “It went far didn’t it?”
“…yeah, it did.” The little brother’s voice was sullen. “Not fair…”
“I’m gonna go find it. Stay here, Ganju.”
“Hey—wa---wait!”
“STAY.”
He stayed.
Kuukaku ran down the hill. She was light on her feet, and her eyes were sharp. She scanned the field for the sliver of smoke. She spotted it in the far reaches; a black sliver by a knot of unkempt bushes. It was lucky it had rained the night before, the ground and plants were all damp and green, and nothing had caught fire. Smugly, the girl ran to retrieve the remains of her rocket. It had gone far. The grasses were high on her legs, which were bare and filthy, something she’d be scolded for if anyone else were around to do the scolding. She crouched over the charred stain in the dirt. She poked the smoldering shell. It hissed, faintly, as though in protest. The girl crowed happily.
“Victory for Kuu-chaan--!” She popped her burned finger in her mouth. “Victory for Kuu--”
The grasses were long in the farther fields in front of Kuukaku’s home, but it was still flat enough a visitor could be seen approaching at a distance. She saw the man coming, as she kicked dirt over her dead rocket and stood with a triumphant stretch. She saw the man and his black clothes, and knew immediately: shinigami. A lone shinigami. Approaching at a steady speed, he’d spotted her before she had the chance to scrabble out of sight. Male, fairly tall, he raised an arm to hail her; a wide movement that made his sleeve fall. She could just make out the dark whorl of a tattoo curled over his wrist….
Kuukaku forgot about the rocket. She turned and ran, back the way she came, with the blades of grass nipping her ankles.
“Ganju!” She hollered. “Ganju! Get inside!”
The boy was sitting right where she’d left him, rubbing his head. He looked up in alarm when he saw his sister barreling for him. “Eh? What. What’s happening. What--”
“I said get inside! Clean up! Pick up all your shit! Dust!” and when he only looked more confused, she snarled and yelled louder, making he heard. “It’s Brother! Brother’s home! GO MAKE IT NICE FOR HIM.”
“Oh.” said Ganju. His eyes got very large. “Oh. Yeah! Right!”
He scuttled off to do just that.
That evening Kaien applied the salve to his sister’s face with his thumb. “I saw. Not bad. ”
Kuukaku beamed, which caused the burns on her cheeks sting and stand out more fervently, but it was well worth the effort.
“Ganju was scared,” she pointed out. The boy sputtered around a mouthful of tea and shot his sister a dirty, injured look. “He JUMPED.”
“H-hey…!”
“What kind of Shiba JUMPS.”
Kaien put a hand on her shoulder. “Oi, oi.” He looked over to his brother, who was slouched and flushed. He said, reasonably, “A good flinch reaction isn’t necessarily a bad thing. You do lean in awful close, Kuu. You’re going to get something blown off if you keep that up.” He laughed and pinched her nose. “Like this. Go easy on him.”
His sister muttered, and looked as though she’d like to shout at her younger brother and the stupid grin that now occupied his face--but she assented.
“…Now. Let me see what you did to your hands.”
She showed them to him. “Are you staying long?”
“Eh? The night, maybe tomorrow.” He shrugged, and shook his head ruefully. “Not long. Sorry.”
“Che! Is it that busy being a shinigami now!”
“…’fraid so. I’ll be back next week though. Hey! For a couple of days, maybe! …If I can clear it with my Captain, or my squad leader….”
The girl curled her lip.
“…but I will be back, Kuu. What, you think I’d forget about you two now? You think your brother’s turned into some kind of fickle guy--”
Kuukaku’s eyes widened. “No!” she started angrily. “The hell? No I don’t…!”
“Ah. I’m glad then.” Kaien smiled, put the ointment down, and picked up his drink.
“Can I see your sword?” Ganju blurted. It was the question he’d been screwing up his courage to ask all evening.
“GANJU.” His sister started sharply. “That’s not--”
“Sure.” said Kaien, looking never more pleased with the prospect. He pulled it from his side and laid it, sheathed, in his brother’s hands.
“--Brother disarms himself too easily.” Kuukaku grumped. It went unheard.
Ganju stared at the weapon, goggle-eyed. “This is a zanpaku, right….”
“Yup.”
“And it’s yours, right.”
“Yup,” Kaien said proudly and then leaned in, as though relaying information of the utmost personal nature. He touched the hilt. “Her name is Nejibana.” Even spoken softly, it left a funny shiver in the air.
“N-nice to meet you,” said his brother to the blade. Kaien unsheathed it slightly, letting the boy have a fair look at a sliver of the weapon’s dark gloss. He closed his eyes, cocked his head as though listening for something, nodded matter-of-factly, and grinned.
“‘Hi’,” he surmised.
“...It happened fast,” Kuukaku said, sitting up in her bedroll and giving the snoring Ganju a kick. “I thought it’d take longer.”
“Eh?” Kaien said from by the door. He was leaned against the frame, staring out into the hall. The lights were out, but they’d left a few lamps on—the ones he’d brought, from his last visit home. He’d come then in a uniform, but it hadn’t been black.
The girl scowled. That hadn’t come out right. “I mean. I knew you’d be better than all the rest. You’re you and all. But.” She eyed her fingers, which were still slightly red. “…no long breaks like in Academy, right? We’re not going to be seeing much of you anymore, are we.”
“Ah.” Kaien was quiet. He ran a hand back through his hair, and kept it there, the stubborn strands of it sticking out through his fingers. “No. Not as much.”
“You’ll be doing shinigami stuff now.”
“Yeah.” He dropped his hand. “Listen, Kuu--”
“I don’t mind!” The girl said hotly. Loud enough the boy sprawled beside her stirred and buried his nose into her side. She shoved him off; he rolled over and gurgled back into a deeper sleep. “I’m in charge with you not around! Why the hell would I mind that?! And anyway…”
She pushed her hair out of her eyes.
“…Brother’s doing what he wants to do. Can’t really say anything to that, can I.” She looked up. “So that’d better be your damn best! The Shiba men ought to be as tough as the Shiba women and THIS guy sure ain’t up to scrap yet!”
Kaien laughed. “Hey.”
“So set a good example!”
“I’ll try.”
“You’d really REALLY better--!”
“Thanks.”
“Bah.” said Kuukaku, she lay back and stared up at the ceiling. Eventually, she felt the blanket tugged up over her and Ganju. Eventually, she heard her older brother pace back down the hall.
Morning swept a butterfly in with the breeze. It woke up Ganju by nearly flying up his nose and he spent the better part of the hour before dawn chasing it around the house. Kuukaku found him trying to shoo it out the window. It wafted in the exact opposite direction. He shouted and barreled after it. For his troubles, he tripped over a table and skinned his knees.
“AGH. SHIT--!”
“Don’t swear, Ganju.” Kuukaku snapped as wings grazed her nose. “The hell…?” It drifted past. Ganju scrabbled to his feet. Kuukaku brandished two curled fists--
“...Nrrgh…” Kaien slurred in the doorway, rubbing his eyes. He yawned. The butterfly flew to him with such sudden speed and aim it was surprising that it stopped short of diving into his open mouth. He squinted. It bobbed in his line of sight. “Nrg?” he said. “... oh.”
“What is that, Brother?”
“That,” said Kaien, knitting his brows together in a rare, irritated look, “Is for me.”
“Now Ganju,” Kaien instructed carefully. “You’ve got to be a man.”
“Nevermind I’m more of a man than he is,” smirked Kuukaku.
“So don’t let this nut here--” Kaien patted his sister on the head. “--bully you too badly, all right?”
“Got it, bro!” Ganju said and immediately shrunk back from the toothy grin his sister threw him from their brother’s other side. Kaien shook his head.
“Shiba men have got to be tough as Shiba women,” he said, with a crooked, knowing grin. He sobered quickly. “So take care of each other, you two. When I come back--” He gestured. “--I want you both to be this much taller.”
Kuukaku tugged his sleeve. “That’s a lot to grow in a WEEK, Brother.”
“So you’d better get on it.”
“Will do, bro!” said Ganju. Kuukaku rolled her eyes.
“…you sure you can’t stay longer?” she asked.
“Order from my squad leader,” said her older brother. His lips quirked. “She’s kind of a toughie. Show me more of those rockets you made next time, Kuu?”
“There you go changing the subject—I will, Brother.”
“Make sure she doesn’t blow her nose off, Ganju?”
“Right! …she probably will anyway though.”
Kaien clapped his hands together. “Great, that’s great. You two are all a big brother could want, then. See you around. See you soon as I can.”
“Bye,” said Ganju, a little watery eyed.
“…yeah, bye,” said Kuukaku. She was slow in letting his sleeve go.
They watched their brother stride off across the field in those long, easy steps he’d always taken. He remained in their sights a long time and the farther he got, the less he looked like Kaien and the more he looked like a shinigami: all in black, with the faint shape of a sword at his hip.
“Hey, Sister?”
“Yeah, Ganju?”
“Got a few more of those rockets left, right?”
“A fuckload. Why?”
“Just thinking…we should get practicing. That’s all.”
“…Yeah,” said Kuukaku. “Yeah. C’mon. Let’s go get ‘em. AND NO JUMPING THIS TIME.”
“That wasn’t a JUMP that was a GOOD FLINCH REACTION. Sister is being unfair—OW.”
In this manner, the Shiba boy and girl made their way back to the house.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-22 03:36 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-07-23 07:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-02 02:06 am (UTC)