Watch where you're going (Blade)

It had only been a month since she had seen him last. Her father, that is. He died protecting Karakura from a rather large Hollow attack focused on attempting to invade part of the city. While the Vanguard managed to fend off the attempted invasion, not everyone made it out alive. From what Rachael could tell, the Hollows that invaded were a lot more collected and organized when it came to attacking. They'd focus down individual targets whether they were a threat or not so as to minimize the casualties of their own number while at the same time killing off the opposition. Of course, out came the stronger Vanguard members and even with those tactics, the Hollows still perished. Their goal however, was likely to lower the number of Vanguard members if at all possible. They succeeded, but only by a small bit. Their own casualties were far more severe. Even still, they managed to take out a good few men and women that day. Much to the young girl's chagrin, one of those people was her father. One of the few things Rachael considered she had left to live for.

Today was the one month anniversary of that day, and Rachael had already decided to make it a regular thing where she visited her father's grave on a weekly basis. It just so happened to line up with the day that was one full month afterwards. And even though she had a full month to cope with the pain, she wasn't feeling any better. The most progress she had made in getting over the pain of losing her father was that she didn't really cry about it anymore. She just couldn't. Even when she tried to cry, just to show that she cared, the tears wouldn't come. It made Rachael feel like a pitiful creature, like she couldn't show sympathy for her father's death. All she could do now was visit his grave once and a while and sit there, trying to cry all the while.

In front of the grave that read Johnathon Lorelei sat the young dog-eared girl. Her clothes resembled that of a kimono with detached sleeves and a somewhat shorter, separate skirt that fell to the girl's knees when she stood up. On the ground was her hooded jacket that she wore to hide her dog ears. It wasn't abnormal to see people with certain abnormalities about their body, such as Rachael's dog ears and tail, but that didn't mean it was accepted everywhere. For the most part, yes, but not completely. Having grown up being teased and mocked for her dog parts and her terrible attitude (guess what the kids used to call her), she was very self conscious about her additional parts. So much to the point she often hid them beneath clothes. Today was an exception though, mainly because she was in a very quiet, lonely place. Not many people came her, and Rachael was more often than not the only person here at times. It was calm, quiet, yet incredibly depressing.

As Rachael sat at her father's grave, she couldn't help but look at some of the ones that neighbored his. The names were familiar, as Rachael had read them before, but she still couldn't help but look around at them multiple times whenever she was here. Maybe her attention span was just that bad. The one to her left didn't have a last name, and simply read "Ophelia", while the one to her right actually had a last name. "Yamada", was the person's last name. Rachael couldn't help but feel bad for the people that were buried here, all collected into one place like this. It was as if death wasn't special here. No one got anything different or unique, it was all the same. Killed and taken from one crowd and shoved right into the ground with another.

"This place is fuckin' disgusting..." Rachael muttered, unaware if anyone around her could hear her. That is, if anyone was there at all. The doge girl simply sighed and shook her head. Looking to her left, there was no one, but as she looked to her right she noticed a boy standing there. How long had he been there? Rachael didn't know, but she turned her attention back to her father's grave. The memories almost instantaneously came flooding back, and her ears flattened against her head as a result. For the first time in weeks, Rachael could feel her eyes watering up. Maybe this meant she could finally express her sympathy properly. Maybe just one more time, at the very least.

The days had slowly passed, a shred of his lifetime completely torn from him in mere moments, yet it felt as if it occurred years prior. Isao stood in the darkness of night, his feet going from left to right as his figure slowly made its way through the dimly lit Graveyard. It had been quite some time since Isao had been here, only twice before. Once was for the burial, the other was for a simple visit due to Ama wanted to see who would visit. It was interesting to believe that his sister's body slowly tore away beneath the surface of the earth, yet her spirit and voice radiated through his own mind constantly. She was still with him here in spirit, yet her physical body will forever be lost to the deep Earth of Karakura City. Shaking that feeling of loneliness and depression from his mind, the boy looked ahead with eyes of gold, his mind returning to its natural inquisitive state.

The graves among the Earth all read a name, whether it were full or not, and held a tombstone. Each grave that Isao passed lowered his spirits, the people that wept and would stare absentmindedly at the hard stone didn't help one bit. Their depressive states did wonders for Isao's own mentality. Whether it was the idea that Isao couldn't aid those around him or the fact that they had died in unspeakable ways, he was not sure. They all wore heavily on his mind, no matter the diversity of pain they each held. It was that kindness that had caused his sister to die, his kindness and respect that caused such an early life to be ended with little care. It was painful to think of such a thing, but it was true. Isao blamed himself, whether Ama agreed with it or not meant little. He was the worthless older brother in this very moment.

Shaking his head once more, Isao had finally arrived at his destination. With an array of beautiful flowers within grasp, the young boy stood upon the very grave that his sister so frequently wished to visit. It was tough for the young boy, to imagine a mutilated body sat beneath the six feet of dirt that was infact at his feet. Shivering at the very though, Isao placed the bundle of flowers quietly against the front of the grave's cold stone faceplate. Ama 'Amaterasu' Yamada read the plate, his eyes quietly filling with the tears that came with familial deaths. Wiping away the salt liquid, Isao spoke up among the small grouping of people that surrounded him among the graves.

"Tekku, take a record of each of the gravestones in the area. I'd like to order personalized flowers for each person here, if you don't mind creating an archive of their names and the current location of the graveyard." Ending his words rather abruptly, the boy turned to rest his rear end the grave his sister was stationed at. Crossing a single leg, he pressed his hands forcefully against his pockets. Such a place brought dread, causing others that followed to be in pain. It was a terrible sight to see such a thing, but that's exactly what death was. A removal of a life. There wasn't anything sadder among humanity, nothing could describe the thought of someone being entirely removed from your life in a blink of an eye. In reality, it was a type of torture to most, even Isao himself.

That very moment brought forth a reaction from the girl to his right, her words were filled with hate and disgust, the very feeling that Isao had felt once he arrived at the graveyard. Though this was rather rare, the boy could relate to the girl that spoke so freely of her hatred. It was an oddity, to watch such a person arrive in a place of lost hopes and death itself. Nevertheless, he stood once more as he turned back to face his younger sister's grave. Smiling quietly, the memories that shared a children slowly oozed back into view as she abruptly ended his serenity.

"You know, it's not like I just left. I am still here, Baka." Though the words were only spoken in his mind, Isao acknowledged them as if others could hear such a thing. She was an annoying sister, but it was still his sibling. Shaking his head, Isao looked to the dog-like girl beside him and spoke allowed, defying his seclusion to see if he could comfort the girl.

"You aren't wrong. Thinking that everyone here was killed, died for no reason or simply left us. It's disgusting imagining that people torture themselves in such a way. Yet... we still do it. This is where they're forever held, those we love. Despite the depression and anxiety that come from this Graveyard, the idea of comfort and longing for your loved one comes with it... You just can't help but arrive with flowers or your very being, to make sure your family member knew you loved them."

Isao was quiet, but loud enough for the girl to hear. He couldn't help but speak to her, not that he was interested in the girl. Attractiveness is one thing, the small ears that outstretched for her skull were adorable, as was the detached Kimono she wore. It was a relation that he felt compelled to share, her own feeling being something he knew all too well.

.

"..."

Rachael listened to the boy's words, not expecting him to respond to her insult towards tradition. He seemed to be pretending that he knew what the young dog-eared girl was talking about. It wasn't the loss of life that was disgusting. No, there was a whole cycle regarding when one died. No one really truly "died". Their soul left its physical bindings and entered a whole new world of possibilities. Yet their body remained in the world of the living. Rachael sat in thought for a minute after the boy finished talking, thinking of a way to define a corpse. It was so much more than what people recognized it as. The term dead weight came to mind and Rachael figured people thought of it like that, in as literal a sense as possible. With a sigh of anger and frustration, Rachael decided it was about time to finally speak up and insult this kid for acting like he was smart.

"That's not what I'm fuckin' talking about." Rachael growled in anger, eyes changing from their unusual pink to a deep, blood-like crimson. "I'm talking about the fact that everyone here has been buried the same. They get put in a box that gets stuffed into the ground just like the person before them. The ceremony is even held the same way as the last. Nothing changes. They're taken from the crowd of the living and stuffed into the crowd of the dead underneath our feet. It's like people don't even give a damn what happens to someone after they die."

Looking up at the boy, tears rolling down her cheeks and hands balled up in fists. She could see a second set of emotions within his very being. A second person's emotions, more specifically. It was clear that's what it was, as she could see the very emotional bonds that tied them together. They knew each other. They were fully aware of each other's existences and had most likely known each other for a while now. In fact, it was a bond that was similar to the one that connected Rachael and her older sister. Yes, that was most definitely someone that died that the boy knew and cared about. Was it the one he was visiting here? Possibly. But Rachael didn't care. She had only taken a few seconds to analyze the boy and ended up staring off into space for a good dozen seconds. Her lecture wasn't over either, likely to the boy's dismay.

"A corpse isn't just a soulless husk that is left behind when a person sheds the confines of their mortality." Rachael growled. Her eyes were baring into the boy's own eyes, her malice alone tearing him apart in Rachael's view. Unfortunately for her that wasn't what was happening.

"A corpse is the last thing you're given from that person. How you treat it is a complete representation of your feelings towards that person. Do you bury it in a graveyard with a thousand strangers whose lives hold no meaning to that person? Do you leave it to rot and fester alone in the wild? Do you let it be devoured by the monsters that go bump in the night?"

Rachael looked down at her father's grave and gritted her teeth together. She knew that last one was exactly how her father was killed. There was no way she'd ever see him again. At least when he died there would have been a chance, but he was eaten. He was probably turned into a Hollow too. How his corpse was treated in the afterlife made Rachael look like a hypocrite, but she had no control over the fact he was buried.

"...Or do you give it something special? Something for that person to remember in the afterlife? Tell me, kid."

Rachael stood upright and looked dead straight into the stranger's eyes, her own reflecting an intensity that could intimidate many a man. It was surprising for someone of her small, petite stature, but most of it was reflected throughout her Aura. Isao would feel it from every angle, her emotions manipulating the invisible substance without Rachael's consent. If someone could see it, the energy would be completely enveloping both Rachael and the stranger she was speaking to, infecting the latter with an intimidating feeling based on Rachael's powerful emotions.