Shall I Belong? [Open][Finished]

Theme: Track 19, Never Meant To Belong, Bleach OST

With a subtle, "clink," like sound, the iron soled sandals of the young Ryakketsu slowly shuffled against the hardened ground beneath her. Her porcelain, tattoo covered hand then shakily rising from its position at her side, to meet the crown of her head, and brush her inky tresses back, in one swift yet dragging motion; almost as if it were a habit built upon by stress.

Her knees began to tremble. Exhaustion plagued her. With heavily lidded eyes, it was if a heaviness had washed over her. Taichou grit her teeth, squeezing her eyes shut as pain overtook her body, jilting her to the very center of her being. Flashbacks flooded her waking state, and she fell victim to them.

"Why does this keep happening?" she spake, a hiss reverberating from within the bowels of her vocal chords. Tilting her head back, her other hand rose to clasp her head. Taichou's legs then collapsed beneath her, and with a "thud," her form fell prostrate.

Her forehead, now pressed against the earth beneath her, began to break into a sweat, for she began to hallucinate. Tendrils of her reiryoku swirled around her, as she let out a ghastly howl; the silent film burned into the backs of her eyes was that of her Shinigami mother's throat being sawed at with the dull blade of a tanto.

Accompanying each wail, Taichou's hand slid across the earth, forming a fist, while seemingly grasping onto the soil for dear "life."

"Where..."

"Where will I ever belong...?"

Nothing but silence followed thereafter. Taichou resigned herself to where she lay in the dirt; defeated, succumbing to the realization that she was alone. Truly alone.

Mirja was wandering without thought. And with her endurance and general forititude, this could take her a very long way from where she started before she began to notice that she was wandering. However, it wasn't fatigue that snapped her out of her thoughts this time, but rather the shriek of a banshee. Or something like that, at least. She couldn't let whoever made such a noise just go by without a worry, so shot off in the direction with the fastest Shunpo she could manage. As she got closer, she began to sense the tendrils of the girl's spiritual essence, tipping her off that it wasn't a hollow, but rather, a Soul. Those beings that existed in the Rukongai, before getting into the Academy.

Slowing down as she arrived at the girl's position, she saw a terrible sight. A girl, on her knees, looking terrible, bedraggled, and emaciated to Mirja's side.
"Hello....are you still alive?" Mirja asked, slowly approuching the prone figure.

Taichou mustering the remnants of her strength, cocked her head to the side, her face gliding along along the earth; leaving a skid in the ground as she did so. Her voice meager, she spake "I'm... alive."

"This can't be happening.. This can't be happening." Still hallucinating, she struggled to focus her gaze upon the woman before her. Rocking back and forth, the female fought to grab hold of her consciousness.

She fell still for a moment. As if she had suddenly gone catatonic; but alas, that was not what went on beneath the surface. Within her, the two halves of her swirled about in a flurry of turmoil. Her flashbacks fought against her reality, trying to distort them, warp them, and delude her into believing that she herself were experiencing her flashbacks in the flesh.

"No..." She mumbled, nearly incoherently. "No...." She stated again, more firmly than the first time. Steadying herself upon her words, she scraped at the earth beneath her; now dampened from her sweat, and whatever tears had been thrown into the mix. Her fingernails began to break, finger tips now grating against the hard ground, bloodily. With this, she then attempted to raise herself upon her palms, in a kneeling plank-like position.

"I-I'm sorry... This.. T-this tends to happen when.." She stumbled with her words. "This happens when my suppressed memories bubble up.. You see.. My parents were Shinigami, born in the Rukongai themselves; I come from a long lineage of Shinigami.. They were exiled.. And I was conceived in the Human World.. But.. While I was in the womb.. They were murdered by the local Yakuza in our sector of the Human World.. And I, like my parents, was born in the Soul Society... Alone.."

Mirja watched the pathetic excuse for a Plus claim to be alive, which made Mirja shake her head softly.
"Only bloody just love" she muttered, taking a step forward before she moved some more. Broken fingernails, dripping with sweat, covered in tears, and caked in ground-in dirt, it was hard for Mirja to imagine a less pittiful being than what was in front of her. She then suddenly burst out with her life story, a very pittiful life story. This girl was just, created as a cosmic joke, or something. It made her want to find, and maim God with Beowulf as her witness.

"Don't surpress your memories. As bad as they are, they are your evidence that you have lived. Evidence you have survived such hardship. For someone like me, who has lost most of her childhood and teenhood memories, it is sad to see someone try to supress them. The past is what moulds us for the future" she told the girl, before moving to pick her up, as one would pick up a potato. A dirty, scruffy, but none the less cute looking potato. "Lets get you somewhere that's not covered in dirt and sweat, yea?"

Being slung over the shoulder of the older woman, she nodded weakly. She extended her tattooed hand, and clung to the fabric of clothing that shrouded her back, as if it were her lifeline. Silently, she thought to herself, "Is this.. What it means to feel warmth?..."

Unable to formulate coherent thoughts any longer, she merely stared at the ground, thoughtlessly, as if she were blank. She hoped this stranger didn't notice her clutching onto her, like a child with its favorite blanket. Taichou moved her head to let it rest on the shoulder of this unknown woman, falling now into a sleep-like state.

Mirja saw that the girl had passed out, and so wasted no time returning to her own home, her Shunpo closing the distance in a handful of minutes. Whimsical to save a girl starving on the streets, maybe. She couldn't save them all, and it was pointless to waste so much effort on someone who could turn out to be useless .But at the same time, she found herself without worry as to if the girl was worth it. She knew, in her heart, that this girl, clinging softly to her like it was the only embrace she had ever recieved in her life, would be worth it.

Arriving at her house, Mirja laid the girl down on her bed, and then headed to the kitchen to make her something light to eat. People like that couldn't just gorge immidiately, they needed to be eased into eating right again. But Mirja was not going to quail at the challenge.

She awoke. Quite abruptly at that. So abruptly, in fact, that she startled herself. Taichou, disoriented as to where she was, and quite a bit freaked out, fell out of this unknown bed with a, "thud." As her bottom connected with the floor, she lifted her right hand, raising it to scratch her head, both metaphorically, and physically.

Thinking to herself, "What is this place? There are so many things here.. A real bed.. Walls.. Warmth.." She savored the thought of the last word. Warmth. One of the most important staples to her survival in the slums of Rukongai, of which she never consistently had, considering she had to fight with other children for a scrap of decomposing food: though she could indeed rejuvenate it and make it edible. Because of her stature, Taichou found herself more often than not, without a source of heat.

Her thoughts drifted off, as she absent-mindedly pulled the covers off the bed, wrapping herself in them. A giggle rose from within the bowels of her throat; for she was thinking, "Hah.. If only those mean kids could see me now... They wouldn't be so keen to steal what meager sources of food and warmth I had, now would they?"

As if on cue, a 'thud' rang through the house as Mirja took the small pot off the fire, and scooped the broth into a bowl. A pork broth was the perfect way to get her back into eating. From the way her dirty clothes hung off her frame, it was clear she had not been eating right for quite some time. Probably coming from beyond the fifty-fifth district of the Rukongai. So when she heard the sound that was the girl most probably falling out of the bed - she had passed out on the way here, and woken up in a strange bed, so it was understandable that she'd be a bit frantic - Mirja made her way to the bedroom.

Once there, she stood in the doorway, smiling softly as the girl giggled in her coocon of bed covering. not saying anything just yet. Only, looking.

Breaking away from her thoughts and famed inner monologue, she noticed that the strange woman was back again, but now holding a bowl of something that she couldn't necessarily discern. Then the smell hit her. A delicious, savory scent that overwhelmed her senses, and caused her to close her eyes.

"What on earth is that smell? Is that pork?" She spoke excitedly, as a tiny dribble of saliva pooled at the corner of her mouth while she inhaled the deliciousness that seemingly consumed her small frame. Pork was one of her most favorite foods, but in district 67, she would often be left with the hooves left over from a pig roast, once everyone else would get the good parts of the pig.

Her stomach growled, loudly. The noise resonated throughout the room, and caused all of the blood to rush to her face in embarrassment, before she clutched her stomach, trying to hide her hunger, as she had often been beaten by other children and adults for displaying her hunger visibly. A toothy smile caused her cheeks to dimple, as she nervously glanced at the woman who had carried her here, to this strange place.

Mirja solidified the theory that the girl had not really known proper food, when she was literally drooling over a bowl of broth. It was a meaty soup, for Bjorn's sake, it went alongside meals, not made the meal itself. And here she was staring like it was a gift from the very gods themselves. So Mirja walked forward slowly, hearing the growling stomach but only smiling in response, and eventually putting it down on the small table next to the bed. Some days Mirja was lazy, and took food to bed to eat. This time, however, it paid out well.

"Yea. Lot of Earth is not really with people in it anymore, and even with all the stuff that is going on, nature is pretty dam resiliant. So I can go hunt a few pigs and bring them back here for food. All the pork, none of the cost. Only the risk of running into Hollows, mad scavangers, Demons who just wanna kill you, the occasional Quincy, and possibly an Arrancar or two. Totally worth it for a pig though. Those fat little buggers, always welcome at the dinner table"