We got the moves [Hime/Hanako]

The Big Woman

Hanako Yamada

For a split second the party stood before Hanako's eyes. How proud she had felt for going out of her comfort zone, socialising and wearing the dress. How good and feminine it had felt. And how lost Hana had felt at the same time, not really sure how one should act at such an occasion. The image faded quickly and surprisingly it didn't leave as much of an aftertaste as before. Something new mellowed many of the harsh memories of Hanako's life.

"It would be perfect." Hanako said when Hime suggested her home as a private and quiet space for tea and talk

While they walked Kumomi gave Hanako, who she called Ameko, a long, hard look.

"You are very different from the Ameko I remember. You even have a new name."

The smile with which Hana answered had something sad to it.

“Hanako Yamada…” she said quietly. The reason for the sad smile was in the meaning of the name. It was the name given to an average, uninteresting person one didn’t know the name of. It was the japanese version of a Jane Doe, a Lieschen Müller, Madame Toulemonde, Maija Meikäläinen or Li Si. Being an expression that was usually used in stories or reports for absent individuals, to Hanako it had always been a name that advertised that she didn’t have a name. Yet it was all she had. She got used to it and everyone knew her by that name. She entered service for the Gotei under that name. Also…it could be abbreviated to Hana, which could mean “flower” and she liked that.

“They gave me that name in the hospital after they got tired of calling me ‘you’. Kinda gotten used to it and kept it, even after I remembered my real name.”

Without breaking her stride Kumomi leaned over and kissed her sister on the cheek. Hana was so surprised she almost stumbled and began to turn red.

“That’s okay, I can make Hana out of it. It is a much cuter nickname for you than Ame.” she said with a grin.
“As long as I can continue to call you Ameko.”

“You can call me whatever you want, nee-chan.”

That, again, was something new. Such words of affection, spoken by the formerly rather cold Hanako. But they came so naturally, so warm…
Kumomi laughed and grabbed Hanako’s arm.

“Huh, this is also different from what I remember.” she said and poked Hana’s upper arm with her long, elegant finger.
“Definitely more than I remember. A lot more.”

With a few quick and sneaky glances Kumi gauged Hana’s boobs and buttocks, so far they were gaugable under her Shihakusho. Still, sisterly approval was on her face afterwards.

Meanwhile they were arriving at Hime’s place and sat down to talk. Hanako realised that she owed Hime a lot. Today was supposed to be their day, a girls day. No one had planned for a long lost sister to turn up. But Hime’s presence was calming and grounding. She was always so serene…exactly what Hanako needed now to not completely freak out over the influx of all the memories she had thought lost forever.

After they had settled down Hanako began to tell her story. Most of it Hime knew, some of it not. Some was almost unknown to Hanako herself, since she mostly tried to bury it so deep not even her own conscious could reach it.
She told of her earliest memories after she had lost her previous life. The walk through Rukongai, barely conscious and everything wrapped in a haze of searing pain. When she collapsed in front of the gates. Then her waking up in the hospital, covered in bandages and emptiness where her right arm and her memories once were. The long road to recovery, how the nurses provided her with a name and the doctors with a prosthesis to replace her arm. When Hanako reached this point she pulled her Shihakusho back a bit so the faint scar where the artificial skin of her prosthesis and the natural skin of her shoulder met. Otherwise the arm was indistinguishable from her left biological one.
After she had recovered, and the shrinks had given up finding a short term solution for her memory loss, Hanako took the only path she knew of: applying to shin’o academy.
She told of her time there, years spent almost entirely in seclusion where possible and only one real friend she made already more than halfway through the curriculum. Her first entrance into the Combat Division right after graduation and her subsequent transference to Realm Enforcement. How the Lieutenant of the First had inspired her and how she had, for the first time, felt a purpose. The long and rocky road to getting control of her mind, accepting, at least to some extent, the void and meeting her Zanpakuto Spirit for the first time. The discovery of the destroyed village in the woods of Outer Rukongai, the list of names and the Hollow encounters she had. The adventure inside an illusion where she found her real name. Then the former Captain of the Fourth and his offer to make her his Lieutenant. And finally the Captain’s death and her battle against Elyss.

It was a lengthy tale, but when she finally came to an end Kumomi remained silent for a while longer. She had listened without interfering, without asking a single question before, although her eyes had lit up when Hanako mentioned the village and the Hollows. To Hime some details of Hanako’s life, like the Hollows, the village or the list of names, were probably news. But Kumomi didn’t seem to be surprised. There was something knowing in her gaze. And something incredibly sad.

“If I had only known…all this time…” she swallowed and continued with a wavery voice.
“The night you were attacked…I didn’t think you could survive. No, I was sure you couldn’t. I had no idea you had this strength in you. Had I known, I would have gone back and…and…”

Hanako quickly raised a hand and gently placed a finger on Kumomi’s lips. Then she wiped away a single tear that was rolling down her sister’s cheek.

“How could you know. I even didn’t know. I never realised until the doctors in the hospital told me I had spiritual pressure. I thought I had just been…lucky. If you’d gone back, they would have gotten you, too.”

Kumi swallowed again.

“I ran and ran as far as I could. A family here in Inner Rukongai took me in as their housekeeper. I still live with them. That is basically my story. I have lived with them for ten years now, really nice people. My life is uneventful, but I am safe there.
Oh my sweet Ameko, I mourned you for years. Losing my little sister once again was worse than dying myself. I…uh…I need a moment to process all this.”

She closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again she looked at Hime, trying to steer away from the tragedies that had befallen this little family over the years. At least for a moment, until she had a chance to recover from Hana’s story.

“How have you two met?” she eyed Hime for a moment, then she added sheepishly: “Uhm…are you two…I mean, you were out together today. Are you two…you know…together?”

Hanako’s face went to a bright red in an instant and her breath caught at the directness of Kumomi’s question.