Kokuka Chigetsu | 黒花血月 [Ryouko, Solo]

She had felt sick all day, she couldn't describe it when she felt fine after Murasaki had discharged her from the hospital but she didn't feel right either. She felt wrong since she had changed but now she just felt ill and troubled by headaches; she'd taken some medication to help her sleep that night.

It was a strange dream that she had, incredibly lucid if she recalled when she woke up. She remembered getting up and getting dressed into her shihakusho in the middle of the night; then she left her barracks to go into the Seireitei, then it all got a bit more blurry. She thought she recalled someone's face but she didn't know who it was, she was another shinigami though, and she recalled the feeling of cold stone like she'd ended up on the ground but there was a warm sticky feeling too.

Someone had muttered something over and over but she didn't understand why she had dreamed of that. The words of someone's name kept echoing through her head. It was a name that she thought like it was important to whoever was mumbling it.

Ryouko couldn't figure it out but she felt a little better than when she had went to sleep. She was glad that the medication had done its job as she crawled up to go look for her shihakusho which was missing. She wasn't the most organised person but Ryouko mumbled to herself and picked up her the one she'd worn the day previous. It didn't look too messy so it should be fine, right?

Once she left she tried her best to avoid people, it was a ritual for Ryouko to optimise the way to the labs which made sure to avoid the most people because it was easier than the greetings or the weird looks they'd give her. It was only once she got to the entrance of the laboratories and some of the shinigami were gossiping.


She'd heard about the bombing of the hospital and the lockdown but this was new, so she steeled herself to try and eavesdrop the screechy voice that was reciting the information from his denreishinki to his comrades.

"Fumiko Shibata, Unseated Member and nurse of the Second Division, was found dead this morning among the alleys of the outer districts of the Seireitei. Shibata was a survivor of the Hospital Bombing, her death is attributed to suspicious circumstances but the Sixth Division has not released any details on the matter."

Ryouko had pulled out her own device to find the information so that she could continue to hide in her little storeroom that she'd turned into her workspace, a place where no one ever came to look for her and let her be forgotten. Safe in her spot the report didn't go into specifics about her death but it wrote about her personal life, her professional life, and the like. Ryouko skimmed the details of her completion of the Shin'o Academy in five years with multiple recognitions for her medical skills and kido, her daughter who was an aspiring shinigami as well.

It was the kind of thing that made her feel envious that this woman was better than her though the photo of this shinigami is what made the jealousy turn into sickness. It made her feel nauseous, a feeling that she was going to pass out from how high her anxiety climbed as well. Why was the woman in her dream dead the following day?