There was a time when she thought she was happy. Killing warrior after warrior, bathing in entire battlefields worth of blood, personally slaying the champions of Soul Society’s enemies...at the time, she had thought herself quite happy with her life. Even as her opponents slowly started to disappear and that dreadful, all-consuming boredom began to set in, she had only ever regarded the height of her slaughters as the happiest times of her life. She had believed that with every fiber of her being. She would have sworn to her grave that it was so.
Then she met him, and for one glorious moment, she realized she had never known the meaning of the word. When her sword clashed against his, when their twin smiles were as wide as the moon, even as his blade plunged into her chest and she realized with trembling elation that he was stronger than her, she finally learned the meaning of joy. It was magnificent. Breathtaking.
And she ruined everything!
When she fully understood what she had done to him, she could barely contain her disgust. Her weakness and incompetence had robbed him of his strength. She had healed the boy as quickly as she could, but the damage was done; his great power was now a shadow of its former self, shackled forever by his fear of losing his treasured foe. Her bile rose at thought that this was all her fault, that this magnificent man’s potential had been hobbled because she hadn’t been good enough! And so, for the first and last time in her life, Unohana Yachiru did the unthinkable.
She ran. Before the boy had the chance to awaken, she ran as far and as fast as her legs would carry her. Yet no matter how far she fled, she could not escape her sin. Realizing that she would never be able to forget her great failure, Unohana completely cast aside all she had been. As far as Soul Society was concerned, that was the day that “Yachiru” had died, and it was the day that “Retsu” was born.
It had been so long since that day. They had both gone through so much. So many new faces had come and gone, so many foes had reared their heads and been felled. But now, finally, in that pit, with clashing blade and beaming grin and booming laughter, when his blade once again pierced her chest in the same spot as before, she finally felt that glorious emotion again.
She was on the ground now. Her strength was fading, and her life with it. Yet, she was still so happy. He was finally whole again. She had finally given him the fight he’d deserved. The sin of her past, finally atoned. With this...yes, with this, she could-
...Oh, honestly! Even after all these years, even after regaining his true power, he was still such a hopeless child. He didn’t even have the good sense to see her off in triumph? Why couldn’t he at least win with a smile?
What if he damages himself again?
A small thought. An unbidden thought. An absolutely unforgivable thought. Fury spread throughout Unohana’s every pore at the very notion that she might yet again put his potential in jeopardy. Through the sheer strength of her scalding spite, she dragged the last reserves of reiatsu she had within her body and used as much of it as she could to heal the wound he had dealt. It wasn’t enough to close it completely, unfortunately. But perhaps, if he could stop blubbering and bothered to think for once, then Isane...
She barely had the thought before she slipped into the inky blackness of unconsciousness. She wasn’t sure how long it lasted; it could have been decades, or it could have been seconds. Whatever the reality was, she felt the unbidden sting of light pierce her eyelids. This feeling...was she laying on one of the medical beds in the Fourth Division? How had she gotten here?
With a mighty groan and a bleary series of blinks, Unohana sat herself up, trying to shake off the last vestiges of unconsciousness as she asked the room she couldn’t yet quite see “Where...?”
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