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(Unohana, you're always...)
"It's always so green around here," you say dumbly, but with a genuine look of amazement on your face. Before this, you'd just been whistling under your breath a melody that was laughably off beat.
She thinks heedlessness suits you.
"Perhaps because we've only visited around spring," Unohana offers. You can only see her captain's cloak fluttering while you trail after her ― a few paces behind, out of respect ― though you can imagine her expression, the placid one she makes when she can't give less of a shit about what you're saying, but she's still humoring you.
The sun is so bright it could blind you, and the tall grass smells fresh and it leaves slight dampness when it brushes against your clothes, and maybe if you'd been here alone the flowers you never bother remembering the names of would've still reminded you of her, anyway.
"It's a shame we always come down to the world of the living for such ugly reasons."
After you say it, Unohana glances at you from over her shoulder.
"Miss Unohana!"
"What do you want now?" It was rare for her to speak, let alone betray irritation, though you'd been acting like an ingrate for long enough. For days on end, always screaming and following her like a lost puppy, even if the connotations of that comparison seemed twisted considering the circumstances.
You were no loyal dog, and she was no loving owner.
You raised your sword at her. It was not very threatening. "Come on! Fight me!"
"You don't interest me," she dismissed. Your eyes met her distanced, cold ones when she had turned her head towards you for a split second, and then she turned her back on you like you were about as menacing as a bug. For a second you felt sheepish, but then you remembered you'd been doing this every day for a few months and it was silly to be remorseful at that point.
"But you're the only one who can survive it!"
She said nothing.
"I know you're looking for an opponent," you bargained, trying to coax her with a salesman's smile. You seemed to be some kind of idiot.
She said... something.
"You're worthless."
"But I've been dying to prove myself to you. You're so unfair, Miss Unohana," you whined.
Unohana rose a brow at this, though the gesture was condescending as if to say whatever your answer may be, she would be unimpressed. Then she asked, "And why would you want to do such a thing?"
"Because... I'm in love with you! You're like my celebrity crush and everything."
You really seemed to be some kind of idiot. Her lips down-turned at your perhaps sociopathic admission ― since there needed to be something wrong with you for you to be fascinated by her in the first place ― and the air of innocence you tried to put on only angered her further. "Let me talk in a way a pest like you will comprehend."
"Sure," you told her with a cheerful lilt of your voice.
"That horrible ability," she started, staring at you dead in the eyes and if you were someone else, maybe you would've felt like your life is in danger, "is proof you'll never understand me. So never say a repulsive thing like this ever again."
You blink at her with a smile on your face as usual and then you shift around her while she fills out the leftovers of her paperwork, pretending you're not there. "Fourth division? No more eleventh?"
"I suppose," is all she replies with.
"But then- But, but, but, BUT, am I still gonna be lieutenant?" you ask while pointing your own index finger at yourself, almost poking out your eye with your careless gestures. Then you switch to holding your fists together like you're begging for something, as if this'll increase your chances.
"Lieutenant? All you can do is destroy. Transferring you is out of the question."
"AND...?" To prove your point, which you haven't even made yet, you strike a few poses and swing your leg around. This does wonders with breaking a couple of vases around the tight office, and that was, of course, a calculated decision and something you obviously meant to do. "I can just watch your back, right?"
Despite your silliness, Unohana seems solemn. "Violence is all I ever showed you, isn't it?"
You lower your leg and take a few moments longer than usual to pick out your words. "No, 's my bad," you say after a while. "It's 'cause I never learned to love battle like you do."
You figured you needed to take direct action to gain Miss Unohana's favor. Surely she didn't like pansies, so you had to prove you were strong enough to at least swat away with force instead of merely being something for her to look past. This time when you pointed your sword at her, you moved to swing too.
There was a thaw of metal clashing and your blade met hers in a flash ― her reflexes were as sharp as you had expected them to be even if you'd never hone your maneuvers to her level ― though her grasp was stronger. She could've pushed you off if she wanted to, you could tell, but you weren't sure if her choosing not to was a show of power.
She stared you down like you were beneath her.
Better yet, she looked at you as if you would be better off dead.
"It disgusts me how you wield that terrible Zanpakutō with a clueless smile on your face."
"You're breaking my heart," you said.
"You say you're heartbroken, yet you're grinning like an imp," she observed with distaste. "Now tell me the real reason you're so desperate to become my apprentice."
You separated from her and put your index finger to your lips then scratched your chin like you were in deep thought. It amused her how you hadn't stopped behaving so harmlessly even after what she had put you through, or after the countless days you'd wasted chasing after her and bearing witness to the other things she had done.
It had to be a front. That, or you were truly viler than what she could account for.
"I think after you were done with the village-" you trailed off for a moment like you weren't sure it was worth saying. It was strange how you called it the village rather than your village since that had been where you lived, "-I realized how lonely you've gotta be. Being the strongest and all."
Unohana sheathed her sword and tried to get a read on you. You were a curiosity.
Isane always stares at you like... Actually, you're not sure, but you don't think it's a good thing, the way she looks at you. After a while of contemplating whatever it was she's been wondering about you, she says, "You're clumsy, [Y/n]," plainly. That can't be it, but you're not surprised. She's always been shy.
"So what?"
She narrows her eyes at you. "It just worries me, but I guess it doesn't matter."
You let her words hang in the air and readjust yourself so you're lying down more comfortably. Then you let out a yawn, and you hope you'll be able to fall asleep soon.
Isane isn't a slacker like you. She's a proper second seat, hardworking and deserving, not the kind of lieutenant you were before you moved to squad four. Still, she sits down next do you with her legs propped criss-cross and she frowns while she goes over something in her head again. Breaking the silence, she asks, "Um, do you think opposites attract?"
"No." You roll over like the hard ground is as good as a bed. "Why?"
Your Zanpakutō stood in your hand still as you were on the lookout for another Menos to appear. It wouldn't take long to clear them out with you and Unohana here.
As usual, her back was facing you, though she didn't need to take glimpses back at you to know you had unveiled it. The foul spiritual pressure always lingered. "I really can't stand the sight of it, you know? That cowardly power."
You pouted, on the verge of throwing a tantrum. "But I'm the strongest after you! You're not very nice, Miss Unohana."
"It was never about that."
You were about to argue ― insolent as you may have seemed; you realized ― but another Hollow appeared and headed towards you. With one clumsy wave of your shoulder, your sword barely grazed it and then you leaned away and closed your eyes when it popped like a balloon. After the explosion, there were no remnants of it left.
"See? You were so scared of battle you did the most despicable thing," Unohana said. "You became invincible."
"I'm not scared," you insisted with pursed lips. "There's nothing to be scared of."
You didn't know your Zanpakutō's name. It was a bleak sword with a boring handle. It was just a thing you happened to own, and you believed it to be so inoffensive. You could only wonder how Miss Unohana had enough energy to hate it so actively, even if you understood.
In wielding this... there was no challenge. Besides the scorned sword, you had no skills. You were incompetent; the type of Shinigami that has no talent for healing or for kido or anything else besides striking things down with a sword. And then, you didn't need to put half as much effort into your swipes as everyone else did.
Minazuki is a beautiful sword, but you would never hold it for her like Isane does. You don't know if you're worthy of it. But even more, you think it'd eat away your skin like acid if you try to. That's the useless vice captain you would be, and the one you’d been before.
"Do you think you'll ever know your Zanpakutō's name?" asks Unohana.
"Maybe."
"Iemura was telling me about it," she says. "He thought it was odd." He thought it was odd you're so powerful and so inconsequential simultaneously, but she didn't say this. She wouldn't have, not today.
"I avoid him 'cause he acts like I'm an imbecile."
Unohana seems to find that amusing. "Do you run from Captain Kurotsuchi, too?"
"I don't interest him."
She considers it, and then closes her eyes. "I think if you gave him some time, he could grow fascinated by you."
"That sounds like a threat!"
"He seems like the kind of person you'd like," says Unohana. You think she's right, but you don't confirm it. She always knows. "He likes to modify his swords. Sometimes I imagine he'd like to try it with someone else's blade too, see how it reacts."
"Do you really hate it that much?"
"No," she replies after a while of silence, but she doesn't elaborate.
It had been the first time she saw your smile break. Not like you always grinned like an idiot because sometimes you pretended to be upset and made ugly faces, but this wasn't like that. No, a genuine distress plagued you, and you didn't pull any kind of expression. All you did was settle your lips into a thin line as sweat trickled down your temple and your sword went through another one of these people. Now that you thought about it, you weren't sure where they came from.
After the man had exploded into a pile of dust, Unohana recovered half of his physical body, though it was not enough. You glimpsed at her from the corner of your eye and swallowed dryly, and then you examined all the other unfinished corpses littering about.
"To think your ability wasn't as meaningless as I thought," she mused. "Still, I'm not fast enough."
"Do you really need me to do this?"
It was audacious for someone as wimpy and as lenient as you to not be able to perform any healing, but what was even more audacious was to think that the bloodthirsty woman you revered so deeply would be interested in the art of it. Even if sinister intentions drove her.
"This is the most efficient way." Unohana was not the type to answer a question just like that. Usually she fired back loaded words, or sometimes her reply wouldn't be enough. She gestured for you to continue, but before you could, she asked, "Have you ever wondered why you developed this ability?"
You shrugged. "Dunno, I just have it."
"Because you're immature," she said. "Because being afraid to lose is a childish fear."
You slashed the next person who stumbled in with a blindfold over their eyes and this time, Unohana mended their body up to their neck.
"Now you're responsible for this miserable sword, which knows no thrill."
"You really love fighting that much? Enough to heal someone just to keep it goin'?"
"More than anything."
Your wide eyes peered into her attenuated ones. She was slick, and you were pliant, and between you and Miss Unohana, there was always distance. If you told her she broke your heart now, you wonder if she would've thought you looked like you had meant it.
You think she's slipping back into it. She never seems to be on the verge of doing that from what you can tell, but right now you're all watching from the windows inside the building. Watching the commander-captain die, watching everyone else die, and you do nothing. Besides the concept of imminent death, you've got a bad feeling about this.
Today, something you can't handle will happen.
Isane asks about lending a helping hand, though it's in vain, against the orders. She's nice, you think while you press your palm against the glass. Maybe that's why Unohana likes her so much.
It's after her talk with Shunsui that she approaches you and something bad flares up in your gut. She's closer to sneering than she is to smiling, and you know what this means.
"I'm going to help Zaraki learn the way of the sword."
You wring your hands behind your back. "You're really serious about this, huh?"
Feet shuffle outside, rushing back and forth. Muffled words resound left and right outside the office you're in. The silence stretches.
"I take it you're not gonna come back alive... Miss Unohana?"
"It's what has to happen."
"The day you fought him, I think that was the happiest I've ever seen you," you say with a rash forming on your knuckle. You've scratched and irritated too much. If you thought it'd do any good, you weren't above kneeling and begging, but your words never amount too much. You're too immature to understand her ending her life over a reason you deem so frivolous or something like that.
"Yes, I suppose it made me happy to enjoy battle the way I wanted to."
You're not sure why she sounds so sad.
"I'll choose Isane as my captain," she tells you. "But while I'm still here, while I'm still superior and you're still subordinate, would it be too selfish for me to give you an order one last time...?"
You blink. "No, of course not. Anything for you, Miss Unohana."
"The next time the quincies arrive, can you use your ability, the ability I insulted so much over the years, and get rid of as many as you can? Or is that too heavy of a request to make?"
"It'll be easy." You bow to her. There's no Isane and there's no Shunsui, just like there was no Captain-Commander Yamamoto in your world, only Miss Unohana and her sacred words. Maybe you should kill all of them. "That's the only thing I'm good for."
She steps by the side, ready to head out for the door and for the first time she's smiling and you're not. "You're the last person I'm going to see before I battle Zaraki, [Y/n]."
You wish you weren't so stupid. You wish you knew what that meant.
Unohana leaves you a letter.
The next time you see a flower, you better not think of me. When I go speak with you, I probably won't tell you this, but your shikai grew on me. It felt like I could not lose you and now you're going to lose me.
I'm grateful my cruelty never tainted your kindness. To the miserable Hollows, your ability is the biggest mercy of all. I think you understood me better than I understood you. Remember, next time you see a flower, do not think about me.
It's the first time you cry with handfuls of grass in your balled fists. You enjoyed coming down to the land of the living, to watch the fields with the flowers.
Remember, next time you see a flower, do not think about me.
Hundreds of arrangements with eight thousand flowers wouldn't show the grief you feel for her. Everything is so green and warm that it's not fair. Why does the world get to move on? Does it not understand the losses it suffers?
She really broke your heart.
Unohana said she didn't understand you, but she understood you perfectly well. You're so afraid of fighting you grew to kill everything you touch, and she loved battle so hard she gave up her life guiding the perfect Kenpachi.
He's more worthy of admiring her than you are, but that never stopped you.
When Iemura approaches you, you always assume he's going to berate you, which he does without fail.
"Slacker!" But this time he sounds like he's doing so to get it out of the way before he can say whatever he has to say. "Why don't you do something useful for once and tell me..." In a gesture you recognize as full of unspoken nerves, he adjusts his glasses, "-you were the lieutenant."
"Uh, yeah?"
"Was Captain Unohana really—" bloodthirsty?
You think he's embarrassed someone like you could know anything he doesn't.
You say nothing. He shakes his head to bring himself back on track, and for the first time you find someone else ridiculous, though you're not sure if you have gripes with him for the right reason.
"Who were you- who were you loyal to—" Yachiru or Retsu?
It doesn't take you anytime to come up with an answer, or maybe it's subconscious. Your face splits into a smile and horrible tears run down your eyes and your lips tremble and you huff in a disgusting amount of snot.
"Miss Unohana, of course—" was the one I loved!
Remember, next time you see a flower, do not think about me.
You think if Iemura was a weed, he would be a shriveled, withering one. And you'd be like a crocus, like that Hellenistic tale where a mortal fell in love with a nymph, and they both got punished by the gods and turned into blossoms.
(...walking so far ahead of me.)