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The sound of the key turning was louder than it should have been.
Tsuki took a deep breath before pushing open the door, shoulders tensed as if she was about to enter enemy territory.
Her new apartment was clean. Empty. Cold. The high ceiling lights reflected off the polished wood, the too-white corners, the glass of the still-uncurtained windows.
She closed the door behind her carefully, as if afraid to break the silence of the city. A faint buzzing sound passed through her head – the kind of sound you only hear when everything is too quiet.
She dropped her small backpack on the floor, the last thing she needed to take to the place she hoped to make home. And slumped to her side;
“Welcome back…” she said lamely to the too empty walls.
The echo of his own voice sounded strange. Strange, like being there, in that new place.
As if Tōma carried a peculiar taste, making the weight of being gone greater.
The cardboard was damp around the edges. One of the boxes had been stacked crookedly, and now it creaked when she pulled it.
Inside, disorganized like her head, were the traces of who she had been. Her journey to Tōma, a way to acquire more freedom. To know who she was when there weren't so many... personalities around her.
The items in the box, each one more full of memories than the last.
The small bottle of dark, nearly dry nail polish – the same one Lisa used when she painted her nails with military precision. It was one of the few things they did together frequently. Every two weeks, they sat in silence, and Lisa repeated the movements steadily, as if the color on her nails were a discreet armor.
There was always a distance between them – Lisa never seemed to know how to cuddle, only how to care. Even so, that gesture was almost intimate. As if the tip of the brush said what words never could.
The colorful hair tie, worn at the ends – Mashiro wore the same one, maybe it was even one of hers. Tsuki was always stealing Mashiro's hair ties, especially after Hakuda training, as a way of paying her back for the little beating she always received. It took her over twenty years to even manage to hit Mashiro once – and that was an accidental blow, when she slipped.
The hardcover notebook, with pasted pages of clippings, excerpts from poems and old illustrations torn from forgotten books. It was too heavy to be just paper.
Rose had given her the notebook when she was still little – another strange gesture coming from him, who spoke in metaphors even when he said good morning.
“You don't need to understand it now... But keep it in mind. One day, when it hurts, it will make sense.”
And she kept it. For years. Decades even. Without understanding why the phrases bothered her so much, or why certain words stuck to her skin as if they were written on it.
“All pain needs a voice.”
“You have to know how to bleed with elegance.”
“Silence can also be a scream.”
Tsuki leafed through it slowly. Some of the notes in the margins were her own – old scribbles of someone trying to understand too much, too soon. Maybe now it would start to make more sense. But there was still no hope of understanding it completely.
Because feelings don't come with a manual.
And Rose never wanted her to memorize the notebook. He just wanted her to learn to listen to herself.
The comic book, yellowed at the edges, with notes in the margins – written by herself, over the years. Love had given it to her when she turned twelve.
"A strong mind needs fantasy too. Read something fun every now and then."
Unlike the others, he never wanted to teach her anything related to her roots. He just let her be. Sitting beside him, in silence, while he read or scribbled his stories. He was the only one with whom she felt calm enough not to say anything.
Perhaps, at that time, that was what she needed most.
The small pocket mirror, decorated with gold stripes on the sides. It was chipped in one corner, but it still reflected clearly. It was a gift from Shinji when she turned fourteen.
“For you to remember that seeing yourself isn't just about looking in the mirror. It's about recognizing yourself.”
He always knew when she was hiding behind others. He was the only one who asked the tough questions – and then left a sweet treat by her bed, as if that made up for it all.
Tsuki learned to fear him a little. But she also learned to listen to him more than anyone else other than Rose.
The mirror was still hers. Even when she tried not to see herself.
The loose blouse that smelled of old paper, inherited from Hachi on a night when sleep wouldn't come.
She had woken up from a nightmare. And h e found her wandering down the hallway and, without asking questions, covered her with his shirt and began telling stories from the past.
He was one of the best storytellers she knew – and he turned everything, even Kidō training, into stories in disguise.
Tsuki couldn't say when he learned to cast his first spells. He only knew that, somehow, Hachi was in all of them.
The pair of small, worn sandals – so worn they looked almost childish. Tsuki held one of them carefully.
It was when Hiyori made her run from one side of the open land behind the shed where they lived to the other, while yelling at her for every wrong step.
“No one will feel sorry for you because you’re short or young, you understand?” she would say, and then throw a piece of fruit on the ground as a “reward” for a perfect sequence of movements.
It was strange to remember that, beneath the rigidity, Hiyori was one of the first to protect, even if she didn't let anyone notice. Tsuki loved her for that. Maybe she still loved her more than he could admit.
Finally, the training sword with a jagged mark on the side, a reminder of the day Kensei made her repeat the same strike a hundred times until it hurt.
He and Hiyori had always insisted that she learn to wield a katana, even though she had never received an Asauchi. Even though it was a secret. A forbidden link to the place her father said they all – including her – came from. A place she had never set foot in and didn't know if she would ever be able to call home.
Tsuki looked at everything. Then she closed her eyes and sank down onto the mat.
She didn't cry easily. But there, her chest felt heavy as if each object were a memory that wanted to stay, even if they were memories that hurt.
It was neither hatred nor ingratitude.
It was just... too much.
Living among those intense, passionate, talkative souls – Tsuki often wondered where she ended and the reflections of Lisa, Rose, Shinji began… At some point, she began to see herself as an echo.
“You look like Lisa.”
“You have Rose's temper.”
“You sound a lot like Shinji.”
But what about herself? Who was Tsukihana without the frame of others? She wasn't like them; she'd grown up, even hidden in the human world, with a certain humanity that souls long as shinigami lacked. Even though they themselves said they were no longer shinigami, she was something different.
She had to leave to avoid being swallowed up. Not for lack of love. But because love, sometimes, was too great. She desperately needed to know who she was, even if, one day, she became a Shinigami, as her family claimed…
She looked out the window. The city of Tōma slept, indifferent to her presence. And for the first time, that felt like a relief.
“I just need silence…”
A place where she could listen to her own soul, without the echo of others drowning out her voice.
A place to discover herself…
The move was finally over. And even though it had only been a few days, neither she nor the apartment seemed the same as when she arrived in Tōma. The newly painted walls had taken away much of the coldness, just as her naturally brown hair had become a more cherry red with blonde tips.
There was furniture now, like the small sofa, her zakatu, the small bookshelf with a few books, the music box and jazz records she'd received from Shinji just before moving in. Her training sword sat on a stand within it, almost framed like a trophy.
Entering her room, there it was. The last box. It was light, small, almost empty. Lisa had given it to her just before Tsuki left, as a last gift until they met again.
Inside were two items: a navy blue kimono, neatly folded. Embroidered flowers covered it subtly but precisely – in shades of silver, light blue, and black.
Lisa had left a note pinned to her collar:
"A piece of home for you. Maybe the flowers and the symbol don't mean much today. But one day, they will. I hope I can see you wearing this kimono when that day comes."
Tsuki slid her fingers across the fabric, and little by little, the meanings revealed themselves.
The silver flowers represented the divisions that formed both her biological and adoptive lineage:
Marigolds for Rose; and Strelitzias for Lisa – and Shunsui.
The light blue flowers reminded her of those who shaped her day after day:
Lilies of the Valley for Shinji, Irises for Love, White poppies Kensei and Mashiro, and Thristles for Hiyori.
There was, discreetly on the hems of the sleeves, the symbol of the Kidō Corps, embroidered with perfection: a silent tribute to Hachi.
The black flowers, more discreet, seemed to represent the other divisions of the Gotei 13.
A reminder of a whole she wasn't yet a part of – but that perhaps, one day, she could be.
At the bottom of the box, wrapped in an old handkerchief, was an old book. An old storybook she'd seen many times in the warehouse in Karakura.
As she flipped through the pages, in the middle of it was a faded photo.
In it, Tsuki, small, with her arms crossed and a serious expression, and in the center of a confusion of the Visoreds around her.
Mashiro posed with her fingers in a V-shape. Love wore heart-shaped glasses. Rose, hugging Tsuki with his left arm, held a book in his right hand. Lisa, arms crossed, stared at the camera as if watching the world. Kensei and Hiyori clearly looked as irritated as Tsuki at having to pose for the photo. Shinji, next to Rose, smiled as broadly as Tsuki's father. And Hachi, behind everyone, seemed calm, even if he was concentrating on taking the photo using some Kido he had created.
On the back, something written in pen:
“Even when you are far away... you still have a place with us.”
The handwriting was Rose's. Tsuki narrowed her eyes. And took a deep breath.
Then turned the image around and placed the photo and the kimono at the bottom of a drawer.
She didn't want to forget. But for now, I needed to remember less.
She turned off the light and went forward.