Existence

By Tanya Lilac

Eternity is a long time. Yadomaru Lisa, a being obsessed with indulging the many needs she had, was not about to stand around and wait to see if she really did have forever to live her life the way she wanted. After all, souls in Soul Society were not immune to death – especially Shinigami, ironically. However, time passes slowly when you know that you can live a life relatively unscathed for the next century.

Upon reaching the transient world, the first thing Lisa had been struck by when she had stepped out of Urahara's hideout was the feel of the earth beneath her feet. Mute and almost blind, it was as if she had been born again – for the second time. It hadn't hurt so much last time. There was a low chuckle as she crouched on the ground, running her hands through the pale brown dirt while her dark hair slipped forward over her shoulder and cheeks to cover her face. It was close to sunset, but the earth was still warm. Ignoring the person who had decided to interrupt her solitude, she stood and stretched, flicking her hair over her shoulder, the thin yukata grating along new skin. Her gigai, only recently acquainted with her soul, was still slow, but she was beginning to move more fluidly, as if soul and body were one again.

"Oi, Yadomaru. It's just dirt."

She turned to face the owner of the voice. From the colour of his hair, she knew it was Muguruma Kensei. Genius or not, Urahara was an idiot for not bothering to fix her eyes. He'd said something about brain patterns and optical nerves, and how it would have been pointless to try while she was unconscious. The transient world would be harsh enough as it was, without having to deal with adjusting to her newly found vision.

"Funny, that, sixty-nine. I would have said the same about you."

A scoff, and he ran a hand through his hair as he lay back on the engawa. She walked over and sat beside him, leaning against the post as she stared out into the dry, neglected garden, slowly dusting her hands off on her clothes.

"It's easier to say Muguruma-tai… Kensei."

It wasn't an issue anyway; like everyone else, she called him Kensei. Grateful that she had not replied, he inspected his hands, running steady fingers over smooth palms. He'd lost those familiar callouses – but, unlike a lot of things he'd lost, they were easy to get back. Urahara had tried his best to create a gigai that represented their souls properly, but there was still a lot of work to be done. She seemed to know what he was thinking, and the corner of her mouth upturned in a quiet, knowing smile.

Everyone was trying to cling to something familiar and taken for granted in a world where they would probably never have a place; they both knew and understood that, immediately. It didn't stop them from trying. He turned to her and handed her the comb she had dropped earlier when she had first stepped out onto the engawa. With a sigh, she combed her hair slowly before braiding it loosely – her fingers couldn't handle too much, just yet. Even though she appeared to have control of her body, Kensei knew how tired she was.

After about two weeks of being shut inside Urahara's house, they were allowed outside to slowly adjust to having a physical body once more. They were all fragile again; stones could cut them, the sun would make their skin burn, and the rain left them chilled to the bone. Well, that was what he could remember from his time alive – sensations that lingered in his mind.

"This world is different to the one we left." Lisa said, bringing her knees to her chin, letting the statement linger in the sunset.

Time did not stand still in the transient world; humans, driven by instinctual urges to advance as a race as a result of their mortality, were still the same, but their planet was not.

"Where do you think we'll go?" he asked, turning to face her.

"I don't know. Anywhere. Everywhere. Even if they don't want to, I'll go everywhere on my own."

She was lying, of course, and he knew it.

Shadows crept along the floor of his room, ink black against indigo. The moon was hidden tonight, the air was still and cool. The day had left something to be desired, but now was the time to secretly forget and let go of reality.

Kensei had been sleeping fitfully, dozing off for a few hours, but his mind refused to let him rest. How many years would pass like this, he wondered? It was February fourteenth, nineteen fifteen. They had been living in the transient world for less than a decade, and the world was embroiled in chaos. Soul wrenching, mortal chaos. They had no part in human affairs. Then, a tiny movement, sharp intake of breath and flash of skin had caught his attention and he dropped all attempts to get back to sleep.

He moved slowly, his hand sliding out to reach for the smooth, familiar hilt of Tachikaze. It whispered to him of dark silk and plum blossoms, and he smirked as it silently slid free of its sheath. There was no moon to catch the glint of the blade and with smooth, practiced ease, he rolled and surged upwards to meet his assailant.

Steel rang sharp against steel, and he was not surprised when they did not give way. There was a brief acknowledgement of his opponent, before he felt pain tear through his left side. The bastard had targeted the same area that he had been hit this morning and took advantage of the distraction to aim a solid elbow at his solar plexus. Kensei, with a grunt, had ended up back on his futon, winded, dazed and pissed off, especially since he had dropped Tachikaze. His temper did not subside when he felt the icy touch of Haguro Tonbo on his neck.

"Welcome home," he said gruffly. "I thought we'd never see you again after you took off with that unsuspecting idiot at the market."

"Are you jealous, Kensei? Why would I run off with a mouse when I've got a tiger at home?" came the reply, accompanied by a smug smirk. Kensei tensed – compliments from Lisa, of all people, in a situation like this usually foretold unspeakable amounts of pain. "I'm very impressed. Just what I'd expect from a captain. Not only… did you try to fight back, your first instinct was to suppress your reiatsu to maintain the illusion that you were really asleep." The zanpakuto nicked his skin, and the smirk turned to a smile as he started bleeding.

"Ambitious move," he replied blandly, calming his heart rate. There was no point in giving her the satisfaction of staining his pillow with his own blood. "Are you going to let me go now? And don't go swinging around your nodachi around here."

"Perhaps," Lisa replied, smiling down at him. "You're still sore from this morning, but I won't go easy on you." Kensei inwardly cringed, but he would have done the same thing. He grunted as she straddled his stomach, pinning his arms by his sides, and swallowed as he caught a glimpse of her underwear. They were pale yellow, to match her dress. "You really do sleep naked. It was only a hunch, but… I'm glad I was right." She sheathed her zanpakuto and set it on the worn tatami.

Kensei averted his gaze, and glanced at Tachikaze, which he had dropped on the floor when she had aimed for the same spot in which she had kicked him that morning. It was tantalizingly close, but with his hands stuck, he could only stare at it.

Her fingers danced, feather light, up his stomach to rest, splayed on his chest. He had worked hard in that first year, like the rest of them, and he was no longer slender and lean but built, with taut muscles that tensed beneath her touch. Smiling, she breathed in the scent of his hair before moving back to his neck to press her lips to his wound. Her mouth filled with the coppery taste of his blood as is pulse gave him away, and he groaned as she bared her teeth, leaving yet another mark.

"So, let's relive this morning, shall we Kensei?"

Lisa had surprised everyone when she bought a conservative button up dress a few days ago, and had only replied with a non-committal grunt when Mashiro inquired what it was for ("Valentine's Day, perhaps?" she'd giggled, despite Lisa's glare). It was pastel yellow, decorated with plum blossoms, and had loose, short sleeves, a high neckline, a long skirt that settled in pleats around her ankles and came with a matching belt. It hadn't stayed demure for long; she had cut off a lot of what she called the 'excess fabric' and the hem now swished around her thighs as she spun around. "I can't fight if my legs are getting tangled in pleats. It's been a hundred years since we were alive. You'd think they'd all care a little less about modesty."

Kensei scoffed, and looked up from his bandages. "Ahh, to see the world through your eyes. Must be interesting."

"Blurry, actually," she said archly. "It's the glasses that do the trick. Besides, you've got no excuse – you sleep naked."

Kensei's jaw was clenched as he finished wrapping his bandages over his knuckles. "Whether or not I sleep naked is nobody's business. If I did, it wouldn't be immodest because I would be in my room. And who told you that you could hover around me while I slept?"

"It's human nature to be curious about these kinds of things," she replied casually, flexing her hands and stretching, the hem of her dress lifting. She had a very, very good idea of what she was doing to him. "Besides, you brush your teeth and everything in the kitchen like it's nobody's business."

"There's a big difference between the two… and you're not human," Kensei replied, releasing Tachikaze.

She was watching him intently, following the way his eyes moved as he looked at her, as if he had not seen her in years. "Imagine that." She walked over to him, her hips swaying, her skirt shifting with every step. In a fluid motion he knew intimately, she unsheathed Haguro Tonbo and threw the scabbard onto the ground. Her eyes flashed dangerously behind the lenses of her glasses and, with a grin, she raised her hand to cover her face. "Would you like a demonstration?"

"I don't understand what you're upset about," he replied evenly, making no secret of his attempt to reach for his zanpakuto.

She sat up and crossed her arms. Her knees tensed as she applied more pressure to his arms. "I don't like games."

Kensei arched an eyebrow. "Only when you're the one being played. Otherwise, everything else is a game to you." He paused, and she caught the unfinished end of his sentence; your captain taught you all about that. "All this stuff… about human nature, it's not who we are. Not since we died."

"And what are we now? Soul and manufactured flesh, stitched together? We are creatures that belong neither here nor there. Are we Shinigami or Hollow? We could live hundreds of years, but walk among people as if we were one of them. Why -"

"Why does it matter?" Kensei sighed, wishing once again that his hands were free. He stopped struggling against her and tried to meet her eyes, but she was sitting up again, and staring into the distance. "Death is an inevitability, for humans, Shinigami, Hollow… and us, whatever we are. We're stuck in a cycle that has always been about balance and light and shade."

"You're unusually eloquent today," Lisa smirked and, finally, looked down at him. "Have you been thinking about this a lot?"

"Piss off," he grumbled. Knowing that his chance had come, he bucked (ignoring the twinge in his side) and pushed her off, and reclaimed Tachikaze before pinning her on the floor beneath him. "Besides," he replied, panting, "you're the one asking about the meaning of our existence."

She smiled and bit her lip. "So, to state the obvious, you're holding all of the cards. What will you do?" A gentle breeze swirled around the room and she tensed beneath him. She scoffed. "Lazy, aren't you?" Her dress slipped off her shoulders as she propped herself up on her elbows, and he found he had nicked her on the collarbone. "You're useless, Kensei. I bought it for the new year and everything."

He smirked and ran his fingers through her dark hair before cupping her cheek. Her skin was soft and smooth like always, and his hands moved instinctively, pushing away useless scraps of fabric to bare the creamy skin on her thighs, hips, stomach and breasts. She leaned back with a soft murmur as he pressed his mouth to her wound. He twined his fingers in her hair and she sank slowly to the floor as his mouth traced the tender skin on her neck before he brought her lips to his, smiling at the taste of his own blood on her tongue. Kensei pulled away, and took her glasses off the bridge of her nose. "I don't think Hacchi would mind putting it back together… and then some."

This was written as an entry to the LiveJournal Comm, Bleachness - for their Valentine's Day fanfiction contest. The theme was 'Breaking up and making up'... but I guess there are too many ways to use this as a theme. Anyhow, I hope you enjoy my new favourite pairing. As time goes on, I guess I'll only get better at characterisation, so please, until then, bear with me. ^^ On that note, if you have any questions/concrit/comments, don't hesitate to review!