Gateway 45

With a small flex of my legs, I distanced myself from the man and his stench.

He wasn’t alone. Another 4 equally disgusting men were approaching the secluded area I found, with the last one carrying a crying young girl by the hair.

“So, mind explaining what’s going on here?” I asked with a sigh. I really wasn’t in the mood to deal with whatever this was. I had barely gotten anything out of my Zanpakuto before being kicked out to deal with these bozos, so the idea of just cutting them down and moving on was starting to show its appeal.

“And who the HELL do you think yo-” The man didn’t get to finish, as with a small, negligent flick of my finger, he was violently launched away. He’d survive, probably.

“So, who wants to try answering next?” I asked the suddenly very concerned group of men, the girl looking at me with a mix of awe and adoration.

The men looked at each other warily before the one holding the girl let her go, raising his arms in a placating manner.

“H-Hey, no need for that,” he stammered. “We caught the bitch stealing so we brought her here to teach her a lesson,” he said, with his friends agreeing with him. “And thanks for dealing with Touji, his uncle saddled us with him for the last 3 years, so we’ve been playing babysitter since.”

I rolled my eyes at his attempt at separating the group from the mouthy moron, but let it go. I really couldn’t be bothered by whatever he was about to say.

“Whatever, leave,” I commanded, prompting the men to bolt out running.

“T-Thank y-you, s-s-sir,” the girl said from her place on the ground, attempting, and failing, to get up.

She looked to be around 10 years old, although that might have been from how fragile she looked with her rail-thin frame and gaunt face. Like everyone in the district, she was disgustingly dirty. The dress she wore seemed to have once been blue, but now was a dark brown shade. Her face was bloodied, and her cheek was bruised purple, with a swollen eye shut while the other had a constant stream of tears falling from it.

“Fuck,” I muttered.

___

I didn’t have much choice but to take the girl under my wing after that. She was filthy, injured, and not in a state to take even the most basic care of herself. And while I could spend all day telling myself it wasn’t my problem, I doubted my conscious would let me abandon a kid in a place like the 80th without a heavy dose of guilt.

It wasn’t like I was adopting the kid either. I’d just leave her somewhere in the lower districts and it should be fine. Her hunger told me she had some amount of spiritual power, so in a few years, she’d end up at the Academy anyway.

So in the meantime, I had to take care of her, and I started by raising a small stone cottage for us to stay in for the next few days. A simple use of Earth Runes, coupled with some basic household spells, some conjuring, and a Runic Array created on the fly, and we had a nice home with furniture and a heated bathtub to enjoy.

The girl could barely speak, so I healed what I could (just the superficial damage) and set her up with some new clothes and a bath kit. It didn’t take her long to get out of the bath and pass out on a futon. I held back from waking her up, instead deciding to just leave some fruit on a tray beside her for when she woke up.

___

I stepped into the living room, conjuring for myself a carpet and a few pillows so I could go back to my training.

Sitting down on a big cushion in the middle of the carpet, I rested my Zanpakuto on my knees and let my mind drift into it.

___

I opened my eyes at the bar to the side of the library’s door, my Zanpakuto spirit behind the counter and mixing a drink in his younger form.

“So, where were we?” I asked, trying to keep my tone flippant in the face of the wilder side of my Zanpakuto.

“You were about to ask how to learn my name,” he said, passing me a perfect tequila sunrise.

“And the answer is?” I asked, taking a sip from the drink. “Cherry liquor?”

“Much more fun than grenadine, don’t you think?” He smirked. “And the answer is simple: stop being afraid and go after what you want.”

I stopped, slowly setting the drink at the bar before looking at him.

“What do you mean by that?” I asked.

“You know exactly what I mean,” he snorted, taking a sip of his whisky.

“I don’t. Why don’t you enlighten me?” I demanded, taking his glass out of his hand and draining it in one big gulp.

“Ha! I knew you still had that spark in ya,” he laughed, before, with a small movement of his hand, a book came flying over from one of the bookcases directly into my hand.

The book was a light blue, with no markings on it except for a faded triangle up front.

“What’s this?” I asked, wary of the glint in the Zanpakuto’s eyes.

“Open and you’ll find out,” was all he said.

Taking a deep breath, I slowly opened the book, not at the beginning, but somewhere before the middle. I took one look at the page, registered the words, and immediately closed it.

“That’s not funny,” I said, unimpressed.

“It wasn’t supposed to be,” the spirit, now in his old man form, responded.

“What the fuck?” I asked, opening the book to stare at the same passage again.

“Your soul is a library. Why wouldn’t everything you’ve ever experienced be available for reading?”

“No, I get that. Pretty simple concept, really,” I muttered while changing the pages absentmindedly. “What I want to know is why this one?”

“You know why, Alex,” he said, and you could feel the exasperation mixed with sympathy in his tone.

I changed the page again and stopped. The words under my fingers were meaningless as the real memories assaulted me.

The weight of my semi-unconscious father leaning on my left side as I dragged/led him through the streets back home. My right arm, still in a cast but half-healed, was sending me flashes of pain as I had to lean on it more than once to avoid falling.

“I do,” I nodded.

“You spent most of your life conditioning yourself not to go after what you desire because it’d be a burden on your parents,” he said anyway. “That book,” he pointed at the book. “Was the first time you had to make a sacrifice for one of your parents. You carried your father for 3 kilometers with a broken arm, and since you were still so small, you ended up hurting it again.”

“I wasn’t that small…” I muttered.

“Alex, you were 8,” he deadpanned.

I rolled my eyes and motioned for him to get to the point.

“Look, Alex, that was the start of a pattern for you. Every time you started to hope things might get better some shit happened that you had to fix it, usually at the expense of something else you wanted.”

“So? It’s not like it’s a problem anymore,” I shrugged.

“But it is!” He exclaimed. “You still act as if wanting things would make shit hit them fan! At some point, you stopped wishing, stopped hoping, and started just accepting. You even left Doni with your parents so you wouldn’t have to worry about anything happening to them while you’re gone!”

“Don’t you think that’s a little bit much? I go after things all the time! And I wanted to do things by myself before involving Doni.”

“Please. You only ever went after new types of magic, and even then, you did half-heartedly. And we both know you just wanted a guy who could kill Gods and scare anyone into compliance in your parents' corner while you were gone, otherwise you wouldn’t have involved Doni at all.”

“Fine,” I exhale explosively, slouching on the bar’s bench and taking a sip of my tequila sunrise. “So, how do I fix it?”

“No idea!” My Zanpakuto spirit cheerfully replied. “Maybe try doing what you want? I have a feeling that’s why Zaraki sent you to the 80th.”

“What? Like, help some random kid while not killing the dudes that very obviously deserve it?” I lifted an eyebrow.

“Depends, are you doing it out of some misplaced notion of duty?” He asked.

“Maybe,” I conceded. “Or maybe I’m doing it because I know I’ll regret leaving her behind.”

“But, do you want to do it?” He pressed.

I stopped to think, I didn’t have strong thoughts on the subject one way or the other, but between leaving the kid behind and helping her, the only choice I could live with was the one I had already taken.

“Yeah, I do,” I nodded.

“Then you’re fine,” he sighed. “Just, keep doing whatever you want. Find new things to want, and then go after them. Hell! Find new things to hate, and then go destroy them! You’re a Godslayer, go have some fun,” he finished massaging the bridge of his nose and waving me in the direction of the entrance.

I got up from my seat, finished my drink, and with a nod to my Zanpakuto spirit, went back to the outside world.

___

I opened my eyes to see the girl kneeling in front of me, her face full of curiosity, even while she’d kept herself at a respectable distance.

“Good morning,” I greeted with a smile.

“Morning!” She replied cheerfully.

The last few hours had done wonders for her. The bath took out all the dirt and grime, leaving her pale skin and light brown hair shining compared to the rest of the place. The healing revealed almond-shaped brown eyes and thin lips that looked on the verge of pouting. And while the food might not have immediate effects, I couldn’t help but think she looked a little bit fuller than when she went to bed.

“I’m Alex, what’s your name?” I asked calmly.

“I’m Kie!”

“Kie, huh?” I muttered. “Well, Kie, I have to stay here for a few days, but what do you think about me taking you to live in the lower districts when I leave?”

Her eyes sparkled, and I could feel the excitement rolling off of her at the notion.

“Yeah!” She cheered, throwing a punch in the air.

“That’s the spirit, kid,” I laughed, getting up and ruffling her hair.

___

A/N: And that’s that.

Sorry for being incommunicado for so long, I got ridiculously sick on Thursday, and I only really started recuperating yesterday. I thought I’d have a non-canon omake to tide y’all over on Friday, but that ended up being a fever dream.

Seriously, I don’t think I’ve even been this sick. I spent 4 days in and out of consciousness, and it was only after a hospital trip that I managed to get medicine to stay awake or asleep for more than an hour at a time.

But now I’m mostly fine, although this chapter was a little bit rushed and ended up shorter than what I’d like.

As always, thank you all for your support! See you next week!