You Shouldn't Be Here [Solo]

Her eyes looked at the rubble that was left of the place she had once lived in. In her time living there, the buildings weren't something to be admired, but at least they were still standing. 'This wasn't a cause of a natural occurrence. Something happened, but what?' She thought to herself as she walked through the pitiful ruins of the district.

District 59 of East Rukongai, wasn't the biggest district, and it was certainly a far cry from the best that the Spirit World had seen. From what she had observed, the people were modest for the most part, a little gang violence every now and then was natural, but that could never have scaled to kill an entire town's existence. The buildings that had managed to remain standing were vacant, the entire area. . . Empty.

She hadn't planned to come back to see this. Graduation was nearing and she thought that it was only customary to go back to where you came from when you started a new chapter in your life. But she wasn't coming back to anything. . . There was nothing to come back to.

Ailin stopped only when she came upon one of the very few buildings familiar to her. It had been a little shop that sold food, the owner and her grandchildren lived there. A little boy and a little girl. The shop was completely gone with the exception of a doorway the square border that set the boundaries.

"It's horrible; isn't it?" Ailin heard a voice that she didn't recognize come from behind her. She didn't sense any spiritual pressure out of the ordinary in the area; her body turning to look behind her, she could see a boy who looked to be a little younger than her.

"What are you doing here? What happened here?" Ailin's tone was unnaturally calm, but that was only to be expected from an almost graduate of the Shingami Academy. "Things like this don't just happen. This wasn't natural." She said as she stepped over some of the larger chunks of cement that had fallen. There weren't many buildings in this district that could afford to be made out of stone, most of them were shacks that served as make-shift houses.

Making her way into the little square that had once housed the only people she had talked to in her time in the Rukongai she listened, waiting for him to reply. When no reply came, she turned to look at him but he was only watching her, his expression startled when their eyes made contact.

"Answer me." She said as she turned back to looking at what was left of the building.

"Bandits attacked this district savagely." Ailin heard the boy's voice falter, as if he didn't want to tell the story. "They had requested stay in this District, but the district had been peaceful for awhile and didn't want anything to do with them." She heard him continue to explain, knowing the era that he was talking about.

When she had resided in the area, the conflicts were small and were able to go by without many people noticing what was happening. She herself had only been able to hear of the happenings from the two children who seemed to take a liking to her. "The Golden Age of East Rukongai." She said aloud. That was what many of the souls there were referring to it as.

"A few of the men in the district got together and were able to make them leave, but they came back a few days later and brought friends with them." She heard him say, but didn't comment on anything. 'Not the best thing to do when your district doesn't have the means to protect itself.' She thought, but remained silent. It was an old story, had happened before, but she never in her life imagined that it would happen to this place.

"And they destroyed everything." She commented as she picked up a small doll from beneath the rubble, dusting it off. "Yes, they set fire to the buildings and blew up some of the ones where fire wouldn't work. Most of the citizens of the town fled to other distri-" Ailin heard his voice cut off and looked over at him. She could see tears in his eyes as he stared at the doll in her hand.

"What's wrong?" She asked as she moved towards him, watching his body jerk back in reaction to her approach.

"It's nothing." Ailin heard him say quickly, as if it were an impulse to say it and not the actual answer. She watched as his silver eyes stared at the doll as if it was something that meant something to him. Perhaps he had a sister who would like it as much as the little girl in the shop had.

"Would you like it?" She asked, offering it to the boy, setting it on one of the stones by him. She didn't know why she was being nice to him, didn't know why she had even said a word to him in the first place, but when it was all said and done, it didn't matter. She would be returning to the Academy soon, and they both would be nothing more than a blip on each others radars.

'Why not talk to him for a bit longer? After today I never have to think about him again.' She thought as she sat down on the chunk of stone that she had maneuvered around earlier. "I'm sorry I didn't introduce myself earlier, my name is Tao." She said, not giving a first name for him to identify her with. "And you are?" She asked him, the words foreign to her mouth. It wasn't often that she introduced herself first.

She watched him pick up the doll and hold run his fingers through the yarn hair before holding it close to his chest. 'Strange. . . It's like the doll actually means something to him.' She thought, keeping her mouth closed.

"I know who you are." She heard him say as the wind blew a little, his auburn hair flowing with it. 'He can't be. . . He just can't be.' She thought as she waited for him to continue. "Do you really not remember me?" He asked, as he looked at her, hurt in his eyes.

'Ryouta.' Ailin pictured the boy in her head, he hadn't been too much younger than her in looks, but he was decades younger than her in years. She could see it now in his features. The boy she had pictured before had a similar hair color, but it was a bit darker and his eyes didn't have that glassy, distant look to them.

"I'm sorry, but I don't know who you are." Ailin's voice was stern, she had to make him believe that she had forgotten all about him. The fact was that she had forgotten all about him. She didn't care about him enough to remember him, so why make it seem like she did?

In her mind there was no use in bringing up the past when they had so little to do with each other. When she had lived in the outskirts of town she didn't care if anyone died or lived, but now that they were actually gone she did? In what world would that ever make sense?

"You're lying. You look exactly the same as you did on the rare occasion that you came out here." He said, his voice cracking. He looked as though more tears wanted to spill over, but he wasn't letting them. 'I shouldn't have come here. . . I can see there's no reason for me to associate myself with this place anymore.' She thought as she turned her head to look at the ground in front of her, she didn't want to be there anymore.

"We knew that you weren't one to actually come on a regular basis, but when we didn't see you for over a year, we assumed you died." His breathing was ragged. Ailin took a glance over at him, reverting her eyes back to the ground only after a second or two. The pressure that he felt in his chest almost visible.

"The girl you remember. . . Isn't me." She would play the lie out 'til the end. . . It was better for him that way.

"Stop lying. I know it's you Ailin." She heard the boy say, whatever life he had in his voice before was gone. She turned her head as he said her name, wincing a bit at the sound. How long had it been since someone had called her by that name? 'No. . . Ailin died in the fire.' She thought as she opened her mouth to say something, but couldn't manage a word. "I know it's you." He said, he was breaking and it was her fault.

"Did you ever think that maybe I'm not lying? That maybe the girl you knew really is dead?" Ailin asked him, composing herself, thankful that her voice came out steady; if not a bit cold. "I told you. . . My name is Tao." She said. Ailin was her given name, the name her parents bestowed upon her, but she had discarded it.

Ailin didn't let herself look back at the boy. She couldn't let herself look back at him, why didn't she recognize him when he first spoke. It had only been 4 years since she left the Rukongai for schooling, but she had already put the period of her life that she spent wandering in the back of her mind. 'I'm sorry Ryouta, but it's better for you to think that I've forgotten you.' Ailin thought as she lifted her head up to the sky, she was a horrible person.

"You look just like her. Your hair. . . Your eyes. . . The way you walk. . . I kn-" He was stuttering. "I told you. . . I'm not her. You'll find that I don't like repeating myself." She cut him off as she leveled her vision.

"You should leave this place. . . There's nothing left here." She said as she began to walk away. "It's all I have left. I can't leave and let myself forget them. I can't just run away." She heard him say. Her strides lengthened, becoming longer and faster as she moved further away. She looked back at his direction, seeing his tall frame still standing there.

She turned back towards the center of of the Soul Society. . . Heading for the school and the walls that let her forget who she was, basically encouraged her to leave her old self behind. 'There's nothing left in that district for you Ryouta. . . Leave it behind. Move on with your existence.' She thought as she started running. The sun was beginning to set, but that was hardly the reason for her rush. . . She just didn't want to be near that place anymore.

Her visit was nothing more than a horrible mistake.