𝐒𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐕𝐄 | 𝐁𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐡 [MINOR EDITING]

³⁴ ᴘʀᴏᴍɪsᴇs, ᴘʀᴏᴍɪsᴇs

Central Fourty-Six, as I'd learn within the same twenty-four hours, mean business. As they'd decreed, I would spend two months in the World of the Living, alone, just me and Nõten Bõkyaku, to clean up the mess I caused by killing all those men from Zaraki and Kusajishi.

These two months would begin not even an hour after getting back to the manor.

"You're kidding," I say to the messenger who relays this news to me.

"No, Lady Abaron," the messenger says, raising his head to face me. "This was stipulated in the sentencing."

"...it was...?" I think for a moment.

"Your overconfidence is probably to blame for this one, Abaron," Shinji says. I smack him in the arm.

"W-Well, if that's what it is, that's all there is to it, I suppose," I say, not about to admit that he was right. I'd been so confident that I'd come out of things with just a slap on the wrist that I'd barely paid attention to the little details. "Have them prepare the official Senkaimon, then," I tell the messenger. "I'll be ready to leave within the hour."

"Yes, ma'am." He leaves.

"Abaron..." I turn to Shinji, and see that, once more, he's wearing that ridiculously solemn expression of his. "... are you sure about this?"

"Hm, I have the choice of either going to the World of the Living for two months to take out some Hollows, or going to the Maggot's Nest for an untold number of years." I cross over to the large wooden chest sitting in the corner of my room after snatching one of the folded up sheets from my bed off the floor. "What do you think?"

"And I get that, but..." I give him a look, and he stops himself.

"At least we can... keep contact through the hell butterflies," I remind him quietly. His hand suddenly shoots up to take my face in them. "Shinji...?"

"... it's not just your voice I'm gonna miss," he whispers. My bottom lip trembles; I pull him close to me, for the last time until I'd see him again in two months.

-

Shõri and Sosuke are another story altogether.

They'd been the last ones I broke the news to. As frustrated - Sosuke - and sad - Shõri - as are upon hearing the news, there's no way for me to sugarcoat things for them at this time.