The Reformation of a Thief

She listens to him; he is again talking to her as if she was a startled animal. Soothingly telling her of his death and how he came to Rukongai, her hand wanders to the scar in her left shoulder. He was comforting to be near, although he really didn't understand why she hid her sex, not really, and she really didn't' speak that well.

"Don't speak well," she said after he silenced, "I don't speak much. Not since I died." The woman clears her throat, thinking about what to say. It was hard for her, she had kept silent for so long, and even if she had trust for Garuda she was frightened to tell him.

"Ikkou-ikki, I was part of it. Father and I. the other died before, starved. I fought as a man." She coughs, she didn't know that talking could hurt, but it did. She pulls her knees up and rests her chin on them, feeling Garuda's hand on her back; he paused slightly over her scars. "I killed men, battled. I came sick, and Motoyasu Mikawa's men captured me. They saw that I was a woman, and took me. They had me for weeks, when I was no more fun, they killed me. They tied me in a bamboo grove, it took time, painful." Nier folds up tighter, shivering now, and her heart beating out of order. She remembers it too well, and what she did to the men, haunting them. She wasn't ashamed. She would do it again and if she ever met them in Soul Society she would fight them, and kill or be killed.

Garuda could feel her heart beating quickly as he stroked her skin. "The bamboo shoot through your body," he says. "So they had their way with you and then let the bamboo grow through your body to kill you. I'm so sorry. While I was alive, I saw a television program that tried to disprove if such a thing is possible, yet it was, and here you are, a victim of it." He gently kisses the back of her head. "Don't worry about it, okay?" he says. "Such things will not happen here. You can rest easy. Also, it would not pain you to speak if you spoke more often, Nier." He gives her a gentle push, signalling for her to get back into the water.

"I could never imagine what it was like to die in such a brutal fashion," he says. "I was blinded and deafened by the lightning and the thunder. It must have literally been an eternity, compared to mine feeling like an eternity." Garuda watches her as she continues to bathe, making no indication to get in to the water with her. "Tell me about your sword. When I picked it up to bring it to you, it felt like the spirit bit me. There are no marks though."

Television? It was one of those things she had knowledge of, but she had heard the words a lot of times. She doesn't shy away from his touch, trusting him when he told her that she shouldn't worry about that anymore. And he was probably right about speaking, but she had spent her time in Soul Society avoiding people, and also to keep away from his fellow shinigami.

The black sword lay beside the clean clothes and Nier nearly let her eye glance over at it, the hissing voice was muttering about curious cats. When the sword appeared it had been rusted, broken and she hadn't thought more about it, it was something to defend herself with. In the beginning the changes had been so small she hadn't noticed it.

"My hand once, I kept it, the blade broken, pieces and rusted, but sharp. It changed. Is easy angered, she dislikes others touch her," Nier says as she finger combs the wet hair. "She very noisy, always talk in head, whine." She found that she remembered more words, and that the stutter disappeared. "Black sword, but moonlit, no name," Nier knew that good swords had names but she hadn't been able to name it, it had felt wrong to do so for some reason. "No suited yet, she angry for suggestions."

"Then I humbly ask permission to her that we discover her name," Garuda says, sitting next to the water. He reaches over slowly, offers a few words of apology to the female zanpakuto spirit, and slowly picks it up. He feels a distinct anger and distrust as soon as he touches it. "I brought you back to her, remember?" he says directly to the sword as he gently strokes the darkened steel. "I have no reason or wish to harm her or you. You two have a chemistry so early, that it rivals that of mine and Tatsumaki's." He begins to analyze the sword, gently feeling for marks, engravings, any indication that might reveal a name through tactile cues. He found no distinguishing marks, except for a silvery sheen whenever the sword was pointed at the moon...

"You speak to me hesitantly," he says, "just like your mistress and/or partner. Your first name is to the moon, but I will not say what it is." Garuda looks to Nier and smiles. "That is for someone much closer to you to figure out, don't you agree?" He rests the sword upon the pile of clean clothes. "Thank you for not biting this time too." He says with a grin. He then looks to Nier. "I want you to come with me to the Seireitei," he says, "to enroll in the Academy. You can spend the rest of the night to think about it, then I will either escort you personally, or I will give you some money to rent a residence for a couple months, enough time for you to find work; both involve interacting with people, but I think you are at the stage where you could try. I also want to help you to regain your speech pattern. You have been alone for so long and quiet for so much longer that it has made your vocal cords weaker."

Garuda's eyes did wander a couple of times down Nier's body, one time her eyes catch his. He blushes and bows his head. "Gomen nasai, Nier-kun," he says. "I am still a male, and the beauty of a woman's body still affects my gaze."

"She trust you, I trust you." Nier scrubbing her feet again, the voice had growled slightly, but allowed Garuda to lift her. "She not bite you again," Nier said telling him what the sword had told her, it had also given a threat if he did something they didn't like, but the dark-haired woman didn’t feel the necessity to repeat those words. She wasn't sure that it was even possible to that to a human body.

She thinks about his words about the Academy or a residence. There had been shinigami in the past that had tried to get her into the school, she had avoided them, run and simply refused to talk to them. In retrospect she had the understanding that they might have taken her anyway, but they had avoided that for some reason. But choosing between staying and going, that would be another thing, deep down she knows that if she stays she would just go back to the wandering and silence. Then again, going to the Academy, she might have to come clean about being a woman.

"Academy, Garuda-san, I hide I am woman?" She isn't willing to let go of that protection that her flatness and narrow hips gave her. "And no beauty," she said touching her face very hesitantly, she couldn't be, she was just a face among others, and not a highborn or anything of sorts. She is a farmer's daughter, who dresses like a man.

"Yes you are a beautiful woman," Garuda says, watching her closely. "It's just that you have lived as a man so long that you don't recognize it. Either that or something has made you not want to be a woman." Garuda moves closer to Nier, as close as he could, and kisses her forehead. "As for hiding your sex, there is no discrimination to gender. You will be welcomed openly." Garuda was tempted to slip in to the water with her, and he would express how beautiful she looked with his body; this would destroy the trust he worked to foster within her.

"You don't have to be royalty to look like a princess," he says with a smile. Garuda points at the water when she stops moving for a short period of time. "Look into the water with me," he says. "I know you can see my reflection. Better yet, come out of the water and look with me; you can lay on my back so you can watch my reflection at the same time. Come now, don't be shy. Your speech is getting better and better as you open up more and more." Garuda smiles at her and lays on his stomach by the edge of the water, his head and shoulders extended over the edge and towards the water.

Nier gets up from the water, pulling the towel to her body and keeping her back to Garuda as she dry herself and change into the new hakama, the woman had given her high quality clothes. She bandage her breasts down tightly and then pulls the yukata in place, tying it securely around her waist. She hadn't bought any zori or geta but she had been without shoes for so long she simply didn't want them at the moment, getting used to them would earn her blisters. The long dark hair was dried as much as she managed with the towel, and then she ties it up in her usual pony-tail, with the bang over her face, hiding her empty eye socket.

She understands that Garuda still don't realize why she is hiding her gender, not because discrimination but the circumstances of her death. And she wasn't to found of speaking, and she was sure that she wouldn't be comfortable around other people. Garuda wasn't threatening, even if he was a little too close for her comfort sometimes.

"Reasons why hide, reason not to be beauty," she said as she sat down next to him, close enough to feel the warmth from his body but not close enough to touch. "It not needed, am what I am," Nier continued letting her hand run through his red hair. It was a little coarser than her own dark hair, but she enjoyed the feel of it.

"And you are a beautiful woman," Garuda says, as she plays with his hair a bit; he didn't mind, "no matter what you were born, bred or brought up to believe. I think you're beautiful and there's no changing my mind. I think you learned that at lunch." He smiles at her, pulling the tie out of his hair to let her get to feel it more and allow him to turn his head to look at her. He gently lays his hand on her knee; his hand trembled slightly.

He looks at her bare feet; it was the first time he even noticed that she went barefoot all the time. "I think it's time that you had yourself a home, Nier," Garuda says, looking from her feet back up to her face. "I know this may seem forward, but I want you to move in to my quarters. It is a house in the Seireitei. Or, if you would prefer, I actually have a cabin a short distance from here. It's where I used to live before I was conscripted in to the Gotei 13, but I don't regret the decision they made on my behalf, which is why I'm offering the chance for you to make a living by going to and graduating from the Academy. It is free, as far as I know, and if I'm wrong, you'll get a scholarship from the 5th Division, with which you will be enlisted to join as, depending on how well you do, 3rd Seat or lower, since I am still the lieutenant... You would be working very closely to me, Nier..."

"Hard live indoor, not used to," Nier says looking away, "no home either." She hadn't had . home since the lord had burned the house, she and her father had been gone already but still, that had been home. She barely remembered how her family looked like but small things, maybe trivial to others; the sound of her mother cooking, the smell from the fields during harvest, small stuff but to her important things. She didn't think that she would count anything else like home than that small house.
As for belongings, she had never had much, she and her siblings had played in the fields, their toys had been rudely homemade, and hide and seek had been their favorite, summer as winter. Now she only owned the clothes on her body and the o-juzu bracelet, she would never claim ownership to the sword; it was a companion and defender. The voice laughed at that thought, rather wickedly.


Nier looks down at his hand, trembling as her own did, but she was unsure why he would be frightened; to her eyes he had little reason to fear her. But still there was a fear in his eyes, for her. His offer was heartfelt, and she knew that if she didn't go with him someone else would come and try to get her there, or simply force her.

"Go to Academy, learn more, be Shinigami," she decides with a nod looking at him.

There was no fear, but he swelled with great feeling for her sake. He felt moved by her. "You will not regret it," he says, one eye covered by his hair as she played with it, the same as her own; the eye that was hidden swelled with tears. "I will make sure that you adjust to life there like a hand fits in a glove. And you will be given shoes, proper shoes. You will have to get used to those. Also, if you wish, I will help you personally in finding out the name of the spirit within your zanpakuto; that is not just any sword you wield, and you know this. I will personally coach you in the jinzen form of meditation, aside going to the classes required for it, which will allow you to communicate with the spirit of your sword. I know she wishes to talk to you more closely and with more confidence.

"Also you will probably have to go through some speech classes, I'm afraid," Garuda says, reaching up to caress her cheek. "I'm sure with practice, you'll be as eloquent a speaker as I, but I want you to know that I am here for you, as long as you want me to be here for you, do you understand?" Garuda did feel a little irrational emotionally, but he was just recruiting a strong warrior to the Gotei 13.