Preside [A Bleach FanFiction]

01

Two years and seven months earlier...

The wind clashed my face, gently caressing it and moving my hair towards a side and in front of my face. I was in my way back home from recollecting some herbs. I turned to my street and then I felt something pushed me to the floor and heard a laugh. I looked around but nobody was there, I was alone.

This happens a lot, I would feel something touch me or push me but nothing was there.

I stood up and continued my way and went home. I live in Hokutan in the Rukongai district in the Soul Society. I live with my mother and aunt in a small pharmacy, where we treat people with only herbal medicines.

I opened the door, "Oka-san, Aunt Hana, I am back," I said as I changed my shoes in the entrance.

"Akemi, you are back, please come and help us here," I heard my mom saying from inside. I went to the room her voice came from and saw her with a patient who seem to have really bad stomachache. I gave the bag I brough to my mother and with a bow I greeted the patient. "Thank you, you got just what I needed."

I smiled, "Mom, where is Aunt Hana?" I asked.

"Oh, how you weren't here, she had to do the delivery herself," my mom, Asami Saito, answered. In our small pharmacy, we also do deliveries everywhere in Hokutan. I am the one in charge of those deliveries. "Akemi, can you please pass me Lemon Blam from the kitchen, is the one I have in water."

"Yes mom," I said in my direction but stopped and went back, "do you have Marigold?" I asked.

My mother laughed, "Have you been studying lately?" she said proudly. 

I nodded and went to grab the Lemon Blam and wash it and brought it to my mother who mixed it with some other herbs and oils, as well as water. The patient tried it and I help her prepare the bottle in which the patient will take some medicine back home.

"Okay, Takeho-san, take this after lunch and dinner for the following two days and if the pain continues, come back and we will use see what we can do and also avoid eating anything fried," my mother said and the patient of the name of Takeho thanked her and left.

My mother and me took the dishes and materials my mother used and wash it.

When we finished, "What was his problem?" I asked.

"Nothing serious, just a really bad indigestion from something he ate the other day," she answered. "And you? How did you knew that to suggest the Marigold?"

I remembered what I studied last night and said, "Well, you had lemon to a side as well as peppermint and you asked for Lemon Blam, what else than a digestive problem," I said.

My mother laughed and sat next to me in the dinning table, "You are surely a fast learner, Akemi, want me to teach about more about the mint relatives once your aunt is back?" she proposed and I nodded excited.

My family has always own this pharmacy since I have memory, I grew up between the smell of plants and flowers, seeing my aunt and mother mixing them every day and as I was getting older, I really got interested in the practice and began learning in my own secretly and then when things got confusing for me was when I asked for help. To today, I really know really well the anatomy of the body but I still struggle with the medicine for blood and respiratory issues. I try to study late at night while during the day I use my visual skill and try to learn everythig I can by helping my mother and aunt.

I really got excited and happy when my aunt and mom find time to personally teach me things, sometimes they even trust me some patients with simple problems like headache or a small bruise.

"Asami, I am home," my aunt said and my mother stood up and I followed her.

***

The night time in Hokutan tend to be clam, nothing much goes on. A few people leave their houses at night. But this night, something that doesn't happen often but that is becoming more usual with the months.

The alarms were ringing this night. The meaning of it:

A hollow attack.

"Akemi! Akemi!" I heard my mother scream calling me, I ran downstairs from my room and she grabbed me and took me to our basement of our house to keep ourselves safe.

Nothing was said between us, the only thing that was heard was our breathing and the alarm from outside. After a while, the alarm went off which meant that the shinigamis already got rid of the hollows and is safe for all of us to leave our houses.

We climed the stairs towards the kitchen in which my aut served us some tea to calm us all down.

"Why are there a lot of hollows coming this way this days?" my aunt asked.

"It used to Junrinan and now the only thing they attack is here in Hokutan, why?" my mother said. "What do you think Akemi?" my mother asked me noticing I was starting to get nervous.

I looked up from my cup to meet my aunt's and mother's eyes on me, waiting for my answer, "Maybe they got lost and they were actually going to Junrinan," I lied. Something to get clear, I was never good at lying and never in my life one of my lie had been sucessful, so there is no way this one was going to be.

My mother sighed, "Akemi, did it occurred again?" I nodded, "When?"

"This morning, coming back home," I said.

My mother stood up, "Why didn't you told me?" she said.

"Well, you were busy with a patient and with the Marigold you felt so proud of me that I didn't wanted to worry you," I said.

"Akemi, you should had told me no matter what," she said, "promise me that the next time you will inform me immediately."

I nodded.

***

At the Sereitei...

"The hollows were successfully eliminated from Hokutan, General Captain," the 13th Division's captain, Jūshirō Ukitake, informed.

"Again in Hokutan?" Yamamoto asked.

"Yes, the last seven attacks have been in the same place," Ukitake recalled.

"There must be something in there that attract them to that zone, Hokutan has a good and long report of attacks but seven consecutive attacks, that's weird," the General Captain pointed out.

Ukitake proposed, "So you want a reseach to be done on the zone?"

The General Captain thought about it and said, "Better be safe than sorry, Captain Jūshirō Ukitake, I give the mission to the 10th Division along the 8th Division to research the zone of Hokutan."