"I wonder what it's like, to be forgotten."

The memorial had stood for as long as Rukia could remember--for as long as any soul could remember. Hundreds of names marred the marble obelisk. No one knew why the Spirit King had ordered the monument's destruction or even why it had touched off such an explosive reaction in their own hearts.

Rukia frowned. Why had the Spirit King wanted it destroyed so desperatly?

"Damn you!"

An entity that could obliterate the entire existance of every single soul on this earth could have easily erased its presense without anyone the wiser.

"No one's going to forget, do you hear me?"

The Spirit King had, afer all, removed the evidence of an entire war, of an entire world of masked monsters that once haunted the living and unliving realms, of the brave shinigami who have taken the plunge and faught against the Deciever. The present day "shinigami"--as the Rebellion had taken to calling themselves--only knew of the Arrancar War because of the interrogation records of the Royal Guard and this marble monument that honored the dead.

"You can't say that."

Somedays, Rukia wondered what it must have been like to fight monsters wearing human skin. Terrifying, surely, but...Better to fight monsters--real, live actual monsters--than to fight people who didn't know any better, who thought they were doing the right thing by elminating over a hundred souls to perserve the secrecy of war that should never have happened. It took courage to fight monsters, but it took so much more to fight real, live people.

"I swear it!"

Somedays, Rukia wondered why no one else wanted to know more about the Arrancar war. No, why no one else needed to know like she did. There were those who were curious, after all--like Ise-san and Urahara-taichou--but they didn't care the way Rukia did.

Because Rukia knew she was forgetting something important, a part of her very being. And somedays, she couldn't help but to wonder if it lay embedded in this marble stone.

"Please, don't make this any harder, Rukia."

"Rukia, you're down here again?"

Rukia sighed, tearing her eyes away from the memorial. "Renji." She loved Renji, she did, but...

"Everyone's worried about you, you know." He frowned. "I know fighting that Kuchiki guy shook you up something terrible, but it's no reason to be hanging around ghosts."

"It isn't that, Renji." She looked back at the memorial. "It's just, sometimes, I wonder what it must be like to be forgotten so completely that you don't exist beyond a name on a polished rock."

"You shouldn't worry yourself so much. I mean, seriously, would you be friends with a guy named 'strawberry'?"

Rukia hid a smile. "It is an odd name, isn't it? He must have been teased something horrible."

And somewhere, the ghost of a memory smiled.