Prologue
It was a skydiving accident that started it off. Mari's parachute didn't open and she landed on her friend, Hisoka. Hisoka was pronounced dead at the scene and Mari was taken to hospital for observation. While in the hospital, the nurses tried to give Mari a sedative and unfortunately she had Aichmophobia otherwise known as the fear of needles. The nurse trying to inject her with the sedative accidently gave her three times the safe dosage. Mari was now permanently sedated and finally quiet.
Mari and Hisoka had a double funeral (cheaper on the parents). Yasu, who was a diabetic had forgotten to eat and got "low" subsequently tripping over the edge of the grave and broke her neck on Mari's coffin. The families of all involved decide to leave her with her friends and just added an extra prayer to the service.
The grave diggers and the hearse driver had a good laugh at the back of the funeral about the odd circumstances. Never had there been such a strange funeral.
The last of the four friends, Sora was distraught and ran from the grave. Without looking, she ran across the road- she couldn't see through her tears anyway. The hearse driver was talking on his mobile to his boss and speeding as he hit Sora.
She did an Olympic gold medal winning triple back flip over the bonnet of the hearse and landed on top of Yasu. The grave diggers didn't notice the extra body and filled in the grave. They did notice the extra dirt though.
All four friends appeared as ghosts beside the single grave.
"Well that was a waste of time." grumbled Sora
"Completely useless." Yasu replied
"What's next?" asked Hisoka
"Skydiving!" Mari shouted excitedly.
"No!"
Byakuya Kuchiki had watched the strange funereal play out. After hearing that two close friends had died in quick succession, he'd suspected a hollow attack. But when he got to the funeral he had noticed that the souls of the two who had died were there and one had even lunged to save her friend, only to trip on a gravestone. Byakuya snorted and walked off. This was a waste of his time, he'd get back to those two later. He'd gotten a call for a hollow earlier anyway.
When he got back, he found that one of the souls that had originally been there had disappeared and two more had taken its place. He scowled slightly; he just knew that this was going to be a pain. All three of the souls seemed to be looking up and he heard something.
"Yeaaaaaaaaaah!"
Before being flattened by the missing soul.
"Nyaaah, sorry!" she said scrambling off him. "I didn't see you!"
"Mari, you idiot!" grumbled Sora as Hisoka rushed over to help Byakuya up.
"Sorry about that Mari's a bit of an idiot." Said Hisoka, surprised when Byakuya pushed away her hand and stood up by himself. Surveying the scene with the cool, calculating eyes that had nominated him for the recent captaincy. In fact, this was his last day as a seated officer.
One of the souls had ignored the whole exchange, as if it was something she had seen too many times before.
"Come here. I'll send you all to the soul society."
"What's soul society?" asked Mari
"The place where you go after this."
"Will we be together?"
"Unlikely."
"Not going." Mari said
"Yes you are."
"No. Not going."
"Yes."
"No."
"Then you will be eaten. Painfully."
Everyone stared at Byakuya.
"Then how will we find each other?" asked Yasu incredulously, clamping a hand over Mari's mouth and yanking her hand away when Mari licked it. "Mari you baka!"
Byakuya watched as the pair dissolved into a light argument and felt an anger tick start up. "If it's that bad, go join the soul reaper academy!" he yelled
All four of the souls stopped and stared at him. For a moment they looked at each other then back to Byakuya and nodded.
"O.k." said Sora
A light blue cloudless sky shone down at her, warming the hard packed ground. Mari raised a hand to shadow her eyes from the glare.
Where am I? She wondered, sitting up...the soul society. "Now how did I know that?"
Looking around, she saw a row of buildings in the distance and another person looking around nearby.
Yasu stood and stared at the buildings in the distance. She wasn't quite sure how long she'd been here so she began to walk towards them.
"Wait."
She heard a voice call to her. Turning around, she saw a teen girl sitting on the ground. The brown hair and goofy expression on her face seemed familiar.
"Do I know you?" asked Yasu
The teen stood and scratched her head. "Um... I don't know. Maybe. I'm Mari, nice to meet you."
"Yasu." She frowned. "And I think I do." There was something else in the back of her mind, not quite able to be reached.
The pair of them headed off, leaving nothing but a whisper in the wind to welcome them into the soul society.
Hisoka and Sora examined the flier for a part time job. They'd been in the soul society for four days and between them had only eaten two apples and a bun.
"Only one of us can have this job you know..." said Sora as she stared at the flier
Hisoka nodded "if we both go for it we'll have more chance of getting it."
A commotion from down the street alerted them to a thief running from a store keeper. Something made both Hisoka and Sora turn, time slowing down as the brown haired energetic girl raced past, laughing.
"Mari..." whispered Sora, a slight frown on her face as if she was trying to remember something that she had forgotten.
Hisoka turned to Sora, "pardon?"
"Huh, nothing. Let's look at that job." They moved off, leaving an empty street of memories behind.
Yasu and Mari sat on a rooftop sharing the stolen loaf of bread.
"You know... The 'you distract him; I grab the stuff' routine works quite well." Mari said airily
Yasu nodded. Over the last few days she had learnt that if there was something in Mari's mind, she would say it. She was all grins and fantastical imaginings, the only time to worry was when she was quiet. "Who were the people you passed?"
"I don't know. I think I knew them." the grin on Mari's face faded slightly until she spotted something down below. "Look! Its one of those soul reaper peoples!"
Yasu followed Mari's gaze. "What are you thinking?" watching as Mari swished something around in her mouth. A quick fake innocent look was all Yasu got to confirm her fears before Mari let an enormous spit ball drop from her mouth to fall on the soul reaper's head.
Aizen was enjoying a peaceful stroll through the Rukongai when it began to rain. Two drops, to be exact. He looked up to find two faces staring down at him, one mischievous and one horrified. He glared up at the two souls before leaping up after them and giving chase.
"Mari!" Yasu growled "how could you?"
Mari just shot her a 'deep trouble's coming' look as the soul reaper jumped up at them before the two teenage souls raced across rooftops to escape.
"Sorry!" Mari shouted back at the irate captain. "I meant for the spit balls to land beside you mister soul reaper sir!"
"Mari you idiot!" Yasu groaned as they struggled to run across the rooftops, not noticing that there was a gap between houses coming up. They fell into the alley way, Yasu landing on her feet and Mari in a rain barrel, soaking the two people who had been about to get a drink.
Hisoka and Sora stared at the two souls who had fallen from the sky. Too shocked to be mad at their wet state, they watched as the strangers quickly scuttled into the shadows just before a soul reaper captain appeared staring down into the alleyway for a moment before disappearing. After waiting a moment, the soaked soul asked,
"Is the scary soul reaper gone yet?"
Hisoka nodded and the pair crept out of the shadows.
"Mari you baka! Don't ever do anything like that again!" Yasu growled before jabbing her completely soaked friend in several pressure points, causing intense pain. After Yasu had finished her attack Mari sat down and began wringing water out of her clothing.
"I'm Mari. And this is Yasu, we're friends." She before shaking her head to get excess water out of it, causing Yasu to jump back in distaste and surprise.
Hisoka stepped forward and crouched down in front Mari, staring at her. "Hey Sora come here for a moment?"
"What is it?" she stepped forward and confirmed Hisoka's suspicions
"You look the same."
"No we don't!" two voices exclaimed at once.
"Yasu, she copied me..." Mari wined.
"My name's Hisoka. Nice to meet you. And this is Sora"
Yasu saw the vacant grin appear on Mari's face and before she could stop her Mari reached into her shirt and pulled out a soggy lump of... something.
"Awwwww."
"Um, what... is that?" asked Sora dubiously
Yasu scowled before clipping Mari over the ear. "It was dinner, bread."
"Sorry, I didn't mean to land in the rain barrel."
Mari stood up and tried to be sneaky about comparing heights with Sora but failing.
"What's she doing?" asked Sora
"She's comparing heights." Growled Yasu. "C'mon Mari we've got to find some dinner."
Mari nodded and followed Yasu, casting a look back at the two people they had only just found "but can't we take them with us?"
Yasu looked over to where the other two spirits stood. Opening her mouth to say no, something stopped her. "Only if they want to."
Hisoka and Sora looked at each other. "May as well." Replied Hisoka.
Some months later the foursome found themselves at the entrance to the soul reaper academy. Heading inside for the entrance exam, Mari was almost literally bouncing with excitement.
"Calm down Mari!" growled both Yasu and Sora
Hisoka smiled and walked over to where a soul reaper was listing the entrants down on a piece of paper.
"Names?" he asked
"Hisoka, Sora, Mari and Yasu."
"That's you and your friends?" he asked
"Yes."
"Good. Get in."
Hisoka waved over her friends, stopping their argument in its tracks. "Come on you guys. Its time to go."
A/N here are the meaning of the names. I did this story for my friends and the characters have names like their natures... I hope I got them right.
YASU (ヤス): Japanese name meaning "assertive child."
SORA (空): Japanese unisex name meaning "sky."
HISOKA (密): Japanese unisex name meaning "reserved."
MARI: Japanese form of English Mary, meaning "obstinacy, rebelliousness" or "their rebellion." Compare with another form of Mari.