Disclaimer: If I owned Bleach, would I be writing this?
A/N: I wanted to include this for the first chapter, but, to put it simply, the iPod Touch may be a wonderful, amazing device... but it's also evil. Very, very evil. It kept exiting out of the internet for some reason, and forcing me to reload everything. After an hour, I lost patience and posted it as it was, without even a disclaimer. I'll get around to editing it eventually, though.
The funny thing is, I wasn't even planning on posting this until Tanabata, originally. But I've got no patience, and I really really wanted to have this caught up by the time I went on my other trip (when I posted this, I was out of the country, which is why I was stuck using my iPod Touch). I'll just have to try and post a really good chapter on Tanabata, I guess. :)
Alright, then, onto the important stuff! First of all, as it says in this story's summary, this has also been posted on livejournal. So, if you want to read ahead, feel free to check it out (my username there is Kitsuru as well). This version will catch up eventually, but I'm only posting one chapter here a week until it does. Although if you happen to read it on lj, would you mind still reviewing here?
What's that you said? A shameless review hunter, me? Whatever gave you that idea?
Thanks for reviewing, for everyone who did! I was really surprised at how quickly and how many responses came in. And for those who didn't, thanks for reading anyways, and I hope that you liked it.
The chapters I post here, with the exception of the first one (I'll get around to it sooner or later, I promise!) and the ones I post after this version catches up to the original (I'll do them too, but most likely not until I actually finish this story) will be edited slightly. Not much, for the most part I'll just be getting rid of any grammer errors and such that I notice that I didn't fix last time I posted this.
If you see any errors that I missed, please tell me. I always try to check over what I write, but it's not my strong suit.
Geeze, this is a long author's note. Sorry about that, I'll try to keep it shorter next time.
"…"
"…"
"…"
"…Kurosaki-kun?" Orihime finally called out, after nearly ten minutes of silence. "Did you lose your tongue again?"
Even if he hadn't been trying to figure out how crazy she was—or possibly how crazy he was—Ichigo would have had trouble coming up with an answer to the strange girls' question. But, under the circumstances, he articulated admirably. "Er…"
"Oh, good, you still have it!" She sounded relieved. "At least, I think you do… don't you? You can't say 'er' without a tongue, right? Er…eh… ah… it doesn't seem like you can, so I guess your tongue didn't vanish after all! Or did it disappear and then get brought back by the taste-bud elves? Yachiru-neechan told me about them!"
"Um…" It was becoming increasingly clear exactly who the crazy person was, out of the two of them. Or at the least the gullible one.
"Yachiru-neechan said that the taste-bud elves and the flavor fairies work together to make the earth a yummier place! Isn't that amazing, Kurosaki-kun?"
The very, very gullible one.
"Uh, yeah, right." Ichigo said hastily. "So… um… if you live up in Heaven, what are you doing here?"
If he found out what she was doing here, then he might find out where she was really from. And if he found out where she was really from, he reasoned, then he could get her back to her sisters. They were probably worried about her—he would have been, in their shoes.
"Taking a bath."
"You already said that." He reminded her, repressing the urge to sigh in exasperation. "What I meant was, what are you doing here? You're obviously not bathing anymore."
"Oh, I forgot!" Orihime cried. She leapt out from behind her tree, causing Ichigo to let out a loud yelp and re-cover his eyes. She blinked at him for a moment before remembering why he was so reluctant to look at her, which led to her squeaking and jumping back behind her hiding spot. "Sorry, Kurosaki-kun, I forgot about that too!"
"It's… it's alright." He managed to stammer. Forget worried, her family had probably suffered multiple heart attacks by now. "Just answer the question, okay? Please?"
"Well, you see…" She sounded embarrassed, and he could practically see her blushing all the way down to her—GAAH! MUST COVER MENTAL EYES, MUST COVER MENTAL EYES DAMNIT! "…My sisters sent me to get our clothes."
Clothes. Clothes. He sent fervent thanks to every deity that he had ever heard off—and some that he hadn't, but they had to exist somewhere, right?—promising to give them a mountain of offerings the next chance he had. "Where are they?"
"Er…" Rather than embarrassed, her voice had become somewhat nervous. A hand tentatively extended out from behind the tree to point. "I think that they're being eaten by your cow."
Three long seconds passed in silence as Ichigo turned to stare at the contentedly munching bovine. Then, the orange-haired teen let out a low growl. "Kon…"
The bull looked over at them; the tattered remains of what had once been an elegant robe hanging from his mouth. He tilted his head, and the cowherd could have sworn that he heard a falsely innocent voice, slightly muffled by the cloth, ask "Who, me?"
No offerings for the gods and goddesses, Ichigo decided. But on the other hand, the Kurosaki family would be having steak in the very near future.
Kon took one look at his face and bolted.
Had it been any other time, the herder would have been impressed by the animals' speed, if not his survival instinct. However, he still had the clothes in his mouth, so Ichigo wasn't inclined to feel anything other than pure, unadulterated fury towards the most annoying member of his herd.
It didn't help that this wasn't the first time that Kon had stolen a woman's clothing. Unfortunately for the bull, Ichigo was going to make sure it would be his last.
--
In the end, he wasn't able to procure steak for his family's dinner. In fact, he never even caught up to Kon—the cow must have been part horse, with how fast he ran. But he did manage to get the clothes back. They were ripped, drenched in saliva, and full of holes—but at least he got them back.
That was the important thing, he tried to reassure himself, resolving not to think about what had happened when Kon had gone after Tatsuki's brand new, very expensive kimono.
However, despite the fact that the odd brunette girl seemed much less violent than his childhood friend, the cowherd couldn't help but feel as if he were walking towards certain DOOM. Just because a girl acted harmless didn't mean that she wasn't capable of tearing an innocent bystander like himself limb from limb—even his little sister Yuzu had a breaking point where she grabbed the nearest cooking utensil and ran after the nearest living creature, her eyes glowing red with insane bloodlust. It had only happened once, but the mere memory was enough to make him shudder even now, five years later.
"Kurosaki-kun?" Orihime's voice shook him out of his reverie. He quickly recovered his eyes using his free hand. "Are you alright? You're shivering."
"I'm fine." Ichigo answered. "Just a bit cold, that's all."
"But it's really hot out." She reminded him. "Are you sure that it's not because of the ice dwarves? What if they're working together with the wind witches to give everyone colds and take over the world when everyone's sneezing and stuck in bed?"
He blinked. "Did your sisters tell you that?"
"No." She said proudly. "I figured it out on my own! It makes sense, since—"
"I got your clothes back." He cut in hastily, holding them up. "They're … well, they're not in great shape."
That wasn't the biggest understatement of the millennium. After all, there had to be at least one that was bigger…right? RIGHT?!
"Oh, that's okay!" He gaped. A girl who didn't want to kill him for ruining—even though it wasn't really his fault—her clothes? Could it be possible? "I'm good at sewing, so I can fix them!"
"Er…" He uncovered his eyes slightly so that he could glance down at the still-dripping rags in his hand. Obviously, she couldn't see just how bad the damage was. "If you say so."
He re-covered his eyes and turned towards the girl, holding out what was left of her clothing. "Here."
"…Um, Kurosaki-kun?" After a few moments, Orihime spoke gently… from behind him. "You're talking to a tree."
Ichigo hastily turned around. Or tried to, to be specific. He ended up hitting his head on the aforementioned flora.
"Kurosaki-kun!" The only thing that stopped him from using every swear word he knew was the thought of having to explain what they meant to Orihime, who had probably never heard them before. "Are you okay? Did a fuschia forest fairy push you?"
"Um… yeah." He answered, longing to rub the new bump on his head but lacking a free hand to do so with. "Let's go with that."
The orange-haired teen adjusted his course slightly and took a step forward… only to once again find himself having and up close and personal encounter with a tree. A different tree, this time, but a tree all the same.
This time, he did start cursing.
"That's amazing!" Orihime squealed, and Ichigo paled. "I didn't know you could speak Engrish! But I think you mispronounced chickens."
"I wasn't…" He began, and then paused as his common sense managed to kick his mind out of the comatose state that it had been put in by his last head injury. "You know what? Nevermind. Just—here."
The cowherd took a step towards where he had heard the girls' voice coming from, this time waving the hand holding the remains of the robe in front of him to keep from running into anything else. It had sounded like she wasn't too far off—six feet, he reasoned, maybe even ten.
Unfortunately, he soon learned that his calculations were off. By a lot.
He had only taken two steps when he bumped into something warm, soft, and slightly damp. Something that his hand had apparently missed. Something that squeaked and fell backwards when he hit it, taking him along with it. Something with two very large, very soft, and somewhat pillow-like bumps that his head landed on when they hit the ground.
Well, at least it can't get any worse. A voice in the back of Ichigo's head commented.
He would forever blame that voice for everything that went wrong in the universe.
Why, do you ask?
Because the second it finished that cursed sentence, something cold and sharp poked the back of the herder's neck. Between that and the lack of available air where his head was currently located, Ichigo realized that he was probably going to die very soon.
"Just what do you think you're doing to our sister?" A feminine voice hissed in his ear.
Two words ran through the orange-haired teen's oxygen-deprived brain. Oh, crap.
