ZOMG!! New DIGIMON SUBS!!!! (dies) Here's the dirt. New season, new settings, new digidestined and new monsters! I'll watch while I work! I haven't seen new digimon since I was 15! I feel like a kid again!
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(sweatdrop) Thank you Saeyamaru. Now on to the fanfic...
Karin was having an entirely different kind of dream. Not sensual, mysterious. She was moving through the forest, an unreal sort of light waiting for her ahead. In front of her tiger footprints stood out pristine in the new earth. The wind smelled of spring and rain and wet and she could have followed his tracks forever.
His? It could have been a girl tiger. How did she know it was a man?
But she was certain he was male, and certain he was a tiger. That much she knew. And she had to find him.
The smell of flowers drew her into the circle.
Thirteen beautiful, blooming cherry trees, riotous with color and fragrence, spilled their petals amongst wildflowers. Besides the sakura, Karin could identify 13 different blooms in the meadow, as beautiful as lilly of the valley or gentian to as scruffy but charming as yarrow or thistle. Their scents danced and mingled on the air, assaulting her senses.
She heard in the bushes, a low growl, a flash of green, glowing yellow eyes in the dark. Karin readied herself for attack.
From the bushes it leapt. A huge tiger with flashing silver claws and made of living jade. Even his fur was fine, delicate whisps of the stone, and his lithe form was incredibly powerful.
Karin held her breath, he was beautiful. "You're... so pretty... graceful... powerful..." Something stirred in her heart then, the distinct feeling that he was hers.
"If your mine that what should I call you?" She asked the creature.
He growled a response. You will know when the time is right.
"Okay jade tiger. I'll take your word for it. But when is the time right?"
Soon.
In the teenage mind that word was never, ever enough.
"Soon isn't good enough..." There was a pause anyway. "What's your name tiger? Don't you have one?"
The tiger rumbled amusedly. She knew his name.
"No I don't!" Karin protested.
Then he saw no reason to tell her. She wasn't strong enough.
Karin growled, stomping a foot at the tiger before her. "How am I supposed to know huh? You might as well be named fluffy or something! Because how am I supposed to find you again if you don't tell me who you ARE???" She demanded indignantly.
The tiger seemed to ponder this before turning to walk away.
"WAIT!!!"
He was a part of her, she would always be able to find him, as long as she remembered to keep her head high and never take the easy way out of anything. That was his gift to her.
Karin snapped awake when she heard a moan from the direction of Ichigo's room. Something more like a heavy making out in the middle of the night moan than a wet dream or nightmare moan. "Renji... please... Renji take me... fuck me... Renji!!!"
"Shhh... another time Koibito... another time... oh oh... Ichigo!" The thick baritone voice murmured.
Karin grumbled. So they weren't fucking, that she could tell. Ichigo tried to act tough, but she had always sensed a side of him that a lot of people missed, a need for affection, attention, to be comforted and held and told that everything was going to be alright, even if it wasn't. For this reason she wasn't surprised that just making out would cause him to whimper like that, he never let anybody touch him, so when somebody finally did, and in a sexual fashion no less, then he was probably going to end up screaming. What bothered her was that this was as annoying as Hell and she wanted him to stop so that she could sleep. //Maybe I'll track down that tiger...// She wondered, and immediately dismissed that notion. She'd been dreaming. She started whacking the wall.
No response, the noise from the two making out lovebirds kept going. "Idiots." Karin muttered. "Well... I have to get ready for school in 4 hours anyway. I might as well get up." She stood, dressing and packing her school bag, leaning it against the wall nearby.
She slipped down the stairs, past her father on the couch. Creeek, open the door, creeeek close the door.
Isshin snorted in his sleep and cracked an eye open. Ichigo had been sneaking out a lot lately, but Karin? Yes, that was her riatsu retreating into the night. He never told any of his children exactly how he was able to find them no matter where they ran away to.
Karin pelted off into the night. She let her legs take her to the park, where the smells of earth and grass could fill her nostrals and clear her head.
The woman was standing near the river, black uniform open to show her rather heavy chest. Her golden honey hair hung in rivulets down her shoulders and her eyes looked as brightly blue as a summer day. The moonlight shimmered over her form, making it appear soft, fuzzy.
Karin was no fool. The past several months she'd noticed spirits with those exact same black and white uniforms running around. She'd even seen Ichigo wearing one. She meant business, whatever she was doing here.
Still, she decided to remain silent, peering out over the water to try and see what she is.
Rangiku's eyes flicked infinitesimally to Karin, testing her riatsu, young, stong and healthy. There was a tinge to it, a familiar sort of tinge that she couldn't place. But she was far too strong to be an ordinary teenager. And strong enough that she might be seen.
Then the girl spoke up. "Don't bother hiding spirit. I know you're there. Looks like two of us came to watch the moon tonight." She sighs.
Rangiku muffled a curse. Darn. "I shouldn't dawdle. I was sent here for a reason. And that reason is on its way."
"Its one of the masked monsters isn't it?" Karin asked gravely.
"Hai, but I'll get him. Glacier Fang was an animal, a wolf, he was eaten by another one of those..." Rangiku deliberately substituted "Hollow" for "monsters" "Monsters. And that turned him into one."
"That makes no sense, but I'll take your word for it." Karin replied. "How dangerous?"
"Just your standard for his type, the problem is that he's very old and thus very smart. He's evaded capture all this time. Komamura wanted him, but I said no. I could handle him."
Karin had no idea who she was talking about, but she took the woman's word for it. "So... you spirits in the black and white robes. Its your job to take care of the monsters right?"
"That's right." Rangiku confirmed. She studied the youngster carefully. She learned fast. She must be cautious.
"I've seen some of you wandering around." Karin explained. "You go haring off after them every time one appears."
Rangiku decided she must at least be polite. "Your name child?"
"Kurosaki Karin." Karin stated.
Rangiku blinked and turned to pin the girl with a simple gaze. This was one of the sisters that Ichigo spoke of? No wonder. But Ichigo had gotten his powers from Rukia. She would not make the same mistake.
"Matsumoto Rangiku" Rangiku stated as she turned to walk over. "This area is dangerous. One of those monsters is loose."
"They're loose every..." Rustle, rustle... Glacial Fang stepped delicately from the bushes. He let out a howl, snow glistening in his fur as the ground froze in his wake. Then... TEW! He shot forwards, aiming not for Rangiku, but for Karin.
Rangiku had made a fatal mistake. She'd put herself forward as bait, using her riatsu to lure the hollow in. But Glacial Fang was /not/ human in life, he was an animal. Animals, especially predatory ones, tended to go for the weaker prey when hunting. If Karin hadn't shown up then that would have been Rangiku, but Karin was smaller, slighter, a better target.
Rangiku moved to intercept far too late. Glacial Fang's jaws snapped down on Karin's shoulder. She screamed, dropping from her body and rolling. And she lay there...
Glacial Fang dropped Karin's body, spirit no longer there, and turned his eyes on the prone form beyond. Rangiku let out a shriek of outrage. "Hey!!! I'm the one you're supposed to go for you know!" She growled. "What am I? Chopped liver??" She demanded as she shoved her blade into his mask, right between the eyes.
The hollow toppled and Rangiku purified it as fast as she could before rushing to where Karin lay on the ground. She hadn't heard the clink of a soul chain when the Kurosaki girl had landed, and that could only mean one thing. Karin had been killed by the Hollow's bite.
But it was not a downed plus with a snapped chain that greeted the woman's eyes. Karin was dressed in the same black robes, albeit smaller, that a Shinigami wore, and a huge jungle cutlass, the blade ornately carved into elegant curves and designs, hung from her right hip. She was still unconscious.
//shit.// Rangiku stated guiltily. //Ichigo's going to kill me.// She scooped Karin up in her arms. //Sorry little one⦠I'm going to have to put you back in your body for now.// And she carefully slipped Karin back into her human form, then used what little healing magic she had to seal the wounds so they wouldn't bleed anymore. She then masked her riatsu as much as she could, and set Karin down on the bed in the Kurosaki Clinic.
Her father could check on her in the morning.
