Continuing on her not-so merry way, former vice-captain of the 5th squad, Hinamori Momo, looks up. This would not have been so odd of an occurrence had she not died exactly one week ago, with the end of the Winter War.

She had died by the blade of her former captain, Aizen Sosuke, a currently hunted deserter of Soul Society.

Momo's funeral had already been held. After all, she was one of, miraculously, only two deaths for their side. The other had been that of Kurosaki Ichigo, a high level substitute shinigami, who had died in the same way.

For some reason, though, she is not gone to the next world. She is still in Soul Society, wearing her shihakushou & lieutenants armband. Even has her zanpakutou, Tobiume. Not a single living being knows that she is here, though. No one can even sense her presence! It is cutting her to the core, because of the loneliness. Do you know how it feels to watch all your friends (and love) mourn you, and you can't comfort them? No. You don't. Momo does. And she hates it.

Not one to be held back, even if she was feeling incredibly sad, Momo already did someone experimenting. Through her observations, that Nemu would be proud of, she thought, Momo had come to determine about two things. No one could see her, which she already knew, so moving on, she was able to affect inanimate objects, but no 'living' person would see said object any differently.

Forlorn mental rambling done, a bit of a shocked look crossed over Momo's face as she looked up. She was right in front of the the division she had just made the actual conscious decision to come here, as had happened a lot recently. Apparently her feet beat her to it though. So, on a childish urge so much like her old self, she stuck her tongue out at them.

'Why not? No one can see me'. Which for the first, and maybe last time, seemed like a good thing.

The 10th division office loomed in front of her. Not the first time she had found herself here, but she never went farther than this. Without stopping to wonder why, she opened the door. Of course, the inhabitant didn't notice, so when Momo poked her head in, nothing happened. Except Momo almost fell off her feet. What caused this event to happen? An earth-shattering one. Instead of the usual snowy head poking out from behind mountains of paperwork, it was a certain strawberry orange one. An occurrence that, well, most people have never seen. Not even when she was still 'alive'. It definitely warranted investigation. Momo stepped inside the door, determined. If she knew her childhood friend- and her busty one- at all, she knew that this would not happen if everything was alright.

It took her a couple minutes of searching, but finally she found what she was looking for. Shiro-chan, in her head, or Captain Hitsugaya Toshiro, (a child prodigy of the sort that comes aloung only once in a couple centuries). He was a little bit younger than her. And still just a little bit shorter. But most importantly her clichéd childhood-friend-turned-secret-love. And consequently the hardest person to have ignore (or just not see) you.

Relieved to have found his hiding spot, and more than a little bit puzzled, Momo walked into he room he was in. It was a cozy little bedroom in the back part of the division, probably a spare. She was almost instantly worried. All the blinds were drawn, lights were off, everything. It was completely dark, very cold, and he was just sitting there staring at a wall. There was no trace of expression on his face, none of that usual frown that she had come to enjoy so much.

She frowned, as if to make up for lack of his. 'Why is he like this?' The cold she could understand, but dark was never something that suited him.

The answer to her thoughts came from him. It was like he was reading her mind! Only not.

"Momo..."

It was so quiet that Momo almost didn't hear, but after recovering from the initial shock, tears started rolling down her face. She couldn't believe him. She loved him, but what were the chances he loved her back? She still didn't know. Either way, she wanted to be with him, as friends or other, it didn't matter! She found herself beside him, arms wrapped around his thin but muscular frame, sobbing into his shoulder. When the reaction of absolutely nothing came, as she knew that it would, she started sobbing harder.

A couple minutes passed, neither of them doing anything, save for Momo's crying, before she got up, and ran out of the room. Flash stepping past Rangiku and her paperwork, past her former division, past everything until she reached open air and fields, then even farther, until she found the place she spent so much of her early years in Soul Society. In the Rukongai, to her Grandmothers' house, up onto the roof. She did not want to see yet another person who affected so much of her life, but not have them see her. Standing stock still for a second, then flop down onto the roof and curl up into a ball, only to start sobbing again.


Hours have passed.

Finally calming down enough to come out of her ball, Momo looked down at the tear-stained roof, and her drenched shihakushou. Still sniveling, she sat up and looked around, before noticing that it was sunset. 'Oh', was all she thought as she slowly came out of her haze of misery. There being nothing else to do, she just sat there, thinking, until, with a shake of her head, she decided that not thinking was best. She could already feel tears starting again.

Looking out over the horizon, she determined that it was a very beautiful sunset, but looking at it meant not moving, and not moving was not a good thing. Momo could feel a monster filled with stress and angst welling up inside her, but not sadness. That was currently used up.

The only thing she could think of to get rid of the growling beast inside her was to attack something. Her gaze fixed on an innocent tree across the clearing from her. She smirked in a very un-Momo like way, then slid off of her safe little wood roof and ran at full tilt at the target. Her hand automatically reached down to grip the reassuring shaped of Tobiume's hilt. She approached the target, made to draw her weapon, the tree could almost feel itself hurting...

But she stopped. Tobiume wouldn't come. As a shinigami of vice-captain level abilities, drawing her sword should be instinct. But it wasn't happening. A frown was working onto her face as she reflected that, apparently, her experimenting was lacking, since her sword was sealed and she hadn't known.

The monster was back. With a vengeance. So instead she hit the stupid tree with Shakkahou. Apparently she still had some form of reiatsu.

Suddenly exhausted, and so very disappointed & confused, Momo alighted back onto the roof. The safe one. She again collapsed, but wasn't so weak as to start uncontrollably weeping again. Instead, she looked out past the quaint fence surrounding her old home, into the Rukongai, with it's bustling twilight rush. She just sat there people watching, more at peace with the days discoveries than since she died.

Then something caught her eye. It was simply a human head, like all the others but the hair colour was so familiar, and so unusual...

Until it clicked. If she was in a state of, shall we call it, in-between, why wouldn't another who had died the exact same way be? Namely, one Kurosaki Ichigo, possessing the bright, carrot orange hair that she was now seeing.

She soon caught up to it, as it wasn't going any faster than a normal person running. But it was indeed Ichigo. He had longer legs than her, but she could flash step up to him, and she did, but he didn't notice her. He was too focused on something she didn't know. So she stopped, and went to Plan B, which was to yell in her absolute loudest voice (which admittedly wasn't all that loud, but still),

"Ichigo!" And, just to make sure, "Strawberry!"

It worked. He stopped and turned around, the first person to respond to her since she woke up after that horrid day.

"Who can see me?"

A/N: I have finally come back! I decided to edit this chapter before working on the new one, and I made some significant changes to the writing, because I was reading it, and it was so bad! So I tried to make it a little better, flow nicer, so, please tell me what you think. How I did. The next chapter should be coming out soon. Review!