Her eyes were blurring, failing to focus in on the problematic monster in front of her. She had been wandering through the park when it appeared, well past three in the morning and well after the previous verbal beating she had taken from her mom. Kasumi saw the monster just before he tackled into her, making her roll far, far away from where she stood. "Ahahaha!" The maniacal laugh set her nerves on edge. Or at least more on edge than she already was. "Look at what we have here. A soul hidden away in a gigai? But not a Shinigami? How terrible those Shinigami must be getting if they offered the soul of a girl to draw a Hollow like me out!"
Those thunderstorm colored eyes widened in absolute fear, not at the monster but at the body lying several feet away. She felt her chest for the chain, but she came up with nothing. The Hollow laughed again, but she saw something absolutely strange about her body. It was there, yes. It was pale, yes. If she touched it, she'd wager it was cold. But it wasn't exactly... motionless.
Takahashi Kasumi's body was still breathing.
By the time school rolled around, Kasumi was more than ready to get back to her life of moving around all the time. She despised being in one spot, but every time she started to pack up, she remembered Ichigo and had to stay. Even if it was possible she was putting him in more danger, she had to stay instead of run away like she had the first time. It turned out she had hardly been responsible for the presence of so many Hollows because it was Ichigo's uncontrollable reiatsu that had done it all by itself. Kasumi was not going to leave Ichigo to such a fate.
She was sitting in the desk, a pair of neutral toned leggings underneath her uniform skirt, and flipping the page in one of the textbooks. For the most part, Kasumi had learned what she needed to know by teaching herself due to her constant jumping in curriculum, and the habit was sticking with her even in Karakura Town where she would be staying until it was safe to leave Ichigo.
But would it ever be safe to leave Ichigo? His reiatsu was so huge, and so many Hollows were attracted to it. He would never be safe, and neither would anyone around him be safe for the fact alone of he was just too much. Kasumi's stomach clenched in fear. He would try to take them head on. He would gladly sacrifice himself if it meant his family lived. That was why Kurosaki Ichigo could never know about Hollows. For all of Kasumi's accomplishments, her greatest shortcoming was the carrot top she loved so much.
It would probably never be safe to leave Ichigo, so she would stay by his side silently. Hiding among the shadows, destroying those who wished him harm, because what else would someone do in order to protect their most precious person? He would marry one day too, and his children would obtain that same massive reiatsu. Kasumi would protect them too, all the way until her inevitable death. Then even further if she could get away with it.
"Kasummiii!"
She jumped at the sound of Tatsuki's voice, standing up so fast the chair was thrown back several feet and crashed into another desk, pushing it back and knocking the second chair onto the ground. Kasumi's heartbeat increased for several seconds, and then she realized there was no reason to be afraid... of a Hollow at least. Tatsuki was still coming full steam ahead!
With a high pitched curse, Kasumi dodged her enraged friend by jumping over the desk beside her and running to the front of the room, behind Tatsuki. Like a terrifying bull, she stopped suddenly and turned to her prey in a matter of a second. "Alright, alright, hey, can we talk about this? Can we really, because I really think we should... You're pissed, and you're coming straight for me again!" Kasumi dodged again because Tatsuki was currently scarier than any Hollow she had faced. With the exception of one, but it was beyond the point to even remember it.
She could hear several of the students muttering about what was happening, and Keigo was crying with Mizuiro about the unfair treatment Kasumi was receiving. Ichigo refused to share her, and now Tatsuki was taking up her time by chasing her around the school. "They have to know she has other friends too! She hasn't even been able to hug me yet!" he sobbed in a grossly dramatic way. It was enough to distract Kasumi long enough for Tatsuki to grab hold of her.
Keeping her a few inches off the ground, Kasumi was forced to look into Tatsuki's eyes. "Three years! Three years, and we didn't hear a word from you!" Huh... It had been three years, hadn't it? It felt so much shorter but so much longer at the same time. Tatsuki shook Kasumi, and the girl cried out in distress. "We were worried about you, you idiot, and you can't even manage to get out a single letter to us?! Hunh? I know you weren't lacking paper, and you know our addresses, so you can't give me any bullshit stories!"
With a nervous chuckle, Kasumi replied, "Sorry, Tatsuki, I was just super busy."
Her forehead vein ticked. "Bullshit!"
Kasumi let out a yell as she was thrown into someone. He was tall with a chest like adamantium. She groaned in pain, though he merely looked down at her like she was a part of his shirt. Dizzy, she muttered, "Sorry, sorry... The world is spinning again..."
"Damn right it is! Now give me the truth!" Tatsuki shouted.
Before she could make her next move, the eternal peacemaker between the two stepped in. "Now, now, Tatsuki, that isn't fair," Orihime said, her orange hair much longer than Kasumi remembered. She could only see the girl's back, but her figure was slightly obvious despite it. Above her, the male held her by the shoulders to keep her upright. "You even threw her into Chad, and you know how tough the guy is! No offense, Chad."
There were a few seconds of silence before his voice, deep and low, added, "None taken." He set Kasumi up straight and asked, "Are you alright?"
With a smile, Kasumi nodded. There was sigh from outside, and then Ichigo walked through the door to see a steaming Tatsuki, a wailing Orihime, a shaky Kasumi, a crying Keigo, and Chad. He sighed. "Man, I can't ever leave you alone for a second, can I, Kasumi? Always getting yourself into trouble and making me come save your ass..."
Wavering on her feet for multiple reasons not having to do with Chad, Kasumi gave him a thumbs up signal. "Not at all, Ichigo!" Kasumi lumbered over to her desk and plopped herself into it. The small display was enough to tire her out, again, though it was fair because Tatsuki was abnormally fast and abnormally strong, and those two had nothing to do with her reiatsu level. She could hear Ichigo and Tatsuki arguing in the background while Orihime attempted to play Devil's Advocate between the two, which only succeeded in pissing both of them off even more as she laid her head down to rest.
Her body was still breathing.
She checked her chest for the chain, but there was none. Her body was alive, but she was not connected to it in any way. She saw a man in a car accident from one of the monsters, and his chain went from his chest to his body. So why didn't she have one? She was supposed to have a chain! "Whatever, makes you more delicious to eat!" The monster dove for her, and she found herself on her legs and running away from it. He hit the ground with a crash, and the force created an explosion that sent her rolling again. "Are we playing a game? I love games!"
The maniacal laugh had her covering her ears. She closed her eyes after she realized her ankle was bent oddly. It was too much to run. She was going to die here no matter how far she crawled. She was the mouse, and the cat had successfully incapacitated its prey. He dived again, and she covered her head with her arms, screaming for no one to hear. There was a bright red light, and she stayed still in her spot. Nothing moved for ages.
But when she looked again, she was in a different place entirely.
Kasumi woke with a start. Ichigo was waving his hand in front of her face with the smallest touch of worry on his features. "Oi, get your big ass hand out of my face," she ordered, pushing him away. She looked around. No one else was in the room. Kasumi scratched the back of her head. "Eh? What time is it?"
"Lunch." It was an immediate answer, one that made Kasumi sigh. Of course she had slept for so long. Three Hollows interrupted her sleep, and one of them managed to cut her up a good bit, so she had to deal with those wounds... Not to mention Tatsuki. She sighed again. "Are you alright? You don't seem like yourself."
She probably should have told him the honest answer. Kasumi was not okay. She was tired and sore and worried constantly about him. But if she told him that, she would have to tell him all about the rest of it, and she wasn't open to the option in the slightest. Kasumi's smile was large, bright, and fake. "Of course I'm alright, Ichigo. Now stop frowning so much or you'll wind up with wrinkles at an early age."
Kasumi took his hand, brushing her jade hair to the side, and led him from the classroom before he could notice the slight tremor in her body.
Ichigo prided himself on knowing when something was wrong with Takahashi Kasumi when they were younger, and the feeling hadn't faded after all this time. Three years she spent away from him hadn't truly changed her in the slightest. Her style was tweaked a bit, but she was the same as when they were children all the way up until now. Even as she chatted the entire walk to the clinic, there was something off about her.
She was lying to him about something, but Ichigo had yet to determine what exactly it was. It wasn't a boy, he knew her secret wasn't something so foolish. No, her secret had something to do with why she never wrote back to any of them, with the exception of Orihime. Even then it had been short and incomplete, consisting of a half assed answer about her school being alright and her settling in nicely. A sentence hadn't even been finished, showing she hadn't meant to send it at all. It was the only reason he wasn't so pissed off at seeing her. Did she write a letter for him that she never sent?
But it still hurt. It hurt almost as much as the hitches in her breath as she slept, the slight sheen of sweat, and the taut expression she had gave away the terrible nightmare she had that morning. Or the times she would look away from him, her eyes darting left ever so slightly before staring straight again. Or the slight twitches in her fingers while they were spending time together before she suddenly had somewhere to be. Or the smallest of limps in her walk this morning, carefully concealed so only someone who studied her gait like he had knew.
Because Ichigo remembered and knew everything about Kasumi, and Kasumi remembered and knew everything about Ichigo. He could even remember the day they met as clear as yesterday. Perhaps he could use it to get her guard down, to get her to talk to him. She was in the middle of detailing an American rock band when he interrupted and asked, "What do you remember about when we met, Kasumi?"
The jade haired girl was quiet for a second, and then a small smile made its way to her face. "I remember you were afraid of me at first. I was such a rambunctious little child, wasn't I? Even Masaki wasn't quite so sure she wanted us to be friends, but then we found what we had in common."
Together, they spoke, "Ghosts." The word was said with a grimace on both of their parts. Ichigo was just tired of them following him around, though they were never as attracted to Kasumi as they had been to him.
Ichigo, with his own smile, added, "And then you explained to me about the chains on their chests, and how it was some sort of hourglass for them. But you never told me what happened at the end of it. Once the chain was gone." A careful prodding.
Kasumi stopped in the middle of the way, her gaze on the ground. Ichigo walked a few steps ahead, expecting her to pick up whatever she dropped and catch up, but she didn't. Instead she stood in the middle of the way, wearing a conflicted expression as her eyes darted all over to find some sort of excuse. Ichigo frowned again. There she was, finding another way to dodge the question or lie about it.
"Kasumi." Her thunderstorm eyes hesitantly met his. His expression was serious, more so than usual. "Don't lie to me again."
She flinched from the verbal blow, her gaze sliding to the ground again. She let out a sigh and placed her hands on her hips. "You know, Ichi, you don't make it easy to keep things from you. But if you knew what the world was like, what it was really like, you'd never let me leave my room again." He puzzled over her words, trying to connect the dots. But she walked past him, keeping up a steady pace. "Fine. I won't lie to you anymore. Never again, Kurosaki Ichigo, will I lie to you. But I won't tell you about it either. Now hurry up before papa gets angry about your tardiness again."
Better to ask her than to never know, he guessed. "Does it have to do with why you never wrote back?"
She didn't answer. "But the band is so good, and I really like their slower songs as much as their faster and harder ones. But his dancing is so dorky, and it's cute. Too bad they aren't mainstream anymore..." Kasumi paused and tilted her head. "Are you coming or not? I bet you're trying to get away from me and listening all about the stuff I like! You brat!" She reached up and grasped his ear. The painful tugs pushed the questions into the back of his mind even as she all but dragged him on the ground to his house.
Kasumi was glad the week passed without much further incident. Ichigo was still blissfully unaware of the Hollows she fought day in and day out, even blatantly ignoring her random naps in the middle of class so her soul could annihilate her enemies. Tatsuki was the only one to pick up on it, but everyone wrote her off as paranoid or thinking too much into it. Orihime had been to her home while Kasumi's mother wasn't there, and the two ate together before the woman stumbled into the home like a drunk. Kasumi didn't dare wonder if she had started mixing pills and whatever else with alcohol. It was her liver she was fucking up, not Kasumi's.
She finished taking care of one particularly nasty Hollow after school and stretched her arms above her head before going to her body. She blew out a breath and jammed herself back inside with a groan. Kasumi said up and rubbed the back of her head before looking around properly. "Hunh... Old man Kisuke should be around here," she murmured, her feet already taking her in his direction. "He saved my life all that time ago, and I never did properly thank him..."
Kasumi woke up in a room of white with several shelves. Touching her chest, she still found no chain attached and gasped a bit. She pushed herself to her feet and called, "Is anyone there?" No one answered, so she took several steps forward. Her side contracted painfully, and she fell into the wooden doorway with a gasp. Once the spasms subsided, she began her walk again, sticking close to the wall in case it happened again.
"Yes, yes. Thank you for coming and have a good day. Make sure to stop by again!" The voice was happy, bright, full of life. Kasumi stumbled toward the illuminated doorway, shielding her eyes from the sun's rays. There was a sound from someone else and a call for a boss. "I know she's awake, Tessai, and she probably shouldn't be walking around, but this will hardly be the hardest thing she'll go through."
He crossed the room in a matter of steps before placing something on her head. "Open your eyes." She did, finding sunglasses protecting her. The man was blond with a green and white striped hat. She knew in a heartbeat this was the man who saved her from the monster. "We have lots to talk about, don't we?"
Kasumi rolled her shoulders back and stretched her arms with a yawn. Kisuke spoke to her off and on for the two weeks she stayed in Karakura Town after her First Death, just checking in every so often and making sure she was alright. He explained the spirit world to her, though he admitted to having less information than he liked on her kind. They held their secrets tightly and seldom shared. Her training had been pure trial and error for the longest time, developing ideas and researching similar documented happenings. He had even given her the bracelet she still wore as a limiter.
"Kisuke," she called as she stepped inside, kicking her shoes.
The blond hadn't aged a day, not that she expected him to, as he saw her and gave a large smile. "Ah, there you are. I was wondering when my favorite Shibito would finally visit."
With a smile, she replied, "Kisuke, I'm the only Shibito you know."
As his expression darkened, she knew they were going to be skipping pleasantries. "As my favorite Shibito, I'm offering you a fair warning. The Hollow disturbance has been on the Shinigami's radar for a long time, but you purifying them has brought it closer to the top of the list. I've been informed of a Shinigami coming to investigate. And allow me to promise you, you don't want to be anywhere near the Shinigami if she finds out what you are or what you can do."
Kasumi sighed. Shibito and Shinigami had a... complicated relation to say the very least. Any rogue Shibito were to be annihilated, but the term was loosely defined. She didn't even know what had caused such distress between the two. "I understand. Of course."
