~Longer one!~
CHAPTER THREE-
Containing:
A Crazy Espada
Cream Puff Missiles
And A New Skill
Renji was running an errand for Urahara (one of the many tasks the shopkeeper gave him) which led him to the bakery.
The human world sure has a lot more pastries than we do, he noted.
"I'd like a Cinnibun, please," a girl next to him ordered. She had short brown hair kept in place with a purple headband. Renji watched the man behind the counter take out some kind of brown glazed bun. He was considering buying one too, when the large picture window was shattered by someone leaping through.
Display stands of cupcakes and racks of doughnuts went flying everywhere! Some people were ducking under the few café tables and hiding around the corner, some were running out the door, a few were whipping out cell phones, and everyone was asking confused questions-
"W-what was that?" "Some kind of explosion!" "Don't step on the glass-!" "Are you okay?" "Mommy, look! It's a man!" "Is there something there?" "Geeze, what a mess…" "Careful!"
Renji ducked behind the counter and popped a soul candy into his mouth. He leapt out of his gigai and out from behind the counter, knocking over a tray of sample cream puffs.
"Roar, Zabimaru!"
"…Stupid girl, can't you tell a hollow from an Arrancar?" The man was saying. He had blue hair and a hollow fragment on his lower jawbone. Kicking aside the girl who ordered the Cinnibun, he turned to Renji. The man smiled. It was not a particularly nice smile.
"Grimmjow Jaggerjack, sexta espada. Where can I find a Shinigami called Ichigo Kurosaki?"
"…BANKAI!"
The Arrancar didn't look impressed. "Tcch, I'll find him on my own!" he said, hands in his pockets.
Knowing the effort would probably be futile, Renji whipped his bankai at the Arrancar. Grimmjow knocked it aside with one hand, not even turning back to look.
Then, a cream puff hit him in the head.
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Renji had an odd urge to laugh. The cream from the cream puff exploded all over the left side of Grimmjow's forehead. Luckily, the humans had either all evacuated the bakery or were hiding in the bathroom, or they would have seen a floating, mangled cream puff.
All the humans, that is, except for the Cinnibun girl.
Who was crouching on the floor, several more cream puffs in hand.
The idiot!
"You little …" Grimmjow snarled, taking his other hand out of his pocket. "I'll kill-"
"Anna! Anna!"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Back to Sal~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I jumped through the open window (not so much open as shattered, actually) and spotted Anna. She was crouching on the floor, holding some kind of little pastries. There was a little bit of blood on her forehead.
I looked at the two guys in the shop - one had blue hair and an annoyed expression, and was staring at me. The other had red hair in a pineapple-ponytail and weird tattoos, holding some kind of… some kind of something. It had a snake head and was long like a whip, but…
"Who're you, kid?" Blue-hair asked.
"Sasalia Maki," I answered. "and what are YOU?" I took a fighting stance.
"You can see us-?" Red pineapple asked.
"Heh," Blue-hair said. He was about to continue, but-
"Sit upon the frozen heavens, Hyournimaru!"The roof above the bakery's picture window was suddenly gone – this place is so trashed, I thought randomly – and Toshiro the Shinigami jumped in. He wasn't alone – some girl with orange hair (and enormous breasts…!) jumped in along with him. She was talking on a cell to some other people- calling in reinforcements, it sounded like.
That was good, because Blue-hair looked strong… more than that, he felt strong, I could feel it in my bones and in the somewhat suffocating aura around him.
He gave a cocky grin.
Red pineapple, Toshiro, and enormous-breast girl (I was starting to feel a little self-conscious) all tensed. I looked at Anna. She was edging backwards, towards the exit, but occasionally shooting glances at me. I winked, and took my signature fighting pose- standing straight, legs together, feet pointing at 90 degree angles, my left side towards my opponent, my left arm extended, hand loosely splayed, with the middle and pointer fingers forward.
I gathered my chakra and lightning energy.
"You, get out of here!" Toshiro said harshly. I figured he was talking to Anna, and was about to add that she should, but when I glanced back, he was looking at me!
"Not a chance," was, of course, my immediate reply. Between Toshiro and enormous-breast lady at the window, Red Pineapple across from them, and me somewhere between, closer to Anna, we had Blue-hair surrounded. Besides…
This guy hurt Anna. He was so dead.
"I mean it," Toshiro said. "I'll have Rangiku take you away by force if I have to."
"Yes, this guy is dangerous. He's an Espada…" The enormous-breasted lady (Rangiku, apparently) said. Blue-hair dropped his smile.
"Hello, getting bored here. Now where's that Shinigami…?" He looked expectantly at us.
"Matsumoto, take that other human away," Toshiro ordered. "Right, Taicho." She appeared next to Anna, whom she picked up, and then was gone with a swish, before I could even blink.
"Hey-" I started, but Blue-hair interrupted me before I could finish.
"Are you ignoring me? Or don't you know?" he said. Who did this guy think he was, at any rate? He was standing there all nonchalant, surrounded by me, Toshiro, Red Pineapple and his giant snake thing – and there was that big breasted lady coming back. Rangiku. She was quite fast.
"Forget it, I didn't come to fight you," Blue-hair scoffed. He turned, then vanished – not quite vanished, I noted. After seeing Rangiku do it, I was able to just barely trace him as he jumped, then ran.
I think I need more sleep… or was it the stress of the situation? Because it looked to me like he was running across the air. Probably he just went too fast for me to see… but what did he run across, then?
But… I could imagine that. I could see it, sort of – the people around me's spiritual pressure, their chakra or aura or whatever you wanted to call it. I could feel my own… I used it to fight, converting it into lightning somehow. I bet you could do other stuff with it, too…
I gathered my chakra once more, but this time, I concentrated it in my feet. It felt weird – I'd never tried anything like this before. But maybe…
It had only been a few seconds since he disappeared, Mr. Blue-hair. So!
"You're not getting away!" I called. Then I did it – I jumped.
I was aware that while fighting those monsters, the hollows, I gained more endurance, strength, and agility through the power of the chakra I was releasing (or spiritual pressure, as Toshiro would say). But I had never tried manipulating it like this, while not actually fighting something.
It was freaking awesome!
I jumped onto the roof. Do you realize how crazy that is? I just bunched my legs and jumped! On the roof! That's like ten feet straight up! Me! By jumping!
…Now what? Was I seriously considering using my chakra to sort-of-fly? Wait. That's crazy. Insane … but, so is jumping ten feet straight up…
…And battling giant monsters that no one else can see? Yea. That too. So.
I was just about to try it, but Toshiro and that lady - Rangiku – Jumped on the roof too, just like I did. Sort of ruined my buzz, that they did it too, and didn't seem to think it was that big of a deal…
"What are you doing?" Toshiro demanded. What was I doing? A good question. "Your spiritual pressure just increased, by a lot," There he goes again…. "Past that of a normal human's. Plus, you immediately used it to jump onto the roof- Have you been doing things like that before?"
"Well, sort of," I said. I glanced up – Blue-hair was long gone. It figures…
"'Sort of' is not an answer!" he said. "Now, Taicho…" Rangiku pouted. Taicho? What was a Taicho? It seemed to be that she was his subordinate. That was kind of funny, actually…
Crap! Anna! Where was she?
"Hey lady," I said.
"Lady? Me?" Rangiku said, sounding surprised. "Yes you!" I said, annoyed. "Where did you put Anna? …The human girl, I mean."
Red Pineapple jumped onto the roof with us. His giant snake thing was gone, I noticed. All three of them were wearing that kimono thing – although Toshiro was wearing some kind of white coat over that. It must be what signified them as Shinigami.
"Oh, her!" Rangiku said. "She's with Yumichika and Ikkaku!" "That doesn't help me at all," I mumbled, wondering what a 'Yumichika' was.
"What's going on?" Red Pineapple asked, looking from me to Toshiro to Rangiku. Toshiro briefly explained while I stood there, starting to feel self-conscious again. What was going on, indeed? But I didn't hear anything enlightening in Toshiro's explanation….
"So… bye," I said hurriedly. "Whoa, wait a minute," Toshiro said, turning to me.
"If you'll excuse me, I need to go get Anna-" still not exactly sure where she was but… "—and then me and her are going to the mall. Or if she's hurt, then…"
"Are you serious?" Red Pineapple asked. I stepped back a bit. What a weird-looking guy.
"My friend can see spirits too, so she probably won't be too freaked out," I said. "She's helped me with those monster attacks."
"Hollows," Toshiro said. "Anyway, I'm not exactly sure what to do now…"
I rubbed my nose, as I always do when I'm nervous or especially self-conscious (or about to sneeze), and looked to the right.
There was a bit of a crowd gathering below us, mostly concerned about the sudden destruction of the bakery. I could hear Police sirens in the distance.
Oh, WAIT!
I hit the floor (the roof, I mean) and layed flat. Crapcrapcrap!
"Oh, that's right!" Rangiku said. "The humans can't see us, but they can see you!"
CRAP! I was 'at the scene of the crime', sort of. People would wonder what I was doing on the roof… and how I got up here. How was I supposed to answer that?
These Shinigami….
I think I was starting to dislike them.
"I'll take care of it, Captain Hitsugaya," Red Pineapple said. He jumped down to the ground where the crowd was (wait, how was I gonna get down? I mean, I know I jumped up here, but ten feet is ten feet…) and pulled out some device. All of a sudden there was a giant puff of pink smoke.
A handy ninja tool, I though.
"Now, while their memories are being rewritten," Toshiro said.
"Okay, right … wait. WHAT?" I exclaimed. Rangiku grabbed me and jumped down (I think I might have screamed a little at this point) and zoomed away from the bakery.
Anna, I thought, confused. You'd think at this point, it would be a good time to pass out, but of course I wasn't that lucky… We came to a stop.
"What the heck!" I said, a little out of breath. "Shunpo, or flash step," Toshiro said. He was following us the whole time? He was sneaky like a ninja, to go with the ninja tools. Yeesh.
"…Now what?" I said grumpily.
"I want you to tell me the truth," Toshiro said. "What's with the sudden change of spiritual pressure?"
"Okay, Okay," I said. "You see, when I was six…"
