Chap 3
Tsukiko had gone to school the next day and spent the day barely listening to a word that her teachers were saying. She was too preoccupied on her dream that night. She couldn't remember it to the finest detail, but she remembered something dark squeezing the life out of her. Then she remembered her angel saving her, but the only problem was her angel seemed even more blurry. All she remembered was a splotch of red where his head should be.
Tsukiko tried numerous times to analyze her dream. She tried to find as many possible answers as she could, all of them avoiding the one she knew was the truth. She didn't want to face the truth so she kept making stories that would suffice as the meaning of her dream.
Tsukiko went straight home after school, taking none of the long, scenic routes. Once she was home she went straight to her room, where she took out her pad of drawing paper. She then began to let her hand do all of the work, sweeping across the paper in an elegant way. She sat at her desk for the rest of the night only leaving her room when necessary.
Tsukiko then stopped drawing later in the evening. She looked at her work to see an angel without a face. She hadn't been able to draw an adequate face, so she decided that she'd pick up where she left off the next day or so.
Tsukiko then went to sleep. And again her mind was flooded with dreams, but this time none of them held her angel in them.
Renji spent the day training while doing all of his other duties. He had thought of going to the human world but decided against it, reasoning that someone might start to get suspicious if he was always disappearing in the human world.
"Anyways, what good is it to keep seeing someone who'll never know I exist." Renji mumbled to himself.
"Renji? What are you mumbling to yourself about?" Rukia asked Renji as she walked up behind him, causing him to jump at least three feet in the air.
"Nothing! Absolutely nothing! What makes you think I'm mumbling about anything!?" Renji shouted back in surprise.
Rukia laughed at his actions. "Calm down. Jumpy much aren't you? Hm, I'd think that you were up to something you're not supposed to be doing." Rukia said with a sly grin.
"No! It's just that you came out of nowhere and frightened me. I was deep in thought." Renji defended himself. "Anyways, what are you doing around here. Shouldn't you be training or recovering or something?"
Rukia was still a little weak from after Aizen's betrayal. Everyone in Soul Society had felt the blow from Aizen and was still recovering. And to top it all off they had to deal with the numerous attacks from Aizen's special hollows.
"No, I can walk around if I want to. Anyways I came to see how you're doing. Rikichi said you were acting weird."
"Wait, when did you talk to Rikichi? He's probably telling you some made up story or something." Renji said.
"I passed by him on my way here and asked him where I could find you. Well he said something about you finding something of interest in the human world. So what's that all about?" Rukia asked as a sly grin broke across her face and she leaned in closer to Renji.
Renji leaned back as she leaned in and his eye began to twitch. "What ARE you up to?" Renji asked leaning in closer to Rukia.
"Nothing! I'm up to nothing!" Rukia said waving her hands in front of her while leaning back.
"I'm not so sure. I think you and Rikichi are conspiring something that deals with me." Renji said questioningly.
"Oh well, what makes you think such an absurd idea! Hahaha! Nope, nope nothing at all! Well I'd better be going now!" Rukia said without another word bolting off away from Renji leaving him to contemplate what those two were up too.
Tsukiko went to school the next day and pulled out her unfinished picture of her angel before class started, hoping to get an idea of what his face and hair should look like. She began to tap her pencil on the table repeatedly.
"Wha'cha doin'?" a girl with black hair tied into a ponytail with messy long bangs surrounding her face and strange red eyes. The girl was wearing the school uniform which consisted of a red skirt, a black or white shirt, she was wearing black, and a gold tie. Along with the uniform she had on a choker and a multitude of bracelets on her wrists.
"Suzume!" Tsukiko jumped in her seat. "Don't scare me like that!"
"Sorry." Suzume said sheepishly. "Anywho! Wha'cha drawin'?" Suzume said just as cheerfully as before.
"Just an angel." Tsukiko said. "But I can't think of a face to give him. See?" Tsukiko showed the other girl the picture.
"Hmm? Well let's see." Suzume said as she studied the picture. "Wellllllll, you should give him long hair, but not too long 'cause then he'll look like a girl, it should go past the shoulders, and give him a tattoo or somethin' bad boy!"
"Why?" Tsukiko asked quizzically.
"'Cause everyone makes angels out to be white and fluffy and whoosh! But I think that your picture should be different and have a bad boy lookin' angel. Ya'know, like an oxymoron, or somethin' like that." Suzume told her.
"Oh I get it. Ok that seems good. Thank you! You're soo smart when it comes to this sort of stuff." Tsukiko said with a smile.
"You bet I'm smart!" Suzume said, taking her seat in front of Tsukiko just before the teacher walked in.
Tsukiko smiled at her friend and put away her stuff. She then turned all her attention to what the teacher was saying. That is until her mind freed itself and began to wonder off, thinking many thoughts that spurred off of other thoughts in an uncomprehensible chain.
The lunch bell rang pulling Tsukiko out of her thoughts. She got up and stretched her body. She then went and grabbed her lunch and headed out the door toward the cafeteria. As Tsukiko walked down the hall a hand shot out of another door and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her into the room.
"Come on!" Tsukiko heard Suzume saying as she pulled her up what seemed to be stairs.
"Suzume!? Where ARE you taking me?" Tsukiko asked confused at the sudden kidnaping.
"You'll see!" Suzume said as she continued to pull her up the stairs and out a door.
"Tada! Isn't it just darling!?" Suzume asked with enthusiasm.
Tsukiko looked around and gaped at the sight. She could see all of the town from up there. She could see the mountains to the south and she could almost see the next town over, Karakura.
"Wow! This is amazing! When did you find the way up here? I didn't even know there was a way up to the roof." Tsukiko asked her friend.
"Well let's sit down, eat somethin' an' I'll tell you how I found it." Suzume said. They both sat down and pulled out their lunches. Tsukiko watched as Suzume pulled out a weird food that seemed to be from the south, and something else that looked western.
"Ok, so I found this place yesterday, when I followed two upper classmen up here." Suzume said with a smile.
"Um, why did you follow them?" Tsukiko asked with a look of confusion.
"Oh, well, I was bored, and I saw them going this way, and yeah..." Suzume said looking off to the side.
Tsukiko laughed at her friend's strange way of answering the question. It seemed to her that Suzume just happened to be lost and was wondering around. They were two great friends, even though Suzume had just moved there right after summer vacation from down south. They had became friends very fast.
Suzume had a strange way of talking sometimes, but perhaps it was the way that she looked at things. She liked to look at things from a different angle then most people. For instants, when she would take a picture or draw something it was never right-side up, and her drawings always seemed to have a strange angular shapes and twists in them. And when ever they were discussing something in class she would say something so strange, and yet so true.
Tsukiko was different from Suzume in the way that she liked to draw things the way that she saw them. But she was similar to Suzume in the way that she didn't see things like they were. She could always find the beauty in something so ugly, and at the same time she could see something so ugly in something so beautiful.
Suzume was nosy and loud, while Tsukiko was quiet and didn't butt into other people's business. Tsukiko had a carefree attitude on life and eyes that held an unknown wisdom, where Suzume had a now-or-never attitude on life and eyes that held a mischievous glint. But both of them seemed to enjoy the outdoors and nature.
"Hey, Tsukiko! I jus' got the best idea! Let's go camping this weekend! How 'bout? Ya'wanna?" Suzume asked.
"Yeah! That would be great! I'll ask my parents later." Tsukiko said with a smile.
They continued to talk about plans for the upcoming weekend until the bell rang again. They then went back to their classroom together. They then continued with their day.
When Tsukiko got she began to work on her picture using Suzume's suggestions. She worked into the night until she found that she was too tired to keep working. She had only stopped once for dinner. She didn't clean up her area but instead went right to bed.
Renji was around soul society out of sheer boredom when he found a small commotion happening near by. Renji went over to see what was happening. He saw that there was some fourth company seats trying to heal someone who was from the thirteenth company. He noticed the thirteenth company captain, Ukitake was talking to Rukia, and then went to the guy who was being attended to by the fourth company.
Renji walked over to where Rukia was. "Hey what happened to him?"
Rukia started and turned to see Renji. "I'm not sure, all I know is that he was sent to the human world where he and another guy where supposed to watch out for anything suspicious in the town over from Ichigo's. But something must have gone wrong and they were attacked by a powerful hollow. He's the only one of the two to return." Rukia explained to Renji.
"Hm? Wait which town?" Renji asked.
"I don't know it's name. It's the one west of Ichigo's. Why?" Rukia asked as a sly grin came upon her face.
"Because recently there have been a lot of strong hollows in that town, it's starting to look like Aizen is targeting that town for some reason." Renji told her, causing her to drop her sly grin.
"Oh. You may have a point. You never know with him." Rukia added.
"Yeah, it's probably nothing. But still I'd better tell someone what I think." Renji said as he walked off.
Later that night Renji decided to go to the human world for a quick visit to make sure things were still alright. He arrived at the park and was extremely careful, making sure that there wasn't any danger nearby. He walked from the park to the house across the street. He went up to the room with the window facing out towards the park.
Renji looked through the window and saw Tsukiko sleeping in her bed peacefully. He didn't know why he had came to check on her, but he felt that she was around something dangerous, and considering that she had almost been killed three times that might had been true. But whatever his unknown reason for checking on her was, he was now relieved to see her safe.
Renji was about to leave when he saw something on the desk in her room. He decided to get a closer look at it because something about it looked familiar. He got closer to the desk and saw a picture on it. He picked up the picture and looked it over.
Renji stared at it and looked over it again. He couldn't believe what he saw. He was looking at what could be mistaken for himself. There on the paper was a person that had wings like an angel, but they had long that went down past the shoulders just a bit. The person also had tattoos over each eye that went down the side of their neck. The only major differences where that the tattoos weren't the same as Renji's and that the picture wasn't colored so the hair and eyes and everything else could be a totally different color than Renji's.
Renji put the picture down and stared at the sleeping Tsukiko.
"Can you see me?" he asked her but he got no reply.
Renji was about to go when he decided to try and make contact with the girl. He went to the desk and flipped the picture over and wrote on the back.
He left her a short note, then left. He realized that he was staying too long and he didn't want suspicion to grow at the Soul Society.
The next morning Tsukiko woke up and got ready for school. Just as she was about to leave she remembered to grab her pencil which was still on her desk. When Tsukiko reached her desk she found her picture from the night before turned over and that there was something scribbled on it. She picked up the picture and read the short note.
Can you see me? It read. Tsukiko began to worry that someone had broken into her room last night. But then she realized that the note wouldn't make sense for someone to have broken in, but rather someone who couldn't be seen.
Tsukiko realized that it had to have been her angel who wrote the note. She was filled with joy. She felt that nothing could make her day go bad, and with that she ran off to school in a happy mood.
