"Who're you talkin' to?" Bunny asked Jack, who was hovering several feet above the tips of his ears. He thought it was an unusual question to have to ask, but he was surprised when Jack looked back at him with wide, almost frightened eyes, falling back to the ground. Then all he did was stand there weakly, clutching his staff, whipping his head back and forth to look between Bunny and...the top of a telephone pole.
"You've gotta be kidding me..." Jack murmured, apparently disturbed greatly by something.
"What's goin' on, Frostbite? Ya said you found 'er, but where is she?" Bunny was struggling with a number of emotions. Annoyance at the possibility that Jack was playing a poor joke on him, because really, E. Aster Bunnymund had excellent senses and he could not see, hear, or smell anyone in their vicinity. At least the annoyance was buffered by the post-Easter high that he was still riding, but that could wear out all too soon if Jack tried to take his joke too far. But thirdly, Bunny was truly worried that all of Jack's many years alone had created some kind of imbalance in his head and he was seeing things.
"You seriously can't see her? She's right up there!" he gestured frantically to the top of the telephone pole, which he then spun around to face, lifting into the air again to be level with whoever was supposedly standing there. "And I guess I get it that you can't see Bunny, I mean, that probably means you just don't believe in him." He looked at his invisible specter thoughtfully and said, "Huh. You're probably too old to see him. But then why-woah!" he suddenly shouted in alarm, spinning back and away, clutching at his chest. "I didn't mean it like that! I just meant that you're not, like, five!"
When he pulled his hand away, Bunny could see a stripe of bright red blood beneath a long, clean slice in the front of his hoodie. Suddenly, the only emotion he felt was anger. Invisible (and silent) or not, someone had just attacked Jack, and Bunny had something to say about that. Quicker than thought, he hurled a boomerang at the spot atop the telephone pole, hoping to catch whoever was hiding there. But it came back, unimpeded, like there was nothing there. What in the name of Easter was going on here?
...probably means you just don't believe in him...
"You're how old?" Jack was saying. "So...who are you? Are you a yuki onna?" He yelped and whirled away again, this time coming away clean and unscathed, but Bunny was suddenly gripped by an unbearable feeling: helplessness. It wasn't new to him, but that didn't make it any better. How could he help Jack and fight this attacker when he couldn't see her? And what's more, he was immaterial to her as long as she didn't believe in him!
"Stop that already!" Jack was moving constantly now, not staying still long enough to receive another attack, and his focus had changed to a different spot, the invisible woman having moved when she attacked. The weather was responding to Jack's agitation as well. There had already been clouds about, but the temperature was rapidly dropping for all that it was a spring day, and Bunny could smell the sudden threat of snow. And for once, he was glad of it, the signs of Jack still in control. "I'm not trying to be insulting I just don't-what's a shinigami?"
"She's a what?!" Bunny exclaimed, startled and even more worried. That was a term he knew, and if that's what they were up against... "Jack, get away from 'er!"
Clearly keen on the idea anyway, the frost-child did so, dodging away and coming closer to the Pooka. "What does that mean, Bunny? What's a shini-gimme?"
"Shinigami," he corrected through clenched teeth, now straining with all his might to sense the other being. "It means Death God."
"She's a what?!" Jack unintentionally parroted Bunny's earlier statement. He stared at the figure that was unseen to the Pooka, a myriad of expressions on his open face.
"I've never actually met one-" and he still hadn't, not really. Not if they couldn't ever see each other. "But they're said to lead the souls of the dead into the afterlife."
If he'd had any to begin with, the blood in Jack's face would have drained right out. As it was, he felt a little weak as he landed heavily on his feet next to Bunny. The older Guardian laid a furry paw on his shoulder to steady him against the newest shock. And still he couldn't tear his eyes away from slight figure of the girl -who was a woman much older than she appeared, same as Jack- with the hard violet eyes and the unsheathed sword that seemed to whisper to Jack's core.
"The souls of the dead..." he repeated hoarsely. Snow had begun to fall then, and flakes caressed his face and neck, as if they were trying to comfort his uncertainty. It was their kiss that reminded him... "Is that it, then?" he demanded of the raven-haired woman. "When I saw that pillar of ice you made, there was someone inside of it. You killed him, didn't you? Is that how you take people to the afterlife?" It made him angry to think of it. The idea that she was freezing people to death when all he wanted was for people to have fun in the winter!
Her eyes narrowed at the accusation. "Sympathizing with an arrancar?"
"I don't even know what an 'arrancar' is!" Jack shouted at her, frustrated, the snow falling harder. "What gives you the right to go around killing people?!"
"The fact that he and his kind would have killed countless more if left unchecked!" she retorted hotly. "Or would you prefer it if Hollows were allowed to run rampant, eating human souls as they pleased?"
"They...what? They eat human souls? What are these things?" Bunny's eyes widened as he listened to only half of a conversation and didn't like what he heard.
The woman regarded him, gauging the truthfulness of his response and how much he actually knew. "So what are you then? If you've never even heard of Hollows, you're not a shinigami. You must have died very recently, then, but without a soul-chain..."
The whole conversation was just making Jack feel more and more unnerved, the wind eddying the snow around them into flurries. "Soul-chain? No, I haven't died recently, what on earth-"
"Jack," Bunny murmured to him quietly, even though he couldn't be heard by the shinigami. "'at's probably why you can see her and I can't...and she c'n see you but not me."
The boy looked at him sharply as the realization set in.
"And you still haven't told me who you're talking to!" the woman snapped, her deadly anger giving way slightly to a kind of juvenile annoyance. She very nearly stomped her foot, even.
"It's the Easter Bunny," Jack answered absently, struggling with the vague horror he was feeling. Then, from the corner of his eye-
"Bunny, look out!" Without even waiting for a response, though, Jack hurled himself at the giant rabbit, throwing him bodily out of the way of the blade that had been whistling toward them. It missed, but only just, and instead slammed into the ground where the two Guardians had been standing, cracking and splintering the brittle asphalt.
"What is goin' on?!" Bunny exclaimed, clearly feeling powerless in a situation where he couldn't see, smell or even hear his enemy. Even fighting Pitch wasn't this frustrating!
"It's another one!" Jack explained as he lifted off of Bunny where he'd knocked him to the ground. "Came outta nowhere, another shinigami-" he finally got a look at his new attacker and couldn't help but stare in shock. "And he...looks like me."
AN: Okay, so I have a bad habit of posting the new chapter and forgetting to include my notes. XD
My favorite part of this whole chapter was Jack saying, "I just meant that you're not, like, five!" XD It just cracks me up. And I'm sorry if Bunny knowing about shinigami seems off-the-wall (this is in response to a review and I thought I'd put it out there for anyone else that was curious but too shy to say anything), but from what I can tell, Japanese death gods, aka shinigami, are a pretty common belief/myth/idea over there. I've seen them (in various forms) show up in at least half a dozen animes and I'm sure they're in way more. My point being that it's a common idea and Bunny, being a creature of belief/myth himself, is probably familiar with most of the world's main theologies. That, and considering Bunny's holiday is a Christian celebration of triumph over death (that's how it started out, anyway, before Hallmark got its hands all over it. But hope is a big part of all of that), he probably has an idea of what different cultures believe death to mean. *shrug* It makes sense to me, anyway.
Lastly, I feel like I have to tell you that I am a horribly unpredictable updater. I write when the inspiration strikes and I post when I have access to the internet, which is depressingly infrequent. My life is full of creative distractions (including sewing cosplays and my own designs, making jewelry, drawing and painting new designs) and I'm afraid that writing isn't my main forte'. I'm super happy that people like this fic and want to read it, but I just wanted to let you know that I cannot post frequently or regularly.