JPandS: You're still here! WOW that makes me so happy! I was truly starting to wonder if our entire fandom had just kind of up and left :/ I'm glad you're excited about the update! Your words are definitely something that's keeping me writing this. I was starting to think that no one really cared about these anymore X.( Your words make me blush! Thank you so much for the compliments, you have no idea how much I appreciate them. And I'm glad you appreciate the Usagi/Mamoru. Everyone usually hates it and I have no idea why. I've got some spicy plans for them. Any feelings on updating any of your stories any time soon, you've got some of my absolute faves! Eh? Eh? :)
Please let me know what ya'll think about this chapter and story, I'd really appreciate it!
Ascension
Chapter Three: First Petty Banter
Disclaimer: I do not own Sailor Moon or Bleach.
Haruka stared passively out of the large window to her right. Her chin remained propped up by her left hand and her right hand twittered idly with the straw to her milkshake. It wasn't as if she were devoid of emotion, it was just that too much had been occurring, to many unanswered questions were being proposed and forgotten about, and no one seemed to question the strange happenings. That and it did happen to be three o'clock in the morning.
Mamoru had called them in a hurry, the duress in his voice obvious over the phone and Haruka could have sworn she heard Usagi softly crying in the background. Her thoughts had been confirmed when Mamoru spat out that Usagi had been contacted again by the mysterious dream man, only this time he'd sent Usagi a message that it was inevitable that her friends would die.
Haruka and Michiru had hurried over to Mamoru's apartment, still wiping the sleep from their eyes as Usagi, despite her disheartened and messy look, asked them to go out with her for a milkshake. It was an obvious maneuver to suppress her sadness and the stress loaded onto her shoulders and Haruka's first inclination was to tell her no but Michiru had beaten her to it. She volunteered Haruka for the job, saying that she and Mamoru would decipher what answers they could from Usagi's dream. And that's how Haruka ended up drinking a milkshake at three o'clock in the morning.
Usagi had been downright depressed since her friends left. It wasn't an outright depression that just any person off the street could have caught. It was subtle and despite her clumsiness and seemingly dumb nature she was uncharacteristically good at keeping it restrained. She'd been much quieter and though she made and laughed at jokes she never got that fiery retort going that she used to with Rei. Haruka moved her cool blue eyes to her princess who remained sitting across from her, sipping slowly at a strawberry milkshake.
That was the other thing. She started to eat slowly. If anything, this is what bothered Haruka the most. Usagi's hand delicately held the glass and her lips tugged sluggishly on the straw. As if she could feel Haruka's eyes on her she looked up and raised an eyebrow.
"What's up, Haruka?" she asked placidly, taking another sip of her melting milkshake. At the short haired blonde's questioning glance she deemed to explain. "You were glaring at me."
Haruka's brows rose suddenly. "My bad," she apologized. "I was just thinking about something else." It wasn't a complete lie but it wasn't the complete truth either. Usagi pulled her mouth from the straw and a glob of strawberry milkshake fell directly into the lap of her flowered dress. She stared at it for a moment before erupting in giggles, those empty, hollow chuckles that she'd been emitting ever since her closest friends left.
It was completely disheartening and Haruka couldn't stand it. Pushing her vanilla milkshake away she pinned Usagi with a harsh glare. Said girl didn't realize it until she'd wiped the glob from her lap. Looking up she paused when she realized Haruka was giving her a mean stare. Usagi opened her mouth to speak but the older girl cut her off.
"You should have more faith in them, you know," she almost growled, crossing her arms over her chest. Her glare stayed steadfast on Usagi's now startled eyes. "It's not like they're amateurs Usagi-chan. They've lived their whole lives for you, it's their job if they ever had one."
Haruka realized later that perhaps those weren't the correct words to use when Usagi's eyes shifted to her fumbling fingers in her lap. Her eyes shifted left and right, smiling at the occasional passerby who glanced in her direction. Her blonde brows knitted together in worry as she swallowed. Usagi looked uncertain of herself, she looked as if she hadn't really wanted to talk about the subject Haruka was bringing up. She turned her head away momentarily before swiveling back towards Haruka with a new flush to her cheeks.
"Why should they live their lives solely for my purpose?" she asked with more vigor than she had in a while. Haruka smiled.
"They are your bodyguards, Usagi-chan. Why do you think they are in a different dimension right now, risking their lives for you? It's because an enemy is threatening the one thing we all hold most dear." At this Usagi closed her eyes and placed her face into her soft hands. "You, Usagi-chan."
As much as Haruka hated playing the sort of devil role on the team she realized that she was the best at it, she held an air that would allow people to pardon her for saying things she maybe hadn't ought to. "Don't let their risk be in vain. " Immediately Haruka wanted to take back her words, those kinds of statements didn't fit her, they were much too sappy.
Giving a sigh she reached her long fingers over the shiny table and grasped one of Usagi's hands from her face. "We're all integral pieces to this puzzle, Usagi-chan. They must go to protect our world from an external threat, we're hear to keep the key to this world safe from that intruding external threat and you, little Usagi, must remain healthy and happy because if your walls start to crumble who knows how this new enemy may take advantage of you?" she gave her princess's hand a squeeze. "You are the key to this puzzle and it can't be finished without you."
Usagi looked up. Her eyes still looked sad but there was a minute sense of resolve floating in them. A new pinch of hope swam in their watery depths and her lips twitched into a shaky smile. With a sigh she took a sip of her milkshake.
Haruka secretly grinned and gave herself a mental pat on the back. Job well done.
Mamoru sat unnerved in his chair. The library was a quiet place with dimmed, warm lights and plush seating for the curled up reader. It was almost strange how many people were there at three o'clock in the morning. Students sat hunched in chairs, papers strewn messily over dark wooden tables as their shadowed and hooded eyes now moved slowly down lines over and over again. Mamoru shook his head, knowing in the pit of his stomach that he would have been in the same position, working on his paper about fifteenth century Venetian mercantilism, if he hadn't been there to figure out a different mystery.
He couldn't get the night out of his head. Usagi had been calm in her sleep, but she'd been mumbling nonsensical words, things that had no correlation to each other and that sounded like gibberish. When he couldn't wake her up he began mentally cataloguing the words while still trying to release her from what seemed like a nightmarish sleep.
He rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses and tapped a pen on a pad of paper, earning annoyed glances from the shadowy students pulling all-nighters. He ran a hand through his hair and sat back in a frustrated hunch. On the paper he'd written down all of the words he could remember that she'd said. They weren't Japanese, that was for sure, and he was pretty sure they weren't English, a language he'd been learning for quite some time. Pulling the pad into his lap he looked over them again.
Arrancar, Espada, Menos… had she said Grande or was it Grand Day? Was it Lochness or… something else? And what on Earth was Hueco Mundo? He continued down the list; Hierro…
He sat for a few moments, pondering over the strange words his girlfriend had mumbled in her tortuous sleep. Now that he put it all together it sounded less like gibberish and more like a concrete language… but what? Mamoru sat for a moment to think, but it was hard to do so when there were two girls chatting away, though silently, behind him. He inherently wondered why he was the one to receive the glares with his tapping pen when these girls were babbling like children.
He tried a few more minutes to think but the talking behind him set up an invisible wall in his brain. Heaving out a sigh he turned in his chair to give them a firm talking to when he actually heard what they were saying. In front of them were a mass of papers and books strewn across a table. Obviously the two were working on something, but it looked as if at the moment it was break time, seeing as how they had leaned away from the table and were turned towards each other. They didn't look Japanese and they certainly weren't speaking Japanese. One had curly brown hair and caramel colored skin. Her eyelashes were thick and she had a thin face. Her friend looked similar only with pin straight black hair. Mamoru paused when he heard a fragment of their conversation.
"Iliana me dijo que el novio suyo quiere hacerlo todas las noches…"
"De veras? Dios mio, ella necesita salir es—."
"Excuse me," Mamoru interrupted quietly, sticking a hand out to pause their conversation. "I was just wondering if—"
One of them placed a hand to her mouth. "I'm sorry," she said softly in perfect Japanese, "were we speaking too loudly?"
While Mamoru wanted to say yes, that was his initial reason for speaking to them in the first place, he shook his head and smiled at them politely. "No, I was just wondering where you two were from. The language you were speaking was quite pretty." He watched with a sort of depleted outlook when they looked at each other and raised their eyebrows.
"We're from Mexico," one explained, flipping her long black hair over her shoulder. "This is Andrea and I'm Lupita, we were speaking Spanish," she said politely, contrasting their previous dumbfounded looks. "We're here on an exchange program."
Mamoru put on his best fake, flirt smile and leaned forward. He could see the one called Andrea return the flirtatious gesture. "This may sound strange but I heard you say something like 'too-das las now-chez'." He knew he'd butchered it but he also knew that was the only way to let them warm up to him; let them teach him something.
Andrea laughed. "No, that was todas las noches. It means every night." She gave a little bat of her eyes and crossed her legs. "Why do you ask?"
"Every night?" Mamoru repeated, trying to avoid her last question because he hadn't formed a completely solid answer yet. "So does las noches mean night?" he questioned.
Lupita scrunched her face a little. "Well, sort of. It's plural, as in more than one night but basically yes, it means 'the nights', I guess. It's hard to make a direct translation."
Mamoru smiled, gathering up his things. "Of course, of course," he said, standing from his chair and looking towards the doors that led to other parts of the library. "Thank you so much for your help," he said and began to walk away, leaving the two exchange students to stare after him, confused, before resuming their conversation.
So it hadn't been Lochness that Usagi had said… It'd been las noches…
Usagi had been mumbling words in Spanish.
But why?
His legs moved quickly and Mamoru reached the area he'd been looking for: the foreign language section. He really could have just stayed and asked those two women for the translations he needed but honestly that probably would have entailed getting to know them more and spending more time with them; things he didn't really want to do, and plus, he had a girlfriend, he didn't want to lead them on anymore. Pulling down a large book he sat down for a few moments and looked up the words he'd had written down on his pad, translating each one until he was done.
When he'd finished he looked at the pad of paper in wonder. To tear off, sword, minus big (he'd put a question mark by that one), night, hollow world, and iron.
What on earth was Usagi dreaming about?
Gathering his belongings he headed towards Michiru and Haruka's house.
It had been pure instinct, pure practice and habit when Minako had darted towards the screaming voice. She could hear Rei and Ami behind her and knew that the same thought was running through their head; what exactly were they going to do when they got there?
At first Minako thought that maybe it was a mugging, a girl in trouble, but the horrendous, monstrous scream that obviously belonged to no human that followed her high pitched wail eradicated all possibilities of a mugging. She rounded a corner and froze, stumbling only when Rei and Ami bumped into her, surprised at her sudden halt.
Minako heard Rei's huff. "Mina-chan, what the hell are you stopping for?"
The blonde pointed ahead of them and Rei and Ami looked up, and up…and up at a giant…creature. It was like a youma multiplied by seven. Its face was covered in a giant skull-like mask and its body was a giant mass of blue. It's shoulders hung low and it hunched over like a monkey as it screamed once again at a small girl who sat frightened on the street. A long, strong tail sat calmly behind it.
"Hopefully other people have scattered by now," Rei said, eyes searching quickly for any other people who may have been witness to this monster. "What are we going to do? It's not like we have any means to defeat this thing…"
Minako was anxious. She wanted nothing more than to throw up her hand and yell 'Venus Star Power!' But she knew that doing so would do no good. "We may not have our Senshi powers but that doesn't mean we can't help her." Minako's foot wouldn't stop bouncing, she was itching to run towards the petrified girl and help her but a certain care and sense was keeping her from moving before they had a strategy. "We aren't completely defenseless, we know evasive moves, perhaps that will—" Minako lurched forwards as Ami ran by and brushed her shoulder.
"Ami!" Rei screamed, reaching out to stop the girl, but the blue haired genius was gone. "What is she doing?" she screamed again before running after her, an appalled Minako right behind her.
Ami had been watching. She had been observing and calculating while Minako and Rei had been talking. Her mind moved like turning wheels in the cycle of thought. The whole time they'd been standing there the monster hadn't attacked yet. Something was preventing it from doing so. As well, there was a strange line protruding from the chest of the girl that looked a lot like linked chains… not to mention the fact that it's long tail was twitching ever closer to her.
Moments before the tail could do any damage Ami nabbed the crying girl and sprinted away, a mass of rubble spraying into the air as the tail smashed the spot the girl had once been sitting on. She crashed into the ground, crying out slightly as she felt her shoulder dislocate—a weak spot she'd always had. Fragments screamed by Ami's face from the sheer force of the crash as she sheltered the girl underneath her own body. She winced when a few shards nicked her skin and waited in silence for something else to happen.
When nothing did Ami peeked open her eyes. She looked down at the puffy red eyes of the girl she'd saved. She wore a small pink shirt that most nearly met the color of her weeping orbs. Jutting from the center of that shirt was exactly as Ami had imagined; it was a liked chain connected to a hole in her chest. She lifted a hand and touched it, unsure of what exactly she was being witness to. It wasn't cool or warm, like Ami had expected it to be, but rather it was as if she wasn't feeling anything at all. Her hand traced all the way to the end of the chain where the links merely disappeared…
"Are you alright?" she asked the girl in a small voice, patting down her hair in a motherly fashion. The little girl didn't respond, she only stared at Ami with her giant, incredulous eyes. Her small mouth twittered a bit as Ami studied her and she grabbed the hand that was grasping the chain coming out of her chest.
"You can see me?"
Ami, not expecting that reaction at all, pulled away a bit and tilted her head to the side. She gazed at the little girl again in a moment of disbelief before looking down to the chain sticking out from her chest. "Of course I can see—"
"Ami move!"
Ami glanced up just in time to see the tail of the monstrosity in front of her come flying in their direction once again. She looked down at the girl and a spark of uncertainty flashed through her eyes. How was she going to lift her with her dislocated shoulder? Her mind and body at that moment weren't working quick enough, and Ami threw her small body over the girl and waited, body tense, for the impact.
Minako lunged in front of her friend, crossing her arms in front of her face. She took the brunt force of the attack in her side, its tail assaulting with so much vigor that it sent her careening to the side. Ami's words caught in her throat as she reached with her unhurt arm towards her friend in an unknown gesture. Did she want to help, was she frightened, was she hopeless?
Minako lay almost motionless where she landed. Her leg moved and her body curled in pain, both actions topped off with a dismal moan. Her hand reached out and grasped some rubble, fingers itching to find salvation. Ami pulled her body up slowly, picking the girl up with her uninjured arm and stumbled towards Minako. Rei whizzed by her and picked up the groaning blonde gingerly and put her on her back.
"Ami, can you run?" she asked quickly, eyes darting upwards towards the monster.
Ami gave a silent nod on shaky legs as she pulled the girl onto her own back.
"Good," Rei said and began to run as fast as she could away from the masked monster. Ami followed behind her, shaking the cobwebs from her mind. Unfortunately for them, however, the monster was a surprisingly fast creature and it rounded on them in mere moments.
Rei froze as it unleashed another horrendous cry, its head tilted back to release the optimum scream. She took a few steps back and looked down in annoyance at her civilian clothes. How on earth was she going to release her powers? She didn't know how, even Ami didn't know how, they needed Luna or someone to guide them, someone to show them how to reached the new power that resided within them.
The monster took another step towards her as if it were enjoying the helpless look she had plastered on her face. Rei and Ami took a few more steps backwards as the monster crept closer still. The raven-haired priestess looked down at her hands that were grasping Minako's scratched legs and a thought popped into her head.
How did I gain my powers from Mars? She asked herself as the creature screamed again, edging closer.
Luna… a part of her brain added. She shook her head.
Without the wand…what brought the symbol to my forehead?
Rei continued to back up, tripping over some rubble and almost dropping Minako in the process. She thought back to her very first Senshi encounter.
The bus, the children, Usagi and Ami, adrenaline and…
There was something else, something that had tipped Rei over the edge when she'd faced off with Jadeite, something that brought out her brute needs. It was a little bit of anger and… an indescribable feeling. It was something akin to stature, something parallel to fright, and a definite dab of fearlessness and excitement. Rei set Minako down and glanced over at Ami. She knew exactly what she had to do.
Makoto watched the girl in front of her warily. "Karakura Town?" she asked quietly, more so to herself but her savior nodded anyway. There was one thing she had to clear up, one thing that would settle her nerves slightly. "Have you…heard of Minato-ku…Juuban?"
Now Orihime was getting wary. "Yes, I have," she responded. Was this girl daft or had she seriously been brain damaged? Perhaps she needed to take her to get some professional help. "Maybe we should get you to a hospital."
"How did you heal my wound?" The intensity in her stare was intimidating. Orihime spent most of her time around excruciatingly intimidating people so she was used to such feelings. However she felt caught, not quite sure how to explain the reconstructive nature of her soul's inexplicable power… "How did you heal my wound?" she asked again, more forceful this time.
She didn't know what to do. "I—"
Orihime stopped speaking when the brunette turned her head sharply. Her eyes were wide and wild, shifting quickly and constantly as if trying to find something. Trepidation lingered there however but her body was tense with preparation for anything, alert for any danger. And then Orihime heard it, a wild and feral scream so ferocious and loud it was impossible to ignore.
But her astonished eyes turned quickly away from where her ears picked up the sound and back to the girl in front of her. She had heard that? It was unmistakably a Hollow…but Orihime couldn't sense an iota of reiryoku in this girl. Well perhaps there was something…
"What was that?" the girl asked breathily and Orihime wasn't quite sure how to respond. The scream radiated in the forest again, shaking the trees of their leaves as a horde of birds flew the coop, frightened of whatever lay beyond.
Orihime looked up, watching briefly as the sky became awash with black feathery wings, ascending higher and higher into the darkening sky and leaving behind their newfound home. The sound of their flapping and cawing was unnaturally loud. Tufts of raven colored fluff tumbled about in the night air. Suddenly an extremely uncomfortable feeling washed over her. They had been watched. The hair on Orihime's arms raised high as she sensed the eyes on them departing with the fleeing birds. Something was very, very wrong.
When the girl she'd healed suddenly sprang forward towards the sound of the screaming, Orihime forgot the feeling and immediately panicked. Pushing herself from the ground with eyes wide she ran after her. "What are you doing?!" She screamed after her, pushing her body to catch up with the unnaturally fast girl. She pushed branches from her face and almost fell twice on protruding logs.
"Someone could be in trouble!"
Orihime blanched. Was she insane? Something about this reminded her of someone, however, and Orihime's incredulity slowly faded. Instead she focused on keeping up with her and aimed her attention on locating the Hollow despite the girl's uncanny ability to follow its resonance.
Makoto wasn't quite sure what she was doing. Her instinct to run towards trouble and not away from it was ingrained. It was never going to go away. All she knew was that her body was taking her in that direction. Bile rose dangerously in her throat as she pushed her drained body towards the scream. She knew that noise; she'd heard it once many, many years ago…
"Watch Minako for a second," Rei commanded before darting directly towards the monster. Ami sprinted over to Minako and Rei heard her yell her name in desperation. The Senshi of Mars shook her head. Ami had had a plan before and now it was her turn to exercise her mental conceit.
What she needed was a dangerous situation that could only be evaded by using her powers. She needed to put her life on the line to set her body in survival mode where her powers would come of their own volition. The monster screamed at her once again and she felt her heart patter uncomfortably in her chest. In her stomach, however, she felt a pool of warmth. There was something fiery there that needed exiting. Rei focused her harboring warmth through the channels of her body towards her hands. She was almost there…
So close, so close.
So very close…
Before she knew it someone grabbed Rei right before the monster took a swat at her, and right before the fire reached her hands. She felt herself soaring through the air and wondered if her Senshi powers had come back. Perhaps her own body had saved her, maybe it was moving of its own desire, that perhaps she'd evaded the attack on her own.
When she landed, however, she knew it wasn't so. The man who'd rescued her was a sort of scrawny fellow with dark hair and small, round glasses. He wore a strange white uniform and glared down at her with surprisingly sharp blue eyes.
Rei glared up at him with just as much fervor. "What the hell are you doing?" she screamed, trying to pull away from his firm grip on her arms.
"I could ask you the same thing," he said calmly, not letting go. "Why on earth are you running towards it? You may be able to see it but that doesn't mean you have the powers to destroy it."
Rei was furious to say the least. She had been trying to get her powers back. If this guy hadn't nabbed her then she'd probably be flailing fire balls by now. Her blood was boiling she was so angry. "Well I could have if you hadn't interrupted!" she yelled, trying again to get out of his grip. She was successful this time but not by her own strength. The man pulled his hands away from her and shook them, staring at her in astonishment.
"Goodness, you're ungodly hot!"
Needless to say, Rei blushed. The blush soon turned to red-hot fury as she put her hands on her hips and a scowl marred her pretty lips. "This is hardly the time for flattery! There is a monster over there and you're commenting on my looks?" she yelled.
"Not your looks, I m-mean you are pretty, very pretty in-in fact," Rei glared harder, "but I meant your skin. Your body literally feels like it's on fire!"
Rei's glare melted and she looked down at her hands. "It does?" she smiled. She erased that pretty feature quickly, however, and turned to him.
The guy raised an eyebrow and Rei could tell he was wondering how he'd picked up the crazy chick. He shook his head. "Anyways, my friend will take care of the Hollow. There's no need for you to worry anymore," he said, putting on his best Superman persona.
Rei blinked at her hands before looking up at him and raising an eyebrow. "What the hell's a Hollow?"
Ami watched in near amazement as the arm of the tall man let loose a blast of what looked like pure energy. It only nicked the monster, however, and it swung its tail towards him. In an unsightly display of strength the man fended himself from the tail and did not go flying like Minako had.
These must be our allies, she thought, looking down and smiling at the girl in her arms. "Don't worry, everything is going to be alright now," she said softly as the girl grabbed tight to her sweater and hid her face in Ami's chest.
Ami looked over to Minako and saw that she was starting to fully rouse as she picked herself up to her knees. A now coagulating scab had formed on her arm, the grime of the pavement unfortunately setting into the scrape. She looked over to their saviors and then to Ami's kneeling form. Minako looked dazed, her eyebrows turned down in an obvious gesture of confusion, as she brushed her hands and stood. At the extension of her torso, however, she doubled over in pain, gripping futilely at her side, eyes shut tight and mouth a silent open chasm of agony. She pulled in a sharp breath and kneeled again, fingers clenching and unclenching, wanting to grip at her side but knowing that touching the wound would be a bad idea.
"Minako…" Ami said softly from her position with the girl. The blonde bent her head and held up her hand, freezing Ami's concerned words in her throat. The bluenette should have known better when she'd initiated her alarmed declaration and she shut her mouth quickly, swallowing the words back into the pit of her stomach harshly. Minako looked up, trying to eradicate the glossy pain from her eyes (unsuccessfully) and looked towards the one fighting man and the strangely dressed guy holding Rei back.
"And they are?"
Ami shrugged. "I'm assuming our allies. If not, they're our enemies."
Minako gave Ami a meaningful glance. "How perceptive of you," was her astute tease.
The smarter girl shrugged and held the girl tighter to her chest, drawing Minako's eyes to the timid and alarmed child. "They showed up out of nowhere and— oh look, here's two more. My, what on earth are they wearing? These people have some strange outfits…"
Her eyes drawn from the kid, Minako looked up to see a very short girl with dark hair in a black kosode and hakama. Her companion, a bright orange haired man, wore the same thing, only with one of the largest swords Minako could fathom extending from his right hand. The sharp tip was pointed exactly at the monster and he seemed to be arguing with his friend before he launched into an attack.
There were three things… okay, maybe four that literally could take Minako's breath away: the first would have to be famous people (naturally), the second was fifty percent off sales, the third was being hit really hard in the stomach by an enemy, and the fourth… well the fourth was disappearing people. Thus, consequently, Minako's breath disappeared when the brightly haired man suddenly disappeared and reappeared, sword poised for attack, directly above the head of the monster. With one swift down motion he cut through the monsters head and it disintegrated like oozing pixels. What made the shimmery blonde's cherry lips drop open in sheer astonishment, however, was when the man remained standing on… air. He disappeared again and it took Minako a few moments of head swiveling to find him once more on the ground, next to the girl he'd arrived with.
Sure she'd seen youma float before, but a human? Minako was shaken from her astonished thoughts by Ami's whisper. The whole group was staring at them.
"Should we meet them half way?"
Minako's lips pursed and a serious twinge nicked at her eyes. "No," she stated, watching as the three of them, the orange haired man, the taller man, and the girl along with the male and Rei behind them, walked steadily towards their stationary forms. "Meeting them halfway would be intrusive. If we had our powers I would say definitely, we need the leverage and some sort of backbone, but frankly Ami-chan we're straight up on the downside."
A curt nod was all she received in return.
Their strange saviors stood like sentries above them, calculating eyes scanning their every move, flinch, shift… the orange haired one opened his mouth to speak.
"Wh—"
"Oh how do you run so fast?" came a familiar distressed call, echoing into the midst of the streets. The gang looked up and Ami wondered if this would be the opportune moment to dart away. Thinking of the girl in her arms and the potential informational advancements that could spur from this meeting she kept her flighty feet and bum attached to the ground.
"I could have sworn I heard it somewhere around here!"
At the second voice Ami's head darted up, surprised. Her torso turned to face behind them and the open street. It was a firm voice, thick in nature and utterly and completely familiar. She glanced over at Minako and they shared a look, helping each other to stand and turn around.
"But—huff—you don't know what—huff—it could be!" They could hear the desperation in this voice and Rei noticed the four strangers give each other looks.
"If someone's in trouble then—"
The whole group stared on as two girls rounded a corner and skidded into sight. They froze when the two saw the perplexed group standing and watching them and surprised and happy smiles lit up their faces.
"Mako-chan!"
"Inoue!"
"Guys!" they both yelled. They looked at each other, confused, and consequently said together again, "you know them?"
"No…" Makoto said, pointing to the sword wielding, weirdly dressed four, "who are they?"
The orange haired guy with the permanent frown almost huffed boyishly. "Who are we? Who the hell are you?"
"Ichigo!"
"We—" Ami began.
Rei crossed her arms firmly. "We asked you first!" she bantered childishly. "And politely at that," she added haughtily. He glared at her.
"They were running a suicide mission," the guy with glasses deemed to explain.
"Suicide?" the four girls plus Orihime exclaimed, staring wide eyed at each other.
"I told you!" Rei yelled at him. "I was trying to get my powers back before you so rudely interrupted!"
"What powers?" he sneered. "You barely have any reiryoku—"
"Wait!" cried Makoto, a hand to her chest, "we lost our powers?!" she yelled, frightened.
Minako raised her hand. "No Mako-chan, it was a transfer—"
"Who are you people?" came the orange haired boys annoyed remark.
"If you would let us explain—" Ami tried.
"You shouldn't interfere where you don't belong," came the staid comment of the guy with glasses. Rei huffed and looked at him incredulously.
"We were merely trying to—" Ami tried again.
"It's a wonder they can even see us!" the orange haired guy said in a temper.
"You see we—" Ami tried politely a third time.
"Are completely lost?" the orange haired guy interrupted again.
Makoto wanted the smack him in the back of his head. "Let her explain, you orange haired asshole!"
"What…" Orihime mumbled.
"Orange haired— what? You have no right to comment on my hair color!"
Minako raised an eyebrow at his strange offense.
"And why not?" Makoto asked hotly.
The orange haired guy pointed to Ami. "Because her hair's blue!"
"Enough!" the short girl cried and suddenly the orange haired guy was stuck beneath her foot. "Cease this petty fighting, Ichigo, you look lame!" she yelled as he shoved her foot off of him and stood from the ground, arms folded across her chest. "Plus there's a soul here," she whispered so that only he could hear. The orange haired guy looked discreetly down towards the soul in the blue haired girl's arms. "If you'd stop this banter," she whispered softly again, "you would have noticed that they were trying to protect her." The short girl turned away from him and cleared her throat.
"My name," she said, loud and clear for everyone to hear, "is Rukia Kuchiki. And I," she stated regally, "am a Shinigami."
