UPDATED 10/7/2015

A/N: Rewriting this chapter I realized I should've put the few details about Angel's abilities in the next chapter, since that chapter is so short. Oh, well. Nothing I can really do about it. I wish I'd planned everything out before writing the dang story, but then again, I was just getting back on my feet with writing... lol Please enjoy and review! Even if you've already reviewed, review again and tell me if you like the changes!

When I wrote this chapter before, I also saw that because I had watched the first episode of Touch - a show with a very similar concept about the Red Strings of Fate - I unintentionally added things from that into my story, which made me feel terrible and very, very stupid. I also realized that I didn't put how Angel got information on her powers, which is really just the result of bad writing, I'll admit. So I fixed that up and will continue to fix it throughout updating future chapters. Hopefully, I didn't do too much damage.

Special Thank to Chapter 3 Reviewers:

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Blackenflames
Kitty-Wolf-Chan
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Fox Kit Princess

AWAKE
Arc 1-4

I could've stayed like that all night. Whether the warmth from Ichigo's hand was in my mind or not, I didn't want to move and risk losing it. As nothing but a wandering soul, I never thought of how much I'd miss the feeling of, well, feeling. Just being around Ichigo made me feel lighter and more at ease than I had since I died. There was just something about him . . .

Well, that should've been obvious. The kid is the main character of a shinigami genre ofmanga. Of course something was different about him, of course something about him made him special.

Only when the door to Ichigo's room cracks open do I lift my head and take a glance at the time; it's nearly two in the morning. His father steps in, tip-toeing more dramatically than necessary toward the bed, using the hallway light as his only source to see. He takes in the darkness of the room, allowing his eyes to adjust, and raises an eyebrow at the futon Ichigo lay out on the floor. Shaking his head, he continues forward.

I expect him to step on the futon when he reaches us, except he doesn't. He lifts one leg and carefully hops over it, looking at the unmoving sheets as if someone were actually laying there. Out of pure instinct, I scooch off to the side and lift into the air. I take a seat at the foot of Ichigo's bed - his legs aren't long enough to meet that last third of it - and curiously begin to watch.

Ichigo is asleep. There's no need for the man to continue entertaining his idea of an 'imaginary' friend now, is there? Once again, I wonder if the man could actually hear me, or see me, or somehow know that I'm actually there.

The man leans down and runs a hand over his son's forehead with a feather-light touch, a soft smile gracing his face.

"I thought I'd never hear him laugh like that again." He whispers. I wonder who he's talking to.

When he turns to face the empty futon, my suspicions are confirmed.

"I don't know who you are," he says, straightening back to full-height. "but thank you."

He really knows I'm here? But how? The man obviously can't see me, evidenced by the fact that he's not even looking for me in the right direction. For a moment I wonder if I should move there, for the man speaking to the floor was honestly embarrassing to watch. I don't. I'm too shocked - and now afraid - to move.

Does he know that Ichigo can, and I say this for a lack of a better phrase, see dead people? Is this something that will inevitably come up in Ichigo's future, when the real plot of his life begins?

I don't get my questions about this man answered tonight. He takes another quiet leap over the futon, and shuts the door behind him when he leaves.

This show is gonna be weird. I can already tell.

~AWAKE~

The next morning, Ichigo sits up in bed and rubs his eyes of their sleep. I lean on the mattress with a grin and he blinks up at me.

"Gooood morning!" I greet cheerfully. His eyes widen and he jumps back against the headboard with yelp.

"Ow!" he gasps, rubbing the back of his head.

I giggle behind my hand. "Sorry."

"It's all right, I'm just-" He freezes, and then leaps forward over his blanket and onto his hands, causing me to leap back in surprise. "You're still here!"

"Uh . . . Yes . . ." I say slowly, inching back a little more. Why does he keep thinking I'm going to leave? I said I'd be here, didn't I? Well . . . sort of.

I'm not sure what to make of his expression; it's a mix between joy and uncertainty. I frown, the playfulness in me suddenly gone.

"Why do you keep thinking I'm going to disappear?" I ask.

He shakes his head, turning to leap off the bed.

"It's nothing." he grumbles. "Let's just go."

"Go where?"

The entire house is still asleep when we leave, and I worry for a second what his dad might think to wake up and find his son gone. And then I remember - Ichigo has been doing this for weeks now.

The river again.

"Don't you have school?" I walk carefully behind him, the tingling sensation coming back to my feet as I concentrate on not floating or morphing into the ground. Ichigo says nothing.

I expected this morning to be a lot more . . . not happy, but better than this sudden change in mood. He'd been so energetic last night, and would've chatted the night away if he could. Like something during the night flipped a switch in him.

"Ichigo?" I do my best to keep my voice soft; the more we trudged down the long, dirt road, the more his attitude seemed to worsen.

Would it have been better if I didn't come home with him last night? Did I do something to make him angry?

"Did I do something wrong?" I finally ask. Ichigo stopped in his tracks, his feet stomping into the ground. He gulps, and his chin quivers when he finally whips around to face me.

"You're . . . You're not real . . . are you?" His voice is soft, so soft I would have missed it had I not been listening.

"What kind of question is -" It hits me; this is the same question he asked me when we first met. He knew I was different, but didn't know what to make of it. It's why he was so afraid to touch me and it was probably why he was so adamant on putting off what I had to say last night. He didn't want me to confirm that he is seeing something no one else can.

"I'm real." I assure him.

"But you're not." He snapped. "You're just in my head, aren't you?"

That stung. I fiddle with my bracelet, a gift Reed gave to me for our 9th birthday, unsure of how to respond.

"I promise you, Ichigo, I'm real."

"Real people can't fly." His voice is calm, but his tone is notably hostile. His eyes dart to my feet and back up again, and I look down only to see myself hovering instead of standing.

Fudge.

Way to go, me. Way to go.

"I am going crazy." He whispers, and then shakes his head. "I'm going crazy! It was all my fault!" He kicks the dirt up beneath his feet and lets out a frustrated growl.

"There was no one there that night! And I didn't - And I couldn't - And she - !" He continues kicking at the ground, pacing this way and that and rubbing his hands through his hair. Tears threatened to burst, the skin around his eyes turned an alarming shade of pink.

"Ichigo!" I called, urging myself forward. "Please, calm down and let me explain!"

"She wasn't real! The girl wasn't real and yet I -"

Is he talking about me? I don't know. I don't know and at the moment I don't care because Ichigo is breaking down and something is wrong and my skin burns and my stomach churns and my heart feels like it's about to burst through my chest.

What could he possibly be thinking right now? That he's been speaking to a figment of his imagination? That he's going crazy?

He falls to the ground and I kneel before him. He doesn't look at me. Instead he sniffles and his body shakes as he begins to cry.

"It was all my fault. It was all my fault!"

"No. Ichigo, listen to me, you're not going crazy."

He finally looks up. He wipes his nose and blinks away the tears, but I had never imagined he could look so angry. No, not angry. More like he didn't know what to make of me. He then held out his hand, almost like he was going to touch my cheek. I close my eyes as he swipes his whole hand across my face; trails of skin-colored smoke drift through his fingers before reshaping my face again. The sensation isn't painful, but a chill rockets through my cheeks and down my neck. It forces me to suck in a deep breath.

"I was right. You're not really here. You're in my head."

"No!" I finally snap. If he calls himself crazy one more time, I'm gonna lose it.

"Then what else could it be?" he challenged. I folded my arms, clenching my fists around my hoodie before releasing it.

"I'm here. And I'm real. But you're the only one who can see me."

"That doesn't make any sense. If you're real, why can't I touch you? Your hand . . . " He wipes the tears from his face with the back of his hand. The tip of his nose is as red as a cherry. "When I grabbed it last night, all I felt was cold air. I didn't want to think about it, so I didn't say anything, but . . ."

I sigh deeply, the action more of a habit than a need for relaxing.

How do I go about this? Do I rip off the band-aid and just say it? I don't know what else Ichigo may have seen at the river, where I now believe his mother was killed. Whatever it was, it tells me that how I handle this now will determine what kind of effect it'll have on him forever. This also tells me that Ichigo seeing dead people was a relatively new thing. He couldn't tell between the living and the dead.

I tilted my head towards the direction we were going, down the road that lead to the river.

"Come. Let me explain."

I don't go into a lot of detail when I start with where I came from. That I'm from America, and that I wore a thick, fur-lined hoodie because it was winter.

"No one else can see me because I died, Ichigo." I said. I don't tell him how though. How I didn't die immediately, that I had to simply lay there, unable to scream, unable to breathe. The gory parts of my death were something that I didn't want to relive voluntarily. He didn't need to imagine it either.

When I finished, Ichigo stood by the riverbank, and I sat by his feet as he chucked rocks at the water. For a while he didn't say anthing. Not until he sat back down next to me, his face unreadable.

"I knew there was something wrong with me."

"There is nothing wrong with you."

"I see dead people." He scoffs, as if saying it out loud irritated him more than frightened him. "That isn't exactly normal."

"Sure," I agree. "but just because something isn't normal doesn't mean it's wrong."

He shrugs, and then looks at me. I can hear his fingers pulling at the grass by his side.

"Why me? What makes me so special?"

"I don't know. " I admit. "It just goes to show that this world might be a lot bigger than we thought it was."

Maybe I would know if I had seen the anime or read the manga like Reed did. But I didn't. I didn't know anything. All I know now is that, like the character Naruto in his own show, Ichigo is going to save a lot of people. He's going to have an impact on this world for the greater good. He's going to make strange, new friends, and go on wild adventures. He's going to discover things about himself that he'd never even believe possible.

Right now, however, he was just a confused little boy with no idea what to think. He looks away, out into the river, on to the sunrise. Searching for something.

"If I can see people who've died . . . then why haven't I been able to see my mom?"

I pause for a minute, wondering how to answer. How could I answer that? Is it possible that this was a question he was supposed to discover later on in life? Or was it just one of those things that was never revealed?

I answer truthfully.

"I don't know." and then I remember, "Ichigo, if I may ask . . . you said something about seeing a girl here at the river. Were you talking about me?"

The movement in his jaw is subtle, but just enough for me to know he was grinding his teeth.

"No." he said. "The night my mom died . . . there was another girl here. She disappeared."

He didn't seem to want to talk about it in the same way I decided not to talk about how I died, so I didn't press.

"I may not have all the answers for you, but if there's one thing I know for sure, it's that everything happens for a reason."

"Yeah, right." Ichigo folds his arms around his knees before laying his chin on them. "If everything happens for a reason, then it should be for the better. I don't know a world that's better without her in it."

Now I really don't know what to say.

"Can I tell you a secret?" The words tumble out of my mouth before I can stop them.

He's suddenly interested, and maybe even grateful for the subject change. That decides it for me.

"What is it?"

It wouldn't hurt to tell him, would it? After all, the Sight isn't useful to me anymore. I'm surprised I still have it.

"I can do something strange too." I grin at his quizzical look. He side-eyes me, wondering where I could possibly be going with this.

"It's not as cool as talking to the spirits of dead people," I say, "but my sister thought it was pretty cool."

Then again, Reed thought zombies were cool too. The traitor.

He blinked, curious now, but still in disbelief.

"Have you ever heard of the red threads of fate?" No turning back now. He shook his head.

"No."

I bit my bottom lip, willing my Sight to make the strings more vivid against the morning air. At a young age it had taken a while to get used to seeing so much red. Now, it's easy to ignore them, like white noise underneath a melody of soft music.

"The threads of fate are believed to be a myth or a legend. It really depends on where you're from, but the basic meaning of these strings is that they connect people; people like you or me, to . . . well, everyone else."

"I don't understand." Ichigo says.

It'd be much better if I show him. I motion for him to scoot closer in front of me and, careful not to accidently touch him, I spread my arms around his shoulders and hold my hands out for the both of us to see. Red begins to creep up his neck, and I worry that my chill is bothering him.

"Is this okay?" I ask. He nods quickly.

"Y-Yeah. I-I'm fine." He sniffles and rubs his nose.

I continue.

"These strings tell us that everyone in the world are connected, they're invisible, unable to be seen. But, like you with seeing spirits of those who have died, I can."

"Really? What do they look like?" Ichigo tilts his head to look at me, and I can see that his face is still a bit flushed. Nervous that my chill was bothering him, I shift back a little.

I suddenly wonder if this would even work, for it could be very different now that I'm dead. Normally, a person wouldn't need the threads, because they were no longer acting upon the physical world. I took the chance; I'm interacting with the physical world now.

"Let's see if this works." I smile.

I remember doing this with Reed for the first time. She had sat in my lap out on the porch, asking me to show her what I'd learned.

My fingers weave through the threads, stiffly plucking at the ones I'm searching for, bending at awkward angels, and narrowly missing the ones I don't want. When I finish, my right hand is hovering nearly half a foot above my left with two red threads twisting down in diamond criss-crosses. The ones I pulled out of the way twist around my thumb and pinky finger waiting for release.

I've always been fascinated by the patterns the threads of two people destined to interact with created. The ones I'd dug out for Reed and I looked very similar to that of a cat.

"Hold your hands up like I am, and bring them towards mine - yes, just like that." The threads are quite thick, almost as thick as Reed and I's had been. I pray that this works, otherwise I'd feel quite foolish. After a few seconds Ichigo gasps and leans back in surprise. It worked. He can see them!

And much like Reed, his eyes go wide with adoration and awe.

"Wow! I can see them!" he pauses, and then tilts his head back up to me. "Are these . . .?"

I nod, unable to hide the grin in my voice. "These are the strings that connect us together. With this, I can always find you, wherever you are."

He bounces in place, the excitement rolling off him in waves. "That's amazing!

"Very." I laugh. One thing catches my eye, one thing Ichigo wouldn't be able to see. The threads that connect us wind around his ring finger. This surprises me, because this is the finger that held the fewest threads on anyone, if any. Reed didn't even have ours wrapped around her ring finger. It signified a strong and eternal bond between two people.

I could be wrong - I must be wrong. It's impossible for me to even be here in the first place, so how could our fates intertwine so intimately?

I let it go for now, instead giggling at the look of awe in the boy's face. I playfully tugged at the strings and laughed aloud when he jumped.

"I felt that!" he exclaimed. I rolled my eyes and separated our hands, then slowly flew out from behind him and right back next to him. He frowns, but says nothing more as he too lowers his hands.

"Are there others out there like you?"

I shrug. "I think so. I only met one other kid who can see them like I can, so most of what I know is from him."

"Oh, really? Like what?"

I shrug again and lay back into the grass. "Like how kids like me have a purpose for seeing these strings. We don't know much about them really. We just . . . it's like our job to keep the world in balance. To keep the fates of others from getting, I don't know, broken." I was only like, four, when I learned any of this at all. I'm amazed I still remember it. "Of course, I can't do much of that now, but I do know that there were a handful of kids out in the world with this ability."

"There are thirty-five of us out there, searching for answers. Will you help me find them?"

Ichigo moves to lay in the grass next to me. "Are you ever going to go back?"

"Back where?" I ask, confuse.

"Home." He said simply. "I mean . . . do you want to go back and be with your sister? Your family?"

I shake my head. "It's a little more complicated than that."

"Oh." He saddens, but he doesn't press, and for that I'm grateful. After a second he brightens.

"Does that mean . . . you're not going to leave? That you'll stay here? With me?"

I shrug. "Only if you don't mind me sticking around a little longer."

For some reason, I think we're both completely fine with that.

~AWAKE~

"Ichigo!" A voice called out from down the road.

Ichigo and I turned to see his father and his sisters were headed this way. Ichigo waved, confused as to why his family was here. He stood to his feet and met them at the bottom of the hill.

The girl with the light brown hair and pink clip on her bangs puffed out her cheeks, her eyes brimming with tears.

"Dad, Yuzu, Karin, what are you doing here? Why are you upset?" Ichigo asked. Yuzu stomped her foot (I sweat dropped, vaguely wondering why that seemed so familiar) and pointed at Ichigo.

"You're never home anymore!" She cried. "Why do you keep coming down here!?"

"Why? I . . . I . . ."

I sat silently, watching as Karin glared at her brother, and their father kneeled down to level with him.

"Ichigo, I know you're trying to be strong. What do you think you're going to accomplish by coming down here every day, all day?"

Ichigo shuffled his feet, trying not to flinch when his father patted his shoulder and frowned.

"I'm sorry." He mutters. "I've been . . . thinking a lot." He glances at me, and I hesitantly fly over, wondering if it was alright for me to approach this . . . moment with his family. He shifts his head, urging me to come closer.

"What were you thinking about?" his father asks. Ichigo doesn't turn away from me. Instead, he smiles.

"I was thinking about mom . . ." Yuzu and Karin look crestfallen; Yuzu is now fully-blown crying, trying her hardest not to make a peep.

"Ichigo," his father sighs. "your mother -"

"- And I was thinking that wherever she is, she's going to be okay. And that, she knows I'm going to be okay, because I have such a good family to look after me, and I after them. Dad, you told me that 'Ichigo' means 'he who protects'." Ichigo stands up straight, squaring his shoulders and his eyes looking wise beyond his years.

"I know, son, but I-"

"I couldn't protect mom." Ichigo says simply, not even a quiver to his voice. I can still see his eyes glistening with tears he stubbornly held back. He continues. "That just means I'm need to work harder to protect you, and to protect Yuzu and Karin," he turns to me. "and my friends."

His father pats his shoulder again, and searches for me, still looking past me, but knowing that I'm there.

"Is your friend, Angel, here?" he asks. Ichigo cleared his throat and nodded.

"Yeah. She's here." he said. "She'll always be here."

His father laughed, patting down Yuzu's hair who had hidden her face in his chest to cry. I would have laughed too, but the curious look on Karin's face caught my attention. She had a deep frown, and she latched on to her father's sleeve for comfort.

Then Ichigo laughed, then Yuzu laughed through her cries.

Karin continued to stare at me.