CHAPTER 4
Note: I noticed… that there a limited amount of stories on Karin's potential… So I decided to use some spare time to write one! Enjoy!
Disclaimer: Bleach belongs to Kubo Taito/Tite.
:D Special thanks to reviewers! hugs
Beware: Karin's a bit out of it in the chapter, and therefore a bit OOC, but I wouldn't act normally if I'd just gotten myself killed. Would you?
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Chapter 4 - A Way Out
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Almost too late, Karin realized that her older brother was furious.
"What the hell happened? Why are you…? Why were you…?"
She closed her eyes, thinking with self-hate that she could have left the situation to her brother. She had known this, yet still had the conceit to go to the scene of the accident. Hanging her head, Karin whispered, "I just had a bad feeling… I… I…"
It was unlike Karin to make up excuses, or to stammer. Her uncharacteristic behavior was what finally snapped Ichigo out of his rage. It was then that Karin realized that his rage was almost preferable. The amount of regret and pain that flashed over Ichigo's face showed that he blamed himself for being too late to help her. Karin didn't want her older brother to feel that way, especially when she was completely responsible for her own foolish actions.
Eyes shadowed, Ichigo asked in a hollow voice, "Where's your body?"
With a faint trace of bitterness, Karin noticed that her brother wasn't bothering to hide his shinigami-side any longer. But she brushed the thought away wearily. Here she was, dead, and she was pettily worrying about Ichi-nii and his secrets. Unable to meet her older brother's eyes, Karin murmured, "At the department store; it's the place I went to check out after dinner."
Karin was hoping that someone hadn't just dragged her body away or thrown it in the dumpster. At least her body hadn't been lying in an open street, so it wouldn't have been run over by a car.
In a flash, Ichigo was gone. Had Karin been less preoccupied, she would have wondered how he could move as if he were teleporting himself.
Moments later, Ichigo reappeared beside Karin, carrying her limp physical body in his arms. Though he still looked disturbed and angry, this time, his eyebrows were furrowed with something else, which Karin recognized as contemplation. Only a slight trace of anger was left in his face.
"Your body isn't harmed… Did the hollow just separate you from your body, before it broke your chain of fate?"
Karin nodded, suppressing a rising feeling in the chest that strangely felt like a hiccup. After a moment silence, Ichigo slung Karin's body over his shoulder, and Karin's soul over the other. As Karin wriggled and struggled weakly, Ichigo tightened his hold, saying, "I'm taking to you Urahara-san. He'll help you."
Karin recognized the name; she knew Jinta and Ururu, who both worked at the Urahara Shop. They had killed hollows together and had fun in the process. It was a pity that her most recent hollow killing had no fun in it at all. Dying wasn't fun. It was traumatizing.
(A/N:Remember the kids + Don Kanonji? It's in a Bleach omake, and they go destroying hollows together! Jinta and Karin argued over who would be codename: Karakura Red...)
How much had the Ururu and Jinta changed and grown? They were pretty strong. They wouldn't have gotten killed...
But a tremendous weariness weighed over her, preventing further miscellaneous thoughts from taking root in her brain. All Karin could think about was that she was dead. Even worse, it was her own fault. Help wasn't possible. Ichi-nii was a shinigami, shouldn't he know that? What was he thinking?
Then she felt a rush of wind as Ichigo took off towards where she supposed was the Urahara Shop.
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Nearly unhinging the shoji screen door in the process, Ichigo barged into Urahara's Shop, shouting, "Urahara-san!"
Karin recognized the candy store as Yuzu's favorite. The lights reflected on candy wrappers and the shower of colors seemed to make up for the dinginess of the store itself. Glancing at the candy, Karin felt an aching familiarity, and actually wanted to eat one, before she remembered, 'Right, I can't eat. I'm dead.' She was practically swimming with self pity, Karin dimly thought as she observed her own self.
The screen door slid carefully open, and Ururu and Jinta peered out. Squinting, Jinta asked, "Yo, orange-boy. Something happen?"
Ichigo ignored the red-haired boy. Even the messy state of Jinta's hair failed to quirk a smile on Karin's lips. With as much grim good humor that she could muster, Karin said, "Yeah, brat. I'm dead, if you count that as 'something.'"
'Oops, came out a little bitter, there.'
Jinta looked at Karin, bewildered, as if he'd just realized there were two of her in her brother's arms. Karin almost rolled her eyes. Almost. Ichigo ignored the confused teenage boy and the nervous teenage girl and gently lowered Karin's rather hassled looking soul and her limp body down to the ground. Numbly, Karin stood up onto her own feet, noticed that she was now taller than Jinta and Ururu, though they had grown as well. Ururu seemed as shy as ever, but she eyed Karin and her chain of fate sadly.
When there was no sign of the shop owner's possible appearance, Ichigo took in a deeper breath to yell even louder.
"Uraha-"
"Yes, Ichigo-san?"
The shop owner, holding a white fan and wearing a white-and-green striped hat, was suddenly leaning against the doorway. Ichigo, taking Karin by the wrist, dragged the spirit of his younger sister up in front of Urahara.
"Please, Urahara-san. Karin's chain of fate got broken, but her body is unharmed… there's a way to save her, isn't there?"
Karin closed her eyes. She wished her brother would give up. Hell, she'd given up, and it was her life. Shouldn't a shinigami know better?
To her surprise, the man with platinum-blonde hair and (and a horrible taste in clothes, Karin vaguely thought) tilted his hat forward and sighed, "Though her spiritual pressure is admittedly strong, I'm surprised at you, Ichigo-san. I didn't think that you would suggest such a method."
This bald statement took Ichigo by surprise, and he looked taken aback. That very same statement, however, brought Karin's down to earth. Snapping out of her series of reveries, Karin wondered, 'What are they talking about?'
She turned towards her older brother, a question in her eyes, but Ichigo was focused upon the shop owner, opening his mouth to protest.
"But -"
Tilting his head so that one keen, calculating eye showed beneath the brim of his faux pas of a hat, Urahara quelled Ichigo's protest and instead asked him,
"Or have you forgotten the dangerous processes through which you attained your powers? Had you failed in any one of the many stages, we would have been forced to terminate you as we would have terminated any other hollow."
Ichigo drew back as if he had been stung, and to Karin, it was as if the puzzle pieces were slotting into place.
"So.. Ichi-nii… that power you have… the change in your spiritual power was from…"
'The power of a hollow.'
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Karin couldn't bring herself to say it aloud. But she stared at her older brother in a slightly new light. Not fear, but simply understanding. She could hardly be scared of the Ichi-nii she had known for fourteen years. But Karin was finally getting answers to questions that she had harbored for three years. Now she knew why, three years ago, Ichigo had come back from his long-time disappearance, with tenfold of his spiritual power and without the aura of agitation and fear.
'But I still don't get how that has anything to do being able to fix my current situation.'
Ichigo looked ashamed of himself as he turned to Karin and said, "I'm sorry, Karin, I should have asked you first. I just assumed that you would want to live…"
Then it dawned on her. There was a way for her to live. Karin continued to stare at her older brother, but there was a glint of hopefulness in her eyes.
"So there is a way? That I can stay alive?"
Urahara smoothly cut into the rather strangled conversation with a, "There is a way. Ichigo-san went through the exact same process, his soul pulled out from his body and his chain of fate cut, in order to reattain his shinigami powers."
Ichigo made a protest.
"But… if she fails - "
Urahara quelled Ichigo with a look, and said, "She would still end up in Soul Society. However, if she succeeds, then she will be a shinigami, just like you."
Ichigo opened his mouth to protest one more time.
"But after that, the -"
Karin elbowed her brother in the stomach, cutting his argument off. He had suggested the idea first, and now he was getting cold feet? She wouldn't just stand and thrash around in angst over her death any longer. If there was a way for her to live, even if it was a slim chance, she'd take it.
"If there's even the smallest possibility for me to be able to continue living, then I'll do it. If I fail, at least I'll have tried."
She attempted a smile, her eyes shining with a strange mixture of determination as well as nervous uncertainty for what lay ahead of her. Placing his hands on her shoulders and looking her squarely in the eye, Ichigo said, "It's really dangerous, Karin. You could just go to…" A painful lump seemed to rise to his throat before he forced it down and continued on, "to Soul Society. And… live there peacefully. Become a shinigami the easy way."
Stubbornly, Karin shook her head and scowled at her older brother, "If I have any chances staying here, then I'll take them. I'm too young to die. Yuzu needs me." Swallowing, she continued, "If you could do it, then so can I. If there's even a shred of chance for me to go back to my body…"
She trailed off, but Ichigo saw that she meant it. Beneath his hat, Urahara smiled. Noticing the change in the shop-owner's expression, Karin frowned. Who's side was that man on, anyhow? First he talked as if he didn't want her to have to go through the 'dangerous process' but now that she had accepted it, suddenly he seemed… glad about her decision.
Snapping his fingers, the shop owner said, "Ururu, Jinta, Tessai, will you take Karin-san down to the basement?"
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As Karin was led away, Urahara placed a hand on Ichigo's shoulder.
"She has as much potential as you did. She'll be fine. Go home and make your excuses. Your family must be worried by now."
With that, Urahara Kisuke swept off after his three workers, leaving Ichigo to brood worriedly.
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A/N: What do you think of it so far? It'd be nice to have some more input...
And the next chapter, I think, will be really easy to write, since Kubo Tite already laid out the basework.
I'll be working in the different personalities of Karin and Ichigo, though, so watch for differences!
