"Unexpected Chemical; My Self Insertion into Bleach"

By: billyssong

Chapter 4: Compass

There weren't really any words to describe how I felt. Just hours ago I had been sitting comfortably in front of my computer with typical teenage fantasies floating in and out of my head. After ten months of sitting through grueling school hours waiting to be released to do what I wanted--that's exactly how I handled it. I called a couple of friends, enjoyed a lazy bus ride home, and ended that day with punching my fist into the air, happily accepting my freedom. Hardly a week into summer, I found myself the experience of dropping into one of my favourite animated shows.

And..here I am having a conversation with a character that technically shouldn't even exist. There isn't a single parallel connecting any of this. There's just this lonesome fellow Gen, myself, and an enormous and rolling world of Bleach characters waiting patiently for me to come banging on their front doors.

"--That's exactly right. I shouldn't even be surprised that you'd know such a thing," Gen fed me another one of his wary smiles, and tilted his straw hat down in front of his eyes. I hadn't even acknowledged that that hat was there.

"So, is that the reason why you two aren't exactly close?" I hoped that he'd give me a better idea before he forced me to dig around for it myself.

He kept his hand steady on the brim of his hat.

"I guess you could say that. Every time I try to get close to the girl--she just finds another reason to not bother with me at all."

"Maybe you could try writing and sending out letters to he--"

"You know, sometimes I wonder if one day she'll just--Forget it, scratch everything that I've just said."

I was a bit astonished. Out of nowhere, Gen had opened an unexpected field to his emotions, then gated them off with a, "Come Back Later," sign just as quickly. Wow, this was so helpful to me. This guy had come off as a senior prophet to me, let me into his world, then slapped me in the face by saying, 'You know what? I'm going to SCREW with your freaking head, Missy.'

The only thing that I could do was blink and kick out any possibilities of me knowing about him and the princess of literal Spiritual 'Rejection.'

"Sorry, Gen. I didn't mean to pressure you."

"Think nothing of it. Now unless my sense of direction has completely stopped, I think we're standing in the center of a very busy intersection."

The bastard, he was dead on. We had ironically walked our casual to personal conversation directly into the cross fire of people pouring in and out of the town square. Babies were crying

as if they were constantly being attacked, people were shouting, and passerbys' were desperately trying to dart out of the civilian traffic.

My head throbbed from all of the exaggerated sounds. I could have sworn that I heard a familiar voice escalate above most of them as if a bomb had been set off. I couldn't make out WHAT in the hell it was saying, but it sounded like a teenager had just blown a temper fuse. Again, something was twanging inside of me to connect it to some memory.

I only nodded my head and continued to trek off after Gen. Every time I tried to remember the slick little thing, it slithered away into me being stuck with nothing.

"The perk to this place is that once you wonder around for a couple hours, its second nature to you about where the next thing is. But, since you don't have any clue-"

I smiled and considered playfully smacking him in the back of the head.

"--We're taking the northwest exit, so look around a bit to make sure that you've at least absorbed 'something' out of ere'."

After about some fifteen minutes of walking by streams of disgruntled looking adults, and uniform clad teenagers yelling or talking amongst themselves, we hopped onto the nearest train. Once we got on, I did the odd thing of staring at random people when you've got nothing else better to do. Gen had tilted his head back and had obviously started snoozing his way through the ride. I was bored and needed entertainment.

On each end of our box car were huddles of older high school or younger college students fresh out of school. Among them were a few kids in uniforms sprinkled in with nodding and smiling, or sighing face-to-palm styles of faces and expressions. Their physiques were basic. Thinking about ordinary filler characters, they fit the bill. Each of them had tall and slender frames, even transitions of fair to tanned skin, smoothly sketched faces without too much emphasis, and bald, boy cut, or pig tailed hair styles. Nothing much to see here.

Yawning, I kicked back and stretched myself out in my seat. So this was it? No more mother yelling at me to get off of the computer or do my chores. No more infidel of a cousin jumping in and out of my vision to drag me to play X-Box Live with him. No more multi dimensional skin pigments and outlines, natural spectrums of light...or really just 'rainbows' that actually made sense in reality.

"..I wonder how long this is going to last--?" I muttered, bringing my knees up to the rest of my body, and curling up into a ball. I buried my eyes in my arm and began to lull myself to sleep along with the sounds of the roars of laughter of a nearby conversation.

"Freakin A', Ayumi, who would have thought that you'd SERIOUSLY dig that guy?"

"--Oh shut UP, you know that you shouldn't be saying anything after you almost fell on top of him yesterday when you two tripped. Hel-LO, Yamcha, watch who you're talking to!"

"Man, Yamcha, she's right you know.."

(A loud smack)

"OW man, that seriously hur--"

(Another smack is heard and the third voice is muffled)

"So yea, Ayumi--how about telling me what you think of that guy that orange head FREAK's always talking to?"

(More muffled complaining)

"I have no idea who in the hell you're talking about."

(The muffled voice laughs like a maniac before it disappears with a 'thud')

"Ayumi, come on now. You mean to TELL me that you and Yoko weren't checking out that big guy with the raspberry spikes for a HEAD and cult lookin' tat--"

(The first voice can be heard groaning and crying for mercy a few seconds later)

"Oh, you mean Ichigo's brother?"

(Ayumi scoffs and giggling erupts behind her)

"What do YOU care if he's much more attractive than you are? I bet you he'd even kick your sorry ass if you tried saying that to his FACE."

"--But Ayumi, that guy hasn't been around since that one day Ichigo dragged him into class and was found straddling him in the hall way..."

"-I mean, do you think he's..?"

"Kisamu, KISAMU," I heard my new name being warmly sounded into my ear. Alongside the drifting sounds of teenagers, this voice was oddly pleasant. Thinking nothing of it, I groaned, and rolled over into my cat nap ball. I nuzzled my body deep into my sweat shirt's fabric.

"Baka onna. Silly girl.." The voice mumbled softly to himself. At this moment, I was floating between the waves of a beautiful dream and my own consciousness. Out of my dream realm, I lifted a heavy eye lid. It was met with the searing light of a dimly lit sun hanging somewhere above. The word 'baka' seemed familiar to me.

"..I'm not a baka, you baka oni-san," I responded, raising my neck slightly to hear the voice better. Part of me thought I was just snapping back to a male figure in my dream, the other knew that it was only Gen.

Either way, the person whacked me across the head with a gentle hand.

"All right, Missy. It's time for us to be heading out!" The man cried cheerfully and bounded from his seat to walk toward the box car's exit. I shook my head, stretched again while snatching my bag, and trudged over to where he had stood next to the train. The train had apparently stopped a few minutes ago and the old man had managed to squeeze by the people filing out in front of me. Peculiar little thing, aint he?

Sucking in my stomach, I moved across the kids bundled together from before, and ripped my way through the new bodies struggling to hop on.

"Salvation!" I sighed, deeply breathing in whatever this air was made of around me. It tasted of nothing more than pure wind passing through my nostrils and grazing across the back of my throat. It didn't have the after taste of random toxins and didn't consist of me coughing a few seconds later from super acidic body sprays. I was amazed at how thankful I was for it. This type of environment was laughable, or at least reminiscent of a simple countryside.

"You like that fresh air, do ya?" He chuckled.

"Well, that last stop of yours shouldn't be too far off now.."

Gen relieved his straw hat from in front of his eyes and pushed it back on top of his head. I watched as his tired almond eyes moved across the flat roofed buildings and short, thick roads that grooved quietly beneath our feet. It looked like an independent district, or a neighborhood with houses spread a part from one another. The flat roofed buildings were mostly identical with an ordinary chain of Japanese establishments, each carrying a brightly coloured or banner phrases with Kanji symbols aligning them.

"Gorgeous. So umm..I guess I'm looking for a little shop lodged between two larger buildings?" I cracked a half smile. Truthfully, I'd hardly stuck around to watch the first handful of Bleach episodes to get a good idea of where Urahara's shop was. Post Soul Society invasion--I could only remember seeing a few brief screen shots of it when Jinta and Uryuu were doing chores in front of it. Nothing more.

"This is a smaller area compared to the town center. As long as you can clearly 'see' what you're looking for, then you'll find it."

I squinted my eyes when staring at him. He had pulled down his hat in front of his eyes again. Instead of friendly almonds, I was looking into the heavily shadowed top portion of his face.

"But there have got to be at least a hundred shops scattered all over the place. How am I supposed to figure out which direction to go in?"

He dismissed the question by cutting his hand swiftly through the air.

Gen shook his head.

"You're far too inquisitive. Instead of questioning where you are at this point, you should provide an answer for that by confidently looking for it."

Without waiting for a response, he added--"..You've been here before, Kisamu."

I felt a sudden irritation twinge. Gen had been generous enough to lead me cheerfully, yet blindly into the bowels of a city unknown to me. He came with the proper assumption that I was a foreigner. Now why was he suddenly casting this aside as if I'd know where to go in a district that I'd never heard of before? I wasn't a casual animated character here; I wasn't a student lounging around the districts looking for friends, I wasn't a normal civilian walking through town as if I had done this with familiarity each day.

I was a normal human being who had a terrible sense of direction.

I felt my eyes warm. I was already starting to get flustered. "You can't just tell me that I know where I am when you know I've never been here before. I mean--how can you expect that I can just walk around, 'imagine seeing' my destination in my head..and suddenly be there?" The tone of my voice was shaking with each word and I struggled to keep my emotions steady. I was letting the smallest of things get to me. This was pathetic.

The corner of Gen's mouth twitched into a smirk.

"By now, I know that you can at least move your legs, sugar," he commented thoughtfully. Before I could say anything else, he turned his body and began to walk in the opposite direction. I watched as his petite frame hunched over to move forward, and listened to the sounds of his clogs gently reverberate through my ears.

"Oh come ON, Gen. You can't leave me now!" I moaned in complaint.

"You get moving along now, Kisamu. And--please..don't mention our meeting to my grand daughter," he didn't look back at me as he strolled forward. When he was further down the road, he held up a hand behind him to signify a silent wave.

"Got it?"

I stood there dumbfounded. I had a bag in hand full of useless objects, a head full with questions, and a..surprisingly growling stomach. I turned around in a circle to get a threesixty of the area around me. There was only a repetitive format of small establishments with a few throw ins of Mom and Dad' owned businesses every few feet.

I sighed and closed my eyes while walking down the nearest street. 'Think of Urahara's shop, Kisa. It's a random store that looks out of place. And it's a cute little thing that probably has Jinta prowling around it with a broom by now.'

I must have looked like the village idiot. Every few minutes I'd feel the rush of a luke warm metal brush past me, followed by a squeal of, "Watch where you're goin, lady!". The amount of pavement I walked on didn't feel as if it'd end anytime soon. Reluctantly, I opened my eyes.

In front of me rested a medium sized shop with a flurry of banners swaying on the awning below its roof. It had traditional Japanese architecture and didn't look particularly fascinating. But--like much of today..something about it pulled me to it. The shop was lodged between two faded, yet colorful buildings.

Reply-Review Corner:

A/N: Thanks for stopping by again, Raven. I needed that heads up about not worrying so much about the chapter lengths. I had realized that I started a little pattern with that in my chapters. Thanks for suggesting for me to let loose a little!

Plumalchemyst: A few jumbles of gratitude for you to taking the time to read and review each of my chapters in stride. It means a lot to me.

Also, a quick thank you for those of you who have decided to add me to their favorites/Author Alert lists. I officially have my own lap top, so you should be seeing quicker updates from me.