Sorry, sorry, sorry for slow updates! I got sucked into an amazing drama from Korea :) It's called "You're Beautiful," and it is just sooooooo good!
Juveniliare - No worries with the questions and I'm always happy to answer :) right now the "supporting cast" so to speak are getting settle into school but will be making more of an appearance later although they don't do much in this chapter either. Chizuru is indeed that lesbian chick, you can kinda think of this story as the reason explanation for why Chizuru likes women :) And I'm so so glad you were able to get my intentions from the janitor's wife thing! Thanks for the review :)
AmberAi's - Thanks for reading my stories :) and for the review!
Allyieh - Yep I did indeed write OSAV (it was my first ff) and I'm glad to know that you're reading this story too! Thanks for the review :)
Shrilaruane - Dove? So cuuuute! Thank you for the encouragement and the review was much appreciated :)
DanceOfTheWhiteMoon - Yep Ichigo does indeed have a liking for Rukia but I'm still hashing out the back story on those two. Sorry about the slow update and thanks you for the review!
Llyssa-maiden - Good deduction Watson! Yes the guide was Toshiro but there's a reason that Rukia doesn't get to know his name yet :) and sorry for lack of update action. Thanks for the review!
Hatake Tsughi - Hahahaha "Stakerhime" !!!! So funny :) But I was considering Rangiku as her roommate but then was like nah, cause then they could never be seen together and I wouldn't be able to make Ichigo all jealousish :) but I hope you still enjoy my choice of roommate although it is bit dull (on my part) who I did end up choosing. Thanks to you for the review :)
Fire331 - Ack, yes I realize that Kira and Urahara are more along the lines of blond haired in comparison to Ichigo. I just never really hear the expression "orange-haired" and always forget to use that instead of blond :) (insert asking for forgiveness here) but thank you for the review :)
star133 - Ah, your roommate makes me worry about who I chose for her roommate and I hope it lives up to your anticipation! Thanks for the review :)
Shigsy - Sorry for slow update but thank you for the review :)
ElfishScallywag - Ah your review left me grinning like a dope and squealing with glee! I give it and A++++ But I will work hard to live up to your wonderful words and add some wonderful plot twists into the story :) I haven't really given much thought to the whole reveal process yet, but your ballroom idea has my mind ticking away and it actually kicked into a high gear of sorts involving a masquerade ball, with disguises and fancy clothing, the whole works (would that be super cliche on my part?) Thanks for the wonderful idea (and I should be asking you first if I'm even allowed to use it before I do) and for the review!
Yoichiro - Toshiro would be hilarious but I had another use for him later on in the story to twist the plot and needed someone to be there as 'heroic support of sorts' for Rukia. Hope who I ended up choosing isn't a disappointment! Thank you for the review :)
Disclaimer: I do not in any way own Bleach, or it's Characters, nor can I lay any claim to the the Kindle
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The two small girls, ages ten and thirteen stood on the stage, waiting in anticipation. Hands clasped together, the raven haired girls looked nervously down at the large crowd sitting in the rows of red, velour seats on the floor below. The small girls looked at each other, the elder one giving her younger sister a reassuring smile. They both turned their attentions back to the rectangular table set up on the side of the stage. Behind the table, four individuals sat, each with great musical credit to their names. The three men and one woman glanced over the papers spread before them on the table, their heads brought together in discussion.
Finally, the man at the end of the table got to his feet, readjusting his black suit jacket as he strode to the center of the stage. The audience below quieted as that lone man reached up, taking the microphone from the stand into his hand. He cleared his throat, "After much debate, my fellow judges and I have reached a winner."
He looked down to the two small girls standing by him on the stage, "Kuchiki HIsana," he bowed his head slightly in the direction of the older girl, "And Kuchiki Rukia," he looked to the younger of the pair, "I thank and congratulate both of you for the wonderful performances tonight. Unfortunately, in this competition, we can only have one winner."
"The winner of the Junior national Piano Competition, who will receive the five thousand dollar scholarship and grand piano on which both of you played tonight," he indicated to the black piano set up on the stage behind them, "Is, after much deliberation, Kuchiki … Rukia."
Despite her name being the one called, the younger girl's heart crumbled as the applause became drowned out with the look she saw in her elder sister's eyes. "Congratulation Rukia," Hisana whispered, wrapping her arms about Rukia. Hisana was trembling, her eyes heavy with emotion as she pulled away and excused herself from Rukia's presence.
Rukia's hand clasped onto empty air as she watched her sister disappear, off the stage and from her sights. She tore her eyes from her sister, "I'm sorry Hisana."
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Byakuya
Kuchiki Byakuya paced his office in Italy. He wanted to be in China, at Euterpe, but there was more pressing matters to attend to and his people didn't seem to be able to get the job done right. The subtle colored theme of his Asian styled office did nothing to soothe his frayed nerves and the neat stacks of paperwork only worked to further irk him. With slight frustration he banged a fist on his desk, glad for one thing that he had went the extra mile and went with the sturdier desk, it had been undergoing quite a lot of abuse lately.
With considerable strain on his features, he paced to the large window that his desk sat in front of, staring through the shining glass to the busy millings of the street below. The sunlight cast rays onto his as usual stern features, and his eyebrows hitched in worry as he weighed the decision to be made. Being brought up in the high end of society, Kuchiki Byakuya was a well groomed, well tailored man. His black suit was clean and fitted, his shoes polished, his cuff links gold and his tie of the highest quality of satin. His black hair, though longer in length than most men of his class, was well kept and pulled back loosely. He had the look of a man of high class it was just his attitude that was unfitting to his stature. It wasn't that he was a wild, crazy, hooligan of sorts, rather that he just didn't follow that same guidelines as those of the prissy stuck up upper class.
Although he would never openly acknowledge to doing so, he hired workers based on actual experience and education rather than connections they had in society. He made business agreements with small businesses without alterior motives. And to top it all off, he refused to conform to the beliefs of others just to say on people's good sides. If he didn't like something, he would openly and most blatantly say so. His insults were so information loaded, indirect and extravagant that the party on the receiving end usually ended up taking a full day to realize that there had indeed been an offense in his words.
His phone buzzed from his desk, his grey shot to the device as he turned, snatching his phone off his desktop and pressing the talk button on the touch screen. "Hello?"
There was a slight pause before a timid voice was heard, "Uh, brother?"
Byakuya felt his mood of agitation lessen with the tones of the woman on the other side of the line, "Hisana, is something wrong?"
The elder of his two younger sisters quickly answered, "No, no I was just wondering if you knew if Renji had been planning on leaving today?"
"Renji?" Byakuya said in reference to the head of one of his business branches, "Renji should be at the school. He arrived two days ago, at three in the afternoon and I instructed him to remain on the campus unless emergency arose."
"Oh, well I'll go and look for him again," was Hisana's answer. The pause was momentary, but Byakuya deciphered from the silence that something was troubling Hisana. "Byakuya?" she said after taking a deep breath, "But brother, do you know why exactly Rukia wanted to go to school overseas?"
The question was unexpected on Byakuya's part. He knew that his younger sisters were close in age and thus were always consulting and confiding secrets with eachother. Hisana asking him to explain Rukia's thoughts was something quite foreign to him indeed. "Well," he racked his memories of Rukia's words, "I believe it was something along the lines of wanting to live as a normal girl and not wanting to conform with our ways of society."
"Oh, I see," Hisana did not sound pleased with the answer, "It didn't have anything to do with me?"
"Not that I am aware of, but why don't you ask her yourself?"
"I-I can't do that, I mean that would, I mean, I just can't."
"Just talk to her Hisana, she's our sister and is closer to you than me, but speaking of Rukia, isn't she supposed to arrive today?" Byakuya said, referring back to his original source of worry that had started out earlier that day.
"Oh, right, that's what I was calling about, Rukia is here, but Renji isn't here anymore."
"For the love of …" Byakuya decided to edit himself before his swearing overtook the main portion of the conversation, "That is most likely why he hasn't checked in with me yet. I will take care of it Hisana, don't worry."
"Thank you Byakuya," Hisana voice held a note of relief, "I will talk to you later then."
"Very well, I will try and make time to come and visit you."
"That would be fun."
"I will see to it then, and Hisana,"
"Yes?"
"Be sure to take your medicine, no missing treatments."
"I understand," Hisana's tone was subdued, "Bye brother."
The call ended and Byakuya let the phone remain against his ear for a second longer before lowering the cell and staring at the screen. "My sisters will be the death of me."
His eyes fell to the calendar on his desk, his feeling of annoyance once again emerging, "But now I am going to be the death of Abarai Renji. I swear monkeys would be more useful than some of the workers I've hired." Speaking of monkeys … He groaned in further irritation as his phone rang.
He rubbed his brow, keeping his breathing even, "Hello?" he said in a curt tone, pulling out his leather desk chair and seating himself.
"Sir."
"Renji," Byakuya recognized the voice, "Are you with Rukia?"
"Uh, no but she isn't supposed to arrive until tomorrow right?"
Byakuya could've sworn he felt a vein pop in his forehead, he got up from his chair, walking around to pace the large, empty expanse of space before his desk. "No, she arrived today, about an hour ago in fact," he said in the best attempt at an even toned voice as he wore a path in the antique style rug spread on the floor before his desk.
"Oh," the voice finally answered him. "Oh … I see."
"Renji?"
"Yes sir?" Renji asked, almost reluctant to find out what Byakuya wanted.
"Shouldn't you be doing something, oh I don't know, say … right about … NOW?"
"… Sir?"
Byakuya slammed a fist on his desk, "Go now, find my sister and make sure that she does not humiliate the family or herself!"
"R-right sir."
Byakuya opened the large window behind his office desk, taking his phone and chucking it out of the window. "Dammit, I knew this was a bad idea." He stood in the window, annoyance causing his eye to twitch making him look slightly crazed. "Screw it, I'm going, I need to call my private jet," he reached down to his pocket, his hand stopping as he stared down to the ground far below, twenty stories below, "Dammit, that's the seventh freaking phone I've thrown out the window."
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Rukia
Rukia angrily paced her room. She didn't like this roommate arrangement. Sure the room was large enough to comfortably meet the needs of two people, after all the room was similar in style to a small hotel room, complete with its own bathroom and walk in closet but since she was a girl, disguised as a boy, and everyone thought she was indeed a boy, then most likely her roommate would be a …
"Yo," a male's voice said from the doorway.
"Eep," Rukia jumped, "I mean, yo what's the deal man, sneaking up on me …" she finally turned to face to the voice, "Renji?"
The red head nodded, shutting the door behind him and closing the distance between himself and Rukia. "Hey how have you been?" He reached out, pulling Rukia into a hug.
Abarai Renji was Rukia's childhood friend, the boy that was her playmate in between her piano practice. Her hero from the spiders, her champion of thundery nights and shoulder to cry on when her life felt hard.
Renji wasn't from the streets so to speak, but he wasn't in the same social bracket as Rukia either. His red hair was now longer than even, and pulled up into a ponytail, the resulting updo causing a slight resemblance between his head and the top of a pineapple. The last time Rukia had seen him, he had just graduated high school from a private program and had started working for her brother. She was actually surprised that her brother had hired him and amazed that her brother had seemingly taken a liking to Renji, promoting him to the head of the Kuchiki Corporation branch in Canada only after a year of work. Renji was the youngest branch head, at the age of nineteen, and used his strong willed attitude to keep his subordinates in line. Not that he was just a lucky bum of sorts, he had a high school diploma and was attending college full time, while still managing business in his location.
"Renji?" Rukia struggled to lift her head to look up a her childhood friend, "I thought my brother had you overseeing the management of the business in Canada."
"Nah, he sent me back to high school of all places," Renji mused, his arms still wrapped about Rukia. "I'm undercover too."
Rukia was starting to feel uncomfortable and slowly pushed Renji away. "Uh, so do you have an undercover identity then?"
"Nah, not really," Renji scratched the back of his head, taking a few steps back to lean against the closed door on one side of the room that led to a closet. "Nobody knows who I am and I still look like a high school kid so no secret identity is really needed. Plus nobody knows my name, so I'm free to go as Abarai Renji."
"So, I guess I really don't have to worry too much about having a roommate then, since I know you won't try anything," Rukia smiled, pulling up her suitcase onto her bed. She didn't quite feel like adding, 'but this still might be awkward as hell.'
"Heh well that," Renji scratched the back of his head, "And the fact that your brother would kill me, stuff me in a suitcase and ship me off the Italy just to have my body dealt with professionally by the mafia, then he would pull off the cover up of the century by making my death look like and accident and then-" Renji paused only long enough to take a breath.
Rukia let her friend continue to prattle on, used to his crazy thoughts in regards to her brother. She started unpacking, moving about the room with familiarity, after all, this room was similar in style to her old dorm room at Euterpe. She placed her neatly folded clothes in the dresser on her side of the walk in closet as Renji followed her about, talking while waving his arms about in extravagant gestures.
"Is there a reason my brother didn't send a girl to look after me, or just arrange for me to have my own room?" Rukia said, half as a thought to herself and half as a question of Renji.
"Well, there was something he was going on about earlier. Something along the lines of you having your own rooms, then getting discovered by a boy, and then this boy taking advantage of you then the rest of it became incomprehensible but the words I did manage to catch sounded an awful lot like a murder plan," Renji said, his face expressing that he wasn't against the idea murder idea either.
"Well, why not send a girl undercover?" Rukia asked, pulling her wig from her head and running her hands through her black, silken locks.
Renji watched her with unintentional rapt attention, swallowing audibly before he violently shook his head and cleared his throat. Rukia, oblivious to the affect she was having on her flustered friend, continued to fix her hair. "Uh," Renji walked over to the window, keeping his back turned on Rukia to hide the red tinged color that crept onto his cheeks, "I never did say I came alone did I?"
Rukia's face gained a look of curiosity, "So, someone came with you then? Who is it?"
Renji grinned, his cocky attitude masking his muddled confusion, "You'll just have to wait and find out."
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Urahara
Urahara may have been sneaky, underhanded and mischievous at times but he hadn't even done any meddling yet and already a rather interesting situation had occurred. With a satisfied smirk, Urahara sipped coffee from the cup in his hand, taking up his stack of music in the other. "This little seminar looks like it may turn out to be very entertaining indeed," he mused, glancing down once again at the roster of the students from Karakura that was atop his sheet music stack. "So Kuchiki Rukia, my little prodigy, you finally return to me."
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Rukia
Rukia fidgeted about in her chair in the large music room. Euterpe's largest music room, and the one usually used for whole orchestral practice was on the top floor of the music building and occupied the whole floor. The room was huge, the space taken up by rows of chairs set up on the raised step platforms that curved about the whole room.
The front half of the rows were occupied by the students from Euterpe, each sporting the school uniform. With glances of unease, the Karakura students shuffled into the rows towards the back, none wanting to approach the musical prodigies before them.
The high ceiling was domed and the hanging chandeliers provided light for the large room. The tall, white colored blinds were pulled aside, revealing the tall, square paned windows. The viridian colored pillars sat atop carved stands, reaching up the ceiling for support and the cream white of the walls and pale golden yellow of the floor provided the room with a warm ambiance.
The front wall of room was largely occupied by a freshly cleaned white board above which was fastened a rolled up projection screen.
Rukia did her best to act shy and nervous, but found only annoyance at the recognition of many of her old classmates. The Euterpe students each wore a white, button down dress shirt, with the boys wearing black slacks and the girls dressed in black skirts. Around their necks the boys wore silver colored ties and the girls had silver ribbons tied into bows. The students were free to adjust their uniforms accordingly to their own tastes and many of the students had added accessories of varying sorts to their outfits.
Rukia reached up, scratching her head in due to annoyance that she had had to don her wig once again. She waved goodbye to Renji as he proceeded down to the aisles where the other Euterpe students sat. Rukia avoided making eye contact with any of the Euterpe's students, keeping her eyes downcast and her hand up around her face, in an attempt to cover her features.
"Tamako, Tamako," Orihime Inoue snuck up behind Rukia and proceeded following her to the empty back rows of seats. Ishida waved a hand at them, signaling them to come and sit by him. Inoue happily waved back, going around Rukia to prance over and sit next to Uryu. Rukia, with less enthusiasm than her friend walked over, sitting down on the blue chair next to Inoue.
"Ishida how was your flight over here?" Inoue started right into conversation.
"It wasn't bad," Ishida adjusted his rectangular-framed glasses on his nose. "I flew over a few weeks earlier to do some sight seeing."
"Oooh sounds fun did you see the Great Wall?"
Rukia looked past Orihima and Ishida, to the towering form of Yasutora Sado, who sat on Ishida's other side. She nodded her head in greeting and he merely nodded in return. With Sado, or Chad as most of his friends called him, wordless conversation was common.
"Look at all these people here," Inoue tried to unnoticeably point, "That's Izuru Kira," she gestured to a rather moody looking, blond haired boy a few aisles up, sporting a grey, cashmere sweater over his Euterpe uniform top. "He is considered a genius of the strings, the violin, guitar, harp, cello, anything. I went to one of his concerts, it was wow!"
"Uh, that is amazing," Rukia didn't add, 'but he's very antisocial and a bit of a drama queen.'
Inoue continued to gape about, her wide doe eyes practically shining in fascination. Rukia wouldn't say she disliked Orihime Inoue per say, rather that the girl just needed a wake up call of sorts. She was too ignorant and innocent to the actuality of what it entailed to be part of the society she lived in. Her dark orange hair and wide grey eyes only served to accentuate her main eye catching feature, or rather features. Although Rukia may have felt like a bit of a pervert admitting this, the first thing the small, black haired girl had noticed upon meeting Inoue was her substantial bust size. There wasn't really any way to not notice them if one's eyes worked properly.
Inoue gasped once more, grabbing Rukia's arm and directing her attentions in another direction, "And there's Ayasegawa Yumichika, when he plays the bass I just wanna cry it's so good. I heard that he even started his own fashion line."
"Oh, yeah I've heard that too," Rukia forced a chuckle, 'but he's a fashionista-wanna-be that doesn't notice when he's out of tune.'
"And look, look Tamako," Inoue seemed very excited, almost jumping out of her seat, "I can't believe it, I didn't know that Kenzaki Ryusei went to Euterpe."
This time Rukia really was amazed with the name. "Kenryuu?" she looked in the direction that Inoue had indicated, "I thought he went overseas," Rukia said softly. Her eyes lingered on his dark hair, her eyes drawn to his smile as he chatted to a girl sitting beside him.
"Oh yeah, I forgot he went by the nickname Kenryuu," Inoue hadn't seemed to have noticed the far away quality of Rukia's voice. "I heard that he can play seven different instruments. The clarinet, the drums, guitar, violin, oboe, bassoon and saxophone."
Rukia bit her lower lip in worry, glad that Inoue was not aware of the fact that Rukia did indeed know that Kenryuu could play the saxophone. He was the best saxophone player she had ever heard, and her inspiration for choosing that particular woodwind to play when she started school overseas. Without a second thought, when Byakuya had asked her if she wanted to learn a new instrument for her new identity Rukia had immediately answered that she would like to be able to play the saxophone. With her natural talent and musical ability, learning to play the instrument hadn't been difficult, but she knew she still had a ways to go until she could play with the same dulcet tunes as Kenryuu.
The rows were beginning to fill as students from both Euterpe and Karakura started to settle in. "Yo Tamako, Inoue," Asano Keigo, his dopey grin on his face had strode down the aisle, tripping over his chair legs as he tumbled into the seat beside Rukia. He ran his fingers through his wild brown hair, attempting to straighten what looked like bed head. Count on Keigo to have bed head in the afternoon, "Crazy place huh?"
"Tamako love," Chizuru had attracted the attention of a large majority of the people in the room as she had entered and waved exuberantly at Rukia. Rukia was glad in this instance that all the seat around her were already filled.
"Yo there kiddles," Ichigo paced down the row, his orange hair attracting attentions. He stood momentarily in front of Keigo, glaring at him before the poor flustered brunette got to his feet and offered the seat to Ichigo and practically crawled away to find another seat. With a slight smirk Ichigo gave a call of thanks and sat down on Rukia's other side, ignoring the gawkings of a large majority of the females currently in the room. "Inoue, how was your trip?"
"Oh, Kurosaki hi, hi, hi," Inoue suddenly became slightly panicked, waving her hands about as she talked, "hi there how goes it? I mean, not to ignore your question, cause I'm fine but I don't want to be rude by interrupting you before you get a chance to answer how you're doing but-"
"I'm sure Kurosaki is good too and we now know that you are also doing fine Inoue," Rukia interrupted, hoping to stop Inoue's blabberings, "Now let's just move on shall we?"
"Tamako, you seem to be in a particularly bad mood today," Ichigo nudged Rukia lightly with his elbow, "Not getting along with your roommate?"
"Anyway Inoue," Rukia censored Ichigo's voice from her notice, "are you excited for today?"
"Are you ignoring me?" Ichigo gave Rukia and accusatory look.
"Uh, well I guess I am, but I am bit nervous that we're going to be split up," Orihime looked between Ichigo and the person she knew as Tamako. "Uh, Tamako are you going to answer Kurosaki?"
"Oh, we won't be completely alone," Rukia said, continuing along her own line of thought. "I heard that we're going to be paired with one of the students from Euterpe."
"You are ignoring me," Ichigo pointed a finger in Rukia's face.
"No worries Inoue," Rukia merely ignored him once again, continuing her conversation with Inoue. "I'm sure that you'll be paired-"
Ichigo narrowed his eyes, "Oh two can so play at that game."
"- with someone nice and it shouldn't be too bad because your partner is supposed to play the same instrument as you."
"So Orihime! Did you notice the stupid way Tamako had his hair styled today?" Ichigo palmed Rukia's face, shoving her backwards and leaning over her to talk to Inoue.
"O-oh," Inoue stammered, quite unsure just who exactly she should be talking to, "You think so?"
"Yes, of course, who does that-"
Rukia freed her face, elbowing Ichigo in the head and turning to look at Inoue, "Inoue!" she said rather loudly, "Did you see that stupid shirt Ichigo is wearing today? He looks sooo dumb with his popped collar."
Inoue blinked slightly, leaning back in her chair as she glanced over at the dark maroon polo Ichigo was wearing, "Uh-"
"Orihime!" Ichigo pushed Rukia's head out of the way, "Did you see the stupid outfit Tamako is wearing today? Who even wears cuffed jeans with sweater vests any more?"
"Uh, if you say-"
Rukia trapped Ichigo in a head lock, "I do not look dumb and like you're one to talk wearing skinny leg jeans and popped collar polos," she said finally acknowledging and directing her words to Ichigo.
Ichigo attempted to free himself, "These are not skinny leg jeans and I do not look dumb, especially compared to you nerd, with your dress shirt, sweater vest and dork jeans."
Inoue could've sworn she saw sparks set aflame between the two and slowly inched away from them.
"Ok, starting time," a voice wavered above the rest of the chatter. In the forefront of the room, occupying the center of the semicircle was a podium at which Urahara now stood. "Now, now everyone, let's get settled," Urahara said, his voice not even raised but still causing the room to quiet. Rukia released Ichigo's head, shoving him back off her lap and into his original seat.
"Why you," Ichigo whispered. Rukia smacked him lightly on the head, giving him a shushing motion. Ichigo rubbed his head, casting the small boy a sideways glance of annoyance. He found his focus unconsciously drawn to Tamako's face as he recalled the feeling of his skin. His skin, it was so … smooth and soft just like the skin of a girl. I bet he's one of those nerds that moisturizes or something. But why do I want to touch his skin again?
"Welcome students from Karakura," Urahara's voice was heard throughout the now silent room, "as you know, we will not be playing any music today, thus do not have our instruments," Urahara said, thumbing through his stack of papers. "Today I will just set up some guidelines of sorts, then you'll break up into smaller groups and get to know your section."
Ichigo watched Tamako as he stared down at the ill kempt looking, blond haired man down on the center of the floor. Ichigo tried to push his previous thoughts about Tamako from his head, choosing a lighter topic of talk to discuss, "Who is this guy, a bum off the streets?" Ichigo said in an undertone from beside Rukia.
Rukia diverted her attentions from her old music instructor, turning to glare at Ichigo. Bum? Rukia practically hissed, "Idiot, that is Euterpe's conductor, Urahara Kisuke."
Ichigo scoffed, "There's no way that can be Urahara. I heard Urahara was the one that helped create the Kuchiki Rukia super-status in music and as far as I can tell, that guy down there just looks like a bum."
"Who cares about how he looks," Rukia whispered in harsh tones, "He's a brilliant conductor and composer moron." Now that he did mention it though … Rukia stared down at Urahara. The bangs of his blond hair strayed down over his eyes and stubble graced his chin. His kimono style of dress and sandals did nothing to help his image and Rukia had to admit that although he didn't exactly look like a bum per say, he wasn't the most impressive man she had ever seen, especially in comparison to her own brother.
Ichigo scoffed, "We'll see, but you know what they say, first impression are everything."
Rukia slightly fidgeted, wandering what her first impression would be judged as.
"Now," Urahara said, "Let's get some fun going."
He clapped his hands, and all the students of Euterpe sitting in the front rows leaned back in their chairs expectantly and the Karakura students looked about with curiosity. There was a whirring noise, and a long, skinny, rectangular-shaped slot opened up in the floor before each seat. From the ground, rose a music stand, the main portion of the stand, against which the music rested, being substantially thicker than usual.
"So, I know all you kids are used to some pretty high tech stuff, but these music stands here aren't your average, run of the mill stands. The main portion of the stand consists of a touch LED screen onto which the music is displayed." Urahara opened the laptop built into podium, pressing a series of keys.
"Spectacular," escaped Ichigo's mouth as the screen of the music stand before him lit up and the scans of sheet music were displayed on the surface. "This is just like that Kindle thing, except that it's music and built into a stand."
"They are Euterpe's newest improvement to the music program and have begun to be used in other areas on the campus," Rukia said, "Or, at least that's what I heard."
"I would prefer that you use only the stylus on the touch screen," Urahara said as the Euterpe students demonstrated how to pull the stylus from a notch on the right side of the stand. "We will mainly be using this for our music, after all, I prefer not to use hard copies, of the pieces, helps the environment that way."
Rukia almost snorted aloud. 'Help the environment my ass. He's just to lazy to make all the copies needed.'
"But these stands can also be used to send messages," Urahara continued. He walked from behind his podium, going over to the first row and placing his hand on the top of one of the stands. He pressed a button and the screen on the stand switched to a blank display. With deft movements he pulled the stylus out and scrawled something onto the screen. He hit a button on the left portion of the screen and looked up at the students. "One of you will be getting mail." Rukia could've sworn that his eyes locked onto hers as he spoke, "Whoever gets my little message why don't you come down and say a few words about yourself?"
Rukia gulped, almost afraid to look down at the screen before her.
There was no doubt about it now, Urahara had noticed her and was staring at her with a look of amusement on his face as he spoke, "Now, who's our lucky winner?"
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So there is another person there appointed by Byakuya to help keep Rukia's secret, but it isn't Urahara, he was already the conductor, although he's not necessarily against secret keeping.
Thoughts, questions, comments and anything else? Let me know :)
** Random note, I wasn't really sure what instrument to have Hitsugaya play. At first I was thinking the clarinet but it seemed not quite right. And I'm also unsure about the instruments for Renji and Ikkaku. I keep wanting to make everyone play the piano or the violin but you can't have an orchestra with just those :( Suggestions anyone?
My thoughts on possibility for the others are:
Orihime - will play the French Horn Momo - seems like a flute player to me Chad - The bass (the one in orchestra, not bass guitar) Uryu - oboe or clarinet Soi Fon - cello, or viola Hisagi - Trumpet (in ode to JGS from Beethoven's Virus) Sentaro - Uh, most likely the baritone Kiyone - not really sure on her. I was thinking about having her be in the orchestra just so she could argue with Sentaro on whether the band or orchestra was more important (*although a full orchestra has wind instruments as well as string instruments, "Band" usually just refers to the wood instruments plus percussion and orchestra is string instruments and piano at times)
Everyone else that can't be matched to an instrument will be mushed into the choir :)