Whispers and the sound of lightly rattling chains echoed through the white marble halls of Ichigo's dream. Just like before, his hands were bound with a strange ethereal light. However, this time was still greatly different.
Six tall figures stood around Ichigo, each holding onto a golden chain that was connected to a collar around Ichigo's neck. Experience with these dreams told Ichigo that it wasn't that the people around him were tall, it was that he himself was younger. Given that he barely reached their navels, he would have guessed his age to be around eight. Still, the white robed figures were treating him like a live bomb. For some reason, this thought made him smirk.
"So that's the one? That's supposed to be the so called 'catalyst'? It's nothing more than a child." An onlooking in a row of raised benches murmured as Ichigo was marched by. The man had gray hair that was woven through a sort of ornament on his head. His dressed and posture gave him the look of a nobleman.
"What did you expect? We are dealing with deranged barbarians." A second man, this one with hair that was black as night and strong gray eyes, said dismissively. A laugh followed the two's observations, getting them to turn to a three individual. "Does the Captain find this amusing?" A note of distaste in his voice.
"About this situation? Not at all. I was just thinking about how different your tune would be if the kid didn't have those shackles on him." The third man said with a shake of his head. Unlike the other two, this man looked more like a bum than a noble. He's sandy blond hair was a mess and he had a tin flask of something steaming in his hand. "Barbarians the Erisians may be, but Majesty had her reasons for taking this serious."
Ichigo had stopped to stare at the man. While the eyes of the others held contempt or fear, this man's only showed a mild interest. It actually made him want to kick the guy in the head for some reason.
"Keep moving." One of the men leading Ichigo said, giving his chain a sharp tug, that pulled Ichigo along. With his hands bound, he couldn't steady himself and he stumped forward and feel on his hands and knees. "I said move." The man said, giving the chain another sharp pull.
Ichigo growled, his bound hands reaching up for the chain that the man was holding.
With astonishing force, Ichigo pulled on the chain, surprising the man, and pulling him off balance. Then, Ichigo lunged. Even with all five of the other white robed men holding onto a chain, Ichigo still overpowered them. He grabbed onto the now loose chain with his bound hand and jumped onto of the downed guard, pushing the metal links down over his throat in an attempt to choke him.
Shouts of panic echoed around him as Ichigo struggled against the other five men, trying to maintain his position on top of the man he was slowly strangling the life out of. However, the collar reacted to his aggressive outburst and began to grow tighter and tighter around his throat, cutting off his own air supply to his brain. It felt like the veins in his skull were ready to burst, but Ichigo didn't let up.
However, it wasn't long before blackness edged its way into Ichigo's vision. He needed air. His body screamed out, demanding it. He… he…
Ichigo bolted up in his chair, gasping for breath, his hand going to his throat, half expecting to find the metal collar still there. It took him a moment to regain control of his breathes.
"That must have been one hell of a nightmare." Rukia said giving Ichigo a look. "I suppose that is just what you would expect to happen when you fall asleep with your head in a text book."
"Damn… I fell asleep again." Ichigo grumbled to himself, rubbing his knuckles against his eyes, which felt like they were trying to tunnel into his skull.
It had been three days since the incident at the radio station. It had come as a shock to him when the magic preventing him from recognizing Sailor Moon's identity dropped and he realized she was the girl he bumped into outside of the hospital, the same girl from his strange dream. Though he was getting used to the weird connections to things that seemed unrelated. The real reason he had been shocked is that he hadn't noticed it before. It wasn't even a good disguise.
Rukia had to explain to him the existence of glamours that could be used to magically stop people from understanding what they were looking at. This did beg the question as to why Ichigo didn't get one, but when the boy voiced that particular complaint, Rukia had gotten extremely defensive. Apparently, she had to make the combat pass from scratch in the moments before that first Yoma was going to bear down on them. She hadn't had the time to add a glamour feature.
In the end, he had to carry the unconscious Sailor Scout back to her house and slip her inside without anyone noticing. He still didn't know her name, since the talking cat refused to tell him, but he left his number with it anyways. The fact that he didn't consider a talking cat at all weird was probably proof that his sanity was slipping.
Though just like before, after he returned home, Ichigo's life was still… strangely normal, bar the talking rabbit. The divide between life and death struggle against monsters that sought to use humans like double A batters and the daily life of a teenager was so bizarrely distinct, that Ichigo could swear he heard an addible click whenever he was switching from one to the other. The only problem was that both lives drank from the same pool of stamina.
"You've been studying too much. Just get some sleep already." Rukia scolded him. "I can't keep having my knight nodding off in the middle of the afternoon. It's undignified."
"Exams are tomorrow, and all this patrolling around you've been making me do has been cutting into my study time." Ichigo said opening his desk drawer and rummaged around a bit before pulling out a small bottle. "I just need a bit of a pick me up."
"Hm, what's that? An elixir?" Rukia asked curiously.
"No, just a small energy drink. Should keep me up for another few hours." Ichigo said, pulling off the cap and downing the thing.
"You are going to crash if you keep going like this. Just forget about school already." Rukia said with a sigh. She still didn't see why Ichigo didn't just accept that his duty in life was going to be that of a Knight of the Earth. While she could understand going to school in order to keep up appearances, she didn't see why Ichigo pushed himself so hard for it.
If he just stepped forward as a Knight of the Earth, then the government would surely fund his living expenses for his continued efforts in fighting the Yoma. That was just how things were supposed to work. The common people supported the individuals who defended their lives and upheld justice.
"Not going to happen." Ichigo said in an almost taunting tone of voice. "I'm not going to become an academic failure just because some creeps feel like trying to take over the world."
Rukia rolled her eyes and looked at the energy drink bottle. This kind of thing wasn't going to be enough to restore Ichigo's stamina. Like it or not, he needed his sleep… unless.
Rukia remembered the elixirs from the old days. The ones made by Orihime, the Guardian of the Spring. They had always tasted strange, but they had been very effective. She wondered if she could get her paws on the ingredients needed to make one. It would be one way of making sure that her Knight didn't work himself into an early grave with all this studying nonsense. He was already in a tight spot, with him lacking the magical skill needed to repair his sword, and Rukia herself being too tapped out to do so. She couldn't have him suffering from fatigue on the battlefield as well.
Rukia briefly wondered if Luna had to deal with nonsense like this.
"Usagi, you really should study. You don't want to fail your test tomorrow." Luna said with an exasperated sigh as the Guardian of the Moon cheerfully read one of her manga.
"Yeah yeah, I'll start in a bit." Usagi said, waving off Luna's comment.
"That is what you said two hours ago." Luna pointed out, her ears flattening down against her head as she closed her eyes and started to count to ten, trying to get her stress levels under control.
Usagi didn't seem to understand that as a Sailor Scout, she would someday be expected to hold a position of great importance in society. Thus, it was key that she become someone that people believed they could trust to represent them.
"Usagi, you need to clean up your act. As Sailor Moon you will have to be a role model for everyone to follow." Luna tried.
"But Luna, you said that the glamour around my transformation will stop people from recognizing me, so no one is even going to know that I am Sailor Moon." Usagi pointed out with surprisingly sound logic.
Luna didn't say anything, because the girls comment about no one recognizing her wasn't strictly speaking true. One person had already see her glamour drop, even if Usagi didn't remember it. For some reason, the twin tailed girl didn't even question how exactly it was she got home after the fight at the radio station, and Luna wasn't in any hurry to tell her about it. She herself didn't like the fact that the 'Knight of the Earth', Ichigo, had to carry Usagi home after she had exhausted herself fighting.
In all honesty, while Rukia and Ichigo didn't seem like bad people, Luna had no idea what Rukia was talking about when she mentioned the noble families of Earth. Admittedly Luna didn't remember much from the Silver Millennium, she only knew what central command told her, and they had never really mentioned anything about Earth or the people who lived on it back in the day.
So, while Ichigo had left a cellphone number with the cat and told her to give him a call if they ran into trouble, Luna hadn't passed it on to Usagi yet. Just like with Tuxedo Mask, Luna wanted to hold off until she managed to get in contact with Central and find out what was going on. Just because they all shared a common enemy, doesn't mean they were all allies. It could easily turn out that one of them wanted the Legendary Silver Crystal for themselves. Regardless what their agenda was, an object with that much power would most likely be a temptation.
If push came to shove, back up couldn't be denied. Luna just didn't want Usagi sharing all of their secrets with people they didn't know they could trust. Still, Usagi really needed all the help she could get while fighting the minions of the Negaverse. Luna would just have preferred if the people they were depending on where most definitely on their side.
The sooner they could find the rest of the rest of the Sailor Scouts, the better. Until then, the Tacky Hero and Stubborn Knight were the only help they had. Luna could only hope that Usagi didn't develop a crush on this one too. Honestly, what was with the girl and tall, mysterious boys dressed in black?
Usagi burst into a fit of laughter, pulling Luna out of her thoughts. "Oh Luna, you really have got to read this!" Usagi said with her eyes watering from laughing too hard.
"Oh, Usagi." Luna sighed.
Luna briefly wondered if Rukia had to deal with nonsense like this.
A funny little comparison where Rukia and Luna have completely different perspectives about what their partners should be spending their time on.
"Usagi, stop playing around and start studying to become a great world leader."
"Ichigo, stop studying and start killing shit, we've got a war to win."
Who's argument is better?
This next section is going to take place during Ami's entrance to the scene and is going to be Chad's introductory arc as well, hence the title.
I'm probably going to be going over the last complete chapter soon and compressing it down into one chapter document instead of several parts. So don't be surprised when this story is suddenly five chapter's shorter.