A/N: Thanks again to everyone who is keeping track of the story and I'm terribly sorry for not updating yesterday... I would come up with a story about me having too much homework but that would be a lie. I was, in fact, watching Monty Python in German. Sorry guys. Anyways:
Chapter Three
"Purlicorne?" asked Rukia, "I've never heard of a zanpak-tō like that."
Kitty had just arrived through the window and had gracefully leapt back into her lifeless body. She stretched as she got up from the floor. She had landed in a particularly uncomfortable position and so her body was sore but, fortunately, not bruised or broken. Kitty sat on the floor as everyone else but Aasa found a seat to sit in. Kitty was about to explain her zanpak-tō but Aasa jumped in before she was able to.
"Purlicorne's like Kitty, she doesn't like to hurt living things so her ability, 'mettez fin à toute la douleur', stops any wounds she inflicts from hurting." explained Aasa, "Kitty considers herself to be a pacifist."
"Mettez fin à toute la douleur translates literally as 'Put an end to all of the pain'." added Kitty.
"Why are you in London, anyway?" asked Chad, determined not to fade into the background as he so often did.
"Work experience." said Aasa before Kitty could open her mouth. Kitty didn't like being constantly interrupted. Kitty hated being spoken for. Kitty wanted to impale Aasa with Purlicorne, "She's got two weeks in the House of Commons working for her local MP."
"How old are you, Kitty?" asked Rukia, purposely directing the question at Kitty.
"She's sixteen." replied Aasa. Vicious glares poured towards Aasa from Kitty. Under her breath, Kitty was swearing and restraining herself. Ichigo and his friends only recognised the stream of swear words because Keigo had made it his personal business to learn every single one of them, "Turned sixteen a week ago."
"What does Purlicorne look like?" asked Orihime, having been told by Rukia and Ichigo that zanpak-tō's had physical manifestations and took a shape other than that of a weapon.
Aasa began to open his mouth before realising he couldn't actually answer the question. Kitty leapt to her feet in joy and screamed, "HA! TRY ANSWERING THAT FOR ME, FOOL!"
Kitty's outburst silenced everyone, though it only seemed to silence Aasa for a brief two seconds, "Stop being so childish!"
"I'm sixteen! I'm still legally a child!" retorted Kitty with a half-hearted shout, "Just 'cuz you're old doesn't mean you can tell me what to do!"
"No!" replied Aasa, "I can tell you what to do because you're an idiot who'll get herself killed without help!"
"Glad to see you think so highly of me!" snapped Kitty, "I'm going for a walk!" Kitty then, true to her word, stormed out of the room after abandoning her body and left. She seemed frustrated to a point that no one else could really understand and so everyone looked at Aasa for answers, only, he had none.
*
In the streets of London, a scream echoed before being followed by a loud and obtrusive bang. The source of the noise was a narrow gulley-way. The drizzle seemed to suddenly turn into a torrential downpour. Two fists had collided with brick and left a distinctive crater in the wall. Then, the body which the fists were attached to, fell to its knees and crouched down, sobbing loudly and distinctly.
A damp cat, seeking shelter, scurried past, pausing for a while to watch the sobbing mass of black. The copper, floating hair had turned grim, black and drenched as the rain bombarded the crouching figure. Her hands clasped together for warmth, giving the distinct impression of prayer. Her eyes, hidden by her eyelids, had turned raw red and tears had dried on her face; her tear ducts no longer able to produce the much needed tears.
From the clouded darkness, a shining creature appeared. The rain slowed, gradually becoming suspended in the sky. The plops of the heavy droplets had vanished. The Soul Reaper sat up sharply upon hearing the unforgettable sound of hoof against cement. Three tails whipped the wind lightly, producing the wisping sound that Kitty was so familiar with; her brother had played tennis. The sound of his racket slamming into the air particles was much like the whooshing she could hear behind her.
Kitty's raw, red eyes looked up and observed her zanpak-tō. Purlicorne stood behind her, majestically staring at her with sympathetic golden eyes. Standing at exactly twenty hands high, Purlicorne was a creature unlike any other. She was in most senses of the word, a unicorn.
Purlicorne's glistening golden eyes lay, obscured slightly, by the long, wavy and delicate strands of silky white fringe that enveloped the base of her horn. The horn was straight and undecorated, it sprouted from the centre of her forehead, hidden by the unruly but beautiful locks of hair and was as beautiful and bright as sunlight itself. At the very base of the horn, small flickers of burning red fire could be seen, as though a red ruby sat at the very end.
Two long ears penetrated the strands of hair and flickered about with every miniscule sound that pounded the airwaves. The ears were as long as the head on which they sat and they too were as white as snow. From the back of her ears, on both sides, three tiny purple tassels dangled from delicate strands of black string. Purlicorne's mane was extremely long and enclosed both sides of her neck as it stretched down towards the floor, missing its target by only twenty centimetres. At the ends of each of Purlicorne's delicate yet powerful white limbs, were golden, cloven hooves that appeared as sharp and dangerous as those of a lion.
At the end of Purlicorne's spinal chord, one would have expected to see a single tail made of hair, but instead there were three tails, each being like that of a lion's but pure white. Before the tiny flicker of hair at the end of each of the three tails, there was a significant amount of red material tied around the tail. This red material was on each tail and on each tail, a length of the red material was loose and wavered about in the blasts of wind that occasionally passed through the alley.
"Kitty?" asked Purlicorne, her voice soft and delicate as snow whilst retaining a knowledge and authority many many hundreds of years over her age, "Look at me, Kitty."
Kitty looked up, her eyes raw and red. She sniffed loudly, her nose trying to recover some of the lost fluid that was trying to escape. Her soaked body had a moment of dryness as the rain ceased to fall whilst she conversed with the spirit of her sword, the very spirit that was a section of her soul.
"Are you okay?" asked Purlicorne. Her wielder was English so, unfortunately, she herself had picked up some of the English quirks. Such as, for instance, asking if someone is okay when it is outrageously astoundingly obvious that they are not.
"Do I look okay?" asked Kitty, squeezing water from her clothing to make a point.
"You look a bit wet." replied Purlicorne. For this reply, Purlicorne received the glare of death to which she responded by saying, "What's wrong?"
"How should I know?" snapped Kitty.
"Well that's stupid," asked Purlicorne, "Aren't you the only person who can know?"
"Oh don't go all mystical on me now," hissed Kitty, "There is something wrong with me, with you, with us. I can feel it. Every time I release you, there's something wrong. I can't see out of one eye and I feel physically sick. Then when I seal you, I get this outburst of anger and my patience dwindles away as if it was never even there. Now, I'll ask you, what's wrong?"
*
"What's up with her?" asked Rukia.
Aasa shrugged, "I don't know. I mean, I know I annoy her when I answer questions before she can but every time she seals her sword, she just explodes."
Ichigo bit his thumb and looked up. He had been staring at the floor and thinking for several minutes and had only looked up during that time to watch Kitty storm out of the room. He passed Rukia a look, briefly examined the expressions on his friend's faces and turned to face Aasa, as he had before been staring at the window, "She trained with Urahara, right?"
Aasa nodded.
"Were you there during the training?" asked Ichigo, his eyes glistening with concern as his mind sought frantically to make sure that the connections he thought would connect, didn't.
Aasa shook his head from side to side, "No. Why?"
Ichigo bit his lip slightly, "How was Urahara when he left?"
"His crazy, normal self, I guess."
"He didn't seem weighted down with anything?"
"No, I don't think so."
"What's with the police interrogation, Ichigo?" asked Uryu, slightly out of the loop or at least no seeing the connection between Ichigo's predicament, Urahara and Kitty's. Retrospectively, Uryu Ishida observed that he should have but given Urahara's crazy nature, questioning anything in regards to him was a wise move.
"Listen." stated Chad simply, silently being able to slowly find links in Ichigo's trail of thoughts just as Rukia and Orihime were. He was also aware that if Uryu commanded Ichigo's attention too much, an argument would probably break out and any hopes of finding out what was going on would vanish instantly.
"One of the stages of Urahara's training can go wrong, has Kitty been acting weird lately? Wrapped up in herself, looking pained, talking to herself?" asked Ichigo.
"Look where is this going?" asked Aasa.
"I think she might have an inner hollow." stated Ichigo.
Aasa frowned.
A/N: Please note the use of 'think'. Anyways, before I give too much away, just a little language note for those weird enough to like languages i.e. people like me:
mettez fin à toute la douleur = put an end to all of the pain
It literally, literally translates as 'put end at all the pain' but that sounds well dodgy so you end up with my slightly less dodgy translation. I also apologise in advance if I've got any French wrong, please correct me if I have; I'm not exactly renowned for my gift of using-the-dictionary-correctly.