Chad had been curled up against Shion's back for the last twenty minutes or so feeling a sense of masculine pride. It wasn't an easy thing for someone of Shion's caliber to let someone else take control over her. Even more so to allow someone to manipulate her into coming apart for them.
She was always so cautious.
So worried that leaving herself vulnerable even for an instant could mean all the difference between life and death. He couldn't exactly blame her for feeling that way.
Her activities as a soul reaper were mostly to blame.
But then, when one was fighting against supernatural beings almost constantly… Beings of great power, and incredible skill- beings that were predators unlike anything that she had ever encountered before- the constant wariness and worry was more than a little bit understandable.
Especially when he fought by her side so often in an attempt to help her protect others and more importantly; keep her alive- because he knew.
He knew that of all the monster's, and all the villains in all of creation- none of them compared to the darkness that Shion carried within herself. That darkness and sort of maliciousness made her very existence trump all others.
His dear friend was the predator's predator.
The monster of all monsters.
Aizen had made a huge mistake in poking the sleeping beast sheltered underneath the thin layer of civility. And when he finally came for her, and he would, because he was obsessed with her and her abilities- Chad was going to enjoy watching his girl pick the sorry son of a bitch apart piece by bloody piece.
Rising up on his elbow, he cast a glance down at his friend and smiled softly at the sight of her. No matter how many times this happened, he still couldn't find it in himself to deny that Shion was a stunningly beautiful young woman.
But then he'd always thought she was beautiful. Even back before she had colored her hair and changed her eye color. Back in the days when he remembered her as Ichigo, his punk friend/partner in crime, and not Shion.
Leaning over the sleeping girl, he pressed he started to press his lips against her shoulder when she somehow managed to muster up enough strength to crack open one of her eyes in a deceptively lazy manner and turned her head away from him in an silent invitation.
Chad paused for a moment to weigh the pros and cons before going ahead with his initial plan. As much as he would have liked to unwind a little bit more and finally collapse and fall asleep beside her for a while, however he knew that someone needed to go and find Orihime.
The girl simply couldn't be left on her own for too long without supervision. She tended to get herself into mischief when she went too long without being watched by someone.
He just hoped that she hadn't left the building otherwise he'd spend the next few hours trying to track her down.
Kissing Shion on the shoulder, he muttered a soft apology. Both for having to go collect Orihime and for being so rough with her earlier.
Shion made a soft huffing sound and gave him a faint smile to let him know that she didn't mind overly much and then waited for him to get out of bed to get dressed before she rolled over onto her stomach and sighed as she let her eyes drift closed again as exhaustion finally settled in and she allowed herself to drift off knowing that she'd be able to sense Chad and Orihime's energy if they got themselves into any kind of trouble.
Orihime watched the guys descend into total pandemonium around her with a wide eyed expression of comical horror on her pretty face. Oh dear god- Shion and Chad were going to skin her alive when either of them came to fetch her and found this crap.
Be the Hatter- not the madness. She could almost hear Shion advise her. Though she figured the saying to mean something along the lines of, Be sly, be clever, be manipulative, but don't be crazy.
It was something that Shion had started saying to herself after first discovering her inner hollow and the utter madness that seemed to attach itself to it.
Be the Hatter- not the madness. Orihime supposed that the saying was Shions way of assuring herself that while she was technically the Mad Hatter, she wasn't the least bit mad nor insane.
Yet.
That sort of irreparable damage took many, many years to accumulate.
Luckily for her, she was so strong willed. Otherwise her inner hollow's insanity would have started to leak through into her daily life long before it had even been discovered.
Jolting out of her thoughts when someone overturned the coffee table, she jumped as it crashed to the floor before finally having enough of everyone's attitude. After all, it wasn't really any of their concern whether or not Shion fought Aizen to the death the next time they met anyways.
The only reason that she had allowed them to see the disks in the first place was to answer some of their questions about some of Shion's abilities and actions. Aside from that, she had also felt it in everyone's best interest to let them know what would happen later on.
To sit back and say nothing and allow innocent people to become cannon fodder was more than irresponsible in her eyes. It was unforgiveable.
"Knock it off right now!" She shouted, causing everyone to pause what they were doing and freeze up in mid motion to look at her.
Splinter had been in the middle of his late evening meditation when his shell cell started to ring. Ears flickering as he cracked an eye open to make sure that it wasn't one of his sons- all of whom had torn out of the lair like the hounds of hell were nipping at their heels, earlier.
He was only slightly mollified to see that it was April's number on the cell's ID.
Sighing since his concentration had been broken, he reached down and picked up his phone and flicked it open and started to ask what was wrong when he heard April sob out 'Splinteretta' the name of his female alter ego that he'd developed over the years for April to unburden herself too when something was terribly wrong, from the other end of the line and huffingly rolled his eyes before telling her to wait one moment.
He needed to dig out his blond, curly wig and his lipstick and put them on otherwise he wouldn't be able to get into the proper head space to pull off the whole 'Splinteretta' thing.
Quietly getting up and shuffling over to one of the trunks that he used to store things in his room, he opened the lid of the nearest one and pulled out his old 'goldielocks' wig. And then took a moment to put it on before then digging out three different shades of lipstick and wondering idly what color his alter ego felt like wearing today?
Did his other self feel like being a pink girl today? A peach girl? Or a ruby red girl?
Ah to hell with it- if he was going to pick a color, he wanted one that made him feel pretty.
So...pink it was.
Once he was done putting the lipstick on, he cleared his throat and then adopted his falsetto, girly voice and then put the phone up to his ear and greeted April in a fake southern accent while mentally lamenting the sort of things that he did for his family.
"April, I haven't heard from you in forever- how are you...hon?" Damn, that last word always tripped him up. How did people from the south manage to talk like this and not trip themselves up? He wondered idly as April began to spill her guts about everything that had happened so far with her young charge in between sobs.
And once she finally finished telling him everything, he couldn't exactly say that he was a hundred percent pleased to know what she had learned. The part about the girl and Raphael getting into a fist fight was certainly displeasing to him- and he would be having words with his son once he got his claws on him.
But to learn that April's charge was part of some sort of mad man's experiment, upset him greatly as well. Finally after several heartbeats of weighing the pros and cons, Splinter decided that perhaps he should introduce himself to the girl sooner than he had initially thought that he would- but first...
First he really needed to ditch the lipstick and the wig.
After all, if any of his sons saw him like this their first reaction would be to take a picture and post it somewhere in instagram or something. And the world of online social media, was not his best friend.
The moment that Chad stepped into April's apartment to collect Orihime and took in the sight before him. He wished that he could simply turn and walk away and pretend that he hadn't seen Casey, and his four green friends all sitting on the floor in the seiza position being yelled at by the girl.
However it would be wrong to just up and leave them to Orihime's weirdly brutal mercies. Or at least that was what he tried to convince himself as he quietly closed the door to the apartment, drawing several curiously pleading looks from one or two of the green guys.
The one in purple and the one in orange to be more specific.
"Orihime," He said as he walked up behind her while she was in mid rant, causing her to turn her head and look at him for a moment before falling silent. Anything that she'd been about to yell at the lot of males, dying on her tongue as she turned to face him. "Come on. It's time to go." He said as he held out a hand and placed it over the nape of her neck so that he could direct her to the door before anything else happened.
Orihime though, seemed to have other ideas entirely and instead of letting him lead her to the door and simply leave, elbowed him sharply in the side and left him standing there to resume yelling at the guys whom had all started to get up only to sink back down into the seiza position with a groan once they knew that she wasn't leaving anytime soon.
Or at least until her fit of feminine ire had finally managed to run it's course.
