Hey everybody! I know its been so long since I updated and I'm terribly sorry! Life of adulthood is not kind and its no excuse, but I have not given up on this story. I'm a huge procrastinator, so this isn't new to anybody whose been following the story since the beginning. But anyhoo, since I'm so horrible, this is just a filler since its officially Ichigo's birthday! *Throws confetti*
I'll try to finish the next chapter as soon as I can, possibly try to before the end of this year...hehe.. (Reviews much appreciated! 3)
"Ohayo everyone!"
Toki's greeting goes unanswered as she enters into the Kurosaki domain, though upon witnessing the usual rambunctious bunch the petite girl stands dumbstruck. There beyond the entrance she saw Isshin chasing Ichigo around with a colorful pointy hat in his hands; apparently coaxing him to wear it. Yuzu was also in the chase; however, she had a pretty blue wrapped box in her hands as she cried out for her big brother to accept the gift.
Karin simply sat at the dining table nonchalantly eating her cereal; normalcy at its finest. But what got Toki to actually be shocked was for one simple fact alone.
"Today is Ichigo's birthday?!"
"Yeah, didn't he tell you?"
The silver head turns to look over to Karin, who continued with her breakfast, though occasionally glancing up at her. Toki only shakes her head and pouts, "No, he didn't."
"Not a surprise then," inquires the raven head, "Ichigo isn't into all the attention of birthdays."
The young girl looks on as Ichigo managed a kick to Isshin's face, successfully halting his chase. Yuzu had resorted to the classic puppy dog eyes to convince the carrot top to accept the gift.
"Alright fine! I'll take the damn gift," Ichigo grumbles, though Toki could hear the small thank you mumbled to his kid sister afterward. Yuzu looked as if he had given her the world.
"Happy birthday Ichigo!"
The young male jumps startled, barely realizing that there was a visitor in his home; he berates himself for forgetting about Toki. They began the ritual of walking to and from school together since her house was just a short distance away.
"Uh...thanks," is his only embarrassed response as he rubs the back of his neck, glancing down at the small girl before him. She's only a couple inches taller than Rukia really. "Have you been here long?"
She shakes her head, making her short tresses sway about. "Nope, just about maybe five minutes, but I did catch how it's your birthday." A soft frown flits across her lips as she crosses her arms under her chest and gives him a pointed look. "Which you failed to ever mention to me."
"Ah, well I don't like people knowing when it is. It's too much of a hassle with all the attention," the ever present scowl crosses his surely maturing features as he bent to put on his shoes.
"But it's your birthday! A celebration is in store for your clear maturing youth my son!" A devious grin makes way onto Isshin's face as he nudges Toki's arm gently, eyes glancing to Ichigo meaningfully. "It might even be the year you truly turn into a man!"
The girl who was obviously being expected to perform such a duty, failed to grasp a hold of what the older man beside her meant. Toki simply looks between father and son in utter confusion; while Ichigo looked as if he might turn into a cherry. With quick movements, the carrot top kicks his father away and grabs a hold of the silver haired girl's wrist; dragging her out the door as he bellows out.
"Stop being such a perverted creep, you old man! We're going to school now!"
As they ran ahead, Toki finally realizes what it was that Isshin meant and feels her face burn with intensity; knowing it resembled Ichigo's. With her thoughts going rampant, she barely heard Isshin yell out to them in the distance.
"Don't be ashamed of your growth! Embrace it so that you can make me some grandchildren!"
"G-Grandchildren?" Comes her squeaked reply as she can practically feel her ears let out steam. How could his father talk about it so coolly?!
Ichigo nearly, if not completely, forgot about the small girl he was pulling along as some passerby's stopped to stare at his father in bewilderment. Ever since Toki was introduced to his family, Isshin Kurosaki had been persistent in saying that they were simply not just friends. The very thought was absurd! The little olive yellow eyed girl is solely just a friend; nothing more and nothing less.
Unfortunately so.
Unfortunately?! Where the hell did that even come from! The young male finally ceased his sprinting as he tries to control his puzzled thoughts; all the while mentally cursing his old man for bringing such thoughts to begin with.
"I-Ichigo? Are you alright?"
Suddenly, his thoughts are brought back down to earth as he glances down to his side in surprise; he completely forgot that he was with Toki. Still holding onto her hand no less. With an embarrassed grumble, the teen boy lets go of her hand and shyly rubs at his nose. "Ahh...yeah, just a little miffed at my old man for that last comment."
The petite girl clears her throat as she tries to control her still burning blush and redirects the conversation back to the original topic. She'd be damned if she let Ichigo slide about the whole birthday thing.
"So about your birthday..," she starts off slowly.
"What about it?" Is his only grumbled response.
"We should celebrate it with the others by throwing you a party after school! It'll be so much fun!"
"No way," he intercepts quickly as he hikes up his school bag over his shoulder, one hand deep into his pocket as his scowl deepens. "I'd rather just go about my day like always."
With a small whine Toki grabs hold of his arm that has his hand in his pocket, shaking it gently with each word spilling from her mouth. "Aw come on Ichigo! It's your birthday; we can't just pretend it's a regular day!"
"It is a regular day."
"No it's not!"
"I don't want a damn party!"
"But it'll be fun! We'll have music, snacks-"
"No."
Toki stomps her foot gently onto the ground as she lets go of his arm and crosses her own, glaring up at the tall teen by her. Rarely did she ever raise her voice at Ichigo, but this time she refused to back down. She WAS going to throw him a party; whether he conceded about it or not. Although Ichigo continued on his way, walking a bit faster as he finally saw the school up ahead. One glance is given to the suspiciously quiet girl though as he watches her face slowly let up the frown she had.
This sudden quiet is suspicious, Ichigo ponders as he watches her from the corner of his eye. What is she thinking about?
Before he could open his mouth to question it, the bell rang, signaling the start of the school day. The loud screeching broke Toki's thoughts and both teens quickly began to run over to their class. It'd do no good to be late to class, especially with the type of teacher Ms. Ochi is.
Come lunch time, Toki had managed to get a secret meeting going with everyone, excluding the carrot top birthday boy. How she managed to do this without looking suspicious? Why she simply made Ichigo get into trouble and caused him to stay in class cleaning the black board erasers grumpily.
"I feel bad for Ichigo," mumbles Orihime as she proceeds to eat her usual odd lunch. Their group of the girls and guys met at the usual spot up on the roof.
"You know he's going to be pissed at you for doing that," Tatsuki remarks with an amused smirk on her face as she took a bite out of her sandwich.
Toki simply waves her hand dismissively as she picks up a panda face shaped onigiri she had made and bites into it, chewing it gently before replying. "He'll get over it; what's more important is our plan to make Ichigo a surprise party after school!"
"Didn't Ichigo say he didn't want one?" Chad comments in his usual calm and deep tone.
"He probably didn't mean it! I bet he secretly wants us to throw him a party!" Keigo chirps enthusiastically by his place next to Mizuiro.
"Even so, how are we going to do this without him noticing? I mean Ichigo is an idiot, but he'll notice," mutters Mizuiro as he cups his chin and glances up at the sky in thought.
The silver head sweatdrops at his remark and sighs as she stares down at her bento, her slender fingers gently drumming the side of the container. "We need to distract him long enough after school to get the supplies and get his family to let us use their home."
"Knowing Ichigo's dad, he'll let us no questions asked," snorts Tatsuki as she took a sip of her juice.
"Oh!" Orihime suddenly exclaims as she hits her fist onto her palm with a determined expression on her face. "We can have ninjas kidnap him."
The entire group stays silent as each person stared at Orihime with similar faces of confusion and bewilderment at her ludicrous idea. Then again, such a random train of thought for Orihime was not anything new.
Tatsuki gently pats Orihime's head with a sweatdrop as she replies, "I think that will be a little too hard to do."
The busty teen lets out a sad "aww" as Toki glances over to Uryu, noting how he hadn't said a single word since arriving at the roof. "What about you Uryu? Got any ideas?"
Uryu chews on his white rice before swallowing and opening his once closed eyes to glance over at the petite girl beside him. He had been thinking of one thing to keep the scowling orange head busy, but seeing as their normal, non-powered friends were here, he refrained from voicing it. After all, the plan he had for this wasn't precisely…ordinary. In fact, he knew that if he said it everyone would object, seeing as it wasn't the most practical idea; however, he wanted to have his fun too.
"I do," he replies coolly as he pushes up his glasses by the bridge of his nose with his index finger.
Toki and the others wait for the bespectacled boy to finish his sentence, only to have their eyebrows twitch in irritation when he said no more; and continued to eat.
"Well, spit it out already!" Keigo cries out impatiently.
The raven haired male glares over at the obnoxious brunette for a brief moment before letting out an exhale of breath to show his annoyance. "I'd rather not, but just know that I'll be able to distract him long enough for you guys to gather everything. So don't worry."
Toki raises an eyebrow in question at his hidden motives, but shakes her head after a few seconds and sighs. "Alright, we'll trust you to make sure he doesn't come home early. I'll come with you since it'll be too suspicious for me to leave after school without him."
Uryu wanted to protest to her sticking around, but chose to stay silent as voicing out his objection would raise more doubt in the small girl. Besides, he was confident enough in his abilities to keep her out of harm's way.
"The rest of you," she continues as she finished eating another rice ball, "you'll have to gather the supplies and quickly decorate his house before Uryu and I get there with Ichigo."
"Hai!" Came everybody's determined and enthusiastic reply; Keigo, Mizuiro and Orihime even saluting like obedient soldiers.
The silver headed girl grins in excitement as she claps her hands, "Then it's settled!"
"What's settled?"
Toki tenses at the familiar grumpy voice and surely enough, when she turns she's faced with an angry looking Ichigo. Everybody scoots away from the girl and watches on as she laughs nervously; no way were they going to be targeted.
"Ah ha, n-nothing important! J-Just...school stuff," she prattles on as she waves her hands in front of her dismissively.
Brown eyes narrow in suspicion at her rushed answer, but Ichigo swiftly brushes it off and quickly grabs her in a firm head lock. It was clear that he was still angry at her for deliberately getting him into trouble with their sensei; she didn't even bother to look apologetic when she had.
"Itai, itai! Ichigo that hurts!" She whines and flails in his arms as he began to give her a noogie.
"This is what you get for getting me into trouble! Do you know how hard it is to clean those damn erasers?!"
"Itai! I'm sorry, I'm sorry! Please stop!"
Tatsuki and the others look on with pity in their eyes for the poor girl, though they weren't sympathetic enough to save her either. After all, the olive-yellow eyed female could have tried harder to make it seem like she hadn't meant to get him into trouble. Throwing a paper ball at the back of Ochi-sensei's head and then proceeding to hand a shocked Ichigo another paper ball into his hand wasn't quite making it subtle.
"He'll get over it, huh," the martial artist says under her breath as she lets out a soft chuckle and watches the two of them with a knowing smile.
Ichigo lets out a sigh of relief as classes finally ended for the day, and despite being wary of how fast the majority of his friends dismissed themselves, the carrot top brushed it off. He had honestly better things to contemplate; his group of friends never acted normally. He shifts his brown eyes down to the petite female at his side and doesn't bother to hide his scrutinizing. It only made the silver head sweat bullets internally, but she kept a strong nonchalant expression on her face in spite of the nerves she felt from wondering where Uryu was. He had reassured her prior to the last bell that he had a full proof plan to keep the soul reaper occupied.
"Everything alright Toki?"
Said female jumps startled and looks up at Ichigo's quirked brow, seeing how in his eyes were suspicion. "Y-Yes! Everything is okay, why do you ask?"
Brown eyes narrow at the choppy response and her sheepish grin. "You seem...on edge. Anything you're trying to hide?"
"N-No! No, of course not! Just I- er," she stutters out as her olive yellow eyes flicker about the sidewalk, wondering where the hell Uryu went. He better have not abandoned her!
"Ichigo."
At the sudden new voice, both Ichigo and Toki turn in surprise at seeing their bespectacled friend standing a few feet away. At his appearance, the silver head lets out an inaudible breath of relief and lets her body relax. For a few moments there she had honestly thought that he had abandoned her and left her to find her own ways to distract Ichigo.
A sudden image of her pinning Ichigo to a wall of an alley and pressing her body flush against his crosses her mind, making her face go ablaze. I blame Mr. Kurosaki's earlier statements! This is nuts, I can't think of that!
Both boys ignore Toki's inner struggles of her hormones as Ichigo lets a confused expression come onto his face. "Uryu? What are you doing here?"
"I've decided that it was time for us to have another challenge of strength," he replies as he uses his fingers to push up his glasses, making them glint and hide his eyes.
Ichigo's face seems even more lost at this point as he cocks his head puzzled. "Another challenge of strength?"
"Yes, I presume you recall this," Uryu proceeds to take a small pill out of his pocket, a very familiar pill, though before it used to be bigger.
"Hey, that looks like...," sudden realization flashes in Ichigo's brown eyes, along with annoyance and astonishment. "You're not being serious! Don't you remember what the hell happened last time?!"
"Of course I do," scoffs the quincy as he looks over to the pill in-between his index finger and thumb. "Though as you can see, this one is much smaller compared to the last hollow bait I used."
Finally, Toki looks up to see what exactly they were talking of and quirks an eyebrow in curiosity at the small pill held in Uryu's hand. "What does that pill do?"
Uryu glances over to Toki and responds in a matter-of-fact tone, "Hollow bait lures hollows in."
"Oh," she mumbles, but then her eyes widen as she figures out exactly what Uryu's "distraction" was. "Oh! You're not being serious are you?! This is so stupid!"
The raven haired male feels his brow twitch in irritation and before anymore objections could be said, he easily crushes the pill into dust. "Toki I think it's best if you stay close by me, I don't trust Ichigo to keep you from harm."
Ichigo splutters in anger before reaching over to wrap an arm around Toki's waist and pulling her into his body. "Like hell she'll go with you! You're the lunatic who put everyone in danger again!"
The petite female feels her cheeks burn hot once more as she is forced to rest her cheek against his side, but just as she was going to enjoy the moment, she freezes in fear as she sees a hollow slinking over to Uryu. "Uryu! Behind you!"
The quincy didn't even allow her to finish her sentence when he had already activated his bow and shot a blue arrow over to the hollow, hearing it screech as he completely vanished. "Fine, if you feel you can protect her better, then that's fine by me. But you better hurry before those hollows hurt someone." With that, Uryu quickly runs into the alley beside them to climb onto the fire escape to get to a better view point.
"I'm gonna kill that idiot!" Ichigo fumes as he reaches into his pocket to retrieve a small green ball and without hesitation, swallows it. Almost instantly, Toki witnesses Ichigo's soul reaper form pop out of his body and glances over to the mod soul now possessing his body.
"Kon, I want you to stay by Toki and protect her, got it?"
Kon, who was now in Ichigo's body, salutes to him and brings the short female closer to his body with a grin. "Got it! You can count on me!"
"Hey, wait! Ichigo I can help, I don't need – "
Giving his body a quick wary and warning glance, Ichigo jumps onto the air and on a roof easily as he runs in the direction of where he senses a hollow; not bothering to hear Toki's objection. In turn, it only made the silver haired girl narrow her eyes in annoyance and let out an exasperated huff. Though she glances warily up at Kon who only grins down at her, as he lets Ichigo's hand travel down her hip and causing Toki to quickly pinch said hand harshly.
"Ow! Toki-chan you're hurting me!"
"Listen here Kon, I tolerate a lot of your antics, but today I am no mood for them understood? Now come on, we need to help them out," she comments dryly as she gets out of his hold and begins to walk away.
"Hey wait! Ichigo told me to protect you and you walking straight into the hollows isn't helping!"
"Hurry up or I'm leaving you," she calls over her shoulder as she begins to sprint over in the direction she heard a hollow screech, which happened to be in the park. Figures.
Without protesting, Kon quickly runs over to catch up to her and complains about how Ichigo was going to kill him for not protecting Toki like he promised. Toki said nothing as she lets out a sigh and thinks about how this day was not turning out how she wanted it. She just wanted to make Ichigo's birthday special and here she is running towards one of many hollows infiltrating Karakura. Fan-freaking-tastic.
Nearly two and half hours later, Toki is sprawled out on the grass of the park as her body was covered in scratches and bruises, along with her sporting a nasty gash on her shoulder. Kon, who was still in Ichigo's body, isn't too far off as he closes his eyes and wonders just how badly Ichigo will beat him when he sees how his body is. Not to mention that he nearly got Toki killed for not watching her carefully; he let his eyes stray from her for a few minutes and he finds her narrowly missing a claw that was aimed to penetrate her stomach. The good thing was that it seemed all the hollows were taken care of and Toki couldn't feel anyone too heavily injured.
With a wince of pain she manages to sit up and glance down at the wound on her shoulder, grateful that despite exhausting her still new powers, she had managed to stop the bleeding. Hopefully with a few more minutes of resting she could fully heal herself and Ichigo's body, before said owner found them. But she doubted that very heavily, she was never that lucky.
"Toki! Are you alright?"
Speak of the devil, she winces as she lets out a breath and stands up, despite the pain. "I'm perfectly okay!" Came her lie of reassurance as she lets a tired smile come to her lips.
The carrot top stops before her and instantly stares at her torn and bloodied shoulder, as his brown eyes widen at the blood that soaked through her white school uniform. "Bullshit! Kon didn't I tell you to look after her?!"
"I-I was! But she's the one who ran away to try and kill the hollows!"
Brown eyes quickly flicker and narrow over at Toki as she sheepishly laughs and runs a hand through her hair. "I'm fine, honestly! I got a little scratch, but I'll be fine," at this she cups her wounded shoulder and closes her eyes, feeling her power shutter before flowing through her hand to properly heal the wound.
Ichigo watches on in awe, still not used to the silver head's powers, and wonders exactly what their extent might be. It never ceased to amaze him as he watches not only her shoulder knit itself together, but seeing the blood and tears on her shirt somehow disappear. Kisuke had a vague answer to them and explained that it was similar to reversing things from before they happened. A sort of time control, but even then no one knew for sure.
"There! Good as new!" She smiles cheekily over at him as she rests her hands on her hips.
The soul reaper only stares at her, before letting out a sigh and smiles gently over at her. He walks over and pats her head, before slipping back into his body and spitting out the green ball that is Kon. Though as soon as he comes to, he groans in pain at the injuries the mod soul had inflicted on his body.
"Damnit it Kon!" He yells in agitation as he shakes the little pill.
Toki lets out a small giggle as she kneels before him and lifts her hands to in case him in a silver, transparent barrier. Ichigo looks up at the barrier in wonder as he felt his body slowly being healed and restored. He then glances over at her as the barrier soon vanishes and stands up, resting his right hand on his left shoulder as he flexes the limb experimentally.
"Thanks, I feel so much better," he remarks in appreciation as he looks over to Toki, who stood up and dusted her skirt.
"You're welcome," she replies, though she looks about the park as if searching for someone. "Hey, what happened to Uryu?"
Ichigo clicks his tongue in annoyance as he runs a hand through his hair roughly, closing his eyes as his brow twitches. "No clue, after I killed the rest of the hollows I couldn't find him. So I came looking for you hoping he'd be here."
The small girl shakes her head and wonders if their friend made it back to Ichigo's house safe and sound. She hoped so, along with hoping that everyone had set up and was waiting for their return. She was sure that two and a half hours was enough to get everything together.
"Well, how about we forget about this incident and go to your house? I'm sure Yuzu prepped a delicious dinner for you!"
Ichigo sweat drops at her sudden cheery mood and ignores the fact that she invited herself to dinner; it wasn't as if he was annoyed by it. If anything he enjoyed the times she spent in his home with his crazy family. "Yeah, sounds like a good idea."
The pair quickly sets out to Kurosaki Clinic after locating both their school bags they had dropped in order to ward off the hollows. Once the small clinic comes into view, Toki glances up at Ichigo nervously and hopes that everything will turn out alright. Hopefully the now 16 year old wouldn't throw a fit. With small steps, the silver head stays behind him and watches on with her heart beating quickly in her chest as he began to open the door to his home.
"SURPRISE!"
"What the hell!"
Ichigo stops and stares dumbfounded at the streamers decorating his home, along with balloons tied in various furniture to stop them from floating up. All his friends and family stood before him with party hats and whistles, with big cheery smiles on their faces.
"Happy birthday Ichigo," Toki smiles happily up at him as he glances down at her in shock and before he could question it, she continues. "I got you in trouble so that we could plan this during lunch! I knew you said you didn't want a party, but I didn't want your birthday to pass without celebrating it. So while Uryu uh...distracted you, everyone else came here to set up," with hopeful eyes she looks up at him and quietly adds, "I hope you're not mad..."
The carrot top glances about the faces of each person in the room, before landing back on his petite friend beside him, and with a sigh he lets a small smile come on his lips. "I'm not, don't worry," he replies and softly puts a hand on her head as his eyes soften. "Thanks."
"Come on Ichigo! We got you a cake too!"
Toki watches on as Yuzu drags her big brother inside to talk with the rest of them and with a blush on her cheeks, she closes the door behind her and sets her school bag on the couch. A soft smile comes to her lips as she watches as Ichigo punches an over excited Keigo and sits down, glancing down at her school bag. She opens it and looks inside, staring at the simply woven white and orange bracelet. With gentle movements, she takes it out and turns it slightly to look at it; his name was woven in orange, while the rest was an off white. She had made the simple trinket a few days prior to today, not knowing that his birthday was coming up, but it made for a good present in the end.
"Come on Toki, we're going to cut the cake!" She hears Orihime call out to her.
"Coming," she responds as she looks at the bracelet once more, before setting it inside her bag once again and standing up to join her friends. She'd give it to him when everything quieted down, she decided. For now, she'd simply enjoy watching Ichigo blush as everyone chanted happy birthday to him.
