UPDATED 07/10/17
Special Thanks to Chapter 8 Reviewers!
Rowe Mason
givemehug54
Bookgal7
Shaybo27
Blackenflames
niki
Kitty-Wolf-Chan
AnimeFreak
RandomCitizen
Fox Kit Princess
AWAKE
Arc 1-9
Inoue screamed as they took her brother's body out on another stretcher outside. Ichigo and I watched from a window as she held his hand, her words covered with tearful sobs as she begged him not to leave her. She kept apologizing and apologizing, though for what, I didn't know.
"Brother, don't leave me! Don't leave me!"
I curled in on myself as I hid behind Ichigo, watching as the man's lifeline glowed brighter with each pulse. Finally, it let out the brightest glow of amber and stilled. Dark jagged lines spread along its surface, the thread cracking and cackling like thick glass. I could feel the heat from where I stood; the pain, the desire, the relief, the love. In another second it shattered, the streams of light and debris nearly blinding me.
The man, whom Inoue referred to as Sora, opened his eyes and gave his baby sister one last look. The look. The one where he knew he was going to die and he just needed to see the meaning of his life one last time. His eyes held such sorrow, such regret. But also relief. Relief because he knew that even after he was gone she would be okay. He let out a long, drawn out breath. His eyes slid closed in acceptance. And then he was gone.
The wind whipped around me, and I could feel the man's lifeforce swirl into the air before taking place beside his physical body.
"Did you see that?" I asked. Ichigo had to have seen it. He had to. How could he miss it? How could he possibly miss the warmth and the light and the cackling fire that surrounded the man;s heart as he gazed upon his sister one last time?
Was that it? Was that what death really looked like? If so, then how could something born from horror turn into something so incredibly beautiful?
I shook my head, snapping out of the inappropriate thoughts. I should not be looking at this situation as even remotely beautiful. But I couldn't help it. I had never seen death before.
Ichigo shifted uneasily from inside the clinic, staring through the clear glass doors with both confusion and concern. He turned to me, took in my expression, and forced a lopsided smile.
"Are you okay?"
I lifted a shoulder. "Yeah. I just…I don't think I've seen someone die before."
He gave a curt nod in understanding, closing his eyes to let the image of the night flutter under his lids. He had grown up in the clinic, so death wasn't exactly new. However, in the couple years I had been here we had never encountered an emergency case such as this. Ichigo hadn't seen something so horrible since…
"Yeah, it's been a while for me too." He said breathily.
I gave a soft smile and looked back out to watch the ambulance drive away. Inoue Orihime – such a beautiful name if I ever heard one – now stood on the sidewalk under the hand of a total stranger. A woman in a black suit with her hair tied into a tight bun. Ichigo had told me that his father was forced to call social services since there were no other guardians to look out for her. That woman would be the one to take care of her tonight.
Standing next to Inoue was her brother in spiritual form. His expression grim and filled with regret, he reached out to her. As soon as his hand connected to her shoulder, it slid right through. She felt nothing.
I grit my teeth, continuing to hide behind Ichigo as I looked at his threads of fate. They were severed, floating around his body like the flailing tentacles of an octopus. His lifeline snaked around his body and through the chain he now shared with every other spirit we had encountered.
I cringed. The beauty of it was gone and now it hung around him like vacuum of space sucking out the light within him.
I had never seen black threads before.
~Time Skip~
Oh, how dare he.
How dare he!
"No freaking way!"
Ichigo flinched at my sudden outburst. Opening the door to the school roof, we were met with the cool spring breeze and stepped out into the sunlight. He held his lunch bag over his shoulder and slouched his shoulders. He side-eyed me, quirking an eyebrow. "What is it?"
I zipped right up to his face, my glare prominent and promising pain. As I dropped my feet on to the solid ground (er…roof) I held out a hand over my head. I steadily brought it forward and stopped just before it thumped through the middle of his forehead.
"You're taller than me." I growled and stomped my foot like a petulant child. "You're TALLER than me!"
Ichigo merely blinked for a few seconds before letting out a bout of laughter. "You just noticed?" He held up a hand and mimicked my action. The palm of his hand slid an inch or two over my head. The tip of his mouth turned upward into a smirk and my irritation grew so much I had to resist the urge to throw a fit.
"You're not even 13-years-old yet!" I huffed. I stomped my foot again and rocketed into the air to tower over him. Folding my arms, I met him nose-to-nose, my eyes narrowed. "I'm 14! That's two whole freaking years! It's not fair!"
Ichigo couldn't help the roll of his eyes. He strode past me and sat against the fence to unpack his lunch. "It's not my fault you're just short."
"And you're a freaky giant." I narrowed my eyes, peering at him with suspicion. "Are you taking steroids?"
His expression morphed from that of amusement, to confusion, to perplexed – possibly because he was wondering if I was serious – and then back to amusement.
I slapped a hand over my still heart and strung the back of my hand over my forehead with overly-dramatic sobs.
My own twin sister was taller than me by half an inch, but I blamed that on the fact that she was five minutes older. She's allowed to get away with it.
"Stop growing mushrooms on the school roof." Ichigo scolded as I began drawing shame circles on the ground.
"You're so mean to me…poking fun at my size… after everything I've done for you…" I sniffled.
~AWAKE~
"You're not still hung up on the size-thing, are you?"
I turned away, floating next to him with my arms crossed and refused to answer. Ichigo massaged his shoulder and let out a sigh.
"I don't think I've ever seen you pout before." He paused, giving me a quizzical look. "How old are you?"
I turned to him with a look of astonishment. How could he not know this? "I'm hurt that you don't know this. I'm fourteen!"
He deadpanned. "No, I don't mean when you died. I meant your real age. How old would you be now if you still aged like I did?"
I blew strand of hair from my face. That was a good question. Ichigo was around nine when I first arrived, and now that he was twelve…
I ran the numbers on my fingers. "Uh…seventeen. I think."
The answer had taken him aback. "Seventeen? How long were you dead before you met me?"
I tilted my head and tapped my bottom lip. One really couldn't say how long I had been dead. My perception of time was way off. If I had to guess… "About a day."
He froze, his eyes wide as saucers. "A day?"
"Why is that so surprising?"
He blinked down at me (damn you for growing taller!) and took in my attire. He went from observing the thick faux fur lining the edges of my hoodie, to sleeves that included thumb-holes and wrapped around my palms like fingerless gloves, to my black lace-up boots. "You're dressed for the cold!" he said in disbelief. "For the snow, not the rain. And it was spring when we met. It had to have been a couple of months at least. Sometime during the winter."
He had a point. Although I couldn't figure out where he came up with that conclusion. I did have a habit of dressing to impress, so my attire wasn't exactly snow-weather-worthy. Reed and I had just started showing interest in boys and going to the mall looking less than cute was not an option. The snow wasn't going to hinder us.
"I suppose…" I trailed, thinking about it. "It was winter when I died. The van that hit me had slid across the ice on the road." I bit the tip of my thumb. "Yeah, I think that's how it went."
His expression remained quizzical. "I thought you got hit by a bus?"
I waved my hand, exasperated, and scoffed. "It matters."
And then a thought occurred to me. "What year is it?" I asked.
Now he was looking at me like I was the crazy one. "1998…" He said slowly. My heart stopped, well, metaphorically. I whirled around and blinked at him dumbfounded.
"1998!?" I gasped.
Confused by my reaction, Ichigo crossed his arms. "I'm surprised you don't know that. Haven't you looked at a calendar?"
My jaw dropped. It was 2015 when I died. I had jumped back like seventeen years!
"Well, frick." I muttered. I stared into space a long while, and Ichigo started to wave a hand in front of my nose.
"Earth to Angel," he called out. My shoulders sagged, my expression still in awe.
"Take note: Time is really messed up for the dead." I said it as if it held all the explanation in the world.
But now that I thought about it, it made sense. I was in an entirely different world. My reality didn't exist with this one, and Bleach was a long-running anime. Who knew how long ago the manga had been released? Add that to the fact that I was probably eons behind the start of its plot…
"Why?" Ichigo asked, snapping his fingers to gain my attention again. "What year did you die?"
Like many things, I didn't know how to answer. So, I did what I did best; I changed the subject.
"You're getting too tall!" I glowered. "You need to put a stop to it!"
That'll totally work.
~Time Skip~
13-year-old Ichigo jumped into the nearest alley, only to find it was a dead end. With nowhere to run, he spun and squared his shoulders. His eyes blazed with fire, ready for a fight. "Sorry, Angel. I guess we're doing this my way."
I groaned, peering from behind him to search for our pursuers. "Oh, c'mon!" I whined. "You can't find another way out?"
Ichigo rubbed his head irritably, letting out a groan of his own. "Damn it."
His eyes searched, his ears perked as he listened for our – his – pursuers' footsteps.
"Why, Gods? Why?" I clasped my hands together as if in prayer, looking at the sky in a desperate attempt to communicate with any Godly entity. "Please don't kill Ichigo this day! He's too young to die, and I don't know how to get back to his house on my own! I can't wander these streets by myself, I won't survive!"
I felt his blank, unamused stare as if the metaphorical fire in his eyes suddenly evolved into heat-vision. "I appreciate your concern. Really."
I sniffled, bowing my head as if already accepting his fate. "You shall have a lovely funeral. With flowers and daffodils in honor of your bright orange hair!"
"Now you're just acting like a brat!"
"It makes sense!" I continued. "After all, we need to pay tribute to it. Your tombstone shall read,'Here's lies Bambi. A head full of orange hair, but lacking a brain. Death could have been avoided if he had listened to Angel and didn't start fights in the middle of the day—"
"I DIDN'T START IT THIS TIME!" He snapped.
"But no," I continued again, ignoring his protests. "No one listens to Angel."
"Angel, knock it off. I didn't start it this time and you know it! This isn't the first time people have had problems with my hair."
I attempted to do the whole dotting-my-fingers-in-a-cross-over-my-face-spiel, but couldn't remember how the chant was supposed to go. I opted to speak the names of different anime Gods instead.
"In the name of Jashin, Yato, and Death the Kid, amen."
Ichigo snorted. "You're messed up, you know that?"
"Shhhh," I shoved a hand over his face, allowing the chill of my spirit to prickle across his skin. His face scrunched and he flailed back instinctively. "I'm praying for you."
"Do I want to know where you pulled those names from?"
Naruto, Noragami, and Soul Eater respectively. But that was beside the point.
I sunk to my knees. "Oh, Ichigo, if only you could understand the panic you put me through."
He scoffed, looking up, looking to the side. But it was already too late, there was no escape.
"Found 'em!" Someone yelled. Kids just a couple years older than Ichigo surrounded us, crowding him to the back wall of the alley.
Outnumbered, twelve goons to one. As if instinctively, Ichigo stepped in front of me, holding his arm out to his side as if to block the boys from attacking me. That had to have been my imagination, he knew very well they couldn't touch or see me.
Four boys – goons, as I so dubbed them in my head – attacked first, lunging at Ichigo from all sides. He ducked under one, simultaneously kicking his leg out to trip another. The two fell to the ground, and before they could get their bearings he twisted and delivered a swift punch into Goon #3's face. The fourth, taking advantage of their numbers and Ichigo's diverted attention, managed to slip under and forced his fist straight into Ichigo's stomach.
I shook, stepping back against the wall with wide eyes. He had never been confronted by this many. Two or three, maybe even six. But twelve?
They couldn't see me. They couldn't hurt me. But as Ichigo keeled over, I realized his broad shoulders and back had shielded me from seeing just how many attackers there were. Their numbers, their size, their lust for violence and need to bring pain for the object of their disdain rippled off them in waves. Intimidating didn't even cover it.
I stood frozen, ready to bolt until Ichigo's grunt of pain stopped me. Goon #4 followed his punch with another, then another. But Ichigo didn't let out any other cry of pain if he could help it. His teeth grit together as he blocked another attack and waited for the opportunity to kick his attacker back.
I immediately felt disgusted with my behavior. How could I worry about myself when he was the one getting beaten to a pulp? When he was the one they could see, they could hurt? I took a step forward, reaching my hand out as if to do something. He shook his head, a bruise already forming around his jaw.
"Angel, I'm not forcing you to stay here," he muttered before dodging another punch. Two of the goons took that chance to snake up by his side and take a hold of his arms in their own. He thrashed against them, his strength hindered by their weight. One of the boys on the ground pushed himself up and kicked into the back of his legs, bringing Ichigo to his knees. My hands moved to cover my mouth to muffled a scream.
"The rumors are true, this guy is talkin' to himself," one of the boys bellowed. His arrogant tone was deep in the throes of humor. It was hard to believe he was only a middle-schooler.
Guilt washed over me.
Ichigo's hair wasn't the only reason the leader of this little gang was angry with him. He was talking to me. We were arguing about something so trivial that I didn't even remember what it was about. A small group of boys had heard. Their leader, whom I assumed was the tall, thicker boy standing in the middle, decided that was reason enough to give him trouble about it.
It had started out with petty comments which Ichigo had ignored. He had decided not to entertain troublemakers but that only seemed to make them angrier. It only escalated from there.
The leader of this gang stepped up to the front, a giant smirk on his face. His was very ugly (oh the cliche!) with an eighty's afro-looking hair and an unshaven face. A silver ring protruded from his bottom lip. How he got away with his looks in school I would never know.
"You think you're real tough, don'tcha kid?" he laughed and reached into his pocket. Something glinted in his hands, brass knuckles, and he slipped them into his fingers before slapping them against his other palm for a test-punch.
Weapons? They're bringing weapons into the mix now? Twelve against one was bad enough, but now they were bringing in things that could do serious harm? Did they want to kill him?
The back of my eyes burned, the air turning hot and my fingers twitching against the threads by my side. Something foreign and electric rumbled in my chest. It stretched around my shoulders and down my spine.
I was in front of Ichigo immediately – and I saw red.
The urge, the hunger, the need to…to do something I couldn't place a name to settled in the pit of my stomach. I lifted a hand—
"ANGEL!" He spoke in a voice I had never heard before; low and panicked… harsh. Startled, I whirled around to face him, my eyes still burning but the air cooling exponentially. As if he weren't surrounded by thugs, he stared up at me with wide eyes, his expression filled with both wonder and fear.
"I'm sorry." I croaked, my hands curling in front of my chest. "I can't…I can't do anything!"
He grunted, shifting against the hold on his arms and returned his expression to that of a neutral stare. He spat, the saliva mixed with the blood running down his lip. "Angel," he whispered, "I know you can't go far, but please…get out of here. I don't want you to see this."
"Well, shove it!" I snapped. "Because I'm not leaving and you can't make me!"
If I'm so useless, if I can't do anything, then I would just have to stay with him.
I snorted at the sorry excuse, wishing at this moment I could cry. The dead didn't cry. No tears for a life that has already ended, right?
I'm like those vampires from that series Twilight.
God, I hated Twilight.
The leader, taking enough of Ichigo's strange behavior, lifted his fist. Ichigo turned his attention from me, biting back the argument he wanted to pursue, and stared down his attacker.
And then, to both our shock, the boy went flying.
It tipped me off the edge of my courage and I found myself flinging back behind Ichigo.
A tall man stood where the previous boy had. Standing at a hundred feet tall, he had dark rustic skin and brown hair that curled around his ears and hid his dark eyes. He could have been in his early twenties, with perfectly carved muscles that stretched the fabric of his uniform and a stance that oozed strength.
I gaped. Not just from his looks – he looked like the love child of a giant and a Greek God – but from his age. His lifeline swirled around him, thick and powerful and promising a long journey down the path of life. It had only just begun. He was Ichigo's age.
"Holy crap!" I gasped. Ichigo, sensing another who could possibly be a threat, thrashed against his attackers again.
The leader spat from his place on the ground. "Who the hell—?" His remaining lackeys helped him to his feet. "Who the fuck are you?"
He didn't answer. The leader "che'd" through his teeth and motioned his head towards our Godly Intervention for the others to attack. Godly Intervention, dark and handsome and oh, so beautiful, towered over the boys. He overpowered them in both size, strength, and height. I took that moment to mentally arrange their funerals. Their funerals would be short and bitter and would have ugly rocks as their tombstones.
And as they lunged toward the man, I decided that Amazing Grace, played on screeching, out-of-tune bagpipes, would play as their coffins lowered into the ground.
My thoughts stopped short, my sudden amusement turning cold as the man continued to stand there even as the group of goons latched onto him and pounded as hard as they could.
He did nothing, staring on as if the boys were flies knocking against him.
Ichigo, forgotten, collapsed to the ground.
I crouched by his side and curled my fists into my chest.
"Ichigo?"
He held up a hand, assuring me he was okay, and lifted his head through hooded eyes. Blood gushed from his head and I bit back the urge to chastise him for trying to move.
"Is he…Is he just taking the hits like they're nothing?"
Confused, I turned to see that our Godly Intervention was, indeed, taking every hit from the leader with brass knuckles. He didn't flinch, his expression didn't even waiver.
"Who is he?" Ichigo asked and then erupted into a fit of coughs.
"Ichigo," I whispered, chewing on my thumb nail and glancing back and forth between him and the gang. "We should just go while we have the chance!"
"Feh!" He spat and stood on shaky legs. His lips spread into a wide grin. "Like hell. I'm not leaving this guy to take all the wrap. Just stand back, Ang, this is gonna get messy."
I jumped to my feet and screeched loud enough for him to flinch. "IT'S ALREADY MESSY!"
He ignored me. Of course he did. Men.
"Hey, Potato-Head!" The man stopped his beating (or I should say, 'attempted' beating) and turned around.
Ichigo stepped forward, one hand holding in his stomach while he held the thumb of the other towards his chest. His face was beaten and bruised and I could see the swelling of one eye obscure part of his vision. "You've got business with me. Didn't anyone tell you not to turn your back on an opponent?"
And with the rest of his strength, Ichigo dashed forward.
I stood in the background and rubbed my head with a sigh. Why was I not surprised?
Oh, Reed, I thought to myself, putting out another message to the universe. I wish I had the chance to watch this show earlier. Then maybe I wouldn't be having a phantom heart-attack every three seconds.
Hopefully, things will get a little better in the future.
It will, right?
Yeah…Stupid question.
