Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.
It's short, but then, so is my time. I've been studying for finals so don't expect to many updates for a few days.
I munched happily on the fruit, biting into the fleshy skin and wiping the juices from my chin. The pink color was slightly off putting but the flavor was divine. I dropped tidbits after us, watching the small birds peck at it from behind their tiny masks. I looked up to ask about how they could fly like that but he just hushed me with his hand.
"Don't ask. Keep it to yourself." He moved forward, padding over the path with ease. I huffed in annoyance and followed him like a love-struck puppy, coming to his every beck and call.
"Fine. I won't ask how birds can fly with fewer feathers. Instead can I question your navigational skills because they seem to be lacking in most areas." He frowned at me and continued onward, picking his way among the bark, edges, and vines.
"I have taken this path since I was a boy, I could walk it in my sleep." Held his hand out so I wouldn't trip on a particularly hidden knot buried under a small bundle of leaves. "See."
"The only thing I see is an ass who claims to be able to climb moving vines in a state of comatose." He looked over his shoulder with a stolid gleam in his eyes that made the second part of my clever comment die on my tongue. I kicked at the bunch of foliage out of spite before catching up to his fast pace.
"When we get back to the village, I'm leaving you, you know that right?" He uttered and didn't even glance back to see the reaction his words had on me. "I have my own problems to deal with. I'll try to get you assigned to one of the good work programs, but don't go apeshit if you get placed on manure duty."
"What do you mean? You will just push me into a street and send me off with a wave and a pat on the back. I hope you'll feel bad when you find out I was mugged." It was suppose to be a joke but when it ended with my death, the humor shriveled.
"You followed me remember? You should have just left me in the cage, it would have been easier on both of us." He sighed and a slight resemblance to regret seemed to color his tone.
"Do you really think it would have been better if I'd have left you in that prison, well I sure as hell don't. It just would mean that you were still a test subject and I just a girl with a plan to escape an impregnable world. If anything, I should be thanking you." I ran my hand over my shirt to try and press the wrinkles out of it, fruitlessly considering it had become stiff due to body sweat and the sun. I scrunched up my nose in disgust. "Will you really just leave me alone?"
"Look there." He held up his hand and pointed to a spiral off in the distance and I wondered if he even heard my almost silent question. I squinted and brought my hands up to my brow to block out the infuriating sunlight. "It's the Tower that holds up a field around my town. Without it, we would have had to wear the masks day in and day out."
"Wait!" I called, panicking slightly when he started skipping across the tree rims with a practiced precision that only came after years of practice. My plea was lost in the whipping winds and he continued to move forward, forgetting about me. "I said wait!"
I slid to a stop and tried to calm my rapid heartbeat. I was breathing so heavily that my warm exhale made the inside of my mast fog up slightly before it was filtered out. My hair joined the wind in its rapid movements, hitting the side of my face a few times.
My eyes followed Ichigo's trek to the edge and a scream was tore from my lungs and stolen by the breeze when he leaped from the last pool's brim and onto the waiting air currents.