Characters: Ichigo
Words: 1049
When: After the Soul Society Arc
This is stupid.
They're just school kids for crying out loud, how did this all end up on their shoulders? Why the hell can't the exalted freakin' shinigami deal with this on their own? Ichigo sighs and stares up into the sky, the silence in the park almost deafening. As it turns out, the best way to get away from the annoying loudmouth shinigami who have invaded his school (his school dammit, the one last place he had where he could at least pretend to be normal) is to not be there.
The teachers are going to start hating him again, Ichigo just knows it. The math teacher's already decided that the new bunch are all his fault somehow, even though Ichigo was doing his best to be in whatever corner of the class those idiots weren't in. It's not his fault Chizuru decided to make a flying tackle for Matsumoto's... his thoughts stop there, on the dot, and decide to head in another direction, because honestly, Matsumoto's... things are scary and huge and did the word scary come up yet?
Looking at the clouds isn't helping, all of a sudden, and Ichigo groans and slaps his forehead and really wishes being a teenager didn't mean hormones so stupid they wanted to ensure the extinction of the species any chance they got. Or not, which suited Ichigo just fine, because he didn't think of Matsumoto that way (hormones notwithstanding) and in fact he didn't think of anyone that way, not even annoying skinny little shinigami girls intent on getting themselves killed so badly that you had to bring the heavens down to their knees to get the point across through to them that it just wasn't going to happen.
Yeah, not even those. Nope sir, none of that for Ichigo.
Especially not with that thing inside of him which might lash out and end up killing said non-existing idiot shinigami girl (and when had that all anonymous plural disappeared, one tiny thought considered piping up and then wisely decided to shut up and keep lurking in the background).
Something cackled far too cheerfully inside of him at that, right on cue, both part of him and not and Ichigo let his hand slide from his face as he shifted on the park bench, staring ahead morosely.
Shut up.
Make me, Ichigo. Make me.
"Dammit!"
"Now then, is that any way for a young boy skipping school to talk?"
The old woman's voice, mere inches from his ear sends Ichigo up and off the park bench like a scalded cat, limbs flailing wildly for purchase in mid air (nope, no purchase, so sad) and then sprawling to the ground a few feet away, panting wildly.
"GAH! Don't DO that, old woman!"
A light, crinkly sort of laugh greets that, the woman loosing her breath a few seconds later and coughing shallowly before beaming down at him in a grandmotherly way. Ichigo's ire fades before that, the voice within suddenly subsiding into a whipped puppy dog quiet for some reason, though that odd behavior is forgotten instantly as a box is pushed towards him gently.
"Oh, go on. Have a few... you know you want to. Brat."
Ichigo can't help but grin at the old fruit vendor, a fixture in the neighborhood since forever and ever, even as he goes through the formal pattern of refusing until finally accepting as the giver insists, and then flops to the ground to dig in like a gleeful little boy searching through pirate treasure until the most perfect of all pears rests in his hand. There's only a distant quiet now inside and it's a relief, really, especially considering how loud the other's been lately. Ichigo sighs happily, pulling down one sleeve over the palm of his hand to buff the fruit to a gleaming shine – and then glares at it a bit for reminding him of goddamn Ikkaku. A tap on the nose distracts him though and he beams up at the old figure before him, pushing himself up to his feet.
"Heh. Thanks, old woman. And yeah, yeah, I'll go back to class now."
Biting into the sweet fruit, he bows formally to the woman even as he gives her a cheeky, pear shaped grin and then scampers off, his body remembering that it's a teenager (and teenagers do not scamper, for it is not cool at all) only about twenty feet away, the happy and carefree motion turning into a trudge for appearances sake if nothing else.
The old woman watches the boy skulk off to school and smiles to herself quietly. It's obvious he still has so much to learn, just from the way his reiatsu keeps lashing all over the place, reflecting his irritation, shades of black bleeding over the red in a not so behaved echo of the other self he carries within, now meek and quiet after being so sternly told off while Ichigo was busy looking for a pear. But still. There's a lot of hope for that one, yet.
A low grumble of irritation slithers in the back of her mind, a peevish complaint about how the young brats are all so loud these days and don't have the first clue about how to misbehave anyway and maybe they should just head out there and show them a thing or two? The old woman chuckles again, canines perhaps a hint too sharp for a brief moment, a gleam of yellow dancing in the back of her eyes, and then shakes her head with a hint of regret. With a wistful sigh she fondly begins the process of soothing the hollow within herself back to sleep and picks up her boxes, heading towards her store with a low, contented hum.
Let the children play, she thinks. Let them think they are the first, the brightest, the bravest and the newest.
They'll do just fine, when the time comes, she knows.
But still. Watching over them just in case the old guard is ever needed can't hurt now can it? That thought is greeted with a sleepy, happy hiss, the hollow within sweetly falling back into dreams of blood and death.
The promise of a perhaps, a maybe once more, is enough for the two of them, really.