Chapter Ten- On The Same Level
"What do you mean she's been gone a while? How long are we talkin' about here?"
Ren could only shake her head. Obviously, Shinji had returned to the warehouse before she'd been able to make it back, and apparently, she'd been gone a little longer than she had intended. He was demanding answers from their fellow Visored as to where she had gone, how long she had been gone, and he demanded to know why no one went with her. It was sweet to know that he worried about her so much, but Ren decided that she would give her fellow Visored a break and she quietly jumped up a few floors to where she was on the same level as they were. Once the others saw her, she held her finger to her mouth to hush them, and she quietly snuck up behind her worried husband.
"What if she doesn't come back? What if she's lost? What if she gets attacked or kidnapped?" Shinji ranted, thinking of all the worst scenarios that could have happened to his poor wife. He knew, in the bottom of his heart, that something was wrong, that something was happening to his Ren, and here he was with no clue as where in the world she was!
"What if she's right behind you?" Ren whispered right by his ear. She scared the life out of that poor man; the Visored had never heard him scream that loud, not even when Hiyori was beating him, and he jumped at least a foot off the ground. Ren had to bite her lips to keep from laughing at him, just like the other Visored.
"Oh, Ren!" Shinji cried, falling down to his knees and wrapping his arms around her legs. He buried his face into her stomach, and at that point, Kensei walked over and took the grocery bags from Ren, preventing them from any further harm. Ren used her newly freed hands to gently pat Shinji on the top of his head because goodness knows he was going to need all the reassurance from her he could get.
"How was school, Shinji?" Ren asked her husband, still trying to fight off her laughter.
"I'm so sorry, Ren! Those skanks meant nothing to me, I swear! You're my first and only love, so please don't leave me!" Shinji begged. Ren just patted him on the head again.
"Wouldn't dream of it," she assured him. "Although, I did run into this lovely stranger on the way back here…"
"I'll fucking kill him!" Shinji shouted, shooting up from where he had been kneeling.
"I hope you don't. It'd be a real shame," Ren commented, but once she looked at the shocked faces of the other Visored, she couldn't help in any longer: she busted out laughing, and she laughed so hard that her sides started hurting. She was going to have to be this devious more often, because the reactions that she was getting from her comrades were priceless.
"Your faces!" Ren gasped.
"So who is this mysterious stranger, Ren?" Lisa asked her, making Ren just laugh even more.
"It's not funny! Who the hell is he so I can go kill him!" Shinji demanded.
"Oh, me," Ren breathed. "That was too good."
"Ren," Shinji whined.
"I ran into Ichigo, Shinji, damn," Ren chuckled, and her admission caused Rose, Love, and Lisa to burst into laughter along with her.
"You ran into that dick face?" Hiyori asked her.
"Oh, my, that was colorful, Hiyori," Ren snickered. "Yes, I did. I 'accidently' tripped and dropped the groceries, but he was gentlemanly enough to retrieve them for me."
"That little bastard," Shinji scoffed.
"Easy, tiger," Ren told him, laying her hand on his shoulder. "No need to get violent."
"What did you tell him?" Shinji asked her.
"Wouldn't you like to know," Ren muttered, with a sly grin on her face.
"Yes I would!" Shinji whined. "You know what? I'll go ask him."
"What on earth are you talking about?" Kensei asked him.
"I think I need to show Kurosaki just what he's dealing with," Shinji told him, jumping down to the ground floor.
"Have fun!" Ren called. "Dinner will be ready when you get back!"
"What have you done?" Love laughed.
"I'm just giving them a little push," Ren commented. "Who's hungry?"
"My my! You've outdone yourself again, Ren-chan!" Rose exclaimed.
"Why thank you," Ren replied. They were all down in the underground training room, because it was not only their training area, but also their kitchen. Ren had been preparing a giant dinner for them all, and she was just now putting the finishing touches on everything. The rest of the Visored were practically drooling, and they could not wait to dig into the delicious meal that was sitting before them.
"And you finished just in time, too! I believe your husband has just entered the building!" Love announced.
"Damn I'm good," Ren muttered.
"You kissed him?!" Shinji shouted, jumping down the stairs into the training room.
"Oh, shit," Lisa gawked. The reactions to his statement were just too funny: Lisa was obviously gawking, Rose and Love's jaws hit the floor, Hiyori and Kensei seemed to choke on the very air they were trying to breathe, and Mashiro and Hachi both even looked shocked at Shinji's statement. A large grin crossed Ren's face and she marked this one down as yet another victory for her; a girl has got to have her fun, and Ren found that one thing that never failed to entertain her was messing with her fellow Visored, especially Shinji.
"On the cheek," Ren practically sang. "And it was just to show him how thankful I was that he picked up the groceries."
"Pfft, boring," Lisa scoffed.
"Oh, I'm sorry. Was that not juicy enough for you? Should I have gotten down and dirty with him right there on the middle of the sidewalk?" Ren asked her.
"That would have been better," Lisa agreed.
"You're sick," Kensei commented.
"My ears!" Hiyori shouted.
"Oh hush," Ren told her.
"W-why, Ren? Was it because of all those girls? I swear I lied to them!" Shinji cried, falling to his knees again and holding Ren close to him…yet again.
"I know," Ren reminded him. "We do this every time, Shinji."
"Then why?" he sniveled.
"It was an innocent kiss on the cheek, Shinji. It's not like I'm going to bear his love-child now," Ren assured him.
"Shut up!" Hiyori screamed.
"Promise?" Shinji asked her, giving her the most innocent puppy eyes that he could muster.
"I swear," Ren assured him. "Besides, it helped you along with your 'agenda', didn't it?"
"It did," Shinji agreed, composing himself and standing back up. "He didn't know what to do when I put my mask on."
"See? I helped," Ren declared.
"I'm confused," Mashiro stated.
"You would be," Kensei scoffed.
"Shut up, Kensei-baka!" Mashiro yelled.
"Hey, hey, no fighting you two! It's time to eat!" Ren scolded them.
"I'm not sure I can eat after hearing all that," Hiyori spat.
"You've heard worse," Love pointed out, causing Hiyori to think for a moment.
"I have," Hiyori admitted, a shiver running down her spine.
"No more chit chat! Let's eat!" Shinji announced.
"Man, one day there and you're already acting like a pushy teenager," Ren commented.
"I am not!" Shinji bellowed, and looking very offended as he did it.
"Food, damn it, food!" Kensei barked.
"Now who's acting like a pushy teenager," Shinji scoffed.
"Come on guys, just drop it for now," Rose told them.
But they didn't. They argued for at least five more minutes before they finally stopped to eat. They were a chaotic bunch, yet Ren couldn't help but smile when she saw them interact together. They were all a little family now, and hopefully, they would be adding to their family soon. Ichigo may not have known it yet, but he was going to need them. He had the potential to be an amazing Visored; he just had to realize that he couldn't do this all by himself first.
"I still can't believe you fucked your mission up," Hiyori stated, well, pouted really. The day after Ren had ran into Ichigo, Shinji had gone back to Ichigo's high school, only to have the teen give him quite the beheading for what had happened the night before. Shinji didn't really care what the kid said to him, but at that point, he saw just how hard-headed that Ichigo was, and he gave up on trying to convince him to join the Visored. And of course, Hiyori was riding his ass for it.
"If he doesn't want to die or hurt anyone that he cares about, he'll find us," Shinji nonchalantly told her.
"I thought you didn't even want the kid here, Hiyori," Ren commented.
"Tch! It's got nothing to do with the kid!" Hiyori shouted.
"Then what's the problem?" Lisa asked her.
"The problem is that Baldy here messed up on his mission!" Hiyori told her.
"But his mission was to get Ichigo to come here," Rose observed.
"So?! Baldy screwed up! I knew I should have gone myself!" Hiyori declared.
"You wouldn't have lasted an hour near all those people," Love pointed out.
"Hell, you were only around Ichigo's friends for five minutes before you wanted to kill them!" Shinji reminded her.
"Did I ask you, dick face?" Hiyori screamed, reaching down to grab one of her sandals.
"Here we go," Ren breathed.
"No, not this time!" Shinji shouted, jumping up from his spot on the couch and attempting to run away. Hiyori, however, seemed to read his mind, and she was on him in a second. Ren cringed as Hiyori's sandal slammed down against her husband's head, but, he should have known better than to push Hiyori's buttons, so in Ren's mind, he brought this on himself.
"Stupid, stupid, Baldy!" Hiyori shouted as she continuously hit poor Shinji over and over again. At the rate she was going, she might actually hurt him this time.
"Hiyori, I think he's had enough," Love commented.
"He's had enough when I say he's had enough!" Hiyori yelled.
"Uh, Ren, I think he needs your help," Rose told her, but she wasn't paying any attention to him, or any of them for that matter. She had her head turned away from the violent scene, and she was trying to focus on something, but with all of Hiyori and Shinji's yelling, she couldn't quite do that.
"Shut up!" Ren yelled, and the room went silent. Everyone looked at her in shock for a moment before they saw the urgent look in her eyes.
"Arrancar," Ren muttered.
"Arrancar? This soon?" Kensei questioned. Kisuke had warned them about these 'advanced' Hollows. They had been normal Hollows once, but they had broken their masks to obtain more power. Apparently, Aizen could also use the Hōgyoku to transform them into their more powerful forms, as well, and they certainly hadn't been expecting the creatures to show up this early in the game.
"It seems like Ichigo is going after them," Shinji commented.
"What do we do?" Mashiro asked.
"Stay here. I'm going to go take a peek at these Arrancar," Ren told them.
"You sure that's really safe?" Lisa asked her.
"It'll be fine. I'm the Queen of Thieves, remember? They won't even know I was there."
"We're a little late, aren't we?" Hito commented.
"Not the time, Hito," Kiri warned him.
"Son of a bitch," Ren quietly scoffed. Hito, in all his momentary wisdom, was right for once: they were in fact too late. There were two of them; one of them was extremely pale with black hair and green lines running down his face from both of his eyes, and his counterpart was much larger than he was with darker skin and his hair was in a ponytail. Ren had used her shikai to hide in the shadows of some nearby trees, but by the time that she had reached the area where the Arrancar were, they were already surrounded by the dead bodies of innocent humans.
"How could they have killed so many so fast?" Ren asked herself.
"These boys are stronger than we imagined," Kiri commented.
"You know, the last time we felt reiatsu this strong, some real bad shit happened," Hito pointed out. "Am I the only one ready to turn around and get the hell out of here?"
"Look at big, bad, tough Hito, over here being a little bitch," Kiri snickered.
"I'm not scared for me! I'd hate for poor little Ren here to get her ass kicked by these two, so I am merely trying to warn her," Hito explained.
"Bullshit," Kiri challenged, not believing her partner's lie for a second.
"You two are no help," Ren told them.
"I am being helpful!" Hito yelled. "I'm telling you to run the fuck away before something bad happens!"
"Alright, Mr. Observational, take a look around: something bad has already happened!" Ren scolded him.
"To them, not to you!" Hito replied.
"That's actually a good point," Kiri agreed.
"I hate you both," Ren grumbled. "When we get home, I'm going to lavish the hell out of Shinji with some good ole fashioned romance, and I'm going to make you two watch."
"You're fucking sick," Hito gagged.
"I agree," Kiri added.
"Then shut the hell up," Ren warned them. "It looks like someone out there is still alive."
"I'd hate to be her," Kiri breathed.
Out of the whole crowd of bodies, only one started to move. It was a young girl, probably about Ichigo's age, and the poor thing looked so dazed and confused, until she saw the Arrancar, and then she became terrified as well.
"He literally sucked their souls out and ate them," Ren commented, listening in to the conversation that the two Arrancar were having. The girl had been the only one able to resist the technique, and now that Ren actually thought about it, the girl did have a mild amount of spiritual pressure, but it was probably only enough to let her see the Arrancar and not fight them.
"Are you gonna let her die?" Hito questioned.
"She can't afford to be seen," Kiri told him.
"Why not?" Hito wondered.
"I only came here to observe, not to interfere," Ren explained. "Besides, someone is coming."
And it was more than one someone at that. There were two of them, in fact, two teenagers, with significantly higher reiatsus than the average human. She had no clue who the guy was, but the girl on the other hand…She was pretty, with burnt orange hair, and huge boobs…Shinji had met this girl before, and he had taken the time to tell Ren about her in full detail. Sadly, Ren couldn't quite recall what her name was. It was Ori-something, but that was as far as Ren could remember…On the bright side of all this, Ren had a new idea on how she could mess with her husband and it came in the form of this gorgeous teenage girl, if she didn't die first, that is.
The two teens were able to save the girl, who Ren could only assume was their classmate or something, but as the boy started to fight the larger Arrancar, it was plainly obvious that he was no match for the monstrous being. And the boy probably realized that, too, about the time that the Arrancar had taken his arm off. The poor kid hadn't lasted any time at all, and Ren doubted that the girl would do any better.
"This won't end well," Kiri predicted.
"No shit?" Ren sarcastically asked her. "I thought that Hito was supposed to be the one that pointed out the obvious."
"Bitch," Hito spat.
"Is she…healing his arm?" Kiri wondered.
"Holy shit," Ren muttered. Whoever the girl was, she had summoned up some kind of force field around her companion, and somehow, by some miracle, she was making his arm regenerate. Ren was, to put it lightly, baffled. It would make sense if a Shinigami had pulled out something like this, but a human?
"Now that is a technique that I have not seen before," Ren commented. It wasn't a Kido technique, but it looked like something that was close to it. However, before Ren could make any more observations, the huge Arrancar that had been causing all of the chaos so far decided to attack the innocent girl. She tried to summon some kind of projectile to launch at him, but the Arrancar destroyed that with ease, and he also broke through her shield as easily as if it was glass. He only hit the teenager once, but that one hit was enough to do a nice amount of damage to her.
"She's got heart," Hito commented.
"She needs to stay down," Ren pointed out as the teenager started to stand up again.
"These Arrancar…are monsters," Kiri observed.
"These kids aren't trained nearly enough to even try to take these guys on," Ren commented. "We are much more prepared, but I'm still not sure it's enough."
"And this is just one of them," Kiri reminded her.
"I know…What's he doing over there?" Ren wondered, referring to the smaller Arrancar.
"That other kid is here," Hito announced, and right on cue, Ichigo popped out of nowhere. At least he had diverted the Arrancar's attention away from the other two injured teens, but now, he actually had to fight the Arrancar himself.
"I think…that this is a set up," Ren announced.
"What do you mean?" Kiri asked her.
"These Arrancar…Notice how they aren't trying to do anything in specific? They aren't trying to destroy anything in particular or kill any specific person. They're just here," Ren explained.
"Why do you think that is?" Hito asked her.
"I think that Aizen just sent them here to mess with us," Ren admitted. "I mean, seriously, they are not pursuing any explicit mission! They're just there, in that one space, and they're definitely causing terror over there, but that's the only place. I think that Aizen is sending a warning, to us, Soul Society, everybody."
"And where does that leave the pale one?" Kiri wondered.
"I think he's got the same agenda that we have: observe," Ren told her.
"Observe what?" Hito asked; he was confused by the whole situation, and his two female counterparts weren't too far from being in the same situation; these Arrancar were pure anomalies to them.
"Now that, I do not know," Ren answered. "And that concerns me."
Ichigo was doing alright in his fight at first, he even cut the Arrancar's arm off to pay him back for ripping off his friend's arm, but suddenly, in the middle of everything, he just stopped. He went from putting up a good fight to having his ass kicked in a split second, and it was like the boy just lost it. He just let himself get beat up, like his body was frozen and he just couldn't make himself move anymore.
"What the hell is he doing?" Ren seethed. "He's going to get himself killed!"
"You can't go out there, Ren," Kiri reminded her.
"She may have to to save this damn fool!" Hito pointed out.
"Did he stop because of his Hollow?" Ren wondered. "If it's that damn bad, why won't he come to us already?"
"He's going to kill him, Ren!" Hito shouted.
"They're almost here," Ren assured him.
"And you're just going to let him get the shit beat out of him until they get here?" Hito demanded, becoming more and more irate by the second.
"Maybe it'll knock some sense into him," Ren suggested. "Because, as you can see, he is running a little low on it."
"I suppose that could work," Hito conceded.
"Something has to," Ren breathed. "If he doesn't start shaping up, our chances of actually beating Aizen are just going to keep getting lower."
"Huh, I didn't know that Yoruichi was back," Hito commented.
"I just talked to her the other day!" Ren incredulously pointed out.
"Really? Were you aware of this Kiri?" Hito asked his partner.
"Of course I'm aware of it. I talked to you about it!" Kiri informed him.
"Did you?" Hito wondered.
"He's seriously like this all the time?" Ren commented.
"Yes, yes he," Kiri conceded, and her tone was so sour that Ren could practically taste it.
"I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt," Ren told her.
"Don't…Just don't do that," Kiri warned her.
"I see," Ren replied. "I will definitely keep that in mind."
"Isn't there a fight doing on here that we should be watching?" Hito piped in.
"Pfft, Kisuke and Yoruichi have got this," Ren scoffed. And of course they did. With breathtaking timing and even more awe-inspiring techniques and tricks, Yoruichi and Kisuke did in fact have the situation under control in no time. The Arrancar couldn't even hit the two, which frustrated him to no end, and he went from winning his battle to losing it in a split second.
If Ren had to pick a highlight for the evening, if she just had to pick one thing that stood out to her the most, it would have to have been when Kisuke used Benehime. Ever since Ren had met the man well over a century, she had had a strange fascination with his zanpakutō and its abilities, but, even back in the day when he wasn't nearly as straightforward or as sure of himself as he was today, Ren couldn't convince him to show her some more of his zanpakutō's techniques. She had a feeling that Yoruichi may have had a hand in that, especially considering that her former captain loved to mess with her as often as she could.
"Well, this was kind of a bust, huh?" Ren muttered. Not too shortly after Kisuke and Yoruichi arrived and the larger Arrancar started losing again, the pale one pulled him out of the battle, opened a Garganta, and left the Human World, leaving Kisuke and Yoruichi with clean-up duty. Once the Arrancar had left, Ren felt that it was safe for her to finally drop her shikai and come out of the shadows. She let off just enough of her reiatsu to let Kisuke and Yoruichi know that she had been there, but since the teenagers were still there, she didn't go out to talk to them. At this point, they really didn't even need to talk to each other to know that they were all thinking the same thing: this was only the beginning. The Arrancar were much stronger than they had anticipated, and they were showing up in the Human World much sooner than they had planned. Plus, to top everything off, hard-headed Ichigo still hadn't gotten the picture.
It was fairly late when Ren finally got back to the Visored' warehouse. Everyone had split up for the night and gone to their perspective rooms, although very few of them had actually gone to sleep by that point. It was a rainy and dreary night anyways, so Ren would wait to give them the unpleasant news until the morning. She quietly made her way through the warehouse, trying her best not to alert any of her comrades as she made her way to the room that she shared with her dearest husband.
"Ren, dear, about earlier," Hito started.
"Please don't make me suffer for what this fool did," Kiri begged.
"You agreed with me!" Hito reminded.
"Stop the arguing you guys. I'm tired, so I doubt there will be any of that tonight, especially with all the tension that these Arrancar brought with them. Besides, I'm not depraved enough to actually want to make you guys watch that," Ren assured them.
"Thank you," Kiri breathed.
"Don't mention it. Now please, keep it quiet in there," Ren requested.
"You got it, chief," Hito ensured her, and her zanpakutō were finally silent as Ren eased the door to her and Shinji's room open. It wasn't too dark in the room, and Ren couldn't help the smile that she got when she saw that Shinji was still wide awake and waiting for her.
"You are so mean," Shinji told her.
"And why is that?" she asked him, kicking her shoes off in the corner of the room.
"You know I can't sleep without you here," he reminded her.
"Aw, so you weren't just waiting up to make sure that I made it back alright?" Ren teased, taking her two tanto blades from where she had them fastened horizontally across her lower back and gently placing them on the nightstand that was next her side of the bed.
"That may have been an ulterior motive of mine," Shinji admitted as he watched his wife shimmy out of her skirt and unfasten her top before she pulled it over her head and dropped it to the floor, leaving her in nothing but her underwear. He had to admit, even after all the years he had known her, she was still the most beautiful woman that he had ever seen. Life had thrown some pretty wicked curveballs at him recently, but every time that he was near Ren, he felt like the luckiest man in the Human World, Soul Society, and in Hueco Mundo.
"You didn't have to, you know," Ren reminded him, sitting down beside him and propping her back on the headboard in the process.
"Of course I did," Shinji disagreed. "There's no way I could have gone to sleep knowing that you were out there with those things and possibly in danger."
Ren ran her fingers through Shinji's hair as he laid his head against her stomach. They were silent for a moment, just savoring the peace of the dark room around them and listening to the rain as it pattered against the roof. Shinji, however, was being overly quiet, which concerned Ren. She looked down at him, only to see that he was staring aimlessly off into space with a lost look in his eyes.
"Shinji?" she called.
"Hm?" he replied.
"What's wrong?" she asked him, and the only response that she got was silence.
"Shinji," Ren coaxed.
"I'm just…tired, Ren," he told her.
"Tired of what, Shinji?"
"I'm tired of things being like this, of us living in hiding. This isn't what I promised you, Ren. I promised that I'd always be there for you, take care of you when you needed me to, give you the family that you've always wanted, but here we are, chomping at the bit for the possibility of revenge but still just hiding here. This isn't the life we wanted, Ren."
"No, but it's the one we got, and I'd like to think that we're making the best out of it."
"It's not too hard to do that, considering it can't get much worse."
"It could be so much worse, Shinji."
"How?"
"I could've lost you, all those years ago when everything started, and I don't think that I could have lived with that, Shinji. I couldn't do any of this without you."
"I guess you're right: things would be so much worse of I didn't have you with me."
"Told you so."
Ren just let a few moments of silence pass as she continued to run her hand through Shinji's hair. She should have figured that something like this would come up after the Arrancar arrived. On quiet and uneventful days, when they didn't have to worry about Aizen or even Hollows for that matter, it was almost like they had a normal life. They didn't have to worry about anything on those days, except for maybe who would go out for food, but now that all of their skeletons had come screaming out of the closet, they had everything to worry about. It pained Ren to see her husband like this, but really and truly, there wasn't much that she could do about it. The one thing that she would never forgive Aizen for was the desperation that he had put them in, because obviously, it was starting to take a toll on them.
"I know you're tired, Shinji. You've been tired for a long time, it just didn't hit you until our past came crawling out of its grave. I wish there was something that I could do for you, that I could do something to give you the rest that you deserve, but I don't think you'll be able to get that until all of this is over," Ren told him. "I feel so damn useless sometimes because I can't give you that comfort."
Before he said anything to her, Shinji quickly sat up and pulled Ren closer to him, smashing his lips against hers and taking her breath away in the process.
"I love you, Ren, more than anything and you know that. Don't ever feel useless, ya hear me? 'Cuz you're far from it. Hell, you've kept me sane through all of this, and that has to prove something, right?" Shinji told her.
"Well, it's only fair trade, I mean, you keep me sane and I'll keep you sane," Ren replied. "Maybe this'll all be over soon so we can all get the rest and peace of mind that we need."
"I hope so," Shinji breathed. "I swear, Ren, I will give you the life I promised you."
"I know you will, Shinji. I never doubted that you would," Ren assured him.
"Well, I haven't exactly been timely with the whole thing," he pointed out.
"Eh, I'm a patient girl. Besides, the wait will make it better, right?" Ren chuckled. "Aright, I think we've had enough serious talk for one night. Let's go to sleep and leave this day behind us, eh?"
"Sounds good to me," Shinji agreed.
"Good. As we've already established, I love you, Shinji. Sweet dreams."
"I love you, too, Ren. I already know what kind of dreams you'll be having."
"Haha, you're a comedian. Now, go to sleep, Captain Hirako."
As Ren scooted down on the bed she could finally lie down for the night, Shinji followed her lead, moving down just enough to where he could lay his head back down on her stomach. Ren started to run her fingers his hair again, but it wasn't long before hands started to slow down, and eventually, they stopped altogether as sleep finally found her. Shinji, however, was still wide awake and his mind was racing. He usually found comfort when he laid on Ren like this, but on nights like these when he couldn't stop thinking about everything that had gone wrong over the years, he only felt guilt in her embrace. He so badly wished that they had a normal life, and some times, he was almost willing to give up on revenge just so he could try to give her that.
But he knew that as long as Aizen was around, that it wouldn't be possible for them to have a normal life; Aizen would never leave them alone, and that was one of the many reasons why Shinji knew that he had to take that bastard down. As he lay there with the side of his face against Ren's abdomen, he wished that he could have felt something there, some small inkling of new life. He wanted to start their family so badly, but with the possibility of war brewing, it was definitely not the time for that. There was no guarantee that they would even make it through any of this, so how could they bring a child into such an uncertain and unstable world with no normality to it? They couldn't, at least not until Aizen was out of the picture.
Author's Note: A big thank you to duvainel89, Matsuri Scarlett, Rei- chan the Shinigami, DinoPower, and Fanisa for the favorites, follows, and reviews! I hope you enjoyed, and I'll try not to take too long in putting the next chapter out!