"Here, Inoue-san." He handed over the fresh pile of clothes, along with my blue hair pins.
"Thank you, Ishida-kun." My voice was weak as it travelled through my throat, hurting as if each particle held a sword against it. The raven-haired man nodded and slumped down beside me, peering back to the rushing water of the fountain we sat upon outside the hospital. 'I acted too rashly when I realised Tatsuki-chan was in trouble, I forgot to pick up my pins from the bedside table.' It was so stupid of me to do so, if I had calmed down, even slightly, and thought of what I needed to do, I could of healed her straight away.
"Inoue-san." My grey orbs turned to Ishida, "Don't blame yourself for this. Even if you had healed her, the police are involved in this, they would of seen you and Ichigo standing in a pool of blood. Doing it now would cause a rise in disbelief of how Arisawa-san healed so quickly and would probably end up running tests on her." I turned back down to the pins that rested delicately on the folded clothes.
"I hadn't thought about that." I could feel his saddened gaze resting upon my back, tearing through my darkest emotions, and carefully consoling me without words or touch.
"I-I wanted to get stronger, I wanted to stop my friends from getting hurt, I wanted to protect, my heart was set out for all these things, so why? Why can't I become strong enough to stop this from happening? Why do I have to be so weak?" I gripped my fists tighter, feeling my dried eyes re-moist from more tears that threatened to fall out. Uuryu thought carefully about this, but shook his head without an answer.
"Even I didn't sleep last night, same with Kurosaki, but none of us could of predicted what happened. None of us realised Arisawa-san was in danger." I mentally sighed before getting off the white marble fountain.
"I'm going to go and get dressed." My legs felt as if a tonne of rocks were passing through my veins, beating rapidly resulting of my distress, as I traipsed to the hospital's unsullied bathroom.
My pale face reflected back to me through the glossy mirror, giving me a full detail picture of my uneasiness. The hairpins set normally over my bangs as I straightened out the clothes. 'Why am I such a burden to everyone?'
"Orihime-chan? Are you in here?" I certain blonde haired woman poked her head round the door, "I'm sorry about training yesterday, I didn't mean to go all weird like that." I couldn't face her. If I was correct about her being Tatsuki's attacker, then I wouldn't let her even unsheathe her zanpactou.
"There you are!" She slowly entered and strolled up to me with Safaia in her powerful arms, "I'm really sorry about Tatsuki. There was no reading in soul society to tell us that she was in danger, even her spiritual pressure remained the same." She stood behind me, looking pitifully into the mirror, speaking to my reflection as her hand moved towards my shoulder.
"I reject." My trio formed the shield, removing her hand from coming in contact with my body.
"Orihime, what are you doing?" She tried to smile, but her eyes showed all disbelief and confusion she tried to mask, "Ori-" Our bodies were thrown into the cubicles, shattered glass flying everywhere as the wall broke down. Safaia's screams tore through my anger, bringing me back to what was going on. 'I was about to attack her!'
"There you are! My, my, aren't you two a couple of beauties?" The white figure glared down on us, a terrifying smirk materialised on his lips. April removed herself from protecting Safaia, tending to her to check for any wounds, before glancing at the attacker, "Anyone who exceeds my own beauty must be punished." He began drawing out his own zanpactou.
"Orihime, quickly, take Safaia and run!" The words that she formed couldn't penetrate through my mind, instead, sounded like murmurs, all I could hear was Safaia, and how scared she was.
"Orihime!" The azure eyed Yumichika mod quickly headed for the shocked woman, punching her back into the corridor of the hospital. Still, she kept Safaia in her arms, carefully placing the baby steadily protected. My unstable legs sprinted to the tenuous girl protecting my baby, quickly forcing my orange light shield between the attacks as I snatched Safaia and placed her somewhere safe, before returning to the battle.
The clashing of swords and screams were heard from everywhere as hospitalised people and nurses checked to find the source of the explosion, thankfully unable to see the battle between the spirits. Successful hits were coming from April, giving my hope even more resolve that she would easily defeat the opponent. Even with double strength, Yumichika's mod was still far under April's level. Still his resolve to fight did not falter, but continued to rise within each attack. Again their zanpactou's clashed, this time holding eachother to their own test of strength by holding their heads inches apart.
"Come now, woman. The boss has high interest in you, and would prefer it highly if I brought you back alive." He pushed her back fiercely, taking in her fazed emotions and confusion.
"What the hell do you want with me?" She shouted to his face, leaving her guard open. He shunpo-ed behind her and whispered in her ear, not allowing me to hear his reason, however, her reaction of anger told me that she certainly had something to hide. She pushed herself into a shunpo once again behind him and forced her zanpactou into his back, only slicing the skin a fraction as he fastly dodged the attack. Yumichika's fist hit bullseye on her cheek, sending her shortly back and giving another opening for his katana.
"Santen Kesshun!" My block worked perfectly as it stopped her falling to another death.
"What are you doing, April!" Ichigo joined me, shouting up to the captain, "Why are you giving so many openings?" Her smirk materialised as she wiped a small portion of blood from her lips.
"I'm just testing my opponent. Care to join me, Ichigo, Orihime-san?" The skulled substitute badge was pulled out from Ichigo's pocket, allowing him to reach for zangetsu as I moved his body away before attending, once again, to the small battle.
"Two on one? Now, that's a little unfair isn't it? Both people I'm fighting are captain level, yet you still believe I can defeat you? How complimentary." Yumichika flicked his hair in a graceful manner and held his zanpactou towards his opponents.
"Don't make me laugh, there is no way you could beat either of us." April stated in a serious tonne, "I just want this over with without bringing out my Shikai." Quickly, his smirk changed to anger.
"All of you shinigami are alike. You don't believe your mods can do anything, well you're wrong! Don't look down on me, shinigami!" The mods azure resiteu fired up, leading into a vice-captain's level as Ichigo's scowl formed. Another guest joined me at the ground floor as Ichigo and April stood in the sky, holding his bow with a arrow locked into position of the mod. Suddenly, Yumichika clapped his hands together, creating a sudden sound wave to pass through the noisy atmosphere. Ichigo threw himself into the enemy's range, swinging his zanpactou back.
"Getsuga... Tens-" Yumichika already threw his own body weight to the sword, blocking it before throwing Ichigo into April. Their bodies collided with the wall of the hospital, creating another phony explosion to the spiritual-less humans.
"Tsubaki!" The dark warrior fairy flew into the enemy's vital targets as he focused onto his other prey, but failed to pierce through the mod, but instead be consumed into his body. 'What...!'
"I see you are confused, girl. Each of us mods have a certain power. Mine is to consume the enemy's strength attack in order to prevent them from using it. The substitute is unable to use his 'getsuga tensho' and you are now unable to use 'Tsubaki' thanks to this power." I was shocked at the simple explanation, now knowing that I was unable to use my only source of attack when he is out of my reach.
"Bako 4; Byakurai!" The lightening bolt headed straight into the target, successfully hitting him and sending him pelting down to the ground, "I see." April shunpo-ed over to his fallen body, "You can absorb strength, meaning that Kido is acceptable as it is not strength, but a resiteu-based attack, am I correct?" Her sweet nature had completely flown away from her, like a demon had replaced the once unimaginable kind woman.
"That just caught me off guard, why don't you try that kido again?" She stood emotionlessly opposite the mod, all mercy forgotten from her mind.
"Bako 1; Sho." His body rolled backwards, back onto the ground from the simple kido spell, "Unable to even absorb the weakest kido, I think I am correct." Another of the lightening bolts were thrown without even a spell called.
"You've only gotten enough energy to absorb strength. I guess this means that I'm the better option to fight insted of Kurosaki." Uuryu pulled back the string and aimed at the enemy, hitting him in his abdomen as he stood. April looked back to us two. 'What's with her eyes?' They burned red with flames, but showed the impression of life-long sadness instead of anger. 'My body feels cold, just looking in her eyes sends chills all over, it makes me feel so sad just to see her like this. But why...?' Coughing brought our attention to the white skinned mod as Ichigo landed beside me, zangetsu already back away. He stood back up, anger pouring out of him as he rushed towards April's unfazed body. Uuryu used his hirenkyaku to jump infront of the cold captain, and shot his arrow into the opponent's skull. Finally, the mod fell, shimmering into a small red candy piece. She picked up the item, breaking it between her finger and thumb.
April's eyes returned to normal as she glanced to the glazing patients of the hospital.
"This is going to cost me, isn't it? Bye pay-check..." Her hand reached for a poky item inside her captain's sleeve, revealing it to be some sort of pen.
"Well, we better sort this out then." She quickly clicked the pen, resulting to a huge explosion of memory replacing gas. Orihime, me and Uuryu all wheezed our way out of the toxic, standing back over to the young shinigami.
"Are you the newest 3rd squad captain Kurosaki and Inoue-san informed me about earlier?" Ishida asked in his normal neutral tonne.
"I don't know about them informing you but yes, I am April Ukitake, captain of 3rd squad. And you are?"
"Ishida Uuryu."
"Ishida? You are the quincy?"
"I'm honoured you have been informed of me too." Their conversation continued as Orihime and Safaia headed towards me. The sunlight shone through both of their eyes, like I was staring at stars that had fallen and born again inside their beautiful souls. Even after another battle, she still held that smile. The only smile in the world that could bring out anyone who was in such despair, back to their pure happiness. All memories of what had happened yesterday just left me with each step she took in my direction, every sad emotion I had felt washed away quickly as I took in her radiant beauty. But, was there something different about her? I searched around for what could of been so different.
"Orihime-san?"
"Yes, Ichigo-kun?"
"Wasn't you wearing your hairpins during the fight? Where are they now?" Her smile turned downwards as she used her free hand to travel down her glorious locks. She became more frantic in searching around for them after each time her hair failed to return them. Pockets were searched, even inside her tight blue jumper, but still they were not there.
"Wher- I had them on- Sure I did- Where are they?" Her mumbling turned to fear as they were nowhere to be seen. Her grey orbs turned to the floor, pacing over where she had just walked, I begun to help.
"Hey, Ishida, April, have you got Orihime's pins?"
"Why would we have them, Kurosaki?" Ishida spat back to me.
"Well can you at least help us find them?" They're eyes widened slightly when they realised why I asked, finally understanding the danger of what could happen to Orihime if we couldn't find them. After 10 heart-stopping minutes, a small glimmer caught my attention by the large fountain, and as I reached for them, I couldn't believe my eyes.
"Orihime." Her eyes shone with hope as I turned, clutching the blue pins in my hands, only for her eyes to turn to shock. In my hand rested two hairpins, detached from the twelve tiny petals. Only two of the petals were attached to the pin, only Shun'o was left. I placed the broken hairpins into her intricate palms, her eyes glued onto them, as if trying to figure out if this was real or not.
"S-Shun'o-san?" The small female fairy-like creature rose up in her hand, lying down and rubbing her tiny head, "Shun'o-san, what happened?" I didn't want to watch Orihime in such a state of shock, but I couldn't show any uneasiness infront of her, or Ishida, and also needed to know myself what happened in order to protect Orihime from whatever it was.
"I-I can't remember. All I remember is Tsubaki flying off, and someone reaching out for us."
"Can you remember the face?"
"No, I'..m...sorry." The blonde fairy quickly fell unconscious before returning to the pin. Orihime's fingers closed over the pins gently, cuddling them into her chest.
"What do I do? My Shun Shun Rikka is... What do I do?" I carefully placed an arm around her feeble body, then the other one and pulled her into my chest.
"We'll find a way to fix them, don't worry." My hand threaded through her silky hair as she lent further into my body, "I'll protect you, Orihime."
'Tatsuki has been attacked, my Shun Shun Rikka next, and now...!' I ran down the cursive path as the midnight rain continued to hit the ground barbarously, catching my pale face and crushed my sickly stomach. 'Three attacks in a day...' I felt the resiteu of Ichigo towards my direction, instantly knowing that what I was about to see was going to be horrendous. 'Why you too?...' I could see his orange locks in the distance, bringing more butterflies inside me to arise. My pace quickened to a sprint towards the bloodied alleyway, creating more terrible tension to my throat. Finally, I found them.
My phone buzzing brought me back to the dark night, unable to allow me to sleep. Before picking up the disturbing object, I took a quick glance to Safaia, finding that she was still asleep peacefully. My tired hand reached for the technological item and placed it on my ear.
"Hello...?" I whispered sleepily, even though I hadn't fallen asleep that night.
"Orihime-san, it's happened again!"
"What's happened?"
"Another attack!" My body shot up instantly, fully awake and recovered from my fatigue as my heart pumped virosiously against my closing chest.
"Who? Who was attacked?"
Ichigo's hands rested on the ghastly wound across his chest, trying to stop the bleeding but failing. Both of his hands were almost torn off of his wrists as he lied unconscious on the blood-soaked ground. 'Another attack...' I peered to his closed eyes, wishing that all of this was just a really bad nightmare. 'Another I couldn't protect. I'm sorry...' I helped Ichigo to quickly pull him off the ground and headed straight to Karakura's hospital, 'Ishida-kun.'
Wellzeez, I'm sorry I haven't uploaded, I'm having major brain-dead situations. Instead of thinking for the next chapter of this, my head keeps making up new stories! I now have... 7? I think 7 new stories to write for future purposes. Anyway, thanks for reading, I didn't put an A/N at the top because I wanted you to read about why Orihime hadn't healed Tatsuki at the time... *I knew I fricken' forgot to put that stupid paragraph in!* It was accidental though. Please reveiw for me and I'll see you next chapter... if I can think of one... Oh yeah, I read all the bleach manga's in 3 days ^_^ I can not wait for the next 1! Orihime's gotten even prettier, and Tatsuki! But seeing Uuryu... *nosebleed*! I really recommend the manga's btw.
Oh no! SCHOOL TOMORROW! :'( Bye 6 weeks holiday. Hello chapter-thinking-instead-of-listening-to-teachers! :P Na I kid, I'm pretty smart tbh I just cbb to learn how to spell.
Oh one thing; Nypsy: I didn't know why spell checker changed my word from placid (I write that for warm) to placate. Thanks for this but you'll probably find even more in the story since it's the first time I'm using a thesaurus seriously -_-. Thanks anywayz!
-xlilslayerx-