eleven: we are the foxes and we run
Neither of us was sure what to do about what we were calling the Hideki Situation.
It wasn't like we wanted to be in an apartment with something that we didn't know would do in any given situation. And it wasn't like I actually wanted the sword there now that it was possessed or something.
So the logical decision we had come to was to try and get rid of it.
As it turned out, asauchi are actually much, much harder to get rid of than one would think.
We had thrown it into the river, purposely left it on the bus, tossed it into dumpsters, jammed it into the freezer. I had even broken into Mom's house and strategically locked it in the safe there, only to make it halfway home before Grimmjow called me to tell me that, "that piece of shit soul sucker is back in the apartment."
Every time it wound up in my hands again, it was always with some kind of snarky, rude ass comment that I used to associate so much with Hideki that it was beyond terrifying. I never held it long enough for it to complete a thought, though-I would toss it to the floor, skitter away from it, hide behind Grimmjow like he could do something about it.
i wasn't sure what it was about the idea of Hideki in the sword that terrified me so. Sure, I had been devastated when he had first disappeared from my head, but he was also the only one who knew what I had gone through in Hueco Mundo. The only one that was even getting me through most days until I had moved to Karakura.
But he had also been the one who had royally fucked up my life initially, when I was just barely six years old. I had gone from a decent, barely remembered childhood to living in fear of the voice in my head, to being pumped up with all different kinds of medication to see what would work to make it stop. I had gone from going to school and making friends and becoming a normal child to being home schooled and isolated.
Having Hideki in my head, even when I couldn't hear him, had gotten me kidnapped by Grimmjow at the behest of Aizen. It had gotten me scarred, and bruised, and broken and bloody.
But I mean, on the flip side, I had met Grimmjow. So it was a lose/lose/win kind of situation.
It was just really, really weird to think that Hideki was back, though.
And it wasn't like we could really ask anyone just what was going on. Ichigo, from my understanding, had never had an asauchi to begin with, and Yoruichi was the queen of avoiding answering questions. Urahara still wasn't back, and Tessai, though I was aware he had come here with both Yoruichi and Urahara, I wasn't sure about.
So Grimmjow and I were stuck with a possessed hunk of soul wrought steel, and neither of us really knew what to do about it.
Hideki, on the other hand, had earned himself a spot at the bottom of the closet, standing upright in the farthest back corner and covered up with my various wardrobe choices that hung from the hangers within. At least when he was in there, he didn't seem too inclined to pop up anywhere else in the apartment.
But only if we left the closet door open, as I had discovered the hard way.
Trust me, stepping out of the shower in a towel only to trip over a sword you could swear up and down you had locked in the closet just minutes before was not a fun activity. Especially when you end up hitting your head on the counter hard enough to bruise your jaw and make you wonder if living with a possessed sword was really worth it.
In a lot of ways, though, it might have been harder on Grimmjow than it was on me.
Especially since it was, at it's core, a Shinigami based weapon. And while he might have been human now, he was an Arrancar at heart; living in close quarters with an asauchi was uncomfortable, to say the least.
Of course, he didn't have to grab a towel or some oven mitts to move it every time it decided to drop itself in his path. He wasn't the one who heard the voice of Hideki every time he made contact with the damned thing.
Lucky bastard.
He did, however, make it just about three days before he actually said anything-other than helping me trying to rid myself of it, of course.
Our room was dark, but neither of us was quite asleep. Probably because the lights had only gone out about five minutes before and neither of us was really quite comfortable enough to sleep just then. I felt just a little too keyed up to sleep properly, and the smell of pine-sol was so strong in my nose I would sure I would still be smelling it on the day I died.
"I feel like it's watching us sleep," Grimmjow whispered. I rolled my eyes at the words, but I felt the same way. I felt the asauchi was watching me do every little thing within the apartment.
"Well I can't exactly close the closet door now, can I? Not unless you want it in bed with us." I didn't bother whispering. So what if it could hear us?
"Stop giving it suggestions!" he hissed, arm tightening around my middle and burying his face in my neck. I laughed quietly, trying to get comfortable again to where I could fall asleep.
I had just started dozing off when he spoke again, wide awake and very loudly in my ear.
"How can you stand being in the apartment with it all day?"
I groaned. He wasn't about to let me sleep. "I don't think about it, Grimmjow. That is literally all I do. I let it sit in it's cute little corner in the closet and just go about my business like it's not even there."
"Yeah, but. Fuckin' how. It's literally in the closet and I feel like it's watching. Closely. Listening. Waiting."
"And what? You think I'm just going to sit down and have a nice chit chat over tea with a sword so he can tell me all of your dirty little secrets?" I laughed sardonically, trying to bury my face into my pillow as Grimmjow half heartedly kicked me in the calf. "I already know that you shove the dirty laundry under the bed and it's not just me 'misplacing' anything. And I already know that you move the bookmark around in whatever book is left on my nightstand-I've learned to take pictures of the page I left off on, thank you very much. And don't even get me started on how you try and convince me that I'm the one who ate the last Oreo in the package every time when I know it was you!"
"Okay, okay! It's just. Unsettling."
"Unsettling? He lived in my head for over twelve years. A sword chillin' in the corner is so far from unsettling." On the outside, that seemed to be the end of that.
But then I had to get up and pee, and any sort of semblance of being on the verge of going to sleep disappeared from my head completely, taken up instead by the alarming fullness of my bladder.
It seemed like I just couldn't win that night.
With a heavy sigh, I untangled myself from Grimmjow, who had only just dozed off a handful of minutes before; I knew, because I had felt envy flare up almost instantly at the sound of his breathing changing.
His hand latched itself around my wrist just as my feet touched down on the cold hardwood floor, king me just a little more awake than I had been before.
"I gotta pee," I whined in explanation, pulling my wrist out of his grip and forcing myself to my feet.
I made it all of six steps before I tripped over something and fell to the floor, chin hitting the surface hard and making me see stars in the dark of the room.
Hissing in annoyance, I sat up onto my rear while trying to rub away the pain in my chin-knowing my luck, it was going to be a nice shade of purple to match the bruise on my jaw. But for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what I had tripped over-everything had been picked up off of the floor before I had crawled into bed the first time, I was sure of it.
"'Ori, you good?" Grimmjow grumbled, still mostly asleep. His question was very much delayed, and I was beyond glad that there wasn't an actual problem at hand.
"Uh . . ." There was only one thing I could think of that I could have tripped over, and I needed to be able to see in order to figure it out. "Turn on the light."
Sure enough, I had tripped over the asauchi. Almost like it had been listening to our conversation and wanted to prove some part of me wrong.
I scrambled away from it and launched myself back onto the bed, shoulder driving into Grimmjow's chest and knocking him back, my arms trapped beneath him.
Despite the added weight on him, Grimmjow sat back upright like it was nothing, taking me with him so he could see what exactly it was I was fleeing from.
"I told you you were giving it ideas!" Grimmjow said once he caught sight of the Hideki-sword.
And then he flopped back onto the bed, arm reaching out blindly for the light to shut it off. The other was still wrapped around me, holding me close. Almost like he thought the sword was going to rise up off the ground and stab us to death in our sleep.
But that would make me a shield then, wouldn't it?
With a snort, I grabbed the blanket and pull it over our bodies, covering my head entirely and leaving me with shoddy black patches in front of my open eyes.
"What if it moves onto the bed?" Grimmjow asked suddenly. His voice was loud in my ears, and I could feel him talking against me.
I snorted, knowing he would get my drift even if the noise was muffled through the blanket.
"We're living in fear of an inanimate object. This is beyond ridiculous."
But honestly, I wasn't sure how to fix the situation.
My phone was ringing.
Which, okay, wasn't that weird. Phones ring. It's what they were made to do. But there was a limited number of people who would call me, especially in the afternoon.
I swiped it up off of the counter and answered it without thinking.
"Hello?"
"Good afternoon, Kaori-chan!" The phone just about slipped out of my hands at the sound of Urahara's chipper voice crackling out of the speaker and into my ear.
It had been two long, dragging weeks since we had left a message with Tessai, and he was only just getting back? Sure, none of us had seen much of anything else and no one had been attacked since the night I had been proved not crazy by default.
"Oh, Urahara!" I half-shouted into the phone, trying to make a quick recovery and not seemed as shocked as I was. Part of me thought that he wasn't actually coming back from the Soul Society. "How nice of you to call! Uh."
My mind blanked. I couldn't even really remember why Ichigo and I had asked Tessai to make sure he called me, but for the life of me I couldn't remember what for.
I just knew that it was something really important.
"When did you get back?" I asked as my mind worked furiously to try and remember why it was so imperative that he call me.
"Oh, a week ago!" I could only assume that he kept forgetting to call, or was "too busy" to do so. But for the life of me, I couldn't bring myself to be mad because he waited so long to call-I couldn't even recall what I had wanted to speak with him about!
"Oh, that's great! Uhm, do you mind if Ichigo and I drop by the Shoten later? It's important."
After getting the go-ahead, we said our goodbyes and I hung up.
The second I did, I remembered exactly what it was Ichigo and I were going to talk to him about and had to fight not to smack my forehead. The hallucinations! That weren't really hallucinations!
Oh well. Wasn't about to call him back when I was going to see him in a few hours.
Setting the phone down on the counter, I picked up the scrub brush I had tossed onto the shelf in the fridge. I was about to return to my interrupted task when I felt like something was watching me.
I turned and slammed my back into the counter when I was met by the sight of the asauchi leaning up against the wall in the kitchen-precisely where it shouldn't have been, but at the exact angle I had left it in in the closet.
Shaking my head and wondering why it's sudden appearance had scared me like it had, I turned back to the counter where half of the food from the fridge was sitting out on it.
Nothing in the apartment was safe from me or the scrub brush in my hand.
Ichigo and I met up less than a block away from the Shoten, the Shinigami looked much better rested than he had been the last time I had seen him. Much more awake and less like the walking dead.
"How's the family?" I asked cheekily, never minding the fact that he had come downstairs yesterday afternoon to find me sitting at the kitchen table with his little sisters, having popcorn thrown at me as I tried to help them write essays.
Ichigo rolled his eyes at me, knowing I already knew the answers. "How's your ass?"
I just about choked on my spit when his eyes bulged, showing just how important it was to think before you opened your mouth and wound up embarrassing yourself.
A feral grin found it's way onto my face. "Well, I don't know dear. I think it's pretty fine in these jeans, don't you?" I twisted my body as I walked in a poor attempt to get a decent view of my own ass. It didn't quite work out, as I tripped over my feet and fought to stay standing as I giggled.
"That. THAT IS NOT. NO. Kaori! That's-you know that-NO." The color that had found it's way onto his face clashed horribly with his hair. My grin turned cheeky as I leaned back a bit, very obviously looking at Ichigo's own butt.
"Did you mean yours, then?" I asked, lips pursed and eyebrow raised. "Because-"
"YOU KNOW I MEANT GRIMMJOW. FUCK."
"How's Grimmjow's ass? Almost as fine as mine is. Much finer than yours, honestly. Though for future reference, maybe you should check out his ass yourself? Because honestly, opinions vary." At the mix of fury and embarrassment on Ichigo's face, I made a mental note to take a picture of Grimmjow's ass and send it to him.
With a snort and a comforting pat on Ichigo's arm I said, "I know what you meant. He's fine. Tired and a little jumpy, but fine." I would let Ichigo draw his own conclusions from that-he would probably assume that the jumpiness was from whatever it was that we knew was stalking the streets, not from the asauchi that I had left in my closet.
We came up on the Shoten then and walked around to the back. Urahara had told me to just let ourselves in, and we did such. Ichigo and I found him where he could almost always be found-in a room that I knew had a trapdoor beneath the table, chin propped up in his hand as he raptly waited for us.
Apparently, he wasn't too into mundane greetings this time because he urged Ichigo and I to get to the point. I was a little annoyed, because he was the one who had waited a week to call me back.
But if he might have figured that since we still needed to talk to him after a week, it must be important.
"Uh, well. The things I was hallucinating?" I hesitated a moment, my mouth dry. All of my earlier preparation for how I was going to word this had flown out of my head.
"She wasn't hallucinating," Ichigo supplied quickly, cutting me off from 'hmm'ing my way through trying to word what this was about.
Urahara, for his part, didn't seem surprised. Almost like he figured something like that was coming. But it was always hard to read Hat and Clogs, hard to gauge his reactions and figure out what he already knew.
Instead, he let out a little 'oh' before becoming hyper focused on me, looking for an explanation. But there wasn't much more I could say, nothing tangible that would find it's way out of my mouth.
"It attacked us the night after you left with Yuna," Ichigo prodded. His elbow found it's way into my ribs, startling me into actually putting my mind into the situation at hand.
"It was one of the ones I told you about-the tall one. All hunched over and long arms and bloody mouth. It was the exact same that-" I paused for a moment, eyes sliding to Ichigo knowing he was still in the dark about Karin's nightly activities. "The exact same that the victim from a couple of weeks ago described. To a tee, actually."
It could have been a trick of the light, but I could have almost sworn that Urahara's eyes hardened in the shadows of his hat.
"Ichigo, Grimmjow and I were-we were walking. Down a sidewalk. And-and I saw it, and I figured I was hallucinating. Because no one else had been around when I had seen them, so why would that time be any different? And then it fired something that was almost like a cero, but not quite." I slid my gaze to Ichigo, returning the earlier elbow to the ribs, trying to make him jump in again.
"It didn't put up much of a fight," he said, taking the cue before my elbow could even meet his ribs. "The second I tried to do anything to it, it disappeared. And not into a garganta-I blinked and it was gone. The only kind of evidence it was even there was the hole in the ground the cero left. It didn't act like a typical hollow of any class, either."
"Grimmjow insists he's never seen anything like it except for-wait. How did he put that? OH! 'That asshole Nnoitra'," I tacked on. "And apparently Nnoitra was an Espada? And he's dead. So." I rolled my shoulders in a 'what can you do' kinds of way.
Urahara opened his mouth to say something, but nothing made it past his lips.
The sword that was Hideki appeared in mid-air and slammed onto the table in front of me. I jumped, startled, small hands curling into fists on my lap as I bit down on the insides of my cheek. I was getting better and better at not shouting when it decided to do that, though the inside of my cheek was not thanking me in any way.
"Not again," I snarled under my breath, tugging my sleeve down over my hand and reaching out for it. The guard, I noted at the back of my mine without really noticing, was completely gone from the sword. Which wasn't good, per se, because it would be that much easier for me to lose my fingers when it came down to it.
I set it down on the floor next to me, just far enough away so that I wouldn't touch it, but not far enough away to make it look like I was avoiding touching it on purpose.
"Does it do that a lot?" Urahara asked, seemingly unphased by the sudden, weird turn of events.
"More than I would like," I growled, forcing myself to unfurl my hands and take a steadying breath. My heart was thrumming in my chest, completely uneasy with the turn of events and the heavy weight of both Ichigo's and Urahara's eyes on me.
Of the gravity I could feel pulling me toward the asauchi on the floor scant inches from my leg.
"Has it told you it's name?"
"It didn't need to." For a moment, I could almost swear that the smile faltered on Urahara's face at my words. "And I would really rather not talk about it."
The only person that I wanted to talk about the current problem was Yuna, and she was away in the Soul Society. I didn't know when she would be back, and I wasn't about to ask the evasive Urahara. To me, keeping my mouth shut was my best option.
Urahara didn't push; he never did, really. He just ushered us out with the promise of 'looking into it' and sent us on our way.
Ichigo and I didn't talk about it; there was nothing to talk about, really, since we had hashed and rehashed everything we knew until it was bled dry.
Until, "What did you mean, you didn't have to ask it?" I didn't have to wonder what it was he was talking about.
I bit my lip and wrung my hands around the sheath the asauchi was in, doing my best to keep my sleeves down over my hands. I could feel Hideki trying to tell me something, almost hear his voice through the wall I had done my best to build up and keep him out. My sleeves were thin, and they weren't helping my situation any.
"You know how I used to have a, uhm, rogue Shinigami residing within my body? And he died just after I moved here?" Well, okay, so maybe died wasn't the right word choice but it was the only one that could fit the situation. 'Severed his mortal coil' was a mouthful.
"Yeah?"
"He's in the asauchi now." And, because I didn't really feel like answering any more questions, I turned and hightailed down the street, opposite the direction Ichigo lived in.
I swear I could almost hear Hideki laughing in my head.
Urahara called Ichigo, Grimmjow and I to the Shoten a few nights later, the normal scheming smile gone from his face as we sat gathered around the table with tea before us. I had actually brought Hideki with me this time, exchanging my normal tote-sized purse for a beach bag that helped hide the fact that I was lugging a friggin' sword around just a little better.
I did not want it to randomly pop onto the table again; Hideki's antics were not something I wanted to put up with, not at that moment. A randomly appearing sword as a party trick got old pretty fast.
Part of me almost wanted to make Grimmjow carry the beach bag, but I decided it wasn't near as flowery enough to warrant properly emasculating him. Not that he minded, half the time, but the beach bag wouldn't give me the same amount of sickening pleasure as my purse typically would.
We ran into Ichigo a block away from the Shoten, his winter hat firmly pulled down over his bright orange hair again and a scarf wrapped around his neck. For once, I had remembered my own hat, but had mistakenly forgone socks and sensible shoes in favor of open toed heels in full preparation of Feeling Like The Shortest In The Group.
At least the polish on my toe-nails was a pristine, unchipped cotton candy pink.
Grimmjow, on the other hand, was wearing my oversized hoodie with his hands shoved down into the pockets. We had taken joint possession of the thing at some point, though it fit him much better than it did me. The cold didn't hardly faze him as much as it did Ichigo and I.
I was halfway tempted to make him carry me inside of the coat, but I knew it would look wrong form about every angle and be super weird besides.
"What'd you bring him for?" Ichigo asked with a roll of his eyes. I could feel Grimmjow tense next to me, and I knew it was probably a good idea that I was standing between the two of them-Grimmjow wouldn't start a physical altercation if I was in the way.
"Urahara asked me to," I stated simply, inching closer to Grimmjow a bit with each step I took. "And he didn't say why."
"You both know that I'm standing right here, right? And you're still talking about me like I'm not here!" I laughed and grabbed a hold of his hand in an attempt to placate him.
"Of course we know you're here!"
"I wouldn't be complaining if you weren't!" Grimmjow bristled at Ichigo's words; my grip on his hand tightened to the point where it was painful for me to hold on, so I knew it must have been mildly uncomfortable for him at the least.
"Why don't we do this without fighting?" I suggested as we neared the Shoten. "Because the less time you two spend arguing, the less time you'll have to spend together."
Grimmjow snorted in what I figured was an assent, while Ichigo decided it was the best time to look everywhere but us.
I shook my head, a smile curling up on my lips. They had been doing pretty decent for a while, but all of that was up in smoke for a reason I didn't know.
Our shoes came off in the Shoten, and i was relegated back to my normal meager height. the floor was cold against my feet, but that didn't really matter-my feet were mostly numb from the cold outside.
If I were to say anything, Grimmjow would have just reminded me that he told me to wear socks.
We found Urahara exactly where we had left him just a week before, but there was an aura of intensity around him that hadn't quite existed.
I sat on the ground between Ichigo and Grimmjow, across from the table from Urahara. Quietly, nerves on edge, we waited for him to speak.
"I don't know what they are," Urahara declared, snapping his fan open and holding it in front of his face. "But I do know where they originated."
The three of us waited quietly to be clued in, all at varying levels of patience; if there had been anyone willing to put stakes on who would break first, I would have gladly put down everything in my bank account on Grimmjow.
It was probably a good thing there wasn't though, because I would have lost everything.
Urahara was the one to break first.
What came out of his mouth was something I had never thought I would hear anyone say.
"I need you to go to Hueco Mundo."
wow. i actually did this in a reasonable amount of time? AND WE'RE BREAKING 50K?
you guys are so cool. please review. please urge me on. please. just talk to me. pLEASE.
