Twilight Marionette: Thankyou for the lovely reviews, it all helps me to teach myself.
Twilight Puppeteer: Heh, you seem to be in such a good mood today.
Twilight Marionette: Hai!
Twilight Puppeteer: Well thats good to hear I guess...
Twilight Marionette: -Nods furiously-
Twilight Puppeteer: I wont ask.
Twilight Marionette: -Walks away quietly-
Twilight Puppeteer: Hmmmm? Huh!? Wait! Get back here you ingrate! Your going tp skip the disclaimer arnt you!
Twilight Marionette: -Run's off-
Chapter 14: Red and white
Ichigo shielded his eyes against the bright light that erupted all around Ikkaku and Akatsuki, the ground around them scorched and blackened. "Akatsuki," he said to himself, slightly worried.
Ikkaku's eyes burned with blood lust and excitement as he looked into Akatsuki's eyes, which were slowly being polluted by that crimson red, her expression was a kind hearted smile. Their swords pressed firmly against each other, neither giving way under the weight of the other. Energy leaped and burst from the blades as if they growled at each other. "This is more like it!" Ikkaku roared as he put a lot more weight behind his blade and pressed forwards. He grinned as his strength over came hers and she was pushed back.
Akatsuki released the pressure on Ikkaku and allowed him to push her backwards, the force sending her several feet away from him. Akatsuki spun Zangetsu around with one hand and let it come to rest on her shoulder. She closed her eyes and smiled at Ikkaku.
Ikkaku didn't drop his guard, even through she had, he wasn't going to take her for granted anymore now that he had an entertaining fight on his hands. She just smiled back at him which unnerved him slightly. Then he noticed something else that had changed about her, her hair was starting to change color too. From the roots on her head her hair was slowly turning golden, as if dye were slowly leaking through her hair and guessed it was connected to her eyes. There was something very different about her and it wasn't just the color of her features. He jumped forward in a wild but accurate flurry of swings and thrusts.
Akatsuki didn't bring Zangetsu down from her shoulder and instead gracefully stepped out of the way of Ikkaku's swings one at a time, her feet danced across the floor in light graceful movements.
Ikkaku grunted as he missed again and again, it wasn't that she was moving faster then his attacks, it was more like she knew where each one of his attacks were going to be and simply moved away before he had even started to swing at her. It was frustrating.
Yumichika hummed to himself and smiled. "How very graceful and elegant," he said more to himself then anyone else. He admired the way she was fighting, no wasted movement and simply but effective steps. In fact, to him it seemed that her steps were so light that her feet were barely touching the ground.
"Whoa, I've never seen her fight before, she's really fast," Rukia said in genuine respect.
Yoruichi, who had jumped onto her shoulder shook her head in disagreement. "She isn't moving any faster then she was before," she said stoically.
"Then what?" Rukia started to say but was cut off by Yumichika.
"Its more like she's predicting Ikkaku's attacks and avoiding them ahead of time," Yumichika said, his attention not leaving Ikkaku for a moment. He hoped Ikkaku would see it in time before she could use it against him.
Ikkaku swung at Akatsuki again and then quickly reversed the direction of his sword after the swing reached its furthest point, pulling off a double slash to try and catch her off guard. Akatsuki stepped away from both attacks with very little effort and jumped backwards away from Ikkaku. She smiled at Ikkaku and closed her eyes, leaving herself wide open to attack.
Ikkaku wasn't so reckless as to try and take advantage of such an opening and stood back in a defensive stance, his eyes never leaving hers, closed or not. "You think I'll fall for such a obvious trick!" Ikkaku roared.
Akatsuki smiled back at him and rested Zangetsu on her shoulder, its blade hanging over her back. "Guess I'll attack you then, Shinigami-sama," she said happily.
Akatsuki ran in a curve towards Ikkaku with Zangetsu held loosely in her left hand, its blade trailing only inches from the ground. Akatsuki's reiatsu causing a trail of dust as the tip of Zangetsu raced over the floor.
Ikkaku followed suit and charged straight towards her. He raised his blade to swing down at her as they came close together, however her eyes being closed made it harder to predict her intentions.
As Akatsuki and Ikkaku were almost on top of each other she lifted Zangetsu up to block Ikkaku's swing. Instead of keeping the pressure up against Ikkaku she released it almost immediately, throwing Ikkaku ever so slightly off balance. She spun around and slipped behind him and caught Ikkaku in the side of the face as he twisted his body around defensively with the back of her hand.
Ikkaku withstood the blow and gripped hold of her wrist forcefully before she could pull it away from him and twisted her wrist. As Akatsuki raised Zangetsu to strike down at him he suddenly dropped onto one knee and using Akatsuki's wrist pulled her towards him and thrust his other palm forward and slammed it into her stomach with great force.
The force of Ikkaku's palm forced the air from her lungs and winded her, Zangetsu coming loose from her grip. She felt the reiatsu Ikkaku had wrapped around his fist travel through her body and a burning sensation as it left through her back like invisible lightning. She winced in pain and let Zangetsu fall to the ground behind her.
"Heh!" Ikkaku sneered and grinned at Akatsuki's pained expression. Expecting her to drop to her knees he realized that his palm thrust didn't have the impact that it should have done. He raised a eye brow curiously. Akatsuki's expression was a mixture of pain and, strangely enough, confusion.
"Why? Why!?" Akatsuki said, her voice showing her pain. It had happened so fast, without warning. Her reflexes failed her and her vision started to go black. 'Why? Why cant I move? I couldn't, avoid, it. Why?' The crimson that had spread across her iris's like water started to fade, revealing the liquid gold color that her eyes should be. She felt light headed and breathless but not from Ikkaku's palm thrust. "He he, I guess I cant win this fight after all," Akatsuki said depressingly and smiled weakly at Ikkaku.
Taking little notice of her words Ikkaku pulled his fist back for another, move powerful blow to fully defeat her.
The instant the pressure from her chest relented Akatsuki used sonido to jump backwards, the force freeing her wrist from Ikkaku who was forced to let go or be dragged along the ground. She stopped clumsily and had to fight the urge to faint. Her vision was blurring and her body felt so sickly. Her fingers were wrapped tightly around a thick white bandage strand from Zangetsu's hilt which she subtly pulled. Zangetsu flew towards her and she caught it in her left hand.
Ikkaku stood up slowly and carefully and did not feel the need to take a fighting stance, he could see that his blow had had more effect on her then he had first realized, which was strange, since he was sure that most of the force of his attack had somehow been wasted. He grinned at her menacingly.
"But I wont give up! I can't! Even if I can't win, even if I'm weak. I, I don't want to lose to you!" Akatsuki said with conviction, even though she felt her legs shacking and her head moments from fainting.
Ikkaku swung his sword down from his shoulder and took up his fighting stance. "That's more like it! Come on! Show me your conviction!" he snarled and smiled satisfyingly at her.
Akatsuki took up Zangetsu in both hands and closed her eyes. She gathered every last drop of her reiatsu and forced it around Zangetsu.
Ikkaku watched as she closed as eyes and summoned up what remained of her reiatsu into Ichigo's sword. Red lightning, edged with black light covered the blade. Through it looked similar to the attack that she had used when her eyes started to change color, he could tell that this attack really was everything she had left, he could see it in her pained expression. He collected his reiatsu into his sword as well until it glowed and distorted the air around it. They both flashed out of sight and reappeared a hundred meters apart, high above the ground.
Akatsuki forced her eyes open and stared straight into Ikkaku's glowing golden eyes.
Then both flashed towards each other, coming back into view mere meters apart, their blades screeching towards each other. As they made contact, for the briefest of moments the sky turned dark and red and a thin Cero colored line seemed to cut the sky clean in two. Then as soon as it had happened everything returned to normal and 2 figures fell from the sky, like a black and red flame they feel towards the city below them.
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Inside the crater the two figures lay head to head as smoke and dust moved around them in a weak vortex. Ikkaku lay staring at the sun, its brightness causing him to shield his eyes with the back of his hand. A drop of blood hit his face and looked at his hand, blood covered and trembling for exertion. He grinned to himself with satisfaction and let his hand fall away from his face to the floor and felt it hit something soft, he twisted his head to see that he was resting on Akatsuki's hair. He heard a strange noise behind him and twisted his head slightly in its direction.
Akatsuki's head lay inches from Ikkaku's and her world was spinning. She couldn't help but breath heavily, all of her strength long since gone it was all she could do to laugh to herself.
"Guess I don't get to find out, huh," she said to herself out loud.
Ikkaku grinned and grunted at her comment. "What the hell are you talking about?" he said in a serious tone of voice.
"Heh heh I guess I lost," she said weakly but in a happy voice. Even though she had lost the fight, it didn't upset her, if anything she felt just a little bit better and she closed her eyes and smiled.
Ikkaku tried to stand up but he felt his strength was already expended. "You didn't lose anything," he said in a serious tone.
Akatsuki laughed kindly and shook her head in disagreement. "Mhmm mhmm I cant stand up, I don't think I can even move anymore," she said happily.
Ikkaku laughed to himself. "Neither can I," he said sarcastically. In truth he could have used his Zanpakuto and defeated her relatively easily but had deliberately restricted his own powers down to his opponents level to get a fair fight. He had failed to defeat her and this made him happy, even though she had failed to defeat him in turn, that last attack taking them both down. He forced himself to sit up and held his head to fight off a sudden feeling of dizziness. He twisted his body to look at Akatsuki, even though she was unable to move she had suffered a lot less physical injury then he had. She turned her head to look at him with that annoyingly childish smile. "I'll tell you what I remember," he said and looked back in front of himself. He reached down and scooped up some dust into his hand.
Akatsuki's smile faded and she twisted her head to face away from Ikkaku. "But I lost," she said simply.
Ikkaku released his fingers and let the dust slip between the gaps and watched as the gentle breeze carried the dust away. In the distance he could sense Ichigo and the others heading over towards them and he sighed. "You didn't lose jack!" he said harshly but not with malice. "We were fighting, yeah, bet that surprises you. When I found you in the worldd of the living it wasn't what I was expecting, I mean, you weren't what I was expecting," he said uncertainly, his memory still fuzzy on the subject.
"What do you mean?" Akatsuki asked curiously.
"When I found you, you were already hurt, like you had already been in one hell of a fight," Ikkaku said.
"I was hurt?" A pang of heartache ran through her chest at his words and she gripped the front of her kimono tightly, it was a awful sensation. She felt a strange feeling of both guilt and anger at his words but she couldn't remember why.
"Your right arm had been hurt pretty badly and your head was bleeding from just above your forehead," Ikkaku said slowly as he pulled the faded memories into shape in his head. "You were covered in blood, no idea if it was all yours or not. You had this lifeless look in your eyes. There was no way I could bring myself to attack someone who looked so beat up but orders were orders so I attacked you. Heh!"
Akatsuki smiled and opened her eyes again, the ring of red was fully gone and with it she felt as if she just wanted to sleep.
"You weren't as hurt as you looked heh! You and that huge scythe were pretty damn fast, I remember bits and pieces but I think I was winning since you started the fight half dead. You jumped back and then leaped high into the air and came down at me with a huge sweeping motion of your scythe which I was barely able to block. Instead of pulling away from me you, kinda, reached out with your hand as if you were trying to grab my head." he said and scooped up a second handful of sand.
Akatsuki looked back up at the sky and sighed to herself. "So that's what I did to you," she said and felt that same guilty feeling again. "I'm sorry," she said and turned her head away again.
"Why?" Ikkaku replied, unsure of her sudden reaction.
"I did something awful to you, I'm sorry," she said again.
"Heh, I have no idea what you did but you shouldn't say your sorry, anythings fair in a fight for your life, I doubt at the time you felt you had any other options." he said seriously and without judgment, fully meaning what he said. When people are fighting for their life, anything is fair was Ikkaku's way of seeing it.
"But still," Akatsuki started to say but was interrupted by Ikkaku putting his hand of her mouth and she looked up at him in shock. He stared down at her and grinned evilly.
"Don't think this makes us even, next time we'll both put everything we have on the line!" Ikkaku said grinning and then his face turned serious. Any moment now the others would be here and he took a leap of faith. "I don't know what you did to me, nor do I think I want to but I have this feeling that if you do it again you'll get what you want from me," he said seriously.
Akatsuki tried to protest but Ikkaku kept his hand on her mouth and all that escaped were muffled noises. She shot him an annoyed look which only made him laugh at her.
"That's better!" he said. "Being annoyed is better then feeling guilty over something, so do it!" Once he was sure she wasn't trying to protest anymore he removed his hand and looked at her expression of annoyance in satisfaction.
"Your sure?" Akatsuki said with barely contained annoyance.
"Yeah, I have this strange feeling, that I know you wont do the same as you did last time," he said seriously and with a strange sense of certainty.
Akatsuki looked into his eyes and saw his overwhelming conviction that she had seen while fighting against him and she wished she had that kind of conviction herself. She tried to sit up but wasn't able to. "Help me up shinigami-sama," she said embarrassingly and blushed slightly.
Ikkaku laughed and pulled her up so that she was sat upright in front of him. Suddenly he felt very uneasy about her being so close to him but he was careful to hide it beneath his evil grin. Akatsuki reached out and cupped his head in her hands and looked straight into his eyes. He wondered why she was blushing about such a insignificant thing. "Now what?" he said.
Akatsuki closed her eyes and smiled evilly at him. "You relax, Shinigami-sama," she said sarcastically and brought her forehead to his so that they touched ever so slightly. She felt the connection between them and the sensation of the thoughts and feelings on the surface of his mind wash over her like warm water. Her eyes suddenly opened, her iris's turned a deep crimson red.
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Ikkaku opened his eyes and found himself looking up at the sky again, white clouds giving his eyes a moments shade from the sun. He felt strange, very strange, though it wasn't in a bad way. His eyes opened wide in shock as he realized that his memories had returned, he remembered everything so clearly as if it had happened only moments ago. 'She restored my memories!?' he wondered to himself and felt as if he understood, if just a little, what her powers were.
"Awwwww, isn't this just an adorable site," Ikkaku heard Yumichika say and twisted his head so that he could see his friend who was stood only meters away, his arms crossed and a evil smile on his face. Ichigo and Rukia were stood with the same dumb expressions of their faces and it pissed him off.
"Urghhh, what the hell are you talking about!?" Ikkaku said aggressively.
"Oh my," Rukia said and barely held back a snicker.
"Maybe we should come back?" Ichigo said sarcastically and nodded towards Ikkaku's body.
Only now did Ikkaku feel extra weight on his chest and he realized that someone was on top of him. He turned his head and half sat up so that he could see what was going on. Akatsuki was asleep on him, using his chest as a pillow, she had such a peaceful look on her face. Then, understanding what was being implied shot them all a look which could of broken stone. "This isn't what it looks like!"
"Heh heh heh," Akatsuki mumbled in her sleep. "I'm not crazy, your crazy!"
Yoruichi, who had been here before the others had arrived had seen a lot more then this and quickly ran off before the others noticed her presence. She had seen something very interesting, something Urahara would definitely want to know about.
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"Urghhhh," Akatsuki groaned as Ichigo held her in his arms.
"What are you going to do?" Ichigo asked as he made sure he had a good hold of her body.
Ikkaku and Yumichika looked at Ichigo confused, then looked at each other and back at Ichigo. "What the hell are you talking about?" Ikkaku said sarcastically.
"I'm a cute little maid," Akatsuki said cheerfully in her stupor and snickered to herself.
"Ummm whatever you say," Ichigo said as he tried to ignore her strange ranting. "Guess your gonna tell Soul Society about Akatsuki," Ichigo said and made eye contact with Ikkaku, trying to gauge his intentions.
"They don't have a choice Ichigo," Rukia said depressingly.
"Heh, we didn't receive any orders to look for her specifically," Ikkaku said cheerfully. "In fact, we didn't receive any orders to come down here at all." Ikkaku grinned at Ichigo and Rukia's dumbfounded expressions and laughed.
"What he's trying to say is we have no obligation to either bring the young lady back with us or report her discovery at all," Yumichika added on to what Ikkaku had said. He reached up and brushed his fingers through his hair and smiled conspiratorially at Rukia and Ichigo.
"But if they find out about this you'll be in all kinds of hell!" Ichigo protested.
"So what?" Ikkaku replied bluntly and crossed his arms in front of him. "Don't you want to protect that girl from us? Why complain about it?" Ikkaku stared into Ichigo's eye's and walked over to to him and placed a hand onto his shoulder so that he could talk straight into Ichigo's ear. "I don't know why your protecting her and I don't really care one way or the other. No doubt you got your reasons."
"My reasons?" Ichigo said to himself as Ikkaku pulled away and started to walk away back towards Yumichika who looked at his friend curiously which only earned him a half hearted shrug. Before he reached Yumichika Ikkaku turned around and looked into Ichigo's eyes again and considered him a moment longer.
"I hope you have one," Ikkaku said seriously and carried on his way, ignoring Yumichika who smiled at him as if sharing a private joke.
"A reason?" Ichigo repeated to himself.
"Ichigo?" Rukia said, wondering what Ikkaku had said but not fully wanting to ask. Ichigo seemed caught in thought and she wondered if he had even heard her voice. She turned back to Yumichika. "Ichigo's right, you can't hide this from the captains," she said in a serious tone and instantly felt a small pang of guilt at her words, words that would get Akatsuki caught by Soul Society. Rukia still didn't know Akatsuki well enough to even start to understand or trust her but she trusted Ichigo and knew this was a dangerous position for him to be in.
Yumichika considered Rukia's words and knew that she spoke the truth but that didn't concern him very much.
"Don't worry about it, we'll handle it!" Ikkaku said confidently as he walked off.
Rukia and Ichigo looked at each other in mild confusion and then back at Ikkaku who gave them a bloody thumbs up.
"I'm sure our Captain will be very concerned about the situation," he said sarcastically.
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"Is this the item Akatsuki-san was asking for?" Tessai asked as he showed the contents of a very old and torn box to Urahara who swiftly pulled the box from his hands and peered inside.
Pulling the box so suddenly caused all of the dust to fly into Urahara's face and he flipped his fan out to to blow away the dust. Once the dust had cleared he looked into the box and smiled triumphantly to himself as his eyes fell upon one of the items he had been looking for. "Indeed it is Tessia-san!" he said overly cheerfully and blew his face with the fan.
"What use could young Miss Akatsuki have for such a unusual thing?" Tessai asked curiously as Urahara went back to looking into the box. "Does it have some special properties or uses that I am unaware of?" he carried on when it seemed that Urahara was going to ignore the first question.
Urahara's attention strayed from the box and he looked up at Tessai with a cheerfully evil smile. "Nope, not a thing!" he said smiling naively.
Tessai stared at his boss and considered that suspicious smile for a moment and decided that there was something just too suspicious about that smile. "Are you sure?" Tessai said in a neutral tone.
Urahara waved his cane about dramatically and laughed to himself. "Yes yes I'm very sure, this thing is completely harmless!" he said enthusiastically.
Tessai just returned his smile with his cold as ice, hard as rock stare.
"It really is!" Urahara protested and smiled as Tessai relented his unnerving glare. "Its just that I haven't seen this thing in decades," he said and looked back into the box again. "Maybe even longer, I really don't remember." He wasn't sure why but his voice was tinged with regret. "Its been here so long I only remembered about it when Akatsuki asked for something similar to it. I don't even recall how I came about it in the first place"
"I see," Tessai responded happy enough with the answer.
They left the din of the room and returned to what seemed like an overly bright hallway after so long in that dark store room that they both had to shield their eyes for a second. They headed back to the shop floor where they found Jinta and Ururu tending to the stock that was on display. The red headed boy looked up at them both as they entered and glared at them both.
"What took you guys so long?" Jinta said harshly.
"Jinta!" Ururu protested and hid behind Jinta defensively.
"Its dangerous back there!" Urahara replied grinning. He was about to carry on towards his study when he felt a very familiar presence in the room. "Was it dangerous outside as well?" he asked to no one in particular.
Yoruichi stalked into the shop and walked over towards Urahara and sat in front of him. "I just saw something very interesting," she said in her usual flat tone of voice.
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"Kyah!" Akatsuki shouted and waved her arms about childishly, which might not have been a problem if Ichigo had not been trying to carry her at the time.
"Damn it! Stop doing that you annoying brat!" Ichigo shouted back irritably as a vein threatened to burst on his forehead.
"Ichigo, calm down," Rukia said reasonably.
"Your not the one shes hitting in the face," Ichigo said through gritted teeth as he quickly twisted his head to avoid what he was starting to think was a deliberate attack by Akatsuki. He glared down at her sleeping face and looked for any sign that she was awake and not asleep at all, finding none he sighed.
"That was all way too close," Rukia said in a serious tone. "I wonder how they found her in the first place."
Ichigo felt that Ikkaku had most likely felt her presence in the same way that he had and he wanted to ask Rukia if she had felt anything strange at the same time he had. But what he had felt was hard to put into words, at least, words that made even a drop of sense to anyone and that included himself. It had been like he had felt her, not her reiatsu, more like Akatsuki herself and that made little sense to him. Thinking back he guessed that Rukia probably hadn't felt the same disturbing sensation and if she had she had hidden it very well. "No idea," Ichigo said simply and without thinking about it dodged Akatsuki's flailing arms again.
Rukia was hoping for a little more then two words and frowned at Ichigo. She looked down from Ichigo to Akatsuki and stared at her long enough for Ichigo to take notice and look down at her curiously. Akatsuki's skin still looked pale to almost the point of being ghostly and her hair was still that same shade of pale red, its long flowing length trailing just above Ichigo's knees as they walked along. Save for the bruises and dirt she didn't really look any different from the Akatsuki she had seen earlier that day. However no matter long she looked at her she couldn't shake the feeling that something was different about her, it was subtle and she couldn't put her finger on it but ever since the fight had ended Akatsuki felt different to be around. Rukia shook her head to take her mind off such pointless thoughts and looked up at Ichigo who was once again watching the path ahead. "What did Ikkaku say to you before, you know, just before he left," Rukia asked curiously.
"Nothing really," Ichigo said confidently and grinned at Rukia. At first Ikkaku's words had left him not knowing what to say, he really couldn't think of a solid reason why he would protect Akatsuki, however he soon shrugged off that way of thinking. Since when did he need a reason to protect someone who needed his help. "Nothing at all."
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