Chapter 34- The Days Go On

I stayed in this underground place and trained with Hiyori so I can sustain the time I can use my mask. They had me fight her non-stop for a whole week, except for when we ate lunch. Like always, Hiyori continued breaking my mask into pieces. The time I kept my mask on was slowly increasing, seconds at a time. By the time I finished all of my fights with Hiyori, I could keep my mask on for as long as I had wanted. This was great, because I'll be allowed to leave here soon.

"Can I go now?" I complained.

"Not yet," Shinji answered, walking down the stairs.

"But whyyyyyyyy?" I moaned.

"You haven't brought me Ichigo yet," he put his hand on my shoulder. "Don't tell me you forgot about our deal already."

I was confused. "We made a deal?"

"We agreed to help you control your hollow power in exchange for you bringing us Ichigo," he explained. "So you can leave, but I'll be sticking with you until you get Ichigo."

"Ugh," I groaned, "why do you want him so badly?"

"You forgot a lot already," he sighed and scratched the back of the head. "Do I have to tell you twice?"

"No," I made an angry face. "Fine. Let's go get Ichigo right now then."

"If you insist," he started walking back upstairs.

I followed him. "Hey, what time is it?"

"It's the same time school starts. Shall we go visit Ichigo at school?" he told me.

"How do you know all of this? It's kind of creepy…" I shuddered. "What? Do you like…stalk him?"

"Of course not," he denied. "Are you going to answer my question?"

"Okay let's go then," I got impatient. We got upstairs where my gigai sat boredly. Once she saw me a smile grew on her face and she jumped up to meet me.

"Time to go?" she asked me.

"Yes, thank you for taking care of my gigai," I smiled and returned to my gigai. "Okay, Shinji, what's the plan?"

"We need to persuade him to come with us," he said.

βββββββββ

We arrived at the school with our uniforms on, everyone asking why I was late, and wondering why I was with Shinji, except they didn't know his name. The teacher announced him as a transfer student. I took my usual seat next to the window in the desk next to Ichigo's. Shinji was given the seat behind him.

"What are you doing here?" Ichigo asked him.

"Wait wait wait wait waaaaaiiit! You know him?" I asked Ichigo.

"Yeah, he attacked me last night," Ichigo answered.

"What the heck, Shinji? You visited him and didn't tell me? You know I would've gone with you!" I got angry again.

"Well, you were busy training and I didn't want to bug you," he told me.

"So that's what you were doing all of the last week?" Ichigo asked.

"Oh that's a stupid excuse!…and yes, Ichigo, it is what I was doing for the past week. We have something we would like to tell you." I was talking a bit too loud.

Then Mrs. Ochi chucked pieces of chalk at all three of us for talking. We all sat normally and did our class work. I was still mad at Shinji, and when we were working independently I snuck in some faces at him.

"Would you quit that?" he whispered. "You're making us look bad."

"Make me," I whispered back. "I'm only doing this 'cause you didn't take me with you last night."

"Well didn't Hiyori tell you where I was going?" he asked me.

"No, she doesn't tell me anything," I replied.

"Is there something you guys would like to tell the class?" Mrs. Ochi announced.

Shinji stood up. "No, but could we go have a talk in the hall?"

"What are you doing?" I wondered.

"Play along if you don't wanna get in trouble," he said so only I could hear.

I stood up too. "Actually, may I please use the restroom?"

Shinji whispered something to Ichigo and then Ichigo stood up.

"Don't take long," she said and I ran out to the hallway, meeting Ichigo and Shinji there.

I watched Shinji try to talk Ichigo into joining them, I guess he's referring to the Visoreds, and got bored and started twirling my hair. After I while I noticed them walk outside. I followed shortly behind them. We walked for a while and I only payed attention when I saw Ichigo grab Shinji's shirt. I rushed over and grabbed Ichigo's wrist.

"Hey, hey, let's chill guys! No need to rough-house!" I pried Ichigo's hand off of Shinji's shirt. "Now what's the problem here?"

"He keeps trying to get me to go with him," Ichigo answered.

"And you don't want to, do you?" I felt like I was interrogating him.

"No," he replied.

"Well, you know what I think you should do?" I asked him for my own good.

"What?" he wondered.

"Go with him, he can help you," I told him.

"Help me with what, though?" he crossed his arms.

"You want me to show you?" I took my soul candy out of my pocket.

"What are you doing?" he asked me.

"Just watch," I told him as I popped a piece in my mouth. I then placed my hand over my face. "He helped me with this too."

I closed my eyes and swiped my hand across my face, my mask appearing on my face. It didn't completely cover my face; it only covered my nose, chin, and mouth, which was strange because none of the visoreds' masks were like that. The white of my eyes turned black as night. I reopened my eyes and glanced over at Ichigo, who seemed to be surprised.

"Y-you're one of them?" he stuttered in shock.

"Don't be surprised," my hollowfied voice cracked. "You have this same power. That's why I want you to let Shinji help you. It's so you can control it and it won't take over your body during your battles." I took the mask off.

"Well, we'll see I guess," he shrugged and started heading back to class.

I got back in my gigai and started to follow him to class when Shinji grabbed my wrist and pulled me back. "Hey! Watch the wrist! It hasn't healed yet!" I yanked my wrist back (which hurt more than when he grabbed it) and held it with my left hand.

"You should say that to yourself," he told me. "And I don't believe I ever got your name since you showed up at our place."

"Oh, I guess I never got the chance," I said, "so you can call me Izume. Or Lieutenant Shiba. I don't care whichever one you wanna call me."

"Ok, well we're going back to the warehouse," he took my hand again and started pulling me with him.

"Hey what do you think you're doing?" I yelled.

"We failed at getting Ichigo, so you're still stuck with us until he shows up," he answered.

"That's not what I meant!" I screamed. "You can't just grab my hand and pull me wherever you want me to!"

He ignored me and kept taking me back to the warehouse. He let me go when we arrived at our destination, just in time for both of us to get slapped onto our butts by Hiyori.

"Hey what the heck was that for?" We both shouted at her.

"You guys just took off without telling us where you were going! And if you went to go get that Ichigo guy again you obviously failed!" she yelled back.

"Well you never told me that Shinji went to go retrieve Ichigo last night so I thought you wouldn't mind," I fibbed.

"Shut up baldy!" she slapped me again.

"Grr, you didn't have to hit me that time!" I stood up angrily.

βββββββββ

We never thought Ichigo was going to show up that day so I just hung out with them without anything to do. Nothing fun ever happened here, either we all sat around doing nothing like lazy couch potatoes or there was someone being yelled at by Hiyori. That was only entertaining when it wasn't me being yelled at or being called a baldy.

The next morning I was woken up early by some chatter. I got up and sleepily walked over to where I found the visoreds, and Ichigo. When did he get here? I asked myself in my mind. I sat down on the edge of the broken floor, and looked down at Ichigo, who didn't notice me.

"So, I see you've finally decided to join us," Shinji said.