Street Side
One of the spirits that Chad talked to first was a woman looking for her child. People were always looking for something in Ryuutamashikai. She was just an ordinary spirit with no extraordinary powers—lost, confused, and hopeful like all the others. She wasn't hard to forget.
She spoke easily to Chad, though he hadn't asked her anything. People always spoke comfortably with Chad, even if he didn't say anything to initiate a conversation. Maybe they just needed someone who'd just shut up and listen to them. Chad seemed willing to do that.
The woman had been alive in Chad's time. At least, he supposed so, since she talked about TV and computers and airplanes and such. She was talkative and nice. The only thing that she failed to talk about was the cause of her death. Her hands would always waver vaguely between a gash in her side and the hair falling off of her scalp. But she smiled and talked to him in a motherly way that he never knew and with such graciousness that he wondered vaguely if she was a good mother to her child.
About ten years, she's been looking for him, she reveals. Naturally, Chad asked if she needed any help searching. An empty offer, since Chad really was helping Ichigo and not random strangers. She wasn't even cute and cuddly. He just felt like it'd be a nice thing to say. In any case, she declined politely (manners never disappear, even in death) and she told him that she was pretty close now to reaching him, she could feel it.
Chad asked why she wasn't looking for others who were more likely to be near, since her son might or might not be dead. She laughed in a way that startled Chad. It seemed forced, but maybe he was just imaging it. "Things were left a bit… unresolved," she said lightly, though Chad felt that they were only euphemisms.
Chad could hear Ichigo calling him. With a slight bow and his usual stiff wave, he bid her farewell. He suggested to her, before he left, that she settle down and live a happy afterlife because it was dangerous for such a young woman to be walking around, especially in Ryuutamashikai. He meant it in a polite way, of course, since not much could harm an already deceased spirit, but she smiled graciously anyway.
"There's much in this world to be saved from," she said, with a knowing look. "Which is why I have to protect him." She smiled in a resolved way, hugging the torn hole in her side.
"I think your friend's calling you," she said gently. Instead of waiting for his leave, she turned and walked away. Though this was an odd encounter, he couldn't seem to think much of it later.