Everything was quiet for a little while after Kenichi ran off. Which was fine by her, really since it gave her some time to herself to think for a little bit.
Her adoptive brother's friends were a strange lot.
His martial arts masters were equally strange as well. Though they certainly weren't the worst people that she'd ever met before. No- that particular placement went entirely to a select few of her worst enemies. Most of which were now dead, but had still left a lasting impression on her mind that had followed her through the years.
But Kenichi's...they all seemed like really good people regardless of their strangeness. Which was fantastic really.
She tended to get really tired of being the only freak of nature around nowadays. But she supposed that that was simply something that she was still adjusting too. Even now, years after the last fight that she'd ever been in while still a Soul Reaper- the last vestiges of her former power and might remained permanently imprinted on her heart and soul.
She had been supposed to return to normal once her power was gone, however her fight with Aizen had left her- though powerless when it came to her Soul Reaper abilities- significantly altered. Or perhaps, enhanced was the more appropriate word?
Physically at least.
Sure her Soul Reaper abilities were gone. And she was perfectly okay with that. Really she was. But even so, she still retained her inhuman strength, speed, and the lightening quick reflexes among other things that she had developed as a Reaper.
Because of this, and the fact that she had to now live her life as an ordinary human- she had decided to train herself as best as she could. Making sure to keep her combat prowess as sharp as she could.
Just in case something should ever happen again. At least this way she wouldn't be considered a burden to anyone and could defend herself.
Though if not for the fact that her heart had been damaged several times over the years- the last time being when she had attacked Soifon- the evening that her family had been killed.
It was such a nice day today that she might have decided to get up from the porch and do some training.
But seeing as she couldn't train at the moment, because she was still healing from her heart surgery, she would just have to content herself with simply sitting here like a lazy bum.
Sighing, she hung her head a little bit and nearly jumped out of her skin when someone walked up and sat down beside her on the porch. Lifting her head a little bit, she glanced at the person out of the corner of her eye and noted that it was the hulking blond man.
What did he call himself again? She knew that he had introduced himself at breakfast, but for the life of her she couldn't recall his name. Urgh! Why was it so easy for her to learn fighting techniques, but so damned difficult for her to recall a person's name off the top of her head?
"My, that was a depressed sounding sigh." He said after a moment or so before asking kindly. "Are you alright, Ichigo?"
"I'm fine, sir." She said politely. The man regarded her skeptically for a moment. His eyes studying her intently to see if she was lying. Frankly, the longer he stared at her, the more she wanted to squirm.
The guy had eyes just like Kisuke's. Keen, intelligent...incredibly uncomfortable... She always felt as if he were trying to look into her soul whenever he stared at her like this, and she always had to grit her teeth to keep herself from snapping at him.
"My, it's a lovely morning. Isn't it?"
"Uh, y-yeah. It is."
"Perfect weather for doing something nice. Like maybe...building a nest on my porch, out of that blanket you have, so that you can enjoy the sun for a while?" She stiffened a little bit and ducked her head so that he couldn't see her embarrassed expression as he chuckled. "Don't think on it too much little one. I think I may start to smell smoke if you do." He teased.
She hummed instead of laughing like he had wanted her too.
"You certainly picked a nice place for your nest. It's nice and warm and sunny here."
"Yeah, it is." She agreed when the man suddenly blurted out.
"You aren't much of a talker, are you young lady?" She blinked at him, bewildered and he just grinned and patted her on the head and then got up and walked off. But not before ominously tossing out, "We'll see if we can change that some. You have a nice voice, Ichigo- it would be a shame if you didn't use it more."
Giving her flashbacks of the last time Orihime had had a severe sugar high and she had mistakenly visited her. Alone.
All that Orihime had done for hours, upon hours and hours was talk until she finally conked out. And once she had put the girl to bed and slipped out of her apartment, the first thing that she'd done was mass text everyone to keep Orihime out of the sugar from now on.
Anyone who failed to comply wound up 'Orihime-sitting' because she wasn't going to do it anymore unless it was a matter of life or death. And yeah, she knew that that sounded terrible but in her defense- she'd honestly felt as if her ears were going to fall off or something.
So once she finally left the other girl's place, she'd spent the next four days camping out in Chad's living room. Basking in the awesome silence that simply seemed to immerse her best friend's home.
And Chad himself was never much of a talker unless he needed to be. So her was perfectly content to sit with her and not speak.
"That's a happy face." She heard the same guy from this morning say as he walked up to her. She couldn't help herself, mentally imagining everyone (except for a select few people) taking a vow of silence pleased her immensely.
So she smiled a weird giddy sort of smile as he gracefully seated himself across from her.
He chuckled at her expression and muttered more to himself than her, "Definitely a happy face." Before then asking, "What are you thinking about to have such an expression? Is it something good?"
"It is for me." Was all that she could think to say. After all if she simply blurted out something about wanting people to be quiet- she was sure that he'd be rather offended. So she'd just keep that to herself.
"What did Hayato want to speak with you about?" He asked curiously. He'd seen the elder walk away from her a few minutes ago with a mischievous look on his face that simply didn't bode well for the girl.
If he could figure out what the elder intended, then he could nip the old man's plotting in the bud before he actually tried to plan something that might backfire on all of them.
"He said something about my voice."
"Your voice?"
"I have a nice one, I should use it more."
"So basically he wants you to talk a little bit more?"
She shrugged her shoulder, "I guess."
He sighed and mulled something over for a moment before then saying, "I've sort of noticed that about you as well."
"Huh?"
"You don't speak much. And when you do speak- your guarded..."
"There's just some stuff that I simply don't like saying or talking about." She said.
He nodded his head in understanding and then asked, "Would it be alright with you if we continued our talk from before? You've covered your family. So I'm content to leave things as they are there out of respect for your feelings. But would you tell me a little bit about your friends now? I mean, Kenichi never mentioned any when he talked about you. You do have some, right?"
"I do."
He smiled, "Good. Will you tell me about them?"
"Sure. Let me see..." She got a thoughtful look on her face for a moment and then finally started. "The first friend that I ever had, was sort of more of a rival. We were both really young and I'd just started taking karate classes-"
He looked at her and asked curiously, "You were trained?"
"Some, yeah." She confirmed. "Of course, after my mom died, I had to quit so that I could take care of my sisters. But I managed to take classes every day for months before that."
He hummed thoughtfully but kept his mouth shut as she told him about Tatsuki and how in karate class the two of them were always paired together and she'd punch her in the face.
He laughed in amusement as she told him that she finally got fed up with Tatsuki punching her in the face everyday. And the two of them actually got into a knock down, drag out fight one day after school. She won. After which, Tatsuki decided that it wouldn't be good to punch her in the face anymore.
The next person that she told him about was Chad, since he was her second real friend. And aside from Rukia, he was definitely one of her favorites.
She didn't change the actual story of how they had met up much. She really didn't see much of a point in doing so. So she went ahead and told him that she'd been jumped by some gang members and how they had been holding her down when Chad accidentally happened upon them and froze up.
The guys had let go of her and attacked him, giving her just enough time to get up and take them out. After which, Chad had started following her around whenever he saw her out and about.
She told him about Rukia, and yes- she was smart enough to change that story up as much as possible. It wasn't as if she could simply come out and tell him that the other girl was a supernatural being. He'd think that she was crazy if she did.
So instead she simply told him that she had been lost, running away from her family who had some ties to a rogue military branch, and had broken into her home one night and scared her a little bit. They got into a cat fight of sorts, and she'd somehow wound up tied up on her bedroom floor with a mustache doodled on her face.
The two of them were pretty inseparable ever since. She wasn't totally sure that he'd bought that story. But it didn't particularly matter much since she'd gotten a little bit tired and had dozed off.
So she didn't get to tell him about the others. But that didn't seem to bother him any since he decided to let her sleep.
