Chapter 6.
Lost and found.
Ichigo started to run, he didn't have time to wait for the elevator so he took the stairs, when he reached the bottom he crashed with Ishida who was carrying a lot of documents and due to the collision the papers flew everywhere around them. Uryuu looked at Ichigo with annoyance written all over his face.
"Sorry! This is an emergency" Ichigo said quickly and left him to clean the mess by himself.
"You owe me one Kurosaki!" Uryuu yelled while breathing heavily.
Whether he heard him or not was debatable.
Rukia kept walking until she reached a park, she took a seat on a bench and tried to calm her erratic breathing. Why was she feeling so sick and anxious? Perhaps her body was malfunctioning because of the reiatsu she wasted on Karin and Yuzu's wishes.
"Kon" she said and the plushie came out of her backpack "can you feel my reiatsu?"
Kon closed his eyes for a few seconds and when he opened them again he looked at her worriedly.
"Nee-san we should go back!" he said urgently, luckily there weren't too many people on the park so no one was paying attention to them "your reiatsu is decreasing!"
Rukia nodded.
She figured that much.
She tried to stand up but her legs didn't answer, her eyes widened as she tried again without success. She was completely sure that this couldn't be a side effect of losing too much reiatsu. What was happening?
"Kon" she said urgently "I can't move."
The plushie was starting to feel anxious too. He couldn't just go and ask for help, he couldn't leave Rukia all by herself and he had no idea of where to find Ichigo. Looking around he noticed how it was going to rain soon. A thunder was heard and Rukia frowned, this wasn't her day.
Her eyelids felt heavy and she was sure that she was going to pass out at any second.
"Nee-san!" Kon said when an idea struck him "you should release a little of your reiatsu, if Hisana-san is nearby she'll sense you."
Rukia nodded, that was a magnificent idea, she clapped her hands once and a little wave of her reiatsu left her. Two minutes passed and no one approached Rukia, she tried to fight against her tiredness but it was impossible, she was falling asleep at an alarming speed but before she lost consciousness a dark skinned woman approached her.
"What are you doing here?!" she asked her but Rukia didn't answer, she passed out right there.
Ichigo cursed loudly at the sky once the rain started to pour down, he knew it wasn't the weather's fault but after checking the apartment and realizing that Rukia was nowhere to be found he didn't know what else to do or where to look. It was frustrating and the fact that she had taken Kon with her only put him on edge, what if someone attacked her? What if someone were to ask her what was she doing with a plushie and ended up discovering it's true power? He was about to curse loudly again when he felt something warm, sighing he noticed how familiar the sensation was.
It was Rukia's presence!
He didn't have an idea of how he knew that but knowing how he didn't have time to waste he started to run towards the park.
"You must have it wrong"
Grimmjow, who was hiding in a bathroom stall while smoking a cigarette, frowned at the phone. He didn't like the tone that the man at the other side of the line was using with him, hell, he hated the man at the other side of the line but considering how this was his boss he couldn't simply tell him to go fuck himself. The job was already complicated, now it was proven to be almost impossible.
"I know I heard it right" Grimmjow said through gritted teeth.
"Kuchiki Byakuya is a really smart and careful man, how did he end up revealing this piece of information with you?"
Grimmjow sighed.
"It was the heat of the situation I suppose" he said exasperated "besides he's not aware that I know who his sister is, he probably thought that I wouldn't understand."
Grimmjow heard Aizen sighing heavily.
"You know what this mean?"
Grimmjow frowned.
"Yeah" he answered "now I have to snatch a girl and an orange haired bastard!"
"I wasn't talking about that" Aizen said angrily "it means that Kurosaki Ichigo set her free, he's her master, whatever he wished for must've made her get a normal size."
Grimmjow felt a pang of jealousy but he ignored it, he didn't know the girl for fuck's sake! It wasn't normal to feel that way. He thought about telling Aizen about how the girl was probably using witchcraft on him but knowing him he would probably remove him from the job and Grimmjow didn't want to lose the chance of having three wishes for himself. Besides, the girl was something else, he wanted to know a little more about her.
"And?" Grimmjow asked uninterested.
"Are you an idiot?! You have to kill him!"
Grimmjow snorted.
"She would die" he said not troubled to be talking about murdering someone "there must be something more…"
"That's it!" Aizen said and Grimmjow wondered if the motherfucker was on drugs because he sounded ecstatic "the lamp! They must have it!"
Grimmjow could feel a headache growing.
"You have to find the lamp and the master won't be a problem anymore" Aizen explained "is the girl living with Kurosaki Ichigo?"
"I don't know" Grimmjow answered bitterly "I'll investigate, I must go for now."
He hung up without a care in the world and lit another cigarette.
He would have to break into Kurosaki's apartment.
When Ichigo reached the park he noticed two things, the first one was that there was no one around and the second one was that Rukia's presence had vanished. He couldn't help it so he punched a tree and ignoring the pain he started to run again, he was sure that Rukia had been here so she had to be nearby. With every minute that passed he was feeling more worried and the fact that it was raining wasn't helping.
He hated the damn rain.
Rukia was feeling warm and comfortable, so comfortable that she wondered if she was back on the apartment. She opened her eyes slowly and was greeted by the smiling face of a blonde man with a hat.
"Hello there!" the man said happily "how are you feeling?!"
Rukia blinked twice confused.
"Kisuke" someone said behind the man "you're scaring her, go away."
Rukia couldn't help it, she recognized the voice so before the man could obey Rukia jumped suddenly and pushed him away just to see the owner of the voice, her eyes widened when she saw Yoruichi Shihoin smirking at her.
"Hey there" Yoruichi greeted her "you gave me quite the scare."
Rukia smiled widely.
"Yoruichi-san!" she said "how did you find me?!"
Yoruichi smiled and took a seat on the futon next to Rukia.
"I felt your reiatsu" she explained "I didn't know it was yours mind you but I knew it belonged to one of our kind so I decided to see what was happening."
"You saved me!" Rukia said happily "I didn't know what was happening Ichigo just left me in the apartment and when I woke up I was feeling anxious."
"Ichigo must be the name of your master." Yoruichi said pensively while crossing her arms "I can guess what he asked for by seeing your size but is he treating you well? Where did you meet him?"
Rukia shrugged.
"It's a long story" she said and Yoruichi smiled.
"It's okay" she assured her "we have time, Kisuke! Prepare some tea for us!"
Rukia smiled, she was feeling safe again.
"I need your help"
"You crashed with me literally an hour ago on the office and now you're asking me for help?!" Uryuu asked bewildered "are you drunk?!"
"No, I'm not" Ichigo answered and Uryuu could hear the frustration on his voice "I just need you to come to the bakery near my apartment and help me."
Uryuu sighed.
"It's against the rules to leave the job without the boss's authorization" he said while ignoring Ichigo's worrisome tone "I do not have your privilege because I'm not close to Kuchiki Byakuya, unlike you I mean you're even dating his sister…"
"Rukia is missing" Ichigo said suddenly and Uryuu's eyes widened.
"What did you say?" the bespectacled boy asked shocked.
"Rukia is missing" Ichigo repeated "my head is a mess and if you don't help me she might die."
Uryuu blinked. He was sure that Ichigo was being dramatic, he didn't know much about Kuchiki Byakuya's sister but she was probably enjoying herself around town, wasn't she a rich young girl after all? But something about Ichigo's tone was telling him that this was a real crisis.
"I'm on my way" Uryuu said while grabbing his car keys.
"Damn girl" Yoruichi said after hearing Rukia's story "didn't your sister tell you not to get separated from your master for long periods of time?"
Rukia took another sip of her tea and shook her head.
"She just told me that I would feel a little dependant on him" she said "she didn't explain any further."
Yoruichi sighed and Urahara, who was sitting next to her listening to the story as well, smirked.
"You look troubled Yoruichi-san" the mad hatter said.
"Shut up" Yoruichi said glaring at him "I hate explaining this part to the youngsters."
Rukia blinked frowned.
"What part?" she asked.
Yoruichi crossed her arms.
"This is why I told Hisana to explain you everything but she's too cautious with you."
"Then why don't you explain?" Rukia asked "Ichigo is great with me and he doesn't seem to want anything so my sister agreed with me that he would be a good master."
Yoruichi nodded.
"I get that point" she said "but this is not about whether he's a good person or not, this is about how his existence is linked to yours."
"Uh?"
Yoruichi groaned.
"Listen" she said "didn't it occur to you how weird was that your size changed after he made a simple wish?"
Rukia shrugged.
"Not really" she admitted.
"Your size changed because he wished to be with you forever" Yoruichi started emphasizing the important words "since he's a human and you're a genie it was physically impossible to be with him, so in order to serve him better your size changed but that's one simple part of the wish."
"One part?" Rukia asked feeling uneasy.
"Yeah" Yoruichi said and looked at Rukia seriously "the other part was the forever part."
Rukia gulped.
"You cannot leave him, your job is to grant his wishes and his main wish was to be with you forever" Yoruichi explained "if you leave him you'll die."
"But… I didn't leave him!" Rukia said starting to panic "he just went to work and I stayed at home, a few hours can kill me?!"
Yoruichi shook her head.
"A few hours won't kill you" she assured her "but that boy owns you, you acted without his permission therefore your magic acted as if you were leaving him."
"That's why my body started to malfunction?" Rukia asked and Yoruichi nodded.
"I gave you a medicine when you passed out" the dark skinned woman explained "it was used a lot back in the war so genies could survive a few days when they were away from their masters, that's why you're okay now."
"But that means that if I want to at least go and see my sister I have to ask for Ichigo's permission? How far away can we be? What if he has to travel because of his work and I cannot go with him?"
"He would have to order you to wait for him" Yoruichi said and Rukia frowned.
She didn't like how that sounded. Sure, she had been telling Ichigo that she belonged to him and while she didn't mind, because after all she was a genie, she didn't expect to be completely chained to him. She had felt truly free once she was outside the lamp but now she was beginning to believe that her freedom was fake.
Her eyes widened when another idea struck her.
"Yoruichi-san" Rukia said "will my body feel obligated to follow every single one of his orders? And… if I refuse to follow one of those orders will I die?"
Yoruichi exchanged a look with Urahara and sighed, the girl deserved some honesty.
"Well, yes, you'll feel the need to follow all of his orders" Yoruichi said "you probably won't notice because genies don't feel the need to go against their masters, that's why wishing to be with somebody or wishing to own someone is a dangerous business, being a master is not a joke."
"Will I die if I don't obey?" Rukia asked and Yoruichi noticed the uncertainty behind her eyes.
"Are you worried that he might ask you to do something you don't want?"
Rukia blushed and looked aside.
"Of course not" she said "but… is silly, right? He doesn't know this, my sister never explained and…"
"You won't die" Yoruichi interrupted her and Rukia looked at her with widened eyes "but you will feel conflicted with yourself for not obeying."
Rukia huffed.
"I thought that being with Ichigo was going to be fun" she said "but now it sounds like a job."
"Well, if he's as nice as you say he is" Urahara said while smirking "I don't see why it can't be fun, if you want some advice just keep this as a secret."
"That's right" Yoruichi agreed with him "don't tell him how much power he has over you so you won't face awkward circumstances."
Rukia sighed.
"It doesn't feel right to hide things from him" she said smiling sadly "but I'll do it."
Yoruichi smiled satisfied.
Urahara excused himself and went to the kitchen to pour more tea. He was really enjoying this afternoon, when Yoruichi came back carrying a little genie he was surprised nonetheless but finding out how this girl had been protected by Kuchiki Byakuya and found out by Kurosaki Ichigo was really juicy information. Humming a catchy song he grabbed his phone and dialed Kurosaki Isshin's number.
"Kurosaki" Uryuu said while looking at him with disdain "stop being an asshole and look at me."
Ichigo wasn't listening, he was on the street again looking around expecting to see Rukia running at him but that wasn't happening. He left the bakery shop when Uryuu arrived, and now they were both standing, like idiots, with the rain pouring hard over both of them. Uryuu wanted to slap him, shake him, kill him, anything in order to make him wake up.
"This is my fault" Ichigo said "I acted like an asshole yesterday because I thought she was flirting with Grimmjow…"
Uryuu listened to him, perhaps letting his feelings out would help him.
"Perhaps she left because of that" Ichigo continued "but we kissed when we got home and before going to bed so…"
"Stop" Ishida begged "please I don't want to hear that part."
"I don't know where else to look!" Ichigo said desperately.
"Let's think" Ishida said trying to ignore the way people would look at them, he couldn't blame them, they were two grownups talking under the rain after all "what about her brother's home? She probably wanted to see Hisana-san"
Ichigo shook his head.
"She doesn't know how to go there" he said and Uryuu frowned.
"What do you mean?" he asked "she lived there for a while, didn't she?"
Ichigo looked at Ishida and shook his head again.
"Kurosaki" Ishida said seriously "where did that girl come from?"
Ichigo sighed.
"I'll tell you" he said "but you have to promise me that you won't tell anyone."
Uryuu nodded.
"I promise" he said.
"Well, now that everything is settled" Yoruichi said "I believe it's time for you to go home."
Rukia nodded.
"Thank you again, Yoruichi-san"
"Don't worry too much about it" the dark skinned woman said "but I'll give you my number, I have to have a serious talk with your sister and since you're both in town we'll be seen each other frequently."
Rukia smiled.
Those were great news.
"Oh no please!" Urahara said while getting back to the room "Kurosaki-san should be here soon so please don't leave yet."
Yoruichi and Rukia looked at the mad hatter with widened eyes.
"How do you know?" Rukia couldn't help to ask.
Urahara smiled.
"I called an old friend of mine" he said "the fact that you ended up in my humble business is really a marvelous coincidence Kuchiki-san."
Rukia blinked confused and looked at Yoruichi questioningly.
"He's always been weird" Yoruichi said shrugging and Rukia chuckled.
"You're lying" Ishida said "genies do not exist and plushies do not speak! Are you drunk?"
Ichigo scowled at Uryuu.
"Then how do you explain the fact that she hadn't been in the office before meeting me?" he asked annoyed.
"Wasn't she in Norway?!" Ishida asked and Ichigo wondered how the fuck he could believe something like that.
It was then when his phone rang, Ichigo answered quickly without checking who was calling him.
"Hello" he answered angrily.
Uryuu noticed how Ichigo's expression changed, whoever was calling him was telling him something awfully important because in a matter of seconds the orange haired boy stood up and started to run. Uryuu groaned and decided to follow him.
"Where are you going?!" Uryuu yelled while running behind him.
"I know where Rukia is!"
"Who called you?!"
"My dad!"
"How does he know?!"
"I don't know!" Ichigo answered while running faster "but I promise you that I'll prove to you that I'm not lying once we see her."
Rukia was glad to see how the dark clouds were finally dispersing and letting a few rays of sun through. She smiled at the sky and checked on Kon who was still unconscious inside her backpack.
"He's going to be okay" Yoruichi said reassuringly "you lost a lot of reiatsu so it's understandable that your lamp got tired too."
"How can I thank you?" Rukia asked.
"There's no need" Yoruichi said "we have to take care of each other, there are very few of us left."
"Have you ever go to lamp society again?" Rukia asked "to see how it ended."
Yoruichi sighed.
"We shouldn't be looking at the past" she said "we're fine now."
Rukia nodded.
It was then when she saw two figures approaching, the orange hair was unmistakable, it was Ichigo! He was running towards her along with Ishida from the office.
"Damn" Yoruichi said "please tell me that the hair is not natural."
Rukia chuckled.
"It is" she said.
When Ichigo caught glimpse of Rukia he couldn't help but smiled relieved.
"Rukia!" he said and was about to go and hug her but Rukia beat him and instead of hugging him she punched him hard on the stomach. Ichigo cursed loudly and doubled in pain.
"Carrot top!" Rukia said.
"Is this how you greet me?!" Ichigo asked while breathing heavily. He stood up to look properly at her "what was that for?!"
"You left me!" Rukia said angrily "I was really worried!"
"I was the one who was losing his shit midget!" Ichigo said back equally angry "Byakuya was saying something like how you could've died!"
Rukia blinked.
"Oh" she said and exchanged a look with Yoruichi "so, you know? You never told me."
Ichigo noticed the uncertainty on her eyes and sighed.
"If I had known I wouldn't have left you like that, don't be an idiot" he said and Yoruichi looked at him surprised "we'll have to look deeply into this master and genie thing, I swear I don't want to go through this again."
Rukia nodded.
"You should buy me a phone too" she said "so I can call you as much as I want to."
Ichigo chuckled.
"Stop demanding things like a Princess, midget."
Rukia smirked.
"So… don't you feel guilty for letting me almost die?" she asked and Ichigo frowned.
"Of course I do! Stop repeating that."
"Then I'll forgive you after having some ice cream and a phone."
Ichigo rolled his eyes.
"You're going to leave me without money if you keep eating like that." He said and then looked at Yoruichi "thank you, my dad called me saying how you helped her, Urahara is it?"
"My name is Shihoin Yoruichi" she said "Kisuke Urahara is the owner of this shop but he's busy at the moment."
"Still" Uryuu said speaking for the first time "thanks to you Kuchiki-san here is fine, right?"
Yoruichi nodded and looked at Ichigo.
"Don't worry boy" Yoruichi said smiling "just take care of that girl because if something happens I'll give you hell."
Ichigo nodded.
"I will." He promised and everyone said goodbye.
When the three of them were out of ear's reach Yoruichi got back inside.
"Is there a special reason why you didn't come out?" she asked Urahara.
"I think that our customers were okay with just you." He said and Yoruichi rolled her eyes.
"Oi, midget" Ichigo said "Ishida here doesn't believe that you're a genie, can you prove it to him?"
Rukia stopped walking and looked at the bespectacled boy.
"Sure" She said and took the unconscious Kon out of her backpack.
"What's this?" Uryuu asked while grabbing the plushie.
"You'll find out soon" Rukia said while checking that no one was near "ask for something, anything."
Uryuu looked at her as if she had gone mad.
"Ask for something little Ishida" Ichigo told him "she still needs practice to grant big wishes."
Ishida shrugged.
He had run around town looking for the missing girl, he had listened to Ichigo's madness and complaints under the rain. The least he could do it was to ask for something, right? without expecting anything to happen he decided to at least try.
"I wish for Kurosaki's hair to turn pink for twenty four hours." He said.
"What?!" Ichigo asked scared "wait Rukia!"
Rukia laughed and clapped her hands once.
Ishida looked with awe how Ichigo's hair changed color and gaped.
"I'll kill you" Ichigo said while looking at Uryuu with killing intent "you're so dead."
Rukia couldn't stop laughing, she was relieved to be near Ichigo again.
Hello there!
Little chapter to explain some things and letting you know that I haven't given up, you deserve better and this story deserves a good plot and a nice ending so I'll work harder.
Is anyone still reading this silly thing?
Let me know.
Kisses.
