Author's notes: Thought I'd pull my trademark-move for the first time this year on this story. Ha ha. I thought I might break the pattern a tiny bit in this case, however; I'll say now that I think there are another two (short) chapters in this story before I retire it, which means it'll finish on six chapters. I don't know when I'll get around to writing the last two, but they'll appear at some point in the future. :D
As always, many thanks for your feedback. I genuinely appreciate all of it. :)
It had been several hours since the Soul Reapers had carried an exhausted, bandaged-up Uryu Ishida into the cell occupied by Ganju and Chad, and Ganju was frankly fed up with how useless the sleeping boy was being.
"You'd think he would have the decency to wake up and tell us what's going on," Ganju ranted.
Chad simply shrugged.
"I mean," Ganju continued, tugging at his own uncomfortably-tight bandages, "he managed to evade them for this long, so he must have had a load of time to hear about what's been happening!"
"Don't be unreasonable," replied Chad. "Uryu is a fragile fifteen-year-old boy. He likely survived for so long by keeping out of the way and hiding well. He probably knows no more than we do."
This didn't compute, as far as Ganju was concerned. "Hiding well with that girl in tow? Do you think he ditched her for being a liability?"
"Never," said Chad. "He wouldn't do that, and you don't know her. If there's one thing Orihime isn't..."
However, at that moment, Uryu stirred in his sleep as though he had heard her name.
"Put down the chainsaw Orihime, love, I know who stole the chicken."
Ganju blinked.
"Well, that wasn't like him," said Chad, his voice lowered.
"Yeah," Ganju concurred. "Who knew that he was secretly as nuts as she is?"
Chad shook his head. "Not that, everybody knows he's eccentric. No, I meant how he called her 'love'. That's out-of-character for Uryu."
"Oh," said Ganju disinterestedly, before he realised the implications of this. "Oh! Do you think something happened?"
Chad frowned. "No," he said, simply.
Ganju's eyes narrowed. "Eh, I say we ask him about it when he wakes up."
"Or we never mention it again to anybody. Particularly him," suggested Chad.
It was strange, really, how despite the fact that neither Chad's words nor tone carried any trace of threat, Ganju was inclined to agree.
"Yeah, that's probably for the best," he said, giving the slumbering cloud-cuckoolander a last curious glance before returning to attempting to reduce the cell's walls of seki-seki to sand.