Chapter 3

That question made everyone think. Rangiku tried to help Ayama figure out how to control her newfound ability. During that Tsukiko, Ami, and Haruhi brainstormed what their abilities might be and how to summon them, Byakuya and Tôshirô waited for any news of any kind, and Renji decided to lean against a tree stump and take a nap.

"This is boring…" Haruhi complained for the seventh time.

"Agreed…" Tsukiko and Ami said together, again.

Tôshirô had had enough of their complaining. "Will you stop complaining?! And while you're at it stop talking together! It's annoying!"

Tsukiko looked over at the now annoyed captain. "We could if we could, but it's not like we do it on purpose… The talking together that is. The complaining will stop when there is something better to do." Tsukiko said this with a straight face. Ami and Haruhi, on the other hand, both grinned at her comment.

Tôshirô was about to say something when Tsukiko got up and walked over to sleeping Renji. Ami watched her carefully. "Um… Tsukiko, what are you going to do?"

Tsukiko grinned back to her friend. "Watch…" Byakuya was now watching her along side Tôshirô. Tsukiko reached over to Renji's hair tie and carefully pulled it out. Renji didn't stir. A smirk grew across Tsukiko's face as she faced her friends. "Now what should we do with this?" She lifted up Renji's hair tie for Ami and Haruhi to see.

Ami grinned as she jumped up and took the hair tie from her friend. "This should be fun…"

Tsukiko walked back to her place by Haruhi. "Just don't do your evil laugh until you're done."

"Right!" Ami said before she sat on the tree stump Renji was leaning on and started to tie his hair back the way she wanted to.

Haruhi put her chin in her hands. "I would of though you would want to mess with his hair."

Tsukiko just shrugged. "Yeah, but he might be nicer to his fan then to someone who was just bored." She glanced over at Byakuya and Tôshirô. Tôshirô had gone back to trying to ignore them, but Byakuya was watching Ami carefully. Tsukiko then looked back at Haruhi, who looked like she was going to fall asleep. She sighed then stood up walked over to Byakuya and took a seat. "Out of all my friends I'm the only one that's an only child."

Byakuya looked down at her briefly then went back to watching Ami. He almost seemed surprised she was trying to start a conversation with him. "Is that so?"

"It is. Ayama has two younger brothers, Ami has three younger sisters, and Haruhi as a younger brother and sister." Tsukiko looked up at him and smiled a bit. "I, on the other hand, have sixteen cousins."

Byakuya looked back down Tsukiko, but before he could say anything Ami called out to her friends. "Done!" The only problem was she spoke to loud and woke up Renji. "Uh, oh." She jumped off the tree stump, ran over to Haruhi, and hid behind her.

Renji sat straight up. He was still a little sleepy, so he didn't completely notice that his hair was now in a nice top tail.

Tsukiko suppressed a laugh. "Well, his hair doesn't look half bad like that." Renji looked over at her with a confused look on his face. Then he saw some of his hair.

"What the…?" Renji was confused as to why there was hair in his face. He checked his hair tie to find that it wasn't in the same place he had left it. The vie-captain quickly took out the hair tie and put his hair back the way it was when he went to sleep, in a high ponytail. He then looked from Tsukiko to Ayama and Haruhi. "Who?" It was only one word, but they know what he was asking.

Tsukiko and Ayama raised their hands at the same time. Renji looked from one girl to the other. "Fine! Don't give me a straight answer." He grumbled and he stood up and stretched.

Byakuya looked down at Tsukiko with questioning eyes. Tsukiko just grinned. "It was my idea in the first place." Ayama walked up behind Tsukiko as quietly as she could.

"What happened?" Tsukiko yawned before standing up and facing her friend.

"Ami and I messed with Renji's hair." She stretched her arms up and walked back to Haruhi and Ami with Ayama following her. "You done with your training?"

"For the moment." Tsukiko raised an eyebrow. "I figured out how to summon the mist, but I can't control it yet."

"How do you summon the mist?" Ami asked still half hiding behind Haruhi.

"I just have to think about how I don't want to die." Ayama said with a smile.

"That's comforting." Haruhi said, adding her sarcasm.

"Not really." Ayama never seemed to stop smiling. Her friends have never seen her angry.

LATER THAT DAY

About ten minutes later…

Tsukiko, Ami, and Haruhi now started to try to summon their unknown powers by think about how they didn't want to die.

Ami was the first to complain. "It's not working!" Ami fell back on to the ground in frustration.

"Perhaps you need a different thought to summon your ability." Tôshirô said. He was leaning against a tree with his arms crossed.

Ami sat up and glared at him. "Don't you have anything better to do?"

"No, not at the moment." Ami just grumbled and lay back down at the ground and stared up at the sky.

Tsukiko yawned and sat down by Ami. She spaced out for a moment, but was brought back to reality by a strange feeling. "Something's coming…" She mumbled to herself. A few heard her and gave her a weird look, but soon enough everyone felt it, too.

Ami sat straight up and grabbed Tsukiko's arm. Haruhi and Ayama found their way to their two friends while the four soul reapers got prepared for the enemy to appear.

"Aw, how cute. Four little girls." The voice that appeared behind the girls made them worried for their lives and made Tsukiko scream in her head 'I'm not little!' Ami's grip tightened on Tsukiko's arm.

"Tsu-Tsukiko…" She whispered. "That's…"

Tsukiko nodded. "I-I know, but I'm not looking." And she didn't. Tsukiko just focused on the four soul reapers in front of her. Their facial expressions ranged from surprise to disgust.

Byakuya spoke first. "Ichimaru Gin…" Tsukiko was struggling against the urge to look behind her. "What are you doing here?"

"Just wanted to see the humans Grimmjow couldn't kill." His voice was creeping the four friends out. "They don't look like much."

"They aren't." Byakuya kept his straight face even though everyone was on edge.

"But they've got plenty o' spirit energy." Tsukiko couldn't calm down. She just kept worrying that someone would attack her friends.

"They don't know how to use it." Ami was starting to shake. This made Tsukiko's worrying worse.

"Then you won't mind if I take one home with me." Ami's grip on Tsukiko was almost painful now, but Tsukiko just took her free hand and held on to Ami. Ayama didn't know what to do other then hold on to any hope that Gin might just leave. Haruhi's mind was racing. She didn't want him to touch her friends. The only thing all four of them where doing together was looking at Byakuya trying to figure out what his response would be.

"Why would you want to take one of them?"

"Why would you want to keep all of them?" Tsukiko's fear was turning into anger. What did he want with them? Who was he planning on taking? Who gave him the right to separate them? Oh, yeah… Aizen. The friend that would be taken would probably become a prisoner like Orihime was.

"That is none of your business." Haruhi's mind was going in a similar direction. The only difference was Haruhi wanted to attack Gin to keep him away from her friends.

"It's not?" Gin sounded disappointed, but that didn't last very long. "I'll just grab one ta go then." That caught everyone off guard. Ami and Tsukiko's grips loosened for only a second, but a second was all Gin needed to use shunpo to get beside them, grab Ami away from Tsukiko, and shunpo back to the branch he was on before.

Tsukiko whirled around and screamed. "No!" Ami was to shocked to do anything and so was everyone else. Except for Tsukiko. "Ami!" There wasn't much she could do except scream and make everyone else snap out of their shocked state.

But that didn't help much. He was already gone… and so was Ami.

I'm happy with this. Even though I'm sure my friend will think that they are Ooc. Oh, well! Please tell me what you think!