May 2, 2005

So like omg! I'm not dead! Actually I think I may have died at least once in the interrim, but I'm not dead now... so either I'm Lazarus or an undeadzombiething. Here is Chapter 8 ! I got to a point in the middle and went "omg writer's block"... can you find the point?

I know I haven't cleaned up the Japanese in the previous chapters and there's a little more here... the one line that I left translated besides the actual quote, I leave here because I just love the way it sounds in Japanese. Yes, I know Bleach is in a Japanese speaking area and FMA is English-speaking... um, chalk it up to the MagicalGatePowers until I find a better explaination.

I also know of many typos and crap... I am going through the docs on my comp and fixing them... when I get KMB all done, I'll re-upload the finished version of everything so it'll be pretty.

Chapter 8 : What Must Be Paid?

Ichigo stood with slumped shoulders and half opened eyes, leaning on a light pole so he didn't fall down. Rukia stood a few paces a way, arms crossed, scanning the milling people for "two boys with bleach-blond hair and similar eyes." Eyes similar to each other's or to their hair, she wondered.

"They left a while ago, I gave them a map," Urahara had cheerfully informed her when she called to ask if the couriers were late or what. "They should just be minutes away." First he'd said 'light eyes,' now 'similar.' Light eyes in this world meant blue.

"Stupid fuzz," Ichigo mumbled.

"Stop griping, they'll be here soon."

"Last time I had to concentrate to see the Reiraku. Now everyone's is just dancing around like they're drunk. I can't but half see the people, and I wish I didn't see anything. Everything hurts. Stupidass Hollow."

Rukia glanced at him, just on the edge of her vision. She'd never admit it to him, but she was just a little jealous. She, too, could see Reiraku, of course, but not from the distance he could. He tracked a young boy's soul in a parakeet halfway across the city once; she didn't have that kind of range to her ability. She decided to push herself while she waited, just to see how far she could go. She closed her eyes for a moment and concentrated… willed herself to be calm and use her abilities.

The street corner. Rise up and view more. Don't bother looking at the people, just their Reiraku. Touch one and trace it back, who are you. A woman, in her thirties, fifteen feet behind this Gigai, sitting, at a café, drinking morning coffee, flirting with a man. Success. Good. I haven't completely rusted. Rise up again and view more. Touch one and trace it back, who are you. A man, a salariman, twenty meters ahead-and-right of this Gigai, walking quickly, a train schedule in hand – a flash of blue startled Rukia and sent her consciousness plummeting back into the Gigai. She snapped her eyes open with a gasp.

Ichigo noticed that. "Rukia?" he drawled.

A Blue Reiraku? What in the-- "Ichigo, can you concentrate at all? Look that way and tell me if you see a Blue Reiraku." She pointed up the street that lead towards the residential area, began to concentrate again; since she was looking in a specific direction, she'd be quicker, more accurate.

And Ichigo beat the skirt off her. His eyes slid to where she was pointing, and he forced out of himself, "Yeah, two of them. A couple of kids our age. My age. What the hell does a blue Reiraku mean."

Two? I'd only seen one. She tried again to not be jealous of him, and kept concentrating. Yes, there were two, there was the second. Touch them and trace back, the boys were walking together. Only twenty meters away now, they would have been farther before. Maybe that was why she only saw one. They were very close to Ichigo's age, one might have been a little older. The feel was very similar, maybe they were related. She saw them long before they came into view; yes, they had blond hair, the older one had long hair in a braid. Boys in this world wear braids? She saw that the one with short hair carried a Chappy container, like the container the Kon-pill had originally come in. That would make them the couriers. She opened her eyes.

"That's them."

"Wha?"

"Ichigo, is your soul draining out of you? Stand up and wake up. I realize the weight of what you did yesterday, but you look like you're about to die there."

His eyes moved to her and he forced his spine to cooperate and his feet to hold him properly.

Al clutched the side of the map in one hand and the animal-headed container in the other. "It should be right up here. What were their names again? Ichi…"

"Ichigo and Rukia, I believe he said."

"Do we introduce ourselves first or wait for them to speak?"

"No use trying to guess customs here. We'll say we're Urahara's couriers and ask them to state what we are bringing, to confirm they are really the clients. Hold the thing behind your back, we'll make them ID it if we can."

"A young man and a young woman…" They drew close enough that through the crowd they could see two people, a tall young man with orange hair, and a short young woman with dark hair, standing next to a light post. And both looking straight at them. The woman, she would be Rukia, stared at them intently, so much so that Ed wondered if she was upset. Perhaps he and Al had taken too long to get there. The guy, Ichigo, had his eyes half closed and looked like… well, he looked like shit, and Ed guessed he felt even worse.

He took a breath and stopped in front of the two, and started to open his mouth to speak.

Rukia beat him to it. "You are Urahara's couriers?"

The strong tone in her voice caught Ed off guard, and he rose to the challenge. "Yes. You're the clients?"

Rukia, however, was only looking at Al, who was about a head and a half taller than she was. With a start, Ed realized he hadn't registered how… short she was. Everyone made jokes about his minute stature, so it should have stood out more clearly that Rukia was… not taller than he was. In fact… she might have been… a little shorter. But she still wasn't paying him any heed.

"You have the Chappy, do you not?"

Al obediently moved his arms around from where he held them politely behind his back, and held out the container to her. "This?"

Rukia caught it up and held it out to Ichigo firmly. Ed decided from her mannerisms that she was indeed miffed about something. He wasn't one to apologize for something like time, but… he wondered if she got teased for being short, too.

Rukia noticed him looking at her, and merely stared him down. Then, at the same time, both of them got a look of apology, and glanced away. The dual motion did not go unnoticed to Al, but he misinterpreted it. Ichigo was preoccupied with popping open the Chappy, taking a single pink pill out, staring at it, grumbling, "Pink, well, I guess my head doesn't care," and popping it in his mouth. He swallowed, sighed, and turned to lean back against the light pole.

"Oi, Rukia, how long does this take to kick in?"

"I don't know, just wait a moment. We still have enough time before school, you can wait there for a moment."

"Sounds good," Ichigo groaned out, closing his eyes against the sky.

Rukia turned again to Al. "How much was it?"

Al opened his mouth to answer, and suddenly caught sight of a sign for a café about 12 meters behind Rukia, which proudly proclaimed a large cup of their specialty super-flavored coffee to go for 'only 500!' Al also remembered that the "true price" of the medicine was said by Urahara to be two thousand five hundred. Suddenly, saying 'thirty thousand' seemed like not such a good idea, especially when Al knew it was a lie.

But Ed had not seen the sign, especially since Ichigo was between him and the café, and moreover, Ed had walked away and out of earshot before Al had asked Urahara about the real price. The only number he had in mind was the one he gave Rukia.

"Thirty thousand."

Ichigo choked on his breath.

Rukia snapped her head over to Ed, and Ed realized the look she had given him when he first walked up was not a glare; THIS was a glare. A glare of death.

"I do not appreciate a couple of strange idiot children trying to cheat me out of a lot of money. Do not think for one minute I believe that that was worth thirty thousand. I know what Urahara sells; I may not know exact price, but I know worth. And unless that thing makes him sprout wings and fly, it is not worth thirty thousand. You know what I think? I think you two schemed on your way over here to try to get that much out of me. Then you'd go back to Urahara, pay him what he really said, and skim the rest for yourself. Even if it's ten thousand each for yourselves, that's a lot and it's freaking ridiculous. Not to mention it's insulting that a couple of blue bakas think they can lie like this and get away with it." And in her anger, Rukia reached a hand out and clenched it around something invisible in the air that was vaguely in front of Ed.

Sometimes, dealing with angry people made Ed angry too. And sometimes, dealing with angry people made Ed calm down just enough to try to think faster than his opponent. And Rukia slipped when she said 'blue.' That means she can see something about us, probably the Reiraku itself, given what it looked like she grabbed. Granted, it makes sense for Urahara to deal with people who can operate like he does, but she doesn't know that we know what she means. For all she knows, we're plain normal people of this world. "Blue?" Ed feigned innocence and looked at his clothes. "Are we 'blue bakas' cause our pants match?"

A flash of horror danced across Rukia's face before she composed herself and let go of whatever she had a hold on. But it was Ichigo who spoke. And his voice was far stronger than it had been before.

"You're bakas cause you're lying to a girl and egging her on. When Rukia gets mad, that's when you fess up and say that Getaboushi told you to lie." Realization struck Rukia like lightning, and she reddened a little and put her hand to her face in shame. "However, it would have been a good joke… just about the only one a little boy could have come up with on his walk over." And Ichigo jammed his hands in his pockets and pushed himself off the light pole as though he intended it to be his parting shot.

If Ichigo correctly guessed Urahara's true nature, he simply did not have the experience to correctly guess Ed's. Ed would never, ever, let a comment about his height be anyone's parting shot.

Ed caught Ichigo's arm and pushed him back to face him. If he stared straight forwards, he'd only see about to Ichigo's sternum, but he'd never let his height stop him before. "WHOM do you think you're calling so short he could be swept down a sewer drain and get lost in the sea?"

Ichigo and Rukia blinked in surprise at this outburst. Al merely closed his eyes in a wince and sighed. "Nii-san," he pleaded in a murmur. "We're in public…"

Ichigo's surprise faded into a malicious grin, and he leaned down a little towards Ed. "I don't know, if I see him, I'll tell you."

Now who is egging on whom? Ed positively radiated anger, and pushed up his sleeves. "You overgrown tree of a man, someone needs to prune your hair and your ego."

"At least you called me a man, more than I can say for you. You two are brothers? You look alike, except he looks younger, and yet he's taller."

That was three. When Al had been in a suit, it had been fairly simple – maybe not easy, but simple – to keep his brother from escalating his angry protestations into actual physical violence. But Al was no longer in a large metal suit, and moreover, he was still getting used to the way a smaller and fully human body functioned. Suddenly he felt like he was in a dream, one of those dreams where he felt he was stuck in molasses, moving far too slowly to impede the events he saw taking place before his eyes.

"Nii-san—" he started to say, but Ed's right leg was already in motion, swinging up towards Ichigo's stomach. As much as Ed hated being called short, he indeed was too short to hit much higher than the waist of the taller teen. Rukia had just enough time to take a step back, and Ichigo acted out of pure reflexes, whipping his hands out of his pockets and catching the red-booted ankle. Even so, there was enough force in the kick that Ichigo was forced to back up against the light pole, and could only stare in surprise at the leg in his hands.

"Huh," he said softly, then turned a wicked grin towards the foot's owner. "You do realize that yesterday I took down a nine-story monster? He was taller than you'll ever be." And with that, Ichigo leaned over a little, wrapped his arm around Ed's ankle, and threw his entire frame into pulling Ed under and around him and around the side of the light pole, aiming him back towards the residential street the Elric brothers had come out of. Ichigo's height caused the maneuver to not only work, but to keep Ed's head from scraping the concrete as he 'flew'.

"Ichigo!" Rukia shrieked.

"Nii-san!" Al thought his eyes might fall out of his head. He'd seen his brother fight chimeras and Homunculi, but somehow this was scarier to him. Maybe being used to being metal had given his mind a form of protection, but Al suddenly had visions of Ed's head cracking into the wall of the café.

But fighting chimera and Homunculi and Izumi had given Ed a better edge than Ichigo's haphazard street-side schoolyard training had done. As soon as Ichigo let go of Ed's foot, he was twisting in midair to hit the ground rolling, and landed on his right shoulder. Of course completely forgetting that it was no longer metal. "Gnnnn!" he bit out, not wanting to give Ichigo the satisfaction of hearing his pain.

"You are on a street corner!" Rukia hissed. "You have the medicine, Ichigo, ignore the idiots and we can settle with Urahara later."

"Running, bibi?" Ed shot out, recovering to his feet and trying not to baby his shoulder.

"Of course not, shrimp!" And Ichigo charged into the morning sun's shade to meet an infuriated Ed.

Al and Rukia took off after them, Rukia hissing worriedly, "No offense but your brother is the hugest idiot I think I've ever seen!"

Al returned, "No offense but your brother can't be the smartest cookie in the box either."

"He's not my brother," Rukia bit off, biting off her words.

Al backed off. "Sorry. But still. Calling Ed small has… never turned out well."

"He always does this?"

"Um, kinda, pretty much, yeah."

"Da-ka-ra! Aho ka?" (Like I said! Is he an idiot?)

Al couldn't answer that one, because either a positive or a negative were both incorrect. So he merely raised his hand to the back of his head and laughed nervously, as the inflamed sparring match garnered the of course disapproving attention of morning passer-bys. Either by chance or subtle intention on the part of one or both of the boys, the fight was slowly moving farther away from the main road, but it was still only a matter of time before someone called the police.

Rukia sighed. "Look, we have to stop them. For one, Ichigo has to get to school. For two, getting arrested is not conducive to anything. And for three…. Well, there is no three, we just have to stop them."

Al got as close as he dared. Both boys were showing signs of fatigue; they had no way of knowing each other's history, but the previous day had been significantly less than kind to them both. Urahara may have exceptional medicine, but Ichigo still needed to recover; and Ed, well, the only thing worse than dying twice in a single day would be to die a third time in the same time frame.

"Please!" Al called. "Stop this. It's getting no where. Just listen to me, ok? Urahara did play a trick; at first he did tell us to tell you thirty-thousand, and he thought that Miss Rukia would get mad at Ichigo."

Ichigo and Ed did stop and were both looking half at each other and half at Al. Rukia could only sigh and mutter under her breath at Urahara. Then she asked, "How much was it really?"

Al turned a little towards her. "Two and a half thousand."

She let out a little snort. "Tell him that will be paid this afternoon. Ichigo, can we please go to school now?"

"Only if the shrimp won't kick me in the ass as I walk. Not like he could reach any higher anyway."

"Who are you calling so short that he couldn't knee you any higher than the groin?"

"I bet you couldn't even hit that."

"Maybe so, awful small target."

Al thought he might be blushing. Rukia just put her face in her hands and pondered going to school without Ichigo.

"Has to be bigger than a shrimp's. I bet you look like a shri—"

Now Al was definitely blushing, and took off at a run, straight between the two older boys, back in the direction he sure hoped was the Urahara shop. The fight completely forgotten, Ed watched him go, the sighed and put his hands in his pockets and walked off after his brother.

"Where you going, midget?" Ichigo called after him.

Ed replied over his shoulder without even turning his head. "You don't have any right to speak to me. We are couriers. We have brought your medicine. Our employer trusts payment to arrive whenever Miss Rukia brings it. Our job is done. Go to school, ya light pole. And don't call me short again."

Rukia walked to stand closer to Ichigo, and they watched the blonds recede around the corner. Shaking his head, Ichigo turned and walked the other way, towards the school; Rukia followed.

After a moment he spoke. "Hey."

"Hm?"

"Thank Getaboushi for me, will ya? This medicine really works."

"Heh. Ok."