White Flower

Chapter 7

Author's Note: Hey again! You know what? It's really depressing me how short my chapters are! Like I'm typing on Microsoft and it says "You have ten pages." And I'm like OMG! I just wrote a freaking novel! But then on it barely looks like two pages.-_- Life. Okay guys enough with my useless babbling and enjoy chapter 7!

"Hello" = Thinking

"Hello" = Flashback, Emphasis on words, or TALKING ZANPAKUTO!

"Hello" = Kido or Zanpakuto release

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX

Recap:

Akari spun quickly and was fully prepared to strike down her opponent. However, what she was expecting to hit was a hollow. Instead, her blade connected with another blade. Her eyes widened when she found herself staring into the eyes of…

Shinji Hirako.

"Well, well. What an unexpected surprise. How have you been Lily?"

Present:

Akari growled and pulled away. She extended her sword arm to the side and the sword disappeared in a ray of sparkles.

"What are you doing here Shinji?"

Shinji chuckled, sheathing his zanpakuto. Unlike her, he actually brought his sheath. It's like he didn't care if anyone saw it. Well, since it was almost midnight, it would be doubtful if anyone would be out late enough to see it anyway.

"Just taking a little night stroll, then I bumped into someone unexpected."

"You know good and well that I don't believe that! Now tell me what you want!" she snarled.

Shinji's smirking face turned serious.

"When are you coming back?"

Akari went silent. "Go back? It's been forever since I have been at that place…"

"Mashiro misses you. You know that she wants you to come back more than any of us."

She sighed. Mashiro. Her best friend. The one who had always been there for her when she was at that place. The one person who had ever understood her.

"Yeah… I figured."

Shinji simply stared at her. He closed his eyes and jumped on top of a dumpster and sat down. Akari took her time to study the man. He had changed much in the time he had come to the World of the Living. He had on a brown cap. His once long, blonde hair was cut short up to his chin. He had bangs that came a little past his cap hung just above his eyes. He was wearing an orange tucked in dress shirt with beige pants.

"All in all, he looks good." She thought.

"Are you just going to sit here checking me out all night, or are we gonna head out?"

Akari jumped when she found that she was staring him. Shinji was now smirking at her. She turned her face away to hide her blush.

"Who would want to stare at you, scarecrow?"

Shinji growled. "How many times do I have to tell you not to call me that?"

Akari examined her nails. "When you stop looking like one."

Shinji glared. "You know what? You've got some nerve Lily-"

"It's Akari." She said bluntly.

Shinji stared at her in shock. She looked away from him, staring at the wall of the alleyway.

"Akari? What-"

"That's my name. My new name."

Shinji blinked in confusion. "A new name? What the heck does she mean by that!?"

"What do you mean? Why did you change your name?"

There was no answer.

"Hey. Answer-"

Shinji stopped when he saw the pain filled in her eyes. He forced himself to calm down. "Calm down Shinji. You know good and well that she wouldn't do this for no reason. Don't pressure her into anything."

"I don't want to talk about it…" Akari mumbled. Shinji stared at her sympathetically. He sighed, turned around and started walking away with his hands in his pockets. She just stared at him in a daze, like she didn't even notice him leaving until he stopped to look back at her.

"Hey! What are you doing?" he called out to her. Akari was snapped out of her dreamy state.

"Huh?"

Shinji huffed in annoyance. "Are you coming or not?"

"Where?"

"Are you stupid or something? We are going back to see the others."

Akari's breath stopped. "Back to them? Is he crazy or something? There's no way I can go back! Not after what I did…"

"What do you mean… go back?"

"What do you mean go back? What I mean is that we are going back to the base. We are going home."

Akari bowed her head. "What home? I've been exiled from mine…"

"STOP THAT!"

Akari gasped in fright. Shinji was now turned all the way towards her. His face was filled with rage. This was one of the one times she has seen him angry. No, seen him angry at her. She had seen him annoyed at her, but never angry. She was actually…scared.

"Why are you always depressed? Yeah bad things have happened and that would hurt a lot of people too, but it's been 100 years since that happened, Lily." Akari scowled slightly at his use of her real name.

"Don't you realize you have been holding on to this stupid grudge for more than 100 years? Do you know how stupid that sounds? What happened affected all of us, Lily! It's not just you. Yes, it still haunts us now and then, but we all have moved on. Don't you think it's time to stop acting like a little girl and grow up?"

That was the last straw for Akari. Shinji blinked as she came out of her gigai then disappeared right before Shinji's eyes.

"I think I went a little bit too far with that, but she needed to hear it. Now… where did she go?"

He got into a fighting stance, slightly unsheathing his sword. His eyes scanned the alleyway cautiously. The alley was a little bit bigger than a normal one. It clearly looked like one that tractor-trailer could go through. Even so, it was still open enough where no one could hide. Just a few dumpsters out to the side. There was nowhere Lily, or Akari could hide. Unless…

Shinji leaped to the side just in time to avoid being split in half by a zanpakuto. Akari's zanpakuto to be exact. He got up and turned and saw Akari pulling her zanpakuto from the ground.

"So…she came from above." Shinji thought.

Akari was currently standing a few yards away from her. Her sword was hanging limply in her hand, like she could have dropped it at any moment. Though Shinji knew that her guard wasn't down. Her head was bowed down, with her hair creating a shadow over her eyes. However, her eyes were looking straight at him. Her usually beautiful turquoise were dead. There was no emotion in them and it chilled Shinji to the core.

"I'm starting to get a bad feeling about this. Darn it! Why can't I keep my big mouth shut sometimes?!"

He chuckled nervously and said, "H-Hey Lily, no I mean Akari, um… I'm really sorry about what I was said. You know I wasn't thinking r-right? You know me! B-Big mouth Shinji. Let's just put this behind us ok-"

"I don't think you understand, Shinji…"

Shinji gulped as a shiver ran down his spine.

"I get what you say when you said that everyone was affected by what happened. You, Mashiro, Kensei, Hiyori, Love, Rose, Lisa, Hachi, Kisuke, and Tessai… All of you were affected by him. No… not a person… that monster. He ruined all of our lives. And he's still out there. Pretending like he's the sweet captain that only lives for the good of Soul Society. Ha! What a joke. I wouldn't be surprised if he was the devil's right hand man. Or even the devil himself."

Akari's hand gripped her sword so tightly that it started to turn white.

"He's ruined my life since even before I entered the Soul Reaper Academy. And it's not just me Shinji! Others have been affected as well by his atrocities!"

Akari lifted up her sword and pointed it at Shinji.

"And your expecting me to forget about it?! To go on about my life like nothing never even happened? Like I wasn't even exiled! Like he never destroyed the lives of many others?! Like he isn't a monster? You're seriously telling me to go on with my life while he sits up there in Soul Society, acting like he couldn't even hurt a fly, while those stupid fools eat out of the palm of his hand?"

Akari's spiritual pressure started to rise. She didn't seem to be doing it consciously either.

"It's a result of her anger." Shinji thought. He felt a slight pressure on his chest. He felt it rise every single second. Being a former captain, he knew he was used to dealing with strong spiritual pressure. What would one expect, since he used to be in the presence of the head captain very frequently? However, it had been a while since he had been around one as special as hers. There was something strange about it. Something…sinister. It felt just like one that he hadn't felt in a long time. One that he never wanted to feel again. It reminded him of…

Her brother's…

He was positive that it was just her anger that was making her spiritual pressure feel that way, but he couldn't help but recognize it.

"I have known Lily for some time now… I know her spiritual pressure has never felt that was before. It was always calm before. Like she was in a state of serenity." He pondered.

Shinji was jolted out of his thoughts when he started to notice the black aura surrounding Akari. Her blonde hair was levitating in the air, like it was static. Her long skirt whipped out around her. The thing that startled him the most, was her eyes. Her gigai's normal blue eyes were slowly turning white, just like the outside of her pupils.

"She can exert that much spiritual energy in just her gigai?! Wow…I knew there was more to her than meets the eye. And I have known her for more than 100 years and I have never seen this before."

Shinji became guarded when he saw Akari slowly bring her zanpakuto out straight in front of her. She slowly lifted her head to make eye contact with him. What he saw made shivers roll up and down his spine, and for sweat to break out on his forehead.

Akari's pupil had turned fully white. Though, he didn't know if she could see him (though he was pretty sure that she could), but just the sight scared him to death. By the sight of that and seeing the dark aura suddenly get thicker around her, he had a feeling that she was ready to fight.

When he saw that the walls around them started to crack and break off, he knew this was serious. He knew that if they fought, that there would be serious repercussions. But he knew that they were miles away from any human houses since everyone should have been asleep at this time at night. However, he couldn't promise that no one would be harmed in consequence of the excess amount of spiritual pressure.

"SHINJI!" the warped Akari screamed before she flew at him in utter rage. He barely had time to shield himself with his zanpakuto before she hit him with extreme force.

Shinji could feel cold wind whipping past his face as he sailed through the air. He flew out of the alleyway and a few yards out until he felt a searing pain through his spine. He skidded across the ground a few feet and then he stopped. He coughed out blood for a few seconds then he looked up blearily. He tensed as he saw many silhouettes standing around him. He narrowed his eyes and slowly tried to stand on his feet. Even though his back hurt like he was just rammed through a wall (even though that was true), he was still fully capable of fighting.

Then when his vision finally cleared, he noticed that the figures around him actually weren't people. He was standing inside of a clothing store. Then he saw the glass door that was supposed to be there was gone. Instead, there was a huge hole that looked like someone dropped a rocket to try and break in.

"Well… the boss of this place sure isn't going to be very happy when he sees this mess. I better get out of here before the police get here."

As he started to limp out of the store, he winced as pain seared through his back.

"Darn it! I really felt that one… since when was she ever this strong? She must have done some serious training from the last time I saw her. I had hoped this wouldn't lead to a fight. I don't want to have to resort to using that. Especially not in a heavy populated area. She's truly dangerous now… just like her brother."

Shinji gripped his zanpakuto tightly as he walked through the street. He couldn't sense her. She must have been hiding her spiritual pressure really well. He realized that he was miles away from where the alley was. He was stunned, to say the least.

"She pushed me miles away with just her gigai?" he thought in astonishment.

He froze as he heard footsteps nearby. He narrowed his eyes and carefully scanned his surroundings. He didn't see anything suspicious. It doesn't mean that she couldn't sneak up on him like she did before. And he wasn't going to let that happen again.

"Ha. You look awful Shinji. What did you do, get run over by a Mack truck?" A deep and very familiar voice said to him.

He groaned as his posture relaxed and turned around to see the person he least expected to see at this hour. Kensei Mugurama was standing there smirking at Shinji's sorry state. What shocked him more than seeing him, was seeing a very unconscious Akari slung over his shoulder like a bag of potatoes.

Shinji stared at him with his jaw to the ground. "H-How-"

Kensei rolled his eyes. "Barely even had to lift a finger. I can tell that she had gotten stronger and all and probably would have had to resort to drawing my zanpakuto if she saw me, but I just tapped her in the back of the neck and she was out like a light."

Shinji was still speechless. "After all I had to go through, he just tapped her in the back of the neck?!"

Kensei grunted in annoyance and turned to walk away. "Quit being an idiot, accept that you're a sore loser and come on already!"

Shinji shut his mouth and followed him grumbling. "First, I was sucker punched by a 98-pound girl, then I was completely humiliated by Kensei. What else could turn out wrong in my life?"

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXX

Author's Note: Hey guys! I am soooooo sorry that it took me forever to upload this! I have been so busy with school, getting ready for high school, and so much more! I will try with all my heart to try and update more frequently. Love you guys.