Chapter Eight
La la la la~ OHAIYO NIPPON!! La la la la~ OHAIYO NI- [1]
"GAH!" said Hiyori as she slammed her hand down onto her alarm clock. "I really need to change my alarm." Grumbling, she got out of bed and quietly climbed down the steps of her bunk to avoid waking Mochi, who slept on the bunk beneath her. However, Mochi had already left the room, as she was nowhere to be seen.
Yawning some more, Hiyori thought about the boring Saturday that stretched out in front of her. Sanada sensei had suggested they all go to the Academy's library to read up some more on kidou and hakuda. No way am I going to be a nerd, thought Hiyori. I wish there were something exciting happening today.
Then suddenly an amazing idea came to her. Her face lit up as she couldn't wait to tell the others.
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"Yes! Best idea I've heard all week!" said Tifa.
"Yeah, whatever, I need to get a new book anyway," Mochi said nonchalantly.
"Hoshi-hoshi, you want to go too, ne?" Hiyori rounded on Hoshika.
Hoshika shrugged.
"Shioru?"
"Don't be stupid, Shioru wouldn't break the rules," Tifa said.
"Actually, I think it's a pretty good idea, I sort of want to go too."
"HA! So it's decided, WE'RE GOING!" Hiyori said, triumphantly.
"Correction, you guys are going, I'm not. Who wants to go back to that gay place anyway?" Saiko said
"Shame, and I was thinking about accompanying you to the ramen shop," Hiyori said wistfully.
"Yeah, you know what? I think I'll come with you to that awesome land of ramen," Saiko said, changing her expression from scorn to excitement at the thought of extra, extra spicy ramen.
The real world. That's where the 6 would be heading on their perilous and epic adventure.
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"Now what?"
The 6 Shinigami-to-be stood staring at the looming, ominous gate that was unwilling to budge open.
"Che, the Thirteenth Squad controls the opening and closing of this gate, so unless we want to glare at it for the whole day, let's just give-"
"I, THE AMAZING RAMEN WORSHIPPER AND RULER OF SNAKE LAND, KIRA SAIKO, DEMAND THIS GATE TO OPEN NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
The (completely powerful) phrase was followed by a series of random flailing and little hops, which soon turned into angry stomps.
"ARE YOU GAY?" Tifa shouted at the gate.
"Sunshine daisy, butter mellow, Turn this stupid fat gate YELLOW![2]" Hiyori exclaimed.
"WHY DO YOU WANT IT TO BE YELLOW, GAYASS??" Saiko shouted.
"Because yellow is pretty!" Hiyori said happily.
"WHO CARES IF YELLOW IS PRETTY????" Saiko got fired up.
"Me!" Hiyori said even happier.
Through the midst of Saiko saying something like yellow was the colour of pee, Mochi suddenly ran forward and said:
"Wait, I have it!" in an intensely dramatic voice
She stepped towards the gate while the other four (Hoshika was still looking on, only mildly interested) gaped in anticipation.
"Open Sesame!"
.
.
.
.
The gate slowly opened, revealing a bright light behind it. The six walked cautiously forward and into the opening. They reached a dark tunnel in which the ceiling was extremely low.[3] After not so long of walking, they reached the end of the tunnel.
Shirou stepped into the light first, whilst the others followed. They had arrived in the middle of a seemingly deserted alley. Slowly, each of them started to walk towards the road at the end of the alley. The sound of motorcars did not reach them as they got closer and Hoshika started to find this strange. When they got to the road, they all simultaneously looked to the right, and suddenly—
"OH MY GOD, RAMEN!"
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"Taichou![4] Please come here for a minute. There's something weird happening with the gate that links to the real world," a short, boyish-like girl called for her captain[5].
"What is it?" Ukitake entered the room.
"Look!" the girl pointed to the small screen with purple vines wrapped around it[6].
Ukitake went closer to the screen to have a better look.
"Ah, this is indeed interesting. Hasn't happened for a while, has it? Well, let's get the rest of the squad. We'll call it a day and enjoy the show shall we?" A smile leaked into Ukitake's previously concerned expression.
"Hai," replied the girl.
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"Can you look any more like a pig?" Mochi looked disgusted as Saiko crazily slurped up the ramen that rested inside a bowl that looked like it would be stained red from the absurd amount of chilli powder in the soup.
"Eueyemmousse resu tashu[7]!" Saiko attempted to speak through a mouthful of the spicy noodle.
"Please, keep your mouth closed when you eat, it's awfully disturbing to see the contents of your meal swimming around your mouth. It looks like what you'd find at an operation," Hoshika glared.
"Yeah? Well your face looks like that normally, so, considering, the contents in my mouth are a lot more pleasant," Saiko retorted after swallowing the mouthful she had.
"So, what are we going to do next?" Tifa turned away from the horrific scene of Saiko slurping up the soup as if her life depended on it.
"Book hunting," Mochi said immediately.
"Yeah ok, I think I need a book too," Shioru agreed.
"Fine, but then we go to the markets close to where you lived Tifa, I still haven't bought that yellow ribbon to complete my rainbow set yet," Hiyori smiled at the thought.
"How are we going to get there though? I don't even know where this is," Hoshika said reasonably.
"Well…"
The five of them pondered with the not-so-refreshing sound of slurping in the background.
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"Did you hear that squad?" Ukitake turned to his team
"Hai!"
"Prepare it at once," Ukitake ordered.
"Hai!"
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*BANG* "AARPPP!"
Saiko had finally finished her eighth helping of the ramen and put down the bowl with a burp.
"Yeah! Ok, let's go book hunting now," Shioru hurriedly spoke before Saiko could order another bowl.
"Wait, wait," Saiko walked up to the counter and spoke with the guy in charge. He nodded and disappeared into the backroom. A few minutes later, he came back with a couple of instant noodle ramen packets.
Hoshika gave a calculating look at the ramen bowls before shrugging and walking out of the store. Saiko gave a glare that could burn houses at Hoshika's back, hugged her noodle bowls tightly and followed her out.
"Oh hey look! It's 'Hon Sekai[8]', the bookshop you always go to Mochi!" Shioru pointed out the building.
"Alright, let's go," Mochi looked hungrily at the building.
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A short man with spiky black hair entered the room.
"Good job Takagi, you may sit," Ukitake said.
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"I'll take these," Mochi plonked about 30 books onto the counter.
"No problem, here you go," the woman packed the books into 3 separate bags and handed them to Mochi.
Hoshika gave another calculating look at the woman as she did this but thought nothing of it again.
"Yeah! Now I'm set for another few weeks or so," Mochi looked satisfied as she left the shop.
"So now, your ribbon Hiyori?" Shioru joined them with just one book in her hand.
"Yes, but how do we get there?"
"Oh hey look, isn't that a market just there?" Tifa pointed at a small road that led off from the one they were on.
"OMO! You're right. LETS GO!" Hiyori ran towards the direction of the market.
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This time a woman entered the room.
"Nicely handled Michiko," Ukitake smiled.
"Hmm, I don't know, I thought one of them seemed to be catching on."
"Well we'll stop this charade soon anyway, no?"
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"HEY THEY HAVE THE YELLOW RIBBON I WAS LOOKING FOR!! OMOMOMOMOMOMO!!!" Hiyori jumped up and down for joy.
"Oh, they have the Katsutera too!"
"I like the look of this drum. Do you guys think it suits me?" Tifa pointed to a small drum that seemed light and generally nice.
"Yeah, looks alright," Shioru looked up from the Katsutera.
Hoshika caught sight of a pen that she liked, however, when she picked it up, she raised an eyebrow at the object then immediately put it back down again.
After about thirty minutes of shopping, the five of them, Hoshika started to raise an eyebrow at everything, were laden with shopping bags and ready to go back to the real world. The gate opened and they easily went through. Excitedly talking about their day, they neared the entrance to Soul Society.
"So… had fun?" an unfamiliar voice reached them as they came through the opening.
A tall man with long white hair and a face that didn't seem too menacing looked down at the six of them.
"Shit," Saiko swore.
"But you know, because I'm such a nice guy, I'll let you guys off. Oh, and remember, my name's Ukitake," he winked and walked away.
"What? What was that?" Tifa looked at him go
"Are we in trouble?"
"I don't get it…"
"Che," Hoshika said.
"What are you 'che'-ing at, lameass?" Saiko looked at her.
Hoshika gave a know-it-all smile before walking off in the direction of the Academy.
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On their way back, they passed a building that looked like a hurricane had came and ripped off the roof. Gaping in horror at it, Shioru had asked if Saiko had ate it unconsciously which resulted in Saiko shouting that roofs didn't taste good anyway.
When they got back to the dorms, their path back was surprisingly easy, as they had expected to be confronted by Sanada-sensei, they lay exhausted in the living room. But Hoshika leaned against the wall and smirked down on them.
"Can you stop smirking? You're really annoying, you know," Tifa said.
"Well, I just thought you guys have no stamina at all," Hoshika smirked even more.
"What are you talking about? It's not like you had to carry 30 books," Mochi glared.
"More like half of the roof that was missing," Hoshika said.
"What?"
"Oh, but don't you get it yet? We never went to the real world. Didn't our confrontation with Ukitake prove this?"
"But we were there!"
"No, we were in the special place the 13th squad had created to prevent people like us from trying to escape into the real world. I should've noticed earlier, but can't you tell, from the items you have now, they are simply made of spirit particles? And another thing, did you not find it odd how no one charged you for any of the items? They were cleverly disguised but I'm sure those shopkeepers were Shinigami. I could tell from their clothing and choice of words. Che, you guys are just way too ignorant to have noticed any of that."
"But how'd the gate open?"
"Ermm," Mochi started, "Well, there were some weird symbols at the bottom of the gate and I recognised them from a book I had read, and if I converted them, they said: '"Open sesame" is the key to gate'"
"You idiot, did you really think the Thirteenth Squad would display the symbols so openly?" Hoshika said.
"Wait, does that mean, all these items we have now, came from that missing roof?" Saiko caught on.
"Yeah, I guess," Hoshika shrugged.
"Then don't they want it back?" Hiyori asked uncertainly.
No sooner than the words were out of her mouth, there was a knock on the door.
Shioru automatically got up to get it.
"Hello, we've come to collect the missing pieces of the roof, do you mind lending me those plastic bags?" a man who failed at the innocent act asked.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
The next twenty minutes were filled with the struggling of everyone but Hoshika to keep their 'purchased' items from the scary man.
But at the end, everything was taken away. As he left the room, Saiko looked on in despair and shouted:
"MY DEAR RAMEN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
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Lying awake in bed, Hiyori said to Mochi,
"The real world was fun, let's go again!"
"We weren't in the real world," Mochi said. "Bakari."
A/Ns
Hey hey hey!! It's GeNoWaFeR again! Betcha all missed me muchlies :D here are my little footnotes:
[1]That was my wake-up call at one of my hotels in Japan. It was crazy. It was literally LA LA LA LA OHAIYO NIPPON! And really computerised
[2]Yes, full credits to Harry Potter for this. Sorry for using it, but it was stuck in my head when I was writing this chapter.
[3]Remember, this is the fake world the 13th Squad have created. So unlike the REAL tunnel to the real world which has high ceilings and you have to RUN to get to the other side, it's completely different.
[4]Japanese for captain
[5]She's one of the lieutenants. I've forgotten her name so I just used a description.
[6]This is supposed to resemble that TV Toushirou used at Orihime's house to contact the 1st squad captain (you know, the almightly old man? What's his name again?) (: Yamamoto. Che, ignorant much?)
[7] For those weird people that like to know everything, Saiko was saying "I miss this taste" , just very distorted.
[8]Hon Sekai in English literally means "Book world". Please forgive my lack of creativity.
Oh and in case you're wondering who those random people were that entered Ukitake's room. The first one was the ramen shop 'owner' and the second was the lady at the bookstore. Obviously they were only there under Ukitake's orders and their names and their characters are a completely one off thing. They are NOT important to the plotline. Oh and the bit where Ukitake asked his squad if they had "heard" what was said and for them to go prepare it, was just them to set up the stores and stuff in the fake world.
Yes, this chapter was a filler. We thought it was about time you readers needed one. Not to mention a perfect chance for character development. WE KNOW YOU LOVE FILLERS MORE THAN THE ACTUAL STORYLINE :D