XVII-The Autobiography of Me
I want to be dramatic and say that I slept straight for a couple days. It felt like it, let me tell you. In all truth, the clock said I'd only slept for eight or so hours. After my conversation, I felt somewhat safer. The shopkeeper was watching my back for some reason. He probably wanted to squeeze information about Aizen out of me.
I woke up to the clatter of dishes, an instant reminder of the wonderful time that I had spent in Las Noches' kitchen.
"Agh …no more dishes please," I muttered and rolled over on my side. Unfortunately, sleepy me forgot the fact that there was still large slash on my chest. The pain was more jarring than any banging alarm clock.
"Oh, watch it there," the hand of the bringer of dirty dishes carefully set me back into original position. I winced as I looked at yet another new person in my life. The scrawny girl's brown hair swung around her face,and I reflected briefly thatshe reminded me a bit of that orange haired boy from earlier. I would have bet my money that she was his sister.
"Um, hi." Human greetings weren't my forte; I was typically yelled at like a sack of potatoes. 'You', 'idiot', 'stupid', 'worthless', 'fool', 'trash', 'ugly', 'douchebag', 'baka', and 'madwoman' were all accepted forms of greetings.
She smiled and carefully smoothed out my covers, "Sorry to wake you up, but you haven't eaten in a while. So I made you some soup, green pea okay?"
"Green pea? Sounds great." Never heard of it. I yawned and rearranged myself to rest against the backboard. I had an idea that I was going to be trying a lot of new things. It seemed that Aizen unknowingly forced the Arrancar into a sheltered life.
The girl retrieved a bowl and cup from the floor. The cup was easy, that was tea. The "soup", though, looked like wet sand. In my world, there was only one way that sand got wet. Avoidance was the best option. Besides this, my stomach started complaining at me as to why this human food wasn't in my body.
"Looks yummy." Lie. Strangely, I felt happier as the girl's face lit up. I took the bowl from her. Setting the spoon in the stuff, I made my mind escape to somewhere else. Obviously, distress and confusion had been added to my anthology of human emotion now. The spoon met my tongue. I couldn't describe happiness...it was just, well, happy.
I figured out how fast happiness could poof away as I tried not to throw up the mixture on my tongue. It was worst than wet sand. I glanced. The girl watched my every move. There was no way that she wasn't going to see if I spat it back out. I forced another bite.
"Tasty," I mumbled between mouthfuls. She beamed and pulled up a chair. Shoot, I was hoping to dump the food out the window once she left. Silence took its place beside the scrap of the spoon and my hasty gulps. Hopefully she thought that I was starving.
"So, what's your name?" I paused my spoon action at the question. I think I enjoyed silence more than interrogation.
I gulped the green sand down, "Sola, Sola Kiri, frac-favorite cousin of Urahara." I shoved another spoonful in fast before I said something really stupid. This new life thing was going to be harder than I thought.
"I'm Yuzu Kurosaki, my Daddy's the one that patched you back up, along with Urahara," Pride for a certain father could be seen from a mile away.
"I'll have to thank him for that," I replied carefully, though I was really wondered which person I should really thank: Urahara, the doctor, or Ulquiorra. If the Espada brought me here then there had to be a reason. This time I was pretty sure that it wasn't Aizen related.
"Do you want me to turn on the TV for you? You're lucky, this is the only room that has one, it's because the family always argues over what to watch so we have two," Yuzu pointed at the foreign box that I currently ignored or most possibly, snored at.
My mouth spoken before my mind, "What's a TV?"
Idiot. I was sure every normal human knew what a "tv" was by the sound of it. An Arrancar wouldn't know. I was a human now.
"A television?" The girl tilted her head, "I thought America was filled with televisions."
"A-A-America?" Oh. Of course. I was from America, someone just didn't inform me.
She bit her lip, "I'm sorry, I won't ask any more questions. Father said you might not want to talk about it."
"Oh, no, don't worry," I scrambled to try remember anything about that strange country, "I lived in a part where we don't have televisions."
"Where's that?"
Wishing to bang my head against something hard, I tried to pinpoint any location, "Muh…"
"Montana?" Yuzu offered, I went with it.
"Yes, Montana. No televisions, at all."
"It's because of the mountains right? Kills reception, right?"
I sat up, having fun inventing this place, "Ah, you should see the mountains. They are just so tall, sometimes you can't even see the tops. It's really amazing."
"Wow…" As Yuzu imagined extra tall mountains, I took the opportunity to empty the bowl. I had a feeling that my stomach was the next to go.
"What else is there?"
"…duh…" I was saved by the bell or technically, the knock and swing of a door.
"Ah Sola, look who's awake!" A tall, black haired human with a huge chin swayed into the room. I didn't have to guess this was my doctor, the white coat wasn't a dead giveaway or anything.
The girl, thankfully forgetting Montana, jumped to her feet and captured my empty bowl, "I got her to eat some of my soup. She liked it!"
"That's great," I swear the light that the two people were beaming could light an entire world, "could you do your daddykins a big favor? Ichigo dumped his glass of orange juice all over the floor last night and didn't clean it up. Would you mop up it before it starts sticking to things?"
Yuzu nodded and pranced from the room. She probably was thinking about who she was going to torture next with her soup. My back stiffened as this friend of Urahara's clicked the door closed. He plopped himself into the empty chair and flipped through the papers on his clipboard in an unreadable blur.
"Alrightly, how are you feeling today?" He looked up, and I wondered how many cups of coffee he had today.
"Like I just died," the deadpan answer caused a smile. He didn't write that one down.
"Any extraordinary pain?" I hated it when people said things straight from a paper. It was just as fake as fake could be.
I thought about it for a second, "Nah…just where my throat was slit open and where I was stabbed in death. Otherwise, just peachy."
"On a scale on one to ten, one being a minor scrap and ten being about to die, describe your pain."
"About a million, maybe even roughly a billion, it's hard to tell." The cuts stung and ached like old grandmas but I did actually felt better.
"Fair enough, How-" I cut him off.
"How many more doctorly questions do you have to go?"
"About twenty."
"Can we just skip those, the examination, and the doctor act in one fell swoop here? I have a button on deception and this feels like it," I snapped, the lack of sleep and mental confusion/betrayal was starting to get to me.
"What?" He grinned, "But I am your wonderful doctor that just so happened to save your life."
I swear, he was being really genuine, but I couldn't believe it. Maybe it was because I didn't feel like I could trust a rock without it being thrown at me. Plus, I was too weak to fight for a sway in my future. Luckily, I still had my voice.
"Yeah, I get that, but you're also a friend of Urahara's which means that you are probably a shinigami. Are you going to turn me in, drain me for information or what?" I was straining my voice now, I would either have to stop talking or risk losing it.
"Dunno," he got up and plopped himself onto my bed. I warily slid to the other side.
"Oh come now, I need to look at those perfectly done stitches, I really am your doctor, Sola, the human."
That reminded me, no Arrancar, no zanpakuto, and probably no power. I hadn't tried to contact any of my old skills. The human inched closer again and I cracked my eyes shut. Propping my chin up, he poked and prodded at my stitches to his heart's content. I wanted to punch him, but I had to settle at envisioning doing the act.
"Lookin' pretty good," He concluded what must have been an hour later, "I don't have to mention that there is going to be a scar here, right?"
"No," I gave the stark reply. I just wanted him away from my neck, some instinct, hide weakness, flaunt strength, was screaming in my ears.
He withdrew to scribble away and I rolled my neck a couple times for kinks, "Are you done now?"
"Nope," Isshin shook the pencil in my face, "I still have one more spot to check, then I'm out of your face for 24 hours."
"What?" I sounded like I had been poked with a pin and then remembered, "Oh no you don't."
"Sorry," He sounded apologetic, "that chest wound could get infected. Then it's going to be even more painful."
"I don't have an infection, thank you very much. No."
"Yes."
"No."
"Yes."
"No, no, no!"
"Yep."
"No w-" bang. My voice gave out. I gawked around for a couple minutes, until finally I gave in that I wasn't going to be able to argue anymore.
"I guess that's a 'yes', isn't it?" I glared at him. Now I wished I had my sword so I could take out his vocal cords.
"How about this," the doctor leaned forward, "you let me do my job and I'll prescribe you some medications so that inflammation will go down. You'll have your voice back by tomorrow, promise. How does that sound?"
I wiggled my tongue around as I thought about it. This whole affair was stupid, but in any scenario, I really needed my voice so I could fight off whatever these crazy people decided to do with me.
I nodded and resorted to glaring at him as menacingly as possible. It didn't even faze him. It was worth a try.
"Honestly, they were going to give out anyways. I'm surprised it didn't happen earlier." That made me mad. He just talked me into a hole.
The doctor went sprawling across the floor at the unexpected punch to the oversized chin.
Oops. I guess actions could speak louder than words.
A big old "thanks" goes out to Nizuna Fujieda and Vheeri The Succubus for reviewing. Animefreakv23 the beast, AizheNi, and Vheeri The Succubus all favorited this story, that is awesome!
Also, Rose202 betad this chapter and once again, found stuff that I couldn't even see. She also is awesomely supportive, which makes me feel like I can write something worth while.
Do you know how easy it would be to find me?
Crazy easy.
I would be the person with the huge backpack with old, ink covered chapters of Strike Down the Ibis falling out of every pocket. I find these things everywhere. By my bedside, under my bed, hanging out with random dustbunnies, on my desk, hiding in my sheet music, in the living room, lurking in jeans pockets, crushed under textbooks, stashed in textbooks, in my printer, stuffed in notebooks, written out on the margins of homework, I could go on for hours. I am infested with Strike Down the Ibis. There is such an overabundance of these old copies, that today I used a old copy of "Shattered Emotions" to sop up some spilled tea. I loved that chapter too...
Another thing that amazed me, I ran Sola through that online Mary-sue test for fun. She scored a 9. A NINE. I never thought that was possible for a character unless he/she was a rock. Funny thing was, I tested Sola before I started working with her and she scored a 27. Evolution is amazing thing, even for someone who just lives in my head.
I can't believe that we're on chapter 17, this story has just flown by. There is only a month and a week left...how sad it that?
Thank you for reading!
-Quin
Review for awesome quote of what happens when Sola...does what? Review and I'll give you a hint.
Bleach, Ulquiorra and co. do not belong to me but to the awesome Tite Kubo. Sola is my own creation, therefore copyrighted to me (she still hates this and is plotting her vengeance, which has something to do with Urahara, tea, and a car).