The Mysteries of This Life
Chapter 20: Keep Walking
It was the weekend and time for the girl sleepover at my house. I was so excited. It wasn't until that night though. Instead of being bored and waiting while doing nothing, I went for a walk with Uryu. He invited everyone else. It turned out to be really fun. Orihime was being very animated as she talked about her favorite show. It was funny the way she seemed to act everything out. Ichigo was watching her and he seemed very interested. Rukia was laughing a lot about the funny things Orihime did. Chad was being his normal self and walking with us quietly. I couldn't take the curiosity any longer.
"Chad why don't you talk? Do you have a strange disease that has the effect of your vocal cords getting destroyed if you say more than a few words?"
"No."
"Then why don't you talk?"
"I have nothing to say."
"You're no fun! You should find a lot to say! One day I'm going to make you memorize a speech and then force you to recite the whole thing from memory!" Everyone was laughing or trying not to at the way I was bothering Chad to talk. "Don't laugh about this conversation! You guys have to choose sides!"
"What sides? How did you get sides in this?" Ichigo asked.
"Shut up Ichigo! There are sides to every argument!"
"I wouldn't call this an argument."
"Rukia? You're joining him? How could you?"
"They're right though."
"You too Orihime? Why is everyone taking the third side?"
"There aren't sides though."
"You too Uryu? Of all people, you joined them? How could you?"
"It's true though."
"Now Chad joined too! You're all evil! The sky looks so pretty today!"
"It's astonishing at how easily distracted you are today."
"You're mean Uryu! You joined them! I'm not talking to you!"I crossed my arms and stopped walking. I turned away from everyone. They stopped too and looked at me.
"You're being childish."
"No one asked your opinion Carrot!"
"I told you not to call me that!"
"I can call you whatever I want!"
"No you can't! You call me by my name or nothing!"
"Ok! I'll call you Nothing then!"
"That's not what I meant!"
"I don't care!"
"Will you two stop arguing?"
"No! Wait a minute. You asked a longish question! Not really but I'm saying it anyways! I'm so proud of you Chad!"
"You're just like a little kid."
"Shut up Nothing!"
"Make me!"
"Alright." I hit him with enough force to knock him off his feet and send him flying backwards. "Did that work or do I need to do it again?" He slowly got to his feet and started walking again. "That's what I thought. Is there a special destination planned for this walk or is it just a random walk?"
"We have special plan for where to go," Orihime answered.
"Really? Oh I'm so excited!" The others started laughing at my excitement. "It's not funny."
"You look so adorable. You're like a cute little kid with that one comment."
"Um. Thank. You? I guess. Am I supposed to thank you for that comment Rukia?"
"It's you're choice."
"I think it was meant as a compliment. You should thank her."
"Chad, you said two sentences to me. I'm so happy. Thank you Chad. Thank you Rukia." I was in a good mood that day like any other day. I'm a happy person! I was in a good mood for no reason but it was fun that way. "Oooooooooo! It's an ice cream shop! Can we go?" I shouted out in joy. I loved ice cream and anything else that had sugar. Uryu was the only one that seemed to notice my excitement.
"An ice cream shop sounds like a nice place to stop," he said to me. No one else seemed to notice.
"So we are going?"
"If you really want to we can try to get them to go."
"Guys we're going to the ice cream shop!"
"What? No we're not," Ichigo shouted. I was crestfallen for a moment before I had the best idea ever. I walked over to him and grabbed the collar of his shirt. I pulled him down and grabbed the back of the collar before dragging him with me towards the ice cream shop. Everyone else just followed. We entered the ice cream shop and I was still pulling Ichigo. We ordered our ice cream and sat down while we waited for the people to get all the flavors out and get the ice cream ready for us.
"I'm so happy you all decided this was a good idea."
"I didn't. You dragged me."
"Shut up Nothing."
"Stop calling me that!"
"I'd rather not." I could feel heat from Ichigo's anger. I just looked at him and he decided not to start another argument with me. He decided to pretend like I was right and he had thought it was an amazing idea. The ice cream was ready shortly after. We took the ice cream with us for the remainder of the walk. Well until we got to the park and I said that we should stop there to enjoy nature's impactful presence anyways. It was pretty and there were pretty colors from the leaves changing color before falling off! It's not my fault I'm childish. I can't help it. It's not like I try to be this way, it just happens. We finished our ice cream in the park and looked at all the pretty colors of the leaves. "Winter starts in like a week. I'm excited about that. I can't wait for it to start. I love winter. It reminds me of all the fun my mom and I used to have every winter. Then my dad took over the activities we did together. We also visit her grave every winter. That's the only sad part of winter. Winter is the season that she died in." I looked down sadly. Everyone looked at me.
"Well you'll get cheered up by the place we're going to," Uryu said gently as he put his arm around my shoulders.
"Where are we going?" I asked again in an attempt to get them to tell me. I wanted to know. They ignored the question just like they had last time I asked. It was infuriating. I pushed down my anger as we started to walk again. Eventually we turned down an alley. I stopped walking. I recognized this alley. "I don't wanna go down this alley."
"Why not?" Uryu asked. I could hear that his voice was heavy with concern.
"Yoko might be here. This is the alley I always saved her in. She can find me easily but she doesn't for some reason. I think she knows that we overheard her talking to that hollow that day. I think she was waiting for a time like this. I think she wanted me to be in a place where there weren't any other people. It's become apparent that you will not leave me to be by myself so she might just want us all to be away from others. She wants to kill us all in a place where people won't look. She wants to kill us on a place where people won't find us."
"You've been reading too many horror stories."
"I'm serious Ichigo."
"Just calm down. We won't let her kill you."
"I'm worried about all of you too! I'm not just worried about her wanting to kill me! I'm worried about her trying to kill all of you for your efforts at protecting me! You need too start worrying instead of telling me to calm down Ichigo! I don't want any of you to get hurt because of me! I couldn't bear it if that happened. You are some of the people I care about most. I don't want anything to happen to any of you!" I burst into tears at the entrance of the alley. The air started to get heavy. It felt like something was coming after us, yet all I could do was cry in the same way I had been. I was worried about the presence that was coming towards us. The others seemed to feel it too because they all looked in the direction it was coming from. It was coming from above us.
"How sweet you are. You're worried about their safety more than your own. You're such a nice person. This whole scene was touching. Too bad they didn't listen to you when you started. You might have been able to make it out of here without getting hurt. Too bad you were right. It's time for you to die though. I have to be the one to kill you so that I can have all of your power. Have a nice time in the afterlife." I looked up and couldn't talk.
"Yoko," was the only thing I could say. My voice came out in only a whisper as I looked at the figure before us. Yoko had turned into a fully grown woman and she was very intimidating. She smirked and I couldn't move. I wanted to get everyone out of there but I couldn't speak either. The whisper wouldn't even come out. It was caught in my throat along with my breath. Yoko was the lucky one in this particular situation. And we were gonna die. Those were the only things flying around in my head as I waited for her to kill me and the ones I cared about.
(A/N: "So that was chapter 20. What did you think?"
"I think Yoko is gonna kill us all."
"What? Yamasorrowichi? How did you get in the authors note?"
"There's a staircase over there that leads to where we are frozen in time until you continue. I want to know if I live. I want to know if everyone else turns out to be ok so could you hurry this up?"
"Fine. Review and you get 50 points and a unicorn stuffed animal."
"Why a unicorn? Hippos are the way to go."
"If you want me to hurry, you can't keep interrupting me."
"Ok. Fine."
"Good. Anyways… I don't own Bleach or its characters but I do own Yamasorrowichi and Yoko."
"No one owns me."
"Yamasorrowichi just get back in the frozen scene so that when I finish this I can start the next chapter."
"Fine."
"Good. The song for this chapter is Every Road by The Maine. I don't own this either. Have a great day!")