Me: Not that it was hard to predict, but i was right, people definitely loved Nel!
Ichigo: Obviously I'm not included in this list of "people", Mandy.
Me: Are you ever? Well, you're gonna hate me for ending this chapp where i did. It's a bit inhumane to do such a thing.
Ichigo: Then again, whoever thinks of YOU as HUMANE is a dumbass.
Me: True. Enjoy!
"Ichigooo?"
"WHAT, Peyton."
She smiled innocently. "I'm sorry." "No you're not, but that's fine. Still, it hurts like hell," he muttered, pressing the ice pack harder against the side of his head.
Peyton looked around to make sure everyone was preoccupied. Nel and Rukia were watching the gory movie formally known as Hostel Part II while criticizing their attacks, and Renji was trying to invent his own flavor of ice cream with Yuzu in the kitchen using tons of Ben & Jerry's.
She leaned closer to him and kissed his neck, her lips lingering there for a minute. "Hey, look on the bright side. You get your cast off tomorrow, which will make it easier to do lots of...things," she practically purred, running her fingers along the aforementioned cast.
He shivered, then grinned. "You know just what to say. That's the beauty of having an equally-perverted girlfriend."
She grinned back, shrugging. "It's a gift."
Nel made a face as Ichigo kissed her cheek. "Itsygo, that's disgusting!"
"IS NOT!" Peyton and Ichigo shouted.
"IS TOO! ITSYGO'S GIRLFWIEND, WHAT IF HE HAS COOTIES? DID YA EVER THINK OF DAT?"
Ichigo's temple throbbed as Peyton gasped dramatically with horror. "Oh, Nel, you're right! No more kissing for you, you Cootie Queen!"
"Who you callin' Cootie Queen, ya Lint Licker?" He replied, making them laugh at each other.
Nel scratched her skull mask thoughtfully, while Rukia sweatdropped. "Itsygo and Itsygo's girlfwiend...they confuse me."
"They confuse us all," she replied.
"Sometimes we wonder if they're even human!" Renji shouted from the kitchen.
"SHUT UP RENJI, NO ONE ASKED YOU!" They shouted back, making Nel giggle. "Itsygo and Itsygo's girlfwiend make funny faces when they're angwy."
"Don't they?" Yuzu replied cheerfully as they heard a mini-explosion, followed by her and Renji saying "IT'S OKAY, NO ONE DIED, NOTHING'S ON FIRE!"
Ichigo sweatdropped, and Peyton laughed as he pulled her closer, wrapping an arm around her shoulders.
"Ahhh, Saturdays."
Over the next few days, Peyton felt more and more uneasy. She almost constantly felt like someone was watching her, and she didn't like it.
When they were at school, it wasn't so bad since she had Ichigo and their friends with her. And some afternoons, she'd be over at Matsumoto and Orihime's, or screwing around with Nel trying to pull pranks on Ichigo.
But at night...
She felt like someone was in the room with her. Watching her sleep. It was odd. It was like...like... "My personal Edward Cullen, and it sucks huge monkey balls," She told Lindsay thoughtfully on the way to school on the fifth day.
"Hmm...That's odd. Are you sure you're just not being paranoid?" She asked carefully, not really seeming that concerned.
Not that Peyton blamed her. The whole thing sounded pretty bizarre, even to her. Almost made up.
She shook her head quickly. "No. No, it's not just me. I can feel it still, right now. It makes me nervous. I sense them, but I can't recognize their reiatsu."
Lindsay cocked an eyebrow. "Whaddaya mean 'sense them' and 'recognize their reiatsu'?"
Peyton sweatdropped. Damn, I keep forgetting she knows almost NOTHING about all this spirit lingo. It'd be so much easier if she did, but...Nah. It's not my information to give, I'm no Soul Reaper.
"Psychic stuff. Hard to explain."
"Ohhh, okay!"
Thank God she's so gullible.
Peyton let out a quiet sigh of relief before her eyes widened as she felt the reiatsu rise a little. She whirled around, looking for the source, but she didn't see anything.
But...I can feel it...
"P? You okay?" Lindsay asked carefully. Now she sounded really worried. Peyton's eyes quickly flitted around, assessing the area, before she nodded slowly.
"...Fine..."
What the hell's going on around here?
SEVEN HOURS LATER...
She heard it again; the twigs snapping. Peyton turned to her right, gritting her teeth. It was almost like whoever it was was just screwing with her for the hell of it.
Actually, that's EXACTLY what it was like.
Why was she walking alone anyways? Well, Ichigo was dumb enough to get himself dragged into Academic Support with Keigo and Rukia (don't ask how the hell that happened, he never mentioned that part and it all happened while she was running an errand for Okiwura).
Lindsay had hitched a ride with Keigo, so she was out too. Seth had stayed home sick today, somehow catching the same thing Peyton had.
She decided the best thing to do was to walk just a little faster and try to ignore it. Peyton had just turned onto her street when something ran right in front of her, dressed all in black.
I refuse to scream, She insisted, briefly closing her eyes.
It had looked almost EXACTLY like...No, nope, no way, she and Senna had pretty much killed them all off entirely.
Peyton kept walking, only to have something run in front of her again. And this time, it hissed. That's right, she heard a hiss.
Directed towards her, no less!
Get in the house, get in the house, just keep walking, just keep waaaalk- JUST KEEP SWIMMING, JUST KEEP SWIMMING, JUST KEEP SWIMMING, SWIMMING, SWIMMING! WHAT DO WE DO, WE-
She paused her mental nervous breakdown as something tried to snatch her keys right out of her hand, and she nearly dropped them herself.
"WE PAAANIC, WE PAAAANIC!" She sang to the tune of Dory's song as she flung the door open and slid inside, slamming it shut.
She braced herself against it, breathing hard, her heart thudding like mad in her chest. Nanaw was sitting on the couch, and simply clicked her tongue.
"...Did that Hunk Muffin try to grab your ass or somethin'?"
"Nanaw, not now, just NOT NOW!"
MEANWHILE...
He felt anxious. He had no idea why, but he did. Ichigo felt like something was wrong, and he just couldn't understand why.
He tapped his pencil at an almost inhuman speed, wishing he had just turned in the damn homework.
But NO. Nel just HAD to use THAT ESSAY SHEET for her "wonderful rendewing of Itsygo and Itsygo's girlfwiend", in which he got hit by a bus and she and Peyton were pointing at him, safely on the sidewalk, laughing hysterically.
So now he was in stupid Academic Support, thanks to the newly-enforced No Zeroes Accepted Policy.
Instead of getting away with not turning something in, you were sent to Academic Support and had to do the work there.
Or, like Keigo, you got it for being a douche and trying to copy Ichigo's homework he had tried to do in class, making Rukia announce to the WHOLE WORLD they were cheating.
...So she could try and get away with copying Chad's. Needless to say, the whole damn thing backfired for them all.
Maybe it was the expression on Peyton's face that worried him. When she left homeroom with just Tatsuki (Matsumoto and Orihime were staying after to tutor freshman for extra credit after Keigo tried to drag them down with them), she looked...nervous.
Which kind of made sense, since Tatsuki lived closer to school, which meant she'd have to walk by herself most of the way.
But she had never been real nervous about that before. As long as she had her iPod with her, she was fine.
So why was she so nervous today?
Once the damn teacher passed his desk, he checked his phone anxiously. No messages. Wait, what time is it?
He rolled his eyes at his stupidity and checked his phone again. Thirty minutes left. AWESOME.
Ichigo nodded to himself. Alright, I won't check the clock for a loooong time, and see how many minutes have passed. YEAH!
So he worked. And waited. And made pencil towers. And waited. And tried not to strangle the senior behind him that was making sound effects.
...And waited.
"Hey, ma'am, may I use the bathroom?" The aforementioned senior asked suddenly.
Everyone turned to look at him, the teacher included. "Feel free to leave, just know you can't come back and none of your work counts."
"But...that makes no sense!"
"Take it up with your Administrator."
"But...jeez, you guys act like I can control my bodily functions! I can't control when I have to take a dump and when I dont!"
"Well, I'm sorry! I don't make the rules!"
"Well ya SHOULD."
"You wanna leave right now? I don't get paid to deal with this!"
"And I dont get paid to have to CRAP, but I still do it!"
"That's it, either be quiet or LEAVE, and you can tell the Administrator of your grade your complaints."
He sat lower in his seat and started huffing, and as she walked away he started mumbling, "Fine, I'll stay dammit, but my pants are gonna have a HUGE-ass stain. there's gonna be shit all over the floor, it's gonna smell bad, we'll have to evacuate, you'll have to call a fumigator, and ALL BECAUSE...I...couldn't go...TO THE GODDAMN SHITTER!"
At this point, everyone was trying to hide behind their books as they laughed, and Ichigo kind of smirked to himself.
Until he checked the clock.
Only two minutes had passed, if that.
He slapped his hands against the desk in fury. "God...DAMMIT!"
LATER THAT NIGHT...
Shinji nodded as Urahara tipped his hat in acknowledgement. "Got any news for me about what I asked you about?"
"Peyton and that reiatsu?"
He nodded, and Yoruichi folded her arms across her middle. "Unfortunately. See, she snuck onto a mission into Soul Society, led by Captain Kuchiki, worried about Ichigo and the others. During that mission, they encountered the Iga Clan."
Shinji looked down at the books spread across the table thoughtfully. "The Iga Clan? Rings a bell, but..."
"Ninja assassins. They were masters at bending auras, and only Peyton and Senna, the Memory Rosary, could see them."
"So...What does that have to do with anything?"
Yoruichi sighed. "The Iga Clan lost its leader and most of its tribe that night. We read about a similar incident centuries ago, in which the Igas found they could form an alliance with Hollows in Hueco Mundo. Which would explain how Nel found a hole to come through to find Ichigo."
"Uh-huh...And...This has to do with Peyton because...?"
Ichigo continued to stare up at the ceiling, focusing on her reiatsu. He was convinced something wasn't right, but didn't want to crawl through Peyton's window like a creeper.
Besides...The last time he did that, he nearly got raped by Nanaw, so he kind of learned his lesson.
"Itsygo's been lookin' like dat for such a long time," Nel whispered to Rukia.
"Ichigo, get some sleep. She's fine. Her reiatsu's fine. No one wants to deal with your wrath if you stay up all night."
He scowled at the ceiling and turned over, closing his eyes. It didn't matter what Rukia said, he'd still be concentrating on it.
He did it all the time; he could fall asleep just fine.
Knowing she was there, feeling her reiatsu, was enough most of the time.
Peyton stared up at the ceiling, taking deep breaths. She didn't feel the eyes on her tonight. It made her more nervous than if she had.
Something wasn't right. Something was there with her. She felt it, even if she didn't feel its eyes on her this time.
Peyton nearly jumped out of her skin when she heard tapping on her window. She sighed and crawled out of bed, trudging towards her window. "Ichigo...It's too late at night for this, I don't CARE if you just got your cast off two days ago, NOT TONIGHT.."
Urahara glanced out his window anxiously. "You said it yourself; the girl's a powerhouse. She can bend auras as well. Can you imagine what kind of immense power the Clan would have...if they could fuse her powers with theirs AND Hollows? If they could harness her abilities for their own use, as a sort of punishment for leaving them leaderless, perhaps?"
Peyton opened her window with a moody sigh. "I hope you're prepared to go without your manly needs fulfilled, Ichigo Kurosaki, because I am SO TIRED, and you don't even wanna KNOW what kind of crazy crap I put up with today!"
She looked around, sweatdropping. "...Ichigo?"
Suddenly, she felt something grab her wrist, tugging her down. She felt herself slide through the window, the ground got closer, and at the last minute she was pulled up.
Just like that, she felt pressure on her head, and everything went black.
"So you're saying...The Iga Clan, a clan of ninjas...Is looking for power in the form of Peyton and a few Hollows...and she's at risk?"
Ichigo was almost asleep when just like that, her reiatsu disappeared. Gone. Out of nowhere.
He shot straight up as if a gun had been set off. "No, no way, no way in hell!"
"Itsygo, what's wrong with Itsygo?" Nel asked frantically as he sprung into action, turning Soul Reaper and opening his window.
Rukia looked worried. "Her reiatsu...It disappeared."
"Whose? Itsygo's girlfriend? What does that mean?"
"It means I was right, and I'm a complete idiot!" Ichigo answered as he jumped onto the roof, onto the street, heading straight for Peyton's house.
Everyone jumped with wide eyes as her reiatsu, the one they had all been monitoring so carefully during their conversation, suddenly dropped completely, disappearing without so much as a warning.
Shinji sighed and shook his head, gripping his zanpakuto's hilt.
"Dammit, I hate it when I'm right."