They returned to the Warren for a meal, unsurprisingly vegetarian, and a good rest. Though the Guardians need sleep less than humans (even Sandy; he contests that he naps because he likes it, not because he needs it) Jack and Bunny had just had a very long night, had literally chased it the whole world 'round, and deserved a good crash.
Waking up in the soft grass to the sound of songbirds was somewhat disorienting for Jack, who was used to snowdrift beds and the muffled silence of falling snow. He sat up blinking, taking a moment to remember what he was doing in the Warren.
"Finally woke up, huh? Lightweight," a familiar voice scoffed.
Slightly startled, Jack lifted up, spinning to face Bunny, who he was surprised to see was smiling openly, despite the tease. Which, for some reason, only served to annoy Jack, but it amused him at the same time. He couldn't let Bunny know that, of course.
"Well I stuck around thinking you might need some help…I dunno, cleaning up after Easter or something," he said, half blustering while trying to keep a straight face. "But if you're gonna be like that, I can just…go. 'cause you know, I have things to do!"
Bunny outright laughed in his face. "Oh, I'm sure, all kinds of pressin' appointments. Like where, for example?"
Jack stuttered, trying to come up with something plausible when he managed to land upon an idea, which had almost been buried in the madness of their Easter eve. "Japan!" And as soon as he said it, he realized how true it was that he needed to go back to that small Asian town to find the woman with the sword and the ice pillar. Bunny's furry eyebrows rose, but the truth behind it fueled Jack's determination. "There's someone in Japan that I gotta go see. I just thought I'd be polite and wait 'til I was done helping you. So you're welcome, and bye."
Jack started to lift higher into the air to make as dignified an escape as possible, but Bunny, impossibly quick Bunny who Jack had very recently and bodily learned could not be outrun or flown, snagged his ankle and held on. "Hang on, then! I'll come with ya, if it's so important! Maybe you'll need some help!"
Never was a more blatant falsehood told to Jack's face, not even from Pitch, and Jack knew it. Heck, Jack knew that Bunny knew that Jack knew it. Bunny just wanted to corner him in his supposed lie about an urgent appointment in Japan.
Well fine, then. Two could play at that game.
"I dunno, Bunny. She's a Snow Demon-" okay, so he didn't actually know that, and he'd never actually met one, but he's heard of the Japanese ice witches before and seen some of their work, so it was only logical, right? And it's not like Bunny would know any better. "-they call them yuki onnas over there. Could get a little cold."
The Pooka positively bristled, and Jack had to choke back his laugh. Hook, line and sinker.
"Ah, no, mate! I'm comin' with ya and it'll take a lot more than that to scare me off! Where on Earth do you think North lives?" He stepped aside to collect his satchel and boomerangs and sling them across his back, muttering, "A little cold…" Facing Jack again, who had planted his feet on the ground again, thoroughly enjoying his personal joke, Bunny declared, "Japan, right? 'bout what part?"
Jack tilted his head and had to honestly think about it as Bunny poised his foot, ready to open a tunnel. "Um…it was on a river, I remember that-" Bunny snorted. "-okay, so Japan's an island, there's water everywhere. But I think it started with a K…Kora…kara?" and he looked up kind of helplessly, struggling with the foreign word, but the Easter Bunny knew his stuff and figured it out.
"Karakura it is!" and they disappeared down the tunnel.
Kuchiki Rukia was not stumped. She had just run out of options. All she could think of to do now was wander around Karakura town and hope she could sense Ichigo's elusive reiatsu by accident.
She snorted at the irony. Usually the fool let his reiatsu shine like a lighthouse, but now she couldn't sense a scrap of it. There was no way he had accomplished the feat on his own with such immediate results. Ichigo had help, and she could only hope it had been solicited.
At least the added benefit to wandering town was that she would be ready to act at a moment's notice should the arrancar forces attack again. She could feel the scattered reiatsus of her fellow shinigami and could trust that an immediate response would be achieved by the nearest party. As it was, low-grade hollows, attracted to the area as they were by the sheer concentration of power, popped up with regularity and were quickly dispatched. So she could be frequently seen walking around town messing with her phone, as she was at the present. Then the device gave a strange hiccuped beep nearby. It didn't quite register as a Hollow, but at the same time, didn't know what to make of it.
Taking no chances, however, Rukia popped a Chappy pill into her mouth and quickly headed toward the disturbance with instructions to the artificial soul to follow behind, but at a safe distance. She sped through the streets, leaping to a rooftop as she got closer, seeking the advantage of higher ground. She stopped, perching on top of a telephone pole to observe the figure on the ground below her. Human-wise, he looked like he might be older than Ichigo by a couple years, but then, she doubted he was human. She could clearly see his bare feet, which meant he wasn't a plus soul. His ratty brown pants and blue hoodie indicated that he wasn't a shinigami (on duty, anyway). Arrancar typically wear white, so what was he? She could feel an odd power coming from him, but what unnerved Rukia was how familiar it felt. A moment more of observation told her why. The frost on the shoulders of his shirt and embedded in the wood of his staff spoke to her of cold and snow; Sode no Shiraiyuki whispered to her that she wasn't wrong. His unkempt white hair even reminded her of Hitsugaya-taicho, another weather shinigami.
All of these observations, though, really didn't alarm Rukia quite so much as the fact that this white-haired, frost-touched boy was arguing heatedly with...thin air.
"-didn't have to take your stupid tunnels this time! I can get around by myself just fine!" He paused, even seeming to listen to a counter-argument by an invisible party. Then, "I would've found the town on my own! Just because I didn't remember the name-" Again, he cut off, his expression becoming an even deeper scowl before he finally huffed, "Whatever, cotton-tail. I came here because I have stuff to do." With that, he turned from his imagined argument and simply lifted into the air with a gust of wind. He didn't step onto a collection of reishi like quincy, shinigami and arrancar do, but seemed to lift up with just the breeze. And he did so exactly in front of Rukia.
He caught her gaze and nearly fell out of the sky in surprise. She had been startled herself at being found watching him so suddenly, but she was quick to school her expression so as to give away nothing. The boy, however, wore his emotions openly and stared at her without apology. Rukia had not quite determined what he was (and he had no soul-chain on his chest, nor could she identify anything that could be a hollow hole or fragment of mask) but felt that she should press her advantage while he was so clearly surprised her off-balance.
"Who are-"
"I found her!" the boy shouted abruptly, glancing back down at the ground. "Bunny! I found her!" He turned to look at Rukia, a happy expression on his face. "I can't believe I found you so quickly!"
Now Rukia was truly on edge. At his mention of "Bunny" she hurriedly checked the surrounding area for her Chappy gikongan in her gigai, but there is no sign of her. Then what -or who- did he mean by "Bunny?" Secondly, the fact that he had apparently come looking for her specifically, what was he playing at?
A cold dread gripped her heart. So much chaos had happened in Soul Society because of Aizen with her at its center. But the Hogyoku was taken, it and Aizen gone to parts unknown. Was this boy after her for some related reason? Very nearly panicked, Rukia barely kept from drawing her zanpakutou on him. Then he was back to talking with nobody on the ground.
Okay, now she was annoyed. This scruffy-haired boy shows up out of nowhere, she can't identify what he is, nearly gives her a heart attack and now he has the gall to ignore her in favor of some imaginary friend?
"That's enough!" she exclaimed. He turned to look at her, surprised. "Who are you?"
"Well I'm Jack. Jack Frost." He looked at her somewhat expectantly, as if the name should mean something to her, but it didn't ring any bells.
"Are you some kind of arrancar? What are you doing here? And who are you talking to?!"
His eyes grew wider with each question, but the last one dropped him right out of the sky.
Author's Note: Yay! I updated it! And look! Bleach is finally involved! I'll be honest, though, I had only a vague idea of where I wanted this story to go and when I was working on this chapter, the characters (okay, mostly it was Rukia being a brat) were the ones who insisted on what I should write. I kinda like where it's going, though, since it makes it more interesting than what I was originally planning.
I have the next chapter already written (yay inspiration fairy!) but I thought I'd let this one sit up for a little while, just so I don't spoil you with two chapters at once. ;D