Previously on Bridge the Gap, Kyoukan!

Jesa asks Isshin not to make comments implying that she and Ichigo are anything more than friends. The next morning, Jesa tells her mom about the dream she had, only to find out it was real, when Ichigo and Rukia are waiting at her front door to walk to school with her. At lunch, Jesa decides to tell Keigo, Tatsuki, and Mizuiro about Ichigo's shinigami status after realizing that Ichigo keeping them 'out of the loop' might do more harm than good. Before she can do much more than confirm that Keigo, Tatsuki, and Mizuiro have at least some latent reiatsu, Ishida voices his suspicion of Jesa. Jesa's seemingly simple method of proving she's trustworthy becomes more complex when Rukia denies being able to talk with her zanpakuto outside her inner world. Tatsuki jumps into the conversation, upset that Jesa knows more about Ichigo than she does.

Chapter 6: Hollow and Shiny Gummy?

"Don't tell me to calm down! You're the one that started this crazy mess!" Tatsuki shouted at me, storming off back into the building.

"Tatsuki-san, I'm sorry! I didn't... I... I don't... I—" I called after her, but she ignored me. "Dang it. I'm sorry, Ichigo-san. If only I hadn't followed after you yesterday, Tatsuki wouldn't be mad at you right now. Oh, what to do...?" I slumped to the ground and buried my face in my hands as I cried. Dang it, I repeated in my thoughts. Now they're probably all gonna be mad at me.

"Don't be ridiculous, Jesa," called a voice that sounded distant, but was still clearly understandable.

"Huh? Who said that?" I muttered, looking up.

"Who said what, Jesa-chan?" Orihime responded, sounding concerned for me.

"I heard someone tell me not to be ridiculous..." I clarified. "It was a woman's voice, but it definitely wasn't yours or Rukia's..."

Suddenly, I felt tense, and I could tell Orihime was on edge, too. I was starting to have trouble breathing normally, and the only thing that seemed to fit was a hollow appearing nearby. Why is a hollow's reiatsu affecting me so much? I thought to myself. Then it clicked. Duh, of course I'm having trouble with it... Just because I know some of what's going on without the characters telling me and I have some reiatsu, I'm guaranteed to be able to withstand a hollow's reiatsu without ever having felt it before? Yeah, right. I wish. Heh, I really do wish. Then again, my initials are JJ, not MS.*

"Ichigo," Rukia said in a tone that confirmed my guess that there was a hollow nearby.

"Got it," the shinigami-daiko said as Rukia pushed him out of his body. "Jesa, can you explain to Keigo and Mizuiro what's going on?"

I nodded, not quite having caught my breath yet enough for speech. While the others darted off, I crawled over to Keigo and Mizuiro, who looked even worse off than I felt, and I motioned for them to follow me.

Now back at the classroom, which, fortunately, was still otherwise empty, Mizuiro pulled over a chair from a nearby desk and asked, "What was going on back there, Jesa-chan? Why did it suddenly become so hard to breathe?"

"And why didn't it seem to bother the others?" Keigo added, tilting his head in confusion as he leaned back against the wall by my spot at the window.

Before I answered, I noticed Tatsuki standing at the doorway. "Tatsuki-san," I called to her and raised a hand in greeting. "Are you okay? You felt that hollow's reiatsu, didn't you?"

She came and sat at one of the desks near the boys and me. "Yeah." She shuddered. "It was a lot worse than that thing that attacked me and—Orihime! Where is she?!"

"Tatsuki-san, she'll be fine. Ichigo won't let anything happen to her, and even if something does, he won't give up until things are back to normal." I grinned. "Or at least as normal as things can be around him..."

"You're right." She sighed. "Jesa-chan—may I call you that?" I nodded, and she continued, "I'm sorry for storming off earlier. It's just—"

"You were one of Ichigo's first friends, and someone else knowing more about him than you doesn't sit well?" I said. "Dang it, I'm sorry, I'm trying to stop interrupting people, but—"

"It's fine," she said, cutting me off. "I would still like to know how you know so much about Ichigo, though."

"Oh, yeah. That's actually part of what I wanted to talk to you three about earlier," I said, glancing over at Mizuiro and Keigo, who had started playing go fish, of all things, while Tatsuki and I had been smoothing things over between us.

"Ha! I win! That's 242 to none!" Mizuiro cheered.

"...You keep track of how many times you've beaten him in a game?" I said, one eyebrow raised.

"Nope, just the go fish wins." Mizuiro shrugged, ignoring the strange looks I was giving him. "So what's been going on with Ichigo-kun?"

I smirked. "Do you want the explanation with or without drawings inspired by Rukia-chan?" Tatsuki, Keigo, and Mizuiro gave me strange looks. I quickly shook my head. "Never mind," I continued. "Ichigo is a shinigami. Has been for a couple months or so, now. Rukia's one, too, by the way."

"What's a ...shiny gummy, or whatever?" Keigo asked.

"A shiny gummy is one you probably don't want to eat," I said with a laugh. "A shinigami, on the other hand, is someone who helps souls of the dead move on. They do this with their zanpakuto, a sword with special capabilities unique to each one."

While we waited for Ichigo and the others to return, I went on and explained to them about hollows and pluses, kido, the Gotei 13, and whatever they asked about, as clearly as I could.

"Jesa-chan," Rukia called as she and the others reentered the classroom, "Could you show me the manga you mentioned earlier?"

I thought about that. On the one hand, it's about them, so they are kinda entitled to read it, but on the other hand, there are whole arcs that have yet to occur. ...Wait, how's that possible? Eh, I'll try to figure that out later. Having come to a decision, I asked Mizuiro if he could get online with his phone.

"Yeah. Did you want to look for a digital version of the manga?" he replied.

I nodded, but then the rest of the class all seemed to arrive at once, followed by the teacher, so we had to put the conversation on hold.

Over the course of the next couple classes, I had forgotten about looking up the manga online. No one else mentioned it to me, so I guess they did, too.

"Hey, Ichigo," I said from the doorway, most of my classmates having rushed out the minute the bell rang to end the day.

"Hm?" He looked over at me as he put the last of his books into his bag.

"I still haven't figured out my way around yet, so do you mind walking me home?" I started swinging my bag back and forth while I waited for him to answer.

"Yeah, sure, I guess." He stood up and turned to Rukia, who was staring at her phone in confusion. "Something wrong, Rukia?"

She didn't answer, but just started pushing various buttons on the phone.

"Rukia-chan, you coming?" I called to her, leaning around the doorway. "If you don't come now, we'll leave without you."

Finally, she looked up. "Right. Jesa-chan, Urahara-dono wants to meet up with you again, sometime after school today... He mentioned something about helping you train to develop your powers. Shall I tell him you'll stop by later, or should I tell him something else came up?"

"Tell him..." I rubbed my chin as I thought. "Tell him I'll stop by if it's okay with my mom. She might already have something planned for this afternoon. I'm not sure. Anyway, c'mon, let's get out of here," I said, standing straight and heading for the main entrance of the school, wondering what training with Urahara might be like.

*'JJ, not MS': Jesa Jones, not Mary Sue

A/N: Thanks to Apocalyxtic98 and ObscureStar for beta reading.

Reviews are always appreciated, but I won't beg for them.

Apocalyxtic98 asked why Jesa doesn't use honorifics with Ichigo, but she does with others. Here's my reasoning behind whether and which honorifics Jesa uses:

She tends not to use them with Ichigo because she knows he doesn't care about formality.

She uses -san when she is apologetic about something, or if she hasn't spent much time around the person, or to annoy Keigo - I mean Asano-san. :P

She uses -kun or -chan around people she knows well enough to feel comfortable about it.

She doesn't use honorifics with her family because she and they are from America, and honorifics aren't really a part of American culture.

If she is really agitated, stressed, or excited, she might forget to use any honorifics.

An idea that has been in the back of her/my mind for when she meets Hitsugaya Toshiro: Call him Shiro-taicho, and see how he reacts...

If there is an instance where Jesa doesn't use honorifics, but based on the above generalities, she would, please notify me, and I'll fix it. It's probably that I forgot to include them when writing out the story.

Also of note: A friend of mine drew a bit of fanart, which has been posted as the story image.

Happy Holidays! (I'm posting this chapter in December.)