[A/N: Almost forgot to get this up today! But here is your second chapter! Don't forget to review!]

Chapter Two: Heard You're New In Town

Kurama and I met Yukina at Kuwabara's house the next morning. It was a little bit strange seeing her in a school uniform with a book bag. She looked so human. You'd never guess that her tears made precious jewels or that she was perfectly capable turning an entire room into an ice box without a second thought about it.

Kuwabara was going nonstop, giving her advice about school and what to expect.

"And don't talk to any weird guys okay," Kuwabara said.

"How will I know if they're weird?" Yukina asked.

"Yeah, it's not like she's come across any examples of normal since she hangs around us," I said.

"Will you try saying something useful for once instead of being so sassy," Kuwabara said to me with a frown.

"Don't worry, I won't let anyone steal Yukina away from you," I said, placing my hands on Yukina's shoulders and pulling her back to me, and putting my arm around her. "All I've got to do is see to it that Keigo leaves her alone and after that things will be fine."

"You've forgotten about Chizuru," Kurama said.

"Ah, yes, Chizuru. Perhaps my greatest obstacle," I said with a nod.

"Who's Chizuru?" Kuwabara asked.

"She's a really sweet girl who isn't shy about how much she loves women. Usually she focuses all of her energy on Orihime. Sometimes someone will look really adorable and they'll hold her attention for a day. Occasionally she'll give me kudos on my boobs which I don't really mind, but we all find it best to not encourage her advances except or Orihime who usually just has no idea what's going on, bless her heart. But look at Yukina—she's tiny and pretty and new."

"Chizuru will come after her for sure," Kurama said shaking his head. "You should probably introduce Yukina to Tatsuki."

"Noted," I said.

"We should probably get going so you're not late for your first day," Kurama said.

Yukina nodded.

We finally managed to pull her away from Kuwabara and started our walk to Karakura Town.

"Were you thinking of walking with Ichigo this morning?" Kurama asked as we crossed the Onose River into the city.

"Yeah. Seemed like a good idea, just so Ichigo could meet her without us having to hide it from a bunch of idiots," I said.

"Who's Ichigo?" Yukina asked.

"Kairi's boyfriend," Kurama teased.

"He also happens to be a substitute Soul Reaper so you don't have to hide the fact that you're an apparition from him," I said.

"I didn't think Soul Reapers were real," Yukina said.

"Neither didn't Kairi until she found herself making out with one," Kurama said.

"You keep saying shit like that and you're gonna get punched," I said.

It wasn't long before we were on Ichigo's street and his house came into view. Standing outside of it were Keigo and Mizurio.

"Ugh. I forgot these two usually walk with him," I said.

"You know them?" Yukina asked.

"They're in our class. Mizurio is all right, but Keigo's kind of an idiot, harmless, but an idiot. Kind of like Yusuke, but not as much of an asshole," I said. "They're just regular humans so they're not in on anything."

Yukina nodded as we reached the two boys.

"Hello, boys," I said greeting them.

"What's up, Kairi," Mizurio said. "It's been a while since you've walked to school with us."

"I had to get up early this morning," I said tossing my arm around Yukina, preparing to begin the introduction.

"Whoa! Who is this goddess?" Keigo asked.

"So it begins," Kurama muttered. He then cleared his throat. "This is Yukina Tsukino. She's a family friend from the Fire Mountain Village."

"Whoa, you're almost from as far out in the boonies as Kairi is," Keigo teased.

"Except there are people where you're from," Mizurio added.

"Yes, let's all laugh at Kairi from Mount Paozu because she's so foreign. I'll have you know that both our mothers are from Fire Mountain before it was village and just used to be a place surrounded by a fiery raging volcanic hellfire and my grandfather the Ox King was feared throughout the land," I said.

"It's true, they used to call him the Emperor of Demons," Yukina said.

Kurama smiled and gave her a nod, impressed with how much research she'd put into her back story.

"Is this supposed to impress me Kairi?" Keigo asked.

"It means I'll kick your ass if you keep talkin' shit," I said.

Keigo scoffed. "You'll undoubtedly find some other reason to whack me upside the head—you always do, and it's always for the same stuff I do every day."

"Well did you know that doing the same things over and over and over again and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity?" Yukina asked.

We all paused and looked at her for a moment. She was cute, new, and brilliant. Poor thing didn't stand a chance once we got to school.

"See, Keigo. You're insane," I said.

Keigo turned his nose up at me. "I don't think I want to stand here and be called crazy by Ichigo's old ball and chain."

And then suddenly, a school bag nailed Keigo right in the face, knocking him to the ground.

"Don't call her that," Ichigo said picking his bag up from the ground.

"Hello, Ichigo. Glad you could finally join our discussion," Kurama said.

"Yeah, me too," Ichigo said. He then turned to Yukina. "I'm Ichigo. You must be Yukina. Kairi's mentioned you a few times. It's nice to finally meet you."

"Thank you. I look forward to getting to know you. All of you," Yukina said throwing a glance and a smile to Mizurio and Keigo.

"Well, I hope you survive Chizuru," Mizurio said as we started our walk.

Kurama pulled me aside and leaned down to whisper in my ear.

"What exactly does Ichigo know about Yukina?" Kurama asked.

"We rescued her from Tarukonae, she showed up looking for her brother at the tournament. That Kuwabara is madly in love with her," I said.

"And Hiei?" Kurama asked.

"Hiei may be at the top of my shit list right now, but a secret is a secret and I am still a loyal, if not somewhat, bitter ally," I said.

"Try not to murder him when he inevitably comes back," Kurama said.

I rolled my eyes. "No promises."

888

I left Yukina with Kurama when we arrived at school, as he would be delivering her to class just as he'd done for me. I went to homeroom with the boys and as soon as I opened the classroom door, Chizuru jumped onto my back.

"Kairi!" she cheered. "I totally had this dream about you last night!"

"Did you have to jump on me to tell me that?" I asked, abandoning the boys to walk over to my desk, the bespectacled redhead, still on my back.

"Yes! Well, no, but who cares," Chizuru said.

"I care a little bit," I said. "Do I even want to know what this dream was about?"

"Sure," she said. I sighed.

"Proceed then, and get off," I said.

"Just wait," she said patting me on the head. "So, in the dream we were all at school right, like usual, and suddenly this tiger attacks the classroom and everyone's totally freaking and as we're trying to escape the tiger jumps right in front of me and is like 'grr, I'm gone eat ya.'"

"Why was there a tiger in the classroom?" I asked.

"Why is the tiger talking, Kairi? Get some perspective," Chizuru said. "Anyway, I was sure I was going to be eaten and you jump out of nowhere and punch it in the face and save everyone."

"Yeah, I'd definitely punch a tiger in the face," I said. "Cool dream."

"Definitely, because then after you saved me you took your shirt off and-."

"Get off me, Chizuru," I said.

She giggled and hopped down from my back as we were joined by Tatsuki and Orihime.

"Why is it that every time I see you you're acting like a crazy person?" Tatsuki asked.

Tatsuki was Orihime's best friend and she'd known Ichigo since they were kids. She was very protective of Orihime and didn't like when people harassed her or bothered her (or when Chizuru continually made passes at her). She was very tough and very sassy and continually made fun of Ichigo for being a crybaby during childhood. She was in the kendo club and could kick ass. She was easily one of my favorite people here.

"Oh, I'm not crazy, Tatsuki. Why are you always so mean?" Chizuru said, pouting.

"Oh, stop. You know that won't work on me," Tatsuki said. "Anyway, is Uryu here yet?"

"Oh, no. He's down at the office because we're getting a new student today. He said that we didn't screen the last one properly," Chizuru said with a wink.

"Well, I know the new student. She's a good friend of mine and she she's an angel and if anyone gives her a hard time I will not be happy about it," I said. "I'll have a hard enough time keeping everyone from drooling all over her like a piece of meat."

"So she's cute, huh?" Chizuru asked.

"And she has a boyfriend, who happens to be one of my best friends," I said. "So you stay away from her."

"All right, but that means I just have to keep coming after you with increased aggression," Chizuru said.

"Fine. Just leave Yukina alone. She's from Fire Mountain Village where my mom's family is from so she's kind of a rube," I said.

"Well so are you Kairi, but we like you anyway," Orihime said.

"I am not a rube," I said.

"Is that why you were fascinated by a melon baller?" Tatsuki said. I frowned at her.

"We use spoons to ball our melons where I come from," I said.

"And you also eat dinosaur meat," Orihime said.

"Orihime Inoue, I know that you off all people are not criticizing me for the food I eat," I said.

"I don't understand. What's wrong with what I eat?" Orihime asked.

"Everything," Tatsuki said. "But it's part of your charm."

"Oh, so when she does it it's cute, but when I do it's weird and foreign," I said.

"Yes," Tatsuki said.

"All right kids, everyone in their seats," our homeroom teacher, Ms. Ochi announced.

We all settled down into our seats. I still sat by Suekichi in the back of the classroom. To my left there was an empty desk where Yukina would no doubt sit behind Ichigo. Orihime sat in front of me next to Tatsuki.

Uryu quickly scampered into the classroom and took his seat at the front of Ichigo's row. Kurama stood in the door way of the classroom obviously giving Yukina one final rundown before her first day of school and being forced to pretend to be human.

"Because our last new student has been such a success, our school has seen it fit to give us another new and rather foreign student," Ms. Ochi announced.

"I am not that foreign. I only live on the other side of the mountain from Satan City," I said.

"But you've got kind of a weird accent," Keigo said.

"I do not," I said.

"You only have it sometimes, like when you say words like breakfast," Keigo said. "You say it like 'breaktist.'"

And this prompted many of my closer classmates to breakout into a weirdly creepy chant of saying "breaktist" over and over again.

"Holy crap, stop," I said.

"Yes, we don't want to scare our new charge off before she's even got in the door," Ms. Ochi said. "Bring her in, Shuichi."

Kurama walked, Yukina in tow.

The response to Yukina was a lot different than the reception I got when I'd first arrived, but that was Yukina. She brought happiness and sunshine wherever she went and she had an air of innocence to herself as well. The fact that she was pretty certainly didn't help.

"Everyone, this is Yukina Tsukino. She's from the Fire Mountain Village in the south. She's been homeschooled up until now so please try not to give her a hard time," Kurama said.

Yukina bowed in that polite way she always did. "I look forward to getting to know all of you."

888

Thankfully, Yukina's first day of school had been relatively painless. Teenagers would behave like teenagers, obviously, but Yukina seemed to have learned to deal with that easily after spending all of her time with us at the Dark Tournament. There were little things—like never having seen a juice box before, and the fact that she was, by nature, slightly naïve, that made her seem odd, but overall, I barely needed to look after her.

People asked her a thousand and one questions about her boyfriend and she gushed, to their amazement, about how sweet Kuwabara was.

Kurama, Ichigo, and I were walking with her after school and couldn't stop talking about how wonderful it was. Kurama and I were going to walk to Keiko's house to visit after we left Ichigo, but there was a wrench thrown into our plans.

"Genkai says I should join a sports club," Yukina said.

"Really? You strike me as more a handy crafts club girl," Ichigo said.

"I'm in the handy crafts club," I said.

"Because Tatsuki threw you out the Kendo club after you had that fit," Ichigo said.

"Those Kendo sticks are fragile," I said.

"Especially when you can bench press a planet," Kurama said. I rolled my eyes.

"Genkai said sports will help bring out my competitive spirit," Yukina said. "Kendo sounds fun actually. I've been thinking a lot about learning to defend myself since the tournament. I don't want to hurt anyone, of course, but knowing how to do something might help."

"That is of course the best reason to take up martial arts," I said. "You sure you want kendo? There's a karate club too. I am obviously a big fan of the karate."

Yukina nodded. "I just was thinking about when Hiei came to save me from Tarukonae and saw him use his sword. It was really impressive. I just thought, it might be interesting to learn."

Kurama and I exchanged glances. This would definitely be fodder for the next time we needed to properly make Hiei feel uncomfortable.

Just as Ichigo was getting into explaining the basics of kendo to Yukina, I sensed it again. I stopped dead on my tracks and looked around. I couldn't see him, but I could sense him and he was close, just like yesterday night.

"What is it?" Ichigo asked.

"It's not that stalker is it?" Yukina asked.

"Stalker? Someone's been following you? Why didn't you tell me?" Ichigo asked.

"It's not a stalker per say, I just. . . I sense someone," I started to answer, but I was focusing on the energy. I'd found him. I could follow him. "I'm getting to the bottom of this right now."

"But wait," Ichigo started to protest.

"I'll be fine. Just go home," I said.

I was usually opposed to doing so, but in the middle of broad daylight, I took off for the roof tops and started flying off toward my pursuer. They were moving too, away from Karakura Town towards the highway near the woods where Sniper had tried to kill me.

And that's where they stopped.

I landed in the woods. I could feel them nearby.

"Come out. I know you're here. Why the hell are you following us?" I asked.

"You've got quite a mouth on you, kid," a rough, male voice called back.

"Are you from Spirit World?" I asked, walking to the voice.

"Naw, they've got better things to do than look after you right now," they said.

"Why are you following me?" I asked.

I could see their silhouette up ahead.

"Trouble's coming, kid. Ain't that the reason you meet most new people?" he aked.

I could just barely make them out now: they were tall, well-toned, and stood rather confidently, but there was something familiar about him. Their hair. I'd seen that hair a million times on my dad's head.

"Who are you?" I asked.

I was finally close enough to see him now. Tall, toned, tan, unkempt hair, a scar on his left cheek wearing Saiyan armor. He even had a tail. He looked so much like my dad that it made my head spin.

"Name's Bardock," he said.

My whole mouth went dry instantly. That was damn near the top of the list of things that were improbable.

". . . You're a liar," I said.

"Am I?" he asked.

"Bardock, my father's father, is dead and has been for decades," I said. "Frieza-."

"Got what he had coming to him, I heard. As for me," he shrugged, "I don't rightly know."

"I think you're just full of shit," I said. "Tell me who you really are."

"I bet you're awful confused about why you keep having all those crazy visions of the future you can't stop. The ones where you see people die or hurt and no matter how hard you try you can't stop them," he said.

A million little red flags in my head went up.

". . . You're supposed to be dead," I repeated.

"I know that and you know that, but here am, quite alive and part of you believes I'm telling the truth," he said. "Usually that gut of yours leads you in the right direction. So what about now?"

I stared at him for a moment and then I made a decision. I reached into my bag and pulled out my cellphone. There was only one person I could call for something like this.