Chapter 3: It's All about Perspective

"Shinkiro-chan… Shinkiro-chan…" I heard a kind voice bring me out of consciousness. I opened my eyes slowly to see Rukia standing over me in her soul reaper uniform on with a very familiar face with black shoulder length hair with feathers coming off of it.

"Y-yumichika-kun…" I sputtered coughing as I sat up. I flinched badly as I looked at the hand I covered my hand with. There was blood in it. Oh joy. Another one of those days. Wait a minute.

"W-why are you here?" I stuttered nervously trying to hide how much pain I was in and avoid their very serious gazes, "I-I fell… Down the stairs… Onto the knife that was on the floor…" I could hear Rukia shaking her head in disbelief, and Yumichika came over and gave me a hug. I should explain how I know this egomaniac.

I've moved exactly fifty times since I was adopted. In one of the towns, my parents beat me worse than they did last night. I was in the hospital in a coma for two weeks, but my spirit was free minus this annoying chain sticking out of my chest. Yumichika was there the whole time. He would come and visit me every day. He had explained that he was there to protect me from the bad spirits that I called demons, but he never corrected me.

Looking back, as bad as it sounds, I'm pretty sure he was just waiting for me to die, but he sure didn't act like it. In fact, he encouraged me every day to hold onto my life as hard as possible despite how tough it was. He explained that he wanted to stop what my parents were doing to me, but his job would not allow him. He would always talk about beauty and such which made me always think he was gay honestly.

Yumichika stayed my friend after I woke up from my coma. During my therapy to be able to walk again and be able to heal, he would come each day and stand by me and keep me company. I don't know why he did it, but I thanked him every chance I could. In a way, he was one of the main reason I called these soul reapers angels.

However, after we moved from that town, he told me I wouldn't see him again for a long time, because I was moving somewhere he wasn't able to help protect. Seeing him comforted me, but I didn't want Rukia to know about my home life. I kept on a ruse of being okay, just quiet. I didn't want to see that fall apart around me. I wouldn't let it.

"Kiro-chan, we need to get you to a hospital," Yumichika said softly, "You're in worse shape than when I met you. If you stay here, you'll die." I shook my head. Death would kind of be a relief at this point. As though reading my mind, Rukia looked at me in sheer pity. This for some reason pissed me off. I was not someone who needed to be pitied.

"Wipe that piteous look off of your face, Rukia-san!" I snapped, "I've put up with this crap for fourteen years, and I never needed anyone's sympathy or pity. I'm not dead yet." I glared indignantly at her. I was not one to just give up on everything. She looked shocked, and Yumichika looked a little proud of me honestly. I'm not one to stand up for myself. I'm just not weak, and I hate being treated as such.

"Hmph. I guess it can't be helped then," Rukia said with a proud smirk on her face replacing the gaping mouth that was there seconds earlier, "There's a reason Ayasegawa-san is here with me today. Look down at your body." I looked down and realized the chain sticking out of my chest.

"What the heck?! So y'all are here because I'm dead," I exclaimed obviously alarmed. I noticed my body lying on the ground in a pool of now partially dried blood.

"Then why do I still feel my injuries?" I asked even more annoyed than anything at this point. Geez. I'm having more mood swings than a pregnant woman on her period if such a thing were even possible without something being terribly wrong. Oh wait. Something is terribly wrong: I'm dying!

"Shinkiro-chan! Calm down!" Rukia demanded breaking me out of my trance, "We are here because you have a choice to make. The soul society has apparently been secretly surveying you for about thirteen years. We've had soul reapers report your high spiritual energy since you were five years old, and the council decided after the last time you were put into a coma to give you a choice if this situation ever came up again."

I could see Yumichika trying to hold back his excited smiled, but he was greatly failing. At the same time thought, he looked terrified. What the heck was fixing to happen?

"Um what exactly is my choice?" I asked now insanely nervous. Rukia looked at me very seriously.

"You must choose between dieing and becoming a normal soul, or to allow us to make you into a soul reaper," she says in a very epic sounding voice. Wow. I've never heard someone make dying sound so stinking epic. I really knew I had very little choice, and besides, being an angel?! Oops. I mean soul reaper sounds freaking amazing! At least if I get hurt it will be for a truly good cause.

"I'll become a soul reaper," I said as bravely as I could. Yumichika smiled his approval, but Rukia sighed and unsheathed her sword before cutting the chain in my chest closer to my human body than to my soul body. Yumichika yelled in alarm.

"That's not how I thought we were doing this! She could turn into a hollow!" he exclaimed angrily. Rukia merely glared at him as the links in my chain began eating each other one at a time. What the heck? These chains can eat each other? And man did they have an apetite…

"This is the way we were ordered to do this," Rukia countered back before looking at me with dead seriousness in her eyes, "Shinkiro-chan, you must become a soul reaper before your chain eats its way to your heart, or else you will become a hollow! At most you have two hours!" My eyes widened drastically.

"How the heck am I supposed to do that?" I yelled back, "If I become a hollow you'll have to kill me!" I couldn't believe this. Yumichika looked at me with… Oh no he didn't. I did not need pity from him right now. Or from anyone ever.

"Look inside yourself, Shinkiro-chan. Find your spirit energy and tap into it. That is how you will become a soul reaper," Rukia responds obviously noticing the fire in my eyes.

I closed my eyes and focused. There was a whole lot of darkness, but I kept going deeper. Suddenly, I felt a sort of shimmering feeling across my skin, then it got more and more I guess intense and colder. I moved closer to that feeling and found at what seemed like the center of my being I saw glowing orb that was a mix of deep purple and ice blue. Without really thinking, I reached out and touched it. After that, it felt as if I was frozen and everything went dark.