Soul Societies, part 2.
Disclaimer: Skymaster23 does not condone violence against women.
Notice: scene 5 is semi-NSFW.
Ichigo pauses after hearing that. "Kurosaki Ichigo wouldn't simply walk away from a threat." Rukia says, not paying attention to the others glancing at her.
"Ever since losing to those Arrancar... you haven't taken the form of a shinigami even once!" She exclaims sternly, and continues about what he's afraid of after Chado and Inoue got hurt. "Is it scary not being able to protect your friends... or is it... scary to face the hollow inside of you!?"
Ichigo wonders how she found that out. Byakuya knows, of course, but had implied during their fight that he wouldn't bother with it. He instead takes a second to note the disturbed looks Tōshirō and the rest are giving him, having just been indirectly told that the person infront of them is the same as the lost eight shinigami they all read about at the Shin'ō as Rukia regained Ichigo's attention.
"If you're afraid of losing, just get stronger... if you're afraid of not being able to protect your friends, swear to get stronger until you can protect them... if you're afraid of the hollow inside you... just get stronger until you crush him." Rukia continued saying. "If you don't want to hear from others, then hold you chin up and yell those words to yourself... that's the kind of man you've been... in my heart, Ichigo!"
After Ichigo's confidence is restored... and lost again after hearing that not only were the two "Arrancar" three times worse than the creature he and Ishida only managed to injure, but that one of his guests has a bomb inside her, he gives Thao directions to Tatsuki's house.
"What good will worrying do?" The resident asks herself just as she hears one of her parents call her. Once at the door, she finds an unfamiliar girl with a Karakura high uniform. "Who might you be?"
"Tôi xin lỗi vì đã làm phiền bạn. I'm Dang Thao, a foreign exchange student."
Despite a more through introduction, Tatsuki still blanches at the idea of having a guest staying at her house for who knows how long. "Are you unable to accommodate me, Arisawa-san?" Thao asks her.
"No, it's not that... it's just that getting not one but six transfer students, and a foreign exchange student is a heck of a lot to take in." Tatsuki tells her, just knowing that this is connected to all of those monsters, the weird abilities Orihime, Sado, and Ichigo(1) all have, and those two killers at the park the other day.
Thao mistook her brooding for wondering where in the house she'll be staying in.
Buford walks into the Goban-tai mess hall to look for Inose. "How's it going, Taichō?" Aida asks while a goteitaishi is flicking a small paper triangle to him, some game that a Plus described to him after whining about not being able to touch things.
Buford motions for Aida to follow him to a corner before speaking. "Lousy. Has Inose been here?"
"He's at the SMA right now. Second thoughts, sir?" The rokuseki asks nervously.
"Dang attacked members of two noble clans, and my daughter, now we're working together again." Buford tells him, occasionally tugging at his lowered hood as he added that Suì-Fēng didn't even clobber him with the bag of bug traps he pestered her with.
Aida gave a sweatdrop as he imagined Buford childishly pretending to warn the Niban-tai Taichō that an overgrown kusagikamemushi had been spotted. "...Harsh, but she... Fukutaichō, i mean, does now have the same enemy we do."
The Taichō paused before nodding, then left to keep looking for Inose. "What's really harsh, sir... is that you didn't call her Ja-chan or anything just now." Aida thought to himself.
At Tatsuki's house.
"Anyway, this box really tells you about everything happening in the Yunaverse?" Thao wonders as she leans towards one of the Arisawa's belongings.
"Yuna... you mean universe; and no, even the U.S. isn't anywhere near that amazing. Don't you have TV in Vietnam?" Tatsuki asks her.
Thao gulps before answering. "Not in my village, I'm afraid. We barely had enough to pay for my voyage here." She lies, and starts sweating almost like a waterfall as her Denreishinki is pointed out. "Er, well, the school gave me that." She lies again, then her expression changes just as the device goes off.
After Thao excuses herself, Tatsuki waits a few seconds before following. She sees the "guest" standing next to a Thao wearing the same black outfit as Ichigo. "What the f-" She says under her breath, but the other Thao starts speaking.
"Stay here and keep this out of sight."
"You sure i can't go? Bet it's gonna be messy out there. Can i, can i, can i?" The 1st Thao replies in a hyper, but also morbid, tone(2).
"Forget it, Claudia. That's an order." The 2nd Thao said as she ran away, and if that wasn't unnerving, she then jumped up onto a nearby electrical line.
As Tatsuki follows in the distance, 2nd Thao does as she had been ordered and puts as much distance as she can from Arisawa's house. "That should do it." She tells herself.
"Nah, you'd could get away if you crossed the whole damn ocean." She hears, and shunpo's to another building to find an Arrancar with an open jacket hop from that roof to the one she's at. If it wasn't for the light blue hair, or the sickening remains of a hollow mask, she might be intrigued by him.
Sensing her teammates are already fighting, Thao draws her Zanpakutō. "Goban-tai Fu-" She starts to say, but the enemy vanishes, followed by the floor breaking all around her. It takes her a moment to shove the rubble off to find that her right ankle and a few ribs are broken and that she's four levels down. "So much for first impressions." She says after spat out some blood.
"Quinta, huh? Heard all about the shinigami that bastard left behind; so just tell me where that shinigami Ulquiorra let escape is, or do i have'ta splatter you all over the place?" She hears from above.
Thao sneers, not knowing or caring about her wound or what this hollow is saying, only that he won't get that info out of her and returns to the roof. "Bankai: Rikudō Kōkyū Uppen!" She says instead..
The Arrancar raises a brow as the mirror at the shinigami's side positions itself behind her and grow, then has five more slide out from both sides. "Guess that bastard aizen's not such a know-it-all." He commented, but only with half-interest.
Thao's fortunate that the mental strain will be lessened by only having one opponent this time.
Almost, as both have their attention grabbed by a white pillar in the distance. Seeing it appear and disappear clearly had a different meaning to the Arrancar. "Looks like you lucked out, chica." He said as he kicked one mirror apart, and noticed some human on a sidewalk staring at him, but he vanished in the direction of where the pillar had been.
Thao collapses to her knees, the realization that she had been toyed with, along with the nearly instant decrease of reiatsu from Kuchiki and Madarame, causes her to vomit. "Stop... get a hold of yourself, girl." She says under her breath. "We're not-t... all dead yet." She continues, assuming the worst for the two of them, and shunpo's over to where her leader is.
Along the way, she rolled her eyes as her limiter was disabled, and in the distance, saw Matsumoto killing an Arrancar who seemed similar in size to Ōmaeda before passing out.
Back in the Soul Society, just before midnight.
Buford and Isane are catching their breathes in his futon, but one is doing so more than the other. "If it wasn't ab... about that girl's mission..." Isane says to him while sitting up. First she had to put up with Iemura complaining to her and Yamada about Ogidō(3), and now this. "...I'd be wondering why you're so distracted."
"Sorry." He says as he glanced at her.
"Don't be." She says on the way to his shower stall.
"We've found that the Arrancar have a social structure and that Aizen's not as great as he thinks... Hitsugaya's vanguard barely defeated five but Tōsen called the leader off, according to Kurosaki." Buford shares as he was follows her, which she gasps at.
"Sorry." She said, knowing they never would have met if not for the former Kyuban-tai Taichō.
"Don't be." He said, fearing what might happen if he got to the traitor before Komamura and Hisagi.
1. I'm not sure if Tatsuki was aware of Uryu being a Quincy at this part of the series.
2. Claudia is a Soul Candy mentioned in the first Bleach databook, but i don't own a copy, so her personality is made up.
3. This is from the Shinigami Zukan of episode 116.
2nd notice: should i have combined the Kasumiōji arc in a single chapter? Answer in the form of a review, please.