).(
-Use Bleach When Required-
Go: Quick Thinking
Life and death are one thread, the same line viewed from different sides.
- Lao Tzu
It only took them a few short minutes to reach the warehouse where the Hollow was currently rampaging inside. Sanae stopped at the metal roller door that was half up, easy for her to slip under as Ichigo caught up to her. "Oi, what do you think you're doing?" Ichigo demanded off her as Sanae looked over her shoulder at him.
"There's probably a Soul in there, we have to help."
Before Ichigo could try and stop her, she was ducking under the roller door and disappeared into the building, "Kagawa!" He yelled at her. Ichigo grit his teeth in annoyance as he scanned the area, he was well aware that Rukia was probably miles away, he didn't have any means to transform into a Shinigami. He heard another roar from the Hollow and made up his mind, he ducked under the door and emerged into the open room.
Sanae stood by the door, her eyes settled on the Soul that the Hollow was chasing, a tall man with his broken chain of fate jingling at his chest. "Kurosaki!" Sanae called, turning slightly to Ichigo. "You get the Soul, I'll distract the Hollow!" She ordered, running to the far right before Ichigo could try and dissuade her from doing whatever crazy plan she had.
Which turned out to be throwing her bag at its head.
The brown bag managed to hit the large, two legged Hollow as it's glowing yellow eyes moved from the Soul to Sanae who was standing a few feet away from it. As the Hollow was now distracted Sanae saw Ichigo run up to the Soul who was cowering in fear by a bunch of large crates. With a firm glare Ichigo made the Soul start running out of the warehouse.
Sanae looked back at the Hollow just in time as it's hand came down, she jumped out of the way as it left a large crater in the concrete where she had been standing two seconds ago. She started running around the room, keeping the attention on her while Ichigo got the Soul out safely. Sanae darted behind some wooden crates as she caught her breath for a second, hunching over on her knees as she took in deep breaths. It was a second later when suddenly the crates disintegrated, splinters showering the air as the Hollow had destroyed them, revealing Sanae as she started running again.
"Hurry up, Kurosaki!" Sanae screamed, making her voice as loud as she could. Sanae was passing by another bunch of crates, when suddenly she was grabbed by her arm and swung around. Her back hit the crates as the arm still holding onto her made her crouch down.
"Stay down for a second," Ichigo ordered, he peered around the crates, seeing the Hollow still stampeding around the room. He knew it was only seconds before the Hollow picked up on his reiatsu.
"Now would be a great time to use that larger-then-life sword." Sanae hissed to him.
"I can't," Ichigo admitted, his tawny gaze still on the Hollow.
Sanae ripped her arm out of his grip, causing Ichigo to look down at her. "What do you mean 'you can't'?" She demanded off him, her blue eyes narrowed.
"I need Rukia to be able to turn into a Shinigami, she's not here."
Sanae's jaw dropped, "Well that's just great! What did you expect to happen, we ask it nicely to go away?" Sanae said sarcastically.
Ichigo gave her an annoyed look; "I was supposed to meet up with her after detention. With any luck she should be here soon—where are you going?" He hissed at her after noticing that she had started to move away.
Sanae glanced back at him, "I'm not going to sit here and wait to be Hollow chow. You gotta break that creepy mask to kill it right?" Sanae asked.
Ichigo nodded, "Yeah, but it'll be impossible for—"
"Wait here," Sanae instructed. Ichigo spluttered. Sanae peered around the crate and then looked back over her shoulder at him with a smirk, "You know if we live through this, call me Sanae."
"If we live through this it'll be a miracle." Ichigo replied.
Sanae ran off, darting through the warehouse again. She could hear the Hollow roar behind her and some crates smashing and the distinctive sound of Ichigo yelping instinctively, so the Hollow had finally found him. Sanae hated playing dumb about the Hollows and what she knew, but it was something that she just had to do to keep herself safe. Although her reaction to Ichigo telling her that Rukia was the only one to get him into soul form was real. She had assumed, what with the incident today with the Gikongan, that Ichigo would've had it on his person still, apparently not.
Now she had to be the one to save the day, something that she hadn't done in a very long time.
Sanae reached the back of the warehouse where stairs led up into a set of offices, she hurried up them, climbing two at a time as she thrust open the door, her eyes scanned the room quickly, trying to find anything that could possibly help them defeat the Hollow. Her eyes settled on some pipes that were running horizontally near the ceiling of the room as she shoved the wheelie chair over to the wall and jumped onto it. She reached up, barely, and pulled on the pipes hard.
"Come on!" She groaned. One of the ends came free and water started to trickle out slowly, Sanae really hoped that what she had pulled off wasn't the sewage system. She moved to the other end of the pipe and began tugging furiously at it. This side was much harder as she placed her feet on the wall and pulled with all of her strength.
"Ah!" She yelped instinctively as the pipe came loose from the wall and she fell back to the ground. She sat up and examined the pipe, the end that had come loose had snapped in such a way that it was sharp and pointed, perfect for piercing a Hollow mask.
Sanae heard a large crash from below and another yell from Ichigo, she staggered to her feet, the pipe tucked under her arm as she bolted from the room and jogging down the stairs.
"Kurosaki! Over here!" Sanae yelled, waving her other hand as she watched Ichigo dodge an attack from the Hollow as he glanced over in her direction when he had heard her. He met her half way as he stared down at the pipe in her hands.
"Where did you find that?"
"It doesn't matter, here." Sanae said, holding it out to him, "Now go kill it!"
"You expect me to fight a Hollow with this?" Ichigo exclaimed.
"Well I don't see you having a better idea!" Sanae argued back. The two were oblivious to the approaching Hollow that was bearing down on them, until it was meters away from them. Sanae was the first one to notice, gasping as Ichigo's head whipped round to see the Hollow opening its large jaws, intending to consume both of them in one bite. Sanae and Ichigo both yelled at the same time, one considerably higher pitched. Ichigo grabbed ahold of the pipe that was still in Sanae's hands and as the Hollow was leaning down, the two teens thrust the pipe upwards, straight into the mask of the Hollow. It took all of their strength combined to only pierce the mask. Sanae could feel her arms weakening from the force of it but she gritted her teeth and pushed as hard as she could.
The Hollow let out an ear-splitting cry when the pipe lodged itself in the mask as it stilled, the mask slowly crumbling as the monster began to fade away. Sanae staggered back as the pipe clattered to the ground loudly as the Hollow disappeared from in front of them.
Ichigo sighed, relieved that the ordeal was over and no one had gotten hurt, his eyes slowly moved over to Sanae who had a relieved smile on her face. "You know," he said, watching as she looked over at him, "It takes a special kind of idiot to pull off what you just did." Sanae's smirk grew, her blue eyes filling with mirth.
"Ichigo!" Rukia appeared at the roller door.
Ichigo turned lazily towards her, "It's about time, where have you been?"
Rukia panted, hunching over slightly, "I was…"
"Forget about it, it's over now." Ichigo said, waving his hand dismissively.
Rukia looked at him with wide eyes as she scanned the room, "You defeated a Hollow on your own?"
Ichigo frowned down at her, "Why do you sound so surprised?" He crossed his arms grumpily, "And I wasn't alone, Kagawa…Kagawa?" Ichigo suddenly realized that Sanae was missing. He spun around, thinking maybe she was behind him, but he soon realized that she was in fact gone.
"Kagawa? You mean the new student? What was she doing here?" Rukia asked Ichigo.
The ginger spotted her brown bag lying on the ground from when she had thrown it at the Hollow to distract it so that he could get the Soul out. It reminded him that he needed to perform the Konsō on him before another Hollow shows up and tries to eat him again, "Doesn't matter." Ichigo told Rukia as he bent down and picked up the bag, "Let's go, Rukia."
Sanae was early to school the next morning. She certainly didn't want another detention for being late again so she had arrived fifteen minutes before the bell was set to go off for the start of classes. Her thin fingers drummed against the desk as she gazed out of the window. It was a sunny day, no clouds were in the sky and hopefully no more Gikongan's would take over the classroom. Behind her, Sanae could hear Tatsuki and Orihime talking together and further back she could hear some of Ichigo's other friends laughing loudly together. The sound of the door opening made her ears prick as she heard Orihime speak, "Ohayo! Kurosaki-kun!"
"Ohayo, Inoue-san," Ichigo replied in an uncharacteristically pleasant tone to her. Her hearing picked up on heavy footsteps approaching her desk.
"Oi."
Sanae turned her head from the window to the object being dropped on her desk in front of her. She instantly recognized it as her brown school bag.
"You left this yesterday."
Sanae glanced up, meeting Ichigo's tense brown gaze, "Thanks, you didn't have to do that."
Ichigo stuffed one hand into his trouser pocket, "Figured I owed you one after yesterday."
"Ichigo!" Keigo appeared at his friend's side, leaning on his shoulder as Keigo looked between Sanae and the ginger. "Are you bothering sweet Kagawa-san?"
Ichigo snorted and pushed Keigo off him, "Hardly. The only one bothering me is you."
"He was returning my school bag, Asano-san. I left it here yesterday after detention," Sanae explained politely.
Keigo grinned in Ichigo's direction as the latter gave him a bewildered look. "What were you doing here so late after school?" Keigo nudged Ichigo on his stomach with his elbow.
Ichigo glowered at his dumb friend, curling his fist into a ball Ichigo brought it down on top of Keigo's head hard, "Not what you're thinking, baka."
"Ow! Ichigo…" Keigo whined, his hands caressing his skull as tears appeared at the corner of his eyes.
Sanae had turned back in her seat to search through her bag while Keigo and Ichigo argued about something next to her. She fished out her diary, opening it up to the correct week as her eyes settled on the date.
"It's the sixteenth of June…"
"Huh?" Keigo said, looking down at Sanae who was frozen to her chair. "Did you say something, Kagawa-san?"
Sanae jumped in her chair, turning her body as she gazed up at both Keigo and Ichigo who were staring down at her in confusion. "Oh—uh no!" Sanae shoved her dairy back into her bag as she sprung up from the chair. "I don't feel so well. I'm going home. Please inform Ochita-sensei for me."
Ichigo and Keigo watched Sanae cross the room and sprint out the open door. Once she was gone from sight Keigo sighed, "Why are the hot ones always weird?"
"Shut up, Keigo."
X
Sanae sluggishly walked through the back alleyway. Her eyes glued to the ground in front of her and her hands stuffed firmly into her jacket pockets. She emerged around the corner, coming into a large open area.
"Jinta home run!"
Sanae tilted her head to the side slightly as a small projectile came streaking passed her. Her eyes settled on the red headed boy who was glowering at her with a large baseball bat in his hands. "Not today, Jinta," Sanae muttered gloomily. She carried on walking, heading to the large sliding door. The door was thrust open before she could even open it herself as Urahara stuck his head out, waving his fan at her teasingly.
"Sanae-san! Playing hooky from school are we?"
Sanae maneuvered passed the shop owner, "I'm not in the mood, Urahara." She made her way to her room, opening up her door and disappearing into it as Urahara stood back in confusion. Urahara followed cautiously, approaching the door he knocked gently.
"Sanae-san?" He called out to her but received no reply. He pulled the door open slowly, sticking his head in first as his slate grey eyes settled on Sanae's form face down on her futon.
"It's already the sixteenth of June," he heard her muffled voice.
"Uh-huh."
Sanae rolled over onto her back, tossing one arm over her eyes. "I didn't even realize…I've been so distracted lately…they must hate me."
"You know," Urahara said, stepping into her room. "You've been holding onto the past for so long. Maybe it's time to let them go."
Sanae sat up, dropping her arm as she glared at Urahara, "I can't, Urahara. Not until I find out what really happened that night."
"They wouldn't be mad at you if you lead a fulfilling life again," Urahara tried reasoning.
"They're dead because of me." Sanae stated firmly, her blue eyes narrowing. "Twenty four people died because of me. They were my friends. They trusted me, and what did I give them in return? A slaughter."
Urahara remained silent. Sanae turned her head away from him and fell back onto the futon, rolling onto her side. Urahara could tell that the conversation was over between them as he slowly backed out of the room and left her alone.
A/N:
This chapter is a little on the shorter side then the others I know, but I promise next chapter is much much longer as we start to get more into Sanae's past. Thank you again everyone for reading it means so much to me! Let me know what you think of the story so far!
Nixxon Mysterio - Yes I know it will. It's just scary staring a new fandom and trying to get everything how I want it but thank you thank you so much for your feedback, it's nice to know that my efforts in keeping everyone in character is working. I'm so happy with your thoughts on how I'm writing this story, I want it to follow the manga as much as possible without making it boring or repetitive. Thank you!