Ichigo felt utterly exhausted by the time she was settling in for the evening. She had just gotten out of the shower and gotten dressed for the night in a nice, comfortable black cotton PJ shirt and pants set. And was meandering downstairs to see what her 'guards' were up to when she heard their voices. The men were speaking softly amongst themselves, but that didn't mean that she couldn't hear some of their conversation.
At the moment they were speaking about her scars. Or more specifically, how she had gotten them.
"Earth is supposed to be safe, right? That's what you've said more than once before." She heard Gunter say as she reached the bottom of the stairs and then came to a stop so that she wouldn't interrupt the three.
"Yes, the Earth is safe." Conrad said with a thoughtful look on his face.
"But if it's really as safe as you think then how the hell-" Yozak started to argue but stopped when Conrad's head turned her way, and he pasted on another polite smile that she was beginning to realize was his default poker expression. It was meant to throw others off and lure them into a false sense of security.
"Ichigo, did you find everything that you needed to take a bath?"
"Yeah, I found everything." She said after a brief pause as she took a few steps further into the room. "I didn't have any soap though, so I had to use the one already in the shower. Sorry for that."
"That's alright. We don't mind." Gunter said as he tilted his head slightly and smiled at her warmly as his eyes swept over her from head to toe. Obviously taking in her PJ shirt with keen interest.
She couldn't blame him though.
She loved her cartoonish smirking bunny holding a bloody knife with the words 'cute but evil' printed above it on the shirt. It was her favorite night shirt, and she really liked it.
She wouldn't swear by it, but Gunter seemed somewhat disturbed by the sight of the bunny. Yozak merely stared at her for several seconds with wide eyes before dismissing what she was wearing. And Conrad, had a genuine look of amusement on his face as he read the words on her shirt.
She could tell by the way his smile widened, and his eyes danced with barely suppressed mirth.
"Nice shirt." He finally said.
"Thanks. My friends nearly destroyed a shop just to get it for me for Christmas." She said as she gracefully dropped down to the floor in front of the couch to sit indian style.
"You have good friends." Conrad said after a second or so of thoughtful silence. "I'd like to properly meet them sometime."
"You'll have your chance since I speak to them pretty much every day. Besides, I'll have to say bye to them before I leave anyway."
Any humor that the brunette-haired man had been feeling up till then quickly evaporated as if it had never been. His expression became sad and pained as he quietly said, "I'm sorry."
Ichigo propped one of her elbows up on one of her knees and laid her cheek in her palm and looked at him. I mean, really looked at him. At first glance, it was easy to see how handsome the man was. It didn't help much that he had a boyish charm to him that many women easily fell for and adored.
But beyond that, he was simply a soldier who was simply tired.
Probably from having to try and stop too much conflict for far too long without much rest in-between missions. His tiredness went more than skin deep. It had reached his bones, though his tried to hide it.
She felt badly for him and could understand just how tired he probably felt. How desperate he was to bring peace back to his home before things escalated into a full out war that would rip it apart and cause the deaths of many, many of his people. As well as his own, his family, and his friends.
"It's alright," She said, after several heartbeats of silence. She meant the words just as much as he meant his apology. "I like helping others and being useful."
She didn't bother to say anything about the fact that she was no longer needed or necessary to her friends or her family now anyway. No matter how much each of them mattered to her and vice versa. She had slain each of their enemies. Destroyed every threat that had risen up against each of them until there were none left to harm them anymore.
So, she wasn't needed anymore to do anything for them aside from live her life.
It was all that they could request of her now as their friend, ally, and someone who had saved them countless times. Ichigo, live your life as you please from now on and let us watch over and protect you from now on.
Honestly, it wasn't as if she minded them watching over her. As long as they kept their promise to never leave her behind again like they had when she had lost her abilities because of her fight with Aizen... And now- Now she was going to be the one to leave them behind.
It was painful in ways that she hadn't imagined it would be. She couldn't imagine any of them taking it very well once she told them.
She jumped a little bit, startled, when she felt a pair of large hands gently frame her face and focused on the concerned face a few scant inches from her own. She had no frigging idea when Conrad had moved from his chair- she hadn't noticed him move at all.
She'd simply been so deep in thought that she had missed it. And now...
"You're crying." The man said softly, his thumbs brushing across her cheeks, wiping the unfamiliar wetness away as her eyes widened a bit in realization and she began to babble out apologies.
After all, she hadn't cried since... Since Yuzu had died after being dragged into hell by some escaped damned souls.
Oh, how she had raged and screamed that day. Attacking anyone close enough to her just to reach her baby sister whether they were friends or not. She simply hadn't been able to stop herself from reacting.
More tears slipped out, and in her embarrassment, she decided to call it a night.
She quickly told the three men goodnight and bolted upstairs before any of them could say or do anything to stop her. And once inside of the room that Conrad had kindly given her to sleep in, she tore the covers off of the bed and quickly made herself a little place on the floor between the bed and the wall.
She just...wanted not to be seen or bothered for a little while. At least until she stopped crying anyway.
The three men watched their Queen run out of the room as if some monster was after her and felt the overwhelming urge to go after her. To surround her with their warmth and to comfort her any way that they could.
But instead, they stayed in place. Each of them reacting to her tears in their own way.
Conrad's face grew shuttered, and his heart ached in his chest. Yozak gritted his teeth until his jaw ached painfully and Gunter... he had fisted his hands in the fabric of his pants until his fingernails had cut through it and his palms bled.
Swallowing hard, Conrad took a moment to regain his composure before finally sighing.
"I understand that we need our Queen, and that we're also taking her from everything that she's ever known or loved- but this...is horrible." Yozak finally said, his voice filling the silence of the room over the sound of their breathing.
"Yes, I know." Conrad said as he sat back on his heels and ran his fingers through his hair in frustration.
He felt horrible about this too. Truly he did.
But there was nothing that they could do about it. Ichigo was their Queen. This was her destiny no matter how any of them may feel about it. And no amount of arguing or fighting between any of them would change anything.
They had no choice but to take Ichigo back to the Demon Kingdom with them. They had no choice but to make her their Queen and ruler. No choice but to follow her every command no matter what it meant for them, without arguing. They had no choice but to protect her with their lives and care for her in exchange for her ruling them.
But just because they had no choice didn't mean that they already didn't love or care for her.
Their patriotism to their country be damned.
From the short time that Conrad and the others had watched her- they had noticed how well loved she was by the people of Earth. How kind and popular she was among them. They had seen such acts of kindness from her when it came to her family and friends and even total strangers that she allowed them to come into her home all hours of the day and night just to see her or disrupt her life and cause mischief.
Yet she allowed it. All of it. No matter how dangerous it was or how annoyed she was about it.
It was incredibly rare to see something like that in a sovern and ruler of their people. And to be honest, seeing those traits in her gave Conrad, Yozak, and Gunter hope that the future for the Demon Kingdom and its people would be much, much brighter than it seemed now.
Still...
"What do we do now?" Yozak asked as he mussed his hair with one of his hands. "We came here expecting our mission to be a long one spanning months even years..."
"True, but now that our Queen has agreed to come back home with us- there is no reason to stay any longer."
"So, we're just going to go home then?" Gunter asked, his violet eyes sparkling at the thought of showing their world to their Queen. He was sure that she would be curious about all kinds of things and the teacher in him was thrilled at the prospect of teaching her everything that he could think of.
"I don't see why not." Conrad said with a sigh.
"Her highness will want to tie up loose ends before we go." Yozak said as he propped his cheek in one of his palms.
He already wasn't looking forward to any goodbye's that the girl needed to say. Goodbyes were emotional and usually ended in tears. And he still felt like shit after seeing their Queen cry earlier.
"Yes, I know." Conrad said with a wane smile as he got up. "I'm going to go and make sure that she's alright."
"It has been a while since she went upstairs-" Gunter said anxiously. "Hopefully she has managed to stop crying and is resting well."
Conrad said nothing more as he made his way across the room to the stairs and silently took them up to the second floor of the house. The hall wasn't a particularly long one, nor was the bedroom that he had claimed as his own very far away from the top of the stairs. So, once he reached the top step all he had to do was grasp the doorknob to his room in his hand and gently open the door.
Poking his head into the room, he noted that the room was pitch black aside from the soft light filtering into the room from the window. However, no matter how dark it was, he could easily see that Ichigo wasn't lying in bed.
In fact, she was missing.
Heart beginning to quicken in panic, he slipped silently into the room to search it. Just in case she decided to sleep on the floor or something. After all, she had been strangely adamant about not taking any of their beds before. So, it didn't hurt to check the room just to make sure.
To his relief, it didn't take him very long to locate his Queen. He was however bothered by the fact that she had decided to fall asleep on the floor though. Sighing quietly, he squatted down next to where she was resting, tangled up in his bed sheets in the spot that she had chosen for herself.
He could tell from what little bit of her face that wasn't underneath the sheets that she had likely cried herself to sleep a while ago while he and the others had been talking. Her eyes were red rimmed, and though her breathing was slow and even, she occasionally sniffled.
Reaching out, Conrad gently brushed a bit of her hair back from her face and pulled back a bit when she seemed to stir and muttered in her sleep, "What's wrong?"
He wasn't sure if she was dreaming or asking him if something was actually wrong. So, he replied in a whisper, "Nothing's wrong, go back to sleep."
She did as he said and was silent again within seconds.
After that, he picked her up off of the floor and carefully deposited her onto the bed so that she would be more comfortable. But she seemed to have difficulty getting comfortable there for some unknown reason. And he was at a loss as to why that was or what to do to help her.
So, after several minutes of debating with himself, he turned and went to his dresser and quietly pulled the third drawer open and pulled out something that he had been given by his older brother, Gwendal. It was a knitted toy. One that looked a bit like a bear, but according to his brother was actually a kitty cat.
And with it in hand he then moved back to Ichigo's side and gently lay the toy next to her on the bed and waited to see what would happen next.
His Queen reacted to the toy's presence automatically. Grabbing it and hugging it to her chest before finally settling down with a sigh.
Finally happy that she seemed to be resting better, Conrad quietly slipped back out of the room so that she could sleep in peace and went back downstairs where he would spend the rest of his night alternating between reading and making sure that nothing got into the house to harm her.
Ichigo wasn't sure what time she woke up. All she knew was that she woke up in a bed that she didn't recall falling asleep in with a toy of some kind that she was fairly certain that she hadn't had before.
Sitting up she took a second to stretch and rub the sleep from her eyes when she heard a commotion downstairs that sent warning bells off in her mind and quickly jumped off of the bed and went to go and see what was going on.
The second that she reached the bottom step she realized several things all at once. One was that Conrad was apparently cursing while his head turned this way and that, looking for something.
Gunter was wearing a frilly apron and looked as if he were about to cry. And Yozak and dismantling a mess of dishes on the counter searching for something just like Conrad was.
It took a second to understand what was going on, but once the smell of something beginning to burn reached her nose, Ichigo understood.
Walking across the room and into the kitchen, she made quick work of easily pushing the men aside and then opening the oven and pulling out the pan of food while all three men stood there staring at her in utter horror as she placed the pan, gently, instead of dropping it as one would expect, onto the counter next to her.
Then she turned and smiled at the three.
"There. No harm done, and the food hasn't burned enough to be in eatable-" That was about as far as she got before she was grabbed by two pairs of hands and unceremoniously manhandled over to the sink where her hands were then thrust under some super frigid water while Conrad and Yozak both stood there anxiously holding her in place.
"We don't care if the food is still eatable or not," One of them finally gritted out from what sounded like between clenched teeth to her.
"We care more about you than the damned food." The other growled close to her ear.
Ichigo couldn't help the small shiver that shot down her spine, nor the flush of embarrassment that colored her face as the two men took several more seconds to cool her hands before finally turning the water off and checking them for any injuries.
Conrad and Yozak were both relieved to see that there were no blisters or painful burns present on her fingers or palms, and felt the tenseness that had overtaken their bodies, slowly eased up as they released their Queen from their grasp and backed off.
"A-Are her majesty's hands-" Gunter stammered out in concern as tears streamed down his face.
"Perfectly fine, yes." Conrad replied as he handed Ichigo a towel to dry her hands with. He couldn't seem to tear his eyes away from her though.
Does our Queen not have any sense of self-preservation? He wondered curiously as she set the towel aside and then went to check on the homemade biscuits that they had been burning.
"You don't have to worry about those, your majesty. If they're burnt any then we'll just toss them." Yozak said as he shot a small smile her way. But Ichigo didn't seem to care that they had wanted the meal prepared for her first breakfast with them to be perfect.
Instead, she totally disregarded his words and picked one of the burnt biscuits up and, much to the three men's horror, took a bite out of it.
Gunter fainted automatically from the horror of what they were seeing as Conrad's jaw dropped open in utter shock. While Yozak made a weird little sound in the back of his throat and stared at their Queen with wide uncomprehending and disbelieving eyes. Neither man really knowing what they should do here.
Their Queen- their precious and wonderful Queen was eating burnt food! Why?! Didn't she understand that stuff like that was above her station now? That she should eat only the most delicious and carefully prepared morsels.
"This is amazing!" Ichigo said once she had swallowed what was in her mouth. "It's so buttery and delicious. And it's barely burnt at all, so it still tastes really good. Throwing it out would be a total waste. We should eat them with our breakfast."
Both men felt like they should drop to their knees and start to beg her for forgiveness. After all, their Queen should never degrade herself in such a way. It was wrong. So, so very wrong.
Finally managing to shake himself out of his stupor, Conrad took a step toward her. Slowly, very slowly, with his hands up in the air in a placating gesture since he had no idea how he was going to get the biscuits away from her without making her cry again as he said, "Your majesty-" She shot him a look and he quickly backtracked. "Ichigo, we made plenty of other foods, so there's no need for us to use the biscuits since they're burnt. You don't have to pretend to like them. It really doesn't hurt our feelings any."
She blinked at him and then grabbed the entire tray of the damned things and walked off with them. Brushing past Yozak as she went to the dining room table and causing his normally steely nerved friend to squeak in alarm as she did so.
Conrad sighed as she sat down and then motioned for his friend to help him moved everything else to the table.
Hopefully by doing so, they could use the other, better prepared food to tempt her away from eating any more of the burnt food.
A few minutes later- Conrad was about ready to pull his hair out.
He just didn't understand the reasoning behind why Ichigo would go to the trouble of eating all of the biscuits all by herself. There had been at least a dozen of them on the tray. And what was worse to him was the fact that she had eaten every last one of them without a single complaint.
He understood the concept of not being a picky eater, after all, she had told him as much before. But this was just ridiculous to him.
And horrible. Just horrible!
He wasn't the only one that thought so either.
Yozak hadn't done anything but stare at her in disbelief the whole time. And Gunter- poor Gunter was an utter nervous wreck. The man couldn't seem to stop shaking and sobbing no matter what they said to try and calm him. Conrad had honestly never seen the man like this before. It was...making him more nervous than he already was about this whole incident.
Yet as bothered as each of them were about their Queen eating garbage.
They were also so- so very happy when she finally finished the food off and then politely excused herself from the table to go and get dressed for the day. However not before she collected the tray and her other dishes and then took them into the kitchen and- much to their horror all over again, washed them without a word.
After that, she went back upstairs and left the three men. Which was nice of her since all three finally shared a sigh of relief and visibly slumped in their seats, shaking.
"That was the most horrific thing that I've ever seen." Gunter sobbed.
"I think my life flashed before my eyes." Yozak whined.
"We can never make this mistake again." Conrad hissed in outrage as his hands closed into fists on the table.
The other two men agreed completely. Something like this could never happen, ever again.
Thankfully, by the time Ichigo returned downstairs the three men had recovered from their experience enough to function normally again. Which was just perfect since they were ready and waiting to see what she intended to do now. They knew that she wished to get some more things but weren't really sure what stuff she intended to get.
Upon seeing her walking their way, they took a moment to check out what she was wearing out of curiosity. Much like they had the evening before.
Her appearance was different to them in the light of day.
For starters, she wasn't wearing a hint of cosmetics as she had been the evening before. Which allowed them to see some her facial scars a bit more clearly. And while the scars were faint enough not to detract from her beauty, the men couldn't help but feel a fierce surge of protectiveness unlike anything that they had ever felt before.
So much so that if they ever got their hands on the person/person's that had harmed her in such a horrible way- they would likely rip them apart with their bare hands.
Once they were done vowing bloody vengeance, they each allowed their eyes to sweep over her form from head to toe and were surprised by the fact that she had chosen the most unfeminine clothing that they had ever seen before in their lives. Did the woman own no more dresses?
She was wearing a loose-fitting blue T-shirt and a pair of slightly loose-fitting jeans and what looked like black faux fur trimmed combat boots. Her hair was up in a ponytail that was meant to keep it off of her nape.
Gunter started sobbing again while Yozak growled low in his throat, the drag queen in him wanting to correct this horrible mistake immediately. Even if he could wind up getting yelled at for it. But Conrad grabbed him and slapped a hand over his mouth before he could say anything at all about how she was dressed.
"Your Majesty, you said something about wanting to get more things last night?"
"Uh, yeah that was the plan."
Conrad smiled at her warmly, the gears in his head already turning as he released his friend and gave her a courtly bow. "Then we will accompany you and aid you any way that we can." He said as Yozak practically stomped over to her and grabbed her and tossed her over one of his shoulders and then ran for the door with her screaming in alarm.