Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ Dark Heart Dawning ❯ Chapter Six ( Chapter 6 )

Daria was awoken by the sound of a soft, almost hesitant knocking on her bedroom door. If she hadn't already been half-awake, she never would have heard it. Sitting up, she rubbed the sleep from her eyes and ran her fingers back through her hair in a vain attempt to get it into some sort of presentable style. Sighing, she straightened the comforter over her legs and told whoever was at the door to come in.

“Excuse me, Miss Daria,” Ururu said timidly, sliding open the door and stepping inside. Her arms were laden with a large tray full of food, which she laid down on the floor next to Daria before rushing back out into the hall. Daria blinked, wondering why she had left so quickly, but a moment later the girl was back, this time carrying a basin full of water and a small assortment of shaped soaps in a basket, a towel thrown over her shoulder. She placed the items near the bed and hurried from the room once more, returning again after only a few seconds with a set of neatly folded clothes in her hands.

“Mr. Kisuke asked me to bring you these things,” she told the woman, holding out the clothes to her. Daria took them, smiling. “You can eat whatever you prefer, and then you can wash up using whichever of these pretty soaps you like. I'm sorry about your other dress, though. Mr. Uryuu couldn't fix it, but he made you these new clothes, instead.”

“Thank you, Ururu,” Daria said, setting the clothes aside. As she turned back toward the girl, she noticed that she wore a shirt bearing the same logo as the one she currently had on.

“This is my home. I own the shop downstairs, as well.”

The man's words repeated in her mind, and she realized the logo must be for the shop. And since it was his home, then that must mean...

“Ururu, did Mr. Urahara change my clothes?” she asked, her eyes going a bit wide as it suddenly dawned on her that he had been the only adult she'd seen in the house since waking up. She thought of the way he had looked at her, the intensity in his grey eyes, and wondered if underneath that seemingly kind exterior there lay a sexual predator.

“No, Miss Yoruichi did,” Ururu answered, her dark ponytails bobbing a bit as she shook her head.

“Miss Yoruichi?” Daria asked, wondering who this person was.

“She's Mr. Kisuke's lady friend,” Ururu explained. “She lives here, too.”

So he had a live-in girlfriend? He certainly didn't act like he was in a committed relationship, the way he had so obviously flirted with her. She wondered if the cat belonged to his girlfriend, since it seemed to pick up on the tone of his voice and sink its claws into his leg when he'd turned on the charm.

Sighing a bit, she began to eat the breakfast that had been prepared for her. Ururu stayed to keep her company, bringing over the basket of soaps to help her choose one. The girl showed her her favorite one – a yellow bar shaped like a rubber duck, complete with an orange beak and a painted-on eye. Daria ended up selecting a pink bar shaped like a conch shell.

“Well, it's good that I've caught you while you're still decent,” Kisuke said, standing in the doorway. Ururu blushed a little, realizing she had forgotten to close the door after bringing everything into the room.

“I trust everything is to your satisfaction?” he asked, stepping into the room and going over to where the two of them sat, patting Ururu on the head in a comforting manner. Daria knew the two of them weren't related, but she sensed a strong father-daughter bond between the two of them.

“Everything is wonderful, thank you,” she replied quietly, and Kisuke turned his head slightly to look at her, surprised by the underlying sadness he heard in her voice. Her eyes were closed, her head lowered slightly almost as if she was in mourning.

“Is something wrong, Daria?” he wondered, his voice just as quiet as hers had been. She immediately opened her eyes and looked up at him, smiling as she shook her head, but he could see it in her eyes that she was lying. He opened his mouth, about to call her on it, but decided against putting her on the spot. He figured she'd been through enough, lately.

The black cat from the day before wandered into the room, taking a seat on the floor next to the tray of food which Daria had mostly consumed, and meowed loudly as it looked up at him.

“Alright, alright... I'm going,” he said in mock indignation, smiling as he winked at Daria before leaving the bedroom and sliding the door shut behind him.

“Are you sure everything's okay, Miss Daria?” Ururu asked, her blue eyes full of concern. Daria's smile fell a bit as she turned to the girl.

“You two are really close, huh?” she asked, referring to the relationship the girl had with her employer.

Ururu nodded. “Jinta and I don't have any family, so Mr. Kisuke and Mr. Tessai took us both in. Oh!” she gasped, knowing she hadn't yet met the other man. “Mr. Tessai is the one who healed you. He also does all the cooking.”

“Well, be sure to tell him thank you, and that his cooking is delicious,” Daria told her.

“You can thank him when you see him downstairs,” Ururu informed her. “After you're all dressed, Mr. Kisuke wants us to go down to the sitting room so you can meet everyone.”

Just how many people live in this house? Daria wondered.

Nodding, Daria stood from the bed and made her way over to the water basin, pulling off her shirt as she crossed the room. Thankfully, she had discovered that whoever had undressed her had left her underwear on her. She was still a bit relieved to hear that she had been undressed by a woman, though. Not that she was a prude, but she just didn't like the idea of a strange man touching her naked body while she was unconscious.

“That's a pretty necklace,” Ururu said as she stood next to Daria, holding the soft towel for her until she was ready for it. Daria splashed some water onto her face and turned toward the girl, opening her eyes and causing a few droplets to drip from her lashes onto her cheek, then looked down at the emerald hanging from her neck and lifted it up to allow her to look more closely at it.

“You like it?” she asked, and Ururu nodded. “It was a gift from my father. He died when I was a baby.”

“Oh...” Ururu said sadly, now knowing what had been bothering the woman before. She had never known her own father, so seeing Kisuke treating her like his own daughter must have reminded her of how painful it was growing up without him. The girl reached out with one of her small hands and took the jewel Daria was holding out to her. It was irregularly-shaped, not square like most emeralds one saw in a jewelry store, and on the largest flat surface there was a symbol etched into the stone.

“What does this mean?” she asked, running her thumb over the strange carving. It looked exactly the way Yoruichi had described to her.

“It's a Nordic rune,” Daria explained. “It means 'protection'. I haven't taken it off since the day I got it, although I'm beginning to doubt just how effective it is, now.”

Ururu looked up at her face and found her genuinely smiling, the grief in her eyes replaced by a subtle humorous spark. Ururu smiled, feeling much better herself now that she no longer seemed sad. Daria reached up and ruffled the girl's hair, then returned to washing up, and Ururu cast a glance across the room at where Yoruichi was sitting. The cat nodded and she went back to attending to Daria, handing her the towel when she requested it and fetching the clothes for her when she asked for them.

“I hate to be a bother,” she said as she pulled the frilly white blouse on over her head and tied the dark blue ribbon at the neck into a bow. “Do you happen to have a hairbrush I can use? I'd really hate to go meet a bunch of people looking like this,” she added, pointing to her knotted hair. “And an elastic of some sort would be nice, as well.”

“Of course!” Ururu replied, eager to help however she could. She rushed from the room, Yoruichi following her, and paused at the door of her own room, turning back to address the feline.

“Did I do good, Miss Yoruichi?” she asked.

“Very good, Ururu,” Yoruichi assured her, nodding. “Thank you for your help.”

“Any time,” the girl replied with a smile before disappearing into her room to retrieve her hair brush and an extra elastic for Daria.

Yoruichi went back down the hall and peeked in through Daria's open door, making sure she wasn't able to see out into the hallway before reverting to her human form and slipping into Kisuke's room to retrieve her clothes. She would have liked to remain in her other form so as to avoid the restricting attire, but she had some questions for Miss Daria Novikov that she wanted to ask her, personally.

*********************

Daria blinked in shock at the number of people seated around the low table in the large sitting room downstairs. Surely, not all of them lived at this shop? Aside from the shopkeeper and Ururu, there were eight other people in the room, each vastly different in appearance. Next to Ururu sat a boy roughly the same age with short red hair, wearing a shirt with an identical logo on the front – Jinta, she assumed, remembering what Ururu had said about the two men who ran the shop having taken in two children. Between Jinta and Ururu sat a gruff-looking man with glasses and a large mustache, wearing a dark blue apron with the first symbol for the 'Urahara Shop' logo in yellow on it. Based on what she had heard, she figured this must be Tessai, the man who healed her. The others, though... she had no idea who they were. She assumed two of them must be the shinigami who had saved her from that hollow, but there were two girls and four other men present so she had no idea which two they were.

“Excuse me,” came a female voice from behind her, and Daria turned around to find a woman with dark skin, unusual golden eyes, and long purple hair pulled up into a high ponytail standing behind her. Daria muttered an apology and stepped fully into the room and over to the side, standing against the wall by the doorway with her hands clasped together in front of her. The woman walked by and took a seat at the table across from Kisuke, putting her between a young man with spiky orange hair and another boy with dark hair and glasses.

“That outfit looks wonderful on you,” the boy with the glasses remarked, smiling proudly as he looked her over.

Daria looked down at the ensemble that had been brought for her to wear: A white blouse with lace trim around the collar and cap sleeves and a blue ribbon accent at the neck, and a knee-length skirt made of light blue material with darker blue crosses printed on it. It wasn't what she would normally choose to wear, herself, but it has been expertly tailored and fit her perfectly. The proud look on the boy's face meant he must be the one named Uryuu.

“Can you ever make anything that doesn't have that stupid Quincy cross all over it?” asked the boy with the orange hair, and Daria immediately recognized his voice as the one belonging to one of her rescuers. Which meant that he must be Ichigo Kurosaki.

“Hey!” shot back Uryuu angrily. “Just because I have pride in being a Quincy doesn't mean you get to ridicule my work!”

“Now, now,” Kisuke said, waving his hands to attempt to calm them down. “Can we please not fight in front of our guest?” The two boys glared at each other briefly around the woman sitting between them, then looked away from one another with a huff.

“Allow me to make the introductions,” Kisuke continued once the fight had been broken up. “Everyone, this is Daria Novikov. Now... You've already met Ururu. This is Tessai Tsukabichi and Jinta Hanakari,” he told her, going around the table to his left.

“I figured as much from what Ururu told me,” Daria replied with a smile, bowing deeply to the large man. “I wanted to thank you for what you did to help me, Mr. Tsukabishi.”

Tessai nodded. “You are very welcome, Miss Daria. I'm glad that I could help. And please, Tessai will be fine.”

“Next we have Renji Abarai, who's also currently staying here,” Kisuke stated, picking up where he had left off and gesturing toward a young man with a bright red ponytail and numerous tattoos that made him look a bit like a street thug. “He's a shinigami, as well as Rukia and Ichigo, who I told you about earlier. Next to Ichigo is another resident of the Urahara Shop, Yoruichi Shihouin.”

So the dark-skinned woman was his girlfriend. She narrowed her golden eyes at Daria slightly, arms crossed tightly over her chest, and Daria averted her eyes from the woman, reaching behind her head to run her hand along the length of the ponytail she had pulled her hair back into in a nervous fashion.

“Finally, we have Uryuu Ishida, Yasutora Sado – also known as Chad – and Orihime Inoue, who go to school with Ichigo,” Kisuke concluded, gesturing toward the boy with glasses, a large, very muscular young man with messy dark hair, and a rather well-endowed girl with long auburn hair held back from her face by a pair of hair clips with flowers on them. The girl smiled and waved at Daria, and she hesitantly waved back.

“So, now that that's out of the way... Please, have a seat,” Kisuke requested, patting the spot next to him. Daria cast a wary glance at Yoruichi and reluctantly sat down next to him. She noticed that Renji scooted back from the table several inches as she sat down and wondered what his problem was, deciding to ask him later once the others had left.

“It's good to see you recovered so quickly,” Orihime said cheerfully, leaning toward her a bit as she spoke.

“Yeah,” Ichigo agreed, the slightest bit of a smile tugging at his lips. “You don't even look like someone who was nearly killed by a hollow.”

“We're all glad she's recovered, right?” Kisuke asked, looking pointedly at Yoruichi, who didn't respond.

“What were those things that showed up when you were attacked?” she asked bluntly, glaring at him as she spoke before turning her attention to Daria.

“It... It was a hollow, wasn't it?” Daria answered, looking to Kisuke to back her up.

“Yoruichi-san,” he said her name, the tone of his voice a warning. Yoruichi slammed her open hands down on top of the table, causing nearly everyone to jump.

“Dammit, Kisuke, you know she has something to do with this!” she yelled at him. “I let you play nice with her yesterday, since she just woke up, but now it is time for some answers.”

“What is she talking about, Urahara?” Uryuu asked, pushing his glasses up with one finger as he cringed away from the noise.

Kisuke sighed and crossed his arms over his chest, his hands disappearing in the sleeves of his overcoat.

“Ichigo and Rukia encountered a new type of enemy creature when they rescued Daria from the hollow that attacked her,” he stated.

“And neither we, nor anyone within the Soul Society can figure out what they are,” Yoruichi continued. “However, this girl must know something about them.”

“Me?” Daria asked, blinking in surprise as the woman looked at her accusingly. “I don't have a clue what you're talking about, I swear!”

“Black humanoid figures with sharp black teeth and glowing red eyes.”

Yoruichi continued to stare her down as she described them, as much for those there who hadn't yet heard about these strange creature as for the purpose of cornering the girl into a lie. Daria's eyes began to show the slightest amount of fear and she clenched her hands together into fists to keep them from shaking as she stood up, steadily holding the other woman's cold gaze.

“Again, I don't know what the hell you're talking about,” she repeated, her voice wavering slightly. “And I refuse to stay here and be subjected to this inquisition.” She turned toward Kisuke and bowed slightly, then addressed him directly.

“Mr. Urahara, thank you for your hospitality, but I must be going now. It was nice to meet you all,” she said to the others. “Mr. Ishida, thank you for the new clothes. Good bye.”

She turned on her heel and stalked out of the room, and they listened as she walked out through the shop at the front of the building and shut the door hard behind her. Kisuke glared across the table at Yoruichi, who had once again crossed her arms over her chest.

“She was lying about not knowing what they are,” she told him with an air of superiority.

“Oh? And what proof do you have of that?” Kisuke asked her almost mockingly.

“Did you see how frightened she was when I told her we knew what they looked like?” she replied. “She was scared because she knows we'll eventually find evidence to tie their appearance to her.”

“Or she was scared to death because you were accusing her of something she knows nothing about, and not being very nice about it, I might add,” he argued.

“Guys!” Ichigo shouted, holding up both hands to stop their fighting. “She mentioned that hollow like she knows what they are.”

“I told her about them,” Kisuke admitted, “as well as about you and Rukia being shinigami and what you do.”

“She can see hollows?” Rukia asked, a note of urgency in her voice.

“Yes, but I...”

Kisuke's voice trailed off as he realized what the two of them had been getting at: Daria could see hollows. Which meant she possessed the kind of reiatsu they liked to feed on the most. And she had just left the safety of the Urahara Shop in a heightened emotional state, which meant they would be even more drawn to her.

“Let's go!” Ichigo said, using his combat pass to release his soul from his body. Renji and Rukia followed suit, using their Soul Candy, and the three shinigami hurried out of the store to find Daria before she could get attacked again.