Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ Princess of Death ❯ Six-One-Six ( Chapter 9 )

Date written: 06/06/09 - 12/06/09

Posted on FanFiction: 16/06/09

Posted on MediaMiner: 22/08/09

--- CHAPTER 9 ---

Six-One-Six

Orihime waited in anticipation and fear as her story over the past two weeks was now revealed to her best friend, Tatsuki Arisawa. Throughout her telling, Tatsuki was silent. Orihime couldn't be sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing. But she had faith that Tatsuki wouldn't think anything less of her.

“Woah.”

Like the midnight chiming of a clock tower, that one word surprised Orihime that she redirected her gaze from her fondling hands to the small lopsided smile adorning the girl standing beside her. Her eyes held both pride and understanding. And Tatsuki didn't even realize how much the truth of her feelings got Orihime's heart so much at ease.

“I guess you've been through more than just a simple roller coaster ride during those two weeks, huh?”

Orihime chuckled. Last year, she and Tatsuki with her family had visited an amusement park to celebrate their graduation from middle school. It had been Orihime's first time riding a big roller coaster and she had felt too nauseous to continue onto other rides until her stomach untied the knots left behind. Tatsuki had remarked that her face looked very gloomy during the ten minutes she had been barfing out her lunch.

“But still,” Tatsuki continued, “if I hadn't known you as a person that can't lie to save her butt, then I wouldn't have believed you.”

“It's hard to believe, huh,” Orihime said as a statement. “But this is top secret and no other living human must know about it.”

“Even if I did tell someone, I don't think they'll have an open mind to what I'd say. Probably throw me into the loony bin before I could utter another sentence. And even though I find it very hard to believe, I found some proof to back your story up.”

“Proof?”

“You said it all happened when I visited your apartment, right? The same day that, supposedly, a sumo wrestler crashed the wall of your home on the second floor?”

“I was as surprised as you that the memory they replaced with was so—”

“Exaggerated and unbelievable?”

“Cool and imaginative.”

“Right,” she drawled, while rolling her eyes. “To tell you the truth, there were actually two sets of memories that I can recall during that night, but I discarded one of them as probably a dream. Now, I think I may have discarded the wrong one.”

“What did you remember exactly?”

“Well, pain on my shoulder mostly. The ache I had in the morning wasn't much of a hint; I thought I slept in an awkward position during the night, which might have caused it. I also remember what looked like the back of Kuchiki-san and you lying on the floor. That's pretty much the gist of it.”

“I see.”

“But to me, that's more than enough proof that the story you just told me really happened. That, and the fact that I can't think of an actual reason for a sumo wrestler to blast a wall on the second floor of a stranger's apartment without being subjected to my fists and be arrested by the police.”

Orihime smiled. “Thank you, Tatsuki-chan.”

“I should be the one thanking you, Orihime. I know that if it weren't for you, I would've died that night.” Tatsuki held out a hand. “We've been here for quite a while. Skipping classes usually isn't our thing, but I'm sure the teacher wouldn't mind our informal early dismissal.”

“But I'm fine, really. We should just head back to class.”

“After what I heard you do today? Pfft, as if. We both know you're tired as hell, so no need to push yourself, all right? Going too far will do you more harm than good.”

“I guess.”

“Come on. Let's get your bag, and I'll escort you home.”

Orihime slid out of the bed, slipped while putting on her indoor school shoes standing up, and crashed herself onto Tatsuki's torso. Tatsuki had a good look of Orihime's eyes, leaving Orihime to wonder if her irises turned color again since she was staring intently at them.

“Guess you're more tired out than I thought,” Tatsuki said. “I think it's better you rest here, instead.”

“I just tripped, that's all.”

“Your skin is a little pale. I can even see the dark circles under your eyes. That's a sure sign of fatigue, so I think you should rest here until the end of class.”

“But it's only an hour before the end of school,” Orihime whined. “I don't want to miss out on English class.”

“No means no,” Tatsuki said that as a final warning. It was either Orihime complied or she would force her to rest. Either way, Orihime knew it was for her own good . . . but what about English class? Looking at Tatsuki's scolding look, like how a child would look at their parents when they were staying up way passed their bedtime, she reluctantly lied back down on the bed. “Good girl.”

“Will you be going back to class?”

Tatsuki shook her head. “No, I'll be staying here, watching over you. And before you say anything, I'm doing this to be sure you're all right. Besides, you'll need me to wake you up when it's time to leave.”

Orihime wanted to reply but found no words to say. Her head rested neatly on the fluffy pillow; she was comfortable and at peace for the time being. And it wasn't long before sleep was edging through her consciousness. This time, she let it take over, trusting Tatsuki to watch over her for at least an hour until she recuperate a bit of her energy.

Her dreams were filled with darkness, ambiguity, and the silhouette of a woman with dangerous-looking, chocolate brown eyes.

Ichigo walked home right after school ended. Rukia followed him closely but he didn't care much about that. In his pocket was the pill of the Mod Soul he was planning on using as a stress-reliever. Now Ichigo was not the kind of guy who would build up stress in just a few hours, but the battles he faced and all the trouble and embarrassment caused by one measly artificially-created soul encased inside a candy-looking pill was putting his stress meter to the limit. The pain on his shoulder was still a nuisance; another thing to add into his `Beat up Mod Soul' list. The problem, however, was how exactly could he exact his revenge on a pill?

So, without really thinking, he had tried to search for something for the Mod Soul to occupy other than the Soul Candy. But when he had reached the gates of the school, he realized he didn't know where he could find an empty body for the Mod Soul to use. He tried asking Rukia but all she said that he needed to find a corpse for what he was trying to do.

That was close to impossible. Ichigo thought about doing a stakeout on the public roads and wait for a stray cat to get run over. He would then use the dead carcass for the Mod Soul. Rukia only said a corpse; she didn't say that it would have to be a human corpse. But he didn't have the time or the patience to sit around all day just to wait for some careless driver to make some roadkill for him. So the stakeout idea was a bust.

So when he and Rukia were passing by the Mashiba district by the place where a certain Japanese company was constructing a new small office building for their Karakura branch, he spotted something on top of a cluster of garbage bags. An idea went through his head and he pondered it over, listing out the pros and cons of the concept. The object on top of the garbage bags looked like an animal. It was definitely empty, too. And he was pretty sure it could be considered as a `corpse' if you define it as a body that's lacking life. But just to be sure . . .

“Hey, Rukia, do you think a plush toy can be used for the Mod Soul?”

Rukia contemplated it, then shrugged. “Not sure. But I think it might not work.”

“Well, there's no harm in trying. Where do you think I should put the pill?”

“Usually, you just ingest it into a corpse, so I think inserting it in the mouth should be fine.”

“All right.” And with that, Ichigo pulled out the Mod Soul pill and placed into the mouth of a worn out lion doll. They waited for about ten seconds but nothing happened. “Didn't work.”

“FIGHT ME!”

Those two words surprised both of them, and Ichigo wasn't prepared for the lion doll to suddenly come to life and attack his face with its garbage-smelling body. The doll reeked of garbage, probably had been sitting on that pile for a day or two. And that smell wasn't necessarily making peace with his sinuses. Without hesitation, he grabbed the toy by its soft spine and threw it to the pavement with an irritated grunt.

“Ah! Damn you, Ichigo,” the Mod Soul said, as it picked itself off of the ground. “Don't just stand there and . . . fight . . . me?” At that point, it moved its head up to finally look directly at Ichigo's face. Oh, this is going to be fun.

“Yo, bastard,” Ichigo said. He was unable to get the smug out of his face.

“Heh?! Y—you're huge! Wait a minute. You're not huge. What the hell? I'm tiny! What did you do to me?”

Ichigo kneeled to the Mod Soul's level. “I'm still pissed at your Hulk comment,” he said, cracking his knuckles. “Ready to be my little punching bag?”

The Mod Soul was sweating like it was sunbathing in the Sahara desert at noon. “N—N—N—N—NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

The agonizing screams echoed throughout Karakura.

Ichigo was running. His breath was ragged and his legs were like stiff twigs that were close to breaking their joints. He was pushing himself to the limit. He didn't know how long he had been running but he didn't care. He wanted to get away. Needed to get away.

His zanpakuto was gone, destroyed by the person he was running from. He could feel the person's stare on his back as he swerved to the next street, passing through every human in the vicinity. Faces he did not recognize come and go from his mentality. Sightseeing was for the absent-minded. If he wanted to stay alive, he would do well to keep running.

But that's all he had been doing: Running. He never faced this problem all this time, and he feared he never will. The wounds inflicted upon his person were mild and quite nonlethal. But the scars that were not physical were buried deeper, crawling through his feelings, his emotions, and also his sanity. The person after him was the cause but, at the same time, was not the cause. Nothing makes sense in this world of cat and mouse, where he will always be the mouse, the weakling, the non-decisive bastard.

He felt a pang on his chest; his legs stopped like they were instantly glued onto the pavement. Looking down, he saw the tip of a black blade exiting through the center of his chest. Blood dripped from both its blunt and sharp edges. It was his blood.

“Pathetic,” a feminine voice whispered. “You're so pathetic, Ichigo.”

Suddenly, the world all around him dispersed into fragments like a shattering mirror. One by one, the shards fell into a dark abyss below him. It was void of everything, and not even his eyes could comprehend what lay beneath that void. And as the last shard dangled then fell along with the rest, the person he had been running from materialized in front of him.

She was smiling. That smile . . . that smile . . . it made him feel cold and defenseless. She made a grab for the blade protruding from Ichigo's solar plexus—her smile widening into an evil grin when she saw him stiffen—and started pulling it out. Ichigo tried to scream but it went out as a muffled whimper. His body quivered as inch-by-inch, the black blade slithered through his abdomen until the hilt guard reached his back. The person frowned a bit when her pulling halted from a slight obstacle, but she grinned again when she tightened her grip on the blade, cutting her own hand in the process, and then pulled it without restraint. He got pulled along, silently screaming.

The person hugged him, while her free hand was placed on his nape. Ichigo had a close look at that person's alluring chocolate brown eyes as she rubbed his nape that sent hot chills down his spine. He tried to push her back but the chills had somehow paralyzed his motor movements. Her hand moved from his nape to his cheeks as he did all he could to keep on resisting. Her eyes were inviting him in, to succumb to her commands, to obey her, to stop his resistance. And he tried his hardest to look away.

“You can't resist me, Ichigo,” the person said, her dark orange hair dazzled along an imaginary wind. Her eyes were hollow and contained none of the gentle nature the former person had; what was left were the confidence and carnal desires, seeping through her gaze like a radar for men to let them know she was in heat and in need for some fun.“I controlled the princess bitch. What's stopping me from controlling you as well?”

“Get the hell away from me!” he wanted to scream but his lips didn't move.

“The day is close, boy. The nightmare has only just begun.” She leaned closer to his face.

“Ichigo-kun,” another feminine voice whispered, stopping the person's progress in getting any closer than a nose-to-nose confrontation. The voice was gentle, caring, and one he was all too familiar with, even though it had been years since he last heard it. “Ichigo-kun. My baby.”

“Mom,” Ichigo whispered. Though he couldn't see his mother, he could feel her presence.

“Let him go, now,” his mother, Masaki Kurosaki, demanded at his captor.

The brown-eyed female scowled at Masaki, and hugged Ichigo even closer, giving Ichigo the pleasure and torture of feeling the woman's healthy double assets. “You're more of an eyesore than the princess bitch,” she said, then grinned. “No matter. Everything will fall into place, in the end.”

He could almost image Masaki widening her eyes at that statement. “No! I won't let you do that to him.”

“And who will stop me, a ghost?” His captor laughed. “Well, I'm curious to see you try. Mama wants to rescue her little baby-kins. Isn't that sweet, Ichigo?”

“Stay away from him!”

A scowl of irritation appeared on his captors features. “I had my fun with you. Time to go, old lady.”

“Mom,” Ichigo murmured, trying again to move, but the best he could do was a tiny twitch of his right forefinger. “Mom. Mom!”

“Say goodbye to Mama now, baby-kins.”

“ICHIGO!” The sword that was embedded in him moments before was suddenly pulled out through his back. He saw his captor moved it behind her, and then plunged it into someone away from his view. The sound of tearing flesh echoed in his ears.

His mother screamed.

“MOM!”

His scream was full of sorrow, but, thankfully, it did not carry onto his waking from the hellish nightmare of the night.

Ichigo gasped for air as he sat upright in his bed. He was sweating profusely, and he rubbed the spot around his solar plexus where the black blade had been plunged into him inside his nightmare. It had all been so real, so vivid, that he almost thought that it wasn't a dream at all. But there was no mistaking that the terror he had felt from the person tormenting him was the same as when he had first met her in that fateful night two weeks ago. He could never forget that smile.

That brown-eyed Orihime wanted him. It had been clear in her seductive stare. She wanted him, and there was nothing he could do to stop himself from wanting her back. Something . . . attractive about her had almost pulled him into a fate he now wanted to avoid after that vampire-like touch as she grazed her hand on his cheek, which drained his energy faster than he could realize it to move away. By then, she would have already pulled him into her trance. If it hadn't been for Rukia, he might not have snapped out of the trance at all.

And his dream fully mimicked that trance. That was what scared him. If his mind could even copy that alluring kind of hypnotism, he felt like he wasn't even safe from himself as well. He didn't even want to think about what might happen to him if he had fully drowned into the trance inside his own dream.

Nothing, he thought, nothing will happen. It's all just a dream, for God's sake, nothing more. Yet why did it impacted him greatly? Was it because of his mother's appearance? He hadn't had a dream about her like this in years. A day before her death anniversary, he would dream about that unforgettable rainy day where he found himself alive and his mother dead. On and off, he had the usual nightmares months after the tragedy, but none compared to what he just experienced now. Was it really just a dream?

He covered his face with both hands, sighing through the cracks of his fingers as he shifted his palms through his hair and then to the back of his head. His eyes were closed but he could already tell that it was still night time. Judging by the lack of sound coming from his closet or his desk, he surmised that neither Rukia nor Kon (the newly named Mod Soul) had even noticed his sudden waking. He intended to keep it that way. It wouldn't do to dwell into the past and his fucked-up nightmares. But a question was still itching in his head, though.

Why was the other Orihime in that dream?

Leaving that on the backburner for now, Ichigo tried to go back to sleep. He still had school in the morning, and he didn't want to oversleep because of a simple and relatively normal midnight awakening.

Ichigo rested his head back onto the pillow, stared at the white ceiling that was bathed in darkness as well as mild illumination from the moon outside his open-curtain window, and closed his eyes for sleep to greet him with open arms.

By the time Ichigo had woken up through Kon's Isshin-like way of waking him up, he had forgotten all about the dream. He had the vaguest recollection of waking in the middle of the night, but it was jagged and confusing.

But one thing still made him uneasy.

Today was June 16, the day before his mother died.

It was another day and another day for school, though it had less tension than before. Orihime felt better now that she didn't have to hide much of her activities to her best friend, but at the same time, she wanted to keep Tatsuki as far away from her troubles as possible. It may be her decision to let Tatsuki know about her duty, you might say, but the uneasiness in losing a friend because of it still haunted her. Tatsuki seemed to understand her intentions but didn't really take any action to it. Orihime guessed it may be the fighter's side of Tatsuki acting without much thought about getting hurt when playing with fire. She didn't want to look dependable, so she wasn't promising Orihime that she'd stay away from Hollows.

She and Tatsuki were just sitting around in their classroom, waiting for the rest of their classmates to pile in and for class to begin.

“Tatsuki!” one of their classmates, Michiru Ogawa, called. Michiru was a short girl with short brown hair, but a smile was often on her face. People would sometimes say that she rivaled Orihime in the smiling department. But in contrast to Orihime, Michiru tended to stir clear of people who didn't smile at all. That meant the short girl was terrified of Ichigo as well as the stoic genius, Uryuu Ishida. “You have art class, right?”

Tatsuki turned to her and nodded. “Why?”

“Did you do the `My Future Self' project?”

“Yeah.” Tatsuki puffed out her chest with pride. “It's quite a masterpiece, if I do say so myself.”

“Really? Can I see it? I—I'm not really confident about mine.” Michiru fondled her art project in her hands.

“Sure.” Tatsuki opened up her bag and pulled out her sketchbook and turned the pages. “Here it is.”

Michiru and Orihime looked at the drawing. It showed Tatsuki holding up what looked like a belt to an audience in the background. The foreground was made up of a white mat and ropes tied against posts, making Orihime think about the arena of wrestlers or boxers. Orihime already knew what Tatsuki was aspiring for: A martial arts champion. Tatsuki took pride in wanting to win that champion belt, as much as how she prided making a drawing of her future self actually winning it. So Orihime wasn't surprised of her friend's boasting. And besides, her drawing was very vivid, excellent, and artistic.

“Wow!” Michiru awed. “Amazing. Just seeing Tatsuki's work is making me self-conscious about what I did.” She then turned Orihime. “What about you, Orihime? Did you do the project, too?”

“Yes,” Orihime answered. “I was hoping you would ask, and, like Tatsuki, I'm very proud of it.”

The drawing Orihime made was different than the first one she had already done. The art project had been announced around three weeks ago; she finished it two days after the announcement. But last night reminded her of the project's deadline, and she suddenly had a change of thought in what she wanted to be in the future. At first, she had drawn a version of what she might be in the `Future' and not the actual future. Since robots were usually present in sci-fi movies about the future, she thought about drawing herself as a robot herself . . . with super-cool features and equipment to make it more interesting. But now, just roughly two hours after revealing to her best friend about her secrets, she decided to scrap her first attempt and redo the whole project. She had all night to do it, but amazingly she finished before midnight. She shouldn't have skipped dinner, but she also didn't want to lose the flow of her drawing as her hand and drawing tools sketched the curves, filled the shades, and colored the whole picture. The end result exceeded her expectations.

“Tada!”

Tatsuki was visibly impressed; Michiru was very confused.

“A . . . kunoichi?” Michiru guessed, not clearly getting the image of the illustration.

Orihime shook her head. “No, my future self is a shinigami.”

The new picture Orihime drew was herself in her shinigami robes and holding a red parasol. Her zanpakuto was on the left side of her waist, though only half of it was shown in the illustration. But the expression she drew on her face was of utmost seriousness, a great contrast to her present personality. While she had been coloring up the face, she almost colored the eyes brown instead of gray; she had shivered a little after that. Her hands were drawn each holding something: Her right held the red parasol while her left held the tip of her zanpakuto's hilt.

“A . . . shinigami?” Michiru repeated, tilting her head.

Orihime nodded enthusiastically. She was about to elaborate on her drawing but her eyes caught the sight of orange moving from the door to the inside of the classroom. She closed her sketchbook, wanting to hide this bit of intentions-revealing art from Ichigo, who passed both her and Tatsuki's seats without even a slight glance.

Not deterred by his ignoring them, Orihime stood up from her chair and waved at Ichigo. “Good morning, Kurosaki-kun!”

Ichigo stopped, looked over his shoulder, and . . . smiled? “Morning, Inoue.”

His smile was faked. Orihime immediately understood that. Ichigo rarely smiled, but it shouldn't look like it was quite forced. From his posture alone, Orihime now noticed, Ichigo looked really tense about something.

“Eh?” Michiru stared at him, looking dumbfounded. “Did . . . Did Kurosaki just smile? He must be in a really good mood, huh, Orihime?”

Orihime didn't think so. “Why does Kurosaki-kun look so tense?” she asked herself, not really knowing that she said it out loud.

“Michiru,” Tatsuki said, “what's the date?”

“Um . . . I think it's the sixteenth,” Michiru replied. Orihime saw Michiru look at her digital watch for confirmation. “Yes, it's the sixteenth today.”

“I see. Orihime, you're really amazing.”

Ichigo smiled at Keigo after he delivered the punchline of a joke he just said. He didn't laugh or even chuckled, though.

“It took me almost three years to realize he was only faking that smile,” Tatsuki added. She then whispered, “All because of tomorrow.”

“Tatsuki-chan?”

“I know why he's so tense. Tomorrow will be the day he'll skip school to take care of a . . . family matter.”

“A family matter?”

Tatsuki shook her head, facing away from her. “Not now. How about I tell you later?”

Orihime knew that that question was actually a statement. But she answered her anyway. “All right.”

“Thanks,” she whispered before replacing her sketchbook back into her bag, just as the teacher entered the class and thus began homeroom.

Most of the day almost seemed like a blur as Ichigo kept on smiling at anyone and everyone. Orihime wanted to ask Ichigo himself about why he was so tense, but what Tatsuki said to her kept her from doing so. She somehow knew that even if she were to confront Ichigo about this, he would not answer her straight. The only way for her to get some actual answers was to wait for Tatsuki to be ready in telling her. Whatever got Ichigo so tensed must be a personal matter along with the family matter Tatsuki had mentioned. It intrigued her.

And even though she knew that curiosity killed the cat, Orihime couldn't help but know what was wrong with Ichigo today.

That night, Tatsuki told her everything.

In the south-eastern side of Karakura, near the border of the Kinogaya district, there was a disturbance in the air. Night was its personal playground. And with a full moon, the one who was causing the disturbance considered it a perfect night. It took refuge inside a condemned apartment building, seeking darkness like a loyal believer. It wasn't alone, though. A homeless drifter was sleeping soundly in his makeshift cardboard cot, lying not more than eight feet from the disturbance. And not once did he find anything wrong. He just kept sleeping, clueless of the fate he will soon face.

The disturbance moved the still wind. The darkness magnified and the shattered windows of the second floor frosted like thick ice. The cold invaded soon after.

The drifter snorted and tucked his dirty blanket to make him more comfortable. Sleep was more important for his carefree mind.

The air around the center of the disturbance twisted in shape, bending light in such a degree that it almost looked like a circular version of a wacky mirror you mostly find in carnivals. This distortion enclosed the light until the center bore a hole of darkness. There was an audible crack, banishing silence by a long shot. The hole expanded and contracted, reaching the outer limits of the distortion like growing black tree roots. The actual outcome of the whole event—which took just ten seconds to complete—was a portal looking like a human-sized parasite.

The drifter woke suddenly as he shivered in the change of temperature. Sleep was important for his carefree mind . . . but not even his basic survival instincts would ignore a swift change in the absence of heat like he had been teleported into the middle of Hokkaido. He stared right at the portal from which this whole disturbance originated from, but his eyes weren't comprehending anything from the roots to the human-shaped shadow exiting the portal's void center; he was only seeing an empty and abandoned room, where he took refuge yesterday.

Mumbling about getting thicker blankets on his next voyage, he forced himself back to sleep.

He didn't even notice the shadow walking straight up to where he slept. It did a once-over on the harmless drifter before it opened its wide mouth and inhaled a mass of air, sucking up everything like a high-powered vacuum. The soul of the drifter ejected out of his body, and only his chain of fate was what was keeping him from being completely sucked into the mouth of the shadow.

Even with the light feeling and absence of a blanket, the drifter's soul slept on.

The shadow halted the passage of air and snapped his mouth shut, making sure to engulf the whole soul. The chain of fate was then severed.

Swallowing without even bother of chewing the panicking morsel in its wide mouth, the shadow looked around the empty room. Finding nothing to further satisfy its hunger for souls, it leaped out from one of the glass-less windows and disappeared into the night.

While the human-shaped shadow was feasting on a homeless stranger, Rukia's cell phone ringed once, then became silent. She was finding it weird that it would ring only once in every three days. Another mystery she might need to solve, though she's more akin to point fingers at the manufacturers of the phone for faults and glitches in the main system. Nevertheless, the ring-once incidents weren't a sudden cause for alert and Rukia would always put it on the backburner to rot until it was disposed by forgetfulness.