Still even if that part of him changed after his mother’s sudden death it never changed what he was at his core, a kind person who would purposefully go out of his way to help anyone... even if they were no longer alive. Most would and did consider it deranged that Ichigo claimed to see and even hear the spirits of the dearly departed, but Tatsuki was not one of them given that she knew that Ichigo was never afraid of telling the truth.
There was also the fact that shortly after they met she could begin to see ghosts too, faintly at first, but over the years they became clearer and more visible. In fact a few months ago she not only began to see them completely but also hear and even touch them. Of course lately it became a bit of a headache, after all when sometimes lonely ghosts could be very annoying when they decided to haunt you for a little attention. Still of all the spirits she had seen recently none were the Kurosakis. Oh well, they all missed their mom so much ever since she died eleven years ago, more than likely they just decided not to stick around and just moved on.
Still everyone needed their grave looked after, and with no living relatives to do it the task might as well fall to an old friend of the family. Besides it wasn’t like Ichigo’s buddy Keigo was responsible enough to do it; that joker was too busy these days trying to hit on everything that walked up-right. After her long walk up the path to the cemetery she finally came across the row with the markers for the Kurosakis, strangely the graves were already cleaned and attended to with incense sticks before them already burning out.
Wondering just who would do that she noticed a couple of flowers in front of Ichigo’s marker, picking them she easily recognized the rose despite the fact that it was yellow, but the smaller one took her a second… “Edelweiss, wait a minute friendship and noble courage... oh wait Chad must have just been here.”
Tatsuki actually smiled for a second, at the realization that the half-Mexican gentle-giant had actually beaten her to the cemetery by what looked like several hours to pay his respect. She had just brushed away the ashes from her the slot in front of her friend’s marker, and finished setting the lit incense sticks in the slots in front of Ichigo’s father when she heard it... a horrible blood-curdling howling-roar, like a mix of feral-starvation and a furious, jealous-rage.
It took a minute to look around and spot the source, Tatsuki finally spotted it a large black-skinned beast with a head that looked like the grotesque parody of a human skull chasing what looked like the soul of either a young middle school or an older primary school girl. Either way the girl was obviously terrified, and if there was one thing that Tatsuki always hated it was a bully; however despite how good she was at Karate Tatsuki was under no delusions over her skill verses what she could clearly tell was some manner of dangerous demon. Still everything had its weaknesses, and for anything this big to be bi-pedal it had to put a large strain on the legs.
It turned out her guess was right as she knocked the beasts legs out from under it, still before she could even think about what to do next two things happened; one she spotted a second similar monster, and two a girl in a black hakama appeared out of nowhere to decapitate the beast she had just knocked down.
Before Tatsuki knew it the other monster vanished back into thin air just as the first one began dissolving into wisps of light, also the ghost of the girl she had spotted earlier was now nowhere to be found. After the monster dissolved, the girl sword-wielding girl in the hakama brought out a cell phone and looked at it for a second before swearing, “Damn the other one must have gone into hiding.” And after replacing the cell phone within her robes leapt off into the distance and disappeared.
Tatsuki considered for a second that she might be hallucinating, and have just imagined the whole thing... at least she did until she noticed the crushed rubble near where the monster had fallen, “At least I know I wasn’t seeing things,” the high-school karate champ said to herself, “the question is just what the hell was it I just saw.”
It took an afternoon at her dojo to help Tatsuki wind down enough to think about just what the hell had gone on that afternoon, plus it never hurt that that pompous meat-head Toji’s constant efforts to try and beat her made him a ready and willing punching bag. Thankfully Harada-sensei didn’t get after her for helping to deflate the boy’s over-inflated ego; after all he didn’t want his dojo to have a reputation for teaching thugs.
Of course her arrival home behind her family’s flower shop; was full of her usual headaches, namely her mother and younger brother. For her mother the complaints were the usual, “Honestly Tatsuki I have no idea just why you insist to keep up with this brutish fascination you have with karate, I thought that you would have grown out of this tomboy phase along time ago.”
“Mom it’s not a phase I happen to be very good at it,” Tatsuki snapped at her mother in frustration, “Harada-sensei even let’s me assist Lee-sensei and teach some of the younger students in the children’s classes.”
“Well if you plan on being so good with children, how about you help me out downstairs in the flower shop so I can give you a little bridal training in-between the rushes; heaven knows that your ikebana needs work,” her mother said sighing in frustration. “Honestly why can you not be more like that friend of yours Orihime, that girl’s parents must be so proud of her!”
“Mom that girl’s parents abandoned her and her brother back when Orihime was still in grade school,” Tatsuki growled beginning to be fed-up with her mother’s judgmental-traditionalist attitude, “and they didn’t even have the decency to show-up for their own son’s funeral!”
“That poor girl,” her mother Yuka said honestly taken aback, “please tell her at school tomorrow that she is welcome over here any time she wishes, our home is her home.”
“Yeah sis,” her little brother Keigo said finally butting in, “tell her that she can come over as often as she wants.”
Tatsuki turned to look at her little brother with a look promising pain, “I’ll invite her over when you promise to mind your manners you perverted gaki, you think that I don’t know that you just want her to come over so that you can ogle and peep at her whenever you can.”
“Come on sis, like I would ever do anything like that!” Keigo spoke feigning innocence.
“Don’t pull the saint act with me you little stain,” Tatsuki conveyed in a low even voice, “I found a bra that Orihime said went missing the time she slept over for our last study session, when I went in your room to get your dirty clothes for the laundry four days ago.”
“Oh, uh, um, wait how would I know that it was Orihime’s anyway?” Keigo smiled thinking that he managed to divert the damage.
“Because I found it right next to some pictures of Orihime getting undressed you little sleaze!” Tasuki proclaimed as she picked her little brother up by his shirt collar.
“Tatsuki, put your brother down this instant!” her mother demanded, “You know that he’s just at that age.”
“Fine, I’ll be in my room if you need me,” Tatsuki groaned as she let go of Keigo and began marching up the stairs, “but if I catch him peeping on me he won’t live to thirteen!”
“As if I would want to,” Keigo shouted back, “I’m strait, I don’t like boys!” As Keigo chuckled to himself at how he had just burned his sister, a black object zoomed down the stairwell and struck him square in the forehead knocking him out cold.
Taking a look at the black semi-sphere that had just floored her son, Yuka gingerly picked it up, shook it, and turned it over to read, ‘OUTLOOK NOT SO GOOD’ on an upside down triangle in English on the underside-window. “Child you know how your sister is sensitive about her looks, still with a curve-ball like that it makes one wonder why she did not try out for the softball team.”
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(Posted Sun, 24 Aug 2008 22:12)
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らんま1/2 © Rumiko Takahashi
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