Day 41: Breakfast

[oftemptation]

Endrance turned his head to look at the intercom, giving it a look that would wither an entire rose garden in an instant. He would never get used to ending up in his room again from somewhere else in the Institute

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[bewarethecute]

Even if Akihiko said they knew she wasn't weak, that wasn't how Ururu felt just then. She stared at her pancakes in silence as Akihiko explained about the danger, and what had happened to Ken's mom, and what they were afraid would happen to her. It all meant the same thing to her, the same lesson she'd learned over and over. Every time a friend of hers got hurt, or every time one of them vanished.

Ururu just wasn't strong enough to help. She couldn't do any good for the people she cared about most.

"O-Okay." The little girl shook as she spoke, unable to help crying even as she agreed to what Akihiko was saying. She didn't want to stay away. Ururu wanted to be there when Ken tried his power, in case she could help. She wanted to believe she could do more for people than just hide in her room and wait, because it really hurt to think that's all she was good for here. But Akihiko clearly thought it was best, and Ururu didn't want to hurt Ken if he was right.

Because he could be right.

She might not be strong enough.

Ururu's shoulders hitched, and that was all the warning Akihiko got before she let out a loud sob. This wasn't right, and it wasn't fair! She was supposed to be able to help the people who were her friends. But now she couldn't do anything, and people kept going away because of it. Orihime, Shiki, Renji, Hitsugaya, Rukia, Kisuke-san...how many more times was it going to happen? Why couldn't Ururu do anything to help her friends?!

[fourtharcana]

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. What am I supposed to do here? He looked out again, trying to catch Mitsuru's eyes with a clear 'I'm in deep trouble, can you get over here for a second and back me up?' look, but she was in full-on information-gathering mode. He sighed deeply, then looked across the table.

"All right. You can come out tonight, on three conditions. One, that you promise that you won't interfere when he first uses that power. It's going to look like Ken's hurting himself, but I can promise you that isn't the case. Two, that you listen to what Mitsuru and I will tell you to do if anything bad happens."

He sighed again, then looked directly into Ururu's eyes. "Three, if we tell you to go back inside, you promise that you will, without any questions. I still think it would be better if you weren't there, but if you can do all of that, you can."

[bewarethecute]

Ururu had to struggle to stop crying enough to hear Akihiko; even when she stopped sobbing, the tears continued to fall. But it sounded like he had changed his mind, and Ururu was glad. She still felt upset about all the things he had talked about, but at least this way, she could be there to help Ken if he needed her. That's all she had wanted to do in the first place.

The girl listened carefully to the conditions. The first two weren't so bad. If Akihiko and Ken both said the power wouldn't hurt him when he first used it, then Ururu could believe them. And she could listen really well too, so that wasn't a problem at all.

The third thing though--Ururu almost winced a little as she thought of all those times she couldn't quite remember what happened after she'd seen someone get hurt. Especially that time with Danny, when she suddenly found herself holding a very squished, very dead bug. Even back home it happened; just before she'd come here, Ururu had snuck out of bed, and then the next thing she knew, she'd had a very big hole in her body. Ururu knew it could happen again, and if it did, she wouldn't be able to stop it.

And that meant she couldn't promise Akihiko what he wanted without lying.

"Um." Ururu gripped the edge of the table, trying to think of what to do. Maybe if it got really bad really fast, they'd tell her to go back inside before she couldn't do it. Then she'd be able to, and that meant saying yes would be the truth! It still didn't exactly feel that way, but Ururu thought that this was one of those times when Jinta-kun would say that she should stretch the truth so they (or specifically, he) didn't get in trouble.

And it really wasn't a lie, exactly. Right?

"Okay. I promise." Ururu wiped her face dry with her hand again, hoping that she wouldn't end up having lied. She didn't want Akihiko to be mad with her and say she couldn't see Ken anymore. That would be really bad.