Fanfiction: Through Her Eyes Updated: Chapter 4
After working through the pseudo carpal tunnel and the first three days of college, Chapter 4 of Through Her Eyes is FINALLY UP!
Through Her Eyes: Table of Contents
Through Her Eyes: Chapter 4 (FF.net version)
Disclaimer: The only characters I own so far are the Shirataki's. I merely borrow and play with the ones you recognize.
Chapter 4: What's Going On??
Blurred scenes swam at the edge of my consciousness as I drifted in and out of the darkness that night; a green glow surrounding my body, glasses glinting in concentration, a hand clasping mine, concerned gray eyes looking down at me, and the murmur of comforting words reaching my ears whenever I whimpered in pain. Eventually, it all faded away as I floated off on the peaceful waves of painless sleep.
Emerging from the warm cocoon of drowsiness the next morning, the first thing my sleep-logged brain registered was that I must still be alive since there was an irritating, tickling sensation on my nose. Wanting to return to dreamland, I scrunched up my nose and shook my head, only to hear giggling come from above me. Reluctantly, I opened my eyes and stared straight into two giant, brown eyes.
“GAH!” I shot up from the bed, instantly regretting the sudden action as my left arm throbbed. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”
Teison looked up innocently from the floor where he had fallen, “I just wanted to see if you were awake…”
I raised my eyebrows, “By tickling my nose with that?”
“Oh… this…” He glanced down at the feather in his hand, then back up at me with a nervous grin. “Uh… yes?”
“Shirataki Teison! Didn’t we tell you to leave your sister alone and let her rest?” My parents had just entered the room.
“But mom…”
Mom fixed her glare on him. “But what?”
“Nothing!” was the quick reply as he jumped onto the bed and hid behind me.
Note to self: Take glaring lessons from mother
Dad winked at me. “How are you feeling?”
“Okay, I guess.” I said as I tentatively touched the sling on my left arm. “It doesn’t hurt as much as I thought it would.”
“That’s good isn’t it?”
“Yeah…” I bit my lower lip. “But I don’t feel anything in my leg. There’s no pain or anything. Is it… is it alright?”
I gripped the blankets tightly, afraid to hear the answer.
“When Doctor Kurosaki first saw the bruise on your leg, he was worried that there might have been some internal bleeding or damage to the bone. Turns out it’s fine. Course, it'll take a while for that bruise to fade away.”
I frowned in confusion. A bruise? I had felt my leg being crushed, felt the broken bones grating against each other. The mangled mess from last night barely looked like a leg, much less a simple bruise. How could it be fine now?
Disbelievingly, I flipped open the blankets to take a look at my right leg. Astoundingly, all that met my eyes was a big, purple bruise. There was barely any sign of it having been crushed and covered in blood last night. The only thing that proved that it had been more serious than a mere bruise was the small, slightly raised scar I felt when I ran my fingers over the bruise.
Dad continued, “So aside from that left arm and a few bruises around your ribcage and leg, you seem to be okay. I guess those thugs were satisfied with just breaking your arm.”
“Thugs??” Now I was really confused. Where in the world had that come from?
Mom looked worried. “Don’t you remember what happened last night?”
Of course I did. How could I possibly forget? But what the hell did thugs have to do with that horrible monster?
I decided to play along. “Yeah, but I ended up passing out. I don’t know what happened afterwards.”
From the jumbled accounts the three of them gave, it seemed like Teison and I were attacked by a group of thugs last night. In an attempt to protect Teison, I took all the blows and ended up losing consciousness when they finished. Moments later, my parents came back home from their night out, and immediately summoned Doctor Kurosaki over to treat my injuries.
Doctor Kurosaki? I had met that bearded weirdo before and I was pretty sure that I hadn’t seen him while drifting in and out of it last night. He didn’t have gray eyes, nor did he wear glasses. So who were those people? And why did all three of them seem to believe that I was attacked by thugs? What the heck was going on here?
Mom interrupted my inner whirl of questions. “You haven’t offended anyone at school have you? Is there someone who would send those people after you?”
Well… when that one guy called Kurosaki a poser and made a crude comment about Orihime, I did call him an ignorant idiot who needed to have his mouth shut for him since he obviously didn’t know how to do it himself. But compared to what Tatsuki and Kurosaki did before I could get to him, I’m pretty sure the guy was too busy to form a grudge against me…
“Of course not! Why would anyone dislike me?”
“You do tend have quite a sharp tongue when angered…”
Not my fault this world has so many shallow, stuck-up, idiotic twits, who desperately need to have their heads deflated for them…
“Seeing that you're alright,” interjected Dad. “I need to get work since it's almost noon and--”
“What do you mean it’s almost noon?!” I grabbed my clock, “Oh crud! Why didn’t you guys wake me up earlier?”
My parents exchanged a surprised look.
“We thought you could take a day off school due to your injuries. Why are you complaining?”
“I’m not!"
They both stared at me with raised eyebrows. Teison was looking at me like I had grown a second head.
"Okay, maybe I am… but that’s not the point! I have a test in physics today, I don’t wanna miss that!”
“I’m sure they’ll let you take it at another time.”
“But I hate physics! Having to waste even more time on it is just… ugh, no thanks!”
While my desire to avoid any more studying was real, the actual reason I wanted to go to school today was to talk to Kurosaki about what had happened the past couple of days. Maybe he had learned what those monster things were, or he could at least help me sort out the confusion that was currently making quite a racket in the box I had locked it into.
After much argument, many reassurances that I would be careful, and many more comments from Teison about my sanity (or lack of thereof), Dad finally agreed to drop me off at school on his way to work. As I got out of the car, he handed me a bottle.
“These are your meds. Take a pill every hour.”
I stared at the bottle in my hand, or more specifically, at the picture of a skull and crossbones on it.
“Err… are you sure the doctor didn't accidentally give me poison instead of medicine?”
“Don’t worry, if you die, we’ll be sure to use it on the rats instead.” was my father’s oh so reassuring response as he drove off.
Gee, I wonder where I got my sense of humor from…
Glaring at the shrinking dot that was my father's car, I turned and walked onto school grounds, heading for the tree Tatsuki, Orihime and I usually ate lunch under. It didn’t take me long to register that the boys had decided to join us for lunch today.
“Riiiiiiika! What happened to you? You’re all beat up! But not to worry! Even with that cast, you still sparkle like the beautiful gem that- mmph!”
“Thanks Tatsuki.”
“No problem.” She replied, foot firmly planted on Asano’s back. “So exactly what happened? Your parents didn’t really tell us anything when we stopped by your house this morning.”
Shrugging slightly, I quickly gave them the condensed, gangster-ized version of what happened last night.
Orihime gasped. “But why would they do that to you Rika-chan? You never did anything to them. Beating you up like that wasn’t very nice at all!”
“Well,” a wry smirk made its way across my face. “They probably weren’t very nice people to begin with…”
“Daijoubu?”
I turned around, only to come face to face with the ironed white shirt that made up part of the school uniform. Stepping back, I shifted my gaze upwards to see Chad’s face.
Ow… crick in neck, ow… Is it any wonder why I hate being short…?
“Un! Daijoubu. ” I lowered my head and muttered under my breath, “But now my neck isn’t…”
“You know, it’s kind of weird that it happened to you yesterday though…” Kojima started as I turned towards him, rubbing my neck. “Did you hear? A truck ran into Ichigo’s house last night.”
“What?!?” It was then that I realized I hadn’t seen Kurosaki yet. “Is he alright? Is that why he’s not here?”
Asano looked around curiously. “Eh?!?… I swear he came down to lunch with us… Where’d he go?”
“Bathroom maybe...” Tatsuki shrugged as she started to unwrap her lunch. “Anyways, according to Ichigo, no one was hurt. He was just late to school.”
“That’s good to hear…” I frowned slightly at the coincidence of a truck running into Kurosaki’s house the same night I was supposedly attacked by gangsters. Was it merely just chance? Somehow, I didn’t think it was that simple. This only served to strengthen my certainty that Doctor Kurosaki wasn’t the one who had helped me last night and that something had messed with my family’s memories. Storing the rising confusion and worry away, I turned to the rest of the group.
“I’m gonna get some juice. You guys want any? My treat.”
At the negative shakes of their heads, I headed to the back of the school, towards the vending machines. As I approached the corner, the unexpected sound of Kurosaki’s exasperated voice reached my ears.
“--job over? Why are you in my class? Didn’t you go back to that soul society place?”
I paused mid-step, brow wrinkled in puzzlement.
Soul society? What’s he talking about?
A voice that I didn’t recognize cut across his.
“You fool! Only shinigami can return to soul society. Right now, I am not able to return there.”
Shinigami? Soul Society?
Deciding that eavesdropping wasn’t going to get me any answers, I rounded the corner. “Kurosaki, want to tell me what’s go--”
I choked on my words as I caught sight of the girl Kurosaki had been talking to.
Looking back at it now, I suppose I could have reacted better… but the confusion I had locked away up till then, decided to burst out of its box right at that moment, and I could only sputter out one word.
“Y-YOU?!”
--------------------
Review and tell me what you thought!
I had a bit of trouble with this chapter. Still am not completely satisfied with it. Oh well, it's done and out there so whatever.... Haha, watch me go and edit the thing in a week. But I dunno, maybe it's because I felt like Chapters 2 and 3 came out correctly and so Chapter 4 feels not as good. There were times where I just sat in front of the computer and stared at the screen wondering why the story wasn't coming out the way I wanted it to. Then again, if you asked me what I wanted to come out, I wouldn't be able to tell you. The times that I felt a drive to go write the story was when my right hand was in a cast in an attempt to make it better faster. Rather unfortunately, my hand was in a cast so I could only type with one hand and one finger, instead of two hands. Bah!
But as mentioned before, I finally got an outline of my zanpakutou done, so I'm happy. Dunno why, seeing how it's not coming into the story in the next chapter, but it just makes me feel better about the overall story.
Oh, so I've also had like, a GAJILLION plot bunnies bouncing around in my brain while trying to write Chapter 4. That was annoying. I was so tempted to throw down Chapter 4 and go make something of those plot bunnies. What's more exciting is that these plot bunnies weren't only for drabbles, there were ideas for song fics and multi-chaptered stories (both for Urahara/Rika and HitsuKarin!). Is that exciting or what? Okay, maybe only exciting to me, but that's fine. I am excited. Am debating whether or not I should start on those plot-bunnies or wait until I finish Through Her Eyes. I'm leaning towards Through Her Eyes right now, because I feel uncomfortable about not finishing it first. Any suggestions?
Aside from fanfiction. Maaaaan.... It's only the third day of school and I'm dead tired....
Alrighties, that's it, see you all later!
Through Her Eyes: Table of Contents
Through Her Eyes: Chapter 4 (FF.net version)
Disclaimer: The only characters I own so far are the Shirataki's. I merely borrow and play with the ones you recognize.
Chapter 4: What's Going On??
Blurred scenes swam at the edge of my consciousness as I drifted in and out of the darkness that night; a green glow surrounding my body, glasses glinting in concentration, a hand clasping mine, concerned gray eyes looking down at me, and the murmur of comforting words reaching my ears whenever I whimpered in pain. Eventually, it all faded away as I floated off on the peaceful waves of painless sleep.
Emerging from the warm cocoon of drowsiness the next morning, the first thing my sleep-logged brain registered was that I must still be alive since there was an irritating, tickling sensation on my nose. Wanting to return to dreamland, I scrunched up my nose and shook my head, only to hear giggling come from above me. Reluctantly, I opened my eyes and stared straight into two giant, brown eyes.
“GAH!” I shot up from the bed, instantly regretting the sudden action as my left arm throbbed. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”
Teison looked up innocently from the floor where he had fallen, “I just wanted to see if you were awake…”
I raised my eyebrows, “By tickling my nose with that?”
“Oh… this…” He glanced down at the feather in his hand, then back up at me with a nervous grin. “Uh… yes?”
“Shirataki Teison! Didn’t we tell you to leave your sister alone and let her rest?” My parents had just entered the room.
“But mom…”
Mom fixed her glare on him. “But what?”
“Nothing!” was the quick reply as he jumped onto the bed and hid behind me.
Note to self: Take glaring lessons from mother
Dad winked at me. “How are you feeling?”
“Okay, I guess.” I said as I tentatively touched the sling on my left arm. “It doesn’t hurt as much as I thought it would.”
“That’s good isn’t it?”
“Yeah…” I bit my lower lip. “But I don’t feel anything in my leg. There’s no pain or anything. Is it… is it alright?”
I gripped the blankets tightly, afraid to hear the answer.
“When Doctor Kurosaki first saw the bruise on your leg, he was worried that there might have been some internal bleeding or damage to the bone. Turns out it’s fine. Course, it'll take a while for that bruise to fade away.”
I frowned in confusion. A bruise? I had felt my leg being crushed, felt the broken bones grating against each other. The mangled mess from last night barely looked like a leg, much less a simple bruise. How could it be fine now?
Disbelievingly, I flipped open the blankets to take a look at my right leg. Astoundingly, all that met my eyes was a big, purple bruise. There was barely any sign of it having been crushed and covered in blood last night. The only thing that proved that it had been more serious than a mere bruise was the small, slightly raised scar I felt when I ran my fingers over the bruise.
Dad continued, “So aside from that left arm and a few bruises around your ribcage and leg, you seem to be okay. I guess those thugs were satisfied with just breaking your arm.”
“Thugs??” Now I was really confused. Where in the world had that come from?
Mom looked worried. “Don’t you remember what happened last night?”
Of course I did. How could I possibly forget? But what the hell did thugs have to do with that horrible monster?
I decided to play along. “Yeah, but I ended up passing out. I don’t know what happened afterwards.”
From the jumbled accounts the three of them gave, it seemed like Teison and I were attacked by a group of thugs last night. In an attempt to protect Teison, I took all the blows and ended up losing consciousness when they finished. Moments later, my parents came back home from their night out, and immediately summoned Doctor Kurosaki over to treat my injuries.
Doctor Kurosaki? I had met that bearded weirdo before and I was pretty sure that I hadn’t seen him while drifting in and out of it last night. He didn’t have gray eyes, nor did he wear glasses. So who were those people? And why did all three of them seem to believe that I was attacked by thugs? What the heck was going on here?
Mom interrupted my inner whirl of questions. “You haven’t offended anyone at school have you? Is there someone who would send those people after you?”
Well… when that one guy called Kurosaki a poser and made a crude comment about Orihime, I did call him an ignorant idiot who needed to have his mouth shut for him since he obviously didn’t know how to do it himself. But compared to what Tatsuki and Kurosaki did before I could get to him, I’m pretty sure the guy was too busy to form a grudge against me…
“Of course not! Why would anyone dislike me?”
“You do tend have quite a sharp tongue when angered…”
Not my fault this world has so many shallow, stuck-up, idiotic twits, who desperately need to have their heads deflated for them…
“Seeing that you're alright,” interjected Dad. “I need to get work since it's almost noon and--”
“What do you mean it’s almost noon?!” I grabbed my clock, “Oh crud! Why didn’t you guys wake me up earlier?”
My parents exchanged a surprised look.
“We thought you could take a day off school due to your injuries. Why are you complaining?”
“I’m not!"
They both stared at me with raised eyebrows. Teison was looking at me like I had grown a second head.
"Okay, maybe I am… but that’s not the point! I have a test in physics today, I don’t wanna miss that!”
“I’m sure they’ll let you take it at another time.”
“But I hate physics! Having to waste even more time on it is just… ugh, no thanks!”
While my desire to avoid any more studying was real, the actual reason I wanted to go to school today was to talk to Kurosaki about what had happened the past couple of days. Maybe he had learned what those monster things were, or he could at least help me sort out the confusion that was currently making quite a racket in the box I had locked it into.
After much argument, many reassurances that I would be careful, and many more comments from Teison about my sanity (or lack of thereof), Dad finally agreed to drop me off at school on his way to work. As I got out of the car, he handed me a bottle.
“These are your meds. Take a pill every hour.”
I stared at the bottle in my hand, or more specifically, at the picture of a skull and crossbones on it.
“Err… are you sure the doctor didn't accidentally give me poison instead of medicine?”
“Don’t worry, if you die, we’ll be sure to use it on the rats instead.” was my father’s oh so reassuring response as he drove off.
Gee, I wonder where I got my sense of humor from…
Glaring at the shrinking dot that was my father's car, I turned and walked onto school grounds, heading for the tree Tatsuki, Orihime and I usually ate lunch under. It didn’t take me long to register that the boys had decided to join us for lunch today.
“Riiiiiiika! What happened to you? You’re all beat up! But not to worry! Even with that cast, you still sparkle like the beautiful gem that- mmph!”
“Thanks Tatsuki.”
“No problem.” She replied, foot firmly planted on Asano’s back. “So exactly what happened? Your parents didn’t really tell us anything when we stopped by your house this morning.”
Shrugging slightly, I quickly gave them the condensed, gangster-ized version of what happened last night.
Orihime gasped. “But why would they do that to you Rika-chan? You never did anything to them. Beating you up like that wasn’t very nice at all!”
“Well,” a wry smirk made its way across my face. “They probably weren’t very nice people to begin with…”
“Daijoubu?”
I turned around, only to come face to face with the ironed white shirt that made up part of the school uniform. Stepping back, I shifted my gaze upwards to see Chad’s face.
Ow… crick in neck, ow… Is it any wonder why I hate being short…?
“Un! Daijoubu. ” I lowered my head and muttered under my breath, “But now my neck isn’t…”
“You know, it’s kind of weird that it happened to you yesterday though…” Kojima started as I turned towards him, rubbing my neck. “Did you hear? A truck ran into Ichigo’s house last night.”
“What?!?” It was then that I realized I hadn’t seen Kurosaki yet. “Is he alright? Is that why he’s not here?”
Asano looked around curiously. “Eh?!?… I swear he came down to lunch with us… Where’d he go?”
“Bathroom maybe...” Tatsuki shrugged as she started to unwrap her lunch. “Anyways, according to Ichigo, no one was hurt. He was just late to school.”
“That’s good to hear…” I frowned slightly at the coincidence of a truck running into Kurosaki’s house the same night I was supposedly attacked by gangsters. Was it merely just chance? Somehow, I didn’t think it was that simple. This only served to strengthen my certainty that Doctor Kurosaki wasn’t the one who had helped me last night and that something had messed with my family’s memories. Storing the rising confusion and worry away, I turned to the rest of the group.
“I’m gonna get some juice. You guys want any? My treat.”
At the negative shakes of their heads, I headed to the back of the school, towards the vending machines. As I approached the corner, the unexpected sound of Kurosaki’s exasperated voice reached my ears.
“--job over? Why are you in my class? Didn’t you go back to that soul society place?”
I paused mid-step, brow wrinkled in puzzlement.
Soul society? What’s he talking about?
A voice that I didn’t recognize cut across his.
“You fool! Only shinigami can return to soul society. Right now, I am not able to return there.”
Shinigami? Soul Society?
Deciding that eavesdropping wasn’t going to get me any answers, I rounded the corner. “Kurosaki, want to tell me what’s go--”
I choked on my words as I caught sight of the girl Kurosaki had been talking to.
Looking back at it now, I suppose I could have reacted better… but the confusion I had locked away up till then, decided to burst out of its box right at that moment, and I could only sputter out one word.
“Y-YOU?!”
--------------------
Review and tell me what you thought!
I had a bit of trouble with this chapter. Still am not completely satisfied with it. Oh well, it's done and out there so whatever.... Haha, watch me go and edit the thing in a week. But I dunno, maybe it's because I felt like Chapters 2 and 3 came out correctly and so Chapter 4 feels not as good. There were times where I just sat in front of the computer and stared at the screen wondering why the story wasn't coming out the way I wanted it to. Then again, if you asked me what I wanted to come out, I wouldn't be able to tell you. The times that I felt a drive to go write the story was when my right hand was in a cast in an attempt to make it better faster. Rather unfortunately, my hand was in a cast so I could only type with one hand and one finger, instead of two hands. Bah!
But as mentioned before, I finally got an outline of my zanpakutou done, so I'm happy. Dunno why, seeing how it's not coming into the story in the next chapter, but it just makes me feel better about the overall story.
Oh, so I've also had like, a GAJILLION plot bunnies bouncing around in my brain while trying to write Chapter 4. That was annoying. I was so tempted to throw down Chapter 4 and go make something of those plot bunnies. What's more exciting is that these plot bunnies weren't only for drabbles, there were ideas for song fics and multi-chaptered stories (both for Urahara/Rika and HitsuKarin!). Is that exciting or what? Okay, maybe only exciting to me, but that's fine. I am excited. Am debating whether or not I should start on those plot-bunnies or wait until I finish Through Her Eyes. I'm leaning towards Through Her Eyes right now, because I feel uncomfortable about not finishing it first. Any suggestions?
Aside from fanfiction. Maaaaan.... It's only the third day of school and I'm dead tired....
Alrighties, that's it, see you all later!