Heroes

Chapter Forty-Two

"WHAT?!!" Tara and Ichigo chorused, but I ignored them and focused on Kisuke.

He drew his fan, pondering it for a moment. "Well…" he said thoughtfully, "I suppose I could do it…but that means you’ll have to do the training as well. Well, at least some of it."

"Of course," I said seriously. "I’d expect no less."

"Me too!" Tara said, suddenly perking up. "I wanna be strong, too!"

Our jaws dropped. Caring, nice little Tara wanted to be a Shinigami??

"If you’re really serious about this, I’ll do it. But you have to really commit to the training."

"We understand, Kisuke," I said, putting a hand on Tara’s shoulder in a sign of support. "We’re prepared."

He eyed us for another moment before grinning. "Great! We start tomorrow!! But for now," he said, pulling a bottle with a skull-and-bones out of his green kimono, "Ichigo. For the rest of the day you need to eat one of these pills every hour. They’ll help your wounds enough so you can train tomorrow."

Ichigo eyed them warily but acquiesced, grabbing the bottle from the shopkeeper’s hands. "Got it."

"And Tara, Adel," Kisuke said, turning to the both of us respectively, "keep a watch on Ichigo for the rest of the day. Make sure he takes those pills."

I lazily saluted him. "We heard ja. Chill out, Kisuke. He’ll be rearing and kicking by tomorrow morning."

He eyed me strangely before smiling. "Of course." With that he left the room and didn’t come back the entire day.

I exited the room quietly, leaving the couple a few minutes. "Kisuke," I called to the shop, "you got a phone?"

"At the front desk!" he called from seemingly nowhere. I was freaked out for a minute but brushed it off, heading towards my newfound destination. When I got to the desk I found a classic housephone and called Isshin.

"Helllloooooooo~ Kurosaki Clinic~ Isshin speaking!"

"Hey, Isshin," I said calmly. If I wasn’t calm, I couldn’t lie.

"Aaaah, Adel-chan!" he exclaimed. "What is it? Are you guys okay? Is everything alright?"

I laughed; he was just like a real father. "Don’t worry, we’re fine. But I needed to let you know that our friend is worse than we thought, so we’re gonna stay here for a while; we’ll probably miss school, too."

He grunted. "You know you really shouldn’t be ditching school like that."

I sighed. "I know, Isshin, and I don’t want to. It’s just that she may…well, we’ve kind of just put her on suicide watch, and since she refuses to go to school, we need to stay with her twenty-four-seven. Please understand."

He was quiet before letting out a long breath. "Uh, I guess so. If she really needs the help."

I grinned. "Thank you so much, Isshin. I’ll be forever in your debt. But…can you do one more thing for me?"

"What is it?"

"Can you get Babs to pack her stuff and some of Tara and I‘s things, whatever we left over, and bring it with her here? I don’t wanna leave her out. And since she doesn’t know the way here, tell her to meet me in the park?"

"Yeah, I can do that. She’ll be there in an hour."

I laughed. "Thank you so much, Isshin. You’re the absolute best."

I heard him snort. "As if I didn’t already know that." He hung up and I put my phone back onto the cradle. I sighed happily; this was going to be great.

I went back into the room where Kurosaki and Tara were, seeming to end a kissing session. I decided this time not to comment and just let them be together. I grabbed my tennis shoes and started to slip them on.

"What’re you doing?" Tara asked curiously, turning her head from her boyfriend.

"Going…to go get…Babs," I said, struggling to slip the damn things on. Screw you, Corporate Japan. Can’t make decent, easy-to-slip-on-shoes. This is why I wear flip-flops, not these idiot things.

"What?"

"I got Isshin to…force her--dammit!--to come here and stay with us…I figure she should become a Shinigami too…so she doesn’t get--ugh--left out."

Tara clapped giddily. "That’s great! You know, she hasn’t been participating much, so it’ll be nice for her to finally join the team!!!"

I grinned. "Yeah, I’m just kinda worried to leave her by herself with the other Kurosakis, plus I don’t want her getting mad at us for leaving her out. So she needs to get off her lazy ass for once and help us out!!!"

Tara stuck up a thumb. "You know it!!"

I laughed, and finally got the shoes on, and slipped out of the store, heading for the park. The walk there was peaceful; it was relaxing, what with the almost perfect weather and the beautiful cherry blossoms just beginning to bloom, coating the walkways in pink.

Once reaching the park, I took a spot on a bench nearby, just taking in the scene for a moment: kids laughing and playing while the mothers gossiped by the sidelines, a father and son playing football together, a couple having a sushi picnic, birds flying everywhere, the wind blowing just the right amount. Everything was so perfect I almost wanted to grab a boy myself and have a date.

A while later I heard my voice being called. "Adel! Adel! Adel! Adel YOU IDIOT!! LISTEN TO ME!!!" My head popped up and I saw Babs jogging towards me, two sleepover bags slung over her shoulders.

I got off the bench and helped her with one of the bags, taking it and heaving it over my left shoulder. "Thanks for coming. So…how do you feel about becoming a Shinigami?"

"WHAAAAAAT!??!?!??!?!?!" she yelled, attracting too much attention to us.

I slapped my hand over her mouth. "Shut it," I said sternly. "Tara and I are doing it. We want you to do it, too. So are you in?" When she seemed somewhat calm I retracted my hand.

"H-how can you do something like that?!?" she said, still shocked. "I mean, that’s super dangerous!"

"Yeah, we know!" I said excitedly. "But a bunch of bad things are gonna be happening soon, and if we don’t have something we’re probably gonna die."

She still was surprised, but gave it a lot of thought. In fact she was quiet the entire way to Shoten. But just before we entered the building, she grabbed my shoulder, halting me.

"I’ll do it," she murmured.

I couldn’t comprehend what she’d said. "Excuse me?" I asked.

"I said I’ll do it!!" she shouted. "Jeez, you need hearing aids, old hag!!" With that she pushed past me and into the shop, while I just stood outside.

She’d agreed. Babs was going to become a Shinigami. With us.

I smiled. All according to plan.

Jesus, I sounded like Kira or something.

_____________________________

HAHA, because Adel was secretly Kira this whole time! Damn you Yagami, aka I'm A Gay!!!!!

...sorry. I had sweet tea. With lots of sugar.

Anyway.

No announcements this week except I hope you enjoy the time from this chapter to the next. Have an awesome week!!!

~Maycee-chan~