Chapter 1: Strawberry Meets the Alley Cat
We fear what we do not understand.
So we learn, to understand, to conquer that fear.
So we die afraid of death, having never come to understand
The fear what drove us.
Karakura Town
2:23 a.m.
So we learn, to understand, to conquer that fear.
So we die afraid of death, having never come to understand
The fear what drove us.
Karakura Town
2:23 a.m.
We stand in awe before that which cannot be seen.
It was night. It was dark. It was silent.
And we respect with every fiber that which can never be explained.
It was a shadow. When it flew in front of the moon, it became a butterfly. It floated into the night and was gone again.
The sky wasn't quite black. It was the darkest of blues, the color of the nighttime ocean, the color of her eyes. The eyes didn't blink, even when midnight strands of hair wisped into them. She was small as she stood atop the telephone pole, overlooking the town below with a dark gaze. It was an odd place to be perched in the dead of night; could the residents of Karakura see her, they might have rubbed their eyes and blinked once or twice. But she couldn't be seen, by them or the breeze or time itself, not even when the moon lit up her odd, samurai-esque clothing. And then she spoke.
"I sense strong spirit energy close by..."
Her voice was slow and deep like a cold-running stream. And with that once sentence, more a reflection than a statement, the Soul Reaper leaped from the telephone pole and into the night, blending in with the darkness as though she had never been there to begin with.
The butterfly was gone.
And so fell the sword of fate.
Karakura Town, Karakura Old Town
5:32 p.m.
5:32 p.m.
"...Merde."
Kinkajou Karata's brilliant green eyes slid open slowly, as though the lids before them had been made of lead. She felt the same reluctance she always had when she woke up, where she had been so close to grasping whatever it was that had been running from her for the past few months... She'd almost had it that time.
"Que?" The boy on the ground below her yawned broadly, having only woken a few moments before she had. His blue eyes were bleary with sleep, his tufty black mop of hair hanging disheveled about his tanned face.
"Sensei was talking riddles again," Kinkajou answered grumpily, sitting up and jumping down from atop the dumpster. She landed on all fours, stretching her lithe little figure out the way a cat might.
"You don't say?" Fang sounded politely interested, hoisting himself into a sitting position. He never put much stock into Kinkajou's dreams, being the more practical of the two, but he always listened when she wanted to talk about them. "I don't know why you've got to sleep up there all the time," he added, flicking his head towards the dumpster and wrinkling his nose. "You smell like rotten bananas whenever you do."
Kinkajou gave him a frosty look. "Cheh! Like you're one to talk. You're not exactly the poster child for Old Spice yourself."
Fang's shoulders shook with silent laughter. "Then go nab an air freshener or two, ma belle. I would want my dead animal reek to give you a headache."
Kinkajou twitched. "Stealing's not my thing."
"Oui? Then what do you call dumpster diving?"
"Trash collector relief. I'm gonna go out for a little while."
Fang's brows drew together, the humor leaving his dark blue eyes. "Qu'est-ce qui ne va pas? Did your Sensei tell you something?"
"Not really," Kinkajou lied. "Just wanna get out and about, stretch my legs a bit. Will you be all right here by yourself?"
"Bien sûr." Fang waved her away dismissively with his hand. "Go on, get. You're stinking up the place enough as it is."
The corner of Kinkajou's mouth curled up as she turned and strode down the alleyway, calling over her shoulder, "Smell ya later."
Antagonizing one another was the only real way the two of them could communicate; over all these years, it had worked well. No matter what he said, Kinkajou always worried about leaving him alone. Fang couldn't survive on his own without her... as much as he would rather die than admit it.
When she thought about it, Kinkajou realized that she couldn't survive without Fang either. She needed him in a different way, but her need was just as potent as his, the need for two children to reach out and touch one another, to share one another's warmth, when no one in this terrible world wanted to touch them.
The Alley Cat of Karakura only had one weakness.
Kinkajou stuck her hands into her filthy pockets, gratified to feel some warm change brush against her fingers. Laundromaaaaaat! she sang inwardly, giving a happy little pirouette while she was at it. Cleanliness was certainly there next to girliness, and while Kinkajou considered herself to be more masculine than not, she couldn't argue with the squeaky voice in the back of her head telling her that soon, clean clothes would be hers.
Or something like that.
In the shadows of the alleyway, Kinkajou slipped off her jeans and shirt, leaving her in a tank and some old gym shorts. She zipped up her jacket, transferred the money from her jeans to her jacket, bundled her clothes up under her arm, and set out into the crowd, into the daylight.
Kinkajou didn't like the sun. She didn't even really know why. It was one of those things that a child can say he hates, but when asked why, he doesn't have an answer. "Because I do!" Kinkajou did hate the sun. The sun had warmth. Kinkajou didn't. She felt no warmth, not in the bitter Tokyo nights where she and Fang huddled against one another, yearning one another's meager body heat while the sun shone on a more fortunate part of the Earth. The sun had light. Kinkajou didn't. She felt no light, not in a world filled with conceited adults who edged around her like a stain on the sidewalk and kids who wanted her dead just to feel the warmth of her blood on their grimy fingers. The sun had hope. Kinkajou didn't. She felt no hope, not in the days that she woke up to find herself in the same place as she did yesterday, dead to the world, just another statistic clustered on a back alley, waiting for death but so desperately trying to fight it. No one escaped this life alive... except the sun. The sun had everything. Kinkajou had nothing. Nothing but herself and her name... and Fang.
Kinkajou shook her head vigorously, scattering the thoughts clouding her mind onto the shoulders of the passers-by. Sacrebleu! You're so depressing when you're PMS-ing, Kink! she told herself, glancing up at the clouds and humming to herself. Keep your nose clean!
It was probably her dream that had her so on edge. But she forced it out of her mind as she dropped by the Laundromat. She tossed her clothes into a vacant washer, slammed the door shut, and inserted her change. Good thing I've got enough to dry too. Fang would get a big hoot out of it if I came back dripping wet. As the machine shuddered into life, Kinkajou plopped down on the floor and lay her head against the washer, lulled by the vibrations against the back of her skull.
"Have you thought about tomorrow, Henriette?"
Sensei's pelt had gleamed even more brightly than usual, casting a pale lilac glow on the even paler surroundings. Her obsidian eyes, catlike and almond-shaped, had been bottomless with thoughts that Kinkajou couldn't hope to grasp, let alone catch within her weak human fingers.
Kinkajou had narrowed her eyes. "Don't call me that," she had growled, sitting phys-ed style before her teacher.
Sensei had lifted one of her pitch-black paws to her face and swiped a bright red tongue over it. Her gaze had sought out Kinkajou's and held it, black eyes into green. "A name is a name, Kinkajou. The term by which you answer to has absolutely no meaning."
"It means something to me. What's your name, Sensei? If it has no meaning, you may as well tell me."
"No." Sensei had lowered her paw. If Kinkajou looked long enough, she would have seen the smallest hint of gold in the cat's abysmal eyes. "I have no name. You'll find it one day. Not now."
Kinkajou had furrowed her brow and frowned. "Must you always speak in riddle?"
"I speak the truth." Sensei had gotten to her paws and wound her little self around Kinkajou's body, one of her numerous tails stroking Kinkajou's face and closing her eyelids. Kinkajou had felt warmth surge through her body like a rush of fire, like freshly-heated ramen settling itself in the pit of her stomach. "And I have asked you if you have thought of tomorrow."
"I don't understand," Kinkajou murmured, lulled by the touch.
Her eyes had remained shut when Sensei's tail moved away, her mind lulled by her teacher's sensuous voice.
"You'll understand soon."
Kinkajou wasn't sure how long she had dozed off, but when she came to, the washer was done. She shifted the load into the dryer, paid, and started it before stepping outside. Plopping down on a vacant bench right by the door, she watched the afternoon mainstream slip past like a group of fish, each having their own individual places to be in a hurry. The sky was darkening, so Kinkajou reckoned it was nearing nightfall. She was itching to get back to Fang, who had been alone for the last two hours.
She was just starting to space out again when it caught her eye: an odd flash of bright orange, out of uniform with the dull gray mass of moving crowd. It stood out like a goldfish swimming amongst minnows. The orange belonged to hair, spiky hair, hair attached to someone's head.
Something like instinct stirred in Kinkajou's gut.
You'll understand soon.
She jumped to her feet, clothes forgotten, and dove into the crowd. She kept the color in her sight as she bobbed and wove through the throng, though her unfortunate height led her to lose him only moments later. Dammit! When she couldn't find him again, she waded out of the crowd, feeling a touch claustrophobic. I lost him. Merde! Slipping away from the mainstream and into the peace and quiet of the suburbs, Kinkajou leaped atop a fence and craned her neck in hopes of catching another glimpse of him. But he was nowhere to be seen. He couldn't have gotten too far, she reasoned. I was right behind him.
Then she heard a familiar voice.
"You come here, stomp Li'l Yama in the face, and then order us out like we was dogs?!"
Toshi? Kinkajou shrunk down and clambered along the top of the fence on her hands and knees, flattened like a cat, graceful and noiseless as she rounded the corner to observe the scene. Her eyes immediately sought out the speaker, a burly, dark-skinned man with what appeared to be a particularly ugly blue beanie worn over a nest of unkempt black hair. The sight made Kinkajou smirk in reminiscence. Well, quelle surprise. Li'l Toshi's come back to Old Town again. Long time no see. She recognized four of the other men in the street to be the rest of Yama's gang, a group of punk boarders who weren't quite Yakuza, but they were still annoying all the same. Yama himself lay on the ground, blood streaming onto the pavement from a broken nose. Those conscious were surrounding a sixth man, a man that Kinkajou knew not by name but by the color of his hair.
Now that he was out of the crowd, she could get a good look at the guy. She couldn't tell much by looking at his backside, but the steel gray uniform he wore told her that he was still school-age. He was tall and lean, his bag slung over one broad shoulder, his posture relaxed and somewhat bored. He seemed relatively at ease with the situation, even after having knocked out the gang's leader. He's got nothing short on guts, I'll give him that.
Toshi went on, "You crazy, punk? Got a death wish? Speak!"
The guy maintained a stony silence. Kinkajou slipped closer, still flattened on top of the fence. No one noticed her approach.
Toshi lost his patience. "Say something, you-!"
Anything else he wished to add was forestalled by the sudden arrival of the guy's foot into his face. Toshi dropped like a stone, and the guy then proceeded to stomp the yankee's face into the cement.
Kinkajou was impressed. Dropped Toshi with one kick, huh? He's not your average high school cream puff.
The rest of the gang did what they did best: made noise.
"Li'l Toshi's down! We gotta help 'im!"
"Are you crazy?"
"No way I'm takin' on that psycho!"
After a few more solid kicks to the back of Toshi's head for good measure, the orange-haired guy glared up at the three remaining gang members and yelled, "Now listen up, you pond scum! You see that?!"
All eyes darted toward the telephone pole that the guy was pointing to. A vase lay overturned on the pavement, a few fragments of broken glass and shredded flower petals floating on a puddle of spilled water.
"First question!" the guy barked. "What do you think that is? You, the one in the middle! Answer!"
Mitch had to look from side to side twice to verify that he was the one in the middle. "W-Wait! You talkin' to me?!" When the guy clenched his fist to indicate his impatience, Mitch spluttered, "Umm... I guess somebody left the flowers as an offering for some dead kid?"
"Correct!" The guy's foot snapped up and connected with Mitch's chin, sending the latter flying. As the other two tried to rouse their fallen comrade ("You okay, Li'l Mitch?!"), the guy carried on as though nothing had happened. "Now, the next question. That vase over there, why is it on its side?"
The two yankees looked up from Mitch's unconscious form to skittishly meet the guy's gaze. Neither of them wanted to speak, but then one plucked up the courage and said, "I guess... one of us knocked it over... when we were... skateboarding through here...?" His voice trailed off at the end as though he were unsure of his answer.
"Is that so?" The guy's voice was dangerously level. Then he yelled, "Then you'd better apologize, or next time the flowers'll be for YOU!"
They didn't need to be told twice. A mesh of "We're sorry!" and "We'll never do it again!" and "Don't hurt us!" split open the peace of the afternoon like an overripe watermelon. The last note of their frenzied apology hadn't quite risen into the air before the two of them were gone, their fallen "friends" forgotten.
The guy, now accompanied only by the three unconscious forms at his feet, made a small noise of contempt and hoisted his school bag back over his shoulder. "There, that oughta keep those punks from showing their ugly faces around here." He bent and righted the flower vase, his back still to Kinkajou. "I'll bring you by some new flowers tomorrow," he added to seemingly no one.
Almost in response, a little girl appeared beside him out of thin air. Literally. Kinkajou didn't have to look at the way the girl's feet hovered several inches off the ground, nor the way she could see the cement beyond through the girl's body, nor the bloodstains that marred her otherwise adorable face. It was easy to tell that the little girl was dead.
"Thank you for coming to my defense," the little girl said sweetly. She bowed her head, her light brown pigtails bouncing against her innocent heart-shaped face. "I think now I'll finally be able to rest peacefully."
The guy turned to look directly at the little spirit. The profile of his face was black against the setting sun as he said lightly, "It's no problem. You deserve to rest in peace."
You'll understand soon.
The little girl's smile widened, and then she disappeared as though picked up by the breeze. The guy looked silently at where she had been for a moment longer before setting off down the road.
Luckily, keeping her prey from escaping was what Kinkajou did best. She jumped to her feet and dashed along the top of the fence, quick and agile like a panther. In a flash, she had passed the boy and leaped onto the ground a few feet in front of him. "Hey!" she started, glancing up into his eyes.
They were a warm shade of mahogany, eyes that would have looked like light, melted chocolate had they not looked so fierce and glaring. The brows above his eyes were knitted together, his mouth etched into a faintly-disapproving frown. His skin was a light, warm peach, framed by short, spiky orange hair the color of the afternoon sky that yawned above them. He couldn't have been any older than her, but he was several inches taller, and by the way his eyes narrowed in instant hostility, Kinkajou didn't have to guess twice why he had been so intimidating to the yankees earlier.
"Are you with them?" he asked bluntly, jerking his head backward in the general direction that the two yakuza had fled in. His voice was a rich baritone, and there was a growl hidden deep in the confines of his words, making him seem even more threatening.
"Non, non. You're hurting my feelings," Kinkajou told him lightly, smirking. She folded her arms behind her head in an attempt to make herself seem less of a threat. "Do I honestly look that stupid and oafish to you?"
The guy relaxed slightly, but she noticed that his shoulders were still tensed and braced for a fight. "Some people are better at hiding it than others."
Kinkajou gave him an easygoing grin. "That was quite something," she said as she strode up to him, relaxed and at ease. "I thought about jumping in myself, but you seemed to have everything under control."
"Who the hell are you?" he asked, narrowing his eyes further.
Kinkajou's grin didn't falter. "Just a drifter. So you see them, too, right?"
"See what?" She couldn't tell if the guy was playing dumb or not.
"Y'know, ghosts. Spirits. Like that little fille with the pigtails."
"Spirits? You're... crazy." He tried to sound nonchalant, but his widened eyes told Kinkajou all she needed to know.
"D'accord," she said pleasantly. "I'm just glad I'm not the only one!"
The guy hesitated for a moment, and then he relaxed a bit more, letting down his facade just enough so that he could speak openly. "It's weird, isn't it? Being the only one."
"Oui. But now there's you!" Kinkajou grinned at him again, flashing a mouthful of curiously white teeth. "I've been seeing them since I was about eleven. Et vous?"
"As long as I can remember," the guy responded after a moment. "I've haven't been talking to them very long. Just recently."
"I've never talked to one before." Kinkajou looked thoughtful. "Never crossed my mind."
"So what do you want with me?" he asked, looking as tense as a board.
"Nothing, really," Kinkajou said lightly. "I just saw you out on the streets and thought you looked pretty interesting, so I followed you." And a cat who visits me in my dreams makes me think that you're important. But she didn't say that last bit out loud.
"Interesting, huh? I don't get that a lot."
"I think you are. I take it you get in fights a lot?" Kinkajou took a strand of her hair and rubbed it between her fingers, gesturing towards his own head. "Because of les cheveux?"
The guy gave an annoyed grunt. "Yeah. No one ever believes me when I say it's natural. A lot of people want to beat me up for it."
"Well, I think it broadcasts your individuality!" declared Kinkajou. "You know, like the bumper stickers on the backs of people's cars."
"Uh..." The guy looked somewhat taken aback to have his hair compared to a bumper sticker.
The look on his face made Kinkajou giggle. "So what's your name?"
The guy blinked. "Ichigo. Ichigo Kurosaki."
Kinkajou's eyes widened a fraction of an inch. "Ichigo, huh?" Her smile was different this time. "Je m'appelle Kinkajou Karata!" She gave a quick bow and then straightened up, her hair somewhat askew. "I'd better go. But maybe we'll bump into one another again sometime. Ciao!" she added over her shoulder as she turned and walked away, and Ichigo's eyes followed her until she whisked around the corner and was gone.
What was that all about?
French to English
Merde- Damn.
Que- What?
Ma belle- My beautiful.
Oui- Yes.
Qu'est-ce qui ne va pas- What's wrong?
Bien sûr- Of course.
Sacrebleu- (A cry of surprise)
Quelle surprise- What a surprise.
Non- No.
Fille- Girl.
D'accord- I agree.
Les cheveux- Hair.
Je m'appelle- My name is...
Ciao- Goodbye! (Italian)
Merde- Damn.
Que- What?
Ma belle- My beautiful.
Oui- Yes.
Qu'est-ce qui ne va pas- What's wrong?
Bien sûr- Of course.
Sacrebleu- (A cry of surprise)
Quelle surprise- What a surprise.
Non- No.
Fille- Girl.
D'accord- I agree.
Les cheveux- Hair.
Je m'appelle- My name is...
Ciao- Goodbye! (Italian)
Ah... It was a long time in the typing, but I finally got the first chapter up. ^^;; Does Kinkajou seem like a good character? She's sort of a blend of myself and Rukia and Orihime, but mostly myself. We both have a pretty stoned way of looking at things. XD Pardon my French, I'm not a native speaker in the slightest. x3 I've had two years of it, but I'm still pretty terrible. I know enough not to rely on a translator if nothing else. x3 If you happen to know French, I'd love if you could point out any errors I've made~! Hopefully I've caught your interest, and if not, thank you for at least reading this far. It makes me very happy either way~!