The American Student

A/N: Wow, has it really been that long since I last updated? Well, either way, here's a new chapter for those of you still reading this fic.

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach, its characters, or anything associated with the series.

Chapter Nineteen: Things Not Anticipated

Claire and Emily were both surprised how unpredictable weather could be. The night had gone without much more than a drizzle, but soon the downpour resumed. Thankfully, they had remembered umbrellas, and so they walked to school in the rain.

"Hey, Claire?" Emily said, looking straight ahead.

Claire made a humming noise in reply, and that was all that was needed for Emily to continue.

"You know Hitsugaya is smart enough to eventually figure out there's more too it, right?" Claire nodded. "Well when he does find out, what do you think will happen?"

She seemed to consider this for a while. "He'll probably tell Seireitei, and then who knows what'll happen. We might be questioned, but I think they'll probably leave us alone. I mean, we haven't harmed anyone, we haven't done any damage to anything, so why should it matter?"

"Somehow, I don't think it's just that simple."

---

The dreary weather outside was infinitely more interesting to Claire than the lesson on English figures of speech the class was getting. She knew her metaphors and sayings well—she didn't need to be told what 'off his/her rocker' meant, nor did she think they would need to know it; she thought teaching them what people meant when they said 'bite me' might be more useful.

Humming lightly under her breath, Emily was sketching out a picture of what seemed to be a unicorn, also ignoring the lesson completely. As she took her pencil and shaded in the horn, a rather bright flash of lighting lit up the room, followed closely by a clap of thunder. She paid it no mind, and continued to work on her sketch. This weather had been going on for some time, and she saw no reason to mind it.

Until the sirens went off, that is.

Emily looked up immediately, catching Claire's eyes as she too looked around; they both had the same question: what was going on?

"Tornado alarm," someone said loudly enough for her to hear. She saw Hitsugaya standing up from his desk and heading for the quickly forming line of students. Claire seemed to have heard, too, and both girls joined the line together.

They walked quickly through the hallways, seeing other classes along their way to what they guessed was the basement. The classes were all ushered into windowless classrooms and hallways, and took on the usual pose of what can be described as an on-the-knees fetal position with hands covering neck. Among the hustle-and-bustle they managed to hear the words "this is not a drill".

The not-a-drill didn't last long, and about twenty minutes later they were all back up in their respective classrooms. There were, of coursed, whispers about the strange event while coming into the classroom, but mostly things were settled.

Claire had to give this school some credit; back at her own school a fifteen minute tornado drill would have resulted in at least ten newly handed-out detentions for students and a twenty minute period of getting back to the classroom and doing nothing while waiting for everyone to get back and things to settle down.

So, the learning continued. One hour passed into the next, and lunch eventually arrived, which brought its own excitement. For, as soon as students were crowded into the cafeteria, the lights flickered and then went out quickly. The cafeteria, being in the center of the school, had no windows and it was quite dark until flashlights were pulled out and candles were lit.

Of course, you had the kids who over-reacted, the ones who took advantage of the situation and scared the hell out of others, and then you had the few who just went quiet.

Emily was none of these. She leaned into their table, grinning, and quickly explained the rules to a game.

"So," she concluded, "anyone up for Ghost in the Graveyard?"

---

The power never did come back on that day. The rest of their lessons were conducted in the dark of the storm, lit up eerily by candles and the occasional flash of lightning. The rain grew louder as it poured harder throughout the day, until finally the sound of the teacher's voice could barely be heard over the roaring weather.

So, needless to say, walking back home wasn't too pleasant. Umbrellas were useless in the face of the wind and rain, which blew the icy water right at their faces and soaked them through. Because of this, as soon as Claire and Emily got home, they changed out of their uniforms and into casual wear, and Claire wrapped her hair up into a towel because their power had gone out because of the storm (again) and as such she couldn't blow-dry her hair. Emily's hair wasn't long enough to wrap up, so she let it hang damp.

"It's dark, it's raining, the power is out, and I'm freezing," Claire griped, not in the best of moods. Reaching into her bag, she pulled out a soggy red box. "And the pocky got wet."

While Claire was going through her damp bag, Emily was trying to get their radio (battery operated, of course) to tune to a local news station or anything else that might be giving weather updates. She had been completely unsuccessful so far, much to her frustration. It wasn't until about twenty minutes of moving the antenna and radio about the room and scanning the stations did she finally get a half-decent signal through the downpour, and managed to make out a man saying that the storm had come from nowhere and was hovering over Karakura and the surrounding areas with no foreseeable plans of moving. Some businesses had even closed because the weather was so terrible.

"Claire, there's something not right about this storm," Emily said, frowning. "Why isn't it moving? Why is it centered over the city? Why can nobody figure out what caused it? It makes no sense."

Claire looked over towards Emily, momentarily distracted from trying to dry off her things. "It isn't moving?"

Emily shook her head. "Not an inch, unless you count the fact that its perimeter keeps growing, but the center is remaining the same. There is something unnatural about it. You don't think…?"

"That a spirit could be causing this? It might, but I don't sense anything."

"I don't either, but that worries me more than anything else."

---

"Taicho…" Matsumoto dragged out in complaint. "Do we have to keep watch in this weather? I can barely even see anything."

"Information from Seireitei says that a strong hollow was detected coming into the world of the living, but never detected leaving. There's a good chance it's hiding itself around here," Hitsugaya reminded her. "We have to keep watch, even in the storm. "Don't forget that the storm itself is very likely being caused by the hollow."

The information had been more serious, actually, than Hitsugaya let on. It was why he was tenser than usual, preferring to remain outside rather than wait for a sign while waiting indoors; he had been told that there was a high probability that this 'hollow' was more specifically an arrancar because the energy signature had been slightly different from a normal hollow's reiatsu. And so, Hitsugaya was ready to fight with full force.

Suddenly, a large reiatsu flared up and Hitsugaya, followed by Matsumoto, raced off towards it. They in the park—Hitsugaya made a mental note to have the twelfth division check out this area to look for any specific reason why the hollow were drawn to the park the most—and Renji, Rukia, and Ichigo were already fighting them.

Hitsugaya furrowed his eyebrows as he unsheathed Hyourinmaru and immediately released his shikai, ready for a tough fight now that his concerns had been confirmed. Not one, but three arrancar were fighting fiercely with the shinigami, and more menos grande were coming in, followed by other hollows. Even as the rest of the Karakura-based shinigami showed up, they were being spread thin just by the sheer number of enemies.

Fighting skillfully, Hitsugaya was completely focused; nothing took his attention away from the enemy at hand.

Nothing, that is, until the last two people he would have wanted to see right then showed up.

Emily and Claire were ready to fight.

"Both of you go home!" Hitsugaya shouted as he dodged a strike. "You'll only get in the way."

The girls were ignoring him, though, as both went to battle. Claire had pulled out her zanpakto and was slicing open hollow, while Emily fought equally hard. The hollows just kept coming, and the rain made visibility crap and made the grass slick and muddy. It was overall terrible conditions for fighting, but they never gave in, and Hitsugaya gave up shouting at the two girls to leave—he had more important things to worry about.

Claire struck her sword just past the white-haired captain's head, effectively killing the hollow that was just about to attack the occupied Hitsugaya.

He locked eyes with her for a moment. "We'll talk later."

She smirked, not having expected any different. "Of course."

Soon the flow of hollow seemed to cease, and they were defeated quickly and easily, as were the menos (though not as quickly or as easily). All that was left to do was defeat the arrancar, which had unfortunately stayed alive seeing as there were so many other hollows to take care of.

So what did Claire do? Without thinking, she released her shikai and went straight for the nearest arrancar. Emily, trying to heal a gaping wound on her own arm, didn't have time to remind Claire that the arrancar were stronger than the other hollows they'd encountered so far.

The arrancar, which appeared to be male, easily avoided the vines of fire, ice, and stone, simply jumping up and collecting reiatsu beneath himself so he could stay in the air where it was much, much easier to dodge Claire's attacks, both those from her and her zanpakto. Realizing that this wasn't going to work, she recalled her shikai and, holding her sword in her right hand, plunged it into her left arm.

"You idiot!" Emily screeched, watching as thinner, nimbler vines of a dark scarlet color unfurled from her friends arm, and actually managed to touch the arrancar, though not really hurt him. It was about then that Hitsugaya stepped in.

"Stay out of this Bard, you cannot defeat him," Hitsugaya said, stepping in front of Claire.

"None of you can defeat me," the arrancar spoke. "Aizen-sama's followers are stronger than shinigami will ever be."

"We'll see about that," Claire said, ready to lash out again, but this time Emily grabbed Claire and held her back.

"He's stronger than you are Claire. I won't just sit here and watch you get yourself killed."

But Claire ignored the warnings of both her friend and Hitsugaya and went for a head-on strike. In return, she got a solid punch to her stomach that sent her flying backwards and coughing up blood-tinted saliva as she hurried to get up, staggering a bit as she did so. Stand she did, though, and began to pick up speed for another attack on the arrancar that Hitsugaya was now in battle with. She landed a vine-covered kick on the arrancar, but it wasn't enough to even make him wince. He simply grabbed her retracting leg and flung her harshly into a tree, where Emily heard a disconcerting snap. This time, it took Claire much longer to stand, her body taking damage from both the arrancar and the pain that her seal inflicted when she used this much reiatsu. Her vision was blurring black, but she pulled herself up again as Emily ran over to her and tried to convince her to just sit back down. It was like convincing a starving person not to eat, though, and Claire trudged back towards the battle, and then simply stopped. Her zanpakto slowly melted out of her arm and solidified into her hand, leaving her arm still with a horrible wound, and she breathed deeply.

"I'm going to try it," she said slowly. "I've got to try it. I know I can do it."

Emily was dumbfounded. "You haven't mastered it at all, though! You haven't accomplished it even once! Even if you do get it to work… Claire, this is crazy!"

Claire just grinned, though, and plunged her sword into the ground.

A/N: Well, there was the chapter I just finished today. I know, it wasn't that good, and I probably could do better if I had more motivation to work on this. Well, whatever, I'm determined to finish this!

Thanks for reading! Please review!