Disclaimer:
Hi everyone! emichii here! This is my new hitsukarin fanfic! I hope
you enjoy it! By the way, I don't own Bleach!
Growing Up
A hitsukarin fic by emichii
But
I'll wait outside
Hoping that I'll catch sight of the sun.
Chapter 1- High of 75
We
were talking together And
tomorrow, I know,
I said, "what's up with this
weather?"
Don't know whether or not
How sad I just got
Was
of my own volition.
Or if I'm just missing the sun
Will be rainy at best.
And the forecast, I
know,
Is that I'll be depressed.
---
The teenage girl walked sullenly down the streets, alone. Her scowl remained somewhat permanently on her face, and she kept her hands pushed down deep into her pockets, and her chin down under her scarf as she made her way through the cold.
The temperature was getting colder these days. And the sky grew darker earlier now, as the weather made its yearly change into winter. She rolled her eyes to herself as she thought about what her dad would say about her lateness. The earphones of her iPod were firmly in her ears and the music blasting its way through her thoughts.
It wasn't fair anyway. She always got home at this time now. Dad was a moron for making them come home so early. Besides, he always got away with it now.
She shook her head as she felt the bitterness in her heart fire up. Bloody hell. Stupid Ichigo.
---
The breeze made her almost shoulder-length black hair blow past her face as she stomped her way down the street, in a foul mood as always.
She suddenly stopped, angry as the music in her earphones was being interrupted by another sound. She could feel the pressure behind her, it was moving and present. Turning around quickly, she yanked out the earphones and snapped, "For crying out loud, would you leave me alone?"
The two ghosts behind her shrank back from her outburst. One of them was the first to recover, pouting. "Karin, you're always complaining and whining about us, but you always look after us anyway. 'cause you know you can't help but care for others."
"Oh, shut up." grumbled Karin as she reached up to replace her earphones.
The smaller ghost, which resembled a small girl of about eleven, hid behind the first one. But she poked out her head and said, "You know we try not to follow you around all the time. It's only when we need you."
"It still frigging annoys me," Karin said bluntly.
"Heh heh," the first ghost, a woman, chuckled. "That's what's so great about you, Karin! You always grumble and complain, but you can't help being the compassionate person you are!"
Karin said nothing and blatantly ignored them.
Why have I got to be the one to carry all these burdens by myself? Why am I the only one left here in Karakura that has to deal with all these stupid spirits and ghosts?? She thought to herself bitterly.
Those stupid shinigami have all gone away to who-knows-where and Ichi-nii's gone with them! Yuzu still doesn't have much spiritual ability, and between Jinta, Ururu and me- there's no way we can deal with all of these nuisances!
Karin frowned harder as she picked up the pace.
Plus, none of us can do konso, so the amount of spirits lurking around here gets larger, which means the Hollows come more often, which means we keep having to kill the Hollows ourselves, which means we keep running out of class and home and everything, which is why I'm late tonight!
Not that that was a liable excuse to use for her father.
She felt the chilling pressure behind her rise eerily. And immediately, somewhere down her throat she felt like she might throw up. She bit her lip as the goosebumps rose up on her arms.
"Karin…" the smaller ghost whimpered softly. "It's here…!"
Karin sighed heavily as she reached in her pocket and turned up the iPod to a higher volume, trying to blast out all of her troubles.
"Stay behind me," she muttered grumpily, as she turned.
The Hollow was now in front of her. It was very large and towered high above her, with a very wide head and a mean-looking face past its mask. Its spiritual pressure and energy seemed to take the form of wisps of smoke and it rose and fell all around Karin. Karin screwed up her nose.
What to do… what to do…
It was simple to take out small and weaker Hollows by booting a soccer ball to their head. But Isshin had been getting suspicious and annoyed from the amount of soccer balls she'd been going through these past weeks. He'd restricted her to buying only three new soccer balls a week, which was a real hindrance to her cause.
It was such a shame she didn't have a huge metal bat like Jinta or a charm-covered canon like Ururu.
Still… she could feel the heavy and scared pulsing of the ghosts' pressure and she clenched her fists.
She looked up at the Hollow. It was growling and all of a sudden, it swung a huge scaled arm down towards her. Karin doubled back and leapt up over it as it went crashing into the ground, leaving huge cracks in the sidewalk. Landing nimbly on her feet, she replaced an earphone that had fallen out as she scanned the area for something that might help.
The Hollow was very tall and she frowned as she planned out a strategy. She noticed a telephone booth and using a bench nearby as a launching pad, clambered onto it. Now on her hands and feet up there, she worried for the two ghosts that were quaking immensely behind the booth.
The building nearby was empty, apart from a flickering light in an upper-storey room. Karin grunted as she ducked from the Hollow's arm coming towards her. She watched as the Hollow made its way towards the ghosts.
The older ghost held the younger ghost in its arms and the little girl was crying. "Karin!!" she wailed. "Help us!"
And Karin knew it. As much as she'd tried these last years, to hold it all back, to become as cold and detached as possible from her family and the rest of her world… as much as she'd kept everything to herself, everything… the pain and suffering and loneliness… all these burdens and responsibilities she so grudgingly took care of…
Inside, her heart still ached for them.
Because as cold as Karin had become, trying so hard to create this tough shell around her, it was only to protect. And inside, she cared.
The tears ran down the little ghost's face and Karin scowled as she took a jump off the telephone booth and grabbed hold of a tree branch above. The Hollow stomped towards the telephone booth and it crushed easily under its feet, the glass and metal shattering everywhere.
Karin swung herself around and onto the tree branch, crouching there. Looking desperately towards the spirits she yelled, "Hey!! Get away from there!!"
The woman picked up the child and ran.
The Hollow edged closer and closer to the tall office building. Karin waited. As its side crashed into the building, Karin leapt off the tree and clung onto the Hollow's back. The Hollow growled and tried to shake her off, his claws and hands lashing back behind it to pull her off and eat her, but Karin clung on tightly.
Her face was flushed as she held on, gradually making her was up towards its head. The earphones fell out of her eyes, but she left them out, the wires swinging back and forth, getting caught in her scarf as she inched towards the Hollow's mask.
Dammit. Her heart was pumping so loudly out of her chest. She was terrified. But she gritted her teeth anyway.
"Kaaarriiiiinnnn!!" The tearful voice came from the little girl from across the street.
At least, Karin thought angrily, when I know people are depending on me, I won't ditch them and leave them! At least, when people are depending on me, I'll do everything I can for them!! The anger rose up in her chest. At least I won't abandon them when they're in need like SOMEONE else would!
The Hollow turned towards the building and Karin took a dangerous step forward and gathering all her power in her leg, kicked the Hollow's mask as hard as she possibly could. She felt the pain snake its way from her foot all the way up her leg and she cringed.
The Hollow threw back its head and howled as the tiniest cracks began the appear on its mask.
Karin took advantage of the Hollow throwing back its head. Now her plan had gone the way she'd planned. They were right in front of the building.
Karin tightened her fists and gritted her teeth as the Hollow's head came back up. As it came, she lifted her leg and kicked it straight in the back of its head. The impact, along with the momentum it already had, sent it crashing face-down straight into the building.
The Hollow's mask was shattered on impact, as was the wall of the building. Karin stood there, on the Hollow's shoulder as the building fell down, the bricks, the plaster, the glass windows, everything collapsing. She completely forgot what she was standing on. The Hollow's body collapsed downwards as well, crashing into the ground, before dissolving into nothingness and Karin fell the last couple of feet to the ground.
It was now really dark and she could see the torch lights and car lights as people came rushing to the scene to investigate the mysterious collapsing building.
Karin untangled her earphone wires from hr scarf, and ran off down the street. Once she had turned the corner, and was finally on her street, she turned around to see the two ghosts behind her.
"Thank you for saving us, Karin." the woman said. The little girl said nothing, but attached herself to Karin's leg. Karin frowned at the slightly transparent girl hugging her.
Karin scowled. "Yeah, whatever. It's safe now, and there aren't any Hollows around. So scram already!"
The older ghost chuckled to herself as they moved off.
Karin stood and watched them before awkwardly muttering, "Be careful, okay?"
---
"Karin! Do you know how late you are??" Isshin burst out as he opened the door for the fourteen-year-old.
Karin ignored her father as she walked right past him, kicking off her shoes and letting them thud across the floorboards.
"Karin! Yuzu just swept the floor!" Her dad shouted. "And your dinner is all cold, because you're over an hour late!"
Karin said nothing and kept walking down the corridor.
Yuzu appeared from the kitchen, worry creasing her forehead as she watched her twin sister ignore them all.
"Karin…" Yuzu said.
"Karin, don't tell me you're skipping dinner again!" Isshin shouted after her. "Karin! Can you hear me? Dammit, you've always got those earphones plugged in your ears! Karin, listen to me! KARIN!"
A moment later there was the sound of Karin's bedroom door slamming shut.
---
Because
on and off,
The clouds have fought
Their control over the
sky
And lately the weather
Has been so Bi-polar
And
Consequently so have I
---
There was knocking on her door, and Karin could hear it through her earphones. She didn't say anything but stayed there, sitting on her bed, staring up at the ceiling.
Yuzu paused. She stood outside Karin's door and said quietly, "Karin… Karin, you should eat dinner."
There was no reply.
Yuzu stood there and lowered her gaze to the floor. "Karin, you're not sitting there in the dark again, are you?"
There was no light peeking out from under the door, so it obvious she was.
And then, finally…
Her voice wasn't angry or loud. Just detached and half-hearted.
"…leave me alone."
Yuzu reluctantly went to put Karin's dinner in the fridge.
---
Alone in her room, in the dark, Karin sat on her bed. She turned the volume up on her iPod and hugged her arms around her knees. She shivered slightly in the coolness of her room and lowered her chin down onto her knees, letting the curtain of her black hair fall over her eyes.
And
the temperature is freezing And we might break
up
And then, after dark,
There is a
cold front sweeping
In over my heart
If I don't wake up to the sun
She stretched out one leg and saw the scratches and cuts that ran across it and felt it ache from where she'd kicked the Hollow.
And she couldn't help it. Here, when she was alone, her shields went down. And even though she'd tried so hard to be tough and to be cold and close herself off from the others, inside she felt so weak. So Karin just sat there, holding in to the loneliness that was eating her away inside.
---
From outside the streets of Karakura, a figure stood there, floating above the ground. The night air outside was very still and he felt the breeze rush past him, making his disheveled white hair more messed up then it already was. He gazed down over Karakura, his teal-coloured eyes calm as usual.
"It's been a while," the Tenth Company captain murmured to himself.
---
And from inside her bedroom, Karin sat and stared outside her window into the darkness, wondering if things would ever get better.
…But
I'll wait outside
Hoping that I'll catch sight of the sun.
End of Chapter 1! Uhh… sorry, I've never been very good at first chapters! I hope you liked it anyway! By the way, the song and lyrics used for this chapter was High of 75 by Relient K! You should all go listen to it! ^_^ Heh heh, anyway, for this fic, I'm hoping to use a different song for each chapter! I've already got a few songs for a few specific chapter stories, but I'll need a lot more! So, if you have a song that you like, or has lyrics that could suit the story, please tell me!
Please review 'cause I need encouragement! emichii