AN: Just as a note/warning, this chapter kinda jumps around perspectives a bit. It's kinda hard writing a cohesive scene between a bunch of characters when most of them can't see everyone else involved. I tried to make it clear whose eyes we're looking through for each section, so I'm sorry if it's confusing anyway.

Jack stared for just a moment, then threw his hands up in frustration. Rukia could kind of sympathize with the gesture.

"Okay, so, what? I don't know what you are, you don't know what we are, you can't see Bunny, he can't see you, we're all kinds of confused, maybe we should just go home now. This is getting ridiculous. Sorry, didn't mean to freak you out or anything."

He started to turn away, preparing to leave, but he looked almost disappointed, for some reason. Why? He'd told Rukia he'd come looking for her, but he'd never said why exactly. He'd mentioned seeing Rukia freeze D-Roy in her pillar of ice. And apparently he controls snow and ice as well. Sode no Shiraiyuki felt no ill will towards him, so clearly he wasn't a Hollow or menace of any kind. Was he just curious about her? That was possible.

Impulsively, Rukia said, "Wait!" before he could depart. He stopped and looked back at her, eyes curious and...could that be hurt? Rukia wasn't terribly good at reading emotions; being emotional wasn't befitting of a shinigami or a member of the Kuchiki clan, but she'd spent far too much time in the human world not to pick up on a few things.

Why did she stop him? What was she going to say?

"Y-you said you were a Guardian. What do you protect?"

His eyes positively lit up and he smiled wide enough to crack his face in half. "Children! We bring them hope and fun and dreams, even if they don't believe in us."

"Who do you protect them from?" Hitsugaya-taicho asked quietly.

Jack's (inexplicably) dark eyebrows furrowed. "From Pitch-"

"Toshiro-kun!"

Bunny nearly jumped out of his fur when he heard the shout coming towards them. He'd just gotten so used to Jack's weird one-sided conversation with ghosts (is that what death gods are? Seems like they'd have to be ghosts to be dead and all that...) that hearing a voice out loud startled him mightily. He and Jack turned towards the source to see a girl running down the street towards them, her brilliant orange hair streaming out behind her.

On the one hand, Bunny was glad to see someone he could actually, well, SEE. On the other hand, she wouldn't be able to see him any better than the shinigami. She was well into her teen years, her woman's shape leaving no doubt to her maturity, so she had to be past the stage of believing in fairy tales and myths.

But she was standing there, talking to Jack's invisible specters, ("Rangiku-san and I sensed something weird so we came to help!") so was she dead? She certainly didn't look dead. She had a definite liveliness and verve about her that seemed to thrum in the air. So what exactly was she?

Bunny was so tired of being confused and had actually quite liked Jack's earlier suggestion that they leave.

Then she looked directly at them, her bright gray eyes taking in Jack's figure in the front first, lingering on his torso with concern, then unmistakably staring right at Bunny, her eyebrows shooting right up and her eyes going wide, her mouth dropping in surprise at his enormous rabbit's form.

"Wait..." Jack started, looking back and forth between the girl and Bunny.

"Who are you, Rabbit-san?"

Jack was floored. Sure, the girl looked way more normal than the two he'd been talking to up to that point and the one she brought with her – she wore regular clothes for one thing – but she seemed to be friends with the three shinigami (the second arriving woman was dressed in the same black outfit as the other two, though she sported a pink scarf in addition to it. Her blouse also seemed much too small and unable to close properly in the front, causing Jack to briefly blush frost before looking away and Bunny to look at him really funny), so it made sense that she'd be able to see him, what with the whole dead thing. But Bunny? The only way she could see him was for her to believe in him!

At least Bunny looked even more surprise than he did. Now he really wished he had a camera. Maybe this year North will take that wish list seriously...

But really, E. Aster Bunnymund looked positively gobsmacked. It was such a great expression on him that Jack had difficulty holding in his laughter.

"Wow," he said with a grin. "She can see you!"

"You can see me?" Bunny asked the girl at almost the exact same time.

Then- "You can see it?!" the two black-clad warriors demanded of her.

"Who?" the blonde shinigami looked between everyone else, seeking an explanation.

"Hey!" Jack said indignantly at them. "Bunny's a 'he!' Not an 'it!'"

The orange-haired girl looked around, confused, "Why shouldn't I be able to see him? Can't everyone?"

They all shook their heads at her, bewildered.

"No, see," Jack explained, suddenly feeling oddly like a translator between the two parties. "He's the Easter Bunny, so you have to believe in him...to..." He trailed off, looking oddly at the girl. "What?"

As soon as he'd said "Easter Bunny," her eyes got as large and round as dinner plates. She clasped her hands in front of her chest as her face split into the largest, happiest grin Jack had ever seen. She spun dizzyingly fast to face Bunny again and threw herself around his neck, squealing in joy. The jaws of her shinigami friends couldn't have dropped faster. Jack figured she must have looked very strange to them, clinging to the air and swinging a bit as Bunny tried to balance her hug attack. And then he realized that to any normal human adult happening by, the redheaded girl must have looked extremely strange, talking and interacting entirely by herself. He couldn't help but chuckle a little at the thought.

"You're the one that brings me the wonderful eggs and chocolate every year! Thank you thank you thank you so much!"

Bunny managed to stammer out a "You're welcome" as he set her back down on her feet.

"Oh, I love looking for the eggs and the paint is so wonderfully pretty! It makes me sad to break them, but if I didn't then they would go to waste after too long, and that's just even more sad. But the chocolate with the eggs is just so delicious! Sometimes I like to melt some of the chocolate to use as a syrup-"

"Wait, wait, wait," Jack interrupted. "You didn't eat the eggs and chocolate together, did you?"

The young looking white-haired shinigami had a slightly nauseous look on his face when he replied for her, "Yes. Yes she did."

AN: This chapter did NOT want to break up! It was turning out to be twice as long as all the rest of my chapters, but I couldn't find a good place to stop! So I hope you'll forgive me if it seems too abrupt here, but I'm having difficulty wrapping this fic up and I feel bad about how much I delay in between updates. I figured I had enough material to post a new chapter of equivalent length to what I've already posted, I just needed to stop it somewhere. There's gonna be one more chapter to wrap everything up, and then this fun'll be over! It'll be the first multi-chapter fic I've ever finished actually...

Oh, and I should probably also mention something about Orihime believing in the Easter Bunny. Just so you know, I'm aware that she's not Christian, but she IS, however, Orihime. She may not celebrate the religion behind the Easter Bunny, but she would totally believe in him.