Tomodachi Forever
Chapter 15
Rotti stepped back just in time to save himself. Instead, he just got a long, thin scratch across his chest, cutting his uniform. but just barely drawing blood.
Rotti still teased her ruthlessly, "Woah there... Emo people should only cut themselves. You'd better put the razor away for a minute and calm down."
Tomo gave him an icy glare, and faked a charge. He leapt upwards, as she had suspected. She thrust her sword up into the air, but a bit too late and high. Instead of cutting his foot off at the ankle, like Ai would have done, she left a deep cut running down his leg. He yelped in pain when he landed on the torn muscle.
He shifted position and called, "Mia! Get over here and help me!" then proceeded to release his sword, "Swim swiftly, Sakana Maou!"
As his sheath became another blade and connected to his sword, Mia ran up to him an unsheathed her zanpukto: A short, fat, and slightly curved type with dark pink blade and white where the actually sharp part was. The handle was medium pink, and wrapped with a light pink streamer where it should have had fingerholds. Her sheath was light pink with strangely shaped dark pink checkers. She seemed unsure of herself.
"I'll try Shikai again... um... Flap Furtively? No... Flit Flagrantly? No! Fly Flirtatiously?! Ugh! I still can't get it right! Come on, Sakura Ichirin, cooperate with me!"
She turned her mind back to the battle... Then she noticed something: Tomo could have killed her many times over, but hadn't touched her! She seemed to prefer hacking at Rotti, even though she didn't know her Shikai either. Rotti was still mentally torturing Tomo... It seemed that he had a death-after-deathwish. Comment after enfuriating comment flew out of his mouth, whether true or not. Mia got a glance of the symbol on Tomo's kimono. The Eleventh Squad... She ran off to tell Tomo's captain of what was going on.
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Meanwhile, Ai and Captain Hitsugaya heard metal clashing and screams of anger. They immediately stopped what they were doing, and went to see what was going on. They found Tomo and Rotti locked in a fight to the death, Tomo's Ice form radiating an icy aura, and Rotti still aggravating her further. They also caught a glimpse of Mia running off. Ai stood there, dumbstruck as Tomo hacked and slashed ruthlessly. Captain Hitsugaya had a bit more sense, but not much. He ran in between them, unsheathing his sword. Ai followed him.
"You stop Tomo," He called, "and I'll get this guy to leave her alone!"
Ai brought out Chiwa and jumped in front of Tomo, blocking her latest attack while her captain pushed Rotti back with feints. Tomo growled at Ai.
"Get out of the way! I'm going to rip that ---------------- to tiny shreds!"
Ai held her ground. Tomo slammed down again, harder, and put all of her weight onto her sword. Ai could'nt hold her like this for very long. She turned Chiwa so that the flat of the blade was against Tomo's sword, and used her other hand to help support Tomo's pressure. She might be able to hold this... But just as Ai thought this, Tomo lifted her sword and brought it down repeatedly. Hit after hit of metal to metal echoed through the afternoon air.
Ai's skin crawled with fear at the fury in Tomo's eyes, and her relentless attacking of her best friend just to get at Rotti, who had now stopped fighting Captain Hitsugaya and was watching the two girls curiously. Tomo's seige wasn't mellowing in the slightest. Ai began to get nervous... Would Tomo really try to kill her to get to Rotti?
"TOMO! Stop that at once!"
Captain Ukitake had been successfully brought to the scene by Mia!
Tomo froze mid-strike, surprise and guilt evident in her face. She dashed off without even sheathing her sword. Ai darted after her, wondering what Tomo planned to do when she got to where she was going. Tomo fled around corners, over buildings, and right out of the Sereitei! Still, she kept going. Ai was falling behind, out of breath, and quickly tiring.
Suddenly, Tomo turned a sharp corner and Ai lost sight of her. The road split into five directions here, including where they had come from. Ai looked this way and that. She couldn't decide which way to go, so she plunked onto the ground to catch her breath. When she was breathing normally again, she could hear soft sobbing coming from the ragged balcony of one of the forsaken houses. Ai glanced up, and saw a wave of blue hair that could only be Tomo's Water form.
Ai leapt up onto the balcony. She was right; Tomo was there, sitting awkwardly on the wooden platform. Tears streamed down her cheeks faster than a waterfall. Ai sheathed Chiwa, and kneeled beside Tomo, putting an arm around her shoulders. Tomo sniffled and looked up, tearstained face still guilty and pained.
Ai said tenderly, "The mind is a weapon... You are weak to it..."
Tomo nodded, then pushed into Ai's embrace as another flood of tears came. Ai forced out all of her spirit pressure to draw the two captains to their position.
It didn't take long before they arrived, panicked and worried for the sake of their apprentices. At the sight of the two of them together, unharmed, both captains visibly relaxed. They jumped up onto the overhang as well. Ai helped Tomo up, and together, the four Shinigami returned to Sereitei.
Tomo was put to bed immediately, and Ai was informed of what happened. Rotti and Mia had been sent back to their squads, where Rotti's captain, Soi Fon, had lectured him on keeping the peace between Shinigami. Mia was rewarded with a special training session for getting help. When Tomo woke up, Captain Ukitake was to talk with her to figure out what happened, and Captain Hitsugaya went to do his paperwork without another word.
Ai sat by Tomo's bed for a while, to make sure she was okay. She talked to Tomo, even though she was asleep and probably couldn''t hear her.
"Why did you go wandering off? Unless... Maybe... You were bored? I guess that was my fault... I got so excited about my Shikai training that I didn't think to tell you... I'm sorry, Tomo..."
She soon fell asleep, at which point Captain Ukitake called Captain Hitsugaya to take her back to the Tenth Squad building for the night.
Read the next chapter to see Ai's Shikai in a practice battle with Tomo! Yay! ^-^
