Rangiku quickly redressed and set about to business. Though she would have just preferred to forget ever stepping into that cursed bazaar and not have anything more to do with it, she recognized how dangerous it was. Between the horrible things that had happened to her, Yoruichi, and those two schoolgirls, whom for all Rangiku knew might still be trapped, if not worse off, it wasn't something that could just be ignored.
And then there was another thought that nagged at her. The lawyer at the Sands of Time had told Rangiku that someone named Rukia Kuchiki had been pulled out of their reality entirely. It was as though the girl never existed. Bothered by this, she felt that it was something worth investigating, even if her leads all turned up false.
Captain Byakuya Kuchiki entered the room and eyed Rangiku curiously. "You wished to see me?"
"I did," Rangiku said. "There's something very important that I need to ask you, but first, you had better sit down. This is a very long story."
Rangiku explained how she had started the day with the intention of a shopping trip with Yoruichi tagging along, only for the pair to suddenly find themselves in a strange bazaar in the middle of a desert. As her tale wore on, and she went over the way in which Yoruichi had been killed and brought back to life, the only detail she left out was the part where she herself was turned into a helpless cock monster because, well...that was just plain humiliating, and no one else needed to know that part. Right?
The slightly edited version of the tale continued with Rangiku and Yoruichi's encounter with a pair of unusual high school girls that had just arrived from apparently another world. But shortly thereafter, a phallic sex demon that was most certainly not under any circumstances Rangiku attacked, transforming one of the girls into a demoness herself. Rangiku and the girl's companion searched for a cure and made a stop at a place called Sands of Time, which made the promise of reversing time to eliminate undesired consequences, though at a steep price.
"Are you with me so far?" Rangiku asked.
Byakuya simply stared. "You expect me to believe all of this?"
Rangiku shrugged. "Hey, I'm just telling you what happened. It's all true. Well...mostly. But anyway, I've reached the point that's relevant to what I wanted to ask you."
"And what question is that?"
"Have you ever heard of a member of your house named Rukia Kuchiki?"
"Rukia...?"
"When I was at Sands of Time, the negotiator I spoke with mentioned the name. He said that she was a girl from our world that had somehow had been pulled away. But she still exists out there, somewhere."
"But I've never heard of any such woman by that name," Byakuya said.
"Just think!" Rangiku said. "Has there ever been a point in your life where it felt like something, or someone, significant was missing?"
"That's kind of a broad question, isn't it?"
"I know it is." Rangiku shrugged. "But it's all of the information I have. I'm not even sure we could find her, if she is real."
Sat Sep 10 03:04:08 2011