Heroes

Chapter Forty-Three

I chuckled one more time before heading into the shop. "Urahara, my friend’s here!!!" I called.

Kisuke popped out of a random room, obviously startling Babs. "Aah, who is this lovely girl?" he asked giddily, running up to her and sticking out his hand. "Kisuke Urahara, shop owner. And you are?"

She hesitantly took his hand. "B-Babs…Babs Maddox. Nice to meet you."

He shook vigorously. "Babs! Great to see another volunteer!! Just let Adel-chan show you around, I’m a bit busy at the moment. Sorry!" His eyes shot to the both of us. "Well, I guess I’ll see you girls later!!" He skipped off merrily, as always.

"Sorry about that," I said ashamedly, "he’s kind of…high…all the time. But don’t worry, you’ll get used to it quick."

She eyed the door that he exited through warily. "…If you say so."

I took a step in front of her. "Come on, let’s go to the room and drop off our stuff. Then we can go see Kurosaki." I led her to our back bedroom and we slung our stuff in any random place; we could always unpack later. We went into Kurosaki’s room, where we found Tara sitting by Ichigo’s sleeping form, looking at him soberly, like a happy mother admiring her cute child.

Upon our entrance her head whipped to us and she got up quietly. "Guys!" she said, rushing over to us. She hugged Babs tightly. "It’s good to see everyone here!"

I smiled. "Yeah it is. First time in a while. So Kurosaki’s knocked out?"

Tara glanced back to her boyfriend. "Yeah," she said, sighing contentedly. "He looks so cute when he’s asleep!! Aah, I just can’t take it, so kawaii~"

I giggled. "You’re so lovesick, it’s like we need to put you on medication."

She sent me a glare. "Whatever. I just really love Ichigo, that’s all. And this is my first time seeing him asleep. It was a really nice experience, being here with him while he was sleeping. Helped me really think about some things."

I gestured for everyone to move, and we all sat criss-cross in the floor in a circle. "What kind of things?"

She sighed soberly. "Just…home. How much I miss my mom and dad and sister. And school and everything. I wonder if their realities were altered, so that they wouldn’t know we were there? So it was like we never existed?"

"Yeah," Babs said. "I’m always wondering how everything’s going back home."

"Jeez," I sighed, "seems like forever since we’ve been home, hasn’t it? Almost like the Clinic is our home…."

"Well, it is now." Tara looked into her lap, seemingly thinking deeply. "I mean, but it’s a good thing, right? I feel like…almost like we were brought here. Like our real purpose is here."

"Yeah," I said thoughtfully, propping one hand on my knee and scratching my head with the other. "But, ya know, once I get to be a Shinigami and stuff, there goes my dreams of being a Tenn. U allumn."

Babs laughed. "Yeah, and there goes my cooking career."

Tara looked up, smiling the tiniest bit. "And my art degree."

We all knew we were being stupid, that such things were just wishful thinking. But they were our goals back in the real world. Now that everything’d changed, we knew it was next to impossible now, that we had a new purpose. Just…thinking about it…made everything sort of surreal for us, made us remember that we were in a cartoon world. Anime. Something that wasn’t supposed to become a real manifestation. Something that tingled the minds of otakus and confused those more ignorant. Something left to the…imagination. Not something people literally become a part of. How we were here was still unexplained, and I doubted it ever would be revealed. However, it was somewhat irrelevant at this point, seeing we’d been here for so long.