Chapter 13: The Most Dangerous Game
Chiaki yawned quietly as she pulled herself up from her bed, instinctively stretching before realizing that at her top bunk, that would probably just result in serious injury. She'd actually done that a few times in the past few days, and almost fallen over each time, so she was glad she had narrowly avoided disaster this time. It probably helped that for the first time in the last few days, she'd actually gotten a good amount of sleep and felt entirely refreshed. She'd gotten to go to sleep earlier, and with the benefit of her previous life, homework hardly presented even a ghost of a challenge.
Looking out the window, Chiaki saw that the sun has barely risen, and furthermore, it was still relatively dark out; it seemed that having gone to sleep extra early, she'd woken up early as well. Not that she minded though, she could just lay in bed for a bit and think. Ichigo was asleep and if she was right about today…
Right on cue, Rukia appeared from the closet, opening the door slowly to make as little noise as possible. Chiaki wasn't surprised. She'd suspected today to be the day Rukia would go out to Urahara's shop, and her mental intuition was spot on once again. She'd been making sure to at least try and prepare for the upcoming events, even if she wasn't certain they would happen because of the compounding changes in the timeline, but it seemed for now, she was still getting lucky with what appeared. After all, for the time being, Urahara's shop was key to her plans.
Watching as Rukia began to try and make her escape from the house unnoticed, Chiaki snapped softly to get her attention, almost causing Rukia to yell out in surprise, though luckily she stifled the noise just in time. Chiaki lowered herself down to the floor quietly, before whispering to Rukia.
"Heeeeey…. So, where are you going?"
Rukia became visibly flustered, but doing her best to appear unbothered, simply gave a shaky smile.
"S-simply out on an errand Chiaki! It's nothing to worry about, you should head back to sleep. It's important for human adolescents after all"
"Reaaaaally…"
Chiaki gave an unimpressed look, and after a moment, Rukia finally relented, sighing lightly with a dejected look on her face.
"Oh, very well… I must run… an errand for myself, a health-related matter. It would be preferable if you didn't come along in all honesty, as it is a private matter…"
"Eh, I won't look. Besides, if someone notices that someone's been going around the house, I can cover for you by saying I was taking an early morning walk. I don't have anything better to do, so…"
Rukia shook her head, looking rather cross about the entire situation, but Chiaki raised a hand.
"Listen, you already woke up, if I try and climb back up to bed it'll just make things more difficult for everyone, and you're losing seconds debating it. Is it really that private of a matter?"
Chiaki thought for a moment, before simply turning around and making her way towards the door.
"Fine then, follow if you wish. But try and make yourself scarce. I would prefer to keep complications to a minimum from now on. This place is not what you would call "well-regulated", so normal laws and rules do not apply."
Rukia placed emphasis on the word "minimum", to which Chiaki could only shrug. Hey, it was better than nothing.
"Seems like you've really taken the idea of bending the rules to heart then? Alright, I can try and act natural."
__________
After a few minutes of shuffling and quiet movement to escape the house, Rukia was able to successfully pull away. She and Chiaki walked in silence for the duration of the journey, before, after a few minutes of travel, the two finally made their way to their location, a small (and slightly dingy) shop on the outskirts of town. Outside, two of what looked to be young children were out in front, sweeping the front of the building. Of course, Chiaki and Rukia both knew better.
"Hello, you two. Is Urahara in? I do have a special request I need to have completed when possible."
Jinta and Ururu gave one another a look before Jinta shook his head at Rukia. It was at that moment that Chiaki tuned out of the conversation: she knew where the conversation was going, with Jinta arguing about the store being closer, relenting, then Tessai coming in to take over. Frankly, the entire exchange didn't interest her, and she allowed it to continue unimpeded for the most part. Only when the star player entered, once they were already inside, did Chiaki tune back in to see what was going on.
"Ohohoho, what do we have here?"
The most dangerous man currently alive in the human world opted to make his appearance, his presence forcing Chiaki upright as if an electric current had been run through her spine. It wasn't anything about reiatsu or killing intent; Chiaki simply instinctively recognized Urahara as arguably the biggest threat to her existence in the world thus far. As intelligent as he was, if there was anyone in the world who could out her as an anomaly, it was him, and Urahara's motives were a mystery even to her. She had to play her cards very carefully around him… perhaps it was best to allow Rukia to take the lead for now. After all, the less direct interaction she had with Urahara, the less of a chance she had to mess up.
"And who might this be?"
Urahara decided to immediately dash any hopes she had of this conversation going as planned by immediately asking for her identity, an interjection that caused her blood to run ice-cold, spreading through her veins like frozen roots planting her feet to the ground. Luckily, Rukia, perhaps more than a little shielded by the bliss of ignorance, was completely unamused at the shop owner's lackadaisical attitude, and simply sought to continue on with business as usual, arm's crossed in her signature pose.
"Simply an understudy of mine, the sister of that boy Ichigo. You may have seen them running around town before. I simply wanted to give her a view of first-hand shinigami business, so she could understand what I deal with and stop bothering me about it."
"Ah, sounds like you two have had quite the spat~… Well, that's not my place to get involved. Well, why don't you introduce yourself properly."
Chiaki steeled herself, trying to figure out how to properly introduce herself while pulling the situation back into her court. Well, there was nothing to do but play up her own nervousness and try and justify it with a false air of ignorance. Chiaki sighed and offered a handshake to the former shinigami captain.
"I'm Chiaki… Chiaki Kurosaki. So, you're like, the spiritual mob boss huh?"
Urahara chuckled a bit at that comparison, though, of course, didn't deny it, and instead, simply adjusted his hat with a sly grin, clearly amused.
"Well, I suppose you could think of me that way, but I assure you, there's nothing to be afraid of. If I am a mob boss, then my territory is quite small. My main source of income is only this shop, as most shinigami are quite law-abiding. They're not the type to interact with my fine establishment~"
At this, Chiaki relaxed a little, though not due to Urahara's request. Really, it was more the fact that he did seem to not think too much of her at all. She had been worried he'd immediately see through her but… if he wasn't looking for something wrong, then he wouldn't find it, and she intended to keep it that way.
On the other hand, Rukia looked very impatient about the entire affair, and the shinigami coughed to regain their attention, obviously wanting to get the interaction over with.
"Yes yes, that's all well and good, but that doesn't change the fact that we must get our items. I need 60 soumafixers to anchor my soul, the dispenser I ordered, and a piece of soul candy to go along with it. That shouldn't be an issue, correct?"
Urahara scratched his head, looking a little miffed at having been interrupted in such a manner, but, if nothing else, he was still a professional.
"Yes, well… provided you're alright with the soumafixers anchoring your soul to your gigai to a stronger degree, then there shouldn't be any issues with your purchase. How do you plan on paying?"
"With bounty. It's simpler and quite easy considering we must have gotten at least one decent bounty."
Urahara and Rukia murmured for a bit regarding the details of the price and the potential "offers" (scams) that Urahara could offer. Chiaki looked around, to see Tessai absentmindedly inspecting the wares and Ururu already hard at work extracting Kon from the back. Well, if there was any time to intact her plan, it was now. She only hoped she could out-swindle the smartest man in the world.
"Hey… I'd like to buy something too!"
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