Rukia’s POV
 
I dared not look up. My head was down and I tried not to tremble. Her reiatsu is strong… even stronger than Ichigo’s. At this rate, his power is nothing compared to her… as expected of the Soul Princess…
 
Aimer’s POV
 
She knows? I thought as I scratched my head. I mentally sighed. Kuchiki Byakuya must have told her everything. Even the reason why the Tetsuya clan was wiped out.
 
“Hey, Rukia,” I said. I’ll just call her that. ‘Rukia-san’ or ‘Kuchiki’ is too weird for me. She looked up and I extended a hand to her.
 
“Tetsuya-hime…” Rukia said with a slightly surprised face, but she took my hand anyway.
 
“Listen,” I started. “You know and I’m okay with it. Just…” I sighed. “Don’t tell anyone, okay?”
 
Rukia seemed to smile a bit. “Yes, Tetsuya-hime!”
 
“And…” My eye twitched a bit. “Don’t call me that. It’s a big give-away.”
 
“How about ‘Tetsuya-sama’?”
 
“Nah, it’s weird…”
 
“Just ‘princess’?”
 
“No.”
 
“Soul Princess?”
 
“NO.”
 
“The Great and Mighty –”
 
I cut her off, getting a bit annoyed. “How about… just ‘Aimer’? Hm? It sounds nice.”
 
Rukia looked shocked. “B-But it’s disrespectful for me to call the future Soul Queen by her last name! Misfortune and –”
 
“Oh, shut up!” I said with a small angry vein on my head. “I told you to call me by my name, so do as I say, got it?!”
 
“H-Hai!”
 
“Okay…” I sighed as I held my forehead. “Hey, what time does Ichigo finishes school today?”
 
“About a few hours from now,” Rukia replied.
 
“Yosh…” I stretched my arms. “Let’s go strolling and then wait for him. We’ll talk on the way.”
 
~
“Did you know that the Kuchiki family worked for us?” I asked Rukia. “Work as in protecting the royal family and being their guards.”
 
“Yes,” she replied. “Nii-sama told me that he was King Kenjirou’s personal guard.”
 
“And why would Byakuya kill the person he serve?”
 
“That’s…” Rukia trailed off and hung her head.
 
“Nobody knows,” I answered for her. “That’s how Byakuya’s mind works. Even if the leaders of Soul Society ordered him to do that, he should have at least protested a little, right?”
 
“Y-Yes…” There was a few minutes of silence as we walked side by side down the pavement. “Tetsuya-hime – I mean, Aimer… you said that the Kuchiki family were the royal guards and their duty is to protect and serve the royal family. I have learnt that as soon as they became of age, members of the Kuchiki clan were assigned to be the guard of one royal member. So… which Kuchiki is your guard? And the one I was assigned to was…”
 
I stopped walking. Rukia did too and looked at me. She opened to say something, but I held up a hand. “I can protect myself,” I said emotionlessly. “And before you ask, no, I don’t want you to be my guard, even though you were assigned to be (this was before the royal family escaped to the real world due to the unknown reason which you will know later if you kept reading the story).” I must focus on the mission… which means no building relationships with these people. ”There’re already shinigami to protect me. I don’t need another one following me wherever I go. Sorry.” I resumed walking.
 
“B-But…” Rukia ran a bit to catch up with me. “It’s a tradition of Soul Society!”
 
“And that tradition is long gone.”
 
“What if those Chains show up again?” she protested. “You’ll need someone to be by your side! Your powers and Nightmare are gone and it will be easy to attack you.”
 
“I’ll worry about that when the time comes,” I said in a bored tone. “Just forget about it. Oh! Is this the school?” I stopped at the gate of Karakura High School.
 
“Yes,” Rukia replied. “It seems like we are early.”
 
Then, somewhere in the distance, I sensed a Hollow. “It’s a strong one…” I muttered. More Hollows are turning up in Karakura town due to my reiatsu…
 
“I’ll take care of it. I must resume my patrol. See you later,” Rukia said as she flash-stepped away, leaving me standing alone at the school gate.
 
I kicked a nearby stone away. This is boring… I took out the pocket watch. Still a long way to go…
 
“Aimer?” came a familiar voice.
 
I turned around to see the red-haired shinigami. “Ah…” I thought for a while. “Renji?”
 
“Oh, you remembered me. Anyway, what are you doing all alone here?” Renji asked as he walked towards me. “Waiting for Ichigo?”
 
I nodded and looked at the school building. I tracked Ichigo’s reiatsu and my eyes travelled up to the fourth set of windows on the third floor. I spotted a bright orange head near the window.
 
“He’s there,” I said as I pointed Ichigo out to Renji.
 
“Oh… he’s pretty easy to spot with that hair.”
 
“Yeah.” I nodded. And because he looks like him… I had a blurry look in my eyes. Renji noticed it.
 
“Youuu okay?” he asked.
 
“I’m fine…”
 
Then, I heard a bell rang, signaling that school was over for the day. “They’re coming out,” Renji said as students starting pouring out of the buildings. “Well, I better get going.” He held up a hand. “See you around.” He disappeared.
 
“Yeah…” I muttered. I leaned against a tree and watched as the students made their way out. Some of them looked at me and whispered to each other. I wonder how high school life is… I gazed up at the sky, lost in my thoughts.
 
“Eh?! Aimer?” came the strawberry’s voice. I looked at the orange head and held up my hand in a greeting sort of way.
 
“IT’S THE WHITE GODDESS!!!” Keigo said in glee as he jumped towards me. I kicked his face before he could reach me.
 
“Oh, it’s Tetsuya-san!” Orihime said as she looked at me with a smile.
 
“Ah! The one with Ichigo at the playground yesterday,” Tatsuki said. Mizuiro just smiled at me.
 
“Hey,” I said casually.
 
“What are you doing here?” Ichigo asked. He had a ‘T.T’ face.
 
I crossed my arms. “I came here to wait for you. You should be glad that I took some time off of my busy schedule to make room for you, stupid strawberry.” An angry vein appeared on Ichigo’s head. “Come on. Let’s go, I’m tired.”
 
“You don’t even have a schedule,” Ichigo muttered. He turned to his friends and said, “Bye, guys. See you around.”
 
“Bye, Kurosaki-kun!” Orihime smiled. “See you tomorrow!” They greeted each other good-bye and Ichigo and I parted ways with them.
 
“You must be up to something if you came all the way here just to wait for me,” Ichigo said cheekily.
 
“No, I’m not,” I replied calmly.
 
“How did you find my school, by the way?”
 
“Your reiatsu is easy to track,” I explained a bit. “Plus, Rukia showed me the way.”
 
“Oh?” Ichigo had an annoying smirk on his face as he leaned towards me as we were walking side by side. “When did you become friends with Rukia?”
 
“We’re not friends,” I replied as I pushed him away a bit.
 
“Yeah, right.” Ichigo ruffled my hair (how dare he?) like I’m a kid. “Don’t try to deny it.”
 
I shot him a small glare and huffed out some air, touching my messed-up hair. Ichigo just smiled. I couldn’t help but let the corners of my lips curl up a bit.