[X] Misaya's goal, resurrecting her dead friend. That didn't seem possible, but understanding why might help talk Misaya down.
Freshly cleaned and wearing clothes that felt a tad too large for her, Fujino stepped back into the main room in the store, where everyone was waiting for her last she checked.
"I'm back." She stated, and waited for a reply. When none came, she frowned.
Had they all gone downstairs somewhere? Honestly, that place was large enough that Fujino would believe she missed them somewhere, the amount of space she had to pass through to reach the shower was enough to prove the basement was bigger than the store itself. Or maybe they were in the back and weren't making much noise.
Fujino waited a moment more, before she heard footsteps behind her. Turning, she looked towards the source, and waited for the walker to speak.
"Ah, Asagami." Urahara drawled. "I'd ask if you paid for those, but I already know the answer to that."
Oh. "Sorry?"
"It's fine." Urahara replied. "It's been sitting around for years anyway. My store sells candy and supernatural wares, and it turns out there's not much overlap between those crowds and people looking to buy mundane clothes."
"Thank you, then." Fujino decided. "Your generosity has saved me from a difficult situation."
"I should probably record you saying that." Urahara noted, his voice shifting in a way that gave Fujino the impression he was talking to himself. "I'll give Yoruichi a laugh when she gets back."
Fujino hadn't come here just to clean the blood out of her hair, though. "Is Arisawa okay?"
"She's in one piece." Urahara replied. "Still out, but should be coming around soon. Kurosaki and the Mod Soul are down with her. What happened there, anyway?"
Had Kurosaki and Kon not told him?
"We found Misaya." Fujino began, before something occurred to her. "Ah, I hadn't mentioned her to you before, had I?"
"I'm assuming she's the person you were looking for, important enough that you were willing to put up with Hollow attacks to find her." Urahara answered.
"Yes, that's her." Fujino answered. "She's behind the fairies, by the way."
Thinking it over for a moment, Fujino decided she might need to disclose a lot to Urahara. He did know more about the supernatural, so if he knew what was going on, he'd be able to offer more advice. He had certainly been helpful so far. Still, he only needed to know the relevant matters, and not certain details.
"A friend of hers died a while back, and she hasn't quiet been okay since." Fujino continued. "Since then and now, a lot has happened, and she feels bad about it."
'A lot has happened' was, here, a phrase which meant 'Killed at least one person, possibly two, and planned the murder of several more,' but that was incriminating and didn't relate to the situation beyond explaining Ouji's guilt.
"She's got her information from a Magus in the interim." Fujino explained. "And most of her information has come from there. I saw the book myself, and she's had trouble translating it, but she thinks she can resurrect her friend here. Or at least, wants to believe it."
There was a moment of silence after that, presumably Urahara considering what Fujino had said. Eventually, Fujino decided that she would have to be the one who began the obvious next topic.
"Is that even possible?" Asagami asked. "I don't believe it is, but I'm not the person who knows about these things. I want to talk her into coming home before she hurts herself more than she already has, but she seems sure on her path, and I need to understand more if I'm going to convince her to come back."
Urahara remained silent for a moment more, and then sighed.
"The dead aren't meant to linger." He began, his tone growing sombre. "People have been trying to raise the dead for as long as people have died. It's never worked out, and it's never going to."
"I need to convince Misaya of that." Fujino said. "I don't think she's in a state where just saying it's impossible isn't going to work."
"...How did her friend die?" Urahara asked.
Fujino thought on that, for a moment, before she answered. "Self-immolation, Ouji had said."
"There you go, then." Urahara continued. "Ghosts and Hollows exist because they don't want to go. They linger because there's something they still want to do, something they miss, and it's the most important thing to them. Whatever's happened, if she's burnt herself up, I don't think she has any attachments outweighing whatever motivated her to die."
"So someone who wants to die wouldn't leave anything behind?" Fujino asked for confirmation.
"That's about it." Urahara replied. "Maybe whatever notes the girl has, she's convinced she can do something. Reach into the afterlife and grab the girl's soul before she reincarnates. But that's not going to be an option either. It takes a strong will to linger, in life or after it, and again, someone who's died of their own choice isn't going to want to cling on. Ouji's friend was beyond anyone's help the moment she decided burning herself to death was the only option."
Fujino didn't have anything to say to that.
She had come here with the expectation that raising the dead was impossible, but when put like that, it felt depressing to hear. Misaya wasn't eating and wasn't resting and was ignoring everything to bring back her friend, and she was gone long before Ouji had ever considered it a possibility.
In the end, all the suffering Ouji was going through wasn't going to mean anything.
"Well this got real dark real fast." Urahara suddenly interrupted Fujino's thought process with the sombre note in his voice disappearing as he spoke. "I hope you've gotten enough information out of that, Asagami, because I really don't want to keep talking about that."
"Understandable." Fujino replied, sounding more distant than she had intended. Even with her train of thought interrupted, she was dwelling on what Urahara had said.
"So, is there anything else you wanted to know?" Urahara asked. "Anything else that might be releva-"
There was a knock on the wall near the door the two were standing in, and Fujino turned to face the source as she waited for either Urahara or the knocker to speak.
"Ururu?" Urahara started. "What is it?"
"Arisawa's awake." The girl replied. "Tessai is confirming she's not in pain. He wanted me to let you know."
"Hm." Urahara took a moment to think. "Asagami, I'm going to assume you'll want to check on her first? Talk to her about Ouji?"
"I was hoping to do that at some point." Fujino nodded.
"She's just downstairs." Urahara confirmed. "Ururu, show her the way. I'll wait up here in case we have any customers, can't stay closed all day again."
The girl made a wordless sound of confirmation, and Fujino felt a small hand tap her arm. "Follow me."
"Thank you for your assistance, Urahara." Asagami said.
The owner of the store didn't reply, and as the small girl's footsteps signified the start of her movement, Fujino followed her. The two walked in silence, as they went down some stairs and down a hallway. As they approached the destination, Fujino could hear some murmuring of people talking, muffled through the walls. Eventually, the girl stopped walking, and Fujino stopped as well.
"Waiting room's here." Tsumugiya noted. "Kurosaki and the Mod Soul are waiting inside. Tessai will tell you when you can see Arisawa."
"I see." Asagami noted." Thank you, Tsumugiya."
The girl hummed in satisfaction, then started walking away.
Well, she probably doesn't have much investment in Arisawa, so it makes sense that'd she go to something else now, Fujino mused as she knocked on the door. With the people on the other side alerted to her presence, she opened the door, and walked in.
"Hey, Asagami." Kon noted, a little too familiar for Fujino's tastes, but well meaning enough that reprimanding him would feel rude.
"Hello, Kon." Fujino replied. "Kurosaki, you're here too, right?"
"Yep." The girl replied, some distance away. "Over here."
"What are you two doing, anyway?" Fujino asked.
"Waiting to check on Arisawa." Karin replied. "She's my brother's friend, so it's a bit concerning that she's gone and gotten herself hurt."
"That would be my bad." Fujino apologised. "If I hadn't-"
"Stop right there." Kurosaki interrupted. "Before you say you dragged her into it, it's your bad? She's the one who made the choice to get involved. You didn't force her, and you didn't drag the fairies here yourself, so it's not your fault."
Fujino frowned. "I still feel bad about it."
Kurosaki paused, at that. "Well, I don't have anything for that. Just don't apologise for something that's not your fault."
"I suppose I shouldn't." Asagami said.
There was the sound of a turn of a page, and Asagami paused.
"What was that?" She asked. "Is someone reading something?"
"I am." Kurosaki replied. "I got the hat man to give me a book on ghosts and stuff."
...Hat man?
"She means Urahara." Kon added in, obviously seeing the confusion on Asagami's face. "You know, because he wears- I suppose you wouldn't know, sorry. Shutting up now."
"Honestly, if I could, I'd just go home." Kurosaki continued. "But my brother got roped into all this ghost stuff, and even with him being an idiot and running into ghost police land, there's this fairy stuff going on, and then just the regular Hollow's. I'd have to be an idiot to just assume I'm never gonna get caught up in this stuff again."
"So you're reading a book on ghosts in case they put you in danger again, then." Asagami summed up.
"Pretty much." Kurosaki replied. "I mean, apparently, innate power tends to run in the family, and Ichigo had a bunch of potential from the start, so I should be able to punch a ghost in the face if I learnt how."
There was the sound of another door opening, before Tsukabishi Tessai spoke. "Arisawa is awake. She needs to lay down for a while, but she is awake."
Fujino took a step towards the sound of his voice, before she paused.
"Do either of you two want to talk to her?" Fujino asked. "You two have known her for longer."
"You were there when she got hurt." Kon pointed out. "And I dunno about Kar- Kurosaki, but if I was by someone who got hurt, I'd want to check if they were okay as soon as I could. You go ahead."
Karin didn't say anything, and the lack of denial was enough for Asagami to assume it was okay to go ahead. She heard Tsukabishi move out of the way as she passed through the door, and Fujino closed it behind her as she entered the room.
"Arisawa." Fujino began.
"Asagami." The girl replied. "What happened? A Hollow hit me and Misaya got away, but it's kind of a blur..."
"That's the basics of it." Asagami answered. "Misaya had controlled it with a fairy, as far as I can tell. I killed it, and then I had to take you here."
"...Well, she left her stuff behind when she ran." Arisawa pointed out. "So that's something, at least. Don't know how you could use it. Maybe go back and take the stuff, maybe go back and wait for her to turn up again, or something. Assuming she doesn't make a ghost do it, I suppose."
"That is something we could use." Fujino mused. "Somehow, anyway."
There was an awkward tension in the air, Fujino thought to herself. The conversation really wasn't going anywhere. She wasn't entirely sure what the source was, but she could tell something was amiss.
"...I really screwed up, didn't I?" Arisawa asked, eventually.
Fujino blinked. "What do you mean?"
"You were there." Arisawa explained. "You found her. You were talking to her. When she ran, you could've followed her. She only got away because I was there."
Fujino took a moment to phrase her next sentence. "Arisawa, it's okay. You've helped me a lot. I never would have found her if it wasn't for you."
"Maybe." Arisawa admitted. "But how did I help you there? I pointed out a fairy that you probably would've sensed eventually. Then I agitated the person you were trying to talk to because..."
She trailed off, and sighed.
"If I wasn't there, you probably would've had much better luck." Arisawa decided. "You've got enough information at this point, don't you? Go ahead. Forget about me, find Ouji. It'll be for the best."
Fujino looked at her for a moment, before she spoke again.
[X] ...If Arisawa insisted, then there wasn't much Fujino could do to change her mind, was there? If she didn't think she could help, Fujino shouldn't force her.
[X] This wasn't just coming out of nowhere. Fujino needed to talk to Arisawa to figure out how to change her mind. This felt like it ran deeper than just one mistake.
