BLEACH: The Dusk In Red

Later that lunch, the group was already back on the schools roof, munching on whatever food they got. Thankfully, Shinten had long since disappeared, bothering other people to join his army of shadows. Starting the conversation strangely, Arima said,

"Ya know, there's something else going on aside from the burnings."

With a hint of interest, Hyoma asked to elaborate, while Ai also seemed clueless in this. It seemed that whatever else was happening, wasn't as big for it to be covered by the news.

"There's been weird stuff going on, like people freezing in the middle of the streets after hearing a screeching sound. They end up getting ran over by cars and die on the spot, but other lucky ones barely survive to tell the tale."

Ai freaked out while Hyoma started broke out in a cold sweat, immediately thinking about that strange man from this morning.

"Well.. it's not that known since there's only been 3 cases in the last 1 month."

"Why did you scare me like that?? That's just another car accident!"

"That's not the only strange thing of course! There's a Temari ball being left in the middle of the streets... but when someone goes to pick it up, it's impossible to lift! When professionals come to remove it, the ball mysteriously disappears before they even arrive."

The two looked at Arima with a blank expression, seemingly unamused. He began to panic as he tried to think up another story, and then said,

"Floating drinks! That's right... drinks and fresh beverage's have been floating out of peoples stores!"

The stories continued to grow worse and more stupid the longer Arima rambled on for, and it was starting to grow painfully obvious he was making it all up. At some point, Ai and Hyoma started to deviate away and talk about something else.

Luckily, the school bell rang signalling the end of lunch.

**

The sun was beginning to set its crimson light on the school, as a flood of students began to swim out. Among those students, Hyoma, Arima and Ai were making their way through. Arima jumped on Hyoma's back as he said,

"It's your birthday tomorrow, isn't it? Let's celebrate!"

Hyoma would be turning 16 tomorrow, but he wasn't particularly excited. Ai on the other hand, seemed absolutely thrilled.

"Let's go karaoke!"

"Sure.. I guess."

Hyoma waved goodbye to the two like usual, before going his separate ways. Much like before, he walked through the same path in the city, even encountering the same drunk office worker which he had seen this morning, but this time he nervously looked away from it, trying not to make eye contact.

That was when he saw it in the distance, a pillar of black smoke climbing into the sky once again, stemming from the group of houses in the area. It was the burning.

This time, Hyoma ignored it and went straight home. Whoever got caught in the fire was sure to have perished already, so there was no point in going there now.

What could he have done anyway.. jump in?

**

Upon arriving home, he immediately went straight to his bedroom, but then he noticed something odd. The hallway which he usually walked through looked different than usual. On one side of the walls, there were numerous paintings and pictures of this family's history from the distant past. But on the other side that was usually empty, there were doors. And not just three or four, but numerous amounts of them. More than enough to leave no room for more at that.

'Those weren't there this morning???'

Curiously, he tried to open one of them, unsurprisingly it was locked. Not giving up however, he tried to open every single one, all the way up to his bedroom door. Out of the 15 doors in that hallway, only 2 were open.

Both rooms were identical. They were both small bedrooms with a single bed in the corner, a cabinmate for clothes on one side, and a desk with a chair next to it. If there was one thing that freaked him out, it was that the space inside the rooms should've been impossible.

The doors were right next to each other, and so the rooms should've been next to each other too, or at least both doors should've shared the same room, and yet, the rooms were somehow.. overlapping?

It was really confusing to see.

The inside of the first room was relatively normal. It was clean, nicely organised and mostly regular apart from the strange bump in the bed. Hyoma went inside to inspect it further, but he didn't see anything strange. Seeing the cabinet, he decided to open the first drawer, and was surprised to see a black ninja Gi.

'Huh.' 

He went through the next one, and found ordinary clothes, but the rest of the drawers after that was full of more ninja Gi's.

He then walked over to the bed, and lightly lifted up the blanket, before quickly putting it back down and panicking. Upon seeing a short orange haired kid sleeping in there, he immedialty saw himself out of the room and closed the door.

'What???'

Thankfully, the next room didn't appear to have anyone in it, so he took his time going through this one.

It was much dirtier than the first room, with the bed being a mess, and the chair being knocked over somehow. Despite the little amount of stuff in the room, it was obvious that whoever lived here was very lazy.

Hyoma went through this rooms cupboard too, and was unsurprised to see more strange clothing. After inspecting it for a few moments, he even recognised it.

'A black kimono.. No, ones for a samurai or something? This is just like what my ancestor used to wear!?'

Quickly running back into the hallway, he looked at the painting once again. The paintings that depicted men and women who were his ancestors, were also wearing the same black kimono, albeit with some minor differences. Thinking about it now, they looked similar to the ninja Gi in the other room.

'A sword! Is there a sword!'

Hyoma excitedly went through the messy room, somehow making it look even worse. he went through all the cabinets, looked under the desk and even the bed. But not one Katana was anywhere to be found.

Sighing, he closed the door behind him and walked back to his room. Laying down on the bed, he questioned himself..

'But what does this all mean? Who even is that guy in that bed??'

Thinking about it now.. his ancestors were supposed to be the assistance of death gods, but he never believed in any of that crap. Well at least not since that incident.

'Could it be? No.. otherwise I would've noticed it sooner.'

The rooms appearing out of nowhere and defying common sense, the strange ancient clothing, his families history, the drunk office man phasing through a car, and maybe even the burnings.

'Is it actually real? Is it all.. spiritual?'