Title: turmoil

Rating: PG

Pairings/characters: Ichigo, Orihime

Word count: 515

Warnings: spoilers for arrancar arc and beyond

Summary: turmoil fills Ichigo, mind and soul

Prompt: none

A/N: none

Disclaimer: me no own bleach.

It's not painful, per se. There's just a sense of… turmoil. He can hear his hollow's voice in his head, not exactly actual words but just intention, intention to drown him out and erase him from this existence. It's constant, a wordless speech in the back of his head and no matter what he does, he can't seem to get it to shut up.

And there's the other part too, the part of his hollow that isn't sadistic, or cunning or even really that self-aware (well, it's him, and he knows it exists so maybe it's technically self aware, but…). The part that he can physically feel, a literal monster living within him. It's deep down, buried in the very center of his self, but when he fights the arrancar or when his emotions begin to flare, he can feel it shifting within him, waking slowly, but surely, he can feel it in his very bones.

It actually started a while ago, probably it's been happening since he became this… thing… but when he first tore off that mask and began to train, trying to learn his zanpaku-to's name, it wasn't even a whisper. All it was was the occasional stray feeling the seemed foreign, not coming from his conscious mind, and the occasional odd twinges he feels in his chest. It built and built and as he fought his way through Seireitei, it grew stronger. The fight with Zaraki had been different, actually sending 'him/it' back slightly. It probably was because of Zangetsu's help. But when he fought Byakuya, 'he/it' finally fought its way to the surface, only briefly, but… it was painful, for 'him/it' to be in control. It was… anguish. Anguish enveloped him in the moments that the hollow took over.

He knows what it's like for a soul that has become a hollow. His hollow is freed from the pain, from anything except mindlessly destroying all that surrounds it in order to fulfill a need it doesn't have, because Ichigo is the one who gets the emotional and physical burden placed upon his shoulders.

He stares at the sky and knows that this can't go on. He can't even say that he considers himself as having a chance of winning on his own. He knows that the monster has only begun to wake up, still mostly asleep and if it snaps out of its sleep, it will brush him aside as if he didn't exist. And if that happens, it seems very likely he won't.

"Ichigo?"

He blinks and turns to look at her, her golden brown eyes filled with concern as she watches him. Can she tell his soul has begun to shudder and tear at itself, turning him inside out?

"Are… are you ok?"

Can she tell?

He opens his mouth to say yes. Of course. It wouldn't be fair to burden his friends with this, and they'll try to help, and he doesn't want them to get hurt, especially not by him.

He opens his mouth to say yes, to say of course to say-

"I don't know."