"Kurosaki-kun…Kurosaki-kun…KUROSAKI-KUN!" Orihime cried as Uryū was effortlessly beaten around by Ulquiorra in his Segunda Etapa form.

From his almost-dead state, Ichigo heard Orihime's pleas for help and searched through all of his soul, trying to find the strength he needed in order to protect his friends. He found it. However, in the process, he lost all control of his body as he was taken over by the hollow inside him. The hollowfied Ichigo fired a supercharged Cero at Ulquiorra, who fired back an equally powerful Cero Oscuras. The two Cero's met halfway between the two titans. Both fighters put in increasingly absurd amounts of power into their respective Cero. When they could put in no more power there was an explosion which caused a distortion in space-time to appear.

The distortion drew all things in the nearby area into it. In a strange twist of fate though, Ulquiorra saved both Orihime and Uryū from being sucked into it, anchoring them to the ground by spearing them both with a Lanza del Relámpago in a non-vital region of their chest before generating one for himself and spearing it into the ground, holding onto it until the distortion disappeared. He had no fears of either Orihime or Uryū's dying, knowing that his orange haired charge's powers could easily undo any damage inflicted by his attacks. However, Ichigo was different. He had no compunction about letting him be sucked into the distortion due to his being a threat to both himself(Ichigo) and anyone he met in the future. Ulquiorra stood idly by, watching as Ichigo disappeared into the void, ignoring the cries from Ichigo's friends for him to help him too.

After Ichigo was gone he let the Lanza del Relámpago that he was holding onto fade from existence before stalking towards Orihime. Once he had removed it, he told her, "Heal yourself, woman." Orihime followed his order without question. Once she was healed she followed Ulquiorra as he moved to Uryū and removed the lance from him. Orihime healed him as soon as the spear was done.

After the Quincy was healed he demanded, "Why did you do that, Hollow?"

Ulquiorra sighed and said, "You probably wouldn't believe me, even if I told you."

XXXXX

In a different realm, Mirajane cried out in pain as she watched the life fade from her sister's eyes, rivers of tears streaming down her face.. a black magical seal surrounded, splitting in two, one raising up, the other down, as she said, "Take Over, Satan…" however, before she could complete her transformation it disappeared, along with the twin seals and most of her remaining magical power. Even if she had been able to transform, she knew, she would have had problems controlling the powers anyway, due to the heavy distractions of both her sister's recent death and the fact that she would be fighting her younger brother. Her brother had been completely overwhelmed by the Beast King as he hadn't taken the time to fully 'understand' it and its powers before attempting to perform a Take Over on it.

After Mira failed in her attempt to call forth a form that stood a chance against Elfman's first Full Take Over her brother raised his left arm back to prepare to backhand her. However as he did so a rippling appeared in the air above him and out of it shot a single being that, as it fell towards the two siblings, split into two separate ones in a pale blue glow. The orange haired humanoid landed about ten metres away from Mira, however the white, horned creature crashed into Elfman, knocking them both to the ground around thirty metres away in the same direction that Ichigo had fallen, crushing all of the trees in their way.

The transformed Elfman pushed himself up off the ground, flinging the hollow off of him, pissing the powerful creature off royally. The hollow roared at The Beast, wordlessly challenging him. The Beast roared back, accepting the challenge and moving towards the hollow, using both its legs and arms to move at a phenomenal speed. The hollow exceeded it by leaps and bounds, easily crossing the distance in the blink of an eye and punching the beast in its chest, sending it back a further ten metres. Normally the blow would have been enough to kill an opponent, but The Beast was no normal opponent. It was the king of monsters, one of Zeref's more powerful demons and the blow didn't even break a single bone in The Beast's chest. The hollow roared, angry that it hadn't killed its opponent, thereby gaining a meal.

Mirajane watched in horror as the battle between the two mindless creatures continued, The Beast taking all of the blows that the, to her, unknown creature dealt, but unable to land any of its own due to the vast difference in their speed. Mirajane struggled to move over to the orange haired teen that, upon closer inspection, seemed to be her age, and gently shook him. The boy groaned as he woke up to see a silver-haired, scantily clad, girl looking down on him. He asked, "What's going on?"

The girl said, "That's what I should be asking you."

"What you should be asking m…oh!" Ichigo exclaimed, seeing that he was in the middle of a forest rather than the stark nothingness at the top of the dome of Hueco Mundo. "I don't really know. The last I knew, I was on the roof of Hueco Mundo and now I'm here."

"Hueco Mundo? Is that a Dark Guild?"

"Dark Guild? What the heck's a Dark Guild?"

"What's a…how can you not know?"

"Like I said, I was…"

"If it's not a Dark Guild then that doesn't matter right now, what does is what that thing is," Mirajane said, pointing at the ensuing battle.

"That thing?" Ichigo asked as he looked where Mirajane was pointing. When he saw a hollow battling some kind of massive hollow he asked, "Why are there two hollow's fighting there?"

"Hollow? What's a hollow?"

"Those things there," Ichigo said, pointing at the two fighting.

"I was hoping that you could tell me about that smaller, horned one is, but the big one is my brother"

"No way!?" Ichigo exclaimed, hearing that the girl next to him was related to the massive beast that was sporting crown-like horns. "Wait. Why would I be able to tell you about the smaller one?"

"When you were shot from the ripple thing in the air you glowed blue and were, kind of, ejected out of that thing before it crashed into my brother and they started fighting."

"I…" Ichigo said as he closed his eyes in thought, 'Okay, last thing I remember, Orihime was crying out for my help when I…' Ichigo's eyes shot open. "Okay, I might know what that thing is, but…"

"What is it?" Mirajane almost begged.

"It's kind of hard to explain…"

"TRY!" Mirajane demanded.

"Alright then. Where I come from there are three different…I'll call them 'races' for lack of a better term, of spiritually aware beings."

"Alright…" Mirajane said, unsure of what the strange boy meant by spiritually aware.

"One is humans, who can have varied levels of spiritual awareness, some of which manifest powers unique to themselves. The other two are beings that are fully spiritually aware and have access to a number of abilities that the humans don't, Shinigami and Hollows. Are you following me so far?"

"Kind of," Mirajane said, mentally comparing shinigami and hollows to mages like herself and he friends at Fairy Tail.

"Good. Now, I'm kind of…different…"

"How so?"

"Shinigami are beings that have greater amounts of Reiryoku after they died and passed on into Soul Society."

"Soul Society?"

"Yeah. Where I come from, it's the ultimate destination of all souls before they are reborn. Shinigami balance the number of souls that exist in both the human world and soul society, otherwise the two realms would collide, destroying both."

"That's…"

"Unbelievable? Yes, but no less true. Hollows are humans that lost all hope and reason because they stayed in the human world too long after they died and eat human souls before they can pass over to Soul Society in order to fill the loss of their heart when they transformed into a hollow. I'm…kind of different," Ichigo said.

"Different how?"

"I'm still alive but have the powers of a Shinigami. Unfortunately, in my rush to gain those powers I somehow managed to gain the powers of a Hollow along the way. This is just a theory here, but I would assume that, since you can see me, I've somehow materialised on the physical plane in…wherever this is…in the process losing access to my powers as a Shinigami and, consequently, my hollow powers. It is possible that that horned creature fighting your…brother…is a manifestation of those powers."

"I see," Mirajane said. "So basically you are useless in this situation."

Ichigo slumped his shoulders in annoyance at being called useless. He said, "I think that useless is a little…"

"Well, what can you…actually…" Mirajane said as she thought, 'If what this guy says is true then he understands what this thing is and is capable of. That would mean that he would be the only one in this situation that has any chance of…but no…that's not possible, he can't ever…' Mirajane then frowned as she concentrated, focusing in on the untapped potential inside Ichigo. 'He's a clean slate!' Mirajane mentally gasped, 'If that's the case then it might be possible for me to…well, if I don't then there's no chance of us getting out of this alive.' Mirajane kissed Ichigo, transferring a portion of her magical power to Ichigo, along with her knowledge of Take Over magic.

When the girl with silver hair flung herself onto him, locking lips, and tongue, with him, he blushed furiously. But then a series of memories rushed over him and he knew what he had to do as Mirajane fainted in his arms. Ichigo crept up on the fight, silently in order to not be targeted by the battling creatures. He waited until his previously inner hollow was distracted, charging a Cero before making his move. He ran at the hollow as fast, and as quietly, as he could from behind and placed both hands on his back, saying, "You've already caused enough problems, Hollow. It's time to take you down."

The hollow transformed into a mass of black magical power that was sucked into Ichigo, causing him to growl, not wanting to vocalise the pain he was feeling as the power took root in his body. When the magical power of the hollow had been absorbed Ichigo announced, "Take Over: Hollow Soul!" twin black magical circles formed, one over his head, the other around his feet. They respectively descended and rose, meeting in the middle, transforming Ichigo's appearance completely. His orange hair now reached halfway down his back and he was wearing a set of torn, white, hakama, without a shirt. But that wasn't the starkest change. That was left for the horns that now extended forward from the sides of his head. He was holding a white daitō with a red tsuba in the shape of a manji connecting the hilt and blade of the sword. It possessed a red hilt wrapping and a red tassel attached to the pommel.

Mirajane woke up just in time to see Ichigo successfully complete the Take Over. She was momentarily concerned that Ichigo may have been taken over instead of the 'hollow' that he had told her about, but then she noticed the colour of his skin wasn't white and thought, 'He did it!' stunned that her harebrained scheme actually paid off. 'Now I might not lose two siblings in one night,' and kept her full focus on Ichigo.

The Beast punched at Ichigo, who raised his sword, with one hand, the flat side towards The Beast, pointing at the ground and let the massive fist collide with it. He didn't move an inch. Mirajane's eyes widened in shock and, to her surprise, fear at the strength that would have been needed in order to block that attack, let alone not even having to move to do it. The Beast laid down a barrage of punches and kicks on Ichigo, who merely moved his sword to effortlessly block each blow. When he saw The Beast about to run off, scared of the clearly more powerful fighter due, in large part, because Ichigo seemed happy to wait for something. When The Beast had turned to flee, Ichigo sped over to him and jumped so he was level with The Beast's neck and slammed the pommel of his sword into its neck, knocking it out. As The Beast crashed to the ground, smashing all of the trees in its way, it shrank as it transformed back into Elfman, The Beast no longer able to exert its will over the mage.

Mirajane stumbled to where Ichigo was standing and said, "Thank you…uh…I don't think you told me your name."

Ichigo thought back to their conversation and said, "You're right! My name is Ichigo Kurosaki, and you are…?"

"Mirajane. Mirajane Strauss and the one on the ground there is my brother, Elfman Strauss. We belong to the Guild Fairy Tail."

"You said something about a Guild before. What exactly is that?"

"You…really don't know?"

"I wouldn't be asking if I did."

"I suppose…a guild is many things to many people, but for many of us in Fairy Tail, it can be like a surrogate family. Overall, though, there are three different types of Guild, there are Legal Guilds, Independent Guilds and Dark Guilds. Legal Guilds, or Official Guilds, are Guilds that have been approved and registered by the Magic Council. The Official Guilds operate within the boundaries set by the Magic Council that governs the use and practice of Magic throughout Fiore. Dark Guilds are not approved by the Magic Council. Most Dark Guild's believe that the mages within Official Guild's limit themselves, and their freedom, by obeying the rules that the Magic Council sets out."

"Maybe I should join a Dark Guild then."

"Why in the world would you want to do a thing like that?!" Mirajane demanded, outraged at the mere thought of anyone doing such a thing.

"Well, they are kind of like freedom fighters, right?"

"No."

"No?"

"Dark Guilds are basically criminal organizations that steal and commit murder for hire in order to get by."

"Oh…then that's not happening."

"Good. Independent Guilds are different again."

"How so?"

"While it is true that, similar to a Dark Guild, they are not recognised by the council, they are not treated as criminal organisations and are free to do…basically whatever they want as long as the council doesn't disapprove of them and list them as a Dark Guild."

"Alright. So, any suggestions on what to do in the meantime?" Ichigo asked.

"Why not come to Fairy Tail with me?"

"Fairy Tail? Why? I'm not even sure that I want to join a guild at all yet. I did just get here after all."

"You don't have to join right away. Besides, you need some place to stay for a while and the Master of Fairy Tail is always willing to leave the door open for those in need."

"Alright then, sure, I'll come and check this Fairy Tail place out for now."

"Thanks. Can I get you to do something for me in the meantime though?"

"What?"

"I'm…kind of exhausted right now, so I'll need you to carry Elfman for me for a while."

"Uhh…alright…" Ichigo said, "Why?"

"I need to go and retrieve my sister's body."

"Her body? Then…"

"Elfman hit her when he was out of control. I can't bring myself to believe that there's any hope of her being alive now," Mirajane said, her grief written on her face.

"Alright," Ichigo sombrely said, understanding the feelings that Mirajane must be feeling, having undergone much the same himself when he was half Mirajane's age. Ichigo followed behind Mirajane as she searched for her sister's body, of whom he didn't yet know the name. He soon found out though when they found the body of the young, silver haired female and his new friend Mirajane started crying 'Lisanna' to the heavens.