"Hollow."
The sensor had started to buzz insistently in Rukia's pocket. It couldn't have come at a worse time. They had kept up their pace for nearly two hours now, searching every inch of Karakura for the fugitive soul. She was hungry and tired, aching and out of breath: all sensations that were far to human for her pride to let her acknowledge them. Fortunately, Ichigo was either too focussed on the task at hand to notice she was struggling else he, like her, had assumed such weaknesses could not beset a shinigami, even one wearing a gigai.
"Didn't you say those mod soul things were created to combat hollows?"
"Yes."
"Then, isn't there a good chance he'll be where the hollow is?"
"Yes." She groaned as he broke into a run. She didn't have a chance in hell of keeping up with him: "I'll meet you there."
"What?" He scraped to a halt.
"I'll only hold you up."
"I'll carry you. Like the other night."
"That was night. This is the middle of the day. Don't you think someone might notice? Humans might not be able to see you, but they can still see me."
He stared, as if he too was seeing her for the first time and perhaps noticing the beads of perspiration on her face.
"Alright. Where is it?"
"Near the Junior High. I think you'll see it when you get there. It's a big one."
"Got it."
She watched him sprint away across the park, crowded on a summer afternoon. She had seen Ichigo cleanse enough hollows that she no longer felt anxious about sending him on ahead. Indeed, she had more pressing concerns, like stopping to catch her breath.
The gravel path ran alongside a bank of white flowers, their feathery blossoms rippling in a light breeze that lifted her hair back from her face. She stopped here. Old couples walking their dogs and mothers wheeling children in pushchairs moved past in a constant flow as the gentle wind cooled the sweat on her skin. Bees buzzed amongst the flowers.
How many other shinigami, she wondered, had stood here? How many had noticed how warm the summer sun could be in this world? It couldn't last forever, Urahara had said. He had been talking about her time in the gigai, but he could just as easily have meant this bright afternoon. It struck her that there was beauty in transience, a beauty that she could not remember experiencing in her own world.
The walk to Karakura Junior High took her back through sun-beaten streets. The sensor had stopped buzzing, which meant that the hollow had been dispatched. There was still the problem of getting Ichigo's body back. Yet, upon nearing the school, she discovered that it might not be so much of a problem now. Even from the gates, she could see Ichigo, still in his shinigami form, standing with a small group of people on the flat roof of the school, amongst them, a tall man wearing a striped hat and a long, green coat.
By the time she had climbed up to them, Urahara was lecturing Ichigo on mod souls. The eccentric shopkeeper was leaning on his cane, throwing and cathing a small, green gikon in one hand. Ichigo's body lay on the ground, as empty now as any human corpse, while Ichigo himself was scowling hard at Urahara:
"Who the hell are you?" he demanded.
"Me? I'm just a humble shopkeeper."
"Of course you are," Rukia said. Walking past Urahara, she caught the gikon mid-air and slipped it into her pocket: "I wouldn't trust him if I were you, Ichigo."
"Hey, that's mine!" said Urahara. "I came here to retrieve my goods!"
"A shopkeeper taking back his wares?" She turned to face him: "Who purchased this gikon?"
"You, Kuchiki-dono," he said, puzzled.
"And have I asked for a refund?"
"No, but those goods are defective."
"Still, I've decided to keep them." When she reached Ichigo's side, she handed the gikon to him and he took it in both hands. "Thank you for retrieving my purchase though."
"Kuchiki-dono, I must remind you that all mod souls were to be destroyed. It's illegal to" – Her expression withered his words and he set his mouth in a line as both of them considered what he'd been about to say. She'd been flying on the wrong side of the law for weeks now. What was one more transgression?
The strange thing was, she wasn't certain why she was doing this. It wasn't like her to act outside of the law. Anything but. At first, it had been a matter of pride. It should have been a week, two weeks at most, in this gigai: a short period of time in which she should have disappeared from Soul Society's radars, giving her a chance to regain her powers and return to her duties with no-one ever having to know that she had messed up. Now, two months on, her powers showed no signs of returning. If anything, she was getting weaker and, instead of making a decision, instead of asking for help, she had just continued to live somebody else's life. A plea for help, she knew, would end all of this, but it would also turn the eyes of Soul Society towards Ichigo.
She pushed the thought away and turned to look at the human boy. He was kneeling over his body, checking to see how much damage the mod soul had done and she caught herself smiling as she saw how he slipped the gikon carefully into his body's T-shirt pocket. Maybe she did know why she was doing this.