Yes, another oneshot. Though I could've sworn I had this story up before; apparently I deleted it and then forgot about it. Whoops. Shoutout to Dragonblaze66 for reminding me that this oneshot still existed.

The buildings were crumbling in a spectacular fashion, slowly disassembling as the very air seamed to roar in pain. White boxes rained down from the sky in an unending shower, plunging into the street and the depths of water below. Ironically, the sun still shone in the sky as sideways clouds inched across the blue expanse, completely uncaring of the destruction being wrought on the world below.

And then I slammed into the street, following the course of the boxes below him and sinking down into the depths of water hidden under the pavement.

What? It doesn't hurt . . .

It took me a second to fully process that I was breathing underwater, but the implications behind that were lost on me as I stared at the boxes floating in the water nearby. They were all white; they looked exactly the same.

Bubbles trailed up from my mouth as I thought. There has to be a way, but this is impossible.

Wait. Uryū once said the same thing to me.

Uryū.

My eyes closed as I forced myself to remember, to think before I ran out of time.

How did Uryū find out that I was a Soul Reaper? It was some simple method . . . He bragged about it . . . What was it?

The memory hit me like a slap to the face and my eyes shot open.

"That's it!" I cried, feeling hope surge in my chest even as I could see the buildings deconstructing above me. At least it was silent in the water so I didn't have to hear the way things were breaking and shattering – all for Rukia, don't forget; I can't fail –and dying in my Inner World.

White ribbons stretched towards me, emanating from each of those thrice-damned white boxes, waving in the water like wraiths. I scanned them all, searching desperately.

Where's the red one?

There!

Acting on instinct, I grabbed the red ribbon, yanking the box towards me while I triumphantly yelled, "I found it!" All the other Spirit Ribbons disappeared as my focus narrowed to the white box I had just tugged open, its inside a suspicious black. Then I saw what was actually inside and my eyes widened – really, I should be used to the impossible by now – as I took in the blue-tasseled red hilt of a very familiar Zanpakutō.

"What . . . the . . . hell?" I managed, confused. "The handle of a Zanpakutō?"

A presence appeared behind me and I turned, surprised. It was that man from earlier, his brown hair drifting in the current even as his strange black cloak seemed entirely unaffected by the laws of physics. He regarded me coolly from behind his classes, a sense of – was that pride? – Radiating from his posture.

"You have done well, finding it," he said gravely, his voice echoing even in the dark waters. "It is my hope, that the next time, you will hear my name."

Realization crashed down on me and forced words out of my mouth even as my brain struggled to string them together.

"You couldn't possibly be-"

I was interrupted as the water began to shake, and the roar outside finally breached the previously peaceful domain. The man's face changed abruptly as he yelled at me, borderline fear etched into his voice.

"What do you think you are doing? It's crumbling! Hurry! You must pull me out, now!"

I reached for the hilt, intent on doing just that – wait for me, Rukia, I'm coming – but paused when I was nearly blinded by a bright flash of light and then heard high-pitched laughter echoing throughout the water. The man froze, and then anger clouded his features even as a new being formed next to him.

The grip I had on the Zanpakutō in the box grew slack when I saw myself staring back at me. I wasn't sure if it was just a trick of the light in the water or my own crumbling mind – why can't I move? Pull the sword out, dammit1 – but the copy of me seemed to have white skin and hair. I couldn't see his eyes, but he was smirking at me with an expression that I would never let myself have on my face plastered onto his identical features.

"Oh, Ichigo," he laughed, in a high-pitched, double-toned imitation of my voice that sent shivers up my spine. "You're too late."

I just had time to see the man in black give me one last, desperate look before he suddenly vanished, gone before I could even blink. I was left drifting in the water with a white doppelganger of myself, confused beyond belief and more than a bit – I don't want to say it – scared.

"Why . . . " I managed to gasp, forcing each word out through lips that didn't want to move. "Why can't I move?"

My white double smirked even wider.

"'Cause yer not in the right kind of body," he answered, before suddenly vanishing and reappearing a foot away from me. I wanted to start in surprise and shock and – I have to say it – fear but my limbs wouldn't answer me and suddenly everything was feeling so goddamned heavy and I couldn't breathe –

"Relax, partner," the inverted me coaxed mockingly. "I won't let ya turn into a Hollow."

There was something more to his words, but that didn't stop the relief that flooded through my system (dammit I have to save Rukia!).

The malignant grin that suddenly appeared on my clone's face made my heart stop in my chest. I wanted to scream (where the hell did that other guy go?!) but I was frozen still with terror.

"At least, not without interference. Ya can't be a real Hollow, anyway."

A scream tore itself through my throat and echoed throughout the dying world as the other me plunged his hand into my chest with a savage grin, not seeming in the least bit concerned that he was doing so to a copy of himself.

I screamed in pain, in agony, in horror as something within me resonated even as my whole body seemed to burn from the inside out, starting from where the hand was plunged into my chest, straight in the middle.

"Che. I didn't think it would happen this way," my double admitted, unperturbed by my cries of torture. "Hell, I just woke up. Didn't think I'd be able to steal his power so easily, much less yours." He gave me a crooked grin, and even through the haze in my mind I could see enough about it to realize that this me was a hell of a lot more broken inside than I could ever hope to be. "Sorry 'bout this, Partner. Yer just lucky we're mostly fused already; otherwise this probably woulda killed ya."

And then he was gone too, taking the pain from my chest with him, and the boxes had vanished and the roaring had stopped and the buildings were standing and everything was completely, utterly, irrevocably still.

Bubbles still drifted from my mouth and I knew, instinctively, that I was still alive.

What happened? Am I . . . a Hollow?

Fear lanced through me at the thought and I looked around desperately for the one box that had held my Shinigami powers.

Where is it, dammit?

There was no sign of it. No sign that it had ever existed at all..

No sign of the brown-haired man, either.

Rukia . . .

No. I was still alive.

I can still save you.

There was an ache in my chest over my heart, but it was dull and muted.

Carefully, I tried to move, not sure if I was still going to be frozen in place. Much to my satisfaction, my hand opened and closed exactly how I wanted it to.

I'm alive.

Deep breath. Kick to the surface.

I'm okay.

Climb out of the water. Breathe.

I made it.

The sun was still shining overhead, like none of the previous ordeal had even happened. It was relaxing, on some level, to see that. The clouds were there as well, drifting just as aimlessly as before.

And then gravity decided to switch.

I yelled "dammit!" even as I fell – sideways, what the hell? – eventually slamming onto the side of a nearby skyscraper. It hurt, but not as much as I thought it would. The glass hadn't even broken, so the skyscrapers were a lot tougher than they seemed, which only served to emphasize how they had been breaking so easily earlier.

Taking another breath – because I have to breathe, I need to focus – I slowly stood up, rapidly growing accustomed to the sideways gravity. Though, now that I was standing, it didn't seem sideways anymore. If anything, the buildings seemed sideways.

Just thinking about it gave me a headache.

I didn't want to think about what had just happened, so I began walking up the building, determined to see what my Inner World looked like.

I only made it three steps before the reflection of myself in the glass caught my attention.

A slow, dawning horror spread through me, stopping me in my tracks.

In the reflection, my skin was nearly white, and it appeared to be getting lighter.

Desperately, I fell to my knees and really looked at myself for the first time, holding out my arm to get a better look.

"W- what?"

The skin was nearly white, and getting closer to the mark with each passing second. And now that I could see my hands, I saw that my fingernails were gradually darkening. Calm forgotten, my breathing coming in short gasps, I felt a weakness stealing through me and stared down at my reflection, doing nothing to stop the shaking that wracked my body.

My hair. It wasn't orange.

It was white.

My heart thudded loudly in my chest but for some reason I couldn't really feel it; all I could hear was the blood rushing through me while I trembled. Blinking, I looked at my face, terrified of what I would see.

Fuck, I looked like him. The white copy of me; what the hell was happening to me?

And then I saw my eyes and a choked kind of sob came from my throat as despair washed over me, so much colder than the water that had surrounded me previously. The sun did nothing to warm me – it's so cold – as I stared at myself.

Black sclera surrounding brilliant golden irises stared back, promising malice and pain and gore and death.

I knew, deep inside myself, that the other me's eyes had looked exactly like this.

Was this what he meant? Was this what he wanted? Is this 'interference'?

In my despair, I threw my head back and screamed, words somehow being formed in the process.

"Why the hell do I look like you?!"

I heard the double tones. I knew what it meant. Even my breathing sounded different now, harsher.

Agonizingly slowly, I got to my feet, long past trembling. Countless emotions warred for dominance in my mind but instead I pushed them all aside. My skin was white now, a stark contrast to the cool blue beneath my feet and above my head.

As if the irony wasn't enough, I could see that I was wearing a Shihakushō, like the one I had worn when Rukia had given me her powers.

Except it was white, tied at the waist with a black obi and completed with black sandals. I didn't even know or particularly care when my clothes had changed. I couldn't bring myself out of the apathy that was swallowing me whole.

What the hell was there to care about?

"You survived," a calm voice intoned from behind me. Slowly, I turned, and saw the brown-haired man standing a little ways away, regarding me coldly. It was so much different from the warmth and faith he had displayed when I didn't look like this.

"Why do you care?" I asked scathingly, all of my frustration and fear bleeding into hatred and anger. "You did nothing to help me. You let this happen to me!"

My voice was a painful scream, full of so much emotion but at the same time empty. Hollow.

My chest ached again and I didn't even need to look to know what I would find there. I felt like laughing and crying at the same time; Ichigo Kurosaki, substitute Shinigami turned human turned Hollow. What were the odds?

"I'm sorry," the man spoke, the very picture of regret and solemnity. "You were targeted, and I could not protect you. Had I tried, there would have been circumstances that I could not control."

He glanced up, closing his eyes as sunlight hit his face. For someone who seemed anxious before, he was remarkably calm about the whole situation.

"You didn't try," I pointed out, hands clenching into fists. "You left me to die."

I was getting used to my new voice. It didn't even bother me now.

"I did what I could."

I scoffed.

"Che. No, you didn't."

He regarded me with something that was disturbingly reminiscent of pity, and I wanted to punch him in his stupid face and wipe away that damned expression.

"The Hollow inside Ichigo needed something to latch on to," he explained gently.

I bristled at his next words.

"You were simply unlucky."

"Unlucky?" I repeated with a disbelieving chuckle. "Look at me, Old Man. I'm a Hollow. You let me become this way! There are no words to describe how I am right now."

That damned pity was still there, lurking in the back of his eyes. When he spoke, his voice was grave, layered with hidden meaning.

"Perhaps, in time, you will come to discover exactly what you are." His eyes closed, briefly, and then opened to regard me with a piercing look. "Because you are not Ichigo Kurosaki."

I'd known that ever since I'd looked at my reflection, but hearing it from someone – something? – else made my breath catch in my throat and a strange pressure form on my chest. I should have known what I was experiencing, but for some reason I felt distanced from the emotions rolling through me. After pressing them down, I couldn't bring them back up. The Hollow – that white thing, now me – had blended with me, but what had I been before? What didn't I know?

"Then . . . " I hated the desperation, the primal need that laced itself into my words against my will. "What am I?"

That cool stare held me in place.

"You are Ichigo Kurosaki's inner Hollow."

I forced my hands to unclench even as the murderous rage that ran through me made me want to tear apart the man in front of me limb by fucking limb. That was replaced with shock, however, when the man continued to speak, his eyes taking on a calculating look, as if he was weighing whether it was worth it to reveal the next bit of information.

"And . . . you are also his true Zanpakutō."

All of the anger and hate inside of me exploded and I launched myself at the man in front of me with a scream of rage, fully intending to rip his head from his shoulders (why didn't you tell me earlier?). Distantly, I could feel a strange sensation in my chest – the hole is closing? – but I knew it was too late. I also knew that the man was speaking the truth, which was why I wasn't a mindless, unthinking Hollow, and why I could still feel (dammit everyone I'm so sorry).

Instead of getting revenge, I found myself frozen to the spot, unable to move.

"What the hell?"

"You are not stronger than me at the moment."

Those damned eyes regarded me again, but for some reason I couldn't bring myself to truly hate the figure before me, even as chains began to rise from ripples in the glass below me and drag me down.

There was something in his expression that made my anger fade.

He was concerned. I didn't know if the emotion was for me – why the hell would he care anymore? The "real" me left here a long time ago – but it still gave me pause.

Because, no matter what, I agreed with him.

The "me" out there? He was King. He won; the Hollow didn't get to him.

The Hollow got to his Zanpakutō, the piece of his soul that didn't have defenses up yet.

So I would bide my time. I would get stronger.

I would keep my King safe.

And when the time came, I would come back.

If I was the King's Zanpakutō – and I know I am, I can feel it – then I would protect my wielder as best I could. I knew that the man in front of me feared me, just slightly (feared what I'd become). He wanted to keep Ichigo safe (from me). He was willing to do whatever it took (to keep me away and suppressed).

That was good. I needed that time to sort through myself, figure out what I was capable of and how to deal with what I was.

I couldn't even get mad at him, because I understood his motives perfectly with every fiber of my being.

But there was something I needed to know.

"One last thing," I said, before I was dragged out of sight. "Tell me one thing, old man."

He looked at me, the pity that I hated so much in his eyes somehow warring with what seemed to be compassion and sympathy – wow, he does care – and I knew I had his attention.

"What's my name?"

He smiled at me, though it was nothing more than an upward twitch of his lips. I heard his voice, even as blackness overtook my vision and I began my descent into semi consciousness.

"You are Zangetsu."

A/N It may not entirely fit with canon, but I like it anyway.

-RoR

Please review.