Just a drabble thing. I didn't originally intend to post it, given its shortness... but I was convinced otherwise. Anyone who reads my stuff regularly could probably guess who by. I'll probably make this my dumping grounds for whatever crap I decide isn't worth an actual story.

Anyway, Bleach is not mine. Otherwise, something of the conflict in the drabble would've been shown.

Prompt 1: Rational (Hollow and Shinigami, contrasts, complete)

Ichigo had nightmares.

He never told anyone; he thought the vizard probably knew, but he doubted they knew the entirety of the affair. They probably thought they knew, but he knew they didn't.

Or maybe they did. It would certainly explain a lot.

Oh, he was getting confusing, wasn't he? Back to the start, then.

Ichigo had nightmares.

There was the Hollow, it's taunting voice, drawing closer, drawing closer, threatening to swallow him up. It wasn't fear for his life that led him to fear the monster that shared his features. He had long surpassed a fear of death. Not that he'd be dead in the utterly final since of the word.

But he still nurtured a fear for his sanity.

While he might not admit it often, Ichigo did love the fight. He enjoyed it, occasionally lost himself to it. Keyword? Occasionally. He didn't have the voracious need to battle the Hollow displayed. He didn't want that need. He wasn't Kenpachi; he couldn't live without a moment's peace.

And the Hollow was worse than Kenpachi.

Kenpachi wanted to fight him. The Hollow wanted to take his sanity and do as he wished.

It was no surprise he both hated and feared it.

Rukia didn't understand a thing.

Sorry, that must have seemed random. He had just recalled something she mentioned once, about Hollows and Shinigami. "We are opposites, one the incarnation of instinct and savagery, and the other the incarnation of all that is good and rational." At their purest, she had also said, a Shinigami was not to be plagued by needless emotions, was to be able to judge and react through nothing but rationale.

And that, Ichigo thought, was even worse than sheer primal instinct given form.

But he had gotten off topic. Again.

Ichigo had nightmares.

And they weren't just of the Hollow.

At times, it was himself. Kurosaki Ichigo, shinigami, in the black shihakusho, with the orange hair and brown eyes. No startling physical differences, no grayscale reversal. Just him. But not. Because he wasn't a drone. Wasn't some thing with a monotone voice, no conception of emotion but arrogance and contempt, able to judge and react through nothing but rationale with consummate, unyielding, merciless skill. Without even a fraction of instinct. Without fear of death, fear of pain, fear of loss. Fear of anything.

In other words, shinigami at his purest.

Frankly, the Shinigami terrified Ichigo beyond anything the Hollow could ever manage.

He had seen the Hollow and the Shinigami fight. Instinct versus purpose, fear and the fearless, equal but not because without the Hollow's copy of Zangetsu it would have long ago been destroyed. He didn't begrudge the Hollow the weapon, oddly, because he preferred the Hollow have it and hold its own than not and be destroyed. He didn't want to be stuck with the Shinigami.

The Hollow was an animal. Primal instinct. It had an excuse.

The Shinigami?

Well, what was a man without morals?

Ichigo answered - a monster.

Ichigo had nightmares.

And in the nightmares, he was a monster.

Ah, irony. A lot of irony and subtlety in this piece, short as it was.

Feel free to suggest prompts. No promises, but if something piques my interest I might cook something up... eventually.