Yes, that's all I have.
Impossible! Three weeks and barely even a glimmer of her powers had returned. Worse still, she was now under no illusion as to her chances. As she tried to run, one of its claws caught her, knocking her off her feet as easily as it would have a human. On hands and knees, she braced herself for another blow.
But none came.
Instead, there was the sound of a heavy collision. She looked up. The hollow had been sent sprawling by a direct punch from Chad. Rukia gaped. He could see it? But no, he was still punching the air in front of him blindly. She had to marvel at his bravery though. He was willing to fight something he couldn't see.
"Chad, this way!" she cried.
The hollow, which had crawled back towards them, curious about its new assailant, received another head-on blow and screamed in rage. Wings unfolded from its back and it launched itself into the air.
"Got it," said Chad with satisfaction. He turned to Rukia: "Transfer Student, what's going on?"
"I'll be your eyes, Chad. It's taken to the sky. She pointed upwards then ran across the tarmac to the tall boy: "Lift me up!"
"What?"
"Lift me up! Even with this body – I mean, I think I can reach it!"
"What is it?"
"Lift me up!"
He did so. He was solid as concrete and seemed oblivious to her weight. The hollow was hovering low over them. She could see that its wings were attached, by leathery sinews, to its arms, which meant it should be unable to protect itself while flying. If it attempted to cover its face with its arms, it would drop out of the sky, so all she needed was one good strike, hard enough to crack its mask, if she could manage it in this body. "When I say so, I want you to throw me towards it." She shifted, bracing her heels against his forearm.
"If you don't mind my saying, this seems like a really bad idea, Transfer Student."
"Are you ready?"
"Where is it?"
"Left, left. No, that's too far. That's it. Perfect. Now!"
As he thrust her forward, she leapt. The double momentum was enough for her to close the distance between herself and the hollow. She intended a single, ferocious kick to its mask, and she might have succeeded were she not intercepted by a hundred tiny missiles. Where they struck her clothes they simply fell away, but on every part of her skin that was uncovered, they stuck.
She threw up her hands to protect her face and felt herself falling.
Her usual instinct to thicken the air around her was useless in this body, so she was relived when, instead of breaking against the ground, it was caught in Chad's bone-crushing arms. He lowered her gently to the tarmac, giving them both time to check what damage had been done.
Bile rose in Rukia's throat as she saw her arms and legs.
"What is it?" Chad asked, reminding her that he couldn't see.
"Leeches. I'm covered in leeches." Shining, green, squirming against her skin. She pulled one off and it left a trail of saliva and blood, like a cobweb, on her leg.
"Leeches, yes, but you don't fully understand what they are, Death-god." The hollow giggled: "Bombs. They are bombs." It opened its mouth and extended its tongue; there was a hole in the tip and, through this, it whistled, a piercing sound that made the air vibrate. Rukia felt the leeches pulsing all over her body. Then, as the sound rose to a fevered pitch, they began to burst. Each was a miniature explosion. She cried and pitched forward, her body rocked by the detonations. Chad could see nothing but the wounds suddenly opening on her skin. Yet the pain brought tears to her eyes. When the whistling stopped, she could only lie there, gasping.
"Where is it, Transfer Student?" asked Chad. She rolled onto her back and sat up. There was blood in her left eye, but she could still see that the street was empty. It had taken flight again.
"In the sky."
"Tell me where."
"Why? What are you going to do?"
He crossed the street and wrapped his arms around a telegraph pole, then, as she watched, he physically hoisted it into the air. Impossible! Such strength was surely impossible. Yet she had no time to contemplate it: "Above you! It's directly above you! Bring it down there!"
This time, the hollow had no time to evade them. The blow was not hard enough to break its mask, but the long wooden pole broke with the impact and the demon fell in a tangle of telegraph wires, splinters and leather wings. Rukia saw her chance and ran towards it.
"I have consumed so many shinigami!" it hissed: "Do you know why? Because they underestimate me. They always underestimate me and they never take account of my friends!" And, as it spoke, the periphery of Rukia's vision filled with movement. She forced herself to stop. On every side, tiny creatures were emerging from the cracks in the road and the crumbling mortar of brick walls. On every side: small, bloated lizards. As she watched, they opened their jaws and streams of leeches issued forth. As the first barrage hit her, she was knocked to the ground.
The demon cawed with laughter.
Rukia tried to turn her head. She could just see Chad, similarly pinned to the ground, to her right. The laughter stopped.
She closed her eyes and braced herself for the whistling and the explosion that she knew would tear this body to shreds. But it never came. After an appalling silence, she dared to look again. The hollow was gone. To her right, Chad grunted and, in a flurry of movement, threw off the leeches that held him to the ground.
"They have me too!" she cried, aware that he would be unable to see with his human eyes: "Kick the air above me, Chad!"
He did.
He knocked enough of them off that she was able to get to her knees and start tearing the others off. Without the hollow, they were no more than parasites. They fell harmlessly onto the tarmac.
"So, what are you going to do, Death-god?"
She looked up. The demon had returned, clutching in its claws the cage of the white parakeet. It put it down. There were leeches on the bars.
"It was stalling for time so that it could go and find that," Rukia said, almost to herself.
"What, Transfer Student?" asked Chad.
"See the parakeet's cage? If we don't do as it says, it intends to blow that up."
The demon laughed:
"You have a choice, Death-god. Either run, or die."
"Stay here, Chad. Don't move."
"But" –
"If you move, it will destroy the soul in that parakeet. Whatever happens, don't move."
She knew her chances. She knew the truth of the demon's choice and, with that in her heart, she ran.
It shrieked with delight and, at once, released streams of leeches into the air.
"Yes! Run! Run! Hurry! Hurry!"
The first few missed. Then one fixed itself fast to her arm; another to her leg. The demon whistled and the explosions tore into her. Deeper than before. She caught herself against a street-lamp to keep from falling. The demon was at her side, laughing, toying with her, waiting to see what she would do. She put one hand over the throbbing wound in her arm. Blood bubbled up between her fingers. "I said, run, Death-god!"
She ran.
Another attack came. This time, she dodged and kept on to the end of the road, despite the pain.
And there, where high walls gave way to an open patch of sky and the next road overlooked the shimmering grid of the city, she stopped, turned, and faced it. "What are you doing, Death-god?"
"You gave me a choice. I didn't have to run."
"Then you will die."
"Perhaps I choose to fight."
It laughed, but the sound was cut short by a heavy thump as something struck it from behind, knocking it face-first into the ground.
Ichigo planted one foot firmly on the back of its head.
She had sensed his presence, but still her relief was like a wave and she crossed her arms across her body to stop herself from trembling. She wouldn't die today.
"Are you alright, Rukia? I thought you said you could handle this."
"And I told you not to worry about me."
"Yeah. So?"
"So that sounds like the kind of question someone who was worrying about me would ask."
"Yeah. I guess it does." He grinned.
Beneath him, the hollow shook itself and he jumped down into the road beside Rukia.
"What are you?" it snarled.
"Ichigo Kurosaki, Substitute Soul-reaper," he said.
"Soul-reaper? So perhaps I went after the wrong one."
It attacked without warning. Rukia, who had slipped Urahara's glove on anyway, reacted instinctively, throwing herself between Ichigo and the demon and, in the process, knocking his soul out of his body. Fortunately, the demon went after his released soul and she found herself kneeling on the ground beside his lifeless body, breathing hard. Stupid, she thought: reckless. She could have so easily died today and for what? Just to test her powers? Or was it because she resented her reliance on this boy? Perhaps. Resentment, though, was probably the wrong word. It scared her.
Ichigo was fighting the hollow, overpowering it with ease. She shouted a warning when it released more leeches, but he was faster than she had been and dodged them all. He didn't need her help.
Rukia slid her arms under the shoulders of his body. It was heavy for her in this form and she grit her teeth as she dragged it out of the road and into the side street they had come from.
Less than a minute later, she was joined by Chad, carrying the parakeet in its cage:
"Oh my God, Transfer Student, what happened to Ichigo?"
"Oh, yes." She glanced down at the body in the road beside her. Chad would not be able to see the hollow, nor Ichigo's soul, fighting it: "He's alright. He's just sleeping."
"Are you alright?"
"Yes."
As soon as he placed the cage on the ground, the bird started speaking. At least, the voice came from the bird, but Rukia knew better. Somehow, the spirit in the bird had found a way to use its voice:
"I'm so sorry," it said: "Anyone who stays with me for any time at all has bad luck. That thing – it always goes after them. It – it killed my mother, but it told me that if I did what it said, I would see her again. It would bring her back and" –
"Wait," said Rukia: "It told you it could bring your mother back from the dead?"
"Yes."
"That's impossible. It lied to you."
"Yes, shrieked the hollow, responding to her words. Ichigo sprang back from it, frowning and, briefly, it seemed to address him: "I went to the house, intending to kill the woman. Right up to the end, she did everything in her power to protect the child. And who would have thought – such a small child! But he caught my shoelaces when I was out on the balcony and the fall killed me. He killed me! Hink of that! He killed me!" It howled with laughter: "So I took the soul from his body and I put it in that bird. Three months, I said: three months you have to run around and if I don't catch you in that time, you'll see your mother again. And I've taken my revenge: anyone who protects him; anyone who cares for him; I've killed them all! And if he hesitates and says it's not fair, I say 'Think of your poor mother! Don't you want to see your mother?' 'Oh, yes,' he says: 'Mama! Mama!'"
Ichigo flew at the monster.
If it had intended to distract or shock him with the story, its methods had had the very opposite effect. It was with a furious energy that he now attacked the demon and his face, Rukia could see, was cold as stone. The hollow's words had affected him. Not in the way that it had desired, but they had touched him, and his expression chilled her blood. His sword came down; he stabbed the creature through the centre of its forehead, cracking the white mask. Its scream was cut short. And then, something in the atmosphere around them changed.
Ichigo staggered backwards as two vast doors, a double gateway, formed in front of him. The reiatsu pouring off of them was dark. To touch it would be to wade through pitch. Rukia, even in her weakened state, could feel it, and she crossed the tarmac to Ichigo slowly, unsure of how he would react.
It was the first time that even she had taken a good look at those doors. Two skeletons hung on them, skulls and ribs and femur, seemingly lifeless. Yet she could sense the spirits in them and the empty eyes that studied her. They did not need to look twice to understand what she was. There existed only an uneasy truce between the shinigami and the denizens of that shattered land.
The doors opened and there were only flames behind. A spear emerged from them. It drove itself into the body of the hollow, which fought as it was dragged backwards into the fire.
Rukia let her gaze rest on Ichigo. She had crossed her arms, was holding her thoughts deep inside her chest, but he only stared on, his face as stoic as ever:
"What is that, Rukia?" he asked, as the doors began to close.
"Those are the gates of hell."
"But" –
"A shinigami's powers can only cleanse hollow spirits. They cannot atone for the atrocities a soul commits while it is still alive. He killed that boy's mother. For that, he has been taken to hell."
The doors closed. Their form evaporated into the morning light, leaving an empty, uneasy silence.