A/n: Hello all! So here's another little Ishida whumping fic, but I thought I'd focus on some psychological whumping this time. As always, please let me know if you find mistakes so I can correct them since I don't have a beta.
I have finally gotten around to watching some of the newest season, but this fic ignores that anyway. Though, depending on how this current arc plays out, this might still work in cannon… who knows?
Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach. And, since I realized after I had already gotten the outline worked this bares a certain amount of resemblance to a Buffy episode, I should mention that I do not own that either. Not a crossover fic, just thought I should cover my bases due to similarities.
Act I
Ishida gasped with a start as his eyes flew open. He hadn't realized that he had been asleep. Only a moment ago he had been sighting down a hollow, preparing to destroy it before it could attack Inoue. Now he was seemingly waking up in a small, cool, white room. He was lying on his side on the floor but the floor seemed strangely squishy.
As he tried to sit up, he got another shock. He couldn't move his arms at all. Looking down at his body he saw that he was strapped securely into a white straight jacket. His arms were wrapped around his body, completely useless.
"What…?" he gasped as he tried to sit up again. This time, knowing that his arms were useless, he managed to get up. "What… What is this?" he said as he looked around wildly. He could see now that the white room he was in was completely padded. It didn't take him long to add up the white padded room and his current straight jacket position for him to figure out exactly where he was. But what he couldn't figure out was how he had gotten there or why.
"Hello?" he called out. He saw that there was door across from him with a single small window inset at eye level. It was double panned with wire mesh in between the panes. This was a maximum security room. "Hello? Is anyone out there?" he called as he struggled to get to his feet.
He wanted to fix his glasses at that point but his arms were still strapped and then he realized that he wasn't wearing them. He blinked and looked around again. Yes, he definitely wasn't wearing his glasses. It had been hard to notice before with plain, white room, but now he could tell that there was a slight blurry edge to everything.
"Of course," he muttered as he started to walk around. "If I broke them I could use them to hurt myself. Standard operation for an asylum."
But this wasn't a standard situation for him. He shouldn't be there. He was supposed to be outside, fighting hollows and protecting his friends. He wasn't a crazy person so why was he in here? Try as he might, he couldn't even begin to remember how it was that he had gotten there.
Suddenly there came a sound at the door. Someone was unbolting it. He stopped his pacing and turned around to face the entrance as it swung open silently. There was a large man standing on the other side dressed all in white. "So, you're awake?" he said as he stepped inside. He walked slowly and cautiously towards Ishida.
"Are you feeling better now, Ishida-san?" the man asked.
Ishida just stood there and stared at him a moment, wondering what in the world was going on. "Uryuu," a familiar voice said from the door. Ishida turned his attention from the man and looked back towards the entrance. There, framed in the doorway, was Ryuken. "Son, please don't scare us like that."
Uryuu's mouth dropped open. "Ryuken…" he muttered.
A sad frown pulled at Ryuken's lips. It was not an expression that Ishida was used to seeing there. His father rarely showed any emotion but disappointment. Now, all that Ishida could see was genuine sorrow.
"Uryuu, I'm your father. Why do you insist on calling me by my name?" Ryuken walked into the room and held his arms out towards Ishida. "What have I done to earn that treatment?"
Ishida took a step back. This wasn't his father. This couldn't be the man that had shunned him and drove him away time and time again. This wasn't the same uncaring man that had mercilessly shot at him to "train," him to get his Quincy powers back. This man standing before him was what his father should have been but never was… caring.
"Who are you?" Ishida couldn't help but ask.
"I'm sorry, sir," the white clad man said. "It looks like he's regressed again."
"Regressed? What are you talking about?" Ishida said, looking between the two men. "Who are you? Why am I here?"
"Son," Ryuken said with a level of patience and caring that just shouldn't have been there. "You're in the hospital. You've been here for nearly a year. Don't you remember, Uryuu? You had a break down. You've never been able to get over your grandfather's death. But you were getting better until just a day ago."
"A year? No, I just woke up here. I was outside. I was protecting Inoue-san. Where is she? Is she all right?" He was beginning to get frantic. He didn't like what this situation was doing to him. He wasn't one to lose his cool but this was too strange. Nothing here made any sense.
Ryuken and the orderly exchanged a look before Ryuken said with a heavy sigh. "Inoue… that girl again? I thought you had finally accepted that she wasn't real, Uryuu."
"Not real! What are you talking about?" he was on the verge of completely losing his demeanor. "I was just with her. The hollow was about to bite her only a moment ago but I was here before I could shoot it!"
"Uryuu!" Ryuken snapped. It was almost his normal self. It was a shout of frustration, but there was still a hint of pain and sadness behind his shout. "Uryuu," he repeated softly, putting his frustration under control again. "It's not real, son. There are no such things as hollows. This girl, Inoue Orihime, she doesn't exist. Neither does that boy, Kurosaki. You are not a group of heroes that protect the town from unseen spirits. Please…" his voice was almost pleading as he took another step towards Ishida. "Please, Uryuu, remember. Remember what you had achieved only a day ago. You knew all this yesterday."
Ishida took another step backward. His back connected with the back of the wall. "No…" he muttered and began to slip downward as his knees gave out on him. "No… this isn't real. This is the lie…" he muttered again and closed his eyes.
"Ishida-kun," he heard a soft, distant voice sigh in his mind.
"Uryuu… please don't leave me again," his father's voice pleaded to him.
"Ishida-kun!" the other voice was louder now. He knew the voice. It was Inoue. She was calling out to him.
"Don't you hear her?" Ishida said and tried to open his eyes again to look at Ryuken but he couldn't manage to lift his lids.
"ISHIDA-KUN!"
His eyes suddenly snapped open and he was now standing in the park again, staring into Inoue's frightened and worried eyes. She had a bloody gash running down the left side of her face and her eyes were filled with tears.
"In…Inoue-san," he gasped. He took a step back and realized that he was once again in his Quincy uniform and his arms were free again.
"Oh, Ishida-kun!" Inoue gasped in relief and pulled him into a tight hug. "What happened to you? You went all blank faced and suddenly froze. I thought that something horrible had happened!"
"In…Inoue-san… what…?" he looked around wildly, trying to spot where the hollow had gone but he didn't see any sign on it. "What happened? How did I get back here?"
She released her hold on him and looked up into his eyes. "Back? Ishida-kun. You never left. You've been standing in the same spot for nearly ten minutes."
"Ten…" he muttered in wonder. "Wait, the hollow, what happened?" he looked down at her and noticed the blood on her face again. "Inoue-san, you're hurt!"
She shook her head and stepped back as he reached for her face. "It's nothing, Ishida-kun," she told him. "I heard you drawing your bow, that's what warned me about it before it attacked. I was just a little too slow to completely dodge the attack."
"Inoue-san…" he said, hardly able to believe that he had been the reason she had been hurt. If whatever happened hadn't distracted him, she wouldn't have had to dodge in the first place.
"I'm fine, Ishida-kun!" she said quickly. "You saved me! I was able to dodge in time and use Tsubaki to scare it off. It didn't like having its arm nearly cut off." She gave him a smile but he knew that it didn't completely reach her heart. She was worried about him.
He shook his head, not wanting to think about what could have happened if she hadn't been able to dodge that attack. "We should get that looked at, Inoue-san," he said as he turned his head away from her and adjusted his glasses.
"Oh… ah, yeah. How about we go see Urahara-san? We're not too far away from the shop."
He hesitated a moment. He knew exactly why she had suggested the ex-Shinigami. It wasn't because of her injury, but because of what had just happened to him. But he nodded and turned towards the shop. "Yes, that would be best I think," he said.
Inoue was right, he needed to figure out what it was that had just happened to him and Urahara was the most likely one to be able to figure something like this out. But if he couldn't… what was he going to do? If something like that happened again, the consequences could easily be much worse than a nasty cut on Inoue's face…
XXX
"Well, that is certainly a strange story," Urahara said from behind his fan after Ishida had finished explaining everything that he had experienced. "I can't say I know what happened to you. It sounds almost as if you had been caught in an illusion much like Ririn can create, but it seems to have been even more complete than even she can produce. You said that Inoue-san said you were just standing there during that time?"
He nodded.
"Well, in your vision, or hallucination, or whatever it was, you had been moving around. When Ririn creates an illusion, the person still moves and interacts in the actual space as if they were in the illusion. But it sounds as if you had gone catatonic for a moment rather than remain actually active."
Ishida nodded again. "I had that thought too. I wondered if it had been something like that, but there was no one else there besides the hollow and Inoue-san and that hollow was far too low a level to be able to do something like that."
Urahara snapped his fan shut and placed it back in his sleeve as he eyed Ishida for a moment. "Well, it is possible that there was something there that you couldn't sense. Though I wonder if maybe you are just under too much stress?"
"Stress? You think that I hallucinated all of that?"
Urahara shrugged. "It's not really all that uncommon. You don't have to be crazy to have waking dreams like this. You have been under a lot of pressure ever since Aizen's defeat now that you and the others have had to step up and take care of the majority of the hollows with Kurosaki's powers waning. And you have to admit that you certainly haven't really had any downtime pretty much since you met Kurosaki about a year ago."
"What…" Ishida muttered. "What did you say?"
"What?" Urahara asked confused. "About you not having much downtime?"
"No, about how long it's been since I met Kurosaki…"
"Well, let's see… Yes, I'd say it's been about a year now, hasn't it?"
The sound of Ryuken's voice echoed in Ishida's ears. "You've been here for about a year. Don't you remember, Uryuu?"
"A year…" he muttered. "That's how long he said that I had been in the hospital."
Urahara eyed Ishida closely a moment until the Quincy suddenly pulled himself out of his thoughts. "Thank you, Urahara-san. You may be right. Maybe I should just get some rest."
Urahara forced a smile and stood up. "That's a good idea. Though I'll look into things for you just to be safe."
Ishida stood up and offered a slight bow to the shopkeeper saying, "Thank you again, Urahara-san. I think I will go check up on Inoue-san and then head home."
Ishida turned and left Urahara standing in the room, staring after the Quincy. "Hmm…" he muttered before he turned and headed directly to his lab. He had a feeling that he had his work cut out for him on this one.
XXX
"Inoue-san?" Ishida called as he cautiously poked his head into the next room.
Inoue turned and looked towards the door and gave Ishida a big smile. "Ishida-kun! Look, Tessai-san has completely healed me. I told you I would be fine!" She got up and walked over to Ishida as he pushed the door open a little further and entered the room.
"I am glad to hear that, Inoue-san," Ishida told her as he stared down at the place where the gash had been on her face. It was completely healed without so much as a scar. But in his mind, he could still see the injury and he knew that it had been his fault.
"Did Urahara-san have any idea what happened?" Inoue asked him hesitantly. It was clear that she was worried about him but didn't want to let it show.
"He didn't know for sure, but he suggested that maybe I just need to get some rest. I have been rather stressed for some time now."
She nodded to him. "Yes, I'll walk you home, Ishida-kun! And if you want, I can make you some soup or something while you rest up!"
Ishida tried his hardest to keep from cringing at the thought of Inoue's cooking. "I would welcome the company home, Inoue-san. But I think that maybe I should just spend some time alone for a while after that. I have plenty to eat in my house, but thank you."
She smiled at him and nodded. They left the shop together and headed for his apartment. They walked most of the way in silence but Inoue broke it as his place came into view. "Ishida-kun, are you sure that you should be alone right now?"
Ishida looked at her, puzzled at what she was getting at. "I mean…" she quickly ploughed ahead. "When you went all still, you had me really worried. If something like that happens again while you're alone, you might not snap out of it."
He frowned slightly as he thought about it but kept walking. "You may be right, Inoue-san. But having people over wouldn't let me rest very well, now would it?"
She frowned a moment and then brightened and said. "How about I talk to Kurosaki-kun and Sado-kun and we can just check up on you, at least for over the weekend?"
He gave her a slight smile and said, "I think that would be fine, Inoue-san. Though I wish you wouldn't worry about me so much. Urahara-san is probably right; it's probably just stress."
"Oh I'm sure too!" she said quickly. "But just in case… I would really feel bad if something bad were to happen to you, Ishida-kun."
By now they had reached his apartment. "Thank you Inoue-san," he told her as he pulled out his key and opened his door.
"You're welcome, Ishida-kun! I'll come by with Sado-kun and Kurosaki-kun, just for a short visit, tomorrow."
"Thank you again, Inoue-san," he told her and stepped through the door. "Be careful walking home."
"Mm," she replied with a nod and quickly turned around and walked away. He stood in his doorway a moment and watched her leave, walking down the sidewalk in the failing light. After a moment he sighed and then closed the door and went to his room. He didn't waist much time to get into his pjs and climb into bed. He was really feeling exactly how exhausted he was for what felt like the first time in a very long time.
He laid down on his bed and placed his glasses on the stand beside his bed and quickly drifted off to sleep.
XXX
No sooner had he fallen asleep than he suddenly opened his eyes again. He was looking up at an entirely different ceiling than the one that he had fallen asleep under. He tried to sit up quickly, but he was shocked to find that his body had been strapped down with padded leather straps to the bed he was lying on.
"What… no, not again," he said with a slight edge of panic as he tried to struggle against the restraints. "It's a dream… I have to be dreaming…"
"Uryuu?" a groggy voice said in the darkened room off to his right.
He looked over and saw his fath… Ryuken… starting to sit up straight in the chair in the corner in the room. He appeared to have just woken up and had been leaning against the wall as he slept in the chair. He picked up a book off of his chest and sat it down on the table beside him before he stood up and walked over to where Ishida was lying.
"I'm so glad you came back again, Uryuu," Ryuken said when he was standing over his son.
"Ryu…Dad," Ishida decided that maybe he could find out more about what was going on if he would just play along with the delusion. "Why am I strapped here?" he asked as he looked around the room. It was a plain gray room with only the bed, chair and table in it. There was also a small rolling tray on the other side of his bed that currently only held a cup and pitcher of water.
Ryuken walked around the bed to the tray and started to poor a glass of water. "It was for your own protection, Uryuu," he explained gently. "Here," he held the cup close to Ishida's lips. "You must be thirsty."
He was, in fact, feeling quite thirsty. He opened his mouth slightly and allowed Ryuken to help him take a drink. When Ryuken took the cup back, he looked up at person who looked like his father again and decided to try again. "Dad, please tell me, why do I need to be protected from myself?"
Ryuken looked down sadly at his son before he walked around the bed and grabbed the chair that he had been sleeping in a short while ago. He pulled the chair over to Ishida's bedside and took a seat. "Uryuu, I've had to explain these things to you before and every time I think that you might finally be able to remember them, but you always forget again."
"Dad, please, I need to know what it going on."
Ryuken sighed and then proceeded. "Most of the time, you are catatonic, Uryuu. You disappear into your own mind and nothing we say or do reaches you."
"Catatonic…" Ishida muttered. He remembered what Urahara had said about how he had appeared when he had this vision before. He had described it with the same word.
"Other times…" Ryuken pressed on. "You become violent and seem to be acting out some of whatever it is that you are seeing. You had a particularly bad episode last night. That's why they had isolated you before. They restrained you now as a precaution."
Ishida looked down at his body and saw how tightly he had been bound. He couldn't move at all in this position and it was incredibly unnerving. "No, this can't be real…" he muttered.
"Uryuu, please stop saying that," Ryuken said in anguish.
Ishida looked at his father in surprise. He had never heard his father speak to him with such a level of emotion. Even when he was angry with him, he never let that much emotion leak into his words.
"You don't understand, Uryuu…" Ryuken said as he turned his head aside slightly. The glimmer of light from the moon outside caught and refracted off of something on his father's face. Ishida was shocked to realize that it was a tiny drop of moisture. "I don't know how much more I can take of you denying me… denying who you are…"
"Dad… I, I don't understand. What is happening to me?" Ishida asked, feeling panic beginning to rise inside of his chest again.
"Please, Uryuu," Ryuken said as he leaned forward. "You're all I have left. Please, come back to me."
"Dad…" there came a soft knock at the door then. His father looked up as the door opened a crack and a voice called into the room.
"Ishida-kun," the voice said.
Suddenly Ishida felt exhausted and he couldn't keep his eyes open a moment longer.
As he let his lids slide close he heard the knock again, but this time it was much louder. "Oi! Ishida!" a voice called.
With a gasp, Ishida sat bolt up right in bed. He was sweating and breathing heavily as his heart pounded in his chest. "Ishida!" the voice called again with an even louder knocking.
"Kurosaki…" Ishida gasped as he was finally able to orient himself back in his bedroom and realize who it was that was knocking at his door.
"I…I'll be right there!" he called through the small apartment as he scrambled out of bed and reached for a clean set of clothes. It was only moments later that he was at his door and opening it to the slightly worried faces of his three closest friends. "I'm sorry…" he said quickly. "I…I must have over slept."
Inoue was the first to break her worried expression and smile at him. "It's all right Ishida-kun. That's what you're supposed to be doing!"
"Yeah…" Ichigo muttered as he eyed Ishida closely. "I guess you're taking this rest thing seriously. It's nearly noon." He stepped forward and nudged his way into the apartment.
Ishida didn't have much choice but to allow them all to enter. "Yes…" Ishida said as he quickly tried to think of what to tell them. "I guess I have been a little more tired than I had thought."
"Are you feeling better?" Chad asked.
"Oh, ah, yes. I think so," he quickly lied. In fact, he was feeling far worse than when he had lain down to go to sleep the night before.
"That's great, Ishida-kun!" Inoue exclaimed as she grabbed a spot on the couch beside Ichigo.
"Yes, well," Ishida said as he nervously adjusted his glasses. "I think that I might want another day or two before getting back to work, if that's all right with all of you?"
Ichigo's eyes narrowed slightly as Chad nodded and Inoue exclaimed how that would be a great idea and assured Ishida that they could take care of things for as long as he needed. Inoue then took over the conversation and babbled on about things that she had been doing and what she and the other two boys planned to do that day. Finally she ran out of things to say and suggested that maybe they should let Ishida get some more rest.
"Yes, thank you Inoue-san," he said as he stood up to show them out of his place. "Thank you all for checking up on me."
Chad nodded and Inoue smiled at him as they filed out. Ichigo was last to leave. He paused in the door as the other two walked away. "Ishida," he said softly to the Quincy. "I know that you're not really feeling better. I also know that you want to work this out for yourself. Just remember, we want to be there for you."
Ishida looked at Ichigo, rather startled by the Shinigami's words. "Kurosaki…" he muttered.
"Just think about it, Ishida," he said and then followed after his other two friends.
XXX
Ishida did think about it, but nothing more happened to him that weekend. The trio came back to visit him the next day and then he saw them all at school the following day on Monday. He was walking home with all of them after class that day, thinking that he was over whatever had happened to him, when they all suddenly stopped short in their walk and turned to look off into the distance.
"Hollow," Chad muttered.
Ichigo reached for his badge but Inoue grabbed his hand and said, "We should be fine, Kurosaki-kun." He looked at her in disappointment but let go of the badge and then over at Ishida. "You think you're up for this again, Ishida?" he asked.
He nodded and pushed his glasses up as he said, "I'm much better now. Let's get going." He turned then with Inoue and Chad and they all raced off towards the hollow that they could sense, leaving Ichigo behind.
When the found the hollow, it only took a minute for them to slay it. It was a large beast that had spikes in its tail that it could throw. Inoue used her shield to block the thrown spikes while Chad knocked it into position for Ishida to finish off with his arrows.
Inoue and Chad had just turned and started to walk back the way they came as Ishida walked back a little bit, thinking that he might have sensed something else. Suddenly he turned around just as another hollow stepped out of a Garganta between him and the other two.
It didn't seem to even notice Ishida as it lunched after Chad, who was slightly closer to it. "Sado!" Ishida called out and started to raise his hand to summon his bow, but his arm was suddenly too heavy to lift.
"No…" he gasped as he realized what was happening. He looked up and saw Chad just starting to turn around. "Sado…" Ishida tried to call out again but his voice had suddenly gotten weak and it only came out as a whisper.
Everything went black for a second as he tried to scream Chad's name again. "Sado!" he suddenly yelled out and opened his eyes. He was sitting in bed again in that same small gray room from his dream the other night. "No, Sado!" he called again as he gasped for breath. He couldn't afford to be there right now. Chad was about to be attacked and Inoue was nearby. They needed him.
"Ishida-san," a familiar voice called gently to him as a large arm reach out and restrained him from leaping form his bed. "Ishida, I'm right here," the voice said again.
Ishida turned and looked at the person that was holding him down and speaking to him. He gasped in surprise as he found that he was looking up at Sado, now dressed in white scrubs. "Sado… how?"
"It's all right, Uryuu. You see, you're friend is fine," a calm voice said from across the room. It was an older man in a white doctor's coat.
"Who… who are you?" Ishida asked.
The man sighed slightly before he said. "I'm doctor Anji… you're psychiatrist, Uryuu. We've been working together for a year now. Don't you remember?"
"Doctor Anji…" Ishida said. He looked back up at Sado. He was still holding Ishida down.
"I think you can let him go now, Sado-san," Anji said. Sado gently released his hold on Ishida and took a step back.
"I don't understand…" Ishida said. "Why are you here, Sado?"
"He works here, Uryuu," Anji told him. "He's been the day orderly here since you arrived. You have been friends during the brief times that you have been lucid Uryuu."
"Sado…" Ishida looked up at Sado and he smiled at him.
"That's right, Ishida," Sado said. "I've been looking out for you."
Ishida suddenly gave a gasp and tried to get up again. "No! You're in danger! I have to get back!"
Sado reached out and grabbed Ishida again and pinned him to the bed. "Uryuu, please calm down," Dr. Anji said. "That's not real. Sado is fine."
"Ishida, I'm all right. You don't need to save me," Chad said to him.
"No! No, you have to let me go!" he couldn't take it anymore. He was truly beginning to feel as if he had completely lost his mind. "Let be go back! I have to go back!"
"We're going to have to sedate him, I'm afraid," Anji said as he stood up and pulled a vial from the pocket of his coat. He pulled a syringe from the other pocket and inserted it into the vial.
"NO!" Ishida screamed as he struggled against Chad's grip. "You don't understand; I have to get back!"
"Strap him down, Sado," Anji said as he finished filling the syringe.
The leather straps were suddenly wrapped around his body and pulled tight. Uryuu gasped and struggled against them. "Wait… I can't breath…" he gasped. The straps were too tight. They felt as if they were crushing his chest.
"Just calm down Ishida," Chad told him.
"Ishida-kun…" Ishida was beginning to anticipate that call now. It was Inoue calling him back again.
"Inoue-san!" he called out. He needed to get back. He didn't want this man to stab him with that needle. "Inoue-san!"
"Ishida-kun! Sado-kun!" her voice was much louder now. Suddenly the needle was jabbed into his arm.
Ishida gasped as he opened his eyes again. At first, he was shocked that he was still having difficulty breathing. He felt trapped by a weight on top of his chest, but he couldn't really see anything yet.
"Chad!" he heard Ichigo's voice exclaim. Suddenly the weight was lifted off of his chest and he could see and breathe again.
"Inoue, help him!" Ichigo cried out in a worried voice.
Ishida sat up and saw Ichigo standing nearby having transformed into his Shinigami form. He was standing over Chad who was lying on the ground with a pool of blood spreading out below his very still body. Inoue was running up and quickly knelt beside Chad and called out her healing field.
"Sado…" Ishida said as he stared at his friend unable to process what he was looking at.
Ichigo suddenly turned around and looked at him. He took three swift steps before he was standing over Ishida and he reached down and grabbed the Quincy by his collar. He lifted him up off of the ground so the startled Quincy was staring him directly in the eye. "What the hell happened?" Ichigo growled at him.
"I…I don't know…" he gasped out. He tried to look around Ichigo to see how Chad was doing, but Ichigo shook him hard and drew his attention back.
"You said that you were better, Ishida!" he snapped.
"I thought I was… I…" But he was at a complete loss of words.
"Kurosaki-kun," Inoue called over to them. "It wasn't his fault…"
"Yes it was!" Ichigo cried as he let go of Ishida with a shake, causing the disoriented young man to stumble backward. Ichigo raised a finger and pointed it at Ishida accusingly. "He was injured while saving you!"
Ishida gasped and looked back at Chad. His face suddenly winced in pain as he started to come back to consciousness. "He threw himself on you to protect you from the hollow when you suddenly froze. He took that wound for you, Ishida!"
"No…" Ishida muttered and took a step back. "No, I was trying to warn him…"
"You did, Ishida-kun," Inoue said gently to him.
"Yeah, that was the last useful thing you did," Ichigo snapped. "You warned him in time to dodge but then the thing turned on you and you wouldn't move."
Ishida stared at Chad in disbelief. "I… I…" he looked up again at Ichigo's enraged face.
"If I hadn't turned up, you both would have been dead," the Shinigami told him.
Ishida swallowed and looked around wildly. This couldn't be happening… he couldn't be the cause of this… something was extremely wrong here.
"Ishida-kun…" Inoue's worried voice called to him. He met her gaze and saw all of the fear and worry that she had for him and that was the last straw. He couldn't take her pity and Ichigo's anger along with his own guilt all at once.
He spun around and fled…
What's happening to me… he thought. I can't be slipping like this… This just can't be happening.
XXX
It was the following day that Ishida didn't wake up when Ichigo knocked at his door again. The Shinigami was feeling horrible about how he had treated his ailing friend the day before. He had meant to apologize to the Quincy at school that day, but he had never showed up.
Inoue told him that he had to go and see Ishida. She was clearly extremely worried about their friend but felt that Ichigo was the one that needed to go to him this time.
"Ishida!" he called again as he pounded on the door again. "Come one, Quincy, I know you're in there."
Still there was no response. Ichigo sighed and leaned up against the door. "Ishida, I'm sorry. I should never have yelled at you like that yesterday. I'm not angry with you any more and Chad is just fine now. Please, let me in."
Nothing.
Ichigo was beginning to get rather worried. He walked around and glanced in through a window. All he could see was a darkened room. There was no evidence of any movement but he could just barely sense that Ishida was still inside.
Looking around, he checked to see if anyone was watching. When he saw that the coast was clear, he pushed the window open and climbed inside. "Ishida," he called again now that he was standing in the Quincy's living room.
He could hear rhythmic breathing coming from the adjoining room but there was no response. "Come on, Ishida," Ichigo called again feeling very worried about his friend now. He walked into the bedroom and saw Ishida lying on the bed, staring glassy eyed up at the ceiling.
"Ishida!" he called and rushed over to his friend's side. He shook Ishida's shoulders and called his name again, but there was still no response. "Come one you damn Quincy," he said in frustration. "Snap out of it all ready!"
XXX
"Are you hearing voices again, Uryuu?" Dr. Anji asked him.
Uryuu cocked his head to the side and replied, "Yes, I think that I hear Kurosaki calling to me."
"Don't you want to go to him?"
Uryuu thought a moment and then shook his head, "No, I don't think that I do."