Chapter 3: The Empty Space

Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach, Slender Man/Slender or any Shakespeare works.

BLEACH

Ichigo woke up to the sound of gentle knocking on his door. With a grunt, he threw the covers off and climbed out of his bed before slowly walking over to the door just as another quiet knock sounded. He opened the door to see a sheepish-looking Rukia standing at his door in her baggy pink pyjamas.

"Sorry for waking you up…" she whispered, a slight blush of embarrassment gracing her pale cheeks.

With a sigh, Ichigo turned away and walked back into his room. He didn't shut the door which Rukia took as a sign to enter. She turned to close the door and, when she turned around, Ichigo was sitting on his bed, slouched over with his arms draped over his knees. Rukia briefly marvelled at how Ichigo could sleep in his thin white t-shirt and blue shorts on such a cold night, but she was drawn away from the thought when Ichigo ran his hand through his messy orange hair and looked her in the eye.

"Can't sleep?" he asked quietly. Rukia was silent for a few seconds.

"… I'm worried…" she finally told him, refusing to meet his gaze.

"Is this about that meeting that we just got back from?" he inquired.

"What else could it be about?!" she snapped a little too loudly. Realising that she had been too loud, she sighed and fell quiet. "… How do we beat something that's unbeatable…?"

"It could end up being something totally different," Ichigo somewhat attempted to reassure her, his voice gruff despite his initial intentions.

"… You could end up being right…" Rukia responded sadly.

"I could end up being wrong. Don't be so pessimistic," he whispered, his perpetual frown deepening.

"… I can't help it…" Rukia moaned. "… A Shinigami has gone missing and Soul Society is in a panic… Everyone I love is in danger…"

Just as Ichigo was about to make a point, Rukia's Denreishinki began to beep. It was in Rukia's hands in mere seconds. Flipping in open, she quickly looked up at Ichigo, all hints of sadness quickly disappearing, the look of hopelessness in her eyes filling with one of duty.

Ichigo didn't bother to look for Kon. He simply grabbed his wooden Substitute Shinigami badge and, slamming it against his chest, his soul leapt out and his lifeless body crumpled to the floor. Rukia, on the other hand, pulled a Gikongan dispenser out of her pocket and clicked the top which was shaped like a white rabbit. A small, round, green pill popped out of the dispenser and into Rukia's mouth. Upon swallowing the pill, Rukia was immediately expelled from her Gigai.

They were out the window and heading towards the source of the Hollow attack in a few seconds, all thoughts solely focused on getting there and stopping the Hollow before it could do any damage to people or Pluses.

The night was silent as they ran down the streets, often taking the time to jump over roofs as a shortcut, the buildings flying past as they ran down the road with no people to been seen and all of the cars parked by the sides of the road.

Aside from the Shinigami, there were no other noises on that calm, clear night. Nothing except the gentle breeze rustling through the leaves of trees and bushes. The sky was clear and dotted with tiny stars.

Neither of them could have guessed that a Hollow was attacking and neither of them expected to see what they did as they rounded the corner of a building and happened upon the rather small Hollow. Rukia narrowed her eyes as they landed near it. The Hollow didn't seem to be aware of their presence.

"That… looks like an Adjuchas…" Rukia states as she observed the creature that had its' back turned to her.

From what they could see, it was a human-sized Hollow with a hole through its stomach. It was brown and covered in shaggy fur. Its back was hunched over slightly, its dirty, clawed paws trailing along the ground and two white dog-like ears could be seen from the top of its head that appeared to come from its mask. Its real ears were two visible holes that lay beneath its fur, one of which lay on either side of his head. Its large, floppy jowls dropped down from either side of its face, stationary as it stood very still, not even moving its abnormally long brown tail. It was, for all intents and purposes, an anthropomorphic dog.

"It should have noticed us by now…" Ichigo commented, removing Zangetsu from his back and holding it up.

Rukia nodded. "Something isn't right. It should have noticed our Reiatsu." Rukia suddenly paused and her eyes slowly widened. "Look, Ichigo!" She pointed. "It has a Human!"

'She's right,' Ichigo noted inwardly as he spotted a young man in a pair of blue pyjamas. His hair was brown colour and his fringe covered his eyes slightly, but no so much that they couldn't see the blank look in them. Whoever it was that was standing there was being controlled by this Hollow.

Cursing outwardly, Ichigo immediately jumped into the fray with a shout, bringing his Zanpakutō down upon the dog. However, just as the sword was about to connect, the dog twitched and it was gone in an instant. Suddenly, it reappeared behind Ichigo before he could realise that it had used Sonído.

"… Tail Swipe…" it droned before quickly slamming its tail into Ichigo's left side with incredible power, sending the startled Substitute Shinigami into a building with a loud crash. It was close to him in an instant, its tail raised again before delivering another sharp blow to his solar plexus and knocking the wind out of him. A small trickle of blood slowly started to find its way out of the side of his mouth and down his chin as he coughed and gasped, the dust from the crumbling wall slowly coating his clothes and hair as he did so.

"Ichigo!" Rukia called in a panic, unsheathing her sword and holding it out in front of her, catching the attention of the Hollow which turned to make a move. "Mae, Sode no Shirayuki!"

As she began to turn her blade in a circle in a counter-clockwise motion, the blade, hilt and tsuba of the Zanpakutō started to become completely white, the tsuba becoming a hollow snowflake-like circle. A white ribbon formed from the pommel and began to float around Sode no Shirayuki in a circle as a blast of cold air rushed out in all directions.

Rukia punctured the ground with the tip of her blade as the Hollow watched her somewhat warily, its filthy claws held at the ready. "Tsugi no mai, Hakuren!" she called out, as a large ice circle formed on the ground.

Rukia then punctured the ground in front of her four times, the shape of which was something akin to a semi-circle. As ice particles began to flow up from the punctures in the ground, she took a battle stance. Suddenly, a powerful rush of cold air surged from the tip of the blade, flash freezing everything in its path as it went.

The Hollow, however, was quick to dodge the freezing blast of air with its Sonído. It suddenly appeared behind Rukia in the same manner as it had with Ichigo. However, unlike the Substitute Shinigami, Rukia was aware of what it was going to do. She'd already seen it doing it once before.

She held her sword out, performing a slashing motion as she quickly turned. "San no mai, Shirafune!" Before the Hollow could realise what had happened, the sword began to elongate and it slashed the Adjuchas, slowly freezing its body. Rukia raised her blade and brought it down on the frozen Hollow, causing it to shatter and crumble into a freezing heap of ice.

… The Hollow was dead…

… That was wrong…

"That shouldn't have happened…" Rukia mumbled. "That was an Adjuchas…"

Suddenly, a noise brought her out of her thoughts. It was a low grunt and Rukia turned to see the Human that had been controlled by the Hollow holding his head as the link to the vanquished Hollow slowly began to snap, causing a headache. Eventually, the man opened his eyes and blinked.

"What… happened…?" he muttered to himself, looking around and eventually walking towards a building on his left which Rukia presumed to be his house. He opened the door and walked inside. "I must have had a migraine or a seizure or something… I thought I was in my living room…" He chuckled at the absurdity of it all. "I'd better visit the doctor tomorrow…" He closed the door behind him, closing out the warm night air.

Turning, Rukia saw Ichigo slowly began to pull himself out of the wall with a pained grunt. Rukia quickly sheathed her sword which slowly reverted back to its sealed form as she did so and hurried over to Ichigo's side, helping him to pick himself up.

"Are you alright, Ichigo?" Rukia asked, her concern evident in her voice.

"Yeah… I think I'm OK…" Ichigo responded with a frown.

"Are you really OK? You should have been up from something like that a lot faster…" Rukia stated.

"I…" Ichigo seemed to draw a blank. Suddenly, his head snapped up and he looked towards a building, a look of dazed confusion clouding his features.

"What's wrong?" Rukia inquired, looking around in an attempt to see what he was fixated on.

"I… thought I saw something…" Ichigo mumbled as he stared up at the empty space on top of a building, internally wondering what he had thought had been there and if there was anything there in the first place. '… Why am I looking up there at all…?' he pondered, confusion washing over him as he lost track of his thoughts and fell into something akin to a daze.

Rukia stared at him for a few seconds before sighing. "We'd better get you home… You must be sick…" He certainly didn't look well. Rukia noticed that he was becoming pale and tired. 'The Hollow attack certainly couldn't have hurt him much, so he must be sick,' she reasoned with herself. 'But, why didn't he show signs earlier…?'

Rukia quickly shook that thought out of her head and began to focus on the more important matter of getting Ichigo home. Taking a hold of his arm with one hand and wrapping the other around his back, she began to guide him back home.

"Are you feeling OK?" Rukia asked as they rounded the corner. She received no response other than Ichigo's slow, unsteady, heavy footsteps as he plodded on, completely shutting out the world around him. Rukia tried again. "Do you feel tired?" Nothing. Rukia felt her impatience beginning to rise. "If you feel sick, just tell me!" she finally snapped. Nothing. Ichigo wasn't listening and didn't look like he'd be starting any time soon.

Eventually, though, Rukia had slowly and safely directed Ichigo back home – something which had taken her much longer than she would have originally liked it to have been. Looking between the locked front door and the open window that they had left through, she came to the only conclusion that she could. She repositioned Ichigo so that he was lying heavily on her back.

"Alright, Ichigo. We're going to jump up, OK?" told him.

Ichigo didn't respond, just as she had expected. With a sigh, she crouched down and jumped, somehow managing to lift the heavy orange-haired Substitute Shinigami to the window which she all but fell through and landed on the bed, Ichigo's limp form lying on top of her.

With a grunt of annoyance and slight anger at the situation, Rukia pushed Ichigo off of her with more than a little difficulty and, having pulled herself back to her feet, she dusted herself off and began to pull Ichigo towards his body, carefully placing him into it. Pulling back the covers of his bed, she awkwardly lifted him up onto it and pulled the covers up over his sleeping body.

With that done, she was left wondering what to do next. She placed a hand on his forehead. There was no fever. Not that she could feel, anyway. Taking a step back, she pondered going to Ichigo's father. He was a Human doctor, she remembered. Maybe he knew what was going on. Ichigo was undoubtedly either sick or injured, but was he sick enough to need a doctor?

With a reluctant sigh, she found that she couldn't leave Ichigo as he was without receiving some kind of reassurance. She quickly exited the room and headed down the hallway as quickly as she could before stopping outside the door to Isshin's room.

However, after raising a hand to knock, she suddenly found herself hesitating. 'What if this is all nothing?' she asked herself. 'He'll be mad if I wake him up… But… what if it is something…?'

Rukia reluctantly knocked the door, eventually deciding that it was better to know for certain whether it was really something serious or not. She waited for a few seconds and, hearing no noise, she was about to turn away, her bravery failing her in the face of the former-Captain. However, just as she was turning to leave, a tired-looking Isshin appeared at the door and gave her a slight smile.

"Is something the matter?" he whispered, careful not to wake anyone up by being too loud.

Taking a deep breath, Rukia began to speak. "Well, Ichigo and I went out to fight a Hollow about an hour ago. We managed to beat it, but… Ichigo got hurt a little and then he started acting really strangely…"

"Strangely?" Isshin asked in confusion.

"Yeah… He's really tired and pale and, after a few minutes, he wasn't listening or speaking to me and I had to bring him back here and he just sort of collapsed and wouldn't move… He didn't have a fever, but he's still really sick… I know it…" She sighed. "Am I worrying too much…?"

"Well, the fact that he doesn't have a fever and is still displaying these symptoms warrants some kind of check-up… I'll have a look at him," Isshin smiled at her reassuringly and walked past her with a yawn.

'Huh…' Rukia thought. 'I don't know why Ichigo thinks so little of him… He's really nice!'

It wasn't long before they were back in Ichigo's room and, already, Isshin had noticed that something was wrong. He bent down beside Ichigo and placed a hand on his forehead. Shaking his head slightly, he turned back to Rukia.

"I thought you said that he had no fever…" Isshin frowned.

"B-but… he didn't…" Rukia stammered.

"Well, it appears that he has one now," Isshin informed her.

"But he really -!" she was cut off as Isshin held up a hand and smiled.

"It's alright. I believe you. Can you please run to the bathroom for me and get the thermometer?" he requested.

With a quick nod, Rukia quickly left and Isshin was left in the room alone with his barely-conscious son. Looking back at him, Isshin could see what Rukia had been talking about. He was pale and listless, registering nothing around him. However, his face had become incredibly flushed and his newfound fever was certainly very high. There was no doubt about it.

Ichigo was very ill. Isshin had already made up his mind to watch him that night and phone Ryūken the next morning. His fever was too high and Isshin could see new symptoms popping up by the second as Ichigo's breathing began to become laboured. His illness was moving too quickly. Nonetheless, he dreaded the next morning when he would have to explain such a thing to his two little girls. One thing was certain, though.

Ichigo needed medical attention and Isshin was prepared to go to any lengths to get it for him.