Okay, so I'm trying to keep my chapters short enough, but i'll update really quickly. btw, i got the idea for the shirt from a picture i saw. it was of ichigo kurosaki, with black har, but at its regular length and red eyes. it was like a normal anime scene, where he was wearing normal clothes, except he had a shirt that said don't fear the reaper on it. i thought it was really cool but now i can't find it again! so if you do find it, gimme the name of the jpeg because i'm dying inside now that i can't find that picture again.
Chapter 4: The Black Rage
They gathered around the run down Urahara Shouten shop, sitting around a table on little cushions. It had taken a little bit of threatening to get Jinta to let Ichigo through, but after a self-proclaimed falcon punch, Jinta found himself unable to protest or bar his way. When Ichigo had entered the room, it looked like everyone had been waiting for him. He not to feel awkward as he sat down around the table, between Rukia and Renji. Ishida was sitting on the other side of Rukia, and Ichigo realized he, Chad, Inoue, and Ishida were the only ones in human form. The others seemed to not have gigai's. Kyoraku was still around, but Ichigo knew that he would be leaving later today. Urahara, who had scanned Kon's memory the night before, stopped talking, and stared at Ichigo for a whole five seconds, before bursting out into laughter. Ichigo scowled.
"What?" He demanded. Urahara managed to point a shaking finger, as he doubled over laughing. "Shut up and tell me what's so funny!" He demanded. Everyone else looked just as confused, but upon further inspection of Ichigo, they seemed to find what was funny too. Chad was making half-rumbling noises, like the gentle giant he was. Even Ishida was grinning, and Byakuya looked like he was close to smiling, which was a miracle itself. He crossed his arms, his scowl deepening, as he glowered at everyone. Ishida finally stopped laughing long enough to push up his glasses and begin to explain.
"Ichigo, read your shirt." He glanced down at his black t-shirt.
"I don't see -oh." He felt a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. His shirt, which was coincidentally his favorite, read: DON'T FEAR THE REAPER.
"I can tell you didn't plan this, Ichigo-kun," Urahara drawled, fanning himself, with an amused smile spreading across his face. "But please tell me you found it slightly ironic when you got it." He grinned and nodded.
"Tatsuki got it for me for my birthday last year. She thought it was funny." A thought occured to him, and he looked up at Ishida. "Ishida, did you just call me Ichigo?" Ishida's eyes widened. But only for a fraction of a second. He returned back to his calm and collected demeanor.
"Kon was freaking out last night and suppose I just got used to hearing Ichigo instead of Kurosaki." He insisted. Ichigo grinned. He knew that Ishida was lying. He was just having a hard time admitting that they were nakama, not rivals.
"By the way, if this has anything to do with Quincy pride, and all that crap," Ishida's face darkened, but Ichigo pressed on. ", I'm not technically a Shinigami." Everyone stopped to consider this, but Urahara nodded.
"That is quite correct, Ichigo-kun. You are a Vizard." Ichigo paused.
"Urahara, I've been wondering. Ever since I lost my Shinigami powers, or Vizard, I guess, of course I didn't hear Zangetsu, but I didn't hear my inner hollow either. Is he gone, or did he just come back with Zangetsu?" Urahara shot him a half smile.
"I think you already know the answer to that." Yes. His inner hollow was a part of him, a part of Zangetsu, a crucial part of his soul. He may not have been able to manifest due to Ichigo's lack of reiatsu, but that didn't mean he was gone. Ichigo nodded. Urahara smiled at the group. "Okay! So I last night I analyzed that serum, and discovered that it wasn't meant to kill Ichigo-kun."
"Then what was it meant to do?" Renji asked. Urahara grinned evilly.
"In fact, it was meant to knock him out. I have other substantial evidence too, that gives me reasons to believe that they didn't mean to kill him, or at least not right away. They meant to kidnap him, and keep him in human form so he would be unable to escape." Ichigo scowled.
"That would have sucked." As this news sunk in, Byakuya spoke first.
"It is possible that they weren't just going after Kurosaki because he was a vulnerable point on the team, isn't it?" Urahara nodded.
"They must think that Ichigo-kun knows something, or that they can get something from him. Either way, he has something that they need. Any idea what that may be Ichigo-kun?" Ichigo thought about this for a second.
"Maybe." He said hesitantly.
"You know something about Kuroi Ryuu?" Toshiro asked eagerly. Ichigo shook his head.
"No...but there's someone I know...or knew...where I don't really know if she would or not. It's just something unusual that I thought might be important. But there's a chance it's not even anything to do wth Kuroi Ryuu and wasn't what they were after." He added on quickly and nervously.
"Ichigo, are you nervous?" Chad rumbled. Once again, hesitantly, he nodded.
"I-i-i never told anyone about it, so I figured that now is either a really good time to explain, or a really bad time." he admitted. Rukia was simply stunned. She had never known Ichigo to be nervous. Not once.
"Why don't you tell us then?" Kyoraku asked pleasantly, bobbing his head to unheard music. Ichigo couldn't help but wonder if he was drunk. He sighed.
"Urahara, you know my soul chain? Never mind, of course you do...you CUT it and killed me." He said, with a pointed glare at Urahara, who just hid behind his fan. "Well, it wasn't originally mine." The fan clattered against the table and then to the floor. Urahara and Kyoraku gaped at Ichigo.
"What do you mean, not originally yours?" Toshiro demanded. "A person gets one soul chain; no more, no less." Ichigo shrugged.
"A soul chain/soul sleep has the memories of the eternal soul, right?" He asked everyone. It was Hinamori who explained.
"Yes, but accessing those memories is very difficult. The soul chain and soul sleep are the same thing and stay connected, no matter what. Even after the soul chain is broken and seemingly disappears, like with the Shinigami body, it's still there." She squeaked out.
"Momo, how do you know about that?" Toshiro asked, sounding surprised. Rukia spoke up.
"There is a history of people using kido to access memories." Rukia, Hinamori, and Urahara were kido experts. Ichigo nodded.
"Well, suppose that these people are of Aizen-level genius and figured it out, how to access memories from lifetimes ago. Up until yesterday, I'd heard about the Black Dragon, but didn't actually hear the name Kuroi Ryuu. Or at least in this lifetime..." Ichigo trailed off and allowed them to guess from there. Urahara spoke up.
"But if it's not your soul chain, it's not your soul sleep...and therefore..." Urahara drifted off too.
"Not my memories." Ichigo finished. "Same soul, but I've got someone else's memories blocking the way."
"Either they are after your memories, or the memories they are after is of that who's soul chain and soul sleep you have." Byakuya said, looking at Ichigo with an expression he had never seen before. Urahara, however, seemed recovered, and managed out a half-smile.
"So, Ichigo-kun. Who's soul chain do you have, and how'd you get it?"
"Hey, dandelion head, whatchya looking up there for?" A familiar voice asked. 11-year-old Ichigo turned around to see his closest friend standing there. She was grinning widely, hands on her hips, and her dark hair puled back into a short ponytail. Ichigo shrugged, and glanced back up at the sky.
"Does the sky feel heavy to you?" He inquired. She looked up, and frowned.
"A little bit, actually, now that I think about it. But don't dwell on the unimportant. Because we've got places to go, people to see, and shit to throw at the fan." Ichigo groaned as she grinned at him.
"I'm not sure, but I think you just butchered a famous expression." She shrugged and raised an eyebrow quizically at him.
"I'm allowed to say whatever I want. Loosen up, Strawberry. You'll go bald." He snorted, and observed her independent eyebrows. He could never do that. Noticing him looking, she wiggled them at him. "You know you wish you could do this."
"Stop that, it looks like you're going to break your forehead."
"It's 'cause my eyebrows are dancing!" She exclaimed. They were standing on the sidewalk by the river. The sun was going down, scorching the sky as it went, orange, pink and blue hues trailing down like watercolors. The sun was reflected in the water, a big orange ball. She leaned over and whispered loudly, "It's the same color as your hair!" He couldn't help but smile.
"Hey, how about we head back to your house? It's gonna get dark soon." She nodded.
"Sounds good to me." A monstrous roar caused them both to freeze. Her hand, which had been on his arm, just about ready to yank him off in whatever direction, squeezed his arm hard as she jumped. They exchanged glances. "What was that?" She wondered, sounding shaken. There was a loud BOOM! and the ground shook.
"What the hell is that?" Ichigo demanded to know, looking in the general direction of the noises. It seemed like something was moving out there. In fact, every time it shifted, he could swear he saw a big shape move, one without any real specific form or color. There was something there. He just couldn't tell what. In a second, he felt something huge lock around his ribs, and crush them. He screamed in pain, and would have fallen to his knees, but whatever it was lifted him off the ground. His friend down on the ground screamed.
"ICHIGO!" Suddenly, something flashed in front of her eyes, and she could see it. That massive, monster, with the white mask and hole in its chest. It had Ichigo in its grasp and looked to be slowly killing him. "ICHIGO!" She screamed again louder. Now that she could see it, it was like she could feel it too, and some sort of massive pressure nearly flattened her against the ground. She struggled to stay sturdy. Slowly moving, she managed to hobble over to the giant beast and kicked him as hard as she could. "LET HIM GO YOU FREAKY SON OF A BITCH!" It turned its head just enough to roar at her, blasting her with hot, funky-smelling breath, and she almost collapsed. "Leave him alone." She muttered, falling to her knees, before falling forward, unable to move against the monster's oppressive presence.
Up in the sky, in the monster's hand, Ichigo struggled to get out. Glancing down, when he saw her collapse, something just snapped inside of him. That was the first time he felt it; that quiet fury. It was more terrifying than the monster standing in front of him, like a black-hole had just sucked the Ichigo everyone knew away, and left a ruthless, bloodthirsty, yet highly intelligent being in his place. Not even when his mother had died had that uncontrollable rage surfaced. The monster sensed something was up, but didn't know until it was much too late.
All their minds went blank. Having scanned Ichigo's memory, Urahara had projected in image into their minds, to show them all what happened, rather than having Ichigo explain it all. They were all confused as it went completely blank.
"Ichigo-kun, do you care to explan why you don't remember what you did?" He asked politely, but dangerously so. Ichigo shrugged and suddenly found the table highly fascinating.
"Ishida, Inoue, I'm sure you remember my Vaste Lorde form, the one that I defeated Ulquoirra with, right?" He glanced up to see them nod. "Well I don't remember defeating Ulquoirra. That wasn't technically my inner hollow." He started to explain for the sake of everyone else. "During our fight, Ulquoirra used his second Resurreccion form, something that Aizen himself hadn't even seen. It's reiatsu was...disturbing to say the least, and even with my mask, I was no match for him. He only kept me alive until Ishida and Inoue got there so he could punch a hole through my chest and make them watch. Technically, he killed me. But I don't know...I heard Inoue begging for help, and I remembered that I swore to protect her. My hollowfication took over, animating my body, and gave me a Vaste Lorde form and killed Ulquoirra to protect Inoue. That was all it could do. The simplest way to explan it was that I wasn't quite there when it happened, but I had left it with one command that it placed above everything else; to protect Inoue. So it did, but it didn't register between enemies and allies, and injured Ishida. Afterwards, my hollowfication healed me, and brought me back." Everyone frowned at Ichigo.
"But it was your inner hollow in control, right?" Renji asked. Ichigo shook his head.
"No. If he was in control, you would tell. He likes to talk and has a thing for reverse psychology. Honestly, in the middle of a battle, he makes up metaphors and riddles for fun. His only desire is to kill and slaughter, and to protect would be so against what he stands for. I've had my inner hollow take over before, and I knew what he was doing, there just really wasn't much I could do about it. That was my hollow powers, but however, not my inner hollow. He's too smart for that." Kyoraku leaned forward, fingers laced under his chin.
"Then, Kurosaki, pray tell, what was that, and what does this have to do with the fact that you can't remember what happened after that hollow attacked you?" He inquired. Byakuya nodded.
"You aren't speaking straight, boy. Get to your point. It does not seem like you have one, as of now." Ichigo rolled his eyes.
"My point is, that I don't remember that either! I can't remember what happened, what I did, why! It's the same thing when that hollow attacked me! You know how they say when you get really angry that you see red? I see black. There have been times, not very many, where something just happens to me, something that would make me incredibly angry, and then I completely black out. When I wake up, I find out that I put a group of punks in the hospital and injured them so badly three of them will never walk again! My point is that I don't know what the hell it is, but I can't remember!" They all stared at Ichigo, who was out of breath, stunned that his anger could drive him to do something that terrible. When he spoke, his voice was quiet. "If I can't remember what happened with that hollow, I probably killed it." Surprisingly, it was Byakuya who spoke.
"You're telling us, that sometimes you black out, and when you wake up, you've done something horrible?" Ichigo nodded.
"The memories around the incident are blotted out too. That's why I can't remember her face clearly, and I can't remember her name at all. And whatever happened after I killed it, I don't remember for several days. According to my family, I didn't do anything unusual, and I was acting completely normal. I know what happened, I just know that somehow, the soul chain Urahara cut wasn't mine, hers, actually, but I don't know how it happened."
"Well then," Urahara said, and Ichigo suppressed a groan at the half-maniacal mad scientist look on his face. "We'll just have to shed some light on your black rage, won't we?"
(page break)
so really soon, i'm gonna kick chad and inoue off the team and kyoraku is going to go back to the soul society and they are going to set out to find kuroi ryuu, probably after two more shorter chapters (the black rage thing is very important to the storyline.) so, i hope you guys liked this chapter! i think i'm going to give ichigo a few non scary or life threatening scenes, because so far he's either been dying, or you realize that sometmes, he may have bouts of temporary insanity...hes gonna be awesome soon tho, so stay tuned! il probably have the fifth chapter up by about one in the morning, and maybe the sixth chapter up too!