four: you look like my next mistake

"Grimmjow," I said quietly, stopping in my tracks. He walked past me and nearly kept walking, stumbling to a stop when he realized I was no longer moving. My eyes were trained on the spot that something had moved in-was moving in.

"Kaori, wha-"

"Shush," I hissed, clenching the hand that held his. He quieted immediately, moving closer to me out of instinct.

The thing in the shadows was still moving outside of the lamplight, in the shady space where it was hard to make out one thing from another but still easy enough to know when something was off.

"Do you see that?" I asked lowly, very much aware of the fact that we were both completely defenseless against whatever it could possibly be. It was much, much too large to be cat, and I was certain that it wasn't human. That left only one other option in my mind:

Hollow.

Grimmjow moved even closer to me, my shoulders pushing into his chest. Unlike my time in Hueco Mundo, Grimmjow would not be able to fight anything that came our way that wanted to kill us-not anything that had reiatsu, at least.

"See what?" he asked, so quiet that I almost didn't hear him. My throat felt like it was closing up, not just from the fact that was something in the shadows, but also because Grimmjow couldn't see it. That shouldn't have surprised me, though; he didn't have a shred of spiritual pressure, not anymore.

I opened my mouth to say something, to tell him that something was stirring in the shadows.

But then it was gone, like it had never been there in the first place.

My jaws snapped together with a loud noise, sending pain throughout my mouth. Blinking rapidly, I kept my eyes trained on the spot that the thing had been, refusing to move my head or a single muscle that I could live without.

"Kaori," Grimmjow said, voice back it's normal volume. His hand was tight against my own; I could feel the bones of his fingers digging into the back of my hand, feel the unsteady rise and fall of his chest against my shoulders. "What is it? Whats-"

"It's gone," I said unevenly, voice wavering and too harsh against my ears. "It-It was there, and then it wasn't. Like it disappeared."

"You've been under a lot of stress today," he said at length, squeezing my hand slightly before taking a step. I stumbled forward and caught myself on shaky legs, and after a moment we were walking again like we hadn't stopped to begin with. "I think you might just need some sleep."

I did not like the fact that Grimmjow couldn't see Hollows anymore. At least then, even if we couldn't defend ourselves, I would still have the comfort of knowing that I was right; that something was there, that I wasn't just seeing things.

"Y-yeah. Sleep. Right," I agreed shakily, tearing my eyes off of the spot the form had been in, setting my gaze firmly forward.

Wrong, a small voice in my head whispered. Sleep and stress might have been what was wrong, but a large part of me didn't think that that was the problem.

But if I could pretend it was, that would be more than enough for the time being.


It was not enough.

Less than a week later, it happened again.

I was walking home alone, phone in one hand. My keys were in my other hand, curled into a fist, the blade of my key held firmly between my thumb and forefinger, like I was ready to unlock the door to my apartment.

My apartment, which was still eight blocks away.

Walking home like that, by myself, was more than normal. But since I had first seen the Hollow that Grimmjow hadn't seen, he had been a little on edge. The 'call when you're leaving and stay on the phone the whole time, you don't actually have to talk just be on the phone' kind of on edge. The 'I'm waiting for you after work and I'm going to walk you home' kind of on edge, though I had put an end to that immediately.

I had just reached the relative safety of the light of a street lamp when the hair on the back of my neck stood on end, sending a tingle down my spine. It was eerily quiet for six in the afternoon-well, night, since darkness had decided it was a great idea to descend nearly an hour before.

Most of the air left my lungs in a slow exhale, rising up into the chilly air in a white cloud before me. My fingers tightened on my phone, heart pounding in my ears.

I took a few tentative steps forward, ears straining to hear over the noise of my heart and the harsh sound of my breathing and the static of the active call in my hand. For a moment, I thought about holding the device up to my ear, telling him I was going to stay where I was until he came and got me.

Stopping in my tracks, I took a calming breath, recalling my exact location. Eight blocks from home, standing just on the far edge of the street light, terrified for no discernible reason.

My phone was halfway up to my ear when the non rational part of me decided that that was a stupid idea. I might have been short and slim and scared to death, but I wasn't about to stand in the dark waiting for Grimmjow to come and walk me home, not when I had so vehemently shot the idea down in the first place.

With my resolve strengthened, I brushed the uncomfortable feeling that I was being watched, that there was something in the dark that I couldn't see, off and took another step forward, out of the relative safety of the street light.

And then I made the mistake of looking over my shoulder.

In the very edges of the light the street lamp gave off, opposite to where I stood, something lurked. It was easily taller than I was, though little wider-from what little I could pick out in the poor lighting, it looked to be skeletal with skin draped over it like paper mache, and then clothes that were much, much too large.

The thing took a shaky step into the lamplight, limbs moving jerkily like they were both too long for it's body and it didn't have full control over them.

Bile rose in my throat as I fully took in what had had been behind me.

It was taller than me by a few feet, but it was also practically doubled over. Not in pain, but like it couldn't keep itself upright. Even looking at in when it had been a shadow, I knew why-the human looking head and the mass of long, sickly white hair that brushed the ground below it was too heavy for it's elongated, thin body to hold upright.

Deep black holes sat where eyes typically would have been, black holes on a pasty face. My earlier assessment of paper mache felt a little too accurate as I took in the too-white skin stretched across the sharp, angular bones of it's face, all of it cracked and peeling.

The only color I could discern in the poor lighting was it's mouth. Near it's razor sharp chin and weak jawline was a mouth that looked too big for the thing's face, it's lips torn to shreds and coated in what looked like blood that was both new and old.

My stomach rolled, the taste of acid burning at the back of my throat as I fought to keep my lunch down. My limbs felt like lead; there was some part of me that just couldn't stop staring at it, two parts revulsion and one part curiosity.

I couldn't turn and run, even if I wanted to.

It held a long, bone white finger up to it's bloodied lips in the universal sign for 'be quiet.' A painful looking smile stretched out across it's face behind the digit, revealing a mouth filled with knife sharp black teeth, too many of them squished into the space at odd angles, all of them crashing into each other.

"Kaori, you there?" Grimmjow's voice crackled through the speaker on my phone, cutting through whatever it had been that made me incapable of moving.

I yelped at the sudden noise, forgetting that I had turned up my phone so loud, eyes ripping from the thing to the device in my hand. With violently shaking hands I brought the phone up to my ear, breathing harsh.

When I looked forward again, the thing was gone.

"Yeah, I'm here," I said, trying my best to sound calm over the phone. Turning in quick circles, I strained my eyes to catch a glimpse of the ghastly terror to make sure it wasn't in my immediate area, lurking.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, why?" I knew I sounded far from okay. Even to my own ears, my voice was shaky and raw. My pulse thrummed under my skin with enough force and frequency that I was sure Grimmjow could almost hear it over the connection.

"Because you don't sound okay? You sound scared."

I couldn't see the thing anywhere.

"Uh," I said, groping for an answer. There was little I could come up with on the fly that would be believed, and even less answers that would make sense, and I wasn't about to tell him what I had been faced with, especially since he couldn't do anything about it. "A cat jumped in front of me out of some bushes. Startled me. Nothing big."

Liar.


The Urahara Shoten was small and peaceful as it normally was.

Well, as normally as it could be, with two teenagers and three former high ranking members of the Soul Society-one of which could turn into a cat.

All of which liked to cover my apartment in sticky notes. Why they were so fascinated with doing so completely eluded me, though had led me to think of setting my apartment on fire on more than one occasion.

I still ran errands for Urahara on some days, stopping in for tea when I was done. I even stopped in for tea sometimes when I didn't have any errands to run, or if he asked me to stop by for some reason I could never properly discern.

That day, I had not been asked to stop by. I had no errands to run for him. I had no discernible reason to be there, other than the fact that I needed to know what I wasn't just seeing things. That they were actually there.

That I was not rapidly descending into madness yet again, and this time for a reason Urahara couldn't explain.

I entered the Shoten through the side door, kicking off my shoes and lining them up with everyone elses-I could tell from the pairs that the kids were in school, and Tessai was out somewhere. It was hard to tell when Yoruichi was there or not, especially since the woman walked around looking like a cat so often.

"Hello?" I called out, treading farther inside of the back part of the Shoten. "Urahara?"

"Kaori-chan!" came his jubilated call. "You're just in time for tea!"

Of course, it was almost always tea time at Urahara's; I would have been surprised if his blood actually turned out to be tea with the sheer amount he consumed. Not that I would actively test that theory.

I found him quickly, seated in the room he typically accepted visitors in, trademark green bucket hat firmly on his head and a cup of steaming tea in his hand. But it wasn't just him in the room, as was far from typical, especially since Ururu, Jinta, and Tessai were all gone; I hadn't seen Yoruichi in a while, either. And that list was about as many people as were allowed in the back of the Shoten, Ichigo excluded since he avoided coming by at all costs.

Which was why it was weird to see another person sitting at the table, cup of tea sitting in front of her. Her honey colored hair was braided tightly and draped over her shoulder, the tail of it ending just above her elbow. Her mouth was open like she was in the middle of a sentence and had stopped mid-word when I had appeared in the doorway.

That was weird, because Urahara almost never had company.

"Afternoon, Kaori-chan," Urahara greeted warmly, motioning to the spot where my teacup was already waiting, its contents inviting after my walk in the biting cold. "Have a seat, drink with us!"

"The way you phrased that makes it sound like there's more than just tea in those cups," I said, cautiously taking a seat on the floor across from the woman. There was a healing scar on her face, stretching in a jagged line from her jaw to the edge of her right eyebrow, the thickest bit of it on her cheek.

"There's definitely more than just tea in mine, but you don't have anything to worry about," the woman said with an easy smile. "I'm Tsukino Yuna, Third Seat, Sixth Division." None of what she said after her name made sense, so I smiled at her widely.

"Kozume Kaori, errand runner, phone answerer," I replied, earning myself a laugh from the honey haired woman.

"Yu-chan is a Shinigami," Urahara said by way of explanation, knowing I didn't understand a single word that had come out of her mouth after her name. "Though she's here on vacation."

"Oh good," I said, picking up my cup of tea absentmindedly. I had been worried, briefly, that I wouldn't be able to tell Urahara what I had seen, that I would have to keep my mouth shut and keep the experience to myself longer than I wanted to.

"Why is that good?" Urahara asked. I hadn't thought of how I was going to phrase any of what I had come to tell him-I had wound up at the Shoten just with the intent to tell him what it was that I had seen. I had no plan beyond that.

"Have either of you, erm, sensed Hollows in the area lately?" I asked instead of answering, picking my words carefully. My eyes stayed trained on the tea cup I held just scant inches off the table, hand oddly steady despite the fact that every time I closed my eyes, the thing from last night danced across the backs of my eyelids.

"No," Yuna answered immediately. I looked up at her, somewhat startled by how quickly she had answered. Her tone had gone from playful to serious in a heartbeat, and her posture had before. Earlier, she had been sitting relaxed, leaning against the table and her shoulders sloped. Now, she sat up straight, eyes alert, her focus on me. "Not that I've actively been looking around for it, since I am on vacation."

I knew that every Shinigami varied on how well they could sense reiatsu. I knew that there was a large chance that it was likely no one else had felt either of the things I had seen. But I could have at least hoped that there was some bigger indicator that I could rely on to know that I wasn't just seeing things.

The sharp sound of Urahara's fan sliding open made me jump and twist toward him, heart pounding in my chest. I was jumpier than I had been in Las Noches, and even more nervous than I had been after my return. The only part of Urahara's face I could see was the part that wouldn't tell me what it was he was thinking.

"What exactly did you see, Kaori?"

I explained what I had witnessed to the both of them in the matter I had found myself explaining most things to Urahara-concisely, without skirting over the details, no matter how much they scared me to think about. But I plunged in and forged on, explaining the shadow first and then last nights apparition.

"That doesn't sound like anything I've seen before," Yuna said after a tense few moments, frown tugging at her features. I noticed for the first time, that her eyes were almost the same color as her hair and surrounded by thick lashes. Something between confusion and fascination, like an itch beneath her skin she didn't know existed.

"The problem is, you aren't sure if you saw them or not, right Kaori?" Urahara asked, his fan still up in front of his face. The silly object hadn't moved an inch since he had whipped it out; not for the first time, I wondered what it was that he was thinking, and if I would even want to know.

"Basically," I said with a nod. "I was alone when I saw the-the big one, the. The weird one. Grimmjow was with me when I saw the shadowy thing. So it's not like I can be certain I saw either of them, since Grimmjow can't see them anymore." Urahara moved his fan just slightly, not enough to make a difference in what I could see of his face, but enough to let me know that he had moved it.

He never moved his fan, not unless there was something he was keeping back.

"That's the thing," Urahara started with a titter. I didn't like the fact that I couldn't see his face, didn't like how Yuna shifted and tilted her head, frown tugging down on the corners of her dainty mouth.

"He can't fight them, Kaori, but he has enough reiatsu to see them."

And that.

That made me feel sick to my stomach.

"Oh," I said at last, unevenly and faint. Because Grimmjow could see them and hadn't said anything to me about it, even though we had purposely skirted several lower classed ones over the past few months without saying a word. And since he could see them, then that meant that he really hadn't seen the shadowy thing two weeks prior.

My hands were trembling, but my mind refused to think about what any of it meant.

Urahara leveled me with a steady gaze from behind his fan before he continued, picking his words out carefully. "Kaori-chan, it's possible that these might be a . . . a side effect from your exposure to Hideki."

The floor felt like it slid out from beneath me.


a/n: yay,new chapter! actual plot! whoo! this would have been up sooner, and hopefully i'll be able to write faster now that i've pumped this one out? its hard to say since the new pokemon games come out tomorrow. so.

Yuna is another OC, and she's from something else I'm working on. Something else that isn't coming together as neatly as I would like it to, but is slowly but surely coming together.

thank you for reading, and please drop a line in the little box down there? hit the 'post review' button? i love you guys.