Author's Note: Well, here's another one. I'm not quite sure where the inspiration is flowing from, but I figure it's better to get some writing done instead of wonder what my muse is up to and waste time. So, another chapter for you. The chapters have been getting progressively shorter since I started, so gave a little extra effort, so this one's about a thousand words larger than Chapter 3, so enjoy! And again, thanks for the reviews!

Disclaimer and Warning still apply.

Chapter 4: The Protector's Promise

"So, you're not a Time Lord."

Kisuke was having some trouble trying to figure out exactly why Ichigo thought he was a time-machine-possessing alien, but he muscled through as well as he could.

"No," he replied as levelly as possible. "I'm just a humble shop owner, with a few secrets of course. Everyone has secrets, you know."

Ichigo's soft brown eyes glanced to the right where the blonde knew Yoruichi was lazing near the heater. "So how'd you make this pocket dimension then? Did you use...reiryoku? Like how I do with flash-steps?"

Now it was Kisuke's turn to shot a look at the black cat, this one of incredulity. "You're teaching him flash-steps?"

"The brat learned it himself," Yoruichi answered with a raised eyebrow and a smirk to go with it. "After watching me use it to escape him...once. I just gave him some pointers here and there."

Kisuke was fairly startled by her revelation. Certainly, he'd known that the boy's growth rate was exceptional, but to have such sharp analytical prowess and the sheer instinct required to be able to do shunpo unassisted as well was...well, it scared him a little to be honest. If he kept at it in this vein, Ichigo could be exactly the person to serve Aizen the comeuppance he deserved.

But again, was Kisuke really that desperate to turn a little boy...a living child...into a weapon against a true monster?

Before he could sink into another melancholy train of thought, Ichigo slammed his fist onto the table to command his attention. "Hey, Geta-Boshi, or whatever your name is. Even if you're not from Gallifrey, you can do stuff with reiryoku that's pretty unbelievable. And I need you to teach me this stuff. How to be stronger. I need to be stronger."

That set off alarm klaxons in Kisuke's head like little else could. The boy wanted strength, just as Aizen had wanted those many years ago. "And for what purpose do you want such power, Kurosaki Ichigo?" he questioned neutrally. He saw Yoruichi rise slowly to her pads, eyes on both of them, and Tessai wordlessly began to create hand signs behind Ichigo's back.

The boy gripped the sides of the table he sat at, a hard expression on his face and determination blazing in his eyes. "My mother died about a year ago. I wasn't..." Ichigo's gaze almost wavered, but Kisuke watched, fascinated, as the child forced himself to keep their eyes locked. "I wasn't strong enough to protect her. I couldn't save her because I was too weak, and it hurt!" Moisture formed at the edges of Ichigo's eyes, but he dashed them away angrily, thumping himself in the chest with an open palm.

"But I can use spirit energy, I can do flash-step, so you can teach me more! So that I can guard my family, and my friends, and anyone who needs it! So that nobody has to feel like...like how I did that day!"

Kisuke studied the young man before him, a new respect for the kid building in his mind. Masaki had been a wonderful woman, he knew, and it had been a terrible blow to the shop's denizens. To Ichigo, it had torn up his entire life, but the orange-haired youth had somehow pulled the shreds back to him. And with a bit of help from those who cared for him, Ichigo had sewn the pieces together with the thread of his own determination and motivation.

So that's what drives you, hm?

"I'll tell you what," the blonde finally said, adjusting his bucket hat so it shadowed his eyes. "I'll allow you to use my underground training area to practice whatever Yoruichi sees fit to teach you. Maybe if you improve enough, I might show you a thing or two."

Then his eyes hardened as they bored into Ichigo, and the kid tensed as Kisuke released enough of his spirit's pressure that beads of sweat began to form on the boy's brow. "But hear this now, Kurosaki Ichigo. If I catch you using what you learn here for petty, mean-spirited, or downright evil acts, you will answer to me. Understand?"

Ichigo could do little more than jerk his head up and down in agreement, and Kisuke reigned in his reiatsu as quickly as he'd released it, donning a winning smile instantly. "Well, I'm glad we've come to an accord, my young friend. Feel free to check out the facilities!"

As Yoruichi led the still somewhat shell-shocked Ichigo back down into the subterranean chamber, Kisuke chuckled to himself. Scaring little children, it never got boring! At least Ichigo hadn't wet himself like little Byaku-bo...

"And this has to do with your ability to see ghosts and stuff?" Tatsuki asked. It had taken a lot of trust in Ichigo, but she'd managed to believe him about the supernatural shop with a giant underground desert room beneath it.

She took a swipe at him, but he predictably dodged it, sending a blistering back fist her way. "Yeah, something like that. Yoruichi says that it's because I was born with such high reiatsu that I can see dead folks."

"So you're telling me that kid in that movie can do what you do?" Tatsuki shot back, catching his strike and flipping him over her hip. She didn't give him a chance to even catch his breath and drove a hard elbow into his gut just as he landed on the hard-packed ground.

He lay there for a moment to get his wind back, then grinned up at her. "Haley Joel Osment wishes he can do what I can," he said with a grin.

Tatsuki dropped to the ground, sitting cross-legged next to Ichigo, who remained laying on his back and sighed. "It just sucks that I can't see ghosts," she grumbled.

"What d'you mean?"

"Well, if I could, then that would mean I had enough rei-whatsit to do that blurry-teleport thing, too."

"So what if I got faster?" Ichigo said, nudging her knee. "You're still, like, bizarrely strong, Tats. I bet you'd be able to knock down a tree with a kick in a few years. Just give it time, don't sweat it."

"What if I can't catch up?" Tatsuki pressed. "You're pulling further ahead of me lately, and I don't know if...if you'll need me for much longer. I mean, you only hang out with me so I can help you get better, what happens when I can't help you anymore? When you're too strong for me to be of any use?"

Ichigo gave her a look that told her she was being stupid, an expression that she usually gave to him. "Tats...you're an idiot. I don't hang around you just because you're a good fighter. We're friends, nakama. Birds of a feather and all that mushy stuff. I will never not need you."

That was certainly uplifting for the girl. These thoughts had been hovering in her mind for the past week like gathering storm clouds. Leave it to the weirdo with hair brighter than the sun to shoo them away.

"And besides," Ichigo continued. "Yoruichi says that all they physical training I do strengthens my reiatsu, and that everyone's born with even just a little bit of it. So that means that whenever we train, you're building it up, too. I just started with more so I'm at a higher level. You've been training longer than me, so you shouldn't have too much less." He tapped his chin thoughtfully. "Y'know, I bet it isn't too long until you're seeing ghosts and stuff yet."

"So just by being around you, I go a little bit more crazy?" Tatsuki smirked, dispelling the last of her sour mood. "Jeez, story of my life..."

It was hours later that Tatsuki and Ichigo finally parted ways after he kept pointing out deceased spirits while she strained herself to see them. They got to the point that she could at least see a slightly hazy outline of the ghosts, somewhat like a heat mirage. Now that she knew she at least had the potential for using that spirit energy stuff, she was feeling pretty good. So, with the pocket money her mother allowed her, she went off and bought herself some ice cream and a manga along the way.

Maybe it was because she was in such high spirits that Tatsuki failed to hear the faint thudding sounds. Maybe it was because the fuzzy silhouette was so large she didn't register it. But what she did notice was the ground suddenly splitting just in front of her, and it was only through sheer reflex that she was able to backpedal quickly enough to avoid being sent tumbling down into the sewer system.

Now that she was actively looking, it was hard not to miss the giant shape that impeded her view of the stars. Easily twenty feet high, the general shape seemed like a huge, hulking humanoid. Tatsuki assessed her options: Stay and fight something she could only vaguely sense, and probably couldn't harm even if she could, or...

She took off running down a side-street, and she narrowly avoided getting struck by what she assumed was the creature's left fist. What in the world was going on? This must be something to do with the spirit-sense she'd just barely awoken, and she cursed what had to be the worst luck in the world as she cut through a cramped alleyway to hopefully lose the spectral monster.

After two more turns through the alley, she headed back for a main street so she could hopefully find Ichigo. Before she could win free of the exit, however, a blurry figure blocked her escape, and she swore she could make out a vaguely triangular mask-like face the size of her whole body leering down the passage at her.

A flash of movement at the edge of her periphery was the only thing that alerted her to the huge claw descending upon her before she was grabbed up, being squeezed so tightly that she could barely breathe.

And as she struggled for breath, a switch seemingly flipped in her brain as the true, hideous form of her attacker slowly revealed itself to her eyes. In that moment, she was terrified, and knew that she would die as the bone-white mask opened wide and revealed the cavernous depths beneath.

It didn't know where It was.

It knew that It was safe, which was good, and It knew It wasn't hungry, which was better. Why wasn't It hungry, though? It didn't know much, but It knew that It should be starving, that there was an integral piece of Itself missing.

Another thing It knew was Him. It knew He was the one who was feeding It, keeping It safe from harm's way just as It kept Him from dying. They were simply host and parasite living in a cycle of mutual symbiosis. It was content, but knew that It was missing something.

It knew a lot about the world which He occupied, having seen all that He had seen for more than a year. A wide world populated by, among others, His precious ones. It hoped one day for Him to acknowledge It as a precious one as well, but for now He didn't actually know It existed.

Which was fine for It, as It hadn't exactly announced its presence with a panoply of fanfare. It hid in the shadowy recesses in His psyche, watching, waiting for the time to come.

It was proud of the way He had grown in such a short time, and sensed from the False Cat that He was far surpassing both the False Cat's and the Hat-Clogs' expectations. It could feel Its power growing along with His own well of energy, and something of what was lost surged at the back of its mind just on the edges of its consciousness.

He had been walking home from the shop after a grueling session in which the False Cat had been trying to show Him how to use his energy to make His body more durable when It felt something. Almost unnoticeable, it was like a pulse had gone through Its being, and It screamed with all Its might at Him to go to where the warning had indicated.

He didn't know what was going on, but It continued roaring at Him to get going, and He presently brought his wellspring of energy to the forefront of Their connection and initiated a sequence of flash-steps that took him sailing toward the source of the bad feeling.

With It guiding Him, He quickly landed on the roof of a two-story building, watching a strange, humongous creature thudding through the streets. It was immediately intrigued by the creature, feeling some sort of...affinity with it, but It was closer to Him than the hulk down below.

When the monster reached down into an alley and plucked out a squirming human form, It suddenly felt the pulse again and could actually feel...pain coming from the creature. Pain that clawed at its mind and its belly constantly. The creature was trying to assuage that horrible hunger that permeated its very essence, and It felt a pang of sympathy for it.

Then, He suddenly picked up on just who the creature was holding in its clawed hands. After a moment, It recognized the growing power of the Dragon, His precious comrade. Before It knew what was going on, He had moved.

His left leg whipped down, slamming heel-first into the creature's masked forehead with a ferocious crack. The creature stumbled backward, relinquishing its grip on the Dragon, and He again blurred out, grabbing her before she could hit the ground and gently setting her gasping body out of sight before heading back toward the creature who dared think about eating His friend!

This time, He came in from behind, slamming His shoulder into the back of the monster's knee and sending it crashing into a kneeling position before racing up its scaly back. However, before He could make it up to the mask and try again, a pair of clawed fists raced toward Him, and He only just dodged them.

Unfortunately, He lost his footing on the slick scales and slid to the ground. There, the creature simply had to flick its foot to send Him flying through a glass storefront. He struggled feebly against the constraints of His mortal body, which had been strengthened with an infusion of energy just before impact. Only thanks to It had He been spared.

But even so, It felt the roiling pits of despair grow within Him as He watched the creature turn back to the Dragon, feeling no more threat from Him. In that moment, It could not adequately describe the sense of swelling strength that grew within It, but knew beyond doubt that it was His feelings of wretchedness for not being powerful enough to defeat the creature, fear for His Dragon, and above all, misery for not having the strength to keep His precious ones from harm's way which was the catalyst for Its change.

And in the moments just after, It knew that It could help Him. And It knew that It was Hollow.

After-Action Report: Ooh, a cliff-hanger. If that last segment was too confusing, then I sincerely apologize. If you didn't guess by now, "It" (with a capital 'I') is Ichigo's Hollow, and "He" is Ichigo. I've always been of the opinion that Ichi's Hollow is not "Whitey" or whatever Aizen called that Vasto Lorde that attacked Masaki (despite the similarity Ichigo's Berserk-Hollow form bears to Whitey), but was born from its power combining with the horrendously intense trauma instilled within Ichigo when his mother was brutally murdered in front of him. Canon-wise, Ichigo's Hollow manifested itself when he went through the Shattered Shaft training to re-awaken his latent Shinigami powers and felt like it was a fly-or-die situation (which it kind of was).

So, at this point in the story, Hollow-chan is still in its earliest stages of development, and the despair at being unable to stop Tatsuki meeting the same fate as Masaki is what pushes the Hollow over into being at about the same power as a mid-level, pre-Menos Hollow while simultaneously shoving Ichigo to the side. You'll get a better idea of what's going on next chapter, but I'm not giving Ichigo an instant power-up with no drawbacks. At. All.

The fic this one's based on had Ichigo pull down his Hollow Mask at the beginning of the Agent of the Shinigami Arc with impunity. I still want that to happen, but I want there to be growth that we didn't get to see in the original Not Another Bleach Fic that shows just how Ichigo managed to get so badass. So, it'll still be a while before we even get to Rukia showing up and all the related shenanigans that she brings around.

Thanks once again to all my reviewers, and a special thanks to your local SIMUVAC, whose reviews are just...just awesome.

Until next time, my fellow fanfic aficionados!