Ichigo knocked and waited for a response. He heard a rustling of papers and footsteps from within, the door then slid open. Urahara stood in front of him, for once he was not bubbly and flapping his fan about the place, instead his expression was sombre and the grey rings around his eyes seemed even darker. He slid the door further aside to allow Ichigo to pass through. The room was large and the walls were lined with varying degrees of aging books. Most of the light poured through a skylight in the centre of the room, though the light did not reach the corners. Towards the back of the room was a large mahogany desk that was littered with piles of papers. Urahara sat in a leathered chair and indicated at a wooden chair opposite for Ichigo to sit. Ichigo curiously let his eyes flutter across the papers, many of them, to his surprise, were in different languages; French, Latin, Hebrew and even what looked like Egyptian. Urahara caught his gaze and snatched at the papers. Once the majority of the papers had been stuffed into draws he took a long deep breath.
"What do you know about what is happening?" Ichigo demanded.
"I wish I knew more. I can tell you what I do know though. The creatures are working for someone known as Dracoria, they transport between this world and theirs at high speed, this may be why we can not detect their reiatsu; it may also be why they were able to attack Hitsugaya and Matsumoto the way they did." Urahara paused for a moment of thought.
Ichigo still wanted to know more, "how can we get to this world?"
A smile crossed Urahara's lips; he has expected Ichigo to ask this. "I am waiting for some results from the soul society, hopefully that might confirm my thoughts. Until then, we shall wait." He said this with a definitive tone, which suggested Ichigo shouldn't question him any further. Reluctantly Ichigo backed out the room and closed the door behind him.
His head was still buzzing with questions and he wasn't looking where he was going, he yelped as he collided with Orihime.
"Orihime, I am so sorry, I didn't see you there."
"It's ok," she beamed at him, "I was just coming to look for you. What did the doctors say about Tatsuki?"
Oh, of course. Poor Orihime was probably beating herself up as much as he was over what happened to Tatsuki. "It's not your fault you know, we couldn't have done anything. She's in a stable condition, but she still hasn't woken up. We can go see her first thing in the morning if you like?"
He saw her bottom lip begin to tremble and he awkwardly put his arm round her. She began to sob into his chest. Ichigo could feel her body shaking beneath him, in that moment he promised himself never to let anything happen to upset her again, he never wanted to her Orihime unhappy.
"I'm sorry," she said between sniffles, "It's been so long since I spent time with Tatsuki, I feel guilty for not being there. What if she hadn't of made it?"
"No use going over the 'what ifs' that won't get us anywhere. The important thing is that she is ok and we can make up for lost time now."
Orihime smiled through her tears.