A/N: Well, I'm still alive even if I didn't get very many reviews this past week, so thank you for convincing Yoruichi that you actually like me. Unfortunately I'm not sure how long after this story is finished that I'll stay that way… but for now let's move on. How about we hear from Rukia this week.
Rukia cartwheels onto the stage, "Hewo!" she exclaims as she pops up.
I frown at her a second before asking, "Um, you're not Rukia, are you?"
"Nope, it's me, Chappy! Rukia-san had to go take care of a hollow."
"Oh, well, I was kind of hoping to hear from Rukia this week. Do you know how long she'll be?"
Chappy grabs my arm and pulls it behind my back. "What, you don't want me to take her pwace?"
"Ow! Yes, sorry, I would love you to disclaim today, Chappy!"
Chappy lets go of my arm and smiles before saying, "Mystica does not own Bweach!"
I rub my sore arm while walking of f stage muttering, "Maybe this wasn't such a good idea…"
Chapter 6
Ishida slowly opened his eyes. His entire body burned with pain from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. There wasn't an inch of him that didn't ache in some way or another. "Is this hell?" he whispered into the air.
A soft, slightly familiar chuckle drifted down to him. "Not quite, though I imagine that the way you feel, you'll probably wish that you were there rather than here for a few days." Urahara's head drifted into view then, revealing that he had been the one speaking to him.
"I'm… not dead?" Ishida muttered as he brought a hand to his face and touched it. He paused a moment when he realized that his arm was completely wrapped in bandages. With a sigh, his fingers sought to push up his glasses reflexively, but found that they weren't on his face.
"No, you're not dead," Urahara said with a smile as he reached down and picked Ishida's glasses up from the floor and placed them in his hand. The Quincy put them on his face and adjusted them into position before allowing his hand to drop weakly to his side.
"How…?" he muttered.
"I won't lie to you, it was pretty close…" Urahara said as his smiling face turned serious. "If Kuchiki-san hadn't come to towards the end of your fight and realized that she needed to get help, we wouldn't have gotten to you in time."
"Kuchiki-san?" Ishida mumbled. "She kept Kurosaki from leaving with me. I thought she was just trying to get him to accept that I wasn't going to make it."
"She was keeping Ichigo from running off before we got there. She showed up here and hurriedly explained what was happening and then left while I found Tessai. We followed just behind her."
Ishida sighed as he allowed his weary eyes to close again. "I thought I was going to die," he said.
A new voice spoke up as the door slid open. "But we weren't ready to let you go." It was Ichigo. The teenager came inside and knelt beside his friend. He was back in his human body, dressed in jeans and tee shirt.
"Ichi…Kurosaki…" Ishida said.
"Can it, Uryuu," Ichigo said as he looked down at the Quincy. "If it wasn't for you, I would be dead now, or possibly have killed everyone I care for. I think we're beyond this formal crap by this point."
"I think I'll let Tessai know that you're awake, Ishida-san," Urahara said, dismissing himself. He paused for a moment in the doorway, looking back at the scene of the two boys. A brief flash of what could only be interpreted as anger crossed the ex-Shinigami's face before he slipped out, closing the door quietly behind him
The two boys were silent for a while after Urahara left. Finally Ichigo broke the silence. "You really are stupid you know…"
Ishida looked up at him and said, "I'm stupid? I had everything under control until you pulled your hollow out."
"I was trying to keep from killing you," Ichigo snapped in response.
"You did a real good job of that too," Ishida said sarcastically.
They both glared at each other in silence for a few moments before Ichigo cracked a smile first, "Yeah, might have messed up a bit there." He brought his hand up to rub the back of his head as he looked away from Ishida.
Ishida sighed and closed his eyes, "And I might have overestimated my own endurance."
They were silent again for a very long stretch. Ichigo shifted from his kneeling position to sitting cross-legged before he spoke again. "Uryuu… I'm sorry…"
"It wasn't your fault," Ishida said, not even bothering to open his eyes for his reply.
Ichigo shook his head and said, "I nearly killed you, Uryuu. I know it was the hollow that was controlling me, but… I used to think that I was stronger than that. I thought that I would never allow something like that to ever happen. But this was the second time… I keep hurting you, Uryuu…"
"It was your strength that the hollow was using against you," Ishida explained. "The more you fought it, the more powerful it became. It really had a perfect hold. Fighting it fed it power, making it stronger. If you didn't fight, then it would just continue to control you. Holding it off as long as you did was impressive, and taking control again, even for a second, was probably more than anyone else who had ever encountered it had ever managed."
"Still… It wasn't another hollow that hurt you before, it was me…"
"That was not you!" Ishida snapped at him, opening his eyes again. "Back then, you had died, Ichigo. The hollow had completely taken you over. You didn't even know what was happening, which in many ways was better than what just happened." He paused and then closed his eyes as he continued. "I knew what I was getting into. It didn't take me long to figure out that there was nothing you were going to be able to do to stop it. I was the one that put myself in that position, I could have run and brought in help, but I thought I could handle it… I thought that if I just planned everything just so, I could bring you back…"
"You did, in the end." Ichigo said softly. "You should have just killed me, Uryuu… You missed so many opportunities… I even tried to do it myself. But you wouldn't give up on me… You pulled it off, Uryuu. Where so many who have gone against me have failed, you won. You more than proved your Quincy pride."
Ishida sighed, not wanting to be reminded of that day that he had challenged Ichigo to prove that a Quincy was better than a Shinigami. He had been the stupid on that day too.
"Idiot," Ishida muttered. "Would you have killed me had the roles been reversed?"
Ichigo didn't answer because they both already knew what it would be.
Ishida sighed when Ichigo decided not to answer him and said, "I am curious though. When you stabbed me…" he noticed Ichigo wince slightly at the mention of that must he pressed on. "…Did you really have nothing to do with that? Because really, that's what saved my life right then."
Ichigo looked away as a deeper frown pulled at his lips. "I don't know," he said very softly. "I may have… I really don't know. All I know is I was trying to think of some way to get your blade to you like to said… It was the hollow after that."
They both sat in silence again for a moment.
"One thing I don't understand…" Ichigo said softly after a moment.
"Just one thing?" Ishida muttered. But Ichigo ignored his dig.
"How come I couldn't kill the hollow?"
Ishida sighed in frustration before he answered, "Because you're a Shinigami… you don't actually kill hollows. You purify them and send them on to Soul Society or hell depending on where they were supposed to go. Those paths are sealed right now so it couldn't actually leave."
Ichigo felt pretty dumb as he listened to the explanation because he had said the same thing to Kon only the day before. He just hadn't really stopped and thought about what that really meant.
"So really, you were the only one that could have stopped it…" Ichigo said as he looked back at Ishida.
The Quincy didn't think that he needed to reply to that and simply laid back and closed his weary eyes again. Ichigo stood up and made his way to the door. Ishida just lay there, listening to him leave, not knowing what to say, if he should even say anything else. "Thank you, Uryuu," Ichigo said from the doorway. "Thank you for being there for me, and pulling me back."
"The same to you, Ichigo," Ishida whispered back as the Shinigami was sliding the door closed again. "Thank you for not letting me go…" he whispered to the empty room before falling asleep again.
XXX
Urahara didn't pause in his determined path as he walked into the living room and called to Yoruichi, "Follow me." The black cat looked up from where she had been curled up napping and followed Urahara out of the room and down into the basement. They descended through a hole in the blue sky into the practice grounds below in silence.
Yoruichi could feel the anger radiating off of her friend as he led her across the practice field to a point that she had expected him to take her. He stood in between two tall wooden pillars and stopped.
Urahara turned and face Yoruichi with a fire behind his eyes. "I need you to take a message to that demon that they call Captain-commander…" he said, trying and failing to hide the anger in his voice.
"And what message might that be?" Yoruichi asked in her very masculine feline voice. She sat down on the ground and looked up at Urahara expectantly.
"You let him know that I understand the need to test the humans… But he has gone too far. Ishida-san was very nearly killed, and I will not stand by and watch these kids torn apart over some test." He spoke all of this in a quiet tone as if it wasn't of great importance to him. But Yoruichi heard the utter rage that underlined each and every one of her friend's words.
Yoruichi yawned and stretched forward with her front paws in an incredibly cat like manner before walking forward and standing at the edge where the gate would be. "This isn't like you, Kisuke," she said softly without looking at him. "I thought that you had learned long ago never to become too attached to someone because you never knew when you might need to use them for your own purposes…"
There was a moment of tense silence before Urahara replied softly. "I did learn that lesson… but, like you said, I learned it a long time ago. I have learned something else since then… Since I met Kurosaki Ichigo and his friends… I have learned that there are those that are worth the risk of protecting and these kids are definitely worth that risk." With that he turned around and stabbed his cane into the ground and twisted it. The gates suddenly appeared and slid open. "It is going to be a one way trip this time, Yoruichi-san," he told her.
"You're going to need me on this one, Kisuke," she said to him.
"Don't say that… not like that," he said, not looking at her. "That only implies to me that you know more than you have told me… that you have been holding something back from me and I don't want to hear that. Take my message please, Yoruichi-san."
Yoruichi nodded her head once and looked at Urahara. "Congratulations, Kisuke. This test was not only for them, but for you as well… and I am glad to say, that you have passed."
With that the cat turned and leapt through the gate. Urahara stood dumbfounded as he watched the gates slide close behind the black feline. He wasn't sure how he felt about learning that he was also a part of this test, or even if he was glad that he had apparently passed it.
"Well," he breathed as he put a hand on top of his hat and tipped it down a little further over his eyes. "It appears that she really has been keeping secrets." He sighed and turned away from the pillars slowly. "Why would you do that to me? Why would you do that to them?" He walked slowly back up the stairs, going over the new pieces of the puzzle that he had been given that day.
XXX
"Ichigo," Ishida whispered in his arms. "Please, don't blame yourself. I was protecting… my best… friend…" Ishida's eyes rolled back into his head at that point as his whole body went limp.
"Uryuu!" Ichigo cried, lowering him back to the ground. "URYUU!" Ichigo voice rang out cutting through the air over Karakura town like a knife.
It was then that Urahara and Tessai sudden appeared on the scene. Urahara took one glance at Ishida's limp body and turned to Tessai. The former Kido corps captain had already assessed the situation and took action. Stepping up close to the two boys, he clapped his hands together and slowly pulled them apart. A column of green light spread between his palms as a golden-green light began to radiate around Ishida, Ichigo, and himself.
In a brilliant flash, all three of them suddenly vanished from the hilltop. Rukia gasped when her eyes cleared and she saw that her friends were no longer there. "What…?" she began.
"Tessai has stopped time and teleported them back to the shop," Urahara said as he began to walk away, examining the area of the battle.
"He… how?"
Urahara didn't bother to answer her. He had paused several meters away, seemingly staring down at the ground in front of him. He was completely motionless, holding his hat on his head with his left hand as the breeze ruffled his cloak around him.
Suddenly his left hand dropped and grabbed the wooden shaft of his cane as he spun around. He pulled his Zanpakuto free of the cane as he shouted, "Sing, Benihime!" He pointed the tip of his sword into the air behind and far above and a blast of red shot out and rocketed skyward.
Rukia gasped, wondering what on earth had possessed Urahara to do that. She watched as the red streaked upward and suddenly formed into a very small hexagonal shaped barrier. The barrier abruptly stopped its forward motion, as it seemed to lodge in a tiny hole in the sky.
"Who are you?" Urahara said as his eyes darkened and narrowed in on the fissure that his shield was holding open.
A smooth voice seemed to drift back to them as if was riding the breeze. "This world is full of interesting beings I see. We'll be seeing each other very soon…" With a sudden snap, Urahara's barrier broke, allowing the tear in the air to quickly seal itself shut again.
Urahara stood for a while, staring up at the space where he had just barely glimpsed a pair of bright blue eyes peering at him from behind his own barrier. "What was that?" Rukia asked in hushed tones.
"The root," Urahara muttered and then turned and began to walk away. Rukia watched him a moment before he suddenly disappeared, having switched into Shunpo and left the hilltop.
She shook her head and the followed after him back to the shop.
XXX
Who was that? Urahara wondered as he thought back to those eyes he had seen. He had retired to his lab and was currently sitting at his desk. Was it really the one behind all of this? Or was it someone who had been observing that bloody test?
He shook his head to himself. He knew that he had never felt something like that before when those eyes had been on his back. It could only be the new entity that was messing around with the currents of power.
"What is that old man thinking?" Urahara said with a sigh as he leaned forward on his desk, catching his head in his arms. "This is no time to be testing these kids… not when something so powerful is messing around with nature itself."
XXX
Inoue had been lying in bed, wondering if she should even bother getting up that day. Another weekend and another beautiful day, but she didn't see the point to it. She sighed as she rolled over on her mat and pulled her covers tighter around her shoulders. "Kurosaki-kun," she muttered in a half asleep voice.
"Still going on about that boy?" Shuno's voice asked as the fairy like creature suddenly appeared hovering above her head.
"Please, Shuno, I don't wish to talk about it right now…" Inoue muttered as she turned again to lie on her back and look directly up at the fairy.
"You need to talk to him," Shuno persisted. "It's the only way to clear this whole thing up."
Lily suddenly appeared beside Shuno and said, "What good will talking do? It's obvious that Ichigo would rather be with Rukia. You saw the way that he was holding her yesterday. I say just forget him and move on with your life."
"Please," Inoue said to her flowers. Tears were beginning to build in her eyes. "Please, I don't wish to talk right now."
"I keep telling you, woman," Tsubaki said as he flashed around her head. "Eliminate the competition; then there wouldn't be a problem anymore."
"Please! Stop it!" she cried as she flipped over on her stomach and threw the covers over her head.
A sudden knocking sounded at her door. The fairies all popped back into their places on her hairpins as Inoue pulled the covers off and woozily got out of bed. "Who is it?" she asked as she tugged at her sleep shirt, feeling rather self-conscious that it was past noon and she hadn't even gotten dressed yet.
"Inoue-san, it's Ururu…" a tiny, timid voice responded
"Ururu-chan?" she replied, wondering why she would be coming to her apartment. She quickly crossed over to the door and opened it. Ururu's unimposing figure was standing there, looking up at her with large eyes.
"Inoue-san," she said softly to her. "There was a fight… Ishida-san has been injured and I was sent to ask if you might be able to help heal him…"
"Help…" she muttered, staring at the little girl as if she didn't comprehend what was going on. "What…is he all right?"
"The boss says he's fine for now but it's going to take a while for him to be completely better. Urahara-san wants Tessai-san's help on another project, so he won't have a lot of time to help heal Ishida-san."
"Y…yes, of course!" she said as she stepped back. "If you will wait a moment, I just need to change." She glanced down at herself and tried to keep from blushing. She quickly turned and ran for her room, closing the door behind her.
She was only in there a few moments before she immerged wearing a skirt and three quarter length sleeved shirt. "Alright, let's go, Ururu-chan," she said and the two of them hurried back to the shop.
XXX
When Ishida awoke again, he found himself looking up through a golden haze. As he blinked, he made out Inoue's worried expression just beyond the yellow barrier that she had placed over him. "Inoue-san…" he muttered.
She started and looked down at him. Her hands were hovering over him, directing her concentration into the healing field that she had created. "Ishida-kun," she replied as she dismissed the field. The two fairies circled once and then returned to her hairpins.
Ishida realized that the constant entire body ache that had followed him into his sleep had disappeared. He still felt horribly weak and could feel the stabbing pain in his stomach where he had been skewered as well as the throbbing from several other deeper wounds. Still, the ache that had covered every inch of him, no doubt from the overload of reiatsu that he had received, had finally subsided.
"Thank you, Inoue-san," he sighed. "I feel much better."
Inoue sat back and looked down at the floor between herself and Ishida. "I'm glad, Ishida-kun." She said softly. "I…I can't heal everything at once. Tessai says that it would be too much for your system and that it would be dangerous for me as well."
Ishida closed his eyes and leaned back into his pillow. "Just what you have done is enough to feel worlds better. Thank you, Inoue-san."
When she didn't reply, he cracked an eye open and looked at her. She was still sitting there, head down, looking at nothing. A slightly sad, slightly hurt feeling seemed to play across her expression, but Ishida still couldn't quite place what it was. "Inoue-san…" he said hesitantly. There was no doubt that there had been something going on with her lately and he felt that he ought to try and help her, especially considering how much she was helping him now. His worry over her was overweighing his sense that some things should be kept private. But he wasn't very good at this sort of thing and wasn't sure how to bring it up. "Inoue-san," he tried again. "Are you… are you all right?"
She gave a slight gasp and looked at him, quickly dismissing her melancholy look. "What a strange question to ask, Ishida-kun," she said with a smile that only looked slightly forced. "You are the one that was hurt today. I have had nothing happen to me…"
The way the last words fell from her lips, Ishida knew that they hinted at the true problem, though what she meant by that, he couldn't tell. "It's just…" he said slowly. "It's just, for a moment there, you looked so sad… And you haven't been yourself for several days now."
Inoue was about to try and make up another excuse but Ishida interrupted her. "I understand if it's something you don't want to talk about, Inoue-san. I just thought I'd let you know that I don't mind if you do… wish to talk, that is."
Inoue stared blankly at him a moment before she politely bowed her head, "Thank you, Ishida-kun. But you are right; I don't wish to speak of it right now."
Ishida nodded once before saying, "As you wish, Inoue-san. But it seems I won't be going anywhere any time soon, so you will know where to find me if you change your mind."
Inoue gave him a slight smile as she voiced a slight, "Mm," and nodded once in return. "I will be back again tomorrow to heal you some more," she told him as she stood up.
"I…I look forward to it," he replied.
She smiled shyly at him and then slipped out of the room, closing the door softly behind her.
XXX
Tessai entered Urahara's lab quietly and looked on at the napping Urahara. He was sprawled across his desk, having fallen asleep there. Tessai shook his head at the former captain and turned to leave. "We have very big problems on our hands," Urahara's voice spoke.
Tessai paused and looked back at Urahara over his shoulder. "Boss?"
Urahara sat up and then stretched his arms above his head before standing and slowly walked over to Tessai. "I think I have an idea of who is behind this," Urahara said softly as he placed his hand on his hat while he walked, clogs clicking on the ground with each step. "And I know now why it is Kurosaki and his humans friends that are going to have to deal with this… as well as myself."
"Who is it?" Tessai asked.
Urahara pulled his hand down and looked up at Tessai from under the brim of hat. "Exactly who, I don't know… But I am fairly certain that we are dealing with someone from the royal family."
XXX
Ishida was awake and feeling more than a little cooped up by the time Inoue showed up the next day. He looked up as he heard the door slide open and Inoue poked her head inside. "Ishida-kun?" she called softly.
"I'm awake, Inoue-san," he told her. She came inside and closed the door behind her.
Ishida had taken his glasses off again while he had been sleeping and had not had a reason to put them back on again. So his vision was not quite that clear when she entered. But for a second before he had his glasses on again, he had thought that Inoue's hair didn't look quite right.
But by the time he had the eyewear on she looked just like she always did. Her hair was slightly tucked back in the flower hairpins and she was standing there offering him one of her warm smiles. "You are looking better, Ishida-kun," she said as she came over and knelt beside him.
He glanced down at his arms that had now had their bandages removed. There were still cracks and lines running down them from the reiatsu overload he had received the day before, but they were healing and no longer bleeding. He did still have a bandage wrapped tightly around his head though and a few more plastered to his left cheek where Ichigo in hollow form had slapped him.
The bones in his face were still quite tender, but were no longer in fragments. He still felt horrible, but he wasn't as completely depleted as he had been the day before. The main complaint he had was the stab wound through his stomach. Tessai had managed to heal the organs that had been damaged and close the wound, but there was still a lot of muscle damage and trauma around the area that was going to take longer to heal. As it was, talking, eating, sitting up without assistance, even breathing too deeply, would bring on fresh waves of pain from that wound.
He silently sighed to himself when he thought about it. As painful and annoying as that wound was right now, it was the reason that he was still alive. If Ichigo hadn't managed to gain enough control to stab him when he did, Ishida would have surely been killed from the overload of reiatsu that had been forced inside of him without the option of release.
"Yes, I suppose I am feeling a little better," he replied to Inoue.
She smiled slightly at him before touching her hairpins and summoning her healing pair out. Ishida leaned back and closed his eyes as the golden glow surrounded his body. He could feel more of the injuries slowly healing. A tiny portion of the pain he was in lessoned, leaving him feeling just a little bit more relaxed.
He was surprised when he suddenly heard the sound of the door to his room sliding shut. He opened his eyes and found that he must have fallen asleep while Inoue was healing him because she was gone now.
Looking down at his arms, he saw that the wounds were now completely healed there, not leaving so much as a scar. He raised a hand to his face and gingerly touched the area where his bones had been shattered and found that the pain there was gone completely as well. He pulled the bandages off of his face and set them aside.
With a touch to his forehead though, he found that that was not completely healed as of yet. And though the pain had lessoned in his stomach, it was clear that that was also still mending.
He sighed. It seemed that he was going to have to be here for a few more days yet. That meant he was going to miss a few days of school. Not that he hadn't missed school before, but it was still a pain to catch back up with the work when it happened. Maybe one of the others will think to bring my homework for me, he thought before slipping into unconsciousness again.