Ch 7: Fluffy and Dangerous

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Ichigo was standing in the hall after school, trying to not get a headache. His teacher was giving him a lecture about being late to school, cutting classes, and the like. And she was really getting into it too. She'd been going on for a good fifteen minutes, and Ichigo just wanted to leave. At the moment of that thought, his substitute badge went off. Great. Now he had a hollow to deal with too. And as far as he knew, none of the other Shinigami were in the area.

With a "Sorry, gotta go" he was running down the hall, hoping his teacher wouldn't be to mad and try to lecture him again later. He left his body in a storage closet and Shunpo'd to where the Hollow was. But it wasn't at all what he expected.

It was a Hollow yes, but it looked so much like a cat, and such a cute one, that he didn't want to hurt it. It was super fluffy, and a bright, fiery orange with white paws and chest, and it's mask was more of a tiara, resting on top of her head. She had large, golden yellow eyes, which looked up at him at it meowed at him. He got the feeling from Shiro that even he thought it was kinda cute. Until she walked over to chew on the tip of Zangetsu's sheath, then clawed her way up to Ichigo's shoulder to chew on the handle, then on his hair.

"Oi! Get off!" Ichigo shouted as he tried to get the cat off, only to suppress a yelp as the cat dug its claws in further. As he was fighting with the cat, Shiro was cracking up laughing at him. Finally he managed to grab its scruff with one hand, and remove the claws one by one with his other hand. He had a silent glaring contest with the cat hanging by her scruff, before the cat's irritation seemed to disappear and it meowed pitifully. With a sigh, he let her ride on his shoulder as he went home after retrieving his body.

He had given her some fish, which was gone in under a minute, then it had fallen asleep on his bed. Ichigo looked back at the textbook sitting on his desk, trying to focus on his homework. But he was to distracted. First Shiro, now a Hollow cat, the others would have a fit. And how was he supposed to take care of her? Nobody could see her, and he wasn't about to ask Kisuke for a gigai for her. He would have gotten no end of grief for it.

The next day, Ichigo went to school with an invisible orange cat following him. Most of the people couldn't see her, but there was still many who could. Orihime of course thought it was adorable. Uryƫ had teased him about it. His other spiritually aware friends merely gave him curious glances. And Rukia just happened to be there that day. She also thought the cat was cute, but she was clearly keeping an eye on it. When lunch break came, Rukia started asking questions. "I got a Hollow report yesterday, and it seems that Hollow was never taken care of. What was that about?"

"How should I know? I took care of every Hollow I found." Ichigo replied while avoiding her gaze.

"Took care of how, exactly?" She pressed.

"What do you think?"

"Stop avoiding the question! Tell me, why does that cat have spirit energy?" Rukia burst out.

"Well... It's kinda a Hollow, but it's more of a cat than a Hollow. It ate some spirit energy from me and Zangetsu when I found it, but it's been behaving since. And I couldn't get it to stay at home. It keeps following me around."

"You better not keep taking in Hollows. Seireitei will not be happy about this, and will send someone to deal with the issue."

"Yeah, yeah. I get it. I won't do anything stupid."

Rukia just sighed and walked away. The cat came over and sat on his lap, and started taking nibbles of food from his lunch. He reached over to move his lunchbox away, but the cat smacked his hand away. He tried again. And again.

"Kasai, stop it! It's not even yours, you stupid ball of fur!" Kasai hissed at him, took one last bite of food, then hopped off his lap and sat behind him.

"Great. Now she's mad at me. She acts like a spoiled brat." He muttered.

"She is a spoiled brat, King."

Ichigo jumped, because the voice was not inside his head. It was behind him. He turned to see Shiro petting Kasai, the cat sitting in his arms. And Shiro was in his gigai.

"Why are you here?!" Ichigo nearly shouted.

"I figured out how to manifest after releasing our full power, and I wanted to try it out. Seems it worked. As for the gigai, it must have just come with me when I went back to your inner world."

"And why did you come out?"

"Cause I wanted ta bug ya."

"I kinda figured."

"Then why'd ya ask?"

"Forget it. Why don't you just go back and quit bothering me?"

"Fine." Shiro dropped Kasai back in Ichigo's lap, and closed his eyes to focus. His form briefly faded partway, then became solid a few times before Shiro gave up.

"I can't go back."

"Then how did you get out?"

"I just did. I have no idea how."

Ichigo sighed. "We're right back where we were before."

"Yep."

"Why me?"

"Cause you're a Quincy, Human, Shinigami, and Hollow. You're like a magnet for trouble."

"...Whatever happened to simply being a Visored?"

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Kasai = a wild or uncontrollable fire