"Everybody's talking and no one says a word,

Everybody's making love and no one really cares,

There's Nazis in the bathroom just below the stairs.

Always something happenin' and nothing going on,

There's always something cooking and nothing in the pot,

They're starving back in China so finish what you've got.

Nobody told me there'd be days like these,

Nobody told me there'd be days like these,

Nobody told me there'd be days like these.

Strange days indeed.

Strange days indeed."

- "Nobody Told Me" by John Lennon


Chapter Eight: Strange Days

Life basically went back to normal after the day at Mom's grave, minus a lot of heaviness and plus a lot of ease with what I was doing in life right now - I tried not to let it show too much, not wanting the people around me to think I'd suddenly gotten a personality transplant or something. Summer took over in earnest, which meant even the teachers relaxed a little at school, and I had baseball games and festivals to attend with my friends, both male and female, after school. Rukia didn't usually attend, claiming vaguely that they were living world things and she would simply stare a lot, which was actually something I couldn't exactly deny, although she did tag along to a couple. I hung back with her and watched, bemused, as she got really enthusiastic and stared around herself with fascination, asking questions for me to answer. Even Hollows hung back for a while, as if they too anticipated summer in Karakura - though more likely they were just going off to bug some other Shinigami. There was a cheerful thought. So Rukia and I worked on a few Konsohs (remember those? ordinary dead people?) but nothing more than that.

Summer in my house also meant cleaning, though. Yuzu did a lot of it, but she pulled the rest of the family in to help her with some - we did, reluctantly. In the spirit of summer cleaning, I once tried to clean Kon - he was getting filthy and dusty. I'd actually gotten used to him in the past few weeks. I answered his obnoxious taunts with cool sarcasm, put up with his little kid-ishness with silent listening, and even the irritating way he woke me up in the morning didn't faze me as much as it used to. I figured, the guy just wanted some interaction, something I couldn't exactly blame him for, and he did seem to care in his own... unique way.

For example, this day when I tried to clean him, I just tried to beat the dust and dirt off of him against the wall - it wasn't like he'd enjoy the washing machine, you know? But he complained so loudly that I stopped, and Rukia brought out the school dust broom matter-of-factly from her closet instead. She grabbed Kon, and even I felt a little sorry for him as she started scrubbing his face vigorously. I asked her where she'd even gotten that, she told me unashamedly that she'd stolen it from school to study it, I rolled my eyes and demanded exasperatedly that she put it back, and she snickered and called me a teacher's pet. As we were arguing, we realized later, Kon had snuck away.

That night, he reappeared, bursting into my room and wailing about how he'd run away and moped a lot about how mean we were, and then Yuzu had gotten a hold of him and dressed him up in a pink, frilly dress, and he was sorry and we really were nice to him. Rukia and I just sort of accepted, shaking our heads. Of course, he was complaining again five minutes later as I tried to get off one the flowers she'd sewn onto his ear without actually ripping his ear off. He really was a little kid most of the time.

For the most part, it seemed like no more challenges were coming my way for a while. But before I could get bored, one did come - though not exactly in a way I recognized at first.


Okay, before that, one thing you should know about me: even more than I hated reality TV, I really hated psychics.

And not just fortune-tellers, either. I didn't like feng shui or palm-readers or astrologers or... any of those other trades where you made money off of something people couldn't see for sure! I thought they were all phonies, and I didn't trust them one bit. Yuzu always bought into those kinds of magazines, and it never failed to make me sigh and roll my eyes just slightly. Because just because my sign was Cancer, the astrologers told me I was going to have a bad week, and that happened to be a week where I lost my wallet once and tripped a little down the stairs at school a couple of times - that didn't mean anything. It happened to me plenty of other times where Cancer wasn't having a bad week, too. That was like telling me I was sarcastic, emotional, and orange-haired because my blood type was AO - which, frankly, some people tried to claim, too.

My reluctance to believe in fortune-telling of any kind, however, could have to do with one thing. And that was that I reserved a special place in the burning depths of my heart for one special type of psychic: the kind who claimed they could see ghosts.

Because come on - it was so incredibly obvious that they were faking it.

Tonight, my family was sitting around the living room after dinner. (I'd already snuck some food up to Rukia on the pretense of going to the bathroom; she was probably up there right now, eating and trying to convince Kon that food actually wasn't as disgusting as it apparently seemed to him.) Dad and Yuzu were eagerly watching, and Karin and I were exasperatedly pretending not to watch, what was going on in the TV screen.

An exorcism reality TV show.

Or, in plainer language, my idea of the kind of television that should be banned for control of city-wide brain damage.

"Aaaand, here he comes!" shouted the announcer on the screen, waving his arm grandly toward the smoke-filled stage, where a tall figure shrouded in a long, cloak-like coat was walking mysteriously forward. I nearly gagged. "The charismatic spirit medium of the new centuryyyy! DON KANONJI!" The tall figure walked out in clear view of the cameras to cheers and rounds of applause from his live audience, along with plenty of cheers from my credible, wish-they-could-see-ghosts father and sister right here at home

And there he was. The fakest, phoniest, most arrogant psychic I had ever laid eyes on.

Don Kanonji.

I didn't even see why so many people liked him - he looked pretty ridiculous. (Maybe that was part of his "dramatic appeal"?) He had a square face, a wide mouth, a pencil mustache, bug-eyed sunglasses, a stupid-looking poofy fur hat to match his long furred coat, and his dreadlocks were done up in two small ponytails on either side of his head. His outfit didn't look like professionals had dressed him - it looked like that was the only stuff he had to wear.

"SPIRITS ARE ALWAYS WITH YOU!" he cried, his trademark. Then he crossed his hands over his chest and shouted "BWAHAHAHAHA!"

"BWAHAHAHAHA!" yelled the audience, including my father and sister, crossing their arms over their chests in the same way, their expressions excited.

I sighed. Good Lord.

"So... what the hell does this guy even do?" I finally asked despairingly, sitting back to stare at the screen in morbid fascination as Dad and Yuzu settled in.

"What?" Yuzu cried, scandalized. She waved her arms fervently. "He ghost-busts, of course! Like the show's title - Ghost Bust: Busting Ghosts On Hallowed Ground!" Apparently there was no more to the plot than that, I noted dryly, because she continued on incredulously, "Don't tell me you don't know about Don Kanonji, Nii-chan! He's so popular right now!"

"No," I stated with the simple pride borne of one who knows they're right, even when the rest of the world doesn't see it yet. "I have no idea about Don Kanonji and I have never seen a full episode of his show. But I was wondering, what's with that weird pose you... do...?" I sighed, raising my eyebrows at the futility of it. Yuzu and Dad had already been sucked back into the show and were 'bwahaha-ing' again. Honestly, it was kind of creepy. Maybe Don Kanonji's real psychic skill was in hypnosis.

I spent the rest of the half hour torn between reading a book and watching the show in a kind of morbid fascination. The guy just walked around, sniffing random jars and saying shit "smelled like bad spirits." Whatever the hell that meant. Then Yuzu would cheer, "Cool!" and Karin would snort and look away, and I'd never be able to decide whether the rumors that Don Kanonji was actually really popular with middle school girls were true or not. Because honestly, neither of my sisters was exactly your normal preteen girl.

Finally, toward the end of the episode, Yuzu turned to me, pointing at the TV eagerly. "See! You can see it now, right Nii-chan? He can definitely See spirits, right?" Apparently, I was the expert. Then again, I kind of was the expert. (Weird.)

"Uh, well, I dunno about that," I said slowly, not really wanting to crush all her dreams and admit I didn't see anything there...

But Yuzu stood up, stomped over to me, and glared down at me with her 'video game death look.' Karin snickered from off to the side, popping a handful of snacks into her mouth. "Nii-chaaaan," Yuzu said slowly, her tone dangerous.

Never mind, I didn't need to worry about her innocence. She was going to attack me if I didn't say her idol could smell spirits.

"Alright, alright." I raised my hands in unashamed defeat, my lips twitching. "You're right. He can totally See them. He's amazing." The things I did for my younger siblings.

"YAY!" she cheered, and went to bounce back down in front of the TV. Geez... "Don Kanonji is so incredible... I want to See spirits like him..." she sighed dreamily.

I shook my head in incomprehension and glanced over... only to find Karin giving me a funny sort of look. "What?" I said in bemusement.

"Oh, it's - it's nothing," she dismissed, looking away quickly - which, honestly, was kind of unlike her. I gave her a confused look.

"You're quiet tonight," I noted. "Are you not going to watch the show?"

"Nah," she said casually, shrugging. "That's Yuzu's thing. I'm not that interested. She's the one with the weakest soul power... so I think stuff like that's sort of like her aspiration, you know? Like Goat-Chin." That was Karin's nickname for Dad - it always amused me. "He wishes he could See at all. But I'm almost as strong as you, Ichi-nii." She sat back next to me in cool satisfaction. "So... I'm good. Like you."

I noticed the emphasis placed on the last sentence, but I smiled a little and said nothing. She was right. Her reiatsu wasn't as high as mine, but it was pretty damn high. She could see the outline of that Hollow at the graveyard. Theoretically, I had pondered, that meant she might eventually be able to see the basic outline of a Shinigami's form too... It was a strange thought, that I'd have to be careful what I revealed around Karin for her own safety. Almost saddening.

A sudden shriek from Yuzu in front of the TV made me snap my head over, startled.

"Geez, Yuzu, don't screech! What is it?" I asked.

She turned to me, flushed and practically hysterical in excitement. "It just said the next show is going to air in Karakura-cho!" she shrieked, pointing at the television. "At the old abandoned hospital downtown! There's going to be a huge crowd and everyone's invited! Think of how excited everyone's going to be!"

She flailed her arms ecstatically.

And that was when I had it. My living proof that the astrologers were wrong.

Because I realized right then: it was next week that was going to suck.


I had only a couple of precious normal school days left before it started.

Inoue began the assault first thing one morning. She bounded up to me eagerly and greeted me with, "BWAHAHAHAHA!" With the arms crossed over the chest and everything.

Then she beamed and waited, as if this was some sort of signal to me.

"Uhh... hi, Inoue," I said slowly, staring at her in mystification and eyeing her as one would a mildly dangerous predator.

She slumped a little. "That's a rather weak reaction, Kurosaki-kun," she said in shy disappointment. "Could it be you don't know about -?"

"Ghost Bust?" I guessed in resignation.

She brightened immediately. "Yeah! Now let's do it together!" she cheered. I blanched.

But Tatsuki, even though she watched the show herself, swooped in to save me, looking somewhat amused - she knew I despaired of both psychics and Ghost Bust. "Banzai!" she said smoothly, grabbing Inoue's raised arms and bustling her away.

"What? B-but -" To her credit, Inoue looked innocently confused.

"Yeah, yeah, 'bwahaha' is coming with me," said Tatsuki evenly, and then she smiled at me slightly over her shoulder.

I gave her a look back that was somewhere between grateful and impending dread, and she laughed at my expression.

The show had a rating of one in four people in Japan watching it at the moment. Since a lot of elderly didn't watch those sorts of things, that meant an inordinately high amount of young people were watching Ghost Bust.

Which meant that for the next few days, all my friends greeted me with "Bwahaha!"s And then asked me eagerly if I was coming to the show that night.

I made the mistake of telling them, deadpan, that I wasn't.

"What?" even Keigo yelled in scandalization at the beginning of the lunch where I dropped the bomb on my three friends. "A show representing the entirety of Japan is coming to Karakura-cho, and you're just not going to show up?"

"No."

"B-but..." Keigo was at a loss for words. "But if you don't, you're as good as dead as a resident of our district!" he practically wailed, throwing his hands in the air dramatically. "From now on you'll be forever known as The Guy Who Didn't Go See Ghost Bust!"

"Very dramatic," I deadpanned. But I still didn't care. "Anyway, you're from Naruki-cho, man. What's with all this 'our district'?" I asked in bemusement, leaning back. "Until Ghost Bust decided to come here, as far as I know, you didn't even live here."

"Ugh... you're so mean..." Keigo said emotionally, still in his dramatic mode. I reminded myself to make sure Dad and Keigo never met. "And when I went to all the trouble of inviting Kuchiki-san, too!"

My head finally snapped up at that part. What? I thought in mild alarm.

And the (previously) only untainted person I knew walked up behind us right then. "Hello, everyone!" she beamed cheerfully, as usual. You could practically see stars dazzling around her face.

"Look, Kuchiki-san, show him like I taught you! Bwahahahaha!" Keigo said enthusiastically, demonstrating.

But before I could contemplate murdering my friend, to my relief, Rukia looked at me sideways and then blushed prettily as she insisted, "Oh, I simply can't. I'm too shy." She put her hand to her face and everything.

For once, I was grateful she was so into her 'shy, delicate human' act.


As it turned out, though, it didn't matter. Because my irritating family yanked me out on the appointed Wednesday night to go anyway. Yuzu gave me the puppy dog as she cheerfully threatened me while Karin kicked me in the shins from behind and then snickeringly pushed me toward the door, insisting over my protests that it wouldn't be so bad. Dad opened the car door and tossed me in, and we were off.

Much to my chagrin, dread, annoyance, and a hundred other adjectives that really didn't matter, because my family's extremely loud singing whenever I complained made it clear that I was going anyway.

Of course, we walked around a corner into the waiting crowds and all my friends were standing right there nearby. Chad, Keigo, Mizuiro, Tatsuki, Inoue, and even Rukia (she had insisted on leaving to go to it because "everyone was talking about it" and it "sounded like fun") were all there in a large group. Mizuiro, Inoue, and Keigo were enthusiastically pulling a quiet, agreeable Chad into doing the bwahahahaha, Rukia was beaming emptily as usual, looking around herself in slightly more genuine interest than normal, and Tatsuki was the only one who was acting sane - she was watching her friends with good-natured exasperation, looking mildly excited for the show to start from the infectious feeling of the crazed crowds around her. (To my bemusement, we were wearing shirts we'd bought together at the same coffee place - at least they weren't the same shirts, though. That would just have been embarrassing.)

She happened to glance over at me, then smirked, raised her eyebrows, and nodded incredulously in the general direction of any of the weirdos we were with. I took a glance around, raised my eyebrows back, and nodded in commiseration, smiling slightly, even though of course this led the rest of our friends to spot me.

"You came! You came!" Mizuiro and Keigo crowed immediately, triumphant as they pointed at me accusingly. "Even though you promised you wouldn't!"

"Shut up or you die," I said darkly, even as I broke away from my family to walk over to the rest of them.

"Oh, uh, Kurosaki-kun!" Inoue said immediately to get my attention. She hurried up to me, her hands clasped nervously, looking... surprisingly anxious. She winced as I gave her a surprised, curious look. "Um... I'm sorry about before. Tatsuki-chan told me later you don't really like this show. I just... I didn't know..." She was a bit red, and she looked embarrassed.

"Oh, that," I said, somewhat startled. I'd already forgotten about it. "Uh, don't worry about it. It doesn't really bother me too much. I mean, look at Mizuiro and Keigo." I waved over at the bwahahaha-ing idiots, adding dryly, "My friends do it all the time and they know I hate this show."

"But... you came," she noted in surprise, blinking at me with innocent curiosity.

"Yeah. My family forced me into it," I sighed, my lips twitching. At her look, I added, "I mean, technically I could have refused anyway. But... well... Yuzu and Dad are huge fans of Ghost Bust." Amused despite myself, I pointed over at Dad and Yuzu a way away in the crowds. They had found a spot and were bwahaha-ing with some fellow fans, while Karin was standing next to them with her arms crossed, most determinedly not doing something so 'uncool.' I shook my head at them, but gently.

"Oh, are those your father and sisters?" Inoue asked, looking over and smiling.

"Yeah."

"So you came with them even though you don't like the show?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, they'd have looked pretty pitiful, just the two of them, you know? So that's mostly why Karin and I came too," I admitted, smirking humorously.

"Aww. That's nice," Inoue said, her smile widening.

I shrugged. "Well, I mean... it's what anyone would have done," I said quickly, not sure why her warm expression made me feel so... uncertain.

Inoue looked at me for a moment, and then turned her face away, smiling a little, flushed. "Right," she agreed immediately. "Of course."

After a moment's pause, she said goodbye to me and moved away to be with Tatsuki; Chad and Keigo and Mizuiro grouped up together, Dad and Yuzu and Karin had their spot, and as the crowd before the stage and cameras that had been erected in front of the old hospital building turned full and anxious, I snuck away to the wall at the back of the crowd, leaned against it, and took out the latest manga issue Tatsuki had lent me, wondering how loud this show would be and if I could get away with tuning most of it out.

I bet the TV show staff'll think most people around here never get any entertainment, I thought in idle, deadpan humor, looking around at them all, wildly excited, from over the cover of my issue. I still didn't get it. At least Tatsuki didn't seem to either, and she actually watched this dumb show.

"What's wrong, Ichigo? You're looking down!" I turned around just in time to see Rukia leap in front of me, cross her arms over her chest, and shout enthusiastically, "BWAHAHAHAHA!" Then she beamed, looking proud of herself.

"Aww, geez, cut it out," I complained, putting down the manga and rolling my eyes as I looked away. "Come on!"

"Oh, lighten up!" she huffed, coming to stand beside me. "You came, you might as well have fun!" I remained unconvinced, and let my expression show it to her. "What?" she said, tossing her gleaming hair. "I mean, you must be tired from balancing schoolwork with Shinigami work all the time! Aren't times like these for relaxing for you?" She looked over at me sideways, smiling.

I blinked and softened a little, somewhat surprised that she'd noticed.

"By the way," she said, frowning in thought and turning away, "I never could get it out of Keigo. What's this festival all about, anyway?"

I slumped. "You came without even knowing what it's about?" I asked in exasperation.

"I told you, it seemed fun and important." She blinked, nonplussed. Then she frowned slightly and pushed my shoulder. "But come on, what is it?"

I sighed and tried to explain in a way that someone who had never watched TV before would actually understand. I wasn't sure if it worked.

"Ah, I see," she said, nodding wisely, when I'd finished. "So you are celebrating Tee Vee. Yes. Very wise."

She didn't see. But at least she was kind of endearing in her misunderstanding.

"Hey, by the way," I muttered to her after staring ahead of us for a moment. "Is there really a spirit in that abandoned old hospital up there?"

"Why?" she asked me curiously.

"Well... it's standard for a psychic show to say there's a spirit there that the TV show's host is going to take care of," I explained, thinking about it. "But if there really was one around here all this time since its closure, you guys would already have taken care of it, right?"

"I... would not necessarily say that," Rukia admitted cautiously, looking up toward the hospital with new interest. "In a case like that, it's usually an earthbound spirit, one tied to a specific place. They're harder to pick up with our sensors and harder to Konsoh."

Oh. Really? I thought of my old ghost friends and wondered what it meant that I'd given Konsoh to a whole pack of earthbound spirits a couple of months ago.

Before I could mention this to her, a TV crew member hurried past us, carrying some camera equipment. There were a few crew men setting up cameras nearby us at the back of the crowd, too. He hurried over to join them, and as he did so, he got close to the hospital memorial sign - and it was almost like he'd stepped over some invisible line. Immediately, I felt a jolt of reiatsu.

And I went cold, Rukia freezing before me, as a sudden scream emanated over the crowd toward us - as though the voice was on a megaphone.

But the rest of the crowd was still cheering.

I turned to Rukia, a little pale and shaken, and she said grimly, "The earthbound spirit. It just felt someone trespass into its territory. We may see some action tonight after all. It sounds like a particularly old and... upset one actually does live here."

Well, never mind - I'd never met an earthbound spirit quite like that before. New experiences, I told myself with weak humor. "It sounded almost like a Hollow's roar was behind it..." I said lowly, vaguely disturbed.

"That is correct," Rukia murmured, looking piercingly forward to the hospital. "He is a plus soul that has descended into becoming a Hollow. In other words, a demi-Hollow. That would be why he sounds so particularly... angry. Earthbound spirits are the easiest to destabilize once they have been on Earth too long, because they are tied to the quiet wellbeing of a physical object.

"Look. You can see the chains appearing visibly around him, tying him to the hospital."

My eyes widened as a vaguely human form - one that might once have been a man, but was giant and bubbling, morphing before my very eyes - tried to lunge its way out of the hospital but was held back by glowing blueish-silvery chains and was hung there by the hospital before the unknowing crowd. The sight particularly disturbed me, because I'd just been freed from a very specific set of chains of my own a few weeks ago. I felt bad for the demi-Hollow, and glad that I'd spared the ghosts I'd met from this fate as he screamed/roared again.

After a while of staring at him quietly, I made out a strange, morbid sight on the man's chest. There was no dark hole in his chest, no chain hanging from it. Instead, the chains around him were slowly ripping a new hole in its center - an empty one. A Hollow's hole.

"In the center of his chest..." I said slowly, gazing at it.

"Yes," said Rukia solemnly. "There is nothing we can do at this point. That means he is on his way to losing his heart, becoming a being of mere instinct and lost feelings. Their masks are meant to protect those feelings and instincts from the outside world, as far as we can discern."

I swallowed, hard - unusually affected by this in a way I might not have been a few weeks ago. Rukia caught my heavy, saddened expression and shrugged with something that was almost helplessness. "When people die, the chain of fate that connected them to their heart is disconnected from their body. If they do not still have great regrets from their life, their chain of fate does not try in vain to reconnect to something on this plane. Their energy is not used up as quickly, and they can wait in peace for a Shinigami to come help them pass on. But if they do still have heavy regrets about their past life... particularly if they are earthbound spirits, who are caught on a particular place, or obsessive spirits, who are caught on a particular person... usually they do not find something to reconnect to on this plane of existence. Their energy is used up in vain, and they can become Hollows much more quickly. This, and not an unfinished Hollow attack or escape from a Shinigami attempting Konsoh, is how the majority of plus souls become Hollow souls."

But with the ghosts I'd met... they'd been able to reconnect with me. Suddenly, their reliance on me was put in a whole new light. They'd been able to reconnect oftentimes with their families, or if they were earthbound spirits they at least could connect with me as someone to talk to, someone who could make sure their resting place remained somewhat peaceful for them. Was that why so many of the less obsessive earthbound spirits had been able to travel to that alleyway or from it when I called for them? Because they knew I could help them back to that place, take care of it for them? That was... something I had honestly never considered before.

I thought of Enzeru, the most obsessive earthbound spirit of all... one who'd had to get Soki to travel out with a message for the other souls whenever I'd needed something... and also the nicest, most steady-hearted and understanding ghost I'd ever met. Like I had - preserved her, in some sense. I felt almost proud at this thought, unusually good about something I'd done.

"So," Rukia was summarizing. She nodded up toward the man. "He is either regretting not being able to connect with that hospital, regretting its emptiness, or some sort of incident occurred for him there in life. Either way, he has been obsessively and isolatedly earthbound to that place, without hope of reconnection, for a long time. So long, in fact... that he has turned into a demi-Hollow."

I stared up at the screaming soul in sympathy for a moment longer...

And then suddenly, as we focused on him, words became apparent through the roaring screams, and Rukia and I could hear, as if through a filter, the man's grudge.

Aaand my sympathy was gone.

"This hospital is mine! I won't hand it over to anyone! None of you are getting in here without cash, ya hear me? None of you! I should have inherited this hospital from my father! Me! And it wouldn't have failed and shut down! It would have grown under my careful hands and brought in a ton of cash! I could be driving a pink cadillac and drinking Dom Perignon right now, entertaining aristocrats from West-Azabu! But no, instead my damn old man left this hospital to my dumbass younger brother and I died of an overdose because I was so pissed off!"

"... Wow," I said, staring at the hospital with raised eyebrows. "Just... wow."

Rukia was nodding slowly, gazing in morbid interest at the raving demi-Hollow.

"Silence, please, everyone!" said the oblivious announcer over the microphone up on stage. "The show is about to begin!"

Of course, completely ignoring him, a giant cheer went up from the audience. "Ooh!" said Rukia eagerly. "Something's about to start!"

Since she didn't seem too worried at the moment, I decided to tune the demi-Hollow out for now, mildly interested to see if 'Don Kanonji' even knew it was there.

The announcer waved his hand and the crowd quietened in anticipation. After a countdown from the main cameraman up at the front, the cameras rolled.

"Gooood evening, everyone!" he began brightly. I heard some audience members whisper that it was, Just like it was on the TV, and wondered vaguely what they'd expected. "Tonight's special is titled, 'The Emergency at the Karakura-cho Hospital!' And here we are, live in front of that hospital at Karakura-cho, Tokyo!" The announcer's voice dropped eerily, and the view on the giant screen behind the cameras showed a pan up to the hospital. "They say that, night after night, a vengeful spirit's cry can be heard from the old, abandoned hospital. The citizens are afraid to go near it at night. But surely one man can do something about it..." His voice began to build up, and the crowd started to cheer. Even I knew who was coming. "Aaand here he comes! The charismatic spirit medium of the twenty-first centuryyyy! DON KANONJI!"

The crowd burst into wild cheers and screams as, of all things, a helicopter flew down above the hospital, and from within jumped Don Kanonji, looking as ridiculously over the top as usual, leaping from the helicopter right onto the stage (as if he'd just gotten the call... taste the cheese, go on), the microphone already attached to his head. The show's theme started blasting over loudspeakers on the stage, and he spread his arms wide. "How's it going? SPIRITS ARE ALWAYS WITH YOU!" The crowd around me chanted the last part along with him. Even Rukia was cheering. I raised my eyebrows dubiously. I didn't do that whole insanely happy cheering thing, and I only clapped for things I was glad to be watching.

And then he did it. He crossed his arms over his chest, just as the dead did, and cackled, "BWAHAHAHAHA!"

And around me, zombie-like, hundreds of people did it with him, completely ignorant of how idiotic they looked.

It was probably the creepiest part of the whole evening so far.

Rukia was leaning toward me, and I leaned close to hear her over the noise. "So he's the main attraction, right?" I nodded, and she laughed. "Yeah, I thought so!"

I nodded again. "It's pretty obvious!" I yelled back.

Rukia leaned over to me again as she clapped (and I reluctantly clapped briefly as well, because the crowd was going nuts and after a while I'd end up looking like a dumb asshole just standing there). "It's a really - uh, how do you say, cool? - it's a really cool way to make an entrance!"

"What?" I scoffed. "Tch!"

She laughed. "I'm sorry, Ichigo, but I have to give it the two thumbs up! You have to admit it, he does know how to put on a show!" She waved around us, to the screaming cheering fans, the blasting music, Don Kanonji up on stage in his showy outfit with his hands raised and the helicopter behind him, grinning for the cameras.

Yeah - I knew. He did make a really good, popular show out of a really phony topic. There had to be a lot of self-confidence and knowledge of what the masses wanted under there. Honestly, I could reluctantly admit to myself, it was part of the reason why I didn't like him.

Only he could find a really fake way to make 'exorcising' ghosts look good.

Eyeing the real spirit chained up above him, I leaned over to Rukia, not particularly wanting to Taste The Cheese in person and slightly nervous about the show happening before the lost soul. "Should I get rid of him now?" I nodded to the demi-Hollow, screaming in rage at the spectacle below him from his chains. "Will he become a problem here?"

She shook her head, smiling and rolling her eyes a little. "Stop worrying! We can wait until after the show! It takes months, sometimes even years, to complete the Hollow transformation! He's not going anywhere in the next hour!"

She softened her voice toward the end as Don Kanonji, waving for silence, finally started to quiet the crowd down. I opened my mouth, raising an eyebrow at this - wasn't he in a lot of pain, though? - but she had already turned back to Don Kanonji, who was walking around stage purposefully, tapping his nose and sniffing the air in an extremely dramatic way.

(And the moment was over and I just thought he looked dumb again.)

"Hmm... the smell of spirits in this place is outrageous... This certainly..."

"SMELLS LIKE BAD SPIRITS!" the crowd roared with him.

Then Don Kanonji walked right up to the chained man's red, yelling, bubbling face, his expression thoughtful.

"Rukia..." I muttered.

"Worry-wart..." she murmured back, in the same sing-song way. "Look, unless someone actively aggravates the hole growing in his chest, this crowd doesn't have anything to worry abou -"

And then Don Kanonji whipped up his flashy, winged, gold-edged black cane, cried, "I know! I'll finish it off with my Super Spirits Stick!" and stuck the stick right into the demi-Hollow's chest hole to tear it open.

Rukia finished her sentence on an incoherent cry of shock that told me everything I needed to know, and I tensed up.

I knew this guy was just smart enough to be able to do damage.


The crowd was gasping, but I can tell you firsthand, Don Kanonji's show is ten times more dramatic and a lot more horrifying to watch when you have the Sight.

"Don't worry!" Don Kanonji was yelling optimistically as he struggled with the demi-Hollow, trying to pry the hole open. "It only hurts at first, and then I can send you off, Spirit!"

The demi-Hollow was screaming, bubbling and transforming faster.

"What the hell is he doing?" I yelled, furious, and some people around me gave me exasperated looks like I was stupid. They had no idea it was rhetorical - it was obvious Don Kanonji didn't understand what the hell he was doing!

"Ridiculous," Rukia was muttering, staring at him uncertainly. "He can't really have the ability to send him off... I mean at this point, it looks like he's only intensifying the process into a Hollow, isn't he?"

I was watching, anxious, waiting to see if that cane of his could do anything... Somehow guessing the answer was 'no.'

"Relax, and I will now release you from the nightmare chains that bind you!" Don Kanonji cried. And then as he pried open the hole, he began sweating and chanting in some weird, made-up language - the announcer was yelling into the mic and the crowd was cheering - the demi-Hollow's screams had reached a fever pitch -

Fuck it. This wasn't going to end well. I was done waiting around for Rukia to stop hoping she'd found another human with abilities she didn't understand!

I darted sideways through the press of people at the back of the crowd, took in the positions of the security guards around the back cameras at light speed, shot in between their positions, jumped the rope tethering in the crowd, and sprinted toward the stage. I could hear the guards yell and then take off after me, but I was faster - not understanding what I was doing, not thinking about it, my mind sent into an instinctive anger by the demi-Hollow's screams, I ran up the steps onto the stage, whipped past the cameramen so fast I heard their heads snap after me, and ran toward Don Kanonji wrestling with the invisible demi-Hollow.

"STOP!" I yelled at him, waving my arms. "STOP!"

The security finally caught up with me and I felt my arms pinned behind my back, was still struggling and yelling but felt myself wrestled to the ground, somewhere beyond the crowd was gasping and the announcer was yelling into the mic with fresh abandon.

Fuck, I thought blankly in a tiny part of the back of my mind. I've probably just made my TV debut.

But I couldn't spare much thought for that, was still yelling at them to let me go, insisting something bad was about to happen, struggling furiously -

"Ichigo!" I heard Rukia's voice suddenly yell behind me. "Come back to me, I'll change you into a Shinigami!"

But the security guards had looked around to see that she'd run up onto the stage after me, eyes wide and wild, her red glove on her hand, and half of them broke away to grab her and shove her down to the floor, too. I just managed to see her stunned face - whether from the fact that someone was daring to manhandle or because she no longer had the reflexes to stop it, I wasn't sure - before it disappeared from my line of vision. "Rukia!" I yelled, and struggled harder, bruised and aching -

They were hauling us up now, pulling us away, and I saw Rukia being yanked backward on her feet too, still struggling. "Let go!" she was yelling indignantly, her mask falling. "Let me go, you worthless, unknowledgeable ingrates...!"

"Rukia, break free and help me!"

"You break free, you're the one with all the muscle!"

"You're the one with less guys on you!"

Our furious exchange was broken abruptly by one of the security men punching me in the face so hard my head flung back. "Shut up!" he growled, as my ears rang for a moment and I thought with furious dread, Christ!

Then the soul's screaming reached a fever pitch and I flung my head around through my bloody mouth, going silent, my eyes wide.

Don Kanonji had just managed to punch a hole straight through the spirit, and the crowd was cheering for him again, diverted by his obvious, panting triumph.

The morphing, giant spirit lifted its head up and roared to the skies, silent to the innocent bystanders below it...

"NO!" Rukia was screeching. "ICHIGO!"

"I know!" I yelled, pulling forward, despite the fact that they were basically trying to beat the shit out of me just to drag me further back now. "Let me go, you fucking idiots don't know what you're doing!"

Then all of a sudden, through all the shoving arms and legs of the security guards, I felt something poke me sharply in the back of the head - followed by the abrupt, uncomfortable sensation of being forced out of my body.

I looked over hurriedly. "What the -"

I realized I was in my Shinigami form now. There before me, suddenly slumped over in the security guards' arms, was my body. I and the quieter Rukia were staring behind ourselves at, of all people, Sandal-Hat Urahara with his soul-popping cane.

He and his associate, the huge dreadlocked man Tessai, had silently come up behind the security and were now standing on the stage, too. "Hi!" Urahara said, waving and beaming brightly at us and the gaping security - who didn't seem quite sure what to do with this new intrusion, which was just standing there casually side-by-side in a pretty bizarre set of clothes.

"Why are you here -?" I began, but Urahara interrupted me.

"Shouldn't you be taking care of that Hollow, Kurosaki-san?" he asked with the same blank cheerfulness. "You seemed to be in a bit of a hurry."

"O-Oh yeah!" I said immediately, turned around with my hand on the zanpakutoh at my back, and rushed off toward my next battle.

And somewhere in the back of my mind, as I realized that the security guards now had to deal with not only Rukia, but Urahara and his 'associates'... I suddenly felt bad for them, despite everything.

I highly doubted they'd remember most of that exchange by the time I was finished, for one thing. And I highly doubted any of us would be remaining on the stage much longer, for another.


Don Kanonji, moron that he was, was still keeping his stick caught with focus into the writhing, twisting mass that was in the middle of transforming into a Hollow.

My first thought was, I can't believe I'm saving this asshole's life, as I flew in between them. I grabbed his stupid Spirits Hitting Stick, or whatever the fuck he called it. "I said, stop it!" I yelled into his face; he started and jumped back, trying to pull his cane away from my grasp with sudden alarm, and in our struggle we rolled away onto the floor, me still trying to wrestle his reiatsu-filled cane away from him.

Of course, the crowd thought he was just wrestling with the 'Bad Spirit.' The announcer was going crazy over the mic, and the crowd was screaming and gasping anew before us.

I finally grabbed the stick and threw it away across the stage, getting up with a furious, frustrated expression. (The crowd gasped and screamed.) Don Kanonji stumbled up after me, turning off his mic quickly. "What are you doing, boy?" he hissed to me quietly. "Stop interfering! You're just a ghost!"

"So you really can see me?" I asked with slow disbelief. Did reiatsu just like weird people, or...?

Don Kanonji puffed up his chest with wounded pride. "Of course! I am Don Kanonji, charismatic spirit medium of the twenty-first century!" Then he seemed to think of something and leaned forward eagerly. "Oh! Are you still my fan, even in death? Because that would be so -"

"Never. Call me. Your fan. Again." I leveled him with a death glare as he eyed me consideringly.

A sudden roar behind us and an explosion of reiatsu snapped our heads over to the transforming demi-Hollow.

Wait. Scratch that.

"Shit! It's too late!" I yelled, just before a flash of blinding white reiatsu shot my senses all to hell for a moment... and a Hollow's roar, deep and full and new, filled the air.

And the crowd, somehow insensate, did nothing.

... This just got a whole lot harder.


As the light cleared from my eyes and I lowered the arm I'd raised reflexively... My first thought was confused. I muttered before I could stop myself, "Wait. Did it just disappear?" Because the stage was - empty.

"Mr. Don Kanonji has suddenly paused, staring at the stage after his long, hard struggle. What is going on...?" the announcer's voice said from off-stage.

Don Kanonji blinked at the empty stage... and then a wide grin spread over his face. "YEAH!" he shouted, pumping his fists for the crowd in triumph. "Mission complete!"

The crowd went wild with relief and the announcer started shouting again.

"H-hey," I said, still somewhat stunned, "did you really... get rid of it...?" I turned to him.

He leaned over ever-so-slightly and muttered, still grinning for the cameras, "Of course! I'm the charismatic spirit medium of the twenty-first century, Don Kanonji! My exorcisms never fail, boy... Don't worry. I'll send you on later."

Before I could open my mouth on reflex to correct him that I wasn't dead... Rukia's voice suddenly stuck out to me from the screams below.

"Above you, Ichigo!"

I had just enough time to register her face amid the very front press of the crowd, having mysteriously slipped back in with Urahara & Co's, her eyes wide in panic and trained above me -

Before I registered what she'd said and shot my head up just in time to see a Hollow slowly filtering into being on the hospital roof above us.

"What the - ?" I heard Don Kanonji mutter as he looked up too.

The Hollow, slim and humanoid with heavy body tattoos and a pointy sideways head, looked down at the feast of souls below it... and leered, vicious.

I swore under my breath and tensed, just as Don Kanonji decided to pipe up beside me, "What is that?"

His voice was so utterly amazed that I gave him an incredulous sideways glance. "You've never seen one before?" Despite the fact that he could?

"Of course not," he huffed, as though this were obvious. "I exterminate spirits, not monsters!"

I resisted the urge to bang my head against the nearest available wall. He was obviously only going to be a distraction here. "That's both, dumbass!" I said in exasperation. "It's called a Hollow!"

He ignored my insult with impressive lack of reaction and covertly switched his mic back on for the audience's viewing pleasure. Jesus. "HEY! SMELLS LIKE VERY BAD SPIRITS!" he yelled. "It's the earlier spirit's boss come back for revenge!"

The crowd went nuts. Because apparently, crowds were just naturally stupid.

"No, it's not," I muttered, gritting my teeth and gazing at the night sky. "And you're still not listening to me. Great..."

The Hollow suddenly reared, roared, and charged down at us. "Incoming!" I alerted Kanonji, and tensed to fly up to meet the Hollow. "You need to ru -"

But I was broken off abruptly by him charging his hand with reiatsu, sticking it into my shoulder, pushing me down, and leaping in front of me heroically. To try to fight the Hollow himself.

"Run, ghost boy!" boomed the oblivious, crowd-working showman. "Leave this to me!"

"What the fu -" I began in alarm.

But I didn't even have time to finish before Kanonji lifted his arms and shouted to the floating Hollow. "COME TO ME, BAD SPIRIT! I, DON KANONJI, CHARISMATIC SPIRIT MEDIUM OF THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, AM YOUR OPPONENT!"

By the time he was halfway through his speech, I had already sprung up and leaped in front of him. He paused, blinking at me. "I don't know what the hell you're doing, but you're retarded!" I yelled in frustration, pushing some reiatsu into my zanpakutoh and using it to bat the incoming Hollow away from the stage like a baseball. I really didn't want the fight happening with hundreds of weak human souls behind me.

"Why didn't you run away, boy?" Don Kanonji was busy shouting to me insistently (he had turned off his mic again).

"Why didn't you?" I returned, though I knew it was probably just because that would look bad for the cameras. "Look, I'm not kidding, dumbass, this thing is dangerous!"

"And I'm not kidding either! I can't run away!" Don Kanonji shot back, and his face was so urgent that I paused momentarily.

"Wait..." I said slowly, "why not?"

But then the Hollow was coming up on us, roaring: I turned around, blocked it again - it was really hard fighting two stubborn things at once and trying to get them both somewhere else, by the way! - and pushed it away, but immediately Kanonji ran around it and jumped behind it (not even trying to be stealthy, either) with his cane raised. The Hollow turned and aimed at him, he readied himself like he actually thought he could take a direct blow, I shoved him sideways and wrestled him to the ground, which was surprisingly difficult, and meanwhile I didn't know what the Hollow was doing!

But luckily for me, it kept running forward and knocked into the hospital building. A huge chunk was taken out of the wall and the crowd suddenly gasped.

I stood up, panting and glaring death at Kanonji, who was completely ignoring me. He saw the Hollow dazed from its knock into the wall and shot to his feet, shouting, "LOOK, A GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY!"

First of all, who jinxes it by announcing they've found a golden opportunity?

And second, that attracted the Hollow's attention and it shot back at us, roaring incoherently!

... Which registered for me in a split second in time. The Hollow was after us. We obviously smelled the best.

Kanonji was standing right in the Hollow's direct path again like a dick. I figured he'd just follow us in and get himself killed even if I tried to shove him out of the way now, and he was good as extra bait, so I grabbed him by the arm and dragged him forward, running toward the nearest hospital building window. "Come on!" I shouted back over my shoulder at his confused form. "Tactical retreat!"

Sure enough, the Hollow followed behind us thoughtlessly as I burst through the glass and into the huge, abandoned hospital building, a wall of reiatsu surging before me and the crowd's sudden screams trailing after.


Into the hospital, down hallways and up staircases, zigzagging through the maze-like building, I kept my senses on the Hollow. The hunt was driving it berserk. Roaring, it chased after us confusedly, so I kept it busy by going in no particular direction, occasionally taking a sudden sharp turn and running in the opposite direction. I always made sure we were either just beyond its line of sight or just within it, and always ahead of it.

Don Kanonji was still being dragged along thoughtlessly behind me. He complained every so often about being dragged and bumped here and there, but as far as I was concerned, he was just getting what he deserved, so I didn't bother to respond.

Finally, when we were about in the protective, isolated center of the hospital, I sped up a floor so the Hollow would take a little longer to get to us, and then I slowed down slightly to glare backward at Don Kanonji.

He took the opportunity, yet again, to protest what we were doing.

"Why are you running away, boy? And let me go!" He struggled, and my wall of reiatsu snapped around him even tighter.

Perhaps he could feel this, because he stopped struggling quickly.

"You're the one who told me to run away," I pointed out, still angry with him.

"No, that's not it! Well, it is it, but - I meant alone! Not with me!" He said this as if I were being the exasperating one. "I can't run away! I'm Don Kanonji, cha -"

I stopped in my tracks, did what I'd always secretly wanted to do, and ended his dramatic self-announcement in mid sentence. The 'tossing him against the nearest wall with a jolt' part hadn't always factored into my daydreams, but that worked too.

"What does your TV show even have to do with this situation, I'd like to know?" I demanded, standing in front of him furiously. "I've told you that thing is dangerous, to you and everyone around you! You've told me monster extermination isn't in your job description! So why exactly can't you run away? People would listen if you ran away!"

"B-but why are you even he -?"

"I'm the one asking the questions here." To be fair, I was literally physically restraining myself from slamming my head against the nearest wall by this point. He shrank back a little, eyebrows raised, from the sheer force of my frustrated stare.

"Okay," he said, "okay..." He stood up slowly. "I know everyone would listen to me if I ran," he said with unusual seriousness. "That's why I can't run. You see..." He raised himself up majestically. "I am a hero, and we do not run," he finished grandly.

... This guy reeeaaally wanted me to punch him in the face.

"Boy," he said, turning to me and ignoring my incredulous, disgusted expression. "Do you know what the viewer's ratings are for my show?"

It was one in four, or twenty-five percent. But I was never going to admit I knew that. "I refuse to answer," I said flatly. "Why?"

He was obviously going to tell me anyway. Why not pretend it was my own choice?

"That is correct!" he responded, still ignoring me. "Twenty-five percent! Very good. This means that one in four people in Japan watch my show on a regular basis, and most of them -" I expected him to say something dumb and arrogant, but he actually ended with gently, "are small children."

I paused. Looking at him sideways. Because that was the one answer he could have given that I might actually have listened to.

"Every week, they're glued to my show on the TV. They watch the show with their families, they learn from what they see, they see it as something comfortable and fun. They see me stand up to evil spirits, and they think, 'Wow. I want to be brave like that too.' They pretend they're me; they send me fan mail asking if they can help me on my show; they tell me about local rumors in the district in the hopes that I'll come do a show where they are. And right now, they're all watching out there. I can't just tell them 'it's too tough, so I'm running away.' What kind of message would that send? So I'm just going to have to take care of it."

I thought of Yuzu... and realized that was actually pretty profound. I could respect Kanonji there, even if I didn't like him.

"... Alright!" Don Kanonji cheered abruptly. "So let's lead the monster back out onto the stage!"

And the moment was gone.

"No!" I hissed, grabbing his shoulder as he turned to run. "What are you, insane?"

"But I don't want to fight with no cameras watching me! What fun is that?"

"All you'll be doing is getting your audience mixed up in the fight; you'll put them all in danger! If you're a hero, part of your job is to protect the people who follow you!" I snapped, hauling him back.

He paused at this, and looked at me suddenly with a strange, new expression. Which I didn't get, because that just seemed obvious to me.

"What do you mean? How dangerous is this thing, exactly?" he asked slowly.

I sighed sharply, having a new sympathy for Rukia when she'd first met me, and wondering if her trick could possibly work. But I wasn't exactly going to sit around and explain everything to him over and over again until he got it, so I summarized shortly with, "That monster is called a Hollow. They eat souls. Souls that smell and taste the best have lots of reiatsu power. We have lots of reiatsu power; that's how we can see them. I'm keeping in here because the Hollow will follow us, because our souls smell the best to it. That way, if we lure it and fight it in here, the audience won't be involved or put in danger. It's in the building right now, lurking on the floor below," I was still keeping track of it in the back of my mind, "which means it's keeping its attention focused on us and away from your audience."

Kanonji was gaping at me. I'd tried to make my explanation deductively logical, so if he was still confused, I wasn't going to bother any longer. Knocking him out would shut him up just as well.

"That's incredible, boy," he finally said. "You are thinking of others even when you're not fighting!" He grinned in admiration.

Inwardly thrown off by this, I was about to quip back with an exasperated, There you go, got there in the end... when I felt the Hollow suddenly burst into a flurry of movement on the floor below. "Jump!" I barked to Kanonji as I felt which way it was headed, and we leaped aside just as the Hollow burst through the floor from the level below, apparently giving up all attempts to figure out which way we had gone the old-fashioned way.

It roared at us, I went for my zanpakutoh, drew it out, charged toward the Hollow -

And paused for a fraction of a second, my eyes widening. The zanpakutoh wasn't coming down before me, was in fact traveling rather slowly and jerkily above my head - I looked up, and my eyes widened. Oh, shit.

My zanpakutoh was too tall for the low-ceilinged, narrow hallways. It had actually gotten itself stuck, glowing blue with my thick reiatsu, into the ceiling.

Mentally adding that to my list of Things Which Shouldn't Be Physically Possible But Somehow Are - it was getting rather long by now - I looked down and flinched in preparation as the Hollow spat something out at me.

But instead of being acidic or something lovely like that, it was sticky - like putty. It wrapped itself around my hands and stuck there, gluing my hands up above me to my zanpakutoh... which was still stuck into the ceiling. Thereby trapping me in one of the most embarrassing battle positions possible.

I glared down at the roaring Hollow. Aww, how cute, I thought sarcastically. It just discovered its first special ability.

"FUCK! FINE THEN, COME ON!" I roared at it, shoving my reiatsu forward. "COME AND GET IT!" It charged, as I'd hoped it would. If I maneuvered just right, I could get my legs up, shove it backward through the wall by kicking it with a fuckload of reiatsu, distract it long enough to unfree myself, and never ever tell anyone about this particular Hollow adventure. (Somewhere in the back of my mind, I really hoped there was one mission like that for every new Shinigami cadet out there.)

But just as I was bracing myself for making contact with its mouthful of bared teeth - Don Kanonji leaped in between us, and for once he didn't try to act like an ass while he was doing it. Actually being smart, he caught his cane in between its jaws, stuck its mouth open there, and firmed himself against it, keeping it at bay.

I was staring at him in such utter amazement at this sudden bout of usefulness, I'm glad there wasn't anyone around to take pictures. My expression was probably embarrassing.

"Are you hurt, boy?" Don Kanonji asked finally, gritting his teeth as he braced himself against the Hollow, which was trying desperately to snap its jaws around his reiatsu-filled cane.

"D-Don Kanonji, you - You need to run away! I told you, you can't win against a Hollow -" I started, still staring, but worrying reflexively at the same time.

"I know that now," Don Kanonji said calmly, and I shut my mouth with a snap. Still staring at him, but this time somewhat suspiciously. If he was trying to do some heroic self-sacrifice thing... I mean, I knew from personal experience that those didn't usually work against Hollows.

But instead, Kanonji continued determinedly, "I am a man of action. I can understand the difference between myself and the strength of this creature. But, I must admit - you've made an impression on me, boy!" I blinked at his back in surprise. "Fighting in a way that unconsciously, automatically puts others before your own safety - that is a way of fighting befitting of a true hero." Then he turned back to me. "From now on, we're battle buddies," he said matter-of-factly, as though it had already been decided.

"I refuse to be called anything resembling 'battle buddy'," I immediately told him, just as matter-of-factly.

As usual, he ignored me. "Now then, Battle Buddy," he said majestically, straightening, pulling his cane away from the Hollow and pushing it away with a great effort, and taking a stance before it, "allow me to die protecting you!"

My eyes widened at this proclamation. He charged forward, yelling heroically, and the Hollow rushed forward to meet him. "Wait, no, Kanonji, what are you doing?" I yelled, struggling and pushing reiatsu in the direction of the material trapping my hands.

"CANNON BALL!" Kanonji cried, and in his hand formed - a tiny ball of reiatsu? Roughly larger than a fake eyeball, and glowing only faintly. It felt pathetic.

Kanonji stopped and eyed the ball of reiatsu. Then he looked slowly toward the Hollow, which had stopped too, staring at him like he was crazy. Kind of like I was doing.

Finally, I cleared my throat somewhat awkwardly, still staring. "Uh. You - don't actually expect that to wound a Hollow - do you, Kanonji?" I asked in a carefully small, polite voice.

To my relief, he realized he didn't. Looking nervous, he glanced over at me... then he shot the ball of reiatsu at the ceiling above me, dived out of my way, and the fight's speed returned to normal as the carefully controlled burst shoved my zanpakutoh out of the hole it had been stuck in. "Yes!" I said in relief, getting my zanpakutoh out before me at last, which was at least a start.

The Hollow saw its new opponent, roared, and charged straight for it, ultimate proof to me that the new, weak ones were never all that smart. But I wasn't exactly in the best shape for this either. I tried to swing correctly to take its head off, but I couldn't adjust my grip or the sword very well with my hands stuck together in the position I usually unsheathed with, and I ended up piercing the Hollow in the shoulder instead.

Kanonji was huddled off to the side in a corner, cheering feebly, something along the lines of, "I believe in you! I believe in you!" I was still trying to yank my zanpakutoh out of the thing's shoulder through sheer force of strength.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, I realized this was the most bizarre Hollow battle I'd ever had.

Then the Hollow decided to display another spontaneous bout of intelligence by suddenly flying upward while I was still stuck to my sword, which was still stuck inside the Hollow. "Shit, wait!" I yelled stupidly, yanking with all my might, but we burst straight through the far hospital wall in a crumble of noise and rubble - the Hollow apparently hadn't figured out how to go through things yet - with me still hanging off of it precariously by my sword. My arms and palms were straining fit to burst from where they were trapped...

Roaring, the Hollow flew haphazardly up the wall to the hospital building roof, me yelling and swearing my head off the entire way. It landed on the roof with a thud, finally managed to shake me and my zanpakutoh off, and I skidded across the pavement to come to a halt before it cautiously, flushed and breathing hard.

It suddenly sprinted at me, and I leaped above it, glad to be able to move again. It whirled around to me and I landed smoothly before it again, smirking slightly. "Don't underestimate me," I muttered lowly to it, as we tensed, staring at each other. "Trust me, you're not so tough. Now, as long as he doesn't come, this should be a piece of ca -"

"Sorry to keep everyone waiting! I'm back!" Kanonji had burst grandly through the door onto the roof.

I scowled. Shit.

Then the Hollow turned to him, growling - and I suddenly realized with a thrill of alarm that Kanonji's door was closer to it than to me. "Kanonji," I said tensely, "you actually have to listen to me this time when I tell you to run!"

"I can't."

"You arrogant - !"

"No. I literally can't." I stared over at him to see that he was leaning heavily on his cane, grinning tremulously and shaking slightly. "That cannon ball took up too much of my energy. I'm using all my strength just to keep standing."

Before I could ask him incredulously why he came in the first place, then... the Hollow charged. "Damnit!" I muttered, snarling, and I shot after it, bending my arms at an uncomfortable angle to get my sword in front of its charging head. I shoved it away from Kanonji with another wild spurt of reiatsu; it landed on the far side of the roof with a screech, its mask crumbling; I sped up to it quickly, my zanpakutoh already raised.

"It's over," I told it calmly, at last, and I sliced right down through its head. It began to disappear slowly, but I clenched my wall of reiatsu around it, adjusting the wall's strength... I wanted to slow down the 'disappearing' process enough to show Don Kanonji something.

Kanonji was cheering. "You did it! He did it! You did it! Wonderful, my boy, absolutely stupendous job! The monster's been defeated!" cried the man who had made the monster in the first place.

"Kanonji," I said, turning to look at him intensely, "this is nothing to celebrate." He paused, his smile fading. "This is sad," I said, turning back to stare down at the Hollow, concentrating...

There it was. I had slowed down the disappearing process enough that he could See the Hollow facade disappearing - could see, briefly, the dying remnants of the man the Hollow had once been underneath it. The sight disturbed me, just before it too disappeared, but I knew this was the only thing I could have done, and I had done it. So I forced myself to keep watching like Kanonji, who had suddenly gone deathly quiet behind me.

The pale, bleeding, fading spirit of a man wisped away in the wind too, and then we were alone on the rooftop.

The material from him shimmered out of existence; my hands freed, I slowly sheathed my sword.

"No way," Don Kanonji breathed. I turned to look at him; his face was white, stunned, as if he had just received a blow. "No way, I sent that man on! I sent him on! Boy, what is the meaning of this?" He turned to me, suddenly looking angry and scared, which I realized was a new one on him.

"A Hollow is more than a monster," I said quietly. "Normal spirits have those chains attached to their chests. But when their chain is gotten rid of, when their hole is torn open - or, usually, when that happens to them eventually from lack of care on their own - they lose their minds, and become the Hollow monster you just saw. Reform into something new, something heartless and desperate."

Kanonji's eyes widened, and I saw him realize, all at once, what he had been doing. Despite the fact that I didn't really like him, it was surprisingly hard to watch. "N-no," he said shakenly, falling to his knees. "No, I thought, all this time, I thought - I thought I was saving them. I thought that was all I had to do to help them pass on, tear their holes wide open with reiatsu, relieve them of their chains..." He stared off into the distance, his shoulders slumping.

I watched him for a moment, and realized, ... Damn. I'm getting too soft. Sighing, I kneeled down next to him, because the guy looked crushed.

"... Look. For whatever reason, you've just grown strong enough to be able to see Hollows. It's different for you now, right? But that's not necessarily a bad thing. You didn't know what you were doing before. I don't have the right to tell you what to do now..." I thought it over carefully, and finally summed up with, "But all I'm saying is, regret isn't going to do much. You can't undo the past."

"But... but I was so reckless... I should have known not to..." Whoa. Was he tearing up?

Standing, I cast my eyes around uncomfortably, trying to figure out something to say. And then I noticed. Down below, away from the hospital building - the crowd down there was cheering. They could see Don Kanonji's 'final, triumphant emergence.'

Smiling slightly despite myself, shaking my head in good-natured exasperation, I walked past Kanonji to the edge of the roof. "Hey, hero," I said dryly. "This is no time for tears." He glanced up at me in confusion; my smile widened slightly, and I nodded over the edge of the roof. "Everyone's cheering for you."

Shakily, he forced himself upward and walked over - His eyes widened, his breath catching for a moment in a way I was sure it hadn't done for a while, at the hoards of admiring fans below him. At the sight of him, the announcer's voice boomed once more, and a particularly loud cheer went up from the entire audience. From a bird's eye view, the sheer amount of people down there actually was pretty impressive. No matter what they were cheering for.

"Well, what are you doing?" I asked the gaping Kanonji expectantly. He blinked over at me, shell-shocked. I waved my hand to the assembled people, my lips quirking. "Answer them. That's one of the jobs of a hero, is it not?"

I couldn't believe what I was actually encouraging him to do. I really was getting too soft.

But Don Kanonji's face lit up. He crossed his arms over his chest, and... yup, there it was. "BWAHAHAHAHA!"

"BWAHAHAHAHA!" responded the audience eagerly.

Oh, and in case you're wondering: no matter what the circumstances, is it ever possible to take that call seriously?

And the answer is no. No, it isn't.

Don Kanonji looked down at them all emotionally for a moment... and then we backed away slowly from the edge of the roof.

"Boy..." he said, turning to me. "Thank you. You fought a superb battle, and your courage, quick wits, compassion, and strength have been... inspiring, to put it mildly." He held out his hand, beaming, raising himself to his normal height once more. "I hope to reform my ways thanks to the information you have given me! From this time forth, I would be honored if you would lend me your strength."

I stared down at his hand in surprise for a moment. His sentiments were just as over the top and grandiose as usual... but they were also obviously completely genuine, and all of a sudden, in the face of such compliments being directed at me, I wasn't sure quite what to do for a moment. Finally (uncertain as to why my face felt a bit warm) I reached out, and shook his hand.

"Well... sure," I agreed. "Maybe every once in a while."

And we shook on it.

"Thank you," said Don Kanonji one more time as we dropped hands. "By the way," he added eagerly, "you want to be my sidekick?"

"No!" I shot back immediately, glaring at him in slight offense.

"Well, alright, alright... Just checking."

We left the rooftop, still bickering and back to normal, before we parted ways - he back to his fans, and me with relief back to my body next to Rukia in the crowds.


Author's Note: Just to let you guys know, I have decided to write a sequel to this story covering the Soul Society arc. I may not post it for a while after finishing this one, but it is in the works.

Also, opinion poll: should the cover image for this story be from the cover of chapter 55 or the cover of chapter 217? They're both Ichigo shots, but... I can't pick. I'm leaning toward 217. What do you think? :D