Chapter 10:

"Nusquam somes

tantum crimen nex

meus carmen increbresco

EGO sum questio vobis , meus diligo."

The earplugs appeared to be working. Her song was off-key and gargled. With her song distorted, Ichigo was unaffected by her spell. This could work.

Rukia appeared at his side and pointed to the crowd. "Hitsugaya and the others just arrived here as well. They'll be handling things in the audience. The Soul Society won't allow us to kill her. It's against the law to harm a living human. However, we are allowed to stop her from singing. We have to get her away from the mic. It won't solve the problem, but if we cover her mouth, she won't be able to sing anymore. That's the plan for now."

"Too bad you couldn't come up with anything better." Ichigo looked around. There was no news crew or anyone with a video camera. However, a couple paparazzi managed to sneak their way in and were taking pictures of the performance. Luckily, they couldn't see them. "Rukia, the cameras."

"Yeah, I know. We won't show up on film, but if we attack her, they will see her jumping around and getting attacked by nothing. But I could always tamper with their memories."

"Ok, let's do this then!"

Together Ichigo and Rukia stormed the stage.

"Cope per is totus,

Alveus in nox noctis,

Audite meus carmen,

Quod diligo mihi…"

Her singing never stopped. Ichigo started to wonder if she even knew they were there.

"Ichigo!"

He heard Rukia scream his name and turned in time to see Cedric plowing into her from the side. Next, Ichigo found himself face to face with Victor standing toe to toe with him.

"Now, that's not very nice, Ichigo. You shouldn't try to interrupt the performance. How rude."

Ichigo pulled out his blade and slashed at him. To his great surprise, Victor caught it in his bare hand and held it perfectly still inches from his shoulder. Despite his fingers being wrapped around the blade's sharp edge, he wasn't cut. He didn't look like he was in any pain at all.

"Ichigo… Don't do this. Remember, we own you. Now why don't you be a good little pet and heel?"

"I'm not your damn bitch! Nor will I ever be!" Ichigo tried to punch Victor in the face with his left hand but the man threw him up into the air like a toy and followed up after him. Once in the air, Ichigo stared at the sight of Victor standing in midair next to him. "You're… not human."

"Hm?" Victor looked down at his body. "Am I? Aw, don't you have any imagination at all?"

"How can you do that? A human can't do that! How are you-?"

Victor put a finger to his lips and shushed him. "Shh… You're disturbing the performance. Listen…"

"EGO sum vox vocis,

Of diligo ut cannot ago,Etiamnunc is nunquam dies!"

People in the crowd started to behave strangely. Some hunched over moaning while others doubled over in the grass holding their sides. Others were beginning to sway about as if they were drunk and many more just stood still holding their heads and groaning in pain.

"Ah…" Victor watched the crowd with an amused look on his face. "This is it."

A woman tried to console her boyfriend as he feel to his knees in agony. As soon as she placed a hand on his back, his shirt split open as his body expanded. She leapt away in horror. Another boy with a group of friends writhed around in the grass, holding his stomach. When one of them got too close, a long arm reached out and slashed him across the face. The long arm was coming from his fallen friend's sleeve. He sat up, one eye a bright yellow and the other a faded brown color. A scream was heard somewhere else as a child's head suddenly sprouted horns and fangs.

"Th- they're…" Ichigo gasped.

"Yes. The mixture seems to be working." Victor looked like a kid on Christmas morn. "How exciting."

The humans were turning into Hollows.

A group of girls holding the empty wrappers of tainted candy started to howl and their arms grew to the length of their bodies and their backs arched. Their shirts split as spikes extended from their spines. Their jaws elongated and grew large fangs. They turned their attention to the unaffected humans and growled. Every person in this audience was a tasty snack to them now.

A woman screamed as her date lashed out at her, his transformation nearly complete. He had the lower half of a human in torn jeans but the rest of his body was Hollowfied. He was trying to rip the woman apart with his long claws. Another cry rang out as a little girl turned on her father and tried to bite his neck.

A flash of black zoomed by as Ikkaku forced the girl off her father's chest. Another flash as the other Soul Reapers came to fend off the humans turned Hollow.

At the same time surrounding concertgoers had panicked as they realized what was going on. Frantic shrieks had echoed out from different areas of the audience. At least 30 Hollows had appeared within the crowd of several hundred people. The audience members rushed in confusion toward the entrance gate, desperate to escape. People were already being crushed in the stampede of people. A Hollow greeted them at the gate, snarling ferociously. There was no escape.

"Dear me…" Victor sighed, looking down at the crowd. "It would seem that these human-Hollows can be seen by the public."

"You… bastard..!"

"Hm?" Victor turned nonchalantly toward Ichigo. "What was that?"

Ichigo raised his head and let him have it. "You bastard! How could you do this to those innocent people! This is unforgivable! They're killing each other! Don't you see what you've done? You've turned humans into Hollows! And for what? Just to entertain the masses? Or was it all for your little diva?"

Victor turned his body to face Ichigo completely with a serious look on his face. "Actually, she doesn't know about this."

Ichigo found it difficult to answer. "Wh… what?"

"That's right. My actions are my own. She has no idea that I'm using my own concoction to turn these people into Hollows. I wasn't ordered to do this. This was something that I wanted on my own. Believe me, it wasn't easy. But I do like the results."

Ichigo pointed to the crowd as even more people started to transform into monsters. "You enjoy this? Damn it, those are families down there! You've got them attacking each other! How dare you?"

Victor's expression did not change, even when Ichigo spat his words out at him with his sword in hand. "It doesn't bother me."

"Well, it does me!" Ichigo lunged at him and once again, Victor's hand caught his blade.

"You still don't get it, do you?" He twisted it back effortlessly. "I'm more powerful than you are. I'm not a Soul Reaper. I'm not a Hollow. My strength even surpasses that of normal humans. No matter which way you look at it, I'm better than you. Just give it up. Stop this useless fighting. I will win."

Ichigo released his grip off his sword's handle in favor of punching Victor instead while keeping his left hand on the weapon. Victor took Ichigo's punch to the jaw and he could hear the man's neck crack from the force. Then a second cracking noise as he twisted his head back into alignment. He smirked, unhurt and punched Ichigo back.

Ichigo's body soared in a straight line through the air, forcing Ichigo to dig his heels in the air to slow himself. He stood panting and found Victor in his face yet again delivering a second punch, this one sending him straight to the ground. A burst of smoke and earth rose up as if the ground had been hit with an artillery shell. Ichigo climbed out of the hole and coughed. He scanned for any sign of Victor, but the man was no longer in sight.

In the center of the crowd, Hitsugaya was fighting with all he could to keep the Hollows at bay while trying not to injure them. He kept telling himself over and over again that these were still living human beings and therefore couldn't be killed. He had to hold back as much as he could until Kisuke finished the cure. It shouldn't be long now.

But now more Hollows had shown up in the crowd of scrambling people. The massive Hollows at the entrance gate were the only things keeping everyone in. Hitsugaya had worked out a plan. After everyone was cured, he and the others would erase everyone's memory. But since the replacement memories would be random, there was no telling what the media was going to believe. They may just rule this incident as a rave gone bad with too much drinking and drugs. That suited Hitsugaya just fine. He didn't have to explain himself to the news media. But there was still the matter of the cameras that were still recording the action. But he couldn't do anything about that now. He was far too busy keeping control over the Hollows. Everyone had their hands full.

Suddenly, the captain sensed something appear behind him like the wind. "Tsk, tsk… You can't enjoy the concert like that, my dear boy. Let me help you with that."

As he turned to meet the person standing behind him, he felt his earplugs leave his head. He gasped and quickly covered his ears, but the damage was already done. Victor juggled the earplugs in his hand as he watched Hitsugaya's transformation. His back arched and his body grew. The harder he fought to remain in control, the harder it was to maintain it.

Victor flashed away and appeared behind Yumichika while he was distracted by a wandering Hollow. He snatched away the earplugs and relished in the sound of Yumichika's growls. He could hear her song.

"Permissum mihi take vos!

Permissum mihi usus vos!

Operor ut es mei!"

The two Soul Reapers changed and joined the other Hollows in their rampage.

Ichigo spotted them as Linnette's song ended. He was on his feet in a second, charging after Victor.

As he did, a new song started. This one was softer, but it still caused people to transform.

The moment he caught up to the man responsible for all of this, he slammed his whole body into him, full-force. Victor was cast straight into a trailer, breaking through the exterior wall with a thunderous boom, rolling the trailer onto its side. Victor tossed away a huge solid-wood wardrobe with one hand and lifted himself up. He looked like a disheveled tornado survivor. He stood on top of overturned furniture, brushing himself off. He didn't have a scratch on him.

"Finished, yet?" he asked loudly so Ichigo could hear him over the crowd's screams and roar of Hollows.

What does it take to bring him down? What was he?

X

Rukia was thrown to the ground by Cedric. He wasn't trying to kill her, but keep her as far away from the stage as possible where Linnette continued. As Rukia lay under a park bench, her phone rang. She tucked herself into a ball and answered between her knees, "Hello? Urahara?"

"Yeah, it's me," his voice came slightly static. "I'm putting on the finishing touches now. We should be there in a few minutes. Can you hold on 'til then?"

"Uh, yeah." Rukia flinched as she saw a Hollow come running past her hiding spot, chasing after a woman. "Just hurry up! I don't know how much longer we can last out here like this!"

"Oh, yeah. That's the other thing."

"What is?" She moved closer to the phone to hear him over the screams and rumbling going on around them.

"I found out something about those two men she travels with. You know, Cedric and Victor."

"Yeah, and?"

"They don't exist." There was a pause before Kisuke continued. "They have no profiles and no backgrounds. Whatever company Victor gets his money from isn't real. He's rich, but his money comes from nowhere. Same thing goes for Cedric. No one claims to have employed him. No one's even heard of him."

"Wait, what are you saying?"

"There's something else you should know about Linnette. I came across this in my research…"

X

Ichigo stood panting, sword pointed at Victor. No matter what he tried, this man would not go down. Not only that, but he didn't have a scratch on him. He truly was superhuman. He stood in the air across from Ichigo with folded arms and a bored look on his face.

"Are you through?"

Ichigo shook his head. "Not by a long shot!"

"Fine." He picked up the wardrobe from before and threw it at him. Ichigo dodged the wardrobe which easily weighted 600 pounds and soared back at Victor in another attempt to cut him. Victor blocked with his bar hand and held Ichigo's sword in place. "Please don't do this," he whispered in his ear. "She doesn't want her new toy broken. But there's only so much I can hold back before I truly hurt you."

"What?" He wasn't trying to hurt him? Was he playing with him?

"Dear Ichigo… What she wants she gets. Haven't you figured that out by now?"

"Ichigo!" Rukia was standing under them looking up. "Ichigo!"

"Rukia! What the hell-?"

"Ichigo, Hitsugaya and Yumichika lost their earplugs! They went Hollow!"

"Damn it!" Ichigo fought to tear his weapon back from Victor's grip.

"Ichigo, that's not all." She took a quick look around as more Hollows started to appear, attacking one another. "Kisuke's on his way right now!"

"That's a relief. I can't take much more of this. If they were real Hollows this wouldn't be such a pain in the ass. Those we could kill. But that still doesn't solve the problem with these guys. They're human after all."

Rukia cupped her hands around her mouth as Hollows started to roar for Ichigo to hear her. "It's not what you think, Ichigo! Victor and Cedric aren't human! They're not real!"

Ichigo looked back down at her. "What? What the hell's that mean?"

"They're not real! Victor and Cedric don't exist! They're just figments of Linnette's imagination!"

Victor stared at Rukia as if she had just slapped him in the face. But his shock quickly turned to mild surprise and then to amusement. He chuckled and sprang apart from Ichigo. "So how did you know?"

Rukia glared daggers at him. "While Urahara was working on a cure, he came across something strange. He wanting to find out more about her and how her powers came to be, he did a background check on you guys. When he did, he discovered that there's no record of you or Cedric anywhere. You just popped up out of nowhere. And your agent job… No one's ever heard of you and you're not registered. No company claims to have hired you or anything. You have no education or birth certificate papers or anything. No family or even a last name. Not an existing one, at least. That, and Urahara also looked up photos of you from the time when Linnette was adopted by you and now. You haven't aged a day. You're not real. She created you."

Victor smirked. "You're right. I'm not real by your rights. I don't bleed, I don't need to sleep nor do I have to eat. I exist. That's all I do. I don't even age. Cedric's the same. We were both made by her."

Ichigo managed to form the only words he could. "H- how did..? How are you..?"

Smiling, Victor explained. "There's something you must understand about Linnette." He looked back at the stage where she was singing. "My dear, sweet Linnette…"

He looked like a father watching his only child perform in front of the whole world, loved by all and loving what she did. He looked so proud and happy. He looked like he loved her greatly.

"For years I've tried to understand the way her powers work, but I just can't. I just decided that it's simply creativity. You know how an artist creates a painting out of nothing? A blank canvas quickly turns into a work of art. What wasn't there before is suddenly there for all to see. An artist breathes life into their work. And it all starts with an idea. An idea and a feeling. Artists create with their spirit. A passion. A longing."

Victor traced the outline of Linnette on stage with his finger. It was as if he was framing her like a work of art herself. He gave a bittersweet smile through a sigh.

"She's been discarded all her life. Her true family didn't want her, and no other family wanted her. She lived in an orphanage, watching all the others leave with their new families. She stayed behind to get bullied by the others and overlooked by the adults. She wandered off one day and lived on the streets where she was also overlooked by everyone. Then she went to another orphanage only to have the whole thing start all over again. No one wanted her. She was unhappy and had no talent for anything, really. And then she started to sing. She put a little of her soul into her voice and sang. That alone became her only talent."

Her song filled the air, as if proving Victor's point. But thanks to his earplugs, all Ichigo could hear was a gargled melody.

"But all she really wanted was a family. She wanted to be loved and know what it was like to be wanted and cared for by others. She sang her lament to the heavens, asking for her wish to be fulfilled. She wanted to be discovered. She wished it. And so I came into being. Out of nowhere, I appeared with Cedric, I the loving father and he the strong protector. She wished for us and so we came. We were created from her longing. She wanted it hard enough and her power granted her just that. She imagined me with everything I needed. A name, a false background and loads of money and even a large house to live in. Just as she dreamed, I came and heard her song. And just as she wished, I found out where she lived and adopted her on the spot. That's how it works. She wants it, she gets it."

"So…" Ichigo tired to wrap his head around all this. "She can create real imaginary friends? Ones that can be seen by others and ones believable enough to not arouse suspicion?"

"In a nutshell, yes. Like I said, I've tried for years to figure that out myself. But I accept it as it is."

"But her song… and the Hollows..? Then what the hell is she?"

Rukia answered that one. "She's human, Ichigo. But her powers came to be in a similar way they did with Chad and Orihime. Only with her, she had Spirit Energy to begin with. Her powers just developed over time and have become stronger."

Victor traced the area over where his heart was with a loving smile. "It's as if I'm programmed. I have the information I need to be real and serve as her caretaker without ever being taught. I suppose she did that as well. But still… I wonder if I'm programmed to love her as well. Hm, all the same, it doesn't matter. I feel the way I feel." He looked back at her for a second time. "And when I hear her song, I feel as if she's breathing life into me all over again. I feel this power swelling up inside of me and this feeling overtakes me. I feel so alive. This burning passion, this feeling of longing… I wonder if these Hollows feel the same way I do."

Rukia and Ichigo both noticed that the Hollows had stopped attacking and stood watching Linnette on stage, listening.

Victor clasped his hands over his chest with a smile. "Oh, how I love this song. I love her voice. I wonder if I feel this way because it's the song that gave me life or because it reminds me that I am… Linnette is my daughter now because I took her in and promised to care for her. But she gave me life so in a way, she's also my mother. And just like the Hollows, I love her to pieces. I don't know how I'm supposed to feel, but no matter how you look at it, I love her with every ounce of my being. And because I love her, I feel compelled to give her whatever she wants. She'll want for nothing."

"Even having these people turn into Hollows and attack their loved ones?" Ichigo's rage had resurfaced.

"You still on about that? I told you, it was my idea." But then he smiled again. "It's you that she wanted. I merely gave her a new pet to have on our travels."

"But she's the one who threatened me."

Victor rolled his eyes a little. "Ichigo… Whatever she wants she gets. Who am I to tell her 'no'?"

"A good father? Hell knows I've never gotten all the things that I want, but I dealt with it and I never hated them for it!"

"True, but she lived with disappointment all her life. I don't want to have her go through it again. Besides, I was created to please her, not teach her right from wrong. She doesn't know. No one's ever taught her that. And she's never come to me and asked me to. So why would I?"

"So that she knows that this is wrong!"

He chuckled. "Ignorance is bliss, Ichigo."

"She can't keep doing this!" Rukia added from the ground.

Victor chuckled again. "She can if she wants. If it makes her happy, I will let her. She wants to be loved. These Hollows do. She wants to be a star. Her Broadway debut is tomorrow. And what does she care if people get hurt? No one seemed to care when she was. Bullies picked on her all the time and no one asked them to stop. Parents passed her by all the time in favor of another. No one took her in, even when she was on the streets. No one noticed her. When she was hungry, no one gave her food. When she was cold or wet, no one gave her shelter. No one did anything for her, so why the hell would she care about any of them now? Even if she knew that this was wrong, I doubt she would stop. This is her time to shine. If they get hurt, good. Think of it as payback for all the times they hurt her or didn't bother to help her out. Ever think about that?"

Ichigo felt numb. He hadn't thought of that before. Not only was she never taught right from wrong, but she also had no reason to care about others. If she was never shown kindness, how was she supposed to know how to do it herself? Victor and Cedric spent more time pampering her than they did raising her as parents should. Because she was deprived of all sorts of things for most of her life, these two men gave her everything she wanted so she wouldn't have to feel that way again. These two loved her. She never knew love from anyone else. Her real parents abandoned her and no one else seemed to want her. So she had to create a family for herself. That way she would never be discarded again.

Maybe she wasn't so much of a spoiled brat as much as she was an innocent, ignorant child.

In Ichigo's moment of introspection, Victor flashed behind him and removed his earplugs.

"She wants you, Ichigo."

The moment his earplugs were gone, Ichigo heard her voice sing loud and clear as beautiful and flowing as a river.

"EGO sum vox vocis ut dico vestri nomen.

Diligo mihi quod EGO sum vestri.

Dulcis, dulcis sanus.

Meus darling, carus…"

This was a different song. This one was slower, almost like a lullaby. It was making the Hollows feel calm, as well as Ichigo. He knew his Hollow would come any second, but didn't have to strength to stop it.

Ichigo started purring as he listened to her song. "Oh… that feels good…" His body felt strangely warm and his head wonderfully light. This transformation was very pleasant. It felt like he was going to sleep. He could hear his Hollow's voice reach the surface as he blacked out. He was too tired to care.

Ichigo opened his eyes again with a hiss. They were bright yellow and black.

Oh, what now?