WARNING: This chapter has a minor cliffhanger at the end. It's nothing terribly dramatic, but the event taking place is not resolved by the end of the chapter. It will be finished with the next chapter, so if you want to read it all at once, please wait until the next update. Thanks!


October, 2001.


BEEP BEEP BEEP.

Ichigo's eyelids scrunched down hard before he blearily opened them.

BEEP BEE-

He opened his mouth to shout at Rukia, who was currently living in his closet, when the beeping suddenly stopped. With the problem solved, no intervention necessary, Ichigo closed his eyes again and fell back asleep.

It happened again the next morning as Ichigo pulled on his pants. He didn't worry about Rukia poking her head out from the closet as he dressed every morning - she stayed up late to patrol, since most hollow attacks occurred at night, so she was rarely awake when he left for school in the morning.

BEEP BEEP BEEP.

"Shit!" he heard Rukia yelp from behind the closet door. There was further low cursing as she moved around. Ichigo quickly finished securing his belt and just finished pulling on an undershirt when the closet door opened and Rukia tumbled out.

"Can't you just-" Ichigo started as Rukia sat up and scowled at her phone, and he'd intended to finish with, 'walk through the door,' when her phone stopped beeping. Rukia looked surprised. "Didn't that happen last night?" Ichigo asked, dimly remembering the moment he'd woken up. "Maybe a hollow... popped in, then left again?"

"It takes a lot of energy to get to the living world from Hueco Mundo," Rukia said as she thumped the side of the phone several times. "Hollows almost never go back unless they've eaten, or they're hurt. And it takes a full minute at the very least to devour a soul, so it's not like it just ate someone and ran."

"What's Hueco Mundo?"

"What? Oh, that's where the hollows mostly live. Plus souls in Seireitei, minus souls in hell, hollows in hueco mundo."

"Huh." Rukia had mentioned plus and minus souls the day he met her - along with some really crappy drawings to illustrate the description - but he hadn't known they all actually lived in different places. "Maybe your phone's broken?" he offered.

"Pager," Rukia corrected. "I'll take it back to Urahara-san's, I guess."

"It's not a pager," Ichigo told her with a frown, "it's a phone."

"Bullshit. Telephones have cords."

Ichigo grabbed his own cell phone from the desk. "I don't know the last time you were in the living world," he drawled, "but this is a cell phone. They make calls without cords. All the number buttons on your phone are so you can make telephone calls."

"Bullshit!" Rukia repeated excitedly. "That's amazing! How do I make calls?"

Ichigo took the phone from her and exited out of the hollow alert program. The map disappeared, but a small bar at the bottom of the phone remained, with the words, 'No Hollows Currently Detected,' in tiny, bold print. Ichigo easily located the phone book, which only had 'Urahara Shop' as the single contact. He quickly added in his own name and number, then called his own phone to get Rukia's number. Rukia snatched her phone back and held it to her ear. "Hello?"

Ichigo answered his phone with a smile. "Hey."

"I heard your voice from this thing. It is a telephone!"

Rukia's childlike enthusiasm made Ichigo grin broadly. "I'll show you how to text when I get back, that'll really blow your mind."

"Ichi-nii!" Yuzu called from downstairs. "You're going to be late if you don't hurry!"

Ichigo glanced at the clock and swore. He finished getting dressed, grabbed his bag and phone, and practically flew downstairs, not even stopping to punch his father when the man tried to give him an enthusiastic and unwanted hug. That's not to say that Ichigo just took the attack, of course, only that he didn't slow down while slamming a fist into his father's gut. Ichigo yelled goodbye to his sisters and set off at a run towards school.

Ichigo was hurrying into the school building with five minutes left to get to class when his phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket and saw Rukia's name on the display just before he ran into someone. Years of martial arts training helped him keep his balance without falling over, but his phone fell out of his hand. The guy he bumped into was able to stay on his feet as well. "Sorry man," Ichigo said. He was about to bend over and grab his phone when the other guy did it first.

He held out his hand to get the phone back, but the weedy-looking boy flipped open the phone and answered it instead. "Please refrain from calling students during school hours," he said, and closed the phone again. The boy placed the phone in Ichigo's still-outstretched hand and walked off.

There was only one option. Well, technically there were several, including starting a fight over the skinny guy's incredible rudeness, but Ichigo did try to avoid fighting on school grounds and class was starting in four minutes. He gave up on the idea of yelling at the little snot and went to his classroom instead.

Lunchtime came, and he, Chad, Keigo, and Mizuiru all settled on the roof to eat. Mizuiru was talking about his latest conquest - a college student, on the younger side of Mizuiru's preferred age range - while Keigo whined about his own lack of a girlfriend and Chad silently worked his way through his lunch. Through the metal fence, Ichigo could see the front of the school grounds, where a lot of the female students ate their own lunch. One of the groups had Tatsuki, Inoue, and two other girls from his class who were holding back Honshou from lunging at Inoue with grasping hands. As Ichigo watched, Honshou broke free of the other girls and almost made it to Inoue, but was stopped by Tatsuki slamming an elbow into the top of her head.

Ichigo's almost perpetual scowl smoothed out a bit. Chad noticed and followed his gaze, then said quietly, "You should spend some more time with Tatsuki-san."

"Yeah. You too, I'm sorry I haven't been available lately."

Chad's shoulders shrugged minutely, his own, quiet way of saying it was okay. Ichigo felt sort of bad for blowing his friends off, but he never felt like doing anything except sleeping after one of Rukia's 'training sessions'. He'd just have to ask her if they could take a break once in a while so Ichigo could have a social life.

"Oh yeah," Ichigo murmured, pulling out his phone. He'd turned it to silent before class started, and the screen helpfully informed him that he had 34 new messages.

'uraharasan says my phone is working perfectly he taught me how to text'

'im sorry if i got you into trouble at school ichigo D:'

'Oh, this is how you capitalize and punctuate! :D Truly, this phone is a magnificent invention! XD'

'Urahara-san thanked me for the compliment and informed me that he receives a copy of every text and phone call I make, because this is his prototype. o_O Henceforth, Urahara-san shall be known as Creeper-san. -_-;'

And so on. Ichigo smirked as he scrolled through the messages. "Why am I not surprised she figured out how to make smilies before she realized she could use the punctuation?"

"What's this? Has Ichigo betrayed me by getting a girlfriend too!" Ichigo raised his phone above his head, higher than Keigo could reach, before his friend could swipe it. Keigo pouted in response, then wailed, "ICHIGO!"

"Shut the hell up!" Ichigo growled.

"Someone's looking at you," Chad murmured.

Ichigo looked down to the ground and saw the skinny guy with glasses from earlier in the day staring up at them. He got the feeling that the other guy was glaring, though he was too far off to actually see properly. Ichigo waved his phone in the air in response, dodged Keigo's attempt to tackle him, and pocketed his phone. He grabbed Keigo's collar with his free hand before his friend's face could hit the fence as he fell. "Hey, who's that?"

"Hm?" Ichigo turned the collar in the direction of the glasses guy, and Keigo obediently turned his head and looked. "Oh, that's Ishida Uryuu. He's kind of popular with the girls for being good at sewing and stuff, but he's pretty cold, so no girls for him! Why?"

"No reason."

"Huh? Really? 'Cause you sound awfully- umf!" Ichigo dropped Keigo unceremoniously and let his face hit the ground. "That's just cruel, Ichigo! What will all the hotties do when they see my injured face?"

Mizuiro snorted as he texted someone on his phone. "The same thing they did before - avoid you like the plague."

"You guys are the worst!"

With Keigo distracted, Ichigo pulled his phone back out to text a reply to Rukia. Before he could even select her name from the address book, he heard something heavy crash nearby, on the school grounds, and the roof shook slightly.

"Whoa, an earthquake?" Keigo yelped.

"Didn't you guys hear that noise?" Ichigo demanded. His friends, who were all on their way to the door back into the school, paused and looked back at him, "What noise?" Mizuiro asked.

The heavy, thudding sound came again, and this time Ichigo saw something white from the corner of his eye. He turned and gripped the edge of the fence when he saw the hollow at the edge of the school grounds. Its left arm was skinny and looked underdeveloped next to its stout body, but in contrast, its right arm was overdeveloped - the right arm looked like a huge hammer, at least as big as the hollow's torso, and every swing it made hit the ground and caused a tremor to run through the surrounding area, including the school building.

Can I get the hollow with a spell from here? Ichigo wondered. And what the hell is it doing, anyway?

Just as he considered trying to use kidou against the thing and risk attracting its attention, the hollow let out a piercing howl that made Ichigo wince, even with the distance between him and the creature. That's when he saw the figure that the hollow was trying, unsuccessfully, to kill and eat.

Chad stood next to Ichigo. "You see something?" he asked.

"Yeah." Ichigo's hand clenched on the fence tightly enough to make his palm sting. He ignored the pain.

A bright flash of light shot out from the figure's hands and pierced the hollow's chest. It let out another cry and fell to the ground, writhing for a moment before it died. The figure's attacks never touched the hollow's mask.

"Will you need help?"

"I have someone else to hand the problem off to."

The figure looked over to the school roof, and even at that distance, Ichigo recognized the person and knew that he could see Ichigo staring.

Ishida Uryuu.

The students who had been outside for lunch had all moved to the edge of the school grounds and away from the building, as they'd been taught during the earthquake drills. Ishida joined the group smoothly.

"Ichigo!" Mizuiro called from the doorway. "Everything okay?"

"Edge of the roof isn't the safest place to be during an earthquake, man!" called Keigo.

"I'm fine," Ichigo called back with a short wave. Rukia fell from the sky and landed neatly on top of the fence. "Chad, you head back inside with the guys. There shouldn't be any more tremors." Chad nodded and walked over to the door. Keigo protested and yelped about how he wanted to find out what the hell was going on, but Chad moved steadily forward and herded Keigo back inside. The door shut behind him.

"Did you see it?" Rukia asked as she jumped down and landed in front of Ichigo. "I was messing with my pag- I mean, my phone, when the alert sounded, so I got a look at where the hollow was on the map before it disappeared."

"Yeah. A guy from my class killed it without ever touching its mask."

"What?"

"And the fight must've taken at least thirty seconds," Ichigo pressed. "Didn't you say you can cross town in ten?"

"That's not important!" Ichigo stepped back, wary of Rukia's angry face. She'd never yelled at him before. "Ichigo, are you absolutely sure that the hollow was defeated without the mask being broken or cut?"

"Ye- yeah. I saw the end of the fight. What's wrong?"

Rukia explained, her expression angry and horrified as she told him how Ishida was actually destroying someone's soul, denying it the chance to enter Soul Society and eventually be reborn in the living world. Ichigo's own face started to mirror hers - all he could think about was his mother, her soul eaten and forever gone. "He's just as fucking bad as a hollow!"

"I'll go talk to him after your classes let out," said Rukia. "There's a chance that he doesn't understand what he's doing."

"I'll go with you," Ichigo said, determined.

Rukia shook her head. "I can't rule out that he'd attack me, and you don't have any offensive powers. I'll teach you some destructive kidou soon."

"I can hang back," Ichigo insisted. "Or if he comes near me, I'll use that thing you were talking about, the reverse casting." Once Ichigo passed his next 'test' - really just Rukia attacking like crazy and him dodging and casting binding spells to stop her - she had promised to teach him how to use the name of the spell first to weakly bind an opponent, then recite the incantation afterwards to strengthen the spell before his enemy could break it.

"You don't even know how yet." Her tone was rude and demeaning, but there was a smile playing at the edge of her mouth.

"You're a good teacher, I'm sure I can manage it if I need to." Ichigo hated resorting to flattery, but Rukia had made it clear she was honestly proud of his progress and incredibly pleased with herself for teaching him. Reminding her always gave her a goofy grin.

Sure enough, a smile shone through on her face before she turned around to hide it from him. "F-fine! But I want you to promise you won't talk to him for the rest of the day, and you won't do anything when I talk to him unless he actually attacks you. Okay?"

"Sure, promise."

The door to the roof opened and Mizuiro stuck his head out. "Hey, the teachers said it's safe to evacuate. They're going to send us home and check over the building for damage."

"Great, thanks."

"I told Misato-sensei you were skipping class so she wouldn't come looking for you," Mizuiro continued. "You might want to avoid her on your way out."

"Ugh." Misato never went looking for students who ran off, but she always berated them in front of the class when they came back. "Right, thanks."

Ichigo looked to Rukia. "I'll wait for you outside," she promised before leaping into the air and off the side of the building. He sighed and started walking to the door back into the school. Mizuiro stood in his way, his face somber. "That a ghost you were looking at?"

Ichigo shrugged and waited. "Something like that."

"And you're actually friendly with it?"

The almost-perpetual wrinkles in Ichigo's forehead smoothed out slightly. "Yeah," he answered honestly.

Mizuiro smiled back. "Just don't forget about your living friends, okay?"

"I know, I'll have more time for you guys soon." Ichigo's frown returned. "But there's something important I have to take care of right now."

"Sure." Mizuiro moved out of the way, pulling a phone out of his pocket as he did so. "Good luck," he said, holding out his left hand as he looked down at the screen of his phone.

Ichigo slapped the hand as he passed by and hurried downstairs to meet Rukia.


Author's Notes: And that's the chapter! I'd planned on resolving the Ishida thing in one chapter, but it was taking too long for me to write and I felt bad about not having updated in a while. Sorry about the two-parter.

If you really like Ishida... next chapter may not be the one for you? The idea that he's actually destroying the souls is kind of horrifying, guys. Well, I'll get into that in the next chapter, which should be from Rukia's point of view.

Random side note: Rukia uses English emoticons and not Japanese ones because I'm more familiar with the former. Also, I'm not personally familiar with earthquake procedures, but the internet mostly seemed to say: stay basically where you are, don't go outside if you're inside or vice versa, and get under something sturdy if you're inside or away from trees if you're outside. Obviously, it wasn't an actual earthquake, but no one knew that other than Ichigo. If I wrote something that seems really wrong, please let me know.

As always, thank you very much to everyone who reads, reviews, favorites, or does any combination of the three. It makes me giddy to see positive responses!