Chapter Twelve
It was just another ghost, just another night after school and work.
The fallen forms of the skateboarders were moaning in various states of pain around Ichigo. Ichigo loomed above the leader of the gang, foot on his throat.
"Do you know why I'm here, missing dinner with my family?" he said quietly, raising his eyebrows. It was seven at night and he'd come straight from the bookstore; he'd been waiting for these assholes for a good hour, then watched them for a while to see what they'd do. He pressed down and the guy began choking. "It's because you fucked up."
Ichigo lifted his foot and the guy gulped deep breaths of relief. He still spoke deceptively softly.
"You've left swear words in big block-letter graffiti all over the alleyway, along with broken beer bottles and cigarette butts. You've been loud, making noise, for several nights. And your friend just tried to do a trick on his skateboard and smashed right into that offering over there."
Still speaking quietly, Ichigo pointed behind himself, at the vase of flowers lying smashed on its side, broken petals strewn everywhere.
"Do you know who that offering is for, dickweed?" said Ichigo with a false calm. "Tell me. Answer me this. Who are offerings usually for?"
"... Dead people," the bloodied, beaten guy muttered begrudgingly.
"Correct. And who was this offering for?"
"... A little girl was killed here in a mugging last week."
"Very good," said Ichigo, his eyes widening sarcastically. "Stop ruining her final resting place and I won't have to break your kneecaps. Do we understand each other?"
"Look, man, who are you to come in here and -?" the guy began in a loud complaint. This was most definitely the wrong answer. Ichigo socked a punch into his gut and threw him against the far wall with a thud.
"Talk to me again, motherfucker, and I will end you," he hissed. "People will be bringing you flowers. They'll bring them in great troves, littered all over the fucking alleyway, for the stupid piece of shit who went where he didn't belong and said the wrong thing to the wrong guy."
The man's cohorts were backing up. They'd already been beaten once, and bruised and bloody, they didn't like their odds. "Shit," one guy muttered, "he's insane…"
Ichigo paused, and suddenly threw the man away, his face twisted in disgust. "You all are pathetic. Get out of here. I'll know if you come back."
They scrambled away.
The steel fell from Ichigo's expression, as did the disgust. "How was that?" he asked casually aloud to the seemingly empty alleyway. "Good enough?"
The floating transparent girl, chain hanging from her chest, invisible to all but him, appeared nearby. "Yes," she said, smiling. "Thank you. Now I can rest peacefully, Onii-chan."
"Don't mention it." Ichigo sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "I'll come back tomorrow and leave fresh flowers, clean this place up for you. And then, do me a favor? Try to move past what happened and pass on, okay? You can't hang around here forever.
"Later." He threw a hand casually over his shoulder and walked out of the alleyway.
He'd been starting to wonder, lately, why it was he and his sisters could see and sense the dead. To his knowledge, neither of their parents ever had. He used to think it was because they grew up above a hospital, but they hadn't lived near one of those in over a year and the power was only getting stronger.
Add that to the long list of things he didn't understand concerning death and his own past.
As he walked into the apartment, Karin and Yuzu said casually, "Another one."
Ichigo looked around, saw the ghost of the old businessman, sighed and swore. "Take a number," he said. "We're closed for the night but I'll try to get to you tomorrow. Don't worry. I help everyone pass on eventually."
He threw off his book bag, moaned and shuffled off to the kitchen to make dinner.
"Rough day, Ichi-nii?" said Karin casually from the table.
"Another two ghost requests. The cash register stopped working properly at work. History essay due on Friday. Yeah, you could say that," Ichigo muttered, his voice, as always, muted. "Bring your homework over while I'm cooking, I'll help you out."
Homework for his sisters and dinner, then video games, then his own homework, then shower and bed. He fell into bed as he always did - deeply dreamless and totally exhausted.
He was totally oblivious to the fact that strange spirits were looking for him, that already everything had changed. Change had happened as it often did - without courtesy or warning.
Somewhere out there, Kuchiki Rukia was wondering, even as she carried out her Shinigami duties, about the heavy spirit energy she sensed in the air. It hung like a shroud all over the Karakura district of Tokyo, but the Hollows didn't seem strong enough to have caused it. And why they were all sticking around Karakura…
That was also a mystery.
The next morning over breakfast, Karin turned to the morning news on the TV as usual and Ichigo frowned, halfway finished with his bowl and tea.
A nearby Karakura street that he recognized had been torn to pieces by some great explosion. The newscaster was saying that the incident had happened at about 7:30 this morning, with no conceivable cause. The weirdest part? No one was injured.
"What's wrong, Onii-chan?" Yuzu asked, seeing his expression.
"Nothing, it's just… That's close to here." Ichigo was still frowning at the television.
"You think it's some weird gang thing?" Karin wondered.
"Maybe…" But Ichigo was watching the scene on the TV, and that wasn't really what it looked like at all. It looked like the claw-work of some massive, monstrous beast.
Immediately after he had the thought, he dismissed it as stupid.
Before school that morning, he took the vase of flowers and walked it back to the little girl's alleyway. He set the new vase down, cleaned out the old remnants, and watered down the walls and ground to wash away the graffiti and litter.
At last, he stood, frowning. Why hadn't she appeared to him? "Hey!" he called uncertainly. "You around?"
No answer.
Suddenly, he heard her scream from the street beyond. Unthinking, he ran out there - and there was a great ripple of breaking glass as windows all along the bottom floors of the street exploded. People began screaming and running blindly in different directions, but he ran through the smoke, trying to find the ghost of the little girl.
Because she was already dead. Why would she be screaming?
Then they loomed up through the smoke and he saw them. The little girl was being chased by a massive monster, the size of a tall building. It looked almost like some strange Shinto spirit, with the body of an insect but a white skull mask face. It chased after the ghost of the little girl, echoing out screeching, howling roars.
"Onii-chan!" said the little girl, reaching him. "What is that thing?!"
Now it was chasing both of them. "I don't know," said Ichigo, stiff with fear. "Run! Run!"
They ran in a sprint away from the giant monster looming up behind them. It was gaining on them, and gaining on them - and then the little girl tripped and fell to the ground.
Ichigo knew it was suicidal, and stupid; she was already dead. But he ran back to get her anyway. He couldn't just watch a little girl fall behind him, and possibly get hurt.
This thing, whatever it was - it could see her.
"Come on, stand up!" he barked, kneeling down beside her. Then the monster was directly over them, its shadow dark. "Never mind, get down!" he shouted, and threw himself in front of her - looking up into the monster's maw as it opened up to swallow him -
And then he heard a sword unsheath, saw black cloth cover his vision.
As he fell over, a girl in black and white samurai gear wielding a real katana sword blocked the strange monster from reaching him and the little ghost girl. She was small, pale, and delicate, with dark hair and violet eyes. Yet in that moment, she visibly had more strength than he did.
She leaped up supernaturally high into the air with a single cry of effort, and cut her sword down through the monster's head and through its body, cleaving it in one stroke. It dissolved as it was cut, disappearing from existence with one last shrieking howl. She sheathed her sword, and it was gone.
Ichigo realized he'd fallen; he slowly stood, shaken. "H-hey -!" he called after her, but she was already gone. One moment she was there, the next she simply wasn't.
He heard people beginning to talk in the street behind him.
"Another strange explosion."
"What caused it?"
"What's going on?"
He went cold. He realized nobody had seen the monster or the samurai girl - except him. It was almost like they were spirits.
Ichigo turned to the little girl behind him, lost. "Please tell me you saw that," he pleaded with her, pained.
"I - I did," said the little girl in awe, nodding. "What was it?"
"No idea," said Ichigo, and he realized as he said it just how terrifying that was - that he, who thought he'd seen it all when it came to death, had no idea what just happened. "But," he added dryly, "at least I'm not going insane."
Author's Note: Changes should start to become more evident next chapter. This was really just to get the ball rolling.