AUTHOR'S RAMBLINGS

Wow, I got this out in less than a week... This is an interesting developement...

Chapter Twelve

Rukia started as a hand grabbed at the back of her school shirt. She half turned with her hands in the position for her favorite offensive kido spell and the words half formed on her lips, but they died off as soon as she saw who was grabbing at her. It was Ritsu.

''Ritsu!" she shouted, "Urahara-san!" The blonde turned from the slightly ridiculous sight in front of him to confront a far more serious situation. Ritsu was conscious, but not awake. Her hand was grasping Rukia's shirt and her eyes were open. The eyes that were usually so warm and brown were almost crimson in color with only a faint trace of brown in the irises. Her reatisu was fluctuating rapidly. It was a miracle that Ichigo could not feel it.

Urahara crouched down next to Ritsu and planted his cane in the ground. Using a special phrase, he bound her in place with a kido that would contain her reatisu.

"Bakudo seventy-six! Baindo ken kakushibasho!" (bind and place to hide something (Bind and conceal)) he called. He held his right arm parallel to the ground and to the length of Ritsu's torso. His left hand was positioned behind it in the center of his forearm. The first two fingers pointed at the sky while the rest folded into his palm. After gathering his reatisu in the cup of the fist in his right hand, he swerved his left hand around, grabbed his fingers, and then traced a dome over Ritsu. The air took on a slight purple tinge under the area Urahara had traced.

Rukia frowned. Urahara traced a shield over Ritsu, then she seemed to ripple. After a moment, she and her reatisu completely disappeared.

"Urahara!" she yelled. A millisecond later, there was an enormous spike in the surrounding reatisu.

Urahara and Rukia glanced behind them to see a red light gather in front of the long pointed nose of the gigantic menos grande.

'A cero...' he thought as his eyes narrowed. Ritsu would have to wait a moment. This was more important.

She half woke and reached out, knowing something familiar was surrounding her. Her eyes were half open, but all she could see was gray. She grasped something slightly stiff. It felt like... Like... She did not know the name. Something hit her ears in the form of what she thought was an intake of breath. A... A gasp? She still could not remember. Something was off... The thing she was grasping shifted and she felt her heart go faster. Something was wrong! Panic rose inside of her and exploded outwards. Her back arched slightly and something came swimming into view as blurry colors... There was... tan, and... green... and... and... yellow? No, that couldn't be right... Could it?

The colors moved and another color swam into view and blocked the other colors... It was... Purple? Was that it? Was that the color she was looking at? Were they even called colors? She couldn't remember... Her hand fell from the thing she was grabbing and covered her eyes. She managed to move the other hand onto her... Her cheek? Could that be right? She had no idea...

Slowly, she put her hands on the ground next to her on either side. Cautiously, she sat up. Everything seemed to be moving, so she brought up her... Knees maybe? To her chest and leaned her face onto them. She raised her hands to what she thoughts were known as her ears and covered them while trying to wait for the world to settle. When it did not after a few minutes, she slowly lowered herself to the ground and buried her nose in the... in the... the... Something wet slid its way down her cheek. She lifted a... Finger to catch it and tasted it. It was... salty? It was called... It was a...

"Tear?" she whispered. She jumped at the sound of her voice, startled at the sound. Everything was wrong, wrong because she did not know it, wrong because, somewhere deep inside her, she felt she should know it. Everything was wrong! She pulled herself up again and reached for the colors floating next to her. Her hand hit it and bounced off. Frowning, she tried again. The same thing happened. Agitated, she finally realized that part of the problem was her... She had her own... Energy... No... That wasn't it! It wasn't called energy! That was wrong!

"What is it?" she demanded of herself. Again, she jumped at the sound of her voice. The... Energy... Grew stronger with her fright. She calmed herself, and some of the energy was pulled inside of her. With the feeling of its retreat, she managed to pull in more... and more... and more! In a few minutes, she managed to pull most of it in. It was getting awfully hot though... More liquid fell down her cheek. She caught it to taste it again, but it wasn't a tear... It was... Sweat? Whatever it was, it was starting to fall off of her in massive quantities. It was literally all over her. She ignored though, because she wanted out of the colors. She wanted to know what the familiar energy had been outside of the colors. She wanted to know. Period.

Ichigo saw the massive blast firing and ran forward. He couldn't let that hit anyone else. With an uncanny burst of speed, he ran into the red light and blocked the massive blast. He had no idea what the hell it was, but he knew it had to be stopped. With excruciating power, it knocked into his sword and almost sent him flying. He gritted his teeth though and stuck it out. He would make it because he had too. With a scream and a massive wave of power of is own, he sent it flying into the menos grande.

It struck the creature and went flying up the thing's length, forcing it to retreat into its crack in the sky. All of the smaller hollows followed it into the gaping hole before the menos pinched it into a seem and then out of existence. Ichigo stood there for a moment.

"Victory!" he shouted. Uryuu looked on, stunned at his stupidity, his power, his courage, and his stupidity. Ichigo held up a happy 'V' with his first two fingers before collapsing. His sword lost its shape and began to waver while Ichigo's power managed to crush him. It fluctuated rapidly and Uryuu ran forward.

At the same time, Ritsu managed to pull in the last of her energy. She reached out to touch the colors and they shattered. Then the sweat increased tremendously. Her hair raised up around her and she was pulled to her feet by the need to relieve a building pressure. Urahara turned around sharply at the break of his kido. That was a high level kido! How could she have...

Rukia turned at the sudden increase in heat and panicked immediately. Ritsu was emitting some sort of pressing reatisu and something ominous was filling the air. She looked about ready to join with Ichigo in the current state of stability.

"Urahara!" Rukia yelled, "Let me free!" The scientist was too preoccupied with studying Ritsu to hear Rukia, much less answer her. Ritsu wasn't letting out any reatisu, but the way her hair was standing on end, he would bet that she had somehow managed to pull it all into her soul... How was that possible? It looked like there was about to be a recoil though, so there was no way that it was perfect... At the current moment at least.

Her energy exploded. It whipped all around her and knocked her down. A girl who she had caught a glimpse of before she was blown away. The green hatted man who had been the one to seal her away was also blown away. She hit the ground hard head first and everything went fuzzy around her. Something was definitely wrong. She wished she had just stayed put. Maybe that man actually knew this would happen...

Something caught at her foot and Ritsu was flung into the air as her energy created a tornado around her. She was flung around, bashed into the ground, rocks, and all other sorts of things. After a few moments, she was knocked out.

Uryuu and Ichigo were also blown away by the immense reatisu that had exploded on the side of the field. Ichigo's reatisu continued to destabilize, so Uryuu would ignore the explosive power for now. In his pride as a Quincy, Uryuu wouldn't let Ichigo self-destruct. He started towards him and a tick-mark developed on his forehead. Ichigo had been knocked unconscious. A second tick-mark developed on his forehead. Once he saved Ichigo, he would have to find who on earth else could have such high reatisu. Yet another tick-mark appeared on Uryuu's forehead. No doubt it was a shinigami there to fight off the menos. Uryuu growled under his breath.

He ran to Kurosaki and placed his foot on the hilt of the warping blade. Immediately, power surged through his arm and it felt like it would tear to pieces. Gritting his teeth at the pain, Uryuu started to shoot his arrows as fast as he could into the air. Blood dripped from his fingers and down his arm. Kurosaki's reatisu began to stabilize bit by bit, but Uryuu did not know if it would be enough. If he couldn't get it to stabilize soon, his arm would literally be blown into pieces.

After what seemed to be an eternity to Uryuu, the daiko's reatisu had stabilized enough for the Quincy to be able to stop. He let his bow disband into particles of reishi and he collapsed to his knees with his arms shaking. Panting, he pulled himself back to his feet and made his way back up the broken path he and Kurosaki had made on their first way through. Uryuu wouldn't be able to rest until he discovered what had caused the massive surge of pure reatisu. When he reached the field, he was unprepared for the sight that greeted his eyes.

The female shinigami, Rukia Kuchiki, was laying n front of a tree to his left. Blood streamed from a shallow wound above her right eye. She seemed to be unconscious. To his right, he saw the man who had caught Kurosaki's attention before the fight with the menos. He was standing and observing what was happening in the center of the field. It was a gigantic cyclone formed of the reatisu from the explosion. Uryuu felt it was familiar, but he couldn't place it.

The fiery heat blasting from it seemed to have components very similar to Kurosaki's own massive power. Uryuu frowned. How could that be? Each person's reatisu signature was distinctive and unique in almost every aspect. It could only be that similar to Kurosaki's if... If it were Kurosaki's twin!

"Is that..." Uryuu began, facing the scientist, "Kurosaki Ritsu?" Urahara turned to the Quincy, very pleased with his answer.

"Yes." Urahara said curtly, "It is. Now watch."

Uryuu turned back to watch and his eyes widened in shock. Ritsu was now suspended in the eye of the storm. Her brown eyes were open and shaded over with gray. The reatisu surrounding her seemed to give one last pulse before it all blew away in wisps. Ritsu fell out of the sky and landed in a heap on the ground. Her eyes were now half open, but she wasn't moving. Urahara took the chance to approach the semi-conscious girl. He monitored her for a moment before picking her up.

"Come." he said to Uryuu. He headed towards the completely unconscious Ichigo and Uryuu begrudgingly followed him. "Can you carry him?" Urahara asked of the Quincy.

"If I had an incentive to," Uryuu replied coldly, "then he would not prove a problem." Urahara smirked. He set Ritsu down gently on the ground, being mindful of her head. Then he pulled Ichigo over his shoulder and stumbled off towards his shop.

"You can carry the girl then!" he called back. He was sure that the boy wouldn't let the girl lay there, cold and unprotected especially when it was evident that there was something immensely wrong with her. After the spectacle with her reatisu, the Quincy wouldn't leave her all alone. He glanced back to see Uryuu hesitantly kneeling down next to her.

Uryuu slowly went down on one knee to pick her up. She was a shinigami, but she was also injured. Also, his sensei would never leave her there. Uryuu brought down his other knee and sat back on his heels. He had failed his sensei by using the hollow bait. He had failed everyone. When his sensei had been killed, he had been too scared to step out and defend him. He had failed his sensei in almost every way.

"I've… failed you…" he said, a tear slipping down his cheek, "Grandfather…" Uryuu then made a silent resolution. If only for shinigami he knew personally, he would protect and fight next to them. With that done, he scooped Ritsu up in his arms bridal fashion and ran after the crazy shop keeper/scientist.

The two arrived at the shop weak and out of breath. Urahara staggered in first and dumped Ichigo right inside the door and staggered to a chair in the corner. Uryuu came in a moment later and gently laid Ritsu down next to her twin. He then collapsed next to her. Tessai appeared next to Urahara.

"Hello Boss," he greeted him, "I am still in the process of analyzing the nagori-jouzai, so I have been unable to determine whether or not Miss Kurosaki-kun's memories can be re captured for her use."

"That's okay Tessai," he answered with a gasp, "Just… take care of those three…" Urahara gestured towards the now three unconscious teenagers at his door. Tessai nodded and first carried Ichigo to the back to heal. After a few tense minutes, he came for Uryuu. Instead of carrying him back, he simply laid the Quincy out and started the healing kido. About halfway through, he woke up.

Uryuu woke up with a soft green light shining over him. His head hurt like a pack of elephants had been tramping around inside. Slowly but surely, the sensation began to disappear. He was fairly certain he had a concussion. Something was nagging at him, but he couldn't think straight enough to figure out what it was. The light… What was it? Uryuu couldn't figure it out and he quickly drifted back under.

Urahara had a tense few moments when the Quincy seemed to wake. Fortunately, he didn't make any connections between the kido and the possibility of shinigami. He probably had a concussion and a broken rib or two. Whatever it was, Urahara didn't care much because Tessai would clear it out quickly enough. And then the Quincy would be indebted to him. Urahara brought out his fan as the telltale smirk spread across the rough canvass of his face.

Tessai carried the Quincy to the back and laid him out on a futon next to the daiko. Silently, he went back up and gently picked up the female shinigami-daiko. He took her to a separate room from the two males and laid her out on the futon. From the surface, she appeared fine, but her reatisu was still fluctuating wildly. Then there was the matter of the nagori-jouzai to take care of. He started the kido for the reatisu stabilization and waited patiently for reatisu output to stabilize. It took quite a bit of time and effort to reign in the massive force of her reatisu, even for an ex-captain.

Tessai sighed as he stopped the kido and stretched once he had gotten back on his feet. Quickly, he walked into the room where the pill was being analyzed. The results had come out of the printer. Tessai frowned. From what he was seeing, Ritsu's memories wouldn't be able to be recovered. A silent tear slid down his cheek. The fiery vibrant girl that had been so like the third seat from his squad would never be the same. He shook his head and walked to the boys' room.

Ichigo's reatisu hadn't been nearly as difficult to reign in as his sisters. Tessai knew that the Quincy probably had a lot to do with that. The Quincy was in a stable condition and liable to wake soon. He probably should be moved before he did wake. Also, his memory should be modified to exclude Kurosaki Ritsu. Sighing, Tessai went to get the population memory modifier. First he set it to exclude spiritually aware people and he wiped Ritsu out of their memories. Then he took the individual memory modifier and walked into the boys' room. He erased Ritsu first from the Quincy's memories and then turned to Ichigo.

"I'm sorry Kurosaki-san," he said quietly with sadness permeating his voice, "I'm truly sorry." He erased Ritsu from her twin's memories.

The rest of the day was spent modifying the memories of the spiritually aware who knew Ritsu. By the time the sun went down, no one except for those select few in Urahara Shoten knew the name Kurosaki Ritsu.

AUTHOR'S RAMBLINGS

Well, this will significantly effect the story. But how will it effect Ichigo? Will some part of Ritsu hang around and haunt him? Or will he become slightly less mourous only to get worse when he sees her? Hm? What do you guys think will happen? Please, somebody review! *sad face*

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