"Sokatsui!" Ichigo called out as she stopped running, and spun on her heel while she extended her arm out towards the Hollow. Waves of blue flame surged forth almost instantly and hit the Hollow causing it to scream in agony and trip over it's own elongated limbs.

Quickly jumping out of the way, she took cover behind a parked car and watched as the huge body of the Hollow rolled and then came to an abrupt stop once it crashed though a brick building with a loud Boom.

Taking nearly all of the front of the already questionable looking structure.

Cringing a little bit, she internally hoped that there was no one living in it. Or above the area that the Hollow had just destroyed anyways. She listened to the slow, dazed growl that escaped it before it turned onto it's side and attempted to push itself up as she got up and moved away from the car that she'd been using as a shield.

She couldn't stay where she was and risk civilian casualties.

Taking a moment to look around for the least populated place possible- she was struck with the insane urge to scream in frustration. Dammit this was the problem with big cities! There were buildings and people and vehicles everywhere. And on top of that, she could feel Toshi had returned to the apartment.

And she knew that if he was there to see what was going on- then her guardian wasn't likely to be very far behind him.

She needed to kill the damn Hollow, fast. Like now.

The Hollow finally seemed to shake itself from it's daze and let out a shriek of rage as it shifted itself so quickly that it's tail caught some of the bricks still pieced together as well as a car, and flung them at high velocity in her direction. Ichigo let out a string of oaths as she blanched.

The car would be easier to avoid due to it's size. But the bricks...at least two of them were likely to hit her whether she tried to run or not. The only question was; Would she be able to like with a crushed skull and a broken back until her regeneration kicked in? Or would that damn thing eat her while she was down?

Tensing up in preparation of moving out of the car's way as it came sailing towards her spinning in the air, she was almost ready to move when all of a sudden she heard a loud, booming, masculine voice shout, "No need to fear- I am here!" barely a split second before the car was beginning to come down just a little bit over her head.

The sudden appearance of the owner of the voice was enough to startle her into non-action and she wound up screaming once she realized that the car was practically upon her. Hitting the ground at the absolute last second possible she managed to escape serious, possibly life threatening injury.

But it didn't stop some of the jagged and torn metal or shattered glass from finding purchase in her flesh.

Blood ran down one of her cheeks, as well as her scalp, the backs of her hands, and the crook of one of her elbows had a goddamn screw embedded in it. And it fucking hurt.

"Gyaah! Miss!" The loud guy that had distracted her practically shouted in horror. Which, she totally got. After all, it wasn't everyday that one came upon stuff flying through the air and buildings crashing to the ground willy-nilly and all for absolutely no reason. So he was probably pretty freaked out.

Lying there for a moment just trying to breathe through the twinges of pain that she felt- she also sort of forgot about the bricks. Until...

"Here, let me help you up." The guy said as he moved over to her and then, had one of his legs knocked right out form under him.

It was like watching the world's weirdest train wreck in slow motion. Ichigo just couldn't look away from the bizarre sight of the guy- Jesus fucking Christ he was a blond! Was of course her first thought. And was quickly followed by the thought, It's like watching someone spaz out.

It was both mildly amusing and irritating as well.

He flailed, made funny faces- honestly she was tempted to see if she could find a camera so that she could take pictures- and even did that freakishly amusing slow motion, "Noooo!" mere seconds before he hit the ground on his back. Just a few inches shy of actually landing on her, and just looked at her as if he didn't know what the hell to do now.

She gnashed her teeth and hissed at him like a cat when he finally decided on a course of action and smiled at her like an huge frigging dope. "Idiot!" She snapped at him, as she swiped at his face with her finger tips almost like a feline would.

The whole aim was to get his damned attention and get him to stop smiling like a moron.

He caught her hand far too easily for her comfort and simply stared hard at it for a moment before commenting, "You're bleeding miss."

"I know that!"

"Does it hurt?"

Ichigo growled and made an attempt to pull free of his grasp. Dammit the Hollow was mobile again! She needed to get it away from this dumbass! However since the strange guy was of a mind that she should stay put, and she couldn't exactly pull her arms free- she didn't have a choice but to improvise some.

Knowing that pulling herself from his grasp was quickly proving to be a waste of her energy and efforts, she had no choice but to improvise a bit if she was going to protect them both.

Growling again in frustration, she rolled herself onto her back and then arched her back up off of the ground just enough to manage to flip herself over on top of him.

Her legs straddling his waist as he made a weird strangled sound in the back of his throat. She cast him a quick look, absently noting that his face was flushed and he looked ever so slightly panicked. She smirked down at her as she felt him release one of her arms and finally allowed her to fire off another attack since the Hollow was practically right on top of them now.

"Sokatsui!"

Blue flames burst forth again, crashing right into the Hollow's mask causing it to rear back with a screech as part of it's mask fell away.

Seeing her opening, Ichigo quickly jerked her other arm free and pushed herself up off of the guy and took a running leap as the Hollow was in mid-thrash. And reared back her fist and used a more powerful kido, muttering the spell softly underneath her breath, to wrap her hand in some of her power and waited until the Hollow was facing her direction again and drove her fist right into the weakened bone of it's mask and tore it apart.

The Hollow shrieked one last time and slowly disintegrated.

Once the mask fell away, Ichigo finally allowed herself to breathe a sigh of relief as the adrenaline flooding her system slowly began to ebb away. Closing her eyes for a moment to stave off a wave of dizziness she might've hit the ground- if not for a certain weird blond guy finally managing to get to his feet and catch her in his arms.

He landed deftly on the ground with her held carefully in his arms as her head lolled back and she tried to tell him that Kyoka's dad was in the alley. She had to go free him. And her guardian and Toshi- she needed to find them both and make sure that they were okay too. They would be worried. And she owed them an explanation of some sort.

But her vision swam and then went black and she gave in to the exhaustion that she really should have taken care of before.

Toshi held the girl against his chest as he looked her over. He could hear her feverish rambling as she slowly faded to unconsciousness and felt a strange tug in the vicinity of his heart when he heard her say his name and mention Shouta. She was worried about them. And about Hizashi.

To be perfectly honest, he wasn't really all that sure what had transpired here. But it was obvious that something had. Ichigo was hurt. And though the injuries were mostly superficial- the damage to Shouta's apartment building wasn't. Just like the car and the bricks- especially the one that had hit him in the leg- hadn't been.

Shifting her in his arms a little bit so that all of her weight was resting in one arm instead of both- he took a moment to smooth her hair back from her pale face, and wiped some of the blood on her cheek away.

The poor girl was out cold. And unlike before when she had cried, this sleep seemed to be significantly deeper. And she wasn't likely to awaken again for a while.

Taking one last long look around to see if there was anything that he might have missed before, he didn't see anything right off the bat until he shifted her a little bit more in his hold and paused when something white slipped out of her hand and hit the ground by his feet.

Glancing down, he frowned upon seeing what looked like the top part of a bone white mask. And then growled and crushed it underneath his foot when he realized that whatever it was- he didn't like it. There was simply something wrong about it.

And he didn't want it anywhere near Ichigo.

Once it was ground into dust, he turned and started to make his way back to Hizashi knowing that Shouta had likely found him back at the apartment by now and was understandably upset about his apartment being damaged and his ward being missing.