Deck the halls

"That's more like it," Ichigo let out, following Uryu up the short set of steps leading up to the elevated and canopied stage of the gazebo. The structure was surrounded by an iron frame about waist-height and offered a good view of the surrounding park, if it hadn't been for the snowfall. The sides of the small round building, about 30-feet in diameter, were partially covered with plastic tarp, attached to the roof and the base, to protect the rough wooden floorboards against rain, snow and humidity in the seasons it wasn't used. The tarp had been pulled aside, probably by playing kids, leaving about half the side exposed to the view of the park. But it protected the inside against the worst of the wind and cold. A nearby street light filled the inside with a cozy white-blueish glow. All in all, it made a much better shelter than Ichigo had expected.

"Hey now this comes in handy…" Ishida slowly approached something in the back of the domed space. A squat, rough round block of wood had been put here, about knee-height. Resting on top of is was a small roughly woven oval-shaped wicker basket. The basket was filled to the brim with a thick layer of straw.

Carefully, Uryu put the baby down in the basket. It responded with a gleeful giggle, feet happily trampling in the air.

"I wonder who put this here?" Ichigo wondered.

Uryu shrugged. "Perhaps it's a leftover prop from some Christmas play," he said, eyeing the baby from above. "Anyway, now what? You want to try a Konsou?"

Ichigo shook his head. "That only works for regular ghosts. It's an Arrancar, remember? I'd actually have to cut it with my Zanpakuto…" He felt less than thrilled about the prospect…

"Feels a bit weird to keep calling it 'it', no?" the Quincy said pensively, stepping forward to the kid's head side, next to Ichigo. The substitute turned beet red "Hey, I'm not checking underneath that diaper, you hear?!"

The baby picked that very moment to let out a happy cooing, and stretched out both its arms, finding and grabbing a fistful of garment at groin height (and some content as well) from both its captors.

"Kyaaaaahhhhhhh! It's got my….", Ichigo screeched, his face turning a shade of purple.

"Gaaaaaahhhh! Me too!", Uryu turned a matching blue.

The baby giggled, and happily shook its fists, testing its new toys and extracting more screams from its victims.

"Aren't you boys having fun?" a familiar voice sounded from just outside the pavilion. A second later, a shihakushō-clad Rukia Kuchiki jumped inside over the railing.

As the baby let go to muster this new visitor, its two babysitters let out a sigh of relief.

"I was afraid I could forget about ever having kids myself…" Ichigo huffed, "this one's got a death grip…" Uryu just groaned softly and bent over.

"So what's up with that?" Rukia pointed at the crib, eyebrows raised. "I was passing by on my way to your place, and heard the ruckus here in the park…" Ichigo gave her the short version of what had happened so far. Meanwhile, the snow outside had lessened considerably, providing them with a better view of their surroundings. The street lights scattered throughout the park made the scene feel almost fairy-tale like.

"An Arrancar baby, huh? Can't say I've ever heard of anything like that…", Rukia said pensively, looking at the baby who clearly seemed to enjoy all the attention. She approached the crib, her feet plowing through the thick layer of straw covering the floorboards. Ichigo raised an eyebrow. Had that been there before? He could have sworn there was nothing but wood on the floor when they had arrived. Rukia went on "…closest thing I remember was-"

Her voice was interrupted by a loud roaring sound outside. Rukia and Ichigo stepped up to the railing to see what was going on.

"What the-?!" Wide-eyed, the two Shinigami watched as suddenly, the snowy grass and bushes at the other side of the open field started shaking violently, then caved in to an expanding crack in the ground below. An eery pulsating red light was visible through the opening, black smoke rising up.

"A garganta?" Ichigo surmised, drawing his Zangetsu. "Never saw one that looked like that!", Rukia said, her Sode no Shirayuki also on the ready. "Besides, they normally appear in the sky, not in the ground…"

Both of them jumped over the railing, onto the soft grass below.

"You smell that?" Rukia asked, wrinkling her nose. Ichigo inhaled deeply, taking in the cold night air, and noticed what Rukia had meant. A telltale rotten egg smell filled his nostrils. "Is that…sulphur?"

They made a few steps in the direction of the weird portal that had appeared, when it started to emit a low growling noise. Two towering figures appeared from the crack, black as night with red glowing eyes. They looked diabolical, their faces resembling angry long-horned kabuki masks and both brandishing pitchfork-like weapons. One was short and squat, the other more elongated, its wiry black arms waving up and down. Besides the swishing forked tails that completed the infernal image, Ichigo noted that both of them had clearly visible Hollow holes.

Stopping dead in their tracks, the two Shinigami kept their weapons up, ready to attack.

The tallest of the two hollow-demons pointed a clawed finger at them, and at the pavilion behind them.

"Give ussss the child!" it roared, banging its pitchfork on the ground. It voice sounded like rolling thunder, and actual flames came out of its mouth while it spoke.

Ichigo looked sideways to Rukia. "Do we humor them?" His fellow Shinigami smirked mirthlessly. "Even if I wanted to send that baby back to Hueco Mundo just like that, I don't feel like giving in to threats. Especially not from Hollows."

Ichigo grinned lopsidedly and turned his Zangetsu to a horizontal position. "My thoughts exactly, Kuchiki-san." Breaking out into a run and sprinting ahead of her, he leapt into the air, slashing the huge Zanpakuto diagonally in front of him.

"Getsuga tenshou!"

A crescent-shaped blast of power shot out of the blade, towards the enemies before them. Ichigo had only used a fraction of his full power, as he wanted to probe the strength of these strange-looking Hollows before going all-out. But to his surprise, his attack had more effect than expected. When it struck the two demons, the blast propelled them both away for some distance, while roaring angrily. They vanished beyond the treeline in the distance.

Almost feeling disappointed, Ichigo looked sheepishly into the distance while Rukia caught up with him.

"Couldn't you leave one for me?" she asked drily. Ichigo produced an annoyed grunt "I figured since they could speak, they had to be Adjuchas at least. They should have been able to defend or dodge what I just threw at them…"

Rukia sighed "I don't know… there was something funny about them…they seemed somehow…different from normal Hollows, with that weird-smelling Garganta and all… And why are they after that kid?"

Different. But the word that somehow popped up in Ichigo's head was 'Biblical'. But he kept it to himself, since Rukia perhaps wouldn't get the reference…

"It didn't look like you killed them yet, Kurosaki. Wanna see if we can get some information out of them?" she asked. Ichigo nodded. "I guess we better".

Ichigo wanted to put Zangetsu away, but then something unexpected happened. While the weapon was in his hand, in the blink of an eye, it turned into something else. There was no visible transformation involved, at one moment his trusty Zanpakuto was in his hand, a split second later, it had been replaced by…a hammer?

"What the FUCK?!"

The orange-haired Shinigami substitute stared at the object in his hand, flabbergasted. He swung it from left to right, as if he could force it to transform back that way. It looked and felt like a wooden hammer, without a doubt. The tool seemed to stare back at him, mockingly. Zangetsu had gone through transformations before, but never anything like this… He was about to turn to Rukia, when he heard her startled voice.

"M-My Zanpakuto!"

Rukia held her Sode no Shirayuki out in front of her. Or at least, what had been her beautifully crafted Zanpakuto just a moment before. In the palm of her hand was a different and much smaller object, made of wood. While Ichigo couldn't exactly make out what was at first glance, a closer look revealed something resembling a baby's pacifier, which looked roughly hand-cut out of massive wood, then polished and oiled by a skillful craftsman.

Ichigo and Rukia stared at each other, silent for a moment.

"What the HELL is going on here!?" Ichigo let out, starting to feel worried with his main weapon lost, and Hollows still nearby. "We have an Arrancar baby, Hollows that look and act like Satan, and our Zanpakuto's turning into…TOYS?"

Rukia next to him carefully looked around. She seemed to handle the loss of her weapon better than him – perhaps because she still had her Kidō techniques to rely on. In all the consternation, he hadn't noticed that the brimstone smell had vanished, as had the strange crack in the ground that had spewed out the Hollows. The Hollows themselves didn't seem about to return.

"I agree with you that this is all very weird." Rukia finally sighed. "I'm not so sure it's smart to follow those hollows without our weapons. Shall we head back and see if the same thing happened to Ishida-san's bow? Perhaps this…phenomenon only affects Zanpakuto's?"

He'd forgotten all about Uryu, who he assumed had stayed back in the pavilion to protect the baby. Not having any better ideas, he agreed with Rukia and they both slowly walked back over the snow covered grass – the snowfall had ceased entirely now.

Things can't possibly get any weirder than this… Ichigo thought gloomily.

From there on, things began to get really weird.

It all started when they discovered that Uryu Ishida had turned into a sheep in their absence.