Big thanks to my lovely reviewers for Ch. 37, your words mean so much to me. Also big big thanks to lylithB and espada-iv for their help with this chapter. It might not have been finished until next month without it. Even though this is a short chapter, and was very very difficult for me to write, so that's why it took so long to get it out.

Chapter 38: Tragic Hero

Ichigo braced himself. It was quiet as he took in the sideways landscape of his inner world. The skies were dark with static storm clouds but no rain fell; no lightning flashed. It seemed that the entire world was waiting in dread, and his skin was crawling with it.

He told himself to be steady and took a deep, centering breath. He looked to his left and right, attempting to locate the monster. "Where the hell is it?" he asked himself a minute later, easing his grip on Zangetsu and letting the muscles in his shoulders gradually release their vice-like tension. He began wondering what he was so worried about until he whirled around to face an earsplitting roar, reflexively dropping into a defensive position. A shockwave of reiatsu threw him off of his feet. He rolled sideways and sprung up to behold a terrible vision: a hollow, a head and a half taller than himself, with long, lean, animalistic legs and a thick neck and shoulders emphasized by three plates of obsidian armor. The armor covered it perfectly from its neck down to its cloven feet but for the dinner-plate sized hole in the center of its chest, which appeared to be filled in with some kind of whiteish connective tissue. It was missing one arm at the shoulder, and the other was nothing but a blade after the elbow.

The hollow roared once more, and Ichigo gasped as he focused his horror on its bleached bone-mask of a face; a monstrous, noseless skull with two identical rows of spade-shaped teeth and wide slits for eyes, from which only a glint of light reflected. Long white hair flowed down the hollow's back from the base of its black bull-horned helmet.

He shuddered, holding the hilt of his zanpakuto for reassurance as the hollow again released its oppressive reiatsu with a howl. He was tossed backward, and didn't have time to dodge as the hollow streaked toward him, jaw retracted, prepared to bite. He swiped Zangetsu to the side of the hollow's mask and both were sent hurtling in opposite directions.

The hollow found traction and turned, hissing before kicking off the ground in a blur back toward him.

"Bankai!"

He heard a soft grumble from somewhere in the recesses of his mind, "Finally".

"Getsuga Tensho!" he wailed and slashed at the hollow. The hollow deflected the attack with its sword arm while charging a glowing red cero between its horns.

He noticed too late and was struck in the shoulder. His body was propelled into the side of one of the surrounding skyscrapers. He coughed and sputtered, looking to see that he was not substantially damaged. He rose to a crouch and brought a hand to his face, intent to pull down his own mask.

"Sorry partner," Zangetsu's distorted voice floated through his consciousness. It was only after he spoke that Ichigo noticed nothing was happening under his palm.

"What?!" Panic was quickly rising in him. He knew that without his mask, the battle was already lost.

"The mask – that was a gift from him, not me," Zangetsu said, before adding reluctantly, "I kinda borrowed it from him too…"

Ichigo shouted, "Don't you think that information would have been useful to share before coming up here?" He didn't wait for a response before he desperately charged a spirit arrow and nocked it with the same hand that held his sword against a glowing bowstring. "Getsuga Tensho!" he cried again, slashing his sword and releasing the arrow so both attacks struck their mark at once.

The hollow took the hit about two cars' lengths away from him. At the moment of impact, Ichigo lost his footing and was only able to watch the sky as it filled with violent aquamarine and black streaks of energy until his shoulder hit the ground behind him with a thud. He scrambled back to his feet in time to see the hollow fall to its knees.

"Nice one, partner. Now strike!"

He didn't need to be told twice.

Arrows rained down on the hollow's still form, followed by a crescent of powerful black spirit energy. The resulting dust settled quickly. The hollow lay prone on the ground where it fell, but the tissue in its hollow hole was beginning to undulate and bubble out of its back. Ichigo raised his sword over his head to cut the hollow's mask, but paused when Zangetsu interrupted, "Wait a second, partner. Can you hear it?"

He shook his head. All he could hear coming from the hollow was soft gurgling and hissing.

"I'll try to interpret for you. It's not very eloquent. It seems to want to make you a proposition."

"A what?" Ichigo asked aloud, followed by a grunt of surprise as the hollow rose to its feet a swift motion. He braced himself for attack. The hollow clashed its sword-arm against his blade, but the power behind the blow was lacking, to Ichigo's surprise.

Zangetsu continued as Ichigo and the hollow exchanged diminished blows, "It says it wants what you want."

"What the hell is it talking about?" he yelled as he parried another thrust, pressing his sword into the hollow's blade until the hollow relented, spinning around and finding an opening. It slashed at his back, missing by several inches. A smirk crossed Ichigo's face and he slashed back, landing a blow on the hollow's armor with a clank.

"It's got something to tell you," Zangetsu interrupted as the hollow staggered back to square off against Ichigo and stilled. "You inherited this hollow from your mother, and it has been growing within you since you were born. Until you lost your spiritual pressure, its own power was… quelled by yours. As your power fell out of balance, its own grew. When you died, it was strong enough to take possession of your body. It was not strong enough to take the form you see now, but it was enough to reanimate your body after it heard Queen calling for you. It chose to save her because she is ideal. It tried to destroy your rivals for the same reason."

Ichigo's hand shook as he drew his sword and pointed it at the hollow. A bead of sweat rolled down his temple, but his blood felt cold. He knew he would not like the answer to his next question. "What does it want with Inoue, and what 'rivals'?"

"Shit," Zangetsu hissed as the hollow appeared before Ichigo in an instant, the tip of its blade resting against his cheekbone. A slow, scraping, rattly growl escaped the hollow's teeth, and it brought its face within inches of Ichigo's before dragging the blade down the side of his face, carefully scratching, but not breaking, his skin. When the blade ran out of surface, he hollow opened its mouth wide and screamed at Ichigo with enough force to blow his hair up off his face. Ichigo stepped back, and Zangetsu found his voice again. "King, remember our exercise downstairs? That was practice. This is real. Be careful with your questions, and be especially careful with your answers. You can't lie to it, so don't pretend to be ignorant. You'll only piss it off."

"So it is talking about Ishida and Ulquiorra?"

The hollow snorted its affirmation.

"But-"

Zangetsu cut him off before he could argue, "Don't even start! We see what you see, even if you live in denial. We're aware that those two have designs on Queen, even back then."

"Fine, whatever, but is this really all about Inoue?"

"It has seen her power. It has felt it. When she began restoring you, she was actually restoring it. Any spiritual energy not used on healing your injuries went directly toward feeding it."

'It can't be,' Ichigo told himself. His eyes began to water as a sharp pang of regret cut through his chest. Still, more than anything, he feared the truth, and he desperately scoured his mind for an alternative; something that would shift the blame away from him. "So it wants Inoue to keep me uninjured and to feed its power?"

The hollow rushed Ichigo again, this time releasing enough reiatsu to knock him down. Ichigo sat, panting in terror, and looked up at the hollow as it screamed, the sound of metal scraping against metal layered over a bull's roar.

"No, you fool! It has chosen her as its next host!"

Ichigo's eyes searched the space in front of him. Although was unable to comprehend what he had heard, tears were beginning to streak down the side of his face. "Host?" his voice cracked as he asked the question.

Zangetsu didn't respond. The voice Ichigo heard in his head now was much more hollow; nothing more than a monotone, menacing whisper. The hollow's voice was crystal clear to him now as it answered, "Why do you think your instinct to mate with her is so strong? Only one as powerful as she could bear my new vessel."

"Vessel?"

"Yesss." It hissed, and continued in a stilted cadence, "You are on the cusp of manhood. You will soon reach your peak as a human, and then you will wither and die as a human. I must be passed to a new vessel before your death or I shall perish. Orihime Inoue is my chosen host to incubate a new, even more powerful vessel for me."

"You mean," he couldn't even ask, his throat constricted, and he couldn't breathe. After a moment he choked and his eyes flooded until the tears began running down his cheeks and out his nose.

"That's right. The child of the great Ichigo Kurosaki and Orihime Inoue, the woman with the power to defy god's will. No other vessel could be more suitable."

"No." Ichigo hiccupped, shaking his head in lament. This wasn't right. This wasn't happening. It couldn't be. He said it again, denial rising up from within him more strongly this time, "No!"

"Yesss," the hollow hissed again. "You may resist now, but the wheel of fate is already in motion. You cannot stop me. I will have her and your child."

"No!" Ichigo howled. He sobbed and dropped Zangetsu, shoulders lurching as he buried his head in his hands. "No. No, no, no, no, no!" He sniffled and looked back at the hollow with wet, red eyes. This was all its fault. Slowly, hatred began to mingle with the sorrow they held. His lower lip jutted out and his brows quivered. Tears continued to leak out of the corners of his eyes, even as he tried to refocus.

Although the hollow could not change the expression on its face, its voice became slightly more alive and it almost sounded like it smiling as it said, "Deny it if you like. You cannot stop me. You do not have the resolve. You are weak. So easily you have already succumbed to the temptation of her flesh. If not for your innocence getting in the way you would have taken her by now. It is only a matter of time. She herself has proven more than willing."

That was it. Something in Ichigo's mind snapped when the hollow talked about Orihime that way. His chest exploded with fire. He snorted his tears away and took up Zangetsu, flashstepping toward the hollow and piercing it through the already distorted tissue filling its hollow hole, firing a silent getsuga tensho. The hollow shrieked and doubled over. The tissue in the hole began to expand out of its back, filling up like a balloon. In pulses it grew larger and larger until it was the size of a truck, then exploded into ashes. The rest of the hollow's body lost its shape and its armor fell in a heap on the ground, its hollow mask broken in two. The only thing that remained where the hollow had stood was a wisp of white energy, which quickly snaked away into the distance.

Still clutching Zangetsu in his trembling hands, Ichigo fell to the ground and closed his eyes, spent.

Zangetsu waited before speaking to him again at a subdued volume, "Congratulations, King. Your shinigami power is restored. You managed to completely subjugate White. We can even use the mask again."

Ichigo raised one corner of his mouth into something resembling a smile, though he thought he heard sorrow color Zangetsu's voice. It was appropriate, he thought. He, too, felt grief, despite reaching his goal. "So I didn't kill it, did I?"

"I don't think you can, King," Zangetsu paused, then in a much more characteristic, antagonizing tone, added, "Although somehow you managed to reduce him to nothing but a shadow. He is as weak now as you were a year ago."

"Thanks a bunch," Ichigo managed a half-hearted chuckle, then sighed, his brows furrowing as he remembered why he was brought back from the dead. "Do you really think everything between Inoue and me was because of that monster?"

"Tch," Zangetsu's voice scoffed, before continuing, voice dripping with derision, "You are so fuckin' stupid. I care for her, and I am part of your soul, so of course you do, too. I mean, it wasn't wrong when it said there is no woman better suited to be its host, and it did its best to manipulate you into nearly sucking her reiatsu dry, but that's all it was for White. If White'd been calling the shots, you would'a knocked her up by now. That and powering itself up during her 'restoration sessions' with you were all it was interested in. But that's not you. I mean, she's hot as hell; of course your body was willing, hollow or no. But King, you're still just a kid; you aren't ready to have one. So to sum up, yeah, White had a limited influence, but the hand holding, the making out, and vomit-inducing flirting you were doing with her: that was all you."

Ichigo whined in a wistful way and as he dragged his calloused palm down his face fell to reveal a more somber expression, his trademark scowl worried. "None of that matters anymore though, does it? There is no way we can ever be together again."

"Well I don't know, King. It could be possible, but if you ever got her pregnant," Zangetsu paused.

Ichigo continued where he left off, "That will never happen. I couldn't do that to Inoue. Unless I can find a way to kill White, I can never have kids. Not just with Inoue, with anyone," Ichigo's voice fell quiet as he began to resign himself to a life of celibacy.

"Now, now King, you could probably have kids. I mean, if the woman isn't spiritually aware she wouldn't be able to host the hollow, so it wouldn't be passed on, right?"

"You don't sound so sure about that. But even if you're right, then what, I live half of my life a lie? Keep the fact that I'm a shinigami a secret from her? What kind of life is that? No. I will have to die while I'm still the hollow's vessel – I'll never be able to have children. It's the only way to end it."

Zangetsu was silent, but a wave of sadness fell over Ichigo that didn't seem to belong exclusively to him. Ichigo screwed his eyes shut further, breathing deeply. He wanted to be brave. He finally got his power back; the power to protect the people he cared about. He resolved to do just that, no matter the personal cost.

Ichigo could feel his guts starting to grow hot and uncomfortable within him. He knew he had to calm himself or fear and desperation would take over. He concentrated on his breathing. 'In, 2, 3, 4, 5, out, 2, 3, 4, 5. In, 2, 3…'

"Kurosaki-san?"

Ichigo opened his eyes to a yellow sand landscape and closed them again. He was emotionally and physically exhausted. He threw his forearm over his eyes and replied, "Hey Hat-n-clogs. I got my Zanpakuto back."

Urahara's voice was merry as he said, "Congratulations! A celebration is in order then, before your triumphant return to the World of the Living!"

Ichigo kept his eyes covered and sighed heavily. "Yeah, that's great."

Thank you for reading! This chapter was a struggle and was subject to lots of revision. Let me know what you think! xoxoJKR