Ichigo's ability to rebound from just about anything medical was one of the most mind boggling things about her. Honestly, a lot of her friends used to tease her about her 'legendary' ability to nearly die and still get up barely five minutes later and beat the ever loving shit out of everyone.
So really it didn't surprise her all that much when several minutes after Toshinori had left her to sleep, her body seemed to finally reboot itself to the point where her temperature dropped, and she was able to wake up enough to realize that she wasn't in her home.
She wasn't sure exactly where she was. And yes- she was curious. However the gown, the bed, the IV stand and various pieces of machinery around her pretty much told her everything that she needed to immediately know. She either was or wasn't in a hospital or clinic of some kind.
And since she couldn't really recall much of anything aside from feeling like shit and falling...then the fact that she was wherever she was made a lot of sense to her. So once she was absolutely certain that she could manage to get up without falling flat on her face, that's what she did.
She sat up in the bed and took a moment or so to unhook herself from any machinery attacher to her, as well as remove the IV from her arm, and then pushed the covers back so that she could make an attempt at standing.
She still wasn't feeling so great. Her skin was still too warm to be comfortable, but at least it was far more manageable now. And her stomach was still cramping pretty badly and her nipples and nether region were both aching in an unfamiliar and very disconcerting way.
Slipping her legs over the side of the bed, she set her feet on the floor and slowly pushed herself up and automatically felt something wet and sticky slide down her legs. Staring down at the mess as it dripped onto the floor to make a small puddle at her feet, her face warmed up even more in mortification.
Oh dear god no! She thought in a slight panic. Please, please, please don't let her have just wet herself.
She could take a lot of punishment and indignity but she drew the line at pissing herself like a baby. Especially if she were in a place where things needed to be sterile. For fuck's sake, germs killed people!
Feeling disgusted with herself for...that. She scrunched up her nose and made a face as some more made it's way down her legs. Shit, she needed a bathroom or something so that she could clean that crap up. Like now.
Scrubbing her face with her hands in an effort to try and block out everything for a second, she mentally prepared herself for what was definitely going to be a 'walk of shame' for her to the ladies room before she even bothered to make her way to the door.
The one good thing about where she was, she noted right off the bat- was the fact that it was seemingly abandoned. Seemingly, being the operative word here. Because despite the fact that there was no one present in any of the other rooms, nor at any of the sparsely spread out desks located here and there- she could hear people shouting at each other.
And because she felt like she needed the ladies room or a fucking adult diaper rather desperately, she had no qualms whatsoever about interrupting whoever was shouting back and forth to ask where the restroom was.
Aizawa looked like he was about to start spitting fire at him. He supposed it was understandable, the man probably thought that he was just going to use the girl. Which was hurtful to Toshinori. Especially since he was supposed to be his friend and know him far better than that.
"If you think for one damned second-" The man started to growl at him as he took a dangerous step forward into his personal space. "That I'm going to just stand here and let you coerce that girl into anything that she doesn't want-" Toshinori put his hands up in the universal sign of surrender hoping that it might sooth the man's temper some. But if anything it looked like it was simply making matters worse.
"Calm down Shota and let me explain!"
"What's to explain? The girl literally only has two choices here. A coma that she may never be able to wake up from during the duration of her lifetime, because she'll have suffered irreparable damage. Or being bred like a goddamned animal." The dark haired man spat in outrage.
Toshinori flinched back from him a little bit, totally understanding where he was coming from here. But at the same time, he had a plan that might help Ichigo in the long term. So would it really kill him any to hear him out?
"Yeah, your right. It's a sucky, fucked up choice between those two extremes. I get it." Toshinori snarled at the dark haired man before then saying, "But there are reasons for them. And there's a reason why I offered myself to help her."
"And I suppose that the fact that you want to 'sacrifice' yourself to help her has nothing at all to do with the fact that you're sort of obsessed with her?"
Toshinori's jaw dropped open for a moment so that he could deny Aizawa's accusation, but it snapped shut again just as quickly when he realized that the man wasn't exactly wrong.
He was sort of obsessed with her. He had been since the day of the fight.
But not for any nefarious reasons. He had been completely honest when he said that he'd been concerned for her and wanted to protect her. And as far as he knew, his reasons hadn't changed at all.
For fuck's sake he'd worked a majority of his teen and adult life to be a Pillar of Justice! What good would all of his hard work and carefully cultivated skills as a hero do him if he crossed very dangerous and specific lines?
The fact that she was in heat and in need of someone to care for her during her cycle, much less the fact that she'd been modified and might truly be in some sort of peril- simply made him feel stronger and more passionate about protecting her from further harm.
There was nothing wrong with that, right?
And there were other factors too. The possibility that she might get pregnant- she'd need someone who was stable, patient, kind and caring to help her raise a child. Not to mention that he had considerably more resources at his disposal than a lot of other heroes at present.
If he took care of her during this heat, and getting her pregnant would buy her a year or to without another one...then the doctors and such on his payroll could try and come up with some stuff that might help her actively avoid her heats. Suppressants could be made for just about anything nowadays.
Not to mention birth control and pain meds too.
It was all just a matter of time and finding the right formula that would work with her unique biology without causing her any more issues.
"For god's sake Shota, so I wanted to find her. So what? She was hurt when she disappeared!" Shota snorted at that but didn't say anything aloud about the weird shrine that the man had built in his office at the school. Sure it was small, and didn't exactly look like a shrine of any sort.
But Shota wasn't stupid. He knew that there had to be a much deeper reason for why Toshinori was so eager to throw himself at her while she was hormonally crazed.
He just...wanted to needle the man a little bit and see if he'd get irked enough to reveal his actual reasons to him.
"I'm not a damned monster! I'm not going to hurt her!" Toshinori finally shouted at him, anger burning in his electric blue eyes. And he was starting to look dangerously like an angry bear about to go on a rampage.
Needless to say, Shota was somewhat convinced that maybe he'd gone too far this time. So he kept quiet as the man started to ramble. His anxiety spiking through the roof as the blond began to pace back and forth like a caged tiger while running his fingers through his hair angrily.
He told him his plan to help her. Which wasn't terrible as long as she could be convinced to go along with it. After all, buying herself some time would be necessary if Toshinori was going to have some meds made for her so that she wouldn't have to go through so much damned trouble in the future.
But she'd still have to get pregnant. There was almost literally no avoiding it.
Though he felt that Toshinori was being more than a tad bit too optimistic that the meds could be made in such a short time. The doctors working for him were good. But they weren't that good. The more realistic timeframe was four to five years.
Depending on how problematic her biology proved to be.
Which meant that she may have to get pregnant twice before the doctors making the meds managed to yield any sort of functioning results.
He might have been about to point this out to the man, but his words died on his tongue as soon as the door opened a liver and a dark head with black cat ears poked itself into the room. Toshinori noticed her presence immediately and stopped his pacing, his anger melting away to something more...soft as soon as he laid his eyes on her.
Which was beyond weird to Shota because the way that he seemed to be so intuned to her was freaking insane. There was no fucking way that that sort of behavior was goddamned normal.
Not for Toshinori anyways.
"Ichigo what are you doing up?" Toshinori asked as he took a small step forward, towards the young woman.
She was a beautiful little thing from what he could see of her, Shota noted absently as Toshinori managed to finally reach the door and gently pull it open a little bit more so that he could see her a bit more.
The woman looked...like she was smelling something in the office.
Instead of answering Toshinori's question, she merely tipped her head back on her neck a little bit, exposing her throat and flattened her ears against her dark head and simply breathed deep for a moment before then suddenly demanding as she glowered at the blond, "Why do you smell like caramel, cinnamon, and cream?"
Toshinori just blinked at her, unable to understand why she would ask him that. And Shota suddenly burst out laughing at the absurdity of it. Mental images of villains sniffing the man and then trying to lick his face dancing through his mind as Toshinori finally asked Ichigo what she meant.
The woman merely shrugged and told him that he smelled nice. Weirdly sweet for a guy. But nice nevertheless. And then she demanded to know where the ladies room was.