Chapter 16: A Brother's Spirit
Ichigo pushed the door to his bedroom open and found himself staring at the raven haired woman Rukia, who was sitting on his bottom bunk. Really? he asked himself. Couldn't she stay in Yuzu and Karin's room?
Laughter filled his head as the image of his hollow filled his vision. I'm starting ta think she's got somethin' fer ya King. Laughter filled his mind once again for a moment.
Go away. Ichigo stated causing the albino hollow to laugh even more before the hollow vanished. Poking Rukia in the arm, causing her to look up, he spoke pointing his thumb behind him. "Get off my bed."
"Sorry." she mumbled having forgotten that Ichigo slept on the bottom bunk. Opening the closet she jumped onto the shelf turned bed and looked out towards the two. "So..." she began nervously. "What exactly is this girl party going to entail?"
Ichigo sat down looking over some homework as Verena spoke from the higher bunk. "Well, I think we covered it earlier when I said we'd do each other's hair, make-up, nails, and probably tell ghost stories." she smiled from above. "Mama knows the best ghost stories."
Ichigo chuckled from below. "She's got a point there." he pointed out. "Only Mom can scare Verena with her stories."
Verena blushed. "I can't help it." she defended herself. "They're scary!"
"Yuzu and Karin haven't heard them yet, so don't ruin it for them." he warned her.
Verena poked her head over the side to look down at Ichigo, her long orange hair falling like a curtain over the opening of the bunk as she did so. "I wouldn't do that!" she yelled.
"Yes you would!" he yelled back before looking over the booktexts he had to finish. "Not on purpose, but by accident."
Verena sat back up and pouted. "You're mean Ichi."
Ichigo scoffed before smirking at her. "Not always." he answered as he began to write the answers into the blanks on the pages he needed to finish.
Silence fell over the room when suddenly Rukia's phone began to go off, at that moment both siblings sensed something coming. "Shit." Verena cursed as she jumped from her bunk and ran to the door with Ichigo jumping from his body as soon as he popped Kon's soul candy into his mouth and following her to the room down from them. Rukia chased after them.
"Karin!" Verena called out causing her dark haired sister to look up from her soccer magazine.
"Huh?" she questioned when she saw Verena suddenly dove towards her, grabbing her by her arm and twisting their bodies away from her bed just as an arm crashed through the wall and destroyed her bed. "What the h-" she began only to be interrupted by Ichigo crying out as he brought his sword out to cut the appendage off.
Verena saw the hollow suddenly come through the wall as if it wasn't even there. Ichigo jumped backwards as the second arm of the hollow came at him to grasp at him. "Go for the head!" Rukia screamed from the doorway.
Downstairs Masaki suddenly gave a gasp as she felt a sudden spirit pressure, something she hadn't felt for years. I don't understand... she thought when she heard a crash upstairs.
"What is Karin doing?" Yuzu asked as she turned to go up to yell at her twin.
"Yuzu!" Masaki cried out as she grasped her daughter's arm and pulled her away from the stairway just as there was a yell.
"Go for the head!" the voice yelled.
"I know!" Ichigo's voice soon followed.
Masaki covered her mouth with her free hand. How can I sense a hollow? My powers are gone. she thought to herself as worry ate at her. Unbeknownst to her, Masaki wasn't just sensing hollows, but she could now hear her son while in soul form, something that should've been impossible for her.
Upstairs Ichigo's sword came in contact with the mask of the hollow. Crying out he channeled his spirit pressure into Zangetsu, which caused the large sword to glow mightily. The sword went through the mask like a hot knife through butter. The hollow screamed as blood gushed from the head wound on the top of its head as the mask cracked and shattered on the left half of its face. A deep gash appearing on the hollows face as it screamed in utter pain.
Going in for the killing strike, Ichigo rushed forward with the large sword. Going in from the side the hollow suddenly dashed back out of the room, escaping through a dark portal.
"He got away." Rukia stated with disappointment in her voice.
Ichigo frowned as she spoke. "What is it Ichi?" Verena inquired as she helped Karin stand back up.
"That hollow..." he began as he looked at her. "It was Inoue's older brother."
Rukia froze upon hearing this information. "Are you certain?" she inquired from him and got a nod from him. "I told you before that sneaking up behind a hollow-"
"That hollow was formally a normal soul." Ichigo told her. "I know that already. My sword purifies evil spirits which then allows a purified soul to enter soul society." Rukia looked at him with an impressed look upon her face. "I do pay attention to what Getabushi says." he mumbled a hint of redness crossing his cheeks.
Verena sighed. "We've told you, Getabushi has been training us since we were kids." She then looked towards Ichigo. "Do you think it's going to go after Orihime now?"
"More than likely." Ichigo told her as he looked towards Karin. "You okay?"
Karin gave a nod. "Yeah, but why did it attack me?" she asked him.
"Your spirit pressure." Rukia told the younger girl. "It must have sensed it and because it did not get you, it's going after the next best thing. The one thing that it cared for most in this life..."
"Inoue is in danger Ichi." Verena pulled out her flip phone and began to text someone.
"What are you doing?" Ichigo asked as he opened the window in his little sister's room.
"Texting Tatsuki," she told him causing him to look at her. "because she's with Orihime." Ichigo's eyes widened as he gave a sudden jump out of the window, engaging flash step as he did so. Verena jumped from the window as well, only because she was still in her human form, she engaged her Quincy ability of Hirenkyaku; which was the Quincy version of flash step. The two siblings quickly vanishing into the night, leaving a fuming Rukia behind.
Tatsuki had come over to Orihime's place after having been told by Verena that their friend was hurt and had been acting oddly at the park. When she had arrived she had found Inoue about to make herself one of her crazy concoctions. Tatsuki had saved the other girl the trouble of cooking by bringing over some of her mother's home cooking. It was then that Orihime gave her a recount of what had happened at the park when she'd seen the Kurosaki twins with the new exchange student, Rukia Kuchiki.
"I can't believe you gave up a perfect moment like that." she complained slightly. "You see a moment like that and you must GO for it."
"Go?" Orihime inquired, quite confused what her friend meant.
"I mean, you scared him when you could have tackled him and taken him down!" she bemoaned at missing that perfect moment herself.
Orihime felt her cheeks light up on fire. "T-Tatsuki!" she cried out in embarrassment.
The other girl started laughing at her friend's embarrassment. "Orihime, come on! It would've been perfect!" she laughed when suddenly her phone began to go off. "Huh?" she looked at the message and saw a dozen texts saying the same thing.
GET YOURSELF AND ORIHIME OUT OF THERE! NOW!
Sweat dripped down her back. Verena never sent texts like that unless they were important, but what could be so important that she'd type something like this. "Orihime-" she began when she heard a screaming sound that did not sound human at all. What the- She stood up suddenly causing her friend, who was hearing it as well, to look at her curiously. "We need to go." she told her.
"Why Tatsuki?" Orihime inquired, confused by her friend's change in what they were doing.
"Because Verena says we're in danger and she sees spirits, so I tend to listen to her!" Tatsuki cried out as the noise suddenly stopped. Her heart was beating wildly. Turning she grasped her friend's hand and pulled her uninjured arm. As she opened the door, there was a crashing sound just as the toy bear fell to the ground. Tatsuki had a sudden bad feeling as she pulled Orihime out of the room and down the hall towards the stairs that led to the exit. Just then the entire apartment exploded above them causing the two girls to gasp as they fell down the final steps.
"Ouch!" Orihime cried out as she looked at her now twisted ankle.
Tatsuki helped her stand up and get away from the apartment complex just as the windows above exploded, glass raining down upon them. Suddenly they were both grabbed by the back of the shirts and pulled backwards. A large table crashed were they would've been moments ago. Behind them Verena stood over them like a guardian angel.
"You two okay?" she asked like nothing out of the ordinary was happening. Behind her Ichigo was fighting Inoue's hollow turned brother. The snake-like creature he had been turned into was leaving quite the path of a destruction behind him.
"Verena!" Tatsuki cried out. "What the hell is going on?" she demanded, her voice carrying over the noise causing the hollow to cry out as it spotted them.
Verena touched her friend's shoulders. "I'll explain later." she assured her. "For now, get to my house and don't leave it."
"That's a fifteen minute run!" Tatsuki yelled at her.
Verena turned away from her friend and spoke over her shoulder. "Just do it." she said sounding cold. The look in her eyes made Tatsuki realize that something bad was going on. Nodding, she grasped Orihime's wrist and ran as fast as she could with the limping girl behind her.
Ichigo jumped away from the hollow as it lashed out at him with its tail. This one is stronger than most. An Adjuchas perhaps? he wondered as he pulled his smaller sword from it's sheath on his hip, ready to perform an attack to kill the monster when a white arrow flew by his head and embed itself into the hollows shoulder.
The creature retaliated by whipping its tail around blindly, destroying half of the building that had been Orihime's home. "A warning next time!" Ichigo yelled out.
"Stop fucking around and kill that damn thing!" she yelled back at him.
Come on King. Ichigo heard his hollow say as the image of old man Zangetsu appeared next to the hollow.
Let's finish his, Ichigo. Old man Zangetsu said looking semi-excited for once.
Ichigo felt his power expand slightly. He knew it was dangerous to perform this attack. He'd only practiced it in his inner world and never outside it. Condensing his energy, Ichigo drew a line of energy on the horizon with the smaller sword which was quickly divided by the larger sword. The two energies exploded into a cross shaped attack that was sent forward as he yelled out the attack at the hollow. "Getsuga Jujisho!" When the light from the two attacks vanished, the hollow that had been there had been disintegrated into dust as the soul was purified by the heat of Ichigo's attack.
Off in the distance Rukia Kuchiki once more was left with more questions than answers. That attack was different from the first one she'd semi-witnessed that first night. Just how powerful is that boy? she wondered but couldn't help but smile. If he could do this in shikai form, she wondered what he'd do once he'd achieved his bankai.
M-Angel: Yay, I did a longer chapter than I usually do. ^_^ I'm so proud of myself! I hope everybody enjoyed this battlescene. I'm still working on my sword fighting battles. I've done a few in a couple of my stories, but I'm still not 100% confident about the battlescenes.
I decided to posted this two days early because I have some things I'll be doing this weekend and I may not have been able to write this chapter.
Also, Old Man Zangetsu is still around because I never truly understood on whether or not he vanished once Ichigo knew about his Quincy powers and his father's/mother's past. I know he's suppose to be a representation Ichigo's Quincy powers and takes on the look of Yhwach, but I wasn't sure if he just vanishes after Ichigo got Zangetsu reforged or not. Yes I've read the magna, but I'm still not really certain. Anybody know the answer to this?
I kinda feel silly asking that, but I'm still curious. ^_^