Ichigo stood there, in the middle of the street, brandishing a gigantic sword resting on his shoulter. He grinned and said, "Alright, you monster…" and pointed his sword's tip at the hollow. "…let Karin go and I'll let you off easy."

Fishbone D exclaimed, "How? This makes no sense? How can you be a Shinigami? I didn't feel any Shinigami reiatsu from you before now!"

Ichigo grinned and said, "Who cares," as he drew his sword up above his head. "Now, I'll tell you one more time. Release Karin, and go back to whichever circle of hell you came from, or I'll kill you."

Fishbone thought, 'With the size of that sword, if he does attack me, I'm done for. So…"

Fishbone D said, "Alright, Shinigami, you win, for now," as it backed away and a garganta opened. Fisbone D tried to jump into it, trying to take Karin with him in order to devour her strong soul in order to move on to the next stage. His plan failed, Ichigo being far faster than he'd anticipated, his body dissolving into shiny blue particles as Karin flew into the garganta.

Ichigo shouted, "Karin!" and started to leap into the garganta after her, but he was pulled up by Rukia grabbing him by the collar of his shihakushō, causing him to fall to his back. He demanded, "What the hell Rukia?!" as he stood up angrily. "Why did you stop me? I need to…" and his eyes widened as he dropped down to his knees as he saw the garganta close completely, trapping Karin within its roiling, shadowy, bounds. He shouted out, "KARIIIIIIINNNN!" his desperation clear in his voice.

Rukia, far calmer, said, "Ichigo, I'm sorry. But there's nothing that you could have done once she was in there."

"What? How do you know?"

"Even the most experienced Shinigami haven't been in there and don't know how to open it. Even if they had, I am far from being one of them." She sighed and said, "I know that this won't be any comfort to you, but there is a remote chance that she could somehow find a way to the end of the garganta that Fishbone D opened, but that will just open up to Hueco Mundo. There might be someone that could know how to open it from this side, but even then, as you are…" Rukia sighed. "I'm sorry, but even if you could go after her, and actually make it into Hueco Mundo, there are hollows there that are immeasurably stronger than that hollow that you just defeated."

XXXXX

An indeterminable amount of time later…

Karin groaned as she slowly opened her eyes. she blinked when she found, right in front of her face, was a strange blue, metre-long, lizard-esque creature with a large frill around its neck that had bony spikes sticking out of it. What she found even stranger though, was that its face was covered in a white, bone-like, substance. She scuttled away from it, startling it and causing the frill to flare open. She said, "What…are you?" a fearful look on her face. The lizard's frill started to lower, but only halfway as it cocked its head at her. She said, "Can you…understand me? Wait..." She shook her head. "…what are you doing Karin? It's clearly a lizard of some sort, so of course it won't understand you. Although, come to think of it, that mask looks kind of strange." She asked it, "That mask covers your entire face, doesn't it?" The frill lowered a bit more as it nodded. "Then…how do you eat?" The lizard flared its frill and the spikes glowed as shiny blue particles rushed to them. "So then…you absorb those particle things for sustenance, do you?" The lizard folded its frill back as it nodded. "So then…you're not going to eat me…or something?" The lizard shook its head. Karin let out a relieved sigh as she put her hands back, supporting herself on them. She said, "So, I suppose I'm not in my world anymore, huh?" She looked at the lizard and said, "I don't suppose that you know where we are, do you?"

The lizard looked up and scrutinized her before it walked over to her and turned around, swiping its tail through the sand, making a circle. It then moved outside the circle and repeated the action three more times. It then moved over and tugged on her hand. Karin relaxed her arm to let it. The lizard went dragged her hand to the centre circle and placed her finger down on it, before jumping on the back of her hand to force her palm down on it. it then went to the lower circle and stood in it. Karin scrutinized and said, "So then…you're saying that, where my hand is, is my world?" the lizard nodded. "Okay, then if we are in the circle that you are standing in, that would that make this place hell, right?" The lizard shook its head and moved over to the lowest circle and put an X through it with its tail. Karin said, "Okay, so that's hell." She scratched her head and said, "If you scratched that out, does that mean that you can get to the other places?" The lizard nodded. Karin excitedly said, "Then that means that you can take me there too, right?" The lizard shook its head. Karin sighed and said, "Why not?" The lizard tugged Karins hand up from where it was before placing its front leg inside it. "So…does that mean that you're too small to do it?" the lizard nodded, causing Karin to sigh again. "Then I guess that that means that I'll need to find someone bigger to do it for me."

The lizard shook its head, repeatedly and rapidly before scurrying in front of her as she stood up and saw a massive building. It flared its frill wide and hissed, louder and more threatening than before. Karin blinked and said, "You…are afraid?" The lizard nodded. Karin said, "Alright. We don't have to go there then. Is there anywhere out here that we could use for shelter?" The lizard cocked its head, thinking on the request. Eventually it nodded and Karin said, "Alright then, lead the way," before following the lizard away from the gigantic building.

After a while, Karin's stomach growled and she rubbed her stomach, chuckling as the lizard cocked its head at her. "Sorry, but for some reason I'm really hungry right now. I don't suppose that there are any butchers around here," she joked. When the lizard cocked its head, she said, "Oh, right. You probably don't know what that is, huh?" She waited for it to cock its head the other way before explaining, "A butcher is someone that carves up meat for their customers to eat." The lizard flared its frill and backed up, quivering. "Wait…you don't think that…" KArin laughed. She said, "No. I wouldn't eat you." The lizard folded its frill as it settled down. It cocked its head and looked directly ahead of them and started scampering towards what it had been sensing. Karin rushed after it.

It didn't take them long to reach where the lizard was headed; the top of a cliff that had a path leading down the side of it. It went up to the edge and looked down, twitching its head to tell Karin to do so as well. Karin lay down on the ground before peeking over the edge. She saw two gigantic creatures that also had bony masks on their faces. One was a strange, blue, bipedal thing that had large, foot-long, razor claws and a long tail, the other was a crimson lizard with a stocky body and a long, thick, tail that had flame-likes spikes sticking up from the end of it. Unlike the frill neck that she had befriended, this one's mask only covered the top of its head, leaving its lower jaw free to show its sharp fangs as it hissed a loud challenge. The bipedal creature roared back at it. The lizard-like creature rushed at the bipedal one, faster than Karin had thought it would be able to and tried to bite into its foe. But, it didn't matter as the bipedal creature seemingly lazily swiped it with its claws, killing it easily. It cut a piece out of it with its claws and brought it up to its mouth. After it ate the slab of meat, Karin saw it glow a bright yellow and some kind of explosion that lit up the night sky happened, leaving behind a more compact form of the creature that seemed almost human, except for the still long claws attached to the end of its thick arms that bulged past the elbow, and the long tail that it still had, though it was nowhere near as thick as it had been.

The lizard started shaking and backed away from the ledge, as did Karin, who said, "What…was that? There's no way I'll survive here!" the lizard pushed at her side, next to her heart. Karin looked at it sceptically and said, "Have heart, you say?" She let out a sigh and said, "Alright then. So, what do we do now?" the lizard nodded its head towards her, and then back towards the downed hollow. Karin said, "You expect me to go down there?" The lizard flared its frill and absorbed particles from the atmosphere. Karin had a disappointed look on her face. She said, "Well, I suppose that you do have a point there. But still, even if I did go down there, I'd just end up the same as that one that he just killed. The lizard tossed its head from side to side and drew two circles on the ground, one a lot larger than the other. Karin sighed as it stood over the smaller one and said, "So, you're saying that I'm so insignificant and weak that it would just ignore me?" The creature nodded. Karin sighed and said, "You know what, I don't like it, but you're probably right," and stood up and brushed herself off before making her way down the side of the cliff.

When she got there, she put her hands in her pockets, but, unsurprisingly, found nothing in them. she sighed and said, "I knew that I didn't have anything, but still, I wish I did. I suppose that that means that I'll just have to…" she gulped and knelt down by its head. She bit into the side of it and, all of a sudden, a red energy started to emit from her body that flared up and roiled around, causing her to scream in agony before she blacked out. She didn't see it, but, the deceased hollow dissolved into red reishi that rushed to Karin, enveloping her in a cocoon of flailing reiatsu.

Yet another indeterminable amount of time later, Karin woke up to the same sight as before. On her side, the lizard looking down at her. She groaned as she asked, what happened?" This time, instead of drawing an image, it lowered its head, imitating an action that it had once seen a human do in the girl's world. Karin sighed and said, "Well, I suppose that's as good a thing as an-? Huh?" She asked, "What's that?" as she saw something that had seemingly taken the place of the strange, giant, lizard. It was a bladed weapon that was still inside the scabbard, which was attached to a piece of cloth. Karin walked over to it and drew it. She turned it in her hands, seeing that it had a mostly straight blade, though it had a slight curve towards the tip and only one full side had a sharp edge, though the back of the blade was sharpened towards the tip and had two tines where the blade met the hilt, which seemed to be made from bone, and was covered in some kind of strange scaly material the same colour that the lizard thing had been. Karin returned it to the scabbard and tied it around her waist with the piece of cloth. She looked at the lizard and said, "Alright…mmmm…Rizar." The lizard cocked its head at Karin, curious about the word that she'd used. Karin said, "Well, I figure that if we're going to be together for a while, you should have a name that I can call you, and, since you've got a frill around your neck, I figure that it's appropriate." The lizard cocked its head the other way. Karin said, "Oh. You probably don't know what a name is, huh? Alright then…" she pointed at herself and said, "My name is Kurosaki Karin." She pointed at the lizard and said, "I can't very well go on calling you 'lizard', or 'you', so, for now at least, I'll call you Rizar. Alright?" the lizard cocked its head, considering her words.

Eventually, it nodded and Karin said, "Great. In that case, Rizar, we'll still need to find somewhere to hide out, at least until I'm strong enough to survive out here in the open." Rizar nodded and went back to the path up the cliff. Karin said, "It's back up there?" Rizar shook its head. "It's not? Then why are you leading me back up there?" Rizar didn't even attempt to reply before moving back up the path, having no way to communicate to the human what it needed to. About halfway up the path, Rizar left it, walking along a thin ledge that continued on past the corner of the path. Karin thought, 'It wants me to follow it out there?' and looked at the rocks above the ledge, checking for handholds. Seeing that there were some for at least what she could see, Karin stepped off the path.