They finally arrived back at the band room around two. The colorguard were surprisingly quiet, which was greatly appreciated by the band members aboard their bus. After the first thirty minutes of them screeching and cracking high notes, they were told to be silent by the bus driver, whom they promptly cursed out. After a few more minutes of their arguing, they quieted down, and nothing else had happened. An uneventful busride to the school, coupled with the ratings they had gotten, was enough to pacify most of the marching band. Ichigo had woken up with Rukia laying on his shoulder, due to some shift the bus had made en route. He felt her breathing on him, and had spied her nestled in the crook of his neck, and since he was less than half-consious, he didn't care. He shrugged his shoulder until she woke up, blinking away the remnants of a dream she had had. For a few moments, she stared at Ichigo profoundly, wondering where she was, why she was so cold, and how come she wasn't sleeping deeply in her closet. And then she remembered the three her section had gotten, and her version of the scowl returned.
Soon after the band members awoke, the colorguard director, Mister H., climbed on the bus and said that, no Mister Cogdill wasn't going to give them a lecture about what they could have done better. All he wanted was for them to put away their uniforms, clean up the band room, and go home, he said, and then Mister H jumped off the bus to avoid the stampede of colorguard. They were vicious at this time of day (or night, techinically), as any band member could have told him, though he should've known best; he was a former colorguard member, of a different band. So Ichigo watched as the ferocious beast-women crowded through the aisles. He held his shako box closely, as well as his uniform bag, which jingled with the chains of his jacket and guantlets. Rukia, who was still half asleep succumbed to the desire to close her eyes and she slumped listlessly against Ichigo yet again. The colorguard weren't moving fast anyway, so he decided to let her sleep for a few minutes.
Besides, who was he to wake a Sleeping Beauty?
Eventually though, the Colorguard were all herded off of the bus, and the band members slowly followed. Ichigo woke Rukia up with a gentle shake and a, "Wake up, idiot. We're here." She glared at him before unhooking the hanger of her uniform bag from the bus window and yawning. She yawned like a frigging cat, Ichigo thought. And, to his disgust, he found that... kind of... Ack, what the hell? What the hell was he thinking? She just yawned and he thought she was cute? What the hell was wrong with him? For God's sake, it was Rukia! It must be all this exposure to these damn nerds, Ichigo thought. Marching band was starting to have an effect on his perception of reality- that was it. So he shook his head, and upon looking at Rukia again, he glared at her.
And she glared right back.
Ichigo shivered. Rukia could be scary as hell, he realized from her glare. It was best he didn't start bickering with her over something small now. There was a distinct possibility she would maul the living hell out of him. So he lugged his uniform bag up the cement ramp, through the back door to the bandroom, and into the uniform hanger room in complete silence. For once, he wasn't the feircest looking person among the band students; Rukia was. Getting a bad rating, being awakened from deep sleep, and the intense cold of the small hours of the morning was not having the best effect on her.
If looks could kill, half of the band (and all of the Colorguard) would be dead.
So Ichigo made a point of avoiding her as much as possible. He hid in one of the darker corners of the locker rooms and waited for the rest of the band to clean the band hall. Honestly, he thought, who would look there? He could just doze off until he heard someone shout that Tony was dismissing them. Then he would get up, stand out there, get called to attention and shout, "Ea-gles!" and go home. Simple as that. Except that about halfway through the planning of this scheme, one of the few people he really didn't want to see staggered into the dim locker room. She slid into the corner beside Ichigo, making him scoot over, and promptly dropped dead, metaphorically speaking. Ichigo tried to glare, but seeing Rukia sleeping peacefully in the fetal position beside him took a good portion of the venom in his gaze and nullified it. But he made sure to peek around the corner of the locker that shielded him from sight. He would not be caught staring like some love struck teenager at the death god.
That would be like tripping during a preformance; if the band didn't know about immediately after, they would be alerted within fifteen minutes. He would never live it down.
There was no one else in the locker room, which was enough to surprise Ichigo. A moment alone in the locker room was something to be cherished, because most of the time, there were band kids stripping to the skivvies, for whatever reason. Deeply disturbing, even to the exceptional human- not to mention the smell. If not for the relative warmth the room provided, and it's missing or burned out lights, it wouldn't be the choice location for a quick nap. But it thankfully provided these things, so Ichigo had long since decided it was a worthy trade. This reprieve was short lived, though, because all too soon the Mellophone section leader stuck her head into the locker room and yelled, "We're being dismissed!" Rukia woke with a start, looking around like a lost child, until she stood up and staggered out of the dim room. Ichigo followed as soon as he could, making sure Keigo and Mizuiro were nowhere nearby. Those two idiots could jump to the strangest conclusions.
Out in the band hall, there was a large huddle of people surrounding Tony, who stood on a chair to see over their heads. A few bodies of the deeper sleepers of the band littered the carpeted floor, but nobody had the heart to wake them. They were mostly Colorguard. Tony clapped for four counts, and on the fifth, sixth, and seventh counts shouted, "Band-Ten-Hut!". The band shouted, "Hut!", but the guard and two of the drumline were still talking, until they found the rest of the band glaring at them. Tony sighed and told the band they would have to do it again. This was met by mutters and grumbles, but when Tony called them to attention again, no one talked. He searched every face, from Rukia's death glare to Ichigo's indifference, and counted to three. On the third count, everybody shouted, "Ea-gles!" and Tony answered them with, "Okay, dismissed."
As the group of students headed for the door, Ichigo glanced out the windows that were mounted high above the ground, touching the ceiling. Through them, he saw the terrifyingly wide grin of an ivory mask. Only one thought went through Ichigo's mind and off the tip of his tongue: "Oh shit." Rukia's cell phone went off just as the Hollow crashed through the side of the building, shattering glass and sending peices of brick flying. The remaining band members in the building didn't know what was happening, so they did the most rational thing they could; they ran like hell. All of them except Rukia's section leader and Ichigo's section leader. They were trying to break through the mass of people headed for the doors. From what they could see, there was some kind of distortion around the gaping hole in the side of the building, which they presumed to be some sort of poisenous gas. The faint outline of the Hollow entered the building and both section leaders paused momentarily, torn between the desire to save the ones in their sections and the need to keep themselves out of harm's way.
Rukia had her gloves on before Ichigo heard the ringing of her cell phone cut off. She chinned him brutaly, and his empty body fell to the floor as he drew his zanpakuto. He faced the Hollow squarely, unaware of the people who had remained in the building. Rukia dragged Ichigo's body into the locker room, where two band kids were hiding, telling them to watch over his body. She returned to the band hall to find Ichigo still hadn't attacked. The Hollow was big enough to have filled the room, and had the shape of a dog-thing. It's body was covered in fur the color of old blood, and it's wings were dragon-esque, torn and rotting. The stench it emitted was probably what had petrified all but her, because, even though the people still in the room didn't have that much riatsu, what they had was enough. Ichigo looked as though he was fighting against it, but the grinning beast was advancing, leaving foot prints the size of a Sousaphone, and the shinigami hadn't made any progress. As blood slowly filtered out of Ichigo's nose, he realized that was all he needed; there was the solution to this debilitating smell. In desperation, he forced his hand to move and tear off small bits of his clothing, which he promptly stuck in his nose. And the smell was gone.
Without further hesitation, Ichigo swung his sword, just as the creature opened its mouth to devour him. With a satisfying scream, its bottom jaw disintegrated, and it jumped back, with its tongue hanging out. It tried to say something, but all it managed to do was flop around its tongue and gurgle on black blood. Ichigo grinned, and attacked, heading for the mask. The Hollow was faster than he first thought, though, because it sidestepped before Ichigo had realized it, and tour his shoulder with its remaining upper jaw. With his left arm now out of commision, Ichigo roared like a madman and, while the creature still dug its fangs into his shoulder, stabbed it in the face. With a final, bone-chilling howl, it disappeared. Ichigo grimaced and looked around, doing a damage assessment.
The building had a gigantic hole in the western-most wall, chairs and stands were crushed, there was shards of glass everywhere, but there wasn't a single instrument among the casualties. That made Ichigo smile. There were no human casualties either, because there weren't any humans in the room, from what he could see.
He was unaware of his and Rukia's section leaders, who had taken refuge in the Large Ensemble Room.
--------------
Rukia called him over and pointed to his body, in the locker room, being poked and prodded by the two band kids whom Rukia had assigned to guard it. Returning to his body was no difficult task, and he growled as the baritone players poked him with their toes. With mumbled apologies, both band members left, and Rukia walked in, arms crossed. Ichigo glared at her, but found that the pain in his shoulder- which before had only been a kind of throbbing pressure- was now excruciating. This did nothing to improve his temper.
"What the hell do you want?"
The shinigami knelt down, and poked his (un)injured shoulder. When he cringed, she grinned- which didn't fail to make him shiver- and told him he'd be fine. They could do damage control tomorrow, erasing the memory of anybody who had seen what went on. Ichigo grumbled something incoherent, so Rukia sighed and told him she'd meet him at home.
"You did well, Ichigo."
Leaning over him, she kissed him on the forehead, stood up, and walked out the band room. Ichigo was left in shock. His daze was shattered though, when Pickle ran into the locker room, looking for him. She said she had seen him faint when the explosion occurred, so she was worried. They needed every quad drummer they had, and he couldn't just go dying on them. Who would fill his drill spot?
Ichigo glared at Pickle, but he knew she had a point. He was the best damn quad player they had, in his opinion. But right now he felt like if he even looked at his sticks, his arms would fall off. After performing, then fighting a Hollow and nearly having his arm chomped off by the over grown mutt, Ichigo felt a bit like... What was the right word? Hell? Yes, that seemed perfectly suited to the condition he was in. He needed to get home and go to sleep. He decided all of this in a matter of seconds as he glared up at his section leader, and he quietly asked for a ride home. She grudgingly obliged, mainly because she didn't have a choice- if someone in their section doesn't have a ride, the section leader is responsible for transportation. So Ichigo rode quietly as the drumline's personal van taxied all the percussionists to their homes, until he was finally dropped off at his own house.
Upon walking in, he ducked a vicious kick from his father with fluidity that belied his fatigue. He vaguely heard his father yell something, right in his ear, but he was already halfway to dreamland. Climbing up the stairs to his room, he saw Kon laying across the step as if he were dead, though he must have been asleep or trying to get lost to avoid Yuzu. Whatever the case, Ichigo wouldn't disturb him. He walked into his room and announced his presence to Rukia, though it was pointless, because she was hardly awake. He lay face down on his bed without bothering to change his clothes. Rukia may or may not have bid him goodnight; he didn't remember, and to him, it didn't matter. Just knowing that she was near him was enough for Ichigo.