Chapter warning: Graphic scenes of the ol' ultra-violence.

Chapter 7: When Blood Gets in Your Eye

"Ishida!"

The hollow released its grip, and the dark-haired boy fell lifelessly to the ground, leaving an ominous black smear on the wall behind him. Urahara reached for his cane. In a lightning's flash, the hollow was on him, stomping his wrist into the floor, its foot grinding the bones into the boards. Before he could shout or react, the hollow sucker punched him into the wall, his head snapping back and colliding with solid wood. Stars exploded behind Urahara's eyes, and pain was telegraphing itself from various outposts on his body. His right wrist was completely limp, unresponsive. Time was suspended as more terrified shrieks echoed through the room.

Ishida. Urahara cracked opened his eyes just in time to see the hollow dragging the boy across the room by his hair. It dropped him on the bed in a heap and straddled his torso, its yellow eyes aglow with vicious intent. Ishida was still conscious, fighting and screaming the whole time. Blood covered the pillow beneath his head. His eyes, gone wide with unchecked, animal terror, met Urahara's across the way. The pleading tone in his voice was agony to Urahara's ears.

"URAHARA!"

The hollow backhanded the boy, sending a neat spray of blood from his nose over the dirty sheets. "Shut up, slut! Don't speak that bastard's name!" The hollow raised Zangetsu, aiming the point between the Quincy's frightened eyes. "Say it again, and I'll cut out your tongue!" Then, with careful, surgical precision, it lowered the blade to the base of the boy's throat and began to cut, with agonizing slowness, a bloody trail down the center of his chest. A tortured scream ripped from the boy's throat as the hollow toyed with him, grinning its sick, evil grin, its eyes dancing, like a child gleefully tearing the wings off of a beautiful butterfly.

Urahara's mind was racing. Using Benihime on the hollow would only hurt Ichigo, who was locked somewhere inside that body's psyche. But if he didn't use Benihime, then the creature would kill Ishida. The boy's screams reverberated off the walls as Urahara tried to decide what to do.

In a blur of motion, Urahara was up and at the bed, the discarded jacket in his hands. The moment the hollow turned its head, he flung the jacket over its face, then pulled the cord of the cd player out of the wall. In one swift movement he had the cord looped around its/Ichigo's covered head. He drew the noose taught around its throat and pulled! Beneath its make-shift hood the hollow shrieked and clawed at its neck, trying to gain purchase on the cord. Beneath the two of them, in a spreading pool of blood, flailed Uryuu. The tortured, innocent apex of a non-existent triangle, the Quincy was trying in vain to get away with slow, agonized movements.

There was no other choice. If he couldn't kill the hollow, then Urahara would just have to subdue it.

"Ishida, run! Leave!"

The hollow ripped the cloth from its head. From between purplish lips it trilled in its twisted, demonic voice: "You can't save him, old man! That no-good Quincy whore is as good as dead, and it's all your fault."

All his fault...

Urahara's heart pounded out a steady ostinato of desperation and overwhelming guilt as the struggling hollow continued to taunt him with its words. "I told King...I told him...if he let down his mental guard against me just the tiniest bit...then I would be there, waiting for him. And you were a big help there, sensei. Oh, I've seen the way you've been looking at King's precious little boyfriend. I've been in here watching you, whispering to King the truth. But he's mostly ignored me. Until tonight. Until that little conversation you had with Quincy boy's daddy out on the porch, until he saw the two of you together in the bedroom-"

The noose was yanked tighter. "Shut up!" gritted Urahara. "You don't know what you're talking about; I haven't done anything--"

"It doesn't matter what you've done. What matters is what King thinks you've done-" and here the hollow clamped its teeth down on Urahara's injured wrist. The shopkeeper yelled and instantly released his hold on the cord. In seconds, the creature was back on Uryuu, pulling him by his ankles back across the bed. Urahara grabbed the hollow from behind, and the three of them stayed locked together in a twisted tableau, shouting and struggling their way through the graceless, moribund steps of a life-or-death dance of violence.

"Come back here, you Quincy bitch-"

"-Ichigo don't-"

"-you're not going anywhere. I'm going to carve the skin from your hide-"

"-stop! Let go! Urahara, make him stop-"

"-I'm going to destroy everything King's ever loved, starting with you."

Urahara watched the hollow reach out for Zangetsu, which had fallen from its grasp and was now twisted up in the sheets. Before it could get to it, Urahara snatched it up and threw it across the room. It landed with a resounding metallic clink! near his own cane by the far wall. "Bastard!" the hollow spat, and it viciously headbutted Urahara with the back of its own head. White lights flickered across the shopkeeper's vision, but this time he refused to let the creature go. Teeth clamped down on his hand again, and blood was flowing, thick and sickly sweet in the air. Pain danced across his synapses, making him dizzy with the effort to shut it out. He registered a slight thunk! as Uryuu fell off the side of the bed and onto the floor. The hollow had let go of him, and the creature's fury was now fully directed at Urahara. Murderously strong hands gripped him around the throat, and he was forced back into the mattress, the creature's knees digging viciously into his chest. Urahara's vision began to waver and blur as his air supply was choked off.

Thunder rumbled. Demented, hollow laughter arced through the room. In his blurred periphery, Urahara noticed the insidious glow of a small, growing fire; in their three-way struggle, the bedside table had been knocked over, and now the rice paper lantern with the candle inside was aflame. Warning bells of panic went off in the far corner of his brain, but they were distant: a small, insignificant complication compared to the problem at hand. Namely, that he was about to be murdered by an evil demon in the guise of his own student's body.

"Oh no you don't!" There was the rush of cold air, and suddenly Urahara's windpipe was free, leaving him choking and gasping for breath. There was an inhuman shriek and another loud thunk! as the discordant symphony of chaos and violence reached a crescendo. Urahara got up just in time to see the hollow looming over Uryuu, who was crouched in a cornered position before the door. There was a flash of brightness as the creature brought its arm down; the Quincy choked out a pained gasp as a long line of blood bloomed like a bubbling red spring across his face. The broken mirror. A jagged shard glinted wickedly in the creature's grasp. Urahara watched the hollow raise its hand again, intent on another pass. "Stop!" Urahara yelled.

The hollow froze and turned its head toward him, the red and white mask fully engulfing Ichigo's face, yellow eyes agleam with animal lust. Urahara's eyes went to his cane on the floor. The hollow followed his gaze, then the two of them locked eyes with one another. In a flash, both of them were up and flying across the room, each intent on retrieving his zanpakuto. Shadows shimmied and danced across the wall as they met in a crouch mere inches from each other. There was no hesitation from either of them:

"Getsuga Tenshou!"

"Shred, Benihime!"

The violent impact from the two colliding forces, red on black, was enough to shatter every window in the room. By now, the whole bed was ablaze, and the wind from the storm outside whooshed through the open windows, further fanning the unchecked flames. The room was almost completely destroyed. Urahara caught a glimpse of Uryuu still cowering by the doorway. The boy's white shirt was in tatters, drenched dark with his own blood. Adrenaline alone was probably the only thing keeping him conscious. Go now. Get out. Urahara mouthed the words to him through the chaos. Firelight flickered across the boy's bloody face, a sad resignation clouding his usually defiant eyes. Silently, he reached back for the doorknob, and pulling the door open wide enough to allow him to slip through, he crept quietly from the room. He mouthed the words Don't die, to Urahara before slipping completely from sight.

Don't die. A simple directive, but could he follow it? Ice filled his veins, and panic chilled his psyche as fire crept its way across the window sills; it climbed the walls, took over the room. In the center of the inferno, the hollow stood, zanpakuto in hand, waiting on his next move. Don't die. Easier said than done. Urahara raised his sword and said, with a cold, calculated resignation:

"I know that you're in there, Ichigo. And I really don't want to hurt you." He paused. And then:

"But I will if I have to in order to make this stop..."

End Chapter 7.

Next update: Monday or Tuesday-ish (because the author is really super tired now).