Chapter 9: Playing with Fire

Reams of orange flame crept up the walls, dressing the windows in corrupt curtains of light that disintegrated everything they touched. Steel on steel echoed through the fast burning room, as the hollow made pass after pass at Urahara with his sword. Urahara calmly deflected each blow as the creature shrieked and swore at him. He parried merely to buy time. Time to come up with a viable plan, a creative way to end this mess. That, more than outright fighting, was his true strength, his greatest ability. Victory through intellectual subjugation.

Urahara dodged as a beam overhead cracked and fell. The hollow saw this an opportune distraction and slipped in low, spearing upward with his sword. Blond hair was cleaved away mere inches from Urahara's face, and he watched the strands fall, like pieces of pale silk descending in slow motion. And then it came to him. He knew exactly what he had to do. But first, he had to get out of this room.

In a flash, Urahara careened around the hollow and crashed through the doorway, making his escape down the hall. The hollow took this as a sign of retreat, an admission of fear. "Hey! Where're you going, sensei?" it taunted him, watching his progress from the open doorway of the room. Behind it, the flames flickered and danced, making it truly look like a demon emerging straight from hell. "You scared or somethin'? Ha-ha! Well, you should be scared, 'cause once I catch you, I'm gonna pry those lecherous eyeballs of yours right out of their sockets, you no-good, scheming wretch."

Urahara ignored the hollow's foul words and concentrated on reaching the shop's main sales floor. He faltered just a bit at the sight of blood, left behind like some kind of gruesome Hansel and Gretel trail on the floor, mapping the way before him. Ishida. Urahara swallowed, determined to push all thoughts of the Quincy from his mind. It was imperative. He couldn't operate, couldn't think rationally with the boy's safety foremost on his mind. It hobbled him, made it harder for him to strategize, to react. Emotion was the enemy of logic. Best to block it out.

Urahara made it to the room with all the shelves and dove behind the main counter. The hollow was hot on his trail, dragging Zangetsu's point along the window panes in an ominous, discomfiting skree! "Hey, where'd you go, sensei? Not hiding from little ol' me, are ya? You know, I can sense that rank spirit energy of yours from a mile away." The hollow bounded on top of the counter, plunging its zanpakotu downward. It stuck in the floorboards below, slicing nothing but thin air. The space was empty. "Where are you, you sneaky bastard?" it hissed angrily.

"Here." It whirled to find Urahara standing directly behind it on the counter. The shopkeeper grabbed the creature by its throat, and the two of them fell, struggling, to the floor. Without hesitation or pity, Urahara grabbed the creature's head and bashed it viciously on the wooden floorboards: once, twice, three times. Still, it struggled. Finally, it gave up on trying to pry the shopkeeper's hands from its throat and went straight for the Shinigami's eyes instead. Those jabbing thumbs were enough to make him lose his hold, and Urahara fell back, the shop spinning in a kaleidoscope above him. Vengeful shrieks filled the air as he felt inhumanly strong hands clawing at his own throat. Then another, softer sound intervened:

"Ichigo, listen to me! I know you can hear me!" Uryuu's voice, from somewhere up above, called out.

"Ishida don't! Get away!"

"Ichigo, please...It kills me that you're in there thinking the worst of me. How could you ever think such a thing? That's not who I am. You know this." Suddenly, Urahara was no longer trying to disengage himself from the hollow, but instead he found himself clinging on, trying to hold the creature back from Ishida. They grappled on the shop floor, in a twisted skein of flailing limbs. Dangerous! Too dangerous for you to be here! thought Urahara. Yet at the same time the cunning strategist in him thought: Yes! Keep talking! Keep it distracted! I almost have it! Urahara fought to pin the enraged creature to the floor. Meanwhile, the flames, like a stray dog, had followed them down the hallway and were now lapping greedily at the entrance of the main sales room.

"Ichigo, come back to me!" Uryuu, beaten and bloody and barely standing, knelt down next to the struggling hollow. He reached a tentative hand toward the wicked red and white mask, a determined expression on his face. "Come back to me..." Urahara felt the hollow grow still in his grip, and he knew then that he had his opening.

Suddenly, the creature lunged at Uryuu, an unholy shriek cutting through the air. Urahara pulled the hollow into a headlock, and in one swift movement, he had the mask pried up and he was shoving a small round object down its still screeching throat. The hollow flailed wildly as if shot through with an electrical current. Its screams soared to an unbearable volume, and Urahara saw Uryuu fall back on his haunches on the other side of the creature, his hands covering his ears, his eyes wide with confusion. Urahara released the hollow, and it fell, writhing on the floor, panting: "You scheming bastard! What have you done to me? What have you done?"

"I'm bringing an end to this."

"You...you've done something! You sneaky bastard!" The hollow continued to rant and rave, even as its movements began to grow demonstrably slower, weaker. Urahara and Uryuu both knelt on the floor on either side of the creature: Uryuu with a bloody, jagged cut marring the side of his face, his formerly white shirt drenched dark with dried blood, and Urahara with his hair wildly askew, his right wrist swollen to the size an orange, his green robes singed by fire. Uryuu's eyes met Urahara's across the way, "What did you do?"

"I shoved a sponge down his throat. Granted, it's a very special sponge, made from some of the same elements that make up the stones surrounding the Shrine of Penitence." Urahara paused, and seeing the look of confusion on Uryuu's face, said flatly, "It literally soaks up your spirit energy and renders you powerless. I almost forgot that I had one left. The rest of them got destroyed in the last fire that burned the shop." Then, as if to call attention to the fact that the three of them were still stuck inside a blazing inferno, a loud, ominous creak! sounded from the beams of the roof overhead.

"Urahara..." Uryuu's gaze lifted heavenward, a new-found distress clouding his expression. Yellow flames danced and shimmied within the frames of his glasses. With effort, Urahara pulled the now unconscious hollow/Ichigo over his shoulders, intent on carrying him on his back. His broken wrist, blithely ignored in the heat of battle, screamed in protest. Urahara's knees wobbled, buckled a little under the weight. Uryuu was instantly at his side, saying, "Let me help." But the Quincy looked as weak as a newborn kitten; there was no way he could manage. He was lucky he was still able to stand, to walk himself.

"C'mon, we're going," Urahara said determinedly, even though they were now surrounded by fire on every side. Like twisted vines of fast growing ivy, it had crept in, unnoticed, and taken over the walls and floors. If Urahara had been alone, he would have just chanced it by jumping through a window. But he couldn't, not with all the dead-weight surrounding him, counting on him. So he pressed forward through the fire, through overwhelming heat and acrid smoke, hoping for the best.

The hallway was like a lit furnace leading straight into hell. He could hear Uryuu coughing behind him, clinging blindly to his robes. Back door, must get to the back door. Urahara focused on finding his way out through memory alone as his visibility fell to nothing. His body trembled beneath the press of the fire and Ichigo's weight, but his instinct for survival was more powerful. Close...so close now, he thought. There was another loud groan from overhead, and Urahara could hear bits of shrapnel detaching and falling in the distance. There was a slight tug on the hem of his robe, and he could hear Uryuu speaking behind him, could hear his trembling voice say, "Urahara...the ceiling...I think it's going to..."

And that was the last thing he heard before a piece of the roof collapsed and fell on top of them...

End Chapter 9.

Next update: not until sometime next week.