The two ran on, senses strained.
Hitsugaya stopped abruptly. "It doesn't make sense that they can't track the hollow, Karin. They've been shinigami for a very long time."
"I don't know how to say it, but there's more than one trace of the hollow in different directions. And these traces have the same feel... all except one."
"That would be Tammy's."
"Tina's." Karin was amused. "Do you do that on purpose?"
"I tend not to associate myself too closely with humans," he said loftily, eyes scanning for hollows.
Karin felt piqued. "Really."
They raced forward, Karin's senses strained to the hilt... "Found it," she said. Then she shuddered involuntarily. "It's all... clammy and, and sick or something."
"Thass cossss I came frommm a ssswamp."
Hitsugaya and Karin swerved about to see a dripping hollow rear above them both. Its mask was oddly featureless, kind of like the nameless creature from Spirited Away. But then the hollow didn't need a recognizable face when it had an unforgettable smell.
The stench of rotten produce hit their sense of smell at the same time, and Hitsugaya turned a delicate shade of green trying not to regurgitate everything he'd eaten the past three hours.
Karin retreated upwind. "Hey, stinky, where's Tina? Why do you want her?"
"She sssmellsssss niiiice... and ssssshe'sssss been eluding us for too long, too long..." the hollow began to whimper, rocking back and forth, holding itself about its torso. "Too long... too long..."
Mad, Hitsugaya thought. The hollow must've gone mad.
He darted forward and slashed up, and weird yellow-green goo spurted out of the hollow instead of the usual dark blood. Hitsugaya managed to avoid getting splashed by ducking and rolling out of the way.
Karin made a face veering between amused and disgusted. "Where's Tina?"
"Gonnne, gone gone gone gone gone..." the thing sang stickily. Karin was repulsed – it looked, to all extent and purpose, like a phlegm monster with a tooth stuck to the top of the vomit pile.
But even over the unbelievable stench of the hollow Karin could feel the thread-thin vibration of Tina's soul, an acidic twang that stuck to the back of her throat like the aftertaste of flu or cough medicine.
No wonder I dislike her on sight. Her signature's so darn grating.
The girl?
You noticed too?
Not really. She's insignificant. Nothing like the princess the wizard was holding onto...
Stop fantasizing about a potentially lethal opponent, scaly-breath.
I don't ask you to stop fantasizing about the dragon's -
Shut up. Change of topic: I wonder why the hollow want Tina.
If you wanna ask, girlie, better ask your boy to stop hacking away or you'll have to speak to kibbles and bits.
HE'S NOT MY BOY!
Geez, relax, girlie. Ooh, another great hit-
Karin forced her mind out of conversing with Yuutsubame. The fishman had the uncanny ability to distract her with snide remarks just when she needed to focus. She unsheathed her sword, but was unsure if she ought to jump into the fray.
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
Ikkaku scratched his chin, making a raspy sound.
"Hey, you."
Karin turned around, her hair plastered to her sweaty face. She frowned at the bald man pointing at her with his sword. "What?"
"C'mere."
"Not gonna." Karin turned back to her mid-training snack while attacking her homework. She made a mental note never to ask Urahara-san for help in math again, the man had some serious issues to work out regarding modern education.
"All I asked for was help with fractions," Karin grumbled under her breath, trying to erase the complicated formulas now scribbled all over her workbook.
Then something prodded the back of her skull.
Karin pushed it away and snapped, "What do you want?"
"You Ichigo's kid sis?"
"Who you calling a kid, baldie?"
"Hey." The glare in the bald man's eyes were stunningly scary. Karin felt him rein in his stormy reiatsu. "Alright, truce. I be just that bit more polite, and you'll be a lot more polite."
"Yeah. What do you want?"
"You're holding your sword wrong."
"What?" Karin shook her mind away from fractions and equations and grabbed the handle of her blade. "I always hold it like this. Hitsugaya holds it like this too-"
"His sword is different from yours. Your sword is hiltless and there ain't nothing protecting your fingers from the blade."
"So?"
Ikkaku demonstrated. "You gotta ensure your grip won't slide..."
The next half an hour Yoruichi graciously ceded to Ikkaku's impromptu lecture about holding swords and also the rules of battle.
"... and it should always be one-on-one."
"No freaking way," Karin said, awed. "That means suicide if the opponent is way stronger than you."
"That's how things are-"
"Kaku, love, I don't think our philosophy suits a young shinigami just coming into her powers," Yumichika interrupted, having listened silently all through up till then. "Besides, I think she fits more with the Thirteenth."
"Huh?"
"The Thirteenth Division Captain says that a battle can be for life or for pride," Yumichika elaborated, "and the key to becoming a good shinigami is knowing the difference. And you don't enter the fray unless it's a fight to stay alive, because pride... it is irreplaceable once taken."
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
"Shoot," Karin scolded under her breath. Hitsugaya was holding his own; there was no need for Karin to interfere. She scanned her surrounds, trying to pinpoint Tina's location, but there was too much interference from Hitsugaya, from the hollow...
A faint buzzing from somewhere behind her prompted Karin to draw Yuutsubame and whirl around, just in time to parry a stabbing blow from – the same hollow Hitsugaya was fighting?
"You're... what the hell are you?" demanded the new shinigami.
"We arrre Legion," the hollow slurred, its voice almost oily. The stench was overpowering. Karin thanked her dad silently for making her and Yuzu help out in the clinic; these sort of smells no longer turned her stomach.
It's turning MINE. Kill it already.
Yuu, you don't even HAVE a stomach.
Hey, I'm still a being in my own right-
Karin swung the shirasaya in a tight arc, the blade flashing iridescent blue. The hollow schlupped forward, the greasy, liquid sounds of its movement making even stoic Karin slightly nauseous.
"Guess it's true there's nothing too strange in this world," the brunette muttered. "Gekido, Yuutsubame!"
The sudden roar of water swept Legion off its feet. Karin ran up the trunk of a nearby tree, and prepared to stab into the oddly flat mask when the water turned murky brown-green. Before she could figure out what happened, Legion was towering over her, a massive, watery construct.
"Thank youuuuuu, ssssshinigami," it breathed out, a toxic airborne event in itself. Karin recoiled, then choked out, "Sa-sashimasu!"
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
Hitsugaya was irate.
One little hollow like this, he should have put it down already. He darted to the left, then slashed up, chipping the mask.
Another spray of foul pus shot out. The white-haired captain dodged, and was somewhat pleased that not even his haori was hit by the stinking liquid.
"Where is the girl?"
"Legion doessss not tell," it said in a sing-song voice. Something gurgled at the back of its throat, and Hitsugaya fought to contain his revulsion.
He stabbed again, but the phlegm-like covering of the hollow was amazingly thick; Hitsugaya's blow barely made a wound in its hide. "Who is Legion?"
"Weeeeeeeee are Legiiionnnn." It made to grab the slight-statured shinigami captain
Hitsugaya pushed off a tree trunk and braced his sword forward. Hourinmaru's blade cut through the hollow's outstretched arm and, pushing the advantage, slashed the hollow's mask into two.
He was rewarded with an inhuman shriek and the explosion of the creature into tiny particles... and a drenching of pale yellow-green stinking pus that clung to his every exposed surface.
Hitsugaya looked down at himself and said something he never thought would come out from his lips. "Fuck it."
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
When Legion screamed Urahara thought he had hurt it.
But there was no sign that it had been hurt when it started firing ceros at him.
"Easy there, big fella, I don't intend to hurt you," he said, Benihime neutralizing every cero she encountered. Urahara then effected a shrug. "Not until I got the necessary information from you anyway."
"Come on, stop playing and get on with it." Yoruichi was perched on the roof of a nearby building. She'd dispatched hers some ten minutes ago.
Urahara sighed. He spoke to the hollow, "Look, easy way, hard way. Easy way, you tell me what I want to know, and I purify you. Hard way, you tell me everything you know and more after I torture and maim you, and perhaps I'll throw you to the mercy of your fellow hollows."
"Nnnnnnnnever!" Legion hissed angrily, and clawed ineffectually at the swift-moving Urahara.
"Yeah, those guys really have no mercy whatsoever."
Legion backed a few steps away, but felt a solid presence rear up behind him.
"He wasn't done," Yoruichi drawled, then took one step forward. "Where is the girl?"
"Legionnnnnn doesssssn't know," it slurred.
"Really." Urahara closed the gap. Benihime was straining at the leash, eager for the kill.
"Really." Yoruichi echoed.
"Leeeggggionnn doesssssssss nnnnot know," it insisted again.
The two old friends exchanged a quick glance.
Urahara grinned sunnily. "Alright then!"
Then his blade cut the skull-like mask into two.
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
"Need help?" Hitsugaya was oddly jaunty when he landed beside Karin.
"No! My fight." Karin grunted, then took three steps away from the very disgusting slime-covered captain. "You need a bath, pronto."
"Your attacks aren't working." He avoided the issue of personal hygiene and instead pointed out the obvious.
Karin rolled her eyes. "I know! I just... don't know why."
Hitsugaya glared sideways. Sometimes she was insightful to the point of being scary, other times she was as dense as her brother. "It's from a swamp."
"So?"
A huge arm crashed down between them, forcing Karin to flash-step away to a safer vantage point on top of a nearby slide.
"So water-based attacks won't hurt it." Hitsugaya rejoined her, and thankfully downwind from where she was. He hopped down to the ground, where the initial burst of water was coagulating into stinking mud. He shouted up, "Attack at the opportune moment!"
"What opportune moment?"
"Soten ni zase, Hourinmaru!"
The ice spread and covered Legion in two seconds. Karin gaped, then used shunpo to leap up the steep incline of the hollow's towering form before using Yuutsubame to slice Legion in two.
Hitsugaya leaned on his sword. "That opportune moment." Then, catching a whiff of the pong emanating from him, he shook his head resignedly. Maybe he could camouflage this by hopping into a gigai first.
Karin was standing on top of the slide, trying to locate Tina. Hitsugaya was quietly impressed when suddenly dozens of thin 'ribbons' appeared. He saw the shinigamis' interspersed with the common souls, then tried to identify the missing girl's...
"Got it." Karin reached forward and grabbed a thin strip. "Come on."
"How can we rescue her if she can't see us? It'll look odd if she floats along the streets."
"What?" Karin stopped in her tracks. "Oh. Right, shinigami form... but it's too far to get to our bodies."
Hitsugaya raised his eyebrows at her obtuseness. He flipped open his mobile phone and pressed a speed-dial button.
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
"Where... where am I?"
Tina opened her eyes to see Karin peering down at her, an irritated frown on her face. Beside Karin was the shopgirl.
Karin snorted. "What are you, Christine Daae? No one asks 'where am I' when they wake up."
Tina looked around her. She was still in the shop. "There was this smell... and I thought I was being carried away by something..."
"Probably your imagination," Karin said. She looked bored. Tina flushed with irritation, but the brunette paid no attention. She went on, "And the smell was this tiny bottle of smelling salts. You scared Ururu out of her mind when you collapsed out of no reason. You on a diet?"
"Yeah, but I've never fain-"
"See? Low blood sugar or something common like that. Let's get you home." With that Karin hoisted Tina to her feet. "Jinta! Send this young lady to where she belongs, alright?"
"You better be payin' me fer this," the spiky blond kid growled. "C'mon, girl. Let's get outta here."
"Wait..."
Over her protests Tina was firmly led out of the shop.
XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx
Urahara and Yoruichi were sipping coffee when Karin plodded back into the room. "Yeah, she's gone. Never figured out what happened."
"We could've just used the memory modifier."
Karin twirked a grin. "Urahara-san, it might take a lot more than that leeetle gadget to penetrate that thick skull of hers."
Yoruichi chortled at the insult. "Good one, Karin." Then, turning serious, she asked, "Did that hollow say why it was targeting Tina?"
"Something about her eluding it for too long. We couldn't get much out of it."
Urahara was thoughtful. "It would seem that it's been tracking her for a long time."
"From overseas?" Karin put in her two cents worth. She sipped her Coca-Cola. Eeugh. Flat.
"It's possible." Hitsugaya said from behind them.
Karin half-turned to see Hitsugaya emerging from the shower room. Then she felt her cheeks redden – he was half-naked, his silver hair still dripping. A blue towel hung from his neck, obviously damp. And for a not-so-mature physical form, he had a very toned physique... Abruptly Karin twisted her gaze to her lap, engaged in an inward screaming argument with her snide zanbakuto.
Hitsugaya took no notice of Karin's sudden interest in her tightly folded hands, but said to Urahara, "You didn't give me a full uniform to change into."
Amused, Yoruichi stole a glimpse of Urahara's face. The shopkeeper was suppressing his grin. The sandaled one said, "Sorry about that. I'll get one for you in a moment."
"You have another towel? This one's all wet." Hitsugaya sat in the only space available – between Yoruichi and Karin. Since the older female liked to sit cross-legged, Hitsugaya had to shuffled closer to the super-focused-on-her-hands Karin Kurosaki.
Come on, girlie, even I can recognize that he's a total babe. Get your eye candy while it's available!
Shut up, Yuu!
Why are you being so shy for? It's not as if he is...
I've never seen a male torso before, alright?!
Yeah, right, like you don't work in a clinic and live in a house with two grown men...
But daddy handles the major injuries and... it's not the same seeing family members, alright? Now shut up before I-
What, disembowel me?
Where do you get the vocabulary? It's not like I even know how to spell 'disembowel'!
Don't change the subject, girlie. He's really cute right now, with his hair ever so slightly rumpled and the fair skin gleaming with dampness, the towel covering his torso just enough...
Shut up shut up shut up!!
"...but I haven't noticed any hint of hollow activity around her." Hitsugaya sipped his coffee. He took it black with no sugar, and privately he felt himself growing to like the beverage.
Yoruichi asked, "What about you, Karin? Did you feel hollows when you were around her? You've been interacting with Tina longer than Hitsugaya here."
"N-no." Why was she stuttering. Resolutely she kept her eyes fixed ahead of her. "But then I tend to keep out of her way. She has this very abrasive nature that just clashed with mine."
"And you are, of course, the epitome of sociable characters," said Hitsugaya offhandedly.
"Hey, at least I don't put people down just because they're different from me-" In her indignation she turned to glare at him, and was suddenly transfixed by the almost relaxed features on his face.
He is so much nicer-looking when he's not scowling.
Coulda told you earlier, but nooo... you were all 'shrinking violet'...
Shut up, Yuu.
"Back to the point," he said, causing Karin to mentally snap out of her trance, "I think she was targeted when she got here. I remember her essence being almost... acidic? And it really grated on my nerves."
Really? Karin thought.
Urahara said, "Really? I thought it rather a pleasant citrus-y feel... but we all have differing perceptions. Yoruichi insisted that the girl left a strong bitter aftertaste."
"That's because your senses get all screwed up when it comes to pretty young things,"Yoruichi deadpanned. She said to the younger two, "I'm the more objective one when it comes to soul tracing."
Hitsugaya's cell phone trilled. He flipped it open and listened to an excited string of chatter, then said, "I'll be there in ten." To Urahara, he asked, "The rest of the uniform and the gigai?"