Orihime approached the small shop set back from the sidewalk with more caution than usual. Kisuke Urahara's natural fascination with all things research related had led to problems for several people she knew in the past, but she wasn't sure where else to turn. She had considered a visit to Hachigen, but the squeezing strain in her chest was getting steadily worse and she didn't want to cross town. She was hoping for some answers.
After the first two blocks from school she had to admit this was far more than being winded after the one kilo run or indigestion – which she'd never had before – and seemed to have a more sinister air about it. She knew that because Tsubaki had told her so.
"What the hell's going on, woman?" had been the exact words he'd hissed into her ear. "What kind of an attack is this? Everything is turning black!"
That had gotten her attention.
She fought the tears threatening her eyes as her steps hurried faster on the sidewalk. As much as she disliked the increasing pain in her chest, the fact that her spirit sprites were losing vision was more frightening.
She pushed a hand to her blouse, crumpling one edge of her bow, but the crushing feeling didn't abate. She saw no one as she went into the small shop, the bell above tinkling to announce her arrival.
Urahara's head popped up from behind the counter, his striped hat askew. Beside him Yoruichi was leaning on the counter, looking a bit frustrated with him. He held up a handful of licorice candies, smiling. "That's all of them. Happy now?"
Yoruichi smiled back and snagged the wrapped candies out of his hand. "Much better."
"Hello, Orihime-chan," he sang out as Orihime reached the counter. "I hope you're not after licorice today, because someone demanded to have all of them herself."
Yoruichi gave him a tired look. "I'll share with her."
"Oh, no, thank you anyway," Orihime said, bowing slightly. For once her mind wasn't on the assorted candies and sweets behind the counter. She bit her lip, looking around for Ururu and Jinta. She saw neither, and she glanced back to Urahara, and then slowly to Yoruichi.
"You feeling all right?" Urahara asked, watching her fingers grip her blouse. He frowned, glancing to the room behind the counter that was curtained off, before looking back to her. "Hot day out today. Do you want a glass of water?"
"Oh, no, no..." Orihime returned Yoruichi's stare. "I was wondering if I could talk to you. About a girl subject."
The dark-skinned woman raised an eyebrow before nodding. "Sure, come on with me."
She waved her around the corner of the counter while holding the other hand up to Urahara. "Where do you think you're going? This is between girls."
He did his best to look offended, but it came off as only a little less sneaky than usual.
"Actually, I think it might be a problem he may know about," Orihime admitted as she met Yoruichi at the end of the counter.
"Oh?" This time the sharpness in Yoruichi's tone was enough to slice through the fan Urahara had snapped over his face. "How so?"
Orihime didn't want to explain it, not to anyone, and certainly not to the scientist-inventor who'd made enough semi-raunchy comments for her to put together a number of images in her mind. She pushed a hand to her chest as the constriction there increased. "I'm not sure."
Urahara's professional interest locked into place. "Come on, Orihime-chan. Miss Yoruichi can speak with you alone first, and then we'll see. How about that?"
She didn't entirely want to agree with him, but she nodded and followed Yoruichi.
"I'm not sure it's anything at all," she said hopefully a few moments later when they were alone in the small kitchen at the back of the shop where Tessai had a pot of sugar cane water cooling. "But it seems to be interfering with my power sprites."
Yoruichi frowned, twisting the lock on the door to the hall behind them. "What sort of interference?"
Orihime spent a few moments telling her the problems she'd had that afternoon and of Tsubaki's report of enlarging blind spots. "And it's not just him," she concluded. "He says they're all affected. I don't feel any differently, Miss Yoruichi. Just a little tired, and it's hard to breathe."
Yoruichi nodded as she pulled the café-style curtain across the window that overlooked the shop's back yard. "How bad is this sinking in your chest? Show me."
Unease claimed Orihime's face, but when a sharper pain caught her chest, she quickly pulled the bow free at her throat and unfastened the first three buttons of her blouse. "It began yesterday, and it's a little worse now."
Yoruichi stepped closer as the girl pulled the left side of her blouse open a bit more. She frowned, inspecting the shallow dip in the smooth skin below her collarbone and just to the right of where her heart was.
Orihime looked away as the woman leaned closer, gold eyes studying the spot that was no trick of lighting. "You see it, too?"
Yoruichi nodded. "This is the first time this has happened?"
Orihime nodded. "Do you know what it is?"
Yoruichi shook her head. "No. I'm not the resident scientist here. I think Kisuke should take a look, Orihime. He won't touch you," she added as the girl closed her blouse with a flat hand. She smiled kindly. "He's a professional, Orihime. Think of it as a medical necessity. I'll be right here with you."
Orihime let the idea toss through her mind, alternately cringing and embracing the idea of someone with knowledge of spiritual compositions study her new problem. "You'll be here, too?"
Yoruichi nodded.
"... Okay."
It took a few moments for Urahara to listen to Orihime detail again what she'd told Yoruichi. She didn't look at him directly, keeping her hand at her blouse against her chest and speaking in barely more than a mumble. Yoruichi added a few side notes, and then Urahara's usual candor was replaced with the expert attitude that had made him – albeit short-lived – the captain of Twelfth Division, once upon a time.
Orihime kept as much of the blush from her face as she could, but failed in much less than beet red. She glimpsed the green and white hat bent over her chest, holding her breath when he told her to, exhaling slowly as directed, describing the scale of pain with each movement. It took four minutes, but to her it seemed like thirty.
Finally Urahara straightened, and this time there was no humor in his face to be seen. "Well, I must say, Orihime-chan," he said gravely, "I'm fascinated. I've wondered about this many times, and this opportunity to -"
"Kisuke!" Yoruichi snapped at him, eyes glinting. "This is not the time for research."
"It's the perfect opportunity to study a theory of mine," he said, looking back to Orihime and smiling for a moment before the expression fell away and he sighed. "Of course, it has to be stopped. I've always wondered if it could be done; looks like someone got to the field tests before me."
"What are you blabbering about?" Yoruichi asked, scowling at him before pushing him a step from Orihime. "Go ahead and button up your blouse."
Orihime complied all too hastily, but now there was a new fear simmering in her. "You wondered if what could be done, Urahara-san?"
He watched her tie the bow at her throat. "Did you spend any time with Szayel Aporro during your captivity in Las Noches?"
Her mouth dropped open and she caught her breath, which made a sharp pain catch at her chest. She coughed a little, shaking her head.
"I'll get you some water," Yoruichi said.
Orihime swallowed, her mouth dry as she shook her head in answer to Urahara's question. "I never saw him alone. Only a few times in the halls, and I never spoke to him." She shuddered at thoughts of the pink-haired scientist in Aizen's army of Espada, and from what Uryuu had told her about the erratic man.
"Did he give you anything? To eat or drink?"
"No. Never."
Yoruichi handed her a glass of water from the sink. "Did you have any medical attention there?"
"No." Orihime took a small sip of the cool water, dizziness beginning in her head. She breathed slowly, aware that Tsubaki was murmuring something incoherent at her ear. She shook her head. "Do you know what it is?"
Urahara shrugged slowly. "The idea of delayed soul modification is a theory that's never been tested in Soul Society," he told her, "but it's gotten more discussion among researchers since Mayuri opened Szayel's laboratory and been toying with all sorts of oddities." He smiled a little, hoping to erase some of the alarm that was eclipsing her face. "Don't look so worried, Orihime-chan, it's –-"
"Soul modification?" she echoed weakly. She looked from him to Yoruichi and back again. "Delayed soul modification? Me? How? Szayel-san never did anything to me."
"Which is why this must be a very early stage of experimentation," he said.
Yoruichi crossed her arms as Orihime took a deep drink of water. "From one glance at her you think you know enough to diagnose something like a modification, Kisuke? You're not that good."
"Her power sprites are going blind," he said, shaking his head. "That's the first sign. This physical feature," he gestured to her fully buttoned blouse, "is merely a later stage. Don't look so glum, Orihime-chan. It's reversible."
Orihime almost sputtered her water back into the glass. She coughed a little more and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. "Reversible?"
He grinned. "At this stage, yes. While some researchers were working on progressing something like delayed modification techniques," he said, nodding, "I've been working on reversing the process. Have been since the Vizards got banned and we had to set up camp here in the Living World. This is a slow process, unlike what happened to Shinji and Kensei and the rest of them; this is stoppable, Orihime-chan."
She sighed, fingers tight around the glass as her hand began to shake. Yoruichi put an arm around her shoulders and smiled at her.
"You came to the right place, Orihime," she said. "He knows what he's doing. Most of the time."
He nodded in agreement to part of her comment. "I've developed a protocol – just in case – for an instance like this." He disappeared out the kitchen door to the hall, calling back, "I think alerting Captain Unohana about this would be wise."
Orihime put a hand to her chest, pushing firmly as Yoruichi nodded.
"Captain Kurotsuchi is still embedded in Szayel's laboratory in Hueco Mundo," she said, watching the girl's nervous fingers on her blouse. "He'd just pass you off to one of his underlings for observation, anyway."
To Orihime, that sounded better than having Mayuri Kurotsuchi's personal attention, but she didn't say so.
"You'll have to stay clear of anyone with spiritual natures," Kisuke said as he returned with a small wooden box. "That means shinigami, Quincy, and anything else. Things like this," he said, nodding to her chest, "feed off of spiritual properties. That's probably what awakened it. That, or a timer. Or both. That would be my guess."
He opened the box to expose three rows of small vials, each containing a few drops of fluid in various colors. "It was a useless formula for full-fledged hollowfication, like the Vizards, but something as early as ... you," he added hesitantly when he saw her pained expression, "should do the trick."
Orihime's fingers curled against her chest, wrinkling the cotton-blend of material. "How can you be sure it's that?"
This time Kisuke's face took on a weighty expression. "I've spent many decades isolating hollowfication characteristics, Orihime-chan," he told her, not looking to Yoruichi as she nodded. "The shop keeps a meter running twenty-four hours a day, and has for twenty years; you popped a solid two out of ten when you walked in." He smiled as her startled eyes widened. "Two is not un-reversible; that's a six. So you're in the safe zone, but we need to get your started quick. You'll need to stay away from your friends, the ones who have any inkling of spiritual pressure," he said, closing the box and snapping the lid shut. "And you'll need to be watched, by someone in a gigai. Not just anyone. I'm sure Captain Unohana will send someone capable once she's informed of these new developments."
Orihime nodded slowly, the rush of information adding to her dizziness, the pain pressing in her chest compounded by a new problem. "I have to give up my friends?"
He nodded. "Just for a while, Orihime-chan."
Yoruichi patted her shoulder, smiling. "I'm sure Captain Unohana will send someone you can get along with. Her Division is very caring. You'll see."
Orihime nodded, sighing until her ribs hurt. She looked at the box Urahara held. Perhaps it wasn't as bad as she feared. She knew something was wrong, and she knew it wasn't simply overexertion. What little she knew of Szayel Aporro was not good; the scientist seemed capable of almost anything, and she didn't want to think about how he could have managed to infect her with something that had come to hollowfication fruition so long after she'd left Hueco Mundo. Maybe she could get answers from whomever Captain Unohana sent to stay with her.
Unless it was Hanatarou.
It was going to be a long summer break.
There were still vacant captains positions to be filled in Soul Society, and no one was in any hurry to fill them, or it seemed to Renji. The War was over and a lull had spread across Seireitei in absence of the constant threat Sousuke Aizen had raised.
As much as the time of peace was needed to stabilize the Society, Renji found himself restless. Rukia had gone back to her pastime of Kurosaki, and he was making a determined effort to remain in the role of older brother.
Older meddling brother, at times, but he accepted it. Rather, Kurosaki.
He looked down at the request in his hand. It was from Fourth Division, from Captain Unohana herself, and it made him more curious than anything else. He couldn't recall having slighted any Fourth Division members lately, and he wasn't due for any medical attention.
He was waved through the gates of Fourth and easily found his way through the streets to the largest medical facility, nodding to the shinigami that passed him. He'd almost reached the facility when a female voice called out to him from one of the smaller study clinics.
"Vice Captain Abarai."
He turned to see Unohana approaching from a side street. He made a short bow. "Captain Unohana. You sent for me?"
"Yes, Vice Captain." She nodded further down the main way. "I'm going to check on a few patients – new recruits to Eleventh Division. I'm without my vice captain this last week, and I miss her. She's a great help, one of the few who can deal with Captain Zaraki's wounded. Walk with me there."
She continued on and he fell into step beside her.
"Do you keep current with news from the Living World?" she asked.
"Some of it." Where it concerned Rukia, would have been a more accurate answer, but Renji felt no need to explain that detail. "Did something happen?"
She handed him a folded paper.
He took it, confused and wary, and opened it.
"Orihime Inoue has been diagnosed with what Kisuke Urahara calls a predetermined soul modification complex. Delayed, if you will," she said when he looked to her in surprise.
"She's, she's turning Hollow?" His eyes went back to the paper, searching for clarification or something to disprove what he'd just heard.
"That's what it looks like. He caught it in time." She sighed, looking ahead to the warm, sunny street. Hers was a peaceful division, and she liked to keep it that way, which meant that Eleventh Division members had to stay out. "It's a delicate field, hollowfication, and Captain Kurotsuchi has unleashed a few nuisances in his findings in the Hueco Mundo labs. Most reports are unsubstantiated, of course, but no one knows entirely what Szayel had locked in that lab."
Renji was reading the paper. Four papers, actually. A report by Isane Kotetsu. His steps slowed and Unohana's did also.
"Isane has been assigned watch over Orihime this last week," she said, voice lowering. "It's a precautionary measure, to make certain Urahara's protocol takes full effect. She's been sequestered from anyone with even minute reiryoku. Isane has been in gigai form, and they've been careful."
She looked to him when he said nothing.
Renji frowned at the papers in his hands. It looked benign enough. According to the report, Orihime had barely been detected with any modification issues. His initial panic over anyone he knew – aside from Kurosaki – turning Hollow faded a few notches.
"This looks like she's doing okay," he said, reading slowly. "She's healthy, staying home, physical indications have remedied." He looked to her. "Is there something more, Captain?"
Unohana smiled gently, sighing. "Perhaps. That's the problem."
"What?" His fingers knowingly tightened on the paper. "What else?"
"Isane has been there a week, Vice Captain. She reports there's been changes in the girl. Eating habits, loss of sensibilities, emotional instabilities."
He chuckled, eyes skimming the pages. "She is seventeen, Captain. Sensibilities are in question anyway at that age."
She gave him a sour look, but he didn't see it.
"You see nothing amiss there?"
He turned to the next page. Isane's handwriting varied from measured to loopy toward the end of the report.
The list of ingredients and food combinations wasn't new to him. He'd seen her eat worse; he'd even been served worse from her. He shook his head, grinning at her.
"She's like this," he said, holding the papers higher. "That's just her."
Unohana raised an eyebrow. "She's like that?"
He nodded. "Yup."
"That's right. You chaperoned her last time before the War. I remember reading some of your reports."
He scowled at the slight giggle she tried to hide. "Some of that was taken wrong."
"You didn't play surgeon?" she asked with more of a smile.
He didn't want to admit that part, and there'd been nothing surgical about it. "My communication channels weren't working."
She nodded. "But you see nothing unusual about Orihime in Isane's comments?"
"Nope. That's her."
"Thank you, Vice Captain. You've been very helpful."
There was something about her tone that made Renji's inner alarms sound. "I have?"
"I think that's the problem my vice captain is having," she said as they reached the medical building where assorted grumblings and arguments could be heard from inside. "Isane doesn't know what is normal for Orihime Inoue, and she had no way to judge abnormal behavior in her. That's necessary to determine the effectiveness of Urahara's remedy."
Renji stood straighter. "Well, there's nothing here that isn't normal for Orihime at some time. It's just her."
Unohana smiled. "Good. I'm glad you know her well enough to make that call. I have permission from Captain Kuchiki to lend you out. You'll be replacing Isane as Orihime's guardian until we get this matter settled."
Renji lowered the papers, looking for traces of humor in Unohana's smooth expression. There were none. He shook his head. "Wouldn't she be more comfortable with a woman?" He looked back down to the last page of the report where the silhouette of a female was outlined, a small black X marking a spot on its chest. "I think a female guardian would be better for this."
"Thank you for your input on that matter, Vice Captain," she said, pulling open the door to the facility. Out it came shouts and cursing from the Eleventh Division members who were in stages of medical treatment. "You leave tomorrow. I hope you remember your English."
Renji's face fell before he could catch it. He watched the door close behind her.
He looked down as the report crumpled in his tightening grip.
Maybe he could talk Isane into staying.