Episode 3: Shifters

Katsumi starts rolling on the ground, clutching her face. Ichigo stares in astonishment.

"Katsumi!" Rukia shouts again and rushes over and puts her hands on her shoulders. Katsumi lets out a hollow's screech, and jumps up, pointing her zanpaktou at Rukia. Rukia reaches for her soul candy, but it is too late. Katsumi charges at her, sword raised. Rukia gasps and shields herself with her arms. There's a clashing sound. Ichigo stops Katsumi's sword from striking Rukia at the last second. Another hollow scream comes from Katsumi. Ichigo now pulls down his own hollow mask. They engage in a difficult battle. Ichigo's hollow voice echoes in the training grounds,

"Getsuga Tenshou!"

Katsumi is flung into the rocks, a large cloud of dirt puffs into the air. She slowly gets up, but then rushes at Ichigo again. She stops dead in her tracks. She's fighting the hollow, and she slowly turns back to normal. But the hollow inside her is too strong, it returns and takes over her again, unleashing its own getsuga tenshou. Ichigo takes his combat pass and calls out his fullbring, and blocks the attack. The screams of their hollowfied forms fill the arena.

"Katsumi!" Ichigo shouts, "Fight it! God damn it, come on Katsumi!"

The hollow laughs sinisterly, "Katsumi isn't here! Haha, that weakling can't control me!" All of a sudden it stops laughing and drops to the ground. Katsumi struggles against the hollow. "No...no. Let me stay and fight! You can't do it without me!" The hollow screeched as Katsumi took over. She finally looks up from the ground. Her mask is gone, but her eyes are still black and yello. She slowly stands up and puts back her zanpaktou.

"Daijoubu?! Are you ok?" Rukia slowly walks up to her, clearly apprehensive.

"Yeah, I think so." Katsumi replies weakly. Urahara clears his throat,

"Was this what happened to you Ichigo? When you first struggled with your hollow?" He asks.

Ichigo is still staring at Katsumi.

"Huh? What? Oh, yeah. Exactly what happened." Ichigo still stares at her. Katsumi notices.

"What are you staring at?" She asks. The black in her eyes have faded back to normal.

"Huh? Oh, nothing." Ichigo mutters. But he just realized that she somehow looks familiar to him. He had been staring directly at her eyes, but he decides he was just imagining things, after all, he did just fight a fairly extreme battle. He thought that maybe he was just out of shape from losing his powers for a while. The biggest question was how Katsumi who was just turned, could be as equally powerful as him with no previous training. Then out of nowhere, several voices broke the silence at the top of the stairs of the battle arena.

"Ichigo!"

"Kurosaki-kun! Rukia-chan!"

"Kurosaki! Kuchiki!"

Ichigo looked up at the three figures.

"Sado? Inoue? Ishida? Why are you here?" Ichigo asks.

"We felt your spiritual pressure all across town. We felt it battling another similar one." Sado says in his deep voice.

"The strength of the two spiritual pressures were terrifying! We thought something terrible was happening!" Orihime gasps.

"But we didn't know whether or not to come. The two spiritual pressures felt so similar, we initially thought it was just you. We thought you must have been doing some training of some sort. But there was a slight, miniscule difference in the second one that we were able to distinguish it from yours." Uruyuu explaines. The three then descend the stairs into the arena.

"Huh?" Ichigo frowns, confused. "Is our spiritual pressure really that similar?!" Ichigo earlier suspicions return and he grows concerned. Urahara cuts in.

"As a matter of fact, it was quite difficult for even me to distinguish its differences. However, there were definitely differences that make Katsumi unique." He says in his goofy voice, the one he uses when he's trying to tone down the importance of something. Ichigo frowns, feeling very uncomfortable with the situation. He's caught up in his own thoughts, thinking to himself,

"What's going on? Is she the way she is because of that soul reaper hollow thing? Or is she...?"

Orihime's voice break into his thoughts.

"Kurosaki-kun! Who's this?" She's looking at Katsumi.

"Oh. That's...uh...Katsumi."

The three gather around her and Rukia introduces them. Ichigo, still frowning, is thinking. He looks up and catches Katsumi's eye. "Her eyes..." he thought.

*The next morning in Ichigo's room.*

"Ichigo! Wake up!" Rukia stands over Ichigo holding his flashing combat pass and her beeping phone up to his ears.

"Arg! What? No one should be up this early!" He says groggily. Rukia slams his combat pass into his face, and his shinigami self somes out. "Ow! What the hell?!"

"Hollow attack!" Rukia eats her own soul candy. "Idiot..." she mutters under her breath.

"This early?" Ichigo complains as he stands up. "Shouldn't the hollows be asleep too?"

Rukia punches his head. "Idiot! Hollows don't sleep! Eating souls is a fulltime job!"

Ichigo, still complaining and rubbing his head, goes to find the hollow, Rukia following behind him. They hear a hollow roar.

"This way!" Rukia takes the lead. The spot the hollow at the playground. The hollow turns around and lunges at them. Ichigo pulls out his zanpaktou just in time, but out of nowhere, a bright light shoots out at the hollow. The hollow screams and disappears from Ichigo's view. He sees a flash of a blade and hears a crash. The light fades. There lay the hollow on the ground, cut in half. Then it disappears. Standing in the air right next to them was Katsumi. Ichigo twitches angrily and shouts,

"What are you doing?!"

Katsumi blinks innocently, "I wanted to see if my zanpakou's power would work the same on hollows."

"That's not what I meant! I was about to get him! You can't just...steal him!" Ichigo was almost pouting. Katsumi smirks.

"Why the frown Ichigo? Jealous?"

Rukia laughs from behind Ichigo.

"Shut up!" He walks away across the sky. Katsumi and Rukia follow behind him, chatting away. Then Ichigo turns around to insult them some more, but his eyes widen and he shouts,

"Watch out!"

Katsumi and Rukia whip out their zanpaktous and turn around just when two other swords crash down on each of theirs. There are two shinigamis, but they are wearing black masks. They have incredible power. Rukia is pushing back, but Katsumi is too weak. The shinigami sends her plummeting to the ground. An echoing crash is heard.

"Katsumi!" Ichigo shouts before taking on the shinigami. Their battle commences. Ichigo quickly realizes how incredibly strong and powerful the shinigamis were. He points his zanpaktou in front of him and goes bankai. He pulls down his hollow mask and charges. They still are able to fend him off. The two masked shinigamis pause for a second, look at each other, nod, and then their bodies started to grow. Their limbs grow and their shinigami robes disappear. In three seconds, there stand two huge hollows. They lash out and shriek at Ichigo and Rukia. Ichigo is bleeding and Rukia can barely stand. Out of the blue, a trumpet sounds. The hollows stop fighting at the sound, jumped further up into the air, and began to morph again. Their massive hollow bodies distort themselves into two ordinary black birds, flying off in the direction of the trumpet sound.

Rukia and Ichigo dash down to where Katsumi lay bleeding and broken on the ground.

"Didn't you cushion yourself with your spiritual pressure?!" Ichigo is stunned at how hurt Katsumi is.

"No one told me to do that!" She tries to get up. Rukia helps her.

"You're very inexperienced, you didn't know." Rukia calms her. Katsumi nods, then looks up at the sky. "What were those things?"

Ichigo frowns, "I don't know, but they weren't soul reapers."

"But they weren't hollows either." Rukia looks really worried. They continue to stare at the sky. Then Ichigo carries Katsumi to Urahara's place. Orihime, Sado, and Ururyuu are there too. Rukia is in the corner on her soul phone. A few minutes later, she gasps,

"What?!" Everyone looks at her. She keeps listening to the voice in her phone. "Yes. I understand." She slowly shuts her phone. She takes a deep breath and explains.

"I informed soul society of our encounter. The description I gave of the creatures we saw...they..." She closes her eyes as if about to faint, "they match the profile of the extremely dangerous army of shapeshifters that have been created by a wanted criminal. Squad 12 has been receiving signals of a great disturbance in spiritual pressure and balance for quite some time. They've issued complete secrecy and security to the case. Reinforcements are being sent to help us complete the mission."

Everyone couldn't believe what they had just heard. Ichigo, frowning, asks,

"What mission?"

Rukia has grown very pale. "We are to eliminate the entire army of shifters in Karakura town, and to prevent the creation of any more."

Everyone is in shock. Silence seems to shatter the atmosphere. A rumbling noise breaks the tension. Ichigo grabs hiszanpaktou, and everyone rushes outside. There in Urahara's yard, a bright light burst out, and the senkaimon gate appears. Ichigo slowly let his zanpaktou drop to his side. The gates slowly open. Nothing was visible in the light, but it gradually faded. There they stand. Ichigo looks up. His icy blue eyes return his gaze.

"Toshiro."

*A long, epic pause*

"Ichigo."

TO BE CONTINUED...