Chapter Quatro: Wrath of the Sun
The sun in the human world was lowering over the Fake town as a number of people appeared out of a pocket of light, most of them looking disconcerted, but one was openly grinning at the spectacle.
"Ichigo, You've gotta let me study that sometime," Urahara stated to the Godly teenager with orange hair, grinning like mad behind a fan that he produced out of nowhere.
"Yeah, Yeah Hat'n'clogs," replied Ichigo before he noticed a mop of sunny yellow hair, belonging to a dark skinned woman who was what most men would call the "Epitome of Beauty."
Ichigo noticed none of the beauty and instead focused on the blood that was seeping out of her, coming from a wound in her abdomen, making her gasp for air.
Ichigo saw the blood and instantly sped over to her and focused a small amount of power into her body, to kick start the regeneration process that he knew Arrancar had, because he felt the power coming off of her in small waves, which he wouldn't have noticed otherwise when his own power clouded his senses.
He watched as slowly the wound closed itself and her raspy breath stabilizing.
Ichigo sighed in relief that he had saved another life today, even if it was another Arrancars'. Then he got a good look at her and blushed lightly as she was wearing just enough clothes to border decency.
She was wearing what looked like straps over her breasts, imitating a string bikini, and a skirt with a set of bones covering it, and her legs were suited in a pair of bleach white shin-guard boots. Her lower arms were covered by a pair of gauntlets, while she had a pair of pauldrons covering her shoulders. Her right arm however was holding a white object that resembled a gargantuan shark tooth, being just a head shorter than its wielder.
The Arrancar woman woke up a few seconds later and opened her cold sapphire eyes and blinked the light out of them. She tried to get up, but felt a firm hand press her down to the ground again and she looked down at her body and saw a white-sleeved hand with black tendrils flowing out and around her body, belonging to an orange-haired youth.
Wha-?" she tried to ask before being interrupted by the teen.
"Don't worry, just stay down for a few minutes, you're suffering from Reiryoku loss," he informed as Hazel brown met Azure sapphire, "I'm just going to replenish your reserves to a fourth, but it will take a while to convert my power, so just stay still." She complied, because she could feel her reserves were increasing, slowly but surely.
"Who are you?" she asked, now noticing his spiritual pressure was untraceable, not even a speck of power flowed off of him.
"Ichigo Kurosaki," he answered with a smirk, "you?" he asked in return.
"Tier Hallibel." She answered tiredly, "Third Espada" she added after a moment of thought, to which he nodded his head.
"I figured from your capacity being just above Ulquiorra after he released..." he trailed off remembering something, "the first time" he added after thinking for a second.
"What do you mean by that?" Tier asked, "He can release twice?" she questioned after a seconds thought with an incredulous look on her face.
"Yes actually," he answered truthfully "He has two stages to his release, but apparently no one knew of his second one," he explained to her, "and in his second one... his power is second only to the captain commanders," he said, shuddering as he remembered the sheer power he felt off of the bat-like man before he hollowfied. No matter how powerful the teen was now, the memory still terrified him.
Tier was silently fuming to herself. Why would he keep that kind of power a secret? It didn't make sense in her mind, so she just dropped it and sighed.
Meanwhile, the others had wordlessly gone in search of the others, not noticing that Ichigo was not with them. There were only 5 people remaining, Isshin, Tatsuki, Urahara, Orihime and Ulquiorra. Urahara was listening to the conversation between the two while glancing over at the pale man who was still sleeping.
Tatsuki on the other hand was staring at Ichigo's back, trying to figure him out. He could be goofy and angsty, caring, and serious, sad and angry... all in the span of a few minutes! He was confusing the hell out of the girl at the moment, and she wanted to know how he had changed so much! 'But how to find out...' she thought to herself.
Tatsuki mulled over this for a while but got no other answer than to just be around him until she could understand.
Meanwhile, Ichigo picked up three weaker spiritual pressures that seemed almost connected to the woman he was healing. It confused him at first, but chalked it up to them being a four people group, and from what he saw with hollows, they were ruled by instinct. The possibility of there being a pack mentality around some wouldn't be too big of a stretch.
"Tier... I sense three other spiritual pressures connected to yours..."He trailed off questioningly as he looked the blonde woman in the eyes to see them widen and feel her power spike for a moment, worry was written all over her face.
"My Fraccion!?" she half-yelled franticly. "I would guess. Should I bring them here?" Ichigo asked uncertainly, but quite positive she would agree to the request. "Yes!" she practically shouted in panic, while Urahara was looking on in bewilderment.
No hollow, as far as he knew, would be so frantic over losing their companions. Usually a hollow would simply shrug off the death of a comrade and go on... but it seemed as though this didn't apply to some, or if it was related to becoming more like a soul reaper, which he doubted, as it had no effect on the current Vizards except having the first bout with the hollow to subdue them – the only exception being our resident orange haired hero, who has had to battle against his inner demon on more than one occasion.
Ichigo did so, disappearing for a few moments before reappearing one by one with the three Arrancar ladies who had severe burns all over them from the Captain-commander's release; Ryujin Jakka.
He set the first one down gently, a blue haired girl with white stag-horns adorning her hairline with red marks around her eyes, while she was wearing a brown fur suit that was singed and completely burned away around her arms and legs.
Then he reappeared with the second one, a green haired medusa in all white except for the various burn marks along her pale reptilian body, with a half-helmet like white hair-clip covering the right side of her olive-colored hair.
The third he came back with was a very busty, brown-haired and skinned woman with clothes looking similar to an Amazons, only pure white and scorched all over, with a head-piece resembling a lion's mane.
The three ladies shared one thing in common; their left arms were cut off.
After Ichigo reappeared with each in turn, the shark woman let out a sigh of relief. Even if they were burned to hell at the moment, she atleast knew they would live.
"Hey, Orihime!?" Ichigo called his friend loudly, who looked over to him with a squeak of surprise, "Could you help me out over here? I can't heal everyone so quickly, so help would be appreciated," he said loud enough for her to hear.
"A-alright," she called back timidly, taking a last look at the white haired man, she set him down with a small smile and ran over to the little group, keeping a happily-sad smile as she saw the condition the Arrancars were in; no one, not even the enemy should suffer as they have and still live, feeling the pain as time went on.
She quickly deduced what she needed to reverse and went to work. "Soten Kisshun," she called out silently as the two pronged barrier formed, "I reject," she followed while looking intently at the three wounded women.
Tier sat up and watched on in amazement as the wounds simply disappeared into nothing, repairing all of the damage, leaving no scars, and even restoring the arms they had lost using their Quimera Parca to create Allon. No matter how many times she saw it in action, it still mesmerized her; even though though this was only the second time, it would still amaze her that a human had such god-like powers in the future.
Ichigo looked on calmly, noting the slightly strained expression on his friends face. 'Looks like it still takes a bit out of her to heal so many,' the un-sense-able teen thought to himself, reminiscing about how she had grown, yet how far she could still go, 'if she learned to use her powers she could even defeat me,' he mused.
Orihime's mind was mostly focused on the healing/time-space reversal, but a small part of it strayed to the Espada that she had come to like over the time of her captivity. He may have been stoic, but... he seemed so happy before he died... like a new person entirely. Maybe she could truly get through to him this time; when there was more time and more freedom... 'Maybe I could discover his heart,' she mused.
Tier sighed in relief as the rejection field faded to reveal her companions to be completely healed, their chests heaving in deep sleep.
The Arrancar Queen looked between the two red-heads with something akin to respect and gratitude. "Thank you," she started as she sat up, Ichigo not stopping her this time, "for all you've done. I wouldn't be able to thank you enough for this... going out of your way to help an enemy would be considered foolish, but I must say thank you," the lady said with a bowed head, but both of the teens could faintly see tears falling down her cheeks.
"No need to thank us Miss Harribel, I'm just the kind of person that can't stand back and let someone be hurt," Ichigo said gently, "Besides... even an enemy is a potential ally," the teen said with a smirk playing across his lips, Orihime nodding along and humming her agreement.
Tier looked up again with a somewhat stunned look on her face, trickles of tears running down her brown-skinned cheeks. 'Is he really insinuating that we can be... friends?' She thought to herself 'After all the Arrancar have done for Aizen, he still believes there is good in us... or is there something else?' the woman considered cautiously, not completely trusting the youth, despite his recent actions.
Ichigo then stood up and looked around, mentally searching out every spiritual presence in the area. After a few seconds he had found all of the ones he expected, his friends and the shinigami's, but he also found two others that for some reason felt like one. This confused the teen greatly, even though he could feel that they weren't alive, their power lingered. He thought for a few moments, chalking it up to being a spirit that, like Ulquiorra, had been in a higher state of emotion than usual at the time of death. But these two felt the same, yet in two different locations at once.
Ichigo took a few moments to think this over while the others were watching him look around with closed eyes, only Harribel and Kisuke actually understood what he was doing. 'Reiryoku Sensing' was the thought of the shark empress and unusual shopkeeper. Both of them felt Ichigo's power touching theirs, although they couldn't sense it directly, they felt its touch flooding the area.
A/N: this is not a full update... just look at my profile...