"Swanky digs!" Takashi looked around the condo, immediately approving of it.

It was absolutely huge, just for starters. In fact, it took up this entire floor of the building, so swanky didn't begin to do it justice. Takashi had never imagined that condos could get this large.

"It has a water feature." Ichigo sounded stunned and Takashi followed his gaze to the huge, glass waterfall set in the wall. It was a coppery color and illuminated with several lights. Beautiful and soothing.

The whole condo was like that. The furniture was simple but in exquisite taste, and the decorations were expensive and lovely. Takashi stopped dead as he saw the kitchen.

"Ichigo! Look at that oven!" Takashi said in delight as he dropped his bags and began investigating the kitchen. "That's like the best oven you can get, it has to be custom made! Look at that range! This is a chef's kitchen!" Ichigo grinned at his sudden enthusiasm. "Is there food here? …Yes! The fridge is full! Can we eat this?" He asked, suddenly concerned, and Ichigo nodded.

"Byakuya said he would have the place fully stocked for us." Ichigo said and his new friend beamed before sorting through the fridge and pulling out some fresh tuna. Ichigo took his bags to one of the many, many rooms available. Quickly looking it over he decided it would be fine. The walls were a soft, creamy color and the bed had a very nice comforter with a pattern of blue and white. The pictures on the walls were oils, and full of flowers. Not entirely his style but very comfortable for a short stay. Setting his bag on the bed, he unzipped the suitcase.

Takashi nearly chopped his own fingers off when a scream rang out from the bedroom. Dropping the knife onto the cutting board, he sprinted towards the commotion.

"What is it?!" He stopped and stared as Ichigo threw a handful of clothes against the wall. They included lacy, frilly things that he couldn't picture the teen wearing. "Ichigo?"

"Demon cat! I'm going to kill her! Where are my clothes? I don't have any clothes!" Takashi blinked as he edged into the room and looked down into the suitcase. It was hard to tell for sure, but everything did look rather feminine. "Argh!"

"Okay, calm down. Let's sort this stuff out and see what you've got." Takashi said as soothingly as he could, vaguely wondering when he'd been nominated to be the sane one. Taking a few deep, calming breaths, Ichigo got control of himself and they began sorting through the clothing together. "…Wow. She really did a number on you." After sorting everything they'd determined that Ichigo had one t-shirt, two sets of underwear, one pair of socks and some sweatpants. That was it, for what promised to be a fairly long stay. Takashi was estimating at least a week and it could go on longer. Ichigo ran his hands through his hair, gripping the orange strands in frustration.

"I don't have the money for this! Damn it, I'm going to kill her!" Ichigo groaned and Takashi tilted his head to one side, thinking. Then he grinned.

"Trust in me, little grasshopper. I'll get you kited up." He promised and Ichigo gave him a confused look. "It's too late tonight but tomorrow I'll find you some bargains! I know how to get cheap clothes." Takashi vividly remembered sorting through the clothes at the Karakura town thrift shop, trying to turn twenty bucks into a wardrobe. That had actually been a good time, during the bad times that twenty bucks would have gone straight to drugs. "You won't be stylish, but you'll be clothed." Ichigo sighed, putting away the few articles of clothing that were actually his.

"I guess it will have to do. I'm tempted to throw this stuff in the garbage and make her buy her own clothes." He grumped but Takashi shook his head, rescuing the female clothing.

"Nah, then she'd be modelling for you at the thrift store. And you know she'd come out naked just to mess with you." He said then wondered how he knew that. Then he blinked as something occurred to him. "Wait, that cat is a woman?" The voice had been very masculine but these clothes were definitely for a girl. Ichigo sighed.

"Yes, Yoruichi is a female shinigami. Her voice is just like that in her cat form, no one knows why. Where's the bedroom furthest from mine?" Working together, they found a bedroom on the far side of the condo. It was very nicely done in shades of green, and the bed was made out of dark wood, artistically carved. "She doesn't deserve a room this nice, but it'll do." Ichigo muttered as he helped put the clothes away. Takashi snickered but folded everything up neatly before putting it in the dresser.

Going back to the kitchen, Takashi kept working on his meal. He was going to make lightly seared tuna over a salad. Not exactly a fancy salad, but he chopped up some bell pepper, cucumbers, tomatoes and jicama and threw them all in. Then he put together the vinaigrette, mixing together olive oil, balsamic and some spicy mustard to thicken it and add a bit of a kick. Ichigo came back into the kitchen as he was working and watched, interested.

"There's an entertainment room if you want to watch something. The DVD collection is just enormous." He said and Takashi looked up with a smile. "And there's the biggest flat screen TV I've ever seen in my life." Ichigo was slightly in awe of the TV. He'd known Byakuya was rich, but the accommodations in Soul Society were very old fashioned. Here, he could see the luxuries of his time.

"That sounds like fun. Can you find a good horror flick? I love horror flicks." He confided in the teen, who laughed.

"I'm sure I can find some." And that was how they spent the evening, eating their tuna salads. Takashi had put on plenty of tuna. He was finding that his appetite for real food was increasing, although there was still an empty feeling inside. He would need to go look for a hollow soon.

That thought made him bite his lip and glance at Ichigo from the corner of his eye. The other teen was a shinigami, a death god. He sent hollows on to the afterlife. So what did that make him?

"Hey, Ichigo? Hollows eat each other to get stronger, right?" He asked casually and Ichigo nodded, his attention on the movie. "Is there anything else that eats hollows?"

"Not that I've ever heard of." He said and Takashi paused a moment before taking another bite of his salad. Then he deliberately kept eating and wondered what would happen if he didn't go find a hollow. This kind of food did ease his hunger a bit. Could he learn to live on it?

"…" Takashi turned his attention back to the movie and tried to concentrate. But his thoughts kept going back to the question of himself. It sounded like that pill must have contained a hollow of some kind, and he had absorbed that hollow… or, perhaps, it had absorbed him. Who was he, really? What was he?

The thought that he might be a hollow didn't alarm him, but it did make him wary. Ichigo sought out hollows to send them to the afterlife. What would the other teen do to him, if he knew what Takashi most likely was? Takashi wasn't too eager to find out what was waiting for him on the other side. He hadn't been killing kittens and setting nuns on fire evil, but he hadn't been a good person. Even now, his 'goodness' was highly questionable. After all, he wasn't helping people out of the goodness of his heart. He expected to get things in return.

"But doesn't everybody?" He mused to himself, then smiled. "Heh." The old Takashi, before he'd eaten that pill, hadn't done a single thing to help anyone but himself. Being helpful for any reason was a huge step up. Shrugging aside any thoughts of the afterlife and his own amoral nature, Takashi gave the movie his full attention. It was really creepy as hell, a depiction of a ghost that was really much nastier than most hollows. Although some hollows could be that nasty.

Sometimes, reality was scarier than fiction.

"I'm gonna pop some tags, only got twenty dollars in my pocket… here we are… under?... looking for a cummer, this is fucking awesome!" Takashi sang softly as he looked through the racks of clothes. Although they had a bit more than twenty dollars to play with. Ichigo's dad had given him a pre-paid VISA with five hundred dollars on it. That was mostly reserved for food, though, so they were trying to keep this well under a hundred. "I wish I could remember all the lyrics to that song." He muttered as he examined a pair of jeans. They were a bit tattered on the knees, and it looked like it was from normal wear. Still. "Hey Ichigo, want to try these on?"

"Sure." Ichigo added the new jeans to his growing pile of clothes. "I wonder where Yoruichi has gotten to?" The cat hadn't come back the next day. Takashi sniggered to himself at the thought, then winced as his stomach gave a twinge of pain.

Finding hollows in Tokyo was proving to be extremely difficult. Takashi would never have guessed – surely a small town would have fewer ghosts? – but it seemed Karakura town was a hotbed of supernatural activity. Tokyo wasn't and he'd spent a good three hours last night trying to locate any kind of hollow. He'd finally given up, gone home, and had a late night snack of cheese and dill pickles. It had helped but he really wasn't feeling great.

Trying to ignore the mild distress, he carried a bunch of clothes over to the change room. It was just a curtain hung on a circular rail, not even a booth. But the space in this thrift store was extremely limited. Pretty typical of Tokyo, really. Takashi grabbed the curtain and yanked it open, meaning to put the clothes in with the other ones they'd gathered.

Then he yelped and dropped the clothes. There was a woman in front of him – when the hell had she gotten in there? They'd put this room on hold! – and she was wearing only bright, pink, frilly underwear. That was it. There wasn't even a bra in sight.

"Oh, Takashi. Could you pass me that red sweater?" She asked, grinning at him wickedly. Takashi stumbled back, vaguely noticing that her hair was purple and her eyes were gold.

"YORUICHI! Oh my god, put some clothes on!" Takashi felt Ichigo's hands going over his shades, and could not be more grateful. For some reason, seeing a woman naked made him highly uncomfortable. He knew that hadn't been his reaction when he was younger. When he was thirteen, seeing a woman like this naked would have been his fondest wet dream. "What the hell is wrong with you?!" There was a throaty chuckle and a rustle of cloth. Ichigo's hands fell down and Takashi was relieved to see a red sweater was in place. He could still see the frilly pink underwear, but he could handle that.

"Yeah, really, what the hell? And where have you been?" He demanded and the shinigami flashed him a quick smile as she pulled on some jeans.

"Oh, well, I couldn't get into the condo. Bya-kun has some very nice kido locks on it. So I just spent a night on the town and decided to get some clothes. Isn't this nice?" She twirled a little and Takashi looked the outfit over with a jaundiced eye.

"I dunno, having 'sexy bitch' written in sequins on my ass wouldn't be my style." Was his opinion. He wasn't picky, but that was going a bit far. Yoruichi looked surprised and tried to look over her shoulder. "Ya missed that?"

"I did! Oh my." She waggled her butt and Takashi winced as Ichigo turned beet red. "I'd better keep looking…" She wandered off towards the racks and Ichigo quickly grabbed the change room, pulling the curtain closed. Takashi leaned against a wall, hands in his pockets, as he waited for the other teen to try things on.

It didn't take long for him to settle on three pairs of jeans and six shirts. The jeans ranged from worn to ratty, but they were all five bucks each. The shirts were similarly cheap and in slightly better shape, leaving aside the sweat stains. Takashi found him a nice belt for the pants. But that left a few important things.

"Thrift shops don't sell underwear because no one but filthy druggies would buy it." Takashi said with a grin. He knew, back in the day, he wouldn't have hesitated to wear someone's old underwear. He had not been at all fastidious. "So for that, we need to hit up the mall." There would be some department store selling things cheaply. "And maybe you could pick up a pair of slacks and a nice shirt, in case we need to look good." Takashi had planned for that eventuality himself. His luggage included some black pants and a white dress shirt with a suitably boring tie. "So hey, weren't you going to kill the cat woman?" He hadn't even yelled at her too much. Ichigo grunted.

"There's no point. She does whatever she wants and doesn't care when I get upset. Just like a cat…" He grumbled and Takashi laughed, glancing around. Yoruichi had gotten her own change room and was trying on a new pair of more suitable jeans.

"You about done, girl?" He called to her and she just opened the curtain, showing off her second pair of jeans. They were nearly new and fit her like a second skin. "How much are those?" He asked. They looked to be on the expensive side for a thrift shop. She checked the tag.

"Only twenty dollars." She said cheerfully and Takashi wondered if she thought Ichigo was paying. "We can just add them to Ichigo's things!"

"No way!" Ichigo immediately protested and Takashi sighed to himself. Of course she thought Ichigo was paying. "I only have five hundred for the whole trip! Pay for them yourself!" Yoruichi looked slightly hurt, which Takashi thought was just acting.

"But I don't have any money. I can't carry a credit card as a cat." She pointed out and Takashi frowned. That was actually a good point.

"Pfft. I'll pay for it. Just pay me back later." He said abruptly. He could handle thirty dollars, or however much it would come out to be with tax. They both glanced at him, surprised, and he shrugged. "I have about a hundred bucks in cash on me." He couldn't get a credit card without someone cosigning, and no one was dumb enough to do that.

"But you're supporting yourself – oh, just give them here." Takashi blinked as Ichigo took the clothes and took the whole thing to the register. He followed, feeling baffled. Why had he done that? Although he wasn't sure why he'd agreed to pay for the things in the first place. It had just been an impulse.

After that they quickly went to the closest department store and picked up the rest of the things they needed. Yoruichi wanted to buy a necklace there, but she got firmly vetoed by both the teens. They brought all the purchases home and finally got down to business.

"So I was looking around last night, Ichigo. There was something odd stalking the streets – " She glanced at Takashi and he felt slightly uncomfortable. She couldn't be referring to his late night activities, could she? "But that doesn't seem to be related. Other than that, I couldn't really find anything supernatural going on."

"We should probably look up Yukio first. I have trouble believing it's him, I didn't think he really had a grudge against me, but he's the only person I can think of." Ichigo said unhappily and Yoruichi nodded.

"That'll be a job for you, cat. I have no idea how to find people." Takashi said cheerfully before taking a sip of tea. "I figured me and Ichigo could go to the slums and start beating information out of people. I even brought a scarf for him!"

"Wait, what?" Ichigo said, confused and Takashi grinned. "A scarf?"

"Well, since you didn't take my advice about dying your traffic cone hair, you need something to hide it." He explained as the other teen started to look pissed off. "Come on, we're going to be asking questions about the hit on you. If your hair is flaming like that it's going to be so freakin' obvious who we are!"

"It will be fairly obvious anyway, but he does have a point Ichigo. Your hair is very distinctive." Yoruichi put in and Ichigo subsided with a few muttered insults.

"Is it like part of your identity or something? It's just hair… anyway." Takashi said hastily as Ichigo shot him a murderous look. "What d'you want for lunch? We're here so we should eat again before we go out." Even fast food restaurants added up and they had this nice condo with lots of food.

"What would you like to make?" Yoruichi asked and Takashi grinned before going to check out the fridge. He wanted something relatively quick. Meat went bad, so there were only a few things thawed out and they'd already decimated the tuna.

"We've got a few steaks here, or some chicken breasts. Hey, I could make chicken tenders." That idea pleased him and he pulled out the chicken breasts. "And some rainbow chard." He had a nice stack of it in the fridge. It didn't take him long to chop up the breasts and give them a quick spice coating. Then he fried them, as he worked on the swiss chard. Takashi was vaguely aware of Yoruichi and Ichigo talking about something, but the food commanded his attention. "Hey Ichigo, can you get the rice cooker going?" He hadn't thought about that last night, so they had no prepared rice and he didn't feel like making it right now. But it might be good to have that ready for supper. The rice cooker was the snazziest digital type, so it would make the rice and hold it for them.

"Sure." Ichigo quickly found the measuring cup and began measuring out the rice. "Two cups?" Takashi frowned as he thought about it.

"Make it three. I can always use the extra for breakfast tomorrow." He said and Ichigo nodded, getting it ready. "Okay, I think this is done." The swiss chard didn't take long, when you knew how to do it. And he'd cut the chicken into strips to speed the cooking. Yoruichi cheerfully set the table as Takashi got everything into two serving dishes and set them out. The kitchen was so big that they could move around each other easily.

"These strips are good. They have a bite to them." Yoruichi complimented him as they ate and Takashi smiled. "What did you use?"

"Frank's Red Hot sauce. I put that shit on everything!" He said and they both laughed.

The food vanished quickly, and then they split up for the rest of the day. Takashi and Ichigo took the train to the worst part of town and Takashi did his best to start making contacts, as Ichigo got a less than savory education. Takashi almost regretted exposing him to this, but it could always be useful in the future.

"You're not going to use that, are you?" Ichigo asked in an undertone as Takashi put away his purchase. It was a nice bit of marijuana.

"Nah. I wouldn't have even bought it, but you heard the guy." The last guy they'd spoken to had some useful information, but he hadn't been willing to part with it unless they made a purchase. Takashi had figured that would happen sooner or later which was why he'd brought the money. "Find a good dumpster and I'll toss it." Marijuana had never been his poison of choice, although he'd started with it. But his tastes had run to far more dangerous and expensive things. Ichigo looked relieved and soon the baggy had joined some moldering bananas and other miscellaneous trash. "So now we know at least one guy who's talking about the contract on you. Now we'll just have to find him." That might take a while. Ichigo nodded.

"We should probably get Yoruichi on that." He said. Then he frowned, glancing around. Takashi felt the same wariness. Things were too quiet all of a sudden. Then he licked his lips as he suddenly sensed a hollow reiatsu. "Damn. Takashi, just stay here, okay?" Ichigo reached for his pill and Takashi couldn't help but make a whining sound. There was a meal so close and Ichigo was going to take it away! The teen gave him a startled look and Takashi realized he was losing it.

"Uh, r-right. You… do that." Grimacing, he wrapped an arm around stomach. It felt like he was getting bad cramps. Ichigo looked very concerned, putting an arm around his shoulders.

"Are you okay?" He asked, then frowned. "The hollow is close." He muttered and Takashi bit his lip, trying to pull in his hunger. Fortunately Ichigo was bad at reiatsu sensing or he would have realized the hollow he was scenting was extremely close… as in, right beside him.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Takashi managed. He'd deal with it. He couldn't let Ichigo know about his eating habits. "You go take care of it." How he wished he could get Ichigo to stay right here and let him take care of it, but the teen just wouldn't understand. Taking a deep breath, Takashi managed to settle himself as Ichigo took his pill and ran off to find the hollow. "Hey Kon. This place sucks, watch your step." They were in a particularly nasty alleyway, covered in grime and other, nastier things. The mod soul looked around, appalled.

"Ewww! What are you guys doing in a place like this?" He asked and Takashi shrugged.

"Buying drugs and killing people for fun and profit." He said and Kon looked horrified. "Actually, we're just getting information. But Ichigo needs to go kill a hollow." Takashi was feeling a bit better now, and he felt even better when the taunting hollow reiatsu vanished.

"You know he likes you, right?" Kon said and Takashi blinked behind his shades. "Ichigo I mean. He really likes you." Kon was looking at him intently and Takashi swallowed.

"Yeah, well, I like him too." He admitted and the mod soul smiled. They might have talked more but then Ichigo got back. "Hey, you got it?" Ichigo nodded with a small smile.

"It was very weak, no problem at all. Let's swap back." He quickly took his body back from Kon before pocketing the pill again. Then they kept walking, but Takashi's mind was a million miles away. Ichigo liked him? He'd thought so, but he hadn't been sure. The question was, what should he do about it?

He would have to think hard about that.