8. Kurosaki family (starts in lim. 3rd person with Karin , about Isshin's secret); general/a few sentences in a half-hearted attempt at suspense-ish feelings; one-shot, jumps right in and leaves on a cliff-hanger, though
"What's going on?" Yuzu asked her sister helplessly, huddling closer to the wall. "Everything's moving, and... and it's doing it on its own, all I can see are flashes. Karin, I'm frightened!"
Karin swallowed down her own fear and tightened her hold on her twin sister's hand. "I know. And I don't know what exactly is doing this, but... be glad you can't see them." Her eyes darted over to a far spot on the other wall, where something had just created a huge dent. "Can you see Ichi-nii?"
Yuzu shook her head. "Not any better than I can see the monsters. Are he and Rukia-chan - "
"Yeah. They're fighting. They're the only reason we're even alive right now."
Suddenly the girls heard a sort of strangled cry and their father was pitched into the room.
Yuzu gasped and clung to her sister even more tightly than before. "Oh no," Karin murmured, mostly to herself. "He's going to have no idea what's going on. He never could see ghosts or anything." She felt Yuzu tremble and her own courage wavered. "You have to save us, Ichi-nii - you're our only hope now."
But Kurosaki Isshin had not begun crying and screaming and generally running around like a chicken with its head cut off as Karin had expected him to do. No, he had simply stood up and was looking around with a steely glint in his eye. He was looking over towards Ichigo - looking as though he could actually see. Suddenly, Karin's perception of her father changed. As something in his expression hardened, she realized that the man she was seeing was not the man she had known all her life.
"Is this really the man who would do anything to make us laugh?" she wondered silently. "Is this the man who would cry and whine to a larger-than-life poster of his late wife - who would attack his son every morning and then get beaten down?" She looked intently at her father. No, this was someone new - or perhaps someone old, someone he had kept hidden from his family for all her life.
And as she watched him, something else seemed to change. He seemed suddenly to have come to some decision - to gather all his resolve.
"Ichigo!" he barked, "you have to kill it before it can regenerate - deliver the second blow immediately after the first."
Ichigo, instead of following his father's advice, stopped fighting in shock, his zanpakutou nearly falling from his hand. Rukia, also, seemed to have been taken aback. Though she still had the wits to fight, her concentration had been broken.
Karin saw it before Ichigo did - one of those monsters, a hollow, coming up from behind. Her voice stuck in her throat and she couldn't call out. It was going to get him - there was no way he could stop it if it took him by surprise. Her only brother...
She wasn't ever sure what happened next, but suddenly her father jumped out of his body, and one of him moved over to Ichigo while the other crumpled to the floor. Yuzu screamed. "DADDY!"
Karin felt the girl's heaving sobs on her shoulder, knowing that though Yuzu couldn't see him, their father was fine - she just didn't know how to offer any sort of comfort.
Isshin lunged over Ichigo and brought the sword he suddenly held right down in a clean stroke, which cleft the monster neatly in two. Its shape blurred and, as though made of air, the pieces evaporated into nothing. Ichigo by then had regained his senses, and though feeling utterly shocked, he had begun to help Rukia fight one of the last of the hulking monsters that had invaded the Kurosaki home. Isshin tore into the other two immediately, and within another two minutes the house was still, leaving only the - suddenly three - shinigami standing.
"All right," Isshin said, turning to face his son. He wore the same outfit Rukia and Ichigo did, but he had what looked to be a tattered white cape attached to one shoulder by a metal band. He looked around at the rather grim surroundings. "Looks like it's time for a few explanations."
Does this feel unfinished? I thought it was okay... Anyway, reviews are appreciated. Oh, and while we're on the topic - I started a Bleach forum for discussing unanswered quesions (such as all the Isshin suddenly being a shimigami stuff). Check it out if you're interested.