At the Hands of a Hollow
Chapter 9: Arguments
Previously: The Ichigo she knew was back again. His hands were resting on her stomach, and he shakily turned his head up to her.
"I-Ichigo..." she whispered, seeing the terror in his usually calm eyes.
He pulled his hands back quickly. "I have to leave now..." he said and ran, up to the door and outside.
Ichigo slammed his fist into the wall.
He'd only just run from Orihime's apartment, and was now a few blocks away, punching a perfectly innocent brick wall.
'How the hell could I let this happen...' his head screamed as he furiously released his anger. 'Damn hollow...you do nothing but ruin everyone's life...'
"It's nice to know you have a great opinion on me..." he snickered.
'Do you not freakin' realize what the hell you've done?'
"...Yeah, I do, actually. And can I take it back? No. But, can I replay the cause of it in our mind? Yes, I can!"
'You're just a sick freak.'
"You keep telling yourself that, Kingy. I'm not the one who kissed our Princess without permission, am I?"
'Actually, you kind of are. And you kissed her when you took over too, which was quite romantic for you, in fact...' he scowled at the wall now, knuckles bloody and mind clouded.
"I let her know about it. And well, I have to be at the same level as you or else it's not fair, now, is it?"
'...Level? Just what the hell do you mean?'
"I mean, I'm not falling behind just because I don't get out much."
'What? Falling behind on what?'
"It's not rocket science, idiot. We both love the Princess, and it's not a friendly competition. Don't tell me you didn't know that."
Ichigo wasn't quite sure what to say, or rather think. His mind was blank, and suddenly he was thinking of a rocket ship made out of rice.
"It's gone quiet...what should we talk about now?". The hollow's grinning face flashed up in his mind, and the rice ship tumbled over and collapsed into piles.
'Shut up, I've heard enough of you...you speak now like nothing really happened. What was with you earlier? You were hugging my-...I mean, Orihime, and making it pretty damn obvious that you care about her.'
"I just told you I did. So shut the hell up, I can treat her however I want, it's not up to you, Kingy. There are some things you can't control."
'Ugh, just stop it! I told you I've heard enough!'
Again, his head was silent. The hollow had retreated for the edge of his mind and returned to the dark, forgotten corners. Ichigo shuffled through the shadow of the wall with a pained look on his face.
Orihime was pregnant.
Orihime was having a hollow child.
The hollow had completely screwed up her life.
It felt like there was nothing at all he could do about it.
–
Orihime had wandered outside to look for Ichigo. The way he had just taken off scared her, she didn't want him to be afraid, but she'd known he would be all along.
He had every reason to be scared. She couldn't really blame him for it.
Where did he go, Mama?
She flinched as she crept along the pavement, hearing his voice again. 'I-I don't know...'
It certainly wasn't a lie. Ichigo had disappeared, she didn't know where to find him. As she moved along through the street a little quicker, she found a clue.
One of the walls had marks of blood splattered about it.
After seeing that, she only hoped he hadn't hurt himself or anybody else. But she knew how he could be when he felt he hadn't protected somebody.
She continued her search for hours and hours, and found nothing. Sometimes hollows could be heard, maybe attracted by his spiritual pressure intensifying more every second.
When nothing else was found, she returned back to her home and cried.
It wasn't unlikely that it would be a while before she'd find him.
And she wasn't willing to let him go for a mistake like this one.
–
Ichigo opened his eyes.
It was bright, he was lay by a window, the sun was blinding him. Once his vision cleared up, he saw he was in a familiar place, Urahara Shoten.
He shifted on the futon to lay on his side, and winced as the pain struck him. Lifting up the cover with a careful arm, he saw his body covered in bandages.
"Well, look who's finally awake!"
Kisuke Urahara walked in, closed the door and started waving his fan. The shaggy blonde-haired Shinigami-Store Owner sat about a metre away from him.
"So what happened?"
The ex-captian didn't use his usual smile or grin as he explained. "It seems you found out about Orihime's little problem. Then you got just slightly mad about it, and ran around mindlessly slaughtering hollows for a whole week. We only just found you, last night. You were injured and exhausted, finally collapsed from the pressure. You'd made it a few cities east before we could get to you though, remind me to applaud you for that later."
Ichigo scowled, "Where is Orihime? I...need to see her."
"She's staying in the back room, we've been having a few troubles with her. Your disappearance has made her break down completely, and her health is no longer at it's best. The child takes her energy and she can hardly do anything but sleep."
"What? Why are you...what?"
"Calm down, Ichigo, you'll open your stitches."
"You're letting her keep it?"
"It's her decision, and she doesn't want to destroy it."
"It's going to destroy her, it's a hollow!"
"Yes, and it's also half human. Orihime swears that she won't let it hurt anybody, and we're going to keep watch on that. If it becomes a danger, we will stop it. She already agreed to this."
"...I need to see her, right now."
"I don't think now would be a great time...we need to explain a few things to you before you can see her..."
"What? Just let me see her, what's going to happen?"
"She changed a lot in the past week."
"So what? Do you really expect me to sit through an explanation when you know that I need to see her right now?"
Kisuke sighed, "That's a good point. I'll let you go in to her, but you have to listen afterwords, okay?"
"Fine."
He led Ichigo through the winding walls of the shop. They came to the back room's door in a minute, and Kisuke left him.
Ichigo slid the door open and stepped inside. The first thing he saw were the machines and cables. He followed them along the floor and saw the next object. Orihime.
She was lay on several futons, piled together, and the machines were all hooked up to her.
Her face was pale and thin, and her cheeks looked hollow. There was something about seeing her in this state that made him want to run again, but he wasn't going anywhere this time.
He'd done this to her?
His heart ached at that thought. He'd been too weak to fight off the hollow in the first place, the hollow hurt her in so many ways, and then he'd taken off and left her to worry about it for a whole week.
Orihime Inoue was no ordinary human being. She cared for everybody but herself, and definitely wouldn't think to look after herself when one of her friends was missing. He was sure, that he was just a reckless idiot who wanted to protect people, but never could. He messed everything up for everyone.
She opened her eyes.
"...I...Ichigo?" Orihime sat up and rubbed her eyes. Ichigo sat down next to where she lay, "Hey, don't sit up, are you okay?"
"I-I'm fine..." she lied, "where did you go?"
"I don't really know, all over the place. I'm...I'm sorry I did that, I ran away. This...is...just...crazy. What he did to you in the first place...that was bad enough, and now this. I'm so sorry."
"Well, you're not the only one who apologized..."
"Huh?"
"The hollow...before you came back he said he was sorry...sorry for doing this to me. What did he mean, Ichigo? I-I don't know why he would apologize..." she bit her lip and turned half of her focus to playing with her thumbs.
Ichigo knew the answer very well, now at least. He felt guilty, but it wasn't really the kind of thing he wanted to tell her. He hated to think of how she would react to finding out that the sadistic hollow who raped her and impregnated her was now in love with her.
"I don't know, either..." he took his turn to lie. Then he didn't know what to say, not until he looked at Orihime again.
He tried not to stare at it, but he could barely keep his eyes away. It seemed impossible, after what he saw only a week before.
"Oh...so you've noticed..." she spoke with easily detectable sadness, but she herself didn't know why it was there in her voice. She put a hand up and rubbed her abdomen in delicate circles. He watched her with confusion, just waiting for her to say something else.
"It must be weird for you, right? I'm used to it now, really...everything's changing so quickly..." she said, still rubbing the bump under her pyjamas. It now stretched a little over fifteen centimetres, at the side, from where her torso used to end.
"...Why are you staying here? I'm guessing...it's the one causing trouble, right?"
Her eyes then filled with hurt. She couldn't really blame him for being against her choices, but there wasn't anything she could do. Though she once thought she'd do anything for him, she never considered that one day she'd also love an innocent child that people wanted dead.
"H-he does what he has to, just to survive. I don't mind if it means hurting me..." she whispered, "It's okay for him to-"
"It hurts you?"
After a moment of silence she nodded without a word, "B-but..."
"Orihime, why are you letting this thing live?" he scowled. It was hurting the girl he loved, it was a problem. He only wished it was one he could solve easily.
"Because...he never hurt anybody on purpose, it's not his fault that he's here, I don't want to be the reason why he never gets to live. He doesn't have to be a monster, just because he's a hollow..." she cried.
Ichigo looked at her apologetically. He didn't need to get her worked up about it. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry. I'll...try to understand, but..." he said quietly, "...I don't know, never mind. Why so certain with the 'he', anyway?"
She took a few seconds to calm down, and shrugged her shoulders, "I don't really know, it just feels like I should call it a he...I mean, a hollow is usually a 'he', right?". A familiar Orihime-smile crept onto her face as she dove back into the imagination she'd almost left behind with all of her depression.
"That's true, actually...I don't see 'she' hollows very often..." he said. It seemed best to play along now, even if he felt just as awkward as always while acting more like the boy he abandoned when his mother died.
A black cat, obviously none other than Yoruichi, walked in with her tail high. She sat down at the end of the futons, "Kisuke said you two were talking, I'm not surprised really."
The two humans blushed a little at her comment. "I-Is something wrong Yoruichi?" Orihime stuttered nervously, keeping her eyes fixed away from Ichigo.
"Possibly. I just came in to tell you something Kisuke mentioned, and it might seem sudden but isn't everything on this matter?" the cat showed a grin.
"Okay, what is it?" Ichigo asked, now cross-legged and leaning on his elbow, his face resting on his fist.
"Judging by the speed of this shown so far, we should expect that the child will be born in just over a week."
–
The dates rolled over until it eventually reached Thursday, three days after Ichigo woke up. His injuries had healed, and he was returned to school, despite his protests. He'd insisted that somebody needed to protect Orihime, and he would do it. Of course, Yoruichi told him that she'd be watching over her all day, and he hadn't managed to find any other excuses.
He was standing outside Urahara Shoten. Since returning home after he awoke on Monday, he'd started getting up earlier so that he could get ready and then go to see Orihime.
Her condition was only worsening, and it worried them all. But she was still determined, and she was sure it'd only be for about a week now. After that, she didn't want to think.
Even though she knew the child as innocent, it was scary, not knowing just how much like a hollow he would be.
"I'll come back as soon as I can," Ichigo assured her as he was about to leave. Orihime had very skilfully persuaded him to let her come to the door to see him off. She was wearing her pyjamas and had a thick blanket wrapped around her shoulders.
Her arms and legs were weak and skinny, and she was still pale. The bump was now very easy to see, it had extended so much that the tops of her legs were barely visible under the dark shadow it cast down to her knees.
"You've missed a lot of days at school recently...are you sure you won't get into trouble?" she asked him with worry glistening in her eyes.
"I wouldn't worry," he smirked, "it wouldn't be that first time I skipped school for days and then came back with no explanation."
"Well, that's true," she managed a smile.
Having him know and, almost, accept the truth had cheered her up quite a lot. She wasn't depressed any more, she knew so many more answers, and all there was left to do was wait for the baby to come. She tried not to think about how she would go about delivering him, every time Yoruichi tried to bring it up she avoided it as best she could.
Ichigo left quickly, it would take him quite a while to walk from Mitsumiya to Gakuenchou, despite the fact that they were next to each other.
As soon as he left, Yoruichi herded her back to bed. She didn't know what to do. Normally, when he wasn't there, she'd just wait for him to come. Sometimes she could sleep and wait, but it was morning, she wasn't tired. He wouldn't get back for hours, so she sat in bed and turned her focus to the bump.
The baby 'spoke' to her more and more everyday, whenever he had a comment to add. Ichigo found the fact that he was sentient unnerving and creepy, because it reminded him more and more of his hollow. He just kept quiet while Orihime had her little thought conversations with him.
Mama, I'm coming to see you soon.
'I know, you should be here in a week, right!'
He told her lots of things, about what he could hear and many other things. He'd very often recite conversations that he heard between Orihime and Ichigo.
I'll come and meet Ichigo.
Ichigo was another one of the baby's favourite topics. He didn't get to hear many people talk around him, but Ichigo was always there. He listened to anything he had to say very contently.
'I'm sure he wants to meet you.'
I'll come and meet him in five days, okay Mama?
'You know when you're going to come?'
Yep, five days.
Orihime smiled down at the bump, "Then I'll see you in five days."
–
Wasn't sure how to end that...awkward...
Hey, an update! In like, 20 something hours! I was seriously crying at how many reviews I got, you guys are incredible. 3 I'm so glad to see that people are enjoying this~
So I thought you deserved this. I stayed up super late got and up super early and sat at my laptop all day writing this for you! (And the laptop is soo gunna overheat any moment. It's already weirdly hot today. Strange, considering I'm British and it's never hot...)
Please review! That's all I ask for c:
Tell me anything! You hated this chapter, you loved it, it lacked something, Ichigo likes rice rocket ships? Anything at all! And hey, since it worked last time, review cos' if you do I'll want to update again before I leave on Friday~~
;)
~HellYus