At the Hands of a Hollow

Chapter 11: Concluding the Unknown

Previously: In that moment, he only hoped that she would be okay. He wanted to look after her, but he wasn't sure what to do. Yoruichi's orders were all he could bring himself to do now.

Still, it took two minutes before he could continue.

Though his feet were carrying him back home, he was torn between his journey back home and the dying girl in the back of Urahara Shoten.

Ichigo wasn't allowed back until Monday. Yoruichi told him to have one day without thinking about Orihime, but she was all he could think about. All he knew when he woke up was that she was alive.

It was early when he headed out, but he didn't care. He was sure that Orihime would be awake, what with the demon ripping it's way out of her and all. Now he had absolutely no sympathy for it.

It was a monster and it was killing her, just like he'd always thought.

"Hurry up, King."

'Shut up.'

He tried to filter out the hollow's comments, but some were floating so vividly around his mind that he couldn't completely ignore him. "It's your fault that we didn't get to see her yesterday."

'Well none of this would be happening at all if you'd of just...not...raped her.'

It was a weak attempt, but it kept him quiet.

Soon enough he was running. It was another few minutes before he skidded to a halt and pulled the door open. When he got to the door of the back room, a high-pitched squeal was just fading out.

Kisuke opened the door for him, and he stepped inside.

Yoruichi was sat closely by the pale, skinny wreck of a girl, wearing her suit of black fur to reduce the space she took up. Ichigo could see several machines surrounding her again.

"Ichigo, leave."

He looked at Urahara, "What?"

The man took of his hat and gave a slight smile, "I'm sorry, I didn't mean that. But could you humour me for just a second and step out of the room."

His eyes turned to Orihime in silent protest.

"She's not going anywhere, I just want to see something. Please."

Ichigo shrugged his shoulders and stepped back out, and closed the door. There he waited for a few seconds, unsure of what to do and completely clueless to the reason behind his motives.

"Okay, come back in!" he shouted again.

With a sigh, he let himself back into the room again.

"Remarkable..." Kisuke whispered to himself, staring at the biggest machine he could see.

"What's remarkable?"

He looked over to him, to Orihime, and back again. "The spiritual pressure decreased when you came in..."

"Maybe he's happy to hear your voice again," came a voice.

Ichigo turned around, and the girl was smiling at him. She had propped the very upper section of her body up on her elbows, and her face was just about visible behind the mound under her blanket. There was blood seeping though, in fact she was basically covered in it.

The worst part was the fact that it was her own.

"Yeah, sure..." he muttered, and sat down in the corner, not too close but not too far away from her.

He scowled at the bloody mound, which was still producing intense pressure that he couldn't ignore. Orihime was still wearing a smile, but he could see her pain. It was visibly present in the shadows under her eyes and the unstable shaking of her hands. "He says that he's very happy that you're here," she informed him.

Ichigo's stomach twisted and his eyes wandered to the ground. "So it still talks? I thought it'd be concentrating on ripping you to shreds..."

Yoruichi slipped out of the room quickly.

The glimmer of light in her eyes disappeared, but her smile didn't completely vanish. She brought her pale hands up to rest on the bump. He could see that they were covered in dry blood, and a new layer of crimson came into contact with them as she placed them on the stained blanket.

"He only speaks to me now, in my head. I don't know if he's strong enough to talk loudly, I think he's busy," she tried to keep up her recently half-re-discovered sense of cheeriness in her voice.

The door swung open and Yoruichi, clad in human clothes, entered with a pile of sheets. She walked over and placed them in the clear corner, and picked up a blanket.

"Looks like you could use a new one of these," she smiled.

Orihime began to say thank you, but froze. Her bony fingers clutched onto the blanket, leaving red hand prints over the few unaffected patches of blanket. The spiritual pressure doubled, leaving the air thick and dense. The metallic stench of blood became stronger, and Ichigo felt completely sick.

Kisuke started staring at a machine, as Yoruichi hurried to put down the pile of sheets. Nobody knew what to do for her, they waited. She started to breathe heavily but quietly.

Orihime pulled herself onto her elbows to re-position herself, and she winced as the blanket fell off. What Ichigo saw then made his eyes start to water.

Rips in her pyjamas showed the cracks in her stomach, the blood that ran all over her skin. The dangerous pressure could practically be seen flowing from the wounds, and even the scars left from the experience that caused the monster's existence.

He was weak. His limbs dropped, and his blank face found itself pointing towards the floor. Orihime trembled as she watched his reaction, carefully holding the blanket up to hide herself. Yoruichi took if away from her a laid a new blanket over her quickly. "Good luck, Ichigo..." she sighed, and took the old, bloodstained blanket away with her.

Orihime's fearful eyes watched him as his head turned back up to her. He stared desperately into her eyes.

She blinked, trying to figure him out. Then he tried to smile. It was almost awkward, a half genuine smile. But she studied his face for a second, and could see it in his eyes. He was trying to comfort her, despite being very uncomfortable himself.

That brought her own smile into play.

They both began to relax, calming down almost completely. Orihime wrapped herself up in the new blanket, and lay her head on the pillow so that she was directly facing him. "Shouldn't you be at school? It's a Monday," she pouted.

"What, and leave you here? I've not been allowed in for two days, I thought I was allowed to be here!" he grinned.

She was glad, more than anything, to see him like that way. It was the side of him that nobody ever really saw, but sometimes she was lucky, and he would let her into his heart for a while. Not many people could ever get that far.

He couldn't really understand it himself, it was strange that she could bring this side of his personality to the surface. It had been left completely untouched for years. And there she was, innocent and beautiful, enough to weaken any man's defence.

Then of course, she was so clumsy and absent-minded, she needed protection, and he was always more than willing to offer that to her. It was his job, though he had failed it several times. Sometimes it was just a little too far out of his reach.

But in their failure and their success, they always came out okay in the end. And it always made them stronger.

–

Nothing had really improved by the afternoon. It didn't speed up or slow down, it just got more painful for her. Orihime was reaching a stage which resembled the half-way point of an average human's labour, by terms of contraction frequency.

Ichigo did all he could for her, but there wasn't really a lot. He sat by her, and held her hand. And just when she was reaching her limit of coping with the pain, he would reassure her. The only problem was, he didn't know what was going to happen.

He felt bad about promising things that he thought of unlikely to happen. The truth was, he had little of an idea of how much damage it was causing to her.

In the late afternoon, in one moment of peace, Ichigo seized the opportunity to talk to Kisuke. As Orihime relaxed, he whispered to the Shinigami Shopkeeper, "Urahara, what do you think will happen?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, at the end of this. From what you can see now...do you think she'll be okay?"

The mysterious man smiled beneath his hat, "Well I'm sure it'll be fine. I can't give you an exact answer because we don't know how the delivery will go, but-"

Ichigo's eyes turned from curious to serious as he interrupted. "Will she survive it?"

Kisuke looked surprised for a moment, before his head tilted and his eyes became dark. "It's all I need to know," Ichigo said with an almost pleading tone.

"I think it's safe to say that she will survive, assuming the hollow doesn't completely rip it's own way out of her. We can't rely on this being more like a human birth, or else we'd be getting our hopes up. But anyway, yes, I think she will survive. And I'll do everything I can to make sure of it, but I'm not saying it's certain."

"Then that's fine..." he muttered, and turned back to Orihime, who had been pulled out of her day dream and was breathing heavily as the next contraction began.

–

Everyone was exhausted by the time the night came. At ten o'clock, everything seemed to be getting worse. Orihime had lost a lot of blood, nearly more than was safe. Ichigo's concern was increasing every second and it appeared that the odds really weren't in their favour.

Orihime was being watched by Ichigo and Yoruichi at this point. They were both working to make sure she was safe and comfortable, because if they hadn't, the pain would already have been too much to bear. The fifth and final day was drawing closer and closer and they didn't know what it would bring, other than a half hollow, half human child that had caused them all a lot of stress.

Her face was desperate and she was sweating more than ever, her auburn hair clinging to her face. Her body was prepared for a human delivery, but the hollow was trying to make it's own way out. It was too much for a girl of her age, within a few more hours, it would really be more than she could take.

During one of the longest and most painful contractions, she said to him, in between hurried breathing, "Ichigo... I can't... take... it's too much... so please... tell Tatsuki... and..."

He took both of her hands and looked her in the eye, "I can't tell her anything, you're going to have to, when this is all over. It can all be normal again..."

She started screaming as it violently ripped through her stomach again, leaking blood all over the place. "I can't... I..."

"Yes, you can. You have to, just breathe," he said to her, gritting his teeth through her bone-crushing grip on his hand. She nodded and tried her hardest to keep going. It lasted another minute, until she could finally throw her head back on the pillow and take that valuable space of time to rest.

The blood began to dry and another hour of contractions passed. Nothing was improving, it stayed exactly the same. Ichigo was helpless, all he could do was help her breathe and hold her hand. So when Kisuke entered the room, claiming to have good news, he was glad; even though there was nothing that he could do.

"What? What is it?"

"I've asked a doctor that I know to come over here and see if he can help us out a little," Urahara said.

Ichigo scowled, "What are you, stupid? What the hell can a doctor do, it's a hollow! Sure, help Orihime, but good luck getting your doctor friend to understand hollows and all that crap."

"Trust me, I don't need the good luck here. I think you'll find it's Miss Inoue who would benefit from it," he said with a teasing grin.

"Fine, whatever..." he muttered and focused his attention on the pale, skinny, crimson-strained wreck letting out the blood-curdling screams, who had a monster clawing at her from inside.

–

In the last few minutes before midnight, the doctor showed up at the door, and Urahara went to bring him to the back room. Ichigo dreaded to think of what would happen next. The last thing they needed was a human doctor with no knowledge of what he was really doing.

He didn't really care that much, but it still mattered to him. So he was very shocked when his father walked into the room.

Ichigo stared at him with an unimpressed expression.

Isshin nodded his head towards him, "'Sup."

"Urahara, why the hell did you have to bring this clown here? He'll just mess everything up."

He said the words with the expectation of his father showing off his fake crying 'skills', but instead he saw the medical, serious side of his dad.

"It's fine if you don't want me here, son, but I'm actually here to keep your girlfriend alive, so if you'll excuse me..." he said with a slight smile, and sat at the foot of the futon.

Ichigo watched for a moment as his father pulled out a pair of gloves. "...What are you doing?"

"Checking the dilation," he said simply, "do you have a problem with that?"

"I don't know, what's dilation?"

"How far the cervix has moved."

"What's the cervix?"

"It's what's in between the vagina and uterus, it holds in the foetus and then opens-"

"Okay, okay! Too much information..."

"But you asked, son."

"Whatever..." he looked away quickly as he carried out his task.

He was pulling off his gloves when Ichigo turned around again. "It could actually be any minute now. What's the time?"

Urahara checked a clock, and replied. "Two minutes from midnight."

"And it's supposed to arrive tomorrow?"

"Yes."

"Then I'd expect it in a few minutes."

Isshin stood back up and left the room with Kisuke.

"Where are they going?"

Yoruichi spoke up then. "I would assume that they're leaving so that Orihime can deliver the child without the stress of having so many people in the room."

"Okay..."

He watched her snow-white face in it's temporary state of relaxation. She was in some kind of dream, or daze, and she looked so happy, that he was annoyed that it was supposed to come out at any time. It would ruin it all for her, but then, it already had. By just being there.

Several minutes passed with no contractions, she just lay there like that. It passed onto Tuesday, and the two people in the room were anxiously watching for the conclusion, the grand finale.

She woke up squealing four minutes into the day, with the foot of the hollow sticking out of her belly. Yoruichi leapt forward, and took the blanket off her completely. She was left in a pyjama shirt that had enough closed buttons to conceal her chest, but that was all.

Neither of them even cared, they were staring at the red hole in her stomach, with the slowly moving limb poking around at the top. "Get it out, now," Ichigo said.

"But which way would be easiest? There are still two options here..."

"I don't freaking care, just get the damn thing out! It's killing her!" he shouted. Yoruichi flinched at the increase of volume and nodded to herself. "I'm sorry, Orihime..."

Just at the right moment, it began to kick it's own way out. In seconds, it was in her reach, so Yoruichi pulled it out of her, detaching it from her, at last. The wriggling monster started to cry as it was wrapped up and taken out of the room.

There was a painful thumping in his chest as he stared at Orihime. Her body was limp and cold, still half-naked and torn apart. He felt sick, very sick.

His head dropped into his hands as he found that there was nothing he could do. The blood she amazingly still had drained it's way out of her and her grey eyes went clear.

Ichigo was losing control of his breathing, and he started to choke. "Ur...Urahara!" he yelled. Both the store owner and his father rushed into the room, starting to shout things at each other. Isshin began to check over her, while Kisuke starting chanting kido spells that Ichigo couldn't make sense of.

That was because he was losing his senses, falling into darkness. He reached out for her hand again, afraid that somebody would take her away. He sat there as his vision went blank, and he lost consciousness.

–

Happy Hallowe'en! :P

I thought I'd update because I have nothing better to do tonight, really. I was expecting this chapter to be short at first, but then I decided to add Isshin in there for a little comedy (cos' the whole chapter is so serious...) and it was, well, longer.

Hope you like, anyway!

I've just realized I've spent about three hours here, writing the last half...oh dear. Good night, anyway!

Review, review, review, please! I will actually cry if there's not one, and I wish that was just a joke...

~HellYus