17: Warning Bells

"Love withers with predictability; its very essence is surprise and amazement. To make love a prisoner of the mundane is to take its passion and lose it forever."

-Leo Buscaglia

"Which way?" Ichigo asked Rukia, pulling at the icon he'd been given to pass into his spirit form by the soul society.

"They're…all over…" Rukia breathed in surprise as she stared at her screen. "It's like the time Ishida used that bait of his…there are dozen's of them."

"Then we need to get going." Ichigo frowned at her, his body limp on the floor in the side room where they'd been speaking, at least it was an unused classroom so it was mostly safe for the time being. "Do you have a…"

He broke off as she swallowed one of the pale green pills that would separate her soul and put a pre-programmed soul into her body for her while she was absent.

"Take care of Ichigo's body." She gestured to his limp form as she gave the orders. Their separated soul reaper forms running to leave the school as Rukia watched her phone still. Chad and Orihime caught up to them as they were dashing.

"What's here?" Orihime asked nervously as she tagged along side their running.

"They all seem to be converging on a single spot in the city." Rukia reported as she continued to watch her screen. "There are more popping up all the time though, I'm not sure if my equipment is malfunctioning though, it's starting to flicker…I think there are too many for it to keep track of."

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Kagome sighed to herself as she looked around the classroom, lunch hadn't been so bad…she finally had a story to tell folks and let the girls interested in speaking with her about Byakuya. He was tutoring her, it was definitely as close to the truth as she could tell anyone. She'd gotten so distracted with finally making a few new friends - and avoiding questions as to if she liked Byakuya or not - she hadn't realized that he had disappeared sometime during her social event.

The warning bell had rung almost the full two minutes ago and he wasn't there, neither were several of the other classmates…the rude Quincy guy was gone, as were a bunch of the other rude students that were stalking her for information about Byakuya on a spiritual level.

"Why do I get the feeling I'm being left out of something here?" She wondered as she glanced out the window and then back to the door as the bell rang. "Where could all of them have wandered off to? I saw Orihime sitting with the rest of the girls at lunch. I had seen Chad and Ishida at tables outside too, Byakuya had wandered off somewhere by himself at the beginning but they're all gone now."

"Does that mean they're off fighting those evil spirit things that attacked me before?" She pondered, leaping from her seat and almost falling to the floor when Byakuya whispered to her from nearby.

"Something bothering you? Can you sense the hollows?" He asked lowly, honestly curious as to how good her spiritual senses actually were.

That was when she blinked and realized why she'd been on edge, retaking her seat shakily as her brain screamed at her with the dozens of emanations of dark energy nearby. It was so sudden it left her a little dizzy, holding her head as she tried to form a reply to the question that had been posed.

The malicious aura that accompanied the hollows was overpowering, if it had just been a few it wouldn't have been that serious but there were so many of them converging in one place that she was having trouble separating the sinister emotions surrounding the hollows and the rest of reality. She felt light and distant as she kept her thoughts on the creatures that seemed to take to haunting her life lately.

The young girl almost fell completely out of her desk before Byakuya had caught her, not many members of the class had seen it - they were in the back row…but a couple of people were staring at the way he had flickered out of his seat and to where he was catching her.

"Goodness." The teacher stared at the pale student passed out in Byakuya's arms. "Kuchiki-san, would you mind taking Higurashi-san to the nurse?"

The noble nodded once at the request, standing up with her and heading out of the room as whispers erupted behind him at the scene. All things he ignored, he was several steps into the hallway when he heard the teacher yelling for order and starting back up class as normal. He sighed to himself as he moved along the halls.

"That would be a yes." He thought vaguely as he carried her toward the office of the nurse. It had been shown to him on his first day. "Her senses must be good if it effected her this much. Something else I'll have to show her how to control."

"Hmm, I feel Naraku nearby." She mumbled in her sleep, her head moving a little. "The shards he has are corrupted with miasma…there are so many…"

"Now she's hallucinating?" He frowned and paused, he couldn't take her to the nurse if she was talking like that…in her world she would be considered crazy for something like that. He moved instead and took her up to the roof, settling her on he ground and watching the sky further into the city.

He could feel the dozens of hollows along with other spiritual energy of people he both recognized and didn't recognize. Rukia was there with the orange haired soul reaper and his friends, there was also a signature of energy that was off compared to normal, richer somehow than the usual energy he felt. It was a more aggressive version of the power that had surrounded the silver haired guy that Kagome was friends with.

It was difficult to not go and join into the battle even against lesser hollows but his assignment kept him from the field of battle, he needed to watch after Kagome, not take her closer to possible danger. Still, it was hard for a warrior to stay away from a skirmish with his enemies.

"Hmm…Mmm…what happened? My head hurts." Kagome mumbled, coming back to consciousness slowly and rubbing her arms as she sat up. "Huh? Why are we on the roof?"

"You feinted in class." Byakuya commented, still looking toward the area of the city where he felt the energies converging. "You were mumbling so I brought you up here instead of taking you to the nurse where you could have said something questionable. You shouldn't overextend your senses, you aren't used to using them enough and it will overwhelm you."

"Sesshomaru." She blinked and held a hand over her chest, she could feel all the energy again but pushed a lot of it aside, recognizing the finer energy around her connection to the past as fighting with the shards of darkness lingering around the city. "That's him."

She got up and dashed away from the roof. "I have to help."

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"What the hell are all these doing here anyway Ishida…did you break more of that bait stuff?" Ichigo yelled at the blue-haired Quincy as he sliced into another hollow.

"The bait the Quincy use wouldn't call this many hollow's unless bricks of the stuff was used." Uryuu yelled back, shooting an arrow and morphing it with his mind so it would break off and hit several of the hollows at once. "My question is if there is an infestation like this, why aren't the soul reapers doing anything about it? Other than Rukia and yourself…one of the captain's is here, couldn't he spare a moment and kill a few dozen himself?"

"There have to be hundreds of them." Chad commented as he punched one of them away from Orihime who was looking nervous about the whole battle thing.

"They aren't paying much attention to us though." Rukia commented, nodding toward some that were still heading toward another part of the city. "We need to figure out what they're after so perhaps we can do something about them."

"I don't recognize the energy of the person fighting them over there." Orihime commented with a frown. "Do you think they're targeting a single individual."

"Sometimes hollows will do that, but usually it's uncommon, and not on a scale like this one." Rukia returned as they continued to run toward the apparent source of the commotion. "Would it be possible for someone that wanted to murder hollows to attain enough of your Quincy bait to cause this?"

"I doubt it." Quincy offered as he shot a few more approaching hollows. "I only have a small amount of the stuff, it's difficult to create or come by."

"Wait…who's fighting who? What are you talking about?" Ichigo asked with a confused blink. "There's someone else over there?"

"The energy is pretty intense." Chad commented, letting off a shot of energy at a group of the creatures in the sky, watching them scream and break apart.

"Yeah, how couldn't you notice that?" Orihime asked cheerfully as they ran. "You really are bad at sensing energy aren't you? Ishida said you were but I didn't think you were really that dense about it."

"Yeah, Ichigo's pretty clueless." Rukia agreed, her blade cutting deep into a mask and relieving another hollow of it's dark existence.

"Shut up." Ichigo growled at them. "So I'm bad at reading spirit energy. It doesn't matter…lets just go find out what's going on. I'm sick of these things already."

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Sesshomaru considered the dozen's of creatures around him, they were still a bit blurry but for whatever reason he'd been able to do more than smell the spiritual demons sense he'd fought the green eyed one before. These were on the different level however, all of them were weaker…but there were so many of them they were succeeding in being a thorn in his side.

He had a couple of shallow wounds but had suffered very few injuries for the near half-hour he'd been battling the creatures, it seemed there was no end to them. Was this the plan of that man that hoped to test on him?

"He'll find himself sorely disappointed if he thinks that this will be enough to down Lord Sesshomaru." He thought blandly as he sliced through several more of the creatures, flickering across the field in much the same manner that a soul reaper would flash step. "I do wish he'd at least take less of my time if he planned on pursuing me in this manner. At least come forward himself to battle me as opposed to sending these weak masses. Coward."

He curled through the demon-like spirits and cut some apart. Certainly many of them had thought that his sword wouldn't be able to cut them as a real thing, though enough had watched their fellows fall that they were actually starting to dodge. He was carving a path back to his home with his Tenseiga so that he would be able to pick up Tessaiga. He had taken the sword to hold after Inuyasha had died, it had never fully accepted him so he didn't carry it with him commonly but for the current situation it would serve him well enough.

Dragon Strike would be even more destructive in the city environment, unlike these creatures he couldn't hold his powers to the spiritual world alone, his attacks would tear into the real environment as well, he would have to find a park or some sort of place without people to use the wind scar.

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Byakuya stepped in front of her before she reached the entryway to the steps down from the roof. Somewhere in his gaining mastery of flash steps he'd forgotten that almost no one was as fast as he was. Catching her as she ran right into him as opposed to stopping, she was amongst the masses that were no were no where near as fast as the Captain.

"You cannot go over there." He said as he steadied her on her feet.

"I have to, Sesshomaru is an old friend of mine…I can't just let him get attacked." Kagome insisted, trying to squirm her way past the soul reaper in front of her. " I might be able to do something."

"You would get in the way." Byakuya commented coldly, making her pause and stare at him, eyes pained at that harsh comment. "My assignment is to protect you, that does not include letting you run off into the field of battle when you are not ready."

"So if I was ready you would let me run off? That isn't logical at all." Kagome argued, pulling at his hands and trying to get away from him. "Just because you are heartless and have no problem with leaving people to fight alone doesn't mean I am."

"If you were ready I wouldn't need to be here teaching you." He commented, still holding her in place as she struggled with him. Raising a brow at her protests and insults. "Would you calm yourself. There are others going toward your friend now that are more than capable warriors where a few weak hollows are concerned. You would do best if you are feeling better to return to class so you don't end up failing again."

"Oh, I can't believe you." She fumed, unable to pull away she settled a foot on him to give her some leverage with her tugging. "Let go of me."

"When you agree to return to class peaceably and stop acting like a child then I will." His eye twitched a little when she laid a foot on him, there was an urge to make her bleed that he had to stave off. "I can see now why people complain about manners in this world. Yours are atrocious."

"I said let me go!" Kagome yelled back, her spiritual energy flaring at her exclamation.

End Chapter

So there was some more switching around, but that's okay because bleach jumps around like it's on a damn pogo stick. giggle I've decided I get more feedback when I do even little cliffhanger type things…so I'm going to try to leave you with cliffhangers more often? I say the readers did it to themselves by letting me notice this nasty trend. Hope you keep enjoying my fiction.

-Aura

P.S. More reviews? Can't know how things are going unless folks offer me some feedback.