Date written: 19/09/09 – 03/10/09

Posted on FanFiction: 04/10/09

A/N: Here's another chapter to indulge yourselves into. I also have to announce that I won't be writing anymore updates until next week. The Final Exams are in two days time, and I'm devoting what time I have for studies and finishing up some final projects. Boy, what a hassle.

Whatever stuff narrated about Ishida's preference, it's all in the author's imagination.

And to Demonbloodfeeder: I am aware of the fact that Rukia didn't know anything about the Quincy until Urahara explained it to her. But the matter is that this is an AU where I've inadvertently made Rukia a bookworm. And with that in mind, she might have heard about the Quincy while she had been reading the many stacks of books in the Academy's library—and, in extension, the Kuchiki library. One of the more drastic changes I've made for Rukia's character is something in her past. In canon, she graduated prematurely due to Byakuya's influence. In this universe, she requested her new 'brother' that he let her finish her studies for the whole six years. Though she had been moved from her dorm and began living in Byakuya's mansion. Anyway, this will be elaborated a bit more in the Soul Society arc through Renji's POV. He was after all the guy who 'encouraged' Rukia to take the chance of getting adopted to a noble family and graduate immediately. (Sigh) Such inner turmoil and regret.

--- CHAPTER 16 ---

Archer and Swordsman: Act I

The next day, Orihime looked less cheery than usual. After a night of pondering over Ishida—with a bit of Ichigo daydreaming on the side—she found some similarities between her and Ichigo. Some varied in circumstances but the generality was still there.

One of those happened to be the color of their hair. Both had the hair color that is between yellow and red, though Orihime's hair has a darker shade than Ichigo's. Now Orihime considered this as a reason for Ishida's hate, but then scrapped it because it was unlikely for an intellectual person like Ishida to be bias over a person's hair color. Unless, of course, he was thinking that orange was an unnatural hair color and thought that both might have bleached it, thus generating the hate since Ishida is strict when it comes to rules and regulations. Whether this theory of hers was true or not, Orihime would look the other way over this. She could only think of one solution to turn Ishida's opinion of them, convincing him that their hair color is quite natural, but it involved showing him something very personal. She was already blushing in embarrassment just thinking about it!

Another similarity would have to be their being friends with Tatsuki. Orihime theorized that maybe Ishida has a crush on Tatsuki and hates the fact that she and Ichigo are closer to Tatsuki than he currently is. A more plausible explanation, but the downside was that it was impossible for Ishida to show any attractions towards her best friend. She would've noticed right away. Woman's Intuition and such, you know.

Yet another similarity was their ability to see ghosts.

. . . immediately rebuffed. There was no way Ishida would know anything about that, right?

Sure, she sensed some bouts of spiritual energy from within Ishida, but it was small and quite contained. Orihime didn't have the proper ability to gauge a person's spiritual sensitivity and quickly discover if he or she can see ghosts like her, but one thing was perfectly clear: Ishida had a larger than average reserve of spiritual energy.

Orihime reached the intersection where she often met up with Tatsuki, and there was said girl, leaning on a streetlight, punctual as usual. Orihime smiled for the first time today.

"Morning," Tatsuki greeted. Orihime greeted her back and walked alongside her as they made their way to school.

And while on the way, Orihime's earlier theory came back to her. "Tatsuki-chan."

"Yeah?" She turned to Orihime, her arms pulled back behind her head; hands intertwined as they rested on her nape.

Orihime watched as Tatsuki's bag dangled and rocked like a pendulum in her hands. "Does Ishida-kun have a crush on you?" she wanted to ask, but her mouth was as tightlipped as a sealed vault door. Tried as she might, she couldn't put her thoughts into words.

Tatsuki waited, arching a brow at her unexpected silence.

She tried to ask her question again, but then her throat decided to become a nuisance as well. In the end, she just shook her head at her friend and resumed her walk.

Tatsuki caught up with her and asked what was wrong.

Orihime shook her head again, and this time adding a verbal message. "It's nothing."

"If 'nothing' means 'something,'" she replied. "What's bugging you today, Orihime?"

The same old Tatsuki. She saw through her lies yet again. But that trait was not exactly helping Orihime with her situation. She wanted to ask her the question, but something was keeping her from doing so. And she had suspicion on what—or rather who—was causing it.

Not me, princess. You're still in full control.

Though Emi had said that, Orihime still heard her laughing out loud from the deepest edges of her mentality. It was quite disconcerting. And disturbing at the same time, hearing laughter inside her own head.

Orihime sighed through her nose and kept eye contact with Tatsuki, so as not to increase her suspicion. "I'll tell you later, 'kay?"

Tatsuki looked a little surprised, but nodded nonetheless.

Their conversation moved to more trivial things, and when they met up with Rukia and Ichigo, their talks got even livelier. Ichigo explicitly showed his annoyance at Rukia's lady-like speech, but it was ignored by all. Apart from anything other than that, the rest of the foursome's trek towards school was uninteresting.

Uryuu Ishida approached and sat on his desk twenty minutes before the start of homeroom. Normally, he'd be here in his seat thirty minutes before the start of homeroom, but he had to finish up some loose ends last night and ended up sleeping for only four hours. He didn't mind, but he would have to get used to this new kind of routine if he were to even think about taking the place of the useless shinigami guarding Karakura.

Instead of waiting for the sound of the first bell, he dug out a small book from his bag and then opened it to the bookmarked page. Adjusting his glasses, he began to read.

This is how Uryuu usually spends his free time on. He had always regarded books as objects much mightier than swords, because of the knowledge imprinted in its pages. Ever since Uryuu had been a little boy, when his grandfather Souken had still been alive, books were his doors to worlds that he wanted to discover and learn. People might think of him as practical and very serious, but his choice of genre might tilt a few heads of people who actually believe those stereotypical affiliations of his personality. He comes out as serious because that's just how he was raised, but in the all-work-but-no-play kind of world he had been subjected to after Uryuu's father, Ryuuken, took him back to concentrating on his academics, he found solitude in fantasy stories. They depicted worlds that are far more extraordinary than this dull one, regardless that souls and evil spirits lurk all over this world.

"When you're old enough to read and write, then you're old enough to understand and learn all of this," Ryuuken had once said to him, gesturing to the pile of books he placed on Uryuu's desk.

It had been stressful and often exhausting, but he had realized that both burying himself in academics and in the fictional worlds of fantasy novels were great distractions and coping instruments for his grandfather's death. So he managed his time in doing both activities. Ryuuken accepted Uryuu's preference on spending his leisure time on, but he also stressed that if the boy's grades were to waver by even one point, then kiss the novels goodbye for three whole months.

There was no need for the threat, though. Uryuu was practically in the pinnacle when it came to achieving the highest ranks in academics. You would find no other bookworm like him in Karakura High School. By the age of twelve, he realized another hobby he wanted to do in his spare time: Handicraft.

To be more precise, Uryuu seems to have talent in embroidering and sewing. He was not exactly sure if his talent for needlework had stemmed from his training of being a Quincy, but he would like to think that this was his natural talent apart from his other prodigious achievements. On the plus side, he didn't mind if guys found it girly because if the act relaxes him, then who's stopping him from honing and refining his skills? Peer pressure is nothing but an excuse for people who want to fit in but need to do something that go against their principles. For him, he didn't want to fit in if he had to force himself into it. If people wanted to be his friend, then fine by him. If people wanted to ostracize him, fine by him. If people wanted to pick a fight with him, fine by him . . . when they've already made preparations for their graves.

Some might not understand his outlook, but that was just how a loner lives day-to-day. Uryuu doesn't think that he'd likely survive without human contact; rather he tends to distance himself a little with people. None would call him a friend outright, but more of an acquaintance if an answer was desired.

Uryuu replaced the bookmark onto the novella just as the school bell rang. There was approximately a three- to five-minute delay before homeroom would start, as was often the case ever since the start of the spring term. This gave the rest of the class more than enough time to scurry to their seats and, for some latecomers, the last stretch of hope that they won't be marked late if they reach the classroom before the teacher.

After homeroom, the next teacher started his class immediately.

It may have been one of those typical days, but Uryuu sensed something off. He wasn't oblivious to what it was, either; he knew exactly what was causing him slight discomfort. Near the back of the class, the eyes of two orange-haired students were looking at him from time to time, as if they were keeping an eye out. Well, who could really blame them after the talk he made with each of them? That definitely aroused more questions than anyone would prefer to have concerning him.

He ignored them for the better part of the school day, and they thankfully stopped around after lunchtime. It was only a theory, but Uryuu might be right to assume that the two had talked to each other during lunch and came to an unanimous conclusion. What that would entail for him, he wasn't sure. But there was no point in beating things around the bush. Uryuu was pretty much out in the open now, and delaying things any further would do more harm than good.

He had to set an example to these shinigami, whether it be Orihime Inoue or Ichigo Kurosaki. Rukia Kuchiki currently wasn't a threat, since he sensed very little spiritual energy in her. She may as well as pass off as a normal high school student with that level of spiritual energy, but Uryuu suspected that she is just low on power. Clearly not a threat, yet.

The next teacher entered the classroom, instructing everybody to settle down and go back to their seats.

As he dug out the required textbook from his bag, Uryuu decided that it was better to wait until after school before making his move.

Right around lunchtime that same day, Ichigo mulled over his thoughts over the so-called Last Quincy on the rooftop. According to Rukia, there had been conflicts between shinigami and spiritually-talented humans two hundred years ago. The conflict had gotten so bad that the higher officials of Soul Society instigated all shinigami on duty to kill any Quincy on sight, lest the balance of souls between the dead and the living would decay and create chaos. Rukia described the silent war between the Quincy and the shinigami as one of the bloodiest decisions Soul Society had been forced to do, though his gruesome imagination of it was shattered after seeing the doodle she had cooked up for that particular scene.

It was due to this bit of info that he came to the conclusion that Ishida hates shinigami because of that war. The war that had literally wiped his kind from existence.

For some reason unknown even to him, he suddenly had this urge to talk to him about this enmity that somehow resembled a downscaled version of the Cold War. Neither side would be the first to provoke the other, but both were very much on guard. Ichigo wasn't sure how long the cease-fire would last or if Ishida would actually take his hatred of shinigami to a more dangerous level. And that worried him, not out of fear of himself but out of fear of the people who might unknowingly get involved in the ensuing fight. Most of all, he was worried about Orihime. She was, after all, a shinigami, and that automatically meant receiving Ishida's hatred.

"A penny for your thoughts."

Ichigo looked to his side and found Orihime leaning against the roof railing, imitating him. She smiled.

"Not much to think about, really," he replied, not breaking eye contact. There was just something calming about the shade of gray borne in her eyes that if he were to look away now he could end up feeling nervous under her subtle scrutiny.

"It doesn't hurt to share, right?" she answered back.

Ichigo sighed through his nose and looked up to the cloudy blue sky. It was a decent alternative for the calming gray, and he needed to sort out some of his thoughts before beginning to explain to her about his troubles. If this moment had happened before his mother's death anniversary, then he would've made his troubles his troubles only. None of that 'share your problems with me and you'll feel better' crap for him. It was all too sentimental for his taste, but on that day, something in him changed—for the better or for the worse, he couldn't tell. Yet, anyway. He was more open to Orihime now, and he sometimes ended up sharing more detailed perceptions that wouldn't even see the light of day since they had always been behind closed doors in Ichigo's head. He didn't mind being open to her—it felt nice—but just wary of how much he was willing to spill before it got too personal. When it came to Orihime and his recent openness to her, there were no boundaries for his secrets anymore. If they want to come out of his mouth, they come equipped with a battering ram.

So, after organizing his thoughts carefully, making sure that whatever he says would be on-topic at all times, he began. "It's about Ishida."

He wasn't sure if it was a gut feeling, instinct, or even mild telepathy, but he could've sworn he felt Orihime react sorrowfully at the last word.

"I think he hates me," Ichigo said. Okay, an outright lie, but he wanted to settle this problem with Ishida alone. If there was a chance that Ishida would aim and pull his arrow at her, then Ichigo would do everything in his power to prevent such a thing from happening. The simplest solution would be to keep her out of it. He knew that he was reverting back to the old way he treated Orihime, but he convinced himself that this will only be a one-time thing and then no more. As far as he was concerned, her safety was more important.

"Why?" she asked, her voice strained like a recorded voice pitched too high. She cleared her throat and asked again.

"I don't know. Maybe he was offended by my Christian question yesterday or something." He shrugged. "But even a blind person can see the hate in his eyes."

"I'm sure you're just exaggerating things. Maybe he just dislikes you."

What's the difference? Ichigo thought. Both of them mean that he hates me.

"There's actually a difference, if that's what you're thinking," she added.

"How—"

"Ah! So you were thinking that, huh?"

Ichigo said nothing.

"The main difference between hate and dislike is more in terms of logic and how it's defined. Hate is a concrete and obvious choice of word, while dislike is vaguer. Dislike means 'not like,' right? Now 'not like' doesn't automatically mean hate. It's in neutral grounds."

"Where'd you get that from?" he asked.

"From a novella I've been reading recently. Ishida-kun is already on the fourth volume, so—"

"Say no more, please. I don't want to know about his reading preferences."

"Are you sure? It's a very interesting fantasy story with a trimonthly release. Some pages even have colored drawings like the ones in special edition hardcover books."

"Isn't what you're referring to earlier called a light novel nowadays?" He had seen his fair share of those while browsing through some magazines in the local bookstore. One of the more popular ones he had seen was about a girl named Haruhi, though he was clueless about its storyline.

"Yes, they are, but the author of the fantasy story kept referring to them as novellas than light novels. I guess it kind of stuck with the fans."

"I see."

"But we're getting off topic here. Maybe Ishida-kun is just indifferent towards you, neither friendly nor hostile."

"I doubt that," he muttered.

"Hmm?"

"Nothing." He shook his head. "Got any ideas?"

She presented her forefinger as if she was pointing towards the sky. "One: Try talking to him."

"And then wait for pigs to fly," he added with sarcasm. "We know how that will end up." He paused, and mulled over what she suggested. If he had to be honest, he could actually see some merit in that action since it will help settle the problem faster, and he had been meaning to talk to the guy after school. The sooner he got this done, the better, though he wasn't hoping for a peaceful conversation. That would never happen. "But I'll try, at least," he added.

"Everything will be fine, Kurosaki-kun."

Yeah, he hoped so.

When the last bell of the day rang throughout the school, Rukia packed her bag and headed out without even waiting for Ichigo or Orihime. Both had other agendas before they had to go home. Rukia was the same.

After Urahara's revelations on the existence of the sinister Hollows known as the Lückenhaft, Rukia had been busy discovering more about these creatures. From what the storekeeper had told, he only knew the tip of the iceberg and that there were never any deep researches about the black-masked Hollows since they were quite rare. The Lückenhaft were pretty much a threat that none is prepared to handle and overcome.

Thankfully, Urahara assured her that he'd be digging additional information about the Lückenhaft in the many tomes and books he had taken with him before he escaped the clutches of Soul Society. Rukia didn't bother asking if Urahara was the rightful owner of all those books. Desperate times calls for desperate measures, and whatever they could find out about the Lückenhaft would have to be put in the forefront. Rare books, ancient tomes, illegal documents, banned books, it didn't matter. It was the information they needed that mattered.

That was her intention for today. She had received a call earlier from the shopkeeper that he might have found something that would interest her. He didn't disclose anything else (afraid that his message might get intercepted, as paranoid as that sounds), but her curiosity was at its peak by the end of the call. By the time she reached the first intersection, she was mixing walking and jogging together.

Not long after she made it to the front of the Urahara Shop, she felt five signatures inside the house. Four of them, she recognized right away, but the last one eluded her. It was either a customer or an intruder. She thought more about the latter possibility but rejected it after a few moments of thought. Urahara, Tessai, Ururu, and Jinta wouldn't be standing by calmly while the fifth presence was showing off its suppressed spiritual pressure like a balloon slowly releasing air before it pops. That would mean that the fifth was an ally, but could she be sure.

I'm getting as paranoid as Urahara, she thought with disgust before knocking at the front door.

Ururu answered the door and ushered Rukia in. "Kisuke-san is waiting for you in the living room," she said before going back to the register at the corner to the left of the entrance.

Rukia walked towards the living room, mentally preparing herself for any kind of bombshell Urahara had in store for her. But the preparation was for nothing since Urahara was once again in music bliss, listening to some song in his iPod.

The man was banging his head up and down, synchronized with the beat of the music. His eyes were closed like before, so he didn't acknowledge her entrance. Urahara wasn't the only living being in the room, however. The tatami mat that was around the circular low table had three purple fluffy pillows positioned in the 12, 3, and 6 o'clock points. Urahara was seated on the 6, while the other living being—a black cat, of all living beings—was taking a nap on the 3 o'clock point. Since there was only one pillow left vacant, she sat herself there.

Urahara was still in his music bliss, murmuring bits of the song's lyrics. Rukia wasn't profound in foreign languages, more so when it came to English, so she wasn't able to understand three-fourth of the man's low-pitched murmurs.

Rukia heard a mew from her left. The black cat stretched while digging some of its claws into the fabric of the pillow it was on. Yawning without restraint, the cat then turned its attention from Urahara (blissfully unaware, blissfully headbanging) to Rukia. The gaze from those golden yellow eyes was disconcerting, but Rukia already figured out that this was no ordinary cat. She could feel the suppressed reiatsu it was giving off.

"You must be Rukia Kuchiki," the cat said in a bass voice.

Rukia nodded at the cat.

"I am Yoruichi, by the way."

The name tugged something in her memory, but it swerved and dissolved before she could get a clean grasp of it. "I am honored to make your acquaintance, Yoruichi-san," she said, keeping up with her noble customs and bowing her head a little. She had hazard a guess and decided to treat the cat as a noble. The name was no indication; she just trusted her 'noble' radar. It was something she had taught herself five months after she had been officially adopted into the Kuchiki clan. She had had a hard time differentiating the noble Kuchikis from the servant Kuchikis in the clan, and had to work through trial and error to manifest some kind of biological radar to discern if a person was a noble or a commoner. And in all the years she had used it, it never let her down. Though she began to suspect that she was getting rusty since there was no way a cat could be a noble. Unless, of course, it wasn't a cat. As far as she knew, cats don't talk. It's common sense, after all.

"The same," Yoruichi replied, bowing its head as well. It then looked back at Urahara. "Kisuke! Rukia's here."

Urahara opened one eye, saw Rukia, and nodded at the cat, though Rukia couldn't be sure if it was a nod or just another one of his headbanging. He removed the earphones and greeted, "Good afternoon, Kuchiki-san. Are you doing well?"

"I'm fine," she answered nonchalantly. "You said that you found something that might interest me."

"Yes, indeed." He paused awhile. "Though you'd have to thank Yoruichi-san for helping me find it in my littered library collection."

"It was no big deal," the cat said. "That is, if you don't take into account the utter mess his collection was in."

"It took us four whole days to arrange them all."

"Uh . . . just how many books do you have, Urahara?" Rukia asked.

"Hm? I never counted, but I guess it's in a five-digit number."

Rukia didn't even bother asking where he put all of them or how he escaped with them from Soul Society. Instead, she asked, "What did you find?"

"A journal," Urahara answered, "from the former 10th Division Captain, Takamiya-taichou."

She swallowed the lump in her throat. Something was wrong here. She had only heard about Captain Takamiya's reputation in the Gotei 13, since he retired a century ago. No one knew where he went after that. "What's this captain's involvement with the Lückenhaft?"

"From what we understood in the first passages of the journal, he had discovered, he quoted, 'a new breed of Hollows.'"

"How did you come into possession of the journal?" Rukia asked suspiciously.

"Truthfully, I don't know. It had been in my collection when we started searching. How it came to be there is a mystery, but the information inside that journal has been invaluable to my research."

"But with good news comes the bad news," Yoruichi said. "The journal, unfortunately, is heavily damaged that barely a few of the surviving passages are complete, intelligible, or both. The damage wasn't from the result of age, termites—"

"I lost a lot of good books from those vile creatures," Urahara commented quietly.

"—or even fading ink. It had been damaged and unintelligible because it had already been damaged and unintelligible. There were bloodstains on some of the pages, where Urahara concluded were over a decade old and were all from the same person: Takamiya-taichou. With the blood being only around a decade old, the journal must've been in Takamiya-taichou's possession until he slipped it into Urahara's collection."

"I have my theories on how it ended up in my Book Collection Box Number Forty-Four, though. Takamiya must have put it in that box when he had visited me last time, and right under my nose, too. He specifically chose that box just in case he forgot which one he had put it in. The number forty-four corresponds to both his lucky number and birth date, April Four."

"Though that leaves to question the reason why he chose this location for the safety of his journal," Yoruichi added its two cents.

"You have a point. This is not really a safe place for a journal, which, I will remind, is barely considered readable, for all intents and purposes. Yet again, I don't see the logic in his actions."

"It has always been that way with him." Yoruichi chuckled.

"What news did you learn about the Lückenhaft?" Rukia asked the man.

"A lot of things, I'm afraid," he answered as if he didn't like the words coming out of his own mouth. "Far more than I can imagine. Takamiya knew too much to become unnoticed for long. He must've either put it here for safekeeping or known that the 'noble' black-masked Hollows would find him soon and destroy all traces of his findings."

The thing that had been bugging Rukia finally came to light. It was one of those rare and mild 'Eureka!' moments. She understood that something was wrong in his story, but it was a bit insignificant to the gravity of the journal's informative pages. But she needed an answer to this shadow veiling the whole picture.

She narrowed her eyes and asked, "How does Takamiya-taichou know of you?" Urahara was supposed to be in hiding. Exiled from Soul Society, he shouldn't be having any visits from members of the Gotei 13 (former or current, it didn't matter). There was a hidden connection between Urahara and Takamiya, but did that have any relevance to the journal? Yes; she was sure there was.

Urahara looked stunned for a moment, then became silent, his eyes downcast. He looked to Yoruichi for guidance, but the cat was as lost as he was in handling this matter.

"What is it that you're not telling me, Urahara?" Rukia interrogated vehemently. She was rising from her pillow as both of her hands slammed on the table to follow through with her emotions. She knew she was being illogical in this situation; she needed to keep her flare of emotions in check, lest she does something dangerous and further push Urahara away from telling her the truth. The whole truth. Taking a deep breath, she once again donned the stoic Kuchiki persona. "Tell me everything. I need to know."

Before their discussion made any fruitful progress, Tessai came into the room in a rush, yelling, "Manager! We have a problem."

In that moment, Rukia's cell phone began to beep.

Ichigo had been following Ishida ever since they left school. He had expected Orihime to request they should walk home together, but the girl hadn't. He didn't know her reason, but he welcomed her lack of presence. He would need it, after all.

Ishida had been walking for a good fifteen minutes before he abruptly stopped in the middle of an empty street. Ichigo made sure to hide behind the intersection they passed.

"Are you going to follow me until I reach my home, Ichigo Kurosaki?"

Ichigo winced. Busted.

"You're too easy to spot," Ishida said, turning to where Ichigo was hiding. "Your reiatsu's all over the place that I won't be surprised if it can be used as a homing beacon."

Ichigo stepped out from hiding, his hands buried inside his pants' front pockets. "We need to talk."

"If you wanted to talk, what was the point in hiding?"

"I figured you wouldn't be in the talking mood, so I followed you until you reach a less populated area."

"And take me by surprise," Ishida finished. He shook his head. "You're too full of yourself, thinking you can take me on with that kind of plan."

Ichigo resisted the urge to punch the guy's face for that remark. "As long as it gets you to talk, I don't need to question its supposed success."

"You can't take me by surprise, if at all, Ichigo Kurosaki."

How he hated that condescending tone! Okay, okay . . . he must resist the urge . . . he must resist the urge . . .

"But you finding me took away the trouble of me finding you." Ishida reached for something in his chest pocket. "Let's have a contest."

Ichigo raised a brow. "A contest?"

The archer nodded. He showed Ichigo the object held between his thumb and forefinger. It looked like a pill in the shape of a coin. "In this world, shinigami are unnecessary. I will prove it through this."

"What's that?"

"If you agree to this contest, then I will tell you."

"All this just to prove that your kind is better than the shinigami? Look, man, I know that you have some kind of grudge against shinigami, but don't involve me in all this."

"That's right. I shouldn't be involving you . . . since you're not a real shinigami."

Ichigo's eyes widened.

"It was only through Rukia Kuchiki's powers that you were able to become a shinigami. Her temporary substitute, so to speak. But you and Rukia aren't the only shinigami, correct?"

Ichigo's fists clenched. He felt a rush of reiatsu in the air. The next thing he knew, spirit threads were appearing everywhere. He saw Ishida holding one thread that was colored red.

"A human's spiritual thread is white," he said, "while a shinigami's is red." The red thread could be traced back to Ichigo's body. Ishida ripped the thread as the air became lighter. Ichigo felt nothing from the tear. "Orihime Inoue's thread is also red. She's a shinigami as much as Rukia is. Why did you think I chose you instead of her for this fight?"

He didn't answer.

"If I were to fight her, you would've come and intervened. As it is, you are an obstacle I have to overcome. After I'm done with you, Orihime Inoue will be next."

"Don't you dare lay a finger on her!"

"Do you honestly think that I will follow your orders? I think not. Regardless, you have my word as a gentleman that I will not harm your girlfriend.

"I will just let her realize that she should go back to living as a human."

"What if I still refuse?" Ichigo asked defiantly, clearly ignoring the 'girlfriend' thing.

"Then I will force you to agree. If I can't fight you, then Orihime Inoue is the alternative."

His fists were shaking. The urge he felt turned from punch to beating the four-eyes into a bloody pulp. "I don't like your attitude one bit, Ishida."

"Like I care. It's your choice: You or Miss Inoue."

"Fine." Ichigo then grabbed something from his own chest pocket and swallowed it. The Mod Soul pill reacted quickly after ingestion, and he was immediately in shinigami form. "Kon, get to a safe distance," he ordered.

Kon nodded. "Sheesh . . . man, what a tense atmosphere," he murmured while backing away from the two.

"Is there any rules to this contest?" Ichigo asked the Quincy.

"Only two," he answered. "One, the contest will have a time limit of twenty-four hours. Two, the one with the most Hollow kills is the winner."

"So what is that thing you're holding for?"

"This is Hollow bait."

"What?" He couldn't believe his ears.

"Once I crush this little thing, Hollows will be swarming the city in an alarming rate. This won't be much of a contest if the contestants are limited to only a handful of Hollows within the time limit."

"What the hell, man? Don't you even know what you're about to do?" Ichigo took a step forward. "If you let those Hollows run loose in Karakura, then you're endangering many human lives for the sake of this contest."

"So?"

"SO?! This is just between you and me now! Leave everyone else out of it."

"Typical. You have already limited yourself as one of the weak ones. I assure you, Ichigo Kurosaki, that no human soul will be harmed during the contest." He paused, then crushed the pill in his hands. The particles scattered and dissolved. "Because I will eliminate every last Hollow."

Above, the sky began to crack.