It was supposed to be an ordinary day. Ichigo got up, went to class, and helped out the ghost of a girl who had been run over the week before.
Then all hell broke loose.
Ichigo had yet to replace the broken loop since he had cut it to get free and it had slipped his mind with the mess he had uncovered concerning the Grail.
As such when the hollow caught his scent, which had only become stronger of late thanks to his new Eyes, it started to hone in on him through the spirits he helped out.
When your element was Void/Ether and your Origin was Soul, you tended to become extra tasty towards spiritually inclined predators.
Ichigo's first real look at a Soul Reaper was that of a girl with blue eyes and haughty attitude. He was unimpressed with her and her soul radiated ice and snow.
To his surprise, he could see a distinct spirit guarding her soul that seemed to notice that something was off about him. She looked like a snow woman to be honest.
He went about his day, unaware that the soul reaper had noticed something odd about him but had no idea what.
"Kurosaki-san... You've been tagged recently," warned Ishida.
Ichigo knew him by acquaintance, mostly because he was the one to pick up Arcuied's blood bags from the hospital. It was far more discreet than having it delivered, and cheaper besides. He occasionally ran into Uryu, so they knew of each other. They had never talked in public before though.
Ichigo frowned, and did a quick structural analysis on himself.
There was a small ping on his arm where the missing loop was.
"Damn...I didn't even notice. Thank you for the heads up, Ishida-san," said Ichigo, pushing up his glasses.
Uryu nodded. Ichigo and him were friendly acquaintances mostly because he had recognized some of the Quincy items he often carried and had inquired as to whether he was one.
Upon hearing Ichigo's opinion of the massacre, Uryu had gained a slight bit of respect towards his fellow Magus, if only because he felt the Soul Reapers were in the wrong.
When Ichigo expressed why he believed the soul reapers to be fools, Uryu had agreed. The balance of souls was hardly that delicate, and with the amount of people in the world today made it far more likely that the Quincy were doing the balance a favor by removing souls from the reincarnation cycle.
Overpopulation was a big problem these days.
Ichigo made a note to visit Urahara later to get a new loop, as he had a lot of practice making them by now.
Ichigo was finishing up his notes on ancient legends when he saw the butterfly go through his wall. He didn't recognize it, and the clinic had a ton of bounded fields around it to keep a Magus from stepping into the area without at least warning him. It was quite similar to the ones around Shiro's house.
To his shock and annoyance, the raven-haired girl from earlier came into his house.
"It's near..." she whispered.
Ichigo's eye twitched. He lined up his finger to her head, which was turned against him after she dismissed him when she entered, and fired off a silent Finn Shot.
The reaction was instant. She slammed face first into the floor.
"What the..."
"Next time you decide to break and enter a Magus' house, make sure they aren't awake and fully aware that they've been tagged," said Ichigo flatly.
"Ichigo, I heard...oh. Carry on then," said Arc.
"An Apostle?!" hissed the girl in shock.
"Ichigo, can I get rid of her?" asked Arcuied in annoyance.
"First let's clear up who tagged me earlier," said Ichigo.
He opened up his Soul Sight and didn't find anything leading back to him.
"You can get rid of her. She isn't the one who left that tag on me, and flaring my spirit energy is more likely to draw more hollows here than I need," said Ichigo. He opened the window, and Arcuied took great pleasure in picking up the girl bodily and tossing her out of it.
He was about to close it when he heard a loud roar and saw a hollow coming down the street.
"Dammit. Arc, get the girls to the safe zone."
She was about to leave the room when they heard an explosion. Seemed the hollow had vanished and then reappeared in front of the house, eager to eat such a tasty soul. They both froze when they heard the scream of Yuzu, and Karin would never leave her twin behind.
Since learning magecraft, the twins had been able to see hollows with greater success, particularly Yuzu.
Ichigo ran downstairs in time to see Arcuied catching Yuzu and getting them both to the safe room in the back. It was layered with enough wards to keep out all but a Servant at the least...which was why it made the perfect place to train his sisters (and now Shiro) in magic.
Seeing the hollow, Ichigo debated on using his Mystic Eyes in an actual fight before he remembered something he had read.
Those who had the Element of Ether could affect souls directly. And his Origin was close enough to that particular element that he should be able to actually hurt the hollow.
Ichigo ran outside, while Arcuied took the girls to the room where he taught them magecraft.
"Finn Shot!" he called out, charging it not only with the Gandr curse, but his natural element as well.
The black orb stuck the hollow and it screamed in pain. In his other hand, he held a black key. This particularly weapon was designed to harm anything that wasn't human, and since a hollow was a human who had fallen and no longer registered as human, he hoped it would work.
The key actually struck the hollow and dealt damage to it, to the shock of the reaper. Ichigo kept up the assault, and it wasn't until the reaper had the sense to tell him it's vulnerable spot that he was finally able to kill the damn thing.
"What are you?" she asked, holding her side. She was heavily wounded from taking a hit to save his sisters.
"I'm a Magus. Fortunately my Element happens to be Ether," said Ichigo flatly, before he glared at her, "And why in the hell didn't you unleash that bitchy snow woman from the get go? My sisters wouldn't have been hurt if you had the sense god gave a mule!"
"What?"
"I have the Eyes of Soul Perception. I can see your inner world," said Ichigo warningly.
The reaper looked horribly violated by that news. A soul reaper's inner world was sacred, and to even enter it without express permission...well it was on par with someone stealing a Magus' Crest and Circuits, or worse entering their workshop without permission. It was a very offensive and personal act to gaze into someone's inner world without asking. She managed to limp away, though the look she shot Ichigo wasn't a good one.
Ichigo woke up in his bed, his glasses nowhere near his dresser where he put them. Seeing Isshin trying to give him a flying tackle, Ichigo hit him with a Gandr shot on principle.
Isshin shrugged it off, having been hit with that spell so many times since Rin had shared it with his son that he was partially immune to the effects.
"Dad, where are Arcuied and the girls?"
"Haven't seen them all morning, though it 'appears' that a truck rammed itself through the front door. And I found your knife on the counter in a different spot where you left it and your glasses on the kitchen table. Care to explain?"
"Some idiot soul reaper barged into the house last night, and she didn't think to release her shikai to deal with the hollow that had tagged me earlier. She knows I'm a Magus, but not my abilities," said Ichigo.
"So the girls are in the safe room?"
"Should be," said Ichigo.
He went downstairs and opened the door, and found an angry Arcuied waiting.
"Oh, it's you. Good. I was afraid it was that bitchy reaper again," she said letting him in.
"How are they?"
"Yuzu has a few bruised ribs, and Karin had a good hit to the head, but other than that they're fine. Urahara showed up about ten minutes after the reaper did and healed the worst of it. What's the cover story?"
"We're leaning towards a truck accident," said Ichigo.
Arc nodded and let the girls out.
They considered the vampire like an older sister, an image that wasn't hurt by the fact Ichigo treated her more casually than he did most other girls. About the only other female he would willingly associate with without holding anything back was Rin, and she viewed him as more of a rival than anything else.
"Good grief...this is going to take a while to clean up..." said Karin.
Because the cover story was a truck had crashed into the house, Isshin had left an empty sake bottle on the ground for people to see. As far as anyone knew, someone had gotten drunk and drove into the house before fleeing the scene. That was enough to cover the insurance on the clinic, though they would have to post a notice that it was structurally unsound for patients.
Ichigo would use that excuse to go visit Rin for a few days after he came home from school.
Ichigo took one look at the reaper pretending to be human and resisted the urge to bang his head against the wall. Judging by the look on Uryu's face, he wasn't fooled either. Apparently she had been injured worse than he thought.
Ichigo avoided Rukia's punch and ignored her the rest of the day, even going so far as to hide around the corner so he could find Uryu.
He was the only other Magus-born in the school.
"What happened Kurosaki? Yesterday you were fine, and now we have a reaper in the school!"
"Little miss socially-awkward screwed up and now I'm stuck with her around. Idiot didn't even try to kill the hollow before it attacked the house. I'm going to talk to Urahara later about a new set of restraining bands. And just so we're clear, if it ever comes to choosing this Soul Society or helping you out, I'll help you out first."
"The enemy of my enemy is my friend, correct?" said Uryu.
"Exactly. They will try to kill me on sight because of what I am, and they don't like you much either. If any more reapers show up, I'll tag team with you to deal with them. My life is hectic enough without adding their nonsense to the mix," said Ichigo pushing up his glasses.
Uryu accepted this answer. Indeed, Ichigo was far more logical than most reapers he had heard of, despite his heritage.
"Which reminds me...what do you know of the Heaven's Feel ritual?"
"Not much. Aside from it being strictly based in Fuyuki and there have been no winners to date, all I know is that it has a high body count."
"What if I were to tell you that it would be happening again, ahead of schedule, and that there is a real problem with the Grail itself?"
"What do you mean?"
"During the third war, one of the Einzbern Masters summoned an illegal summon under the Avenger class. It was destroyed relatively quickly, but immediately afterwords Anti-Heroes of dubious morality have been summoned during the wars. Last time it was a Caster servant known as Bluebeard who murdered so many people that the Church had to call in a truce so the other Masters could end him. And that fire, we suspect, was caused by the ritual being interrupted somehow."
Uryu could see where Ichigo was going with this.
"You want to know how far along I am in magecraft, correct?" asked Uryu.
Ichigo nodded.
"I have thirty well sized circuits and have almost completed my training. Despite how my father feels about our more spiritual heritage, he made sure I knew magecraft since it would allow me to get into Clock Tower later. He believes that being a Magus is a far better use of my time than being a Quincy."
"And it protects you from reapers," Ichigo added.
"What?"
"From what I found in the Magus Association, the Quincy sect that were wiped out focused more on the spiritual half of their ability and not their magecraft. According to the notes we found, the Magus Association has had contact with other Soul Societies around the world, and aside from Japan there hadn't been any problems aside from the odd Magus who slips through the Enforcer's nets. Those who practiced magecraft were able to avoid being killed, which was why the clan here in Japan wasn't wiped out entirely."
"What of the issues concerning hollows?"
"I asked about that as well, and my suspicions that the powers were developed to deal with an overpopulation issue turned out to be right. Apparently Quincy are more in line with balancing the flow of souls than reapers are. Hollows take out most of the excess souls, but occasionally they have to be eradicated completely in order to avoid overpopulating the world through reincarnation. As you can tell, the Quincy in China alone are overworked, or have been wiped out," said Ichigo.
Uryu looked at Ichigo with interest.
"If it's possible, could I have a look at these notes?"
"I can do you one better. Tohsaka has been bugging me for months to take her with me to Clock Tower for my summer school, and despite the fact Emiya has gotten better his status is too risky for me to use my guest privileges. I've been granted permission to bring two guests to the Clock Tower next school break, as Barthomeloi-sama was quite interested in my research towards Mystic Eyes that used spirit energy to alter prana-based effects."
"Barthomeloi, as in Lorelei Barthomeloi, Queen of the Clock Tower? How do you know her?"
"Apparently the fact I was doing research into an under-developed branch of magecraft caught her attention," deadpanned Ichigo. The fact he was always civil to her and almost everyone had also helped.
The two discussed magecraft for a while as they headed back to the clinic. Ichigo would pick up some clothes before he went to visit Rin since his room had been close to where the damage was and he didn't want to sleep in another room, seeing as how the only unoccupied space to sleep in was the couch. Apparently the hollow had hit one of the structural supports to his room.
He ignored the reaper girl who followed him discreetly trying to get his attention, only to back off when she realized where he was heading.
No way was she going into an area known for draining spiritual beings outside of the little spats that happened every sixty years!