Chapter 2
"Regular Speech"
"Thoughts"
"Hollow Speech"
Techniques
When Ichigo awoke he heard voices above him arguing about something he was sure concerned him, but when he opened his eyes and made to get up the fighting immediately stopped and he was met with the serious faces of his zanpakuto and inner hollow.
"Zangetsu, whats...?" began Ichigo curiously but stopping when he noticed everything that was happening around them, his inner world had returned to being populated by colossal skyscrapers, but those same towers were now in the process of collapsing into a great black void far below them.
"Zangetsu, whats happened hear?!" asked Ichigo in shock.
Instead of answering, Zangetsu said, "Ichigo, you need to leave this place immediately, if you do not then you too will die."
"Die," said Ichigo dully, realization slowly dawning on his face. Shaking his head vigorously, he said, "No, I won't let you two to die because of my choices, there must be something we can do to stop this."
"No, its to late for us, you see that black void down there, that is the concentrated reiryoku of the Final Getsuga Tensho, it's power is even greater than that of the oin's(King's Seal) and in a few moments it will collapse this building sending anyone on it to their doom and if you're still here when that happens then you too will die," said Zangetsu sternly.
"NO, I can't just leave you to die, there's got to be something we can do!" responded Ichigo angrily.
"THERE IS NONE, when you used the Final Getsuga Tensho it's reiryoku flooded your soul giving you nearly unlimited power temporarily, but no soul can hold that much power and survive," shouted Zangetsu angrily.
"Don't lie to him old man. There's a way and you know it," said the inner hollow scathingly.
"What is it, if its possible I'll do it?" said Ichigo determinedly though slightly surprised that his inner hollow was willingly helping him, even when under threat of death.
"No, I won't allow it, it's too risky," said Zangetsu stubbornly.
"TOO RISKY! You plan to leave him powerless against hollows. Of the two, I would choose the one where I at least have a chance, face it, you just don't want him to know what you really are," said the inner hollow angrily.
Not liking the look on Zangetsu's face, Ichigo quickly said, "Zangetsu, I don't care if you have some secret, you've always protected me when I couldn't an if there's something your not telling me then I know its for a good reason, but without my powers I won't stand a chance against hollows." He knew it was cruel playing on Zangetsu's desire to protect him, but if it meant he could protect them then he would.
Zangetsu just stared passively for a moment, not showing the slightest emotion before sighing in defeat and saying, "Fine, I will allow him to at least attempt it."
Smiling psychotically the inner hollow said, "Great, listen hear king, if you want to keep your powers, you're going to need to absorb all of that rampant reiryoku down there using your latent quincy powers and I would hurry if I were you, there are only a few more buildings left standing."
"My WHAT, I don't have quincy powers, the only powers I have are hollow and soul reaper," said Ichigo aghast.
"Yes you do and if you don't hurry were all going to die, now get down there," his inner hollow all but shouted at him.
"Well even if I do have quincy powers I don't know how to use them," said Ichigo desperately.
"That's something you'll have to figure out for yourself, now GO!" shouted his inner hollow and before Ichigo could respond his inner hollow picked him up and threw him over the edge of the building as it too began to collapse.
Fierce determination, that was the only thing he felt as he fell. Zangetsu and even his inner hollow to an extent had helped him protect his loved ones and now it was his turn to return the favor. As Ichigo's form hit the void he felt what could only be described as infinite, he had felt extreme power before, Ulquiorra's Segunda Etapa had been greater than anything he had felt before, and yet, that power compared to what he felt now was but a grain of sand in a dessert.
Focusing his mind Ichigo began trying to absorb the surrounding reiryoku only to realize he didn't have any idea how. Just as Ichigo's body began to dissolve, consumed by the Final Getsuga Tensho's power, an idea came to him, when he had asked how a quincy's arrow was formed Uryu had told him that a quincy's arrow and bow were formed by pushing your reiryoku outward and shaping it, maybe he could absorb the rampant reiryoku by doing the opposite.
Two things happened when Ichigo started trying to pull the reiryoku into his body, one, it worked, two, it was killing him. As a nearly unlimited amount of reiryoku began flowing into his body he remembered what Zangetsu had said about the Final Getsuga Tensho, about how no soul could withstand that much power and survive. Just as Ichigo's eyes began to close he felt a hard yank and the next thing he knew he was lying on his back atop the skyscrapers with Zangetsu looking worriedly down at him.
"I tried to warn you, even the quincy king himself would have been unable to absorb that much reiryoku and survive," said Zangetsu sadly.
"NO, why did you pull me out, I could have done it!" yelled Ichigo angrily.
"You would have died and it would have changed nothing. Now go, this building will collapse in just a few more moments," said Zangetsu sadly.
"No, I won't leave you two. You said that the quincy king would have been unable to absorb that much reiryoku and survive right, well then I'll happily give my life to save you two," said Ichigo stubbornly.
"You IDIOT, if you die, we go down with you. Why else do you think I would ever bother helping a dumb ass like you? Its to late for us now, so there's no point in you staying and getting yourself killed for nothing!" shouted the inner hollow angrily, completely surprising Ichigo.
"I thought you wanted me dead," said Ichigo surprised.
"I do, but if anyone's going to kill you it's going to be me and in order for that to happen you need to stay alive," said the hollow irritably, completely ignoring his own impending doom.
Just then the building began to quake as the building began tilting dangerously towards the ocean of reiryoku below it.
"YOU NEED TO GO NOW!" shouted Zangetsu.
"NO!" shouted Ichigo and before anyone else could make a move Ichigo ran over to the edge and dove down into the ocean of black far below.
"ICHIGOOOOOOOOOO," yelled Zangetsu with enough pain in his voice that even the hollow felt an ache where his heart should be.
Going down this time Ichigo had no doubts in his mind that he would die if he did this, but even if it meant his life he would do what he could to protect the two that had always been there for him, willingly or not. As Ichigo hit the reiryoku this time he immediately began absorbing the reiryoku and when his body began to burn he just kept going, striving to absorb enough of it that his inner world and thus inner hollow and zanpakuto spirit would be spared.
As all this was taking place Zangetsu and the hollow could only stare in awe as the ocean of began to decrease until finally all that was left was something that was vaguely humanoid.
Ichigo felt his body dissolving and he knew it would only be a few seconds until his soul evaporated and his partners died. As his eyes began to close he could only stare as what was left of his inner world finally collapsed and right before he fell unconscious, he wished that he could have saved them.
Ichigo sat bolt upright breathing heavily, it had seemed so real, he had died trying to save his inner hollow and Zangetsu from destruction after he used the Final Getsuga Tensho. Looking around he discovered that he was safely at home in his bed with the morning sun just beginning to bathe his room in light as it rose above the horizon. Deciding it had all just been a nightmare, Ichigo yawned and slouched towards the bathroom. Rubbing his eyes, when Ichigo looked up at himself in the mirror he had to stifle a shout, he was in his soul form, but that wasn't what had him so shocked, there was a gray, shell like armor covering his entire body up to just below his eyes and it looked VERY similar to something he thought had just been a dream.
Quickly making sure the door was closed Ichigo looked back at the mirror and noticed several things that seemed very odd. He had already verified that this shell like covering was indeed the same as the Final Getsuga Tensho's, but all the other changes that had happened to his body when he used it were curiously absent. His hair was normal, though a bit longer than normal from his time in the Dangai, his eyes were still their original brown color, and there was no black reishi surrounding his body; in fact the only thing that was the same as the Final Getsuga Tensho was the armor like covering surrounding his body, but unlike last time where it left his left side uncovered, this entire body was now covered in the mysterious armor.
As the initial shock of discovering he had the Final Getsuga Tensho's armor on faded Ichigo started to wonder why he was like this. Thinking back to what he thought had been a dream he remembered that he had absorbed the reishi of the Final Getsuga Tensho to save his inner hollow and Zangetsu, but what about his soul reaper powers, had they disappeared or did he still have them. He quickly verified this by using flash step and pushing some of his reiryoku into his hand which he was surprised to find had changed to a pitch black color instead of the light blue it had been.
At this point he could feel a headache coming on as more and more questions appeared in his head that he decided to go ask his father to see if he knew anything about what had happened to him. As he walked down the stairs he heard his father on the phone with whom he could only assume was Urahara. Deciding to listen in, he heard his father say, "I don't know whats wrong with him Kisuke, he's been asleep for eighteen hours already and hasn't shown any improvement from when you brought him here and that's to say nothing about his total lack of spirit energy. I thought you said his powers would stabilize,".
"Yes I know I need to be patient, but I had enough trouble getting his sisters out the house with out them going in to check on him, if we don't figure something out soon they WILL find out and what are we going to tell him when he does wake up, that he lost all his powers immediately and won't be able to talk to his friends in the Soul Society ever again," finished Isshin frustrated.
Deciding he had heard enough, Ichigo decided to make his presence known in the most subtle way he could think of, by flash stepping to directly in front of his dad. Suffice it to say that the resulting scream had several people on the outside turning their heads towards the Kurosaki Clinic. After his abrupt entrance nearly gave his dad a heart attack and the resulting chaos had died down Ichigo was met with the shocked face of his father.
Schooling his features, Isshin calmly said, "Um Kisuke, I'm going to have to let you go now, things just got a lot more complicated,". Before he could say anything, Ichigo was forced to duck as his father tried to punch him in the face.
"What was that for you old goat," shouted Ichigo at his father.
"That was for worrying me and just to make sure it was really you," said Isshin seriously.
"What do you mean, who else could it be," said Ichigo steamed.
"Well I don't know do I, for all I know you could be a hollow in disguise, its not as if you don't look different," said Isshin angrily.
"Ya well you could have asked instead of attacking me," shouted Ichigo back at his father.
"I guess I could have," said Isshin thoughtfully, causing Ichigo to smack his face in frustration.
"This isn't what I came down here for. I want to know whats happened to me. I was told that if I used the Final Getsuga Tensho I would lose my powers permanently and instead of losing them, "this," happened," said Ichigo gesturing to himself.
"Look Ichigo, were just as much in the dark about this as you are. All we know is that right after you fell unconscious the hogyoku disappeared and when Orihime tried to heal you with soten kisshun her power broke," said Isshin at a loss. "Now I've got a question for you, what was that you did just now?" he asked curiously.
"What?" asked Ichigo completely nonplussed.
"When you appeared in front of me, what was that?" asked Isshin.
"A flash step," said Ichigo confused.
"That wasn't a flash step," said Isshin shaking his head.
"What?" asked Ichigo shocked.
"Look, its obvious somethings happened and I don't have all the answers, but you should go see Kisuke, something tells me that he knows more than hes letting on," said Isshin seriously.
"Fine, I needed to go there to pick up my body anyway," said Ichigo before flash stepping away.
When Ichigo appeared in front of Urahara's door he was surprised he'd managed to cover so much distance in a single step. Walking up, he knocked and a few moments later he was met with the surprised face of Urahara.
"Who are yo..., ICHIGO, is that you?" asked Urahara shocked at Ichigos appearance. "How did you get here so fast, I haven't been off the phone with your father for a minute and you're already here?" asked Urahara confused.
"All I did was a flash step; although, I will admit I was a bit surprised when I made it here in just one step though," said Ichigo thoughtfully.
Thinking for a moment,when Urahara looked back up at Ichigo, he seemed to have that spark in his eye that he only got when he was excited or was thinking of doing highly questionable.
"Alright Ichigo, this is what I want you to do; I want you to flash step to just over there," said Urahara pointing to a spot in the yard a few meters away.
"What? Why do you want me to flash step over there?" asked Ichigo surprised at the odd request.
"Just do it, I'll explain in a minute," said Urahara, the mad gleam in his eye even more prominent than before.
Swallowing his questions for the moment, Ichigo quickly flash stepped over to where Urahara had pointed and back.
When Ichigo looked back at Urahara he noticed the now smug look on his face.
"What are you so happy about, I've done what you wanted now answer my questions," said Ichigo, irritated at the eccentric shop owner.
"Alright, Alright," said Urahara hoping to placate the angry teen. "Lets go in to talk; we can't risk anyone over hearing," he said, suddenly serious.
Ichigo knew enough that when Urahara got serious it was either extremely important or he had bad news, personally, he was hoping for the first one.
Once they were seated Urahara sat for a moment before saying calmly, "What you just did was not a flash step, it was teleportation."
"WHAT, but teleportation not possible," said Ichigo disbelievingly.
"It is possible and it seems what ever happened to you has made it possible for you to teleport, something which has only happened twice before to two young children," said Urahara firmly.
"Uhhhhh, why does this stuff always happen to me?" groaned Ichigo into his hand "I thought if I used the Final Getsuga Tensho I would lose all my Soul Reaper powers and that would be it. I'm not saying I'm not glad to still have my powers, but I need to know whats happened to me." he finished, stress clear in his voice.
It was at this point that Urahara remembered that Ichigo was still technically a teenager, not even an adult, and yet he had been faced with the challenges of a man. Deciding to reassure him that he would be fine, Urahara said, "You just need to relax. We've dealt with things like this before and we'll deal with this. Besides, I may only be able to say for certain that you can now teleport, but that alone tells us quite a lot," he finished trying to sound upbeat.
"What does it tell you then?" asked Ichigo, perking up at the chance to learn more about what had happened to him.
"Well the first thing you'll need to understand is that teleportation is only possible with a high enough amount of pure reishi in a soul," explained Urahara.
"Pure reishi, whats that?"asked Ichigo baffled.
"There are three known types of reishi, the first is the most common and is what most souls and the soul society are composed of, it's called base reishi. The second kind is corrupt reishi and is what hollows are composed of, now before you get the wrong idea, corrupt reishi isn't bad by any means, its base reishi that has been compressed to the point it implodes on itself. This is why developing hollows explode before reforming elsewhere. Finally, the third type of reishi is as I said before, pure reishi. Pure reishi is by far the rarest type and thus not much is known, in fact, there's only one known collection of pure reishi contained within an object known as the oin or "king's seal". By studying the oin we have discovered that all soul reaper power stems from the amount of pure reishi contained within a soul and that when exceptionally high amounts exist within a soul it can lead to unique and powerful abilities. Teleportation is one of these unique abilities," lectured Urahara.
"But what is "high"?" asked Ichigo.
"Well most souls are composed of 100 percent base reishi, but unlike regular souls, a soul reapers soul has an additional component, pure reishi. The base reishi of a soul reapers soul usually makes up about 99.999 percent and that last thousandth is pure reishi. For someone like the Captain Commander though, his soul likely contains 0.010 percent of pure reishi and that's why he's so strong," said Urahara thoughtfully.
After a moment Urahara looked at Ichigo surprised he hadn't asked any more questions and saw the doubt splattered across his face.
"Whats wrong?" asked Urahara curiously.
"Oh come on, you expect me to believe this crap, .001 percent, give me a break, anything that small would be worthless," said Ichigo annoyed.
"That's not true Ichigo. What you need to understand is that just because its a small amount doesn't mean it isn't powerful. The oin is hardly the size of my palm and yet it has more power than the entire Soul Society combined and could easily destroy it if someone were to use its power for evil. Furthermore, you and Orihime have exceptionally high levels of pure reishi granting you each extraordinary powers; what else could it be but pure reishi content?" asked Urahara rhetorically.
"Well I don't know do I, it just seems so unbelievable," said Ichigo irritably. As Ichigo said this images of his time in his inner world popped into his head, prompting him to say, "Uh, Kisuke, there wouldn't happen to be a way to manually check how much pure reishi you have, would there?" he asked, suddenly calm.
Surprised at his change in tone, Urahara responded, "Yes, but why would you want to check it manually,".
"I just do alright. I'm testing a theory; I'm sure that's something you can understand," said Ichigo allusively.
Relenting, Urahara said, "Alright, just give me a minute to get the supplies,".
After several minutes of rummaging through boxes Urahara came back with a small device in his hand.
"Is that it?" asked Ichigo surprised at the size of the machine.
"Yes, now push some of your reiryoku into this," said Urahara curious as to why Ichigo would want to do this.
As Ichigo pushed some of his reishi into the machine the room was instantly darkened as seemingly all the light in the room gravitated and was lost in the darkness that was his reishi greatly surprising Urahara who just stared in shock as the machine began to calculate.
When Urahara looked down at the machine his heart seemed to stop at the number that was shown.
When Urahara didn't make any action Ichigo began to worry that something had gone wrong, because of this when Urahara suddenly looked up at him Ichigo nearly jumped out of his skin.
"Blast it Kisuke, whats wrong with you?" asked Ichigo angrily.
When Urahara still didn't respond Ichigo realized there was only one way to break him out of his daze. Smiling evilly he called out, "Yoruichi, are you here?"
After a few seconds Ichigo heard footsteps coming and a moment later the door opened showing a confused Yoruichi.
"Kisu..., Who are you," asked Yoruichi bluntly.
"Oh come on, does no one recognize me now?" asked Ichigo flabbergasted.
"What do you mea... Ichigo is that you?" asked Yoruichi shocked at his appearance.
"Yes Yoruichi, its me," said Ichigo hoping to get the worst part over with now.
"Wha-Whats happened to you? I'm not saying you don't look completely bad ass, but holy shit." asked Yoruichi gesturing to his body.
"That's what were trying to figure out, but Kisukes fallen into some kind of trance or something; I'm not even sure he's blinked yet," said Ichigo, glad to be changing topics.
"Hmm, I've seen this before. In my expert opinion I'd say that he just discovered something that he previously believed to be impossible, luckily though, there's a cure," said Yoruichi professionally but the image was ruined when a small smirk started to appear on her face.
Starting to feel uncomfortable, Ichigo cautiously asked, "Uh, whats the cure?".
"Do you really want to know?" asked Yoruichi, her previous smirk now a full fledged cheshire grin.
"Uh, do I?" asked Ichigo sensing the impending doom in the air.
Laughing evilly at Ichigo's plight she said, "Oh don't worry so much. If your like any other guy I know then you'll love whats about to happen."
Before Ichigo could say anything more Yoruichi had stripped nude and was now pushing her breasts against Urahara's chest.
"Ohhhh Kisuke," said Yoruichi in a sing song voice.
As Yoruichi was doing this, Ichigo seemed to be cowering in the corner, while in reality he was crouched down and trying his best to get the image of a nude Yoruichi out of his head. "Come on, get out of my head, think of something different, it shouldn't be possible for her to strip that fast" groaned Ichigo.
"What did you do to him Ichigo, he's not even responding to my lovely body?" asked Yoruichi grumpily, shocking Ichigo out of his thoughts.
"Are you clothed yet?" asked Ichigo tentatively.
"Oh come on, I'm just proud of my body. There's nothing wrong with that is there," said Yoruichi innocently. "Besides you know you want to look. Come on, I won't mind," she purred seductively into his ear.
"Get out of my head," shouted Ichigo red in the face.
Laughing melodiously, Yoruichi said "Just imagine if Aizen knew all it took to beat you was a beautiful, nude woman."
"Can you please put some clothes on so we can focus on getting Kisuke to focus," groaned Ichigo desperately.
"Oh alright, but you and me are going to be spending a lot more time together," said Yoruichi smirking mysteriously as she put on her clothes. "But now on to business," she said clapping her hands together. "What exactly was Kisuke doing before he started staring off into space?" asked Yoruichi.
"Well, he was explaining different types of reishi to me and when he checked to see how much pure reishi I had in me he just stared at it and the rest you know," said Ichigo at a loss.
"Hmm, lets see," said Yoruichi as she looked over Urahara's shoulders at the device. Yoruichi's eyes widened and her mouth dropped as she too stared blankly at the number shown.
"Uhh, Yoruichi, Yoruichi, YORUICHI," shouted Ichigo irritated that she too at fallen into a daze. "Forget this," said Ichigo too him self as he walked out of the room, but returned a minute later with a bucket of cold water which he then proceeded to throw over both Urahara and Yoruichi.
"Ahhhh, who did that," yelled Urahara and Yoruichi finally breaking out of their daze.
"Well look who finally decided to wake up," said Ichigo sarcastically.
Smiling evilly, Yoruichi said, "Why Ichigo if I didn't know any better I'd say you're trying to get me naked again, I mean look how hard my nipples are."
As the blood went straight to his face Ichigo immediately regretted throwing cold water over Yoruichi, "Umm uh," stuttered Ichigo trying and failing to form a coherent sentence.
"Don't tease him so much Yoruichi," chastised Urahara, earning a grateful look from Ichigo. Then smirking, said "There will be time for that later," causing Ichigo's face to drop in horror of what was to come. Turning serious, Urahara said, "For now we have bigger things to worry about. Ichigo, do you remember what I said about the concentration of pure reishi in a soul reapers soul?"
"Ya, I remember. You said that the amount of pure reishi in a soul affects how strong a soul reaper they are " said Ichigo not sure where he was going with this.
"Correct. Now, when I first looked at your concentration of pure reishi I thought I'd read the numbers wrong or the machine was faulty, but I was mistaken. Your soul is composed entirely of pure reishi. There isn't a single speck of base reishi in your soul. In other words, you have the literal powers of a god at your fingertips," finished Urahara dramatically.
That was the last thing Ichigo heard before his eyes rolled back and he fell to the floor in a dead faint.
As Urahara stared down at Ichigo he sighed and said "I tried to tell Isshin that he should rest longer, but he hung up on me. Come on Yoruichi, lets move your boyfriend somewhere other than the floor,".
"He is not my boyfriend," said Yoruichi hotly, but hen smirking said "Yet."
After they set Ichigo down on a bed Yoruichi left to do, as she said, "girl things," while Urahara remained behind to make sure Ichigo was situated, but as Urahara got up to leave a wave of chilling spiritual pressure greater than that of even the Captain Commander's washed over him causing him to stumble. When he looked back he was shocked to see Ichigo standing there, but this Ichigo was completely white and was sporting a psychotic grin.
"You...," said Urahara as memories of a dark night 18 years ago surfaced.
Instead of answering the Ichigo look alike just smiled even wider.
"I thought you were dead," said Urahara harshly while unsheathing his sword.
Speaking for the first time, the look alike said, "What can I say; I'm hard to kill," somehow managing to grin even wider.
At this moment, before Urahara could respond, Yoruichi crashed through the door ready to fight the intruder.
"What the...," said Yoruichi confused.
"That's not Ichigo Yoruichi, its his inner hollow and an enemy long thought dead. Don't underestimate him," warned Urahara.
"He's right you know. I'm nothing like Ichigo and if I were in control when you were teasing him...," said the inner hollow laughing evilly at the thought and causing Yoruichi to blush furiously and narrow her eyes at him.
"No more games hollow, what do you want?" asked Urahara, narrowing his eyes at him.
"Well for starters, you can come out from behind me. I've already warned you; I'm nothing like that weakling Ichigo," said the inner hollow maliciously.
Narrowing his eyes even further, the Urahara standing in front of the inner hollow popped and reappeared behind the inner hollow before flash stepping to the portable gigai's former position.
"Now on to business. I didn't come here to fight you unfortunately. I came here to warn you and to make several things very clear," said the inner hollow suddenly becoming serious.
Despite the sudden change in attitude, Urahara was still weary of the hollow, but very curious as to what could be so important to the hollow. "What do we need to know that we couldn't figure out for ourselves?" asked Urahara suspiciously.
"I came here to, above all else, warn you not to let Ichigo use his mask. If he uses his mask, untold of destruction will be unleashed the likes of which has never before been seen," said the inner hollow with narrowed eyes.
"What?! Why would untold of destruction be unleashed and why would you want to stop it?" asked Urahara accusingly.
Growling, the inner hollow said, "I would love to destroy Ichigo, take control for myself, and kill all my enemies, but unfortunately, part of achieving that dream would be him using my power, that's the only reason I allowed him to beat me in the first place, and yet, there would be a bit of a problem if everything was destroyed, Soul Society, Hueco Mundo, the human world, everything, as in nothing left to even stand on."
When they heard this Urahara and Yoruichi could only stare in shock at what the inner hollow was implying, after a moment Urahara said "Even if destruction of that scale were possible the Soul King wouldn't let it happen."
Upon hearing this the inner hollow cackled madly, sending chills up Urahara's and Yoruichi's spines at seeing Ichigo's face take on an expression of such contempt and malice. "You know what the Soul King is. Do you honestly think he would give a damn if every soul and living being dropped dead and chaos was unleashed until every realm had been utterly destroyed? As long as it doesn't affect him directly, he doesn't care, and besides, you seem to be laboring under the illusion that he would survive the destruction and even if he did, that he would be any match for us after combining," spat the inner hollow maliciously.
Deciding to humor him for the moment, Urahara asked, "Alright, say what your saying is true and Ichigo using his mask will unleash destruction. How is such a thing possible?".
Sneering, the inner hollow said, "If Ichigo's soul is 100% pure reishi instead of a combination with base reishi, then what would happen if he was to mix his reiryoku with mine, such as when he puts his mask on?"
Urahara's eyes widened in realization as several things became clear to him.
"Yes, I can see you're putting things together. Ichigo's soul is now completely composed of the pure reishi from the Final Getsuga Tensho, making him a nearly all powerful being," explained the inner hollow. "Now imagine if all of that pure reishi was combined with all of my corrupt reishi, imagine the force that would be unleashed as two things that were never meant to touch, mixed," said the inner hollow ominously.
As Urahara and Yoruichi registered this new information they both paled at the very idea of something like that being possible. Clearing his throat, Urahara asked in a calm voice, "Why don't you tell Ichigo this yourself,".
Snorting in derision, the hollow said, "That arrogant bastard never listens to me. He'd probably think it was a trick and use it anyway, blowing up the world in the process."
"Not without good reason," snapped Yoruichi.
Cackling again, the hollow said, "Half the advice I give him is advice meant to ensure he, and thus myself, survives."
"Like what?" challenged Yoruichi fiercely, the hate clear in her eyes.
"Like how to use his sword. That idiot only ever swung it around like a stick before I showed him the proper way to handle Zangetsu," snapped the hollow back at her.
Before Yoruichi could respond with another biting remark, Urahara put his hand on her shoulder as a clear sign for her to stop before saying, " Is that it."
The inner hollow scoffed and said, "Hardly, I also came here to ask you a question."
When the inner hollow didn't elaborate Yoruichi asked in a hard voice, "Well then, what is it?".
Letting out another bone chilling laugh the inner hollow asked, "Are you afraid of me soul reapers?".
Caught completely by surprise, both Yoruichi and Urahara took several moments to answer and when they did their answers only caused the hollow's grin to grow until it looked truly demonic.
"We do not fear you hollow," said Urahara coldly.
"That's not what your eyes say. Its as clear as day that you've been thinking of ways to overcome me if I attack. And if I didn't know better, I'd say you were afraid I would win," cackled the inner hollow madly. "Let me ask you something else," he said refocusing. "What did both Aizen and Cadia have in common."
"They were both powerful leaders who sought the destruction of the Soul Society," said Yoruichi suspiciously.
"They were both alone in some way or another," said Urahara beginning to realize what the inner hollow was getting at.
"Correct scientist. Now before I go, think on this. What would happen if Ichigo's friends and family grew to fear and hate him?" said inner hollow evilly.
Instead of answering, Urahara just looked at the inner hollow with a blank expression and said, "I know how you were born and what I want to know is why you act so evil?".
"EVIL! Who gives you the right to decide who's good and who's evil," sneered the inner hollow as he began to fade.
"No one, good and evil is something you decide for yourself. The question you'll need to ask yourself is if you believe you are good," said Urahara simply, and as the inner hollow disappeared Urahara noticed he had an odd look on his face.