Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or any of the characters associated with it. All rights belong to the creator Tite Kubo. This is an AU story with some OOC.

Chapter 2: Tastes Like Chicken

In the great white desert of Hueco Mundo lay down Coyote Starrk, alone. Surrounded by a small hill of dead Hollows. He would usually have hated been alone in a scene like this, but he was the so call 'lure'. He wouldn't have been the damn lure if he kept his mouth shut all those weeks ago.

Opening one of his blue-gray eyes, he looks at the bodies of the dead Hollows. A sigh escapes his lips. How did things turn out like this? 'Oh, that's right, Ichigo got hungry...' Starrk still couldn't understand the enigma that was Ichigo. 'That kid is becoming more of a puzzle with each passing day.' Although he hates been the lure, he still does it for the boy who seems to put in some light to his and Lily's once lonely days. It's been about eight months since Ichigo had become a part of their pack. A small smile reaches his lips. He can still remember how things went after Ichigo stop crying.

-Flashback: 8 Months Ago-

The moment the boy started crying again; tears of joy this time. Both Starrk and Lily went in for a quick group hug. Well, they meant it to be quick, but Ichigo had a good grip on both of them.

Once Ichigo calmed down and let them go, he looked around and tried memorizing his surroundings. Some white sand here, more sand over there, a few branches of trees here and there, and 'Ah! Look a rock.' He said with a deadpan look on his pale face. 'This place feels so dead.' No pun intended.

Looking back to his pack now. 'Man, that feels weird to say.' He was about to ask them what they would do now when his stomach started growling. His cheeks turned red with embarrassment and turned his face away from Starrk and Lily. If he didn't look away, he could have seen the clear look of shock on both of their faces.

Starrk stares at the boy's stomach. 'There's no way his stomach just grumble.'

Everyone was quiet for a while, two people having different thoughts. Ichigo hoping his stomach doesn't embarrass him again and Starrk hoping he didn't hear the whole thing.

'Please, just be a part of my imag—!' Starrk's thoughts stopped when the sound of Ichigo's grumbling stomach reached his ear.

Fighting down his embarrassment and collecting his voice again, the redhead was about to question what kind of food there is around here to eat when Starrk's voice beat him with his own question.

"How can you be hungry?" The brunette said with obvious confusion on his face. Lily sported the same look but stayed quiet about it and let Starrk ask the questions.

The question confused Ichigo. 'Be hungry?' He didn't like the way he made it sound like that. Looking back at him, he gave him a child-like reply. "Umm, because you know... I need food for my tummy?" Now, why would he ask a question like that? He means after all both Starrk and Lily look healthy and not skinny like some skeleton, so by that kid-logic they should feel hunger now and then for them to go eat something like any another normal person... 'That's right. Not like any normal person, I'm dead now and apparently a Hollow.' He was about to brood, but his stomach broke him out of his thoughts.

The man raises one of his eyebrows before answering the redhead. "You shouldn't feel the need to eat now. When a Hollow reaches such evolution like ours, all hunger just goes away because in a way we gain back what we lost when we became Hollows. Our humanity." Although he doesn't remember much about his time as a common Hollow, the need to eat becomes encrypted in every Hollows' instinct. Is all basic knowledge to all the normal Hollows in Hueco Mundo.

Starrk let that last information sink in before he smacks himself in the face. 'This kid is anything but normal.' The brunette let out a sighed and scratch the back of his head. Seeing how Ichigo was about to ask another question, he gathers his thoughts and was about to give him a simple child-like answer for him to understand. 'Or better yet.' "I'll tell you more when you're older." Was his quick reply. He left Ichigo dumbfounded by his random words of choice and just kept staring at him. While Lilynette was staring at her companion with a furious glare.

'Don't be so lazy, you damn sloth!'

Truth is, Starrk's quite a lazy and unenthusiastic man who rather spends his time asleep. He's not interested in whatever is going on around him (unless you count the boy in front of him), although he has a sharp eye and capable of analyzing everything most of the time (unless you're counting Ichigo again). While Lily is the complete opposite, she's in a way more on the cheerful and mischievous side, and whenever she feels gloomy about their solitude, she comes up with unusual ways of waking up Starrk whenever he's asleep.

She would have thought with another person finally to talk to he would've stopped with the laziness. Guess she was wrong about that. Ready to give him a piece of her mind, Starrk look at her and said: "I'll tell you when you're older, too." She looked at him with the same dumbfounded look Ichigo was giving him. A twitch came to her right eye. She was ready to smack him when Ichigo's stomach made itself known again.

Glad about the minor distraction to their original problem, Starrk looks back at Ichigo and thinks about it. 'Well.. he needs to eat and to eat he needs to hunt... or does he.' A quick memory of the mountain of dead Hollows that surrounds Lily and himself a few distances away came to his mind.

The Hollows usually just die, but do they keep the soul of who they ate? Are there even any souls left? 'Or can Ichigo even eat Hollows?' He has to take into account that last part. The boy may not even need souls to eat, but maybe Reishi instead? But if that was the case, the redhead shouldn't even feel hungry in the first place, Hueco Mundo is full of Reishi. Sure some small amount of it but it's still there. He felt a sigh escape his lips. 'Damn it, I'm thinking too much about this... let's just see how eating Hollows go.' With a quick nod to himself, he finally decided. "Well, since you're hungry and the only thing around here to eat are Hollows." He ignores the look of confusion on the redhead's face. "You may be a lucky kid because there's a mountain of them not too far away from here." He finished with his right thumb pointing at the back of him.

Ichigo looked behind the brunette, expecting to see the mountain of Hollows not too far away, but as he saw nothing, he let a plain look reach his face. Looking back to Starrk and pointing in the same direction the 'Mountain of Hollows' was to be, he says, "Umm, there's nothing there."

Looking back, the brunette let out yet another sigh. 'How could I forget how far away we came from?' He rubs the back of his neck with his right arm and gives the kid a small sheepish smile. "Ha, forgot how far away we are."

Ichigo gave him another deadpan look while the lime-haired girl smacks her face.

'This idiot.' Lily thought before releasing a sigh of her own. "You know we should probably just go already." Getting a nod from Starrk, she moves closer and lets him put a hand on her shoulder. Turning around, she nodded her head towards Ichigo and teased him. "C'mon, Strawberry, let's go already!" Seeing the way his face turned red from either anger or embarrassment, she didn't know; she let out a small laugh.

Ichigo was ready to give her a sharp reply about how his name means "to protect one thing" when he stops upon hearing her small laughter. It was a pleasant sound, almost like he heard it before. Getting lost in his memories by trying to figure out where he heard laughter like hers before. He stops after a minute when nothing came to his mind and shook his head before looking back to Starrk and Lily; the pair staring at him.

"Oh, sorry about that. I thought I remember something." Getting a nod from both of them, he walked in closer and let Starrk put a hand on his shoulder. "So how are we gonna get to the mou—!" He couldn't finish his sentence because that's when Starrk decided to Sonido.

In a distance away, an Adjuchas was feasting on which could only best describe as the equivalent of a mountain of gold for Hollows. It had a strange bird-like appearance. Its Hollow mask took the form of a parrot's head, it has murky green-like skin, gray color feathers around his neck, some seem to sprout from its back and waist. Its arms seem to lack any form of fingers and instead ended with a single claw-like tip; both arms covered by gray feathers. The waist seems oddly normal enough until you come up to its talon-like feet. On his feet were four talons; 2 facing forward and 2 facing backward.

The parrot-like Hollow let out a bark of laughter. "Wahaha oh man, I hit the jackpot!" He said before going back to eating the bodies. He got lucky with this find. He sensed a powerful Reiatsu not too long ago and flew away from it. The stronger the Reiatsu, the bigger of a monster the Hollow is, and when he noticed the presence disappear, he stopped and tried to reach out with his senses to search where it went when he picked up the mountain of dead Hollows by accident.

"I mean they lack a good amount of Reishi but with all these bodies who cares! Wahaha oh well looks like only this time around when it's quantity over quality!" He gave out another laugh and went back to eating when suddenly the surrounding air became too heavy for him to breathe. 'No, it's not the air! The Reishi around me became heavier.'

Falling down to his knees, he finally got his senses working and tried to find why such a strange phenomenon was happening. Reaching out with his senses, he found two individuals coming towards him. One of them felt stronger than him, but it compared nothing to what the second one was giving out. 'Damn it! Is his presence alone killing me!' By this point, he was already face down on the ground when he felt the third presence with them. 'What the hell, I couldn't even sense that one!'

Is this the presence from before?! Is this third being's power so great that you must be close to sense it? 'No, that's... not it...' He could barely think at this point. He felt like his soul was dying. In his last moment he came down to a final thought 'No... it's seem to b…' And just like that, the Hollow lay down with the rest of the bodies.

Dead.

Reaching their destination, Starrk lets go of Ichigo's shoulder and let the boy try regaining his balance from the fast travel method.

Looking down at the hand he used on the boy, Starrk kept staring at it. The moment he used Sonido, he felt Ichigo's Reiatsu trying to leech on to his own. At least that was what it felt like. He even got to sense the boy's Reiryoku, and it seems to not be any stronger than his own, but the boy can still live around him. Starrk lets out another sigh. ' I need to stop with that.' Looking back at the pair; Lily already left his side to go make fun of Ichigo while said boy was trying to hold back his fluids. He gathered himself and started walking to Ichigo before pointing out the bodies.

"These are Hollows."

Turning back to the brunette and following his finger, Ichigo finally got to see what Hollows were. Kami, he hoped he hadn't done that.

He just kept staring at the mountains of bodies... dead bodies. They all have different shapes, sizes, and colors, but they all have a common trait. They all look scary with their monstrosity appearances. After looking at them for some time, a horrible realization hit him. 'Lily said... said that I'm a Hollow too and these are Hollow! Am I... Am I nothing but a monster...'

Before he could continue thinking about it, the voice of Lily broke him out of it.

"Used to be." She said.

Ichigo looked at her and notices that Starrk was looking at her, too. He saw the way she was looking at him, almost as if she knew where his trains of thoughts took him at.

Seeing how she got his attention, she elaborated. "That's how we used to look like when we were Hollows... well Starrk and I, you're a different case altogether. You probably never went through the stages of evolution as far as we know of."

Everyone was quiet. Starrk was trying to see where she was going with this, and Ichigo looked like his mind was settling down.

"You now know what Hollows are. What Starrk and I are now, but can you say we are monsters?" Lily said and Ichigo stared at her in shock; it was as if she read his mind. "No, I'm not reading your mind. Your eyes are showing all the shock and confusion in you." A small smile spread across her face. "Can you say we're monsters? We sure don't look like them and if we don't act like them, we aren't monsters."

Ichigo let her words sink down on him. He was a monster now, but with the way she said it. As long that he didn't act or look like them he was the farthest thing away from a monster. He gave her a small nod and thanked her before looking back at the bodies.

The way Lily spoke surprised Starrk. It was calm and easy for the boy to understand. Who would have thought she was so fine with her words? A smile reaches his lips. Seems like everything will be just fine. Looking back at the kid, Starrk saw him kicking a body with his foot. Making himself know again, Starrk clears his throat; gaining the redhead's attention. "Well, since that's clear out now, you should be good to eat right?" He asked him.

Ichigo's yellow eyes stare at Starrk's blue-gray eyes. He looked at Starrk, then back to the bodies.

Starrk.

Bodies.

Starrk.

Bodies.

Ichigo did this a few more times before finally saying something. "Umm, shouldn't we like... you know... cook them or something?" Starrk and Lily stared at him with a dulled look. He's starting to find himself becoming self-conscious under their gaze every time he asks them a question.

Both letting out a sigh, Lily looked at the boy and reassured him. "Trust us, no need in cooking them. They'll taste just fine."

"Are you going to eat with me?"

They went back to staring at him before Starrk spoke this time. "We aren't hungry and haven't been for a long time now." Is the boy asking them, two hungerless beings, to eat with him? Watching how the boy became embarrassed, he let out a quiet sigh. With a lazy gaze, he looks at the body of a parrot-like Hollow. Reaching out for it and tearing out its right arm, one hell of a feat, he went up to Ichigo and put it down on his arm, turning back to the body, he tore off the left arm and gave it to Lily, who looks at him with a puzzled look before he took a leg for himself.

Looking back at the kid, he says, "We'll eat with you if that's what you want." Sure it's pointless to eat, but watching the way Ichigo's face lit up made it worth it.

"Yay, we can make this into a picnic!" Ichigo said with much enthusiasm in his voice.

Going along with it, Lily also made it sound like fun. "All right picnic time!"

Sitting next to Starrk's right side and Lily choosing to sit next to his left side. The redhead stares at the arm nervously until he saw the way Lily and Starrk seem to just eat it with no trouble. Taking a quick breath and letting it out, he took a bite.

'Huh, taste like a chicken.'

-End of Flashback-

That was eight months ago, and now the bodies had run out and Ichigo got hungry. 'Honestly, where does it all go? ' Turns out, he was right about how the redhead's body was demanding Reishi. As strange as that might seem. 'Did he run out of Reishi in the moment of his evolution?' He didn't know yet, and that just adds more puzzles about the kid.

Around the time they were running low on food, Ichigo asked how they would get more food. Starrk replied that Hollows would eventually come to them. Been asked how he knew that, the brunette told him, "The barely transform low-level Adjuchas come to me like how fire attracts moths. They sense my power and feel attracted to it, but before they even get too close, they will just end up dying instead."

Shortly after that explanation, they waited, but it would seem nothing came their way. Thinking maybe their Reiryoku alone was scaring off all the Hollows, Starrk reached out with his senses to find anything. When he didn't and found out that the only thing he could sense was himself, he took a moment to figure out why. A little experimentation later with Lily going a distance and trying to find Starrk's Reiryoku. He found out that she couldn't even feel his presence. The only conclusion he seemed to come to is that Ichigo might cover everything and everyone around him in some sort of hiding cloaking ability. This never happened before Ichigo came along, and it would explain why the mountain of Hollows wouldn't just refill itself. The other Hollows couldn't sense him. Not only that, but you could only really feel Ichigo when you try to reach him with any form of Reishi. 'Now thinking about. The first time we met the boy, I couldn't sense anything from him until I put my hand on him.' Honestly, that little strawberry is becoming more and more of a mystery with each passing day.

He remembered the day when his 'plan' came to light. The kids pull a prank on him by leaving him alone when he fell asleep. When he woke up and noticed two Hollows' bodies who die nearby, he felt relieved, thinking maybe whatever Ichigo was subconsciously doing has stopped. He called out to them, but that's when he finally noticed that he was alone. He reached out with his senses to find them, but then he remembered how pointless that was. He tried a different way of finding them by trying to reach out to Lily's soul. They were one before they split; but even that seems to not be working. So he just waited for them to come back.

When they finally got back and notice the now dead pile of bodies around him, Starrk came out with a plan to make himself become a lure. 'Hooray to me.' He should have kept his mouth shut.

And now here he was. Acting like a lure. Like a bait to a fish.

Well, at least this way he seems to get some well-needed nap time. Ichigo and Lily seemed to get along well enough to where Lily would encourage Ichigo to wake him up whenever he fell asleep. 'A little too well.' Honestly, Lily seems too attached to the boy, and he didn't like that.

Lily is like a little sister to him, sure she gets annoying but what sibling doesn't annoy you at one point. 'I just need to keep an eye on them is all.' Going back to his umm hunting? Starrk flares up his Reiatsu and waits.

After some time and taking a quick look at the number of bodies. He gave himself a small nod, satisfied with how much food he got. Putting up one of his hand to the air, he fires a blue Cero. He waited for Lily to do the same and fire her own light-green color Cero. This is usually the best way they find each other after Starrk goes out to "Fish". He would have taught Ichigo how to fire a Cero, but he's waiting until he could figure out how strong the boy might be. He didn't want the kid to blow himself up by accident.

After seeing her Cero, he waited for them to show up. He could have just Sonido with all the bodies to them. But nah. 'Too lazy for that.' Not even waiting for too long, he saw the figures of Lily and Ichigo.

Liking on making herself known, Lily calls out to the brunette. "Hey, Starrk, how did the fishing go!" She said with another one of her teasing smiles on her face. The only response she got from him was a left twitching eyebrow.

Starrk likes to see her try staying in one place without her little boyfriend. 'Wow, wait, where did that last part come from? They're just kids who want each other company. Lily is just attached to Ichigo the same way he's attached to her.' He looked at them still walking towards him, having small talks, walking at their own pace. Completely forgetting about him. 'Yeah, I'm just gonna keep an eye on them. Won't hurt anyone.'

Once they were close enough, Starrk looked at Ichigo. The kid still has those yellow and black eyes, pale skin with those strange red markings that leave from his Hollow hole; which he covered up with some of his cloth. The same strange black cloth is still around his waist. He was hoping for the kid's unusual skin color to fade with time and maybe with him eating, but it looks like it's permanent.

When they finally got close enough to the only adult in their little group, they follow him up towards the pile of bodies to pick something for them to eat; Ichigo still won't eat alone.

'Probably just feels self-conscious about it.' Starrk told himself. Walking towards what seems to be some kind of lizard-like Hollow he made a reach for it before stopping when the body jerked.

That stops the group in their tracks. Lily and Starrk gave each other a quick glance. Lily tried to reach the Hollow when it whisked a swing at her arms with its claw hands and miss.

As Lily jerked away from it, Starrk was ready to flare his Reiatsu to kill it before it spoke in a hoarse voice. "Who the hell do you think you are..."

'Well, that's new.' Starrk's believing that this Hollow was trying to make it sound like it was trying to threaten them.

"When Baraggan-sama learns that I didn't return... he will take this as a sign of rebellious... and he will..." Whatever else the Hollow would have said, if he had anything more to say, die.

'Well, that just happened.' Looking back at the body, Starrk gave it a quick kick. Not receiving any kind of response, he picked up one of its arms and tore it off, giving everyone some parts of meat before they started eating.

Taking a quick look at Ichigo, he noted how the redhead no longer has a look of hesitation before taking a bite. 'The kid got used to the Hollow life quick.' The only thing he noticed was how the boy looks nervous. 'Probably just thinking about what it said.' He'll just wait for the moment Ichigo feels to bring it up so he could put the kid's nerves to rest.

Ichigo was nervous about what he just heard. He looked at Starrk. "Are we just gonna ignore what it just said?" The redhead would have thought Starrk would freak out or something. Even Lily seems to think about what she just heard.

'And there it is.' Giving him a shrug with his shoulders, Starrk looks at him with a lazy look before answering him. "What's the point if they won't be able to find us. Just having you around us hides our presence from everyone else."

"But what will we do when whatever I'm doing just stops?"

"It's been around eight months since you been here Ichigo and whatever it is you're doing is still going at it. So don't worry about it."

With that being said, both Ichigo and Lily went back to eating. Unaware that a pair of amber eyes were watching them from a distance before disappearing completely.

Starrk turns his head slightly towards the location where he senses a Reiatsu before it vanished. Shrugging it off, he went back to hearing Ichigo talk about the brief memories of his human life, which seemed to have come back to him. A sigh escapes his lips. 'Well, this is how our lives are now. Watching our backs from everything that seems to get attracted to us.'

"Man, why does every Hollow we eat taste like chicken?" Starrk looks at Lily laughing at the comment before he went back on eating the arm. His last thought went to the name the Hollow mention. 'Now who the hell could Baraggan be.'

-X-