Fun turned out to be excruciatingly boring.

Yawning, Ichigo lounged mid-air with a bed of his spiritual pressure holding him up. Last vestiges of dark-red sunlight died over the horizon, and, on cue, the first rain droplets landed on his eye. Followed by several more. Then a sparse drizzle. Effortlessly he put an umbrella of his spiritual pressure.

"Thanks," Hanataro mumbled, sounding a bit tired. "But can we get back down onto the roof now?"

Ichigo cast his sixth sense downward. Tranquil spiritual pressure leaked through gaps in the Gotei office's roof. The girls were asleep. Safe.

"I can watch over the whole town from up here," Ichigo said. "And you don't have to follow me around."

"I know." Hanataro rubbed the back of his head. "Haruka told me to stay close to you."

"What, is she your mom?"

"No… but sometimes I like to call her Mommy when we have sex. Did you know there's an injection that can—"

"Shut up," Ichigo drawled, not wanting to know what any sex-related injections did. But his head conjured a few screwed-up images. "How old are you, by the way?"

"Twelve."

Ichigo looked at the pipsqueak, then smiled. "How old really?"

"Ninety-three."

And Rukia was one-fifty. "So souls age roughly five to ten times slower? Did you die when you were a baby? Like Rukia?"

Hanataro's head shook. "Aging depends on a lot, but I was born in the Seireitei. The Yamada clan is a lesser noble house."

The concept of child-bearing and reproduction had not sprouted in Ichigo's mind a single time since his death. Subconsciously he had assumed everyone here was from the living world and would seek out family members. And so if souls could get pregnant….

Rukia's cum-filled pussy faded into his eyes.

Ichigo's spiritual umbrella faltered for a second. Rain drops sizzled on his cheeks. "I take it there's also an injection to prevent unwanted pregnancy?"

Hanataro's eyes unfocused and blinked a few times. "I don't know."

"What, how can you not know? So you've been sleeping around without—"

"Oh, Shinigami girls can't normally conceive. They have to do a thing with their Hell Butterflies if they want to."

Of course.

Why would anyone be surprised?

Knowing there wasn't a little someone baking inside Rukia's womb right now, Ichigo exhaled in relief. "So how many girls have you been with, exactly?"

"Been with?"

"You know."

Hanataro had a dumb look. "Like romantic relationships? Or just sex?"

"Just sex," Ichigo laughed.

"Oh." Hanataro shrugged. "Several hundred, maybe? I've lost count."

Not several, or even dozens. But several hundred. Well, the Squad 4 healer was a lesser noble.

Ichigo mumbled, "That's ridiculous."

"I'm not lying. Go and ask—"

"Ridiculous as in, I'm still trying to adjust to this place." Ichigo smirked. "So I can go down there right now and fuck Haruka, and there's nothing you could do to stop me. That doesn't bother you?"

"Go ahead. I already filled her up a couple times today." Hanataro's eyes narrowed slyly. "I bet it'd bother Rukia though."

That was unarguable no matter how much Ichigo's instincts guided him toward spreading his seed. Rukia had been jealous as well, or at minimum precarious of her own looks. She'd injected herself with a hair color concoction, because he'd been ogling Haruka. It had to be courtesy of the mind-altering virginity pill to some extent. Or maybe she was still hung up over Kaien Shiba and his reincarnation. The guy named Ichigo Kurosaki wasn't so special, merely a fifteen-year-old kid who possessed strange abilities. Hollow abilities.

The future-sight ability.

"Hanataro," Ichigo whispered, "what does the Yamada clan do? Are you all healers?"

"Mostly. The talent runs in the family. Other than that, we help produce fabric for Shihakushos. It's a special Reishi weave that repairs itself by borrowing the wearer's spirit energy. Have you noticed?"

Ichigo nodded, then considered next words carefully. "Can you keep a secret? It's about one of my abilities. It… hurts me when I use it."

"Of course. Confidentiality is part of the Squad 4 healer oath." Like doctors of the living world. "Is it your hollowfication? If it is, then I can't say I know—"

"In my Shikai state, I can split my irises and pupils into four in each eye. It allows me to see the future, every single possible future. It's kind of similar to a hall of mirrors, where each one of the infinite reflections is slightly different."

Lips parted, Hanataro trembled slightly. "What did you say?"

"Do I have to repeat myself?"

Hanataro's head shook with jitters. "You're serious."

"I am. Have you or anyone in your Squad or clan encountered an ability like this?"

"No. I'm sure. No. This is incredible."

"I thought it was useless at first." Ichigo huffed. "My eyes bleed. My Zanpakuto says if I try to push further than one week into the future, the strain will kill me. I was wondering if you could heal me while I try to push."

"Um…." Squinting in confusion, Hanataro rubbed the back of his head. "Right, you didn't go through the Academy. Your fake Captain's Coat puts me off, sorry." He took a breath, sat straighter. "The soul is composed of a physical soul body, the Konpaku, along with the inner spirit of the soul, the Tamashi. A physical injury is a disjoint between the Konpaku and the Tamashi. Over time, these disjoints heal naturally, which heals the physical wounds. Healing Kido speeds up this process. The problem arises when a disjoint is permanent, such as when an arm is completely destroyed; healing these disjoints is an ongoing area of research."

The lecture was clear enough. Ichigo scratched his chin, saying, "Then what you're saying is…."

"If you permanently injure yourself, specifically your four-pupil eyes, we might not be able to help you." Hanataro leaned in. "Remember this, damage to your Zanpakuto is direct injury to your Tamashi. Damage to one's Shikai is like surface scratches that recovers quickly. Damage to Bankai is deep injury that never recovers. However, there is a case where this rule does not apply—when either your Shikai or Bankai alters your Konpaku, or is intrinsically linked to your Konpaku. In this case, any injury to your Tamashi could be either temporary or permanent. Your eyes are in this exception. Do you understand?"

Nodding, Ichigo was ready with a question: "How does Hollow regeneration come into this? My Zanpakuto said I have this ability."

"It's similar to healing Kido. The difference is a Hollow Konpaku tends to be closely tethered to its Tamashi. Many of them can regenerate arms and legs."

"And vital organs?"

"Extremely rare, but I've read of it."

"Does that include a head?"

Hanataro's answer was slow to come: "You'll have to ask Squad 12, but I don't know any cases of a Hollow regenerating a head."

That explained why Tensa Zangetsu was unsure. Ichigo probably couldn't afford to lose a head. It made more sense why both spirits had advised training for ten years before thinking about Shikai. His multi-pupil eyes just might be his weak spot.

Hanataro took a deep breath, yawning. "That was a mouthful. I need a nap."

One last question: "Are you going to sleep in Rukia's room or Haruka's?"

The cheeky pipsqueak reemerged from its burrow. "Rukia's."

Ichigo's glare was half-hearted. "You better be kidding. And thank you for teaching me, Hanataro."

"You're welcome, Ichigo." With clumsy slow Flash Steps, Hanataro descended toward to the crater. He had to kick the Sekkiseki wall a few times before it let him inside.

Ichigo was drawing on his spirit energy to stay awake and alert. Thanks to the Kido training, he found doing so required little to no attention, allowing him to keep sweeping his spiritual sense outward to the palisades. All the souls were thousands of points of light in the night, a reflection of the now cloudless night sky. The crescent moon looked bigger from up here.

A primal yearning made him lift his arm up toward the moon. His fingers clawed.

"What are you doing?"

He jolted. Whiplash shot up his neck as he twisted around. "Rukia."

"Ichigo." Her cloak didn't billow in the wind, held still by her spiritual pressure. She simpered. "Trying to reach the moon. Like a Hollow. Next thing I see, you'll be violating girls left and right."

"Only you."

"Good." She sat next to him, looked down at rooftops. "Because it's not their duty to satisfy you, all these powerless girls."

"I know, don't need to remind me."

"Hmph, just in case you're getting some ideas."

He patted her knee. "You don't have to be jea—"

Rugged, angry spiritual pressure blared from the left. Downhill, from the poorer part of town, where slums were densely built, large groups of souls slept together in communal dwellings. Ichigo was already moving. As he passed over these muddy paths, as he passed over a familiar warehouse with a partly thatched, partly shingled roof with holes, memories of his first hours here in Soul Society were brought back to him.

Yuta and Touya.

Kenji.

The gang of over twenty was in there. Helpless, powerless souls.

On the ground, air rippled and swelled before the Garganta ripped a hole in the ground. Eddies of black and gray reishi tumbled within. Spiritual pressure was weak. It was a lone bug-type Hollow. Eight legs. Mantis claws. A plain white mask. No shriek—smart.

With a single fluid motion, Ichigo drew only Tensa Zangetsu's Katana, dashed past the bug, with a horizontal blade slicing into its body. The length of this Katana was nowhere near the bug's width, but a file of spiritual pressure deepened the wound all the way through. No blood spray. Of course there was none; the thing had no beating heart. The top of half of its body disintegrated before the bottom.

From behind, Rukia quietly said, "That was beautifully done."

"Thanks." He swept black blood off his blade with spiritual pressure, then sheathed it.

"As beautiful as my pussy, would you say?"

He hunched over. "You're still not done with that?"

"To remind you—so you don't have any ideas." She pointed down the path, at the warehouse. "Your spiritual pressure woke them when you Flash Stepped over. Next time release exactly enough to quickly dispatch your target and no more."

"Got it."

In the warehouse stood souls with the bodies of children and adolescents. Boys and girls. A sandy-haired teen was at the front, in a protective stance, legs planted wide, with a rusty machete in one hand and a makeshift buckler in the other. Gradually, recognition broadened Kenji's eyes.

"Do you know them?" Rukia asked.

"Yeah, I swiped a Zanpakuto off the guy in the front. His name's Kenji."

"His Zanpakuto? Or just an Asauchi?"

"Does it make any difference now?"

Rukia's weight shifted to her other leg as she sighed. "Yes, it does." She Flash Stepped over, stopped two strides outside the entrance.

Ichigo followed.

The younger ones shied away. Not at all unexpected, the older boys were looking at her with interest despite her cloak blocking her spirit energy's lust-inducing effects. But a few of the prettier girls particularly did not welcome Rukia's presence in the slightest. Teenage high school drama didn't stop in the afterlife. Ichigo could laugh.

Kenji held a stoic face. His toes curled. "What do you want?" His tone was both respectful and contemptuous.

"I have a couple questions for you, Kenji." Rukia's politician voice was back. Her noble seated-officer voice. "Where did you obtain your Zanpakuto? The one Ichigo took off you."

"I found it."

"Where did you find it? On a Shinigami's corpse?"

Kenji's head stiffly shook. "I found it in the river while panning for gold. It was covered in mud and weeds."

Rukia's frown was slight. "When was this?"

"A day before Ichigo was here."

A one in a million coincidence. A day prior would have been Ichigo's…. No, he would have still been passing through the Konso, which had taken a few days but felt instant. Suspicious. Insurmountably suspicious.

Rukia asked the question of Ichigo's mind, "Are you lying? If you are, you will be subject to labor time."

"I'm not lying," Kenji said in a strong voice. "Take me now if you think I am, but I'm not. I found it in the river a day before Ichigo was here."

The next question from Rukia was directed at Ichigo: "Why did you come here? Of all places."

"Those two kind of tricked me." Ichigo nodded at Touya and Yuta. "They led me here from the tea place. They said Kenji would pay for my new robes and sandals."

Rukia asked them, "So it was all happenstance? A meeting of fate?"

Kenji nodded and said, "If you want to put it that way, sure. Are those all your ques—"

"He's lying!" a younger girl shouted. Cute face. Long black hair. She was around Karin's height. "He stole it! He stole the Zanpakuto from a Shinigami man who dropped it by mistake."

Kenji's lips pressed into a white line.

Rukia's exhaled loudly. "Were you there when it happened? What's your name, girl?"

The girl shouldered her way to the front. "My name is Chuya. I wasn't there. Kenji told us all he saw a man scarfing down bread at the square, using his sword to chop it up. The man got distracted and dropped it by mistake. Kenji ran in and swiped it."

"Unbelievable," Rukia said.

"It's what Kenji told us," Chuya said.

Now Chuya's story sounded more like the lie. A boastful tale that a gang leader would spin up to look big and tough.

Sighing, Ichigo stepped around Rukia, looked Kenji in the eye. "Look, I owe you one for taking your Zanpakuto. You're not in any trouble either way. Just tell us the truth. Did you find it in the river?"

A lump in Kenji's neck bobbed. His head shook. "I stole it from that guy. One day before you were here."

"And that's the truth?" Ichigo asked, holding intense eye contact, searching the guy's meager amount of spiritual pressure for any sign of deceit.

"That is the truth."

It was far more than mere unbelievable. But it was the truth.

Rukia then asked, "What did that man look like? Did you get his name?"

A smooth head shake. Kenji said without any strain, "He was wearing a cloak with a hood, not like yours, but more like a raincoat from the living world. It had a zip, if you know what that is."

"Did you at least see his face?" Rukia's noble voice was slipping. "Any tattoos or scars? Wrinkles? Big nose? Glasses? Hair color? Height? Weight?"

"I didn't see his face," Kenji mumbled. "His back was to me. I'd say he was a little taller than Ichigo. Similar build."

"Well that narrows it down." Rukia was close to an eye-roll. "Do any of you have any more information?"

Bleak faces. Silence.

"Very well," Rukia said, breathing out. "Kenji, this is your one warning. Your name and details will be given to the Stealth Force." She turned away with a brisk Flash Step.

Ichigo followed her into the sky, back to the crater. "Are you really going to give his name?"

"No," she said with a scoff. "It's not worth the trouble."

"You didn't give my name either, did you?"

She stopped high above the office, sat cross-legged. "For that matter, I actually did. I sent a Hell Butterfly after I turned off your family's grill."

"The girl in the sorting room said you didn't." He had forgotten her name. But he hadn't forgotten her extra-skimpy Shihakusho and intense animalistic eyes. He should have groped her when he had the chance. Maybe he would see her again one day.

"That's not surprising. Communication between Squads is abysmal. Within Squads even."

"Fair enough."

For over an hour, they counted a few shooting stars with minor chatter, and they didn't discuss Kenji's tale and what it could possibly mean—until Rukia said, "Asauchi are forged by using the bodies of deceased Shinigami." Konpaku. "This composition is similar to certain Hollows, and so it is possible to seal a Hollow inside an Asauchi. I've read of this being done several times." In the Kuchiki archives. "Imprinting on such an Asauchi could result in a Hollowfied Zanpakuto spirit."

"Tensa Zangetsu said I've always been this way."

"Zanpakuto spirits aren't all-knowing, Ichigo. They are manifestations of the essence of your soul." Tamashi. "They can only teach you knowledge which your soul already holds, which is that of your dormant powers."

Ichigo wasn't quite believing of this. "So I'm not Kaien's reincarnation?"

"You could still be. My earlier theory on Metastacia may simply be wrong."

"Then this theory could also be wrong."

Rukia unexpectedly nodded. "I'm merely educating you on Zanpakutos. Don't forget I am your tutor. You have years worth of Academy material to learn, and I'm glossing over the most crucial—"

From above, frenzied hot spiritual pressure radiated into this dimension. Weak. Weaker than the spider-mantis from earlier.

Ichigo didn't bother drawing a sword.

A puny Garganta opened, and stayed open. One figure stood outside the Garganta's mouth. Moonlight illuminated her slender body. She was coated in what appeared to be skin-tight white armor, which was joined to her red and white mask. Out of all the Hollows Ichigo had seen, she was by far the most Human in appearance. Uncannily Human. Her Hollow hole, smaller in proportion, sat higher up in her chest, just beneath her clavicle. Apart from the hole, and apart from her elongated right arm that tapered into a lance-like blade, she could pass for a woman in a costume. For a Hollow, she was attractive.

She didn't move.

Rukia had dropped into a fighting stance. She'd drawn her Zanpakuto. A twinge of fear vibrated in her freezing spiritual pressure. She was about to release Shikai. "Ichigo," she whispered, "get ready."

The recruitment pamphlet floated to the top of Ichigo's mind. Vasto Lorde were the most dangerous class of Hollows. And the smallest. Human-sized. Most Human-like in appearance.

He drew his Wakizashi then his Katana.

The Vasto Lorde still didn't move, staring at them. Her spiritual pressure was dwindling. The hateful abrasiveness of Hollow spiritual pressure was pacifying somewhat. There was no violent intention. The feeling in the pressure was distantly similar to that of surrender. And she did surrender—she turned her back, then walked into the Garganta. Bangs of her shoulder-length hair swayed.

Ichigo's grip on his swords loosened. He had seen that hairdo before. At his house back in the living world, inside his living room. His father had put up a ludicrously large poster that Ichigo had walked past countless times. That Vasto Lorde had the same hair as his mother, Masaki Kurosaki. It was the exact same hair: wavy light auburn with a subtle red shade, that would take on a unique blonde sheen under bright moonlight.

It was her.

The Garganta closed before Ichigo could make it.

Damn this sealed state.

Rukia was right behind. Fear in her spiritual pressure had subsided. "What in the frozen hells was that?"

"I think—" His mouth was dry. His whole body was thudding with his pulse. "I think that Hollow is my mother. She's in there. I know it."

Rukia didn't say anything for a dozen of his heartbeats. Her abrupt grin was a tad disturbing. "Well this explains your Hollow side. Next time she visits, why don't you introduce me, your chosen girl that you've raped while Hollowfied?"

Ichigo's heart stuttered. Only Rukia. "Sure." He kissed her, a peck on the lips.

Author's Note: I'm 99.9% sure the stuff about Konpaku and Tamashi is canon, it was just never fully translated from the Japanese source material. Next chapter will be back to Keigo.

Review Responses:

- I may significantly overhaul the earlier chapters so that it's more obvious that this is an alternate universe.

- The 1:2 female/male ratio in canon sounds about right. For this story, it's much different, and there'll be an in-universe explanation as well during a character monologue that I have outlined.

- Maybe I'll do longer chapters, but most likely I won't.