11
~Tenebris' POV~
Recap: "The hollow appeared by your sisters," she said, making my blood run cold.
"Let's go!" I shouted while grabbing Rukia's blue dress and placing her on my back as I ran in the direction of Yuzu and Karin.
I ran as fast as I could toward my sisters, which was pretty fast, but I wish I could fly instead. I would have been there by now otherwise, but thanks to the trees, I didn't have enough room to spread my wings. So running as fast as a cheetah would have to do.
I got to some stairs and didn't bother running down them. I leaped over them, not touching a single step; although, these stairs are out of the small forest so I could fly now. While still in the air from jumping the stone steps, I flapped my wings. I went higher and began to fly in the sky. Up here made finding the hollow easier.
By my mom's grave were the hollow and my sisters. The hollow reminded me of a green, demonic hamster, and in one of it's claw-like hands was Yuzu. I growled at the sight. I saw Yuzu's struggling body moving closer to the hollow's mouth, and Karin was being pinned down by the thing's other hand.
I went into a nose-dive and bit down on the scruff of the hollow's neck. I almost gagged, because this hollow not only smelled like it, but also tested like something out of a sewer. But I held on. I was going to take a chunk from this hollow one way or another for nearly eating Yuzu.
While I was tugging on the hollow, who was fighting to get me off, it let go of Yuzu. I felt Rukia jump off my back, but I couldn't tell if she caught Yuzu or not due to the wild ride I found myself in. My concern and curiosity for Yuzu and Karin was enough for me to lose my focus on what the hollow was planning. It threw itself back into one of the walls in the graveyard, squishing me in between the hollow and the wall. I gasped for air, which resulted in me letting go completely.
The green, furry hollow grabbed me and pinned me to the same wall it slammed me into, and then said mockingly, "Well, aren't you a sneaky one. I didn't notice you until you had a good grip on me, but for a natural born you were pretty easy to get off. You are also quite small, so you are probably the runt of the litter." I felt anger coursing through me for being called a runt. I'm not even fully grown yet, thank you very much. "Doesn't matter. I hear that if a hollow ate a natural born one, they'll evolve instantly. Not sure if this is true or not, so let's find out!" He opened his mouth to try and eat me, but I opened my own mouth and let out a column of fire. The fire entered the hollow's mouth, making it back away from me in pain and crying out. I took my claws and sliced through his arm next, so I could free myself, making him scream again.
I pushed myself away from the wall, and landed close to Yuzu, Karin, and Rukia; the former two were unconscious, but I would rather they were out cold than them being dead.
Before either I or the hollow could continue our fight, Ichigo shows up in his shinigami form and with Kon in Ichi's human body. I couldn't help but think, 'When did Kon fall out of Rukia's backpack? ...It must have been when I grabbed her.'
"Tenebris! Are Yuzu and Karin okay?" Ichigo questioned urgently.
"They're fine, just knocked out," I replied. "How about you take them out of here."
Ichigo nodded, but then he froze. I may have been eyeing the hollow up and not have seen Ichigo's reaction, but I could feel it in his reiatsu. I quickly turned my eyes to look and see what was wrong, and saw that Ichigo was staring at the green hollow. I turned back to my enemy and noticed a little girl standing in front of the hollow. It looked kind of familiar, but how did I not notice her, and why doesn't she have a scent?
"Hey hollow, who's your friend?" I asked. I knew she couldn't be a normal spirit, because if she was she would have run away from the hollow and have a scent.
"That's the girl I saw on the night mom died," I heard Ichigo say from behind me.
'Oh, now I remember where I've seen her!' I thought.
"My friend?" the hollow questioned. "I guess you could say that, but she is nothing more than my lure." After he said that, the little girl's skin came undone and a red thing came out of her head and attached itself to the hollow's head. "I use this lure to draw in those with high spirit energy, but sometimes I can't resist if there is a woman involved. There is just something about them that is extra tasty."
I shivered at this and had the sudden urge to kill him in the most bloody way possible. I didn't get that far, because Ichigo charged right on past me and attacked the hollow. The hollow, of course, saw him and dodged easily.
"Ichigo!" I yelled at him in a scolding manner. Honestly, that attack was reckless.
"Tenebris, stay out of this," demanded Ichigo. "This one killed mom by tricking me. So I have to be the one to kill him."
I could hear his voice cracking with each word he spoke, but if he thought I was just going to let himself be nearly killed he was sadly mistaken.
"Wait, Ichigo!" Rukia shouted. "That hollow is way too strong for you. Its name is Grand Fisher, and he is known for killing shinigami." Her words gave me no reassurance at all.
"Then Tenebris can back me up!" Just as Ichigo was saying the last bit of his sentence, he attacked the hollow, now known as Grand Fisher, again.
'I guess I should just wait until he needs me,' I thought, and then turned to Kon. "Get Yuzu and Karin out of here, Kon."
"Um okay… but where should I…?" Kon started to question, but I just shouted at him to get them anywhere as long as it wasn't here. "Right!" He picked the two young girls up and took off.
"Tenebris, we need to go after Ichigo and Grand Fisher. They're heading for the cliff!" I heard Rukia stat, and so I followed her to where Ichigo had gone off to.
Rukia and I made it to the cliff where we found Ichigo fighting the hollow. I was beginning to get worried, because Ichigo was really close to that cliff, and he's not in the right state of mind. He could fall and really hurt himself. I knew it wouldn't kill him, but I still couldn't help but feel on edge about it.
Ichigo ran up to Grand Fisher with his Zangatsu raised. He was only using the big sword. He had not taken out the smaller one. Ichigo brought down the blade in an attempt to cleave the hollow in half, but Grand Fisher was able to dodge the attack and counter it with a swipe of his claws. His counter attack landed, making the muscles in my limbs tense.
Ichigo didn't cry out in pain, and just brushed off the fact he had been hit. 'That is reckless,' I thought. 'He is going to get himself killed like that.' Ichigo sped toward the hollow again, but this time Zangetsu was at his side. He was going for a horizontal strike; however, he didn't make it to the hollow. What appeared in front of Ichigo was the lure, but this isn't what simply stopped Ichigo in his tracks. The lure stopped him, because it now looked like our mom. This fact made both Ichigo and I freeze.
Grand Fisher went on about how this was how he was able to get the shinigami that came after him. He would use his one claw's ability to search through memories to find the one person that his opponent loves so much that they could never hurt them, and then use his other claw to make his lure look just like that loved one. This made both Ichigo and I angry, but I think my soul brother was more furious than me.
Ichigo tried to attack Grand Fisher again, but the hollow kept using the lure to stop him. My claws were digging into the soft, muddy dirt in anger. 'When had it started to rain?' I thought off-handedly.
"Ichigo please put your sword down. You wouldn't hurt your mother would you?" Now I was starting to growl. The hollow was able to copy our mom's voice perfectly too! I was about ready to sprint right in and slit the hollow's thoat, but then Ichigo was hit. Grand Fisher had stabbed him in the shoulder.
My right paw moved forward so I could begin to make my way into the fight, but then a glow from the lure stopped me. The glow was so bright that it was almost blinding. In the center of the glow was the lure, but it had mom's loving expression. That face is almost impossible to fake, so this confused me even farther, but then she started talking.
"Ichigo, my son, I'm so proud of you," she said, and she went on to how happy we made her and for Ichigo to never lose his smile. The same one he used to wear when he looked at her. I felt like crying, because Ichigo had lost that very smile the moment she passed away. I and our family had tried our hardest to get that smile to come back, but nothing we did would ever work. Sure we got him to smile, but it was never the same.
"I'm sorry, mom, but we failed to keep that smile going. It died along with you," I said with my head bowed. I knew that this was only a lure and not our real mother, but I knew that these were her last, true thoughts.
Soon the glow from the lure faded, and nobody, not even the hollow, moved. Ichigo and I were the first to recover, and I moved quickly. I clamped my jaws on the red cord of the lure and ripped it off of the hollow, and at the same time, Ichigo removed the claw that was stabbed into his shoulder and then sliced through Grand Fisher's own shoulder. Blood came from both his head and shoulder, making Grand Fisher howl in pain, but neither one of us cared.
"I'll be back for you, Ichigo Kurosaki! And when I do, I'll kill you! Mark my words, I will kill you!" Grand Fisher declared and left to go back to Hueco Mundo.
"Come back here!" Ichigo shouted, and Rukia tried to stop him, but wasn't doing a very good job, so I hit him at the base of his head with my tail and knocked him out. I then grabbed him and placed him on my back.
"Let's go, Rukia. We need to get back to my family and get Ichigo back in his body," I said as I started walking toward the shrine.
"Actually, I'll just meet you back at the house," said Rukia. "Take care of him, Tenebris." Rukia left after she told me to take care of my brother. I watched her leave, feeling a little surprised that she was leaving me to take care of anyone.
'I guess she really is starting to trust me after all.'
TBC
I guess I could have copied what Masaki said to Ichigo in that scene where she was giving her final thoughts to him, but I didn't want to, and I'm not very good at this kind of thing anyway. I could have probably done it if I took some time, but I felt like I would have ended up making it cringy, so I didn't do that. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter at least. There might not be another one for 3-4 weeks, because I need to plan on what I'm going to do for this other fanfic I'm working on.
Ichi: You mean 'Master of Death in Fairy Tail'?
Enj/Dark: Yes. I'm doing the Grand Magic Games arc next.
Shiro: You have 95 chapters in that story?! That's longer than 'My Hollow Siblings'! D=
Enj/Dark: Tell me something I don't know. -_-'
Ichi: When are you planning on ending it? :/
Enj/Dark: The next arc.
Shiro: So you only have 2 arcs left in that story?
Enj/Dark: Yes.
Ichi: What about this one?
Enj/Dark: Well...I'm working on two arcs at the same time: the first one and the second to last arcs. I then plan on writing a small filler arc, and then the 1,000 Years blood war arc. After that this story is done.
Shiro: So not every long?
Ichi: The blood war arc is going to take her a while. I remember you saying that you plan on going at a more reasonable pace.
Enj/Dark: Yeah, Kanpachi got his bankai way too quickly after getting shikai. I want to make parts like that longer. Other than that, it's still following the story. Anyway, PLEASE REVIEW! XD
