15

recap: I jumped down from the wall and moved in closer, making sure to keep an eye out for possible arrows. Once I was right in front of him I sniffed the bait. It was weak, it wouldn't even lure in a Gillian. I shook my head. "No, that will not affect me," I said. "But, you do know that if you break it, tons of hollows will show up here and become a danger to the townspeople, right? Even if it's just the two of you, I don't see it possible for you to protect everyone."

Uryu sneered. "If you feel the need to join us then feel free to. You can join our little game, but I wasn't going to allow anyone to be harmed, because I will be one to kill all the hollows that appear." Uryu snapped the bait, followed by the howls of hollows.


Tenebris' POV~

I was feeling a small amount of dread. I don't know what it was, but I had a feeling that something wasn't going to go right. Something bad was coming, and I hated it that I couldn't figure out what.

I saw movement from Ichigo, who had stuffed his hand into his bag and pulled out Kon. Kon didn't have any time to complain about being locked up inside the bag, because Ichigo shoved his hand down the stuffed animal's throat and pulled out the small, green pill.

Ichigo cleaned the pill off on his shirt and swallowed it. His soul popped out of his body, and then he turned to both me and Kon.

"I need you two to check on Yuzu, Karin, and my friends!" he said with authority before taking off after the first hollow he could see. Uryu had already killed three of them before Ichigo even started.

I turned to Kon and said, "Let's go. Kill any hollows on your way, but don't get Ichigo's body hurt." I added a touch of threat into my tone after saying the word "but". Kon heard it too, because he paled and nodded his head to show he understood. We leave to find my sisters and friends.

Kon went into the direction of Karin, which didn't surprise me much since she was easier to find than Yuzu, but I knew the younger twin's scent and had a bird's eye view from up here in the sky, so finding Yuzu would be easier for me than really anyone else.

I sniffed the air, but couldn't catch my little sister's scent anywhere. So I started making my way toward the marketplace. She was normally there or at home cleaning after school was let out, but if I didn't check the marketplace first, and she was there, there was a high chance that she could be attacked by a hollow while I was checking the house where she would have less chances of being attacked. The market had a ton of people there, so it was like a buffet for hollows.

I killed 20 hollows on my way to the shops and after killing my 21st, I spotted a young girl in a yellow dress. I looked down and saw that it was Yuzu. She had a bag of groceries in hand and was on her way home, which made me feel better, but there was a small problem. There, right behind her, was a bunny-like hollow. I acted quickly, diving down and crashed right into the hollow with full teeth and claws. I grabbed the hollow by the throat with fangs, and claws stabbing into its hide to keep it pinned. I quickly devoured my early dinner, and then killed off my 23rd hollow that was about to attack another, unsuspecting human. I looked around to see if any more hollows were around, but saw none. I flew up into the air to look for Yuzu again, and spotted her just outside the marketplace.

I followed the young girl all the way home to make sure she wasn't attacked again by a hollow. Once the house was within sight, and Yuzu went inside, I killed off the hollow that was chillin on the roof next door. 'That makes 24 for me,' I thought.


I had decided to meet up with Kon, and killed about 20 more hollows on the way. Some of the hollows, when they saw me, tried to run away, knowing they wouldn't have a chance of winning. The dark part of my mind - it wasn't my hollow side, but my natural instinct - enjoyed the chase.

I saw Ichigo's high school up ahead, but felt a disturbance there. I decided to check it out, knowing that Tatsuki might still be there due to the club she's in. I picked up my speed, and when I wasn't too far away, there was a spike of spirit energy that filled the air. It wasn't strong, but enough to kill a hollow.

By the time I got there, the hollow was already dead. I saw some people in the attack zone and recognized Tatsuki, Orihime, Orihime's stalker, and some of their classmates. I also spotted Urahara, and his assistant, Tessai. I figured that hat-n-clogs was the one to kill the hollow, but I had my doubts. The reiatsu didn't feel like his, but then again, I hardly ever did feel it, so I couldn't really know for sure.

'Well, everything's fine here, I should get going again,' I thought as I flapped my wings to turn around and fly to where I felt Kon and Karin's spirit energies.

I killed 18 hollows, but I still couldn't shake the feeling that something bad was going to happen. Was a stronger hollow going to show up? I don't see how, when Uryu used such weak bait. Although…now that I think about it, there were a lot of hollows, more than what that bait should have brought.

'What is going on?' I mused.

I met up with Kon, who had left Karin and apparently Chad after Chad had killed the hollow that attacked him and my sister.

"Why didn't you kill it?" I demanded. I couldn't understand why Kon couldn't kill the hollow himself. If he was there to see it all, then he should have been able to kill it and not make Chad do it.

"I was going to, but then that big guy's arm transformed and punched the thing in the face!" explained Kon.

"His arm transformed?" I questioned.

"Yeah, it was so weird. He couldn't see the hollow at first, but once his arm transformed, he could see it clear as day," Kon reported.

I knew Chad could hit a hollow while not being able to see it, but I don't think I had ever heard of someone gaining the power to see after just getting powers to kill the unseeable.

'His reiatsu must have been dormant up until now, but where did he get his ability from? Humans don't just get a power out of nowhere. Ichigo had the power already in him, but that is because we know that at the very least that someone in his line had powers of a quincy and shinigami; however, Chad's power doesn't sound like either of those, and quincies and shinigami are the only humans / spirits that I know of that have powers and can have kids. Hollow might be able to, but only the Arrancar. So what power is he using?' I sighed, and decided to give up for now. Now wasn't really the time to be solving mysteries.

"Tenebris…? Hello…? Anyone home?" Kon's voice entered my ears and caught my attention. I looked up and saw him looking at me with some concern. "Are you okay? You had this expression on your face that looked painful," he said.

"I'm fine. I just don't know what power Chad used, and it's driving me nuts. I'll have to think about it more some other time after seeing it for myself." I shook my head in dismissal. "I'm going to go find Ichigo. You go back to the house and keep an eye on my sisters." I narrowed my eyes. "Got that?"

Kon paled again, and nodded quickly. He turned tail and ran back to where he saw Karin last, most likely to see her home safely, and then stay with them. After watching him go, I turned to where I felt Ichigo's reiatsu and took off at top speed.

On my way to my soul brother, I spotted another hollow about to attack a plane. I killed it and passed the plane that was going in the same direction as I was, and saw a flash of orange and black. I followed the blur, knowing it was Ichigo, and killed the hollow that was about to attack him from behind.

"Hey Tenebris. How are the others?" Ichigo asked.

"Everyone is fine," I said. "Although, some people gained powers."

"Who?"

"Chad, as far as I know."

Ichigo looked thoughtful, but gave up a lot sooner than I did. "We'll have to think about that later. Come on and help me kill these hollows, and then we're going to beat the heck out of Uryu," he said, and I smiled.

"Sure thing." We went back to killing some hollows. Ichigo killed 10 and I killed 12 hollows. After killing 5 more each, Rukia showed up.

"Rukia!" Ichigo called out when he spotted her.

"Ichigo, I got more information from Urahara about the quincies," said Rukia.

I tilted my head. "Oh?"

"Well, like you said, Tenebris, there was a war between the quincies and Shinigami, but Urahara didn't say it was 1,000 years ago."

I scoffed, "There were two wars, one was more well known than the other, because the one was recent."

Ichigo turned to me. "There was another?"

"I don't think you could really call it a war. The quincy were mad at the hollows for killing their families, and so they killed hollows. This didn't sit well with the shinigami," I explained, and then Rukia continued.

"A quincy's arrow can completely destroy a hollow, whereas our Zanpakuto can purify the soul and allow them to move on to the Soul Society. An imbalance began thanks to the quincies killing so many souls, so the Soul Society had no choice but to exterminate them."

"As much as I hate to say it... I have to agree with the Soul Society for that one," I said.

"WHAT?!" Ichigo exclaimed.

I sighed, "If they didn't do it, I would have to do it instead. I may not have been able to be born into the human world on my own, but that didn't mean I couldn't come here as a spirit. More on that later. The quincies were becoming a threat to the balance of nature, and as a balancer, it is my job to deal with it, be it by killing the threat or help change their ways, but that last one is better used by the Glows."

"What's a Glow and balancer?" asked Rukia.

"More on that later too," I said. "We don't really have time to be talking about my back story."

"What would happen if the balance continued to fall?" asked Ichigo.

"The apocalypse, or the world becomes part of the void once more. In this case, however, it is the apocalypse."

"And the void?" Rukia asked.

"In simple words, dark corruption creates a black void, and light corruption creates a white void. If the world starts to lean toward either light or dark, an imbalance begins. If light corruption happens, darkness tries to come forth to fix it, and vise versa. You would be shocked with how often light corruption happens. It is silent and could be mistaken for dark corruption at times. I will stop here, because again, we really don't have time for this," I said.

"You'll have to fill us in one day as to everything you just said, but you are right. Let's find Uryu. I think I understand now why he's like this," said Ichigo.

"Agreed." We both took off to confront Uryu.

When we found him, Ichigo told him about what I and Rukia explained about the quincies, only to get cut off by Uryu, who told him that what happened to the quincies was history. He pushed up his glasses and said, "To be honest, I agreed with the shinigami myself on that. It was what they didn't do that angered me." Uryu then explained how his grandfather tried to convince the shinigami that they should work together, but the shinigami told him to back off and let them do their job.

What Uryu said next horrified both Ichigo and I. He told us that his grandfather was surrounded by hollows, too many for him to take on by himself, and no shinigami came to his aid. With that many hollows, there should have been at least one shinigami already there and killing them. I found this suspicious. Not Uryu, I know he's not lying. No one would lie about their grandfather being killed by hollows right in front of them and no one came to help. No, the shinigami didn't show up, and that is what I find fishy. Where were they? Did they let the old man die? I wouldn't put it past them. The shinigami can be used as an example of light corruption at times; although, I think it started out as dark corruption when they were founded.

Uryu was going to continue, but Ichigo cut him off by kicking him on the back of his head. Uryu was sent flying and almost crashed into a hollow. I'm shocked that those heartless beasts hadn't moved. They were probably finding this amusing.

"What is your problem?!" Uryu demanded.

"You're messing up your whole story! If your grandfather wanted to work with the shinigami, then how is fighting them going to help you achieve that!?" Ichigo shouted. "If you want to make your grandfather's dream come true, then why not start now?" Ichigo grabbed Uryu and brought him back to his feet; afterward, Ichigo placed Uryu behind him so they were back to back. "We'll kill these hollows fighting together!"

I think I saw Uryu smile, but I was unsure. I was too busy keeping an eye on the hollow that was trying to be sneaky by coming up from behind me. "Fine by me," I heard Uryu say. The shinigami and quincy duo began attacking the hollows, which was my cue to kill the one that was eyeing me up like a tasty snack.

I don't know how many Ichigo and Uryu killed, but I killed about 23 hollows, leaving me with a total of 103 hollows. I noticed a giant crack in the sky shortly after. "That can't be good," I thought aloud.

"Ichigo, look at the sky!" Uryu seemed to have noticed the crack as well, because he beat me to pointing it out to them.

"What is that?" asked Ichigo.

Not long after Ichigo questioned that, big, white, long fingers with claws opened the crack more. We saw its face and I recognized just what kind of hollow this thing was: a Gillian, aka a Menos Grande.

"Well that isn't your everyday garden hollow," said Ichigo.

TBC


The shinigami arc is almost done. Once Ichigo kills the gillain, I'm stopping and focusing on the fullbring arc. There is no need to continue afterward. I have succeeded in my goal here already, and that was Tenebris and Rukia learning to trust each other.

Shiro: Finally! Soon we'll be beating the heck out of Ginjo! XD

Ichigo: You've been waiting for that, haven't you?

Shiro: Yes! :)

Enj/Dark: Well, it will be happening soon. Once I get close to the end of the Fullbring arc, I might just place my full attention on this fanfic till the arc is done. After that though, I'm going back to every other week.

Ichi: Let your fans from your other story know.

Enj/Dark: Will do.

Shiro: Please review!