25
Ichigo was just finishing up homework when all of a sudden he felt pressure in the air. He recognized it to be spirit energy, and shortly after that thought entered his mind, his badge went off screaming, "HOLLOW, HOLLOW!"
Ichigo sighed, 'Well, it's a good thing I finished homework before this happened.' He turned to Tenebris, who was putting her sketchpad down, and Shiro, who had taken to being out and about again. His reasoning? Something big was coming, and he would rather eat himself than miss it.
"I was going to ask if you both felt that, but I guess I don't have to now, huh?" said Ichigo.
Tenebris smiled, "Yeah, kind of hard not to notice the number of hollows that showed up on the other side of town."
"Which is good for me. I've been itching to kill something," said Shiro.
"Yeah, we should also take this time to eat one too," said Tenebris. "That's if we can get there before the two new Shinigami kill them first."
"WHAT?!" shouted Shiro. "Why didn't you mention they were here? Let's get going before those newbies take all the glory!" Shiro jumped up and nearly broke the window if Tenebris hadn't opened it already. Ichigo used the badge to jump out of his body and was also out the window with Tenebris close behind.
On their way, Ichigo noticed that one of the two shinigami spirit energies had weakened. 'That can't be good,' he thought.
When they got there, they all noticed a young-looking boy wearing the shinigami uniform running for his life from a pretty big hollow. Its size only made Ichigo think it was an adjuchas, but the reiatsu felt too weak to be so.
"That's a big hollow..." muttered Ichigo.
"Looks tasty!" said Shiro.
Tenebris rolled her eyes at her fellow hollow. "Where is the other Shinigami?" she asked.
Ichigo was about to look around when he noticed the boy stop down in his tracks. He followed the boy's gaze and saw more hollows. One of them was holding a young girl that looked similar to the boy. "Over there! She needs help!" he said.
"Yeah, but it would seem the boy needs help too," said Shiro, who watched as the hollowed chasing the boy caught up and punched him, sending him flying closer to the others and bleeding from where he was hit and his head.
Ichigo grabbed his Quincy Zanpakuto and sprung into action. He brought his blade down, killing the hollow that was heading to the younger male. He heard the kid ask who he was, and without looking, Ichigo replied, "I'm the substitute shinigami, Ichigo Kurosaki."
The hollows began to move again, but before Ichigo could go ahead and kill it, arrows shot out from somewhere behind him, destroying the hollow. He turned around to see Uryu standing there with a smirk on his face. "Need any help?" he asked teasingly.
Ichigo didn't bother to answer the question. "Just leave one of the hollows for Tenebris and Shiro," he said.
Another hollow tried to sneak up behind Ichigo while he wasn't looking, but a powerful beam slammed into it, killing it instantly. Ichigo turned to look where the beam came from and smirked.
"Hey Chad!" he greeted.
"Oh, you greet him, but not your own cousin?" asked Uryu, sounding irritated, but Ichigo knew he really wasn't. "Speaking of... Where are Tenebris and Shiro Zangetus?"
Ichigo pointed to where Shiro was. The hollow zanpakuto was slicing and dicing a hollow with a manic glee in his eyes. Ichigo rolled his eyes at the Vasto Lorde's antics. "As for Tenebris, she's..."
"I'm right here." Ichigo's eyes snapped down to see the dragon hollow sitting next to the young-looking boy shinigami. She was putting some dried, crushed-up leaf onto the boy's wounds, and to Ichigo's surprise, the bleeding stopped right away.
Both Ichigo and Tenebris jumped in surprise when chunks of meat were dropped right next to the Dark Dragon. They looked up to see Shiro.
"Dinner is served!" he said joyfully.
Tenebris smiled, "Thanks!" She grabbed a slab of hollow meat and began eating it while continuing her work.
Ichigo sighed, "Okay, while you're doing that, I'm going to..." He turned around so he could kill the rest of the hollows, but there were none in sight.
"Where...did they...go?" asked Uryu slowly.
Shiro turned his head to them. "Oh, I killed them already," he said with his mouth full.
"You could have left some more for us to kill!" Ichigo and Uryu said in annoyance, but Shiro ignored them.
"Hey guys," said Chad, "shouldn't we be questioning why there were so many hollows around?"
"That's...a good question," said Ichigo.
"I told ya! Somethin' big is comin' and I wasn't gonna miss it!" said Shiro with a smirk that Ichigo knew he had.
"Yeah, but what is that 'big thing' that's coming?" asked Tenebris.
"I don't know," replied Shiro with a shrug. "What does your instinct tell ya?"
Tenebris didn't answer right away. She thought about it for a little bit while closing the wounds on the other shinigami. She looked up toward a nearby building like something caught her eye, but when Ichigo looked there was nothing there. "I don't know what it could be, but I get the feeling that the balance will be tipped, and we'll all be in the center of it."
"That doesn't sound good," Ichigo said dreadfully.
Tenebris stood back up. "I'll have to check it out to see who could be threatening the balance, but first let's get these two back to the house, Ichi."
"You mean Urahara's, right?" he asked, not wanting to bring these two back to his house.
"No, I mean ours and you know it."
"Why there?"
"It's closer. Now put them both onto my back and go to Urahara's for gigai for them. I'll finish healing them up when I get back to the clinic."
"Alright, be careful." Ichigo watched Tenebris leave, and saw Chad and Uryu still there. Shiro was still eating, but he looked to be almost done. "I guess I'll see you two later?" he asked.
"Yeah, we'll come over tomorrow and figure out what could possibly be going on. Tenebris should have news for us by the time we get there, right?" said Uryu.
"She won't if you come in the morning. She'll be sleeping," Ichigo pointed out. "But you are right. She should have news for us by tomorrow."
"We'll meet up at your house close to the afternoon then. See you later, Ichigo." Uryu turned and vanished from sight.
"Later, Ichigo," said Chad, and he too vanished.
"Let's get going, King," said Shiro, who was licking blood off his claws. "I'm tired."
Ichigo rolled his eyes at his hollow zanpakuto again.
TBC
Merry Christmas Eve! XD I decided to update this fanfic now because I am going to put all my stories on hold for a couple of months. I'm working on another animation that has a deadline. Easter is that deadline, and I'm still working on the beginning. I want to put voices and sound effects to it too, so I need a lot of time, and I'm already failing at that. I wish I had a team. :(
Ichi: You still have one more week before you're putting all stories on hold.
Enj/Dark: I'll be updating 'Natsu Hates it When Zeref is Bored' for that week. 'Master of Death in Fairy Tail has too long of a fight for me to get done in time, and I still need to read the manga for the 1,000 years blood war arc.
Shiro: So you're saying that the crackfic is the only one you can work on?
Enj/Dark: Yes. Please review! ^-^
