Ichigo stared incredulous at her cousin. To be fair, just because they were related didn't mean she had ever interacted with him.
"Wait, wait, wait...you want to hold a contest to see who is better at killing hollows because I've been acting as a soul reaper? Are you an idiot?"
"Afraid, Kurosaki?" said Uryu calmly, still holding the hollow bait.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" she demanded. "We've been actively trying to get rid of the mooch living in our house for the past three months!"
That made Uryu pause.
"What?"
"She broke into my house, screwed the pooch and lost her powers, then dragged me into her mess by having me act in her place because she's too stupid to own up to her mistake with her superiors," ranted Ichigo. "If Malleus hadn't busted her, she's still be leeching off me by living in my closet, and she still hasn't paid anything towards the household expenses. If I knew how, I would have called her superiors direct months ago to get rid of her!"
Uryu stared at her in confusion and disbelief.
Ichigo was just annoyed he had lumped her with Rukia of all people.
"So you have a soul reaper living in your house uninvited?" said Uryu slowly.
"She's been an absolute pest," said Ichigo flatly. "And the only reason I'm not doing more of her patrols is because my boyfriend made it clear he was not letting her cut into our date nights. At this point it's a waiting game until her superiors finally drag her back."
Uryu slowly lowered the hollow bait, realizing Ichigo wasn't his enemy.
He pushed up his glasses.
Ichigo was relieved that her cousin was at least seeing reason. Or so she thought.
"Then perhaps we should draw out her superiors," said Uryu. He then crushed the bait anyway.
"You Seven-damned idiot!" she shouted, as the item began absorbing her ridiculously high spiritual energy.
Malleus had commented on it, more than once, about how her magical core seemed to be feeding off her high spiritual levels and vice versa. It was part of the reason she had such trouble learning magic...she kept overpowering her spells, making her control absolute crap.
Orihime had a much easier time, and was already experimenting with her new powers. She was rather happy being the group 'healer'. Chad was their group tank, with Tatsuki and Ichigo being the damage dealers.
Malleus had been officially designated as the group mage, though they would only bring him in if things really got screwed up. He found this fact highly amusing.
The second she realized what was going to happen, she pulled out her phone.
"Hey Malleus? Could you pick up Yuzu and Karin? My idiot cousin thought it was a bright idea to use Hollow bait when I was in the vicinity, so it's going to be a mess. Yes, I will be having words with him," said Ichigo.
Uryu froze at the conversation.
"Cousin?" he said slowly.
Ichigo paused.
"Wait... you didn't know?" she asked. "My mom was your dad's first cousin."
Uryu made a note to look into that, as he had no idea. He would find out after the fact that Ichigo wasn't joking in the least, and that his father was close with Ichigo's own, to the point that Isshin tended to send the more serious cases straight to his in-law's hospital first.
In Malleus' apartment
Karin and Yuzu were beyond fascinated with the knick-knacks in Malleus' apartment. They could also see the small influences Ichigo had on the décor. Karin looked bemused at the small glass objects around the apartment.
Yuzu was more curious about why Malleus only had ceramic cutlery and chopsticks, but ignored it. It wasn't her place to ask after all.
Karin looked to Malleus and asked "Why do you still have that spell up? It can't be comfortable hiding your real features all the time."
Malleus blinked, before a slow smile formed on his face. His horns and ears switched back to normal, as he rarely bothered with the disguise spell when he was having a stay-in date with Ichigo.
He was rather fond of the twins, and the two were rather polite. The spell on the apartment would keep any hollows far from the girls, which was why Ichigo had asked him to retrieve her sisters.
Just looking outside revealed how bad it was getting, and Karin closed the curtains firmly rather than freak herself out.
"What exactly is going on?"
"Your cousin issued Ichigo a challenge and foolishly used an item that would draw entirely too many of the creatures here because he miscalculated her strength. He forgot she had a naturally high spiritual aura long before Rukia arrived, and the item in question uses the ambient energy to draw the creatures out."
"Wait, that's what happened?" said Karin horrified.
She was well aware her sister had the highest psychic ability out of the family. Worse, her control was so bad that even her close group of friends had started developing their own abilities as a side effect to defend themselves against her natural powers.
Yuzu shivered at the sound of the hollows outside. While she couldn't see them, she could still sense and hear their roars even peripherally.
Karin pulled her twin into a hug, letting Yuzu relax in her hold.
For a few hours, the two did their best to distract themselves from what was going on outside. Then it felt like the bottom had dropped from the world itself.
A menacing presence had appeared, one far stronger than anything had come before. It was terrifying for the girls. Malleus made a point to sit next to them, and soon found both of the twins curled up into his side, shivering. After about fifteen to thirty minutes, the presence dropped, and the atmosphere began to return to normal.
"What was that?" said Karin, her eyes wide.
"I do not know," said Malleus honestly.
Ichigo came two hours after that, looking exhausted.
She had her arms full of the twins for a good five minutes, before they calmed down.
"What the heck happened anyway?"
"Apparently there was a bigger class of spirit monster called a Menos Grande, and it followed the small fry here," she said tiredly. "I am absolutely giving that idiot the riot act because this was entirely his fault."
"Bring him to the clinic," said Karin. "We can all have a nice, long chat with this guy."
Uryu looked thoroughly chastised, especially since one of the hollows had been confirmed to be dangerously close to the school where the twins had been. If Malleus hadn't retrieved Ichigo's sisters after she called, then there was a strong chance he could have been directly responsible for the injury or worse death of his own family.
As Ichigo put it, what he did made him almost no different from the soul reapers who had been so late to save his grandfather.
~*~*~*~~*
Ichigo felt like utter crap, and wondered who hit her with a truck. So you could imagine her utter shock, horror and feminine rage when she saw a grown man hovering over her that she didn't know, his face far too close for comfort.
Her first and only reaction was to lash out, her fist solidly hitting him in the jaw, sending him flying...or it should have. Her punch was incredibly weak and it worried her.
She felt as weak as a kitten.
"You took quite a beating, but it could have been worse," said a voice. It was Hat and Clogs.
Beside him was Malleus, who looked deeply unhappy with the matter.
"What happened?"
"Rukia's superiors finally came to retrieve her...however they couldn't allow a human to run around with the powers of a soul reaper...so they damaged them to the point it almost completely destroyed your powers," said Malleus.
He was obviously pissed about this, since it also damaged her magical core.
Ichigo tried to sit up, but was still weakened.
"Rest up. If you want to get your powers back there is a way, but your body is still in shock from the method used," said Urahara.
Malleus growled.
"Of course we could move you downstairs so you can stretch out," said Urahara nervously.
The idea of cuddling with her boyfriend in his dragon form was highly appealing, and would allow her to sleep properly. She felt defenseless without her powers. She trusted Malleus to protect her while she was weakened.
Malleus was firmly curled around his mate, and would become incredibly growly if anyone came near her.
When she woke up the next morning, she was still tired but felt some energy in her again.
Some time later...
"So let me get this straight. Part of the reason Rukia never got her powers back is because you gave her a rigged fake body which was draining her powers to hopefully destroy some artifact that you made. An artifact that can cause untold damage and will almost certainly bite us in the ass later...am I understanding this correctly?" said Ichigo, pinching the bridge of her nose.
Urahara chuckled nervously, as Malleus was still being overprotective of his mate.
"I developed it while I was still a member of the soul reapers, and had to leave when I realized someone was actively after it. But not before it caused several high ranked soul reapers everything as they were chased out for having hollow abilities. A good friend of mine was chased out as well, mostly for helping me escape."
"How bad on the power scale are we talking about?" she asked tiredly.
"Remember that Menos you barely managed to scare off?" he asked. "The artifact in question can create evolved hollows that are at least a thousand times more powerful, and more sentient. Think going up against your boyfriend here in a pissy mood level of bad."
Ichigo openly winced.
"How long is it going to take to get my powers back, and what sort of opposition should I expect?"
"You're almost certainly going to have to rescue Rukia from her own people, and they do not like intruders," said Urahara. "Giving your powers, especially to one of the living, is an execution-level offense. Hell the only reason you survived that last encounter is because killing one of the living is a big no-no."
Malleus had an odd expression on his face, as he realized his mate would be heading to a place he could not follow, nor protect her from.
Any thoughts of going slow with her magical education went out the window. He would have to insure her survival his own way, while protecting her family from harm while she was away. Including the odd familiar she had adopted and named Kon.
He still didn't know how she found such a strange familiar, but he had made a deal with the plush. While he acknowledged it as a fellow being, he would still happily roast it's false body if he ever caught wind of Kon "perving" (as Ichigo put it) on any of the Kurosaki females.
While Ichigo was deep in the pit, trying to regain her powers, Malleus was out seeking something. Most magestones could be found in mines...however with how spiritually dense Karakura was, there was a slight chance he could find an appropriate substitute somewhere nearby.
It took him seven hours, and even then he almost missed it. It was a crude thing, but he knew that once Ichigo started channeling her magic through the stone, it would begin to alter itself.
Now the real trick was to find an appropriate fitting for the stone.
It was a good thing he had gotten used to crafting with his flames, because he had some experience in forming the metal he found. While crude, he knew Ichigo would appreciate the sentiment.
He arrived back at the store in time to see a massive white shape fly out of the pit. Closer inspection revealed his mate, donning a white mask that would have sent shivers down a lesser person's spine. The sheer power behind it sent pleasant feelings into the pit of his stomach.
Seeing her take the broken sword hilt and break the mask, Malleus calmly walked up to her.
"That...was unpleasant," she said.
She looked rather pleased at the new necklace he gave her. Bracelets were too unwieldy and could potentially get in the way of a fight. Rings were even worse, as they could hinder her grip of the sword. But a necklace was easy enough to hide under her clothing and could be worn with pretty much everything.
She was rather delighted at the feather-like appearance, and was even happier that the stone in question was almost the same shade as her hair.
Urahara had to wonder if Ichigo knew how lucky she was to even encounter such a powerful being, much less land him as her mate.
