Two days had passed since the visit to Urahara's shop, and they had been a period of tense, unnatural calm.
The energy "high" Ichigo felt after Rukia devoured the Hollow in the park was gone.
He was sitting on his bedroom floor, his back against the wall, trying to do his English homework, but he couldn't concentrate because the cramp had returned.
It was a dull, constant ache in his stomach, a throbbing reminder that Rukia's Gigai was draining him.
"This is ridiculous," Ichigo said out loud.
"I agree," Rukia muttered.
She was sitting on Ichigo's bed and was surrounded by chocolate bar wrappers, of which there were at least six, as she had just finished another one.
"I'm still empty," she said, crumpling the wrapper. "This body is insatiable. It isn't working. I eat, and the hunger doesn't go away."
"It's not hunger for food, Rukia," Ichigo said, rubbing his stomach. "It's hunger for... the other thing."
"I know." Her voice was tense. "How long do you think we can last before...?"
"Before what? Hunting?" Ichigo looked at her. "I don't know. Urahara said not to."
"Urahara also said not to transform! And we had to!" she snapped. "And now we have to do it again, or you'll pass out from the drain and I'll go crazy from this hunger!"
"There are no Hollows! We can't just go looking for them!"
"We could find one!"
"And if we do, and you transform, and the suppressors fail, the Soul Society will come to kill us! Weren't you listening?!"
"Then what do we do, Ichigo?! Just sit here and waste away?!"
"You two are idiots."
Karin's voice cut through the argument.
Ichigo and Rukia turned to see Karin sitting in Ichigo's broken desk chair, her laptop open. They hadn't heard her come in, so she had been sitting there who knows how long, listening.
"What did you say?" Ichigo said.
Karin snapped the laptop shut.
"I said you're idiots. Both of you."
She stood up, and although her face was calm, her eyes were intense.
"What's with you?" Ichigo said, getting defensive. "You've been weird ever since we went to the hat guy's place, much quieter than usual."
"I've been thinking," Karin said. "I've been observing. And I've been researching."
"Researching what?" Rukia said, wary.
"You. You're sitting here, arguing, waiting for a monster to attack so you can eat it. Or are you waiting for Urahara to give you permission? What if a Hollow doesn't show up for a week? Are you just going to let her drain you until you collapse, Ichigo?"
"We don't have a choice!" Ichigo shouted.
"Well, I'm not going to wait!" Karin said.
Rukia stood up, her voice trembling with anger. "Karin, it's not that simple! You don't understand the danger! What I felt..."
"Of course I understand!" Karin retorted, her voice rising. "I understand that I almost got crushed in that park! I understand that Yuzu had nightmares last night and woke up screaming! I understand that while you two were talking about 'cycles' and 'beacons,' I was on the internet!"
Ichigo blinked. "The internet? What...?"
Karin turned the laptop screen toward them, which was open to an old looking forum, full of gothic text and images of bats.
"Look," she said. "It's fiction, of course. Vampire novels. Occult forums. Ghost stories."
"Karin, have you gone crazy?" Ichigo said.
"Shut up and look!" she snapped. "The logic is the same in all these stories. Power in exchange for something. A pact. An oath. And it always... always... involves blood."
There was absolute silence.
Ichigo and Rukia stared at her in absolute disbelief.
"Are you... are you kidding?" Ichigo said, laughing nervously. "Vampires? You want me to bite you?! Karin, that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life! Turn that crap off!"
"It's... it's profane!" Rukia said, genuinely horrified. "You can't... you can't mix your blood with... with whatever we are now! It's... unnatural!"
"Of course it's unnatural!" Karin shouted. "None of this is natural! Wake up! A talking cat gave us lessons! My brother has a monster in his stomach! And his friend eats other monsters to feed it! We left 'natural' behind three days ago!"
"You're not listening to me!" Karin slammed the laptop. "Urahara said it himself! He said Ichigo could 'awaken' my power! "
"He didn't mean this!" Ichigo said.
"How do you know what he meant?! How do you think you 'awaken' something, Ichigo? It's not with tea and cookies! It's with a jolt! And you!" she pointed at Ichigo, "You're the one who can deliver it! You're the one with the anomalous power!"
"Karin, stop. No," Ichigo said, his voice hard.
"No!" Karin moved closer to him, her face inches from his. "Listen to me. Urahara said I 'reek' of your energy. He said I'm an 'accomplice,' so I'm already a target, Ichigo. The Soul Society will come and 'cleanse' me just because I was standing too close to you!"
"I'm not going to be a passive victim," she hissed. "I'm not going to be Yuzu, hiding and crying. I saw what Rukia did. I saw the power. And I want it."
"Karin..."
"And if you don't help me," she said, her voice lowering to a deadly whisper, "then I'll go out and find a Hollow myself. And I'll test my theory. And if that thing kills me, it will be your fault. Got it?"
Ichigo looked at her. He saw the absolute determination in her eyes, the same stubbornness he recognized in himself, and he knew she wasn't kidding.
He turned to Rukia, his expression defeated.
"She's crazy," he said quietly. "She's going to do it. With or without us."
Rukia was pale with fear. "Ichigo, no... we can't. If she connects... if she becomes like me..."
"It's better if she's connected and strong," Ichigo said, closing his eyes, "than alone and dead trying to prove a point."
He opened his eyes and cursed. "Damn it. Damn it."
"Ichigo?" Karin said, her voice a little less certain.
Ichigo didn't answer, but instead left the room, went downstairs, and returned a minute later.
He had a kitchen knife in his hand.
"Crap," he whispered. "This is insane."
His hand was visibly shaking, which made him hesitate.
"Karin, if this goes wrong... if it hurts you... if I kill you..."
"You won't," Karin said, her voice firm again. "It's blood. Just do it."
Ichigo clenched his jaw and looked at Rukia, who was covering her mouth, terror in her eyes.
"Move aside, Rukia."
Rukia obeyed, backing up to the farthest wall.
"Fine," Ichigo said, and offered the knife to Karin. "No. I won't do it. If you want it... you take it."
Karin looked at him for a second, then took the knife and, without hesitation, made a deep cut on her left palm, causing blood to well up, red and bright.
Then Ichigo took the knife from her trembling hand and, gritting his teeth, made an identical cut on his own palm, from which blood also flowed.
They looked at each other.
"Now what?" Karin said, her voice a little shaky.
"The... the vampire fiction," Ichigo said, feeling completely ridiculous. "I guess... we mix."
Karin didn't hesitate: she grabbed Ichigo's wrist and pressed her bleeding palm against his.
The contact caused an immediate jolt.
"Ah!" Ichigo hissed.
Karin screamed.
It was a choked scream as she grabbed her stomach and fell to her knees.
"KARIN!"
"It burns!" she gasped, collapsing to the floor. "Ichigo... it burns... inside...!"
"Crap! Rukia, call Dad! Call Urahara!"
"Wait!" Rukia shouted, pointing. "Ichigo, look!"
Karin was convulsing on the floor, but it wasn't a normal convulsion.
Rukia's transformation had been external, involving bone, armor, and a partial mask, but Karin's was internal.
Her eyes snapped open, and they were completely black; the sclera and iris were a glossy black, and in the center, her pupils glowed an intense ruby red.
"My god..." Ichigo whispered.
A mask didn't grow, but instead she opened her mouth to scream again, and what came out was reiatsu: pure spiritual energy, black and red, erupting from her mouth and throat in bursts of dark vapor and smoke.
Her hands were enveloped in the same crackling, sharp, and sparking energy.
And then, the markings appeared.
Black lines, forming intricate patterns, exploded from her stomach, where she had clutched herself, and spread visibly across her skin, climbing her neck, crossing her cheeks, and running down her arms to her energy wreathed hands.
It was a wilder transformation, less uniform, and more raw.
Karin shot to her feet.
She threw her head back and let out a roar.
It was a guttural, duplicated sound that vibrated the air in the room, causing the glass of water on Ichigo's desk to shatter.
And the instant Karin roared, Ichigo choked.
He clutched his stomach, where the pain, the dull cramp from Rukia's drain, receded.
"Crap..." Ichigo gasped, feeling a wave of warm, satiating energy, the same he felt in the park. "The hunger... it's reduced. It's reduced a lot."
He looked at Rukia, who was pale and absolutely terrified. Then he looked at his sister.
Karin had stopped roaring and was now panting, looking at her own hands, which crackled with dark power.
She turned slowly toward Ichigo, and her voice was a duplicated growl, a mix of her own and something much older.
"I... can... feel them," she growled. "Both of you..."
Her red eyes fixed on Ichigo.
"And... I'm hungry."
"Oh, great," Ichigo muttered. "Now I'm bonded to two violent girls."
"We have to call Urahara!" Rukia shouted, her panic finally finding a voice. "Right now! We don't know what to do!"
"Too late for that."
The deep, feminine voice resonated from the hole in the wall.
"And as always, too loud."
Yoruichi, in her black cat form, leaped onto the bedroom floor and walked right past Ichigo and Rukia, ignoring them completely.
She sat on the floor, a few feet away from the Hollow Karin.
The cat tilted her head, her golden eyes assessing the scene.
Karin, with her black eyes and red pupils, stared fixedly at the cat; there was no fear, only a mutual assessment.
"Hmm," Yoruichi said finally. "Interesting."
"Interesting?" Ichigo shouted. "My sister just turned into a monster! And you say 'interesting'?!"
"Shut up, brat," Yoruichi said, not taking her eyes off Karin. "Yours," she motioned to Rukia, "is bone armor. An external manifestation to protect a Shinigami soul. But this..."
She looked at Karin. "This is a manifestation of raw energy, pure power. Urahara was right. Your potential is different."
"You knew about this?!" Ichigo yelled. "The hat guy knew about this?"
"Urahara predicted the little Kurosaki would be stubborn enough and smart enough to force you into doing something stupid," Yoruichi said. "My job was to observe. And... if things got too ugly, to stop you from killing each other."
"Thanks for the confidence," Ichigo muttered.
"You haven't earned it," Yoruichi retorted.
She approached Karin, who was still vibrating with power.
"Alright, kid. You've had your fun. Time to end this."
"I... don't... know... how," Karin growled.
"Of course you don't."
Yoruichi dug into her own fur and pulled out two objects, which turned out to be a pair of black leather bracelets identical to Ichigo's wristband.
"Put them on."
She dropped them on the floor.
Karin looked at the bracelets, then at Yoruichi, and then at Ichigo.
"Do I trust her?" she growled.
"For now," Ichigo said, "it seems we don't have another choice."
Karin crouched and her sparking energy hands picked up the bracelets to put them on, one on each wrist.
The instant the clasps clicked shut, the transformation reversed.
The crackling energy vanished, the black markings on her skin receded, absorbing back into her stomach, and her eyes flickered, returning to normal white and black, right before she collapsed.
"Karin!" Ichigo caught her before she hit the floor; she was pale, sweating, and completely exhausted.
"Crap..." she whispered, before passing out in his arms.
"It's another reiatsu concealing device," Yoruichi said, as if nothing had happened, "just like Rukia's. It will hide her signature... for now."
Ichigo lifted his sister in his arms and carried her to his bed.
"What have we done?" Rukia whispered, moving closer.
Yoruichi jumped onto the broken desk and looked at Ichigo.
"I want to make something clear, brat."
"What?" Ichigo said, exhausted.
"You just doubled the problem. The 'cramp' went away because she gave you a boost of that raw energy. But now... you have two souls connected to you."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean the drain on you will be double. The 'cycle' Urahara talked about will become unsustainable much faster. Rukia's hunger will return. Karin's hunger will awaken. And yours..."
"Will become insatiable," Ichigo finished.
"You'll have to 'hunt' twice as often," Yoruichi said. "And every time you hunt, you'll light up that beacon. And every time you transform, you'll risk the suppressors failing."
Yoruichi jumped toward the hole in the wall, stopping at the edge.
"Congratulations, idiot. You just tied yourself to another girl, which means you now have two monsters depending on you. And now you have to feed them."
The cat disappeared into the darkness, leaving them alone with the sound of Karin's exhausted breathing.
*****
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