"Ngh."
Karin's voice was a faint moan, almost a growl. She had spent the night in Ichigo's bed. After fainting, she hadn't woken up, until this moment.
Ichigo and Rukia turned sharply. Karin was sitting up, pushing her hair away from her face. She was very pale, but her eyes were wide open and alert.
"Karin," Ichigo said, taking a step. "Are... are you okay?"
"Can't complain," she said, ignoring his question. She looked at her hands. "I asked you for this."
Rukia stood up, her false body moving stiffly. "Do you... remember what happened?"
Karin looked at her. "That I went crazy, got black tattoos everywhere, and my eyes went weird?"
"Yes," Rukia said. "That."
"I remember everything," Karin said. "I remember the pain. And then... I remember the power. And the hunger."
Ichigo rubbed his face. "Great. Now I have to deal with three of us."
"Two," Karin corrected. "You're just the battery."
"Hey!"
"And how do you feel now?" Rukia asked, walking over to the bed. "Are you in pain? The bracelets..."
"They're working," Karin said. She touched her wrists, where the black leather suppressors looked out of place on her pajamas. "I don't feel the energy buzzing. But..."
"But what?" Ichigo said.
"I'm empty," Karin said. "Completely empty."
Ichigo cursed under his breath. "Yoruichi was right. The drain."
"I'm hungry," Karin said, and this time her voice sounded less like her and more like the growl Ichigo had heard before. "Really hungry. Last night's dinner... it wasn't enough."
Rukia shuddered. "Me too. The Gigai... it won't stop asking."
"Great," Ichigo said, slumping against the wall. The exhaustion hit him hard. "We're all synchronized in misery."
"No," Karin said, getting to her feet. She wobbled, but steadied herself on the bed. "Synchronized in need. We have to hunt."
"No!" Rukia shouted, her usual panic returning. "If we transform, we'll be in danger!"
"And what's the alternative?" Karin snapped. "Starve? Let him," she pointed to Ichigo, "get drained until there's nothing left? I heard you. You need this. I need this. And he needs us to do it."
"We don't know how to find one!" Ichigo said. "The last one was luck! We can't just go outside and hope a monster attacks us!"
"Then we call the hat guy," Karin said.
"No," Rukia said, shaking her head. "I don't trust him. Urahara is using us."
"He's helping us," Ichigo said.
"He's studying us!" Rukia retorted. "You're his experiment! And now so are we!"
"I don't care if I'm an experiment if it means I can crush the next creep that tries to hurt Yuzu," Karin said.
The bedroom door burst open.
"ICHIGO! KARIN! RUKIA-CHAN!"
Isshin was at the door, dressed in his doctor's coat and an expression of manic panic. Yuzu was behind him, peeking out shyly.
"Dad! Knock!" Ichigo shouted.
"No time to knock! Breakfast is ready and Yuzu made pancakes! And you!" He pointed at Karin. "You fainted last night! I thought it was post-traumatic stress from the 'giant dog' in the park! But now I see you're fine!"
"I'm fine, Dad," Karin said, her voice returning to normal, but her eyes remained fixed on Ichigo.
"Of course you're fine! Your father's love has healed you! Now get down here! Ichigo, you look terrible! Eat something! You're pale!"
Isshin disappeared downstairs, shouting about maple syrup.
"This is unsustainable," Rukia muttered, once the noise died down.
"He's right about one thing," Ichigo said, pushing himself off the wall. "I have to eat. I feel like I'm going to collapse."
"Let's go," Karin said. "But we're not done talking about this."
The day at school was hell.
Ichigo managed to get through breakfast by pretending to eat, but the truth was it didn't matter how many pancakes he shoved in his mouth, the hole in his stomach wouldn't fill. It was an emptiness that the duplicated drain had created.
"Hey, Ichigo," Keigo Asano said, nudging him in the hallway. "Dude, you look awful. Did you get hit by your dad's monster truck?"
"Shut up, Keigo." Ichigo barely had the energy to push him away.
"No, seriously," Mizuiro chimed in, looking at him more closely. "You're pale. And sweating. Are you sick?"
"I'm fine," Ichigo said, gripping the black leather bracelet on his wrist. The drain seemed to get worse with stress.
"Maybe it's his new girlfriend," Keigo said, nodding towards Rukia, who was walking stiffly a few steps ahead. "She must be wearing you out, huh! Huh!"
"She's not my girlfriend," Ichigo growled.
But Keigo was more right than he knew.
Rukia wasn't having an easy time either. In gym class, Ichigo saw her trip over her own feet twice. The Gigai was heavy and clumsy, and the constant hunger made her irritable.
"Kuchiki-san!" the teacher shouted. "Are you going to throw the ball or stare at it all day?"
Rukia, startled, threw the volleyball. Or tried to. She misjudged the Gigai's strength and the ball shot out with incredible force, hitting the gym's scoreboard and shattering the glass.
There was a dead silence.
"I'm sorry!" Rukia yelled, horrified.
Ichigo just groaned and rested his head against the wall.
Karin was the worst, though in a different way. She wasn't at school, but when Ichigo got home, the atmosphere was tense. Yuzu had locked herself in her room, and Ichigo found Karin in the kitchen, the fridge wide open.
She was devouring last night's leftover chicken, straight from the container, with her hands.
"Karin?"
She startled, spinning around with an almost feral look. Her eyes were normal, but the intensity was the same as the night before.
"I'm hungry," she said, her voice slightly muffled by the food.
"That's... that's a lot of chicken."
"I ate three sandwiches at lunch," Karin said. "And I still feel completely empty."
She wiped her hands on her jeans. "We can't keep this up, Ichigo. You're turning gray. And Rukia looks terrible. And I... I don't like this feeling."
"What feeling?"
"The hunger," Karin said. "It's not hunger for food. It's... deeper. It makes me want to... break something."
"Karin..."
"No. I've decided," she said. "Tonight. We're going hunting."
"No!"
Rukia's voice came from the doorway. She had just gotten home from "school," her backpack slung over one shoulder.
"Karin, you can't make that decision. It's too dangerous!"
"And this isn't?" Karin retorted. "Look at him! He can barely stand! What if we drain you so much you go into a coma? What if we kill you?"
Ichigo shuddered. He hadn't thought of that.
"He won't," Rukia said, though her voice wavered. "But if we go out and transform..."
"Then we don't transform!" Karin shouted.
"What?" Ichigo and Rukia said in unison.
"You don't get it, Karin," Ichigo said. "It's not a choice. The pain... the need..."
"Then we find another way!" Karin insisted. "There has to be another way to 'recharge' that doesn't mean putting on a light show for the Soul Reapers."
"There isn't," Rukia said, desolate. "The cycle is to hunt and eat."
"Maybe not," Ichigo said, thoughtfully.
Both girls' eyes landed on him.
"What?" Rukia said.
"The first night," Ichigo said. "In the closet. Before you transformed. The pain was unbearable. And then... then you transformed."
"Yeah, so?"
"But then," Ichigo said, swallowing, "you calmed down and you bit me."
Rukia flushed violently. "Don't talk about that!"
"No, listen to me!" Ichigo said. "You bit me. And the noise in my head stopped."
"And when I ate the Hollow in the park," Rukia said, understanding, "you felt better. The energy transferred to you."
"And when Karin transformed last night," Ichigo continued, "the cramp from your Gigai disappeared."
"It's an exchange," Karin said, her eyes bright with understanding. "It's always an exchange."
"But the exchange requires a source," Ichigo said. "And right now, we're the source, and we're running dry."
"No," Karin said. "The source is the Hollow. We just need to eat."
"And we're back to the same problem!" Rukia shouted, frustrated. "We can't hunt without transforming, and we can't transform without being killed!"
"Then..." Ichigo said, a terrible but necessary idea forming in his mind. "...why don't we call the only one who wants us to transform?"
Rukia paled. "No. You don't mean..."
"The hat guy," Ichigo said, his voice grim. "Urahara. He wants to 'observe.' Dammit, well, let him observe this."
*******
Urahara's shop was exactly the same. Dusty and full of stale candy.
"Ah, Kurosaki-san! And Kurosaki-san-two! And Rukia-san!" Urahara emerged from the back, fanning himself cheerfully. "What an unexpected visit! Are you here for more suppressors? Or perhaps some delicious soul candy?"
"Cut the crap, Urahara," Karin snapped, stepping forward. Ichigo was surprised by her boldness.
Urahara's smile didn't waver, but his gray eyes narrowed. "My. How direct, Karin-san. I like it."
"We're dying," Ichigo said, getting to the point. "This... system. The double drain. It's not working."
"Not working?" Urahara said, feigning surprise. "But you're all standing! It's a success!"
"Barely," Ichigo growled. "I'm exhausted. They're starving. We can't live like this. We need to hunt."
"Ah, so that's it!" Urahara said, clapping softly. "Yes, yes. You do need to hunt."
"But Yoruichi said we couldn't!" Rukia shouted. "The suppressors! The Soul Society!"
"Yoruichi-san said you couldn't do a full transformation," Urahara corrected, his voice losing its playful tone. "A full transformation is noisy. A waste of energy. It's your Hollow side screaming."
"So what?" Karin said. "We fight halfway?"
"No," said a deep, feminine voice.
Yoruichi, in her black cat form, leaped onto the counter from the shadows.
"You have to learn not to transform," Yoruichi said. "You have to learn to 'bite'."
There was a silence.
"Bite?" Ichigo said, confused.
"The transformation was an act of panic," Urahara continued, picking up the lesson. "It was an uncontrolled reaction to a threat or the pain of separation. But the real Pact... the connection... is simpler."
"Remember the first night, Rukia-san?" Urahara said. "In the closet. Before I gave you the Gigai. You bit him."
Rukia stiffened. "That was... instinct. It was... shameful."
"It was wonderful!" Urahara said. "The Pact isn't about becoming monsters and eating other monsters. It's about sharing energy directly."
Karin frowned. "I'm not following."
"It's a filtering system," Yoruichi said, licking a paw. "The hunger you two feel," she motioned to Rukia and Karin, "isn't just hunger for food. It's hunger for his energy. The energy he has, which is now mixed with yours and contaminated by his own Hollow."
"You need to 'drink' from him," Urahara said, with a crazed smile.
Ichigo took a step back. "Drink... from me?"
"Bite him!" Yoruichi snapped, losing patience. "You have to bite him! Directly! It's the only way to stabilize your own souls without transforming. You take his 'dirty' energy, you process it... and in doing so, you stabilize the system."
"You want them... to bite me?" Ichigo said, his voice jumping an octave. "Like... vampires?"
"Your sister's fiction wasn't so far off, after all," Urahara said.
"That's disgusting!" Ichigo said.
"It's profane!" Rukia said, at the same time.
"It's either that," Yoruichi said, her golden eyes gleaming, "or wait for the Soul Society to come 'purify' you. What do you prefer? A little bite between friends, or execution?"
No one answered.
"That's what I thought," Yoruichi said.
"But... what about the hunger?" Ichigo said. "If they drink from me, won't that make me even weaker?"
"No," Urahara said. "Therein lies the beauty of my prototype Gigai and Karin's new Pact. You," he pointed to the girls, "take his raw energy. You use it to stabilize yourselves. But the 'waste'... the refined, purified energy... goes back to him. You feed him."
"It's an exchange," Karin said, understanding. "We filter the energy."
"Bingo!" Urahara said. "But the filter is clogged. You need... to purge the system."
Ichigo looked at Rukia. He looked at Karin. Both were looking back at him with a mix of fear and determination.
"And... what about the Hollows?" Ichigo asked.
"Oh, you'll still have to hunt them," Urahara said cheerfully. "This 'biting' system only stabilizes you. It's a temporary patch. But for the real 'recharge,' you need an external energy source."
"So," Yoruichi said. "Bite to survive day-to-day. Hunt for the big recharge. And when you hunt..."
"You have to do it fast," Urahara finished. "No full transformation. Get in, 'eat' quickly, and get out. Before the suppressors fail."
"This is... complicated," Ichigo said.
"It's your new life, Kurosaki-san. Get used to it."
"Fine," Ichigo said, feeling dizzy. The double drain was hitting hard. "Let's do it. Let's fix the filter."
"Here?" Rukia said, horrified.
"No," Urahara said, motioning with his fan. "In the back room. I don't want you scaring the customers."
The back room was a giant underground warehouse, much larger than the shop appeared.
Tessai, the giant man, stood in a corner, motionless.
"Alright," Yoruichi said, jumping to a beam. "He's weak. You're hungry. Who's first?"
Karin and Rukia looked at each other.
"This is stupid," Ichigo said, sitting on a crate. "I feel like the food."
"You asked for this," Karin said. She knelt in front of Ichigo.
"Karin..." Ichigo said, his voice trembling a little.
"Shut up, Ichigo, you're making me nervous."
She leaned in. Ichigo closed his eyes, bracing for the pain. He felt Karin's hot breath on his neck, right where Rukia had bitten him the first time.
"Do it," he whispered.
He felt a sharp sting.
"Ah!" Ichigo tensed.
He could feel it. The sensation of being sucked from two sides. Suddenly, Karin's side... stopped.
"Karin," he panted. "Let go."
She growled, a low sound in her throat, and bit down harder.
"Karin! I said let go!" Ichigo shouted, pushing her by the shoulders.
She pulled away sharply, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Her eyes were wild, and for a second, Ichigo saw the black markings dance under her skin, but the suppressors held them back.
"You..." she said, her voice hoarse. "You taste... good."
"Don't say that," Ichigo said, touching his neck. "You're giving me chills, you sound just like Rukia."
But he felt better. Half the exhaustion was gone. The cramp from Rukia's Gigai was still there, but Karin's drain had turned into a feeling of warmth.
"I feel... full," Karin said with a satisfied moan.
"Good," Yoruichi said from the beam. "It worked. Next."
Everyone looked at Rukia.
She was pale, trembling.
"No," Rukia said. "I can't. It's... not right. I'm a Soul Reaper."
"You were a Soul Reaper," Yoruichi corrected. "Now you're part of him. And you're starving."
Ichigo looked at the cramp in his own stomach. The pain was still there, a constant reminder of the connection to Rukia.
"Rukia," Ichigo said, his voice softer. "It's okay."
"It's not okay!" she shouted. "You're a human! I'm..."
"You're my friend," Ichigo said. "And you're suffering. And so am I. Let's fix it."
He stepped toward her. Rukia backed away.
"Ichigo, don't make me..."
"Rukia," he said, stopping. "Please. The cramp hurts."
That stopped her. The guilt in her eyes was stronger than her fear.
"You... it hurts you?"
"A lot," he admitted. "And yours is worse, right? The Gigai's hunger."
She nodded, miserable.
"Then let's do it," he said. He sat down again. "You don't have to bite my neck. My arm. Whatever."
Rukia looked at him, her noble pride warring with her survival instinct and her new, strange connection.
"Turn around," she whispered.
"What?"
"Turn around. I... I can't look you in the eye while I do it."
Ichigo sighed. "Fine."
He turned, giving her his back. "Happy?"
He felt her approach. He felt her breath on the back of his shoulder, near his neck.
"Just... quick," he said.
She hesitated.
"Come on, Kuchiki!" Yoruichi shouted. "Either you bite him or Karin will again!"
That seemed to decide it. Rukia grabbed his shoulder, and he felt the sharp sting of her teeth.
"Ngh!"
It was different from Karin. Karin's bite was wild, hungry. Rukia's was... desperate. And almost instantly, the second drain, the Gigai's cramp, disappeared.
It was replaced by the same warmth he had felt from Karin.
Ichigo relaxed, the relief so intense he almost moaned. For the first time in days, since Karin made the pact, the stomach pain was gone. He felt full. Sated.
He felt Rukia let go of his shoulder.
He turned around. She was on her knees, eyes closed, but she didn't look horrified. She looked... calm.
"The hunger," she whispered. "It's gone."
"The cramp too," Ichigo said. He stood up, feeling better than he had in days.
"Good," Yoruichi said, jumping to the floor. "You have your temporary patch. Twice a day. Or as needed. Don't skip a dose."
"Now," Urahara said, stepping out of the shadows, his fan hiding a smug smile. "The second problem. The recharge."
"Hunting?" Karin said, seeming much more confident.
"Exactly," Urahara said. "And I believe I just got an alert on my phone." He pulled out an old-fashioned phone. "A small Hollow. Two streets over. Nothing big. Perfect for a test run."
Ichigo looked at Karin. He looked at Rukia.
"Ready?" Ichigo asked.
"Do we have to leave the Gigai?" Rukia asked.
"Not this time," Urahara said. "The Gigai is a container. But the 'connection' is strong. Yoruichi-san has a theory..."
"Stop talking about theories," Yoruichi said. "Listen. You two," she pointed to the girls. "You can't transform. But you can 'draw' from him."
"Draw what?" Karin said.
"His weapon," Urahara said.
Ichigo blinked. "My what?"
"Your Zanpakutō," Rukia said, astonished.
"Exactly!" Urahara said. "He's the substitute Soul Reaper. He's the one with the sword! He hunts! You..."
"What do we do?" Karin said.
"You're dessert," Yoruichi said.
"When he cuts it down," Urahara explained, "the Hollow will dissolve. But the energy won't be gone. It will be in the air. And you two... you're hungry for that now."
"Absorb it," Yoruichi said. "Breathe it in. Eat the leftovers. It's cleaner. Faster. And it won't trigger the suppressors."
"Fight and leave them the scraps?" Ichigo said, grinning. "I like that."
"Shut up," Karin said, embarrassed for the first time.
"Let's go," Rukia said. "Let's get this over with."
******
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