Wasnt proud of this originally so reworked this part... hopefuly this one is better than the original, will rework more over the 2 days.
December 28th, 2003 — 9:10 PM
Karakura Town Hospital — Recovery Ward
For the first time, her expression cracked.
Not much—
just a tiny hitch in her composure, like her eyelid forgot when to blink.
"...You know?" she echoed, voice dipping a note lower.
No longer bored.
Now alert.
Now measuring him.
"What exactly do you think you know?"
But before Ichigo could get the chance to breathe out an answer, her head snapped faintly to the side.
A flare brushed her senses.
Annoying—
but manageable.
A Shinigami could handle that one.
She was prepared to ignore it.
Then another pulse slammed into her—
heavier, sharper, carrying the stench of a starved Hollow, dangerous, but not her problem, or at least those were her thoughts...
The flood hit.
Two.
Four.
Nine.
Fourteen.
Twenty—
She stopped counting halfway through.
You've got to be kidding me.
Her jaw clenched hard enough for the muscle to jump, as the pressure in Karakura spiked like a detonated mine.
Spiritual pressure spiked across Karakura like fireworks detonating underground, burst after burst after burst, slamming against her senses with no pattern and impossible to ignore.
Reiatsu signatures began snapping into existence one after another—
erratic, violent, ugly.
Hollows.
Shinigami.
And then more Hollows.
Of course.
Of course this cursed town couldn't stay quiet for five damn minutes.
The spikes didn't stop.
They multiplied.
They stacked.
Reiryoku flooding the grid.
Hollow signatures exploding like ruptured mines.
Shinigami flaring in frantic clusters.
Too many.
Too fast.
Too wrong.
The ceiling lights stuttered overhead, buzzing violently as the pressure warped the air.
Kuga dragged a hand through her hair, irritation radiating off her like heat.
What the hell is happening out there?
The spiritual field trembled—
windows rattled—
the entire floor hummed with pressure.
Her jaw flexed.
Did suppressing that Hollow in the warehouse destabilize the flow?
Did the barrier crack when I forced my way in?
Or is this town just fundamentally cursed?
Her right eye twitched.
Yeah. That last one. Obviously.
She clicked her tongue sharply.
Enough speculation.
She didn't have the luxury for it.
She forced her attention back to the half-conscious boy lying in the bed—
fragile, empty, spiritually silent.
A liability.
A complication.
A deadweight.
A responsibility she absolutely did not want but now had anyway.
Great. Perfect. As if the town wasn't already trash enough.
Still—
she leaned in, assessing him with a colder, more strategic eye.
If he already knows about Hollows and Soul Society, I don't have to waste energy explaining the basics. Good. Less talking, more moving...
And possibly...
Her gaze sharpened as if she were fitting him into a plan he didn't know existed yet.
"If you understand the afterlife," she said, voice softer but far more serious, "then you should also understand why staying here isn't an option."
She stepped closer, shadow falling across his bed.
"Whatever you think you know—"
her eyes flicked toward the rattling window, where blue and red flashes pulsed in the storm,
"—Karakura Town is about to get a lot worse."
Kuga exhaled—slow, sharp, the kind of breath someone lets out when they've already reached the end of their patience
Just the bone-deep irritation of a woman who'd asked the world for five quiet minutes and gotten a supernatural apocalypse instead.
She shook her head.
Focus, Ginshō. Priorities.
Her attention snapped back to the boy in the bed.
Half-conscious.
Breathing like it hurt.
Soul as quiet as a blown-out candle.
Not worthless.
But nowhere near capable.
And unfortunately for her, possibly useful for her and her mission.
...
Ichigo blinked hard, like his eyes were trying to clear water instead of pain.
He didn't understand half of what she was saying.
Didn't have the strength to pretend he did.
But something in her tone — the edge buried under the coldness — forced his brain to catch up.
"...W–worse?"
His throat tightened as the word scraped out.
"What do you mean 'worse'? What's... happening out there?"
He turned toward the window before he even realized he was moving.
His vision was still smeared, unfocused—
and his spiritual senses were dead quiet, an empty void where there used to be a storm.
But his hearing?
That still worked.
And it painted a nightmare.
Crashes.
Distant impacts.
Sirens.
Something metallic twisting.
And then—
A roar.
A Hollow's roar.
Brutal.
Wet.
Ferocious.
"WRYAAAAAAAAA—!"
The sound didn't just tear through the night—
it split it open, a shockwave of violence that slammed straight down his spine.
Ichigo jerked so hard his breath caught in his throat.
That roar—
that sickening, wet, feral cry—
he hadn't heard it in years.
But his body remembered it instantly.
Cold rain.
Mud swallowing his knees.
A mask looming above him.
His mother's voice—cut off too fast.
A Hollow shrieking like something born just to kill.
The memory punched through him so suddenly he could taste the rain and blood again.
He tried to breathe around the sudden tightness in his chest.
"N–no... no, way— that can't be—"
Another explosion rolled through Karakura—
not sharp, but low and heavy, like the sky itself was tearing along a fault line.
The floor shuddered.
The lights stuttered and buzzed, dimming as if something outside was draining the power out of the world.
Ichigo flinched—hard—his grip tightening on the blanket until his knuckles whitened.
He couldn't see the reiatsu twisting outside.
He couldn't sense the monsters gathering.
He couldn't feel the spiritual pressure piling over the city like a collapsing storm.
But he could hear everything.
And that was somehow worse.
The distant crashes of collapsing buildings.
Metal screaming as something massive tore into it.
Sirens blaring, swallowed seconds later by another rumbling impact.
And beneath it all—
Hollow screams.
The screams he had no right to recognize anymore.
His pulse spiked.
His breath hitched.
His fingers curled into the blanket like it was the only thing anchoring him to the bed.
Because that sound—
That awful, distorted, bone-deep sound—
dragged something out of him he'd spent years shoving down.
The kind that doesn't fade no matter how much time you stack on top of it.
A moment burned into him.
A moment of him being...
Too weak.
Too slow.
Too human.
Alive only because someone else had stepped in front of death for him.
Alive because his mother had stepped between him and death.
He swallowed hard, throat tightening painfully.
...Just like now.
Barely hours ago—
when the world had gone cold and heavy,
when the edges of everything started to blur,
when his heartbeat sounded distant, like it belonged to someone else—
He should've died.
He knew that.
Instead—
Someone else dragged him out of that quiet, suffocating dark he didn't want to think about.
Out of that quiet, crushing dark he'd already halfway accepted.
The kind of silence that doesn't feel scary once you stop fighting it.
The kind that waits patiently at the bottom of a fall.
He hadn't wanted to think about it.
Hadn't wanted to admit how easy it had felt to let go.
...How tired he'd been.
Ichigo dragged in a breath like his body was doing it without permission, chest jerking as air scraped its way back into him.
The panic didn't disappear.
It just froze.
Suspended—
like a blade hovering an inch from his throat... yet—
Nothing.
He forced his focus up.
To the woman standing beside the bed.
The one who hadn't hesitated.
The one who'd stopped him from falling further.
The stranger who pulled him out of a place he almost—
No.
He cut the thought off before it could finish.
Didn't let it finish.
Didn't let it breathe.
He kept his eyes on her instead.
He just looked at her.
Dark coat.
Cold eyes.
No warmth.
No comfort.
And yet—
his heart, still pounding, still aching, slowed just a fraction.
Enough to notice.
He was alive because of her.
The realization landed heavy, uncomfortable, like something he didn't know what to do with.
Ichigo's fingers clenched around the blanket, fabric creasing beneath his grip as his eyes stayed locked on her silhouette.
Like if he looked away, the truth might slip out of reach.
"...You..."
The word scraped its way out of him, raw and uneven.
"...You saved me."
The moment it left his mouth, it felt wrong.
Not heavy—
wrong.
Like something that didn't belong to him.
His jaw tightened.
He hated the way it sat in his chest.
Hated that saying it made his stomach twist instead of settle.
Hated that there was no relief waiting on the other side of the words.
He wasn't supposed to be here like this.
Wasn't supposed to be the one on the bed.
Wasn't supposed to be the one breathing because someone else decided he should.
That wasn't how it worked.
This wasn't who he was.
Ichigo had always been the one standing in front—
the one taking the hit,
the one refusing to move,
the one who didn't wait for someone else to step in.
Not since—
His throat tightened before the thought could finish.
His mom.
The only person who had ever stepped between him and death when he was too small, too slow, too human to do anything about it.
The only time helplessness had been forced onto him, whether he accepted it or not.
And now—
Here he was again.
Lying still.
Saved.
The feeling crawled under his skin, wrong and suffocating, like he was wearing a body that didn't belong to him.
He hadn't felt this kind of helplessness in years.
Not since the first time the world had forced him to stay down.
Not since—
Rukia.
She hadn't saved him gently either.
She'd been bleeding, exhausted, barely standing—and still she'd made the choice.
No... She gave him a choice.
The first time he'd felt strong because he chose to be.
And for that debt he repaid not with words, but with blood, steel, and resolve.
Ichigo's fingers tightened against the blanket, jaw setting as something familiar sparked behind his eyes—
A quiet, stubborn resolve.
He didn't know who she was.
Didn't know why she'd done it.
But he knew one thing with absolute certainty:
He would repay her.
Just like he always did.
...
"Yeah. I did."
Her reply came immediately. No pause. No weight to it.
Like she was confirming the weather.
Then she turned away from him.
Just like that.
No checking his face.
No waiting for a response.
She reached for the bag sitting beside his bed and upended it onto the chair.
Clothes.
Bandages.
A couple of personal things he didn't remember packing.
And—
"...Huh. Generous."
She thumbed through the bills with all the interest of someone counting laundry change.
"...Huh," she said. Flat. Mildly surprised.
"Generous."
Generous?!
Before his brain could even catch up—
She folded half the stack and slipped it into her coat.
No hesitation.
No guilt.
No attempt to hide it.
She just—took it.
Ichigo's eyes widened.
"H-Hey—! What the hell—?!"
"H—HEY—!!" His voice cracked, raw and indignant, adrenaline flaring just enough to cut through the exhaustion. "What the hell are you doing?!"
He tried to push himself upright—
His arms shook.
His vision swam.
His body immediately reminded him that, no, he absolutely could not do that yet.
He slumped back with a sharp breath, teeth clenched.
She glanced over her shoulder.
Once.
Unimpressed.
"Relax," she said. "Hospital bills. Transportation. And compensation."
"Comp—?!" Ichigo spluttered. "You can't just—!"
One eyebrow lifted. Slow. Deliberate.
"Can't?" she echoed.
The word carried no heat—just challenge.
"Can't what?"
She turned fully now, eyes sharp, voice steady and unapologetic.
"Can't charge for dragging you out of a stairwell with a cracked skull?"
"Can't pay myself for patching you up and hauling you to a hospital that's about to turn into a war zone?"
A pause.
Then, flat:
"Or can't take money you wouldn't be using if I hadn't bothered?"
Ichigo's mouth opened.
Closed.
"...A war zone?" he echoed, the word tasting wrong. His chest tightened, breath catching. "What are you talking about—?"
She finally turned her head, expression completely unimpressed.
"If you stay here, you'll die," she said simply.
"And anyone close to you won't last much longer."
The lights overhead flickered violently.
The floor shuddered as a pressure wave rolled through the hospital—
not an explosion, not sound—
something worse.
Ichigo felt it in his bones.
Then the window behind her rattled, metal screaming in its frame as a roar tore through the air outside.
Close.
Too close.
His stomach dropped.
She clicked her tongue, annoyance bleeding through her calm.
"Great. They're already pushing into the surrounding blocks."
She looked back at him, eyes narrowing—not assessing his injuries, not his fear—
him.
"Since you already know about Soul Society and Hollows," she said, "I'm guessing you're not spiritually normal."
The word normal landed wrong.
A beat passed.
Her gaze narrowed—not calculating, not curious—annoyed.
Because whatever he had, it wasn't behaving the way it should.
Doesn't feel right.
Too quiet. Too thin.
Suppressed, then.
Or—worse—sealed.
Her jaw tightened.
Typical.
Of course they'd do that. Soul Society never fixed problems—they wrapped chains around them and called it balance. Bind it. Bury it. Pretend it doesn't exist. Let someone else deal with the consequences later.
Cowards, dressed up in tradition.
She leaned closer, invading his space just enough to make the air feel heavy.
"Answer me something simple," she said.
Her voice dropped—low, clipped, mercilessly precise.
"When a human with strong spiritual pressure survives a Hollow attack—"
Another roar tore through the night outside, close enough that the glass shuddered in its frame.
She didn't even glance at it.
"—what happens next?"
She already knew.
She just needed to hear whether he did.
Ichigo's jaw tightened.
"What the hell are you implying?" he muttered.
The hospital shook again—distant explosions rolling through the walls like thunder.
She didn't let him breathe.
"When a human with strong spiritual pressure survives a Hollow attack," she repeated, voice smooth, cold—
like steel sliding free of its sheath—
"they don't walk away unchanged."
Ichigo blinked.
"...Unchanged?"
Her answer came immediately.
"They gain powers."
The words hit harder than the shockwaves outside.
Ichigo's thoughts lurched—then spiraled.
Power.
Chad.
His arm twisting, swelling, becoming something inhuman.
Orihime.
Her hairpins shattering the air, shields blooming where fear should've been.
Ichigo's breath caught.
The realization showed on his face before he could stop it.
"Correct," she said flatly, already reading him. "Humans don't awaken cleanly. They change. And while they're changing—"
Her eyes flicked briefly to the window, to the distant roars clawing closer.
"—Hollows notice," she finished flatly.
Ichigo's heart lurched.
The pieces didn't fall together slowly.
They slammed.
Uryū's bait.
Too many Hollows.
More than there should've been.
And then—
The Menos.
His stomach twisted.
"...You think it's me," he said quietly.
Not a question.
Not denial.
Earlier that day flashed back with brutal clarity—
Claws tearing into him.
That cold spreading through his chest.
The moment the world started to fade, like someone slowly turning the lights off.
He swallowed, hard.
Something hot twisted under his ribs—not fear, not relief.
Recognition.
Because if she was right... then this wasn't over.
Not really.
Something was still there.
Buried. Dormant. Waiting.
And the thought hit him harder than any Hollow ever had.
Because power didn't mean victory.
Power didn't mean peace.
It meant responsibility.
It meant being pulled back into a world that never stopped taking from him.
But it also meant—
He wouldn't be standing there empty-handed anymore.
Wouldn't be watching from the sidelines.
Wouldn't be pretending he was fine while everything inside him felt wrong.
Ever since Mugetsu, it was like he'd been wearing someone else's skin—
walking, breathing, smiling—
but hollowed out where he was supposed to be.
His throat tightened.
"...So," he said quietly, forcing the words out before he could stop himself,
"...I can fight again."
Not excitement.
Not relief.
Just a fact he was bracing himself to accept.
He hated how much he wanted it.
Because it wasn't about pride.
It wasn't about being a hero.
It was simpler than that.
Without his power—
he didn't feel like Ichigo Kurosaki.
He drew in a breath—slow, heavy.
The kind that was supposed to steady you.
It didn't.
"...Fine," he said quietly.
Just acceptance.
And what else did he have left?
He was leaving already...
One way or another.
"Then you better be prepared," she said, turning her back without hesitation. "Because I don't carry dead weight."
She pushed open the door.
The hallway outside flickered—
a single breath of stillness—
Then the red emergency lights slammed on with a jarring alarm.
The corridor drowned in crimson.
It crawled up her coat, outlining every edge of her body,
painting her like someone carved out of violence,
not salvation.
She looked over her shoulder, eyes glinting under the pulsing red light.
"Oh—" she said casually, as if remembering something irrelevant.
"By the way—"
A Hollow roar thundered through the floor below them.
Something huge crashed against a wall, shaking dust loose from the ceiling.
Somewhere in the distance, glass shattered like brittle bone.
She didn't flinch.
She smirked.
"My name is Kuga Ginshō."
...
December 28th, 2003 — 9:14 PM
Karakura Town — East Residential Block
The night ruptured.
A Garganta didn't simply open—
it ripped across the sky like a festering wound, jagged edges pulsing, vomiting black silhouettes into the streets below.
A Shinigami skidded back across cracked pavement.
His breath came in panicked bursts—white fog in the winter air.
Three Hollows closed in.
Not circling.
Not stalking.
Advancing with the lazy confidence of predators already full...
and somehow still hungry.
Twisted limbs.
Masks warped beyond symmetry.
Saliva hissing where it hit the cold ground.
He raised his trembling katana.
"S—stay b—back!"
The Hollows didn't even acknowledge the sound.
The first one lunged.
He swung—too slow.
SHRRRK—!
Claws ripped through his haori, skin splitting open, blood splattering the snow in steaming streaks.
He gasped, collapsing onto one knee, vision blurring.
He tried to rise—
A shadow dropped.
A second Hollow plummeted from a rooftop, jaws open wide.
He forced his blade up—
Steel screeched against white bone.
Sparks burst in desperate, useless flashes.
He slipped on his own blood.
His legs buckled.
"C—captain! SOMEONE—!"
From behind him, another voice:
"Hold on! I'm com—"
A shape fell from above.
No roar. No buildup.
Just impact.
CRUNCH.
The building wall cracked.
The ground cratered.
And the Shinigami who'd tried to help—
—was reduced to shredded cloth and collapsing bones in a single, sickening instant.
Flattened.
Ribs.
Stone.
Everything pulverized under the impact.
The surviving Shinigami froze, pupils shrinking.
A massive Hollow—easily the size of a truck—lifted its head from the crater.
Its mask split down the center, dripping thick saliva.
Wind howled through the gaping hole where its throat should've been.
The Shinigami tried to crawl backward.
The Shinigami tried to crawl backward.
The Hollow closed the distance in one step.
Its jaws opened.
CRACK. SPLASH.
No scream.
No final words.
Just a wet, meaty snap —
and half a Shinigami vanished between its teeth.
The rest dropped to the ground a heartbeat later.
The Hollow swallowed as casually as breathing.
...
December 28th, 2003 — 9:14 PM
Karakura Town — Eastern Housing Row
FWOOOOOM.
Cold slammed into the block—
sharp, devouring, unnatural—
a spiritual frost that cut through the air like a blade dipped in winter.
A Hollow froze in mid-step.
Literally.
Ice erupted up its legs, crawling along its torso like a predator made of frostbite, hungry and merciless.
Its roar choked off halfway—
the sound trapped inside a mask already turning white-blue.
Two seconds.
Maybe three.
KRSHHH—!
The creature shattered into a spray of glittering shards.
Rukia Kuchiki stepped forward through the chill she created, steam rising from her breath, her hand still raised, fingertips trailing lingering frost.
Her eyes were sharp.
Focused.
Unblinking.
"Hadō #73—Sōren Sōkatsui."
The last motes of blue flame evaporated from her palm.
Behind her, the street was a frozen battlefield of dissolving Hollows—some impaled on ice, others sliced apart by unseen blades, others burned to ash.
A squad of unseated Shinigami stumbled toward her, uniforms torn, faces pale.
"V—Vice-Captain Kuchiki! We've neutralized three in this sector, but—"
A human scream tore through the night.
High. Broken. Real.
Rukia spun.
A civilian lay behind a wrecked car, blood soaking into the snow, his left arm missing entirely.
A Shinigami knelt beside him, hands glowing with desperate yellow kidō.
"Hold still! Hold—just—dammit—!"
But the man wasn't listening.
He wasn't screaming about the pain.
He was screaming because—
He could see the Hollows dissolving around him.
He stared at Rukia with wild, terrified eyes.
"Wh—" he sobbed. "Wh—what—what are you—what is—THAT!?"
Rukia's expression tightened for half a second.
"You're on the border," she said quietly. "Between this life and the next. Your senses can bleed through."
The man hyperventilated, shaking violently.
"It... it tore my arm off—oh GOD—my arm—"
From the rooftops—
"VICE-CAPTAIN! Six Hollows incoming from the north—FAST!"
From the opposite street—
"Another Garganta opening!"
From behind her—
"We can't hold this sector!"
Karakura is collapsing.
Her knuckles whitened on her sword.
"Kurosaki..." she breathed under her breath, unheard by anyone.
"...where are you?"
Before she could issue a command—
BOOOOOM—!
A monstrous Hollow landed on a rooftop, shaking the block.
Its claws dug into the tiles.
Its mask glowed with hunger.
Rukia straightened—jaw firm, stance precise.
No fear.
No hesitation.
No retreat.
"Everyone—form a perimeter!" she shouted, voice cutting sharp through the chaos.
December 28th, 2003 — 9:15 PM
Karakura Town — Northern Intersection
Blue light carved through the night like threads of fate.
Uryū Ishida didn't stop moving.
His boots slid across the cracked pavement as he loosed two angled shots—one grazing a Hollow's mask, the other exploding through its eye socket. It dissolved mid-lunge.
Another leapt from a rooftop.
He didn't look.
He tilted his bow by half a degree—
thwip
—an arrow ricocheted off a shattered street sign and buried itself directly under the Hollow's jaw.
Two more dissolved into dust.
But Uryū's expression didn't shift.
If anything—
it sharpened.
Because the fourth Hollow he'd been tracking finally stepped into the light.
Covered head-to-toe in bubbling, blistering, hissing material—like its skin was coated in liquefied acid.
It roared, and the pavement beneath its jaws melted.
Uryū drew an arrow.
"Problematic," he muttered.
He fired.
The arrow sizzled out of existence before reaching the Hollow's mask, eaten completely by the corrosive vapor around its body.
Tch.
He fired again—faster—stronger.
Dissolved.
A third.
Half-melted before it even hit.
The Hollow lunged.
Uryū leapt backward, landing on a leaning traffic light, sliding his feet along the pole like it was a balance beam.
He fired downward—
six arrows in rapid succession, forming a tight pattern around the creature's legs—
but each one fizzled into steam the moment they entered the Hollow's aura.
The creature hissed, acidic drool sizzling holes into the concrete.
Uryū's frown deepened.
"So. Reishi corrosion."
He adjusted his glasses with a single precise motion, bow shifting into a denser configuration in his hand.
"This won't do."
The Hollow shrieked and slammed its claws into the base of the pole—
the metal melted instantly, collapsing under Uryū's feet, some of it even landing on his body.
He jumped, flipping off the falling structure, reappearing on a gas station canopy as the acid consumed the pole behind him.
He exhaled, calm despite the chaos.
"Annoying."
Reishi swirled around him, condensing—thicker, brighter, heavier—until the Quincy bow in his hand vibrated with strain.
The Hollow crouched, preparing to leap—
Uryū didn't give it the chance.
He aimed.
One breath.
One heartbeat.
"Let's test the limits of your resistance."
He released the arrow.
It streaked downward like a comet—
dense enough to distort the air behind it—
slamming straight into the Hollow's torso.
The acidic aura burned away its outer layers—
but not fast enough.
The arrow punched through.
The Hollow staggered—
roared—
acid splashing onto the street like molten tar.
Then—
THUD.
It collapsed, mask cracking down the center.
But it didn't dissolve.
Not fully.
It twitched—
acid crawling over what remained of its body, regenerating patches of melted flesh.
Uryū's eyes narrowed further.
"...Of course you're not do—"
But the Hollow's cracked mask twitched, then snapped upward.
Its single remaining eye burned with a hateful, feverish glow.
A wet, guttural voice tore from its half-destroyed throat:
"A...nnoying."
Uryū's expression did not change.
The Hollow dragged itself upright, acid pooling beneath it, eating through concrete in bubbling pits.
"You... little... blue-light rat..."
It wheezed, its voice grinding like bone on stone.
"You move too fast... too slippery... tch... tch... tch..."
It tilted its head, saliva hissing as it dripped.
"What ARE you?"
Uryū raised his bow slightly.
"That's none of your concern."
The Hollow shriek-laughed, the sound warping the air.
"Heh... heh... just... let me EAT you."
Its limbs elongated—skin bubbling, mask stretching.
"I'm CLOSE—so close—I can FEEL it—"
Its voice rose into a violent, hungry frenzy.
"ONE more soul—one strong one—and I'll EVOL—"
The word never finished.
SHSSSHK—
A black shadow blurred behind it.
For half a second, the Hollow didn't even seem to understand.
Then its torso slid diagonally apart—
upper body falling left, lower body collapsing right—
acid splattering everywhere like boiling rain.
The creature let out a final, confused wheeze—
"...eh?"
THUD.
Both halves hit the ground.
What remained of the mask cracked... then collapsed into dust.
Behind it stood a towering figure.
Tall.
Wild hair.
Eyepatch.
Uniform shredded at the edges—like the battlefield had never stopped clinging to him.
Zaraki Kenpachi rested his bloodied blade on his shoulder.
"Che," he grunted, unimpressed.
"An Adjuchas?"
He kicked the dissolving corpse aside with his foot.
"Thought you'd be stronger."
The air trembled around him—raw, crushing pressure rolling off his body without an ounce of effort.
Uryū steadied himself, jaw tightening.
"...Captain Zaraki."
Kenpachi glanced back at him with a grin full of teeth and danger.
"Oh? You're still alive."
His grin widened.
"Guess that's convenient. I need someone to point me at the bigger ones."
Another Garganta opened in the distance.
Another roar shook the rooftops.
Kenpachi's spirit pressure flared—
raw, hungry—
rolling across the street like a shockwave.
Uryū steadied himself automatically, jaw tightening.
A long, tired sigh slid out of him before he could stop it.
Shinigami...
He pinched the bridge of his nose and adjusted his glasses with practiced irritation—
only to notice the frames smeared with a thin line of dissolved metal from the melted street pole.
Perfect. Just perfect.
He wiped them clean with a cloth from his pocket.
Behind him—
THWIP— THWIP— THWIP—
Blue arrows tore through the rain-choked air, carving straight, merciless lines through the dark.
These weren't hurried shots.
They were precise.
Dense.
Compressed with far more reishi than necessary.
Uryū didn't turn.
Didn't track them.
Because standing this close to Zaraki Kenpachi—
—was like trying to read fine print while the world was being torn apart around you.
The Captain's reiatsu didn't press.
It rampaged.
An unrestrained, feral pressure that rolled outward in violent waves, crushing subtlety, drowning out everything delicate and precise. It clawed at Uryū's senses, rattled his nerves, warped the flow of reishi in the air until focusing on anything else became an exercise in futility.
To Uryū, the battlefield had collapsed into a single presence.
Kenpachi.
Kenpachi.
And still—
Kenpachi.
Even the Hollows felt distant—reduced to static beneath the roar of a living disaster.
As another Hollow lunged from the rooftops.
Kenpachi didn't even look at it.
The creature simply came apart—split from shoulder to hip by a lazy backhand swing, dissolving before it hit the ground.
December 28th, 2003 — 9:15 PM
Karakura Town — Rooftops Above the Northern Intersection
The city shook.
Sirens wailed.
Hollows poured through the streets like starving wolves.
And above it all—
Faint blue motes drifted in the wind.
A figure stood on the edge of the rooftop, coat snapping behind her in long black waves.
A massive cleaver-like blade rested in her hand, its metal cracked, glowing faintly along the fractures.
Her gaze swept the burning district below.
Calm.
Unmoved.
Ancient.
Zangetsu.
Her eyes shifted only when another presence clambered up behind her, dragging claws across broken concrete.
A second figure pulled herself onto the roofline—
white hair wild, mask cracked along the cheek, one horn sheared nearly in half.
Breathing ragged.
Reiatsu flickering like a damaged flame.
Hollow Zangetsu hissed through her teeth, one hand scraping along the rooftop edge as a trail of black, ink-thick reiryoku dripped from her fingertips.
"Tch... this body's still not holding right," she muttered, shaking off a chunk of cracked mask that fell and dissolved into smoke. "Feels like I'm shedding pieces."
Zangetsu didn't look back.
"You forced yourself into the world too quickly."
Hollow Zangetsu scoffed.
Then her eyes narrowed... not at the Hollows swarming below, but at Zangetsu herself.
"...You know," she said slowly, a crooked grin tugging at her split mask, "I never expected this from you."
Zangetsu's expression didn't shift.
"...Expected what?"
Hollow Zangetsu lifted a hand—black ink dripping.
"You. Out here killing Hollows. Sniping them. Protecting people who aren't him."
Her grin sharpened.
"Since when did you give a damn about anyone besides Ichigo?"
A hollow wind blew across the rooftop.
Zangetsu stood perfectly still, her coat lashing in the cold, her cracked blade humming softly.
For a moment, she didn't answer.
Then—
"Do not misunderstand."
Her voice carried the quiet pressure of a glacier shifting.
"I protect this place because he is in it."
Hollow Zangetsu barked a short laugh.
"So cold."
More ink-black Reiryoku peeled off her shoulder, sliding down her side like tar.
"And here I am, thinking you were finally developing a personality."
Hollow Zangetsu flicked another strand of black sludge off her arm.
It clung stubbornly.
Like oil refusing to fall from water.
"Ugh—seriously?" she snarled, shaking her hand harder. More ink splattered, threads stretching and snapping. "How long is this crap gonna keep leaking off us?"
Zangetsu did not immediately answer.
Her eyes stayed fixed on the streets below, watching Hollows break through another building.
Hollow Zangetsu clicked her tongue.
"Tch. Don't ignore me."
Only then did Zangetsu shift her gaze—downward.
To the ink.
To the cracks in her own blade, which looks more like a trench knife more than a sword.
To the stains streaking across her sleeves where the substance clung like living tar.
"...It will persist," she said at last. "Until the seal weakens."
Hollow Zangetsu bared her teeth.
"So—never?"
Zangetsu didn't deny it.
A thin rope of ink slid from Hollow Zangetsu's ribs and slapped against the rooftop, sizzling faintly before dissolving into nothing.
She looked down at herself—at the patches where her mask was darker, as if soaked in ink; at the feathers on her broken wing matted together; at the bruiselike streaks crawling over her limbs.
"Can't believe this," she muttered, making a disgusted face. "Ichibei really did a number on us. Mostly on you, but I'm stuck drowning in your mess."
Zangetsu's grip tightened around her blade—but she said nothing.
Hollow Zangetsu leaned closer, eye narrowing.
"You feel it, don't you?" she asked, quieter now. "Crawling under your skin. Like his name got written into your bones."
Zangetsu's jaw tightened.
"...Yes."
Ink continued dripping from her fingertips in slow, steady trails—thick as blood, dark as void, clinging to the cracks in her weapon.
Hollow Zangetsu snorted.
"Figures. It's you who gets hit hardest by a monk who thinks painting names makes him god."
She used a claw to peel a long strip of ink from Zangetsu's coat.
The tar wriggled like something alive before evaporating.
"Disgusting," she muttered. "I swear—if this crap doesn't stop soon, I'm gonna—"
"Endure it."
The tone was cool.
Sharp.
Final.
Hollow Zangetsu blinked—then scowled.
"Oh, don't you even start with that calm glacier routine. This isn't 'endure it,' this is—"
She slapped a hand against Zangetsu's shoulder. Ink splattered.
"—THIS. Sticking to me. Every damn second."
Zangetsu didn't flinch.
"The ink is a reminder."
"Yeah," Hollow Zangetsu snapped, "that we got branded like livestock."
The wind howled past them.
Ink dripped.
Snow glimmered.
Two spirits stood over a burning city—both broken, both stained, both bound.
Hollow Zangetsu clicked her tongue.
"...Tch. Fine. Whatever. Just—tell me it lessens."
Zangetsu looked down at her own hand, where ink crawled between the cracks in her blade.
"It will lessen," she said quietly.
"...Eventually."
Hollow Zangetsu paused.
Then she groaned dramatically.
"Oh great. Perfect. Love the optimism."
But even as she complained, she moved to stand beside Zangetsu—shoulder-to-shoulder, wings trembling, ink dripping down both of them like shadows trying to reclaim their shape.
Below them—
A scream.
A blast of reiatsu.
More Hollows swarming.
Hollow Zangetsu cracked her neck, claws flexing.
"Alright, alright. Enough talk." Her grin sharpened. "Let's go find our idiot."
Zangetsu nodded once, blade humming with cold light.
December 28th, 2003 — 9:15 PM
Karakura Town — Hospital Exit Ramp
Cold air slammed into him.
Not clean.
Not fresh.
Smoke—thick and bitter.
Sirens bleeding into one another.
The sharp, oily stench of something burning a few streets over.
Ichigo stumbled as Kuga Ginshō shoved the emergency doors open, one hand braced hard against the concrete wall to keep himself upright.
He'd expected noise.
Panic.
Chaos.
What he hadn't expected was the space beneath it all—
that suffocating pause between distant explosions, where the city seemed to hold its breath.
"...What's going on out here...?" he muttered, breath fogging as he tried—and failed—to steady himself.
Kuga didn't answer.
Her gaze kept snapping upward, tracking things he couldn't see, jaw tight like she was counting down something only she understood.
Then—
footsteps.
Human.
Fast.
Panicked.
A woman burst into the street, sprinting hard, glancing over her shoulder like she could outrun whatever was chasing her.
Ichigo's body reacted before his head caught up.
"Hey—! Wait—this area isn't—!"
The warning died in his throat.
The air beside her warped.
Not visibly—not cleanly.
Just enough that his instincts screamed.
A low vibration rolled through the street, wrong and heavy, like metal grinding underwater.
Then—
SHNK—
She was gone.
One moment she was running.
The next, it was as if her torso was severed out of reality.
Her remaining half dropped straight down—
legs folding awkwardly onto the asphalt.
Blood sprayed in an arc that painted Ichigo's hospital gown.
He didn't move.
He didn't even breathe.
His hand was still half-extended toward her, fingers shaking violently.
"...What—"
His voice cracked, useless.
Something chewed.
Wet.
Deliberate.
A slow, crushing sound—like fruit being pulped between teeth.
The air above the body distorted again, rippling as something unseen fed, tearing into what remained with greedy, methodical movements.
Ichigo's stomach twisted hard enough to hurt.
He'd seen death.
He'd seen Hollows.
He'd seen people fall in battle.
But this—
This was wrong.
This was helpless.
A human woman running for her life... erased in front of him.
And he couldn't even see the thing doing it.
"Stop—STOP!" he shouted, stumbling forward on instinct he knew he couldn't back up.
Kuga's arm snapped out, barring his path before he could take a second step.
"Don't," she said sharply.
Not cold.
Not calm.
A warning edged so tight it left no room for argument.
Ichigo stared at the empty space where the Hollow still fed.
Nothing.
No shape.
No outline.
Nothing he could hit.
Just blood.
It fell in thick drops from nowhere, splattering the pavement, running down his sleeve.
That was all he had.
His stomach churned.
Rage burned hot and useless in his chest.
Fear followed close behind.
And underneath it all—
guilt.
They all crashed into him at once, heavy enough to knock the breath out of his lungs.
His throat closed.
I could have saved her.
The thought hit him before he could stop it.
If I'd been strong.
If I could see it coming.
If I wasn't—like this.
His hands shook.
Another drop of blood fell.
His voice didn't come out.
It couldn't.
His chest ached—
not from the wounds, but from something he hadn't let himself face in months.
If I hadn't used Mugetsu...
The memory struck him like a blade.
Black.
Endless.
His own spirit burning away into nothing.
Giving everything.
Giving too much.
Losing too much.
He'd told himself it was worth it.
He'd told everyone it was worth it.
That Aizen being gone was enough.
That protecting everyone once justified losing the ability to protect anyone ever again.
But here—right here—
with a woman dying inches from him
and a Hollow feasting on a body he couldn't even see—
his justification cracked.
If I hadn't used Mugetsu...
His fists curled into the hospital gown until his knuckles went white.
If I still had my powers...
He wouldn't be shaking like this.
He wouldn't be standing here useless.
He wouldn't be watching someone get eaten alive while he stood frozen, blind, helpless.
She'd still be alive.
The grief hit so abruptly it almost made him stumble.
He had made peace with losing his powers.
He had told himself he made peace with losing his powers.
Or at least... he pretended to.
the lie tore itself apart.
This...
This was the reality he never let himself look at.
The world didn't stop needing him just because he couldn't fight anymore.
Hollows didn't stop coming just because he was powerless.
People didn't stop dying just because he'd already done his part.
He wasn't at peace.
He was abandoned by his own strength.
Left behind by the world he used to protect.
Forced to watch everything crumble from the outside, hands empty, heart breaking.
His breath trembled.
If I hadn't used Mugetsu...
If I still had even a fraction of what I used to—
He squeezed his eyes shut, jaw clenching so hard it hurt.
KRSHK—SHUNK—SHUNK—SHUNK—!!
Stone erupted.
Jagged spikes burst up from the pavement beside him, spearing into something he couldn't see.
Ichigo staggered back, instinctively shielding his head as dust and fragments rained down.
A sound followed.
Not a roar.
Not a scream.
A pitiful, collapsing wail, like an animal realizing far too late that it was dying.
It came from the very spot where the Hollow had been eating the woman.
Ichigo's breath caught in his throat.
He saw nothing—just empty air—but the way the dust moved, the way the stone cracked around an invisible shape, told him enough.
Something had killed it.
Quickly.
Cruelly.
He turned—slowly—toward the only person here who could have done something like that.
Kuga Ginshō stood a few feet away, shoulders tense, eyes narrowed at a point above them.
Her expression was a thunderhead carved into a human face—cold, sharp, irritated.
She muttered under her breath, voice low and venomous:
"...useless Shinigami."
Ichigo flinched.
The contempt in her tone was a blade—clean, precise, and cutting everything it touched.
She didn't even glance at the dying Hollow she had just skewered.
She didn't look at the corpse it had left behind.
She didn't look at him.
Her scowl was aimed upward—toward the rooftops, toward the sky, toward the battlefield he could only hear but not see.
Another Hollow roar split the air.
Another explosion rippled through the street.
Kuga's hand twitched once—like she was restraining the urge to crush something.
Ichigo swallowed hard, throat dry.
"...Was that... you?" he asked quietly.
She didn't answer.
She didn't have to.
The stone spikes broke down into small sharp pebbles.
Kuga simply stepped forward, grabbed Ichigo by the collar—
—and yanked.
"Move."
...
December 28th, 2003 — 9:18 PM
Karakura Town — Abandoned Service Road
Kuga didn't stop moving.
Her steps were silent, decisive, unhurried in a way that made Ichigo's pulse race faster.
"Keep up," she said without looking back.
Ichigo tried.
Every breath stabbed his ribs.
Cold air scraped his throat.
His legs felt like they might collapse at any second.
But he followed.
Because what else could he do?
Streetlamps flickered weakly overhead—each one struggling to stay alive against the pressure rolling through the town.
One light buzzed violently, dimmed to nothing, then burst in a pop of sparks as they passed under it.
Kuga didn't flinch.
Didn't even glance up.
Ichigo did.
He looked up at the ruined sky—gray-black, torn open in places, Garganta scars bleeding faint purple light.
Another roar echoed down the street.
Another explosion—distant but heavy—sent a ripple through the asphalt beneath their feet.
"What... what's happening out there?" Ichigo gasped.
Kuga didn't slow.
"Something stupid," she muttered. "And something Shinigami should have handled ten minutes ago."
They turned down a narrower road—quiet, cramped, lined with trash bins and locked storefronts.
The chaos of the city felt muffled here.
Muted.
Wrongly silent, like the street was holding its breath.
Ichigo pressed a hand to his ribs, trying to steady himself.
His steps faltered.
Kuga shot him a cold look over her shoulder.
"Don't stop."
But he already had.
Something had cut through the numb haze of pain and fear clouding his senses.
A sound.
Small.
Wet.
Human.
A wail.
Ichigo turned toward a pitch-black alleyway between two buildings.
"...Did you hear that?" he whispered.
Kuga's face tightened—not with concern, but annoyance.
"Forget it. Keep walking."
Ichigo didn't move.
He stared deeper into the alley, heart pounding.
There was nothing there—nothing he could see—but that cry...
It sounded like someone begging in the dark.
"Kuga... someone's hurt."
"Ichigo."
Her tone went razor-flat.
"If you walk into that alley, you won't be walking out."
He didn't answer.
Couldn't.
His legs felt rooted in the spot.
He thought of the woman.
The one he couldn't save.
The one he should have saved.
He thought of how he froze like a child.
How powerless he felt.
How that helplessness still clawed at his throat.
The wail came again—
shaking, sobbing—
the kind of sound a person makes when they know they're about to die.
Ichigo's breath hitched.
"Kuga—" he tried again, voice hoarse.
"Don't," she warned. "You step one foot in there, and your corpse becomes a snack. I'm not wasting energy scraping you off the pavement."
But Ichigo was already leaning forward—
drawn by instinct, by guilt, by a need so old and painful it lived in the shape of his heartbeat—
the need to protect.
His foot inched toward shadow.
Kuga's eyes narrowed.
And then—
something in the alley moved.
Not a full shape.
Not a silhouette.
Just a shift in the darkness.
A dragging breath.
A wet, shuddering gasp.
Something moving on the ground.
Ichigo's muscles tensed—
But before he could take a single step—
Kuga grabbed him again.
Her hand clamped onto the back of his collar, and with a sharp twist of her wrist—
SHF—
The world snapped sideways.
Light bent.
Air shuddered.
And suddenly—
They stood several feet away, tucked behind a dented vending machine.
Ichigo stumbled, catching himself on the metal frame.
"What the hell—?! Kuga—!"
"Quiet."
Her voice was low and lethal, a whisper meant to cut rather than calm.
She wasn't looking at him.
She was staring into the alley they had just escaped—eyes narrowed into razor-thin slits.
"...Let him go," she murmured.
Ichigo's breath hitched.
"Him...?"
"Look."
He leaned out from behind the vending machine—
—and froze.
A child sat slumped against the wall.
A boy, no older than Yuzu.
Small.
Shaking.
Bleeding.
His breath came in short, broken gasps—like each inhale hurt too much to finish.
One of his hands clutched his stomach; the other scraped weakly against the concrete, trying and failing to push himself up.
He wasn't screaming.
He was past screaming.
Just faint, choking sobs.
Ichigo's heart dropped into his stomach.
This was a child terrified and dying in a dirty alley because Ichigo couldn't do anything about it.
His vision blurred.
"Kuga—we have to—"
"No."
The word cracked against the air.
Cold.
Hard.
Final.
Ichigo spun toward her, anger flaring.
"He's a kid!"
"And he's bait."
Ichigo recoiled like she'd slapped him.
"What—?!"
Her expression didn't change.
"That alley reeks of Hollow saliva. They've marked him. They want you to step inside."
Ichigo stared back at the child.
Small hands shaking.
Blood pooling.
Tears streaking down his face as he whispered—
"...help... please..."
His knees nearly buckled.
"Kuga—he's dying!"
"Yes," she said flatly.
"That's the point."
Ichigo's chest tightened painfully.
"How can you just—just say that—?!"
Kuga didn't look away from the alley.
Not once.
Her eyes were locked on the darkness like she was staring down the barrel of a loaded gun.
"You think I don't know what dying children sound like?" she muttered.
Her tone was low—flat—but there was something buried under it. Something brittle. Something old.
"I've heard plenty. More than you. And that," she pointed toward the alley with her chin, "is exactly why I'm not letting you walk into a trap like an idiot."
She stepped forward.
Calm.
Controlled.
Predatory.
And then—
as if addressing a stray dog chewing on her shoes—
she spoke to the Hollow he couldn't see but absolutely knew was there.
Her voice slid into a sarcastic drawl.
"Seriously?" she said. "This is what you came up with?"
Ichigo blinked.
"...Kuga?"
Ignored.
She addressed the empty air like it had personally offended her.
"What idiot is going to walk straight toward such an obvious ambush?"
She clicked her tongue, unimpressed.
"I mean, maybe you'd catch a Shinigami or two—if they were feeling especially suicidal tonight—but really..."
Her hand lifted slightly, fingers loose, blade humming.
"With the number of you crawling around the city right now, you could just brute-force your meals."
A smirk twitched at her mouth.
"But instead you're pulling this loser-level kidnapping trick? Patheti—"
She didn't finish.
Because the air snapped.
Not a sound.
Not a breath.
A shift—like something unseen suddenly lunged.
Ichigo didn't see the Hollow.
He only heard it.
A horrible dragging scrape—like claws sliding along concrete—followed by a high, choked gasp.
The child's gasp.
Before Ichigo could move—
YOINK—!!
The boy's small body jerked violently forward, dragged across the ground by an invisible force.
His heels scraped, kicking uselessly, fingers clawing at the air as he was pulled toward something Ichigo's eyes simply refused to recognize.
But Kuga was already in motion.
Her expression didn't change.
Her body didn't tense.
She didn't even look surprised.
She simply flicked her wrist—
and her greatsword tore into existence mid-swing, materializing with a cold metallic shum as though it had always been there.
One clean step.
One perfect angle.
And then—
SHHK—KRRRRRSH—!!
The blade speared through the air.
Through something.
The sound it made wasn't metal on flesh.
It was metal on spirit—a grinding, sick distortion that twisted the air around them.
A Hollow scream exploded into being—
high, wet, agonized—
as the creature was yanked along with the child, impaled halfway through its invisible throat.
Kuga didn't spare it a glance.
With her free hand, she reached forward—
caught the boy by the back of his shirt mid-drag—
and ripped him clean out of the Hollow's grip with one brutal jerk.
"Catch."
She tossed the sobbing child toward Ichigo like he weighed nothing.
Ichigo barely caught him, stumbling back with the sudden weight and terrified shaking.
"K-Kid—hey—hey, it's okay, you're—"
FWOOSH—!!
Wind split beside him.
A streak of steel carved through the air, so fast it didn't even look like a sword swing—
just a blur followed by a horrible, wet SCREE—AAAHHHH—!!
Another Hollow wail ripped through the alley, unseen but far too close.
Ichigo froze.
Kugo didn't.
"Run now," she snapped, voice flat and cold as the blade she was already lowering.
"Comfort later."
Ichigo opened his mouth—
"I said run."
Her eye twitched, annoyance bleeding through her calm.
Another invisible mass hit the pavement beside them with a sickening THUD, shaking dust loose from the walls.
Ichigo couldn't see it—
but he heard the last dying whine of whatever she'd just cut apart.
He tightened his arms around the boy.
His legs finally obeyed.
He turned—
"Faster," she growled. "I'm not babysitting two corpses tonight."
Street lamps flickered as they passed—
one dying with a sputtering pop just as Ichigo stepped beneath it.
Another Hollow scream shook the rooftops.
The kid whimpered into Ichigo's shoulder.
Not loud—just a thin, broken sound, like he was afraid even noise might get him killed. Small fingers twisted into Ichigo's jacket, clutching him with everything he had left.
The fabric was already soaked.
Blood—warm, sticky—spread under Ichigo's palm as he ran.
He didn't slow down.
His legs moved on instinct alone, lungs burning, muscles screaming as rain and debris blurred together. He didn't look back.
He didn't need to.
The screams behind him—wet, tearing, cut short—told him exactly what was happening.
He tried not to think about the woman.
Tried not to picture the moment she vanished.
How fast it was.
How clean.
How he hadn't moved at all.
His throat tightened.
You could've saved her.
No—
You should've saved her.
If he still had his power—
His jaw locked, teeth grinding hard enough to hurt.
He hated this.
Hated the way his arms shook.
Hated the blood soaking into his jacket.
Hated that the only reason the kid was still alive—
—was because someone else had stepped in.
Someone else had fought.
Someone else had protected.
Again.
All he was doing was running.
That was all he'd been doing since Mugetsu—
since he burned everything away for a victory that left him empty—
running, pretending he was still someone who could keep people safe.
But he wasn't.
Not like this.
Not powerless.
Not hollowed out.
He tightened his grip on the kid anyway, pulling him closer as the child gasped weakly against his chest.
Don't drop him.
Don't lose him.
Don't let this one die too.
Glass crunched under his heel.
A streetlamp flickered, then went dark.
Blood soaked deeper into the fabric.
He didn't feel strong.
Didn't feel brave.
He just felt—
small.
And as the city screamed around him—Hollows roaring, buildings shaking—
one thought hammered through his skull:
I'm not enough like this.
Not to save her.
Not to save him.
Not to save anyone—
He rounded the corner—
"—gh!"
—and his body locked up before he jerked backward so hard the kid in his arms nearly slipped, his shoes scraping across the pavement as his heart slammed against his ribs.
He didn't see anything.
Didn't sense Reiatsu.
Didn't hear claws, breath, or movement.
But something inside him—
some echo of the fighter he used to be,
some buried instinct older than fear—
recognized danger before he could.
Move.
Ǫ̷̷̷̶̶̴̵̷̸̵̵̵̸̷̴̴̸̧̧̢̨̧̨̡̧̢̨̨̛̛̛̠̱̗͚̫̣̯͉͇̟̹̠̰̬͍͖̪̥̟͓̩͉̮̙͕͍̹̥̗̯̩̙̫͕͖̭͕̹̠̰̝̻̪̳̰̠̭̝͈͇̩̦̥̩̻̮̫̜̗̜̙̗͖̟͎̟̱̜͈̮̼̣͎͍̗̫̝̩̫̟̺̝̠̯͈̺̖͛̊̀́̏͂̑͋̆́̎̇́͆̓̒̇̔̾̒̓̂̿̉̍́̃̌͆̒̽̌̏͐͛̾́̈́̇͆̐͐̽̀̈́̓̌͛̃̿̿͐́̀̆̄͗̈́̓͌̊͒͂́̂̇̀̐̂̃̌͆́͆̓͒̀̀̓̑̈́͐̉̒͂͐̐͆͋͌̕̕͘̚͘̕̚͜͠͝͠͝͝͝͠͝͝͠͝ͅͅ
Back.
T̸̵̴̶̷̴̶̶̸̸̴̷̵̶̶̸̸̸̶̸̨̢̡̧̡̢̧̨̧̢̢̛̛͉͈̰̤̰̪̖̺̻̭͍̬͙̰̙̣̱͕͉̘̣̰̤͖͎̤̬̻͕̬̱̤͕̲͍̜̥̠̼̰̺̮͔̤̘͈͉͈͉͖͎̦̞̠͙̼͚̫̲͍̠̩͓̙̹̱̬͓̹̼͕̯͈̤̼̣͍̥͓͔̬͕̤̜̹̝̥̪͕̜̻͎͖̜̪̘̦̟̥͕̜̫̦͈͍̠͇͓̹̝̖̲̼͎͈̘͍̟̬̜͔̤̱͙͎̯̿̎́̃̇̃̂̅͋͗̃͊̑͐͗́̑̈́̇̒͆̎̊͐̐͂͋͐̈̅͐̋̿͑̔̂͑̓̌̒̀̒̏̊̇̓͌̈́́̒̉̎̄́͒̔̊͊̽̍͒̈́̍̄̔̽̀̇̌̀͊̐͌̽͆̉͌̈́̊̓̅̅̍̆̏̇̽̋͊̀̈́̀̓́́̎̆̀̈́͒̄̆̊̊̾̒͛̊̂͊̅̇̃͑͑͌͌̔͊̈̉͋̆̍̎̅̑̒͐͛̏̈́̾͌̎̔͐͛͌̔̑͆̐̔̀̔͂͌͛͛͌̕̚̚̚͘̕̚̕̕̚͜͜͜͜͠͝͝͝͝͝͝͝͝͠͝͝͝ͅͅ
Danger—right there—
Ichigo's breath caught in his throat.
He dragged the kid closer, holding him tight against his chest as he stumbled backward again, eyes wide, staring at absolutely nothing—
—but knowing.
Knowing something stood in front of him.
Something huge.
Something hungry.
Something opening its jaws without making a sound.
His pulse hammered.
The alley behind him shook with the clash of Kuga's sword as another Hollow shrieked.
She was still back there.
fighting.
alone—
Thud.
No time to think.
Whatever it was—
it was right in front of him.
And it was about to move.
Ichigo thought, as he heard it.
Not the creature itself.
Not the claws.
Not the breath.
He heard the pavement crack under its weight.
A low rumble, like concrete groaning in pain.
...
I am fucked.
Ʀ̴̧͕̬̠̭̃̈̿̍͝.̷̢̹͇̘̩̆̎̎̚̕ ·ᰄ·N
The crack of pavement behind him was getting closer—too close—and every instinct he had left screamed the same thing:
Faster.
Faster—
—or at least, he tried.
Each step felt heavier than the last, as if the air itself thickened around him. The child in his arms trembled and sobbed into his jacket, but Ichigo barely heard him anymore.
All he heard was—
breathing.
Right behind him.
Hot.
Slow.
Right at the back of his neck.
Not rushing.
Not chasing.
Waiting.
His legs slowed.
Again.
Move, he told himself.
They didn't listen.
The street wavered.
The world bent.
Cracked asphalt softened, rippling like disturbed water. Buildings leaned, stretched—and then sank, their shapes dissolving as black liquid flooded the road, swallowing the city block by block.
He blinked.
And Karakura Town drowned.
A whole city submerged under black, soundless water—
Above it, black fire burned—cold, absolute, devouring everything it touched.
Mugetsu.
His chest tightened.
Chains snapped into place around his ribs and shoulders, heavy and unyielding, dragging him down. Each link bit into him like it belonged there.
This is what you chose.
His lungs seized.
He gasped—
but water rushed in.
Like Ink.
Thick, suffocating black ink oozing down his tongue, filling his throat, choking the breath out of him as the Hollow moved closer—
Pain flared sharp and brief, and his knee folded immediately.
Ichigo went down.
Water splashed up around him as he hit the submerged street, chains pulling him forward, forcing him onto his hands.
His palms scraped uselessly against the ground.
No traction.
No strength.
Just slipping.
The child cried somewhere behind him.
Far away.
Ichigo lifted his head, trying to look for the kid—
And he saw them.
Zangetsu stood in the distance, half-submerged in the black water, her cloak dissolving into the same ink that cowered the city. She didn't move. Didn't reach for him. Her presence felt thinner than it ever had—like a memory stretched too far.
She was still there.
But she wasn't with him anymore.
And beside her—
His Hollow.
The mask was cracked. One horn broken. Ink slid off her like oil, peeling away in slow, ugly strands. She didn't grin. Didn't laugh. Didn't bare her teeth.
She just looked at him.
Down.
At the way he knelt in the water.
At the blood soaking his sleeve.
At how he couldn't even lift himself off the ground.
It was understood.
Zangetsu's calm condemnation.
Hollow Zangetsu's feral disappointment.
Two halves of his power.
Two halves he lost.
Black fire licked up their legs first.
Mugetsu's residue—
the aftermath of his choice,
the stain that hollowed out everything inside him—
began to eat through them
the way it had eaten through him.
Zangetsu's coat dissolved into drifting black motes.
Hollow Zangetsu's mask flaked apart into ash white shards.
Both of them—
his strength,
his certainty,
the voices who once carried him through every impossible battle—
turned into reishi dust.
And the current pulled them.
Leftward.
Ichigo's eyes followed the flow, throat tight, lungs burning with ink and water he couldn't cough out.
The motes drifted past him, circling, swirling...
...until they collected against a shard of broken window glass lodged in a collapsed wall.
And then—
only then—
did the reflection inside it form.
Not him.
Not Ichigo Kurosaki.
It was something smaller.
A boy kneeling in the water, shoulders hunched, one leg dragged uselessly beneath him. Blood ran down his forearm, soaking into a sleeve that looked too big for him—like it belonged to someone older. Someone stronger.
Fresh wounds.
Real ones.
The real one.
The boy looked up through wet lashes, face pale, eyes too old for how small he was. He wasn't staring at the monsters in the distance.
He was staring at Ichigo.
Waiting.
Accusing.
With every drifting mote of reishi that sank into the glass—every last trace of Zangetsu and the Hollow erased by the black—the image sharpened.
Clearer.
Closer.
More unbearable.
Ichigo squeezed his eyes shut.
The boy didn't disappear.
I have nothing.
The thought didn't scream.
I am nothing.
TSomething inside him finally gave.
Not all at once.
Not loudly.
Just a quiet fracture—like something that had been holding far too much weight for far too long finally failing.
His breath stuttered.
Then broke.
A sound tore out of him, raw and ugly, shaking his whole body as he folded forward. His shoulders convulsed as the sobs came—uncontrolled, humiliating, real.
Ȉ̸̴̵̸̷̵̸̶̸̷̴̴̶̴̵̷̶̵̶̷̶̵̴̶̷̶̸̸̸̴̸̘̞̮̜̩̓̀'̵̵̷̸̸̷̷̸̶̵̷̶̵̵̵̸̷̴̷̴̸̶̷̷̵̷̶̵̵̸̸̸̵̴̶̵̵̴̵̸̶̵̸̸̶̵̨̩̘͕̮̝̍́͒̿̄̾̚m̵̶̸̶̶̵̸̷̷̸̷̴̶̵̴̵̶̴̷̶̴̶̶̵̷̵̸̶̶̵̵̶̴̷̷̶̸̵̷̵̴̶̴̴̴̵̷̶̶̷̵̸̴̴̵̷̵̸̵̵̵̵̷̸̷̴̷̴̸̵̵̴̶̷̸̵̠̩̥̭̼̖̰̟̦̙̠̻̽̾̅͂̀̐̔͂́̚͜ ̸̸̵̴̵̴̵̵̵̸̸̴̸̴̷̴̵̸̷̷̵̴̷̶̴̵̴̶̸̶̷̶̷̸̷̴̸̴̶̸̷̷̶̨̟̭͕̜̪̪̹͖̜̾͝s̵̶̸̷̶̸̷̴̶̵̴̸̷̶̵̷̷̷̴̷̵̵̴̶̶̶̸̶̸̶̸̶̴̵̷̶̶̵̴̵̶̶̵̴̶̶̵̶̷̷̷̷̸̴̵̴̴̵̶̵̷̷̶̴̸̸̷̠̠̰͎͔̳̟͂́̀̒͊̀̈̋͌̊̉͋͝o̶̷̷̵̵̵̵̷̵̴̴̶̵̴̷̴̷̵̸̴̸̸̴̵̷̶̴̷̶̷̸̵̴̸̵̴̸̷̸̸̶̴̸̷̸̶̷̸̴̴̷̵̴̴̶̶̷̶̸̶̸̸̵̸̸̷̸̵̵̸̴̷̶̴̸̷̶̸̴̴̸̸̧̻̗͎͎̖̺̺͔̖̭͛̃̿̏̈́̒͛̒̇͗̕̚̚͜ŗ̶̵̷̸̸̷̷̶̷̸̵̸̷̵̸̷̸̷̶̵̵̸̶̵̵̴̷̸̷̷̴̴̶̴̸̵̶̵̶̵̵̶̵̵̵̶̶̷̸̶̵̴̷̶̴̶̵̷̷̶̵̶̸̶̴̶̸̵̵̸̶̷̸̵̶̸̷̵̷̶̷̴̵̴̶̶̶̸̛̥̺̟̣͈̗̗̹̝̬̫̌̓̌̅̃̇̒̄̒̌̕͜͝͝r̵̷̷̵̵̶̴̷̵̶̷̷̸̴̵̶̸̶̸̵̴̴̶̷̷̶̵̵̶̸̴̷̵̶̴̶̸̷̴̴̵̴̴̴̴̴̶̸̷̶̶̴̻̺̣̰͕̆͆͋͊͌̽̈́̂̔̔y̸̸̴̷̶̷̵̵̷̴̵̸̶̷̵̴̶̷̵̵̴̴̷̴̸̵̷̵̵̵̴̷̵̴̶̵̷̶̸̶̷̸̷̸̷̸̸̵̶̸̵̵̴̵̷̵̶̴̵̴̸̶̴̶̵̷̷̢͚̙̫̮̟̎̾̉̀̆̽̅̾̈́̓̿̀̂̕
His forehead slammed into the ground.
Once.
Twice.
A third time—hard enough that a sharp sting shot down his nose, the taste of iron blooming across his tongue.
He didn't stop.
He couldn't.
Because every time his skull hit the ground, all he saw was—
Mugetsu.
Black flame swallowing everything.
Everyone.
His fingers curled into the pavement, nails splitting on the cold concrete as he dragged in a ragged, drowning breath.
Something warm trickled down the side of his forehead.
Blood.
Good.
Just let it end.
There is nothing.
Let it end.
L̸̴̷̵̵̷̸̶̴̵̴̵̵̵̸̴̷̸̵̸̸̸̷̴̸̷̴̸̴̸̵e̸̷̵̷̸̷̸̴̸̵̸̴̶̴̸̸̶̶̴̷̶̷̴̶̷̶̸̸̵̴̸t̷̶̸̸̶̵̷̵̵̵̷̶̸̶̸̷̵̶̶̴̵̶̷̸̵̶̵̴̵̷̶ ̸̷̵̷̸̶̸̸̶̵̶̵̸̸̷̸̸̷̷̵̸̶̶̶̸̸̵̴̷̷̶m̴̴̴̵̷̸̷̶̷̷̶̶̶̵̸̸̶̸̶̴̴̶̵̵̵̵̵̷̸̴̴e̷̷̸̶̴̴̷̴̷̶̵̵̸̴̷̵̵̴̸̸̸̴̸̴̴̶̵̶̶̵̵ ̵̴̴̶̶̵̴̵̴̵̵̵̷̵̶̶̷̶̶̴̴̵̴̶̴̵̴̵̷̴̴o̶̵̷̵̶̶̴̷̶̴̶̸̵̶̶̴̷̷̶̸̷̶̵̵̷̸̵̸̸̸̷u̷̷̵̷̴̷̵̵̴̸̴̴̵̵̴̸̵̶̷̷̷̴̷̵̶̷̷̴̸̸̴t̵̷̸̵̵̴̴̷̶̸̴̸̵̷̷̵̴̷̷̸̵̴̷̶̴̸̴̷̷̸̵
The words weren't spoken—not by anyone outside him.
They were branded inside his chest.
His forehead slammed into the ground again—
Harder.
The impact rattled his teeth, sent a sharp crack through his skull—and something ugly tore out of him. Not a scream. Not a cry.
Just a broken sound, dragged raw from his throat.
Then it collapsed into sobbing.
Quiet at first.
Shaky.
Humiliating.
The kind of crying that made his chest cave in, that stole the air from his lungs and left him gasping like he didn't deserve it anyway.
He hated it.
Hated how weak it sounded.
Hated how familiar it felt.
...
It wasn't his.
The reflection was still there.
Kneeling. Bloodied. Wrong.
It wore his face, but it wasn't Ichigo Kurosaki.
The thing in the glass had its head turned back—
and when Ichigo did the same—
he saw them.
The woman from the hospital lay twisted on the pavement, skin already going dull, terror carved so deeply into her face it felt permanent.
Beside her—
the boy.
Still breathing.
Barely.
Too still to be okay. Too quiet to be safe.
Ichigo's stomach lurched violently, like his body was trying to reject the sight.
The air beside them warped.
Something crouched there.
Close.
So close he felt it—
a slow breath brushing the side of his face, patient and heavy, like it had all the time in the world.
The cracked pavement melted into black water, rippling outward as the sky collapsed into ash and burning dark.
Mugetsu.
Not the power.
The remains of it.
The cost.
His mom.
His knees hit the wet ground.
The cracked pavement melted into black water, rippling outward as the sky collapsed into ash and burning dark.
The same fall he never stopped replaying.
His throat tightened, cracked, broke.
"No..."
It left him like a breath.
A prayer.
A child's plea he hadn't spoken in years.
"No..."
Then—
A voice.
Not shouted.
Not monstrous.
Not divine.
Just him.
Cold.
Final.
No.
Everything stopped.
The chains around him—how long had they been there?
Looped tight around his ribs, his throat, his legs—
—pulled tight once—
—and SNAPPED.
His vision exploded white.
Pressure crushed inward and outward at the same time, like his soul itself slammed against the inside of his skull.
And then something surged into his limbs:
No Reiatsu.
Just muscle.
Weight.
Momentum.
His foot hit the ground and didn't stop.
He ran straight into the thing.
The invisible Hollow barely had time to react before Ichigo slammed into it shoulder-first, the impact lifting both of them off the ground. The child slipped from his grasp, falling backward out of the collision.
Ichigo didn't look.
Didn't reach back.
His arms locked around something solid—slick, resisting, wrong—and he drove forward with it, boots tearing grooves through the pavement as he dragged the Hollow away.
A bystander screamed as Ichigo barreled past them.
He didn't turn his head.
The Hollow shrieked—air warping, concrete cracking—as Ichigo slammed it into a parked car.
Metal screamed.
Glass exploded outward in a spray of fragments as the frame collapsed inward, the Hollow crushed between steel and asphalt. The force folded the hood like paper.
And he screamed—
"FISHER!!!"
It ripped out of him like a blade.
Ichigo lunged at the invisible Hollow's position—
Not aiming.
Not thinking.
Just knowing where it was.
His fist connected with something solid.
The impact shuddered up his arm—bone, mask, resistance—and he struck again. And again. Each blow drove the thing backward, metal screaming as it was smashed into the side of a parked car.
Glass detonated outward.
Ichigo didn't stop.
He didn't pause to see what he was hitting, didn't register the shape breaking apart beneath his hands. His punches were blunt, ugly, fueled by something raw and unchecked—no technique, no restraint, just motion layered on motion until the car frame buckled inward.
Something gave.
The resistance vanished.
What remained was a ruined mass crushed into twisted steel, fragments of white mask scattered like broken teeth among the glass.
Silence followed—thick and wrong.
Ichigo stood there, chest hitching, blood sliding off his knuckles in slow, uneven drops. The chains wrapped around his arms and torso sagged, heavy and slack, scraping softly against the pavement as black ink leaked from them and pooled at his feet.
I̷̴̴s̵̵̷ ̶̷̴t̴̶̴h̷̸̶i̷̸̴s̷̶̶ ̸̴̶r̴̵̵e̵̷̵a̷̸̷l̶̵̸l̴̴̸y̶̷̴ ̴̴̴a̷̶̵l̸̷̷l̷̴̶ ̶̷̵y̵̵̵o̷̷̸u̵̷̷ ̴̶̷a̶̷̷r̴̸̷e̴̵̴?̵̷̶
As the world felt quiet, with Ichigo's deep breaths being the only sounds as his head turned around and soon his body followed soot.
His eyes found the child again.
The body lay twisted where it had fallen—small, broken, wrong against the scale of the street. Rain gathered in the folds of the boy's clothes, slid down his cheek, pooled beneath his neck like it was trying to fake breath where none existed.
Ichigo took a step.
Then another.
The chains dragged with him, scraping softly, their sound dull and exhausted—like they were tired of holding on too.
He stopped a few feet away.
Stared.
As the chest didn't rise.
Didn't fall.
Nothing moved.
His knees folded.
Ichigo dropped hard to the pavement beside the child, one hand catching himself at the last second, the other hovering uselessly over the boy's shoulder. His fingers trembled, stalled mid-air, like he was afraid that touching him would make it final.
Rain soaked into his sleeves.
Blood from his knuckles smeared into the concrete.
He didn't cry.
Didn't scream.
Didn't breathe right.
His shoulders dipped forward, spine curling inward, the shape of him shrinking around the small body at his side. The world narrowed until there was nothing left but the child and the space where life should have been.
Too late.
Again.
SWSH—
The air split beside him.
CRACK—!!
A violent shockwave tore past Ichigo's back, close enough that his hair whipped forward, rain exploding outward in a white spray.
He flinched on instinct, head jerking up just in time to see a body fly through his peripheral vision.
Karin ?
Her foot connected with nothing—
—and everything answered.
The invisible Hollow was ripped out of the air and hurled backward like debris in a storm, smashing into the already-ruined car behind them.
BOOM—!!
Metal screamed.
Glass detonated.
Fire bloomed outward, orange and white, swallowing the street for a heartbeat before collapsing into smoke and sparks.
Karin straightened from the impact, boots scraping against wet asphalt as smoke curled around her legs. The firelight threw sharp shadows across her face.
She turned, grinning wide.
"Yoo, Ichigo! Wow—man, it's been forever!"
That grin widened even more, voice loud, familiar, painfully out of place.
Ichigo didn't react.
He stayed on his knees.
Rain slid down his hair, dripped from his chin, ran along the curve of his jaw and fell onto the pavement between his hands. His eyes didn't leave the child at his side.
Karin took a step closer, still talking, still filling the space like noise could patch the hole in the air.
"Seriously, you disappear, everyone freaks out, and then boom—there you are, punching Hollows barehanded like some kinda low-budget action hero. You've gotta admit, that was—"
She stopped.
Mid-sentence.
The grin faltered.
Her eyes followed Ichigo's line of sight.
Down.
To the small body on the ground.
The rain-slicked clothes.
The still chest.
The way Ichigo's hand hovered, useless, a few centimeters from the boy's shoulder.
"Oh."
The word came out quieter than anything she'd said so far.
For once, there was no joke waiting behind it.
She shifted the other child in her arms—alive, shaking, clinging to her jacket—and her posture changed. The exaggerated confidence bled out of her stance, replaced by something tighter. Heavier.
"...Ichigo," she said again, slower this time.
And Ichigo Kurosaki just stared at the child who hadn't made it.
Didn't look up.
Didn't move.
He didn't answer.
—but another voice cut the air apart.
Cold.
Sharp.
Too close.
"Step away from him."
Kuga Ginshō appeared beside Ichigo without a sound—
as if she had always been standing there and the world simply failed to notice her.
She grabbed Ichigo by the back of his jacket, hauling him a half-step closer to her like she was reclaiming something that belonged to her.
Ichigo didn't resist.
Didn't even seem to notice.
Karin turned sharply. "HEY—!"
Kuga's eyes flicked to her—fast, assessing.
Something in her expression shifted.
Recognition.
Artificial.
A Mod Soul.
Her jaw tightened.
"...Fuck it."
The air dropped.
Her spiritual pressure flared—not explosive, not wild—but dense and absolute, like gravity suddenly deciding where everything was allowed to stand.
The rain shuddered.
Karin staggered back half a step, instinct screaming even if she didn't know why.
Kuga tightened her grip on Ichigo—and the world bent.
The street blurred.
The fire stretched.
The rain tore sideways—
—and they were gone.
Just gone.
No flash.
No residue.
No trail.
Only empty air where they had been.
Silence rushed in to fill the space.
A heartbeat later—
FLASH.
A Shinigami slammed into the street, sword drawn, skidding across wet pavement as his eyes snapped wide.
Another followed.
Then two more.
They took in the scene in seconds:
The destroyed car.
The crushed Hollow remains.
The scorched street.
" Ident—
...
December 28th, 2003 — 10:10 PM
Outside of karakura - New ravine.
The rain cut out all at once.
No taper.
No easing.
One step they were soaked to the bone—
the next, the world was dry, cold, and wrong.
Ichigo's feet scraped across loose gravel as Kuga dragged him forward, the sudden change throwing his balance off completely. He stumbled, boots skidding, momentum carrying him a half-step too far—
—and stopped.
Not because she let go.
Because his body refused to move.
The air felt wrong.
Wounded.
Before him stretched a vast, jagged scar carved into the earth itself—a canyon of shattered stone and warped metal, spiraling outward like the impact of something that should not have existed.
Blackened rock.
Melted steel.
Ground glass fused into the pavement.
A wound.
The aftermath of Mugetsu.
This was where it ended.
T̸̷̴h̸̵̷i̵̴̴s̸̷̴ ̶̶̶i̵̷̷s̸̶̸ ̵̶̴w̵̵̸h̶̵̶e̸̴̷r̵̸̸e̴̶̷ ̷̷̵M̷̶̸Y̸̶̷ ̸̶̴w̶̴̴o̸̸̶r̸̷̷l̷̶̵d̷̸̶ ̶̸̶e̴̴̶n̸̴̷d̷̸̴e̶̸̵d̷̴̶
This was where everything burned away.
T̷h̸i̶s̶ ̸w̶a̴s̴ ̸w̸h̵e̴r̷e̷ ̶m̷y̸ ̷r̸i̸g̶h̷t̷ ̶b̴u̸r̵n̵e̴d̵ ̸a̶w̵a̵y̶.̴
Ichigo's breath hitched for the first time since the street.
His shoulders tensed.
His fingers twitched at his sides.
He stared.
And stared.
And didn't blink.
"—Get in."
Kuga's voice snapped through the stillness, already moving. She reached a battered car parked crookedly at the ravine's edge—one that looked like it had survived purely out of spite—and yanked the back door open.
She jabbed her thumb inside.
"Back seat. Crawl forward."
Nothing.
Ichigo didn't react.
Didn't even seem to register the sound.
His eyes were still locked on the ravine—on the hollowed-out center where the earth looked absent, like something had scooped reality clean and walked away.
"KID!"
She shoved him.
Hard.
His back smacked into the car frame with a dull thud, but even then—
he didn't move.
Didn't curse.
Didn't flinch.
Just... stood there, staring.
Kuga exhaled through her teeth.
"...Unbelievable."
She didn't waste time arguing.
Didn't repeat herself.
She grabbed the back of his jacket, hauled him bodily into the car, and shoved him down onto the seat with none of the care usually reserved for living people.
"Move or I'll move you," she muttered, already climbing in after him, but Ichigo remained unresponsinve, as she had to crawled forward first—quick, efficient—then reached back and dragged Ichigo after her, yanking him over the center console and into the front passenger seat like a sack of dead weight.
"Fucking barriers," she growled under her breath, hands already moving. " Fucking deadweight." She finished as she glared at Ichigo.
Ichigo didn't notice as he stared at the scars he inflicted on Earth.
The ravine reflected faintly in the windshield—
that vast, spiraling absence shrinking as the car rolled forward.
Kuga flicked him a sideways glance—sharp, irritated, assessing, as she leaned closer, voice low and sharp, aimed like a knife meant to cut something loose.
"Look at me."
Nothing.
She clicked her tongue.
"Fine. Don't."
A breath through her teeth. "Then listen."
Her eyes flicked to the ravine—The one that let her into this city—before snapping back to him.
"Staring at graves doesn't bring anything back."
Silence pressed in.
"The kid died," she said flatly. "You didn't kill him. And you weren't going to save him."
Ichigo's fingers twitched.
Barely.
Kuga noticed.
"When we reached him," she continued, eyes forward, "his soul was already shredded. Hollows don't just bite flesh. They devour everything."
A pause.
"Best thing you can do," Kuga finished, "is pray he skips Soul Society entirely."
Silence.
Ichigo didn't answer.
He didn't argue.
Didn't shake his head.
Didn't look at her.
His gaze stayed locked on the ravine ahead—the scar he'd carved into the world with a power he no longer had. The place where he'd burned himself hollow and called it victory.
His fingers twitched again.
This time, more.
His shoulders drew inward, like he was folding around something sharp in his chest.
"...It's my fault."
The words came out wrong—not loud, not breaking, not screamed into the rain.
They just fell out of him.
Kuga's jaw tightened.
Ichigo sucked in a breath that scraped on the way down. His hands came up on instinct, dragging across his eyes, his cheeks—rough, clumsy, desperate. He didn't notice the dark red staining his palms. Didn't notice how it smeared across his face in uneven streaks.
He tried again.
"I— I should've—"
Nothing. His throat locked.
He swallowed hard, shook his head, like he could dislodge the words.
"If I'd been—"
His voice cracked, split thin. He stopped, breath shuddering.
His hands rose again, scrubbing at his eyes, his nose, his mouth. The blood spread further, drying tacky against his skin.
"I knew," he whispered hoarsely. "I knew something was there. I felt it. I just— I just couldn't—"
His fingers curled into fists against his knees, knuckles whitening.
"I keep getting there late," he muttered. "Every time I don't have my power... someone else pays for it."
He laughed, a broken, breathless sound that didn't hold even a trace of humor.
"I'm standing right here," he said, voice wobbling. "Same town. Same monsters. And I'm still—"
Useless.
Too slow.
Not enough.
The words never made it out.
Instead, his breath hitched hard, shoulders jerking as another wave of tears forced its way free.
"I don't even know why I'm still—" he started, then choked on the rest. His head dipped forward, black bangs falling into his eyes. "I can't... I don't know how to do this without—"
Without Zangetsu.
Without his strength.
Without the part of himself he burned away.
She turned fully in her seat this time, one arm braced on the steering wheel, rain ticking against the roof like a countdown.
" — Enough. " Kugo snaps as he
"I'm not doing this with you," she said flatly. "Not here. Not now."
Ichigo's mouth opened. Nothing came out.
'Good,' she thought.
"Listen carefully," Kuga continued, voice low, edged with something dangerous. "I don't carry dead weight. Ever."
That finally made his head lift—just a fraction.
Her eyes were locked on him now. Cold. Measured. Not cruel—but absolutely serious.
"So I'll give you the choice," she said.
"Again" She finishes in irritation.
A beat.
"Option one: I kill you."
No drama. No emphasis. Just a fact, stated the same way one might mention the weather.
Ichigo froze.
"Option two," she went on without pause, "you shut your bitch ass mouth, accept whatever bullshit explanation you need to survive tonight, and stop trying to take responsibility for someone who was already dead."
The words hit him harder than any blow.
She leaned closer, voice dropping, cutting.
"You didn't fail him. You arrived late to a corpse that was still breathing."
Ichigo stared at her.
Stunned.
Blank.
Like his brain hadn't caught up to the violence of what she'd just said.
Kuga watched him for a long second. Two.
Her jaw tightened.
"...Well?" she snapped. "Pick."
Silence.
Rain.
Distant thunder.
The ravine yawning outside the windshield like an open wound.
Ichigo swallowed.
His lips parted—then closed again.
No words.
No excuses.
Just a slow, shallow breath.
Kuga exhaled sharply through her nose.
"...Tch."
She leaned back, clicking her tongue.
"If you need something to blame," she said, voice rough but steadier now, "pick something that actually deserves it."
Ichigo's eyes flickered.
She continued, unfazed.
"Blame the idiots who let this town turn into a feeding ground.
Blame the ones who knew Hollows were swarming and still treated it like routine cleanup.
Blame the people whose job it is to prevent this—who showed up late, understaffed, or not at all."
A pause.
Then, colder.
"Blame the Shinigami."
Her gaze cut back to him, anger clearly visible in her eyes.
"That already puts you ahead of the ones who should've been here first."
Silence filled the car again.
Rain drummed on the roof. Thunder rolled far off, muted.
Ichigo stared ahead, breath uneven—but slower now. Controlled. Like he was holding himself together with bare hands.
Kuga watched him from the corner of her eye.
"...You don't have to believe me," she added, quieter. "Just stop stabbing yourself with someone else's negligence."
Another pause.
Then, gruffly:
"Save the self-loathing for when you've actually earned it."
The words landed harder than anything she'd yelled so far.
Ichigo didn't answer.
He stared down at his hands instead—at the red smeared across his knuckles, drying dark in the creases of his skin. His shoulders were still drawn tight, like he was bracing for another blow that never came.
Do I even have the right to hate myself...?
The thought crept in, quiet and unwanted.
He swallowed, after all...
I chose this. I chose to throw everything away.
The engine coughed once—rough, reluctant—then caught.
The sound filled the car, low and vibrating, grounding in a way nothing else had been. Rain ticked against the windshield as the headlights flared to life, illuminating the ravine one last time before she pulled the wheel straight.
"...Hold on," she muttered, already shifting gears.
The car rolled forward.
Slow at first.
Painfully slow.
The tires protested, the frame shuddering as if it were scraping against something invisible—thick, resistant—like pushing through wet concrete.
Ichigo felt it in his bones.
A pressure.
A drag.
A weight pressing in from all sides.
Kuga grimaced, foot pressing harder on the accelerator.
"God, I hate these things," she growled. "Always feels like the world's trying to peel the paint off."
The resistance fought back for a heartbeat longer—
then gave.
The car lurched forward as if released from a fist, engine roaring as Kuga slammed the gas and shot down the road, rain blurring into streaks of light.
Only then did she glance sideways at him.
"Hey," she said, sharp but not unkind. "Wipe your face."
He blinked.
"...Huh?"
She flicked her eyes down pointedly.
Ichigo followed her gaze.
Red.
His hands were still wet with it.
The realization hit a second later, and his stomach twisted. He dragged his sleeve across his cheek without thinking—too fast, too rough—only to smear more of it across his skin.
Kuga sighed.
"Slower," she said flatly. "And maybe use the part of your sleeve that isn't soaked."
He froze for half a second, then obeyed, clumsy and embarrassed, scrubbing at his face like a kid who'd gotten caught crying in public. His jaw clenched hard as he worked, breath uneven.
"...Sorry," he muttered automatically, the word slipping out before he could stop it.
She snorted.
"Is being sorry the only thing you're good for?"
The question wasn't shouted.
It didn't need to be.
It landed heavy in the small space between them, sharp enough to make his shoulders tense. Ichigo stared at the dashboard, fingers curling against his thigh.
"No," he said after a moment.
The word surprised him.
It came out rough, but it was there.
Kuga flicked him a sideways glance—quick, assessing—then looked back to the road.
"Good," she said. "Then stop acting like it."
...
To be continued !
Finally finished the rework, and half of the 4th chapter is finished, anyways uh probs released in 4 days cya!