Well, hello.
Yes, another rework, I hate myself as well. But eh, hopefully I will continue this. So ye.
Hope you enjoy this.
Also if u find any mistakes point them out...
Also join my shitty discord and spam me so that I actually write chapters, ill try to write one every week atleast.
https://discord.gg/MVVKxGET
...
December 28th, 2003 — 9:12 PM
Karakura Town Hospital
Moonlight slipped through the blinds, carving pale bars across the hospital room. It washed over Ichigo's face as his eyes cracked open, bringing the world back in cold shades of silver and sterile white.
His breath fogged faintly in the air.
For a long moment, he didn't move. He just lay there—still, quiet—listening to the soft hum of machines and the distant ticking of time.
He turned his head.
The chair beside him was empty. Not even pulled close. No jacket slung over the back. No familiar silhouette keeping watch.
"...Is anyone here?"
The words barely reached beyond his lips.
...
Silence.
The moonlight reached into the corners of the room, but its warmth stopped before it reached him. It illuminated everything except what hurt most.
A part of him kept waiting.
A part of him knew better.
"...It's lonely."
He said it to the room—but it echoed within himself.
...
December 28th, 2003 — 8:33 AM
Karakura Town Graveyard
The winter air bit at his skin, but Ichigo barely noticed. His breath drifted out in uneven clouds as he stood before the stone.
Masaki Kurosaki.
The name etched in granite stared back at him like a question he still hadn't found the strength to answer.
His hands were buried deep in his coat pockets, shoulders hunched against the cold — or maybe the weight of everything else.
He exhaled, a tight breath. Then, softly:
"...Hey, Mom."
A pause.
"You probably won't believe me, but... I've been to Hell."
A broken half-smile flickered and died.
"I didn't stay long. Didn't have time to," he said quietly. "Got dragged in. Got dragged out, just like every other problem with my life "
He laughed—a hollow sound that vanished in the wind.
"They finally talked to me, you know. Rukia. Renji. All this time... they were just watching. Hiding. Pretending it was better if they stayed silent."
His eyes narrowed, bitterness dripping into his breath.
"I'm not stupid, Mom. Keigo's been jumping out of his skin every time he sees a ghost. Even in class—guy looks out the window and just freezes. Not hard to add that up."
Ichigo's fingers curled in his pockets, knuckles white.
"I kept checking. Hoping." His voice fell to a low, brittle murmur. "Expecting her to show up. Just once. Maybe in a gigai, or— literally hell—just ask Chad or Orihime to pass along a message. Something. Anything."
He stared at the gravestone, his breath trembling like the air itself was too heavy.
"But she didn't. Not even once."
A tear slipped down his cheek before he noticed—falling silently to the frozen granite below.
He swallowed hard.
"I know it was probably some Soul Society rule. Some order she had to follow..."
His jaw clenched.
"But she's broken rules before."
A dark, sad laugh. "Or she could've asked Urahara. Or Yoruichi. They've never cared about rules."
He took a deep breath. Held it. Let it out slowly, like trying to force calm into his blood.
"I... I could forgive that," he said quietly, eyes lowering. "Mostly."
His breath fogged in the air as he stared at the snow gathering at the base of the grave. It was easier to focus on that—on something still, something simple—rather than the storm inside him.
"But what I can't forgive—"
His voice changed then. Hardened. Lost its cracks and became something like steel.
"—is them trying to stop me from saving Yuzu."
He couldn't keep still now, couldn't keep all the heat out of his voice. It crept back in—an anger sharpened by fear, guilt, love, and loss all at once.
"She was in Hell, Mom." He spat the word like it was poison. "My little sister. Terrified. Alone. And every second I wasted listening to their warnings—every second they argued about 'protocol'—she was suffering down there."
His fists curled tight inside his pockets.
"I begged them to let me go," he whispered, voice trembling now—not from the cold.
"And all they did was stand in the way."
Sure he was powerless at the start, but later—when Urahara shoved that weird-ass blue glowing blade into his hands—everything changed.
"At first, I didn't even understand what it was," he muttered, voice low, teeth clenched. "I just remember him talking a mile a minute—something about it being one of his greatest inventions, something about stabilizing spiritual residue—whatever."
His breath hitched, and he shook his head.
"I didn't care. I didn't need to care. All I heard was that it could give me power again. Even for a moment."
And it did.
A flash of memory surged behind his eyes—the weight of spiritual energy slamming back into his body, the overwhelming, suffocating pressure of his hollow screaming beneath his skin, claws scraping at the edges of his mind. Shinigami reiatsu flaring out of control. Rage. Instinct. Terror.
"I couldn't control it," he admitted quietly. "Shinigami powers came back, but so did... that thing. The Hollow. Clawing its way up my throat every time I moved."
His hands trembled inside his pockets.
"But even then—even then—I was ready to go. To fight. To rip Hell apart if I had to."
His teeth ground together.
"And Soul Society still tried to stop me."
The laugh that escaped him wasn't really a laugh—just something sharp and broken that forced its way out of his chest.
"Tōshirō and that other white-haired guy—Ukitake—both stepped in like they had the right..."
He spat the name like poison, like even saying it left a stain on his tongue.
He remembered it vividly. Too vividly.
He didn't even hesitate.
Even with the Hollow screaming in the back of his skull, even with every instinct telling him he was about to lose control — he activated Bankai.
Everything turned black and red.
"...I just remember thinking—"
He lifted his eyes to the gray sky, but they weren't really seeing it.
Move. Faster. Don't think. Save her.
That thought looped over and over in his head — drowning out logic, fear, everything he used to call sense. There was no strategy. No plan. Just run.
His breath trembled. He didn't try to hide it.
"And the whole time, that hollow part of me was laughing," he said quietly. "Begging. Screaming for blood. Telling me I could break all of them—all of them—if I just stopped holding back."
His jaw locked tight. Teeth ground so hard they hurt.
"And I almost did."
Those three words fell heavy — final. A confession, not just to his mother, but to himself.
A heavy silence settled in. Snow continued to fall, soft and uncaring, blanketing the world in white while he stood in the gray between control and collapse.
"...But I still went," he whispered, voice stripped bare. "Even half out of control. Even knowing I could've killed someone by accident."
He lowered his head again, breath steaming as it escaped him.
"Because she was all that mattered."
His voice, once full of heat and razor-sharp emotion, softened — not because he stopped feeling, but because it hurt too much to keep burning.
"And when it was over—when I finally dragged her out of that nightmare, when I held Yuzu in my arms and felt her breathing again—"
The words caught in his throat. He had to force them past the weight.
"...Urahara took the blade right out of my hand."
Just like that.
"Not even a moment to breathe," he said, voice tightening, thin but sharp like ice cracking underfoot. "No hesitation. No explanation. Just—gone. Like I was holding something dangerous. Like I was a bomb."
And maybe he was.
Even now, he could feel it—phantom echoes under his skin. The power of Hell crushing down on him, smothering his Hollow for a heartbeat—
—but he felt it thrashing underneath, like a chained animal pulling at rusted shackles.
Desperate. Violent. Hungry.
His fingers twitched at his side, muscles remembering everything his mind wished it could forget—the surge of raw power igniting every nerve—
—then disappearing all at once, ripped away like an oxygen mask in deep water.
Numbness crawling up his arms.
The sudden vacuum where his soul should've been.
The dizziness—not physical, but existential—like someone pulled the floor out from under who he was.
"I could feel it pouring out of me," he whispered, voice thin and shaking as if the memory itself burned to touch. "My strength. My senses. Every piece of identity I still had left..."
His breath shook.
"...it just bled out."
A pause. Heavy. Final.
"...gone."
The word landed like a blade hitting stone.
" ... again."
Because it wasn't the first time.
...
Byakuya.
The name alone was enough to send a chill through him.
The memory slammed into place like steel locking shut.
He could still see it—the day they took Rukia.
The street. The rain. The world collapsing piece by piece.
Byakuya's blade moved like fate—silent, precise, uncaring.
No warning.
No emotion.
Just a single stroke that severed everything.
His zanpakutō shattered.
His ribs cracked.
His knees hit the ground.
And for the first time, Ichigo understood what it meant to be powerless.
Not just physically.
But spiritually—as if the ground beneath him agreed that he didn't belong.
His sword lay in pieces.
And so did he.
...
Aizen.
That one was different.
He'd climbed. Trained. Bled.
He had power.
He had purpose.
He had become something more than just a substitute with luck on his side.
And then—
Mugetsu.
The ultimate swing.
The final answer.
His victory.
His sacrifice.
A blade that sealed his greatest triumph and his greatest loss in the same breath.
It wasn't Aizen's sword that defeated him.
It wasn't even Aizen's words.
It was the price of winning.
A price so high it stripped him of everything that made him strong—everything that had kept him standing.
His powers.
His spirit.
His self.
Ichigo didn't fall that day.
He was drained—wrung out from the inside until nothing was left.
...
And now—
Urahara.
Kisuke Urahara—the man with the sly grin and unreadable eyes.
The teacher. The guide. The one who always seemed to know the answers—even when he wasn't asked.
He was supposed to be a mentor.
An ally.
And when Ichigo needed him most—when his world was burning, when Yuzu was screaming in Hell—Urahara did what he always did.
He offered a solution.
A blade.
A chance.
And then, the second the fires died and Yuzu was safe—
That same man reached out and tore it all away.
No warmth.
No respect.
Not even a moment to catch his breath.
Just a calm, almost clinical—
"Thank you for your cooperation."
Those words echoed louder than any swing of a blade.
Ichigo had always known Urahara was a scientist. He'd sensed it the moment he learned about the Hōgyoku—that brilliant, terrifying mind working behind every shadow.
But standing there—power slipping from his body, soul flickering like a dying flame—Ichigo understood something far worse:
He wasn't being helped.
He was being studied.
Whatever that glowing blue blade was—whatever miracle and madness Urahara had forged into it—
It wasn't made for him.
He was just a conduit.
A test case.
A necessary variable.
An experiment.
And for some reason—
That hurt more than losing his power.
Because it wasn't just strength Urahara took.
It wasn't just control, or agency, or the last flicker of who Ichigo was supposed to be.
He took trust.
Ichigo had trusted him with his life. With his sister's life. With the last breath of hope he had left.
And Urahara had harvested it.
Dissected it.
Filed it away like data.
Leaving Ichigo standing alone in the cold—
Not just powerless.
...
Empty.
Just remembering it all made his blood burn—like a stove turned on inside his chest.
His fists clenched at his sides.
Anger spiked, sharp and sudden, rising like a wave threatening to break—
—but he swallowed it back with a long breath, pressing his lips together.
"Not here," he muttered quietly. "Not in front of her."
The last thing he wanted was to spill rage over his mother's grave. He didn't want to imagine his emotions weighing on her spirit.
Even if, deep down, he knew how the afterlife actually worked, how ridiculous it was to think he could somehow hurt her ghost with his anger.
But still—
Better not risk it, right?
He exhaled again, long and controlled, trying to release the bitterness... trying to let it go...
But that only brought up everything else, everything that happened after the fight.
Urahara took the blade right after he struck down the sinner and pulled Yuzu out of Hell.
Didn't even give him a chance to scream at Tōshirō or that other white-haired captain—what was his name? He didn't care.
The one who stood there watching, calmly, as Soul Society became a wall between him and his dying sister.
They let her die—even if only for a moment.
They allowed it.
And they expected him to be grateful.
They stalled.
They debated.
They preached protocol like it meant anything while his sister was screaming in agony on the other side of the gate.
And Ichigo—forced still by ice and rules and silence—had to watch.
He didn't even get the chance to be angry.
Didn't get the chance to demand answers or even breathe.
A puff of pink dust clouded his vision—Urahara's last safety measure, no doubt—and everything went black before the rage could even reach his throat.
When he woke up, it was all gone.
His strength.
His senses.
His voice.
He was powerless.
Disconnected.
Isolated.
And the worst part?
Everyone around him pretended like nothing had happened.
No explanation.
No apology.
Not even a simple "Yuzu's going to be okay."
All he got were vague reassurances and empty looks whenever he tried to bring it up.
From what he managed to piece together—through half-whispered conversations and details people definitely didn't want him to hear—Urahara and the Kido Corps Chief—Tessai Tsukabishi—were repairing the damage Hell had caused.
Reinforcing the barriers.
Patching up the cracks.
Restoring balance.
And the more Ichigo thought about it, the more the bitterness twisted deeper.
Because the person who did give him the most information...
...was his father.
The same man who was now seriously testing Ichigo's patience every time he opened his mouth and refused—again—to explain why he was still here.
Why a captain of Soul Society was living in the human world like it was an undercover vacation.
Why he never once stepped forward, not even when Yuzu was taken.
Why he hid everything, all of it, for years.
And it only got worse, the more Ichigo remembered.
His father could have stopped it. Even powerless, even without Bankai, Ichigo still ran headfirst into Hell.
Isshin?
Captain.
White haori.
Had fought Aizen—Aizen—and survived longer than most captains ever could.
Even if he wasn't a captain anymore... he still had strength. Still had knowledge. Still had options.
But when Yuzu was screaming—when Ichigo felt her soul slipping away—
Isshin didn't leap in front of him.
Didn't stand beside him.
Didn't even open his mouth.
He just watched.
Just like the rest of them.
And then—then—after everything was over...
He had the audacity to show concern after the fact.
Ichigo's jaw tightened until it ached, a muscle in his cheek twitching from the effort not to scream.
He stared at the gravestone—at her name—as if staring into the past itself.
"...What did you even see in someone like that?" he whispered.
It was quiet. But there was no mistaking the edge.
"Of all the people you could've fallen for... someone who hides everything, who runs from every truth that matters—why him?"
His breath came out sharp and foggy in the cold air.
"I know I shouldn't say this. I know it's not fair. But I don't understand, Mom."
He lowered his head, shoulders curling inward as if trying to protect something fragile deep inside.
"I needed him. Yuzu needed him. And he stood there like it was someone else's problem."
His voice broke—not into crying, but into honesty he'd never allowed himself before.
"He's supposed to be my father. But every time I look at him..."
A bitter breath. A slow exhale.
He didn't look away from her name.
"I keep trying to be like you," he murmured, barely managing to keep his voice steady. "To protect everyone. To hold this family together the way you did. But you were strong, Mom."
His voice deepened—straining under the weight of the truth he hadn't said out loud.
"Stronger than I'll ever be."
A breath. Frosty. Uneven.
"...But I can't even keep us together anymore."
The admission hung in the air like a confession to a crime.
And the moment he said the words—something in him broke all over again.
Because he remembered.
Not the fight.
Not the escape.
Not even the collapse afterward.
What haunted him most—what he can't escape—was what happened days later.
...
Yuzu recovered.
And Isshin said she wouldn't remember anything.
Ichigo believed him.
For the first time in weeks... he felt relief. Real relief. He didn't want her to carry that nightmare. He didn't want her to remember Hell.
But she did.
It happened without warning.
No trigger. No build-up.
One moment, she looked at him like her big brother.
The next—
She began screaming.
"Monster."
And the word didn't sound like fear of the unknown.
It sounded like she knew exactly what she saw.
She clawed at her chest—sobbing, choking, begging for something to stop hurting. Her voice cracked. Her body seized. Her eyes never left his face.
Isshin reacted instantly—so fast Ichigo barely saw it. Terror written across the same face that once smiled like nothing could ever truly go wrong.
A spell. A binding. Yuzu's arms were forced behind her back before she could tear herself apart. His father didn't say a word—just flash-stepped out of the house with her in his arms.
Karin followed in the next breath.
A flash of movement—no hesitation.
Her own flash step.
And that's when it hit him.
She'd been trained too.
By who?
How long?
Why didn't he know?
All of that shattered against the backdrop of what just happened—what Yuzu had seen when she looked at him.
And Ichigo...
He just stood there.
Blank.
Staring at the wall where they had been seconds before.
No shouting.
No crying.
Just nothing.
As if something inside him had twisted too far and finally snapped.
...
He tried to find Urahara.
He just wanted answers.
Wanted a reason.
Wanted something that made sense.
He walked every path he remembered.
Turned every corner.
Passed the same sign twice. Three times.
No matter how many streets he crossed, how many shortcuts he knew—
The shop was gone.
Not hidden.
Erased.
And for the first time, he wondered if it was ever really there for him at all.
So he waited outside the space where it used to be.
Snow collected on his shoulders.
He stood there in silence, and eventually...
His father found him.
Isshin didn't look surprised.
He looked tired. Almost... resigned.
"Ichigo"
And then the words came. Cold and clean and surgical.
Yuzu would not be able to see him for the foreseeable future.
Not until they "figured out the problem."
Not until it was "safe."
Not until whatever she saw—whatever she recognized—could never happen again.
The same girl who clung to him after every nightmare—now terrified to be in the same room.
And he was the danger.
Then came the next blow:
Isshin and Karin would be staying at the clinic.
For Yuzu's sake.
Ichigo... would not.
He could stay somewhere else.
"I've left some money in your bag," his father said quietly. "Just... lay low for a while. Try to focus on normal life. We'll handle things here."
We.
Not "you and I."
Not "our family."
Just "we."
Then he handed him a key.
To the clinic.
Not as a home.
Just as a door to lock behind him.
And then he was gone.
Just like that.
No hand on his shoulder.
No assurance that it wasn't his fault.
No hint of regret.
Just orders. Disconnection. Finality.
Ichigo didn't even remember leaving.
One moment his father was speaking.
The next—
Silence.
Just him, the empty clinic, and the cold hum of fluorescent lights that suddenly felt too loud.
He moved on instinct.
Upstairs.
To his room.
No hesitation. No thought.
He grabbed what he needed...
No, everything which could potentially remind his sister of him—wallet, phone, a spare change of clothes. A thin jacket. A toothbrush. Not much else. He wasn't planning to stay anywhere long.
Then his eyes landed on it.
The Substitute Shinigami Badge.
Sitting exactly where he left it.
A relic of a life everyone kept telling him to forget.
His chest tightened.
For a moment, he just stared at it—like it was a photograph of someone he used to be.
Then, without thinking, he reached for it.
The moment his fingers closed around the badge, something inside him twisted.
A flash of memory—
Rukia's smile when she handed it to him.
Every battle since.
Every life he saved.
Every ounce of meaning he ever carved out for himself—holding that badge in his hand.
Then another memory layered over it—
Yuzu screaming.
Karin running.
Isshin turning away.
His jaw clenched.
He raised his hand to throw it.
He wanted to—so badly it made his arm tremble.
But the moment he tried to let go—
His fingers refused.
Every muscle in his hand locked.
As if the badge had fused to his bones.
As if his body could not abandon it without tearing something vital apart.
"...Figures," he muttered, voice hollow.
Even powerless—
Even abandoned—
Even stripped of everything—
He still couldn't let go of that part of himself.
He shoved it into his bag with more force than necessary.
Zipper closed.
Door locked behind him.
No goodbye.
He didn't look back.
Not at the house that wasn't home anymore.
Not at the clinic he was told to "close."
Not at the father who chose silence over family.
He walked.
Cold air stung his face. Snow crunched underfoot.
And in that quiet winter morning—
He found himself here.
Where he will be...
His breath escaped in a thin, trembling cloud.
He looked at her name one last time.
Not as a son.
Not as a protector.
Just as a boy who was tired of carrying everything alone.
Ichigo whispered.
"...Sorry"
Snow clung to his hair. His lashes. His coat.
He turned away from the stone.
The stairs stretched before him—long, steep, unforgiving.
Enough.
He walked down to the edge of the steps, where the hill dropped sharply.
Where the concrete was slick and the air was thin.
He stood with his toes just over the edge.
Cold biting through his shoes.
Heart beating like a distant drum.
And then—
He leaned forward
Slowly.
Purposely.
The world tilted.
The sky shifted.
Silence roared in his ears.
No thoughts.
No shouts.
No sudden clarity.
Just gravity.
Just release.
Just—As he was about to do it.
Ready to let go—
"The hell are you doing?"
The voice sliced through his descent like a blade.
A hand slammed against his chest.
Pressure. Force.
A sudden, jarring pull back into reality.
His eyes snapped open.
And standing in front of him—
Was a woman.
Black hair, long and unadorned, fell around a face too composed for the situation.
Snow dusted her shoulders, gathering in the folds of her dark coat.
In her arms, a bouquet of white flowers rested gently—carefully protected despite the chaos.
And around her neck—catching the gray light—
Hung a silver cross.
Not a simple one.
A cross of intersecting lines—an X
She had her hand on his chest, preventing him from falling.
She looked down at him with a frown—not shocked, not emotional. Just... annoyed.
"Are you trying to crack your skull open on holy ground?" she asked flatly.
Ichigo stared at her, chest heaving, mind still reeling from what he almost did.
...
Silence hung heavy between them—broken only by the whisper of falling snow.
The woman clicked her tongue and finally spoke again.
"...Do it somewhere else," she said, her tone edged, almost bored. "Some of us are here to pray for the dead. We don't need someone like you scaring them off."
Her words hit harder than they should have.
Not because of cruelty—but because they made sense.
Ichigo blinked.
He didn't understand.
"What?" he managed, voice low and rough.
A small exhale left her nose. Not quite a sigh—more like she couldn't believe she had to explain.
"You jump here," she said, "and you won't just die."
She nodded past him, toward the graves.
"The souls here?" she said, tone steady but sharp, "the ones who come to visit their own graves?"
She tilted her chin toward the rows of stone markers.
"They'd run. They'd scream. They'd scatter like birds the moment you hit the ground."
Her eyes locked onto his.
"Do you know what happens when someone dies like that? Violently? Alone? Full of regret?"
A beat of silence.
"You don't move on."
Her voice lowered—not dramatic, just matter-of-fact.
"You become a restless spirit. Immediately. Still trapped here. Still hurting. Still hungry for something you'll never get."
She didn't say it cruelly.
Just truthfully.
"And trust me," she added, "it doesn't take long for something worse to notice a spirit like that."
Her brow tightened, just slightly.
"You think dying ends it? No. You'd just be starting a different kind of nightmare."
She finally let go of his chest.
Only then did her tone shift—not softer, but more personal.
More real.
"And what comes after?" she said, looking him dead in the eyes. " You know what the Bible says about people who take their own lives, don't you?"
She didn't wait for an answer.
"I don't care if you believe it. Doesn't matter. I've seen enough death to know something always finds you afterward—call it punishment, call it fate, call it whatever you want..."
She stepped back one pace. Snow crunched under her boot.
"Do it somewhere else," she muttered. "Somewhere empty. Somewhere that isn't full of people trying to be remembered."
Only then did the weight of her words settle.
She wasn't saving him.
She was protecting them.
The ones Ichigo couldn't even see.
The silent visitors, clinging to hope, waiting to be sent on.
She knew about the afterlife.
That realization dropped into his mind like a stone into deep water—ripples, slow, expanding.
She didn't flinch when she mentioned spirits.
Didn't hesitate.
Didn't treat it like superstition or metaphor.
She knew.
His breath caught against his scarf.
Who is she?
How does she know all this?
The way she moved—calm, deliberate.
The way she spoke—like death was familiar, not frightening.
Like she'd seen it more than once and stopped being shocked by it years ago.
His eyes narrowed just a little as she turned away, walking toward the upper row of gravestones with her bouquet.
Is she like Chad? Orihime?
No... her presence felt different.
She didn't stand out spiritually—at least, not to him—not anymore.
He couldn't sense anything these days.
But... she felt present.
Like someone who had one foot in a world most people couldn't even imagine.
Maybe even one hand on the door.
That's what it felt like around her.
Not a spiritual pressure.
Not a dramatic flare of energy.
Just a quiet, unshakable presence, like she knew the world of the dead as well as the living.
It reminded him of someone.
Someone who wasn't supposed to exist anymore.
...Like Uryū.
His breath hitched.
His eyes dropped to her chest—to the cross resting there—
Silver. Angular. Sharp.
Not decorative. Not casual.
An X-shaped symbol.
Quincy.
A chill ran through him—colder than the snow.
But Uryū was the last, wasn't he?
The woman shifted.
And without warning—
She pushed him back.
Not hard enough to hurt him.
Not gentle enough to be called concern.
Just enough force to make him stumble, his heel going out from under him, almost sending him onto his back.
Her expression didn't change.
No fear.
No apology.
Just faint, dismissive disinterest—like he was an object blocking a doorway rather than a person she'd just prevented from dying.
She stepped past him without hesitation, snow fluttering against her coat, her heels tapping lightly against the stone as she ascended the stairs toward the graves.
Well, she definitely acts like that asshole Uryū.
"Who are you?" he demanded, his voice breaking between anger and desperation.
The woman didn't even stop walking.
Didn't turn.
She just lifted her voice—not loud, but clear enough to carry back down the cold air.
"Just someone who knows what happens when people give up too soon."
She didn't say it like a threat.
She said it like a warning—
One he didn't understand yet.
As the sound of her steps faded.
And for a long moment, Ichigo just stood there.
Watching her walk into the graves—
The same ones he had nearly joined.
...
December 28th, 2003 — 8:59 AM
Karakura Town Graveyard
The cold settled around him like a second skin, tightening, biting, reminding him he was still here.
Ichigo stood at the top of the stone steps, eyes fixed on the empty space where she'd vanished.
His breath came in slow, shallow clouds—each one fragile as the silence around him.
He didn't know how long he'd been standing there. It could've been seconds. Could've been minutes.
Then—
He finally moved.
His foot hovered over the first step.
The same edge he'd almost thrown himself from moments ago.
This time, instead of leaning forward—
He stepped forward.
One careful step.
Then another.
Slow. Deliberate.
The snow made everything slick. The wind made everything feel farther away.
Every step demanded attention.
Every breath felt like an apology.
His heartbeat thudded in his ears, louder than the crunch of snow beneath his shoes.
Each stair down was a confession—an admission he hadn't expected to make.
I don't want it to end like this.
He didn't dare look back.
Not at the headstones.
Not at his mother's name.
Not at the place where he almost ended his story.
I'm sorry.
Step by step.
I'm sorry.
Not toward hope.
Not toward purpose.
I'm sorry.
Just... away from the edge.
Away from the silence that almost swallowed him.
Away from the graves he had nearly joined.
Away from his mother.
I'm sorry.
One step at a time.
One breath at a time.
I'm sorry.
And just as he was about to reach the end. Where he would have been.
I'm sorr-
9:00 AM.
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
The sound cut through his thoughts like a razor.
For a second—just one second—Ichigo froze.
That sound didn't belong here.
It didn't belong anywhere anymore.
His hand moved on instinct, digging into the inner pocket of his coat—
His fingers brushed cold wood.
Not his phone.
Not a watch.
The badge.
The Substitute Shinigami Badge.
The one that hadn't made a sound since Mugetsu stole everything he was.
It vibrated sharply against his palm, beeping again and again, mechanical and urgent, like something was tearing its way through static.
Ichigo's breath hitched.
This isn't real.
The badge shouldn't work.
He had no reiatsu. No authority. No right to hear it.
So why—now—after all this time—
Why is it—
The thought never finished.
A crushing weight slammed into his right side—
Fast.
Violent.
There was no warning.
No sound of approach.
No flare of spiritual pressure.
Just impact.
His breath ripped out of him as his body was hurled sideways.
The world spun—snow, stone, sky, all blurring together.
His shoulder struck the icy stone first.
Then his ribs.
Then his skull—pain blooming white behind his eyes like lightning in the dark.
He hit the flat earth hard, momentum dragging him across frozen concrete until the back of his arm scraped against a raised edge of stone.
His hand shot out—desperate—and found the cold curve of a gravestone, fingers clawing into its chipped surface.
That was the only thing that stopped him from sliding further.
The only thing that kept him from cracking his head against the next slab of marble.
For a moment—everything was still.
No shouts.
No footsteps.
Not even wind.
Just the too-loud ringing in his ears and the wet rattle of his own breath.
His vision pulsed in and out of focus.
All around him—
Rows of graves.
Silent.
Watching.
Like every name carved into stone was leaning in to see if he would rise—
or stay down.
And somewhere behind that ringing—
Like a heartbeat under ice—
Was the sound he'd forgotten.
BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP
The badge.
Still screaming.
Still alive.
Just like him—
for now.
He tasted blood in his mouth.
He forced himself to breathe.
To move.
Because whatever had hit him... was still ther—
Crunch.
Not snow.
Not stone.
Bone.
Something hard, wet, and deliberate—grinding between teeth that weren't supposed to exist.
His muscles locked.
Not from the fall.
From the sound.
Then the pain hit—sharp and jagged, lancing through his side before his mind could even register its source.
He inhaled sharply—and the air turned to knives in his lungs.
Attached to him.
Not human.
Not even alive.
But hollow.
—and then it tightened its bite.
Anchoring.
Pinning him.
Preventing escape.
His back arched off the frozen stone, breath breaking in shards through his throat.
He tried to scream—
but it didn't come.
There was only silence.
Not because he chose it.
Because he couldn't.
The world narrowed to pain—sharp, pulsing, jagged—and the white edges of his vision began to melt inward, like the corners of the sky were caving in.
...Not like this, he tried to say, but it was barely a whisper. Barely a thought.
I'm dying.
The realization didn't thunder through him.
It sank.
Quiet. Heavy. Cold.
Of all things—after everything—
It wasn't Aizen's blade.
Wasn't Byakuya's strike.
Wasn't the price of Mugetsu.
It was this.
Some nameless hollow in a graveyard.
Not even worth remembering.
And maybe that broke him more than the pain.
He felt his fingers twitch—just once—reaching for strength that used to be there.
Zangetsu.
Anything.
But all he felt was snow.
Cold.
Bone.
Dark sinking in like water.
I... don't want to go... he thought.
The thought was raw—barely formed—more instinct than language. A primal plea dragged up from the part of him still clinging to life.
His vision flickered.
Once—
A flash of gray sky.
Twice—
A blur of white gravestones.
Then—
Darkness.
Not the kind that came from fading consciousness.
Not the kind that welcomed death.
This darkness moved.
Soft. Flowing. Alive.
Like ink poured across the world.
Like shadows falling with intent.
...
December 28th, 2003 — 8:55 AM
Karakura Town Graveyard
Darkness.
Not the kind born from death.
But the kind drawn by purpose.
Hair—black as a spill of midnight ink—fell like a curtain as she stepped through the graves. It moved with her, as if carried by a wind only it could feel, brushing across stone, drifting like a silent sentinel through the frost-drenched air.
She paused.
Just ahead—three rows in—
was the grave she'd been avoiding for years.
Her steps slowed, careful but unafraid. The snow crunched under her boots, muffled by the thick, leather soles. Cold air nipped at her skin, but it didn't bite as hard as the guilt.
When she finally reached the marker, she just... stared.
The name stared back at her like a judgment.
Kūgo Hana
A name she hadn't spoken aloud since the day she walked away from it.
"...Hey," she said, voice low, breath barely rising in the cold.
Her fingers drifted up and brushed snow from the engraved letters. Slow. Gentle. Like she was afraid they might crumble.
"...Sorry."
The word came out quieter than she meant. Heavier too.
"I know," she murmured, sinking down beside the gravestone. She rested the flowers she brought—white lilies, the only ones she could find this time of year. "It's been... long. Too long."
A hollow laugh scraped behind her teeth.
"I got caught up. Work. Survival. People needing something from me all the time. You'd think at some point I'd be allowed a break," she said, eyes softening, "but that's never how things go, is it?"
Her voice was steady.
Not emotionless.
Just... practiced.
Like someone who'd learned not to crack no matter how deep the fracture ran.
"You'd probably tell me I'm doing fine anyway. That I always was. That I didn't have to prove anything," she said, brushing the snow from the base of the grave. "You were like that. Too kind. Too patient for someone like me."
A quiet breath.
A long exhale.
"I'm still making a mess of things," she admitted. "Still don't know when to stop. Still can't trust anyone. Still won't let anyone trust me."
She paused.
Then, softer—barely above a whisper:
"...And I still miss you."
The cold didn't bother her. The silence didn't scare her. She'd lived in both for too long.
But this?
Grief you try to ignore for years and then look in the face again?
It hurt differently.
She looked down at her hand—a pale thumb brushing over the X-shaped silver cross hanging at her neck.
"What would you say if you saw me now?" she asked, bitter smile tugging at her mouth. "Would you call me a sinner? A hypocrite? A liar?"
She shook her head.
"No. You'd just hold my shoulders like I broke something important and tell me it's okay. Even if it's not."
Snowflakes settled in her hair, caught in the dark strands like stray stars.
"I'm trying," she whispered, closing her eyes. "I swear I'm trying."
Silence.
Only the sound of wind moving through stone.
Then—
She felt it.
A hollowed-out roar. A hunger that echoed between worlds. The faint scent of spiritual distortion.
"...Shit."
She didn't gasp.
Didn't panic.
She simply turned—eyes sharpened, narrowing toward the stairway.
She was already moving.
Not running—
striding with purpose, snow exploding beneath each step like gunshots in the quiet morning.
She clicked her tongue.
I should've just hypnotized him and forced him down the stairs...
A beat.
Never mind.
Because the boy she'd assumed had thrown himself off the ledge—
was alive.
Barely.
Pinned beneath a hollow that was already trying to tear a chunk out of him.
And worse—
He wasn't even struggling.
Just gasping like someone too tired to fight death one more time.
Her eyes hardened.
"Pathetic timing," she muttered.
Then—
Green light.
A sigil-flash burned under her feet, and the world snapped sideways.
In the space of a blink—
she was beside the hollow.
No shout.
No dramatic callout.
Just steel.
A greatsword—eight feet long, broad as a coffin lid—materialized in her hand, its guard a razor-lined X of silver.
The hollow's mask didn't even crack—
It burst.
A clean, brutal impalement straight through its faceplate, green particles scattering like fireflies in the air.
The monster evaporated before it even understood it had died.
The weight holding Ichigo down vanished.
His body slid off the broken stone, collapsing onto the snow-coated ground—limp, breath ragged, blood smearing the frost beneath him.
She didn't look impressed.
"Great," she said flatly, sword dissolving into green light. "I leave you alone for five minutes, and you almost get eaten."
She stepped forward—
Not gently.
Not kindly.
Just like someone who dealt with corpses often enough that saving one was an inconvenience.
She reached him in three measured steps, the wet sound of his breathing cutting through the stillness. Blood leaked through his coat in slow, steady pulses, staining the snow beneath him.
Her expression didn't change.
She crouched beside him with the same care someone might give to inspecting a broken tool.
"Unbelievable," she muttered, brushing back his hair with two gloved fingers just enough to see his face clearly. "You pick the worst place to die, and still manage to get interrupted."
Ichigo didn't respond.
Didn't even flinch.
Just lay there—eyes dull, breath hitching, skin already losing warmth.
She let out a low, tired breath and placed her palm over the torn side of his coat.
Kaido.
Mint-green light pooled beneath her hand, brightening slowly—like a candle's glow struggling against a storm.
It flickered.
Faltered.
She focused. Tried again.
"...Come on."
The light pulsed but didn't sink in.
Didn't stitch.
Didn't flood the wound with reishi like it was supposed to.
It just hovered—useless.
"I swear," she muttered under her breath. "I need the practice for this stupid technique anyway, and out of all people to waste my time on—"
The light died.
Her hand dropped.
She clicked her tongue in annoyance.
"...Why am I even trying?"
She stood halfway, eyes closing for a brief moment.
"He was about to kill himself anyway," she said flatly, almost as if reminding herself. "No point saving someone who already picked their ending."
Her gaze drifted to the blood-smeared snow, to the kid who didn't fight, didn't scream, didn't even resist.
Just accepted it.
The thought almost made her scoff.
Almost.
And then—
Her eyes snapped open.
Because something was... wrong.
Very wrong.
She watched as something white began to creep from the torn flesh—slow at first, then faster, rising like a living substance.
Bone-like.
Hollow-like.
It curled out of the missing chunk of his side—
forming, spreading, filling the wound with unnatural structure like ribs growing in real time.
"... No way."
Her voice wasn't flat this time.
It was low.
And sharp.
Her eyes narrowed, every instinct in her going still.
"Lucky," she muttered under her breath... then clicked her tongue. "Yeah. Let's call it that."
Not grace.
Not fate.
Just luck.
Cheap, undeserved, inconvenient luck.
She stepped forward, grabbed his collar, and hauled him upright. Not gently. Not carefully. Just fast and with the strength of someone who had dragged corpses before—and expected them to stay that way.
His weight slumped against her, heavy and awkward. His head tipped against her shoulder, blood seeping steadily from the torn fabric into her coat.
She didn't flinch.
Didn't hover.
Didn't offer comfort.
Just adjusted her grip—
—and moved.
And Karakura Town was lit up with green flashes.
...
December 28th, 2003 — 9:15 AM
Karakura Town Hospital.
December 28th, 2003 — 9:15 AM
Karakura Town Hospital — Emergency Surgical Ward
The room was a storm of motion.
"Clamp—now!"
"BP's dropping!"
"We're losing him—get another line in!"
Surgical lights burned like small suns overhead, stark and unblinking, illuminating everything in brutal clarity. Steel gleamed. Gloves snapped. The scent of blood, antiseptic and adrenaline clashed in the air.
And amidst the chaos—she stood.
A black coat, still damp with snow and blood. Hair like midnight still clung to her shoulders. She took up a place against the tiled wall—silent, untouched, unnoticed.
Doctors pushed past her without a word. She didn't react.
Her eyes never left the table.
Never left him.
Where the child lay beneath the lights—bare skin pale beneath the surgical drapes. Gauze stained red. Instruments exchanging hands in frantic rhythm. Nurses calling numbers that sounded too low. Monitors screaming alarms.
But her attention was locked on one thing.
That wound.
Where bone shouldn't have been.
Where bone was.
Not growing, not healing—constructing. Almost like something else was doing the work. Something that wasn't medical. Something that wasn't human.
She watched the doctors shove gauze deeper, cauterize edges that tried to close in real time. Watched their confusion peeling through every movement.
—he's stabilizing, but... how?"
"No time, we need to—"
"Pressure's rising again—prep more blood!"
Not one of them questioned the impossible. Not one lifted their eyes toward her to ask where she came from, how she arrived, or why she wasn't a nurse, a relative, or even supposed to be here.
She might as well have been a shadow—just another shape, taking up space against the wall.
Her eyes narrowed—cold, sharp, and calculating.
And then—she felt it.
A shift in the air. A pulse beneath skin and steel.
Like pressure building beneath the earth before an eruption.
Her fingers moved before thought did—rising to the X-shaped cross resting over her chest.
And with a whisper of reishi—
SCHNKT—
—a towering greatsword materialized into her hand, green light pulsing down its length, humming like a released breath held too long.
She raised it.
Prepared to cut.
Because something was moving.
Something wrong.
It started as a twitch beneath the drapes, beneath the surgeons' hands. The doctors paused—not because they sensed it, but because they felt something shift in their grip.
Then came the sound.
Not human.
Not surgical.
Crack.
White.
And Black.
A jagged eruption tore through Ichigo's shoulder, not like a wound, but like a birth.
Something slid out of him—not blood, not flesh—
but bone.
Bone that pulsed like muscle. Bone that stretched and rippled like molten wax cooling into shape. Bone that dripped black ichor like oil from a cracked engine.
It spilled over the surgical table, gathering mass as it fell and—
A Hollow.
—and roared.
One moment the surgeons were leaning over Ichigo—hands steady, voices sharp, tools glinting under surgical light.
The next—
BOOM.
They were gone.
Bodies lifted and flung backward as if a giant hand had swept through the air.
Metal trays crashed. Instruments scattered across the floor in a glittering explosion.
The doctors and nurses were flung towards the wall, but didn't get hit as they stoped mid air
Because they stopped mid-air.
Frozen. Suspended. Weightless.
Held in place by a soft, shimmering green light—like the world itself paused around them.
And then—slowly, gently—they were lowered back to the ground.
Unseen by them, the world had already split in two.
The surgeons straightened their coats, picked up fallen instruments, and moved back to their stations in a dazed, automatic rhythm. The anesthesiologist checked the IV. A nurse adjusted the heart monitor. Someone muttered about stabilizing vitals.
As if nothing had happened.
As if the room hadn't just ruptured around them.
As if there wasn't a monster crouched in the middle of the floor.
In the other world—the one they couldn't see—
that monster was still forming.
White and black bled together as the Hollow's body continued to grow out of the mess on the tiles. It pushed itself up on half-shaped limbs, joints elongating with sickening pops. Its chest was a smooth plate of white bone, split by jagged black lines that crawled over its surface like cracks in glass, pulsing faintly with corrupt energy.
Flames—no, shadows shaped like flames—licked off its shoulders and arms, dark and tattered, clinging to it like smoke that refused to disperse. They flickered, then snapped back onto its frame, as if the air itself didn't know whether to reject or accept it.
Its mask was almost human in outline—
Almost.
Elongated. Jawless. Smooth, with black markings curling across the left side like ink strokes gone wrong. Its single horn jutted from the right side of its skull—long, curved, sharp, trailing scraps of black reishi like dripping ash.
The left side?
Bare.
Right now it looked wrong.
Off-balance.
Half-born.
And all of it—
Every twitch, every lurch, every attempt to stand—
was being held together by green light.
Every time the Hollow jerked forward—
Its claws scraped against empty air, inches from the closest surgeon. Its mask twisted, trying to turn, to lunge, to kill—
The light constricted.
"Stay put," the woman said quietly.
None of the medical staff turned at her voice.
None of them heard her.
Her eyes stayed locked on the creature, greatsword angled down and to the side, ready to rise in a single breath if the bindings failed.
It strained again.
The green reishi crackled.
The woman's jaw tightened.
Then—
She vanished.
Just gone—
erased from sight, from space, from awareness—
like a film reel skimped past a frame.
And in the same instant—
so did the Hollow.
One blink ago, it was there—bound, snarling, shadow-flame licking the surgical light.
The next—
the room was empty.
No monster.
No blade.
No trace.
Just the faint scent of ozone and blood.
The surgeons didn't pause.
Didn't scream.
Didn't remember.
Their hands moved like nothing had changed, stitching skin that should've been shredded, operating on a boy they never realized had almost died twice.
But if someone had been watching closely—
really watching—
they would've seen it.
Something small.
Something impossible.
A thin ribbon of smoke, black as ink, slowly unwinding from the torn edge of Ichigo's wound.
Not rising like vapor.
Not drifting like breath.
But peeling—
like something burnt from the inside and was being exhaled out of his soul.
It curled once.
Twice.
And then vanished—
so quickly it might have been imagination.
But the change didn't end there.
Not with smoke.
Not with silence.
Because as the surgeons gathered their tools—hands shaking in ways they didn't understand—
and as the monitors steadied into rhythms no one could explain—
strands of Ichigo's hair began to darken.
...
December 28th, 2003 — 9:17 AM
Unknown Location — Abandoned Warehouse District, Karakura Town.
Darkness swallowed the inside of the warehouse—
no electricity, no moonlight breaking through cracks,
just the sharp scent of rust and rain leaking through broken beams overhead.
And then—
CRASH
Something slammed into the far wall hard enough to shake dust from the rafters.
Concrete cracked.
Metal scaffolding rattled.
A body hit the floor and rolled—stopping only when its claws dug into the ground and ripped metal plates apart like paper.
White mask.
Black flame-like patterns spreading across bone.
A single curved horn jutting from its skull like a blade forged in darkness.
The Hollow snarled—low, aggressive, feral.
Its body stretched, lean and humanoid but twisted—the beginnings of a Vasto Lorde form, but not complete.
Not yet.
Black flames licked off its shoulders, shadow-like wisps burning without heat, tearing the air where they danced.
And directly in front of it—
A greatsword cut through the air like a guillotine.
The blade was the length of a coffin, silver and humming with green reishi, its X-shaped guard sparking light against the shadows.
SHK-CLANG!
The Hollow caught it.
One clawed hand raised—fingers tipped in razor bone and reishi-black—gripping the blade in a thunderous clash that sent cracks spiderwebbing through the concrete beneath its feet.
The woman holding the sword didn't budge.
Eyes like sharpened glass locked onto the creature—
calculating, annoyed, absolutely unafraid.
Her dark coat shimmered faintly with residual reishi, boots anchored in broken stone.
"No screaming. No flailing. No instinct for escape..." she muttered, eyes narrowing.
"Just fighting back."
Her voice held no praise.
No awe.
Just clinical evaluation.
Her grip tightened on the hilt as green light pulsed down the blade.
"You're not just some stray spirit..."
The Hollow lunged, pushing forward with inhuman strength—
forcing her back a single step.
She matched it—heel grinding into broken concrete, stance unshaken.
Green sigils lit up beneath her boots, circles spinning like clockwork.
"...But neither am I. "
Light surged.
The air trembled.
The warehouse burned with green firelight—
and the battle began.
The Hollow lunged first—wild, fast, instinctual—but not mindless.
It moved like it remembered being human.
Like it remembered being dangerous.
Its claw carved through the air—silent and lethal—aimed directly for her throat.
She didn't flinch.
Didn't step back.
Didn't need to.
One flash—
The green sigil beneath her boots pulsed, and her body blurred, shifting right as the claw cut through empty space.
The Hollow's momentum carried forward—too fast to stop.
Too exposed.
The woman twisted her grip—reishi condensing along the edge of her greatsword—and swung.
Steel met bone.
CRASH.
The impact sent a shockwave through the room, rattling rusted beams, sending a spray of sparks across the dark.
The Hollow slid back, digging its claws into the floor to stop.
The cut didn't sever anything.
But it mattered.
Because the blade left a mark...
Before it didn't.
"Healing," she observed, voice flat. "Faster than before."
Her eyes narrowed—calculating, irritated—like someone solving a problem that refused to stay solved.
The Hollow roared—low, vibrating, like a beast trying to remember words.
Black flame flared across its mask.
Its shadow deepened.
One horn catching the light—jagged, staggered, incomplete.
She raised the sword again.
"You're stabilizing," she said quietly.
A pulse of spiritual pressure rolled across the warehouse—dense, sharp, like iron heated and struck.
She felt it before she saw it.
The Hollow's reiatsu wasn't wild anymore.
It was gathering. Focusing. Deepening.
Her jaw tightened.
Then the air around her shifted.
A thin shimmer like glass being lowered over reality.
Just a breath ago, the surge of reiatsu should've torn through the neighborhood—alerted every spiritually aware being within miles.
But the air stayed silent.
Still.
Contained.
Because she'd already prepared for this.
She glanced up, eyes flicking to the ceiling with a rare note of satisfaction.
"Dollhouse," she breathed.
The name wasn't spoken like a move or a chant—it was confirmation. Execution. Prevention.
The warehouse walls flexed with green light—threads of reishi spiraling outward, looping, sealing through the structure like invisible stitching.
From the outside, this place was just another abandoned building.
But inside?
It was a cage.
A world within a world.
A crucible.
No reiatsu escaped.
No presence leaked.
No scream, no surge, no Hollow roar could reach past the walls she'd crafted.
This wasn't Kido.
It wasn't Quincy technique.
It was her craft—her domain—built on a price paid in advance.
The rule...
The binding vow...
Nothing inside may touch the outside,
so long as at least two living beings remain within these walls.
A condition woven into every brick, every floorboard, every fleck of dust inside the warehouse.
A cage that only held if she stayed.
A lock that only worked if she shared the room with the creature she contained.
A contract made real
"Two bodies, one cage," she murmured, raising the sword again—its edge humming like a needle before stitching flesh.
The Hollow bolted.
Faster this time.
Its body blurred, its black mask melting into motion, claws outstretched like spears—
She struck back.
BOOM.
Steel rang off bone, each strike accompanied by bursts of green that carved light trails through the dark.
Slash.
Parry.
Impact.
Their fight tore through the warehouse like a storm—metal groaning, dust rising, walls trembling beneath the weight of every blow.
The Hollow struck from above—she twisted, sliding under its arm.
It pivoted—spun mid-air like a predatory animal—and crashed toward her again.
She didn't meet it head-on.
Instead—
She let the blade dissolve.
Her hand raised—two fingers pointed toward the Hollow's chest.
A sigil flared beneath it—green, sharp, focused like a targeting reticle locking into place.
"...Halt."
Reishi lattices snapped into being.
The Hollow froze mid-lunge, claws inches from her face.
Bound.
But trembling violently—like the restraint wasn't holding.
Like its instinct to fight was overtaking everything else.
Her jaw tightened.
"That shouldn't be possible at this level."
Then—she looked into its eyes.
And for the first time—
Saw something that wasn't rage.
Not instinct.
Not hunger.
Something like intention.
Like pain.
She exhaled slowly through her nose.
"...You're not an average Hollow."
Her eyes sharpened—dangerously focused.
BOOM
She punched it with a her green glowing fist.
Didn't wait to see if it fell.
She straightened, adjusted her wrist—just enough to settle the bones—and kept walking forward.
Slow. Controlled.
The green light faded from her fist like the breath of a dying star.
One horn flickered in the broken light.
And the Hollow rose again.
That single horn caught what little light there was—jagged, uneven, wrong.
Black flame flickered along its edges, guttering like a candle trying not to die.
Then its right arm jerked.
Once.
Twice.
Bone rippled beneath the skin of shadow and white plating—writhing, twisting, rearranging. The forearm elongated. The wrist split. Fingers fused together with a sickening, grinding scrape.
Something began to push its way out.
White.
Sharp.
A blade.
It didn't appear in its hand.
It grew from it.
A skeletal sword forced itself into existence along its arm—starting as a jagged spike at the wrist, extending outward in one long, brutal edge. The surface was smooth in some places, rough in others, black and red veins of reishi running through the white like cracks filled with tar.
At the base, near what should've been a hilt, black bone flared outward—suggesting a guard that hadn't fully formed yet, like the weapon was still deciding what shape it wanted to take.
The Hollow flexed its arm experimentally.
The sword-arm answered—shifting with it, perfectly balanced, perfectly natural.
Like it had always been there.
"...Figures. First time I see a Hollow with a sword and it has to be here " She scoffed in frustration.
Her hands tightened around the greatsword's hilt.
The creature moved.
No warning this time—no testing swipe, no sloppy lunge. It was just there, closing the distance in a blur of white bone and black flame, sword-arm carving a clean arc toward her neck.
She brought her blade up to meet it—
CLANG.
The impact rattled up her arms, driving her heel back across cracked concrete. Sparks exploded where bone met steel, green reishi and black reishi grinding against each other like clashing currents.
It pressed harder.
Step by step, it forced her back.
Her shoulders flexed. Teeth grit. Green sigils flared under her boots, trying to lock her in place—
but the Hollow was stronger than before.
"Persistent little bastard," she hissed under her breath.
The sword-arm scraped down her blade, slowly levering her guard aside. Its mask leaned in, single horn casting a warped shadow over her face. Black flames burned brighter along its shoulders, licking over the edges of its mask like a crown of smoke.
She felt it—in every push, every grind of pressure—
It was learning.
Adjusting.
Overpowering her, inch by inch.
"Yeah," she exhaled. "That's enough of that."
She let it win.
Just for a second.
She loosened her front hand, letting the greatsword slide—bone scraping steel as the Hollow's blade dragged her guard wide.
To the Hollow, it looked like she slipped.
Its body surged forward, committing fully—mask lowering, sword-arm raised high to cleave straight through—
That was the moment she moved.
Her rear hand released the hilt.
Her front hand shot forward, snapping down to grab the greatsword mid-handle, closer to the blade—a leverage shift so fast it might as well have been a teleport.
The sword spun.
Not wide.
Tight. Precise. A brutal half-circle driven by her entire torso.
The Hollow realized too late.
Its sword-arm was still raised.
Its weight was still forward.
Its mask was open.
CRACK.
Not a clean break. Not a shatter.
A fracture.
A deep, jagged fissure split across the Hollow's mask—starting at the jawline, ripping up toward the eye, a crooked line of rupture that didn't finish the job but did enough to make the Vasto-like monster recoil.
And beneath the break—
she saw it.
Blink-and-miss, pale and wet, twitching like something waking up beneath bone.
A face.
Human-shaped.
But wrong.
Deformed.
Pressed against the inside of the mask like flesh beneath painted glass—white skin, half-formed features twisted at impossible angles, a mouth that looked like it had been torn open from the inside—
And an empty, vacant eye...
No.
Not empty.
Looking at her.
Black flame erupted from those cracks, not burning—but breaking. The Hollow convulsed, claws scraping against the floor, sword-arm dragging deep gouges as if the air itself was too thick to swim through.
The woman stepped back, green sigils flaring beneath her boots in preparation—a blink away from striking again, finishing it—
Then it spoke.
Not in a hissing roar.
Not in an animal scream.
But in a voice—raw, echoing like a buried memory clawing its way up from a grave.
"...Ge—Tsuga..."
The word choked in the monster's throat, bubbling up through broken bone and blood and black smoke.
A breath.
Every instinct she ever trusted screamed at once.
MOVE. NOW.
Her stance shifted—boots grinding into fractured concrete, greatsword braced against her forearm, sigils flaring under her feet like warning circles etched in light.
"...TEN—"
It dragged the word out like a dying man trying to remember the last thing he ever screamed.
And then the world detonated.
A black-and-red crescent exploded point-blank from the Hollow blade.
Not formed.
Not clean.
Not controlled.
More like a wound in reality being forcibly torn open.
The blade of energy didn't fire forward first—
It burst outward in every direction, shredding the floor, the walls, the air itself before snapping into a forward blast.
The woman didn't think.
She moved.
Her sword came up in a two-handed guard just as the wave hit her—
BOOOOOOM
It was like being hit by a collapsing highway.
Concrete ripped up beneath her boots—whole steel beams bent from the pressure.
The sigils under her feet shattered like glass.
She slid—
meters—
then meters more—
Until her back crashed through a rusted cargo container, metal folding around her like paper.
Her blade dug into the ground, sparks screaming across the concrete as she was pushed—
dragged—
carried by the attack until—
She dug in.
Not just physically—
but spiritually.
The green aura around her flared—sharpening—
reshaping.
Her boots tore trenches through the concrete as the Getsuga Tenshō burned against her guard—white and black light devouring everything in its path.
It should've crushed her.
Should've shredded her down to bone.
Should've ended her.
But then—
something changed.
Not visible.
Not audible.
Inside her.
Something deep—buried—
woke up.
A pulse.
A pull.
Like instinct devouring instinct.
Like hunger meeting hunger.
Her eyes widened, pupils contracting—
and the green reishi around her blade surged.
Not outward.
Inward.
The Getsuga—
that tidal wave of raw, tearing power—
bent.
Folded.
Then—
in a single, impossible second—
collapsed into her sword.
FWOOM.
Silence.
Light vanished.
The warehouse went dead quiet.
She stood there—knees bent, breathing hard, blade sunk half a foot into the concrete.
And then—slowly—
she straightened.
Lifting her head.
She straightened—slowly, like someone savoring a victory.
She straightened—slowly, like someone savoring a victory she hadn't expected to earn.
Her blade rose with her.
Not shaking.
Not straining.
Claiming.
Her eyes locked onto the Hollow—
its mask fractured, face frozen mid-snarl—
as a smirk curled across her lips.
"...What was it you said?"
Her voice dropped—low, amused, dangerous.
"Oh, right."
Purple energy began to coil around the greatsword—
thick and sharp, like smoke with weight, like fury with form.
Not her power.
Not her technique.
But stolen—
twisted—
reshaped through her.
A hunter wearing the claws of her prey.
The sigils on her blade crackled, glowing bright enough to stain the air itself.
"Getsuga..."
She raised the sword above her head, stance perfect, posture mocking—
and the Hollow's eyes—
those fractured, burning eyes—
widened in shock.
"Tens—
She never got to finish it.
Not her word.
Not her attack.
Because something else spoke first.
Not with sound.
But with fire.
FWOOOOOM
Blue flames erupted from beyond the warehouse, roaring through the walls like the world itself had cracked open. Not heat. Not heat at all.
Overwhelming pressure.
Suffocating spiritual force.
Something not bound by her vow.
Not restrained by her Dollhouse.
Not inside the territory she controlled.
Her eyes snapped wide— and instinct took over.
Sword swung down—sigils flared—green barriers bloomed around her like petals of light—
But the flame wasn't just fire.
It was force.
A wave of blue energy collapsed the southern wall of the warehouse—
obliterating steel, concrete, reishi, everything in its path.
The Hollow didn't even scream.
The explosion swallowed it whole—mask, bone, chains and all—erasing it in a heartbeat.
She felt the blast hammer into her, shoving her back like a tidal wave.
Her barriers shattered—
her boots dragged trenches through cracked stone as she braced with every ounce of strength she had left.
And still—
she was flung.
Thrown across what remained of the warehouse, slamming into a broken support beam hard enough to crack it in two. Her sword clattered down beside her. The air tasted like smoke and metal and ozone.
Then—
Silence.
The flames were gone as quickly as they came.
Extinguished by their own violence.
She pressed a hand against the floor, dragging herself upright.
Face tense. Eyes sharp. Breath controlled.
She scanned the rubble, eyes slicing through dust and shadow with precision.
The Hollow was gone.
And the attacker?
Not even a trace.
No reiatsu signature lingering. No sensory feedback.
No footprints in the burning debris.
Whoever—whatever—had intervened had no intention of being found.
She spit blood onto the cracked floor and exhaled through her teeth, jaw clenched.
"...What the hell was that?"
Her grip tightened around her sword.
That hadn't been a Hollow.
Wasn't Soul Society—too raw, too violent, too efficient.
Someone out there had just reached into her domain—
broke her binding vow like it was paper—
and stole her prey right out from under her.
Without leaving a shadow behind.
"...Looks like Karakura got interesting while I was gone."
And with that she was gone from the wreckage.
Making her way towards the hospital where she left the kid.
And stoping middway at a broken church.
But that is her personal part.
"...Looks like Karakura got interesting while I was gone."
She extended her hand, which has been holding the great sword, still cackling with the purple aura.
She extended her hand—fingers still wrapped around the greatsword, its edge flickering with that stolen purple aura like a dying ember refusing to fade.
Then—she let go.
Emerald light burst from her palm—sharp, contained, absolute—
SHNK-CHHRR—
The steel unraveled into threads of reishi, folding inward cleanly—efficiently—until only her silver cross remained, resting against her chest like it had never been anything else.
No spectacle.
No ceremony.
Just dissolution and silence.
She brushed a smear of ash from her coat with the back of her hand.
" Eh. Not my problem."
She extended her hand—fingers still wrapped around the greatsword, its edge flickering with that stolen purple aura like a dying ember refusing to fade.
Then—she let go.
Emerald light burst from her palm—sharp, contained, absolute—
SHNK-CHHRR—
The steel unraveled into threads of reishi, folding inward cleanly—efficiently—until only her silver cross remained, resting against her chest like it had never been anything else. With boots crunching over burnt concrete, she stepped out of the ruined warehouse—the flames still licking the rafters behind her—and slipped back into the cold morning air.
No spectacle.
No ceremony.
Just dissolution and silence.
Somewhere ahead—the faint silhouette of a ruined church, roof broken, cross half-melted by time.
She barely slowed as she walked past it.
Just a glance.
A short pause.
And then she moved on.
No prayer.
No regret.
Just snow gathering where her footsteps had been.
The hospital wasn't far.
Neither was the boy.
Still breathing.
Still alive.
Still a liability.
She adjusted her collar.
She'd have to clean up.
Tie off loose ends.
Scrub memories, rewrite perception, make sure nobody in that hospital remembered her or him.
No witnesses.
No paper trail.
No name.
Just quiet.
Just control.
...
December 28th, 2003 — 9:09 PM
Karakura Town Hospital
He lay completely still, lashes resting against his cheeks, breath shallow but steady. Bandages wrapped his shoulder and side, clean and white where blood had been hours ago.
A monitor blinked lazily beside him.
BP stable. Pulse low, but not dying. Not anymore.
Breath slow.
Pulse faint, but stubborn.
Machines kept the rhythm he no longer could.
BP: Stable.
Oxygen: Sufficient.
Life: Ongoing.
The chair at his bedside wasn't empty.
A black coat lay draped over it—like a shadow that forgot to leave with its owner. Flecks of ash clung to the fabric, dull against the dark, small reminders of fires she didn't bother putting out.
Unmoving fingers, pale against the hospital's sterile white, idly tapping once... twice... as if bored.
Her eyes were on him.
Not soft.
Not warm.
Just... measuring.
Watched the rise and fall of his chest with the detached precision of someone waiting for a variable to fail—not because she cared, but because it would've made things simpler.
After a moment, she let her thumb trail along the edge of the wristband strapped to his arm.
Name: Kurosaki Ichigo
Age: 16 Years old
Blood type: O–.
Nothing here mattered to her.
She wasn't checking his identity.
She was confirming the institution hadn't made a mistake.
"Kurosaki Ichigo," she muttered, as if filing it somewhere far from interest.
A dismissive breath slipped through her nose. Then—
Tch.
She lifted her free hand and moved it in a shape so minimal it barely existed—no symbols, no theatrics, just the thinnest arc of intention through the air.
That was enough.
Down the hall, a nurse paused mid-step, suddenly uncertain as to why she'd left the station. Her mouth opened—the start of a reminder—then closed with nothing behind it. She turned the other way, more annoyed than alarmed, and forgot she'd ever meant to come here.
A doctor writing notes in the next room blinked twice, shook off a brief cloudiness, and forgot—to his relief—that he had planned to check on a critical postoperative patient.
In Ichigo's room, the woman lowered her hand back to the armrest—not gently, not carelessly, but with quiet precision. She exhaled through her nose, annoyed.
...Of course. Of course it couldn't be simple.
The thought slid through her mind with the same cold irritation that tightened her jaw. Her eyes narrowed as she studied Ichigo's unconscious form—quiet, still, and radiating absolutely nothing spiritual.
And yet... something about him hummed wrong, like a broken note vibrating under the floorboards.
'I only came to this backwater place to figure out what the hell is happening,' she thought, lips pressing into a thin line.
That had been the plan.
A quick mission.
A quick survey.
Pinpoint the anomaly, confirm the distortion, map the barrier structure, check Soul Society's involvement—or lack thereof—write the report, get paid, and never think about this ridiculous little town again.
'Or this world,' she added bitterly.
She let out a slow, annoyed breath, as she leaned back in the chair, crossing one leg over the other with a soft rustle of fabric. Her fingers drummed once against the armrest—sharp, impatient.
She opened her mouth to sigh again—
—but his finger twitched.
She froze.
Ichigo's brow tensed, the faintest crease forming. His breath hitched, barely audible. The woman leaned forward slightly, more out of reflex than concern, watching closely.
Another twitch.
A soft groan.
His fingers curled in the bedsheets.
"Already...?" she muttered, irritation flickering over her face. "Tch. Guess that hollow healed you more than I expected." He shifted again, a tremor running along his arm. His eyes moved beneath closed lids, like someone caught on the edge of a dream—or dragged out of one.
Then—
A sharp inhale.
His eyelids fluttered open, sluggish at first, then wider as the sterile white of the room came into focus.
His vision swam.
Everything hurt.
His head felt like someone had cracked it open and left it hanging by threads.
But he saw her.
A dark-haired woman sitting beside his bed, posture relaxed but alert. Someone he didn't recognize.
Ichigo tensed instinctively—not spiritually, not with any sense he used to have, but with human instinct...
Just human instinct:
Stranger. Unknown. Danger.
His voice scraped out of his dry throat, rough and weak.
"...Who...?"
The woman didn't answer immediately.
Instead, she watched him with calm, almost clinical curiosity, eyes tracking every micro-expression on his face. Not worried. Not startled.
Just... observing.
"Hm," she hummed, head tilting the slightest degree. "You woke up faster than you should have."
Ichigo blinked hard to clear the haze.
"...Who... are you?"
"Someone who's already had a very long day," she said. Then, with a faint, unimpressed tilt of her head, added: "And someone you currently owe your life to."
The words slipped out casually, but the weight behind them wasn't casual at all.
His heart stumbled.
"Owe... my life...?"
Her eyes flicked toward the door—not out of fear, but calculation. She checked the hallway the way someone checks a trap they set themselves. Still empty. Still quiet. Still under her influence.
Then she looked back at him, posture relaxed but gaze sharp enough to cut.
"Don't strain yourself," she said. "Your brain is still catching up."
Ichigo swallowed, his throat raw, a pulse of pain running down his spine.
None of this made sense.
"What... do you mean... owe you...?"
Her expression flattened.
"You were dying," she said plainly.
...
The words dropped into the room like stones into deep water.
For a moment, Ichigo just stared at her — hollow-eyed, unfocused, trying to understand.
Trying to breathe.
Trying to make the world stop spinning long enough to think.
Dying?
He felt the word settle into his chest like cold lead.
His heart gave a painful thud.
And then—
Memory flooded in.
Not gently.
Not in order.
But like someone had grabbed his mind and forced it open.
This morning.
The grave.
The cold.
His mother's name carved in stone.
His breath breaking.
"Mom..."
Talking to her. Venting. Letting everything pour out:
Rukia avoiding him.
Renji hiding.
Keigo seeing spirits again.
Soul Society's silence.
The anger.
The guilt.
The exhaustion.
Ichigo's breathing now came in tight, uneven gasps. His fingers trembled despite how weak he was.
The woman watched all of this pass over his expression — every memory, every flicker of pain, every flash of fear — with a detached, analytical calm, as though she were watching someone read their own obituary.
"So," she said softly, tilting her head, "you remember."
Ichigo's voice cracked.
"I... I was attacked."
"Mm. You were," she replied, almost bored. "You might not believe me, but what attacked you was an evil spirit."
Ichigo's breath shook.
A hollow? Why did it attack him, they usually go after souls, or humans with a lot of spiritual energy.
More pressingly right now, who was she ? Was she a Shinigami ? Or was she truly with that silver cross of hers ?
She continued before he could even get a chance to ask any question.
"They're called Hollows," she said, tone flat and clinical, as if she were reciting a textbook entry rather than describing monsters. "Violent, twisted spirits that prey on humans and souls alike. Invisible to normal people."
Her tone remained clinical, detached — like a teacher explaining biology rather than death.
Her voice didn't waver.
It didn't soften.
It didn't try to reassure him.
"And the one that attacked you wasn't weak."
A flicker crossed her eyes—something like annoyance or memory.
"That thing could infect people. Crawl into them. Feed on them. And every second it did, it grew stronger. So the fact you're alive at all is... statistically unlikely."
Ichigo's stomach twisted.
She continued, folding her arms.
"And when a human survives something like that? When an evil spirit pushes that far into their body?" Her gaze sharpened. "They start to develop... powers. Changes. Abilities they weren't meant to have."
Ichigo's heartbeat stumbled.
Powers.
His mind jumped instantly
Chad and Orihime...
His chest tightened.
Not from fear. From memory.
Chad's monstrous arm, born from protecting him.
Orihime's shield, awakened in desperation.
If they developed their powers like that...
Then does that mean he can... ?
"And I don't think I need to explain why abilities gained from an evil spirit are considered dangerous," she said, tapping her arm with a slow, precise rhythm. "Someone like that—someone who could turn into something worse—there are groups who make sure they never get the chance."
Her meaning was clear.
Kill.
Contain.
Erase.
Ichigo's blood went cold.
She inhaled, preparing to continue—
"So before anyone senses what happened to you, you need to come with me. Because if they find out you survived that thing—"
"I know."
The words burst out before he could stop them.
She froze mid-sentence.
Ichigo forced himself upright a little, pain stabbing down his side, but he didn't stop.
"I know," he repeated, voice rough but steady. "I know what Hollows are. I know what they can do. I know exactly what happens to people who 'develop powers.'"
Her expression didn't shift.
But the air around her did.
Pressure.
Focus.
Attention.
Ichigo continued, heat bleeding into his voice.
"I know about Hollows.
And I know about Soul Society."
...
To be continued !
Welp. Once again spam me, and scream at me to make new chapters.
And I will try to make a chapter every week, or a week and a half.
We shall see.
Thanks for reading