Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ Dark Heart Dawning ❯ Chapter Two ( Chapter 2 )

 

 

Chapter Two

 

Yoruichi Shihouin grumbled to herself as she slipped into her black leggings, the stretchy cotton fabric feeling like an uncomfortable, constricting second skin. Kisuke had insisted she get dressed before tending to the injured girl, who was now laid out on a futon in the center of the spare bedroom they had decided to put her in - which, to Yoruichi's utter dislike, happened to be directly across the hall from Kisuke's own bedroom. He had disappeared almost immediately after giving her the order to dress, headed in the direction of the storage closet at the end of the hallway, and she could hear various bottles clinking together as he worked on mixing up some sort of concoction to give to the girl.

 

“I don't know why you're so insistent on me wearing clothes, Kisuke,” she protested as she tugged her matching black top on over her head. Deciding she was adequately clothed, she knelt down next to the prone figure and pulled the elastic band from the girl's hair, which had probably been holding it all back in a neat ponytail at one point, but had ended up being half tangled in the mass of her brown hair between her attack by the hollow and being carried around by Ichigo.

 

“If you think she'd be traumatized by waking up to find a strange man stripping her,” Kisuke replied as he entered the room, carrying a beaker half-full of a pinkish liquid in one hand, “then just imagine how affected she'd be if she awoke to the sight of a strange, naked woman undressing her.”

 

Yoruichi frowned slightly, knowing he had a point. While he and Tessai were comfortable with her exhibitionism, it wasn't something people generally just regarded as being a normal occurrence. She nodded toward the beaker in his hand as he knelt across from her, lifting the girl's head slightly with his free hand before carefully pouring the sickeningly sweet-smelling elixir down her throat.

 

“What are you giving her?”

 

“It's just a simple restorative draught,” Kisuke explained, administering the last of the potion with a practiced ease. “It will aid her body in increasing the production of new blood cells to replace those she lost due to her injuries.”

 

“How long do you think she'll be out?” Yoruichi asked, her eyes falling to the girl's face. She wasn't shivering quite as much now that she was under the thick comforter, but her bottom lip was still quivering and her skin was nearly as white as the bedding that surrounded her.

 

“I'd say a day, maybe two,” he estimated, setting the empty glass container down on the floor next to him.

 

The two of them remained silent for a long moment, their eyes fixed on the girl's face as they both silently prayed that she would have the strength to pull through. Not only was she young, with her whole life ahead of her, but they both knew very well that if she didn't survive, Ichigo would take her death the hardest. He had a nasty habit of blaming himself whenever anyone he'd had contact with died, even if he hadn't even been present at their downfall - such as when several of the lesser shinigami forces had been wiped out by one of Aizen's attacks.

 

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a chill ran through their entire bodies. They looked up at one another, eyes slightly wide in surprise.

 

“Hey, Sandal-Hat,” Ichigo called from outside the doorway. “Is Yoruichi decent?”

 

“What is it, Ichigo?” Kisuke addressed him, turning on his heel before rising to a standing position. Ichigo stepped into the doorway, scratching the back of his head, carefully avoiding making eye contact with the purple-haired woman who was still seated on the floor.

 

“I wanted to talk to you about something.”

 

“Alright,” he replied, folding his arms so that his hands disappeared in the sleeves of his top.

 

“In private,” Ichigo added, his eyes flickering briefly toward Yoruichi. The older man looked back over his shoulder at his companion, wondering what it was that the boy didn't feel comfortable talking about in her presence.

 

“You heard the kid, Kisuke,” she said. “Besides, you need to get out of here so I can get this girl out of her wet clothes. Or did you think I was going to let you stick around and watch?”

 

“Very well, Yoruichi-san,” he replied, stepping out into the hall with Ichigo and closing the door to the bedroom behind him. He gestured across the hallway to his own room, which was about as private as they were going to get with a house full of people, and the two of them proceeded through the doorway into the sparsely furnished bedroom of the eccentric shopkeeper.

 

“What was it you wanted to discuss?” he asked as he took a seat on a large, round cushion in the corner of the room. Ichigo sat across from him, cross-legged on the floor, once again scratching the back of his head.

 

“I really don't know how to explain this,” he began, sounding thoughtful. “When Rukia and I went after that hollow, there were these... things with it.”

 

“Things?” Urahara asked, wanting further clarification on just what he had seen.

 

“They didn't exactly look like hollows,” Ichigo told him. “At least, not any sort of hollow I've ever seen.”

 

“Well, what did they look like?” Urahara prompted.

 

“They were... black. Completely black, no white hollow mask or anything, which is why I don't think they were hollows. They had these really thin bodies, almost like they were nothing more than skin and bones, and long arms with what looked almost like human hands... if the hands had been decomposing for a while, at any rate. And they had these sort of elongated heads with these snouts full of really nasty looking, sharp teeth - which were also black. The only thing that wasn't black were their eyes. Their eyes were red.”

 

“Interesting,” Urahara mused, stroking his stubbled chin thoughtfully. “Anything else you observed about them?”

 

“Yeah,” Ichigo nodding slightly. “When I killed one of them... it didn't disintegrate like the hollows usually do.”

 

“What happened?”

 

“Well, at first it just fell onto the ground like a dead body,” Ichigo recalled, looking at a nearby spot on the floor as if the body was lying next to him at that very moment. “Then it sort of dissolved into this strange black ooze, and then the ooze seeped down into the ground and disappeared.”

 

Urahara remained completely silent and still, mentally running down a list of various spiritual entities and attempting to recall one that fit the descriptions that Ichigo had given him.

 

“What the hell were those things, Urahara?” Ichigo asked, his voice a whisper of quiet fear. Urahara knew that no matter what they were, the boy had already proven his ability to handle them. But not knowing what an enemy is and what they are fully capable of was always a daunting thing.

 

“I have no idea what they are, Ichigo,” he replied, his own voice quiet as he remained slightly lost in thought, wondering if perhaps the Department of Research and Development at the Soul Society might have some data that would be helpful in identifying the strange creatures. “But we'll find out.”

 

*********************

 

The rain had finally stopped. The only remainder of the storm that had earlier been beating down on Karakura Town was the crisp scent that always seemed to permeate the air after a rain shower.

 

Once again, Kisuke Urahara found himself standing outside his shop, leaning back against the outer wall, next to the door. His hat was pulled low over his face, his head bent down, his left arm crossed over his chest as stroked his chin with his right hand. He was lost in thought, again, contemplating those strange creatures Ichigo had described to him. They didn't sound like any type of hollow or arrancar he had ever heard of. Just the same, he couldn't help but wonder if these things - whatever they were - might be under Aizen's control. Surely, if they had been attacking alongside the hollow, they had to have some sort of connection to him. It suddenly occurred to him that if Aizen really was responsible for the appearance of the strange creatures, they may very well be something new that he had designed and created himself. Therefore, there would be absolutely no way they could ever hope to fully prepare themselves for whatever they might be capable of doing.

 

“Penny for your thoughts,” Yoruichi said as she stepped outside, silently sliding the front door of the shop closed behind her.

 

“How is she?” he asked, referring to the injured girl he had given her the task of watching over.

 

“Still unconscious,” Yoruichi reported with a sigh as she leaned against the wall, next to him, stretching her legs out in front of her. “She stopped shivering pretty quickly once I got her out of those wet clothes. They were pretty torn up from the attack she endured.”

 

“We'll have Ishida fix them for her,” he stated without thinking. Uryuu Ishida, Ichigo's Quincy friend, was the one everyone seemed to go to whenever they needed any sort of sewing skills. Urahara himself had gone to the boy and asked him to design the costumes for the Karakura-Raizer team.

 

“Orihime is watching over her right now,” Yoruichi informed him. “I figured, she shouldn't be left alone since she's in an unfamiliar place.”

 

“Probably not a bad idea.”

 

“Kisuke?”

 

“Hmm?”

 

“You felt it, too, didn't you?”

 

His eyes fell closed and he nodded slightly in response to her question, lowering his right arm and crossing it with the other one over his chest.

 

“What the hell was that?” Yoruichi asked, keeping her voice low. The others were still inside, but the majority of them were awake and she didn't need to panic the entire household by allowing them to overhear the conversations she and Kisuke were having about their new guest.

 

“I have no idea,” Urahara replied with a quiet chuckle. “I'm sorry. I know it's not a laughing matter, but I just find it amusing the number of times I've said that, today.”

 

“What do you mean?” she wondered as she turned her head to look at him, her brow furrowed in confusion.

 

Urahara sighed deeply and pushed away from the wall, turning himself fully to look at her, and calmly reiterated everything Ichigo had told him before about the strange creatures he'd fought alongside the hollow. He carefully watched her expression as he relayed the information, and noticed her golden, cat-like eyes widen considerably as she inevitably came to the same conclusion he had already formed in his own mind.

 

“Normally, I'm the one with all the answers. That's probably why Ichigo came to me,” he concluded. “He didn't mention if Rukia saw them, but I imagine she did since she was with him fighting that hollow.”

 

“Kisuke... I'm sure you've already realized-- ”

 

“This may be Aizen's work,” he finished for her, nodding again as he let out a deep sigh. “I know. And if it is, then that means he's gotten back to full power much faster than we had anticipated.”

 

“That's not what I was going to say,” she told him, causing him to look up at her from under his hat, his blue-grey eyes still obscured by shadow.

 

“Doesn't it seem odd,” she continued, “that these strange creatures started showing up at the same time that this girl gets attacked by a hollow?”

 

“It could just be a coincidence,” Kisuke replied with a shrug of his broad shoulders.

 

“It's not,” Yoruichi countered, turning to face him and crossing her arms over her chest. “You know it's not, Kisuke. There is nothing coincidental about a girl with strange reiatsu like that showing up at the exact same time as these... whatever they are.”

 

“Then what do you suggest we do?” he asked her. “We can't very well just throw her out on the street, in her current state.”

 

“We need to get her out of here as soon as we can, though,” Yoruichi insisted. “Once she's conscious and we're sure she's going to live, she needs to go. We can't afford to let her stick around and have inside information on our strategies.”

 

“That is, assuming she does, in fact, have ties to Aizen,” he argued. “And if she does, it might benefit us to let her stay here as long as she likes.”

 

“Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer?” she questioned his logic, raising an eyebrow. “That doesn't always work out, you know. Look at what happened to Shinji.”

 

Kisuke nodded slightly. “I am well aware of that, Yoruichi-san, but I think that the first thing we need to do is determine what she already knows, if anything.”

 

“She could easily lie to us, Kisuke,” Yoruichi pointed out to him. “Are you really willing to take that chance?”

 

Kisuke remained silent for a long while, considering everything she had said. Yes, it did seem odd that this woman had shown up at the same time as the unidentifiable creatures that Ichigo had seen. It also hadn't escaped him that Aizen could possibly be behind either or possibly both of their sudden appearances. A part of him wanted to have faith that Aizen was still too weak to be able to pull off another scheme so soon, but his paranoid side couldn't help taking Yoruichi's concerns to heart.

 

“You know me,” he finally said, cracking a bit of a smile. “I always have a back-up plan for when things go wrong.”

 

She considered him for a moment, her eyes narrowed, then turned toward the shop and began making her way back inside.

 

“You better know what you're doing, Kisuke,” she warned him over her shoulder before disappearing through the front door, sliding it shut once more behind her.

 

Kisuke sighed and leaned back against the wall again, his head tilted back as he looked up at the clear night sky. If he was entirely honest, he really had no idea what he was getting himself into. But his instincts told him that the girl posed no threat to them, even if common sense asserted that she may very well be working for the enemy.

 

He just hoped his instincts could be trusted.