City of Emptiness Chapter 2

[madimpossibledreamer]

Notes: Here's where the AU comes in...

Main Points:
Bleach AU
Chapter Summary: It's all Ichigo's fault.
Word Count: 2,079
Rating: K

 

Rukia woke up in a strange alley she didn't recognize.  "Idiot, this is all your fault," she told Ichigo.  The fact that he wasn't there to defend himself just proved it.  Now to find the annoying Substitute Shinigami.

A few people in strange clothes walked past.  From where she was lying, she could see the corner of a market stall.  Still, the white walls and the golden roofs looked Japanese.  So at least she could probably speak to them and have a proper conversation, unlike a few people she knew.  She got up, dusting herself off.  That annoyed her more.

"Okay, now to find that annoying human," she told herself, closing her eyes and casting her senses out, trying to find familiar spirit pressures.  Her eyes blinked open, and she began running in the right direction.  She could sense him.  So he was to blame after all!  Of course, his spiritual pressure still felt a little odd, but it had done that ever since he'd fought Grimmjow.  Maybe even before then.

She decided to use flash step.  People wouldn't see her, and if they did, she wouldn't be there long enough for them to kick up a fuss.  She did hear a "what's the rush?" from behind her but paid it no mind.

When she finally found Ichigo, she skidded to a stop, not entirely intentionally.  What was he wearing?  A trench coat, some weird pants, boots?  She stamped her foot.  "This is unacceptable!"  Whether she was referring to everything changing on her, the situation he'd gotten her into, or even everything that had changed, she wasn't entirely certain.

He turned to look at her, a confused look in his eyes, halfway through biting into a peach.  She suddenly realized what was wrong about his spiritual pressure.

His Hollow was more active than it should have been.  And something in the eyes...a touch too yellow to be his...

"Ichigo, your Hollow...!" she called to warn him, swiftly drawing Sode no Shirayuki.

He began choking and finally spat out the bite he had just taken, staring at her as if she was the one tottering on the verge of sanity.  "I have everything under control."

The kind of thing he'd say, but...she shook her head, realizing that must be a lie.  She hadn't paid enough attention the first time.  Ichigo's spiritual pressure, reassuringly the mixture of human and shinigami she'd come to expect, was coming from an entirely different direction.  Which meant...the Hollow had...How, wasn't a question to be asked at the moment.  Now was the time for swift and decisive action.  Kurosaki-kun need not worry about this, at least, any longer.

"You're not Ichigo!  I will finish you once and for all!" she screamed, charging.

She'd expected the Hollow, as soon as its 'disguise' had been revealed, to immediately attack and try to finish her off before she could spread the alarm anywhere else.  He did nothing of the kind, a frustrated look passing over his face briefly before he dodged out of the way of her incoming blade.  He didn't even try to call his mask or hollow form to better withstand her attacks, which was frustrating because while cleansing a Hollow was possible without directly cutting through the mask, it made her job much more difficult. 

He used sonido to make it to a nearby table, setting the peach down gently before gracefully somersaulting over her head to land lightly behind her.  He didn't use the move to attack her brief vulnerability, merely kept his eyes more on the nearby scenery than on her.  As if he was searching for a way to escape.  Was Ichigo's Hollow really such a coward?  "I don't suppose 'you're making a mistake, stop being an idiot' would make you stop, would it?" he asked conversationally, almost civil, even.

She sneered.  "I can sense your spiritual pressure.  You can't fool me that easily, Hollow."

He shrugged, a genuine, disappointed frown briefly twisting his lips.  "It was worth a try, anyway.  I thought I'd fixed that, but obviously I didn't do a good enough job."  He leaped above a downward stroke, lightly running up her blade, stepping on her shoulder, and using that to vault behind her again before she could even think to ice her blade.  Again, he didn't attack.

"If you don't fight back, I will kill you."  It didn't take long before she was facing the right direction again.  She wasn't hoping for a nice battle, one where they both nearly died, like those crazy shinigami in Eleventh.  The preferred outcome was as always-Hollow dead, Shinigami unhurt or as close as was realistic.  Mostly, she was just hoping he'd fight her so that she could stop worrying about what he was up to.  The strange way he was acting was making her nervous.

"Yeah, but I don't want to fight you.  Call me sentimental if you want."  He was as laid back as she'd ever seen Ichigo, and that was at school when no Hollows showed up trying to devour souls.  Just a calm, lazy afternoon.  Of course, he'd never seen him this calm in combat before, and the Hollow wasn't wearing a frown on his fake face.  He kept dodging her every strike, but made no move to call his mask or even Ichigo's zanpukto.  Could he do that?

"I'm not sure what you're up to, but your planning stops here."  She used a feint attack, but he figured it out before she'd even finished the first, evading the first stroke, then jumping over the second.  He just kept backing up until he was out of space, after which he'd dodge out of the way somehow.  He hadn't actively tried to run away, probably because he knew she could keep up using flash step.  If he was trying to tire her out, it was working, but only partially.  It seemed that this mockery of a fight wasn't taking much out of either of them.

"I hate to point it out, since you're already pretty homicidal, but your lines all sound pretty corny."  His eyes looked amused, but he wasn't actually grinning.  Still, that just made her madder.  Like when Ichigo would make faces at her bunny drawings.  But the two couldn’t really be that similar.  One was a human/Shinigami, one was a Hollow.  Pretty much opposites.

She silently used a kido attack, a spear of power flashing at the Hollow, who had dodged to the right.  She lowered her sword as she did so, trying to convince the Hollow that she was putting everything into the casting.  Apparently it worked, because he flashed out of the way, to the left.  She kept up enough to bury her zanpukto in his heart.  He staggered a little, staring at her in horror, as if she'd somehow betrayed him.  She wasn't about to let that distract her.  "Third Dance, White Sword."  Ice began to spread from the tip of her sword, beginning to freeze through him.

He finally stopped underestimating her, the look on his face quickly changing to a grimmer one she was much more familiar with.  He coughed a little and kicked her away, staggering back a little, then falling to one knee, the zanpukto still lodged in his chest, still freezing him from the inside out.  The first couple words he garbled could have been cursing.  Then a grimace of a smile crossed his face.  "An' here I was tryin' not to call on my power."

He closed his eyes, reaching out, and an explosion of ebony and crimson energy engulfed him.  She followed his example, backflipping out of the way, just in case that was an attack.  When the energy cleared, she saw what he'd been doing with that energy.  He now had a tail, a mask (which oddly enough only vaguely resembled the one Ichigo had called a few times), a Hollow form something like a lizard that was nothing but bone.  A clawed hand pulled out her zanpukto and tossed it aside, as he made it to his feet again and began to circle, breathing heavily, the echo reminding her that this was merely a monster with her friend's face.  He wasn't exactly blocking her from reaching her sword, now lying on the ground a short distance away, but she had to guess that was due to the pain clouding the Hollow's judgment, rather than anything else.

"Do you feel like fighting now?" she asked mockingly, charging another kido spell as she tried to decide the best time to retrieve her zanpukto-or whether the ice rope was a better idea.

He coughed a few more times, but the change's impact was obvious.  He was healing the damage she'd done rather quickly.  The voice, though echoing, sounded wry, pained, and a little bit amused.  "I'm supposed to be honest here, right?  ...Then the answer is, not really."

She threw off another couple kido incantations at him, but he merely shrugged them off.  He was more powerful than an ordinary Hollow.  If he was powerful enough to make Espada rank, all the more reason to dispatch him quickly.  She decided on the ice connection right away.

"Hey, Kuchiki.  That ice of yours can be a shield, right?  Or you know some kind of shielding kido or something."  He definitely wasn't as agile as the lumbering Hollow, something that made him much less of an annoyance.

She stared at him, aghast.  "As if I'd tell someone like you!"  Instantly she reached out to her sword, the ice rapidly extending toward her hand.  Whatever he was planning, she had to be ready.

The mask prevented her from seeing the slight grin, but she could hear it in the voice.  "Good.  'Cause I really don't want to hurt you.  Tanukioyaji, get out here!"  A sword appeared in his hand-didn't all the Espada have Spanish names for their swords; why did he-similar to Zangetsu, but not exactly the same.  "Getsuga Tensho."

She had been expecting the attack to come from the front, as he lowered the sword down in her direction.  She was fully prepared to block and counterattack.

It came from a close distance away, from all sides, even above.  A steadily contracting dome of black and red energy.  She barely had time to throw up a full-body shield of ice (a technique she couldn't recall having used before) and reinforce it with kido before the lethal wave hit.

Given the nature of the attack and defense, seeing what had happened was difficult.  The Hollow waited until the metaphorical dust had cleared, changing back into human form, as he'd fully healed.  Then he saw Rukia topple over, flat on her face.  Slowly, like one of those really silly slow motion clips.

Her spiritual pressure felt fine, but he couldn't rest until he'd checked anyway.  He reached down to take her pulse, sighing with relief when he found her heart was still beating normally.  This close, he could feel her breath on his neck, something that freaked him out just a little.  He'd worried he'd cut it too close, started the dome with not enough space or time for her to deal with it, but he had faith in his...well, King's, really...friends.  He knew she'd pull through okay.  She was just unconscious, which was the point.  She wouldn't follow or keep trying to attack him while she was unconscious.  Hopefully, she'd stay unconscious for a bit.  Then he could work on hiding his spiritual pressure (or at least disguising it better), so it didn't happen again.  She might get lucky, and really he just didn't want to have to fight King's friends, over and over.

He'd never tried that particular form of the attack before.  Harder than it looked, really.  Sure, exploding outward, easy enough, but imploding?  Trying to get it to go that direction was like pushing a giant slab of rock uphill-possible, but requiring a ton of work, frustration, and no small amount of sweat.

He lifted her, carried her over to one of the chairs at the tables and set her down carefully, letting her head loll against the back of the chair.  A mischievous thought crossed his mind, and he thought about it for a moment before discarding it.  No matter how much fun drawing a bunny picture explaining the situation to her sounded, he'd better not if he didn't want her any more ticked off than she already was.  He turned to pick up the peach, tossing it in the air briefly and catching it before grinning and biting into it.  He'd handled that pretty well.