Chapter IV

Ichigo entered his bedroom, pulled his mother's cross out of his pocket and summon his sword, the grip at the base of the reishi blade was long and the handle extended back from this about roughly the width and length of Ichigo's forearm.

He noticed the thin, hollowed-out portion running along the back edge of the blade from the base to the middle of the blade, and with a sudden movement of his arm, the sword disappeared.

"Cool."

Now he sat on his bed drying his hair with a towel after taking a bath.

Something was wrong. He could swear that he felt something disgusting crawling on his back, a presumption that caused chills similar to those of that time when he was with Urahara in the store.

"W-What the-" The young Kurosaki said as he was busted against the ceiling of his room by a huge hand-colored with the color of blood. Then he heard the howl of a Hollow. The Hollow came out of the wall into the room as if it were a ghost and grabbed him with his other hand. Ichigo endured not to scream to not disturb his family, he didn't want to put them in danger.

"Dammed you!" Ichigo raised his hand and created the reishi sword and stabbed through one of his eyes. The Hollow let go of him as part of his mask went flying from his face. The red-skinned Hollow went through the wall and disappeared completely from the room.

"Where are you going damn coward!" Ichigo went to the window to go after him but his hand was immersed in an unusual reiatsu, his sword was unstable and it went off. Ichigo collapsed to the ground. The black and red reiatsu began to wrap around Ichigo's body.

"Hey, Ichigo!" shouted Soi Fon who had just entered through his room's window. "Oh, no. I arrived too late."

That same night.

Ichigo woke up on the floor of his room, Soi Fon was next to him in her ninja outfit, but she was badly hurt with bruises and her cloth torn.

"What happened?" Ichigo said raising alarmingly.

"You were emitting a very high concentration of reishi and I had to absorbed part of it so that your body would not explode from the discharge." Her face fell resenting her previous actions. "I-"

"And the Hollow?"

"It got away. I can't track him down, it seems it went inside the Garganta."

"What's-" He stood up suddenly but his ribs burst an internal pain. "What the-?"

"I am not a medical expert. You will have to let your body recover." She told him helping him to sit on the bed.

"When part of his mask was destroyed, I saw his face, it was Orihime's dead brother." She sat with her knees together on the floor in front of him.

"All Hollows without exception were once souls of humans who stayed in this world too long that couldn't move on. Souls that weren't protected from Hollows. The soul degenerates with time losing its heart and becomes a Hollow. A Shinigami's job is to cleanse the Hollow's soul and sent them to the Soul Society which is what you call Heaven."

"Why didn't you tell me all that before!?"

"I didn't think you were able to recognize the facts with absolute truth, you're just a boy."

"Damn I can not stand up, Orihime is in danger and the Hollow is probably going after her." She put her hand on his shoulder, "stay here, I'm going to kill the Hollow. Tell me where she lives." Soi Fon handed over her own Denreishinki to him so he could show her the location of Orihime's house.

After obtaining the location she left the new Denreishinki with Ichigo and went at a speed faster than Ichigo could trace with his human senses.

In Orihime's apartment, she could not believe it, upon arriving at the place the short black haired girl was on the floor with a deep wound on her shoulder, Orihime, on the other hand, was outside her body, and the chain that hung from her soul had been broken. She had died.

"Shit, I'm too late." Said Soi Fon unsheathed her sword.

Orihime opened her eyes and looked at her smiling like a fool. "Hi, Soi Fon-chan!"

"You try to interfere!" The Hollow dashed over at her. "You're too late Shinigami, she's dead!" The Hollow threw his tail with immense speed and Soi Fon blocked with her sword. "Impossible, I'm supposed to have more strength but he's forcing me backward ...this damn wound." There was an explosion and Soi Fon flew out the wall of the room until she was standing on the air using the reishi of the area as footholds.

Ichigo arrived in time to see her standing on the sky, and fell on his knees breathless holding his lower abdominal area. He had followed after her at his own pace.

"What's wrong, Shinigami. You're too slow." The Hollow came out of the smoke from the room's hole, "your spiritual energy is diminishing." He opened his mouth and threw a substance at Soi Fon. She turned, and the sword blocked the attack that seemed to dissolve the blade, "acid?" she said before slamming to the floor, Acidwire had hit her with his tail.

"Kurosaki!" Orihime ran to where Ichigo was wounded, but her brother grabbed her before she could approach. "Let me go! Kurosaki is hurt!" She bit one of his fingers to no avail.

"Orihime," Acidwire said. "Have you really forgotten about me!? Is me, Orihime."

"Brother!?" She saw his face through where Ichigo had cut his eye before.

Ichigo approached Soi Fon who was still unconscious on the floor.

"Wake up, hey, Shinigami."

"I'm too weak to move. The explosion of energy you let out before would have destroyed your neighborhood and I had to absorb the blast. Shinigamis are not used to absorb large portions of reishi that way." Soi Fon said without raising her face from the floor.

"He's going to eat Orihime's soul if you do not do something!" Ichigo shouted barely standing up himself.

"There's away." Soi Fon shook the blood from her face and looked into his eyes. Both fell silent when a shadow appeared on top of them, the figure of a man, Orihime saw him too.

"My brother wasn't a person who did things like this...!" Orihime closed her eyes and shouted to the Hollow.

The mysterious man had a huge sword lay over his shoulder.

"I'm sorry but today's dinner is over." With a single movement of his blade, he cut the Hollow's arm and grabbed the girl. "Goodbye." He finished Acidwire by slashing him in half. Acidwire disappeared completely.

"Who you are?" Asked Soi Fon to weak to move on the floor.

"My name is Kugo Ginjo, nice to meet you." He made his sword disappeared. "Hey, Yukio, get out of your box! Stop hiding! The Hollow is dead!" Shouted Ginjo to which a boy dressed in black made himself present. A black portal closed after he came out of the sky.

"I couldn't say goodbye. I couldn't tell him that I was happy and that I had moved on with my life." Orihime sat crying and murmuring.

"You, monster," said Soi Fon trying to get up.

"Hey, wait-" Ichigo tried to stop her but she stood up anyway.

"You did not cleanse his soul, you destroyed his soul completely." Soi Fon claimed as she held her broken sword with trembling hands pointing at him.

"I know exactly who you're, traitor."