I don't own any of the characters or ideas used in this story, Bleach isn't mine.

This chapter assumes basic knowledge about the anime Bleach.

A Hollowed Existence

Being able to speak with ghosts was something that Kurosaki Ichigo had always kept to himself. His orange hair gave his fellow classmates enough of a reason to target him and he honestly didn't want to deal with them if they ever found out he could talk to invisible beings that only he could see.

As far as he knew, it was a pleasure only he could partake in and he wanted to keep it that way, no matter how selfish that might've sounded.

Talking with ghosts relaxed him. It was almost liberating, really. He didn't have to worry about offending them – he'd found most ghosts to be extremely easy going – and they didn't obsess over his appearance like others his age did. At times, he would actively seek out a ghost to talk to instead spending time with his friends.

There was only so much he could take of Keigo, after all...

Of course, he wasn't aware of just how complicated his life would become because he could see spirits. He wasn't even aware of what reiatsu was or the fact that he himself housed an amount abnormally large for a human being.

He had no idea that beings called shinigami and hollows existed in the world. He was unaware of the fact that his reiatsu levels would draw their attention to him too.

He lived his life just like an ordinary teenager would... an ordinary teenager that had to fight because of his hair and could talk with spirits, anyway.

Kurosaki Ichigo would soon come to find though, that his days as an 'ordinary' teenager were doomed to come to an abrupt end.

"Ichi-nii?"

A young orange haired man grumbled and turned on to his stomach, the sheets of his bed tangled haphazardly with his legs.

"Ichi-nii!?"

He started awake, rubbing his eyes blearily and blinking several times to get the room in focus.

"ICHIGO!!!"

His door slammed open, startling the boy enough to cause him to topple off his bed and onto the cold, unforgiving floor.

Of course, his face broke his fall.

Ichigo growled and picked himself up off the floor.

"The hell's your problem old man!"

Kurosaki Isshin grinned widely and crossed his arms over his chest.

"You completely ignored your dear, sweet sister! And to think she was kind enough to make breakfast for someone as undeserving as you!"

The orange haired teenager glanced at the doorway and found, just as his father had said, the form of his younger sister staring at him.

"Are you alright Ichi-nii?" Kurosaki Yuzu asked, worried that her father's antics may have caused her elder brother to hurt himself.

"Don't show the unworthy care and concern Yuzu! This hooligan doesn't deserve your sympathy!"

Ichigo waved off his sister's concerns, completely ignoring his father. The man was in one of his moods, again, and when he was in one of his moods, it was best just to ignore him.

"I'm fine. I'll be down in a few minutes, alright?"

Yuzu nodded and smiled brightly at him before proceeding downstairs, likely to join her twin in eating breakfast.

Ichigo then turned to his father, who was in the middle of trying to imitate some sort of karate stance as he faced down his son.

"The hell are you still doing in here old man?!"

"Ichigo!" he gasped, his attitude doing a complete one-eighty – the man was bipolar, he had to be – as he fell to his knees and started bawling into his hands.

"How could you speak to your father in such a way! Where did I go wrong!" He looked up at Ichigo. "It was the dolls wasn't it! I thought that was just a phase!"

The old man's sobbing renewed, just as Ichigo's patience snapped.

He picked up Isshin by his collar and threw him out the doorway, over the balcony, and down into the living room on the first floor, where the man proceeded to prostrate himself in front of his late wife's picture and babble incoherently about dolls and manly action figures.

Ichigo sighed and quickly went through his morning routine before his father decided to come annoy him again.

Ten minutes later, he walked into the kitchen to find Isshin sitting calmly at the table, sipping coffee, and his two sisters talking animatedly about some sort of play their school was putting on.

"Morning Ichigo," Karin said as she offered him a small smile.

Isshin grunted in an angry manner, obviously disapproving of something, and closed his eyes.

"He's trying to act more manly to 'make up for the doll phase'," Karin supplied.

Ichigo pinched the bridge of his nose, but sat down at the table with a plate full of pancakes nonetheless.

For a few precious minutes, a comfortable silence settled over the Kurosaki family, Ichigo was even beginning to think he'd be able to get out of the house after only having to deal with his father's incessant grunting.

That was a dream that would never come true.

"Ichigo," Isshin said gruffily, his voice several tones deeper than it usually was. "I'm going to hire prostitute for you so you can recover your manliness. You need to discover the feminine body before it's too late and you suffer irreparable damage to your sanity."

Silence overtook the table, but this time it wasn't comfortable.

Yuzu was gaping shamelessly and Karin immediately started pounding Isshin's head in.

"I think my sanity's been damaged enough by you already, old man," Ichigo said dryly. "There's not much more you can do to hurt it."

He glanced over at the clock on the stove.

"I need to get going," he said to whoever the hell was listening as he put his dishes in the sink to later be washed. "Thanks for breakfast Yuzu, see you after school."

The girl nodded absentmindedly, still focused on the sight of her sister beating their father to a bloody pulp.

The trip to school was quick and uneventful. He greeted the ghost of an elderly lady as she watered her once living plants and another of a child skateboarding. Chad meant him about half way there and began walking alongside him without a word.

Once you earned Chad's loyalty you would never lose it unless you deliberately did something to make the gentle giant mad, Ichigo reflected as he entered the school yard, idly greeting Tatsuki and Orihime as he did so. The boy was a good foot taller than Ichigo and the Kurosaki boy wasn't short by any means. Add that to the muscles that practically bulged across Chad's body...

The orange haired teen snorted. Chad wasn't someone you'd want to get in a fight with, though whether or not the Mexican teen would fight back was another question entirely. Ichigo had learned a while ago that Chad's abuelo, his grandfather, had always defended the weak and never so much as lifted a finger in his own defense. It seemed the grandson had taken after the grandfather in that respect.

Regardless of whether or not Chad would use his body to fight though, Ichigo valued him greatly as a friend. He was one of a small group of people that the young Kurosaki could be around without getting a headache.

They had reached the classroom now.

Ichigo sighed in annoyance and mentally prepared himself for what was likely to be another boring day of school.

"Oi! Ichigo!"

The boy in question turned on his way to the schoolyard gates to find his life long friend Arisawa Tatsuki approaching him, Inoue Orihime trailing behind her.

"Hey Tatsuki, Inoue."

"Are we still on to spar later today?" Tatsuki immediately questioned.

Ichigo felt the edge of lips quirk up. If there was one thing he'd learned about Tatsuki over the years, it was that fighting was always on her mind. She was willing to do anything to keep her skills sharp, whether it be a spar or just some rough-housing on the living room floor, she'd be up for it.

"Sure," Ichigo nodded as he saw Chad approach from the corner of his eye.

Evidently Tatsuki saw him too.

"You too big guy! Drop by the dojo with Ichigo later, I need a good challenge. Strawberry over here doesn't put up much of a fight anymore," She said as she jerked her thumb at Ichigo.

The orange haired teenager snorted. "You barely beat me last time Tatsuki, and you wouldn't have either, if you hadn't gone for that low blow..."

"Not my fault you didn't wear anything to protect them," she grinned.

"Yeah, whatever," Ichigo said, barely resisting the urge to roll his eyes. "I gotta get home, Yuzu wanted me to help her move the furniture around or something."

Chad and Orihime both waved while Tatsuki yelled at him not to forget about their spar. He held up a hand to acknowledge her as he walked away, his mind already wandering.

He'd gotten a bad feeling about today sometime during lunch break and it'd yet to go away. Normally he wouldn't even think twice about something so trivial... but this was different.

It was almost like it was hanging in the air, a slight pressure on his shoulders that he knew wasn't there before. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand tall and his forearms developed goose flesh whenever he focused on it for longer periods of time.

At times, he had an even odder feeling that he could sense what was causing his irritation.

It would come to him at completely random times, a presence in his mind that seemed to be pointing in the same direction every time he felt it.

What it was pointing to was something he truly didn't want to find out.

Ichigo sighed and flexed his sore muscles as he entered the Kurosaki home for the night. It was quite late, due mostly to the fact that Tatsuki kept challenging him to another spar whenever he'd beat her.

He felt a grin stretch across his face.

In the end, he won, five out of nine.

Karin absentmindedly greeted him from where she was watching the television on the couch while both Yuzu and and his father were no where to be found.

Yuzu, he figured, was likely asleep already. She got up at unimaginable hours in the morning to make breakfast and do whatever else she managed to do before everyone else was up.

Isshin... he didn't even want to think about. He knew his father would find him, somehow, when the man was ready to annoy him again.

He dropped onto his bed the moment he was safely inside his room and started to rub at his eyes with the heels of his hands.

That feeling had stuck with him relentlessly. He'd caught himself looking over his shoulder on his walk home, expecting something to jump out at him, more times than he'd willingly admit.

Ichigo had the distinct feeling that someone, or something, had been watching him all day. His earlier feelings hadn't changed any, he still didn't want to meet whatever that thing was.

Before he could think any further on his weird feeling, a figure entered his room.

Well, maybe entered wasn't the best way to describe it, something like 'phased into' would be more accurate due to the fact that she walked through the wall.

Ichigo blinked. He'd seen ghosts do it often, but this girl wasn't a ghost, at least not as far as he could tell.

He couldn't see through her at all and she looked pretty tangible, more than the regular ghosts he saw, anyway. She wore an odd looking black outfit that fit loosely around her entirely body, it looked a lot like the shirts Tatsuki wore to spar in, due to the fact that they didn't restrict her movements. The black clothed girl also had what he believed to be a katana at her side... or some type of sword, he wasn't all that great at keeping track of the various kinds.

He watched her silently look around his room, then down at a device in her hand, and back around his room again before turning back the way she came.

It was then that he snapped out of his trance.

"Oi! What the hell do you think you're doing!"

No response. She was ignoring him completely.

"The hell? You can't just walk into someone's room like that!"

Again, no response.

Ichigo grit his teeth and reached out for the girl as she neared the wall. He grabbed the back of her robe-like shirt and, surprisingly, picked her up without any trouble whatsoever, holding her in front of him at eye level. She was extremely light.

"I said," Ichigo reiterated, thoughts on how light the girl was far from his mind now, "what the hell do you think you're doing?!"

She blinked at him, though he was relieved to see that she had actually acknowledged his presence now.

"...You can see me?"

His eye twitched and he shook her a little. "You tell me. Now what the hell are you doing in here!"

"Looking for a hollow."

He furrowed his brow.

"A what?"

"A hollow," the girl said impatiently, "you know, a soul whose chain of fate has eroded?"

"A chain...?"

The girl snorted and kicked him in the shin, well, the knee cap due to the fact that it was the only thing one of her height could reach.

He yelped and dropped her.

"The hell! What's your problem, crazy ass midget!"

Her eyes narrowed. "Look, I don't have time-"

A beeping sound was suddenly heard in the room.

The girl's hand darted back into her pocket and retrieved what looked to be a cell phone.

"Shit," she muttered under her breath.

As if it was answering her, an inhuman roar echoed loudly from the street.

Ichigo was about to run to his window, but he stopped to keep his balance as the floor shook violently under his feet. He vaguely heard the sounds of wood splintering and drywall snapping, belatedly realizing that part of his house had probably just been taken out by whatever the hell was outside in the street.

He froze.

Was this the thing that was giving him that bad feeling all day? Was whatever it was here to eat them?

The pressure that had weighed heavily on his shoulders all day suddenly intensified. It brought him to his knees.

Whatever was exerting this force on him was projecting its feelings with it. He felt bloodlust, first and foremost, along with the desire to eat...

A terrified scream broke from his stupor.

"Karin!" he yelled as he remembered the fact that his sister had been downstairs.

He bolted out of his room and vaulted over the balcony, forgoing the stairs completely, only to see what could only be described as a monster holding one of his sisters in its hand.

"Ichigo!" she howled painfully, tears of fright and pain running down her cheeks as the monster squeezed her again.

Ichigo's lips curled into a fierce snarl, ignoring the calls of that weird midget girl to stay where he was.

He charged at the monster head on, only to be knocked away effortlessly by a massive fist. He was tossed a good distance down the street, bouncing painfully and coming up after several wet snapping sounds.

He grimaced. He could easily feel that one, maybe two of his ribs were broken from the initial blow as well as two of the fingers on his left hand from when he'd rolled haphazardly down the street.

Karin screamed again.

Ichigo saw red.

He charged again, this time running straight past that weird girl from earlier as she held off the monster with her sword.

He dove away from the monster's fist as it attempted to come down on him with a force strong enough to shatter the ground under it and jumped at its other one, the one that held Karin.

His hands came into contact with the cold, leathery flesh of the hollow, if he'd heard that weird girl's warnings right, and latched on. The thing immediately started to try and shake him off, but one look at Karin's face solidified his resolve.

Ichigo clawed his way up the hand as the hollow became distracted by the weird girl from earlier, leaving him to focus his efforts less on simply staying on and more on getting Karin out.

"Ichi-nii!" she whimpered as he reached out to her.

"You'll be alright Karin," he said, more to convince himself than her at that moment.

He reached out and started to tug her out of the hollows hand, but at that moment, the monster managed to wound the girl and focused its attention on Ichigo again.

He barely had time to realize he was moving before the hollow smashed its hand into a building, sandwiching him between putrid flesh and the hard side of a home.

Blood was immediately splattered on the monster's flesh as Ichigo let out a hacking cough. His vision blurred and he started to slip, he could clearly see Karin though.

She was staring wide eyed at him, tears running freely down her face. Her struggling had stopped completely and in its place was mind numbing shock.

The young girl flinched as she watched her brother get pounded into the building again and his grip slipped further. A knot had formed in her throat, choking her and cutting off any sobs or words from leaving her mouth.

"Ichi," she choked out as another impact with the nearly destroyed building shook her brother off further.

The hollow roared behind her, its putrid breath suffocating her.

"Ichi-nii!" Karin screamed as the monster raised its hand, this time intent on smashing the orange haired insect on its hand into the unforgiving ground.

Ichigo blearily watched his sister's mouth as it shouted his name. His mind was in a constant state of half-consciousness from the beating he'd taken and all the blood he'd lost.

Tunnel vision was starting to take over, focused solely on his task of freeing Karin.

A feeling of weightlessness passed over him as he felt the hollow's fist hover in mid air before abruptly plummeting toward the ground. He knew what was going to happen, he knew he'd hit the ground and likely end up dead in minutes from all the internal trauma the monster had put him through, but he found himself unable to do anything about it.

Whether that was due to his dulled state of mind or the fact that he doubted he'd be able to move anything except his arms, he didn't know.

And so, Kurosaki Ichigo was smashed into the ground under the hollow's fist with bone shattering force.

Kuchiki Rukia gasped as she clutched at her wounded shoulder, willing what feeble power it had remaining to help her lift her blade and defeat the hollow in front of her. Her arm lifted itself off the ground and quivered weakly before sinking back down.

"Damnit!"

She raised her good arm and began channeling her reiatsu to her fingertips in a last ditch attempt to destroy the monster that had wounded her.

Unfortunately, the thing noticed her efforts, having satisfied itself with the brutal death of the orange haired human.

With its attention now focused solely on her, Rukia redoubled her efforts. Never before had she attempted to use kidō with her weaker arm alone, and with no time for the full incantation...

Desperation blossomed in her when she realized that the hollow would reach her well before she was ready to unleash her attack.

She was saved from what would have certainly been a painful death though, when a pulse of reiatsu washed over her and the hollow.

Rukia turned abruptly toward the source, losing control of her one handed attempt at kidō in the process. The lightning charged reiatsu in her hand fizzled and died.

Her violet eyes narrowed in surprise when she saw the orange haired boy from earlier standing over his corpse. Such a sight normally wouldn't have unique in any way, shape or form... he had just passed on, after all and his soul would need cleansing to move on to Soul Society.

What held her attention though, was the rapidly deteriorating chain on the teenager's chest.

Ichigo looked around slowly, still dazed from the way he'd died just seconds earlier. He took in the sight off a large figure in front of him and a smaller, darker clothed figure to its side. There were noises too, screaming, if he heard correctly.

But who would be screaming...

He abandoned that train of thought after considering it for another second or two, easily becoming distracted as soon as he looked down at himself.

"A chain..."

Why would a chain be on his chest?

Ichigo closed his eyes and focused, hard.

And suddenly, it all came back to him.

A hollow attacked his home and took his sister away from him, right under his nose. He'd tried to get her back, but the monster had been far too strong, he'd been easily killed.

Which meant... this chain must've been what that strange girl was talking about.

And if this chain eroded...

An uncharacteristic snarl passed by his lips, followed closely by a sinister hiss that he knew he would've never been able to produce when he was alive.

If this chain eroded, he would become a hollow.

But that would make him stronger. He might even gain the strength necessary to save his sister... and kill the hollow.

His eyes narrowed in rage.

Yes. The hollow would die.

Ichigo reached up with one hand and grasped the chain, before giving it a massive pull.

Pain immediately washed over him in raw, mind-numbing waves of agony, alighting every single nerve and some he never even knew he had with a burning sensation. He collapsed to his knees, mouth wide open in a muted scream.

And then, it was gone.

He felt his body crack and break, bones reforming and muscle snapping and regenerating at inhuman rates. His skin turned white and grew harder, tougher, stronger, just like the rest of his body did. His fingers transformed, lengthening into vicious looking claws that clacked together in anticipation whenever he shifted his fingers. A tail took form behind him, completely white but for the last two feet, which was a blood red, and packed full of layer upon layer of hardened muscle. His legs took on a more bird like appearance, his feet even becoming a pair of razor sharp talons.

Finally, a mask faded into view over his face. It was white, save for the red markings that marred the left side of its surface, the same red as his tail. His pupils transformed into a savage yellow while the formerly brown and white parts bled away, a pitch black shade taking their place.

His hollow hole appeared right where his stomach should've been.

Ichigo eyed his new form appreciatively and clacked his fingers together, delighting in the sound the sharp flesh made when it clashed.

A roar brought him from his quiet observation.

His eyes narrowed. Yes! He needed to kill the hollow and save his sister!

He returned the roar and charged at the monster that'd taken his life without second thought. Without a single shred of fear. Without any hesitation.

He needed to kill the hollow!

Kill the hollow and...and...

His pushed his thoughts away and jumped at his opponent, his claws slashing at every inch of flesh they could reach.

The hollow roared in anger and swiped at him with one of his massive hands, but Ichigo jumped over it and over the hollow itself to land on top of the thing's head.

He hissed as his eyes narrowed in satisfaction and he raised a bloody hand over his head.

The hollow never even had a chance to react before Ichigo plunged his hand deep into the back of its neck. It writhed pathetically as its spinal cord was broken, but the smaller hollow was not done.

Ichigo wrapped his hand around its spine and pulled as hard as he could, resulting in half of the thing's back being torn apart in a mess of blood and gore.

He hissed again, this time in anticipation for his meal.

The white and red hollow dropped to his knees and sunk his razor sharp teeth into its kill, delighting in the strength it gave him as he sucked any and all reiatsu out of the corpse.

He stood thirty seconds later, having drained the hollow of its reiatsu completely.

He'd killed the hollow... but he needed to do something else as well.

Ichigo glanced around his kill, only just then noticing the dark haired girl curled into a ball farther down the street.

His sister! He needed...

Something... something to do with his sister!

White hot pain suddenly burst into existence on his right shoulder, the result of the kidō spell Rukia had been charging ever since Ichigo knelt down to feast upon his kill.

The human-sized hollow looked at the wound blankly for a moment, studying it mindlessly as his flesh sealed renew itself.

"...capable of regeneration..." he heard distantly.

It was enough to snap him from his observations though, and his head whipped towards the sound, a roar already surging forth from his throat.

Ichigo advanced slowly on the downed girl, he had no idea what she was or why she had attacked him, but he knew she'd pay for it. He'd make sure of it.

She struggled to her feet as he neared her, but he'd have none of it.

Ichigo backhanded her, throwing her weakened body to the ground. Before she had a chance to even attempt to stand again, he pinned her arms down with his hands, his claws digging painfully into her delicate flesh.

He lowered his head so that it hovered directly above hers, savoring the look of fear and resignation in her eyes as he did so.

He opened his maw, watching as she cringed and turned her head away from him reflexively.

Ichigo growled deep in his throat. This one was fun to toy with...

He wanted to play more.

Ichigo slowed and quieted his breathing so that it was inaudible over the girl's panting. He stilled his body and didn't move a muscle as he watched her stare resolutely away from him.

It was amusing to him, to see how long she would put up a strong front in the face of death.

He stayed that way for an indeterminable amount of time, breathing silently and unmoving over the black haired girl. Staring at the side of her face intently.

His eyes narrowed a fraction of an inch when she licked her lips and squeezed her eyes shut in irritation.

It wouldn't be long now...

He could see the confusion and panic building up in her, he didn't even need to look in her eyes to know it. She was fighting a battle she couldn't win, they both knew it.

Ichigo narrowed his eyes further as she started to move her head restlessly, her arms briefly struggling against her captor's superior strength before giving up again.

She was wounded and he'd just eaten. There was no way she'd come out of this alive.

Ichigo's eyes widened in anticipation, only vaguely realizing that the night had gone eerily quiet since he'd pinned the girl down. He could feel it...

Rukia turned to look at him again.

He reared his head back and bellowed a deep roar, his face inches from hers. His claws dug further into her flesh, far enough to draw blood and make her wince.

When he stopped his howl, her breathing was ragged and there was hint of moisture in her eyes.

"Just do it," she whispered fiercely. "Kill me!"

Ichigo didn't understand her words, but he sure as hell grasped the intent behind them.

He struck out, his jaws clamping around her delicate throat and squeezed. He was rewarded with what had to be the best taste a hollow could ever experience.

reiatsu flowed over his tongue and into his being. It caressed the inside of his mouth with its taste for a short moment and moved on not a fraction of a second later.

Too quick, he decided as he desperately tried to savor the taste.

All too soon Ichigo had drained the body of its reiatsu and he found himself wanting more.

He stood and looked around at his surroundings again.

There was girl on her knees in the street a good distance from him. She had black hair that fell to her shoulders and a fearful glint in her eye.

Ichigo vaguely recognized her, but he didn't waste time dwelling on that thought.

He wanted more. He needed more.

He needed to satisfy his hunger.

With that thought, he bent his powerful legs and jumped the entire fifty feet between himself and the girl.

He landed with only the smallest of sounds, right next to her.

Ichigo ignored the girl's eyes as they widened in fear, desperation, sadness and betrayal.

"Ichi-nii," she whispered as his hand grasped the shirt she was wearing and easily lifted her into the air.

His jaws clamped down on her neck, sucking the reiatsu out of his third victim.

By now, nearly five minutes had passed since the first hollow had disturbed the formerly quiet night, and another young girl had foolishly wandered out into the night.

Ichigo saw her before she saw him. She had sandy brown hair, the same length as the meal he'd just devoured. She was cautiously making her way closer to him, obviously searching for something, or someone.

He snorted, drawing her attention to his general direction. Her eyes passed right over him several times, but never focused on him.

A grin stretched across his face. His prey couldn't see him.

Ichigo growled low in his throat and started towards the girl. She heard him again, and this time her eyes widened in surprise and a small amount of fear.

"I-Ichi-nii? Karin?"

Another hiss escaped him as he walked passed her.

She whirled in the direction of it, but he was already on her opposite side, growling again.

The girl turned around again, panic now clearly present in her eyes.

"I-Ichi-nii... I'm scared..."

Ichigo watched silently as the girl sunk down to hug her knees to her chest in the middle of the street. Playing with his prey was quickly becoming his favorite thing to do.

A muffled sniffle and a choked sob came from his next meal on the ground.

He grimaced, deciding to feast now before she cried any longer.

With that thought, he grasped her shoulders and, ignoring her gasp and tear stained face, sank his many pointed teeth into her neck.

Just as he was finishing with his fourth meal, another figure came running up the street. He was clearly out of breath, as if he'd just run for a long distance, but Ichigo didn't care about any of that.

All he cared about was how good the man's reiatsu felt.

Ichigo watched intently, unmoving as the man stopped about thirty feet from him to take in the scene.

"Damn Urahara Kisuke. Damn him to hell," the man muttered fiercely under his breath as his eyes grew more and more hollow with each corpse he saw.

"Karin... Yuzu... "Kurosaki Isshin muttered as his eyes flickered back and forth between the husks that were once his daughters.

A tear ran down his cheek as his eyes came to stop on the only figure that was still living besides himself.

"Ichigo..."

He watched as the hollow charged him. If only he hadn't wasted so much time with Urahara, hadn't allowed himself to get absorbed by his past memories...then he might've been able to stop this from ever happening.

The hollow that was once his son leaped into the air, its maw opening in anticipation for its fifth meal.

Isshin hadn't regained enough of his shinigami powers to be able to cleanse a hollow soul, so that wasn't an option. He could easily kill it with kidō, but he knew that when hollow's evolved, they regained enough of their minds to become more than thoughtless monsters.

And he would never be able to bring himself to kill his own son, no matter what Ichigo had done or what he'd become.

Isshin swallowed heavily and remained motionless as the hollow closed in on him. His family was dead. Yuzu and Karin having been killed by their own brother and Ichigo having suffered a fate that was far worse than anything Isshin could ever imagine.

They say the empty feeling that hollows suffer never truly goes away.

"Come my son," he whispered under his breath, tears freely flowing down his face. "Use my power... and live."

Urahara Kisuke sat quietly in his shop, focusing heavily on his ability to sense nearby reiatsu sources.

Isshin had left a few minutes ago, laughing off the last of their reminiscing as he walked towards his home.

He felt Isshin clearly, slowly ambling away from his shop and in the direction of his family's house. Another pair of rejautsu, one shinigami and one hollow, were somewhere across town. At this distance, Kisuke couldn't really determine where they were exactly, but it didn't matter either way.

He wouldn't do anything unless the hollow came directly after him, just as he'd done ever since he'd been banished from Soul Society.

So, he continued focusing on the reiatsu signatures while idly sipping at a cup of tea.

Eventually, one of the smaller reiatsu sources, one that doubtlessly belonged to a human, faded away.

Urahara sighed. A minute amount of guilt clawing at his mind. He would've been able to save that human, but he couldn't... he wouldn't interfere. It wasn't his business anymore.

He was somewhat startled when another hollow's reiatsu signature abruptly appeared near the first two he'd felt, but remained in his shop, calmly sipping away at his tea.

Kisuke smirked when one of the hollow's disappeared, likely due to the efforts of the shinigami in the area.

When the shinigami disappeared though...he started to worry. And when Isshin's signature abruptly picked up the speed at which it was moving, Urahara was very close to leaving his shop.

But he stayed.

He soon felt another smaller reiatsu vanish after the shinigami.

It was then that he realized what was happening.

He dashed out of the door and immediately took to the roof tops, using every ounce of speed he had to get to the opposite side of town before-

Another smaller reiatsu signature vanished.

Urahara swallowed heavily. Isshin was there with the hollow now, and even though the Kurosaki patriarch couldn't use his zanpakutou just yet, the man's kidō would be more than enough to kill off any hollow of this strength.

When Kurosaki Isshin's signature vanished though, Kisuke stumbled.

"What just happened?"

Ichigo dashed along the roof tops of Karakura Town, putting as much distance as he could between him and the spiritual presence that had been heading toward his previous location.

The reiatsu signature he'd felt, even from such a long distance as half way across town, had scared him. His instincts took over and he fled, he fled as fast as his legs could carry him.

He used what little skill he had at sensing reiatsu signatures to try and find the one that he needed to avoid. After several seconds and no small amount of effort, he found that the signature had gotten to where he'd had his first five meals and stayed there.

It wasn't following him anymore.

Ichigo grunted in satisfaction and instead focused on another trio of reiatsu signatures nearby. They were the only other ones that stood out to him, so he started making his way towards them without a second thought.

Yasutora Sado suppressed a shiver as he walked a step behind Arisawa Tatsuki and Inoue Orihime. He had an odd feeling that something was about to go wrong in an otherwise peaceful and quiet night.

The tall teen shook his head to rid himself of those thoughts, he was only being paranoid after all, and focused back on the conversation that Tatsuki and Orihime were having in front of him.

"He only got lucky, I'll get him next time," Arisawa was saying.

"But Tatsuki-chan," Inoue responded, "you always say that when Kurosaki-kun wins."

The darker haired girl waved off her comment. "Naw, I didn't say it after we sparred last time."

"That's because you won that one..."

"Thanks for reminding me," Tatsuki said with a grin on her face.

Orihime only smiled and shook her head, silence falling over the group.

Sado, or Chad as Ichigo had taken to calling him, suppressed another shiver. He was beginning to think that odd feeling he'd had before wasn't something to just ignore. It was growing stronger and stronger with each passing second.

The hair on the back of his neck stood tall and he got the distinct feeling that he was being watched.

He grunted and stopped abruptly, spinning around to search the night for anything out of place.

"Sado-san?" Orihime asked after a moment of watching the boy scan the nearby houses. "What's wrong?"

Chad shook his head, taking one last look around the alleyways and rooftops of the houses that he was near, and turned around.

"I thought I saw something... must've been my imagination."

"It was probably from the thrashing I gave you earlier," Tatsuki said, her grin still on her face.

"But Tatsuki-chan," Orihime turned to her friend, "Sado-san beat you too."

A snort. "Yeah well... I'll get him next time."

Chad tuned out their conversation again in favor of glancing around warily. That feeling was still weighing heavily on his shoulders and he didn't want anything to catch him off guard.

Something in the corner of his eye abruptly drew his attention. He turned to find what appeared to be a blur, a distortion of air racing across the rooftops on the opposite side of the street.

Suddenly, the blur stopped.

Chad got the distinct feeling that it was watching him.

And then, it jumped.

Chad tracked it until he lost sight of its figure against the clear night sky and settled into a defensive stance.

"Sado-san?" Orihime started to question, but she cut herself off when the street next to them suddenly cracked and broke under the weight of the same blur Chad was trying to track.

Ichigo watched the humans silently from his position in the street. They'd all jumped when he'd landed heavily and were now staring warily in his direction.

He let a low hiss escape his throat and, without any further hesitation, jumped forward to enjoy his next meal.

They didn't feel like they had as much reiatsu as his other meals, but he didn't care.

He'd do anything to fill the void where his heart used to be, after all.

"Aizen-sama."

The brown haired man turned his head to face the one who addressed him.

"The hōgyoku has changed vessels," Ichimaru Gin stated through his ever present grin.

One of Aizen's eyebrows arched in curiosity.

"It has now? I wonder how that might've occurred," he mused softly to himself. "Who might our lucky host be now?"

"He goes by the name of Kurosaki Ichigo."

"Kurosaki hmm?" the captain of the fifth squad muttered. A moment later, the edge of his lips quirked up. "Kurosaki Ichigo wouldn't happen to be a hollow now, would he?"

If possible, Ichimaru's grin widened. "He is."

"This is good..." Aizen murmured, almost to himself, a contemplative glint in his eye. "Gin, make sure our friend finds his way into Hueco Mundo without incident. I will handle your shift in Central 46."

The man nodded and turned to leave. "You got it," he sang as he left.

A/N: So, an idea for a Hollow Ichigo fic came to me as I was writing another chapter for my Naruto story and absolutely refused to leave me alone until I wrote a bit. This is the result.

The sole pairing I'm going to confirm right now is Ichigo/Apache. I don't really have any plans for any other couples, but that may change as the story goes on...never know.

I changed the way hollows absorb reiatsu for simplicity's sake, instead of actually eating their victims, they just suck out their reiatsu and soul.

Finally, my Naruto story will take priority over this one. I do have a general story line worked out worked out already, so it's not like updates will be extremely slow for this, I'll just be writing it as inspiration comes to me.