voidtreckerexpress | [Log] Story time!

"Hey hey hey, hope I'm not late!" Della cheerfully called, walking into the room. "Don't start the party without me..." She trailed off, seeing the bundle of adorable in Ichigo's lap.

"Awww! You didn't say we'd have an extra guest!"

"Nope, you're not late at all." Ichigo grinned at his roommate and stroked the tiny kitten. "I never got to have a pet growing up since my Dad's clinic is attached to the house and concerns about patient allergies, so I thought I'd get one now. And I won't have to worry about a cat as much when we're off the train for days as I would with a dog." The little thing mewed and purred, happy to just be snuggled for the moment.

Glorfindel was curious about what Ichigo was going to share. When he walked into the room and saw Della there as well, plus the cat, he was even more curious.

"Hello, Ichigo, Della. Who's the new passenger?" he asked. He greeted the kitten mentally, prior to reaching out an petting it.

Della moved to grab a chair, plopping herself down. "I totally get you. Me and my brother never really had time for caring for pets, since we were always out adventuring... couldn't help wanting one, though." Shoulder shrug, waving a hand to Glorfindel casually as he entered.

The kitten uncurled enough to sniff at Glorfindel's fingers as he stroked it. "I haven't gotten a name for him yet. Gotta see what his personality is like." Ichigo smiled at the elf and waited for him to take a seat. "Okay, so do you want me to just start talking or did you two want to ask questions?"

Glorfindel made himself comfortable, then set to luring the kitty to come closer so he could keep petting it. "That makes sense."

He shrugged. "You know your story better than we do. Why don't you start talking and we'll ask questions as they come up?" He checked to see if Della was okay with that. She might have questions already, after all.

Della nodded in agreement, pointing "finger guns" at Ichigo. "Go for it. I wouldn't know where to begin, so let's start right at the beginning!"

Ichigo let his kitten get up to start exploring, mostly because he could tell Glorfindel wanted to pet the tiny villain. "Okay, so in my world there are two types of souls. Wholes, also called Pluses by some, are souls of people who have died recently. The chain that connects their soul to their body has broken, but still exists. It attaches to a plate in the center of their chest, roughly over the heart. Some Wholes can move on to the afterlife on their own, but some don't. The ones that don't are at risk of becoming the other kind of souls, Hollows. A soul becomes a Hollow when the chain that once held them to their body has completely degraded, and the base plate has fallen away. The name comes from the fact that they've lost their heart, and their humanity."

Glorfindel was listening, and nodded to show he was paying attention. Wholes and Hollows, it made a fair amount of sense. In his world, the dead travelled to the Halls of Mandos, but not all chose to do so, such as Curufin.

His fingers, on the other hand, rolled a bit of string between them, looking wiggly and attractive to a young kitten, perhaps.

At this point Della regretted not bringing something to write with, because she really felt like note-taking. Right now, no choice but to nod along - and ask, since it was in her nature.

"I take it this stuff is normally a secret, but you came upon it anyway?"

Ichigo nodded at Della with a faint smile. "Most humans can't see spirits, aside from two specialized groups of humans who have spiritual energy, or reiatsu. The first group originally was connected to soul reapers, which I will get into, but the manifestation of their reiatsu upset the balance of souls. When they would take out a hollow, they didn't purify it and allow it to pass into the afterlife like it should have, their power completely eliminates the base soul of the hollow, along with any other souls they've eaten. Because that's what hollows do, they eat Wholes, and sometimes they hunt humans with reiatsu. The group that can completely destroy a hollow's soul are called Quincies and they are an endangered species that the rest of humanity knows nothing about. Because their powers disrupt the balance, they were hunted down and thought to have been completely wiped out several hundred years ago. But a few families survived, along with a secluded group of others that I didn't learn about until they came to get revenge, but that's way later in the story. The other group of humans with reiatsu call themselves Fullbringers. They got their powers because their mothers were exposed to hollow reiatsu while pregnant with them. They ended up absorbing that reiatsu and developing powers later on." As he talked, the kitten completely left his lap and was stalking that little bit of string Glorfindel was moving around.

"I see," said Glorfindel. "And...which group do you belong to?"

He smiled at the kitten. Little kittens stalking their prey was always so precious. He wiggled the string some more.

"Five bucks says it was Fullbringers." Money, at least from their home worlds, was rather useless here but why not make things more interesting?

But honestly, it was the only part he hadn't said that would be "told later", so to her it made the most sense.

Ichigo laughed at that. "Actually, all of the above. I found out about ten years after she'd died that my Mom had been a Quincy. She got infected with the reiatsu of a hollow when she was around seventeen. My Dad had been a high ranking soul reaper at the time who was keeping an eye on Mom and the Quincy boy she'd been betrothed to on orders of his superiors. The only way to save Mom's life was to seal away the hollow reiatsu with soul reaper reiatsu, so Dad gave up his powers to save Mom's life and got a special artificial body so he could blend in as a human. He didn't start getting his powers back until I was born, because I brought the hollow reiatsu with me. Of course, I didn't learn about any of this until shit had already hit the fan multiple times."

"Naturally," Glorfindel said dryly. "You try to protect your children, right up until the point that the stuff you are trying to protect them from comes for them, leaving them confused and uncertain. It's a classic tale," he said.

He wouldn't have taken Della's bet, because that is what he would have bet as well. But look at them both being wrong! He shrugged at her; what can you do about something like that, honestly.

"How bad was it?" he asked. The kitten was ready to pounce, so Glorfindel moved the string to safety, flicking the little kitty nose in passing.

Della half-shrugged at losing the bet, it'd all been in good fun. But the part about protecting your kids until it comes from them... That hit close to home, and she sighed, leaning back her chair.

"Pretty bad, I'm guessing. Information like that never comes easy."

"Well, let's see. I'd always been able to see spirits, but when I was little it was real hard to tell the difference between the dead and the living. I was a major crybaby when I was a kid, not to mention being an absolute mama's boy. When I was about eight, my Mom and I were walking home from my karate lesson during the rainy season. Because it was the rainy season, the river was really swollen and fast, and at one point as we were walking on the road by it, I thought I saw a little girl about my age about to fall into the water." Ichigo stopped, swallowing hard as he looked down at his hands. "It was part of a hollow, but I couldn't see the monster. I remember going down the slope to try and save the little girl, and the next thing I knew I was on my back in the grass, rain hitting my face, pinned under my mother's corpse. She died to save me. It wasn't until years later that I found out part of why she died was her powers were stripped from her that day by the guy who was the source of power for all Quincies."

Mothers dying to protect their children. Glorfindel stole a look at Della. That probably hit a little close to her as she really would do that for her sons, he knew from talking to her.

"So there you were, probably wracked with guilt...did you ever find out why the Source pulled her powers?" Glorfindel asked gently. The kitty had come close enough that the Fingers of Head Scritching had come out.

Yikes. Della certainly hadn't expected that amount of tragedy so soon, and regret was clear on her face. But Glorfindel was right - if there was ever a choice between her life and that of her kids, she wouldn't hesitate. She rubbed her arm, glancing away for a moment.

"Hey, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to bring that up if you weren't ready."

"Nah, it's alright. It's been more than a decade since she passed. And her powers were pulled because she wasn't deemed 'worthy' by him. Maybe because she wasn't part of the hidden enclave, I don't know. I do know I never encountered another hollow until I was fifteen." Ichigo flashed a reassuring smile at Della, he hadn't wanted to make her feel any kind of guilt about her own kids. "The day had been pretty average. There was a ghost of a girl who'd been hit by a car, and her roadside memorial was being trashed by a bunch of punks. So I did what I always did in that kind of situation, I beat the shit out them for their lack of manners. I fixed it up the best I could, told her I'd bring a new flower the next day, and that she should hurry up and pass on already. She was grateful that I'd stood up for her like that, and I headed home. That night I was in my room doing homework and this short chick in black clothes just walked through my wall and stood on my bed like it was no big deal! Naturally, I thought she was some kind of weird home intruder and kicked her." The memory of meeting Rukia for the very first time still made him chuckle a little.

Short chick in black clothes Ichigo made her sound so appealing, yet Glorfindel could feel the affection the other had for this person.

"People linger after they've died?" he asked, curious about that part. In Arda, few lingered, as they had places to go and things to do.

"It was a very good thing there were no more of these creatures until you were ready," Glorfindel said. He glanced over at Della as the kitten flopped down to enjoy the scritches more. "You ever encounter such a thing, Della? The ghosts or the hollows, I mean." The beating up of punks, that he could definitely see her doing.

"Ghosts? Oh, definitely." As if it was casual. "We've got a ghost butler back home. But he wasn't lingering after death or anything... he got summoned by accident. That's another story in of itself." One she wasn't there for, but had gotten all the details from her kids.

Now, to put the focus back on the star of the show. "So, you kicked a girl. What then?"

Ichigo snorted in amusement. "She was utterly shocked that I could see her! So we were yelling at each other and she cast a kidou on me. It's a kind of spell that soul reapers can do. It bound my arms behind my back and I couldn't move them at all. So she gave me the rundown on what soul reapers are. They're souls that live in the Seireitei, or the afterlife, who have spiritual energy, reiatsu. The way to know if a soul has reiatsu is if they feel hunger and thirst. So the ones who feel hunger and thirst either die again and get reborn, or make their way to the soul reaper academy. The ones that become soul reapers are trained and given swords that can do two essential functions. The pommel can be touched to the sword of a lingering spirit to help them pass on, and the blade can cut down hollows. When a soul reaper cuts down a hollow, it purifies them so they can move on properly. I asked her why she was there and she told me she'd been tracking a hollow but had lost the ability to sense its reiatsu once she was inside my house."

Glorfindel was an Eldar, and as such could see in the Seen and Unseen realms, and, after peeking at Ichigo in the Unseen, he could understand why his friend was unable to sense anything but him.

"This afterlife sounds a little like the Halls of Waiting, though with a few differences, as is natural since we are from two different worlds," Glorfindel said. He had always had a strong spiritual power, but his sacrifice with the Balrog meant that when he appeared in the Halls, he was quite a bit stronger, for example.

"So what did you do, since I'm guessing you volunteered to help her?" Look, Ichigo was Purple, it was a reasonable assumption.

He also gave Della a look. "I think we should discuss your life next. You keep saying the most fantastical things as if they are everyday occurrences."

"They are." Della said to Glorfindel, because it was the truth - weird things were just another day in the McDuck family.

"But I don't think Ichigo had much say in helping her or not... considering she had him at her mercy, what with the binding spell at all."

"What finally allowed Rukia to sense the hollow again was when it attacked my house." Ichigo's face darkened a little at the memory. "We heard a loud crash and she went running out of my bedroom door. It was hard to follow her, the kidou should have had me totally immobile. But I did."

He took a deep breath, then. "I have two younger sisters, they're twins. Yuzu is spiritually blind, but Karin could always see spirits as easily as I can. She just was in denial and didn't want to accept that she could see them. They're about 5 years younger than I am, and I am very protective of them. Yuzu was at the top of the stairs, partially covered in rubble. She called to me and said Karin's name before passing out. And I did something no human had ever done before, because I broke that damn kidou and I ran down the stairs and out the door after Rukia.

"The first hollow I saw, and knew it was a hollow, was huge. It towered over our house, and it had Karin in its hand. It was squeezing her and I could see that she was in pain. Rukia was doing her best, but the bastard was stronger than her. When she attacked it, it bit her and hurt her pretty bad. But I couldn't just let it hurt my family, you know? So I asked if there was anything at all that I could do to fight the hollow for her." A faint smile crossed Ichigo's face then. "She told me that there was one thing, but it was risky, very high chance of it just killing me instead of working. She could try to give me a portion of her power so I could fight the hollow. And I was willing. That was also when I got her name, as a matter of fact. Right before I let her stab me through the heart."

The last part caught Glorfindel a little by surprise, but not terribly much. Considering Ichigo's part living, part ghostly existence, he'd expected it to come up sooner or later.

"And that is the first time you died?" he asked.

He looked at Della again. They were a room full of people with extraordinary backgrounds, weren't they?

Yeesh, Ichigo really knew how to tell a story - that cliffhanger even threw Della off!

"And she didn't even buy you dinner first." She tried to joke in order to ease the tension. "At least you sort of knew what you were getting into, and I can't think of a better reason to do it than to protect your family."

Della's joke made Ichigo laugh. "Worse! She set up a tiny apartment for herself in my closet and took clothes from Karin and Yuzu without anyone's permission and told me it was my fault for taking all of her power, like I'd meant to."

He shook his head fondly and scritched his kitten's belly when the little fluffy ball rolled on his back. "She taught me how to be a soul reaper. It was thanks to her teaching me that I was able to protect one of my classmates when her brother's ghost turned into a hollow. See, the thing with hollows is when they first change from being a whole, they go after their loved ones first. So Inoue's brother went for her so they could be together again since she'd been living alone since he'd died. I don't know about their parents, apparently they were pieces of shit, and I know she has some family up north that was sending her money. I guess they thought letting her be close to friends was better than having adults in her life?

"Anyway, that's not the point. The point is, her brother became a hollow. My first attempt to purify him, I couldn't get enough momentum and I only cracked his mask. That was how we figured out it was her brother in the first place because a quarter of the mask came off. I had to fight him a second time, and I was able to purify him then so he could pass on."

Glorfindel stopped petting the tiny kitty tummy so Ichigo could, as it was his cat, after all.

"You have children running around with no adults in their lives, and you say that isn't the point?" Humans were so strange at times. Elves would not allow that. If the parents were unable to care for their children, usually because they died, there would be Elves coming from miles to volunteer to help care for them.

"And how did your sisters not notice their clothes disappearing? Or that there was a person living in your closet? Did she not need to eat? Or bathe?"

He looked at Della. "Wouldn't you notice if one of your sons had some strange woman living in his closet?"

Actually, Glorfindel put up a pretty good point. Della wasn't as up to date on how her boys lived, but even she thought she'd notice something was off.

"Was it some magic reaper soul stuff that made sure they didn't question it... or are you just an amazingly good liar?" Not to them, of course, but to the family.

"Yuzu absolutely knew her clothing was going missing, but it could have been some kidou I wasn't able to detect. Because apparently, the reason Rukia hadn't sensed the hollow she'd been hunting when she met is because I leak reiatsu like sieve. And I still have yet to learn how to control it fully."

The kitten got tired of the belly rubs and rolled over to start washing his paws, so Ichigo sat upright again. "Before a soul reaper learns the name of their blade it's called an asauchi. Basically it translates to empty blade. As a soul reaper develops their reiatsu and grows more powerful, the spirit of their sword will start to develop and form, and channel into the asauchi. They are supposed to be the size of a regular katana, so not quite two feet long. Mine was actually a little bigger than my larger sword is currently."

He thought for a moment about what else would be an important tale in his past, and remembered the parakeet. "So a couple days after I had saved Inoue from her brother, my best friend Chad started having some suspiciously bad luck. Around the same time, he had found a parakeet that talked with the voice of a little kid."

"Have you spoken to Piccolo about lessons on learning to control it?" Glorfindel asked. His own power wasn't quite the same as the ki that Piccolo used, but the lessons had been quite helpful, nonetheless.

At Ichigo's words on how much larger his sword was, Glorfindel had to cover his laugh with his hand, shooting Della a look. Young men, so concerned about the size of their swords.

He tilted his head at the description of the parakeet, though. "I suspect this parakeet was a bit paranormal?" He moved on to giving the kitten head scritches.

"So it was a para-normal-keet, huh? Huh?" ... Listen, Della thought she was funny. Though she definitely did catch Glorfindel's look and stifled a laugh. So very mature.

She let the joke die and cleared her throat. "So, was the bird an evil monster, a ghost, what have you?"

Ichigo snorted at the joke and shook his head a little. "Nah, the bird's story was pretty damn sad, actually. He was the ghost of a little kid that got shoved into the parakeet's body by the man that killed him and his mom. Only spirit I've ever heard of going hollow immediately after death, by the way.

"The hollow had been a serial killer before he died, and was using the kid's soul as bait to keep on killing. When I cut him down, he didn't purify like most hollows. The actual gates of hell came down and sucked his soul in." It had been a fitting end as far as Ichigo was concerned.

Turning to Glorfindel, Ichigo raised an eyebrow for a moment. "Think he would be able to help? I've heard a little about what he can do, but it sounds worlds away from what's possible with reiatsu."

"And what happened to the child?" Glorfindel was an elf, he spared no pity for the evil being, but children were precious to Elves.

"Maybe? What I have is also different from his ki, but I find the meditation and focus techniques to be quite helpful in learning to control the powers I have. It couldn't hurt to try?"

And he didn't see how he and Della were wrong about the parakeet.

Well now, Della felt bad about making a joke! She tugged at her scarf a bit, mentally noting not to make anymore jokes without knowing the full story.

"I gotta agree with blondie on this one, couldn't hurt to try. Worst that could happen is you find out it doesn't work, and you both move on."

Speaking of moving on, on with the story. "I won't accept anything less than a happy ending with the kid and your friend, by the way."

"Oh yeah, I gave the kid a proper passing on. We ended up seeing him when we went to Soul Society to save Rukia's ass. Which I'll get to." Ichigo smiled warmly at Della and took a drink before continuing.

"Eventually, Ishida confronted me. He hated me on sight because he knew I was acting as the soul reaper for the town. He's got plenty of reason to hate soul reapers, since he's a Quincy. Also, his grandfather had been abducted and experimented on by a soul reaper who is the absolute worst ever. But he's still a captain because he gets results.

"Anyway, back on topic with Ishida. He challenged me to a competition to see who could take out more hollows. He had this tablet, hollow bait, and he crushed it. It went into the air and drew a bunch of hollows to town. Rukia got attacked but was able to defend herself somewhat. Chad got attacked, but couldn't see the hollows. Karin was close to him and could see them, so with her help he was able to start fighting back. And this is where Inoue comes back into the story.

"A bigger hollow went and was at the school. It attacked a few of our classmates, one of whom I used to take karate classes with when I was little named Tatsuki. Tatsuki and Inoue are best friends, and Tatsuki sees spirits as well. So she saw the hollow and tried to get Inoue to run. But instead she stayed. She wanted so badly to protect Tatsuki and fight the hollow, that the flower shaped hair pins she'd gotten from her brother transformed into these little fairies. Three of them can form a shield. Two of them she can use to heal. And one of them can attack. So she was able to beat the hollow at the school."

Glorfindel blinked.

"Three things, one - please think about talking to Piccolo. Two - who is Ishida? And three - so in your world all souls go to this Soul Society? Do they stay there and become soul reapers? Wouldn't that cause there to eventually be more soul reapers than living humans?

"Ah, and a bonus fourth thing - You said Quincies hate Soul Reapers...what happens when Quincies die then?"

Honestly, Glorfindel had all the questions covered. So she merely shrugged, and openly gestured to him.

"What he said, but uh, doubled! Or else we'll quiz you later and it'll be super annoying." She finished with a grin, trying to keep it light.

"I will make a note to talk to Piccolo. Or at least find somewhere to meditate more in quiet." Ichigo smiled at Glorfindel before raking a hand through his hair.

"Ishida is...well, at first we were just classmates that didn't talk. Now? He's a close friend. If Mom hadn't been infected with hollow reiatsu and ended up marrying my dad, Ishida and I could have been brothers, because Mom was arranged to marry his dad.

"As for what happens to souls...well, it kind of depends. If you don't have any reiatsu, you don't feel hunger or thirst at all. So you just make your life the best you can depending on what district you live in. Outside of the soul reaper offices and barracks, and the Noble districts, it's...not great. There are 80 districts, and the higher you go the worse the conditions get. It's awful, and I can't do shit about it."

Ichigo sighed and frowned a little before shrugging. "As for Quincy souls? Far as I know, they've got their own secret enclave where they go and stay isolated. They really don't want anything to do with soul reapers, after all."

"Maybe we should ask the Train for a meditation car, but we make do, I suppose. There are times you might walk into the Training Gym and only see people meditating. Or the Greenhouse, or the Garden car...if the Prinnies are out. There is the Quiet Car also, but those rooms fill fast."

Brothers if their parents had married? Glorfindel was pretty sure genetics didn't work that way, but he wasn't going to be the one to have to explain how babies were made to the young human. He gave Della a look to see if she wanted to do it.

Glorfindel titled his head to the side. "So this Soul Society is the "Heaven" that is touted so highly amongst humans? Sounds...disappointing."

Honestly, Glorfindel didn't blame the Quincies if that was how the Soul Reapers treated the souls they 'saved' from the Hollows.

Offices and bureaus in the land of the dead? Della snorted, way more into that area than baby-making. (Also, if she wasn't ready to tell her own kids, she certainly wasn't ready to do it with someone else!)

"I know after several different afterlives, and so far yours sounds the most.. organized." It was the most gentle way she could put it.

"Yeah, it's a pretty crap version of heaven." Ichigo had to agree. When he finally made it there, he was going to force change on them until they killed him or chased him to Hueco Mundo.

"Where was I on my history... Oh, yeah, the competition to see who could cut down more hollows. Apparently, I am a broken tap of reiatsu, because we started attracting larger and more powerful hollows, called Menos. We had to drive them back to their world, but I didn't know how to harness my reiatsu to move in the air yet. So we ended up strapping my sword to Ishida's head, dull side to his skull, of course. I channeled my reiatsu through the sword as much as I could, and he took that and put it into an arrow. Between the two of us we were strong enough to drive the Menos away."

[Log] Story time!

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Tragic Backstory time!

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