20 An Apparition

As Grayson's body fell to the concrete Kisuke Urahara's spiritual pressure roared to life—defensively whipping around to stare at the point on the rooftop that Grayson had been pointing at as he fell unconscious.

On top of the rooftop there was a figure, small and extremely humanoid, but not at all human.

Without a second thought, Kisuke's cane became a wicked sharp Zanpakutō, screaming with the energy leeching from its surface. With a single step, he was beside the figure, swinging his blade at a speed most would barely be able to see at all.

Kisuke, however, sent his mind into overdrive. This was a testing attack, something not intended to necessarily kill the target, to allow him to gain information instead. First was it's form. It was indeed a Hollow, though even as he stood directly in front of the Hollow, it was as if it didn't exist at all. It was distinctly humanoid, short even. Kisuke was hardly tall, but the Hollow was a few inches shorter than he.

It's mask was oddly featureless, covering the face and smoothing out features that are barely impressed upon the mask. It fell into a teardrop shape as the mask made it's way towards the chin, two simple holes cut out for dark recesses where eyes would be, and large defined teeth low down on the mask. Apart from those standard features, there was no colouring, no patterns and no edges or hard lines.

The Hollow, instead of letting itself get hit by the blade, simply vanished and appeared behind Kisuke. Urahara had expected as such, and let it happen, waiting for a blow to arrive in short order… but nothing came. Instead, as he whirled around to face the Hollow, it simply stood there almost as if it were analysing him.

The Hollow's body itself was covered in a bone white shawl, covering up anything that may be lying underneath, except for it's arms that protruded from underneath folds in it's robes. They weren't the typical black skin and flesh of a low-level Hollow.

An Adjuchas? How? There should be no way for a Hollow of that level to sustain itself, even in Karakura town. And to travel from Hueco Mundo without any of my sensors detecting it? Kisuke thought, his mind awhirl with possibilities.

Kisuke struck out with his blade, quicker and harder this time, intending to do at least a little damage. But just like before, the Hollow simply disappeared, even leaving behind an after image which was sliced apart by Kisuke's blade.

Again, when he turned towards his back, the Hollow was there, silent and waiting.

"So you have a hunting instinct, then." He spoke dryly, giving the Hollow a questioning glance. The Hollo remained entirely silent.

"Why do you not attack, little Hollow?" Kisuke asked, voice dropping dangerously, his haori billowing with the undulations of his spiritual pressure spewing forth from his body, wrapping itself around the Hollow.

They stood like that, staring into each other's eyes, or eye holes, for a long time. Kisuke kept pushing up his spiritual pressure, far past what Grayson had taken during his training, and substantially stronger than he was capable of enduring even now after a month of training, even with how quickly he had progressed.

"An Adjuchas would be able to converse with me easily, even some low-level Hollow are capable of a such. What are you, exactly?" The spiritual pressure that Kisuke was unleashing was far too much for even Jinta to reliable stand against, however the Hollow stood as silently as it had before, without even a slight expression of difficulty.

There was the tell-tale displacement of air as Tessai made his own way into the small area of highly condensed spiritual pressure.

"A Hollow?" Tessai exclaimed warily, raising a hand, palm facing towards the Hollow and, with a small grunt of exertion, a barrier appeared around the it. Chains quickly rose from the concrete roof, wrapping each of the Hollow's limbs, and then a larger chain wrapping the entire body in a thick layer of pure spiritual energy.

This seal was extremely impressive, an original creation of Tessai's, one he knew so well that he could easily perform the bakudō without an incantation at full power, a feat only few could possibly claim to have reached in even the simplest of kidō.

However, even under both spiritual pressure and sealing bakudō, the Hollow didn't even do so much as move, let alone struggle against it's bindings.

"What is this thing. It's as if I am not even binding it at all!" Tessai called to Kisuke, eyebrows furrowing underneath his rectangular glasses, a concern in the man that he hadn't seen in years. A concern that his kidō wasn't sufficient.

"I don't know…" Kisuke spoke softly. The Hollow didn't even seem dangerous, it was easily the most docile Hollow he'd ever encountered, barring it's habit of using sonido to get behind it's targets, a clear holdover for some hunting instinct that it has retained.

"I haven't seen a non-hostile Hollow like this, not one to this degree. It isn't even an Arrancar. You could almost convince me that it was a Dragon, like the Europeans have, if I didn't know better." Kisuke said, humming and hawing.

Honestly, Kisuke was reluctant to kill the Hollow. It had caused even Grayson, a living spiritual sensor that was only becoming more and more precise, an inordinate amount of difficulty to actually detect at all. For it to also be non-hostile to such lengths as not even struggling against both spiritual pressure and sealing bakudō was possibly the rarest type of Hollow you could encounter, maybe even entirely unique to itself.

"Hollow, are you capable of understanding speech?" Kisuke probed. There was no response, however, the Hollow standing entirely still, looking more like a statue than anything, staring into Kisuke's eyes.

Kisuke wasn't a fool, he was more than ready to release his Bankai and exterminate the Hollow with impunity, and he was entirely sure that he'd be capable of it, but it was a goldmine of information on Hollows, that was so difficult to procure due to the inherently obscure nature of souls.

That was, however, before the Hollow moved.

It wasn't the small shift that any normal Adjuchas would be barely capable of under the circumstances, no. The Hollow entirely disregarded the chains and spiritual pressure altogether, walking through the chains as if they were mere apparitions hanging in mid-air. Kisuke thought himself dreaming when he saw that sight, and before any other instinct made it's way to his mind, he had only one thought.

How interesting.

And then the Hollow disappeared, totally untraceable.

---

Waking up was terrible, I realised.

Maybe it was the total, utter feeling of lethargy, or the dry mouth, or the lingering taste of blood covering my tongue.

But it was probably the massive headache, like someone was driving a spike through my skull, one heartbeat at a time. Each pulse of pain made me regret waking up at all, destroying any possible coherent thought I could have potentially conjured from the black pit of pain that was my mind.

At some point I had a cup of water forced into my hand, letting me absentmindedly sip on the cool cup of revitalizing liquid. Sometimes water truly tasted like a god created drink, personally crafted for you, to bring your body back to it's perfect state. At least, that's what it tasted like after the first few swigs, those just tasted like blood and gunk from a dry mouth.

"Grayson?" A soft voice whispered, in a concerted effort to be quiet. It still sent a tingle of pain down my spine as my head lit on fire with pain again.

"Suzumi." I replied softly to the voice, feeling her hands clasp around my own gently.

"Are you feeling okay?" she asked, and I definitively responded my exact physical state with one simple grunt. She gave me a forced chuckle, "You just love to make me worry about you, doofus."

I almost laughed, until I realised what a terrible, terrible idea that would be. Just thinking of laughing sent my brain into backflips, so I settled for a forced smile.

"I think that's where half my worth comes from." I could feel her roll her eyes just from the mood.

"Twenty-five cents tops." She jibed.

"Sold, to the lovely lady who's kinda my girlfriend!" I exclaimed with a lack of enthusiasm, only due to my lack of actual energy to put in. Though, if I had to guess by her barely restrained laugh, she didn't mind all that much.

What came next was a soft sensation against my cheek and a gentle hug that lasted a few minutes, simply enjoying each other's presence and warmth.

"Well, since I now own you, we may as well be officially together, then?" She whispered, a smile on her lips before she kissed my own gently.

It wasn't an overindulgent kiss, simply a confirmation of what we already knew. This small, little thing that had grown spontaneously from a chance meeting on a plane, to staying at her apartment and listening to her talk about her father, to finding a 'job', to becoming involved in a mysterious spiritual world, all culminating in that one confirmatory kiss.

It was a simple, no frills thing that we had unconsciously cultivated for no other reason than we enjoyed each other's company. Maybe it wasn't some star-crossed lovers situation, as I'm sure that Suzumi would be perfectly fine simply working as a flight attendant, never finding out what was hidden in the world at my side. But maybe that just made the simplicity of it even more special.

A chance in a chance.

We hugged each-other for a good while afterwards, enjoying the warm silence as my headache slowly, slowly receded, becoming a humming pain in the back of my mind that complained whenever I tried to reach out my ribbon sensing field. I could still see Suzumi, as well as Kisuke and Tessai, but I couldn't even force myself beyond that.

"What happened out there, Suzumi?" I asked after a long time. She just sighed.

"Truthfully, I didn't catch it all and we were all in a bit of a rush when you collapsed, but you pointed out a Hollow on the rooftop and Urahara went to investigate. After that he released more spiritual pressure than I'd ever felt before condensed right on top of this Hollow. Tessai went up and," she waved her hand around emphatically, "did something and chains came out of nowhere and wrapped around it."

"What happened to the Hollow?" I asked, unsure if I really wanted to know what happened to the Hollow that blew my mind, almost literally.

"Well, after that, the Hollow just kind of… walked out and disappeared." I furrowed my brow intensely.

"Walked out?" I asked, incredulous.

"Yup, just went straight through it all like it was an illusion." She said, her voice frivolous, but body tense with concern. Yet again we have encountered something that 'shouldn't be possible', and yet it was possible. First me, with my interacting with souls and 'ribbon stealing' and then Suzumi becoming significantly more spiritually sensitive as quickly as she has, then this new Hollow.

I sighed heavily, I'm sure that Kisuke has ideas, though getting the out of the man was a difficult talk. I got the distinct impression that he has been oddly forthcoming with me, despite our spats, and even then, the information is vague and generalized. I hadn't ever seen one of his labs, though we both knew that he had them, and multiple at that. But I imagine he didn't want me in there.

I struggled against gravity as I sat myself up, preparing myself to get up properly as Suzumi helped. My body, however, was not having it, determined to stay as immobile as possible.

With a few minutes of struggle, I got placed in a large, comfortable chair, and Suzumi promised that she'd go harass Kisuke into coming to meet with me.

I let time blur after she left, my mind sinking back into a power saving mode to help me recover from my headache, though unfortunately a new one walked into the room just as I reached a proper relaxing state.

"Ah, it seems you are doing better than I thought you would be." Kisuke said jovially, scratching at his chin and waving his cane around playfully.

"I make it look good." I grumbled, eliciting a small chuckle from the man.

"I have to say, I'm quite impressed with you right now, Grayson." I quirked an eyebrow at him, an unspoken question. "You managed to sense that Hollow we saw, something even I wasn't capable of. It is simply called Phantom, which is surprisingly accurate in contrast to the usual naming scheme that Soul Society uses for Hollows." He laughed at his own joke. I didn't even know they gave Hollows names, though I had heard about Phantom before.

"Is it dangerous?" I asked.

"Is it dangerous?" He repeated, "Extremely! If it wanted to be, it could probably kill any Soul Reaper sent to Karakura town to investigate until Third Seats and Vice Captains. A Captain could easily kill it." He said dismissively.

"So dangerous, but not that dangerous?" I queried.

"I think you may have a skewed idea of what is dangerous. I am a Captain level combatant and even with the help of someone else who is quite a bit more impressive in battle than I, we were unable to restrain it with regular means. There is no way for any but the top fifty to one-hundred Soul Reapers to feasibly kill it, let alone contain it." He paused dramatically.

"Effectively, being sent to contain or defeat this Hollow is a nigh death-wish!"