CHAPTER 46: ENTERTAINMENT II

Houryu had found a good vantage point to watch the "show" and then sat there with Sylvia on his lap, he was about to begin bringing out the prepared "movie popcorn", when Ishida threw a dig at Ichigo.

"You are a shinigami whose power was granted to you by Kuchiki-san… In other words, you are a "temporary shinigami…" Without her permission, you can't even move a finger." Ishida said while slowly lifting his glasses with his fingers.

"What'd you say?" Ichigo turned back from walking away and asked, irked.

'Oh, I can literally feel the fireworks from here.' Houryu thought as he watched the ongoing show, forgetting to bring out his food.

"Okay, let's give this competition thing a shot." Ichigo finally said after an intense stare down with Ishida.

Ichigo pulled out a pill from his breast pocket and swallowed it and then came out of his body in his shinigami form while shouting something to his body that now had the mod soul, Kon in it now.

He still had a big smile on his face until Ishida brought something out of his breast pocket as well, "hollow bait", and then went on to explain their competition about where the one who kills the most hollows in 24 hours is the winner and blah, blah, blah.

But Ichigo being Ichigo began to shout out his disagreement to this way of competition but was stopped in between by Ishida crushing the bait.

'Guess the so called "talk no jutsu" didn't work there.' thought Houryu as he watched all this with a bored look as all they were still doing was talking.

Ishida then proceeded to go into a whole speech about how Ichigo should keep his morality to himself and kill all the hollows without letting them harm anybody and all other whatnots, while Ichigo just watched all this with a dazed look on his face.

"Ok, so one of them is a loud idiot while the other is an insufferable idiot." Houryu said while watching them argue while patting Sylvia's head.

The competition finally got a kick start when a hollow began to appear from a crack in the air but was destroyed before even fully getting out by Ishida's well placed spiritual arrow, but that was before getting knocked to the floor by a very angry Ichigo.

"What's with that look? Kurosaki Ichigo" Ishida asked very cooly as if he wasn't lying with his back against the floor with an angry Ichigo on top of him.

"…Return it to normal. Drive back the hollows!" Ichigo shouted at him angrily.

'Dumb question, even I can't do that… though I can kill them all.' Houryu thought as he watched on.

Ishida confirmed my thoughts by telling Ichigo that "the die has been cast" and hollows lured by the bait would soon flood the town. "Instead of grabbing me, I think you should run… that is if you wish to protect as many people from hollows as possible." He said as he pushed Ichigo aside and got back up.

"Bastard…" Ichigo grumbled under his breath as he was about to run off.

"And you should be careful. You should know by now that hollows have a tendency to prefer humans with high spiritual powers as their targets." Ishida said again before Ichigo ran off.

Ichigo on hearing that quickly thought of some people and took off at high speed.

Ichigo started killing hollows with his sword while looking around for someone and Ishida went up a bridge and started sniping hollows, both of them totally oblivious to the clouds that began to gather in the skies above them that promised something… something that was not rain.

Meanwhile, In Urahara's sweets shop.

Rukia was still in a conversation with Urahara when he suddenly looked up and looked a bit disturbed.

"What's wrong Urahara?" Rukia asked with a questioning look on her face when suddenly her cell phone began to make a beeping sound.

"Shit! A hollow at a time like this." She said as she quickly grabbed the phone from her pocket and was already giving apologies at her need to leave when the phone stopped sounding.

"Already? Hmph… that Ichigo… He's pretty efficient." She sounded relieved as she made to put the phone back into her pocket when suddenly it started to "beep" again.

She quickly grabbed the phone again, only for it to stop beeping… again.

"…It's gone again…what's up with this? Could it really be broken...*BEEP*…Again? I guess it really has broken. It's impossible for hollows to come out at this… *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP*… pace…" she began, but the phone kept making the beeping sounds.

*BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP* *BEEP*

"…Wha… what is this…! The number of hollows is rapidly increasing…!!" She stuttered as she looked at the rapidly appearing dots on the phone's radar like screen, before running outside look at the now very cloudy skies above Karakura town.

"What… is with the sky…? What… is the heavy spiritual disturbance? What…!? What in the world is happening…!?" she asked no one in particular.

Even with all this happening, Urahara sat in the shop with his head down with his face unseen.

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The story followed canon with Chad being attacked by hollows and then running and then meeting up with Ichigo's sister, Karin and then with her help he awakened his powers and managed to defeat the hollow that wanted to eat them.

On Orihime's side she awakened her powers to save Tatsuki and others from the puppeteer hollow that could control anything that she had marked.

When the two of them woke up after awakening their powers and defeating the hollows, they were in Urahara's store and there he told them…

On the outside Ichigo already knew Karin was safe and other members of his family and was now focused on defeating hollows and then making Ishida cry after fixing his "mess."

Ishida on the other hand was now weakening and could no longer kill Hollows in one shot, but he kept on firing the arrows at the hollows.

Even with all this happening, Houryu just watched, after all that was what he came to do and no plan to participate in this kid's play.

With all this happening, the strings of fate kept turning and every one began to converge to the centre of the town's park where all the hollows gathered, Ishida and Ichigo were already there killing and purifying hollows, while Urahara, Chad and Orihime were on their way there.

When suddenly…

*CRACK*