Worried Futures

There was a tell-tale rush of air as Kisuke Urahara's form appeared in front of me, his silhouette implying that he was facing away from me and towards where I had blasted the poor girl.

"Ah, Jinta. You've slain that Hollow, I see?" Kisuke called out casually. There was another displacement of air as a tall man, maybe six or so feet, appeared right next to Kisuke, laid over his shoulders a massive snakelike form.

"Of course I did!" The man's middle-aged voice said aggressively, the snake-like form thumping to the ground as the man shrugged it off his shoulders. "But that's not the point. Someone just tried to kill my daughter, and I'd like to kill them."

The man brushed past Kisuke and made a beeline towards me, an aura of menace moving closer to me, the dark silhouette lighting up with the usage of spiritual energy. But as the man grew closer, Kisuke turned around and grabbed the man by his shoulder, stopping him.

"Now, there's no need for violence." Both me and the man snorted amusedly. Ironic coming from the sadistic asshole himself. The man, who I could only assume to be Uyu's father, whipped his head around to glare at me, shrugging off Kisuke's hand.

"Picked up another pet project, have you?" He said as he rolled up his sleeves.

"Uh, sir?" I said gently, "Me and your daughter were having a sparring match and I tried something new, and it packed more of a punch than I thought it would." I bowed, as it was the Japanese way. "I'm sorry and it won't happen again."

This Jinta, however, wasn't appeased. Walking towards me faster, spiritual pressure screaming off of him in droves.

"Say that after I give your hide a good licking!" He yelled, however before he could punch me, another voice rang out.

"S-stupid Pops! You're embarrassing me!" Then Uyu, who had run all the way back from where I'd punched her off to, slammed her gauntleted fist into Jinta's face, sending his body cartwheeling off into the distance with a force that I'm confident that I couldn't produce.

The fiery man went flying into the distance with accompanying incoherent yelling. I just stood there, dumbfounded, and ultimately confused by the display.

"Uh," I stammered out, "well I guess we know where Uyu gets her energy from." I chuckled, and Kisuke snorted.

"Don't let him hear that, it'd make him irrationally happy." Kisuke said dismissively. The man acted like we hadn't had a massive argument not even a few hours earlier, though honestly I welcomed the change, if he acted better at least.

"Well, well, what do we have here?" Kisuke intoned as he crouched to the ground and started poking and prodding at the snake-like form laying on the ground. It was huge, for a snake, but not much larger than a bear in total size.

"What is it?" I asked curiously.

"This, my good sir, is a Hollow. It's a small thing, but size never means anything with Hollows." He gave the snake's form a push and it rolled over easily. "This little thing has been going around terrorising and eating human souls, we call them plusses academically, for a good while now. He only recently showed up on our radar." I nodded thoughtfully, getting closer to the thing to see if I could make out any more details. As I drew closer, I managed to make out what looked like a mask where the snake's head should be. It looked vaguely snakelike, with a jaw and a mean looking set of fangs, but past that it looked more like a human skill, with ridges all across it.

"Watch those fangs kid, they have a mean poison." Jinta said from behind me, making me jump and pull back from the Hollow.

I whipped around to see the man standing there, arms crossed. Though it seemed that he had lost all of his earlier aggression. I couldn't help but sigh. Why were people so bi-polar around here.

"So… this is supposed to be one of those Hollow things, right?" Suzumi said, standing from far away with Tessai. "Why are they called Hollows anyway?" I looked back towards the snake Hollow and tuck my whole arm through a gaping and perfectly cylindrical hole in its forehead.

"I'd assume that it's this hole here?" I answered tentatively, turning towards Kisuke who was still poking and prodding at something in the Hollow's midsection.

"Ah, very astute of you. Basically. Hollows are human souls gone wrong, after all. The hole in their bodies are where the chain connecting them to their bodies and the physical world used to be. Once those souls stick around in the Human World too long without passing on, they lose that chain and they turn into a Hollow. Their 'heart' then turns into their mask."

"Uh, what?" Suzumi said, aghast, "You're telling me that Hollows are human?" Kisuke shrugged, blasé.

"They were, sure. Once they turn into a Hollow, things get weird. Sometimes they just turn into mindless beasts, hellbent on evil and vile things, usually towards those they loved in life before branching out, probably like this one," Jinta nodded to confirm, "and sometimes they retain some degree of intelligence and their memories, but in my experience, that seems rather torturous for the Hollow."

"What happens after that?" Suzumi said, clearly not entirely comfortable with the idea that she was looking at a corrupted human soul, of sorts. Kisuke grumbled something about kindergarten lessons.

"Lots of things, Suzumi. They could be found and sent to Hell by a Soul Reaper—"

"Hell?" Suzumi yelled, running a hand through her hair, "You're telling me that Hell actually exists?" I got the distinct impression that Kisuke was rolling his eyes at that.

"Of course, Soul Society could be considered Heaven. Though it isn't much of a Heaven in my experience." He snorted derisively. "Anyways, Hollows can be sent to Hell and go through processing there. And before you ask, I know a little bit about what that entails, and even I don't want to know more." That genuinely gave me a bit of a shock, the idea that Kisuke wouldn't want to know absolutely everything about Hell, which probably held some of the most dangerous and nastiest people around, was frankly absurd.

"If a Soul Reaper doesn't get to them, they continue to go on a rampage, feasting on human souls before they get to powerful and can't sustain themselves on human souls anymore. From there they either starve and die slowly or manage to make it to Heuco Mundo, the Hollow's spiritual realm."

"It's fine," Jinta managed to interject before Suzumi could become overly worried, "if the Soul Reapers don't get to them, me and my associates do." He grinned reassuringly. Suzumi nodded, seemingly mollified by the idea that a group of Jinta's were running around and keeping things somewhat safe.

"Well, it seems like something managed to get to this one before you, Jinta." Kisuke intoned lazily as he revealed a large chunk bitten out of the snake, "Unless you have taken a fancy to the taste of Hollow?"

"Ew, no way. Hollows taste like garbage." Jinta denied, vehemently enough to confirm that he has indeed tried to eat a Hollow before. "Though you're right. Thankfully that bite slowed him down, made him much easier to shoot. Though I have no idea what did it." Kisuke hummed for a moment.

"No idea at all?" he asked to confirm, which made Jinta pause for a moment.

"Well…" The middle-aged man sighed, but continued on, "there is a possibility, other than it just getting bitten in a fight it got itself into." Kisuke waved a hand to hurry him along, making Jinta grunt.

"The Soul Reapers we've been working with are just calling it Phantom."

"Phantom?" Kisuke inquired, interest piqued. Jinta nodded.

"It's a Hollow that they can't catch. Apparently, he has been around for a few decades now, around when the Kurosaki guy ran off to god knows where." Kisuke rose from his crouching position, pulling and arm from his haori and scratching at his chin.

"I haven't seen anything on my equipment… Is it powerful?" Jinta shrugged.

"Probably not, though no one can really verify. They haven't been very forthcoming with information about it, as per usual, had to get a lot of people drunk for some good info." Jinta laughed merrily before Uyu said words that made the man deflate.

"I'll tell Mum that you're drinking again." She said coolly, easily blackmailing her father. Jinta coughed with embarrassment and continued shakily.

"Uh, well, all I really know about it is that it's capable of disappearing. It's either incredibly fast, incredibly stealthy or amazing at hiding it's spiritual energy and pressure. Possibly all of the above." Kisuke almost growled.

"I don't like it when a Hollow can get past our spiritual detection that easily." Jinta shrugged again.

"Apparently they brought out a Vice Captain at one point and they still couldn't find the thing. Though they don't seem too worried about it."

"Why not?" Kisuke asked darkly.

"Well, they've been saying that it doesn't eat human souls."

I had never seen something get Kisuke's attention so quick other than myself.

"A Hollow that doesn't eat human souls?" Jinta nodded.

"Weird right? Every time they've encountered it, they've always found it eating other Hollows only. It looks really humanoid too. The Soul Reapers just think the thing is creepy and try to stay away from it." Kisuke was tapping his lips in thought as he stared down at the large bite out of the snake Hollow.

"I see. I'll try to see if I can make something that can find it. High sensitivity equipment is hard to make, especially for when you're trying to find something so close, but I'll see what I can do."

"Alright then. I'll tell the team to keep an eye out for this Phantom of our and see if we can get any sightings for you." After that, Jinta turned towards Uyu and reached his hand out.

"Time to get home for us, Uyu. Your Mother is already angry enough with me as it is." Uyu nodded.

"B-bye bye guys!" she said as she waved to us with gauntleted fists, and I just waved back, grinning.

"See you soon Uyu!" Suzumi said excitedly as the two figures disappeared from sight.

---

"I don't like it Tessai." Kisuke said as he knelt on a pillow, staring down into his tea with a glare.

"I know you don't, Kisuke. But I'm not sure you're ever had as much control as you believed yourself to have. Even Aizen himself fell into the trap of believing himself the arbiter of all happenings." Tessai said stoically as he gently sipped from his tea. He had changed out of his store attendant's uniform and into a set of comfortable striped pyjamas the man had been wearing for a past few centuries, at least. Kisuke idly wondered if Tessai had made them by hand, unsure if humans even created pyjamas in that style that long ago.

"Fine, I'll admit that while I have a lot of plans and contingency plans, I don't have all the information. But over recent weeks I've been getting… flashbacks. Small things seem out of place in my spiritual detection apparatuses, and especially with the appearance of both Suzumi and Grayson." Kisuke sighed, taking a hefty swallow of the light brown mixture.

"Suzumi and Grayson, though unexpected, aren't exactly the lynchpin that hold the world together, Kisuke. Just because Grayson isn't exactly of explainable origin and Suzumi is growing far faster than a high-spec human should, doesn't mean that everything is falling apart." Kisuke shook his head, taking off his hat and placing it on the coffee table, scratching at his unruly blonde locks.

"I'll remind you that we thought similarly with Rukia being sent to Karakura."

"That was different and you know it. We knew much of what Ichigo was even before Rukia granted Ichigo her Soul Reaper powers. We already knew that things were going to happen to the boy, we just weren't expecting them to be on as massive a level as they were." Kisuke scoffed.

"I'm sorry but I can't help but think they are the same, just this time we don't know what is happening behind the scenes with Grayson's past. We have no idea what he is or how he can 'snatch ribbons' as he calls it. He managed to cloak his hand in spiritual energy in a few hours Tessai. As far as I can tell he hasn't undergone anything remotely similar to awakening Soul Reaper powers for whatever he is. It doesn't help that Suzumi can somehow follow along at a similar pace!" The man was slowly becoming more and more hysterical before Tessai spoke.

"Kisuke. Calm. You are doing yourself no favours by becoming hysterical, as deserving as it is." Kisuke took in a few shaky breaths before going back to his tea, cup shaking slightly as he swallowed a few mouthfuls from it.

"I–" the green cloaked man paused to sigh resignedly, "I can't help but compare the boy to the Hōgyoku. Able to influence someone else's spiritual energy and soul to such a degree. He was able to turn someone who was maybe minorly spiritually sensitive into someone with some of the highest spiritual potential amongst a pure human I've ever seen in a matter of days." He rubbed his stubbly chin.

"It… is concerning, I will grant you that." Tessai conceded.

"And then with this new Phantom business…"

"Kisuke, we don't even know if this Hollow exists, let alone has any importance at all!" Tessai said, voice rising frustratedly, but Kisuke simply sat there, his mask of general indifference and snark let down while in the company of Tessai.

Tessai observed his friend of untold centuries and realising that he may have only seen the man in this state once or twice but it was worse this time. He looked to his friends face, the same one that usually carried an easy going smirk now held a haunted expression that Tessai had seen one too many of in his time as Captain of the Kido Division.

It was the face of a man who had lost too much, seen too much. One who had gone to war and never quite come back home. Tessai stood from his kneeling position and moved around the table, wrapping his friend in a warm hug. The usually touchy man stiffened only slightly before he leaned into the hug sombrely.

"Maybe you're right, Tessai." He said, slowly, "But I have a hunch. A terrible hunch."