BLEACH: Soul Infiltration — The Color Between Black and White - Decoy with Zero Spiritual Pressure

The second floor of Kurosaki Clinic was bathed in pale morning light filtering through thin curtains. Souga opened his eyes and immediately realized the ceiling was unfamiliar. Memories from last night came flooding back. Hollow. Ichigo. Rukia. Karakura Town. He sighed and pushed himself up. He hadn't thought he'd be able to sleep, but somehow he'd drifted off. He must have been exhausted. The body doesn't lie. The sound of dishes came from downstairs. Someone was preparing breakfast. Souga noticed he'd slept in his clothes and felt a bit awkward as he left the room. At the bottom of the stairs, Ichigo was in the cramped dining area. He'd slammed two pieces of toast onto the table and was sitting deep in a chair. No butter. No anything. It was unclear whether he even wanted to eat. "Sit down." It was a command. Souga felt a slight irritation, but he didn't have the energy to argue. He pulled out the chair across from Ichigo. On the table were two bowls of miso soup, steam rising from them. Whether Ichigo had made them or someone else was here, he couldn't tell. "I'm going to say this once." Ichigo looked at Souga while holding his toast. His sharp orange eyes were merciless even this early in the morning. "I don't trust you. But leaving you alone is also a problem. So today, I'll stay by your side." "...So you're watching me?" "You can take it that way." Souga's gaze fell to the miso soup. Thin wisps of steam rose from it. He wanted to argue. But he couldn't. The memory of nearly being killed by a four-meter monster last night was still fresh in his body. If he walked through the streets alone, the same thing might happen again. He knew that. "...Understood." He answered curtly and brought the miso soup to his lips. That's when footsteps came from the hallway. It was Rukia. Her short purple hair was neatly arranged, her pale violet eyes directed at a screen, and in her hand was a device that looked like an old-fashioned cell phone. A Soul Pager—the device Rukia had explained last night that Soul Reapers use in the living world. A tool for sensing Hollow appearances and communicating with Soul Society. "I'd like to take some measurements, if you don't mind." She said it to Souga. Her face was hard to read emotionally, but her eyes held clear intellectual curiosity. "I'd like to examine the results of last night's spiritual pressure measurement in more detail. Souga, would you stay still for me?" "What's spiritual pressure?" "It's the pressure of energy emitted by spiritual beings. Both Hollows and Soul Reapers have their own unique spiritual pressure. The higher the number, the higher the combat ability—think of it that way and it's easier to understand." Rukia pointed the device toward Souga. The screen glowed faintly. After a moment of stillness, Rukia's eyebrows twitched slightly. "...As I thought, it's nearly zero." "What am I supposed to do with 'nearly zero'?" "The problem is that it's zero, and yet—" In that instant, the device flashed red. It flashed again. And again. Red alerts repeated intermittently, but only around Souga. Rukia's hand stopped. "...There's an abnormal reaction appearing only around you." "What does that mean?" "This device has the function to sense Hollow presence. For a human with zero spiritual pressure, this alarm normally shouldn't activate. Even if a Hollow approached, the reaction should be faint, but..." Rukia continued quietly, her eyes fixed on the screen. "The only explanation is that you're attracting Hollows." The room fell silent. Ichigo set down his toast. Souga watched the red flashing on the device and couldn't say anything. Attracting them. Monsters. Because of him. In Rukia's mind, another judgment wavered quietly. This abnormality might need to be reported to Soul Society—the central city of the spirit realm where the souls of the dead arrive, where the Thirteen Court Guard Squads had their headquarters. But if she reported it, there was a possibility Souga would be taken into custody. It wouldn't be too late to investigate more on their own first. Rukia decided to hold off on that judgment for now. "I won't take my eyes off you today." With just those words, Rukia saved the device's records. ＊ Karakura Central Shopping Street was fairly crowded even in the daytime. About sixty shops lined the roughly 400-meter-long arcade, selling everything from groceries to miscellaneous goods. Parents with children, housewives carrying shopping bags, students in uniforms. An ordinary daytime scene in a provincial city. Ichigo and Souga walked side by side without saying a word. Or rather, Ichigo was walking slightly ahead, and Souga was following behind him. Ichigo's back seemed to say: don't come closer. As he walked, Souga was bothered by the air of the town. It was the same as last night. Behind buildings, at the edges of alleys, beyond crowds. A faint distortion spread thinly across the entire town. Something like light refraction, but not light. A wavering visible only to Souga's eyes. "Hey, isn't the air over there strange?" He pointed at the corner of an alley. A place where the air seemed to shimmer slightly. "Everywhere here is like that." Ichigo spoke without turning around. "...So this is normal?" "Karakura Town is that kind of place. The boundary between the living world and the spirit realm is thin here. That's why Hollows appear so easily." Souga looked around. None of the people walking the street seemed bothered by the distortion. They couldn't see it. Only those with spiritual sensitivity could perceive this town's abnormality. (So the entire town is fundamentally strange...) "Why are you here?" Ichigo spoke in a low voice as they walked. "Like I said before. I'm not going to rehash things that have nothing to do with me. It's just...I can't understand your existence." "I don't understand it either." "That's not what I mean." Ichigo's voice sharpened slightly. "A Hollow came straight at you despite your spiritual pressure being nearly zero. I've never seen a situation like that. Whether you're holding something or becoming something—I don't understand any of it. Keeping someone I don't understand by my side is..." "Annoying, right?" "...That's not what I said." Ichigo closed his mouth. He seemed to be swallowing down an irritation he couldn't quite put into words. Emotional, yet unable to express himself well. That's the kind of person he was, Souga thought. A heavy silence fell between them. Then the arcade ceiling creaked. The sound of warping metal. A low vibration as if something was pressing down from above. Ichigo's body froze for an instant. And the ceiling—shattered. Glass shards rained down like precipitation. People screamed and scattered in all directions. Souga instinctively shielded his face with his arms. It descended through the hole in the ceiling. About three meters long. A white bone mask plastered across its face, with a large hole in the center of its chest. Black miasma leaked from it. Smaller than the one from last night, but the pressure was the same. A Hollow—a corrupted soul transformed into a monster. Ichigo immediately drew Zangetsu. The massive blade he'd been carrying on his back was already in his hand. Souga hadn't even seen him draw it. Panicked people fled. Most had escaped. Most had—escaped. Souga's eyes stopped on a spot near an arcade pillar. An elderly woman had fallen. She was holding her knee, unable to stand. While people around her fled, she was left alone, looking up at the Hollow. Before he could think, his body moved. Souga ran. He positioned himself in front of the woman and spread both arms wide. He intended to shield her. He had no power to fight. No zanpakuto. No kido—the spiritual arts Soul Reapers used. His spiritual pressure was nearly zero. But he could put his body on the line. That was the only thing Souga could do now. The Hollow raised its arm. A massive claw swung down toward Souga's head— CLANG!! The sound of metal striking something echoed through the entire arcade. Zangetsu's blade was right in front of Souga's eyes. It had knocked the Hollow's arm away from the side. Ichigo stepped in and slashed vertically. Zangetsu shattered the Hollow's mask directly. The Hollow's form collapsed. Its limbs dissolved like melting, fragments of the mask floated in the air—and vanished. Silence fell. Glass shards scattered across the floor. A large hole gaped in the arcade ceiling. Somewhere in the distance, someone was crying. "Do you want to die?!!" Ichigo roared. He sheathed Zangetsu on his back and turned directly to face Souga. His face was red. More than just anger—something else seemed mixed in. "Don't step forward when you can't fight!! One wrong move and you'd be dead!!" "I know!!" Souga roared back. Louder than he expected. "I know, and my body still moved!! How could I run when someone in front of me was about to get hurt?! What was I supposed to do?!!" Ichigo's mouth started to move, then stopped. Souga stood there breathing heavily, looking at Ichigo. Ichigo was looking at Souga. Silence. The anger gradually drained from Ichigo's expression. Something else took its place—something he couldn't quite name. Ichigo looked away. "...Idiot." That was all he said before turning his back. Souga watched that back and couldn't say anything. They'd yelled at each other, but it felt strange. They hadn't fought. But they hadn't become friends either. It just felt like something different from before had been born between them. Some distance away, Rukia held her Soul Pager and quietly observed everything that had happened. The device's screen still held a record of the direction the Hollow had initially been heading. Straight toward Souga. Rukia's eyes narrowed. (So it really is attracting them.) That hypothesis had shifted to near certainty in that moment. ＊ After the sun set, Souga went out to the back garden of Kurosaki Clinic. It was a small garden. Two potted plants and one old bench. The night view of Karakura Town was visible in the distance. Street lamps lined up, lights glowing in windows somewhere. An ordinary night scene. But to Souga's eyes, the thin distortion across the entire town was still visible. He looked up. Few stars. The town's light obscured them. He tried to organize what had happened today in his head. But it wouldn't come together. He didn't know how to get back. He didn't know what he was. He had no power to fight. Yet monsters targeted him. —And the words Rukia had said today. "The only explanation is that you're attracting Hollows." Attracting them. Just by being here, they come. The woman today had been saved because Ichigo happened to be there. But what if Ichigo hadn't been? If someone got caught up because he was nearby— Souga pressed his fingertips to his forehead. Thinking too much made it hard to breathe. But he couldn't avoid thinking about it. "...Did you need some fresh air?" Rukia appeared beside him without a sound. Souga jumped and turned, but Rukia was already looking up at the night sky. Not looking at him. Just looking at the same sky. "May I ask you something?" "...What?" Rukia paused before answering. "Your body is not normal." Souga said nothing. "Your spiritual pressure is nearly zero. Yet the device reacts. Hollows come toward you. Today's battle made that perfectly clear. Something is inside you—something completely different from the Soul Reaper powers I know, and from Hollow miasma." "But," Rukia turned toward Souga for the first time. "I don't sense any malice." Those words fell into the quiet night. Not emotional comfort. Not "it's okay" or "don't worry." It was a calm observation based on all the data Rukia had seen and everything that had happened today. That made it heavier. Souga looked at Rukia. Her pale violet eyes looked straight at him. "Tomorro

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Episode 2

Name: BLEACH: Soul Infiltration — The Color Between Black and White
Author: Novelia

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