Chapter 26: Chapter 26

(General P.O.V)

Running across the rooftops in Karakura town's short buildings might have been a fun activity, it it wasn't for the waif of a girl hanging onto Ash's neck. He tried to focus on the task, eyes closely following the brief blue flashes in the sky a distance away. It also coincidentally turned out to be where they were headed.

He had grown stronger, obviously. Still that did not mean he was entirely comfortable with the idea of being used like a donkey or camel or horse. Wait actually horse sounds much better.

He had also been very vocal about it, which is why Rukia went out of her way to be as annoying as possible by pulling onto his hair whenever he cleared the edge of a building while jumping onto the next rooftop. It would have been better if he could fly using his legionnaire ring but he was not used to flying with someone else on his back. 

"Tell me again, why I shouldn't just throw you off the edge of this building?"

Ash asked after one of her stunts. The novelty of having a girl holding onto him had died out quickly once he realized that Rukia was loud and abrasive.

"Because then you won't know which way to go and the hollow that you could have taken care of, might then devour an innocent soul. guess whose fault that would be?"

He grunted, using his forearm to adjust her tiny frame on his back.

"Fine. You make a good point. Hold on then."

Rukia tightened her hands across his neck, blushing a little as she felt the shifting cords of muscles on Ash's back. Being this close to him was kind of overwhelming.

Rukia shook her head to get rid of the distracting thoughts while tracking the scanning device in her palm that they were using to find the hollows.

"Gah, stupid device!"

She banged it on Ash's head when it started to malfunction.

"Oi!"

Ash yelled angrily.

"Eyes on the road."

Rukia ordered, tapping on the screen of the device.

"Oh good, at least its working again."

She tapped the teen on the top of his head.

"Thanks."

Ash grumbled.

"Which way? I feel like we've been running for more than 10 minutes."

He told her.

Rukia hummed, looking at the constantly changing placement of the blinking icon on the screen.

"You're not wrong. This particular hollow is very fast. Not to mention it keeps on changing it's direction."

Ash jumped over a structure built on the rooftop before increasing his speed, activating his quirk on his legs to give him more power before taking the leap. It turned out not to be enough, so he relied on his ring to glide the rest of the way and mitigate the force of the landing to not harm Rukia.

"Chad and Uryu have the other Reiryoku scanner right? So it makes sense that those blue flashes we've been occasionally seeing might be from them fighting the Hollow. That's why it keeps on changing location. Plus, I have another theory...what if it can fly?"

Ash's question left Rukia thoughtful.

It wasn't too out of the question that that could have been the case.

"But why would they attack the hollow? We all agreed that you would handle this particular one, right?"

Rukia's own question while logical made Ash shake his head.

"In a controlled environment yes. But this is real life. They could have been forced. Saving a life takes precedence to passing a test."

He answered making Rukia sigh.

"This was a terrible plan from the start wasn't it?"

She wondered to herself. Ash shrugged, rocking her a little.

"Hey don't do that again!"

Rukia yelled at the sudden jerk of motion.

"Sorry about that." He apologized.

"In any case, we can't actually call it terrible because one, we all thought it was a simple matter of tracking the stupid thing down and me fighting it. It was a plan. Just that. Plans change."

The blinking icon on the screen's device suddenly changed directions and started heading towards them. Rukia's eyes widened.

"Ash..."

The building they were running on groaned as something clashed against and broke in through the third floor's windows. The roof below them suddenly begun to shake, giving in. The sudden destabilization messed with Ash's footing and caused him to fall through it along with the concrete making up the roof.

Rukia yelped when her body was roughly pulled off Ash's back and held close to his chest to shield her from the falling debris. Ash grit his teeth and held on, relying on his quirk to keep them both safe.

When the loud noises of the falling roof had died down, Rukia opened her eyes and realized that her face was dangerously close to Ash's own. He was using his quirk so his face was jagged and sharp. His blue eyes seemed to reflect light in different directions.

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His breath was warm on her face as well. He blinked, staring down at her with concern.

"Are you okay?"

Ash asked.

Rukia nodded hesitantly, not trusting herself to speak. Why was she acting this way? And Why was it so warm in here?!

"Too bad about the scanner though."

Ash told her, getting to his feet while pointing at the device lying in pieces on the ground next to them.

He held his hand out to her and she grasped it, jumping to her feet.

"So now what?"

Ash asked, looking around at the destruction. The whole floor was wrecked. Part of the third floor had fallen into the second. The building being only 3 storeys up the only thing stopping this from being a true catastrophe.

Anything bigger would have clashed into another building from the force of the fall.

"With the scanner destroyed, it will be difficult to find out the Hollow's exact..."

"Shh!"

Ash shushed her, finger held infront of his lips.

"Do you hear that?"

He asked a after a few seconds of silence.

"Hear what?"

Rukia whispered while vigilantly looking around. Ash's eyes swept across the place they had found themselves in. A wide 360 sweep revealed nothing. Then his hair stood up on it's ends. His skin tingled and the back of his head buzzed.

Rukia was shocked when instead of answering, Ash jumped towards her with his fist pulled back. Rukia froze in place, her mind going blank with terror. The fist underwent changes before her eyes, the fingers and arm growing bigger and scarier with a rocky substance covering his skin. There was a bang that made her ears ring at the loudness.

Her body was knocked out of the way and she finally saw the incident for what it was. Ash was not trying to kill her. He had blocked a sharp claw from slicing her into two pieces. In doing so though, he had allowed for another claw to slash at him from his shoulder to his hip. Fortunately the blow was not strong enough to go past the hardened skin, leaving a long thin mark where the claw had passed.

"Rukia! Get out of here!"

Ash yelled, trying to keep the hollow busy as it screamed bloody murder at the human before it. Ash held back one of it's limbs, straining under it's power and size. It was dark so the low visibility was a problem, hence he had to rely on his superior senses not to be caught off guard by an attack.

The Hollow's other arm dragged through the ground, scraping off a layer of the floor before it swung back the claws towards Ash. Ash saw the pale white color of the claws and knew from it's strength he could not tank the blow. He diverted the arm squaring off against him in a power struggle and let it slam onto the ground next to him.

Rukia begun to scramble out of the way, knowing that she would more harm than good if she stayed. Ash then rolled under the claw attack, feeling it tear the clothes on his back into strips before he came up closer to the Hollow's mid section. Without losing momentum, Ash went into his unbreakable state and shoulder slammed the Hollow through the thin walls separating the outer room from a private office. 

The hollow tried to throw him off and failed the first two times as Ash tried to slither to it's back for a suppression hold. Yes, he realized how dumb that sounded but he was realizing that oftentimes battles were done through instinct. You couldn't think clearly when you were fighting in a death battle. The most you could do was look for openings and hope you trained your body well enough to capitalize on them.

He succeeded and managed to get behind the hollow, holding it's hips in a vice grip. The thing smelled awful and it's skin was so smooth yet hard. It roared while trying to shake him off.

"You're mine! you bastard! AAAHH!"

He heaved, using all his strength to lift it up. 

The Hollow took advantage of that to shift it's claws into wings that flapped once, lifting both it and Ash off the ground. Ash's back slammed onto the ceiling of the office and the teen coughed out as breath left his lungs. Then they fell and the Hollow managed to grab onto Ash by his leg and then throw him away through the wall. 

Ash felt several things hit his body as he rag dolled through the floor, overturning desks, drawers and work stations, before he landed on a office chair and broke it under his hardened form. A monitor that was an old model started sparking with electricity next to him. Ash was breathing fine with no injuries and his face was turned towards the ceiling, stunned. Man did anybody see the license plate of that truck...

"Hey hey! Are you okay?!"

A frantic Rukia rushed to him from where she was hiding. Ash looked at her in surprise.

"What are you doing here! I thought I told you to run?!"

She grabbed him by the arm and tried to pull him up.

Ash felt pity for her and stood up by himself. Rukia found herself petulantly staring at him.

"You're not my boss. Besides you can't fight it on your own."

She said confidently. Somehow that grated on Ash's nerves.

"Oh yeah?"

He asked, hearing the loud crashes of the Hollow as it burst through what was left of the small office's walls. Rukia saw the sudden glint of violence on Ash's face.

"Get out of the way."

She found herself complying without even wanting to.

Ash removed the heavy jacket he wore, revealing that he was shirtless under it. His hand went to his trouser pocket as he wrapped his fingers around the plasma knife he had. The handle played in his fingers as he twirled it.

"Run. This time I'm serious."

He left those words behind him as he walked forward to meet the Hollow.

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