A light drizzle fell steadily. Masaki Kurosaki, holding Ichigo Kurosaki, whose eyes were red and swollen, and smiled slightly. Although she hadn't asked anything yet, she already knew everything from Ichigo's aggrieved expression.
"Lost again?!"
Masaki Kurosaki gently stroked Ichigo Kurosaki's head and asked with a smile.
"I... I was just a little careless. If I had gotten serious, I definitely wouldn't have lost."
Nine-year-old Ichigo Kurosaki felt even more aggrieved after hearing Masaki Kurosaki's words. Tears welled up in his eyes, but he held them back, because he had heard his father say that a real man never cries.
"Just cry if you want to."
Sometimes, crying makes me feel a lot better.
Masaki Kurosaki gently stroked Ichigo Kurosaki's cheek and spoke softly.
"But... but Father said a real man shouldn't shed tears easily; a man must be strong enough."
Ichigo Kurosaki rubbed his slightly red and swollen eyes and spoke hesitantly.
"Don't listen to his nonsense. Real men can cry too, and not just men, even the sky and the earth cry."
Masaki Kurosaki gently patted Ichigo Kurosaki's head and spoke affectionately.
Really? Even the sky and the earth weep?
Ichigo Kurosaki opened his eyes wide, his gaze filled with curiosity.
"Of course... look at it now... isn't the sky crying?"
Masaki Kurosaki opened her umbrella, shielding the two of them from the rain, and smiled slightly.
Wow! So it rains because the sky is crying?!
Ichigo Kurosaki was surprised. So men can cry, so the sky can cry, so whenever it rains, it is the sky that is constantly crying.
"Hmm~"
" Ichigo is so smart, so whenever Ichigo wants to cry, he can just run into his mother's arms~ No matter when, Ichigo can hug his mother and have a good cry."
Masaki Kurosaki smiled slightly at Ichigo and patted the back of Ichigo head once more.
"Well, but I won't do that. I could only hug my mom and smile."
After hearing Masaki Kurosaki's words, Ichigo smiled sweetly and hugged her Masaki Kurosaki. Just as he said, he would only smile while hugging Masaki Kurosaki, and he would only show a smile to his family.
"What a good child."
Masaki Kurosaki gently patted Ichigo's head. She was proud to have such a sensible child, and she believed that Ichigo Kurosaki would definitely become an outstanding person in the future.
A light drizzle was falling, not heavy, but continuous... Raindrops pattered on the ground, bounced up, turned into countless water droplets, and dissipated into the air, making the streets misty and gradually obscuring everything.
"Mommy, look, there seems to be a little child over there!"
Ichigo Kurosaki pulled Masaki Kurosaki across the street and into the park. He looked at the little child sitting silently in the park, whose gender was hard to tell, and spoke up.
"Um..."
Masaki Kurosaki looked at the child, her brow furrowing. She had a feeling that something was off about the child, a vague sense of foreboding.
Are you alright? Are you crying?
Before Masaki Kurosaki could remind Ichigo, Ichigo had already dashed across the water-dripped stone slabs to the child with his head down and kindly asked him what was wrong.
Hehehe...
At the same time, as Ichigo arrived in front of the bowed child, a strange laugh and a dark shadow came from the thick fog behind the child.
"It's fake!"
Masaki Kurosaki suddenly realized that as Quincy, especially Pure-Blood Quincy was mortal enemies with Hollows, she was absolutely certain that the crying child in front of her was not human, but some kind of doll made by Hollows.
"Hello?"
The ugly Hollow slowly emerged from the mist. The child Ichigo had spoken to was actually a doll that looked remarkably like a human. A thin thread connected the two to the ugly Hollow. He faced Ichigo Kurosaki, whose legs had gone limp with fear, and gave him what he thought was a gentle smile.
The Hollow before them was like a pufferfish in the deep sea, using bait to lure prey before swallowing them whole. Ichigo Kurosaki was the little prey lured by this Hollow.
Seeing the Hollow reveal its form, Masaki Kurosaki didn't dare to delay. Her eyes narrowed, and she used the Hirenkyaku to instantly appear in front of Ichigo Kurosaki, drawing her Quincy Bow and aiming it at the Hollow's head.
"Who are you..."
The Hollow, now fully formed, stared at Masaki Kurosaki, who had Quincy Bow. He froze, a chill running through him. He could sense the terrifying power hidden within the petite body of this woman, a power far beyond its physical size, and an overwhelming Spiritual Pressure. She was a monster he absolutely could not afford to offend.
The mere sight of the other person on his face sent a chill down his spine, making him feel the taste of death...
"Disappear..."
Masaki Kurosaki had no intention of giving the Hollow in front of her any chance to breathe. She raised her bow, ready to end his sinful life right there and now.
However, just as Masaki Kurosaki was about to make her move, not in the World of the Living, but in the distant Soul Society, in the shadows of the Seireitei, a being launched Auswählen on all the Mixed-Blood Quincy of the three worlds in order to restore its power.
"My power..."
Although she was Pure-Blood Quincy, Masaki Kurosaki Masaki Kurosaki mistakenly identified as a half -Mixed-Blood Quincy by that noble being because Hollow power had been mixed into her body, and in that instant, she lost her original power.
In an instant, the Quincy Bow that Masaki Kurosaki had gathered vanished completely, along with all of Masaki Kurosaki's Quincy- related power.
"Um?!"
Xu stared at the woman before him, who had once exuded terrifying power like a tyrannical dragon, now behaving like a sheep. He was slightly taken aback, and then burst into wild joy.
"Although I don't know what exactly has happened to you, it seems you've lost all your power. In that case, you'd better obediently devour me and become a part of my body!"
"If I could devour you, if I could devour someone as powerful as you, then I think even I, who am weak, would become incredibly powerful, and it wouldn't be impossible for me to even become a legendary Menos Grande..."
He shouted loudly, revealing his gleaming white teeth, and opened his blood-red maw, aiming it at Masaki Kurosaki.
The endless, foul wind blew against Masaki Kurosaki 'Masaki Kurosaki face, making her already White cheeks even paler. Beads of sweat dripped from her forehead, but her eyes grew ever more determined.
Her body was limp and weak... Having had all her Quincy powers taken away, Masaki Kurosaki had exhausted all her strength just standing up. But even so, she used her last bit of strength to shield Ichigo Kurosaki Ichigo Kurosaki all the disaster, simply because she was a mother, a great mother.
" Ichigo, I'm sorry, Mom may not be able to live with you anymore. From now on, you'll have to rely on yourself... Your father is a bit careless, but he's absolutely reliable in times of need. Yuzu and Karin are still young and need you, as their older brother, to take good care of them. Anyway... keep living! My proud son."
Masaki Kurosaki turned and gently hugged Ichigo Kurosaki, then suddenly pushed him away into the distance. In the very end, Masaki's eyes held only endless tenderness like water, and a faint sense of loss and regret at not being able to watch her children grow up.
"Mother..."
Ichigo fell to the ground, staring at his gentle mother and the gaping maw that was slowly swallowing her whole. His eyes were ashen; he couldn't believe what he was seeing. Despair surged within him. He desperately wanted to open his mouth and cry for help, but young Ichigo Kurosaki seemed to have something stuck in his throat, unable to utter a sound. In truth, Ichigo Kurosaki knew better than anyone that what was choking him was none other than the endless fear within his own heart.
The next second, blood splattered everywhere!
In an instant, Ichigo Kurosaki's world was filled with endless crimson, staining half the sky red.
"Why?"
Just as Hollow was about to devour Masaki Kurosaki whole, his figure was frozen in time. He desperately wanted to swallow Masaki, but with his body cleaved in two, he was falling to either side, unable to close his mouth any longer, forever unable to close his mouth. As he gushed out crimson blood, he felt his life slowly fading away—the feeling of death.
Am I not dead?
Masaki Kurosaki felt no pain of death. Although her body was stained with crimson blood, she was unharmed. This crimson blood wasn't hers; it belonged to the Hollow that had originally intended to take advantage of her vulnerability and devour her. The situation had changed. Masaki Kurosaki knew the situation had changed, but she didn't turn around to look at what was behind her. She simply stood there quietly, standing there quietly...
Masaki Kurosaki didn't want to look back, but at this moment, she had exhausted the last bit of strength in her body and had no power left to turn back.
"What a nice view."
Although Masaki Kurosaki couldn't see what was behind her, Masaki Kurosaki, who was Ichigo Kurosaki, could see everything clearly.
Just as the monster was about to devour Masaki Kurosaki, a girl dressed in black, samurai-like clothing suddenly appeared and sliced the huge, ferocious monster in two with a single stroke. This Ichigo Kurosaki and Masaki Kurosaki.
"That was close, that was close..."
"Are the Hollows in the World of the Living really this rampant now? They've started attacking humans directly in the cities? They're acting like they're starving, it's disgusting."
The girl sheathed her Zanpakuto, stretched lazily, and spoke to herself as if ignoring Ichigo Kurosaki.
My savior.
Ichigo Kurosaki muttered to himself, but perhaps his voice was too soft to attract the girl's attention, or perhaps the girl subconsciously thought that Ichigo Kurosaki Ichigo Kurosaki couldn't see her at all, so she ignored what he was saying.
"The next place is..."
The girl continued talking to herself, took out something that looked like a cell phone from her waist, fiddled with it for a while, and then disappeared from the spot.
The girl leaped up from the ground like a gentle breeze and flew into the air.
A goddess?
Ichigo Kurosaki's eyes sparkled as he watched the girl take off, his gaze filled with longing. He wished he could fly too.
The yearning for heroes first arose in Ichigo Kurosaki's heart. At the same time, the fates of the girl and Ichigo were tightly bound together by this coincidence, like a cycle of destiny. The girl who saved Ichigo will be saved by Ichigo, who is filled with the yearning for heroes, in the near future.
"Mom... are you alright?"
After a brief moment of longing, Ichigo Kurosaki embraced the swaying Masaki Kurosaki.
"It's alright, I'm sorry, Mom made Little Ichigo worry."
Masaki Kurosaki hugged Ichigo Kurosaki and spoke gently.
"As long as Mom is alright, nothing else matters."
Having witnessed the terror of Hollows, Ichigo Kurosaki matured considerably in an instant. At the same time, the desire to become stronger and to protect what he wanted to protect was like a seed planted in Ichigo Kurosaki's heart, waiting to take root, sprout, and grow into a towering tree.
"Mom, besides karate, I want to learn swordsmanship, Bajiquan, Taekwondo, judo, Sanda, boxing... anything that can make me stronger. I want to protect you, Mom; I want to protect my dad; I want to protect Yuzu and Karin; I want to protect everyone I want to protect. I don't want to have any regrets... So Mom, please promise me you'll let me learn these skills!"
Ichigo Kurosaki hugged Masaki Kurosaki tightly, his voice slightly trembling with tears. He swore here that from this day forward, he would protect everyone he wanted to protect.
"Okay, Mom promises you."
Masaki Kurosaki pulled Ichigo Kurosaki into her arms and gently Ichigo Kurosaki. She knew that what had happened today had terrified Ichigo Kurosaki, and if she didn't agree now, Ichigo Kurosaki might never feel safe again.
From that day on, Ichigo Kurosaki changed; he trained his body even harder.
"I've been in the World of the Living for nine years now, and every day is spent killing Hollows..."
Standing atop a high-rise building, the girl slowly breathed a sigh of relief as she watched the last red dot on her phone, the one she had just vanquished. Her task for the day was finally complete. Since arriving in the World of the Living, her mission had remained unchanged: to clean up the Hollows of Karakura Town. When she first opened the letter given to her by Kūkaku Shiba, it contained only a device for locating Hollow coordinates and a single sentence from Kūkaku Shiba: "Good luck! Clean up all the Hollows in Karakura Town!" In reality, Karakura Town, being a heavily spiritual land, constantly attracted Hollows. Even if Rukia cleaned it up today, another batch would appear tomorrow, making Rukia feel like it was never-ending.
(End of this chapter)