Save Me From the Dark

Let Them Hang

Welcome back dear readers! I have another chapter for you today!! I actually kinda had a beta reader for this chapter for once. I don't know if that necessarily makes this chapter any better than ones in the past, but the presence of a certain someone certainly makes things more fun to write. I'm pretty sure I fudged some things in this chapter, specifically how Fullbring works and how Chad and Orihime got their powers, but it makes more sense to me this way. Enjoy some nice fanart above from an unidentifiable source on the internet. Don't forget that as a writer I always value your comments and votes!

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Ichigo found himself staring up at the abandoned face of Matsukura Hospital nearly an hour after he left school. Parts of the building were still in shambles from the time he and Don Kanonji fought that hollow together. It was perfect, isolated and away from his friends' usual haunts. Here he would train to get his powers back.

Ichigo walked inside, pushing the heavy front doors open as he took in the dark, broken space. All of the walls that made up the rooms in the building had been knocked out, leaving only the main supports. This allowed for a wide open space, while not as nice as the underground training rooms he had used previously, it would do.

Ichigo made his way to the center of the room and set his bag down next to a chunk of fallen wall. He then cleared the debris from a spot on the floor and sat down. Without a zanpakto it would be hard to perform jinzen, but it was the only way Ichigo could think of to start the process of getting his powers back.

For hours Ichigo sat on the dirt covered ground of the abandoned hospital. Outside the sun began to lower, and the summer heat that dominated the day slowly dissipated into a more comfortable temperature. Frustration set in as the sun reached the horizon, and Ichigo had still not accessed his inner world. Ichigo sighed, he grabbed his phone from his bag and checked the time. It was six o'clock, meaning he'd spent well over six hours meditating and attempting to enter his inner world. Ichigo laid back, his head resting on his bag, and closed his eyes. A short nap couldn't hurt.

When Ichigo opened his eyes it was to a cloudy, midday sky and the sound of small waves lapping against a shoreline. He sat up and slowly blinked the blurriness from his eyes. Around him were crumbled buildings mixed in with sky scrapers halfway through construction, knee-deep water pooled around the bottoms of the buildings and gentle crashed against the sides of the concrete islands. Hope and excitement filled Ichigo's heart at the sight of his inner world. It was no longer drowning in an endless sea of despair, it was broken and battered, yet it was being repaired.

"Hey, king."

Ichigo whirled around to face the voice. His hollow stood behind him, appearing just as he did when he had approached him and Zangetsu to learn the Final Getsuga Tensho a year before.

Ichigo smiled softly, "Hey, long time no see."

The hollow lifted his mask, setting it on top of his head, and sat down on a piece of concrete that cropped up from the ground, "Yeah, it's been a bit hasn't it."

The being sighed as Ichigo sat next to him, "Been waitin' a long time for you to return, I kinda hoped this place would be in a better state when ya did finally get yer ass back here, though. Suppose it only makes sense for things to take so long to get fixed considering the number you did on it."

"Sorry about that, it was the only way I could defeat Aizen," Ichigo lowered his head.

"I get that, still sucks though, that prick went and ruined things," the hollow growled, clenching his fists in his lap.

"How are you here though? I thought when I used the Final Getsuga Tensho it wiped out all of my soul reaper powers."

"Yer right, yer soul reaper powers were technically gone, but that would've only mattered if you were only a soul reaper."