Muten Natsu sat up groggily and leaned against the headboard, holding Rukia Kuchiki in his arms as he patted her gently. "It's okay, it's okay... What did you dream about?"
The petite Rukia Kuchiki sat curled up on his lap. The moment he asked, everything from that dream, everything that made her ears burn, came rushing back. "I'm not telling you..."
"Dreams are the opposite of reality," Muten Natsu comforted her. "You don't need to take it to heart."
Dreams are the opposite of reality...
If Muten Natsu did that to me in the dream, does that mean I'd do that to Muten Natsu in real life?
Rukia Kuchiki bit her lower lip and gave him a light slap.
Who would ever do that kind of thing to you!
Why is she angry? Muten Natsu had no idea, so he tried another way of comforting her. "Well, not all dreams are the opposite. Don't people also say that what you think about during the day shows up in your dreams at night? Maybe you've just been thinking too much."
Who would be thinking about you bullying me!
Rukia Kuchiki got even angrier. Pressing her hands against Muten Natsu's shoulders, she knelt on his legs, straightened up, and opened her mouth to bite him.
"Hm?" Sensing what she was about to do, Muten Natsu immediately copied her and opened his mouth too, ready to return the favor.
The place he had bitten last night instantly seemed to tingle in her imagination. Rukia Kuchiki quickly raised an arm in front of herself. "Y-you... stop that... ah!"
She jerked backward to dodge, but forgot that she wasn't on the bed right now. She was sitting on Muten Natsu's lap. With one slip, she tipped backward.
Muten Natsu had only meant to scare her a little. When he saw her dodge, he let go along with the motion, never expecting Rukia Kuchiki to actually fall backward.
By the time he tried to catch her again, it was already too late.
Rukia Kuchiki felt her body lose balance and cried out on instinct. Startled by her scream, Muten Natsu reflexively lunged forward, swept the petite Rukia Kuchiki into his arms, twisted his body, and put himself underneath her.
Rukia Kuchiki had already braced herself to fall onto the bed, but the next moment everything spun. By the time she came back to herself, she was sitting on top of Muten Natsu. "Idiot... idiot..." Startled by how tense his reaction had been, she pressed both hands to his chest. "It's not like anything would've happened if I'd fallen onto the bed."
Muten Natsu also realized he had overreacted a little. "You screamed so terribly I thought something was really wrong, so I just instinctively..."
Rukia Kuchiki looked down at Muten Natsu beneath her, her clear lips pressed together.
Whenever it involved her, Muten Natsu would always help without a second thought.
He was like that when she was about to fall onto the bed, and he was like that when her life was in danger too.
"Muten..." Rukia Kuchiki parted her lips slightly. "I..."
"Rukia!" Orihime Inoue pushed open the door. "Are you okay... Huh?"
Orihime Inoue had heard Rukia Kuchiki's cry and rushed over at once, thinking something had happened.
But when she opened the door, she saw Muten Natsu lying on the bed with Rukia Kuchiki sitting on top of him.
Rukia Kuchiki had both hands braced against Muten Natsu's chest, and the hem of her pajamas had ridden up in folds around her waist because of the way her legs were positioned, draping down over Muten Natsu. It looked as if...
Rangiku Matsumoto poked her head out from behind Orihime Inoue. When she saw the scene in the room, she blurted out, "Did it go in?"
"Not yet!" Rukia Kuchiki shouted back, her face flushing bright red.
Rangiku Matsumoto arched a brow. "Not yet?"
"I... I mean it didn't!" Rukia Kuchiki scrambled to her feet in a panic. "I... I'm going to change!"
Rangiku Matsumoto turned to look at Orihime Inoue beside her. "That sounds familiar."
For the entire day, Rukia Kuchiki avoided Muten Natsu's gaze.
It was only when she was sparring with Orihime Inoue after school that she finally eased up a little.
After calming down, she realized a rather discouraging fact.
"There's... no improvement." Rukia Kuchiki looked at her own hands. "Does it just not work?"
Orihime Inoue asked curiously, "Not even a little?"
"Mhm..." Rukia Kuchiki couldn't understand it. Orihime Inoue's strength had clearly improved after sleeping with Muten Natsu, so why hadn't it worked for her?
Was the position wrong?
"Maybe it's like this." Orihime Inoue came up with a guess. "If my strength is 10, then Rukia, yours is probably 100. If I go up by 2, it feels like a huge increase, but if you also only go up by 2, it wouldn't make much difference for you."
"Our strength gap isn't that big." Rukia Kuchiki thought about it. "But what you said does make sense."
"It could also be because Shinigami and humans have different constitutions, so the effects are different," Muten Natsu said, repeating Myōki's conclusion.
Rangiku Matsumoto cut in, "It could also be because the way you sleep is different."
Muten Natsu: "...How many different ways can there be to sleep?"
"Then we'll have to experiment," Ririn said, thinking of what she had learned in class. "Use the method of controlling variables."
Rukia Kuchiki immediately asked, "Controlling variables?"
"It means changing only one factor each time while keeping all the others the same, so you can study the effect that one changed factor has on the result. You test them one by one, then combine the findings at the end," Ririn explained further. "Applied to the current problem, that means keeping the 'sleeping' variable the same and observing how the strength of the people sleeping with him changes... In other words, the two of you sleep with him together, keep watch over the exact sleeping arrangement, and then tomorrow morning..."
Rangiku Matsumoto was completely dumbfounded. "You really know how to play."
"T-three people..." Rukia Kuchiki's eyes widened. Just imagining that scene was enough to make her ears heat up.
"If there are three people..." Orihime Inoue counted on her fingers. "Then Muten would be in the middle. So which one of us, me or Rukia, would be on the left, and which one would be on the right?"
Rukia Kuchiki grabbed her hand. "You're actually thinking about sleeping together?!"
"Haven't we already slept together?" Orihime Inoue looked at her strangely. "I've slept with you, you've slept with him, and I've slept with him too. So what's the problem with all of us sleeping together?"
"That's not... um... ngh... this... huh?" Rukia Kuchiki had been ready to argue, but after thinking it over carefully, she found she couldn't come up with anything to say back. Maybe... it kind of... seemed like... there really wasn't a problem.
And yet she still felt like something about it was off.
What exactly was off?
She couldn't put it into words.
"..." Muten Natsu pretended not to hear any of it. "I'm going to buy groceries."
Whatever the final outcome was, he figured it was better not to get involved in that discussion.
He quietly left by himself, bought some groceries at the supermarket, and headed home alone.
...
"Finally caught you by yourself..." a voice with a Kansai accent said. "Muten Natsu."
Muten Natsu stopped in the empty alley. "I thought you'd keep tailing me like before, Shinji Hirako."
"Oh dear..." Shinji Hirako, with his yellow bowl-cut hair, adjusted the beret on his head. "So I got found out? Your Reiatsu perception is a lot sharper than I imagined."
"Orihime noticed you." Muten Natsu set the grocery bag in his hand to one side. "So... what exactly are you after, following me around like this?"
"I'll keep it short." Shinji Hirako raised a hand in front of his face. As black energy swirled, a pale Hollow mask formed over it, and he brushed it aside with one hand. "I'm someone who stepped from the realm of the Shinigami into the domain of Hollows... A member of the Visored. One of your kind."
Muten Natsu stared at the Hollow mask in his hand. "So that thing can be taken off?"
"At first, no. It takes a long time to practice, and once you've fully mastered it... But that's not the point." Shinji Hirako waved his hand and the mask vanished. "Come over to my side, Muten Natsu. You're not one of them."
"One of them?"
"Once a Soul undergoes Hollowfication, it can't be turned back. Maybe you still think of yourself as a Shinigami, but you're already one of us." Shinji Hirako fixed his gaze on Muten Natsu. "As long as you still need power, sooner or later you'll be devoured by the Hollow inside you. By the time that happens, it'll be too late. Your power will destroy everything. Your comrades, your future, even yourself. All of it will be dragged in and shattered."
Muten Natsu's expression changed.
"You've noticed it already, haven't you?" Shinji Hirako caught the shift in Muten Natsu's face and gave him a look of vindication. "The Hollow inside you has already grown so much that you can't control it anymore. Come with me, and I'll teach you how to... stay normal!"
"I'm perfectly normal right now."
"That's only temporary..." Shinji Hirako warned. "If the Hollow inside you keeps growing..."
"That's exactly what I'm confused about." Muten Natsu looked at Shinji Hirako strangely. "The Hollow inside me... what is that, exactly?"
"..." Shinji Hirako stared at him for quite a while. "Your name is Muten Natsu, right?"
"That's right."
"The 'Natsu' in Muten Natsu?"
"Are you planning to say my name three times like that?"
"Tch..." Shinji Hirako frowned. "Can you Hollowfy?"
"Yes, but I can't control it well."
"You've never felt your body being controlled by the Hollow inside you?"
Muten Natsu answered honestly, "I've never even felt like there was a Hollow inside me."
"Then why did you have Urahara contact me?"
"Didn't I already say so? I can Hollowfy, but I can't control it well." Muten Natsu explained his thinking. "Hollowfication gives me a boost in power, so I want to learn how to control it."
"The situation's changed." Shinji Hirako turned to leave. "I'll come back after I've worked out some new lines to say... Oww!"
He had barely taken two steps before a kick sent him flying headfirst into a utility pole.
"Ow, ow, ow!" Shinji Hirako sprang back up. "Who the hell was... Hi... Hiyori?"
The girl looked like a child. She wore a red tracksuit, flip-flops, and carried a sword on her back.
Her blonde hair was tied into two high pigtails, with a hair clip decorated with colorful beads pinned near her hairline. Her dark brown eyes were full of irritation, and freckles dotted her face.
She curled her lip, kicked one flip-flop into the air, caught it, then smacked Shinji Hirako across the face with it. "You bastard!" she shouted. "I told you to get this done, and you're still dragging your feet!"
Shinji Hirako, who had just gotten back up, was knocked flat again. "Sorry!"
"Where's Muten Natsu?!" Hiyori yanked Shinji Hirako by the hair. "Didn't I tell you to bring him back here right away?"
"He..."
"You've still got the nerve to talk back? You're useless on a normal day, you can't even handle one job properly, and now you're trying to make excuses. You..."
"He's right there." Shinji Hirako pointed at Muten Natsu with a trembling hand.
Muten Natsu introduced himself. "I'm Muten Natsu."
Hiyori stared suspiciously at Muten Natsu for a moment, then smacked Shinji Hirako across the face with the flip-flop again. "He's already standing right here, isn't he? So what the hell were you wasting time for? You should've just brought him back!"
"I couldn't just bring back anybody, could I? I thought I'd observe him for a while first, see what kind of person he is. He seemed decent enough, so I was going to talk it over and then bring him back," Shinji Hirako explained. "My plan made perfect sense. He can't control the Hollow inside him, and we can help him. To learn how to control it, he definitely would've joined us..."
"And how did that turn out?"
"I was just about to come discuss that with you." Shinji Hirako turned serious. "He says there's no Hollow inside him."
"...I see." Hiyori nodded, then smacked him again with the flip-flop. "Are you stupid? He says it, and you just believe it? If there's no Hollow inside him, then how did he Hollowfy?"
Shinji Hirako's face was bright red from the beating, and he looked utterly wronged. "He sounded really sincere..."
"Shut up!" Hiyori kicked Shinji Hirako aside, then turned to introduce herself to Muten Natsu. "Hiyori Sarugaki!"
"That's a very nice name."
"Quit talking crap. Someone with 'Natsu' in his name has no business complimenting someone with 'Saru' in hers!" Hiyori Sarugaki looked thoroughly annoyed. "And you're so damn tall. Just looking at you pisses me off."
Muten Natsu: "..."
"You said there's no Hollow inside you, so how do you Hollowfy?"
Muten Natsu gestured with one hand. "It's like... I just push, and then something bursts out. It feels kind of like deliberately forcing myself into a rage..."
"So basically, you don't know anything." Hiyori Sarugaki snorted. "Are you sure there really isn't a Hollow inside you? Or did you just never notice it? Or maybe you already noticed it, but didn't realize that was the Hollow."
"What exactly does the Hollow inside someone look like?"
"It's different for everyone, but there are some things in common," Hiyori Sarugaki said. "It's a being about as strong as you are, but one that can beat you with ease."
A being about as strong as him, yet one that could easily defeat him.
Or rather... easily kill him.
Muten Natsu almost instantly thought of the Primordial Form.
Through the gaps in the Primordial Form's willow-colored cloak, the white diamond-shaped plates fitted close to its body... looked strikingly similar to a Hollow's armor.