Bridge ficbit – First Monster

The pickles were delicious.

So Yuzu has magic as well. Deliberately ignoring the view of the street from clinic windows – Isshin had moved his bed with screech of metal and a sheepish grumble about oncoming rain, and indeed the skies felt gray and storm-heavy – Loki used a dab of rice to soak up juices for one last bite. Two of three, and Yuzu claims Karin sees… I’d be surprised if the girl is without power.

Yuzu’s magic was a much quieter thing than her brother’s. Not seidr, no; and yet… it reminded him of Frigga. Warm, safe, and restful as a seat by the hearth. He felt the sparks of her unpracticed will infused into the meal; a wish for warmth, and protection, and we have to stay together.

Do not cross the little blonde, Loki noted to himself. Subtle magics could be the most dangerous. Isshin might have invited him to stay, but if Yuzu thought he was a threat to her broken family-

Well. Her power was already in him. It wouldn’t take much to shred him apart.

And you ate it anyway. Are you that foolish, or do you really have a death wish?

Probably both. Of all he’d left behind – burned behind him – Frigga had never done him harm. He didn’t want to hurt Yuzu. He was under her roof; how could he refuse her hospitality?

Still, the fact remained: like Mjolnir, a heartbroken half-human girl’s cooking was one of the few things he’d never warded himself against. It might actually be able to kill him. And oh, there was a bitter comfort there-

An odd clinking reached his ears. Not quite metal on metal. Yet not anything else he’d ever heard.

“Oh, woe is me….”

Loki blinked. Rubbed his eyes, and stared out glass windows into the street, as all the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

So that’s why Ichigo can’t tell the difference.

It looked like an ordinary, glum middle-aged businessman shuffling down the sidewalk. Solid. Mundane. Not a trace of spectral translucence about him.

But that’s a spirit. I can feel it.

He’d tracked down enough wandering souls in his study of sorcery to know. Not to mention the small detail of humans not floating inches above the ground as they walked. Or the odd, broken chain, dangling from the center of the ghost’s chest.

Right above the heart… wait a moment. Isshin said Hollows were ghosts who lost their hearts-

Orange, moving past the window.

Ichigo. Damn it, no sense of self-preservation at all….

Or perhaps there was, finally. The boy was hesitating by the window, bandaged fingers clenching. Obviously he wanted to head toward that slump of ghostly misery and tell it everything would be okay. Just as obviously, he was terrified of getting anywhere near it.

Good. Fear can keep you alive. “Ichigo! Come away from there.”

No reaction from the boy. Either he was ignoring a sane almost-adult voice, as children often did-

Or he just can’t hear me, Loki realized, listening to how much he couldn’t hear from the street. The spirit’s lament wasn’t physical; glass did nothing to mute it. His own voice? Not so fortunate.

Damn. Get out of this bed… oh, that’s not a good idea at all….

He must have blanked out for a minute, bare feet on the floor and hands clenched desperately on the side of the bed to keep him from toppling over. When his vision flickered back in, Ichigo was almost at the side of the rain-wet road. Looking at the ghost. Who seemed to be slowly realizing that Ichigo could see him; doleful lamentations had died to a stunned mutter, as the ghost’s jaw dropped-

Then the ghost jumped like he’d been hit with Lady Darcy’s taser, as something shivered through the air.

Was that a howl?

If it was, any self-respecting wolf would be cowering in its den out of sheer good sense. This was a howl that would have made Garm sit up and take notice, bones of the dead forgotten. A chilling, spine-shivering sound that wasn’t a sound, that pierced glass and ears as if they weren’t there, dragging talons over the chalkboard of his soul.

“Karin! Yuzu!” Isshin’s tone buried even the possibility of arguing. “Go to Loki. Now! Ichigo, where’s – damn it!”