"Yah-ho—!" Orihime Inoue threw her arms up in triumph. "Bento time~ヽ(✿ﾟ▽ﾟ)ノ"
"You're being childish again," Tatsuki Arisawa said with a weary look, watching Orihime Inoue bounce with excitement. "It's just lunch. Do you really have to be this hyped?"
"How can you say that, Tatsuki-chan!" Orihime Inoue struck a dramatic bento-eating pose. "For a healthy high school girl, isn't the whole point of coming to school to eat lunch?"
"Okay, okay," Tatsuki Arisawa soothed her like she was humoring a little kid. "Come on, sit down. Kuchiki-san, you too—eat with us."
"Ah… okay." Rukia Kuchiki pulled her eyes away from the window.
Muten Natsu still hadn't returned.
"Today's an onigiri feast~" The three of them pushed their desks together. Orihime Inoue opened her lunchbox. "Curry powder onigiri, mentaiko and mayo onigiri, miso cream cheese green shiso onigiri, nameko mushroom and scallion onigiri, soy sauce and nut onigiri, potato chip onigiri, plum and edamame onigiri… Tatsuki-chan, what did you bring today?"
"Looks pretty good," Tatsuki Arisawa said, opening her own lunchbox. "I just brought a normal bento."
"Orihime… how come you never gain weight?" Michiru Ogawa grumbled. "I'm so jealous…"
Ryō Kunieda's gaze dropped, and she revealed the truth with a single sentence. "Because all the nutrients go to one place."
"Orihime—" Chizuru Honshō scooted over. "Let's eat together!"
"Huh?" Orihime Inoue nodded. "Sure!"
"Too cute! That smile with crumbs still on her lips—no normal person could ever imitate it!" Chizuru Honshō looked like she could barely contain herself. "Just what I'd expect from my little princess!"
She reached out, fingers sliding toward Orihime Inoue's chin. "In a way, what I really want to eat is…"
"Hey, Chizuru! What are you doing messing around in broad daylight?!" Tatsuki Arisawa moved fast, snatching Chizuru Honshō by the wrist. "Can't you just eat your bento quietly in the Girls' Tennis Club office for once? Don't teach Orihime weird stuff!"
"You're so annoying. This has nothing to do with you!" Chizuru Honshō scrunched her face in disgust. "You're not bad-looking, but you're way too boyish. Totally not my type."
"What are you even talking about?!" Tatsuki Arisawa bristled. "You think I'm trying to take Orihime's place or something?!"
"Ah… what a shame…" Chizuru Honshō drawled. "If you just had a tiny bit more femininity, I could let you fully enjoy the thrill of being locked up…"
"You pervert!" Tatsuki Arisawa shivered. "I'm going to kill you in the name of justice!"
"Aaaahhh!" Chizuru Honshō shrieked over and over. "Harder~"
"Muten?" Orihime Inoue glanced toward the window. "You… you're awake~"
Halfway through, she caught herself—she could see Muten Natsu in his Shinigami form, but the others couldn't—so she quickly switched gears.
Muten Natsu slipped into his Gigai. "I've been awake for a while. Just didn't feel like getting up."
Rukia Kuchiki stopped staring out the window and focused on her onigiri instead.
"How was your sleep?" Orihime Inoue blinked at him and gave an exaggerated, obvious wink. "Did you dream about finding a lost monster or something?"
Muten Natsu rolled his shoulders and flexed his arms, getting used to the slight delay between Gigai and Soul. "I dreamed about one. Not a lost one—something new. After I dealt with it, I saw a ghost in a total panic. She said monsters were chasing her, and she kept crying and wiping her face on my sleeve… got blood all over it."
"So it really isn't that easy to find… even in a dream…" Orihime Inoue finished the onigiri in her hand, her puffed cheeks finally relaxing. "So what do we do next?"
Muten Natsu opened his lunchbox. "All we can do is look around after school… and then sleep again, see if I can dream about it."
No one else had any idea what he was talking about.
"No wonder Orihime Inoue and Natsu get along so well," Mahana Natsui said, impressed.
"They can actually chat like that."
Ryō Kunieda finished eating and set her chopsticks down. "That's the kind of understanding only childhood friends have. They've got their own way of communicating."
"And it doesn't look like it's just the way they talk…" Michiru Ogawa had noticed it too: the onigiri in Muten Natsu's lunchbox looked a lot like the ones in Orihime Inoue's.
After school, Orihime Inoue and Rukia Kuchiki went home to do homework. Muten Natsu left his Gigai at home and headed out to look for the Hollow that had vanished without a trace.
Honestly, this kind of situation was usually pretty easy to deal with.
When a Hollow entered the World of the Living, the Shinigami who received the order would know where it appeared.
Even if the Hollow was gone by the time they arrived, traces of its Reiatsu would still linger there.
Using that residual Reiatsu, they could follow the spiritual energy it had scattered. Once that energy was made visible as a spirit thread, its hiding place would become clear.
Or they could use the Kidō technique Bakudō 58: Kakushitsuijaku to sense the target's Reiatsu and track it down that way.
The problem was that Muten Natsu's badly injured body was like a black hole. Any spiritual energy that got close was swallowed up.
Once it was all absorbed, there was nothing left to sense.
That was why Rukia Kuchiki hadn't been able to pick up the Hollow's presence at Orihime Inoue's house before.
Even with his Reishi absorption turned off, Muten Natsu's perception was still terrible. He could only sense spiritual energy from very close by.
Rukia Kuchiki's sensing ability was solid, but her Shinigami powers still hadn't recovered.
Bakudō was even worse. Right now, Muten Natsu couldn't even use Bakudō #1: Sai, let alone Bakudō 58.
As for Rukia Kuchiki, she could manage Bakudō in the low thirties at best.
So Muten Natsu had no choice but to wander around and hope luck did the rest.
Along the way, he sent any wandering Plus on to Soul Society.
No matter how unhappy he was with Soul Society, Muten Natsu knew one thing: for a Plus, it was still the best place to go.
Soul Society had plenty of problems, but everything was relative.
If a Plus stayed in the World of the Living, they'd either turn into a Hollow or get eaten by one.
Compared to that, Soul Society wasn't perfectly safe, but in most areas, life was comfortable enough.
"When you get there, someone will give you a sorting ticket and assign you to Rukongai," Muten Natsu said as he performed the Konsō, sending a little boy who kept coughing up blood to Soul Society. "There are eighty districts in each direction. The higher the district number, the worse the safety and living conditions get. If you end up in a high-numbered district, be careful, and try to work your way toward the lower-numbered ones…"
The Jigokuchō carried the boy's Soul away, leaving behind only the speckled bloodstains from where he'd been coughing.
Muten Natsu frowned and looked sharply in one direction.
He'd sensed something familiar—spiritual energy, and it was close.
He slid his katana back into its sheath, vaulted over the alley wall, and ran across the rooftops toward the source of that Reiatsu.