DAYBREAK - open; purged sickness

[| ICHIGO KUROSAKI |]

[align=center]

[table][tr][td]

ICHIGO KUROSAKI

HOVER FOR TAGS

i don't fight because i want to win, i fight to win!

[/td][td]

template by[color=#2e2e2e] #punki-chan

[/td][/tr][/table]

Everyone got sick. It was simply the way life ended up being dealt with animals such as themselves. There were many different illnesses that one could catch or poisons that could be used to make one extremely ill. It was rare to see anyone die from an illness or a disease for that manner. Ichigo did see someone die from cancer before, and it had been a traumatic experience for the cougar to watch as his adopted niece died in his arms and there was nothing that he could do to save her life. Just because he was a Death God didn't mean that he had the ability of bringing back the death. He could only either bring death or help those that were already dead along their journey to the afterlife. He wasn't someone that had the ability to resurrect the dead, although there were plenty of times where he had the power to give life so that everyone he knew wouldn't be dead anymore. It would make his life so much better, but he also knew that wasn't how the world worked. If too many creatures kept alive, it would mean that it would throw off the balance between Soul Society and the world of the living. The wildcat had no intention of putting that on his plate because it would probably mean he would get hunted down by other Shinigami. Ichigo had gotten sick by several occasions, but usually it wasn't just a common cold that got him down. There was an instance where the corrupted spirit inside of him made him increasingly ill, to the point that he wouldn't eat and he wouldn't sleep. This resulted him in hallucinating and nearly transforming. The wildcat had also gotten sick when he was bitten by a vampire, with after experience he now knew that they were real and not something to undermine.

Since he didn't die from the vampire, who happened to be the clan leader at the time of the clan that he was in, meant that the toxins from the bite were trying to work to transform him into a vampire. The Shinigami portion of his body however refused to let his body be transformed into something like that, but in the process of purging the transformation he became incredibly sick for several weeks. It took Ichigo a long time before he finally managed to figure out what was making him sick in the first place. The Shinigami couldn't eat, and was throwing up each time he ingested something. After a couple of weeks he began to improve and was able to stomach some lesser meats, such as fish, as it didn't upset his stomach as much. During that time he never once craved the flavor of blood and thought the idea of consuming blood was fairly gross to him. The most recent illness he had the joy of dealing with had been when a parasitic spirit had embedded itself near his spine. Ichigo didn't know that he had been infected with something after he had been seriously injured until he took off his armor and felt something moving underneath his skin. It had been incredibly painful and sapped all the energy out of his system, leaving the corrupted spirit inside of him to run the show. Or at least partly. Ichigo didn't know what to do with the thing inside of him, as there was no one that he knew at the time that would be willing to help him with something that most animals couldn't comprehend or even understand. It was a hard task, and eventually, his physical body couldn't handle it anymore and he became possessed by the corrupted spirit inside of him.

The over-sized cougar nearly killed his friends and family while he was possessed, and was lucky that Dimitri came to save the day. Dimitri also ended up being the one to cut out the parasite that was almost directly attached to his spine at that point. It had been so painful that his powers had reacted accordingly and ended up burning Dimitri. In which his fellow Shinigami left, and he hadn't seen the other sense. That was probably one of the worst cases of him being sick, and one of the more frightening ones as he didn't have a backup plan on if he couldn't figure out how to remove the parasite living and using his energy. He had just planned that he would probably end up dying, and he came very close to that happening. The Shinigami now wasn't infected with anything. He was technically healthy other than his mental state, and he probably wasn't eating enough but that was normal when he was under a lot of stress. There was too much happening in this group, and the Shinigami wasn't sure what to think of it. He didn't even really know half of the story and needed more evidence before he could. There were also strong spiritual presences in the area that he would eventually have to deal with and eradicate whatever it was. Because of the threats that were constantly looming, Ichigo had been patrolling probably when he didn't need to. Ichigo didn't really know all the territory that well, and the Shinigami was doing his best to stay away from the ocean portion of the place. He was extremely scared of the ocean, and being at this age and having faced demonic beasts one would think that he would probably not be afraid of anything. One would think differently. Ichigo was used to having his enhanced hearing on while he did so, as he was able to cover a little bit more ground without specifically using his teleportation. Because of his enhanced hearing, the wildcat was able to hear sounds in the distance, but he was too far away to be able to hear what they actually were.

The Shinigami decided to direct his attention toward the sounds and made his way over in that direction. As he got closer, Ichigo was able to distinguish what the sounds were. Screams. Horrible screams. His made his bi-colored eyes go wide with shock as he went from trotting to sprinting as fast as he could. The sword on his back seemed to stay fairly in place when he ran, and the wildcat heard the sounds of the scream stop as he neared the area. To get there faster, Ichigo would begin teleporting short distances until he came to the mouth of a cavern. He heard voices down inside of the cavern, and his eyes narrowed slightly. He turned off his enhanced hearing and simply made his way deep into the cavern where he heard voices. Both voices were familiar, but it was only one animal that he knew the name of and that was Wendell. He flicked one of his ears as his claws were unsheathed in case something unexpected happened. As he rounded one of the corners, he noticed that there was light, probably by candles or some other means. Ichigo was able to see a chained Hellhound at the middle of the group, the one that had gone to the Ascendants with the corpse. At this time he didn't even know the leaders name but he would know it later on. He noticed the chains that were keeping to the ground except for one limb, and the Shinigami cursed under his breath as he began to make his way over.

As he neared, the horrible stench from all of the black liquid hit him almost like a train, causing the swordsman to gag slightly as he moved forward. It smelled awful. What the hell had happened here?! There was water all over the ground, and the place smelled like a burning corpse. Craning his neck, Ichigo grabbed onto the hilt of his sword and unsheathed the blade. The fabric that was usually wrapped around it unraveling to reveal the black and silver blade underneath. It was there that Ichigo would aim to start cutting the chains at the base of where they were connected to the structure, not to Marina of course as with a large blade as that he would be worried of cutting the hellhounds leg off. As he moved to try and cut the last one, the Shinigami ended up stepping in one of the clear puddles of water. Immediately, the water began to sizzle and begin to burn the bottom of his left paw. "The hell?!" Ichigo snarled as he immediately moved away from the liquid, lifting up one of his paws. The stuff just looked like clear liquid. Although it wouldn't surprise him if it was secretly acid with the way the place smelled. Approaching the last chain, Ichigo would again aim to slam the powerful blade on top of the end of the chain hoping to sever it. If he had to, he could use his fire elementals to melt the metal, but this option was better and easier. "Someone go get a medic!" Ichigo shouted through the hilt of the heavy blade that he was carrying thanks to his elemental powers.