Hot, Hot Heat

Ichigo relaxed against a rocky wall in a hot spring. A small towel was folded neatly on top of his head. He had just been shot into some city that had belonged to one of the members of the Zero Division, Tenjirou Kirinji.

Actually, he had no idea what he was doing there. Kirinji was relaxing beside him, so Ichigo was not really "relaxed". In fact he was too uncomfortable. Also, the loud sounds of the pipes hitting the rocks was not helping anything either. Ichigo felt that he was going crazy.

He could not take it anymore. "This is fucking noisy! Are you trying to scare people away?! This is fucking noisy! Are you trying to scare people away?!" He stood up abruptly and continued his shouting at Kirinji. "Though that's not what's most disturbing! Why am I here?!"

Despite Ichigo's yelling, Kirinji just sat in his spot calmly. "Shut up," he said, "Be careful, your towel's gonna fall off."

However, Ichigo did not listen. "Why am I idling in a hot spring?! What did I come here for?!" The towel was beginning to fall off his head, but Ichigo ignored it.

Kirinji was starting to get annoyed. "Uh? Don't you get it? It's hot-spring cure," He stated plainly.

Byakuya's head was starting to resurface; Kirinji noticed it away and plunged his head back underwater. "Oh, this shouldn't float."

Ichigo noticed it too. "Byakuya?!"

Byakuya, Renji, and Rukia had come with Ichigo to the realm of the Soul King so that they could be healed. Also, the Soul King had wanted to speak to Ichigo for some reason, and there was a way in which Ichigo could put Tensa Zangetsu back together again. Of course, that would happen at another time. Right now, they were healing their wounds after the attack of the Vandenreich on Soul Society.

"Wait! Wait! Wait!" Ichigo continued to yell. "Why are you keeping him underwater?! He's gonna die! By the way, when did you even put him there?!"

The Zero Division captain pulled an unconscious Renji up to the surface using his hair. "Jeez, how annoying," he said, "It's not only Byakuya."

"Renji?!" Ichigo exclaimed. "You're holding him like a red turnip!"

Then at that moment, Rukia floated back up to the surface. For the first time in Ichigo's life, he had seen her naked ass in plain view. Noticing that he too was naked except for the bandages that had covered his upper half, he sharply turned away with a blush, hiding a certain erection that was showing. Fuck! She's so hot! I totally want to tap that ass of hers!

"Rukia, too!" He shouted.

Kirinji smirked. "Aren't you gonna say that she looks like a peach?"

Actually not really a peach, more like a sweet chili pepper, Ichigo thought to himself, that's just how hot she is. "Shut up!" He yelled.

Kirinji pushed Rukia and Renji back underwater. "If you have nothing to say, shut up," he said. "By keeping them underwater, their wounded reiatsu is getting squeezed out together with their blood."

At that moment, Ichigo calmed down, but he widened his eyes at the explanation. "Wounded reiatsu?"

"Can you see the red hot spring over there?" Kirinji smirked again as he pointed behind him.

Ichigo looked past him and noticed a hot spring that was much hotter than the one he was currently in. The red colour of the water made it seem like it was boiling blood rather than water. There was a sign in front of the hot spring that had a label written in kanji. "More than a hot spring," he answered, "I can see a sign-board saying 'Blood Red Hell'…"

"Yeah, it says that," Kirinji agreed. Then his smirk turned into a frown as he pulled Byakuya up from the surface. "That blood pond is where I'll throw Byakuya after he's completely empty." Then, to Ichigo's surprise, he tossed Byakuya like a rag doll to the blood pond.

"UWOH?!" Ichigo screamed. "What are you doing?! He's risking his life!" The towel had completely fallen off his head.

Now it was Kirinji's turn to yell. "I SAID SHUT UP!" Then he calmed down and continued his explanation. "His blood is sucked away in this skeleton bone," He pointed to an object that was in the hot spring he and Ichigo were sitting in, "and then replenished in the Blood Pond Hell. By repeating this a few times, the rotten blood and reiatsu are completely sucked out and substituted with this hot spring water. This is my healing technique!"

"Will they really heal with that…?" Ichigo asked, doubting this man's strategy of healing his friends.

Kirinji crossed his arms without looking at Ichigo. "You… Weren't you Kisuke Urahara's disciple?"

"Di…" Ichigo was beginning to get defensive. "I'm not!"

"Wasn't there a weird hot spring in his and Yoruichi Shihouin's 'Playground'?"

Ichigo remembered the time when he was healing in a strange hot spring in a hidden place within Soul Society. He was wounded then as well, and when he sat down, he noticed that his wounds were healing at an alarming rate.

Kirinji continued, "That is something Kisuke Urahara created after analyzing my hot spring." He averted his eyes to Ichigo. "Shut up and stay in the water. Wounds like yours won't take more than one night to heal. You'll even get healthier than you were before."

Ichigo calmed down and realized that Kirinji was right. This was something that he definitely liked to hear, and he wanted nothing more than to be healthy once again so that he can protect his friends from those awful Quincies.

Then Kirinji noticed the missing towel on the carrot-top's head. "Hey! I told you not to let your towel fall into the water!" He shouted.

Ichigo also noticed the missing towel, so he bent over to pick it up. "Oh?! S-sorry."

"That's not the problem!" Kirinji yelled. "If you don't keep it on properly on your head, the core of your reiatsu will come out and you will die!"

"Eeh?!" Ichigo panicked. He immediately put the towel back on and sat in the water.

It took several days for Rukia to be fully healed and when she woke up she was lying on a futon within a building. Ichigo was sitting beside her, waiting for her to wake up. "Hey Rukia," he greeted with a smile. Then he blushed when he remembered the image of her ass above the water's surface.

Rukia raised an eyebrow when she noticed the blush. "What are you blushing for?"

"N-nothing," Ichigo stammered.

"What the hell happened?" She wanted to know.

"N-nothing happened," Ichigo repeated.

"You liar," she grumbled.

"Honest!" Ichigo shouted, the blush still on his face. "Nothing happened!"

She punched him the face. "You fucking liar! What happened?!"

"I saw you naked," Ichigo muttered inaudibly.

"I can't hear you!" Rukia yelled impatiently.

"I saw you naked at the hot spring, but…" Ichigo was cut off with another punch to the jaw. When he recovered, he noticed that Rukia was steaming with rage and embarrassing. She grabbed her katana in front of her and unsheathed it.

Ichigo yelped and stood up from the ground, ready to run for his life.

"YOU ARE SO DEAD!" Rukia screamed and she chased him out of the room.

Haha! Just a silly one-shot that I came up with after reading the newest chapter. Let me know what you think of it!