Ichigo woke up that morning, feeling better than he had been in the last several weeks. The odd pain in his back, about where his shoulder blades were, had been hurting constantly, with more and more pain, making it impossible for the teen to sleep on his back. He had been meaning to tell his dad, Isshin (who was a doctor) but it never seemed the right time. And the idiot still attacked him, even though the man had never won a tussle against his son since Ichigo had been ten.
The fifteen year old got up and stretched, happy that the annoying pain was gone and tried to put on a shirt, only for it to get tangled up as it was part way on his torso. The only half awake teen tried again a couple of times before giving up and going to the bathroom to see if the mirror would tell him what was wrong.
The startled scream that Ichigo let loose woke everyone in the house. Including the overnight patients downstairs. There was an urgent knock on the door, and his father's voice, unexpectedly (or perhaps not s so as his son had just screamed bloody murder) "Ichigo, what is wrong? Ichigo! Talk to me."
The orange haired teenager slowly opened the door, stammering out in a panicky whisper "I-I don't- they-they must have shown up last night… Ho-how is this even possible? D-dad do you know what is going on?" On his back were two, large silver-grey wings. They would look appropriate on an angel, but Ichigo was quietly starting to panic.
"Son, you know your mother and I had found you on our doorstep, yes? And that we had adopted you?"Isshin asked, voice in a calm, controlled tone. when Ichigo nodded, the doctor continued speaking "We had a blood test done when you were little, to figure out who your parents were, because of the adoption process. While we could not find them through that, we did find out that you were a magical being. Specifically you were an Angel. But we didn't know if your powers would activate or not, and neither were the doctors, as very little is known about them. Remember Urahara?"
"You mean Hat-and-Clogs? Sure I do, but what does he have anything to do with this?" The berry asked, panic in his eyes. "And why weren't you guys sure if my powers would activate?"
"Urahara is a mage, he should be able to help you to learn how to control whatever abilities. As for your powers, the Healer-mage they brought in, Doctor Ishida, found that you had both light and dark aspects of magical power within you. Usually those fight internally, and render a person's potential for magic to nothing, or mostly so. You had the ability to see ghosts, but that was the extent of what your predicted talents." His father explained, pulling his still mostly terrified son into a hug, in order to physically comfort him.
Urahara, mage and shopkeeper was having a quiet, polite, bur vehement argument with Sousuke Aizen, one of the strongest paladins in recorded history. The brown haired man was there, as the magical government had gotten a reading during the night, of a very powerful discharge of magical energy within the city of Karakura. Such discharges were usually indicative of a major fight between high class magical beings.
Doctor Ishida had been cleared of this, as he had been in the approved training center for Japan, with his son, who wished to become a mage as well, and showed talent for it. Which left only the troublemaking blonde, as he was the only one strong enough that they were aware of (and the magical government kept tabs on people of such strength so they wouldn't misuse their power).
Aizen wanted to do a scan on the blonde's powers, to ensure that he hadn't been the one to do it. Urahara was arguing that the power reading was clearly showed that while yes, it had been a powerful discharge of strength, it was very clearly not a magical signature of a mage, and to please stop blaming him for everything that went wrong in Japan. The paladin secretly agreed with that assessment, but the shopkeeper's record spoke against him. Additionally there had been an increasing amount of magic in the surrounding town, soaking into the buildings, ground and people of Karakura for several weeks, possibly longer.
A knock on the door interrupted their argument. "Come in~. My shop is open!" Urahara sang out, delighted to get a customer.
It was Ichgio, who was wearing an oversized and very baggy coat. the teenage human also seemed to be a bit twitchy and nervous for some reason. He spotted the two of them, and edged for the door saying "Since you obviously seem busy, I'll come back later. Bye Hat-and-clogs!" and procceded to try and bolt through the door.
A long lifetime of instincts and intuition led the paladin to do what he had done next. With a movement at astonishing speeds Aizen was in front of the door, blocking the young man's way, and appeared to be checking his nails. "You may speak to Urahara-san. I can wait here, little one."
The teenager reacted on instinct. His newborn powers did not take kindly to being startled by such a powerful being. His wings opened and flared threateningly, easily taking up almost every available inch of space, knocking merchandise and tables everywhere. the young angel's hands glowed a silver blue and a large elegant cleaver appeared in his hands. A black-red glow engulfed his head and a white and red bone mask appeared on his face.
Ichigo flailed at the sudden shifting in weight and fell flat on his face. Or would have, had he not been caught by the brown haired paladin. "And just what is your name, young angel? My name is Aizen Sousuke."
The berry's breath caught in his throat as he once again heard the stranger's baritone voice. there was something very striking about this man. Something which had the young angel wanting to get to know the other. a breathy "Ichigo Kurosaki. Nice to meet you Aizen-san." was his hurried response to the brunette's question.
Urahara blinked once in utter confusion. Not about Ichigo's wings, he had known that the teen was an angel (a very rare type of magical being) but that his wings had manifested. The teen had given no outward signs (and he'd been monitored closely by bote himself and Ishida) of powers. But then again, neither male had been able to dig up anything on Angels, no matter who they talked to, threatened, bribed or blackmailed.
Aizen was talking again, but much gentler than the mage had ever heard the other speak "Please forgive me for startling you, Kurosaki-kun. It was not my intent. You seemed to be so very nervous, and intent on speaking with Urahara-san. I merely wanted to show you that I was fine with waiting for you to speak with him. How long have you had your wings?" That was a round about way of asking an angel how long they had thier powers.
"I-I didn't mean to react like this… how do I close these things?" Ichigo murmured, both to the paladin, as well as to himself. He struggled with them for a moment before giving up, and responding to the darker haired male's question. "I woke up this morning and they had just appeared. dad said to go to Urahara-san, as he might be able to help me control my powers."
"To the best of my knowledge, Urahara-san knows very little of angels or their powers. I do know some of your potential abilities, and would be more than willing to help you, Kurosaki-kun, if you wished me to." Aizen had noticed the way the young angel had seemed spellbound by his voice.
While the brown haired man did have hypnotic qualities, it required conscious effort on his part, and his voice was not the medium that his illlusionary abilities were channeled through. The teen was rather adorable, with those large brown eyes blinking up at him with a refreshing amount of innocence and honest hope. Most were extremely wary of his approach. the twitching and aggravation that Urahara was displaying was only a bonus. He had never liked the lazy, annoying blond, and would very happily train the orangette for that expression on his rival's face alone.
Aizen had called headquarters, explaining that he had found a young one who had just come into his powers. Before he could tell them what said young one was, he was assigned to train and teach him, as neither Ishida or Urahara was particularly for their cause and the teen was likely to be stronger than both men combined. Not that Aizen would have told them, as the magical government would have insisted on his training to be taken place at main headquarters.
The brunette felt that that would be disastrous for the young one, who had been raised knowing of the magical world, but never fully immersed as he would have been, hat Ichigo been taken to headquarters. And the teen's temperament, from what Sousuke had seen, was not one to tolerate being pawed at and adored and questioned in a way that the young angel would have been by anyone curious enough to bother him. And as angels were so very rare and reclusive, almost everyone there would bother him, in differing amounts.
Aizen had been mildly surprised to find out that the address that the young orangette had given to him as his home address was a local clinic. It did have the teen's family name on it, and the other came out within about ten minutes of the brunette's arrival. Ichigo was looking considerably more put together, as well as calm, than the first time they had met, but that was to be expected. He was still wearing an over sized coat, in order to hide his wings. It had taken them the greater part of an hour to get the young one's wings closed in the shop yesterday. But the paladin had plenty of patience, so that hadn't bothered him. Sousuke had noticed that Ichigo's reactions to his wings being touched were different when he had touched them, versus when the shopkeeper had touched him. Odd that, and the brown haired magical knight wondered why that was.
Ichigo stood awkwardly in front of the paladin, and stated, "Good morning Aizen-san… Or is it Aizen-sensei, since you" be teaching me things." He normally wasn't this polite to anyone, being a rather casual person. But there was something about the brunette… Something that told him that more respect was needed.
The dark haired paladin responded with a gentle smile, and stated "Simply Aizen will suffice, Kurosaki-kun." He preferred that his students be comfortable in his presence. Fear was only of limited effectiveness in a learning environment.
"Alright Aizen, would you mind just calling me Ichigo? I'm not too formal a person…" the young angel responded as they started to walk to the training grounds that the paladin had picked out.
Ichigo's learning curve was incredible. Aizen reflected. Over the past summer the paladin had been teaching Ichigo. The teen soaked up anything and everything the darker haired male had thrown at him very quickly. When he encountered something that was a struggle, the younger male threw himself fully at the problem until he had learned everything there was to know about that entire field of knowledge. The young angel's raw power and speed had increased exponentially, to levels that matched his own.
He and Ichigo had grown much closer in the intervening months as well. To the point where Sousuke felt was dangerously close, at least to his own feelings, to those on a romantic scale. He knew for certain that the orangette had a deep crush on him, and might even love him, if prodded along in the right direction, if the stammers and blushes when the two were very physically close to one another was anything to go by. He could use a spell that would either concretely confirm or deny such a thing, but had no wish to use such invasive methods on his angel.
Ichigo and he had until the end of December until the teen's first review from someone from headquarters with an unbiased opinion would come to check on the teen's progress. Sousuke had refrained from giving them specifics as the hot-headed, gentle, growly teen was his. His to train, his to teach and… The dark haired paladin admitted to himself, he wanted to pursue after the teen's heart. Aizen wouldn't however. Not until the other had finished learning with him and they had had some space.
The review was done by Kuchiki Byakuya, head sorcerer. The other had been born and bred into the position that he had held, and Aizen disliked the other's haughty behavior, particularly when dealing with non-magical people. The brown haired man could see the potential problems if the two of them interacted with one another. Aizen had only just barely managed to restrain himself from romantically pursing his adorably oblivious berry. It hadn't helped that several others in the teen's life also wished to be in a romantic relationship on him.
"Where is your student, Aizen Sousuke, captain of the fifth division?" The Kuchiki demanded. that was another thing he had neglected to tell Ichigo. He wasn't simply a paladin, he was the leader of all paladin in the world. It would have scared off the teen when they had first met and slipped his mind, or wasn't quite the right time to tell the young angel of his importance in the magical world.
"He is coming, he went off for a flight." Aizen responded quietly.
"He has flight abilities? How good is he? What spells does he use? That is an unusual ability, one that I must grade." the noble sniffed.
"He flies me places quite frequently. He can lift and fly at least three people at a time. We haven't tried any more as I'm not sure he could handle anymore and Ichigo is… Quite stubborn at times and would insist on finishing it." Aizen responded, not mentioning how Ichigo could fly, wanting to see the other's expression on his face when the dark haired sorcerer's face when he realized that there was another angel in existence.
Aizen noticed Ichigo land about ten feet behind Byakuya and approach the stranger warily. Sousuke had tried to get the orangette to interact with other magical beings. usually it ended with Ichigo either hiding behind him and refusing to come out or talk until the person left, or the teen scaring the other off, wings flaring and puffed up threateningly. When the brown haired man asked why the teen did such things, all he got was a confused stare and a stammered response about his instincts taking him over and being incapable of controlling them fully. Otherwise the teen would actually attack, or fly off with Aizen, depending on if he instead hid or scared them away.
Aizen fought the urge to rub his temples as he saw and sensed the subtle shifting in Ichigo's body posture and magical aura that signaled that his instincts were taking over. Specifically the intimidation ones. Sousuke found that he could talk the younger being down, provided that the third party kept quiet…
And Ichigo had already charged at Byakuya, wings flared. Something new happened this time, his brown eyes (which were golden at the moment) glowered at the head sorcerer ad he held onto Aizen as the teen hissed "Mine! Go away!" the teen's wings flapped once, pushing a great deal of wind at the very startled sorcerer.
Byakuya froze for a moment. This could be very, very dangerous and his paladin counter-part didn't have a clue what was going on, or this wouldn't be happening. "I am not here to take him from you, Kurosaki Ichigo. Nor do I wish to pursue him in any manner. Aizen Sousuke, why did you not inform us that an angel chose you?"
"Chose me for what? and Ichigo, please calm down… You know why his instincts flare like this? I don't know and Ichigo, yes you, you silly thing, I don't know any other strawberries." Sousuke responded, struggling to hold onto, as well as calm down, the powerful young angel.
"He…He likely has romantic feelings for you. Fairly deep ones, with the strength of his reactions. Only for some reason he hasn't tried to court you… Perhaps it is because he didn't know what he felt for you? But that is why he is like this. Or he could try to fly away with you if spooked. Or hide behind you if he trusts you enough to stay." the Kuchiki responded, placidly informing the clueless paladin the reasons why the angel was reacting in such a manner. He had gotten enough of a read on the teen to extrapolate his abilities and strengths. It was about time Sousuke found someone anyways. Headquarters was going to have field day with this one.
"Have a good day, Kurosaki Ichigo, and Aizen Sousuke, and may you have many happy years together. Don't dance around one another for too long or I'll tie you two together." the noble continued after a while, a smile almost tugging at his lips. The indignant and embarrassed sputters were highly entertaining.
