Beta-ed by Faroush and Orchamus.Go read their stories!


Chapter 1: Decisions, Decisions…


There were three people waiting for him. By the looks of it two of them were servants, the third one however… The third one was as dignified as they came, standing as straight as possible, defying the hold his apparent age should have had over his body. His eyes were quite the puzzle for Shiro, glinting with the hints of arrogance that many shinigami acquired, but tempered with a certain self knowledge. The man's face was full of wrinkles and by the way the wrinkles decorated his face it could easily be assumed that he didn't smile too often. His mouth was hidden by a big moustache.

After a few more moments Shirou finally realized who the man before him was. It was the current leader of the noble house of Kuchiki, Kuchiki Ginrei, the only shinigami in Seireitei who could possibly compete with the Captain-Commander in terms of power and experience. But the already existing gap between the two of them would become visible for everyone quickly enough, twenty more years and Ginrei Kuchiki would be but a powerless old man and Captain-Commander Yamamoto would still be the undisputed head of the Shinigami.

Shirou quickly bowed and greeted the man. "Greetings, Kuchiki-sama. Please forgive my tardiness; I wasn't informed who exactly was waiting for me." The young man bowed again and waited for a response from the old clan head. That kind of behavior had been drilled into his very being from the day one of him being Yadomaru.

"Your apology is accepted. Let us get on to business. I have an offer for you. I want you to instruct my grandson in the art of Shunpo. I was offered the services of Shihoin Yoruichi, but I think someone of a lesser level of skill may be a better teacher. Yoruichi-san's skills are too great, and she hasn't had any apprentices worth mentioning in a long time." The Kuchiki patriarch stopped for a moment to let the young man process all the information, and continued after several seconds. "I need you to train him to a level at which Yoruichi-san will be able to take up his training. As a prodigy in Shunpo, you are the most suitable person for this task. I will give you two days to consider my offer. I understand that you may be not very confident in your teaching abilities, but please consider it."

The pale man sharply inhaled, it wasn't everyday that the head of the Kuchiki Clan said 'please' to someone, especially if it were a person like Shirou. The old man bid him farewell and left an astonished and light-headed Shirou behind. The white haired youth almost jumped when Lisa approached him from behind and tapped his shoulder. His head sharply turned toward his adopted sister at a speed which nearly tore his neck apart.

"What's the matter?" The girl looked at him, suspiciously waiting for Shirou to give some excuse about not daydreaming. However, her expectations did not come true this time.

"Nothing, never mind…" Shirou mumbled in a weak voice, more to himself than to his sister. The offer was very tempting, but if he were to fuck up somewhere… the consequences of it would be too great for him to handle.

"Whatever then… hurry up." Lisa's tone sounded like she wanted to know what was going on, but not enough to push him into telling her about it. She walked past him with a posture that screamed irritation, leaving behind a still shocked Shirou who kept wondering about the Kuchiki's offer for another minute before he went after her.


Later that night


Two hours after the party had officially ended, Shirou was sitting on the roof of the building where the party had been going on. Kaien had, as always, went overbroad with it. He had invited people that Shirou didn't even know. His reaction to the question of why he had invited them all had been predictable: a silly laugh and a sheepish smile followed by the words: 'The more the merrier'.

The young man had just sighed at that. It just couldn't be helped; at least he had met some new people… not like he would ever recognize them after that, not even if he ran into them again tomorrow. Shirou turned his head when he heard a noise behind him. It was Kaien.

"What do you need, Shiba-sempai?" The young man's voice was tired, weak and chastising.

Kaien coughed in surprise at the accusing tone in the teen's voice and spoke sheepishly. "Nothing, just trying to skip out on the cleaning…"

"That's what Lisa would call being a lazy-ass." The white haired teen allowed himself a slight chuckle when he imagined an irritated Lisa admonishing the oldest Shiba sibling or maybe not… it shouldn't be called admonishing when it was more of 'stating the facts with accusatory tone'.

The older teen's facial expression became even more sheepish. "Nay, I'm not like that, besides…"

Watching the expressions ripple over Shiba's face was quickly becoming quite entertaining so Shirou pushed it further. "Besides what?"

"Your Lisa-chan is pretty strict when it comes to being lazy." Knowing the truth Kaien had the dignity to blush.

"True. Doesn't make you any less lazy though, and Lisa is strict with everyone but herself." Shiba's head bowed at the facts. It was an undeniable truth that Lisa was equally strict towards everyone. That 'everyone' did not include herself by default was a fact Shirou's adopted sister liked to overlook.

Both young men sat in silence for a while, enjoying the quiet companionship, until Kaien spoke. "You know, I think I might know why you can't for a connection with asauchi."

Shirou was obviously interested, although he tried to hide his interest by sounding as bored as possible. "Hmmmmm…?"

"You said that you don't remember anything of your life before you woke up here…" The black haired teen stopped and waited for a confirmation from Shirou.

"Yeah…" It wasn't exactly the truth since he remembered how he felt, but that didn't matter since Kaien meant normal memories.

After receiving confirmation the black haired young man continued. "Everyone in Soul Society who uses a Zanpakuto has had at least twenty years of life experience, either dead, alive, or both. In your case, your life experience is only two years worth, it will increase with time and maybe at some point in the future you might be able to do something with asauchi. But for now I'm afraid it's impossible, your own soul is unsure of itself, unable to determine its own characteristics without more background knowledge. And to change a nameless sword into your very own zanpakuto you much feed it your 'heart' so to say. Like… your memories, your feelings and such I imagine." He smiled when he finished his short speech, ignoring the fact that it was a very depressing conclusion.

Shirou released a breath he didn't realize he had been holding up until that point, and spoke with obvious sarcasm in his words. "That sounds… reassuring."

"Haha, bet it does…" Both Kaien's smile and laugh seemed awkward, like he had just now realized just how depressing it had to be for the white-haired young man, especially after Kaien's little speech.

"Hey you two, get down and help clean this place up!" They both jumped at the angry sounding voice. When they looked down from the roof they saw that it was Kukaku, Kaien's younger sister, who was staring at them from the ground. Her right brow seemed to be twitching slightly although Shirou couldn't really be sure at night. His eyesight was not as good as one would expect.

"No need to be so angry Kukaku." Kaien smiled apologetically and began climbing down from the roof. Even though Kukaku was his younger sister she was the kind of girl who could instill fear and respect into anyone if she wanted to. Yet she didn't accomplish this with wits and manners but with brute force instead. Shirou followed his sempai's example and climbed down without a single word of protest.

"I have every right in the world to be angry!" The white haired teen chuckled when he saw how the older Shiba sibling was being berated by his sister. Kukaku was quite amusing; she was almost two feet shorter than her brother and yet she still managed to order him around.

Strange people indeed.


One week later.


Shirou sighed while looking at the small black haired boy before him. The boy was breathing hard and sweating a lot. He was slumped over with hands gripping knees in order to prevent his body from collapsing from exhaustion. Shirou sighed again. 'Two hours! Two fucking hours! And still nothing in the way of any real progress.'

Up until now he had been teaching the kid the basics and theory behind Shunpo, tossing him crumbs of Zanjutsu as well for variety. The young man let his head hang down as a feeling of hopelessness overcame him. Annoyed he muttered, "You're dumb, you know that?"

The boy, who was known as Kuchiki Byakuya, obviously didn't like hearing him say that at all. The kid seemed to have quite the ego, and didn't like it when someone said something negative about him. He yelled at his trainer with a very loud voice when he heard the disappointed mutter. "What!"

Shirou sighed one last time and got up. He walked to boy and put a hand on his student's head. "Exactly what I said." It seemed to anger child even more, but the young man didn't mind it. He continued. "You don't understand what you need to do, or what you're doing wrong."

At the moment Shirou finished speaking, the boy's face turned into a grimace of anger, confusion and disbelief. "Huh…?" He wasn't able to whisper anything but this one word.

The young man groaned. Even if Byakuya was still a kid, he had expected him to act less like a child and more like the clan heir he was. He couldn't believe that this kid was supposed to one day become a clan head like his grandfather. "God help me…" He crouched down to look the kid directly into his eyes. "You need to focus your reiatsu in one spot and then project yourself towards the direction you want to go, not project your reiatsu at a spot and walk there. If you do the thing correctly, the moving part would be done with on its own." While speaking he tried to make his best to show what was required of the child. Shirou's hands flew about, changing positions and bending in impossible angles, all of it just to try and make Byakuya understand.

It seemed that all his efforts were fruitless. All he was able to get from the child was another "Huh?" This time the kid's face showed only confusion. It seemed that Shirou's incredible efforts had only managed to confuse the boy even more. He was a terrible teacher. Kuchiki Ginrei overestimated his abilities.

That last 'huh' tore down the last bit of patience left in Shirou's mind. He burst out with an aggrieved exclamation, yelling "What's with that 'huh'! You're a Kuchiki, aren't you? Behave like one!" Basically, the young Kuchiki behaved like some snot nosed punk and it was getting on Shirou's nerves. His inability to do even the sloppiest attempt of shunpo annoyed the young man even further.

Byakuya smiled sheepishly and tried to cover his embarrassment with laughing, but he quickly shut up when he saw the face of his temporary sensei. It was very rare to see him so angry, as he usually was easy to anger but hard to infuriate. He changed his smile to a solemn, apologetic looking face and spoke. "I'll try harder this time."

"Good." Shirou sighed and moved to his previous resting place in the shadow of a tree.

The boy continued his attempts at shunpo without much improvement. Four hours had passed and only then did he begin to show some barely acceptable results. It seemed that an eternity had passed when Shirou awoke at the sound of Byakuya crashing headfirst into the wall of the mansion with his first semi-successful shunpo. He chuckled and continued to watch. The child's results improved gradually with each shunpo attempted.

Finally it was time to end his training for the day. He called the kid over and spoke to him while stifling a yawn. "you're doing better, but still a little off. You've got some good speed for a beginner; however, you were aiming over there, didn't you?" Shirou gestured at the place ten meters away from the place Byakuy had appeared at.

The boy kept silent, probably in shame.

The young man waved his hand in a 'doesn't matter'-way and looked right into Byakuya's eyes. "It's okay; if you learn how to move then learning how to control it would be your next step, right? You don't have to get it right at the first try. At least you've finally got it down somewhat."

"Huh?"

"We will continue tomorrow, it's gotten too hot…" Shirou waved his hand and walked to the exit of the compound while trying to stay in the shadows.


The next day


Shirou was sitting in a room without many decorations. Only a bonsai tree and a painting of a mountain from the real world gave the impression that this room was used from time to time. The light was streaming from behind the door. His father was in front of him. The head of the Yadomaru family was neither an old man, nor a young one. His hair already had some gray in it but still was black for the most part. His face was wrinkled with the passage of time and the carrying of many emotions.

"So, have you decided what to do about your Zanpakuto problem? Will you agree to take one from the storage?" His voice was warm and careful, as if he was trying not to offend his adopted son.

"Yes, otou-sama." Shirou bowed his head to strengthen his words and the resolve behind them. There was no sense in running away from something that needed to happen anyway. If he couldn't do anything with asauchi, and he knew he wouldn't anytime soon, if ever, he would be required to take one from repository if he ever planned to gain a significant rank among the Shinigami.

The man scratched his chin while pondering the young man's response. Then he smiled broadly. "Good, that's the answer I was hoping for. However, before you can take a sword from there you need to go through a mental and physical examination so they know what kind of Zanpaktou is compatible with you." He then rubbed the back of his head as if he was feeling uncomfortable while sighing, his eyes closed. He knew how uncomfortable it would make his son.

Shirou sighed and stood up. "If this is what is required, I will do it. If there is nothing else you need, I will take my leave now."

His 'father' nodded and called for the servants. "Hayate-san, please bring some sake."

Shirou left the room without looking back. His thoughts were swirling around as though caught in a whirlwind. He didn't know what to expect from these examinations and if he was to be honest with himself, he even felt a bit afraid. He didn't know, however, just what of.


The day of examination.


"Well, what can I say… You certainly seem to be an interesting person, Yadomaru-san." The woman who was examining Shirou spoke with amused tone in her voice. She looked through the contents of the mess that was her work table and put on a pair of glasses sitting atop a particularly hazardous stack. The woman continued to look for something and stopped only when she finally found a clean piece of paper and a pencil. She scribbled down something, used a stamp on it and gave it to the teen.

Shirou looked at note curiously, not understanding what its contents meant he asked. "Huh? F-1691? What does that mean?"

The woman smiled oddly, but explained it nevertheless. "Nothing much, just your personality is considered F-1691 type." Her smile turned apologetic while she scratched her nose.

Shirou sighed in defeat. F-1691 probably was his personality type, but something told him that there was so much more than numbers and single letter behind it. A sudden realization came to his mind. He needed to ask something that had been bothering him since his birthday party.

"Can I ask you something?" The young man spoke with confidence in his voice while scowling lightly.

"Of course." The doctor smiled sweetly, encouraging him to ask.

He was somewhat uncomfortable about the nonexistence of his memories and so he tried not to look into her eyes when he was talking. "Is it possible that the absence of my memories is the cause of my inability to do change asauchi into a proper Zanpaktou?"

The woman opened her mouth in surprise, not expecting a question like that. She wanted to laugh at the childishness of Shirou's insecurities seeing how he refused to meet her eyes, but quickly regained her composure and became all business like. "While this would be correct in most cases, your case is much more complicated. It is related to your physical anomalies." She rummaged through the mess on her desk like a stray animal in a garbage can and took some book from the depths of the mess. Then she searched for something in the book while speaking. "Physically, you are as surprising as you are mentally. Your Reiatsu for example, is not only large, but it also has the taint of a Hollow. It is not uncommon, most people who were Hollows and were cleansed by some Shinigami have such a taint. Another thing that is bothering me, however, is how large it is. The size of this taint suggests that you might have been at least an Adjuchas class Menos." Halfway through her monologue she seemed to have found what she had been looking for and when her little speech stopped she presented it to the teen.

Shirou looked at the pages she was showing him. 'Hakusui and Saketsu – invaluable parts of Shinigami, with them damaged in any way or form a Shinigami becomes a normal plus soul.' Shirou scowled, not understanding the woman's implications and asked. "What are you trying to say?"

"What I mean is that your Hakusui and Saketsu are damaged, not fatally but enough to prevent you from forming a connection with asauchi." She spoke with barely visible annoyance. The woman probably thought that not understanding what she meant right away was a bad thing,

"So, that's how it is…" The young man sighed and looked at the doctor, expecting her to say something.

"If you don't have any more questions, you're free to go." With a wave of her hand she motioned Shirou to the door. The teen bowed his head politely and left the room.


It was first time Shirou had ever seen something as grand as this place. Hundreds of shelves with hundreds of zanpaktous on them, this place was truly a magnificent sight. He couldn't even imagine how much time it had taken to gather all those swords in here and then catalogue every last one of them.

Surprisingly, for a place of such importance it was rather poorly guarded - two men outside and one worker inside. Said worker was currently looking at the paper Shirou had gotten from the doctor. "F-1691… okay I'll show you the way. Follow me." The man got up and walked past rows of those shelves.

While he was following the man the teen looked around in amazement. It was visible from the entrance but when they started walking he understood how large exactly this place was. "This place is quite big, isn't it?"

The man chuckled at apparent amazement in Shirou's voice and responded. "Yeah, this place contains every zanpaktou that we were able to recover from fallen Shinigami. Fortunately, if yours and the zanpaktou's personalities don't match you simply won't be able to use it correctly and since mere burglars don't know in what section to look for what personality type they won't make any money by stealing them. Of course you can just take a zanpakuto and use it like a common sword, but then again taking an asauchi from warehouse of Soul Arts Academy would do them more good." He finished and smiled proudly. "Amazing place, eh?"

"Yeah." The teen didn't have anything else in his vocabulary to respond to that.

After several minutes of walking the man finally stopped. "Well, here we are. You can choose from here up to here." He used his hand to show from where to where Shirou could take zanpaktou from. "The notable ones are: Muramasa, previously owned by a Kuchiki, although it has a bad history… well never mind. The second one is Jikan no Ikiryou, it can manipulate time to a certain degree. The third is Kusari o Tsunagu, which has good Kido abilities. The last one is Koritora, the strongest Ice-Type zanpakuto in all of Seireitei so far." The man finished his tour by showing Shirou what he thought was an array good swords and looked at the young man.

The young man in question was not looking at any of the presented blades. His eyes had been caught by an unusual black sword. Unlike a normal zanpaktou, the blade was black, slightly curved and approximately 70 cm long, the sword had round tsuba with sun engraved on it. The hilt was 25 cm long and wrapped in thin black leather strips. "What about this sword? What can you tell me about it?" Shirou turned his head to look at the man who stood behind him.

"Sure. The owner died before reaching Shikai, so we don't know about its abilities. It's as good as any other Zanpaktou I suppose." The man finished with a shrug which seemed to express something like 'I don't care what happens to you if you take this one'.

Shirou smiled contently. He didn't want something that people already knew about. He needed something he could discover by himself. "Good enough, I'll take it. What papers do I need to fill out?"

"Ah, yes, please follow me."


Shirou was sitting by a koi pond at home, trying to meditate in hopes of contacting his zanpaktou's spirit, but so far all his efforts had been futile. He had been sitting there meditating for three hours straight and nothing had happened yet. His concentration was beginning to waver and he completely lost it when a sudden, loud voice forcefully brought him out of his meditative state.

"Shirou!" Lisa's voice was as sharp as ever and made him stop his meditation. He turned his head to look at his 'sister', raising an eyebrow in inquiry.

She didn't say anything else and he asked. "What?"

The girl huffed and whispered to herself. "You seem to be pretty popular with nobles…" Seeing that Shirou heard it anyway she sighed and continued. "Shihoin Yoruichi is waiting for you outside."

The young man got up and walked towards the exit with Lisa trailing behind him. She seemed annoyed about something. Probably because he was 'popular with nobles' or because she was the youngest in the family with the exception of him and was forced to act as some sort of a messenger. Shirou, being the youngest in whole family, naturally did so as well on many occasions, but when something concerned him it was Lisa who had to act as the messenger.

"Are you a messenger now? What about servants?" he questioned, hoping to discover the source of her irritation, as despite how sharp she could be, she was his favorite sibling.

"It seems that way. The servants are preparing something that father has ordered." Her answer puzzled him, she didn't sound in the least bit aggravated at having been made into a messenger. Shirou shrugged, reading Lisa's emotions was sometimes an impossible thing to do, given her stoic attitude, so maybe she was agitated and he just didn't notice it.

When they reached the outside he instantly spotted a group of four people. One of them had to be Yoruichi, it wasn't hard to tell which either with her rather rare skin coloration. Two of her companions seemed to be members of the Omnitsukido Corps because they were dressed like typical ninja from books he read. The last one was a large man with light brown, almost orange hair and self-satisfied smirk. The man kept looking around with an appraising look on his face.

The young man saw Yoruichi talking with a servant. The dark skinned woman seemed oddly energetic and had a broad smile, a Cheshire's grin more like, fixed onto her face. Then she saw the teen and waved her hand energetically. When he and Lisa approached them the woman greeted them. "Yo! Yadomaru Shirou, son of Yadomaru Katou I presume?"

Shirou gave her a small, polite smile before bowing. "Yes, though I might add that I am his adopted son."

The woman made a rather funny face portraying her emotions in exaggeration. She was confused, curious and irritated all at the same time, managing to convey all of this with a single pout. "Reeeaally?" When Shirou didn't say anything she shrugged and gestured at Lisa. "And this is?"

The teen said in a matter of fact like voice, "Lisa, my sister." Lisa nodded her head in a light bow without changing her neutral expression. But judging by her slightly furrowed brows she was annoyed at the older woman for knowing him and not knowing her.

Shirou decided to skip directly to business just to not let the irritable sister get any more annoyed with Yoruichi's ignorance. "So, Yoruichi-sama, what brings you here?"

"An offer…" She paused for a moment looking at Lisa as if saying 'this doesn't concern you'. Lisa sighed, bowed and went elsewhere. The brown skinned woman continued. "You're doing pretty good in the academy, and even better than that, your shunpo skills will, judging by their current level, grow to rival mine. I want you as my vice-captain, not right now of course. If you accept my offer you will be prematurely enrolled into the second squad, but will continue studying in the academy. Urahara Kisuke, a member of my squad will teach you the necessary knowledge needed for your position, and when you finish the academy you will be immediately granted the second seat." She looked at the big man standing several meters away from them. "What do you think?"

This was very embarrassing for him to be approached by someone of such high rank with such frankness. His face became a bit red while Yoruichi was speaking, partially because he couldn't take his eyes off her rather big chest and also because of said embarrassment. The young man composed himself and spoke. "What about your current vice-captain? I understand it is him?" Shirou gestured at the large man.

"He will be moved to the Onmitsukidō Corps. The leader position there suddenly became vacant and he is the only one competent enough to fill it. And while I can afford the absence of a vice-captain, I can't do the same thing for the Onmitsukidō." The woman finished her sentence with a more serious look on her face, but suddenly smiled widely and spoke. "Don't look at him like that, even if he is a big oaf his Shunpo and stealth skills are top notch, he wouldn't be one of mine otherwise."

Shirou nodded at her words and kept silently thinking about her offer. However, his silence was disturbed by the feeling of his hair being undone and falling on his shoulders. He sighed, scowling in irritation as Yoruichi gave off a girlish giggle.

"Please return it." The young man tried to say it with a calm expression but what appeared instead was a creepy, overly-sweet smile.

Yoruichi grinned that Cheshire grin of hers and waved his hair band to empathize her words. "I'll do it if you say yes."

The young man grunted something under his breath and answered. "I'll think about it."

The mocha skinned woman appeared next to him via Shunpo and gave him his hair band back. "Alright. But let me tell you something, from now on you will get offers from every division except first and fourth. With your level of Reiatsu rivaling that of a mid level captain and the fact that you don't have your own Zanpaktou having been amended you have become quite a delicious looking addition for any division." She winked at him and went to her escort. "Guys! Omaeda! We're leaving."

The four people departed from Yadomaru compound leaving Shirou blushing at Second Division's Captain's open flirting. Was that flirting? He wasn't sure, but his face responded on its own, so it must have been. And he shouldn't have forgotten about Lisa. Her current stare was unnerving at best. Strange people.


The sensation of being wet and cold awoke him again two-something years after that time. Shirou moved himself into a sitting position and looked around. It wasn't the lake he had woken up at all that time ago, to his relief, but it wasn't exactly a nice place either, with ruins and water everywhere around him. It looked like some kind of flooded ghost town, a remnant of a once living city. It shouldn't really be called town tough. All buildings were destroyed, almost like after a huge battle.

"What a pitiful place this world is, don't you think so Shinigami?" Someone spoke behind him, judging by the feminine and bored tone of the voice it was woman and she wasn't amused.

Shirou turned around carefully trying to be ready to see anything. He had already figured out that this place had to be his inner world and that woman the spirit of his newly acquired Zanpaktou. What he saw when turned around was a formless black silhouette standing on what was left of a building. She was pretty far away but her voice was still clearly audible.

"Well, I must thank you at least for one thing, Shinigami. This form is certainly better than what my previous owner gave me." Her voice was surprisingly soft in comparison to the tone she had used when speaking about his inner world, which has been like unto a hammer striking an anvil.

Only now the young man noticed how the space around her seemed strangely dark. It was as if she sucked in all the light around herself. Her silhouette moved and two yellow orbs looked at the teen. He swallowed hard, expecting something unpleasant, but she used what looked like Shunpo to appear near to him. The woman took off the hood of her cloak and Shirou was greeted with sight of bright yellow eyes, twilight black skin and hair the color of a raven's wing.

Her lips moved soundlessly, a faintly amused expression playing across her face as she watched him. When the young man was unable to hear what she said she just sighed in disappointment. "…whatever. Perhaps you are as useless as she was…"

"Hey what does that mean?" He wanted to take the woman by her cloak and lift her up but she used Shunpo again and appeared on the nearest island created by a destroyed building.

"Whatever it means is up to me to decide." She snorted and continued. "Really, you seem very childish, Shinigami… which is quite interesting considering the state of your inner world." The woman smiled enigmatically which transformed into self-satisfied grin. "Anyway, what made your world into the pitiful place it is now?"

The young man scowled furiously. This woman got on his nerves with her 'know-it-all' and 'better-than-you' attitude. "…I don't remember…" He finally forced himself to say while looking at some other place than her.

Her voice suddenly became serious and her face twisted into a scowl comparable to Shirou's. "You 'don't remember' or 'you don't want to remember'?"

Those words touched his nerve. "Listen you! I didn't come here to be taunted by a sword with an attitude! I see that god forsaken inner world of mine for the first time! And course I want to remember!" The teen yelled at the top of his lungs. He took a deep breath when he finished and stared at her intently.

The woman's eyes closed and her face took a serene expression when Shirou felt something was wrong. At this moment everything around him went black and he awoke in his bed at the Yadomaru mansion. The young man stared at the ceiling with confusion written all over his face, expecting something to happen. But nothing happened.

He blinked, twice. Still nothing happened. "Did I make her angry?" He sighed in defeat and moaned hopelessly.


Please review. All reviews are welcome, suggestions are welcome too.

Okay, about chapter. I hope you understand that Shirou was training Byakuya for at least seven days minus two days given to him to consider the offer. Hakusui and Saketsu are what Byakuya destroyed in Ichigo's soul (?) when he and Renji came to the real world to take Rukia back. Yoruichi's vice-captain is Marenoshin Omaeda, he's father of Marechiyo Omaeda and was shown in Bleach Character Book 2 Masked. And zanpakuto. I won't be revealing everything at once so don't expect to see Bankai in near future and Shikai probably won't appear for two chapters at least. Also I didn't decide on hairstyle of zanpakuto spirit yet so well… it's either something short or something like really tight ponytail.

Jikan no Ikiryou – wraith of time

Kusari o Tsunagu – linking chain

Koritora – ice tiger

Also credit goes to adrienskywalker for concept of zanpakuto repository. I didn't really ask permission to use this, but it's probably okay if I mention him here.