Chapter 1 – Shadow of The Past
Back at Las Noches, at the very top, Orihime worked away to heal both Ichigo and Ishida's wounds. All of them were silent, not daring to bring up what had just happened. Unable to contain it, Ishida bursts out, saying to Ichigo, "What happened in that fight? For all we knew, you were dead, and then, you just-"
"I don't know myself," Ichigo replied. "I think it was my hollow side trying to help. It said something before about how if I died it would be bad for it as well."
"But that power…" But Ishida knew that Ichigo didn't have a proper answer to why he took that form, so he stayed quiet.
After Orihime was finished, they were getting ready to leave and join with the others in the human world. "Thanks Inoue," Ichigo said. "Your healing is getting a lot stronger."
"With you guys fighting, it sure does give me a lot of practice!" Orihime replied with a smile, but there seemed to be a certain pain behind those words.
"But do you ever get tired? You've been doing it an awful lot lately…" Ichigo said, with a hint of uncertainty in his voice.
"Oh I'm fine, if it means I'm helping then I'm glad to-" Her words stopped and her smile faltered as she saw a figure in the distance. It was unmistakeable. It was Ulquiorra, the number 4 Espada Ichigo had defeated only a few hours ago. Although he seemed different somehow…
Noticing she was looking at something, Ichigo turned around and saw him. Instantly, he was where Ulquiorra was. "Getsuga Tenshou!" Ichigo screamed, sending the spirit force wave at him. But both of them knew an unmasked Getsuga could do almost nothing.
"I do not come here to fight you." Ulquiorra said to him.
"How do we know that?" Ichigo replied. "We thought you dead, an enemy of the Shinigami who followed Aizen, and here you are saying you're not here to fight us."
"It is true I died." Ulquiorra calmly said. "But in death, I found a new life, and I now wish to help the one who saved me." With this he turned to Orihime, and said "Thank you for showing me the way." Not knowing what to say, Orihime replied "How do you intend to help us?"
"Kurosaki, you are aware that the Espada '0' to '9' are the strongest, yes?" Ulquiorra asked.
"Yes, with Aizen being at the top of them. We were on our way now to help defeat him." Ichigo replied.
"I have gone to the human world. Your friends have captured him, and he has been sentenced to 20000 years in Muken, the bottom level of the prison." Ulquiorra told him. "But the problem now facing us is that Aizen had a plan in case he got captured. He knew that they could not sentence him to death, so he created another group of Arrancar, more powerful than the Espada. They are called Extracción, and they were created for a single task."
"What task is that?" They all asked, but somehow, Ichigo felt he knew the answer.
"The infiltration and destruction of Soul Society, and the release of their lord and master, Aizen Sōsuke."