I had lots of fun writing this, that's probably why it came out so quickly, but anyway I don't really know the terminology that well so if I get any of it wrong here or in the future just tell me. Okay, now I've got something important I- *suddenly passes out*
Pansy: *hides can of knock out gas* Muhahahaha. Due to unknown reasons Silver is unable to continue the author's note so... *Looks at notes* She doesn't own Bleach or any of its characters, and enjoy.
Ichigo was lost in thought as he walked the rest of the way by himself to the large house he shared with the rest of his family. Chad and Orihime had broken off from the group to get to their homes early on, Uryu had left after he killed the Hollow, and the orangette had left Rukia and Renji on their own not long after that. He had to sort through the new things he'd just learned about his almost friends. First of all, he'd known all of them had at least some reiatsu to speak of the moment he'd met them, but he hadn't expected it to amount to anything truly powerful in the end, Uryu being a Quincy through a whole new light on things. Did that mean the others were Quincy as well or were they something else?
Ichigo had never been great at sensing reiatsu but he'd spent enough time around Hollows that he could at least sense the ones that had appeared during school. He had already grown suspicious of what the five of them really were when they alternately left class whenever one appeared, but he had been unable to make any sense of it with his severely underwhelming achievements in reiatsu detection. Now that he'd been close enough to feel the Uryu was a Quincy it shed some light on some of his questions, but also gave birth to new ones.
The orangette was so preoccupied with his thoughts he didn't even notice that he'd already made it home until he ran face first into the door. Stumbling back with a soft grunt more in surprise than pain, Ichigo vaguely heard the door immediately open and didn't even have time to be see who had opened it when a hand wrapped around one of his arms and yanked him inside. Shaking his head slightly to clear it, Ichigo finally had the chance to look at his attacker. The first thing he noticed was the flash of straight pink hair that fell down to his attacker's chin, a bit hanging in his face over the white rimmed glasses.
At that point it was immediately obvious who this man was and Ichigo made sure to voice his irritation, "Szayel, what are you doing?"
"Shh," the man immediately shushed him, looking around the room the front door led to. "Everyone's asleep right now so we have to hurry."
Ichigo groaned softly. He didn't really want to be a part of whatever heinous experiment or material collecting expedition Szayel was going on, but if he was willing face to Grimmjow, Nnoitra, and (God forbid) Ulquiorra's wrath for the sake of it, it must be really important to him. If there was one thing Ichigo hated doing it was letting his family down.
"Fine," he whispered, "But never again Szayel, never again." Of course that wasn't true. If Szayel really wanted him to he would get involved again.
An almost insane grin spread across Szayel's lips at Ichigo's acceptance and he pulled the reluctant orangette carefully through the house down to the basement. Normally, that grin of Szayel's spelled pain and suffering for all who it was directed at, but Ichigo was one of the few that was safe around that smile. Even if the orangette hadn't been able to completely obliterate the scientist and his bubble gum hair, Szayel liked him too much to perform even his more mundane experiments on.
When the two finally made it to the already open door leading down to a place of no return, Ichigo realized how much Szayel really wanted whatever he was after. The man never left his lab in a state where others could access it without him. But this time, he'd been afraid of the door squeaking and waking someone up, this coming from the man who checked the hinges even when there wasn't a remotely possible chance that hinges could get squeaky three days after they were last oiled.
Szayel pulled Ichigo down a few of the stairs before quickly sealing it with a high level Bakudo. The two descended the rest of the stairs into the somewhat messy room Szayel had claimed as his lab. It was already well lit, though some areas more than others. Ichigo took a quick look around, taking in what he could from the multiple computers buried in piles of calculations to the operating table resting ominously in the center of the room. He'd never been in Szayel's lab more than a few times, this being his first time in this particular one, but it never ceased to amaze him just how well the pink haired Arrancar could hide exactly what went on in his death trap of a room.
Szayel ended up leading him to the back of the basement where he told a confused and slightly curious Ichigo to wait a moment. The scientist knocked on the wall a few times, seemingly to listen for something when suddenly the patch of wall he'd been knocking slid aside to reveal a secret back room to the basement with nothing but a single overhead light, hanging over an operating table. An occupied operating table. On said table was a middle woman with straight black hair, an unadulterated look of pure terror in her dark eyes as she tried to scream for help the moment the secret door opened. But that was probably the reason she'd been strapped down and gagged.
Quickly shutting the door, Szayel walked around to the other side of the table and smiled his slightly insane grin at Ichigo before asking, "Well, want to help?"
Ichigo's right eye twitched, "Szayel, you know Ulquiorra's going to kill you when he finds out, right?" His voice was surprisingly calm as he asked that, not quite sure what to make of the situation.
The scientists face fell, his expression turned pleading and he nearly begged, "That's why they're all sleeping. Please Ichigo, the opportunity was just too good to pass up, she could see me, and she's nothing but human. Besides, if we're careful and quiet no one's going to find out."
Ichigo stood there in silence for a while, taking much longer to decide what to do with this than he had when he agreed to follow Szayel down to the basement in the first place. His first option was to help Szayel. His relationship with the scientist would get better and it might be fun, but if they did get caught, someone was going to tell Ulquiorra and he didn't want to be even remotely connected to Szayel's plot when that bomb exploded. His second option was to tell Ulquiorra, he might be sparred from the unholy wrath that followed, but Szayel might end up dead or worse. Of course, there was always the option of not helping Szayel and not telling Ulquiorra, but who knew how that would turn out. So instead he chose the only option that seemed safe.
"Szayel," he sighed, "I'd rather not be any where near here when the bomb goes off but I'm not going to tell Ulquiorra either. Just do yourself a favor and let her go, I'd rather not have mysteriously disappear."
Szayel sighed too, except instead of exasperation and mild frustration, his was one of disappointment and had an overall downtrodden air to it. "Thanks for your concern, Ichigo, but I was really hoping…" the sentence trailed off, lying open in the air, though the intention and meaning had no need to be spoken anyway.
That look nearly did Ichigo in, he hated letting his family down, but this time it was a harder decision to make. He could either stick with his conviction and disappoint the pink haired scientist, or he could help him and disappoint Ulquiorra. The orangette paled a bit. Yeah, this decision wasn't hard, though it still left a sour taste in his mouth.
"I'm really, really sorry Szayel," and he was, "but you know as well as I do how scary Ulquiorra is when he's mad."
Szayel paled a bit at the thought a well before sighing out, "Yeah, sorry for asking this of you, Ichi, and thanks for not telling him."
"No problem, Szay," Ichigo replied with just a slight smile.
Ichigo went back upstairs quickly, the particular Bakudo Szayel used making it so on could leave but not enter. He snuck quickly up the stairs to his room, separated his soul from his body and lying it carefully down on the bed before sneaking off to where he'd seen Grimmjow out cold in the hallway.
Ichigo's soul form looked exactly like his body did except he was wearing the standard Espada uniform of a white jacket with black trim and a white hakama. The jacket's collar was upturned, the sleeves long enough to cover his arms up to the wrists. On his face sat a complete Hollow mask with two, thick black lines running vertically from top to bottom, one through each eye. His eyes had also changed from a warm honey brown to an unnatural gold on black. Spending almost half of his life with Hollows, it was like second nature for Ichigo to where his mask all the time.
As he silently made his way down the hall to a passed out Grimmjow, he quickly took note of the familiar weight of Zangetsu on his back before pushing his mask up to rest on top of his orange tresses. This was probably going to end badly but he didn't want to skulk through the house looking for everyone. He could also feel that Szayel had come up from his lab and had wandered into the kitchen. With that confirmed, he moved until he was crouched down next to Grimmjow on the side closest to the stairs. Straightening up a little, he unsheathed his zanpakuto and swiftly brought it down, promptly stabbing Grimmjow hard in the back of the head with the hilt of his sword. He was moving immediately, sonido'ing down the stairs and into the kitchen with Szayel, Zangetsu replaced on his back just as Grimmjow cursed, loudly.
There was only one person that could have slept through that but he was always sleeping anyway. So as predicted, everyone woke up to the profanities of an extremely irritated panther Hollow, who had sonido'd down to the kitchen after being knocked rather painfully from his gigai. What he found there was an orangette drinking a glass of apple juice and a man with pink hair munching on a turkey sandwich, sword strapped to hip.
"Which one of you was it?" Grimmjow questioned, pointing a suspicious finger at the both of them.
Ichigo looked up, a slightly concerned expression on his face that all but screamed innocent. "Are you okay Grimm?" he answered back with a question, "You sounded like you got hurt."
Grimmjow was a bit taken aback at his concern. Hitting him in the head was something Ichigo would do, but them why would he be concerned if he was the one that did it? Szayel had a sly grin plastered on his face, but then again he almost always did when it came to Grimmjow's pain, whether he was the cause or not.
Unfortunately, there was nothing Grimmjow could do if he couldn't even decide himself who'd hit him, so instead he answered, "Tch, yeah I'm fine, just a bit surprised is all." With that he stuffed his hands in his pockets and stalked out of the kitchen, muttering under his breath about insufferable strawberries and bubble gum.
After the blunette was out of earshot the two burst out laughing. "Well, if I can't experiment, might as well torture Grimm," Szayel stated between gulps of air.
Ichigo agreed with a quick nod of his head, still too out of breath for a proper answer.
The two had just managed o get their breathing under control again when surprisingly enough, Starrk dragged himself into the kitchen, stretching and yawning as he rummaged through the fridge for something edible.
"Hey Starrk," Ichigo greeted, setting down his empty glass. "I could put on a pot of coffee for you if you want."
"No, thanks," he yawned again, closing the fridge and walking to the table with his spoils. "I was just a little hungry," he explained before taking a bite out of the apple he pillaged.
Szayel finished his sandwich not long after and disappeared, presumably back to his lab, and Ichigo decided it wouldn't to any good to just sit around in the kitchen.
"Hey Starrk, is it okay if I go explore the town a bit?"
The brunette nodded his consent and Ichigo was on his way. The hierarchy of their family was kind of strange but not too complicated. True to Hollow instinct, Starrk was officially in charge of everything that happened within the family. If you got permission from him to do something no one had the authority to tell you otherwise. However, since Starrk was more often asleep than awake, the next in command should have been Harribel, except she couldn't have cared less what anyone did as long as they left her alone. She didn't want everyone coming to her with their requests and problems so the power was passed even farther along down to Ulquiorra who actually took his job very seriously. In actuality, Ichigo could have easily been the strongest out of all of them, but he was the newest member to their messed up family and wanted more time to figure things out before he even got close to touching the position of leader.
Practically jumping up the stairs Ichigo stopped to give Grimmjow a hand dragging his gigai into the blunette's room before making a beeline for his. Slipping into his body, the orangette sprinted back down the stairs and out the door, just barely catching Starrk's shout of "Don't stay out too late."
He didn't slow down until he was down the street and disappearing into the crowd. It'd been a long time since he'd been in Karakura but if the message Urahara had sent them before they'd moved into the world of the living had any truth to it his father should still be living at the clinic. Walking down a familiar street with unfamiliar buildings, he finally spotted the one he was looking for. It was a small doctor's clinic attached to a home, the sign the clinic sported agreeing with his memory that this was indeed his old house.
Anxious feelings bubbled up in him as he approached the front door, but he pushed them down and knocked on the door. A smile stretched across his face when the opened door revealed Yuzu Kurosaki's shocked one.
"Hey Yuzu," he said softly, "I'm home."
Silver: *bashes Pansy over the head with a can of knock out gas* well, I was going to say, before I was so rudely interrupted *Glares at Pansy* that Pansy was going to be joining me in the author's notes
Pansy: I am! You can't keep me out of them. So anyway, revi- *passes out*
Silver: *grins maniacally* paybacks a b****, huh Pansy. Review, comment, and hopefully the new chapter will be up soon.