The group from Soul Society stared long and hard at Ichigo, though Ichigo and his albino copy seemed to ignore them in favor of the woman across the lake.

"We've been through this before, Sienna. You cannot have Las Noches! We will fight until our last breath to ensure it stays out of your hands. You say that my family and I are weak, though when's the last time you won a fight? Last time, I wiped your ass across the throne room without even unsheathing my sword."

The venom in his voice and the spitefulness of his words was something that shocked his old friends.

"Unless you want to lose half of your pathetic army right here and now, I suggest you leave for another day, because I could tear you to shreds without even having to think about it", uttered the albino copy with an eerie voice.

The woman, Sienna, stood for a moment, trying to think of some way to finish the argument in her favor, but found nothing. Instead, she huffed angrily and promised that she would be back with an army too powerful to resist before turning ice and shattered into thin air.

Afterwards, Grimmjow shot forward towards Ichigo, grabbing him by hair and lifting him off the ground. The orangette clawed at Grimmjow's wrist and kicked the air in attempts to escape.

"I want an explanation, now!"

The teen didn't answer nor glance at Grimmjow, too busy trying to get free. Moments later, Grimmjow felt a jolt of electricity shoot up his arm, causing him to hiss and drop the teen into the arms of the younger counterpart.

"Don't. Ever. Touch him again!"

The complete and utter hatred that seethed through the boy's words were shocking to everyone. How could he seem to have so much hatred for someone he'd never met? Isshin and the twins made their way towards Ichigo, who was rubbing his scalp with a scowl on his face. Isshin's voice was shaky as he spoke to his only son for the first time in four years.

"Son, where have you been?"

Ichigo stared at his father with a deep scowl, before briefly looking behind Isshin to observe everyone else.

"Ichi-nii, are you mad at us? Did Karin and I do something wrong? Please tell us. You've always been so bad at sharing your feelings with people Ichi-nii. Please tell us, we can't make things better if we don't know what's wrong. You...you h-have to…"

Yuzu tried to finish her ramblings but was unable to due to her own tears. In the end, she simply bowed her head into her hands. Ichigo's scowl softened into one of sorrow as he leaned forward and gathered her into his arms, rocking her gently, all too used to comforting crying children. Eventually, Ichigo carefully stood whilst holding Yuzu, nodding his head to everyone to follow him.

XXX

After a twenty minute walk, the small crowd arrived in front of what most humans would consider a mansion, though Ichigo had come to simply call it his home. The orangette opened the unlocked door and walked inside, telling Siren to lead their guests to the meeting room while he took a sleeping Yuzu upstairs to rest.

The meeting room was a large room with dark great walls and a soft, black carpet. Inside were many low rise tables surrounded by dark grey bean bags and a colourful collection of pillows. Siren and Ichigo's copy, who had yet to identify himself, threw themselves down on to the piles of pillows while the group from Soul Society sat collected in one corner. Moments later, Ichigo walked in, wearing black sweatpants with a matching long sleeved top, and plopped down on a large bean bag between the other two men.

"Well, I don't really know where to start this..."

He stated awkwardly. Siren moved to lay his head in Ichigo's lap, the smaller male smiling whilst threading his fingers through long blue locks.

"Well, Kurosaki-kun, you could start by why you disappeared after the war." Urahara stated calmly.

"In order to do that, I'd have to be one hundred percent sure you won't go running to rat me out to old man Yama. I ran because of him and I'll be damned if I end up in his hands now."

"Well, seeing as Yamamoto is dead and Shunsui is our new head captain, you really don't have to worry about that."

Ichigo tensed and fell silent for a few moments, as the information sank in, he nodded his head.

"I see. Well, I guess Shunsui has always been less willing to execute people, and it's not like he could get his hands on all of us, even if he tried. So, I'll tell you my side of the story…"

"Ah, ah, ah! Not so fast, King. If they wanna know what the 'ell we been through, I got a condition for 'em."

After sharing glances, Urahara nodded at the copy's request.

"What may this condition be?"

"I want to know why Grimmjow left a pregnant beta. HIS pregnant beta."

Nelliel gasped loudly, others looking at Grimmjow in disbelief. The shinigami had learned about hollow mating rituals long ago from both the vizards and the ex-espada, so they knew that leaving a pregnant beta alone, as an alpha, even if it wasn't yours, was frowned upon, but leaving your own beta alone during pregnancy, you could and most likely would be killed for the act.

"What the hell are you on about, snowflake? I've never marked a beta and I sure as hell ain't gotten one pregnant."

"Oh really now? Then can you fucking explain…!"

"Shiro, you're upsetting ma."

At Siren's comment, Shiro turned to look at Ichigo, whose eyes were downcast. The albino let out a regretful sigh, quieting down so that his king to tell their story.

"I'm not really sure how much of the war I missed after I defeated Aizen. I know there was still some fighting going on but I don't know how long it lasted. After my fight with Aizen, I fell unconscious and didn't wake up for several hours. When I did wake up, I was buried under a mound of rubble. In my condition, I couldn't possibly dig myself out on my own, so I was forced to lay there waiting. I couldn't even yell for help, my voice was little more than a whisper. Shiro is my inner hollow, though he only resided inside my inner world at the time, but I couldn't even call on him for help, so I was completely alone. Eventually, I heard voices and I thought some shinigami had finally discovered where I was, but instead of shinigami I was greeted by Nnoitra and Ulquiorra."

Ichigo heard soft gasps. When he looked up, he saw a mixture of shock and confusion on the faces before him, though he was thankful that they seemed intent on letting him finish without any interruptions.

"Nnoitra wanted to kill me immediately though Ulquiorra wanted to take me back and see if I had any useful information. They argued for a while until Ulquiorra studied my spiritual pressure more closely; it wasn't just mine, I had four extra spiritual pressures mixed in with mine, though at the time they were very weak. When he realised this, Ulquiorra began tearing at the rubble so fast I could barely see him moving. Nnoitra joined in after he realized what Ulquiorra had. They carried me back to Los Noches were I found out that a several of the espada had survived, along with Aizen and Gin."

The entire room tensed and Ichigo gave a soft smile as he nodded his head.

"I know, I know. I had the same reaction. His death had just been another illusion. After the battle, he gathered all the espada he could find and did his best to heal them, which obviously worked. I tried to escape, to tell Soul Society, but I was too weak and there were too many of them. They tried ascertaining the identity of my alpha, but in all honestly, I had no answer for them. I was still trying to process what they had told me; that as a seventeen year old boy, I was pregnant with four children. After a few weeks, I was back to an acceptable health and I could finally talk to Shiro again. He told me that the reason I had been unable to talk to him was because he'd sealed off all his energy in order to keep the children safe. He also told me who my alpha was and that I couldn't access my memories of the encounter because he had sealed those off too. It took me a week to convince him to unseal them, and when he did, I could see for myself that it was true. They put me in Grimmjow's old room, though I spent more time sleeping with Starrk in his mountain of pillows. After a few months, I started to show and it was hard for me to move around freely, so I was forced into bed rest by Szayel and the other betas while everyone took turns taking care of me. Until then I hadn't actually seen Aizen, but one day he was the one that came in to take care of me. After my initial reaction of attempting to flee, we talked for almost the whole day. He explained to me that he no longer had any intention to harm Soul Society or the world of the living. He just wanted to live peacefully in Hueco Mundo with his arrancar and espada. I asked him why he hadn't fixed Grimmjow, but he told me that you were fine, and you'd joined the Soul Society along with Nell. Szayel said that you'd come looking for your beta, that you were one of the best alphas he knew. Ulquiorra and Nnoitra expressed explicit hatred for an alpha that'd leave 'such a strong beta' all on their own. Harribel and Starrk were the only neutral ones, of course. Herribel simply told me, that what would happen was what was to be. That if you came back then I would have an alpha and a family. However, if you abandoned me, I was still a strong beta that could make my own family, and that no matter what, I'd have the support of Las Noches. It took about five months for me to finally give up hope of you coming for me and around that time Shiro started to materialize outside if my inner world."

"I fuckin' had to! I was drowin' in there because you were so depressed that your shit excuse for an alpha left you!"

Ichigo shook his head before continuing.

"The rest of my pregnancy went by with ease and soon I was in labour. The first born was Siren; he got his name from the Greek myths about sirens leading sailors to their deaths by appearing to them as their desires. As you can see, Siren is the exact copy of his father, right down to the jawbone, eye markings, and hollow hole. Second was Auryon; her name means 'great huntress', I knew from the moment I laid eyes on her that she would be one. She has stormy blue hair and bright blue eyes with pointed ears, a tail, and a crown of bone, just like Grimmjow's resurrección. Third was Zilli: her name means 'my shadow', as she looked exactly as you'd imagine Shiro to look as a baby; paper white skin and hair, and the eyes of a demon. My last daughter was so tiny that Szayel didn't think she'd make it, but I knew she could. When I had my first look at her I could barely stand it, with her little tuft of orange hair and her wide blue eyes, her nature so calm yet curious, I had to name her Misaki. If I had named her anything else it would have felt like a betrayal to her."

The room was filled with Isshin's sharp and shaky intake of breath.

"Can... can I meet her?"

"Uh, yeah… when she comes home. I don't really know where she is right now."

Shinji raised an eyebrow at that statement, stating his confusion.

"Wait, you don't know where she is? Shouldn't she only be around four years old?"

"Do I look four years old to you, Blondie?"

Siren sounded highly offended at the thought of being mistaken for a small child, making Ichigo laugh.

"By human age, yes, but hollow children age much faster, due to the amount of spiritual pressure around them. They aged about four times faster than a normal human child would, so they are around sixteen years old, though Siren refuses to settle for anything under seventeen."

"I'm the oldest dammit!"

"But not the brightest", came a woman's sing song voice, everyone turning to watch a tall woman with an ample body walk in with a grin plastered on her face.

"Aury, must you tease your brother? We just fixed the outside wall after your last fight."

"But ma, he makes it so easy."

Siren growled as he shot up to standing nose to nose with his sister. He glared down at her whilst she smirked back at him with narrowed eyes. Ichigo sighed, not wanting a fight to break out right now.

"We have guests, you know."

Auryon hmphed as they both backed away from each other, before turning to look at their guests. When her eyes landed on Grimmjow; she hummed before walked towards him, crouching, inches from his face. Before Grimmjow could defend himself, she slam her hands against both of his cheeks, smooshing his face and triggering a headache.

"Ah, bitch! What the fuck was that for!?"

"Really? You're a dick, now I know where Siren gets it from."

"Hey!"

The two yelled in unison, everyone else in the room shaking their heads.

"Well, now King's told his part, so it's your turn, pussycat."

"I think I'd rather discuss that with Ichigo, alone."

"Like hell-!"

"Shiro, its fine. I can deal with this myself. Aury, Siren, why don't you show everyone around the house. Shiro, go out and do something productive."

Ichigo stood, leaving no room for argument. As he walked towards the doorway, he waved his hand, motioning for Grimmjow to follow after him.

XXX

A/N. And that's the chapter, hope you enjoyed it. It ended up being longer than I'd planned. Sorry about that. I had to explain what had happened to Ichigo and I'm not a fan of writing flashbacks. With that explained, there will be more action.

If you liked the chapter, feel free to leave a review/comment. Beta'd by Lady Histoire!