Oh man. You're awfully persistent if you're still reading my story. Eh, I shouldn't complain. Thanks for bothering to read this Author's Note. I like to read the Author's Notes, ( just the notes, not the Disclaimers) cuz they can be funny at times. So, imaginary cookies to those willing to read my before and after story rambles. Enjoy the story.

Chapter 4

"SHIT!" Ichiru bolted from the lamppost he was leaning against in the Karakura Park. It'd been three days since his training with Shiro had started. Apparently, making the connection between Ichiru and Shiro had caused their reiryoku to increase a considerable amount. Before, the output wasn't noticeable and just enough to allow Ichiru to see and interact with spirits. Now, with a seated officer's level of reiryoku, he was hollow bait with a two mile radius. So, Shiro was teaching him how to hide his presence, but it was taking awhile.

Hence, why the teen was now weaving through empty backstreets to get away from the hollow on his tail. Thankfully, Ichiru was used to running from hollows. Primarily due to his habit of trying to save spirits from hollows back in his old town. The local Shinigami of that town was always really annoyed when Ichiru led the hollows straight to her. They never exchanged words. Just the Shinigami rolling her eyes over saving the same human constantly, occasionally grumbling about various topics to herself.

'Boo! Ya only managed to hide for only half an hour! Ya have to be able to do this 24/7 without thinking! '

'Give me some credit! I could only hide for only a minute yesterday!' Ichiru mentally yelled in defense.

'So? It don't change the fact that ya gotta do this in yer sleep.' Shiro grumbled from within the teens mind. Two days ago, the teen had to wake up at one in the morning due to the fact that there was a hollow headed in his direction. So, he had to get up and run around, leading the hollow away until it got interested in eating another weaker hollow, while Shiro was ranting the entire time. Now, the orangette ran towards the river. With the new hollow on his heels, he made a sharp turn to the left, leaving the hollow to trip and fall down the steps leading to the riverbank and into the water. Using this opportunity, Ichiru immediately sped away, not stopping until he reached the park.

Checking his watch, he saw that it was almost two in the afternoon. Panting, the teen plopped down on a park bench, removed his red jacket, revealing a white T-shirt, and dropped the red bundle onto the seat beside him. The summer sun beat down as he tried to catch his breath. Looking up, he watched as petals fell from a flowering tree a little ways in front of him. He hated flowering trees, cherry blossoms to be precise, especially when the petals fell.

Don't get him wrong, he liked how beautiful they were. However, every time he saw the flying petals, he got a nagging at the back of his head. It was as if they were suppose to a connection to something, but Ichiru could never figure out what. In the end, he just felt empty watching the petals. The same went for falling snow and hanging icicles.

When he was little, he could never look at a cute black cat the same way that others did. For some reason that he couldn't place, he would always feel embarrassed when he spotted one. He also wasn't one for eating candy, nor did he enjoy playing with stuffed toys as a child as much as he could have. All because of the irritating emptiness. Peeling his eyes away from the flowering trees, Ichiru leaned his head back. Sweat plastered his bangs to his face. An orange curtain that obscured his eyes as his heavy breathing finally evened out.

Ichiru was only sitting on the bench for a few minutes, slowly drifting off, when a hollow roar echoed nearby.

"Fucking hell! This town sure has an awful lot of hollows." Ichiru scowled at the glaring sun, running a hand through his hair in exasperation.

"Oh it's always like this. Are you new around here mister?" Startled, the teen looked in front of him to see a young boy standing before his bench. The kid looked about ten, maybe eleven. He was rather scrawny underneath a bright yellow hoodie, khaki shorts, and bright red sneakers. The hood was down to reveal black hair that looked navy in the sunlight. Long side bangs, starting in a widow's peak, framed a smiling pale face with silver eyes. Ichiru could have sworn he'd seen the kid somewhere before, except slightly different as if something was missing from the face. The silver eyes however, were from somewhere else, someone else.

Ichiru immediately shook the thoughts away when he realized that the kid was still waiting for an answer. "Um, yeah. I moved into town about five days ago." He responded, not quite sure when the kid appeared. Said kid then proceeded to plop down on the bench next to the orange haired teen. Although he was nice enough to move Ichiru's jacket first.

"You sure have a lot of reiatsu, huh mister? Why'd you keep going up to hollows with your presence hidden then release it and start running away? Do you have any powers? Did you move here alone? Do you knowanyoneelsewithspirtualpressure? Why'dyoumovehere?What'syour-"

"Slow down! I can't answer all of your questions at once!" Ichiru exclaimed. Now, he felt bad for shouting at the now teary eyed child. "Sorry, just try to keep the questions to a minimum, ok?" the teen asked, trying to reassure the kid. The boy beamed at this.

"OK! So why do you keep sneaking up on hollows only to run away?" Sighing, Ichiru leaned back again, contemplating on how to answer.

'Well, the kid clearly knows about Hollows and shit. Might as well tell him the truth. Besides, I think he might have an ability. Just don't mention me if ya can help it. It'll be awkward.' Suggested Shiro, who'd been quietly sitting in the inner world the entire time.

'Alright. I guess it's worth a shot.' Sighing again, the teen turned towards the eagerly waiting kid.

"I'm terrible at masking my reiryoku, so I've been trying to train myself to do it without thinking since a hollow tried to attack me while I was asleep a couple days ago. I've never had this problem in my old town, so that's why I'm practicing now." The boy giggled at the response and smiled widely.

"It's ok mister! I'm terrible at sensing reiryoku, but my parents told me that practice makes perfect!" Ichiru blinked at this and a single question flashed red in his mind. "Ah, speaking of which, where are your parents?" The orangette asked, noting that they were the only ones in the immediate vicinity.

"Oh, they're off to visit some friends and work stuff for the rest of this week and next! I really really wanted to go but I got in trouble for accidentally setting the refrigerator on fire so I was left at home to work on sensing restue thats how I found you I wassosurprisedathowmuchyouhaditsmuchmorethantheShinigamipostedinthistownbutnotasmuchasmydadIdon'thavemuchmyselfbutsomeday…" The raven haired kid continued to ramble on and on. Meanwhile, Ichiru had stopped listening and was severely confused and worried. How the hell does this kid accidentally set a fucking fridge on fire?! Also, why did his parents just leave him all alone or did they have someone else. If they had someone to watch the kid, then where the hell was the damn caretaker?! With the questions firing around in his head, Ichiru went ahead and asked.

"So who's taking care of you while your parents are out?"

"Oh Grandpa Ryu's in charge, but he's busy at the hospital so he said I could walk around and practice sensing reiryoku!" The kid then proceeded to continue rambling. Something about a hollow at a pool party? All of Ichiru's thoughts and the kid's rambling comes to a halt when a hollow roar comes from directly behind them.

'Dammit! Why didn't you say anything?!' The orangette berated Shiro over the mental link as he jumped up, grabbing his jacket and turning to face the hollow.

'Hey! The kid was telling a pretty interesting story! Why didn't YOU say anything?' Shiro retorted. Growling, Ichiru turned to grab the raven hair to flee. However, he'd beaten the teen to the chase and was already sprinting… towards the hollow?! As the scrawny figure approached the roaring beast, he took out a bright red starfish pendant from his pocket. Almost immediately, the pendant morphed into a scarlet archer's bow, flames flickering off of the frame, and an arrow entirely made up fire already drawn and aimed at the hollow.

The kid jumped around the hollow, faster than a normal human could see, a ring of green light appearing and fading away every time his foot touched the ground before leaping away again. He fired several arrows at the hollow, quite a few of them missed and one arrow hit a lamppost, setting it ablaze.

'So that's how he set a fridge on fire…' Both Shiro and Ichiru simultaneously deadpanned over their mental link. The teen watched in amazement when the hollow exploded in a flash of light after the sixth arrow finally made its mark. Landing near the stunned teen, the raven haired kid morphed his bow back into a starfish pendant before placing it back into his pocket.

"You ok mister?" Innocent silver eyes looked up curiously at the orange haired teen. " Yeah. Thanks!" The orangette paused, thinking before he smiled.

"You said that you needed help sensing reiatsu right?"

"Uh-huh!"

"Well, since I need help hiding my presence, why don't we work together? We could train by you trying to find me while I try to hide." The kid jumped with excitement at the proposal, nodding his head furiously in agreement. Ichiru laughed at bouncing ball of energy. The summer sun continued to beat down.

'King, I think the buildings are melting in here.' Shiro whined mentally.

'No they aren't.'

'Che. Fine, but it's hot enough for me to feel it in here...' Agreeing wholeheartedly, Ichiru thought of how to cool down, then turned to the still bouncing archer. He was currently rambling about hollows on the moon.

"Hey! Do you want to get some ice cream? My treat, plus it's awfully hot out here." asked the teen, severely wondering if he'd get in trouble for stranger danger, or worse, accused of being a pedofile. He sure hoped not. The archer on the other hand simply jumped for joy and began to ramble about all of his favorite flavors. So the two began walking out of the park and to the nearest ice cream parlor. Suddenly, Ichiru realized that he was forgetting a severely important piece of information and turned towards the twelve year-old (he learned that through the rambling).

"I'm Ichiru by the way. Kurokatu Ichiru. What's your name?" Smiling at the orangette, the preteen replied.

"I'm Nobu! Ishida Nobu, and I'm a Fulbringer!"

Wow this took awhile for me to type. So anyways, yeah I made an OC. Who his parents are should be kinda obvious, or at least the dad is. For the mom, I suggest either rereading the prologue or waiting for the next chapter.

Here's a link to a picture of Nobu I drew, just copy it into a web search and delete the spaces like the last drawing :

Fav. me /da95t2r