Hello again, I'm bored, so I'm going to stupidly use my second to last pre written chapter JUST to make you guys happy. Ya... sure. Let's go with that :p

Anyway R&R, and i hope you enjoy


Walking down the street this time, Ichigo couldn't help but notice the signatures of several adjuchas class hollows flash into existence around town. Great, just what I need.

Frowning, he reached out with his indistinguishable riatsu and located the local shinigami. A fourth seat in the 7th squad, he would probably be able to delay one or two of them until help arrived, and maybe even kill one if he got really lucky, after all they had continuously posted stronger lookouts in the Jureichi since the incident with Aizen.

However, Ichigo knew that he had no hope of wiping them all out, let alone doing it before they managed to hurt anyone. Sighing for what seemed the thousandth time that day, Ichigo glanced around quickly, searching. Where can I... There!

Jogging over to an old bench in an alley he checked around once more to make sure he was alone, and then he sat cross legged on the bench and concentrated. Ichigo had long since learned to control his riatsu enough to contain it within himself to the point that he wouldn't dissolve the very fabric of the souls around him, but what he was about to do was damn risky, so he would take no chances. Feeling out the hollow riatsu in his town, he slowly disengaged his control over his power ever so slightly, struggling to allow but a tiny amount of the evolved energy to escape from his core. Finally, he got it.

That accomplished, he turned once more to the sources of malevolent energy, and reached. To this day he still cannot explain most of the concepts behind his hollow oriented abilities because of their instinctual nature, but the closest he could come to explaining this particular ability was as almost tearing a hole twixt this dimension and Hueco Mundo. Carefully orienting his riatsu, the tool of his tearing, he unleashed the woven intent within it, and grinned broadly with his eyes closed as the rapidly moving adjuchas disappeared into the garganta he had formed almost a mile away.

Quickly releasing it with a sigh a relief, he repeated the gesture with three more of the five originl adjuchas, leaving what he had sensed as the weakest for the local shinigami to deal with. Finally finished and panting from the concentration required, he opened his eyes.

"Shit!"

The bench he was sitting on was smoking, and alleyway itself seemed... soft, and not ten feet away a small white cat finished dissolving into nothingness. Quickly reigning in the riatsu he had acccidentally allowed to leak in his joy at his successful manipulation of the adjuchas, he quickly destroyed the benched with a well place burst of riatsu, no evidence after all, and strode on down the street.

Great, first the crap with my boss and now this! What had started out as a perfect day only seemed to be getting worse, and he had a feeling it would continue.


"Oy!, Hat-n-Clogs! Get your butt outta that damn lab of yours and unlock the damn door!"

Almost immediately the door slid open to reveal the geta-boshi in question. His fan was firmly in place in front of his lower face, and his attire seemed completely normal as well. Not a single fold of the strange haori and kimono was out of place, and the man had definitely not been in his lab. Ichigo had seen how he could get during his experiments. The greasy hair, the unwashed haori, the small of rancid meat, the...! Needless to say, it was too neat.

He was waiting for me.

"Well, well, well Ichigo-kun, whatever could make a famous hero like yourself feel a need to visit my humble shop. Why I can't begin to-" Ichigo met the shop keeper's worried eyes with his own.

"Kisuke."

Ichigo allowed the silence following his statement to stretch a while longer before continuing.

"Is Yoruichi here?"

Caution raged against curiosity within the riatsu of the man in front of him, and Ichigo was sure that he was being allowed to feel even that. Sneaky bastard

"Not at the moment no. Why do you feel the need to inquire after her, if I may ask?" The teen cocked his head at that. His eyebrow furrowing, he wondered,

Was I wrong? That actually sounded genuine! Maybe he doesn't... No, he knows, he just wants to fish for how much I know, not to mention he probably still feels bad about leaving Yoruichi in the dark.

Looking into those devious eyes beneath the ridiculous hat, it was clear now the game the man was playing.

"You know damn well why Hat-n-Clogs, now open the basement and lets... talk. It seems you have been keeping some things from me."

At this the blond haired man in front of him let out a sigh and allowed his fan to drop as his shoulders slumped slightly. His smile seemed unbearably tired all of a sudden.

"You know Ichigo, you should let an old man have his fun sometimes."

Ichigo smirked at that, and it widened in response to the much more sincere smile which had spread across his mentor's face.

"I've experienced one too many 'headbands of justice' to let you run too wild." His smile turned devilish. "But I've recently had my own fun with a certain prodigy from SS, and I'm positive you'll want to hear about this one."

The fan resumed its position, but Ichigo could all but smell the amusement oozing from behind the shopkeeper's fan.

There you go Kisuke, you're not an old man just yet

"Oh I guess I have no choice then Ichigo-kun. I do enjoy my gossip after all."

If the demonic sparkle in those intelligent eyes had been directed at him a year or two ago, Ichigo would most likely have been terrified or pissed. As it was, his grin just widened. He needed some new ideas for pranks after all.


I seem to harbor an unexplainable hatred for endnotes at the moment. R&R :)