Chapter 3: Preparations

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[Lieutenants' Assembly Room, Seireitei, Soul Society]

Four Hours Later...

Naruto was losing his patience as he waited, alongside the other lieutenants, for the officer of the 4th Division that was supposed to deliver the lastest update on the situation with Ichigo and the other intruders two hours ago.

After getting out of the underground sewers Naruto first headed to his room in the 13th Division to change into another shihakusho so as to not arouse suspicions with the tear that his earlier uniform now sported. After changing and placing his zanpakuto in his room he went to find his father. He managed to find his dad at the 5th Division Barracks and managed to get him to hold a meeting with the other shinobigami; before either Naruto or Minato could even look for the others, however, a Hell Butterfly came with orders for all lieutenants to head to their assembly area to receive the latest report on the "Ryoka Invasion".

Naruto and his dad had arrived at the meeting room first with Haku, Fugaku, and Hiruzen arriving shortly afterwards; Minato managed to inform the three of Naruto's encounter with Ichigo and of the meeting they would hold before all of the other lieutenants, minus Yachiru Kusajishi of the 11th Division, arrived.

As the lieutenants now waited for the report to arrive Naruto was talking with fell Renji as well as Rangiku Matsumoto, the lieutenant of the 10th Division.

"I guess I can't say I'm surprised; this Ichigo guy sounds way too much like myself and my predecessor Kaien, after all," Naruto said, making sure that he acted as though he had yet to meet Kurosaki.

Renji had just told Naruto of the conversation he had with Rukia as he escorted her to the Senzaikyū; the part where Rukia reacted to the knowledge that Ichigo was still alive was the part that Naruto was responding to.

"That may be true, Naruto, but I doubt he has as much skill as either of you," Rangiku said.

"I wouldn't be too sure of that, Lieutenant Matsumoto," another voice said in response; the three lieutenants turned around and were surprised to see that it was Fugaku that had replied.

"These intruders were able to defeat Jidanbō, survived an encounter with Captain Ichimaru and were able to able to breach the Soul Shield Membrane; we have to assume that they're all very strong and very dangerous if they have already caused this much trouble," the former head of the Uchiha clan explained without revealing everything else that he now knew, surprising both Ranji and Matsumoto.

"Do you really think the Ryoka are that much of a threat?" Rangiku asked to which Fugaku nodded.

"Of course I'm sure that the officer from the 4th Division will now prove my point," Fugaku said; as if on cue a man suddenly appeared at the door of the Assembly Room.

"3rd Seat of the 4th Division Yasochika Iemura, reporting," the man said; before he could say anything else, however, Naruto made his presence known to the 3rd Seat in two sentences.

"YOU'RE LATE! YOU BETTER HAVE A GOOD REASON FOR THAT OR YOU CAN KISS YOUR SORRY ASS GOODBYE!" Naruto roared in a clearly irritated tone as Renji attempted to hold him back; the former shinobi already had too little time to waste on these reports and this officer had made it even worse.

Iemura's face paled as he tried not to provoke the Lieutenant, accidently or otherwise, any further; the 3rd Seat hadn't seen the Uzumaki lose his temper personally but had heard enough of the stories to know that he didn't want to get on Naruto's bad side... assuming he wasn't already there, that is.

"My apologies, Lieutenant Uzumaki; I was delayed due to some last minute updates of great importance," Iemura explained.

Naruto, having calmed down thanks to Renji'ss intervention, raised an eyebrow upon hearing the last part of the 3rd Seated Officer's explanation.

"What could be so damned important that could've forced us to wait two hours more than we were supposed to?" Naruto thought to himself; he would get his answer soon enough as Iemura immediately began reading the report that was in his hands...

Five Minutes Later...

"... the preliminary reports appear to suggest that the entire 11th Division, with the exceptions of Captain Kenpachi Zaraki, Lieutenant Yachiru Kusajishi, and the 4th Seated Officer Zabuza Momochi, was completely wiped out," Iemura said as he briefed the lieutenants on the part of the report regarding the events that had occured today as of right now; the first few minutes of the report were little more than summary of what had happened to this morning which, needless to say, annoyed several of the officers.

The mood changed, however, when Iemura briefed the lieutenants on the defeats of the 3rd Seated Officer Ikkaku Madarame and the 5th Seated Officer Yumichika Ayasegawa, both of whom were from the 11th Division; the fact that two high ranked officers were defeated by "Ryoka" was already a big shock. But an entire Division being beaten? The reactions of some of the lieutenants to this bit news were not very surprising.

"That's impossible!" Izuru Kira, the lieutenant of the 3rd Division, said.

"The 11th Division is gone?!" Renji asked in shock. The rage that he was suddenly feeling was understandable due to the fact that Ichigo was among the intruders and his close relations with his former division.

"How were these Ryoka able to do so much damage in just a few hours?" Chōjirō Sasakibe, the 1st Division Lieutenant, blurted out.

The shinobigami, while also feeling very bad for all the members 11th Division who were now casualties, thought of the defeat of the division in a more critical light compared to their fellow lieutenants even if they didn't say those thoughts out loud.

"They charged headfirst into battle against an enemy without knowing who they were dealing with. What did they expect would happen?" Fugaku asked rhetotically to himself.

"The 11th Division is even more poorly disciplined than I imagined; I guess this also proves that Naruto was right about Kurosaki, though," Minato thought to himself.

"Master Zabuza always said that the members of his Division were all talk, minus Captian Zaraki," Haku thought as he shook his head; he remembered that Zabuza had told him of his rather poor opinion of his own division.

"Honestly, did they really want to start a war that badly?" was the thought on Hiruzen's mind at that moment.

"And people call me an idiot. I almost feel sorry for Zabuza since he has to deal with those dumbasses everyday," Naruto thought as he sighed.

After shaking off these thoughts they then continued listening to the report; as Iemura finished his report the Lieutenants went back to their respective barracks...

[Shinobigami Meeting Place, Undisclosed Location within the Seireitei]

Sometime in the Evening...

This secret chamber was a modest room by most standards; it was basically an semi-spherical interior with a two-story high ceiling which was solid bedrock and a small stone urn in the center in which a fire been burning. Inside this room Naruto and the other eight former shinobi stood in a circle; they had already finished discussing what had happened between Naruto and the intruders earlier that day as well as the plan of action they would now take.

"So that's the plan; any questions?" Naruto asked; as this meeting was his idea he was basically the one would be in charge of what the shinobigami planned to do now.

When no one answered Minato decided ask his son an important question of his own to ending the meeting so that they could all prepare for what they planned.

"Naruto were you able to retrieve it?" Minato asked.

"It was a pain to go through with it and I'm sure Rukia is going to kill me when she finds out, but that creep Mayuri was able to help me obtain it; I made sure that he wouldn't say anything about what happened until this is all over. I'll give it to Old Man Yama at that point," Naruto said, getting a nod from his father.

"I guess that's it, then," Minato said, ending the meeting.

With that everyone began to head towards the exit... except Naruto.

"Wait, Shisui-sensei; can I ask you something before you go?" Naruto asked; Shisui stopped in his tracks as Naruto waited for everyone to leave before he finally asked his mentor if he could help him with his Bankai training.

Shisui was taked by surprise at this sudden turnaround; though Naruto was had been more than capable of learning Bankai for quite some time he had not even attempted it due to his father's request to wait which Naruto had honored p until that time.

"Are you sure want to do that, Naruto? I'm sure Minato is going to protest-" Shisui said before Naruto interrupted him.

"Then I won't tell dad that I'm trying to obtain my Bankai; you know that we're going to have use everything we have to stop that damned Aizen. You said that you discovered a secret training area near Sōkyoku Hill so we can use that place to train," Naruto said.

Shisui sighed at this; the Uchiha guessed that, with Rukia now an unwilling pawn in Aizen's schemes, Naruto was now taking this matter very seriously and was not going to take no for an answer if he felt that this was something he had to do.

"I guess I can help you since it appears that you're not going to take no for an answer; understand, however, that I'm only . You do remember what my explanation about how one obtains his or her Bankai, right?" Shisui reminded him to which Naruto nodded.

"Very well, then; I guess I'll help you out. We should wait until tomorrow, however, as you still have that Lieutenant's meeting in the morning," Shisui pointed out.

Naruto groaned at remembering that; though his sensei was right in telling him to wait for that meeting, since their wouldn't be any more meetings, he was still getting tired of them.

"With all these useless meetings I'm amazed that everyone else is surprised that Ichigo and his friends have evaded capture," Naruto thought to himself as he and his sensei left the meeting chamber for the night...

[Secret Training Area, Sokyoku Hill]

The Next Day at Noon...

"I can't believe a place this big has been hidden from everyone else right below the execution grounds; I wonder would go out of their ," Naruto said, rather amazed at the size of the place.

"I sometimes wonder about the same thing, though I guess that's a moot point," Shisui said, getting a nod from his longtime student.

"In any case we need to get started, since that snake Aizen is probably going to make his move at any moment," Naruto said; he, like the rest of the former shinobi, knew that they were running out of time to stop Aizen's plans.

The night and morning after the meeting had brought even more chaos to the Seireitei. There were many things that had happened in that time; Renji's defeat to Ichigo and the authorization for the use of one's zanpakuto made the tension in the Seireitei increase to unbearable levels. Then there was the Aizen's "murder" which only made the anxiety in the air worse for every; while most of the other shinigami were simply devastated by the "loss" of Aizen, especially the 5th Division 4th Seated Officer, Momo Hinamori, the former shinobi knew that this meant that Aizen had begun to make his move.

Realizing that it wouldn't be long before they had to confront Aizen his subordinates Naruto immediately excused himself from the growing commotion at the scene of Aizen's "murder" and went to find Shisui; after Naruto informed the Uchiha what had happened they both headed to the secret training room, flash stepping as quickly as that they could make sure that no one was following them.

Naruto shook off these thoughts before Shisui gave him one final warning.

"Before we begin Naruto I want that you understand this very well; even though we still have eight days until Rukia's execution there's still a chance that Aizen might try to push up the date much sooner than that. So to be safe I'm going to give you until this midnight to subjugate your zanpakuto second longer; if you can't do it by that time you'll just have to confront without a bankai," Shisui said, making sure that his student understood what he said word-for-word.

Naruto simply smirked in response to his sensei's warning.

"Then I'll just have to obtain my Bankai before then," Naruto replied confidently; though he was rather surprised at how little time he would be given Naruto knew that he was already pushing his and Rukia's luck enough as it is by taking this time to train so he would just have to work with what time he had.

"Very well, then; start by activating your Shikai," Shisui said as he set a timer for midnight; Naruto nodded before he unsheathed his blade.

"Open the floodgates, Kamikaze," Naruto said as he threw his zanpakuto into the air, the tip of the pointed towards the ceiling.

The blade then stopped midair as a small cloud suddenly formed above it; the cloud began growing in size and darkness until, after a few seconds, the cloud turned into a small thunderstorm a couple hundred yards wide. The moment the cloud reached this size a very powerful lighting bolt struck Naruto's blade, which was still hovering in the air. After the flash of light dissipated the blade fell into Naruto's grasp revealing Kamikaze's Shikai form.

The blade was now a lightning bolt that had been compressed into the shape of a chokutō sword (A/N: the type of sword that Sasuke wields in Naruto Shippuden) which was releasing small gusts of wind as Naruto held the blade. A small yellow tag was now attached to the base of the hilt with the Kanjis for lightning, water, and wind written on it.

"Now what, Shisui-sensei?" Naruto asked as he attempted to contain the sporadic release of wind from his blade.

"Have the spirit of Kamikaze materialize; I'll use my reiatsu to help maintain it long enough for you to try to subjugate him," Shisui explained ; since Naruto could only keep the spirit of Kamikaze materialized for a few hours without aid, due to the fact that he had only learned to do so very recently, Shisui would keep the zanpakuto spirit materialized until his student achieved Bankai... or until midnight arrived, whichever one came first.

Naruto, without saying another word, focused his reiatsu into his blade which in turn generated more light until an explosion of lighting radiated across the training grounds; had anyone been standing on the hill above the secret room they would've felt a slight tremor caused by the powerful shockwave generated by the explosion. Thankfully for both shinobigami no one was close enough to Sōkyoku Hill notice anything out of the ordinary.

As the light generated by the blast dissipated along the temporary loss of hearing caused by the subsequent thunderclap both Naruto and Shisui could hear another person, presumably a male from the sound of his voice, called out to them.

"Took you long enough to finally do that, don't you think... Lil' Naruto?" the voice said in a clearly mocking tone...

Next Time - Preparation Complete: The "Shinobigami" Move Out