I've got to stop uploading these things late at night, it's not good for me. Anywho, heres chapter for all you lovely people. I'll just add now, I do like replying to my reviews, and if for any reason I don't, I'm sorry, and this really is no excuse, but I do have quite a busy timetable, and I usually check my emails in the morning, see the reviews and think 'I'll reply when I get home from college' and then forget. So sorry, if I don't reply.

Disclaimer: As much as I would love to, I don't own any of the characters in this story, I'm only borrowing...Though I do own Mizaki.

Tanaka Mizaki was currently having a staring competition with the smartest four year-old on the planet.

And she was losing.

...How humiliating.

She sighed, sitting up and tucking her long black hair behind her ear, looking round the large room, part of the huge traditional Japanese house she was now living in, right in the heart of Kyoto.

The past three years had been the most hectic she had ever had since she came to the human world ten years prior to get married.

It was a family arranged marriage, something all children in their family had to go through, unless they became a shinigami...or ran away from home...or both in the case of her twin brother. Yumichika was lucky. They had planned on running away together, a long time ago. Neither wanted to be forced into a marriage and so began saving as much as they could to take when they disappeared into the night. But when their parents presented them with their future fiancées, Mizaki had instantly fallen for hers. He was handsome, strong, had a brilliant sense of humour and was easy to talk to. Yumichika on the other hand wasn't quite as happy with his. She was beautiful yes, absolutely stunning in fact, but she had a horrible personality, not talking much, and when she did, she never had anything nice to say, always complaining, never smiling.

This resulted in a long argument, plans being ruined, and her little brother taking as much as he could carry, running away on his own.

Mizaki had cried herself to sleep that night, knowing she had lost a dear friend and brother but unable to leave her soon-to-be husband. It was too late to run after him. She had no idea where he had gone, and he had taken most of their savings. Not that it mattered now, once she was married she wouldn't need to worry about money, her future husband was from a filthy rich family, one of the reasons her parents had picked him, another being that he was a highly ranked shinigami, able to protect her.

But her fiancée passed away ten years later, only a few months before the wedding. There had been a hollow attack, she was told, and although he wasn't killed on the battlefield, he was taken over by the hollow, turned into a monster, forced to kill his subordinates, until a lower ranked shinigami, a friend of his, had to kill him to rid him of the evil spirit.

Mizaki was devastated, and spent the next few months locked in her brothers old room, crying into his pillow, or simply sitting in silence, in the dark.

The next century went past quickly, she turned down every suitor her parents picked out for her, refusing to marry. Her father, an ex-captain of the Gotei-13, finally agreed to train her in kidou and sword-fighting, on the condition that when the training was over, she would marry the man he picked out for her.

She had agreed, and was married within ten years. Unfortunately he lived in the living world, and so she was sent there to live with him, much to her horror.

She passed herself off as a fourteen year old, and was married by the time she was 'sixteen'. Her husband was always away on business, and so she stayed at home, usually alone, apart from when his adopted mother would visit, who was heavily pregnant when the two became friends.

When she died shortly after the child was born, the father put the poor child up for adoption, not being able to look after him himself. Mizaki, with no husband around much to tell her what to do, jumped at the chance, taking in the child.

She had felt an unbelievable amount of spirit energy when he was born. Spirit energy much like her own. The child even looked like her brother. Meaning there was only one explanation.

Yumichika had died, and had been reincarnated here in Kyoto.

And he was one heck of a kid to look after.

She laid down on the mat, staring at the ceiling, listening to bustle from the market from further down the street. Luckily, they were quite high up here, there were stairs leading down to the main street below, so it wasn't quite as noisy, and it was more private and closed off up here.

It was quite peaceful until she felt a constant poking at her side. Sitting up, she looked down at a impatient Yumichika.

"Come on then." She sighed, knowing exactly what he wanted. She had promised to take him to the market today. She had never taken him, it was always too busy down there, impossible to carry a one or two year old around. But now he was slightly older and could actually walk properly, Mizaki had decided to take him down to see the bright colours and busy streets of Kyoto's summer market. Of course if she had said no again, he would've made those bambi eyes at her. He had quickly discovered her weak point not long after his first birthday, and used it against her whenever he could. It worked every time.

It seems the three century old four year old was all ready to go, but all it took was for her to slip on a pair of light trainers before they stepped out into the warm summers air.

Quickly trotting down the stairs, the pair came out in a smaller side street, only a few metres from the main high street.

As soon as they were on the busy street, Mizaki grabbed the smaller's hand, not wanted to get separated here. Her fingers brushed against the soft material on his wrist. Glancing down, she noticed his pouted expression, he certainly did not like the hand holding. Moving her gaze along a little, she looked at the dark red armband that covered his right wrist, knowing what was hidden underneath. A small kanji symbol, that was there from the moment he was born. He hasn't said much about it. But then, he doesn't really speak much at all. The fact that he was still only just turned four wasn't really helping.

What she did know is the hollow attacks were beginning to increase since he arrived here. And she found she could defeat none of them with her Kanata alone. Only a well-done kidou spell could bring them down. She was lucky she had training when she was still in the Soul Society. Even the Shinigami on patrol couldn't handle the amount they were getting in Kyoto.

Mizaki was beginning to get worried. With all these hollows showing up it wouldn't be long before Soul Society sent someone stronger. And knowing their luck, it would be one of Yumichika's old friends. He had already explained to her about the deal, and how he couldn't tell anyone he was here until he had Bankai. Odd condition but they had to go with it for now, it was their only choice. But it meant bumping into them wouldn't be good,

The siblings spent the next hour walking slowly from stall to stall, admiring the handmade work, both agreeing on how beautiful some of the artwork was, and how ugly (Though this was mostly Yumi).

All was going well until a shrill voice from up ahead made the smaller of the pair freeze up, hand suddenly tightening on hers.

"What's wrong?" she asked, standing up on her toes to see over the heads. She picked out the one who was making all the noise easily.

A average height woman with light blonde hair, who was bouncing up and down excitedly.

"Matsumoto." Came a small voice from her left. She looked down, then back up as the crowds cleared slightly so she could see more of the woman... and others judging by Yumichika's reaction. Which was ducking behind her, eyes poking out by her knees.

Surrounding the busty shinigami were five others.

"Who are they?" Mizaki asked behind her.

"Renji, Hisagi, Kira, Hitsugaya-tachiou and..." He trailed off, staring at a bald shinigami looking very bored at whatever it was Matsumoto had found. "...Ikkaku." He sighed, dropping his gaze to the ground.

Mizaki sighed, she had heard a little about him, not much, but enough to know how special he was to her little brother. But she knew nothing could be done about it now, and so, with a gentle nudge, she eased Yumichika off her legs and back the way they came, back home.

As soon as the door closed, Yumichika took off upstairs to his room, slamming the door. Mizaki flinched, their day ruined.

She knew somebody was bound to come sooner or later, but to send six, possibly more. Something was definitely happening. Maybe not yet, but soon she knew something was going to happen.

"Why are we here?" Ikkaku moaned, glancing round the marketplace.

"Because it looks interesting." Matsumoto reasoned, squealing as she dived for another piece of jewellery that caught her eye.

"But I thought we were here so we could..." He trailed off, eyebrows furrowing even more than they were.

"Yeah." Matsumoto said sadly, "I know, but we have to go home this evening. Just let us do a little bit of shopping before we leave."

Ikkaku sighed, staring up at the sky in exasperation. The main reason they had come was to find out about why so many hollows were attracted to this area, and try and sort out the problem by Friday. Which was today. And they hadn't gotten anywhere.

Hitsugaya had come to the conclusion that it was simply because of the amount of people who lived here and other tourists on holiday. The amount of joint spiritual energy in the area was vast, and that can easily draw hollows to the region. Even if that wasn't the reason, at least they had something to tell the Sou-Tachiou when they got back later that evening.

Another reason, at least for Ikkaku, was to look for someone.

Three years ago, when life had finally begun to go back to normal, Ikkaku began doing research as to who Tanaka Mizaki was and where he could find her. After all, that was the last thing Yumichika had asked him to do.

Find her.

Why? He still had no clue. But he had found that the Tanaka family was a rich business family in Kyoto in the living world. They had sort of link to shinigami, the family's head was able to see spirits and had become friends with the shinigami on duty a long time ago.

He had no idea why Yumichika would send him there, nor how he knew anyone from Kyoto, they had never been there on missions or whatever. But for now, he had no choice but to go along, check it out and find out if anyone by the name of Mizaki belonged to that family.

But that hope was fading fast. It was already late afternoon, and it didn't look like they were leaving the market anytime soon.

He sighed in annoyance as Matsumoto squealed again.

A flash of purple and black caught his attention to his right. Standing only a few feet away was a young girl. She looked about sixteen or eighteen, with straight long dark hair that hung loose down to her waist, with a thin, lightweight frame, she looked weak, but could be fast. Two large amethyst eyes flashed in the light as she bent down to tend to a small child behind her. Her long hair fell like a curtain in front of the small boy, so Ikkaku missed what he looked like, but the girl...

She looked so familiar, so...

...Much like Yumichika.

"...kaku. Ikkaku!"

"Huh?" Ikkaku looked around, seeing everyone staring at him.

"You were completely spacing out. You okay?" Renji asked, leaning in slightly and looking at the bald shinigami with a confused expression on his face. Said bald shinigami smacked the redhead round the back of the head.

"I'm fine you idiot. Are we done here?" He asked.

Matsumoto looked around at the thinning crowd. "I think we are, we better head back though, give us enough time to get home." She sighed, smiling widely. "Unless you have anywhere you want to go?"

Ikkaku thought hard, or at least as hard as he could without hurting himself. It was either go back now and not find out anything, or stay for another hour and probably not find anything anyway.

"Let's just get home." He said. As everyone, began to head towards the exit, Ikkaku allowed himself one last look behind him at the retreating figures of a girl and a little boy with long midnight black hair.

"Let us go." A low voice hissed in the darkness. "We will find him, we will bring him here with no difficulty." The voice chuckled, but was cut off quickly when a low growl echoed in the black of the room.

"I'm sure you would." The voice growled. "But it is still too early, we need his power, and until he realises how powerful he is, and that he is not afraid to use that power, we have no use for him." A small shuffle was heard, and sigh reverberated around the large room. "Too early and he will refuse to learn, refuse to grow more powerful."

"Of course, my master, we shall wait." Another voice, slightly higher than the first. "We shall wait."

"Yes, wait my faithful servants... We will take our revenge."

A/N: Okay, so the ending was a little cliche, but I couldn't think of how do write it, so it'll have to do.

So...Ikkaku finally sees Yumi, but, of course, doesn't know it. I had to guess ages etc. but if they ever come clean about how old they actually are I will change that, as unlikely as that would be. Next chapter will probably fast forward a few years or so, not much is really going to happen ^^

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, please do review. And the poll is still up, please vote, I want to know what you think I should do. Thanks ^-^