A New Story Arc:
"All right, I just have two questions right now. Would mind answering them?" I asked, still standing with my brown sword.
"Sure, shoot 'em off." Urahara answered.
"Ok, question one, what is Shikai?"
"An excellent question. You see, all Zanpakto have two different stages that are more powerful than just it's basic sword state. As you can see, this often times changes the sword's shape and/or color. And from what I can see, your sword has some sort of power over stone. This is what we call Shikai. A step above that is called Bankai, where the wielders Zanpakto becomes even more powerful and less restricted." Urahara said, finally giving me a somewhat straight answer.
"Ok, question two, WAS ALL OF THAT ABSOLUTLY NECESSARY!"
"Yes, yes it was. You see Sanju, if we were to teach you how to draw upon your Shikai the normal way like Rukia and I did, it would take you at least 50 years. But this way is much faster and a lot simpler. Now if that's all you have to ask, we shall continue from where we left off."
"Are you crazy? I'm dead tired from that onslaught you three threw at me, there's no way that I can keep going."
"Nonsense," Urahara said smiling, "if you have enough energy to keep Shiyouso in that form, you have enough energy to keep battling."
"Aw come on…"
And with that, all three of them kept at me. Dealing with Rukia's ice attacks were easier now that I could disrupt the ground they were on, but I also noticed that my sword was feeling a lot heavier. Not that I was losing strength from exhaustion, but my movements obviously took longer to execute. This made dealing with Ichigo and Urahara all the more difficult. On the up side though, I barely felt any pain from my bumps and bruises.
"Well, I think I'll call that good." Ichigo said as he slumped against his sword. "Rukia, isn't it time for us to make our rounds for the night?"
"Actually Ichigo, I was planning on taking Sanju with me. It's about time that he got experience in the field." Rukia said as her sword turned back to normal and slid back into the sheath.
"That would be all fine and dandy, except for two problems." I pointed out.
"And those would be?" Urahara asked as he put his sword back into his cane.
"One would be, how exactly do you kill a hollow? I mean, I learned how to be faster and better than one in combat, but Kido defiantly can't kill them."
"Good question, but the answer is very simple." Urahara answered. "You see, all Hollows have two characteristics in common. One is that there is a hole where their hearts should be. The second is the white mask that is made from that torn out heart. All it takes to kill a Hollow is to cut its mask deep enough so that your Zanpakto can purify their hearts so that they can move onto the Soul Society."
"Huh, that was actually a straight answer, I'm impressed." I said, earning a momentary glare of death from him. Best be moving on. "My second problem is that I can't seem to get Shiyouso back into his dormant state."
"Must you have problems at every single turn?" Rukia asked angrily. She stamped over to me, stood on her tiptoes and flicked me in the head.
"Ow! What was that for? You need to stop beating on me already." It's pretty embarrassing.
"It got you to stop focusing on your Zanpakto, didn't it?" Ichigo smirked.
"Huh? What are you talking about? Of course it didn't. It's still…" I said looking down. Shiyouso was back to being its normal steel color and the guard had gone back to being normal. I looked at Rukia, "How did you do that?"
"Simple, you were still subconsciously feeding power to your Zanpakto. Don't you feel like you suddenly have a bit more energy?"
"Now that you mention it, yeah, I feel a lot better actually."
"There you go. Now, we are going to need to build up your own energy supply, but you should be good for now. Now, without further complaint's, we're going."
"But Rukia, can't I just…"
"Now!" She exclaimed while grabbing the nape of my robe, and yet again dragging me off. How insanely strong was this woman again?
…
"There, that should be the last one" I said as I killed a centurion Hollow. Man, these things come in all sorts of shapes and sizes.
"You're right, I'm not picking up any other Hollow signatures. We should head back to Kisuke's shop." Rukia said as she flipped her cell phone shut. I was still getting over how a rural system like the Soul Society even had stuff like cell phones.
"Ok," I said as we both started hopping back to the shop. "Say, Rukia, did it take you 50 years to obtain Shikai?"
"Just about. I can't remember how long it took, it was so long ago."
How old was this woman? Better not ask her though; she might severely hurt me for it. The trip back was left in silence, but just as we were about five blocks away, I felt a tugging in my gut towards my left. I don't know if I'm sensitive or a fast learner, but in the short time I've been on patrol with Rukia, I've learned to trust this instinct on leading me towards hollows. But something was off in this feeling.
I stopped mid jump and looked over in the direction my gut was pulling me to. I couldn't see anything, but that wasn't surprising, it was a heavy residential area. Rukia noticed that I had stopped and came back.
"What is it? Is there something wrong over there?"
"You can say that. I've kinda gained this innate sixth sense about hollow location. And right now I'm getting a feeling that there's one over there."
Rukia looked puzzled and flipped open her phone. "Well, you're off this time Sanju. There's nothing over there even close to a Hollow, see?" She said as she handed me her phone. Sure enough, there were only blue blips of living beings, not even a green of a lost soul. And there defiantly wasn't a red Hollow signal. I was about to hand it back when I noticed a purple dot in a crowd of blue.
"Rukia, I don't think you mentioned what a purple dot represents."
"That's because there is no such thing as a purple dot."
"That's what I was afraid of." And before I knew it, I had tossed her her phone back and had dashed off towards my gut led. I got to the location within a minute to see why there would be such a group people together in a residential neighbor hood near twilight, and what exactly could the purple dot be.
As I kind of had figured, it was a group of ruffians trying to look intimidating, and failing quite horribly. Go watch Urahara fight Ichigo, now that was terrifying to try and watch.
I was trying to find which of the bunch was the purple, he had to be near the center of the group, but I couldn't tell. Then I heard the soft clanking of chains. I examined the surrounding area, but there wasn't anything obvious like a wind chime to even try to replicate the sound. I deduced it had to have come from the group, but none of them were wearing chains loosely enough to clatter. But there it was, a soft chain clinking.
"Sanju, what exactly do you think you're…"
"Shush." I hissed at her, but that was exactly what I needed. As soon as Rukia had arrived, one of the gang members glanced in our direction. Luckily, Rukia didn't know what I was looking at, and I was shushing her, so he didn't know I knew.
But I did. I signaled to Rukia to look away from the group, but to keep an eye on it. "We might have a problem. He's in the middle of the group, has a tight white tee shirt on and wearing the green cap backwards. I know he's not human and feels almost like a Hollow, but not quite and the others are acknowledging his presence."
Rukia paled a little bit at my description. "What was he wearing on his lower half?" She asked.
"As far as I could see he was wearing black jeans, but he wasn't wearing any shoes. Why? What's so important about everything he's wearing?"
Rukia never got a chance to answer, because right then the guy I had been describing jumped on me, and I fell tumbling to the ground. I landed on my back with him on top of me. He was starting to strangle me with his hands holding something transparent. I then realized these were the chains that I had been hearing.
He grinned down at me. "You may have found me Soul Reaper, but I'm not going back to that hell hole."
I was about to pass out when Rukia came to the rescue and knocked him away from me. "I was afraid of this." Was all she said.
"What? What were you afraid of? How does he know Soul Reaper's anyways? And what 'hell hole' is he talking about that we're supposedly sending him to?"
"That's just it Sanju, this thing is a denizen of hell."