A/N: Ready, set, read on!
Ichigo grabbed the handle of Zangetsu with both hands, raised the sword above his head and struck the rock in front of him with a resonating clang.
"What the hell Zangetsu! Talk, you bastard!" Ow. His hands hurt.
He was currently seating cross-legged on one of the rocks of the barrack's garden, facing the forest. Aside from occasional shinigamis flitting by the building carrying stacks of boxes and whatnot, the place was quiet, so he figured that he could try meditating and get his zanpakuto to talk to him. So far, the cold piece of metal was being unresponsive, as it had been ever since he got his shinigami powers back.
Wind blew, rustling through the forest. Leaves of the trees shook, grass rippled gently and the surface of the small pond wavered. Clouds drifted by lazily in the sky that was starting to bleed scarlet from the horizon. His zanpakuto wouldn't blab a single word.
True, Ichigo had never been much of a talker with his zanpakuto spirit. Most of their conversations were done in life-and/or-death situations between the two of them trying to slash each other into pieces. But besides that, what seemed like a lifetime ago, Ichigo had managed to drag tidbits out of Zangetsu and the vice versa every once in a while. A random sentence or two of opinions or advices or a slight rushing feelings of emotion. Past month, nothing in, nothing out, none. And it was starting to get on his nerves.
Taking in a deep breath, Ichigo draped his oversized zanpakuto across his knees again and rested one hand on the tip of the blade, the other on the base. He closed his eyes and tried to blank out his mind...
Few hours ago when he dropped into the 5th division in search of Shinji, he was met instead with the vice-captain of the division - he still didn't know her name, only remembered her with irk in his mind as Aizen's former vice-captain - with the news that Captain Hirako was out on duties. After that, Ichigo had run just about all over Seireitei in search of a single soul he knew. For some of them, like Kensei and Renji, he was told they were away on work, for others, he simply couldn't find them. His ability to track down reiatsu seemed to be getting worse, which he didn't think was possible. Maybe he should ask the Kukkaku woman to shoot him into Seireitei again, just to see if his sense of reiatsu would be any better. He had been able to keep regular tabs on the crew when they had rocketed in from the sky on a rescue mission.
He wondered how his friends and family were doing in the material world. After their memories had returned to how they were before Tsukishima messed with them, did they simply resume their daily lives? Schoolwork, TV shows, cooking dinner - or a semblance of one, in Inoue's case - and city festivals? Were they safe?
He knew that there wasn't such thing as a complete, impregnable safety anywhere in any of the worlds he had been in. Karakura town would be as safe as anywhere else, which wasn't a calming thought.
Besides, it was him who had brought on trouble to his home town all these time. Or was it? Aizen said something about Karakura being rich in reiatsu, thus the entire town being the crucial ingredient in creating the King's Key.
King's Key, which got him thinking about the Hougyoku. Aizen, eyes dark bottomless orbs. Black night of Hueco Mundo, further contrasting the stark white of the sand and the Las Noches. Flash of oppressive black light, followed by a green one. Azure sky painted on the inside of the dome-
A bone-rattling howl ripping through him.
Pitch black. Silence. A presence, far off.
Blue-grey eyes staring at him. In them, an intense emotion.
Ichigo choked, his eyes flying open. That was absolute terror in Tensa Zangetsu's eyes. And the howl... he'd heard that exact howl before. But where?
"ARGH!"
With that, Ichigo sprang up to his feet, grabbing Zangetsu by the handle and flinging it away from him. The huge sword soared through the air in a low arc and landed fifty feet away in the grass without making a sound.
Ichigo pointed at it accusingly and then yelled, "When I say talk, I mean actually TALKING! Howling and making frightened wild puppy eyes at me DON'T COUNT!"
Still fuming, he stumped over to it and the gave it a hard kick. Sharp pain lit up his foot. Ichigo yelped and clutched his aching toes, almost falling over but regaining his balance at the last second. He glared at Zangetsu; it glinted up at him, bathed in orange light. Orange?
Ichigo looked up to the sky, and saw that it was now full on scarlet fading into dark navy of the night. Sunset already? It felt like minutes ago that he closed his eyes last. It was shortly before 7 o'clock that he sat down to try to get his zanpakuto spirit to talk to him. It must be around 9 o'clock now. Two freaking hours! He couldn't believe a howl and wild puppy eyes that told him nothing ate up that much of his time.
He gave Zangetsu one last glare and the picked it up to heave it onto its usual spot. As he started for his quarters to call it a day, he made a mental note to ask someone about the bizarre behavior of his zanpakuto spirit.
The next day, shortly after noon, Ichigo was knocking on one of the doors to the 9th division's living quarters.
He had woken up early, gotten himself his breakfast, sat down on the exact same rock to try to pry something out of his zanpakuto spirit again. Almost immediately after he closed his eyes, it came again; same howl, same frightened blue-grey eyes. His eyes flew open again, only to find himself that more than five hours had passed by with that useless vision.
Furious at himself for letting the zanpakuto eat up so much time, he got himself onto finding Kladias. No one told him so, but he supposed that he was to report to work. It was then he figured that he had no idea what day of the week the day was. Another dumb question to ask along with his zanpakuto-spirit question.
He found the Colonel's office empty and then realized that he had no idea where she might be next. He had unceremoniously stuck his head into one of the ground-level office in the barrack and asked in a yell where he could find Kladias, scaring the light out of the petite dark-haired woman.
She had squeaked out at him that the Colonel might be at the 9th division, in her quarters or her other office there. Ichigo had stared at her questioningly(further fright to the poor woman) before remembering that Kladias was a 3rd-seat of the 9th division as well as Colonel as the training division. With a mutter of thanks, he stormed away, mad at himself for not thinking of that himself.
The door he was knocking on was Kladias's living quarter, according to one of the shinigami he bumped into in the hallway of the barrack. That one too seemed terrified to be in his presence. Ichigo briefly wondered if all of them reacted the same to higher-seat officers, or just to him.
She wasn't at her office, so he was trying here.
Knock-knock-knock. Knock. Knock-knock. He's been knocking for a while, still no answer. Maybe she wasn't here?
Knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-
WHAM! The door almost shook off its frame.
Ichigo flinched, his fist flying away from the door. That was something heavy(a rock size of a soccerball?) slamming into the door from the other side.
Annoyed growl of a voice roared right after,
"Shut up!"
Yup, she was in there.
"Yo! If you're going to be knocked out for a full damn day, at least leave instructions to me on what to DO!"
"Get lost!"
"Hey, what-"
"SCRAM!"
"But-"
"SCAT!"
"Then just-"
"FUCK OFF!"
He opened his mouth to demonstrate that she was NOT the only one who could pull off the aggressive side of an insult match, but a pair of strong arms jerked him off to the side, effectively shutting him into silence.
Ichigo looked up to find Kensei. Man, didn't he look pissed.
"Shut yourself up, Kurozachs!"
"You!"
"I MEAN it, Kladias!"
"Go DIE!"
"Hey, brat-"
"NOW!"
BAM! Kensei's fist landed on the door; Ichigo was impressed that the door held.
Force of a rhino ramming into a tree shook the door in reply. Something cracked.
A vein pulsed on Kensei's neck. He turned around and growled; Ichigo caught a resigned look on his face. The captain took off in quick strides and Ichigo followed the suit with his eyebrows raised.
"You're just going to leave her like that?" Ichigo started, striding along.
Kensei closed his eyes and scoffed, "Got a better idea?"
Not really. "Drug her to sleep?"
"You volunteering, kid?"
He would have to get near her for that. "Hell no. So is that what the rest of your squad get to get away with or is she getting a special treatment?"
Kensei threw him an annoyed look, "No, and she's NOT getting a special treatment. She's got hellhounds to face when she sobers up."
Ichigo's eyebrows shot up and yelped, "She's drunk?"
Looking straight ahead, Kensei gave a small shrug, "That's my guess. First time she's being that bratty."
Huh, Ichigo thought. Then it wasn't the monthly 'business' the girls had. Karin grew quiet with retractable porcupine quills, Yuzu got uncomfortably sappy. It was a small relief to know that his superior didn't get into the state she was in now every month. But then, how often did she drink, if Kensei's guess was correct?
The white-haired captain glanced at Ichigo sideways and asked, "Don't you have somewhere you have to be, Ichigo?"
Ichigo replied, a hand ruffling his orange spikes, "Not really. Nothing to do, either. Or not; it's her," he jerked a thumb back, "job to try to order me around, so I do have the option of just scramming, scatting and whatever else that flew out of her mouth."
A snort, "Then go to the 6th squad; the vice-captain's assembling a team for hollow disposal in Rukongai. He'll probably let you tag along, and I think you two have some stuff to catch up on."
Now that, sounded hell lot more fun than hours of paperwork the day before.
"Thanks, Kensei! I'll see you around."
With that, Ichigo bolted his way out of the building.
Hmm... pace too slow? Not? I'd better get weaving onto the plot soon anyhow.
Thanks for reading, and laters! :)
