Twilight Marionette: *Humming along happily*

Twilight Puppeteer: What? No clap clap clap or da da dum today?

Twilight Marionette: Well would I, you just did both of them for me.

Twilight Puppeteer: *Sighs*

Twilight Marionette:Thank you for the reviews and stuff, its much appreciated. *Thumbs up*

Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or any of its characters, ideas or story lines. Just my own.

Chapter Seven: Trust

Captain Hitsugaya overlooked the city from the rooftops, everything seemed calm and peaceful in Karakura town and that was the first good news he had had all day. Using shunpo he moved from rooftop to rooftop, slowly making his way towards Kurosaki Ichigo and a presence he recognized as Rukia. He would have already of caught up to them but he was being overly cautious in his movements while at the same time searching for traces of the fight between Ikkaku and the mystery intruder. He landed on another rooftop and walked over to the ledge and stood on the edge, surveying the area with his keen eyes. He was suddenly aware of quiet talking to the side of him and turned his head to the side. Sat there on the ledge was a girl wearing a red School uniform with long red hair. 'What kind of person needs hair that long anyway? I just don't understand women.' He sighed and stared at her back. 'What the hell is a girl doing all the way up here by herself anyway? It's dangerous up here for a human girl.' Whatever the case was she hadn't noticed him yet and he was almost certain that she was just a human girl. Though experience told him better then to assume that she couldn't see him just because of that fact.

Akatsuki had sensed him just before he had landed on the rooftop, though he was suppressing a great amount of power she could tell that his reiatsu was on a level far above her own. Her heart froze and her body became tense in his presence. He was a Shinigami, of that she had no doubt and he was most likely a Captain or a Lieutenant in rank. 'Hell hells hells,' she cursed silently in her mind, 'If he discovers me I have no idea what to do, I can't handle someone as strong as that without Hakumei here.' She looked down to her lap where Kon was doing his best hide as well.' Kon will be in trouble too if he finds out what I am, maybe even Ichigo. I have to do something.'

Hitsugaya continued to look at the girl sat on the ledge, he wasn't quite sure why but something felt out of place about her, a general feeling that she didn't belong here. He walked up to her and stood behind her, whatever he sensed a moment ago seemed to fade away as he approached and he was left wondering what exactly had drawn him up to her. "Can you hear me?" he asked out of curiosity.

'Yes I can hear you now please go away!' Akatsuki thought to herself. She was feeling sick to her stomach with anxiety. She wasn't a natural fighter like most of the other Arrancar were, no doubt they would go straight onto the attack but Akatsuki just didn't have those kind of battle instincts. 'Of course, the others would have got their Zanpakuto back by now as well,' she sighed to herself and dipped her head feeling depressed.

Hitsugaya noticed her sigh and wasn't sure if that was a reaction to his words or the girls own thoughts. "Hey Miss, can you hear me?" he repeated. Again she didn't react but Hitsugaya wasn't able to shake that momentary feeling of her being out of place. He reached for her shoulder but he hesitated as he felt an all too familiar presence approaching him rapidly and he grimaced.

"Captain!" Rangiku Matsumoto shouted as she landed behind her captain and ran over to him beaming happily. She noticed Hitsugaya's hand hovering above the shoulder of a young lady sat by herself. It was obvious to her that the girl didn't know Hitsugaya was there and she grinned roguishly at her captain. "Oh my," she exclaimed with a giggle.

"What are you doing here Matsumoto? I told you to stay behind and finish those reports!" Hitsugaya said in a stressed tone, a vein began to throb on his forehead. He pretended not to hear what she had said about what he was doing but still withdrew his hand from above Akatsuki's shoulder without realizing it.

"So whats going on here then? Who's the young lady Captain?" Matsumoto said grinning at her Captain. She walked past her captain and poked her head out in front of the girl. She was a pretty young thing Matsumoto thought, though very pale in her complexion, she seemed to be daydreaming and was just staring at her lap. It was plainly obvious this girl had no spiritual sense at all or she would have at the very least felt Matsumoto's presence so close to her face.

"Matsumoto!" Hitsugaya repeated but instantly relented and sighed, he was here to do a job and it wasn't worth his time arguing with his lieutenant. 'Who am I fooling, it will be better if I do the reports by myself anyway.' He looked down at the girl again and shrugged. "I don't know her, I was just curious about something," he said, then remembering the kind of mind his lieutenant had, he added on quickly. "I wasn't thinking of doing anything to her, I thought for a second she might have been able to see me, that's all Matsumoto!"

Matsumoto smiled at her captain and hummed suspiciously, as if she didn't quite believe him. But she knew her captain better then that and didn't intend to push the issue. More paperwork was never a good thing and sometimes it wasn't worth the risk. But she would remember, this was something she could tease her Captain about later some more. "You haven't found Ichigo yet?" she asked Hitsugaya.

"I know where he is, he isn't that hard to find Matsumoto," Hitsugaya said but offered no further explanation about why he was taking his time. "Lets go Matsumoto. Matsumoto? Matsumoto!"

Matsumoto who had been hovering over Akatsuki had caught a faint but appealing scent and had taken some of Akatsuki's hair into her hands and was running it through her fingers. She was aware of her Captains stress levels rising but she was too curious not to and smelt Akatsuki's hair. Not only was Akatsuki's hair silkily soft but it smelled faintly of something Matsumoto wasn't able to identify but which none the less smelled very nice. 'She must spend ages every day looking after this hair,' she thought and wished she could ask the girl what that lovely smell was. "Yes yes, coming!" she said whimsically and smiled back at Hitsugaya who was watching her cross armed.

"I hope I wasn't bothering you," Hitsugaya said sarcastically before turning and using Shunpo to leave the roof. Sometimes he just wished that his lieutenant would at least try to be a little bit more professional at times like this.

Matsumoto sighed and walked over to the ledge and took one last look at the lone girl, now that she thought about it she hadn't seen any way up onto the roof when she had followed her Captain here. She shrugged her shoulders and thought no more about it and followed in the direction Hitsugaya had gone.

Akatsuki sighed a sigh of relief as the Shinigami women followed her Captain and allowed herself to relax slightly. She wiped some sweat from her brow with the sleeve of her jacket and breathed out heavily. Suppressing her spirit pressure in the gigai was surprising easy even though it still tooka lot of control but it was the only way she could think of at the time to evade detection. Of course outright ignoring them both had helped as well, which wasn't easy when one of them was twiddling her hair in her hand and smelling it. "I do not spend ages every day doing my hair," she said sullenly to herself. "You can stop hiding now Kon."

Kon had hidden inside himself under her long hair, of which there was a lot more of then Kon had first guessed. Hearing Akatsuki's sarcastic comment he extricated himself and crawled back onto her lap and stood up facing her. "That was way too close! Lets get out of here before they come back!" he said forcefully to Akatsuki. "And I wasn't hiding, in fact I was doing it to help you out!"

Akatsuki smiled evilly back down at him and was pleased to see a look of dread appear on his face. "For someone who was just doing it to help me you were holding on awfully tight," she said sarcastically. She carefully got to her feet and subconsciously hugged Kon close to her body again, ignoring the happy sigh she heard from him and she leaped from the roof of the building towards the ground far below.

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Hitsugaya and Matsumoto had been waiting for Ichigo patiently on the roof of the school after letting him know through a burst of reiatsu that they were there. He had found Rukia already waiting for him when he had arrived and both Hitsugaya and Matsumoto where stood in the center of the roof exchanging words. "Hey Rangiku, Toshiro," Ichigo said grinning at them, to which only Matsumotosmiled back. Hitsugaya frowned in return.

"Hiya Ichigo!" Matsumoto replied happily with a lot of enthusiam evident in her voice. "Its good to see you again!"

"That's Captain Hitsugaya!" Hitsugaya said in a stressed tone of voice. He was used to Ichigo not using his proper rank when talking to him but it still always made him grimace. Matsumoto being here didn't help either and Hitsugaya just wanted to relax in a dark, quite room all by himself.

Rukia walked up to Ichigo and stood beside him, facing Hitsugaya and Matsumoto. Though Rukia had no reason to, she was feeling slightly defensive of Ichigo and without realizing until she was there that she had put herself between Ichigo and Hitsugaya. What Matsumoto had just told her had put her on edge and she was worried that for some unexplained reason they thought Ichigo had been involved in some way. Hitsugaya had had his eyes closed in thought but she was sure that Matsumoto had picked up on her actions and found her smiling warming back at her, causing her to blush slightly. "This is important so pay attention Ichigo!" she said haughtily to Ichigo.

Ichigo was taken aback by her sudden tone and wondered what he had just done and was about to ask when Hitsugaya starting speaking to them both.

"Please listen, Kurosaki Ichigo, something has happened in Soul Society," Hitsugaya paused for effect, making sure that he had Ichigo's undivided attention before continuing. "The Seireitei was infiltrated by person or persons unknown. However we believe that the intruder was one of Aizen's Arrancar," he carried on in a very serious tone. He noted Ichigo's bemused expression as he spoke and was glad that the danger of the situation was not lost on him.

"Was it an attack? What happened?" Ichigo asked Hitsugaya, his voice edged with both anger and concern.

"To be honest we don't really know yet," Hitsugaya responded with a solemn expression on his face. "The intruder was detected but we have no way of knowing how long she had already been in the Soul Society, never mind the Seireitei itself."

"So it wasn't an attack by Aizen or the Espada?" Ichigo asked. He looked at Rukia and noted that her expression was one of deep concern but also that what Hitsugaya was saying wasn't taking her completly by surprise. 'So she already knew about this when she came to see me?' he thought and wondered why she hadn't said anything to him yet. "When?"

"It doesn't seem like it, the moment Squad Two made to pursue the intruder she fled from them, escaping into the real world," Hitsugaya replied to Ichigo. "It was roughly seven days ago that the incident took place, Soul Society has been on high alert until now," he said to Ichigo and Rukia. Hitsugaya walked over to the edge of the roof and grabbed the iron fencing in his left hand and he looked out over the town. "We are still investigating but so far we have very little to show for it."

"Its had everyone on edge," Matsumoto said with a slightly depressed tone, as if she didn't share the the same feeling of tension that her fellows had. But she did share her Captains concern, regardless of whether or not this was an isolated incident it was still the case that an Arrancar had easily breached the Seireitei.

Ichigo looked from Matsumoto and back to Hitsugaya and walked over to him and stood beside him, looking out over the town. He didn't say anything for a few moments, wondering what it was Hitsugaya seemed to be searching for, then he noticed something Hitsugaya had said before. "Wait! She escaped to the real world? If she could do something like that why not just escape back to Hueco Mundo, it doesn't make any sense," Ichigo asked curiously.

Hitsugaya nodded his head when he heard the question, glad that Ichigo had picked up on that. "That's a good question Kurosaki Ichigo, however again we know very little," Hitsugaya answered in a flat tone of voice. He turned to face Ichigo and carried on speaking. "The reason I came here was to both warn you and ask for your help."

Ichigo grinned and pointed his thumb at himself as he responded. "Of course I will, you can count on it! But it will be kinda hard not knowing anything about what I'm supposed to be looking for."

Hitsugaya turned to face him and sighed, Ichigo was right about that and it annoyed him just as much as he imagined it would annoying Ichigo. He moved away from the bars and walked back towards the center of the roof. "Nobody got close enough to her to get a usable description, all I can say for sure is that its a female Arrancar, with very long hair and wearing a very over sized bow knot ribbon on the top of her head." He stopped in the center with his back to Ichigo and continued. "However, Ikkaku Madarame engaged an Arrancar in the real world a few hours after the incident took place. Though I cant say for certain if it was the same Arrancar that escaped from the Soul Society, the timing makes it hard to ignore."

"If Ikkaku defeated the Arrancar then isn't the problem resolved?" Rukia asked as Hitsugaya approached her and Matsumoto.

"Ikkaku lost, he was found unconscious and wounded in this world," Hitsugaya said. He turned to face Ichigo and noted the shocked expression at the news that Ikkaku had been defeated and he guessed as to what Ichigo's next question would be. "He's fine, Captain Unohana personally treated him, but his memory of the attack is very limited. It seems he has amnesia about the 'finer' details." He saw Ichigo relax slightly though his grin had long since vanished. "Ikkaku remembers severely wounding the Arrancar however."

"Damn," Ichigo exclaimed, though he himself could and had beaten Ikkaku in the past, it was still hard to imagine him losing. "But if this was over a week ago, the Arrancar is probably long gone by now," Ichigo said.

"I agree, but I thought it wise to find out if you had seen or noticed anything out of the ordinary, maybe even encountered the Arrancar," Hitsugaya explained, though it was fairly obvious from Ichigo's responses that he didn't know anything of value but thought it wise to ask anyway. "If you do find anything we might need to know, don't hesitate to tell us."

Ichigo nodded and walked over to Rukia. "Right, don't worry about it Toshiro," he said smirking.

"That's Captain Hitsugaya!" Hitsugaya shouted at Ichigo in return.

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Rukia and Ichigo watched Hitsugaya and Matsumoto return to Soul Society, the wooden doors closing with their usual subtle bang and the doors faded from sight their sight. They both remained silent for a few moments, the only sound was the breeze which was starting to pick up slightly, causing a rustling in the trees below them.

"You didn't mention Akatsuki-chan," Rukia pointed out.

"That's right," Ichigo responded in a neutral tone of voice. He had considered telling Hitsugaya about Akatsuki but had thought better of it, neither of them knew if it had been Akatsuki Hitusgaya had been talking about and Ichigo wouldn't betray her so lightly. "And I wont, not yet at least."

"Why?" Rukia asked simply. Though deep down she knew Ichigo well enough to know that he had his reasons for protecting her, she was torn between her loyalty to him and to Soul Society.

Ichigo looked down into her eyes and smiled, he reached up and scratched his head in thought and frowned as he thought about why he was protecting Akatsuki. "Because," he said uncertainly, then his tone of voice became much more confident, "Even it was her Hitsugaya was talking about we don't know her side of the story. Its not fair you know? I don't like the idea of betraying her so, well, easily. I'll ask her about it when we see her."

'Ichigo,' Akatsuki thought to herself, her chest felt strangely warm at his words, 'You would really protect me without asking for anything in return? That's so dumb.' Akatsuki stepped from the inside of the doorway to the roof and walked outside into the sunlight. "Thank you, Shinigami," Akatsuki said in a soft voice. Rukia and Ichigo both spun around and stared at her in disbelief, she was stood smiling with her arms crossed behind her back, some hair blowing across her face. She brushed it aside to little effect as it simply blew back in the breeze.

"Ah! Akatsuki! How long have you been standing there?!" Ichigo exclaimed loudly, pointing his finger at her accusingly. Rukia had a similar expression on her face though wasn't being quite so loud about it. Had she heard all of that he wondered, if she had then why hadn't she left, or at least acted defensively about it.

Ignoring Ichigo's outburst she looked away from him to the ground at her side. "Its OK you know Ichigo, I don't think I could trust me either in your position," she said softly while still avoiding his gaze. "If you want me to leave I'll understand, if you decide to turn me over to Soul Society, thats OK too. I wont hold either choice against you," she said in a gentle but firm voice. "I made you a promise after all."

Ichigo stared at her eyes even though she was avoiding his gaze. Once again she was talking like a completely different person, totally different from the personality she normally displayed. Her voice and words seemed much more mature and gentle then the Akatsuki he was used to, as if he was talking to a completely different Akatsuki. He wondered which personality was the real Akatsuki and which one was the act. She just seemed so mature and calm. "Was it you Hitsugaya was talking about?" he asked bluntly.

"I don't know," she said softly and shrugged her shoulders, she turned her head so that their eyes became locked. "I honestly don't know Ichigo, I still can't remember what happened to me," Akatsuki said calmly. It was the truth, she didn't know if it was her they were taking about or not and it worried her, her memories should of returned by now but she didn't remember any more then she did a week ago. She brushed her left hair through her hair and twiddled it between her fingers.

"It doesn't matter," Ichigo said smiling to Akatsuki, he nudged Rukia who nodded in response. "I trust you, just be yourself and if and when you remember the truth you can tell me."

"I just hope your not being naïve Ichigo," Akatsuki replied warmly.

"Yeah, me too," Ichigo replied smiling.