"So my friend, what do you think of this marvelous city?" The blue haired Child Lord questioned as he spun around, his arms outstretched toward the market stalls that stood around them. Ichigo groaned inwardly. He knew that he had to try to play it off as being adopted from another country, but it wasn't like he was from another planet.

"I remember how the market was back at home; it's quite similar to this area." He said as it came out automatically. Of course it was like that, he had rehearsed it so often that he knew everything about his pseudo identity by heart, he had to after all, didn't he?

The two of them moved along the open stalls, looking from one vendor to another as they walked. They were both dressed in noblemen's robes, so every vendor tried to sell off their most expensive merchandise. One, who was selling slaves, motioned for them to come and check out the 'items' he was selling.

Just the sight of them chained like that made Ichigo irritable. He didn't like seeing people chained up and sold like property. But he said nothing as he turned his head away, pretending not to care.

"That's barbarous." The Lord Grimmjow said as they walked past in a quiet manner. He didn't motion toward them or anything, but Ichigo knew instantly that the Child Lord was on the same page as himself.

Ichigo let out a light sigh before he raised his head and kept moving. He was headed right for a fruit stall. As he stopped he looked over the fruits. "Well it's not like we can do anything about it." He said in a monotone voice. He felt Grimmjow's presence behind him.

"That may be true, but it still doesn't make it right." He said before reaching past Ichigo to grab a pomegranate. He laid a single silver piece down for the vendor and started trying to pull the fruit apart to get at the seeds.

Ichigo chuckled, which got him a glare from the other male, before he pulled a small knife out from the inside of his coat. Handing it over, he continued to look over the fruit. He was getting bored of this. He had been with the Child Lord for half the day already, and he really didn't know where all the time went. They had run into one another as Ichigo was walking along a road earlier. Of course, he planned on running into the young lord, just not so literally.

He remembered not paying attention; he was almost trampled by the horse drawn carriage that Grimmjow was being pulled in. When the accident occurred, Grimmjow let his pink haired driver have a piece of his mind. He had told the servant that he was to go home before the young blue haired lord had gotten out and apologized to Ichigo.

And now here they were, walking about the market because Grimmjow didn't want to deal with his servant that just so happened to be a terrible driver.

"Are you looking for anything specific?" He heard the female vendor ask. Her ginger hair was long, and the breasts of the woman seemed too large to be humanly possible. Ichigo just smiled at her before he lifted an orange and placed a silver piece in her hand. Of course he knew just a single silver was too much for the fruit, but he didn't so much as ask for change as he turned to see his 'friend' had finally gotten into his fruit.

Retrieving his knife from the other, he cut into the peel of the fruit the same colour as his hair before he slid the blade away and started to peel it by hand. He watched as Grimmjow picked at the seeds of the crimson fruit. He really didn't know why or what it was, but something about the other nobleman made him uneasy. He felt something stir in his stomach that he was not familiar with whatsoever.

But the longer he looked at the male pick at his fruit as they walked along, the more that feeling became apparent. He hated the feeling already. Not knowing what it was, it made his body rigid and rough as it moved. He needed to get rid of the feeling, there had to be a way to do such. He just needed a moment to think as of how to do so.

The two of them walked in slightly uncomfortable silence –for Ichigo— as he started to eat the orange piece by piece. He almost screamed out with irritation from the silence when he noticed a small group of men standing off toward the side of one vendor. His gaze was a cross between curiosity as to what the men were looking at him for, and complete anger at them looking at him in such a manner.

As they passed the group of what he now counted to be four men, he bit the inside of his cheek. "Lord Grimmjow." He whispered, as to try and capture his friend's attention.

Grimmjow looked from the fruit in his hand up toward the man beside him. "Mm?" He questioned as he sucked on a few of the seeds before spitting them out.

"Not to alarm you, but there are a few men following us." Ichigo said as he took yet another piece of the fruit into his mouth. He didn't even so much as flinch at the thought, but it was obvious that Grimmjow was now bothered.

"Are you sure?" He heard Grimmjow question under his breath.

Ichigo just nodded, "Four of them. Behind us. Three of them are on the left, standing at the stall with pottery. The other is standing on the right, by the jewels." He said as they kept their slow pace. "I can—"

Grimmjow let out a rough groan, "I got it. Don't worry about anything." He said before turning around. Ichigo looked at him in sheer disbelief. Don't worry about anything? The hell was this man talking about? He was the one that noticed them first. It wasn't like the Child Lord beside him had any skill with fighting. That much he assumed from the intelligence gathered by Shuuhei.

"I don't think you understand." He said as he moved next to Grimmjow. He didn't know why he'd gotten so close to the male, but he was close enough that his shoulder lightly rubbed Grimmjow's arm. He only just realized that this young lord was taller than him, maybe by about six inches.

That feeling that was in his stomach came back now, full force and he wanted to claw at his skin to try to get the feeling out of his gut. The thought of having someone there to protect him made his stomach do a flip and twist and turn. It felt so unnatural, but at the same time, it made him feel relieved? He was now more confused than anything.

The more he was with this Child Lord; the more his stomach was doing these flips and twists.

"I understand perfectly." Grimmjow didn't explain as to what he understood, and Ichigo didn't know why he was trying to act tough. He just couldn't think about the other fighting for him, in fact it irked him quite thoroughly that he was trying to fight at all and was not letting Ichigo take care of it. It made him feel like he was weaker than the other. "I am not going to let these pathetic clods try anything with you."

Ichigo had a frog in his throat now. He just looked over to the blue haired lord with surprise. The four guys were now making their way toward them as they were obviously found out. Ichigo wanted to step forward and remove the men, but it would become obvious that he was trained in fighting. He didn't want to give himself away as a vizord.

Stepping back, he sighed, mostly inward. "If you need any assistance…" He trailed off with his sentence as he was sure that Grimmjow understood.

Glancing toward the Child Lord, his stomach caught a glitch. The feral grin that was plastered to the other's lips was menacing, but also strangely appealing to see. There was thrill in his blood and ice in his muscles. He couldn't move, couldn't look away. The words that were exchanged between the small group of men and Grimmjow fell on his deaf ears.

His brain wouldn't move his body as he watched the sight. Two of the men moved toward Grimmjow, obviously wanting a fight. But it wasn't just that, they both held a tanto sized blade, more likely wanting to either kill or maim the two of them.

Even at the sight of the blades, Ichigo couldn't pull his mind away from that smile that he saw on Grimmjow's features. With his eyes stuck for just a second on the shine of the small blades, he looked at his friend. It was evident that the showing of those blades didn't deter his feral smile. If anything, they made it grow wider.

The two men started moving toward them quickly, crisscrossing as they moved between each other. "They aretrained well, this pattern is used to disorient their target as they move, so he doesn't know which one to pay more attention to." Ichigo thought as he watched. Grimmjow took a stance, right foot out a little farther ahead, and hands with palms open outstretched in front of him. It wasn't one that Ichigo recognized.

The two men swung their blades simultaneously as one aimed for his face while the other aimed toward his right calf. However the one that aimed low had moved faster, which Grimmjow obviously noticed as he lifted his leg over the blade and placed his heel against the man's shoulder as he pushed against him and lifted himself from the ground, his other knee coming to the second's stomach.

In that one action, the second man, the one who aimed high, fell on his back with his hands wrapped around his middle. The pain must have been severe as he groaned and turned to one side. The first, the one who aimed low, spun around just in time to receive a quick right hook to the jaw.

Ichigo thought for sure that he'd heard a pop, but couldn't have been certain as he wasn't the one fighting.

Standing up straight, Grimmjow moved back into the original stance he held at the beginning as he stared down the other two of the men. One of them stepped forward, obviously thinking he'd be able to take care of the blue haired lord on his own.

Grimmjow didn't take but a second to rush forward, his fist raised as he was readying to swing. "It's not going to work if they know which fist you're going to attack with!" He mentally screamed at his companion. And he was right, when the Child Lord swung, his fist was caught. Ichigo sighed before taking a step forward thinking he'd have to save the other young male.

He watched as Grimmjow's fist was thrown to the ground roughly taking him along the way. His open palm braced against the stone path below, and Ichigo froze in place. The actions he was taking, he couldn't know such a thing could he?

As he thought this in utter disbelief, he watched his companion lift himself up in a one-handed handstand before placing a solid kick to the man's sternum. The grunt was evidence enough to know that he had a perfect shot to the bone, and had actually broken it. Ichigo's eyes were only on the sky blue color that was now moving into a standing position.

The man had fallen flat on his back. There was sure to be internal bleeding, and he was more than likely going to die because of the wound.

Grimmjow didn't give the man a second glance as he looked at the last one. The man was obviously shocked by seeing now three of his friends taken out. He stepped back, and turned to run. Quickly removing the dagger that he'd used to cut open his orange, Ichigo threw the blade and it struck home, right into the man's calf muscle; he had fallen face first into the ground.

The Child Lord he was with whipped his head around to see Ichigo with a surprised look in his features. "Why did you do that? He was running away." The blue haired man said as he looked to the man that was unable to run now.

Ichigo nodded as he walked toward the man, his own features set to kill, "I know. But if we let him go so easily, how will we know who sent him?" He asked as he knelt next to the man. Pulling the small blade from the flesh, he watched the blood drip from it before he looked at the man's face that displayed both agony and regret. "Tell me, who sent you?"

Grimmjow was now standing rather close behind Ichigo as he crossed his arms and waited for an answer.

The man chuckled before looking at the two, "I'll never tell you that." He said. The response earned him a quick jab to his leg with the knife again as Ichigo tilted his head and raised a brow, as if asking if that was his final answer.

The man yelped in pain and growled at Ichigo before he got another quick jab, "Okay, okay!" He hollered before he glared at the two. "Fine I'll tell you." He said as he smirked. "The Child Lord Hirako, the heir to the family, sent us to take him out." He nodded toward the other man.

Ichigo froze. His blood ceased and his heart hiccupped as he heard that. "Hirako? You're lying." He said with a sharp jab to his leg now. The man screamed in pain as it cut deep this time.

"Ichigo, we got a name, now come on. We can deal with this Hirako Lord and we can end whatever this was supposed to be." Grimmjow said as he placed a hand against the orange haired boy's shoulder.

Ichigo flinched at the touch before he felt it was oddly warm. "No, we can't. He's lying." He stated as he stood. The young lord turned and walked away, not even giving a second look to the man on the ground that was bleeding rather profusely from his leg. In truth, he'd be lucky if he'd ever be able to walk on the limb again.

"How do you know he's lying?" The blue haired Child Lord questioned as he had to almost run to catch up.

Ichigo stopped and took a deep breath before turning to see his newly founded friend. "Because I'm the heir to the Hirako family. He was talking about me." He said before turning rather abruptly and walking again.

If he didn't make it obvious that he was pissed off, he wasn't sure how else to show it without killing someone.

Sorry about the delay! New chapter is here! Of course my beta is great! Please give a great big thanks to AiryAquarius! They've helped me so much with this story, and I can't thank them enough!