My, has it been a while. I am pretty sure I would be able to put out a weekly chapter last chapter, and yet here were are, more than a week later with a new chapter. I apologize for the delay, my two summer classes got really busy, so I didn't have much time to write this, and even less to edit it. However, I should get some more chapters out soon, my classes are almost over.
I have had some people ask me to clarify the timeline for this story, and it was something I meant to do last chapter, but I forgot, my bad. Anyway, the big difference here as apposed to canon is Ichigo's birth year. It has been moved up, obviously, but that also means his father went to the human world earlier, because baby making and stuff. Anyway I do not think that will change to much, but the important things are that Hitsugaya will not have met Isshin, however Matsumoto will have served as his lieutenant. Ichigo's mother is still alive, though I am not quite sure how to best explain that without making it seem unrealistic, but I have a few ideas. Other than that, I cannot think of anything else too important that would have changed, but pm me if you think of something specific that I need to address.
Poll time! So I was just looking at the poll one day and holy crap, squad 2 came out of no where. Here are the numbers
Squad 2: 13
Squad 8: 12
Squad 10: 8
Squad 13: 4
Squad 4: 1
Squad 11: 1
So yeah, that surprised me, but now Squad 2 leads the poll, taking over squad 8. Regardless, vote if you haven't, if you can't pm me or leave your vote at the end of a review, I try to count them.
As always, like, favorite, and review if you want, and send me suggestions about squads or pairings or whatever.
Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach
It had been a week since class number one had started their physical training, and just like Gengorō said, they were beginning to work on using their reiatsu.
"All right you lot, take a seat and get comfortable, we are going to pull out the rest of your reiatsu today. This may take you a while, so for the next five days we are meeting here first thing in the morning," Gengorō yelled out.
Some students grumbled as they sat down. The "here" that Gengorō was talking about was at an outside training field that was in the forest a good thirty minutes away from the dorms.
"Great, now we have to wake up earlier," Renji grumbled, saying what most of the class was thinking.
"Moan all you want, it is only for a few days. If you get access to your reiatsu early, you will be able to sleep in, since you will be working on your control away from the rest of the class," Gengorō said, ignoring most of the groaning.
"Now, I need the rest of you to stay here and meditate, Kurosaki, I need your help with something first."
Ignoring the questioning looks from his friends, Ichigo got up, dusted himself off, and walked over to Gengorō.
"Here, take this package, and give it to the teacher in our normal classroom. He will tell you if he needs something else. Listen to him carefully," Gengorō said, getting Ichigo to raise his eyebrow in confusion.
"Hai," Ichigo said, regardless of his confusion, and headed off to the classroom.
Getting to the room, Ichigo walked in and found the teacher he needed to give the package to.
"Ah, Kurosaki, you are here," the teacher said. Putting his hand out, he continued, "I will take that off your hands. You can take a seat over there," he said, pointing in the general direction of the chairs.
Doing what he was told, Ichigo sat down in the chair closest to him. Watching the teacher open the package, Ichigo saw what he thought was two leather strips fall into the hands of the teacher.
"Two, huh? Gengorō must expect a lot from you."
"What?" Ichigo asked.
"Oh, nothing important. Now, let me tell you why you are here. Gengorō, and several other instructors, are concerned about you when you unlock you reiastu for the first time."
Ichigo was confused, was something going to happen to him?
The teacher in front of him saw the concerned look the Ichigo was showing, and spoke up.
"I guess I should clarify, they aren't really concerned about your well being exactly, just that you won't be able to control all of the reiastu you seem to already have. That is a problem for the people around you, particularly your classmates. They won't be able to resist the weight of your reiatsu, and they could pass out, which we don't want to happen."
"So I have been isolated from anyone who could be knocked out?" Ichigo asked.
"Well, we hope so at least. So let's get started. First, you need to meditate, you should be able to do that by now, so that is the easy part."
Ichigo nodded and changed his position to get ready to meditate.
"The hard part is only hard because it has vague instructions. You are looking for a feeling, which is difficult enough to describe. Unfortunately, everyone describes the feeling as something different. Some say it was warm, others say it was cold. The only thing they said was that you would know it when you found it. I know that isn't super helpful, but this is a very personal feeling, so only you will know when you find it," the teacher said, trying to help Ichigo.
"Once you find it, you will need to follow it to its center. That is where your dormant power lies. If you think you are following a never ending path, keep pressing on, and eventually you will reach your destination."
"Now, since you are doing this here, and Gengorō doesn't want you to stand out too much by being away from the others, you will have to finish this exercise today. So get comfortable, you may be here a while. If you have any questions, ask, it may help you out."
The instructor finished his lecture, and sat behind the desk and pulled out some papers to grade, while Ichigo closed his eyes and began to meditate.
Slowly, the world around Ichigo began to fade away, and after half an hour he was in a meditative state.
Knowing that he was ready to search for the feeling, or whatever it was, Ichigo began to do what the instructor said, and just looked. At first, there was nothing, just comfortable silence.
Then he felt something. It wasn't a warm or cold feeling, nothing vague like that. It just was, well, it just was. Nothing could really describe it.
Hoping this was what he was looking for, Ichigo followed it to its core. It took several attempts, he would often continue following the feeling for what felt like an hour, and then find that he had barely gotten anywhere within it.
Stubbornly, Ichigo tried again, forcing his way through the path desperately trying to reach the destination that was required of him.
Then it happened. He reached the end, and the feeling suddenly over-whelmed him. He felt power flow through his body, awakening him from his meditative state.
Now fully aware, he could hear the teacher shouting at him.
"Kurosaki! Get it under control!" the man shouted.
Startled, Ichigo opened his eyes.
What greeted him was something he would remember for a long time. Surrounding him was a thin blue ball of energy. At the top of the ball were flame-like wisps of the same energy, which were being released and would disappear after a few seconds.
The room was a mess; the desks around him had been pushed back, forming a semi circle with him in the middle. The papers that the teacher was grading were strewn throughout the room, the ones the landed near him were shredded. In a word, it was chaos.
"Kurosaki! Can you repress some of your power?" The instructor shouted over the chaos within the room.
Ichigo tried several things to rein in the power flowing out of him. Unfortunately, nothing was working, so Ichigo yelled that he couldn't.
The instructor seemed to understand that he couldn't control the power radiating from him over the noise, and grabbed the leather strips from off his desk, which had not moved from where he placed them even with all of the force being generated by Ichigo blowing everything else away.
The teacher slowly walked over to Ichigo, who noticed that it look like he was struggling under a weight of some kind.
Reaching out to his arm, the instructor one strap onto his wrist, and instantly Ichigo felt some of the power being blocked off. However, there was still the blue shell of energy around him.
The second strap was put onto his other wrist, and Ichigo felt the world dim, as if something was placed over his eyes that dulled the colors he saw around him. The blue shell of reiatsu dissipated, and the wind and other forces originating from Ichigo calmed.
"Two suppressants needed; that has to be a record or something. This is the last time I am going to help Gengorō out with a prodigy," the teacher mumbled to himself, ignoring the fact that Ichigo could hear him.
"Well, that escalated quickly, didn't it Kurosaki?" the man asked rhetorically as he surveyed the destruction within the room. "No matter, you are free to go, I believe your class just finished for the day. Don't worry about the mess; we were expecting something like this. Have a nice day," the instructor said, ushering Ichigo out the door.
Right as Ichigo was about to leave, the instructor added one more thing, "Those bands are reiatsu suppressants, and you are not to take them off near any other students, even your friends. If you do, the consequences will be most severe."
Then the teacher closed the door, preventing Ichigo from asking him anything.
Sighing to himself, Ichigo headed out to where he and his friends normally got lunch.
Getting to the cafeteria, Ichigo found himself approaching an unusual sight. From where he was, it looked like Rukia was bragging to Renji, and Kira was laughing at him.
He approached them without any of them noticing, and heard the end of Rukia's speech.
"…you don't need to worry about it Renji, not everyone was supposed to access their reiatsu today but if you want to know how the good people dir it, you can ask either of us here. There is no shame in asking for help from your betters," Rukia said, with a smugness that Ichigo could feel.
It appeared the Rukia and Kira were also able to understand the vague instructions and find their powers. According to Rukia's gloating, Renji wasn't as lucky, and Rukia was exacting revenge for all the years of listening to Renji brag about something.
Poor Renji.
In an attempt to help his crimson haired friend, Ichigo walked over to them, though they were too busy laughing or being laughed at to notice him approach.
He managed to get right behind Rukia without any of them seeing him, an impressive feat considering the color of his hair.
Rukia, oblivious to the person behind her, was laughing so hard she had to place her hand on the table to keep herself upright.
Ichigo placed his hand on her shoulder, and she froze, which caught the attention of the other two sitting with her
"Holy crap Ichigo, don't do that!" she yelled at him.
"Do what? He asked innocently, "I was just trying to say hello to my dear friend. It isn't my fault you didn't notice me coming."
Laughing as he dodged the punch he knew was coming, Ichigo moved away from her and sat next to Renji, while Rukia mumbled something under her breath about jerks.
"So, how was class? I see Renji had some problems today," Ichigo said, bringing the conversation back to where it was before he got there.
Kira spoke up this time, saying, "Class was fine, we all sat around on the ground trying to understand the directions. In fact, I think only four or five of us did what they wanted us to do."
"And despite his boasts, Renji was not one of them," Rukia added.
"Hey, the directions were vague, I bet Ichigo wouldn't have been able to do it either," Renji returned.
"Speaking of you, where were you? You left and then Gengorō had us start without you. I thought you only had to give an instructor that package," Rukia asked.
"I did deliver the package, but then he made me stay and do what you all were doing, he said I would disturb you all or something," Ichigo lied.
Rukia didn't seem to believe him, but she wasn't able to ask him anything because Renji demanded Ichigo's attention.
"So did you do it? Could you access your reiatsu? No don't tell me, I bet you couldn't, even I couldn't."
"As a matter of fact I did Renji. Unlike you, I can understand directions," Ichigo shot back.
Renji looked defeated at being the only one who couldn't use he reiatsu fully.
"Now, now Renji, you still have a few more days to do it, it isn't like we are going to leave you behind," Kira said, trying to return Renji to his normal state.
"Whatever," Renji mumbled.
They continued their conversations and eating, and then they headed off to their classes for the second half of the day, before turning in to sleep.
Ichigo had managed to avoid talking about what had happened in the classroom, and no one seemed to notice the bands he was now wearing on his wrists. For a reason he could not say, Ichigo wanted to avoid talking about it.
His thoughts aside, Ichigo managed to sleep, preparing himself for the next week.
The days progressed much like Gengorō said it would, as Ichigo, Kira, Rukia, and Momo, who also happened to gain access to her reiatsu the first day worked on control.
This time Ichigo was allowed to be with is friends, though the bands were still on.
The third day, almost half the class was working on control, and by the fifth, all but two people were there.
It was the fourth day that Renji managed to get his head around the vague instructions they were given. It turned out that he had a large amount of reiatsu, so like Ichigo; it was hard for him to find the source of it.
Now that the week had passed, the class was ready for its first kido lesson.
"Alright everyone, listen up. Today you are going to be starting using kido. We will start with one of the most basic Hado spells: Shakkahō. You should already know the incantation and stance from class, so this should go fairly quickly," the Kido instructor said.
Motioning to the wall of targets in front of him, the instructor continued, "There are your targets, but we aren't really expecting too much for the first attempt. As long as you don't blow yourself up, you are doing fine. Now line up in groups of no more than four."
The students excitedly moved into their groups, everyone wanting to be the first to shoot a blast of energy from their hands.
Ichigo and his friends were in the same group, with Kira up first, then Rukia, Ichigo, and ending with Renji.
"Good, you are ready. On my mark, begin the incantation and aim towards the wall. Ready? Mark!"
Kira calmly slip into the proper stance, with on arm facing the wall, and the other gripping his wrist for support.
"Ye lord! Mask of blood and flesh, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! Inferno and pandemonium, the sea barrier surges, march on to the south!"
The group up front chanted almost in sync.
"Hado number 31, Shakkahō," Kira said as a red orb formed in front of his palm. Shooting off, the orb hit the corner of a target on the wall across from them.
Kira was the only one of his group to actually fire the blast, but others at least formed the ball of red energy, it just fizzled out.
"Good job Izuru, well done. Next group!" the instructor yelled.
Rukia walked up, and stiffly got into the stance.
"On my mark. Mark!"
The chant began again, a bit less in sync than the first group.
"Hado number 31 shakkahō!" Rukia yelled as the red ball formed in her palm.
This time, two balls of red launched out from the line, Rukia's and Momo's, who was at the other end of the formation of students.
Rukia's ball fell short, exploding on the ground just in front of the wall. Momo's made it to the wall, but missed the targets, hitting in between two of them.
"Not bad you two, very good for the first try," the instructor informed them.
"Way to miss the wall, Midget!" Renji yelled out.
"We will see how well you do Renji," Rukia shot back.
"Next group, step up!" the instructor commanded.
Ichigo stepped up next, and slowly got into the stance his friends did, and took a deep breath.
"Mark!" the instructor yelled, and the chant began.
"Ye lord! Mask of blood and flesh, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! Inferno and pandemonium, the sea barrier surges, march on to the south!" Ichigo said slowly, as the energy gathered in his palm.
"Hado number 31 shakkahō!" The read ball of energy completely formed, but it compressed for a second. Ichigo was worried it was going to fizzle out, so he tried to add a bit more power. The ball suddenly expanded to three times the size of Kira's and then rocketed off towards the wall, sending Ichigo off his feet, and into Renji.
The rest of the class watched as the colossal red orb flew into the wall, and detonated, causing a loud bang and covering the corner it hit with smoke.
"Ow…" Ichigo mumbled while rubbing his head, and getting off Renji.
"Thanks for the warning, strawberry. Next time you knock yourself on your ass, make sure…I'm…" Renji said, trailing off as he looked back up to the wall.
The entire class was silent in awe of the destruction that Ichigo had made. Unlike Kira's, which burnt the wall behind the target, Ichigo's shakkahō destroyed the corner that it had connected with.
The rest of the wall near the explosion was burnt black, and the remains of the brick were scattered behind it, all blackened and smoking.
"…Well done Kurosaki, though next time you should use a little less power," The instructor said.
Ichigo only nodded and walked to the back, avoiding looking at the rest of the class. He ended up stopping next to Rukia, and sitting in an attempt to hide behind her. He wasn't as successful as he was hoping.
"I don't want to talk about it," Ichigo said as she stared down at him.
"Oh, you will eventually," Rukia said back.
The rest of the class was focused back to their task, though the awe of what had happened minutes ago was still there.
"Last group, you know what to do. Mark!"
Renji, who was up now, in an attempt to perform as well as his best friend, skipped the incantation.
"Hado number 31, shakkahō!" he yelled.
Unlike any of the others in his line, Renji did not even produce a ball of energy. He did, however, produce a bang.
The loud bang surprised everyone, and the smoke that was produced obscured Renji from everyone.
As it cleared, and the other students stood back up from the bang, Renji could be seen.
Renji, now burnt all over his body, only coughed up some smoke, which caused his close "friends" to laugh at him.
"Abarai, extra lessons after class," The instructor said.
Renji only nodded and let out a few tears.
"Way to go Renji! I bet the kido corps will be waiting for you after graduation!" Rukia joked.
Poor Renji.
After that, the class ended, and everyone but Renji went to eat.
At lunch, Rukia began her interrogation.
"You have some explaining to do Ichigo. How did you make that shakkahō so large?" Rukia demanded.
"I don't know." Ichigo said calmly.
"The hell you don't, what did you do?" Rukia demanded again.
"I really don't know, I thought the ball was going to fizzle out, so I added a bit more energy to it," Ichigo explained.
"That looked like a little more than a bit," Kira added.
"It is a relative term I guess," Ichigo said, causing Kira to nod in understanding.
Looking between the two, Rukia's anger was slowly rising.
"Relative he says," Rukia ground out, "Care to be more specific?"
"I don't think I can," Ichigo said apologetically.
Standing up in frustration, Rukia pounded her hands onto the table.
"What are you hiding!?" she yelled, getting everyone's attention.
"Rukia, I don't understand the big deal, he did explain what happened didn't he? What was wrong with his answer?" Kira asked, trying to calm down Rukia.
Sadly, it didn't work.
"The big deal, Kira, is that Ichigo is hiding something, and friends don't keep secrets from one another. You should be mad too!" Turning to face Ichigo, Rukia started again.
"We are friends aren't we? So what is it?"
After a few seconds of a tense silence, Ichigo stood up, and towered over Rukia, who took a slight step back.
Instead of saying anything, Ichigo walked around the table, and grabbed Rukia's arm, and then dragged her out of the room.
"What are you doing?" Rukia asked after he released her, slightly frightened with the lack of verbal response from Ichigo. He seemed angry to her.
Ichigo pulled down his sleeve, to reveal the strip on his wrist.
"This, Rukia, is what I am hiding from you. This is a strap that suppresses my reiatsu so other students can stay conscious around me. I have two, one on each wrist, and I am not allowed to take them off until am far enough away from the academy," Ichigo explained in a hushed voice.
Rukia stared at his wrist as she took in the information.
"I haven't told anyone but you because I do not want them to compare themselves to me, and I really don't want more people watching me. I am content with how things are like, and I want to keep my image were it is for as long as I can," Ichigo continued.
"But why couldn't you tell me or Renji?" Rukia asked softly.
"Mostly because I didn't want Renji to know. He has a respectable amount of reiatsu, more than most people here. I don't want to take that away from him. So if I didn't tell Renji, I thought I shouldn't tell you, to keep things fair. But now you know, and I hope you keep it to yourself," Ichigo ended.
"Fine, but you need to work on keeping the power down, or I wont have to tell someone for them to find out. I am sure Kira is suspicious already," she said, trying to joke to relieve the tense atmosphere.
"Speaking of which, we should head back inside; we wouldn't want people to get the wrong idea," Ichigo hinted.
Rukia blushed and turned towards the door, scoffing, "I could do better."
"Oh? Could you now?" Ichigo asked sarcastically.
Rukia just picked up her pace, ignoring him.
"I didn't think so!" Ichigo yelled out to her.
They entered the cafeteria again, and a few heads turned to see how they turned out, most didn't care.
Renji was back, and laying face down on the table after his extra practice. He was a little more singed than they left him, but it looked like things went okay.
The group returned to their conversation, since Renji was too tired to ask them where they were, and everything went on normally.
For the most part, the following week wasn't very interesting, nobody had kido explode on them, and no one blew up part of a wall. Everything was just normal.
However, a rumor had started to spread, and it wasn't about Ichigo. It seemed that a captain was going to be visiting the academy.
"All right, all right, settle down. Today I wanted to confirm the rumor that has been spreading. There is going to be a captain visiting our Academy in two days. No, I do not know who it is, and no, I do not know if he is going to visit this class. What I do know is that you all will be on your best behavior when the entire academy greets him, understood?" Gengorō gruffly said.
"Hai." Replied the students, some more sincere than others.
"Good, now let's begin the lesson. Last week we talked about the importance of control, today, I am going to explain several ways to increase your control. Some of them work better than others, and some of you may find they don't work at all, but you need to understand them, because that may lead to you finding your own way to control your power."
The class was excited about the visiting captain, since for some of them it would be their first time seeing one. The whole class paid attention, hoping to learn something that would help them stand out in case the captain visited their class.
The excitement continued into the next two days, until the whole school was lined up along the entrance to the academy.
"I'm hot," complained Renji.
"Shut up, he is going to be here soon. Besides, your complaining is giving me a headache," Rukia complained back.
Ichigo sighed. They had been standing along the edges of the pathway to the entrance of the school, along with everyone else in the school, waiting in the son for the captain to arrive.
There had been several rumors about which captain it was, but no teacher would share that information.
"I think I see them," Momo whispered excitedly.
Ichigo had seen Momo standing alone in the crowd of students. He thought she looked uncomfortable standing there alone, so he walked over and his friends followed him. Now there were four kids standing around looking bored and Momo, who was happy to have people around her she knew, and to see someone so high ranking.
Though he didn't show it, Kira was too. However, Ichigo noticed that Kira was oddly quiet around Momo. That, and how he wouldn't make direct eye contact with her, and how Kira looked everywhere else but near her confused Ichigo.
Renji, who despite complaining the entire time, was looking forward to seeing the captain, and was hoping for a chance to show off in front of him.
Rukia and Ichigo were both indifferent to the whole thing. Both wanted the captain to come and leave, preferably without visiting their class.
"Really guys, I see them this time!" Momo said, almost yelling.
Looking down the path, Ichigo was a browned haired man with glasses wearing the captain's haori. Next to him was a silver haired man with a brown badge strapped over the sleeve of his standard shinigami attire.
As they walked closer, Ichigo noticed two things. First, the silver haired man had a near permanent smile on his face, and so far, Ichigo hadn't seen it fall, and the man's eyes were narrowed into slits, as if he were laughing. Overall, Ichigo thought the man looked like a cunning fox.
However, it was the captain that bothered Ichigo the most. On the captain's face was a gentle smile, a stark contrast the to his partners creepy smile. However it was the captain's eyes that bothered Ichigo the most. The smile his face held did not reach them. Instead, Ichigo saw many calculations being done through them as the moved across the crowd. It was as if the man was planning something way beyond Ichigo's understanding.
Then Ichigo blinked, and the look was gone, the captain's smile now reaching his eyes. However, Ichigo could not shake the feeling of foreboding coming from the recent arrivals to the academy.
"Look, it is captain Sosuke Aizen and his lieutenant Ichimaru Gin from squad five!" someone from the crowd shouted as the students began to cheer.
"Captain Aizen," Momo murmured to herself.
"His lieutenant creeps me out," Rukia muttered to Ichigo, who nodded in agreement, though he kept his thoughts about the captain to himself.
"I think the captain looks really friendly!" Momo exclaimed.
"I agree," Kira said, earning him a smile from Momo for his agreement.
"I think I could take them," Renji said confidently, earning him a smack on the head from Rukia.
"Is there anything in that thick head of yours? Idiot," Rukia scolded, "He is a captain for many reasons, one of them being that he could kick your ass any day of the week."
"I thought friends are supposed to support each other," Renji whined.
"Friends stop other friends from saying something incredibly stupid," Ichigo chimed in.
"Whatever," Renji grumbled.
The captain and lieutenant pair walked past the group of five friends, and the student body cheered louder when Aizen waved.
The pair made it into the main building of the academy, and the cheering slowly died down.
"Alright class one, get to class!" Gengorō's voice rang out, causing groans to be heard from several parts of the crowd.
Knowing better than to get to class late, Ichigo and company quickly headed to their classroom.
"I hope I get to see the captain again," Momo said, causing Ichigo to shake his head.
"What?" she asked him.
"Nothing," Ichigo denied, which cause Momo to smile more.
Together, the group walked into the class, all with the desire to improve.
Another chapter finished. If you wanted to know the part I had mentioned last chapter, it was the kido scene. I giggled to myself much more than I should have when I thought of it.
I do plan on having Ichigo use some kido, if only because I think that would be more interesting to read than just using a sword to hack/slash/stab most enemies. But fret not, I won't do it too often, he will still mainly use his zanpakuto. Speaking of which, I am going to say it now that he will not start out with two swords, but he will get there faster than in canon. I am sorry if that bothers some of you, but I want to go through all of the sword evolutions for Ichigo, and end it with dual wielding ftw fun times.
Again, review and tell me stuff you think could be better, or any questions you have, or to tell me what you want or are looking forward to, I will read them all. I really do enjoy reading what you all write.
Thank you for reading this chapter, and I hope you will come back and read some more.
-Jimba
