A/N: Happy New Year all! Welcome back and I hope all of you had a great holiday season. I also hope that now you'll have a little more time to leave a review ;)

Disclaimer:

"Ok, other than Ichigo being completely confused as to what is going on, last week actually went rather well. Let's see, who should we have this week?"

"Excuse me!" Ririn cries from off stage. She, Cloud, and Nova walk out on stage. "What do you call those last two chapters? The only one of us that got to do anything useful was Nova!"

Clearing my throat I stutter, "Oh, ah, hi there. No, you and Cloud got to use your powers. And you just said that I had to include you in the story, not how I was supposed to include you."

Cloud launches into a speech, "You had me and Ririn working against our friends! We would never do such a thing. There is no way that anyone could separate our bonds to our friends and turn us against them. The bonds of loyalty between us run too deep for that. How could you…"

"The point is," Ririn interrupts. "You could have given us a better role. Do you want us to put you back in that classroom…?"

"Eek! No, no I don't. Look, I can't promise you anything for a few chapters, but I swear I'll give you more to do! Just don't send me back there, please!"

Ririn crosses her arms and glares at me as she says, "Alright, but you better be writing us some more interesting parts or you're going to regret it."

"I swear."

Ririn nods and says, "Good. Now, since we've already disclaimed your story, we thought we'd bring someone to do it this week."

Suddenly nne of Nova's portals appears center stage and Kon falls out with a squeak.

"Gah!" he gasps. "What was that for! You dropped me right on my head! You could have just asked for me to come along!"

I bend over and say to him, "Kon, thank you for coming, would you please just disclaim my story?"

Kon grumbles under breath as he brushes himself off. "Alright, alright. Mystica doesn't own Bleach. Now, can you put me back at Ichigo's?" He asks Nova. "Urahara just left me out in the woods and I'm not sure how to get back."

Nova nods and says, "No problem."

Kon falls out of a portal somewhere in the woods again, right in front of a wolf gnawing on a bone. The wolf looks at Kon and licks its lips before dropping its bone.

Kon stares at the wolf and all he can do is gulp at his new predicament.

Chapter 10

When Ichigo returned to the shop, he found that everyone had made it outside and none were hurt any worse than a few scrapes and bruises. Chad was still a little banged up from his earlier fight, but had nearly recovered by now thanks to Inoue. Ichigo found that Rukia had filled Chad in on the information that he had missed while he was healing.

"You all right with all of this, Chad?" Ichigo asked.

Chad nodded and said, "No problem. If it was my loyalty to you, Ichigo, than there should never have been a problem in the first place."

Ichigo slapped Chad on the shoulder and gave him a smile. Chad, being a man of few words, had summed it up completely. Ichigo knew that he could always count on Chad, no matter what. It sometimes scared the substitute Shinigami how devoted Chad was to him, but he knew that the devotion was returned in kind. He just hoped it didn't get his friend in too much trouble in the future. It had already gotten him into enough in the past.

Ichigo turned his attention to the shop. It seemed to not have suffered too much damage in the quake. The front porch was slanted at an angle since the far right supports had buckled and some of the interior had begun to collapse inside. But for whatever reason, the building didn't seem to be crumbling any further and seemed to be fairly sturdy as it was.

"Spirit reinforcement," Yoruichi whispered to Ichigo as he stared at the building.

He glanced back at her with a puzzled look. "Don't ask me to be more specific… you know how vague Kisuke likes to keep his little inventions."

Ichigo nodded. He certainly understood how the man liked to keep whatever he was working on a mystery, even after the results were revealed. Yoruichi's vague explanation was probably the best that any of them would ever get.

"Where is Kisuke?" Yoruichi went on to ask.

"Right here," Urahara said as he walked up behind them. He came strolling forward, swinging his cane while holding onto his hat with the other hand. "My, my," he said, looking at his shop. "What a mess."

"Urahara-san," Inoue spoke up. "Did you find anything out?"

Urahara frowned a second before lowering his hand and took out his fan. He didn't open it though as he spoke. "I did gather quite a bit of information, but it is going to take me some time to sort it all out."

"You saw him, didn't you?" Yoruichi said as she crossed her arms and leaned back.

He glanced at her and then looked back at the building before answering. "Atsushi is an interesting person. We're going to have to be very careful when dealing with him." He opened his fan then and hid the lower half of his face before glancing rather pointedly at Ichigo.

Ichigo decided to ignore the obvious point Urahara was trying to make to him. "Yeah, well he better be careful who he threatens," Ichigo said as he finally returned his Zanpakuto to his back, allowing the binding to rewrap the blade.

Urahara sighed but didn't press the issue. Ichigo was just being Ichigo. There was nothing that he could do to change that fact. "Well now," he said, snapping the fan shut and tucking it away. "I should get started." He began walking towards the shop as he spoke over his shoulder. "I'm sure the rest of you have others things that you could attend to for the moment. We're just going to have to wait until Atsushi makes his next move for now."

Urahara calmly walked into the damaged shop as if there was nothing at all wrong with it. Everyone else exchanged confused glances at what they should do now. Inoue stepped over to Ishida and asked, "Ishida-kun, are you all right? I've barely finished healing you and you were out there already."

He couldn't help but give her a slight smile as he fixed his glasses and replied, "Yes, I'm fine, Inoue-san. You did a very good job healing me."

She smiled back at him, the slightest signs of a blush touching her cheeks.

As they were talking, Rukia went over to Yoruichi. The taller woman was still staring at the door where Urahara had just disappeared with an unreadable expression on her face. Rukia interrupted her train of thought. "Yoruichi-san," she said.

Yoruichi looked down at Rukia. "If you go back to Soul Society, I would like to come with you."

Yoruichi gave Rukia an appraising look before replying. "You're still worried about Abarai, aren't you?"

Rukia lowered he head a little and nodded.

Yoruichi glanced back at the doorway to the shop before looking back at Rukia. "I can understand your desire to be with your friend right now, Rukia. But don't you think that with everything going on, you would be more needed here? You are the only remaining true representative of Soul Society here in the human world after all."

Rukia stared at the ground for a moment before looking up at Yoruichi. She had forced all of the emotion out of her features and had a determined expression as she replied, "You're right, Yoruichi-san. My place is here. I will do my duty."

Yoruichi gave her a slight, sad smile as she said, "duty is sometimes a difficult thing to bare, Rukia." She placed a hand on the top of Rukia's head. "But those of the Shinigami must learn to place it first."

"I understand," Rukia replied.

Yoruichi turned and began to walk away from the shop without another word to Rukia or the others. Rukia watched her go, wondering what had just happened.

"And that, Kisuke,…" Yoruichi said under her breath. "…Is why I can't go with you."

XXX

Seireitei was in an uproar again as another quake began to shatter the recently returned calm. Shinigami were scuttling about, trying to return to their divisions to receive orders on what to do. The ground was shaking so violently that they were hardly able to make it from one place to another. Most wouldn't even be able to reach their bases until well after the shaking had stopped.

Captain Kuchiki Byakuya had just been leaving the fourth division after inquiring after his vice-captain when the quake had begun. He was about to shift into Shunpo and return to his own division to be able to issue orders when he had another thought. For some reason, he felt that he should be where that great crater had formed in the center of Sokyoku Hill that had been discovered after the last quake.

Without another hesitation, he turned and disappeared as he went to investigate to the Hill. He was not surprised when he arrived and found that this was where the disturbance was coming from. Growing from the crater was a white pillar. It was soon taller than the treetops and there it finally came to a stop. All of the violent shaking ended when the pillar stopped its growth.

Byakuya stood there staring at the cold white pillar with a look of indifference, but he felt anything but. He could feel the waves of strange spirit pressure coming off of the pillar and he knew that this was not a good sign for Seireitei or Soul Society.

A few moments passed where everything was quiet except for the sounds of alarms and people rushing about far below in Seireitei. He wondered if anyone else had even bothered to glance this way and see what had suddenly sprung up in the center of their so called protected area.

Seireitei was quickly losing its reputation for being a peaceful, quiet domain that was impervious to intruders. Ever since Kurosaki Ichigo and his band of followers had broken in, Seireitei had been a breeding ground for disasters and mayhem. This was something that Byakuya could not condone. So, though he had forgiven Kurosaki for his intrusion in the past (not that he was ever going to admit it) he was convinced that if it hadn't been for that meddlesome teen, his Seireitei would not be in the state that it found itself in now.

Slowly, about halfway up the pillar, a dark hole began to form. In a few moments, it was large enough to let a man step through. Byakuya narrowed his eyes as he took in the sight of this man. He wasn't a hollow or an arrancar, so that much was good. But he also wasn't anything else that the sixth division captain had ever seen before.

The man stood in the air, scanning the scene before him. It took him a moment to realize that there was someone watching him. As he glanced down, he offered Byakuya a smile and slowly descended from the air to meet him.

"I see I'm not without a welcoming party here as well," he said. "Though I am a little disappointed that there is only one here to meet me. It is rather insulting."

"Who are you?" Byakuya asked without preamble.

"You mean you don't know?" the man said. He looked a little surprised at this, but also found it rather amusing. "The typically spiritually unaware people in the human world knew who I was, but you of Soul Society don't… interesting."

"I asked you a question. Who are you?"

"Well, you're a bit brisk. Kind of like that orange headed Shinigami looking human in the real world. All right, if you insist…" he made a mock bow as he said. "My name is prince Atsushi, second son to the Spirit King himself."

Byakuya felt his eyes narrowing even more in incredulity but he asked, "Were you the one responsible for the injury to my lieutenant in the human world?"

Atsushi thought about this for a moment before asking, "Red hair, big attitude?"

Byakuya nodded once in response. That was as apt of a description of Renji if there was one.

"Yes, that would be my doing. So, he didn't die then?"

"No," Byakuya responded in a flat tone. He wanted to strike out at this man now, but that was not enough to give him cause to attack. "And what is your reason for disrupting the peace of Soul Society?" he asked as if he didn't care that this was the person that had attacked Renji.

"Peace?" Atsushi said as he tipped his head slightly to the side. He looked down into the city below at all of the people scurrying about and the noise that was clattering up to them. "It doesn't seem all that peaceful to me."

"That is because you have disturbed it. And since you have a problem answering questions, I will ask you again, why are you here?"

Atsushi let out a slight laugh before saying, "I only came for a look around. After all, a prince can get pretty curious about the places that he's not allow to go to. I won't stay and take up any more of your time though." He turned and began to ascend back up to the hole in the pillar. "I'm sure we'll be seeing each other again soon though." He stopped at the hole and turned around and looked down at Byakuya again. "You're a captain, are you not?" he asked.

"Captain Kuchiki Byakuya, sixth division," Byakuya replied and drew his sword and held it up in front of him. "And you will not be permitted to return here." With that he muttered the words, "Scatter, Senbonzakura." The air was quickly filled with the glittering pink shards of his Zanpakuto.

Atsushi laughed and swished his hand through the air. The petals that had been on in intercept course with him suddenly parted and went to either side. "Naughty of you, a Shinigami, to attack your god."

Byakuya didn't show any outward emotion at this turn of events, but simply sent his Zanpakuto in again to slice the intruder up. The shards once again parted when they neared the prince, not even leaving him with a scratch.

"You're no match for me, Shinigami. And it is against the rules for you to even attack one from the royal house in the first place. Go back to your little division and take care of your troops. We will meet again soon enough." As Atsushi said this, he stepped back through the hole and it quickly sealed behind him.

Byakuya stood still, staring up at the place where the prince had just disappeared. He called his sword back to him and allowed it to return to its sealed form. He turned and sheathed his sword and set out for the inevitable captains meeting that would soon commence. He had a few things that he wanted to talk about with the Captain-Commander before that meeting began.

XXX

Over the next few days, no one saw or heard anything from Urahara. From time to time, someone would observe Tessai bringing a tray of food into the ex-Shinigami's lab and would return with a few bits of it missing, but that was it. Tessai wouldn't reveal to anyone what was going on in that lab, nor how Urahara was doing.

"I hate this waiting!" Ichigo grumbled to Rukia as he lay sprawled across his bed. The petite Shinigami was in her Gigai, sitting at Ichigo's desk, doodling something. Saturday had rolled around again so they didn't even have classes as a distraction that day.

"Would you rather that we were fighting?" she asked with a raised eyebrow. "The more time that nothing happens, the more time that Urahara has to work on our problem. Hopefully when Atsushi does appear again, we'll be ready for him."

Ichigo rolled over onto his stomach and looked at her. "I know. I just hate not knowing when he is going to pop up again or what his plans are. At least with Aizen we knew what was his ultimate goal. With this Atsushi character, we don't have anything but guesses to go on."

"And Aizen managed to surprise us even though we knew what he was after. Being completely in the dark helps to keep us on our edge." Rukia told him as she returned her focus to her drawing in front of her.

Ichigo spared a glance at the paper and winced. Her drawing skills had not improved in the least since he had met her. "Gah," he sighed and rolled onto his back again. "It's bad enough waiting for Atsushi to do something, but then there aren't even any hollows popping up to work some of this frustration off on."

Rukia decided to ignore Ichigo and his complaints. She honestly felt the same, but she certainly wasn't going to admit it to him. She poured herself into her drawing, trying to forget that she was stuck here and that she still didn't know how Renji was doing.

Not long after Urahara had vanished into his shop, not to be seen from again since, Masumoto showed up and said that she was sent over to help out with any problems that might come up in the human world and to let them know that the same pillar/gate thing had popped up in Soul Society.

She apparently made some kind of a report to Urahara as soon as she showed up, but she didn't seem willing to tell them what it was that she told him or what he was up to when she saw him. When she emerged again, she told them about what had happened in Soul Society.

"It was really strange," Matsumoto said. "One minute we were all rushing about, trying to take care of things from another quake, and the next someone looked up to Sokyoku Hill and pointed out the pillar. I guess the only one that was there when it first appeared was captain Kuchiki."

"Why was Nii-sama there?" Rukia muttered out loud without meaning too. Her pencil had paused on the paper as her mind drifted towards the events in Soul Society.

"Eh?" Ichigo asked as he picked his head up a little off the bed and looked at her upside down. He clearly hadn't heard what she said, just that she had spoken.

"Nothing," she muttered. "Just talking to myself."

Ichigo gave her a long look before sighing and returned to his staring up at the ceiling. "Hey, Rukia," he said after a little while. "Do you really think that this guy is as dangerous as everyone is making him out to be?"

Rukia sighed before saying, "I don't know, Ichigo. What is frustrating me the most is that I can't do anything directly about him." She ground her teeth before muttering, "He can attack Shinigami because he has gone rouge, but we can't lay a hand on him."

"That's bullshit," Ichigo snapped at Rukia as he sat up and propped himself up on his arm to look at her.

She stared at him in shock. "You sound just like your idiot brother with that talk, Rukia. Sure, the rules say that you can't touch him, but screw the rules! What does it matter if he's some prince and you're a Shinigami? If he attacks you, you have the right to defend yourself, regardless of what those so called rules say!"

"Ichigo…"

"If Atsushi comes after you, I want your promise that you will do whatever it takes to defend yourself, Rukia!" Ichigo snapped at her.

She stared back at him in silence for a moment. He was completely serious. She realized that he was right; she was acting just like Nii-sama had when she had first been taken into Soul Society to be executed. He had been so obsessed with following the rules that he wouldn't follow what his own heart was telling him to do. That was something that Ichigo never had a problem doing. If he saw a path that he believed was right, that was the one that he would take, regardless of what anyone else told him.

Then Yoruichi's words echoed back to her…

"Duty is sometimes a difficult thing to bare, Rukia. But those of the Shinigami must learn to place it first."

What was more important in this case? Her duty to the rules of the Shinigami, or her own life? When she looked Ichigo in the eyes again, she still didn't have an answer for herself, but she knew what she had to say to him at least. "I'll watch out for myself, Ichigo," she told him. That seemed to mollify him and he flipped over with an exasperated sigh to stare up at the ceiling.

"Geez, you Kuchiki clan are all so difficult…"

XXX

It was late that night at the Kurosaki house when Kon finally dragged his ripped and torn body through Ichigo's window. He fell onto Ichigo's bed with a grunt and nearly passed right out. He probably would have if he hadn't startled Ichigo out of his own sleep and found himself punted across the room to smack into the wall.

Poor Kon slipped down the wall to plop upside down on the floor. He didn't even have the strength to yell at Ichigo for being so mean. Ichigo sat up in bed and looked around for whatever it was that had just disturbed his sleep. He heard Kon's moan as the plushy fell forward and landed face first, prone on the floor beside the wall.

"Kon?" Ichigo cried as he got out of bed and went over to where the mod soul was now lying. Ichigo snatched him up off of the floor and turned him over to look at. "Where have you been and why are you so beat up?"

Kon looked up at Ichigo in a half daze for a moment before he burst into tears and began to explain in a rush. "It was horrible Ichigo! I was watching Chad like Urahara-san told me to and then this happened and that happened and Urahara showed up and took Chad and Ririn away and just left me out there! You wouldn't believe what I have had to go through to get back here! First I was taken…"

But Ichigo cut him off by clamping Kon's mouth closed and muttered, "Shh." He was no longer directing his attention at the plushy but towards his bedroom door. Once Kon had quieted, he realized that he could hear the slight muffled sounds of a girl crying somewhere on the other side of the door.

"Yuzu!" Ichigo suddenly cried and dropped Kon flat on the floor as he rushed for his door. He knew that it had to be Yuzu because, besides the fact that Karin doesn't cry, she was staying at a friend's house that night. That meant that Yuzu was alone in their room right now.

Kon landed with a squeak and took a moment to rub his sore behind before muttering about plushy abuse and got up off the floor to follow after Ichigo. Just as Kon reached the door, he heard Yuzu scream.

Kon ran into the hallway just in time to see Ichigo rip open his sister's door and rush inside her room. "What the hell!" Ichigo cried once he was inside her room. Kon rushed down the hall and followed Ichigo inside. He didn't have long to take in the scene before Ichigo reached down and snatched him up, shoving his hand down the plushy's throat.

Before Kon knew what was happening, he was yanked from the plushy body and suddenly found himself in Ichigo's again. Now he was able to get a good look at what was going on, but he still didn't understand what he was seeing.

Yuzu was lying in her bed with a great, black serpent wrapped around her chest. The head was right in her face and seemed to be inhaling some blueish-green mist from Yuzu's nose and mouth. She still looked as if she were asleep, but having a terrible nightmare as she trashed and cried unintelligibly.

Ichigo grabbed his Zanpakuto from his back and swung it at the serpent's head. But the thing seemed to have amazing reflexes because it quickly ducked under the slash and released Yuzu from its coils. Before Ichigo could make another attack on it, it slithered under Yuzu's bed.

Ichigo dropped to the floor and reached down after it, but his hand met nothing and when he looked, there was no sign of the snake at all. It was as if the thing had completely vanished.

Rukia suddenly ran into the room in her Shinigami form, sword drawn and ready to fight. "Ichigo!" she snapped, seeing Ichigo lying on the floor, reaching under the bed. They were all so distracted checking under the bed that none of them noticed the black butterfly that was fluttering through the shadows and out the open window.

"Ichi-nii," Yuzu muttered as if she was just waking up. She looked up and her eyes settled on Kon. She didn't seem to even notice that Ichigo and Rukia were there.

"Ah, Oh, Yuzu," Kon said, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "I thought I, ah, heard you cry so I came to, ah, check on you," he stuttered, trying his hardest to make himself look and act like Ichigo. That was never an easy task for him.

"Oh, I'm all right," she said as she sat up in her bed and rubbed her eyes. "I just had a bad dream was all."

"Oh, that's good," Kon said as he started to back out of the room. "Well, if you need me, you know where I am."

"Thank you, Ichi-nii," she replied to him. He stepped out into the hall and waited for Ichigo to get out of the room before closing the door.

"Good work, Kon," Ichigo told him as he headed back to his own room. Rukia and Kon followed him. After they had all filed in, Ichigo shut the door behind them and quickly explained everything that had just happened to Rukia.

"Have you ever heard of that thing before?" Ichigo asked her when he had finished describing it to her.

Rukia thought a moment before replying, "I know I've never seen anything like it, but it does sound vaguely familiar. I just can't think of what it is though."

"So it might not be anything new then?" Ichigo asked.

Rukia shrugged, "I don't know, Ichigo. Like I said, it sounds familiar, but I don't know for sure. We should ask Urahara about it tomorrow. That is, if we can pry him from his lab for long enough to listen."

Ichigo sighed and plopped on his bed, still in Shinigami form. "I guess I should be careful what I wish for. I wanted something to do, and now there's some weird snake thing sneaking into my house and giving my little sister nightmares… what next?"

XXX

Ichigo was looking pretty sleepy still when he emerged the next morning to join his sisters at the breakfast table. Apparently their dad was already out for the day and Karin had made it home her friend's. "Ichi-nii," Karin said as he plopped down at the table with a huge yawn. Yuzu quickly put a plate down in front of him and began to dish out the scrambled eggs that she had made.

"Did you hear about all the strange deaths last night?" Karin asked.

"Deaths?" Ichigo asked as he reached for the cup of coffee that Yuzu had just poured for him.

"It was on the news. There was a bunch of people that seemed to die in their sleep last night all over town. No one knows what happened, just that they all just stopped breathing at some time in the night. And it didn't matter who or how old they were or anything."

Ichigo slowly lowered his coffee cup from his mouth without taking a sip. He looked up and noticed that Rukia was standing in the kitchen doorway, listening to the conversation. They exchanged a look before she turned and went back to Ichigo's room. Ichigo sat the cup down and got up. "Sorry Yuzu, I've got run," he told his sister and quickly left the room himself.

Yuzu watched Ichigo leave with a sad expression on her face. "Don't worry about it, Yuzu," Karin said as she took a bite of her own breakfast. "You know Ichi-nii, he's probably late for something or other."

Yuzu just nodded and started to clear Ichigo's spot. When her back was turned, Karin glanced over her shoulder towards the window just in time to see Ichigo and Rukia in Shinigami form running from the house after exiting through his bedroom window. "Be careful, Ichi-nii," she muttered and then returned to her breakfast.