"You have to help me." She says to him, gripping the letter tightly in her fist. She's made her decision, and it's probably going to end in her death. Unfortunately enough, this decision is going to need the assistance of a man that probably doesn't feel the same way.

"No." Urahara tells Ichimin, point-blank, and he tries to walk away and end the conversation. He's seen the letter, knows the handwriting, knows it's legit; he also knows that she's going to try and get him to open up a Gargantua for her, and he knows damn well that he's not going to.

"Don't you tell me no!" She snaps, and it's a voice that reminds him of a vague memory, the sound of a mother's voice snapping. He knows why she wants to go, and he can sympathize, but he won't be her Charon. He's not going to toss her the scissors she can trip herself for and fall on. Urahara continues to walk away from her, and he doesn't flinch when she gives chase and knots her calloused hands in the back of his green coat (even all these years later, he's kept the thing, though this is Coat the Third, since Coat and Coat the Second were both torn to shreds at one point or another and had to be retired) and holds him in place, and when he turns around, expression placid and deadpan, he sees that she's tearing up from either rage or sadness. There's no way to tell which.

"I have to go, Urahara. You have to help me." Ichimin growls at him, through a snarl, and it's not a half-second later that he jerks his coat from her grip and turns around to face her, and when he straightens up completely, he towers over her. She can see his face under the hat, and the pure seriousness of his expression almost scares her. She doesn't let him see this though, and just stares.

"I don't have to do anything, Lieutenant Kumorigachi," Urahara tells her, staring holes through her. "I don't have to help you kill yourself, and I don't plan to. I know you're emotional right now," He cuts her off as she starts in with 'You don't know what I'm going through'. "But you've got responsibilities. To Seireitei, to your kids, and to yourself. Don't think that you're the first mother to lose her son in a war, Ichimin. Let him go."

"I'm not going to abandon him, Kisuke." She spits the words at him, her eyes flashing in anger, "I'm not going to do that. I'll find a way there." She's being a bitch about it, and she's very aware of this, but she's also riding high on her emotions.

"Let it go. Or find another way. Because I'm not going to do it." He says, turns around, and walks into the back of the Shoten. Ichimin turns around as well, and marches out the front door. She needs to get Urahara to open a Gargantua for her (which he won't), she needs to have Seireitei open a Gargantua for her (which they won't), she needs to find a hollow that'll open a Gargantua for her without killing her (which it won't), or she needs to find a third party that knows how to open a Gargantua and doesn't care about doing it and sending her to her incredibly probable death.

She needs to find that third party.

Unfortunately, she spends about half of the precious month she has stationed here looking unsuccessfully for that third party. She wonders if Aizen really wants her to show up at his grand castle, or if he's just fucking with her.

It's not until there's a major attack from the forces of Aizen, in a moment of strategic weakness at Karakura, that she finds it. She's fighting with an Arrancar, a strong one, and she knows that Kurosaki is fighting Jeagerjaquez, because their reiatsus are clashing over and over again. The battle is catastrophic, damage-wise, as the two of them tear through the city. It's not until, and Ichimin is nearby enough to see this, standing over the corpse of her opponent and currently bleeding, she sees a short-ish woman interrupt the two's fight. It's not long after that the Arrancar retreat, at the order of Ulquiorra (of course), and instead of regrouping at Urahara's building, as they all had agreed upon when all of the Karakura guardians first gathered together, and instead tracks this mystery woman. Curiosity never dies.

When she sees her walk into a warehouse that does not exist, she follows him before whatever keeps people from walking in raises again. She's able to suppress her reiatsu for only a short amount of time when they're in such close proximity, and her distraction, exhaustion, whatever makes her unable to sense her fades quickly and as soon as she walks in the door, she jerks Kyokkou up to parry the swing of a zanpakutou. She sees who the woman is, and she just stares, the moment of distraction offering her the opportunity to twist her own zanpakutou and disarm her, before pinning her to the wall with the blade at her throat.

"How'd a shinigami drag itself in here?" She asks, rhetorically, before swinging her zapakutou in a way that would've beheaded Ichimin, had it connected. It doesn't, and Ichimin swings back. The two clash, and the fighting eventually rolls down into a large open area. It's not a minute after they end up there, still battling, that about twenty swords get shoved into her face, and they disarm her. She's on her knees, hands held high in surrender, looking with awe at all the people she used to call 'Captain' and 'Lieutenant Captain', 'sir' and 'ma'am'.

"Hiyori, you let a shinigami follow you in here?"

"We should kill it."

"Why did you let it in?"

She hears them all talk, until the man holding his zanpakutou at her throat crouches down, and they can look each other in the eye. The little exchange that follows is brief, but not unfriendly.

"Hey Kumorigachi."

"Hello, Captain Hirako."