Chapter 8 - Invasion: The Espada Attack!

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[Somewhere in Karakura Town, Human Realm]

Current Time...

Recap:

"So how are we going to draw this kid out, Ulquiorra?" the 10th/0 Espada asked.

"The same way we lured Kurosaki to us; we will attack the people of this town though this time it'll only be those with above average levels of spiritual pressure," Ulquiorra explained as his group began to move, looking for any unfortunate soul who was spiritually aware...

While Ulquiorra, Harribel, and Yammy attempted to flush out Naruto, Grimmjow, in an attempt to draw out Ichigo, began searching for anyone with spritual pressure to attack; after searching for a few minutes he was surprised when he came across his very target standing before him.

"Are you Ichigo Kurosaki?" he asked to which the Substitute Soul Reaper nodded in reply.

"I'm the 6th Espada, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, and I'm the Arrancar that's going to kill you," Grimmjow proclaimed; Ichigo, in response to Grimmjow's declaration, was about to "unsheathe" Zangetsu when Rukia, who was standing by his side, tried to prevent him from fighting.

"We can't risk having your inner hollow break out, Ichigo, and you still haven't fully recovered from you're fight with Naruto. You need to fall back," she said; Ichigo, despite having most of his wounds healed, still had a few organs that were still recovering from that slugfest. Ichigo, naturally, refused to listen.

"This guy's after me; if I don't fight him someone else going to get attacked by this guy," Ichigo said; before Rukia could reply Grimmjow, using their argument as an opening, snuck up on the unseated officer of the 13 division and proceeded to impale her in the abdomen. As Rukia fell to the ground, having been rendered unconcious but was still alive, Grimmjow turned his attention to Ichigo, whose eyes were suddenly filled with a rage that bordered on killing intent.

"You're next, Kurosaki," Grimmjow said with a maniacal grin on his face while Ichigo unleashed his spiritual spiritual pressure.

"Bankai!" he roared as his sword shrunk to its familiar black straight sword form. At this point Renji, who had just arrived, went to Rukia's side; seeing that she was not in immediate danger he prepared to engage the Espada until Ichigo got in front of the 6th Division Lieutenant.

"I'll face this guy; you have to get Rukia to safety," Ichigo said; after a short argument that Grimmjow, miraculously, did not interrupt, Renji finally agreed to get Rukia out of harm's way. Once the two Soul Reapers had left Ichigo turned his attention to the Espada.

"I'll kill you for what you've done," Ichigo hissed as he and the Espada prepared to clash.

[Elsewhere]

Toshiro, Ikkaku, Yumichika, Rangiku, and Chad had confronted Coyote and Lilynette before they got to the city limits; as every readied themselves for battle Toshiro, as the highest ranked Reaper present, decided to question the Espada before the fight began.

"Where are the other Arrancars? We know there are four other ones and three of them have not attacked any of us; their spiritual pressure has also vanished," Toshiro asked the lazy-eyed Starrk.

"I'm not allowed to tell you Soul Reapers; I'm just here to draw you out," the 1st Espada replied as he drew his zanpakuto. Toshiro was confused by the second part of the Espada's sentence for a few moments; once it's meaning finally hit him, however, the Captain's eyes widened in shock.

"The other Arrancars must be after Naruto," Toshiro reasoned; he was about to tell Rangiku, his lieutenan,t to inform Kisuke of this when the Espada used his Sonido to appear in front of Hitsugaya. The silver-haired Soul Reaper barely had enough time to block Starrk's attacks.

"As much I would prefer to avoid going into battle I'm afraid my orders were clear; I can't let you Soul Reapers interfere," the Espada said as the other Soul Reapers released their respective zanpakutos while Chad activated his Brazo Derecha del Gigante...

[Hidden Training Area, Urahara Shop]

Meanwhile...

The employees of the shop were hiding in fear of what they were seeing; one of the Gotei 13 captains had arrived at from the Soul Society only moments ago and had asked Yoruichi if she could meet Naruto. Unfortunately Kisuke had informed her that Naruto gone missing a few minutes ago.

Urahara had tried to force Naruto to stay in his psuedo-body in order to keep him hidden; in all of the mayhem that was occuring Urahara had forgotten, somehow, that Naruto did not separate from his body like Ichigo and the others when he went into his Soul Reaper form. Naruto used this cockup, on Kisuke's part, to his advantage by making two clones, having one of them transform into Kurama's human form while using the Tailed Beast's chakra to perform that transformation.

While Kurama, who was able to reenter Naruto's body at anytime, went back into Naruto's body, the clone that did not transform asked for a bottle of water; after receving that bottle the clone went to where his original was hiding. The ninja then transformed into an exact copy of the bottle while the clone drank all of the water in the actual bottle; after hiding that bottle in one of his pouches the clone then got one Jinta to go throw the "bottle" since the nearest trash can was at the entrance to the store. Once Jinta threw the fake bottle away and went back into the training area under the store Naruto release the transformtaion jutsu and, while keeping his power suppressed, made his escape, with Kurama coming out of Naruto when they had gotten a few miles away from the store. It was at that point that both Kisuke and Yoruichi discovered what had happened.

All-in-all, this escape took a few minutes to complete; despite the brilliance of the plan, however, Soifon was still not amused.

"HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW WHERE UZUMAKI IS, YOU DUMBASS!?" she roared at the helpless shopkeeper as she tried to kick him in the face; while Urahara knew that she still despised him he didn't expect her to be in that much of a bad mood. Yoruichi was equally surprised by this display of rage.

"Now what's with the sudden temper, Soifon?" the Goddess of Flash asked, almost mockingly, as her former student continued to try, unsuccessfully, to land a blow on her second least favorite person in the universe. That distinction had, for the time being gone, to someone that Soifon has yet to met.

Soifon had learned that Yoruichi had trained Naruto in the use of the Shunpo and Shunkō through the reports brought in by the Executive Militia; while this had undoubtedly angered the Captain 2nd Division she was even more infuriated when she also learned that this Chakra Realm ninja had, supposedly, perfected the signature technique of Corps Commanders of the Executive Militia to an even greater extent than either she or her former mentor. It was this last claim that compelled her to go to Karakura Town when she got the opportunity to do so; when Soifon arrived she found out, however, that not only found had the Espada begun their attack only a few minutes prior but that the object of her new grudge, who was also the one that the Arrancars were likely after, haad given both Kisuke and Yoruichi the slip. The 2nd Division Captain was, obviously, not happy about any of this.

Soifon was about to explain herself when, out of nowhere, a sudden surge of spiritual pressure from three more individuals emanated from the outskirts on far side of town. Soifon, Kisuke, and Yoruichi then felt their hearts stop cold when another individual near the first three released his/her spiritual pressure; unlike the other three, however, this one had another energy emanating from, an energy that was also being released by a fifth person.

"Those two fools Naruto and Kurama are already fighting the Espada," Yoruichi said with apprehension, remembering that the Tailed Beast had also escaped; before she could do anything else, however, she saw that Soifon had just released the Shikai of her zanpakuto.

"Let me deal with this, Lady Yoruichi," Soifon requested; she didn't even bother to wait for a reply, however, as she left the training area a split-second later.

"Soifon!" Yoruichi yelled as her former student left, heading in the direction of the emerging battle; Yoruichi then turned to her old friend Kisuke before they both used their Shunpo. There was something they had to do before they went to that battle...

[Near the Outskirts of Karakura Town]

While The Preceding Events Were Occuring...

Since their fellow Arrancars had drawn out many of the spiritual aware individuals Karakura town, Ulquiorra, Yammy, and Harribel had a hard time finding anyone they could attack in order to draw their target out; Yammy, being who he is, was losing his patience.

"Come on, Ulquiorra, can we just kill anyone that we find?" he asked.

"Aizen's orders were clear on this matter, Llargo; we were ordered to only attack those with above average spiritual pressure if we needed to draw him out," Ulquiorra replied; before Yammy else could say anything else, however, the Espada noticed that a nearby human was looking at them.

It was a liitle girl with large, dark grey eyes and black hair that was straight and cropped to hang around her face. Unfortunately for her the girl also had a larger amount of spiritual pressure than a normal human.

"Who the hell are you people?" she asked; the girl shuddered when Yammy simply grinned, though the evil undertones of his grin made the girl's reaction understandable.

"Finally. Hey Ulquiorra, can I kill her?" he asked his fellow Espada; the girl eyes widened in terror when she heard this.

As the girl stood there, paralyzed with fear, Yammy walked up to her and was about to grab her when he noticed a bunch of what to be reishi arrows flying at him; the Espada simply moved out of the way as he, along with the other two Espada, saw the source of the projectiles appear before them. The girl recognized the person.

"Uryu?" the girl asked to which the Quincy nodded; before he could say anthing else another voice was heard.

"Thank goodness we found you, Karin," the voice said; Karin looked to her left and saw Orihime standing beside her.

"You two need to get out of here right now," Uryu said as he raised his spirit weapon towards the Arrancars.

"But Uryu-," Orihime said before the Yammy charged at the three; Uryu tried to stop him with his arrows, but Yammy's Hierro was deflecting every the Quincy threw at him. The Espada proceded to backhand Uryu,which sent him flying.

"Uryu!" Orihime screeched in terror before she realized that Yammy was now in front of them.

"Didn't you learn your lesson the last time we met?" the Espada asked as he threw a punch at her. She was about to activate her Shun Shun Rikka when she a familiar voice.

"You won't need to use that, Orihime."

Orihime suddenly realized that someone had blocked the Espada's punch... with only his left hand. She knew who it was without him having to say of do anything else.

"How did you find us, Naruto?" she asked the ninja/Soul Reaper; Naruto turned to her and, while still gripping Yammy, flashed his usual grin.

"One of my many skills," Naruto said; Karin, having met Naruto when he came to Ichigo's house the day after he arrived in Karakura Town, was not surprised to see him... dressed as Soul Reaper. Yammy, whose hand was still being gripped by Naruto, burst into a maniacal laugh.

"Que Suerte (Spanish for "What Luck); the brat fell for it!" Yammy yelled out; Naruto turned his head to Yammy, his expression turning serious.

"Fell for what, Espada? I know that you guys are after me; I also know that you guys were attacking innocent people in order to get me to come out. It's not like I haven't gone through this before," Naruto said; at this point Harribel, who had been silent for the whole attack up until then, decided to question him on this.

"If that's true then why did you still confront us?" the Third Espada asked.

"Because I'm not the kind of guy who just sits back while innocent people die because of me," Naruto replied, getting a raised eyebrow from the Vasto-Lorde Arrancar.

"Then you're just stupid," Yammy taunted smugly.

"And you're a weak coward; you're barely a step above trash," Naruto retorted, having learned from Ichigo and the others what the Espada tended to call their enemies. Yammy's expression suddenly turned from smug to enraged the moment he heard Naruto's insult.

"I'll kill you for that!" Yammy roared as he tried to rear his other hand back for a punch; before he could unleash that strike, however, another person appeared and punched Yammy in the gut, sending the Espada flying.

"You took your sweet time, Kurama," Naruto said to the person.

"Does it matter? I got here in time, didn't I?" Kurama said. Ignoring the Tailed Beast's reply, Naruto prepared a Rasengan; unlike the previous times, however, he didn't need a clone to form the shell. He then flash stepped right in front of the "flying" Espada.

"Rasengan!" Naruto roared as he jammed his jutsu into Yammy's gut; to the surprise of the other two Espada the jutsu caused Yammy to "fly" back like a spinning top before he was stopped by the fifth tree he had hit, which rendered him unconcious. As Naruto walked back towards Orihime and the others Kurama flash a smile.

"So how's your chakra control?" he asked his Jinchuriki, who smiled.

"It's actually not as bad as I thought it would still be," Naruto replied. Naruto, during his Soul Reaper training, had not neglected his jutsus and, while training to keep his jutsus sharp, he found that he actually had very decent chakra control now that Kurama was no longer presenting a negative influence either within him or when he was outside of his body. This, combined with the still monstrous chakra reserves from both him and Kurama, meant that he could make his jutsus a lot deadlier.

Pushing those thoughts aside, Naruto turned to Orihime.

"We're going to take this fight elsewhere; when Kurama, Cifer, that lady, and I are out of sight heal Uryu and then get yourself and Karin out of here," he said; Orihime, though concerned for Naruto's safety, nodded in reply as she knew that he, like Ichigo, would not take no for an answer. Naruto and his Tailed Beast comrade then turned to face the Espada.

"I'll take on Cifer; you shoud take on the women," Kurama said, getting a raised eyebrow from Naruto.

"Are you sure about that, Kurama?" Naruto asked; he could tell that the women was the stronger of the two and had assumed that his Tailed Beast would've wanted to face her.

"You'll probably end up using some of my chakra in the battle; though I would still be stronger than either one of these Arrancars, one can never be too careful," Kurama explained getting a nod from Naruto.

"Are you two finished talking?" Ulquiorra asked the two.

Kurama stood before the 4th Espada in response.

"Why don't we take this fight elsewhere, Ulquiorra?" Kurama asked the Espada, having heard the first converstion between the Arrancar and Naruto a copule of weeks earlier; Ulquiorra, without saying anything, simply used his Sonido to head to an area farther away from the town. After Kurama followed the Espada, Naruto, sensing that the female Espada had moved to yet another location, Shunpoed towards the direction of her trailing spiritual pressure as he readied himself for his toughest fight yet...

Next Time - The Power of a Tailed Beast: Kurama vs. Ulquiorra

Important A/N: Even though this won't begin until partway into Part 2 of the story I want to make sure you readers are willing to go aboard with this idea. I have an idea that I would like to try that I thought of just a few days prior. The idea is to add, during certain scenes in this story, links to certain Youtube videos that play the themes from the original soundtracks(OSTs) of Naruto and Naruto Shippuden so that you readers can listen to them while reading those scenes. How did I come up with this idea? I have a habit of playing music (particularly if I think a song/theme fits perfectly with a scene in said story) when I read any story, since I tend to enjoy a story better when I am able to visualize a scene and a good theme always helps me do so. Do you like this idea? Do you think it's a bad concept? Give me your opinions on this when you're writing your reviews or, preferably, via a pm.