Pairings: Since I know you're chomping at the bit for this. So I'm leaning heavily towards a lite Orihime x Ishida, and Rukia x Renji. Rukia x Renji always felt right, they've been through a lot together, and I think Rukia has a hard time relating to Ichigo sometimes. For an Ichi pairing, I'm not sure yet, I'm waiting to see how things play out, but a whatever I do, I might make it quite lite and then do an offshoot story with them so it doesn't ruin the story for anyone. I'll tell you now, I'm leaning towards Neliel or Grimm, but with both of them I can see it being extremely unconventional. So there you have it ~

[EDIT] Rayvanhur made a good point, and I've rewritten a lot of this chapter. It's not vastly different, the end result is the same, but I thought you should be aware.

Ganbari masu!

Visored

- xxx -

Ichigo stood outside that twelfth division doors, scowling at all the traps laid around him. In the ground, the doors, the walls. They were all Kidou type, layered into technology, and while none of them would actually do damage to him, it would be annoying to get blown up first thing in the morning.

He put his hands on his hips, getting irritated. "Oy! I know you can see me, open the fucking door!"

And more silence. He was considering just blowing the doors down. He wasn't going to just stand around outside all day. He didn't think it was too much to ask that Mayuri bend his schedule to accommodate him, the shifty bastard. After what he did to Ishida, he wasn't in the best of moods.

He reached for Zangetsu's hilt. "I'm about 3 seconds away from "testing" your defenses!"

"One!"

"Two!"

The doors moved, then shifted open, Nemu standing on the other side, hands clasped in front of her. "Good morning, Kurosaki-kun. If you would come with me."

Of course the bastard wouldn't come himself. He let go of his sword and followed her in silence. It was a long hallway, and he had a feeling it was just as precarious as the front doors. She asked, "How is the Quincy?"

He hadn't been expecting her to ask that. "Yeah, Orihime healed him, he's fine."

"I see. I'm glad."

Then the conversation lapsed back into silence. He wondered why she cared, but then he remembered Ishida explaining what happened with her during their fight. He'd gotten a simple explanation, but no details, and now he wondered if there was more to it.

She led him to a huge room with massive ceilings, all sorts of technology and experiments he didn't understand and didn't want to understand cluttering the space. It was dimly lit, the only real light coming from a huge computer display that filled the far wall.

He picked out Mayuri's silhouette by the monitors. He crossed over to him, trying not to look too closely at the more questionable experiments. "Let's get this over with."

Mayuri's face seemed to be stuck in a permanent expression of disgust, muttering angrily. "What a waste of time and resources. If the girl was turned over to me I'd have the blasted rock out of her soul in minutes."

Ichigo's voice was deadpan. "That would significantly shorten your life."

Mayuri scoffed and waved a hand in dismissal. "The soul wouldn't be that badly damaged."

"Just make the call." His hands were already balled into fists. He couldn't stand this guy, he reminded him of Szayel; they had the same eyes.

The taicho's hands danced over the keyboard while Ichigo came up beside him. He didn't stop typing, but he glanced across to him. "Your reiatsu is intriguing."

"Fuck off."

"The readings I'm getting off of you are familiar. If I could just get some blood-"

"No." He wasn't amused, and he wasn't fooled. "Stop stalling, connect the call."

Mayuri's expression was flat, pressing a single button. A smaller screen turned to static, then flickered to show picture, Urahara appearing on the other end. He lifted his fan, a wide grin on his face. "Ah, if it isn't Mayuri and Kurosaki-san! I love what you've done with the place!"

Mayuri ground his teeth. "I didn't contact you for idle chatter." He turned away and waved Ichigo forward. "Wrap this up."

Ichigo stepped forward, resting his hands to his hips. He didn't let Mayuri get behind him, keeping him in his peripheral. "Hey, geta-boshi."

"How are the others? Doing well, I hope."

"Ah, they're alright. Aizen is dead, but I need you to remove the Hogyoku."

Kisuke snapped his fan closed. "Is that wise?"

"Cat's outta the bag, Urahara." He wasn't going to tell him anything specific over a monitored transmission, but Kisuke wasn't stupid.

He dipped his head in understanding, tapping his fan against his chin in thought. "Ah. I'll make preparations. When should I expect you?"

"We're heading back today."

He smiled. "Then I'll be ready tonight. See you, Kurosaki-san."

The picture went to static, Ichigo's eyes sliding over to Mayuri. He looked like he was being sneaky, and it made him nervous. Mayuri seemed to think he was the predator here, that was false.

He was in his path, so he made to go around him. Mayuri reached out to grab his arm, and his eyes snapped to Mayuri's in warning. "Don't touch me." He lowered his reiatsu to where he could feel every ounce of his rage.

Mayuri's hand stopped short of his shihakusho, his mouth stretched in a manic smile. "How interesting." Ichigo was surprised he could still stand, he chalked it up to whatever modifications he'd done to himself. "You intended to kill me just now, didn't you?" He started to laugh. "The tests I could run would be so enlightening."

He clenched his jaw and turned away, cautiously monitoring his reiatsu in case he tried anything tricky. "Crazy bastard."

He left to the sound of his laughter echoing in the hall and he tried to ignore the urge to run away. If he could get away with killing Mayuri with no consequences, he probably would have.

He went back to the eleventh to pick up his friends, then they set up to Sokyoku Hill to go through the Senkaimon so Orihime, Chad, and Ishida could travel back through the reishihenkanki. He didn't talk much, tense after meeting with Mayuri. He didn't mean to come off as distant, but he couldn't help feeling distracted.

Without Kisuke there to calibrate the Senkaimon properly, once they ran through and away from the cleaner, they ended up in the sky. He was fine, heights weren't a problem, but the others would have had trouble if Urahara hadn't been there to catch them with his weird magic carpet.

Rukia wasn't with them yet, she was coming to Karakura, but with an escort this time. Knowing that a Garganta could be opened within the dangai made traveling through it dangerous when she had the Hogyoku inside her soul. Byakuya volunteered to be an escort, along with Renji. Now that Renji was confirmed to have bankai, it was apparently deemed he was good enough to count as a bodyguard.

Urahara brought them all back to the shop to wait for Rukia and her escorts, but Ichigo didn't intend to wait around. He said some goodbye's and left, along with Ishida and Chad. Orihime stayed behind to wait for Rukia. He felt a little bad, but from what he understood, it was painless, so once the Hogyoku was separated from her soul, she would only need to rest and recover.

There was nothing he could do here, and he wanted to get the Visoreds taken care of as soon as possible, and he wanted to be the one to tell them. He could go knock down their door, or he could call them to him, and he thought the latter was smarter. They would only get more suspicious than they were already going to be if he just barged in.

Kisuke cornered him before he left and gave him a cell phone, one that wouldn't just stop working the second his reiatsu touched it. He was tempted to leave it, knowing there was a tracker in it, but he decided he trusted Kisuke, and if it made the man feel better to know where he was, so be it. Plus, it could actually be useful if he needed to get in touch.

- xxx -

He stood more or less in the middle of town, albeit several hundred feet above it, not too close and not too far from the warehouse. He didn't remember exactly where it was after all those years, but he found it simply because he noticed an area he couldn't sense at all. It was like his attention was diverted away from it. He'd know Hacchi's work anywhere, he didn't think anyone that wasn't already looking for it would have noticed.

He dropped his reiatsu down to a level others could sense it, letting his hollow reiatsu bleed into his power. He was essentially setting up a beacon, so all he had to do was wait. There was no way the visoreds wouldn't be curious enough to check.

He wasn't disappointed, the reiatsu he felt rushing towards him was distinctly hollow-like. If he wasn't so familiar with the visored in question, he might have missed it he was masking it so well.

They stopped a cautious distance behind him, but they made no move to draw their weapon. So far so good. His lips turned up into a small smile. "Hirako."

"Ahhhh, so you know my name?" Hirako made a thoughtful sound, tapping his sword on his shoulder. "I don't recall ever introducing myself. Have we met before?"

Ichigo turned, seeing that cocky smirk on Shinji's face. He said, "You wouldn't remember."

"You think I'd remember hair like that."

Ichigo's smile widened, for once not bothered by the taunt. It was good to see him alive again.

Hirako said, "You put out a bunch of reiatsu to get our attention, right? How do you know about us? What do you want?"

He paused, not certain if telling him was the wrong move, then cut to the chase. "I thought you'd like to know that Aizen is dead."

Hirako's eyes narrowed, his hand white-knuckled on his Zanpakuto. "What was that?"

"Aizen is dead. I killed him."

Hirako frowned, looking at Ichigo like he was seeing him for the first time. "You're lying. No way some strawberry head punk killed Aizen."

"Why would I lie about that? I know what he did to you and the others, you needed to hear it, and I wanted to be the one to tell you."

"I don't know you."

Ichigo's eyes narrowed in remorse. "I know you."

Hirako suddenly jumped forward, drawing his Zanpakuto and slashing in the same motion.

"Poor choice of words, moron."

Don't wanna hear it.

Ichigo didn't want to draw his sword on a friend, so he reached up and caught the blade in his hand. "Hirako, I didn't come here to fight you."

The former captain was startled by the ease that he stopped his sword, his eyes widening. He jerked his sword from his grip and slid back in the sky, reishi swirling around his feet. "Impossible."

Ichigo sighed. "People keep saying that, and it's clearly not." He held up his hands in surrender. "I just want to talk. Preferably with all of you."

Hirako just frowned at him.

He dropped his hands, reaching for the phone, noticing how Hirako tensed when he put his hand in his pocket. He slowed considerably, holding the phone up so he could see. "Chill, it's just a phone." Turns out it was useful after all. "Give me a sec."

He called Kisuke, who had conveniently added himself to speed dial. He held it up to his ear, a scowl on his face.

"Kurosaki-san~!" He picked up rather quickly. So maybe he knew this would happen; sneaky bastard.

"Oy, Kisuke. Got someone here for you to talk to."

"Could that be Hirako-chan?"

"You're not cute, and I don't wanna hear an 'I told ya so!'"

"Maaaah, so mean, Kurosaki-san." His scowl deepened, taking the phone away from his ear and tossing it at Hirako.

The visored blanched, hand snapping up to catch it before it hit him square in the face. He hesitantly lifted the phone to his ear, watching Kurosaki out of the corner of his eye. Ichigo wasn't privy to their conversation, and given Hirako's expression didn't change, he couldn't guess either.

The visored looked away in thought, then back to Ichigo. He didn't know what Kisuke told him, but Hirako looked decidedly less homicidal. Hirako grunted an affirmative, then hung up, flipping it shut. He tossed it back to Ichigo. "Sure sounds like Kisuke."

"Of course it's Kisuke. Dunno what he told you, but I'm on your side. Can't prove it if you won't let me, but think about it, if I really wanted to fight you, do you really think I would have to go through all this trouble?"

Hirako hadn't lowered his sword, lifting a shoulder in a shrug. "Beats me, what do you want?"

"From you? Nothing."

Hirako snapped, "Bullshit."

Seeing the hostility in the other was a bit jarring, it was proof that the life he remembered hadn't happened. He supposed he should have expected this. It was a lonely feeling.

He frowned, because this wasn't getting him anywhere. "You helped me control my inner hollow, I owe you for that. You don't remember it, but I do." It was a partial lie. He didn't feel he owed Hirako a debt, he simply considered him a friend.

"Yer talkin' crazy, kid."

He let out a slow breath, feeling frustrated. "I get it, Hirako. Some kid that knows more than he should shows up on your doorstep with hollow reiatsu that isn't batshit. I'd be suspicious too. If you can't trust me, trust that I hated Aizen. I could lie and say I killed him so no one else would suffer, but I killed him because I wanted him to die, he deserved it." He let out a breath, unclenching his hands. Calm down. "He ruined my life. He ruined yours. At the very least, beyond what we are, we have that in common."

Hirako weighed the truth of what he said, he could see it in his eyes. Slowly, the visored sheathed his Zanpakuto. He was still on guard, but he seemed to have come to a decision. "What did you say your name was?"

"I didn't. I'm Ichigo. Kurosaki Ichigo."

Hirako turned, keeping him in his sight. "Okay, Ichigo. Why do you want to see the others?"

"Because this involves all of them. I'm just trying to help." No answer. "Okay, fine. Your hollow mask looks kind of Egyptian." He traced a pattern in the air. "Like that." Hirako's eyes narrowed, and he tried to think up one better.

He looked away in thought, trying to think on the visoreds they had been, not who they had become. "Mashiro could keep her mask on from the get-go with no limit. Lisa likes hentai, she reads it all the time, right there in the open. You and Hiyori fight all the time, she probably only wears those god awful sandals because they're easy to take off and hit people with them." There was a wistful fondness to his tone, he was an awful liar, and awful at hiding his emotions. He missed them, and they didn't know him anymore. They might not ever know him again.

"I'll take you to see the others." Ichigo looked up at him in surprise, eyes wide. "They can judge for themselves."

In a burst of reishi, Shinji sped off towards the warehouse and Ichigo followed, keeping himself in Hirako's peripheral just to give the visored some peace of mind. He stayed quiet, worried he'd change his mind if he spoke up. Shinji was smart, smarter than him anyway, so he wasn't sure what it was that had changed his mind.

It didn't take long for them both to get there, stopping just outside Hacchi's barrier. Hirako stepped up to the orange barrier and after moment, a person sized gap opened up for them to pass through.

The inside was just as dreary as he remembered, but the feeling of nostalgia that bubbled up inside him was unexpected. He'd only spent a few days here, but it was still strange to be back.

The visoreds were all perched on various levels of the dilapidated warehouse, all sizing him up. A shrill voice rang out. "Who're you?!" He looked up at Hiyori with an amused grin. His heart tightened hearing her voice. Her spine was severed, she was dying, Orihime wasn't there, she wouldn't get there in time. Shinji was shouting-

"This is Kurosaki Ichigo." Hirako's voice broke him from his thoughts, blinking. "He has something to tell us." They could tell from his tone that he was serious, even Lisa looked up and paid attention.

Hiyori jumped down a level to get a closer look, ready to draw her Zanpakuto. "You really a visored? You feel weak."

Ichigo groaned. "Yes, you brat, do I really gotta prove it?"

"Hiyori-"

"Can it, baldy! I wanna see what he can do." Shinji made a half-hearted attempt to stop her, but she was already drawing her Zanpakuto.

Ichigo wasn't in the mood to wipe the floor with his friends. He shot a warning look at Shinji, then reached up, his hand bent in a claw over his face and pulled, drawing his mask out. He was proud of himself for only drawing out his mask, but he didn't think he could hold it that long.

They were all suddenly tense, hands twitching towards their Zanpakuto. He knew what surprised them the most was the lack of reiatsu accompanying the sheer, brutal killing instinct that clouded his aura.

He looked up at her from beneath his mask and asked, "Proof enough for you?"

Hiyori's face was twisted into confusion and rage. "Why can't we feel yer reiatsu?"

He let the mask dissolve before things got too tense. Before, he'd been a threat, but there were so many of them, they knew they had the advantage. This time around, he was an unquantifiable threat. He cut right to the chase before someone got too tense. "Aizen is dead."

There was a shocked pause, the Visored's staring at him like he'd just announced he was Aizen. Hiyori demanded. "How?"

"I killed him."

"How did you gain control of your hollow? No way you did that alone!" She didn't deny that he could, but he could feel the doubt from the visoreds.

Ichigo lifted his shoulder in a shrug. "You can have the truth if you want, but I doubt you'll believe me." He glanced at Shinji, still uncertain if he believed him or not.

Shinji frowned. "Let's hear it anyway."

He leveled a look at Hirako, wondering if the Visored would trust him enough to believe him. He kept it short and sweet. "I'm from a future where Aizen won. The Hogyoku sent me back in time when I touched it." He lifted a shoulder in a shrug. He cared a lot, but he was starting to lose hope. "Figured I'd kill him and do everyone a favor." He said it lightly, but his voice was still laced with hate and bitterness. He wasn't ever going to get over that, but he supposed there were worse things.

Hiyori snorted, "You expect us to believe that shit?!"

"I beat your record."

Hiyori's eyes narrowed, leaning forward like she was considering attacking. "What the fuck are you talking about baldy?"

"Sixty two minutes, thirty seconds."

Kensei grit his teeth. "No way, no one's ever taken that long."

Ichigo looked a little self conscious. "Well I did." He knew they wouldn't be able to explain how he knew Hiyori's record. It wasn't something they would share outside of their group, it was a simple, unspoken rule. They looked out for their own, and even when Shinji became a captain again, he always considered himself a visored first.

He looked up and explained, "You guys helped me at first, although some of it I was forced to learn on my own. I think my power is a bit different than yours, because I was born this way." He lifted his hand to the back of his neck with a frown. "This is really starting to hurt my neck, can we take this talk somewhere else?"

Hiyori shouted, "What makes you think yer stayin'!"

"Well, couple of reasons. I know you want to stay out of shinigami business, but I'm trying to clear your name, was gonna keep you in the loop. For another, with Karakura about to be involved in another war, thought you might want to know how I got stronger."

Hirako's eyes narrowed. "Stronger how?"

"I can show you, but if I do, we should move this downstairs." He glanced pointedly at the staircase leading to the basement, and he knew the visoreds were wondering how he knew it was there.

There was some silence, some arguing, then their curiosity won out, and he found himself in a rocky training field that was nearly identical to Urahara's. He warned, "Don't flip out. You can put me in a barrier if it makes you feel better."

Hacchi looked to Shinji, but the visored said nothing. No barrier then.

Zangetsu?

"Yeah, yeah, I'm payin' attention."

He pulled on Zangetsu and his hollow met him halfway, materializing before him. He couldn't see the look on Zangetsu's face, but all the Visoreds suddenly had their hands on the hilt of their Zanpakuto, all except Machiru. Girl was weird, she didn't seem to have an ounce of fear in her.

His hollow reached up to wrap his hand around the hilt of his inverse Zangetsu, and Ichigo still didn't move. Zangetsu didn't scare him, they were one in the same. He'd done this in his inner world, but never with witnesses. It felt wrong to share this, but he knew them, and they wouldn't understand unless they saw it. Everyone's inner hollow was different, but it wasn't possible to gain more power if all you did was subjugate your hollow.

The bandages unfurled around the sword as he drew it, resting the tip right above Ichigo's heart. He turned slightly to face him, turning his back on the visoreds. Zangetsu's smile softened into one of mutual understanding.

He drove the blade into his heart.

He heard the visored draw their swords, but there was no blood on the sword in his chest, it passed through him like he wasn't even there. From the feet up, Zangetsu began to dissolve back into him, Ichigo's reiatsu swirling around him in black and red.

Instead of his hollow sinking back into his inner world, he hovered just beneath the surface. It felt like when he took control, but instead of being in the backseat, they were both at the forefront of his mind. They stared back at each other until Zangetsu completely disappeared, making his power entirely hollow in nature.

His transformation this time was a bit different. His skin shocked white, a hollow hole opening in his chest. Two jagged black stripes ran down his face and over his eyes. He didn't have his mask this time, horns stretched from his hair, which lengthened down to his waist. His hands sharpened into claws, red fur around his wrists like cuffs, and around his neck like a mane.

The visoreds drew their weapons, clearly not expecting this. Ichigo still made no move to draw his sword, blackened eyes narrowing with a small smile he hoped wasn't too terrifying. "I know you never asked to be visoreds, but you can make the best of it. Think about it."

He turned on his heel, reaching with his instincts to rip the world. He lifted his hand in a half wave. "It was nice seeing you again." The air split open like the jaws of a beast, turbulent reishi swirling beyond the tear. He stepped into the garganta, closing it behind him before they could respond.

He wasn't sure what would happen next, but he was worried the visored might treat him as an enemy. Things were very different now, the friends he knew were just strangers now. He forced the feeling aside, not allowing it to interfere with what he was about to do.

It was a short walk before he emerged in the reishi thick environment of Hueco Mundo. His feet barely sunk into the sand, reaching out with his senses only to feel nothing but lizards and nothingness. He muttered, "Is it sad that I almost missed this fucking place?"

They planned this well enough. He could hold this form as long as he had the reiatsu to spare, and he always had plenty of reiatsu. Being in bankai for over a month was unheard of, but he did it as easily as breathing. Now that he'd hooked the visoreds, he needed to handle Hueco Mundo before the shinigami got involved. His talk with Yama-jii had bought him nothing but time.

"We gonna fight?"

"Psh, what do you think? Ready to show some arrancar who's alpha dog?" They'd planned this, but he could count the number of times he'd merged with Zangetsu on one hand. His words weren't so distant, they were loud in his mind, like his thoughts were his own. He wondered if this is was how Zangetsu usually heard him.

The swell in his reiatsu, the surge of bloodlust, that was all the answer he needed from Zangetsu.

He bent his knees and ran, leaving a swirl of reishi and the boom of sonido in his wake. The dunes flew by in a blur, the silence so reminiscent of his inner world. He knew this place better than his own home.

He ran straight towards Las Noches. He'd invaded that place more than once, and he'd been far weaker back then. Now he wasn't rushing to invade, he was going to conquer it.

- xxx -

Yay, on to the good stuff! I really do like Shinji, there will be more of the visoreds for sure. And now Hueco Mundo!