Sorry for the delay in this chapter being posted. Between class and some of my other stories competing for attention, it took slightly longer to write this part. Also, this is my official caveat, but there will be unexpected plot twists ahead in some of the upcoming chapters. Hopefully you are enjoying this. Might take me a few days but Chapter 11 will be posted soon.
"Did she talk to you at all?" Renji asked as Rukia joined the rest of them in the basement again. The muscles in his shoulders were a little tense as he watched the fight between Ikkaku and Muhicchi. The two men had been fighting for the better part of five minutes before Rukia left, and now, another five minutes later, neither of them seemed to be showing any signs of tiring yet.
Rukia did not answer him but merely shook her head as she moved to stand with the rest of them, carefully elbowing Ichigo so that she could move between him and Renji into a clear view of the fight. Ichigo gave the obligatory grumbling comment at being shoved that he knew Rukia was expecting and let his eyes go back to watching the fight. He knew from personal experience in his own fight with Ikkaku that the man was able to move with an ease that most people could not manage against. But the blonde shinigami seemed to be maneuvering around each of his movements, dodging and tumbling so that from a distance, his style looked like an acrobatic dance, not anything even remotely deadly. Ichigo had never seen anyone able to move like that while using a sword, but Muhicchi was, and well too. It was impossible to tell when any blow landed, but the last one had left a red line running across the bald man's head.
And this was with neither of their swords released.
It was hard to believe that an unranked shinigami like Muhicchi was able to fight against someone as strong as Ikkaku. So hard to believe that Ichigo felt his eyes beginning to narrow.
"How is he able to move that fast?" Ichigo asked Renji. The vice-captain looked at him through narrowed eyes, letting Ichigo know that he had clearly interrupted Renji's thinking by speaking. Ichigo just looked at him, his eyes staying steady and unwavering as he waited for an answer. Maybe it was a good thing that he had broken Renji's line of thought. He had no doubt that Renji had been paying attention to the fight, but after how his face had changed when Rukia had come back from talking to the girl who had come with the unit. He was fairly sure he had heard one of the shinigami call her Suiren, but whatever her name was, he was fairly sure that Renji and Rukia were thinking about her a lot more than the fight.
"He shouldn't be able to, should he? Anyone that strong should have a rank." Ichigo guessed smoothly. Renji continued to stare at him over Rukia's head, making it quite clear that he had no intention of answering Ichigo's questions. No surprise there. Most of Soul Society it seemed felt no need to explain things to him, regardless of what was happening or if he was involved. After all, he was only a substitute shinigami as far as they were concerned. He had almost resigned himself to be left out of the loop one more time when he heard the deep rumbling baritone behind him.
"Muhicchi was not always unranked. He used to be the fourth seat of the Third division. That was before his captain caught him breaking into the wrong files using the office safe and the air vent. I believe Subutaiki-san viewed being transferred and stripped of his rank as the least of the punishments he was offered."
"And how did you learn this about Muhicchi?" Renji asked, his voice as concerned as it was inquisitive.
Nodaikka did not seem to be flapped by the tone and replied calmly, completely unruffled by the question. "I was already in the unit when he was transferred in, and he voiced his opinions a little too loudly to senpai and myself about how he felt being assigned to someone he once would have outranked. Especially someone who was as competent as senpai is. He would have gotten over that eventually, but I helped make sure that eventually came a little sooner than it might have otherwise. Once, he found out that all of us had been ranked officers and at least half had once outranked senpai, he was a little easier to deal with."
A sudden flare of energy blasted through the room and Ichigo turned, half expecting it to be Muhicchi who had finally decided that Ikkaku was deadly enough to release shikai. But Muhicchi was standing there, perfectly still as Ikkaku's sword became the stafflike weapon it was when released.
Of course, he looked ecstatic at being able to have a worthy opponent to fight against, but it was clear that Muhicchi had gotten the better of the fight so far, with not even a scratch on him.
Ikkaku moved, the butt of one of the end pieces of his staff catching on the hem of Muhicchi's hakama, tearing the cloth nearly to the knee.
"Leave my clothes on me!" Muhicchi replied, his tone as sardonic as ever, but he was apparently not happy with how close that last hit had come. After a few more hits from both, Soifon called the fight. It was clear that Muhicchi would be able to manage against any arrancar after what they had seen. Nodaikka followed Renji past Ichigo to the area of the boulder ridden basement that was mostly level and in clear view of the precipe where all of the onlookers had settled. Muhicchi came back, settling comfortably into the traditional lotus meditation stance and began to rub the back of his shoulders completely oblivious of Ichigo, or it seemed anything else. In spite of having no apparent injuries, it seemed that Muhicchi had not gotten through the fight as completely unscathed as it seemed with the effort that the sheer amount of energy that his fighting style required. Nodaikka's at least was similar enough to Renji's that he was able to move slower, allowing himself the needed time to calculate moves and block blows. However, after only a short time, the now familiar cry of "Howl, Zabimaru," echoed through the basement, while once more while Nodaikka still left his sword unreleased. Still, there was a determination that honed the fighting to a degree that Ichigo was not used to, even with the shinigami. In an odd way the men's insistence on fighting this well to please the officer who was in charge of their group reminded him of his younger sister Karin and the group of boys who insisted on trying to keep up with her as she bossed them around. Suiren herself though reminded him more like Ishida. The way she kept herself so distant, the colder personality, the stubborn pride that they based every decision off of. All she needed was one of the damn crosses that Ishida sewed on everything and she might have passed for being Quincy as well. At least she did not seem nearly as arrogant Ishida, which might have been her saving grace he thought, dodging slightly as a chunk of rock which had splintered off one of the boulders came veering towards them. Ichigo decided whatever he thought of the currently absent officer, she had clearly made sure that this unit could fight. Renji was breathing harder as he fought, as if trying to keep up with Nodaikka, and one of the blows which should have immobilized his right shoulder barely grazed him as he dodged, with a gracefulness that Ichigo would not have expected from someone that size. Muhicchi glanced over, catching Ichigo gaping oddly and smiled slightly before shrugging.
"If Nodaikka was the caveman he looks like, he would never have been a tenth seat straight out of the Academy in his original division."
Ichigo just kept his gaze straight ahead, staring as he caught Renji in the side, leaving the vice captain badge flapping limply against his arm as Renji's arm took the brunt of the blow. Enough so for Soifon to call halt.
"Eleventh?" Ichigo guessed, knowing he was wrong from the dry laughter.
"No, Do you really think that Kenpachi is the only one who gets to deal with troublemakers like us? There is a reason that the Seventh transferred him out."
Before Ichigo got a chance to ask anything else, Tessai came down the ladder, and following him was Suiren, just in time for the last testing.