A/N: Welcome back every one! This is a long one, so please bear with me. More explanations in the beginning, but we're going to return to some action by the end. Thanks for reading and reviewing so far and please continue!

Disclaimer:

"Ok, time to pick another disclaimer. Who haven't I called on yet? How about Inoue?"

Inoue pokes her head out on stage rather surprised.

"Oh, Mystica-san…" she says. "I already disclaimed that week you were, ah, missing…"

I blush as I say, "Oh, yeah, I forgot… Thanks again for that, Inoue." I have to clear my throat before continuing. "ok, well… how about…"

Suddenly Yoruichi's voice calls from off stage, "I'm still watching those reviews, Mystica!"

I gulp before saying, "oh, well, ok, so, let's see…"

Now Matsumoto prances on stage.

"Hello! If you need someone, I could disclaim for you. After all, I don't have much else to do now that you trapped me in the real world."

"Oh yes, that would be great, Matsumoto-san. Please do!"

She smiles and then leans out to show off her cleavage as she begins to talk. "Hello everyone! I really haven't been around much at all for this one, have I? Strange isn't it that someone as wonderful as me would be left out of the picture so much…?"

I interrupt with a warning tone, "Matsumoto…"

"Anyway! Back to what I'm here for! Mystica does not own Bleach… and a good thing too or I would die from boredom."

Chapter 11

"Alps," Urahara said plainly to the group that had gathered around his table. He looked fairly haggard and worn out, but he had emerged from his lab when he had heard the reports of what had been happening in town. It didn't take long for everyone else to hear about it either and they naturally all gathered at his shop to try and get to the bottom of the mysterious deaths.

"Alps? As in the mountains in Europe?" Ichigo asked rather confused.

Urahara shook his head. "No, the mountain range is named for these creatures, so I guess you're not that far off. They appear in Germanic fairy tales mostly, but they are quite real," he explained.

"What are they?" Rukia asked.

"That's a little more difficult to explain. In the first place, even those from Soul Society would debate whether they actually exist or not. They never appeared in Soul Society and so many there believe that they are just some fairytale that the humans came up with. Of course the stories were brought over to Soul Society when souls that that had heard them passed on."

"That's why that thing sounded familiar," Rukia said. "I had heard someone telling some story about one of those things, but I didn't remember what the name had been. Actually, I'm not sure I heard the name."

"Perhaps not," Urahara said as he pulled out his fan. He began to wave it reflexively beside his face as he continued to talk. "The strange thing about the Alps is that no one knows where they come from. They aren't like anything that we are familiar with such as hollows, arrancar or even the Bount."

"Do you think this is an attack from Atsushi?" Matsumoto asked.

Urahara closed his fan and pointed it at her, "Correct," he said. "There is no doubt that it must be. The prince has access to untold dimensions and so he would be the most likely candidate for coming up with such an obscure creature."

"Bur what are they?" Ichigo asked.

Urahara sighed and replied, "I don't know, exactly. Really the most information that we have on them comes in the form of fairytales so it's difficult to say for sure what they can and cannot do. But what all of the tales seem to agree on is that they are shape shifters, they cause nightmares, and can kill a human in their sleep. Beyond that is mere speculation."

"And what more do you speculate about them, Urahara-san?" Ishida asked.

He nodded towards Ishida and pressed on, "I believe that it is likely that they cause the nightmares in order to increase a person's spirit pressure. All humans, even those with no gift at all, have at least some amount of reiatsu and when a person is afraid or in danger, whatever amount they have is pushed to its maximum. Once the Alps have gotten the human to release as much energy as they can, they devour it. Whether or not that is what causes the human's death or they simply strangle the person to death afterward, I have no idea."

"So if I hadn't found Yuzu…" Ichigo said quietly.

Urahara looked at Ichigo sympathetically before gently nodding and saying, "Yes, your sister was lucky that you heard her. She could have wound up like the others through out town last night."

Ichigo didn't have anything to say to that. He simply sat there and stared blankly at the table in front of him.

It was Inoue that broke the silence next. "What can we do about them, Urahara-san?" she asked.

The ex-Shinigami shook his head sadly as he tapped the fan against his lips and said, "Right now, I don't know. As I said, there is very little information to go on with these creatures. And, for the moment, I simply don't have the time to start researching them."

"What do you mean?" snapped Ichigo. "Those things killed almost fifty people last night. They nearly killed my sister! Shouldn't they be more important right now?"

"Ichigo…" Rukia said softly to him, trying to calm him down.

Urahara simply returned his gaze without flinching in the heat of the substitute Shinigami's glare. "What do you think is more preferable? Allow me to continue my research into locating and getting to Atsushi so we can eliminate the root of our problem faster, or focus on those few deaths now instead of saving not just this world, but all of the other dimensions as well?"

Ichigo stared back at Urahara, not sure what his answer would be. He hadn't thought of it like that, but now that he was, he still couldn't decide what would be better. He hated the idea that anyone would have to die before they were able to stop Atsushi, but he understood what Urahara was trying to tell him. "I… I don't know," Ichigo finally said.

"Well I do," Urahara replied with an edge to his voice that the group was not accustomed to hearing. "We all have to make difficult decisions when facing a war, Ichigo. You know this already, but you are still led by your heart. Luckily I am not." With that the shopkeeper stood up and looked down at a rather stunned Ichigo. "I know you think me heartless to make this decision, but it is our only chance. I cannot take time to worry about the Alps when I am so close to finding what we need to take out their master. You are going to have to worry about the small fries on your own for the time being." With that he turned and left the room in a stunned silence.

XXX

A short time later Urahara was once again cloistered in his lab. He didn't hear the door open but he heard the voice that addressed him from the doorway. "So, Kisuke," Yoruichi's voice echoed into the room. She was leaning against the door just inside, watching as Urahara worked with his back to her. "Now you see how difficult it is to choose between what needs to be done and what your heart wants to do."

"Please," he spoke softly without looking back at her or breaking from his work. "Go away, Yoruichi-san."

"You can't ignore me forever, Kisuke," she said as she allowed a scowl to cross her face.

He sighed and said even softer, "No, but I can for now. I have nothing to say to you right now, Yoruichi-san. Please, just let me get back to work."

Yoruichi scoffed as she walked into the room. "Work… Who ever would have thought that the lazy Urahara Kisuke would ever use his work to hide behind? This isn't like you, Kisuke."

"Then tell me, what am I like?" he finally snapped as he whirled around in his chair and glared up at her. "What is it that you want from me? What do you think I should be doing? What should I have said? What should I say to you? You seem to have all of the answers when it comes to what I should be like, so please, tell me what I ought to be doing!"

Yoruichi stopped dead in her tracks and stared back at her friend. She tried to think back if there was ever a time that he had raised his voice to her in such a way before and she was quite certain that he never had. Not only that, but she couldn't remember a single person that had ever spoken to her like that in her very long life. She was Shihoin Yoruichi… heir to the great Shihoin family, rightful but now former commander of the Onmitsukido and former captain of the Second division… No one had ever dared to speak to her in such a way in her life.

Yoruichi, for once, couldn't think of a single thing to say to Urahara. "Kisuke…" she said, trying to figure out what had just happened.

"I think I asked you to leave, Yoruichi-san," he said to her and turned his back to her and began to work again.

She stared at his back for a while before she shook her head and slowly left the lab. She closed the door softly behind her and transformed into her cat form, leaving a pile of her clothes just outside the door. She looked back at that door for a second before she turned and quickly leapt out the nearest window and left the shop entirely.

Urahara heard the door slide shut behind her and he sighed to himself. He was shaking slightly after the outburst that he had given her, but he did not feel bad about it. She had been born a princess and so she had never been told before that she didn't have a right to other peoples' lives. This was probably the first time that anyone had ever told her off like that, and Urahara was convinced that it was something that she needed to hear. He just wished that it hadn't been him who had had to tell her.

XXX

After the rather awkward ending to their meeting, the rest of the group broke up. Ichigo took Rukia and headed out into the town, hoping to possibly stumble across something significant in regards to the new threat of the Alps. Rukia tried to explain to Ichigo that it was unlikely that something that liked to attack its victims in their sleep would be about during the day, but Ichigo couldn't sit still a minute more and needed to feel like he was doing something.

Chad had quietly dismissed himself and disappeared before anyone knew where he had gone. The only one that had noticed him leaving had been Nova. The mod soul also slipped out, and followed the teenager.

Matsumoto had been about to find her Gigai again to take it out for some shopping, but she caught a glimpse of the retreating Nova. "Where's he off too?" She asked herself and slipped outside behind Nova. She saw Nova disappear through one of his portals as soon as he was outside.

"That's strange," she muttered. She was fairly sure that she wasn't going to be able to figure out where he was going if he was using his teleportation skills, but then she saw Chad turning the corner at the end of the alley. She remembered that where Chad went, often Nova would be following. "I wonder what those two silent ones are up to now…"

She quickly decided that going on a little covert ops might be a bit more fun than going shopping again. Probably not much more, but a little bit. She leapt up into the air and took to the rooftops, trailing after Chad. She realized as she went that Nova would occasionally pop back into their dimension somewhere down at street level, always out of Chad's perception. "So he's following Sado… this could be interesting. Nova's following Sado and I'm following both of them."

Back at the shop, Ririn and Cloud both decided that they would change back into their plushy bodies. "Hey, Cloud," Ririn said as she opened her eyes in her bird body. "Where'd Nova go?"

Cloud looked around with his huge rabbit eyes and shrugged with his ears saying, "I don't know. He disappeared soon after Urahara-san left."

Ririn scowled before saying, "He's always running off like that without telling any one. He's far too silent for his own good." But she didn't seem to be too concerned because she hopped up onto the table and lay down on her stomach in front of a magazine. She opened it up and began to leisurely flip through it.

Cloud hopped up beside her and watched her flip the pages for a moment before saying, "Shouldn't we go look for him? We're supposed to be a team after all and I can't help but still feel a little worried about him after those people over in Soul Society captured us. I was really quite worried about you and Nova you know. I…"

"…Don't worry about him, Cloud," Ririn interrupted. "Nova is quite capable and none of us were in any real danger from the Soul Society jerks. They were just using us to test the others. They wouldn't have actually hurt any of us."

Cloud wasn't too sure about that, but he plopped down on the table beside Ririn and looked at the magazine over her shoulder.

XXX

Outside of the shop, Inoue stopped Ishida as he began to head off by himself. "Ishida-kun… What do you think we should do?"

He looked back over his shoulder at her. He was hesitant to tell her what he had planned. He was well aware that if she knew, then she would insist on going with him. He sighed to himself a moment, realizing that if he was being honest with himself, he probably shouldn't go alone. Besides that, it seemed that everyone else had already disappeared on them and Inoue had been left at loose ends again. It was obvious that this type of treatment was starting to wear thin on the girl who wanted to be helpful to her friends more than anything.

There was no guarantee that what he had planned was going to find trouble and he did like to spend time with Inoue. He nodded to himself before turning around and facing the girl. She was standing there, lightly holding her bottom lip in her teeth as if she expected him to not answer her. At what point in our attempt to protect Inoue-san did we begin to shut her out? He thought to himself.

"Inoue-san," he said to her as he walked back to where she was standing. "I was thinking… If these Alps are being sent from Atsushi, then it would make sense that they are getting here by the same means that he did."

She looked at him a moment before gasping and saying, "You mean the pillar in the park?"

Ishida nodded. "He said that he was leaving it up so that it would be easier to cross into this world later. So it would make sense that that was also how he sent the Alps last night."

"So you think that if we were to watch the pillar, than we might be able to catch the Alps before they can hurt anyone!" she exclaimed.

Ishida noticed that she had jumped right in with saying "we." He adjusted his glasses and nodded. "Would you like to come with me tonight, Inoue-san?"

"Oo!" she exclaimed. "You mean like a stake out! Oh, I can make up some coffee and donuts for us. I'm sure I have some interesting things to top the donuts with."

Ishida tried to keep himself from cringing at that thought and managed to offer her a smile, "That would be nice, Inoue-san," he told her to try and spare her feelings. "I'll come by your apartment at sun down and we can head to the park together."

She smiled brilliantly at him and nodded, "Great! It's a date!" With that, she turned and ran off towards her place. "I have a lot of cooking to do before then!" she exclaimed over her shoulder as she ran.

Thanks to her rushing off, she completely missed Ishida's slight blush that her date comment had given him. He shook off his momentary discomfort and then headed back for his own place. He also had a few things that he wanted to do before the night fell.

XXX

Nova stepped out of his most recent portal to find that Chad had finally stopped. The teen had returned to where Urahara had rescued him from just a few days ago. Nova, of course, didn't know this, but he suspected that that might be the case. He had heard from Ririn what had happened and how she had been forced to test Chad with visions of his grandfather.

The Mod Soul hung back behind the trees and watched Chad walk forward into a clearing. The boy walked out and knelt down in the middle of the area and bowed his head. Nova was confused for a moment but then he could hear that Chad was speaking softly. He realized that Chad was probably speaking to his deceased grandfather.

Nova felt a little sorry for having intruded on Chad when he was obviously dealing with something very personal. The mod soul was just about to leave when he sensed something shift in the spirit particles not that far away. It felt very different from anything that he had ever sensed before, yet it was very distantly akin to the feeling that he had when a Bount was nearby. But, whatever it was, it was getting closer.

Chad was startled as Nova suddenly appeared beside him. He stood up and asked, "Nova?"

Nova didn't look at him but rather back from the direction that he had just been. "Something's coming," was all the mod soul said.

It was all that Chad needed to know. He also turned around to look in the direction that Nova was staring and held his right arm out to the side, morphing it into its armor covering. The two stood there, completely silent for a moment, before they saw a man step through the trees into the clearing. He was a tall, muscular man with a beard and mustache that was mostly black but with streaks of gray and white running through it. His hair was just long enough to be able to see that it had a slight wave to it, also sporting the salt and pepper look. He had a black cloth wrapped around his forehead that dipped down and covered his right eye completely. His left eye, though, was just a bright green orb with no evidence of iris or pupil.

"So, you're not alone as I had thought," the man said as he stood at the tree line and looked both Nova and Chad over. He stood with his arms crossed as he obviously measured them with his single, unnerving gaze.

"Who are you?" Chad asked him.

The man was silent for a moment before he took a step forward and said, "My name is Jan Zizka, Servant of Atsushi."

"What do you want?" Chad said.

"I have been sent here to eliminate you." He turned his gaze on Nova and said, "You can leave now if you wish. I was sent only for the other."

Nova simply stood his ground and glared back at Zizka.

The man shrugged after a moment and replied, "Suite yourself." He took a step forward then and made a gesture with his arm. A wave of earth suddenly sprung up below his now outstretched arm and quickly rushed forward towards Nova and Chad.

XXX

"Ichigo, there's nothing that we can do right now, why don't we just return to your home and wait until night?" Rukia argued as they continued to walk down the street.

"I can't just sit at home and wait, Rukia." He replied. "I need to be doing something."

"Even if that something is just aimlessly wandering around town?"

He ignored her and continued walking. They were nearing a park and for whatever reason, Ichigo decided to enter it. They hadn't walked very far inside when Rukia suddenly gasped and stopped, throwing an arm out and stopping Ichigo as well.

"What is it?" he asked her.

"Something is here," she said cryptically as she began to scan over the area. The park seemed to be deserted for the most part with only one or two people walking along the path to their right. Other than that, Ichigo didn't see anything.

"I don't…" he began but stopped when he watched a man seemingly step out of thin air in front of them.

He was of middling height and rather slim. He had a narrow face that appeared all the more narrow by the long, black, curly hair that hung down past his shoulders. His eyes were completely dark blue orbs and stared hollowly at them.

"Who the hell are you?" Ichigo demanded as he pulled his Zanpakuto off of his back and pointed it at the man.

"You must be Ichigo, the human with Shinigami powers," the man said to Ichigo.

Ichigo narrow his eyes and said, "So what if I am? I asked who you are first."

The man continued to ignore Ichigo's question and turned to look at Rukia. "You are a friend of his, I presume."

She nodded a reply.

"Then I have no quarrel with you. You may leave now if you wish."

Ichigo stepped forward and said, "If you want to fight me, then go ahead, but stop ignoring my questions!"

The man looked back at him as Rukia muttered, "Ichigo…" in frustration.

"My apologies. My name is Eugene Savoyard, servant to the great Atsushi."

"So, you were sent by Atsushi," Ichigo said, gripping his sword tighter.

The man inclined his head and said, "That is correct. It is his wish that you are eliminated." He looked at Rukia again and said, "This is your last chance to leave, lady."

"I don't think so," she replied and drew her Zanpakuto.

"Don't worry, Rukia. I'll take care of him," Ichigo said and then launch himself at the man. Out of no where, a wall of ice met Ichigo's charge, solidifying around his sword so that it was wedged in place.

"Too easy," the man replied as he appeared at Ichigo's right with a katana of his own in hand. He swiftly slashed across at a height and angle to separate Ichigo's head from his body.

"Ichigo!" Rukia cried out a warning as she launched herself at Savoyard but she knew that she was going to be too late to stop the swing.

XXX

Ririn and Cloud were still sitting on top of the table looking at the magazine together when a sudden blast of fire shot through the open door to the shop behind them filled their room. Both of the mod souls screamed as they leapt from the table to the floor and ducked underneath the table.

Ririn spotted a plume of flames on Cloud's back an immediately began to pat them out with her wings.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow!" Cloud muttered as Ririn extinguished the flames.

"Hold still, Cloud!" she yelled at him as he tried to move around to get at the flames on his back himself. He stopped his movements and allowed her to finish putting them out. By the time she was finished, they saw that most of the room had now caught fire around them. Bits of flaming debris were beginning to fall from the ceiling and struck the table above them. It was quite apparent that they were now trapped inside the room.

"What do we do?" Cloud cried as he used his ears to cover his face from the smoke.

Ririn stared around wildly, not having a clue what they were going to do. If they were in their Gigais they could have just run through the flames, taking the burn damage to their bodies, but their spirit pills more than likely would have been fine if they just kept moving and made it out of the fire. But in these extremely flammable bodies that they currently wore, they would instantly incinerate, destroying their spirit pills along with the plushy bodies.

Not knowing what else to do, Ririn took a deep breath and cried, "Heeeelp!"

No sooner had she let out her cry when the door to the rest of the house burst open and Tessai leapt into the room. He didn't seem to notice the flames that were beginning to lick at his skin as he spotted Ririn and Cloud under the table and reached down, scooping them both up into his arms.

Once he had a hold of them, he paused in the middle of the room as the flames swirled all around. "What are you doing?" Ririn cried.

She looked up at him and he had his eyes closed and his lips were moving slightly. Suddenly he opened his eyes and pressed his palms together. As he slowly struggled to pull them apart, a yellow cube of light appeared around them, blocking out the flames. The further his hands spread, the further outward the yellow shield pushed the fire. It extinguished the flames as it went, soon leaving them in a fire free room.

"Tessai-san?" Ririn asked. She could see that he was still concentrating on expanding the cube shield even though the fire had been put out in their room.

After a moment, he dropped his hands and took a deep breath. "Let's see what's going on," he said and then went outside. The mod souls could see now that Tessai had completely surrounded the shop in his shield.

Ririn peeked out from Tessai's large arm at the flames that licked along the cubic shield that the man was holding up against the attack. The flames began to shrink back from the area just in front of them and a man stepped out from the conflagration.

It took a moment for Ririn to be able to clearly see the man against the bright glare from the flames behind him. He was a young, slim man with an almost angelic looking face. He had bright red hair flowing just past his ears and was holding a ball of flame in each hand. He also had eyes that were completely red.

"You aren't the one I was sent for," the man said as he spotted Tessai still holding up the shield around them. The man spoke with a soft, almost gentle voice that strangely seemed to slice through the roar of the flames all around them. "Where is the man with the hat and cane?" he asked.

Just then Ururu and Jinta came spilling from the house, the latter wielding his club and the former dragging her massive gun along with her. She took aim at the man on the other side of the shield but didn't do any more than that since she knew that her missiles would be unable to hit him while Tessai held up the shield.

"Well, I was sent for the other man, but it looks like I have found a few more interesting subjects to play with."

"Go back inside, kids," Tessai told them. He had beads of sweat breaking out on his face and Cloud and Ririn could feel his muscles as they trembled with the strain of holding up such a large and powerful shield against such a massive attack of flames.

Jinta scoffed at Tessai and said, "You don't think we're gonna let you have all the fun now?"

"Ururu! Jinta!" Urahara's voice sounded as he suddenly appeared from the ash-covered doorway. "Take Tessai and go downstairs!"

"Ah, there you are…" the man said when he caught sight of Urahara. "You're the one I was sent for… though I think it would be best to take out your friends as well."

Urahara ignored the man and came up to stand beside Tessai. He put his hand on Tessai's shoulder and said, "It's all right, my friend. Get inside. I'll take care of this now."

Tessai nodded his head once and said, "As you like, boss."

Jinta and Ururu came up to stand beside him and each took one of his arms and helped the large man back into the house. Urahara turned and faced the man commanding the flames for the first time. "If you were sent for me, then you can have me," he told the man.

The man slowly grinned at Urahara and said, "Your destruction is what I was ordered to do. The others will be for pleasure."

XXX

Ishida looked out his window and saw that the sun was beginning to set. He decided that he should start heading over to Inoue's to meet her. He had already changed into his Quincy uniform and strapped on his Seele Schneider, preparing for what they might encounter that night. He went out and was walking down the sidewalk when he stopped as something brushed against his senses.

He stood still, knowing that there was someone there, but he just couldn't quite grasp on to their presence. Suddenly he felt a ripple in the air behind him and he spun around, calling out his bow as he did so.

A man stepped out from the air itself and looked at him with appraising eyes. He was tall, barrel chested man with a bushy red hued beard. A mustache bloomed over his upper lip and came down either side of his mouth to rest on top of the bushy beard below. His red hair was long and fell around his should, also blending in with the beard. But the thing that stood out most about him were his two, white, soulless eyes. There was no evidence of pupil or iris, just too white orbs. But, it was obvious that he was still able to see as he looked right at Ishida and said, "So, you're it, huh?"

"It?"

"You're the Quincy in whom the boss seems to be so interested. You don't look like much. But you did seem to sense me before I stepped out, that's better than I would have thought possible."

"Who are you and what do you want with me?"

"I am Fredrick Barbarossa, servant of lord Atsushi. I was sent to find out just how good you are. He seems to be quite taken with you."

"Why me?"

"You're a Quincy. Let's just say that he had a certain interest in your kind. He wants to know how good the so called last of the Quincy is."

Ishida narrowed his eyes and looked at the man, wondering what it was that he was after. It didn't seem very likely that the son of the Spirit King would be all that interested in a Quincy. Was there something else behind this?

Suddenly Ishida felt both Chad's and Ichigo's reiatsu flare up. Somewhere in the distance they were facing opponents of their own.

The man looked off towards where Ishida could sense Ichigo. "Yes, Atsushi wanted to try out your other powerful friends as well. But, luckily for you, where as my comrades were directed to finish their opponents off, I was just sent merely to gage your abilities. I have no plans of killing you today."

"But my friends are meeting deadly force?"

He nodded, "If they don't prove to be too difficult, they will be killed."

"In that case…" Ishida said as he brought his bow to aim at the man, "I will have to finish you off quickly to go and help them."

The man laughed at him. "Brave words, but I don't plan on making this easy for you to walk away from. I may have been told to leave you alive, but I wasn't told in which state to leave you."

Suddenly a blast of air stuck Ishida in the face, nearly knocking him over. He kept from flying back by ducking and shielding his face with his arm while bracing his legs. Even so, he felt his entire body being slid back by the force of the wind.

"There isn't much of you, is there?" the man said, taking a step towards him.

The wind slackened just enough to allow Ishida to stand upright again. He brought up his bow and quickly shot off an arrow at the man coming towards him. The arrow had left on course, but Ishida had been a little shocked when it suddenly deviated from the path he had set it on. It arced to the left and sailed past the man's shoulder.

"You're using arrows against one who controls the wind… I don't see how you could possibly hope to hit me with those."

Ishida launched himself up into the air and suddenly appeared on the other side of the man and shot of a volley of arrows at his back. These arrows didn't get deflected by the man's ability to move the air, but he did suddenly disappear out of the rain of the arrows. He was off to Ishida's left now, eyeing him with a little more respect.

"So, you're fast. I hadn't expected that much either."

"I'm sure I have a lot of surprises for you."

Suddenly a blast of fire erupted into the air off to Ishida's right. It was several blocks away, but Ishida realized that it had probably come from Urahara's shop. As he realized this, he could sense that the ex-Shinigami was also in the middle of a fight. It wasn't often that Urahara was forced into the fray, but apparently he too was being targeted tonight.

Barbarossa glanced off towards the flames and sighed as he shook his head. "Otto is getting carried away again," he muttered to himself. "He can't do anything without making a scene."

"If Urahara-san is his target, then I would think that your friend would have to use everything that he has," Ishida said as he suddenly appeared behind the man again and fired off another volley of arrows.

The man vanished again to reappear only a few meters away to the right. Ishida could see that he had surprised the man when he materialized again. "I'll admit, Quincy, you are far faster than I would have thought possible of a mere human. But I assure you, I won't make that mistake again."

A second later a blast of wind struck Ishida in the chest, hurling him backward and slamming him into a tree trunk. His breath was momentarily knocked out and his vision clouded with dark starbursts. Even disoriented, he managed to shift out of the way of another blast of wind that had been meant to drive his body even further into the tree.

He had rolled off of the trunk and was kneeling on the ground as fragments of bark were sprayed over him from where the wind struck the tree where he had been. He was rather surprised at the level of force that this man was able to create from just the air. Quickly he clambered to his feet and vanished from Barbarossa's sight again to reappear close to the man's left. But the man seemed to have anticipated this move this time and was already reaching out towards Ishida and sending another blast of air.

This time it was such a narrow piece of air that it created a slice across Ishida's chest as it knocked him back. Gasping, Ishida put a hand over his chest and assessed the damage that he had just taken. The slice wasn't dangerously deep, but it was bleeding quite heavily. That blast of air had felt just like a sword slicing through his skin.

The Quincy finally realized just how dangerous fighting against someone who had control of the air itself was. But he realized something else. If he moved fast enough and in an unpredictable way, the man didn't seem to have very good reaction time.

Ishida began to move rapidly all around Barbarossa. He would vanish from sight and then suddenly reappear at a different location. Every time he stopped, he fired off several arrows before shifting on to another spot. Barbarossa would send another blast of air towards wherever Ishida appeared, but the Quincy would be gone before the blast reached him.

Suddenly Ishida appeared directly to the man's right and as he prepared to fire an arrow, a blast struck him again. This time it sliced deeply into his left arm, causing him to lose the arrow that he was about to fire.

"You should have varied your pattern more, Quincy," Barbarossa said as Ishida stumbled back. He was forced to dismiss his bow and hold onto his left arm to try and keep it from bleeding too much.

"I admit, I was careless on repeating my moves. But I did learn something important."

"And what would that be?" the man said with a slight sneer on his lips.

"That my speed is much greater than yours. You aren't controlling the wind directly, but rather the spirit particle in the wind. I also manipulate spirit particles, but I do so directly. Your method takes a little time to work. That slight delay is enough time for me fire and be out of the way again as long as you aren't able to predict where I am about to fire from."

The man's sneer turned slightly amused as he said, "You are quite good. No one else has ever been able to figure that out. But it doesn't matter. As long as you keep fighting at a ranged distance, I can still react quick enough to deflect your attacks. If you get too close, I can simply slide out of this dimension for a second and come up somewhere else out of the way. So it would seem that we would be at an impasse. That is, if this were the extent of my abilities."

Barbarossa then reached his arm out and pointed a finger at Ishida. At first, Ishida didn't notice anything. But then he felt his chest slowly deflating even though he was trying to take a breath. He struggled to gasp, but the air seemed to be simply leaking from his lungs just as fast, if not faster than he was able inhale.

He dropped to one knee as his vision began to swim. He couldn't figure out how he had become incapacitated so quickly just by lack of air. He was capable of holding his breath for several minutes, but it was only a matter of seconds now and he could hardly stay conscious.

"It's not just the air in your lungs, Quincy," Barbarossa said as he started to slowly walk towards Ishida. "I'm drawing out the air in your entire body. Soon, there won't be anything even in your blood to keep you alive."

Ishida's other leg gave out and he crashed to the ground, gasping to no avail as he desperately tried to think of something.

Ishida continued to gasp and choke on the ground as the man came closer and closer. "How far should I take this Quincy? Much longer and you'll have brain damage. Maybe I'll leave you as a vegetable. Maybe then you won't even realize that you have lost friends today when my brothers finish with them." The man was now standing over Ishida.

The Quincy's eyes were beginning to close and his struggles for a breath were growing weaker. "Now, last Quincy," Barbarossa said as he reached down and grabbed Ishida by the back of the neck and lifted him up off of the ground. He held the young man in front of him and stared at him with those white, soulless eyes. "Look at the one that has brought you to this."

Suddenly a Seele Schneider was protruding from Barbarossa's chest. The stunned man looked down at the glowing blade that had run him through with bewildered surprise. His eyes ran up the length of the hilt and saw Ishida's left hand holding it in place.

Barbarossa looked up again at Ishida and saw that the Quincy was having no trouble breathing now and looked completely fine. "How…?" he muttered as he took a step back while releasing his grip.

Ishida touched his feet to the ground and then pulled his blade free from the man. Barbarossa staggered backward and put a hand over his gaping wound all while still wearing a stunned expression as he stared back at Ishida.

"I remembered that you controlled spirit particles, not the actual air. That meant that you were messing with the particles inside of my own body and that is something that I know how to manipulate as well," Ishida explained. "All matter, including air particles, are bonded with a spirit particles. In order to use those spirit particles in the real world, I must break that bond. You are unable to break the bond between the particles so when you move one, the other has to follow. All I had to do was break the bond so you were only drawing out the spirit particles of the air and not the air itself. I was only breathless for a moment before I figured out how to stop what you were doing. Then I simply pretended that you had me so that you would get too close to be able to pull away before I could attack."

A slight smile began to spread across the man's face as he took another step backward. "You are far more talented then I ever would have imagined. Lord Atsushi will be very interested in what I have to report." He seemed to fall backward then, but as he fell, he appeared to slip out of reality entirely. A moment later, Ishida was standing on the side of the street alone.

He looked down at the slice across his chest and then at the slash on his arm. That one was quite deep and it was going to affect his ability to fire his arrows accurately until it was healed. Looking up, he could no longer see the flames around the shop, but he could sense that all three of his friends were still engaged in their fights.

What made it worse was all of them were spread out over the town. There was no way that he was going to be able to help all of them. That meant that he was going to have to choose.

"Ishida-kun!" he heard Inoue's voice call from down the street. He looked and saw the girl running towards him. "Ishida-kun! Are you all right?" she asked as she neared him.

"Inoue-san!" he exclaimed as she came to a stop beside him. "I'll be all right, but could you quickly heal my arm?" he asked her.

She nodded and brought out her healing fairies. As they set to work on not just his arm, but the wound on his chest as well, she spoke quickly to him. "Ishida-kun, I was at home and I could feel you, Kurosaki-kun, and Sado-kun all in trouble. I was just heading out when I saw the flames at Urahara-san's shop and sensed that he was also in trouble. I didn't know what to do, but you were closest so I came here first."

"I was attacked by one of Atsushi's men, as are the others. But I managed to defeat mine already," he explained to her.

"We have to help the others!" she exclaimed as she recalled her fairies now that they were finished healing Ishida.

"Yes, but which one?" Ishida said as he turned from her and faced the direction of the shop. "We can't go to all of them."

Inoue looked off in the direction that Ichigo and Rukia were in the opposite way while Ishida turned from the shop to face out towards Chad's location.

"We can split up," she told him.

He looked at her and said, "Inoue-san, I don't think that is a good idea. The others are all being specifically targeted by Atsushi's men. If one of them were to come after you while you were on your way to one of our friends…"

"It doesn't matter," She snapped at him, startling him with the force of her words. "Look, Ishida-kun, I know that I'm pretty useless on my own. But I can help them and we need to be of as much help as we can!"

He looked at her a moment and realized that she was right. He didn't like it, but she was right. "All right," he said. "I'll go and help Sado. He's further away and I can get there faster. Ichigo and Kuchiki-san aren't that far from here. You should go help them."

"But what about Urahara-san?" she asked.

"I think he can take care of himself and he has everyone else that stayed at the shop to help him already."

Inoue frowned and then nodded. "Ok. Be careful, Ishida-kun," she said and then turned and took off at a run towards the park where Ichigo and Rukia were.

He watched her go and then said quietly, "Be safe, Inoue-san." He turned then and launched himself off towards the place where he could sense Chad was still in trouble.