An Unexpected Turnout: Chapter 11
He smiled grabbing Katsuya's arm. There was a slapping sound when his hand made contact with the boys arm. This made Katsuya cry out.
"Yo," His smile grew wider, "Wassup?" His voice had gotten deeper and there was a slight change in his spiritual pressure. You could only detect it if you really payed close attention to it. Everyone knew that this wasn't Ichigo.
He stood up, still holding Katsuya. "Hey! I remember you two." Ren directed his attention to Rukia and Renji. "You're those people I saw at that Karakura place, right? Nice to see you again."
Ren seemed to have changed a bit. The last time he took control of Ichigo, there was an intense atmosphere. Now, his presence felt slightly relaxed. Why did it change?
Everyone was in shock. No one spoke besides the guy who took control of Ichigo. They didn't know what to say. They didn't know what Ren would do now that he's free of his constraints. His strength was combined with Ichigo's, so it was probably in his power to kill everyone in the room. Maybe not in one hit, but gradually. Not knowing his objective made their situation even more dangerous.
"Come on, someone speak. I feel like I'm talking to myself." No one spoke. "Ugh. If it helps, I'm not here to do anything to you." Ren pointed to Renji and Rukia. In a way, the two felt better.
Annoyed, he let go of Katsuya and walked over to Rukia. Katsuya fell, shaking. "My dear," He placed his hand on her head and bent down so they could see eye to eye. Moving the sunglasses on his head, he looked in Rukia's eyes. Her eyes widened at the sight of his hollow like eyes. She felt paralyzed. "Do you have anything to say?"
She shook her head slowly. "N-no."
"See. I knew talking was within your capabilities. It's not that hard. I'm not here to scare you." Ren looked up at Renji. "How 'bout you, Pineapple?"
"Hey! D-don't call me that!" Renji said angrily.
"We're making progress!" Ren clapped, stood up, and walked over to the door. He leaned on it. "It's not that hard. You got it." He smiled. "Now then, I'm out. Got things to do." He started walking out of the office.
"Wait!" Rukia said, snapping out of her shock.
"Huh?" He looked over his shoulder.
"Where are you going?" Here voice was shaking. Those eyes shook her. She didn't like them looking at her, but she had to speak.
"Where? To look around of course. I have to figure out where I need to start my assignment. Don't worry I'll be back. I can't complete my first mission before I complete my second one. Any other questions, my dear?" Rukia just stared at him. He waved, moved his glasses over his eyes, and disappeared.
"Wait!" She started to run toward the door.
"Don't follow him." Katsuya managed to finally say, standing up. She stopped. "You don't know what he can do so I highly suggest that you not try and mess with him now." Katsuya had an unsure look on his face.
"What do you mean? We have to stop him!"
"What do you think will happen if you run up to him now and try to pick a fight? He's stronger now. Never go into battle without a plan! You should know that!"
"He's right." Renji added.
Rukia calmed down. "Okay, then what are we going to do?"
"Well, I don't know if we can do anything." Katsuya sighed. The two looked at him. "I mean, with a normal case to at least make Ren release control over a person for a short while, it all rides on the will of the soul reaper and... Wait wait wait! It's on the tip of my- no. I don't remember the other one."
"What do you mean you don't remember?" Renji asked.
"Let me rephrase that. I don't know the other one. Shu never told me. I know there was two things, but he never said what it was. Ren told me there was two too. They always leave me out of things! Anyways! Yeah, I don't know. We gotta do some guessing! Anyone have any ideas?"
"What do you mean by will? Will to not be taken over?" Rukia questioned.
"The will of the soul reaper to... I don't know. That was the second part, I think. Or part of the first. Ugh. Let's see let's see." Katsuya paced. While he was doing so, he saw someone walk past the door. He looked up to see who it is, but he was to late. The person went by as a black shadow. Katsuya sighed and continued with his business.
"Okay, time to get serious." The two soul reapers looked at him in confusion. The young boy sat on the floor. He got into a meditation like position and looked at Rukia and Renji.
"What are you doing?" Renji sighed.
"I'm taping into my inner me." They didn't say anything. "Hey! I can concentrate way better when I meditate. It's like how you soul reapers do. When you talk to your zanpakutos. It won't take long. Don't worry. You think of a way to knock some sense into Ichi. K?" Katsuya gave a smile and closed his eyes. The two started thinking of ways to stop Ren. At least for a while. If they couldn't completely get him out, they could at least delay his and Shu's plan.
The two couldn't shake the feeling that letting Ren escape was wrong. It wasn't really an escape. More like just letting him go. He basically saw himself out. Still, they felt that they did wrong. Katsuya did, however, have a good reason for them not to stop him. Ren did have a power boost now. It would be harder to fight him if they did cross swords. Rukia and Renji's power combined probably wouldn't be enough. Ichigo was strong already. They had no idea how much power Ren held, which makes it dangerous to approach him.
...
He landed after another flash step. This time he stayed on the roof he landed on for a while.
"Ugh. I know I'm in a new body, but it's so hard to move around." He stretched. He felt like he just put on a really tight costume. It was really hard to move. Even though he did use flash step, Ren didn't go as fast as he wanted to. It annoyed him, but aside from that, Ren was happy. He wasn't cooped up in that cube anymore. Or at least for a while. It was a change of scenery and there was a lot of places to go sight seeing. The Sereitei was very large. While Ren was working on finding his destination, he could also have a little fun. In fact, he wanted to prolong his stay in the Sereitei. Making the mission longer would mean that he could enjoy being free for more than a few minutes.
Ren started to jump the roofs again and looked around. He'd sometimes spin during a jump to make him go higher. He liked being in high places. It brought back memories. Something came to mind while thinking though. He was still in Ichigo's body, and he was ordered not to get him into too much trouble. Ren stopped on another roof top. Did someone see him? Would they come up to him if they did? He looked around to see if anyone was around. No one was in sight. He got lucky.
"This is no fun if I have to sneak around when I basically don't have to." Trying not to draw too much attention to himself was pretty hard. He couldn't do the stuff he wanted to do when he didn't know the personality of Ichigo. Sitting on the roof, a bunch of questioned popped in his head. What if someone came up to me? Would I have to speak to them? What if they noticed the change in Ichigo's voice? Would they ask about it. How about my eyes? Would they get so close to where they could notice that my eyes look like hollow's eyes? Why did Ichigo's eyes change into hollow ones when I take them over? Am I a hollow? I'm off task.
He had to do something about his voice. It was deeper than Ichigo's. And the eyes. The glasses won't keep them from being shown. "I forgot some of my powers. It's been a while sense I last used them. Now what were they...?" He thought for a while, playing with the tiles on the roof. They were rather clean. No dirt or stains on them what so ever. While he thought, something came across his mind. Ichigo Kurosaki, 15 years old, Karakura High high school student, substitute soul reaper, visored. "Now I remember." Ren smiled. "The other ones must be convenient like this one. Maybe I can change the voice and eyes. It's possible if this is. Now how to do it."
Ren started trying to remember what Ichigo's voice sounded like. He knew it was higher than his, but kind of deep. He didn't pay that much attention to him speak. Ren started to speak out loud and adjust to Ichigo's voice by memory. One of his tries sounded pretty close, but he couldn't remember the exact sound. He decided to keep with the close one. It was recognizable enough to be Ichigo's. Ren felt pretty satisfied with this. Now for the eyes. He kept blinking to see if they would change. He wouldn't know if they did though, because he didn't have a mirror. If he took his sunglasses off, he'd be at risk of someone seeing the hollowfied eyes. He needed to see his reflection, but where would he find a mirror?
Jumping off the rooftop, Ren started to look around for something that he could see his reflection in. All he saw was walls. There had to be some building around the place that had a mirror. Sighing, he kept going.
...
Nothing came to mind.
Nothing at all.
Absolutely nothing.
It frustrated them. The two wanted to help Ichigo but they didn't want to hurt him. That's why they couldn't think of anything. Most of the things that happen in the Soul Society lead to fights, and Renji or Rukia didn't want to have to fight him. Was there another way to save Ichigo, or at least delay Ren? If only they had the knowledge Katsuya had. He seemed to know a lot about the situation at hand, but he doesn't seem to grasp the importance of it. Most of the time he acts like it's a game, but plays it seriously but childishly. You couldn't really blame him though. He is a kid after all.
Katsuya was still sitting on the floor, meditating. Rukia and Renji looked at him for a while. He didn't move or flinch at all. The kid was truly focusing. Maybe they would figure out what to do with Ren after all.
The duo didn't want to disturb him, but they were eager to go out and stop Ren. It was like waiting in line to see a person, object or movie they've been dieing to see for a very long time. All that could be done for the time being is to either wait or think about what to do.
"You have any ideas yet?" Rukia asked.
"No. You?" Renji replied.
"Nothing. We have no idea what his powers are or how to stop him and we can't think of anything. Hopefully Katsuya has something." The two sighed heavily. Renji started fiddling with one of his pens on his desk. After a while of doing this, he started to click the top of the pen repeatedly. This got on Rukia's nerves, but she didn't say anything.
"Ahhh..." Katsuya yawned, falling backwards. He opened his eyes lazily, looking up at the two. "What's up?" The two looked at him, happy he was talking again.
"Figure anything out?" Rukia had an eager look on her face.
"Actually, I did. The first part was that it depended on the soul reapers will to not be controlled. Or how badly they didn't want Ren to be in control of their bodies. So basically it depends on how much Ichi wants his body back. So you were right Chappy." Katsuya yawned.
"That makes sense."
"Yeah. Although, there is one slight problem." The two soul reapers raised their brows. "Ichi is sleeping. He can't do anything while sleeping. We could try to wake him up, but I don't know how that's going to work. Speaking of that, when Ichi was controlled the first time, he was asleep right?"
"Yeah, or he appeared to be. We really don't know what happened. Ichigo never told us that part." Renji said.
"Hm. When Ren left Ichi, he was awake. Or maybe starting to wake up. Who knows. But judging from this, the problem, for now, will be solved by just getting Ichi to wake up. Not knowing his powers, how are we going to go about this.?" Katsuya gave a lazy smile.
Everyone thought. How were they suppose to wake someone that wasn't in control of their body? It probably isn't as easy as waking someone up by splashing water on them. Ichigo would probably just have to wake up on his own. But they didn't know how long that would take. The situation is unpredictable.
"I'll take anything." Katsuya said, "We need to go on something. At least try something. Anyone have any ideas. No matter how crazy, we'll try it. I seriously can't think of anything."
"Well, how do you wake someone up?" Rukia asked.
"By shaking them, yelling at them, hitting them, stuff like that. Why?"
"We could try waking him by doing those things. I mean, we don't want to pick a fight with him, but it looks that way."
"I guess so... Let's go then!" Katsuya got to his feet and started toward the door.
"Katsuya, how are we going to go about attacking him? We can't just charge in and hope for the best."
"Uh... I don't know. I was gonna wing it. I don't have any awesome special powers so, I thought you two could think of something on the way. Besides, we have no idea what he is doing now, so it's kind of hard to make a plan. We don't know his motives either, which makes it even harder."
"Alright then," Renji said, "I guess we have to wing it." Katsuya smiled and walked out the door. The other two followed him.
"Yay! A Ren Ichi hunt!"
...
Walls. Walls. More walls. They were endless. He hasn't seen a building for a while now. It was really annoying to Ren. He was looking for a mirror, not a solid opaque cement wall.
"Okay, if I see another wall when I turn this corner I'm seriously going to-" His eyes narrowed. Someone was on the other side of that wall. It was a somewhat strong presence, but compared to him, not really. It wasn't intimidating either.
Peeking around the corner, he saw a couple soul reapers. One in particular had a white jacket on; or something that looked like it. The jacket was cut off at the shoulders though, so there were no sleeves. The number 9 was printed on the back of the jacket. That must be the captain of squad 9. He had short spiky black hair. It was similar to Ichigo's hair. This man was with two other soul reapers. The captain had his back facing toward Ren, so the face was unknown.
Ren moved his way back around the corner, away from the soul reapers. The captain looked familiar. Ren didn't recognize the guy, but he did look familiar. Maybe it was Ichigo who knew this person. Ren searched the teens memory to see if this was true. Sure enough, he did know him. Shuhei Hisagi.
"Damn," Ren whispered to himself, "I don't want to talk to him right now." Ren sighed and prepared to jump a few walls to get away from him when someone peeked around the corner at him.
"Ichigo?" A voice came from the corner.
Damn.
"Hey! I thought I heard someone over here."
"Oh, uh, yeah." Ren said in Ichigo's voice.
"How's your day going so far?"
"Good. I met most of my squad a few hours ago. How about your day?"
"My day? It's been pretty busy, but it's been great. Since I don't have a captain, I have no lieutenant. Naturally I'd be the one doing both the lieutenant's and captain's work, but my third seat is handling the lieutenant's work. It's a load off my back." Shuhei smiled.
"That's good. I haven't done any work yet. Well, I'm not suppose to, but I feel like I need to."
"If you want something to do, then come to squad 9. We always have work to do there." He chuckled.
Ren laughed. "I'll think about it." There was a silence.
"I have a question, Ichigo." Shuhei asked.
"What's up?"
"Why are you wearing sunglasses? It's not that sunny outside. The sun is beginning to go down actually."
Ren twitched at the question. Why was he wearing the glasses? He couldn't say he was wearing them to cover his hollowfied eyes. Shuhei would probably attack him.
"Why? Just to try something new. That's all."
"Cool." Shuhei smiled. "Well, I have to return to the squad. I still have to finish my work. Just getting some air." Ren nodded and the muscular soul reaper flashed away.
He gave a big sigh. He wasn't use to acting like Ichigo. Even though their personalities were a bit similar. Ichigo had something special. Ren was more informal with people, no matter what class they were in but he does have an extensive vocabulary. Ichigo doesn't go all the way when he speaks to someone of higher class. He's also caring and will do anything for his friends. Ren, however, doesn't go that far for his friends. Only for one person in particular.
Ren turned the corner he was peeking around and continued his search.
X
"Well this sucks. I can't find anything to look at myself in. What a pain." Ren walked around for a while. He started jumping buildings and walls, but stopped when he realized people could be staring. He didn't want to go in a building now either, thinking it through, because he didn't want to have to talk to anyone not unless it was necessary. "I could go out of the Sereitei, but I'll draw attention to myself. This isn't a very fun task. Hopefully it'll get better soon."
He turned another corner, which led to an opening. It was a very open space. There were stairs on the other side. They looked very long, and led to a different level of the place.
The sun was making the sky a orange-ish red color while it was setting. The sky was getting darker too. It was getting pretty late. Ugh. Such a pain. Ren sighed and looked around. There was no point of him searching the place at night. He'd have to start when it was daytime. Ren also couldn't go back to Renji's office, because they were probably still there. I'll just go back to Ichigo's office. Ren took a deep breath and put his hand on his head.
"What are you doing here Kurosaki?" A voice came from behind.
"Eh?" Ren replied, turning around to see a small white haired soul reaper. He had a bang over his left eye. The young looking soul reaper had a badge on his arm also. He had a sash around his shoulder that held a sword. His sword. He wore a serious look on his face.
"Oh, Lieutenant Hitsugaya..." Toshiro narrowed his eyes. Ren blinked. "What?"
"Nothing. You don't usually call me that."
"I'm just giving you more respect now, because I'm a captain and all. You don't mind, right?" He smiled.
"Uh. No, that's fine."
"Okay then." Toshiro looked at him suspiciously. Ren had a confused look on his face.
"What are you doing out here? Your a bit far from your squad barracks." He repeated.
"Well I kind of got lost... You know, with all the corners and stuff..." This was basically true for the both of them. Ren was already lost when he first stepped foot in the Soul Society in Ichigo's body. Ichigo just could get lost easily without being guided by someone that knows the place well.
"What are you doing here, Hitsugaya?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, usually when I'm here, I don't see you roaming around."
"I'm not 'roaming around'. I'm doing something called my job. Your the one roaming around." Toshiro had an annoyed look on his face. He looked like he was getting impatient. "Even though I'm not a captain as of now, I still have to do some of my duties. Also, Rangiku isn't awake at the moment."
"I see." Ren scratched his head. "Well, I'll just be going now. It's getting kind of late and apparently I shouldn't be here according to you." He started walking in a random direction.
"Hold up Kurosaki." Toshiro said. "I have another question for you." Ren stopped and turned a bit toward him, twitching. He didn't want to talk to him anymore. Even though it was prolonging his mission, he didn't want to spend his time talking to people. Ren really did have to get back to Ichigo's office though. No sense searching in the dark.
"What's up?"
"Who are you, really?"
The question stunned him for a second. A bunch of questions whirled in his mind as well. He didn't know whether to just go along with it as Ichigo, or just admit that he wasn't Ichigo. In the end, his cover was blown. Out of these two choices, he chose this one:
"Huh?"
"Don't play dumb. I know your not really him."
Is he trying to trick me? I can't tell!
"Why don't you think I'm not myself?"
"Because of the first thing you said to me."
"The first I said to you was 'Eh?'."
Toshiro was growing more impatient. "The second thing you said to me then. 'Lieutenant Histugaya.' Ichigo would never call me that. Even if he is a higher rank then I am. He doesn't use the titles, captain or lieutenant. He's always informal to everyone. Ichigo only uses my first name." He basically got him there.
"Ugh. I can't be too formal or informal with people can I? This kid..."
"Don't make me repeat myself."
Ren cocked his head to the side. "Fine, fine. My name's Ren. Nice ta met ya, Toshiro." He laughed a bit. Toshiro put his hand on his sword. "Come now, I don't want to cause a fight. I'm here on important business. I was ordered not to draw attention to myself."
"Orders? From who?"
"Like I'll tell you."
"Then it seems I'll have to beat it out of you."
Ren sighed. "Heh, you won't live long enough to get it out of me." Toshiro drew his sword and took his stance.
Finally a battle. Who'll win? Review please!