An hour later, they stood before all the captains again. "This hollow is quite the threat." The head captain said "Too large to ignore. If you lost control of him it would be disastrous." Shiro and Ichigo looked at each other nervously "However, Kurotsuchi does not believe you currently have control of him. He believes the hollow is obeying you of his own accord." Ichigo bit his lip, unsure what to say, but Shiro beat him to it "That's true. We have a deal. I follow his rules, and he lets me stay materialized." "Fascinating!" Kurotsuchi cried, and the head captain slammed his staff on the floor to silence him. "If this is the case, then we will leave you be. Be warned, hollow. We are watching you closely." Shiro nodded and they fled before he could change his mind.


"That went better than expected" Ichigo said slowly, as they walked towards the senkaimon to go back home. "Yeah, it did." Shiro frowned "Too well." Ichigo thought about what the head captain said "They're watching us….do you think Kurotsuchi implanted something in us without us knowing?" he wondered. Shiro scowled "Urahara will find out. And rip it out if he has to." Ichigo frowned "Do we want to piss them off, though?"

Shiro scoffed "Who cares? They said they wouldn't do anything to us without our consent. Either they kept their promise and that "we're watching you" thing was just a vague threat or they didn't and we have the moral high ground to remove anything they stuck in us." "I doubt they'd see it that way." Ichigo sighed "But let's just wait until we get Urahara to check us out."


"You were right" Urahara said grimly a few hours later. "There's a nano-chip in Shiro's blood stream." Ichigo sighed "Remove it, I guess. Let's hope they don't come after us"."How do I even have a blood stream?" Shiro muttered, and Urahara cheerfully replied "You're a separate entity, not a manifestation." They both stared at him. "I'm…a what?" Shiro asked, confused.

"Well, Ichigo didn't manifest you. You're a separate entity to him, an arrancar living inside of him. So when he tried to manifest you, he really just called you. Ejected you from his body, so to say." Urahara explained casually, waving a metal detector over Shiro. It beeped around his right wrist. "Aha!" Urahara grabbed a scalpel. "But…how do you know that? And why would Shiro look exactly like me?" Ichigo argued.

Shiro yelped "Fuck! Give a guy some warning!" Urahara paid him no attention, digging around in the cut he just made before pulling out a very small capsule from Shiro's arm with his tweezers. "Got it." Urahara carefully dropped it into an empty beaker "I know that because of the testing I did on him when he was sick. As for why he looks like you, I believe he was a shape shifter when he was merged with you, and your image was the last thing he morphed into."

Shiro healed himself absently, silently absorbing this information. "Okay, how did he get inside me?" Ichigo huffed. "In Aizen's notes, which I've obviously been going over, there is mention of an early arrancar escaping. A shape shifter, with the ability to possess bodies. This arrancar was hunted down, badly injured, until they suddenly lost track of it in Karakura." Urahara shrugged "That's probably when Shiro here hitched a ride in your body." "This is so weird." Ichigo muttered, rubbing his forehead. "Why didn't you tell us earlier?"

"You didn't ask!" Urahara exclaimed, a smirk on his face. "For fucks sake" Ichigo took a swing at him, which he easily dodged "You're the most infuriating-…" "Hey now, I just did you a favour!" Urahara protested, covering his grin with his fan. "Ugh. Let's go, Shiro." Ichigo stormed out, Shiro trailing after him, lost in thought. "Wait!" Urahara called "I have a gigai for Shiro!" Ichigo's jaw dropped "You have a what" Shiro grinned manically "Now that I can get behind"


"I changed my mind" Shiro frowned at his reflection, Ichigo chuckling. "Well you can't look exactly like Ichigo" Urahara said "That would just raise too many questions." Shiro's jaw was more slender now, his cheekbones more pronounced. His hair, while an inch or so longer, was still white. He still shared the same lean muscular frame as Ichigo, and his eyes were still yellow, although the scleras were now a more natural white. The biggest difference, though, was his skin. He was very pale, but no longer a shocking white.

"Anyway I took the liberty of enrolling you in Ichigo's school so he can keep an eye on you." Urahara hide his mischievous smile behind his fan. "You did WHAT" Ichigo whirled around to face him. "Well he can't wander around alone all day and you can't miss class to babysit" Urahara argued, holding his hands up defensively. Ichigo groaned and rubbed his forehead. He was getting a headache.

"It won't be that bad, I'm sure." Shiro conceded easily. He was willing to try anything once, and it couldn't possibly be as boring as it was in Ichigo's inner world. "I just removed the tracker that soul society put in him" Urahara reminded "The closer you are to him when they show up, the better." Ichigo frowned "You're right, I guess." He sighed and thought to himself 'But how am I going to keep him from failing out?'


Later that night, Ichigo was at his desk, halfway through a calculus problem when Shiro suddenly snickered. Ichigo looked over at him where he was lying on the bed, going through the paperwork Urahara had given him for the school. "What's so funny?" Ichigo grumbled, irritated at losing his train of thought. Shiro handed him his school ID, snickering again.

Ichigo took it, looking it over with a frown "Shirosaki….Hogyoku?!" he hissed angrily. "It is technically my parent's name, right?" Shiro kept snickering. "Urahara has a fucked up sense of humour." Ichigo growled, tossing the ID back to Shiro. "Better than making my last name Aizen" Shiro said darkly. He opened an envelope and whistled "Wow. How much money is this?" Ichigo raised an eyebrow and took the envelope from Shiro, quickly counting the wad of bills

"Jesus Christ….too much. Urahara doesn't just give away money either." He frowned "We can't take this. He wants something." Shiro eyed the envelope longingly as Ichigo flipped open his cell and called the shop. "Hello Ichigo!" Urahara's voice greeted him cheerily. "What's with the money?" Ichigo asked, not bothering with pleasantries. "I know you don't give anything for free, so what's the catch?"

"No catch. The gigai, money, and paperwork are all my personal thank you for taking care of Aizen." Urahara was uncharacteristically solemn. "No one but you could've stopped him, and you did so at a great personal risk. A risk that may not have been necessary if I hadn't created the Hogyoku in the first place." He coughed "Isshin may have also threatened me to make it up to you." Ichigo's eyebrows rose "Well…thanks, then. I appreciate it." He frowned "Sorry about dad though."

"It's alright" Urahara said softly "Isshin and I are old friends. I was…supposed to keep an eye out for you. When he realized you had become a soul reaper, he asked me to train you. Since he couldn't himself." Ichigo bit his lip, unsure how to deal with this side of his mentor "You did your best. Especially considering I tend to throw myself at danger." He offered, and Urahara chuckled, the mood lightening. "Thank you, Ichigo."

"I…You're welcome." Ichigo replied. Hearing the click, he closed his own phone, staring at it blankly. "King?" Shiro poked his arm after a minute "You alright?" "He just thanked me" Ichigo said, turning to Shiro with a strange look on his face. "For?" Shiro prompted, lying back on the bed. "For taking down Aizen, I guess…" Ichigo bit his lip again "I've never heard him so serious before." "Well, it's about damn time." Shiro snorted "You had to clean up his mess without even knowing what you were getting into. He owes you an apology, if you ask me."

It clicked then, in Ichigo's head. "That…that was his apology. He just apologized to me." He realized, gesturing to the paperwork "This, the money, your gigai…It's not just a thank you, it's an apology." Ichigo felt lighter somehow, like the air had finally cleared between them. "Well I hope you accept, cause I could use my own clothes" Shiro hinted, shaking the money. Ichigo laughed "We'll go out tomorrow after school I guess. I don't want you borrowing my stuff anymore than you want to borrow it." He frowned at all the paperwork spread on his bed "You're also going to need your own bag, and wallet…."

Going back to his desk, Ichigo and Shiro spent the rest of the night doing up a list of things the arrancar would need, the calculus long forgotten.