1
Ichigo was left to his own devices for the first week. Aside from working out a schedule with Hinamori, he spent most of his time exploring the Fifth Division and the surrounding area. He had even started looking for Rukia or even Renji in a round about way. But as it turned out Seireitei was much larger than he remembered it being, and all the streets looked the same. He got nowhere near the Sixth Division in all of his wanderings. He later found out that he had been wandering in the wrong direction.
As for the Fifth Division itself, the first thing he noticed was the lack of people. A great many of the offices were empty, so were the training grounds and recreation rooms. Even in the mess hall during meals there were fewer Shinigami than he had expected.
"Where is everybody?" He asked Hinamori at breakfast one day. She made it a point to eat every meal with him so that he would not be lonely. That was how she saw it anyway.
"The Sou-taichou really wants to catch that zanpakutou that kidnapped you. Aizen-taichou volunteered the Division for the first rotation of the search," Hinamori explained. "Some are away on other missions, of course, but most of them are combing Rukongai along with the Sixth Division looking for Muramasa," She frowned down at her breakfast. "I'm sorry, Ichigo-kun, I shouldn't have brought him up."
"It's okay," Ichigo said with a shrug. He wasn't bothered at all. Hinamori seemed to think that he was more sensitive than he actually was. "I want to know what happens with Muramasa," Ichigo said truthfully.
"But Aizen-taichou said not to bother you with the details. It must have been a traumatic experience for you," Hinamori said softly. She truly looked dejected. It made Ichigo feel very uncomfortable. He shifted in his seat.
Ichigo could not deny that almost loosing Ossan to on one of Urahara's hair-brained schemes had been a traumatic experience, but that didn't mean that he didn't want to know what happened to Muramasa. He automatically recounted the presences in his soul as he had started doing since the incident.
It still amazed him sometimes that Hinamori thought that he had been the one taken by the zanpakutou. Aizen really was an amazing liar. "I would rather know the truth. I know that Aizen means well," He paused surprised that he did not choke on those words. Aizen and meaning well went along together like ice cream and cyanide. "But I didn't grow up in a sheltered home." He hesitated then asked something that had been bothering him for awhile. "What exactly will happen to Muramasa when he gets caught?"
Hinamori carefully sat down her chopsticks and met his eyes over their meal. "There is a standing order from Central 46 to destroy the zanpakutou Muramasa."
Ichigo paled, "But...why?"
"Oh Ichigo-kun, you are so compassionate. Muramasa is a very dangerous zanpakutou. His ability to turn another zanpakutou against its wielder scares many of us. I mean, can you imagine having to fight your own zanpakutou to the death?" Hinamori looked sick at just the thought.
Ichigo stayed silent. He knew very well what it was like to fight against Zangetsu, both of them, and much of it had been before Muramasa.
"And there was the fact that his wielder Kuchiki Koga was a traitor to the Soul Society." Hinamori went on when Ichigo did not answer her. "The old order said to destroy the zanpakutou and bring Koga back to be tried for treason if at all possible."
Ichigo jerked in reaction to what she said. Aizen had warned him that he should not assume a zanpakutou wanted something its wielder did not. Had that been the "Revolution" Muramasa had been talking about? The one that Kuchiki Koga had started so long ago.
"Kuchiki?" He asked once he caught up to his brain. A relative of Byakuya was a traitor?
"Oh, you wouldn't know about them, being from Rukongai and all. They are a very powerful noble family."
"I do know about them. The Kuchiki's are one of the five Great Noble Families." Ichigo scratched his head. "I heard they were all sticklers for law and order. What exactly did he do to be named a traitor?"
"Where do you hear these things?" Hinamori asked with a smile and a shake of the head. "I always end up explaining about the Noble families to the Rukongai graduates."
Ichigo flushed. He needed to watch slips like that. "You hear things. But anyway, what did a Kuchiki do to get himself into that much trouble. The Five Noble Families are all but untouchable, right?"
Hinamori whined. "Most of them like to think so, but the Shiba's weren't untouchable, and the Kuchiki's got lucky with Koga. He had married into the clan and was not of Kuchiki blood.
"How did he betray the Soul Society?" Ichigo prompted not wanting to get into an impromptu lesson on clan lineage and power.
"That's a disturbing story. Evidently, when he was in charge of putting down a rebellion in Rukongai, he killed some servants of three other nobles under his command. After he was arrested he escaped and killed the nobles themselves," Hinamori said. "It just didn't make any sense to me."
"What doesn't make sense?" Ichigo asked.
"Killing the nobles. He admitted to killing the servants in self defense. I looked up the transcripts," She said with a nervous smile. In the notes they say he went to kill the nobles to finish the job."
"What job?" Ichigo asked wondering if those transcripts were supposed to be accessible to the public. Hinamori was acting very strange about it.
"Exactly. But it is what happened after that that is the most disturbing."
"There's more?" Ichigo asked fascinated. He had completely forgotten about his meal.
Hinamori glanced around to see if there was anyone close to their table before continuing. "He disappeared into Rukongai and started killing random people and talking to himself about some kind of revolution. It is said that he wanted to cleanse the Soul Society."
"So, he snapped. Weakling."
"Ichigo-kun! Be nice. He was obviously set up."
"Then cracked under the pressure of being on the wrong side of the law and went insane," Ichigo argued. "I don't fault him for going after the nobles. They were probably the ones who set him up. But going around killing innocents is just crazy." He shook his head.
"He was a Kuchiki. Even if it was by marriage, they would have helped him. He should have gone to his clan," Hinamori shot back. "Going after the nobles himself like some vigilante was the wrong thing to do."
"He had every right to go after them himself. Kuchiki Koga was a man and it was his duty avenge himself and clear his name," Ichigo said. He certainly would have gone after the nobles who had had him set up as a murderer.
"Yeah, well men are stupid," Hinamori said crossing her arms with a superior sniff.
Ichigo threw up his hands. Clearly Hinamori was not going to agree with him on that point. "Never mind. What happened after that? I mean they did catch him right? Or is he still out there?"
Hinamori sighed letting the argument go. "The Kuchiki clan head took care of it. There are no records of what happened besides the division report that says Kuchiki and the Sou-taichou sealed Koga, and that he was no longer a threat." She stabbed at her food with her chopsticks. "In my opinion the whole thing was a mess."
Ichigo stared at Hinamori in shock. There was some carefully concealed rebellion in the girl. "But if Koga was sealed, how did Muramasa escape?" He asked. Ichigo wondered if Central 46 ever took a trip down memory lane to decipher who was going to attack Seireitei next by looking at who they had tried to kill or oppress in the past. Ichigo was beginning to see a pattern there.
"No one really knows. A seal should have immobilize both the zanpakutou and it's wielder. But a zanpakutou that can manifest itself at will is so rare that there are only a few instances in the history of the Soul Society. No one knows what they are really capable of."
"Like possession of the wielder's body," Ichigo muttered under his breath. Shiro giggled sheepishly.
"What was that?" Hinamori asked.
"Oh, nothing," Ichigo answered wondering if the hollow really could have taken over his body permanently.
Every human has the ability to become a hollow, Aibou. Even you. Shiro snickered at him.
"Okay, let's talk about happier things then. Today is your first kidou lesson with Aizen-taichou. Are you excited?" Hinamori said smiling impishly. She seemed to think personal lessons from Aizen were some kind of treat. How could she seem so smart one moment and then so dumb the next, Ichigo wondered.
He had nearly bitten through his chopstick when she brought it up. The irony in those two sentences stung his sensibilities a bit. There were hundreds of things he would rather be doing than learning kidou from Aizen, such as fighting Kenpachi to the death, spending quality time with his dad, or submitting to one of Nel's bone crushing hugs.
"I am kind of nervous about that," He admitted.
"There's nothing for you to be afraid of," Hinamori assured him. "Aizen-taichou is a very good teacher."
There were so many things that Ichigo would have liked to say about that statement. Instead he settled on his other reason for not wanting to learn kidou as Hinamori was sure to scoff at the idea that her beloved taichou was an evil bastard. "It's not Aizen. I'm not sure I can learn kidou. I have problems controlling my reiatsu let alone my reiryouku."
"Don't worry," Hinamori giggled. "It's not so bad. When you are first starting out you can't put enough reiryouku into a kidou to make more than a puff of smoke."
Ichigo laughed uneasily. This girl had no idea who she was talking to. "I can actually do more damage on accident than most people on purpose," He said.
Hinamori cocked an eyebrow. "Anyway," She said, voice dripping with skepticism. "Let's get going before you are late, Aizen-taichou appreciates punctuality after all." She sang while rising from her seat with her tray. She actually skipped to the disposal area.
Ichigo rolled his eyes. She just wouldn't understand how silly she acted whenever Aizen came up. It was almost as if the man were a railroad spike driven into her prefrontal cortex. Her entire personality changed and not for the better in Ichigo's opinion. He followed her to drop off his tray before leaving for the training grounds.
They walked past a courtyard where some Shinigami were practicing their morning drills. Ichigo watched them while keeping Hinamori in his peripheral, so he could keep up with her. She was moving fairly fast at this point. As he studied the the practicing Shinigami he realized all of their moves were very basic.
"That's the new squad," Hinamori said when she noticed where his attention was. "You will be joining them soon. Not that you have to fight them at all. Don't worry about getting hurt. You can just observe if you want."
"I'm much better than that," Ichigo blurted. He was mortally offended by her assumptions.
One of the Shinigami heard him and turned to give Ichigo a dirty look. He was a big guy with tattoos and obviously from one of the outer Rukongai districts. Ichigo stared back flatly until Hinamori demanded his attention by dragging him bodily from the courtyard.
"You can play alpha male later. Right now you have a kidou lesson to attend," She said with a superior air. Though she did turn to growl at the man making him stop short in shock. Someone else whispered in his ear. Probably a warning not to attack the fukutaichou. The man bowed stiffly in Hinamori's direction and spun on his heel to return to his katas. "Everyone here is much older than you and has been training for years, Ichigo-kun," Hinamori continued as if nothing had happened. "I don't want you to get hurt trying to prove yourself."
Ichigo scoffed. "Aizen didn't apprentice me because I'm pretty, you know. I can fight. Those guys couldn't touch me."
Hinamori giggled. "You are so silly sometimes, Ichigo-kun, and it's Aizen-taichou." She pulled him through a gate way into a much smaller training yard before he could reply. Aizen was there waiting for them. "This is where you will be learning kidou. It is one of the smaller yards used by the officers to improve their aim and practice Eishouhaki. You shouldn't be bothered here when you decide to practice."
"Eisho-what now?"
"Kidou without the incantation," Hinamori said without missing a beat.
"Oh."
"Good morning Hinamori-chan, Ichigo-kun," Aizen said once they were close enough that he would not have to shout.
"Good morning Taichou," Hinamori chirped brightly as Aizen's attention settled on her.
Ichigo felt a bit nauseous watching them interact. "Good morning," He muttered. Hinamori punched him subtly in the side. "Aizen," Another punch. "Taichou."
Aizen's eyes shined with glee at his pain. That was Ichigo's interpretation anyway. He certainly didn't step in to stop the abuse Ichigo was taking from his fukutaichou. Ichigo dropped his gaze to his feet and counted to ten. Whatever the other two were saying went right over his head until...
"And I'll be back after the lesson to take Ichigo-kun shopping." He zeroed in on that line.
"What?" He asked alarmed.
"I told you that I would take you shopping on my day off. Hinamori said with fond exasperation.
Ichigo did not know how to react to that deceleration. He had thought that she had forgotten about her promise and would soon regulate him to a minor annoyance that she had to check on every once in awhile, but it seemed that in the few days that Ichigo had been in Seireitei Hinamori had grown rather attached to him.
"You don't have to-" He began.
"It's no problem," Hinamori interrupted patting him on the head a little harder than necessary. She smirked when he growled at her.
"I will keep him from running off after his lesson for you," Aizen said with that gleam in his eye. Ichigo scowled. The man was laughing at him.
Hinamori, oblivious to the undercurrents of the conversation, grinned at her Taichou. "Thank you, sir. I'll be back later, Ichigo-kun. Be good," She said running off to do who knew what in the meantime.
"She is your fukutaichou?" Ichigo asked once she was gone. He was a little bit dazed. It was coming to be his usual reaction to being around Hinamori for any length of time.
Aizen shrugged delicately. "She is very competent at her job despite appearances, and of course she is completely devoted to me," He said with a smile. It was not a nice smile. "But discussing Hinamori is not why we are here."
Ichigo grunted. "Why do you even want to teach me kidou anyway?"
Aizen let him over to a wooden bench that ran along one wall across from a row of practice dummies. "It is going to be too much to ask for you to accept it on good faith, isn't it?" He sat and gestured for Ichigo to sit as well. Ichigo sat as far away from Aizen as he could get away with. He nodded silently and waited for Aizen to tell him what he wanted.
"I am going to be using these kidou lessons to gauge your growth in power," Aizen said off offhandedly. "Urahara said that it was exponential, but you will understand why I do not take his word for it. It is true what I said before. You are an experiment. The first time a Quincy and a Shinigami have produced offspring. If you add in the hollowfication, the results could change all three worlds."
"I see," Ichigo said, not really seeing the point at all. Aizen had always had an unhealthy interest with his progress as a Shinigami. It was what had finally brought him down in the end, the obsession to push Ichigo past his limits.
"No, I don't think you do." Aizen said. "But that is not the point. The point right now is to get you to cast a successful kidou. Has anyone ever explained the basics of kidou to you?"
"Not really," Ichigo said thinking back. "There may have been some crappy drawings at some point, though."
Aizen frowned at the thought that Ichigo was making fun of him in some way. "I was under the impression that Urahara had become your teacher in the now obsolete future. He is very adept at kidou and that man, Tessai, was the Kidou Corps Commander. How can you know next to nothing about it?"
Ichigo sighed already frustrated with playing nice with Aizen. "Urahara said I was too strong to learn and use kidou in under a decade. He even recommended that I not even bother to learn it at all."
Aizen snorted. "Still up to his games, I see. How long did you have to train when he said that to you?"
"Ten days," Ichigo said smiling slightly. It had been a terrifying experience at the time, but now he could look back and laugh at his own ignorance. He had actually believed everything Urahara had told him at the time.
"Hmm, impressive if you are taking on the likes of Muramasa already," Aizen muttered. His eyes distant as if thinking about something else altogether.
Ichigo shrugged. "I'm the learn as I go type. Can we get started with my lesson now?" He complained.
Aizen laughed at that. Even with a smart mouth and general disdain for his teacher Ichigo was still eager to learn it seemed, or at the very least get the lesson over with so that he could go on with his day. "Of course. The Basics of Kidou," Ichigo groaned as Aizen settled into lecture mode. "Kidou is the channeling of one's reiryoku for a purpose." Aizen noticed that for some reason Ichigo perked up at the definition. What exactly had the boy learned over his tenure as a Shinigami? "The incantations that beginners use are mainly for concentrating on moving your reiryoku and building up enough for the purpose you have in mind."
"You said Urahara was a master. That's how he could cast his kidou without saying anything," Ichigo said remembering how Rukia had had to use the whole incantation to cast those same kidou.
"Yes, Urahara is an expert at Eishouhaki, but he would have at least had to say the name of the kidou. No one can cast a kidou without saying the name," Aizen said levelly. "Perhaps you just missed it."
Ichigo thought back to the spar in Urahara's training ground. No, he had not even moved his lips before Ichigo hit that first barrier. Did this mean that Urahara could do something that no other Shinigami could do? "Perhaps," He said vaguely in answer to Aizen.
Aizen stared knowingly at him before continuing with the lesson. "You will have to use the incantations of course. But the level one kidou do not have them. And since those are the most harmless of kidou, those will be the ones that we will start with. Until we know how abysmal you are at it."
"Hey!" Ichigo shouted indignant that Aizen would call his nonexistent kidou skills abysmal.
"Calm yourself, I'm sure that I am competent enough of a teacher to make sure you become merely mediocre," Aizen said with a confident smile.
It was then that Ichigo realized that Aizen was trying to rile him up on purpose. He took a deep breath and reigned in his temper. "Let's just get on with it," He said as calmly as he could manage.
To his surprise Aizen actually looked pleased with his reaction. "Good, it seems you can hold onto that temper of yours." Ichigo gaped at him completely flummoxed. "At least now we know that we don't have to spend hours meditating to get you to calm your reiryoku."
"What?" Ichigo asked dumbly. That had been a test?
Aizen pushed up his glasses with a grimace. "You really know nothing at all about kidou, don't you?" Without waiting for an answer he continued with his explanation. "Kidou is an art that requires calm and control in order to perform. Knowing this you should be able to ascertain the likely hood of an opponent using kidou by their demeanor."
Aizen poked Ichigo in the shoulder to make sure that he was still listening. That far away look on the boy's face bothered him. He was used to a captive audience. It earned him a scowl. "I'm listening," Ichigo ground out rubbing the brand new bruise forming. Aizen really didn't hold back with discipline. "I was just... I don't know. It's how I remember things."
Aizen grunted but continued without comment. "But even if one had the disposition to use kidou effectively in battle does not mean that they have the skill."
"So why do you think that I have the disposition?" Ichigo asked. He hated to admit it but Aizen was leaning toward being an effective teacher based on the few minutes he had been explaining kidou to him.
"Mm, and intelligent question," Aizen said as if mildly surprised. Ichigo's scowl deepened. Aizen may be a good teacher, but he definitely wasn't a nice one. "The answer is rather simple though. Your reiatsu went from roiling around the courtyard and terrifying my subordinates, I might add," Ichigo flushed at this. He had not meant to make anyone uncomfortable. "To a perfect calming pulse in the span of one breath."
"It did?" Ichigo asked. He had never really paid attention to what his own reiatsu was doing. He mostly just tried to shove it out of the way so that he could attempt to feel other people's reiatsu.
Aizen frowned at him. "It seems we will be adding reiatsu awareness exercises to our lessons, which means we are back to hours of meditation."
Ichigo shrugged. It was what Ossan was trying to teach him how to do anyway, to feel his reiatsu. "I think I can do that."
Aizen was pleasantly surprised by Ichigo's answer. He had thought that he would have to fight the boy every step of the way to get him to meditate. This was becoming more of a … pleasant experience than he had originally thought it would. But Aizen was also just as glad that the boy wasn't a complete idiot.
"Good. You can start with about thirty minutes a day of meditating on your own reiatsu. But back to kidou for now, you can meditate on your own time. In order to use kidou effectively in battle one has to know the kidou well enough to forgo the incantation. Otherwise you are better off using a kidou either in a surprise attack or while the opponent is being distracted by someone else. Though there are many other uses for kidou -kaidou and seals for instance- we will be working with hadou and bakudou. You do know the difference between them?"
"Hadou is attack kidou and bakudou is barrier," Ichigo rattled off flippantly. "But I thought seals were bakudou as well." He was fascinated by Aizen's explanation in spite of himself. Why hadn't anyone told him that kidou was so interesting?
"The two disciplines are closely related and seals do indeed fall under a loose definition of bakudou save for one major difference. Bakudou are dependent on the caster's ability to feed them reiryoku. Seals, on the other hand, are anchored by a physical symbol. They do not need the caster to sustain them because when they are attacked the absorb energy from those attacks to sustain a barrier."Aizen stood suddenly and faced the dummies on the other side of the courtyard. "Today, you will learning how to channel and control your reiryoku by using the first level bakudou Sai."
Ichigo peered at the dummies from Aizen's side. He still didn't trust himself not to blow something up. The innocent wall behind the row of dummies was a prime target. "What if I mess up?"
"Don't worry about backlash. Sai is usually taught first not only because it can be cast with a minimum of reiryoku, it also is absolutely harmless. It is not even illegal to use this skill on humans."
"Huh," Ichigo grunted. Well that explained why Rukia had used that particular kidou on him the first time they had met. He smiled at the memory. She had been so shocked when he had broken it. Though he had not had the time to appreciate what he had accomplished at the time, he had let it set the tone for everything he had learned after. He wouldn't know if he could do it or not unless he tried.
Aizen cleared his throat to draw Ichigo's attention back to him. "As I was saying, the basis of all kidou is the channeling of reiryoku. You will want to work on gathering your reiryoku in different quantities and concentrations along with your reiatsu meditations. I have a device that I will give you to help with that."
Ichigo nodded. It could only help him with his own training as well.
Aizen lifted his hand. "Once you have a small amount of your reiryoku in your hand, you direct it to the target to surround and bind them. Bakudou 1: Sai!" A simple ribbon of reiryoku bound the dummy. "It is important to keep in mind the end result of the kidou. Many students forget this part," He smiled thinly at Ichigo. "It takes concentration, and many cannot concentrate under pressure. This is usually why kidou spells fail," Aizen stepped back. "You try now."
"What? Now?" Ichigo asked. He had not expected to be told to try a kidou so soon.
"Yes now, it is not as if you can master kidou on theory alone. Now gather a small amount of your reiryoku and practice binding the target."
Ichigo sighed. His breath evened out again as he tried to calm himself, since Aizen said that it was important to remain calm while casting a kidou. He gathered a small portion of his reiryoku into his hand and pointed at the dummy.
"Bakudou 1: Sai!" Ichigo's reiryoku collided with the practice dummy and surrounded it just as Aizen's had. Ichigo thought for a moment that had succeeded in casting his first kidou, then the bindings flared brightly and it caught fire.
Both Ichigo and Aizen stared dumbly at the flames. After a beat Ichigo rounded on Aizen. "You said it was harmless!" He accused.
"Well, it was enlightening." Aizen took off his glasses and cleaned them on the sleeve of his haori thoughtfully. "It usually is harmless." He informed Ichigo sitting down once more. "What exactly did you do?"
Scowl firmly in place, Ichigo crossed his arms defensively. "I did exactly as you told me. I gathered some reiryoku and directed it at the dummy. I even kept the end result in mind, just like you said."
Aizen nodded slowly mind whirring with possibilities. By all rights, from the way the boy described it, the kidou should have worked perfectly, and indeed it almost had. Obviously Ichigo was doing something wrong even if the boy did not consciously know that he was. Making a decision to get to the bottom of this problem Aizen stood once more and grabbed Ichigo's shoulder. Ichigo flinched and tried to pull away but he held firm. "Relax, I need to observe what you are doing with your reiryoku as you are doing it, and this is the easiest way. Try the bakudou again."
"You want me to turn another dummy into a pile of ash?" Ichigo asked slowly. He had figured Aizen would just do what Urahara had and proclaim that he would never be able to learn kidou.
Aizen only pointed at the next dummy in line. Ichigo quickly cast the kidou at it just to get it over with. As soon and it burst into flames, he wrenched himself away from Aizen and backed up a few steps. Aizen stood amazed at what he had felt.
The boy surpassed anything that Aizen had dreamed of. "That..."
"Yo, Aizen-taichou!" A voiced interrupted before Aizen could articulate his thoughts. Gin sauntered over to the two of them. He stopped briefly to survey the smoldering dummies. The too wide creepy grin never left his face even though his eyes widened a bit. "Man, our lil' Ichi-chan sure can put some punch inta his hadou. That one a mid-level one?"
"That one was Sai," Aizen said dryly. "Evidently that is what happens when you bother to put a ridiculous amount of reiryoku into a level one kidou."
"Urk." Gin couldn't help his gut reaction. He had never heard of anyone -not even one of the famed Royal guard- being able to over power a harmless bakudou to the point of weaponizing it.
"Hey! I did exactly what you told me to do!" Ichigo yelled. He was completely offended by their reactions to his failure.
"Aww, don't be mad Ichi-chan. Look at it this way," Gin said grinning ear to ear. The grin widened even more when he saw Ichigo tense at the new nickname. "Even if ya can't learn any higher level kidou ya got one hell of a surprise attack in reserve. It surprised me anyway."
"Don't call me Ichi-chan," Ichigo growled a bit mollified in spite of himself. Why did they have to be so damn agreeable. They were his enemies. He should be in a cold dark dungeon somewhere so that he could have an excuse to go on a rampage. Ichigo took a deep breath trying to calm himself in vain. "What did I manage to do wrong anyway?" He demanded, not nearly as calm as he wanted to be.
"I was just about to correct your minor misconception of my instructions when Gin arrived," Aizen told him hoping to prevent an all out brawl between Ichigo and Gin. Ichigo had already reached up and grabbed the cloth wrapped hilt of his Khyber knife, and Gin had his hands inside his haori no doubt fingering the hilt of Shinsou. It seemed that Gin was now ready to take the threat the boy presented seriously, even though he had laughed himself sick when he had been briefed on Ichigo's known abilities.
"Misconception?" Ichigo let go of the hilt of his zanpakutou and crossed his arms waiting for Aizen to finish his explanation.
"Quite," Aizen said. He held out his hand palm up. "This is the amount of reiryoku needed to power a Bakudou 1: Sai. Indecently, this is what I meant when I said a little bit."
Ichigo looked from Aizen's palm to his face and back in confusion. "There's nothing there," He said sure that Aizen was trying to trick him for some reason.
"Oh boy," Gin said. He put his hands behind hi back and retreated to a safer distance to observe.
Ichigo sounded so sure of himself that Aizen checked that there was indeed a faint flicker of reiryoku manifested in his palm. "You cannot see it?"
"See what? There isn't anything there," Ichigo informed him with a frown.
Aizen pursed his lips in thought. How had the boy been able to find Muramasa or evade capture if he couldn't see reiryoku being used under his nose? "How do you usually trace someone by their reiryoku?" He asked curious.
"I use spirit ribbons," Ichigo answered promptly.
"Interesting. That is a high level technique that few even bother to learn let alone use. It Is possible that you are so strong that you are blind to the lower levels of both reiryoku and reiatsu." Aizen held his arm closer to Ichigo. The boy seemed to respond best to a hand's on approach. There was no reason not to continue in that vene. "Put your hand on my wrist and see if you cannot feel the reiryoku that way."
Ichigo balked. He in no way wanted to actually touch Aizen voluntarily. The man had already invaded hi personal space way too many time as it was. But he did want to learn. Maybe one day having Aizen for a teacher would be worth the trouble.
Ichigo reluctantly reached out and touched Aizen's wrist with his finger tips. Ichigo tried to concentrate on the reiryoku instead of the pulse of his enemy beneath his fingers. Shiro howled for Aizen's blood from his inner world but was cut off abruptly with the sound of shattering glass. Ichigo blinked when he heard Ossan grunt contentedly.
"Do you feel it now?" Aizen demanded. He sounded a touch impatient. It appeared that he did not like being touched anymore than Ichigo liked touching him.
After an intense moment of concentration Ichigo gasped out loud and dropped his hand in shock. "But- but that' hardly any at all!"
"Of course it I very little reiryoku. It is a novice kidou," Aizen said derisively. "Your idea of a little bit of reiryoku would turn the Black Coffin into a mulching machine."
Ick.Ichigo thought. That image was going to haunt him for awhile. "So all I have to do is limit the amount of reiryoku I use to normal amounts?" It couldn't be that easy.
Aizen nodded once. "That would be wise. Try it now, and only use as much as I showed you."
Ichigo turned to the third dummy in line. The other two were already piles of ash. He gathered his reiryoku and raised his hand to study it. After mentally comparing it to the amount Aizen had shown him, he cut it down to a tenth of the original amount. Both Aizen and Gin started to get impatient with the wait while Ichigo cut down the reiryoku two more times. Finally satisfied that it was as close to what Aizen had shown him, he pictured his target bound in his reiryoku. "Bakudou 1: Sai!" He called out Reiryoku hot out of hi hand and wrapped round the dummy with a snap.
Ichigo stood amazed at his own success. He had actually done it. In other company, or none at all, he may have celebrated his first kidou. As it was he just settled on softening his frown a bit.
"Very good," Aizen said from behind him. Ichigo turned in time to see Gin whisper something to him. "I expect you to practice more outside of our lessons until it does not take you any longer to cast the kidou than it does to say it."
Ichigo nodded. He could admit that he had taken a ridiculously long time to cast the kidou. Even the long winded poetic kidou did not take that long to cast. He would definitely be practicing.
"But I am afraid that I must cut this lesson short," Aizen continued. "Ichimaru has some sensitive information for me."
"Not going to let me listen in, huh?" Ichigo asked impishly.
"Of course not," Aizen scoffed actually rolling his eyes. Ichigo considered that one a win. It was almost as much fun getting Aizen to break his sunshine and rainbow persona as it was to stump Urahara.
Dangerous games. Ossan warned. Don't get distracted by the small victories.
Ichigo grunted in response to the warning. He agreed completely. Too much was at stake to play games.
"I think that to keep you out of trouble I am going to have to issue a direct order." Aizen said his usual smile taking on a malicious edge. "I seem to remember Hinamori promising a shopping trip for the day." Ichigo blanched. "One you were going to avoid correct? I order you as my apprentice to go find Hinamori and attend the excursion."
"But-"
"You are dismissed," Aizen said turning his back on Ichigo and inviting Gin to follow him to a more privet location. Gin laughing into the sleeve of his haori waved at him as they both left the court yard.
"Damn it," Ichigo said crossly. He had been hoping to dodge Hinamori for the day and claim that he had been busy later. But an order meant that Aizen was free to punish him if he did not obey. That was the kind of situation that could get real sticky real fast. He had no intention of showing his hand so soon. He set off to find Hinamori.