Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Bleach. For the second time in less than six months I am typing this story sans the full mobile usage of one hand. Maybe I should stop punching things for fun/to try and make a living?

Nah, it's too much fun. Besides, what else could I possibly be good at as a 20 year old university student? Who the fuck would hire me for an actual income providing job at this point, even if I do have something of a minor resume?

Shoot for the stars though kids!

Chapter 21: Time Will Prove Everything

Naruto, Gaara, and Hidan sat in a circle inside of the cafeteria of the recently dubbed 'Mother Base'. Each had a look of intense thought on their faces… except for Gaara because Gaara's face never really changed without good reasoning for it.

This was the scene Yoruichi, back in her human form and fully clothed to boot, walked in on when she went to inform Naruto of something, "Hey Naruto the-." She stopped when she saw the three of them as still as statues and just as silent. It was rare enough seeing Naruto sit still when he wasn't meditating, but to hear not a word coming from Hidan's mouth? Outrageous, "What are you guys doing?"

"Brainstorming." Hidan said gruffly, "I don't see why you need me here for this. It isn't really my thing."

"You're right." Gaara said admittedly in his dull voice, "But Tatsuki doesn't know enough about the situation to add anything and Yoruichi-san was not here. She is now, so that means you can go away."

At being so readily dismissed as if he were useless, Hidan gave Gaara a deadpan look before taking the pike from around his neck and extending it to attack Gaara. Gaara's sand readily sprang to his defense and stopped said pike from even getting within a foot of him. Hidan pulled back his arm and retracted the weapon, smacking his lips and nodding, "That's what I thought would happen." He said before leaving the room, pointing at Gaara and making sure there was eye contact, "One of these days sand rat. I'll get past that stupid sand on the first try and then you'll be sorry for talking all that shit."

"I'm so scared." Gaara said sarcastically though no one would be able to tell one way or the other, looking back at Hidan impassively without blinking, "Can't you see how scared I am?" He pointed at his never changing expression, "See? I look absolutely terrified right now."

Yoruichi grinned as she took the seat that had been left by Hidan, "We can all see that Gaara. Now what are you all thinking so hard about?" She hoped that they were referring to Naruto's little situation that they had been talking about on the roof amongst themselves. It was a pretty big secret and there were reasons that he didn't tell her or anyone else other than those from his past, but still she hoped she would be trusted with it.

"Uryuu's powers… or lack of powers." Naruto said with a shrug.

Yoruichi blinked, slightly disappointed but otherwise alright with the conversation, "So what about them? He, for lack of better term, blew his wad against Kurotsuchi Mayuri when we were invading the Sereitei. Therefore his body sealed off his access to his spiritual energy. Simple as that."

"But he still has it though?" Gaara asked, raising a nonexistent eyebrow curiously.

"Yes." Yoruichi said, "Everything alive has and needs Reiryoku. His body is still stuck with the full reserves that he had before activating his Quincy technique, he just can't use it. It's like the parts of his makeup that would release the energy are overworked due to whatever technique he used to win and they closed up to stop his body from destroying itself."

"So… it's like an injury." Naruto ventured as a guess, "Like his points for releasing energy scabbed over so he'd stop bleeding out so much power."

A dry look came onto Yoruichi's face, "You could have said it in a less disgusting manner that I can actually see in my head right now, but overall yes. It was done to 'stop the bleeding' as you so said. Quincy powers are very unique."

Silence then reigned over the room to such an extent that Yoruichi almost got fed up with the two thinking like their brains were encased in cement. She almost got up to leave and get back to the reason she had come looking for Naruto in the first place when Naruto spoke up again, "So if it's like an injury then why can't we just heal it?"

"With what?" Yoruichi asked in an exasperated manner, sprawling herself out in her chair for added effect.

"With Orihime." Naruto said plainly, "She can heal everything else up to and including the time last week when Tatsuki birfucated Hidan and we couldn't find his lower half. It just showed right back up, like he never got cut clean in half." He wished medical ninjutsu was that good when he was a ninja. He would have been way more reckless if it had been… even more reckless than he already had been anyway.

"She can't do that." Yoruichi said unsure of exactly what limitations Orihime's powers had, "Can she?"

Gaara spoke up at this point, "You weren't here for that, were you Yoruichi-san? She did indeed heal Hidan without even the bottom half of his body at the ready. He jumped right back up and proceeded to do the same to Tatsuki… we were able to keep him from killing her though and Inoue-san proceeded to heal her as well." Hidan was in rare vengeful form on that day. It actually would have been impressive if it hadn't been so overtly violent.

"We found the bottom half of Hidan later." Naruto informed her with a shrug, "Me and Gaara were sparring while he wasn't in his Gigai, and I found it when Gaara chucked me into the lake. So I threw it at Gaara when I got out." A grin came over his face, "It surprised him enough that I hit a pretty nasty combo on him too."

"You cheated." Gaara said, seemingly stewing at the memory.

"No such thing." Both Naruto and Yoruichi chimed simultaneously before Yoruichi chose to get back on topic, "But you think Orihime can heal Uryuu's powers? I find it hard to believe, it's not based on anything."

Gaara crossed his arms over his chest, "Inoue-san's healing technique doesn't knit muscle or fuse bone back together. It doesn't use her Reiryoku as a medium to speed up natural healing. Nor does it make a substitute for what is lost or injured. It simply…" He found himself at a loss for words and merely shrugged his shoulders, "It simply restores a subject to its former state. As if… negating the damage."

Yoruichi had a huge grin on her face as she leaned back in her chair, "You wanted to give up and just say 'reject' to describe her powers so bad didn't you?" She reached for Gaara and gave him a few hearty pats on the shoulder, "No need to try and be so articulate Gaara, you've got nothing to prove to us!"

"Nevertheless…" Gaara said, trying to keep his aloof individuality, "I believe that it would be worth a try to see if Inoue-san's powers can heal Ishida-san. What is there to lose? And how did neither of you come to this conclusion prior to now?"

Naruto sighed and ran a hand through his hair, "Give me a break Gaara. I don't look at her powers because she never used them on me. The only two times I got my ass kicked bad enough to need someone to heal me Orihime wasn't around. Maybe if I had the Rinnegan on I would have seen something easier when she worked with others, but I'm not much for the healing if you haven't noticed by now."

Yoruichi folded her hands neatly underneath her chin, "So are you going to call Orihime and Uryuu and tell them what the plan of action is?"

"I think we should tell them tomorrow." Naruto said, wrinkling his nose in thought, "We could call them tonight, but nothing's going to get done until tomorrow anyway. I don't want to get Uryuu's hopes up or seem like we're putting this all on Orihime's head just in case it doesn't work." He hadn't had powers since the summer ended, he could go one more night without them in case there was a chance they could be brought back.

All three of them nodded in agreement before Yoruichi remembered what she had come into the cafeteria in the first place for, "Oh, our Shinigami arrivals are here."

A pronounced frown quickly sprang to Naruto's face, "Great… tell them to stay out of my business and everything'll be cool."

"They're not going to get involved dum-dum." Yoruichi said with a roll of her golden eyes, "They're here to observe how we operate, consider it a show of faith from both sides. They won't do anything without being forced to, and we just go about our day-to-day… and besides, I think Yamamoto-soutaicho was mostly curious about your 'employees' that you neglected to identify."

"So no Resurrección training until the Shinigami leave?" Gaara asked curiously. He didn't really need to train his own, he had become more than accustomed to his own abilities before his long slumber, but Hidan did to get accustomed to the benefits it brought him despite the fact that it was instinctual for Hollows and by extension Arrancar.

Naruto shook his head, "No, tell Hidan if he wants to practice it he can run off to Hueco Mundo and have Hollows just jump him like idiots. He'd be tipping Aizen off though, so he can go to Urahara's where there's less of a chance of anyone feeling anything. If he does that crap here before we get our legs underneath us there's not much we can do to hold back that shitstorm that we don't need any of right now."

Yoruichi stood up and moved behind Naruto's chair smoothly, "You want to meet 'em?"

"Not really."

"Too bad."

With that, Yoruichi grabbed the reluctant Naruto by his shoulders and hoisted him up to his feet as she guided him out of the room, "Come on, you're such a sociable guy. You don't want to meet anymore new people?" She asked as she led him down the hall towards the training room where the portal had opened to bring the Shinigami into the world of the living.

XxX

(Mother Base – Training Ground)

Tatsuki did her best to ignore the Gigai-clad Shinigami that seemed to be standing in front of her. They had momentarily startled her when they entered through their weird portal thing, but she had been told beforehand by Yoruichi that the Shinigami were coming there in such a manner. Thus she got back to work on her attempt to destroy the rubber ball that had quickly become the bane of her existence.

It didn't help though that the Shinigami were standing well within arm's reach of her just staring at her as if she were a free show.

"Well Rukia?" One of the Shinigami said. A female with wavy blonde hair, and very large breasts said in a somewhat interested manner. She had on a yellow short skirt, white knee-high boots, and a billowy white blouse that left little to the imagination when it came to her cleavage, "You've hung around humans more recently than I have so what in the world is she doing with that ball?"

Ah, Rukia, the girl that used to go to school with the rest of them. Tatsuki thought that the small dark-haired girl in the blue sundress looked familiar but she was too busy to worry about something like that at the moment.

"I'm not quite sure." Rukia said, leaning forward towards Tatsuki to study her practice more closely, breaching the human girl's personal space, "But I don't know what she's doing here anyway. She isn't one of the humans that can fight against Hollows and other things."

"So she's not with the Ryoka or this Equilibrium group?"

"No, I don't think so. She can't even see us right now."

A tick mark appeared on Tatsuki's head and she couldn't tune it out any longer, "I can see you, I can fight Hollows, and I am a member of Equilibrium!" Tatsuki snapped, getting Rukia to recoil back in shock at her outburst. Her grip on the rubber ball was pretty tight but after letting out her ever-building frustrations she was able to get back to focusing on popping the rubber ball.

The blonde lady blinked at the sudden attitude from Tatsuki, "For a human that can see us you don't seem to be very surprised or full of questions." Tatsuki just let out an unintelligible grunt getting the Shinigami female to pout at her, "You don't have to make caveman sounds. Just go back to playing with your little ball."

Tatsuki grit her teeth and at that Rukia could sense her power rising, 'She really does have power, but it doesn't feel like pure Reiryoku. It feels familiar though.' As she thought and the feeling of Tatsuki's energy continued to rise, the ball in her hand exploded, knocking her back and blowing dust and debris all about, "What just happened?"

Tatsuki sat on the ground, her hand singed from the intense chakra she used to pop the ball. As she looked at her now empty right hand a grin spread across her face, "Yes!"

"You've got to be kidding me. That's what that bursting noise was?"

The victorious girl turned towards the entrance to the room and grinned even wider when she saw Naruto and Yoruichi making their way within, "Naruto-sensei, I popped the rubber ball so suck on that! Any other stupid exercises you want to throw at me?" Tatsuki said tauntingly.

Naruto just stared at her long and hard with a look on his face that didn't distinguish how he was feeling at the moment, "Well since you asked, I want to chuck you down a ravine old-school style like I was taught. You think you're advanced enough for that, or should I just introduce you to the last step?"

Tatsuki paled and shook her head frantically. Still, Naruto was beside himself. It had been a week since he started teaching her Rasengan and she was already on the third step. It took him a month. What kind of developmental curve did Tatsuki have? It was ridiculous, "Last step please." She said trying to get some of her bluster back. There was no need to lose her edge after a breakthrough in her training.

Naruto fished another balloon from his pocket and blew it up before handing it to her, "Now you need to combine the two steps, rotation and power, into a stable shape. The balloon is to help you visualize the shell of the Rasengan." He blew up another balloon and held it up before holding up a Rasengan in his other hand, "It should look like this and it'll be able to fit in the balloon so no popping it, you need the balloon intact. One day you might get good enough to hold two at one time as well, but for now you'll only be able to make one."

Getting to the last step of her first major jutsu put a predatory look in Tatsuki's eyes as she immediately went to work on her new balloon, popping it rather quickly due to the volatility of her chakra, "Damn it… can you show me the finished Rasengan one more time?" She asked, trying to make one herself to see what it looked like.

"In a bit Tatsuki." Yoruichi said as she proceeded to drag Naruto by his wrist over to Rukia and the other Shinigami, "You didn't really get to meet her even though I asked you to help us save her did you?" She said to Naruto as she and he stopped in front of the visitors, "Rukia this is Uzumaki Naruto. Naruto, this is Kuchiki Rukia."

Naruto stood in front of the petite Shinigami girl and blinked before grinning at the introduction and waving, "Hey. You don't know me since you didn't get to meet me with all of the stuff that happened back in the Seireitei, but like Yoruichi-chan said my name's Naruto and I run this place." He said smugly before getting his cheek pulled on by Yoruichi for his lack of humility.

Rukia, upon hearing that Naruto helped Ichigo break her out of her imprisonment and intended execution, gave a quick bow to him, "It's nice to meet you Uzumaki-san. The person I have with me is the 10th Division Lieutenant Matsumoto Rangiku." She looked around the training room curiously after that though, "Um, we have the 9th Division Lieutenant Hisagi Shuuhei with us as well. He should be somewhere around here too." She was rather embarrassed that they were sidetracked by watching Tatsuki train and managed to lose track of their third member.

"Hello!" The recently identified Rangiku said, waving happily at Naruto, "It's a nice place you've got here. Kind of dry though isn't it?"

Naruto looked at Rangiku with a smile, trying very hard to keep his eyes from straying below her neckline to get a view of her prominent bust. It wouldn't do to make a bad first impression, "We've got a lake, and we're trying to get grass and trees and stuff put in. It'll take a bit for that though." He then noticed Rangiku giving him a pouty look, "What? What's the matter?"

"You're either a prude, or you have the self-control of a saint." Rangiku said, placing her hands on her hips, "I didn't even see your eyes dart down an inch." She then gasped and pounded her hand with a fist as if she had thought of something, "Oh wait, you might be gay, that's a possibility."

Naruto just gave her a dry stare as his eyebrow twitched, "So you're saying that because I'm not looking at your boobs?" A nod from the buxom woman was the answer. He most certainly was not gay. And what was Yoruichi trying so hard to keep from laughing at out loud? She should have known that better than anyone, "Fine. We can solve that problem right now." He said with a shrug as his eyes dropped to Rangiku's chest as if he had been holding up weights while trying to keep them on her face and nothing else.

For some reason that seemed to satiate Rangiku who smiled and nodded as if all were right with the world, "There, that's better. Isn't that nice?"

Rukia palmed her face at Rangiku's behavior and Naruto's willingness to play into it. And this woman was supposed to be her superior. At least there was another lieutenant there that was more reliable… well if they could find him. He wasn't exactly making his presence known. Standing up close, Naruto's presence was very cumbersome. It was hard for her to search around for anyone else by sensing due to his Reiatsu.

"So this guy is the boss huh? Hard to believe that Shihouin Yoruichi or Urahara Kisuke wouldn't be the ones in charge."

They all turned their heads to see a tall man with spiky black hair, three vertical scars on his right eye, a grey horizontal stripe tattoo under his left eye and underneath that a tattoo of the number 69. He had a choker around his neck and armbands around his biceps and a sleeveless black shirt and jeans.

Rukia took it upon herself once again to introduce the man, "Ah, and this is the 9th Division lieutenant I was talking about before. Hisagi Shuuhei."

Shuuhei raised a hand in an easygoing wave, "Yo. I never thought I'd meet a legend like Shihouin Yoruichi in person and someone strong enough to fight Yamamoto-sotaichou's Shikai and get away unscathed, let alone at the same time."

As Shuuhei got closer Naruto extended his hand for the Shinigami to shake which he did without hesitation, "Well I guess now I'll show you where you'll be staying." He looked over at Tatsuki who had been blowing up a new balloon to continue working and stopped as the teacher and student stopped and made eye contact, "Tatsuki-chan go home."

Tatsuki's lips slipped from the balloon sending it flying through the air, "What?" Tatsuki replied in disbelief, "Why? I just got to the last step of the jutsu and you want me to leave? Give me one good reason!" She was on a roll. Sure she was a little tired, but that was the price one paid for good training.

"It's after ten at night and it's a weekday."

"You barely go to school yourself, why should I?"

"…B-Because I'm your sensei, that's why. Doesn't that mean you're supposed to listen to me?"

If nothing else had been drilled into Tatsuki's head from her years and years of martial arts instruction it was to respect her master… even if she didn't really respect him. And Naruto was definitely her master as he had definitely taught her skills. It wasn't like he was asking her to do something unreasonable, he was just telling her to go home and rest, even if she felt full enough of energy to burst at the moment.

"Fine, damn you Naruto-sensei." Tatsuki said, grumbling to herself as she started walking towards the exit, "But I'm practicing this when I get home! I'm going to get this down by the end of the week!"

"Uh… do your homework?"

"Kiss my ass!"

"Fair enough." Naruto finally conceded as Tatsuki stomped upstairs to leave the building and head home. He turned back towards Yoruichi and the Shinigami observers who were probably going to report that little episode just for shits and giggles, "So that was my student Tatsuki-chan. Isn't she sweet?"

Yoruichi couldn't help grinning at his expense, "About as cuddly as a pit viper she is." So far not a great first impression, but hey, she was having fun, "So about those rooms."

"I already have a place I plan on staying." Rukia said as she excused herself and headed after Tatsuki to leave the training area and the building, "Thank you for extending the offer, but I'd feel more comfortable there than anywhere else."

Well it wasn't really any skin off of Naruto, Yoruichi, or anyone else's nose if she already had a place to room. Wherever that was wasn't really their business, but it was still a curious topic, "I wonder where she's going." Rangiku wondered aloud, crossing her arms over her ample chest.

XxX

(Sometime Later – With Uryuu)

Uryuu had the strangest feeling that he just couldn't shake off no matter what he did. He had doubled around so many different routes instead of going straight home in an effort to clear his mind and possibly get over whatever sensation he was feeling. To no avail though, as he had wandered about deep into the night. The streetlights had long since come on, and yet he still felt like prey being stalked.

He felt like a small mammal being cornered by a cobra instead of the mongoose he should have felt like. Damn his lack of powers. Damn Kurotsuchi Mayuri. Damn his own impatience. He didn't even end up avenging his grandfather the way he had intended to with his use of the Letzt Stil, thus the gambit and the sacrifice was all for naught.

Eventually he came to a stop on the empty city sidewalk he had been walking on. Turning to his right he found that his walk had taken him from the northern side of town where Mother Base was, past his own house west all the way to the river that marked the edge of town that he was steadily walking south along. His aimless wandering had wound up with him circling his own neighborhood several times before heading out in that direction and yet still, nothing came of his venture.

'Lacking powers must be making me extra paranoid.' Uryuu thought to himself, pushing his glasses up on his face for the sake of his composure although no one was around to see him. However to Uryuu's credit, just because one was paranoid did not mean that there wasn't something out to get them. Without any warning, Uryuu made to jump to the side and slid down the grassy hill to his right in order to avoid the bites of multiple snakes that had seemingly appeared from nowhere, 'Maybe it's helping heighten my own natural instincts though?'

Landing on the flat and grassy field below that reached from the hill to the riverside, Uryuu looked up at the snakes that were slithering their way down towards him. He wasn't much for serpents, but no kind of luck would have several of them all gunning at him for once.

"For a powerless burden you sure are attentive, or is that more akin to being jumpy?" A man asked with feathery looking brown hair and sporting a goatee. He wore a white button-up shirt, a tie, and a light vest with brown slacks with his hands carelessly sunk into his pockets. Around his neck was wrapped a gold and black snake with green eyes, "If I were as weak as you are I'd be jumpy too admittedly. It's so hard being a normal human after being several notches above that for so long, isn't it little Quincy?"

From the way that most of Uryuu's clothes prominently displayed the Quincy cross, even if one didn't know that he had once had powers one could accurately surmise that he had a connection with the tribe.

Uryuu kept down the alarm in his person at being confronted. He never even sensed the approach, and this person knew of those with abilities to say the least. Thus he was another of the Bounts, just not the one that had engaged Naruto the other day, "Don't be so sure I'm so helpless. Now what kind of business does a Bount have with me?"

"For the sake of just not calling me Bount…" The man said in an annoyed manner, "My name is Utagawa Ryo. And my business with you? Since when does a python need to have business with the prey it stumbles across? That's all you are essentially in the grand scheme to a Bount, food."

Uryuu chuckled slightly at the broad generalization, "Well sorry to say, I'm not really on the menu."

"Cute." Ryo said coldly with a smirk on his face, "As if prey gets to choose whether or not it gets eaten. But it looks like someone such as yourself requires a little softening up first. No problems with that. Fried is wonderful at that practice." The snake around his neck extended its lower half to a lengthy amount with a spade-like tail tip. Ryo seemed amused that Uryuu looked ready to try and fight him. He couldn't have been serious. Running would have been the best option for him.

Uryuu's hand moved towards his pocket where his cell phone lay as he kept his eyes on Ryo and prepared to stall in time to call someone for help. About to spring into action he felt himself unable to move and looked down to find snakes constricting his legs, holding him in place, 'How! I kept sight of all of the snakes he had with him at the start!'

"The number of snakes that Fried can form isn't a finite or set number boy. As long as she touches something, or there is something that her imagination can construe as a snake be it a pipe or even something as miniscule as a crack in the floor, it can become one." Ryo said smugly upon seeing the shocked look on Uryuu's face, "How unfortunate for you." With that, he used the whip to bind the rest of Uryuu's body, holding him entirely in place as he walked over to him, "I wonder how a Quincy's soul tastes. Too bad for me I can't necessarily find out for myself."

Why couldn't he? Ryo had Uryuu dead to rights, he wasn't going to be going anywhere. Why not just suck out his soul like he had done to other humans that he himself had found?

As Ryo got closer to him he quickly jumped back away from Uryuu as a strange looking weapon landed where he had been standing. Had it hit him it would have taken a massive chunk out of his leg.

"Dynamic Entry!"

Tatsuki flew at the man with a kick that was far faster than anything she could have done before training with the others. Still, it was not enough to hit Ryo as he again moved himself out of the path of her attack, "What exactly was that supposed to be? You'll never hit me with a regular kick!"

"First attack is always a feint asshole." Tatsuki said, still kneeling down from her flying kick attempt but with a smirk on her face despite not even getting close to hitting her target.

"Hadou #31: Shakkahou (Way of Destruction #31: Red Fire Cannon)!"

A red pillar of energy flew at Ryo from a blindspot that he turned in time to see as Fried turned her malleable body into a shield to circumvent the blast from causing extensive burning and concussive damage. He looked through the clearing smoke to see Rukia in a Gigai, standing there with her hand still outstretched from firing the attack, "A Shinigami and a regular human girl coming to help a Quincy?" It seemed almost humorous to him.

Rukia's eyes darted from the Bount to Uryuu, "Uryuu are you alright?"

"I'm fine." He said as he watched Tatsuki yank her thrown trench knife out of the ground to place back in her grasp, ready for hand-to-hand combat, "Are you sure you should fight him?"

Tatsuki's eyes shone with the prospect of the challenge before her instead of choosing to balk at it. She gripped the metal knuckle-dusters tightly, feeling her chakra flow through them to increase her punching power, "I'm not as weak as I used to be. Hell, I'm not even as weak as I used to be last month, or last week for that matter. And ghost girl here chased me down and started following me home for some reason so we've got that going for us too."

Rukia puffed her cheeks out indignantly at being called ghost girl. Tatsuki knew full well who she was, "You know my name! And I wasn't following you, I was going to Ichigo's house and we just happened to be going in the same direction!"

"Why are you going to Ichigo's house anyway? It's almost midnight!"

"That's where I'm staying. There's a room there for me."

"What room? There is no room." Tatsuki said, standing up out of her fighting stance to look at Rukia with a curious tilt to her head. She knew full well the layout of Ichigo's home, due to their being friends and the fact that her house was not far from his own at all. They wouldn't let her sleep in the clinic for certain, that was for actual patients and not for prolonged stays at that, "Even Ichigo's sisters have to sleep in the same room."

Rukia's cheeks reddened as she tried to avoid eye contact with the human martial-artist/ninja-in-training, "That's not important right now. We have an enemy to face." She said, trying to get the issue to drop so that they could focus on the enemy at hand, "Who and what are you?"

"He's a Bount named Utagawa Ryo." Uryuu said, seeing as how Rukia wasn't as aware of the situation as Tatsuki was, "They're people with powerful abilities that keep immortality by eating human souls. This is the situation we're currently dealing with here. They're attacking humans in Karakura Town."

Rukia narrowed her eyes at the smug-looking Ryo who didn't seem to feel very hampered by facing three opponents. Though Uryuu was basically useless in all regards when it came to combat, but either way it was still two-on-one.

"The snakes!" Uryuu shouted as they quit keeping a hold on his legs and attacked the nearby Tatsuki, moving at her as one conjoined vine of bared fangs.

Tatsuki flipped her trench knives upside down in her hands so that the sharp pointed teeth trailing off the edge of the weapons were upright as she stood in a boxing stance as opposed to her usual one, signifying her preparedness to use them to slash instead of just as a punch with a nasty kick to them.

And slash she did, cutting her way right through the snakes and reverting them to nothing before turning to Ryo who seemed to be clapping in a patronizing manner, "A human that isn't a helpless sheep to be lead to slaughter. That's a refreshing change of pace."

"You won't be thinking that after I kick your ass." Tatsuki said before swiftly moving in an attempt at disguising her intended movements, but she was not fast enough to do so and found the tail of Fried coming right her way. Luckily Rukia was still there and hadn't chosen to bow out of the battle. With the use of Shunpo she appeared in between Ryo and Tatsuki and kept the spear from potentially damaging the girl much to Tatsuki's initial chagrin, 'Why is she getting involved in my fight?'

Tatsuki's thoughts went back to the fight as she jumped over Rukia and delivered a high kick directed at Ryo. The man merely scoffed as he used Fried's body to block her leg. Tatsuki twisted her body after making contact to try delivering a punch but the snake's body wrapped around her leg and jerked her back, sending her to the ground before she could finish her second attack.

A scoff came from the Bount as Fried wrapped around the length of his arm, tail extending straight outward from his hand to form a blade of sorts.

Taking this as an invitation to fight once more, Tatsuki stood back up and charged directly at him with her trench knives handy before a smirk washed onto Ryo's face.

"Arisawa look down!" Uryuu shouted to Tatsuki in warning.

The girl did just as instructed and saw snakes rapidly slithering through the grass at her from multiple angles all around her including in front from the direction she was rushing towards. Gasping to herself as they all launched from the ground at her to bite into her, Tatsuki disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving a log in place where she had been as the snakes bit into it futilely.

Ryo narrowed his eyes at the Kawarimi, "Such a slippery technique."

"Ye lord! Mask of flesh and bone, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! Truth and temperance, upon this sinless wall of dreams unleash but slightly the wrath of your claws!" Rukia said, again taking advantage of Tatsuki's impulsive charging attack style to get in position to begin an incantation and adequately assault Ryo with another Kidou, "Hadou #33: Soukatsui (Way of Destruction #33: Blue Fire, Crash Down)!"

From Rukia's hand a surge of blue energy formed before she fired it in a rather large wave at Ryo, getting his eyes to widen at the attack. Fried was barely able to shift into a shield for him to use, but he still took a fairly significant brunt of the blast, as did the landscape as a trench had been carved out of the ground where the Soukatsui had traveled and even grass that hadn't been within the field of the Kidou found itself burning.

The dust cleared from Rukia's blast and Ryo himself found the sleeves of his white button-up shirt burned off up to his shoulders. His vest was worse for wear and might as well have been and the skin on his arms had varying degrees of burn damage done to them, "Fighting as a team? I guess you're all so weak that you need to cover each other in battle." His voice was very angry and it was clear that he was in a substantial amount of pain from the way it was wavering and the way that his arms were quivering.

"It's stupid to think we're weak just because we're fighting together." Rukia said standing and waiting in a basic combat stance, "Even if you were a superior opponent wouldn't that just be more justification to fight together? Shinigami don't operate in squads just for the hell of it." Well most of the time anyway… at least as far as the unseated squad members went, and with the exception of the 11th Division.

So this was what fighting actual Shinigami would be like? The human girl was a pest, the Quincy was powerless, but the Shinigami was extremely skilled at ranged spells even without leaving her faux body. It didn't matter in the end. It wasn't like it was something he couldn't handle. The battle was far from over and he always had one obvious method to regain the clear-cut advantage.

"Strength in numbers I see." Ryo said in a derogatory manner, "Well no matter what you all still have one very specific weakness that you weren't covering!" With that he sent Fried along the ground rapidly towards Uryuu who hadn't moved from his original place since the battle had begun, creating dozens and dozens of snakes as the Bount's doll moved in one straight-ahead rush of fangs, "Numbers don't mean a thing when one of you happens to be absurdly weak!"

Rukia's eyes widened at the sight, there was no way Uryuu could move out of the way of such an attack without access to his powers, "Uryuu!"

'Uryuu' smirked before a puff of smoke covered his body. The smoke was sent swirling around rapidly as a feminine voice emerged from the area he had seemingly been in, "I can do this… combine power and rotation, in my own way…" The smoke was blown away and cleared to reveal it had been Tatsuki in Henge and she was currently holding a blue orb between both of her hands, seemingly in awe of it before focusing on the threat before her and charging forward.

Rukia raised an eyebrow as Tatsuki charged the snakes down with the spinning blue ball of energy in hand, "It's a visible mass of Reiryoku… or is it? It doesn't feel quite like pure spiritual energy, but it's pure energy in general." The power she could feel flowing off of it was more than obvious though.

"Rasengan (Spiraling Sphere)!" Tatsuki met the wash of snakes head-on and plowed right through them, throwing them all about and reverting them back to nothing as she drove Fried back. The doll retracted back to Ryo to protect him once it was clear that the Rasengan would blow through the snakes in front of it.

"What a strange human girl you are!" Ryo said excitedly upon seeing the Rasengan and wondering just how much power it must have taken to form an attack with visible energy and retain its form, "Your soul is probably the most powerful I'll have eaten in quite some time! I was getting sick of the small fries!"

"Bakudou #4: Hainawa (Way of Binding #4: Crawling Rope)!"

A yellow crackling rope of energy wrapped around Ryo's body, pulling his arms to his sides. He turned his head to see that once again it was Rukia using a Kidou to attack him, in this case binding his movements the way that he had tried to bind theirs for the majority of the fight, "Like I said…" Rukia commented with a smirk, "What's the use in fighting alone when you don't have to?"

Tatsuki grinned to herself at having her target immobilized and boosted a jump over Fried. Ryo's inability to control his arms kept Fried from being able to adequately try intercepting her, thus Tatsuki was able to slam the completed Rasengan into him from above, smashing a crater into the ground beneath them.

Ryo's eyes had rolled back into his head from the attack as he lay lifeless on the ground. A satisfied look washed over Tatsuki's face despite the fact that she was panting heavily. Naruto was probably going to kick her ass if he found out that she had chakra exhaustion, but in her opinion it was well worth it as Fried's body began to turn to dust at her feet.

"The Rasengan… is it really that strong?" She asked herself. Once it made contact with him, Ryo's body seemed to have no resistance to it whatsoever. She knew she had pretty much broken every bone in his torso when she ground the jutsu into him from above. A regular punch from her probably would have made him double over at best if it even did that, but the Rasengan pulverized the ground that it didn't even touch.

She fell onto her backside, no longer able to really stand due to her tired state as Rukia walked over and looked at the deceased remains of the Bount, "You're skilled enough of a fighter to kill an opponent like that?" She had ample help, but that wasn't really the point either.

"I was the second strongest girl in Japan before I ever even learned anything about fighting from Naruto-sensei. It's not like anyone had to teach me what to do to win a battle." Tatsuki tried to brag but found her arms too heavy to lift for no good reason at the moment, "Oh man, how can he make holding the Rasengan look so easy? It's a total drain."

"Where's Uryuu?" Rukia asked, remembering Tatsuki being in his place.

Tatsuki pointed towards the river, "When you did your blue blast thing I shoved him in the water and transformed into him so that I could get a decent chance at getting snake-guy's guard down." She then crawled out of her crater and looked towards the river, "Oi, Uryuu are you alright?"

Wet, squishy footsteps attracted their attention to another direction where Uryuu walked up to them thoroughly soaked, "I'm fine… but you could have at least warned me before randomly shoving me into the cold lake Arisawa." He looked down into the crater where the dust that used to be Utagawa Ryo sat, "You defeated him."

"He was arrogant." Rukia commented, "He only saw Tatsuki as 'food' and you as powerless. I was the only potential threat to him as far as he was concerned." And she hadn't even been fully healed. If she had been then Soukatsui would have torn his arms off instead of just giving him third degree burns all over, "He wasn't very durable."

Uryuu started wringing out his shirt to get the water out, "I don't think that the Bounts are as durable as a Shinigami, at least this one wasn't. More so than regular people, significantly so, but in comparison to stronger Shinigami I don't think so. Naruto told us about the fight he had with another one a few days prior, she didn't engage him directly, instead relying on her doll companion to fight him, much like Ryo and Fried."

Getting to the Bount past the doll was the trick though, but because Rukia and Tatsuki pretty much attacked at the same time it kept him from getting a foothold on the fight. Maybe with more time he could have worked them over more.

"Can someone help me up please?" Tatsuki asked from her place sitting on the ground, red-faced from her previous exertion, "…And help me home. I really can't get up. I think I'm out of chakra."

"Chakra?" Uryuu and Rukia said simultaneously. Uryuu had never even bothered to ask about Naruto's abilities since he wasn't a Shinigami, but now that he thought about it his power always felt different. Rukia simply wasn't aware of the concept.

"Physical and spiritual energy together." Tatsuki said as Rukia grabbed her hand and pulled her up, setting one of Tatsuki's arms over her shoulder to keep her upright, "Sorry. I'm not that strong yet." But with a complete Rasengan she had a new wrinkle to her skills when her hands and feet weren't up to snuff. She couldn't wait for the next national tournament; even without the use of any ninjutsu she was going to clean up and walk off with the title without breaking a sweat.

Rukia spared the girl a smile as she shifted Tatsuki's weight over her neck comfortably, "It's alright. You're definitely a strong human, even if you can't beat a seated officer Shinigami yet. But if fighting a Shinigami were that easy for humans then we wouldn't be in any position to guide souls would we?"

"Well then…" Uryuu said, still rather put out over his soaked state, "I think now's as good a time as any to go home. I'm already going to hear enough from my dad showing up looking like this." With that he went off his own way to his house for the night while Rukia helped Tatsuki walk in their own direction.

After going their way for a short while, Tatsuki turned her head towards Rukia, a question on her mind, "So are you a seated officer?"

"No, I'm not."

"…Could I beat you?"

"*laughs* No. If I were at full power you couldn't. You probably still can't now. I didn't even use my Shikai."

"…I don't even know what that is."

Again, much like Uryuu earlier, neither of them were aware of something that was subtly off. The slight bubbling coming from the river near the site of their battle went unnoticed by the two girls vacating the area, as two stalk-like bulges of water with bottlecaps at their centers rose up slightly before merging back with the river.

XxX

(The Next Day – Karakura High School)

Ichigo, Gaara, Chad, Uryuu, Orihime, and the returning to class Rukia watched as Tatsuki stood lording her recent success over Naruto as he repeatedly banged his head on his desk. He was attracting attention from the other students that were leaving the room for lunch, but they didn't feel like being in the same room as the weird blonde guy that had been slamming his head onto his desk for the last three minutes.

A satisfied self-satisfied look was on Tatsuki's face, "So Naruto-sensei… what else do you have for me?" Two months and she was way faster than he was as a genin and had the Rasengan down. Yeah he'd have to give her a bit of a reality check in a spar later to keep her from getting the big head.

Speaking of heads, with one final slam on the desk Naruto picked his head up revealing the angry red bruise forming on his forehead, "You got the Rasengan…" He said shaking his head in disbelief, "I know the next generation is supposed to be stronger than those that came before them and that you're like at least two hundred generations after mine but seriously, that wasn't even a month!" At least he could take solace in the fact that she couldn't do it with one hand yet… but then again he himself took years to be able to perform the Rasengan with one hand. At least she didn't need a clone to keep the shape stable like he did, "Well still, keep practicing to do it with one hand, it's more useful that way."

Ichigo had been rather surprised around midnight of the previous night. After dropping Ririn's Gikongan into a little bird plushy he had watched her beat up Kon in his lion plushy body for about forty-five minutes for kicks until she said she sensed a Bount. Said Bount sensing then faded from her and a short while later Rukia appeared knocking on his window… on the second floor.

Why she had come to his house once again just to stay in his closet he was remiss to ask mostly due to his happiness in seeing her again after leaving her in the Soul Society, thus she quickly put her old spot right back together and had promptly shut the door and gone off to sleep.

The next morning he tried telling her what he knew of the whole Bount situation and was regaled with a tale of her fighting one moments before reaching Ichigo's house. Hearing that Tatsuki was also involved in the fight was surprising even though he had seen her training and had been told by his old friend that she was not going to let herself be left behind.

"So what now?" Ichigo asked the lot of them. Ririn rested on Rukia's shoulder in plushy form as she had more or less fallen in love with Rukia upon seeing her and speaking to her the previous night, Noba was in a anthropomorphic turtle plushy with dress clothes that was attached to Chad's bag, and Kuroudo was currently in the form of a pink rabbit-looking purse that seemed to be way too happy to be with Orihime.

"I'm not really here to help." Rukia admitted begrudgingly, "I'm here with two other Shinigami to observe how Equilibrium handles issues that they come across." She shouldn't really have even gotten involved the previous night, but not trying to help Uryuu after he had lost his powers helping her would have been deplorable, "I'm not to step in unless it's truly required or I am attacked. Ask your leader."

Upon hearing said suggestion, Ichigo turned an eye towards Naruto who still had a red mark on his forehead from slamming it into his desk moments earlier, "Yeah, that's not really the most inspiring thing I've heard today."

"Oh shut up Wonder-boy." Naruto said, rubbing his bruise-mark with a frown on his face, "All we can really do is patrol and try to narrow down a hideout in the meantime. I mean even with Ririn, Noba, and Kuroudo it's not a perfect system to find them. They have to be doing something first." If they were going to be on the lookout for something, Naruto hoped that he would be the one to find Yoshino again.

"So you plucked me up out of the warehouse for nothing?" Ichigo asked incredulously. Now he wasn't going to go back anytime soon, but as a teenager he reserved the right to complain to his heart's content.

Naruto narrowed his blue eyes at Ichigo's brown ones and let out a snort. It was to be said that he was not a battlefield strategist by any stretch of the imagination. He had stuck with what had worked for him since he was a child and hadn't changed his style much at all. Still, he hadn't just done nothing for the millennia, he had picked up basic common sense when it came to the art of combat and he had forgotten more about battle and conflict in general than Ichigo would ever know… at least in the timespan of his human life anyway.

"No… I plucked you out of the warehouse so that you could actually do your own job mister Substitute Shinigami." Naruto said, pointing at Ichigo's badge that was hanging from the belt area of his uniform pants, "I've got you, Gaara, Hidan, Orihime, Chad, Tatsuki-chan, and Uryuu… and to a lesser extent Urahara because he doesn't really listen to me unless I pay him, and Yoruichi-chan because she doesn't really listen to me unless she wants to."

Uryuu frowned at being listed among the active Equilibrium roster, "Why did you say that I work for you? I don't serve any purpose as I am now. You must really have a lot of employee loyalty." The Quincy quipped dryly.

That got Naruto to perk up significantly, "We might be able to fix that little problem you have." Uryuu's eyes widened, shoving a grin on Naruto's face at his reaction, "It might work, it might not. But it's better than nothing right? We thought about it last night."

"Why didn't you call me?" Uryuu snapped. The shock of being told he might be able to get his powers back along with the rising anger inside of him around the fact that it was kept from him even for the matter of a few hours forced him to act out.

Tatsuki decided to use that moment to point out something from the previous evening, "I shoved you into the river remember? Your phone seriously can't work after that." If it did then she wanted whatever model Uryuu happened to be sporting at the moment.

Blushing at the thought, especially since he was still mindlessly carrying the useless phone around in his pocket even then, Uryuu sat down at a nearby desk and regained his usual composure, "So, how would you go about restoring my abilities?" He asked, and the others not in the know listened attentively.

Gaara spoke up from his place standing by Naruto's desk, "We will use the healing ability of Inoue-san to heal the damage you did to yourself from your own technique."

Without even being seen, Naruto appeared suddenly behind Orihime noting her nervous outlook at the whole situation. The girl was normally so bright and cheery, he liked that, but when pressed with something that required others to rely on her extensively she had something of a low self-esteem, "Yes, Orihime here is the cure for what ails you Uryuu! She can definitely do it!"

"W-What?" Orihime said, stammering as she dug her heels into the ground to try and stop Naruto from pushing her forward, "I can't do something like that! I'm not that good at healing!"

Gaara's seafoam green eyes blinked at the girl. He had heard of her powers, had seen her powers firsthand with his own eyes. They were utterly amazing. She returned the lower half of Hidan's body. It simply didn't exist and she seemed to restore it from nothing. Healing on that scale was god-like, "Why do you not believe that you can do such a thing?" Gaara asked her, honestly wanting to hear her answer, "You have performed feats far more extraordinary on Hidan as practice. All you have to do is negate Uryuu's body's own rejection of his Reiryoku."

She could heal a person split in half with their body parts all the way in different sections of a battlefield, and she had been getting better and better with the constant practice she routinely got. She could definitely handle something like this. It wasn't like she was restoring his power, she was just unblocking what was keeping it constricted.

"Yeah." Naruto said, patting her on the shoulders to try and convince her it was entirely possible, "It's like you can think about what you want to fix and you just do it. So think about the way Uryuu used to be before he lost his powers when you do your healing thing. Yoruichi-chan said that's how it should work for you."

The attention was starting to get to her a bit as Orihime averted her eyes to the ground, "I'm not sure, but if you all think I can do it then I'll try my best!" She said, perking up again with a smile. A friend of hers needed help, and if she had a chance of being the one that could do so then she'd give it her all.

"All I can ask of you is to try." Uryuu said, trying to disguise how much he really cared about getting his powers back. He thought they were gone forever, so even the slightest chance of them returning seemed like the answer to his prayers… if he were a religious man, "When can we do this?"

"We have all the time in the world to work it out after school is over." Ichigo said to the others before turning to Orihime, "If Inoue can fix him then that would be great. No pressure though." He said with a confident look on his face.

XxX

(Bount Mansion)

"So Ryo is dead." Kariya said, sitting in his office with his Shinigami bodyguard by his side, standing guard watchfully as always, "Well it's not that much of a setback honestly. Ryo seemed too ambitious for his own good. I could see the way he often looked at me with disdain. At least he served some sort of purpose in the end."

Sitting on a chair in an adjacent corner of the room comfortably, Cain let out a laugh as he rolled a golden coin back and forth over the back of his fingers, "That's so cold Kariya. Is that how you feel about all of us?"

"Of course not." A smile appeared on Kariya's face at the mere asking of the question, "I care for all of my subordinates. Those like yourself and Maki here, and all of the others as well, you are all nothing like Ryo. And he was foolish enough to underestimate a Shinigami, a mistake that would have gotten him killed later anyway."

"Uzumaki would have massacred him anyway." Cain remarked in a sing-song manner off-handedly before suddenly grabbing his coin tightly, "The twins said that Ryo found a Quincy before he was killed. That's interesting isn't it? He's powerless though, totally useless."

Kariya noticed the slight scoff that came from Maki upon hearing Cain reference Uzumaki Naruto. Every opponent or possible conflict that Cain ever brought up was always inevitably brought back to somehow talking about that man. After being around them for quite some time and getting used to them Kariya figured that Maki would have gotten used to him and his… quirks.

"I'd like an eye kept on this Quincy anyway." Kariya said evenly before looking to Maki, "And could you ask the twins to prepare for a little pest control as well? We're at the point where we're attracting a lot of attention."

Maki nodded and strode his way from the room, shutting the door to the office behind him and leaving Kariya and Cain alone within. Cain looked at the shut door and raised his middle finger at it before turning back towards Kariya, "I hate that guy. If he didn't follow you at your heels like a puppy I'd have taken him out a long time ago."

Hearing Cain gripe about Maki got a few chuckles out of Kariya, "And you believe with all your heart that you could defeat Maki? He was a seated officer when he was a part of the Seireitei and it isn't like he's been growing weaker since then. I wouldn't have kept him around if he had been."

"Of course I can beat him!" Cain said, offended at the thought of losing a battle, especially to a Shinigami, "I can beat anyone! I can beat any of the Bounts you managed to round up, I can beat Master Koga… maybe even you too." He said with a treacherous tone and a gleam in his eye that put a hard look on the face of Kariya. Cain then grinned maniacally and laughed a bit, "But I don't really care. I'm just killing time, you know that. I don't want to lead anything, I just want to find one person and fight him. And we already know he's in Karakura Town don't we?"

"You've certainly been working towards that ever since he humiliated you all those years ago haven't you?" Kariya asked Cain, the air between them having cleared. Ambitious Cain was, but his ambition didn't have anything to do with going against Kariya or his goals, "You'd better hope Yoshino doesn't get to him first. She wants a piece of him as well."

Cain laughed loudly at the thought of Yoshino being able to kill his target, "If she can take him out then I guess he really wasn't worth obsessing over for all of those years, for her or me. But you really ought to keep that woman locked up or something. You and the others think I'm a maverick, but at least I hang around here when I'm told to."

"Yes she is something of a problem, with her constantly going against me just out of spite." Kariya remarked before smirking, "But she's been docile since Uzumaki appeared. She hasn't even tried to leave since you returned her the last time. I think once again there's a way for me to use our dear friend Uzumaki Naruto to get what we want."

Omake: An Easy Detail

"This is the best mission ever!" Rangiku said to herself happily with a cup of sake in her hand as she sat comfortably around a table, "No fighting, no real need to do anything but observe. And it helps that the people I'm observing are so fun!"

"Yes." Urahara said, sitting across from her with the brim of his hat shading his eyes, though they were firmly on her chest, "I could certainly think of worse ways to spend my time." He certainly had to thank Yamamoto for allowing such a fine specimen of a Shinigami female to come to his neck of the world of the living.

Rangiku looked around with a drunken blush on her face, "Hey… where is Shuuhei, and where is Yoruichi-san? I haven't seen either one of them in a while. I don't really like drinking alone you know?" Yoruichi had definitely done him a solid by vacating the area to the basement training ground in order to spar for a bit with Shuuhei, wanting to see what the lad was capable of, at least that was what she said. Now he definitely had a chance to attempt to woo the rather luscious Matsumoto Rangiku, in his own mind at least.

Urahara looked down and drew a circle on the table with his finger, "I'm here…" He said lamely, but was thoroughly ignored by the lovely lady. And here he thought he was a very interesting drinking partner. Well he was interesting to himself anyway.

"Kisuke, Jinta's pickin' on Ururu again an' I can't find Tessai, Dondochakka, or Pesche!" Sporting a new Gigai designed just for her while Urahara ran tests on her in the meantime, Nel ran into the room before bumping into the table and falling on her backside right by Rangiku. She wore a regular looking red dress for a girl her size and a green bucket hat like Urahara's. She looked up at Rangiku and blinked curiously, "Who're you lady?"

Rangiku just looked down at Nel for a few moments before letting out a high-pitched squeal as she picked the little Arrancar up and hugged her tightly as she tried to struggle to get free, "She's so cute Urahara-san! Is she your daughter?"

"Oh no." Urahara said, seeing his window of opportunity open back up now that Nel was there, "But I just had to take care of her since she needed me so much. It's my nature, I just love children."

More accurately he loved the cheap manual labor that children provided, but Nel wasn't really old enough to work so that point was moot. She mostly just bounced around for a lot of the time spending it evenly with each person in the shop. Dondochakka and Pesche hung around to watch over her and were useful enough as lab assistants for him and Tessai so it balanced out in the end.

A gasp suddenly came from Rangiku as she got a good look at Nel's face, "How did a little girl get a scar like that on her face?" She asked before glaring over at Urahara, eyes half-lidded from her inebriated state, "You're such an irresponsible guardian!"

"She had that before I met her, I swear!" Urahara said, suddenly pulling Nel from Rangiku's grip, "I would never do anything to hurt her, right Nel?" He asked her with a big smile on his face in an effort to stay on Rangiku's good side.

Nel just looked at him owlishly before grinning just as widely and turning to Rangiku, "Yeah, that's right! Urahara didn't give Nel the scar. Nel doesn't remember how she got it… but it's okay, cuz Nel's a masochist!"

…And there went whatever chance Urahara had, right out the window.

Damn it Nel…

Well my dad just stapled me in the right arm seven times the other day for shits and giggles in a random scuffle that we started for each of our own entertainments… and it didn't really hurt by the way, go figure. In addition to that my grandmother, rest her soul, had passed from this Earth during the time (this occurred after he stapled me by the way in case it matters). I'm taking it well by the way, but that's probably because the funeral hasn't happened yet. If I'm ever going to fall apart it'll probably be right then so I should go buy some dark sunglasses.

So yeah… that's what I've got going for me. How was your weekend?

Anyway, chapter's up. Hope you enjoyed. I'll catch you all around sooner rather than later.

Kenchi out.