Ichigo arrived at the Vampires mansion around midday.
After he rang the doorbell, some minutes went by until someone came to open the front door.
"Yo, kid. What gives me the pleasure to see your orange head this early in the morning?"
Grimmjow leaned in the door frame, grinning widely and Ichigo replied his facial expression with a deep frown.
"I'm here to see Shiro,so if you would let me in."
The blunette stepped aside to let Ichigo step inside and as the younger one was about to just walk past him he stopped him.
"Ah, kid. You should learn some manners. It's not nice to just run past your superior without thanking them."
Ichigo stopped and turned back around, this time he grinned back at Grimmjow.
"Wouldn't the lack of manners rather count for you, Grimmjow? Practically I'm superior to you, even if it is just by a tad bit."
The older Vampire shut the door, then stepped in front of Ichigo and loured on the orange head, while crossing his arms.
"What makes you think so?"
He growled between shut tight teeth.
Ichigo took the bait and cockily replied.
"First of, I'm Shiros boyfriend, so that should make me almost equal to his standing, right?"
Grimmjows grin reappeared and widened even a bit.
" 'Fraid you're wrong, 's long 's you haven't bonded and I can't see any signs for it."
Ichigo ignored his taunt and instead went on.
"Secondly, I'm the one destined to save all your asses. So you should be thankful for that."
Grimmjow neared his face to Ichigos until there was barely an inch space left between their foreheads.
"Huh? What was that?"
"I said you shall thank me."
"You haven't done nothing yet, kid. Don't get cocky."
"Bastard..."
While their argument went back and fro and they butted heads like some goats, Shiro drew near them.
"Grimmjow, enough already. Ichigo I think you came for something more important than fighting with that thick headed beast."
He interrupted them, before blood could get spilled.
"Tch."
Grimmjow snarled and walked away, as Ichigo went over to his albino lover.
"Yeah, actually I'm here to ask for your help."
"Sure, whatever it is."
"Can you help me to awaken my abilities? It's really urgent."
Shiro blinked at that.
"Urgent? Why?"
"The Spirits talked with me last night and said I'd need them to win the fight and fulfill the prophecy."
Ichigo explained shortly and made the albinos eyes wide to the size of dinner plates in surprise.
"Wait, what? The Spirits? How, they're dead."
"They said something like, they connected to me through the one they used to talk through. It doesn't matter. Can you help me or not?"
"Must have been Shinji..."
Shiro mumbled to himself, then turned his attention back to Ichigo and answered.
"To do that we need to know what your ability is. And a bit combat training might not hurt as well, but I don't have any training grounds for this."
Ichigo crossed his arms and tilted his head.
"You have a mansion with a huge ass garden in front of it and tell me you don't have a place to train. Really now?"
If he wouldn't have known better, he would have thought that the albino blushed lightly at that statement.
"Touche, Ichigo. Touche."
An hour later Shiro had gathered his group to help Ichigo with the training and the orangette had come back, after he went home again to get his weapon, because Shiro had told him he would need it later.
"First off I want everyone to get an impression of your basic skills. Grimmjow will test your hand to hand combat, Ulquiorra wide and close combat with weaponry and I test your mental defenses. Are you ready Ichigo?"
The orangette took his stance as Grimmjow stepped in front of him, readying for the fight, then nodded, giving Shiro the sign to let the battle start.
With inhumanly speed the blunette jumped forward, swinging his right fist to punch Ichigo into the stomach and the younger one dodged by a hairbreadth.
He jumped back, to get some distance between himself and Grimmjow but the other was already on his track.
For a while all Ichigo did was dodging and maybe even blocking Grimmjows attacks once or twice.
"What's wrong? Is that all you've got?"
The older mocked Ichigo, while kicking at his side.
Ichigo stopped his movements and it seemed like the blunette hit his goal, so he grinned widely.
But his grin turned into a scowl soon after, as a pair of hands pressed down on his calf.
"Got'cha."
Ichigo said, grinning himself.
"What the...?"
"I let you chase me around to watch your movements, so I could find your weak point."
The orangette pulled on Grimmjows leg, making him sway and try to hold his balance.
"Someone with a body as massive as yours can easily be thrown off balance, when you know how."
With that he pulled once more on Grimmjows leg, then pushed it off of him, so that the blunette staggered heavily and finally kicked the leg he had been standing on away under him.
Grimmjow landed on his back with a thud, that knocked the air out of his lungs and looked up into a fist held into his face, when he tried to get back up.
The fist turned into an open hand, offering to help him to get up, so he took it, but rather than pulling himself up, he pulled Ichigo forward to make him land in the dirt on his part.
"Nice one, Kid. But I'm far better at cheating."
Ichigo sat up in an instance.
"That wasn't cheating. You should be more like; 'Wow, he knows how to handle a stronger opponent, though he's so young.' "
"Tch. Yeah sure."
Grimmjow strode away leisurely and rested under a tree, some meters away from the training place.
Shiro came to Ichigo and helped him up, praising him for his well thought tactic, but telling him to never trust Grimmjow, because he would do everything to win, no matter what the means may be.
Next was Ulquiorra, so Ichigo got his slayer weapon from where he had thrown it on the lawn, while the stoic Vampire drew a dagger that he had hidden somewhere in his clothes.
Shiro gave the sign to start and the two circled each other, waiting for one another to attack first, in the beginning.
In the end, Ichigo was it who attacked, throwing his short blade at Ulquiorra, who just stepped aside, and pulling it back on the chain when he missed him.
He tried again and then one more time, but the other simply avoided the blade by stepping once to the left or right and slowly made Ichigo feel frustrated.
The orangette changed his tactics; began to circle around Ulquiorra and throw his blade or the needle shaped weight at different areas of the smaller males body in frequent intervals.
Head. Chest. Feet. Legs. Arms.
He continued to pressure Ulquiorra until he had to make a move.
The dark haired Vampire took a step back and raised his dagger, to block the incoming blade.
Ichigo used that moment to throw the weight and bind the others wrist with the chain and retract the short blade at the same time.
Ulquiorra missed his moment to act and the hand holding the dagger was caught and held down by Ichigo, who then jumped forward to land a hit on the other.
What he didn't reckon was, that Ulquiorra would use the chain holding him to land a hit on Ichigo.
Just as the orangette was close enough to hit him with his blade, he turned out of the way, so that Ichigo passed by him, Ulquiorra turned around to face Ichigos back and pulled on the chain.
Ichigo staggered back, lost his balance and fell into Ulquiorras arms, who pressed the chain against Ichigos throat like he would strangle him.
"Like that, your weapon turns against you."
He told him, then let go of him.
Ichigo dropped down on the ground, breathing heavily, shock still shaking him to the bones.
In a real fight he would have lost his life, because he lost his temper and blindly jumped at an opponent.
"Do you want to take a break?"
Shiro asked him, as he sat down next to him.
"Yeah. Tell me, what exactly will you do next?"
"I'll try to get into your head and influence your subconsciousness to do what it wants, in a way that benefits my purposes."
"So mind control?"
"Not quite. Mind control is more like forcing someone to do anything I want. I can only look into your mind and use what there is to serve my goals. For example; I see someone lurking around in a shopping mall, who obviously looks for someone he can steal from. I could direct his intentions on a special person and lead his escape route toward me, so that the person he stole from will also come my way."
Ichigo listened carefully to him until it dawned him what exactly the albino was talking about.
"You haven't..."
"Guilty as charged."
"And you couldn't think of anything better?"
"Like what? 'Hey my name's Shiro. I've been following you the past days, do you want to go out on a coffee with me. Oh and I'm a Vampire I hope the fangs won't bother you'."
Shiro says ludicrously, and Ichigo blushes embarrassed.
"I-Idiot."
He jumped up and brushed the non existent dirt of his clothes.
"Let's get on with it."
Shiro also stood up and stepped in front of Ichigo, with two meters distance between them.
"When I close my eyes, I start. So try to be ready ok?"
"Yeah, yeah. Just start already."
So did the albino.
The moment his eyes closed, Ichigo felt a light pressure in his head.
He tried to push it away but to no avail.
Instead a sudden thought arose in his head combined with a deep urge that he couldn't suppress.
Slowly Ichigo walked forward, studying Shiros relaxed expression and craving more and more for that urge to ease up.
When he was right in front of Shiro, he dug his fingers into the shoulder long, white tresses and passionately kissed the albino.
Once he broke the kiss again, this itching urge was gone together with the pressure and Shiro smiled into his face.
"That's what I can make you do."
Again Ichigo blushed, this time very deeply and he smacked Shiro on the head.
"Ow, Ichi~ why did you do that?"
"Y-you pervert!"
"But Ichi, it was just a kiss. I could have let you do so many more lewd things than that."
Shiro whispered the last part into Ichigos ear, who in turn turned a few shades darker than before.
"Th-That's it. I'm done for today."
Ichigo stormed away, toward the mansion, followed by a distressed albino.
"W-wait Ichi. I'm sorry. Come back."
"No, I'm not coming back! You better grovel on the ground and apologize to me."
"I'm so sorry! Ichigo forgive me~e."
The two argued on their way over to the huge building.
Grimmjow who still sat under the tree snarled as he watched Shiro run behind a fuming Ichigo.
"Tch, Hormonal teenager."
"Who?"
Ulquiorra asked, watching the scene without any special interest.
Shiro had caught up to Ichigo and now slung his arms around his waist, trying to stop the orangette to go any further, but was just dragged on by Ichigo, who took step after step with the extra weight hanging on his hips.
"Both of them."
He told, closing his eyes and beginning to nap.
Chapter 25
End