Alright the result of my poll is to stick with 'Captain'. Thank you to all that voted. :) Here's the next chapter.
Chapter 38:
-The next day in the Tenth Division-
Toshiro sat on the outside deck that led to his own personal barracks, while watching the cherry blossom petals slowly fly by in the wind. He would choose one out of them, observe it as it sailed by him till it vanished out of site, and restart the process over and over again; "Something is going to go wrong. This feels like the calm before the storm." he said to himself.
And no sooner that the words left his lips, a hell butterfly fluttered by him and landed on his shoulder; "This message is to Captain Hitsugaya of the Tenth Division from Yoruichi Shihoin: 'Toshiro! I have some bad news. It seems that Jin somehow knew that I was spying on them and gave out fake orders. He said that they would go after Uryu tomorrow night but he sent Go Koga last night and captured them both. I'm on my way to tell Kisuke about this, I'm gonna head back over there to save Ichigo and his friends before they get themselves killed.' End of message."
Toshiro dismissed the butterfly and sighed deeply; "Hmph, I suppose its about time for me to get the last piece of this puzzle." he said to himself, narrowing his eyes and vanishing in a shunpo.
-Bounts mansion-
Toshiro landed on the roof of the house, then kneeled down, grabbed the edge of the roof and swung himself through an open window. He landed quietly on the wooden floor, stealthily made his way through the room, down the hallway and out to the main hall where he saw Kariya walking up to Ichigo, whom was trying to stand himself up. Jin then placed his left pointer finger right on the teens forehead, which instantly made his entire body freeze.
"Not as great as I had thought, huh?" he said to himself in a sigh, then retracted his finger and flung it back at the teen, causing Ichigo to fly backward into the wall behind him.
"Kariya-sama, the final blow." Ichinose said in a questioning tone as he walked closer to his master and kneeled down a few yards away.
"It seems that this person will not make my world as rich as the Quincy will. Do as you like." was Jin's response as he walked away from the seemingly defeated Substitute Shinigami and passed his now standing subordinate.
Ichinose watched as Jin continued walking, then looked back at Ichigo as he pushed the ruble off his body and stood up; "Wait! Damn it! What's going on?" he demanded to not only Jin but himself, while thinking about how the white haired man had immobilized him with just his finger.
"I will give the final blow after all." Ichinose said, continuing to stare at the wobbling teen and beginning to unsheathe his sword.
But a sudden explosion and shake of the ground made everyone forget about the fight; "What?" Maki asked aloud, looking around the trembling house.
Many more blasts, that seemed to come from outside, erupted onto the house and cause many paintings, chairs and even parts of the ceiling to fall to the ground. Then out of no where, Yoruichi appeared as a group of bug-like creatures headed for Ichigo to attack him; "Yoruichi-san?" the teen said in surprise.
Toshiro shunpoed down to them and landed behind Ichigo and Yoruichi; "Don't worry Kurosaki...we'll take it from here." he said finally making his presence known.
"Toshiro." Ichigo said as he turned around to the short captain; "Wow...I'm surprised you got here so fast." Yoruichi said with a smile over at him.
She then looked to the attacking creatures and yelled out; "Shunko!" then a split second later, a blinding white kido surrounded her, destroyed the attacking Doll, and much of the house itself.
"Look out!" Ichinose called out as he lept towards his master to protect him from a falling support beam; "Come on! This place is crumbling down!" Yoruichi said as she grabbed Ichigo by one of his arms and readied herself for a shunpo.
"Go ahead...I'll meat you later." Toshiro said and turned his attention to Jin, Yoruichi was going to protest but she just nodded; "Be careful." she said and disappeared.
"What do you need to speak with me about that is so important that your willing to take the chance of being crushed?" Jin asked as all the other Bounts ran out of the mansion.
"The one thing I haven't figured out yet...how do you intend to get the Quincy to regain his powers?" Toshiro asked, narrowing his eyes on the other white haired man.
"He he, I wouldn't worry too much about it. No one will die...that doesn't already want to." Jin claimed in a light chuckle and a wide smile.
Hitsugaya's eyes widened slightly as he understood what he was talking about; "Damn you." was the last thing he said before shunpoing out of the crumbling and burning house.
Toshiro halted a few feet from the flames around the mansion and just stood there watching it burn; "Yoshino...it looks like you may be getting your wish sooner then either of us expected." he whispered, looking at the ground somewhat sadly.
He then glanced over in the direction of where he could sense Yoruichi and the others' spirit energy; "I might as well get back to-" but he cut himself short when he saw another hell butterfly flying towards him.
"Am I that popular today?" he asked himself sarcastically, as he listened to the message the black and purple insect began relaying after landing on his finger.
As Toshiro continued to listen, his eyes narrowed on the butterfly, then he nodded his head in understanding and breathed out a deep sigh; "Looks like I'm going to have to stay a bit longer then I thought." he muttered as he followed after the now leaving Yoruichi.
"Took you long enough Toshiro!" Yoruichi called out to seemingly no one, but no one said anything as Toshiro appeared right next to her a brief moment later; "What did you find out from him?" she asked.
"I'll tell you later. Right now, I have some more pressing news for Ichigo and his friends." Toshiro said as they continued on towards their destination.
-Urahara Shop-
Toshiro glanced over at Ichigo at the front of the small table everyone was gathered around, and let out a sigh in annoyance and slight boredom; 'He's starting to get on my nerves...he doesn't have much reason to be so depressed.' he thought as he noted the pitiful expression Ichigo was wearing on his face.
He then looked at everyone else around the table and they were reaction to the situation; Yoruichi and Rukia were on either side of Ichigo, while both of them had fairly distressed looks on their faces. Beside them were Orihime and Kisuke, but while Orihime had a very caring expression, Kisuke's was more of a half-way worried, half-way puzzled one.
Next to them were Renji and Chad, whom had similar looks of hidden concern, only Chad's was better concealed due to his lack of expressions over the years. And at the end, opposite of Ichigo, were the modified souls merely sitting there, not showing much emotion from their plush doll bodies.
Toshiro rested his head back against the wall he was leaning on, which was directly behind the mod souls; "Kurosaki-kun..." Orihime whispered, her uneasiness about her friend being very evident in her voice.
"Um...could you be a bit more cheerful?" Kisuke asked, making an attempt at getting Ichigo to lighten up, but all he managed was to bring the teens head back up a few inches.
"The air has gotten stuffy, its even gotten darker in here." Renji commented, looking around the room to further emphasize his point.
"So what is this new information from Soul Society?" Rukia asked, attempting to get the business out the way before they concerned themselves with Ichigo's depressed state.
"Apparently The Department of Technology has found something." Yoruichi started, then looked over at Toshiro for him to continue.
"Ukitake sent me a message stating that Kurotsuchi has broken through the encoding that was set on all the Bounts data. He also sent me information on all of the Bounts that you encountered today and a little history lesson for you, so you'll know what your up against." he began, taking a deep breath before continuing.
"As it turns out, the Quincy and the Bounts once had a large battle against one another, but since the records were so old...no one knows how the battle ended. It was clear that the Bounts were targeting the Quincy during their fights, so we can assume that they didn't win nor succeed in getting their hands on one. And shortly afterward, they began to absorb human souls, more then likely to make themselves stronger. Other then that, we don't know much else about their history." Toshiro looked at everyone's faces drop as their hope of knowing your enemy diminished.
"But since they didn't succeed in getting a Quincy back then...they'll be doing anything to get their hands on one now. And to do that, they're going to be sucking the souls from living humans to become strong enough to get him again." he finished with a hard stare at everyone.
"Is that true Yoruichi-san?" Ichigo asked in shock, to which she nodded and looked at him with a serious expression; "Yes, Ukitake is probably the most reliable person in Soul Society right now." she said with a quick glance at Toshiro and much stress on her words 'right now'.
Toshiro lightly smirked at her and nodded in agreement; "Kariya is trying to use Ishida's powers as a Quincy in order to break a hole into Hueco Mundo. Perhaps the energy of living people's souls is necessary for this. But how does this operation require the abilities of a Quincy?" Rukia questioned.
"Right now we are just gathering information together. We can't make any decisions lightly. At any rate, right now we need to stop Kariya and the Bounts from attacking living huma-" but Yoruichi was cut off when Ichigo called her name; " What is it?" she asked him as he place his head into his hand.
"There's one thing I don't understand...absorbing human's souls, building up their power and even using the Quincy's power, then going to the Hollow's world...Why are they...? Why is Kariya doing this?" he asked, now lifting his head back up and placing his arm in his lap.
"If we knew that, then we wouldn't be working so hard." Yoruichi claimed, with such a quick glance at Toshiro that no one noticed it, save for the person it was directed at.
"That guy...even now he's plenty strong. Just what is trying to do that he needs to get more power?" Ichigo asked more to himself as he began to recall just how easily Jin had defeated him.
"Ichigo, you..." Rukia started, but didn't finished; "He's incredibly powerful...its not about purpose or future plans, so why?" he continued, making just about everyone wonder the exact same thing.
"Kurosaki-san, are you afraid?" Kisuke asked, making Toshiro raise a brow at him; 'Hmph, trying to motivate him with the thought of being scared of his enemy? Not a bad idea.' he thought as a light smirk appeared an his lips.
"That's not it. Its just, when I think about it, I...don't feel that I could win against him as I am now." Ichigo responded, which made Toshiro raise his brow at him now; 'I guess Kisuke didn't do too bad of a job this time...all he needs now is to get his will to fight again.' he thought, smirking wider then before.
"Ichigo..." Rukia whispered, finally allowing the concern in her voice rise, but a sudden rumbling of the ground interrupted them.
"W-What is that noise?" Renji asked, as everyone but Ichigo stood up from their places on the floor.
Then a sudden crash of glass and a mans scream was heard just before Ganju burst straight through the door behind Ichigo. He sailed over the orange haired teens head and crashed onto the round table they still surrounded, which broke on contact; "Ganju-kun!" Orihime yelled in both surprise in seeing him and worry of his well being.
"Its been a long time since I made an appearance!" Ganju laughed out, then sat himself up as Ichigo gave him a glare that said; 'What the hell are you doing here?'
"You really broke it. Please fix it up later." Kisuke said, seeming to care more for his broken table then the mans sudden and rather odd arrival.
"Don't worry about the little stuff!" Ganju claimed, still laughing and speaking in a carefree voice; "Why are you here? And you even rode a boar, where in the world did you find it?" Rukia asked, now very confused.
Ganju merely got himself off the destroyed table, and sat down on the back of the boar that was running back and forth in the room; "Well, this world really has a lot of various rare animals, doesn't it?" he claimed, trying to pass off as if he just happened to find the boar wandering around.
"Could you have gotten it from the zoo?" Chad asked, as the mental picture of a boar gone missing from its cage came to mind.
"Well, its not as if I can go get my Bonny-chan." Ganju proclaimed, but then realized something; "Ah, yeah my bad. You don't know my cute Bonny-chan." he said, looking at Rukia, whom seemed to not even want to know who or what a 'Bonny' was.
"So then, what are you here for?" she asked, now just wanting to know the simple answers; "Ah! That's right! That's right! It seems that some sort of depressed spirit energy hit me, and since I'm the curious type...I came to see what it was and found you in this condition." he began as he came closer to Ichigo, while still riding on the back of the boar.
"So it was you! You depressed bastard!" he continued as he yelled in Ichigo's face; "What did you say?" was Ichigo's rather poor come back.
"Its true. I didn't notice." Rukia said, finally realizing that there was indeed a depressed aura radiating off of Ichigo; "Now that you mention it, it is awful." Renji said in agreement.
"Everyone, lets open up the windows. Open the windows." Kisuke said, waving a hand in front of his face, acting as if the room smelled of something horrible.
"Don't talk as if I'm garbage!" Ichigo demanded angrily, but then he was grabbed by the front of his shirt by Ganju; "Your the same as stinky garbage! I'm gonna clean you up a bit! Hey, old man? Do you know of any good places?" the raven haired man asked.
"Old man? Although I may look like this, I'm the same age as your sister." Kisuke claimed, becoming slightly offended at the thought of being called 'old man'.
"Well, if that's the case..." he began, then walked over to the floor door that led down to the training grounds, opened it up and continued; "Go ahead and use the basement."
Toshiro took this time to leave the room before anything else happened, while the last thing he heard from the group was Ichigo's screaming as he fell through the trap door. He made his way through the narrow hallway till he arrived at the door that held the chosen Quincy, Uryu Ishida and the Bount, Yoshino Soma, who's fate was drawing closer by the second. Toshiro slid the door open and gave Tessai a hard look, to which he nodded and got Jinta, Ururu and Kon out of the room, with little difficulty.
He walked over to Yoshino and kneeled down in front of her with a weak and rather small smile; "I suppose this will be the last time we meet. But there's one thing I'd like to say to you before I say good bye..." he began, leaning down to her.
"Thank you, for everything." he finished, leaning further down a planting a gentle kiss on her lips, then stood up, walked to the door but stopped in the doorway; "Good bye...Yoshino." and with that, he walk out of the room and slid the door closed behind him.
As the door shut, Yoshino's eyes opened and a tear escaped from her eye; "Good bye...Toshiro." she said seemingly full of sorrow, but her lips curled up into a smile, showing that she was only happy because he was able to say those words to her.
The young looking captain sighed sadly, swallowed down the lump forming in his throat and continued out of the shop; "What leaving already?" Yoruichi asked as she walked up behind him.
"Its about time for me to return." he responded with a glance over his shoulder; "Well...you could just stay a little longer." she said more as a question then a statement.
He turned himself around to look at her completely, but she seemed to mask whatever she was feeling behind a practiced smile; "Come on...it won't be too bad. I'm planning on going at sun rise anyway, just wait for a few more hours." she requested, while continuing her smile.
Toshiro sighed once more and close his eyes for a brief moment; "Alright, I'll stay." he said now sporting a very light smirk, to which Yoruichi smiled genuinely and nodded in acceptance of his answer.
"Good, cause I already had an idea of what we can do till then." she claimed with a wide grin on her face; "And what would that be?" Toshiro asked with a raised brow, seemingly slightly afraid to make his question.
"Star gazing of course! We haven't done that in years." Yoruichi said widening her grin into a smile and gesturing to the top of the shops roof with her head and her thumb; "Yeah...it has been years." Toshiro commented silently.
The two of them jumped on the top of the shop, laid themselves across the convex shingles and looked up at the cloudless sky. Toshiro kept his main focus on the constellation of Draco, one that Yoruichi had claimed was his constellation many years ago. While Yoruichi herself watched for shooting stars, but she always looked for a specific one; "Still favoring Draco are we?" she asked without even having to look at him.
"Still hoping to see the two tailed shooting star?" Toshiro questioned back, also not looking at her; "Hey, I know that it'll pass by eventually." Yoruichi claimed with an amused smile.
Toshiro let out a light chuckle, then a deep sigh; "I'm sure you will Yoruichi...I'm sure you will." he said with a very content-filled voice.
Yoruichi nodded, widened her smile and finally looked at him; "Yeah...someday. And I hope your with me when it does." he looked at her as well but he wore a shocked expression, then it changed to a light smirk.
"Me too." Toshiro said, then along with Yoruichi returned to his 'star gazing', but a sudden shutting of a door snapped them from their daze.
"What the..." Yoruichi mumbled as she and Toshiro stood themselves up and watched the shadowed figure of Yoshino running off into the dark filled night.
"There she goes." Yoruichi said as the two of them jumped down from the roof and right next to where Kisuke walked up; "She's going to die this time." she continued.
"There are some humans who must do that in order to finish the fight." Kisuke spoke with a somewhat saddened tone; "The fight?" Yoruichi asked with a raised brow, looking over at the blond haired man.
"Yeah, this fight called life." Toshiro explained in a deep and fairly depressed sigh; "We're heading off to Soul Society now. We can't be shaken up by this ambiguous information, we'll find out the truth behind this soon enough." Yoruichi said with a knowing smirk at Toshiro.
Kisuke nodded to them and said; "Right." and with that, the Tenth Division Captain and Former Second Division Captain disappeared into a senkaimon made by the former.
I hope you all enjoyed this one. Till next time. ;)