The next morning at breakfast, hundreds of owls swooped into the Great Hall bearing mail. Harry searched the mass of brown, grey, and black for Hedwig, but the telltale white plumage of his beautiful snowy owl was nowhere to be seen. His stomach sank, and he had a sudden flash of fear that somehow something had happened to Sirius, who was in hiding. Earlier in the summer he had sent his godfather a letter about his scar hurting, and he had been hoping for some advice. Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do but hope that Sirius was still safe.
A flash of black and purple among the flock of owls caught his eye, and he looked curious at the object that had appeared in his peripheral vision. Strangely enough, it was a large black butterfly with purple lower wings, about the size of his palm, fluttering its way towards the teacher's table. Curious, he nudged Hermione and Ron and pointed towards the butterfly. "Hey," he said, directing their attention towards it. "What do you suppose that is?" he asked.
Both Ron and Hermione shrugged, Ron not really paying attention, but Hermione watched the butterfly closely, observing what it did next. To their surprise, the butterfly made its way to the object of the trio's interests and suspicions, Captain Kurosaki.
"Hey," Harry whispered to Hermione, "Do you think that butterfly is the Japanese equivalent of our owls?" They watched as the butterfly landed on the Japanese wizard's fingertip, which he had extended to allow for it to land on. Captain Kurosaki adopted an expression of concentration as he apparently listened to something nobody else could hear. Abruptly, a fierce scowl appeared on his face, causing Harry to shudder. With the glowing golden eyes, Kurosaki looked positively bloodthirsty.
Ichigo cursed under his breath as he listened to the message the Hell Butterfly had just delivered, causing some of the teachers to look at him curiously. "Something wrong, my boy?" the old Headmaster asked, slight concern in his voice. Ichigo wanted to strangle the old man, but resisted the urge. Although he was already sixty-seven years old, his physical appearance still resembled that of a young man in his prime.
"Nothing for you to concern yourself over, Headmaster," he said. Reaching with his free hand, he tapped the Hell Butterfly, causing it to morph into a large stack of papers, which dropped onto the table with a heavy thud. "It appears that my subordinates have neglected to finish the paperwork for certain… matters, and they have left it to me to complete it."
McGonagall stared at the stack of papers, which was taller than it was wide, in amazement. "Paperwork?" she said, aghast. "You call that paperwork?"
Ichigo rolled his eyes. "When our department finishes a new invention, there's always a ton of paperwork and political crap we have to get through. What you see here," he said, gesturing to the stack of paper, each sheet awaiting his signature and various other information, "is just the tip of the iceberg. Once I finish this, I'll send this back to the department, and then there's a few months of negotiating before the new invention can be put into circulation throughout the squads."
A spark of amusement appeared in Dumbledore's eyes. "So did your kidou gun invention go through this same process?" he asked curiously, eyeing the shiny black gun that was visible in its holster.
Ichigo fingered the gun with one hand while eating with the other, after turning the stack of papers back into a butterfly and sending it off to his room. "Just the paperwork part," he said after swallowing a mouthful of scrambled egg. Taking a sip of the tea, he grimaced at the taste. "Kidou guns are rather difficult and expensive to make, so they aren't standard equipment for the Gotei 13. Rather, only I and some other high-ranking members of the squads have them. Do you guys have any green tea?" he said, looking at his teacup filled with some sort of milky brown fluid, heavily sugared, with veiled disgust.
The teachers smirked in amusement, some laughing. Dumbledore chuckled merrily. "English tea not to your tastes, Captain?" he said, as a delicate china pot appeared on the table, a Japanese-style teacup appearing next to it.
Ichigo nodded as he poured the steaming liquid into the cup. Taking a sip of the hot tea, he sighed in contentment. "That's right. This is the good stuff right here," he said, gesturing to the cup. "Your English tea is so… well, I don't know how to describe it. You add so much stuff to it. Milk, sugar, and what have you. It's a bit disconcerting, to say the least."
"Tea," snorted the scarred Alastor Moody. "I'll stick to this good stuff right here," he said, holding up his ornately carved hip flask, taking a swig.
Ichigo frowned at the teacher. "Is that legal?" he asked, eyeing the flask with concern and a bit of suspicion. "I wasn't aware that you English allowed teachers to drink at a school." Mentally he filed away the fact that Moody only drank from the hip flask. It might be handy sometime. Besides, something about this new teacher didn't sit right with the captain. His reiatsu seemed rather dark, much of it coming from his right arm. Come to think of it, he got the same feeling from Snape, the potions master, although it was much more suppressed.
"We have no laws against it," sniffed McGonagall, who clearly didn't approve of Moody's drinking either. "So it is not prohibited."
Ichigo shook his head. These English wizards were more lax in their security and laws than Kyoraku Shunsui and Coyote Starrk, the former Primera Espada, were lazy. It was a good thing he was here for security. In his experience, not even a school was safe. If the enemy wanted something, they would go to unthinkable lengths to attain it, including targeting children.
"What was that butterfly?" Snape asked curiously, and Ichigo smirked slightly. Trust this man never to dillydally. He always cut right to what he wanted to know.
"We call them Jigokuchou, 'Hell Butterfly.'" He looked at the expressions on the wizards' faces in amusement. "Don't ask me why they're called that, we had them before I became a Captain," he said.
The teachers lost interest then, and went back to chatting amongst themselves. To occupy himself, Ichigo scanned the tables, making note of a few students with fairly high reiatsu. He still had to test whether these wizards could see him in soul form. His eyes swept over a trio of Gryffindor students that looked familiar, and he concentrated on them for a moment before remembering. They were the ones in the Leaky Cauldron, who had seen him at the World Cup. No doubt they had questions for them now that he had revealed himself at Hogwarts. He turned to the Headmaster with a questioning look.
"Headmaster, who are those three at the Gryffindor table?" he asked. '
Dumbledore glanced at the aforementioned students and smiled. "Those would be Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, and Hermione Granger," he said.
Ichigo noticed out of the corner of his eye the thinly veiled look of disgust on Snape's face. Apparently he and Potter had some sort of bad blood between them. Interesting. He nodded. "Ah, thank you," he said.
"Do they interest you?" Dumbledore asked with a knowing glint in his eye.
"They were staring at me," Ichigo replied smoothly, causing Dumbledore to chuckle mildly.
"Yes, you'll have to excuse them for that; I'm afraid young Mr. Potter and his companions have a penchant for curiosity," Dumbledore replied with a smile.
Ichigo nodded absently as he continued to sweep the room. A spark of reiatsu made him freeze suddenly. Impossible! Slowly, he turned to look at the source of the familiar reiatsu, albeit one that he hadn't felt for decades. His eyes caught on a young blonde girl sitting alone at the Ravenclaw table, and he stiffened as he felt her reiatsu brush against his senses again. The girl turned her head, and their eyes met, her blue-grey orbs not flinching beneath his piercing golden gaze. After a moment, she gave him a small smile and returned her attention to her food.
Ichigo sank back into his chair, feeling slightly faint. The shock he had from feeling that reiatsu again after so long brought back the memory of the nightmare from last night. "Kira…" he murmured quietly, so quietly that nobody heard him. "I'm sorry…"
#
Ichigo walked through the hallways, looking in mild interest at the old suits of armor that lined the walls, when his sensitive ears picked up the sounds of whispers. He smirked. And so the stalking begins…
"Something I can help you with, Mr. Potter, Miss Granger, Mr. Weasley?" he asked, seemingly to thin air. He raised an eyebrow as the air in front of him shimmered and the three students appeared.
Potter tucked something quickly under his robes, and Ichigo made a mental note to find out what it was that had hidden them so well from view. Unfortunately for them, although he couldn't see them, he could still hear them and sense their reiatsu very clearly. He smirked at the guilty looks on the students' faces.
"You're the one we saw at the Leaky Cauldron," Granger said, cutting straight to the chase. "You came to our table to ask questions."
Ichigo nodded the affirmative. "That's right," he said. "Sorry to keep it a secret from you guys, but I didn't want my cover blown until I got here to Hogwarts." He saw Weasley's face twist into a scowl. The kid was just like Abarai when they had first met, headstrong and brash.
"Who are you?" Ichigo only smirked. Yup, just like Abarai.
"Who am I? That's a funny question to ask. I believe I introduced myself only yesterday," Ichigo said, raising an eyebrow. "But apparently you've forgotten already." His smirk widened as Weasley's face turned redder than Abarai's hair. This was fun. He was so easy to get worked up. "I guess I'll just have to refresh your apparently-terrible memory then. My name is Ichigo Kurosaki. I'm a special envoy from the magical government of Japan, Captain of the Twelfth division of the Thirteen Imperial Court Guard Squads, president of the Research and Development Institute, and minor lord of the Noble Kuchiki Family." His smirk turned into a grin which caused the three students to shudder visibly. "I don't think you've introduced yourselves yet. That's bad manners, you know," he said.
Ron's complexion had turned from red to pale and he was unable to say anything but stutter as Ichigo watched amusedly. Granger screwed up the courage and said, "I'm Hermione Granger, and these two are Harry Potter and Ron Weasley, sir."
Ichigo nodded, adopting a bored look. "Yes, yes. I know already," he said.
Potter flushed. "If you knew who we were already, why did you ask us?" he asked, also getting worked up.
Ichigo rolled his eyes. "I didn't ask you to introduce yourselves," he drawled. "I merely pointed out that it was bad manners to not introduce yourselves. I never specifically asked for your names, you simply assumed based off my statement that I didn't know who you were."
"How did you know who we were then?" asked Granger.
Weasley cut her off quickly. "Obviously he's after Harry! Any Death Eater would know who he is!"
Ichigo mentally facepalmed at the stupidity of the boy, while Granger smacked him upside the head. "You idiot!" she hissed, shooting Ichigo an apologetic look.
Ichigo smirked again, looking at Granger. "You're from a mundane family." He said. It was a statement, not a question, and she blushed slightly.
"That's right," she affirmed. "How did you know that, though?" she asked, curiosity etched on her face.
Ichigo smiled secretively. "I have my sources. Sources that I would rather remain unknown," he said, enjoying the looks of annoyance on the three students' faces. "Now, I am perfectly willing to answer any and all questions you have for me, except the ones that I deem compromising to answer. We Japanese have plenty of secrets to keep, after all."
"What was that shield you performed at the World Cup?" asked Potter quickly, his eyes narrowed.
Ichigo shrugged. "Oh, that?" he asked casually. "That was nothing. Just a simple spell that we use in the Imperial Court Guards."
"Simple?" repeated Granger, sounding aghast. "That shield was stronger than anything I've ever read about! It's impossible to have a shield strong enough to block a dozen powerful spells at once!"
"Impossible?" Ichigo said, raising an eyebrow. "Not at all." He leaned forward conspiratorially. "In fact, in my experience, I've learned that there is no such thing as the word 'impossible'. Such things are merely very, very improbable."
"Show us, then," said Weasley abruptly. "Prove it to us that this shield is actually what you say it is, and that show back at the World Cup wasn't something set up to get you into Hogwarts."
"You think I'm a Death Eater, and that that whole business at the World Cup was just a front, an excuse to get me into Hogwarts?" Ichigo asked, amused. "Well, what if it was? Here I am. What next? I suppose I'm going to go on a killing rampage now, firing spells left and right randomly?" His eyes narrowed, and he let his voice distort slightly. "Please. You must be more stupid than you look. If I wanted you dead, you already would be, and there would be nothing your Ministry could do to stop me."
Weasley shouted triumphantly, "I knew it! He is a Death Eater, 'Mione! We should go report this right away!"
Ichigo rolled his eyes. "Foolish child," he said, letting his voice fully distort, his golden eyes glowing. White began seeping into his bright orange hair, causing the students to recoil in horror. "Are you deaf? Did you not hear anything I just said?" He looked down at the trio, who were now sweating and shivering beneath his cold glare.
With a swish of his coat, he turned on one leather-clad heel and walked down the hallway. "You're questions are not worthy of my answers," he said coldly, his voice and hair returning to normal as he walked. "I am an important government official and a noble. As mere children, you are beneath me. I shall not waste any more time on you."
#
Next chapter is here, as usual! Thanks to Maverick14th for the idea of Kira's reincarnation. I really liked the concept, so I hope you don't mind that I actually use it! Also, thanks to anonymous reviewer qwerty for the 100th review! Woo, the reception I've gotten for this story is amazing! Thanks for all the support, guys!
Next chapter, Ichigo sits in on Defense Against the Dark Arts! Stay tuned!
~fokker333