Author's Note
Hello and welcome back! Sorry I missed October, but I was busy with school, work, and looking at colleges to transfer to. That and I was trying to write the first part here seriously but my brain was giving me nothing until I decided to go more comedy instead. Stupid brain, slowing things down. Also recent Bleach has been awesome, that last chapter sheds such a different light on Kyouraku and Nanao's interactions since *spoiler, but you should know this* she's his niece.
To Guest: kyoko, when I said powered humans I meant people with developed reiatsu-based skills (shinigami, quincy fullbringer, etc.) People who have enough power to see spirits but no actual abilities, like Tatsuki, thus do not count in that sense. Hope that clears it up for you.
And as a general message to all, I'm pretty quick to respond to questions if you pm me or are signed in for the comment in which the question is asked.
Anywho, that's enough babbling from me. Enjoy the chapter!
Edit: This chapter has had a minor face lift in the light of mechanics/events of chapter 676.
The day after the first D.A. meeting, Harry, Ron, and Hermione tried to catch Ichigo so that they could ask him more about what had happened in the Room of Requirement before the meeting, but he proved to be surprisingly elusive. They couldn't catch him between or during classes, so it wasn't until after dinner that they caught him, or rather he let them catch him.
They had followed him out of the Great Hall and after winding their way through the castle, only just keeping him in sight, the trio was surprised when they turned the corner only to find Ichigo leaning against the wall next to the door of an empty classroom.
As they approached, half expecting him to bolt after avoiding them nearly all day, he wordlessly gestured for them to enter the classroom. Harry, Ron, and Hermione glared at him as they passed into the classroom, trying to convey their annoyance and anger at his antics. Ichigo didn't react and simply followed them in, closing the door behind him before taking a seat on the edge of the teacher's desk. Harry, Ron, and Hermione settled on the front row of desks, still glaring at Ichigo.
Ichigo sighs. "Look, I'm sorry for avoiding you all day, okay?" The trio doesn't look the least bit mollified by the apology. "I didn't do it to piss you off or get out of trying to explain things, it's just that I wasn't really sure how to explain things to you. I've been thinking about it all day, but I couldn't think of anything but the truth. So ask away, I guess."
"What was all that? The yellow light?"
"How'd you block it? What was that look?"
"Who was chanting in there with you?"
"Matte, matte!(Wait, wait!) One question at a time, please." Ichigo says, cutting off the trio's stream of questions. The trio has the good nature to look slightly guilty for overwhelming Ichigo with questions. "I'll start with the last one. Yoruichi-san was in there with me."
"Professor Urahara's cat?" Hermione asks with no little amount of disbelief.
"… Yes." Ichigo says after a pause.
"Hippogriff dung." Ron says. "Cats can't talk, even with magic."
"Well Yoruichi-san does." Ichigo replies with a shrug. "I know it's weird, but that doesn't make it any less true."
"But how does a cat make whatever that yellow light was?" Harry asks. He and Hermione are slightly more open to a talking cat since they weren't raised in a magical household and thus more willing to believe that magic could do such a thing.
"Yoruichi-san isn't really a normal cat, so she can do stuff like that. She is the one that originally taught Inoue how to use her powers."
"A talking cat that can make destructive yellow light? You're not taking the mickey, are you?" Ron asks.
"I know it's hard to believe, I certainly was surprised when I first met Yoruichi-san, but it is true. It just takes some getting used to. And what's a cartoon mouse got to do with anything?" Ichigo asks, misunderstanding Ron's question.
"Mouse?" Ron asks, before being cut off by Harry.
"So what exactly was that yellow light?"
"A kidou." Ichigo receives confused looks. "It's what we call our spells. They have ridiculous poetry chants, then you shout their number and name, and bam! instant explosion of your choosing."
"They all explode?" Ron moans, thinking of Seamus's many accidentally explosions being an actual practice of magic.
"Well, most of the hadou anyways. There's also kidou for healing and binding and those don't explode, I think. They might explode if you do them wrong." Ichigo says, rubbing his chin in thought.
"Why would you want to learn magic like that?!" Hermione asks, slightly panicked at the thought of everything exploding.
"Because it's more effective at hurting psychopathic killers than your stunning lights." Ichigo answers matter of factly. "It's much harder for them to try to kill people when it hurts to even move."
The trio stares at him in horror. The nonchalance Ichigo shows in talking about such violence terrifies them.
"What? I'm not saying we kill them or anything and don't forget, our… magic is based on combat. Depending on how strong a person is, they can counter an attack like that easily."
"How did you counter it?" Harry asks, beginning to wonder if Ichigo is strong by that system or if the spell was 'weak'.
"I used a cero."
"A cero?" Ron parrots back. "What's that?"
"A… giant laser."
"A giant laser?" Harry asks skeptically. It sounds like something out of one of Dudley's video games, not something that happens in real life.
"Aah, yeah. At least, that's the best way I could describe it." Ichigo says with a shrug.
"What's a laser?" Ron asks, confused by the muggle sci-fi concept.
"It's a beam of light or energy capable of destroying things or something to that effect." Hermione explains. "You usually hear about them in muggle fiction."
"Oh." Ron still didn't really get it, but he didn't feel like asking for further clarification. "So what was with that look you had then, Ichigo?"
"Umm…" Ichigo says, trying to figure how to explain hollowfication without really explaining hollowfication. "It was… what allowed me to use cero." Ichigo answers. He wasn't sure that was strictly true since he'd never tried to use a cero without hollowfying, but until proven otherwise it was a good guess.
"How'd you change like that?" Harry asks.
"Umm… It's kind of what happens when I use a certain part of Zangetsu's power." Ichigo explains.
"Wait, so you can change like that and use that cero thing whenever you want?" Ron asks.
"Kind of?" Ichigo says, sounding unsure. "To be honest, that was the first time I've managed to make the change by force of will since I've improved that technique. If I can actually remember how I did it, then probably. As for cero, it's easy enough once I'm in that form."
"Why aren't you heading the DA?" Harry asks with a slight hint of accusation in his voice. After hearing Ichigo's explanation of the magic involved yesterday, it's quite obvious to Harry that Ichigo knows much more about fighting with magic than he does.
Ichigo sighs, thinking that he really should have seen that question coming. "Because I only have about three years' worth of practice with it, absolutely no confidence teaching kids who are younger than me, not to mention that none of you have any real background in any kind of physical fighting, and it's not something you can just say 'oh I think I'll learn to shoot a cero today' and just start learning." He replies, ticking his points off on his fingers.
"It's not like I've been practicing defense any longer than the rest of them, in fact I've been learning Defense for less time than some of them, I don't have any confidence in teaching them, and I don't expect them to master any spell in one day." Harry heatedly argues. "You haven't given any good reason why it should be me instead of you!"
"I don't know your magic system and what I do know was literally beat into me, not something that I think any of them would agree to going through. Not to mention that you kids are simply incapable of learning any of it!" Ichigo angrily replies. He had no intention of taking Harry's role as teacher, even if the other students were willing to learn from him.
"So you don't want to teach us because we're younger than you?" Hermione asks, cutting off Harry's next heated retort. Something about what Ichigo had said had raised a suspicion in her.
"Kind of." Ichigo replies, quick to get away from the pending shouting match with Harry. "I wouldn't want someone getting hurt because I wasn't a good instructor. Senpai are supposed to look out for their kouhai." Receiving some confused looks, Ichigo rephrases, "Older students are supposed to look out for younger students."
"So that applies even to the seventh years?" Hermione presses.
"Yes, they're still young–" Ichigo stops mid-answer, realizing what Hermione has half-tricked him into giving away as he watches Ron and Harry stare at him in surprise. Ichigo groans and puts his hand over his face in defeat. Age was supposed to be one of the easier secrets to keep and he just gave away without even meaning to.
"What are you doing taking fifth year classes when you're already of age?" Ron asks in disbelief.
Ichigo sighs in defeat. "Remember how I told you that we're here because Geta-boushi and Shinji owe Dumbledore a favor?" He receives a round of nods. "That favor is being filled in two parts: one, we take care of the little group that's from our style that's following your big bad guy. As you noticed yesterday, our fights can be a little more than your magic can handle. And two, we keep an eye on you, Harry, and make sure you and the rest stay safe. It's kind of hard to keep an eye on someone if you're not constantly around them, so pretending to be fifteen was the easiest thing to do."
"So you're all just more bodyguards for me, is that it?" Harry growls. He was tired of having people fussing over him when he can take care of himself.
"Yes and no. It's a hands off approach." Ichigo patiently explains. "We won't step in unless you try to do something really stupid or if it's something obviously life-threatening. Besides that, we'll just stand by and let you do whatever you want, even help you with it like we did for the DA. So quit getting all worked up about the fact that people want you to be safe." Ichigo admonishes.
Harry stews in silence, not sure if he still wants to be upset that he has more bodyguards or guilty for taking it out on a friend.
"So how old are you really?" Hermione asks.
"Nineteen." Ichigo replies. "And before you can ask, Inoue is nineteen too and Ishida will be as well in November. And I think we'll cut off the question and answer session there since this isn't even about what happened yesterday."
With that Ichigo got up and left the classroom, ignoring the small protests of the trio. He wasn't going to say it, but Ichigo had given away more than he intended in that meeting and really didn't want to risk giving away even more.
The following weeks passed in a blur. Between Quidditch practice, classes, and the DA, Harry hardly found time for anything else, but he still managed to try and grill the Japanese students for more answers on what little had been revealed to him. Hermione and Ron also tried to fish for more information.
The results were mixed.
Uryu easily deflected all questions, usually by rerouting them to homework. Orihime would usually apologize and say it was a secret, though they could see that she'd like to tell them. Unfortunately for the trio, one of the other Japanese always seemed to come swooping in with something just before she could break. Oddly enough what small successes they did have came from Ichigo. On a few occasions they had caught him doing something out of the ordinary and been able to wring an answer out of him. Unfortunately, he was getting better at shutting up after giving a very basic and rather abstract explanation for the single event.
However, through this they had learned several things: zanpakuto can be communicated with through special meditation (they'd seen him sitting cross-legged on the bed one afternoon when a cut mysteriously opened itself on his cheek), Ichigo and Uryu possessed a strange magic that made them hard to cut (during a DA meeting someone shattered the Foe Glass with a stray spell, cutting up their clothes but not the boys themselves), and that Ichigo could really walk off a beating. Every time they cornered him into an explanation, Harry and Ron noticed that Ichigo had somehow received a large smattering of bruises. The fact that he had so many and managed to keep a straight face most of the time was impressive, but the correlation between info given and the number of bruises was concerning, so they backed off on the questions.
Soon enough the thoughts of questions and bruises disappeared to be replaced by tensions for the upcoming Quidditch match. It was the first match of the season and with it being between the archrival houses of Gryffindor and Slytherin, things were getting what some might consider out of hand. Snape and McGonagall were favoring their team players and there was constant verbal abuse from the Slytherins to Gryffindor players, which Ron wasn't handling to well.
The game itself didn't go as well as Harry would have liked. Ron was an absolute nervous wreck with no confidence in his ability to play, which was not helped by the Slytherins' new song of Weasley is Our King. It wasn't too bad, Harry thought as he caught the Snitch and won the match, until Malfoy opened his mouth and insulted him and George into attacking, the only reason Fred didn't join his brother being that the Chasers held him back. While McGonagall and Madam Hooch were understandably upset by the unsportsman like display, it was Umbridge's escalation of Harry and George's punishment to a ban from Quidditch and her decision to include Fred as well that truly made it miserable. Even more so when Crabbe's own display was only met with writing lines.
Hermione was the one to find a light at the end of the miserable day.
"Well I can think of one thing that might cheer you both up."
"Oh yeah?" Harry asks skeptically.
"Yeah. Hagrid's back." Hermione says with a broad smile as she turns away from looking out the window into the snow covered night.
The trio rushed out under the invisibility cloak to visit Hagrid, not noticing in their excitement that they had a follower. Once they reached Hagrid's cabin, the trio was shocked to find that Hagrid was a mess, like he had picked a fight with the Womping Willow and gotten soundly beaten. A bit of prodding revealed that he had indeed been away trying to win some giants to their cause with Madame Maxime. Hagrid explained how the trip had started well enough, but in the end the Death Eaters had won more support while Hagrid and Madame Maxime had only gotten the idea that Dumbledore would receive the giants kindly planted in a few's minds. Hagrid also found out about his mother's death during the trip, though he wasn't particularly saddened by it since she was never around in the first place.
Before the trio could get Hagrid to actually tell them how he had gotten so beaten up there was a rapping on the window. It startled the occupants of the cabin and Hermione almost dropped her mug of tea. Looking at the silhouette against the curtain in the window they were able to make out a figure with spikey hair.
Hermione gasped as she realized who it was and quickly pushed aside the curtain and opened the window. "Ichigo! What are you doing here?"
"Keeping an eye on you three." Ichigo easily replied, giving a little wave to the others in the cabin. "I also thought you might like to know that the toad is on her way down here." Ron, Harry, and Hermione gasp in horror while Hagrid just looks confused. "I'd say you have maybe two minutes."
"Who the ruddy hell are you?" Hagrid asks, a bit more concerned with the fact that there is a stranger in odd clothes with what looked like the hilt of a sword sticking out over his left shoulder at his window than the message being conveyed.
"Ichigo Kurosaki, yoroshiku (equivalent to 'nice to meet you')." Ichigo says, dipping his head toward Hagrid. "I already cleaned up your footprints on my way down, but you'll want to clean up evidence of your visit in here before you get under your invisible blanket." Cleaning up their footprints had been a chore because he had to carefully swipe his blades to get the right wind pressure to blow snow over their trail, thus erasing their footprints, without making it look too unnatural. Then there was the invisibility cloak. It was useful and concerning at the same time. It did a wonderful job of keeping them hidden, but unknown to the others, that particular cloak not only shielded the wearer from sight, but also from reiatsu sensing. Uryu wouldn't have been able to track them, much less Ichigo, while they were under the cloak, but Ichigo had realized that they were going through the outdoors when Hermione had bundled herself up, so it had been easy for him to take shinigami form, jump out a window, and follow their footprints through the snow from the front doors.
"What about you? It won't be good if she catches you either." Hermione says as Ron and Harry look for places to hide the mugs before Hagrid just sticks them under the cushion in Fang's basket.
"Don't worry about me." Ichigo says with a smirk. "I can be pretty hard to spot when I want." Truthfully, he was just going to hide on the backside of the cabin, but none of them would see him get there because none of them could track his shunpo, nor could they see that he was standing on the air an inch above the snow, thus not leaving any footprints. "Stay hidden until I knock on the window again, okay?" The trio nods. "Alright, good luck. Don't forget to close the window."
Hermione closes the window and draws the curtain over it again, watching the silhouette of Ichigo's head disappear the moment the window is covered.
"Who was that fella?" Hagrid asks still slightly confused. "And why're ya so worried 'bout a toad?"
"Ichigo's from a Japanese group Dumbledore's asked to help the Order and 'the toad' is what he calls –"
The sudden rapping on the door cut off Hermione's explanation and she quickly dove under the cloak with Harry and Ron as they hid in the corner. Seeing that the trio was properly hidden, Hagrid went and opened his door, nudging the ever eager and friendly Fang out of the way, to reveal Umbridge.
Umbridge practically barged in as she began to inform Hagrid of her position as High Inquisitor and grill him for answers as to where he'd been, revealing that the ministry had an idea as to what the good grounds keeper had been up to. After a few nerve-racking minutes, Umbridge exited the cabin with the ominous warning of the Ministry's goal to 'weed out unsatisfactory teachers'. It was another minute before Ichigo's silhouette reappeared in the window and the glass was rapped upon once more.
The trio came out from under the cloak while Hagrid opened the front door instead of the window, inviting Ichigo in out of the cold.
"So that was 'the toad'?" Hagrid asks as Ichigo steps inside, revealing to the cabin's occupants that there is indeed a sword slung across his back, one of large proportions, as well as what is presumably a smaller sward resting at his right hip. "Nasty one, she was. Name's Rubeus Hagrid." He says and offers a giant hand to Ichigo, which is taken and shaken without the usual wincing from Hagrid's strength. "Thanks fer warnin' us."
"No problem." Ichigo waves it off. "I don't think anyone but the Ministry ass-kissers like the toad anyway."
"You're not planning anything, er… too dangerous for classes are you, Hagrid?" Hermione hesitantly asks. "She's inspecting the other teachers and if something like Buckbeak happens again…"
Dangerous? Oh kami I hope they are. It's just what we need! One little shove at the right moment…
Yeah…
"Oh, don' worry. I've bin savin' a couple o' special creatures fer yer O.W.L. year. Nothin' dangerous. I mean, all righ', they can look after themselves –"
"Hagrid, you've got to pass Umbridge's inspection and the best way to do that would be if she saw you teaching us how to look after porlocks or tell the difference between knarls and hedgehogs. Stuff like that!"
"But tha's not very interestin', Hermione." Hagrid says, looking almost confused as to how someone would prefer such tame lessons to the wilder beauty of the magical animal kingdom he wanted to show the class. "The stuff I've got's much more impressive. I've bin bringin' 'em on fer years, I reckon I've got the on'y domestic herd in Britain –"
"Hagrid, please –" Hermione begs, trying to find the words to convince him to rethink his course of action. "Just teach us something boring that's bound to come up in our O.W.L.s. She's looking for any excuse to get rid of those close to Dumbledore. Please, Hagrid."
In the end, Hagrid didn't listen and just shooed them off back to the castle with reassurances of how good his lessons would be. Ron expressed his doubts about having gotten through to Hagrid as the trio trekked back to the castle, Ichigo having gone ahead of them, and Hermione vowed to do whatever she could to keep them from getting Hagrid as she used the Obliteration charm to wipe out their footprints.
"I'll plan his lessons if I have to. I don't care if she throws out Trelawney, but she's not taking Hagrid!"
Author's Note
So, what'cha think? The two italic lines at the end are Ichigo and hollow Zangetsu conversing in Ichi's head for those who didn't get it, I'm sure you can guess who's getting shoved ;) As for the bruises on Ichigo, they're punishment for getting caught and handing out info, so Orihime's not allowed to heal them. And you know Orihime would hand out info if the others let the trio take the opportunity. Giant lasers!
Please review/comment to tell me how I did.