Disclaimer: I own neither Bleach nor World of Warcraft.

Here is the first chapter of my new story. While I know that I said I would be making a rewrite of "Bleached Into Azeroth" creating an entirely new story and plot was much easier and potentially better in the long run. With an entire new cast of characters I plan on making this as good, if not better, then my other stories.

Chapter 1 Edited: July 7, 2013

Inspiration has struck and I find myself going back to this story and revised it. I looked over this chapter and added several segments, rewrote others, and updated some of the information to be more in line with the current progress of the manga. I also changed many mentions of the soul society to the Seireitei, which is inside the Soul Society and is thus a different place. Several obvious grammatical errors were also fixed. All in all, about 300 words were added to this chapter to help clarify and make the story flow better. Expect edits to Chapter 2 to happen soon. Chapter 5 is in the works so stay tuned!

1. Raximus - You bring up an excellent point. Giving armor to Ichigo was something I tried to do to add character development to him by giving him some history on the world he arrived on. It didn't really work out the way I hoped so I don't think anyone will be getting armor in this new story.

2. Blinded in a bolthole - I don't consider it a rewrite (even though I said so in the update chapter). I am using a (mostly) new set of characters with only Ichigo and Uryu remaining from the original cast of seven. This story also starts off somewhere between the defeat of Xcution but before the invasion by the Vandenreich. The Lich king thing was not supposed to demonstrate Rukia's powers because he was not really at full strength. It was more of a mental battle between Rukia and the Lich King and Rukia only won because she had several moves and abilities that he did not expect and thus took him completely off guard. If they were to fight again he would most likely win since he had seen most of her attacks and would be prepared.

3. Rei Rusuragi - I decided to use Harribel based a little on your suggestion even if I included her in the rough draft before reading your review. To me she is a more interesting character to write than Neliel (but not by much) and I look forward to developing her over the course of the story.

4. Opinion Giver - Uryu Ishida was a given character due to how much his character was given development in the manga. There is a lot I can write about as well as speculate on. While he was initially portrayed as cold and indifferent he had gotten some major screentime and I intend to capitalize on that. I thought about using Chad but he was such a hard character to write about that I did not know what to do. As for Neliel, she is fun to write about and all but rather hard to actually put her in a plot where she is not either totally childish or a cold-stone fighter.

5. Infinite Freedom – Relax. Don't think of it as a revision, rewrite, or redo. While I did say that in the chapter note I decided to start from scratch with a mostly new group of travelers. It just seemed to work out that way.

...

Journey of Spirits

Chapter 1: Dues Ex Machina

Ichigo Kurosaki was known to be many things to different people. To his sisters he was the aloof and protective older brother who could be counted on whenever he was needed, to his friends he was the person who would be the first one to head into hell to rescue them and it was to the Soul Society that he was seen as a savior. It was his strength and will to go on that stopped the machinations of Aizen Sosuke to create to Ouken and invade the royal realm to supplant himself as god and ruler and everything by killing the spirit king.

He was not known for being a particularly patient person, especially with those that kidnap him in the middle of the night.

So he was pissed.

"Do you mind answering a simple question Urahara?"

The mad scientist and former captain of the Twelfth Division looked up from the machine he was tinkering with, "But of course Ichigo. You can ask me anything."

"WHY THE HELL AM I TIED TO THIS CHAIR?"

The last few hours were a complete blank to Ichigo. It was only a few days ago that he fought and killed Ginjo while stopping Xcution's plans to steal his Fullbring to take his revenge against the Soul Society. While he understood where the other substitute shinigami was coming from, he couldn't let him harm innocent people to get back at one man. After he made sure Ginjo's body would get a proper burial he had hoped for some semblance of normality in his life. No more madmen vying to become gods or take revenge against the entire afterlife. He knew, of course, that he would need to fight the occasional hollow in Karakura Town and perform Konso on souls to send them to the afterlife but that was fine with him. Something like that wouldn't bother him at all. Therefore, it came as a surprise when he fell asleep in his bed in the Human World and woke up tied to a chair as a shinigami.

"That is a very good question Ichigo and we will come to that later but for now let us move on. Assistant if you will?"

"Oh shut up," a nasally voice sneered from the other side of the room. The deranged genius and current captain of squad twelve, Mayuri Kurotsuchi, was busy working on something connected to the machine in the center of the room, "I'm not your assistant so why don't you get it yourself? As you can see I am quite busy making sure this thing doesn't blow up in our faces."

"I thought the deal was that if I kidnapped them you would act as my assistant for the demonstration?"

The captain rolled his eyes, "I hardly think I would ever agree to participate in several felonies in order to sate my scientific curiosity."

The room became utterly silent as everyone, including Urahara, stared at Mayuri. Realizing the incredulousness of what he just said, the captain quickly added, "Let me rephrase that. I will never agree to participate in felonies that have a high probability of getting myself caught."

"Ugh…"

It was at this point that Ichigo realized he was not the only person Urahara had kidnapped. Tied to a chair just a couple of feet to his left, Uryu Ishida groggily regained consciousness. As the fog cleared from the quincy's mind, he began to remember what happened before he was brought to the Soul Society. Shaking his head to alleviate his headache he noticed Urahara, looking at him with the usual insufferable smile, and shouted, "It was you, you bastard! Who the hell do you think you are to kidnap someone in the middle of dinner?"

Uryu could still remember the calm and passive look on Ryūken's face as he continued to eat his dinner while Urahara drugged him. If he ever saw his father again he would make him pay.

"No, this isn't right," Urahara thought out loud while scratching the back of his neck in confusion, "Something must have happened. Perhaps there was a mix up…"

"Are you suggesting that kidnapping me was an accident?"

"What?" the scientist was startled by the question, "Oh no. It appears I accidently drugged you with a sleeping agent too weak. Next time I'm going to have to up the dosage. You woke up far too early."

Uryu struggled against his bonds, "You bastard!"

Urahara ignored him and turned to Mayuri, "Assistant, if you would begin the demonstration."

A remote flew across the room into Urahara's stomach with enough force to bend him over, "That is all the assistance you are going to get out of me. Now if you don't mind I have some final preparations to go over. There appears to be an issue with a couple of the capacitors that could impact the reliability of the data we will collect."

Without so much as a cough or wheeze Urahara stood up and pressed a button on the remote causing a screen to come down out of the ceiling. Pressing it again brought up an image, "As you can see this is a picture of the Soul Society during a lovely spring day. Note the birds and the butterflies in the background."

"Do you think we're idiots?"

Before he could blink a piece of white chalk shot out of Urahara's sleeve and hit Ichigo square in the forehead. When he tried to grab his head to alleviate the pain he was rudely reminded of his current predicament.

Urahara took a noticeable amount of pleasure out of watching Ichigo thrash about in his restraints before continuing, "As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, this is a picture of the Soul Society and this," he pressed the remote to change the slides, "is the method Kukaku Shiba had you use to break through the barrier surrounding it when you rescued Rukia. As the equations on the slide indicate, that method had a survival rate of just over 68%."

"What?" Uryu shouted from beside Ichigo, "Are you suggesting that you purposely sent us to some psychotic pyromaniac who would more than likely have had us blown to bits before we even entered the Soul Society?"

Urahara's visibly deflated before his goofy smile returned; "I wouldn't have said it in those exact words but…yes!"

Uryu tried to come up with a comeback but the sheer lack of intelligence coming from one of the most intelligent minds in the Soul Society had finally caught up to him. Rather than continuing to argue he simply hung his head down in defeat.

"With that settled if there are no more questions let me get to the point. As you both know Uryu is a quincy and a rather powerful one at that. Therein lies the crux of the problem. Mayuri if you will?"

The current Twelfth Division captain pressed a button on a second remote causing a chart with various stats and Uryu's picture to appear, "The young quincy's inherent spiritual pressure and abilities are already known to operate on a different level than that of shinigami but still allow access to similar abilities. What is disturbing is that the basic nature of his spiritual pressure makes a mockery of the barrier protecting the Seireitei."

Another click brings up a different slide; "A quincy with sufficient skill and power can draw in spiritual energy from his or her surroundings in order to fuel their own abilities. I myself bore witness to this when the young quincy used an ability known as Letzt Stil to absorb the surrounding buildings in the Seireitei to increase his own power dramatically. Based on that I have developed the hypothesis that a strong enough quincy could use this ability without powering up and simply 'absorb' the barrier, allowing them to walk through it."

"Wait a minute, how do you know all this?"

Mayuri's face looked at Uryu with disdain, "Don't you remember me saying that I implanted your body with numerous surveillance bacteria?"

"I thought you removed them?"

"Now why would I waste valuable time and resources throwing them out when I could just lie to you that I removed them?"

"You bastard-"

"Don't worry about that," Urahara dismissed, "I took the liberty of removing all the bacteria from your body after Aizen's defeat."

"Those bacteria were my property Kisuke. I expect you to fully reimburse me for both the research and development costs."

"Well you can keep expecting."

"That's all well and good Urahara but why did you tie us up?" Ichigo asked.

"Because Ichigo…I just love a captive audience!"

"God you suck."

A second piece of chalk flew out of Urahara's sleeve and hit Ichigo with enough force to knock over the chair he was tied to.

"Damn it that hurt! Stop throwing crap at me."

"Your suggestion has been noted Ichigo. I will take that into consideration in the future in case anyone interrupts me," he said glancing at Uryu who tried to look as innocent as possible.

With an exasperated sigh Mayuri decided it was time for him to take over, "If the stupidity and lunacy are out of your systems for the time being let me get down to the crux of the matter. To rectify this problem we have built a device that, in theory, should prevent quincy's from passing through it."

"The way the new barrier system would work is by taking advance of the singular weakness of the quincy's absorption ability. In order to use the ability, the quincy needs to adjust their own body's spiritual energy to match the surroundings so that it can be absorbed. By creating a barrier with spiritual currents and ebbs that constantly adjust both their velocity and direction as well as overall intensity, it should prevent this 'link up' between the barrier and the quincy and prevent them from passing through."

"I don't mean to punch a hole in your argument but isn't Uryu the last quincy?"

"That is what we thought until we started hearing some rumblings of a group consisting of individuals with abilities strangely similar to a quincy's," Urahara explained to Uryu's astonishment, "Do not for a second think you were the only one to notice. If these people are indeed quincies, then there is a reason they have remained hidden from the Seireitei's eyes for so long."

"How much do you know?" Uryu asked. He had planned to find out as much as he could on his own but if Urahara knew then there was no reason to go.

"Not as much as I would like," Urahara admitted, "We know nothing of their overall strength, numbers, abilities or even where they are gathering."

"Unfortunately Kisuke is correct," Mayuri continued, "From the limited data we have managed to gather, several bursts of quincy reiatsu have been recorded in Hueco Mundo over the last few months. These bursts have always been followed by the mass destruction of dozens to hundreds of hollows. The last time something like this occurred was during the quincy invasion of the Soul Society nearly one thousand years ago. Eight captains and nearly thirteen hundred shinigami were killed before the quincy retreated."

"It took the captain-commander himself to push back the quincy king but even he was unable to actually kill him," Urahara added.

Uryu couldn't believe what he was hearing. His grandfather had regaled him with stories of how the quincy protected humans and souls from hollows when the shinigami were unable to respond in time. Even if a hollow's soul was destroyed by the quincy, it was a small price to pay to save a loved one. To find out that his people had tried to exterminate the only beings that could prevent hollows from forming was ludicrous, "I don't understand. Why did I not know any of this?"

"Most likely because most quincies considered it the darkest blight in their history. While the majority of the quincy followed their king into battle, a lot did not. They did not see any reason to fight the shinigami when both groups did the same thing. Knowing that their king would kill them if he found out, they fled around the world and kept themselves in close-knit families or clans."

"Hold on a sec," Ichigo asked from the floor, " Are you saying that there was someone besides Aizen who could fight the old man without getting killed?"

"The leader of the quincy was extraordinarily strong Ichigo, and recent data suggests he is not as dead as we thought."

"How is he still alive after so long? I know shinigami live a long time but a quincy is still a human."

"Obviously," Mayuri stated with disgust, "As for whether or not that man is still alive remains to be seen but if he is, he has had a millennium to prepare for his next battle with the captain-commander. The odds are stacked in his favor unless we can negate some of the quincy's more dangerous abilities."

"What was his name?"

"His name is of no importance. Just know that it was not Aizen that forced the captain-commander to unleash his bankai."

The room was silent for a couple of seconds before Urahara coughed to break the tension, "Anyway, back on topic. After much effort we think we have developed a device that should negate the quincy's ability to absorb ambient spiritual particles. While the full size model will be enormous what we have here is a smaller model built exclusively for today's testing. When it's turned on a spherical barrier roughly three meters in radius will surround the device, preventing anything from passing through except air and light."

"Air and light? Do you have to be so specific?"

"That's a moronic question," Mayuri answered, "Let's say the barrier stopped everything from passing through it. How would you see what's in front of you if light couldn't penetrate it? Without an inflow of air those inside would soon suffocate from their very own breath. If you are not going to ask intelligent questions I urge you to simply keep that mouth of yours shut."

"If you needed me to test your stupid machine why didn't you just ask me?"

"I couldn't risk it."

"Oh? And why not?"

"Because you are likely being observed Ichigo," Urahara said in a tone that brokered no nonsense, "If these people really are quincies then they are most likely up to date on the recent events in the Seireitei. They probably know about Aizen and how you defeated him even after he used the hogyoku to evolve. Mayuri is right about one thing. Aizen did not force the captain-commander to use his bankai but that was because of that specialized arrancar sealing his zanpakuto."

"What does that have to do with me?"

"You are a variable in the spiritual realm Ichigo and if I were them I would keep a very close eye on you and where you go. If they turn out to be hostile and find out you are still working with the Seireitei they might just plan on attacking when you are unable to help. By kidnapping you I keep up the charade that you want nothing to do with us."

"You kidnapped me! Of course I don't want to be here!"

"See? Then it worked," Urahara offhandedly remarked.

"If you just needed to tie us up to get us into the Seireitei why haven't you untied us yet?" Uryu asked.

Urahara blinked twice before replying sheepishly, "You know what, I completely forgot."

...

Several minutes later the smoking body of Urahara could be seen facedown in the floor with Ichigo and Uryu standing over him rubbing their sore hands. As Urahara slowly picked himself off the ground without a hint of pain they both began to wonder just what the man's body was made of.

"Now that you got all that pent up frustration out of your systems I should let you know that I am expecting someone very important soon. I need you two to be on your best behaviors."

"Please Urahara," Uryu said condescendingly, "Do you take us for unruly children?"

Urahara adopted a thoughtful pose before speaking, "Let us take a look at your argument…you invaded the Seireitei and threw it into chaos, you let the Bounts in just so you can fight them on an even footing, and let us not forget about your excursion into Hueco Mundo that nearly got you killed. I think your are starting to get my point."

"You helped us two of those times!"

"If you didn't ask me for help I wouldn't have offered."

"But you-"

Whatever Uryu was about to say was cut off as a strange spiritual pressure appeared at the edge of their senses. While it had the unmistakable aura and characteristics of an arrancar it did not feel malicious or aggressive. It was almost as if its owner was merely announcing their presence. As it saturated the room Urahara seemed to perk up.

"Oh good my guest has arrived!"

"Guest?" Ichigo and Uryu asked at the same time as the door to the room opened. The first person to walk through the door was the diminutive captain of the Tenth Division, Toshiro Hitsugaya, and judging by the expression on his face he was not particularly pleased to be here. Before either of them could ask what was wrong a second person walked through the door.

Standing almost two feet above Hitsugaya was a woman Ichigo had never seen before. Her dark brown skin, blonde hair with three braided locks and green eyes would have normally made her stand out almost anywhere but that was not what made him be on guard. The familiar white outfit, zanpakuto strapped horizontally across her back and the mask fragments on her lower face concealed by her high collar overshadowed her exotic appearance. She was an arrancar, and by the feeling of her spiritual pressure, a powerful one at that.

"I'm glad you could make it. Did you have any trouble finding the place?"

The woman looked around before her eyes settled on the strange machine sitting in the middle of the room. "I'm guessing that has something to do with why I was brought here," she said in an almost bored tone.

"What is she doing here?" Ichigo asked pointing at the woman.

Urahara looked puzzled, "I'm not sure what you mean Ichigo."

"Yes you do! How did an arrancar get into the Soul Society?"

"I needed her to come here in order to test out every little detail of my machine."

"Our machine," Mayuri reminded.

"Right," Urahara quickly agreed, "In order to make sure the machine is calibrated properly we need to test it against various types of spiritual beings. As you already know there are multiple spiritual beings out there including shinigami, hollow, arrancar, quincy, and fullbringer. While they all might have similar abilities their spiritual energies are quite different. Quincy, for example, are special humans who came about after several shinigami fell in love with humans and passed on a portion of their power to their children. Fullbringers are almost the exact opposite with the mother being attacked by a hollow while pregnant, which allows a small part of the hollow's energy to enter the child. With all these different types of spiritual beings trying to create something that can stop each one is quite hard."

"I know about that," Ichigo grumbled, "I was asked what she was doing here in the first place."

"Oh?" Harribel asked slightly intrigued, "I do not believe I ever met you while I was working for Aizen."

Ichigo folded his arms across his chest, "After I defeated Aizen, Orihime told me how three arrancar appeared and asked her to heal their leader or something."

"Are you referring to the woman that Lord Aizen had Ulquiorra abduct?" Harribel asked, "I remember her healing me from the verge of death after Aizen's betrayal. I owe her gratitude for saving my life."

After a slight pause Uryu asked, "How did you get a powerful arrancar into the soul society without getting caught Urahara?"

Despite the valid question Urahara did not seem worried, rather he seemed quite pleased with himself, "Please, who do you take me for? Of course I asked the captain-commander about allowing her into the soul society. Granted he did try to burn the flesh from my bones with his zanpakuto at first but after he realized the importance of testing my-"

"Ours…" Mayuri reminded him with a little more force.

"-device he acquiesced. His only stipulation was that a captain accompanies her at all times."

"Which is why I'm here."

"Toshiro?"

"For the last time it's Captain Hitsugaya, not Toshiro. I'm here because out of all the captains in the soul society I have the most experience with fighting Harribel during the winter war. I have seen the majority of her techniques and can turn them against her if she were to decide to attack. If I am unable to actually stop her I can stall her long enough for reinforcements to arrive."

Ichigo and Uryu both distinctively heard a snort of derision come from Harribel at the mention of stopping her but when they turned her face was as stoic as ever. Stepping forward she looked at Urahara, "Let's just get this over with so I can head back to Hueco Mundo. Being surrounded by so many shinigami is getting intolerable."

"Hold on a second," Ichigo said, "Is Toshiro here to make sure your machine works on shinigami?"

"Of course not!" Mayuri spoke up shoving Urahara to the side, "This device is still untested and is extremely dangerous until proven otherwise. If it were to detonate due to a critical flaw in the design we cannot afford to lose a captain. You are much more expendable Ichigo and as for the quincy, I can no longer get anything viable from him."

"It's funny how you forgot to mention that piece of information shinigami," Harribel growled as her hand inched towards her zanpakuto, "When were you going to enlighten me on how I could be killed?"

His danger senses screaming at him, Urahara raised his arms defensively, "Mayuri is blowing the danger of the device out of proportion Harribel! The current probability of someone getting instantly vaporized upon contact with the barrier is roughly 3%, although if you are wearing the color red that triples for some reason."

When Harribel did not stop reaching towards her zanpakuto, Toshiro inched his hand slowly to his own. At the rate things were progressing, he could tell things were not going to end well for anyone.

As a last-ditch measure to avoid a fight Urahara decided to play his trump card, "Before you kill me, I still haven't told you what you will be getting out of all this."

Harribel's hand stopped moving, "I'm listening shinigami."

Urahara sighed in relief, "After much pleading and begging I managed to convince the captain-commander to agree to pardon you and your subordinates. As long as you do not act against the Seireitei no shinigami will come after you."

Harribel's hand stopped. She had not been aware that she would be getting something in return for helping the shinigami. She had assumed that all shinigami were liars and betrayers like Lord Aizen. When that annoying blonde haired girl from the winter war approached her a couple of weeks ago she was told to help the shinigami with something or she would be punished. While she would usually kill those would threaten those precious to her she was intelligent enough to know that aggravating the shinigami was a poor choice.

Closing her eyes and letting out a deep breath she asked, "Is this true?"

"Do you want it in writing?"

She shook her head, "That will not be necessary. I believe you are telling the truth but know this…"

Harribel leaned forward and let out a trickle of her spiritual pressure, "If I find out you are lying, and I will, you will understand an entirely new definition of pain and suffering."

"That is something I would pay to witness," Mayuri added, "If that does come to pass I'll even allow you into the soul society to do the deed."

"If we are done describing my murder are there any more questions?"

"Something's bugging me Urahara," Ichigo stated as he began counting on his fingers, "You said that you needed different people to test your machine right? We have Uryu for the quincies, Harribel for the arrancar and I'm guessing I'm the shinigami-"

A sound similar to that of a buzzer rang, "Wrong Ichigo! You see when you regained your shinigami powers while fighting Ginjo you also kept a trace amount of your fullbring as well. Enough was left inside your soul that I'm afraid the machine would give erroneous results. I will need another pawn, I mean volunteer, to make sure it works on shinigami."

"So who did you manage to blackmail into doing this?"

"Blackmail is such a strong word Ichigo. I prefer to think of it as extortion or coercion."

"That's even worse!"

"Who did you manage to trick into doing this?" Uryu interjected.

"Maybe he managed to convince Rukia?"

"Nope!" Urahara nearly shouted, "I tried but her brother threatened to 'flay my skin off my still living corpse' if I so much as got within ten feet of her."

"Well, what about Renji?"

"Captain Kuchiki said that it would be too much of a hassle to find a replacement lieutenant this time of the year. Don't worry about who I managed to rope into doing this Ichigo," Urahara flippantly said as he flicked a switch on the device, "Now let us start this experiment."

A low hum resounded through the room as various lights blinked into existence on the machine. After a few minutes the humming stopped but nothing seemed to have changed.

Ichigo narrowed his eyes as he tried to get a closer look, "Is it on? I can't see anything."

"Of course it's on you imbecile," Mayuri spat, "The barrier surrounding the Seireitei is normally invisible to the naked eye. What makes you think this would be any different?"

Ichigo huffed and crossed his arms, "Ass."

"That should just about do it!" Urahara's voice echoed from behind the device, "Everything appears to be perfectly calibrated and ready for testing. Harribel if you would do the honors of going first."

"And why should I go first shinigami?"

Urahara let out a meek laugh, "Well, since this new device is replacing the barrier currently in pace, the number one priority is making sure it still prevents hollows from passing through. While it would be nice if it can stop quincies, if hollows can bypass it then it's useless."

As he explained why he needed Harribel to go first she continued to glare at with an intensity that reminded him of the time he forgot to buy Yoruichi a birthday present. The feeling soon passed when Harribel sighed and walked towards the device.

"What is it you need me to do?"

"You just need to stand at the line on the floor and extend your arm forward. If it works then you should make contact with the barrier just before your arm reaches full extension."

Looking down Harribel saw a line of red duct tape with the logo of "Urahara Shoten" on it. Stopping in front of it she raised her hand and just like Urahara had said her hand was stopped just before it reached eye level. Rapping her knuckles against the barrier she heard a sound reminiscent of plastic. Intrigued at its strength she put her palm against the barrier and pushed but was surprised when it didn't shatter. Mannerisms and being a shinigami aside, the man currently watching the interaction from within the barrier was a genius. It was no surprise that her former master lost to him.

"Impressive work shinigami," she complemented, "I doubt anything but my strongest attack would damage it and even that would create nothing more then a scratch."

When she turned to walk away she took a few steps before stopping suddenly. Quickly pivoting on her heel she twisted around and threw a punch with all the strength she could muster in her sealed state. The second her fist impacted against the barrier a large wave of spiritual energy was released that quickly spread beyond the room. However despite the strength behind the punch the barrier did not do anything besides quiver slightly.

Hitsugaya quickly drew his zanpakuto and moved to stop her, "What do you think you're doing?"

She stood up and flexed her fingers, "Nothing. I was simply testing it."

"Testing it?"

Her cold glare put him on edge, "Are you shinigami so conceited that you think a hollow or arrancar would simply stop if they hit a barrier? They would find it a challenge to overcome. I was testing it to its limits, as was part of my arrangement."

Inside the barrier and fixing something on the machine with a wrench Urahara could be heard saying, "Don't worry about it Toshiro, I fully expected her to do that. From what I heard she is not one to do things half-assed."

"It's Captain Hitsugaya and that is not what worries me. I'm more concerned about the consequences of that burst of spiritual pressure Harribel just released."

"Don't be naïve," Mayuri dismissed, "The shockwave from that amount of spiritual pressure should dissipate before it gets a thousand feet away. There is absolutely no one within that range that would be able to figure out where it came from. I made sure of that."

"Oh dear me," Urahara muttered as a feeling of dread coursed through his soul, "It's a good thing Mayuri and I are inside this currently impenetrable barrier. Who knows what unsavory fiends will be drawn to an explosion of such intense spiritual energy?"

As Ichigo's brain processed the situation his eyes widened in shock and fear. Grabbing Uryu's shoulder he attempted to flee the room, "Uryu we need to get out of here and find someplace to hide before he comes!"

"Before who comes Ichigo?"

Uryu's question was answered as a loud crash resounded from outside the room. As an eerie silence permeated the air Ichigo realized that the only way out of the room was through the door and that was the one place he did not want to go at this time. Eyes darting around for anyplace to hide, he was prevented from fleeing when a sandaled foot kicked through the door and sent it rocketing through the room towards the various occupants. While Ichigo and Uryu dove out of the way of the improvised projectile, Toshiro could only blink as the flying door spun through the air just inches over his head and crashed into the opposite wall.

As the dust cleared Kenpachi Zaraki, the captain of the Eleventh Division, sauntered into the room without his diminutive lieutenant hanging from his shoulder. A predatory grin adorned his face as he looked around the room, "So this is where that burst of strong spiritual pressure came from. So…who was it?"

"Kenpachi?" Ichigo shouted, "How the hell did you get here so fast?"

Kenpachi shrugged, "Yachiru was excited about this shortcut she found through the Seireitei and like an idiot I believed her. The next thing I know I'm lost as hell. After several hours I got annoyed and decided to take a nap since I had nothing better to do. Then that burst of spiritual pressure woke me up and I just had to find whoever that was. Was it you Ichigo? Taunting me to fight you again…I'm so glad you remembered."

As Ichigo quickly and violent shook his head in the negative Harribel spoke up, "It was me shinigami. Do you have a problem with that?"

"Eh?" Kenpachi said noticing Harribel for the first time, his eyes trailing over her body, before sighing dejectedly, "Great. The first strong opponent I find in over a year and they happen to be a woman."

Harribel's hand gripped her zanpakuto, "What did you just say?"

"Hey no offense you are strong and all, stronger than that arrancar I fought in Las Noches with the six arms, but I don't go and pick fights with women, it's just not my thing. There is only one woman I would ever fight and you are not her."

Before the argument could escalate into a fight Kenpachi seemed to notice something, "Hang on just a minute. Two captains, an arrancar, a quincy and Ichigo all in the same room? Something interesting must be happening."

"We're here because Captain Kurotsuchi and Kisuke Urahara are testing a machine they invented," Hitsugaya informed his fellow captain, "They apparently need different spiritual beings to make sure it works correctly. The burst of spiritual pressure that most likely brought you here was Harribel testing the machine's capacity against a powerful arrancar."

"So it's something that I can hit?"

"Er…if you say so," Hitsugaya hesitantly replied. Leave it to Kenpachi to find a way to turn a scientific experiment into something that requires fighting.

"Oh boy," Kenpachi growled in excitement as he drew his zanpakuto, "Nothing like a good warm up in the morning to get a day started."

"Now hold on a minute," Urahara warned from inside the barrier, "I would be happy to test out the barrier against someone of your barbaric and herculean strength but we need to do it in a certain order. Don't worry, if you still want to do it you will have your chance in about ten minutes."

When Kenpachi stepped back and grumbled in annoyance Urahara turned to Uryu, "Do you happen to have any of your Seele Schneiders on you?"

"You kidnapped me from my house. What makes you think I have any of my quincy equipment with me?"

"Don't be like that," Urahara joked, "If you look to your left you will see a box with several pieces of quincy equipment as well as your uniform."

"You robbed me when you kidnapped me?"

"Oh heavens no! I robbed you way before I kidnapped you."

While Uryu struggled to figure out just how many laws Urahara had broken in the past 24 hours the genius scientist decided to press on with the experiment, "When you come out of your stupor I would like for you to try and attack the barrier with a Seele Scheinder."

Shoulders slumping in disbelieve Uryu grabbed one of the spiritual weapons from the box. As he began to channel his spiritual energy and causing a blade of ultra-high vibrating spiritual particles to come into existence he made it a goal to figure out just how much Urahara had screwed with him and what he could do to take his revenge.

Calming himself down with a series of deep breaths, Uryu drew his spiritual weapon back and quickly thrust it forward towards the barrier. As the tip of the sword touched the barrier a series of grinding noises similar to that of metal screeched while blue and purple sparks flew off of the point of contact. After several seconds of failing to damage the barrier Uryu's Seele Schneider lost traction and slid off the side of the barrier, causing the young quincy to stumble.

"Well? How did it go?" Urahara asked with a clipboard in his hands.

Uryu ignored the stupidly obvious question, "It was interesting. Seele Schneider usually absorbs spiritual constructs without a problem but your barrier resisted my attempt to do so. Whatever you did to construct it must have been extraordinary. Now if you will excuse me I am going to go over to the corner of the room to change. Since I have this box of equipment that you stole I might as well use it."

Urahara seemed to be pleased at the comment but Mayuri was not so pleased, "If we are done giving false accolades I do believe we are not quite finished. Kurosaki you are next. Use whatever power you have and attack the barrier with your zanpakuto as hard as you believe necessary. Just don't break anything."

Stepping forward Ichigo grabbed Zangetsu off his back and drew it in front of his body as the bandages slowly shrunk into the hilt.

"Just remember not to use Getsuga Tenshou Ichigo!" Urahara warned, "The barrier may survive the attack but if you destroy the room I'll get in trouble and if I get in trouble I'll make sure YOU get in trouble. I know where you live after all."

Ichigo gave a nervous nod and steadied his stance. Raising his zanpakuto into the air he waited a moment before stepping forward and swinging it down with enough force to dislodge dust from the ceiling. When the dust settled he looked down at the point of impact between the barrier and his sword and saw that the barrier, which had remained solid and unyielding to its first two attackers, had taken on the consistency of water, with waves in the surface rippling out from the point of impact.

Inside the barrier Urahara had a small frown, "Hmm, there appears to be a small variance in the flow of the spiritual particles of the barrier due to the effects of Ichigo's fullbring. I think that could be easily fixed with a small modification to the density of the spiritual particle field."

"That is highly unlikely to fix the problem," Mayuri commented while looking at readouts of the device's data, "The problem has to do with the spiritual field not being able to account for modified shinigami spiritual energy mixing with the fullbring at the same time. We should slightly polarize it to allow it to be able to adjust itself."

Urahara scratched at his chin before shrugging, "That could work…but we can deal with fixing the barrier after we have gathered the rest of the data. Who is up next?"

"Is it finally my turn?"

Everybody in the room watched as Kenpachi walked forward while slowly drawing his zanpakuto.

"Remember you are simply testing it so don't actually destroy it," Urahara warned.

"Yeah I get it. Don't break the machine powering the bubble. What do you take me for, an idiot?"

No one had the nerve to give him an answer.

"Anyway," he continued, "You want me to just hit this thing as hard as I can right?"

"Not as hard as you can," Mayuri corrected, "If you were to do so the captain-commander would most likely get mad at us all."

"Way to spoil the fun," Kenpachi grumbled before stepping forward and swinging his zanpakuto down onto the barrier. As everyone closed their eyes thinking that he would break it they were stunned when nothing happened. When a frown of displeasure formed on his face they all knew something bad was about to happen.

"That's strange. Ichigo managed to make it ripple with a simple swing but I couldn't even do that. Perhaps I'm just not hitting it hard enough…"

"He's completely lost it!" Hitsugaya thought as he slowly backed away from the insane captain.

Ichigo was slowly edging himself behind Uryu with the knowledge that Kenpachi could get bored any second and look to him for a fight.

Harribel's thoughts were of a slightly different nature, "So this is the shinigami that Nnoitra lost to. I can see how it took insanity to beat insanity. That chauvinistic bastard had what was coming to him."

Kenpachi raised his arm over his head and swung his zanpakuto down with more force that the first time. As another loud bang reverberated he was already bringing his arm up for another attack. After a total of four swings he let out a breath.

"Nothing huh? Guess that rippling from Ichigo's attack was just a fluke. Speaking of which, let's have a fight Ichigo! All that stretching has got me pumped up for a real fight!"

"Hell no!" Ichigo shouted as he turned to run away only for Kenpachi to grab the back of his shihakusho.

"Where do you think you're going Ichigo? You're not running away from a fight are you?"

"Like hell I'm going to fight you!" Ichigo responded as he tried to desperately wriggle out of the captain's grip, "A fight with you is a fight to the death and that's not what I want to happen. I'm only seventeen damn it!"

Kenpachi frowned, "But a plain old fight is boring. Fighting to the death makes it interesting. It gives the final push to make it really exciting! Besides, I still owe you for my first defeat back-"

"Oh dear…"

Kenpachi turned in annoyance towards the person that had dared to interrupt him. Urahara and Mayuri were staring at the readout from their device with rapt attention.

Uryu's danger senses were going off full time. From his experience with machinery and Urahara in general, whenever something designed by the man starts to act funny bad things soon follow. Slowly edging away from the two scientists he asked, "What is going on Urahara?"

Urahara scratched the back of his neck as his eyes followed the stream of information on the screen, "How shall I put this delicately? When I had you test the machine it took a sample of your individual spiritual energy as a marker of sorts."

"Sampled?" Harribel growled. The air in the room was beginning to feel slightly electrified and while it wasn't noticeable to the other occupants she could inherently feel the change. She did not like it one bit.

"It was standard procedure. In order to make sure the barrier could prevent every type of spiritual being from passing through the machine needed to have a marker of sorts to compare spiritual energy against. What I didn't expect, and find quite remarkable, was for the machine to combine the samples into one large lump."

The choice of words seemed odd to Ichigo, "Lump?"

"Let me put it into words that your small brain can understand," Mayuri said with a small amount of panic in his voice, "What we have here is an experimental device that has somehow managed to merge samples from four very different spiritual beings into one new type. If we weren't all in danger of being blown into oblivion I would find this most fascinated and dedicate time to studying it."

"Perhaps if we reverse the charge running through the barrier generator it would start the automatic shutdown of the system?" Urahara offered as he attempted to shut down the machine only for a large expulsion of sparks to dissuade him from trying.

"And risk having a massive feedback loop at the moment the current switches?"

"I'm afraid to ask, but is the barrier supposed to be turning green?" Ichigo asked.

"Of course not. Why would you ask that?"

True enough the once invisible barrier had turned a translucent shade of green that appeared to be getting darker as time passed. As it began to emit small pulses of energy everyone began to back up away from it. Everyone that is, except for Kenpachi.

"I don't know about the rest of you," Hitsugaya offered, "But should we be standing this close to this machine?"

Almost as if fate was waiting for someone to say those exact words the green barrier let out a series of high pitched whines before pulsing outwards and encompassing the entire room. After a couple of moments of the room being bathed in the eerie green light it shattered leaving the room the way it was before.

Urahara groaned as he found himself facedown on the floor. Whatever had just happened hit him hard enough to actually crack the floor and potentially break his nose. Pulling himself to his knees he found the room swimming around him, "Oh boy…"

"That is the understatement of the century," Mayuri sneered from somewhere behind him. Risking a glance back Urahara managed to see that Mayuri's arm was most likely broken.

As he slowly regained control over his senses, Urahara pushed himself off the ground, "Well I didn't expect that at all. My reputation as a scientist is going to take a hit from this."

"Your reputation?" Mayuri shouted, "We could have blown up half of the Seireitei and the worst thing is that we don't know how that even happened! Nothing in the schematics could have allowed for such a phenomenon!"

"Hey Mayuri I think we have a slightly bigger problem…"

"What are you blabbering about-"

He was quickly cut off as he became aware of the situation. The room, which was once filled with seven people, now contained just the two of them. Even if they were to have left through the ruined door, courtesy of Kenpachi, their spiritual pressure should have still been felt but no matter how much he tried he could not sense a single one of the five missing people. Whatever had just happened caused them to disappear without a trace.

"So we somehow create a teleporter while not even trying. And to think I spent fifteen years failing to purposely build one," Mayuri stated with a slightly subdued sneer, "Don't give me that look Urahara. This may not be as big a deal as it seems. We just need to take the machine back to my lab and replicate the initial conditions in reverse to bring them back."

"That would be a good idea if the machine wasn't gone."

The two stared at the charred spot on the floor where the device had been but a moment ago. After a minute of silence Urahara turned to Mayuri, "I think this is a good time to take a sabbatical from the Soul Society. At least until the captain-commander doesn't want to kill us anymore."

"Agreed. I do still have that lab in Hueco Mundo. I suppose I could have Nemu send my equipment there."

As plans were being made and escape routes determined a female voice called out from the door, "Oh wow, the door is broken." The two men shuddered and turned around to find Rangiku Matsumoto, lieutenant of the Tenth Division, staring at the broken entrance.

"Hey there Captain Kurotsuchi have you seen my captain? He said something about going to see you for some business but I see he's not here. Do you know when he will be back? The paperwork is starting to pile up and if he doesn't come back soon I'll have to do it. Oh, that reminds me! The captain-commander is interested in whatever you are doing here and told me to tell you he will be here in a few minutes."

Rangiku blinked owlishly when she noticed the two scientists staring blindly into space before fainting, "What?"