Title: Princes of Death: A High-spirited Saga

Author: chibi-kyuubi

Genre: Action/Adventure/General

Rating: K+

Summary: Prince of Tennis and Bleach crossover. The Seigaku regulars go to Karakura Town for an exhibition match, but end up getting influenced by Ichigo's reiatsu. Will they be able to master their newfound powers before it is too late to save Tokyo City from being turned into a base of operations by Aizen's minions?

Disclaimer: I neither own Bleach nor Prince of Tennis.


Chapter 10: First Impressions

The Seigaku regulars silently exchanged looks as they recognized some of the shinigami who had just entered the room. Urahara asked the division members to take a seat around the table and closed the door behind them.

"Why did we agree to do this again, Matsumoto?" Hitsugaya muttered to his lieutenant as they joined the others at the table.

"Urahara offered us free food?" Matsumoto joked.

"No, that's the probably reason why Abarai and Maradame are here," the white-haired boy said bluntly.

"Because Urahara is evil and has a monopoly of spiritual merchandise in this area," Matsumoto wondered when her captain would ever get a joke.

"Ah, yes. Thank you for reminding me," Hitsugaya said before sipping tea from a cup Tessai had just served them.

"Alright, listen up everyone, here's the plan," Urahara said after everyone had settled down. "I'm going to assign one novice shinigami to each senior shinigami in this room. It is the senior shinigami's task to teach as much as they can to the new shinigami for the next 48 hours. Break time is entirely up to each pair, but I'll make sure that food is served whenever someone wants to eat. After the two-day training period, we're going to do a field test to find out what the new shinigami have learned. I expect us finish just before their bus to Tokyo City arrives on Tuesday evening. Any questions so far?" Inui raised his hand. "Yes Inui-kun?"

"You still haven't finished answering all my questions," Inui glanced at his notebook before continuing. "We stopped at question three. Subtracting the questions that were already answered as our discussion progressed, there are still 71 left."

"Don't worry about it Inui-kun. You can ask me all the questions you want later. After all, I'm the one who's going to train you," Urahara said to Seigaku's data keeper, who was pleased with the arrangement. "Now, if there are no more questions, I'm going to announce the other pairs. First off is Kawamura-kun, who will be trained by Maradame-kun, and Oishi-kun will be instructed by Ayasegawa-kun."

"Nice to meet you," Kawamura bowed shyly at a disappointed Ikakku.

"I told you I wanted to train someone who likes to fight!" Ikakku complained at Urahara. "This guy looks like he'll befriend a hollow if given a chance!"

"Don't worry Maradame-kun," Urahara said reassuringly. "Once he gets hold of his Soul Slayer, I'm sure he won't disappoint you."

"I only hope so," Ikakku suspiciously eyed the friendly tennis player.

"I look forward to our training," Oishi said as he offered his hand to Yumichika.

Hmm, not bad, not bad, but his hair might need some restyling, Yumichika thought as shook hands with the Seigaku vice-captain.

"Next is Momoshiro-kun who will be tutored by Matsumoto-san, and Tezuka-kun who will be taught by Hitsugaya-kun." Urahara said.

"Wow! They're so big," Momoshiro's gaze lingered at the female shinigami's chest until Echizen sharply elbowed the second year's waist. "Oh, I'm sorry I didn't mean to offend you, Matsumoto-san. I was just-"

"Aren't they?" Matsumoto said proudly as she adjusted herself to give the second year a better view. Momoshiro was surprised that she didn't slap him right there and then.

"Matsumoto! He's just a kid," Hitsugaya reminded his subordinate.

"Whoa, they have their own ochibi too. I didn't realize how short he was when we saw him this morning," Kikumaru said to Echizen. "I wonder which of you two is taller."

"Of course I am, Kikumaru-senpai," Echizen said. "It's only his hair that makes him appear to be taller.

Hitsugaya felt a vein pop on his forehead. He was about to comment that spirits take more time to grow compared to humans, and that he was still at the beginning of his growth spurt, but Tezuka suddenly spoke to him.

"Let's do our best from here onwards," the charismatic team captain nodded towards the shinigami prodigy, who found himself unconsciously returning the gesture.

"Next will be Fuji-kun who will be taught by Kuchiki-san, Abarai-kun will be paired up with Kaidoh-kun, and Echizen-kun will be coached by Kurosaki-kun."

Fuji and Rukia politely exchanged bows and formalities while Renji and Ichigo moved to sit beside Kaidoh and Echizen.

"All right, Kaidoh! I'm going to make you the strongest guy in your team!" Renji said enthusiastically while glaring at Ichigo, but Kaidoh returned the red-haired shinigami's excitement with a cold hiss. "What the hell was that?" Renji complained. "We can't beat Ichigo's team if you don't feel passionate about training."

"Hehehe, look at them, arguing already," Ichigo said as he slung an arm around an uneasy Echizen. "At this rate, we're sure to beat their team. Right, Ryoma?"

"Yeah, sure," Echizen answered dispassionately. Wait a minute; did he just call me by my first name without my title?

"Um, how about me?" Kikumaru noticed that aside from his teammates, there are only eight other people in the room.

"Don't worry, I didn't forget about you Kikumaru-kun," Urahara said. "You'll have the honor of being trained by none other that Yoruichi-san."

"Yoruichi-san?" Kikumaru wondered. "But, there's no one else in here."

"No, I'm right here." The regulars looked around for the source of the voice but couldn't find it. Eventually, Yoruichi, still in cat form, jumped to the center of the table and spoke again. "I'm Yoruichi."

Tezuka's eyeglasses slipped a little to the right, Inui dropped his notebook, and Fuji's eyes opened when the black feline sitting in front of them spoke. The other regulars moved back in surprise, and Kaidoh felt like he was going to have a heart attack.

"That's why I didn't talk earlier," Yoruichi said. "Men. They can easily accept the fact that they see spirits, but can't take on the idea of talking cats."

"See, I told you it was scary," Ichigo and Renji said at the same time.

"But you love surprising people like that, don't you, Yoruichi san," Urahara said behind his fan. "Don't worry Kikumaru-kun, Yoruichi-san just likes to stay in cat form, but she's really a very capable shinigami. I'm sure you will learn a lot from her."

Kaidoh's face grew red when he heard that the black cat he was trying to play with the entire time was actually a shinigami. No wonder it was able to resist my wriggly-jiggly finger. Kaidoh thought.

"Can you teach me how to turn into a cat too?" Kikumaru's initial surprise was now overcome by excitement.

"If you do well enough, maybe," Yoruichi answered.

"Alright! I'm going to do my best to surpass your expectations!" Kikumaru said enthusiastically.

"Well, now that everyone's been introduced, we could finally start the training sessions," Urahara pulled out a box that contained an assortment of soul candy dispensers from under the table. He asked each of the regulars except Kawamura and Fuji to take one. Kikumaru was the first to choose and picked a dispenser with a cat design. Kaidoh was next and got one with his favorite snake design. Momoshiro, Inui, and Oishi got a gorilla, owl, and cow design respectively. When it was Echizen's turn to get one, there were only two dispensers remaining inside the box. The freshman chose the dispenser with a duck design, because he thought the other one was too cute for his tastes. Tezuka stared at the almost empty box before he reluctantly accepted the last dispenser with a Chappy the bunny design on it.

"As some of you might already know, these dispensers contain soul candy," the shop owner explained. "When swallowed, it forcibly ejects the person's soul from the body. It's a perfectly safe product so you don't have to worry about permanent spiritual or corporal damage."

The Seigaku regulars thought that Urahara's choice of words were not reassuring at all.

"After everyone's done preparing, Tessai-san will lead you to the underground training chamber," Urahara said. "Inui-kun and I will go to my library first, and we will be joining you downstairs later."


"Go on, it's perfectly safe," Ichigo said when he noticed a nervous Echizen staring at the piece of soul candy on his palm. "Alright, give me one, I'll show you that there's nothing to be afraid of."

"Who said I was afraid?" Echizen said defensively.

"I only said there's nothing to be afraid of," Ichigo said, grinning. He took advantage of Echizen's distraction and snatched the soul candy from the younger boy's palm then immediately swallowed it. The orange-haired shinigami emerged from his body in a quick jolt. Ichigo patted the back of his slumping body and then looked back at freshman. "Told yah."

After seeing his trainer and his other teammates transform into shinigami, Echizen eventually gathered enough courage and swallowed the mysterious green sphere.


Notes: In case anyone missed it from the earlier chapters, the design of Kawamura's soul candy dispenser is a fish, and the design on Fuji's is a bear. Some parts of the dialogue may sound weird because I tend to imagine how they would say those things in Japanese, and some expressions in Japanese just don't translate well into English. Please review after reading.