For the first time he could remember since his awakening on the center pathway of the Soul King's palace, something had different with his day.
And this different was a good different. Yoriichi's personal favorite.
"Hey Yoriicheerio!" he hears Nimaiya (he finally got his name memorized) suddenly shout from right outside his bedroom door, which makes him drop the rubber band he was using to tie his long burgundy red hair into a ponytail. "The king boss guy wants us to pick up someone real quick so we're all goin' down there!"
At the mere mention of possibly being able to see the outside world for the first time in a very long time, Yoriichi already knew what his answer was.
Before, the members of Division Zero weren't sure if their most recent recruit was even capable of feeling emotions because of how placid he looked all the time. Well, on that day, they learned that he was at least capable of feeling excitement.
When Nimaiya said that, Yoriichi was out of his room so fast that all the zanpakuto creator saw was the bedroom door being opened. The fat chef lady, Hikifune, (who wasn't so fat anymore after making the usually unnecessarily large breakfast for the small Division) was surprised to see that the slayer had eaten two bentos worth of food instead of his usual one before leaving the table.
Soon, the six of them were ready to finally descend from the royal palace.
"What is this?" Yoriichi asks, looking up at the large pillar-like object in front of him.
"This is how we descend back to Earth, sunny boy!" Ichibei, the name monk, says, using the nickname that he knew Yoriichi absolutely despised (the bastard).
"Why don't we just...jump down?" Yoriichi asks. "It will probably be faster."
"Hey dude, Division Zero or not, nobody can survive a fall from this high up in the air," Tenjiro, the spring demon guy, says.
"Are we really...that high up?" Yoriichi asks.
"Just get in, we're wasting time," Senjumaru says, walking into the cylinder through a set of double doors leading into it.
"But-"
"C'mon Yoriicheerio, it's fun!" Nimaiya says. "Ya know ya can trust me on that!"
"One, I told you to stop calling me that," Yoriichi says. "Two-"
"For Soul King's sake, just get in," Ichibei says.
The monk swings his large paintbrush at the slayer's back with the intention of lightly shoving him to the ground. Yoriichi easily sidesteps it.
"Fine, I'll get in," the slayer says, sighing as he walks into the cylinder.
"Great!" Ichibei exclaims. "Let's get down there then!"
"Ahaha! That was great!" Tenjiro exclaims, nudging Yoriichi's shoulder with his own. "Hey, Yorii-bro! Whaddaya think? Wasn't that great?!"
Meanwhile, Yoriichi was still in a slight daze, staring at the wall in front of him as he tries to collect himself.
Tenjiro wasn't lying when he said that the Royal Palace was super high up in the sky. When the cylinder started dropping from the sky, Yoriichi counted a whole ten minutes worth of time before it hit the ground with such force that for a second that for a second, up was down and left was right.
"Alright, before we get out, let's make sure we have everything!" Ichibei asks. "Senjumaru, trumpet?"
The puppet lady just nods before taking out a brass trumpet from under her robes with a wooden mechanical arm.
"Tenjiro, flag?"
"Got it, chief!" Tenjiro exclaims, raising a large flag with a circle and four four-sided flowers in the center of it.
"Wait, when did we bring that with us?" Yoriichi asks. "And how did I not notice something that large?"
"Doesn't matter!" Ichibei exclaims. "Anyways, let's go out and greet the Gotei 13!"
"The...what?"
Before he could have his question answered, the doors to the cylinder suddenly open, revealing a group of humans standing in front of it.
Immediately, the Division Zero squad members get into position in front of the humans, as if it had been rehearsed. Ichibei stands at the front, tall and proud with his arms folded across his bold chest and an almost heroic-like expression that Yoriichi knew was way too serious to be on the naturally comical commander. Standing at his sides were Nimaiya, who was making hand signs that he thought were "swag," and Hikifune, who looked to have fattened up again and was standing casually with a wine glass on her head (what). Standing behind them were Tenjiro, who was waving that large flag from earlier and making a very loud and annoying whoop sound, and Senjumaru, who had a serious expression on her face despite (somehow) comically playing a trumpet from one of her puppet hands.
The two human teenagers at the front just stood there, mouths agape. The other humans, adults, didn't look particularly surprised but did look a bit exasperated, as if expecting this kind of childish behavior from the division members.
Honestly, Yoriichi couldn't blame any of them.
"Here we are, here we are!" Tenjiro exclaims. "The Zero Division is here! It's been a long time, fledglings of the 13 Divisions! Are y'all eating and sleeping properly?"
"Kinda different from what I was expecting…" one of the teenagers says.
"Feel pain!" Hikifune suddenly exclaims, leaping forward at the speed a fat woman such as herself shouldn't be able to move at and slapping the back of his head.
"What the hell?!" he exclaims.
"It's been so long, Shinji!" Hikifune cheerily says. "Where's Hiyori-chan? Isn't she always with you?"
"So long?!" the boy responds with. "Who the hell are you?!"
Then he stops for a moment.
"Wait… 'Hiyori-chan'?"
"What are you saying, did you forget about me?!" Hikifune says. "It's me! Kirio!"
"Ah...you're Kirio-san?! You've cha...no, you haven't simply changed! You look completely different!"
"Oh no, Shinji! I haven't changed that much!" Hikifune says, sounding very much like an auntie.
As Tenjiro strikes up a conversation with one of the two women in the group (one he calls Unohana), Yoriichi takes a moment to inspect each of the humans in the group.
Well, they looked like humans, but there was something different about them. They had the biologies of normal humans, but they weren't as physical as normal humans. Almost as if they were part human and part spirit.
Then his eyes lay on the second teenager.
Just like the others standing around him, he seemed to be a (spiritish?) human. But unlike the others, Yoriichi immediately sees a dark aura inside of him. One that he could only describe as dark and demonic.
Upon seeing that, his slayer instincts take over.
"Oh well!" Ichibei exclaims, stopping the side conversations going on around with some of those in the group and his division as he puts an arm around Tenjiro's shoulders. "It's really been a long time! You must have a lot to talk about, but do it later!"
At that moment, Yoriichi suddenly leaps forward, drawing his crimson-red katana and swinging it at the boy's neck. His blade doesn't reach its destination though as another blacksteel katana blade intercepts it, just mere centimeters from slicing through the boy's neck.
It takes a whole second for the other humans in the squad to react, drawing their weapons and aiming them at Yoriichi. But that second felt like minutes.
"Whoa there, Yoriicheerio!" Nimaiya says, suddenly standing in front of the boy with his Sayafushi in hand. "Yer lucky that I've gotten used to how you move afta sparrin' with ya every morning for so long! You might've killed the guy we were supposed to bring to the palace!"
Yoriichi looks to Nimaiya first, then the boy he had almost killed, who was looking at him with wide, shocked eyes.
He could easily overpower the zanpakuto creator. But if what he said was true, then he'd get in a lot of trouble for killing this boy. As a slayer, he was no stranger to duty.
The slayer withdraws his katana, but doesn't put it back in its sheath, choosing to keep it in his hand.
"I don't remember that fellow being part of Division Zero before," the man in the pink, floral-patterned haori with a straw hat says, dropping his swords slightly.
"He's a fairly new one," Ichibei says. "Been with us for several months now. Anyways…"
The monk turns to the teenager Yoriichi had just almost killed.
"You're Ichigo Kurosaki, right?" he asks. "This time, following the Soul King's will, we came to rebuild the Gotei 13. First of all though, Ichigo Kurosaki, we're taking you to the palace!"
"Commander, I apologize, but I protest," Yoriichi says. "There is a demon inside of him and unless it disappears, I can't agree to bringing him up to the royal palace."
"Demon?" the boy, Ichigo Kurosaki, repeats with a confused look.
"He means hollow!" Ichibei reassures. "We don't know why he keeps calling them demons but we can't quite get him to actually call them by their given name."
"But how did he know that I have a hollow inside me?" Ichigo asks.
"Well, mah bro Yoriicheerio, there ain't a thing he can't see!" Nimaiya says. "He may not look like it, but when he lays eyes on ya, he can see right into yer very soul! There's nothin' you can hide from him."
"For Shinigami's sake, put up the sword, Yoriichi," Tenjiro says. "Hollow inside him or not, we can't kill'em cuz bringin' him up to the palace is the King's order."
Yoriichi just nods before finally sheathing his katana.
"Anyways, let's bring'em up then, shall we?" Ichibei says, just as a screen projected by a plush tiger appears in the air.
"Oh, you're here," Yoriichi says upon opening the door to his castle to reveal the two teenagers, Ichigo and Renji (he had learned their names earlier) standing outside the door of his house. "Well, come in then."
A week has passed since Ichigo's and Renji's entrance into the royal palace. They had gone to the palaces of each of the other Zero Division members, either to heal up or improve in some way. All that left was Yoriichi's own palace.
Unlike the other four members of the Zero Division, Yoriichi didn't own a castle or even a mansion. He could, he just didn't want to. Instead, he had a humble-sized plot of land with a small but livable shack that perfectly resembled the shack that he and Uta used to live in. It was placed in a little area of forest that gave the environment the same exact feel that his old home had.
"Your palace seems the most...normal out of the other palaces so far," Renji says, taking a look around.
"No matter how normal it feels, none of it is actually real," Yoriichi says. "It serves its purpose regardless. Come in."
Renji walks past the slayer, but before stepping over the threshold, he looks behind his back to see Ichigo, standing frozen in place and just staring warily at Yoriichi.
"Yo Ichigo, you comin' or not?" Renji asks.
"He's just cautious of me after a little incident that we had," Yoriichi says. "I assure you that something like that won't happen again without proper reason."
Ichigo didn't look completely convinced, but that apparently was reason enough for him to enter the slayer's home.
Once inside, Yoriichi steers the two to a nearby table and offers them seats before pouring them all a cup of tea.
"So, what are we doing here exactly?" Renji asks.
"Sparring," is all Yoriichi says before taking a sip of tea from his teacup.
"Um, no offense, but this doesn't exactly look like a place to do sparring in," Ichigo says, taking a look around the humble cottage.
Yoriichi just closes his eyes and downs the rest of his tea before gently setting his tea cup on the table.
"When you two are done with your tea, please follow me outside," he says, exiting the cottage and entering the backyard.
Ichigo and Renji just stare at each other for a moment before shrugging and finishing their own respective cups of tea and following the burgundy red-haired slayer out of the house and into a backyard.
In the backyard, they find themselves standing in front of a large circle of stone set on the ground. Surrounding the circumference of the circle were many tall torches that were all lit. Standing on the far side of the circle was Yoriichi himself.
"Please step into the circle," he says, waving the two teenagers forward.
The two obey, eyeing the surrounding torches a bit warily as if suspecting them to shoot fire at the two of them.
"So, my job is to get the two of you accustomed to your new zanpakutos," Yoriichi says. "So please, for the next five minutes, attack to your heart's content."
"Wait, attack you?" Renji asks.
"Yes. And please use your bankay," Yoriichi says.
"It's pronounced 'bon-kai'," Ichigo says. "And are you completely sure? This is a pretty nice place you have here and it'd be a shame to mess it up."
"Do not worry, nothing here will take any form of damage," Yoriichi says. "You didn't forget that we're in the Soul King's palace, did you?"
"But you want both of us to gang up on you? With our bankais?" Renji asks.
"Yes," is all Yoriichi says. "The sooner the better. This is cutting into my afternoon tea time."
Ichigo and Renji just stare quizzically at the slayer.
"Besides, this will be my first time ever seeing someone use a bankai," Yoriichi says. "Please, impress me."
Ichigo and Renji turn to look at each other before turning back to him. Then the two of them draw their own respective weapons.
Renji's weapon, his zanpakuto, Yoriichi assumed, was an abnormally long sword with a blade that looked to be made up of multiple large prongs of iron. However, the way the prongs made up the weapon's blade, it made Yoriichi curious. Instead of looking as if it made one uniformly-shaped blade, the prongs looked like separate objects, as if they could disconnect from one another.
Ichigo's zanpakuto (zanpakutos?) were a set of two blades, one larger cleaver-like sword in one hand and one shorter weapon that looked like a slightly larger-sized knife in the other. Both of them were made of some kind of dark-colored metal.
Yoriichi had never seen somebody dual-wield weapons before. Usually, slayers stuck to mastering kendo, which only required them to using one weapon. Using more than that was practically unheard of.
"Interesting," Yoriichi says, drawing his own crimson red katana. "Well then, shall we start?"
Then the two boys shout "BANKAI!" at the top of their lungs.
A flash of light goes off, causing Yoriichi to raise his sword arm up to his eyes to guard them from the light. When he brings his arm back down from his eyes, he sees that the two boys' weapons have changed again, this time to what he assumed were their bankai forms.
Their weapons now look even more interesting than their original forms. How curious.
"I'll start the first attack then," Ichigo says, raising his sword, which looked like a singular large white and black-colored, slightly altered cleaver.
He then brings it down, shouting "GETSUGA TENSHOU!"
A large slash of pure yellow energy is fired off from the tip of his blade.
He had never witnessed an attack of this magnitude before, not even from the zanpakuto creator himself. Indeed, through the slash, he could see that the boy himself was surprised by his own attack. The size and power of the slash was easily massive enough to destroy Yoriichi's cottage and the surrounding landscape. He was sure that if this place weren't inside of the Palace, all that would be left of his home was a large patch of barren land.
However, that didn't necessarily mean he couldn't do anything about the attack. In fact, it was quite the opposite.
Breath of the Sun: Clear Blue Sky
Yoriichi leaps into the air and raises his sword. His blade lights up in bright orange flames as he spins it around in a circle, creating a flaming orange circle in the sky. Then the circle explodes outwards in a large circular explosion of flames that was easily more than triple the size of the boy's own attack.
The two shinigami are blown backwards by the force of the attack, flying into the bamboo fence that surrounds his shack's backyard.
Yoriichi had very heavily restrained himself with that attack. Had he actually put even half his effort into the attack, he was sure that it would even, for an instant, destroy the forest within the palace's landscape. However, he would also probably accidentally kill these two boys. He'd get into a lot of trouble for that.
Yoriichi lands on the ground with a soft tap, turning to Ichigo and Renji, who were just looking up at him with shocked expressions on their faces from their places on the ground.
"It seems that you are definitely not accustomed to your new zanpakuto," he says. "But I do apologize for attacking like that. I should not have used an attack with such power. You have my word that it won't happen again."
Ichigo and Renji get back up on their feet, holding up their swords at the slayer, but they seem much more wary of him now.
The three of them sparred for the next ten minutes, the two of them releasing attack after attack of their bankais in an attempt to hit Yoriichi, but of course, none of them do.
"Ayy, Yoriicheerio!" the slayer hears the zanpakuto creator greet as he pours himself another cup of tea.
The slayer turns to see Nimaiya poking his head into his cottage.
"Hey! It's been a bit of time!" he says. "Where are the kids? Did you send them down yet?"
Yoriichi nudges his head in the direction of where two cots were set on the floor, both of them having a fast asleep teenager on them.
"Whoa, you really exhausted them out!" Nimaiya half-whispers, inviting himself into the slayer's shack and seating himself in one of Yoriichi's chairs. "What did you do?"
"We sparred for a little bit."
"For a little bit? Hell, even from where I'm standin', I can see that their arms and legs are rickety, like they're about to fall apart! Didn't commander tell ya not to do anythin' too crazy?"
"Nothing that a few hours of sleep can't fix."
Nimaiya just gives the slayer an exasperated look (Yoriichi could see it through his sunglasses) before sighing and turning to the sleeping boys.
"So, how's Blackie's new zanpakuto?" he asks.
"Blackie?"
"Yeah! Ichigo! I just forged him that one. How is it? Is it good quality?"
"Based on what I know, it is impossible for a swordsman to fight at full power with a brand new sword," Yoriichi says. "In some cases, even achieving half of one's full fighting potential with a brand new sword is a bit of a stretch. If that is the case, then your swords have been magnificently made."
"Of course they have!" Nimaiya responds with. "I am the number one zanpakuto creator after all!"
"I can tell that this boy, with the right amount of training, will become truly frightening one day."
"That's a lot comin' from ya," Nimaiya remarks. "You must really see somethin' in these boys."
"Just Ichigo," Yoriichi says. "The other one is powerful, yes, but he doesn't catch my attention as much."
"That one didn't exactly have a new zanpakuto formed, but chief told him his zanpakuto's real name," Nimaiya says. "This is as far as his zanpakuto's individual strength goes."
Yoriichi just nods, taking another sip of tea from his cup.
"Will we get more kids like these?" he asks. "They had some very...intriguing weapons. Even though our fight was so one-sided, this was the most fun I had in a while."
"Whaaaaat?! You don't call our morning spars fun?!"
"All you keep trying to do is cut me with your Sayafushi. You never try coming at me with a more creative zanpakuto."
"You want more creative?! Just you wait until tomorrow mornin', I'll show you creative!"
Yoriichi just sets down his teacup.
"I guess it's almost time to send off these two," Yoriichi says.
"Yeah, they've still gotta war to fight down there, y'know?"
"Wait, there's a war going on?"
"Well, chief says that it doesn't concern us up here in the Royal Palace since it won't reach us. Our one and only concern is protectin' the king and the king ain't in danger."
Yoriichi just nods.
"Well, I'll send them off now," the slayer says.
"While they're still asleep? That's cold."
"They have accomplices who'll get them. Besides, there is no more reason for them to be here anymore."
Yoriichi snaps his fingers. The two sleeping boys disappear with a small pop.
"Um, where the hell did they go?" Nimaiya asks.
"Tenjiro's palace. He'll bring them out of the royal palace soon."
"Well, in that case."
Nimaiya stands from his seat.
"I'll be goin' now. See ya later, brah!"
"Don't call me that ever again."
"Byee~!"
Yoriichi waves just as the zanpakuto creator disappears in a puff of smoke.
Maybe I should go visit Uta's grave after tea time is over, he thinks to himself. Might as well since I've got nothing better to do.
Farewell, Renji and Ichigo.
A/N: Am taking requests now. Don't be afraid to comment me the ideas y'all want to see written.