The second that he realized that the situation was spiraling, Rimuru wanted to shut his mouth and just stop. After all, Renji was right.

Just because Ichigo had some incredibly strong combat abilities didn't mean that they had any right to them. The man's words helped him to understand why the girl had kept such things from them. But by the time his mouth caught up with his brain...it was too late.

The two of them were gone before he could so much as say, 'I'm sorry.' Or even explain to them that he was just shocked, and a little bit concerned.

After all, he'd been able to understand things a bit better, then he could have come up with a plan to make sure that Ichigo and her abilities stayed hidden from anyone outside of Tempest.

But now that he managed to go over things in his mind a bit more, all that he could do was cover his face with his hands and groan. God, they were such idiots.

Shion started to growl out. "Can you believe the audacity of-"

Rimuru couldn't help it, he snarled. "Shut up." Causing the purple haired woman to automatically snap her mouth shut and look at him with a hurt expression on her face.

"What do we do now lord Rimuru?" Princess Shuna asked, her voice dripping with disappointment. Though it was difficult for him to tell if her disappointment was in, he and the others or Ichigo herself.

"We apologize for acting like a bunch of jerks and come up with some way to protect her from anyone that may come looking for her because of her abilities."

"Huh?" Benimaru, Souei, and Shion all said in unison.

Each of them was surprised to hear him defend the girl after she hid such important information from all of them. But the gears in Rimuru's head were still turning frantically, trying desperately to think of a way to make things right again since he knew that the reason that she had hidden her abilities had a lot to do with mutual trust and respect.

Respect enough to not jump down her throat and yell at her for hiding things that she believed could hurt her in the long run.

And trust enough that they wouldn't continually think of her as nothing more than a weapon and keep involving her in their messes and expecting her to fight for them when she didn't want too.

An idea formed in his mind, but it would have to wait for the time being since they still had to worry about the threat that Charybdis posed to them.

"We move out in an hour. All of you spread our plan to every able-bodied fighter and civilian. Make sure that everyone knows their orders. I want no casualties to occur if we can prevent it."

"Yes, lord Rimuru!"

Renji was crying as he wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tightly. His distress from the reactions of the lord and his inner circle knowing about her- driving his stress levels higher than they had been in a good long while.

His voice was shaking as he apologized to her over and over again for even bringing up the subject of having her fight Charybdis to begin with.

But she wasn't upset with him.

Right then she was much too bothered by other things to even try to be upset. The truth of the matter is, that she had expected some negative reactions after giving Renji the green light to explain why she should be sent to fight the monster instead of letting them do it.

So, it wasn't as if she had expected everything to go smoothly anyway. No, she had expected everyone's reactions would be right where she had calculated them to be.

Still...she wouldn't say that she wasn't at least a little bit bothered by their reactions to her power. Even if what they had been told was technically a watered-down version/lie about it.

She was bothered.

Just not nearly as much as Renji was because he had trusted them completely with the information and felt betrayed by how they reacted.

She knew that he was fearing the worst. That they might have to pack up and leave again. But that wasn't going to happen. She'd burn the world to ashes before she allowed that to happen to her friends again.

"I'm sorry," Renji sobbed out again. "I really thought that they would be different."

They are different. She wanted to say but she doubted that he would really listen to her right then. So instead, she just hugged him back and let him cry his tears of frustration and regret until he couldn't cry anymore.

The second that he stopped sobbing she heard him ask in a weak voice, "Chad and Rukia's going to kick my ass, aren't they?"

She thinned her lips, as she replied in an unsympathetic, "Yup."

He whimpered in both fear and horror as he reluctantly let her go and took a shuddering breath to steel his nerves for the upcoming battle with Rukia and Chad as she patted his back and then forcibly turned him so that she could help him home before his fear got the better of him, and he collapsed in the street.

A short time later, Ichigo was pulling her hair up into a ponytail while the screaming at Renji and Rukia's home escalated to nearly, ear damaging levels.

While behind her, Chad grimace in sympathy with every one of Rukia's screams. And took a moment to thank God that he didn't have a wife just yet otherwise he'd find himself in Renji's situation more often than not.

"You trust em?" He finally asked her.

This was the first time since he had found out what had happened at the meeting that he'd even bothered to speak. Probably because he'd been pretty pissed about it all at first. But her continued lack of any anger, rage or resentment must have worked on him a bit. At least enough for him to be able to finally find his tongue.

She took a moment to finish putting her hair up before replying, "I trust them enough to not abuse the knowledge like others would."

Chad made a humming sound and dropped the subject completely. "I'd feel better if I could go with you and watch your back."

She turned to look at him and smiled at her oldest friend as she said, "I'm not going to stop you. And after how Renji shouted at all of them, I seriously doubt that they'll stop you from going either."

"Good." Chad said curtly. Obviously pleased to know that he wasn't going to be forced by anyone to watch from the sidelines.

He might have tried to ask her something else, but the two of them heard a sharp knock coming from the door of her home and exchanged a look. Chad was up on his feet in a flash after that and went ahead of her to go outside and let the lord and whoever else was going to go with him to escort her to the battlefield, that he was going too.

Allowing her to take a moment to herself before she walked through her home to join them.

Stepping outside, she saw Rimuru, Benimaru, Shion, Souei, Hakurou, Ranga and a few select others flanking their lord as the man tried to give her a warm smile. And failed as Chad rumbled, "I told them that I'm going with you, but some of them disagree with me."

Benimaru opened his mouth and argued, "It isn't safe! Charybdis is a soul devouring monster! If he were to attack the area of the battlefield where we'll be observing from-"

Chad bared his teeth at the red headed ogre and growled, "You are literally sending my best friend- someone who has saved my fucking life more times than I can count, to fight that soul devouring monster for you. Do you really think you have any say whatsoever in where I'm going to be? Let me make one thing clear to you all since some of you are slower than others. I follow her. She can tell me to stay. You can't. Got it?"

"I take it that you heard about earlier, huh?" Rimuru asked wryly, trying to hide the fact that he was suddenly feeling very nervous about being close to another of Ichigo's friends.

"No shit." Chad growled out, his tone edging on pissed again as he crossed his arms over his chest and gave the lord a look of such utter disappointment.

Rimuru let out a small, strained giggle and then said, "Yeah, well. We need to sit down and talk about that once we're back from defeating Charybdis."

Chad made an affirmative sound, because the monster was damned right they were going to sit down and talk. He'd hunt the little runt down himself if he had to.

If the miget monster lord had had any inkling of what was running through the normally gentle giant's head right then, he would have run away from the man screaming.

"Speaking of, are you ready?"

"I'm as ready as I can be."

"Alright then. Let's go." Rimuru said as he held his hand out to her. She eyed it for a moment or two, wondering why he was holding it out to her. But eventually slid her own hand into his and let his fingers close around it as he gently tugged her into step next to him while everyone else flanked them while they walked.

She didn't know how, or why. But by the time they managed to leave Tempest, it seemed as if everyone in the town knew something of what was going on. Because as they headed towards the open gate in the wall surrounding Tempest, everyone... Every man, every woman, every child- the Goblin Riders and many, many others all stood there cheering.

Ichigo balked a little bit because of all of the attention.

Especially since she had initially thought that it was for Rimuru and the others going with him to the battlefield. But this turned out not to be the case when she heard everyone calling out her name and shouting words of encouragement to her.

Rimuru noticed her sudden loss of movement and wrapped an arm around her waist so that he could keep her moving forward while casting a cursory glance at her face and saw something that confused him.

Terror.