A.N.: This is a request Draxon

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach.

Chapter Fifteen

Ichigo and Halibel's Training Ground

With one sentence, Ichigo's blood turned to ice. His brain came to a screeching halt as it tried to process what Halibel just told him. His legs suddenly wobbled as he struggled to stand. He sat down on the stump and tried to control his breathing, his eyes wide with shock.

Halibel…was pregnant?

Controlling his breathing, Ichigo looked at Halibel. For the first time in his life, he saw his mentor with fear in her eyes. He knew from the look on her face that this was no lie; there was no deception in her eyes. "Are…are you sure?" he managed to say, his voice a whisper.

The Arrancar nodded. "I am. I started to vomit when I woke up in the morning. No easy task to do when your face is covered," she lamented, pointing to her mask fragment. "But more importantly than that…" she grabbed Ichigo's hand and put it over her stomach. "Feel."

As his fingers brushed her smooth belly, Ichigo closed his eyes and concentrated. For a moment, he sensed nothing from the Arrancar at all. Then…

Ba-bump!

Ichigo froze again. He knew what he felt within Halibel: a second heartbeat. It was true. Halibel was carrying his child. He turned away, unsure of what to say. Like Halibel, he was afraid. It was bad enough that he had been trained by one of Aizen's soldiers but now she was carrying his child. What would everyone say when they found out? 'I can't hide this. Not forever…' He turned back to Halibel and reached out to grab her hand.

The blonde squeezed Ichigo's hand gently. She knew that it was a huge bomb to drop on him but he needed to know. She was unaccustomed to fear and dread but now all she could feel was the foreign sensation of terror. She'd never heard of an Arrancar becoming pregnant. She didn't even think she could become pregnant in the first place; it was a hard fact to counter considering there was a giant hole in her womb.

"What are you going to do?" Ichigo asked before he changed his question. "What are we going to do?" He'd hoped that Halibel wouldn't do something desperate and drag Ichigo to Aizen to save herself from her master's wrath.

Halibel hung her head. "I don't know…" she admitted. It was bad enough that she was caught red handed having intercourse with her enemy. Now she was carrying his child. "I cannot return to Hueco Mundo," she finally said. "If I return without you, Lord Aizen will punish me. And if he finds out I'm with child…" Halibel couldn't finish the sentence.

She knew what her master was capable of. She'd witnessed several of Aizen's experiments with Hollowfication. If he knew that Halibel had Ichigo's child within her then there was no doubt he'd perform all kinds of twisted experiments on the baby.

"Does he know?" Ichigo asked.

"I do not know for certain. Although since he knew of your training, it stands to reason he'll put two-and-two together sooner or later. But if I return without you, I'll have to give up the child or risk punishment."

Ichigo touched her cheek and turned her head to face him. "Halibel, you can't go back to him."

"I know…" Halibel said. She knew that it was a huge sacrifice, to give up her position as an Espada for the sake of both Ichgigo and their unborn child. But Halibel was rather familiar with sacrifice. "But where can I go? There is nowhere that is safe for me."

"You can stay here, with me," Ichigo insisted.

"How?" Halibel asked.

Getting up, Ichigo thought hard about his next move, knowing that he was walking on thin ice. He knew the one person that he could go to for help, but the consequence would be exposing his friendship to Halibel. But when he turned back and stared into her emerald eyes and thought of their child, Ichigo knew it was time to face the music. "There's someone who might be able to help us…"

Later…Urahara Shop

Kisuke sat in a rocking chair and watched the sun go down. Yoruichi lay in his lap, returned to her black cat form for now. They'd discussed much about what'd happened in the Soul Society, particularly Ichigo's bracelet. "And you're sure?" Kisuke asked.

"Definitely. The jewel in the middle was a communication device. But that was all I could figure out. I didn't have time to further examine it while I was training Ichigo."

The shopkeeper tilted his hat back and hummed. "So Mr. Kurosaki has some secrets. Perhaps we should keep a closer eye on him…"

Yoruichi raised her head and stared off at the side of the street in disbelief. "I don't think that'll be necessary."

"Really? How so?"

"Look to your left."

Turning his head, the shopkeeper was baffled when he saw his protégé approach the shop. Beside him was a woman clad in white, with blonde hair and mocha-dark skin. Though the front of her face was covered, Kisuke recognized the bits of Hollow mask peeking through. "Is that what I think it is?" he gaped.

Keeping hold of Halibel's hand, Ichigo gulped. "Kisuke. We need your help."

The shopkeeper was caught off guard but only for an instant. Setting Yoruichi on the ground, the bucket hat wearing Soul Reaper narrowed his eyes and pointed into the shop. "You've some explaining to do, Mr. Kurosaki…" he said with angry eyes.

Ichigo was starting to regret his decision already…

Minutes later…Kisuke's living room

"I see," Kisuke said after Ichigo confessed to everything. Beside him sat Yoruichi and Tessai, both staring at Ichigo's companion with cautions looks. Halibel, knowing their distrust, merely sat next to Ichigo in silence, her zanpakuto on the table where the others could see it. "Well, suddenly everything adds up. We were wondering how you were so strong to begin with," Kisuke said, his tone uncharacteristicly low. "And that would explain your smell."

"Smell?"

Yoruichi piped in. "You can't smell it, Ichigo, since your senses aren't as honed as ours. But to the three of us, you reek of Hollow."

"But more importantly, Ichigo, this complicates things," Kisuke said. Flippng his fan, he hid his face behind it and stared deeply at Ichigo. "How do you think the Thirteen Court Guard Squads' going to respond to this?"

"Kisuke, I have nothing to do with Aizen!" Ichigo insisted.

"He is telling you the truth," Halibel added. "My decision to train Ichigo was my own. Souske Aizen had nothing to do with this."

Sitting back on his cushion, Kisuke simply glared at Halibel from behind his fan. "As much as I'd like to believe that, I'm afraid that your word carries little weight."

When Kisuke brought his gaze back to Ichigo the boy shivered from his scrupulous gaze. "You don't trust me?" Ichigo asked.

"In a nutshell? No. I don't." Flipping his fan shut, Kisuke took off his hat. "Quite frankly, Mr. Kurosaki, I'm a bit disappointed."

Tessai coughed. "Ichigo, this is serious. You have a connection with a Hollow. And one of our enemy's soldiers at that. Add into the fact that she's carrying your child and you've a recipe for disaster. There's no way the Head-Captain and the others won't find out about this. And even if you two are telling the truth, they will consider your judgement compromised by her."

"You should have told us about her straight away, Ichigo," Kisuke said in an angry tone. "You might have had your reasons but it's never a good idea to keep secrets when you're asking for help."

Yoruichi turned and was a little put off by Kisuke's angry face. It was a bit out of character for him. "Kisuke, aren't you being a little harsh?"

Ichigo balled his hands into fists as anger rose inside of him. If Kisuke was going to be abrasive, Ichigo could do it too. "Keep secrets? Like you, Mr. Former-Captain?" he retorted. "Considering half the things you forgot to tell me before I went to the Soul Society, I think I was right to not tell you."

Kisuke nodded. "Yes, Ichigo, I withheld certain information from you. You weren't ready at the time and the clock was ticking, however. But before you accuse me of lying, answer me this: if I had told you what I'd left out back then, would you still have wanted to save Rukia?"

"Of course! I'd have saved Rukia no matter what!" Ichigo shouted. "What would you have done if you'd known about Halibel?" he asked.

"I'd have let you die in the street where Byakuya Kuchiki left you."

Both Yoruichi and Tessai looked at Kisuke appalled. "Boss! You can't mean that!" Tessai insisted.

"You're being too harsh on Ichigo!" Yoruichi turned to face Halibel. "He might have kept her a secret but that's only because he cared about her, not because he was being manipulated by Aizen."

But Kisuke held up a hand and silenced the two before addressing Ichigo. "I am upset, Ichigo. Let me tell you why, so that there is no misunderstanding between the two of us." Kisuke reached for the table and grabbed a hot cup of tea. Looking down at his murky reflection, he paused to remember better times. "As you know, I was a captain in the Soul Society. So was Yoruichi. Tessai was the head of the Kidō corp. as well. We had friends, family, men whom we looked after and comrades whom we valued. Then in one night, Souske Aizen took that from us. Our lives have been forever ruined because of him. His scheming led to so many of our friends suffering and we were left to flee after we were tried on trumped-up charges because of him. And in that hundred years of absence that man has had free reign to do as he pleases."

"It's not that I'm angry that you kept your friendship to this woman from us. It's that I can no longer trust you which has me so upset. You have the capabilities to surpass many of the captains. Your strength will be a vital asset in the battles to come. But now…now we cannot have faith in you anymore. The hard truth of the matter is that you are compromised." His face softened and he calmed down a little. "You two might be telling the truth about Aizen. If I wanted, I could use several interrogative techniques to ascertain the truth from you, Ichigo but I believe you when you say you had no knowledge about Aizen. But the truth is that it makes little difference. The way Aizen operates makes me question everything. Sure, you two had no knowledge of him knowing about you being together but for all we know this could be some part of some bigger scheme. If he knows about you two then he knows about your child. Now that you've not one but two people in danger of his reach, Ichigo, you're vulnerable to him. This makes it hard for me to want to help you, Ichigo. Because helping you now might help Aizen later on." Finally, he sighed and sipped his tea.

Halibel had held her piece long enough. She pointed an accusing finger at the shopkeeper. "You claim that your hand would not have affected the outcome, Kisuke Urahara. That is a lie and you know it," she said.

"Excuse me?" Kisuke blinked.

"It feels a little hypocritical, don't you think?" Halibel subjected. "You only do things when you're forced to. The fact that you don't act until the very last moment makes you as much responsible for this as much as Aizen."

"How do you mean?" Kisuke asked curiously.

"Your goal in putting the Hogyoku inside of Rukia Kuchiki was to keep it hidden. You knew that Aizen would want it and that letting Byakuya Kuchiki take her away would only let it fall into his hands. You could have stopped them yourself. Instead you held back and let Ichigo do the fighting and only intervened when he lost. Furthermore, if getting the Hogyoku back was such a priority then why didn't you go with him instead of leaving him ill-prepared for a suicide mission?"

Both Yoruichi and Tessai were forced to nod at Halibel's logic, noting how sharp the Arrancar was. Scratching his stubble, Kisuke knew that the woman had him there. "Touché, I guess. You're quite the sharp one." The shopkeeper stood up. "Maybe you've a point."

"Then you'll help us?"

"We'll keep quiet about this for now. In the meantime, I'll create a Gigai for your friend here. Yoruichi and Tessai can fetch her some clothes. She'll have to stay with you at your place, Ichigo."

Yoruichi grinned. Taking a good look at Ichigo's friend, she understood very well why Ichigo was so enamored with her. Especially taking into account her…assets. "I bet your dad will love this," she chuckled.

The three Soul Reapers left, leaving Ichigo and Halibel alone. Ichigo breathed a sigh of relief. "That almost got ugly," he said. "Thanks for sticking up for me."

"You've done enough for me. It was the least I could do." Halibel reached for Ichigo's hand and squeezed it gently. "Thank you, Ichigo. I know what a burden this all is for you."

"You're my friend, Halibel. I don't abandon my friends."

Behind her mask, Halibel smiled lovingly…

To be continued