Chapter 13: Ikkaku Madarame

Two weeks. She had been at it for two weeks, day in and day out with a laser-like focus, but her efforts never yielded any success. Until now. Proudly, she was looking at the small sphere of channeled Reiatsu in her hand.

After Kiara had gotten back from her little field trip to squad six's Vice-Captain, she had started to test what he had taught her, to a statisfying degree. The suggestions he mentioned to her regarding her technique weren't groundbreaking by any means, but they were enough to make a noticeable difference.

But that had only amplified her disstatisfaction for not being able to master his other lesson. So she had shut herself in one of her hideouts and started to practice.

A wide smile formed on her face. She increased her output a little and concentrated the released Reiatsu into her sphere, after which it grew a little in size. Then she did the opposite and decreased the size of her sphere.

So far so good. Now as for her next step she was going to… what was the next step again? And that's when she realized that she had been so focused on learning this one task that she had completely forgotten that she had no idea what came next.

Vice-Captain Abarai had only ever given her that one instruction and nothing else. Damn it, there must be a way to find out more. She couldn't really just walk over to the 6th division grounds and go ask him about it, since first: she wouldn't even get past the guards, because she could hardly just walk by and say hi on her way in, not with the 6th division strict measurements for security.

Second: He probably wasn't even there, so even if she'd get in there somehow, it would probably be for nothing. Maybe someone in squad 4 could teach her something about the subject. She dismissed that thought however, since they would probably all be busy tending to the sick and injured.

She was thinking about asking one of the higher ups of the neighboring divisions, but quickly stopped that train of thought as well. She had heard some bits and pieces about the 10th division, specifically its Captain and Vice-Captain. What stood out the most was that the two of them were polar opposites, and that the Captain actually had to do the work of his Vice-Captain and not the other way around, like it is when higher-ups get too full of themselves because of their position.

Toshiro Hitsugaya was a focused person with an impeccable sense of duty, while Rangiku Matsumoto would always rather doze off or go shopping and have fun instead of taking care of her obligations as a vice-captain. Personalitywise, she would have been a perfect fit for squad 11.

Then there were divisions 3 and 13, in which she didn't know anyone at all, not even by name and she wasn't even thinking about making the stupid attempt of getting into the 2nd division, which was also in charge of the Onmitsukido, the stealth force.

She didn't want to go around and just ask random people either, especially when she didn't even know them by name. So, the only choice she had left was to go around and search for someone in her own division who could teach her more about Reiatsu-control.

That would be next to impossible though, since of all the divisions that existed in Seireitei hers just had to be the one that despised Kido and all of the sort.

The only person who could know something about it was her captain since he had to have a Bankai, because, well, he was the captian of a division.

Damn it, the only one who could teach me is Makoto and he's still not here for whatever reason. The one who taught him isn't even in my squad and is probably unavailable without a special invitation anyway.

Wait. What about the person who taught vice-captain Abarai? He was in her squad and if she was lucky, he wasn't even that far away.

She got up, exited her hideout and was blinded by pure light. Damn, was it noon already? She had completely lost all track of time while she was practicing. She strechted a bit and then started to look around.

Now where could he be?

Vice-captain Madarame Ikkaku, the man who trained the man who trained her master. She cursed herself for taking so long to figure that out.

She started walking towards the main building of the 11th division, to check if he was hanging out with her captain.

On her way there, she was spotted by several squad members. Some of which naturally flipped her off.

"I don't have the time or the nerves, so shut it", she yelled.

One of the bunch pursued her and responded with: "Oh come one, we don't see you for two weeks and then you don't even want to take on a fight?"

"What can I say, I'm taking after Makoto in the worst ways, now scare already." She really didn't want to fight now, but her adversary didn't back off. She eventually stopped and turned around.

"Fine, you know what? We'll fight bare handed and if I beat you, you'll stop getting on my nerves."

"It'll be your downfall, but hey, you wanted it this way", her opposite said with a cocky attitude. He looked like he was about her age, but already had a lot of scares. He was about the same height, had black hair and piercing golden eyes.

He took stance, but she had no intention of fighting fair and square. She just stood there and waited for him charge at her. He eventually made the mistake, to which she quickly rolled out of his way, grabbed a hand full of dirt from the ground and threw it into his eyes when he turned towards her. Then, she buried her fist deep in his stomach.

"Turns out it wasn't my downfall, who could have known, but hey, you wanted it this way", she said sheepishly. She gave him a little wink while he was groaning in pain.

Sometimes she worried that actions like that hurt her opponents too much, but she had learned that the people here were pretty hard to put down. That one boy in particular. His name was Akito Kobayashi and as she had found out with a little research after her visit at the 6th divison, he was one of the academy dropouts. Turned out squad 11 had quite a few of them.

Though Akito didn't really seem like a person to just drop out like that. She had fought with him numerous times now and judging by his technique alone, there was no reason for him to get kicked out. She had also talked with him a few times now and then and he didn't seem like he lacked the necessary intellect either. She eventually came to the conclusion that he was just not interested in anything else but fighting.

He was actually one of the incredibly idiotic people who once flipped off the captain.

That all didn't really matter to her right now though, since she had to get out of his sight fast so he wouldn't challenge her again. He always recovered annoingly fast.

She had to make a few more turns until she got to the main building. She reached it, but avoided to just go in through the front door, she really didn't want to become the center of attention, especially with captain Zaraki residing inside.

The division's main building wasn't anything spectacular, it was really quite the opposite. It was a very mundane long hall with only one floor, or better and simpler described, it was just a pretty big dojo.

She snuck around the building and looked at the inside through a window. Captain Zaraki was there as usual; accompanied by 3rd seat Ayasegawa and a lot of other members, who were dozing off, as per usual.

She really wanted to avoid having to step into this den full of bored fighting machines, there had to be another way. And then she saw her solution. At the end of the hall, a few men were sitting around drinking sake. Next to them, she saw a pile of already opened bottles and lucky for her, they were about to empty their last one. When that would happen, they would either fight over who'd have the honor of obtaining new supplies, or one of them would just do it themselves without any unnecessary complications.

She really hoped for solution number two (it would be so much faster), but she was also well aware that this was the 11th division, so she tempered her expectations. She didn't have to wait long until they ran out of booze, but she had to wait considerably longer for them to fight out who'd go to get more.

And of all the things that could have happened, right now was the moment that Zaraki Kenpachi, captain of the 11th division, decided he was too bored for too long. He got up, took his bokken and with his signature joy-filled and a bit maniacal laugh, joined the fight. And ended it after a very short passage of time.

Afte that, a volunteer got up very quickly and stormed out the building to flee the impending doom that was his captain.

Finally.

She ran around the hall towards the entrance and found him catching his breath next to the door. "Never a good idea to start a fight in the presence of the captain."

"Oh hey, Kiara", he said between breaths. "Haven't seen you in weeks. What were you doing all this time?"

"Training."

"Seems legit."

"I've only lived here for four months, but even I understood very clearly not to mess with or provoke the captain in any way."

"Booze let's you forget many things, little lady. For example that you're not alone in the room, or that you live in squad 11, or that your captain is present."

"Yeah I noticed. Took a sneak from the window"; she said jolly.

"You did? Well good for you. What are you doing here anyway?"

"I'm actually looking for vice-captain Madarame, have you seen him?"

"Oh yeah. He's somewhere in his favorite spot with captain Tetsuzaemon, doing the same thing we are, but it's only them so, you know, kinda less crowded."

"Captain who?"

"Are you fucking kidding me right- oh right, it's you. Tetsuzaemon Ida, Captain of the seventh division and kind of a close associate of our vice-captain, you could call them friends, I don't know."

"And where would they be?"

"The 7th division's grounds, there's a large section of hills and trees apart from the buildings, covers about a third of their actual squad area, can't miss it. Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta get outta here and get me some more booze before the captain kicks open these doors and-"

As if he had been waiting for a cue, catain Zaraki kicked open the doors and stepped out yelling: "Get back here you bastard! Nobody is gonna run away from a fight, not if I have a say about it! Where'd ya- oh there you are."

While the captain had been speaking, he had looked around frantically and eventually spotted his victim standing next to him. "Why the fuck are you hiding here?!"

"Ah, you see, captain Zaraki, I wasn't really hiding, you know the air in there was getting so thick and hot and I just had to catch some fresh air and-", his stuttering wasn't doing him any favors, as captain Zaraki interrupted him very apruptly.

"Oh really, that so? Well I hope ya got some real deep breaths, 'cause you're goin' back in there and stand your man like a man!", he yelled with his raspy voice.

Kiara would have given the poor guy her condolences, if she would have been stupid enough to stick around. Not that it would have done him any good. The moment the door was kicked open by her captain she had snuck out of sight around the corner of the dojo.

When she heard the doors closing, she carefully approached the corner and dared to sneak a peek around it to make sure that the captain wasn't actually still standing there, because he somehow noticed her and wanted to wait for her to make the mistake to just walk out in the open.

Luckily he wasn't there, but she still distanced herself from the hall rather fast, one could never be too sure.

She ran back and made the same turns as the ones she took on her way to the building, just to literally almost run into Akito.

"There you are. Get ready for a rematch and I swear, this time you won't get me so easily-"

"Akito, this is really not the time right now. I'd love- I mean I'd like- ok I'd let myself be talked into it on another day, but not today."

"Why? What's got you so hurried?"

"None of your business", she said and ran past him.

"I will get that fight, even if I have to find and break into all of your hideouts, I swear", he called after her.

"Well that's not creepy at all", she retorted.

She picked up her pace a bit and ran towards the entrance doors of squad 11. She passed them without seeing any guards what so ever. As per usual.

She had to make her way through the 10th division grounds all the way to the entrance of squad 7. She reached the entrance and tried to just walk through, but the guards stopped her.

"State your name and objective", one of the guards demanded.

"Kiara, in search of vice-captain Madarame."

"Full Name and occupation please", the guard insisted.

Kiara sighed. "Disciple of the 4th seat of the 11th division Souken Makoto, Kiara Rokusan."

"What do you require of the vice-captain?"

"I just need to talk to him, that's all."

"Then we are terribly sorry. The vice-captain gave specific instructions not to disturb him, except in case of an emergency."

"Can you at least tell him that I was looking for him?"

"Of course", the guard answered.

"Thank you."

Since she had basically no other choice (she could hardly hang around in squad 10 just for fun), she turned around and walked back towards her own district. After the gates of the 11th division entered her sight she realized that she had to deal with something else right now, as Akito was napping on the entrance of the squad grounds.

Fucking- is there nothing else this guy has to do than literally wait for me to enter his vision, just so he can scream "rematch" in my face?

She looked upon the entrance and read the number 11, to which she had to remind herself for the second time this day that this was the 11th division. Waiting around for people to come by, just so they had an opportunity to yell at someone was literally what they did.

Well, she had to give him a chance for a rematch eventually, and he wouldn't get off her back about it until he got what he wanted. Which was annoying as hell. Still though, if she had to do fight him anyway, she could just as well pull a joke on him and get her Entertainments worth. Akito was even in the right spot, it was almost too convenient.

Slowly and carefully she climbed up the wall to the roof of the entrance. It took a lot more effort to get on top of the roof itself without rattling any of the tiles than she had thought. How had this been so easy for Makoto? Painfully slow step after painfully slow step, she got closer to Akito, who was still napping.

(Bleach OST 3 Track 21: Cop's Robbers)

When she was in a good enough position to catch him in case he'd trip over the edge like she did, she took a deep breath, got close to his ear, put her hands to her mouth and yelled: "What are you doing up here?"

As expected, he jolted up, yelled: "What?" and lost his footing, to which he fell over. Kiara caught him at his kimono at the last second, but it was difficult to hold him like that, since she was practically bursting with laughter.

"Pull yourself up, I can't hold you for much longer", she gasped between laughs.

"You think this is funny?", he said as he put his hands on the edge and pulled himself up. "Because it's not."

"You're right, it's hilarious", she replied, still laughing.

"Why are you here anyways? I thought you had something important to take care of."

She calmed down a little and still chuckling she answered: "Ah yeah, that. Let's say a… roadblock turned up and I can't get past that. My only option is to wait."

"Ok, but why are you here? I thought I had to turn over every stone on this goddamn compound to find you."

"Well, since you're persistent as hell, I figured I had to fight you eventually. So, I wanted to do that before you found and turned over all of my hideouts. Lesser of two evils, that sorta thing."

"And why'd you have to scare me awake like that? I could have actually fallen over the roof."

"Because you get on my nerves with your constant whining for a rematch. You and this whole squad really. It's not like you're not nice people or bad company or anything, but your reluctance to accept and or understand the meaning of the word "no" is, well, let's call it spiritually taxing."

"Well I'm not gonna say it's your fault for being the disciple of the 4th seat, but it is kinda your fault because you're so strong. Also, you let yourself be provoked too easily. And you can't tell me you're not having fun during fighting, I've seen the smile on your face."

"First off, I am not strong, I'm just training day in and out like there's nothing else in my life. If any of you lazy people would actually do the same for once instead of dozing off all the time, you'd be on par and or way beyond my level. Second off… well okay I can't really argument against that. And third I don't smile when I fight."

"Yeah, you do, you should see yourself. Sometimes, it's almost like the captain has a daughter, you smile just like him. Well, not exactly like him, he's still more maniacal and waaaay crazier and I don't think you'll ever beat him at that. Still, whenever you fight, you look like you're having a good time."

"I don't know if I should take offense to the part where you just said I could be the daughter of a battlecrazed psychopath, or if I should actually take it as a very strange compliment."

"It's not really meant as either. It's just a comparison."

Kiara didn't really know what to do with that, so she changed the subject. "So, your oh so beloved rematch."

"Oh yeah, totally. You wanna change locations first, or do you wanna do it right here?"

"Of course I don't wanna do it on the roof of our squad entrance where every idiot can watch", she said at a high volume, which she regretted immediately, because of course somebody was listening on the ground.

"Oh my, are you two this close already?"; a voice asked mockingly from down below.

"Go fuck yourself Riku", Kiara retorted.

"Can you say that in sign language? My ears aren't what they used to be."

"You mean like this?", she asked viciously and flipped him off. And instantly realized that she was practically demonstrating a textbook example of proving Makotos earlier point

"Ah, a fight? We can go right now, no problem, I accept your challenge!", Riku said with a self-statisfied smile.

"See, this is what I mean when I say you let yourself be provoked too easily."

"I literally couldn't care less. Looks like our rematch needs to wait a little, I've got some fools to beat."

"So long as I get that rematch its fair game, go for the throat."

"God knows I'd love to sometimes."

"…who are you talking about exactly? If you say things like that I get a little worried, especially because it's you."

"I hope you don't mind me keeping that to myself", she said and with these words she drew her sword with the scabbard on, released her Spiritual pressure and jumped towards the ground. The landing could have been better, but considering she had just jumped about 5 meter downwards, the tumbling she had to perform to keep her balance was acceptable.

She was about to engage in the fight, but scolded herself immediately.

Makoto said wait to fight with released Spiritual pressure.

She let her flow of Reiatsu run dry and took her stance, while her opponent was just standing there, most likely baffled from watching her jumping down a small building with relative ease.

When she started moving towards him though, he snapped out of it and readied himself. He was taller than her and had more muscle mass, to which she concluded his advantages to be bigger range and more powerful attacks. So what she would bet on was her agility and quick attacks that might not be as devastating as one of his but just as deadly.

She moved slower towards him the closer she got. She wanted to provoke him into making a premature move that she could exploit.

She saw from the little twitches in his facial expression and his whole stance that he was getting ready to strike. She just had to get a little bit closer, so that she'd definitively be in his range.

Everything happened unexpectadly quick as soon as she was about one meter away from him. He made a half-step forwards and attempted a swing from above which she redirected to the ground and swung her blade towards his throat, only to stop it before it almost made contact.

He just stood there, petrified by the coated blade at his throat. "I win", Kiara simply said, put her sword back into her belt, turned around and walked away.

"Hey", he screamed after her. "This wasn't a real fight, I want a-"

"Rematch, I know, get in line. You'll get one eventually, just not today. I gotta deal with that idiot up on the entrance first, he got the jump on me before you did." Unnerved, she stopped in front of the ,looked up and said: "Akito, get down here, we're chaning locations."

No Answer.

"Hey, Akito"

Still no answer.

"I swear, if you're sleeping again, I'll kick you off that damned edge myself this time."

"Hey hey hey, relax, I'm not asleep", he said while chuckling a little.

"Then get down here", she retorted.

"Calm down already, not everyone can just flare up purple and then jump down a building."

Flare up purple?

He took a few seconds, but eventually came down step by step climbing carefully until the last two meters, which he jumped down himself.

He patted some dust off his clothes and then asked: "Alright where to?"

"The dojo", she answered scarcely.

He nodded and followed her. They took the fastest route, so any further interruptions would not happen, or at least Kiara hoped so. Her hopes paid off for once, as there were merely some people flipping them off.

They arrived at the dojo, slid the door open and entered. On the inside, Akito started to look and wander around a bit, as if he was inspecting the furniture.

"Haven't been in here for a while. Never changes though." He kept walking around the heightened training plateau, until he stumbled, looked back and pointed to something on the ground. "But that's new. Who or what happened here?"

Kiara walked over to him and saw that he was pointing to the whole in the ground she had put there while preventing herself from flying through the wall. "Oh that was me. When I trained here with Makoto last time, I put my bokken there to stop myself. I'm surprised they didn't patch that already."

"Stop yourself from what exactly?"

"From flying through the wall", she answered nonchalantly. "Makoto let me try out something new and I ended up being too fast, to which I catapulted myself towards the wall, so I rammed my bokken in the ground to not do that."

"Your bokken. The same bokkens that are standing there on the wall, with a blunt edge" he said.

"Yeah exactly. That one in the middle of the second holder to be precise. Speaking of; you wanna do this with real swords or with those over there? Upside of them is you can go all out, downside is, well, broken bones are pretty much guaranteed."

"Real swords?", he asked.

"Of course with the scabbard on, as it always is when we fight outside", she reassured him. "Another upside; you don't have to worry about damaging your scabbard with these", she added and pointed to the wooden swords.

He nodded in agreement and she walked over to get two of them. She tossed him one and when he caught it, he looked surprised. "They are lighter than real swords, even without the scabbard on. Were they always this light?"

"Have you never actually held one of these before?"

"It's been a while", he remarked.

She just shook her head and went up to the fighting ground. He followed her and both took their fighting stances. And so they began. The fight wasn't as intense as Kiara had thought it would be, but it was still challenging. Akito was actually a pretty adept fighter himself, when he fought seriously.

The first match ended with Akito being victorious and Kiara could have just let it be like this and be done with it, but there was a certain part of her that just couldn't. The second match ended in her favor now Akito was the on who couldn't leave it be (nothing new really). It went on and on and before they knew it, they had been at it for about two hours. This was actually nice. Just a normal training session without any unnecessary beatings and profound speeches. Kiara actually caught herself thinking about doing this more often and it was around that time that Akito called for a break.

He put his sword on the ground and sat down, breathing a bit heavy. "Damn, this is exhausting. How long can you keep this up?"

"Don't know, never really trained this way."

"What do you mean "this way"?"

"I mean that my training never really consisted of fighting with a reasonable intensity, so it's just a good sparring match. The "sparring matches" i've had the… yeah, no, I can't even call it a pleasure sarcastically. The matches I've… experienced? Yeah I guess that works. The matches I've experienced so far were either Makoto tossing a sword at me and yell "defend yourself", or him tossing a sword at me and yell "attack me". So, mostly him throwing a sword at me. Don't get me wrong, he did teach me the basics, but not much after that."

"It's really this bad?"

Kiara sat down herself and thought a bit before she answered. "It's not… that bad. There are occasionally some pretty rewarding lessons, but Makotos way of teaching is, well, through experience. He thinks failure is the best way to learn, so right when you find something that could give you an edge, he realizes that and let's you fail in a way that gets you feeling like you're back to square one. The Goal is to get you to think and figure out how to use what you've discovered more effficiently, but it's still a bit... disstatisfying."

This was very true, as Kiara thought back to the last fight she had had with him. A shudder took hold of her and she remembered the unhealthy soud her body had made when it came into contact with the floor in a never-before-seen Fashion, which was a bit of a small sensation. When he actually tried, Makoto could get very creative with his smack-downs.

"Wow. Ever thought about quitting?"

"Sometimes. But then again, that'd get me nowhere, so I just kept pressing on, since this was pretty much all I had. It's not that bad anymore though, really. The interesting things are starting to happen now, so I'm sure as hell not going to just walk away. Besides, if I did, I'd actually have to go to the academy and I'm not really that much of a people Person."

Akito blinked a few times before he said very sincerely: "You're pretty amazing, you know that?"

She was surprised by that. All this time she thought that the boy was just big talk and a pain in the ass, just like the rest of the damned group, but he was starting to set himself apart.

"By the way, what time is it?"

She simply pointed to the wall opposite the entrance where a watch was placed. He followed the direction of her finger and found it.

"Damn, this late already?"

"What, you got places to be? Oh, or maybe someone else to yell the word at? Or after?"

"Actually, both", he said in a cheery manner. That was weird. She thought he'd take offense to that. She looked at him interested and waited a bit until she realized he didn't take the hint.

"Well, are you gonna tell me?"

"Oh, you wanted to know? I thought you were busy."

"Yes, busy waiting for our vice-captain, who's somewhere I can't go and I don't know when he will be back."

"Where he at?"

"Squad 7, doing something with the captain of that division. Maybe a mission or something."

Suddenly, Akito burst out in laughter after she uttered that sentence. "What, did i say something wrong?"

Still chuckling, he calmed himself down and said: "No, no not at all. It's just that I sometimes forget that you still don't know a lot about the Gotei 13. The vice-captain is not on a mission. Well, he is on one, but the goal is to get as drunk as somehow possible. Trust me, when the dude gets home, and that will be in the night, he'll be so damn hammered, he'll be yelling at a tree if the floor is made out of floor and I ain't even kidding. That's actually happened before. So whatever you want from him, if it's anything other than booze, I'm afraid today ain't your lucky day."

"Fuck", she cursed. How was it that even the higher ups in this squad were lazy drunks?

"Alright, so were are you going?", she repeated her question.

"The 1st division grounds."

"The hell kinda business do you have going on there?"

"I don't, actually. I'm just going to welcome the twins out of prison."

"…and the twins are?"

"How can you not know- oh right it's you. I'm sorry", he said holding his hands up as she glared at him. "It wasn't meant as an insult, it was more of a reminder for myself. The twins", he continued and thereby avoided a rant about how Kiara slowly but surely had enough of people making remarks about her in that regard, "are somewhat of a modern legend."

He got up and walked towards the wall to put his bokken back in its holder while he was talking. "They transferred to the 11th about a year ago, right around the time when they broke into the research facility led by the captain of the 12th division. What makes them legends is that they didn't break into it because they wanted to steal anything, but simply to because they could and to see how far they would get. When they were caught, they provided the central 46 with the information on how they did it and that's why they only got prison for one year."

"Seems a bit tame for the central 46."

"They are also on parole now and if they get caught with anything major like that ever again in the next twenty years, they are provided as voluntary test subjects for the research departement."

"Ah, there it is."

"Right so- wait, you know who the central 46 are?"

"Makoto took me there to register me in the 11th division when he took me in. I also got my Zanpakutou there, so yeah I know of them."

"Makes sense. So, wanna tag along? You don't look like you're up to anything else in the next few hours."

She thought a bit about it, but had to admit he was right, so she said: "Fine. But I swear, if you even so much as attempt to say the words "let's fight", I will gut you with an honest-to-god smile on my face."

"Duly noted. Would mean that we have to leave right now though, they're gonna be released in an hour or so."

She got up as well and put her bokken back as well. Then she turned to Aktio and asked: "Well, what are we waiting for?"

Author's notes:

Alright, another one done. Little bit mundane, not really much happens here, except a little bit of humor and introducing new characters. Don't really have much to say on that, except that the thing with Ikkaki and Testuzaemon was actually in the anime, so I thought maybe take that a little further.

It also might seem that this side of the story doesn't really have that much happening in it, at least from Kiara's perspective and that's kinda true, but it won't take that much longer until it gets some traction as well and shit starts going down. Setsuzo's side of the story does get bit more action and more things happening at a faster rate, I admit that, then again you gotta see that Soul Society is at peace right now since it's been almost four and a half years since Yhwachs defeat, so they're pretty mellow right now, at least I think so. In the real world we wouldn't be so chill right after a literal war, at least we weren't in the fifties. Or sixties. Or seventies. Damn my dad grew up in a really depressing timeperiod. Anyway, this is not the real world, it's Soul Society and Hueco Mundo is, well, Hueco Mundo. As long as you don't reign supreme it's survival of the fittest.

Not much more to say, so...

If you`ve got your own opinion or ideas, PM me, or, better yet, review the Story. I`ll always welcome constructive criticism.