The moment that Nijima was gone, Kenichi sighed as his masters all turned to him expectantly. Waiting for him to explain why he felt the need to never mention his other sister to any of them.

"My boy?" Hayato said. Hoping to prompt him into speaking. However Kenichi merely stared blankly at him for a moment and thinned his lips in displeasure causing the older man to sigh. "Will you tell us a little bit about the young lady that we're going to have staying with us? Please?"

The boy sighed but eventually said, in a begrudging tone. "Her name is Ichigo Kurosaki. She's sixteen. She was originally a cousin of mine before her dad and two sisters were killed when she was fourteen. My parents adopted her, because we're literally the only family that she has left. Aside from that, there's really nothing to tell."

The masters were silent for a moment before Miu asked hesitantly, "You said that her dad and sisters were killed? What about her mom? Isn't she somewhere?"

"She's dead too." Kenichi said harshly. "She was killed by some yakuza in a wrong time, wrong place sort of incident when Ichigo was seven. Her dad and her two younger sisters were...all that she had for a long time."

"What happened to her dad and sisters, Kenichi? Is it something that we should know of?"

"I dunno," Kenichi said after a moment or so of careful thought. "As far as I know it was a gang member initiation gone horribly wrong."

"Will you tell us what happened anyways? Just to be on the safe side?" Miu asked in a worried tone. Kenichi looked at her for a moment and then nodded his head.

"Fine. But only to be on the safe side." He muttered before then going on to say, "Keep in mind that this is all the information that I have about the incident. But from what I've been told by my parents when we first found out about Ichigo. She was out helping a former schoolmate fix up her place after it was broken into. Her dad ran a small clinic and her two sisters were home because it was the weekend."

"Sometime between the time that her dad shut the clinic down for the day and her sisters were at home preparing dinner for everyone- several people broke into the house. They were armed, and members of some gang that had been snatching up territory in the area. They...weren't martial artists like Ragnarok's guys. They were...more like petty criminals with rap sheets a mile long. People with incredibly violent tendencies."

"From what I understood of things, her dad tried to protect her sisters and was shot- point blank in the back of the head." There was a collective snake like hiss of anger from the masters as they waited patiently for him to continue. "Her sisters were both, beaten within an inch of their lives and then locked in an upstairs bedroom while the guys decided to rob the place. Ichigo got home around the time they were ripping apart the clinic and tried to stop them. She was beaten, shot three times, and still somehow managed to put up one heck of a fight."

"She managed to fight them off somehow. But when they were running away- one of them had a bottle of highly flammable stuff that he set on fire and then tossed through the window of the bedroom where her sisters were. I was told that Ichigo was discovered outside of the bedroom, bleeding out while her sisters burned alive."

"Ichigo confirmed that she tried to break down the door to the bedroom and get them out, but was too weak from her injuries. She could hear them screaming for help and because she couldn't reach them, she just...collapsed outside of the bedroom and talked to them until the finally went silent... S-She refused to abandon them even if it was to save herself." Kenichi said in a choked tone as he clenched his fists tightly in his lap.

"By the time the authorities arrived, the fire had eaten through the floor of the bedroom and it collapsed. And the fire was spreading. Ichigo was found in the hallway, leaning her forehead against the door to the room. She was still conscious. But only just so. She didn't talk, didn't really react to being carried out of the house before it all went up. Mom and dad told me that she was catatonic for nearly two weeks straight before finally snapping out of it."

"That poor girl." Akisame said softly, his heart aching in sympathy for the yet unknown girl that Kenichi called his sister.

"Indeed." Hayato said quietly as he mulled over everything that he and the others had just been told. And the first thing that he thought, was that while sad- something about what Kenichi had said simply didn't sound right to him. He wanted to ask Kenichi a few things about some of the details that he'd given.

However the desolate look that the boy had on his face kept him from trying to delve a little bit deeper into things. At least for the time being.

They had greater concerns at the moment anyways.


Three days later-

Ichigo stared up at the massive wooden gate with a weird sense of foreboding and automatically wanted to turn around and go home. The only reason that she stayed glued to her spot was because she wasn't a coward and she didn't run from things. Ever.

Most people chalked that quality of hers up to stupidity or a lack of common sense. In some cases she'd wholeheartedly agree. Her past pretty much tended to speak for itself.

That didn't mean that she was entirely lacking in common sense though. Because regardless of those things- even she knew that there was something...monumentally life altering on the other side of the gate. She could practically feel it. It was almost like how she occasionally felt the stirrings of her now dormant spirit energy from time to time.

Almost like a hum that was resonating with her soul.

It was fucking terrifying. But she'd seen much worse in the past few years. Still...she couldn't exactly seem to help herself.

That was why she was taking a moment to hesitate and get it out of her system while she could. Once she stepped foot on the other side of the gate, she had a feeling that she wouldn't be afforded many opportunities to even contemplate hesitating again, regardless of whether the circumstances called for it or not.

Taking a deep breath to try and calm the anxiety churning inside of her, she gripped her duffle bag's strap just a little bit tighter and then started to reach out to push at the door- wondering if it was going against the doctor's orders to push something that had to weight nearly seven hundred and some odd pounds, open or not.

She knew that she wasn't supposed to do any heavy lifting. A fact that had escaped her several days ago when she'd gone to find Nijima after getting his text for help.

Her chest still hurt from picking up that stupid asshole by the throat.

But at least she wasn't having to hide the fact that she was having some trouble breathing anymore. So that was a plus. Right?

She wasn't sure how long she stood there. But by the time she was ready to try and push the gate, it had already swung wide open and a tall man with wild black hair, and pale nearly colorless eyes was standing there looking at her curiously.

"Hello, miss." He said politely before then saying. "You've been standing out here for a while now- May I help you with something?"

Ichigo opened her mouth to ask if this place was Ryozanpaku. The place where her adopted brother was studying martial arts at. But all that came out was a weird squeaking noise that embarrassed the hell out of her.

"Oh my, that's a nasty squeak that you have there." He said in what she believed to be a faux concerned tone. "Why don't you come inside and I'll help you get rid of it." He said sweetly as he reached for her.

Ichigo didn't know what possessed her to do it- especially since she had never really done anything like it before. But for some reason she didn't fully understand, red flags were going up all over the place in her mind. So when the guy reached for her, she acted on instinct and slid her duffle bag off of her shoulder, and then chucked it at him. And then turned and ran as fast as she could away from him.

She didn't really care if she hit him with her bag, if he caught it, dodged it- or whatever- just as long as he didn't touch her.