Chapter 43: Kukaku's Training

Ichigo glared at the small orb that they were to use to get passed the Seireitei's shield. He was horrible when it came to controlling his spirit pressure. He suddenly felt as if somebody else had it worse as a feeling of imminent death suddenly came over him. Looking over his shoulder he noticed that Verena had a sullen look upon her face. The glare was so intense it made him feel sorry for the sphere.

Why is she so upset? he wondered as a scowl appeared on his face. She's not the one who has problems! Inside his inner world the white haired hollow was cackling. Pointedly choosing to ignore the albino, Ichigo tries to listen to the point of this exercise.

"...and if you do this incorrectly, you'll explode." Kukaku stated with a grin spreading across her features.

Sweat dropped down the back of Ichigo's neck. Wait, he thought as realization came forward. is she saying this is a bomb of some sorts? He looked at the innocent looking sphere, a newfound fear coming forward.

Oh, this is interesting King. The hollow chuckled as Ichigo pushed him back to the back of his mind and tried to focus on his new task.

Verena on the other hand was feeling annoyed and angry. She wasn't sure why she was feeling antsy about this exercise, as she usually had almost perfect control over her power. This morning, however, had changed that. After learning her zanpakuto's name the night before, this morning her reiatsu had been fluctuating at a higher degree than it usually did. She had once heard that after you learned your zanpakuto's name that you got a bit stronger but she hasn't been prepared to deal with reiatsu fluctuations that were this strong. Lifting her arm up she saw a crack in the gems on her bracelet that she'd gotten for her birthday. The new fluctuations in her power were causing cracks to appear in the one thing that hid her power. Did Ichi have these problems after he learned Zangetsu's name? She looked at her brother's back and glared at him only to see his shoulders stiffen. Why didn't he ever tell me about this?!

Verena didn't realize that she was projecting her ire with her new problem and therefore didn't notice when Lisa and Hiyori both took a step away from her from either side of her person. It would be been funny if she had noticed, but she hadn't. Kukaku had no idea what was causing the young woman to give off such animosity, but she hoped it was a good thing as she began to test each person's strength with her technique that would help them infiltrate the Gotei 13. All the Visoreds passed, of course, they all had once been captains and/or lieutenants before they had vanished a hundred years before. The sweet girl Orihime had perfect form as her shield projected a perfect circle around her. Tatsuki was another thing as it took on a look of a blob with wrinkles around her. Not perfect control of her powers but it was better than nothing. The Chad boy passed as well as his actually looked as strong as the visoreds. Ishida took on a form that was a bit narrow. Could it be reflecting his personality? she wondered with amusement. The cannonball technique wasn't hard to do, unless you were completely incompetent.

That was when she paid the twins a bit more attention. Ichigo was looking at the orb as if it was going to break at any second while Verena looked at the orb with an annoyed look. She grinned internally but tried her best to look angry at them. "Come on! Focus you two!" she yelled, her voice booking in the room. With their power output this should be a piece of cake for them. Her thoughts completely derailed when she saw what was going on with Ichigo. The boy may have been a powerhouse of power but he had no ability to focus it.

The spiritual energy that made up the cannonball technique around Ichigo was not circular or any shape at all. It was wrapping around him like some sort of snake. "This is terrible!" Shiroganehiko yelled out causing Ichigo to jump slightly, his hollow chuckled. "What is that even suppose to be?!" Kukaku grinned in amusement. "I can only conclude; you have no talent at all!"

Still don't want my help King? The hollow inquired.

Ichigo's anger got the best of him in that moment. "Then explain in a way I can understand!" he yelled at the man before throwing the core ball at Shiroganehiko who wasn't expecting that kind of reaction and got hit in the face by it. "Teach me some pointers!"

"Shirogane!" his brother, Koganehiko, yelled out as his brother got hit by the orange haired teen.

Kukaku looked behind her to notice her younger brother was picking his nose, totally ignoring what was going on here. She knew the reason he was acting like this was because she had forced him into training with them, even if he wasn't doing any training at all. Ganju have snort suddenly as he stood up and walked over to Ichigo and snatched the core away from the teen.

Ichigo took notice quickly. "Hey! Give that back!" he yelled at him, his temper still flaring.

"I need to practice too." Ganju claimed, but Kukaku could tell he just wanted to help the boy. "So cover your ears, Soul Reaper. Don't you dare listen!" He spun the core on the top of his figure as he stepped away from Ichigo. "I'm going to review a trick I've developed myself."

"Huh." Ichigo said confused. Before he realized what the supposed idiot was doing.

"Visualize now..." Ganju muttered as he focused on his task. "Draw a circle in your heart as dark as possible and as heavy as possible." The core suddenly lit up in his hands. "Then imagine yourself jumping right into the center of the circle." The shield activated at that moment. "This is the basic image that works for all kido. " he mumbled softly before focusing the power back into himself, thus reversing what he had done. "So easy." he said, even though that seemed to have taken a lot of energy out of him to do that task. "It's so easy I didn't even really have to practice." He threw it back at Ichigo before walking away and leaning back against the wall behind Kukaku.

"I saw what you did there." She told him, a soft smile on her face.

"Tch." He turned his face away from his sister's inspection.

Verena had been paying attention to what Ganju had been saying and all the while wondering if such a simp!e thing as visualization would help her too. Closing her eyes she did what Ganju said to do, at the same time Ichigo stated intently at the core ball in his hands. Everyone was watching him and not Verena, so when they saw two, not one, cores glowing they weren't expecting what happened next. The first signs of trouble should have been noticed by them, but they weren't. The building and floorboards began to shake from the force of the power being released. So focused on the task, neither of the twins noticed that their shields had fully formed, nor did they notice that they were about to brush up against one another.

It was Kukaku who noticed first. Snapping into action she yelled at the two. "You idiots! Stop messing around! Gather your spiritual energy together already!"

Two perfectly formed barriers surrounded the twins. "All that drama for nothing." Shinji muttered sounding disappointed.

"Be nice." Kensei chastised. "They're still beginners. We all seem to forget that."

Lisa pushed her glasses up as she gave a slight nod in agreement. "For people so young to have the power they have..." she said with ominous tone.

They suddenly turned their attention back to the twins when they heard Kukaku yell at Ichigo. The result was Ichigo's barrier exploding which caused Verena to loose concentration and hers to explore as well. If anyone could claim these kids as relatives of theirs it was Kukaku as while chastising Ichigo, Verena walked up to them, while singed from having her own spirit energy burn her, and began beating her brother up for making her loose concentration.

"Should we help him?" Orihime asked nervously.

The group of friends all felt a bit nervous to stop the two women but at the same time felt bad for Ichigo. Uryu cleared his throat. "I think we should leave this to Ichigo."

"Coward!" Ichigo yelled at him, having heard his friends conversation.

Serena and Kukaku wore matching grins on their faces. "He's not a coward Ichigo." she told her brother who was still laying on the floor. "He just knows he would never win against two strong willed women."

Ichigo scowled at her. "More like bullies." he mumbled as Kukaku turned away.

"What'd you say?" Kukaku said with a dangerous tone.

"N-Nothing..." Ichigo stuttered as he really did not want to get on her had side.

"And he says I'm a coward." Uryu muttered quietly.

Yoruichi have a chuckle. "As always, your teaching techniques seem to have some merit to them." The cat walked between everyone. "I think it is time for everyone to have something to eat before we go to bed. Tomorrow is going to be a very big day."

"Interesting." A voice in the void spoke causing the man in the cell to look up. "It would seem central has indeed taken the bait. They believe the unconscious form you gave me is the real you." Yellowing teeth smiled and gleaned at the man. "But now comes the real question, why do you suppose they believed the false one was the real one?" As the man stepped into the like he was revealed to be Mayuri Kurotsuchi, captain of squad twelve. "Even I have to admit, I'm curious as to how you created such a perfect gigai."

The man in the cell smiled lightly at his former assistant. "Ah, well, nothing is ever perfect." he stated. "As that mobile gigai does have a couple small defectives." Mayuri raised an eyebrow at the man. " One being it can only be used by myself. I have yet to be able to replicate the process in order for it to be used by others."

"Still, a balloon type gigai..." Mayuri turned to leave. "it could have many uses." He then turned his attention towards the man he had loathed and slightly, even if he couldn't admit it, admired. "I've done as you have asked, now tell me, Kisuke Urahara, what all of this is really about?!"

Urahara pushed his striped bucket hat up and away from his eyes. "The truth will blow you away." he answered, his tone led one to believe that secrets long passed hurried were about to be revealed. Mayuri Kurotsuhi was nothing if not intrigued.

M-Angel: Sorry for not posting this as fast as it usually goes up. I'm thinking I'm only going to bring one of two updates per story each month th from now on. Also, I just got Kingdom Hearts 3. I'll be picking myself away for awhile in order to play that for awhile. LoL. Anyway, did you like my big surprise at the end of this chapter?