After what seemed like more than a week of travelling on the back of Bawabawa and making no progress on drawing upon her power whatsoever, Karin, and the newly dubbed, The Three Sibling Thieves of the Desert Sands, Nel-Don-Pe, came into view of Las Madrugada. Karin looked upon it in awe. A truly massive tower, that had multiple turrets coming out of the top, shot up, she assumed, from the desert sands, surrounded by a large, clearly circular, wall, all of which was made from a strange, very pale, grey stone. Karin said, "That things huge!"

Pesche said, "According to the legends I've heard, it even goes underground for quite some way."

Karin looked at the ground and said, "There's no way! Not with all this sand, there'd be nothing to keep it standing up."

"Well, I wouldn't know about that. Like I said, I'm only going off of legends here."

"What do these stories say?"

"That a very long time ago, there was an arrancar that rose to power and tried to unite all of hollowkind together. According to the legend, he possessed some method to transform the hollow that chose to follow him into Arrancar, though that method has been lost to us. Since, as arrancar, the hollow lost the need to feast on human souls, he approached the Shinigami to come to some sort of agreement that, instead of slaying them as they did, and still continue to do, they let him turn them into arrancar. Needless to say, they refused and, instead of meeting with him to discuss his plan, they turned on him and used it to attack and try to slay him, but he was too strong for the captains that had come to the meeting and escaped here, badly injured, but still alive. He had already built the original Las Noches and started building more, Las Madrugada is just one such fortress, though given no hollow has ever found any other structures, it is possible that this is the only one that is left, and, during the war that ensued after the set-up, the Shinigami actually managed to capture this one."

Karin said, "That could have something to do with the reason that it is still in as good a nick as it is right now."

"You might have a point. However, regardless of its historicity, what we currently need should be inside…if we can find some way to get in that is."

Karin exclaimed, "You mean you don't know?!"

"No. like I said, this happened multiple millennia ago. It shouldn't be all that surprising that I wouldn't know."

Karin sighed and said, "I'm sorry. I just…" she sighed. "I just want to go back to my family as soon as possible, and that made it seem rather hopeless."

"No…" Pesche said, glancing at Nel. "…it's understandable, believe me, we know exactly what you mean."

Karin saw Dondochakka look down and a confused look on Nel's face. She thought, 'What the heck's going on with them? Are they hiding something from her? It's probably better that I keep that to myself for now until I can find out more. Either way, I won't be able to ask Nel-chan about it, since it seems to be affecting them more than her. Well, that's even assuming that she does know about whatever it is that they clearly don't like talking about. Well, whatever. Knowing what it is won't affect my desire to go home anyway, so why bother?'

It took them another two days to reach it, and then another three to find out how to get in. For some reason it took both Karin and Pesche to place their hands on some strange pads and press down on them simultaneously to make the large doors groan open. Even then, it could only open halfway before the mechanism gave out. As soon as they were all inside, it shut behind them, closing with what Karin considered a overly melodramatic thud.

Pesche said, "I didn't think that it would take us that long just to get in here." He turned to address Karin. "Now go, there should be some kind of room with armaments here."

"Huh? But I've already got my dagger. Isn't that enough?"

"No. Even if you do, you don't know how to use it in its base form, and all zanpakutō have forms that they can take beyond their original one, most of which take the form of a sword or other weapon that can be used in physical combat, whilst at the same time having a range of abilities that can be used in conjunction with them."

Karin said, "I see, alright then," before walking off through a massive archway.

When Karin left, Dondochakka looked to Pesche and said, "You know that that zanpakutō wasn't that of a Shinigami, right, Pesche?"

"Yeah. Rather than that of a Shinigami, it seems to be more like that of an arrancar. It could be because of the way that she acquired it. If she was telling the truth, what probably happened is that her reiatsu resonated with the hollow and got absorbed into her, but her body was incapable of handling it, so, subconsciously, her body rejected it but, with her reiatsu mixed in, was unable to reject it completely, so sealed it into the form of a zanpakutō. However, her reiatsu seems to have the taint of a Shinigami on it, so it's yet to be seen what form her zanpakutō has taken. That's why we need to drill basic swordsmanship into her, as well as teaching her how to use that dagger." Then, suddenly, they heard a shrill scream and both said, "Karin-chan!" and used sonido to appear next to her.

Dondochakka asked, "What's the matter?"

Karin said, "This is…but how? It's not possib…" and sucked in a breath to prevent the sobs that were threatening to escape her.

Pesche placed his hand on her shoulder and asked, "What is wrong?"

Karin looked up at Pesche and said, "This statue…it looks just like…like…"

Pesche looked up to see an arrancar that had one flattish horn sticking out from the side of its head and multiple red lines streaking to the left side of his face. He asked, "Looks like who?"

"It looks just like my brother! But there's no way it's him, so how could this statue look like him?"

"I…don't know. Maybe it's something as simple as an ancestor of yours transforming into a hollow in the past and become an arranc…" Pesche's eyes widened and thought, 'But he can't have been just some random arrancar for them to build a statue of him. He must have been…' Pesche sighed and said, "I'll have to look into this further for you."

"And exactly how are you going to do that, huh?"

"There was a biblioteca along the hallway that we took to get here. There may be some information in there, then there's the writing on the zocalo."

Karin looked down, seeing that he was right and that there was some marks on it. She asked, "That chicken scrawl is writing?"

Pesche grunted and said, "It's the ancient language of the hollows. It is different to what we use today, but there are enough similarities that I should be able to understand most of it. Now go. Find the armoury and I will tell you what I've found out when you've returned."

Karin nodded and said, "Right," and went through one of the eight exits from the octagonal room.

When she was gone, Pesche looked at the zocalo and read, "Aqui radica Vengar Umbriobasta, Unificador de Huecorelea, Líder del Ejército Hueco. He looked up at the statue and saw that, strangely, the marks on its face had changed and now there were two vertical lines running down the length of its face, passing over its eyes. He ignored it, putting it down to some long-lost advanced technology and said, "If you truly are Karin-chan's ancestor, please, forgive me for what I may have to do." Pesche let out a relieved sigh. He shook his head as he realised that, for some reason, he had been expecting the statue to make some kind of reply or a reaction of some sort.

Karin came back through the entryway that she'd gone through, carrying four swords in open arms, two of which Pesche easily identified as the standard katana wielded by most Shinigami and arrancar, and two others with straighter blades. She also had a bow strapped over one shoulder with a quiver of arrows with heads made from the same stone as the building attached to her belt on the opposite side of her dagger. She said, "There's a bunch of these back there, but I didn't know which ones to bring, so I brought two of both of them."

"I see…and…the bow?"

"Eh," Karin shrugged. "I don't know. It just seemed to call to me, and I saw how large that lizard thing was that I ate some of, and how big that humanoid thing was before it transformed into a vasto lorde. I don't think that I want to get too close to something that big anytime soon, so, I figure that a bow like this would let me attack from a range if I need to."

"Have you ever used one before?"

"No. But I figure that if we'll be here for a while yet, there'll be plenty of time for me to learn how in the time that you aren't teaching me what I'll need to know to survive."

"Alright. Then in that case, rather than the katana, since you have a straight-blade, single edged, dagger, we'll go with the straight bladed swords."

"Cool. So, when do we start?"

"Don't be so hasty. If you can't draw upon your reishi when needed, there will be no point in continuing on."

"I'll grant you that it would be…inconvenient…to say the least. But, if I can at least use a sword, even in its basest form, it should be of some help. Besides, if I get skilled enough, I may not even need to know how to use this reishi thing."

"No. there's no way that that's the case. I won't sugar-coat this for you. Even if you can get by like that at the beginning, against lesser opponents, eventually you will run up against an opponent that makes proper use of their reishi-based techniques in battle, and you'll be killed. Not something that you want to happen any time soon I should think."

"No," Karin said. "Alright. What do we do first?"

Pesche said, "First…" as he reached into his loincloth. "…I'll show you some stances."

Karin blushed and looked away as she said, "What the hell do you think you're doing, you pervert!"

"I am no pervert! Please refrain from referring to me as such."

"Well what other kind of person would reach into their underwear and start playing with themselves in front of an eleven year old, huh?"

"Oh. I see. You are misunderstanding something I think."

"I'm not sure that you possess the mental faculties for that!"

Pesche said, "Look. I was just reaching for my zanpakutō." He shoved his zanpakutō's hilt over Karin's shoulder, letting her see the hilt of his zanpakutō.

Karin said, "That doesn't look very useful," as she turned back to face Pesche.

"I'm sure it doesn't, right now. However…" Suddenly, the blade of glowing reishi shot from the hilt, causing Karin's eyes to widen in amazement.

Karin blinked and schooled her features before saying, "That's good. Now what do I do?"

Pesche shrunk the blade down to a similar size to Karin's dagger and said, "First you…"

XXXXX

Ichigo's eyes boggled. At the front of the class was the menace that had basically destroyed his family. Their teacher said, "From today, we'll be having a new student in this class. Her family recently moved to the area. There were mutters of acceptance and the teacher said, "Well, with that said, Miss Kuchiki, why don't you tell the class something about yourself and then…hmm…there's a seat open next to Kurosaki, so you can take that for today."

Rukia said, "Hello, I am Kuchiki Rukia. My family runs an international business corporation, so my stay here should be brief, but until I leave, I hope that we can get along." She then slightly bowed at her waist and went over to Ichigo's desk and said, "It looks like I'll be sitting next to you for a while," and held her hand out.

Ichigo read, 'Make a scene, and I'll slaughter everyone here!' and frowned. He said, "Excuse me, Ochi-sensei. We need to talk," and grabbed Rukia's wrist and rushed from the room, easily dragging her behind him. When they were far enough, Ichigo slammed her into a locker and demanded, "Alright, you freakin' nutjob, what the hell do you think you're doing here, huh!?"

With a tone heavily laden with sarcasm, rukia said, "How scary, you big brute! You're not going to hurt me, are you?"

"First, you can knock it off with that goody-two-shoes act, okay?"

"Well, I think that it's pretty good, since I learned it overnight!"

"Arg, you know what, forget it! Just tell me what exactly it is that you think that you're doing here anyway? Weren't you meant to be heading back to your precious Soul Society, or whatever it was?"

"I can't. Only Shinigami can return to Soul Society. I haven't the power to return there anymore."

Ichigo hesitantly asked, "What do you mean?" having an uneasy feeling settle in his stomach at the prospect that he really wouldn't like the answer.

"Last night, I lost all of my powers as a shinigami. I'm afraid that they were all absorbed into you, Ichigo."

"Huh? I wouldn't know anything about that."

"Thanks to you, I'm stuck in this ridiculous gigai."

"What do you mean by gigai?"

Rukia pointed at her body before saying, "It's a temporary body that serves as a vessel in an emergency. If a shingami is drastically weakened, they reside within a gigai until their powers come back."

Ichigo frowned as he said, "Oh, I get it. So that's why the others were able to see you before, right?"

"Precisely. And soo…" Rukia smiled as she said, "Until all of my powers come back, it's up to you, Ichigo, to perform the duties of a Shinigami. It's only natural." Ichigo got a confused look on his face as he took her words in. "You now possess the strength of a Shinigami. You do not have the right to refuse your calli-."

Ichigo cut her off, crossing his arms in front of him before stating in unequivocal terms, "No way!"

Rukia, asked, "Whaatt?" in a stunned tone, unable to even conceive of someone not wanting to fulfil the duties of a shinigami.

Ichigo explained, "My monster fighting days are over. That was just a one time deal!"

"Don't be ridiculous, Ichigo. You did just fine yesterday."

Ichigo looked off to the side and, in a serious tone, said, "That was only because my family was in danger. It's not like I'm ready to go off and fight for complete strangers or anything. Sorry to disappoint you, but that's the way it is."

Rukia frowned in consternation as she thoughtfully said, "I see." She sighed and pulled on a fingerless neon blue glove with a skull wrapped in orange and black flames before resignedly saying, "I guess that there's no other choice then." In a louder voice, she called out, "Hey!"

Ichigo turned to look at her to see what she wanted, only to see her charging at him and exclaimed, "Hu-uhhh?!" and staggered backwards as his soul was forcefully separated from his body. When he recovered his balance and saw his body face-down on the ground, he yelled, "What the hell happened to my body?!" He then looked at his hands and asked, "What the hell did you do to me?" taking in the fact that he was wearing the same strange clothes from the previous night.

Rukia ignored him in favour of turning around and saying, "Follow me."

XXXXXXX

A/N

Translations

Biblioteca: Library.

Zocalo: Plinth.

Aqui radica Vengar Umbriobasta, Unificador de Huecorelea, Líder del Ejército Hueco: Here lies Vengar Umbriobasta, Unifier of Hollowkind, Hollow Army Leader.

Vengar Umbriobasta: Avenge-oneself Dark-end (The name of the hollow king)