Chapter 16

"I can't take this anymore Old Man! All of this," Shiro gestured the area around them. The broken remnants of Ichigo's soul. The corpses of once tall standing skyscrapers surrounded them as twisted steel and broken glass. A sky so dark and black that it could not be considered a sky anymore. Just nothing. There was also the vast expanse of crumbling tombstones covering most of the remaining ground, littered with bones that would snap and crunch underfoot. Shiro and Zangetsu were standing in the only clear ground that held one tombstone. "This is your fault. I know I agreed to sealing his reiatsu, but that was to make him happy. If we didn't seal most of his reiatsu during the last few years, he would have burned away the souls of every living being in seconds. But why didn't you release his reiatsu when he finished the war? The three worlds were dying, and Ichigo wanted to save it. We could have saved it, if you just released his goddamned reiatsu!" Shiro snarled at the cloaked man.

"He would have died in the process." Zangetsu quietly snapped back in retaliation. Shiro growled in anger.

"King's dying now! He's got one foot in the grave!" Shiro shouted and pointed to the lone tombstone standing beside them. One that had Ichigo Kurosaki engraved in the stone. "I can heal him, save him, make him happy again with my power. Just release the damn seal." Shiro begged and demanded at the same time. His gold eyes flashing with desperation.

"Keeping Ichigo alive is more important. Nothing else matters." Zangetsu spoke and turned his back on the hollow. Shiro snarled like a wounded animal and lunged at Zangetsu's turned back. Clawed fingertips barely brushed against the black cloak, when arrows of reiatsu pierced him and pinned Shiro to the traced pavement. Snarling in anger, Shiro tried breaking the arrows and freeing himself. But it was futile.

"You don't understand what you are doing! If we keep going on like this, King's soul will crumble, and he will be just a shell." Zangetsu turned around and stared down at the trapped hollow.

"That is fine. As long as Ichigo is alive, then it does not matter."

"Then he will not be King anymore! Listen to me old man! There won't be anything for you to protect, if you let King's soul crumble." Shiro struggled harder to free himself from the quincy arrows, and finally succeeded. Shattering the arrows, he leaped forward violently at Zangetsu, who pushed him back with a quincy arrow to the shoulder. Snarling, Shiro clutched his bleeding shoulder. His white shihakusho staining with blood. "Have you forgotten who I am old man? I am King's zanpaktou. It is my job to protect my King! If I have to protect him from you, I will!" Shiro said, summoning the bleached version of Ichigo's sealed blade, and lunging at the old man.

"And I see you have forgotten why we really sealed his reiatsu." Zangetsu shot back as he dodged a swipe from the hollow's sword. The swing slicing through a row of tombstones. The shattered tombstones crumbling to pieces.

"That is where you are wrong! I have not forgotten! We sealed King's reiatsu to keep him happy. So he could be with his friends till the very end. Wake up old man! Kings the only one left, and I want to let him see again. I want to use every ounce of my power to heal him." Zangetsu stopped moving and Shiro went in to defeat him. His blade moving to slice down from above.

"Your power is not enough. If you kill me, hollow, then Ichigo's reiatsu will be sealed permanently and you will kill us all." Stopping mere millimeters from Zangetsu's face, Shiro snarled in rage. In that short moment, Zangetsu shot an arrow through the hollows thigh. Making a hasty retreat, Shiro leaned heavily on his blade. "However, Ichigo has no need of you." Zangetsu raised his arm and summoned his own blade made of reishi.

"Let the hunt begin."


Akihiko stood there, leaning on the doorframe of Ichigo's room with his arms crossed, and watched as Tadashi fussed over Ichigo's prone form. He remembered when late into the night Tadashi had ran through the house calling for Kirinji.

Thinking that something terrible had happened, Akihiko came in a flash step. He arrived at Ichigo's room, staring at the closed sliding door, too afraid of what he might see on the other side. Akihiko's heart thundered loudly in his ears, and his breathing sped up. His vision was being consumed with the fantasies that his mind conjured, and with it came memories of others. Friends he lost to hollows, his wife lying so deathly still on the futon and him holding Kameko in his arms. The clicking of the sliding door ripped and shredded his thoughts and left his mind completely blank. He could only just see what was in front of him. Tadashi standing there holding the door open for him to enter, his brown eyes switching back and forth from Akihiko and Kirinji, who was leaning over Ichigo. He also spotted a small futon in one of the far corners of the room. Sitting up and rubbing their eyes tiredly at the commotion was Shin. Right beside him a sleeping Kameko. Yuko was still sitting in her spot at Ichigo's feet. Not having moved an inch. Her brown eyes filled with concern and never leaving Ichigo's form.

"Either get in here or go away Akihiko. Your disturbed reiatsu is effecting my concentration." Kirinji demanded, not looking up once from his position. Taking in the demand, Akihiko knew that he would only be a distraction to Kirinji and Tadashi. Akihiko turned to Tadashi.

"Let me know how he is when you can." Tadashi gave a bow.

"Yes, Akihiko-san." With that Akihiko turned on his heel and left. He distinctly heard the sliding door clicking shut behind him. Now he had to go back to organizing the chaos left from this whole mess.

Tadashi had not come to him the whole night, and that was why he was there now. Moving into the room, he took a seat across from Tadashi.

"How is he doing, Tadashi?" Akihiko asked. Concern coloring his voice. Tadashi looked at him, then moved to dip a cloth in a bowl of water, wringing it mostly out, the placed it on ichigo's forehead.

"He has a high fever, but Kirinji-san can't find the cause of it. He believes it is something internally that he can't pick up with his kido scan. This is something that Ichigo-san has to come out of on his own. Kirinji-san placed a fever reducing kido on him to help, but it has not done much. His fever is still very high. I have been ordered by Kirinji-san to remain by Ichigo-san's side to help cool him down, and to try to give him water as often as I can to keep him hydrated." Tadashi explained as he brushed back wet strands of orange hair stuck to Ichigo's forehead.

"You need to sleep as well. I can't have both you and Ichigo be sick." Tadashi nodded.

"Of course, Akihiko-san. I appreciate your concern, but Kirinji-san had handled it. Sora and Ran will also be taking care of ichigo-san. Ran will be coming at noon to take over caring for Ichigo. And Sora will relieve her after dinner." Akihiko nodded in understanding, and silently sent his thanks to Kirinji.

"Speaking of Kirinji, do you know where he might have gone?" Tadashi shook his head.

"I don't know. Kirinji-san mentioned that he needed to do some research to see if he could find the cause of Ichigo-san's illness." Akihiko hummed in reply, not much else to say.

Taking the silence as a chance to look around, Akihiko spotted Yuko sleeping in a futon near the garden door. Tadashi caught sight of were he was looking and gave a small gentle smile.

"Yuko was awake almost the entire night, worrying over Ichigo. Kirinji had to place a sleeping kido on her to prevent her from collapsing in exhaustion. She will not be happy when she wakes up." The memory from last night flashed through his mind.

"Where's Shin and Kameko? I saw them in here last night when I came by." Tadashi nodded in understanding at his confusion.

"They've been here the whole night. Waiting for Ichigo to wake up. Chiyo-san had come earlier for them. She said that she did not need people hanging around in an injured person's room. That will only slow down their healing. Chiyo-san promised Shin that he could sleep in here again if he wished to do so." Akihiko smiled at the complete change Shin had towards Ichigo. He knew that Shin disliked Ichigo, but now Shin is obsessed with trying to apologize and make things right. Tadashi shifted nervously, and looked around the room. Occasionally stealing glances at Akihiko. Akihiko raised an eyebrow at Tadashi, who quickly looked away, embarrassed to be caught.

"Is there something wrong?" Akihiko asked. Tadashi quickly turned to looked at the clan leader.

"No. It is just that, how are you going to tell the other Shiba's not living on the estate about you adopting Ichigo-san?" Akihiko shifted to sit crosslegged and put his head in his hand, thinking about Tadashi's question. He hummed for a moment.

"I was thinking of calling everyone back to the estate. I have a feeling that something is happening, and to find out I need to have a clan meeting. Besides with everyone here at the estate, then we can celebrate Ichigo's adoption. A great big celebration. I'll call everyone when Ichigo wakes up." Tadashi looked warily at Akihiko's proclamation of a party. A party involving Shibas. Tadashi knew that was a disaster waiting to happen. Drunk Shibas become extremely stubborn Shibas, which equals lots of fighting and lots of broken furniture. A large mess for the staff to clean up afterwards. There was also the point that Ichigo-san did not seem to be the type that enjoys parties. He seems more happy with a relaxing atmosphere.

"I'm not sure that this is a very good idea Akihiko-san." Tadashi voiced out his concern.

"I know what you mean, but I think it will be better for Ichigo if he is able to meet the rest of the family. It will help him open up more. Maybe even trust us." Akihiko looked hopefully at Ichigo. "At least hopefully it will."

A knock at the sliding door drew Akihiko and Tadashi's attention.

"Come in." Akihiko spoke. Tentatively the door opened revealing four children looking the room. Akihiko perked up as he recognized who they were. They were the children that had become apprentices in the kitchen and were some of Ichigo's first friends here on the estate. Hikaru, with his gold and silver eyes examined the room until his eyes rested on Akihiko.

"Akihiko-sama, I was not aware that you would be here also. If I had known I would have also brought some tea for you sir." Hikaru turned to Akemi. "Run back to the kitchen and get some tea for Akihiko-sama." Akemi nodded and dashed off back towards the kitchen. Then he looked to Tadashi. "Tadashi-san, I have brought your lunch." Hikaru said holding up the tray he was holding.

"Come on in, Hikaru, Shizuka, Katsumi. I'm sure Ichigo will appreciate the company. Just try to stay quite. Yuko needs to sleep." Tadashi said and pointed to Yuko sleeping in the futon. Softly making their way into the room, they moved to sit with Tadashi. Handing Tadashi his food, Hikaru leaned on his raised knee and ran a hand through his dark hair. Katsumi kneeled by Ichigo's head and changed the head cloth. Tadashi thanked her. Not long after Akemi came rushing in with a tea tray and served Akihiko tea, before moving to sit with her friends. They talked and laughed about the funny things they did today. They also talked about crazy things that Ichigo had done. About the one time he nearly walked off a cliff. The time he had them help him get his sword back from a dog that thought it was a stick. And when he played with them in the gardens and walked in the market place. Akihiko smiled as the children interacted with Tadashi, laughing and telling tales. He was content to just listen and drink his tea. Even Ichigo seemed more relaxed as he slept in their presence.


A shout out to:

M3gan15xo: Thank you for enjoying our story so much. We hope that you enjoy this next chapter.

MistyPaws: Well we did want to make it up to all of you. So this was our best course of action.

The Apex Predator 01: We hope that you enjoy this chapter as well. Thank you for loving our story so much.

Ongaku: You make us laugh because your reactions are so funny. Thanks for the laughs Ongaku. Thank you for being so accepting of our business. It means a lot to us that you won't pry, so thank you very much. We hope you like this chapter as well.

Reverentwolf: Thank you for enjoying this story so much. We truly know how much you enjoy this because we enjoy to write it. As for Ichigo's apparent weakness, we hope this chapter clears a few things up for you. It's not that Ichigo is weaker than in canon, but actually it's the opposite. He's too strong, that why his reiatsu is sealed and he is 'weak' right now. And thank you for the edit. We understand the difficulties of technology. We really do. Hope you enjoy this next chapter.

V0ldSw0rd: That is something that we have thought of before. So you can expect some action from them later on in the story. Ichigo's blade is sealed and takes on the appearance of his first bankai blade, but the cloak doesn't come with it because his reiatsu is sealed away also.

pikachukite: Kirinji really is awesome. Many people have said that about chapter 15. We are glad you guys enjoy our characters so much.

Anthony00: We hope this chapter helps clear up any questions regarding Ichigo's 'weakness'. As for when he returned to full power that won't happen right away, but gradually. Sorry if that wasn't what you expected. We hope you enjoy this chapter as well.

Loli-Hype Ichi: Actually that is what he has been using to 'see', so you are correct that he will be using his full bringer ability. Thank you for saying that it was an amazing and touching chapter. Here's the next chapter for you to enjoy.

Guest#1: Thank you for thinking that Kirinji is a badass because he truly is. Especially if he has to put up Akihiko and the other Shibas.

Guest#2: Thank you for the wonderful compliment on our last chapter. We hope you think this one is amazing too.

Frozen in Idaho: Sorry our suicidal guest is always going to get into trouble that will have the expectation of death. Just can't help it.

silvershark1987: Thank you for enjoying this story so much. It really means a lot to us to hear that. We are glad to hear that you are having so much reading this story, and we hope that you continue to do so.

Alright, we hope that all of you enjoyed this chapter, and maybe it shed some light for some of you. Thank you to all who read this story and tell us their thoughts. Thank you for supporting us this entire time. See you all tomorrow. Still really weird to type that!

-The Crew