Warning: This chapter contains both hardcore bloody smackdowns and boring talky explanations...please enjoy the fic...

For a better understanding please read "Tide" and "My Life as a Teenaged Shinigami"

-Part (a)-

-

"…we have some business to settle…"

His deathly voice groaned from behind his mask, his glare seemed to suck all the happiness and warmth from whoever even dared to glance towards him. Standing before his enemy in the wreckage of the theatre, the Hollowfied Ichigo walked casually toward the broken wooden stage ahead of him. His grip on the blackened sword was tight; his breathing increased as he came closer and closer to the masked Vizard that turned to face him. The scent of blood filled the air. It was thicker than the dust of the improvised battlefield and much more immediate to sense when Ichigo first arrived at the school. It didn't take too long to learn whose blood it was that he smelled, as it belonged to the same man whose spirit pressure had drastically dropped.

"…Uryuu, grab Tatsuki….and get out of here and as far away as possible..." Ichigo said without even looking towards his two friends. He felt their hesitation, but at the same time he didn't want to lose track of the man standing in front of him. "…Chin will take care of the girls so don't worry about leaving them in any danger…" he tried to reassure them. Although confident in his skills, his worries rested on his own senses—despite knowing that there were eight people in the theatre using his own eyes, he could only sense seven of them; those seven belonging to Aiko, Uryuu, Tatsuki, Emiko, Chin, Setsuko and a dying Renji—it was as if the man right before him didn't even have Spirit Pressure at all.

With a loud sigh, Uryuu agreed with his Shinigami friend's unspoken assessment. There was no need to leave any collateral damage in a fight with whom Ichigo had no qualms at all of killing. He also knew who this second masked man had to be for Ichigo to issue such a request, although he had no idea beforehand that he was a Vizard. But his top priority was Renji though, that he was sure of. Beside him, Tatsuki trembled at the heavy force pushing down on her shoulders, and keenly took her outside before reappearing in the theatre once again. On stage left, Uryuu saw the young Shinigami take the two girls and disappeared to where he had dropped off Tatsuki; an unconscious Ururu carried in his arms as well. Taking this chance, the bespectacled doctor speedily moved to the stage where he prepared to grab onto the heavily bleeding Renji.

A sudden noise caught his attention, forcing Uryuu to instinctively ready his Quincy cross. Rather than a sneak attack, a shivering young woman finally crumpled to the floor, as if forced down by a tremendous weight. She gasped out for air, not caring at all that some saliva had escaped her mouth as she panted and groaned against the unseen force. It must be because of Ichigo and the other one… Uryuu thought, immediately lowering his arm but not his guard. She continuously strained to push herself off the wooden stage, but to no avail; she was close to passing out just as Uryuu caught her, Renji carried as carefully as possible in his other arm.

"Hey, hurry up Uryuu, stop being an idiot and get out of here with Renji, already!!" he half expected the orange haired Shinigami to call out from behind him, but no such luck. He was deathly serious about this battle; this was the man who kidnapped Aiko.

--

It took longer than he wanted, but Uryuu finally took off. Not only was Ichigo growing anxious for anyone else to be caught in the crossfire, somewhere deep inside of him, he was growing impatient of having to wait…

"Finally, eh!?" the second masked man called out, "Took them a while to clear out of here….geez!!" Sliding back his mask to scratch his nose, Ping smiled wildly at the sight of Ichigo. "So…" he spoke eagerly. Tilting his head to one side, Ping flashed his teeth before tipping his mask back down with his sword. "…let's dance…" His voice suddenly turned demonic, as with a blur the masked man reappeared just inches to Ichigo's left. It was easy to dodge the blade, and then the following slash that flew towards him from behind.

He's pretty fast… Ichigo had to admit, as he moved to speed up and overtake his enemy. The strange feeling started to nag at him again, as with every readable attack missed him, Ichigo came to realize that there was no Spirit Pressure behind the swings—no—there was nothing to feel out to find out the Vizard's presence. It's as if he's not even here… It was easy to see that he was being played with, not take seriously. A simple flick of his wrist sliced through soft ankle tendons, essentially putting an end to Ping's movement. He grunted with pain as he landed on his other foot, keeping pressure off his right as blood sopped over his shoes.

"Damn it…" he cursed under his breath, clenching his teeth tightly as not to cry out from the burning agony that sang through his muscles. Despite all of the pain, Ping couldn't help but smile and chuckle wearily at his predicament. "Feels good to get some closure, huh?" A sharp pain burned through his left foot—a black blade impaled straight through—caused him to shudder in breathless grief. As the Zanpakuto retracted again through his skin, Ping gasped out and had no choice but to fall backwards to the ground. Ichigo had appeared right in front of him, and had immobilized him for sure now.

"…where's Kazuhiro…?" was all Ichigo asked, pointing his blood soaked sword-tip directly at the Vizard pathetically lying down on the ground below him.

"Make me…" Ping rebelliously answered, "…if it weren't for my mask right now, I'd spit on your stupid looking f-" with a single smash with his hilt, Ichigo cracked and shattered much of Ping's mask, revealing much of the injured man's Hollowfied eyes and bloodied face. His crazed smile was revealed as well, serving its purpose to anger the orange haired Vizard. "…must be great to finally…be able to do this, huh, hotshot?" Ping coughed out.

"I don't care…now tell me what I want to know…" Ichigo said sternly, returning the sword-point towards Ping. Of course, he simply laughed at the intimidating stature and actions of Ichigo, even going so far as to sit himself up and not caring about the sword pointed directly at him. He crawled as far as he could, until finally propping himself against a weakened part of the stage. "…I've had enough!" Ichigo growled angrily, and finally impaled the bleeding man, keeping the blade inside. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to have the desired effect.

"…You just play the…same old stuff, huh?" Ping groaned with a coughing laugh. "You…no matter how much stronger than me you are, you just don't get it…" He coughed again, as he weakly gripped on the sword that had pierced him, "…I have no idea where Kazuhiro is…but you…" His other arm trembling and bloody, he wiped a stream of blood from his brow. "You're as much as a pawn to him as I was…." He cracked a weaker smile now, and leaned his head against the stage. "…who was it that told you where to find me in the first place, hmmm…?" Ichigo's brows furrowed in thought, but his attention was brought back to Ping, cheekily laughing once again. "I…can't believe you forced me to pull out my trump card already, Ichigo…" Ping wheezed. Instinctively, Ichigo thrust his blade toward the disabled man, but it was grabbed barehanded, and stabbed into his shoulder rather than any vital organs. "Haunt…them…" Ping's voice echoed through the pain, "…Kampekiyasu…"

-- -- --

-Part (b)-

-

"Well, it's definitely his handiwork…" the blonde man sighed. Amongst the many rare occasions that he took off his white and green striped hat, this was one of them. "Where did you say he found it?" he waved some cool wind towards his face using a fold-up paper fan, bringing a much needed breeze.

"Mr. Ogiue had dropped it off along with Ururu, Kisuke." A deep voice responded. Sitting next to the blond man, the large bespectacled man dwarfed the other in size, but it was obvious as to who respected who. "He said he would return soon after checking up on the others." His eyes glanced over the figure on the floor, aware that this was one of the few things that the man hadn't opened up about his past. "Is it one of your designs?" he tried to ask casually.

"This?" Kisuke Urahara asked back while replacing his hat, "No, but it is based on a concept of mine—the Untraceable Gigai, in fact."

"Like the one you had hid the hougyoku in? Hadn't you given that to Mrs. Kurosaki to use?" Tessai asked more for confirmation rather than knowledge.

"Yes." He responded, "But you see, this isn't a gigai at all." Tessai gawked at the statement and once again glanced at the body lying unconscious on the floor. When she had first arrived, her breathing was normal, her vitals all stable. But it soon became apparent that there was something wrong when her health began to falter. Beads of sweat ran down her forehead, and her skin was pale and flushed—signs of a fever. However, there was no high temperature to speak of at all. Wordlessly, Urahara took hold of his Zanpakuto, Benihime, although still in its camouflaged form and aimed the flat bottom of the cane towards the woman. With a light thrust, the cane bluntly hit her forehead, causing her to shoot up in surprise.

Genuinely taken back by the sudden action, Tessai watched in amazement as the woman's eyes shot open and she gasped with terror. She attempted to cough but was unable to, as if something were caught in her throat. With a loud and hard slap to her back from Urahara, the woman was finally able to cough out what was lodged in her throat and constricting her air flow. Her breathing hoarse, she attempted to slow it to a calm pace by taking huge and deep breaths. She turned toward her savior, but before she could ask anything at all, a sudden flash and puff of smoke interrupted her and in result sent her back to unconsciousness.

Admiring his employer's deducing, Tessai watched as Urahara gently laid the woman to rest again, her health somehow brought back to nominal levels. A soft patter sang poetically on the mat as Urahara then walked across the room to where the object had been ejected, leading towards a small green pill—a gikongan.

"When I was the President of the Shinigami Research Institute, there was a young man whom I thought could be my successor." Urahara said without being asked, "He was quite talented, and had in fact assisted me with quite a few of my inventions, mainly with Gigai technology." He walked to a table and placed the small pill onto it, but continued standing, facing the wall. "It was from the call to destroy the Kaizo Konpaku that he devised a specialized battle gigai just for them. Although the order still stood, he continued with a prototype, one very similar to that woman over there."

"But she was alive." Tessai remarked about the unconscious woman, "She wasn't a gigai at all!"

"It's called the Living Gigai technique." Urahara finally spoke, quickly silencing Tessai. "Gigai are made up of spirit particles, of which although restrict the power of a Shinigami or gikongan, are traceable by Sereitei. It was with the Untraceable gigai that I had changed the entire process, rendering it impossible to track by any means. Of course, it drained the reiatsu of the wearer, so long that it renders them humanlike in ability, making it the best shell for the Hougyuku." Turning to face Tessai, the shadow cast by his hat covered any view to his solemn glance at the woman. "Sereitei banished me for this, which I had planned to do in the first place because of the Hogyuku's unfortunate indestructibility. There was another way, however, to be able to be untraceable by Sereitei, which the young man had spearheaded in order to curb my banishment. It seems however that not only had he finally perfected it, but he was probably banished as well."

"This man, used people as gigai?" Tessai grimaced at the prospect. A slight chill ran down his spine at the mere thought of it.

"A human body is unable to sustain two entities at once, leading to an eventual breakdown of the body itself if neither entity could gain complete control of it. So, it was required to destroy the host entity or soul before taking control of the body itself." Urahara explained matter-of-factly. "In this way, a Shinigami could retain all of his abilities and strength, yet still completely invisible to both Sereitei as well as individual detection."

So this woman did not destroy the original soul… Tessai thought carefully …which would explain her sudden drop in health… "Knowing his motives, it would be best that we find Kazuhiro as quickly as possible, before he does anything too rash…" Urahara spoke again.

"Hmmm? But you said that this technique makes impossible to track…" Tessai, now confused by the man's contradiction, scratched his scalp slightly.

"Yeah…but I think I'm a bit more innovative than Sereitei…" Urahara mused with a grin, and tapped his head with his index finger as if pointing towards his brain. "It shouldn't be too much of a problem to find him." The door to the room slid open slowly, as three figures softly entered the room. Each of the three smirking with confidence; a statuesque man of perhaps the age of thirty stood on the left, a twenty-something year old red haired man dressed in a zipper mask to the right, and a young blonde teenaged girl stood in the middle.

"We're always happy to be of service, Mr. Urahara…" the statuesque man bowed while tipping his tall top hat, his monocle gleaming from the light on the ceiling.

"But first things first…" the teenaged blonde placed her hands on her hips, raising an eyebrow to all that she and the others had heard so far, "What exactly is going on here?"

-- --

The seemingly disabled man disappeared in a fog, leaving only Ichigo present in the embattled theatre wreckage. "Damn it!!" He yelled in self fury, his white mask dispersing without a single thought.

It was his Zanpakuto… a deep voice echoed with Ichigo's mind. …it's best now that you focus on recuperating, Ichigo, before things get too out of hand again…

"Yeah, I guess…" the orange haired man sighed in defeat. "We better check on Renji and Zabimaru…" he said to the similarly dark clothed man next to him. "…let's go, Zangetsu…"

Author's notes: And so, a special two part fic for y'all! At first I wanted to keep from showing the fight between Ichigo and Ping, but I just couldn't help it...the story definitely needed some ass-kickery! But I digress, and remember that the fight took place before last chapter, as I just wanted to share it with everyone. Part (b) is technically the new chapter, and with the new characters introduced, things are about to get pretty interesting, ne?

...legalities... All characters have been placed in a Post-Aizen AU within the series "Bleach" which was created by Tite Kubo