Chapter 9

Ichigo looked around the crowded basement kitchen. Dumbledore had called an Order meeting, and had explained that the four of them were here to help in the fight against Voldemort. Not much had been said about their background, but it seemed that if Dumbledore trusted them, then the rest of the Order welcomed them with open arms.

Toshiro was hooking up the large screen communicator to the far wall, while a red haired man watched in fascination. Shuuhei was sitting beside Ichigo, reading over the files Toshiro had handed over, one elbow propped up on the table. Renji had flipped through his files before turning to Ichigo and questioning him instead. It didn't help that others at the table kept asking questions about the four.

"So, this Moldy..thingy…"

Ichigo smacked the redhead. "It's Voldemort." He hissed. "And don't say his name, their touchy about it."

Renji scratched his head. "Huh? Then what do they call him?"

"You know who."

"No I don't know who, that's why I'm asking."

Ichigo groaned. "No, they call him…you know, never mind, it's not important."

Renji looked at him as if he'd grown another head. "Uh, huh."

"What's with the tattoo's man, didn't they hurt?" A red haired teen asked as he leaned across the table to stare at Renji's forehead. "By the way, I'm Fred."

Renji nodded in acknowledgement. "I was drunk…'Twas this idiot's idea." He shoved Shuuhei's elbow off the table, throwing his balance off.

"What the hell, Renji?" He asked as he rotated his stiff arm.

Fred's double took a closer look at Shuuhei. "You have a lot of tattoo's as well…is that like a requirement from wherever you come from?" He turned to look at Ichigo. "Where's yours?"

Both Shuuhei and Renji got a gleam in their eyes that made Ichigo sit back in his seat. "Hell NO!" he took a deep breath. "Can we get back to the matter at hand?"

A rather scruffy looking man sat beside Shuuhei. "Hello, Dumbledore said you're here to help us, I'm Remus."

"Pleased to meet you, I'm Shuuhei Hisagi, that's Ichigo Kurosaki, the one working on the communicator is Toshiro Hitsugaya, and the red pineapple is Renji Abarai."

"Hey!" Renji cried indignantly and Ichigo ducked as the redhead's fist shot over his head and hit the spiky headed, Shuuhei.

Shuuhei rubbed the lump. "Geez, Renji, you don't need to be so touchy." He closed the files he was reading and turned back to the amused Remus. "So, you know what's going on, right? Mind if I ask you a few questions before the meeting starts?"

Remus shrugged. "Ask away."

"So, does this 'Dark Lord' have a lot of followers?"

Remus tilted his head to the side. "A fair few. The big thing is that most people are afraid of him, and won't stand up to him."

Shuuhei nodded but before he could ask another question, the video screen flared to life. All eyes in the room turned to see Ukitake standing there, holding several sheets of paper in his hands.

"Taicho." The four shinigami in the room stood and bowed respectably.

He smiled as they took their seats and everyone in the room quieted. "I want to start by thanking all of you for being here."

"It is us that should be thanking you for the assistance you are willing to provide." Dumbledore said over his cup of tea.

"We all should do our part in clearing the world of evil." He shuffled through the papers. "As you know, we have been trying to locate the 'objects' that Tom Riddle is drawing power from. We have found several. The information is being transmitted to Abarai fukutaicho and Hisagi fukutaicho's pagers. They have orders to take care of them. We have, however, hit a road block in locating the man himself."

Snape finally spoke from his spot against the wall. "He is currently residing in Malfoy Manner."

Ukitake's eyes flit to the dark haired man. "Can you provide exact coordinates?" Snape nodded. "Okay, that's very helpful." He shuffled his papers again.

He went on for another forty minutes about strategies of defeating the small army that Riddle had amassed. He glossed over the reasons why the four shinigami would not be able to directly engage in any battle. Only Dumbledore, Snape, and Harry knew what they really were, even if they looked slightly confused at why they couldn't fight.

Ichigo figured he would be explaining about the power transfer thingy that happened when a live human was cut by the zanpakuto; although they could also just be killed. He mused about that, drifting off a bit until Ukitake was saying his goodbyes.

He realized that the captain hadn't said anything about the hollow situation. He figured he couldn't mention things like that in mixed company, but Ichigo was curious about what was going on in Heuco Mundo. He snapped out of his thoughts when Renji and Shuuhei stood and prepared to leave.

"You're leaving to go kill off those things right?"

"Uh huh. This kinda sucks because they say that most of the people around us will be able to see us in our spirit form." Renji said as he scratched the back of his neck and yawned.

Shuuhei punched his shoulder. "Have you gone soft, Renji? This should be fun!"

Ichigo and Renji both just rolled their eyes. Toshiro came up and addressed Renji. "Did you bring it?"

Ichigo looked confused, but Renji dug around in his pockets until he fished out the red glove with the skull on it that Rukia used to use to punch Ichigo out of his body. Slowly Ichigo realized what the young captain was planning on doing.

"This could kill him." He said quietly.

Toshiro turned his serious eyes on Ichigo. "If this doesn't work, we may have to anyway."

AN: I know it's short…take it up with my muse…cya crazies…