AN: So I know the last chapter wasn't the best, but I hope I make up for that in this chapter. This one is longer than usual, and has a lot of information in it. Please read and enjoy!
Thanks to all of those who have favorited (is that a word?) this story or me, and thanks to all of the reviewers. I hope to keep your support and I hope I don't disappoint any of you!
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach, to be honest, I don't own anything except my OC's and a laptop…
Chapter 9: Forgotten Reaper
Rukia looked over at Kohaku, who was sitting on the other side of the roof. It had been a day since he had remembered his mother, and she noticed him slipping into the same scowl he always used to wear. She had come up to try to talk to him, but he wouldn't talk to anyone. Amaterasu had tried to get him to eat something that morning, but he refused to eat and just went up to the roof and had been starring off into the distance all day.
"Tengoku No Hikari."
Rukia jumped at the sound of his voice, and turned to him. What is he talking about? She watched him to see if he was talking to her or if he was just thinking out loud. She decided that he was probably thinking out loud, and turned back to looking at the horizon.
"Have you heard of a shinigami with a zanpakuto named Tengoku No Hikari?" Kohaku asked, turning toward Rukia, who looked at him curiously.
"Umm, no. Why?"
"Don't you think it was odd that Nakagawa just left like Amaterasu said?"
"Yes, but what does that have to do with a shinigami with a zanpakuto named Tengoku No Hikari?"
"I just remembered something from right before I passed out. I heard a voice say 'Illuminate all shadows, Tengoku No Hikari.' It sounds like a zanpakuto release. There must have been another shinigami that told Ama to keep it secret that they chased away Tsuyoshi," Ichigo said, getting curious.
"But why would they want to keep it secret?" Rukia asked, also becoming puzzled by this new information.
"I'm not sure, but why would he leave when he was going to kill Ama? It makes no sense."
"You're right. Maybe we should go look for records of any shinigami with that zanpakuto. We would have to make a trip to Seireitei, but there are records of all zanpakuto and their shinigami in the library."
"Do you know anyone who can help us look? I doubt it will be a simple research job."
"I think I might know someone who would help."
/
"Renji," Rukia hissed, peeking around the corner of the building. There was no reply.
"Renji!" Rukia said a little louder. There was still no answer.
"Renji! Wake up, baka!" Rukia yelled. Kohaku heard someone jump up and guessed that whoever this Renji person was had finally heard Rukia.
"Rukia? What are you doing here? I thought you were sent on assignment somewhere," a voice said. Kohaku heard footsteps coming toward them.
"Keep your voice down! I need your help. I have someone here I want you to see, but try to keep it quiet."
"Fine. What could be so important—" the man stopped mid-sentence when he rounded the corner to see Kohaku.
"I-Ichigo?" Kohaku took a step back in surprise. It was the man with red hair from one of his dreams! He was the one that held him down as Rukia walked away. He was the man that was with the black haired captain when he was almost killed.
"You!" Kohaku yelled, point a finger at Renji. "I know you! You're that tattooed freak that was with that black haired bastard when he tried to kill me!" Both Rukia and Renji looked at him in surprise.
"You remember that?" Rukia asked.
"I had a dream about it! This…this…nut job sat on me while I was bleeding to death! Who the freak does that!"
"Keep your voice down, Kohaku. We can't be seen, remember?"
"Why is he acting so weird?" Renji asked, turning to Rukia.
"He's lost all his memories, except for a few apparently."
"Who are calling weird, pineapple head?"
"Obviously you, berry!"
"Shut up! My name is Kohaku, which means amber, not strawberry!"
"You might go by Kohaku, but you will always be strawberry. It suits you."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Kohaku ground out, struggling to keep from attacking this annoying shinigami.
"I knew you were dense, but not that stupid," Renji replied, causing Kohaku's eye to twitch.
"That's it, you're going down," he said, a demented smile appearing on his face.
"Bring it berry boy. If you can't remember your powers, I won't have any trouble whopping your ass."
"Shut up, both of you!" Rukia said, hitting them both in the head. Kohaku and Renji looked over at her, grumbling and rubbing their sore heads.
"Renji, we need your help finding a record of a zanpakuto called Tengoku No Hikari. We need to know who the shinigami who owns it is."
"Why would you need to know something like that?" he asked.
"We can't really say more than that, sorry. So, will you help us?"
"The great Kurosaki Ichigo needs my help?"
"First off, I don't need your help for anything. Secondly, what do you mean by 'the great Kurosaki Ichigo'?" Kohaku asked curiously. Renji was about to reply when Rukia elbowed him in the gut, causing him to double over cursing.
"He was just being annoying as usual. Come on, we need to get to the records and leave before we're noticed." They turned to leave, heading further into the Seireitei.
"Wait, I thought you needed my help," Renji called from behind them.
"Well, if you're coming, hurry up. If not, we can manage just fine on our own," Rukia called back, looking over her shoulder. Renji stood and reluctantly followed after them.
/
After four hours of searching through the endless piles of records and shinigami names, Kohaku was ready to give up. We are never going to find anything in this pile of papers! He sighed and ran a hand through his hair.
"We are never going to find anything helpful," Renji complained, voicing Ichigo's thoughts.
"If you would stop complaining and start looking, we might actual find something," Rukia snapped back.
"Um, Rukia…I hate to say it, but I agree with pineapple head over here. We could search for years and not find anything in this endless list of zanpakuto and shinigami," Kohaku stated, looking down at the pile of records in front of him with apprehension.
"Both of you shut and keep loo…king," Rukia said, trailing off at the end. "I think I found it."
"What!" Both Renji and Kohaku went to look over Rukia's shoulder, looking down at the name she was pointing at.
Tengoku No Hikari.
They let their eyes move over to where the names of the shinigami were, and their jaws dropped. There was no name. The name had been blacked out with ink, along with the date of admission into the Gotei 13.
"All that work for nothing!" Kohaku complained.
"Well, at least we know that there is a shinigami with a zanpakuto called Tengoku No Hikari. And we also know that they are going to great lengths so as not to be found," Rukia said, frowning.
"They certainly are," Renji said, still looking at the inked out name. "But why?"
"Who knows? They could be a rogue shinigami, or they might have just run away from the Gotei 13 and wanted to erase all memories of themselves," Rukia said, contemplating the issue.
"But if they wanted to erase all memories of them, wouldn't they have inked out the zanpakuto's name too?" Kohaku asked.
"Not necessarily. If they wanted to be forgotten, but wanted their zanpakuto to be remembered properly, they would have left the zanpakuto's name, so it received the proper respect," explained Rukia, putting the paper with Tengoku No Hikari in her shihakusho.
"Well, how do you propose we find this mysterious shinigami?" Renji asked.
"We? Who said you were coming?" Kohaku snapped at him.
"I am coming whether you want me to or not, Ichigo."
"And why is that? We don't need your help."
"I'm coming to keep you both safe. Since you're not a shinigami any—" he was cut off when Rukia elbowed him in the side.
"Uh-since you not a shinigami and all!" Renji corrected, rubbing his side. Thankfully, Kohaku looked as if he didn't catch the slip.
"We should probably stop by Research and Development to see if they have something we could use to track the zanpakuto," she said, a hint of apprehension in her voice.
"What's wrong with Research and Development?" Kohaku asked.
"You'll see."
/
"NO!" Kohaku shouted, crossing his arms in front of his face.
"Come now. I will give you the best conditions of any other test subject. I will even try to keep from doing anything that will threaten your life. You should realize that this is a very generous offer."
"Not gonna happen!"
"You are very stubborn. Fine, I will refrain from doing anything that will cause any permanent harm. This offer will not happen again. You should take it while it lasts."
"No! What is your problem? I'm not some lab rat, freak!"
"Insolent child! I should inject you with my most recent experiment and watch you suffer!"
"Kurotsuchi-taicho, we came to ask you a question, not to offer Ichigo as a test subject," Rukia said.
"Well, get on with it then," the strange captain snapped, turning his golden eyes to her.
"We need to know if you have something we can trace a zanpakuto with."
"Do you consider me an imbecile? Of course I have a zanpakuto tracker. What would you need it for?"
"Tracking a zanpakuto, obviously," Kohaku muttered. Kurotsuchi turned on him, laying a hand his zanpakuto.
"You dare insult my intelligence, you over developed chimp! You should have taken me up on that offer, but sadly that offer has passed. Now you will not be treated with such mercy!"
"Taicho! We need to borrow the tracker. We have reason to believe that there is a shinigami attempting to evade the Gotei 13," Rukia explained, attempting to stop the captain from slicing Kohaku to bits.
"Do you have anything to trace it with? You cannot expect a tracker to work without information."
"We have the details of the zanpakuto," she pulled out the paper with the zanpakuto names, "but the shinigami's name has been inked out. We need to find out who it belongs to." She handed him the paper, and he examined the description of the zanpakuto. He turned and disappeared into an adjoining room, returning moments later with a small compass looking devise.
"Here! It will work to find this zanpakuto. Now leave, you are obstructing my research."
"Don't have to tell me twice," Kohaku muttered, turning and swiftly walking out of the door. Rukia shook her head, following after him with Renji on her heels.
/
"We should start at the clearing. We should be able to track the zanpakuto from there," Rukia stated, heading towards the clearing. Renji and Kohaku simply nodded and followed after her. When they reached the clearing, Rukia pulled out the tracker and held it in her outstretched palm.
"You think this thing is actually going to work?" Kohaku asked, sending the device a skeptical glance.
"I'm not sure, but it is the best chance we have of finding out who the zanpakuto belongs to."
"Why do you want to know so bad? They saved you and obviously don't want to be found," Renji stated, confused.
"Because they are now a part of whatever is going on with Ichigo, and we need to find out more about the current situation," replied Rukia.
"But why do you assume the shinigami has something to do with it?"
"The shinigami has been in hiding for who knows how long, but suddenly reappears in the one clearing where a fight is going on. Don't you find that suspicious?"
"Not really. What if they sensed the reiatsu coming off of you guys and went to help. It's not like they couldn't find you considering the people that were in the clearing."
"What do you mean by that?" Kohaku asked, curious.
"Well, there was that guy you told me about, a fourth seat, Rukia and you. That's quite a buildup reiatsu. It could probably be felt for several kilometers." Renji replied.
"But I don't contribute much to that," Kohaku said, confused.
"Despite what you may think, you do have an unusually large amount of reiatsu," Rukia said, looking back down at the tracker. The devise's dial was slowly spinning around in a circle, like it was try to decide where it wanted to point. As they watched, it slowed to a stop and pointed toward the edge of Rukongai.
"Well, it looks like it works," Renji said.
"Or it's some useless compass that will send us in circles," Kohaku muttered, still not sure about the odd little devise.
"Kurotsuchi might look crazy, but he his inventions work. We'll find the zanpakuto," Rukia stated.
"We won't find it if strawberry over here keeps complaining all day," Renji said.
"What was that, pineapple head?"
"You heard me. Now shut up so we can figure out what is going on around here."
"I don't take orders from you!"
"I didn't say you did! We just need to get a move on if we want to find this guy!"
"Why are you here anyway? It's not like this guy means anything to you!"
"I already told you, baka. Someone has to make sure you two are safe."
"I think I'm perfectly capable of defending myself, Renji," Rukia said, walking in the direction the tracker was pointing.
"But whenever you're around this fool, you somehow manage to get into trouble," Renji muttered under his breath following after the two.
The group followed the trackers directions for what felt like days to Kohaku, but was only a couple hours. He was starting to get annoyed once they round a corner and ended up in a marketplace filled with people.
"Who the hell are we supposed to find this guy now?" Kohaku whined.
"Calm down, Kohaku. The tracker will lead us to their general location and Renji and I will be able to sense their reiatsu from there," Rukia said.
"See, I told you that you would need me," Renji said smugly.
"Shut up," Kohaku spat at him.
They began making their way through the crowd of people and vendors, dodging kids running through the streets. Several times the tracker moved and pointed back the way they had come, and they could tell that the shinigami was moving around to different vendors.
"Why can't he just stay still?" Renji complained.
"Do you really expect him just to stand there while we track him?" Rukia asked.
"Well…no, but it would make things easier."
"Kohaku? Kuchiki-sama? What are you guys doing here?" The three looked up to see Amaterasu standing in front of them with a basket of vegetables.
"Ama…um," Kohaku said, scratching the back of his neck. "Well… we um, came looking for a shinigami."
"I take it you don't mean the man behind you then?"
"No. Amaterasu, this is Abarai Renji, fukutaicho of Division 6," Rukia introduced.
"It's nice to meet you," Amaterasu bowed, "So, why are you looking for a shinigami?" she asked, looking at Kohaku.
"Well, I remembered hearing a zanpakuto being released right before I blacked out. I figured that the shinigami didn't want to be found, since they told you not to say anything. So I went to Rukia and we looked up the zanpakuto, Tengoku No Hikari, but the name of the shinigami was inked out. So we got a tracker and started to follow the reiatsu signature of the zanpakuto, trying to find the owner," he explained, noticing a strange look in her eyes. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I ju—"
"The hell? What is going on with this stupid thing?" Renji said, looking down at the tracker. Everyone looked and saw that it was just spinning in circles like it had at the clearing.
"Does that mean that the shinigami is gone?" Kohaku asked.
"No, it doesn't." They looked in amazement at who had said it.
"How do you know?" Rukia asked.
"Because the shinigami you're looking for, is me," Amaterasu said.
AN: How many of you saw that coming? I hope you enjoyed this chapter and continue to read this fic. It might be a couple days before I update again, but the next chapter will be up before the end of the week. As always, please review so I know where I could improve, or if you have suggestions or advise, please post it. Arigatou!
And one more question. I am wonder if I should post the first chapter of another fic I am writing. The War Within will remain the priority, but just wanted to know what you think. Again, arigatou!