A/N: Alrighty, let's get going, folks.


Ichigo was mildly surprised as Shinji read out a mundane list of warm-up activities that he never thought shinigamis would actually train with, starting with tag, hide-and-seek and on. On the other hand, he was not surprised when the twelve of them(Shinji stepped out of the discussion and Renji was finally splayed on the grass somewhere far off) couldn't come to a consensus about anything, not the team formation, the order of the games, and hell no the rules of those games.

He was in the middle of an argument(tag the body, not the shihakusho!) with Tetsuzaemon, Hisagi and Ikkaku, last one now completely recovered and shouting his shiny head off, when he felt a heavy reiatsu slam down onto him. His knees buckled, but he kept himself upright. Rustles of fabric around him; everyone?

A split second later, the reiatsu lifted. Ichigo immediately straightened up, sprang himself around to face the source of the reiatsu and yelled, "What the hell was that?"

His eyes landed on Shinji's half bored, half irritated ones, twenty feet away from him. Shifting his focus, he saw that everyone seemed to be in the process of heaving themselves up from the grass.

Hold on, not everyone - he spotted someone coming to a full standing not far behind Shinji -

"Yup, that works too." Kladias drawled almost nonchalantly, back in what Ichigo had decided was her signature stance; upper body slightly slouching with her feet planted wide, hands tucked into the pockets of her hakama. Next to her was Rangiku, pushing herself up to her knees, a hand brushing a strand of wavy hair away from her face.

Ichigo saw both of Shinji's eyebrows dart below his bangs before the blond whipped his head around to ask, "Works too what, Kurozachs?"

Grinning to expose her fangs, Kladias replied, "Effectively shut everyone up - I was thinking of howling over them all." her dark red eyes briefly met Ichigo's before focusing back to Shinji's, "Let's get this thing started already."

A second's silence after, Shinji whipped his head back and began turning around on the spot, waving his hand up and down at shinigamis still stumbling up, "Get up, get up! Come on - it can't have been that bad. We're starting now, we're playing by my rules, and you're not going to complain about it, end of discussion."

Ichigo opened his mouth to protest, but caught Shinji giving him a warning glare and closed it back at the last second. Fine, let's get started, your way.


"How did you do that?" Ichigo exclaimed, utterly amazed. Rukia bounded towards him, face beaming, her violet eyes shining with excitement.

She came to a stop in front of him, clenched her white tekkou*-clad hands in front of her and positively squee-ed, "Nii-sama coached me! Isn't this just wonderful?" she unclenched her hands and put them over her heart, "He'd be so proud!" She looked as if she'd float away and disappear into the bright clouds above any second now.

Ah, so Byakuya's been acting like a proper brother like he should've from the start, Ichigo thought slightly bitterly, but lessened his customary scowl as Rukia continued to think outloud her ultimate bliss.

Their group of twelve had gone through two rounds of tag and Rukia had been the last one left standing both times. Shunpo was the key element to winning the game; Ichigo had been 'it' the first time and had thought that he could dominate the game no problem, but soon it was apparent to him that there were more to the seated officers of Gotei 13 than he had previously thought. Nevertheless, he managed to tag people over to his side without much problem, but no one, no one seemed to be able to come up with a working plan to catch the small, flitting blur that was Rukia.

Shinji saw the state Rukia was in and walked over grinning, "Hey, Kuchiki-san, congratulations, but calm down before one of them throws a fit."

Ichigo looked up to find the group gathered around the three of them. Half of them, such as Rangiku, Hinamori and Isane, looked genuinely happy for Rukia, but some others such as Tetsuzaemon and Yumichika had blank but disgruntled looks their faces. In Ikkaku's case, he had a vein visibly pulsing on his forehead. Guess they didn't like losing, Ichigo thought. He himself didn't like losing either, but he found himself feeling glad for her.

Further out, Ichigo saw Kira and Hisagi emerged in a quiet conversation. Kladias stood slightly apart from the two of them, seeming to be staring off to the side at nothing in particular. Curious, he followed her gaze far off to a patch of black with a red dot on the edge - ah, there was Renji, still splayed on the grass.

"Alright, let's go onto the next activity now," Shinji shouted out, pulling Ichigo's eyes away from the hungover vice-captain, "hide-and-seek sounds like fun," Nope, Ichigo groaned along with what sounded like the entire group,

Shinji raised his hand in front of him defensively, on his face a mock terror, "No? Then- what is it, Nanao-chan?"

After grimacing and adjusting her glasses with a thumb and forefinger, Nanao pointed out, "We're running low on time, Captain Hirako. I propose that we move onto the actual combat session."

A cheer from the crowd.

A scoff, and Shinji announced, "All right, all right, blood and gore it is then," Ichigo spotted Ikkaku and Tetsuzaemon whooping in glee. Shinji continued, seeming to be looking around for someone, "please get over here and prepare the drawing box, vice-captain Kotetsu."

Random draw fighting? Ichigo wasn't sure if he liked the sound of that...


Ten minutes later, Ichigo sprang up from the grass, arms feeling as if they've been broken in a million pieces. He scowled deeper than ever. Also, he was pretty sure he was about to instantaneously combust from everything he was feeling at the moment: humiliation, frustration, annoyance, irritation, more humiliation-

To his traumatizing disbelief, he had lost the first combat match. In front of everyone. To a vice-captain.

He walked up to Zangetsu, which was stuck halfway into the grass with its hilt up in the air, and gave it an impulsive kick on the opposite side of the blade. He let out a "Ahh!" when it fell over without putting up a fight. He snatched it up to gingerly heave it onto its place on his back, turned around then glared death at and pointed an accusing finger to the character who had been his opponent, "That was freaking cheap, Kira!"

At least the blond vice-captain seemed to be on the verge of fainting. The said shinigami blinked and calmly inquired, "How so?"

"First of all, if that ability of your zanpakuto's isn't cheap, I don't know what the hell is! What'd it do, anyway?"

Kira raised an eyebrow ever so slightly, "Wabisuke's ability is his ability, unique all to his own, and I'd rather you not call him cheap, Kurosaki-san. What he actually does is doubling the weight of whatever he strikes; for example, at the first strike, double the weight. However, the at the second, double that so quadruple the initial amount. Likewise, the third- "

Ichigo interrupted, even more pissed, "Yeah yeah, I get it now. It's still cheap - not like Zangetsu's featherweight to begin with!" Damn sure that ability'd better be unique.

"That still does not cover for your lack of defense when it comes to kido." Ouch. Struck a nerve. "Please calm down, Kurosaki-san. It had been an honor to engage in combat with you." Was the last part a required formal greeting of sort that's supposed to make everything rainbows and honey? Ichigo thought. Well, it didn't for him.

The blond vice-captain stumbled before shunpo-ing past him, towards where Ichigo knew the group of shinigamis were standing around waiting. He ground his teeth hard and turned around to head there himself. As he recalled the fight, he felt like he'd blow up...

The whistle sounded. Ichigo tensed his grip on Zangetsu and looked across to the shinigami standing fifty feet away from him, realizing that he had absolutely no idea what his opponent's abilities were.

He saw the shinigami casually lift his zanpakuto to his side, "Raise your head, Wabisuke." Ichigo barely heard him speak out in a solemn voice the command and the name of the zanpakuto.

Someone in the crowd hooted.

Both Ichigo's eyes and mouth flew wide open as he watched the zanpakuto distort its shape to some sort of a squared hook, "The hell's that? You're going shikai already?"

"It would be to my disadvantage if the fight draws out, so yes." with that, Kira lunged towards him in one sleek move, head raised and zanpakuto flat to his side as if to avoid wind resistance.

And the next thing Ichigo knew, he was fending off a blow after blow. Not that he had a problem blocking them - he was able to predict every single move and place Zangetsu there split seconds before the blade struck. In fact, after three clashes, Ichigo found an opening and moved to strike-

Kira suddenly disappeared from his sight, and a second later, Ichigo spotted him back where he started, his zanpakuto raised halfway up at his side. Icy blue eyes flashed. Not wanting to waste time, Ichigo took a step forward to prepare for a shunpo-

"AHH!" he let out a pained yelp as he felt his arms nearly get ripped out of their sockets. Another yelp as he found Zangetsu sliced down onto the grass exactly where he was about to step to. He pulled at Zangetsu with a grunt, and to his horror, he couldn't lift it an inch. In fact, he felt - and saw - it sink down a foot deeper.

He saw at the top of his vision the vice-captain lunging towards him again-

"Dammit!" he let go of his half-buried zanpakuto and jumped few feet back, hands raised in front of him and getting his body to a fighting stance. Fine then - he couldn't use his sword, but he bet he could still kick ass with hand-to-hand combat-

Then he saw Kira revert his zanpakuto back to its sealed form with a flick of a wrist, lips starting to move. Ichigo inwardly groaned-

Oh HELL. NO.

"Kyokkou," a whisper, and the vice-captain disappeared from his sight, along with his entire presence. Puzzled, Ichigo whipped his head around in search of him-

Kira's voice rang somewhere from his right, "Bakudou Number 4, Hainawa,"

A loud, crackling yellow rope sprang out to Ichigo from nowhere, and less than an eyeblink later he found his arms pinned to his side by them, unable to move. But almost immediately, he felt the ropes loosen and hastily struggled-

"Bakudou Number 63, Sajou Sabaku," this time from his left. Yet another rope of yellow, almost identical to the one before but with less of a crackle and more thickness, sprang at Ichigo before he could get out of the way, pinning his almost-freed arms back to his side with crushing force a hundredfold stronger than before.

Ichigo let out a frustrated growl as he pushed his arms against them. The ropes only kept tightening. He tried to shunpo out of them - no result.

"Ye lord! Mask of blood and flesh," he heard Kira start right in front of him.

He scrunched eyes up in annoyance and struggled with urgency, groaning as the ropes tightened ever more - he knew next to nothing about kido, but even he knew that that was start of an incantation, which would strengthen whatever the spell.

It was GOD DAMN humiliating that he was stuck helpless against a couple of fancy lights! So many people watching - what's going to happen to his reputation when this got out?

"all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man!-"

He was quite resigned that he was stuck stationary - only way left to move was down(fall splat on the grass), but he figured that he'd be no better there. So, since he was stuck - that kido Kira was working up right now then must be an attack kido-

"On the wall of blue flame, inscribe a twin lotus-"

AHHH! What in the world was this rope-thing made of? Reiatsu, fine, he knew that. A rhetorical question. Of desperation. Of DESPERATE desperation.

"In the abyss of conflagration-"

Can he, like, die right here, RIGHT NOW so he can avoid the utter embarrassment?

"wait at the far heavens!"

Shit, shit shit shit shit shit shit was that the end of it-

"Hadou Number 73, Souren Soukatsui!"

Nope, but FUCK!

As he saw the start of the kido's bright blue spark, he began to throw himself to the side in attempt to avoid the hit. Which proved futile - almost instantly, his vision filling up with blinding blue light, he was struck square on the chest with a tremendous force that sent him hurtling straight back, breath completely knocked out of him and wind whooshing past his ears.

He crashed onto the grass, back-first, feeling rope-kido that had been imprisoning him shatter and fling his arms away from him. The Soukatsui thing seemed to have bulls-eyed the rope-kido, conveniently breaking it up for him. But his arms felt like flimsy, fleshy extension of his shoulders, and he couldn't see a thing. The light from the last spell appeared to have rendered him completely blind for the moment.

Something(a foot?) drove itself under his right arm from the side and kicked him over. Regaining some control of his arms, Ichigo slammed down his right palm to the ground beside him before his body fully landed to get himself up-

Kira was going to pay for this crap, damn he'll make sure of that-

But before he could do so, he felt a foot(definitely, this time,) drive a crushing blow smackdown between his shoulder blades, breath knocked out of him for the second time-

His upper body dropped down onto the grass, and Ichigo first sensed his neck land across what could've been less than a hair's width away from an upturned, awaiting blade. Next he sensed was the two of the same sword's blades on either side of his neck.

Confusion - same one on three sides? What the hell-

Oh. The weird squared hook shape Kira's shikai took.

So literally, he had a reverse guillotine around his neck. Ichigo knew with a grind of his teeth that in an actual combat situation, he wouldn't even have had the time to figure that out - his head would have been lopped off the split second the wielder had the chance. In this situation, few seconds had already passed by.

The world returned. A blade of grass wavered right in front of his eyes, details in an astonishing clear focus. He wondered if he'd gone deaf, or it was the world that was silent.

A whistle cut through the still air, announcing the combat's end.

Yup, Ichigo was feeling screwed in every single possible way he could ever be. He continued walking, and caught Rukia staring at him, her eyes wide with mixed emotions. He averted his gaze, though he quickened his pace.

It then occured to him with a stab in the heart, that from the combat's start to end, he couldn't feel a single thing coming from Zangetsu.


Ah, I might owe you some explanations -

*tekkou : the white glove-thing Rukia showed up with recently.

And just in case you're wondering where I'm going with all of this - so far, nothing's been happening in random.