A/N: Today's the day before school reopens for the semester. Lapse between the next updates will largely depend on how ferocious the pile of homework I'm sure to get is.


As Ichigo approached the crowd, Kira was in the process of receiving hearty slaps and fists on his shoulder. He still seemed to be in his faint-or-not-to-faint stage, but looked quite pleased with himself.

Whereas Ichigo's scowl was about to crack his forehead in two.

Among the praises, compliments and plain old bickering comments going on, he heard Hinamori's horrified squeak, "Are you out of your mind, Kira-kun? Sajou Sabaku without an incantation and Souren Soukatsui with one, worst case scenario, could easily have drained you of your reiatsu completely! Kido spells in its 60s and 70s!"

She jabbered on and he saw Kira trying to meekly retort, only to be drowned by her frantic ramblings. Fifty feet away from the crowd, Rukia shunpo-ed close and planted herself in front of Ichigo, disbelief apparent on her face, hands in fists,

"Ichigo! You should have been able to break free from Kira-san's Sajou Sabaku - even though it was a level 63 kido that no physical strength alone could ever overcome-"

"Then that's why - I suck at kido!" Ichigo snapped, not up for a lecture.

"Just hear me out!" Rukia snapped back, her aura slightly darkening, "If it is executed properly, Ichigo. From what I could tell, Kira-san has not yet reached a level where he could skip the incantation of a level 63 kido and still call forth anywhere near the full power-"

"So what? He-" Ichigo interrupted but before he could let his mouth run free, Rukia stuck her index finger in front of his face, action demanding silence. Hardness in her eyes reminding him of her stoic older brother.

He growled through clenched teeth, "Fine, Rukia." What you have to say'd better be important.

At Ichigo's resignation, Rukia's eyes softened though her finger stayed where it was. Voice reasoning, she stated, "Vice-captain Kira did have a good plan to use your weaknesses to his advantage. He released his zanpakuto right at the beginning, eliminated Zangetsu from the fight with it and then turned to kido, which he knew that you were not so familiar with nor strong at.

"Kyokkou to hide his presence, Hainawa, a low-level bind to make you hesitate enough to be caught in Sajou Sabaku, a high-level bind to fully restrain you. And your stunning performance against that," the finger in front of Ichigo now pointed at him that he had to jerk his head back in order to avoid getting poked in the nose, "is what I can't figure out."

Thoroughly irritated, Ichigo batted the finger away from his face, "You expect me to know? I couldn't get it off of me, end of the story!"

Nursing her hand and looking just as irritated, Rukia shot out, "The fights in the past, you have overcome far worse!" her eyes widened, voice gaining volume,"You bested a number of vice-captains and captains! The Arrancars! Aizen! And less than a month ago, Ginjou! I was there, remember?"

Sudden silence. Rukia closed her mouth, eyes blinking rapidly at him as if she was shocked by her outburst.

Ichigo was in a state of shock himself - why was she getting so worked up? It was just a practice combat...

He stared down into her deep violet eyes, to see if he could find the reason there.

She immediately looked away, turning her head to the crowd still gathered around Kira as if to check if anyone was watching. She turned her head back to meet his gaze again, and Ichigo saw in them... concern?

Her eyes dropped down and when she spoke, it was quiet, like a confession,

"I have had trouble sensing your reiatsu, Ichigo. And from time to time, it's like you just completely disappear."

Ichigo's eyebrows shot up, but he kept his mouth closed. He had a feeling that Rukia had more to say. And she did,

"The morning you came back to Seireitei. Captain Ukitake had been unwell and I had spent all day in his office doing paperwork. During that time I felt your reiatsu enter the atmosphere, soon joined by Hisagi-san. Some time after that, it began to flicker."

Ichigo grimaced, so she had been stalking him the first day? What about after that? but he instead he asked "What began to flicker, Rukia?"

She flashed him an annoyed look, "Reiatsu, your reiatsu, fool! It was as if something was interfering with the signal. What happened after? I have been meaning to ask sooner."

Ichigo tilted his head, a hand rubbing the back of his neck as he thought outloud, "Exit senkaimon, two hours with Hisagi-san answering useless questionnaires. Then to the training barrack just in time to see someone get thrown out the door over to the forest." Rukia's eye gave a twitch,

"Hisagi-san got me to meet Kladias, showed me to my office and then-"

"Hold on a second!" Rukia interrupted. She was blinking rapidly, and her brain seemed to be at work, judging by how she was staring into a blank space.

He thought he heard Rukia mutter Kladias's name under her breath and opened his mouth-

"What happened yesterday?" Rukia had jerked her head up to him, traces of paranoia in her eyes.

"What?" Ichigo blurted instead of what he had been meaning to say, thrown off by the random question.

She repeated, frantic, "Yesterday. What happened yesterday?"

Ichigo got himself back on track, "Never mind that - what were you going on about Kladias?"

"Yesterday! Were you with her?" The hell was she getting to?

"No! I wasn't anywhere near Kladias for almost the entire day! Now what-"

"Are you sure?"

"NO - I mean, YES, damn I'm sure! Now tell me-"

Before he could finish, Rukia stuck her right hand in front of him with a flash of light, and his next words fell silent. He stared wide-eyed at Rukia, incredulous, his mouth still opening and closing with no audible words coming out. Kido again? He felt the anger inside boiling up-

He then saw her looking over to the crowd again. He followed her gaze to Kladias. For real?

The said colonel had her back to them, beside a laughing Rangiku. Beyond them stood the rest of the group; Hinamori(horrified), Isane(suppressing a giggle), Nanao(agitated), Ikkaku, Tetsuzaemon(both cackling), Yumichika(simply amused), Hisagi(looking absolutely pissed) and Kira(pale and leaning onto Hisagi for support but laughing his head off nevertheless). Shinji was attempting to shout something over all of them.

Rukia whipped her head back to Ichigo with urgency, troubled look on her face, her jaw clenched and her deep dark violet eyes icy and solid.

She slowly lowered her hand from his face and when she finally spoke, there was a strange ring to her voice that chilled Ichigo to the bone-

"Keep your distance from her, Ichigo."

...

What?

"What?" stunned, he just let out the one word in his mind.

"Stay away from her! No, wait, physically, don't, just be beside her as her second-in-command should, but-"

Ichigo regained the proper use of his brain and tongue, "The hell you mean stay away from her? Why? What's she done?"

Rukia let out a groan, "Just do it! I'll explain later in private. Please, Ichigo?"

"Why can't you tell me now?" Ichigo raised his voice,

"Just stay. Away. From. Her. PLEASE!" Rukia's voice rose along, past his to a near-hysterical screech - what was so serious that she had to screech and plead?

At that moment, if anyone analyzed that Ichigo was frustrated, he would've given them a life's worth of beating for being too stupid to find more of an intense, concentrated word. He detested being told straight up what to do with no reason, but pulling off a it's-confidential-I'll-tell-you-later? Made it far, far. Worse.

He roared, "I'm NOT going to stay the hell away from her just because you tell me to! What's wrong, Rukia?"

Rukia, definitely hysterical now, all of a sudden let out a high-pitched squeak and clamped both her hands onto her mouth. Her eyes, impossibly wide and her pupils tiny dots, appeared to be focused at some point over Ichigo's left shoulder.

Rush of adrenaline, and Ichigo spun himself around, a hand going straight for the hilt of his zanpakuto-

"WHOA - Ichigo! Rukia! Relax! It's just good old me, Renji!" The redhead stood three feet in front of him with his hands raised to above his head in a sign of surrender, in his face a complete shock. He still looked a bit pale, but he seemed to have regained complete sense of balance.

Adrenaline draining out of him, Ichigo did relax, lowering his hand and grimacing. Behind him, he felt Rukia physically deflate, her breath coming out in shudders followed by rushed-up, incoherent babbles of what vaguely sounded like apologies. In a rather mischievous impulse, with two strides Ichigo stepped up to side of still-shocked Renji and turned around to face Rukia, crossing his arms in front of his chest. He saw her babbling on, her hands flying all over the place - clenched in front of her one second, on her head the next, one on her lip and the other on her stomach the next, so on - for no apparent reason.

...it looked kind of funny. Ridiculous, actually.

Suppressing his mirth, Ichigo deadpanned, turned his head sideways to face Renji and asked, "How much did you hear?"

A wide, knowing smile split the vice-captain's face in two, "From the 'Just stay away from her' part."

Uh-oh. Something about that told bad news.

Renji continued, smile widening, "So, what, you've already found yourself a girlfriend in this place?" he looked pointedly at Rukia, "I think she's gone off her rockets in jealousy or something similar."

That shut Rukia up, flying hands and all. Both Ichigo and she gawked at Renji in utter disbelief. In unison, the two whipped their head around to Kladias, who just had to turn to look at them a split second later, wearing her huge customary smile. She caught the trio of them staring and quirked up an she gave a casual shrug, smile a grin now, swung her arm up her side in an arc - a wave? - and turned back to Rangiku.

Fucking screw the timing! Ichigo swore, NO WAY Renji missed that.

Feeling sure he was right, Ichigo turned back to face Renji, just in time to catch the redhead's face set in an impressive mixture of shock, amusement, disbelief, horror and what else, Ichigo didn't wait to figure out-

"Yo - shit! It's not what you think, Renji!"

Out comes his mouth one of the most trite, cliche sentence that so very obviously hinted the speaker's guilt. Ichigo was never even watching the commercials of those soap operas Yuzu loved again. Ever.

He felt a blush creeping up his neck as he watched Renji fight to keep a straight face and swore loudly when the redhead failed instantly, ducking and starting to double up with arms around his abdomen, whine of a laugh bubbling out of his mouth-

WHAM! Ichigo drove a knee at Renji right below the ribs, forcefully straightening the laughing idiot up before dropping him straight backwards onto the grass howling in what probably was both pain and laughter.

Rukia didn't let Ichigo down - blushing furiously too, she delivered a powerful kick to the side of the splayed form, flipping it over and drawing out a fresh round of howls.

Ichigo's foot moved in preparation to deliver the next kick when Shinji's voice rang out,

"Rukia-san! Ichigo! Get over h- what are you two doing to vice-captain Abarai?"

Ichigo yelled over in reply, "Driving some sense into him!" But he set down his foot and turned around to face Shinji and the rest of the group with an innocent grin on his face. They all were displaying varying degrees of surprise.

Renji, who was lying face-up now, had stopped howling, and was giggling in effort to keep quiet instead, Ichigo and Rukia's audio horror. Ichigo had the urge to lift his foot again and drive it into the idiot's face.

Rukia straightened, turned to face the same way as Ichigo, opened her mouth and closed it again with a "Hmph!". She flicked Ichigo an accusatory glare.

Shinji, who had his eyebrows slightly raised, let out a "Che," and commented,

"He's still alive? That's good, I thought you two were over your head putting him out of his hungover misery."

Ichigo let out a snort.

The captain continued, "Get all of your asses over here, pick him up and carry him over if you have to - next combat's gotta start."

Feeling strangely docile, Ichigo bent over to grab Renji by an arm, Rukia grab the other. The two started towards the group, trailing the limp, now-silent form on the ground between them.

Entire lower body dragging on the grass, Renji drawled, "So you're not getting it on with THE most violent chick in Gotei 13?"

Screw it, Ichigo couldn't tell if he was being serious or not.

He snapped, "NO, seriously. I'm not. For real. Swear on both of my lives. Shut up now."

Renji let out another giggle.


One scene, two happenings. Can a fic go any slower than that?

The visuals from the last one-third wouldn't leave me alone, so I wanted to try to type it up in words. I personally think this chapter was... *looks* 827 words too long X_x

Bye 'till next time!