A/N: Oy! ...*thinks of nifty, witty things to say here*

*finds none*

Uh, next chapter's up below~ ^_^;


Ichigo blurted out yet again, "Are we there yet?"

And yet again, Shinji replied from above, "No."

"Howabout now?"

"No. Shut up, you're ticking me off." the blond captain spat out, words slathered with annoyance. His next step up the ladder was a stomp that vibrated the entire structure.

Good, Ichigo thought as he unflinchingly stepped up another rung of the ladder and pulled himself up. And another. And another after that. He was sure it had been more than half an hour that they had been climbing, and he was brimming with complaints on the inside - First a shit-smelling hike underground and now a never-ending ladder climb in the pitch dark? If it turns out all the effort wasn't worth it, Shinji was going to be marinated in cyanide. The dim yellow light from below vanished a long time ago, engulfing them in pure, claustrophobic blackness. Which was somewhat ironic; judging by how the sound of feet on metal rungs never echoed, the place was vast. The claustrophobic part maybe had to do with the fact that they were the only ones making even the slightest rustles. No wind. No drips of water. That probably meant there was no danger nearby, but Ichigo wouldn't have minded some white noise to keep his ears occupied.

The silence unsettled him. He hoped that they'd be getting out to somewhere with more... life sometime soon. His arms and legs weren't tired yet, but strap of Zangetsu was cutting into his shoulder, and it hurt. As if the damn zanpakuto was getting heavier as it got more useless. Also, he was getting impatient with all the questions he had no answers to-

What WAS this place? What place was he GOING to? What theory did Shinji have - the blond remained stubbornly silent about it. Also, the hell was up with Kladias?

Skip to the biggest question - Rukia. How was she doing? For sure she didn't-

NO. He gripped the next rung of the ladder with a bit more force than necessary. He wasn't going to allow himself to think about that. It wouldn't be of any help to the current situation - whatever the hell it was - for him to get panicked about it. He needed a way to distract himself, and that unfortunately involved more of bugging a particular person-

"So any chance we're there no- MMPH!" his teeth mercilessly clashed together as something narrow and hard slammed down onto his head, drawing out a painful crack from the back of his neck. Unable to nurse both of the sore spots(let go of the ladder entirely = fall back), he grimaced and rubbed the top of his head. He was positive that the narrow-and-hard object in question had been Shinji's foot, and yelped upwards,

"Bastard, you just tried to kill me? There's no question what would've happened if I fell back all the way down-"

"Shut UP!" Shinji spat down at him again and Ichigo could sense the blond's murderous glare directed at him through the darkness, "I wonder if I should've done exactly that. Kick our brand new Lieutenant-Colonel Kurosaki down to his death deep within the sewage tunnels. Honorable demise."

Before Ichigo could let out a retort, Shinji continued in a quieter voice, "But we're here, thank the gods. I don't know how much more of this place I can stand."

Huh, Ichigo thought as he rubbed the back of his neck, so he wasn't the only one freaked out by the place.

A ball of brilliant white-yellow light burst above Ichigo, making him squint against the sudden brightness. Several seconds later when the light lessened and his eyes adjusted, he saw that Shinji had his right arm outstretched to the side, hand clutching a ball of bright yellow flames. Squeeze of the hand, and bright white outline of a door-sized rectangle appeared on the wall in front of it, soon filled with the same bright white light.

Twitch of fingers, and the ball of flames disappeared from Shinji's hand. He then said, "In there," and then leaped off the ladder and into the rectangle. The captain sank into the white doorway as if through a solid wall, the end of his haori last to disappear.

Eager to get away from the darkness, Ichigo clambered up the ladder to directly beside the doorway and leaped in. His eyes grew wide - he had been expecting a walk through a senkai gate, not a sensation of being suspended mid-air with every joints of his bones being stretched. Not painful, but unpleasant. A heartbeat later, he landed on the balls of his feet on smooth, wooden floor.

...Wooden?

Ichigo darted his eyes around and was baffled by the scene in front of him. Everything was slightly too... normal. Regular squad office hallway stretched out endlessly to either sides of him, complete with wooden sliding doors, slightly chipped frames and plaques that labeled each of the rooms. Not even a bit like a secret dungeon a secret organization would gather at.

Then he glanced behind him and saw no trace of the doorway he just came through. Just a blank off-white, windowless plaster wall that stretched forever to either sides. Looking up, twenty feet above him, he spotted basketball-sized florescent lightbulbs hanging at regular intervals, steady, unblinking white brightness harsh on his eyes. He averted his gaze back down. Now that's more like it, he thought, no windows, artificial lightsource. Secrecy.

He could sense no movement within the offices. The whole hallway felt lifeless and sterile.

Clicking sounds issued beside him, and Ichigo whipped his head around. Shinji leaned back on the blank wall, yellow ball of flames back in his hand. The blond furrowed his eyebrows in concentration and poked at it with his other hand. The flameball let out more clickings, and this time, whirling sounds. Ichigo felt the atmosphere around him shift, the slightest sensation of joint-stretching again. Shinji gave it a light squeeze and the sensation stopped, so did the sounds.

"What's that?" Ichigo asked. The thing seemed familiar.

Shinji looked up to him, followed his gaze to the flames and then lifted his hand up so Ichigo could get a better look it. Ichigo now saw that there were clock hands on the surface beneath the flames. Shinji explained, "This is a multi-usage kido Hachi developed for the Vizards a while ago. One needs to wield both the Shinigami and Hollow reiatsu to use it. According to the directions given to it, it can do pretty nifty things. Right now, I used it to warp time and space. Which, I should probably tell you now, means..." he brought his hand back down and stared at it for a few seconds, "It has been only ten minutes since we left the training field. Also, we're in the sub-basement facility of the 12th division lab. This way, we gotta find the room." With that, he turned around and started walking.

Ichigo's eyebrows had gradually gone up as high as they would go, "WHAT? The hell you mean sub-basement? We climbed up that ladder for good half an hour to end up below ground?" All the effort for basically nothing, he thought as he caught up to Shinji and fell into stride beside him. Yup, he was going to make sure that Shinji ended up in that vat of cyanide later on.

"Hey, chill out, Ichigo! That was one of the only places the time and space-warp would work properly." Shinji then muttered, "I tell you that this thing can control time and space and you're pissed that your arms are sore."

Ichigo growled in preparation to yell some more, but recollection of an image struck him. Second day back to Soul Society, after the whole ordeal with Kenpachi, Kladias conjuring a bright blue flames of pocketwatch in her hand-

"Kladias had the same thing," Ichigo put the two images together, "I thought you guys didn't count her in as a Vizard?" Damn, the whole thing was looking complicated.

Shinji grimaced, "Ugh. Can't believe we forgot to tell her not to use in public." with a sigh, he gave his fingers another twitch and the watch disappeared.

He continued, "Well no, we don't count Kladias in as a Vizard because she is not a vizard. Hachi's request to train her in kido basics before she joined Kensei's squad was approved, and we agreed that he slip a simplified version of it into the lessons. We told her that it's for telling time and direction, much like a compass. What we hadn't told her was that by using the kido on regular basis, it would cloak the hollow reiatsu in her and act as a locator. A tracking device."

"To keep on eye on her..." Ichigo added on, more to himself. In case.. in case something like today happened?

Neither of them picked up the conversation, shuffles of their feet and mechanical buzz of the lightbulbs the only sounds. Ichigo peeked into one office after another as he passed by them and found every single one of them unoccupied. He wondered what such empty places were used for. For sure there weren't that many secret organizations in Seireitei...?

Looking far ahead, now Ichigo could see a spot of white replacing what had been a dot of black - didn't seem like a person, more of a corner or a dead end coming up. A dozen more steps and he saw that it was a corner.

Atmosphere rippled again and Ichigo thought he heard voices far off. Fast-paced and quite loud, to be heard from this distance. Argument? he wondered. Soon enough, he could hear clearly the words of shrill screeches that definitey belonged to... Hiyori?

"You had it under control? You had her UNDER CONTROL? Which universe are'ya living in, ya worthless limp-dick?"

Scuffles of feet, rustles of fabric. A dull thud. Hiyori let out a sharp "Ow!" followed by, "Wha- didja just smack me ya-"

"I keep telling you to shut UP, Hiyori!" It sounded like Kensei who was shouting now, "I did have her under control. She threw bratty fits against orders every now and then but so do you. Generally speaking everything was completely fine-"

"Completely fine? Completely FINE? Bitch punches a hole through a Kuchiki and you call that completely FINE?"

Ichigo turned around the corner just in time to see the petite blond woman launch herself at Kensei's near-6-feet stature. The latter caught the former by the her throat and chucked her away none too gently. Hiyori collided into the wall with a "Mmph!" and dropped down to the ground as if a ragdoll. But no ragdoll would then have glared up with such ferocity and showed her teeth in a snarl, poising to strike again-

"CUT THE FUCK OUT, BOTH OF YOU!"

Ichigo flinched, along with Hiyori and Kensei, at Shinji's outburst. All three of them stared wide-eyed at the blond captain a second before Hiyori let out a loud "YOU!"

She then sprang up as if electrocuted, shunpo-ed up to right in front of Shinji and stuck her face into his as close as her height let her, "YOU're the one who's a piece of shit, YOU! The fuck were'ya thinking, letting her fight? Past that phase of stupidity then at least ya could've kept an eye on her to put a stop whatever the fuck before-"

Blur of white-

WHACK! Ichigo's eyes widened even more as Hiyori flew back head-first, Shinji's arm, palm open, where her head used to be.

"Things screwed up, fine!" Shinji roared, "But your going around hounding blames isn't helping at all. So just-" a second's pause, he pulled at a strand of his blond hair. Then in a deflated voice, "just shut up. Please shut up, Hiyori."

Ichigo never found out what Hiyori's response to Shinji's uncharacteristic display of sentiment as the air around them ripple again to materialize Rose, Love, Mashiro, Hachi and Lisa twenty feet away. He noticed that all of them were clad in shinigami attires and thought, so all of them returned.

The group of five started forward and Mashiro sped forward, reflective goggles and neon-green hair glowing in the florescent lighting. She chirped, "Berry-tan! Bad news, we need to hurry-"

Then nothing. Her hazel eyes widened, mouth open to an 'O' shape.

Ichigo stared around, baffled, as he saw that everyone except for him had frozen in their spots, muscles rigid and eyes widened. His puzzlement grew to annoyance as simultaneous looks of dread draped down onto their faces. Silent message he couldn't hear? Damn it.

"Something happening that I should know of?" Ichigo growled out, not bothering to hide his frustration.

Love, hardly looking serious with his star-shaped afro and sunglasses, let out a sharp "No." at the same time Shinji let out a "Yes." Ichigo caught the blond captain flickering a miffed look at Love before he hurried forward towards one of the doors.

Shinji spoke, "The Central 46's announced an emergency meeting, calling every captains and vice-captains in ASAP. The spokesperson didn't clarify what the 'trouble with one of the personnels' meant," Kensei stumbled aside as Shinji almost ran into him, "but we don't even have to second guess that it's Kladias who's in trouble- Hachi, can you open this thing up quick?" he hammered impatiently on the wooden door, which had just started glowing white, with his fist.

Hachi, still his enormous self, brought his equally-enormous hands together with a deafening slap. The wooden door Shinji had been banging on vanished entirely.

"He," Love jerked his chin towards at Ichigo and directed his gaze at Shinji, "can't come, Shinji. We've had the breakthrough we've all been waiting for and it's something we can't have him hear. Yet. Just believe me when I say it." Then at Ichigo, "Nothing personal, Ichigo, sorry."

That flared up Ichigo's irritation up to full and he hollered at Love, "Apology not accepted - what do you mean by that I can't!" He clenched his fists but didn't feel the nails dig into the palms of his hands. The turn of events, sudden load of information and the possibility that Rukia could - let's face it now, really - be DYING at this very moment jumbled his emotions up too far to feel physical pain. Then he growled out, calmer than he felt, with the most menacing voice he could manage,

"Do NOT treat me like a child, Love, because I am not. If it has anything at all to do with me - which it obviously does, considering that it's only me who you think shouldn't hear it - I have more than the full right to know."

Ichigo paused a second and resumed, "I have the power to fight, and you should know that. So don't. You. Dare to leave me out of this." Then Ichigo turned his head to Shinji, expecting support.

What he had not been expecting was to see sincere, apologetic look in the blond's dark amber eyes, right before a quiet mutter of "Sorry."

Before Ichigo could react, snap of Hachi's fingers and the eight Vizards in front of him vanished in a unison of shunpo. The open doorway on the side sealed itself up in what looked like thick white plaster, a flash of white light telling him that it's again been reinforced with kido.

"HEY!" Ichigo yelped.

He leaped up and slammed his shoulder against the barrier, drove a punch into it when nothing gave. Only thing that was damaged appeared to be himself - sure felt like it, he thought as he felt his shoulder and hand throb.

Bastard, Ichigo thought as he let out a frustrated yell, Shinji's definitely dug his own grave - three times in one day should be a confirmation enough.


See ya all soon!