Author's Note: …Riiiight…so it's been really long…I apologise for laggy updates (blame school) and the crappy quality of work. It's just that…well, I've been really busy tackling tests and producing outstanding results (I think I'm gonna fail geography…sniff), since I really need to buck up, and that has caused a plummeting in the update time…and I've got my hands full, too. Trilogy and all.

Well, I'm just gonna have to find some way to get over this, I guess. In the meantime…enjoy the chapter! (While you can, that is, with the quality being crappy and all)

Disclaimer: Read previous chapters.

Scroll 8 – Let the Rain Fall

The world, dull and blank, stretched to a never-ending blanket across his vision, if he was even awake in the first place.

The air, intense, was choking him, with the atmosphere hung thick like an encyclopedia, and sharp like a blade.

It was cold. Very cold. So cold that the iciness had sunk into his bones and chilled him from the inside out. Yet, he felt that the stinging coldness could be more of…an ally, rather than a foe. The doubtfulness filled his being, however, when something suddenly made its appearance in whatever world he was in. The ground beneath him trembled, the coldness seeping in more than before, and the silence was disrupted by a string of muffled roars.

And then he, too, roared.

--OnKK8--

Kurosaki Ichigo looked up from the ground, gluing his eyes to the hills with a frown etched on his features. The scream – cry, rather – pierced through the air, ringing throughout the entire village, and becoming the centre of attention of everyone. "…Did you hear that?"

"Well, of course I did! What, you thought your old man became deaf while you were away?! Ohh, Ichigo, I thought you never caaaaaaared!!"

The orange-haired shinigami trainee turned his attention to his lunatic of a father, giving him a long, hard stare. "…I never did. I was really hoping you were deaf and-oi, oi! No, get away from-!"

Bam

Karin blankly stared at the only two males of the family getting into a dog fight, rolling about the floor like a ball and dust gathering at every single corner of the hut. She sighed in defeat and shrugged the matter off, resuming her drink of pure mountain dew that Yuzu took so much trouble to get. Speaking of Yuzu, she was currently freaking out at the actions of her father and brother, who didn't seem to be ready to shove their childish alter-egos into a cage in their subconscious or something (well, their father was an exception to that, of course; he's childish twenty-four seven).

"Ichi-nii! Otou-san! Please stop fighting!" cried a frantic housewife-like Yuzu, who was even more panicked when the males of the Kurosaki family refused to listen to her. "Karin-chan, help me persuade them to stop!"

Karin merely stared at her twin sister before sighing and getting off her seat. "You guys are…" Kick. "…annoying me!!"

For the next few moments, Isshin was grabbing his problem area and Ichigo, his sore arm.

After which, Ichigo settled back down on the wooden chair he was sitting on earlier, and rested his elbow on the table. Isshin sat across him and looked at him with a sneaky grin which made his children uneasy upon setting their eyes on that grin. Yuzu instantly went ahead to prepare dinner, while Karin went out of the hut to play with her coconut, and Ichigo raised an eyebrow at his sly old man, as if asking 'what the hell are you grinning about?' and then diverted his attention away, looking at the high mountains instead.

Isshin watched his movements, and chuckled to himself a bit as he leaned back, placing a foot on the edge of the table, tilting himself back and forth. "You know, Ichigo, those mountains remind me of me and Masaki when we were younger." Now that caught Ichigo's attention again. "Whenever we had a date, we'd go up to the mountains and look at the fantastic view from above, enjoying the cool breeze. I'd wrap my arms around Masaki…telling her how much I love her…and we would…"

Isshin paused to make sloppy kissing sounds which sent the chills up Ichigo's spine. "O-oi, you crazy old man! Stop doing all those weird kissy sounds; you're giving me the damned goose bumps! Geez…"

"Eh?" the Kurosaki breadwinner stared at his son before climbing onto the tabletop to get nearer to him, scaring the daylights out of his orange-haired boy. "Could it be…" he began, eyes sparkling with joy. "…that Ichigo wants to know how to ask someone out on a date?"

Pause.

"HAAAAAAH!?"

"Oh, you do! You do! Ichigoooooooooooo, you make your father soooooooo proud!!"

"Hey, hey, don't you dare come hugging me…Oi! Get off! Get off!!"

A flustered Ichigo tried every possible method to get his father off of him, but his efforts all turned out futile.

--OnKK8--

"Ne, it's time ta' wake up, koushi-kun." No response whatsoever came from the subconscious prince lying in front of him. He sighed, perpetual grin on his face like nothing bad ever happened to him. "Ain't good ta' yer body if ya gonna lie down 'dere all day an' not eatin' or drinkin'. Ya need ta' take care o' yerself, ya know."

The white-haired koushi stirred a little, fingers curling into a fist. His brows strained to meet as his eyelids kept fluttering open and close, vision blurry and distorted. He strained to speak, but only air came out in the form of a raspy sigh as his dry, cracked lips moved up and down. The metallic taste of blood lingered in his mouth, and his throat was burning like hell. Hitsugaya Toushirou felt like crap; heck, he felt worse than crap. He never fell sick unless he wanted to, and he certainly didn't want to fall sick at a time like this.

From what he could tell, he was probably dehydrated for a week or so, and starved for about the same amount of time. It was definitely not favourable in his situation, especially since he felt like he had screamed his lungs out and damaged his vocal chords so bad that he lost his voice. A choked cough escaped his mouth as he struggled to get up into a sitting position, but found that he had no energy to. The figure behind him chuckled sinisterly, making him narrow his eyes to thin slits, his voice box rumbling with a growl (he didn't know he could growl like that).

"Yare yare, looks like I made lil' koushi angry," Ichimaru snickered, grin so wide it almost touched his ears. "It's gott'n colder in here, ne? Wonder if 'da master wanted that kinda result, after locking ya up 'ere for so long."

"…o…" Hitsugaya coughed, rubbing his burning chest. "…Who…are you…? …hy…Why have you…locked me in here…?"

"Ah, ah, if ya ask questions like 'dat, ya ain't gonna get yer food an' water," the silver-haired man warned, waving a finger. "Now 'dat yer finally awake, I'll just hafta tell my master about 'dis. I'm sure he'll be very happy, won't he?"

The white-haired prince stared at the stranger who chuckled once more as he slowly walked away out of the room, closing the door behind him. He sat, leaning against the wall, and closed his eyes, resisting the urge to let out another roar.

--OnKK8--

"It's gonna rain."

Ichimaru allowed the toothy smirk find its way up to his features as he tilted his head and placed his hand above his eyes as if saluting the darkened heavens. The sky began speaking in the language of thunder before the speaking turned into yelling. The silver-haired man only smiled more when the sky expressed its anger by sending a lightning bolt towards him, but it missed. The thunders boomed, more loudly than before.

"A thunderstorm…eh?" he mumbled to himself amusedly, repositioning his head back to normal, before he walked away from the prison a certain white-haired prince was locked in, eyelids revealing sickly lime green orbs beneath. His grin widened even further. "Mah, mah…looks like a storms'a brewin', eh, koushi-han?"

Thunders boomed, lightning bolts flashed, and a roar so distant yet so near; all in one package.

"Now, now, master won't be pleased if he sees ya like 'dis, ya know." He stopped, and watched a lone tree beside him get barbequed by a lightning bolt. The instant it struck, sweat drops rolled down the fox-like man's forehead, and he brushed them off in a casual wipe as if nothing had happened. "Phoo. 'Dat was pretty close, don'cha think?" the creepy man asked no one in particular. "Wouldn't 'ave wanted 'dat thing ta' hit me, would I? Then 'dere ain't no way I could tell my lords 'bout what I saw."

He paused, and left the hills, taking one slow step at a time.

"Things are gonna get inter'sting."

--OnKK8--

Ichigo growled. He was pissed. He was downright pissed. No, not because he was frustrated that he still hadn't found that ice prince yet – hell, he had already spent enough quality time with his negative emotions about that matter – and no, it was not because of the extremely hot weather – though it would be nice if it rained now (even though it was impossible), since there were dark clouds looming over the area for the past, oh, I don't know, three hours and not a single drop of rain came to the ground – but the orange-haired strawberry was pissed because…

…his father was using him as a chair.

Anger veins popped from every single part of his forehead. It wasn't just a chair; it was a chair-cum-pillow-cum-bolster-cum-plushie-cum-maid. His father had gotten drunk – again – after going out to the old town bar with his friends – again – and returned with a sluggish behavior and slurring words, jumping with euphoria whenever he set his sights on his precious daughters – again – before he whooped with excitement and insanity and hurled himself towards his poor little Ichigo, hugging and mumbling to him in baby-coo – not again.

Ever since, Ichigo had been pinned to the ground by his now drunk lunatic of a father, hugged countless of times and spoken to childishly umpteen times. Amongst the rush of words, he could only pick out the terms 'pillow' and 'plushie' since they were used the most often. And whenever he heard those terms, he'd get into a fit and think up evil ways to sober Isshin up but to no avail (he even tried kicking him in the shins but not even that was enough).

At last, the simple yet oldest method came to save his life and pride, as Karin trotted over with a bucket of water fetched from the river, and poured the bucket over the males of the Kurosaki family. Isshin sat up like a dog, scratching his head in confusion. "…Where am I?"

Another vein popped. "You're at home, you lousy drunkard!" Karin yelled at the top of her voice. She gave the sober Kurosaki a slap across the cheek and grabbed him by the collar, shaking him awake. "Snap out of it! Geez, the next time you want to go drinking, stop drinking in huge amounts!" she continued reprimanding. "And when you're finally awake, go take a bath; you reek of alcohol!"

As Karin released her tight hold of her father's rags, she scowled some more and ran to the kitchen, offering to help Yuzu do the dishes. Isshin fell on his butt, turning to face Ichigo with a pout, which scared the shit out of the orange-haired shinigami trainee. Isshin stuck his lower lip out and moved it up and down as if in a trembling, whimpering motion, and made a puppy dog expression. "Ichigo…sniff, does, does Karin haaaaaate me?"

Sweat drop. "Uh…"

"Does, does, does she hate me? Her father?"

Another sweat drop. "Uh…"

"Tell me she loves me! Tell me she loooooves me! Because I'm her father and I love her! I shower all my blessings and love upon her! Awwwww…what if she hates me…"

As Isshin carried on with his pointless rambling, his orange-haired son snuck out of the hut with three sweat drops and dashed out into the open, far away from his house. He panted; it was gonna take some time before he would be willing (and sane enough) to return to the madhouse. In the meantime, he'd probably go ahead to travel about in the old village to see if anything new came up.

That would most likely not be the case, since it was the Zaraki state in the end, but a little walk wouldn't hurt…would it?

"Oh…it's raining?" Ichigo blinked. "Wait. It's raining. Rain.ing."

He couldn't believe it; it was raining. And heavily, at that.

But it was listed was one of the Top Ten Most Impossible Things to Happen list, with it being ranked second, making rain in Zaraki the second most impossible thing to ever happen in the entire country of Tamashii. Due to some complications in the geographical location which happened centuries ago, Zaraki had become well-known for its undeniably hot climate throughout; it was what some people would call a favourable living environment, despite being a desert-like state.

Never, never, did it ever occur once that rain should fall to the soil of the state of Zaraki.

Ichigo looked at the startled expressions of the villagers while the children happily played around with the mud. It wasn't long before a hint of orange disrupted his vision. He brushed his wet bangs away from his eyes in irritation, obviously not enjoying his bath with his clothes still on. The skies continued screaming in thunder and lightning as the clouds began getting dyed a darker shade of grey.

He ran past the villagers who were rushing back home. The various stall owners had made huge losses, he realized; they were stomping their feet with a 'tsk' for their worst luck as they abandoned their stalls, dashing for shelter. He, on the other hand, was not looking for a place to shield himself from the batting rain drops. Oh no. He was heading for the most likely place to find what he was looking for.

As Kurosaki Ichigo made a run for the mountains, the serpentine clouds of darkness coiled themselves around the peak, while an awakened Hitsugaya clutched his chest, holding back a roar from erupting, before he fell back to the ground, unconscious.

Next chapter: Ichigo finally finds his little ice prince, but is it too late when Aizen and Ichimaru are there to stop him from taking their prized possession away? It's two against one; two experienced shinigami against one trainee. And in the shadows, a sneaky figure snatches Hitsugaya away, while Ichigo is prevented from giving chase. What will happen to the crown prince and the shinigami trainee now, when Ichigo is imprisoned and Hitsugaya, slipping away from consciousness?