Hello, dear readers! I am back with another chapter! This is an exciting one and here is a hint as to why... It has to do with the mystery guy! I hope you enjoy this chapter because things are beginning to get exciting for sure!

Chapter 5

In the morning, we parted ways and I took my trainees to Kisuke's shop. They looked a little nervous as I led them along, wringing their hands in anxiety whenever they thought I wasn't looking. The poor things didn't know what to expect with Kisuke and I shook my head with a vague smile. I wasn't going to tell them about his eccentricity quite yet, especially since that would only make them even more nervous. I just gave them a comforting smile that seemed to ease some of their apprehension before we arrived.

After rounding the corner that led into the courtyard outside of Kisuke's shop, they both seemed to move nearer to each other as they walked close to my back. I could see Kisuke sitting on the stoop outside the door, legs crossed and his cane standing straight in front of him. He looked up at me, his eyes shrouded in shadows from his hat, and gave me a grin. He didn't look at the kids yet so they wouldn't be too fearful.

"Hey, Imayru," he said to me. "Good to see that you were true to your word."

"Of course," I huffed. "I don't break my word for anyone."

"Are those the trainees you were talking about?" he asked, finally leaning to the side to look past me at the two kids.

"Yep, these are those kids," I said, reaching my arms back to wrap them around their necks and pull them forward. They made noises of protest and I could notice how pale they seemed. Poor kids were looking close to panic. "Kitsune and Gingka, meet Kisuke Urahara. He's the former captain of Squad 12."

"No way!" they exclaimed simultaneously, both sounding excited as their eyes lit up with joy.

"They don't look so scared now," Kisuke chuckled. "The way they were staring at me before made me almost wonder if I had suddenly turned into a Hollow."

"Sorry, Mr. Urahara," Gingka said apologetically. "We didn't mean to be rude."

"It's alright," he told them. "Why don't you two head inside? I can give you a short tour of the place before we get started on your Gigai."

As soon as they were out of earshot, I said, "Make sure they stay safe while I'm gone. I have a few things to attend to first and I can't worry about them getting hurt if they tag along."

"Understood. Are you laying the trail for the mystery guy?"

"That's exactly it," I confirmed. "As soon as I can find his spiritual pressure, I'll force him to come to me on my terms."

"Are you so sure this will play out as you want it to?"

"I've already accommodated changes into the plan. I know that whenever someone comes up with a concrete idea, they have to figure in for deviation because nothing ever works out exactly the way you want it to."

"Well, at least you're keeping that in mind," he said before making shooing motions. "Now get out of here and go find the guy."

I nodded and turned around, walking back across the courtyard and out to the sidewalk near the main street. I had a sudden realization and checked the time on the cell phone that was given to me for my Gigai. I still had time to call Ichigo before school started. I found his number that had already been programmed in, along with everyone else's cell phone, and dialed the number. It rang for a few seconds before I heard a distinctive click and the noise of chatter in the background.

"Yo," was all Ichigo said, making me roll my eyes in annoyance.

"I have an important question for you and I need you to think very carefully before you answer," I said clearly.

"Who's calling?" I heard the muffled voice of Rukia ask.

"Hold on," Ichigo said before I heard a small beep. "It's Imayru. She's on speaker phone now so everyone can hear. What's your question, Imayru?"

"Where is this alley that you were attacked in? I'm going to see if there are trace amounts of our mystery guy's reiatsu left in the area."

"Umm… I'm not one hundred percent sure. Some of the details about that are fuzzy."

"I know in general where it is," Renji spoke up over the phone. "Ichigo, if I give you that much, could you figure out where it is from it?"

"I can try. Go for it and I'll see if I can figure it out."

"Let's see…" Renji said slowly as he recalled the details. "There was a station of some sort for a train, I think… The buildings in that area look high tech and the ones further beyond that look shabby… And there was a weird park with strange art work in between the two."

"I know where you're talking about now," Ichigo quickly exclaimed. "That's the Kanjin Park. It's between the downtown area and the Shoden area. There should be a large alley on the north side of the park and it almost looks as if it separates the areas. That was where I saw the guy."

"Alright, I know where that's at," I said.

"… You do?" Ichigo asked dubiously.

"Ichigo, I have lived here for a hundred years leading a task force. I am pretty sure I know where everything is situated. In fact, I know more about this place than you do."

"Ouch, that has to hurt…" Rangiku muttered under her breath.

"Are you going to go now or come back to school?" Ichigo asked, ignoring Rangiku's comments.

"I figure that it's as good a time as any to go hunting," I said with a smirk as I turned towards the east for a block. "It's daytime. This guy likes attacking under the cover of night. Even if I find him, he won't be able to do a thing to me. I also have a feeling that he stalks his prey for a few days before finally confronting them. We'll still have time to come up with a way to get him on our turf."

"Imayru," Toshiro's voice could be heard and I immediately stopped walking. I could feel through our bond that he was feeling a little uneasy about letting me go off on my own so I sent a peaceful ember of light through. I heard his light sigh before he said, "Just stay safe. That's all I can ask."

"Don't worry," I said softly. "I won't do anything excessive that will get me into trouble. Bye, guys. See you later, Shiro."

I hit the end call button before shoving the phone into my pocket. Due to the fact that I didn't plan on going to school today, I was wearing skinny jeans and a royal blue tank top that showed a strip of skin on my stomach. I was glad that I looked just the right age to be taken either as an adult or a school student. I pulled my hair free from the dragon scale clips and shoved them down into my knee high black boots. Some of my long hair draped down over my chest and the rest hung down my back, some of it short enough to frame my face and my bangs hanging down over my left eye a bit.

No one looked my way once and if they had, I would have made them regret it except for when I reached the downtown area. I was about to head towards Kanjin Park when I heard a few catcalls from a nearby bar. I didn't know why there was one in this area, but I didn't question it as I was put on high alert when I saw a group of guys approach me. I always figured that these things happened because of how dark my eyes were, but Rangiku once pointed out my mistake that guys like these only cared about a girl's body. All of them smelled of alcohol from where I was standing and had an evil little look about them.

"Hey, honey," the obvious leader of the group said as they surrounded me. I could see the people walking down the street avoiding us nervously. I noticed a band around their arms that was orange with a strange insignia and decided that these guys had to be a gang. "Aren't you a smoking hot little thing?"

"Something like that," I said under my breath, slightly amused by how true that was. My body temperature ran higher than a normal human, but I knew he was referring to my looks.

"Want to party with us? You could definitely spice things up," another one said before reaching a hand out in a misadvised attempt to stroke my cheek with his fingertips.

"Touch me and I break your arm," I said calmly, noticing them all stiffen slightly before they laughed it off.

"Such a fragile creature could never pull such a thing off," yet another said before attempting to grab me by the arm. Instead, I grabbed his before he could react and slammed my knee upwards near his elbow, a sickening crack resounding through the area before the man howled in agony.

"I warned you," I stated simply with a shrug. "So… who's next?"

Next thing I knew, the others tried to jump at me all at once. I rolled my eyes and side stepped to the right, forcing them all to hit each other and collapse on the ground. As they groaned in pain, I walked away leisurely towards the park, whistling a tune to myself after shoving my hands in my pockets. They wouldn't be messing with me for a while and that was just fine with me. I didn't want to fight with humans if I could avoid it since they were so fragile themselves. Good thing Shiro wasn't there to see it, I thought to myself. He'd probably fight them with everything he's got after what they tried to do and for the way they leered at me. Then we'd never find the mystery guy in time.

True, but it shows he cares, Tatsuya spoke. At least he worries about you. He even told you to stay safe. That shows his level of trust in your judgment.

You always know the perfect things to say, I told him with a grin. Guess that's why you and I are so wonderful together.

I had already passed through the park and was now standing at its edge, looking out from the sidewalk to see the alley that Renji and Ichigo talked about. I could see a green dumpster near the road and everything beyond that was shadowy. Checking for traffic, I ran across the road and into the alley, my eyes adapting to the dark in seconds so that I could see everything perfectly in the shadows. I walked in further until I reached a spot on the concrete that was stained with a dark color. I could sense the faint reiatsu from it belonging to Ichigo and looked for more, hoping that Ichigo had managed to nick the mystery guy somehow. I took a few steps forward when I felt something strange. It was astounding how wild it was, but it felt nothing like my feral reiatsu. If anything, it felt… almost out of control from panic. I couldn't understand how that could be if he seemed so calm fighting Ichigo. I could only catch trace amounts of this foreign reiatsu, which was a deep red, but it was enough for me to follow it.

I walked at a steady pace along the alley until it opened up into two different directions, one heading back towards the downtown area and the other for the Shoden area. The reiatsu turned right towards Shoden and I followed it easily until the alley revealed a road after I stepped out of it. This place was beginning to remind me of the Rukon Districts from how dilapidated the buildings looked. I shook my head a little as I noticed the reiatsu I was following happened to be everywhere now. I knew he had to reside in this area and happened upon a huge building that looked like a warehouse fashioned into a house. The reiatsu stopped here and I looked up at a window on the second floor.

There was a man completely dressed in dark clothing standing in the window, his face turned towards something in the room with him that must have been talking with him when he finally faced the window. I saw his body straighten as his gaze locked onto me and a grin that was more like a smirk formed on my face, showing one of my fangs in the process. Finally, I knew where this guy was. If I wanted, I could end it right then and there. I think he knew that as well since what skin I could see on his face from under his hood turned extremely pale before it went red with rage. I gave him a mocking wave that had him slamming his fist into the glass, not hard enough to break it but enough for me to hear the thump it made. We both knew that I could have observed the place from the shadows and never let him know I was there. The fact that I did this proved that I was sneaky and not afraid of him, which only would serve to infuriate him and that was part of the plan.

Now he knew that he had a problem on his hands and I felt a spike in spiritual pressure that was meant to send me to the ground. I barely even felt it and all it did was make my grin wider. It only made his anger worse since I wouldn't give him any other response. I could tell from the look in his eyes now that I had him right where I wanted him. He would definitely target me after this show of contempt and that was exactly what I wanted. I turned around and headed the way I came, waving a quick goodbye as I did so that would only aggravate him.

"See you soon, mystery guy," I said to myself. "Then we'll see what you're really made of."

I thought school would never let out soon enough. As a captain, especially one as esteemed as one from Squad 10, I wanted nothing to do with any sort of academic setting ever again. I already had too many bad memories of that sort of thing and the only reason I stayed sane was thanks to Imayru. She would always find some way to at least make me smile, no matter if she was actually trying or not. I could always safely say that she was my one light in the darkness.

Even though I didn't want to wait for her to return, instead wanting to try to find her, I went with everyone else to Urahara's shop. Kitsune and Gingka were outside in the courtyard, both looking rather uncomfortable in their newly formed Gigai as Urahara made them sweep the porch with a broom. I knew it was to get them used to a new human body but they had looks of total concentration on their faces and I wanted to laugh, managing to suppress it just as I heard a few noises from the others. I turned around to see Imayru walking calmly around the corner and into the courtyard. She gave us a bright smile and a wave as she approached, so she must have been pleased about something.

Before any of us could question her, she had a strange shine to her eyes before she said, "I found him. It wasn't easy, but I found him."

Everyone was forced into a stunned silence from her words, leaving only me to speak up. "Where did you locate him?"

"He was over in the Shoden area, but I'm sure he's moved to some other place since his location was compromised. He looked extremely angry after everything I did. He'll be stalking me for a few days before he confronts me."

Now the silence was filled with tension as I felt myself getting angry, the temperature quickly dropping and ice forming on the ground around me. "That wasn't part of the plan," I said through gritted teeth. "You assured me last night that you would only find him, not instigate a fight. Now you've got him angry enough that he's going to be hunting you like you did to him?"

"Now, wait a minute, Shiro," she said, not looking uneasy at all while the others did. "This guy wouldn't have gone with our old plan. If we had stuck with it, we would have looked like fools. The only way to make that guy serious is to show him he's not as good as he thinks. He'll get mad and take the bait, which is exactly what we want."

"But what if he decides to take down everyone you associate with?" I growled.

"He won't."

"How do you know?"

"I get the feeling that he possesses some sense of honor. Since I'm the one that taunted him, he won't be fighting anyone else."

We had a bit of a stare off, only breaking it off when Grimmjow appeared a few feet away from her. "Girly, what did you do?" he growled at her, his blue eyes blazing angrily.

I saw a strange expression pass over her face before she turned to the Espada. "Just to clarify, did you just call me 'girly'?"

"If you can get away with calling me kitty, I'm going to call you girly. Deal with it," he said before changing the subject. "What did you do today?"

"Went on an excursion to find our mystery guy and succeeded," she said with a smirk.

There was something very wrong here. Almost as if time had stopped, I just knew that something was going on with Imayru, even if she didn't know it herself. This wasn't like her to be so arrogant. I could feel a chill sliding down my spine before a hand clamped down on my shoulder. I turned my head to see Ichigo, who seemed to have the same distressed expression that was similar to what I was feeling. I guess I'm not the only one who senses this and is worried, I thought to myself before Imayru turned to face me with a curious expression.

"What's wrong?" she asked, sounding back to normal.

"It's nothing," I said while shaking my head. "I was just thinking. That's all."

"Don't you think it was stupid for her to do this alone?" Grimmjow yelled. "She went off on her own to hunt that guy down! What if he had decided to kill her?!"

"She would have been able to take care of herself until I got there," I assured him before looking to my wife. "However, what I do disagree over is the fact that you confronted that guy. You should have had one person waiting in the shadows if the worst case scenario occurred. That was extremely reckless of you."

I watched as the fight seemed to just leave her and she gave me a quick nod of understanding before walking away towards the shop. Once she was out of earshot, I said, "Grimmjow, stay with her until I get there. After that little stunt she pulled today, she's no longer allowed to be alone until we've beat the mystery guy. We don't want him to take advantage of any opportunity that presents itself unless it's one we've made ourselves to place us on top of the situation."

Everyone made noises of agreement before scattering, Grimmjow actually listening to me and chasing after Imayru. I turned to Ichigo, who had stood next to me the entire time, and said, "You can sense it, too, can't you?"

"She's been acting strange lately," he said softly. "She's always been a little violent, but it's starting to get out of hand. I mean, she punched me and looked like she might do it a second time if I didn't give her the answers she wanted about the details of my fight with the mystery guy."

"Everything has been changing ever since she started watching the sunsets and sunrises. Somehow, these are all connected. There has to be some reason behind all of this that we just aren't seeing yet."

"I don't think she even knows that this is happening with her," Ichigo said. "She's oblivious to the changes."

"We need to make sure that this doesn't escalate further," I stated. "I don't want her to get worse. It's gone on long enough."

I still was in shock at Toshiro's words, enough so that I hadn't moved or spoken since I first sat down in one of the many rooms in Kisuke's shop. I barely even noticed when Grimmjow walked in the room, no doubt sent by Toshiro to keep an eye on me until he got there. I figured that he'd be happy that I came so close to our goal. We wanted this guy to come to us and that was what I was setting up. Instead, he was angry about the risk I took. I couldn't exactly say that I blamed him, but I was a captain. I could take such risks because I was strong enough to do it, regardless of the strong limiter on me.

I heard the noise of the door sliding open and looked up to see Toshiro entering the room. Finally, the shock wore off just enough that I felt a little grumpy and glared a little at him. "So this is where you went to hide," he said softly before walking over to sit in front of me on the floor.

"I wanted to be alone," I said simply, turning my head to avoid looking at him. "I see that didn't happen since you sent the kitty after me."

Grimmjow completely ignored my nickname for him and said, "She's been expressionless the entire time I've been here until you came in. Then she's as grumpy as a cat left out in the pouring rain."

"You even talk about cats and yet you wonder why I call you kitty," I grumbled.

"I came in here for a reason, as did he," Toshiro said. "Until this guy is taken care of, I don't want you alone. Not only that, but I don't want to be anywhere that I am not. I want to make sure that I can watch your back for you, so I'm going to do something that will surely anger you."

I saw him close his eyes and mutter something under his breath before a ring of rainbow light appeared around his left wrist. A string of that light stretched out like a tether before wrapping around my right wrist securely. I groaned a little when I realized what was going on, knowing I couldn't do anything to stop him as the rainbow light turned into a silvery metal. The tether between the two silver rings looked like a chain keeping them together. Toshiro had just cast a kido spell on me that was impossible for anyone but him to break. It was one of the forbidden kido spells for a reason. The chain could stretch as far or as short as Toshiro wanted and only the two of us could touch it, but the others could unfortunately see it as clear as day.

"You've got to be kidding me…" I growled, attempting to pull the cuff off of my wrist in a feeble try for freedom.

"What did you just do?" Grimmjow asked curiously.

"It's a forbidden kido spell that will keep her tethered to me for as long as needed," Toshiro informed him. "I can shorten the chain and keep her close by so she can't wander. Just like this."

With a clink, the chain yanked me forward until I fell into Toshiro's arms, our connected wrists touching as he wrapped his free arm around my waist to steady me. Tatsuya and I were both angry at that point and I could feel the blood pounding in my head as everything went red. I could feel my fangs lengthening and it surprised me a little, enough so that I leapt back as far as I could until our arms were stretched out. I was shivering a little when I realized that the feeling I hadn't had in a very long time was back, the one where I wanted to bite the first person nearby and drink their blood. My own blood was burning in my veins and I was beginning to get frightened, so I lifted my free hand so I could gaze at it. I was unsure about if I should just bite my hand or force the feeling down, but that wasn't for me to decide as Toshiro grabbed my wrist and yanked me onto his lap.

"Get out of here, Espada," Toshiro said quickly. "We need a bit of privacy." Grimmjow looked confused, but he did as he was told with no questions asked. Toshiro grabbed me by the chin and tilted my head back just enough so that our eyes met. "Your irises have turned red and you are shaking. I told you before that if this situation arrived again, you could bite me and drink as much as you need to make the feeling go away. I don't even feel it anymore."

"No, I won't!" I yelped, trying to escape but he wouldn't let me.

"The faster you just bite me, the quicker it will be over with," he told me earnestly. "I know you hate it, but it just has to be done."

With a light whimper, I leaned closer to his neck and gently bit down so I wouldn't hurt him. He didn't flinch or make a sound so I tried to make it quick. The moment I had taken the edge off so he couldn't protest, I pulled away and sank my fangs into my hand before moving away so he could grab me again. He tried his best to stop me but I kept dodging his advances until I drank enough so I felt stable once more. What… is going on with me? I thought to myself, feeling horrified at what had just happened.

I pulled my fangs free and used healing kido on my hand. Next, I moved over to Toshiro, who was expressionless, and quickly did the same for him. His fierce gaze was locked on me the entire time, which only succeeded in making me apprehensive. Even though his face was blank, I could feel the anger through the bond. I was getting even more nervous and my hand began to shake, Toshiro grabbing it when I was finished healing him.

"Just so you know, I realize why you did that," he said quietly as his eyes softened. "I may not like it, but I understand."

He stood up and pulled me along with him, making me grumble the entire time but he at least lengthened the chain a little. I noticed that he was looking paler than normal and before he could force us to leave the room, I walked over to him and leaned my forehead against his back between his shoulder blades. "What's going on with me, Shiro?" I whispered in a pained voice. "First, I get overly aggressive with people and now I bite you. I haven't done that in two years…"

"Don't worry," he said gently. "I'll be here to help you figure it out. I won't let anything else like that happen to you."

"Thank you," I told him, wrapping my arms around him from behind and hugging him. He lightly stroked the top of my hand with his fingertips before I let him go and we both left the room.

As we walked down the hall, he shortened the chain keeping us together so it wouldn't drag on the ground. After that, we headed towards the room where the smell of food was coming from and I sighed as my stomach growled. I hadn't eaten all day and my Gigai was not happy with that. I could see a tiny smile on Toshiro's face before he pulled me closer with a tug of his arm and we both entered the room. Food was set out on the table and I tried running over to it when Toshiro stopped in the door way, forcing me to have to stop a few feet away from him. When I growled at him, everyone looked up at us and noticed the kido keeping us together.

"Well, this is certainly going to be an interesting situation," Ichigo said, more to himself than to anyone else.

"Captain, is there a particular reason why you've used a forbidden kido on your wife?" Rangiku asked him.

"Yes, there is," he stated simply. "It's to keep my errant wife close by so I won't have to worry about her sneaking off somewhere and getting ambushed by the mystery guy. I wish I had thought of this years ago. Then neither Aizen nor Zayn could have attacked her."

"If you don't move towards the table with all the food on it, I'm seriously going to contemplate gnawing my hand off," I grumbled to him.

He gave me an amused smile. "That still wouldn't help you much. It would still be attached to your arm."

I groaned in exasperation but I started tugging on the kido connecting us until he finally moved in the direction I wanted. We moved over to the table and I plopped down in front of the food. The rest of the night was spent discussing plans for what to do next. It was decided that we would wait for a few days to see if this guy really did start stalking me and if so we would force him to come out. We would all go to a secluded area and wait for him to appear. Since I liked it and didn't really have a choice either way, I nodded in agreement and we started talking about trivial things until we turned in for the night.