Hey, guys! Sorry for the wait on the latest chapter! College has been hectic and time consuming. Since I know that you'll just want to get straight to the story, I'll just leave you to it! Enjoy!

Chapter 9

After passing through the portal, I stumbled a little and thankfully caught my balance before I fell like Ichigo. I hauled him to his feet and sliced through his bindings with my silver claws before Ryzen could stop me. Ichigo pulled the tape from his mouth and we both looked around at our surroundings. As far as I could tell, we were close to the edge of a forest that was pitch-black.

"Where do you think we are?" Ichigo asked me.

"This is a realm between the Soul Society and the Human World," Ryzen said, appearing through the trees with Taliya. "We call it Night Fall. It's a dimension that spends alternating months in darkness or light. We hold a festival just before The Changing and it's a glorious event to behold. In fact, you'll get to see one later if you play your cards right."

"You mean if I don't attack people unnecessarily," I said sarcastically. "I already told you that I would be on my utmost best behavior. So long as I am not provoked, it should be fine."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Ryzen said wanly before pointing towards the north. "Now, both of you start walking. Taliya, we have to make it look convincing, as if we were bringing in prisoners. Draw your sword and just lay it flat on your shoulder."

"Try to stab us with them and I'll kill you before you can," I told them before helping Ichigo to move forward.

We walked forward into the forest and I made sure not to reach for Tatsuya, instead keeping hold of Ichigo's sleeve. He had a hardened look on his face, assessing the situation as we made our way along. "Imayru," Ichigo whispered to me, "do you think we can get out of this alive?"

"Of course we can," I told him quietly. "I don't have a limiter here. If they try something, they'll find themselves in a world of hurt. I told Toshiro that we'd be back in forty-eight hours and I fully intend on making it back by then."

"I can't even feel your reiatsu here," he said. "Why is that?"

"It's integrating into this world," I stated plainly. "Give it a few minutes and you'll feel it like there's a whole army of Soul Reapers. In fact, so will they."

"What do you mean?"

"We're almost there and a huge crowd of Exiles awaits us. We'll have to pass through them if we're to get to the castle. Don't worry, Ichigo."

It was the one time I didn't like being right. We went five minutes before the trees began to thin a little. Before us was a huge basin-like valley with buildings everywhere that completely surrounded it and at its center was a hill with huge castle that stretched up to the sky. I looked down at the city below to see that there was a road made from silvery bricks all the way to the castle and up to where we were standing. On either side of the road, large crowds of people were waiting for our arrival and they all looked angry.

"Time to go greet the good people of Night Fall," Ryzen said and I looked back at him to see his huge sword on his shoulder, the jagged edge facing away from his neck. Taliya was doing the same thing, only she looked very nervous about what we were going to do.

We started making our way down the hill and towards the city. "It's called Jikan City," Taliya said softly. "It was tiny in the beginning but we've gained a lot of people since it was first created. It can be quite beautiful."

I wasn't too convinced but it was the first time being there. All I could do was hopefully find a way to get past the fact that we were about to enter a mob zone. As we walked down to the flat of the basin, I held my head high and walked past proudly, keeping my fingers hidden in my long sleeves so that people couldn't see my silver claws at their tips. Ichigo looked on high alert, especially when the furious glaring shifted to yelling and screaming. Most of it was directed at me since I was a Soul Reaper captain and at one point an armed man ran out from the crowd. I didn't lose my composure as I sidestepped at the last second and stuck my foot out so he tripped, hearing Ryzen's groan of exasperation before he hauled the man in question to his feet.

He punched him as hard as he could in the jaw, knocking the man unconscious and tossing him back into the crowd, before angrily roaring, "The next person who breaks rank dies by my hand! Spread the word for this is a direct order from Prince Ryzen!"

Now that they knew how serious a situation it was, they backed off and only hurled insults at Ichigo and me. I ignored them and carried on walking down the road, making sure that no one got too close a second time. I didn't once feel relieved as we finally passed through the gates to the castle because it was worse in there. The guards were lined up along the road with weapons of their own, glaring hatefully at me as if they could burn me where I stood. It wasn't until one guard tried to sneak up on me from behind, which I knew what he was doing the entire time, that I lashed out. He tried to pull Tatsuya from its sheath and so I whipped around faster than he could react before slashing his cheek with my claws. He howled in agony before falling to the ground and that was when all hell broke loose. The group of them rushed towards me and I bared my fangs at them as I let my eyes flash red in my rage, the ground shaking subtly as I readied myself for a fight.

"Enough!" a regal voice commanded from above, the guards skidding to a halt to look up at a balcony. Standing there was a woman with long white hair and black eyes, a silver crown upon her head that told me she was the queen. What bothered me was that there was a slight prickling pain in my head whenever I looked at her. "That girl is suspected of being the Lost Princess. I don't want any harm coming to her until I know for sure." With that, she turned around and walked back away from the balcony, the silvery dress she was wearing fluttering in the breeze.

Ryzen jumped into action, pointing his blade towards the guards before bellowing, "You heard the queen! Now back off! If I find out that someone hurts this girl or her friend, they will be charged with treason and immediately put to death!"

They all seemed to calm down but they didn't look very happy about the order. They went off to do their separate things and Ryzen pushed me forward towards the front doors to the castle. I grumbled a little under my breath but did as he wanted, walking forward as the doors opened for us. It was as we made it to the Main Hall that I could see a young girl running down the stairs. She looked like a younger version of Taliya, except for the fact that she had long hair and kept her expressions blank. She stopped a few feet away from us and looked at Ryzen and Taliya.

"Big brother and sister," she said with a bow. "Welcome home. It's been a while."

"Really, Sonya, there's no need to be so uptight," Taliya told her with a wan smile.

Sunny! the young girl's voice called out to me in my mind. I grunted a little and placed a hand on my head, wishing I wouldn't have these weird flashbacks so often. They were beginning to concern me in ways I didn't understand. Taliya noticed it quickly for she gave me a worried glance before turning back to the little girl before us.

"Why did you bring Soul Reapers back?" Sonya asked, looking at Ryzen to direct her question at him.

"We think that this girl is the Lost Princess," he explained simply. "We're using her friend to assure her compliance while she's here with us."

"But you shouldn't have brought her here," she insisted. "Can't you feel her reiatsu?"

Ryzen hesitated for a few seconds and I knew that he was catching on. Damn, I've been found out, I thought to myself as Ichigo looked over at me. He knew just as well as I that things would possibly take a turn for the worst. I could hear Ryzen's footsteps as he walked forward and before long, he was standing in front of me with an angry look on his face.

"Your reiatsu is hazy, almost like it's not even there," he growled. "In the Soul Society, it was clear and could be felt for miles. What have you done?"

"Just making sure that I have an escape plan if it's needed," I told him seriously. "If I have another person try to kill me, I'll be forced to retaliate by blowing up the whole dimension."

"You don't have enough power to do that," he said before grabbing me by the front of my dragon kimono and lifting me into the air. "No one does. It's impossible."

"Oh, but I do have enough power to do exactly that," I said with a devious grin. "While I'm in this dimension, I don't have a limiter on me. The reason the ground shook outside earlier when the guards threatened to attack was because of me. If I wanted to, I could definitely destroy the place. Want to see?" To prove my point, I began to concentrate on my anger so the ground started rumbling, escalating after a few seconds until Ryzen finally dropped me to my feet.

"Stop it," he told me. "You've made your point. I swear to you that no one else will try to attack you again. You have my word that I will take them down before they ever reach you. You'd probably have too much fun fighting them in the first place."

With a shrug, I let some of my reiatsu filter back, just so he could feel like it was back to normal. What he didn't know was that I still had a few tendrils of it integrated into the dimension. Ryzen and Taliya lead us up the stairs with Sonya leading the way, Taliya walking beside me towards the back of the group. She kept shooting me glances every once in a while, like she was begging me with her eyes to remember any little piece of information about them. When we reached a doorway near the top of the stairs, she grabbed me by the arm and dragged me inside, locking the door behind us.

Before I could ask her what she thought she was doing, she quickly asked, "Doyourememberanythingelse?"

"Slow down and repeat what you just said a second time," I told her with a frown.

Taliya took a deep breath before asking, "Do you remember anything else? Anything that is associated with this realm?"

"I remember a name," I told her. "When I looked at Sonya, I heard someone say 'Sunny' in my mind."

"It is you, Imi!" Taliya gushed before she rushed at me, hugging me before I could stop her. "You can't tell me that you're not her! No one else can possibly know that but you!"

"Listen," I sighed as I pushed her away, "I'm not the one you're looking for. It has to be someone else."

"No, it's not!" she yelled vehemently. "You are my older sister and Ryzen's twin! You are the future queen!"

"Tally," a gentle voice said from the door, startling us both when we realized that it had been locked beforehand. We both looked over to see that it was Ryzen peeking his head in the doorway. "Don't push her. If it really is Imi, then pushing her lost memory will not help. If anything, it will only exacerbate the situation. Just let her remember what she can at her own pace."

Looking chastised, Taliya quickly walked out of the room without another word, pushing past Ryzen as fast as she could. He met my gaze harshly, almost like he blamed me for something that had just happened. "There's no need to act that way to Taliya. She only wants her sister back."

"Do you think that I'm your lost twin, too?"

"My twin wouldn't have become a captain of the people we despise," he said with a shake of his head. "She especially would not have married another captain. I think that it's just a lead that's driving us away from my real twin." With that, he opened the door wide and beckoned for me to exit the room, where Ichigo was already waiting. We were led by only Ryzen now until we reached a long hallway with several different doors. "This wing is entirely for our honored guests. There will be Guardians posted in the hallway, so don't leave the room or let anyone in unless it's me or Taliya." He practically shoved us in and shut the door behind us, a click of the lock engaging with a key.

With a sigh, I turned to look at Ichigo. "I guess we're not getting out of this one anytime soon."

If Imayru was here, she would say that I was being my usual obsessive self. I had a whole stack of papers and was writing report after report as fast as I could. I had even taken Rangiku's share, finishing that an hour after starting the endeavor. I didn't stop for lunch and I had the door to my office locked to anyone and everyone. It wasn't until I saw three people attempting to sneak in through my window that I became exasperated. It was Rangiku, Momo, and Rukia, all three of whom were trying to come in at the exact same time so that they looked rather stuck. All of them froze in place when I turned my gaze to them.

"Having issues, are we?" I asked them, giving them a look of disinterest.

"No," all three of them said simultaneously.

"Of course not," I said before going back to the paperwork. "Carry on then."

After about five minutes of struggling, I heard Rangiku yelp, "Come on, captain! Help us out of here!"

I let out a sigh but got up from my chair to walk over to them. I grabbed the hands of Momo, who was in the middle, and pulled as hard as I could. After a little resistance, all three of them toppled out of the window and into my office, landing on me with a thump. I gasped as the wind was knocked out of me before I tried to push them off, coughing heavily as I tried to regain my breath. I pushed myself to my feet and walked back over to the desk, sitting down tiresomely as I continued to cough.

"Now, what are you guys doing here?" I asked them when I felt like I could breathe. "I don't relish being at the bottom of a dogpile."

"You're the one that insisted on locking yourself away, Lil' Shiro!" Momo called out, giving me a stern look.

"It's not like I will be locked in here for long," I told them. "It would only be until Imayru gets back."

"That's two days!" Rangiku said as she dragged herself and the other two onto their feet. "You are not staying in this room for two days! Get him, girls!"

They ran over to me at the same time and grabbed me before I was even out of my chair. "Wait a minute!" I yelled as they dragged me towards the door, Rukia unlocking it before they pulled me outside. "This is going way too far! Unhand me now before I force you to!"

"Not going to happen!" Rukia said as they led me out of Squad 10. "We're taking you somewhere so you can relax."

It was then that I remembered something that Imayru told me about what they put her through when they wanted her to relax. "Oh, no you don't!" I yelled before digging my heels into the ground, making it harder for them to move me. "You are not taking me to the spa! It's one thing to be dragged there by Imayru, but another thing entirely to go with you three!"

"Damn, he figured it out," Rangiku said under her breath. "Captain Hitsugaya, you're either going to cooperate or we will hogtie you and carry you there ourselves!" She let me go long enough to pull handkerchiefs from her pockets, all of which were tied together in a long rope. When I gave her a dubious look, she grinned mischievously. "Don't tempt me because I'll do it! Imayru wouldn't want you to worry about nothing! You know she never breaks a promise, so she'll be back."

"I'm still not going anywhere near a spa," I told them before I shook them off and flash stepped away. I could hear their shouts behind me and knew that I was going to have to hide because they were persistent. I quickly found the one hiding place that only my wife would know about and that was the branches of the huge cherry blossom tree. It was so full of petals that you couldn't see the trunk in some places, which is exactly where I hid. I could still hear their shouts, but no one could track me down after I used a kido spell that would cover my reiatsu. "If you could see me now, Imayru… you'd be laughing hysterically." Before I knew it, I was sitting on one of the branches and relaxing against the trunk until I slowly fell asleep.

Ichigo had long since fallen asleep, especially after the fact that it had been hours after we had been locked in the room. I let him take the bed because I was intending to sit up on one of the wooden beams in the high vaulted ceiling. I knew that I probably wouldn't be sleeping well while I was in Night Fall and if I did it would only be in small bursts. I had a bad feeling about this city of Jikan but it was one that I couldn't put my finger on. It was when I sensed a strong spiritual pressure attempting to sneak up on me that I started to chuckle a little.

"I can sense you outside the window, Ryzen," I said softly so that I wouldn't wake up Ichigo.

There was the sound of a thump against the wall before Ryzen came into sight, a red mark on his forehead that made me think he had hit his head on purpose. After opening the window and crawling inside, he jumped up high until he landed on the beam near the ceiling and sat down beside me. "I should be surprised that you could sense me sneaking up on you, but you are—"

"Don't finish that sentence," I said sternly, noticing his surprise out of the corner of my eye.

He looked rebuked and fell silent for the longest time before speaking up again. "Can I tell you about my twin? I'm sure Taliya has told you about her, but I want you to know about her from my point of view."

"Why not," I said with a sigh. "Let's hear more about this girl you think I am."

"When we were little, she was our light," Ryzen said as he looking up at the ceiling. "She came up with nicknames for everyone she cared for and remembered each and every one of them. She was wild and carefree during her free time, but she would instantly turn deathly serious when it was required. She was an excellent swordfighter and far surpassed my skill, training me so that I could be just as good as she. Our mother knew that she had the perfect temperament for being a queen one day and all I wanted was to become stronger because I was going to become her Guardian."

"What happened that day when she disappeared?" I asked him quietly, still refusing to look at him directly. "Taliya told me a little but she doesn't know the full story."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw his expressions darken. "As I was training with a Guardian to learn the basics of becoming one myself, she ran across the training field at a sprint with a joyous look on her face. I remember the Guardian laughing and calling her "Night Fall's little warrior princess" before he left to let me talk with her. She excitedly told me about how someone informed her of a special herb that could help our mother and it was one that could be found in our secret hiding place. It was a month of night and it was dangerous to go near there because the way to hiding place was through the forest where the Hollows roamed. She told me that she could get us both there and back before the Hollows could track us down. I let her convince me and we left for the forest together.

"Getting to that field was too easy and we didn't see a single Hollow the way there. She bounced through the field, packing the herbs that had been described to her into her pockets. It was around that time that I noticed a dagger sticking out of one of the belt loops of her dress. I was about to ask her about it when we heard the roaring of Hollows. It wasn't just one, but many. She dropped the plants she picked up and ran towards me, grabbing me by the hand and running faster than I had ever seen her go before. She tried to get us back to the city, but Hollows kept cutting off our escape and so we had to go deeper into the forest. We reached the very edge of the deepest part of the forest, one that was a wall of black. We were expressly told never to go in there because strange things happened in that section of the forest. She froze in a cleared out area just before the wall of darkness, searching for some place to hide when she found a huge tree with a hollowed out portion near the roots. She dragged me over to it and threw me in, making me land in a dip in the ground where I couldn't be seen should I hunch down.

"The roaring was getting closer and I begged for her to follow me into the hole in the tree, but all she did was give me a smile. She told me that there wasn't enough room, that someone needed to lead the Hollows away, and that I needed to take care of our siblings if she didn't come back. Before I could stop her, she ran out into the middle of the clearing and grabbed a few rocks, throwing them out into the trees and screaming at the top of her lungs for them to come and get her. When they finally got closer, she pulled out the dagger and began to glow with this unnatural light, her eyes blazing fiercely and a determined grin on her face. When one Hollow dived at her, she jumped up and slashed through its mask with enough strength to kill it. She screamed at them again like a wild animal before she sprinted towards the darkness with all of them on her tail. I don't remember much after that except that I was high up in the branches of a tree when I was found."

"She sounds like she would be a force to be reckoned with if she was still here," I said softly. "I would have liked to meet her."

"Look in the mirror," he told me. "If you aren't her, then she would be just like you if she was around." I sighed a little at his words and he noticed my disapproval. "Haven't you felt like there are pieces of your soul missing, ones that can't be filled by substitutes?"

"No," I said quickly. "To say I did would be to say that the ones I consider to be like family are insignificant."

"Do you remember your true family?"

"No."

"Do you remember anything about your life in the Land of the Living?"

"No."

"Then how can you be so sure that—?"

"I am not your twin!" I yelled, hearing Ichigo sit up in the bed. "You said it yourself that your sister would never become a Soul Reaper! I don't know any of you and you are mistaken! I think that you've been searching for so long that you'd settle for something that is as close as you can get!"

"Imayru, are you alright?" Ichigo asked sleepily.

"Yeah, I'm fine," I growled. "Ryzen was just leaving."

I turned to glare at Ryzen, who put up his hands in a non-threatening manner. "Fine then. Don't believe a word I said. I'll let you figure it out on your own." He stood up and jumped down from the beam, walking over to the window and stopping before he left. "By the way… if my mother thinks that you are her long lost daughter, she will most likely do everything she can to make you stay. And she'll test you to see if you are. I hope you know to act differently when she is around." With those words, he left the room entirely.

"You don't sound fine," Ichigo said as he got off the bed and walked to the beam. "What's wrong?"

"There are things that don't add up from my past," I said quietly. "They keep using those holes in my memory to insert this little girl I don't know or remember into those holes. I can't be one of them. If I was an Exile princess, how did I get to the Soul Society?"

"Strange things happen," he told me. "If you are that princess, maybe you stumbled into a portal in the dark."

"I want to go into the forest," I announced as I stood up. "If I go now, they'll never know I was gone."

"You're not going alone. Toshiro would kill me if he found out that I just let you go exploring on your own!"

"Oh, come on, Ichigo!" I grumbled. "I am a captain! I can handle myself! I've proven on several different occasions that I'm a powerhouse!"

I jumped down onto the floor before flash stepping out the window, soaring through the air like a dragon. I heard a few curse words shouted from behind me and knew that Ichigo was following after me. I could see the huge forest stretching out like a sea of trees and further in as far as the eye could see was darkness. That's the place, I whispered inwardly as I headed downward. I dropped onto a branch higher up and a hundred feet away from the edge of darkness. With another jump, I landed lightly on my feet in the grass as I looked around at my surroundings. I was about to head closer to the dark wall when I saw the hollowed out portion of the tree that Ryzen spoke of.

Like a ghostly version of a movie that made that prickly headache come back, I could see a little girl that had long black hair with a boy the same age run over to the tree. The girl shoved the boy inside, saying something to him with a gentle smile on her face before she whipped around with a determined look on her face. It was one that I could remember well and when the Hollows came, the little girl struck back and killed one before running as fast as she could to the darkness. I took a step forward towards the darkness as well when I felt the headache increase to the point where it was like a knife stabbing through my brain. I hissed in pain before falling to my knees, using one arm to keep myself from falling on my face entirely.

Help!

I heard that scream again and the pain increased to the point where I threw up. It felt like it would go on forever until I reached the point where I was only dry heaving. The feeling of evil that only came around with a Hollow surface with the scream, but I could only shudder and feel fear because of my vulnerable state. The moment my stomach settled, I slid Tatsuya from its sheath and whipped around, going to slice into my opponent when I stopped at the last second because I saw that it wasn't a Hollow. It was only Ichigo, who ducked at the last second.

"I'm… sorry," I panted, feeling ashamed that I had almost killed my friend. I turned back around and headed towards the wall of darkness before Ichigo grabbed me by the wrist. "What are you doing?"

"Don't go in there," he told me seriously. "I get a bad feeling from it and I don't think it's a good idea."

"We don't go in there for a reason," a voice called out and I recognized it as Taliya's. "That part is known as Kage Forest. It is both sacred and cursed."

"How is that possible?" Ichigo asked sarcastically.

"Our people have an old legend about that forest," she said as she walked closer. "It was once said that the ancestors of the Exiles arrived in Night Fall through Kage Forest after being chased by the Soul Reapers. If those stories are true, then there is a portal of some sort that connects our world to yours. That's just a rumor told by the older generation. The stories that circulate now about Kage Forest is that monsters of the worst kind roam in its shadows, picking off anyone who strays inside."

"So why do you all think that the Lost Princess is alive?" I asked her.

"Our strongest Guardian tracked her reiatsu through Kage Forest until she reached a certain point where she must have fallen and hit her head off of a rock. There was blood there and the Guardian said that her reiatsu shifted before she kept going. He said that the rumors behind our world connecting yours are true, so long as the proper conditions are met, and that she must have wandered into the Soul Society. He said that because she hit her head off the rock and her reiatsu shifted that there was a chance she could have lost her memory." Taliya focused entirely on me before saying, "That's why I think that it's you. She was just as resourceful, regardless of the situation."

With those words, she beckoned for use to follow after her so we could head back to the castle unnoticed.