It was nice and dark by the time we reached the school. Ichigo had got another shinigami from his squad, apparently to protect me if something happened. Che. I'm not a kid, you know. I'm in tenth grade already.

The other guy had spiky blond hair, almost golden amber eyes, and he was about a foot taller than me. He seemed about my age too, but you never know with shinigami. He was definitely not like Ichigo, because he smiled at me when he saw me.

The field looked dark and deserted, but you could still feel the reiatsu coming from it.

"It's the same," muttered Rukia. "We must report this at once."

"Do we tell Yamamoto now?" asked Ichigo, perplexed. "I mean, other than a connection between these incidents, what else do we have for him?"

While they were discussing this, I went to the middle of the field. Reiatsu was strongest here, so I wanted to see if I could find anything.

I bent down, my hand on the ground.

"What are you doing?"

I turned around. It was that shinigami assigned by Ichigo. He must have been watching me all along.

"Nothing," I said, turning my face away to hide the slight blush which I was sure was creeping up my face. That guy was cute.

He smiled. "You can't be having such a serious expression for nothing."

He bent down next to me. "You're just like Kurosaki-taicho," he said.

"Why so?" I asked.

"Your favorite expression seems to be a scowl, just like him."

I scowled at that, and he laughed.

"By the way, what is your name?"

"Kurosaki Karin," I muttered, still scowling. "What about yours?"

"Inakura Daryun, 3rd seat, squad 10," he replied. "But call me Daryun only. I have a feeling we'd be getting to know each other pretty well."

"Inakura!" came Ichigo's voice. "Come here!"

Daryun looked up. "Yes, taicho!"

Then he looked at me and smiled. "Be right back," and then he was off.

I watched him go to Ichigo, then turned my attention to the ground again.

I wanted to see if I could sense something else, something to help make sense of this whole incident. But nothing else felt out of place, at least to my untrained senses.

I walked over to where the three shinigami were standing.

Ichigo and Rukia seemed to be having a heated argument, while Daryun looked plain puzzled.

"What's this about?" I asked Daryun.

"No clue," he replied. "Kurosaki-taicho called me here, but since then these two have been going on nonstop."

I couldn't hold back a soft chuckle. Ichigo and Rukia had always been like that, since the very first day.

"I am not going to be cleaning out the barracks!" shouted Rukia, turning away from Ichigo.

My eyes widened in surprise. "Seriously?" I asked. "You'd been fighting all this while about who's gonna clean out the barracks?"

Both of them looked at me, realizing maybe for the first time that I and Daryun were hearing everything they said.

"Uh," started Ichigo, while Rukia blushed a little in embarrassment. "We were just discussing the, um, consequences of sending the Head Captain a wrong report."

"And where does Daryun come into the picture then?" I asked him sternly, while from the corner of my eye I noticed that Daryun was trying his best not to laugh out loud.

"Uh, well…that is…" he began, then suddenly realized something. "Wait a sec! Since when are you both close enough to use first names?"

Now it was my turn to stammer. "Uh, well….since now!"

Ichigo glared at Daryun, who inched a step back out of nervousness.

"Um, Rukia-neesan," I asked her. "Why is Ichi-nii emitting such a dark aura?"

She stifled a laugh. "A brother's sense of protectiveness."

I still didn't understand, but I let it slide. Well, I guess I had to, as just then Rukia's phone started beeping.

When Ichigo was just a substitute, Rukia would get all messages from Soul Society on her phone. Now, even though Ichigo could get the messages directly, he still seemed to prefer letting Rukia handle that area. I guess some things never change.

"Unidentified reiatsu, 30 km west Karakura," read Rukia, then turned to Ichigo. "You know what that means,"

Ichigo nodded, grim determination setting on his face. "Let's go."

He then turned to Daryun. "Inakura," he said, all dark auras from the past lost. "Take Karin home. The going gets dangerous from here."

"Yes, taicho," Daryun replied immediately.

"If anything happens, call me. I don't care what."

Daryun nodded. Ichigo looked at me next.

"And no whining!"

"Yeah, yeah," I said. "I'm not stupid."

"Sometimes I wonder," he muttered, and before I could respond, he and Rukia shunpoed away.