Rangiku looked up from her work for a brief moment and glanced at Kadaj. The Remnant was fast asleep on the couch, zanpaktou leaning against the side within easy reach should he need it. Even in a place of safety he was cautious.

"Poor guy." Rangiku sighed, giving him a sympathetic glance. "Hm, maybe I can get him to go out with me, Izuru and Shuhei for a drink. Shouldn't be too much of a problem."

The Lieutenant glanced at her stack which was noticeably smaller than before. She was proud of how much work she'd done, even if it had taken her hours to do it.

"Just a few more." She decided. "That'll keep the Captain happy even if I get drunk. Why didn't I ever think of this before? Hm…then again, it is boring."

She shook her head and steeled herself to do another set before she'd wake up the silverette on the couch and go find her drinking buddies.

For a brief moment, Kadaj's eyes opened, his normal emerald glowing a sickly green before he blinked and the evil in their depths vanished. He sat up, startled.

"Something wrong?" Rangiku asked, noticing his confused expression.

"Er…no, it's nothing." He shrugged it off and lay back down. He could have sworn he heard Sephiroth's voice.

In the World of the Living, Toshiro stood in his Gigai with Vincent and Yuffie in the Southwest part of Karakura Town. They hadn't seen any of the Kurosakis but from Toshiro's earlier remarks about their fights they'd probably be busy for a while.

"Where do you think Sephiroth is?" Yuffie asked aloud as a general question, noticing Toshiro seemed to be busy typing something into his Soul Pager.

"He's good at hiding in the shadows." Vincent replied. "He could be anywhere."

"And Toshiro can't track his Spiritual Pressure." Yuffie huffed.

"That's Captain Hitsugaya." Toshiro snapped, not looking up from the screen.

"R-right."

Finished with whatever he was doing, Toshiro pocketed his Soul Pager and turned his gaze to the sky. There had been Hollows appearing in the town and he'd expected them to come for the power Vincent had, but they seemed more interested in where Ichigo and Cloud were. He could understand that, what with the both of them having a high amount of Spirit Energy, but to ignore Vincent…were they perhaps afraid of him? Due to having three demons turned into Hollows, perhaps they assumed he was one of their own even with his Soul Reaper powers.

Perhaps they thought he was an Arrancar.

That was no good, Vincent would never learn how to get along with and use Chaos's power if he didn't have any practice, and god knows Yuffie needed practice. He let his Spiritual Pressure rise slightly, hoping his power would attract some attention as he covered over Vincent's dark energy. The Gaians turned to him with quirked eyebrows.

Before they could ask anything, however, three Hollows bounded in from the South towards him and they both tensed.

"Those are relatively weak Hollows." Toshiro said as Yuffie and Vincent swallowed a Soul Candy and separated from their bodies, the souls inside backing up behind Hitsugaya. "I don't think you'll even need Shikai for them."

"Yeah, but I wanna practice." Yuffie pouted and held her katana blade before her, the hilt wrapped in light green with a yellow ribbon at the base of the four-pointed silver star guard. "Fly, Silivrenmeril!"

Once she had the beautiful weapon in her grasp she spun it in her hand before tossing it, directing it with her Spirit Energy as her zanpaktou had taught her to do during meditation. It cut through two of the Hollows before flying its way back to her. One of the Hollows vanished into blue spirit particles while the other bled heavily from the stump that used to be its arm. The third one, still healthy, charged at the ninja.

Vincent stepped in front and parried the claw strike with a swift cut through the Hollow's mask. For a trained gunman he was steady with a blade.

The one with the missing arm was quickly realizing it was overpowered, but the pull of that delicious icy soul standing calmly away from the fight was too good to pass up and it charged towards the white haired child. The black haired man was quick to step in its way and finished it off with one stroke.

'Hmph, great job making me feel useless.' Chaos grumbled.

'I don't need to be shooting everything, not with how powerful your attacks are.'

The demon zanpaktou waved him off and went silent.

"The two of you have improved quite a bit." Toshiro remarked. "At this rate you'll master your zanpaktou's Shikai in only a week or two."

"Sweet!" Yuffie cheered, sealing her zanpaktou and sheathing it.

While Yuffie hummed happily to herself and Vincent attempted to search for any nearby Hollows with his Spiritual Pressure, Toshiro remained silent and wondered how the others were doing. Rangiku should be reporting in soon with how Kadaj was doing. Considering that he was a battle loving man stuck in an office with Rangiku, he was bound to go stir crazy. Toshiro wanted to avoid his office being blown up again.

A sudden Spiritual Pressure caught his attention and he stood quickly, the Gaians looking his way. In a matter of seconds he recognized it.

"Looks like the Visoreds are here." He sighed, just as several figures Flash stepped into their group.

"Oh look, the midget Captain is here." Smirked a girl with blonde hair in wild ponytails and brown eyes, a red jacket on over a white tank top and red sweatpants.

"Hello, Sarugaki." Toshiro replied with an icy tone, the temperature dropping. It was obvious right then they didn't get along.

"Oi, I told you to call me Hiyori, dammit!" The girl growled at him, moving to get close to his face. Toshiro glared back at her and said nothing. "Well, answer me!"

"Leave me alone, Sarugaki." He said, emphasizing her name.

She fumed until a large man picked her up by the collar and pulled her away from the Ice Captain, her thrashing the entire time.

"Hachi, lemme go!" She growled at the man in a green suit with pink hair and mustache, a black X marked into his hair.

"You should really get along better with the Soul Reapers." Hachi said in a soft tone.

"Like Hell I will!" She continued ranting while Vincent and Yuffie looked at her strangely.

A young woman stepped over to them. She had braided black hair and turquoise eyes and was wearing a sailor outfit with a short teal skirt and collar.

"Lisa Yadomaru." She introduced herself to Vincent. "Since those two are busy I'll explain why we're here. We heard you have an Inner Hollow."

"Three, actually." Vincent corrected.

Hiyori froze and looked at him and Hachi let her go, dropping her to the ground. Lisa's bored expression quickly became surprised.

"Wait a minute; Kisuke didn't say a damn thing about three Inner Hollows." Hiyori growled at the tall gunman. She frowned at his height difference over her but said nothing about it.

"Well now you know." Toshiro replied, causing the blonde to turn and stick her tongue out at him. He ignored her.

"I guess you know these Hollow well then?" Hachi asked kindly.

"In my world they were demons." Vincent nodded. "I was able to control them and use their forms."

"Well using their Hollow abilities is a completely different game." Hiyori snapped, arms crossed. "And since you have three it's triple the work. So as soon as you're ready we're getting started. Got it?"

Vincent nodded, deciding it was better not to argue against such an obvious attitude problem. He had quite a few things he wanted to say but experience taught him it was a bad idea to say such things. Better to let her think she won and avoid pain.

'Hmph, pansy.' Chaos snickered.

"Just have Kisuke contact us when you're ready." Lisa said to the gunman and Flash Stepped away.

"Pleasure to meet you." Hachi gave a quick bow and followed after the black haired woman.

Giving Vincent a once over, Hiyori turned up her nose and finally left along with them. Toshiro let out a sigh of relief once the blonde was gone.

"Ever since the Winter War she's been a pain in the ass." He grumbled under his breath.

"So she's one of those Visored people?" Yuffie questioned. "The Soul Reapers with Inner Hollows like Ichigo?"

"Yes, those three are a few of them. The Squad Five Captain, Squad Three Captain, and Squad Nine Captain are also Visoreds and so is the second Lieutenant of Squad Nine." Toshiro explained. "She wanted her old position back but we couldn't just get rid of the current Lieutenant. There's one other Visored but he didn't seem to be here today."

"How did they all get Inner Hollows?"

"Aizen was experimenting with Hollowfication and used them as his subjects. Ichigo somehow got it in a different way…Kisuke seems to have an idea but won't say a thing."

"Aizen seems to cause all the problems." Yuffie noted aloud.

"Everything was well planned up until the point Ichigo gained more power than he'd expected him to and was locked up for his slight error. We're all glad he failed, otherwise this entire town would be gone."

"Something about a King's Key." Vincent said.

"Yes. I'm sure anyone involved in the Winter War can explain it to you, but for now you have company."

Though they hadn't noticed it with the distraction of the Visoreds, Toshiro had let his Spiritual Pressure leak out a little more than usual and it had drawn in a crowd of Hollows.

"Hm, there's quite a few of them." Toshiro said in a bored tone.

"We got it!" Yuffie leaped towards the closest one.

They both went into Shikai, as there were indeed quite a few Hollows, and worked hard to strengthen their blows and learn how to use the Shikai of their zanpaktous effectively. Vincent seemed to be having a little trouble with Chaos, as the blows steadily weakened.

"A zanpaktou should not endanger their master." Toshiro called out to him, knowing Chaos was listening as well. "Weapon or not, Chaos needs to learn that if he does not offer you his power you will die and so will he. But everything has two sides, which means you need to take time to learn how his power works as a zanpaktou and understand him. It's a mutual agreement between zanpaktou and master."

"We agree to disagree." Vincent grumbled back, taking three shots at a Hollow before finally killing it.

"Change that or you're dead."

Sighing as he dodged an attack from a Hollow, Vincent looked at the weapon in his hand.

'You heard him; we have to find a way to get along.' He said to the irritable demon.

'Oh, yes, because I totally want to get along with someone who has been and still is limiting my power with that thing in your chest.'

'The Protomateria? That's why you're so grumpy?'

'One of many reasons, Valentine.'

'I can't get rid of that, you'd try to take control again…and I don't know how.' Vincent took down another Hollow before backing away to let Yuffie have a go, her relationship with her zanpaktou clearly better than his considering the power behind her shuriken.

'The Soul Reapers are more than capable. As for your first excuse…well, that's what we need to work on, isn't it? Trust? Get rid of that stupid materia and I'll consider helping you…that thing drives me nuts.'

'How?'

'If only you knew. I feel like I'm tied up in invisible chains and having my head run through a blender, I can't think straight half the time. And that's putting it mildly.'

'I get it; I'll see what I can do.'

An agreement made, Chaos's power seemed to come a little easier to his call and made killing the rest of the Hollows much easier.

"Sweet!" Yuffie danced happily, resealing her zanpaktou and sheathing it before she cut someone…or herself.

While she celebrated, Toshiro approached the gunman with a slightly impressed look on his face.

"I suppose Chaos made some kind of agreement?" He asked, smirking slightly. Vincent heard Chaos growl at the boy.

'He annoys me too, stop hanging around him.' The demon demanded.

'Can't, he has too much in common with me, therefore he's teaching me and by extension you.' Vincent snapped back before focusing on the Ice Captain. "Something of the sort."

'The only thing he has in common with you is his Weapon partner.' Chaos growled, not about to be ignored.

"What did he say?" Toshiro asked, unaware of the man's inner debate.

'That's what I meant, Chaos. Hyorinmaru is probably willing to teach you how to be a zanpaktou if you didn't hate him so much.' Vincent replied quickly to Chaos. "He wants the Protomateria removed."

"Doesn't that keep him in check, prevent him from controlling you?" Toshiro looked suspicious.

"Yes, but…dammit Chaos, shut up." Vincent closed his eyes and mentally silenced his demon as he complained about being taught by the Ice Leviathan. "It is VERY hard to have two conversations at once."

"You'll get the hang of it." Toshiro smirked again. "I'm about to switch with Kuchiki and head over to Rui and Red, tell me about Chaos's demands for the Protomateria later when everyone is called in."

Vincent simply nodded and watched the white haired Captain walk away, unable to Flash Step in a Gigai. With him gone the Hollows seemed to give them a wide berth, to which Chaos grumbled again, and he and Yuffie returned to their own Gigais. The Artificial Souls didn't complain, though Yuffie's was rather obnoxious…much like her.

Rukia arrived later to help them out, as well as draw in the Hollows, and the day continued on.

Just imagine trying to hold two conversations at once...I can't. I can hardly hold one XD And just wait until his demons start talking to him again. That will be one Hell of a migraine. Poor Vince.

Enjoy!