Ichigo, like on most occasions when he was mad, scowled at he ceiling as if it was the source of all his problems. His plan he had masterly planned out in a matter of hours, that was almost guaranteed his freedom out of his cage and to bring justice to Aizen, was destroyed within a day after hearing that his parents had arrived in the city of souls with Rukia. He made a mental note to knock some sense in the midget later, or just yell at her for making such a stupid decision.
It was very likely that Soul Society might capture the two adults and use them as a bribe for his agreeable surrender or to make sure Ichigo doesn't try to escape. It was also very likely that the fifth squad captain will propose the idea just to make sure he won't do anything that might threaten his so called plans.
The Soul Reaper growled in disdain. He shouldn't be wasting his time on hating the glasses wearing captain and his tea drinking buddies. In just a few weeks, he's going to be disintegrated into dust with three captains he hated the most watching with their stupid grins, even though they were the ones who deserve it more than him. They were the ones who put him into this position.
The teen shook the thought off. He had to think of another plan. Plan after plan went into his mental trash bin. He decided that he'll just play by ear as things went on. Seeing how the glasses wearing soon-to-be traitor captain seems to be able to counter every one of Ichigo's plans with a simple choice. If he were to do things that even Ichigo himself wouldn't expect he'll do, then maybe he would bring Aizen to justice once and for all.
"Um, Ichigo?" a meek voice asked from the doorway, interrupting Ichigo's train of thought. The red head sat up and turned around to see a fourth division officer with a tray of food in his hands. At first, the teen didn't notice it, but after seeing the food, he realized that he had been hungry despite the wrist, ankle and neck restrainers that had been placed on him when he was captured.
"I-I-I br-brought y-your food," the officer stuttered. In the back of Ichigo's mind, he thought he knew this person. His dark hair and nervous voice certainly rang a bell.
"Hey, you're Yamada Tarou, right?" Ichigo asked in a casual mood, hoping to calm the nervous boy down a little but still curious about the identity of the officer. He apparently said the wrong name when the officer opened the cell and looked slightly disappointed.
But then, the fragile fourth division officer sighed in what seemed like relief after hearing Ichigo's question about his name.
"Um, no. It's actually Yamada Hanatarou. Even thought everybody says it is an easy name to remember, you seem to miss it every time, Lieutenant Kurosaki," Hanatarou smiled, as if he was relieved that Ichigo didn't change.
"Uh, sorry. I was never good with remembering names and faces," the red head apologized, feeling slight surprised someone was still calling him a lieutenant even though that someone looked as if he was going to kill him. He unlocked the gate and came in very casually, as if talking to an old friend.
"It's okay. We only met once, so I didn't expect you to remember. But I guess it's all right that you still remember me. We met once when you got into a fight a while back, before you became lieutenant of Squad Thirteen. You wounds really did scare me though. But I was really surprised that you survived them even though you were so young," the apparently very ordinary boy laughed. He set down the tray in front of the red head and locked the cell again.
Ichigo gave him a blank stare. He didn't remember that. He remembered Hanatarou as a person he met, but not where or when. He just assumed it was an officer who took care of him while he was in recovery. Now that he told him the story, he couldn't help but think that Aizen had something to do with this.
The lieutenant pushed the story aside and asked, "Hey, Hanatarou, what have you heard of Rukia and her group? Anything new about them coming into Soul Society?"
The meek officer began to speak only to be interrupted by an order of another officer.
"Hanatarou! Where are you? We need some help cleaning the mess hall! There's no way we're going to clean it if you're here!" the rude man yelled. The seventh seat officer looked away from the captive hesitantly and ran to the call. But along the way, he had dropped the keys to the cell and didn't notice they had fallen from his hands.
If there was a place above Soul Society, it was blessing him for all the good things he had done in his life. Ichigo was especially happy that the blessing was opportune moment. He carefully maneuvered his restrained hands through the bars to reach out towards the keys.
The keys were far off, but if he stretched a little, he could... maybe just reach enough to... almost...
'Hey King!'
Ichigo yelled in surprised which caused him to push the keys further away. If this was the way the place higher than Soul Society decided to punish him for all the times he fought officers to an almost fatal match, the universe truly did hate him and his guts.
'You know the whole name conversation we had a while back? I was thinking, how about Jirou or like Yori or something? I didn't want something girly, and I just remembered your talent for picking names and all,' Shiro joked, obviously talking about the mod soul back in the World of The Living.
Ichigo on the other hand didn't find the whole situation humorous at all.
"Why did you pick now to ask? I was this close to getting our freedom and you blew it by scaring me!" Ichigo was now sitting up now with his eyes closed. He was also very agitated with his Hollow, almost to a point it was getting childish.
'If you were so close to getting our freedom, then why weren't you more concentrated on getting the keys then being scared of me?' Shiro asked, his smiled could almost be heard as he put it on.
"Just shut up. I'm mad at you. I'm not even going to talk to you anymore," The Soul Reaper mumbled, acting very childish. He knew he didn't meant it, but the words just flew out of his mind.
'Aw... I can't remember you like this since you were like eleven. Really, Ichigo? Have you really dropped that low that you're arguing with me like you were eleven?' Shiro snickered and disappeared from Ichigo's thoughts. The keys in front of him taunted the captive as they stood still close to the doorway. It was no help that Shiro's laugh echoed his mind as he scowled at the keys.
"Just a minuet please, I just forgot something in here!" a familiar voice called out. Hanatarou appeared once again to find his keys in front of the doorway. Ichigo's amber eyes refused to looked directly into the physically weak boy and stared to the ground. He couldn't bare to destroy any hope that he was truly good and didn't want to kill anyone he saw now that it looked as if he was trying to escape.
Footsteps were then heard and slowly getting louder as the complains grew louder also. Then an unfamiliar click was heard and the squeaking of the cell door.
In front of Ichigo was his blade sheathed in its usual white cloth with the cell door open.
"Please hurry, Lieutenant Kurosaki. They'll find us both here and this would mean nothing. Rukia and the others have not arrived yet. Captain Ichimaru had said he took care of them. But they are not dead. Rumor has it though, they are looking towards the Shiba clan to get into the city," the seventh seat smiled as he spoke. It was clear that he hadn't believed the crimes he was falsely accused of and was very comfortable telling Ichigo all of these things even though it could mean his life might be turned in to the hands of the Court. He finished unlocking all of the restrainers and moved out of the way.
Without another word, Ichigo got out of the cell and passed Hanatarou.
He muttered a "Thank-you, and sorry," and silently knocked the generous kid out with his outrageous spiritual pressure. The officer was on the floor and had looked as if he was pressured to unlock the captive and then brought to unconsciousness. He knew this story would not last long if the fourth squad captain or someone with more wisdom than a regular officer came by, so Ichigo quickly ran through the door, raising his spiritual pressure gradually to attract more attention
'Looks like we're back and kicking king,' Shiro smiled. By his tone, it sounded as if he almost knew that this was going to happen, though he didn't comment. He was still mad at his Hollow.
'Hey King, you're still not mad at me, are ya?' The Hollow asked. His voice was slightly tainted by worry?
'Ichigo, what do you plan now that your parents have arrived?' the sword spirit asked, changing the subject of his wielder's thoughts.
"I'm not sure Zangetsu. We'll just play this on the spot and see what happens," Ichigo said and busted his way out of the fifth squad barracks and into the streets of the city of souls.
Masaki stared at the unusually large cannon in front of her. There was no doubt in her mind that this was how she and the rest of them were going to enter Soul Society. Beside her, Isshin looked annoyed if anything about this special lecture the Shiba leader was reciting. The history of them must have been far for him to be this disrespectful towards this woman.
"Listen up. This thing will end your worries in getting into Seireitei. 'How?' you ask? I'm going to blast you there by flying," Kukaku announced with her fist slightly shot into the air.
"B-by flying?" Rukia asked, confused on how they were going to achieve the task.
"Yup, or else my name isn't Kukaku Shiba, fireworks expert!" Isshin raised an eyebrow at her title and gave a little snort.
"Since when have you become an expert? Last time I knew you, you were still a novice at this! Shouldn't it still be, like graduate or something?" the old friend teased. His observant ears were rewarded with a firecracker thrown his way.
"Raise it up!" she ordered and the ceiling began to open and the ground below them rose to the surface. It took no longer than a minute to finish the hard task.
Masaki and Rukia were amazed at the effect while Isshin kept his very rare solemn face and Yoruichi looking the same as always.
"Impressed?" the leader smiled, observing the surprised looks on the two females.
"Not really," Isshin muttered, and had another firecracker coming his way.
"This is my own personal giant fireworks cannon!" the elder sister explained.
"The Kakaku Cannon!" Ganju interrupted and was kicked in the head for saying the title before his sister. It was really not the guys' best day.
The Shiba leader then went on, talking about how the cannonball of the cannon was going to be the group's spiritual pressure compressed into a dense sphere around them.
"Just take this cannonball and pour some spiritual pressure into it. It'll take it and do the rest itself. The hard part will be controlling it the whole time and making sure everyone is putting their effort equally too. You, noble, why don't you try?" The female master tossed the ball and almost immediately formed the sphere when Rukia touched it.
"This girl has talent!" One of the guards exclaimed.
The raven haired shinigami was speechless. She had never heard of this technology at school. It was completely new and foreign to her. And most of all, it was astounding how easily this technique was mastered.
For the most part.
Isshin was up next. Kakaku specially chose him, knowing full-well that this was the event that he was dreading. From the minute he picked up the spiritual pressure compressor, he knew no one, especially his wife, would let him live this down. In just several seconds, smoke arose and a giant "Boom!" was heard everywhere in Rukongai. For a split second before the explosion, the doctor could have saw a slight smile of nostalgia on the firework master's face.
"Isshin? Are you still okay?" his faithful wife coughed in the haze of smoke. She searched the cloud as best as she could, holding her breath as long as she could. As it cleared, she saw Kakaku's foot on top of the lunatic man and now-realized spiritual pressure user.
"So you forgot all the training I personally put you through, huh? Doesn't surprised me, after seeing you in what, thirty years? But really! I knew you were rusty at this, but I think this was worse than the first time we tried this!" Kakaku was slowly crushing her old friend's skull with her I'm-going-to-kill-you maniac smile.
Once the smoke cleared some more, it had looked like the whole place was covered in ashes from the exposition, even the people close enough to the explosion had soot covering their faces. Isshin faced the worst damage and was was completely covered from head to toe and almost looked as if he was a man made from the ash. The eccentric father knew he would have to clean the place up once they scored everyone's control over spiritual pressure.
Yoruichi had displayed it had the greatest talent. It didn't surprised anyone though. It was an obvious fact. The talking cat had many talents, including matching the speed of specially trained Soul Reapers.
The last to be scored was Masaki. She was the most interesting to watch. At first, no one expected anything to even shape, being a human with slight spiritual pressure to see spiritual beings after all. But they were all proven wrong when they saw the barrier being formed slowly and turning into an almost exact replica of Yoruichi's sphere. Her eyes slowly open from concentrating and was even surprised herself to see that it actually worked.
"Masaki! My loving spouse has proven that she has better control over her spiritual pressure! But how is this possible? She has not received any training of any sorts! Her husband had made sure of that, because he was always trying to protect her!" Isshin complained and attempted to hug his so-called loving spouse.
"Not this time Isshin," she gave a hard punch to the father and revealed a small charm in her other hand.
"That old charm? Didn't you give that to Isshin to protect him or something?" Yoruichi asked.
"Yeah, but he doesn't need it anymore. So I took it to Urahara and had him take a look at it and modified it so that I could manipulate spiritual pressure around the area around me to my pleasure. He said it kind of copied of the Quincy style, whatever that is," Masaki explained.
"The protective charm Masaki had given me! Oh she has finally taken it back and made it more useful for herself. I'm so proud to be named your husband!" Isshin proclaimed and danced around the area.
"Looks like that goat face is still the same as before. At least he isn't screaming about me like he used to," Kakaku muttered. She threw a bucket and a mop at the middle aged man without a single miss and ordered him to clean his mess up.
"Then we can go on with your training, seeing how everyone else, including your wife who you claimed had no practice at this, has surpassed you after you had years and years of practice with this! You can be assured that this training session will not be pleasant in any way," The Shiba leader smirked at the dreaded look she had caused and laughed away evilly.
"There are very few things I hate in this life. And meeting her has to be one of them," Isshin muttered, once again returning to his rare sulking mood.
A/N Thanks to NESK () for Shiro's name suggestion! I think I'll just have a poll for deciding what name Shiro will have. Suggestions for his name are still welcomed!