Disclaimer: KHAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNN!

EDIT: Chapter edited and fixed as of the 12/16/12 update. Pretty sure I missed stuff, should get a beta reader.

This chapter is brought to you by the most awful video-game movie adaptation ever.

The First Guardian

Chapter Seven – You'd make the Mad Hatter cry

Ishida Uryū was a very patient person. He was skilled with his hands, and he would combine his skills with his patience to create articles of clothing of the greatest quality. He took pride in being capable of taking measure of anyone's body with just a glance and applying the measurements to any work he decided to try.

He was also level-headed. He always planned ahead, and in dire situations he would always stay calm and assess all possibilities along with pros and cons.

He was proud, of both his skills and his own behavior, and it reflected on his tall posture with his head held high and serene face.

Yes, Ishida was very content with his own person.

Then Kurosaki Ichigo came along.

That guy, he managed in a single day to take down everything Ishida prided himself in. His cool-head? He managed to infuriate him like nothing else (except maybe his father) ever had. And his skills? Kurosaki beat him without even using his sword.

It was safe to say that Kurosaki Ichigo drove him mad.

But then there was the riddle behind the orange veil of hair, the guy was not stupid by any stretch of the word – nevermind his bouts of strange behavior, those failed to hide the brains behind the eyes.

After his humiliating defeat, Ishida, albeit reluctantly, followed the Shinigami's advice and cleared his head before putting some thought into both his actions and that of his enemy.

He had been reckless, and fought an enemy infuriated while said enemy kept a cool head. He had not taken into account any of the Kurosaki Shinigami's strengths, and did not think of any countermeasures other than 'stay away from the sharp hunk of metal'.

The Shinigami had alluded to something else, and Ishida admitted that perhaps he could have handled it better if he had put himself in Ichigo's position first.

He had said he would protect the girl no matter what. This brought to light the fact that Ishida had been wrong about his motivations. He figured that the guy was fighting Hollows on principle, or perhaps mere survival; after all, he had a very notable spiritual pressure, so Hollows would be attracted to him like cows to barbed-wire fences. To the same results, too.

Hah, stupid cows.

Perhaps his motives were far more altruistic? Where they more like that of the Quincy people? Did he want to protect something, someone or everyone? Uryū couldn't focus on his homework like this; he needed to find out just what made the new Shinigami tick. He could always try a direct approach, but that would probably involve him apologizing, and the day he did that would be the day the Shinigami Captain-Commander bowed and apologized to Ishida. Maybe he should actually give the guy a chance?

That was about as likely as-

Wait, what?

There was a knock on his window, and he turned from his desk to see just what was-

"What the fuck?" Ishida wasn't one to swear, but looking at the situation, who could blame him?

Out there, hanging upside-down and with a deadpan look on his face was Kurosaki Ichigo, dressed in his black Shinigami uniform and knocking on his window as if it was his apartment door.

It was with great incredulity that he opened his window. The Shinigami immediately jumped into his room.

"What the hell are you doing here?" His tone was hostile, though not as much as he'd want it to, blame the surprise for that.

"Well hello to you too, how was your day? Mine was great, I met this Karaoke singer who looked an awful lot like you, and it was a woman, by the way."

And now his surprise faded and let the rest of his anger show, "This is an illegal entrance!"

"Nuh-uh" The look on Kurosaki's was that of an obstinate child.

"Yes it is!" And Uryū was annoyed he was actually having this conversation.

"Nuh-uh, you opened your window, you let me in. Be glad I didn't just phase through the wall, I could have caught you busy with yourself or something." Ichigo visibly shuddered.

"How did you get this address?" Ishida was shouting now.

"I- Uh… Asked Orihime, yeah. She knew where you lived so-"

"I know Inoue-san, but she doesn't know where I live. Stop lying, Kurosaki!"

Ichigo looked like a kid caught shaving his neighbor's cat. With a flamethrower.

"… Did you steal this information by sneaking into the school records, Kurosaki?"

"Stealing is such a strong word…"

Ishida palmed his face, thankful he had taken off his glasses. What the hell is up with this guy? He took a few deep breaths, he had promised himself he'd give the Shinigami a chance, painful as that was. His anger faded a bit.

"Just… What do you want?" He was resigned to his fate.

"I needed to ask you something."

Ishida raised an eyebrow, maybe this was the chance he wanted to see just what this guy's trick was.

"Yes?"

"Oh yeah" Ichigo dug into his left, and only, sleeve and took out something that he held to Ishida's face.

It was a thin, rectangular object, with a metallic sheen to it – perhaps it was indeed, made of some metal or alloy. And it had the word 'card' engraved on it.

"Tell me what you see here." Ichigo asked honestly, if a bit eager.

"It's… a card."

"Well, duh. Anything else?"

Now Uryū frowned, was there something he was missing? He reached with his senses, and was surprised. The card itself was right in front of him, but as an object he could not feel it at all, almost as if it was too far away to get a reading on it.

"What is this?"

"See, I'm not sure. This is what I used to purify Hollow souls instead of destroying them before I – well, you know," Ichigo shrugged "But now it's become something else, and I'm not sure what. Can you feel anything, I don't know, spiritual in it?"

"No… not really."

"Oh." Ichigo felt silent while contemplating this development. And Ishida took that as his chance to ask him his own questions, but Ichigo interrupted him again.

"That's a strange painting on your wall."

Ishida turned to look at the wall in question, except it wasn't a wall, it was just his closet and there was no painting hanging on it.

"What're you talking a-" The Shinigami was gone.

Ishida growled in frustration, what the fuck was that all about?

Screw giving him a chance, he was going to get stronger and then he was going to put an arrow through his face.

"What the hell has this thing become?"

"Well, Ichigo, look at it this way. When we do find out what it is, it'll probably turn into a nifty Deus Ex Machina device."

"What would I want that for?"

"You're the hero; you're supposed to pull new things out of your ass now and then to make your life interesting."

"I thought that was to beat the bad guys?"

"As I said, interesting. Come to think of it, we don't have a bad guy as of yet."

"What are the Hollows, chopped liver?"

"Cannon fodder."

"That's harsh. Don't let them hear you say that, what if they have a syndicate or something?"

"I'll worry about anything related to the Hollows the day I see one that can actually scratch you when you're at your best."

"Thanks for the ego boost."

"Don't let it go to your head, moron."

Ichigo wanted to get a few things done this weekend, alone. So Rukia had to stay home.

Unfortunately, this also meant it would be suspicious for her to be around without Ichigo, so they had to use that Gikongan they got from Urahara.

Well, it behaved decently, so that was some consolation.

"I still don't understand how you guys can trust some other being with your bodies."

"They're not our bodies, they're gigai. And you may be a special case, but you have to do things the same way we do, so suck it up." Rukia left no room for argument there.

"Fine, give me that thing." Rukia handed him the sphere containing the artificial soul, and with some reluctance he swallowed it.

This was different. Instead of being pulled out of his body through one point as it was with Rukia's glove, he felt himself being pushed out of it from behind.

He eyed his body, which was standing; he had never seen it from outside doing that. His body opened its eyes and looked around, and once he saw Ichigo standing in front of him, it took a firm posture and saluted, "Shinigami-sama! Pleasure to meet you, this one will take care of your body while you're absent with fault, sir!"

Ichigo eyed it once more, he noticed Rukia doing the same, though she had a frown in her face as she did it.

"Very well, he seems decent enough. You sure you don't wanna go out with the girls today or something, Rukia?"

Rukia looked strangely at his body and then looked towards Ichigo once more, "It wouldn't be the same without – err, without being at school. Besides, there is… something off, can't say for sure though." And she was thinking about something again.

Ichigo shrugged, "Suit yourself, I'm going. Take care."

Rukia looked at Ichigo's retreating form through his room's window for a while, then turned around to face the-

"Where did he go?"

Then she heard it, faint, coming from the opposite direction Ichigo had left. She heard a very, very gleeful yell of "FREEEEEDOOOOOOM!" and her stomach dropped.

"I knew something was off!" So she jumped out the window, rounded the house, and ran after the direction she figured the strange Gikongan in Ichigo's body had taken.

Ichigo should have probably asked her to elaborate a little bit. He was glad she'd at least be safe at home, but he wasn't sure it was truly safe to leave her alone anywhere with his dad in it. What if he actually gets her a nurse uniform?

"You know you want to get her one yourself."

He rolled his eyes as he arrived at the location he was planning to spend the rest of his day at, Urahara-Shōten.

"Today is going to be an interesting day."

"Hey, Bucket-man!" Ichigo called out. The door to the shop opened immediately, almost as if they were expecting him.

"Hello, Ichigo-san! Welcome to my humble shop! How can I be of service to you today?"

"Where you waiting behind the door for anyone to come?"

"Why would you say that, Ichigo-san?" The man got a funny look on his face and hid it behind his fan.

"I think you do that to open the door immediately and check on your would-be customer's reaction."

"That's ridiculous."

"I know. That's why I think you'd do just that."

"The man needs a hobby."

"Anyways, Geta-guy, I was wondering if you could help me with something." This was the hard part.

"Oh, and what is it that you think I could be of help with?" Now the man was interested.

"I need to train." Ichigo now had a serious look, and his scowl somehow deepened as he looked Urahara in the face.

"And why do you think I could be of any help with that? I am just a humble shopkeeper."

"I just need someplace to train at without messing up the town, and I figured you'd probably know if there's a place like that in Karakura."

"Messing up the town? Just what do you have in mind that you think you'd need such a place? You've been doing fine on your own."

"I haven't trained in my Shikai."

Urahara stopped fanning himself for a second, he had nearly forgotten. The kid knows the name of his sword, and apparently has since he got it. That link between the boy and his Zanpakutō was something that interested Kisuke greatly. It was unprecedented, after all. So perhaps this was a chance to find out more?

"Come with me." He turned and walked into his shop.

"Bingo."

Ichigo nodded and walked after the shop keeper.

"Holy shit! Who put a place so big down here? How it this possible?"

The basement was big, scratch that, enormous. It had rock and dirt as floor, a fake sky and Ichigo could not begin to see the other end from the entrance.

But that's not what had him twitching; it was that the one who exclaimed all of that was Urahara Kisuke himself.

"What the hell is up with this guy?"

"So, what do you think, Ichigo? Think it's enough?"

Ichigo knew it was enough, but he still made a show of pretending to take a look to make sure of it.

"… Yeah, I guess it'll do."

"Excellent, do you wish for us to start now?"

"Us? I was planning to train alone."

Urahara smiled "Oh? I thought you wanted me to help?"

Ichigo just shrugged "You're giving me a place to train, that's plenty of help."

"And what do I get in exchange? You want to train in MY basement, and then you want me to give you some privacy, surely you don't think I'll do that for free."

"He didn't have a problem when he thought he was going to train you."

"I know. He's interested in me. Let's see what I can do with that."

"I'd rather be worried about what HE can do with that. He's a known molester by now, stay the hell away from him."

"Are you ever gonna let that go?"

"It was HIM that wouldn't let go of me."

Ichigo frowned, however. The next part was actually harder than asking for help had been, he still wasn't sure he wanted to trust this guy.

"… I'll owe you one favor." Ichigo grunted.

Urahara smiled deviously "One favor? Make it two favors, and we have a deal."

Ichigo gritted his teeth, but he figured some sacrifices are necessary "Deal. But I can use this place whenever I want for the rest of the year."

"Next couple of months; we'll see what we work out from there."

Ichigo nodded, that was fair enough. Though he had a feeling he'd be kicking himself later.

"Alright, then. Have fun!" The shop keeper said cheerfully as he went back upstairs to his shop.

"That… I'm not sure how that went."

"I guess it depends on who you ask. I feel the future you will say it went horrible."

"I'll burn that bridge to the ground when I get there."

"Good, now about that release phrase…"

Kisuke was sitting happily on the closed trapdoor that led to his basement, he was just bidding his time to go down and turn in one of the favors Ichigo now owed him. It wouldn't be so hard; he figured Ichigo needed it for his body as much as Kisuke's peace of mind did at that moment.

The place shook with an explosion, "The kid is working really hard, if the explosions are anything to go by." He wondered what that was all about, was his Zanpakutō a Kidō type? He didn't think it sane for a Zanpakutō to blow things up with a swing. Or was he just practicing Kidō? Maybe, but he had said he needed to practice using his Shikai, so that ruled it out.

It was really starting to bother him to not know nearly enough about Kurosaki Ichigo, though apparently his blade was to blame for the lack of information on its name and abilities. He couldn't blame Ichigo for that, some Zanpakutō can b e a bit… weird. "Though if his Zanpakutō is nearly as interesting as Ichigo is…" He shuddered at that.

"Oh well, it has been two hours, should be enough time for him to get a bit exhausted."

"Tessai! Ururu! Jinta! Come over here, I have something I need some help with! And Tessai, be a dear and bring the stairway."

"At least it'll be fun."

Ichigo was beginning to sweat; he had finished training using his Shikai thirty minutes ago, and was now using his somehow larger amounts of spiritual energy to practice on some Kidō. Mostly just to check how much power he needed for some of them.

The bigger explosions he could cause now had absolutely nothing to do with it.

He was about to begin a new incantation when he heard his name being called.

"Ichigo-san! Please come over here a moment!"

Ichigo frowned, he had asked for privacy; hopefully it wouldn't take too long. He walked over with his now-re-sealed Zanpakutō over his right shoulder and an annoyed look.

"What do you want, Geta-weirdo?" He now noticed the shop keeper wasn't alone, he had those two kids who helped clean around the store and a big guy, probably about Chad's height, though not nearly as big, and with an amazing mustache.

"We should try growing a mustache."

"You know all facial hair you get looks like a just-entering-puberty girl's-"

"Yeah, yeah. Don't have to be a dick about it, though."

As usual, Kisuke wasn't offended in the slightest by one of Ichigo's nickname for him, "I figured you'd be done with your Shikai now, and was wondering if you'd accept some help with some other… things."

Ichigo scoffed, "I don't need your-"

"Before you turn me down, note that I'm calling one of the markers you gave me."

"He's got you there."

"That makes no sense. How is helping me a favor for him?"

"I believe I made my point about this before."

"You had no point whatsoever."

"Hmph."

"… Very well. What do you have in mind?"

"Excellent!" Urahara signaled to Tessai, who nodded and walked past Ichigo and put what looked like a small pyramid on the ground.

Then the object started glowing, and growing. It kept growing until it was the size of a 3 story building and about a block wide.

"What the hell is that?"

It WAS a pyramid, kind of. It had a flat top and its walls were just stairs. Now that he looked at it that way, it looked more like a stairway.

"It's a stairway."

Ichigo snorted, "Of course it's a stairway, what else could it be?"

"It could be an alien ship."

Ichigo decided to switch the subject.

"What is it for?"

"To go up and down, duh."

"Why would I want to do that?"

"Training, of course."

"He's doing the same thing we do. Hit him, Ichigo."

"Just give me the whole explanation already!"

Urahara smiled, he was finally getting the kid to react, "Well, the instant you touch that stairway, your energy will begin draining. The purpose for this is not to make you tired faster; I don't see how that would help, but to put your energy out of balance."

Ichigo raised an eyebrow "Why would I need that?"

"If it's harder to get a hold of your energy, then when you finally do it without a handicap it should be a lot easier. You'll be running up and down this stairway, so that you'll train yourself physically as well. While you do that, you'll be using Kidō, more specifically, Hadō to hit two barriers that Tessai will place both at the bottom of the stairway and at the top. The deal is that you'll try to shatter those barrier, when you manage it, then we'll know your control over your energy has improved. Then we'll place a better barrier."

Ichigo's eyes had gone wide, that was actually a pretty good method, if a bit strange.

"But since when do I do normal?"

"You don't do anything. At this pace I fear you'll die a virgin."

"Shut up."

"That sounds… alright. When do we get started?"

"As soon as you start running up the stairwell. Oh, I don't think it necessary to point out that you can't use Shunpō during this."

Ichigo nodded and began running at a relaxed pace, when he was halfway up the stairway he felt a Kidō barrier appear behind him, he looked back and saw it spanned the whole stairway, "He's good."

He looked up and saw the other barrier appear, with the man, Tessai, standing behind it and looking stern.

Ichigo began an incantation, and felt that his energy was being very slowly drained through his whole legs, even when he wasn't stepping on the stairway. It took him a bit to get a hold of it, but when he did he fired the first thing that came to mind, "Hadō #4: Byakurai!" He pointed his fingers at the top barrier, but the lightning that came out of them barely made if fizzle a little bit.

This wouldn't be easy at all.

He was running back downstairs and began getting ready to fire again when suddenly the hair in the back of his head stood up; he jumped to one side and felt how the ground he was previously standing on exploded, bits of stairway flying everywhere.

"What the fuck?"

Where he was previously standing now stood Ururu, the little girl that worked in the shop. Not just that, but judging by her position she had just caused that explosion with just her fist.

"Get ready." She spoke in her gentle voice, though now it had a bit of a drone to it, and leapt at him with her fist cocked back, ready to make his ribcage cave in.

Ichigo leapt back once again, but then felt a huge something slam against his right side and send him up towards the top of the stairway.

The red-haired kid, Jinta, stood where he had been with a smug-look on his face, and an enormous spiked bat made out of metal.

"Shit, now what?"

"Ichigo-san! I forgot to mention, Ururu and Jinta will provide as much distraction as possible to keep you on your toes, and you'll have to learn to think faster! Oh, and you're not allowed to use your Shikai or your sword or attack them in any way! Think of it as 'Hard Mode' Ichigo-san! Oh, and don't worry about the stairway, it fixes itself in a few seconds!" He looked really cheery as he said it.

Ichigo stood up and felt for his ribs, there was now only a bruise, his regeneration had kicked in.

"He's fucking crazy!"

"He make sense, though – DODGE! – As I was saying, you've made it a habit of thinking too much during a fight."

"That's never been a problem!" He ducked under a swing of Jinta's bat only to get punched in the chest by Ururu.

"Because so far you've been curb-stomping all of your enemies in seconds. You haven't had a long fight against strong multiple opponents. Sometimes you have to react before you think. Bucket-guy has the right idea; he's training you to react faster and better. You still have to take down those barriers as well."

Ichigo jumped far from Ururu and prepared to use a Shakkahō on the lower barrier when suddenly Jinta hit him with the bat from behind.

"Hard Mode indeed."

Ichigo felt completely defeated, he had not managed to bring down either of the barriers after five hours of trying to. His only consolation is that he got his less and less often by the two kids – no, demons, as the time went by.

"What the hell did he feed those kids?"

"Interested?"

"Have to keep Karin away from it."

He was lying on his back on the bottom of the stairwell, breathing heavier than he could remember ever doing. Urahara was sitting cross-legged on the floor close to his head, fanning himself and nodding.

"Ichigo-san, remarkable progress so far! But I'm afraid we'll have to end it here for today."

Ichigo protested, "No, just… just give me a couple of minutes, I'll be ready for another go then."

Urahara kept his smile on and stood up "That's not it, Ichigo-san. While I'm pretty sure you really need to get your pride back after being kicked around by two kids," Ichigo twitched, "I'm afraid that we must end it today because Kuchiki-san has come to pick you up."

Ichigo couldn't hide the surprised look on his face "What?"

"I said, Kuchiki-san has come to-"

"No, I mean. She shouldn't even know-"

"Ichigo!"

Rukia was walking towards them, looking as if she had somehow channeled Arisawa Tatsuki, stomping on the ground. She looked disheveled, and she was dragging something – wait, his body? Yeah, she was dragging his body behind her. Ichigo sat up.

"Rukia? What the hell happened to you? What're you doing with my body? And how the hell did you find me?"

Rukia glared at him and Ichigo almost felt the force of the glare physically push him back.

"Your Reiatsu is easy to spot; I could feel it all the way across Karakura."

Kisuke got a calculating look on his face that went ignored by the two, "Ah, I suspected it would be like that." He didn't feel the need to point out that his basement was designed so that no one could feel any Reiatsu in it from the outside.

"That's straying from the point!" She turned her angry look to Kisuke, who involuntarily took a step back, "You! You gave us that Gikongan! It wasn't an artificial soul at all! It was a mod-soul! Those are illegal, and dangerous! How could you?"

Kisuke was beginning to sweat "This isn't exactly going as planned."

Ichigo tuned out Rukia's tirade for a bit as he examined his body, it was sprawled on the ground looking as if it had been run over by a train, which he figured was because Rukia had a go at it. It also reeked of… alcohol? He noted with interest that yes - that was a very strong scent of alcohol coming from his body. There wasn't any damage on the body proper, though his clothes looked to be beyond all repair, he figured his body had regenerated. It was knocked out cold with a goofy look that looked completely out of place on Ichigo's face. His hair was perfect, he noted with relief.

"He broke into a bank's security safe! He consumed enough liquor to kill several men! There were several women looking to get restriction orders on him! I finally caught him – oh and you wouldn't guess where – in a whore house! Of all the horrible, disgusting places! If I had not gotten there in time, who knows what would have happened with Ichigo's virtue!"

Kisuke was trying not to laugh. Oh, he was terrified, alright. But the events that the mod-soul had been through were just too much.

"Do you have any idea how many memories I had to modify? At least half of the city's police force was after him! Ichigo would be facing who knows how long in your human world's jails if I hadn't gotten there in time!"

Rukia kept on and on for a good ten minutes, and when she finished, she looked a lot less flustered, but still incredibly angry.

"Well?" Rukia asked, still glaring holes into Kisuke's fan over his face."

"Well what, Rukia-san?"

"What do you intend to do about this? You gave us a faulty product! I demand a refund!"

"I gave it to you for free, Rukia-san."

"Then I think you should at least take it back and give us-"

"Nonsense."

Rukia lost all the wind on her sails, and turned around at Ichigo with an incredulous look.

"What do you mean nonsense?"

"I mean that only nonsense is coming out of your word-hole, Rukia."

"What the- of all the- just- what?" She seemed to have trouble making her tongue do what she wanted it to do.

"I am completely satisfied with the product, so I believe I will be keeping it."

"What?"

"Ah, very good! It pleases me greatly to hear that, Ichigo-san."

Ichigo nodded and picked up his body – there was no way in hell he was going into it during the next twenty-four hours, he knew all about hangovers.

"I and this fellow here will get along just fine. Let's go Rukia."

"He'll need a name, Ichigo."

"We'll give it some thought when we get home."

Rukia stood still for a moment, as if her brain was still mid-reboot. Then she took a deep breath, and walked after Ichigo while resuming her tirade, except this time it was aimed at the orange-haired lunatic.

Kisuke smiled as he saw them leave, then went to pick up the training equipment as he hummed a happy song.

"My, what a very entertaining couple those customers of mine turned out to be."

Cut!

The movie I'm talking about is Street Fighter – any of them. They all suck so badly I almost felt my soul rot a little as I watched them.

This chapter was going to be longer at first, but I had to take a scene away simply because it felt out of place, that threw it out of whack a little bit so I had to do some editing. It would have been out sooner otherwise.

Before an observant nitpicker asks why Ichigo didn't feel Rukia as she went to the shop, I'll just say he was too damn tired to notice his own feet. So, yeah.

Yep, that's Kon everybody. There are times in which he's really annoying as a character in canon, but I find it hard to not like the little fella.

Leave me a review with your thoughts, and I hope you enjoyed the chapter. I know I did, it was rather fun to write.

- Flameal out.