Hey guys! Here's the next chapter! But first quick shout out to TheSkandranon who has reviewed every single one of my chapters on this story and gives me good ideas, I basically love you at this point. (I have a slight tendency to get attached to my reviewers, I apologise XD) Anyway, I hope you guys enjoy this chapter.

SUMMARY: The rate at which time passed in the human world never failed to surprise Toshiro. It just went so quick. Humans advanced so quickly, they grew so quickly. Toshiro never realised how quick until he ran into a certain 'girl' again.

Chapter 9: Time

Tōshirō had never understood the phrase 'life is short'. It seemed to go on forever. He had been stuck in the same routine for years now. When he started to get involved with the human world he started to understand where the phrase came from. Their lives seemed to pass so quickly. When he first met Ichigo and his friends they seemed so young. Physically older than him sure, but mentally they were quite young. Not unwise, they were inexperienced more than anything else. Only four years had passed since he first met them and yet they seemed to have grown so much. They were a lot more mature these days. It was strange to think that a group of people could change so much in only four years. It was a foreign concept to him.

Four years was not a long time, not to him anyway. Barely anything changed in Soul Society in just four years. Change was very slow in the spirit world. But the human world had already changed so much. Tōshirō could remember the first time a shinigami brought back a digital camera from the human world. Almost everyone was fascinated by it and the technology behind it. They were amazed that such a small device could capture an exact image almost instantly. Since then quite a few shinigami had acquired digital cameras, and generally speaking human technology and inventions were talked about a lot more actively than before.

That really didn't seem so long ago and yet the majority of human now had touch screen devices that could take good quality photos, play music, play games, use as a phone and go on the internet (whatever that was), and it could fit into your pocket. How quickly humans advanced and evolved never failed to surprise him. It was what, fifty or sixty years ago when humans had computers that could barely fit in one large room and now they fit in your pocket. Fifty-sixty years was less than half of his life time for god's sake. They just developed so quickly. Tōshirō honestly had no idea how they kept up.

It wasn't just their techniques, their equipment and devices that advanced so quickly. They themselves seemed to evolve so quickly these days. On average, humans were becoming taller, stronger, faster. World records seemed to be broken all of the time. Humans just kept going, advancing, changing, all of the time. It actually meant that the souls living in Rukongai were getting a lot more diverse. 100 years ago the vast majority were completely Japanese, these days all sorts of nationalities were showing up. Truth be told Tōshirō loved the fact that things were changing, he was starting to get bored, but it was still so weird to think about. They really did change quickly. Their lives seemed to pass quickly For humans life really was short.

Every time he travelled to the human world he was shocked by their growth. Although the source of the shock changed every time. The last one possibly being the most interesting. Rangiku and Orihime had ended up getting quite excited about seeing each other, and got pretty loud. Tōshirō didn't really want to ruin their fun, as they hadn't seen each other for over a year, so he decided to take a walk to see if he could find somewhere else to write his report.

Unconsciously he made his way to the railing he often ended up sitting on, more out of habit than anything else. He ended up bumping into a young woman. He didn't think anything of it until he looked at her properly. She was fairly tall, taller than him anyway. She was well proportioned as well, her legs long with a slightly curvy figure. She was wearing tight jeans and a tank top. Her long hair was tied back into a high ponytail. Her eyes were large, and a very dark blue that they were almost black. Tōshirō paused. Her face seemed familiar and it took him a moment to realise why. When he did he struggled to keep the shock off his face.

The woman in front of him was the same little girl he played football with four years ago. Except she wasn't a little girl any more. Far from it in fact. If he hadn't known for a fact that she was fourteen he would've thought that she was a fully grown woman. She certainly looked like it. He hadn't seen her in about three and a half years, and she had changed so much in that time. She had grown up very quickly. Time seemed to go so quickly in the human world. They both looked like children when they met, and in the three years or so he hadn't seen her, he hadn't changed at all. But she had practically grown into a woman. It seemed like she managed to skip the entire teenager stage.

Looking back at it now that probably when he realised how quickly time went in the human world.

It wasn't long after that meeting that Karin had died, or rather, was attacked. Tōshirō would've liked to have been very sad about it and thinking that it was unfortunate, but honestly he saw it coming. The girl was practically a beacon for hollows. He had saw it coming for a while now. But it wasn't that bad actually. She died about three minutes before Yuzu. The girls had been together when they were attacked. Ichigo practically spent half of his time in Soul Society or doing shinigami business and their father had revealed himself as a shinigami. The entire family was either dead or a shinigami. So they just all ended up in Soul Society, although Ichigo still visits the human world occasionally. Isshin worked as a spare shinigami, not really assigned to a squad, just helped people where help was needed, similar to Ichigo. While Yuzu wasn't a shinigami, nor training to be one (not yet anyway) she spent a lot of her time in the fourth squad either cooking, cleaning or helping. She enjoyed her time there and the squad seemed to enjoy having her.

And Karin? Well Tōshirō was currently watching her train, sparring with Rangiku. She hadn't gotten much older between their last meeting in the human world and her death. And she had barely aged a day since her death, not having changed at all. Tōshirō however had gotten a bit taller. Tōshirō was secretly glad that she had died while she was young. He knew it was bad to think this way, but it meant that she wasn't growing anywhere near as quickly as she was. It meant Tōshirō could catch up. He had already started, he was only a few inches shorter than her now. They could practically grow together. But it also meant that he could spend more time with her, something he enjoyed a lot.

He watched as Karin beat Rangiku (although he knew that Rangiku was going very easy on her) and she winked at him. Before he could stop himself he smirked. He felt like kicking himself when he saw that Rangiku had noticed his response. He knew he was going to get teased a lot for this later. He looked over to Karin again, who was now stretching to make sure she wouldn't have any muscle problems. He sighed. Maybe he enjoyed spending time with her a little too much.

Ok so I know the whole time passing thing has kinda been a recurring theme, but honestly I do feel like it would amaze Toshiro constantly. I mean how quickly time goes amazes me on a regular basis, and if you ask me humans and shinigami have different concepts of time, so yeah. I actually have the next two chapters completely written out, they're are 'Lies' (the next chapter) and 'Bandage' (the one after that, number 11). I just need to edit them and proof-read them, even though I'm a little busy at the moment and I probably won't have internet connection over the weekend, I imagine they'll get posted pretty quick (but if they don't you guys know why). Thanks a lot for all of the faves, alerts and reviews and what not I really appreciate them and I love getting the emails telling me I have them haha. I hope you look forward to next chapter!