Disclaimer: Bleach, its characters and its settings don't belong to me.

I had to turn away from Morissato as I looked through his manga, I was shaking that hard.

His manga called 'The Substitute.'

It had Yamichika on the cover.

Yamichika was chasing-

Ganju.

Well it wasn't quite Ganju, the artist had made some changes, but I knew who it was supposed to be.

"Say, uh Morisato-san, do you have the next one of these? I've already seen this one."

"Sure, Sado-san."

Renji and Ikkaku couldn't have known about this - no strike that - Pineapple and Bald Bastard couldn't have known about these, there was no way. Ikkaku would have gone through the roof if he'd seen this.

There on the cover of this comic book, standing silhouetted against the sun, side by side against the terrible Ryoka-

Ikkaku and me.

The only, and I mean the only solace I could take in this was Ikkaku, had he known, would be a lot madder than me.

I had to open it. It was like when you're a kid and you've got a loose tooth. You know it's going to hurt, but you just can't stop poking at it. Then I started looking for any kind of name on it, anything at all, a publisher, a printer-

Nothing, there wasn't even a price on the damn thing. It looked like something that had been printed up (badly) in some back alley and sold off a truck. Except the shinigami involved were real, me and Ikkaku, Yumichka, we were all addressed by name. I recognized a few others too.

Someone had changed the story.

It missed some of the more important details, like the fact I broke in to the Seireitei, and that I was actually one of these terrible Ryoka invaders I was supposed to be fighting. Or somehow I was both, it was really hard to follow. Probably because I knew how it actually happened. I could only guess the changes the hound of hell artist made in earlier issues.

There was a frame with Ishida and Orihime dressed as Reapers.

I had to turn the page.

I didn't want to borrow too many of Morisato's books off him. The last thing I needed was a suspicious roommate, and there I was in the comic book he was reading. Somehow, lucky for me, it never occurred to him that add a mop of orange hair and I'd be the guy on page two.

Had to wonder how long that was going to last.

Needless to say I didn't sleep well that evening. Eventually I managed to doze off, forgot to search out Yuzu, then managed to wake up too late to go find her. I didn't fall back to sleep for the rest of the night.

Got up early because I was already awake, took a walk. Technically we weren't allowed off school grounds after dark. In practice anyone with a shunpo is taken for a seated officer on business, so nobody tried to stop me.

Needed to think. There was no reason for Morisato-san to assume I was the guy in the comic, that was ridiculous, it was a preposterous idea. People could laugh it off as long as I never let it rile me. Eventually someone was going to make the joke and I'd be ready for it. It was a resemblance, nothing more, and a resemblance to a comic book at that.

In the manga I still have both eyes.

As long as I kept my patch on and didn't do anything to stand out I should be fine. Just be ready for the day the joke comes.

There's nothing I can do about the manga, but I had to get to Yuzu today, she was a ticking Ichi-nii bomb.

Damn it.

There was a way around the manga, but I wasn't sure I wanted to take it. I could get word to Renji or Ikkaku, one of them could filter word up through the ranks. Theoretically any mention of me was banned, that made the comic illegal, right?

Only problem would be a potential deluge of shinigami turning over the school. I'd need to be off campus if that happened and I doubt we'd get a lot of warning. Plus they might do it after dark when everyone was supposed to be on campus anyway. Presumably they'd send a seated officer to run the search, call it an eighth seat.

As in someone who might just see me flash by.

Flash speed scales with spirit pressure but that's not the only factor, there's your speed relative to your actual power, I guess you could call it your efficiency. While my speed is way down from the patch it'd be awfully hard to explain why I've got an efficiency that rivals a captain.

Scratch that, it'd be utterly impossible.

According to Yoruichi my shunpo is almost at the absolute cutting edge of speed for my power output. It's all relative; Byakuya is actually at the edge, and Yoruichi is somewhere ahead of the edge. I'm stronger than both of them but over flat ground Yoruichi pulls ahead of me – back in the day it only took her a minute or two to be out of sight, and that's when I was full up.

Byakuya never had any trouble pacing me.

Yoruichi's a freak that way, or at least a statistical aberration. Theoretically she's faster then shunpo is capable of being for someone with her spirit pressure. Her pressure is very, very high to start with.

And that's Yoruichi-taicho now, one of the people who'd be chasing me down. Granted I'm stronger then I was, and we never ran a foot race with my mask and my bankai, but Yoruichi-

She was faster than Byakuya and I. I don't think she ever really opened it up wide, she didn't have to. Meaning I've got absolutely no idea how much thunder she had left in reserve.

Being seen by that eighth seat was a very real possibility unless I amped up before I shunpoed, way, way up. Blazing up bright was not a good idea if the shinigami were already on their way, especially if the scanning equipment at twelfth division has been specifically tuned to locate my reitsu-

Sheesh. It'd be safer just to ignore the damn manga and hope nobody official every found out about it. Hell, if any of the students found out who'd ratted they'd make my life miserable and maybe goad me into doing something stupid anyway.

Yeah, don't do anything yet. Take a few days to decide; it wasn't the sort of thing I'd be able to reverse if it went south on me. I don't like taking needless chances.

Strange words from a shinigami, eh?

I'm a shinigami again.

I would have to find a way to show Ikkaku though – I wanted to show Pachinko the page where he was all smashed up on the ground and I raced in to save him.

Fair's fair, the bastard shaved my head.

It's going to be a long seven years. After that it'll be a strange eternity.

It wouldn't be boring though. Stressful, but certainly not boring.

I'm glad I have friends to back me up, somehow that makes it all okay. Maybe one day we'll be able to sit back and laugh about all of this.

Right now I think I need a drink.