Chapter 4: To Tell You The Truth

Life went on in Karakura Town (as it tends to do). Ichigo stayed depressed, but it was not completely out of character. All his friends tried to snap him out of his stubborn insistence that it was his fault that his friend was dead. It was months before anyone saw him even come close to a smile. It was only days how ever before he went back to fighting monsters, and bullies.

One good thing came out of his loss. He grew closer to his sisters and even confided in his sister Karin. She had known he was a soul reaper for a very long time, but he refused to discuss it with her—for her protection. He remedied that mistake soon after things started to go back to normal and the pain was not so harsh.

Both his sitters had grown up. They were both very pretty. Ichigo knew this. Yuzu went out on dates. Ichigo hated it, but the sweet sibling stood up to her brother. She actually slapped him after she found out Ichigo was harassing her would-be boyfriend. The boy who stayed at Urahara's shop. Ichigo guessed the boy was alright and Yuzu was really happy with him so he grew to accept it.

Karin did not seem to have an interest in dating. She seemed to be waiting for someone. Ichigo sometimes saw her walk to a certain spot where the view of the sky was incredible, at least that was the reason she gave her brother for going there, "I like to look at the sky, it is really beautiful there." She had looked a little sad when she said that, but the sadness was lost on naive Ichigo.

Karin's lack of interest did not mean there were not boys interested in her. Quite the contrary. The little tom boy had grown into a very pretty, not girly, but pretty girl. Boys to old for her would make passes at her. Ichigo would hear about it. Then he'd go break somebody's nose. She'd get mad and insist she could take care of herself.

Karin still played soccer with her friends. The boys were getting better, but she was often home late. One such night Ichigo decided to go meet her, only to find her being harassed by some older guy. The guy was at least Ichigo's age, if not older. He hadn't made it to the field before he saw her tell the lecherous punk off. Then kicked his worthless butt. He was very proud of his sister. She could take care of herself.

Ichigo confided his guilt in his sister after he saw how strong she was, he told her everything. He was surprised that she cried. She never cried. She was crying for Keigo, but mostly she cried for her hurt brother. He started to cry too, then they laughed at each other. Then Karin confessed that she had been fighting hollows for a long time. Ichigo stopped laughing. She pointed out that he had no right to act all self righteous because he was going off and fighting hollows all the time. They forgave each other and became very inseparable.

The one year anniversary of Keigo's death was slowly approaching. His birthday had just passed not two months before, Ichigo had gotten really bad around that time, then Karin and Rukia had to drag him out of bed. They dumped him into the shower, clothes on of course. Rukia turned on the cold water. Karin helped her hold him down. They talked sense into the screaming teen. After that he was better. Karin thought Rukia was a very good girlfriend to her brother.

Keigo's anniversary was spent very quietly. He had already been forgotten by all but a very small group of people. They, his friends, visited his grave. Not all had something to say to their silent friend, but all had tears in their eyes. "This place has gotten really boring without you Keigo," Tatski said tearing up. Ichigo was stoic and silent.

The next day he was so glad it was Saturday. He laid in his bed staring at his wall. He was happy to wallow in his misery. Then suddenly.

...Tap-tap-tap... On his window. He rolled over to see Two Men seemingly floating staring in at him.

"Ikkaku, Yumichika? What the hell?" He sat up and gaped at the two soul-reapers.

"Glad to see you haven't forgotten us," Yumichika said in a sultry mocking way.

"What are you doing here?" The orange haired boy forced a smile.

"Oh, we are on a training mission with a couple of newbies. We thought it might be nice to get caught up on things going on in the living world. Want to come with us on a patrol," Ikkaku asked. The two men dropped out of sight.

"Ok, I'll bite you two," The boy said to himself.

"Where you going Ichi-?" Kon jumped up on the boy's bed.

"Out," The boy said.

"Can I come?" Kon asked pleadingly, "Pleeeeaaaaassssseeee!"

"No," Ichigo said distractedly and he touched himself with his soul-reaper badge. He Jumped out his window and joined the four in the back yard, "Who are those two?"

"Just ignore the rookies they are here strictly to observe." Yumichika seemed bothered by just having to mention them.

Suddenly the a dark head popped out the window. She looked expectantly at the five of them, She looked disappointed for a second, they were lacking a certain short tempered, short, white haired captain. She then shouted, "Hey you! Soul-reapers!" They all looked up at her. She scowled down at them.

"Who's the girl?" Ikkaku looked a little to interested for Ichigo's comfort.

"You can just forget about it Ikkaku!" Ichigo growled.

"Who can blame him for noticing her, She is beautiful," Yumi teased, "The thing I'm wondering about is how she noticed us."

Ikkaku still enjoying the view. The girl was hanging halfway out the window unintentionally showing too much cleavage. Ichigo jerked the man back to earth, figuratively since he was already on the ground, "That is my little sister, Karin. Now move your eyes off her chest and back to me."

"Hey! Morons! I was talking to you!" again she captured their attention, especially Ikkaku's, "You four! She pointed threateningly at them, "If anything happens to my brother, I will personally kick each and every one of your asses." She looked more scary then beautiful that moment. Yumichika shuttered.

'I think I'm in love,' Ikkaku thought drooling.

The two recruits looked terrified. She was emitting her own personal spiritual pressure. It gave a soft purple glow that complemented her dark eyes and pale complexion. It was too late for Ikkaku, he was hers. Ichigo saw the drooling idiot and brought his elbow down hard on the man's shoulder, "She's to young for you. Pervert!" Yumi dragged his friend off, Ichigo followed the lot of them.

Minutes passed they were walking not really looking for anything. Ichigo finally broke the silence, "So why'd you two drag me out here? Doesn't seem like you need me for this mission."

"We don't, we just wanted to talk to you." Ikkaku finally recovered from cupid's assault on his senses.

"We ran into an old friend of yours almost a year ago. We have been waiting for a chance to come tell you," Yumichika looked almost excited.

"Wha-?" Ichigo asked, "Who?"

"Well he has brown hair, hazel eyes, he's Hyper as hell, and-" Yumi was interrupted.

"And he gave Yumi here a black eye not long after we found him." Ikkaku laughed at him.

"You shut up! That was a lucky shot I was distracted." Yumichika glared angrily.

The realization was slowly sinking in. He scratched his head, his blank expression was replaced by a mixture of sadness and hope, "You found Keigo?"

"Yeah, we did. He's pretty strong too." Ikkaku smiled proudly, "He jumped in between a little kid and a hollow and fought it unarmed. He even punched it and cracked it's mask."

"I-is he ok?" Ichigo looked concerned.

"Yeah. He was sort of adopted by a little old lady that bakes bread for the seireitei, but she hates us." Ikkaku went on.

"The only problem is now he hates us too, and his spiritual is to much for the old lady, he dosen't know it but he's killing her. We've been trying to get him to go to the soul-reaper academy. He'd do well there."

"Are you sure you two are talking about Keigo Asano?"

"Yes!" Both said starting to get aggravated.

"Keigo?" Ichigo smiled.

They finally just told him the whole story.

"Keigo doing hard physical labor and enjoying it. No that's not right." Ichigo laughed, "Well there are no comic books or video games in the soul society. There are still girls though. He's not chasing any pretty women." They shrugged.

"Well there are not them many people in the village he settled in," Ikkaku explained.

"Well, knowing Keigo he'd have to do something or go crazy...but you say he is strong now? He was not very strong physically or spiritually, but right before he died his power grew. It tripled."

"You were there when he died? What happened to the kid?" Ikkaku lacking any tact was smacked in the back of the head by Yumi.

"He was murdered," Ichigo left it at that.

"I'm sorry," Ikkaku now feeling self-conscious, and ashamed of himself.

"It's OK, I just don't want to talk about that." Ichigo admitted, "But Thank you for telling me about him. Thank you for looking in on him. You to can get him to go, you know. You just need to level with him. Don't be subtle just tell him that he is hurting that granny of his and going to the academy will help him control his power. It would not hurt to mention that there will be pretty girls there either." Ichigo grinned at the thought of his friend chasing girls in the afterlife.

"Will do, Ichigo," Ikkaku smiled.

"I owe you guys," he smiled.

"By the way Ichigo, your sister," Ikkaku started slowly, "She seeing anyone?"

A vein throbbed in the protective older brother's forehead. Ikkaku looked sheepishly at the boy before he was pummeled to the ground, "Stay away from her you pedophile!"

"Hey I ain't interested in kids or anything."

"She's a kid!"

"How old is she?"

"She is fourteen! That's a kid!"

"OK, break it up you too," Yumichika pulled them apart, smiling, "Relax Ichigo, Ikkaku's only kidding."

"Well actually..." Ikkaku looked like he was thinking something dirty. Ichigo drew his sword, "I was just kidding, I promise!" Possibly fearing the sister's reaction to them fighting more the to the brother's sword.

"Seriously you two are scaring the children!" The two rookies were cowering behind Yumi. Yumichika sighed in frustration. He whacked each on the head with his own sword. Only hard enough to gain their attention, "Now kiddies, we still have mission to complete."

"What is your mission?" Ichigo knew they would not send inexperienced soul-reapers on a really dangerous mission.

"Well we are really here to check things out, there has been concentrated hollow activity here. The Head Captain wants us to make sure that crap with the arrancars isn't starting up again." Ikkaku explained happy to have the whole ugly thing with Ichigo's sister, 'Not that she's ugly. She's HOT, she's bad ass. She's too young, maybe, but she is quite a woman.' He collected his thoughts before he started drooling again.

The five of them paroled the city, nothing interesting happened. They did run into a weak hollow, the experienced soul reapers let the new blood have a chance to fight. The young men did pretty well. They had to report back to the soul-society at sunset. When Ichigo got home he made his sister promise to stay away from the bald soul-reaper. She cackled and fell to her knees in fits of laughter. Ichigo got really embarrassed, and stormed out of his sister's room. But he cheered up a great deal. He hoped to see the other soul reapers soon to hear about Keigo again.

That night he took Rukia out for dinner. She was so surprised to see his spirits lifted. Then he told her about seeing the two squad 11 officers.

"Hey, next time I have to go back, maybe I'll go look in on him too," She smiled.

Ichigo colored thinking about her being alone with the horny teen, "If you go, go with Ikkaku or Yumichika, you know how perverted Keigo can be." He kind of smiled talking about his friend as if he were still among the living.

She giggled, "Hey! I can take care of myself you big oaf...buuuut, maybe you're right about not going alone." She smirked.

That night Ikkaku and Yumi decided to go back to see Keigo one last time. They knew that if Ichigo's suggestions did not work then The boy was never going to listen to them.