For the entire week leading up to her second meeting with Ichigo, Kushina doesn't leave the training grounds. Much to her equal exasperation and relief, Urahara doesn't show his face around her in fear of her going through with her threat, and Tessai and Ururu are the only ones brave enough to leave her food.
Kushina is a hurricane of a woman on a good day, but she's a completely different kind of natural disaster when she's in a bad mood.
(Bad mood, Kushina scoffs, try completely and utterly pissed .
Child weapons for the greater good? Kushina doesn't have time or patience for that bullshit. You shouldn't rely on someone who has no business in your problems to fix them. Children should not have to fight and kill just because someone said it's their duty.
Kushina is full of rage and fire and something like a void in her soul sparks a familiar red hot anger and it's like coming home. This anger is familiar-familiar like a zanpakuto is to it's shinigami, and Kushina didn't even know she missed it.
She wants to burn the Soul Society to the ground for what they're going to do.
Or just the asshole that's the puppet master, but Kushina has never been too good at keeping collateral damage to a minimum. She's destruction in its rawest form, a whirlpool of fire that leads with her fists and doesn't quite know how to lose.
At this rate, maybe Aizen should be more scared of the red haired woman than Ichigo himself.
Kushina has no problem going after the fucker while he's still playing the good guy, after all.)
"Ichigo-kun!"
Ichigo has ten seconds to brace himself before the hurricane known as Kushina Uzumaki sweeps him up.
"Ack! Let me go!" he growls, wiggling, but the red haired womans hold is too firm. Kushina apparently takes great glee in his attempt to escape, because she laughs, delightfully, and squeezes him just a little bit tighter. "You're twenty years too early to be able to escape me, dattebane!"
Ichigo clicks his tongue, but sags like dead weight in her arms much to her pleasure.
It takes another five minutes of hugging and twirling before Kushina is willing to let him go. Ichigo wonders why he puts up with this strange woman, after all he's taking karate, he doesn't need her to teach him to fight. But then he remembers the ease in which she tosses him around, the surefire way she moves like it's a dance.
"Alright, 'ttebane!" Kushina starts, clasping her hands in front of her after she finally drops him. "Since you're too small to toss me around, and we don't have a conveniently kid sizes dummy for you to throw, you're just going to have to stick to the theory of that toss for now."
(Ichigo vaguely wonders if she would let him throw some poor, unsuspecting kid around if they happened to walk by at the wrong time.)
"So! Now it's time to learn the best move in a fighter's arsenal- dodging ."
"What-" Ichigo starts, but Kushina's grin slides into something that has more teeth than necessary, and he doesn't hesitate to shut his mouth and move when she says, "One, two, three, run!"
Kushina Uzumaki is terrifying and ruthless and strange-but Ichigo can't help the flicker of pride when she grins at him after he successfully dodges one of the balls she throws at him.