Chad cast a thoughtful look at the doors to the reception room that they had just left, before turning to follow the others down the hallway. Leaving Kaito behind, even for such a short time, didn't sit well with him; the other had clearly been wary of Kukaku, body wound like a spring about to break even as he tried to convince them he was fine.

Kukaku had said she had taken Kaito in before he escaped to the Living World; was she angered that Kaito had returned so soon? Would she take that anger out on Kaito? Was that why Kaito was so wary?

(Kaito always expected the worst out of people's reactions to him.)

He clenched his fist, biting back the urge to fight. It would do him no favors here.

(There was nothing he could do but wait.)

He owed Kaito for giving him the tools to keep his promise to Ichigo, but using those tools recklessly would break his promise to his Abuelo. He needed to keep his head and remember that Yoruichi had remained behind with Kaito as well, and all evidence pointed at Yoruichi's love for his friend's son.

"Food will be here for you shortly," Koganehiko announced, gesturing them into a small dining room with a small bow. "Please, make yourselves at home while Kukaku-sama converses with Yoruichi-sama and Kaito-san."

"Thanks," Ichigo told the man, as they all filtered into the room and settled around the low table.

A heavy silence fell as they waited, gazes darting between one another as they all hesitated to take the first step. It was one thing to agree to pool their information on a person they all owed, but it was another thing to follow through on that agreement.

Even a servant appearing with trays of food didn't nudge them into talking, though Chad could certainly feel the tension easing once the man was once more out of sight.

(It was a good thing to remember, though. They weren't alone here, weren't private here, no matter what it looked like.)

"This is getting us nowhere," Ishida broke the silence. He picked up his chopsticks and poked at the food for a moment, gesture more one of thought than wariness or disgust. "So how about we start with what we know for certain."

"He's Urahara's son, who no one expected to exist," Ichigo offered.

Chad's lips twitched in amusement. Trust Ichigo to take Ishida's statement literally, even if it was a good starting point. Everything stemmed from that very fact, including at least part of the reason they were so worried about Kaito to begin with.

"Yes, thank you," Ishida told Ichigo dryly. "Any more shocking revelations?"

"Well you asked."

Before Ishida could do more than make a low, pained noise of frustration, Chad took the opportunity to cut in. Allowing Ichigo and Ishida to continue sniping at each other would get them nothing but entertainment; that was fine back in the safety of Karakura, but not here. "Yoruichi-san brought Kaito-san here, before they managed to bring him to the Living World."

"Yoruichi-san and Kukaku-san are important people," Orihime added. "Kaito-kun said something about his father having 'friends in high places', and I think those two are some of them."

"Well, they probably once were," Ishida agreed, then gestured around them to indicate the entire home they were in. "But this? This is probably exile just like Urahara-san was exiled, and we already know that his crime was 'something to do with hybrids', so this… whatever happened to Kukaku-san and her family was likely a 'lesser' crime of some sort." He frowned and fidgeted with his chopsticks, gaze on the table in front of him. "I don't know about Yoruichi-san, though. Whether he was exiled too, or just… followed Urahara-san on a whim."

Ichigo grimaced and rubbed at the back of his head. "Okay, are we just going to ignore that we're calling a cat a noble?"

Ishida and Orihime exchanged looks then shrugged, and Chad had to agree with them. They really didn't know much of anything about Soul Society, so the idea that a talking cat could be a noble wasn't… really that odd, was it?

"Maybe it's like some of the old legends! A great and powerful cat-prince, exiled for being led astray by their human friend! Oh, or maybe Yoruichi-san was a noble like Kukaku-san, and was cursed to live the rest of his life as a cat for some horrible misdeed!" Orihime grinned and spoke in a hushed tone, voice full of mischief, "Maybe he stepped on a cat-prince's tail and didn't apologize!" She laughed when Ichigo rolled his eyes and sighed in response, then said in a more normal tone, "I mean, he can talk and do things that other cats can't do, and it's the nobility part that bothers you?"

"Yeah, yeah," Ichigo grunted and ate some of his food in order to cover his embarrassment. "Fine, whatever, he's a noble. Next point?"

"Shinigami aren't very welcome out here," Chad felt the need to add. It was more about Kaito's environment while growing up than about Kaito himself, but environments like that could easily turn toxic. The expectations and mindset could box a person in, no matter how they struggled to resist. And once a label was applied, Chad knew, it was nearly impossible to remove.

(How much did others hate him, for having Shinigami skills?)

(How much did Kaito hate himself, for being what he grew up learning to hate?)

Ichigo grimaced and tugged at his hakama for a moment, uncomfortable with the reminder. "At least that explains why he was so insistent that he wasn't a Shinigami, back in the beginning." At the curious looks that earned him, Ichigo shrugged and continued, "When Rukia and I confronted him a few days after Don Kanonji's show, he kept giving her the run-around, insisting he wasn't a Shinigami because he'd never gone to the Shinigami Academy."

So that was the route Kaito had decided to take, Chad mused as he ate; all the skills, but not the title, so he couldn't possibly be a Shinigami.

(Was it the skills or the beliefs that made a Shinigami?)

(How much did it matter to someone raised like Kaito?)

"Oh," Orihime said softly. She chewed on her lip for a moment, then said slowly, "But he has the training of one of them, doesn't he."

"Because it's foolish to leave an advantage untrained," Ishida told her. "And now that he's visibly aligning himself with an ex-Shinigami, he needs that strength." He hesitated, then spoke in a low tone that didn't carry very far, "He's told me he pities the Shinigami more than he hates them, these days, because he sees them as being being blindly led by those in power."

(So Kaito had hated Shinigami, and perhaps still did at his core.)

(That was a recipe for disaster.)

Chad exchanged an uncomfortable look with Ichigo, thinking on Ishida's words. Kaito needed the Shinigami training because he couldn't rely on his Quincy heritage, not when he was so obviously the son of a Shinigami. How much did that need twist Kaito's opinion of himself around?

He didn't know why the Shinigami had such a problem with hybrids, but the way Kaito had spoken about it, the nervous edge to his forcibly bland tone and the way he had glanced at his father before speaking, said volumes about how the upper echelons of Seireitei felt about it.

(How did the Rukongai feel about such souls? Had the Shinigami's prejudice crept out to influence them, too?)

"We're going to need to be careful," Ichigo told them all. "Kaito is stronger than us individually, but he's only one person in the end. If they took enough offense at Rukia giving me her powers temporarily to order her executed, then we really can't say how they'll react to our invasion."

"We can't give them any more openings than we already have," Chad agreed. Invading with intent to free a prisoner was bad enough; the more they overstepped, the more dangerous their lives would become. "When we get inside those walls, we can't afford to make any mistakes," he continued, leaning over to better give Ishida a look of caution; of them all, he trusted Ishida, and Ishida's control, the least, though he was coming around to the idea more with each passing day.

There was something desperate about Ishida, a feral air that reminded Chad too much of Kaito at his most exposed. It was beginning to fade with every bit of proof that the rest of them cared about him, but Chad knew how easy it was to slip back into former habits at the slightest provocation. Ishida's new balance was a precarious, fragile thing, and Chad had no doubt that it could shattered in a heartbeat; all it would take was the sight of one of them falling to a Shinigami, and Ishida would lash out with all his strength.

Ichigo elbowed him in the side and gave him a narrow-eyed look, to which Chad simply shrugged. The words needed to be spoken, and all of them, not just Ishida, needed to hear them. Letting their passions run wild would set them on a path they couldn't escape and would never be on the winning side of.

(He remembered the lecture Kaito had given Orihime and him when they came to him for training.)

(The invasion was dangerous enough.)

Ishida huffed and focused on his food, not meeting any of their gazes. "I know, damnit," he muttered. "You don't need to rub it in my face. I won't kill any of the bastards, I promise."

"I know you won't," Ichigo said with a level of confidence that had Ishida looking up sharply, eyes narrowed with suspicion.

(Like Kaito sometimes did, whenever they included him. Whenever they looked to him outside of training, or spoke kindly of him.)

(Whenever they treated him like a friend, instead of a person to denigrate or ignore.)

He filed that thought away in the back of his mind for the moment, content to let it settle and expand on its own. The similarities between Ishida and Kaito were small but startlingly vivid, and Chad didn't like the implications behind that in the slightest, especially in regards to what it meant about Ishida's life.

Maybe it was for the best that Kaito had pulled the other teen into their midst, and not just for the sake of having another fighter at their side.

Ishida cleared his throat awkwardly and looked away from Ichigo to glance at the rest of them. Whatever he saw there had him relaxing, the tension draining from his body as he said, "Yes, well. Doing our best to keep things civil is only going to help us so much, you realize. The Shinigami are… they're very good at making judgment calls and then letting them stand even in the face of other evidence, and Kuchiki-san's verdict is only the most recent example of this."

"Ishida-kun..?" Orihime asked, a frown of concern on her face.

"It… doesn't matter. The details at least." Ishida grimaced at the sad look Orihime was sending him, but still shook his head and said firmly, "No, this isn't the place to get into a conversation like this. Maybe… maybe I'll tell you later, but… just trust me on this, please?"

(Shinigami didn't like Quincy either.)

"Alright," Ichigo readily agreed, turning his attention to the servant who was bringing in another tray of food. Their window of opportunity was slowly closing, and they'd barely scratched the surface.

Ishida inclined his head slightly to Ichigo in what Chad suspected was thanks, then tried to get them back on track before their missing team-member showed up. "Our own circumstances aside, we really can't allow Urahara-senpai to continue doing everything for us. You saw how she—" he tilted his head towards the direction they had come, leaving no doubt in Chad's mind he was referring to Kukaku, "—reacted to him, and she's not even a Shinigami."

"You're right," Orihime agreed. She glanced from the place set out for Kaito and then to the servant as the man started to walk back out. She didn't speak again until the man had closed the little door behind him, leaving them ostensibly alone once more. "I think… I think he's been underplaying how much danger he's in, here."

"Do you want to tell him no?" Ichigo grumbled. "His father let him come, and he calls Yoruichi his sensei. If they let him, what chance do we have to change his mind?"

Absolutely none, Chad knew. Kaito liked them, and even trusted them to an extent, but he wasn't the sort of person that would allow himself to be swayed by the fears or worries of others. "Then we need to keep an eye out. Watch his back."

That was about all they could do, and the other three knew that as well, judging by their murmurs of agreement and reassurance that they would continue his later. Hopefully, the next time they had a moment to sit down to talk, they would actually have a measure of actual privacy as well.

By the time Kaito walked into the room to eat his own meal, silence had settled over them as they worked to finish eating. Whatever happened next, they didn't want to rush themselves; Kaito would only make them regret that decision.

Judging by Kaito's mirth and toothy smiles, not rushing was probably the best idea they could have right now. He only seemed to get that look when he was planning on teaching them something difficult and annoying to master.

(Chad really wished he didn't know that much about Kaito at this point.)