Chad finished arranging the blankets on his futon and sat down just in time for someone to knock on their door. Ichigo glanced at him and Ishida then went to investigate, cracking open the door and peering out, his stance relaxing when he saw who it was.

Orihime stepped into their room, expression determined, and looked around. When Chad tilted his head at her in curiosity, she gave him a firm nod and moved towards him.

Now was a good enough time as any to discuss Kaito, he supposed, before they threw themselves into the heart of danger in the morning, but… he still felt reluctant. It was necessary, he knew it was necessary, but it still felt a bit too much like revealing secrets he had no right to speak of to others.

"It'll be worse if we're the only ones who know," Orihime murmured softly as she settled next to him and rested a hand on his knee in support. She looked between Ichigo and Ishida with a serious expression, composing herself for the conversation ahead. "I think… we should come clean about what each of us know about Kaito-san, alright?" When the other two nodded, she clasped her hands together and nibbled on her lower lip. "Uhm… Kurosaki-kun, you had something against what Kaito-san was having us do at the end?"

Ichigo scowled and nodded, looking to Ishida as he asked, "Do you know the dangers of what he's asking you to do?"

Ishida hesitated, confusion flickering across his expression, then slowly shook his head. "I… besides losing my grip and letting the two of you hurt Inoue-san and Sado-san?"

"Danger to yourself," Ichigo pressed, lips thinning in frustration when Ishida shook his head again. "When Kaito-san was teaching me to channel my reiatsu into the Reishūkaku, he said that what he was doing was a Quincy thing, directly manipulating my reiatsu like that. And… Ishida," Ichigo leaned forward, expression worried, "if Kaito or I slip up, even a little, we could hurt you badly."

Ishida fiddled with his glasses and looked away from Ichigo, focusing on the floor between them. "Then don't," he said. "The two of you had a solid grasp on it when we were practicing—"

"We really, really didn't," Ichigo interrupted. He shot an apologetic look at Chad and Orihime and continued, "I can only just remain stable at that level, and did you notice his eyes?"

Chad nodded, remembering the odd streaks of brown in Kaito's pale, green-grey eyes. It had reminded him of Ichigo's eye color, actually, the similarity even more startling with Ichigo and Kaito standing next to one another. "There was brown in them."

"Oh! Yes, I remember thinking that was odd," Orihime chimed in. "I've never seen that color in his eyes before, have any of you?"

They all shook their heads, and Ichigo said, "I think… I think we were maybe right? About him having spirits in his head that he talks to."

"The eye colors." Ishida frowned, fingers tapping absently against his legs as he thought. "That pale color being Kaito himself, the gold that shows up often being one, and the brown being a second that we've not met before now."

"I think so, yeah," Ichigo agreed. "When the brown showed up, Kaito-san's control…" he hesitated, brows furrowing. "It was like part of him was holding the rest back? Like he was fighting against himself, almost. And suddenly he could limit his output better."

Chad considered that, trying to pull up what little he knew about Shinigami. He'd never noticed Urahara Kisuke's eyes changing color at all, but perhaps his inner spirit — spirits? How many did Shinigami get? — had a similar enough eye color that it was unnoticeable. Or it was a sign of how young and untrained Kaito actually was, that his spirits would come forward like that.

(Or maybe it was a result of trauma.)

(He hoped that wasn't the case…)

"Well… I guess that's better than the other option," Orihime said softly, wringing her hands and pressing into Chad's side. He lifted a hand and rested it on her shoulder, trying to give her comfort.

Ishida shot both of them a confused look. "Other option?"

"Dissociation," Chad said bluntly. "Flashbacks from being back here. He—"

"—has flashbacks," Ishida finished awkwardly, looking back at the floor again, shoulders drawn up and chin tucked towards his chest. "I know. That night…" Ishida swallowed, gaze flickering towards Ichigo then back to the floor. "That night, when we tried to keep Kuchiki-san in the Living World… when he saw you on the ground… it was like a switch was flipped. He just froze and stared at your body and… and when Tsukabishi-san tried to touch him, senpai threw him across the street and into a building, then called his bow and tried to kill him."

The three of them exchanged wary glances. That was a significantly more deadly reaction than Chad had hoped, but no worse than he had expected. Not after what he'd felt in Kaito's reiatsu that time: that desperate, feral edge that kept him moving despite how much he detested his own actions. Kaito was a survivor, and he was still in the mindset of surviving.

"I wonder if he was in a flashback when the three of us first fought," Ichigo said with a grimace. "That would possibly explain the way he kept attacking you like that."

Ishida shook his head, hands tightening into fists. "He… saw himself in me," Ishida explained warily, gazing darting between all of them. "Or… where I was heading. The decisions I was making."

Chad grimaced inwardly at the admission, even if it did confirm what he had suspected about the similarities between Kaito and Ishida.

"Huh. But then he decided to train you?" Ichigo asked, then stiffened and asked worriedly, "Ishida, did he—"

"No," Ishida said sharply, squaring his shoulders. "He didn't attempt that again. When I came to help you that night, I separated myself from him in his eyes. It was fine, Kurosaki, he did nothing more than actually train me."

Implying that their first meeting was less than amicable.

(Ishida knew what it felt like when Kaito wanted to do harm.)

(How much self-hatred did Kaito have, to take it out on a stranger?)

(And how much worse would it get while here, in the place where it began?)

"This whole invasion is a bad idea," Orihime murmured, echoing Chad's thoughts. When Ichigo scowled and leaned forward, Orihime shook her head and held up a hand. "Please, Kurosaki-kun, it is," she nearly begged. "You're right, we need to save Rukia-chan! But… but we shouldn't have let Kaito-san come with us. Not once we knew what he'd face when coming here!"

"Do you want to try to tell him no?" Ishida asked. "You heard Kukaku-san, she wasn't particularly surprised to see him back here with us."

"And that's why we need to be careful with him," Orihime said, wringing her hands and glancing nervously between them. "She said Kaito-san's father is stubbornly loyal, and that would be why Kaito-san followed us back here. Loyalty like that… with everything else about him… we can take advantage of him so easily, and I doubt he'd make a single protest."

Ichigo frowned, and Chad had to agree. He hadn't thought much of it at the time, but… wasn't that precisely what had already happened? Kaito had come with them to a place where he was in great danger, for not stated reason other than 'making sure they didn't get in trouble'.

(If that wasn't stubborn loyalty, Chad was uncertain what was.)

"It's worse than that," Ichigo said thoughtfully, hands flexing and tugging a bit at his hakama. "He might be loyal, but he doesn't believe himself worthy of being counted a friend."

"Then trying to dissuade him from coming would have been the worse option," Ishida said with confidence. At the looks he received, he adjusted his glasses and continued, "He would have taken it as a dismissal, not concern on your part. That he was only worth the training he could provide and nothing more, that you didn't trust him to fight alongside you to achieve your goals."

"We'll be careful, then. Watch what we ask of him and how we treat him. We owe him too much already," Chad said, while wondering how much of that applied to Ishida as well. Ishida, who felt near-feral beneath his careful control, who expected to be mocked for admitting he didn't understand, who hesitated to ask for help.

(Kaito wasn't the only complex and fragile person in their group. Just the most obvious.)

Orihime nodded in agreement. "Anything else?"

Ichigo made a thoughtful noise and nodded. "I think we should try to keep him out of combat as much as possible without being…" he gestured vaguely, "pushy? Obnoxious? About it. I don't… think he really wants to fight. He can, and he will, but I think he'd prefer not to."

"He said he'd seen too much death when he snapped out of it that night," Ishida added.

"I've only ever seen him fight that one Hollow at Don Kanonji's show, and… I don't think he really wanted to, either." Ichigo frowned in thought, gaze drifting to the side as he remembered that night. "Whenever he didn't need his blade, he had his hands in his sleeves…"

"He had his hands like that before he even jumped in," Ishida said. "Whenever I saw him at the show he had his hands tucked away. And he still does it, though not as frequently, so maybe it's just a habit?"

"Wait, you were there?" Ichigo asked, incredulous. "But I didn't see—"

"Kurosaki, until senpai nearly beat it into your head, you barely remembered my name, I am hardly surprised you didn't notice me in the crowd before you really knew me," Ishida said dryly.

Ichigo laughed awkwardly and rubbed at the back of his head, smiling sheepishly at Chad's amused glance. "Yeah, that's, uh… sorry. I'm bad about that."

Ishida shrugged, a faint smile on his expression. "I've become used to it."

"I don't think the hands thing is just a habit," Orihime broke in, redirecting the conversation back. "When Tatsuki and I first met him, we startled him pretty badly. He was… not paying attention to anything when we approached," she said cautiously, then took a deep breath and continued, "he jumped back and took a fighting stance, but when he saw who had approached him he hid his hands in his sleeves. So… I think he does it when he's nervous or uncomfortable."

"But not always," Chad added, thinking back on when Kaito helped them gain their powers. "He didn't when he first trained us."

"He had Yoruichi-san on his shoulders, though," Orihime said, looking up at him.

Chad considered that, then nodded in agreement. Yoruichi appeared to give Kaito comfort, so his presence and the part Kaito needed to play likely kept Kaito from the nervous gesture.

"How did— no, never mind, it doesn't matter," Ishida started to ask, before shaking his head. At Ichigo's curious look, Ishida said, "Leave it, Kurosaki. Neither of us want to know."

"Want to know what?" Ichigo demanded.

"How Kaito-san woke our powers," Chad guessed. Ishida's wince confirmed his suspicions, and he frowned at the other teen. "You already know."

"Suspect," Ishida admitted reluctantly. "It… sensei taught me, once, all the different ways for a person to awaken their powers. But most of it requires… more time."

"More—?" Ichigo scowled and looked between them, scowl deepening when only Chad would meet his gaze. "Chad? Ishida? Orihime?"

"Violence, Kurosaki," Ishida bit out before Chad could respond, tilting his head up and trying to hide how uncomfortable the subject made him. "Senpai used violence to trigger their powers, because a soul in peril will reach for anything in the quest to survive." Before anyone could respond, Ishida jerked to his feet and stalked to the door. "I'm going to use the bathroom."

A hush fell over the room as Ishida closed the door behind him, then Ichigo cleared his throat and looked at Chad. "Did— shit," Ichigo muttered when Chad nodded before he could finish his question.

"Leave it," Chad told his friend. "It's done. We requested he help us. If Ishida-san is right, that was the only way."

Ichigo glowered at him, then huffed and ran a hand through his hair. "Fine. That's… fine. It can't be changed, you're right." He looked between them. "Any other bombshells you'd like to share?"

Chad shrugged, then looked at Orihime in curiosity when she cleared her throat.

"We need to be careful about Ishida-kun too," she said softly. "His loyalty is almost like Kaito-san's, and I think we could abuse it almost as badly if we aren't careful."

"I had hoped, but…" Ichigo grimaced but nodded in acknowledgment. "I think you're right. Neither of them believes they have a place amongst us, and Ishida reacted too firmly when we brought Kaito-san's loyalty up earlier."

"Then we'll just have to prove it to them," Orihime declared. "Agreed?" When Chad and Ichigo both nodded, she smiled and rose. "Okay. I think I'm going to head back to my room to sleep. Goodnight you two, and tell Ishida-kun goodnight for me?"

"This is a mess," Ichigo murmured when Orihime closed the door behind her.

"We'll get through it," Chad reassured his friend. "Just be yourself."

Ichigo ducked his head, scowl lightening towards a smile, and mumbled something about simply treating people with dignity, before he turned away to fuss with his bedding.

Chad smiled at the sight, confident in Ichigo's ability to reach both Ishida and Kaito. He would need to do his best as well, but so long as he continued to think before he acted, and considered how Ichigo might respond, he didn't think he would make too many mistakes.