As you can see, the Soul Society arc is now officially not happening. A few things will stay the same, such as Uryu getting an upgrade, Orihime awakening her powers (both soul and prana based) and Aizen's rebellion...however Ichigo's interaction with Rukia will be professional at best. He has no reason to deal with the Soul Society issues directly unless they ask for his help and pay him, and his control is going to be much better than canon.
Ichigo stretched in his bed, glad to have gotten that reaper girl out of his life.
Uryu was torn between disappointed and happy. Mostly because he had been enjoying the pot shots he could throw in Rukia's direction and glad that the painful reminder of why his grandfather had died was gone.
Today was Sunday, which meant no school...but more importantly it meant that today he would be helping Tatsuki awaken Orihime's natural powers. Once she was able to handle the strain, Yoruichi would be training the girl along with Tatsuki as Ichigo tended to spar with Chad to practice his energy shot power. He would also be exercising his Flash Step, which he had finally gotten around to.
Uryu had declined joining them just yet, as his father had finally deemed him ready for the next step of his Quincy training...a glove that would increase his ability to draw in spirit energy. Once he had sufficiently mastered that ability he would move onto the next phase of his training...removing the glove and then regaining the ability to use the bow.
Despite his disapproval of dealing with spirits, Uryu's father was in fact a Quincy Master. He just didn't think being a Quincy full time was cost effective since he could use his time more constructively being a Magus or healing the living.
They might not have seen eye to eye, but their relationship was better than it could have been thanks to his friendship with Ichigo.
Ichigo got ready to go, and said good morning to Arcuied.
After being hit in the face with the truth about his feelings toward the vampire princess (in the form of Arcuied sicking her friend Len the succubus who preferred the form of a cat after Ichigo one night after Rukia left) Ichigo had finally admitted he liked Arcuied as his girlfriend.
Karin, when told how Arcuied had gotten through to her clueless brother, had laughed long and hard about that prank.
Arcuied would be coming later to help with training.
Orihime went down to the underground training area where the others were waiting.
"It's sooo big!" she said happily.
Orihime was a lot like Arcuied...she had a ditzy and occasionally flighty personality, and a very wild and unusual imagination. However unlike Arcuied, she wasn't much of a fighter. Urahara believed her to be more of a healer and support specialist. If she had any combat ability, they would do their best to get it high enough that she could keep the enemy from getting back up, but not make her into a killer.
"Hello Orihime-san," said Ichigo.
Tatsuki was right behind Orihime, and she sighed. She knew her friend had a crush on Ichigo. Fortunately Ichigo wasn't one to take advantage of girls...especially ones like Orihime, who had developed rather large...assets.
"Ichigo-kun!"
"Now that we're all here, Ichigo, do you want to explain it to her?" asked Urahara.
There were chairs in the underground area, and Tessai had brought down snacks and drinks.
Ichigo told her about the Soul Society and why they had brought her here after her encounter with the hollow. Because she had been able to see hollows and spirits more clearly than before after the incident, she needed to train her ability before it got her killed.
Ichigo would also be checking to see if she had any Magus ability, as it wouldn't be unusual for her to have developed one on accident.
More magic and spells were discovered entirely by accident at the worst possible time than any other way.
The first thing Ichigo did was help Orihime awaken her spiritual power. Most often the way to do that was through fighting, in this case though he simply removed his loop bracelet and let the full force of his spiritual energy out. His sword was still dormant though.
Orihime felt the pressure, and knew that Ichigo wasn't actively trying to crush her, but it felt like she was a minnow in the very depths of the ocean.
Something inside of her snapped into place as her spiritual ability kicked in.
Six fairy-like beings appeared out of her precious hair clips, looking distinctly ruffled.
One, who seemed to be covering his mouth with his scarf, looked rather annoyed at being so abruptly awakened for no reason. He was the primary combat ability of Orihime's power.
"Now that you've awakened your ability, we need to get you up to speed on battlefield situations," said Urahara cheerfully.
"Ano...what exactly can you do?" asked Orihime. She was able to breath easier now that Ichigo was letting up on his spiritual power. It seemed to have stabilized as well.
"We (three of the fairies puffed up) can form a spiritual shield," said the one of the female fairies with goggles.
"We (the pony-tailed and rather timid looking fairy pointed at themselves) can create a shield that heals any injury, even a lost limb if necessary," said the tiny blond one.
"I create a shield that cuts both inside and outside the shield. Something like an arrow if you will," said the grumpy one.
Ichigo's eye twitched.
"Let me get this straight. Your power is the ability to heal any wound, shield from any attack from one direction, and to cut like an arrow. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but that sounds far too much like Avalon's power to me," he said twitching.
"Avalon?" asked Tatsuki.
"The sheathe of Excalibur. If I'm right, I might have a way to help Orihime train two of her three abilities and give them an upgrade."
The fact that her power centered around fairies was another factor that lead him to believe that they were connected to Avalon in some way. The famous sheathe and sword were made by the Fae and gifted to Alturia, though the sword had been returned to the Lady of the Lake and the sheathe gone missing until the Einzbern family found it in Cornwall.
Ichigo had an idea of how to double Orihime's training in fighting and healing and to get Shiro to open up more to the people around him.
Ichigo had no issues with his desire to be a hero, and to save the innocents he could, but he did have a problem with Shiro's attitude that self-sacrifice was perfectly acceptable as an option.
While the various groups split up into the previously agreed pairings Orihime would sit down and talk to her fairies to understand her ability better. Chad and Ichigo sparred and increased their knowledge of how their powers worked, since both of them seemed to specialize in an energy blast. Chad was slowly increasing his speed while Ichigo learned how to control his power output better. Tatsuki was with Yoruichi working on her Flash Step, and the beginning steps of Shunko, an ability that worked something like the Chidori attack from the Naruto manga, only it wasn't limited to just the arm, but a good portion of the upper body. Tatsuki had been given a special outfit so she wouldn't flash the boys once she started learning that part.
By the end of the day, they were all pretty tired, but rather happy. They would be working on this for the next month at least.
"Shiro, meet Orihime Inoue. Orihime, this is Shiro Emiya from Fuyuki," said Ichigo.
The red haired boy had come for his usual Magi lesson only to be roped into coming to Urahara's training area instead.
"Ano...why did you drag me here?"
"I called in a favor with one of my old teachers named Waver...he was a Master during the same war as Kiritsugu and he's agreed to talk about what little he knew of the man later. He's teaching the girls today and has agreed to come visit during our usual meeting times. Anyway the reason I brought you here is two-fold. Remember that sheathe I noticed when we were wondering why your healing ability was far above normal despite the fact you're almost fully human?"
"Avalon, I think. What of it?"
"She (Ichigo indicated Orihime) has an ability almost identical to Avalon's ability when it's not in the hands of it's proper owner. She's going to be examining it while we do a bit of sparring. I've recently gained a sword and I know with your element and origin being inclined that way this would be a good chance for you to practice with your projection ability. Once we're done she'll practice her healing ability on the both of us. If you want we can work on this every day for the next week or so," said Ichigo.
Shiro's eyes lit up at the thought of sparring with Ichigo.
"I'm in," he said. He hadn't been able to practice his projection spell because of the fact his guardian was always barging in at the worst times, and this was a chance he wouldn't pass up. Besides, he was curious what sort of sword Ichigo had.
Once Ichigo removed the sheathe from Shiro, Orihime reached out with her soul ability and had her fairies out and examined Avalon. It had taken her a week to figure out how to bring them out on her own, though she still had to use a kotodama to use their powers.
Shiro and Ichigo faced off, and Shiro's eyebrow rose in surprise at the cleaver Ichigo had. Out of all the swords he could imagine Ichigo having, a cleaver wasn't one of them.
And strangely (to Shiro at least) he couldn't really examine the sword in question. When he brought it up with Ichigo later, Ichigo explained why Shiro's 'tracing' ability that allowed him to copy anything sharp and pointy to his reality marble, particularly if it fit the definition of the word 'blade' or 'sword' didn't work on Ichigo's zanpakuto.
"Zanpakuto, or a soul reaper's primary weapon, are not ordinary blades. They are representations of a soul reaper's being. For example, I know you've at least heard of my secondary Mystic Eyes, Soul Sight."
Shiro nodded.
"It allows you to see the inside of another's mind, or if they have a reality marble, what the ability looks like," said Shiro.
"Close. It allows me to see the shape of their souls directly. In the case of people like you, with a reality marble, it allows me to see what the marble looks like and the most basic description of what it can do. However in soul reapers it does something much different. What do you know of a Magus' workshop?"
"I know that most Magi hold it as sacred. It tends to have the very core of their primary research and anything that they have been experimenting with, and that entering one without permission is tantamount to violating their being," said Shiro.
"My Eyes of Soul Perception, or Soul Sight as I call it, allows me to see past the barriers that protect the inner world of a soul reaper and others like them. Soul reapers view their inner world much like a Magus views their workshop, as an area sacred to them."
Shiro remembered Rukia and winced.
"I take it this ability would be seen rather poorly by soul reapers?" he asked.
"Very. If it hadn't been for that incident at the house with me killing hollow she might have made a bigger stink. It also didn't hurt that I usually tend to wear my glasses so I don't actually use the ability much."
It was very likely Rukia had forgotten he could see into her inner world.
Ichigo primarily used it to keep his original Mystic Eyes from affecting his living conditions and later on to self-hypnotize himself so he could enter his own world.
Once Shiro was relatively rested again, they went back to sparring. Ichigo was the winner of that, since his body was used to the strain and Shiro had difficulty practicing the one spell set he was good at with his unique condition.
He later got permission from Urahara to come use the underground training area whenever he needed to and started working out a schedule to do so.
It took Orihime all of three days of examining Avalon in her spare time before there was a noticeable change in her ability.
Originally her shields were rough, and rather hard to maintain because of how much energy they took to bring out. Her healing ability was less about healing damage than it was about rejecting the damage dealt, which certainly explained why she was able to restore limbs.
Since Ichigo wanted to know why her spiritual ability was so similar to Avalon, even incorporating fake fairies and having a golden tint, he had Zelretch investigate Orihime's parents. She didn't really know them, since her older brother Sora had removed her from the household as soon as he hit eighteen, but since they were her genetic donors they had to have contributed to the power.
As it turned out, one of her ancestors was in fact a crossbreed from England, specifically from the same area where Avalon was found. Orihime was one-sixteenth Seelie, not that she had any abilities to show for it aside from the fairies.
According to the reports Zelretch dug up, her ancestor was around the last time Avalon had been seen, but had left shortly after his children had grandchildren of their own, as he was tired of mortal affairs.
He suspected, but couldn't confirm, that the ancestor in question was related to the Lady of the Lake. It didn't help that Orihime had apparently been conceived while the couple had been vacationing in England and had been staying at a hotel where said Fae had originally lived in before the faeries had left the mortals behind and gone into their own world.
It was entirely possible that Orihime had accidentally inherited such an odd ability from those factors.
The fact she lived in a city not far from where Avalon had been hiding inside Shiro (who was at least a year older than her) was something Ichigo attributed to coincidence until proven otherwise.