Author's Note

My guilt tripping worked! I'm a genius! But seriously, I love getting reviews from you guys and it's always nice to know that my work is appreciated and seeing what you guys think about it. Also, don't forget to follow/favorite if you like it, those make me happy too.

Now here's the super long(compared to the others) chapter 11. You finally get an explanation of yokai and stuff. Yay! Now go enjoy!

I woke to the sound of conversation and the sweet scent of flowers. I could feel the grass beneath my body and the warmth of the sun on me… and the warmth of something else.

I shot up as the memories came back to me of what I had found. The monster was free! We were fighting and he was winning and… why am I not dead? He was going for a finishing blow, there was no hesitation in his actions, so why didn't he finish me?

I look around and find my answer: Orihime. It's faint, but I can just barely remember her asking the yokai to stop before I blacked out. Now she's wildly gesticulating as she describes something to him and his focus is completely on her. If I didn't know better, I would have said it was just two friends talking. But I do, so I reach for my zanpakuto… and it's not there. I begin to panic as I look around, searching frantically for my partner.

"Ah, you're awake, Rukia-chan! Kurosaki-kun said you'd be fine, but I was still worried. Guess I was worried about nothing, huh?" the words are spoken bubbly and light.

I turn to see that both are now focused on me. Orihime is smiling like she always does when she sees a friend. Her pet yokai, because that thing seems to obey whatever she tells it, is scowling at me and it's pretty obvious that he doesn't like me, but will tolerate me only because Orihime wants him to.

"Where's my zanpakuto?" I demand.

"Right here, midget. But you're not getting it back until I think I can trust you with it." the yokai bluntly states, holding up the sheathed Sode no Shireyuki from his opposite side.

"Give it back, you bastard!" I yell as I lunge forward to grab it. "That's mine and you have no right to take her! Give it back, damn it!"

The air heats up some as he holds Sode no Shirayuki out farther rom me. He growls as the other hand comes up to push me back. "I said you'll get it back when I can trust you with it! You're not getting it back a damn moment sooner! So shut the hell up and sit down, midget!"

"I'm not a midget!" I roar as I switch from trying to get my zanpakuto to punching him in the face.

"Agh! Dammit that hurt." he whines as he gives a big shove that pushes me off of him and back onto my butt. With a hand now free he reaches up to rub his now red nose. "Damn violent midget." he grumbles. Before I can give him another for his absolutely rude behavior, Orihime intervenes.

"No more fighting, please!" she begs while moving in between me and that bratty yokai. "You don't need to worry, Rukia-chan. Kurosaki-kun just doesn't want you attacking us again, so he's holding on to your sword until we've talked through your problems. Violence is never the answer, unless you're being attacked by ninjas, then it's always the answer! So you can't use violence because me and Kurosaki-kun aren't ninjas." she cheerfully lectures, drifting into Orihime logic towards the end.

I sputter for a few moments. "Problems?! I don't have problems! My only problem is that he," I point to the yokai, "is supposed to be sealed away so that he can't wreak havoc! There's nothing to talk about! I have to reseal him for the safety of others, so give me back my sword so I can kick his ass and seal him!" I rant. I don't have problems, I refuse to have problems, but the damn things like to worm their way into my life anyways.

"Right. Because having a conversation is the definition of chaos and evil." the yokai sarcastically comments back while rolling his eyes. "You do realize if I was all that bad you wouldn't be here right now, right? Besides, I prefer peace for the most part, though some things need to be punched in the face, hard."

"If you're oh so good, then why were you sealed in the first place, huh?" I leer at him. He won't fool me with this "I'm a victim" act.

"That's a pretty personal question." I just glare him down. "Geez, no sympathy, huh? I was reckless and stupid in trying to carry out a couple of vendettas. And before you ask, no they weren't against any humans. They were all a bunch of bastards that killed my family, ok? End of discussion and if you ask again, I'll string you up by your ankles in one of these tree." He grumpily replies, turning away as he finishes.

I hear a sniffle and look over to see Orihime with tears growing in her eyes. "That's so sad, Kurosaki-kun!" she bawls. "Kurosaki-kun lost all his family and got sealed away when he tried to avenge them."

"Hey, hey! Come on, no need to cry. I'm free and I know better than to do it the way I did now. Please stop crying." He begs as he hovers over her, looking unsure as to what to do.

"Come on, listen to grumpy face." "Hey!" "There's nothing you can do about it now and crying won't help either, Orihime" I quietly comfort her while tilting her face with my hand so I can look her in the eyes. I suppose they could have rehearsed this while I was unconscious, it's a good sob story, but Orihime's a horrible liar, which doesn't make for a good actress. However, there is still one part to this story that I need to figure out.

"So you're saying reckless action got you sealed?" he nods his head in affirmation. "Ok. So, then how did you get freed?"

He sighs before replying, "Your security sucks. Ow! What'd you hit me for?! It's true! I got free about a week ago because Inoue was being chased by a lycanthrope in the middle of the night. She led it to here and it ran into the shrine. It hit hard enough to put a crack in the box and knocked most of the tags and shit out of position. The barriers were then weak enough for me to force my way out to defend her. So, in conclusion, because your shitty security allowed a damn lycanthrope to hunt Inoue on the temple grounds, I got free."

I prepare to deny the possibility, because there's no way we're that lax, when I remember that there was that one night a week ago where everyone slept through the night. If something had come on that night, we'd have no clue about it, but…

"How come Orihime never said anything about it then?"

"Ah, w-well, she, um, passed out shortly after I finished the bastard, so I took her to her room and put her back into her bed." He embarrassedly replies while rubbing the back of his neck. "I didn't want her to get involved in all this shit if I could avoid it, so, yeah. Thanks for screwing that up."

"You know I thought that was just a dream! You looked pretty scary that night, but I thought you might've been friendly since you saved me and asked if I was alright. Um, but why is it dangerous to know about yokai and magic ice swords?" Orihime questions.

"Because once you know about yokai, you've pretty much invited yourself to get caught up in their affairs, and considering you have no powers, that puts you in a very vulnerable state." I calmly answer her question. "Besides, the stuff that involves yokai can be pretty brutal at times and you're a pretty gentle and innocent person."

"Oh." Her smile dims a bit at this knowledge. "At least I have Rukia-chan and Kurosaki-kun to help me!"

"Right. So I guess the first thing to we can do to help you is explain the basics. Right, Rukia?" the yokai asks me.

"No! The first thing you can do to help is to give me back my zanpakuto. And don't be so familiar with me!" I hit him in the back of the head for his rudeness.

"Quit hitting me! Here, take your stupid sword. What should I call you then? 'Cause all I've got is Rukia or midget."

"My name is Kuchiki Rukia, you yokai bastard. So you may call me Kuchiki-sama or Rukia-sama." I sniff at him while reclaiming my zanpakuto.

"Not happening. My name's Kurosaki Ichigo, by the way. And don't even try calling me strawberry unless you like the idea of hanging upside down for a while." I hit him again for his continuing rude behavior and he just growls. Good, he's learning his place.

"Anyways, back to the basics of yokai and what I suppose you can call yokai hunters. Yokai come with all sorts of shapes, forms, and abilities that can usually at the least let you put them into classes of some sort. The lycanthrope that you ran from fits into the animal class, predatory species, while I fit into the fire class, elemental species. Sometimes you can get yokai that aren't so obvious, but they all fit into some class and species." Ichigo lectures. "You with me so far?"

"I think so." She replies, but she looks a little confused to me.

"What don't you get?" I ask, after all, I'm her teacher too.

"Well, Kurosaki-kun said he's only half yokai, so doesn't that change his classification?"

"WHAT?! Only half… No way! Half breeds aren't that strong!" I look at him in surprise. There's absolutely no way I just got beaten by half breed. I'd be a laughing stock if anyone found out I couldn't even take on half a yokai.

"Well I am. And, yes, half breeds normally aren't even remotely as strong as I am. Geta-boshi figures I'm so strong because I've got good blood lines. I seriously don't know if it's that or something else. And I suppose you could give me special classifications, but I usually just go with how I'd be classified for being pure yokai since I can pass for one most of the time." he explains. I'm still shocked with the fact that he is only a half yokai. In general, half-blood means less than half the strength of the yokai parent. For Ichigo to be this strong, his parent was either an absolute monster or he somehow turned out stronger than his parent. Either scenario is a little scary to think about.

"In general, yokai live very long lives, though a couple species are short lived. Most of us are more durable, stronger, and faster than the average human. There's also what I suppose you could call a secondary type of yokai, but I'll get to that later. Yokai hunters are human and can be split into three categories: shinigami, fullbringers, and Quincy. I'll let Rukia start with explaining shinigami since she is one."

I blink a bit in surprise. I figured Ichigo would just explain it all and leave me to throw in anything I thought he missed.

"Ahem, um, right. So shinigami are humans who contract with a yokai sealed within a sword know as a zanpakuto. The human must meet certain criteria to even be capable of becoming a shinigami. I'm not entirely sure what the criteria are, but it has something to do with the quality of the person's soul. After you've been scouted, they put you into training to learn the techniques of the shinigami, which splits into four areas: hakuda, which is hand to hand combat, hoho, which is high speed movement, zanjutsu, which is swordsmanship, and kido, which are spells exclusively used by shinigami. During this training you try to find the zanpakuto that resonates best with you to form your contract. The yokai, which we refer to as zanpakuto spirits, are often very picky in the kind of person that they'll contract with because they can't switch until the current contractor dies. The contract is officially made when you achieve shikai by learning the command and name of the zanpakuto, and there's no short cuts because the zanpakuto will change their name with each wielder. Shikai is in essence the awakening of the spirit within the zanpakuto so that its powers may be used. Zanpakuto have a second level of release known as bankai, which requires a very strong bond between shinigami and zanpakuto. It is often earned through a trial set by the zanpakuto spirit. Bankai is when the shinigami is possessed by the zanpakuto and allowed to use that yokai's full power. The contract with the zanpakuto also allows us to share in their longevity and as well as their increased physical shinigami belong to the Gotei 13, seeing as they have all the zanpakuto and the art of making them is only know to the noble families among the yokai."

"Ok, so shinigami use yokai swords to fight yokai." I nod, she's summed it up fairly well.

"Moving on to fullbringers." Ichigo cuts in. "They are humans who can use yokai class abilities by channeling power through objects that they're very familiar with and have pride in. There are two theories on how one is created. The first is that they come from highly diluted yokai blood whose power happened to manifest in them. So like a half breed's many greats grandkid or something like that. The second is that their mother was exposed to high amounts of yokai reiatsu during the pregnancy and the child thus took on several yokai traits. I don't think it particularly matters either way. By channeling whatever yokai traits they have into the souls of inanimate objects, they can replicate yokai class abilities. Fullbringers are generally termed as the weakest class of yokai hunters simply because their potency tends to be a little low compared to the other types, though their elite still match up fairly well with the others' elite."

"So fullbringers are like shinigami, except they don't have to use a sword?"

"Kind of." I reply. "Fullbringers access the power of the souls of inanimate objects around them using their own power while shinigami use strictly their own power and the power of their zanpakuto."

"Ok, I think I get it." she says while furrowing her brow.

"It's alright if you can't completely understand how shinigami and fullbring powers differ." Ichigo chimes in. "Just think of it as one's an exclusive relationship with a sword, the other is an exclusive, strong bond with one item and friends with everything else, when it comes to outside power."

"Oh, that makes more sense." she smiles at understanding it. I'm seriously tempted to face palm at the need for such a childish explanation.

"Lastly there are Quincy." Ichigo goes back to lecturing. "Quincies are the only group that have no reliance what so ever on a yokai's power. Instead, they use ambient reishi or they steal it from their opponents. Quincy abilities are kind of like jack knives in that as long as the Quincy knows what they're doing, they can manipulate the reishi to have any sort of effect or create any shape, usually a weapon of some sort. However, when they steal an opponent's reishi most of the properties remain the same, so if one were to steal energy from my fire they'd most likely only create their own fire attack. A Quincy will usually specialize in bringing out a certain trait in their reishi manipulation, like using it for lightning effects or increased strength or something. Being a Quincy is also a blood line trait, though there were rumors that the original Quincy was still alive and could grant the capabilities to anyone. Anyways, because of the more 'self-reliant' nature of their power, Quincy tend to believe themselves superior to fullbringers and even more so to shinigami. Most of them also harbor a hatred of yokai in general, believing that all of us wish to do nothing but cause trouble and harm humans. In the past, a lot of the more effective onmyouji where actually Quincy while shinigami and fullbringers were the fairy tale heroes defeating the evil yokai."

"Oh, so there are real onmyouji out there?"

"I guess, although most of them today are fakes." I reply. It's really kind of sad that some people will fall for the phonies. The ones that do are usually people who don't even have to worry about yokai, the idiots.

"So now are you going to tell me about the secondary type of yokai?"

"Yeah." Ichigo almost sounds reluctant to talk about them, but I can understand why. They're not a very pleasant subject and with his power, he might not have that immunity that most half breeds seem to have. "They're feral or fallen yokai called hollows. A hollow is created when a yokai's heart is destroyed. I'm not talking about the internal organ that pumps blood, it's more along the lines of the emotional and mental heart. A yokai's heart is also the source of their powers, for some it has a physical form and others it doesn't. This heart can be destroyed through very heavy emotional and mental trauma that the yokai doesn't recover from in time, by a certain taboo spell that was lost, or sometimes they are physically destroyed. Once the heart is lost, a hole appears in the body and a mask forms over their face, so hollows are easy to differentiate from regular yokai. With their heart's lost, their powers warp and they lose all human consciousness, they becomes beings of instinct and any intelligence that remains is used to create better hunting patterns. A hollow experiences an insatiable hunger for reiryoku because they have lost their heart that produces their own reiryoku. They devour others in an attempt to replace the functions of their lost heart. They will first target anyone they previously cared about because they're trying to seek fragments of their emotional and mental heart to try and fill the emotional void. After that is completed, they hunt whatever they can get their claws on, usually going after people with higher amounts of reiryoku, to fill the power void. A hollow can't go back once it's completed, though a yokai can exist on the brink of being a hollow for extended periods of time. It is possible for a shinigami or fulbringer to become a hollow since they use a yokai's power, however it's extremely rare because so few have access to the yokai heart of their powers and because their humanity can stabilize the yokai part from completely breaking."

"So it's also uncommon for half breeds too? Right, Kurosaki-kun?" Orihime interjects, a note of worry and urgency laced in her voice.

"Um, yeah. For the most part, though more yokai-like half breeds like me run a higher risk of hollowfying. Hollows are killed on sight because no good ever comes of letting them live. All they do is kill and eat to become more powerful. The only reason that they aren't all dead or dead shortly after creation is that all hollows are capable of slipping into another dimension that can only be accessed by hollows. By slipping away like this, the smarter ones avoid capture or defeat by retreating where we can't follow. The smarter ones may also stay there and feed on their brethren, never running the risk of meeting a more powerful yokai or yokai hunter. And I think that wraps up the basics of yokai and yokai hunters. Anything you'd like to add, Rukia?"

I think on it some, but it seems we've covered the basics of what yokai and yokai hunters are in terms of existence and ability pretty well. "I think we're good. Duties, jobs, and relations can be covered latter. Judging by the sun's position, we have dinner in a little while and I still need to report back on the state of your seal."

Orihime looks down at her watch while Ichigo pales.

"You're right, dinner's in ten minutes."

"You can't tell them I'm free! They'll just try to shut me up in the damn box again!"

I grab Orihime's hand and start to lead her away while he protests my report. When we reach the start of the trail, Orihime tugs on my hand.

"You're not really going to tell on him and get him resealed, are you?" she whispers to me. I just smile evilly before turning to look over my shoulder.

"Be a good little strawberry and maybe I won't' tell them where you come from." I drop over my shoulder before turning back and dragging Orihime down the path with me. I internally chuckle at the growls and curses he directs at me. Payback is so sweet.

"Bye, Kurosaki-kun! I'll try to come visit tomorrow." Orihime calls back with a little wave. Soon enough we're out of sight of the clearing. I've got a quick, little report to falsify before dinner, so I pick up the pace, bringing Orihime with me.

Report to Kuchiki-taicho

Subject: Daitaiyo Temple Seals

All the seals have had full procedure checks. Strengthening and renewals were performed as necessary. No seals were broken and besides the one incident, there have been no mishaps. Enclosed are full detail reports of each seal's checking process written and signed by the staff handling it.

–Abarai Renji, fukutaicho of squad six

Hope all that explaining is clear to you, if not, drop a line and I'll try to clear it up for you.

Please leave a comment/review to tell me how I did.