So...For the chapters with Tenebris. I'm thinking of speeding up the shinigami arc, since I know the time when she comes back is going to happen soon. But I wanted to ask first. Should I speed up her flashbacks, now that she and Rukia are getting along, or stick with the pace, but when she is about to be taken out of the crystal we just focus on the flashbacks until they are done? Leave a review of your answer.
12
Chad had come to school that day, much to Ichigo's relief. He was starting to worry that his friend might have become obsessed with getting stronger when there really was no need to. There are no enemies besides Tsukishima, but Ichigo wasn't really concerned with him. In the end, fullbringers were humans, they had more limits than a hollow and shinigami.
"Tenebris must have rubbed off on you, King. It sounded like you believe humans are weak or something. Tenebris believes humans are weak," said Shiro.
'She doesn't see them as weak as in "they can't defend themselves". She knows that they are much easier to kill then something that is already dead. Like a shinigami and hollow. That is what I meant when I said "they have more limits",' replied Ichigo.
"Whatever helps you sleep at night." Ichigo could see Shiro's mental shrug within his head, but decided to ignore it. He needed to get ready for the kendo match that was about to start in the next hour.
So, Ichigo made his way to the gym and into the changing room where he found the other members of the team. They changed into the kendo uniform, and practiced for half an hour. They made sure not to go overboard this time, or else they would be too tired for the match.
They were now sitting in the gym with the team they were up against in front of them. The kendo instructor started the matches, and Ichigo's team won most of them. Only one of their teammates had lost to the other side. Once the match was over with Ichigo's team being the winner, the orange-haired teen got his last income of money and then met up with Chad, who was waiting by the school gate.
"Are you ready to train, Chad?" Ichigo asked. Chad just nodded in reply. "Okay then, let's go." They left school and walked to Xcution.
Ichigo and Chad were training inside Riruka's Dollhouse. When Ichigo had first met the pink-haired girl earlier, he didn't know what to think of her. She seemed to be rude, but when she looked at him she started to act really strange.
"She has a crush on you, King," said Shiro.
"How would you know that?" asked Muramasa.
"I'm not as dumb as him."
'Shiro, knock it off,' said Ichigo as he blocked an attack from Chad.
"What are we doing, exactly?"
'We're training Chad. What's it look like?'
"I know that, but what I really want to know is why do we have to train him here? All we're doing is making him stronger, and have better stamina. We could have done that anywhere else."
Ichigo knew that Shiro had a point there. He could have helped Chad get stronger without the help of the fullbringers. 'So what is it that they are teaching Chad?' he wondered, because if it was just strength, Chad could have just come to him; not some strange people that he never met before.
"I think he's ready to dodge a Getsuga now, Ichigo," said old man Zangetsu.
Ichigo lifted his zanpakuto above his head and fired a Getsuga Tenshou. He made sure to weaken the attack as much as he could so it wouldn't kill his friend in case it hit him. Chad dodged out of the way of the blue energy beam, and then countered with his own attack: El Directo.
Ichigo blocked the attack, but to his surprise the beam of spirit energy pushed him back a few yards, or what felt like yards to him since they were tiny and inside a cutesy dollhouse. The attack lost its form and just as Ichigo was about to send out another attack, a timer went off.
"That's enough training for today," said Ginjo.
Ichigo was disgusted. To get out of the dollhouse, Riruka had to sneeze on him. He was using a towel to clean off the snot, but he was making plans to get a shower once he got back home.
"I hope she wasn't sick. Now that would really suck for you, King!" Shiro said while chuckling impishly.
'Wouldn't you get sick too?' asked Ichigo as he finished cleaning up his face.
"... I don't know…"
Ichigo just sighed, but then remembered what he wanted to ask Ginjo. "Ginjo, can I talk to you for a moment?" he requested.
The two sit down with Chad next to Ichigo. Ginjo got a jug of juice and asked Ichigo what he wanted to know.
"What is it that you're teaching Chad?" he asked. "If it was to get stronger, I could have helped him with that without your help."
Ginjo downed his bottle of juice in one go before he answered, "We're teaching him the ways of the fullbringers. Our powers allow us to manipulate the souls inside objects and other things. Say if I were to get the soul inside that glass of water in front of you to place the water into my mouth I could do that. Or I could tell it to do the jig. Instead of that though, I'll show you how I can control the soul inside my pendant." Ginjo took off his cross-shaped pendent and turned it into a broadsword. "This item is very special to me so I can shape it anyway I see fit. I wouldn't be able to do this with the glass of water. Us fullbringers all have something we wouldn't be able to part with, and it is these items we draw our powers from.
"We gained this power while we were still inside our mothers' wombs when she was attacked by a hollow and lived. This made the power of both human and hollow's spirit energy to mingle together and enter the unborn baby, giving us this power."
Ichigo was thoughtful. He understood what Ginjo was telling him, but there was something bugging him. He turned to his big friend. "Your powers come from your arms, but they are not objects so how can you transform them?" Ichigo asked.
Chad's only sign of surprise was the widening of his visible eye. "I'm…not really sure. It might have something to do with my grandfather telling me to use my fists for good and I saw them as my source of power. I guess the human body has its own soul besides our own?" Ichigo can tell Chad wasn't sure at all. So he turned to Ginjo to see what he had to say to Chad's theory.
Ginjo shrugged. "I guess that it's possible for the body to have that kind of soul too. After all, it acts like a vessel to our souls and shinigami souls like you, Ichigo. How is that any different from a haunted doll?"
Ichigo had no words for that - beside the fact that a human body will move on the soul's command while a doll wouldn't.
"That might be because the body has the right parts to move and a doll doesn't," suggested Zangetsu.
'Um...what about Kon? He is in the body of a stuffed animal, and he can move just fine,' said Kikoo.
"Let's agree that none of this makes sense," added Muramasa.
"I second that!" exclaimed Shiro.
"Is that all you wanted to know, Ichigo?" asked Ginjo.
Ichigo thought about it, but couldn't think of anything else so he said, "No, I think that's all." He got up from the couch. "I need to be getting home. My sister is probably almost done making dinner right now."
"Well then, we'll see you again tomorrow," said Ginjo.
Ichigo and Chad both leave Xcution.
Ichigo and Chad were talking as they walked, but they paused when they heard crashes coming from the construction site. They wondered what happened, but then they felt two reiatsu they recognized as Keigo and Mizuiro. They were near the crash area, and knew that something bad must have happened since the two spirit energies were lowering. Ichigo and Chad made a break for it and headed to where their friends were.
When they got to the spot, Ichigo saw that some poles were about to fall on Keigo and Mizuiro, so he flashed stepped in his human body and stopped the metal poles from falling on top of them. Once he caught the heavy pieces of metal he tried to push them back up, but he noticed movement coming from the direction that he knew Chad wasn't in. He looked and saw some punk kid with a buzz-shaved hair-cut with only a small mohawk on the middle of his head. Before Ichigo could react, the punk kid attacked him, but before he could land a hit on him, Chad dashed past the young shinigami and met the kid's fist with his own. This gave Ichigo time to lift up the poles and move his friends away from the danger.
"What are you doing here, Moe Shishigawara?" Chad's voice asked, catching Ichigo's attention.
'So that's his name,' the shinigami thought.
The punk kid smirked, "I'm just doing what the boss tells me to, and that was to attack the Soul Society's pet!" Moe said loudly and tried to attack again, but Ichigo was already there and grabbing the guy by the wrist and throwing him over his shoulder. Moe landed on the hard, cold ground with a loud thump. Moe groaned and was about to get up but froze when Ichigo laid a foot on his chest and Chad stood to his full height.
"Did your boss tell you to attack our friends?" Ichigo interrogated with a deep scowl on his face.
"I'm not saying anything!" Moe shouted.
Ichigo turned to his big friend. "You know this guy, so do you know his boss too?" he asked.
Before Chad could reply, a voice said, "He works for me." Ichigo and Chad looked up to see a young man with black, wavy hair, brown eyes with a scar going down the left eyebrow, long-sleeved, high collared shirt, and black paints along with black business-like shoes.
"Tsukishima," said Chad, but not in greeting.
"That's Tsukishima?" asked Ichigo, who only got a nod in reply from the half japanese boy. Ichigo's brown eyes sharply turned back to the man that ordered the attack and demanded, "Why did you attack my friends?"
"It was to get to you, Ichigo Kurosaki," said Tsukishima. "But that is all I'm going to say for now. I'll be taking my companion now and be on my way."
"You're not going anywhere!" Ichigo shouted and charged for the young man, only for him to vanish. 'Where did he go?' he thought.
"Ichigo, Moe is gone too," he heard Chad say from behind him, making him look to see his friend was telling the truth. Both Tsukishima and Moe were gone.
Ichigo was sitting in his room thinking about what had been going on lately. "First Chad, then Uryu, and now Keigo and Mizuiro. All of them are connected to me and Chad, but Tsukishima admitted to being after me," Ichigo said softly. He thought back to what Moe said as well.
"I'm just doing what the boss tells me to, and that was to attack the Soul Society's pet!"
After that thought, Ichigo thought back to what Ginjo said.
"Tsukishima wants revenge on the Soul Society."
Ichigo let out a frustrated sigh. "Is he attacking me because he believes I'm a bigger threat to him? The Soul Society doesn't have push overs, and there are many shinigami. The only reason he would see me as the bigger threat right now is because I could stop them from getting into Soul Society."
"But how in the world would they even get there?" asked Shiro from outside Ichigo's inner world, making the teen jump in surprise. Shiro smirked, "Scared ya?"
Ichigo sighed, "Shut up. As for how they would get there, I have no idea."
"Well, it's not like they are going to succeed anyway, because we'll stop them before they even get there. Hmm…" Shiro hummed thoughtfully. "Maybe we should let them get to the Soul Society. That way they find out the hard way just how outmatched they are."
"That's a cruel thing to do, Shiro. They'll be killed, making them believe that they were right all along about the shinigami," said Ichigo.
Shiro shrugged, "Not my problem. Now I'm going to bed." The hollow zanpakuto vanished, leaving Ichigo alone in his room again.
"Why are we attacking Ichigo Kurosaki now instead of earlier when the Winter War ended?" asked Moe to Tsukishima.
"We didn't attack him then for two reasons. One: they were on guard, and two: we needed to plan our move carefully," said Tsukishima.
"Okay then, but way now? You think he's at his most relaxed?"
"There is that, but we need to attack him now and no later."
"Why's that?"
"If we waited a little longer, then the Dark Dragon would return. We're already cutting it close by attacking now and not a month earlier, but that was because of Sado."
"Dark Dragon? Who's that?"
"If I remember my legends right, the Dark Dragon is a dark being that holds the power over darkness. There are many legends about her, and the one that makes me not want to face her is the legend of how she and her army can end a war in one night. They even say that the red markings on her legs are just blood stained on them after walking through an ocean of it in the result of ending one of those wars, but I don't think that part is true. The part I do believe is the ending the war in a night. That dragon is asleep right now due to ending the Winter War with just using her strongest attack. I don't know the name of it, but it allowed her to control all the elements in the world in one big natural disaster."
"SHE'S THAT POWERFUL?!"
"Now do you see why we have to make our move now? If we don't, and she wakes up, our plans will fall into ruins."
"When is she supposed to wake up?"
"I don't know, but I do know that it is soon. It said she only needs to sleep for a year."
"IT'S ALMOST BEEN A FULL YEAR NOW!"
~Inside Tenebris' crystal~
"cho~" Tenebris sneezed quietly. 'I didn't know I could sneeze in here, let alone move.'
~Outside her crystal~
"Huh?" Ichigo lifted his head from his homework. "I thought I just heard something." he shrugged. "It's probably just my over stressed mind."
TBC
Well, this was a nice build up chapter. I wasn't planning on adding that last part of the chapter, but I couldn't help it. I thought it was funny.
Shiro: *looking at my plans* Yeah, there is no way you'll finish the Substitute Shinigami arc flashbacks before Tenebris comes back.
Enj/Dark: Now do you understand why I need to speed things up with that?
Ichi: Maybe do two chapters of just the flashbacks and then another chapter in the present?
Enj/Dark: I might have to do 3 in a row, but then I'll start forgetting what I wrote in the fullbring arc. I could also just skim some parts as well.
Shiro: That's why you're writing facts down for this fanfiction. So you don't forget the important things.
Enj/Dark: True… Anyway please review and please answer my question in my first AN of this chapter. Thank you! ^_^
