Chapter 18: In motion

It had been a few weeks since Ichigo came clean with Sosuke about everything and the captain of squad five took it well. Well, not the whole power hungry nutcase that was hell bent on attaining power that transcends that of hollows and soul reapers part. He was absolutely fascinated by the fact that Ichigo traveled through time more so than everything else really. All of the things that he was told about that future was absolutely amazing to him aside from his own self. Now, they were less than two mere decades away from the point Ichigo was born to start getting everything on a new set path. If what Ichigo told him was true, then he would have to figure out some sort of way to create the hollow, White, to only infect Ichigo's soul and not his mothers. Ichigo put his absolute faith and trust into Sosuke now. Ichigo was the one who changed his life completely. From showing him how to really use his power to giving him the means to have his own daughter, Sosuke would not disappoint Ichigo. Not this time.

Squad eleven, training grounds

Currently, Ichigo was training both Rukia Kuchiki and Toshiro Hitsugaya, and it was going rather smoothly. This was a surprise to the current Kenpachi as the two were starting to get his training methods. Maybe it had something to do with Byakuya informing his younger sister of his former teachers methods and Isshin, who spied on a few of those old training times himself, informing Toshiro. Either way, it was going smooth.

Rukia had gotten her already fantastic control of kido to be even better than before. Now she can do up to level thirty kidos without the incantation, a feat that would've taken her over three months to learn back in Ichigo's old time after he saved her from being executed. Her swordsmanship still leaves much to be desired, but she was mainly working on speed and versatility at the moment.

Toshiro was doing well. Not as well as when Ichigo briefly fought him in his own time, but still well. His zanpakuto, while being the strongest ice type with Rukia's right behind him, was almost weightless with each strike he gave to Ichigo. He had no power to do any damage or give any force to his current teacher when they sparred, and Ichigo could tell that he would get frustrated. That frustration would be his downfall if he didn't reign in his anger real quick. His swordsmanship skills were better than Rukia's, which isn't saying much, and his own speed was above average, but his kido skill was awful.

Right now, Ichigo was preparing to duel them both at the same time with a practice sword. Now, this would be just fine, if both his current students weren't wielding their own respective zanpakuto's. Along the sidelines of the training grounds was Byakuya, Isshin and even Soi-Fon. They saw their teacher take out the wooden sword used for practicing and visibly paled.

"What the hell?" Isshin muttered along. "He's seriously going to use a practice sword against two actual swords? Man, Ichigo is either crazy or has something up his sleeve."

"You could say that." Byakuya said to him, earning a raised brow from the head of the Shiba clan.

"When he would spar against us back then when we were starting out, he would use a wooden sword and tell us to come at him with the intent to kill." Soi-Fon answered.

"Wait... What?" Isshin spoke out as now both Rukia and Toshiro stared at the squad two captain as they overheard her.

They quickly turned to Ichigo, who was stretching his arms a bit, and saw that he had taken off his captains haori. The two youngest and least experienced in the area swallowed a lump in their own throat and saw the smirk on the captains face as he placed the wooden sword on his shoulder.

"Ya'll heard Soi-Fon, so I won't repeat my own self." Ichigo started to the two as he stretched a kink out of his neck. "So, lets see what you two got."

Both Rukia and Toshiro nodded hesitantly as they drew their own blades and waited for Ichigo to make the first move. Ichigo didn't bother setting his wooden sword down and instead walked over to the nervous duo casually. The two knew they stood no chance against a captain. Hell, they probably couldn't even take on a lieutenant. But it was something off about how they were being approached that really got them looking at one another. Toshiro nodded to her and she nodded back. With a sigh, Rukia decided to start a plan.

"Hado number 31: Shakkaho!" She yelled out as the red ball of fire shot right at the still casual strolling captain.

Ichigo narrowed his eyes as she knew that attack wouldn't do a damn thing to him. It was when the attack struck the ground right in front of him, kicking up dust, did he realize what they were planning. Ichigo smirked as these two figured out the objective rather quickly. Teamwork.

Ichigo looked to his right where the dust was the heaviest and wasn't even surprised when he saw Toshiro coming at him. Ichigo dodged his swings and kept his wooden blade on his shoulder the entire time. He watched as Toshiro was indeed coming at him with the intent to kill, but he was just too slow compared to Ichigo. After a few more minutes of Toshiro's failed attempts at hitting the captain, Ichigo merely caught his blade with a finger, shocking both Toshiro and Rukia off preparing a stronger kido, but also Isshin who thought that this was crazy. Ichigo's former students shuddered at their own experience when he did this to them all that time ago.

"H-How?" Toshiro muttered out, still in shock at what he had just witnessed.

Ichigo didn't answer as he did to Toshiro what Aizen did to him back in his old time line. He lightly tapped the blade of the zanpakuto and instead of a gash like back with Aizen, instead it was a loud smacking sound of wood to skin. Toshiro's eyes shrunk in pain as he felt like his chest had been caved in by a massive hollow's fist. The indent in his clothes next to his chest didn't help either.

Ichigo let go of the zanpakuto blade and watched as Toshiro fell to the floor, gasping for air. As he had dropped his zanpakuto and was curled up trying desperately to breathe, Ichigo looked over to the stunned Rukia and saw her shocked reaction and how it stopped her chant for the stronger kido. Ichigo smirked a bit and decided that this would be payback enough for what his old Rukia did to him. Faster than the girl could even comprehend, Ichigo appeared behind her, a large shadow looming over her and causing Rukia to freeze in fear. Ichigo kicked her in her back, hard. Hard enough to send her flying towards Toshiro, but not enough to cause any permanent damage. At worst, she'll have an incredibly difficult time walking around for a few weeks. As both Toshiro and Rukia were laid out on the floor in unimaginable pain, Ichigo once again placed his practice sword on his shoulder and walked over towards them.

"As first impressions go, that wasn't bad." Ichigo started as he walked over towards them. He stopped when he stood over them. "But it wasn't good either. While I am impressed you tow figured out the real meaning behind this part of the training much faster than my older students, you all still have much to learn." He looked over to Toshiro, who was finally able to breathe somewhat normally again. "Toshiro, you have decent speed, but your stamina and strength are lacking heavily. You were nearly winded when you were striking at me, and that was when I noticed your total lack of strength. We will work on that."

"Y-yes, captain Kaiyo." Toshiro stuttered out for a moment. The captain was right. He lacked power and stamina in his fighting style.

Ichigo turned his attention towards Rukia who was struggling to sit up. "Rukia, your kido is impressive, but you froze up when you saw what I did to Toshiro. You're hesitant and you stood by trying a stronger kido. This duel was about teamwork and that meant helping Toshiro for when he was attacking me, yet you didn't. Your lack of proper sword technique is your downfall there. We will work on that as well."

"Yes, captain Kaiyo." Rukia said to him as she realized he was right about that. Her sword skills were mediocre at best while her kido was her strength.

"Alright." Ichigo started to them. He turned to the three captains and continued. "Byakuya, I want you to train Toshiro in the style I taught you in swordsmanship. Make sure that he can give some power and strength behind his attacks as well as be able to actually keep up on a constant basis."

"Understood Ichigo." Byakuya answered his former teacher with pride. Byakuya went over to Toshiro and helped the boy stand up before they both left at a slow pace.

"Soi-Fon, take Rukia and work on her speed and versatility. Make sure that she can use her zanpakuto as well as her kido and then expand upon it. I want her to be as good with her blade as you are by the end of the year." Ichigo said to his second student.

"Understood." She answered him before flashing over to Rukia, grabbing her and her zanpakuto, and then flashing out of to the squad two training grounds.

Ichigo sighed before walking over to place the practice sword back with the others. Isshin approached him in slight confusion. "I thought you were going to be training them Ichigo. Why have Byakuya and Soi-Fon do it?"

Ichigo looked over to his friend/father and gave him a quick smile. "Because those two are basically the same as Soi-Fon and Byakuya back then. Full of potential but lacking certain things. Toshiro is like how Byakuya was back then and the same with Rukia compared to Soi-Fon. It only makes sense to allow my two former students to train my two current ones the same way I trained them."

Isshin narrowed his eyes a bit. "Sounds an awful lot like your lazy to me."

Ichigo gave a smirk. "That to. I don't really feel like training these two the exact same way as I trained Byakuya and Soi-Fon, so I'll just let those two do it instead."

Isshin face palmed himself at hearing how his friend was just lazy in this regards. Ichigo couldn't help but chuckle under his breath at his fathers look, but right now he had something important to attend to.

World of the living, night time

Ichigo had just landed on one of the buildings in Karakura Town and hid his spirit energy in the process. He had to see how his mother was doing along with the Vizards. If he knew them, then he also knew where they would be.

Ichigo leapt from rooftop to rooftop in search of his mother's familiar yet feint energy. It was small, but filled with so much life to him. He knew that she wouldn't recognize him in the slightest, but that didn't matter to him. Just the idea of seeing her was enough to make him give a genuine smile. As he approached the home she was at, a pretty standard sized home for three people, he felt a strong spirit energy near the harbor. He turned and could tell that Shinji and the Vizards were having a tough time taming their hollows, but that didn't matter to him at the moment. He found the window that he could feel his mother's familiar energy in and looked through it. There he saw her sleeping form and couldn't help the smile on his face once more. She looked so innocent and safe where she was that it was practically a crime that she was forced into this life of soul reapers, hollows and Quincy's.

Satisfied with seeing her again, Ichigo left and decided to make his way towards the spirit energy that was trying to be concealed and doing it rather poorly.

Done.

PEACE!