Chapter 9: Heading for Soul Society

A few days after awakening his zanpakuto, Ichigo along with Chad, Orihime, which both surprised her to no end that they had powers, and Uryu stood in front of Kisuke. Yoruichi stood near the small group as the cat waited for Kisuke to finish up his explanation of how this makeshift Senkaimon worked. While the feline shut his words out, he looked towards the small group of teens with a keen eye.

Chad and Orihime had been the true surprise for him once it was known of their powers awakening, no doubt because of Ichigo. Their powers were a little odd to begin with, but it only got weirder once they started to be around Ichigo over the past few days. Chad's right arm began to radiate more energy than how it did when he first used his powers. Orihime on the other hand, her barriers were actually much stronger now, able to take a hit from Ichigo's zanpakuto several times before breaking. Both Yoruichi and Kisuke had an idea of what this meant, but for now they would have to leave that alone until they all returned.

Uryu had also been an even bigger surprise to the two. After his loss to Renji and seeing Ichigo cut down like that, he began training like a mad man. He had no clue why but seeing her like that was proper motivation to get stronger, especially after feeling that intense energy she let out in her fight. Uryu did something he never thought he would have done in his young life: he went to his father. Ryuken, seeing that his son wanted to become stronger and wouldn't take no for an answer, decided not to hold anything back in their training. Not even shots that were vital were off the table. Uryu grew much stronger than he would've if he went unprepared, but the odd thing was when he met Ichigo in his soul reaper form. The young Quincy didn't know why but seeing Ichigo like this now and all of that power she was radiating off of herself was both terrifying and soothing. He couldn't answer why, but his power seemed sharper when standing near her.

Ichigo had stayed more or less the same throughout the ten days of training. He learned a lot from Kisuke through his teachings, even the ability to use Kido, something Rukia knew very well. It took time and learning from Tessai as well, but Ichigo eventually learned how the basics of Kido and even up to the thirties. His progress was very strange to Kisuke, Tessai, and now Yoruichi as the feline didn't know how to react to someone absorbing information and techniques so damn fast. It was both fascinating and baffling to them all as Ichigo simply was a very fast learner. It also didn't help that, from what Kisuke told him, Ichigo spends her hours to sleep in the Jinzen stance. That surprised the cat to no end and only brought about a bigger question: just what exactly was Ichigo learning from her Zanpakuto?

Yoruichi was snapped out of her thoughts once Kisuke and Tessai began to activate the gate for them to go through. While the teens were a mixture of excitement and wonder, Yoruichi couldn't help but feel somewhat apprehensive. He was brought into this whole thing to train Chad and Orihime and then help the four navigate into the soul society, but something felt off to the feline. The four spent more time together in only the few days they had before now, yet for some reason that he couldn't understand, they seemed to be in perfect synch with one another. It was almost scary how well they worked well with each other in that short time.

"Good luck you guys." Kisuke spoke, breaking the feline out of his stupor.

Without wasting any time, the four raced inside with the cat racing after them to keep up for now.

Another short and sweet one. I just wanted to get this one out of the ice so to speak and continue it. Ichigo and company will be entering the Seireitei in the next chapter and yes, that chapter will be longer.

Been having a slump of a year both physically and mentally lately. Decided to take time off of writing and that unfortunately spanned into me not wanting to write and a whole bunch of other cans of worms I don't really want to get into now. Just know that I've finally gotten some $h*t straightened out in my personal life, and I can get back to writing on this site. I will be posting chapters to various stories on Thursday's and will try and get some of them finished for once. Thank you to the ones who stuck with me for all these years and have been patient with my hiatuses recently.

The next story I'll be updating next Thursday will be Redo and Change. Probably don't expect it to be too long of a chapter though.

You guys are awesome and as always,

PEACE!