Chapter 13: Victims

It was a very rough landing all around after crashing through the dome for our heroes plus one. After Yoruichi smoothly talked Kukaku into helping them, she sent her idiot brother Ganju to assist them and used her cannon to send them towards the Seireitei. Their descent was not as smooth as they were told as the dome was stronger than they thought. Yoruichi was about to inform the teens to pour as much energy as they could into the ball to strengthen the sphere, but that was when Ichigo decided to act first. She punched through the sphere much to the feline's horror and placed her hand onto the dome. Once she did, black ice started to form on the dome enough for Ichigo to punch through it so they could move forward. Unfortunately, because of Ichigo's actions to the sphere, they all separated in four different directions.

Ganju and Chad were launched to the east.

Orihime and Uryu were sent west.

Yoruichi to the south.

Ichigo to the north.

For Ichigo, she found herself falling fast through uncharted territories, but quickly caught herself as she slid down on solid reishi to slow her descent. When she was closer to the ground, Ichigo leapt high and landed gracefully onto the ground in one of the many corridors of the Seireitei. Unfortunately, Ichigo didn't recognize this particular area as Rukia hadn't been in this area, so that meant that Ichigo would have to find her own way forward.

With a sigh, Ichigo ran forward and traversed through the many corridors and streets that made up the maze of the Seireitei. While Ichigo didn't know this particular area, she knew others with crystal clear clarity such as the route to take to the Kuchiki manor, squad six barracks, squad thirteen barracks, and even the Senkaimon entrance. Rukia clearly had a knack for remembering these routes like no other and Ichigo could only smile at that fact. Maybe they could use the Senkaimon when they rescued her, or maybe not since the soul reapers could just shut it down before they could use it.

"Well it was worth a thought at least." Ichigo said to herself before rounding a corner and seeing a large group of men fast approaching.

"Hey, isn't that the dumb Kuchiki girl?" One of the men said in an arrogant tone.

"Yeah, but I thought she was supposed to be executed." Another spoke up in confusion.

"Heh," another started as he drew his blade and stepped forward, "then I guess we get to have some fun after all boys."

Ichigo was unfazed by their words and saw the bands on their forearms. 'Squad eleven. They're known for being a bunch of battle junkeys and fighters that dislike squad four for being healers. Most are strong for unseated officers, but they lack true battle tactics. Mainly wanting a good fight rather than trying to win is their biggest disadvantage because it means that they don't fight at full strength in the beginning.' Ichigo went a little wide eyed at herself when thinking about the squad as a whole. 'Did Rukia seriously document each squads behaviors in her own head or something? That girl.' Ichigo rubbed her own temple in irritation at Rukia's over-calculative thought process.

"You should pay more attention to your opponent, Kuchiki!" The last man yelled out as he rushed forward and brought his blade down on her shoulder. He was confident in his pure strength as he thought himself the strongest of the unseated officers. The only thing is, his blade barely did any damage to Ichigo or even her clothing for that matter. Both the man and the rest of his squad mates were shocked by this as they only knew that their captain could do this. "What the fu-"

Before he could finish his sentence of disbelief, Ichigo had grabbed his blade with her free left hand and froze it in an instant. She gripped the ice blade in her hand and shattered it without any trouble. Ichigo held the pieces of ice in her hand and looked at it for a brief moment before looking at the man in front of her. She could see the disbelief and anger in his eyes and something about that just made her smirk just a bit in amusement.

"Is that it?" She asked as the ice began to turn black in the palm of her hand. "I expected a little more from this squad." The ice floated out of her hand and off of the ground too as the entire area started to get colder to the men. "Guess I'll have to settle for the captain then as he would give me a real fight." She flexed her hand forward and the black ice shards of the mans sword flew forward, piercing through the men with such little ease. The wounds weren't enough to kill, but it was definitely enough to incapacitate every single one of them with a terrible frostbite.

Ichigo didn't stick around as she left the screaming men to their agony, unaware of the singular squad four member trembling in fear mere inches from the black ice that had formed on the ground and walls. He sat there in shock and fear as he recognized that that person was indeed Rukia Kuchiki, but at the same time was not based on her appearance and attitude. After the Rukia double had left, the squad four member decided to treat the men on the ground as best as he could, though whatever he tried seemed to be ineffective as the ice on their frostbite simply kept progressing slowly just like with captain Ichimaru. That was when he realized that that Rukia double was one of the Ryoka that had invaded the Seireitei.

"Hanataro!" A familiar voice called out as he quickly approached the now named Hanataro.

Hanataro turned around and saw the familiar visages of squad sixes and nines lieutenants, Renji Abarai and Shuhei Hisagi along with several members of their respective squads. It was Renji that called out to all looked around at the men from squad eleven down on the ground and sounded like they were in a tremendous amount of pain.

"What happened here Hanataro?" Hisagi asked as he ordered his men to get the wounded to squad four as quickly as possible.

Hanataro, still shaken by what he just saw, described everything to the two lieutenants. To say that they were shocked was beyond reasonable. They were under orders by their respective captains to capture the Ryoka while subduing one in particular that took down captain Ichimaru. When they along with the rest of the lieutenants got a clear description of said Ryoka from Izuru, they had their doubts that it could have been Rukia Kuchiki of all people as she was imprisoned in the Senzaikyu. Now though, hearing Hanataro's description of her and what she did to these men, it was all starting to dawn on them now. This couldn't have been a coincidence or any sort of trick, the one who did this looked exactly like Rukia Kuchiki with several different features to herself.

Renji was the most shaken from what he heard. He had thought that his captain had already dealt with the fake Rukia back in the world of the living and they saw the last of her, but it seems that that was not true anymore. If he remembered straight from that night, the double called herself Ichigo Kurosaki when they met. At first the fake was not all that strong, and then suddenly she was overpowering him with such little ease. Once captain Kuchiki stepped in and severed her power, Renji hadn't even given the fake a second thought or even kill her while she was down like he wanted to, but now he was enraged at his own complacency at this situation. Captain Ichimaru and these squad eleven men were in bad shape because he decided not to act when he should have. This caused Renji to grit his teeth as he seethed. If anyone was going to stop this fake that was wearing his best friends face like a disgusting mask, it was gonna be him.

"Hanataro," Renji started in a harsh tone that caught the boy off guard.

"Y-Y-Yes?"

"Which way did she go?" Renji didn't even look at Hanataro as he spoke.

"Down that way, I think." Hanataro pointed to the epicenter of the ice and Renji made a mad dash forward.

"Lieutenant!?" Hisagi yelled out only to have his voice fall on deaf ears. "Dammit Abarai." He muttered to himself before turning to the remainder of his men and Renji's. "Men continue getting the rest to squad four, the rest of you, with me to back up lieutenant Abarai."

"YES SIR!" They all said in unison.

While this was going on, Ichigo was making her way through the various corridors and halls once again as she tried to navigate this part of the Seireitei. Despite Rukia's memories and knowledge of the place, she had nothing in this particular area and it was starting to frustrate our hero.

"The hell kinda place is this to have multiple areas that look the damn same?" Ichigo said to herself as she rounded another corner. "Finally, something different."

She had made her way to a courtyard of some sort and saw a set of stairs that went up. Unfortunately, a dense fog was obscuring where it led up to. Ichigo tried to determine where she was before hearing an all too familiar voice behind her.

"ROAR, ZABIMARU!"

Ichigo leapt out of the way as the large, whip-like blade smashed onto the ground she was standing on. She landed not too far away and looked over to see Renji retracting his blade and moving forward.

"This time, I'm going to end you for what you've done." He said in a harsh tone as he got into stance.

Ichigo stood up straight and looked to the man that claimed to be Rukia's friend and a hard scowl crossed her face. How could this man say he's her friend and be there for her in the early part of their lives only to willingly watch from the sidelines as she was executed for doing the right thing? She deserved a better friend than him, and he deserved a painful reminder of how you shouldn't treat your friends. Ichigo drew her blade and a thin sheet of ice appeared under her feet, surprising Renji as she didn't do that last time.

"Renji," Ichigo started in a stern tone that sent even more ice and a cold chill out that Renji shuttered under, "I'm going hurt you, and I'm gonna make regret your choice to do nothing to help your friend." She held her blade up to the air and pointed it towards the shivering lieutenant.

"Sing, Kōsō Mūn"

A good place to stop at. If you're wondering why this call out, well I figured it was the opposite of Rukia's since hers is Dance, Sode no Shirayuki. I think it works out just fine.

The next chapter will have some more action in it as Ichigo faces off against Renji and Hisagi in the next chapter. That's gonna be fun to write. I'm really starting to diverge from canon now. WOO!

One more thing, I've been thinking about doing more lemon One-shot stories lately. I've got some rather interesting ideas for pairings, and I might just make a sequel story to a popular one about Yachiru and Orihime I did a while back. Who knows, I just know it'll be fun to do. If you have any type of request for this, I'd like to hear them.

Anyway, stay awesome, and as always...

PEACE!