Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach or any of its characters. They belong to Tite Kubo and whoever else actually owns it and I make no money from writing this. This story however is mine and is not to be replicated, reposted, or copied in any way without my consent. Thank you.
…
Distractions and Danger
.
They had no choice but to go to school the next day, but for one person it was far more suffocating than he had ever thought it would be. Needless to say, he and Tatsuki had celebrated her new powers with one of the heaviest kissing sessions he had ever experienced in his life back at her home later that day, and one of the few things he could remember was that he had had to restrain himself with every fiber of his being from taking her right there.
God I wish I had, he groaned inwardly as he sat at his desk. He tried to pay attention to the lesson but everything going on in his life had him completely unfocused. He twisted his pencil between his fingers to keep himself occupied. His body was aching with frustration, and not just from his lack of reiatsu.
At the time, which was soon after she had obtained her powers, he had been extremely surprised that he was actually feeling the effects of giving reiatsu to someone else. Urahara had said it was because while he had had
physical exhaustion before, his reiatsu was so powerful it rarely got depleted. What he had done was forcefully push some of his reiatsu out of himself and into Tatsuki, meaning that for once in his life his reiatsu was feeling a drag on its power.
The way he had stumbled over to his body only strengthened that argument.
I barely gave her a tenth of my power and yet I can still feel my soul's weakness! It better come back soon, I'd hate to have to fight Hollows in this state. With that subject the crisis of his mind was brought back to the surface. Fighting Hollows was a Soul Reaper's job, among other things. Tatsuki had gained these powers, but she had no idea how to fight with a blade. Her fists, those were a no-brainer, but not with a sword. He couldn't help but gulp as he remembered what had taken place yesterday.
…
"
For ten days Arisawa-san, you will be my student." Urahara had said. It was sickeningly familiar to Ichigo. He knew what was going to happen during those ten days and he didn't like the concept of Tatsuki going through the hell he did. But still, he had continued to listen quietly even as Tatsuki absorbed his former teacher's words.
"You have a lot to learn and if you want to fight beside Ichigo without getting yourself killed this is the only way to do it. For the next ten days you will study with me and let me teach you how to fight properly. So that gives me about ten days to torture you and get you up to par. How about it Arisawa-san?" Ichigo knew they both knew what her answer was going to be before she even opened her mouth. So it came as no surprise when she proved them right.
"
What do you
think!" She replied indignantly.
"Of course I will!" Urahara had done his discreet grin that spoke in untold fashion the things to come. Tatsuki had missed this entirely, but it was not lost on Ichigo. He had clenched his fists tightly to stop from screaming out for her to stop. He knew that this was the only way too. If she wanted to survive against the Hollows that had been popping up ever since he and the others had defeated Aizen and his cohorts, she was going to need Urahara's training.
That didn't make him like it though.
…
Ten days. Ten days, and ten nights. For those ten days he was going to be spending every waking moment worrying about her even though he knew he had nothing to worry about. She was as stubborn as he was; there was no way she would fail. Still…that meant ten days away from him.
Ten days where his body would grow increasingly more frustrated at the lack of the sweet taste he had gotten addicted to just yesterday.
Good God, just how can someone's lips taste that good? He wondered to himself. She practically oozed confidence and lust in the moments he had her trapped against him. And during their record-breaking amount of time where they had done everything
but any touching to intimate areas, he found the need to taste her overwhelming. He wanted her beneath him, writhing and screaming in passion. It had taken every ounce of his willpower to resist then, and the idea of not being able to alleviate that growing urge with at least their kisses for a whole ten days made him want to scream in frustration.
For some reason he doubted he was alone in that department.
Tatsuki had been irritable all day so far, as just like with him, Urahara had told her to go to school the next day before they began their training. He could practically
see the tension roiling in her body, and the admittedly well-hidden glances towards him every now and then only drove that point home harder.
Speaking of harder…
No! No no no no no no NO! He thought furiously. He had managed to ignore his hormones ever since he had become a teenager, but now with the right stimulus readily available, and willing, those previously ignored little chemicals floating around in his teenage body were fighting against his steel will with a savage vengeance.
When a
snap was heard he looked down in surprise to see he had crushed his pencil.
Just great…. He groaned. He needed something,
anything, to get his mind off what he was thinking about.
The bell rang and suddenly he couldn't be happier.
Thank God! Two heads unknowingly thought in unison.
Both parties quickly shoved their things into their bags and they were about to dash through the door to some hidden place to get rid of the stress they hadn't been aware would come with their relationship…only for a voice to call out and stop one of them.
"Hey Tatsuki! Don't forget about Karate practice!"
Tatsuki had never hated Karate more in that moment than she had in her entire life. She was only relieved when Ichigo walked by her, seemingly in a perfect calm, and whispered this as he went by:
"I'll come too. I want to see if you've gotten any better."
The infamous tomboy hid her smile. "You just want to see me all hot and sweaty in a pair of white pajamas," she joked back. Ichigo's low chuckle reverberated through her bones and right to her already frustrated sex.
"That's an added bonus." And with that, he walked off.
Oh jeez, he wants me! The young woman realized, with what one might call a belated sense of the obvious. She knew that she was more than frustrated yesterday, but the fact that he may still be holding back kept her from acting on that.
I could have been with Ichigo yesterday! Something occurred to her.
But are we moving too fast? A quick evaluation of herself found that answer to be an overwhelming '
NO!' She wanted this. For eighteen years she hadn't known what she had truly wanted. But she knew, she wanted
them. She wanted to be together with him. That was what she craved, that was what she wanted. That was what she needed.
And hey, if she got to fight with him before then, all the better.
…
Tatsuki came out of the girls' change room dressed in a fresh white uniform only to see a shocking head of orange hair had beaten her there, and was standing alone wearing the same standard uniform. She snickered silently. The captain of the boy's karate team had been trying to get Ichigo on their team for as long as she could remember, and here he was practicing with her.
It's amazing what a little sex appeal can do, she thought with a manic grin plastered all over her inner mind.
It's also amazing someone like me can manage to pull that kind of thing off. Once again, she couldn't help but snicker.
Meanwhile nearly every member of the club was staring at the scowling young man like he was from another planet. They simply couldn't believe he would show up.
Tatsuki walked towards her boyfriend with an anticipation that made each step on the blue mats of the dojo area of the gym seem like she was walking on pins and needles. She knew at her current level she didn't have a chance in Hell of defeating him, but by God was she going to make him remember she certainly wasn't helpless.
Stopping a few feet away from him, she entered her fighting stance and eyed his seemingly non-interested form dangerously.
"You here to fight Ichigo?"
His lips curled back into an almost unnaturally wide, sly grin that was just as menacing as her glare and she gulped unwittingly. There was simply something about that grin that unsettled her, even if she knew what they both were doing was an act to keep the others off the gossip their relationship would become if they were found out.
"I don't know, are you up for it Tatsuki?" He taunted back.
The rest of the club drew in a harsh breath. He was just
asking for a death sentence.
Tatsuki didn't even dignify that with an answer, instead she charged at the lackadaisical teen with her famous demonic temper ready to wipe that grin right off his face. She had expected he'd be good, but not…definitely not what she encountered.
Ichigo dodged her first punch like he had seen it coming a mile away and swatted her fist away in a calm fighting strike that allowed him to relax into his stance with no effort and launch a punch to her unprotected stomach that she had never thought he would have the speed to send. She rolled back from the blow but was not able to avoid it completely.
The pain in her gut testified to that.
She growled lowly and launched her attacks anew, sending them with trained accuracy and speed only to have him do exactly the same, but with far greater speed. He wasn't even attacking her so much as he was taunting her, and for some unexplainable reason she found herself smiling from ear to ear as they fought.
He wasn't afraid to show her he was better than her. He wasn't afraid to make her mad. He wasn't afraid. Period.
She knew this was far from his true skill but she also knew he wasn't trying to mock her by holding back. There was good reason for his wariness. Still, his punches came at her as sure as hers came at him and he wasn't scared of making her back away from him with a particularly stinging blow every now and then.
It occurred to her that the rest of the team wasn't even practicing, they were just standing there with their mouths open as they witnessed their captain, the second strongest high-school girl in Japan, get worked over by the orange-haired wonder who seemed to be having as much difficulty dodging her blows as he was blinking.
Punch, evade. Kick, sidestep. Combo, counterattack.
Their moves were in synch, almost to a fault. Almost as if Ichigo knew what she was going to do before she did it.
In a way he did. After all, one did not face opponents like Ulquiorra Schiffer and not learn to read where and when an attack was going to come from with only the simplest muscle movements to go on. It might be considered cheating, but Tatsuki was using all her skill to try and at least hurt him, so he thought using a fair amount of his was only acceptable.
She'd probably kill him if she found out he was holding back though. He shuddered. If he didn't hold back they'd be scraping her off the nearest wall with a spatula. That was not something he wanted to do. It would also make this makeshift battle much too easy, so holding back was only natural.
It also made it much more entertaining.
Their reiatsu flared in the air between their blows and they were both pretty sure that if there was any spiritually-aware person within a five-mile vicinity they would be feeling their battle. The difference in pressure, but the overall amount of it, was enough to completely saturate the air around them.
In his overconfidence however, he forgot one very important thing. Tatsuki was a woman. It was only a matter of time before his eyes shifted down to the erratically bouncing flesh of her chest and the way her perspiration beaded down her graceful neck and into her white uniform.
That alone was enough to make him forget what he was doing.
Sensing his distractedness, Tatsuki took that opportunity to surprise him by giving him an unavoidable punch to his stomach that ended up with him panting on the floor. She smiled down at him widely while he glared half-heartedly back up at her.
"You did that on purpose, didn't you?" He accused mockingly.
She kept on smiling. "No, but I wasn't about to waste such a beautiful opening!"
Ichigo rolled his eyes. "Hardy har har."
"Oh give it up you big baby! You're just mad that I floored you!" She shot back jokingly and was rewarded with his lips twitching slightly. She knew he wanted to grin but his reputation around school wouldn't allow it. She was sure that if they were alone he'd be laughing his head off.
"You had
better be ready for round two." Any further comments were barred when a loud voice called over from the other side of the gym.
"Hey Kurosaki! Got your ass handed to you by a girl huh? Why don't you come over here and try
really fighting!"
They both looked over to see that the kendo club had started up on the other side of the massive gym, and nearly all of them were either doing their best to hide the fact that they were snickering at his fallen form, or they were doing it openly. Ichigo's playful glare turned into a full-fledged one and even from across the gym floor, Tatsuki saw many of them stop immediately. She smiled. Ichigo did have one hell of a glare after all.
Said orange-haired powerhouse picked himself up off the floor and in a surprise move, walked over to where the kendo club was standing on their mats. Some of them impulsively backed away but the leader, obviously, stood confidently as the orange-haired teen walked like death itself towards them.
The bleach-blonde leader looked at the scowling young man with a wide sneer. "You still haven't dyed your hair black eh?" He smacked Ichigo in the shoulder with his kendo stick and Tatsuki's eyes went wide as Ichigo's glare deepened even further, if that was possible.
"I told you I don't dye my hair," he responded lowly.
"Pff," the leader scoffed, "I guess I'll have to teach you again. Maybe if you have the time to grab a stick this'll be fun, but I doubt it."
Ichigo rolled his eyes mockingly. "Oh how quaint, an armed person in full kendo kimono and armor going up against a unarmed person wearing only a pair of white Karate standards. You must feel tough don't you? Here, would it be better if I didn't wear any shirt at all?"
Tatsuki didn't know where he was going with this, but the second his white shirt had been unbelted and thrown to the ground…there wasn't a single female mouth not watering. Hers included.
The body that had been revealed to them was nothing short of a battle-scarred demigod.
His muscles were so compacted into his body each individual strand of sinew stood out against his taut, tanned skin but did not bulge like did those of a bodybuilder. This body had been trained through experience. And it showed. The worst scars by far were the ones that laid right between his powerful upper chest and his trim abs. Those were where Byakuya Kuchiki's spirit-breaking blows had first been delivered during his days as the rookie Soul Reaper that couldn't even ask his own sword its name. They didn't stop there however. Each shoulder also bore their own deep scar. His side had a deep gash that had healed over into perfect scar tissue from where Kenpachi Zaraki's blade had nearly cut him in two, but the one that earned the most gasps was the one running from hip to hip right above his belt line.
That, that had been done by Sousuke Aizen himself in their first encounter.
What had bile rising in the back of her throat though, was that when he moved slightly, and more of his muscled back was revealed, many of the scars were mirrored there. Those wounds had gone
all the way through his body. Even the one on his side had a mirror image on his back. The only one that didn't was Aizen's scar. That offered little relief however, for she knew that if there was, then he would have been cut in half like a log of firewood.
She shuddered at the concept.
This was a body that had been through many tortures, and come out alive. This was the body of a person that didn't give up no matter how badly they hurt.
This, was a person who took victory from the hands of defeat.
The bleach-blonde that had decided to face him was equally stunned. "What the hell did you do to yourself!"
Ichigo gave him a grin that practically bled bloodlust. "I didn't do
any of these to myself. If you think your little wooden stick could hurt me you're in for a big surprise. Why don't you trade up to some real swords if you actually intend to hurt me?"
But the leader was already surprised, because in Ichigo's hand was a kendo stick. He hadn't seen him
move, let alone grab a weapon. In the next second that weapon had been placed at his throat in a slash that could have knocked his head from his shoulders had it not been stopped at the last possible second.
"So," the Vizard hero drawled out smoothly, "wanna go a round?"
In response the admittedly built opponent swung his stick at Ichigo's seemingly unprotected head…
…Only to find it twirling through the air to land by Tatsuki's feet nanoseconds later.
He stared at Ichigo in blatant fear as he backed away slowly from Ichigo's extended sword arm. The seemingly inexperienced duelist had batted his weapon out of his strong grip with no effort, and with no long wind-up either. He had simply
reacted, and suddenly the once-confident leader found himself weaponless.
"You really are a freak!" They all cried out at once and ran away like a bunch of frightened kittens. For safe measure, Ichigo gave their backs one of Ogichi's patented grins and even though they weren't looking at him, he still saw them stumble.
Hopefully that'll keep them away from me for a little while, he thought as he let out a deep sigh and relaxed his muscles before picking up his smooth white shirt.
It was as if some spell had finally been broken, because that was when the cat-calls and wolfish whistles started. He looked over in surprise to see most of the Karate club's female members eyeing him appreciatively and making sounds he would normally expect a guy to make when he saw a good-looking girl. Usually it didn't go the other way around.
He did enjoy one part of it though. That part was of course, the part when Tatsuki started beating the shit out of all of them for even looking at him that way. Under the notion that they should be practicing, not ogling, naturally.
It was because of that distraction that Ichigo felt what was coming before she did.
SHIT! He screamed mentally as he pushed himself over to where they were with his complete reiatsu behind him, thus allowing him to use Shunpo in his human body. If he hadn't, he wouldn't have made it between her and the giant Hollow that just broke through the gym's wall in time. Sadly, that speed was also what made it impossible to notice that the Hollow had blades for fingers before he was already in front of it.
His right arm suffered for that.
All of a sudden Tatsuki felt herself be splattered with not only the remnants of drywall and concrete from the wall, but also a shower of red liquid. She looked down on her and many of the others' stained uniforms, to where Ichigo's right arm was skewered by five giant fingers. With his other hand, Ichigo was struggling to keep the monster's remaining hand from doing the same to his body by grappling with the thankfully flesh-covered palm.
The students instantly freaked out from being covered in blood, their wall being demolished for no apparent reason, as well as their ticket to victory's right arm gored through with invisible weapons. Their lack of knowledge was something to be thankful for though, for had they been able to see the scene before them for what it was they would have experienced a whole new kind of terror.
"Tatsuki!" He shouted hoarsely, "the Medallion! It's in my backp-ACK!" He tried to finish, but was knocked away by a slap from the giant bipedal dragon the Hollow was formed like. Tatsuki heard him though, and instantly dashed for Ichigo's backpack. Even if he
could transform into a Soul Reaper, his sword arm was completely useless now.
It's up to me! She acknowledged grimly. She shuffled through his backpack with renewed panic when she noticed the Hollow had since ignored Ichigo's fallen form and was now making its trek over to where she stood looking for the accursed Substitute Medallion hidden somewhere in his backpack.
Dammit where the hell are you! The Hollow was getting closer.
Nothing.
Even closer.
Still nothing.
Almost to her…
Just as the Hollow was about to hit her she found herself propelled away from the huge body by a small mass colliding into her like a football player. Sprawled on the mats completely confused, Tatsuki managed to get a look at her rescuer, or at least, as much as she could see from their tangled position. A head of combed black hair on top of a slim female body met her vision, and the body was wearing a shihakushou.
"Rukia!" She exclaimed thankfully. That was also when she noticed there was something putting pressure on her hand, and it wasn't flesh or metal. She looked down and saw that the instant Rukia had body-checked her away from the backpack, her hand had managed to grab Ichigo's Substitute Medallion.
Finally! "What on earth were you and Ichigo doing!" Rukia yelled indignantly. "I felt this Hollow coming a mile away but I thought he could handle it!" She jumped off the stunned Tatsuki to defend against the Hollow's strike with her zanpakutou. With a swift parry the Hollow had been knocked away but it was nowhere near dead yet, a fact that pissed Rukia off immensely.
Their fight commenced instantaneously, and no matter how many Arrancars, or Espada's, the short woman had fought before, this one still managed to give her trouble. That was likely because it had hands capable of blocking a zanpakutou easily.
As the incredible fight moved further and further away from her, the awestruck Tatsuki finally remembered what she was now capable of. It couldn't have been better timing either, because her tiny Soul Reaper savior was currently backed against a wall, literally. Without wasting any more time, Tatsuki slammed the Medallion against her chest and for the first time, felt the euphoric weightlessness of her soul as it broke loose from her body. As her physical form fell to the padded floor with a dull
thud, Tatsuki grinned at the back of the large Menos Grande.
Time to see what she could do.
She jumped, and she really only meant to jump a little ways, but she soon found herself near the roof of the giant gymnasium. Astonishment coursed through her, before she realized if she kept going at her current rate she was going to hit her head on the roof any time now. With a quick flip, she planted her feet on the roof and launched herself at the Hollow's back from behind. Unsheathed her sword in one smooth motion, she brought it down as she flipped over its shoulder.
The behemoth's right arm evaporated into the air as it was disconnected from its body and it wailed a deep roar of pain.
Rukia however, was staring openly at the figure that had landed beside her. "H-How…how did you…!" She tried to form her question, but the words wouldn't come.
Tatsuki's eyes shifted to hers and she gave her a slightly apologetic smile. "I'll tell you about it later. How about we finish this thing fi—!"
Once again, distractedness in battle proved to be the key hindrance of the day. While she and Rukia had been talking, even for that short while, the Hollow had managed to get itself upright and had since swung at them with its undamaged left arm in a wide arc, not only knocking the two bodies together in its swing, but shooting them into the opposing wall at great speeds. Not to mention the cuts all over their bodies from the bladed fingers.
Tatsuki Arisawa, the feared demon of a tomboy, had never experienced pain the likes of what assaulted her, and these were mere cuts caused by bladed weapons, nothing like the wounds she had see marring Ichigo's perpetually tanned skin. If this was what she felt merely from something like this, she could hardly wrap her mind around what his wounds must have felt like. It gave her a whole new sense of respect for his superior power, and it gave her another jolt of her characteristic determination.
However, that was all but completely useless in the state she was in, and they looked up in horror to see the Hollow begin its journey over to them. With a foreboding sense of dread they were sure that if they could see under the mask, they would see a giddy smile.
"I will enjoy eating you Soul Reapers…." It hissed maliciously.
The tone of its voice seemed to be very appropriate, for at that moment a reiatsu more venomous than anything Tatsuki had ever felt snuffed out whatever pitiful reiatsu both Soul Reapers and the Menos put together had in the air around them. This power was deep, heady, almost as if they could see the air itself thicken around them while the dark undercurrents in that unimaginable power sent a chill right to their bones. Clearly alarmed by this sudden turn of events, Tatsuki looked up at the Hollow to see that it had since stopped its trek to them, and thought for a second that maybe it had stopped to find the strange reiatsu in the air.
Rukia however, she knew what this was.
It was then that the Hollow suddenly became airborne, and it was revealed that the Hollow hadn't stopped
intentionally. It had stopped because it
couldn't move. A lone figure had grabbed on to its tail with one hand, and with just that one hand, had swung it out the hole it had created at its arrival.
"What the…?" the novice Soul Reaper began, but then she saw who had vaulted it away. He was currently turned towards the Hollow's flying form, but she would know that body anywhere. Ichigo. His right arm was still bloody, but she could see no holes. Somehow, his arm was whole again.
Instant Regeneration.
Then he turned over to regard them, and Tatsuki froze in fear.
"
Rukia, take care of Tatsuki."
He was wearing a mask. His bright yellow eyes bored into her from their frame of completely black sclera and his voice...his voice, it came out much deeper, and with a Hollow's telltale echo to it. This was what it meant to be part Hollow.
This was a Vizard.
"A Vizard is never truly defenseless," Rukia murmured to her, and she could only nod and gulp in agreement when she saw Ichigo, human body and all, take off after the Hollow with speed she didn't think she would ever be able to muster in her Shinigami form in a million years.
Even from
her vantage point she could see the fight as he tore into the Hollow with his bare hands, sending it blows that she could feel the shockwaves from even from where she sat.
Eleven seconds passed…
Ichigo continued to pound on the Hollow as its screams of agony echoed through the spiritual realm.
One minute passed…
The Hollow had now lost both arms.
Five minutes passed…
Still, the one-sided battle continued and with a mighty blow, Ichigo sent the Menos flailing its armless body to the ground.
It was becoming vastly apparent that one did
not go to Hueco Mundo as a half-Hollow and not come back with vastly more control over that side.
And vastly more power.
The crater it created right beside its initial break in the wall brought them back to reality, and Ichigo's form landed on the ground right in front of the gym as if he was walking on air.
"
Still here are you? Might as well get this over with." With that, he raised his left arm into the air and pointed his first two fingers at the struggling form of the rising Hollow. Tatsuki could see the red energy start gathering at his fingers in a bright crimson orb but she couldn't understand the meaning of it. All she could understand was that it was enormously powerful reiatsu.
"What is this?" She whispered. "Kidou?"
Rukia's wide eyes widened further. "Worse!" She shouted, and quickly tackled the taller Soul Reaper to the ground. "Cero!"
The blast of air that washed over them from the subsequent release of a Menos Grande's signature attack from the masked human nearly shot them into the wall again, and many of their stunned classmates didn't fare any better. In fact, they fared much worse. All of them were flung against the wall nearest them and not one of them got up afterwards. Unconsciousness was a sweet release from the horror they witnessed on their clothes.
The death cry of the Menos rung throughout the gym…and then, silence.
Ichigo sighed in relief and with a wave of his hand, his mask disappeared. He walked over to them like he had just finished a walk in the park and squatted down next to them. "That was one tough bastard," he chuckled. "Rukia, you still got the strength left for some healing Kidou?"
Rukia glared at the brilliant-haired young man. "I've been through way more and still had enough for Kidou! I wasn't top of my class in it for nothing!"
The young man chuckled again. "Well then get to work. You better have one of those Memory Replacer thingies handy too. We don't want the rest of the Karate class to remember any of this."
With a nod of agreement the pint-sized Soul Reaper set to work right away.
As she was healing Tatsuki's wounds after taking care of her own and the incriminating memories of their fellow students, she looked over at the—did he look worried?—Substitute Shinigami. "So, are you gonna tell me when
this happened?" She asked, motioning towards Tatsuki's Soul Reaper form with her head.
"I think I'll wait to tell you until I'm done my training. That was embarrassing. I'm not going to associate myself and the word 'Shinigami' together until I can fight and actually be useful," Tatsuki spat bitterly instead of letting Ichigo answer for her.
Ichigo reached for her hand without thinking. "Hey," he began, "you did great today. For your first fight with a sword you did pretty damn good to be able to cut off a Menos Grande's arm with your first blow. You have nothing to worry about!" He gave a laugh and she reluctantly joined in.
She
had done pretty good, hadn't she?
That in mind, she smiled at him. "I'm still gonna kick your ass for taking all the glory," she threatened comically, and Ichigo's resulting chuckle sent delightful quivers through her bones. He could excite her with simply a chuckle, she couldn't wait to see what he could do with his hands. That would come with time though, but she knew it
would come eventually, and she couldn't wait.
"After Hat-and-Clogs is done with you, you just might."
Ten days from now, she would show him what she could do. And she wasn't simply talking about fighting either.
…
Author's Notes: Same as before. Wow, my writing style has evolved though, LOL! Thanks for reading.
