With a Silent Step

Kurotsuchi listened to the audio feed from Ichigo's bracelet, chuckling. They wouldn't find a thing inside it; he'd worked too hard on it to let those idiots balk him on that point. Nemu had plopped a blonde wig onto her head, and was returning to the Soul Society to poke around and see what was going on, things that they couldn't hear through Ichigo. The boy couldn't be everywhere at once, Kurotsuchi acceded. Though the reiatsu drain seemed to be going quite well if the reactions of the people around her were any indication.



It seemed that the Soul Society, mistrusting fools that they were, had put Ichigo into something like house-arrest, preventing him from returning to the human world. They would probably give him a half-assed reason such as "Kurotsuchi is still loose and dangerous. We couldn't protect you before but we will continue to ensure your health and safety here."



Little did they know, his plans concerning Ichigo were completed to their fullest. As soon as the boy went down, he'd no longer be a problem, but the restriction to the Seireitei was doing them more harm in the long run. After all, if Ichigo wasn't present there, the bracelet could do the city no harm.



They are actually quite helpful for a bunch of useless idiots, Kurotsuchi decided. They were doing half his work for him, happily signing the papers that would lead to their own downfall.



---



Ichigo awoke in her unused quarters woozy and mad as hell. How dare they keep her here against her will?! She was a captain, dammit!



Rolling out of the bed, she noticed that her shihakusho had been removed, leaving only the white yukata she wore beneath it. She found it folded neatly in the chest at the foot of the bed. Zangetsu tingled from beneath it.



Ichigo, I have been bound, he murmured. It sounded distant, even in her own mind, and she froze.



What.



It should have been a question, but the anger she'd felt at the aging soutaichou earlier was burning into a heated rage. Yanking out the black hakama and haori, she discovered Zangetsu in a form she'd never seen - always released in the shikai form, he'd always been an extraordinarily long, thick sword, but the weapon at the bottom of the chest looked to be a normal katana, the way the rest of the Shinigami's zanpakutou looked ordinarily.



/My powers have been bound. I cannot be released./ Zangetsu said, sounding sad. Ichigo was furious. They were treating her like a criminal prisoner instead of an endangered captain. She spun on her feet, stomping through the small apartment to the front door. The windows were all sealed shut with reiatsu and shutters, and she yanked on the door, intending to hurt someone. It didn't budge.



Fed up, Ichigo pounded on it. "LET ME THE HELL OUTTA HERE," she demanded at the top of her lungs. Outside, someone coughed.



"My apologies, Taichou, but you are to remain here in your quarters until further notice." It sounded polite, and weak, in Ichigo's opinion.



"Like hell," she snarled, and flew back into the bedroom, yanking Zangetsu out of his sheath. It felt strange to hold such a small sword after years of hauling the larger one around. She reached out with her reiatsu, and felt for the binding. It had been inexpertly done, probably by the clod outside, she guessed. Using kidou, she pounded the seal into nothing. Immediately, two things happened; Zangetsu grew back to his normal size and shape, and Ichigo saw black spots in front of her eyes. Shaking her head to clear it, she wondered what the hell was up. It was a simple thing to do, but clearly, they'd done something to her from the moment she returned. Perhaps a kidou spell keyed to her reiatsu over the gate, like the one that had prevented her from passing back through it to the ningenkai.



"Fuck. This." she growled, and stood in front of the door. She cleared her mind, and took a deep breath, gathering her reiatsu again. It felt like it came from far away, and something tugged in the bracelet. Am I drawing from this stupid thing? she wondered.



/Yes,/ Zangetsu offered. /It contains a large amount of your reishi./ She gasped, and then concentrated harder.



"Bankai," she whispered. Zangetsu flashed, and an explosion of reiatsu sent her hurtling backwards into the low, uncomfortable sofa.



"Hey! Taichou! What's going on in there!? What was that explosion?" Several voices from outside reached her, and she ignored them all, trying again. This time there was no explosion; rather, an implosion as all of her gathered energy funneled itself inward, and then darkness as it was drained by the bracelet as fast as she could absorb it into her body.



The last thing that crossed her mind as she slipped into unconsciousness for the third time in as many hours was shirosaki...



-



Outside, the fourth division members looked at eachother uneasily. There had been a large bang, and then utter silence for nearly five minutes. None of them could bring themselves to open the door, afraid that they would find Kurosaki-taichou dead or missing entirely from the sealed room.



After another two minutes had passed, one of them gained enough courage to begin partially undoing the binding on the door, intending to just peek inside. A muffled thump was their first warning.



Before they could even reach for the half-unsealed doors, they burst open, reiatsu pieces flying in every direction from the broken seal. Kurosaki-taichou stood there in her shihakusho, an unsealed Zangetsu slung across her shoulders, and a maniacal grin on her face.



The fourth squads looked at each other nervously as the smoke cleared from the door. As the fifth squad captain came into clear view they realized something was wrong.



Her eyes were a pure molten gold colour, and a hollows mask was filtering down onto her face from the surrounding air. This was something they had heard about several times in the academy, but being fresh recruits, had never had a chance to see for themselves. First-hand experience was something none of them wanted, however, and the freshman Shinigami scattered into the city.



Shirosaki stepped delicately over the rubble of the door and most of the wall, looking down at herself with a frown. Even me, eh Aibou?



Somewhere in the back of his hollowed mind, he'd hoped that when he took over Ichigo's body, he would turn back into a man, but that didn't seem to be the case. More experienced Shinigami were running towards them, most drawn by the explosion and loud noises, and others by the terrified recruits babbling about a hollow in Kurosaki's room. Shirosaki sized them up, thought about fighting them for the sheer pleasure of stretching her limbs, and then decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and shot fifteen feet straight up into the air with one jump, landing gracefully on the roof of the next building over.



"Later, losers!" she called, and patted her ass before leaping easily to the next building, and the next before she came back to the general-use gate to the human world.



Been a while since I been out in Soul Society, she commented to herself. Ichigo was still unconscious in the back of her mind, and Zangetsu was tending her as she slept. In fact, she realized, the last time she'd had free reign inside Seireitei was during the fight with Byakuya. She and Ichigo had reached a conclusion with one another; neither had total domination of the body, they shared it equally, and drew on one another's strengths and abilities. Shiro was well aware that she scared the bejeesus out of most of the regular Shinigami here, although not even half of them had ever seen her. Her presence within Ichigo was enough to give the captain a new level of respect from the kids out of the academy.



The gate was unusually guarded, and she felled the two eleventh division Shinigami underlings with a simultaneous kick/punch to each of them, hitting them both in the head. They hit the ground hard, and there was a cloud of dust behind her as the mob finally caught up. One hand against the empty air, she tested it to find out if it was sealed against her as well as Ichigo.



Her fingers met invisible resistance, and the crowd was catching up quickly. A roundhouse kick to the barrier did nothing but allow them to catch up to her. Scowling thoughtfully, Shiro looked around at the dozens of zanpakuto being leveled at her. She curled her fingers, and to the shock and dismay of those closest to her, they became claws. Not just the nails, but the entire tip of each of her fingers elongated and became sharp. Terrified, the Shinigami backed away. Shiro bared her teeth at them, sending some of the more impressionable reapers stumbling back through the crowd, eager to get away from the mad hollow.



Instead of attacking, however, she gripped the air with her fingers, tearing it open like it were nothing more than a bedsheet, or a wall of dough. A hole opened up to Hueco Mundo, sending several more Shinigami into alarm. Shiro opened it far enough that she could fit her body through it, and then vanished, the hole closing behind her.



She stepped into the vast, empty wasteland of the hollow world, looking around nostalgically. "Didn't miss this," she muttered, and curled her fingers again, this time concentrating her energy towards Karakura. The hole rent open, exposing Urahara's shop on the other side. She sent a burst of reiatsu towards it, knowing that the efforts were exhausting her already limited supply, but also aware that if they felt a hollow breaking free of Hueco Mundo directly outside, they'd be there to pick her up.



This hole took a few minutes to widen enough to fit through, and she staggered through it just as Urahara and Yoruichi were coming around the house at a fast clip.



-[TBC]-

Whoot, a longer chapter this time! I'm bored with the computer right now; I only stuck around long enough to finish and post this chapter. (I'm running out of good ideas for titles, so they're probably gonna start getting weird, or being named after whichever song I happen to be listening to when I post)