CHAPTER 3: Reunion

FREE! He was finally free. Ichigo could not believe it himself, but he was outside, standing on the lush green grass, sweet fresh air filling his lungs, pleasant sounds reaching his ears. The contract had enabled him to leave the dreadful and gloomy place named hell behind, he was free.

He was almost tempted to just stay there and enjoy the sunrays bathing his form in their warmth, but managed to withstand the temptation. He had a promise to fulfill and he never broke his promises.

Standing in the middle of the forest, surrounded by nothing but wildlife and plants he let a fraction of his power loose, letting it seep out of his body and bath the surrounding in sheer undiluted power.

His reiatsu surrounded him like a typhoon, swirling around him and creating powerful winds that picked everything in its path up, while the earth under him began to shatterand break.

He let his reiatsu swirl for a few more seconds and waited, before surpressing it again, hoping that it had fulfilled its purpose. His display of power had been done with a sole intention in mind, not out of boredom or spontaneity.

His display had the sole intention to let him be noticed, but not noticed by just anyone, he wanted to be noticed by a specific group of people, namely his friends.

The promise to meet them again, to celebrate with them, had kept him going. He had never forgotten said promise, had kept it in the forefront of his mind and had built his resolve around it.

He looked up when he felt a shift in his surroundings, a door appearing in his line of sight which had not been there before.

It was a door that he had become quiet familiar with, a door which he had not seen in quiet a while.

He anticipated the arrival of his friends with every second it took the door to fully open, which gave way to disappointment when the only thing that came through was a butterfly, which then landed on his shoulders.

He waited a few more seconds before turning his head to the butterfly still sitting on his shoulders and watched it watching him watching back. He was about to open his mouth and say something to the butterfly, the first sign of insanity he had once been told, when he was suddenly attacked, well his instinct had registered it as attack at first.

His mind registered the attacker a second later and suprressed his reflexes from lashing out.

Something, no someone slamed into him and almost knocked him over.

"You took your time you idiot." The person embracing him said.

"Rukia" Ichigo looked down only to see she had burried her head in his chest "you still haven't grown an inch"

His response got him a hard kick to the chin and an angry midget shacking him while shouting cusswords best not mentioned.

"I see you haven't changed at all" he voice commented from his side. Only then did he notice the crowd having gathered around him.

"Hey everyone" he got out between his shakes "how have you been?"

"We should be asking you this. Its been quite some time since you have been forced to stay in hell. I would think that it has been worse for you than for us." Ishida said pushing his glasses up.

Ichigo could only stare at him for a second before letting his gaze sweep over the crowd gathered before him, his friends were in said crowd of course, as well as some captains and the goat face, but he still felt like someone was missing.

He knew who was missing "Were are my sisters?" He questioned his dad, hoping for an answer, dread already spreading in the pit of his stomach. His father was about to answer when Ichigo was hit from behind, a growl reaching his ears before a second hit followed the first.

"Where are you looking you idiot!?" He turned to see a woman a bit smaller than him standing before him, giving him the evil eye.

"Karin?!" He couldn't believe his own eyes, this woman before him almost looked like her but that couldn't be, Karin was his little sister, this woman was much older than that.

"Who else would I be, the toothfairy? Of course I am Karin, Ichi-nii you were gone for almost 150 years, did you think we would stay young forever? We grew up, lived our lives and at the end died going to soul society and continued to wait for you there."

"Oh" He didn't know what else to say, his voice almost cracked, his baby sister, the small child with her black hair and strong gaze had grown up and he had missed it all. She was now a strong woman, able to stand on her own two feet, still taking no nonesense from anyone and he had missed it, had been missing her whole life.

"You have grown Karin" he didn't know what else to say, he did not regret saving them from hell, but he regretted having left them alone, having missed their whole lives and probably a good part of their afterlives as well, a sorry wouldn't do, wouldn't truly transmit all his feelings, all his regrets.

Karin's eyes seemed to shimmer for a second, before she gave a small smie "We have missed you" she whispered, fidgetting on her spot for a moment, before rushing forward and embracing him for all it was worth.

He closed his arms around her, trying to shield her from the world, even if only for this moment, and let her shed her tears, letting them soak his clothes, accepting for what they represented.

Karin calmed down quickly letting go of him, an action that seemed to sadden them both, before giving him a smile, communicating that she was alright.

He wanted to ask her so much, wanted to know what they did with their lives, what they were doing with their afterlives, what he had missed, but he refrained himself. He would ask them all later, for now he would only bask in their presence.

However, one thing he still had to know "Were is Yuzu?" He needed to know, because even thought he was now searching for an adult Yuzu he still couldn't find her anywhere among the crowd.

"She;s still in soul society. She wanted to come real bad but her duties were more important right now and I assured her that she would still be able to meet you even if she wasn't one of the people among this crowd even if I have to beat you up and drag your sorry as to her to fulfill my promise." She gave him a smirk and had a dangerous glint in her eyes that promised pain and humiliation if he even thought of leaving before meeting Yuzu, which he would have done even without the warning.

He gave her a nod that conveyed his intention of making sure to meet Yuzu before leaving again.

"what happened to you?" His quiet friend Chad asked, coming to the question that seemed to have haunted all his friends gauging from all the looks he was getting now.

He was about to answer when he was interrupted by none other than hat-and_clogs. "Now now," he said waving his fan before him, infuriating as always "Ichi-chan has just arrived, first of all we should make him comfortable and then he can tell us everything about his life and adventures, I myself am quite curious about the hell dimension which could take quite awhile" He gave another infuriating smile that made Ichigo wish to hit him before turning on his heel and stabbing his cane into thine air before him and turning it like a key.

A senkaimon opened through which he promptly went, waiting for no one, sure that they would follow, which in the end they did, keeping their questions for themselves for the time being.

Ichigo told them everything, what had happened, what the hell dimension was like, why he had been able to escape and what he needed to do now.

They listened quietly, only commenting here and there, letting him tell them his story, what he had lived through what had happened and why and in return they told him what he had missed.

Yuzu who had arrived shortly after they had entered the room told him that she had been devastated by his sudden disappearance but had been able to catch herself with the help of goat face and Karin. It had taken some time but she had moved on and accepted that she may not see him for a very long time.

She had grown up to be a nurse, helping those in need, a dream she had always possessed and later on she had even fallen in love and married a man named Akira with which she nurtured three children, one of which she had named after him and funnily enough it had been said son who had inheritated the ability to see ghosts.

Now in the afterlife, after she had lived to the age of 89 she had joined the fourth division right after finishing the shinigami academy and was now still helping all those in need of it. Her husband had died shortly after her and remembering a good portion of his life through the influence of his son Ichigo, was now living with her even in the afterlife, a happy end one could say.

Karin had never marriaged, but she became a detektiv and solved almost all the crimes with which she was confronted, something that Ichigo told her later on he was very proud of, and she even managed to get some petty criminals to straighten up and follow a honest life.

"They only needed someone to believe in them and help them see right from wrong, and of course a beating they would never forget" she told them all with a smirk, while Renji commented that Karin was like Ichigo, making friends with all the people that he knocked around after they tried to kill him.

His friends had all done something with their lives, Chad had become a famous singer and had created many popular songs, some of which were even centered around Ichigo much to his embarrassment and inner joy.

Ishida surprisingly had followed his fathers footsteps and had become a doctor. He had been the leading physician in the field of cancer, creating the first steps to finally produce a cure.

On the other hand Orihime had become a chief and surprisingly a very popular one at that. It seemed that more people shared her taste than they had ever thought, well and many of them used Orihimes food as dares of who would last the longest.

The shinigamis had not changed much, for them it seemed life went by slowly. There had not been many incidents after Ichigo's disapearance and life went on for them as usual. They had their captain meetings, their work, their jobs, their hobbies and everything inbetween and it hadn't changed much even after Ichigo had found his way into their lives.

That did not mean that nothing had changed for them after Ichigo had involved himself into the happenings of soul society, one such change was that the vizards where now accepted as part of soul society and even some of his arrancar friends had found their way into the hearts of the shinigami and seemed to be visiting them ever so often.

Rules had been changed, strict traditions had been lessened and all in all life had improved.

Another thing that embarrassed Ichigo to no end was that he had become something of a celebrity in soul society, which he had only noticed when one of his fans had gathered the courage to walk up to him and ask for his autograph, much to his embarrassment and his friends joy.

When asked how he had not noticed till then, since many people had whispered and pointed at him throughout their walk to their destination, he had told them that he was used to people doing so and had reckoned it had been because of his hair again, after which his friends pointed out that his hair, compairing to some others was outright normal, vague gesturing toward Thoshiro's and Yoruichi's direction.

"So you are going to a wizard school named Hogwarts in England, to protect the students from some evil wizard Moldyshorts or something because the headmaster named Dum-something created a contract with you, that enabled you to leave hell for the duration of said contract?" Rukia asked the second time for confirmation, to which Ichigo responded with a nod.

"And you want to infiltrate said school without anyone, summoner, teachers, students and so on knowing because you believe that you would be able to better fulfill your objective, which is to protect all of them" Rukia continued with a deadpan look, to which Ichigo nodded ones again.

"Confess! You are just bored and want to have your fun without anyone interfering, this has nothing to do with fulfilling the objective at all" She suddenly screamed, making those around her wince at the volume.

"Your point?" because she always had a point when she had one of her outbursts.

"You are taking me with you" she had a dangerous look in her eyes "you are not going off having fun while I die here of boredom while you have one adventure after the next." Ichigo was about to object when Rukia continued by providing many different arguments in favor of letting her have fun.

"If soul society were to support you, we would probably be able to establish a connection with Hogwarts via the shinigami academy, which we displayed as a fellow wizard school from japan. With this we would be able to create an exchange, where a few of our 'students' were to go to Hogwarts, with none of them none the wiser and with that we would not only be able to infiltrate the school without anyone truly noticing but soul society would also be able to learn about these so called wizards, not to mention that it would allow us to have fun and to spent as much time with Ichigo as possibly before the contract is finished and he has to go back."

She presented all of this with a proud smile on her face, while Ichigo wondered if she had forgotten where exactly she was, because they were in a captain meeting right now and she had just told her superior indirectly that she wanted to skip out of work.

The soutaicho who had been listening patiently till now cleared his throat to to get their attention.

"Your suggestion has its merits, very well we will try to establish a connection with the wizard school Hogwarts and infiltrate their ranks. Now the next question we should ask ourselves is who will accomplish Kurosaki Ichigo to Hogwarts.

I thank you all so much for your suggestions and have finally found my answer. I myself liked the idea to send a child Ichigo to Hogwarts but Ichigo would probably end up to much out of character like the last time.

My other suggestion would have also been a good solution and story line, but I thought that it would still look quite suspicious that a lone japanese would suddenly appear and tell them that he was homeschooled.

Also now that I have thought about it again, I found it really weird for Ichigo to not visit friends right away, because we all now that Ichigo always keeps his promises and tries to fulfill them right away.

Also right now this text is filled with mistakes since I don't have my laptop which has a programm that corrects said mistakes. My brother stole it from me and I had no other choice but to write from an old PC which only has WordPad. I will correct them as soon as I have my Laptop back so please wait until than to comment on my abyssal writing.

Another thing is that this time I have tried to lengthen my sentences, please tell me if I have succeeded or not and how I can improve myself if I haven't.

I hope you like my story and another thank you for all your support and sugestions.