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"Rukia" – Normal Speech

'Ichigo' – Thoughts

*Kaien-dono* - Zanpakutō speech/thoughts

"Bankai!" – Spiritual Technique

Chapter 21: Zeige Dich, Bount!

Two Days Later

Classroom, Karakura Highschool

Kirika watched in mild exasperation as Honshō Chizuru once more glomped Orihime from behind and grabbed a handful of the orangette's bountiful rack. It was only a few seconds later that Arisawa Tatsuki put the lichenous libertine into a headlock and choke-hold until she passed out.

That particular sight, along with Ichigo clotheslining Asano Keigo on the other side of the room, was just another welcome reminder that they had all arrived back safely to the World of Living. Normalcy had resumed and they could have a nice worry-free little break before things went crazy again.

Well mostly…

Kirika would admit that she'd made a foolish mistake; she hadn't taken into account the effects that Ichigo's training in Soul Society, and thus the increase in his already potent Reiryoku and Reiatsu, would have on the bodies and souls of those around him.

Her own Gigai, for example, had small automatic adjustment function built in that would account for small-to-moderate changes in her Spiritual Energies. However, during her time in the Soul Society, her Reiryoku and Reiatsu had grown from mid-lieutenant level to the point that she was bordering on Captain-class levels for both. This meant that her Gigai could no longer contain the energy efficiently and bleed off would occur. So Urahara, once she'd stopped chasing him around and using his family jewels for target practice, had simply removed the limiters on her false body and replaced them with a stronger model.

Ichigo, on the other hand, was a vastly different kettle of fish, since his body was literally his body, not an artificial puppet like the Gigai. That meant that the adjustments necessary for his body to adapt and contain the sheer amount of power his Soul Reaper form now contained were both painstaking to accomplish and had taken most of the night. They had also come with an annoying little revelation that Ichigo had temporarily lost the ability to use Bankai.

After a threatening gesture of Kirika's blade, Urahara hastily reassured them that it was a temporary problem that would solve itself once his Soul Reaper form readjusted to no longer being in the Reishi-rich world of the Soul Society. Somehow, the red-haired Kurosaki girl had doubts that the man was speaking the truth, or at least the entire truth.

On one hand, it made sense because the World of the Living had a far lower density of Reishi than the Soul Society, which was literally made of Reishi. The more Reishi a place had, the more spiritually rich the environment was, meaning the faster and more powerful a being, human or Soul, could gain Reiryoku and become spiritually aware. It also affected the spiritual bodies of Soul Reapers, nurturing them with the passive Reiryoku that the Court of Pure Souls released. The more powerful the Reishi, the more powerful the rate of contamination.

Ichigo, who had achieved Bankai in the Soul Society, had adapted to being in an environment that was positively awash with Reishi and the powerful spiritual energy that it exuded. His body would take quite some time to reacclimatise to Karakura Town's much lower amount of Reishi, sort of similar to how a diver had to take their time readjusting before resurfacing after diving deeply to avoid getting The Bends.

On the other hand...it was Urahara who had said it, and she knew that the man had a chronic allergy to the truth unless it was absolutely necessary for it to be spoken. Kirika was almost certain that there was another reason why Ichigo couldn't use Bankai, but getting the truth out of him would be like drawing blood from a stone.

Looking over, the redhead eyed one Ishida Uryū. Still worn on his right hand was the Sanrei Glove, which she had only just found out could never be removed without the user ultimately losing their Reiryoku. Quite why the idiot had decided to wear a weapon of ultimate last resort like that was beyond her, but she supposed that the handful of moments of godlike Reishi domination while utilising Quincy: Letzt Stil (Destruction Monk: Final Form) would be worth it in a do-or-die situation. According to Yoruichi, a Quincy using Letz Stil could defeat a Captain-Class Soul Reaper under the right conditions.

'That kind of power may be needed to fight any Arrancar that show up, but once he's lost his powers, Uryū will be helpless, and the only one who knows how to restore them is his father, Ishida Ryūken.' the oldest female Kurosaki thought grimly. 'Orihime's Sōten Kisshunmight be able to restore them, but she would need to understand what kind of damage had been dealt to him first. Ryūken will probably be a stubborn ass about the whole thing and only heal him if he swears to not to involve himself in spiritual matters or something stupid like that. I can't allow that; Uryū is far too useful a combatant to have sitting on the sidelines. I'll have to have words with him at some point.'

Turning her attention to her two former students, Kirika reached out with her spiritual senses and smiled slightly. Thanks to their efforts in the Seireitei, both Chad and Orihime had grown significantly more powerful. The large Mexican boy had leapt up from a mid-level 8th Seat to a high-level 4th Seat, which was very, very impressive, while Orihime had moved from a low-level 9th Seat to a mid-level 6th Seat, which was also very impressive.

She was going to have to see if the two wanted more tutelage from her, or if her time disguised as 'Kokken Asa' had well and truly offended them.

Then there were the two people who concerned her the most...Ichigo and Tatsuki. Her brother was being an idiot and was resisting the idea of training at all, which she was going to take care of after school today.

As for Tatsuki...Kirika had heard all about the ridiculous 'Karakura Raizer' team that Urahara had thrown together while the Rukia Rescue Squad had been gone; it was typical Urahara idiocy, but it had allowed him to get a temporary spiritual suppression device on the Karate Queen of Karakura without much trouble, which had suppressed the growth of her burgeoning Reiryoku in combination with her new habit of meditating every day.

Unfortunately, with Ichigo and Kirika back in close proximity to her (not to mention Chad and Orihime's growing abilities), those would now only delay the inevitable. In two weeks, the critical point where Tatsuki would have to undergo the Soul Reaper Power Transference Ritual would come. The one-in-three survival odds for both Tatsuki and the one who tried to bestow powers upon her meant that Kirika was very much not looking forward to telling Ichigo and Orihime about it.

Yoruichi had already teased Kirika about how cute it was that she wanted to be the one to transfer powers to Tatsuki. The werecat was never going to let her forget that, in spite of Kirika's disdain for Honshō Chizuru, she had turned out to be a lesbian as well.

Joy.

After School

Training Room, Urahara Shōten

"Kirika, why'd you grab my soul out of my body and drag me here?" Ichigo asked, one eyebrow twitching. She had shoved Kon's pill form into his mouth as soon as they'd finished dinner and gone upstairs before leaving her Gigai and very literally dragging him along behind her as she Shunpo'd over to the Shōten.

"To start your remedial training." his oldest little sister replied. She was looking at him seriously as she drew her sword. "You have so much potential that it would be criminal to leave you in this state, half-cocked and untrained in anything but basic Zanjutsu and Shunpo. One of the first things you will learn is how to revert your Zanpakutō into its Fūingata form, so you no longer run around looking like a smaller and less violent version of Kenpachi."

"Huh?" the orange-haired boy looked confused.

Mentally throttling Urahara for not even talking about the most basic aspects of etiquette when it came to Soul Reapers and their soul-born weapons, Kirika sighed and decided to start with the obvious.

"All Soul Reapers are taught this at a basic level at the Shinōreijutsuin, and it's obvious that Urahara was cutting corners with your education, so I'll tell you." she said patiently. "In most spars involving Zanjutsu, Soul Reapers restrict themselves to their Fūingata if using their actual zanpakutō rather than using their Shikai. This is for three reasons. First, using Shikai is a sign that they are taking their opponent seriously and are not going to play around. Second, using Shikai reveals the true form of your zanpakutō to the world, which represents a part of your own soul, something which is immensely personal and private. Thirdly, activating Shikai is seen as a challenge by other Soul Reapers, especially in Squad 11. Wandering around with your zanpakutō in Shikai is equivalent to shouting 'Anyone want to get your ass kicked? Come at me now!' to all and sundry. Do you now understand why I want you to learn how to seal your sword?"

"I'm human, Kirika. Why do I have to bother with all that stuff?" Ichigo scowled. He could see why this kind of thing would be important for Soul Reapers, but he wasn't one; he was a Substitute Soul Reaper.

"Because otherwise you will get your ass kicked by people who are at least your equal in strength." the redheaded girl stated bluntly. "Being able to control when you use Shikai means greater control over your Reiryoku. More control over your Reiryoku means you're more easily able to create Reiatsu. Being able to create Reiatsu more easily means you have more armour in a fight. More armour means less chance you will be hurt or cut in half like you were in the Soul Society. I don't want to lose anyone else, Aniki...especially not my brother."

This made Ichigo feel like a complete heel. He'd forgotten, in his haste to reclaim his daily life, that Kirika had lost everything and everyone she had ever known ten years ago. Seeing him almost completely cut in half at Aizen's hands would have made that trauma come to the forefront of her mind.

Reluctantly, he resigned himself to going through at least some of Kirika's training to assuage her worries. Ichigo wasn't entirely convinced that this Aizen character was going to be an issue, but because his sister believed it, he'd have to give it some degree of credulity; Kirika knew the real Aizen Sōsuke better than almost anyone aside from Hat 'n' Clogs did, after all.

"OK then...what first?" he asked with a sigh. The eventual effort he would have to put in to this was worth seeing the smile on his little sister's face.

Several Days Later, Night-time

Streets of Karakura Town

Shihōin Yoruichi frowned as she hopped across the rooftops of the city. She could have air walked, but why exert more power than you need to? The rooftops of a city were just as good as air walking nowadays, unless you needed to fight seriously on them.

The reason that she was frowning was that she was tracking a very unusual source of Reiryoku and it was starting to really irritate her that she couldn't put her finger on what the source was. It was similar in a great many ways to that of a Soul Reaper, yet there was something different about it, some base inexcusable feeling that whatever it was she was feeling, it wasn't a Soul Reaper.

Adding to her worries was that there had been several attacks across Karakura Town over the last few days, all of which had resulted in the victims collapsing from some sort of drain on her life force. So far only a few had actually died from it, thankfully, but several had fallen into comatose state while their bodies worked to recover their drained energy. The remainder had simply been left in a state similar to the after-effects of a nasty case of heatstroke.

'Kisuke suspects something, but he isn't telling us anything, as per usual.' the Shihōin Princess grumbled. In this case though, she was certain that Kisuke was awaiting confirmation of his suspicions rather than deliberately withholding information. It still irked her when the former Squad 12 Captain kept playing his cards so damn close to his chest like this. Even if he only had a theory, would it kill the smart-ass to share it?

'Kirika's been rubbing off on me more than I realise.' the werecat mused to herself. Before taking the redhead under her wing, she would have accepted Kisuke's secret keeping without batting an eye.

It wasn't necessarily a bad thing, but it was a sharp change in a dynamic that had been going on for centuries.

Shrugging, Yoruichi was about to leap across a street when she heard the faint sound of a woman singing. It sounded almost too attractive, so the werecat flexed her Reiatsu to cover her ears and filter out any foreign Reiryoku attempting to enter them. Almost instantly, the song became far less enthralling, but just as melodious. Through narrowed eyes, Yoruichi spotted a human woman moving dazedly into an alley nearby, clearly not at all with it.

"I don't need to be Kisuke to know that this is suspicious." she muttered and used Shunpo to appear at the entrance to the alley. Peering in, she made her decision when she saw that the human woman from earlier was surrounded by a faint corona of blue Reiryoku as a taller woman with long light-brown hair bit into her neck.

"That's enough of that!" the purple-haired woman said sternly. "Step back right now!"

The mystery woman reacted instantly, pulling something out of her pocket and throwing it onto the ground, where it exploded into a burst of light.

'A flashbang? Dammit...!' Yoruichi growled as she shielded her sensitive eyes and winced at the loud noise. The downside of being a werecat was that her sight and hearing were very much enhanced, even in human form, as a by-product of the transformation. As she was out of her Gigai right now, the very fact that she was affected as much as she was meant it was an item created specifically to work on spiritual beings.

Even as the woman turned and fled down the street, Yoruichi muttered a kidō spell under her breath as she raised her and to the sky.

"Katayokunotori, kinu no ito. Habatake, kake, tsuke! Bakudō #60, Tendenshobato! (Single-Winged Bird, thread of silk. Flap, soar and arrive! Way of Binding Number Sixty, Heavenly Carrier Pigeon!)" she intoned quickly.

From her hand, a bolt of blue flight emerged and flew across the sky. Tendenshobato was a lesser version of Bakudō #77, Tenteikūra (Way of Binding Number Seventy-Seven, Heavenly Rickshaws in Silken Air); whereas the higher-ranked version was specifically designed to send the user's words to as many people as desired instantly, the lower-ranked version sent a small, terse message at a very high speed to a single person at a time. The only reason that Tendenshobato was a Bakudō in the sixties was because of the Reiryoku control necessary to use it was a lot higher; without that requirement, it would be in the low-thirties at best.

Ordinarily, Yoruichi would have had to have used Bakudō #58, Kakushitsuijaku (Way of Binding Number Fifty-Eight, Summoning of the Tracking Sparrows) before using it in order to find her target, but fortunately enough, she knew exactly where her recipient was right at this moment.

'Kirika-chan, move as fast as you can.' the werecat thought as she moved to stabilise the victim, hand glowing with the light of Kaidō. 'We can't let this woman get away!'

Several Minutes Earlier

With Kirika

"What the heck...?" Kirika shook her head in disbelief as she spotted the stuffed toy lion that was the regular body of Kon the Mod Soul vainly kicking her brother in the shin as he bent over his homework.

"He's upset that Yuzu's been using him as a member of her tea party a lot recently." Ichigo told her casually, utterly immune to the attacks of the the stuffed toy lion.

"I'd like to see how you'd like to be forced to wear frilly dresses and stuff like that!" Kon roared. "I'm a man, dammit!"

"You're a pill; you don't have a gender." Ichigo pointed out mildly.

"Mod Souls do have genders, Aniki." Kirika refuted. "The one who was in my body while we were in the Soul Society was very definitely a girl. Kon, hasn't Urahara made you a Gigai to fight in yet?"

"Nope." the plushy sulked.

"I'll have a word with him if you put up with Yuzu." the redhead promised.

"Yes ma'am!" the Mod Soul saluted her smartly.

Smiling at her brother as he got back to his homework, Kirika mentally sighed. Crafting an entirely new Gigai from scratch, particularly one fit for combat through the use of a Mod Soul, wasn't easy, especially for an exile from Soul Society, but she was going to point out to Urahara that another body on the front lines would take the pressure off of her brother all the more. After all, he'd made Gigai for the three Mod Souls that were acting as the guards of the Urahara Shōten, so one more for Kon wouldn't be much more of a hassle.

Right now, she and Urahara were holding each other to a very uneasy truce. He recognised that she had had it with his machinations, but was unapologetic about the fact, whereas Kirika recognised that Urahara was naturally someone who kept his plans close to his chest and was secretive by nature, but couldn't abide being kept in the dark and treated like she wasn't worth telling plans to. Both of them recognised that fighting one another would only help Aizen in the end, however, so they mostly ignored one another nowadays, with Yoruichi and Tessai interacting with Kirika when the Shōten Crew absolutely had to communicate with her.

Just then, a blue bolt shot through the window and struck her on the head, making her glow the same colour. Staggering, the redhead felt words enter her mind, as well as the impression of a woman with brown hair and a sense of urgency.

"Kirika?" Ichigo asked in concern.

"Yoruichi-sensei needs my help." she replied crisply, pulling out her Gokon Yubiwa and pressing it to her forehead. As her Gigai dropped bonelessly to the ground after releasing her Soul Reaper form, Kirika shifted with a sigh of relief. She didn't know why, but ever since she'd returned from the Soul Society, being inside her Gigai had started to feel so confining for some reason. Given the incredible escalation of power that her Soul had undergone in her time there, it was likely just that her soul was so much stronger and didn't enjoy being stuffed into a meat puppet any longer. She'd have to ask her teachers to see if that was the case for them as well.

"I'm coming with you." Ichigo declared, reaching for Kon.

"You can help, but you aren't coming with me." Kirika disagreed. "Your skill at using Shunpo is still greatly lacking compared to how you used it in your Bankai form. You can't keep up with me. Look, go around to the Karakura Bridge area, I'll drive the target towards you."

"Who is it?" her brother asked as he emerged in his Soul Reaper form after popping Kon's pill.

"Dunno. Some kind of vampire-wannabe who's been draining people of their latent Reiryoku." Kirika shrugged. "We'll ask her who she is and what she's playing at once we beat the resistance out of her. I do NOT have the time to spend dealing with random people kicking up a fuss in my hometown."

"I hear you." Ichigo nodded as the pair left via the window and looked around. "Keep safe, little sis."

"I don't go around getting cut in half, thank you very much." Kirika sniffed faux snootily before smiling at her brother. "You look after yourself too, Aniki."

With that, the siblings vanished in a simultaneous blur of Shunpo.

Streets of Karakura Town

The fleeing woman landed in an open area in the warehouse district and breathed a little easier. She had not expected that woman to be there, whoever she was.

'Judging by the speed of her high-movement technique, she is very accomplished at it.' she thought. 'Her Spiritual strength is a different matter. I couldn't get a read on her, so she was concealing her strength somehow. Just who was she?'

"Huh, so here you are, just as sensei predicted." a female voice said, making the woman tense up and look around to see a girl dressed in the shihakushō uniform of the Soul Reapers drop down a few meters in front of her. She was a redhead, with a pair of white bandolier-type things slung over her shoulders in a cross shape. The serious expression in her light jade-green eyes bored into the woman.

"And who are you, Soul Reaper?" the woman asked after a moment.

"Calling me a Soul Reaper is something of an incorrect statement." the girl said with a slight smirk. "I may possess the powers of a Soul Reaper, but I never attended the Shinōreijutsuin. That being said, I was a New Soul, was never human in the first place, and I was born with my powers already sleeping inside of me so I can't very well be a Substitute Soul Reaper like my brother. My current classification is a bit awkward because of that. My name, however, is Kirika."

"Hm. Kirika, is it? Why do you pursue me? What connection do you have with the woman who interrupted me?" the brunette asked sharply, mind racing.

"Yoruichi-sensei taught me everything I know about moving quietly and with speed." Kirika replied cheerfully. "And really, we can't just let someone go around attacking innocent humans and leeching away their Reiryoku, not in our hometown. Care to tell me why you've been acting like a female version of Dracula?"

"I have no obligation to tell you anything, and even if I did, you wouldn't be able to comprehend it." the woman scoffed. "This is why dealing with children is irksome."

The redhead studied her for an uncomfortable moment. "You have that ageless look in your eyes...you're clearly far older than your physical appearance suggests. That comes with its own arrogance, the pride of the long lived. You overestimate yourself and underestimate those younger than you because of it. I'd advise you to correct that at some point, as I am very tired of nigh-immortals talking down to me like they know everything."

The matter-of-fact tone chilled the woman. This was no inexperienced kid; she spoke with steel in her tone and a substantial pool of Reiryoku at her command. This was a trained fighter, plain and simple.

"I had hoped to avoid fighting needlessly, but if you will not stand aside, you leave me no choice." the woman said with a glare. She raised her hands and tapped her left hand's middle finger, which was covered in a metal finger claw, to the metal wristband on her right wrist, making the odd crest on the base of the finger claw glow orange.

"Zeige Dich, Goethe! (Show yourself, Goethe!)" she commanded.

"What the...?" Kirika blinked before flinching back as flames burst into existence in front of the woman. After a moment, they formed into a vaguely humanoid figure, minus the legs. The skin was burnt brown, almost reminiscent of hardened magma, with lines of blazing orange at the joints and muscles, showing a heavily muscled form. The face was blank, with a stream of fire emerging from either side of its head, and the figure's hands were surrounded by a corona of flames.

"Goethe, get ready!" the woman ordered.

"Wow...I don't know what he is, but I'll grant you that he is impressive." Kirika nodded as she drew her zanpakutō. "Since you seem to have done the equivalent of using Shikai, I can't very well not reciprocate now, can I? Surge through the deep seas and roil the dark heavens, Nejibana!"

Spinning her sword around her arm, it glowed yellow and transformed, elongating and changing until it was a sword no more, but a mixture between a trident and a Ji, with water gushing out of the twisted butt of the weapon. A red furry tassel fluttered from the bottom of the spearhead at the top.

"A water-type zanpakutō...!" the woman hissed.

"A Flowing Water-type, to be precise." Kirika corrected her with that irksome smirk growing. "Nejibana is a lady who prefers being precise about what type of zanpakutō she is."

The water ululating around her weapon glowed a bright blue for an instant, as if in agreement before dimming again.

'Her bond with her zanpakutō spirit is strong enough for it to respond to her outside of Jinzen...this does not bode well.' the woman thought as she eyed her opponent. 'I have to finish this quickly; her Reiatsu is like a beacon to this 'Yoruichi' woman, not to mention any other Soul Reapers in the area.'

Still, fighting a water element zanpakutō wasn't a pleasant prospect for a fire-user. While the absolute determination of power was the amount of Reiryoku you possessed, and thus the amount you could turn into Reiatsu, the elements were a factor of strength as well.

A deluge of regular water could extinguish fire of a spiritual origin, but only if the fire wasn't fuelled by someone's Reiryoku and there was a tremendously larger amount of water than there was fire. Similarly, spiritual water held something of an advantage against spiritual fire, for a given value of an advantage; so long as the water user could generate a sufficient amount of water and infuse it with a large enough amount of Reiryoku, it could extinguish the fire...so long as the user of the fire wasn't able to either create enough fire to make extinguishing it impossible or make the temperature of the fire hot enough to the point that water evaporated before it came near the flames themselves.

"Goethe! Eliminate her!" the woman shouted. Her Doll responded with a roar and a deluge of fireballs at Kirika, who whirled her polearm into a spinning shield coated by a steadily larger amount of water the more she spun it, leaving the fireballs to splutter and fade into nothing as they struck the water.

Then Kirika blurred into a Shunpo, appearing in front of Goethe and attacking with an elegant diagonal slash of her weapon. Goethe responded by firing the jet boosters on his legs, speeding up to avoid the slash and water. Almost as if she had planned it, the Soul Reaper spun the trident in her hand and redirected her slash upwards in a vertical strike so quickly that it was only because of the controller of the Doll had many years of experience in combat that she was able to tell that it was a last-minute redirection of the strike rather than a planned action.

Goethe instinctively scattered his body parts around in response to the new attack and had his hands fire another barrage of fireballs at Kirika to hold her off as he reassembled his body.

Retreating in another blur of Shunpo, the redheaded girl swung Nejibana into another spin, using just a single hand to boot, and started to slowly advance towards the controller of the Doll, her eyes clear and serene as water splashed around her from her weapon.

'It's...almost like a dance...' the brunette thought numbly. 'She's able to instantly redirect her weapon's strikes if the opponent dodges or otherwise avoids her strikes by managing to spin that polearm using just one hand, somehow. Combine the slashes and thrusts of the weapon itself with the raging water that it generates and I'm not certain that any of the Bount, aside from Koga and Kariya, could handle facing her in close combat. I'll have to turn things up a notch to manage my escape.'

"You asked for my purpose, Kirika." she said aloud, drawing the attention of the girl. "And I still won't tell you what I plan. Your skills have earned you the right to know my name, however. Sōma Yoshino. Take my name as a gift as Goethe burns you to cinders."

"A pleasure to meet you...or so I would say were we not in combat, Sōma-san." the redheaded girl replied politely. "I am Kurosaki Kirika, to give you my full name. Your puppet here is interesting. What is he exactly?"

"He is a Doll. My Doll, to be precise." Yoshino stated. "He is born from me, much like a zanpakutō is born from the Soul of a Soul Reaper. It is a power unique to my race, the Bounts."

"Not a race I am familiar with." Kirika said with a frown. "I can see that I will need to do research on your race when I get a chance."

"You won't have one. Goethe, incinerate her!" the Bount shouted.

With another roar, the fire elemental reared back and shot a large gout of flames at Kirika, who had been sufficiently distracted to have not noticed Goethe fully reforming nearby.

"Oh hell." was all the girl said as the flames covered her and exploded, just as Ichigo, Chad, Orihime and Uryū rounded the corner.

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Next Chapter: The Karakura Town Advance Squad

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