Disclaimer: I own none of this shiz.

A/N: I didn't think this was gonna get updated today. So, uh, yeah.. victory! Also, I hate to say this, but the stick in the mud known as school is about to start up again so updates are gonna probably be less frequent. I dunno by how much yet, but I'll keep you guys posted on my profile. So, yeah. Enjoy!

Chapter 18: Midnight Meet-Up: Part 2

The sole female Bount had spent much of her time alone in her room. Supposedly, this place was a home for her. Being forced to stay inside the mansion made it feel more like a prison.

"What are you doing, Yoshino?"

Said Bount spun to come face-to-face with her captor, Jin Kariya. He was standing at the doorway as if he was waiting for permission to enter. Her expression was cold and reserved as she looked at him. "Jin. To what do I owe this visit?"

Kariya watched Yoshino, carefully. He seemed to take in every detail of her face as if seeing it for the first time. "Yoshino, I know you're upset, but I can assure you. In the end, we'll all be happier for this. This is all for the good of the Bounts. For us."

With each declaration the man drew closer and closer, losing more of his apprehension.

Yoshino scoffed. So, this was what he was here for.

"I cannot be patient with you forever, darling," spoke Kariya. His voice was so gentle and almost pleading that Yoshino could almost believe he was genuine.

She gave a non-committal grunt as Jin sighed and left the room. Jin was a damn fool if he thought his goons would be able to keep her there.

Danny struggled against Noba's iron grip. He was dimly aware of his strange new surroundings. It looked like a world of clouds. The wispy, willowy structures stretched out as far as he could see.

Drawing himself away from the scenery, Danny got enough sense to turn intangible, phasing out of his captor's grip.

"Why are you guys doing this?" demanded Danny. "For fun?"

Noba didn't respond. He just crossed his arms together and popped out of sight, leaving him alone and frustrated. Well, this was wonderful.

The halfa scrunched his brows as he tried to find his friends through his clones. It took a while, but he was able to surmise that most of them were together in a clump while one was off in a different location.

'Chad' thought Danny.

"You must reunite with your friends before you search for Chad."

Unfazed by Karitoriki's sudden appearance, Danny scowled. "Yeah, I know. It's just this stupid plan was supposed to work!"

"Often times, plans do not work out. The reason this plan failed was because of a fatal misunderstanding of the enemy. Their powers were beyond your understanding. You must pool your knowledge from your past failure to reach success."

Danny dimly nodded as he stared across the field of clouds. "Yeah, you're totally right. OK, uh, one of them can shape-shift, another one can teleport, and one of them can raise the dead, right? The girl. She's probably the leader, too, since she was the one talking to us on the phone."

"Correct."

"Alright, so it wouldn't be too hard to fight them if they were all split up. If I could just get some way to get them on their own. . ."

"You're thinking of something else," came Karitoriki's astute observation.

"Yeah, whenever I was trying to overshadow Kurōdo, it felt off. It wasn't like whenever I'd overshadowed anyone else. It felt like we were both inside of a shell, instead of a body or something."

Danny paused, trying to figure out how to phrase his findings. Why was it so hard to describe?

"Like inhabiting an inanimate object?" inquired Karitoriki, helpfully.

Danny snapped as his eyes brightened. "Yes! It was exactly like that."

The zanpakuto spirit nodded. "Very well, it is time to join your friends, Danny. It would be best to inform them of your observations."

Danny opened his mouth to agree before quickly shutting it. The gang would likely be with Urahara. They wouldn't be able to believe that he was working with the guys who'd kidnapped Orihime and Chad. There was no way in hell he was going to be in the same room with that man after all of this.

His double scythe appeared in a burst of flames. Soon, the ghost boy was gone.

A museum was the last place Danny was expecting to arrive at.

He recognized it quickly from his many nights of flying over Karakura. Despite his surprise, he was absolutely certain his friends were being held inside that building.

And their captors were likely in there as well.

He was about to fly in invisibly before he stopped himself. There was no way he'd be able to get in that easily. They probably had multiple ghost sensors waiting for him in there or Blood Blossoms.

If he was going to rescue his friends, he was gonna have to be smart about this.

"Did you see the looks on their faces?" laughed Kurōdo. "It was truly a priceless experience."

"Would you cut it out, Kurōdo!" snapped the girl. "We still need to get ready for the rest of tonight."

Kurōdo winced slightly at the rebuke, but quickly returned to his elated mood. "Ah, correct, correct! But you must adm-?"

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

The two stared at the blinking ghost sensor. "Wha-?! A ghost!"

"Oh calm down, would ya!" snapped the girl. "It's probably Danny! Come on out wherever you are~!"

"Isn't it past your bedtime? Or do homicidal kids have different curfews?"

The two turned to see Danny floating above them.

"Ah, Danny!" chirped the girl. "I had a feeling you would show up! Now, we can continue the fun!"

Danny lowered himself till he was just a few inches off the ground. "Sorry, I'm gonna have to pass. My friends and I kinda have to get back home. I was just stopping by to say goodbye."

The girl tilted her head in confusion. "What do you mean?"

Danny just smirked as he let Orihime and Chad fade back into visibility. Each of them hoisted on a shoulder, sleeping easily. Kurōdo and the girl openly gaped at him. "But how?!"

"You see, cloning and overshadowing are a very useful set of skills."

Kurōdo's eyes widened. "You were hiding inside the giant fellow!"

"Correct."

The duo spun around, coming face to face with the real Danny. It had been child's play to sneak in while his clone triggered the ghost sensor. His hands were lit with blue ectoplasmic energy, waves of chilling cold rolling from them.

"Freeze!"

Kurōdo and the girl stood encased in ice. He'd taken care not to freeze Kurōdo's head, knowing he'd need to question him later. He turned around looking about him, searching for his final enemy. "Alright, where are you Noba. . ?"

He spun around in time to dodge a quick punch from Noba, who had teleported behind him.

"There you are! I was kinda hoping we could fight without the whole teleporting thing. Y'know, ghost to. . . whatever you are?"

Noba didn't respond. He just raced towards the halfa with a surprising amount of speed, fist cocked back.

Danny made a finger gun and fired off a round of ghost rays, only for Noba to make a portal absorbing them. Danny only barely dodged his own attacks as they raced out from a portal behind him.

He blinked, slightly startled. "Huh. Attack redirection. Fun."

Noba had used that distraction to get within Danny's guard. He made another grab for Danny, but the halfa went intangible at the last minute, letting Noba stumble through him. Taking advantage of his unbalanced state, Danny fired a cyrokinetic blast.

The poor guy was frozen before he even knew what hit him.

"Alright, Kurōdo right?" asked Danny, turning to face the man.

"P-p-please don't hurt me!" pleaded Kurōdo.

Danny looked at the man with mock incredulity. "You kidnap my friends, lead us on a goose chase all over the city, gloat about our suffering and expect me to show you mercy?"

Kurōdo gulped. "You don't understand, Danny!"

"Oh? Then enlighten me."

"This was all just a training exercise conducted by Urahara! You all were never in any real danger! Now please don't hurt me!"

Danny sighed as he summoned his zanpakuto and created a portal, after locking onto his friends Reiatsu's. This new explanation made sense, but the man still could've been lying...

Danny shook his head. Either way, he might as well bring the troublemakers to Urahara's shop. At least that way, they could figure out what the heck was going on. But first, he had to scratch that curious itch eating away at him.

"What are you guys anyway?" asked Danny.

Kurōdo seemed to straighten in pride. Well, as much as he could straighten inside a block of ice. "I am a Mod Soul. My original form may be a small pill, but, as you've seen, I pack quite the punch!"

Danny just raised a bow slightly. He'd have to find out more about Mod Souls later.

He easily lifted Kurōdo's frozen body and created two clones to pick up the other two Mod Souls. "Alright, clones. We've gotta go back to Urahara's and get to the bottom of this."

His friends must have been waiting for him because they all crowded around him when he stepped out of the portal.

At least, some of them had. Jinta sat boredly picking at his nose while Ururu, Tessai, Urahara, Yoruichi, and Renji just glanced over at him.

"Danny!" cried Jazz. "You're alright!"

"How did you escape with Chad and Orihime?" asked Ichigo. "And are those the-"

Danny brushed them all off. He felt bad about doing so, but he had to keep himself focused on the source of their stress. "What type of game are you playing, Urahara?!"

Urahara's face was like stone. "What are you talking about, Danny?"

"You decided to sick some Mod Souls on us! For what?!"

"Danny, calm dow-"

Danny's eyes flared green as his fists clenched. He had enough of getting played. He'd had enough of not being believed. If they were still going to doubt him, he'd just have to prove himself all over again.

"Look, Urahara. I've been tricked enough times to know an act when I see one. Besides, Kurōdo already told me everything."

Kurōdo laughed sheepishly from his perch on Danny's shoulder. "Ah, sorry about that. Danny was just, um, very convincing."

Urahara stared hard at the halfa, but Danny stood his ground. Then he did the last thing Danny expected, he shrugged and grinned. "Alright, this training exercise is just about finished anyway. Besides that I need to brush you guys up on a new enemy."

The group, minus Jazz and Dani, stared at Urahara in disbelief. "Training exercise?!"

The ragtag group of friends pooled into Urahara's guest room. Danny was beginning to think that if their squad got any bigger, they'd need to get two rooms for team meetings.

A newly awakened Chad and Orihime had also joined them in the cramped room. It had been a bit tedious explaining everything that had happened, but they took it all surprisingly well.

As glad as he was to have his friends safe, he couldn't help the annoyance of being lied to.

"So, what are they?" asked Ichigo, straight to the point.

"They're a tribe for a lack of a better word."

"A tribe?" questioned Uryu.

"Yeah, I use the word tribe because they're so few in number. They're like the Quincy: humans with special abilities. Except where the Quincy have the power to permanently kill hollows, Bounts can feast on the souls of the living. Another difference is that Bounts are essentially immortal because of the souls they absorb. They've managed to survive for centuries. Humans have come to refer to them as vampires. This is the most I could find, since I haven't been lucky or unlucky enough to come into contact with one."

"So, these Bounts never die?" asked Ichigo.

"That's right."

"The Bount's method of feeding is absorbing a dead human soul, a Plus," added Yoruichi.

"Well, that's cool," drawled Danny. "So now we've gotta go vampire hunting, right?"

"Not tonight. Right now, we need to talk about the assessment of your team exercise."

"Assessment?" asked Dani.

"Yeah. Although Danny managed to rescue Orihime and Chad, I'd consider a majority of this mission a failure."

Danny scowled at the shopkeeper. "What? How?"

"Well, for one, you did it all by yourself. Granted, it wasn't entirely your fault for that. Your other friends didn't trust your instincts, and you were afraid of what would happen to Chad and Orihime if you waited. However, plan or no plan, you running into that warehouse by yourself was a reckless move. You could've put yourself and your friends in danger."

"I already knew about their abilities," protested Danny. "Besides, I didn't go there without a plan!"

"While that is true, Danny, for all you knew, there could have been another enemy. Or they could have had a whole different set of abilities you didn't know about. For example, what was Ririn's ability?"

Danny blinked. "Who? The girl?"

At Urahara's nod, Danny confidently answered. "She can raise the dead."

"Ah, that is incorrect, Danny. Her actual ability is illusion creation. You see what I mean?"

Danny sucked his teeth in and sulked in silence. He had done what he had to, hadn't he? There was a shot and he'd taken it. As much as he tried to justify it, he was slowly beginning to see the truth in Urahara's words.

"Uryu probably did the best out of everyone by keeping everyone in check and focused. Definitely a welcome surprise considering you have no powers."

Danny looked at Urahara, disbelievingly. He knew the man was shady, but he didn't think the man would spill somebody's secret like that... actually never mind.

"Uryu, is this true?" breathed Ichigo.

Uryu sighed, looking away. "Yes, it is. I lost my powers once my Letz Stil faded back in Soul Society."

"You. . . freaking idiot! You should've told us!"

Uryu turned to face Ichigo with a blazing glare. "What was that, Kurosaki?!"

"Are you blind?! You put everyone in danger by hiding that!"

Uryu visibly recoiled at that. "What?"

"Didn't you hear the stuff Urahara was talking about? We're a team. We have to work together and understand each other's strengths and weaknesses. So what if you don't have any powers? It's perfectly fine. But if we ran into a situation where we needed your powers and thought you still had them, we would all be at a disadvantage."

Ichigo's face softened. "You aren't a burden, Uryu. You just need to trust us enough to tell us about your problems."

Uryu stared, silently. "Ichigo. . ."

"Hey, don't sweat it," smiled Ichigo. "The important thing is that you know now."

He then turned, reluctantly towards Danny. "Speaking of which, I'm sorry I didn't believe you. You were right about all of this."

Uryu nodded. "My apologies as well, Danny. It was foolish of us to dismiss your hunch so early."

"It's cool, guys."

"As great as this heart to heart is, we need to discuss the next order of business," interjected Urahara. "Danny and Ichigo, can you activate bankai?"

Uryu's eyes widened. "Are you crazy?! If they went bankai, they could destroy the town!"

Out of the corner of his eye, Danny could see Jazz's eyes practically bug out of her sockets. If the situation hadn't been so grim, he'd have been laughing his arse off.

Urahara turned his lazy stare on Ichigo, ignoring the Quincy. "Ichigo, why don't you go first?"

Ichigo watched the man carefully as if to deduce his inner musings. He apparently gave up on that task as he drew his sword from its sheath. He raised his sword as Reiatsu began to seep out of his very being. Danny couldn't help but marvel at just how strong Ichigo was.

"Ban-!"

"Kai!"

There was a long silence for a few moments. Danny hadn't been able to get a good look at Ichigo's bankai in Soul Society, but he was fairly certain it didn't look exactly like his shikai.

Ichigo watched mystified and just as surprised as everyone else. "What- what happened?"

"I was afraid this would happen," drawled Urahara. "Danny, do you mind making a shield before you activate bankai. It'd be a shame if my store got blown away."

Danny simply snorted before hovering into the air. It had been a while since he'd used his ghost powers freely like this. It felt almost cathartic in a way.

The shield easily formed around him as his zanpakuto blazed to life. He gripped the handle with both hands and felt his Reiatsu begin to swell.

"Ban-kai!"

His Reiatsu slammed against his shields. He winced with the effort of summoning bankai and sustaining his shields at the same time.

It didn't take him long to figure out that something was off. It didn't feel the same. The energy was taking longer than normal to pool together. It just overall didn't feel as strong.

Nonetheless, he was soon dressed in his familiar bankai gear: two wings, one fiery green and the other made of ice, and two blades, one of fire and one of jagged ice. He shifted his mismatched gaze over to Urahara, silently questioning the shopkeeper.

Thankfully, Urahara obliged. "It's just as I thought. Ichigo, you need to relearn how to use bankai. It was much easier to activate in Soul Society with its abundance of reishi. It's the reason Danny has the leg up on you. His Quincy side is already familiar with this concept. Even so, neither of you should fully rely on bankai to solve your problems."

Urahara turned to Danny. His gaze had taken a stark change from its usual lethargic stare. It was piercing. "You also can't ignore your bankai. It's a part of you, and you have to accept that. You have to strike a balance."

He finally turned his gaze back on Ichigo, and Danny let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding, dropping out of his bankai. "So, Ichigo. What do you say? Will you let me train you to master bankai?"

Ichigo didn't waste a second in his decision. "Yeah, definitely."

"Um, sorry to interrupt, Mr. Urahara," Jazz politely cut in, "but it's getting kinda late."

As if a switch was flipped, Urahara became all happy-go-lucky, eye-smiles and all. "Oh, my apologies. I must have lost track of time!"

"Uh huh, sure ya did," muttered Ichigo.

"Wait, but what about the Bounts?" asked Uryu.

"It'll be fine. We already have some people on the lookout for them. So, you guys wanna head out to eat?"

"Ah, no thanks," said Danny. "Our parents are probably gonna kill us."

Urahara waved him off. "It'll be fine. Your parents are one of the people out looking for the Bounts."

Ah. That explained a lot.

"Alright then," relented Danny.

"If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were trying to avoid us," teased Ichigo. "Considering you didn't seem to care about staying out late before."

"Ha! More like I'm trying to avoid you," retorted Danny.

"Oh, can we get ice cream?" asked Orihime. "I know a place nearby!"

"Great, I've been starving the whole day!" cheered Renji.

"Aren't you always?" sighed Uryu.

Danny couldn't help the grin, itching across his face. He had missed being able to do this. To just let go and laugh with his friends. Not even soul sucking vampires were gonna ruin this moment for him.

It had been easy to get the man alone. Just a little promise of some good times and booze and he'd been eager to follow.

Yoshino held the man's neck to her lips. His essence was so close in her grasp.

The power was something intoxicating yet repulsing all at the same time. Unfortunately, the repugnant feeling of taking a living soul seemed to be winning out. It was morally off-putting. However, there wasn't much a choice.

It was the only way for her to become strong enough to defeat Jin.

"I'm sorry," muttered the Bount as she raised his neck to her lips and drank.

A/N: OK and that's a wrap. Have a good day, night, or afternoon. Please don't hesitate to review!

Posted: 07/21/20