Hirako Shinji recapped everything that was said about the boy and his Soul Society quest last night - as much as he could remember and going in great detail about Aizen's open defection. He was only met with frowns and scowls and one or two contemplative and confused looks. The other Visored had not been pleased with the information he had given them; not in the least place because it sounded as if Shinji was pulling their leg and wasting their time. It did sound like a fantastical tale. He knew that. He had had difficulty believing it too; he still had, to some degree. It was just one of those cases where one had to see in order to believe.

It was only after confirmation of four people of whom he trusted at least two of them that he took the information for being legit. Yoruichi had gone with them, after all. He had had not as much contact with Yoruichi as he had with Kisuke, but he trusted her just as much. She was part of the reason they were still alive; that made it difficult not to trust her.

"I know it's hard to believe," he just said after he had told the story and was only met with silence. "But it's true."

"Yeah, right!" scoffed Hiyori, who had always been one of the more vocal of the group. She crossed her arms. "You're not making any sense at all."

Rose only glanced at him. "You have got to admit Shinji, it does sound a little too good to be true."

Shinji let out a sigh and leant forward, elbows on the table. He had insisted on a semi proper meeting for once that didn't involve them sitting wherever they wanted. It stopped them from quietly sneaking away and to leave as they pleased. He needed their undivided attention. He certainly had gotten their attention, but not in the way he would have liked. At least a few of them looked as if he had gotten mad, and the rest was too polite and probably hid the same thought behind a carefully crafted expression.

"Look," he began. "I won't ask you to believe the story about him wreckin' up the Soul Society. I can't picture a bunch of humans doing that either. But there's one thing we've got to admit. We can't deny his monstrous spiritual energy. Surely you've noticed. It's again spreading all over the place. He's also human, so he doesn't have any sort of tie to the Soul Society."

"You don't know that," Kensei interrupted. He had been silent so far, with his arms folded on top of each other, not even touching the drink that had been prepared for him.

"Huh?" That was Mashiro. As usual, she latched onto the wrong details. "How do you mean? He's a shinigami, isn't he?"

Kensei grunted. "He's both."

"Huh? How can he be both?"

"He just is!"

"Eh?"

Mashiro had grabbed Kensei's arm. Where Kensei looked relatively inconspicuous, Mashiro definitely did not, with her green hair and white and orange suit; sometimes Shinji was surprised the special forces had never found them that way. Most of them blended in relatively well, but Mashiro was the exception - with Hachigen too, possibly. If the Gotei Thirteen had ever bothered to try and look for them via the human channels - the cops and such - they would've been found out a long time ago. For once Shinji found himself liking the old fashioned way of thinking. It had condemned their lives, sure, but in turn it had also saved them.

"As interesting as Kurosaki's heritage is… come on. His reiatsu has to count for something. And if you all bothered to check it out, you'd notice that it's the same as us."

Love leant back into his chair. "There's a hollow simmering in him, yes. I noticed."

"Did too! I just didn't care," said Hiyori, not wanting to be the one who didn't notice.

So far Hachigen had said nothing, and Lisa only blew a loose bit of hair out of her face.

"According to Yoruichi, he doesn't have it all under control either," continued Shinji. "We should try and get him to our side."

Hiyori looked baffled. "Why would we bother with that?"

Lisa licked her lips, her yes suddenly shining. She even sounded vaguely enthusiastic. "Because we can use him. Shinji, you said he hasn't seen his zanpakuto."

He nodded. "Yeah. That's right."

A grin started to spread over her features. "So he won't be affected."

That was the big problem with Aizen, really. Even with the effect of Shinji's zanpakuto Sakanade, which could turn a potential fight with Aizen in their favour… there was still a fair chance none of that would at all work when Kyouka Suigetsu was released. Aizen's sword, Kyouka Suigetsu was able to perform a full hypnosis to all who had seen it in its release state even once. Naturally, Aizen had showed it to as many people as he possible could.

Having this boy on their side could be a huge turnaround.

"He can be our trump card," Rose said, being scarily right on track with Shinji's thoughts.

"What? We're just going to bet everything on this random guy?" Hiyori exclaimed.

Rose shook his head. "No. The addition of him won't render us useless. However, it will be good to have someone on our side who can see things for what they really are. As long as he doesn't see Kyouka Suigetsu, we'd have an advantage."

"We need all the advantages we can get," Love agreed.

Shinji grinned. This was going better than he had imagined. He thought they'd protest more heavily or got hung up on the fact he was still a shinigami, even… if he really wasn't. He was human, who just happened to be a shinigami. He was nothing the Gotei Thirteen stood for. If anything, if he believed everything that had been said, he had practically been trying to toppling over everything of significance in the Soul Society. And succeeded in doing half of that, too. Even managed to turn captains to his side; even before Aizen's betrayal. The boy would be a great asset to slaying Aizen down.

Besides, it would be such a waste to let him get consumed by his hollow. If they helped him, he'd probably feel he owed them in return - if that story with the Kuchiki was anything to go by. Shinji could work with that.

"I agree with Shinji-san," Hachigen suddenly spoke up.

"Not you too, Hachi," Hiyori muttered. "He's friends with the shinigami! How do you know he won't turn us over?"

Shinji pulled softly at her pigtails. "Nah. He won't. From what I've heard that's not the kinda guy he is."

She didn't appreciate the gesture at all and grabbed a fistful of his hair, pulling him hard towards her.

"Don't touch my hair, baldy," she hissed in his ear and pulled once again for good measure, before letting him go. She huffed. "I wanna test him first. To see if he's really like you're saying he is. If he's not, we're not gonna teach him."

She stared at all of them, hard, as if she was challenging them to dare and suggest something else.

Shinji rubbed his head slightly; she had managed to get ahold of some of his neck hairs and that had been more painful than he wanted to admit. Yet, if he had managed to sway Hiyori over to his side - even if she wanted to test him beforehand, this was better than he could have hoped for.

He grinned widely. "Deal. I'll get him to come here and you can test him out all you want, Hiyori."

He was aware of how often he had traveled to Urahara Shoten in such a short time. Although he didn't believe it would matter at all whether he went straight towards the store or not - if Aizen ever honed in on him, he wouldn't be fooled by taking other routes - but it did ease his mind. So, this time he took a detour.

Kurosaki Ichigo's encounter with Aizen was bothering him. He wasn't certain how much the story of the boy held true. He didn't think he would be lying - from what he had heard so far, Ichigo was too straightforward to tell a believable lie. But after hearing the summary of his adventures it wasn't impossible that he wasn't a hundred percent sane and conscious. Yoruichi had confirmed he had been close to dying at least once and op on top of that momentarily lost control of the Hollow inside of him.

Maybe, hopefully, Ichigo's mind had started to play tricks on the boy. Maybe he misinterpreted it. Shinji just didn't want everything to be true. Having to realise that Aizen had outwitted Urahara again didn't do much good for his mental health.

And if he had bested him this time, it wasn't a far leap to assume that Aizen knew they had survived. He might've been followed for a long time; someone could be following him right now. The different route he was taking would be pointless in that case.

Still, even if that was so, he wasn't going to make it easy for them.

Deliberately avoiding the area where Ichigo currently was located he went to a crowded shopping center and waited until Ichigo's reiatsu passed by. It seemed he was just leaving Urahara's store, then; there wasn't anything else in that neighbourhood that could be of interest to anyone, let alone a teenage boy.

A few minutes later he stepped into the store, casually stepping over a walking and talking plush lion.

Hang on. What.

Before he could wonder what the hell that was about and why one of Urahara's experiments was wandering around, Urahara's hand had snagged the lion by its head. With his other hand he blocked its eyes and mouth.

"Oh my, I believe Kurosaki-san forgot to take his belongings with him. I will be right back!"

With that he walked to the front of the shop, opened the door and chucked the lion out on the street with a big and fake smile. The lion smacked on the ground, got on its cotton stuffed feet and turned to face them. (Shinji, curious to know what the commotion was about, had not complied to Urahara's request to wait and had followed them.)

Before it could say anything, Urahara waved with his fan towards it and smiled a little wider.

"I trust you can find your way back to his house!"

With that he closed the door and looked at Shinji.

"I'm not even gonna ask what was going on there," he just said.

"Good!" Urahara narrowed his eyes slightly and sent him a calculated look. He beckoned for Shinji to come with him and brought him to a more private room. Shinji eyed unpacked shipment warily, half and half expecting more plush surprises.

"And?"

"They only want to train him if he can prove his strength," he replied. "So that's not gonna be an issue."

"Indeed it won't." Urahara's expression betrayed nothing, but Shinji knew he was pleased with the outcome. It had betrayed him in his voice and the way he smoothened out the fabric in his overcoat.

"Do they suspect anything?"

Shinji shook his head. "Nah." His attention was momentarily lost when a little machine made a strange bubbling noise. "The only one who could have sensed something was Hachi, and he's not one to question strange things happening at your store. The rest of us aren't so great at, err, finding out kidou things."

"The art of properly analysing and identifying experimental kidou could work in your favour," Urahara mumbled.

Shinji snorted. "I'll leave that to Hachi. I'll just do my thing."

"Hm. By the way, if he does ask - "

"I'll deal with that," he interrupted. "I'll say Tessai needed to make a barrier for Ichigo. His reiatsu has gone completely wild at times. He'll buy it." It had gotten quite crazy just half an hour ago; what exactly had Urahara being doing? There hadn't been any Hollows and from what he heard, he had become about best friends with half the Gotei Thirteen.

The machine next to him bubbled again. Shinji stretched his limbs and curiously looked around the room now. With all the little machines, contraptions and paper scattered everywhere it was a lab of some sorts, although it was evident that Urahara was trying to make do. It looked nowhere near as impressive as it had been when he was still Twelfth Division's captain and has access to everything he had made - as well as other people's creations. Not that that meant anything; it was Urahara Kisuke. He was certain the man would be able to build a time machine with just a few scraps and superglue.

From the looks of it, there were some modern human equipment as well, although some were modified beyond immediate recognition. He idly wondered why there was a mangled coat hanger stuck on top of a microscope.

Urahara threw a small object at him, which he instinctively caught without even thinking. He opened his hands and held it up questioningly.

"What are ya givin' me a book for?"

"It's not a book, really - it's a notebook," Urahara amended. "I've written down Kurosaki's contact information."

Shinji opened it and flipped through it. With exception of the first twenty pages or so it was empty. It did look slightly battered though, as if it had gotten caught in a spar or two and had a nasty run-in with a cup of tea. He could decipher at least two different types of handwriting. Urahara's strokes were distinctive.

"You want me to take notes," he said, reading an entry that was marked as '28th of July.'

"I'd like to keep an eye on how his training progresses, yes," Urahara confirmed with a sly smile. "He managed to get his sword into a bankai release state in less than three days. I'm thrilled to see how fast he'll pick up your… unique skillset when it come to the hollow powers he has."

Above all, Urahara was still a scientist and Ichigo was an anomaly. Barely irresistible.

Shinji stuck the small notebook in his backpocket.

"You've got my word. Will you share it with them?"

The last part of his question was barely inaudible when something started to beep loudly. Urahara twirled around to turn off a few machines.

"Only those who visited," Urahara replied. Something was glinting in his eye; something sharp. "Nothing will reach the Captain-Commander's ears. Or Kurotsuchi's for that matter."

Shinji scowled at the mental image of Kurotsuchi Mayuri being absolutely thrilled to dissect something peculiar and unresearched. If they ever made it back to the Soul Society, he knew who he was going to avoid.

"That's acceptable, I suppose. Is Yoruichi back yet?"

One of Urahara's machines beeped again, despite being turned off.

"It'll likely be a few days before she returns," he said, casting a glance at the offending machine. "I'll be in touch with you, Hirako-san."

Urahara's prediction had not been far from the truth; she had spent a full day in Rukongai and had not come closer to her goal yet. She had meant to only stop by the elder briefly, but he had wanted to talk with her about some urgent matter instead. Yoruichi had not been able to refuse.

She moved quickly through the dusty streets now and saw with her own eyes what the elder had meant. It had been extremely dry lately. Even water had become a luxury for its residents. It didn't matter whether you were in district eighty or one. The only advantage of being in district one was that you were perhaps just rich enough to afford the current prices of a unit of water - if you managed to obtain one in the first place.

There were long rows in front of the water vendors and it had turned into some kind of auction.

The river stood low and looked less clear than it usually was. People were drinking from it, but it wasn't recommended to do so; there had already been cases reported where they had become ill.

For the water supply to dwindle down like that and spirits becoming ill… it was strange. Apart from stingy shopkeepers water had never been a problem to acquire.

If she wasn't in a hurry, she would have let herself be persuaded to find out the cause herself, but as things stood she simply didn't have time. She had promised the elder to brief it forward to the Gotei Thirteen. Jidanbo's request hadn't done much, but a whisper in the right ear might at least start an investigation.

Yoruichi knew exactly in which ear to whisper.

As of now she was whispering into a recording device that was tied around her wrist.

"2-F," she muttered, slipping through the invisible barrier. "Outer barrier is still up and building is sealed."

She darted around the building, found herself a door and started to count the windows left from it. As her eyes landed on the sixth window she came closer, hesitating to touch the building itself.

"Going to access it now." She laid a hand on the air that prevented her from going inside and sent her spiritual pressure into the air. The edges around her hand started to glow softly. Its light seemed static, but was pulsating in subtle, rapid waves too fast to follow.

The second barrier made way. She breathed out, slowly. The reiatsu authorisation still worked, then. That meant he couldn't have gone inside.

Yoruichi climbed inside through the window and landed soundlessly on the floor. It was only one room and it wasn't all that big; the bookcases occupied about every single bit of free wall space. This was not so much as one of Kisuke's old labs as it had been a place to freely store any data he had discovered during his early research.

"Granted access," she said softly. "Authorisation barrier still in place."

Urahara Kisuke had always been trying to discover his own boundaries of what his mind could come up with, ever since a young age. They had thought that the Shihouin clan didn't really like it if they kept Kisuke's research lingering about. Most of his early research wasn't anything compared to his later strokes of genius - to the point of unsettling genius when it came to the hogyoku, but they still had thought to not take any chances.

Aizen had gotten his hands on some of Kisuke's research, that they knew, but they weren't sure of how much. Yoruichi had cleared five places so far; one had had the barrier destroyed and remade, but it hadn't fooled her. That was Aizen's reiatsu that had clung to it. An involuntary handprint.

It was completely devoid of Aizen's influence here, yet she couldn't shake the feeling that there was something amiss. Someone had been here recently. She herself had not been here in decades and she was sure only she, Kisuke and Tessai had entry to these buildings. Anyone else trying to access it would have to dismantle the barriers and she would have known. And yet. She could feel it. Something was not as it should be, she just didn't know what that was.

She brought her wrist to her mouth before changing her mind. Better not to say anything. Instead she assumed a battle stance, silently going over the available points of entry. If someone was here, they were not going to get past Shihouin Yoruichi.

He supposed it was a special kind of skillset when he could identify his lieutenants footsteps on the floorboards by just hearing. Then again, there weren't many who would approach him while he lied down on the floor in the captain's room. Ah, good old Ise Nanao. Never afraid to whack some sense and work spirit into him, as some called it.

He wasn't really sleeping. It did however give him time to think.

"Captain," she began.

He pushed up his hat in surprise. She didn't sound as stern as usual.

"Something wrong, Nanao-chan?"

She stared down at him, but it wasn't the kind of look he was used to seeing. He got up, dusted himself off and placed a hand on her shoulder.

"What is it?"

Her gaze shifted to the floorboards instead. "I didn't know him well, but seeing Hirako…" She glanced at him again. "Do you think it means Lisa is still alive?"

He permitted himself a smile. "It must be. But if it eases your mind off things, I'll ask him next time."

She nodded. "Thanks."

It was rare to see her like this; for a moment it sharply reminded him of that small girl asking where Lisa had gone off to. He had been a captain for a long time now, but having to tell that little girl what had happened to Lisa had been one of the more difficult moments of captaincy.

He hadn't been able to fully console her back then.

Kyoraku gripped her shoulder lightly. "Trust me. She'll be fine."