20 You might still have a chance to smash her.

Chapter Twenty. (Edited by CDoggo: So…. How's everyone's day going so far? Mine is going pretty well. Btw Odin, I'm not an M >:( )

''... Ngh.'' Kuromiya yawned, a soft sound leaving his mouth as his senses started coming back to him. The battle had taken a major toll on him physically and mentally, and he had no idea of how much time had passed since he was forced into a deep slumber by the dark skinned woman, and right now he had little to no idea of what was their current situation.

The whole situation gave him a sense of déjà vu, recalling the time that he had been left to die by Rukia's older brother. Much like the last time he had been in such a situation, he looked to the side of the empty room and found himself meeting Yoruichi's gaze.

''You're up already? It hasn't even been five hours.'' The woman noted, she was now fully clothed and the attire was that iconic orange attire she wore during the whole Soul Society arc, though just how or when she had gotten her hands on those clothes was beyond him. ''Hm? You almost look disappointed? Bet you'd prefer having me naked again.'' Yoruichi commented with a sly smirk.

''Yeah, I'm up.'' He nodded at her, deciding to ignore her last comment. The teenager attempted to force himself up, but it seemed like his body wasn't about to allow that.

The sharp pain coming from his shoulder was still very much present, reminding him of his current state. He knew he should probably rest for a while more.

''Yikes, guess i'm not moving anytime soon.'' He muttered, falling right back onto the bed. ''So, what where you up to while I was sleeping?''

''Not much.'' She confessed, swinging her right arm around in a circle. ''I was stretching my legs for a little while, it's been a while since I have been in my human form after all.''

''I'm assuming we are still waiting for Ichigo, no?'' He inquired, his glance landing on the dull wooden ceiling. ''I swear, for someone with so much potential he sure does suck a lot at the basics.'' His eyes rolling as he finished talking.

''It can't be helped.'' She replied, shrugging her shoulders at him. ''Plus we have a few things we should talk about, if you are feeling up to it.'' She stared him down with her bright yellow eyes.

''Ugh…'' He knew this was coming, but it still didn't help one bit to his case. It wasn't a matter of trust, to be quite frank there was probably no better person to tell how his skills worked.

Unlike Urahara who often had a hidden agenda behind every single of his words, in comparison she was a decently straight forward person. It didn't end there though, because she was even trained in the arts of assasination and interrogation, so she wasn't about to spill out his secrets even if somehow she was captured.

''Guess I can't delay this any longer.'' Kuromiya muttered after a while, though he didn't sound really displeased about it, if anything it seemed like he had been almost expecting this to happen at some point. ''What do you want to know then?''

''I don't generally like to stick my nose in people's business, but I need to know at least the basics of it.'' Yoruichi explained herself, walking closer to him. ''I almost panicked back there, I thought you were dead.'' Genuine worry showing itself in her face as she finished her words.

''... Agh, don't look at me like that.'' The teenager winced, he wasn't the best to handle these kinds of situations after all. ''Let's do it like this, then? I'll tell you whatever you want, but you need to do the same for me.''

''Hm? Sure, if there's still something you wanna know about me.'' Yoruichi replied without putting much thought on the matter. ''I'm only asking this because you seem to have a fetish for scaring me to death.''

''Shoot.''

''How does that ability of yours work, then? I think I have a fairly good idea about it already, but i'd still prefer it if you told me about it.'' Yoruichi began with her questions, sitting right next to him. ''Bookmark, was it?''

''Yeah.'' He forced himself up into a sitting position, and sat right next to her. ''I guess the best way to put it is… Time manipulation? I'm not really sure about it, it might have something to do with reality bending as well, but it works like a timer. I'm able to set a mark in a certain point in time, hence I call it a bookmark.''

''That's more or less what I imagined.'' Yoruichi added, she had been observing him every time he activated the skill, and she had eventually learned a thing or two about it. ''That timer is a max of thirty seconds, no? I have been counting it, but I could be wrong.''

''It's not a max, I have no control over the timer itself, after the time is up I'm going back whether I want it or not.'' Kuromiya further explained, grabbing his necklace that was still on his neck and holding it up for her to see. ''You do know that us fullbringers tend to have a connection with a certain object, no? I guess you could call this our own 'zanpakuto', to be honest.''

''How is it safe if you have no control over it?'' The dark skinned woman questioned, she didn't miss the fact that the teenager had just shared a glaring weakness with her.

''It's not meant to be safe, it's a last resort after all.'' Kuromiya replied, allowing his necklace to gently fall back to his chest. ''You wanna know anything else, or is that it?''

''That's it, really.'' Yoruichi replied, though that wasn't exactly the truth; the woman still had more than a few questions left in mind, like how he had been able to manage to make a sudden jump from lieutenant to captain level without seemingly no training whatsoever. Despite her curiosity, she wasn't about to pressure him into giving her answer.

''Hm… Is that so? Then it's my turn to ask.''

. . .

''You sure this is the right way, Ichigo?'' Ganju forced himself to keep up with the orange haired soul reaper, who was somehow able to walk faster than him despite his injuries. ''I can't feel their spiritual pressure anymore.''

The group of three had been walking nonstop, doing their absolute best to avoid meeting any hostile soul reapers along the way. Unfortunately for the trio, that had ended up decreasing their overall speed and thus they still had yet to find them.

''Yeah, Ii'm sure.'' Ichigo nodded, slowing his pace as he felt himself getting closer and closer to them. ''We should be almost there.''

''Thank god, we seriously need to treat those wounds.'' Walking next to him, Hanataro was keeping an eye on the boy's injuries.

''He's lucky to just have those wounds.'' Ganju pointed out, his gaze travelling all over the empty streets. ''That was a lieutenant after all.''

''We are here.'' Cutting their conversation short, Ichigo stopped right in front of a plain looking door. ''Just behind this door.''

. . .

''Hm… Guess we will have to wait for that conversation after all.'' Kuromiya commented, both of them now facing the door as three reiatsu signatures stopped at the door of the house. ''Looks like Ichigo is here at last, though there's one I don't recognize…''

''Hmh.'' Yoruichi nodded at him, focusing her senses on that foreign spiritual pressure. ''It's a shinigami, though it doesn't feel too strong… A member from squad four, perhaps?''

There was no more time to guess for the two of them, since the door started opening up and soon enough three figures entered the main room.

''Would you look at that, you are all beat up, Ichigo.'' A slight smirk adorned Kuromiya's face, his blue eyes observing his friend's current condition. ''Guess I will be the one who's going to save Rukia after all.''

''Yeah? You're not looking too good yourself.'' The substitute soul reaper replied with a smirk of his own, pointing with his hand at his resting figure. ''What happened there? It looks like you got your ass beat by some no-name?''

''Uh…'' Right behind Ichigo, the fragile soul reaper from squad four fidgeted around in visible discomfort. He had a decent amount of doubts when approaching the place, even though Ichigo had told him a decent amount of times that his friend was still alive, it was hard for him to picture someone surviving an encounter against Zaraki.

''Oh, that's right.'' Ichigo realized, patting Hanataro's shoulder as he introduced him to the rest. ''This is Hanataro, he's going to help us rescue Rukia.''

''H-hello.'' Hanataro said, stuttering in between words.

''Now that we are all together, we can just go and save…'' Ichigo was about to prompt the group into moving on, but was stopped mid-sentence from doing so.

''That's not happening, you need to train for a bit.'' Yoruichi had been the one who interrupted him, her stern look making Ichigo go quiet before he could even make an attempt to complain. ''And Akihiko is not moving until he's healed.''

''I'm not?'' Kuromiya asked, tilting his head at that last comment. ''I won't stay here unless you're my own personal pillow.'' He stated with a sly smile.

''... Come again?'' Ichigo narrowed his eyes at that, unsure on what to make of that last comment. ''I walked across half of the seireitei and you have been sitting on your ass?''

''Bruh.'' Kuromiya met Ichigo's look with a blank stare. ''Who did you fight then? I bet it was some random ass lieutenant, no?''

''Ugh… It was Renji.''

''HAHAHAHAHAHA.''

. . .

''Hm, Hinamori isn't here just yet?'' The voice of a middle-aged man reached the ears of the rest of the people present in the room. The man who had asked said question was the lieutenant of squad seven, Tetsuzaemon Iba.

There were eight lieutenants in a single room, signaling the start of the third lieutenant meeting since the beginning of the Ryoka's invasion. They were sitting in a classic japanese style room; tatami mats lined the floor and a coffee table adorned with a cloth sat in the middle of the room.

The meeting was being held early in the morning, though the fact that there were quite a few lieutenants missing certainly didn't help to lighten the mood.

''Seems like it.'' Leaning against a wall, Shuhei Hisagi replied to the man while shifting his gaze all around the room. ''Plus Abarai is…''

He didn't need to finish his sentence, all of them knew fully well what Renji's current situation was. His captain had ordered to have him imprisoned for failing to stop their enemies, despite the fact that his health was in critical condition.

''Let's just not talk about that, yeah?'' Rangiku interrupted their conversation in an effort to lighten up their mood. ''I didn't get out of squad's four barracks just to talk about depressing stuff.''

''You're right.'' Kira agreed, forcing himself to keep a straight face despite the fact that he was the closest one to Renji from all of them. ''Renji wouldn't want…''

''Hyaaaaaaa!'' A high-pitched scream assaulted their ears, making all of them turn towards the direction from which said sound was coming.

''That is… Hinamori's voice!?'' Kira was the first one to recognize it, and so not even a second after that every single lieutenant was now gone from the room.

. . .

''Yo, Kuromiya, we are about to leave!'' Ganju's shout reached his ears, making him aware of the fact that the rest of the group was ready to move on.

It had been a long night, most if it had been spent with Hanataro treating his wounds to the best of his abilities, though he still was far from being fully recovered. It was decided during that night that Yoruichi was going to start Ichigo's training until Kuromiya was back to top form, and so the group had one destination in mind.

'I guess canon is fucked now…' He thought, putting a shirt to cover his many bandages. 'We are going to where Ichigo trained his bankai now, which means that I can no longer predict what will end up happening later down the road.'

[So get stronger, then.]

That single line echoed inside his head, recognizing that forced robotic voice inside his head.

'Huh, well it sure has been a good while since I heard your voice.' The teenager replied inside his mind. 'Unfortunately I can't just get randomly stronger, ya know?'

[Yes, yes you can!] The system argued back, Kuromiya could almost swear that the system was rolling its imaginary eyes at him. [You're sitting on more than 15k points, you dumbass.]

The bluish screen of the system appeared out of thin air, with the store already opened up for him to see.

''Shinigami.'' He whispered, allowing his finger to rest on the holographic-like screen for a moment. ''... I guess it's now or never.''

Akihiko smashed his finger against the screen, and closed his eyes expecting some sort of change to happen around him. He didn't have to wait much for it, for not even a tenth of a second later than that, he was surrounded in that familiar greenish aura, the light eventually blinding him and forcing him to close his eyes.

It took a few moments for the light to die down, but when it did he was left looking at his new clothes with more than a few questions inside his mind. Long gone was the white pants Ishida had lent to him, his whole uniform making a complete change in a matter of seconds.

His shihakusho was fairly similar to Ichigo's own fullbringer attire, with occasional white lines adorning the black robes. There was a main difference, and he almost panicked when noticing that he no longer had his green necklace resting on his neck, but it was now replaced by a black tattoo with the exact same form of his necklace.

''I…'' He was about to question the system about it, but something within him guided him to focus some of his spiritual energy towards the black marks, and soon enough his necklace materialized out of the tattoo. ''Huh, guess that will come in handy, now what should I…''

''Akihiko, we are leav…'' The door that connected to his room opened up, revealing the shocked forms of both Yoruichi and Ichigo, who were looking at him with their mouths agape.

[Hidden quest obtained:

Explain this shit.

Reward: You might still have a chance to smash her]

End of chapter twenty. (EN: My Dao of the Cliffhanger is strong >:) )

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