Collecting All The Pieces (1/3).

It didn't take long after that for people to start dispersing. As he was walking back to his apartment, a few of the older people pat his back with a sad and sympathetic smile. He smiled back but it felt strange to be in such a position. He made it back to his apartment and realized that he was still in his new mode. He dispersed all the natural energy inside him and returned to normal. He felt.. heavier for some reason, like he had put on weighted clothes, it wasn't a big difference but it was there.

Next morning, he put together something to eat as breakfast and made his way to training ground 44. He was early. There weren't a lot of people around the village as he was on his way. He reached the forest, found the same opening as yesterday and started warming up. After a while, he changed the chain into a katana and started swinging. After a few minutes, he was completely absorbed in the repetitive motion.

He felt someone coming towards him and after a while, Hiruzen landed in front of him. When he looked at him, what he saw made him pause for a second. The older man was standing in front of him decked out in what could only be battle gear, complete with a helmet and a katana of his own.

"Ichigo-kun, while I may not be the best swordsman in this village, I know enough that I should be able to help you. So, let's get started with a spar." Hiruzen said with a smile.

"Why not." Ichigo replied with a shrug.

They both stood some distance from each other. Ichigo decided not to use any of his chakra because he wanted to learn more about the sword and not just fighting. He was already great at that.

They sized each other for a while, neither willing to make the first move. Even if it was a spar, it was between two veteran fighters, one more than the other, but still.

Hiruzen made the first move, a simple overhead strike and Ichigo stopped it in it's track even though there was a lot of power behind the strike.

Ichigo swung his sword back and Hiruzen jumped back rather than parrying the strike. That single strike told Hiruzen that Ichigo was not only used to overpowering his opponents, but also preferred it.

It continued like that. Hiruzen made simple moves and Ichigo stopped them all.

"Let's take it up a notch."

Saying that, Hiruzen started to increase his speed, attacking from wherever he found an opening from. Ichigo blocked all of them and remained on the passive.

"Old man, are you using all of your strength?" Ichigo asked, blocking another strike from his left.

"No. I wanted to get a read on you first and I think I understand how you fight, Ichigo-kun. So, let us start for real." Hiruzen replied, taking a few steps back.

Hiruzen made a shadow clone and they both started wailing on Ichigo from all sides. Hiruzen had understood that Ichigo preferred, or rather was used to blocking more than parrying or dodging. He took advantage of it and attacked from multiple points.

As they kept fighting, Ichigo noticed that it was getting harder and harder for him to block, so he started dodging. It was then he realized that he had let his opponent read his moves by remaining passive, so he started attacking as well.

In only a few moments, they were whizzing back and forth, attacking, dodging, parrying. Ichigo slowly started to use Shunpo and the new attack he had named Fang. It was slow, but the fight quickly escalated. For both of them, nearly all the fights they had were life or death ones. They won if they survived and they lost if they died. This, while not new, was very different from those fights.

Nothing was at stake in this fight. Ichigo just wanted to improve his swordsmanship, while Hiruzen wanted to test himself against someone that had reached such a high level of power, a level he believed was similar to Hashirama-sama.

Hiruzen realized, that he was not only weaker, but also slower than his opponent. He made another shadow clone and started using his preferred weapon, a Bo Staff.

Hiruzen was excited fighting such a strong opponent with nothing at stake. But he had already understood that he couldn't defeat Ichigo in a straight up fight. He started using Ninjutsu. The elements started to fly in all directions. Ichigo had instinctively started using Heirro and Blut Vene to stop the weapons and focused his attention on the elemental attacks.

As they kept on fighting, they didn't realize but they had started to release a lot of pressure. Hiruzen was currently in his prime and he was not known as the God of Shinobi because he was smart. He had fought and fought and won to gain his title. In this world, winning meant that you had successfully killed your opponent. His killing intent was slowly starting to leak.

They had also gained a bit of audience in some ninjas that wanted to see what was making all that noise and releasing all that pressure.

Hiruzen started getting more and more into the fight as he noticed that while he had a few cuts, his opponent only had scratches to show for all the attacks he sent their way. He threw his staff at Ichigo and summoned Enma.

Ichigo felt the sleeping dragon in him stirring and he let it out. His sword started releasing reddish black chakra, the pressure around him increased by a few folds.

Enma quickly turned into a staff as both fighters sped towards each other. Their attacks were creating shock waves. Hiruzen started losing ground as Ichigo took to the air and started to attack him from all sides using shunpo and sonido with more and more power.

They both stopped suddenly and separated. Hiruzen was breathing a lot quicker. He had used a lot of ninjutsu with shadow clones as well as summoning. He had quite a few cuts on him, though none were very deep.

Ichigo on the other hand had worked up a bit of sweat but was not out of breath yet, nor had he used a lot of chakra in this fight.

"Ichigo-kun, I don't know why you would ask me to teach you swordsmanship, I wouldn't hesitate to call you a master. The only thing I can say is that you need to increase your repertoire of techniques. While at close range, you are probably unbeatable, if a large number of opponents attack you from outside your attack range, they can slowly whittle you down." Hiruzen said after taking a few deep breaths.

"To be honest, I asked to be taught because everything I learned about the sword was through fighting and anyone who trained me also did it through fighting." Ichigo replied.

"Have you never tried learning any ninjutsu?" Hiruzen asked Ichigo, somewhat confused as to why he didn't use any. He clearly had a lot of chakra.

"My nature is very different and unique, it doesn't react well when I try to change it and I don't think there are any death release ninjutsu." Ichigo replied. He had tried the academy three, three simple ninjutsu that were supposed to be learned by 12 year olds, but it didn't work. Probably because his chakra was very different from theirs.

Hiruzen nodded when he heard that. There were a lot of shinobi whose affinity for one element was so strong that they couldn't learn or perform jutsu of any other element.

They discussed a few more things and Hiruzen gave him whatever little advice he could give him before they went their separate ways.

Hiruzen reached the Hokage office and met Minato there.

"I trust you felt that fight, Minato-kun?" Hiruzen said with a sigh.

"Yes, it was quite noticeable." Minato replied dryly.

"Even then I only managed to scratch him and he was nowhere near using his full power." Hiruzen said wryly.

"Scratches?!" Minato exclaimed.

"Barely at that. He has a lot of endurance. At the end of the fight, I was running half empty, while he looked barely winded." Hiruzen sighed despondently.

"Sandaime-sama. do you think we stand a chance against him?" Minato asked after thinking do a few minutes.

Hiruzen could understand that feeling, he was feeling the same. He sighed once again. Was he that far behind the true powerhouses? Admittedly only two other besides Ichigo had reached that level, but he really believed that he had closed that gap over the years but clearly he was still a long way from that level.

"Truthfully? Even if the whole village goes against him, we would be hard pressed to come out of it alive. He didn't even use Sage Mode to come out on top, let alone the overwhelming power we felt yesterday. He has already reached the level of Hashirama and Madara. By the time he completes his sword..." Hiruzen sighed resignedly.

"Can we bring him to our side in any way?" Minato asked.

"Not yet. He is still grieving and he has already stated that he wants to be left alone after he completes his current goal. But we can try after a few years, humans cannot live without company for long."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The next few days passed quickly and in a similar fashion. Ichigo would show up early, warm up and have a spar with Hiruzen. Though Jiraiya showed up with him the second day and by the third day, Ichigo was fighting the teacher and his two students, the second one being a tall, pale skinned man with long hair known as Orochimaru. He was getting similar feelings as Aizen from this one, someone who wouldn't hesitate to betray and experiment on their own allies.

Ichigo was very quickly refining his fighting style. He was making less wasted movements and because he couldn't use his most favored attack, he was making more as he fought. He started using cero more frequently. Of course he didn't power them fully, they were mostly fingernail sized and carried more concussive force than penetrating.

Seeing Ichigo reveal more of his powers, the shinobi got excited and by the fifth day, Ichigo was fighting nearly a dozen opponents simultaneously. He was improving at a very rapid pace and he was also starting to enjoy the constant fighting.

He had always learned more during his fights than by just practicing. During his fights, the sleeping dragon, that was his power, kept stirring and by the end of the week it was responding far more than when he first sensed it. He could now call forth smaller amounts that only covered his chest and arms with some tattoos, rather than covering his whole body with pitch black, shadow like chakra.

After the week was up, Jiraiya was ready to leave. Ichigo was given a small scroll that was called a storage scroll. The smallest one could store a small backpack worth of supplies, he was given a slightly bigger one that had a week worth of food and water in it. They wanted to give him a bigger one with full camping gear but he declined. They left the village together and would separate at the halfway point of the fire country. Ichigo would follow the map he was given to find the other Biju or their hosts.