Crows x Souls

[QuackVader]

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–––––––

Itachi stared at the bright full moon while sitting on the branches of a tree, his thoughts a mystery to anyone, if they were watching, and even himself.

It has been over two weeks since he joined the Gotei 13 2nd Division and like what he had expected, the feeling of loss never left.

It was easy to forget when he was always on the move during his journey from the Rukongai 69th District but after settling down in one place for the longest time since his death, the feeling slowly started creeping back and now all he could do was leave it there to permeate as he knew not what to do with it.

Sure he was back in a military organization like his former village, that was a placating thought, but it still felt different. Maybe it was because there was no tension between the Shinigamis and other opposing powers or maybe because a special group of people weren't planning to plunge the world in a dreamscape, but there was something that was missing from the Soul Society in contrast to the Elemental Nations.

"Your mind," He heard Tsukuyomi's voice in his head, something that rarely happened unless he was the one wishing to talk to it. "It illuminates a fading hue. How lost can you be under this peaceful moonlit night, Itachi?"

"By the sage if I know that myself." He replied. For some reason, the moon seemed a lot less bright after his reply.

Maybe it was his expectations of the afterlife that left him this lost as the eternal torment of the shameful-yet-hopeful reunion he thought would be his due was nowhere to be found.

Having lived his life as a mission since his time in the academy at a tender age of 6 to his death at a young premature age of 21, facing the probability of living eternally in such an afterlife, maybe it isn't such a surprising thing that he feels blindly adrift in a sea of unknowns.

He died when his life was just starting and now here he was, a free and unknown man, having nowhere to go and nothing to do. Possessing drive but lacking purpose.

"Even under its illuminating light, why do I feel so lost? Why are my paths not visible under its shine? Why Tsukuyomi?" He said it dryly, not because he was masking his innermost thoughts but because that was the only way he could say it.

Cry? Why would he?

The two times he remembered crying felt so far, so foreign – the moments of his greatest regrets.

Here in the afterlife, away from everything that made him Itachi of the Leaf, he was no longer the talented Itachi, he was no longer the Uchiha prodigy, not the most loyal ninja his village has ever seen, not the leader of his clan, not the eyes of Lord Third, not the shadow protector of the Hidden Leaf Village.

Here he was just Itachi. A strong reincarnated soul in the afterlife.

He who was molded to be the perfect tool, having finally found himself free could only find himself staring blankly with no idea what to do with it.

"You don't have a purpose, Itachi? Let it come to you. There is no shame in remaining clueless for awhile. You who have never been a person of the heart, always foregoing your own desires for duty, with such a choice of freedom presented, will no doubt fail to find it."

As a being that was part of his soul, even during his time as a ninja, Tsukuyomi understood exactly what it was that left Itachi so hollow. They were one and the same after all.

Itachi sat straight on the tree branch with his legs freely swinging behind him while his hands hung out towards the moon as if he wanted to feel it in his hands.

"My desires huh?" He couldn't even laugh freely at the irony of his situation. All he ever desired was lost, dead, and the last one till alive in the Elemental Nations, yet only now did his desire matter.

What did he desire? Family? Truth? Peace?

"I'll try, Tsukuyomi. All I ask is be patient with him when I fail." He said.

"Will you fail? Make your choices, and we'll make sure to stick with you all the way." Tsukuyomi gave his final reply as his presence receded back into the depths of the illusory world.

Taking a last look at the moon, Itachi made a silent promise to himself before jumping off the branch.

…..

The next morning, garbed in standard Shinigami attire, Itachi walked through the roads of the 2nd Division as he headed to Yoruichi's office along with a few other Shinigamis who were heeding the Captain's call.

They were led to the back of Yoruichi's office where they all stood straight in sharp lines before the languidly reclining Captain.

Itachi was a bit thankful to Yoruichi as actions these past few weeks were nothing short of consideration, mostly leaving him to his own devices or having short private conversations with him. Mostly trying to get him to open up or having Soi Fon clear up a few of his questions and having her show him around.

"Since you all are aware of the recent Hollow activities springing up in the Rukongai, I want to inform you that you all will be working overtime from now on with the Divisions you find yourself aiding. From henceforth, whenever in the field you are required to maintain hourly check signals between cells. Any cell that fails to do so on time without the excuse of being in combat will face extreme discipline corrections."

Despite the relaxedness in her posture and voice, the intent she carried made every single Shinigami too tense to even let out a flinch.

While he hadn't been an active member of the Division since he joined due to Yoruichi's discretion. She couldn't just put him in a cell squad when she knew his abilities and style could potentially disrupt his teammates and even suppress their efficiency.

"Soi Fon will notify you of the date of your departure and members of your group. Dismissed." The Shinigamis cleared out of her backyard except for Itachi who she directed her gaze at to stay. "Honestly, there's no way I'm grouping you with anyone, except maybe Soi Fon, mostly because of your abilities."

"I'll still need a guide since I'm clueless about the Rukongai." Itachi replied.

Hearing his reply, Yoruichi smiled and sat up a little straighter. "Oh? You are ready to go back to the field? I admit I want you around me to run errands rather than in the field since I can't burden my dear Soi Fon for everything."

"Carrying out your orders is not a burden, Lady Yoruichi!" Soi Fon, who had been silently standing behind Yoruichi, spoke up seriously. How could serving her Lady be considered a burden?

"I have no objections either way." Itachi said. After another thinking session the previous night, and thanks to Tsukuyomi, Itachi realized that he could ease himself back into it.

"About the Hollows, is this a reoccurring thing?" He couldn't help but ask.

The two women fell silent, with Soi Fon looking genuinely curious while Yoruichi tapped her chin, humming a soft tune to herself.

"Honestly, I have no idea. It's not as if there's rhyme or reason to most of their actions. But something like this is very rare, first time I've seen it like this. All they do is hunt souls to eat; Hollow, Shinigami and everything in between. Got an idea what is going on?"

Itachi shook his head. "I don't know that much about the Shinigamis to establish a behavioral pattern or give an educated opinion but I think it's easy to tell that there's a cause behind it. Not a spontaneous occurrence like some might think. Maybe something might have happened in the dimension they reside in."

"We've been monitoring Hollow activities in Hueco Mundo and so far nothing weird is happening over there." Yoruichi said offhandedly while standing up. "Soi Fon will probably be your guide for this mission."

"As well as my supervisor and examiner." Itachi helped her complete the words she left unsaid but she shrugged uncaringly.

"You understand so no need to point it out." She said, her voice fading as she walked farther away before disappearing in a blur.

Itachi turned to Soi Fon who felt a bit uncomfortable under his calm look. "When do we leave?"

She let out an awkward cough and replied a little anxiously than she would've liked if she had paid a little attention to how she acted when he spoke.

"Yes, um, I'd rather we leave today. It's mostly investigations we'll be carrying out so we are likely to spend up to a week on the field."

Itachi nodded and turned around to leave, giving his remark as he faded away. "Let me know when you're ready."

Seeing how he left, Soi Fon looked disgruntled, not understanding why her Yoruichi-sama would want to put up with someone like Itachi whose eyes looked like he didn't put anyone in them.

"Oh right. She went after him because of me."

 

[QuackVader]

Itachi and Soi Fon left their barracks as soon as Soi Fon was done with her arrangement for the rest of the squad, neither one being the type to waste time dilly dallying when a mission was up.


With Soi Fon leading the way with her expert mastery in Shunpo, Itachi silently followed beside her having no problems keeping up with her, much to her consternation.


Despite all that had happened, Soi Fon never outright said it, but Itachi's presence rattled her a great deal despite how much she tried to hide it. She herself could not understand why because as a Shinigami, she was used to death and have on more than one occasion, found herself on the harrowing edge of death, so it didn't make any sense that she was still plagued by those memories.


"The Hollows. How easy is it for them to get into the Soul Society?" Itachi asked.


The expression on her face was cold and calm, not letting stray thoughts influence her actions when on a mission.


"Quite easy, but they don't do it often."


"Why?"


"Because just like how it us suicidal for any random Shinigami to enter Heuco Mundo, so also it is for Hollows here. Granted, we can't cover all of the Rukongai since we severely lack the numbers, but we are always monitoring the state of the souls in Soul Society to know if something is wrong."


It was a loose security system which led to the sharp deteriorating state of the Rukongai but there was nothing they could do as the Soul Society was just too big for a few thousand Shinigami to act as security guards.


"The details of this mission?" Itachi asked.


Soi Fon eyed him but he didn't react to it, just keeping his head straight as they traveled. Her job was to supervise him and note any peculiarities he had when it came to deferring to authority, delegated or otherwise.


"Nothing important."


"It's a mission. The details are always important." Itachi remarked, coming off somewhat strict. As far as they understood, even if Yoruichi didn't say it out loud, this was Itachi's mission more than it was Soi Fon's. She was at the very least his guide, and at most his probation officer.


Soi Fon was somehow shaken but she refused to let any of it show on her face, not knowing that Itachi could read her quite easily.


He didn't care for her apprehension towards him as all he was here to do was learn. Even for him, this was a new route he was taking as there was never a time, since he had learnt how to read, that he was completely clueless of the things happening around them.


They stopped at the valley of a mountain range, still staring at each other until Soi Fon turned away with an irritated huff.


"An entire settlement of souls suddenly disappeared and the tracks there showed that there was little to no struggle when it happened. It looked like they suddenly turned to smoke and fizzled away."


"I see. Then let's go." Itachi nodded, already aware of what his role was, at least what Yoruichi was expecting from him. All he needed were the details to know exactly what his mission was.


He would never have reduced himself to playing ninja for someone if what he wanted wasn't something he deemed to be of equal importance. It also helped that Yoruichi was honest in her dealings with him which made it easier for him to reduce himself low enough to defer to her authority.


Soi Fon kept her thoughts to herself as she watched Itachi almost shoulder to shoulder with her as they traveled, solely focused on his mission and nothing more.


….


[West Rukongai, 37th District]


The two of them arrived at the small settlement tucked away to one side of the base of a mountain, carefully noting everything they came across.


They were not the only ones here, Itachi understood, and before long Soi Fon had brought him man in charge of this specific site.


"Hey, Soi Fon. Nice to see you out here, and along with him I see." Kisuke Urahara greeted them as they arrived at the center of the town where a serious looking Kisuke stood while looking around.


"Captain Urahara, Lady Yoruichi sent us to be of assistance." Soi Fon said.


"I'm aware, though she didn't tell me she was sending him over. But I guess that doesn't matter." Kisuke said before beckoning them to follow him.


"This part of the town is the most populated but there is nothing here to tell us, or even give us an idea of what happened here. They disappeared just like the others." He said as he brought them to a spot where there were multiple footprints. "Do you notice anything?"


"They were aware of what was happening to them, but weren't fast enough to avoid it." Itachi said as he looked at the mismatched set of footprints on the ground.


"Care to explain?" Kisuke asked.


"The prints." Itachi started. "It didn't start here at the center, this just happened to be where most of the people were when it happened."


"So they noticed lately and were too slow to react? But that should leave some kind of trace considering the range and time it took effect, no?" Soi Fon asked.


"Probably. I'm not the expert on souls so there's not much I can say." Itachi said.


"Where are you going?" Kisuke inquired as he saw Itachi leaving them there.


"To case the area." Itachi said before disappearing, eliciting an interested gaze from Kisuke.


"Quite a neat movement technique." He commented. "And with that scowl on your face, I can tell that you're not exactly thrilled with his presence in the Second."


"Mmph! He's self-serving and too conceited. Just because Lady Yoruichi is accommodating towards him to some extent doesn't mean he should take advantage of her kindness." She said sullenly and turned to leave.


"You really have a knack for finding them, Yoruichi." He chuckled and afterwards his face got serious as he went back to work. This was a pretty serious issue after all.


……


Looking over the small village, Itachi keenly observed every detail he could find and they were actually few and almost useless.


From what he had learned Soi Fon and Yoruichi during his few weeks in the Seireitei, everything in the Soul Society was made of spirit particles, both living and nonliving.


Given that these were energy particles, it only made sense that Itachi was able to see them with his Sharingan. He finally figured out why it felt like his visual prowess was on hyper mode anytime he used it and that was because all he was seeing was solidified energy blocks.


In a rough sense, all the physical things like ground, trees, their bodies, even water, was all made up from the building block energy particle called Reishi.


And that was what he was focusing on.


In a way, it made his investigation harder and easier at the same time. Since the souls faded away into Reishi, it made it very hard for him to pick out the difference, like trying to separate water from water.


Now if he could pinpoint any difference from the normal Reishi-infused atmosphere then it wouldn't be that much of a problem anymore for him to pick up a trail.


'But what happened here? Were they absorbed as energy or was it something that targeted living souls in particular.' Itachi thought, always reminding himself to keep an open mind when it came to Shinigami and Hollows. 'Hollows really are dangerous.'


'This print… this person likely noticed what was happening but before they could continue their leap step, the same thing they saw happened to them.'


It was a long and disproportionate footprint and it wasn't the only one he had found. He had made notice of these types of prints when he and Soi Fon entered the village, more of them at the center area and few sparse ones in some parts of the city done


Soi Fon, who was watching Itachi from a distance, curiously made herself unseen, intrigued on what Itachi was going to do.


She saw him close his eyes and when he opened it again, gone were his back eyes and in their place were a pair of red eyes with three dotted patterns on them.


'Those eyes again. What are they?' She thought, taking extra steps to make sure her presence was as thin as possible so he wouldn't notice.


With his Sharingan active, Itachi scanned the area again and focused on areas with some degree of energy fluctuation.


'That's weird. The energy particles were broken into smaller blocks. If it's a Hollow attack then it was one big enough to cover the whole place in split moments. But I can't tell if it eradicated them in an instant or if it first immobilized them before destroying them.'


'Something doesn't feel right.'

 

[QuackVader]

Itachi and Soi Fon left their barracks as soon as Soi Fon was done with her arrangement for the rest of the squad, neither one being the type to waste time dilly dallying when a mission was up.


With Soi Fon leading the way with her expert mastery in Shunpo, Itachi silently followed beside her having no problems keeping up with her, much to her consternation.


Despite all that had happened, Soi Fon never outright said it, but Itachi's presence rattled her a great deal despite how much she tried to hide it. She herself could not understand why because as a Shinigami, she was used to death and have on more than one occasion, found herself on the harrowing edge of death, so it didn't make any sense that she was still plagued by those memories.


"The Hollows. How easy is it for them to get into the Soul Society?" Itachi asked.


The expression on her face was cold and calm, not letting stray thoughts influence her actions when on a mission.


"Quite easy, but they don't do it often."


"Why?"


"Because just like how it us suicidal for any random Shinigami to enter Heuco Mundo, so also it is for Hollows here. Granted, we can't cover all of the Rukongai since we severely lack the numbers, but we are always monitoring the state of the souls in Soul Society to know if something is wrong."


It was a loose security system which led to the sharp deteriorating state of the Rukongai but there was nothing they could do as the Soul Society was just too big for a few thousand Shinigami to act as security guards.


"The details of this mission?" Itachi asked.


Soi Fon eyed him but he didn't react to it, just keeping his head straight as they traveled. Her job was to supervise him and note any peculiarities he had when it came to deferring to authority, delegated or otherwise.


"Nothing important."


"It's a mission. The details are always important." Itachi remarked, coming off somewhat strict. As far as they understood, even if Yoruichi didn't say it out loud, this was Itachi's mission more than it was Soi Fon's. She was at the very least his guide, and at most his probation officer.


Soi Fon was somehow shaken but she refused to let any of it show on her face, not knowing that Itachi could read her quite easily.


He didn't care for her apprehension towards him as all he was here to do was learn. Even for him, this was a new route he was taking as there was never a time, since he had learnt how to read, that he was completely clueless of the things happening around them.


They stopped at the valley of a mountain range, still staring at each other until Soi Fon turned away with an irritated huff.


"An entire settlement of souls suddenly disappeared and the tracks there showed that there was little to no struggle when it happened. It looked like they suddenly turned to smoke and fizzled away."


"I see. Then let's go." Itachi nodded, already aware of what his role was, at least what Yoruichi was expecting from him. All he needed were the details to know exactly what his mission was.


He would never have reduced himself to playing ninja for someone if what he wanted wasn't something he deemed to be of equal importance. It also helped that Yoruichi was honest in her dealings with him which made it easier for him to reduce himself low enough to defer to her authority.


Soi Fon kept her thoughts to herself as she watched Itachi almost shoulder to shoulder with her as they traveled, solely focused on his mission and nothing more.


….


[West Rukongai, 37th District]


The two of them arrived at the small settlement tucked away to one side of the base of a mountain, carefully noting everything they came across.


They were not the only ones here, Itachi understood, and before long Soi Fon had brought him man in charge of this specific site.


"Hey, Soi Fon. Nice to see you out here, and along with him I see." Kisuke Urahara greeted them as they arrived at the center of the town where a serious looking Kisuke stood while looking around.


"Captain Urahara, Lady Yoruichi sent us to be of assistance." Soi Fon said.


"I'm aware, though she didn't tell me she was sending him over. But I guess that doesn't matter." Kisuke said before beckoning them to follow him.


"This part of the town is the most populated but there is nothing here to tell us, or even give us an idea of what happened here. They disappeared just like the others." He said as he brought them to a spot where there were multiple footprints. "Do you notice anything?"


"They were aware of what was happening to them, but weren't fast enough to avoid it." Itachi said as he looked at the mismatched set of footprints on the ground.


"Care to explain?" Kisuke asked.


"The prints." Itachi started. "It didn't start here at the center, this just happened to be where most of the people were when it happened."


"So they noticed lately and were too slow to react? But that should leave some kind of trace considering the range and time it took effect, no?" Soi Fon asked.


"Probably. I'm not the expert on souls so there's not much I can say." Itachi said.


"Where are you going?" Kisuke inquired as he saw Itachi leaving them there.


"To case the area." Itachi said before disappearing, eliciting an interested gaze from Kisuke.


"Quite a neat movement technique." He commented. "And with that scowl on your face, I can tell that you're not exactly thrilled with his presence in the Second."


"Mmph! He's self-serving and too conceited. Just because Lady Yoruichi is accommodating towards him to some extent doesn't mean he should take advantage of her kindness." She said sullenly and turned to leave.


"You really have a knack for finding them, Yoruichi." He chuckled and afterwards his face got serious as he went back to work. This was a pretty serious issue after all.


……


Looking over the small village, Itachi keenly observed every detail he could find and they were actually few and almost useless.


From what he had learned Soi Fon and Yoruichi during his few weeks in the Seireitei, everything in the Soul Society was made of spirit particles, both living and nonliving.


Given that these were energy particles, it only made sense that Itachi was able to see them with his Sharingan. He finally figured out why it felt like his visual prowess was on hyper mode anytime he used it and that was because all he was seeing was solidified energy blocks.


In a rough sense, all the physical things like ground, trees, their bodies, even water, was all made up from the building block energy particle called Reishi.


And that was what he was focusing on.


In a way, it made his investigation harder and easier at the same time. Since the souls faded away into Reishi, it made it very hard for him to pick out the difference, like trying to separate water from water.


Now if he could pinpoint any difference from the normal Reishi-infused atmosphere then it wouldn't be that much of a problem anymore for him to pick up a trail.


'But what happened here? Were they absorbed as energy or was it something that targeted living souls in particular.' Itachi thought, always reminding himself to keep an open mind when it came to Shinigami and Hollows. 'Hollows really are dangerous.'


'This print… this person likely noticed what was happening but before they could continue their leap step, the same thing they saw happened to them.'


It was a long and disproportionate footprint and it wasn't the only one he had found. He had made notice of these types of prints when he and Soi Fon entered the village, more of them at the center area and few sparse ones in some parts of the city done


Soi Fon, who was watching Itachi from a distance, curiously made herself unseen, intrigued on what Itachi was going to do.


She saw him close his eyes and when he opened it again, gone were his back eyes and in their place were a pair of red eyes with three dotted patterns on them.


'Those eyes again. What are they?' She thought, taking extra steps to make sure her presence was as thin as possible so he wouldn't notice.


With his Sharingan active, Itachi scanned the area again and focused on areas with some degree of energy fluctuation.


'That's weird. The energy particles were broken into smaller blocks. If it's a Hollow attack then it was one big enough to cover the whole place in split moments. But I can't tell if it eradicated them in an instant or if it first immobilized them before destroying them.'


'Something doesn't feel right.'

 

[QuackVader]

–––––––


The slight frown that was supposed to be on Itachi's face to show just how skeptical he was of the current scenario, though it wasn't present, it didn't matter because that was how he was feeling.


Though under different and unavoidable circumstances, he was back in his element and his intuition was hinting at this being something bigger.


'Maybe the Hollows are working under a hierarchy because this isn't the first case of missing souls. If not the Hollows, then maybe an enemy force, the nobles or even a crazy Shinigami.'


Given the surface acquaintances Itachi had with Yoruichi, and in extension the Shinigami, everyone was up for suspicion from Itachi.


He looked at a particular spot in general with his Sharingan and three seconds later Soi Fon appeared before him, not displaying an ounce of shame at being caught spying on him.


"The Hollows, do they have a hierarchical/military structure.?" He asked after his eyes faded back to his normal black ones.


"Not necessarily. I did hear Lady Yoruichi talking one time about how there seems to be some kind of Hollow leader but he doesn't rule all Hollows, more like he has the most Hollow followers. Some Hollows do travel in groups but they are very few who prefer that." Soi Fon answered, looking at Itachi scrutinizingly but unable to glean anything from him.


"Did you find anything?" She couldn't help but ask at the end when Itachi made no effort in explaining further.


"Nothing much for now but it could turn out to be something major if it proves true." He said.


Soi Fon withheld a snort but made what she thought obvious with the derisive eye roll she shot him.


Itachi's thoughts however were somber because like what he asked her on their way here and her reply of the Soul Society watching for any abnormal spirit activity and acting to it birthed a few thoughts in Itachi upon his brief reading of this site.


'Either they are bypassing their sensors every single time or someone is helping them do it. The former is the best case scenario while the latter is entirely plausible but not desirable.'


He also remembered that Hollow's weird behavior a few weeks ago and how it reacted to the passing Shinigami presences when they entered a certain distance range.


"Will you at least tell me something so that I don't just stand here looking like the dumb one?"


Itachi stared at the angrily whining Lieutenant and just pointed at the set of footprints around them and calmly questioned her. "See it?"


"If you are asking about the slightly irregular prints and the obvious handprint of someone falling and struggling to get up, then yes." She crossed her hands and answered Itachi matter-of-factly, also a bit irritated that he was asking her something obvious.


"Conclusions?" He asked again. He wasn't trying to be a showoff or mock her for anything. Rather what he was trying to do was understand how good her sensory aptitudes were and use her as a low-budget blueprint for others in the Seireitei.


"Probably the same as you came to."


"Reasons and possible outcomes?" He pushed the door to a house open and saw that there were three plates of food on the table.


Soi Fon stomped into the same house and walked to Itachi's front glaring mildly at him. "What is the point of all these questions?"


He looked down at her, almost tempted to point out how easily irritated and impatient she was but refrained from doing so as she was Yoruichi's charge, hence the purple-haired woman's responsibility to teach.


"Your sensors, the ones you said watches the spiritual activity in the Rukongai, were not able to pick it up until a few days after. Also there's the fact that no Shinigami or civilians were survivors of these particular events."


Soi Fon's sarcastic retort paused as she started thinking of how these disappearances came to be and the reason why it irritated Yoruichi so much whenever the matter was brought to her desk.


Not just the weak civilian souls, even the disappearance of the few scouting Shinigami groups were so abrupt and sudden that no conclusive picture have been construed up to help them understand what was happening.


"… Was that why you asked how we monitor soul activities across the Rukongai? Even about their leadership structure. You think this is something bigger than just a few powerful Hollows attacking us Shinigami?" She held her chin in contemplation but no matter how she thought of it, it all came back to her initial thoughts.


"Since I don't know that much about the Hollows, I can't really say. What I can say is believing it's just Hollow interference is a little bit too narrow-minded." Itachi pointed out while he slowly walked around the house.


He noticed one of the spoons by the window and one of the chairs being halfway pushed back. 'They also saw it and died just as helpless.'


"So what are you trying to say? I'm afraid I still don't understand."


"It's not what I'm trying to say but what I'm thinking. And I'm not the only one thinking that, am I, Captain Urahara?"


Soi Fon turned in surprise to the door creaking open to show a bashfully smiling Kisuke leaning against the wall on the outside.


"You're quite something, young man." He said while stepping into the room and bending his head down a bit to avoid bumping his head over the top of the wall. "And while I can agree with you, the problem still remains that we have little to no clue on what is happening. So, care to share any thoughtful insight you might have?"


"I don't have any concrete insight at this point but, as I'm sure you also know, it was something that broke the Reishi building block of the normal civilian soul and either vaporized them on the spot or immobilized them for them to be moved away."


"Hmm, I see." Kisuke nodded as that was pretty much the same conjecture he thought up. "It's a bit tricky but that's pretty much all we got to work with. But just for clearance sakes, what do you think is the lead chain event of all this?"


Kisuke was smiling, lips stretched to their limit but the look in his eyes reflected none of the jovial expression he usually wore.


Itachi bent down and picked up the fallen spoon and set it on the table and also arranged the chairs just for the sake of it. "It's either one of a few things, or even all of them. A very specialized Hollow, strong individuals from the Rukongai or one from the Seireitei working with a Hollow."


"Wha-‼ How can you say something like that?" Soi Fon chided a bit tamely. It's not as if it wasn't something that couldn't happen. The working with Hollows part might be a bit questionable but all in all a valid one.


"Like I said, it's just a thought." Itachi said to Soi Fon before then turning to Kisuke who was sporting a very peculiar smile. "Is that enough for you, Captain Urahara?"


"Hahaha, of course it is. Thanks for satisfying my curiosity. I'll be taking my leave first then." He said and turned to leave to tend to his ongoing work piling to his desk.


The remaining two of them didn't remain idle and left too, Soi Fon trailing Itachi this time as this was her mission – observing Itachi.


With his Sharingan active, Itachi surveyed the area of the village and the surroundings but ended up with nothing.


"There's very little for us to do here. Is this the only place we have to be at?" Itachi asked after hours of searching and coming up with nothing, even with his Sharingan.


"It is, but there's a few places we could case if you're up for it. I'll have to notify HQ about this little change and get confirmation before we think of leaving."


Soi Fon radioed back to the 2nd Division and upon receiving Yoruichi's direct permission, she and Itachi left Kisuke and made their way towards the closest Stealth Corps group.


"How many of these disappearances happened in the last few weeks?"


"So far? Two." She replied succinctly. "There could be more but we can't be sure."


Itachi nodded and employed his Body Flicker faster, forcing Soi Fon to up her Shunpo to keep up with him.


With how much he's seen the Shunpo in action, Itachi already knew how to do it but he didn't bother as his Body Flicker didn't lose to anyone's Shunpo. It also felt more seamless to do than the Shunpo.


'Looks like I'll be focusing on the Hollows and any other powered species out there that the Seireitei has records of. If even the Captains are lost on this then there is the possibility of something more happening in a background that no one is aware of.'


He wasn't regretting his choice, he wouldn't, and the feeling of going back on a mission wasn't one he enjoyed nowadays, at all, but there was little he could actually do.

 

[QuackVader]

–––––––

Soi Fon didn't lie when she said it would take a while before they got there, and neither did Yoruichi when she said the mission might take a few days because that was what it took.

Since there were a few reports of Hollows out there and with some teams killing while the others investigated, Itachi would spend a few seconds to a minute watching the group of Shinigami battling the Hollows before he would leave.

It wasn't like he was fascinated with the Hollows, no. To him it was nothing more than a passing interest that he knew would wane fast once he started learning about them.

It was an opportunity to learn something new and Itachi had always been a curious one since his childhood days.

For the few days they spent traveling together, Soi Fon was gradually becoming less spooked by Itachi and his mannerisms. There were soft trembles here and there, and the occasional gasping out of a nap, but she was getting her shit together and she was happy for it.

'Did Lady Yoruichi send us together because she knew this would happen? She's just too kind… Lady Yoruichi~'

On Itachi's side of the coin, he already knew what was up with her after watching her for a few days after his admission into the 2nd Division. He didn't do anything or say anything concerning that as it was something he knew she would grow out of it. And that was what she was doing, albeit slowly.

When they finally arrived at their destination, Itachi saw that it was an old Shinigami outpost which was still in use by present Shinigami as somewhere to lay off during missions.

It didn't take Itachi long to notice that something was wrong with this place when compared to the other location they had been to.

"What did you find?" She tensed when she saw Itachi's expression go taut after he made a circle over the outpost. "Did something happen here?"

Knowing that his eyes were somehow special and he could see the lingering trace of Reishi particles and Reiatsu, she expected him to say something that should've been hard to believe but instead his words were the direct opposite.

"Nothing. There's nothing here. Absolutely nothing." He said. His eyes took in every single thing in its range of vision with keen cognizance, missing nothing in its focus.

… And yet he could find nothing.

"Itachi, what do you mean 'nothing'. Would you look that serious if it was nothing?" She was puzzled. Was the 'nothing' he said a context of something she was failing to understand?

"The shihakushō lying around are the only signs they were ever here. Everything else says otherwise." He stated.

Soi Fon shook her head slowly, still not understanding what he meant but let him continue with what he was doing as his help was the only thing to a clue they had.

Itachi stood in the middle of the output, frowning at how peaceful the Reishi atmosphere was. Unlike water mixing with water, like the other one did, this one either spat it out or completely deleted it.

"Something isn't right here." He said pointing at the four strewn across shihakushō lying about. "The Reishi and Reiatsu in a Shinigami's body is folds above that of the normal average soul out there and given that they are Shinigami, they should have been able to at least react for a while before dying but that did not happen. Nothing."

"…You mean that they didn't see what happened?" Soi Fon asked tentatively.

Bringing his two hands together in a praying sign, Itachi closed his eyes and Soi Fon went a few feet back as she felt his Reiatsu flow in a faux clam state.

She didn't have to ask him what he was doing when his Reiatsu burst out like a wave in all directions.

Itachi released his Reiatsu in two more bursts, each bigger and fiercer than the one before them.

'What the hell is he doing now?' She would have berated him for what he was currently doing had this been the first week she knew of him, but Itachi wasn't careless. That much she had grudgingly come to accept in such little time she's known him.

Itachi released his hands, his eyes still a gleaming red as they looked at the charged air of Reiatsu and turbulent Reishi.

"Why were you doing that?" Soi Fon asked.

"It's easier to sense another's energy that one's own, but it's easier to manipulate yours than another's. I released my Reiatsu in concentrated bursts to supercharge the spirit particles in the air so when I try to 'connect' with my own Reiatsu-infused atmosphere, it'll be easier for me to identify everything different from my own energy." He explained slowly for her to understand. Despite her initial brash and prudish behavior, she did her best in answering him so far so telling her something simple in return was no deal to Itachi.

Not to mention that this was something he learnt from Sasuke during their fight when his younger brother hit him with that lightning jutsu, Kirin. It worked on the same principles after all.

"So like a magnet."

"Basically."

Once again Itachi observed the Reishi particles and Reiatsu in the air but no matter what he did or how he tried, the results were the same.

"This is unsettling." He muttered to himself. The unknown was always a danger to everyone and this was something that could kill a Shinigami without them or anyone knowing was more than unsettling.

"How many groups ran investigation on West Rukongai from District 37th'?" He suddenly asked.

"Why do you want to know?" Soi Fon asked back. It didn't need to be said that the mission details of other teams aort from one's own was classified information, especially an investigation mission like this one.

"This is the North Rukongai 24th District. Do you understand now?" His voice was calm and low as he spoke, hardly ever in a hurry.

"Huh? What does that hav- Wait! If this is the same Hollow then it's traveling districts, back and forth and-" Soi Fon eyes widened, turning to Itachi and staring at him in shock. This was frightening to say the least.

"It's clearly getting stronger and the scene on West Rukongai could be considered messy work when compared to this. Not only that, from the time of their mission and the time they lost contact falls within a specific timeframe along with the one over at West Rukongai. They are hiding their tracks and diverting attention." He said.

"This is too smart and clean for a single or small group of Hollows' work. That is if it's still a Hollow." Itachi said as he jumped onto the branch of a tree and used a slight tilt of his head to signal Soi Fon. "Let's go. There's nothing here."

Without waiting for her response, Itachi blurred away, with Soi Fon following closely behind him.

Since it was a simple recon mission, there was nothing more for them to do and given that he already went to both, his mission had long since been established.

'Mission complete. Reporting in… Did I really miss it this much?'

Like always, the answer that should have otherwise been easy for everyone else was an internal journey of retrospection for him. It didn't bother him as much now but it still was an answer he had to give.

….

They arrived at the Seireitei and went straight to Yoruichi's office, knocking and entering after Yoruichi's amused tone ushered them in.

Unlike Soi Fon who knelt down and head bowed as she reported to Yoruichi, Itachi just stood a few feet behind her. Thankfully, Yoruichi wasn't the type of person stuck on rules and formalities and Itachi wasn't sure that he would be swearing his loyalty to anybody or any power anytime soon.

Hearing all what Soi Fon had to say, Yoruichi nodded at her to stand up to which the girl obeyed, and then turned to Itachi. "Got anything to add from your point of view? I hear you have quite the fascinating trick up your sleeve."

Her head was propped up by one of her hands while her legs were crossed, regarding both of them with both a welcoming and amused smile.

'This guy, he's definitely the cream of the crop. And to think he was just 21 when he died.'

"I have nothing much to say. Though I doubt the Hollows are the only thing you have to worry about."

Yoruichi nodded, understanding his warning of caution. "I understand. I think I'll have a talk with Isshin and old man Kuchiki after this. Why don't you guys go back and rest while I go talk with the Captains. We'll have our work cut out when I'm back."

"Yes, Lady Yoruichi."

"Mmn."

With the conclusion of those words, Itachi left the two women and made way to his abode. Instead of sleeping, he propped down in a cross-legged meditation pose and pushed his consciousness back into his mindscape.

 

[QuackVader]

Sparks flew across the small courtyard as Itachi and Soi Fon clashed blades in the former's courtyard.

Soi Fon's face was matted with sweat as she struggled to predict Itachi's movements. He wasn't using his illusion and even without it, she had to put her all into her senses so as to quickly pick up on his movements and have enough of a split moment to react before he started another one.

Conclusion: He was a very skilled fighter. He didn't emanate power or any overwhelming presence, even though he had those in respectable spades, he relied more on subtle skills than pure power.

Parrying her blade, he tripped her balance with his legs before throwing her over.

"I told you that you could use your Shikai."

Soi Fon frowned and looked at her blade but shook her head. "Suzumebachi isn't exactly spar friendly."

"How so? It works on two hits, right?"

Soi Fon's facial muscles twitched violently at Itachi's statement. "What exactly are you trying to say? That I can't land two hits on you?"

"I'm not saying you can't hit me twice," Itachi stated calmly, "It'll be hard for you to hit me in the same place twice."

She wanted nothing more at this moment than to call on Itachi's bullshit but she couldn't as even painting a mental image of stinging him in the same place twice was hard for her.

She could only admit to Itachi's genius and strength and Yoruichi's suggestion against Itachi attending the Shin'ō Academy with how fast he was picking up Kidō.

'At least he isn't like that bum-of-a-Captain Urahara.' She thought, taking an uncomfortable comfort in the choice between two lesser evils. While she didn't like Itachi and his self-centered attitude, especially in the presence of Lady Yoruichi, she couldn't deny that he was a capable fighter.

"Are we continuing, or are we done for the day?" Itachi asked.

"Oh, um, do you have anything planned out for the day?" She asked a little hesitantly. Apart from Lady Yoruichi who was hardly ever free, Itachi was the only one in the Second Division that she could safely practice against.

"Not necessarily." He said, "I was thinking of doing a little research and maybe visiting the Eighth."

"Captain Kyōraku?"

"Yes. He keeps reminding me to visit anytime we come across each other."

The Captain was clearly an eccentric one and Itachi had little to no success when dealing with those types. His relationship with Kisame was a prime example of that.

"Well then, come on." Itachi beckoned her with his sword.

They clashed again and a lightshow of sparks blossomed in the small courtyard.

Even among ninjas he knew, someone of Soi Fon's caliber was ranked at higher levels. Most Jonins would have trouble keeping up with her speed and lethal strikes, especially how her fighting style was centered with her Zanpakutō in mind.

Her Shikai, Suzumebachi, was fashioned like a gold and black stinger covering her entire middle finger and wrist. Like it epithet of a stinging butterfly, its abilities granted Soi Fon to instantly kill any opponent that she stabs twice on the same spot with the stinger.

This caused her entire fighting style to be focused on giving the maximum lethality damage she could deal with every single one of her strikes.

Itachi used the hilt of his sword to stop a low cut from Soi Fon, much to her surprise as his hands were just centimeters away from where her blade impacted the hilt.

Unfortunately for her, not that she was ever told, but Itachi was someone who also preferred the one-hit kill tactic.

She withdrew her sword, half expecting Itachi to do the same, but he surprised her again when he simply twisted his wrist and brought his blade down on her, forcing her to hastily block amidst her retreat.

Showing her off again in a display of superior experience, Soi Fon let out a confused exclamation as her blade simply pushed his blade back and to the side with practically no resistance, prompting her to stumble forward and her already shaken balance further deteriorated.

She could only sigh irritably as she felt Itachi's blade on her back.

He didn't have to point out her little mistake as she was fully aware of it. She didn't need him to teach her fighting styles or correct her flaws, she could do that on her own against an equally strong/stronger opponent which she had in him. They were both experienced warriors after all.

She picked herself up once more and they clashed again.

….

[The 1st Division]

In the meeting hall of the Captains, Yamamoto and three other Captains were having a discussion about the bizarre and worrying event that had happened in the Rukongai.

"This is different. Shinigami dying to Hollows is a normal fact that even ignorant souls in the Academy are aware of. But that's not what this looks like."

The one who spoke was Kisuke, a rather serious frown on his face different from the normal bored and jovial expression his facials expressed.

With him were Yoruichi and Kyōraku, and just like him both bore taut expressions on their faces as they went over the data both the Research Division of the 12th and the Stealth Corps of the 2nd brought back.

"Those Shinigami who disappeared didn't put up any kind of fight, or perhaps had no idea that there was need for one. It simply attacked the Reishi construct of their soul bodies and from there nothing else." Yoruichi stated.

Kyōraku scratched his side beards and adjusted his straw hat to the periphery of his eyes. "Reishi? I hope you're not insinuating what it is I'm thinking."

This time it was Kisuke who shook his head. "It was not caused by Quincies, that I'm almost fully sure of. If it were them, they would have left a Reishi charged atmosphere to trace it back to them but this wasn't it."

Kyōraku sighed, looking distressed. Though it wasn't clear what was causing his distress. It could be a myriad of things or little to nothing, who knew?

"What are your thoughts based on what you've found out?" Yamamoto questioned the three of them as their Divisions were the most active in this particular string of incidents.

"I do agree with it even if it hadn't been my initial conclusion but my new ward Itachi seems to think that it's either a coordinated Hollow attack, some strong souls from the Rukongai causing trouble, or someone aiding the Hollows, that hypothesized someone being a Shinigami. A high ranking one to boot."

Kisuke winced at the way Yoruichi plainly spelt it out to the old and terrifying Head Captain Commander, while Kyōraku almost choked on the grass stalk in his mouth.

"Captain Shihōin, I asked for your educated opinion, not one from a recently reincarnated soul. Are you trying to say that his words can be trusted as tangible enough for the other esteemed Captains to adhere to?"

"Not exactly, but it was his words and conjectures that we are currently working with. He was also the one who figured out the breakdown of the Reishi soul body." Yoruichi replied with the same seriousness she's had since the beginning of the meeting.

"Really? Then don't you find it suspicious that he's the one who figured it out and also how interesting a coincidence it is that these disappearances started in the same timeframe as his supposed appearance in the Rukongai?" The Head Captain asked, with one of his eyes fully staring at Yoruichi.

Kisuke and Kyōraku remained silent and waited for Yoruichi's response which was promptly given after a short nod from her to Yamamoto.

"With all due respect sir, I never said that Itachi wasn't a prime suspect in this case of disappearing souls. Personally, I would say that the reason why he's considered a suspect is the situation surrounding his arrival in the Seireitei." She reported. "Also for your further enlightenment, Itachi Uchiha has been under strict surveillance, personally supervised by me and no one else, from the moment he agreed to come with me to the Seireitei."

Yamamoto's passive one eye stare at her remained, not particularly convinced by her words. "And how does that do us any good?"

"IF he really is the cause behind it or has any connection to it, then his words would be more truthful to accept given that we haven't yet figured out anything from what he could find out." She replied calmly, making sure to stress the 'if' loud and clear enough for Yamamoto to know that she wasn't convinced of any guilty tag on the young man until proven true.

"Old man Yama, I believe Yoruichi's words, if nothing else, have some merit to it. It's the only explainable proof we have concerning the disappearances." Kyōraku chose that moment to interject and provide a shallow support for Yoruichi's words not because he cared that much if the young man was behind it or not, but because like she had said, it was the only lead they had.

 

[QuackVader]

Garbed in the standard Shinigami shihakushō, Itachi walked into the general information center, aka library, in the 2nd Division. After his sparring matches with Soi Fon which left the lady very conflicted and mildly angry, Itachi went ahead and decides to visit the library before doing anything else.


Since he had nothing to do most of the time, he usually spends it reading through books and any other useful pieces of information he could find here.


Most of them were about the 2nd Division and the Seireitei in general, some Shinigami-centric ones and general history.


There were some about Hollows but something Itachi noticed about the general information regarding Hollows were the classifications of the different Hollow types and nothing else. This was information even taught at the Academy.


Yoruichi once asked him if he ever considered going through the normal education route to become a Shinigami but he refused since he could get the information he would from the Academy far easier by being in the 2nd Division.


"Excuse me, but are there any books on the Noble Houses?" He asked one of the librarian he came across.


The man looked a little uncertain at Itachi's question, something that didn't escape his notice. "Well most information about them are mostly references and mentions. There's nothing else on them in these books apart from that. It's not exactly public knowledge you see."


Itachi nodded, going back to his book and only leaving after a few hours of reading. It was one of the few pastimes and luxuries he could enjoy during his Akatsuki days.


He decided to ask Yoruichi about it after returning, but before that decided to visit the 8th Division and clear the pending invitation, mostly because this was the first time he was visiting another Division.


"Oh, Itachi! You finally decided to share wine with me today, how wonderful!"


He heard a shout behind him, turning around to see Kyōraku waving at him. And also a wine gourd strapped to his waist.


"Don't tell me you didn't come here to hang out with me and you're on duty?" He looked saddened but none of his mannerisms phased Itachi.


Call it a sixth sense or something of that nature but this Captain, Shunsui Kyōraku, along with the Head Captain and a few other Captains felt different to him.


Even without proof of any kind, he deduced that even between Captains, there was a difference between the truly strong Captains and those strong enough to be Captains.


And if he were to be asked where he would place the straw hat wearing man in a flashy kimono in, on pure instincts, he would go with the former.


"I don't drink." He simply said, causing Kyōraku to stare dumbly at him, his frivolously carefree demeanor fading a bit as he adjusted his hat a little higher to show a full view of his face.


"It's not very respectful to play with the feelings of an elderly man when it comes to sharing a drink." He said.


He walked past Itachi and stepped through the gates of his Division's barrack, beckoning on Itachi to follow. "Meaning you have something to say to me, right? Well don't just stand there."


Kyōraku led Itachi to the back of a house with trees all around it and led him to the stump of a tree where he unceremoniously plopped to the ground and stretched his hands for Itachi to take a seat.


"I'm afraid that other than your name and that amazing display you put on when you arrived, I know nothing about you."


"There's nothing to know. The only thing I have of importance is my name and that happens to be something one gives freely." Itachi said, causing Kyōraku to sigh.


"You know, most people would say their name is one of the most important things they have. Especially when it comes to being a soul." Kyōraku said, folding his hands into the sleeves of his kimono. "A name is essential to a soul. More so when it comes to being a Shinigami."


Itachi didn't say anything to that, could not say anything to it or against it, simply turning his head to look at the approaching familiar Reiatsu.


Lisa Yadōmaru walked towards them, pausing slightly at Itachi's presence before giving a respecting nod to him which he returned, and setting down two small sake cups.


"There are some things I need your oversight on so please don't get hungover in the middle of the day." She said, sighing to herself on seeing the carefree smile on his face that told her he was giving little to no consideration to her words.


"Nice to meet you again, Itachi Uchiha. Lisa Yadōmaru, Lieutenant of the 8th Division."


"Itachi Uchiha. 2nd Division." He said, his reply more simplified.


"Please don't let yourself get carried away by his antics." She said before turning to leave the both of them to whatever antics they were up to in the middle of the day.


Silently she hoped that Itachi was as moral and levelheaded as he appeared. The last thing she needed was someone encouraging her Captain to more indulgence.


Watching Lisa as she left, Kyōraku chuckled and uncorked the gourd and filled the two cups and shifted one towards Itachi.


"Don't get scared by her." He said as if answering an unasked question, "She's just like that until you get to know her."


Itachi didn't say anything to that either, having no idea what the Captain's reason for saying that was.


"Well, you came this far already. Out with it, will ya?" He took a little sip, closing his eyes as he did to savor the intoxicating taste of a perfectly fermented alcohol.


"I didn't come here for any particular reason but I do have some questions I wanted Yoruichi to answer for me, but I guess I can peruse your knowledge with your permit."


Raising his eyes at Itachi, mildly confused, he asked. "Are you stating that or are you asking me?" Realizing that he would only be troubling himself with whatever Itachi's answer might be, he stopped him from responding and told him to ask away.


"The Noble Houses? Yeah, I do know a few things about them but it's almost the same as what you can get from the libraries."


His eyes were half lidded as he spoke, as if he was speaking of something trivial with little to no importance, but Itachi knew it was the complete opposite.


'I will ask Yoruichi about it and see if it's some general secret.' Itachi thought.


"I see." Itachi looked down at the cup of sake in front of him and proceeded to pick it up and gulp down the contents.


Seeing his action and his immediate reaction, Kyōraku couldn't help but laugh. "Hahaha! You weren't kidding. And here I thought you didn't drink."


"I don't." Itachi replied. "But it's disrespectful to turn down a drink of cordiality from a respected elder… at least where I'm from."


Kyōraku looked at the young man in front of him with an amused smile. He played the fool most times because that was just who he was – the childish games and behavior were a part of him and not just an act and that was why he could see things in a simpler and less complicated way than most people.


And that was why Itachi made him amused.


'Oh Yoruichi is going to have too much fun teasing his cold mask off.'


"Well then, how about joining me every once in a while for a cup." He said and lifted his cup to gulp down the remaining contents, exhaling in contentment as the liquid flowed down his throat. "Hopefully the next time you come around, we can watch the moonlit sky."


Itachi knew he wasn't much of a conversation person, something Kyōraku could tell straightaway, and so for the short duration he stayed there, Kyōraku was the one who did most of the speaking.


The man was a very good conversation partner and storyteller, well he had to be given he was into the millennium in years, hence the respect Itachi freely gave.


Itachi's thought on him was that he could be a little tricky and somewhat obscure, rarely intense, and a little bit too laid back. His young visage apart, Itachi's words about him being a respected elder was true.

 

[QuackVader]

What is the essence of the soul? If the core essence of every living being is the soul, then for souls existing as is, what is the core part of the soul?


……..


'These arts are really advanced, more so than any jutsu, fundamentally speaking.'


Those were Itachi's honest thoughts after trying his hand at the art the Shinigami used – Kidō.


Kidō was the encompassing term of all the exoteric arts a Shinigami learns during his time in the Academy, which is used in conjunction with their own combat abilities for a qualitative round up.


Kidō is made up of three different branch of the art;


Hadō – The Art of Destruction. Composed of supplementary and destructive techniques, all capable of terrifying magnitudes of destruction depending on the mastery of the person using it.


Bakudō – The Art of Sealing. And just like its name, it is an entire branch made up of supplementary, restraining, sealing and counterattack techniques.


Kaidō – Healing Arts. This branch of Kidō is focused entirely on healing.


Unlike Kaidō, Hadō and Bakudō had a large and extensive range of different techniques under them, numbering from zero to ninety-nine, excluding special and forbidden techniques.


Though it ultimately came down to affinity and aptitude to excel in any area of Kidō, the fact that these techniques were open for any Shinigami to learn - offensive, sealing and healing techniques - already makes the average Shinigami with the minimum affinity for them a more balanced warrior than most he's seen.


His genuine surprise was understandable as back in the Elemental Nations, apart from the basic ninjutsu ninjas learn when still a genin, every other jutsu is a strongly safeguarded secret from everyone else. It was a practice every ninja village had in place that the instance of any high ranking jutsu falling into enemy hands could literally spark the embers for a war.


"The destructive and effective range of Hadō and Bakudō is truly something fascinating."


Lightning, fire, ice, energy drain, repel, gravity, space, light, healing, darkness, energy manipulation – all these and more were properties that Kidō covered.


While he wasn't a connoisseur for techniques, finding it wasteful and amateurish to learn an extensive number of techniques and being unable to use a respectable percentage of it in battle, learning how they worked and how to counter them was something he enjoyed doing even as a child.


He almost let out a wistful smile at that but the memories that came with it squashed the little bubbling atmosphere around him.


The techniques were a lot, 200+ for Hadō and Bakudō, but he never thought of learning all of them. If it wasn't something that compliments his fighting style, he wouldn't bother learning it, no matter how powerful the technique was.


Even before his death, his repertoire of jutsu was very few compared to most of the people he knew.


Take Kakashi for example; even as a child he had the ability of copying his opponent techniques which was possible with his transplanted Sharingan, going over to copy over a hundred techniques and yet he could never draw out a single percentage of that number in a fight.


Truly a waste of the eye's abilities in Itachi's opinion.


He pointed one finger at a boulder in the distance and chanted a simple Kidō spell. One he had seen Yoruichi, Soi Fon and Lisa use, having been at the end of it for a comfortable number of times.


"Hadō #4: Byakurai."


A wave of lightning exploded from his fingertips with his Reiatsu advancing destructively. The lightning wave evaporated the top of the boulder and melted the other parts to molten slag.


A basic Hadō spell yet it trumped the basic lightning jutsu most ninjas with lightning affinity use. Such an effective range and potency…


"And I don't have an affinity for the lightning element." He said to himself. "Probably why I can easily use jutsu with similar affinities with these destructive elements."


Another thing he was quick to notice about the Shinigami were that most of them with Shikai used Kidō sparingly, instead focusing more on their Zanpakutō's abilities.


Yoruichi and Soi Fon relied on Kidō and speed in their combat style along with the whole Stealth Corps, that he understood, even though he was yet to see Yoruichi's with her Zanpakutō, this was however not the case with other Shinigami.


Even when he was fighting Lisa in front of the Captains, he easily noticed how she cut back on using Kidō spells and switched to creating attacks with her Zanpakutō after her Shikai release.


Unlike the rest of the Shinigami population, he didn't have to bother with struggling with how to channel his Reiatsu when chanting a Kidō spell. He spent some of his time learning them while for some, all he needed was a glance at someone using it, at least for the simpler ones.


This was why he entertained Soi Fon's request for spars anytime they were free; he always made sure to copy the Hadō spells he felt would compliment him.


"I knew I would find you around here somewhere." He didn't turn around at the sudden voice behind him who had her finger pointing at his neck. "Aren't you getting too comfortable for me to be able to sneak up on you like this?"


"No."


"Eh?"


"You were the one who let your guard down," Itachi replied.


Yoruichi stared dumbfounded as she saw her finger pointing at nothing, no not nothing – she was pointing her hand the same way Itachi did with his Byakurai, and he was behind her with a finger to her neck in the exact same way and posture she had done to him, but without the smug grin which she was no longer wearing.


"How did you…?" She looked at him, his Zanpakutō still in its dormant state sheathed to his waist. 'Is it?'


Itachi removed his finger from her neck and put a respectable space between the both of them because you can never tell when Yoruichi wants to lean in for a cat-swop as she so aptly put it.


"You're picking up Kidō rather well, not like I'm that surprised." She said with a smirk.


She had easily figured out that Itachi could not only copy someone's attack pattern midfight with nigh-perfect accuracy, but also their Kidō spells. Though to what limit was what she didn't have an exact answer for.


Yoruichi knowing about his Sharingan abilities meant nothing to him. In his life, all five major Hidden Villages knew about the ocular dōjutsu of his clan. He had never considered the basic Sharingan's abilities as a secret worth keeping at all cost.


Which meant Yoruichi lost another chance to strongarm and prod him for more answers.


"Any reason why you were seeking me out in the first place?" He asked.


She rolled her eyes and wiggled her finger disapprovingly at him. "Anyone ever tell you that you're a boring conversation partner to have?"


"Yes."


Yoruichi sighed and temporarily gave up on drawing out more words from him and instead told him what she came here for.


"Nothing pressing. But I heard that you were asking around for information on the Noble Houses. Mind telling me why the sudden interest in annoying and stuck up nobles?"


"Nothing important, just mild curiosity." Itachi said, and continued on smoothly. "The watchers you had all over the Seireitei were annoying to lose."


Yoruichi's face didn't display any ounce of expression of surprise to show that she was affected at being found out.


"You had my best trackers running circles so you don't get to complain." She commented lightly as if giving a passive remark. She looked at Itachi and if she was being honest, he was a walking contradiction of multiple red flags. "You're making it harder for me to trust you, Itachi."


"And is there a reason why you are in a haste to find a reason to trust me?" Itachi replied to her statement.


"Just so I can prove that my choice wasn't wrong and I won't have to kill you for it." She said simply.


For a minute, Itachi just stared at her before finally nodding. "I can leave if that'll help. But I guess even that won't be as simple as just working through the gates, right?"


"And why do you sound so calm about it all?"


"Because I speculated that something of a similar scenario like this one is a large possibility."


Her neutral face staring at him suddenly burst out into a fit of soft giggles. "Hold on, tough guy. Your neck is not on the chopping board yet."


"Is that all you came here for?"


"Honestly, yeah." She shrugged. "A few of the Captains don't trust you as a fellow Shinigami."


"An obvious reaction." He said. He then sighed and regarded Yoruichi with a serious gaze. "What do you want from me, Yoruichi?"


"A mission." She replied immediately. She knew he was likely still averse to receiving orders from anyone and the look he gave her said it all. "Investigation."


"And also a probational test, I assume." He added, both still staring at the other. "You have your trackers, don't you?"


"But none of them can pick up energy particles as well as you do."


"The ones who disappeared?" He asked and she nodded.


"Let's just say it might be more than that and leave it at that. Kisuke thinks there might be a conspiracy behind this, and before you ask, you are not the only one going, but you will be the only one working alone." She finally regarded him with a smile. "So? Mind helping a lady out?"


Itachi's mind had already gone through a string of likely probable things to happen if he took on this mission and they all ranged from but not limited to, ambush, assassination, a public execution, kidnapping, defamation… etc.


'Well, better out there than in here.' Itachi thought.

 

[QuackVader]

In a dim room, a bespectacled man wearing the standard Shinigami shihakushō sat in front of a monitor perusing streams of data. To his side were open files and looking at them made him frown a bit before it faded to a bemused expression.


"A variable at this time? Ain't that a bitch." He heard a hoarse voice to his side and his smile turned into another expression of amusement, but with something vague underneath.


"It can't be helped. The plan, barebones as is, was made in a way that it adapts to any foreseeable change." The bespectacled man said to his unseen partner. "This is all within calculations."


"Well, if you said so." His partner said with a chuckle before going silent as if contemplating something. "Heard about the new guy from the Second? The Cap'n seems to think he is the real deal."


He clicked off the monitor with a snort and picked up the files, his eyes trailing with interests to a section of what was written.


"An illusion-type Shikai. I admit I'm a bit curious." He said.


"Bet ya would." His partner said in a patronizing tone. "After all, it's almost impossible to find two Zanpakutō with the same type of Shikai abilities."


Though his partner didn't say it, he understood what was being implied, except he wasn't worried.


'If the Captains could easily break out of his illusion, and even know that they were in one, that means that his illusions aren't absolute.'


"You don't have to worry about that." He said smoothly. "Just focus on remaining low profile in your squad and keep your ears open for any valuable piece of information. As for the variable, he's on a mission right now."


"Want me to draw out his abilities?"


He shook his head. "The Captains did commend his strength and we wouldn't want to take any chances now, do we?" His question was a rhetorical one, or his partner took it as one, but he smiled regardless and nodded in content. "I have just the sample to draw his capabilities out."


"Well, you do you. You're the boss." With those parting words, the stranger's presence disappeared from the room while the man flipped through the report in his hands, a fulfilled smile almost welcoming his face. "Now this, this is interesting."


…..


[West Rukongai, District 17]


Itachi's paranoia had tipped over a scale ever since Yoruichi approached him for this mission. As he currently was, though still lacking, he had basic information of the three worlds where the Shinigami operate; the Living World, Soul Society and Heuco Mundo.


He was still severely lacking in his knowledge of Kidō, especially the forbidden ones, but he could do without them, even if learning Kaidō would have been a blessing to him.


There were still things he was ignorant of, a lot of things, but the basic knowledge was enough for a foundation for someone like him.


He even learned that there was another release after the Shikai release – a Bankai release – the highest qualitative leap in power for a Shinigami and something that all Captains had.


'Just dealing with them using/not using Shikai is already a stretch.'


He could leave anytime if this turned out to be an ambush, or a jungle execution, like his mind rattled about, but that would mean he had to go through with the mission just to know for sure.


He prided himself in being able to read people, and given how long he stayed around Yoruichi and Soi Fon, he liked to believe his read on them were accurate… except that ninjas like them are known to be very good liars.


'What do you think, Tsukuyomi? Am I being too paranoid?'


'Do you think you're being too paranoid, Itachi? Your cautiousness is warranted, your paranoia understandable.'


'That was not an answer.'


'Why do you need an answer?' Tsukuyomi asked.


Itachi paused at the question, briefly wondering how comfortable he had gotten with Tsukuyomi that he would ask it for its opinion, something he couldn't remember doing for a long time. Truly a lonely soul.


'Why do I need an answer?' He continuously asked himself.


'I see.' He mused in understanding. 'If I can't come to an answer then I'll go with any action I choose and deal with the resulting consequences.'


Itachi fully agreed with the idiom of two heads being better than one; especially when both heads were from the same soil.


….


According to the Yoruichi's brief, Kisuke was able to reprogram what they used to pick up dense Reiatsu signals and tweak it to read up any disturbances in the natural Reishi atmosphere of the Rukongai and coincidentally, the Reishi atmosphere seemed to have bubbled up more in a specific quadrant of the Rukongai.


"Shadow clone jutsu."


Summoning two clones and using a cosmetic Transformation jutsu, Itachi sent them in two separate ways to fan out and see if they could pick up anything.


Yoruichi had given him a device to radio back to the Research Division of the Twelfth to request aid, scan for Reishi upsurge, or share information, but he was yet to use it and in caution of being tracked, he gave it to one of the clones and left it to its discretion.


Using his Sharingan at intervals, he checked to see if there was anything buffering the atmosphere and so far he's been out of luck.


Stopping in the outskirts of a small settlement at the base of a mountain, Itachi thought he could spare some time and see if the locals were talking about anything new, and indeed they were.


Turns out, some people have been 'kidnapped' recently and the local mishmash of security personnels couldn't do anything to find them, saying they 'simply vanished'.


Itachi didn't spend up to an hour there and continued on his mission after getting that little tidbit.


'You're getting more comfortable with being a soldier.'


It was very rare for Tsukuyomi to take the initiative to speak with him, except for a few times where he was mentally troubled, so this was a pleasant surprise, especially his words.


'I… know.' Itachi admitted in a moment of weakness.


He couldn't really blame himself as he found himself drawing closer to former habits as time went on inside the Second. It wasn't something he told himself he'd do, instead he just found himself automatically gravitating towards it.


Even the missions from Yoruichi were the same.


Tsukuyomi didn't speak another word, leaving Itachi to his musings and waiting for him to choose whatever he wanted to do.


"I thi-"


His words were cut short with his eyes going darkly cold as he stared in a specific direction where he just lost connection with one of his clones.


It was even surprising when his clone didn't know how it died and just simply popped out of existence.


Despite it currently being nighttime, Itachi sprang into a run towards the clone, activating his Body Flicker technique to the fullest which caused his body to disappear in a blur that was only seen with his first step.


….


Itachi and his clone arrived at the same time and without exchanging a word, both disappeared after a trail they caught.


For it to be able to sneak up on Itachi, even if it was a clone, then its abilities couldn't be underestimated.


Unfortunately for whatever it was, Itachi's eyes were capable of seeing the faintest of energy signatures if one knew how to look for it.


Unless it was a normal soul, whatever killed the clone couldn't have done so without utilizing their Reiatsu in a way, and that was the trail they got. A very faint thread of Reiatsu that was almost disappearing when they arrived.


'Flank them.'


A quick glance to the other and a message was communicated.


"Hiding is useless." Itachi said and the Hollow's eyes behind its mask widened as he saw Itachi in mid-swing, a few centimeters away from its neck.


CLANG!


Itachi's eyes betrayed the faintest of surprise when the Hollow backtracked two steps back and parried his sword.


However, before it could gloat or press on an attack of its own, the clone appeared behind him with a pointed finger which he slashed down.


"Bakudō #1: Sho!"


'Bakudō #1: Sho' is a restraining supplementary Kidō spell that seals the target's movement in a form of invisible chains to Itachi's eyes.


The reaction from Itachi and his clone was instantaneous as both of them chorused their next attack in tandem.


"Hadō #4: Byakurai."


"Hadō #4: Byakurai."


The restrained Hollow was hit with two streams of white lightning from both of them, engulfing the spot he was restrained in plumes of fire and lightning.


The clone appeared at Itachi's side and they both frowned as they looked at the smoke before it was forcefully blown away with the weapon the Hollow held.


"Hehehehehehehe…"


It laughed sickly as if it was amused by what they just did and further inspection from the shinobi revealed that not only did it escape its bind somehow, it also remained undamaged from their joint attack.

 

[QuackVader]

–––––––

"Shinigami, oh, Shinigami!"

A thrumming thrill reverberated through its throat as it let out those words full of clarity. And that was enough for Itachi to know that he wasn't just dealing with any kind of Hollow.

Its speech, how it reacted, and how it escaped it bindings with ease was a dead giveaway that the Hollow before him was different from any other Hollow he's fought.

An Adjuchas.

Hollows as a race are divided into two simple categories; normal Hollows and Great Hollows, commonly known as Menos.

Under Menos, there exist three progressive evolutionary paths starting from Gillians, Adjuchas and then the strongest evolutionary height of a Hollow, a Vasto Lorde.

Each classification is accompanied by a staggering qualitative leap in overall capabilities, most strong enough to fight squarely against Lieutenants or even outright kill them.

"These Hollows are specific."

He agreed with his clone's words as all the Hollow's he encountered that were involved with the disappearance of the Shinigami all had stealth traits.

"Manual selection." He said.

SCREEECH!

They both jumped back, lucky enough to avoid the weapon in the Hollows hands that suddenly whipped out and smashed where they previously stood.

"Move." Itachi had barely spoken the word out when the Hollow suddenly appeared in front of his clone, a soft glow around his hands and a blue energy ball charging up in his mouth.

A Cero, Itachi realized. A Hollows innate attack available to them in each step of their evolution.

When his clone blocked the Hollow's fist with his sword, Itachi's eyes widened as he saw his clone's Reiatsu suddenly breaking out of its body with a crack before the Cero engulfed them.

Seeing how Itachi's clone simply disappeared in front of its Cero, the Hollow turned to Itachi with what was a displeased expression on its face.

"Your tricks won't save you, Shinigami!"

"Are you the one responsible for the recent disappearance of a group of Shinigami?" He asked.

No matter how he looked at it, something suspicious was definitely going on but he just couldn't put his hand on what it was.

"Who knows? It won't change anything even if I answer your question." The Hollow sneered. "Maybe I can console you with the name of the last thing you'll see."

"…"

"Drummerbone. That's my name!" The weapon he held started wiggling on the floor like a snake until it crawled up its hands and fused into it.

Deciding on a path of action, Itachi twirled the sword around his fingers and ran towards Drummerbone who also met him halfway and punched at his sword with his glowing hand.

"Uh?!"

Itachi parried the blow expertly and kicked Drummerbone in the head, causing him to stagger a few steps backwards.

Inwardly growling in anger, the Hollow rushed at him, arms swinging, attempting to force Itachi back with his overwhelming strength but Itachi knew that and he redirected every blow he couldn't dodge thereby repeatedly disrupting Drummerbone's flow.

After the last strike, Itachi put a healthy distance between them as he noticed something weird about the Hollow.

Every clash between Itachi's sword and Drummerbone's fist caused Itachi's Reiatsu to flow haphazardly, making him shift his focus to actively keep him Reiatsu in a patterned flow.

"You can feel it right? Haha hahaha!" Drummerbone laughed hysterically and pushed on his attack with more frenzy.

Itachi retreated under Drummerbone's assault, prompting more manic glee from the Hollow.

'Tsukuyomi.'

'If you had more subpar control of your Reiatsu, you won't even be able to release your Shikai.'

Mentally nodding to his Zanpakutō spirit, Itachi changed the grip he had on his sword and this simple motion made Drummerbone stop and then staggered until he took a knee.

"W-what?"

"Hadō #13: Hanateki."

An Hadō spell slammed into its face at point blank range and exploded like fireworks but when the smoke cleared there was no sign that Drummerbone took any significant damage from that and Itachi's guess was the faint glow around the Hollow's hands.

"You break down the Reiatsu of anything your hands touch and absorb a small quantity of it that isn't harmful, right?" Itachi hypothesized.

"So what?!" Drummerbone shouted and charged a huge Cero that it wasted no time in shooting it towards Itachi who hastily jumped back as he drew something in the air.

"Bakudō #13: Kukaku."

A translucent barrier came in between Itachi and the huge Cero with the force of the explosion pushing him back.

"Bakudō #4: Hainawa." Another Kidō spell was released and this one was a spell of binding lightning rope that was shot at Drummerbone as soon as it jumped out the dust cloud with its weapon out of his body.

Restrained, Drummerbone fell straight to the ground but Itachi didn't let up the opportunity.

Sensing the danger, Drummerbone's hands glowed as he tried to break the binding rope, and he did, but he was a second too late as Itachi took one of its hands.

The handicapped Hollow had barely pulled a hasty retreat when he heard Itachi's voice and saw the Shinigami's eyes turning to a red pattern iris.

"Terase, Tsukuyomi."

Itachi released his Shikai in tandem with his Sharingan.

'It's defense, speed and attack are top notch and it can disrupt most attacks. But what about an attack that it can't see?'

With how intimate his Sharingan worked with his Shikai, given that they gave birth to Tsukuyomi, the view Itachi's eyes reflected when he used both at the same time was something only he could appreciate.

Red, black and grey lines weaved together in a never-ending twist and turn that he could pull at anytime to set up an illusion.

Reiatsu, Reiryoku, and all five physical sensations were all receptive to his illusions.

Drummerbone's stump started wriggling as it watched Itachi with caution while it tried to heal up another arm, only to stare gobsmacked as the man in front of him simply fade away like the wind and the next thing it knew was another searing pain as it's second hand fell to the ground.

"RARGHH!" It shouted in pained rage and blasted balls of Cero in every direction, even instantly regenerating its hands as it was blinded with rage. Unfortunately…

Caw caw.

It heard the sound of crows and its world turned upside down.

Its eyes spun fiercely, causing it to lose its balance more than once, and when everything finally stopped, alarm bells rang in its head.

A maze.

Everything was a maze.

Left and right, up and down, everything was chaotically joined together so that to tell if one was standing on the ground or in the air was virtually impossible.

Caw caw.

Inky black crows and red dotted eyes flew around letting out dreadful cries.

Nothing felt real.

'Is it real? Or is it an illusion?' That had been Tsukuyomi's question to Itachi when he first entered his mindscape and beheld the world of crows and darkness under the rays of a red lit moon.

'It's an illusion, because it once used to be real… now it's not.' That had been Itachi's answer.

He had refrained from pulling too much of Tsukuyomi's illusory prowess as most of them were tuned, or more compatible with Tsukuyomi's Mangekyō.

Seeing how Drummerbone was flailing around on the ground, unable to even push itself up without falling back down, Itachi knew that the Hollow was completely lost in the illusion they were both seeing.

As if sensing the danger around it with some kind of animalistic sixth sense, it turned its head at Itachi's direction and threw away all caution as it charged up the biggest Cero it could form and let it fly.

Faced with the incoming Cero, Itachi simply slashed down and for an instant, it felt as if the real world and that of the illusion joined together as a bright red light shone from where Itachi had slashed.

As for the Cero, the moment it got to the point where Itachi had slashed, its direction changed as if nothing happened and it had been traveling in a straight line all along as it sailed back to Drummerbone.

The Hollow in question only stared in shock as its strongest attack simply flew backwards without any lag in its momentum until the Cero impacted its body.

It had tried blocking with its hands but somehow, the position it crossed it's hands were not the place the Cero had landed its hit.

CRACK! BOOOOOM!

It had to be said about Drummerbone's hard body as not even its own Cero could completely destroy its body… but Itachi didn't care, nor did he appreciate it.

"Hadō #11: Tsuzuri Raiden."

Channeling the lightning Kidō spell through his blade, Itachi stabbed it through Drummerbone's head and the Hollow stilled.

Unlike what he was expecting, instead of the Hollow to start disintegrating, he felt a small wisp of energy building up inside the body and he quickly retreated to a safe distance.

The Hollow exploded but unlike the violent explosion Itachi had expected, the wisp of energy simply dissipated only the air.

"What was-"

Barely a second, not even letting him finish his words, and the ground started rumbling and Itachi could hear roars from the distance, more loudly as they got closer.

A parade of Hollows.

 

[QuackVader]

A body crashed through trees violently but it spun its body and skidded a short trail on the ground before coming to a stop.

Itachi's breaths were getting a bit labored considering how long he has spent fighting against an army of Hollows.

He tried calling for backup but like he half-expected, the call didn't go through and his mind told him that this was the ambush he was cautious about.

There were dozens of Hollows chasing him; from the unending number of normal Hollows to a sizable amount of over the 100 ft tall Gillians and more than a handful of Adjuchas.

The current scene looked like a herd of Elephants trying to stomp on an ant. He had a hard time dealing with the unending barrage of Cero as it were, not adding the unique ability of the Adjuchas.

'How can this many Hollows get into Soul Society without the Shinigami knowing?'

It was unthinkable for something like this that could be construed as a small-sized invasion.

'Did they lie about the surveillance in the Rukongai?' He had thought so but that didn't make sense. Lying to him would mean they were actively trying to hide something from him and he knew he wasn't that much of a problem for them so that seemed uselessly excessive.

Hastily molding his Reiatsu, he spat out a torrent of flames towards the nearest group of Hollows but he doubted the fire killed a lot of them.

Circling through his ninjutsu and Kidō repertoire, he managed to keep his distance from them while also trying to escape.

He couldn't put them all inside an illusion as it won't be concentrated enough especially since Hollows were creatures of chaotically flowing Reiatsu, making it even harder to keep them in an illusion compared to the average Shinigami.

Throwing up another shield, his sword danced with practiced precision as it cut through some of the Hollows that had crashed against the shield.

Unfortunately for him, the Hollows were the only ones getting hurt at every turn. With how quickly they swarmed anywhere he stopped at as soon as he did, not giving him any reprieve to press another attack until they doled out theirs.

The intensity of the one-sided battle got fiercer with every Hollow Itachi managed to kill that he wondered if their numbers were even going down.

Forcefully calming his breaths, Itachi ignored the hot pain in his lungs as the large gulps of air were filtered out slowly. His focus was on the nearest Hollow and any incoming Cero.

"Rarghh-"

A Hollow's shout was cut short as a vertical line separated its facial mask and reduced it to dust and specks of Reishi. He blocked another Hollow's tail wipe with his hands and fired off a Kidō that put a second hole in the Hollow's body.

He had barely retrieved his blade before a volley of Ceros was blasted in in direction from the tall black spooky Gillians and he only escaped being singed with a well timed Substitution jutsu which game him another chance to touch a Hollow's mask with his palm and release a stream of lightning that disintegrated the Hollow's head.

His last attack had left him open and the price of that was a punch from a spiked clawed Hollow that left a deep bleeding wound in his side.

'Curses.' He cursed in his head but only let a loaned wince rest upon his face as he pushed himself up. 'They are getting smaller, I can see it now.' He motivated himself.

Even if large illusions for a rowdy crowd were inadvisable, the basic abilities of his sword showed its worth during this fight.

Simple things like hiding the trajectory of his sword or lengthening it earned him the little room he had to organize himself a dive into the fray again.

He wasn't stupid. Of course not.

The first Hollow, Drummerbone, had been turned into a Hollow bait upon its death which meant that someone must have planned it in the event of a likely situation occurring.

'It's unlikely that it's the Soul Society trying to kill me because this method is too convoluted and it's not a certainty that it'll kill me. Too much theatrics for someone not considered a threat.' He contemplated his situation even as he dodged and hacked away at the now thinning herd of Hollows.

'It's almost too clear that someone is working with Hollows, highly likely that they are part of the Soul Society; Shinigami, Captain, or from one of the Noble Families. If so, then was the bait for me, or for anyone who killed that specific Hollow?'

Itachi was quick to realize that the momentum the Hollows had chased after him forced him to withdraw from his former location and scope out where they came from.

If that was planned too or not, he had no idea.

He heard the reverberating sound of a Hollow's high-speed movement to his side and a small crank of his neck gave him view of a Hollow he quickly put under genjutsu as it was the only one near.

Changing strategy, Itachi started kiting them as he started running in a circular manner. With the slow Gillians at the back, also being the ones firing most of the Cero, Itachi made a beeline for them while cleaving through any of the weaker Hollows that came near him.

He was hit, flung to the side, blasted and almost stepped on, leaving him bruised and injured, but he did his best and closed the distance between him and the huge Menos and also pushing away any of the Adjuchas that came near him.

He used 'Kukaku', a Bakudō spell, as a platform that he jumped off of and sailed towards the group of dumb and idly standing Gillians.

"Hadō #4: Byakurai."

He said the incantation and poured his Reiatsu through it, opening up a wide beam of lightning that destroyed the first Gillian and moved on to the next, destroying it too and moving up to a third which it also destroyed before it receded.

Using the falling body of one of the Gillians to break his steps, his hands blurred into a series of hand signs in a single moment which was followed by him sucking in a vacuum of air before releasing it as a great ball of fire.

"Fire style: Great Fireball jutsu."

"Ye lord! Mask of blood and flesh, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! Inferno and pandemonium, the sea barrier surges, march on to the south!"

"Hadō #31: Shakkahō."

Rather than a simple spell, Itachi went with the full incantation which bolstered up the power of the Kidō spell by a few folds and fired it at the falling fireball before swiftly disappearing from the vicinity.

Upon the spell impacting against the fireball, a red and orange explosion rocked the entire landscape, uprooting rocks and trees and turning the geography to a barren land of boiled glassy sand.

Staring at the destruction he caused, Itachi's only concern was that it took care of most of the Hollows, especially the Adjuchas which were the primary source of his problems.

Stabbing a stray Hollow through his mask, Itachi disappeared, backtracking to the general area where he had fought Drummerbone.

"WRARGHHH!"

His sword whipped forward in a curve and stabbed through the Hollows neck before slicing down and through the Hollow hole on his chest.

While the other Hollows tried to close the distance between them and Itachi, Itachi had taken the time to gather his breaths and made a clone that transformed into a crow to scour the nearby areas and see what it could read from the heavy footprints scattered on every corner.

"I still can't reach them." He muttered with a frown as he looked at the communication device he had snagged from the ground after his Shadow clone was destroyed.

With the crow trying to pick up a trail, Itachi could now fully commit his focus on killing the herd of Hollows, or what remained of them.

After over three hours of careful kiting and hit-and-run tactics, Itachi finally purified all the Hollows as the Shinigami called it.

He looked worse for wear with some rather telling injuries. Even if he was asked how he survived a parade of dozens of Adjuchas, Itachi's honest answer would be patience and that he had no idea.

Maybe it was because of whatever bait called them but they were all rabid and just tried to get a bite of him more than anything else.

Looking at the device in his hands as he sat against a tree, Itachi wondered if this was really the life he wanted to live in his death.

Of course, being a Shinigami felt way different than being a ninja but the thing was that he was still repeating what he did back in the Elemental Nations.

Right now, he was a member of the 2nd Division in all but name and Yoruichi was named as his charge, and at the end of it all, here he was at another impossible mission.

"Truly, change is hard."

There was something ironic in those words considering that they came from an illusion master.

 

[QuackVader]

[12 th Division Research Institute]

Kisuke was staring at a huge monitor in the main room of the Research Institute along with the other Shinigami present, all keeping notice of the numerous red dots on the screen that depicted the location of the groups of Shinigami sent out, and at the edge of the screen was a bright blue dot and that was what had Kisuke's attention.

The device given to Itachi was an automatic energy scanner that would send in the energy reading of wherever it was real-time without needing to be activated.

So far, the marker has been going forward without any hiccups or weird reading from the reports it sent in, but something still unnerved Kisuke about everything.

He tried contacting Yoruichi but she was currently busy and he couldn't reach her, well he could if he used a hell butterfly but he chose not to.

"Tsukime, can you please pull up the reading of Itachi's location 4 hours prior before he left?" He asked one of the assistants who quickly pulled it up on a small section of the huge monitor.

He has been a tad bit paranoid when Itachi and Yoruichi pointed out the possibility that a Shinigami might be working with the Hollows.

He could understand why the Captain Commander didn't want to entertain such a thought as it would mean even his Captains were under suspicion and would cause conflict between the Shinigami body of the Gotei 13.

It was a recipe for chaos and discord.

Kisuke understood why even agreeing with such a notion was threatening, but he was also a logical man and the calculations were more in favor of a Shinigami behind the disappearing souls.

In other words, for someone to coordinate Hollow attacks from the Seireitei, it would mean that they have access to a Shinigami's location when in the field, and for them to do that they would have to have access to this room and it's files and know how to manipulate the system so that they won't be found if they tampered with anything.

With Kisuke's memory and his recent bout of paranoia, he had spent days going over every piece of information they had concerning the recent disappearances and the more he did the more he felt something was amiss.

Looking at the report on the screen, Kisuke's eyes skimmed over every single thing, down to the dots and spaces.

"Akido, the coefficient of Reishi diffusion in a stable environment is supposed to be the quarter of a minute, or am I missing something?"

The man called Akido looked confusedly at his pairs who looked just as confused as him so he turned to Kisuke and answered unsurely, not knowing what his Captain was trying to say. "Yes?"

"Right? Now someone compute that but with a 4 hour difference and compare it to the reading we have now." Kisuke ordered.

"Yes Captain!"

It only took a few seconds before another part of the screen was shaved off for the new report.

Kisuke scrutinized the two reports for any difference and other than some decimal numbers being different, nothing else looked amiss.

He was about to wave off this paranoia when something clicked in his head.

If the calculations were right the first time around and the same variables were used for the second one, basic mathematics says that both answers should be the same.

'And when it comes to miscalculation in energy imbalances…' Kisuke's head whipped to Akido who stood shocked, not knowing why his Captain was looking at him with a fierce expression.

"Sir?"

"Send out an urgent notice, now! 'All Shinigami out on mission in the Rukongai are to return immediately, Head Captain's orders!'"

The group of scientists looked at Kisuke in horror as he issued an order with the Head Captain's name when none was given.

"Why are you still looking at me, get on it! I'll talk to the Head Captain." He stormed out of the room and utilizing Shunpo, he headed straight for the Head Captain's office.

If the calculations were wrong in the energy reading, even by a small unit, the scanners the Shinigami carried would send back false readings as it was calibrated with the reading of the Research Institute which might've turned out to be out.

'But how could our energy readers be incorrect? It's been in use since Captain Hikifune was head of the Division.'

This was worse than he expected. The people aiding the Hollows were inside the Research Institute which would give them foremost knowledge about Shinigami outside the Seireitei.

'Hopefully it's all a false alarm and I missed something.' He hoped.

…..

[POV: With Itachi]

No matter how long Itachi searched for where the Hollows came from, he came up with the only conclusion he could come to in respect of his findings, or lack thereof, was that they came through the Garganta – the spatial bridge Hollows use to travel the three worlds.

"Can Hollow bait attract Hollows all the way from Hueco Mundo?" He asked himself as he trudged back slowly, very slowly, as his body wasn't in the best of shapes. Broken bones and bruised skin were the highlight of his day.

"Where should I go now?" He wondered.

If it turned out that the Seireitei or Yoruichi and some of the other Captains were behind this, then it meant that him going back was just him begging to be locked up and executed.

"But if it's someone else…" He was thinking hard on it and the other thing that came with it was him questioning himself if the Seireitei was that important to him that he wanted to go back. The answer to that would be no.

He didn't want to be an aimless wanderer in the Soul Society, that wasn't a way to live. Humans were social creatures and despite his hard countenance and off-putting behavior, Itachi cherished bonds more than anyone else, just like every Uchiha.

[H… llo. C…an you hear me?]

[Itachi Uchiha, please come in. This is Captain Urahara speaking, please respond if you copy.]

Itachi looked at the communicator and wondered whether to pick it up or not. He could use this chance to make himself M.I.A and go underground for a while before assuming another identity and find a life in the Rukongai. Maybe even find a way back to the world of the living and check on what has happened to it.

His choices were few and were ones that he could commit his life to without regretting or giving up halfway, but somehow it felt dull. Lackluster and vapid.

He silently cursed himself as he pulled the device to his ear and responded. "Itachi Uchiha, speaking."

[Thank goodness you're still alive or else I'm afraid Yoruichi would have demanded my head.] Kisuke joked with what seemed like relief, though Itachi couldn't be sure. [The Captain Commander issued an order for all Shinigami to return to the Seireitei posthaste.]

"Why?"

Kisuke sighed wearily, something Itachi could picture given how the Captain regularly looked.

[… It looks like your assumption was right, Itachi, at least that's how it's currently looking]

"I see." Saying that he ended the call before Kisuke did but didn't make an effort to move, until an hour later when he finally pushed himself off the ground.

Going back to the Seireitei was without any of the fanfare Itachi expected. No poisons, sprung up traps, his best friend trying to assassinate him - except this one was impossible.

His summary of this mission Yoruichi has thrown at him was that it served no purpose. There was no Hollow trail to follow, no feeding ground he found, or any clue as to the weird behavior of the Hollows. He just went out, fought a bunch of Hollows, almost died while doing so, got severely injured, and now he was going back with nothing to show.

Crossing the west gates, he slowed down on his journey in getting to Yoruichi's office and when he arrived, the door was swung open by Soi Fon who was taken aback with how battered he looked before she ushered him in.

"What the hell happened?" Yoruichi asked, a little concerned as she saw the bruises and parts of his body that were fractured.

Itachi looked at Yoruichi, really looked at the purple haired and golden eyes woman who was waiting for him to speak, and ultimately ended up sighing.

"A stampede of Hollows, both Gillians and Adjuchas Menos." He said.

""What?!"" The two women exclaimed in shock as that was something would have killed even a competent Lieutenant, and more worrying when they didn't hear any news about such a thing.

He briefly narrated what happened to Yoruichi and gave her the device he was given for the mission before leaving for the 4th Division as instructed by Yoruichi.

Even he knew he needed some rest after what he just did. Thankfully the 4th Division was a place quiet enough to take a nap during his treatment.

 

[QuackVader]

The 4th Division of the Gotei 13 was strictly healing and the only noncombatant squad in the Seireitei – effectively the Shinigami hospital ward.


And as Itachi quickly noticed as he walked through their gate, they were also the most calm and peaceful of the 13 Divisions.


He had barely made it past their doors when someone rushed to his attendance and inquired why he was here; visit or healing – the standard reasons.


"Well then, follow me." They led him to a room and told him to lie down. "Someone will be here in a few seconds to attend to you."


He made himself comfortable on the bed, wondering when last he had ever been on a hospital bed – never was the answer.


The curtain covering his bed slid open and a female nurse walked in holding a clipboard.


"Itachi Uchiha, 2nd Division. I'll examine you now." She read out from the clipboard and waited for Itachi to nod before she proceeded.


Most of his smaller wounds were already halfway healed and though he realigned his broken bones, those and the deep gashes were yet to heal.


A green glow covered the nurse's hands as she drew it above his body, calm and focused as she took note of all his injuries and their nature.


"Quite a fight you had there. Hollows?" She made light conversation to draw away Itachi's attention from the healing process and the pain the injuries were causing him, an admirable consideration, and Itachi could appreciate her efforts even if he did not need them.


'Even their healing arts surpasses that of medical ninjas on a fundamental level.' He noted.


This was just another instance added to the increasing pile of proof of how Reiatsu was superior to Chakra.


When his healer turned away from his face, he opened his Sharingan and stared intently on the green glow that was over the side of his abdomen and how every tissue and flesh was being connected to their respective end.


'Of course.' He told himself and closed his Sharingan before resting his head against the pillow.


Just like iryō ninjutsu(medical ninjutsu), his eyes couldn't copy the Kaidō technique the healer was utilizing. Unlike ninjutsu and Hadō/Bakudō, iryō ninjutsu and Kaidō were more raw energy manipulation and theoretical knowledge than the former that was energy utilization.


While the Sharingan's ocular prowess was advanced, it also had its limitations even when it came to things it could do. Things like kekkei genkai ninjutsu and techniques with raw energy manipulation, ie. Taijutsu, healing techniques, summonings and a lot more.


Hours passed and Itachi just laid silently on the bed with his eyes closed as if asleep, watching everything the healer did but never once letting it slip that he was awake, even when she took breaks.


After six slow hours of healing, all his major injuries were more or less taken care of, which was more than enough for him to function at top efficiency but he still laid on the bed and rested with his eyes closed.


Suffering from a terminal illness at a very young age made him appreciate the effort healers put in healing their patients. So even if he could move now, he waited for when he was told he could go.


"Everyone to your station, Captain Unohana is supervising the patients!"


He heard someone say and at those words, he could feel people shifting around his ward, going to their patients and making sure they had been properly attended to before moving to another one.


It was a normal thing for Captain Unohana and her Lieutenant to do supervisions from time to time, teaching and correcting the young healers of her Division. And due to the casualties, especially after the last Division-wide mission, she has been attending to the unending influx of wounded Shinigami and thought to do a check after getting some free time for herself.


She gave advice to those who needed it and answered all the questions she was asked as she moved through the numerous wards. Thankfully she had her Lieutenant and leaders of the 10 Relief Teams, her Division's equivalent of the Seated Officers of the other Divisions, else she wouldn't have been able to thoroughly inspect her healers in time.


She entered another ward with rows of beds with all their curtains opened for her to inspect the patients.


During her checks, she came across a rather memorable face from one of the previous Captains meeting a few months ago – the man Yoruichi took in, Itachi Uchiha.


It wasn't everyday one sees a recently reincarnated soul that strong and the impression he left on the Captains was commendable.


-Oh and he wasn't sleeping, so she wasn't disturbing him.


"Glad to see you in good health, Mr. Uchiha. I see your recent mission wasn't without its hiccups."


Itachi slowly opened his eyes and nodded at her in greeting. "I'm rather fine, Captain Unohana."


"Then I'm glad." She smiled softly. "Hope to see you again, or I guess not. Have a good rest, Mr. Uchiha." She nodded at him and continued her checks while Itachi closed his eyes and went back to resting.


His healer came to him a few minutes after and told him he wouldn't be discharged for a few days for a complete healing.


Itachi had wanted to leave upon hearing that as the remaining wounds and pains he was feeling weren't something that'll affect his daily activities but he stopped himself, rather forcefully even, by reminding himself that there was no reason he had for wanting to rush back to the Second.


So the next three days was him taking his time to relax and bring his running thoughts to a stop. He also met Captain Unohana twice after her first check and the woman was always patient and calm whenever she was spoken to. They had a brief conversation on both occasions before she continued with her duty and Itachi had to say that Captain Unohana, out of all the Captains, was the one he had the most favorable impression of.


…..


After the last mission that was forcefully stopped by Captain Kisuke upon finding out that their data registry had been tampered with, the Onmitsukidō were ordered by the Head Captain to find out who was responsible for what was an act of treason.


Kisuke was temporarily suspended as Yoruichi had him under investigation, a formality on her end, while her subordinates combed through the entire 12th Division and by the end of the week, was successful in rooting out the person responsible.


The man responsible, Kinjaro Tomori, was a close assistant of the 12th Division former Captain, Kirio Hikifune, and greedy for the same success of his predecessor, started experimenting on Hollows and Shinigami – in fact, any soul he could get his hands on.


As his strength was rather subpar, he started experimenting on Hollows in hope of cultivating their powers for himself.


Surprisingly, he was able to kickstart his sick goals in the short span of time where the Division was without a Captain after the former Captain had retired.


Yamamoto had called for his execution after he was tortured by the Onmitsukidō of everything he knew and all the plans he had made and the execution was carried out by the current Captain of the 12th Division, Kisuke Urahara, in front of the other Captains, their Lieutenants and a few other Shinigami of the Gotei 13.


Watching the execution, Itachi was witness to the spectacle of all the Captains releasing their Reiatsu in a show of intimidation for any would-be traitor wanting to follow in Kinjaro Tomori's steps, and it was then he truly realized what type of people were the Captains.


What he felt from them at that moment was not a sensation he'd ever felt from any ninja, Kage or Sannin.


Instead, it was reminiscent to what he had felt from the Tailed Beasts. Excluding the overwhelming malevolence of the Tailed Beasts, the Captains matched them in intensity… but that wasn't what had truly terrified Itachi of the nature of the Shinigami Captains.


No, what rooted him to his spot with sweat running down his brows, were the few Captains whose intensity surpassed even that of the Nine Tailed Beast.


Most people would not have felt it because of how addled and chaotic the atmosphere became, but Itachi could literally see the spiritual pressures, Reiryoku, of the Captains… despite them still controlling it and preventing it from smoldering the other Shinigami present to death.


Head Captain – Genryúsai Yamamoto Shigekuni.


4th Division Captain – Retsu Unohana.


8th Division Captain – Shunsui Kyōraku.


10th Division Captain – Isshin Shiba.


11th Division Captain – Kenpachi Zaraki.


12th Division Captain – Kisuke Urahara.


These six Captains had the most powerful intensity from the others - though Itachi noticed the weird spiritual pressure of the 13th Division Captain, Jūshirō Ukitake – and from those six, three of them in particular were above anything he had seen.


The Head Captain, Zaraki Kenpachi and Kisuke Urahara – the three of them instantly redefined what the term 'monsters' meant to Itachi.


Just for that instant, the veil surrounding the Shinigami was lifted for Itachi's eyes.

 

[QuackVader]

[A few months later]


It has been months after the semi-public execution of Kinjaro Tomori on the grounds of treason against the Soul Society as a whole and after his execution, the unexplained disappearances stopped and Hollow sightings reduced drastically to what was considered natural.


During this time, Itachi tried his best to live as true as much as he could amidst the nightmares and screams that came to his mind anytime he fell asleep.


It wasn't easy- well it hasn't been easy for him for years because every night he was subjected to the same dream but different faces and screams. Since the night of the massacre, it felt as if he was trapped in a Tsukuyomi of his own making. No, not Tsukuyomi, instead the infinite loop of the Izanami.


It became even worse for him after the execution because the dreams became frequent and sometimes hard to wake up from.


A trauma he hadn't gotten over even after a decade.


Even after so many internal debates and advice from Tsukuyomi, Itachi repeatedly found himself coming back to this particular sensation of feeling lost and wondering what to do.


The night after the execution was one he had spent completely awake by staring at the night sky to pass the hours. Witnessing the execution made him question if being in the Seireitei was a wise choice.


He might have placated himself saying that the Shinigami of Seireitei fought against Hollows but the execution was like a mockery of intentional naiveté.


This was even worse than his Akatsuki days because then he had a directive.


A few days after the execution, Itachi decided to stroll through the nearby Rukongai Districts just to distance himself from the Seireitei and think clearly without him trying to assign himself a Shinigami's duty.


One of the good things after the execution was that Yoruichi stopped snooping around his movements and even took back the group of people she had watching him.


His stroll into the West Rukongai's District ended up turning into something he never expected.


…..


[Flashback: West Rukongai, A few days after the execution]


He might have been lost in his head so much that he didn't know when he crossed into the 3rd District but that didn't stop him either. He only noted his location and continued walking around idly.


Unfortunately, he was brought out of his mental therapy by the rhythmic sound of two things smacking against each other along with the soft panting from exhaustion.


Following the sound, Itachi came across a young man, mid-twenties from his looks, or maybe his mid-hundreds, smacking a wooden stick fashioned like a sword against a tree while looking completely exhausted.


He gave the boy two minutes before he fainted from exhaustion if he continued striking his sword only to be proven wrong when the boy barely made it to the first minute before be keeled over.


With how close this District was to the Seireitei(so close that its tall white walls were completely visible from where he stood) he didn't have to worry about the young man's safety but despite that he ended up sitting on a tree for the next few minutes to see if the young man would wake up but he didn't.


Muttering under his breath, he stood up from where he was sitting and walked away while keeping a certain distance from the fainted soul.


He ended up catching an animal by the type he returned to check if the boy was gone, but no he was still there.


He made quick work with butchering and skinning the meat, silently thankful that he came with his satchel for his knives which had a little bit of salt from his Rukongai days.


No sooner had he started salting the roasting meat did the young man start stirring up from his hour-long sleep.


He watched as the man tried pulling himself up with the little bit of strength he got from his sleep but he just fell down breathing heavily while his eyes moved around to take note of his surroundings.


"Stay still." Itachi said and watched the young man freeze before his eyes widened as he finally took note of Itachi and what he was doing. "You're still exhausted. Close your eyes and relax."


A few minutes later, Itachi was done with the roasted meat and served some on leaves and gave it to the laying man.


"Eat slowly. I don't have water." He said.


Sure the young man didn't need food as souls didn't need such sustenance but eating would make him recover his energy faster.


They spent the next few minutes slowly eating in silence and when Itachi was done, he turned around to leave but the young man called out to him.


"Please wait!" Came a frantic shout that instantly silenced as Itachi stopped. "A-are you a Shinigami?"


"What of it?" Itachi, now fully turned, was staring at the man who fearfully took a step back as he was render under Itachi's stare. "M-my n-n-name is Junpei. I-I want to be a Shinigami."


"What does that have to do with me?" Itachi's hard stare didn't let up and the other party frantically shook his head and hands.


"I tried taking the Shin'ō Academy exam but I failed." He said while looking down. "Twice."


"And like I said; what does that have to do with me?" Itachi asked again and this time the man couldn't say anything, stuttering as his head hung low.


He turned around and left.


[Flashback ends]


…..


"Um, Mr. Shinigami, are you sure this is safe? For me?" A timid Junpei held his wooden sword, one perfectly shaped after a katana, and so did Itachi.


How did they get to this point?


Well, after leaving Junpei alone when they first met, Itachi met him again a few weeks later, this time in another place far away from where they had initially met.


Of course, Junpei had been scared and frozen up when he suddenly came across Itachi for the second time but Itachi ignored him.


Since then, almost as if Itachi was stalking him(Junpei would never let him hear of those thoughts) they met a couple of times and every time Junpei would try to get Itachi to help him but each time he was faced with simple questions like 'why?' 'for what?' and they always stomped him.


Maybe because he was too persistent or because Itachi had nothing better to do, the next time they came across each other at where Junpei frequented for his suicide training, the young man was surprised to see Itachi with two perfectly carved swords that he gave to Junpei for storage.


From that day, a month after their initial meeting, Itachi would pop up unannounced and if Junpei wasn't with the swords he wouldn't train him, something the latter quickly figured out as he started coming with both swords everyday, week in week out regardless of if Itachi showed up or not.


Since the beginning, Itachi never told him his name, not that he didn't want to but Junpei didn't ask and just settled for calling him 'Mr. Shinigami'.


"Start."


At Itachi's words, Junpei's face turned serious and he rushed at Itachi with a downward slash which Itachi sidestepped and hit his sword to further unbalance him.


Just like he never asked Itachi for his name, Itachi never asked him why he was hell bent on becoming a Shinigami.


Parrying, sidestep, dodge, counterattack were the few things Itachi focused on. He knew that the requirements for entry into the Shin'ō Academy was strictly Reiatsu-based so he made Junpei's training into a montage to kick-start his subpar Reiatsu.


From pushing his own Reiatsu into Junpei's body after every training session to stimulate the latter's Reiatsu, he also made sure that throughout the duration of every training session, Junpei's mind must be focused on trying to flow his Reiatsu into the wooden sword.


Because of how advanced and complex manipulating Reiatsu was, he made Junpei do it just like how ninjas did with Chakra – the same way he pushed his own Reiatsu into the young man's body.


As if something was showing him off, Junpei finally picked up how to flow his Reiatsu after almost two months of trials and errors. Though Itachi didn't comment on just how poor the oblivious youth was doing it.


With the recent breakthrough, Junpei started flowing his Reiatsu into his sword and using it to attack Itachi, redoing it every time his concentration was broken.


The dynamic between the two of them was hilarious and bad at the same time with Junpei rarely ever asking Itachi any serious questions, even about the ones with his Reiatsu exercise, and Itachi hardly speaking a word except to directly tell Junpei to do something specific.


A small updraft of air picked up around them as Junpei blindly waved a sword with his leaking Reiatsu at Itachi who took his time to break Junpei's concentration every time the youth was getting comfortable.


After all, the reason behind every single exercise they did was to exert and exhaust Junpei's Reiatsu in order to stimulate any kind of minor growth.


It worked for genin and chunin ninjas so there was a high chance it would for him too.

 

[QuackVader]

"Unfortunately, your goal will end as mere fantasy and vanish like a dream upon waking." — Itachi Uchiha.

°

°

°°°°°°°°

Junpei knelt on the ground, thoroughly spent, gasping in a bid to get his breathing in order.

Ever since Mr. Shinigami started carrying those exercises on his body, he found out that he started getting tired more easily and quickly than before but he didn't say anything and desperately hoped that Mr. Shinigami wasn't playing a sick ploy with him.

He listened to what Mr. Shinigami said and did what he was told to do obediently because it him, Mr. Shinigami looked like one of those people who hated wasting time.

However, his tiny suspicions and worries vanished when he found out that he actually felt stronger and brimming with energy.

He might or might not have stupidly punched a tree and all he got in return was a painful screech of a scream and nothing happening to the tree.

He had no way of knowing if he was truly strong or his head was messing with him, but all that became a moot point when he started getting a tiny bit faster, all up to the day where for the first time he actually was able to move his Reiatsu and feel it leave his body in tiny wisp.

Covering the sword with it, he quickly found out, made him exhausted in a short time but he believed Mr. Shinigami knew what he was doing. He IS the Shinigami between the both of them.

"Get up." He heard Mr. Shinigami's dry scary voice and he pushed himself off the ground with all of his depleted strength.

"Again."

Great. First, calm breath. Next, concentrate and gently pull it out. Now breathe again and hold it steady.

Junpei's body croaked as he once more pushed out his last dregs of Reiatsu and let it burn away as he pushed it to his sword. He opened up another salvo of attacks that Mr. Shinigami met head-on, not sidestepping or parrying like he used to do.

One thing that unnerved Junpei about Mr. Shinigami was that the scary soul always knew when he was out of energy and Reiatsu and when he was lying about being completely tired.

He barely lasted five minutes before he fell to the ground without even sufficient energy to groan as he hit the ground and to prove him right, Mr. Shinigami said nothing but just dropped his wooden sword, signifying the day's session was over, much to Junpei's relief.

"The entrance exam is coming up soon in a few months." Junpei heard him say but couldn't decide if it was a question or a statement.

He tried saying something but the only thing that came out from his throat was a guttural groan.

"You're getting better."

Junpei stilled as those foreign words entered his ears. By the time he got himself together and managed to turn his head towards where Mr. Shinigami stood but the man was gone.

This was the first compliment, both good and bad, that have been exchanged between them. If not for how spent he was, he wanted to shout his heart out.

'Maybe, just maybe, I can become a Shinigami.'

That thought became more prevalent in his mind that it was the only thing he could think of as he walked back home.

…..

[POV: With Itachi]

Walking back to his abode, he returned slight nods to those who greeted him on the way.

Both the members of the Onmistukidō special forces and the 2nd Division knew him or knew of him to an extent because apparently they all expected him to have the position of a Seated Officer since he was more than qualified to and were even surprised when he expressed his lack of interest in squad politics.

The Second Division were not the best people but one thing Itachi silently appreciated about them was that they mostly kept to themselves, which meant as little people as possible trying to come at odds with him.

He hard barely put down his satchel when he heard a knock on his door and from the familiar feel of their Reiatsu, it was one of Yoruichi's messengers.

Stepping out of his door, the messenger quickly delivered his message and left. The summary of it was that Yoruichi wanted him to report to her office whenever he comes back.

The laid back Captain of the Second was fun and games for most of the times you come across her, especially privately, but she knew how to hive how seemingly unending tasks.

"I left six days ago. Neither too long or short." Itachi briefly pondered as he entered the building of Yoruichi's office.

He knocked on her door and entered after her permission to find her reading through reports and stamping them.

"And here I thought you'll be taking a full week or two off." Yoruichi joked while Itachi stood ramrod straight to the side.

She had gotten used to his silence and she liked to believe Itachi knew how to take on her frivolities in stride.

'How the hell Soi Fon can be more of a prude than Itachi is something I still am yet to understand.' She thought to herself.

"What do you want, Yoruichi?" He came off strong in a way that would have been seen as disrespecting but the purple haired Captain let it wash over her like wind.

"Soi Fon is currently unavailable and she's the one I usually have around for tasks like these." She started slowly as her hand darted over the stacks of paper while Itachi listened on in silence. "Family duties. Mind accompanying me?"

"Yes, I do." Itachi replied without missing a beat. She could go anywhere she wanted without an escort so she wasn't fooling him with such a lame attempt.

"Sheesh. First you refuse to join the Onmistukidō and now you don't even want to accompany me."

"Yoruichi." Itachi stressed.

"Fine." She sighed as she dropped her pen to look at him. "Work directly for me, Itachi."

Their current relationship can be said to be one of accumulating favors where they request something from the other in cost of a few favors, heavily depending on the value of the favor they were giving.

"You already know my answer." Itachi replied. It was a weird conversation to have given that Yoruichi was Itachi's Captain either way but to them who knew the depth and weight of the words spoken, it was layers deeper than any who heard it might think.

"I know. That's why I'm still asking." Yoruichi said, not surprised at Itachi's swift rejection or hid it well if she was. "I understand your reasons behind why you don't want to."

"And yet?" He stared at her and she took it in and returned it. "What do want my loyalty for, Yoruichi? And should I point out how strange you're acting?"

She looked surprised at the latter bit, knowing she was acting out of wonk and made a irritated groan at the realization. "I guess I've been thinking too seriously as of late. I think I'll pester Kisuke later for a spar to let out some steam."

Itachi said nothing and just let her verbally release her frustration. "So?"

"Actually I want you to accompany for a meeting of clan heads, not for me but for you. I know someone you might be able to ask some questions without offending them. Why am I doing this? Obviously because you're lost, or else you wouldn't be spending days in the Rukongai."

Questions. Itachi had them, no doubt, but he knew some answers were better searched for than given.

Also this might give him an understanding of the Noble Families and how their existence affect the Soul Society.

"I'm not in a hurry. I'll think about it." Itachi said and turned to leave the office as Yoruichi gave him her parting words.

"Kenpachi is looking for you so don't be surprised when you find a short pinkette popping up around you."

After the doors closed, Yoruichi dropped her pen and threw her head backwards because something impossible just happened and she was too carried away to quickly notice it.

Yoruichi Shihōin never begs for anything, least of all for someone's loyalty. How it came to that was something she had little control of.

"Oh! Maybe I should visit Kukaku. Yes, hahaha. To hell with these reports." She said and stomped out of her office before disappearing with a Shunpo as she headed towards the Shiba residence.

 

[QuackVader]

"Those who cannot acknowledge themselves will fail. Just like I did." — Itachi Uchiha.


°


°


°°°°°°°°





Itachi secluded himself in a part of the forest surrounding the West gate and sat on top a boulder with both legs crossed with his sword resting on his legs.


It only took a moment before his consciousness plunged into the dark red world of Tsukuyomi and there he was, as huge and black as he was in the beginning.


"Tsukuyomi." He called out, not minding the part of Tsukuyomi's feathers that fell off and turned to smoke only for the wisp of smoke to coalesce into crows that flew around him.


"Itachi." Tsukuyomi's head bent down halfway to look at Itachi. "What do you require of me, Itachi?" Like always, Tsukuyomi was already offering his help to Itachi.


Not just Tsukuyomi's deference to Itachi, the both of them shared a very close relationship, so close that only the Captains could boast of this bond with their Zanpakutō spirit and yet still envy it.


What all of them were unaware of however was that Tsukuyomi literally used to be Itachi's eyes. How could an eye deceive the body and force them all to ruin?


If it was up to Tsukuyomi, he would have granted Itachi access to the Mangekyō and even the Eternal Mangekyō if he could and it wouldn't have an averse effect on Itachi.


"Amaterasu. I still can't hear them. How much longer?" Itachi asked. "Is my soul not strong enough yet?"


"Unfortunately, it isn't time yet." Tsukuyomi said and ruffled his feathers, causing his feathers and crows to descend towards Itachi. "Your soul is not in perfect synchrony with us. Not even with me."


"And how do I fix that?" Itachi asked, not minding the murder of crows that were entering and exiting his clothes.


"The perfect synchrony is when you can use my illusions as easily as breathing. You're still far from that and saddling you with Amaterasu would do neither of you any good."


"I see." Itachi nodded in understanding but then remembered something just as crucial. "Bankai. How does one achieve it?"


Tsukuyomi tilted his head at Itachi, expressing his confusion which Itachi immediately picked on. "What?"


"Your Bankai and your Mangekyō Sharingan are one and the same, Itachi." Tsukuyomi clarified and that was when it hit him.


His Zanpakutō spirits were Tsukuyomi and Amaterasu, meaning that whatever his Bankai was would be a blend of both of their abilities and the only way for him to use the extensively would be unlock his Mangekyō Sharingan, which is also their true form or the core of their souls.


Thinking about it that way, it became obvious why Tsukuyomi wanted his soul to grow stronger. He was different from the other Shinigami after all.


"I understand now, especially why you're saying I'm not perfectly synchronized with either of you. You are not the same as you were when we were alive."


"No we are not. Putting us inside a Zanpakutō not only strengthened our symbiotic relationship but also removed the restriction your human limitations placed on us, enabling us to express ourselves in the truest way to our name."


Itachi silently nodded while he held out his arm for one of the crows to perch on, only for the both of them to fall into a staring contest.


"So, after getting sufficiently strong enough to handle the strain of both of your truest forms, how do I actually get Bankai?" Itachi asked, slowly peeling away his eyes from the crow who then flew away as she turned to Tsukuyomi.


His reasons for asking this question were very important and Tsukuyomi knew that as well.


"For your Bankai, you'll have to defeat me and Amaterasu's truest form… at the same time." Tsukuyomi purposely saying it slowly made it sound more ominous to the hearing ear. "You must be able to suppress both of our abilities at the same time and that has its own symbolic meaning. Defeating your Bankai means that your body is strong enough to handle the strain of using it without dying and that your soul is strong enough to house our grown spirit."


The crows around Itachi formed a chair of smoking wisps and slowly pushed him towards Tsukuyomi.


"Imagine the empty Asauchi blade as an incubator for Zanpakutō spirits to grow and realize their potential. Shikai is just the first stage of growth, us spreading our wings for the first time. Bankai on the other hand is us fully grown and ready to return our grown core back to your soul – our origin. So your soul must be strong enough to permanently house our spirit, two in this case."


Tsukuyomi calmly and clearly explained the intricacies of the Shinigami's Bankai to Itachi who was finally able to paint an accurate picture of why needed to be less lacking when it came to his soul.


"No need to rush, Itachi. Like every other Bankai, it will make itself known when it feels that you're ready, like I do you."


Today was a real eye opener for Itachi. It was something expected but it was the scale of it that genuinely surprised Itachi.


"I appreciate you telling me this, Tsukuyomi." Itachi said as he wore a contemplating look on his face. Everything Tsukuyomi said was valuable but one of his major takeaways from it all was that even his Shikai was lacking much more than he thought.


If he couldn't be perfectly synchronized with Tsukuyomi with his basic Shikai abilities then all it did was show him how unprepared for Bankai he was.


Tsukuyomi raised his head and looked at the red moon that almost looked as if it was shining brighter. He looked at Itachi so lost in himself that he didn't register the changes in this illusory world, or maybe he did but just ignored it. This was after all the safest place he could be.


Tsukuyomi turned his head to face a certain direction, closed his beady eyes and slowly faded away.


As Itachi's spirit guides and more so his eyes, it was their role to pave the way to any desires his heart might birth; to turn his dreams into a realization – something Tsukuyomi felt was specifically his duty.


"Fret not, Tsukuyomi. He'll have the chance and time to grow. I will make sure of that."


A very dark sputtering voice filtered into Tsukuyomi's head as he faded away, wholly agreeing with the sentiment the voice spoke with.


….


Pulling himself from his thoughts, Itachi looked around and found that Tsukuyomi was gone. The gigantic crow always knew the best time to be present or to leave, something Itachi never had the thought to comment on.


Opening wide his palms, the crows around him started cawing loudly and a few flew towards his hands and lost their tangible form, leaving only the inky black smoke that swirled above his palms and soon started stretching to the shape of a sword.


Even if it looked like it had no solid body, Itachi held it as such as it felt as such. He threw it to the ground and the shadowy blade sank over 2/3rds into the ground.


"Simple genjutsu won't cut it at this point anymore. My illusions can grow even more." He said. 'Using Tsukuyomi to his fullest potential. It will take some time but I can make it work.'


Bankai could wait, he told himself as the red world started fading away.


As a Zanpakutō, Tsukuyomi's Shikai didn't have much in terms of fire power but that was okay with Itachi. With enough control and training, he reckoned he'd have a very high level grasp of his illusions and breaking out of them would be harder as well.


Standing up, Itachi looked at the blade in his hands before strapping it to his waist. He wanted to leave but paused as his mind went to the training workaholic young man, Junpei, who he hadn't seen for some days now.

 

[QuackVader]

"Both knowledge and awareness are equivocal. One's reality might be another's illusion." — Itachi Uchiha.

°

°

°°°°°°

Itachi's days as a Shinigami passed slowly with the most part of it being uneventful. Without the need to eat or sleep, and no mission assigned for a long stretching period of time, Shinigami found themselves bored most of the time but it was how they utilized this 'boring' time that created the difference between Shinigami.

The Gotei 13 was lax in its rules when it came to how Shinigami lived their lives, and as long as they didn't break any set down rules nobody cared how they spent their time away from their Shinigami duties.

For Itachi, it was falling into a routine he had never done for years: training proficiency in his abilities. As a natural genius, he had mastered everything he needed to be an extremely skilled Shinobi at a very young age.

Since he found himself with nothing to do through the majority of his time, unless when he was either with a Captain or with Yoruichi and Soi Fon, he spent most of his time in learning ways his Shikai could be further utilized.

After his conversation with Tsukuyomi a while back about the true nature of his Zanpakutō, Itachi forced himself to stop thinking about his illusions as simple metal mirages.

In his mindscape, he noticed that both he and Tsukuyomi could make illusions into real and tangible things.

He breathed in softly and swung his sword lazily at an empty space yet his eyes was squinting in focus on a marked tree off to the side.

'Am I overreaching or am I truly not at that level yet?' He thought with a frown.

At that moment, a voice interrupted his silent pondering. "If you want to cut the tree, you should swing your sword at it, don't you think?"

Turning to the direction of the voice, he saw a pink haired child in standard Shinigami attire freely swinging her legs off the tree branch she sat on.

'How did she get here?' He thought as he observed her. 'A Lieutenant armband, I see.'

"Ano, you were trying to cut something right? Kenny also likes to cut things too." Her voice, her mannerisms and her exuberant emotions in a carefree display gave Itachi the opinion of her being a normal happy-go-lucky child, but one could never know when it came to souls.

"Lieutenant Yachiru," Itachi started slowly, gauging her reaction that remained genuinely carefree, "Are you by chance looking for me?" He remembered a far off warning Yoruichi gave him about the pinkette in front of him.

"Oh no I'm not the one looking for you, Kenny is. He's been bored recently so I decided to look for you, erm…"

"Itachi."

She clicked her fingers upon remembering his name. "Tachi-tachi! Yes, Kenny is looking for you because none of the Captains accepted to fight him so he's hunting for the Lieutenants and you."

"I apologize but I'd have to decline." Despite everything about her telling him that she was just a child, Itachi maintained his politeness, especially when he remembered the 'monsters' that were the Captains and also his first conversation with Captain Kyōraku.

"Awwn, that's too bad~" She pouted in dissatisfaction which slowly merged with a difficult expression on her face. "I don't think Kenny will let you go even if you say that."

Just then, they heard the shout of a hoarse voice and their senses finally registered the blazing sun that was the incoming Reiatsu.

"Kenny, over here!" She shouted in response. "I made sure he didn't run away like you asked!"

Itachi looked at Yachiru, not knowing the appropriate reaction to her words. 'Is she this naïve? Or is this simply the personality she lives as after living for centuries?'

Regardless of the nature of the eccentricities of century-old souls, Itachi promptly decided to retreat. Why he would like to fight Captain Kenpachi Zaraki, he would prefer it to be on his own terms. And besides…

'There's something dangerous about his wild and simple nature.'

"Kenny, hurry up! I think he wants to run away!" Now that surprised Itachi as she said that immediately after he decided to leave. Unknown to Itachi, Yachiru was so accustomed to people running away from Kenpachi that she'd basically developed a sixth sense for it.

Feeling the incoming spike of Reiatsu that somehow gave Itachi the illusion of crashing waves, Itachi knew that it was time to retreat.

'His physical strength is immense.' He noted when he finally saw Kenpachi running at him with a mad grin, his feet leaving cracks on the ground with every step he took.

No technique. No Reiatsu utilization. The haphazard nature of the Captain's Reiatsu gave the initial impression of an amateur to any trained eye.

Apart from his Captain level Reiatsu, which was one of the greatest in the Seireitei, nothing about Kenpachi showed proof of him deserving the position he held, but that just made him all the more dangerous in Itachi's eyes.

"Brat, we meet again. Let's fight!" Kenpachi shouted with a manic grin as he drew close to Itachi, his sword already stretched backwards for a powerful swing.

"I'm afraid I'll have to respectfully decline, Captain Zaraki." Itachi's body began breaking apart into crows but Kenpachi could care less as his sword cleaved through Itachi.

To his confusion and eventual annoyance, Itachi's body burst into a murder of crows as soon as Kenpachi's sword touched him.

"What the hell is this, Yachiru? Where did he go?" Kenpachi asked the little girl that was now hanging off his shoulders.

"Oh no, he ran away Kenny. Why does everyone keep running away from us when Kenny just wants to fight?" She sounded genuinely sad, which she was, upon seeing Kenpachi losing another prospective opponent, worse being one that could actually fight against Captains according to some of the Captains.

Kenpachi snorted. His annoyance was slowly bleeding away as Shinigami running away from him at the mention of a fight was a common occurrence.

"Don't worry, Kenny, I'll find him again. Let's go and meet boobies since he's from her Division." She said, referring to Yoruichi as she did so.

Kenpachi grunted, willingly going ahead with anything she said. "What about the one from the Twelfth?"

"Captain Shaggy? Umu, we can also check if he's free to play with Kenny." She nodded to herself at how much sense her words made, fingers pointing forward as she stood balanced on Kenpachi's shoulder without leaning on his head, "Onwards, Kenny!"

……

Since his training was abruptly disturbed by Lieutenant Yachiru and her berserker of a Captain, Itachi didn't return to the barracks of the Second in case they went and looked for him there.

Knowing Yoruichi, even as little as he did, he knew for certain that she'd happily blurt out his location without hesitation should they go to her looking for him.

Unfortunately for him, apart from the barracks of the Second, Captain Kyōraku's courtyard and the tranquility of Captain Unohana's 4th Division, he had no personal safe space to hide inside the Seireitei.

At the end of it, he decided to walk through the roads of the Gotei 13 inconspicuously to escape the wild Captain and also let his mind wander on his recent failure in trying to utilize his illusionary abilities in an unconventional way.

During his walk, he saw a group of Shinigami leading a larger group of students from the Shin'ō Academy and from the discussion the excited students were having among themselves, it seemed like a combat related activity.

He remembered Junpei and the youth's dream to join the Academy and become a Shinigami and remembering that another entrance exam was around the corner, he decided to follow them and watch what they did to pass the time.

Entering unimpeded inside the vicinity of the Academy, he arrived at a training field where a bunch of students were gathered, a Zanpakutō strapped to everyone's waist.

Some of them had unlocked their Shikai, and based on the way they were grouped, whatever activity they were about to do wasn't based solely on their Zanpakutō.

From the uniforms of their instructors, Itachi identified members of the 2nd Division, 4th Division, 12th Division and even the reclusive Kidō Corp, a division that was solely focused on the mastery of the Kidō Arts. They were also responsible for the defenses of the Seireitei and also the creation of the system that monitored the Rukongai, along with all the tools a Shinigami might need in a mission, though that was now under the jurisdiction of the 12th Division.

"It's a sorting format if you're wondering. Activities like these help sort the students into areas they have a talent for."

Itachi took only a short glance at the brown haired man in glasses that was watching the sorting exercise with him and went back to looking at what brought him here.

"Oh excuse me. I'm Sōsuke Aizen, Lieutenant of the 5th Division." The soft spoken man introduced himself with a polite nod to Itachi who returned it and was about to reply in kind but Aizen beat him to it. "Itachi Uchiha, I presume."

"…"

Seeing the unasked question Itachi's eyes directed at him, he chuckled and scratched the back of his head embarrassingly.

"All the Lieutenants know you defeated Lieutenant Lisa Yadōmaru of the 8th Division on the same day you arrived in Seireitei, so of course we Lieutenants were curious."

 

[QuackVader]

"To be frank, I don't know whose spy I was… even to this day." — Itachi Uchiha.


°


°


°°°°°°


"Is it true that you fought Captain Shiba and Captain Yoruichi, and even managed to escape from them?" Aizen quickly slammed a hand over his mouth and just stared down at the students below them from the roof they sat on in awkward silence. "I'm sorry if I appear too intrusive. It's just that my Captain, Captain Hirako, made a statement that only three of the thirteen Lieutenants in the Gotei 13 had a chance in defeating you. I guess you can imagine how some of us Lieutenants felt insulted."


Aizen appeared to be a socially awkward person with how he fumbled with every sentence he spoke. Like he said, Itachi could imagine to some extent how someone who took decades and even centuries to get to the position of the Vice Captain of their Division, only for their Captain to tell them that a newcomer, who was practically a newborn soul and wasn't even inducted in the traditional Shinigami way, was stronger than the majority of them. Practically nullifying the essence of the struggle they went through to get to their current status.


If it were another place and time then it wouldn't have meant much, but (un)fortunately the Gotei 13 was an extremely militaristic society, which meant that strength and competency were the golden standard with which every Shinigami is judged.


The fact that one could simply challenge a higher ranked Seated Officer to a death match for their position said everything that needed to be said.


And it wasn't only applicable to the Lieutenants and lower ranked members but even to the Captains too. Case in point, Kenpachi Zaraki, who was the current Captain of the 11th Division, got his position by killing the former Captain of the 11th Division in a formal death match.


Itachi understood, but he didn't care about anyone's bruised ego in the slightest, not because he was arrogant of his impressive strength, but because he had no attachment to the traditions of Shinigami. The fact that he didn't accept Yoruichi's offer of a Seated Officer and remained an unranked Shinigami spoke loudly.


She even wanted to make him her Lieutenant a while ago but he still refused. That was also when he realized that Soi Fon wasn't actually the Lieutenant of the 2nd Division but instead was Yoruichi's bodyguard and a member of the Executive Militia, who were basically the Shinigami police and disciplinary body.


Seeing Itachi not saying anything, Aizen spoke up to clarify any misunderstanding Itachi might be having.


"I'm not saying I have a grudge against you or anything of that immature topic, I'm just genuinely curious is all." His voice went down a bar, with a hint of self-mockery mixed in. "Even as a Lieutenant, my strength is barely above that of the average Shinigami. Having a degree of animosity towards you for being stronger than me will be the extreme height of foolishness and hypocrisy for me."


"…The nature of every living being, and life in general, is that no one is equal to another. Some are talented, some are not. Some push forward with hard work, while others remain content with stagnation. Talent trumps hard work and vice versa, true, but nothing trumps talent with hard work."


Aizen looked at Itachi with a stunned look on his face from the words the introvert Shinobi-turned-Shinigami said, before his face melted in a wry and extremely pained stiff smile.


"I don't know whether those words were meant to serve as comfort or ridicule to me."


"Neither. It's the truth, or at least what I believe to be one. How you feel towards it should tell you the truth about yourself." Itachi replied and refrained from speaking further.


The both of them sat in silence and watched the Academy students being tested on all the facets of a Shinigami.


"I think it's about time I take my leave. My Captain will send word for me if I spend more time here." Aizen stood up and dusted his uniform, getting ready to leave but not before addressing Itachi one last time. "I genuinely enjoyed our talk, however short it might have been. Hope we meet more often, Itachi."


Itachi looked at him before slowly nodding. "Likewise."


Aizen smiled before disappearing with his application of Shunpo.


Itachi went back to watching the students as they failed and succeeded, a part of his mind thinking of his own issues with his application of Tsukuyomi ever since the moment he arrived, and through his short conversation with Aizen.


Seeing the students try out various things while physically and spiritually exhausting themselves, Itachi mentally shook his head as he knew that for Shinigami the most important factor for growth was mentally as opposed to spiritually(the measure of their Reiryoku) or even more useless physically.


When he was alive, to become competent in a jutsu, he had to cast it over and over again in different scenarios until it became akin to muscle memory.


For souls however, fundamentally understanding what you wanted to do automatically took care of half of the process. Achieving his Shikai actually made him realize this point as he could apply it in new ways he'd never tried before like he did against Yoruichi and Lieutenant Yadōmaru.


He reckons the same was true for the Captains and their Bankai. He doubted they practiced extensively with it to gain whatever level of mastery they had with it.


How else could one grow with their Zanpakutō without trying to understand their Zanpakutō's spirit as deeply as they could? More so when it was a core part of their soul?


Seeing some students cheer as they passed the exercise while others looked glum and sorrowful as they failed, Itachi decided that he had spent enough time idly sitting by and stood up to leave.


'How can you grow strong without even understanding the potential and limit ceiling of your own soul?'


He silently asked himself as his form slowly disappeared.


Fun fact: Despite following directly behind this class along with him and Aizen having a conversation while they watched them quite openly from a roof, not one of the students or the instructors were aware of their presence from start to end.


Regardless of Aizen's self-loathing and lamenting his weakness, no one sensed the barest hint of his presence even when he stood up quite openly when he left.


…..


After Aizen left Itachi to return to his Division, his mind broke down the little conversation he had with Itachi into fine dust particles.


He was more interested in the words Itachi spoke. Every single word he spoke.


A simple psychological approach where he shared his weakness with the man and listened to how Itachi responded to gauge the kind of personality he had.


"What was the phrase again? 'Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power'." Aizen mused as he sat on the chair in his office and started going through the piled up stacks of documents with a bored expression on his face. "Such simple words and yet they uphold a great truth."


Power came in different forms and the figurative 'power' he gave to Itachi was the superior position he made the man assume.


By convincing Itachi in a few words, without doubt or reason, that he was vastly stronger than he was, he immediately got Itachi to respond in just a few seconds, and the reply he got was a bit interesting.


He chuckled, amused at the result of the little experience he just had.


"Where most would console, and vainly try to convince you with empty motivations of the truth you've accepted as being false, and that the weakness you carry is a matter of circumstances and not your doing…" Aizen paused, an inexplicable smile flashing through his lips for an instant, his glasses gleaming in a serial light.


"Talent and hard work, is it? I applaud your belief that talent with hard work trumps talent or hard work, but where you're wrong is thinking nothing trumps talent and hard work."


He continued his monologues as if he was in a philosophical debate with someone else. "Yes, the very nature of life is unfair, but nature's partiality is the same thing that grants our talent, and if it can give us such talents then of course it can erect an unbreakable ceiling – the limit potential of every living being. Even if one has a higher level of potential than another, the highest limit ceiling is still a limit ceiling for all."


He picked up a certain file from the Shin'ō Academy and smiled as he wrote something on it and gave it his stamp of approval.


"If nature sets the potential for every talent and the limit for the greatest act of hard work, how can we then say talent and hard work trumps all? And if they don't, then what does?"


A gentle smile made a way into his face, making his nerdy face appear genuinely caring and innocent.


"A divine move." He said. "The acts of a truly divine being cannot be restricted, and if it is, then that being was never truly divine in nature. After all, God dictates all."


….


A common truth among Shinigami is that your Zanpakutō is a reflection of your soul. The true essence and core of your spiritual being.


If this was a universal truth as Shinigami believed it to be, then what did that say about certain Shinigami and their Zanpakutō spirits.


What did that say about people like Yamamoto, Kenpachi and Kisuke Urahara?


What does it then mean when it concerns people like Aizen and Itachi, and the true nature of their Zanpakutō spirit?

 

[QuackVader]

"You are good. You almost anticipated my moves. Almost." — Itachi Uchiha.


°


°


°°°°°°


Under the night sky, in the middle of the forest sat a small flickering flame that crackled as it ate away at the wooden fuel thrown at it from time to time, and behind it sat two men; Itachi and Junpei.


After the last time Itachi visited the youth, almost two weeks had passed before Junpei saw him again. To his credit, Junpei was sensible to understand that Itachi couldn't always come and teach him when he probably had other Shinigami duties to attend to.


Since Itachi didn't dive into teaching him how to fight with a sword(all Junpei's activities with the wooden sword was for the purpose of stimulating his Reiatsu to grow to an acceptable level for his admission) as they would teach him the basics and fundamentals of Zankensouki, which was the four fundamental combat style of a Shinigami.


The four parts Zankensouki is divided into are;

• Zanjutsu, which translated to swordsmanship.
• Hohō, which is the high-speed movement related arts where Shunpo and few others fall under.
• Kidō, the use of a wide range of destructive and supplementary spells.
• Hohō, which is the application of Shinigami hand-to-hand combat style. Something that was an important requisite when joining either the 2nd Division or the Onmitsukidō.

He didn't teach him anything that didn't directly relate to stirring his less than passable Reiatsu, apart from how to properly swing a sword.


"The admission exams are in three days, Mr. Shinigami." Junpei opened up conversation, or at least he attempted to, but Itachi's response was absentmindedly nodding his head.


He was already used to Itachi's terribly recluse and quiet character so Itachi's unenthusiastic reply just washed over him harmlessly.


"I hope I get in." He murmured before suddenly starting laughing without anything else said. "Hahaha, I just thought of how you'll probably kill me if I still fail to get in after your help."


Unlike what he expected of his joke to be ignored, Itachi replied him with his eyes focused on the small burning flame that he was feeding with small pieces of wood.


"If you end up failing then that's either your limit or you didn't try hard enough. As for not trying hard enough, there's still more exams to come so you still have ample time to prepare."


Whatever Junpei had been about to say before Itachi started speaking immediately died down to silence as he listened with rapt attention to whatever the ever serious Mr. Shinigami had to say about him.


"… It feels weird to plan for failure." He didn't know how to feel when Itachi's words felt like they were basically comforting him in advance in the likely event of him failing.


Itachi raised his head to look at Junpei who shifted slightly under his black-eyed gaze. "You don't plan for failure but instead accept it as a highly probable possibility with every choice you make."


"…Damn, that sounds hardcore." Junpei remarked almost patronizingly. "Anyone ever tell you that you make a great voice of reason, Mr. Shinigami?"


Itachi hands stopped mid-motion in feeding the excited flame more wood. It was the first time Junpei saw the resemblance of the closest thing to a forlorn look he'd ever seen on Itachi's face.


"Yeah, someone did. A deceptively long time ago." The face of the only person he ever saw as a brother, that wasn't Sasuke, appeared in his mind. It wasn't a secret to anyone that knew both of them that Itachi saw his best friend as his own older brother.


'A voice of reason? He was always the better voice of reason between the both of us.'


"Um… I'm sorry." Itachi raised a brow at Junpei, wondering what prompted the sudden apology. "You looked like you were remembering something unpleasant. Like a bad nightmare or something."


"Horror."


"What?"


"You can wake up from a nightmare and even forget it with enough time. Mine is no simple thing like a nightmare. True horror that sticks to you like a soul stain, even after death."


Picking up the last bits of broken wood, he threw them all into the flame and watched transfixed as its intensity rose up.


The two of them watched as the flame burnt away all the dried wood and started burning itself out until it was nothing more that a red glow of heat amidst ashes.


"Go home, Junpei, and get enough rest." They both stood up at the same time knowing it was time to leave. "Don't tax your body for the next two days except for your basic exercises."


"Hear ya loud and clear." Junpei said as he watched Itachi leave, knowing there was something different about his current state than how he usually was every other day.


"Hey, Mr. Shinigami?" He called out to the man moments before he faded away from his vision. "Think I got it this time?"


The gratitude he felt towards Itachi was why he valued whatever Itachi had to say. For Itachi teaching him for months just because he begged persistently and earnestly guiding him whenever he was around despite not knowing anything about him other than his name. Itachi didn't even know where he lived.


"The answer to that is whether or not you gain admission this time around."


He smiled wryly at Itachi's answer but still didn't want to give up. "Then what's your name? If I become a Shinigami then everyone will become a Mr. and Ms. Shinigami."


That finally got Itachi to pause his leave but not for the reasons Junpei thought. In stark opposition to Junpei's thoughts, Itachi simply stopped after realizing once more that he never actually gave the youth his name.


"I'll tell you either when you gain admission or when you graduate. This might be the last time we'll ever see each other, that's if you fail."


The words had barely made their way into Junpei's ears when the young man realized that Itachi was gone. Grumbling to himself as he did so. "The least he could say was a 'goodbye' or 'see you later'."


He grumbled all the way in his return journey through the woods to return home, but apart from his petty grievance at Mr. Shinigami for leaving him hanging, his stomach bubbled with excitement as he impatiently waited for the three days to go by.


…….


[POV: With Itachi]


Itachi and Soi Fon followed behind Yoruichi as she led them in the direction of the Shihōin Clan, one of the Five Great Noble Families.


She could have simply ordered a precession and a palanquin instead of going there on foot but she digressed. She'd long grown out of the stuffy noble etiquette and only showed it when absolutely necessary, which was only when she was in a meeting with the other Family Heads.


And besides, who could argue that this wasn't faster, better and overall efficient than having her sitting in a stuffy tent carried by a bunch of slow muscular guys through the sizable distance that takes an hour or two on foot.


"Make sure to stay by my side at all times when we get there." Soi Fon said, somewhat surprised when Itachi didn't ask any of his usual questions and just silently accepted everything with a nod.


Of course Itachi would know what to do given that he was also at some point the heir to one of the oldest clans in history. Until he destroyed it with his own hands, that is.


Yoruichi took a subtle glance behind her, a bit surprised too that his curious(and paranoid) nature didn't make a show of twenty questions.


"We're almost there. Don't worry as you'll be staying in my sight at all times." She said it more for Itachi's benefit than Soi Fon as her bodyguard was used to settings like these practically since she learnt how to walk.


"That reminds me; today is the admission exam into the Shin'ō Academy. Marenoshin better remember to file a report on all the new and promising admission." She said to herself, fully aware of how easily the 2nd Division Lieutenant forgot himself to his slothful vice.


"Are there any special tests during the admission?" Itachi asked all of a sudden.


"I don't think so." Soi Fon said, shaking her head. "The bar for admission is quite median and the only thing one really has to worry about is the measuring of their Reiatsu levels. And in my personal opinion, the accepted level is too low that any barely competent person can pass."


Yoruichi spoke up after Soi Fon, showing that she was listening to their conversation, 'cause by not? "Though it's rare, some people's Reiatsu only start growing when they are in a highly rich Reishi environment and the bar was intentionally set just barely above average in a bid to admit those with late growth or a hidden talent. Of course, the disadvantage of that is the multitude of severely weak souls who call themselves Shinigami despite not even being able to achieve Shikai."


"Any reason why you're suddenly interested in the admission exams?" She asked but Itachi merely shook his head.


"A passing curiosity." He said as they drew closer to the wide expanse of land that was the Shihōin Clan, located at one of the far end corners of the Seireitei.


The first thing Itachi instantly noticed was that the security here was higher than anywhere else in all the barracks of the Gotei 13.

 

[QuackVader]

"I am prepared to bear his hatred." — Itachi Uchiha.

°

°

°°°°°°

As they walked through the lavishly decorated gate of the Shihōin Clan, servants and subordinates of different stations and ranks bowed their heads fully whenever Yoruichi walked past them.

Yoruichi had given Soi Fon the slip to patch up any of Itachi's oblivious mistakes but to her surprise it turned out that Itachi didn't need any help in blending into the crowd that was one of the Five Great Noble Houses that basically controlled and owned the Soul Society.

As an extremely skilled stealth op and warrior with a very good head on his shoulders, Yoruichi already classified Itachi as one of the most competent people she's ever known(and wasn't that a wild thought considering how long she's lived and all the titles she held) but she also knew that dealing with nobles, and not just any noble family but THE Shihōin Clan of Soul Society's Principal Clans, was a different ball game all together.

Even his deferential mannerisms to Yoruichi as his superior was on point that it amazed the two ladies he was accompanying.

"I see you have quite the experience in dealing with nobles." She stated, quirking her lips humorously as she saw him gave the most imperceptible shrug that not even Soi Fon standing besides him registered the slight twitch of his muscles.

'His body control is better than Soi Fon's. Discovering more things about him makes me feel as if he was manufactured to near-perfection rather than it being a genius-level talent.'

She groaned mentally upon realizing that she was doing it again. She was extremely analytical that it was almost at the border of unhealthy paranoia, except that it only happened when Itachi was nearby.

Itachi was someone that she considered her equal when it came to his skill in espionage and everything stealth op related. So to her, it was like trying to gain an upper hand against an equal at every chance she could.

"Lady Yoruichi, are you visiting the young master before going to the meeting room?" Soi Fon off to her side asked after they finally got away from the worshiping eyes of the servants and guards.

"Hmm. Probably not. I'll meet him before we leave anyway." She chuckled at the adorable memories at her brother's utmost respect(read: obsessed devotion) for her. "Since he didn't barrel his way to us when we crossed the gates means that he's likely busy with the other guests."

"Then you should get ready, Lady Yoruichi. I'm sure you don't want to deal with the nuisance they'll cause you if all the other Family Heads arrived before you did." Soi Fon gave her the reminder she always did whenever Yoruichi had a meeting with her fellow Family Heads.

Just then four women appeared from the corner of the hall and followed Yoruichi into her room to get her ready.

Soi Fon and Itachi stood guard at the door in silence while waiting for Yoruichi to get ready.

"You're curious, I can tell. What do you want to ask?" Unlike normally when he'd be more than content to remain and watch in silence, Itachi was the first to broach the shared silence.

"Were you a noble's retainer when you were alive? You seem comfortably familiar with it." She asked reluctantly.

Itachi was just as clueless as to why that question was important but he answered regardless. "It's a bit complicated."

To Soi Fon's sharp memory, this was the first time he gave an answer that wasn't silence to any extremely personal question about his life.

"How so?" Now she was genuinely curious. How complicated could it be that he preferred to ignore any question that broached the topic in any way.

Itachi thought about the type of reply to give and soon came up with the most accurate example he could find.

"To a vastly lesser degree, along with the exception of her frivolous habits, I was basically Yoruichi at one point in my life."

Soi Fon's retort had almost fired off when Yoruichi's name left his mouth but she suddenly stopped and blinked owlishly at him as his words expanded in her head.

'So that means… no wonder… If he's telling the truth then that would check most of the boxes… and also the silent understanding they both share.' Her jealousy spiked for an inch moment but she schooled her thoughts as most of Itachi's actions and attitude started fitting themselves in perfect boxes that his little explanation provided.

"I'm sorry to cut short the fun you two are having but we have a meeting to attend. The guests are already waiting, let's go."

Yoruichi stepped out of her room with the four women bowing behind her. She was delicately dressed in an extremely opulent white kimono with pure golden accents and embroidery beautifully decorated around its hems.

She held a golden hand fan to her face with her purple hair neatly tied to the back and held in place with golden hair pins.

Soi Fon was already swooning with her cheeks dusted in a faint blush, something that never ceased to amaze Yoruichi, hence why she could never stop teasing Soi Fon. Her spluttered reaction was just too adorable.

She then turned to her newest companion who still remained as stoic and rigid as the day she first met him.

"Finally seeing something you can appreciate?" She asked with a smirk, needing no validation or gratification from anyone to know how stunning she looked, dolled up or not.

"… I'm hoping the overly opulent attire is a common between your Noble Families or is this meeting not as simple as you made us think?" Itachi paid no mind to the question she asked but asked his in response and her reply confirmed the bare minimum he needed to know.

She looked at him with a smile that bore a blank feeling behind it. "Sometimes it's better not to sate your curiosity, you know. Take it from me, if no one else."

Soi Fon looked between the both of them utterly lost, while the women still bowing behind Yoruichi started shivering despite anyone doing anything.

Yoruichi sighed and started walking forward while beckoning with her finger for them to follow. "You would have been executed instantly had this happened in any of the other Noble Houses, and I would have done the same had it been anybody else aside from you and Soi Fon."

"I know. That's why I asked." Itachi simply replied.

His words sounded annoying in the most patronizing way possible if anyone other than Yoruichi and Soi Fon had heard it, like the maids following behind them who wisely said nothing, so all they managed was a twitch as they were aware of Itachi's literal speech pattern.

'You'd think a ninja like him can read the room and keep social cues.' Yoruichi thought with an eye roll before slowly wiping away all emotions from her face as they got to the door of the meeting room, leaving her facial expression unfeelingly rigid.

The door opened, revealing an indoor garden with a few people already seated within.

Yoruichi left them to approach the other Family Heads, with Itachi and Soi Fon standing a few feet away from the nobles.

"Head Shihōin, so good for you to join us." An old man dressed in pure white silk that Itachi remembered as Captain Kuchiki of the 6th​ Division, greeted Yoruichi as she arrived in their circle before a translucent bubble covered them and muted every sound coming from the circle.

'The look and expression in their eyes and face, even the movement of their mouths, are not in synchrony.' Itachi noticed that he couldn't focus on any of their facial features and any time he tried, they were always different.

'Not an illusion, but it is most likely that the bubble blocks or scrambles any form of perception in its direction.'

He didn't bother entertaining the idea of using his Sharingan to understand what was actually going on as doing something like that, and being found out like he expects to be, would have him facing execution before the end of the next minute.

Off to another side of the garden were a few youngsters of clearly noble descent, possibly heirs, in their own circle, and a guard or two from the other Noble Families keeping the same distance as they were.

'Nobles.' Itachi thought irritably. His bias towards Konoha's nobles made it hard for him to see another noble in a good light from the get-go.

"We might be here for a while." He heard Soi Fon whisper beside him. His sole reason for accepting to go along with this charade upon Yoruichi's proposal was that he wanted to make his own initial impression of the Head of the Noble Families, and if possible their heirs as well.

When he first arrived in the Soul Society and heard of the Noble Families, he didn't put much of his attention on the Noble Families but that quickly changed upon meeting Yoruichi – Captain Shihōin – and also Captain Kuchiki and Captain Shiba, three Noble Heads who were also Shinigami Captains.

From there he learnt that the Central 46 which regulated the legislative, executive and judiciary systems of the Seireitei and all Shinigami in existence, affiliated or not, were also made up of members of the Noble Houses.

And then there was the little tidbit of information across the few books that mentioned their general history and insinuated that they basically owned and controlled the Afterlife – the entire realm that was Soul Society.

These weren't the greedy, egotistical, political minded but feebly weak old men that were the nobles in the Elemental Nations.

These were century and millennium-old Shinigami with history spanning over thousands of years, along with the coalition of strength to back it up by boasting of a few Captain level Shinigami that were the retired old Family Heads.

He knew this was his paranoia thinking to the extreme, but he couldn't deny that they were true.

His own soul searching that he struggled with, understanding the true nature of his Zanpakutō and being strong enough to wield them, and now topping it off with the bottomless trench that were the Noble Families that all too eagerly encouraged his paranoia to form a symbiotic relationship with his natural distrust and bias against noble clans – barely two years in the Afterlife and it was already proving to be a lot more complicated than the entirety of 20 years of his life.

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[QuackVader]

"Why is it that the Uchiha clan is known by all, and feared by all?" — Itachi Uchiha.

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The meeting lasted a few days, a bit too stretched out than what Itachi expected, but understandable as the essence of time was a little bit different to souls than it was for living beings.

It was actually on the second day that the Head of the Shiba Clan, Kūkaku Shiba, arrived. It wasn't hard to tell that she was a very free-spirited woman from the way she was dressed and the way she addressed the other Clan Heads.

Shaggy black hair, green eyes, prosthetic arm, tattoos, a white skirt and a revealing low-cut red dress: she was the perfect picture of a delinquent and that was exactly how she was.

A quick glance at her and how the other Clan Heads reacted to her arrival made it clear to Itachi that she was the proverbial odd one out.

Unlike Yoruichi who could don any mask according to the occasion like the assassin she was, Kūkaku was raw.

Apart from the Shihōin, Shiba and Kuchiki Families, the other two Noble Families were the Tsunayashiro and the Kasumiōji Families.

The Head of the Tsunayashiro Family was a hunched old man that looked like a peer of the Shinigami Head Captain, even sporting a variation of the same old long beard.

On the other hand, the Head of the Kasumiōji Family was a rather middle-aged man sporting an equal ratio of black and grey hair; standing at the figurative middle between the younger looking Clan Heads(Shihōin and Shiba) and the older looking ones(Tsunayashiro and Kuchiki).

From what he could silently get from Soi Fon, Itachi realized that maybe it was a lot more serious than he thought it was as Soi Fon told him it was very rare for all Clan Heads to gather like this – something she had only witnessed twice.

The next few days rolled past quite stationary for Itachi who only moved a few times when the Clan Heads changed location.

"Damn fuckers. Couldn't they have said shit faster?!" Yoruichi yawned as she stretched her stiff muscles as they prepared to leave.

She took a subtle glance at Itachi and rolled her eyes as she saw the curiosity in his eyes. There was no way she'd tell him what went on in these private meetings and for his sake she hoped he didn't go snooping around.

She knew ninjas and how inherently curious they were, especially those like Itachi.

"I need to meet a few people befor-" She dodged the blur that tried tackling her from behind. "I could practically feel your excitement from a hundred meters." She told the blur who happened to be a young boy.

Yūshirō Shihōin had the physical look of an eleven year old boy, short dark purple hair and was the male carbon copy of Yoruichi.

"Big Sister!" He exclaimed and jumped to hug her and this time she didn't dodge him.

"Yūshirō, seriously? You see me every other month." She said with a deadpan, making her brother chuckle more.

"Byakuya-boyo, not going to attack me this time?" She turned to the corner her brother came out of and saw Byakuya Kuchiki, heir of the Kuchiki Clan, standing behind with a polite smile.

"Yūshirō wanted to surprise you so I had to let him." He gestured at the young boy smilingly hugging her. "And besides, I don't need such an underhanded method to face you."

Itachi silently watched the two young heirs of their respective families, Yūshirō being an exuberant child and Byakuya being a bit haughty. Itachi could see the tiny hits of arrogance and pride in the young man's eyes and words.

"Hoh! You've grown quite spunk since our last play session, Byakuya-boyo." She said with a tempting grin, as she goaded him. "How about it? This time I might even close my eyes."

Byakuya's brows twitched and his annoyance grew upon seeing Yoruichi's mocking grin. "As much as I'd love to, my grandfather is still waiting for me."

"Oh pulling the grandfather card this soon? Looks like somebody is nervous. I'll guess I'll have to wait until you grow up to grow the right pair of balls to challenge me again."

Itachi and Soi Fon watched as Byakuya's face exploded in red of equal parts embarrassment and anger.

"That's it, you crazy woman!" The boy skillfully moved with Shunpo towards Yoruichi, who didn't bother separating herself from her brother, who lazily dodged him before taking off down the hall, with Byakuya hot on her figurative tail.

"Young Master Byakuya often challenges Lady Yoruichi any chance he gets. He sees himself as her rival for some reason." Even without Soi Fon explaining herself, Itachi could understand why the boy was pissed off at Yoruichi – she teased him every time they came across each other.

"Let's go. Lady Yoruichi likes running rounds around him before disappearing and leaving him in anger." She said with a certain sympathy towards the poor Kuchiki heir.

Itachi said nothing, only simply disappearing before Soi Fon and arriving on one of the rooftops surrounding an open yard where Yoruichi was currently playing tag at the fuming Byakuya.

In one of the buildings, he saw the old Kuchiki Head and 5th Division Captain, Ginrei Kuchiki, watching the play below before he turned towards Itachi. The two stared for a second before nodding to each other simultaneously, and going back to watch Yoruichi frustrate his grandson.

The tag had turned into a duel at some point but it didn't matter as Yoruichi was clearly having fun with the deeply frustrated heir.

"How about we end it here?" Yoruichi said upon tripping Byakuya's legs, pointing in the direction of his grandfather.

"Grr, this isn't over, woman!" He gritted his teeth as he stood up. When he looked up again, he saw Soi Fon and another man beside Yoruichi. He wasn't surprised at seeing Soi Fon, but he was surprised as he didn't feel when the other man arrived. He could only feel Soi Fon and Yoruichi's presence before looking up.

They watched as he turned around and walked away grumbling before applying Shunpo to disappear from the yard.

"See you later, Yūshirō." She waved in the direction of the sulking lad before leaving with her two guards.

….

On the other side away from the Shihōin Clan, Ginrei and his grandson traveled back to Kuchiki Clan via Shunpo when Byakuya asked curiously after remembering something.

"Did Lady Yoruichi get another retainer?" He was back to wearing the calm of a noble in front of his dear grandfather, different from how crass he was with Yoruichi.

"Yes. Itachi Uchiha, he is called." Ginrei informed Byakuya who frowned slightly.

"Is he from any of the lower noble families?" He asked, but his grandfather shook his head and explained Itachi's presence beside Yoruichi, before asking in turn.

"Why do you ask?"

Byakuya shook his head to disperse any other thoughts about the retainer. "Nothing. I just didn't realize when he arrived."

Ginrei nodded at Byakuya's observation. "He's a highly skilled Shinigami." Was all he said and they both left it at that.

…..

[A few weeks later]

Itachi flitted around trees as he made his way back to the Soul Society after spending a few days in the closer Rukongai districts.

He remembered that he didn't feel Junpei's Reiatsu lingering around any of the spots he passed and surmised that that boy was either successful in getting in or moved away from the area.

He didn't realize why he helped the boy but he nodded to himself as he was certain that the boy passed.

His mind went back to a message he got from Yoruichi telling him to come back as he had a mission with some of the other members of the Division – cleansing souls in the World of the Living and purifying some Hollows.

This was a standard Shinigami duty and one he was eager to do for a bunch of various reasons.

He passed the gates and arrived at a guarded area near the Kidō Corps Division, which was also the first time he was seeing members of this Division.

The moment he arrived, he identified the person from his Division leading him and two others on this mission.

"You're right on time, Itachi." Their team leader said to him. While he wasn't that known in the 2nd Division, anyone with a keen eye would easily notice that he is mostly around the Captain and her bodyguard than anyone else. "I think the Captain said that this is your first time purifying souls so be sure to watch closely."

Itachi silently nodded. Though he remained calm on the outside, his mind was in a turmoil of anxiousness and desperate hope.

The members of the Kidō Corps working the Senkaimon, the gate used to travel between worlds, powered the gate up after a few minutes of Itachi's arrival and gave them the okay to go through.

As Itachi stepped through, he noticed they appeared in a white room with another door that opened and when they stepped through, Itachi quickly noticed two things.

First was that a seal was placed on his Reiatsu. Though he could easily break it, he didn't as this was something he had read and Yoruichi had told him about. How Lieutenants and Captains, or any Shinigami in general with those levels of Reiatsu had their Reiatsu sealed to limit the potential destruction they would cause to the World of the Living without it.

Another thing Itachi noticed was just how different everything looked.

 

[QuackVader]

"Either people change or they die before they do. It's one or the other." – Orochimaru.


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While the houses bore some resemblance to what Itachi was familiar with, that wasn't the difference that Itachi saw, nor the one that drove the cold blade of realization through his stomach.


The small city below them and the people moving at this time of the evening was familiar with Itachi, but what wasn't familiar was the lack of anything that showed that a ninja was down below, especially in a big Hidden Village like this, if it was a Hidden Village at all.


There were practically no defenses as far as he could tell. He had thought that it was because they were too high up in the sky but it was still the same even when they made their way to the ground. No signs of Chakra or a Shinobi in sight. No anti-sensory barrier around the city or any sort of defense at all.


Even the architecture looked different as he got a closer look.


Itachi was blankly looking around when their team leader called out to him. "Itachi, mind focusing? The souls we're releasing are around here."


'Everything is different.' Though it was possible that he was in some foreign land in or around the Elemental Nations, his instincts told him it wasn't so. It was familiar to some level from what Itachi remembered, and yet it felt foreign.


It was like he could just tell that his ho– where he came from was nowhere near.


He remained silent as the leader directed them to where the soul of a man wandered around, except that this soul had a phantom chain stuck on their chest.


Konsō – this is a purifying technique that Shinigami used in sending wandering souls like this to the Afterlife by tapping the hilt of their blade on the forehead of the souls.


He watched numbly as the man performed the process twice and led them to other souls to do the same.


When it got to Itachi's turn to perform the Konsō, the frightened and unsure soul asked him rather shakenly.


"W-will I really go to heaven?"


Itachi didn't know how to feel when looking at the soul. "I wouldn't truly call it heaven, but it is the Afterlife if that helps."


He pressed the hilt of his blade against the head of the man's spirit and watched as it slowly disintegrated into lights to be reborn in the Soul Society.


"Well that takes care of that. Now it's time to kill some nearby Hollows."


Itachi was still out of it when he tracked down a Hollow and swiftly killed it without it ever sensing him.


There was still the hope that if he could figure out where he was, he might be able to find the Hidden Leaf Village and see how it was doing after the war. Hopefully maybe even find his brother and find out how he was doing after his second death.


'And then what?' This was a thought that started appearing to him recently any time he thought back to the Village or Sasuke. What would he do now as a wandering soul that he couldn't do in his life, one he spent practically running away from Sasuke?


It wasn't until the end of this small exercise that Itachi was finally able to come back to his senses after taking a major step towards the closure he wanted.


'Very good, Itachi.'


He heard a voice in his head that he hadn't heard before. It wasn't anything like Tsukuyomi's soft thrumming voice that sounded both young and old, this one sounded old and harsh – full for the lack of a better word.


'Amaterasu?' No matter how many times he called, he didn't hear any other word from the voice that was very well the other half of his Zanpakutō spirit.


Seeing he wouldn't be getting an answer any time soon, he stopped and reserved speaking to Tsukuyomi about it when he got back to the Seireitei.


"And that takes care of the last Hollows in the area. It's time to head back." A Senkaimon opened a moment later and they all passed through and arrived back at the Soul Society.


Despite not having exerted himself on this assignment, Itachi felt as if he felt lighter. His heart no longer felt heavy as it did. His visit to the World of the Living made him start accepting that there was nothing still holding him tied to the Village, or even Sasuke.


Sasuke made his wish of dying come through so he should have less attachment with anything concerning his life and he was beginning to understand that.


"Itachi, follow me." His team leader said as they left the Senkaimon area. "Captain Shihōin said I should bring you along with me when coming to give my report."


Itachi said nothing before Body Flickering in his next direction while his poor team leader struggled to catch up.


The man arrived at Yoruichi's office while panting a bit after a minute of Itachi waiting for him.


"Fast fuckers." He grumbled and knocked before pushing the door open. "My team and I have returned, Captain Shihōin."


The man gave his account of the assignment he and his team carried out, saluted and left Itachi behind as he left.


With the three of them left behind, Soi Fon hiding in the roof, Yoruichi regarded Itachi with a knowing smile. "Your eyes are looking a bit healthy. See anything good?"


Seeing the knowing smile on her face, Itachi realized that Yoruichi might have singled him out for this particular mission and for the particular reason why she said his eyes were looking healthy.


"What I didn't see is more apt." Itachi spoke with melancholy. "It's a bit different from what I remembered. And besides, I don't think there's anything I would have done if it was as I remembered it."


Though she didn't fully understand what he meant, he could relate a bit to what he was feeling.


"Well then. I'm looking forward to the type of Shinigami you'll become." She said before dismissing him. Watching as he left, Yoruichi thought about what must be going on in his mind now and how she wanted to see how it'll affect him.


…..


Time slowly passed in the Soul Society and with it came the consequences of its passing – change.


For some souls, this meant nothing important while for others this meant drawing ever so closer to the answers they sought.


For others it represented the dawn of new beginnings and achievable dreams.


#####################


A/N: And that's it for the super extra long beginning, a little short chapter but there's nothing to write on this topic other than unnecessary drawing it out, and I think It's about time I picked up the story's pace.

 

[QuackVader]

"Knowledge and awareness are vague, and perhaps better called illusions. Everyone lives within their own subjective interpretation." – Itachi Uchiha.

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It has been five years since Itachi was born in the Soul Society and four years since he joined the Gotei 13 as a Shinigami in Yoruichi's 2nd Division under special circumstances.

Wearing the standard Shinigami shihakushō but with it being longer and wider that it functioned as a robe that hid his full body, Itachi was currently alone in the World of the Living cleansing Hollows in a densely populated rural area.

Stepping on a Reishi platform in the middle of the sky, his red eyes scanned the area below and picked up the last remaining bits of Hollow Reiatsu, prompting him to move into action.

Against these lower level Hollows with subpar Reiatsu control, Itachi had no problem in getting rid of them and quickly to the next.

"That should be the last one." He said to himself after performing a last survey. "Though I think there's been an increase in Hollow activity recently."

[3 rd Seat Itachi, we're picking up no Hollow activity in your area. The Senkaimon is ready for your return.]

He heard the voice of a personnel from the 12th Research Division at the same time as he saw the Senkaimon opening in the sky.

As for his position as 3rd Seat, there was little he could do in refusing Yoruichi for so long that she became annoyed and just signed his name for the position.

For Itachi's peace of mind, his position as the 3rd Seat didn't mean all that much and there was little to no duties tied to the position. They were more of a rank of strength than anything.

'Just a little more.' He thought as he went through the Senkaimon.

For the last few years, Itachi focused most of his time in perfecting his synchrony with his Zanpakutō and while he had only heard Amaterasu's voice once(confirmed by Tsukuyomi), he knew he was now closer than ever to finally being strong enough to wield both his Zanpakutō spirits.

With these years that he focused solely on Tsukuyomi, his control and utilization of Tsukuyomi's illusion was now levels above what he was able to do before.

He also realized that though not completely, his Zanpakutō also manipulated his victim's Reiatsu to some level, making it even harder to break out of his Illusions.

The best illusions were the ones that weren't distinguishable from reality – from all his former illusions, Izanami was the one that was closest to being a perfect illusion, according to Tsukuyomi.

Izanagi on the other hand, was the one that Tsukuyomi deigned as the pinnacle of Illusions. A truly god-like technique that made reality into an illusion with the only thing stopping Tsukuyomi from calling it the greatest of all techniques being the limits and conditions of its application.

Itachi wondered what would be its effects now that he was using an energy more potent than Chakra.

'It is definitely stronger than it was during your life. But the cost is still something that I'm unsure of.' Tsukuyomi had replied when he questioned it.

He only hoped a situation won't arise where he'll be put in a situation to consider it.

No one knew that his Zanpakutō was a twin spirit type because both spirits would have both awakened during his attainment of Shikai, but they didn't and only Itachi knew why.

Theoretically speaking, Itachi had a level of innate synchrony and familiarity with his Zanpakutō spirits that he should have achieved Bankai, not a perfect one but he was already at the threshold of the level of connection needed.

It was just that the container that was his spirit body was not at that level, and the Reiryoku needed was still below the required level.

The reason for this being the very nature of his eyes, the Sharingan – specifically the Mangekyō Sharingan – that he unlocked during his life.

Since his Mangekyō served as the spirit nature of his Zanpakutō, and given that he had unlocked them before and his familiarity with them, in a way he already had an understanding of the nature of his Bankai.

"3rd Seat Itachi, I see you're back from your mission." He paused his walk as he came across Lisa Yadōmaru with two Shinigami behind her.

"Lieutenant Yadōmaru, greetings."

She brushed aside his formal way of speech and nodded politely at him. "I was about to visit the 2nd and 4th Division."

"I see. Any particular reason?" He said as she caught up to him. With Captain Kyōraku being one of the people he was closest to during his time as a Shinigami, he had grown a bit familiar with the man's Lieutenant.

"It's our turn to teach some of the older students at the Academy. I say teach but it's more like accessing the level of their skill in respective areas." She explained as they walked together. "Members of different Divisions cover specific areas of the assessment."

Itachi said nothing as she explained, only silently listening until they got to where they separated.

"Should I tell the Captain that you might be stopping by tonight?"

"Don't. I just returned from a mission." He said as he went towards his house.

Like all workers, Shinigami too were also paid given that they also had needs and wants of luxury and comfort as living beings. Getting an apartment at one of the open areas of the Seireitei was one of the things he did with the money he had saved up.

Staying in the barracks was fine, but it felt too public to someone like him.

"Oh and I heard Captain Zaraki is being his usual self again. He already beat up Lieutenant Kaien and tried ambushing the Fifth's 3rd Seat Ichimaru."

Apart from his first time escaping Captain Zaraki, the battle maniac Captain had only sought him out twice after that so he wasn't that worried about the man.

Sighing as he entered his small abode, he thought about how almost nothing seemed to have happened in the three plus years since he became a Shinigami.

Things quickly grew stale around here, he realized, that almost everything seemed to become a routine.

After taking a bath to cool off, Itachi looked at his reflection in the mirror and noted that his hair had grown rather long but he just kept it tied up in two knots like he always did.

Even without being thirty yet, his face was aged and the resulting lines of stress were clearly seen across his face.

He cooked a simple meal for himself and took his time, aware that he was yet to give his required report but still took his time as he knew that Yoruichi was likely buried in paperwork.

When he finally arrived at her office, hours after his return, he was met with a pointed glare from Soi Fon but ignored it and took his seat where a few papers were arranged.

He had found himself being promoted to an office assistant after rising to the rank of 3rd Seat so he had to help with her workload when it came to the Division, whatever it may be.

"Instead of trying to stab him with your eyes, why don't you use Suzumebachi, Soi Fon?" Yoruichi asked. It would have been fun to watch if only she didn't know the outcome.

"So?"

"Nothing serious. Hollow activity picking up a little." He said offhandedly as he read the papers on his desk, pausing as he came to the last one that he held out to Yoruichi. "What is this?"

She replied just as offhandedly as he did. "Nothing serious. Just listed you as one of the combat instructors for the academy assessment."

"Hakuda?" He asked again, tentatively.

Yoruichi managed a shrug while squinting some reports she held. "It's what we are specialized in; that and Hohō."

"And Marenochin?" Itachi asked about the gaudy and pompous Lieutenant that was purely at that rank because of politics.

Yoruichi waved it off as she stood up and adjusted her haori. "Don't worry, he's got his own work cut out for him."

She walked to the corner of the office where a bunch of luxurious and comfortable cushions were laid out, and plopped herself down, yawning relaxingly as she did.

"I see a few Lieutenants here." He pointed out.

"And? Embarrass my Division in front of the other Lieutenants?" She scoffed at the thought of her fat and slightly competent Lieutenant disgracing himself and her. He was strong, yes, but not a competent Lieutenant.

"Just my luck then." He dropped the report he'd written on Yoruichi's desk and turned to leave.

He briefly wondered if it would have been better had he been another Division instead of the Second but couldn't come up with an answer.

If he had known Yoruichi would saddle him with more work, he would have taken his time in the World of the Living. Lieutenant Yadōmaru likely informed her of his arrival and in one of her petty streaks, listed him for more work because he just so happened to be free when she wasn't.

Thinking about his next assignment, he couldn't help but remember someone he hadn't seen in three years.

–––––––

 

[QuackVader]

" You're such a child. You talk of nothing but pipe dreams… there are times when people must make painful choices ." – Itachi Uchiha.

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The students of the Shin'ō Academy hurried to the Zanjutsu hall where some of their seniors were undergoing an assessment test.

The only students allowed in the Zanjutsu hall were those a year or two below the assessing year and some among them weren't allowed entrance so as not to crowd the hall inside.

The Shin'ō Academy curriculum was an extensive course of a six year timeframe but one could graduate earlier at any time they finished the course. The record of the fastest speedrun of the curriculum was held by Gin Ichimaru, 3rd Seat of the 5th Division.

Among the students trying to gain a way in, a dark haired young man with a grass stalk in his mouth managed to calmly sneak through the guards who were threatening the crowd of students.

His composure radiated calm and confidence that instinctively seemed to stop someone from doubting him.

Safely getting past the guards, his calm façade gave way to a lopsided grin, one full of amusement as he successfully managed to fool his way in.

Normally this was supposed to be a class-only affair, but the distinction between the last two years was barely existent that they could join in on most of their activities.

"Now let's see how good the sixth years are with Zankensoki." He muttered to himself as he joined the platform of watching senior students with his mask of confidence back on.

"Are those the squad members for the assessment?" He asked a girl beside him who nodded with a serious expression on her face.

"Four Lieutenants, three 3rd Seats and three from the Kidō Corps."

Junpei gulped upon hearing the lineup of the final assessment. He was still a ways up from taking the final assessment, talk less of speedrunning the curriculum in a year or two like those crazy geniuses.

Completely ignoring Kidō, just Zanjutsu and Hakuda were already too much for him to master at his level. Hohō was just a step below Kidō in the arts he completely sucked at. It didn't help that both relied heavily on one's utilization of Reiatsu, the bane of his ironic existence.

"It's starting." The serious girl besides him shushed everyone around them even though no one was talking.

For the students of the Shin'ō Academy, even if they dreamed of joining a specific Division, except they specifically grew in the arts related to that Division, the Head Instructor and those in charge of graduating were the ones who chose where they'll end up depending on their assessment.

"Have any idea who those guys are?" He asked the girl besides him, causing her to frown and stare at him incredulously with a bit of suspicion. "What?"

"You're in your fifth year and you still can't recognize the Lieutenants and some of the 3rd Seats?" The reason she assumed so was because they were near the assessment field where only the fifth and repeating sixth year occupied.

"I'm not good with faces and names." He replied succinctly.

She gave him a blank stare but didn't question it any longer, only pointing at where the Lieutenants and other official Shinigami stood.

"That's Lieutenant Aizen; I'm sure you know him since he lectures a lot at the Academy, especially the optional courses."

Junpei nodded as he knew the brown haired man as one of the best lecturers in the whole Academy.

"Lisa Yadōmaru, Lieutenant of the 8th," She said pointing at Lisa and the tall white haired woman she was talking with. "That's Lieutenant Isane. Lieutenant of the 4th and one of the kindest Lieutenants ever. She's also my personal favorite. The last is Lieutenant Kaien, from the Shiba Clan, 13th Division. They say he's one of the strongest Lieutenants, and a very kind man too."

Junpei looked at the Lieutenants with barely concealed longing, wondering how long it'd take to get to such a level as them. A very long time, maybe even impossible, but that didn't stop him from trying.

"And those three from the Kidō Corps?"

The girl shook her head. "Hardly anything or anyone from the Kidō Corp is known."

"I see." He nodded as that was something he also knew. The Kidō Corps' presence was just that nonexistent. "Anything special about the 3rd Seats then?"

She groaned and didn't hide how irritated she was at his questions, and Junpei picking up on that could only scratch his head.

"The white haired one is Gin Ichimaru–"

"The record breaking genius?"

"Yes. That very one." She sighed heavily. "I heard he's now the 3rd Seat of the 5th Division, directly under Lieutenant Aizen."

"That woman is Miyako Shiba, Lieutenant Kaien's wife, also from the 13th Division. As for the last guy, I don't think I've heard of him." She said, scrunching her face up as she tried to remember the dark haired man that stood with the 3rd Seats observing the examinees.

"Oh? You don't know him? Not even his name?" He could only sigh as he saw her nod. He looked back at the unnamed 3rd Seat and couldn't help but grin.

After three years in the Shin'ō Academy, this was the first time he was coming across that face after that night in the woods.

He mused happily to himself. "Mr. Shinigami. 3rd Seat huh. You really are a badass."

"Did you say something?"

"Nah. Let's keep quiet for now, it looks like it's about to start." He said as everybody seemed to quiet down. "Oh, and I'm Junpei by the way."

"Miwa."

……

Down in the open field, gave a curt nod at the Thirteenth's 3rd Seat, Miyako Shiba, who introduced both herself and Gin to him.

"Itachi huh? So yer that ryoka a while back that got admitted into the Second." Gin smiled as he leaned forward towards Itachi and laid his hand out for a shake. "Just call me Gin."

"Itachi. Likewise." Itachi narrowed his eyes slightly at Gin who was squeezing his hands and refusing to let go. "Mind letting go?"

"3rd Seat Gin. Please refrain from causing a scene." Gin smiled and rubbed the back of his head 'embarrassedly' at Aizen's scolding. "I'm sorry if he made you uncomfortable, Itachi."

"No worries." Itachi said dismissively. He was used to the eccentricities of souls in the Afterlife.

"Don't make it sound as if I was bullying him, Vice. He's from the Second; those guys are scary." It was clear to all that he didn't mean any single word he said.

The assessment quickly started and they had to personally assess the students in the field they were picked for. For Itachi, that was Hakuda, Shinigami hand-to-hand combat.

It was unknown whether Yoruichi enlisted him specifically for this reason or not; that being testing the students in Hakuda against someone who could copy his opponent's move.

The three from the Kidō Corp along with Isane oversaw the Kidō assessment test(Hadō, Bakudō, and Kaidō), while Aizen and Kaien presided over the Zanjutsu assessment.

The remaining three, Gin, Miyako and Itachi, were in charge of Hakuda and Hohō, since the two worked better in tandem.

"Well now, don't be scared. We'll make sure not to hurt ya if that's what yer scared 'bout." Gin softly reassured the first three people that got to them.

"The rules are simple: do not draw out your Zanpakutō or use Kidō. This test is purely Hakuda and Hohō." Miyako reminded the three of them as they squared off against their opponents.

DONG!

The bell signaling them to begin resounded and the students immediately pressed on the attack but soon found out the difference between the 3rd Seats and those who took six years to complete the course.

The man fighting Itachi was especially frustrated as nothing he did seemed to faze Itachi one bit.

Shunpo? His little mastery of it couldn't compare to Itachi's speed, either with Shunpo or Shunshin(Body Flicker).

Hand-to-hand combat? Itachi was a master Taijutsu fighter whose skill did not lose a single ground to Yoruichi.

"Damn it!" The man cursed and tried running circles around Itachi to confuse him but Itachi calmly kept his gaze forward and while taking a single step, blocked the man's running path and drove his elbow into the man's stomach. The man's eyes rolled backwards as he fainted upon the impact.

"Next." Itachi's calm words were held by those paying attention to the Hakuda/Hohō battles.

The other examinees sucked in cold breaths at the sight of someone getting knocked out in the first few minutes of the assessment.

Gin whistled, though his eyes were faintly narrowed. "Like I said. Scary~"

The medics from the Fourth on standby quickly carried the poor man away and Itachi resumed his assessment.

"Hakuda and Hohō. Nothing else." Was the only thing he said to any of the students he faced.

It didn't take long for the attention on the Hakuda/Hohō assessment to increase as the second and third students were swiftly knocked out while the other two 3rd Seats were still fighting their second student.

"By the Spirit King! Who is that guy?"

This question started circling in everyone's head, including Miwa who sat near a wryly smiling Junpei.

"That would be Mr. Shinigami." He didn't know if anyone heard him but he didn't care as he was smiling heartily at the display of Itachi's skill.

 

[QuackVader]

"Those who forgive themselves, and are able to accept their true nature… They are the strong ones!" – Itachi Uchiha.


°


°


°°°°°°°°


In a secluded room overseeing the open field down below, where the sixth year assessment was being done, a few important people were watching the tests and deciding the future of the final year students.


… but there was a small issue.


"Is this okay, Captain Commander? He's being unfair to the students with such a display."


The Head Instructor and stand-in Director of the Academy under Yamamoto, Oboro Kuchiki, frowned as Itachi swiftly incapacitated yet another student.


"I don't think he's been extreme. He's probably taking this just as seriously as we are. Don't you think so, Old Man Yama?" Kyōraku tipped the side of his hat to look at his old teacher/father figure.


Yamamoto grunted but said nothing in favor of or against Itachi's actions.


"The students are practically avoiding him." Oboro Kuchiki, a very old man, scoffed as he saw none of the students looking in Itachi's direction, even going as far as to line up behind Gin and Miyako.


Another spectator, Jūshirō Ukitake, the frail Captain of the 13 Division, remarked with criticism. "Then I'm afraid it can be counted for them as their shortcoming if they can't understand what he's doing."


"You are right, Jūshirō." Kyōraku agreed, adding on to further clarify. "It's also why none of us have reprimanded him."


"I still don't understand."


"It is quite simple, Director Oboro. The young man down there is basically holding back and fighting them at their one level. It's just a difference of skill." The last person in the room, Captain Unohana Retsu, explained to the Kuchiki elder.


"That means…"


"This is truly an assessment of skills. Hence we can't call him out with how serious he is with his task. It also helps that he gives them the chance and space for them to show their skill. A perfect test for comparison, if you will."


Unohana's calm and serene voice sounded through the room, earning silent nods from everyone except the Captain Commander.


Kyōraku looked at Itachi and couldn't help but acknowledge the boy's skill and insight. "The skill to pull off something like this so easily is commendable on its own rights."


…….


Down below, almost half of the spectators had their attention solely on Itachi's assessment as their mind was now looking forward to how long someone lasted against Itachi instead of complaining about how harsh he was.


This had started when someone from the crowd yelled something that not only made the sixth year students angry and frustrated, but also put pressure on the Lieutenants and 3rd Seats.


"He's not even a Lieutenant. He's just a 3rd Seat, damn it!" The power of suggestion and social pressure showed itself as some of the braver students, a very scant few, went back to line behind Itachi.


'I'll fucking show you, smug bastard!' They all thought, joined together under the single goal of beating Itachi.


With how the crowd and some of the final year students were reacting to the insurmountable wall that was Itachi, the other Lieutenants and Seated Shinigami were pressured not to put up a subpar assessment.


"Hajime from year six. Please guide me."


"Itachi, 2nd Division 3rd Seat. Likewise."


Hajime stared at Itachi with a determined look in his eyes as they circled each other with the back of their hands touching the other.


Opening up with a flurry of punches and kicks, Hajime spun and brought down his heel on Itachi's head, only for the latter to slither away from the strike gracefully.


Hajime tried pressing forward but nothing he did seemed to help. Itachi was just too skilled, even despite holding back, that it hurt more than consoled them after they realized that fact.


"Surrender." Hajime heard Itachi's voice from behind and felt two fingers at the side of his neck, causing him to sight dejectedly.


When Itachi looked up, he realized that he had run through most of the students for Hakuda and Hohō, the only ones remaining were the ones still clashing against Gin and Miyako.


He was already walking away when he felt a strong gaze on him, one that felt familiar and he remembered quite well.


There in the front crowds among the fifth year, he saw the grinning face of Junpei staring and then suddenly waving at him.


'He feels stable… and fifth year?' Itachi thought surprised. He nodded at the youth before turning around to find somewhere to sit as he was done but someone called him back.


"Itachi, mind staying behind for a bit. We have to give our personal assessment too."


The assessment took a few hours after which Kaien led them to an adjacent building where Itachi could feel some powerful presences.


"Captain Commander, Lieutenant Kaien requesting to enter."


"Come in."


They entered the room and saw five people, four Captains and the Academy Director, and it was then that some of them realized that these five people had probably watched the whole assessment.


First to give their reports were the Lieutenants, followed by the three Shinigami from the Kidō Corp, and then the 3rd Seats.


It was a simple enough report that they quickly went through it and coincidentally Itachi was the last to give his report and also last to leave the room.


He gave a clear and concise report on the students he assessed to which the Captains and Director either gave a rare nod or just listened in silence.


"And your methods of assessment, don't you think it was a bit too harsh?" The Director squinted his eyes at Itachi while the others remained silent.


"No, I don't." Itachi simply replied. "It was an assessment before they are put into line of duty. I believe I was fair."


"Hmm."


A few questions later and they permitted him to leave. After he walked out of the room, the Director turned to Yamamoto and asked.


"Is there a reason why he's still considered a 3rd Seat? From what I saw, his skills should put him at the level of a Lieutenant."


He looked at the Captains in confusion, two of whom shrugged nonchalantly, one simply remained silent, while the last stroked his long beard.


"He's never challenged anyone for the position of Lieutenant. Even his promotion to 3rd Seat was pushed by his Captain." Yamamoto answered.


"So he doesn't care much for the position and status. A bit similar to Kaien, no?"


"In some ways, but not entirely." Kyōraku commented and lent a hand to Jūshirō to pull him up. "This is where I say goodbye."


"What are you thinking about, Captain Unohana?" Yamamoto suddenly asked, looking at Unohana who had looked to be in the middle of her thoughts.


She shook her head softly as she rose up to leave. "Nothing important, Head Captain. I'll be taking my leave as well."


……


Itachi was currently sitting in a cave with his Reiatsu softly billowing around him with his sword resting across his legs.


'I can't seem to push through. What do you think it is, Tsukuyomi?'


'You are already at the threshold, and with the unexpected troubles you seem to be having, I reckon you need a spark. A figurative spark to reignite the flame – so to speak.'


Itachi exhaled as he stood before Tsukuyomi. Both covered with smokes of illusory crows, a testament to the familiarity between them that most Shinigami lacked.


"How will I understand if Amaterasu refuses to speak?"


'Amaterasu is just as part of you as it is its own soul. The answer to your problems lies between you and Amaterasu. I have no power to interfere.' Like always, Tsukuyomi's advice was always vague but Itachi had known him for some time to figure out what the giant crow meant.


'Perhaps the problem lies in the roots: what makes Tsukuyomi and Amaterasu different, and why are we essentially one and the same at our roots?'


"In other words, me." Itachi stated matter-of-factly, except when he looked around Tsukuyomi was already gone.


Figuring out problems relating to the soul was always such a headache even when one was a soul.


He had spent the last few years growing his soul capacity and his understanding of Tsukuyomi and now that he was ready to reconnect with Amaterasu, he was suddenly experiencing a block.


'What is the spark Tsukuyomi was talking about? What is Amaterasu at its roots?'


What was the most basic thing about Amaterasu that he remembered?


'It burns. It's a flame, hence it burns.'


'If Amaterasu is a part of my soul then that means there's a part of me similar and no different to Amaterasu. A burning flame. Passion or desire? Both?'


He was on the cusp of figuring it out, he could feel it. He was a genius even amongst geniuses. Who could understand him better than himself?


The roots.


'If Tsukuyomi and Amaterasu are the same at their roots, with both of them being me at the same time, then that means I'm just as synchronized with Tsukuyomi as I am with Amaterasu… or should be.'


If Tsukuyomi can be described as calm and deceiving, a personality trait Itachi shared, then Amaterasu's burning flame was also a trait Itachi had, but perhaps wasn't expressing.


–––––––

 

[QuackVader]

"Even the strongest of opponents always has a weakness." – Itachi Uchiha.


°


°


°°°°°°°°


Itachi skillfully parried Yoruichi's blade but the Captain just grinned as he did, twirling the unbalanced blade around her fingers and balancing it back in her palms.


'Come on,' she beckoned with her blade and Itachi readily accepted the invite.


Holding his short tanto blade across himself, the both of them closed the distance between them in an instant and sparks flew everywhere which way.


"You're more aggressive than you usually are, Itachi-boyo. What's up?" She asked as they held their blade in a clash.


Grunting, Itachi twisted his sword to hook in her sword and she did the same, smiling at him as she did so, though with a few annoyed twitches appearing on her face.


He held her strong arm and she did the same to him, both limiting their opponent's option to disarm them.


Tired of the pointless struggle, Itachi turned abruptly, hands still locked with hers, and used his legs to trip her from behind to throw her over his shoulders to the ground.


His hand went down to her head in a spear motion, but her lightning fast reflexes had her hands holding his just centimeters from her losing the match.


She wrapped her legs around his arms and threw him over but it was a cheap shot he was already expecting so he used the force from his flip to palm her head with the arm she held.


As if knowing the other's next move, they both sheathed their blades and continued their rounds in a bout of fisticuffs.


Yoruichi's dexterity was something Itachi didn't have but that didn't mean he was totally helpless against her blindingly fast jabs and chops.


The extreme mastery both ninjas displayed was top notch, even among the Shinigami of Seireitei.


Unfortunately, Itachi couldn't quite match up with Yoruichi in hand-to-hand combat with how fast and deceptively strong she was. It was also the reason why he had to use his Sharingan to comfortably read her movements the first time they fought.


"What's wrong, Itachi-boyo? You're slipping." She teased him, although inwardly impressed at how much he could defend against her movements without his special eyes that could instantly read an opponent's movements.


"You're thinking too much right now, Itachi. Don't think, just push through." She advised but clicked her tongue when she saw him completely ignoring her.


Itachi was a very methodological fighter and all his habits and character traits showed that, which was a stark opposite to Yoruichi's free nature.


Itachi trained every single technique with utmost dedication and methodology that it became an instinct, whereas Yoruichi trained hers with such open mind and freeness that it became something of a bestial instinct.


Two different paths, yet they met each other at the top of the martial arts ladder.


Parry. Feint. Swipe. Claw. Parry. Dodge. Kick. Block. Counter.


Their hands moved in blurs so fast that the slightest mistake could take someone's head off.


The climax of their first salvo of hand clashes ended with Yoruichi panting a bit while Itachi picked himself up from the tree he was kicked into.


"You're really not an easy opponent, Itachi." She said, sighing as she did. She fully meant what she said because it was tricky as hell and nerve wracking to fight him. Granted, they weren't pulling out all the stops, but even if they were, that just meant that he became more trickier to deal with.


With his eyes to copy martial art techniques and also Kidō spells, at least to an extent, limited precognition in reading his opponent's next move, enhanced reflexes and multiplying his already perfect accuracy, and also being able to see energy patterns – all from a pair of patterned red eyes.


Just his eyes were enough as it were, but Yoruichi digresses. He also had an illusion-type Shikai that did a little bit of Shinji's Hirako's Bankai, and a whole lot of other nasty Illusions that thoroughly fucked with someone's head.


So yeah, she meant every word about him not being an easy opponent. Aside from his lacking energy reserves and the intensity of sheer power, he could go toe-to-toe with any Captain of the Gotei 13 skill wise.


"You fought differently today, why's that?" She asked as they took a second to calm their breaths before the next confrontation.


"Understanding." Itachi simply said, offering no other explanation.


Unfortunately for Itachi, Yoruichi had dealt with souls and all types of soul related issues ever since she was young enough to wield an Asauchi, so it didn't take her a second to know what he was talking about, especially given his choice of words.


"You're stumped because you can't seem to understand your Zanpakutō any further." She stated plainly, nodding in perfect understanding. "Don't kill yourself over it. It happens to every Shinigami, especially when you're about to smash through a power ceiling."


"What do you do about it?" He asked, neither acknowledging nor refuting her earlier words.


"Same problem, different reasons, so different answers." She threw away her Captain's haori and started stretching to exercise her joints. "Sometimes it's best to stop and let it come back full circle. Sometimes it's an introspection. Sometimes it's stubbornly forcing your way etc."


Itachi said nothing, only nodding while mirroring Yoruichi in taking off his black kosode(the shirt), leaving him with his white undershirt and the baggy hakama(the pants, or skirt).


"If someone sees how serious you currently look, they'll think I'm forcing you to fight for your life. Try to loosen up. Enjoy this like I am."


Yoruichi was now sporting a black sleeveless form fitting top that went around her neck and left a good portion of her back and entire arm open if not for the pair of wrist warmers she wore.


The air picked up around her in a contrasting calm yet violent way, thrumming as if the very air around her was charged up. The air around Itachi however was calm, almost dead, as his eyes slowly spun and gone were his pitch black eyes instead in their place were a pair of red eyes with three dotted tomoes on them.


This time, Yoruichi didn't have a smile on her face. She was about to use a technique she had secretly developed some time ago and one very few people knew about. Not even Soi Fon was aware of this.


"Terase, Tsukuyomi." The air around Itachi's blade shimmered like a haze and for the first time, Yoruichi saw the true physical appearance of Itachi's blade, Tsukuyomi.


It remained a short blade, but the blade itself was crystal clear, almost like the clearest or mirrors.


"Shunkō." She softly intoned yet the air Reishi molecules exploded into lightning charges that ran over her body and formed two vent like wings behind her back.


"I'll have you help me fine tune this." She spoke, staring directly at Itachi. "You've asked a few times about my Zanpakutō, and I remember telling you one time that I don't need one. This is the reason. The only non-Zanpakutō Shinigami technique that can rival a Bankai."


Itachi couldn't doubt her words when seeing the outrageous amount of Reiatsu being utilized and combusted in an instant.


"A forbidden Kidō?" He speculated.


"Close, but not entirely. This is the perfect amalgamation of Kidō and Hakuda. Be careful, I can be a bit rough." That warning was the signal to begin, and like Itachi speculated, keeping up with her was no longer a possibility.


Even if he had the Mangekyō Sharingan, the results would have remained the same. Just because the Sharingan boosted perception to an insane degree did in no way mean that one could suddenly keep up with anything, irrespective of their speed.


… luckily he expected this outcome.


Caw caw.


Yoruichi frowned as Itachi suddenly burst into crows upon her striking him. "Tsked. That annoying Shikai."


The crows flying around her turned into flaming shurikens that started hurtling towards her.


"This is useless." A burst of lightning from behind her arrested all the shurikens and disintegrated to dust.


She sensed someone behind her thrusting a blade, which caused her to turn around calmly and catch the blade in her hand with Itachi's eyes widening as he found his motion completely frozen.


"With achieving the highest level of recorded Hakuda mastery, in utilization with Shunkō allows me to freeze any motion I want."


"I see." Itachi struggled saying and disintegrated into crows.


"A clone. You know that such probing won't work, right?" She closed her eyes and lightning vents crackled more fiercely causing her to smile. "Your illusions work by manipulating your opponents Reiatsu, isn't that right? It must be hard for you to use your stronger illusions on me with how chaotic my Reiatsu currently is, right?"


"I wouldn't be so sure about that." The air shimmered and Itachi walked out of an illusion.


"Facing me directly? I'm really starting to like you more, Itachi!" She grinned and moved towards him, so fast that it was almost instantaneous even to Itachi's enhanced perception.


The Bakudō barrier he hastily constructed was torn through with the most effortless ease, and it was his reactionary response with Tsukuyomi by shifting the perception of his location that made him able to block her lightning infused punch.


"Did you forget? I can arrest your motion."


He knew, remembered fully well even. But he couldn't face her with subtle illusions, and something urged him on to confront the height of this new foe head on.





"I remember it clearly." For the first time in his life, both lives, Itachi smiled genuinely at the prospect of combat… and in that moment, a small wicker turned into a wisp.

 

[QuackVader]

"Telling yourself it's an illusion will do you little good." — Itachi Uchiha.


°


°


°°°°°°


A deafening explosion rocked the silent forest first before it was engulfed in lightning and fire that turned over the very earth the two people fighting stood on.


Yoruichi was easily the one with the overwhelming advantage as it could be clearly seen how battered and covered in dust Itachi was.


To battle Yoruichi, he felt it necessary to disable how she negated his motion after figuring it out.


Other than the vents in every Shinigami wrists that are used to release Reiatsu, there are two other main pressure points in a Shinigami's body; the Saketsu and Hakusui, located in the heart region and sternum respectively.


Blocking or destroying any of these pressure points could seal away a Shinigami's power, permanently cripple them or outright kill them.


Yoruichi's mastery over Hakuda and her knowledge of the soul allowed her to manipulate the wrist vent by sending just the right amount of her Shunkō needed to freeze her target's nervous system.


'I need to offset her Shunkō with an equally intense force to cancel it out. Too much and I might just as well block it and kill myself from implosion.'


Slashing down the empty air with his sword, a bright yellow line was drawn as the blade traveled down. "Hadō #32: Ōkasen."


The bright yellow line shot out an encompassing yellow beam in Yoruichi's direction but the agile and petite behemoth met it head on and triumphed against it.


"You're faring better than I expected you to. But now you should understand that there's still a fundamental difference between skill and pure raw power. You have an astonishing level of skill but your raw power is severely lacking. And that is where your Zanpakutō holds you back." She commented her observation while looking at Itachi, who even till now, was still thinking about how to level her advantage with his disadvantage.


Deep inside him, something flickered violently upon hearing what Yoruichi said about the 'drawbacks' of his Zanpakutō.


Even Itachi disagreed with her. "My Zanpakutō is not the problem, I am. The opposite of what you said being the truth – I am the disadvantage of my Zanpakutō."


Yoruichi looked stunned at the admission. Itachi wasn't the only Shinigami to blame himself rather than his Zanpakutō, but there was a certain surety in his words that made it sound true.


"Are you good to go, or should we continue this another day?" She offered but he shook his head.


"I'm ready. Come." He beckoned her forward while brandishing his sword that was now a normal length katana.


Yoruichi's lightning came alive once more and she blinked to his front to throw him off, following up with a punch to the gut, only to raise her other hand to block a sword strike to her head after she realized that her hands didn't touch him.


'Spatial deception. Very Itachi-like.' She grudgingly admitted.


She looked around and the unnatural state of the battlefield. Left was right and right was halfway in the sky and halfway to the side.


She was only able to keep track with him with the lightning around her acting as signal receptors to any like charges. She also had to regularly flex her Reiatsu just to make sure.


The one good thing about Shunkō was that a slight relapse in focus would hurt her and disable the technique, which was also her saving grace the five times that Itachi caught her inside a genjutsu without her even knowing.


'Tsukuyomi.'


'Manipulating those illusions are hard and you have to take care not to get drawn in. The Tsukuyomi technique is now vastly different from how you used it when you were alive.'


CLANNNG! KRACKLE!!


Fist and blade met, Itachi dodging her punches with careful manipulation of the distance between them and Yoruichi reacting to most of his blind attacks with nothing aside from instinct.


'Is there a reason to go this far? Self-gratification? Acknowledgement? Or is it to satisfy something else?' Tsukuyomi asked, incomprehension laced in his voice as he struggled to understand why Itachi was entertaining her to tell detriment of himself.


'I don't know, but something tells me that hiding behind illusions for every fight isn't what I should be doing. I'm trying to see if I can figure anything out with this.'


Itachi admitted that he too was as clueless as to why he let the fight go on for this long.


Just like how his illusions weren't infallible and almost moot against people like Jiraiya of the Sannin and Mukai Kohinata, the lost Hyuga who fought both him and Shisui and would have killed them too had it not been for Shisui's Mangekyō Sharingan genjutsu.


'What I wouldn't give to have my Mangekyō at this point.' He mused in nostalgia.


Casting the Tsukuyomi technique without the basis of a Mangekyō was dangerous as it was a genjutsu that could manipulate the perception of time and space of the victim to an unbelievable length.


Yoruichi lagged again for a brief moment before her Shunkō flared up and she was snapped awake with pain.


"Goddamned brat!" She cursed and attacked a clone of Itachi which instantly dissipated and returned the feedback.


….


'BURN IT ALL TO THE GROUND!'


….


'Too little.' Slowly and surely, Itachi figured out a way to counter her Shunkō's basic ability through the help of his clones, the Sharingan helping him with the precise amount of energy needed to offset the intensity of Yoruichi's Shunkō.


Face it head on.


Something seemed to scream at him but he couldn't hear it, mind fully focused on confronting Yoruichi's Shunkō head on and resisting its destabilizing effects.


…. And he did, much to the stunned surprise that was painted across Yoruichi's face.


But that wasn't the only surprise he had for her.


At the split moment of stunned silence, Itachi took an illogical and unnecessary risk and cast Tsukuyomi on her.


Being an illusory technique sharing the same name with one of the counterparts of Itachi's Zanpakutō spirit, Tsukuyomi, the Tsukuyomi illusion was a top tier illusion technique that was as taxing to cast as it was to get out of.


Unfortunately, he was yet to possess the Mangekyō Sharingan needed to perceive and accurately manipulate the illusion without having to suffer the strain of the extended time. Not to mention the mental strain it would have on Yoruichi if she spent centuries, or worse millennials, fighting and dying on repeat.


"Releas–"


His world spun like a kaleidoscope that sucked his consciousness in, blinking as he found himself in a world of red moon and smokey black flames, heavily littered with his bodies that they formed literally hills.


Looking towards the peak of the highest hill of bodies, Itachi saw someone crucified mercilessly like a pin cushion with numerous blades, some transparent like his Shikai and some swords made of solidified jet black flames.


With a thought, the world rearranged itself and he was now atop Yoruichi's peak with all the transparent blades gone, leaving her still impaled with the black ones.


"This isn't Tsukuyomi." He realized. The sensation of this illusion didn't feel like any of his other Illusions that all had traces of Tsukuyomi's presence in them.


"Of course, here isn't Tsukuyomi. Similar, but something entirely different."


He turned around but he didn't see anything to identify as the presence he was feeling.


"Amaterasu…"


The black flames that were the soil under the body-littered ground flickered excitedly in response to Itachi's call.


"Who else could it be?" Amaterasu's voice, unlike Tsukuyomi's, reverberated hauntingly in a violent way deep inside Itachi's soul. "I tried calling you countless times from this desolate world, but like always you ignored my voice. Only wishing to use me when your precious illusions fail you."


Itachi frowned as he listened to Amaterasu speak, confused by why his own spirit would think of him that way when he has been trying to reach out to Amaterasu ever since he achieved his partial Shikai.


"Even now with that woman who thought she could wantonly rampage here; you called out to Tsukuyomi first, never bothered to call me, even when the both of us are one and the same."


"The words you speak are false, Amaterasu. I have been trying to reach out to you years now–"


"But you never once expressed my flames, did you? Not back then, and not now."


And that was when it hit Itachi like Yoruichi's Shunkō.


Habits.


His personality was always calm, reserved, always wearing a façade, passively aggressive and rarely ever confrontational. A life of illusions – one where he only expressed a part of his soul, Tsukuyomi.


He never appeared arrogant, forbearing, burning with passion and ambition – never, not once. Always content to remain in the shadows.


He sighed despondently and sat down atop the piles of his own body. "I was never aware that my choices forced you to be shunned. Truthfully, I was never aware of a lot of things."


He looked below at the flickering light and asked genuinely, having only ever shown such a genuine expression and a healthy bit of vulnerability.


"Help me understand you, Amaterasu. You, me and Tsukuyomi – that's all we are; different parts of the same whole." He dipped one of his hands into a spot of the flickering black flame scattered across the ground. "You know just as well as I that I wouldn't have neglected you if I knew how not to."


"Truthful words, but truer actions." The voice of Amaterasu breathed out in an old way of resignation. "Even if I don't want to heed your words, you'd find a way to force me to."


#######################


A/N: Amaterasu has been finally introduced and the Zanpakutō spirit seems hurt and betrayed that Itachi never expressed the part of his soul that was Amaterasu.


(Obviously his Zanpakutō spirits are different. This is 'technically' their second life with Itachi, and going with the Uchiha lore, there are the proof of his love and pain. His eyes, both figuratively and literally.)


What is the essence of Amaterasu and how does it affect Itachi as a person? Whelp, even I don't know yet.

 

[QuackVader]

"This technique's weakness and risk… is my existence." — Itachi Uchiha.


°


°


°°°°°°


"What's happening to her, Amaterasu?" Itachi asked, seeing Yoruichi still knocked out even after pulling the blackened blades of Amaterasu out of her body.


"This is neither of both Tsukuyomi," the flames started and were now risen to Itachi's ankles, "I forced my way through at the last moment and pulled her in here instead of Tsukuyomi. The old crow also approved."


Itachi nodded absentmindedly, not fully getting the gist of it, but getting enough to realize what happened.


"So what now? I would prefer if we settle whatever grievances you have towards me before we move forward."


The flames calmed down at Itachi's words and almost became docile, but it never lost its threatening intensity.


"I've also realized that the only thing I know these black flames as, are special flames that can burn anything and can't be put off."


"What else is there to know about Amaterasu?" Its voice, even while low, resounded like a deathly whisper in Itachi's ears.


"Tsukuyomi at its peak means achieving a state where reality and illusion can perfectly overlap, but at its core it's a perfect mirror to gaze back into your soul. That is why Tsukuyomi shines his light upon the world." Itachi replied, watching as one of the blackened blades fell apart and joined the flames on the ground.


"Why do you burn so fiercely, Amaterasu?"


"Burn? Fiercely?" Itachi could feel the intense emotions in Amaterasu words as it uttered them. "Where do you see my fiercely burning flames?"


"Your ignorant neglect reduced this once blazing inferno to the dead wickers you see now. To temper a wisp of flame to a mighty blaze depends on what you fuel your flames with. What did you temper these flames with?"


A sinking pit formed in Itachi's stomach as he stared at the desolate land with barely any blazing flame. He was the one supposed to fuel this endless expanse of flickering flames and he let them almost burn out.


Nevertheless, he had already accepted himself to be at fault so all he could do and hope for was for Tsukuyomi to tell him how to fix this.


"What happened to the burning flames you tempered as a child with your passion? What happened to the bright ambition you sheltered for your clan?"


"The harshness of reality killed my naïve dreams." Itachi replied with the jarring truth of his life growing up. The young child's passion was snuffed out in the smokes of war.


Amaterasu's voice bellowed in a haughty laugh that sounded both condescending and disbelieving. "Reality? Oh, how utterly ignorant you are, Itachi. Your touted genius intellect woefully fails you."


The way the flames tried burning above his ankle level gave Itachi the image of the flames trying to stand up only to fall back down because no one offered it support.


"What feeble shackles does Reality have on you that Tsukuyomi can't sever? Was it for such a ridiculous reason that the ambition and zeal that fueled my undying flames was lost and forever abandoned?" The betrayal in Amaterasu's voice was so great that it caused Itachi to flinch with every word they voice spoke.


The perspective of souls, especially the incredibly rare ones like Tsukuyomi and Amaterasu, were very different from their wielders.


While Itachi could argue that his choices were limited, forcing him to sacrifice his family for the village, and to be saddled throughout his whole life with grief, from Amaterasu's perspective the problem began when Itachi lost his drive and ambition; the embers that stoked Amaterasu's blazing inferno.


Having resolved himself to take all the blame, Itachi spoke tentatively after Amaterasu quieted down. "I ask for just one chance. Heed my words this once and I promise you that I will bring back your black inferno."


"And how do you intend to do so? These flickering flames are the representation of your will, drive, dreams, passion and your ultimate goal in life. Do you see how dead they are?" Amaterasu asked rhetorically. "I am the crystallization of your dreams and hopes, and yet I am simply nonexistent."


"Then I'll rouse up my passion. I'll dream once more and I will achieve the goal I just set. Is that sufficient for you, Amaterasu?"


In that instant where Itachi stared at the flames in the ground and spoke of a goal, a tremble shot through the creeping flames covering this endless expanse and they flickered excitedly.


"What did you do, Itachi?" Now Amaterasu was genuinely curious at what Itachi did to bring such an instant tremor of change


"I only set my ultimate life goal at the top of everything else." He easily replied.


"And what specific 'ultimate' goal is that?"


"The very same one I destroyed with my hands during my lifetime. The reason why every Uchiha fight."


A place to belong. A family. He had set a family as his ultimate goal.


Understanding that, Amaterasu's laughter boomed further and the once grass length flames now stretched to his knees and swallowed the endless corpses littered around. This was golden.


'Yes! This passion. This resolution. This… revelation. Harness these well and I promise to be the greatest flame spirit ever wielded. Just like my undying flames, this is the undying promise between us, Itachi; stir up the passion of your soul and I'll raise up the blackest inferno that'll burn even the heavens to nothing.'


Amaterasu looked at Itachi, not how he looked but the structure of his soul and how it was starting to resonate with the barest hint of heat. It was very tiny to notice but it was still there.


"Why are you so quick to strive for something again, Itachi? Was it just to maintain your connection with me or was it something else?" Amaterasu genuinely asked this time and Itachi's words pleased it greatly.


"It was easy. Knowing my lack of a goal to strive for is what made you like this, fully convinced me that even after living all these while I was still nothing more than a living husk. A life without a mission is vapid and vain."


Slowly and gradually, the flames increased to the point that they were now as tall as Itachi and it was then that the black flames parted to reveal a human silhouette of black flames, like a raised shadow, with absolutely no features.


"Hark ye my words, Itachi. I am Amaterasu, the Undying Flame that Consumes All. Be they heaven, be they the purgatory flames of hell, or the puppet strings of fate; they shall all be consumed in this Desolate World of Black Inferno."


The flames rose up another level as Amaterasu finally revealed its name and ensign to Itachi.


The black representation of Amaterasu started shrinking before solidifying into a pitch black katana that flew into Itachi's hands.


The sheath of the blade turned into flames that were sucked into the hilt as Itachi brandished the blade to appreciate it.


"Consume All(Zenbu Shōhi), Amaterasu — The Undying Flame of a Desolate World."


(Kōryō to Shita Fumetsu no Jigoku no Sekai.)


At the exact instance of his utterance, a straight line was drawn from the sky to the ground that suddenly divided the world into two very familiar parts.


With the red moon and swirling red clouds in the sky, the only difference between the two conjoined worlds was that one part was fully covered with towering inferno while the other part was dominated by endless murder of crows, emitting wisps of smoke and falling feathers as they flew.


Standing as the foci of both worlds, Itachi stretched his hand towards Tsukuyomi's Illusory World and called forth the spirit.


"Illuminate(Terase), Tsukuyomi — Illusory World of Darkness."


The crows rushed towards him, joining together as they did to produce a normal looking blade until the illusion faded away to reveal the crystal clear sheen of the blade.


Holding both parts of his Shikai, Itachi brought both of their hilts together and the moment they touched they rippled like water and swiftly fused into a single blade that was pitch black on one side and crystal clear on the other with a tao symbol on the hilt.


And it was in this instance where both blades were brought together that Itachi finally unlocked his true Shikai.


"Burn and Reveal, Truth-seeker — Embodiment of Light and Darkness" (Kogasu to Sarakeru, Honshin — Hikari to Yami.)


The first sensation Itachi got was a feeling of wholeness, one that was multiplied over after he gained his full Shikai, Truth-seeker.


'Stoke your passion into a tempestuous blaze, Itachi. It is the proof and fuel of your growth.' He heard Amaterasu say, a special way of comforting people only unique to it– or rather her.


'Seek your truth. Seek your adversary's truth. Make your own truth.' Tsukuyomi advised.


'That reminds me.' He said and flowed the spiritual form of Yoruichi towards him. 'Luckily for us, Amaterasu's intervention prevented any unforeseen accidents.'


Sheathing his sword on his hips, Itachi's Sharingan came alive once more as he canceled what had been a grand illusion; at least for him.


Instantly, the world of red faded away and they were back to the present without any time passing.


With the backlash of her Shunkō and the mental load of the illusion, Yoruichi didn't know when she was sent hurtling through the forest with a few atrophied muscles.

 

[QuackVader]

"And one day, when you have the same eyes as I, come before me!" — Itachi Uchiha.

°

°

°°°°°°

Yoruichi groaned as she struggled to stand up amidst the intense throbbing in her head that felt as if someone ripped it out and shoved something inside it.

"Where… am… I?– ARRRKH!" She lost her balance and fell to the ground, twitching violently and gripping her head hard as she remembered what felt like weeks of fighting and dying suddenly being compressed to a fraction of a moment.

"Illusions?" She couldn't believe it. This went above the realm of simple illusions, less the ability of a Shikai. She didn't even know when she got inside the illusion. "Damn you, Itachi!"

She managed to get up but that was with a lot of effort and she was still struggling with every step, feeling the phantom pains of getting stabbed through and burned.

"How far did I go? Nnrgh-" She grabbed her head harder, the desire of falling over coming strong on her. 'This Reiatsu… WHAT THE HELL?!'

She pushed herself with gritted teeth and went towards the direction that was billowing with Reiatsu – Itachi's Reiatsu.

When she arrived, what she saw greatly surprised her but not so much as it shocked her.

'Bankai?!'

She saw Itachi standing in a daze, holding a blade of black and white, while wearing a black robe with red clouds on it. The robes looked as if they were made of black flames while the red clouds felt as if they were actually moving around the robe yet at the same time they weren't. On his forehead was a headband with the struck-through symbol of the Hidden Leaf depicting his identity as a rogue ninja.

Itachi nodded and opened his eyes, taking in his new appearance with a surprised look on his face.

He eventually smiled, startling Yoruichi as he did so, because while he despised all the members of the Akatsuki, it however represented a vital part of his identity.

Yoruichi finally found her voice after staring for a few seconds. "Is that… Bankai?"

"Shikai."

"I – Wait, what?" She gasped, disbelief evidently visible on her face after Itachi confirmed what she just heard. "But that's not possible. You already have a Shikai, unless…"

Itachi nodded. "It was a partial release. I only unlocked one of its parts." He made a show of showing Yoruichi the crystal clear part of his sword. "That's Tsukuyomi, and this," now showing the black part, "is Amaterasu."

His Reiatsu finally settled down and he canceled his transformation causing the robe and headband to blow away like smoke while his single blade separated into two, dark gloom black and crystal-like white, which he held in both hands.

"A Dual Zanpakutō–" Yoruichi muttered and the vertigo finally took over her senses, causing her to fall but Itachi held her by her shoulders.

"Let's call it off for today. You need rest." Yoruichi didn't say anything in objection when she saw how serious he looked, a very rare look for him.

He carried her on his back and started running towards the 4th Division.

"Your Zanpakutō… Is it an illusion and fire type?" She groaned when he didn't reply and knew that was an automatic yes.

"Is there a problem?"

She groaned louder into his ears. "I just don't want to deal with Central 46 about this. In the history of the Gotei 13, only two people are Dual Zanpakutō wielders; Kyōraku and Ukitake, and they almost had theirs sealed when it happened."

Itachi's eyes narrowed a bit at the mention of a seal and Yoruichi felt it and quickly assuage any budding worries.

"I said almost, right? You don't have to worry about it and as long as your Zanpakutō doesn't threaten the Soul Society or the lives of other Shinigami, you're good." She paused.

"That illusion. What was it?"

"…"

"Fine."

They exchanged no other words until they got to the 4th Division and Itachi took her in without anyone aware of their arrival.

He had barely laid her down in an empty room and was about to look for Captain Unohana or her Lieutenant when the door opened and both of them walked in.

"I felt someone sneaking in. Didn't expect it to be you." She said and paused upon seeing the person lying weakly on the bed. "This is definitely a surprise."

"Captain Yoruichi!" The tall white-haired Lieutenant gasped.

"Hey there, Isane, Unohana." Yoruichi waved weakly.

"What happened?" Unohana asked calmly as she walked over and examined Yoruichi.

"We fought." Itachi replied.

"But she doesn't look hurt enough to be this weak." Unohana pointed out and looked at Itachi with a pause before nodding. "Side effects of an illusion, and a particular strong/mentally destabilizing one, I presume?"

Itachi nodded.

"Isane dear, lead the gentleman to a waiting room. I'll be with you in a minute."

Isane nodded and led Itachi to an otherwise empty room with the only thing in it being the small table in the middle.

Unohana came barely a minute later and sat across Itachi.

"Tea?" She offered.

"Thank you, but no."

The calm and homely aura she gave showed others what her true disposition was, as well as being the Captain of the Medical Division.

"I can sense that your Reiatsu went a level higher, and I'll also assume those swords strapped to your waist are yours. Am I right?" She said, pointing at the two blades on Itachi's hip.

In their dormant state, both looked like normal blades with red and black sheathes.

"Captain Unohana, does that mean that…"

Unohana nodded at Isane. "Yes. He's also a Dual Zanpakutō wielder like Shunsui and Jushirō." She then shook her head slowly at the rigid look on Itachi's face. "You're not in any trouble, 3rd Seat Itachi. It's just that I'm concerned about the nature of the illusion you used on Captain Yoruichi. Had it been someone under her level, a severe headache and mental trauma will be the least of their problems."

"I see. It was a rather desperate attack on my end, and not something I can do easily without worrying about backlashes." He said, briefly explaining the way Tsukuyomi worked – basically saying it was just a stronger illusion that let him control his opponent's perception to an extent.

He also wasn't lying about the backlash from using the Tsukuyomi genjutsu, a strictly Mangekyō technique. He was only saved from it because Amaterasu had taken control of it halfway.

Luckily, it turned out Yoruichi just needed some rest and he left after some idle chat with Captain Unohana. Basically it was her telling him he should visit either Shunsui or Jushirō for any insights they could give pertaining to his Zanpakutō.

'As if anyone could understand our nature better than you do. You do not need their counseling, Itachi.'

He agreed with the initial part of Amaterasu's sentence, but not with the latter and it seemed Tsukuyomi did too.

'To listen to the counsel of others is not always about helping yourself, but understanding their view of the world. Their words are like a mirror to the truth that is their soul.'

'I know that, Tsukuyomi.' Amaterasu scoffed and Itachi could imagine her flames burning irately. 'What I mean, Itachi, is that you're also a newborn soul; thus impressionable to the ideal of others you find admirable – even if you try to argue otherwise. Just know that the ideal you carry will influence the goal you achieve.'

Just like a flame, Amaterasu was fiery and intense, but also calm and warm. Fierce and dangerous, but at the same time soothing and protective.

If Tsukuyomi was the wise elder then Amaterasu was the passionate woman whose flames were warmth to those she protected and a blazing inferno to all who earned her ire.

'I understand what you're trying to say, Amaterasu, and I agree with both you and Tsukuyomi.' Itachi said.

Remembering how scathing Amaterasu was to him when they met and how Tsukuyomi was mostly observant of his choices, Itachi gained another understanding of the nature of what they were.

Amaterasu had said his ambition and goals fueled her flames while Tsukuyomi had acted as his mirror of truth since the beginning, letting Itachi know that the two of them were unshakable ideals of his soul. An anchor to keep him rooted to his path.

Honestly they felt more like his guardians and caretakers – parents if he were to be extreme.

"Tachi-tachi!"

He caught the pink missile that jumped at him with a smile, one that seemed to grow wider after staring at him for a second.

"I finally found you, squirt!" A shadow radiating pure battle intensity loomed behind him. "Oh? Your Reiatsu also grew stronger. That's it, you're fighting me whether you like it or not."

"Captain Zaraki–" Itachi stepped back and pulled Yachiru behind him to dodge the wild swing from a smiling Kenpachi.

"You almost cut her." He knew the extreme ways of Soul Society, especially that of the Eleventh where death was a normal occurrence, but–

"Kenny wasn't trying to cut me. He was trying to cut you Tachi-tachi." The girl laughed as she held his neck.

"Keep him still for me Yachiru. I'll cut him up very nicely." Kenpachi said and swung his sword at Itachi but Itachi simply faded away. "An illusion like last time."

"Kenny, over here!"

He laughed hard and took off in Yachiru's direction. "Good job, Yachiru!"

 

[QuackVader]

"They say you take your personality to the grave. Well, I've already died once. I intend to honor it." — Itachi Uchiha.


°°°°°°°°°°°°°°


Itachi sighed at the girl dangling happily around his neck. And though he tried to understand her, all he could see was just a child that loved hanging around Zaraki Kenpachi.


'Hmm. This is just perfect, Itachi.'


'What do you mean by that, Amaterasu?' He asked, stopping briefly atop a roof near the 7th Division.


'That woman was quite strong, stubborn too, but she couldn't ever beat me in my own realm so that doesn't count. But this oaf is the perfect opportunity for us to burn darker.'


'He's also quite fast. I don't think I've ever seen him use any technique. Zaraki Kenpachi – An enigma even amongst Captains.'


"Oh, are you finally going to fight Kenny, Tachi-tachi? Yay~" She exclaimed cheerfully. "Hurry up, Kenny. He wants to fight!"


He felt the intensity of Kenpachi's Reiatsu grow stronger, likely having heard Yachiru's words.


Itachi was never one to enjoy the prospect of battles, fights or even disputes of any kind, but meeting Amaterasu let him know that always avoiding these things weakened her flames. Peaceful resolution was always the best choice, Tsukuyomi would agree, but violence was necessary if it didn't work, as Amaterasu would agree.


Stepping back, Itachi employed Shunpo this time and led the grinning Kenpachi outside the gates of the Seireitei.


…..


Aizen and a few Shinigami were making their way past the Southern Red Hollow Gates of the Seireitei along with their Captain, Hirako Shinji, when a few of them felt Itachi run past them.


They didn't pay much attention to that but had to reconsider when Kenpachi rushed past them with a grin and his chaotic Reiatsu knocking out the weaker Shinigami.


"Captain Hirako…"


"Aye. That's amusing for a few reasons." Shinji smiled airily. "Kenpachi will give up if his opponent keeps running away from him."


He was midway with waving off Aizen's concern when they felt the faint collision of Reiatsu.


"You were saying?"


"Don't be smug with me, Aizen-ya." He said before leaving with Shunpo.


"You guys can go on ahead, and take those knocked out to the Fourth." Aizen said before following his Captain. He was also surprised at the higher level of Itachi's Reiatsu as he drew closer to where they were.


'A natural genius. But sadly, that's all there is to it.' Flowing and leaving came and went his wistful thoughts; also a little expectant on seeing Itachi's Zanpakutō in action.


……


Stopping at a spot he thought he thought was a considerable distance, he unhooked the child around his neck and set her on the ground.


"Best to step back, Lieutenant Yachiru. This might be dangerous for you if you're near." He said. Even if she was a child, he still gave her the basic respect of addressing her with her title.


"Just call me Yachiru, Tachi-tachi, since we're friends now."


"Friends?"


"Of course we're friends. You're not running away which makes Kenny happy. And I'm happy if Kenny is happy."


"I see. Then Yachiru, mind stepping back?" He calmly unsheathed his blade from its black sheathe and turned around to block Kenpachi's sword, meeting the grinning visage of the man with his neutral one.


"Good! Good! Your Reiatsu tells me you can cut me." Kenpachi retrieved his unnaturally chipped-edged long sword and started swinging wildly at Itachi, "But show me how deep!"


[A/N: Most people overlook this simple fact that was clearly shown but Kenpachi is one of the best swordsmen in the Bleach verse. Easily Top 5 if not Top 3.


He defeated Unohana who is stated to be unparalleled in her swordsmanship when he was a child, and yes he sealed his power in the process, but that doesn't or shouldn't make him suddenly weak… but his fight with Ichigo(-_-) … I blame Kubo.


At this time, Kenpachi is still recently new to the Seireitei and it hasn't been long since he became a Captain so a century of not fighting anybody strong hasn't dulled his blade all that much. He killed a Captain quite easily after all.]


Itachi evaded and parried another wild swing, but this time with a frown. 'Immense spiritual and physical strength but no skill. And yet…'


Itachi quickly realized just how crazy Kenpachi was and why everyone stayed away from him. All the man cared about was killing him first, nothing else mattered. Not his opponent cutting him or his life.


'And they called Hidan a madman.'


"Come on! Stop dodging and fight back!" Kenpachi said with an angry expression on his face.


'Itachi…'


'I hear you.'


Kenpachi smiled as he saw Itachi finally looking serious.


Itachi held the blade's edge in his hand and slowly drew out the blade, drawing blood with his actions.


"Consume All(Zenbu Shōhi), Amaterasu — The Undying Flame of a Desolate World."


(Kōryō to Shita Fumetsu no Jigoku no Sekai.)


He released Amaterasu for the first time and as soon as he did, he felt something burning inside him. It wasn't the heat of flames but something more intense.


The passion of flames.


The release command for Amaterasu caused the blood on the blade to turn black which then turned into small black flames that swallowed the whole sword and turned it pitch black.


"Hmm? Is that your Shikai? I thought it was something else." Kenpachi was confused but a second was all it took for him to realize that it didn't matter. "It doesn't matter. Now come and cut me."


"Are you not going to use yours?" Itachi asked. Was he also like Yoruichi? Or did he feel he could take him on without his Shikai?


"Oh, my blade doesn't have any of the fancy names or forms yours do. It's just a blade for killing. Nothing more, nothing less." Kenpachi had grown tired of the pointless talks and attacked with as much careless abandon as he always did but Itachi was more than ready.


'If he doesn't care for his sword then do him a favor and burn it.' He heard his flames say but he reminded himself to be careful.


Unlike Sasuke, he had absolutely no control of Amaterasu and this would be his first attempt to do so.


His sword clashed with Kenpachi's and for the first time, Kenpachi's grin faltered and he immediately took a step back.


"That blade of yours is weird. Fascinating." His grin returned but initially he had been confused as to why he would retreat but grinned as he realized that it might mean that Itachi could kill him.


Itachi however discovered something. 'It can burn Reiatsu too. Slower than it does Chakra, but it burns it still.'


Unlike ninjas, as soul beings, Shinigami were naturally covered in their Reiatsu which meant that to kill them, you had to be able to get through it.


'Of course I can burn it. There's nothing I can't burn, but that depends on you.'


To stoke the Undying Flames with his passion.


The blade in Itachi's hands ignited in black flames that the spectators quickly realized wasn't emitting any heat.


"So that's it, huh. It was burning away the Reiatsu around my sword." Kenpachi noted smilingly as he took off his eyepatch. The brat was more than capable of withstanding his intensity.


His already enormous Reiatsu skyrocketed and covered him in a golden haze of pure spiritual pressure, contrasting the black haze that was flowing around Itachi.


They both ran at each other and clashed again and again.


"Black Haze."


"Kenny!" Yachiru screamed as a plume of black flames almost covered Kenpachi, who was lucky to have retreated when he did.


He was no longer smiling, only looking warily at the black flames as something within him actually reacted to danger, especially whenever his sword met Itachi's.


'This is tiring to use consistently.' Itachi thought.


'Of course it would. You've barely ever used my flames and it is originally only meant for when you unlocked your Bankai or Mangekyō.'


He had barely used it extensively and yet he was already feeling the drain it was causing him.


He had been careful enough not to mistakenly kill Kenpachi with a cut but holding back while trying to maintain constant control of the flames was taxing to an inhumane degree.


'That's enough for now.' He wholeheartedly agreed with her on that. 'Now you know just how much you've severely handicapped yourself.'


He nodded. He knew first hand just how much more dangerous the flames could be if he trained to master them, but he also knew that they were ways to stop the flames; and he knew Amaterasu knew that too.


Sealing was one way, which meant Bakudō was valid. At least the sealing spells on the top tiers.


Dodging them too, but that was obvious, even if not everyone could. The faster Captains, he thought, could dodge them especially if they were expecting it.


Another way and the most dangerous was concentrating a very huge amount of energy on the point of impact and being fast enough to escape in the instant before it burned through it.


Itachi canceled his Amaterasu release, much to Kenpachi's surprise.


"Is that it? Are you done?" He asked, already getting irritated.


Itachi felt that was enough, especially since he had been fighting Yoruichi less than an hour ago and he was extremely tired.


"Almost, but no." He sheathed Amaterasu and pulled out Tsukuyomi, confusing the hell out of Kenpachi.


"You have two Zanpakutō?"


"Yes. Now, let's continue; Terase, Tsukuyomi."


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