Ichigo looked at the ceiling as he thought about what he was going to do. He didn’t like the fact that Old Man Kuchiki had made him Byakuya’s trainer. He hated that he was teaching the first opponent that was so hard to overcome. Aizen was definitely the worst he had had to deal with so far but along with Kenpachi and Ulquirra, Byakuya was one of the most intense of fighters he had had to deal with. Byakuya was so precise and graceful, never letting the words of his opponent get to him and making him make rash decisions, unlike himself. Byakuya -older Byakuya that is- had told him many times that his rash actions caused Ichigo to do things out of anger, making him predictable. If Older Byakuya was able to keep so calm, then how was the younger version going to do that with Ichigo as a teacher?

Ichigo sighed and looked at his hands. Besides, Ichigo thought. By doing the Final Zangetsu on Aizen, my powers are waning. How will I be able to teach him anything? That, and my Hollow powers will definitely not be accepted here. Ichigo wondered if he would ever be able to get back to his own time and if things will change if he tried to leave now. He wanted nothing more than to get up and try to go through the Precipice World back to Karakura Town but the words Old Man Kuchiki had said to him made him stay. What if it @was@ because of Ichigo’s skills as a teacher that made Byakuya so good?

The thought of it made Ichigo shake his head in confusion. Disrupting time by being however many years back he was was giving him a headache. He hated that no one knew what he was talking about or who he was talking about. All of his friends either were not in existence or were not at the levels they should be and thus, were never really heard of and definitely never heard of him. He was a stranger to everyone. He hated knowing things about people and yet being looked at like a creep or a dangerous person.

Ichigo finally turned over in the futon and fell asleep, though it was a hard sleep to come by.

There was a small knock on Ichigo’s sliding door but Ichigo didn’t really hear it. He had had such a hard time falling asleep that he was now in a deep sleep. The door slid open and Misaka walked in, sitting on her knees beside Ichigo and shaking his shoulder. Ichigo moaned and swatted her hand away from his face.

“Young man, you must get up.” She said, shaking his shoulder again.

Ichigo made an inaudible sound as he turned away from her.

Misaka, used to trying to get Byakuya up, stood up fluidly and sighed to herself. She bent over and proceeded to snatch the covers away from the sleeping teens’ body. His body immediately tensed more in the fetal position and he opened an eye.

“Kurosaki-san, you must get up in order to train Young Master Byakuya.” Misaka said dryly as she folded the covers in her arms.

Ichigo shivered a little but got up as Misaka left. He was pretty much half asleep but found his clothes and zanpakuto and strapped his sandals on. He yawned, stretching a little as he walked out of the room.

After asking two of the guards where to get to the dining area, he finally found it. Byakuya, Kintano, and Ginrei all at the table eating food. Upon seeing Ichigo, Byakuya waved him over and pointed to the pillow beside him so that he would sit by him. Ichigo reluctantly sat beside him, folding his legs Indian style. A maid walked over and began to dip him rice into a small rice bowl and pouring him tea.

“How was your sleep, Kurosaki-san?” Ginrei asked as he sipped some tea.

“It was good.” Ichigo answered, messing with his rice for a little bit.

“I’m glad that it was satisfactory for you.”

“When will Kurosaki-sama get to teach me how to fight, Grandfather?” Byakuya asked.

“You have your lessons to attend to and then you will have the rest of the afternoon to have Kurosaki-san help you in your fighting.”

Byakuya pouted and Ichigo chuckled, never seeing Byakuya pout in all the years he had ever known him. The fact that he was this rambunctious as a child, Ichigo had to wonder what went wrong to cause him to be the way he was in the future. He also really wondered why Byakuya hated him so much. As of now, the boy was so enthralled with him that he would have worshipped Ichigo like a god, or so he felt.

“In the mean time, Kurosaki-san, if you would like to accompany me to the squad sections, I would most appreciate it.” Ginrei said.

Ichigo looked at the older man and nodded, stuffing a scoop of rice into his mouth. He wasn’t sure why the old man seemed to believe him so much but at the moment, only Ginrei and Ukitake seemed to have any touch of belief in him being thrown into the past.

“Do these look familiar to you?” Ginrei asked as they walked down some of the walkways of the squads.

Ichigo nodded. “Yes. I’ve walked some of these walkways before. There are people I even recognize but they wouldn’t recognize me…”

“I know this is very confusing for you. It’s confusing to us as well as this could have happened… You say that the Precipice World caused your time travel? How did that happen?”

“I honestly can’t tell you how. All I know is that Urahara wanted me to get a sample of the koryu so that he could study it and suddenly I was thrown back in time. I only knew that though because of when I mentioned some people, everyone looked at me like I was crazy. It’s not very thrilling to know everyone thinks you’re a lunatic.”

Ginrei nodded, looking around at the moment when they heard a commotion somewhere in the distance. Ginrei sighed a little.

“Squad Eleven must be having issues again.”

“Squad Eleven? Isn’t Kenpachi in there?”

Ginrei looked at Ichigo. “Do you know him?”

“We are… acquaintances? I’m not quite sure what we would considered ourselves to each other. I guess sparring partners would be a better term for it.”

Ginrei stopped moving and put his hand on Ichigo’s shoulder to stop him.

“Sparring partners? You just ‘spar’ with Kenpachi?”

“Yeah…”

A crash sounded behind Ichigo and he turned around, a man getting up off the ground, blood all over him. Soon a foot appeared from the rubble and Kenpachi pulled himself out of the hole in the wall. Ichigo watched in fascination as Kenpachi stood above the man as the other coughed.

“Get up.” He demanded.

Ichigo had never seen him look that way. His hair was pulled back and laying limp, not the pointed spikes with bells on the ends that Ichigo was used to seeing. He also seemed more violent, seeming to want to kill the man instead just fight. He watched the man for a moment when Ichigo saw Yachiru poke her head up over Kenpachi’s shoulder and whisper something in his ear. He looked over and his eyes laid on Ichigo immediately. He grinned a scary grin as he walked over to Ginrei and Ichigo.

“I sense a powerful Spiritual Pressure.” He said with an animalistic grin.

“Hello, Kenpachi.” Ginrei said with a small bow.

“Ken-chan, Ken-chan, the orange one is the one with the Spiritual Pressure.” Yachiru said, pointing to Ichigo over his shoulder.

Ichigo took a step back as Kenpachi looked at him with one eye.

“How could a scrawny kid like you have such an immense Spiritual Pressure?”

“I just do… I’m not here to fight you.”

“He is a new addition to my family for a while and I am showing him the grounds.” Ginrei said with a smile. “I would prefer if you didn’t hurt him.”

“Keh.”

Ginrei left and Ichigo followed but looked back at Kenpachi.

“I promise you’ll have a fight with me later.”

He went around the corner and Yachiru looked at Kenpachi.

“Hey, Ken-chan, he seems strong, huh?”

Kenpachi nodded, wanting to know who he was.

Urahara stared at the vial of black sludge with wide eyes. The contents of the black sludge from Ichigo’s time held so many hidden things in it that could only be justified by Ichigo’s statement of time travel. The @koryu@ from the present Precipice World had nothing interesting whatsoever in it and thus showed no activity. Urahara sat back in his seat and looked between the two vials, wondering what could have happened to cause such a fluctuation in the contents.

He heard the door crack open and looked over, seeing Yoruichi coming in.

“Did you find anything?” she asked.

“That Kurosaki-san is telling us the truth. There are so many things in this vial that he gathered and the vial from now. Ichigo really is from the future.”

Yoruichi sat on the side of his desk and crossed a leg over the other.

“What will you do then?”

“I don’t know. He’s the only one that can tell us what will happen. Besides, I already believed he was from the future before I tested the vials.”

“Why’s that?”

“A suspicion I had was accidentally revealed to me but only someone from the future would know that.”

Yoruichi nodded. “Well, are you going to find a way to send him back? The longer he stays, the more things will change for him in the future.”

“I can use some of the contents of the future koryu to make up something… I think.”

Yoruichi nodded again and pushed herself from the table.

“Just don’t get into trouble doing it, Captain.”

He smiled at her as she gave him a salute and left the lab.

Byakuya was so excited to be learning from Ichigo. He waited impatiently at the door for Ichigo to come back. He had been practicing all day in the courtyard and Byakuya felt that he was ready to try his hand at fighting. Ichigo walked in and Byakuya ran to him quickly.

“Kurosaki-sama! I’m ready for my lesson.”

Ichigo nodded and stared to go out of the door when someone cleared their throat.

“Do you plan on fighting a child with a real sword?”

Ichigo looked at Zangetsu and then nodded.

“I guess not.”

Kintaro nodded and went to get some wooden swords, bringing them back. Ichigo reluctantly relinquished Zangetsu to Kintaro and followed Byakuya to the outside area.

“Are you ready?”

“Yeah… Hey, you said that I had a shikai, right?”

“I don’t remember saying that.”

“Well, not exactly but you made me say that weird saying before and I was watching some people from the Soul Society and the ones with shikais or bankais all say things like that to activate their powers. So I’m gonna guess that my zanpakuto has to do with cherry blossoms?”

Ichigo smirked a little. “You’re pretty observant, kid.”

“Well? Does it?” he asked, putting his sword in the ground and leaning on it. “What does my zanpakuto do? Is that its name?”

“I can’t tell you that, Byakuya. You’ll just have to learn the hard way.”

Byakuya growled and took a stance to begin fighting.

“I could make you tell me, you know.”

“I doubt that. You’ve got a long time before you have that kind of authority.”

“I’ll fight you for it.”

“You won’t get me to tell you. Just leave it at that.”

Byakuya came at Ichigo, who easily dodged the attack and laughed at the anger Byakuya was displaying. This was the complete opposite of the calm and cool man that he usually fought.

“With that temper, you’ll never piss me off.” Ichigo said with a laugh.

They finally stopped under a cherry tree that was there and Byakuya swung his wooden sword at Ichigo as he ducked and it hit the trunk. Some leaves flew down as Byakuya huffed and puffed, angry but not ready to give up.

“You are a funny kid.”

Byakuya looked up for a moment and then yelled.

“Scatter, Senbonzakura!” he screamed, throwing his sword at the tree.

The force of the throw hit a good branch and cut it clean through, causing it to shed a good amount of cherry blossoms to fall on Ichigo. He looked at the angry boy and then laughed because nothing else happened when the heavy laden branch fell on his head and knocked him out for a second.

Byakuya gave a victorious smile to the branch and put his hands on his hips, a haughty look on his face. Senbonzakura, we’ll got a long way.