"...chigo... ichigo... Ichigo... ICHIGO!" Rukia's voice raises Ichigo from his sleep, his alarm clock now blaring at max volume to raise him from his sleep. "Can you shut that thing off. I'm trying to sleep." She complains, her voice coming from the closet across from him.

"S-sorry." he stammers as his half awake brain registers what she had said, reaching a hand up to the window sill. Tapping the top of the clock, the button sicks back into the plastic frame before he slumps back down on his bed.

"Good Morning Ichigo!" The voice of his father roars as he comes flying in through the window. Before Isshin could land one of his typical morning dropkicks on his son, Ichigo sits up wright and manages to dodge the attack causing his father to careen into the floor. "I see you're improvi-"

"I told you to knock it off, old man!" Ichigo roars, kicking his father in the face and sending him tumbling to the floor once again. "Is it so much to ask for some peace and quiet around here! What normal father attacks their kid first thing in the morning. Buzz off!" Ichigo continues yelling as he picks up his father by the nape of his shirt and the belt of his pants. Wrenching the door open, he throws his father down the stairs before slamming it behind him.

"Does he do that... every morning?" Rukia questions as she unwillingly opens the closet door and stretches. Ichigo's 'Nice Vibe' purple shirt looks like a dress on the petite soul reaper, it rises slightly off of her flawless thighs as she stretches with her arms above her head. "And here I thought normal humans had boring lives."

"He's anything but normal." Ichigo retorts in a grumbling tone as he returns to his bed. "He doesn't give any reason. He just started doing that crap when I was twelve and has done it since."

"Ichi-nii! Ruki-nee! Breakfast!" The two hear Yuzu's voice call from down in the kitchen. "I've made Gohan and Miso soup!"

"Well. We better head down there before your dad eats all your food." Rukia teases as she pushes herself off of the small loft bed she has in the closet and plops to the floor.

"Yeah, he's probably already finished it though." He responds by exiting the room so that Rukia can get changed. "You better not have eaten all my food old man!" She hears Ichigo yelling as he makes his way down stairs.

"So. Have you thought about my proposition? I can't have you getting killed, it'd be a big problem for me if that happened. Show me that you're stronger and you'll have my help. Simple as that." Hoakita's twisted echoing voice ebs from the background of her thoughts.

"You better keep to your word. I don't know if I can or should trust you." Rukia responds audibly, her voice being the only thing in the empty room.

"Well you'd be right to be untrusting of me, but we're two sides of the same coin, Rukia. Rukia is Hoakita as Hoakita is Rukia. You're not one to lie are you? I don't see the point in deception. It's the sign of weakness and cowardice. Both of those I distance. Weakness gets us killed and if we retreat we die, Cowardice has no room with us either." She responds as Rukia takes off Ichigo's shirt from herself and begins getting dressed in her school uniform.

"If you are being truthful, what will happen with my body when I enter my inner world to confront you and prove that I am stronger?" Rukia questions as she puts on a new bra and starts buttoning up her uniform shirt.

"That I do not know. We could go berzerk for all I know, fighting mindlessly like any other hollow. That or we just sit still in whatever meditative pose you choose. You still haven't answered my question yet." Hoakita reminds her host once more.

"Yes. But I have a few conditions of my own." Rukia responds, continuing to dress herself. Her conversation with Hoakita gains the attention of Kon who had been sleeping under Ichigo's bed.

"Fair is fair, a deal has to have terms on both sides. I'm offering power and your inability to die in battle. The respect for your power from all the captains and even, Our King's affection and adoration." Hoakita responds expectantly, awaiting Rukia's terms of the agreement.

"I can assume that you won't let me be killed, right?" She begins getting a hum of affirmation from the hollow in her mind. "Good, here are my terms. If I do lose our match against each other, you will not harm Ichigo or my friends. None of the members of the Gotei 13, especially Nii-sama."

"That's... agreeable, though I'm not all that much a fan of him, sending us to the chopping block without any form of protest." Hoakita groans.

"He has already apologized for that. Secondly when I win, I want you to train me how to use these hollow powers. I'll have already proven the fact I'm stronger than you by that point." Rukia continues.

"Very well, what about Aizen?"

"What about Aizen? When the time comes, we kill him. Together."

"I can agree to this. Though I have one last of my own. When we kill Aizen, I get to take his Hogyoku." Hoakita responds in a more sinister sounding tone. "It's already bothersome that he took away my meal, it could have lasted me a hundred life times and a hundred more, but without it I'm terribly hungry."

"Let's go have some of Yuzu's cooking then."

"Very well... I wonder what Ichi and his hollow have agreed upon."

"Knowing Ichigo, they're probably just going to argue then try to beat to crap out of each other."

"Rukia. You're gonna make my sisters think you're insane if you keep talking to yourself alone in my room." Ichigo interrupts the conversation with the hollow. "Breakfast is downstairs for you, I need to get changed." Shortly after he says this, Rukia opens the door to Ichigo's room and exits, now having fully dressed.

"Thank you Ichigo." She responds before leaving the room, as she passes him, Ichigo grabs her arm and leans in towards her ear.

"Tell me what your hollow said when we leave for school, she's far more talkative than my own and I'm starting to get concerned." He says, rubbing his thumb across her bicep in a calming manner. "I'll see you down stairs."

With the words from both Ichigo and Hoakita still echoing in her mind, Rukia calmly eats her breakfast in near total silence. She still makes the expected responses from Isshin and the twins to their questions but most of breakfast is spent with her in her thoughts. By the time Ichigo gets back downstairs in his school uniform, Rukia is now just playing with the last couple bites of her rice porridge lost in thought. She hears Ichigo say something to his father and then has her bowl taken from her by Karin. Before she could protest the theft of her meal, Isshin is thrown through the table by Ichigo who flipped the Kurosaki patriarch over his shoulder.

"That's what you get for saying something so perverted you goat chinned old coot!" Ichigo roars before slinging his bag over his shoulder and huffing a deep breath of agitation. "C'mon Rukia, we're gonna be late."

"Thank you for the meal Yuzu." Rukia responds before standing from her seat and following Ichigo out the door. Once outside, Rukia questions Ichigo about what Isshin said to get thrown through the table. "So... what did he say for you to do that to him?"

"That old bastard, concocting these weird perverted ideas. 'My boy Ichigo has finally become a man, sleeping in the same bed with my soon to be third daughter, hmm perhaps I should get some baby diapers for you two soon.' I tried to explain that you stayed in the loft I have in my closet but he's too much an idiot to take me seriously." Ichigo complains, mocking his father with a pretty spot on impression of him. Rukia laughs to herself hearing his impression of Isshin.

Arriving at the high school, Ichigo and Rukia make their way to the new semester's course hub to find their home room, luckily the two have an identical schedule the only difference in which their math and grammar classes take place. The rest of their classes are together which could easily allow for them to get rid of any hollows should the need arise. Upon their arrival, the voice of one of Ichigo's friends echoes through the halls as he sprints up to the orange haired man intending to greet him. "ICHIGO!!!" Keigo screams upon seeing his orange haired friend. Sprinting towards him at full speed, Ichigo returns this greeting by lifting his left arm and closelining Keigo with his bicep. This stops all of his forward momentum in an instant causing him to go tumbling to the ground as Ichigo greets him. "Yo." Is all he says as he continues walking past the now collapsed form of Keigo.

"Hey Ichigo, how was your sum- Oh, Rukia is with you. It's been a while Rukia." Mizuiro greets upon seeing the black haired Shinigami woman and his old strawberry friend.

"Far too long Mizuiro, I had to leave back then because I had a bit of a family emergency but everything is all sorted out now." Rukia responds as Ichigo holds open the door to the classroom for both her and Mizuiro.

"What about you, Ichigo? What were you up to?"

"I went out of the country to visit some family, some old relatives on my mom's side." he responds as he slings his book bag over the side of his desk and slumps in his chair.

With Uryu, Inoue and Chad soon entering the room, the teacher for their class shortly follows inside before going over roll call. She comments on two members of the class that are delinquents not being there but brushes it off before starting the class. Ichigo himself doesn't pay much attention to this, however what does peak his attention is an announcement that the teacher has to make about a new transfer student entering the course. "Oh, before we get fully started, I almost forgot we have a new transf-'' Ichigo, however, is distracted by the soul badge in his hands suddenly going off and nearly startling him out of his skin. The sudden alarm from the soul pager early causes him to throw it in the air alerting Rukia Chad, Uryu and Orihime. Just as Ichigo is about to get up to excuse himself to use the restroom they hear a familiar voice from outside.

"OI Kurosaki! I know you're in there! It's me! Renji!" Renji yells from down below the classroom. The students lean over towards the windows to see the red haired man dressed as a hippy yelling up at Ichigo's classroom.

"That idiot. Sensei, my cousin is here from out of town and is yelling outside. Mind if I deal with this?" Ichigo fibs but with no other evidence against the fib he's allowed to leave to go and deal with Renji. The class watches in amusement as Ichigo sprints from around the corner to grab Renji by the face and takes off running towards bush out of line of sight from anyone in the class.

"About time you show up. Kisuke said that you'd be here. What is this place any-" Renji is cut off by Ichigo slugging him in the stomach for what he did. "YOU BASTARD!!! What the hell was that for?!" He roars in response.

"We're at a school you idiot. There's teachers and people here and you're not a student! Are you trying to get arrested?! What the hell are you doing here anyways?" Ichigo retorts, stealing Renji's silly hat.

"Captain Kuchiki put me in charge of Karakura while you and Rukia are dealing with your hollow problem. Figured you two would need all the help you can get." Renji says pridefully before getting shot down by Ichigo.

"Don't non-seated officers get sent on patrols of the human world? Looks like you got demoted." Ichigo jeers smugly, before Renji could respond however a Hollow's lonely roar echoes over the city.  

"Shit. Hollow. Ichigo help me get out of this!"

"Why should I help you, mister Lieutenant?!"

"Because I've never been in a Gigai before!"

"Gah you're pathetic. I'll kill the stupid thing." Ichigo declares before separating his soul reaper form with his body. His body falls backwards and pins Renji to the ground while Ichigo runs off to deal with the hollow. With a single slash through the head and mask, it dissipates allowing the substitute to return back to his body.