Stabbingly.

I woke up, I washed myself, I clothed myself, and I went out. Nothing out of the ordinary this far I assure you, but as you know my goal was something extraordinary for me. ‘Still having doubts?’ Merc guessed, or read, my thoughts correctly. I answered with a simple ‘Yes. Silence followed.

When the Dangai bureau came in sight I pinned the second earring to my ear. It felt unusual to have the pair complete again, but then again it would simplify a lot of things. I jumped over the counter into the building. No one paid any mind. Then I followed the necessary procedures to open the gateway.

On my way out I took another sweeping plan with me, you can never be too careful about that Kototsu thing. The Dangai opened in front of me, I took another deep breath and started running.

This time nobody bid me farewell.

Weirdly enough I exited the portal on the schools roof. Of course nobody was in the school yet, it was maybe 5 o’clock, but that was okay my goal lied elsewhere in his bed. By jumping from roof to roof I managed to cover the distance to Ichigo’s house in a short amount of time. Once I had arrived there I opened the window and stepped in.

As I had expected Ichigo was sleeping, well it was a well-earned rest but I was about to cut that short. I grabbed him by the shoulder and started shaking him. “Wah? Oh it’s you – ehr, Guy.” “Nize, look I will let you get right back to sleep but I wanted to ask how you were taught Bankai that fast.” Ichigo rubbed some sleep from his eyes. “That? Yoruichi had some kind of puppet Urahara made, don’t know how it worked though.”

That was enough for me. I let go of his shoulder and left with a bow. Of course I could have left by flipping him off, would have seen just as normal to him, but manners still mattered to me. Thankfully I had already found out where Kisuke was staying back when I had tracked Rukia. Sometimes fate works in your favour, even if you are too dumb to recognize things the first round.

To my surprise Urahara Kisuke was already sitting in front of his shop, purring some mil into a bowl. Yoruichi stood right next to him. “You know I am not going to drink that in this form, right?” she asked, Urahara giggled but said nothing in response.

Kisuke had the same White and Green outfit and unkempt look I had seen him in last time, same went for Yoruichi who still wore her orange jacket with the black one-piece. They didn’t pay any mind to me until I opened my mouth. “Urahara Kisuke, I want you to teach me how to release Bankai.”

“No can do, kid.” Urahara said and hid half of his face behind a fan he pulled out of nowhere. “I have enough things to do as is, building a seal and all that crap.” Whatever he meant by that I didn’t know, neither did it matter to me. “When I ask you to train me Urahara it would be normal for you to help me.”

“Mhm, now that you mention it.” The fan disappeared and revealed a beautiful smile. “How strong do you want to get?”

“As strong as possible.” The smile turned sinister, his hat throwing an equally menacing shadow over his eyes. “Oh yeah? You sure? You gonna do whatever it takes and all of that?” I wasn’t about to stop so I simply nodded. “Close your eyes then.” Urahara said and grabbed a cane that had lied unused next to him up to this time. I obeyed.

Then I felt him stab my chest two times. “The….Fuck?” I managed to press out before slumping forwards a pair of hands caught me. My eyes were quickly loosing focus but I made out Yoruichi’s face above me. “This next part will suck, but if you live I will teach you Bankai and then some friends of mine will….” I didn’t catch the of Urahara’s monologue as I fell ****.

A few hours later in the back of the shop.

“Why do you want to do this?” Tessai asked in one hand he held Nize in the other a Gigai. “Forcefully merging a soul with a Gigai is dangerous as is, but you also just smashed his Saketsu and Hakusui, he has no spiritual power left at all.”

“Exactly, and next I will put him into a Gigai that will get rid of the last traces of his energy while he sleeps.” Urahara seemed unusually cheerful about the situation, but Tessai knew him well enough to know there was something else Urahara was hiding.

“Again, why?” Urahara stopped tinkering on the device he was working on, it looked like some kind of human-frame, was made of metal and lied on the ground where it towered at roughly a metre in height. “To reproduce Ichigo’s growth. First I destroyed his powers but for the next step I need to make him human again.”

He started working again, “Of course he doesn’t have the same latent potential, but then again who has? With those parents…. Well we could skip all of this if he only wanted to learn Bankai but he wanted to get as strong as possible.”

With a last turn of a screw Urahara put away his tools and gestured Tessai to lie both the Giggai and Nize into the device. Tessai followed his instructions and Urahara activated the device. “And without the Hogyoku around this is the best way I can think of.”

Blue light filled the room as Nize slowly merged into the Gigai, which in return assumed his features. The two men watched for a while. "So where has Yoruichi gone to?" Tessai asked. Urahara raised his shoulders, "Probably showering under a waterfall or something like that."