Night shrouded most of the architectural marvel that lay before them. A giant manor with too many rooms and locations to be counted on fingers. It’d been wonderful if not for its abysmal upkeep. Most of the manor was crumbling, and looked ancient without a doubt.

Ichigo wondered if he’d find a treasure buried in there. Trying to find comfort with another, Ichigo turned to Asta. However,

Asta’s eyes shone with a brightness that could only be pure marvel. He looked onto the Manor like it was the best piece of architecture one could’ve ever seen in a lifetime.

‘I guess it is the best piece of building he must’ve seen, the Royal Palace notwithstanding.’

Ichigo soon turned his attention to the others. The Captain and Finral. Neither of them showed any signs of ever paying attention to them, though Finral’s eyes would ever so slickly slide onto Asta, taking pride at his reaction.

The company soon arrived at the entrance, which quite suited the ancient-look. It grated open to reveal the interior of the House.

The interior was perfectly what someone would imagine a Manor of this stature would sport. A huge dining room, tables to house at least 20 or more, and a bar.

Quite the opposite with the group that currently inhabited it.

Ichigo could only stare at the occupants, who had seemingly yet to notice their arrival.

Two men, somewhere in their 20’s, were fighting each other, wrecking the entire place. They yelled at each other at the top of their voice, though Ichigo reflexively filtered it all out, having had tons of practice with Rukia.

Before anyone could even interrupt, a loud crash erupted adjacent to them, revealing an annoyed Captain Yami, as he burst through the smoke and debris.

An angry aura surrounded him, permeating Ichigo’s senses with pure rage. Even this, however, did not stop the squabbling.

A portion of the torn wall barely clung to the main structure, swaying even at the mercy of the wind. But it was soon struck down in an angry fit by the Captain who finally managed to gain the two’s attention.

“Stop destroying the house!” He yelled at them and Ichigo couldn’t help but abhor at the irony of the scene and the lack of awareness of said irony.

Everyone immediately stopped dead in their movements, before scrambling towards them in a hurry, forming a single line in front of them.

“Sorry, Captain Yami!” One of the squabbling men spoke up.

One by one, Ichigo took notice of the squad members, nicknaming them in his head.

‘So, Giant, Blondie, Mohawk-guy, …naked lady and a little girl?’ His mind transpired.

The squad’s members looked straight up delinquents though Ichigo knew better than to label them as such based on their appearance.

“These are our new introductions to the squad. Make sure to not kill them.” The Captain introduced them earning deserved gasps from Ichigo and Asta.

“~Welcome~” The Naked Lady chimed in. She stumbled onto her feet, before walking towards Ichigo.

“Finally, someone I can actually flirt with.” She whispered in a low tone, eyeing Ichigo like a rack of lamb.

Ichigo gave her a painfully dull smile, before turning towards the Mohawk guy.

“They need to undergo the initiation ceremony.” He spoke darkly, annoying Ichigo.

“But they’re still rookies.” Finral tried to object but failed.

“Let’s go weird-hair dude.” Mohawk Guy beckoned a slightly amused Ichigo to follow him outside.

The Initiation Ceremony meant fighting against the other squad members.

Once outside, the two took up a stance opposite the other, a few metres apart. The audience watching them was dead silent, except for Asta’s constant cheers.

The Mohawk guy introduced himself as Magna Swing and announced that he was Fire Magic User.

“I have a condition before we begin.” Ichigo declared, receiving a nod from Magna to continue.

“If I defeat you within half a minute, you have to keep Asta out of it.”

“Quite the nerve you got, eh? No can do buddy. The initiation isn’t something you can skip out on. You’ve gotta prove yourself worthy of receiving the Squad Cape.

And if you think you can beat me within half a minute, you are dead wrong.”

Magna’s hands immediately lit up in a brilliant aura of flames, illuminating their surroundings.

Directing it towards Ichigo, he shot a continuous barrage of fireballs.

Ichigo dodged them all without much effort. He was thinking about an effective way to knock his opponent out.

“Think you can still beat me?” Magna yelled out, before gathering more fire around his hands.

“Fire Magic: Exploding Fireball.”

A larger fireball shot straight towards Ichigo. Admittedly, it was about twice as fast as the previous ones. However, Ichigo still had no problem ducking out of its way.

Magna was now getting visibly annoyed by Ichigo’s evasion tactics. His mind quickly formulated a plan.

“Don’t think you can dodge this one!” He exclaimed before gathering an even higher concentration of flames.

“Fire Magic: Exploding Buckshot!”

Another barrage of fireballs exploded out of his hands and Ichigo quickly confirmed that Magna was right.

There was no way to dodge them without using Flash-Step.

‘Might as well end this. It’s been 30 seconds, I guess.’

A second before the flames could touch Ichigo, he vanished out of their sights, reappearing and disappearing as the buck-shots were about to make contact.

Slowly, but surely Ichigo gained ground.

Once he was close enough, the onslaught stopped altogether as Magna let it go in favour of a last ditch effort.

However, Ichigo had already formed his attack. He calmly thrust an open palm in front of Magna, whispering,

“Hado #31: Shakkaho.”

The red sphere deftly exploded, although on a very small scale, blowing Magna away.

“Yeah~! That’s our Ichigo!” Asta yelled out, embarrassing Ichigo a bit.

Magna soon got up, having received almost no injury other than a singed chest.

“Nice match. I thought you used Sword Magic, but you didn’t draw them even once.” He stated, dusting himself off.

“Yeah, didn’t really need them. Not that they’d been useful anyway.” Ichigo lied, trying not to wound his pride.

A flying black cape soon made its way towards Ichigo, draping itself around his shoulder. The Squad symbol that was imprinted on it, now settled firmly over his heart.

Magna nodded satisfactorily before turning towards Asta. His breath had almost evened out but he could still feel exhaustion from the depletion of Magic creeping up on him.

“You’re up, kid.” He pointed towards Asta.

Once they both were ready, Magna spoke up. “Since Ichigo there, has depleted my magic, all you gotta do kid, is to defend against my attack. if you do that, you pass.”

Asta agreed to the condition without much thought.

As both their Grimoires flared to life, once more the exhaustively suffocating feeling filled Ichigo’s senses.

This time however, he was more than ready for it. He quickly analysed it, trying to find what feelings he could sense…

He came back to his senses almost at the end of the battle. Asta had managed to survive thus far.

Stolen story; please report.

Magna soon fired an exploding fireball at his opponent. And to Ichigo’s actual surprise, Asta froze on the spot, making no move to block or get out of its way.

In the nick of time, as the ball was about to make contact, Asta shook out of his trance, batting the fireball back to its caster with the flat side of his huge broad sword.

Magna, exhausted as he already was, looked on in dread as the fireball exploded on making contact with him, engulfing him in a fury of flames.

Ichigo smiled proudly. Asta had just won.

However, the others were staring at Asta, bewildered. And Ichigo soon connected the dots.

As the name of the spell suggested, the fireball was supposed to explode on any contact. However, it didn’t do so on making contact with Asta’s sword, implying that the Magic had been, in the truest sense of the word, deflected.

Ichigo’s smile widened at this. Turns out Asta is actually good at whatever the attribute of his Grimoire was.

Magna soon plopped up from the attack that had almost left him unconscious, on the ground. He congratulated Asta, who seemed ecstatic after receiving his cape.

The day ended with a massive feast prepared by Charmy, who with the help of her magic had created tons of dishes for everyone.

As Ichigo got to know them better, he understood that the rag-tag bunch of them weren’t half as bad as he’d surmised before.

Soon enough, after the feast, Finral showed Ichigo to his room. It was dusty to a fault, but dainty enough for his liking.

A medium sized bed and a small study table adorned the room. There were no curtains to the windows, but in this remote area, they were unnecessary.

Ichigo soon sat down on the mattress, wondering what he’d do about clothing. However, the day’s exhaustion soon caught up with him, luring him into deep sleep.

Or so he believed. Ichigo found himself face-planted once more on the glass window of a high-rise.

Huffing to himself, Ichigo got up. He fake-dusted himself before looking around for his Zanpakuto spirits.

“Are you trying to hide from me? Or are you just being cool at the wrong location?” He shouted out.

His answer came in the form of a single pole forming before him, shrouded in shadows.

“I see. You’re mad at me, aren’t you?”

The Old Man wouldn’t resort to such show-off unless he was angry at Ichigo for something.

“Yes.” A voice rung out from the shadows that soon dispersed to reveal Zangetsu, balancing on his usual pole.

“Okay. And am I supposed to know why you’re mad at me?” Ichigo asked vainly, only to receive a stern glare back.

“Got it then, self-reflection it is.”

Ichigo thought back over his day, wondering where he could have made a mistake.

During the initiation…No, Scaring the idiot in the toilet? Maybe. Oh wait! I know.

“It seems you’ve reached the answer. Tell me, Ichigo. Why am I angry at you?” The Old Man sassed at him.

“Are you really angry at me for using that small of an Getsuga? I don’t even think that could be called a Getsuga. It was more like coating the blade with reiatsu. A very tiny portion at that and in the sealed state!” Ichigo retorted.

“We had explicitly told you not to use it, until we could verify a few things. Even if it was trivial, as you mention. Now, I have no interest in your excuses. Tell me, why did you really use any reiatsu in the first place.

You’re well aware that mine or the Hollow’s blade is more than enough to slice up a small boulder like that.”

Ichigo sighed, before answering,

“Well I wanted to see if there were any differences between reiatsu and what these people referred to as mana. Turns out there isn’t much.” Ichigo added sheepishly.

Old Man Zangetsu rolled his eyes, his lips pursed into a thin line. Clearly, he wasn’t pleased with the reason. But he had to put up with it nevertheless.

A brief moment of silence passed before he spoke up again,

“I wouldn’t say that Ichigo. There is a difference between reiatsu and mana. Tell me Ichigo, what is the major difference between Mana users and Reiatsu users?”

Ichigo’s face quickly contorted into concentration as he racked his mind for an answer.

“Oh, I know. Their status as living and dead.”

“Very close. Your soul is expending reiatsu while their bodies are using mana.” The Old Man explained.

Though from the clear confusion on Ichigo’s face, Zangetsu hurried to formulate another explanation.

“Simply put, souls require reiatsu to become soul reapers much as the humans here require mana to perform Magic spells.”

“Oh so the only difference is the way we are using the energy, right?” Ichigo summarised.

“Correct.”

“Alright, now that we have that out of the way. Tell me, have you found out the reason why we’ve ended up in this reality in the first place?” Ichigo asked.

As the question rung out through the inner world, a grunt accompanied it.

Soon enough, White presented himself wearing the patented Ichigo scowl on his face.

“Finally, you’re asking the right questions. Tell him the answer, Old Man.” He turned towards the Old Man, who curiously held his gaze at the Hollow.

“I believe I had explained it to you, as well. Why turn to me? You could’ve done so yourself.” He retorted.

At this, a furious blush creeped up onto White’s face.

“Well… You see… I may require another explanation.” He answered sheepishly.

Zangetsu sighed at this.

“Well, I can confirm that it wasn’t just the strength of the Getsuga Tenshou that opened the rift between dimensions. It was partly due to the instability of the flow of time-space continuum that resulted in us ending up in an alternate reality.”

“Phew, that’s a relief. At least I can use my powers again.”

“You were getting by just fine among those weaklings, King.” White retorted.

“I think it’s safe to say that I just haven’t met anyone strong enough to play that hard. I have yet to even unseal you guys.” A lop sided grin formed on his face. He had sure gotten strong in the past few years.

“And there’s a long way to go ahead.” White added.

Ichigo hummed in approval.

“Ichigo. I don’t think it’s much of a relief. An instability in the space between dimensions isn’t something to take lightly.” The Old Man admonished the two.

Both of them quickly sobered up, turning their attention towards the Old Man.

“What can cause something like that? Our Bankai, maybe?” Ichigo suggested.

“Maybe. But that would have caused an incident in our own world. And we never witnessed something like that during our training.” Zangetsu reasoned.

“Though I think I have a theory. Imagine the space-time continuum as a flowing river, where each stream of the river can be isolated as a single reality like our own or the one we currently reside in.

Now, if there exists an obstruction to this flow, then that causes an instability. That is also the main reason why I don’t believe our Bankai has anything to do with it.”

“But what in the world can obstruct something like the flow of time, itself.” White chimed in.

“That is what we should find out. If we return.” The Old Man averted his gaze, staring off at the deep blue sky.

A prolonged silence reigned in, the gravity of the situation finally sinking into them.

“Hey King? What’s stopping you from busting into the Magic Emperor’s office and getting some damn answers already?” White spoke haughtily.

And he was somewhat justified using such a tone.

“I can’t just bust into an ‘Emperor’s office’! Not without breaking some sort of law.

And if it just so happens that he doesn’t have an answer to our problem. Well then, we can kiss our chance of a peaceful life here, goodbye.” Ichigo exclaimed back.

Clearly, the temperatures in the room were running hot. White and Ichigo glared at each other, relentlessly.

“Is it not worth the risk!?” White yelled back, his voice fraying if just a bit.

At this, Ichigo slightly mellowed out. He knew the Hollow just wanted to get back to Orihime. And to tell the truth, Ichigo wanted nothing more than to oblige. But not now.

Ichigo pointed towards a gloomy Zangetsu standing off to the side. “I don’t think so.” He muttered and White quickly understood. The Old Man wouldn’t have been so gloomy, had the risk been even remotely worth it.

“Why, though!” White ranted. “King, just go Bankai and open a dimensional rift so we can go back home!”

Hearing this, the Old Man once more spoke up, “Because there are endless possibilities where we could we end up. And only one of them is our home.” Zangetsu stared right at White, unnerving him into silence.

All three of them once more pondered in silence, racking their minds away.

Ichigo sighed before a long groan escaped his lips. “I’m going to sleep. I am too tired to be dealing with this.”

Saying this, Ichigo waved them a goodbye before falling back into darkness.

Ichigo awoke to nothing. Quite literally.

A blanket of dead space surrounded him, giving Ichigo the strongest Goosebumps.

It eerily reminded him of the rift in dimensions that he’d been sucked into.

“White? Old Man?” He mentally yelled out. However, to his utter disbelief, he received no answer.

“How’s this possible!? There’s no way.” He muttered in panic. He tried once more only to fail.

The next blow to Ichigo’s sanity appeared in the fact that he soon found he couldn’t move.

Try with all his might, he couldn’t move to save his life.

“What in the world is going on!” He yelled at the top of his voice.

As if to answer his request, a shuffling sound reverberated throughout the world.

Ichigo tried to whirl his head around, but still couldn’t move. As Ichigo struggled to get over his paralysis, a strange tune began playing.

Ichigo froze his vain attempts, his eyes widening at the tempo of the tune. Suffice to say, it was creepy enough to catch his attention.

If that wasn’t enough however, Ichigo soon realized what the tune was.

Ambience.

‘Walls have ears.

Doors have eyes.

Trees have voices,

And men tell lies.

What should the little child do to survive?

Beware the light?

Beware the mind?

Or…

Beware the darkness that’s…’

The little tune ended here along with the creepy voice that recited the poem and Ichigo couldn’t help but connect the dots in his mind at what the last words would be.

“Right behind” came the hoarsest voice Ichigo had ever heard in his entire life, right behind his left ear.

Ichigo froze even his breathing, anticipating what came next. However, nothing attacked him. Even with his instincts on high alert, he couldn’t sense another presence with him.

Soon enough, his senses became numb as he lost sight of the creepy setting, embracing the darkness that enveloped him.

Ichigo groaned as his eyes opened directly into sunlight, blinding him.

‘It’s dawn already?’

Ichigo sat up in a single fluid motion gazing around his surroundings frantically.

He heaved a sigh of relief once he realized he was alone.

“White? Old Man?” He almost yelled out.

‘Yeah King, what is it?’ White answered almost instantaneously, ridding Ichigo of his growing anxiety.

“What the f*** was that dream last night?” Ichigo muttered enraged.

‘Wow. Well, either way I don’t think we’ll be able to help, yet.”

“You haven’t even heard what I have to say!”

“We know what you’re talking about. We checked your memories the moment we sensed the distress. The Old Man’s trying to come up with an explanation but so far, no Bueno.” White explained.

“Damn it!” Ichigo swore. There had to be an explanation. The creepy poem or whatever it was had to be some kind of warning.

‘Nah, King. It kinda sounded like something I’d do’ White replied to his train of thoughts.

“Elaborate White. What do you think?” Ichigo asked frustrated.

‘Well, it sounded like he was taunting us. Like telling us it’s coming and saying “Whatchya gonna do bout that?” That’s why I said it sounded like something I’d do.’

“That doesn’t sound very good. And ‘it’?” Ichigo questioned.

‘Yeah. Whatever that was, it wasn’t human. That much is clear. The power that made contact with us was far more sinister.’ White replied in a shiver.

“Great. So something’s coming. But why tell me? I’m not even of this world.” Ichigo groaned.

‘Speculating aimlessly ain’t gonna help, King. You should go. It’s way past dawn and your squad mates must be waiting for you.’ Saying this, White withdrew into the inner world leaving Ichigo to his musings.