Bleach: Derailed

Sorry about the mispost I had earlier. I accidentally hit post in the wrong thread while I was busy.

[64] Appease Zangetsu
[50] See what's up with Kukaku
[23] Meet with Komamura

---

Your understanding of your skills has been updated.
Reiryoku (spirit power): Lots
Hakuda (unarmed): Surprisingly effective
Hoho (movement): You can dodge well, but it's no super speed
Kido
-Kaido (healing): Unreliable
-Bakudo (sealing): You've got one good trick
-Hado (destructive): Be careful, and stick to small spells
Zanjutsu (swords): What the fuck, Zangetsu?

---

Kukaku could want to meet you to pass on that message to your family, your living family, but she told you that you have about a month to work with. Captain Komamura has a window of the same time-span.

As much as you want to charge off to the house on the outskirts of the outer districts the moment you wake up on Sunday, you think you understand thing or two about priorities now that you didn't use to. The other two will wait gracefully, at least for a few weeks, but Zangetsu...

"Took you long enough!" He quips as you land on the outside of one of the sideways skyscrapers that make up your inner world. Zangetsu stands, as he always does when you enter, directly across from you.

"We need to talk." You say.

"So what was it that finally got the message across? Was it showing off just how un-mastered your shikai was in front of hundreds of people?"

"I was how you sabotaged me while I was fighting a guy who can turn his sword into flying razor blades. What the hell, Zangetsu? I could have died."

The sword spirit shrugs. "Welcome to a hollow-killing organization. Risk is just one more thing you're going to have to have to accept. Besides, this is an object lesson, Ichigo. It's not supposed to be fast or easy to get over, because otherwise you'd just ignore it, wouldn't you!?"

"Of course not."

"Don't lie to me." Zangetsu says.

"I'm not lying."

"Then explain why you ignored me when I made it clear that I didn't like being crammed into a smaller shape."

"...It's your size, okay." You admit after a long silence and a short sigh. "You're not very practical, and... I feel like an idiot, waving your around like some kind of anime character."

Zangetsu's reply is succinct and to the point. "Well fuck you too, Ichigo."

"Look, it's not an insult. You're just not very practical to carry around all the time, and-"

"You think a blade should be EASY? It should be CONVENIENT for you to carry a sword?" He snaps. "Do you know what a zanpakuto represents, or are your brains mush? I was remade to cleanse the hungry dead, to kill monsters, to kick. Ass. Do those things sound like they're supposed to be easy?"

"It's not like that!" You finally snap back, heat rising in your throat as you shout. The silence afterward is telling. "Look... I hit somebody with you by accident, in a bar. She was a soul reaper! It's not wrong to want not to smack people with you when I don't want to, and it's not like that was the first time. Remember when Takako tripped and fell down the stairs because I turned around?"

Zangetsu snaps his mouth shut with a click. He stares at you for several seconds, and then wrinkles his face up with an expression of profound disgust. "I guess." He says the words quickly, as though they actually pain him to admit. "But that doesn't make you right."

"Yes it do-" You step in and catch Zangetsu's sudden lunge with the blue plate of your bakudo. His sword, previously hidden up his sleeve, is the same small-sized shikai you were surprised by in the tournament.

"The only thing that matters, when discussing what makes people right, is power." He says, and you pay attention because the aggrieved bite is gone from him. Instead he's intense, focused, like a razor blade -like a zanpakuto's edge, but as he speaks his volume intensifies. "Power is why you're not standing in some run down hovel in the outer districts, struggling to remember your sisters' faces! Power is why a captain of the Thirteen Court Squads wants to meet with you! Power is what determines if you're right, or if you're food or trash to be trampled underfoot!"

You get the impression that you're not going to have the spare time to visit Kukaku or Komamura this week, if this is what you're going to be dealing with. "So what, you want me to beat you down again?"

"I was planning on letting you use a 'normal' blade while I used my true form, but damn if you haven't convinced me again. I'll give you... ten months."

"Ten months for what." It's not a question. You really don't want to know the answer. "Are you sure you can't just stop messing with my shikai?"

"I don't take anything laying down. It's not in my nature." Zangetsu says, and grins maniacally. "I'll take whatever size you want... as long as you can gain my bankai. In. Ten. Months."

Bankai, the culmination of a zanpakuto's power, as far above shikai as a shikai is above an unreleased blade -roughly. "That's supposed to take ten years, not ten months!" You protest.

"Nine months, then." Zangetsu counters.

"But you just said ten!" You point at him accusingly.

The white version of you taps his finger on his chin. "No, I think I said you get seven months to learn bankai. That's what I said, right?"

You snap upright, out of your meditative pose, ripping your way back into Soul Society by sheer frustration, and punch through your dorm room's wall, burying your arm up to the elbow.

"What the hell!?" The man on the other side screams, shrilly, which is exactly what you were thinking.

Three weeks remain to meet with Kukaku.
Three weeks remain for Komamura's invitation.
Thirty weeks remain for Zangetsu's bankai challenge.

What to do about Zangetsu? Maybe carrying him around in shikai will make him easier to deal with.
[] Keep him in shikai
[] Keep him unreleased

What to do on your free day next week?
[] Visit Kukaku and see what's going on there
[] Accept Komamura's invitation to meet
[] Maybe Gin can help with getting bankai