A Bold Move

Two shinigami made their way swiftly across the plains of the Rukongai. Wearing sand colored hooded cloaks over their robes, they proceeded with an effort to remain unnoticed and unidentified. The hot sun shone down on the area, causing shimmering waves of heat to rise from the barren rock strewn land. Still, the shinigami pressed on, putting some distance between themselves and the Seireitei.

They soon reached the end of the wasteland and arrived at a forested district on the other side. The taller of the two took the lead at this time, guiding the other into the thick growth of the forest. They walked in silence for a length of time, the leader checking periodically to make sure that they were headed in the right direction. After about an hour of careful hiking, they came to a brightly lit clearing. The leading shinigami brought his hands up and removed his hood, allowing him to survey the area with unrestricted vision.

Kuro gazed around the clearing with a sad look of nostalgia on his face. His companion, Mika Nishino, took this time to remove her hood and cloak, sitting down on the grassy floor to get a quick rest after their walk. The clearing was not like Kuro remembered it. It was wild and unkept, the grass long and wavy. Small plants and bushes had begun to creep in on it from the sides, threatening to one day swallow it back up into the forest's being. Kuro sat down next to Mika and followed her example of a quick break. After they had a breather, they had plans to get very busy. Since the confrontation with Onmitsukido commander Raiden, they had been secretly training to improve their skills and prepare for the eventual showdown that would undoubtably arrive someday. Their journey to this remote place was an effort to keep their actions hidden from the commander. Kuro got up and stretched for a few seconds before speaking.

"We may as well get started. We don't want to waste too much daylight."

Mika leapt up with an enthusiasm that surprised Kuro, but pleased him as well. This girl's spirits never seemed to fail her. "Ready to go Taichou. Thank you for your continued assistance with my improvement."

"Always so formal, you silly girl. Oh well, let's do this."

Both of them drew their zanpakutos and began to continuously circle the area, charging and striking at each other and dodging the other's blows at random intervals. Mika was improving fast, but she was still nowhere close to Kuro's full power. He held back in this fight, putting only enough pressure on her to force her to slowly increase her skills. One benefit of the constant training that they had been conducting was a heavy increase of stamina in the both of them. They continued their training session for several hours before collapsing on the grass out of breath. Kuro pulled himself to a sitting position and decided it was time for a break.

"Get some rest." he said flatly. "We'll start again in a few minutes."

Mika obeyed, standing up and walking over to take a seat beside Kuro. Her labored breath quickly began to calm down, allowing her to ask something that she seemed to have had on her mind since arriving. "Taichou, you looked a little sad when we got here. If it's alright, can you tell me if it has something to do with this place?"

Kuro was surprised by her question, but sighed as he realized that he'd been a little obvious about his feelings. He glanced around the clearing again, memories surfacing that he hadn't thought of for some time.

"It's a long story, and it starts with this clearing. I was the one who made this clearing, years ago. It was a training exercise with my zanpakuto. I was practicing my shikai's abilities and took down all the trees in this space. Another day when I returned for more training, I encountered a couple of thugs who had kidnapped children from a nearby village. I defeated them and returned the children to their home. I expected nothing else after that, but the village surprised me by moving a large number of its people into this clearing. They were grateful for the help I'd given their children and decided to repay me by turning this clearing and the forest around it into my own personal training camp." Kuro smiled at this point. "The following weeks were fantastic. The villagers worked me hard, but always supported me when I needed it. There were even some children in the camp who seemed to look up to me for what I'd done for them and how hard I worked. But those times didn't last."

Kuro's expression grew gloomy as he reached the troublesome part of his story. "It was around this time that hostilities threatened to break out between the noble families for control of the Soul Society. Although it never reached the point of all out conflict, all of the families and the squads that allied with them began to search for additional forms of support. The family we serve, Shihoin, made the foolish decision to strike a deal with hollows. I personally was sent to Hueco Mundo to act as the envoy. I succeeded in brining a few hollows back, but the consequenses were fatal. Another group of hollows snuck in under the guise of being part of our allied forces and began to attack Rukongai citizens. I was training nearby here one day when one of the villagers in this camp found me and warned me of an attack here. I arrived too late and found the camp in flames with all the friends who had worked to help me slaughtered. The last one to go was a little boy, one of the children I'd saved that one day. He was killed right in front of me as I came into the camp. I killed the hollows responsible, but there was nothing else I could do for the villagers.

"The cival war quickly died down after that, and everything returned to normal, but I couldn't get over what had happened here. It was because the noble families weren't willing to submit and share their power that it escalated to even that point. So I worked hard to reach a position where I could gain some influence in the future. I'll do my best from the sidelines to make sure that at least the family we serve stays on the proper path. Which is why we have to win against Raiden."

Mika was in tears by now, overcome with emotion after hearing Kuro's story. "I never knew that you carried so much from your past Taichou. I'm sorry for making you relive those painful memories."

"It's no problem. I'm mostly over it now. I'm a captain now, and as such have most of the influence I longed for. And I have people like Tatsuya and you to help me in my efforts. So I'm alright."

Mika blushed bright red and lowered her gaze before she continued to speak in a quiet voice. "There's one more thing Taichou. Something I've meant to say for a while now...ever since you saved me from Hueco Mundo. The truth is..."

Kuro suddenly became aware of movement around the edges of the clearing. "Get down!" he cried as he dove forward and pushed Mika to the ground. A couple dozen throwing weapons, knives, shurikens and kunais, sailed over top of them in the spot their heads had been just previously. Kuro scowled as he lifted his head and saw about two score black clothed onmitsukido members coming into the clearing. He grimly smirked at the turnout.

"Bold move Raiden. I figured it was only a matter of time. Time to put this training to good use Mika. Let's go!"

Kuro shot from his kneeling position up at their attackers with a shunpo that carried him into battle like lightning. Taking his zanpakuto in hand, he released it silently with a fluid drawback of his hand which led directly to a powerful palm thrust into the chest of the first opponent he reached. The blow sent the foe flying back to the edge of the clearing, slamming him violently into the side of a large tree with a sickening crunching sound. Kuro was sure that the man would live, but he would not be rejoining this fight. He extended a blade of energy from his shikai's palm to parry the blades of two more opponents as they attempted to take him by surprise after his attack against the other. Again noting the number of foes and seeing others reaching for more throwing weapons, he issued a hasty order to Mika.

"We have to get to cover or we'll eventually take damage from their throwing weapons! Get into the forest! Use the trees to your advantage!"

After giving the order, Kuro threw his opponents off of him by fueling his physical strength with power from his zanpakuto. He took this time to follow his own advice and shunpoed to the side of the clearing, heading into the forest outside it. Mika had also managed to make her way to the forest, dodging another rain of projectiles as she escaped. Unfortunately, the haste they had been forced to act with had caused them to become separated, having exited the clearing at different points on its edge. If they tried to reunite the easy way by cutting back through the clearing, they would likely just walk into an ambush. The task now was to fight through the forest evading their enemies while locating each other.

Kuro found that the majority of the enemies had followed him. This made sense seeing as he was a captain. He was forced to continuously duck, weave, and jump to escape the constant barrage of coordinated attacks that were thrown his way. He even had to let a few chances to counterattack go by in order to assure his continued safety in addition to the enemies'. Though they were following Raiden, they were still in service to the same family Kuro was. He could not kill them in cold blood. They were just confused at the moment. When everything with Raiden is settled, then this will all be over and we can forget that these fights ever happened!

While Kuro was dealing with his challenge, Mika was having a more difficult time with hers. She had improved considerably under Kuro's training, but these were highly trained soldiers of the Covert Ops specializing in close combat. Mika followed Kuro's directions, using the cover of the trees to her advantage. She fought in a defensive nature, evading and parrying her attackers' strikes while continuing to weave her way through the trees and move closer to where Kuro had gone into the forest.

"Slice open the skies, Fusokutsu!" she commanded, releasing her zanpakuto into its shikai state. Her blade had transformed into a foot long curved blade that slightly resembled the shape of a machete. On the end of the blade's short handle was a large hollow ring. It didn't seem impressive, especially since it had shortened Mika's range of attack, making it easier for her opponents to push in closer. But Mika was full of surprises like always. Expertly wielding her blade by holding the ring, Mika held the blade out with as much distance as she could while keeping a firm grip on it and began to "dance" through the enemies with elegant moves that were almost mesmerizing to see. Her tenacity seemed to bother the foes, causing them to rethink their strategy.

"Forget about the girl! Focus the majority of our strength on the captain first. When he's down, the girl will be brought down by our numbers!"

Kuro did not hear this order as he was still preoccupied with the men who were already on him. To be honest, they were really starting to annoy him. But he continued to slowly defeat them. The problem was that there were so few opportunities to defeat one without gravely injuring him. Kuro made a break for it, dashing through the forested area towards where Mika's reiatsu was. He was surprised when he found his path cut off by the men who had left Mika behind. He was boxed in with no means of escape other than to go back out into the open clearing. Cursing under his breath, he darted to the side and burst through the brush into the open space. It was there that he saw an additional group whom he had not counted with the original assailants. They commenced their attack in waves to throw us off of their actual strength. Not bad Raiden.

Kuro thought about using his bankai to escape, but that would leave Mika in the position of handling these guys on her own. And using his bankai against these men would be too much. The strength of his bankai would be hard to prevent from fatally injuring at least one opponent of these men's level. As the line of men in front of him drew back their arms, each holding a number of throwing weapons, Kuro sighed and tried to think of a way out of this one. But before he could, a burst of power from inside the forest surprised him. It was definitely Mika's reiatsu, but the intensity was astounding. He heard her voice shouting at a volume that echoed from inside the trees.

"Don't you bastards look down on me like somebody you can treat like a leftover...and don't think for a second that I'll allow you to harm the person I love!"

Suddenly, a whirling noise came from inside the forest, soon followed by the sounds of falling trees. Kuro stole a glance towards where her voice had come from and saw a rapidly spinning shuriken, glowing with bright green spirit power, slice its way out of the forest's depths and fly towards Kuro and his foes. The shuriken however, missed the men, flying between them and Kuro, allowing them to resume their attack and unleash a large wave of projectiles at him. He put up his gauntlet, prepared to hastily fashion a shield to protect his vital spots, but found it unneeded. A rushing noise suddenly roared across the clearing like a violent gust of wind and the thrown weapons were pushed to the side as they came upon the area where Mika's shuriken had passed. Mika herself came bursting out of the forest now, following her weapon and landed in the middle of the clearing between Kuro and the men. She didn't turn to look at him, instead keeping her eyes on the enemy. Kuro smiled and strode up behind her as the attackers started to regroup. He raised a hand and lightly patted her on the head as he passed.

"You've grown so strong Mika. Thank you for helping me just now. Now let me return the favor and protect you again."

Kuro's eyes shone bright with his power and he shot forward with a new resolve. Unrestrained by his earlier wishes to go easy on these men, he found himself only interested in protecting Mika. "I don't care what you try to do to me, you foolish soldiers. But to attack my comrades on top of your misguided actions? That's over the line." Kuro was moving much faster than before, his hands seeming to be everywhere at once. Blasts of energy and shining blades could be seen appearing a midst the fray which lasted for several minutes before Kuro emerged mostly unharmed, save a few scratches to his arms and face. Mika looked like she was in awe for a moment, but quickly turned to a pouting nature.

"Taichou! You weren't fighting seriously at first! If you had fought like that from the beginning-..." she was quieted down by Kuro patting her head again with a large smile on his face, causing her to blush furiously again.

"If I had done that, I wouldn't have gotten to see your remarkable progress." he replied with a proud tone that showed how pleased he was. "Now about what you said back in the forest..."

Mika's blush grew unbelievably darker as she panicked with a frantic attempt to come up with an explanation. "Uh, that was something I said in a haste! I didn't mean it in any special way...or I mean that..." Mika could get no further as Kuro leaned forward and kissed her. Her mind went blank as he wrapped her in his arms and spoke in a gentle manner.

"I am happy that you feel that way for me. I don't know when my feelings became like this, but after seeing your efforts and service to the the squad and me...it just happened. I love you too Mika."

Kuro's words were answered only with happy sobs as Mika returned his embrace. The two stood like that in the clearing for a long time. The setting that had been a scene of so many memories and emotions for Kuro now had another grand experience added to it. Leaving the defeated soldiers behind, Kuro and Mika made their way back to the Seireitei hand in hand...but Kuro made a mental note to send some squad 4 members to check the area later in case they couldn't make their way back.