Chapter 4

Ichigo grinned in triumph as he witnessed the retreat of the Menos Grande and turned around to Uryu with a smug look on his bloody face. "What's the matter Uryu? Cat got your tongue?"

However the smug grin vanished, replaced by a pained sneer when he slowly lost feeling in his legs and dropped to the ground with a meaty thud.

What the hell is going on?! I can't even move! Ichigo thought in worry, trying to regain some semblance of support. The sword in his hand suddenly started pulsing uncontrollably, emitting wave after wave of energy into the atmosphere.

"Ichigo used all of his Spirit Energy at once, causing his body to handle more strain than it was accustomed to," Rukia said in a worried tone.

He must have an enormous amount of Spirit Energy to be able hurt a Menos Grande! Uryu Ishida mused in disbelief. I have to do something. If I connect myself with his Spirit Energy through his Zanpakuto and fire all excessive energy into the air, I might be able to stabilize it enough for him to regain control.

Just as he was about to step forward and reach for the sword, a new unfamiliar but deep and smooth voice stopped him "Perhaps I could be of some assistance."

The group turned towards the source of the voice and saw two figures approaching them, a tall man and a woman in possession of some shocking features and garbed in strange clothes.

Kisuke Urahara gazed at the strange man and woman in interest and wariness. Judging from their clothes, they were not from here, in fact he didn't know any place with people garbed in such attire. He had the feeling as if something or someone had been watching them from afar during the fight, but hadn't been able to quite locate the source.

Now, he was sure who was watching them during the confusion.

The man was stranger than the woman seeing as he was in possession of some interesting facial and body features, meaning the claws and red eyes.

As for the woman, it had to be her otherworldly beauty.

The fact that they had evaded his senses during the fight and that he couldn't sense them now even though they were standing in front of them, made him wary to no end. However, he sensed nothing hostile from them, in fact he couldn't sense anything at all from them, he decided to believe his instincts as it was telling him to trust the strange duo.

Wow! Rukia thought with a slight hint of redness on her cheeks.

"Sure, it will be kind of you if you can."

Haruto nodded softly, moving forward and kneeled down beside the prone body of Ichigo while the others watched in interest and curiosity.

Haruto calmly placed his hand on the pulsing sword, the group watched in amazement and awe as the energy release died down and disappeared into the glowing hand of the mysterious man, eventually vanishing completely.

Ichigo grunted in pain and struggled to stand up, unmistakably strained by the whole process; however he was stopped by a firm hand before he could try to stand.

"I suggest you don't move for a while, Strawberry." Blissfully ignoring the shouts of indignation from the struggling teen as he spewed out curses one after the other, Haruto turned his gaze to his beautiful blonde wife. "Naru, if you please."

Getting the hint, Naruko wordlessly moved towards them and placed her glowing hand on the boy's back. Ichigo relaxed considerably as a comforting and relaxing energy entered his body, mending his broken ribs, replacing his damaged cells, overcoming it completely.

He felt as though he was a whole new person, as though he hadn't fought at all! The relaxing energy vanished as soon as it had appeared while he stood up, flexing his arms to test if it was all just a dream. You can't just heal that quickly, and yet these strangers did just that in a few seconds!

Kisuke and Uryu were thinking the same thing. Even all the healing spells he had seen during his captaincy, none of them came close to the effectiveness of this one. It didn't take them any effort at all. It obviously wasn't a healing Kido, so what was it? These two sure were strange and interesting.

Kisuke took the initiative of introducing himself to the strange duo.

"My name is Urahara Kisuke. The two standing behind me are Ururu and Jinta respectively." Gesturing to a tall and muscular man with dark glasses, Kisuke flipped open his fan and grinned widely. "And last but not the least my assistance Tessei."

"Kurosaki Ichigo." Ichigo said dryly, still miffed about the comment. He had enough people insulting his perfectly colored hair, now he had to worry about another one! He saw nothing wrong with his hair! What was wrong with orange anyway?! It was a wonderful color!

"Ishida Uryu, a pleasure."

"Kuchiki Rukia." Rukia said politely, followed by a small bow.

"My name is Namikaze Haruto." Gesturing to the busty lady standing beside him, Haruto wrapped his hand around her narrow waist and pulled her close to his body. "This gorgeous young lady here is my wife, Naruko. FYI, don't get on her bad side, she has one mean left hook!"

The aforementioned blonde smirked triumphantly. "You heard him."

"Anyway, it's a pleasure to meet you, Bucket, Shades, Pinhead, Meeky, Moustache, Shorty and Shorty no 2."

The group sweatdropped. Was this guy for real!? Who the hell calls people with rude nicknames after meeting them for the first time?!

After the rather awkward introduction, the group descended into an uncomfortable silence.

"So are we going to stand here all day or what?" Haruto started impatiently after a few minutes of awkward and uncomfortable silence.

Kisuke laughed cheerfully, knowing what was coming when he saw the almost constipated expression on the redhead's face during the silence.

"You know what? You guys are interesting. I haven't seen you in Karakura Town so you must be new here."

"Yep!" Haruto exclaimed cheerfully. "Now then bucket, can you explain what those gender-confused bastards were doing down there?"

"Those were Hollows." Seeing the confused look on the duo's faces, he grinned sheepishly. "You don't know what Hollows are, do you? Okay then, why don't you come by my store tomorrow and I will explain everything in details."

"That reminds me, how the hell can you see me?" Ichigo stated in surprise and confusion. While the whole Shinigami stuff was still pretty new to him, he at least understood the basics. The basics said that no ordinary person may be able to see him when he was in this form.

His surprised state of mind didn't even register that these two had displayed abilities which couldn't exactly be listed as ordinary by any standard.

"What the hell do you mean, Pinhead? You are standing right there." Haruto retorted dryly. "Are you supposed to be invisible or something, because I can clearly see your sorry ass from here."

"He has a point you know, if he couldn't see you, then how did he heal your beaten ass?" Uryu put his two cents into it as well as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He liked this guy already. Anyone with a dislike for sugarcoating his words and a dark sense of humor was a plus in his books!

"Why you…" Seeing the incoming bickering, Kisuke decided to interject before the duo continued any further. He had much better things to do than stand here all day and listen to these two strangely alike individuals, such as figuring out who or what these new characters were.

On a side note, he also needed to sell a few products which were about to expire in a few days to some unsuspecting customer, but you didn't hear that from him!

"Like I said everything will be explained in details in my store." Taking out a piece of paper, Kisuke wrote something on it and handed it over to Haruto. "That's the address to my store"

Haruto nodded, grabbing the paper and pocketing it. "All right, we will try to be there. Now Naru, let's be on our way."

Taking a hold of Naruko's hand, he started walking out of the park while enjoying the scenery.

"There is something strange about those two. I can't sense any Spirit Energy or Spiritual Pressure from them and yet they were able to see you in your Shingami form. Not to mention that strange Absorption Technique demonstrated by the red haired man as well as the Healing Technique." Kisuke surmised while the rest of the group nodded in agreement.