do you believe you're missing out

[alapimp]

Who: alapimp  and 1stguardian 
When: Early morning, 30th December
Where: Ichigo's bedroom, then to the SKIES \o/
Summary: Sousuke's training up the kid so, one glorious day, the snotrag will be worth fighting.
Warnings: PG13 for the deathberry's language? Something like that.

Comments

[1stguardian]

Sleep isn't something Ichigo's been getting often in Siren's Port. Oh, he catches a few hours here and there, but he's too tense, too busy worrying about everyone and everything, to relax enough to manage very much. Still, when he does sleep, he sleeps deeply, no longer needing to remain partially alert for shinigami coming in through his window. Not here in this place.

He doesn't hear Aizen enter the room, doesn't feel his approach or sense his reiatsu. And at first, he doesn't react to the hand on his mouth. The sensation just bleeds into a rather bizarre dream of Kon strangling him so he can run off with his body and become a movie star. Until the pressure starts to get uncomfortable and he begins, slowly, to realize that the dream is a little too real.

Jerking awake, thinking it's Shiro playing a joke on him, Ichigo opens his eyes, already beginning to glare. I was finally sleeping, you- Except it's very much not Shiro, and although Ichigo's become oddly comfortable in Aizen's presence, finding him leaning over him in his

[alapimp]

His smile quirks as Ichigo flails, raising a finger to his lips in a soundless gesture of Shh. When he's all but certain the boy won't make any further noise, Sousuke releases him and looks pointedly to the wardrobe.

Get dressed, he mouths, sitting on the end of Ichigo's bed and folding a leg, an elbow reclining on the window-ledge as he clearly awaits his instructions to be carried out; there's no question of Ichigo doing otherwise judging by the confident and controlled authority he exudes. Quickly.

[1stguardian]

For a moment, it's all ichigo can do to stare at him. Is it a test? Some bizarre training thing that he's forgotten he's supposed to be doing? He has no idea. But he's not waking up again and Aizen appears to be making himself at home on the bed, so it mustn't be a dream.

It's the strangeness that finally gets him moving, because answers will, he hopes, come shortly after he's done what he's being asked to do. Exchanging his pajamas for jeans and a sweater, Ichigo changes quickly and returns to the bed with his coat in hand. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that they're going somewhere.

What's going on?

[alapimp]

Rising when the boy's finished, Sousuke climbs with the ease of a shinigami onto the window ledge and crouches there for a moment, giving a faint nod; in the next moment, he's disappearing only to shunpo several dozen feet away, standing on a rooftop as the rain finally clears up, only a few splatters on his shoulders. In the dim morning light, everything appears grey and cold, reluctant to wake up at a normal time in a couple of hours; it can only be a few minutes after the siren when he first approached Ichigo's home, the world already freed of hellish nightmares.

Hands slide into the warm pockets of his coat as he awaits his companion.

[1stguardian]

Frowning, Ichigo watches him disappear out the window. He doesn't know why it's so hard to get a damn answer out of the man, but he can either stand there and be pissed off at nothing or go after him. It's not a difficult choice to make. By the time he catches up with Aizen on the rooftop, he's managed to get the coat on and settled, and the worst of his brief flare of temper has passed. He's never been much of a morning person. Especially on cold mornings.

Coming to a stop at the elder shinigami's side, Ichigo fixes him with a curious stare. "Okay, now will you tell me what we're doing?"

[alapimp]

"We were interrupted during your training the other day. I don't want your hollow to interfere with what I have to say to you for a second time, so you'll come with me."

Continuing to cloak his reiatsu, Sousuke's deep voice lilts thoughtfully.

"Today, you and I are going to play Tag." An anti-climax, perhaps, but for the gleam in his eye. "If you can land three touches on me, you'll have passed, whereas if I land them on you, you'll have failed and have to buy breakfast.

"I shan't use my Bankai, so neither shall you."

[1stguardian]

Opening his mouth to argue that point, Ichigo eventually decides against it. There really isn't anything Aizen can't say to him in front of Shiro, but he knows that whatever he does say is likely to precipitate an argument. And he can't really blame anyone for that.

Aizen's announcement of Tag surprises him, though not more than anything else that's happened this morning already has. As he listens to the parameters of the game, he leans just a little closer and lifts his hand toward Aizen's arm. He didn't say when those three touches started to count, and who knows, maybe being clever will win him some bonus points. The gesture stalls out, however, when Aizen mentions Bankai.

"Will you?" Ichigo asks, because how could he not. He's never seen Aizen's Bankai, and he doesn't know if anyone else has either. "At some point, will you show it to me?"

[alapimp]

A lengthy pause is on-going as he watches that hand creep closer out of the corner of his eye, only glancing at it as if to say Don't push your luck when it halts and Ichigo speaks, altering the tangent of the topic.

"I'm not sure that would be so appropriate," he finally settles on.

[1stguardian]

Reading that glance loud and clear, Ichigo drops his hand back to his side. No bonus points, then. That's all right, he'll try it the old fashioned way, and he's got some money tucked into his pocket. It should be enough to cover breakfast. Because he's seen how fast Aizen can move. Maybe he doesn't have the Hogyoku to augment his power now, yet Ichigo can't help wondering if it ever did anything for him but change his appearance.

"I can handle it, whatever it is." His eyes narrow and his face settles into an expression of stubborn determination. "And I'll prove it to you. Go on. Test me until you're convinced that I'm worthy of witnessing it. I don't care how long it takes."

[alapimp]

"Were this that kind of test, you would never achieve a state of worthiness."

Flashing a grin over a shoulder, he makes a show of a lazy shunpo, by his own standards, hands still in his pockets as he crouches and pushes off to fly upward, the downward draft slamming into the roof and knocking up an all manner of lichen and dirt in his wake.

The clouds are damp but dispersing, revealing a clear sky as he gains speed. It's a generous beginning, to be sure, if only to aggravate Ichigo and throw off his commitment.

[1stguardian]

If that's meant to discourage him, Aizen doesn't know him half as well as he thinks he does. Telling Ichigo he can't do something is nearly a guarantee that he will, if only to do so out of spite.

"Oh, fuck you," he mutters softly under his breath, watching as Aizen launches himself into the air. I'll show you. His own grin is hard and fierce, uncompromising and more confident than it would have been if he hadn't just been insulted.

A moment's pause to gather his power as best he can, and because he's getting serious about this whole Tag business, his best is a lot better than it usually is. He can live without Bankai, at least for a while. His own shunpo isn't the lazy affair Aizen's is, he isn't a million year old ex-shinigami captain, but it gets him into the air and after Aizen without too much delay. He doesn't immediately try to catch him, instead, Ichigo wants to see what he'll do now.

[alapimp]

He's not going to attack until Ichigo attempts something, holding off his defensive streak despite the fiery little comet zooming toward him. It's almost patronising, the way he flits from left to right without changing his relaxed stance, here and there and behind -

"No, thank you."

Answering the mutter, he chuckles and back-paces through the curling nimbus.

[1stguardian]

Hearing that and connecting it with his previous comment, Ichigo turns to snap out an irritated, "That wasn't an invitation!"

He knows what Aizen's doing, or he thinks he does in any case. Toying with him. Trying to piss him off. And it's partially working. Ichigo's got a temper and the other shinigami knows how to play him, but he's not stupid and he knows his temper occasionally gets the better of him. This time, he's going to use it.

Cutting to the side, Ichigo pours more speed into his shunpo, reappears to Aizen's left, and makes a lunge for him.

[alapimp]

Oho, missed by centimetres! Such a shame, that was a very close shave, top marks for effort. Maybe. Probably a C+.

"You shouldn't say things you don't mean," he warns, wandering off into a cloud. Time for Hide and Seek!

[1stguardian]

"Are you crazy? We're in the damn sky! Of course I'm not serious!"

Asshole. Who's now conveniently disappeared on top of being an infuriating pain in the ass.

An idiot would charge blindly into that cloud, assume that Aizen would still be there and either find nothing or walk into an ambush. Ichigo's not an idiot. He circles around the cloud instead, ducking into an adjacent one for a moment to calm down and think. Suppressing his reiatsu isn't something Ichigo's adept at, but he concentrates and reels it in as best he can. Aizen can probably still sense it, but it's not as obvious anymore.

Recognizing that that's as good as it's going to get, Ichigo sets off through the clouds, picking his way through the whiteness, straining his senses for even the faintest hint of the other shinigami's reiatsu. He's got to find him eventually. He hopes.

[alapimp]

Smart boy. Sousuke isn't at all in the same cloud, instead looking down from above. He can sense Ichigo's trembling reiatsu as it packs itself in like a dog too big for the bush it's hiding under, poking out here and there but ultimately using a decent amount of common sense. If Sousuke wasn't Sousuke, he'd say Ichigo was doing perfectly well.

The whisk as he passes Ichigo like a bullet, headed directly for the ground, is waiting to be matched.