Chapter 5: Gozuken, Kido Instructor

A/N: Roughly translate Gozuken (五頭剣), as the five headed sword.

Last time: Unsurprisingly, Kaien oohed in wonder. He glanced around at the others, and most were enamored with the still smoldering doll, but I instead was worried about the near look of pure hatred on Sosuke Aizen's face directed at the ancient Kuchiki.

What was this?

Ichigo continued to tune out the aging Kuchiki, instead watching Aizen's face, as it slowly schooled itself into a look of serenity.

Without warning, the brown haired man's eyes snapped to his, and for a moment, Ichigo felt as if his soul had been dipped in ice. However, the moment passed, and soon, they were all back to paying attention to Gozuken showing how to collect a ball of reishi and throw it.

Ichigo hadn't attempted any kido in his previous timeline, except for the Shiba cannon, and that did not go over well.

"That is because you are balancing 3 times of reishi, but only using one. Kido solely uses soul reaper energy, but you are composed of quincy, hollow, and soul reaper components," Zangetsu explained. He scoffed under his breath.

'How is that supposed to help me use kido? I still can't control it.' He retorted. Zangetsu mentally shook his head at him.

'You can tell the difference between what they feel like can't you?' he chided. Ichigo cursed him mentally, before gathering a little reiatsu.

The entrance examinees were all lined up in front of the dolls, and Ichigo was once again on the far end, beside Kaien.

"You know, Ichigo, you seemed really good at the hoho stuff before you started acting like an idiot," Kaien laughed. Ichigo scowled back in return, which deepened when his little ball of reiatsu flickered out again. "It seems I'm better at you at this at least!" He gathered a solid white ball of reishi, before blasting it at the dummy, leaving a dark blast mark.

Concentrating, Ichigo attempted to gather his reiatsu again, before realizing his spiritual pressure was whipping around him wildly. He restrained it in as far as he could, and formed the reishi ball. Opening his eyes (they were squeezed shut before), he noticed how large the ball was, despite his attempts to only let out a little.

'Well, I think this might be the best that I can do,' he gulped. He pushed the reishi ball towards the dummy, only for it to preemptively explode only a foot away from him, destabilized.

Noticing the explosion, Gozuken walked over to him, sprawled on the ground and covered in ashes.

"Well, it seems like you have extremely poor reiatsu control, as well as reishi control." The Kuchiki tsked. Ichigo almost prepared to fight another instructor again, but Kaien shot him a glare.

"Stay down!" He said through gritted teeth. Ichigo took a deep breath, and slowly got back to his feet, staring directly at the aging Kuchiki. With instinct alone, he collected his reishi and shot it away, exploding against the dummy. Everyone was surprised by the size of the blast, looking at him curiously.

'Shit how'd I do that?' he panicked. He didn't really think about it at all.

'If there's one thing I know that you're good at figuring out, it's your instincts, King.' his hollow laughed.

The aging Kuchiki gave him a harrumph, before returning to observing the other members. Relaxing, now that he had walked away, Ichigo let out a sigh.

"That was close," he mumbled. A hand smacked him on the back of the head.

"Yeah it was! You can't go around testing the instructors like that!" Kaien whisper/shouted. Ichigo scowled at his cousin.

"Hey, its not my fault all these instructors don't like me," Kaien rolled his eyes. Beside Kaien was Aizen, who was steadily firing off even reishi blasts. Ichigo could tell that the man was listening to their conversation though, since his brown eyes were narrowed slightly.

His whole posture was tense, and when Gozuken walked behind him, he could almost feel the killing intent radiating off of him. However, Gozuken either seemed not to notice, or not to care.

"Your shots are weak, and lazy, at best." the instructor finally spoke. Aizen turned slowly to look at Gozuken.

"Ah, sensei?" he tried to give a kind smile, and Kaien seemed to buy it, but it only kept Ichigo on edge. He knew almost nothing about Aizen's past in the sereitei, except that he had been a captain, and that he had stolen the Hogyoku. This Aizen, was almost entirely different, although obviously still powerful.

The shots were definitely not weak. However, Aizen still took the critique in stride, and began shooting off larger reishi attacks. Seemingly satisfied, Gozuken continued observing other students.

"Enough! We've seen enough." Gozuken finally gestured to the exam proctors disperse throughout the room, and each gave critiques to each person.

"You seem to have ample enough spirit energy to create a pretty powerful kido, but your control is spotty. This is probably going to be a problem area for you in the future," the small shinigami proctor told Ichigo. He nodded, already thinking about what he could do to make it more consistent.

Finishing up kido, Ichigo pondered on Aizen's interaction with the Kuchiki. He wondered how they knew each other at all. Stiff, Aizen bowed to the instructor, as they continued on to the next room, Hakuda.

He quietly pushed past Kaien, sidling up to the brown haired man. He tried to be subtle (oh sure),

"Hey, what was up with you and that old guy?" he asked casually. The sharp, intelligent brown eyes shot to his, before melting into a (false) smile.

"Everything is fine. Don't worry about me," he replied smoothly. Ichigo took a step back, unnerved by the attitude. He imagined that this is the persona that Aizen had charmed everyone with in the past, but knowing who the guy really was just made it awkward.

Satisfied that Ichigo left him alone, Aizen stalked off to the opposite side of the room, as they began to line up for Hakuda.

Kaien, only a little bit behind him, caught up, glancing between him and Aizen.

"What was that all about?" He asked curiously. Ichigo shook his head, tearing his gaze away from the mysterious brunette.

"Nothing."

A/N: Short-ish chapter. I didn't want to cram Hakuda and Kido into one chapter.