Zaraki turned back to look at Ichigo was now standing up again with his spiritual energy also rising and the wound on his chest slowly ceasing to bleed.

'I don't know how he still has the balls to take on a pose even after just getting his ass handed to him… is it just him or a main character thing.' Houryu thought to himself, barely resisting the urge to facepalm as he watched Ichigo take on a pose with his sword on his shoulder.

The battle then began afresh with Ichigo having all the momentum now as he quickly injured Zaraki twice before Zaraki started laughing crazily and then also started making his own attacks at Ichigo, injuring him a bit as well.

After some more sword exchanges and a few more injuries Kenpachi finally took off his eyepatch, greatly increasing his spiritual energy and letting it flow through him, manifesting an aura of a gigantic golden skull.

'For a minute there, I thought he had susanoo, hehe.' Houryu thought to himself before sensing someone approaching where he and Yachiru was at high speed.

'Well, I guess that's my cue… Byakuya should also be close to the tower where Rukia is imprisoned by now.' he thought as he made to get up.

"Vice-captain Kusajishi! An emergency order." A voice came from behind.

"O. K, tell me later." Yachiru answered back without taking her eyes off Kenpachi's fight.

"Huh…? I'm sorry but this order is sent under the combined authority of captain Yamamoto and captain Hitsugaya. It's a 1st class order…"

"O. K, tell me later." Yachiru answered back again still not taking her eyes off Kenpachi's fight.

"BUT…" the messenger started to say before Houryu cut in, "Yo, listen… the kid said tell her later." he said as he stood up and turned around to face the messenger.

"Huh…? who…" the messenger started to ask before suddenly ceasing all movements as he looked into the weirdly rotating eyes of the stranger beside the vice-captain.

"Okay, now you can go," Houryu said to the messenger after a few seconds.

"Yes sir." the messenger answered before taking his leave, speedily.

Houryu also took a last look at Ichigo, Kenpachi, and then Yachiru who was watching their fight attentively before leaving towards Shishinrou as well.

Houryu was on his way to shinshirou when he suddenly felt a great amount of someone's spiritual energy in the direction of the tower causing him to narrow his eyes. Houryu didn't recognize the spiritual energy, but he felt a bit of phoenix life energy on that person as well making him conclude that it was probably Byakuya who already arrived at Rukia's prison.

'Something's wrong… the energy feels too weak for it to be used by Byakuya… it feels more like he was just in contact with it than it actually being in or on him.' Houryu thought as he stopped moving and put his full attention on sensing the energy coming from Byakuya.

'I was right…' He finally confirmed a trail following Byakuya and it seemed like he was just in contact with the source of the energy. Houryu quickly changed direction from the tower to quickly follow the trail before it disappeared.

Houryu followed the trail as quickly as he could while sending out pulses of his spiritual energy to continually sense the direction he was going and all around him as well to see if he had missed something as he moved but he didn't get a hit on anything.

After following the trail for about 10 minutes he came to a huge estate with huge gates, the name "Kuchiki" carved boldly into the gates.

"Figures…" Houryu said to Sylvia as he stopped and looked at the gates from a distance.

"It just had to be somewhere in the Kuchiki clan… now I feel like I wasted my time waiting all this while when I could easily have found my way here earlier." He said to himself as he began moving again towards the gates of the Kuchiki estate.

As Houryu approached the gates he saw two guards guarding both sides of the gate.

"Halt!" The guard on the right side of the gate shouted at Houryu as he saw him walking towards the Kuchiki estate, but Houryu didn't listen as he kept walking towards the gate.

"HALT!!" This time it was the guard on the left that shouted at Houryu, but Houryu still didn't react as he kept walking towards the gate when suddenly the guards moved quickly at him and tried to cut off his head together from both sides.

Houryu ignored the sword coming at his head from the left and caught the one from his right as it was coming towards Sylvia who was on his right shoulder.

*CLANG* the sword coming from the left hit Houryu's neck, causing a metallic clanging sound to ring out as the sword had been blocked by Houryu's hierro while the other sword was caught in his right hand.

The guards widened their eyes as they saw the results of their attack on this seemingly harmless and unarmed stranger. Houryu suddenly sharply twisted the sword blade caught in his palm, breaking it.

"See this people… no no no, wait…Who gave you that kind of confidence… to attack me… me… or am I in a genjutsu and everything is an illusion?" Houryu asked himself with a bewildered look on his face as he was in shock that a couple of extras had the balls to actually attack him.

"It seems I've been low-key for too long… way too long," Houryu said with a little laugh as he covered his face making the guards start wondering if he was crazy.

Suddenly white skeleton arms appeared from around Houryu and grabbed the guards and before drawing them closer to him and looking at them straight in the eyes with his mangekyou sharringan putting in a "little dream" before tossing them aside and withdrawing his susanoo.

Houryu walked towards the gate saying to himself with a crazy smile on his face,

"Let's see the skeletons in the cupboard of the Kuchiki clan and maybe… just maybe… the Kuchiki Family may cease to exist today."

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Extra chapter for you guys.

Yayy to me.

I was up for a long while to squeeze out this chapter especially as I have a trip today.

Gimme powerstones... GIMME