Protector and The Hornet

A Few Growing Suspicions

Suì-Fēng sat at the training site, beneath one of the many trees that made up the forest. She had made it there earlier than usual. She didn't feel guilty about lumping the task of training the squad on Omaeda. That guy really needed to pull his weight around.

She had been training with Ichigo for a week and so far, nobody had found out. She had grown fond of their meetings and would try to arrive as soon as possible.

"Hey Suì-Fēng, you're here early." Ichigo landed in front of her.

"Yeah, is that a problem?"

Ichigo smiled. "You've been arriving earlier and earlier every day. "

Suì-Fēng frowned at him. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Ichigo raised his hands in defense. "Nothing. I was just pointing it out."

"Oh." Suì-Fēng turned away and blushed.

"So why don't we begin training?"

"Sure." Suì-Fēng gave Ichigo his stealth force uniform.

Ichigo went behind a tree and started changing.

"You've improved Ichigo, in only a week. I'm proud of you."

"Well I do have a great teacher...who shows no mercy."

Suì-Fēngsmiles. "Looks like my methods worked. I'll continue to increase the pressure as you improve."

"You said you would teach me something new today." Ichigo came from around the tree, now fully changed. "What was it?"

"I'm going to teach you a useful Kido spell."

"Kido? So are you going to start from number one?"

"No, I'll teach you number four instead."

"Number four?"

"Yes, now watch closely." Suì-Fēng faced a tree. "Bakudo number four! Crawling Rope!"

An energy rope emerged from her outstretched arms and wrapped around the lower braches of the tree.

"If this were a person, he or she would no be able to move their arms."

"Oh...so is there an incantation for that? When Rukia does a Kido, I hear her mutter some sort of incantation."

"There is. I will teach it to you. We can afford to ignore Hakudo and Hohou for today since we've had some intense practice during the week. Today, you'll keep practicing this spell until you master it. I mastered it and was therefore able to skip the incantation. If you finish early, then we can continue sparring."

Ichigo gaveSuì-Fēng his characteristic smile. "Well that's good motivation. I enjoy sparring with you. I'll master this spell and we'll get back to sparring."

Suì-Fēng gave him a rare smile. "You really enjoy sparring with me that much." Her tone was softer than usual.

"Yeah." Ichigo also spoke in a softer tone. "You give me a real fighting experience, but it's not like Zaraki's where it's for the sake of fighting. It's fighting for the sake of improvement. You know exactly how far to go. You don't do too little or too much."