Some time later, Tsuna brought Tatsuki, Ichigo, and Orihime to Urahara Shop.
Under Tsuna's guidance, Tatsuki and Ichigo had already gained a basic grasp of their Fullbring. The reason they were coming to Urahara Shop now was to ask Kisuke Urahara for a favor—some real combat training, so the two of them could fully master their abilities.
There was a saying for this sort of thing:
You can't bear to beat up your own people, so you hand them to someone else to do it.
Even someone as strong as Renji had his daughter trained by Ikkaku Madarame, didn't he?
Tatsuki's Fullbring looked like she was wearing a full karate gi, only the outfit itself looked slightly intangible—much like Ichigo's phantom Shihakushō in canon when he had just begun Fullbring training.
Tatsuki's Fullbring was easy enough to understand. She had practiced karate since childhood, so building her power around a karate uniform made perfect sense.
Still, seeing her in that short-haired, karate-outfit form kept making Tsuna think of a certain fighting game character named Makoto.
No—Tatsuki looked way prettier than Makoto.
At least in Tsuna's opinion.
As for Ichigo, his Fullbring was completely different from the original story. Having no experience as a Substitute Soul Reaper, his Fullbring looked nothing like anything associated with a Soul Reaper.
At its initial stage, Ichigo's Fullbring looked like a longbow formed from two sections of black flame.
It was just a bow—
no string, and no arrow.
When he trained with Tatsuki, he got beaten badly. The longbow gave him almost no combat advantage at all and actually restricted his movements instead.
So now Ichigo was nursing a grudge, waiting for the day his Fullbring fully developed so he could reclaim all the dignity Tatsuki had beaten out of him.
As for Orihime, once Tsuna had infused her with spiritual pressure, she too became able to see spiritual beings. Under Ichigo's guidance, she had already learned to control a small amount of spiritual pressure, though she still had a long way to go before forming her own Fullbring.
Why was Ichigo the one teaching Orihime?
Because after their earlier gathering at the Kurosaki household, Masaki Kurosaki had taken pity on the girl. Under Masaki's firm insistence, Orihime had now moved into the Kurosaki home.
It was somewhat like how Masaki herself had once lived with the Ishida family.
The difference was that Masaki hadn't liked Ryūken Ishida back then—
whereas Orihime was obviously fond of Ichigo.
After Orihime moved in, the smug smile Masaki wore whenever she looked at Orihime made Tsuna think, no matter how he looked at it, that she was already regarding her as a future daughter-in-law.
Orihime had come to Urahara Shop this time because they were going to see Sora Inoue.
With Urahara's science at work, Sora could now take on human form. As long as he covered the Hollow hole in his lower abdomen, he looked almost completely normal except for one remaining fragment of mask at his neck.
At present, though, Sora wasn't particularly strong—only around the level of an ordinary Soul Reaper, not even on the level of a seated officer.
Still, that was enough to let him meet Orihime in a normal way.
"Porcupine Head, why'd you bring so many people this time?"
That disrespectful tone could only belong to Jinta, who was sweeping outside and spotted Tsuna immediately.
"Go get that profiteering shopkeeper and tell him business just walked in," Tsuna said.
He really had come to Urahara Shop this time to make a deal—he intended to pay for training services. He couldn't keep freeloading off Urahara forever.
"Oh ho ho, how rare. Tsuna-kun is actually willing to do business with my humble shop," Urahara said theatrically as he stepped out the door.
Up until now, his mutual assistance with Tsuna had always been based on the information and suggestions Tsuna provided.
After Tsuna explained why he had come, Urahara led the group down into the underground training space.
Before Ichigo and the others even had time to marvel at how enormous the underground area was, Orihime spotted Sora, now dressed in ordinary Japanese clothing.
She ran to him like a shot.
Ignoring the chance for the siblings to catch up for the moment, Urahara had already arranged the day's training.
Ururu and Jinta were assigned to train Tatsuki and Ichigo, respectively.
Ururu was wearing a full set of boxing gear, while Jinta, as usual, just carried a baseball bat and was already trading insults with Ichigo.
"Tsuna, are you sure this brat is supposed to train me?" Ichigo asked irritably, pointing at Jinta. The kid had given him a nickname the moment they met, and everything about the way he talked rubbed Ichigo the wrong way.
"Hey, orange-head! Better be careful I don't knock you flying with one swing!" Jinta shouted back, jabbing the bat toward Ichigo in open provocation.
"Damn brat…"
Compared to the open hostility between Ichigo and Jinta, things were much more peaceful on the Tatsuki–Ururu side. Tatsuki was still somewhat hesitant, though, uncertain whether she should really hit a little girl.
"Tsuna, this…"
Tsuna instantly saw through her hesitation and called out loudly to both Tatsuki and Ichigo:
"Don't underestimate Ururu and Jinta. Either one of them could handle both of you by themselves, no problem. Don't hold back—go all out."
With Tsuna's assurance, the two finally began training properly.
Ichigo swung his black longbow against Jinta's baseball bat, while Tatsuki, clad in her white, ghostly karate uniform, started exchanging blows with Ururu.
Compared to the purely blunt-weapon clashing on Ichigo's side, Tatsuki's fight was much more intense.
Her punches and kicks were driving spiritual pressure into her blows, enough that small craters occasionally appeared in the ground.
"Tsuna-kun, you didn't come here just to do business with me this time, did you?" Urahara asked.
He and Tsuna were seated far away, watching the different pairs training while chatting casually.
"As expected of the shopkeeper."
Tsuna's appearance shifted into his own signature mafia-suit Shihakushō. He drew a blade—not the black one this time, but the pure white Zanpakutō.
"Shopkeeper… do you understand the power of Hollowfication?"
Seeing Tsuna draw the white Zanpakutō, Urahara immediately understood where this was going. He had already formed his suspicions about Tsuna's paired blades long ago.
Black represented his Soul Reaper side.
White represented his Hollow side.
Now that Tsuna had already mastered the Bankai of his Soul Reaper-side power, it was only natural that he would want to master the power of the other blade as well.
"Tsuna-kun, you can just say it directly."
Given Tsuna's level of knowledge, Urahara did not believe for a second that he didn't know why they had been driven out of Soul Society.
"The Visored. The captains and lieutenants who were cast out of Soul Society a hundred years ago because of Aizen's Hollowfication experiments. Could you tell me where they are?"
Tsuna sheathed the blade again.
"Hollowfication, hm? That's a very dangerous power," Urahara said. When they had first fled Soul Society, they had gone through no small amount of trouble helping the Visored adapt to Hollowfication.
"If you're talking about the mask," Tsuna said, tracing a hand across his face, his voice suddenly becoming thinner and sharper, "I've already mastered that much."
The upper half of his face was now covered by a Hollow mask.
Urahara's eyes widened slightly.
"That's impressive, Tsuna-kun."
"Well, I can't exactly afford to stand still just because I haven't been visiting the shop," Tsuna said, then swept the mask away, letting it dissolve into spirit particles.
"As far as I know, though, the powers the Visored have mastered only go so far. They may not necessarily be able to help you very much," Urahara said. After all, he knew better than anyone how much strength the Visored currently possessed.
Tsuna didn't answer right away.
Instead, he looked toward the Inoue siblings in the distance and said:
"Inoue-san's brother's spiritual pressure seems noticeably weaker. If I had to guess, you stripped away part of his power in order to let him maintain human form, didn't you?"
"Tsuna-kun really doesn't miss much, does he? The external form of that power does resemble your blade—white, after all."
Urahara's gaze drifted once more toward the white sword at Tsuna's waist.
"So that means it's a Zanpakutō that belongs to the Hollow side. If that blade's power were released, would Inoue-san's brother be able to recover his true strength?"
"In theory, yes," Urahara answered.
"Then what I want to master is the power of that other Zanpakutō. As for the Visored, I mainly want to see how Hollow power manifests differently in different individuals. It might give me some inspiration for mastering Resurrección."
"Resurrección, huh? A very fitting term." Urahara immediately caught the key word. "And what do you intend to do?"
"If I can persuade them to train me, great. And while I'm at it, I can also push them to improve their own strength. With where they are now, they're still not quite strong enough for the stage that's coming later," Tsuna said matter-of-factly.
"Then I'll tell you where they are right now—"
"Hold on. I'd like to place another order first. Please have Tessai-san accompany me."
Tsuna continued, "If I want to convince that bunch of proud, difficult people, things may get a little turbulent."
"Tessai isn't exactly the type who excels at verbal negotiations…"
"That's fine. I'm bringing Tessai-san to reinforce the stability of their barrier. It'd be bad if I accidentally smashed through it and damaged the surrounding area."
"So this is your idea of 'persuasion'?"
"Isn't persuasion just physically beating someone into listening, then talking afterward? Otherwise, why would they bother listening to reason? Not everyone is like you, shopkeeper, and able to grasp what I mean in just a few words."
"Fair enough. I'll send Tessai with you…"
...
Under Tessai's guidance, Tsuna arrived before a huge warehouse.
Tessai formed a hand sign, and a door made of condensed spirit particles opened in front of them.
"Hm?"
Inside the barrier, a plump man made a puzzled sound.
"What is it, Hachi?" someone asked.
"Someone came in. Judging from the technique, it's Lord Tessai," Hachigen Ushōda answered.
"Urahara? What does that guy want now? Feels like he's been coming around way too often lately," someone said with open irritation.
"I heard Urahara started researching Hollowfication again. Is that guy trying to walk Aizen's road now?"
"You don't even have to look to know that bald fraud isn't up to anything good!" another voice cut in sharply.
"I'll go take a look," came a lazier voice, at complete odds with the actual content of what he was saying. "Whatever else, Urahara did help us."
"I'll go with you. I just finished training anyway, so it won't waste any time."
Sweat splashed onto the floor as a muscular man vaulted cleanly through the air and landed beside the group's leader.
=====================
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