Itachi Rebirth: A Shinigami Tale

Itachi continued staring at his sword for half an hour before looking away. 'I don't know whether I will be able to activate my zanpakuto or not, but for now it's best for me to improve my abilities another way.' Itachi thought to himself before closing his eyes for rest.

He woke up the next morning and began his patrol into the Maggot's Nest. The inhabitants were much more docile this morning. Everyone's eyes still had lingering fear when they looked towards Itachi as he walked around. Some didn't even want to make eye contact, afraid that they would once again have those weird nightmares.

After making sure everything was calm, Itachi left the area and went towards the training fields. He placed a few training targets down throughout the fields when he arrived.

'I spent numerous hours in the academy looking through various Kido spells. I am surprised all of them were used in such a rigid method. The best thing now is to increase my strength by evolving my kido. Let's start with Shakkaho.' After deciding his training routine, Itachi focused his breathing and began his practice. He continued his practice with Kido for a few hours before getting weary. Itachi continued his practice for the next few days. He studied and changed his most used spells to better fit him in combat.

'I need to be able to practice these techniques in combat. Just practicing here won't benefit me much. I should ask the captain to see if I can take other missions while I have a substitute watch the Maggot's Nest.' He thought to himself. Once he finished his training, he went back to the Maggot's Nest to make sure the prisoners were still behaving.

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Two years pass as Itachi continues his training while performing his duties as the third seat. He adapted numerous variations to his Kido spells.Furthermore, at this point, none of the prisoners dared to act up. A majority of them even remained in their cells everytime Itachi passed by.

Soi Fon had also visited the Maggots Nest during these two years to check Itachi's performance. She was surprised to see how obedient and docile the prisoners had become. During her visit Itachi had requested if he was allowed to go on combat missions or hollow extermination missions. Soi Fon thought for a minute before agreeing to his request. She had seen how well Itachi had handled his prisoners, so she allowed his request to take missions from time to time.

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A few months later Itachi had finally taken a mission to kill hollows. He made sure that none of the prisoners had any plans to cause a scene and tasked several other competent guards to take his place for the routine patrols. He even placed a few of the more dangerous ones in a genjutsu before leaving the second division towards the Rukongai districts.

Itachi had arrived a few moments early and waited for the other shinigami.

'According to the hell buŧŧerfly, I will be receiving reinforcements from the tenth division.' He waited a few moments before He noticed someone approaching from the distance. He watched as the figure dashed over towards his location at high speeds. The figure finally landed near him and Itachi got a closer look. It was a short young boy with spiky white hair and turquoise eyes. He walked over and greeted himself to Itachi.

"You must be the second squad member ȧssisting me with the mission. It's nice to meet you. I am Hitsugaya, Toushiro, third seat of the 10th squad." He introduced himself. He was slightly surprised when he looked at Itachi's eyes, they were red with a unique pattern that almost looked like a wheel. 'What strange eyes'

"It's nice to meet you as well. I am Uchiha, Itachi, 3rd seat of the second squad." Itachi introduced himself and remained silent.

Itachi was slightly surprised. He wasn't surprised because of how young Toushiro looked, as he knew that shinigami aged much slower than average humans. There were all sorts of prodigies in the world, and clearly this kid was one of them. What he was surprised at was that a third seat had come himself for this mission. Itachi had already scouted the area and analyzed the strength of the hollows. Although the hollows were relatively high level compared to most, Itachi did not deem them a large enough threat where it required two third seats to participate in the mission.

"I have already scouted the area for the hollows, there are 10 hollows that I spotted in the forest." Itachi said.

"That many?!" Toshiro replied.

"It is indeed strange," Itachi said.

"Why have there been so many hollow sightings in soul society in recent years?" Toshiro said

Itachi remained silent. He had a strong guess as to who was responsible. 'Aizen'. He had a lot of time reading through the archives all information accessible to him over the years, but had found no correlation between Aizen and strange hollow sightings. 'How is he doing it?'

"Lets try to just finish this as quickly as possible." Toshiro suggested.

Itachi nodded and the two dove into the forest.

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Itachi and Toshiro both run into the forest and enter the clearing filled with hollows. The hollows notice their presence and they all look in their direction, fixating their killing intent towards the duo. Toshiro responds by drawing his zanpakuto.

"Sit upon the frozen heavens, Hyourinmaru!" Toshiro yells out as he makes a slashing motion with his blade, releasing a large ice dragon towards the group of hollows.

Itachi looks at Toshiro's shikai and is impressed by its power. 'His shikai feels much stronger then Ikkaku's.' He thinks to himself before diving into the battle.

The ice dragon collides into three of the hollows in the front of the group, creating a large explosion of ice and a cold mist fills the area. Three circling red lights are seen glowing in the mist as Itachi runs towards the hollows, holding three red orbs of reiatsu.

"Hado 31: Shakkaho!" Itachi throws the three circling orbs of red energy at one of the hollows. The orbs condense as they hit the hollow and erupt into a bright red explosion. Toshiro watches in surprise at Itachi's technique. 'That was Hado 31? I've never seen it used like that before.'

Itachi notices another hollow running directly at him and he puts his hand on his asauchi to prepare for a counterattack, only for the hollow to stop moving as it is encased in a block of ice.

"There's still more." Toshiro says as he appears next to Itachi and points at more hollows running towards them. Out of that group of hollows, Itachi notices three of them were relatively close together.

"Bakudo 4: Hainawa."

Itachi rushes into the group of hollows and shoots out a rope of reiatsu that wraps three of the hollows together. The hollows struggle to break free of the rope as Itachi draws his blade. He jumps towards their heads then disappears and lands on the ground behind them. As Itachi sheaths his blade, the hollows' masks split open as blood gushes from them and they collapse to the ground.

Meanwhile, Toshiro charged at the two other hollows in that same group, positioning himself where the hollows were lined up directly in front of him.

"Ryuusenka!"

Toshiro points his blade out in front of him as he pierces straight through both hollows, causing a large flower shaped ice formation to erupt from the stab wounds.The ice shatters with the hollows' bodies and Toshiro looks for the last hollow.

"Hado 33: Sokatsui!" Both Itachi and Toshiro simultaneously fire a large blue blast of reiatsu at the last hollow. The hollow could only watch helplessly as it was swallowed by the intense wave of energy.

"That's the last of them right?" Toshiro asked.

Itachi nodded and replied. "Thank you for your ȧssistance."

"No, even without me, you would have been able to handle it with ease." Toshiro quickly replies. He had never seen anyone use kido in such a way.

"Matters aside, I am surprised that a high level seated officer like yourself was the one that arrived as ȧssistance. The request I sent stated a rough estimate of the hollow's strength" Itachi commented.

"I did receive the notice about the mission. The reason I came personally was due to the location." Toushiro replied.

"The location?" Itachi asked back.

"The West Rukongai District 1 is where my grandmother lives." Toshiro answered.

"I see, I am sorry I questioned you," Itachi said.

"It's alright. I would have done the same" Toshiro replied as he glanced at Itachi. 'His eyes still have that strange pattern…'

"If you don't mind me asking, why are your eyes like that. If you don't want to answer that's fine I don't intend on prying."

"It's an ability of mine that helps me in combat, but I've mastered it to the point where I can keep them on most of the time for little cost." Itachi replies. Toshiro nods as he accepts the answer.

There was a brief moment of silence as the two departed the forest. The two began to converse as they returned.

"By the way, that kido you used in the beginning, that was Shakaho right?" Toshiro asked.

Itachi nods in response.

"I saw three light spheres, how did you do that?" Toshiro continued

"It was simply a different application of the spell. " Itachi answered.

"A different application?" Toshiro was curious. He had never considered or thought about changing the spells.

"I spent time thinking about how to diversify my spell usage," Itachi replied. He had still been unsuccessful with communicating with his Zanpakuto. Due to this, he simply focused more of his efforts towards his spells and his free hand combat.

"It is interesting, but why go through so much just for some spells." Toshiro replied. Itachi remained silent. Toshiro saw that Itachi remained silent and didn't pursue the topic.

"Thank you for your ȧssistance, I will take my leave to report the mission's completion. Take care." Itachi said before disappearing from the spot.

'What a character.' Toshiro thought before returning to the 10th division.

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Back at the 2nd division, Itachi returned to his room and laid down. 'Hitsugaya and his shikai are powerful yet have so much untapped potential. Is this the power I'm missing from not having awakened my zanpakuto yet? No, I shouldn't worry about what I can't reach right now and focus on what's in front of me. I still have a lot more improvements to work on with other aspects of combat.'