Infinite Ice Ring 1.2 (Patreon)

Lunch was...an interesting affair.

The rest of the girls didn't quite take to him the same way as Orihime and Tatsuki did, but that was honestly fine with him. Sure, some of them were pretty cute, like Michiru, but she was too shy to interact with him.

Still, Faeran after all, hadn't really joined the school to...attend classes and get a normal school life and education. He really had no need for it now.

The simple reason he joined the school was to get a feel for when in the timeline he was. And while he had a rough idea when he was, he didn't have a pinpoint time and didn't discover as such during lunch.

At least until after school. During lunch, Orihime had asked him whereabouts he lived, and as it turned out, his new pad wasn't far from Orihime's own apartment building.

So she invited him to walk home with her. And there were many reasons why he would not turn down such an offer. As such, he said yes.

And it was so much easier to engage in conversation with her when a raging red haired lesbian wasn't trying to grope her constantly.

"So Faeran-kun," Orihime struck up conversation once the pair of them had  parted ways with the rest of their classmates, "What's Scotland like?" she asked with a beaming smile, skipping ahead and turning around to walk backwards, arms crossed behind her back.

"Cold and wet." he replied easily. It was his kind of place honestly, he preferred the cold over the heat.

"Mou, I didn't mean like that!" the voluptuous orange haired girl pouted at him, "I mean what do people do for fun around there? Is it true you guys run about in only those kilts with big swords up in the highlands and fight to the death? Oooh, ooh! do you have a sword?" her eyes shone excitedly.

His eyebrow rose, "No, not anymore at least," Faeran replied with a snort, "The only time I ever wore a kilt was to weddings, though I do have a sword. The best sword even."

"Ooh, that's so cool!" Orihime clapped her hands together, "Can I see it? Wait, do you have a kilt with you, I've never seen one in person!"

"See the sword?" he asked and then he shrugged when she nodded, "Sure I'll show you it later, you can come over to my place, be my first guest even. As for the kilt, I don't have one with me, I'll have to order a new one, but I don't mind showing you it off."

His lips drew up into a bit of a smirk as he remembered that English twit a few months back who was making fun of his 'skirt' and wanted a picture with him alongside his girlfriend. His girlfriend tried to be funny and mime getting an up skirt shot up him while laying under his legs as her boyfriend took the picture. Neither of him were expecting her to get a face full of his bollocks.

After all, Scotsmen didn't wear underwear with their kilts.

And also fun fact. Kilts came with knives. The little pansy English boy certainly wasn't expecting to get a knife pulled on him when he got all angry because his girlfriend got her first taste of big ol' Scottish balls.

She'd be gobbling them for the rest of her life.

Ah good times, good times.

"Kay, that sounds great!" Orihime beamed at him, "I'll make you dinner as a house warming gift! How do you feel about red bean paste on curry bread?"

...That sounded horrible. "Never had it, so bring it on." he replied.

He wasn't exactly going to turn down the offer for such a good looking girl to cook him dinner. If it was as bad as it sounded, he'd just feed it to Hyorinmaru.

'Excuse me!?' the ice dragon spluttered.

The zanpakuto's indignation went ignored.

"Oh, you know!" Orihime suddenly paused, her right index finger shooting into the air before coming down and pointed at him, forcing him to stop, "Don Konoji is coming to Karakura town in the next few days, me and Tatsuki were planning on going to see the live show, do you want to come?" she asked.

Oh?

Faeran's eyebrows rose in interest. If he remembered right, the Don Konoji stuff happened right before the confrontation between Ichigo and Uryu Ishida. Looks like he made the right choice with Orihime, "Sure, I'd love to," he grinned widely, "You can show me around town while we're at it, if you're up for it."

Somehow, her bright beaming smile became even larger, "Leave it to me Faeran-kun!" she flashed him a thumbs up before suddenly crossing her arms over her chest, "Bwahahahahaha! Spirits are always with you!" the orange haired girl chanted loudly.

His lips tugged up in amusement. She didn't know right now, how very right she was.

And now that he had a pretty solid timeline, he could work on a more solid plan.

It wasn't much long later until they parted ways. And he surprised Orihime with a quick one handed hug around the shoulder that left her cheeks a bit red. It was only in gratitude for what she told him though.

Honest.

Still as he parted ways with her and began making his way around the block to his own apartment, mind wandering as he began to devise plans he paused.

He sensed it. The Reiatsu of a hollow. And he could sense both Ichigo and Uryu, quite a ways away from it. It was closer to himself.

'Now's as good a time as any to test this out in advance.' he smirked to himself and quickly dipped into an alleyway out of sight.

Once he was sure nobody could see him, he disappeared in a blur of speed using Shunpo.

While he was still a novice at the speed technique, it was still far more than anything Ichigo or Uryu had access to right now, and as such, it didn't take him long to find his target at all.

A large thickly muscled beast hanging over the top of an apartment complex and staring down at the humans below. It had leathery green skin and an ape-like mask.

In a flash, the sealed form of Hyorinmaru was in his hand, his fingers wrapping around the royal purple encased grip

Hovering in the air above it, standing on a platform of solidified spiritual power and zanpakuto in hand, Faeran lifted his hand and spread his fingers and palm out over his face, dark spiritual energy forming in his hand before he clawed it downwards.

In a flash of that dark energy, a mask formed into existence on his face. A plain bone white mask with six eye slits

He felt as his spiritual energy became minutely more powerful as it seeped with the taint of hollow power.

Then he once again disappeared in a blur with shunpo. And a few moments later, the sealed Hyorinmaru pierced right through the back of the hollows head, killing it.

It immediately began to break down into spiritual energy. But, before the energy could begin to dissipate and the soul and all within it move on to reincarnate, the lower part of the mask unhinged like a jaw and he sucked in a great big breath.

The soul, spiritual power and all were sucked inside his mouth and devoured. And he felt as the tiny, tiny amount of hollow power stored within his mask grew slightly more powerful.

Faeran pulled his mask off, grinning widely as he held it up over his head to observe it, gleaming blue eyes looking menacing within his now pitch black sclera, "Oh, this is going to be so good, I can just tell." the teen began laughing.