Bleach does not belong to me. All credit goes to Tite Kubo for creating such a wonderful universe and awesome characters. Tsuki, Takeo, Natsuki, and Kioku however, belong to me.

"Hey Tsuki-chan, is this our spot?" Takeo Kishin, the older brother of Tsukiko Kishin, asked as he looked over his shoulder to confirm their picnic spot, but she wasn't there. He sighed and looked around the area, shifting the weight of the blanket and picnic basket he held.

Takeo, as mentioned before, is Tsuki's older brother and almost is the head of the Kishin Clan. He stands about six feet tall and has darkish brown ruffled hair that's black at the back of his neck with a few silver strands that hang loosely at the nape. His eyes are the shocking color of emerald green. He occasionally has a little stubble on his chin, like today, and he was wearing black loop earrings with a small red orb dangling from each of them.

Takeo serves nobly in the Court Guard Squads, fulfilling his duties in the seventh squad, but he wasn't wearing his shihakushô today. Instead, he wore a men's kimono that started darker blue at the lowest hem, fading to white as the blue went up to around his shoulders. Tied around his waist with a diagonal bow at the back was a dark blue – almost black – sash. On his feet were plain brown sandals without socks.

"Oi Tsuki! Where are you?" Takeo shouted out, wondering where exactly she went. He waited in the midst of the rustling cherry blossoms, watching the petals shed off of the flowers and fall gracefully to the ground to blanket it with a kind of pink "snow".

He waited five or ten minutes, watching as other people came to set up their picnic blankets and settling down before he decided to shout out once more.

"No need to call my name again, Takeo-nii." Tsuki stated as she emerged from behind a tree nearby. "I heard you the first time."

Tsuki is quite a few years younger than Takeo; with her being born while he was attending the Shinôreijutsuin. Therefore they hadn't officially met until much later. Even now the two of them were getting used to the whole sibling thing.

Tsuki is five feet, six inches tall with long brown locks and had small silver strands throughout. Her hair was tied up into a simple bun with silver ornaments, leaving out her bangs and two small bunches of pure silver hair in blue ribbon tubes. She wore one of each pair of her parents' earrings. On her right ear was her mother's earring; a simple gold loop with three two inch gold bars hanging from the loop. On the other was a deep blue loop earring – her father's earring.

She was currently wearing a light blue green colored kimono with lily pads and water lilies along the bottom and at the ends of her sleeves. Tied around her waist was a blue green sash, matching her eyes, which were the same color. She also wore sandals without socks.

After Tsuki had confirmed that their spot was where they were standing (their clan's symbol, which was a water lily, on a small sign in front of their designated cherry tree), the two started to set up. By this time, even more people had arrived and got ready for their day of relaxation.

"So where did you wander off to? If you don't mind me asking." Takeo asked Tsuki while they waited for Kioku and Natsuki Shimazaki to arrive, for they had decided to share a spot.

"I was wondering where the Kuchikis are going to sit." His sister explained, slightly blushing a light pink as she mentioned the name, thinking of her captain. "Then when I couldn't find their spot, I started on my way back here, but came across…a memory of the past."

Takeo gave her a questioning look, but decided not to ask to respect her privacy. Soon he saw the Kuchikis – and Renji – approach and pointed them out to Tsuki. She went over to help set up and also to chat with her friends. Turns out they were arranged to sit right next to Takeo and Tsuki, so everyone decided to combine their blankets and share their picnic lunches.

Rukia was wearing a lavender women's kimono with a purple sash.

Renji was wearing a dark red men's kimono with a red sash. He kept his hair up the same way as always with a long black stick and a dark maroon bandana around his forehead.

Byakuya was wearing a dusky blue men's kimono with a midnight blue sash. For once he didn't wear his hair ornaments today, as it was a day off to enjoy the blooming cherry blossoms.

"All this food looks so good!" Tsuki exclaimed after they had unpacked their picnic baskets. "And I can't wait to start drinking that peach flavored sake!" She was holding the bottle, looking like she was going to open it and take a sip.

"I think you should wait for Kioku and Natsuki to wait first before you open that." Takeo suggested casually.

Before Tsuki could protest, a male's voice interrupted saying, "You don't have to wait any longer because we've arrived." Everyone turned to see Kioku and his younger sister Natsuki standing nearby with their picnic basket.

Kioku Shimazaki is five feet ten inches with slightly messy light chestnut brown hair. His long bangs almost covered his peculiar colored eyes; the right eye is blue green and the other is a lovely shade of purple. He was currently wearing a darkish green men's kimono with a dark mint green sash that was tied in the back with a diagonal bow and light brown sandals without socks.

Natsuki Shimazaki is five feet four inches tall with long, blond locks. Her bangs slightly covered her face, and two small bunches of hair were running in rivers over her shoulders. Her eye colors were much the same as Kioku's, but one eye was just blue, and the other purple. She was wearing deep purple women's kimono with a light yellow sash and women's sandals.

"You two look great in your kimonos!" Tsuki complemented with a friendly grin as the Shimazaki siblings sat down and joined the group.

"You all look good too." Natsuki stated in reply, also returning the smile Tsuki gave. Soon all the food was unpacked and they started to eat and admire the beautiful cherry blossom trees.

"Wow! This cherry tart is so…tart!" Rukia commented after taking a bite of the small flaky cherry delight. "Did you make these, Tsuki-chan?"

"Yes, and they're just the right treat to go with these beautiful cherry blossom trees!" the younger Kishin sibling replied happily. "Even the peach tree at my house is as beautiful as ever in full bloom!"

"Well I thought it was pretty uncharacteristic of Captain Kurotsuchi to invent a few extra trees because of that huge hollow attack a few weeks ago." Renji commented while he looked around at the trees surrounding them. "You can't even tell the fake trees from the real ones."

"I wonder what motivated that crazy captain to make them…" Takeo pondered aloud.

"I don't even want to know, so don't tell me if you ever find out." Tsuki said as a matter of factly as she felt something brush the back of her neck. She looked over her shoulder and around the tree trunk to see if someone was hiding behind it and was messing with her, but no one was there.

She brushed it aside and continued to have fun, enjoying the cherry blossoms with her friends. That is, until she felt something sting the back of her neck.

Tsuki flinched, her eyes widening as she felt that something wasn't quite right with her body. Takeo was quick to notice that something was wrong and was the first to ask what was wrong.

"Sting….neck…." was all Tsuki could say breathlessly before she fainted.

"Tsuki! Tsuki wake up!" her older brother demanded with worry as he shook her a little before stopping and looking to the others. "What do you think happened to her?"

"Well there aren't any enemies behind because there are guards around to take care of that." Kioku stated with thought.

"And if we take the time to think about it, I believe she told us exactly what happened." Byakuya added calmly, turning Tsuki's neck ever so slightly to reveal a thin needle sticking out of the back of her neck. He pulled it out gently and examined it to see what it might have come from and what caused Tsuki to faint. "Something must have stung her."

"But what?" Kioku asked before the same happened to him. "Ow!"

This time though, Rukia saw what it was that stung Tsuki and Kioku. "Look! It's the tree that just stung Kioku!" Everyone looked and saw that there was a branch behind Kioku and now it was going for Natsuki.

"Quick! Get out of here!" Takeo shouted as he grabbed Natsuki and flash stepped out of the vicinity of the tree. Renji grabbed Kioku and Byakuya picked up Tsuki and they did the same along with Rukia.

As soon as Rukia got away from the tree, she looked around to see if the same was happening, and it was. Dotted here and there all around them people were getting stung by the trees causing confusion and terror.

She turned to her brother and the others and said, "I'll make sure the other people get away from the stinging trees."

"We'll figure out how to destroy it then." Takeo said in response before Rukia ran off to help the people in trouble. In the meantime, Byakuya and Renji laid Tsuki and Kioku side by side, while Takeo let Natsuki down to watch over them.

"How are we going to destroy a tree?" Renji asked curiously. "We don't have any axes and our zanpaku-tô might not be strong enough."

"We can try at least." Takeo replied with a smirk as he unsheathed his zanpaku-tô. "Besides, I've got fire on my side."

And so somewhat reluctantly, Renji used his shikai and so did Byakuya. As they went off to defeat other moving trees, Takeo stayed at the one he was in front of and shouted, "This is for hurting my sister and my friend! Burn them up! Hi no Muchi*!" He then flicked his sword quickly and it became a flaming whip. The handle stayed the same as it was before shikai was used, with red and orange bound around the hilt and flames on the guard.

But before he could attack the tree with his flaming weapon, Natsuki stopped him by saying, "Wait, Takeo! What if the fire gets out of control?"

Takeo turned back to Natsuki and smirked knowingly. "You don't have to worry about that with Hi no Muchi. See I can control his flames with my mind so I'll just be targeting the tree and nothing around it." Finally he flicked the whip towards the tree and it wrapped around the trunk of the tree until it set on fire.

As Takeo brought the whip back to him, the tree was almost consumed by flames and it was giving out a high pitched scream. All around, the same screams could be heard from Byakuya, Renji, and even some other soul reapers getting rid of the attacking cherry blossom trees.

"That was easier than I thought…" Renji commented after the battles were over as he stalked up to Takeo, holding his zanpaku-tô over his shoulder. "They didn't even put up that much of a fight."

"Indeed." Byakuya agreed as he did the same, but his zanpaku-tô was sheathed. "It was hard to destroy such beautiful trees, even though they attacked innocent people."

It was then that Natsuki approached the three men and said, "I've gotten all the people that were attacked together and pulled out their needles. I've examined them with the equipment I have on hand, but I can't heal them here. We'll need to transport them to Squad Four and do further analysis to heal them."

"Very well. Let's do so." Byakuya agreed before turning to the others gathered there. "Each of you, get an unconscious person and follow me to the squad four barracks."

Meanwhile in one of the many labs at Squad Twelve…

"Excellent. My experiment succeeded. Now all we need to do is shift the targets to hollows and plant them in the Rukongai…" Mayuri commented from his seat in front of many monitors, showing the various happenings in the Soul Society, one of them being the cherry blossom viewing. "Get to it Nemu."

"Yes sir." The ever faithful lieutenant stated in reply before leaving her captain behind to smirk and celebrate another successful experiment…

*Hi no Muchi simply means whip of fire in Japanese.

Here it is the first installment of Seasons of Bleach! I did want to submit this in the spring, but we were moving into our new house and getting things situated so I didn't have much time (or inspiration) to type. Lately though the words have been flowing out of me like crazy. Soon I'll be done with the summer one-shot and will be submitting that one too. Hope you enjoyed!

By the way, if you would like to see any of the OCs then the link to my deviant art profile is on my profile here on fanfic. Just head on over to my gallery and they're in my Bleach folder.