Disclaimer: Bleach is a manga created by Kubo Tite, published in Shonen Jump, and Viz Comics. This fanfic is all me though.: (Is this an Ichigo expression or what?)

Close Encounters

A Bleach Fanfiction

By: Shun'u

I: Daily Routine

At one time in her life solitude had been a comfortable companion. There, always, soft and quiet so as to be unnoticeable unless someone were to point it out. Rukia wondered at what point in her life her calm existence had been discarded. Or was that stripped away? To tell the truth, Rukia knew full well when everything had changed. It was the day she met that bright burning soul: Kurosaki Ichigo, that orange haired, violent tempered, ever frowning, sensitive young man with the ancient spirit.

Rukia kicked a harmless pebble on the sidewalk. Her smooth forehead creased in fruitless concentration. "I don't get it."

"Don't get what?" a gruff voice asked.

Jumping a solid foot into the air, Rukia slapped a slender hand over her lips to contain what would have been an impressive scream. Her eyes watered with the effort of holding in her fright, and this led to embarrassment, which consequently sparked the little shinigami's temper.

"Ichigo! Don't sneak up on me like that!" she scolded.

Ichigo frowned, which is to say that his expression did not change in the slightest from the norm, "I didn't sneak up on you. Didn't you hear me call?"

Rukia blinked. "Um," she tilted her head slightly to the right in an unconscious gesture, "no, you did?" When Ichigo's frown deepened, Rukia held up a hand to stop the impending lecture. "Never mind. I guess I was lost in thought."

Ichigo swung his school bag over his right shoulder. "Yeah, looked like it." Habit had him lessening his strides to keep even with her much shorter stature.

A comfortable silence settled over them as they made their way back to the Kurosaki Clinic; above the clinic was the Kurosaki home where he lived with his two sisters and father. Rukia had been living with him for months now, close to three, and he had become used to her presence in his life. Ichigo found that as the days and weeks passed it was becoming more difficult to remember a time in his life when she was not there. It wasn't a feeling of dependency or need so much as a simple expectation that when he woke up she would be there to greet the day with, and when he went to sleep she would be the last person he saw. Was it because of the strange circumstances that had brought them together, that he felt this way? Ichigo was not quite sure, and he was uncomfortable delving any deeper into his thoughts on this matter. He only knew that Rukia had somehow found a niche in his life that had not existed before, and veered away from speculation on what life would be like once she left.

"Ichigo."

"Hm?" He looked sideways at her and found that he had to tilt his head down just a little bit more than he remembered having to do in the past. Had he grown taller or had she shrunk?

"What is it?"

She held up the ever present cell phone. "We have an assignment."

It took him a moment to process the low beeping sound emanating from her phone.

"Great," he grumbled darkly. "I was looking forward to taking a nap today. Well, where to?"

Rukia held up her cell and squinted to see the dots indicating the presence of Hollows beneath the late afternoon sun. Ichigo peered over her shoulder, impatient to finish his unwanted task so that he could go home and rest.

"I think it's…" Rukia angled the screen a bit more to reduce the glare, "straight ahead. And it's approaching fast!"

"Fast," Ichigo echoed. He pointed in front of them towards a growing cloud of dust. "Tell me something I don't know. That thing's huge."

"Hurry up and take a soul pill!" Rukia scolded as she charged towards the Hollow emerging out of the dust cloud. "We don't have time to dilly dally."

Her words made Ichigo stumble slightly, "'Dilly dally'?" He repeated. "Just what have you been reading now?"

Rukia gave him a cutting glance. "Don't mind that now; we have a Hollow to discharge. Focus on your task."

"Feed me! Feed me with your souls!"

Ichigo and Rukia came to a skidding halt twenty feet away from the tremendous Hollow. The creature was larger than anything they had ever seen, with the only exception being Menos Grande. Its girth was the width of the entire street, and its height had it looming over the surrounding buildings. People were screaming in the street and scurrying for shelter. A couple had already fallen victim to the Hollow's rampage. They lay where they fell with limbs angled awkwardly and blood pooling beneath their still bodies. Rukia moved to them as Ichigo swallowed the soul pill and let his body fall to the ground. Now in full soul reaper dress, he drew the zanpaku-to from its sheath.

"All right, bastard, show me what you've got!"

The Hollow hissed and swiped at Ichigo with a limb that was thicker around the forearm than four of the lean teenager put together. Ichigo barely dodged the swipe and countered by leaping up and striking downwards with his zanpaku-to. His sword was true and cleaved one forearm from the Hollow, causing it shriek and thrash. Rukia barely avoided being crushed by its feet as she ran towards the fallen victims.

"Damn it, woman, watch where you're going!" Ichigo yelled.

"You fool!" Rukia returned, "Keep your eyes on your enemy."

No sooner had she said this than Ichigo was flung into the air with his breath taken away from the impact of the Hollow's remaining arm in his midsection.

"Oomph!"

"Ichigo! Watch out!" Rukia yelled.

The Hollow roared, losing whatever composure it had had and began batting at Ichigo without pause. The orange haired young man dodged to the best of his capacity, but could not avoid every swing of the Hollow's remaining arm. Ichigo scrounged for cover behind a parked van when the Hollow put too much weight behind his attack and fell forward. Looking around for a means of turning the tide of this battle to his favor, Ichigo caught Rukia out of the corner of his eye circling around the injured civilians towards him. He lost his temper seeing her almost get trampled beneath the blindly raging Hollow.

Temper rising, he yelled, "What the hell do you think you're doing, woman!"

"Helping you, ingrate!" Rukia yelled back with just as much fire. Stern dark eyes the color of midnight glared at him. Ichigo was momentarily taken aback. Then he remembered why he was yelling at her in the first place.

"I don't need any help," Ichigo proclaimed arrogantly. "Stay inside and out of my way."

He watched as Rukia sputtered and hissed angrily. Her actions combined with her overall petite appearance made Ichigo think of an angry kitten, though he would never say such a thing out loud. He rather enjoyed living too much to risk her fury.

"Foolish boy, don't think that you know everything there is to know about being a Soul Reaper yet," Rukia said. "There are other things besides just swinging your zanpaku-to around like a crazed maniac."

Ichigo scowled, slightly offended by the scorn in her voice. "Then tell me what the hell you want me to do and get inside. I can't concentrate on the fight if I have to think about your safety, damn it."

The moment he finished speaking Ichigo wanted to take back his words. He felt an embarrassed flush creeping up his neck and swallowed hard as he focused on keeping it down to a minimal level. Rukia for her part tilted her head again in that innocent way she had when she was trying to figure out something new and strange about humans and how they lived. Her eyes were trained on him and yet unfocused as she picked away at this new puzzle he had inadvertently presented to her. Ichigo hoped she would have the same difficulty with this as she normally did with opening food packages. The Hollow chose that moment to return them to reality and Ichigo was vaguely grateful for its distraction.

"Rukia!"

He sidestepped another attack and tackled the shinigami to the ground, covering her entire body with his own as Hollow's attack caught the side of a building and caused debris to shower down upon them. His left arm holding the stubborn shinigami down by her shoulder blades, he drew zanpaku-to with his right.

"Stay down. I think I found a way to defeat this fat tub of lard."

She tried to give him an answer, but he left within a heartbeat and she was left alone while Ichigo drew the Hollow towards the opposite side of the road. Rukia sat up gingerly and brushed some of the road dust off of her sky blue dress. Her chest was sore from their impact with the tar ground and her hips weren't doing much better. Being as thin as she was there was little padding over her pelvic bones to protect them from the hard collision with the ground. She knew that she would be black and blue within a few hours.

"Stupid male," Rukia snarled. "If he ever bothered to listen I would have told him to reach higher ground to start with. Ouch," she flinched when she tried to stand, "and stupid gigai body. I should have gotten one that didn't have built in nerve sensors."

If she had had a choice she would have been tempted to get a taller, curvier body. Alas, the gigai was only a physical frame that housed her spirit while it recovered from ailment. It reflected on the surface what was already there in essence and did not deviate from what it was programmed to do. Rukia sighed. It would have been nice to not have to crane her neck to such an awkward angle every time she spoke to Ichigo, though. And as if to add insult to injury he was growing taller by the day. He was growing both taller and building muscle strength. Only half of this was his natural growth spurt. Rukia suspected that Ichigo would have remained a lean, almost thin, man if it weren't for the physical exertion he had to do daily in their hunts. Between the constant exercise and using the heavy zanpaku-to to exorcise Hollows, Ichigo was building a lot of muscles he would not have gained as a normal human. She only hoped that Ichigo could put that newly acquired strength to use and defeat their latest foe.

He was close to his destination: a radio transmission tower at the end of the street. It was high up enough that he could gain leverage over the immense Hollow, but also free of civilians who could potentially get hurt in the crossfire. Ichigo sprinted with even steps, having long ago mastered the technique of breathing to keep his lungs full and oxygen flowing through his body. A glance back confirmed that indeed the Hollow was following him and that Rukia had not. His eyes turned forward again as he picked up speed.

Stubborn woman. Didn't she know how small she was? How weak now that she had lost her dark powers? Ichigo flinched internally as an unwelcome wave of guilt washed over him. After all, it was for him that she had lost those powers to begin with. Ichigo remembered all too well how she had come between him and the Hollow intent on biting his head off the first day they met. Instead the Hollow had bitten into her shoulder and incapacitated her to the point that she had to share half of her dark power with him to make him a temporary Soul Reaper. But something had gone astray. Instead of half, he had taken all of her dark power. Now she was stuck here, helpless but for the kidô that she could perform.

Ichigo darted up the stairs of the tower, closing down on his thoughts to focus on the battle at hand. He could not lose. He would not lose. If he did, then what would happen to his family and friends? Their latent powers had awakened, but none of them were up to fighting Hollows or being a Soul Reaper. He had to keep on fighting to keep them safe. An image of his mother drifted into his consciousness, causing Ichigo to lose a step and stumble. He gritted his teeth and shoved that thought aside. It would not help him now to think about her death.

The Hollow on the street screamed when it lost sight of him. "Come out Soul Reaper! Try to hide and I will consume your little friend."

Its words spurred the Soul Reaper up the last flight of stairs to the observation level. Ichigo sighted the triangular bone mask that covered the Hollow's face and briefly wondered who it had been in its lifetime. Then he drew the zanpaku-to and leaped down from the observation deck, with the sword aimed straight for the unsuspecting Hollow's head.

The Hollow howled. And unlike before, when its scream was one of rage and frustration, now it was one of pain. Ichigo relentlessly pressed downward with his sword, cleaving the Hollow in two straight down its center. He landed on both feet, his descent having slowed down considerably due to his cutting through the Hollow. Head down and shoulders heaving from the belated awareness of exertion from running up so many flights of stairs, Ichigo cleaned and sheathed the zanpaku-to. He rose grimly and observed as the Hollow disintegrated into thin air. Once the air cleared he headed back to where Rukia was probably in the process of erasing memories of this event from all of the witnesses' minds.

End Chapter 1

Author's Notes:

This is my first Bleach fanfic.  It's been a long time since I've written any fanfiction, so please excuse me if it doesn't flow quite right. Trying to keep them in character but it's a little difficult with just Rukia and Ichigo interacting… next time I'll add some of the other characters.