Chapter 1
Sam and Dean were making their way down to Bobby's house. 'You Give Love a Bad Name' by Bon Jovi was blasting from the Impala's radio and Sam had had enough. Dean had picked the songs for the last month now and not once had Sam asked for Taylor Swift, or Madonna, but this was the last straw. He'd had it with Dean's music.
"Dean, can you turn it down for God's sake?" Sam asked, giving Dean his puppy dog eyes "I've had hell with your damn music today."
"Sammy," Dean sighed "You know the rule: Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts the hell up. Next time, you can drive and put, I dunno, Kate Bush on so you can get a warm tingly feeling on your sensitive side, but until then…" He changed the song and it blasted 'It's My Life' instead. Sam sighed. He wished he hadn't said anything.
….
Ichigo had just killed a hollow. He'd been 'stationed' in America, a state called Indiana. Just as he sat down in mid-air, he saw a car passing by with rock music blasting and two spirit pressures were emitting from there. Oh yeah, Ichigo thought, Renji said he and Rukia would be driving around and about. I thought his taste in cars would'a been better. Ichigo got up and jumped into the back seat of what looked like a '67 Chevrolet Impala. He looked to the front to see two guys, one with long light brown hair, and one with short spiky light brown hair.
"Dumbass!" Rukia's voice rang through his head "Just because we said gigai's usually look like us doesn't mean they always look like us!" So Rukia had, in Ichigo's thoughts, become a long-haired guy, and Renji decided to steal his thunder with the spiky hair.
"Hey, Rukia?" Ichigo asked, making them both jump "Why did you decide to go in a guy gigai?"
…..
"Hey Rukia?" A deep voice said in the back, scaring the life out of both Sam and Dean "Why did you decide to get a guy gigai?"
Dean jerked the car to a sudden stop and both boys jerked their heads around to see a dude who was about 15 with bright orange hair wearing one of those Japanese black and white robes with a sword that was the same length as his body. Where the hell did he come from!? Sam thought. I didn't see him come in, or hear him…what the hell is he? Is he maybe a Revenant, thinking one of us is this 'Rukia'.
"Hello?" he asked "Why are you giving me that look? You look like you've seen a ghost! Well, we're all ghosts here, sort of."
"Sam?" Dean whispered "What d'you think? Ghost?"
"Remenant?" Sam asked "Uh, listen, um, carrot top-"
"Come on, Rukia!" the ginger kid interrupted "You don't have to get mean! Renji, can you tell her? And why are you calling her Sam?"
"Dude," Dean said in an irritated tone "My name's Dean Winchester, and this is my brother Sam, and I'm tellin' you two things! One, he ain't a chick, and two, my name ain't Renji!"
"Dean," Sam said "what if he's a remenant? He might not know that he's, y'now…"
"What?" Carrot Top asked, as Sam newly nicknamed him "I'm, you know, what?"
"Listen, kid," Dean said "You're dead, and you need to pass onto heaven, so let me call my old friend Cass 'round here so he can call his reaper friends to personally take you to the afterlife."
"Okay, Renji," Carrot said "This game's getting old now. I've just exorcised three hollows, now can you tell me where the next dozen are?"
"Three what?" Sam asked, confused. He hadn't heard of 'hollows' before. He'd heard of exorcising demons, but not hollows. Sam also thought that it was one weird name for a creature as well.
"Okay," Carrot said, eyebrows furrowing while his eyes widened "I think I might just have come to the wrong place. Um, I'll be going then."
"Wait, Carrot Top!" Dean said "You still haven't explained what you are!"
"That doesn't matter really! But my name isn't Carrot Top, it's Ichigo. I might see you when you die. Bye!"
And then he was gone, as if he'd vanished into thin air. Sam was astounded, completely confused as to what just happened. He wasn't bothered by the loud music any more, he was just confused as to what just happened. At that point, his cell phone rang. Sam hesitantly answered it.
"Hello?" he asked.
"You idjits gonna quit blocking the drive?" Bobby's voice echoed out "And what's up with your voice? You sound as if you've just seen a ghost!"
"Uh, yeah, we're coming." Sam said "See you in a sec." Sam hung up "Bobby. D'you think we should ask him about that quy?"
"Yeah," Dean said, sounding as freaked out as Sam felt "I think I'll call Cass about it as well."
"Good idea," Sam said "We can actually put his celestial knowledge to the test for once."
"What did he say his name was?" Dean asked, starting to drive again.
"Ichigo, I think," Sam said "And didn't he say he might see us when we die?"
"So you think he's a reaper?" Dean asked "Since when did reapers carry swords?"
"Who knows?" Sam asked "I'm not a reaper, are you?"
"Nope." Dean said.
…
"You did what!?" Rukia shouted at Ichigo, making him wince slightly "Didn't you think of checking the spirit pressure!? Are you that stupid!?"
"Sorry, Rukia," Ichigo said in his chilled out tone "Their spirit pressure was so huge I thought it was you two."
"Ichigo," Renji said, sounding bored "Didn't it cross your mind when that Dean guy said that his brother wasn't a she that it might not be us?"
"No," Ichigo said "I thought it was one of your usual pranks, although it's really clear now that it wasn't. Jeez, do you two have to be so hard on me?"
"Yes!" Rukia screeched, making both of the guys wince this time "This is really bad! Do you know what normal people do when they find out there's an afterlife?!"
"Yeah," Ichigo said "I think they already knew it because Dean said that he was going to call his friend Cass around, who could call a reaper who could personally escort me to heaven, so he must have thought I was dead already!"
"This is bad," Rukia said, pacing "d'you know who these two could have been?"
"What?" Ichigo asked "How should I know."
"They could be hunters, Ichigo!" Rukia said with major irritation running through her voice "They hunt spirits and destroy them! It's a good thing you aren't dead, because they'd hunt down your corpse and burn it and it'd kill you!"
"Wait," Ichigo said, a thought running through his head "If your remains are burned, you die?"
"Yes!" Renji and Rukia chorused together.
"Then if we find and burn Aizen's remains, we'll kill him?"
"Ichigo!" Rukia said, distraught "There must be thousands of Sosuke Aizen's in the world and you plan on burning them all? You could kill thousands! Aside from which, what if he was born in Rukongai, like me and Renji, there would be no corpse in the World of the Living! That's one of your worst ideas yet! Aside from which, there's been no action on that front since he left the Soul Society two weeks ago! We'll deal with him whenever he interferes again."
"Fine," Ichigo sighed "I'll just…shut up then."
…..
"So what you're saying is," Bobby said, looking at the boys intensely "This ginger kid just dropped in, thought you, Sam, were a chick called Rukia, you, Dean, were a dude called Renji, and once he found out you weren't, he just disappeared, leaving you with his name, Ichigo."
"Yes." The brothers said in chorus. Sam had been through the story twice now, right after Dean's method of explaining was…quite confusing and then Sam hadn't explained very well the first time. Bobby, even after hearing the story three times, was still in disbelief of what had happened. I mean, a kid with carrot hair called Ichigo? Bobby thought no person would dare call a guy Ichigo, especially with ginger hair, considering it means Strawberry in Japanese, but it seemed he was wrong.
"Okay," Bobby said "Dean, you need to call Cass, because I have no idea what this thing is. I know there are seals being broken by the second, and he's not the most co-operative angel in the garrison, but he should have some idea of what this thing is."
Sam sat down on the sofa and put his head in his hands. Sam's not the best at this part, all the angels are thinking he's evil because he's drinking demon blood, but it was for their benefit, he's using his powers for all the right reasons. He's trying to kill Lilith so she can't break the last seal.
"Okay," Dean said, clapping his hands together "Dear Castiel, we've got a situation down here, and we need your, um…superior celestial knowledge." Both Bobby and Sam raised their eyebrows at his choice of words. "Uh," Dean continued "so if you could make your way down here soon?"
There was a swishing sound and Castiel was suddenly standing in front of the fireplace. That is never gonna stop being awesome, Sam thought.
"Hello, Dean," Castiel said in his usual husky voice "What's the situation?"
"Well…" Bobby said, and he set off in telling Castiel exactly what happened with the kid called Ichigo and Sam's eyebrows rose at how well he explained it. It was much better than both he and Dean had explained it, despite the fact he wasn't even there. "And then he just vanished!" Bobby finished. Castiel gave Bobby an intense look.
"What is he?" Sam asked after a long pause. Castiel's intense look switched from Bobby to Sam. There was an even longer pause.
"He's a Soul Reaper." Castiel said finally.
