BLEACH: Behind a Friendly Face

Disclaimer: I do not own BLEACH or its characters, all rights belong to Tite Kubo

A/N: Yei! The first chapter of this. Whatever it is. =P

Chapter 1: Intro

As I sat in seireitei, I thought back about my life, and how it all started.

–-

I got out of bed, and went to the shower. After a short shower, I checked the mirror to check how I looked. My deep black hair was long, my bangs went down to my chin. I combed it so that it was parted above my left eye, and sloped down over my right eye. My eyes were brown, but it was impossible to tell unless you shone light directly at the iris. My face was thin but well fed, and it was clear of blemishes. The fact that it was a male face was hidden by its soft features.

I dried myself and got dressed. I put on a white shirt, then a gray t-shirt with black sleeved and a black skull design on top. I put on black jeans, and slid my cell phone neatly into my pocket. I looked at my dresser mirror to groom myself a last time as my hair dried. The hair on my right side of my face was curling backwards, while the hair on the left side was curling forwards. I lifted my hair to neaten up the hair over my eyes, when I noticed a white shard on my forehead, right underneath where my hair had been.

"What the Hell? I utter quietly, as I start to pick it off. It all came off except a jagged piece, about a square centimeter in diameter. I couldn't seem to get it off, so I ignored it and matted my hair in its place.

I open my dresser drawer, and take out a pair of brass knuckles and a flame-retardant roll of bandages, and I put them in a small satchel. I get a white belt, and put it on. I attach the satchel to it and I go down the stairs.

I look around, my parents have already left, but my brother was at the kitchen counter, head in a bowl of cereal, his red hair sopping wet, apparently sleeping. I roll my eyes, and lift his head, and drop it on the table. He wakes up and says,

"What do you want, Ken? Can't I get some sleep?"

"Can't you sleep in your bed?" I reply.

"No," he utters

"Why not?"

"There's a blood stain on the ceiling,"

"Why?"

"Cause..." he trails off. He suddenly seems to notice something, and I look at him curiously. He hits his tattooed forehead and gets up and runs upstairs, after which I hear a thud.

"Oh god, Renji," I mutter. Renji was adopted into our family, after he applied to a homeless child thing. Apparently, he's only 17, just a year older than me, even though he looks like a freaking 30-year-old. When he came to our house, he was extremely happy. Sometimes I overhear him muttering in his sleep,

"Gaah... Sandal-hat..."

"Not... a... freeloader..."

and on and on and on about that weird guy at the other end of town, Kisuke Urahaha.

I walked out the door, and I thought I saw a flash of black fly over me, but wasn't really paying attention. As I start to walk out, my cell phone lets out a note. I pull it out to find a text message from Victoria. My thinking becomes clouded at the thought of her. It says to meet them at the park, for some reason. I start walking to the park, where I would meet Caitlyn and Victoria, according to the text. I put my feet into autopilot, so that I think of Victoria. I'm so absorbed, that I don't notice that there's a man approaching me until he's a short meter away. I look up, and see his features. He has blue slicked back hair, and blue markings on either side of his scowling eyes. He's wearing a black jacket with a popped collar that covers most of his face, with a white shirt underneath. He has a long brown sack on his back, a leather strap on his chest. I look down to see cool green pants, with strange black and white shoes. I look up to find him scowling at me.

"What're you lookin at?" He demands rather lazily.

"A very strange man," I reply, annoyed that he had interrupted my blissful thoughts.

"What!?" He roars at me, lifting me up the ground by my collar, face full of rage. He suddenly regains his composure, and puts me down.

"Sorry, but I need you to help me. Can you help me get to Matou Park?" He asks. It was the park Victoria and Caitlyn were at.

"Sure, I was headed there anyways. What's your name?" I ask him.

He breathes in and proudly announces, "Grimmjow Jeagerjaque! Sexta-" He stops abruptly, then looks at the ground anxiously.

"Soo... uh... Let's go to that park," I say, eager to break the awkwardness. We walk to the park side by side, not saying a word. We get to a crossroad, and when I started to walk, Grimmjow rushed ahead to the other side, looking nervous. When we finally get to the park, we hear a roar, inhumane. We run up, and I see Victoria running from a huge monster with a mask resembling a buffalo's skull. It was a huge hunched being, with 2 hooved feet, and a large ape-like torso, with 6 fingers on each hand. There was a hole in its chest. I saw no sign of Caitlyn, maybe hiding somewhere.

"Shit, an A-Hollow," Grimmjow uttered under his breath. I gave him a look and he said, "No time to explain, here, take this." He opened his sack and pulled out a katana, unremarkable with no special features, besides having a green hilt wrapping. He gave it to me and then took another one out with a strange s-shaped tsuba, with a blue hilt wrapping and sheath that matched his hair and eye markings.

"What the fuck is this supposed to do to that giant thing?!" I scream at him.

"Watch," he said, as he ran at the A-Hollow and sliced a leg off, causing it to fall. I unsheath the sword, but a strange force prevents me from holding it up. After failing to lift it up, I scream in frustration and abandon the sword, and instead pull out my brass knuckles. The sword on the ground melts away and its particles fuse with my knuckles.

"Woah. This feels... weird," I say, as I start wrapping my hands with the bandages on top of the knuckles. I then rub my hands together in a way so that they catch fire. Grimmjow stares in amazement, then laughs.

"Hahahaha! You remind me so much of that one Gantenbainne guy! Ha!" He screams. I just start running at the being, to defend Victoria. Its foot had regenerated, and it directed its attention at the fiery boy. It swung its massive arms and hit me back. Surprisingly, I bounced right back up, and ran at him. I jumped, and I knocked its mask to pieces with my right fist. There was a moment where an imprint of my knuckles were left, then the Hollow fell to the ground, writhing in pain. I run to it and punch with my left, and the blazing figure melted away. I opened my hands, and the bandages fell away, the fire dieing out. I put my knuckles in my bag, and turned. Grimmjow looked shocked. I would talk to him in a bit. I resolved, after I talk to Victoria.

"Victoria, are you-" I stopped mid sentence, the sight I saw was Victoria kneeling over my body, with a broken chain leading from my body's chest. I saw a small pentagram on my chest, with a single chain link on it. I suddenly noticed a giant weight on my forehead, and felt it. There was a large region of a strange smooth surface, like the shard on my forehead. It started to grow, expand. I looked at Grimmjow, he had a strange, shocked expression. He turned, and ran into the city. A few seconds later, he came out of nowhere wearing a strange white jacket, and a white hakama. I noticed that he had a piece of mask on the side of his mask, and a hole in his abdomen.

"Why'd-" I started to ask, but he interrupted.

"You have died. That chain was all that was connecting you to your body," He made a slight gesture to his abdomen. "You are a spirit. I ditched my gigai, my faux body, so that I could talk to you without your girlfriend hearing."

"Uh, she's not my-" I was interrupted again.

"I don't care. I'm surprised that you even have part of a mask, while you're still a human spirit, heck, you're not even turning into a Hollow," Grimmjow said arrogantly.

"Then, when spirits die, they turn to A-Hollows?" I ask.

"No, a Hollow is a malignant being, filled with hate, remorse, depression, and on and on and on," he said. "A-Hollows are a division directly controlled by Aizen. Look, I'd love to explain this all, but we need to do something about your body over there."

So he disappeared again, and his body came back with a paramedic team. They took my body, and I went in with it. At the hospital, Grimmjow showed up without his gigai so that he could talk to me. He spent a good 10 minutes explaining everything to do with Hollows and the spirit worlds, was about to begin on A-Hollows, then Caitlyn and Victoria came in. Victoria was a slim girl with a similar build and appearance to me, except that she had brown hair, long as her shoulders. She was wearing a blue shirt and jeans, and black converse shoes. Caitlyn had her black hair tied up in a ponytail, and she had tanned skin. She was wearing a black vest over a white shirt and jeans, with white converse shoes. My body had a very faint pulse, for some reason. They stood next to my body, and placed a white rose on my chest.

"I always loved you, Ken," Victoria muttered.

Suddenly, my single chain link shattered, and the mask spread rapidly over my face. My body fizzed away as I screamed. A few seconds later, I appeared in the same spot, with a huge pitch-black body, with white symbols resembling a very strange skeleton, and metal plate coatings on the fists, reaching up to my shoulders. I looked at the mirror, and saw that my mask resembled a skull, except that it was split at the top, and that it had two sabre-like teeth bordering several others at the jaw. There were rectangular markings all over the left side. I also noticed that there were several spikes on my back. I let out a roar, and Grimmjow backed away. I had no control over my body, and watched from a corner of my mind as the primal feelings ate me up. I saw the life support machine, there was no pulse. I punched Grimmjow through the wall. Caitlyn and Victoria screamed in fear, and huddled in a corner. I glanced at my body, and I regained control for a second. I punched through the wall and jumped out. I landed with a crash on the ground below. I looked around. The Hollow was incredibly aggressive, it hurt to fight back. I decided to go along with its thoughts and actions. Suddenly, I noticed the presence of several other Hollows, and a strange presence.

As I raged on to their location, I noticed that the presence was increasingly familiar. I felt an incredible hunger as I approached them. I let out a roar as I arrived, to alert them all to my presence. I looked at the Hollows, there were 5 of them. One was a green snake, with a spiked mask, another was a avian, with a pterodactyl's skull. The others were indistinguishable beings. I then looked at the other presence, and to my surprise, it was Renji, in a black kimono, and a strange katana in his hand.

What? I thought. Renji is a shinigami? Is that his Zanpakutou?

"What! Another one!" Renji cried out at my sight. "I can barely handle these on my own!" The Hollows, feeling more confident, started to charge at Renji. Suddenly, I felt an incredible hunger, and I lunged at the snake Hollow. I punched it, and it was knocked unconcious. I started to eat it, against my will. I noticed, however that eating them made me more powerful, I felt more sure of myself. I then charged to attack the avian, but flew out of my range. I instead charged for a red one with several limbs. I knocked it back with a blow, but it then pierced my chest with one of its limbs. I then punched it in the face. As it was recovering, I hit the mask even more, destroying it completely, giving me another feast.

I looked over at Renji, and it looked shocked, he hadn't seen anything like this before. He pulled out a cell phone and started to talk about the situation; I found no interest in his life. I instead attacked the fourth Hollow, with an ape's mask and body, it was a very simple Hollow. I easily knocked him down, but then a strange whip destroyed it. As the whip retracted, I saw that several "teeth" were dragging into the body. As it reached its base point, I saw that it was wielded by Renji. I geared up to attack him, but I felt a strange restriction. We did have some brotherly bonding after all. I growled and backed off, the avian Hollow long gone. Before I could get far away, a sharp pain hit the corner of my head, not from Renji. Instead, I looked up, and saw another shinigami, with a large sword stuck in my mask, resembling a kitchen knife more than anything. He had spiky orange hair, and uttered,

"getsuga... tenshou."

END

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