Bleached
by
Jullian J. Rangel

Chapter 1
"Ichigo Kurosaki"

Karakura Town

A normal day slowly passed as the residents of Karakura Town settled in for the night. While it was called Karakura Town, the term town was innacurate as it had evolved into a bustling city. Like all cities, it had its fair share of crime. One such act took the life of a young girl, the family placed a vase at her death spot to remember her. While these things happen all over the world, it just so happens that on this paticular day a student of Karakura Town High happened to be walking near the site when three teenagers knocked over the vase.

The student wore a white dress shirt, grey pants, and a black tie. He carried a grey satchel case over his shoulder and was about five feet and eight inches tall. He had brown eyes and, possibly his most distinguishing feature, crayon orange hair. His name was Ichigo Kurosaki. He has two sisters, a father, and his family owns the clinic not too far away from their current position. He was sixteen years old and in the top five percent of the school in academic grades. It would also happen that this young man could see spirits of the dead.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?!" He shouted at the three teenagers before him.

"Um, passing by. Why?" The closest answered. Ichigo assumed he was the leader before kicking him in the face. His victim fell back, unconscious, as the carrot top began to scold the other two.

"Do you see what that is?!" He shouted again. With the sun in the backdrop, shadows covered his face creating a menacing image.

"It's a vase!" The two teenagers answered in terror. Another kick sent one to the ground like the one before.

"Do you know why that vase is there?!"

"A-A girl apparently died there!" The final stammered. The violent teen seemed even more terrifying to him now after knocking both of his friends unconscious with a single kick each. Like his friends, he met the same fate. One strong kick to the face; although, this time he didn't get knocked out.

"So why the hell didn't you apologize?!" The orange haired high school student placed his open hand in the air with the palm facing down. It would just so happen that as he was talking, the other two had reawakened to the sight of him doing so. They simply stared at the open space he was gesturing to, stupified. "Answer me!" The terror came back in full force for the three. The group quickly got on the knees, put their hands together and apologized before turning and running away.

"We're sorry!" The voices continued echoing from down the street.

As the sound of the terror filled cries faded away, the orange haired boy picked up the vase and set it at the base of a streetlamp. When he stood from his crouched position, a girl had appeared next to him. She appeared to be a foriegner with her pale white skin and saphire blue eyes; although, this could be because she was really dead. She had brown hair and a pink and white stripped shirt. She had blue jean shorts and red sneakers with white laces. After noticing her attire, if one paid attention, one would notice a small chain comeing out the center of the shirt. Almost too small to notice; however, Ichigo Kurosaki had seen many ghosts before, all of them had a similar chain, so none of this was shocking to him.

"Thank you for picking up my vase." She looked up at his tall stature.

"No problem, you just make sure you pass on to the other side okay?" Ichigo shuffled her hair before he began to walk away. The girl had been there for a little longer than a week and Ichigo had been trying to coax her into passing on. Like many before her, most refused to listen and eventually disappeared. Ichigo never did discover if they passed on or left to some place elsewhere.

At the pace Ichigo walked home, he managed to make it back just as the street lamps turned on. His home was, like the boy, somewhat of an oddity. It had two floors, shaped like the letter L, yellow with a green roof, a parking lot, a gate to lead to the back and a sliding glass door for the clinic part of home. Lucky for Ichigo though, no one was there beside his family. The boy walked through the side gate and around the house before entering through the side door. He casually made his way inside, around the bend, though a door, and into a hallway. He briefly debated whether he should go straight to his room or head to the recreational room (Living room.) where his family would be. The ginger nearly chose the former, but his stomach alerted him to some basic needs.

Setting his satchel on the dresser in front of him, he made his way to the main area before quickly ducking down. A man flew over his head in a position most would assume to be the infamous flying kick technique. As the man landed, Ichigo stood up and delivered a high kick to his face before shouting at the man. "What the hell is your problem you damn psychopath!" He had black hair, was wearing a laboratory coat, tan pants and was face down on the floor. The man's only response was a grunt prompting Ichigo to sigh in frustration before grumbling to himself. "What kind of psychopath attacks his own son everytime he enters the house." His sulking was interrupted by the voice of a girl coming from his left.

"Big brother!" She had light brown hair and fair skin with dark brown eyes. She wore an open hot pink hoodie with an orange and yellow stripped shirt beneath. She also wore a yellow skirt to match. Her name was Yuzu Kurosaki, Ichigo's sister, and she was eleven years old.

She quickly ran over and hugged her older brother causing him to chuckle. "Yuzu, good to see you." She released him with a smile on her face.

"You don't have to worry about cooking anything, I'll being doing all the work tonight." She smiled, proud of herself. She was, by far, the best cooker in the family and she considered this another oppertunity to sharpen her skills.

"Is that so? Glad to hear it. I don't think I could've bared dad's cooking any longer." Her returned the smile to her, ignoring the man shouting in protest in the background. "Well since, you have dinner covered, would you mind telling me when Karin comes home from soccer practice? I'm gonna work on my homework."

"Sure thing." Yuzu was always the postive one of their family. There were very few things she couldn't turn into a positive.

"Alright then, see you in a bit." Ichigo offered a wave of the hand as he made his way into the hall and up to the second story of the house.

"Man, he's sure getting stronger." The man stood from the ground, rubbing his cheek.

"Well, you have been doing this for a while now. He was bound to get tired of it dad." Yuzu commented while blinking at his childish complaint.

"Yeah, well I'll keep doing it! No son of mine is going to slack off and become a bum!" He raised his fist into the air in truimph leaving Yuzu to sweadrop at the antics of her father. He certainly was a strange nut if she ever saw one.

xxxXXX With Ichigo XXXxxx

Ichigo walked into his room, closed the door, walked over to his bed, threw the book bag on the floor, before plopping down and relaxing. His room had a window directly beside his bed and one across from his bed. Before the far window was a desk with a T.V. on it, hooked up to a VCR, with various different books cluttering the rest of the space. Beside his bed to the left was another desk, this one with a chair, and a pin board above it. After that was his closet with several horizontal shelves in it. Directly beside his bed is a small trash bin too. Ichigo laid his head back and thought about the days happenings.

It started off slow, him evading his moron of a father, getting dressed and heading towards the school bus after evading another one of his father's crazed attacks. After that, he quickly meet his friends Chad, Keigo, and Mizuiro. On their way to class, they talked about random things before Keigo started acting like a dog in heat when they entered and he got an eyeful of Orihime. She was a ginger like Ichigo with an ample breast size that tended to draw the wrong kind of attention. She seemed innocent when compared to most people her age though. Before Keigo could do anything he was quickly knocked down by Ichigo himself, who he quickly claimed to be a traitor.

The group went through their boring classes and ended up on the roof again. It was here the Keigo brought up a good point that got Ichigo thinking. The horn dog had been fawning over some of their classmates again and when Ichigo confronted him about it, he asked why Ichigo wasn't concerned with finding a girl friend. At the time, Ichigo told him that his life was complicated enough already, having a girlfriend would just add too much stress to it. Keigo quickly accused him of batting for the wrong team and Ichigo quickly planted his foot in said person's ass. The day seemed to fly by after that, Ichigo made the idiots apologize for knocking over the ghost girl's vase and then he went home.

The question did stick with him and now that he had free time to mull it over, he found himself confused. Why didn't he have a girlfriend like most of the other kids his age? The answer should be simple, but it really wasn't. He claimed it would be too complicated, but would it really? He'd already gotten used to dodging his dad's attacks, his sisters were at school the majority of the day and they got back before him, so that wasn't it. Ichigo didn't find any of them repulsive, especially not Orihime. Then again he felt like that would be taking advantage the girl if he attempted to date her. Even then, there were plenty of women on the market, so why he wasn't interested was beyond him.

"Maybe it's because of when mom..." He stopped the train of thought before it had time to even finish. He wasn't getting dragged back into those memories like he had so many times before. In fact, he'd trained himself to stop on relfex, he didn't want to remember those times. Not now, not ever. He stared at his roof before his eyes slowly began to droop. He soon found himself slipping away into a blissful slumber, wondering what exactly he'd do about that peculiar problem...

xxxXXX Later that Night XXXxxx

The house shook from the force of an explosion. An explosion so loud that Ichigo jumped in his sleep. He looked around the house wondering what happened when he heard a cry from downstairs. "Yuzu! Karin!" His mind immdediately raced to his sisters as he leaped from the bed and raced into the hall way. What he found downstairs was a mess, the entire front wall had been blown up. While most of the rubble was outside, there were still a few boards littering the recreational room. Under some of the boards were his dad and his other sister Karin Kurosaki. He quickly threw the rubble off his sister first and began trying to wake her. She had raven colored hair with white skin. Her eyes were closed, but her breathing seemed fine. She wore a white T-shirt with black sleeves and a black skirt with black shoes and white socks. Another cry drew his attention to behind himself. He turned and witnessed a monster pick his sister up by her neck and begin to dangle her over it's mouth.

Ichigo immediately jumped form his current position and charged the monster. It had dark green skin and some kind of white mask over it's face with glowing yellow eyes behind the mask. The creature abrubtly stopped what it was doing and turned it's head to the new arrival. Unfortunately, it managed to spot Ichigo before he could make contact with it and swatted him away. Ichigo landed and tumbled a few times before stopping and lying still on the ground. Content that the annoyance was dealt with, it turned it's head back towards the boy's sister before the sound of struggling reached its ears. Turning its head towards the boy, it noticed that there were two of them. The boy he'd just smacked lied in the same position as before; however, now a similar version of him stood above the other. This one wore a yellow T-shirt with maroon sleeves/shoulders and blue jeans with black 'n white sneakers. The biggest change was the large thick chain hanging from the shirt that latched onto the back of the other Ichigo Kurosaki.

Upon spotting the copy with a chain, the creature tossed the girl to the side, who let out a grunt from hitting the pavement. It approached Ichigo Kurosaki as swiftly as it's large body would allow. The boy payed it no mind as he was stuck staring at his own body in shock. "What the hell?! W-What's going on here?!" His attention finally locked on the monster once the stomps became to loud to down out. He stared at the beast in horror before leaping out of the way as it's large hand came down upon the body. When it pulled away, the body was lying in an awkward position that disturbed Ichigo. Luckily though, the chain was now severed, allowing him to move freely and escape the monster.

Ichigo turned tail and ran away as fast as his legs could carry him, but the monster followed him quickly. Despite the appearance, the chain didn't seem to weigh anything and only served as a tripping device. He managed to evade the monster long enough to cross the street before tripping on the chain. He quickly scrambled to his feet and began running again from the beast. "Stupid chain!" Ichigo remembered thinking before he was violently jerked backwards causing him land on his back. He stared up into the eyes of the beast as he became paralyzed with fear. Before he could protest, it lifted him up to eye level by his chain. The results were excruciating pain the likes of which he'd never experienced before. As he breathlessly gasped and writhed in its grip, the creature suddenly dropped him and turned its head off to the distance.

Ichigo layed in pain on the ground as he recovered from the ordeal. His mind was racing as he tried to figure out a way to escape the beast and get back to his family. A girls cry of terror drew his attention away from his current position and towards his house across the street. Standing there was his younger sister Karin Kurosaki. She took a step forward towards him, but he shouted for her to stay away. "No Karin! Find someplace to hide! Run!-GAH!" The beast pressed his head to the ground, nearly crushing it in the process, as it turned its head back towards the clinic.

Luckily it spotted not a single person, so it quickly turned its head in the previous position before beginning to drag Ichigo Kurosaki away by the chain attached to his chest. As it got further away, it opened up a black tear in what appeared to be space and time. The creature entered, dragging Ichigo along by his chain. With only seconds left, Ichigo managed to tell his sister one last thing. "Karin! Make sure Yuzu and dad are okay! What ever happens I'll be alright! I'll come back! Do you hear me?! I'll come ba-" Ichigo's voice disappeared as he was swallowed up by the darkness in front of his hiding sister's very own eyes...