Chapter 1: Death and the Straw-Hat

It was an almost normal day in the life of Karakura High school student Kurosaki D. Luffigo, but it just so happens that a normal day in his life involved him kicking somebody's ass. I say almost normal because it wasn't an ass he was kicking, it was a face. That and it was more of a downward stamp than a kick.

'What the hell you doin' to big bro Morgan?' shouted a rather generic looking member of the Marine gang of downtown Karakura. Luffigo simply looked at the punk while continuing to stamp the giant thugs head further and further into the pavement. This pissed off the Marine gang member enough to charge straight at Luffigo who simply swung his stomping leg forward and let the idiot run straight into it.

'You bastards,' shouted the schoolboy, pointing behind him towards a lamp post at a knocked over bottle of water with some flowers spilled out of it next to a lamp post. 'What the hell do you think that is?'

One of the freaked out Marine gang members, noticing he was the closest of the remaining people still standing since this freak showed up, tried to calm him down. 'Isn't it a memorial for that kid that got ran over a few days ago?'

Suddenly Luffigo appeared in front of the punk and uppercut him a few feet, leaving only two gang members left standing.

'And who the hell knocked it over?'

The last two members simply hugged each other and cried until they felt the force of Luffigo's kick smash across their faces.

'Pick these jerks up and get them the hell out of here' shouted Luffigo with such anger that he seemed to glow. Needless to say the three generic hooligan youths picked up their oversized and thoroughly disfigured leader and ran like hell.

'Thank you for that, Luffigo' came a small voice near the lamp post.

'No need' said the smiling hero turning round. 'They just pissed me off is all, and I told you to call me Luffy.'

Oh yeah did I forget to tell you that this girl he's talking to is the one who got killed and that Luffy has the ability to see and talk to ghosts? Maybe I should have 'cos its kind of important later on.

'I'll bring you some new ones tomorrow' he said to the small little girl who was see through and had a chain coming out of her chest.

Suddenly a huge explosion happened around the corner and they ran round and were staring face to face with a giant freaky looking lizard monster with a mask on and a hole in its chest.

The small ghost girl was frozen solid in fear looking at this thing. She turned to look at Luffy. He was standing there cracking his knuckles then turned to look at her, 'Want me to kick this things ass now?' Apparently he was just that stupid.

She simply grabbed him and run away from the giant monster as fast as she could.

Out of nowhere a girl dressed in a weird black cosplay outfit with a katana jumped in front of it and cut its face in half. The monster seemed to dissolve in mid-air.

'Hey!' Luffy shouted at the girl in black but before he could call out to her the ghost-girl dragged him around the corner and then four or five more blocks before she let go of him. When they finally caught their breath Luffy would have went back to look for the cool sword girl but he noticed that he was late at getting home for dinner and ran off back to his house.

Luffy's home was a local health clinic at the front and had a house built on the back where he lived with his family.

As Luffy entered the kitchen he was entranced by the smell of food and so didn't notice the ballet slipper flying towards his face and smashing him halfway across the room.

'I shall call that kick "Misspent days of a Youth about to Bloom into a Flower a Manliness". Now what time do you call this my little Mugi-chan?' asked Luffy's father Kurosaki Bentham (known to his patients as Dr 2 because he was the second best doctor in Karakura town). His question was answered by the fist of his firstborn slamming into his face and throwing him face first into the kitchen cupboards.

'Don't call me that Dad, how would you like it if I called you Bon-chan? Besides I was late because I was helping a ghost out again.'

'By that he means he was beating up a local gang again probably.' said Luffy's sister Kurosaki Aisa, the older of the two twins.

'I wish I could see ghosts and help them like you could Luffy.' said the younger twin Kurosaki Aisa. 'I can only see their outlines and feel their presence.'

'You shouldn't believe in things like ghosts Rika.' said Aisa, who could see ghosts as clearly Luffy. 'If you don't believe in them they go away and stop bothering you.'

'That's cold!' protested Rika.

'Well anyway something weird did happen while I was with that ghost' said Luffy. 'After I was done fighting you wont believe what I seen! There was this girl dressed in…' but Luffy was interrupted mid-sentence by his father tackling him from behind and grabbing him in a wrestling hold.

'Alas, it is the time in a fathers life when his child becomes a man. As a doctor I will make sure you get all the protection you need.' This resulted in Luffy swinging an elbow towards his fathers face. 'Or maybe you were interested in her dress. You know I will love you no matter what, even if you sway from the path of a man or towards the path of a woman, as long as you stay on the path of a human I will support you with all my heart.'

'Nope. Your still the only man in the family that does that kind of thing.' said Aisa, knowing full well that their father would use any excuse, such as Halloween, fancy dress parties or even a Saturday night out with the boys, to dress in women's clothing. Just then Luffy finally broke free of his fathers grasp and hoisted him over his head before slamming him down on the ground with his full strength.

'Forget it.' said Luffy. 'I'm not that hungry anymore, I'll just grab a snack' and at that he picked up the plate in the centre of the table that had a full chicken pizza on it and a bowl that was full to the brim with noodles. They were eating take-out as usual because Rika was the only one in the house that took an interest in cooking, but her bad habit of mixing-up salt and sugar resulted in more than one ruined dinner.

'I'm worried about Luffigo' said Rika. 'He's barely eating tonight. He also told me he has been seeing more ghosts than usual too.'

'He tells you those kinds of things?' Kurosaki senior picked himself up and threw himself at a nearby wall that was adorned with a giant poster of the children's dearly departed mother. 'Oh Makino my love, where did I go wrong?' he chocked through tears.

'Where did she go wrong to wind up with a guy like you, more like.' said Aisa. At this her father just howled more incessantly than before.

Now is as good a time as any to give a brief description of our protagonist. He was 15 almost 16 years old and was rather on the skinny side, but despite this he still had a rather athletic figure on him making him look hot for the fan girls in his many up and coming shirtless scenes. His hair was bright orange and rather messy, as if he always wore a hat on his head, which is weird seeing as he hadn't worn a hat in many years. One of his most distinguishing features of his and the one that made him seem a delinquent in others eyes was a long scar that ran across his left cheek. It was a memento of the day he lost his mother

Luffy was lying down on his bed in the dark just looking at his ceiling thinking back to that monster and that girl that fought it. What exactly were they? Were they ghosts? Was the girl a human? Was the thing a monster? Or were they something else entirely? Unfortunately Luffy wasn't too bright and thinking too hard like this gave him a head-ache. The ghost girl from earlier was also rather freaked out and had floated up into Luffy's room looking for somewhere to hide. She was currently making the most of being in a boys room and was trying to look for the dirty magazines that she heard were always in boys rooms. Her head was currently passing through Luffy's desk looking inside his drawers but had only found some metro sexual clothing and some manga comics that were full of fight scenes, especially one about a rather annoying orange ninja that she was baffled in the appeal of. Come on, she thought, what kind of idiot always calls out their attack just before they do it. Weren't they supposed to be stealthy?

At this point a black butterfly flew in front of Luffy's face and caused him to sit up. He turned his head left and there, standing on his open window frame, was the same strange sword-girl he had seen earlier. The words 'It's nearby' came from her mouth.

It was the first time he could clearly see what she looked like. She was quite short, about the same height Luffigo who wasn't exactly the tallest of his friends, and she had quite a slim and slight figure. Her chest was next to non-existent compared to the girls he knew. Her skin was pale and soft as if she spent a lot of time looking after her appearance but her hands were calloused and rough from often holding the katana that hung by her waist. She was wearing a kind of samurai era kimono-jacket-type-thing that Luffy was told were called a kosode and some of those hakama trousers that you saw samurai wear in the old movies, and both pieces of clothing were black in colour. Luffy was still assuming that she was dressed up in a cosplay outfit but since it wasn't an anime series that involved giant transforming robots shooting beams at each other then Luffy wasn't that interested in it. Her eyes were large and round and black, and her hair was light blue and pulled back into a ponytail at the top of her head and with a few strands left loose at the front to form bangs either side of her face.

The girl stepped down from his window frame and entered his room, looking left and right but never once sparing a second glance at Luffy lying on his bed. She moved towards the ghost who was in Luffy's room with a determined look on her face and the girl had also noticed her and had huddled herself into the corner of Luffy's room. The sword-girl withdrew her sword from her sheath and said 'It's time to end this' and swung her sword towards the girl but before anything else could happen she felt a sharp impact in her chest and looked down just in time to see Luffy's knee stuck in her stomach before his elbow came crashing down on the back of her neck knocking her to the ground.

'If you came here to steal my food your too late!!!' shouted an angry Luffy pointing at his desk where the empty plate's lay on top along with several candy bar wrappers. The blue-haired sword-girl was clutching her side and tried to pull herself up from Luffy's floor. She had a confused look on her face as she had no idea what he was talking about. Something about stealing his food. But in her mind there was something more shocking than being called a food-thief.

'You can see me? You can touch me?'

'Course I can. I'm not gonna stand by and let you come in here and try to steal my food, sword or no sword.' At this he rolled back his right sleeve and balled his hand up into a fist.

'Wait, wait, wait! I'm not a food thief!' His fist unclenched slightly and she knew she now had a chance to explain herself. She basically told him that she was a shinigami (sort of like a grim reaper but with a sword) from a place called soul society whose duty it was to send souls to the afterlife and to fight monsters called hollows that ate the souls of the dead.

After explaining this several times and getting nowhere with the idiot she had to resort to illustrations to try to explain. 'I understand now' said Luffy slamming his fist into an open palm, his eyes barely millimetres away from the Shinigami's drawings of bunny ghosts. 'You're a mystery ghost!' he exclaimed smiling to himself. 'But you know you could use some better drawings than those.' He held up in front of him a picture that could possibly have been done by a three year old. It was of a black stick figure (probably meant to be her) standing in front of a bed sheet with the eyes cut out like a child would draw a ghost, and was facing off against a giant floating face that had way too many teeth for its mouth. It was also surprising that the entire thing was done in crayon and that he had trouble colouring inside the lines.

'You think your ones any better' shouted the blue haired girl, punching him on the top of his head.

The ghost-girl in the corner of the room could no longer stifle her laughter and burst out laughing 'You both suck, Ahahahahaha!' This brought the sword girl's attention back to her as she turned and seen the ghost stuffing her fist into her mouth to try to control herself.

'Its time to send you to soul society now' she said smiling at the ghost. 'Don't worry, its not scary and your life over there is almost always better than in this world.' The ghost backed-off a little until she felt a pressure on the back of her head and turned to Luffy patting her head. He was smiling and had a confident look in his eyes. He nodded and as he did so ans the confidence in his eyes flowed into hers. The hilt of the sword was pressed against her head and a light surrounded her. She seemed to sink into the floor until she vanished completely in the light and a small black butterfly emerged from the light and flew away out the window, the light on the floor fading away and vanishing.

'COOL!!!' exclaimed Luffy with what seemed to be actual stars in his eyes. The sword-girl in his room looked towards him and smiled. As infuriating and childish as he was there was something captivating about being near him, something infectious.

'You know, if the average Japanese school boy learned about hollows and soul society they might have a crisis of faith or argue that its impossible with that person.'

'Ahh well.' Luffy just shrugged and stuffed his pinkie up his nose and twiddled it about, routing about for something interesting. This one was definitely a weird one. Hopefully not all the people in the real world were like this.

'Can I ask you something?' She turned to face the strange schoolboy. 'Are you alive or dead?'

'Well I'm dead. I thought I told you that.' Luffy leaned in close with his chin in his hand and looked the girl up and down. 'Why do you ask'

'Well all the other ghosts I've seen had chains hanging from their chests.' Luffy reached over and pulled open her kosode and was looking at the centre of her chest for signs of a metal plate and chain.

'What are you doing you jerk' yelled the girl punching him. She hastily covered herself up. 'Don't open up my clothes like that. Shinigami don't have chain's of fate. You shouldn't be looking there, you pervert. I'm the younger sister of the head of the Kuchiki Household and Squad 6 captain.'

'So that's what the chain thing is called.' A few moments passed before Luffy realised he had almost pulled a girl's shirt open. 'Aaaahhhgggghhh. What did I do.' He ran over to the corner and crouched in the dark. He could already hear what his best friend would say when he heard that. He covered his eyes and ears with his hands and rocked on his heels. 'I saw nothing, I felt nothing.'

The girl was thoroughly shocked by this turn of events. She could tell he was so innocent that the thought had probably never crossed his mind what he was doing. But it was strange how scared he was by the mere thought of a female chest. It was rather shocking.

While Luffy was having a mini-freak-out a beeping sound came from the blue-haired girls pockets. She pulled out a mobile phone shaped device from which hung a cartoon duck strap. She opened it and a gasp escaped from her mouth. 'A hollow is nearby, but there is so much interference nearby that I have no idea where it is.'

Luffigo picked himself up from his sorry state. 'Did you hear that?'

'What?'

A loud roar shattered the windows in the room. It must be just outside. She decided to quickly cast a binding spell on the idiot so he wouldn't rush out and do anything stupid. The bakudo number one spell would work fine. 'Sai' she said as she swung her arm in front of her and she watched as Luffy's arms locked behind him.

As she went to open the door it was pushed from outside and Luffigo's younger sister Rika fell in the room. She had a cut on her head and was bleeding quite badly from it. 'Luffy, help! Aisa's in trouble!' she said just before she passed out.

The blue-haired girl jumped over Rika and ran down the stairs to see a hole in the kitchen wall, through which she could see a large hollow with Aisa in its hands. Behind her she could hear the sound of Luffy tumbling down the stairs, still with his arms bound behind him.

'Don't try to fight it. A human won't be able to do a thing against the likes of a hollow.'

'Screw that. It's got my sister.' Suddenly all around Luffigo went black and strange glowing runes appeared floating around his body. She realised what he was doing. He was using his own soul to try to destroy the binding spell. Before she could say anything the runes around him dissolved and in the blink of an eye he grabbed a chair and ran out and smashed it across the giant monsters face. It barely even flinched. It swung the arm with Aisa in it at him and sent him tumbling down the street. Suddenly it seemed to lose interest in the girl in its hand. It was walking slowly towards him. The way it was looking at him …. it couldn't be. It must. It was him. He was the reason it was attacking this house. He was the reason that hollow appeared downtown earlier. His spiritual pressure was what caused the interference with her phone earlier. His spiritual pressure must be beyond human capability.

'Run! Its after you!'

But as Luffy realised this was true he knew what he must do. He wouldn't let anything happen to his family. Not again. This was why he had trained so hard to become stronger. If he couldn't save his family with his body he would save them with his soul. He dragged himself up and stood in front of the monster and threw out his arms. He would rather die than lose someone close to him again. 'Come and get me' he screamed at the lumbering giant.

As it dashed forward towards him it threw open its mouth and made to rip him in half. Before it could the black-clothed blue-haired shinigami threw herself in front of it and cut into its masked face. Unfortunately it had managed to gouge out a large part of her shoulder with its teeth. It dropped Aisa out of its hands and disappeared. Luffy ran over and after making sure Aisa was okay he went over to see how the girl was from the looks of it she couldn't move her left arm or even walk much never mind fight off the monster.

'You fool.' she coughed. 'Even if it ate you it wouldn't stop there and would devour your family anyway. We only have one chance left to stop that thing.' She held her sword in front of her. 'You must stab yourself in the heart with my zanpakuto so I can transfer some of my spiritual power to you so you can fight it.'

'Couldn't I just take your sword and use that?'

'No, dammit. Now shut up, stop being emo and stab yourself goddamit!'

'Fine!' He grabbed the blade of the sword and moved it above his heart. By now the monster had reappeared and was running down the street towards them. 'Just tell me one thing. What is your name shinigami-lady?'

'Its Kuchiki Vivi.'

'Cool. Mine's Kurosaki D. Luffigo. Nice to meetcha.'

As the monster neared them it swung down its fist as Luffy plunged the blade into his heart. A bright light engulfed Luffy and before the monster could hit it a large cut appeared on it and its arm fell off.

From Vivi's point of view Luffy had appeared behind it out of nowhere holding a giant sword in his hand (that looked suspiciously like a buster sword) and dressed in the same sort of outfit she was wearing earlier on. She looked down at herself and seen her black outfit had disappeared and she was in a white one. Her powers had all been drained. What kind of human could take all of her power? What kind of human could see and touch shinigami? What kind of human could crush a kido spell with just his spirit? What kind of person could wield a zanpakuto so large? And why did his shihakusho uniform include a black wide-brimmed hat with a white ribbon around it.

The monster thrashed in pain and once more threw a punch towards Luffy, this time with its remaining arm, but Luffy rolled under the giant fist and swung the blade above his head cutting its second arm off. As it threw back its head in pain, Luffy dashed passed it and swung his giant sword at its knee, cutting off its left leg.

As the monster lost balance it fell forward and Luffy raised his blade above his head. 'This is for messing with my family!!!' he yelled as he swung the blade down one more time, bisecting the creatures masked face in half and causing the beast to dissolve in the air. He had done it. He won. He killed it.

'Wahoo' he yelled at the top of his voice, celebrating and jumping up and down. Then it seemed he finally noticed the giant blade in his hand and his eyes turned to stars once more. 'Oh my god this thing is soooo COOL! I kick ass!'

While Vivi was watching this turn of events she sat in shocked silence until a repeated prodding in her back caused her to turn round and see she was being poked by a cane. A cane held by a rather strange looking red-haired man in green clothing, a dark green coat, large wooden sandals and a straw hat made of green and white straw that looked strangely similar to the black hat that was on top of Luffy's head at this very moment. He leaned over in close to her and tipped his hat to her.

'Hey there Miss Kuchiki. Need a hand with that body of yours?' he asked stretching his hands towards her and wriggling his fingers. This got him a kick to the face and sent Vivi running away down the street. After he wiped the blood off his nose he ran after her shouting 'I meant do you want a new Gigai. I'll make sure it's nice and smooth. C'mon wait up. Wait.' At that he set off after her disappearing outing on the horizon. Luffy never noticed this because he was trying to figure out where that Hazel Fernandez music was coming from.

Meanwhile, a dimension away, the recently promoted green haired Lieutenant of squad 6 has arrived in 13th division and was searching for Vivi to tell her the good news.

'She left at noon, you fool' said the white haired Captain of squad 13, sitting on the porch of his division barracks. 'Didn't you get the promotion yesterday? You should have told her yesterday.'

'I came straight her after my new captain told me' said the green pony tailed swordsman. The Captain shook his head in disbelief. He had heard the rumours but never quite believed them. Squad 6 barracks was only a 5 minute walk away and it was a straight path from here to there. This caused him to start coughing so violently his cigars fell out his mouth.

'You better head back.' he said, wiping some specks of blood from his chin onto his white sleeve and picking up his cigars from the floor. 'Your captain will be wondering where you are.'

'Suppose' said the Lieutenant, yawning and heading off on the long journey back to his division. The Captain lay back and closed his eyes to the sky and thought to himself that the Gotei 13 was getting more and more filled with strange characters these days. He kept thinking this thought as he heard the sound of the Lieutenant walk through the paper walls of 13th division barracks and into the womens showers. Over the sound of women screaming he could just make out the Lieutenants voice asking which was to 6th squad HQ. This was definitely a very interesting time to be a Captain indeed.