Chapter 01

Black Ice

Now—

The sound of students crossing through the halls stirred awake the sore male student, and he knew that classes were going to be starting soon. Before the school nurse could catch him on the uncomfortable bed in the small white room in the office that he had broken into. He had been doing it for four months; since he started had high school as a Freshman when the school year began for him. Knowing the simple routine to not get caught, he slipped through the back, knocking into a tall muscular teen who had a hot beverage in hand. There was no sound of gritting in pain when the beverage hit the taller student's chest, but he looked very annoyed by the act.

"S-Sorry…" The smaller one gulped nervously. He noticed the look in this guy's eye, he knew how to fight—if not kill. "I… I was…" If he had healed enough, he would have been cockier. "If I was caught—" His eyes shut tightly when the other male tossed the empty cup away, ripped the button shirt off that caused the small one to flinch, and revealed a plain white shirt. "I-I'll wash it for you." The other looked at him, and a teacher came out through the same door. 'Crap, the last person that I needed to see…'

"Hitsugaya Toushirou, don't tell me you broke into the office to sleep at the medical bay again." The man placed his fists on his hips. "I'm afraid you're going to have a talk with the principal again, now—"

"I was looking for the office. Toushirou, here, was just about to lead me to the correct entrance since this door is for staff use only." The tall student brushed his shirt off. "I do not appreciate the assumption of whatever crime you think he has committed, and would like to hear an apology towards him, too."

"Y-You're…" before he could think, he looked to the boy. "Sorry Hitsugaya, my mistake." The teacher knew who this new student was. "Please show our newest student where the correct office door is."
"A-Ah…" Toushirou nodded dumbly for never seeing fear in a teacher's eye before. After the man ran off he tried to figure out what created that fear. However, he looked up at the tall student. "Why did you…"
"I'm going to make a guess and say that you don't have a home if you have been sleeping in the medical bay. So how do you intend to wash one of my favorite shirts?" This orange-haired teen was… scary…
"There's a washer and dryer machine between the janitor's room and the P.E. lockers, I can have it done by the end of the day." The last thing he needed was to get in more trouble that he could not handle.

"Alright then," he gave him the shirt. "I will meet you in this very spot after school. If you manage that, I suppose I can arrange a room for you to sleep in at some hotel for the night near the school." Toushirou stared up at him in surprise. "Now then, how about you show me the way to the office so I will not be a liar, Toushirou?" The poor boy nodded dumbly before pointing in a direction. "Are manners that poor in this town?" His hand came up, carefully nudging the small one. "It would nice if you take me there, I am poor with verbal directions." This made the other slowly lead the way. "Furthermore, had I allowed you to be scolded by the principal, my shirt would be ruined by the time I made it home today. That's all."

Toushirou watched him for sudden movements in case this was a joke, or a trick to get him to lower his guard, as many others would attempt. He saw him look at all the humans that the two of them were passing by as they walked around the office to hit the proper entrance. His eyes could not be fooled; he knew that this student had a dangerous streak, so it was best to stay out of his way after today ended. It did not take long for them reach the front of the office building… the school was different from most other schools—the owner of the school wanted it to be American influenced. Two girls were suddenly fighting before they managed to enter the office, and Toushirou watched as the other observed them.

"So, there are cat fights here too," he mused before entering the office. "Thank you for escorting me."
Toushirou nodded nervously. "I'll go wash your shirt before classes start." With that, he power walked away from the office building. 'That guy is dangerous… I can't afford to have anymore enemies damn it!'
Once he was far out of sight, the carrot top was amused. 'For someone with an icy glare, he was more interesting than I could have assumed.' He looked at his hand; a small patch of blood on it. "Hmm…"

It seemed that there was more to both of them than they would care to admit.

"Class… everyone, we have a new student in our chemistry class. Now, although his grades are the most outstanding records that I have ever seen, please help him if he ever needs your assistance." The happy teacher looked over at the doorway. "Please welcome Kurosaki Ichigo-san." After introduced by name, the student walked. "Kurosaki-san, would you like to tell us a few things about yourself then?"

'Not in particular.' He thought to himself as he scanned over the class that was seated in odd rows—but saw Toushirou in the middle row on by the window, sleeping. 'Oh?' In that case, why not. "I am Kurosaki Ichigo." At his voice, Toushirou sat up straight immediately. "I came here from Hueco Mundo, and so I do hope that Karakura Town will be more pleasant to live in." Everyone began to gossip instantly at this.

"Thank you very much," the teacher did his best to keep things short. "Please have a seat in that empty chair over there so we may begin our lesson for the day." Thankfully, the student did as he was told.

Toushirou did not think that there was a chance in Hell that he would be seeing this guy again after school was out today, but now they were in the same class and the same group. He knew the Gods hated him—he could understand that, but to force him to encounter a new threat everyday during school was too much! As the teacher began explaining things about chemistry, a girl slipped a phone number on their table on a piece of paper for the new guy. Ichigo looked at it briefly before casually dropping it in the test tube that contained some hot boiling acid, dissolving the little note. His actions made things worse as more girls started to look at him with the horrifying giddy expressions they had.

"Hey, Hitsugaya, did you finish our work." A male asked from behind as Ichigo watched another girl slip him a note with her phone number. Toushirou ignored the student behind him though. "Hitsugaya!" He whispered a little loudly as the teacher did not seem to notice. "Hey, I'm talking to you, you little punk!"

As Toushirou tried his best to control himself to ignore him and pay attention to the lesson, the student was not thrilled about it. The male reached over to grab his hair in order to do harm for not being listened to, and Ichigo firmly grabbed his wrist, throwing him to the ground three feet below. Everyone looked in their direction, and the teacher frowned at the three that caused the disturbance in the class.

"Sorry, Sensei." Ichigo spoke without emotion as he held up the scrap of paper. "This guy was trying to give me his phone number while I was doing my best to tell him that I was not interested in guys. Yet he leaned too far forward and fell over the table as he tried to give me said paper. " He was a smooth liar.

Although everyone knew that it was a lie since they were used to the student's actions towards their smallest classmate, they giggled. The teacher was also aware of the lie, but decided to play along for his own safety, and told the student to wait after class for his confession. This angered the now humiliated student who glared viscously at Toushirou was he started to walk to his seat, but tripped over a foot.

"Oh, sorry, I thought you knew how to pick up your feet. These chairs aren't high enough to allow me to sit up properly." Ichigo spoke casually after purposely tripping the bully. "Are you okay? You bleeding?"
"No, but you'll be in a minute!" The student jumped up and tried to land a punch on Ichigo's face.
He caught the fist. "Sensei," he called out curiously. "I believe he just tried to harm me after I had given him my apology, and he even threatened me. I'm a little confused, is that really allowed in this school?"
"No, as a matter of fact." The teacher looked to the student. "Go to the office, security will be waiting."
"Are you serious! This guy grabbed my wrist and slammed me into the ground, and he just tripped me—you saw that!" Angrily, he looked at everyone. "Everyone saw him throw me into the floor, right!"

"Wait, so let me get this straight, I grabbed your wrist, and either slammed or threw you to the ground… with my back turned to you?" Ichigo asked curiously before looking at the teacher. "Hey Sensei, I think he hit his head or something. Maybe he should go to the nurse before or after going to the office?"

He growled at him. "I'll see you after school."

"After school? Sorry, I have plans then, can we reschedule your confession to… tomorrow?"

Everyone laughed at the scene as the troublemaker stormed out before he got into any more trouble than he was already in. However, Ichigo was not laughing about anything as he knew he just put a lot at risk the moment he grabbed another student's wrist. It appeared that Toushirou was a victim in some high school bullying, so he might have made it worse for the little guy, making him involved now. It was his turn to emit a low growl at the thought of having to deal with lowlifes after having destroyed his past before coming to this town. A note slid in front of him from the small boy next to him, it read, do not be tangled in the things that I am in, it is not worth it for you.

"A bit late, kid." He grumbled quietly, mainly to himself as he watched the lesson. "I don't like violence."
"If you don't like violence, why do you have that look in your eye as if you've killed others before?"
His attention turned to him. "Are you implying that I, a seventeen year old teen, have killed someone?"
"Yes, and do not deny it," he thought carefully before adding. "Please." Toushirou needed to be smarter.
"The thing with a killer's eyes, is that you have to see them up close. Now, do my eyes say that to you?"

Ichigo was a few inches away from Toushirou to let him have a good look into his chocolate brown hues; it was faint now, but still there. This guy did not trust anyone, nor would he take crap from anyone, and he could hide his expression and thoughts very well. Toushirou shivered at the reminder before turning away to watch the rest of the lesson before class was going to be over. With the Strawberry piecing the signs together, he figured it out easily about what was going on with this easy target at school.

The bell rang, and Ichigo began to put his plans into action by going up to the teacher to whisper. "I have a feeling that you know who I am, am I right?" The teacher nodded slowly. "Good, good, now, I have a little favor to ask if you don't mind." He came over to whisper even lighter in the teacher's ear…

Toushirou tiredly grabbed his notes and slipped them into his bag before shifting it over his shoulder slowly in order to not disturb his wounds. As he was used to being the last student to leave in order to lower the chances of being harassed by all of the other students in class. The teacher waved him over while Ichigo was at his side, so he trudged over to hear the usual 'what happened in class' today.

"Would you mind escorting Kurosaki-san around school? I'll give you both a pass for your other classes. Our school is different from your modern Japanese ones, that he's a little too confused it seems." The teacher frowned with little hope, knowing that the chance was unlikely. "You can leave school after it."

Ichigo looked interested in this. "If that's the case, can he show me half the classes first. Go out to get a bite, and then return to find the remaining classes?" The teacher shrugged, having to go along. "Great."
It felt like a setup, but it beat being harassed by classmates all day. "Fine." There was no doubt in his mind that Ichigo was the one that had planned this. "However, I have no money to eat, Kurosaki."
"It will be my treat. After all, you're saving me a great deal of trouble." With that, he motioned him to go first after giving him his little class schedule to work with their directions. "Lead the way, Toushirou."

"You can eat for someone of your petite figure. I almost assumed that you were anorexic, no offense." Ichigo commented before taking a sip of his chocolate milkshake. "I won't steal your food, eat slower."

Toushirou looked up at him with his mouth full of fries; he had not realized that he had been inhaling down his meal until he saw that the other only had a few bites of his medium sized burger. Whereas he managed to devour his largely stacked burger, slurped half of his soda, and started on his fries about five seconds ago. He was acting like a pig in front of someone, and it was making him feel a little ashamed and embarrassed to be seen like this. Food was hard to come by because he could only eat once a day at school when his friend would feed him half her meal, and that was if he attending school.

He chewed the fries slowly, and swallowed before answering him. "S-Sorry." Toushirou grabbed two fries at once now to nibble on, rather than a handful and swallowing them. "I don't get to eat often."

"I can see that." Quietly, he took another bite of his burger, chewed, and swallowed. "As I'm sure you've observed, I do not like to assume anything. Nevertheless, I will guess that you have no place to stay, and so you make do with hiding out at the school. Meaning that there's little chance of scavenging a decent meal. Your indifferent attitude makes you appear to have little to no socializing with others, but you must have at least one person to slip you a meal whenever the chance comes your way." He took a sip of his cold shake. "You're not an orphan, otherwise you would have a place to stay, and you would not jeopardize that one detail. Forgive me if I'm wrong, but have you decided to run away from home?"

The other stiffened at the dead on accusations, and wondered how this person could figure him out so easily when his only friend at school could not? Either way, he slowly nodded to him because he had been so generously giving when buying their meals for lunch at the fast-food restaurant. Ichigo nodded softly as he could understand the situation that he was in, and his phone began to ring with a beeping ringtone that almost sounded like an alarm clock.

"Excuse me," he brought out the cell phone to look at the Caller ID before answering. "Kurosaki." There was a woman on the other side, complaining about a destructive girl getting into a fight. "I will be there in ten minutes." He ended the call before dialing again. "Yes, I would like a taxi to pick me up." As he gave his location, he watched as Toushirou stared at him in disbelief. "You have three minutes then." The call was ended, and he settled the phone in his side pocket. "Sorry, my sister is stirring trouble in middle school. Do you mind if we take a trip there before returning to school?" Toushirou shook his head dumbly at the other who sounded so… professional. "Would you like to finish my burger, too?"

This struck a nerve with the smaller of the two. "That's indirect kissing."
"Perhaps for you, maybe, but it is also a free meal, too. I do not like to waste food." As he stood up to throw away his tray, Toushirou quickly snatched the burger and nearly swallowed it. "You're welcome."
"…thank you," be muttered after devouring the rest of the meal. "But why?"
"A 'thank you' is common gratitude and should be practiced to earn more respect." Ichigo answered. Even though he knew that, the other meant a completely different question for him. "We should go."

They left the restaurant after Ichigo made a few more orders to-go for the trip, and even gave one to Toushirou with some vanilla ice cream. The generosity was too much for him to find it not suspicious, but he was not going to be able to turn down the free food, so he ate the ice cream. Ichigo tried to warn him that he could get a possible freezing in his body, and sure enough, Toushirou earned himself brain freeze. He laughed weakly at the desperate boy that tried to devour the dessert as he would a burger, so he told him to rub the roof of his mouth with his tongue as a cure. The taxi drove them over to the middle school in less than three minutes, and there was still a commotion going on outside of the school building. They came out of the taxi together and approached the scene; this was Toushirou's first time to see a girl kicking everyone's butt.

"Karin," Ichigo called out, and said girl punched one last boy before looking at him. "That's enough."
"Onii-chan!" Another girl came running over, crying her eyes as out. "I'm so glad that you're here!"
"Ichi-nii, this guy was making fun of us because we're twins with different hair color!" Karin yelled.
Ichigo looked over at the unconscious boy. "Well, it doesn't seem that he will be bothering you now."
"Onii-chan! You said that Karin couldn't get into anymore fights! You said so yourself!" The other cried.
He scratched the back of his head. "Sorry Yuzu, but if she's protecting you and herself, I can let it slide."

"Is this your way to discipline unruly behavior!" A female teacher screeched. "She almost killed him—"
His form was in front of the woman in a second, somewhat pinning her to a wall without even touching her. "I believe your other students caused this problem, Sensei. My sister was defending herself, right?"
"Yeah ya hag!" A girl with light greenish-yellow hair embraced Ichigo's waist. "Kurosaki-sama is the law!"
Ichigo looked at her in disbelief, "Lilinette…" suddenly, a gun was fired, and he dodged the attack before doing a back flip to get away from the large amount of people before looking at the man. "And Stark…"
"Forgive me, but you're not allowed to cause mayhem here, Kurosaki-sama." Said man stated quietly.
"Oh? You mean to tell me that you were using my sisters to bait me here?" He came over, whispering to the man. "I'm not the man that I was before. You heard of the society being destroyed, haven't you?"
"Are you implying that you decided to shut everything off by yourself?" Stark eyed him suspiciously.
"Eye for an eye, do we have a deal?" By this, he meant to keep his sister safe, and to keep Lilinette safe, too. "I have no intention of fighting a useless traitor. Now then," he asked again. "Do we have a deal?"

Stark put the gun away, and bowed. "Deal, Kurosaki-sama."

"My sisters are in your care. See to it I don't receive another call." He turned then offered the two girls a paper bag that had a meal. "We went to a restaurant, here's your share. Both of you, behave. Got it?" It did not take them a second to nod their heads eagerly, and gave them the meal. "We're heading back."

Yuzu waved merrily. "Bye Onii-chan! Have a good day at school!"

Ichigo nodded before turning to leave with Toushirou, only to see that the taxi was gone, and this made him growl angrily. At first, he wanted to call a hit on that bastard after he had told him to wait for their return so that they could get to school. However, firing the fool would probably be more appropriate if he wanted to end his violent streak for the sake of what was left of his family. Then again… a walk to school would not be so bad, but he was positive that Toushirou was eyeing his bag of food still.

"I believe there's a park before we reach school. You can finish your meal there first, and then we can head back." Toushirou looked up at him suspiciously; obviously not trusting him anymore. "What is it?"
"You're trying to lead me into a trap to be attacked by the Arrancar Gang, thank you for the meal, but I'll eat it at school!" Just as he was about to storm off, the other hooked an arm around one of his carefully.
"I wasn't aware that there was a gang in this town. For that, I apologize." This caused the shorty to look at him unhappily. "We moved here to get away from gangs and violence. To know that there's a gang—"

"And you're trespassing." A voice called out. The two looked to see a giant buff man grinning widely. "I haven't see that scary face in two years." He punched his fist in his other hand. "Isn't this rich guys!"
A group of other slowly appeared; not so cocky though. "Ah, Yammy… this must be the Arrancar Gang I heard about?" Ichigo looked to Toushirou who nodded. "I see. But the quickest way is through the park."
"Ya gonna fight to get through, Little Man? Heard ya took a vow not to harm a fly after what happened to dear ol daddy." Yammy grinned widely, and everyone slowly backed away. "We can take you on—"
"I'm not armed with a knife like you are, fighting you would be useless." Ichigo took a step, smiling in a cool, dangerous manner. "Now then, be a good boy and get out of my way like the others already have."

Yammy looked over his shoulder… everyone stayed out of the way, forcing him to snort as he moved.

"Thank you," he nudged the small friend forth, and they headed to school. "They don't seem that bad—"

Suddenly Yammy grabbed him, only to be jumped and mauled by two large dogs that were thrilled at the chance to rip this man's throat out. The others recognized the pair of dogs and instantly fled the scene before they were victims of their now-bloody fangs as well. Just as they were about to go for the throat as the finish touch to kill the man that dared to touch the carrot top, Ichigo snapped his fingers. They pulled away from the man before coming to the high school students, baring their fangs as they barked warningly at him. Yammy got the drift and fled the scene as quickly as possible, calling out at them that he would get his revenge when he could.

One of the dogs started to chase him— "Kon," Ichigo called out, stopping the dog. "You can go home while Komamura-san watches over my sisters." They whined unhappily. "Do it, now." The two fled.

Toushirou stared at the man, wondering what he was.