Bleach- A New Face- Slight AU~ OC, with some possible pairings later on. Rated T to be safe for violence, language,etc. Rating may go up later if needed. Story picks up after Ichigo has already gotten his powers and jsut before Rukia is taken back to Soul Society by her brother and Renji. Bear with me, this is my 1st real fanfic.
Disclaimer~ I Don't own Bleach or any of it's characters.
-Key-
/../ =Thoughts
"Speach"
~Prologue~
As he stepped off the plane and scanned his surroundings he immediately noticed the differences between Japan and the States, having come from his first duty station at Fort Lewis Washington and his new assignment in Japan.
/Man…..this'll take some getting some getting used to…../
He had been taking Japanese as his foreign language in college as well as when he was deployed in his free time and could make himself understood at best. He was picked up by a representative from his Battalion HHD and driven to his company and in processed and assigned to his company, the 372nd Military Police Company, where he found his that his company was in charge of Garrison duty at a small base near a midsized town called Karakura. He right off the bat started hearing rumors of odd events occurring frequently in the area, gas explosions, buildings collapsing and people seeing weird things seemed an everyday occurrence. He suddenly noticed that someone was calling his name and turned, finding himself face to face with his new Team Leader, Sergeant Little, a tall skinny guy. Around 6 foot 3 inches and with a southern drawl as he was a native of Texas.
'Specialist Haneck…. Do you need to have your hearing checked?"
"No Sergeant, Sorry, was just thinking."
Sergeant Little looked down a folder he was carrying; it was a personal file on his new soldier and began to read.
"Jaden Haneck, Specialist….. been in the Army for just over three years now…. Been deployed to Iraq once…as well as Afghanistan... Got a Combat Action Badge out of that… good…as well as a Bronze Star with a Valor device and several ARCOM's and AAM's with both Valor and Merit device's... shows you can work under fire."
Jaden nodded as his Sergeant Little looked up and took a notepad out of his pocket and starting reading.
"Turns out your old squad leader is a friend of mine and so I gave him a call to find out a little about my new soldier… and I was a little surprised….said I would be getting some sort of Ninja…. He said you were like a Black Belt in Karate, Judo and Jujitsu…as well as competed in different weapon martial arts as well. Oh, and I noticed you were level three certified in the Modern Army Combatives Program as well. He also said you performed all your jobs as well…. But… he did say you had your odd uh… quirks. He said you would at times freeze at odd moments and stare and at times would talk to yourself."
Jaden sighed and shook his head, how was he to explain that he was staring at ghosts! And especially that sometimes they talked to him! With that he was assigned a barracks room and met his roommate who he immediately took a dislike too and got permission to rent an apartment off the base in nearby Karakura town.
One week later after his first day on patrol, Jaden had already turned in his weapon and ammo and changed into his civilian clothes, khaki pants and a plain white t-shirt. Making his way home he rounded a corner to have a hard, round object impact him in the sternum, knocking the breath out of him with an "OOF". He landed on his rear end and looked up rubbing his chest to see what sort of blunt object had hit him like a baseball bat and was surprised to see a teenage girl with strawberry blonde hair rubbing her head with a look of pain on her face talking about being attacked by purple aliens in flying IPODs, Jaden popped to his feet and bent down to check on her.
"I'm so sorry! You okay?"
At the slightly confused look on the girl's face he repeated the question in broken Japanese. At this the girl's eyes widened and she pointed a finger accursedly at Jaden with a comical look on her face.
"Aaah! Yankee gangster! Don't wack me please!" The girl said in accented English.
At this exact moment as Jaden was trying to figure out what the girl was talking about a he half turned as he heard rapid footsteps heading towards him and saw a trio of teenage males running towards him with concerned looks on their face and the boy in the lead, a blonde haired boy looked angry. At that moment he realized what it most look like, a young adult male standing over a girl who was pointing at him and looked in pain. He stood the rest of the way up and raised his hands in a placating gesture and began trying to explain in his bad Japanese, but the boy didn't seem to hear him and swung a powerful punch at his head. Jaden acted reflexively and parried the right punch with his left hand, grabbing the wrist and rotating, grabbing under the boy's armpit with his right arm, using the boy's momentum flipping him over and throwing him a couple of yards away. He saw the boy pop up to his feet right away and look like he was going to come at him again. He settled onto the balls of his feet and continued to try and get the boy to stop.
"HEY! Stop!"
Ichigo was very surprised, he knew he was very good at hand to hand. But the ease at which this.. man… this American… he had to be.. had countered his punch. He glanced at Inoue and he started to see red, she had a red mark on her forehead and she looked like she had been close to crying. He noticed Sado and Uryuu were staring at him and the American in shock. Ichigo then turned to the man.
"You bastard! You hurt Inoue!"
With this he charged at Jaden and threw a left roundhouse kick at his head, right front kick to the midsection and a right cross which got through, splitting his opponents lip and turning his head, but as his head snapped back towards him he noticed a new look in his eye that gave Ichigo pause.
Inoue couldn't believe it, Kurosaki-kun was furious! Why was he so mad? She wasn't really hurt. And the American wasn't a bad person, it was her fault anyways and now they were fighting. She was surprised; the American was just defending himself against Kurosaki-kun and seemed to be holding back. She had had enough, she ran in between them holding her hands out to stop them.
"STOP! Please Kurosaki-kun! Yankee Gangster-san! Please stop."
She turned towards Ichigo.
"Kurosaki-kun, please stop. It…it was my fault, I ran into him!"
With this Ichigo backed up confused, looking back and forth between Inoue and the American. He looked more closely, he had dark blond hair, cut very short….. like a soldier or something. He had sharp, bright blue eyes, a sharp, pronounced nose, not too long but it was a noticeable feature on him. He was just under 6 feet tall, about 180-190 pounds and looks to be in good shape, not like a body builder, just someone that was accustomed to hard work and frequent use of his body. He was impressed with this man. He rubbed the back of his neck and looked out of the corner of his eye at him.
/Who is this guy? I didn't hold back at all, yet all he did was block, and I only hit him once./
"Umm…I guess I'm sorry, if it was really an accident. I guess I kinda just snapped when I saw Inoue like that."
Jaden sighed and picked up his backpack that he had dropped when had got up to help the girl.
"I'm sorry as well, I just reacted when you came at me…. I would react the same way as you did if I found some stranger standing over my girlfriend."
With this comment he saw the girl and the boy start blushing profusely and he became confused.
"Uh….looks like I got it wrong…and I think I better introduce myself. I'm Jaden Haneck, I'm a MP at the neighboring US Army base and was just walking to my apartment nearby."
He gave a slight bow and walked over to the blonde boy and held out his hand, the boy took it.
"Kurosaki Ichigo…. A…uh… High School student."
The girl and the other two boys introduced themselves as Inoue Orihime, Sado Yatsura and Ishada Uryuu. After a few minutes of awkward silence Jaden excused himself and bid them a goodnight. As he walked away the group of friends all looked at each other and Ichigo walked over to Inoue and softly took her head in his hands, taking a look at the faint bruise forming on her forehead. This caused Inoue's eyes to widen and she blushed profusely.
"K..Kurosaki-kun…..wha?..."
With this Ichigo realized what he was doing and let go, pulling his hand back like it had been burned, blushing.
"I..I..uh… you okay Inoue?..."
Inoue immediately perked up, trying to not remember what Ichigo's hand felt on her face. She seemed to almost flex, trying to reassure her friends.
"I've never been better!"
With this reassurance, Ishida looked at where Jaden had disappeared around the corner.
"Did anyone else feel some reiatsu coming from him? Maybe it was just me."
Inoue and Sado both responded that they had got that feeling as well while Ichigo scratched his head.
I thought I had a funny feeling about him….hope he doesn't attract any hollow attention."
"Yeah…let's hope not. Come on, let's head home." Ishida responded.
Meanwhile, Jaden was a couple blocks away at the time on his way to his apartment when a now familiar odd feeling of being watched swept over him. He stopped and looked around searching for the cause of these feelings. He spotted it in a young girl, about the age of 8 or 9 who he could tell was a ghost, with that funny chain thingie in her chest. He had always wondered why the hell they had something like that. He smiled and walked over to her.
"Hello…. You okay?"
/Well that was a stupid question to ask someone that's dead./
He thought as he bent down talk to the girl spirit.
"Y..you can see me?..."
"Yes I can see you…. You look like you've been crying. Why…?"
They both froze as they felt a new, sinister presence and heard a roar. The girl began to cry and tremble as Jaden jumped up, scanning for the threat.
/What the hell is that! What is this feeling?/
His eyes widened as something massive was charging its way through the trees in the nearby park, bowling them over like they were toothpicks.
"What the bloody hell is that!..."
He grabbed the girl spirit, threw her over his shoulder and took off in a dead sprint. He heard a roar and the impact of something large landing close behind him and knew he couldn't get away in time when he saw someone in black flash past him in a blur, a final anguished roar then… silence. He half turned and was surprised to see the last pieces of …..something….. large disappear into nothing.
/Where the hell did it go?.. did that…someone…. Destroy it? Gah…/
He set the girl down, bade his farewell and finally made his way back into his apartment. As he got ready for bed he couldn't get the person in black and the large "being" out of his mind.
/What was that thing? Who was the figure that saved him and the girl? Why was that…thing.. after the spirit girl/
Jaden falls asleep with troubled thoughts.
Back at the Park, a figure in black sighs and cracks it's knuckles before turning and approaches the spirit girl. The girl notices a figure behind her and lets out a startled "eep" as she spins and sees a dark skinned woman in dark clothes with a orange top.
"It's okay… your safe now…. I took care of that monster. Did that guy help you?"
The spirit girl nods, but her eyes widen as the feline-like female draws a very short katana from seemingly nowhere and smiles encouragedly.
"It's okay….don't be afraid, my name is Yourichi Shihoin . I don't know why you haven't passed on but I will help you, you'll be safe in Soul Society. "
With this she performed a Soul Burial on the spirit, as it faded away Yourichi felt her cat-like curiosity piqued and looked to where the man had disappeared,wondering why the Hollow was after the man and why he was putting out such strong and odd reiatsu for a human.
/...Better let Kisuke know about this.../
The next morning Jaden woke to the odd feeling something was off. Shaking off the covers he yawned and stretched his sleep encumbered body when he passed the window on the front of his apartment and came to an abrupt stop as he came face to face with someone shading his eyes, attempting to a better look into the room. The man's eyes widened in suprise as they met eye to eye under a ridiculous looking white hat with green stripes.
/...WHAT THE HELL?.../
Jaden could almost feel the stress mark appearing on his forehead as he yanked the window open the intruder opened his mouth to talk but was quickly interupted by a foot to the face. As the odd fellow tumbled comically end over end before coming to rest in a crumpled heap, Jaden rolled out the window pointing at the man with a plain, worn katana.
/...Where the hell did he get a blade from?.../
Urahara thought.
"You might want to start talking before I think you are some sort of robber scouting out my place for you to jack..."
This caused the shopkeeper to grin in a odd way and stand, dusting himself off.
"My, my...you remind me of someone... tell me... how long have you been able to see spirits?"
~End of Chapter~
Alrighty, help and constructive critism is appreciated. If you don't understand any terms, etc I use...especially the military jargon, just ask and I'll gladly fill ya in.
