There are things in this world that we were never meant to understand. Things that humans were never meant to know, but sometimes find out by chance or luck. When these things are revealed to a human, sometimes they can find themselves looking in the face of death, other times the human becomes something called a Soul Reaper.

Soul Reapers have two jobs; 1) to cleanse dead souls and help them 'pass on' using Konso. 2) To exercise evil spirits that have been cast from the Soul Society, bound for Hell. These evil spirits are called Hollows.

…

"Sadako, wait up!" I shouted to my friend, who was quite a ways ahead of me.

She stopped and waited for me. "Please at least try to keep up."

I laughed. "Okay!"

My name is Arisa Izawa, I'm fifteen so I should be in High School like a normal teenager in Japan, but I'm not. In fact, my friend, Sadako Arima, who is also fifteen, and me look like normal teenage girls. The fact that we're not normal teenage girls is a well-kept secret between us. We're Soul Reapers, two girls sent to the human world on a mission by the Soul Society. Our job is to protect a certain guy, but the problem is…we don't know who this guy is!

We've been looking all over Tokyo for this guy, but still can't find him. Even though we are two Soul Reapers walking around in plain daylight, we're in human vessels that look exactly like us.

Mine has the same shoulder-length dark brown hair and blue-green eyes as I do. The only difference is that I can't wear my black kimono that I normally wear, so I'm stuck wearing human clothes. It's all that bad really, my outfit is a white tank top with a black short-sleeved jacket over it – it's unzipped of course – blue jeans, and black converse. All around, it's pretty comfortable.

I can't say the same for Sadako though. Sure, her human vessel also has her normal hair and eyes; shoulder-length black hair and green eyes…but her outfit was more like a school uniform. A white collared shirt with a red bow around the neck, a plaid red skirt, knee-high black socks, and brown shoes made up her outfit. She didn't like it because of all the perverts around this part of Japan, plus – as she's said a million times – it's not that comfortable.

It kinda makes sense for her to have an outfit like that though, she has always acted more grown-up then really anyone we're good friends with in the Soul Society. I kinda act grown-up, but I'm still a little childish. Sadako says that I'm just naïve, which I take as an insult.

Sadako stopped in front of a school that was just letting out. "Lets check here next."

I sighed. "Why are we still checking schools? Lets just go to the police department and ask them to help us find this guy."

Sadako shook her head and took a piece of paper from a pocket of her skirt. "We can't, Ichigo Kurosaki can't know that we're watching him."

"Hey, why don't you watch me instead?" A boy with chin-length brown hair that spiked off at the bottom said, approaching Sadako.

Sadako punched the guy in the face. "You wanna repeat that?!" She shouted, pissed.

The guy scurried off to a guy with orange spiky hair. "Ichigo, that girl punched me in the face!"

Ichigo was wearing a gray school uniform and carrying a white and red messenger bag. He sighed. "Listen, you can't come crying to me every time you get rejected by a girl from another school, even if it is painful."

"But this one's a looker!" He nearly shouted, pointing over to where Sadako and I stood.

Ichigo looked our way, but showed no interest. "Listen, just because you think someone looks good doesn't mean that I think the same."

"But Ichigo…!" The guy said, now acting even more childish than I normally do.

Sadako and I ran off, now knowing who and where Ichigo Kurosaki was.

Once we were far away from the school, we leapt onto the top of a building that over looked the school that Ichigo attended.

Sadako was kneeling down and watched Ichigo walk home with his immature friend. "Now we know who exactly this Ichigo Kurosaki guy is."

I smiled. "He's kinda cute. Don't you think?"

"No." Sadako said, shaking her head.

"No?" I was a little disappointed that Sadako didn't think that Ichigo was cute like I did.

Sadako stood up and changed back into her Soul Reaper form. "Lets go." She had on the traditional Soul Reaper outfit of a black kimono; her Zanpakto (not sure if that's spelled right) was on her back.

I nodded, changing back into my Soul Reaper form, I to wore the tradition Soul Reaper outfit of a black kimono. My Zanpakto was on my side.

We ran off, following Ichigo from the rooftops. While in our Soul Reaper forms, nobody could see us unless they had an enormous amount of spirit energy. The only human that we were aware of in Tokyo who could see Soul Reapers was Ichigo, so we only had to worry about staying out of his sight.

The reason we have to watch over Ichigo in the first place is because his memory was wiped, the time he met his friends that helped him try to rescue a traitor Soul Reaper, Rukia Kuchki, his days as a Soul Reaper, and the Soul Society, all gone from his memory. Even his knowledge of Hollows and how to defeat them is gone and recently there has been a mass number of Hollows sighted in Japan by other Soul Reapers, so we were sent here to protect Ichigo from the Hollows and prevent him from ever rediscovering what Hollows were, as well as Soul Reapers, and his past. His friends were killed in the attempted rescue of Rukia Kuchki, but he somehow survived and his memory was erased of any knowledge of Soul Reapers, Quincy's, and his friends as well. Pretty much, all he remembers are his friends from the human world who have no spirit energy and his family.

We were told that's the reason we're protecting him. But the real reason we got this job is because we're not the strongest Soul Reapers. Those who run the Soul Society, and our Captain, thought this would be a good training opportunity.

We stopped across the street from where Ichigo walked into a house that was attached to a clinic.

"So that's the clinic Rukia was trying to tell us to look for…?" Sadako said to herself, sitting down.

I sat down next to Sadako. "Ya' know, Sadako, I think Rukia cared about Ichigo."

Sadako chuckled. "Figures, a human for a traitor."

"Why do you think that, just because Rukia was trying to save someone, she was seriously a traitor?" I asked. I too thought, in some ways, that Rukia was a traitor Soul Reaper, but I didn't seriously believe every rumor about the subject like Sadako did.

"I just think that Rukia should've known better than to give her powers to a human." Sadako said, distain obvious her voice. She had looked up to Rukia as a Soul Reaper before the Ichigo accident, but now she just hates her.

"I suppose you're right, but what would you've done…?" I asked, thinking that this would be a hard thing for Sadako to answer, I was wrong.

"That's simple, I would've let him take on the Hollow and I'd save his sisters." Sadako said, her eyes not leaving the front door of Ichigo's house. Her eyes were always focused, it was very rare that Sadako would relax and just laugh.

I sighed. "You're heartless."

"I just said that I'd save his sisters. So I can't be all heartless." Sadako pointed out.

"Fine, you're somewhat heartless!" I said, crossing my arms across my chest in defiance.

Sadako didn't laugh like I had expected. "We might spot a Hollow anytime now, keep alert!"

I sighed. "Why are you so high-strung?"

"I'm not high-strung, I just follow orders without a second thought." Sadako said, her eyes now searching the area for any sign of a Hollow.

I sweatdropped. That's not being high-strung?

Something howled not to far away.

We both stood up. "Hollow!" We ran in the direction that the howling came from.

While we ran to the area, I sensed two Hollows' presence in the area. "Sadako, there's two!"

Sadako nodded. "I know. One for both of us." She smiled evilly; every time she smiled like that I knew that it was going to be a good battle.

We stopped not five minutes later; two Hollows were walking toward us. Neither was really big, just ugly.

The smaller of the two stopped ten feet from us. "What have we here…? Two Soul Reapers!"

The bigger one eyed us like we were on a silver platter. "I think their souls should be delicious. You take the long haired one, I'll take the other one."

"Agreed." The smaller Hollow said, approaching me. "Your soul should be tasty, Soul Reaper."

I drew my Zanpakto and stood in a battle position. "Just try and take my soul!" I was actually really focused on this battle, knowing that these were minor Hollows.

"With pleasure!" The Hollow said, launching himself at me.

I jumped up and tried to kill the Hollow with one strike from my Zanpakto, but he moved at the last second. I tried killing it the same way over and over, but it kept dodging me. That was the only thing I hated about this Hollow, it was fast.

The Hollow stopped and started laughing, giving me enough time to look over at Sadako battling the other Hollow, that one was fast as well. But I knew it was a matter of time before that one was killed.

I looked over at the laughing Hollow. "I give you credit for being so fast, Hollow."

"Thank you! You're the first to acknowledge my speed!" The Hollow laughed.

I chuckled to myself. "But my Mitsuki Fushiyama is faster!" I said, taking my Zanpakto and cutting my hand open with it, allowing my blood to fall upon it.

My Mitsuki Fushiyama became blood red and I threw it at the Hollow. It tried to dodge, but was unable. Mitsuki Fushiyama hit the Hollow in the head. I leapt up, grabbed the hilt and dragged it down, slicing the Hollow in half. It disappeared.

I resheathed my sword and looked over at Sadako's battle. She had gotten the idea from me that the Hollows were too fast to defeat without using her Zanpakto's power.

"You'll die now." Sadako said, smirking.

"Really?" The Hollow jeered, interested.

Sadako took her Zanpakto and tossed it in the air, she said some incantation and her Zanpakto became thousands of bloodstained cherry blossom petals that launched themselves at the Hollow. Her Zanpakto's name was literal, to say the least; Blood Sakura – Blood Cherry Blossom.

One of the cherry blossom petals floated down to meet Sadako. She caught it in between her first and second finger. "Not many people can appreciate the true beauty of a bloodstained cherry blossom. Can you, Hollow?"

The Hollow disappear not a moment later. Sadako's Blood Sakura returned to normal and she resheathed it on her back.

I walked up to Sadako. "Sometimes I wonder how you can stand having to say that incantation to make your Zanpakto's power work."

Sadako sighed and took out some bandages from a pocket in her robe and bandaged my hand. "And sometimes I wonder how you can stand having to cut yourself to make Mitsuki Fushiyama's power work." She finished bandaging my hand and we were walking back to our post. "And you know that my Zanpakto's name is Blood Sakura, so call it as such."

We leapt back onto the roof across the street from Ichigo's place and sat back down.

I sighed. "Fine. I just can't see how Blood Sakura can be so difficult to summon."

Sadako shrugged. "You get used to it. It was hard at first."

I laughed. "Yeah, hard for you, painful for me! I have to give my Mitsuki Fushiyama my blood before it can work."

"That is true." Sadako said, acting innocent.

Ichigo walked out of his house. "I'll be back with the food soon!"

My eyes automatically darted to Ichigo. He was still in his school uniform. I had never thought that Ichigo would be so good looking, I told Sadako what I thought.

Sadako sighed. "You can't have those thoughts about him, Arisa."

"Why not, why not??" I was being a pest and I knew it, but I didn't care, I was bored.

"Because…do you want to end up like that traitor Rukia?!" Sadako nearly shouted. Had she have shouted, our position would've been given away.

I just shut up and kept my thoughts to myself about Ichigo the rest of the day.

~~
Next Time;

Blood Weapons:

A stronger Hollow tries to attack Ichigo when he's at school. Arisa and Sadako have to defeat it without Ichigo finding out about them, that part could prove difficult.