Well, for those that don't know, this is the new version of my other Bleach story, Great Power or Simple Love. I've edited the chapters and once I finish all 10 that have already been posted, that story will be deleted and I'll continue on from this one. To the readers of the other story, there are and will be quite a few differences between those chapters and these that will be worth reading just so the story still makes sense.

DISCLAIMER: I do not own anything from the Bleach universe. Izumi, Shishi, and a few other characters that aren't in the original Bleach story are mine.

START

Heavy rain was falling all around Karakura town and gave no signs of letting up. The outside was practically pitch black, despite being around 5:30pm. Not a single sliver of light peeked through the heavy clouds overtaking the sky. All around town people were sitting in their homes, watching the seemingly endless downpour from the comfort and warmth of their homes. One person, a normal shop owner by all appearances, was sitting quietly in his store and enjoying the peace of the moment.

The calm before the real storm. Something big will be happening soon, I can feel it. Urahara Kisuke, owner of Urahara Shoten, stared solemnly out at the rain. With a heavy sigh, he dipped the tip of his green striped hat to cover his eyes. Nothing can be done until it comes.

Urahara, despite appearing normal, was in fact a shinigami, a death god from another world know as Soul Society. Being that he ran away around 100 years previous, he had since spent his time helping out the random shinigami on Earth to protect the public. Everything had been uneventful recently and he just knew something was going to happen soon.

He blankly watched the fat rain drops rhythmically beat against the window and slide down the glass, lost in the labyrinth of his innermost thoughts. A sharp knock on the shop's front door broke him out of his trance. Nani? Who would be out in weather like this? he thought curiously.

Slipping his feet into his wooden sandals, he quickly shuffled to the door and opened it. A girl appearing no older than 17 stood in front of him, wearing a long cloak and shivering slightly. "Excuse me, but could I talk to you Urahara-san?" she yelled over the storm. A strong wind whipped the cloak around her tiny frame as she huddled down to fight the strength of the gust.

Lost in speechlessness, he nodded slightly and stepped aside to grant her passage. She walked past him quickly and lowered the hood of her cloak once inside. He could now see she had long, dark blue hair in a braid that disappeared inside the body of her cloak. He couldn't yet see her face but he realized she was taller than most women he'd met, though not by much.

He closed the door to the raging storm and leaned back against a wall, surveying this random visitor closely as she looked around his store. She finally turned to him and he immediately noticed her eyes were a light blue-gray with a mysterious twinkle to them. She was smiling slightly up at him but was still shivering slightly underneath her cloak. It didn't take long for Urahara to realize that his guest was quite attractive.

"Gomen nasai. I'm sorry to disturb you, Urahara-san, but I wanted to ask you for a job." She smiled sheepishly at him.

He face-faulted. "You mean you came out in the middle of a thunderstorm to ask me for a job?"

"Hai! You see, I just moved here and I wanted to get employed as soon as possible so I could settle down faster and meet some new people."

Urahara shook his head in amazement. She's insane. She has to be. He looked at her for a long moment before replying. "I'm sorry you came all this way for nothing, but there aren't any job openings at the moment."

Her smile faltered for a short moment, but it was quickly replaced with a forced one, purely polite. "Oh, alrighty then. Sorry for disturbing you. I'll just..." She stopped mid-sentence and he noticed her back stiffen up in an instant. Her once soft eyes became hard and all emotion was wiped from her face. Then he felt it, too. There was a hollow not far from the shop. He started to move towards the door but the girl reached it before he could. She slid back the door and turned around to look straight at Urahara.

"I'm sorry, I must be going now. Excuse me." Her once cheerful voice had gone cold and harsh. She darted from the store and ran out into the storm before he could respond. In the seconds before the darkness engulfed her, Urahara realized that a sheath was tied securely around her waist.

In a split-second decision, he decided to follow her. Did she feel it, too? he wondered to himself a few times as he realized that she was heading almost directly towards the hollow he had felt. She stopped in the middle of the park and stood very still. He could barely see her in the dark and through the heavy rainfall but he felt the hollow moving nearby. What is she doing?

Suddenly a blur of white darted out of the trees and began to deliberately circle the unknown girl. Once it was directly in front of her it raised its head and unleashed a bone-chilling moan into the night. A hollow, 10 feet tall perched only on two muscular arms and a curled up tail, lowered its chalky mask topped with two horns to the girl's eye level and exhaled hot air directly around her. Unfazed, she stood frozen in her place, not making any movements.

Urahara was about to move forward to protect the girl, suspecting she couldn't see the immediate danger she was in, but before he reached her she had pulled out a katana and leaped effortlessly into the air. Strong spiritual pressure appeared out of nowhere around this girl as she swung her sword at the hollow, slicing its mask in two and sending it to the Soul Society. She landed gracefully and put her sword away, her spiritual pressure disappearing the minute the katana returned to its sheath.

She turned around and was finally aware of Urahara standing in the rain, staring at her suspiciously. Her eyes widened in shock.

"Kuso!" she cursed and she tore off down the path that ran back past Urahara Shoten. He ran after her and managed to grab hold of her wrist just as the store came into view. He pulled her inside despite her struggling and protests and locked the door behind him.

"Alright, who are you?" He kept his grasp tight on her wrist and stared hard into her eyes. They blazed in resentment up at him as she continued to tug at his hold.

"Let me go! You have no right to keep me here!" She yelled back defiantly.

He snorted and gave her a look. "The hell I don't, I just saw you attack a hollow. You don't look like a shinigami so who and what are you?"

She stopped struggling and looked at him with a calculating look. He was used to that look. He was a strange looking man, after all. A white and green striped hat adorned his head over his short blonde hair. He too had blue-gray eyes, though hidden under his trademark hat, and was wearing a haori almost identical to a shinigami captains' with inverted colors.

"My name is Maryoku Izumi, and no, I'm not a shinigami," she replied as calmly as possible, though the ferocity was still in her eyes. "To be honest, I don't know what I am."

He released her wrist but kept his body in her path to the doorway, just in case. "Then how can you see and fight hollows, much less possess that amount of spiritual pressure?"

She lowered her head, hiding her face beneath her bangs. He barely heard her quiet answer. "I don't know," she whispered. She looked back up at him, all animosity gone. "I got the power to fight hollows maybe 10 years ago. I began seeing the spirits about 10 years before that."

"Wait, how old are you?" he asked incredulously.

"I'll be 27 next year. Why?"

"You don't look 26."

She smirked and rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I get that a lot. People ask to see my ID all the time. I haven't changed in appearance at all since I was 16." He opened his mouth. "And before you ask, I have no clue why." He promptly shut it.

Urahara stayed silent for a few minutes, giving Izumi the opportunity to look around again. How did this woman gain such strange spiritual pressure? She has a good deal, but surely not enough to hide it from someone like me so easily. He watched closely as she knelt down to examine some shelves and raised an eyebrow as she began to laugh uncontrollably. She really is the odd one.

She smiled at him, still chuckling a few times. "Gomen, I just realized you've disguised the go-to store for shinigami as a candy shop." He continued to look at her as if she was mentally ill. "Well I thought it was funny," she muttered, pouting to herself. He smiled to himself at the cute reaction and finally came to a decision.

"I've changed my mind. You can work here, on one condition." She perked up at first but narrowed her eyes at the strange store owner.

"Which is?"

"In your spare time you have to train with me. I'd like to know what abilities you have. Maybe then I can figure out what you are." He said matter-of-factly. He watched as she thought over his proposition and held back a laugh as her head began to tilt side-to-side, as if literally weighing each option.

"Deal." She stuck her hand out for him to shake, but instead he dipped his head and placed a gentle kiss on the back of her hand. Her cheeks flushed lightly and he smirked up at her.

She glared at him and pulled her hand away sharply. "Next time, warn me, please." He chuckled and steered her into the back of the store to talk about her new job and what she would need.

Izumi stumbled wearily into her dark house, dripping wet and freezing but wearing a large smile. Yay! I got a job! She removed her soaked cloak in the doorway and shook her head rapidly, the end of a very long and wet braid coming around and smacking her in the face. Oy.

"Shishi! Kani! I'm home!" she called as she peeled her wet hair from her skin. A small ball of fur walked slowly towards her and sat down at her feet. It stared up at her with big, chocolate eyes as she piled her drenched clothing on a mat near the door. She reached down and lifted it into her arms. "Hey Shishi!" she cooed as she rubbed her face against her pets' golden brown fur.

The kitten snorted and tried his hardest to get out of Izumi's arms. "Would you stop that? I've told you not to cuddle me!" he responded in a very annoyed voice. He glared up at her and wriggled his way out of her arms. He fell gracefully to the floor with a soft thump and strutted down the hallway towards Izumi's bedroom, raising his tail to her indignantly.

Izumi walked around her kitten and closed to door right as he was partly through the doorway. He yowled at her and nudged it open roughly. "Serves you right, Shishi!" She stuck her tongue out at him and walked around her bed to an aquarium against the far wall. In it was a large gray rock surrounded by water and a silver crab scuttling around the bottom. "Hey Kani!"

"Only you would befriend a crab in the middle of a city," Shishi commented dryly from the doorway.

"Oh hush, nobody asked you."

She dropped some bits of worm into the tank and flopped down onto her cushy queen-sized bed. Thank Kami-sama I had a cloak or else I'd have to shower and change before bed. I'm so tired! She pulled her dark blue comforter up to her chin and fell into a light sleep, not even bothering to change clothes.

Unbeknownst to her, Shishi glanced sharply into her room and turned around, walking to the front door. I heard she was here but I must see for myself! The handle was actually a lever so he hopped and managed to pull the lever down. He nudged the door open quietly and disappeared down the stairs and out into Karakura town, the storm dying down but still drizzling slightly.

END

As of now, there are 3 chapters posted from the previous story that have been edited and posted here. The tentative deadline for all of the chapters to be posted here is the beginning of October, but that's giving a lot of room in case something happens (as it does frequently with me _ ). I'm sorry that I left this story for so long :( I've missed writing it a lot and hopefully I'll be able to regularly update it this time around.