Notice: This little shot here was thrown together during a sugar-high moment caused from too much candy, caffeine and lack of sleep. The authoress hopes that you will enjoy reading it as much as she did writing it.

Summary: Just by chance, it was going to be one of those days. The kind of day that didn't seem quite so normal, but there was nothing he could really point his finger on. That is, until something big attacked him.

Warning: Slight AU - some characters have powers that are not mentioned in canon. Slight spoilers for Soul Society arc in Bleach.

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach. It belongs to Kubo Tite. I also don't own anything that might show up in the future, so the disclaimer applies to future chapters since I am assuming that anyone who reads the other chapters would have to scroll through this one first.

Just by chance. On a whim. By a stroke of luck.

A strange, unforeseen encounter may bring two worlds together like no one else might have ever suspected.

Encounters

"One of Those Days"

By Hikagi

Biting back a curse that was about to slip from his tongue, Kinomoto Touya scrambled to get away from the monstrosity that was standing before him. Towering slightly over ten feet, it looked very crude with its massive body and sluggish behavior. Strange yellow eyes scanned the environment that surrounded the now empty high school as the student tried to escape the thing that suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

"Tanoshii, tanoshii! It's so much more fun when your prey is running from you!"

Never mind the fact that he could actually see 'Them' once more. He had thought that by giving up his magic to Yue, he would be incapable of seeing ghosts and supernatural beings again. It must have been after Sakura had finished transforming the Cards and the Chinese Gaki had left that Touya's own powers had started coming back. It would make sense, he supposed, now that the Moon Guardian was living off of his Mistress's energy and not of a different source. Touya stopped musing and focused his attention back to the problem at hand.

"Oishii, oishii," The Thing said, licking its lips as it turned and advanced towards him. "You smell very tasty."

Dammit, so this was a bakemono – a monster. He knew that he should've taken Yuki's offer to let him stay behind and help him with some of his class duties. Helping out a new visiting transfer student (whatever the hell that was supposed to mean) in the middle of the year had been a duty he wasn't too fond of being stranded with. The last time there had been an exchange or new student of any sort, he had been stuck with an overenthusiastic, annoying, loud-mouthed, troublesome, meddling girl.

Well, you couldn't really call Akizuki Nakuru a girl, per say. At least, not in the human sense… After all, she was anything but human. And all of Clow's Guardians were created as androgynous beings.

"Che," he replied, swiping a hand across his mouth to wipe away some of the dirt. "I don't plan on being eaten by the likes of you."

"Ohohoho. Such determination," it said with what Touya thought sounded like a smile in its voice. He couldn't really tell, though; it was impossible to actually see underneath the creature's hideous white mask. But the evil vibes were practically rolling off the thing in giant waves, unlike the quiet power that radiated off of Sakura and her Cards. "Such delicious power! I will enjoy eating someone like you! Almost smells like a Death God!"

The bat-like creature folded its wings and made a dive for the high school student. Touya buried his head into his arms and prayed to the gods that someone would come looking for him. He grimaced when he heard a high whistling sound and braced for the painful impact that would result from sharp claws coming at him at such high velocities.

It never came.

"What are you doing just standing there?" a voice demanded, merely feet away from where Touya was standing. He looked up from where he was crouching and was surprised to see a person dressed in a black traditional robe with a huge sword to the monster's teeth. What shocked him more was that the aforementioned figure was the very person he was asked to show around Tomoeda not twenty minutes ago. "Nigete!"

'What the hell? The transfer student could see it too?'

While Touya was stuck to the ground as if under a paralysis spell, the monster kept on attacking its intended target repeatedly.

"Dammit! Just run away!" the transfer student's voice broke in as the bat-thing clashed against the razor sharp sword.

"I've been through worse things than this," Touya said, quickly standing up on his unsteady feet. He took a deep breath and started muttering an incantation under his breath, making the proper hand seal sequences since he didn't have an ofunda or magical object to simplify the process. "I can handle one ugly monster."

The other student grit his teeth as he fended off more attacks from above. "You don't understand! That's a Hollow! A normal human being like you can't possibly handle something like that!"

'Normal human being, eh?'

"We'll just see about that!" And Touya took off sprinting with his hands glowing a faint hue of red, leaving the orange-haired kid staring at him.

"Baka!" the transfer student yelled towards his back. "You can't kill it unless you have a Zanpaktou! Even then, there's no guarantee that the Hollow won't end up breaking your sword!"

"I don't need a useless sword when I have this!" Touya extended his arms towards the heavens and aimed for the monster. "Fire!"

A huge fireball appeared from his fingertips and shot out towards the flying bat-thing. The monster dodged the attack and looked back at the two boys with a smirk on his face.

"Ha. You missed!"

Touya's eyes narrowed as he commanded the fire to turn around and hit it in the back. The monster's grin was short-lived when the ball of flame obeyed its master's orders and charbroiled part of the Hollow's left wing. Damn good thing that Yukito and Yue had agreed to train him in magic, lest he should be the target of a sorcerer's evil plans on taking the Cards away from the Card Mistress and using him in the process. Again.

Touya turned to smirk at his supposed rescuer with the intention of showing off, stating that he didn't need any help. Except that the Hollow took this moment of inattentiveness to slam into the teenager with such force that the wind was knocked out of his lungs. Unable to breathe, let alone move from his position, the black-haired sorcerer struggled as he was pinned to the ground, sharp nails digging into his skin as the monster perched on his backside.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Touya could just barely make out the other boy yelling something at him.

"Awaken, Zangetsu!"

And what the hell was that?

And before he knew it, the creature was off his back, on the ground, and apparently dead. Touya grimaced as jolts of pain shot up his body as he was forced up and supported by strong arms.

"You okay?"

Touya nodded, not trusting himself to speak at the moment. He tried to unclench his jaw to no avail.

"Good," the oranged-haired teenager breathed a sigh in relief. "I thought you'd gotten seriously injured."

Touya took the moment to take a good look at the person who was holding him up. Yes, he looked exactly like the transfer student from earlier this morning. Well, with the exception of his clothes and that gargantuan sword hanging on his back.

"You," he breathed heavily, still leaning on the other boy, "you got a reason why you're wearing that ridiculous getup this time of the year? There aren't any holidays anytime soon."

The other student looked down at his clothes as if noticing them for the first time. Black robes like that in this day and age were very uncommon, even between some of the people in the older generation. He looked panicked for a moment as if trying to come up with an excuse.

"Well, you se-"

Something caught both of their attentions before the transfer student could complete whatever he was about to say. The two abruptly stopped moving and focused back towards the still body of the Hollow. Touya took a tentative step forwards to examine it closer. He immediately backpedaled away when he sensed something else stirring within.

"It's not dead yet!"

The transfer student looked genuinely confused. "Wha? How can you tell?"

"Move it, Kurosaki!"

Touya jumped to save his classmate from the monster's attack and in doing so felt the clothes on his back rip as claws tore through his skin. Falling for the second time in a few minutes, he felt an odd sense of dejá vu as a familiar weight settled on his body and proceeded to crush him to the ground.

"Kinomoto!"

And just before Ichigo could get up to destroy the Hollow with his Soul Slayer, the monster screamed in agony as dozens of crystal-like projectiles pierced through its flesh. It disappeared in a shower of particles and Touya felt the weight suddenly lift.

"Son of Clow Reed," a cold voice said. "Your sister has been worried about you."

Both high school students turned towards the new voice. Touya saw something that he honestly hadn't expected to see anytime soon. There, floating some few feet above the ground stood Yue wearing a grim expression with his arms crossed in front of his chest as if Touya had just been caught stealing cookies from the jar and needed to be scolded.

"It's… an angel…" Touya heard from his left. Glancing in that direction, he saw his companion staring at the Guardian disbelievingly, almost as if he didn't believe otherworldly beings existed.

Touya dismissed it with a wave of his hand. "He's just my sister's Guardian. Not that you would believe that…" Kurosaki immediately snapped out of his thoughts with a half smirk.

"Psh. I've been to what mortals call 'heaven' and back." He took another look at Yue with a thoughtful expression, as if reminiscing about something or another. "I think I can believe that this guy's not entirely human."

Touya huffed. "And what about you?" he asked, referring back to the conversation before they had been interrupted. "What's up with the clothes?" The transfer student started looking nervous again.

"Well, I've never actually met someone who could see me like this…"

Touya raised an eyebrow. "Like 'this'?…"

"As a Shinigami," he clarified. "At least, except for other Shinigami and people with immensely high levels of spiritual powers."

"And that means…?"

A deliberate cough interrupted them this time.

"I see that you are safe," Yue said, a little put-off by the fact that he was being ignored. "Very well, Son of Clow Reed. I shall sleep until I am needed again."

"Wait, Yue!" Touya called out before a bright flash of light overcame his senses.

"To-ya?" a startled voice said. "Where am I?" Touya opened his eyes to see that the Moon Guardian was no longer in sight.

"Yukito," he greeted. "Do you remember anything?"

"Huh? Well, I was going to meet you after archery practice but then there was something at the back of my mind that was bugging me. The next thing I knew was that there was this monster in the sky and you were on the ground bleeding and… Oh. Yue."

Kurosaki kept on looking at this new figure called Yukito much like he had with Yue – with curiosity. No matter how many times he tried to shake it out of his head, he couldn't help but feel that this person resembled a certain dark-haired archer from his old school while his counterpart reminded him of a certain cold-hearted bastard back at Soul Society… But that just couldn't be right! Yukito didn't act anything like Ishida… But Yue's resemblance to Kuchiki Byakuya was uncanny and disturbingly eerie.

"Anyway," Kurosaki cut in, "at least this means that you'll be more than capable of handling any other Hollow that comes your way. They have a tendency of attacking people who have high spiritual powers, like yourself." He started wrapping the rest of Zangetsu with the bandages that had come undone. "I suggest that you watch out for your family as well, just in case."

Touya stood up and brushed his pants. Yukito helped him regain his balance when he almost toppled over from fatigue and thrown-off senses.

"Jaa," the transfer student said as he saluted farewell. "I'll be seeing you around, Kinomoto."

"Same here, Kurosaki," Touya nodded as the Shinigami walked in the opposite direction of where he was headed. The orange-haired teenager disappeared from sight with a flurry of flash steps and billowing robes.

Touya looked down at his own tattered and bloodied clothes and sighed. He was surprisingly unfazed by something so ridiculous as getting attacked by a monstrous bat that looked like it came out of one of those corny old horror films.

"To-ya," Yukito nudged. "What are you going to tell your family about your current state?"

The normally stony-faced teenager sighed yet again and shook his head.

It was turning out to be one of those days…

Fin.

Author's Notes:

Crossed over with Cardcaptor Sakura

Hoped you liked it. This is a result of lack of inspiration while trying to write the next chapter of IWoTA and failing miserably in getting anything done in that direction. There might be a follow-up which will focus more on Sakura's POV, but it's still being deliberated on. No guarantees here. Plus, this being a one-shot-ish material, it won't have any semblance of plot whatsoever.

Review, please?

Yatsuka Hikagi

December 22, 2005