AN: Not much I want to say here just read the story and I will talk more at the end. I do just want to explain how I will label years. This is taking place roughly 450 years before Urahara became a captain, I am also going under an assumption that he became a captain around 100 years after enlisting in the Shinigami. So, that means the events of the canon bleach take place during the year 2000. Of course, that time may be different in this story, as this is an AU, at least slightly.
Disclaimer: I only own the boring kind of bleach.
Damaged Souls
Chapter 1: Introduction
Day: Tuesday, the 8th
Month: August
Year: 1428
Time: 8:06 AM
Location: 36th district of north Rukongai
A black haired teen opened his eyes and found himself in his favorite place to relax, a small field with some grass and a rather large tree that blocked a reasonable portion of the sunlight. He loved to sleep here, the grass was soft and it was never too cold, even at night. It was completely surrounded by bushes so people rarely bothered him. He also kept all of his personal belongings here, there was no real need to hide them, people never came into the area and the belongings were not so important that the teen could not live without them. One might say it was his home.
He lay there for a few seconds, enjoying the comfort of the grass and the various smells that accompanied it, before standing up, getting his money, and heading into the nearby town. The town was not too far away, at most a kilometer, and he found that the fairly short walk was a good way to stretch and wake up in the morning.
The teen, after arriving in the town, started to make his way towards the center of town where he could buy a bit of water from one of the shops. He didn't have a constant job so he would usually just do some simple chores to get a bit of money. Overall his life was not terrible, but not amazing either. The teen couldn't complain about the state of his life, compared to people in the outer districts he was living an amazing life. The teen spent his free time at his home, reading books that he purchased with spare change that he saved up. This was one of the main benefits of living where he did, with a house came more expenses, because he had found a place where he could live and he didn't have to spend any money on it at all, unless you count the purchase of blankets and a pillow, this meant he had quite a bit more spending money than an average soul.
As he walked down the street he saw other people starting to wake up, there were a few familiar faces but he did not know any of their names. The teen did not have any real friends, not to say he was antisocial, he was perfectly capable of holding a conversation, he just never met any people who he could really call a friend.
He soon arrived in the center of the town; he made his way over to one of the shops and bought a bit of water for himself. After gulping down the water he asked the person who had sold him the water if he needed any help around his shop.
"Sure, I could use a bit of help moving some of the containers up from the basement." the shopkeeper paused "Although; I can't afford to pay you much."
"Don't worry about it, I just need something to do for a bit." said the teen, completely unfazed by the shopkeepers statement.
After the teen had finished moving the containers of water up from the basement the shopkeeper gave him a bit of change for the help. He went to leave the shop and head to his little home to put the money he had earned somewhere safe.
"Thank you for helping me out, I am getting a bit too old to be able to carry those containers up on my own; I would pay you more but money is a bit tight right now." the shopkeeper said as the teen walked out of the store.
"No problem, and seriously don't worry about the money, I understand. If you ever need any help don't hesitate to ask." the teen called back.
'What an interesting kid' thought the shopkeeper before returning to managing the shop.
As the teen headed back to his home an odd sensation came over him, a sort of itching that brought him out of his thoughts and back into the moment. A few seconds later he felt something cold press against the back of his neck.
"What do you want?" the teen asked, knowing someone was trying to mug him.
"What do you think I want? Give me your money." The thief growled before removing the knife from the back of his neck so as to give the teen room to reach into his pockets.
The teen just sighed before turning in place and focusing his dark blue eyes onto the thief.
"Hurry up and hand over the money or I will have to kill you." said the thief, who was clearly getting impatient.
"You are annoying me, I'm not in the mood to deal with this nonsense." muttered the teen before he turned and walked away.
"Hey, get back here!" the thief yelled. He just scratched the back of his head and yawned.
"Fine, I guess you want to die!" the thief shouted before charging at the teen. The teen sighed again and, without even looking behind him, ducked down, grabbed the thief's arm, and pulled him over his head.
"Did I not just say I was not in the mood for this nonsense?" questioned the teen as he removed the knife from his hand and tossed it quite a ways behind him.
The thief quickly got up and made a dash for his knife. As the thief picked the knife up he yelled out "I'm going to kill you, you bas- what?" the teen was nowhere to be found. 'Whatever, I will just find an easier target' the thief thought to himself before turning around and walking away.
In reality the teen had just bolted to the nearest alley as soon as the thief had turned his back, he had managed to get out of sight just as the thief picked up his knife again. While the teen was confident in his ability to fight off the thief he knew that people rarely made the same mistake twice and he did not feel like risking injury just so he could fight off the thief.
He was just stepping out of the alley when he noticed that the odd feeling he had gotten before the thief had attacked him had not gone away. He cautiously stuck his head out of the alley and looked down the street. There wasn't a single person there.
Just as the teen had decided to pass the feeling off as the adrenaline messing with his head he heard a voice behind him.
"That was awesome!" yelled out the voice.
The teen nearly had a stroke and quickly turned around to find the source of the voice. He nearly had yet another stroke when he saw a brown haired girl staring up at him from no more than a third of a meter away. She looked to be his age, maybe a bit younger.
He jumped back trying to figure out how this girl had managed to get so close without him noticing. The girl just continued to stare at him with her brown eyes.
"What the hell, when did you get there?" the teen managed to get out, after calming down a bit.
"Well I was standing there the entire time; I saw the scary looking man with the knife coming down the street so I decided to hide in here. Is he gone now? Did you scare him off?" the girl said, seeming to have no need to take a breath between words.
"Yeah he is gone, not sure about the whole 'scared him off' part though, more likely he just didn't want to try and find me." The teen answered.
"Ok, thanks." the girl said happily.
As the teen turned to walk away the girl yelled "Wait!" the teen turned his head to show he was listening.
"Would you happen to know where I can find some water around here? I'm sort of new and I don't know my way around yet." the girl asked, her voice gaining a bit of seriousness to it.
"Yeah, just head to the center of town and there should be a shop selling water" the teen explained. "Oh and here, catch." the teen tossed a few coins to her "This should be enough for some water, nothing is free here. And before you say something, just take it, you need it more than I do." the teen said as he turned to walk away.
"Thanks!" the girl yelled after him before dashing off towards the center of the town.
'Well, I think I have had enough adventure for the day already, and it isn't even noon.' thought the teen as he walked back to his home.
As he approached his home that same odd feeling came back. Shortly after that a person carrying a knife came bursting around a corner. The teen managed to get a look at his face; it was the same person who had tried to mug him back in town. The teen raised his arms to defend himself when the odd feeling intensified. He looked over his shoulder just in time to see a wooden club descend on his head.
The teen sat up and rubbed his head, he had no idea how long he was out but judging by where the sun was it must have been at least a few hours. The teen looked around and noticed that all of his money had been stolen; needless to say he was very mad.
Once he calmed down a bit he sat down and thought about what to do, he needed money to survive. This left him with two choices, either go earn some more money, or go after the people who had stolen it. The teen was more inclined to do the second but he realized that finding the thieves would be a serious gamble. Eventually the teen decided he would go earn a bit of money and then go looking for the thieves.
In order to find a job of some kind the teen headed back into the town, he knew a few shopkeepers would be willing to pay him if he did some simple chores.
He arrived back in the center of town and looked around, there were a total of eight shops set up in the area, he already had helped out the owner of one shop so that made seven options.
Out of the seven shops four had some tasks for him to do, the first asked him to sweep up a bit, the second had him arrange some books on shelves, the third had him assist in building a sign, and the fourth asked him to go and deliver a letter to someone.
He had already completed the first three tasks and he had made back around one fifth of the money that had been stolen from him. By now the sky had begun to darken and the teen was starting to feel the effects of a long day. Eager to get back to his home the teen headed off in the direction of the home he was supposed to deliver the letter to.
As the teen walked he put his mind into gear, since the thief had come back with a friend he was most likely a member of a gang of some sort. There were only two major gangs in the town so it would not be hard to find him. The issue was locating the gangs; nobody knew where they were based simply because there was no need. The gangs rarely did anything big; a robbery took place maybe once a month.
Because the gangs did so little to affect the town they were mostly ignored and were treated more like social clubs than anything else.
While it may have been good for the town that the gangs rarely did anything it made the teen's job that much harder. He would have next to no information to go by and even if he did find them he was not stupid enough to believe that he would stand a chance against a large group of opponents, dealing with two was bad enough.
The teen arrived at his destination and he knocked on the door. Shortly after an elderly man answered the door and thanked the teen for delivering the letter.
The teen started heading back to his home, by now it was nearly pitch black and the teen had decided to put off his search for the thieves to tomorrow.
Not even three minutes after he had delivered the letter the teen heard a high-pitched scream from nearby. Any exhaustion that he had felt driven off by the adrenaline, the teen ran off in the direction he had heard the sound come from.
When the teen reached the source of the scream he was shocked at what he saw. The first thing he noticed was that the two men that had robbed him earlier were lying on the ground covered in blood, clearly dead.
He walked a bit closer to try and see what had happened; when he did he was shocked. The first man looked like he had been chewed in half, and the second seemed to have been thrown onto the ground fairly hard.
At this moment he heard the same scream again and quickly ran off in the direction he had heard it.
Soon thereafter the teen was greeted by an even more horrifying sight. There was a Hollow around sixty meters in front of him. The Hollow had managed to corner a soul and, though the teen could not hear it, seemed to be giving a lengthy monologue of some sort.
The intelligent thing to do would be to simply turn away and run before the Hollow noticed his presence and the teen intended to do just that when he noticed that the soul looked slightly familiar.
It was the same girl he had met earlier that day.
The teen quickly realized what had most likely occurred, the men probably had cornered the girl and threatened her in some way, which was likely the time of the first scream. Before the men had managed to harm the girl a Hollow had appeared and, since the men would have been closer, it focused on them first. The Hollow had grabbed the men and started to eat them, the girl, seeing her chance had made a run for it but had somehow attracted the attention of the Hollow. The Hollow threw the second man into the ground and chased after the girl. The girl eventually noticed that the Hollow was chasing her and that was the time of the second scream. Before the teen arrived the Hollow would have managed to corner the girl and began its monologue.
He had thought he was having a bad day, with being mugged and whatnot, if he was having a bad day, then her day must be absolutely atrocious. What made him feel even worse was the uncaring way he had treated her earlier. The teen knew he had a tendency to act a bit cold and uncaring to others, and at the time he really did not intend to come off as annoyed with the girl.
The girl had said that she was new here; she had not even been given a proper chance to exist here yet, this was almost as bad as when a child dies, they have not had the chance to live out their lives yet. With all this guilt running through him the teen decided he would do something, even though logic said that he stood no chance against the Hollow, to help the girl. At the very least, she would experience an act of kindness before she was eaten by the Hollow.
As the teen began to run at the Hollow the girl must have seen him, she started to say something but he could not hear what it was. Whatever she said it clearly had angered the Hollow, as it immediately picked her up and ate her. The teen was shocked, her life ended in an instant, and he could do nothing to change it. He was sure that at the last second something would happen, maybe the Hollow would have noticed him and decided to come after him first.
The Hollow licked its lips and sniffed the air. The teen got a sense that the Hollow was surprised at whatever it had smelled, then he noticed that the hollow was staring directly at him, and that he was standing in the middle of the road, frozen, with no way to defend himself. The phrase 'Be careful what you wish for.' came to the teen's mind as the Hollow that he had been so eager to distract a mere thirty seconds ago stared him down.
The Hollow made its way over to the teen, as it got closer he heard it laughing, it was the most disturbing and terrifying sound he had ever heard.
"This is becoming quite the productive night." laughed the Hollow "Four souls? This is cause for a celebration, don't you agree?" the Hollow asked the teen.
"Shut up, if you are going to eat me then just do it, I don't want to put up with a lengthy monologue!" the teen shouted at the Hollow.
"Oh don't worry, I decided a long time ago that I would keep my monologues limited to one per day, they were really getting in the way of productivity. Since you seem so eager I will be more than happy to grant your request!" the Hollow stated as it reached out to the teen.
Just as the teen was about to be killed a large gash appeared on the Hollow's mask and it dissolved into nothing. Through the fading Hollow the teen saw a Shinigami with a drawn Zanpakuto.
"Hey, are you alright?" the Shinigami asked with a concerned look on his face.
"Yeah, I am fine, but the other souls he consumed are not." the teen said dimly.
"It isn't your fault that they were eaten, there was nothing you could do against a Hollow." the Shinigami said, trying to keep him from blaming himself.
"Yes, there was nothing I could do against the Hollow, but the girl that was just eaten by the Hollow noticed me when I started to run at them. She must have said something to anger the Hollow and make it eat her, thinking it would give me time to get away. If I hadn't charged at the Hollow she might have been alive when you got here." the teen said, his voice becoming less lively with each word.
"And how could you have known that I was coming this way? It is not your fault so stop over-thinking the situation. If it bothers you that much that you were unable to do anything then make use of that spirit energy I can sense inside of you, go become a Shinigami." the Shinigami told the teen in a calm but commanding voice.
"Wait, what? I have spirit energy?" the teen asked, completely shocked at the possibility that he had the potential to kill Hollows as easily as this person had.
"Yes you do, and a good deal of it as well. You have the potential to become fairly powerful, it would be a great benefit to everyone if you decided to become a Shinigami." the Shinigami explained.
"Alright, I know I need to head to the academy in order to become a Shinigami but when is the entrance test offered?" the teen asked.
"The entrance exam starts being offered in a week, if you leave within a day or so you should be able to make it in time. Now I need to get back to my mission, there are other Hollows around. Good luck at the academy." the Shinigami said before running off.
'Well, since he left before he could tell me where this academy is I guess I will have to ask around tomorrow.' the teen thought to himself as he started walking back to his home.
The next morning the teen woke up, scratched his head, and thought about the interesting dream he had last night.
After thinking it over for a bit the teen realized that he was a bit upset that it was only a dream, the idea of being a Shinigami interested him. He decided it would be best not to dwell on the thought and got up to go get some water from the nearby town.
The teen was almost ready to head into the town when he realized that nearly all his money had been stolen.
'Maybe it wasn't a dream. No, best not to get my hopes up, I should just head into town and get myself some water.' the teen thought.
The teen walked into town and went to the shop that sold water.
"Good morning." the teen greeted the shopkeeper.
"Morning to you too, I thought about it, and as thanks for helping me out yesterday you can have some water for free today, it is the least I can do." the shopkeeper said with a look that said 'If you refuse my offer I will beat you over the head with this chair.' the teen decided it was in his best interest to accept the offer.
"Thanks, I appreciate it but please don't feel like you cheated me, I thought you paid me perfectly fairly for what I did" the teen said as he took the water.
"Hey, it was bugging me, just take the water and go!" the shopkeeper yelled with fake anger.
The teen laughed and walked off.
"Wait up!" a voice yelled.
The teen turned around and saw the man who had asked for him to deliver the letter.
"You never came back for your pay, then I heard about the hollow attack in that area and that three people were killed and well, I thought you were dead. Good to see you are alive." the man said.
"Oh right, thanks. You were almost right, the Hollow nearly got me but a Shinigami arrived in time to save me, I completely forgot about coming back to get my pay in the confusion." the teen explained
'Wait, so it was not a dream? I can become a Shinigami?' the teen asked himself 'Well, I don't really have any friends to say bye to, I suppose I should at least tell the shopkeeper so people don't get too worried.' The teen walked back over to the water shop.
"Hey." the teen said.
The shopkeeper turned and said "Oh, hey. If you are going to try and pay me for that wat-"
"No, I just wanted to let you know that I was going to go and become a Shinigami, I didn't want anyone to worry and I felt bad leaving without saying bye." the teen interrupted.
"Oh, well good for you. Don't worry I will make sure nobody worries about you. Good luck." the shopkeeper said.
"Thanks, I will visit if I get a chance." the teen said.
"No you will not visit. Are you trying to tell me that as a Shinigami you will come back to some run down town, just to visit some people that you talked with occasionally? No, leave this town and don't look back. You have an entire life ahead of you, you are too young to have to carry the burdens of a past." the shopkeeper paused to take a breath "Good luck, enjoy yourself, and don't worry about this town, you are moving on to a better life and I know that anyone in this town that knows you will give you their full support."
"Wow, I never thought you would be the type for motivational speeches like that." the teen laughed "Still, thanks, it means a lot to me that you are happy for me."
"Normally you're right about the speeches, I don't usually say things like that, but think of it as advice from someone who has lived much longer than you." the shopkeeper said with a serious tone "But don't you have to get going? The academy isn't all that close and I'm sure they won't appreciate you being late." the shopkeeper let the serious tone drop a bit.
"Yeah, I just need to figure out how to get there." he said.
"Well I don't know that personally, but I would imagine that if you head to the Seireitei you should find people that know." the shopkeeper offered.
"Thanks take care of yourself." the teen said as he turned.
"If anyone here should be taking care of themselves it is you. Word on the street is that fighting Hollows is a bit more dangerous than running a shop. Now leave already, and enjoy yourself." the shopkeeper said as he waved.
The teen just raised his hand in response and walked back to his home. After gathering a few basic things he walked out of the town and never looked back.
The journey to the Seireitei was uneventful and relaxing for the teen, that night really had affected him and he didn't realize how much he needed to relax a bit.
The shopkeepers words proved correct, as he reached the first district he found a Shinigami who gave him directions to the academy.
When the teen finally reached the academy he realized that this was the last moment of his life as a helpless soul, as soon as he walked through that gate he would become someone who mattered, someone who was able to change things.
At this thought the teen looked up, smiled, and walked through the entrance.
Words (without ANs since they tend to be long): 4294
AN: Ok, so that was the first chapter of my first fanfic EVER. This is also the first bit of fictional writing I have ever attempted in my life so any and all feedback that doesn't make me want to go cry in a corner is welcome.
If you notice spelling or grammar errors of ANY KIND AT ALL ANYWHERE, REVIEW AND TELL ME, PLEASE. I am going to be very OCD about this, my logic is that even if the plot sucks, or my writing style is garbage, THERE WILL BE NO SPELLING OR GRAMMER ERRORS. I want to at least have done something right when I write this.
As far as this story goes I have a fairly detailed plan on where I want this to go. No I will not tell you, it is a surprise. Deal with it. Although this is already planned out in detail I am completely open to suggestions, if I really like the idea I will try and fit it in with my plans. I have the second chapter written right now, but I want to see some people tell me what I can change with my writing before I post it, once I have some idea of how I can improve my writing I will go through the second chapter and improve it, then post it. There will not be a fixed schedule for when I will update this story, I simply am not experienced enough with writing to be able to churn things out at a constant rate. I would expect around one update per week, because I have a lot of free time on weekends.
Also, in this story I will not be using honorifics. I would like to use them but I cannot because I do not know much about them and focusing on that while still trying to manage the plot is simply beyond my ability currently. If this story is well liked enough I will go back and change it to include honorifics.
I know that I did not give a description or even name to the main character, all you know right now is that he is a teenager, has black hair, is male, and has dark blue eyes. This is intentional, and there will be a much more detailed description in the next chapter. There are some aspects of his personality that are only hinted at in this chapter as well, once again these will be revealed over time.
There will be romance later in the story, I will not tell you who is involved, and if there are some pairings that you absolutely cannot stand, say something in a review and I will take note of it. It is better to know this now, before the plot is too solidified to change in a clean way. I don't need reasons you hate a pairing, a list works fine, of course reasons and an argument might convince me more easily. Remember, I don't want you all to hate me, if ninety percent of the reviews say (as an example) No ichihime, there will not be ichihime unless the progression of that pairing has already reached a point where I cannot easily end it. So tell me sooner rather than later.
If you guys want to do me a bit of a favor, and make lists of character names and maybe brief descriptions I will give them roles in the story, the more I like the name and the description the bigger role they will get. If you want me to make them one of the really important characters I need a physical description, a personality description and a description of their abilities. As far as abilities go, I need BOTH Shinigami abilities and hollow abilities, depending on how I want to fit them in, if they are an Arrancar or Visored I will likely combine them. If you include a Bankai description I may not use it, but if you specifically do not want the character to have an ability or say something. Don't just think of nice happy characters, I need bad guys too. Be sure to send these things in a PM, not a review. If there is one thing I hate in this world besides puppies (That was a joke, I usually don't hate puppies) it is spoilers, like when the trailer for a movie reveals half the plot. Or the summary for a story reveals half the plot. I like to have abilities and whatnot be a surprise, not something that is known to everyone who reads the story before it actually happens.
If you would like for me to clarify something that happened, just want to get a bit more detail on something, or want to know why I did something a particular way, don't hesitate to either PM me or ask in a review, I will try to answer your questions without giving away too much.
Last thing, I promise. The only reason this AN is so long is that it is the first one in the story, there are a load of things I needed to say so it had to be kinda long. Sorry if it hurts your head/eyes/face/whatever.