[A/N] And here I am, once again, with a quick three-shot for everyone.
Ichigo is more bad-ass than people think… He just finds EXTREME WAYS to hide the fact. He also has an incredibly sarcastic sense of humor… which he saves for only the most deserving of targets. Finally, He enjoys helping people work through their problems. But what do you do when people push you away and frame you for something you didn't do? Simple: You train for the day you can get back. That's what happened to our hero, and after getting his revenge he has taken the job of a mercenary… a Teacher's Mercenary for Seireitei High School's Black Market. Now he's in on call for the first time in several months, taking over for a timid teacher's Detention Class… and boy howdy, these kids ain't gonna like the games Ichigo's got planned!
To that end, what you are about to witness is an EXTREMELY OOC Ichigo, with everyone else as in character as I can make them, given the situation. Some will suffer embarrassing torments… others will find the truth within them that they'd ignored since time immortal. And what will become of our favorite strawberry-blonde merc? Well, he'll be…[A/N]
_ KUROSAKI ICHIGO: EXTREME TEACHER EXTRODINAIRE! EP1: GAME START!
BLEACH
_
"Karakura Town Black Market Teacher's Aide Group, how may I direct your call?" a feminine voice asked over the phone.
"Hello, I'm looking for … HIM," the caller responded. After a series of clicks and a playing of a piece of classical music during the wait, the caller was greeted by a gruff voice.
"Yeah, name and nature of the job, please," the voice asked. The caller gulped; the man he was speaking to was exactly as he'd been described.
"My name is Izuru Kira, and I'm in charge of Seireitei High's High-Tier Reform Class," the man, now identified as Izuru, said. The gruff voice chuckled.
"So basically, you run a detention class full of the worst case students, and you want ME to have a crack at them?" the voice asked, "you ARE aware of my methods, correct?"
"Y-yes, of course… the problem is, I can't think of anyone else who can get through to some of them. I know most of them are complete lost causes," Izuru said, "But some of them are innocents dragged along by bad kids. I want at least to help the ones I can… but with all these bad influences…"
"YEAH, YEAH, YEAH," the voice replied, "I get it. You want me to see to getting the good ones out and … "FIXING" those who need it. Correct?"
"Y… Yes," Izuru said, taking a deep breath before continuing, "I 've come down with a bad cold and won't be able to make it in until Monday. I only need a replacement for tomorrow, as my normal substitute is out of town for a seminar. Can I ask you to…?"
The gruff voice inhaled and exhaled several times before replying, "Yeah. I'll do it. But I'll let you know this now: The one thing I NEVER allow my clients to tell about me is my pricing system."
"P-Pricing System?" Izuru asked.
"Yes. You see, depending on the severity of the students I deal with, my prices vary. I normally charge 7,872* yen for benign cases, and 19,680* yen for more severe cases. In some cases, the client has had to pay me a maximum of 39,360 yen… FOR EACH STUDENT," the gruff voice responded, chuckling wickedly at his would-be client's audible gasp. He heard nothing for several seconds.
"However, there is ONE other stipulation. If I can find at LEAST three decent students in the bunch, I charge 19,680 yen for the job as a whole, and that's my BEST deal, considering the alternatives. I doubt you want to be paying me upward of the maximum PER HEAD," the voice said. He heard his client sigh in relief.
Izuru took a few more seconds of silence, before saying, "Now that I know all this… Please take care of my students. Use whatever non-lethal methods you deem necessary." The gruff voice laughed heartily.
"Ah…I see. I accept your request. I won't require payment until the week after you return to work," the voice responded. Izuru thanked the voice profusely, and then hung up. The line, however, stayed open for several more minutes when the operator reconnected.
"What do you think, Ichi? Did he strike you as one of those full-of-shit kinds?" the operator asked. The gruff voice simply chuckled.
"Nah, he didn't seem that way at all, Rukia; in fact, he sounded sincere. I think this one will be a fun job… and Kami-sama knows I've been dying for one of those ever since Yokuda High handed over that entire busload of thieves and kidnappers passing themselves off as high-school students… THAT was fun. A nice rousing game of "Hunt the Hunter" was EXACTLY what the doctor ordered," Ichi replied before hanging up his end of the line.
Rukia kept the line open long enough to say, "I hope for both our sakes that this is a higher-paying job… we still need money to get off the power grid." And with that, the line went dead.
~KI:ETE~
~THE NEXT DAY!~
The school bells rang to signal the start of lunch break. The school doors slammed open as half of the students ran outside to enjoy fresh air to go with their lunches. Most of the other half stayed indoors, preferring the peace and quiet of their classrooms and the cafeteria for studying purposes.
However, for an unlucky band of fifteen, this lunch break would be spent confined to a small room… with no lunch and no contact with friends. Between the boys and girls, several cliques were obvious.
The girls all seemed to band together as a large gang. In fact, most of the school knew of the girl gang "The Killer B's" and their voluptuous leader, Shihouin Yoruichi. What they also knew was that this girl had a strange knack for attracting all the "good girls" into her fold and turning them bad to the core. She still had two in her core group to deal with who had no desire to do ANY of what Yoruichi stood for… all those two wanted were friends. Yoruichi would be damned if she didn't "properly initiate" her two charges… through WHATEVER means necessary.
Like the girls, the boys mainly had a single clique going: The Rough, a small group of powerhouse brawlers and scrappers from the much larger gang called the Big Heavies, who were known for taking in muscle heads and heavy-set boys who wanted some street cred and weren't afraid to get their hands dirty. The Big Heavies were run by a single man who everyone referred to as "Boss". This "Boss", however, knew that a couple wild-card traitors were in the mix… which was where the Roughs came into play.
In fact, "Boss" didn't know it yet, but the entirety of The Roughs was comprised of EXACTLY those boys, and all of the boys in The Roughs were led by one Grimmjow Jeagerjacques, the roughest brawler of them all, who was known for using any attack and any weapon on hand to win a fight. Grimmjow had actually SHOT a guy once just to win a fight. He'd shot the guy in the knee and the guy recovered, but that had solidified Grimmjow as "the most dangerous kid in school", a title he wore with no subtle amount of pride; he practically threw it in people's faces to make them do what he wanted.
This, of course, left four stragglers on the sidelines; the two intellectuals, Mayuri Kurotsuchi and Szayel Apporo Grantz, the school's resident "Mad Geniuses", who too no small amount of pride in hiring the Roughs to kidnap human test subjects for various drugs and "concoctions".
And of course, in the back of the room sat Ishida Uryu, an anti-social bookworm with an attitude that SCREAMED "I'm the smartest man alive", and Ulqiorra Schiffer, a goth kid who'd gotten into detention for hacking into the school's mainframe and changing the day's automated announcements so that the computerized PA system called out each and every other student by name and called them a loser or a "waste of space". All, that is, except for him; his name was left out of the list, leaving him completely open for round-up.
Now the lot of them sat in their detention room, silently awaiting their keeper.
One boy from the Roughs, a red-head with a ponytail and a weird design etched into his forehead, said, "When's that dumb-ass teach getting here? The faster we can get him to snap, the faster we get to leave!"
As if on cue, from the back of the room came the sound of a soft voice saying, "Ask and ye shall receive." And with that, Ulqiorra began silently counting down.
As soon as he said "ichi", a large, gloved hand slammed through the sliding wooden door and gripped the inside. All of Yoruichi's girls jumped in their seats with an audible gasp, while their "fearless leader" sat there, twitching.
As for the Roughs, Grimmjow''s boys sat around, idly sweating. Grimmjow just sat there as if nothing was wrong.
In the back of the room, Mayuri and Szayel looked up from a rather complex chemistry set. Uryu looked from an extremely thick book, which, once he closed it, was revealed to be an encyclopedia.
Ulqiorra… didn't even move.
The hand slid the door aside roughly, almost forcing the thing off its runners. In through the open doorway walked the last thing the students had EVER expected to see.
A tall man with bright, strawberry-blonde hair set in unruly spikes stepped up to the teacher's desk, dropping a large duffel bag on the floor with a mumble of "FUCKIN' HATE THOSE DOORS." With that, the man turned around to face the blackboard and picked up a piece of chalk. As the man wrote, the students took a look at the scant profile their "guardian" gave them.
The man was well built, with visible muscles showing through the thin fabric of his t-shirt, which was a white v-neck with an open collar. Over that was an open zip-up Flak jacket with a logo imprinted into the left breast: a strawberry-shaped grenade. The man's equally muscular legs were covered off up to the knees in torn, threadbare khaki shorts that looked about ready to just fall off. His feet were covered in shin-high combat boots, covered in dried blood and straps that looked to be made of leather-like human flesh. In fact… the boots themselves looked to be made of similar material. On his face was a pair of pitch-black shades that blocked out his eyes.
The man's arms, from the elbows down, were covered in black bandages that were cut short just past the wrists to make way for the gloves. Grimmjow and Yoruichi looked at those gloves, a pair of torn, fading black leather with spikes set in a mangled pattern on the back of the hands and jagged pieces of metal debris set in the knuckles. The two gang leaders found themselves thinking, though albeit different thoughts.
"I've gotta get me some gloves like those!" Grimmjow whispered.
'He's the kind of guy I want!' Yoruichi thought, licking her lips in anticipation.
As the man stopped writing, he turned around to let the students read his large, sweeping scrawl. He'd written "極端な教師の非凡な" in large kanji; all the students found themselves wondering why he'd call himself that. They'd soon find out.
"AFTERNOON, KIDDIES!" The man shouted in a gruff, gritty voice, sending most of the students hurtling back into their chairs form shock, "I'm you're substitute teacher for the day. I have many names, but today, you can call me Kurosaki Ichigo," with that, the man called Ichigo struck his thumb under each phrase on the board in sequence, "EXTREME TEACHER EXTRRAORDINAIRE. Now, you may be wondering why I call myself that. The answer is simple: I am a member of the Karakura Black Market Teacher's Aide Group, and I'm top-tier. That means I'm only reserved for the ABSOLUTE WORST Students imaginable. So, imagine my surprise when I got a call from your teach, Izuru-san asking me to sub in for you lot of total wuss-bags?" With that, most of the boys and girls from the gangs jumped up to defend their honor. Their leaders slammed their hands on their desks, instantly silencing their rioting gang mates.
"Thank you for calming down before I decided to just end this," Ichigo said. Immediately the gang members began acting out again, screaming and yelling. Two fo the girls in Yoruichi's gang, however, simply covered their ears and tried to block out the noise.
Ichigo gave the entire ruckus five seconds before reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small nail. One of Grimmjow's boys, a bald guy with red markings around his eyes, scoffed.
"WHAT THE HELL IS THAT SUPPOSED TO DO, HUH? POKE US TO DEATH?" The bald kid laughed, starting the class off in a fit of hysterical laughter… until Ichigo turned to the board and lightly pressed the tip of the nail to the surface.
Every student, both in the school and out, suddenly wondered why they wanted to run as far away as they possibly could and hide until Monday.
Without warning, the entire detention class recoiled in pain at the loud screeching noise created as Ichigo dragged the tip of the nail down the board. The sound persisted for ten seconds, and when it stopped, everyone looked up at him with disbelieving eyes.
"THANK YOU FOR ENDING THAT NOISE," Ichigo said, smirking as he put the nail back from whence it came. He waited for a moment, then continued.
"Now, As I was saying, the reason I'm referred to as "Extreme Teacher Extraordinaire" is because of my "teaching methods"", Ichigo said, making finger quotes around the last two words for emphasis, "I don't follow the standard curriculum, and I don't do any of that namby-pamby guidance counselor "trying-to-get-you-on-the-straight-and-narrow" crap. I work simple: if I can help you fix up without menacing you too much, I'll do it. If, after menacing you, you still refuse to go down… Well, all I'll say is this: "I hope you have your affairs in order"." He watched the looks on his charges' faces, and then nodded.
"E-excuse me sir," one of Yoruichi's girls piped up, "What did I do to get in here?"
Ichigo looked at the girl and nodded. He knew that red-heads were typically supposed to be smarter, but apparently most of this poor girl's blood was flowing into her… more than GENEROUS ASSETS, and not her brains.
"What did you do?" Ichigo asked, "Well, I guess it's a good thing your teacher left me a folder with your info in the teacher's lounge!" He reached down to his Duffel bag, zipped it open and reached in. When he stood up a second later, he held in his left hand a manila folder, which he opened with his right hand in a rather overdramatic fashion by grabbing the edge of the folder and throwing his hand out to the side, nearly taking the top of the folder clean off.
"Hmmm… let's see here… Ah, excessive fighting… guess that would be a boy's thing…" Ichigo said, giving a slight nod in the direction of the Roughs, "Experimentation on fellow stuents… Damn, got a couple of super nuts in here, don't they?" He said, leveling a hidden glare on Mayuri and Szayel, who seemed to feel it, "extortion, bullying, and… SEX TRAFFICKING?" Ichigo shouted, ripping off his shades to stare at the entry in the folder.
"Which one of you is Shihouin Yoruichi?" Ichigo asked. The girl in question stood up gingerly, as if she'd just been struck in the knees with a blunt object.
"Of course, it had to be the over-tanned exotic-looking one. HAD TO BE, DIDN'T IT?" Ichigo shouted, slamming his hands on the desk with the folder, making Yoruichi and most of the class jump, excluding Ulqiorra, who sat as still as he had been.
"I'm going to say one thing to you, girl…" Ichigo said, "I'm typically classified as a mercenary; as such, I ship off to chaotic warzones on a moment's notice. I say this from experience: you want to get off this "bad girl" track as SOON as you can. I know your type, and things will end up with you dead in a pool of your own blood if you don't knock the shit off right now." Yoruichi quailed as she shrunk back into her seat, nodding silently.
"Now, with that being said, we're going to play a little GAME today," ichigo said. Uryu shot to his feet.
"Sir, A GAME? That's your idea of punishing us?" the bespectacled boy demanded. Ichigo nodded as he slipped his shades back on.
"Indeed I do," Ichigo replied, "And in fact, it's not any game you've ever played. The game we're playing today is "Extreme Q&A… WITH A TWIST.""
"A… question-and-answer session? REALLY?" Yoruichi shouted, laughing a bit before regaining her composure and saying, "You had me scared for a moment there. But if you idea of punishment is asking us questions, you-"
"Oh no, you misunderstand," Ichigo interrupted, "I won't be asking you questions at all. YOU ALL WILL BE ASKING ME QUESTIONS. However," Ichigo held up a hand to stop the students' rising, "that's where the terms "EXTREME" and "TWIST" come into play. You see, I HATE stupid people, and I hate their stupid questions more. So, the way we're working this little game of ours is quite simple.
"I'll sit here and allow you each to ask me a question for the duration of this detention. If you ask me a stupid question, I'll FORCE you to suffer a punishment that you will each see as the "ultimate embarrassment". In addition," Ichigo stopped to open the desk drawer closest to his left hand and pull out a roll of tickets, "I'm adding the incentive of a "freebie pool" to this game to make things more interesting. Anyone who swears or curses has to fork over a meal ticket for the cafeteria and add it to the pool. If you have none, you'll be forced to suffer an even more painful torment, which I will PERSONALLY oversee.
"On the flip side of all that, however, if you ask me what I deem to be a decent question, you not only have a shot at WINNING everything in the pool, but extra tickets as well depending on the nature of your question. The more intense, or personal, the question is, the more you're likely to win. Similarly, if you manage to ask me a decent question that manages to stump me, I'll give you twenty meal tickets along with whatever's in the pool. To start," Ichigo rolled out a good stretch of tickets and snapped them off, leaving them on the desk, "We'll fill the pool with ten tickets. Who'd like to begin?"
Thank you all for reading. Please leave a review, and if you have criticism, make it constructive and to the point. The more I can improve, the better it'll be for me and all of you. ^_^
* The yen amounts, in order, are worth the equivalent of $100, $250, and $500 American respectively.