KaC: Hello Everyone. This is a story that me and my friend KingofShadowedOnes have written together. The idea for this story came up when we were discussing(I.E. I was ranting) on what type of story actually classifies as alternate universe. The result is Reaper. I hope you all enjoy. Anything to add King?
King: Be ready for a wild and bumpy ride.
Disclaimer: Neither of us own Bleach.
A small woman with short black hair balanced on a telephone outside of a small city. Her eyes scanned the streets searching for her targets. She felt a ripple through the air and two butterflies broke free from the darkness and landed on her black hair. Her lavender eyes hardened and spoke in a rich alto voice, "Me and My big mouth. Two of them, one smaller than the other… Time to hunt."
Across town at the airport two men with hooded sweatshirts blended with the crowd leaving a small plane. The only other passenger of any note was a tall boy with orange hair following behind the group. He paused for a moment to adjust his large backpack.
"GOOOOOOD MOOOOORNING ICHIGOOOOO…" the tall youth quickly rolled out of bed and grabbed the leg flying for his head. He pivoted and spun his attacker away from him and out of his open window. Only then did the youth open his amber eyes and take in the room. It had been too long; he smiled and stretched his back. America had been… interesting but Nippon was home.
He walked downstairs freshly showered and grumbling about his new uniform. 'One thing I definitely didn't miss.' His younger twin sisters were already in the kitchen when he walked in. Yuzu, his blonde haired sister who took after his mother, was cooking and humming to herself with a smile on her face. Karin, the black haired tomboy, flipped through a book. He glanced at the cover and smiled, Shakespeare. Yuzu smiled as she turned around and placed a large plate of toast on the table. The youth happily took a piece of toast and glanced at his watch when the front door burst open to reveal his father. The large Doctor panted and looked crazily at his son.
"ICHIGOOOOO! There is nothing left for me to teach you my son…" at this point tears were flowing down his father's face. Ichigo threw his bag over his shoulder and walked out into the morning sun.
It had been a year since he left and no one knew he was back. He glanced to his left at the river winding past him. He smiled at the green hill along the bank that he used to play on. He sighed and made his way to his senior year of high school. The orange hair he inherited from his mother seemed to glow in the sunlight bright enough for him to see it in the river below. No one in America cared about his hair, but here people took one look at it and assumed he was a delinquent. As he approached the school grounds he saw a group of people waiting outside the entrance. Ichigo smiled when he saw Chad towering over the others. The large Mexican caught sight of his friend and the others turned to look. Orihime broke out from the group and ran towards Ichigo.
"Kurosaki-kun, when did you get back to Japan? You've been gone for so long, how was America?" Her voice was a little ditzy, but also very friendly. Her red-brown hair was long and shiny, and her figure was what some men called holy. Despite what many people thought, she was very intelligent, if a little out there.
"It was great, Inoue-san. Oi Chad-o," Ichigo bumped forearms with his giant of a friend, and greeted the rest of the group. A bell rang inside the building and the group headed into class. Just before going inside something flashed behind Ichigo. He quickly turned towards it but only saw the empty courtyard. With a shrug, Ichigo dismissed the sight and returned to class.
The classes here weren't very different from the ones back in America. At least he didn't have to change rooms every class anymore, he had never gotten used to that. He kept an eye on the teacher to track the important parts of the lecture until the lunch bell rang. It should have been a perfectly normal day, but it felt off, as if a strange pressure had filled the air the entire time. He wrote it off as boredom and exhaustion and continued home. As he rounded the corner a group of thugs attacked him, as usual. After disposing of them in the alley, he finally made it home. He ducked under his father's usual greeting and walked up to his room. He collapsed into his bed and stared out the window. "Hopefully tomorrow will be more interesting…"
"In local news, various small explosions occurred throughout Karakura. At this point we have no confirmation as to the cause but there was little damage and no casualties."
Ichigo spared a glance at the television before walking out the door. Those explosions weren't very far away.
After school, Ichigo decided to visit the shopping district. He was just walking out of a candy store when he saw a girl running down the street. She was small and had brown hair. But her attacker was massive. He wore a bone white mask with purple markings and had solid green eyes. Instead of hands, two long sickle blades extended form the creature's arms, almost to the ground. Ichigo's eyes widened when he saw the creature leap at the girl and land with an explosive crash. The quickly grabbed the girl and pulled her with him, away from the creature. They had managed to get a decent lead on the monster when the girl tripped. Ichigo slid to a stop and threw himself between the creature and the girl. The masked being raised its sickle arm and prepared to strike Ichigo. The teenager shut his eyes and waited for the attack when he heard the sound of scraping metal. Ichigo opened his eyes and saw a black haired girl defending him from the monster. She struggled under the blade before pushing the creature away. She dropped her hands to her side and Ichigo.
'Who is this girl? Is that a gun?'
The woman's short black hair flowed lightly in the wind as she charged the asked creature. She slipped past the first two strikes with and vaulted over a third before shooting the monster twice. The girl flipped backwards over another strike and Ichigo looked straight into her amethyst eyes. She landed on one knee and her gun went off for the third time hitting the creature between its eyes. The creature gave a pitiful wail as it disintegrated into nothing. The gun disappeared into the woman's black robe and she walked away from the monster's ashes. Ichigo made sure safely made it to the authorities before going home, but was confused at the girl's description of a man with a knife chasing her. He thought it best to let her and the authorities think that.
It was well past dusk when he made it back home, and he prayed he would be able to avoid interesting days from then on. As he stepped through the door, he quickly threw his foot up and stopped his father's incoming assault. Ichigo decided to skip dinner and head ups to his room early. He tried to focus on his school work but he kept hearing the cries of the monster from earlier. He forced himself to ignore it head and focused on the work. As he was working he began to hear the creature's cries once again, but this time he realized they weren't in his head. Soon he finished and moved to lie down in his bed to chill for a while, maybe start through Much Ado About Nothing; he had never finished that one.
He jumped out of his bed when he saw the woman form earlier jump through his window. For the first time he realized how short she was; she couldn't have been more than 5'2. Her expression was cold but he still saw a large amount of kindness in her features. She couldn't be much older than he was, if she was older at all. Her eyes though, they held a level of seriousness that no one as young as her should possess. He sat their silently in awe of self-confidence and control that he couldn't find in most girls he knew. Then he remembered that this was his room.
"Oi!" the woman seemed to be ignoring him at the moment, "Oi, Woman…"
"It's close," she was ignoring him, fed up with her attitude, Ichigo launched himself feet first at the woman, knocking her off balance and sending her head over heels into the ground. Her look quickly became confused as she blinked repeatedly at the large man she recognized from the earlier incident. –Ichigo could almost see an hourglass spinning over her head. She suddenly popped up and grabbed Ichigo by his chin, bringing it down to her level so she could look him in the eye.
"You can see me?" Her voice was a high alto but it still carried the weight of authority. It was far more pleasant than the woman's attitude. Ichigo smacked her hand away as she tried to move his head back and forth.
"Of course I can you crazy woman, what are you doing in my room anyway," Ichigo again heard a cry from outside it was much closer this time. He looked out the window trying to make it look casual.
"I'm hunting the partner of the Hollow from earlier…" the short woman kept her eye on the man. She slightly shifter her right hand and an almost imperceptible grey mass began to form in her palm.
"That still doesn't explain why you're in my room, midget." Ichigo saw the small woman flinch slightly and an almost demonic grin could be seen on her face.
"You dare… BAKUDO #1 Sai." The small woman made a motion with her right hand and Ichigo's hands were forced behind his back with enough force to send him face first into the ground. He heard the shuffling of papers and what felt like permanent markers. Looking up he saw her sitting in perfect Seiza and flipping a book open. The page was split in half. One half was decorated with pink and yellow flowers and a bunny; the word plus was written on the page. The other half was black with lightning bolts and what looked like a bear trying to make an angry face. The art work was… horrible…
"So to inform you of what's going on there is a drug that shifts people from what we call pluses," she pointed to the bunny, "to Hollows. In order to combat these hollows, the UN created the Reapers, a special task force of exceptional soldiers," she flipped the page showing the bunny and bear again. This time one side had Cut the other said Konsu. "We are supposed to expel the drugs from those who we can before the turn with a method we call Konsu, or if we're too late, use out Zanpakuto to purify them. Any questions?"
"Why do your drawings suck so much?" She threw the book at Ichigo while yelling that her drawings were perfect and he couldn't understand because his orange hair must be affecting his brain… Ichigo had the strangest sense that this wouldn't be the last time this happened, but that couldn't be right.
"I lost the damn thing though…" the reaper looked down at a device in her palm. At the same time a cry rang out in the city. It had grown ridiculously close to his house.
"Can't you hear it though, the cry of the thing it's so loud." For the second time that night the short woman's eyes went large at Ichigo. Another cry came in and this time she heard it loud and clear. How have I missed that… its displacement is huge. The short woman looked back at the orange haired youth on the ground. What is he that he can displace over THAT…? An explosion rocked the house sending the woman off balance. The screams of a girl filled the air.
"YUZU!" Ichigo yelled and forced himself up to his feet, the woman again looked Ichigo up and down. No unaltered person should be able to stand under a Bakudo. But he was up and moving, he forced himself into the hall and knelt next to a blonde girl collapsed on the floor. She whispered something and the boy began to force his arms apart.
"You can't break the binding you idiot…" the rest of whatever the woman was going to say died in her throat as she saw him overload the bakudo, forcing the binding apart and overloading it, something no mortal should be able to do. The last of the binding overheated and collapsed as he started to run down stairs, the woman followed him to find a much larger Hollow.
"KARIN," Ichigo charged the beast that held a young girl in its hand. He grabbed a crutch and he ran at the hollow. The beast turned to him and smiled a deep sickening voice filling the air.
"There you are," the creature threw the girl at the boy. The orange haired youth grabbed the girl out of the air and the short reaper sprang into action. She shot the arm of the beast causing it to scream in pain but doing no real damage. The creature took the opportunity to bite down on her, and she screamed. It let go and backed off as Ichigo approached her.
"I'm so sorry…"
"Do you want to save your family?" Ichigo's head shot up to the small woman, she held a badge in her hand, seeming to offer it to him.
"There's a way, Reaper?" Ichigo licked his lips lightly what was this woman, breathing heavy, blood seeping out of her shoulder, was offering him…
"It's not reaper, Kid, its Kuchiki Rukia, and there is if you want to take it," she held her gun towards Ichigo barrel first.
"It's not kid, Reaper, its Kurosaki Ichigo," Ichigo grabbed the barrel of the gun. The woman smiled at him as the same grey substance from before seeped form her wounds and into her Zanpakuto.
"Then take my gun, Reaper Kurosaki," and she pulled the trigger letting him fall back with the gun. A huge displacement sprang from Ichigo, it was almost suffocating. She looked own and her black robe had been replaced by a pure white one. She had only meant to give him half of her power, but even if she had given him everything, it shouldn't be this overwhelming. The smoke started to clear, and Ichigo stood there holding a massive sword in place of the gun. His outfit was replaced with a black jacket and leather pants. His sharp amber eyes locked onto the Hollow who was pushed back by the sheer force of his displacement.
"You are going to regret hurting my family."