Chapter 1

Ichigo's POV.

I yawned and sat up, listening, were was my dad? He should be in here trying to give me a good morning punch or something by now. Then I took a closer look at "my" room. Which was not my room at all! I was sleeping in what looked like a really, really old fashioned hotel room. For a second I was nonplused, and then the events of last night came rushing back to me.

….

We had been traveling in a group, me, Renji, Rukia, Orihime, Kon, Toshiro, Ishida, Chad, and for some reason, Nel, who had landed on my head screaming something about an arrancar birthday party she hadn't been invited to, which really confused me, arrancars had birthdays? And not only that but they celebrated them? Anyways, we had been going to Urahara's shop to get Nel back to Hueco Mundo (Renji, Rukia, and Toshiro were in their gigai), when out of nowhere, a really old fashioned looking car crashed into me and Renji and Nel (who had been riding on my shoulders), and we got knocked into Rukia and Ishida and then it was kind of the dominoes effect, until Chad was the only one still standing. I got up and winced, I think a few of my ribs had been broken. But more important was the fact that when I looked in the car, there was no one there. And there was not even a trace of reiatsu in the car, even when Ishida tried to detect it. Kon started raving about a ghost but we just ignored him, ghosts have reiatsu too. We were just about to continue on our way to Urahara's shop when the weather started doing what it had been threatening to do all day, it started to rain. Not just ordinary rain, this was more of a hurricane than anything – minus the gale force winds – and we were all drenched within seconds, and there was no shelter nearby, so we all thought: "what the hell…" and just piled into the car were it was dry and surprisingly warm. Of course it was amazingly cramped, but the front seat was a bench seat as well, so that helped a little. But as soon as Chad closed the door there was a flash of blue light and we were all thrown backwards and knocked unconscious.

When we came to, we were still in the old car, but I'm pretty sure we were not in Japan any more. We were parked in front of a really neat looking yellow house. We looked at each other and then kon brought up a very valid point. "Does anybody have any money?" and of course, we didn't. I mentally slapped myself, generally, unless I was in my shinigami form, I didn't go anywhere without my wallet, but since it had only been a trip to Urahara's shop, I had thought that I wouldn't need it. I got out of the car (with some difficulty, because that car was made to fit six, but we had eight, and Chad counts for two people, since he's so big) and of course, Nel couldn't let me go alone, so she hopped out and clung to my shoulder. I looked around and all I could see was field after field, with a bunch of flocks of sheep and a couple of farm houses. I took a deep breath, walked up to the front door and knocked. A little old lady with a ridiculously pointy pony tail answered. And when I say little, I mean tiny! She was no bigger than Nel! "Excuse me, ma'am," I said "I and my friends –"I gestured to the car"—are a little lost, and we were wondering if you could point us in the direction of the nearest inn?"

"Well, you must be lost; if you don't know that the only inn around here is on the road that leads here!" She chuckled.

So I thanked her and went back to the car and repeated the information, but before the door closed all the way, I thought I saw a short boy that might have been around my age with long golden hair to match his golden eyes and what looked like a metal arm. For some reason, the sight unnerved me I looked back at his face and for a second our eyes met his eyes seemed to hold far too much anger and sadness for one his age, and for a second I felt like I knew his face, but then the feeling was gone, and Nel was telling me to open the car door. I obliged and Nel crawled back into the car and I followed her. I then drove us to the inn the little old lady told me about and after agreeing with the innkeeper to work off the money we owed for the rooms, He let us stay, which was where we are now.

"Hey Ichigo, it's your turn to use the shower!" Renji said as he walked into the room we shared, clad in only a towel. "Okay." I stood up and grabbed a towel of my own, then headed towards the bathroom.

As soon as I was clean and fully dressed (cough, Renji, cough cough) I left the bathroom. As I was coming back out of my room, I bumped into Rukia. "Oh! Ichigo, the innkeeper has informed me that we will be working in shifts of two hours. Starting with me and Inoue-san, and Nel-chan does not have to work. Then it will be you and Sado-kun and then Ishida-kun and Renji. Let's hope Renji doesn't screw up too badly!" I chuckled. "What about Toshiro?"

"The innkeeper was willing to let him not work but Captain Hitsugaya refused and is going to be alternating with Inoue-san."

"It's probably a good idea to keep Inoue out of the kitchen as much as possible, her cooking tendencies lean towards…abstract, if you get my drift."

"Hahaha! I guess that's true."

Ed's POV.

Our dinner was interrupted by a loud bang and a blue flash. I jumped up and walked over to the window and was confused by what I saw. Why was Colonel Mustang here? Or, it was his car at least… but when I looked at the windows, I saw the silhouettes of eight people and some odd round spiky thing that kept jumping about and seemed to annoy the people in the car very much. After a minute or two a door opened and a tall (grrrrrr) boy with spiky orange hair half fell- half stepped out of the car. There was a green blur and then a young girl with curly green hair appeared on his shoulder. She had an odd white mask on the crown of her head that I only caught a glimpse of before the boy said something to her and she put the hood of her green robe/dress up to cover it. The boy looked around with a very confused expression on his face and then started towards the house. A few seconds later we heard him knocking at our door and Granny Pinako answered it. He exchanged a few words with her and then left. As Granny closed the door, I thought he saw me in the hallway, and for a second, our eyes met and I saw anger, not a righteous anger that comes from injustice, more like a kind of evil and untamed anger. But the strangest thing was, the anger didn't seem to come from the boy, it was as if there was something inside of him that was part of him and not part of him that was trying to gain control. But apart from the evil was a desire to protect and grow stronger. Even so, though I am loathe to admit it, those eyes scare me.

Chapter 2

Mustang's POV.

I awoke with a blue flash. Confused, I looked around; Riza was standing next to me wearing the same confused expression I had no doubt was mirrored on my face. The last thing I remember is falling asleep in the back of the car that Riza was driving. I shrugged and walked up to the door of the sweet shop, taking in the odd design, and knocked. A boy with fire engine red hair and pants rolled up to just below his knee answered. "Waddaya want weirdo?" He asked, looking me up and down.

"Jinta-kun! Don't scare away the customers!" Called a voice from the depths of the store.

"Well, look at him, nobody dresses like that!" The boy called back. Hawkeye stepped out from behind me.

"Now there's two of them!" The boy yelped. "And one of 'em has some serious reiatsu! Like, Captain-class!"

Reiatsu? Captain-class? Huh? I was lost. Were they speaking in code? A second later a man appeared. If I was oddly dressed then this man was a clown. He wore a green and white stripped hat that shaded his eyes and covered most of his sandy blonde hair, as well as an odd green thing that looked like a cloak, but was too short, and too long to be a regular coat. Underneath that he was wearing what looked like a cross between a tunic and a bathrobe paired with short pants, both tunic and pants were a rather odd shade of green, and sandals that I had seen in Xing on one of my assignments. I believe they were called ghetto sandals. Oh that's it! "Sir, are we in Xing?" I asked.

"Xing?" He said, "Where's Xing? Never heard of it. No, you're in Japan."

"Japan? What's Japan? A religion?" I asked non-plussed.

"No, you idiot!" snapped the boy with red hair. "It's the country we're in right now!"

"Jinta-kun, be nice." Chided the man. "They're obviously confused and in the wrong place. Now ma'am," He turned to Riza, "I'm going to have to ask you to tone down your reiatsu, unless you want to attract hollows."

I have never seen Riza at such a loss of what to do.

"Sir," said Riza, "What is reiatsu? What are hollows? And, forgive me for being rude, but, how the hell am I supposed to control the reiatsu? Is it even mine?"

"Well, reiatsu is spirit force – like, how strong your spirit is – and yes the reiatsu I asked you to tone down is indeed, yours. And many people have reiatsu in varying degrees of power. But some people have no reiatsu whatsoever and therefore, cannot see anything spirit-like, like hollows and Shinigami and such. There are two types of spirits, there are the good, pure ones, called Plus and there are the ones that have lost their hearts. Those are Hollows. Hollows eat Plus spirits and sometimes (though it is rare indeed) they will eat other hollows. I see that you are wondering what a shinigami is. A Shinigami is a Death God. They have two jobs. The first is to send Plus spirits to a place called the soul society – you know it as heaven – their second job is to 'kill' Hollows. When a Shinigami 'kills' a hollow, that hollow is purified and sent to the soul society as well. But! If a Hollow begins to eat other Hollows, it will grow in strength until it becomes a Gillian. Gillian is the only level of Hollow that all look the same. Gillian are rather slow and have no mind of their own, but sometimes, a hollow will retain its identity in a Gillian and that Gillian will look slightly different, it will also begin to eat other Gillian, eventually once a Gillian has eaten enough of its kin, it will grow stronger and turn into and Adjuchas. Adjuchas are all different looking and they can also control the Gillian or Menos Grande. Again, if an Adjuchas eats enough of its kin it will grow stronger and obtain a human like form. These Hollow are called Vasto Lorde and are extremely rare and extremely powerful. Now, how about some tea?"

Riza and I looked at each other utterly bemused. Suddenly we heard an awful roaring from outside of the shop. "What was that?!" I asked sharply.

"Just a Hollow," Answered the man. "Nothing to worry about! Jinta-kun! Go deal with the hollow please!"

"Why is it always me?!" The boy – Jinta-kun – yelled. "Make Ururu do it!"

"Ururu-chan's cleaning."

"Pah!"

"Jintaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" A large, tan, muscular with braids and a weird mustache who reminded me a lot of Major Armstrong barreled past us.

"Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh! All right! All right! I'll do it!" Jinta yelled, sprinting out the door. A second later there was an awful sound that sounded like a cross between a roar and a scream, a yell of "Jinta Home Run!" and I assumed that the hollow was gone because not soon after, the boy came back in.

"Jinta- kuuuuuuun! " The sandy haired man called, "Go get us some tea!" I sighed, this man was a lot like lieutenant colo – no, brigadier general Hughes.

Nel's POV.

"Itsygooooooo!" I whined, "I'm bored!"

"Well, unless you want to read one of these books, I'm afraid I can't help you." Itsygo was sitting on his bed, reading. I was jumping on Red Pineapple's bed, but was bored anyways. I wished Peshe and Dondo-Chakka where here. Oh, and Bawabawa too. But they weren't so I was bored.

"I wanna play never ending tag!" I said, jumping over to Itsygo's bed and landing on his shoulders.

"No. There isn't enough time or space."

"But Itsygo!" I cried, flopping onto my back and waving my arms and legs around.

"No." I mustered up some tears.

"Aw Nel, don't cry! Tell you what, tonight after everybody's shifts are done I'll see if Rukia and them want to join. Then we can have a giant game out in the back! How's that sound?"

"But I wanna play never ending tag right now!" I exclaimed, annoyed, why didn't Itsygo see that?

"I'm sorry Nel, but we can't!" Itsygo said. I huffed.

"Fine! Then I'm gonna go find someone else to play with!" I exclaimed, sliding from the bed to the floor. On y way out of the room, I bumped into Red Pineapple. "Oh hey Nel," He said. "Whatcha doing?"

"I'm off to go find some new people to play never ending tag with! Because Itsygo is being a party pooper and won't play with me!"

"Uh-oh!" Said Red Pineapple, laughing. Why was he laughing? Was he laughing at me? "Sounds like a serious problem! Who knew Itsygo could be such a downer?" I figured out who Red Pineapple was laughing at. He was laughing at Itsygo. Well, serves him right! I slipped past Red Pineapple and out of the room. On my way out I heard the Red Pineapple snicker at Itsygo. "Itsygo?" I giggled to myself.

"Awwwww! None of these people look good enough to play never ending tag with me!" I sighed. I had been standing on the side of the street for an hour and a half, watching the people go by, looking for someone to play never ending tag with me.

Suddenly I felt the sudden appearance of a thousand presences behind me. But it was odd, they were all in one location. And that location was emitting reiatsu higher than any I had ever felt. Ever so slowly I turned around.

Behind me stood a woman with long curly black hair and a sleeveless dress that displayed a strange red tattoo just below where her collar bones met. I looked like a dragon eating its own tail. "I will play never ending tag with you little one." She said in a very kind voice.

"Yaaaaaaaaaaay!" Finally someone who would play with me! I jumped up and down. When I felt another of those high reiatsu presences behind me. I looked behind me and saw a young man with black hair and an odd outfit that displayed his midriff. "Oh!" I said happily, "Is the black jelly fish going to play with us?"

"What did you call me?!" He said, looming over me with a vein throbbing in his temple. "C'mon Lust, let's just take her and be done with it!" Huh? So we weren't gonna play never ending tag? Oh well. I started walking away.

"Where do you think you're going, you little runt?" said the man, grabbing the back of my robe. That's when I knew something was wrong and I started struggling. But the black jellyfish man would not let me go. I started screaming but as soon as I did he clamped a hand over my mouth and dragged me into an alley way.

"Lust." He said. She handed him a bag and he shoved me into it. A sickly sweet scent pervaded my nose and the last thought I had before losing consciousness was: Help me, Itsygo!