Alright. So, here's another Bleach story I've been working on for…let's just say a while.
College has basically killed off any writing time I have during a week, so writing out chapters takes a while.
So I had a poll on my Profile Page to gauge your opinions between Michiru, Ryo and Mahana in a romance with Ichigo.
Lol, since I don't have that big of a fan base, only thirteen people voted. Thanks, guys!
Anyway, here's the end result of that pole.
May I please ask for those of you who are also Elfen Lied fans to vote on a new poll on my Profile Page. Please. It would be greatly appreciated and helpful, as I am planning on writing an Elfen Lied-Bleach crossover. So please vote, PLEASE!
Anyway back to the story.
I don't own anything regarding Bleach, or its characters. It is owned by Tite Kubo, This is solely fan-made.
Chapter One: What's this boring thing called again? Oh right: School!:
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*YAWN*
School, what a wretched thing it is. Who had even thought of creating the troublesome compulsion? Long periods of non-stop concentration, absorption of different kinds of sometimes-useless information. Short break periods, excess homework, and listening to your teachers' blabbering while it almost literally bored you to death.
That was Ichigo Kurosaki's viewpoint on the matter, at least.
It has been roughly thirteen months since he had defeated the evil tyrant/traitor/warlord ex-Soul Reaper known as Sosuke Aizen. Thirteen months since he sacrificed a part of his soul in order to ensure the safety of three- no four- worlds. Thirteen months since he had given up his Soul Reaper powers.
This included the ability to see the spirits of the 'dearly departed', as he usually put it. Giving up his Soul Reaper powers meant that he also sacrificed his Zanpakuto, both the sword and the spirit of said sword that resided in his mind.
Yes, Zangetsu, who was destined to spend an eternity alongside his wielder, instead had to be sacrificed in order to protect something much bigger than one Substitute Soul Reaper and his Zanpakuto, while Ichigo was now destined to live out the rest of his natural life as a normal human being.
One that was not spiritually aware. As it was meant to be. As he wanted it to be. Right?
Damn right!
That was exactly the life that Ichigo dreamt of: Being a normal teenager, whose only worries are passing all of his subjects and studying for exams. Unfortunately for the young orange-haired teenager though, he had to write a special exam for each of his eight subjects- all within the space of two weeks -the previous month in order to make up for missing so much school during his heroic Soul Reaper days.
Luckily he passed all the special exams and was now finally back on par with the other learners regarding schoolwork.
Was he happy about it?
Absolutely.
He was finally normal, just like he always wanted.
*YAWN*
Yet another yawn escaped his mouth from where he sat on the left-hand side of the classroom, next to the windows.
Misato Ochi- That's Ms. Ochi to you! And to every other learner in this school, as a matter of fact. -was standing in front of the black board, writing down the solution to some Math problem she had been discussing and explaining for most of the period. Ichigo had zoned her rambling out quite some time ago and instead kept himself busy by staring at his reflection in the window next to him, or by staring at his desk while resting his head on his fist.
He let out a long sigh through his nose, before turning his attention to the people around him, suddenly realising that they were much more interesting than his reflection, and thus he decided to study their respective facial expressions instead.
Sitting two rows to his right was Keigo Asano, the genuine loudmouth of his so-called group of friends. When he wasn't blindly charging at Ichigo from out of nowhere, he was ogling at various girls that were enrolled at Karakura High. At the moment though, he was surprisingly quiet, seeing as he was fast asleep, with his head resting on his folded arms. His Math textbook was conveniently placed upright to hide his sleeping face from Ms. Ochi's view.
Ichigo let out an internal sigh at Keigo's antics, before he redirected his gaze past the brown-haired loudmouth, his eyes settling on Mizuiro Kojima. Despite his young and childish appearance, Mizuiro was well-known for being a real ladies man- Bordering more towards a playboy, as per say.-. And while it looked as if the black-haired teen was diligently paying attention to what Ms. Ochi was explaining, Ichigo knew that the content written on the board was definitely the last thing Mizuiro was thinking about. Rumour has it that he was currently dating three different girls, and Ichigo was fairly certain that those girls were on his mind instead.
Glancing towards the seat in front of Keigo; Ichigo laid eyes on Yasutora Sado, better known as Chad.
Chad was quite literally…a silent giant: The man was freaking huge! And yet he hardly ever made so much as a sound unless he was spoken to. He may have come off as scary to most of the people in school, but Ichigo trusted Chad with his life. Long ago, the two of them swore to watch each other's backs, no matter what the situation. The brown-haired giant accompanied him to the Soul Society in his quest to save Rukia Kuchiki from wrongful execution. Chad even accompanied him to Hueco Mundo, the vast desert-like world of Hollows, to save Orihime Inoue from Aizen's clutches. He had evidently risked his own life countless times for Ichigo, and the orange-haired teen considered him to be one of his closest friends.
At the moment, Chad was sitting at his desk, his usual nonchalant, laidback expression plastered on his face. But Ichigo just knew that he was intently taking note of what Ms. Ochi was saying and writing down. He was ranked tenth in their grade, for crying out loud!
Two seats further in front of Chad, sat Uryu Ishida. Uryu was one of the last descendants of the Quincy, spiritually-aware humans who had the power to absorb spirit particles, known as Reishi, and then manipulate that Reishi into spiritual weapons in order to combat Hollows. They are also the self-proclaimed mortal enemies of Soul Reapers, because of the fact that most of the Quincy were wiped out by the Soul Reapers about 200 years ago for reasons Ichigo did not quite understand. It had something to do with the way that the Quincy disposed of Hollows, as it apparently destroyed a balance of some sorts between the different dimensions, or something like that. Ichigo was under the impression that Uryu was the last Quincy in existence, up until a few months back, that is, when his father had told him that Uryu's father was also a Quincy, which meant that there was a grand total of two known Quincy in existence.
Despite Uryu's insistence that they were in fact enemies, Ichigo knew that it was merely a façade that Uryu put up in front of everyone. His statement was also factually untrue for several reasons. The first reason for this was that Ichigo was no longer a Soul Reaper, but a normal human. The second reason: Despite their so-called 'feud', Uryu never once hesitated in accompanying Ichigo to the Soul Society or Hueco Mundo. They had each other's backs, even though they would never admit it to anyone.
Uryu not only had a nerdy appearance,- According to Ichigo, that is. -he also had a nerdy GPA, and was ranked first in their grade, plus he took Handicrafts as a subject. Thus it was no surprise to see his books closed and neatly placed to his left, while his hands were folded in front of him on the desk, signalling that he was done with the work for today, along with the probability that his answers were also all correct.
Ichigo inwardly scoffed at the fact that Uryu was not only done with his Maths for the day, but he could also relax the rest of the period without even getting into trouble!
Focussing his eyes to the right of Uryu's desk, he laid eyes on Orihime Inoue, who was busy writing the contents on the board down in her book. Upon closer inspection though, he noticed a few creative drawings here-and-there in between the relevant information.
Ah, Orihime. Sweet little Orihime: So child-like and innocent, yet she possessed such incredible powers. And, while she acted sort of ditzy and appeared to be living in her own little world most of the time, the orange-haired teen knew that a there was a side of her that was deadly serious.
Truth be told: He had known almost nothing about the brunette, except that her brother was killed in a car accident a few years prior to him gaining his Soul Reaper powers.
Her own unique powers were awakened by being in his presence, where his Spirit Energy had helped speed up the process. And she didn't hesitate once to help him when the time came for them to invade Soul Society in order to save Rukia, a place where her extraordinary healing powers proved to be an invaluable asset.
A few months after that, she had allowed herself to be kidnapped by Ulquiorra Cifer, the Fourth Espada in Aizen's army of Arrancar, in order to protect them all from getting injured, or worse.
Stupid. Very stupid. But at the same time, very brave.
Ichigo allowed a small, fond smile to creep onto his face, before turning his attention to the person sitting to the right of Orihime's desk: Ryo Kunieda.
Except that she was ranked second in their grade, and also an athletic track and field star; Ichigo knew almost nothing about the black-haired girl. He noticed that she was currently reading a book that was conveniently placed on top of her open Math book in order to avoid suspicion, which led the orange-haired teen to assume that she liked reading?
He was also pretty sure that she was good friends with Orihime, as he almost always saw them eating lunch together, be it under their favourite tree at the edge of the school grounds, or on the school's rooftop.
Ichigo's eyes next moved to the seat in front of Ryo's, where they fell on Mahana Natsui, who was looking at the back of Ms. Ochi's head with mild interest. Her shortish, curly brown hair and equally brown eyes went along nicely with her tanned skin. From what he had heard during one of Orihime's rather pointless ramblings, Mahana was a very curious girl, and would sometimes blabber out random questions or info, usually not having a clue about what she was talking about at all.
He really, really didn't know much about the girl, except that she was also part of Orihime's group of girlfriends. It was at this point where Ichigo also noticed that the two top buttons of Mahana's shirt was undone, and thus revealing her somewhat impressive cleavage…
A red hue slowly made its way across the bridge of Ichigo's nose and cheeks as he now found himself staring…at Mahana's chest.
The orange-haired teen diverted his gaze, trying to focus on anything but Mahana and her…assets, and quickly found his eyes landing on the person sitting to Mahana's right: Michiru.
Michiru Ogiti, was it?
No, no. It's not that!
Ogre?
Origami?
No!
Ichigo silently fumed, his teeth gritted in slight frustration. Kami, he sucked with names sometimes. How was it possible that he knew Mahana and Ryo's surnames right off the bat, but had no clue what Michiru's was?
'Ogashitori?'
No.
'O-Oganga?'
Nope.
Ichigo tried remembering the girl's surname for a few moments longer, before he sighed in defeat, and opted to look at what Michiru was doing instead. He found that she was dutifully making notes of what Ms. Ochi was writing down on the board, a small, content smile gracing her lips as her eyes darted between the board and her book.
He knew that the petite little brunette was also friends with Orihime and the rest of the girls in their group, and that she also took Handicrafts as a subject, which he knew only because he saw Uryu fix a tear in one of her dolls once, when he was partially stalking the Quincy for a while.
But the rest was blank. Michiru, for some reason or another, always made herself scarce when he was around Orihime and co. Thus he didn't have a clue about anything regarding Michiru…Origathi?
'It's not Origathi, damn it!'
Did he scare her or something? He was sure that he would have known what her surname was if she didn't always shy away like she did! He found himself staring at the side of her head, internally demanding the brunette to answer his unvoiced questions.
Realizing that his silent questions won't be answered, Ichigo decided to continue his venture through the classroom, as his eyes next landed on Chizuru Honsho: Karakura High's very own lesbian.
With her dark red hair and erotic excitement when near pretty girls, it wasn't that hard to give this one another once-over. Ichigo suddenly noticed something out of place with her, before his thoughts could venture further…
Chizuru was looking to her left, her chin resting on the knuckles of her left hand, her eyes slightly glazed over. Following her gaze, Ichigo's eyes fell on Orihime once more.
Ichigo internally huffed at Chizuru's rather-expected actions. 'Typical.'
But something about the red-head suddenly caught his attention again. Something…purple. His eyes automatically zoomed in on the foreign colour, and Ichigo barely managed to avoid choking on his own spit as he found the source of the purple to be…Chizuru's pair of purple panties.
He almost suffered a gigantic nosebleed soon afterwards, though, as he realised that Chizuru's right hand was underneath her panties, rubbing her womanhood, which was also revealed to the orange-haired teen, along with a small tuft of dark-red hair…
Ichigo slowly lowered his down onto his desk, internally groaning at what he had just witnessed. Chizuru was pleasuring herself in class, and he had just been given an unasked-for genital lesson of sorts.
'Great. Just great…' he internally tried dispersing his now-severely-radiating blush, his mind forever scarred at what he had just seen.
He sat like that for a good two minutes, before looking back up and, conscious of not looking in Chizuru's direction, once again scanned through the other learners in the classroom, until his eyes fell on a girl with short black hair, sitting on the other side of the room.
Tatsuki Arisawa was by far Ichigo's oldest friend. They had met when he was about nine years old and had decided to start taking karate, where the black-haired girl beat the shit out of him over and over again, every time they sparred.
Karate was her passion, and she had been ranked second in her age group during the Japanese Nationals, even though she competed with a broken arm! She was also Orihime's self-appointed bodyguard against just about everyone, especially Chizuru, who regularly got her ass kicked by the raven-haired girl.
Tatsuki also had a fair bit of Spiritual Pressure, but only enough to be able to see and stand in the presence of stronger spiritual beings. She had come face-to-face with Sosuke Aizen herself, and had managed to stay on her knees. So, in Ichigo's book, she was plenty strong.
A small smile appeared on the orange-haired teen's face as he looked at Tatsuki, who was staring at Ms. Ochi with the same bored expression that was probably plastered on his face as well.
[XXX]
Tatsuki casually glanced towards her left at the rest of the class, and noticed that Ichigo was looking her way. She suddenly turned towards him, before flashing a toothy grin while she excitedly waved at him.
[XXX]
Sweat-dropping at Tatsuki's antics, Ichigo gave a quick wave with an awkward grin plastered on his face.
Tatsuki had quickly turned back to the front of the class, and Ichigo let out yet another sigh as he turned his attention back to his reflection in the window.
'Great, just five more periods…'
[FIVE AND A HALF HOURS LATER…]
*SIGH*
Ichigo looked at his wrist watch. 'Five minutes and twenty seconds 'till the end of the day…' he remarked to himself while looking back up to the teacher standing in front of the class.
It was the last period of the day on this fine Wednesday, and it was really just as boring as the first period with Ms. Ochi earlier today. Ichigo was certainly feeling the boredom right about now.
Math at Ms. Ochi was followed by English, and then Japanese, of course.
It was break time after that, during which Keigo, Mizuiro, Chad, Uryu and he had made their way up to the rooftop to eat. It was relatively silent and uneventful, up until Keigo started talking about some 'cool' arcade games he had played the previous night, which everyone else ignored anyway.
This had led to a whining-session from Keigo, which in turn resulted in Ichigo punching the brown-haired loudmouth square on the nose. All-in-all, it was a pretty ordinary break, which, sadly, had to end, and, before the orange-haired teen knew it, he was sitting in Biology class.
Tatsuki was the only notable person that also took Biology, as the rest of her friends- Along with Uryu -had Handicrafts, while Chad, Keigo and Mizuiro had woodwork. It's not as if he even wanted to take Biology.
His dad had forced him to take it. The silly old goat had somehow rationalised that when he one day retires, the clinic will be inherited by none other than Ichigo.
How his father had even come to that conclusion was beyond his comprehension. The old man never even allowed him to help out in the clinic!
For instance, back when he had just acquired his Soul Reaper powers from Rukia; Chad had arrived at the clinic with a severe burn on his back. When the orange-haired teen had asked what he could do to help, his dad had blatantly ordered him to assume the fetal position and stay out of the way.
Heck, even Yuzu and Karin were allowed to help out around the clinic! How that worked, he just didn't know…
And while Ichigo didn't know everything that regarded becoming a doctor, he was pretty sure that one had to take Science, a subject he doesn't even take, as well as Biology in order to pursue a medical career, something which only confused him more.
But anyway, Biology was followed up by a subject that he actually enjoyed: P.E., or Physical Education. Well, he enjoyed half of it, that is. Apparently, P.E. wasn't just about physical activity anymore. It now also included theoretical work, mostly about personal dilemmas and situations such as stress, studying, sex.
Their class had P.E. twice a week, on Mondays and Wednesdays. Mondays were dedicated to theory, while Wednesdays were reserved for outdoor activities, something the orange-haired teen thoroughly enjoyed.
Wednesdays usually consisted out of the class being divided up into two equal teams, before playing some-or-other sport against each other. What made this even more fun, was that they replaced the participating sport with a different every term.
This meant that they played four different sports a year. They had played soccer during the first term, a sport in which he was pretty good in. He and Karin were pretty similar when it came to soccer skills, so he had no problem besting the rest of his class.
And, seeing as it was now the second term of the year, Ms. Ochi- she was coincidently their P.E. teacher as well. -had fittingly chosen a new sport for them to participate in: Touch rugby.
Ichigo had to admit that he found this new sport interesting. Apparently it was pretty popular in other countries and was also starting to gain some following in Japan. So Ms. Ochi had accordingly suggested that they play some touch rugby. Actually, she just saw some muscled rugby players posing in some magazine, and had decided that they were 'sexy'. Man, some of these teachers were weird.
His team won, to put it mildly. Being a former Soul Reaper really did have its perks, especially regarding speed, strength and stamina.
The fun and games had also ended after a while, which meant that he was that much closer to the end of the day, with just one more subject left.
Unfortunately, it was Economics, probably the most boring of his subjects. All they did in this class was listen to the teacher as he read out of the prescribed text book. They never did anything productive, so they just sat there, praying that their misery would soon come to an end. That was the situation Ichigo currently found himself in.
Looking back down at his watch, the orange-haired teen noticed that exactly forty seconds had passed since he last looked at the time.
'Four minutes and thirty-nine seconds. Four minutes and thirty-five seconds. Four minutes and thirty-one seconds.' Ichigo started counting down in his head, hoping to hasten the period to its end. 'Four minutes and twenty-GAH!'
He dropped his head in mid-sentence and lay it down on his open Economics book. He then closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, hoping to zone the teacher's voice completely out of his head.
"Thus equilibrium lies on the point where your quantity demanded meets your quantity supplied." Mr. Tokama's voice rang trough his head. It turns out that his voice was actually amplified if Ichigo closed his eyes, due to the orange-haired teen's other senses automatically sharpening when closing his eyes.
'Okay, so maybe lying like this won't block his voice out after all…' Ichigo remarked to himself while lifting his head back up again. There was no point in lying down like that if it wasn't going to help at all. He might just get detention instead, now that he thought about it.
So he instead opted to twiddle his fingers together in an attempt to keep himself busy, until the distinct sound of a ringing bell emanated through the building.
School was finally done for the day.
The classroom was suddenly filled with the sound of books closing and bags being zipped up, as all of the students suddenly exploded out of their seats, and Ichigo was no exception to this. He had dumped his book into his bag and zipped it up in the blink of an eye, and was already barging his way over to the door, along with the rest of his class, as they made to get into the already-packed hallways and out of the school building.
Stepping into the seemingly never-ending horde of children, Ichigo quickly started making his way towards the doors of the building, determined to get out of here as soon as possible. Six hours of school per day was more than enough for him, and the orange-haired teen was sure as hell not planning on sticking around any longer than necessary.
'Well, at least school's finally out.' Ichigo thought to himself as he trudged through the filled hallways, turning left or right every now-and-then while cautiously looking around him as to not bump into anyone by accident.
Ichigo walked home with Mizuiro and Keigo every afternoon, just as they walked together to school every morning. But the two of them had some computer subject in place of Economics. And the computer classroom was located deeper inside the school building, meaning that Keigo and Mizuiro had a longer walk to the exit, which equalled a more-peaceful walk home for Ichigo. Well, a part of it, anyway.
The two of them would eventually catch up to him, and then the peacefulness would disappear just as quickly, because Keigo blabbers…a lot. Most of the time, actually.
Ichigo let out a long, disappointed sigh at the thought of Keigo Asano. 'Maybe if I walk faster, I'll get home before they catc-'
*SMACK!*
Before Ichigo could finish that thought, he felt something bump into him, causing whatever it was to bounce straight back off his muscled chest.
"Hm?" Ichigo exclaimed as looked around in front of him, trying to find whatever had just hit him.
"Ooooh…"
Hearing a groan from somewhere beneath him, Ichigo blinked and looked down, where he found the 'something'- or in this case the 'someone' –that had bumped into him: Michiru.
"Ouwie…" Michiru groaned, her eyes closed as she tentatively rubbed her forehead from where she sat on her butt on the floor.
Her books were scattered all around her, her bag had most likely been ripped open in the collision.
"Hey," Ichigo started, which caused Michiru to stop rubbing her head and suddenly snap her eyes open, which settled on the orange-haired teen's intimidating frame in front of her.
"Are you okay, Michiru?" Ichigo asked, a concerned frown on his face as he bent down to help her up.
The orange-haired boy's actions caused Michiru's eyes to widen, before she suddenly let out a small, frightened squeal, and got back up onto her feet by herself, conscious of her skirt.
"I-I'm alright! Thank you!" the little brunette quickly answered, before she got down onto her haunches, and hastily started picking her books up, practically throwing them back into her bag one-by-one.
"Here, let me help yo-" was all Ichigo could get out while picking up one of Michiru's books that was lying to his right, before the brunette suddenly stood up straight again.
"No! I-it's fine! I've got them all!" Michiru interrupted as she pointed to her bag with a nervous laugh. "B-bye!" she quickly turned on her heels, before practically sprinting down the hallway.
Ichigo watched as she disappeared in between the mass of other students, looked down at the book in his hand, and looked back up again, before his eyes widened in realization.
"Hey! Wait!" He held the book up in the air. "You forgot your…book…" he finished in a mumble and let his arm fall back to his side. It was too late, she was already out of earshot.
He looked down the hallway a few seconds longer, before he sighed in defeat and got down onto his haunches.
Ichigo zipped his bag open and put Michiru's book into the front of his bag. He got back up, and was about to zip his bag up again, before…
"III-CHIII-GOOO!"
'Crap…' was the only word that went through Ichigo's head at that instant, as Keigo suddenly appeared in the air behind him, ready to pounce on the orange-haired teen.
With his hand still firmly on his bag's zipper, Ichigo quickly leaped into the air, delivered a brutal round-house kick to the side of Keigo's head, which sent the brown-haired boy crashing into a nearby wall, while the orange-haired teen landed on his feet in the same position he was before being attacked, and casually zipped his bag up.
"What's up, Mizuiro?" Ichigo greeted the black-haired teen, who had his face buried in his cell phone, as per usual.
Mizuiro briefly glanced up at Ichigo, before his eyes darted back down to his phone's screen. "Hey, Ichigo. Ready to go?"
Ichigo scanned the now-much-emptier hallway one last time for any sign of Michiru, before sighing in defeat. "Yeah," he slung his bag over his shoulder. "Let's go."
And with that said, Ichigo and Mizuiro started making their way towards the school doors again.
"What!?" Keigo suddenly appeared in front of his two friends, with tears streaming down his bruised face. "How can you guys just leave without even asking for my input? What if I still wanted to hang around here for a bit? How can you be so crue-MMMPH!"
"Would you just give it a rest." Ichigo said while retracting his fist from Keigo's face. "Everyone here knows that you can't wait to get out of this place. And why would I even care about what you want? Now come on, let's go."
And so, the three of them started making their way out of the building once again, with Keigo slumping dejectedly behind Ichigo and Mizuiro. The orange-haired teen was determined to make this trip as short as possible, because of Keigo and, well…Keigo…
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Right, so there's the first chapter. Please review and tell me what you guys think so far!
The next chapter will probably be out by tomorrow evening, South African time!
Please don't forget to vote on the poll, and feel free to post a review on your way out.
Cheers!