This is my first fan fiction ever, so cut me a little slack if the plot holes are baringly obvious. I do not own Bleach, I do however own an awsome pair of red oants with a white skull pattern. I'm only a passive fan of Bleach, but the idea for this story was bouncing around in my head and I couldn't write my own book until I got this story out of the way. The gist of the story is this: Ichigo was never involved in the whole affair of the story at all. In fact, he isn't even a Kurosaki, he's just some random soul that became a hollow a shit ton of years ago. Because he never existed, Isshin is still married because of this and Karin and Yuzu have a loving family. When Rukia was attacked by the hollow, instead of giving up her powers to a human, a very familiar Quincy was there to save her. Why you might ask? Because his grandfather is still alive and training Ishida. Ishida, Chad, and Orihime are friends in this story, linked together by a common bond of sending hollows to the great beyond. With Rukia in Karakura, they also befriend her. Important note, because Ishida's grandfather is alive he found a way to manipulate quincy reiatsu so that quincy arrows do not eliminate hollows, and instead purifies them like a shingami's zanpakuto, this means that the current shingami have no reason to hate quincies. Also, the grandfather living means that Ishida has greater quincy training. The non-existence of Ichigo means that Aizen had to frame charges of Kaien's death onto Rukia as a murder, and that is why she is taken away by Byakuya and Renji. As for Ichigo... he's something else, and we'll see that very soon. Our story starts as (Timeline wise) with Ishida and co. going through the senkaimon to save Rukia. Forgive my poor brain and let my madness begin.
XoXoXoX
'Hueco Mundo sucks.' This was the oft repeated thought of the arrancar standing on a solitary rock amist the dunes of Hueco Mundo.
This figure cold be described as downright abnormal compared to the norms of hollows and shinigami alike. He was dirty for one thing. He wore a shinigami's shihakushō but it was torn badly and streaked with dirt, sand, and blood.
He didn't wear a shirt, instead he wrapped his torso in bandages, with a parting in the middle of his chest so that his hollow hole was clear to anyone looking at him. His pants were dark red with white skull patterns crudely sown onto them, the pants appeared to be silk, but in reality it was made from hollow skin the arrancar had gained by skinning his food alive.
His mask was also different from his fellow arrancar, not that he knew this. His mask was completely whole and was not broken at all. It had the appearance of a human skull with three red stripes below his right eye.
The arrancar's yellow eyes continued to scan the desert in front of him in a vain hope that there was something waiting for him out there to break him out of his monotony. Alas, there was nothing.
He let out a big sigh and looked to the ever present moon of the Hueco Mundo landscape. His boredom had reached a peak. He was so bored that he was starting to remember his past.
When he has first died he became a hollow and lost his memories of his life, that was normal. He had ate his fellow hollows and became a Gillian, that was normal. He had continued to consume his bretheren and evolved into an Adjuchas, normally. His hunger led him to an underground forest of some kind, where he encountered other Adjuchas and over time he had eaten enough of them where he could evolve into the final stage of Menos evolution and became a legendary Vasto Lorde.
One of only six in all of existence! Then he hit a dead end. His powers continued to grow, but there was no further evolution beyond being a Vasto Lorde, thus there was no point. He became bored, he seemed out other hollows to fight him and beat all of them without difficulty. He considered leaving Hueco Mundo and attacking the shinigami in their Soul Society, but hen he heard an interesting rumor. There was a different kind of hollow, by removing their mask he heard that hollows could gain shinigami powers.
He was ecstatic when he heard this, and immediately attempted smashing his mask on a nearby rock. All of his efforts was in vain however as his constant consumption of hollows after he had become a Vasto Lorde had reinforced his bodies to rediculous levels of durability. Even his mask, which was usually a hollow's weak spot, was harder than the rock he used to try and break it. No matter what he tried, nothing could break his mask, not even the cero that he forced another Vasto Lorde, the king of Las Noches himself, to fire at him could even scratch his mask.
He had resigned himself that he would never become an arrancar and was preparing to find shinigamis to fight, when he experienced the shock of his afterlife when he discovered a shinigami surviving in the Menos Forest.
He had observed the shinigami for several days, thinking that if he knew how they acted, it would be easier for him to obtain their power. He was following the hollow one day when the shinigami arrives in a small clearing in the forest. There were several graves and the shinigami approached them and bowed his head in respect torwards the graves, leaving himself wide open for attacks. The Vasto Lorde took this as an oppurtunity, and used his excellent speed to push himself forward, revealing his reiatsu. It was too late for the shinigami however because he sensed the incoming hollow and did not have an oppurtunity to react before he was pinned to the ground and separated from his zanpakuto.
Then he saw his attacker and resolved himself to join his comrades as his death was imenent. He was looking at a human shaped hollow, with pure while skin, tiffs of grey fur around his neck and wrists, and a horrifying horned skull mask drilling a hole through his head with it's piercing gaze. This appearance, along with the accompanying large reiatsu meant he was facing a Vasto Lorde.
He closed his eyes and prepared for the end. He waited for his death, but it never came.
Cautiously, he cracked his eyes open and saw that the hollow was analyzing him. Suddenly it let out a noise like a cat being rubbed against a chainsaw. Realizing that the hollow was clearing it's throat to talk the hollow spoke with the strange echoing tone that all hollows possessed.
"This is embarrassing, but do you think you could do me a favor. If you help me out, I might let you live bro."
The hollow looked at him expectingly and the shinigami realized that he was supposed to reply. He swallowed nervously.
"Uh... How can I help?"
The hollow didn't hesitate and took his foot of of the shinigami letting him pick himself up, and through his sword back to him. The hollow and the shinigami rationalized that the hollow was more than strong enough to kill the shinigami whenever he pleased.
The hollow spoke again. "I'm not going to beat around the bush. I hate you and your guts, but I need you alive so I can obtain my goal. I want to become an arrancar, the only way to do so is for a hollow to have their mask removed, but I'm so damn durable that I can't rip my mask off. Nothing I've tried, including multiple ceros by Menos class hollows, has managed to put a dent in me at all. So here is what is going to go down here, your going to tell me how to get shinigami powers, and if it works, I'll let you go and you won't ever see me again, if it doesn't work, well..."
The hollow picked up a random bone laying on the forest floor with his clawed hand and put it into his mouth.
*CRUNCH*
The shinigami nodded in grim acknowledgement that if he didn't give this hollow the power that it desired, then his life was forfeit. He closed his eyes and focused, thinking of every way he could for ways that beings gained shinigami powers. He snapped his fingers, he had it!
"There is only one way I could think of that would work for you Vasto Lorde. You must enter a state of meditation and enter your inner world, from there, you must find some way to create a zanpakuto spirit that will contain and repress your power as an arrancar.
The hollow was not one to waste time, he sat down and crossed his legs right where he stood. He rested his hands on his knees and closed his eyes, unafraid of the shinigami in front of him or what nearby hollows could do to him while he was in his inner world.
The shinigami wasted no time as well and quickly ran away from the powerful Menos.
Menos in question didn't move a muscle as he sensed the shinigami booking it away at top speeds. He was too focused on reaching his "inner world" and creating his zanpakuto. He must have sat in the same place for several days, during which he was attacked many times by hollows, but not once did one manage to breach his defenses.
One minute he was breathing in and out with his eyes closed while focusing, the next, he was back in the deserts of Heuco Mundo. Thinking that the meditation didn't work and preparing to hunt down and kill the shinigami, it took him several moments to realize he had succeeded.
He let out a loud roar of happiness as he realized that the entire desert was sideways, with the pairing sand entering a giant crater, with what looked liked the ruins of skyscrapers poking out from beneath the sand. The landscape itself seemed oddly familiar to the hollow, but he felt at peace for the first time that he could remember. For the first time since he had died, the hollow relaxed.
He didn't move for several minutes, merely observing the beauty of the landscape of his inner world. He did not fail to notice the grinding noise behind him however and turned around to see what was disturbing his moment of inner peace.
In the air behind him was a spinning distortion. It was like a black hole, except that instead of sucking everything into it, it expelled light and noise. Now the hollow wasn't a fool, he wasn't going to just approach an anomaly like this for no good reason. He did resolve to approach it however when he saw a hilt of some weapon poking out of the middle of the swirling air.
Seeing that there was no reason for him to not grab the hilt, he reached forward, and grasped the hilt. There was a flash of light, accompanied by a searing pain across his entire body.
It took him awhile for him to realize that he was asleep. When he woke up, he had a pounding headache. Reaching his hands up to his head to support it, he saw pale human hands. At first he just started at them. Then he started laughing.
He had done it, he had become an arrancar. Looking around he spotted his own zanpakuto. Zanpakuto were rumored to all be katanas in some form or shape, but his was different. It had no hilt and was as long as he was tall. It was black with a silver edge and pure white bandages wrapped around the handle so that his zanpakuto had some form of grip.
'This is going to be useful.' He thought as he had a very important revalation. While he now had a human shape, his hallow mask was still whole and probably most important, he was buck naked.
He wasted no time and started ripping the wrappings from his zanpakuto off and began wrapping the bandages around his body to cover his nakedness. Thinking frantically and realizing that his pride as a powerful hollow was on the line, he knew what he had to do.
The shinigami was easy to find, as his reiatsu stuck out in Hueco Mundo like a sore thumb. He landed in front of the shinigami and stopped him in his tracks. The awkwardness of having someone half naked in front of them was not lost on the shinigami as he averted his eyes, giving the new arrancar enough time to hit him on his temple, rendering him briefly incapacitated. The new arrancar began ripping bandages off of his sword and throwing them on top of the shinigami. He then removed the shinigami's shihakushō. He put it on, finding it to be a little small for him and inadvertently ripping it in the process. He then leaned down next to the shinigami, and spoke his first words as an arrancar, discovering in the process he had a sense of humor.
"You've been owned by Ichigo shinigami!" With that, Ichigo sped off to the exit of the Menos Forest, so he could mercilessly skin some hollows and make himself some pants. He wasn't going to go around naked. That just wasn't how he rolled.
Ichigo's walk down memory lane ended and he sighed, realizing that at this moment, he only had two options to move forward from here.
Option one was him going to Las Noches and joint that army of hollows that that feak shinigami Souske Aizen was building so he could overthrow the Spirit King and make hollows equal if not greater than the shinigami. Ichigo thought that sounded like a cubic ton of shit. He wasn't about to sell his soul to a soul reaper for no personal gain whatsoever. He was thankful he hadn't been approached by any of the arrancar in Las Noches or heaven forbid, Aizen himself.
That left Ichigo with option two. He didn't entirely like the sound of option two, but option one wasn't even an option.
Option two consisted of him going to the Livng World for the first time. As he saw it, he had eaten so many hollows, became a Vasto Lorde, became an arrancar, made some kickass pants made from the bodies of his enimies, and now he had nothing else to do.
If he went to the living world than he would have to deal with shinigami, crazy humans he had heard of that had powers, and cats. Ichigo hated cats with a dark fury. There wasn't any real reason, it's just that they annoyed him to no end, it was as if every cat hollow he had come across was endlessly mocking him.
He took one last look at the landscape that had allowed him to rise to power. He picked up his trusty cleaver, and traced it on the ground, opening a vertical gargantua on the ground.
The reason he opened a vertical gargantua was because he had piss poor reiatsu control and knew that he had to form a path in order to traverse the void between Hueco Mundo and the Living World. If there was a vertical gargantua than all he had to worry about was landing, which he was sure he could handle.
Not worrying about the future, Ichigo the arrancar jumped into the swirling dark portal, not knowing that his destination was in front a certain candy store owned by a Urahara Kisuke.
XoXoXoX
With a slam, the senkaimon closed and Ishida, Chad, Orihime, and Yoruichi were in the Precipice world, valiantly heading to Soul Society so they could rescue their crown Rukia, leaving Urahara alone in his shop while Tessai, Jinta, and Ururu were out getting the shop's supplies from their special source, they would be gone for several days.
Urahara snapped his fan open and began waving it in front of his face. If everything went according to plan, Aizen wouldn't suspect a Quincy among the ryoka, and Ishida would be able to put an arrow through that evil man's heart. Urahara's only regret was that he had discovered Aizen's plan sooner and was able to remove the hogyuku from Rukia's gigai. Water under the bridge however.
Urahara was broken out of his mental ramblings very suddenly. He had detected a gargantua opening in front of his shop. He shunpoed to the front of the shop expecting the gargantua to be facing his shop, much to his surprise however, the dark portal was 50 feet in the air, facing straight down. Then he detected the reiatsu of the hollow coming through and prepared Benihime, the large amount of reiatsu he detected could only have belonged to a powerful Vasto Lorde.
When a Vasto Lorde appeared, Soul Society always sent three captains to ensure that the powerful Menos was purified. Vasto Lordes were so powerful, that back when Urahara was still a captain, he had research indicating that if ten Vasto Lordes were to attack Soul Society, then it would be similar to if the soutaichou released his bankai. The reiatsu in the air would turn dangerous and destroy the entire dimension, let alone the damages the Vasto Lordes themselves would cause.
Not willing to take any chances with such a potentially dangerous opponent, Urahara prepared his Kidō. However, the "simple" shop keeper was not prepared for what came out of the portal.
Shooting out of the gargantua, a dark shape came out and … hit the ground at top speeds, leaving an impressive crater. Urahara sweatdropped and watched as the dust cleared.
It revealed what at first appeared it be a very scruffy orange haired teenager, but Urahara was startled when he saw the mask covering the teens entire face. That, along with the bloodstains and the hollow hole indicated that he was looking at an arrancar.
The hollow was laying on his back, seemingly unconscious, when he sat up very quickly. He patted himself all over seemingly making sure that he was intact, then he pumped his arms in the air and screamed "I'm alive! Whooo! Not even falling for hours on end can keep this hollow down! I'm alive world!" Then he looked around. He saw Urahara standing there watching him. He looked him over and then spoke "Cool hat dude. Have you seen my sword?"
The gargantua, which was still open at this point, spat something out at top speeds and then finally closed. Both Urahara and the arrancar watched as the object fell to earth, spinning in graceful arcs cutting through the air, before landing right between the arrancar's legs, less than half an inch away from castrating him.
The arrancar watched the quivering cleaver until it stopped shaking. He then turned his head to Urahara. In a slightly nervous voice he spoke "Y-y-you s-saw that … right."
Urahara snapped his fan open and nodded his head. The arrancar looked at the cleaver. "I thought so."
The shop keeper and the arrancar stood in silence. Looking at the cleaver's point of impact, Urahara finally deemed it was appropriate to speak. "You look like you're tired arrancar-san. May I offer you some tea inside."
The arrancar didn't miss a beat "What kind of tea?"
"I believe I have some nice green tea. Is that good enough?"
Behind his mask the arrancar smiled. "Perfect."
XoXoXoX
Urahara watched, trying to mask his curiosity wondering how the arrancar was going to drink his tea with that mask of his covering his entire face. The hollow brought the cup up to his mask, waving the cup in front of him he breathed in the aroma. Sighing with satisfaction, he began bringing the cup to his mask, he was just about to clink the cup against his mask when he stopped. He looked over Urahara's shoulder and pointed. "What is that?"
Urahara looked to see what could have caught the arrancar's attention. Failing to see anything of particular importance however he turned back … only to see the cup of tea entirely empty.
The arrancar nodded his head in satisfaction to the disappointed shop keeper. "Thank very much mister cool hat. I'm afraid I've been a bad guest however, I've failed to introduce myself. I'm Ichigo, arrancar."
Urahara nodded, partially satisfied with having a name to the face, err, mask. He introduced himself, "I'm just a humble shop keeper in this town, you may call me Urahara. Urahara Kisuke. Now this may seem sudden, but I am immensely curious why a hollow such as yourself would visit this humble town."
Ichigo nodded in understanding. "I can understand that then the reason for me coming here, to this specific town is…" Urahara leaned closed "very important…" Urahara leaned even closer "it is…" Urahara was pieaning over the table at this point "because I was bored, wanted something to do, and opened up a gargantua that took me to a completely random location."
Urahara couldn't help it. He facefaulted, hard. Getting up, Ichigo was laughing at him shamelessly. "That's not very nice Ichigo-kun. Getting my expectations risen like that."
"What did you expect? I am a hollow after all, and even if you try to say that your just a shop keeper, I can smell that you are definitely a shinigami … with an awesome hat."
"At least someone appreciates it..." Urahara mumbled. "Anyways," Urahara let the fan drop so Ichigo could see his serious face. "if you know that I'm a shingami, then you know that I need to know about you, and your real intentions here. It is my duty."
Ichigo stared at Urahara before speaking. "Okay then. Everything about me. I lived a short life I think, I died really young. I became a hollow. After that I became a Gillian, and I continued through my hollow evolution until I became a Vasto Lorde. Then, I kicked around for a couple of years continuing to consume hollows and growing tons more powerful because I had no real goals. Then I heard about arrancar. I decided I wanted to become one right then and there, but I couldn't because all the extra hollows I'd eaten as a Vasto Lorde made me rediculously durable, and I couldn't find a way to break the mask. I eventually found a way to become an arrancar through meditation, but as you can see, my mask is so tough that it is still whole. Then I made myself some kickass pants," here he gestured torwards them "and I came to a dead end. I didn't know what to do from there, as I had reached the pinacle of what my power could be at that moment. I the found two options I could do. I could join the shinigami Aizen Souske and his army of arrancar and overthrow the Spirit King, or I could go to the Living World and find some reason to continue my existence which up till right now, has consisted of me doing nothing but tearing apart and eating hollows. I didn't want to become a slave to a deranged soul reaper, so I came here to the living world, where this far I've almost been castrated y my own zanpakuto, and drank some delicious tea with one of the shinigami that I've been trying to avoid. Does that answer your concerns and may I go now?"
Urahara looked at Ichigo with a blank look on his face. Ichigo thought he had passed out because he wasn't moving at all, even when he waved his hand in front of his face. Urahara looked right at Ichigo before he could get up and leave however.
"A WHAT ARMY?"
(A/N): You probably saw this coming so no big surprise there. Leave some constructive criticism, slang, ideas, or share the love in a review please. I'll try to pump out another chapter by tomorrow. If this gets even semi popular, you can expect much more of this over the summer.
