Hello, all~! 'Tis Kimiko-chan, back with more. This will be, hopefully, a multi-chapter fic. I've had this idea bugging me for WEEKS, so finally, I decided to let it out.

Before anyone asks, I have taken a certain amount of creative liberty with this. Yes, this will be an AU story.

Summary: It was this place that they met. It was this place that made them fight back to back. It was this place that made them friends. It was this place that made them lovers. It was, of all places, here where Ichigo grew up too quickly and where Grimmjow's seemingly endless love of violence was tamed.

Inspiration: I had a dream that my friends and I were all living together in a shitty, run-down city where it was no shock that someone was found dead every few nights. But, thanks to dream logic, we never used the buddy system and left the house in a group, or even in pairs. We all went out alone. But, fortunately, dream logic also supplied us with the kind of bad-assery that let us beat the ever-loving fuck out of just about anyone who dared mess with us. So, in all, I suppose some brawn is a fair trade for brains when it comes in handy.

Anywho, that's where this matriculated from.

Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach. How do I know? My white shirts, from moving, are no longer white. They're this weird grayish-cream color. Obviously, I need to own Bleach.

Okay, okay. I'm done with my spiel. I'll let you get on to the prologue.


A night-cooled breeze flowed through the city, marking its territory, curling invisible fingers through autumn-browned leaves, snagging on the hundreds – no, thousands – of dirty, time-worn buildings.

An orange sun painted the dawn sky delicate shades of pink, red, and yellow; the colors blurred themselves together, stretched their brush-strokes to the opposite side of the sky as though attempting turning the shades of light blue to dark blue; trying to share their color, their radiance, with the rest of the sky.

Blinding orange glinted off the buildings below, casting odd shapes, somewhat frightening shadows over the darkened and deserted alleyways. It poured color over rusted and decaying apartment buildings that seemed to be falling apart, over tiny brick houses with equally tiny, dead front lawns, and over tall, once grandiose business-type buildings with dirt and dust-darkened blinds hanging crookedly just inside cracked and broken windows.

The city was, by itself, beautiful in a macabre, broken way. The silence that stretched through the streets, whispered its way through the wind, and mapped its dangerous way through the shiny wilderness spoke incoherent, mute warnings against noise. It spoke of the violence that lay, barely disguised, just under the skin of the city's streets, sidewalks, and under the foundations of rickety buildings.

Most heeded this warning. Most scurried like frightened mice to the shelter of their homes, where they had at least three locks and a weak door between them and the danger that lurked just outside, whispering threats through the cracks in walls.

Some, however, acted as though these silent laws did not exist. Some reveled in the rush of adrenaline that came with the precarious balance of barely-leashed peril and the calm that came just before the storms did, bringing with them a sense of absolute dread.

A flash of color shot, disturbing the wind's gentle, yet demanding pull. Liquid, luscious red. A quiet, self-condemning groan of pain broke the silence, ripped it apart for a tenth of a second like a bullet in the dead of night. The sound of a thin, insane chuckle echoed through the alley. Blood, dark and shiny, laced with the sun's reflected glow filled the space, splattered on the surrounding walls, ground, and sidewalk.

No one would have dared find their way into that alley. No one would dare attempt discovering what monster had laid this tragedy before them.

The insane chuckle sounded again, and a last groan made its feeble way out of the alley, somehow louder than the howling wind, somehow more able to fill the heart with bone-shattering dread.

A tall figure smiled gently at the freshly-killed victim soaked in blood, black mud, and quickly-fading desperation. The man shook his head, still smiling, and walked out of the alley and down the street, whistling a rather merry tune, the sound bouncing off the walls, windows, and whirlwinds of chill.

Shivers ran down the spines of those who heard it.


Yes, I know this is short. Full chapters will not be this short.

Tell me what you think~!