Story Dump

This is basicly just a mish-mash rable of things I started and never was completed on a RPing website called HEXrpg. Most of it is some of my story writing pre-Fanfiction so it really isn't the greatest. Line breaks indicate where my RP partner (Ichigo) came in with her part. The story below was a small idea of Bleach from Rukia's point of view -which had a rather crappy title, might I add- so um enjoy? Please humor me and review my fail.

Night. The dark hours in which all life is silent, still, awaiting the new day, lost in a world of its own. If only it stood safe to say to label that notion to all life. I sighed as I brushed a stray hair from my face, no not everything was at a peaceful rest. Unbeknownst to the human eye the town that lay below me, illuminated in the eerie full moon light, like a grey-blue patchwork quilt, was constantly shifting with activity. Energy and activity at different levels, from the harmlessly weak to the dangerously powerful. I shifted my stance, my hand unconsciously gripped the hilt of my zanpakto. It was odd, odd that my superiors had sent me to this district, which contained an alarming amount of energy despite my rank, but who was I to complain? an order was an order, something that needed to be completed as quickly and efficiently as possible: there was no room for mistakes.

But, to business, or rather to responsibility. I slowly closed my eyes and steadied my breathing, focusing on the more concerning entity I had vaguely sensed earlier, shutting out the influence of others. There!

"It's here."

My eyes flashed open again as I leapt forward off the post I was standing upon, my hand gripping my blade in a vice grip as a sense of excitement and anxiety tore through me in equal form. Years of training, trial and error prepared for these moments. I landed, in midair, and tested the surrounding area, searching for my target. CRASH If i couldn't find it on my own there's always other ways of locating. Hollows. Not the most subtle of spiritual creatures, either blundering about or trailing a traces of spiritual pressure for miles around.

I lept again and landed on a roof top just above the creature, a brute about ten feet tall and looking like an enormous lizard on two legs. Its grey-black tongue flickered out as it chuckled slowly to itself.

"So, you found me, eh? Nice job I suppose and all that conversational rubbish" it said in a greasy voice as it turned its reptilian head to face me, its skull-like mask expressionless," but finding me and fighting me are two different things. But before I kill you Soul Reaper let me courteous enough to ask your name?"

"Kill me, you said? I'd love to see you try, you scum. I suppose I shouldn't ignore your polite request, Hollow. My name is Rukia Kuchiki, and I'm here to kill you"

The skull-mask grinned in response, "Bring it."

My sword swung, once, twice, three times through the air, my face contorting with rage as the hollow before me dodged the blows, grinning and laughing stupidly as if it were some sort of game I had initiated with it. "Come on, Soul Reaper! You can do so much better than that! I thought you said you could catch me?" it laughed hoarsely, its snake-like tongue lashing at the air, nearly slapping me full on in the face. Careless. The blade came down a fourth time in a current of silvery air, sending the appendage spinning through the air and out of sight.

The hollow stopped dead to stare in surprise at the stump of what was once a functioning organ, its skull-mask slowly twisting into an expression of annoyance. "What a dirty, underhand trick!" it rasped, "Is that how you people do things over there on the other side?" I snorted in slight humor at the question, "Sometimes, if it must come to such measures. But you hollows are not so much better." The hollow stared coldly back at me, the glowing orbs it had for eyes fixed in a deadly stare. I'd seen that look one too many times before and knew what was coming next almost immediately after.

"Is that so, huh? Well then, I guess you wouldn't mind it so much if I did this!" Its huge body surged forward, its mouth gaping, displaying double rows of sharp jagged teeth. "Youuuur'e deeead!" It roared as it rushed forward, its mass and velocity on par with that of a locomotive. Exactly what I was waiting for. Extremely predictable. I waited, timing its charge, waiting for the right time to move out of the way of this reckless bullet train with teeth. It was a mere feet away when I finally leapt into the air, catching the look of surprise on its beastly features before I brought my blade down onto its head with a loud cracking noise, splitting its skull-mask in two and instantaneously disintegrating its body into a fine dust.

I gave an exasperated sigh as I sheathed my weapon, praying that that was the last agenda on the hideously long to-do list they had given me. I was tired, practically exhausted beyond words and needed some form of break. What was it that the humans called it? Right, a vacation, or something along those lines. But no, my superiors had other ideas for how I should be spending my time. The small gadget I was given before parting from the Soul Society vibrated madly in my pocket, telling me it was used for orders, what konsos that needed to be carried out and which hollows that needed to be destroyed and that the design was based on this words modern and most up-to-date cell phones, to which I just nodded at. I hadn't a clue what a cell phone was.

I fished my hand around in my pocket, cursing orders and cell phones until I managed to find the small device and glanced at its tiny, glowing screen: another hollow, just north-west of my current location in a small community. I sighed again, this time in frustration. Hopefully this wasn't going to be too much to take care of.

I dashed toward the general direction of the hollow, still grumbling about late-night orders. Never any rest! Always work, work, work! But then again I wasn't personally assigned to anything to anything as large as this. Count your blessings or some saying like that, but I was starting to rethink this whole assignment as a refuse, a bottom of the barrel job. And I got stuck with it.

A huge snarling suddenly brought me back to my senses: hollow. The monster was crouched over a small half-demolished house and what looked like its inhabitance, their features indistinct from my vantage point, unable to discern whether they were the average spirit or human. One of the figures rose charging fearlessly toward the beast with a flimsy makeshift weapon in hand before being knocked back, the weapon crushed beneath the hollow's foot, snapping to pieces under in enormous weight. The creature moved forward, speaking in a strangled high-pitched voice, its mouth hanging open ready to devour its prey.

If it hadn't been moving so slow, so deliberately I wouldn't have been able to catch its attention in time. I moved in front of the hollow, sword raised, slashing the inside of the creature's mouth causing it to reel backward, shrieking in pain and splattering blood over the street. "You!" it howled in its screeching voice, the glowing orbs it had for eyes narrowed to hard slits, "How dare you! Interrupting my meal, you'll pay with your own life! And then I'll move on to my main course! You're just the appetizer!" It flicked its huge, whip-like tail sending it crashing against my blade, the many horns that studded its length screeching against the metal the force of it nearly knocking me off my feet.

I quickly glanced at the hollow's would-be prey, half-tempted to tell him to run, to grab his family and run, to get to safety while I could still hold the creature off and keep it distracted. But it would be all for nothing: he couldn't see me. If anything it would be perhaps the shimmering outline of the hollow, but not me. The tail flicked again, one of the notched horns gauging into my shoulder, nearly making me drop my weapon. Dropped my guard for too long, shameful mistake to make while exchanging blows face-to-face with a hollow. But the vaguest thought had come to me.

Maybe, even though all the rules said otherwise, he could see me. I hadn't notice before but even though his appearance suggested that he was an average human the unnaturally high aura that came off him. Too high for a human, much too high.

"You have to trust me on this, it's risky but it's the only way." I stopped to think about what I was saying. Him? Trust me? We'd just only met. No more than just to people passing the other in the street, minus the savage beast that was intent on taking our lives to satisfy its hunger. Not to mention what I was about to attempt was strictly prohibited.

But he and his family had been attacked. I myself had been injured. Despiration and survial makes you do crazy things.

"Listen to me. If you want to save your family and yourself, there's only one option I can provide you with. You may or may not survive this if you accept. But it doesn't hurt to try," I swung my blade foward, towards him, the point trembling slightly, "Take my power. Use it to defend your family. I'll only give you half of it but it should be enough for this fight and it will be temporary. If you lose, we are all done for."

No greater pursuaion than that, I think. The need to live really makes you do crazy things.

I thrust the sword roughly into the center of his chest before he could ask any more questions, his eyes momentarily widened in surprise at the blade that protruded from his chest. But then an enormous light blazed, blinding the both of us illuminating the surrounding street, seemingly to leech the color from the entire area. But I also realized something else had happened, something that wasn't supposed to happen, something that never should have happened: a sudden sensation, like some weight had been taken off my shoulders, like I was missing something important.

The light cleared, drawing back like a curtain revealing the end result: he stood, all fear from before gone replaced by a sort of gritty determination, the clothes he had before replaced by the standard Soul Reaper uniform. And the sword, the zanpakto, doubled, no tripled in size. The enormous blade, almost as long as he was tall, resting against his shoulder, the hilt almost as thick as wrist.

"Wh- what?" I murmured softly. This wasn't right. Something completely wrong had happened. This wasn't supposed to happen. I looked down at myself; the previously black robes I'd been wearing, the same robes he now wore, were now a stark white. The power I had promised him was no longer mine; he'd taken all of it, leaving me disempowered.

He roared madly, rushing forward at the hollow holding the ridiculously large blade awkwardly in both hands, and with a single stroke sliced its arm clean off. The hollow screamed angrily, its voice echoing off the walls and rattling glass windows.

"Finish him off! Aim for the head!" I yelled.

He bellowed again, impaling the creatures face with the tip of the zanpakto, shattering its mask, the body disintegrating into a fine dust that was swept away by a nonexistent breeze. The boy straightened up, wheezing and panting slightly then wobbled slightly and toppled over with a dull THUD.

"H-hey! You- uh, um - Boy! Are you alright?" I called again, rushing to his side and shook his shoulders and slapped his face, trying to get some sort of reaction, anything that could determine that he didn't die from overexposure or something along those lines. He grunted slightly then rolled over onto his side with a muffled snore: he'd passed out from exhaustion. I sighed in relief as I sat back and glanced at the sword he still had clutched in his hand; where did this put me now?

"Hey there. Need some help?"

"Huh!" I yelped, staring around the street looking for the source of the voice and saw a man walking casually down the street toward us, his wooden sandals clacking muted on the asphalt, a knowing smile on his face as he adjusted his hat.

"I asked if you needed any help, Soul Reaper."

"And if I do?" I replied carefully.

"I'd be glad to lend you some. Get him back in his body," he gestured vaguely at the boy snoring on the ground beside me," fix up his family's injuries and give 'em a memory wipe, give you a few supplies including a gigai. No price required! It's on the house!" He finished in a salesman-like manner.

"And I should trust you with this, why?" The words falling out in a rush from my mouth. The offer was tempting but. . .

"Because I'm the only help with this you have." He replied darkly.

I narrowed my eyes, returning the dark expression, "Fine. I'll accept. But, really. Who are you?"

He consider the question for a moment before replying in an honest tone of voice, "Just a humble owner of a cruddy little candy shop not too far from here, eking out a living the best I can like the rest of us mortals."

I narrowed my eyes again. "Right."

"So. What are you gonna do about him?" He said pointing to the sleeping figure on the ground again. "You have a plan, right?"

I looked at him for a moment, weighing my options. Stay? Don't stay? I'd nowhere to go now. "Of course I do. I'll stay with him. If I don't who knows what will happen. Look at the zanpakto, if I don't supervise him he'll take out a building with that thing: it's just not normal. He shouldn't be left alone with a power like his now that he has access to it. It's better if I stay."

The man chuckled, "I do admit that size is pretty odd. But you do know what it means so you better watch out for him and the people around him. That size of power, he's unstable.

"So as I was saying!" he started up again in his salesman banter. I could not help but rolling my eyes at his wind up phrase. "You wait here and I'll straighten things out here and then we'll go and get that gigai fitted out for you!"

I rolled my eyes again. "Fine."

As I predicted this high school thing was going to be way too easy, entering myself into the attendance record and passing myself as the innocent exchange student, the redundant homework assignments. Nothing I couldn't handle, but of course for all the assignments the school system had laid out for its students there was one thing that mattered for me to complete.
I listened to lessons, half interested, the teacher's voice a mindless buzz that was hardly making sense. No wonder teenagers hated high school; teachers made the subjects seem dull through explanation, too many numbers to calculate in mathematics, far too many events in the history of this world, language just dull altogether. I found myself staring at the clock more than once, waiting for the signal that halted the end of the never-ending madness.

Finally, just when I thought that the explanation of the difference between nouns and pronouns wouldn't end, a shrill buzzing filled the air and was immediately drowned by the shuffling of papers and the screeching of chairs on linoleum floors. I followed suit and turned to the notes scattered on my own desk, shuffling then together and tucking them carefully back into my bag and headed out through the classroom door and into the steady crowd of other students heading to the front doors of the building.
I hurried down the hall to the nearest staircase and quickly climbed the stairs to the roof of the school. I decided earlier as I waited impatiently as the school secretary looked over the faked records I handed her that the best place to meet with that boy from yesterday was here on the school roof. It was secluded yet accessible to students, perfect meeting place and had a great view of the surrounding town.

The door to the staircase rattled loudly behind me, swinging open with a bang. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?" he yelled in a strangled voice, his eyes wide with fury.
"So, I'm guessing you read my note, eh? Isn't that what you teenagers do when you want something know by someone but want to keep it a secret? Very effective means of communication, but I see many flaws with using it. But to answer your question I need to clear up a few things that happened yesterday, so sit down and let me explain them."

He grumbled something about being bossy before sitting down cross-legged, looking exactly like a frustrated child. "Fine, talk away, I'm listening," he grunted.
"Thank you for your patience," I replied sarcastically as I fished through my bag for my drawing pad and a marker, "You can see ghosts correct?"
He nodded sheepishly "Yeah I can. So?"
"There's two types of ghosts that inhabit this world, wholes, the type you usually see," I drew my interpretation of a whole spirit and showed it to him," they're the ghost commonly classified as 'good spirits' and then there's the hollows, the spirit you saw and killed yesterday. Hollows have skull-like masks for faces and a single hole through their chests and eat both wholes and the spirits of the living." I turned the page of the drawing pad and quickly drew a hollow and flipped it over to show him, "With me so far?"

". . . umm, yeah. . ."

"Good. You see, I'm from the other side, the Soul Society and I'm charged with the task of crossing over wholes and destroying hollows, the two main jobs of a Soul Reaper. But . . . uhm," I shifted my shoulders uncomfortably. "I'm afraid when I lent my powers to you yesterday . . . um. . . I only meant for half of them. But you seem to have taken all of them."

You! But why not? You're the one who accepted my powers in the first place! My powers and my responsibility now that you've taken all of them! Why not!" I spat at his retreating back. "You protected your family with them! It shouldn't be too hard to-"
He spun back around, "That's because that was my
family. I'm not gonna do this for complete strangers. You can just get one of your Soul Reaper buddies to fill out the job for you 'till you're ready to get out of here."
"So you decline?"" I said slowly
"I don't decline, I refuse."
"If that's so I don't think I've any other option then," I said carefully as I began to grope around my bag again, "Hmm, where'd I put it? Oh! Here it is!"
"Huh? What'd you think you're doing? I told you I didn't want to take your job. Stop trying- what's that?"
"Oh this?" I said innocently as I pulled on the glove I'd just extracted out of my bag, smiling maliciously as I snapped it on, enjoying his bewildered stare," Just a little thing called 'persuasion'.
"Wha-?"

SMACK. I rushed forward, gloved hand out and fingers extended, the palm of my hand connecting with the center of his forehead and slipping out through the back of his head. His body keeled forward limply behind me. "Hmm, maybe I forced it out a little too roughly."
"ACCK! WHAT'D YOU DO TO ME? WHY AM I OVER THERE? YOU KILLED ME!" The Ichigo in front of me yelped, rubbing his forehead.
"I didn't' kill you," I snapped indignantly, crossing my arms, "I just forced your soul from your body."
"So you did!"
"I didn't When you became a full Shinigami you also gained the ability to almost freely escape your material body as I just demonstrated." I pointed to his lifeless body, "And because your soul has vacated it your body is completely inactive, a coma if you will."
"YOU PUT ME IN A COMA?"
I ignored him, instead answering by pushing him toward the edge of the building, "Now go! Jump!"
"Have you lost your mind? If I jump off that I'll die! We're four stories up!"
"Have you lost your mind? You're a spiritual entity! The only thing that can harm or kill Soul Reapers are zanpakto and hollow attacks!" I snorted with slight laughter, "And did you honestly think we use stairs?"

I blinked in surprise at his answer, as of late I had started to think my duty was becoming more and more like a job than a commitment of choice, I had forgotten the entirety of being a Shinigami: saving the lives of the dead not out of duty but out of choice and knowing that it was the right thing to do. When I had saved Ichigo and his family the night before it had not crossed my mind 'do I save him because it is my job' rather, 'I have to save him, he's in trouble'.

"Very well then, if you choose to pay your - er, debt I'm going to need to train you in hollow hunting, it's sheer dumb luck that you've been able to survive the past two times."
"Whadd'ya mean dumb luck? I killed them didn't I?" Ichigo yelled loudly at me.
"Fool, who do you think told you the only way how to kill hollows? And stop screaming at me, it's rude!"
He grumbled inaudibly to himself before looking up grudgingly, "Fine. Teach me."
I smiled at him, unable to hold back the triumphant tone that tinged my voice, "Good choice. We start training tomorrow. We better get back to school before they find your corpse on the roof. . ." I added in an undertone as I looked down, hiding the guilt I felt cross my face.

"What was that?"
"Nothing! Let's just get back, before we're missed." I said quickly, dragging him away from the park by his sleeve, "Hurry up! Can you go any faster?"
"Hey, hey! Stop that! Everyone's gonna see me in this ridiculous getup!"
"Never mind that! No one can see you, you're a spiritual entity. You can only be seen by other spiritual entities!" I rolled my eyes at his presumption, there was a lot he needed to learn and I had a feeling that lessons would take up most of our time.