Bleach fan fiction "These happy moments"

By Saint Jimmy

"These happy moments"

It was 5:30 in the morning and Ichigo was lying in bed looking at the ceiling. He finally did it, he actually asked her out. He, Ichigo Kurosaki, actually built up the courage to ask Orihime Inoue out on a date and she said yes. He couldn't sleep because of pure anticipation and nervousness. This feeling was one that he had never felt before; it was like he couldn't contain himself from exploding with joy like a little kid on Christmas morning.

Ichigo finally gave up trying to sleep after 6:00 and went down stairs to find his little sister, Yuzu, watching the morning news. She had a look of fear on her face as she was watching the reporter talk about the increased gang violence in Karakura town, so Ichigo went over to her and put his arm around her shoulder to try to relax his little sister. Yuzu gave a slight whimper and leaned into Ichigo's side and said "Why does there have to be so much violence in the world?"

"I don't know" said Ichigo "but I do know that you shouldn't worry about these kinds of things. I'll always be there to help you when you need it, okay."

"Umhm" murmured Yuzu still sounding a tad bit scared.

Ichigo spent about an hour more with Yuzu until she decided that she needed to get some more sleep. They hugged each other and Yuzu went to her room while Ichigo got dressed and decided to head out into town. He got to town two hours later due to the fact that he didn't fell like walking all that fast. Along the way he had caught himself in a deep thought about the soul society and whether or not there was some kind of problem brewing that would screw with his plans to take Orihime out to dinner. Probably his plans would get screwed up because there usually was stuff going on there that he would have to fix; it usually turns out that way. But, he lost his train of thought when he saw Renji Abari, Vice-Capitan of the sixth squad in the thirteen court guard squads, walking around looking for someone or something.

Renji seemed to have a worried look on his face as if he was running out of time to find what he was looking for. It was almost like he was looking around for the cops like an escaped convict would, so Ichigo thought it would be a good idea to turn around and avoid him. He was just about to turn around when Renji saw him and yelled his name "Ichigo! Ichigo get over hear I need to talk to you."

"Shit!" thought Ichigo as he sped up. When Renji finally caught up to him, Ichigo turned around with a smile but he sincerely hoped that his voice didn't give his anger away. At the moment all he could think about was what he thought he would hear from Renji or what he would have to do in soul society to help them out. He thought to himself "why did he always have to bail them out when they had trouble and…."

Ichigo was interrupted in mid thought when Renji had caught up with him and said "dude, slow down. At the rate you're moving it seems like you are trying to get away from me."

Ichigo laughed and put a smile on his face when he said "Really, I was going that fast. I'm sorry, I didn't notice you Renji."

"Right…of course you didn't notice me even when I yelled for you. You are on bad liar Ichigo."

"Don't call me a liar you jackass!" Ichigo exclaimed with a joking tone. "It is loud out here, so, I couldn't here you. Believe me if you need help I'm there but if I can't hear you then I don't know whether you are there or not."

Renji looked at Ichigo with an amused face. He saw, what was once an idiot teenager, a mature adult and he couldn't believe it. He actually detested the fact that Ichigo seemed to have grown up. This just meant that even though the arguments would stop, so would all the fun and jokes that they had shared over the years; but he realized that all things must come to an end sooner or later. After that thought he changed the expression on his face to show that there was an important topic to discus. "Ichigo I need to talk to you" said Renji "There is a problem in soul society. Some of the arrancar that we apprehended broke out just as we were about to get them for their execution. A couple of them were former espada and a lot of us got injured or killed, but the worst part about it is that one of them has Rukia. So I …."

Suddenly both Renji and Ichigo heard the sound of someone getting closer by the second. Ichigo turned around to see what it was and ended up getting tackled by a running Orihime. "Owww." Said Orihime "what did I run into?"

"That would be Ichigo." Renji said while he was trying to hold back extreme laughter.

"Ah, Kurosaki-kun are you okay?"

Ichigo was on the floor in pain. His nose felt like it was broken and his legs were aching because of the way he fell. "How the hell had Orihime not seen him while she was running" Ichigo thought this to himself when he noticed that Orihime was already in the process of healing his nose. "Hey Orihime, how did you not see me as you were you running?"

Orihime turned bright red and tuned away with a small smile then said "I'm sorry I think that I wasn't paying attention. Are you all right?'

Ichigo looked at her face and he could tell that she was lying but decided to not inquire any more due to the fact that her voice was pretty shaky when she spoke to him. He continued to stare at her and said "Yeah I'm fine. Thank you for healing me, I was just wondering how it happened. Are you all right?"

"What!" exclaimed a surprised Orihime "Oh, of course I'm fine, you know me, I have a thick skull. Yup, there is no way I could get hurt by just a little bump."

"Uhhh?" Ichigo gave a small chuckle then burst out in laughter

"What did I say something stupid?" said Orihime as she blushed embarrassment on her face.

"No, you didn't say anything stupid. I was just laughing at the fact that I still didn't know that you wouldn't be hurt by that kind of impact."

"Oh" said Orihime as she started to relax. "So." turning her attention to Renji "Why are you here Renji, is everything alright in the soul society?"

The sky was getting gray and Renji could smell rain. He told them that they should get to a sheltered place soon or they would get wet and that they would talk more once at the shelter, so they went to the Urahara shop were Jinta let them in reluctantly. The shop was a small half shop half apartment building. The rooms weren't very large so it was not the ideal place for large gatherings, that is, unless you find the secret room down in the basement of the building. Aside from the other rooms on the top floor, which were all dark and musty, this room resembled a large deserted canyon. It was modeled after Yoruichi Shihoin's training ground back in the soul society. Urahara had to spend more time constructing the plans and digging the space for this room, rather than actually building the thing itself. What surprised Ichigo, Renji, and Orihime the first time they entered was that Urahara had been able to make it feel like a burning canyon in the middle of the desert as well as look like one. He and Yoruichi spent lots of time in the underground room and, as always, this time was no exception.

"Urahara-san, are you down here?" Renji yelled as he descended the long, rickety ladder. He was always scared that the ladder would break when he was going down, although it never happened, so he went very slowly. This put a tick mark on Ichigo's forehead and, if Orihime hadn't been right under him, he would have shot a Getsuga tenshou strait down.

"Hurry up Renji! The ladder is not going to break." Ichigo yelled with annoyance.

After Renji, finally, got down and Orihime held Ichigo at bay the group went to find Urahara and Yoruichi at the same spot that they always were at, the hot springs. The two looked happy, for the most part, but Ichigo could tell that they had something on their mind.

It took Renji a while to get their attention but he finally managed, after about an hour. Urahara turned and looked at them. He was scruffier than Ichigo remembered and he had also grown out his hair a bit, but those were minor changes. The thing that really got to Ichigo was that Urahara had a lot of scars on his body and Ichigo didn't think those were cat scratches. One in particular caught his eye; it was almost like a burn. He wondered what could have burned him on his back like that, was it from one of his last training sessions with him? No, that couldn't have been it; it looked similar to the burn mark that he got when he took one of Grimmjow's Gran Rey Ceros to his arm. As Ichigo pondered the idea he was encroached upon by Urahara "Hi!" Ichigo jumped at the 1960's hippie man's greeting with a shock of confusion. "Was I thinking for that long, the last time I saw him he had no clothes on and was in the water… WHEN DID HE GET OUT AND GET DRESSED!"Ichigo thought to himself.

There was a long moment of silence until Orihime yelled at Ichigo to get over to the rock they were sitting on. Ichigo sat down just after Jinta brought tea and sandwiches. The group ate, talked and caught up, and rested until Renji put on a serious face as if he needed to say something important "Now let's get down to business. Ichigo, could you take Orihime home and come back please." Ichigo looked at Renji with a puzzled look while Orihime was packing up her stuff. "Why would he want me to do that?" questioned Ichigo as he started to look at Orihime. She gave him a smile but Ichigo could tell she was asking the same question.

Ichigo and Orihime were on their way to Orihime's house and got there at around 5:30 in the afternoon. They had reached Orihime's door when she asked him to come inside with her. Ichigo agreed but was a little confused as to why she did, I mean, as far as he knew they weren't that close. Sure she had been in his house a couple of times but those times were only because they needed to talk about problems within the soul society that they were going to try to fix. Ichigo entered the house still confused but also a bit glad, deep down, that she invited him in.

"So…this is your place…it looks nice." Ichigo said to break the silence, "You live by yourself, right?

"Huh, oh…yea it's not much but I like it. Do you want anything to drink?" said Orihime as she started to pull out some cups.

"Nah I'm good, but why did you want me to come into your house? Was there something you needed to tell me?"

"Yeah…kind of….Ichigo... can you keep a secret? I don't want anyone to know about what I'm going to tell you."

It was 12:00 am on Saturday morning; Ichigo sat on his bed staring at the wall trying to process what he had head today. He had been at Orihime's house and she, well, he didn't know whether it was a warning or a hint to something that was going to happen in the near future. She had told him that she thought that Renji might not be the Real Renji and that he was an imposter. That alone was a pretty deep accusation, but what was even worse, he had been told to report what he and Renji had spoken about at Urahara's place tomorrow. Was it a trick? Was someone trying to mess with him? What if Orihime wasn't Orihime that time? Ichigo was racking his head with this all throughout the night until about 5:00 am when he decided to get some sleep. When he woke up Ichigo found himself at Urahara's place.

"What am I doing here?" asked Ichigo as he looked around to find someone in the house.

Ichigo went into the shop area to find Urahara sitting at his usual spot talking to Rukia. Ichigo looked shocked; he had been told by Renji that one of the escaped arrancar had taken her hostage.

"What is going on!" yelled Ichigo.

"Well at least he is awake." said Rukia with a smirk on her face. "What's up with you? Why are you yelling anyway?"

"I thought you were… but …"

"Thought what, that I was captured?" Rukia had a concerned look on her face, not the worried kind of concerned but the kind of face that you get when you know something the other person doesn't, and Ichigo didn't like it. He didn't understand what was going on. Wasn't she supposed to be captured by one of the espada? Ichigo was asking himself these questions when he suddenly felt Orihime's spiritual pressure spike. Ichigo ran passed Rukia and ignored Urahara's calls to get back into the shop; he needed to get to Orihime as fast as he could. He didn't want to go through another long fight like he did in the Hueco Mundo, "not again." He thought as he ran.