The suburban street was filled with the posturing of adolescent thugs, early on a Friday evening. The sun casting an orange haze across the sky of Karakura town.
"What the? You suddenly appear and kick over Yama-Bro, plus you want us to get out of here?" exclaimed Toshi in disbelief, vein throbbing in his forehead, punctuating every word. Confidence bolstered by his accomplices surrounding the orange haired teen in front of him, he continued - "What are you thinking?" spittle flying with every syllable, "You wanna die? Huh?"
The orange-haired, brown-eyed teen merely continued to scowl, clad in his high school uniform, noticeably frustrated by the interruption – or more than likely common occurrence – in his daily routine. Toshi – visibly growing in anger – grunted "say something, you-"
Before an unseen kick planted itself forcefully upon his face, cutting whatever insult he had planned short; the teenager delivering the kick looked remarkably unchanged, hands still in pockets, scowl still plastered on.
"Ahh!" cried one, "Toshi-bro's down!"
"He's definitely one of them! I've never seen such irrational violence" cried another, evidently petrified by the turn of events.
"Shut up already!" barked the orange-haired teen, before gesturing wildly behind, where a bottle filled with flowers lay broken, the water spilling out. "All you guys look over there!" The now terrified thugs stared at the bottle.
"Question 1!" the orange-haired menace continued, "What the heck can that be? Okay, you over there, the stinky-looking one."
The thug in question muttered his new description under his breath, then guessed the answer - "um... an offering to the kid who died here recently-"
"Great answer!" cried the orange-haired questioner, delivering a devastating roundhouse to the "stinky-looking" thug's head.
"Question 2!" he barked out, "Then why is the vase knocked over."
Kurosaki Ichigo, glared out of brown eyes- his bright orange hair, and school uniform marking him an adolescent hooligan- awaiting the answer.
"T-thats..." stammered one, "That's cuz we knocked it over...skateboarding?"
"I see," muttered Ichigo, pausing for a brief moment. "Then shouldn't you be apologizing to her." He barked once more, gesturing to the undoubtedly dead girl floating in the air behind him, blood spilling down her pale listless face.
This proved too much for the remaining thugs. Screaming and scrambling of with their fallen comrades in tow, the best apology they could muster was a frantic - "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!" over each shoulder.
Ichigo tutted and turned to the girl, "If we scare them this much they probably won't come around here anymore ... sorry 'bout that, using you this way."
The girl smiled as she replied, "Nah, I'm the one who asked you to chase them away, I should cooperate at least this much."
Ichigo nodded and turned away calling back, "Well then bye, I'll bring you new flowers soon."
"Okay... thanks mister!" The girl grinned after him, "Now I can spend my time quietly."
"You're welcome, hurry up and go to heaven," Ichigo called back as he rounded the corner towards home.
Whether due to living in a house connected to his father Isshin's Doctors practise, constantly surrounded by those brought back from the brink of death or passing over onto the other side, or due to some gift of God, Ichigo had been able to see ghosts for as long as he could remember.
Caught up in these thoughts, Ichigo announced, "I'm home," as he entered the Kurosaki household. Only to be assaulted with his father's ridiculous cry of "You're late!" as Ichigo narrowly avoided the flying roundhouse aimed for his head. As always unsatisfied at stopping after the near abuse, Isshin – adopting an absurd posture with hands on hips, and his doctors coat thrust behind - continued his tirade against his son - "What time do you think it is, you delinquent son? You know dinner is at 7 every night!"
Ichigo, tired of this nightly chunk of madness launched himself forward, face-to-face with Isshin.
"You! Is that how you greet your son who just returned from performing a serious exorcism!"
"Silence! No matter what reason, to he who disrupts this household's iron harmony, only a punishment of blood can be rendered!" Isshin raved, "Or what? Are you implicitly bragging again that only you can touch ghosts and talk to them?"
"Shut up!" Ichigo bellowed in return, "It's not like I wanted to be born this way!"
At Isshin's immature rebuttal of "I'm jealous!" The sweeter of Ichigo's young twin sisters decided to intervene; "Oh, stop it, both of you. The Food's getting cold.."
"Leave 'em alone Yuzu." The more boyish Kurosaki girl, rice bowl in hand, dead-panned, "Another bowl."
Whilst the youngest Kurosaki siblings remained calm, the eldest had no such plan.
"First of all, the rules in this house are too strict! In what world is there a parent that sets a curfew for a healthy male high school student at 7 P.M..."
Unfortunately Ichigo never got a chance to finish his ongoing battle of wills with his father, as Yuzu perked up and said "Ichigo, you already have a new person," referring to the bespectacled ghost floating behind him.
"Ahhh!" Ichigo cried, ducking out of the ghosts path, "This guy! When did he? I get rid of them again and again but it's always like this, dammit!"
Karin had no sympathy as she twisted in her chair to face her brother, chopsticks hanging from the corner of her mouth, "You can see them, touch them, talk to them, plus you're a special A-level spirit medium. Your troubles are fourfold... Must be tough having high specs Ichi."
"But you know," Yuzu mused, "I'm a little envious of Ichigo, I can only see a blur."
"Not me," the colder of the twins replied, "since I don't believe in ghosts or whatever..."
"Huh?" Yuzu frowned, "But you can see them too, right?"
"Stupid," Karin reprimanded, purposefully staring away from the ghost. "Whether you can see them or not, as long as you don't believe it's the same as them not existing," Karin stated. Her face half cast in shadow as a cold wind enveloped Yuzu and the ghost.
"Forget it," Karin continued, "Hey I thought of a new project – check it out. 'Would you like to frolic with ghosts in the winds of summer?' Only during May.."
Ichigo twisted toward his sister and exclaimed distractedly "Stop trying to make money using me!" However this momentary distraction was more than enough as his father cried "An opening" and successfully slammed Ichigo into an arm-bar on the ground.
Sadly for Isshin, this was not meant to last.
With one last cry of "Forget it I'm sleeping!" Ichigo cast his father off and stormed from the room.
Slamming his bedroom door as he entered Ichigo traipsed to his bed and flung himself upon it. Muttering dejectedly about how unfair it was to be cursed with such a father, Ichigo lay scowling until he noticed a black swallowtail butterfly flutter across the room. Ichigo turned curiously to the window and turned back – his question of how the butterfly had entered unanswered – freezing when he noticed the black clad girl standing on his desk apparently unconcerned with his presence.
She leapt lightly from the desk and stated merely "It is near." Before walking forward.
Unfortunately for one Kuchiki Rukia, Kurosaki Ichigo was not one to ignore such goings-on in his own bedroom, and immediately front kicked her across the back barking "It is near, my ass retard!" Sending the up-until-now dignified girl tumbling across the floor.
Ichigo was not through.
"You're a pretty confident burglar eh? By 'it is near...!' do you mean that like the safe is near or something?"
Rukia managed nothing more than a puzzled "Y...You.. can see me...? I mean to say did you just kick..."
Ichigo – proving once more that 'level-headed' was not a state of mind he held often – scowled "Huh? What the heck are you talking about? Of course I can see..."
This was a retort never to be, as Isshin chose that moment to once more "remind" his son of the house rules on making noise on the 2nd floor. This time in the form of a drop kick. Ichigo (never one to avoid answering) replied in kind with a reverse roundhouse and a vehement protest to the criticism The bonding finished, Ichigo flung his arm towards towards the still decked Rukia shouting "Look at this guy! What the heck is going on with the security system in this house?"
Isshin, collected for once, gazed back at his son confused, "What do you mean look... Look at what?"
"Huh?" was Ichigo's less than intelligent reply, "I'm talking about this samurai-costumed-"
Only to be interrupted by the subject of discussion - "It is useless," She sated coolly, "It is not possible for ordinary men to see me. I am a 'Shinigami'."
"I see..." the orange haired teen across from Rukia muttered, "You're a shinigami and you came from a place called soul society to exterminate an evil spirit... OK! I'll believe you!"
Ichigo paused before leaping up, crying "Yeah right! Like I could believe that retard!
Taken aback by this complete refusal to believe anything she had just explained, Rukia tried once more "You... you can see ghosts but you do not believe in the existence of shinigami?"
"Of course not! Unfortunately, I've never seen a shinigami – I don't believe in things I can't see."
Ichigo closed the gap between the two and began pushing Rukia towards the window.
"Dad couldn't see you so I'll acknowledge the fact that you're not human. However, quit the shinigami crap: got that, little brat?
Rukia, more bothered by the reference to her he height than anything else finally snapped.
"Bakudo no. 1 Sai!"
Ichigo, arms wrenched back by some unseen force, lay on the ground unable to move, and was forced to listen to the spiel Rukia delivered next.
"This is called Bakudo. It is an advanced incantation only shinigami can use. Even though I look like this, I have been alive almost 10 times longer than you have." Rukia bared her teeth and drew her sword, "and you dare to call me little brat? Usually I would kill fellows like you, but spiritual law states that one cannot kill humans they have not been ordered to." Rukia lifted her sword menacingly above her head, hilt down, ready to strike.
"I will have to be content with just sealing your movements... Give thanks you 'little' brat...and..."
Ichigo merely scowled back as she thrust the sword down.
The hilt slammed into the ghosts next to Ichigo's head, leaving Ichigo an odd combination of confused and relieved, both of which visible on his face. However the ghost, glasses now askew felt quite differently.
"NO.. no.. please I don't want to go to Hell!"
Rukia smiled serenely in reply, "Do not fear the place you are going is not hell, it is Soul Society, Unlike Hell, it is a peaceful place." As she finished the ghost was bathed in light and vanished, scattered into an upward wind, headed by a black swallowtail butterfly.
At Ichigo's distress Rukia explained the nature of souls, Shinigami, Hollow and Plus. Whilst this explanation was not very detailed, nor the drawings fit of any descriptor other than crude, Ichigo was intrigued by the information.
"Hey Shinigami," Ichigo remarked from the floor, "If you're here to kill a hollow, shouldn't you be out there doing it?"
At this Rukia turned, a strand of raven hair remaining perfectly between violet eyes, "That's just it, I can't sense it... it's almost as if a great power is blocking out my senses..." she pondered.
Ichigo on the other hand lay stock still.
A hellish roar had just torn through the dark sky, definitely close. He began struggling against his bindings in vain.
"Hey, didn't you hear that roar?"
"Roar?" Rukia questioned, "What-"
Then she heard it. A horrifying cry piercing the calm night. Adrenaline surged through her veins, as she reprimanded herself on her carelessness.
At the sound of a scream she flew to the door - ordering Ichigo to stay and ignoring his protests. She opened the door just as a young dark-haired girl arrived, crawling, bloodstained and half-conscious.
"Good it hasn't come here," Karin began, a wincing grin marring her features, "...It happened so suddenly... Blood suddenly started pouring out of Daddy's back and he fell... Yuzu and I were attacked by something huge while we were still in shock... And I though I had to..." Consciousness slipping Karin fell to the floor with one last sigh of -"...warn you..."
This was enough for Ichigo.
He would not fail. He would not fail to protect again, would not fail, would not fail them, would not, would not...
He screamed and pushed his very soul through his arms ripping them asunder before Rukia had even blinked. She could only stare in the shock of one who had "known everything there was to know" as the orange-haired teen tore downstairs, baseball bat in hand face set into a determined scowl. She felt the pressure coming from him, and experienced terror at the idea of a human so powerful... but these notions or expectation could wait. Duty came first.
She flew downstairs after Ichigo, once more cursing her stupidity at allowing the boy to go first.
Ichigo had no such regrets. The moment he arrived in the remainder of the kitchen all hell broke loose as far as Rukia's reiatsu sensing capabilities were concerned.
Ichigo had only experienced a moment of fear, one solitary second as he beheld a monster unimaginable clutching Yuzu in its grasp- Isshin already unconscious, bleeding on the floor. In the world of Demons and Death Gods, one second is more than enough. The Hollow as Ichigo now knew to call it tossed Yuzu haphazardly towards to floor: her limp form landing next to her fathers, before letting loose a victorious battle cry.
Yuzu's bloody form cast on the ground, her orange hair cast around her too still head was enough for Ichigo. More than enough. The resemblance to his mother lying on the river side blood soaked, orange hair scattered around a still form, the roar of a beast, the unbearable pressure that made his soul ache. Ichigo couldn't bear it. His mother, his sister his father. All had lain bloody under that sky splitting roar. No more.
Ichigo snapped.
Rukia arrived at the kitchen, dizzy from the reiatsu in the air, but she was too late.
Ichigo flew towards the Hollow, bat raised, and struck it across the chest. Rukia's breath left her as the teen was swiftly swiped to the side. She focused all her energy and flew towards Ichigo, intent on protecting him and denying the Hollow its prize. She should have just killed the Hollow, a simple Hado from the door would have sufficed. But his face was so familiar. She had lost a friend to a Hollow before. And the resemblance was uncanny. Regardless of what she should have done or why, Kuchiki Rukia, Shinigami of the 13th division of the Gotei 13 leapt in front of the Hollow, and her entire world turned to white hot pain. She felt her remaining reiryoku leave her – the body's usual response to preventing death in the face of grievous injury. She looked up towards Ichigo and was horrified to see that she had failed. Failed him as she had failed Kaien.
Ichigo lay face down, his orange hair stained with red patches, he was far too still.
The chain extending from his chest was far too apparent for her. It led across to Ichigo in another form, attempting to push himself up. It was futile. The hollow roared once more. This was becoming a bad dream. A nightmare, something they told recruits at the academy to get them to study harder.
Rukia felt the first tear in a long time slide down her face. She closed her eyes. He wasn't Kaien but this was too horrible to watch. Her mind hazed in and out. The pain was proving too much she let out one last sorry, before darkness took her.
Reflected in her tears, a blonde haired man, with a striped bucket hat appeared in a blur in front of the hollow. He gazed around sharply, taking in everything.
"I'm sorry, Isshin." He muttered.
"Too late again."
With that he thrust his hand through the mask of the hollow mid-swipe, and bowed his head. Silence reigned across the street as the hollow disintegrated, broken only by Ichigo's grunting attempts at rising – driven by the instinct to stay standing.
Urahara Kisuke motioned into the street behind, to a large tan-skinned man, clad in an apron and reflective glasses. The man bowed his cornrowed head in sorrow, before setting out to work. Healing the injured was nothing for a kido master of his level, explaining to his friend the fate of his son would be another matter entirely. Urahara with Rukia slung over one shoulder and Ichigo the other turned toward Tessai. "Tell Isshin, I'll be round soon to talk."
Tessai merely nodded his understanding as Urahara disappeared from the area, two unfortunate souls in tow.