Hello Everyone~! :]
This is, my FIRST ever, and likely ONLY ever, fanfic. Found out that it's A LOT harder to actually write things out into a good story, than just seeing things happening in your mind...
Setting: The story takes place around 2 years after the Hueco Mundo arc. (Does NOT include anything from the manga post HM!)
Note: Because I started writing this like.. over 5 years ago, please don't flame if your complaints have anything to do with the story not being canonical. That is the point of this being a work of fanfiction. At this point, I don't really want to go through all my notes and have to change everything, either. And, just to let you know, updates are probably going to be slow, but I have no intention of leaving this story unfinished.
Sooo, please R&R! And, I hope you enjoy the story!
Disclaimer: I DO NOT own Bleach. If I did, I wouldn't have even bothered writing this fic.
Chapter 1: Accident
The sun shined… No. The sun blazed its unrelenting and loving light down onto the streets of Kyoto, and onto the miserably unfortunate high school students, who happened to be walking in its line of vision (a.k.a. the-super-mega-hyper-sun-beam-blast). And among those students was one orange haired boy. His name: Kurosaki Ichigo.
Ichigo squinted his eyes up into the bright blue sky, sweat rolling down his face and neck, and let out an explosive sigh. Frustrated, and certainly exasperated by the heat and ridiculous humidity, he continued to trudge along. His homeroom class was out on a school trip. A fucking field trip. He scoffed. As if they were some elementary school brats, or something. Not that he even wanted to come, but he'd been forced into it by a tag-teamed combo of Inoue and Keigo, who were as usual over-excited about every opportunity of possible fun. In this case, to make long-lasting pink and rosy colored memories of their last year in high school, linking hands with one another, running off into the sunset—
'Woah, just… No.'
Ichigo twitched and almost stopped walking. He scrunched his nose and shook his head to rid himself of the image. Well—he looked at his companions—at least he wasn't alone, since Chad and Ishida had been forced to come along as well. He inwardly snickered at Ishida's disgruntled face. But still.
'I can't believe I let those two drag me into following along on this damn trip in this fucking heat, when I could have just spent the day at home eating ice cream on the couch watching TV...'
He let out another sigh. Reflecting on his preferred laziness suddenly made him feel like an old geezer. He tuned in to the multiple conversations around him, and amused himself by watching Keigo make a fool out of himself just by being himself, and Mizuiro immediately start to flatter and hit on older women passing by on the street.
'Oh well… It is our graduation trip. It can't be that bad… Kon's not here to bother me, and Rukia's back in Soul Society, but, whatever…'
The school trip was a week-long excursion in Kyoto, and they would be busing around to various sites while staying at different inns along the way. It seemed like an okay plan. They were currently walking back to the bus after having visited a famous temple, and their homeroom teacher was talking animatedly about god knows what. Ichigo was looking forward to breathing in the air conditioning back on the bus, when he noticed a construction site nearby. He glanced up at the structure being built and let out a low whistle.
"Damn. That's going to be one big-ass building…"
Inoue looked over, hand shielding her face from the sun in a salute, and with her eyes widening, took a deep breath.
"WOW! Tatsuki-chan, Tatsuki-chan! Look at that! It's so huge!"
She jumped up and down in excitement like a little girl, which (for some) unfortunately caused her gifts to bounce in tandem with her.
Chizuru, with her intense fanatical obsession with Inoue, whipped around with a lewd maniacal expression on her face. Eyes sparkling and mouth drooling, she pounced into the air and pummeled her face in between Inoue's breasts, triggering Tatsuki's protective instincts. Or as some would call it, her dispose-of-all-those-dirty-bitches-and-bastards-who-dare-touch-Orihime mode. Keigo, with his strange and very much unnecessary, sixth sense for anything related to beautiful, sexy, and big-breasted women, gaped and drooled at the sight of Chizuru molesting Inoue—while also ignoring Tatsuki beating Chizuru into a pulp—with unrestrained glee in his eyes. Noticing his lecherous gaze, Chad silently and wordlessly stepped in the way and blocked Keigo's vision.
"AAAHHH! CHAD-KUNNN! How could you!"
Unaffected by the smaller brunette's whining, Chad simply looked ahead and maintained his awkward silence and valiant attempt at protecting Inoue's dignity to save her from even more embarrassment. Ishida pinched the bridge of his nose and merely shook his head at the sheer stupidity of the situation. There were way too many idiots surrounding him on a daily basis. He moved on ahead with Ichigo, who snorted at Keigo's predicament.
Loud clanging noises brought Ichigo's attention to the top of the structure. He absently noted the ongoing construction, and the several cranes pulling up large steel beams. Likely to be used for the foundation and pillars for each floor of the building. Nearing the construction site, their teacher warned them to not go too close for extra safety as they approached their bus, which was parked on the other side of the street from the site. As he stood in line to board the bus, Ichigo's gaze moved downward to the ground, where he saw 3 young children chasing after each other with a rubber ball. A gentle smile found its way onto his face, as he remembered Karin and Yuzu when they were just little kids playing in the same manner.
'Heh. They were such cute kids…'
Ichigo was jerked out of his reminiscing, when he heard a loud clang and a snap and looked up. High up in the air, one of the cranes had malfunctioned, and a bundle of long steel beams was dangerously swinging about, held up by only a single cord that was still, yet barely, attached to the crane.
'Oh shit…!'
In a flurry of panic, he whipped his head back down only to find the three children directly underneath, oblivious to the danger above them. Ichigo's blood ran cold when he saw what happened next.
The cord snapped, and steel beams came crashing into the side of the structure. Shattered glass and other metal pipes plummeted down towards the children. Ichigo's class panicked and at once rushed away to avoid the crash and debris. Tatsuki impulsively moved to shield Inoue, while Ishida grabbed Keigo and Mizuiro by the scruff of their necks, and forcefully pulled them away. Chad, his instincts to protect Ichigo kicking in, turned around and grasped his arm, when Ichigo struggled and cried out.
"Wait! Let me go! There are kids over there!"
He wrenched himself out of Chad's strong grip and ran towards the children.
"Ichigo!"
"Kurosaki-kun!"
"Kurosaki!"
Chad, Inoue, and Ishida rushed after Ichigo, despite the protests and cries of terror from their teacher and classmates. The moment the four reached the children and pushed them out of the way, a deafening crash and an enormous cloud of dust obscured everyone's sight.
And everything, including time, seemed to have stopped.
AN: Thanks for reading! Updated 9/20/16.
