Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach or the characters I write about but I do own the story idea. If I did own Bleach then Ichigo and Hichigo would rule the hollow world together as kings and Grimmjow would be their little toy/pet. Oh the episode!... Any who, on to the story!

Chapter 1

Every year a sacrifice is given to the King of Arrancars, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez. It is always a woman offered up as a sacrifice but this year's woman was going to be Orihime of Karakura Village. She was the sister of Ichigo Kurosaki, who was outraged that his sister would be given to the tyrant King only to be slaughtered without an afterthought. So in her place Ichigo was taken to the castle, all to protect his sister.

He didn't have a reason to live, he had no one else he was close to or cared about besides his sister. His only reason for being was to protect her. Ever since they were little they only had each other, their parents long dead, but as time passed she gained many friends while he was alone. When the King's guards came to find a sacrifice the people wanted to give Orihime to them. She was beautiful and kind, a rare find, but Ichigo convinced them to send him instead.

All he could think as he and the guards travelled to the King's palace was Orihime. She was a kind girl and that worried him. At least he had been able to do this for her before he died, gladly sacrificing his life for hers. He looked up at the waning moon and remembered when he was first being taken away, the shackles being clasped around his wrists. She tried to run to him, yelling no over and over, tears streaming down her pale cheeks from her grey eyes, as Chad, a friend of hers caught her, her sunset colored hair, the hair color they shared, falling around her. Her kind eyes were filled with pain. "Ichigo!" She screamed and struggled against Chad's tight hold. Ichigo smiled to her. "Find happiness Orihime and stay safe for me." As they left the village her screams resounded and bit by bit tore into Ichigo's cold heart.

Ichigo was brought back from his memories as one of the guards commanded them to stop. The road diverged from the main path and as Ichigo looked around the terrain became barren and pale. 'The hollows territory…' Ichigo thought as his eyes narrowed, seeing the soulless King's palace far off in the distance. They kept walking and he could hear some of the guards talking in hushed tones. "This sacrifice is very tame. I expected him to fight or resist a little…" "He became a sacrifice to save his sister so he knows that if anything happens we could just go back and get her to replace him." Ichigo's jaw clenched. The guards that were speaking to each other felt a dark and murderous energy coming from him and quickly shut up. He relaxed somewhat but he knew that they were right.

A white boney tree stood a few feet away and they walked past it causing Ichigo to remember when he and Orihime were children. They had been dared by the other village kids to go into the Hollow's territory and bring something back or the children wouldn't allow them to come back through the village gates. He and Orihime had kept walking until the others looked like specks and finally disappeared. Ichigo jumped as Orihime had squealed and let go of his hand. He had looked around for signs of danger until he saw his sister's smile. She ran up to a raggedy, dead, bone white tree and bounced up and down. "Ichigo, Ichigo look! Isn't it pretty?" Ichigo hadn't thought much of it at the time, other than something that would get the other kids to let them back into their village. He rolled his eyes at his sister before climbing the trunk and breaking off one of the branches. Orihime looked at him like she was about to start crying. "Ichigo how could you!" He sighed as he looked down at her, she looked ready to throw a fit. Again his eyes rolled. She was such a cry baby, the tree was already dead so what difference did it make?

"It's a tree and it's dead. Orihime, it's not like it can feel any thi-" Ichigo's words were lost as the branch he was sitting on broke and he fell to the ground, letting out a startled yelp. He hadn't realized how high he had climbed or how far away on the ground Orihime was. His back luckily missed many of the branches on his way down and he finally hit the ground. He heard Orihime scream and her footsteps in the sand as she ran to him. His body was enveloped an orange gold light and as Ichigo tried to move he gasped in pain, knowing immediately his arm had broken. "Ichigo stop moving!" He looked back to his sister who had her hands to the barrettes in her hair. She had the ability to heal and protect but he had made her promise not to use them around the villagers, lest they be banished or she be further abused as he had been after they learned of his secret.

After she finished healing him he got up and punched the tree with the arm he had broken in the fall, satisfied to see it vibrate from the force of his punch. "Ichigo! Now you're being mean-" "The branch broke on purpose!-" "Because you insulted it and said that it was "just" a dead tree!" Ichigo sighed; he knew that he wasn't going to win after what he had said. "Yes, princess." He turned back to the tree, smirking after seeing her face contorted in anger. She hated being called princess. Orihime was about to yell at him when he smiled at her and held the broken branch in his hand. "Hey Orihime, would you call this proof?" She smiled widely and started giggling because the branch looked like a skeletal arm and knew the children of the village would react with shock and fear when she and her brother brought that back with them. "Yes Ichigo, I would definitely call that proof." He snickered as he held his hand out to her. She took it and before they started walking back to the village she looked over her should to the tree, waving and saying goodbye to it like it was an old friend. Ichigo rolled his eyes while she wasn't looking but left the subject alone, swinging their joined hands happily as they made their way back to Karakura village.

The children had at first run at Orihime and Ichigo with mischievous looks in their eyes and cruel intentions but when Ichigo held up the skeletal branch and yelled a battle cry their faces held true fear and they ran away screaming for their lives. The only one that didn't run away was Chad, instead he smiled and came up to them, asking to see the branch and hear their story. Chad had become a friend of Orihime's over the years but he was still somewhat cold towards Ichigo. Ichigo didn't blame him though, Chad was most likely afraid of Ichigo in one way or another. Everyone in the Karakura village but his sister was afraid of him, all because of something he was born with.

He jolted out of his memories as he heard a guard yell. He looked ahead to see the castle was only a few miles away. This close up the castle was truly huge and he noticed that it seemed to be made of bones because of its very color. Ichigo smirked, its pale color matched that of the barren wasteland and hollows that ruled over it and lived within the territories. He began wondering what the King of hollows himself looked like. Would he be completely white and black except for his eyes? Or would he have bones covering a part of his face or body?

Ichigo's attention was stolen from his thoughts as his guards yelled for the guards at the gate to open the gates and stand aside. As the giant, pale, bone like door slowly opened towards them Ichigo couldn't help but hold his breath. Here he was, mere yards away from the inner palace of the hollow King, maybe an hour away from meeting the king and being killed as the sacrifice from the Karakura village. He took a shaky breath and stood tall. If he was going to die like a sacrifice then he would die with his pride, he wouldn't cower, beg the king to spare him, or show respect to the king. He was going to die anyway so why not die in his way, with his morals and ideals intact?

A king that demands sacrifices from his people every year and kills them if they did not comply was not a king but a tyrant and a tyrant did not deserve Ichigo's respect. A guard tried to push Ichigo forward but in a blink of an eye he was on his back. Ichigo had spun around and kicked the guard's legs out from under him. The other guards stood there and watched as Ichigo slowly stood up and raised his head, walking without a command and looking like a proud god instead of a villager sent to be a sacrifice. The guards stood there for a few moments longer before they followed silently behind him. As they got closer to the castle the guards surrounded him. Ichigo looked around at the inner sanctum of the castle, bare bone white halls with nothing on the walls, no portraits, sculptures, paintings, anything to show that anyone inhabited the castle.