Chapter 1: The Man Who Steps On The Shadows
I stare into the face of evil every damn day. It usually manifests itself as a demon, a malevolent spirit, a bloody zombie, but now I've found something new.
- Ichigo Kurosaki's Journal Pg. 1
Ichigo Kurosaki wasn't what anyone would call an average teenager and it wasn't because he had a constant frown on his force or the fact that his glare could make fire turn to ice with just a glance. No, you see when Ichigo was ten years old he was introduced to a whole new world that no mortal was ever meant to lay eyes upon, that didn't mean it didn't happen from time to time. Only a few years after his mother's death and young Ichigo Kurosaki saw a new world, or rather it was the same world just the the shade pulled back so he could see it for what it really was. By the age of eleven, Ichigo began to study all things related to the occult and almost every nasty thing related to it. By the age of thirteen Ichigo was the unofficial apprentice of a real life supernatural detective that protect people from the things that go bump in the night. At age fourteen, the man who was teaching Ichigo was possessed by one of those monsters before throwing himself off a seven story building. Now, at age fifteen, Ichigo Kurosaki is the only exorcist, demonologist, and occasional dabbler in the dark arts.
Now, despite such an impressive set of skills, Ichigo Kurosaki still had to manage all of that with his school life and home life, not that he had much interest in the first one. Of course his family was in the dark about his extracurricular activities, Ichigo wouldn't put them in danger like that, but that didn't mean the stress didn't pile on. As a stress reliever, and despite the fact that he was under age, Ichigo began smoking the cheapest cigarettes he could find, it's not like he made money sending monsters to Hell. Ironically that was the one thing Ichigo's father, Isshin Kurosaki, did know about and simply let it slide, since he really didn't have any room to talk.
Speaking of the exorcist, demonologist, and occasional dabbler in the dark arts, Ichigo was currently leaning up against an alleyway wall just behind his high school. Dressed in his typical school uniform, with his grey overshirt unzipped ever so slightly, Ichigo could be found with a lit cigarette dangling from his mouth while he lazily drew on the alley wall with a piece of white chock. A low growl could he heard coming from the shadows of a nearby trash bin, making Ichigo lazily turn his gaze to glance in its general direction, before the shadow itself seemed to come alive a lunge at the fifteen year old. The shadow was in the shape of a creature that was half woman and half serpent.
"Well it's about time," Ichigo murmured as he stepped to the side and allowed the shadow creature to hit his little drawing, which was actually a one way ticket right back to Hell.
The moment the shadow creature hit the drawing, a flash of red light lit up the alleyway before it died down to reveal Ichigo once more casually leaning right up next to the seal. For those of you that are wondering, the demon that just got a one way ticket back to hell is known simply as a Lamia. Not unlike the Greek demon that shares its name, these Lamia are a fair bit weaker that their big bad mother, who was thankfully still locked away down in the pits of Hell.
"I thought I smelled something disgusting, I could have sworn I got rid of you lot earlier this year," Ichigo said to himself before the wall began to shake from the Lamia trying to break back into the mortal realm, but Ichigo put that to a stop when he simply wiped away the drawing with his hand.
Finishing off the last of his cancer stick, Ichigo flicked it to the ground before making his way back inside the school, just in time for the bell to ring. It wasn't like Ichigo hated school or anything, it's just that the place is a haven for more baser demons and don't even get him started on the lust demons that like to hang around the locker rooms, tempting high school boys into peaking on the girls. Still, no matter how much Ichigo may hate it here in high school, it wasn't all that bad when he came back some nights to see how many of those monsters he could scare off with a little smoke and a light show. Now, after a long and boring day at school, Ichigo found himself walking home when a couple of skateboarders carelessly knocked over a small vase with some flowers in it. Now they would have kept going past the young Kurosaki had he not stuck out his arm and close lined the first one that went past him, the grunt of pain was music to his ears.
"Hey, what's the big idea?!" yelled one of the skateboarders, only to realize that they were yelling at the Ichigo Kurosaki, the high schooler that was rumored to summon demons and go grave robbing for his sick and twisted experiments.
"I'd ask you lot if you know why that vase with flowers is there but I doubt you have enough brain cells to give me an answer. Come down this street on skateboard again and I'll break you just like you broke that vase," with the threat properly delivered, the group of thugs ran for what they thought was their lives while Ichigo just knelt down and picked the flowers out of the broken glass.
"Thank you mister," a little girl, with a massive bloodstain covering her right eye, thanked as Ichigo continued his way home.
"Yea, no problem, just make sure you move on to Heaven soon before something really nasty comes looking for a lost soul," Ichigo said as he rounded the corner, wondering if the little spirit would move on before a demon comes by to take an unclaimed soul.
After arriving home and having a rather comical argument with his dad about being late for dinner, Ichigo headed up to his room and threw his books down on his bed. Moving around his room in a clockwise fashion, Ichigo inspected the tiny markings engraved in his walls, window, and door, all of which were designed to trap spiritual or demonic creatures inside if they ever entered the room. Now most people would think that Ichigo would put up markings that repel said creatures but it was just easier to keep them trapped in a small space instead of letting them roam through the rest of the house. It was at that moment that the hairs on the back of Ichigo's neck stood straight up and a cold chill filled the room. Ichigo was expecting a moderately powerful demon to come charging in, he wasn't expecting a short girl with a sword on her hip to suddenly phase through his wall like it wasn't even there.
Without missing a beat, Ichigo lit another one of his cancer sticks, took a long drag, before letting all the smoke out through his barely parted lips, all the while looking at the short woman that literally walked right through his wall. Short and petite, the woman standing not two feet away from Ichigo had light skin and purple eyes. Her hair was pitch black, with several strings hanging lazily between her eyes. As for clothing, instead of wearing traditional clothing, the spirit wore a shihakushÅ of all things and had a sword strapped to her hip. There was also a strange look in her eyes, like they were frosted over by a blizzard or something.
"It's near," the spirit said ominously, before a cloud of cigarette smoke just happened to be blown right into her face, making the spirit suddenly go into a coughing fit from the foul smelling smoke.
"Bleh, why does the first human I'm around have to be a smoker?" the spirit asked herself as she waved the smoke out of her face before looking over to find Ichigo staring right at her, although his bored expression didn't tell the woman if he was looking at her or just in her general direction.
Slowly the spirit inched her face closer to Ichigo's, still trying to figure out if he could see her or not, only for Ichigo to simply blow more smoke in her face, effectively making the woman back away while coughing even more. Now thoroughly pissed off, the spirit decided she would scare the strange human a little, just some harmless fun.
"Bakudo #1: Sai!" the woman shouted as she pointed her middle and index finger right at Ichigo, only to blink a few times when nothing happened, nothing at all.
A full thirty second passed before the spirit woman finally lowered her hand and just stared at it as if it was the strangest thing she had ever seen before, but Ichigo still just continued to stare at her with an almost bored expression now. Finally the spirit seemed convinced that Ichigo couldn't see her and went back to doing whatever it was that she was there to do.
"I know it's around here somewhere, there's no way such power can just vanish into thin air," the spirit said to herself before a loud roar suddenly ripped through the air, making Ichigo's eyes widen at the amount of pure despair he suddenly felt creep into his heart.
Now this was a familiar feeling for Ichigo, for he had ever only felt such a thing once before in his entire life and that was when his mother died. The strange woman also apparently sensed it because a second later she jumped out his open window and down to the street below. Ichigo, on the other hand, reached under his bed and pulled out a pistol with several markings carved all over it, the markings themselves were also glowing an ominous red the moment Ichigo touched the gun. The young Kurosaki then walked down the stairs and out into the moonlit night, arriving just in time to see the strange woman get smacked into a wall by a large monster with a white mask. Ichigo didn't know what the creature was but it felt evil in practically every sense of the word.
"Hey, jackass, why don't you pick on someone your own size?!" Ichigo shouted before he pointed the gun right at the creature's white face and pulled the trigger.
A dark purple beam of light shot from the gun like a cannon and the monster's head just exploded before its entire body was consumed in fire. That was it, no muss and no fuss, the monster was dead and the strange girl was giving Ichigo one of the strangest looks he had ever received from anyone; given that most of those people had been normal. In response to her seeming bewildered look, Ichigo took another puff of his cigarette before turning the gun on said little woman.
"Whao, whao, whao, why are you pointing that thing at me!?" the girl cried, trying to back as far away from the business end of Ichigo's gun as possible, not that it would do anything to lessen the impact if he actually did shoot her.
"You show up at my house and then this thing appears, I'm thinking the two things are connected, not to mention I haven't seen any sword wielding spirits before and I'm not too keen to see what that stick of yours could do to me. So yea, I'm gonna shoot you now," Ichigo was all of two seconds away from pulling the trigger when something very odd happened, namely in the form of a black cat appearing out of thin air right in between them.
"Shoo kitty," Ichigo grunted, making a move along motion with his pistol, but the cat just stood there and stared at him.
"Mr. Kurosaki!" came an all too cheerfully voice from behind Ichigo, causing him to spin around just before his entire world went black.