Strawberry Hero
Unexpected meeting
It was a normal day like any other, and we find the hero of this story relaxing on his bed within his room. Ichigo was enjoying the peacefulness that came after the war with the Quincy king, Ywhach. It was just too bad that his peaceful days, which was just beginning, was about to end.
Opening his eyes slowly, Ichigo saw the form of a bird sitting on his windowsill. Not giving it a second thought, he closed his eyes, only to have them open when the bird let out a screech. Finally focusing all his attention on the bird, he realised that it was not a bird that you would see every day. Instead it was a falcon, casually staring at him as if it had nothing else to do that day and was simply bored.
"What the hell!" Ichigo exclaimed, jumping off of his bed and standing in the middle of the room, posture tense in case the avian attacked. Taking a closer look at the falcon, he saw that something was attached to its leg. "What the hell?"
Upon realising that the bird was not going to attack, he took a couple of steps closer to it and saw that what was attached to its leg was a rolled up piece of paper with a some string tied around it. Reaching out, still prepared in case the bird thought his fingers were food, he untied the roll of paper from around its leg and took a couple of steps back. Unfurling the paper he let his eyes skim it until he got to the sender's name, and became pissed when he read the name multiple times and was certain that it was who it said it was.
"Goddammit Kisuke!" he yelled out loud, startling the falcon, which in return started squawking at him. All of the commotion was loud enough to gain the attention of the only other Kurosaki family member, who barged into her brother's room with thoughts of danger on her mind.
"Onii-chan, are you oka-" Ichigo's youngest sister, Yuzu, stopped speaking as she saw the falcon.
"Yuzu, I can explain." Ichigo started, but was cut off by Yuzu's squeal as she ran and pulled the bird into a hug.
"A birdie! Can I keep him? Can I, Onii-chan, can I?" she asked with puppy dog eyes.
"Uh, well…" Ichigo let his eyes wander around his room until they landed on the note from Urahara. Quickly picking it, he climbed over the windowsill and jumped out, calling over his shoulder. "Ask Goat-chin."
Landing on his feet, he started sprinting in the direction of the Urahara Shoten. There was no way he was going to convince Yuzu to let the bird go, especially when she uses those eyes.
'I'll let the old man deal with that.' He thought as he, without realising, ran across a busy street full of traffic, dodging the cars without even noticing what he was doing and before he knew it, he was standing in front of Kisuke's shop.
As he took a couple of steps towards the door, a small body collided with him.
"Hmm?" he made a sound as he turned and saw Ururu sprawled out on the ground. He kneeled in front of her and offered his hand to help her up, asking. "Are you okay?"
The small girl blushed as she nodded and accepted his hand, being pulled up and sat on her feet with ease.
"T-t-thank y-you." She stuttered meekly.
"That's okay." Ichigo gave her a small smile. "Do you know if Kisuke's here?"
"Urahara-san is in the basement, working on something." She told him.
"Geta-boshi has a falcon, doesn't he?"
Ururu looked up at Ichigo in surprise. "Urahara-san came back with a bird yesterday. I didn't know that he would use it so soon."
"You wouldn't have to know how to look after one would you?" Ichigo asked her as an idea popped into his mind.
Ururu straightened up as she nodded. "Yes. Tessai-san gave me a book about falcons and how to care for them last week."
"You wouldn't mind heading over to my house to help Yuzu look after it, would you?"
The small girl nodded. "It wouldn't be a problem at all, Ichigo-san. Just let me get my book and I can head on over. I'm sure Yuzu-chan could use some help."
With that, Ururu ran into the store and was out within a couple of minutes and a small bag over her shoulder. Ichigo just raised an eyebrow questioningly.
"Ano, Tessai-san said that he and Urahara-san will be closing the shop for a couple of days and that I should stay over with Yuzu-can. That is, if it is okay with you?"
Ichigo just nodded his head and replied with a 'yes'. The small girl started to run in the direction of her friend's house but stopped, turned around, waved to him, and resumed heading to the Kurosaki Clinic.
Ichigo walked up to the door, that Ururu left open, entered and closed it behind himself. He inspected the inside of the shop for either the owner or his assistant, and upon finding none, he headed towards the hatch in the back room that lead to Urahara's secret training ground.
'I wonder why he still calls it a secret. I mean just about everyone knows it's there. He probably just does it for the dramatics.' Ichigo thought to himself as he lifted the hatch and stepped into the hole, letting his body fall a couple of hundred metres before using his Fullbring Light, an ability he made sure to train to almost be on par with his shunpo, and landing safely on the ground.
"I get better every time. Now… where are you Kisu-" Ichigo cut himself off when he turned away from the ladder and saw that that Kisuke's training ground had been transformed into some kind of mad scientist's laboratory. There were giant metal tubes coming from the ceiling, wires laying all over the ground, and strange contraptions that Ichigo couldn't make heads or tails of, all heading towards the centre of the training ground.
"Well…" Ichigo began. "It's not the craziest thing that I've seen Kisuke do in the last two years. Better find the bastard before he can blow himself up." And with that Ichigo followed the tubes and came upon a sight he wasn't expecting.
He saw Aizen himself sitting at one end of a table and Urahara sitting at the other, both calmly drinking tea. He let his eyes roam the area for the shop keeper's assistant and found him trimming a bonsai tree. He wasn't that surprised as recently Tessai had started to look after the small tree. Focusing his attention back on the two men he least expected to occupy a room without trying to kill each other surprised him greatly.
He was broken out of his thoughts by someone clearing their throat. Paying attention, he saw Aizen gesturing to a third seat, directly in the middle of the table.
"Have a seat Ichigo." Aizen spoke, causing Kisuke to look up at the twenty year old.
"Ah! Kurosaki-san, I wasn't expecting you today. What brings you here?" he asked.
Ichigo's eye twitched as he looked at the scientist/shopkeeper and his fists clenched in anger.
"What am I doing here?" he spoke softly, continuing with his voice rising. "What am I doing her? I'm here, you bastard, because you sent a damn falcon to my room, that's why I'm here!"
"Oh!" Urahara looked at Aizen and then back to Ichigo before asking. "Did you even read the note?"
"The note?" with that, Ichigo pulled the note that he got off the falcon and smoothed it out from its crumpled state that it became when he shoved it into his pocket.
Dear Kurosaki-san
While I have sent this note with my new messenger falcon, it does not mean that I want to see you today. Instead it would be great if you could visit this humble shopkeeper tomorrow, as I have a wonderful surprise for you.
Kind regards,
Urahara Kisuke
Ichigo noticed that in the corner of the paper was a chibi version of Kisuke with his fan held in front of him. Ichigo released a sigh as he placed the paper on the table and took the seat offered to him.
"I'm here now, so why don't you show me this surprise and inform me why Aizen is here. I can only guess that both are connected, correct?" Ichigo looked at Kisuke who just pulled out his fan, hiding most of his face, and nodded.
"You see Ichigo." Kisuke started before stopping himself and taking a thinking pose. A moment later he nodded and explained to Ichigo. "I'm not going to give you the long explanation. I have, with the help of Tessai and Aizen, created a machine that would let you travel to other dimensions, ones that aren't Soul Society or Hueco Mundo. The only problem that I came upon is that the machine needs to be powered by something or someone with high levels of reiatsu, even higher than just about all of the Captains. That is where Aizen comes in; with his levels he could power the machine long enough for someone to make it all the way to the other dimension."
Ichigo was nodding his head in understanding, luckily being able to keep up with what the shopkeeper was saying.
"Aizen though, is just one piece of the puzzle. To get to the other dimension, someone with high levels of energy and a body that won't break down on the way is needed. That is why you are needed, Ichigo." Kisuke said, pointing at the orange-haired man. "You have exactly what is needed to get through without, maybe, dying."
"Maybe?" Ichigo asked as he got up off of his chair and walked over to the biggest machine in the area. It was a giant metal wall, about the size of his house, with a circle carved into it, about the size of Kenpachi Zaraki. "Is this it?"
Kisuke and Aizen got out of their seats and walked over to their guest. Aizen placed his hand to the right, just outside of the circle and Ichigo felt the man's reiatsu raise enough to make him sweat a little. Ichigo raised his to match while Kisuke raised his as well. The inside of the circle disappeared into a murky blackness and Ichigo couldn't see anything in it.
"It's a Garganta, isn't it?" receiving a nod from the shopkeeper, he continued. "And you're going to push me into it, right?" turning around, he saw Kisuke with his hand held up in front of him. "Not surprised."
With that, Kisuke used Hadō #1. Shō (Thrust) and knocked Ichigo into the Garganta. Before he could fall too far, he formed a pathway made out of his reiatsu stood still for a moment to get his bearings. Looking up towards the shopkeeper and asked him.
"What am I meant to do?" Kisuke's reply was to pull his fan out and wave it in front of his face.
"Head for the light." He called out.
'Well, that's not ominous.' Ichigo thought to himself as he turned and started to look for the light that Kisuke was talking about.
If it wasn't for him being in total darkness, he would have missed the tiny speck of light in the distance. He was stopped by Kisuke's voice.
"Um, Kurosaki-san… you may want to come back."
Ichigo raised an eyebrow in confusion before replying.
"You pushed me into here and there isn't much happening in our dimension. I may as well continue with this experiment of yours." He started to head in the direction of the light.
"You don't understand Ichigo! It's costing too much reiatsu! Aizen can't handle it any longer!" Kisuke called out with panic clear in his voice.
Just as Ichigo processed what Kisuke said, the doorway back into his world closed, as well as the light he was heading to. Before he had time to panic, his platform disappeared and he started falling at incredible speeds. He couldn't seem to be able to create any platforms under his feet and kept on falling. With being surrounded by darkness, he couldn't tell how long he had been falling for.
'If only I had my… phone…' reaching into his pocket, he felt the small rectangular device. Pulling it out and turning it on, he noticed that it was almost at a hundred percent and that he had been falling for a couple of hours. Being bored, he started playing the games that he had on it.
"I wonder what Kisuke and Aizen are doing." He asked aloud to himself.
XXXXX
"Well… fuck." Kisuke said as he looked at the circle where the Garganta had been opened moments before.
"What will you tell his family and friends?" Aizen asked as he removed his palm from the machine and took deep breathes.
"What do you mean 'what will I tell them'? Kisuke asked as he looked at the other man, who gave him a smirk.
"I," Aizen pulled out his zanpakuto, Kyoka Suigetsu and slashed it through the air, creating a Garganta, which he stepped through. "Will be returning to Hueco Mundo and will deny any accusation that I had anything to do with this. Goodbye Urahara Kisuke." Before Kisuke could do anything, the Garganta closed, leaving Urahara by himself.
"Isshin is going to kill me." Kisuke spoke to himself.
"Who's going to kill you?" a familiar voice asked him. Urahara turned and saw none other than Ichigo's father.
"Ah, Isshin-san! What brings you here?" Kisuke asked with sweat pouring down his face. He knew he was in deep shit when he saw the serious expression on his old friend's face.
"I have just two questions. Why is there a falcon in my home and what has happened to my son?"
"W-well you see, he may or may not be trapped within dimensions-" he couldn't say anymore as a fist smashed into his sternum, knocking him head over arse multiple times, before placing his foot on the downed man's chest with a deadly look on his face.
"I'm not going to kill you, Kisuke." He spoke quietly. "I'm just going to hurt you really badly."
When Tessai noticed Ichigo's arrival, he left to give them privacy. When he saw Isshin arrive with an annoyed expression, he stayed away and was going to bring some tea down to the guests but stopped when he felt Isshin's reiatsu spike. He was really glad that he decided to stay up when the girlish screams of his boss reached his ears.
"I truly feel sorry for you, Urahara-dono."
XXXXX
Ichigo was glad that he had his phone, as he could tell how long he had been falling for. The last time he had check was before he started playing his games and at that time he had been falling for about an hour.
"Wonder what time it is now." He exited out of his game of Tetris and saw that he had only eight percent left. "Damn, that's bad." Looking at the time, it showed only a couple of hours after he last looked at it. That is until he saw the date. It was the third day of the month when he went to Urahara's shop, but on his phone now, it was showing that it was the fifth day.
"What. The. Fuck!" he yelled out. "Over two fucking days I've been falling. This is going to be a hell of a long wait." With that he put his phone on battery saving mode and place it back in his pocket.
It was possible that a couple of more hours had passed since he stopped using his phone and he was bored once again. He checked his other pockets to see if he had anything of interest. He pulled out his Substitute Shinigami Badge, Kisuke's letter, a pencil (no idea how that got there?), his wallet full of all his licenses and a picture he always carried with him. He put the picture, his badge and his wallet back where he got them from, and kept the paper and pencil out.
He spent the next twenty to thirty minutes drawing and writing a bunch of random things before giving up and putting them both in his pockets.
"It looks like I'm going to be falling for a while. Might as well get some sleep." He said before promptly doing just that.
If he was still awake, he would have seen the giant light that he was falling towards. Guess he doesn't have that great luck.
XXXXX
It was just a bloody normal day in King's Row, England. Well if you were a member of Overwatch, that is. The day started normal enough for Tracer, A.K.A. Lena Oxton, a former member of Overwatch. A bank robbery on the corner of 5th and 7th done by none other than Junkrat and Roadhog, two mercenaries that were lately being hired by Talon for some unknown and possibly stupid reason.
'Come on Talon, are you really going to trust them with anything?' she thought as zipped behind a bus, Pulse Pistols at the ready.
"Come on mate, think ya can stop us?" Junkrat called out, firing grenade after grenade in her direction and destroying multiple cars while she zipped around.
"We need to go." Spoke Junkrat's partner in crime, Roadhog. He stood up as he readied his Scrap Gun and started walking backwards into an alleyway, followed by Junkrat firing even more grenades.
He dropped a concussion mine behind a crate and hid around the corner at the end of the alley. He watched as Tracer blinked right next to the crate and pressed a button, setting of the concussion grenade.
Tracer wasn't expecting the a mine to go off right next to her and the resulting explosion caused he body to fly into the air, heading straight to a fire escape on the side of the building. Realising that she was going to hit it head-first, she used her Recall ability and rewound herself to just before she blinked into the danger.
"Not gonna get me this time, boys." She said quietly as she blinked onto the fire escape and watched as the Australian explosive expert was watching the alley with glee in his eyes. Blinking behind him, she tapped him on the shoulder, gaining his attention and she saw the surprise in his eyes.
"Hello Love, surprised to see me?" she asked with a cheery voice.
"No." replied a voice behind her.
Before Tracer could turn around, Roadhog's chain hook wrapped around her, stunning her for a moment before throwing her at the wall.
"Come on, we have to go." Roadhog told his partner as he took the bag full of money from him and started walking away.
Junkrat went and retrieved his concussion mine and walked back to his partner with a disappointed face. They left Tracer where she was and started walking to where they were supposed to drop the bag off.
When they made it there, they saw a man with orange hair, wearing a pair of pants, shoes, a white shirt with the number fifteen on it and a black zip-up hoodie just standing by himself. He was the only one apart from them at the drop point, so they figured he was the man. They made their way over to him and when he saw them, all he did was raise an eyebrow questioningly.
"You're early." Roadhog told him as he dropped the bag in front of the man. "Here you go. We're going to leave now. Good luck with Tracer."
He grabbed Junkrat and dragged him after him as they left the area, leaving the stranger with the bag. He picked the bag up and opened it, finding it to be full of money and some strange device. Putting the bag back down, he lifted the strange device and held it for inspection.
That was the sight that Tracer came upon as she entered the area. After she came to, Lena followed the trail that the two mercenaries made and saw them hand the bag to some strange man that she had never seen before,
'Is he a member of Talon?' she thought as she saw the two criminals leave. She decided to stay and apprehend the man instead, as he could hold valuable information.
It was when he pulled out a device that she knew so well, that she knew she would have to stop him. After all, the device was a rip-off of her chronal accelerator. How someone was able to hide it in a bank without Winston finding out about it and Talon being able to, she had no idea.
Before he could do anything with the device, Tracer blinked behind the man and started firing at his head. She was surprised when he casually started leaning his head to different sides, dodging all the shots she fired at him. Lena started rapid-firing at his torso and like before, he was dodging without much trouble.
'How is he doing this? The bullets are supposed to be too fast for a normal bloke. Could he be using the chronal accelerator?' she thought to herself as she let her anger get the best of her and blinked right behind him, aiming a roundhouse kick to the side of his head.
She wasn't expecting him to grab her ankle with his index finger and thumb and casually chucked her in front of him, though she was able to land on her feet. Tracer also wasn't expecting him to have a surprised expression on his face as he looked at her.
"What? Wasn't expecting me, Love?" she asked with a playful smirk.
The stranger gave her a confused look and asked with a slightly Asian accent.
"Who the hell are you?"
'Well, that's unexpected.'
XXXXX
When Ichigo woke up he found that he was in what he supposed was a place in England. Why he would come up with that answer so quickly was because he had recently started watching television shows of other countries due to boredom. Many of them were shows that had English speaking actors and luckily for him, he had got surprisingly high scores in his English classes.
"I'm really hoping that the people here speak either Japanese or English." Ichigo said to himself as he stood up and patted the dirt off of his clothes.
He wasn't expecting to see a big man with a mask on his face and what looked to be a pig tattooed onto his stomach, carrying a bag with a money sign on it, followed by a crazy-looking man with a prosthetic arm and leg. He raised an eyebrow questioningly as they made their way over to him.
"You're early." The big one told him in English as he dropped the bag on the ground in front of the twenty year old. "Here you go. We're going to leave now. Good luck with Tracer."
'Tracer? At least it was English and not a language I didn't know. And why the hell did they give me this bag?' picking the bag, Ichigo opened it to find that it was full of cash. 'Oh shit. They were probably robbers. Hang on, what's this?' he thought to himself as he dug deeper into the bag to find a strange looking device.
Taking it out, he inspected the device. It was rectangular in shape and was about three inches thick. Around its edges were strange markings that for some reason were familiar to the man. There was a circular piece glass on the front with a crystal emitting a light blue glow within the device.
'Why do I feel like someone's trying to kill me?' he thought to himself, before instinctively raising his right hand and catching someone's ankle between his index finger and thumb, which he then promptly threw in front of himself. 'Who the hell is this woman?"
"What? Wasn't expecting me, Love?" the woman asked in an English accent, with a playful smirk on her lips.
Ichigo gave her a confused look and asked with a slightly Asian accent.
"Who the hell are you?"
EXTRA
"Cheers, Love! The cavalry's here!" Tracer called out to Winston as she walked into his office carrying two cups of coffee for the occupants of the room.
The genetically engineered gorilla was working on his Tesla Cannon before the twenty-six year old showed up. He gave up as he knew that Tracer could be very distracting when she's around.
"What can I do for you Miss Oxton?" he asked her with his deep voice.
"Really? Miss Oxton? I'm not here for anything but to give you and Angela some coffee." She informed the scientist as he took his cup. "Where is she anyway?"
"I'm right here, Lena." The Swiss medic called to her. She walked over to the other woman and took her cup from her. Taking a sip, she released a sigh and noticed that Lena hadn't got one for herself. "Where's yours?"
Releasing a chuckle, Lena leaned against Winston's workbench, causing the gorilla to keep a very wary eye on her. "I thought you knew me better than that. Its biscuits and tea for me, Love!"
"While I do enjoy coffee and small talk, Lena, it's about time we talked about what you did on our last operation." The serious tone in his voice told them that it was going to be something they wouldn't want to talk about.
"Are you sure?" Lena asked as she pulled out a banana and a jar of peanut butter from behind her and held them out to Winston.
'Where was she hiding those?' Mercy thought as she raised an eyebrow as she wondered what Winston was talking about. "What happened on the last operation?"
Winston finished eating his peanut butter covered banana before licking what was left off his fingers and replying.
"Lena did something that involved Talon operative Widowmaker last week. Something I hope won't happen again." He gave Tracer a look and she knew that this wasn't the end.
"What did you do Lena?" Mercy asked her friend.
"Well I… may, or may not, have taken her by surprise and done something to her." Tracer said in a soft voice with a blush gracing her cheek.
'Oh my! I didn't realise she felt like that.' Angela thought to herself as a small blush grew on her cheeks as she thought of what Lena did to Amélie Lacroix, A.K.A. Widowmaker. "What exactly did you do, Lena?"
"I…" Tracer started but cut herself off, looking away as her blush grew.
"Yes?" Angela urged her on.
"I ended up…" she started, but ended up mumbling the rest.
"You ended up doing what?" she was starting to get fed up with her friend by now.
"I tickled her."
Mercy's mouth opened and tried to form words but she couldn't get any out. She was trying to form words for about a minute before she found her voice.
"You… you tickled her." She was able to get out that much before she lost her voice again.
"Yep."
"Why?" Mercy rubbed her temples, feeling a migraine coming.
"She was just lying there! I zipped behind her and she was lying down, aiming her gun at a target. I was going to start our usual banter but then the next thing I knew, my fingers were moving up and down her sides, really fast." Tracer looked at Angela, who was giving her look of disbelief. "Don't give me that look. She's ticklish. I learnt that that day."
"What do you mean by the, Lena?" Mercy reached into her pocket and pulled out two pills, which she took with the last of her coffee.
"Well, she was laughing like a mad woman at the time… until she saw it was me… and then she tried to kill me. But at least it proved, to a small extent, that she still has a heart."
Looking towards Winston, the medic saw that the ape was no longer in his office and that she was left alone with Tracer, who was going on and on about Widowmaker.
"You are quite obsessed about her, aren't you Tracer?" she asked the speedy woman.
Lena stopped talking as her blush grew at what her friend said and waved her hands in front of herself.
"N-no, I… I am not obsessed with Amélie. Nope… not at all."
"Oh really?" Angela asked with a teasing smirk. "You do realise that you are calling her by her name, in what I would call a… loving way."
Tracer started coughing as she looked at Angela with a blush covering her face.
"What!? I don't think of her that way. No way at all."
"Well, De Nile is not just a river in Egypt." Mercy chucked her empty cup into the trash before she headed to the door waving over her shoulder. "Think about what she might mean to you."
"You mean like you and Fareeha Amari?" Tracer called out to her friend, causing Mercy stop and splutter as a blush came over her cheeks.
"You! You said that you weren't going to talk about that!" turning around, she saw that Lena had disappeared. Letting out a huff, she left the office.
When both women left his office, Winston got down from the ceiling and got back to work on his Tesla Cannon, all the while muttering under his breath.
"Those two and their romances. It's best to stay out of this."
EXTRA 2
Karin was not expecting to come home to the sight of her sister making cookies for her and the girl from Urahara's shop, while a falcon was sitting on the back of an unoccupied chair.
"Ah, Karin-chan! How was your day?" Yuzu asked with a cheerful smile on her face.
The other girl, Ururu, if what her memory told her was right, looked at her with a shy expression on her face.
"Ano, I'm sorry to be intruding." She apologized meekly.
"You know what? I'm not even going to ask what's going on with the falcon. Ichi-nee was the cause of stranger things happening in the last couple of years." She told them as Yuzu brought over a tray full of cookies. Taking one, she took a bite and released a hum of content before eating the rest. "Where's Ichi-nii?"
"He's at Urahara-san's shop and from what Tessai-san told me, would probably be gone for more than a week." Ururu told her before taking a bite of her cookie and telling her friend that it was delicious.
Karin grabbed a couple of cookies and headed to the stairs, calling over her shoulder.
"I'll be staying in Ichi-nee's room then." It was just as she was about to walk up the stairs that the front door opened and her father walked in. "Where were you?"
Isshin gave her a goofy smile and replied in a cheerful voice.
"Oh, Karin! I was just burning some trash."
Karin felt a shiver run down her spine and decided to just ignore it and leave. Entering her older brother's room, she laid down on his bed and thought to herself.
'I hope that where ever you are, Ichi-nii, that you are okay.'
XXXXX
[A.N.]
Well, hope you enjoy the first chapter of this story.
I will say that I do get influenced by other fanfics that I read and a lot of the Overwatch ones that I have read were WidowTracer and PharMercy, so don't bother complaining.
Pairings:
Ichigo x ? (I would love to hear suggestions)
Tracer x Widowmaker
Mercy x Pharah
I would be extremely grateful to anyone willing to suggest a better name than the one I gave this story.
So until the next chapter, have a good day. Or night.