Guardian Angel II:

War of the Seven Sins

Chapter 2

An Unlikely Warning

Disclaimer: I shall never own Bleach

Okay, chapter two! Alright, this is where the story starts revving up to start. Things will be getting very exciting very fast so hang onto your underwear! Strange cloaked guy - a.k.a - Ira will be making his reappearance in this chapter for a short time. Just long enough to make things interesting.

On another note, I was listening to some music yesterday, when I thought to myself, 'hey, why not give my characters theme songs like on Bleach!', so I've already got Matts, and I'll take any suggestions on theme songs for Nathan, Koshino, or Holly. Come on guys, throw some songs my way!

Anyway, here's Matt's theme song.

Matt- Fighting by Yellowcard (All Yellowcard fans, GIVE ME A SHOUT-OUT!)


It was now Saturday night…finally. Seeing as how Koshino was injured and unable to fight, Matt had double duty the entire day that day. That meant double of him having to show up everywhere, double the Hollows, and twice the exhaustion. He was utterly expended when he got home and plopped right down on the floor where his pillow and blanket were waiting to greet him.

He was lucky his gigai was already lying there, because he wasn't about to get up again after this, not unless a Hollow was literally knocking on his front door asking for his soul.

"I'm sorry," said Koshino in a soft tone.

"About what?" he asked, he voice muffled as his face was currently buried in his pillow.

"You have to do my job. Yesterday was my first day and I already screwed up."

Matt sighed heavily and rolled over onto his back and looked up at her.

"I'll let you in on a little secret; you've gotten a better start than I did. The life of a Soul Reaper was thrown in my face, so when I first started out, I didn't even know what a zanpakuto was."

She looked at him with an expression of shock, like he had just contradicted some ultimate universal truth.

"I didn't have the advantage of an academy to tell me how to be a Soul Reaper; all I had was Ichigo to teach me, a small shop in Japan to train in, and my goals to motivate me. Plus, in the three weeks or so that I trained there, do you have any idea how many times I almost got killed?"

"You almost got killed?"

"More times than I care to think about," he groaned.

"Listen, everybody sucks when they first start out. Despite what anyone's told you, there isn't an academy out there that can completely prepare you to be a Soul Reaper. Just because you screwed up doesn't mean you should give up, it just means you should get stronger so it doesn't happen again."

She had to admit, it made a lot of sense. She wasn't really sure how to get stronger though, she didn't have anyone to train her like Matt did. Another thing she was having trouble with was her shikai, it was still something that was somewhat a mystery to her.

"Um...Matt?"

He rolled over again. "Hm?"

"Did you ever...um," she stuttered. She felt like such an idiot asking him this.

"Did I ever what?"

"Did you ever have trouble with your shikai."

He immediately started laughing, resorting to holding his sides. Koshino's face reddened and she backed up against the wall and curled up into a ball in embarrassment.

"That was one of the times I almost died!" he said, still laughing.

"R-really?"

"Yeah, it took a near death experience for me to finally get it. I was so horrible when I first started out, but once you get Shikai, everything gets easier. You'll get it too, it just takes time; it's never easy for anyone."

"What was your spirit like?" she asked.

"Oh God, my zanpakuto spirit was such an ass when I finally met him!"

She couldn't help but laugh; he seemed to have this natural ability to cheer her up.

'I'm still here you know.' said Gabriel.

'Oh, shut it. You really are an ass sometimes.'

'Is that any way to address the Angel of Death, I'm the Messenger of God himself you know?'

'It's funny when you can't to diddly-shit about it, so I figure I can get away with it for a while.'

'When you die and we're both in heaven, don't think I won't remember this, because I will.'

'Oh come on, we both know I can beat you down any day of the week!' He mentally shouted back.

'Well I'll have the rest of eternity to prove you wrong!'

While Matt was having this mental war with Gabriel, Koshino watched him like he was crazy. She looked like he was speaking to someone, but his lips weren't moving. She leaned down and waved a hand in front of his face, and shook before reeling back in surprise.

"Whoa, sorry. My zanpakuto spirit has a sort of psychic link with me and he didn't appreciate me calling him an ass...even though he knows it's true!" thinking the last part.

"Well...anyway. Like I was saying, Shikai is tough, the only reason I got it so fast was because I used extreme measures to get it. You just started two weeks ago, there's no reason to pressure yourself so much. It's not like the fate of the world depends on you."

She looked down sullenly. "I know, it's just...my parents are the ones who got me into the Soul Reaper academy, even though they disapproved. I just want to show them that it was worth their time."

"Well, lets worry about all that stuff in the morning. For now, let's just go to sleep."

Matt rolled over onto his stomach again, and Koshino lay down on her back after turning off the lights. Matt was just about to fall asleep when his badge alarm went off again. He rolled over and whined; he was half tempted to just ignore it and go to sleep, but knew he couldn't do that.

"Damn it; I'll be back whenever," he groaned to Koshino.

He looked over at her to find she was already asleep. He laughed to himself at little before pulling the blankets up on her a little more, she barely had time to move them herself. She actually looked quite peaceful when she slept, the exact opposite of the insecure girl she appeared to be on the outside. He moved a stray strand of hair out of her face and smiled to himself, though he wasn't really sure why.

Ignoring it for the time being, he jumped out of his gigai and shot out his window.


Matt found it odd that there was another presence downtown, what was even more odd was that it wasn't a Hollow's and that there hardly seemed to be any trace of it left. There was no way his badge could have malfunctioned, and he was sure he felt a spiritual pressure somewhere. He checked again...yup, still there.

It was a peculiar energy signature too, it wasn't Soul Reaper or Hollow; it didn't feel remotely like either of them at all. He scratched his head before deciding to just head home and forget about it. As he was about to leave though, the spiritual pressure suddenly spiked, and from what he was sensing, it was right on top of him. He whirled around to try and locate its source, keeping a hand on Gabriel's hilt.

Suddenly it spiked again, and it was moving...fast. He jumped back just in time to dodge a spiritual blast that had obviously been meant for him. He caught the trajectory, and his gaze fell on a building across the street and about two other buildings down. Standing there was a man in a familiar cloak, the one he'd seen a few months ago.

Matt shunpo'd over to the building, and landed behind the cloaked figure before he could move. He held his claymore to his the strangers neck.

"So, you gonna tell me who you are, or am I gonna have to knock you senseless first?"

"Heh, I'd like to see you try."

Matt pushed his claymore closer to his neck. "I wouldn't be making smart remarks if I were you."

"Well lucky for me I didn't come to fight. Not this time anyway."

"Then why are you here?"

"Believe it or not, I'm here to give you a warning. There's something big on the horizon."

"What are you talking about?"

"Heh, I'm saying that there's gonna be an attack on the Soul Society in the next week."

That caught his interest. "By who?"

"That I can't tell you, but I can tell you it'll be in the Junrinan area of the Rukongai. It's a little warning shot, nothing major, but one of the higher ups of the organization that's orchestrating it will be there. If you time it right, you might be able to take him out."

"Why are you telling me this?" he asked.

"Because, I want that organization dead as much as you eventually will. Just head to the Soul Society and let them know, I promise you won't be disappointed."

He looked up at the sky, seeming to be focusing on something. "...I've gotta go, any more time out here and they'll get suspicious."

"Wait!" yelled Matt, but he was already gone, seeming to just warp away into the darkness.

He stood there for a moment, hoping he would come back, but no. He then pondered whether or not to take the warning seriously. It was his obligation to report any possible threat to the Soul Society, but he honestly wasn't sure what to make of this one. He did just take a tip from someone who'd attempted to kill him twice now.

No...no, he wasn't trying to kill him, his spiritual pressure would've allowed him to attack in much more force than he did. If anything, that was just his sick way of grabbing someones attention. He thought it over, but ultimatly decided that it was a prudent idea to report it, no matter the source.

With that, he hurried back home. He'd gather up his essentials, wake up Koshino, and they'd head to the division thirteen barracks. If anyone would listen to him, it'd be Jushiro and maybe Frosty.

He jumped rapidly across the building back to his house, the sooner he got to the Soul Society, the better prepared they'd be. He wasn't sure what purpose attacking the Rukongai would serve, but they must have some kind of plan in mind, otherwise the attack would be useless.

Either way, he had to hurry. Sure he had friends here, but he had friends in the Soul Society too. Nathan, Frosty, Rukia, Jushiro, and now Koshino. He wasn't sure when he started considering her a friend, but he supposed it didn't really matter. Maybe it was just because she was just as confused about being a Soul Reaper as he was when he was first starting out. She seemed a little overly shy, but that was understandable, she was in an enviroment she knew nothing about, he felt just as weird in the Soul Society.

He was so lost in his thoughts he almost passed his own house. He leaped though his window again, and almost tripped over his gigai before regaining his balance. He leaned over Koshino and shook her shoulder gently, which was sufficient to wake her.

"Huh...Matt? What's wrong?" she mumbled, still pretty much asleep.

"Koshino, we gotta go, now. We're heading to the Soul Society, something came up," he said urgently as he went to his desk and grabbed a small pill.

'Man it's a good thing I picked this thing up on my last visit.' he thought to himself.

He dropped the little thing in his gigai's mouth and it's eyes suddenly popped open. The artificial soul took control of the gigai and sat up quickly.

"Huh? Okay, what's going on?" asked the artificial soul.

"Look, I'm gonna be gone for a few days, so just try and stay away from as many people as possible, and act normal. Go to school, do the work, come home, and avoid saying anything stupid."

"Eh, sounds easy enough," he shrugged, then laid back down on the floor.

With that taken care of, Matt summoned his assigned hell butterfly. Once he had that, he turned back to Koshino, who'd fallen back asleep. Matt sighed and resorted to just picking her up much as he did when he first brought her here and opened a senkaimon. He walked through and made his way to the Soul Society.


Through his walk to the thirteenth division barracks he got some weird looks carrying Koshino like he was, but he was in a bit too much of a hurry to care. He got lucky, no one even got in his way this time; usually someone, (most of the time Kenpachi), would jump out and take him on a detour. Not this time though, he made it to the barracks with ease and was currently walking up the courtyard.

He was walking up the stairs when he heard a voice behind him.

"Hey, hey Matt! Over here you bloody bastard!" yelled the voice.

Matt turned around to see the familiar shrub of red hair that he identified as Nathans. The brit was rushing up the stairs, dodging and weaving through the crowds of people.

"What's going on here?" he asked, gesturing towards Koshino.

"It's a long story man, I need to talk to Jushiro but you should come to, it's important."

He could tell Matt was serious and nodded, taking the lead and clearing the way through the mass of other Soul Reapers. Matt had been through the barracks enough now to know where to go if he wanted to talk to Jushiro, and didn't need Nathans guidance.

Matt stopped outside the door and let down Koshino. He shook her lightly, but she only stirred a bit. He was getting a bit frsutrated and resorted to just randomly shaking her in every direction and growling loudly. She suddely shot up with a start and her head rammed into Matt's mouth, knocking him back to the other wall.

He groaned in pain and held his mouth; it wasn't bleeding or anything, but it sure as hell hurt. Koshino, who was now fully awake, realized what she inadvertently did and kneeled down next to him randomly spouting apologies.

"I'm so sorry Matt, I didn't know you were right in front of me!"

"Ah, it's alright, it wasn't that big of a deal...ow," he said still holding his mouth.

He stood up and shook his head, trying to relieve himself of the pain. He pushed it off for a moment and walked up to the captains office doors. He knocked first as always then pushed the doors aside and walked in. As soon as he entered the room he was caught in a huge bear hug. There was only one girl in either world who could make him suffocate like that.

"Matt, I knew it was you! how have you been?" asked Rukia as she finally let him go.

"Pretty good, but I've got something important to talke to the captain about, you should probably stay to, I might need your help."

He stepped past her and saw Jushiro patiently waiting for him. Matt waved and was given the gesture to sit down.

"So Matt, it's been quite a long time, what is that you need?" he asked in his regular helpful tone.

"I don't know whether the info I got was legit or not, but I got a tip that there's gonna be an attack on the Junrinan area of the Rukongai," replied Matt.

Jushiro looked concerned but not shocked.

"There have been some reports of strange happenings in your area, so it's not surprising you'd be the one to report this. I suspected something along these lines would happen eventually. Don't worry Matt, I trust your judgment, you wouldn't have reported this unless you thought it was a threat."

"Thanks Jushiro. I'd feel better if I stayed here for the next few days, the info I got suggested it would happen somewhere in the next week, so I want to stay close."

Jushiro nodded. "I understand, but unfortunatly we have no more rooms at the barracks. I can have you set up with some temporary lodgings if you like."

"That would be fi-"

"I've got a place for you to stay," interjected Koshino.

"You do?" asked Matt.

She smiled and nodded. "I'd be happy to take you there myself after you're done here."

"Wow, thanks," he smiled.

"Very well, now that that is settled, I'll call a meeting with the other captains and we'll discuss the situation. In the meantime, you might as well get settled in Matt," suggested the captain.

"Sounds good to me."

He stood and walked side by side with Koshino and Nathan took the rear. Rukia went off to do whatever she did in her free time, and Jushiro returned to his paperwork. Once back out in the courtyard, Matt bid Nathan goodbye for the time being and he and Koshino left for wherever she was leading him. All the while, he was running through what would happen in the coming days.


There we are, chapter two finally done! I hope you guys enjoyed it, next chapter will be up soon. Oh, and good news for all of you who have taken a liking to Koshino already, (I don't really know who you people are yet.), next chapter will have a bit of fluff in it.

Just keep in mind I have the emotional capacity of a squirrel, so just because I'm good at describing the way two Soul Reapers brain each other with magical swords, doesn't mean I'm good with the mushy gushy romantic stuff. It's just not my department, but I'll give it my best shot.

Now, all you readers out there, I'm serious. I need idea's for theme songs. Even if you think it's a stupid idea just roll with it or I might be tempted to just delete the entire story! MWAHAHAHAHAHA! ...No, I wouldn't really do that, be in all seriousness, just help me out with this. I'll be your best-est friend!

Don't forget to review and all that junk that I always beg you guys to do.