Disclaimer: The world does not revolve around me, no matter how much I wish it would. Therefore, I must claim to not own Bleach.

Chapter 2- The End

It would be great if I was accepted into the Kurosaki family and be allowed to live with them. It was close to happening, as my puppy-dog eyes and guilt-tripping do work on Kurosaki senior.

The deal was to send out a report that I was found on the street and being treated for injuries, inviting my family to step forward. If no one came by in three weeks, I would stay with the Kurosaki family for an indefinite amount of time and be taken in as an employee when I reached a proper age to work.

Don't ask me how all of this was legal. I don't know Japanese laws, and even then this was probably not all within proper procedure.

It didn't even take two days before a distraught couple came to their doorstep from way across town and was wanting a look at me to see if I was their child.

When I came downstairs from Ichigo's room (Karin and Yuzu were polite but wary, and the boy was rather attached to me despite the fact I hadn't even talked to him for more than a combined three and a half days) and saw the two of them, I knew I was related if only physically.

If I pretended to know them for who they were or if I claimed to feel an impossible connection to them, I would be the liar of the year. They looked like nice people, but I felt no immediate love for the two of them.

My chest ached a bit when I first saw them, but there were no magical flashes of memory or some kind of alter ego in my head that belonged to the ten year-old child my consciousness was linked to.

So, when I stepped into the living room, I gave them both a good look, preparing to act.

My mother was wearing an apron with a name tag on her left chest that read "Hikari, Manager." She had long brown hair that was tied in a loose pony tail and hung over her right shoulder. She had maroon eyes and I could tell my delicate face shape came from her.

My father had short purple hair in an interesting hairstyle. He had three braids on the left side of his head, the right side was shaved and the top was spiked messily. His eyes were a very natural color of crimson. His outfit was... unique to say the least. He was wearing long, black pants that were decorated up the side with silver metal dots and a silver chain ran from his front left pocket to his back left. His shirt was a button-up lavender dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows- displaying some impressive tattoos- and he had a dark green vest with emerald swirls on it. I couldn't tell his profession, but this guy looked freakin' awesome.

It was probably awkward I spent so long staring at his clothing.

"Aa, hello," I finally said, giving a small wave and a nervous smile.

Hikari's- no- mom's face lit up and her eyes glistened dangerously as she stood up and ran towards me with her arms outstretched. My muscles betrayed my sudden panic and I melted when she had her arms around me, "Haruka, sweetie. Where were you?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Isshin give a nod to father and then corral his children out of the room to give us some privacy. I assumed that all of the details of what the man had gathered had already been passed over to my new guardians.

It was a little disappointing when the only goodbye I was able to give Ichigo was a tiny wave at his window as I was hefted into the taxi.

My parents began speaking to each other with me between them, mom going first, "I'll call in and take off the rest of the week."

"Shiro won't be happy with that."

"She'll just have to deal with it. I'm spending time with my baby," her arms tightened around me a bit, and the woman I assumed was usually quiet and collected was now fierce and unyeilding.

The man on my other side held up his hands in a calming gesture, an amused twitch at the corner of his mouth, "Maa, maa, Hikari, don't bite my head off for stating the obvious."

"Ano, tou-san?" I tilted my head as far back as I could to look at the tall man's face, "Where do you work?"

He looked a littl surprised, but gave a large grin, "I'm a police officer," he laughed at the look of disbelief I pinned him with and confessed, "You caught me, I'm a detective. A pretty good one at that."

I felt awe at the amount of pride in his voice, "Wow."

Both of them shared a mysterious look and laughed at my reaction. They tried talking business again, asking me if I remembered anything about them, but when I couldn't answer their questions in any way but frustration, they gave up and just told me about my room.

I could tell they were hurt by the fact I didn't remember anything about them, more like worried, but I could tell these people were just the regular doting parents that... lost their daughter.

The moral implecation of taking this poor girl's body was utterly painful. For all I knew, she was kidnapped or killed and here I was, pretending to be their daughter when I really wasn't. I didn't know if I wanted to accept their feelings either, it would sure be nice, but I would feel like I was ripping them off... or something. Not to mention I still had my own parents, even if I was- quite literally- dead to them at the moment.

Honestly, though, even with all the guilt I felt for being subject to their affections and gratefully accepting all of their words of care, there wasn't anything I could really do about being here. I sure as hell wasn't going to test it and see if I would pop up in a new universe after going back to that almost-void place. Definitely not worth trying, not with the fact I had a chance to learn to fight here.

*-(O_O)-*

I fidgeted a bit in my seat at the dinner table later that day. The house was a very nice three-story place in a wealthy neighborhood. I figured dad and/or mom made a lot of money to be able to afford the place.

My room had been temporarily been turned into a storage area for a bunch of files and antiques. It was definitely decorated for a young girl, everything was in pastel shades of pink, purple and blue. A few mythical creatures sat around it in plushie or picture form. This girl, Haruka, must have really liked horses and birds.

I mean, I do too.

My room was on the middle floor, the dining room was connected to the kitchen and living room. The house itself was built with lots of rooms, as if they had anticipated a large family. So, I sat in the kitchen as mom set out the dishes and dad fixed something that smelled really good.

The table itself had two too-many chairs at it. Mom slid tiredly into the chair next to me, absently fixing her hair into a higher ponytail. I smiled awkwardly at her and she brushed some hair out of my face before rubbing my head lightly and smiling wearily at me.

"I can't help but wonder where you were that entire time."

"It's already been four years, right, Hikari?" Dad spoke up from the stove.

She lightly kissed me on the forehead, still looking rather sad.

Gah, this atmosphere is suffocating!

"Well, I'm back now, right? Even if I don't remember all that much, I'm still your daughter and we can go through whatever happened together," I smiled up at their vaguely surprised faces, "That's what family is for, right?"

Why are they just staring at me like that?

"Honey," the woman didn't look at her husband as she spoke, "Isn't this the first time we've heard her speak more that a few words at a time?"

I flushed and ducked my head in embarrassment.

"Don't encourage her to be quiet!" Dad laughed and swung the pan off of the stove.

He served each plate at the table, which there was a plate at each seat.

"Why are there extra chairs, dad?"

The answer literally walked through the door.

I'm not an only child! I have siblings!

I was a lot happier at the thought than I figured I would be. The teenager stopped in her tracks and let the boy following her bump into her back.

"Haru?" The boy popped his head out and it tilted curiously to the side.

I squirmed a bit, suddenly uncomfortable with the attention I was receiving, "H-hi. I guess I'm living here from now on."

The girl was still standing in the doorway, a stupid look stuck on her face and her arms still in place with her hands behind her head.

"What the fug."

Mom burst into action, a red hue overtaking her face as dad burst out in giggles, "Watch your language, young lady!"

She gave a yelp and paled rapidly, "I said pug!"

The screech of anger from mom was so out of character I gave a little laugh myself. The show was amusing, mom chasing sister around the first floor with a butter knife in hand.

My brother entered the room, ignoring his sister and parent and seated himself in a chair, staring at the food with a hungry eye.

Dad sat down himself and put an elbow on the table, resting his chin on his hand as he watched the other girls of the house circle around for the third time.

The fifth time they passed through, my sister skidded into the seat beside me and grabbed the knife from beside her plate hurriedly. She was just in time to block a blow from our dear mother.

I have now decided to never make mom angry.

Her maroon eyes flared with red and yellow, power in her grip as she tried to punish her daughter for her words.

"Mom, please stop attacking nee-chan with a knife."

Mom turned her gaze to me, looking shockingly harmless all of a sudden despite the fact she was attacking her daughter, "Never copy your nee-chan's language, ne, Haru-chan?"

I frantically nodded and scooted my chair a bit further away.

"Put down the knife, sweetie," dad's voice carried across the suddenly silent room.

I slowly turned my head to look at the man...

And very quickly decided I would rather get into an argument with dear old mom.

He wasn't even threatening, but he had this aura that promised pain if not obeyed.

As the family quietly started eating, I warily eyed my family, waiting for another weird thing to happen.

"So, Shin, how was your day at school?" Dad was back to his normal, goofy self as if nothing had happened.

Note to self: Never anger either parent. You will encounter a fate worse than death.

My brother straightened and smiled back at dad, "I punched someone in the face."

Edit: Do not anger any of the family members, they are all terrifying.

Dad laughed again, before realizing his son wasn't joking. Then he stopped and looked at mom imploringly.

She sighed, "Who?"

"The principal's cousin's son. He was picking on one of my friends again," He didn't need prompting to continue with his tale, "I punched him again when he pulled a switchblade and tried to stab me. I was perfectly fine until one of the teachers came out. They called home a little while ago, but you weren't home so nee-chan helped me and acted like kaa-san."

"Attaboy!" Dad cheered, lightly nudging his shoulder and laughing.

Mom sighed and smiled at her daughter, "Thank you for helping your brother, Rika."

Her daughter just gave a yawn and nodded, digging her fork into dinner and shoving a bunch in her mouth. The way she lazily chewed reminded me of a cow.

Yeeeaaahh... I better keep that observation to myself.

Before dad could ask about sister's day she announced, "I skipped school again. Brat number three came back today from his suspension."

"Don't talk with food in your mouth," the half-hearted warning from mom went ignored.

Dad even spoke right over the end of her sentence, "The punk that called you a-" he broke off and cleared his throat before starting over, "The punk with the red hair?"

She nodded absently, her eyes half-open as she fought to stay awake.

The room went quiet with the sounds of eating.

This is good food.

"Thank you for dinner, tou-san." I spoke up happily, after almost inhaling half of the plate.

I got a beaming smile from him, "You're very welcome, Haru-chan~!"

Mom smiled as well, before playfully griping at teh other two, "Your sister has been kami-knows-where and yet she has better manners than both of you combined."

As if rehearsed, both of their voices rose in equal parts boredom and thankfulness, "Thank you very much for feeding us."

I laughed lightly at their reaction, and almost missed the happy looks the two siblings exchanged over the table.

Then came time to address the elephant in the room.

"So, we found Haruka," Mom started happily, before being cut off by a chain reaction of shouting.

Dad, who had gotten up to look in the freezer in the kitchen gave a shout of disappointment, which startled Rika who gave a shriek as she woke up from a sudden nap, and as if on cue Shin started yelling in a different language- in pain because he had slammed his funny bone on the back of the chair.

I stared at the three of them, then looking over at mom and she looked a little annoyed, but her patience held. She gave a sigh and smiled at me apologetically. I giggled, the hilarity catching up, and I found myself growing fond of this group of weirdos.

I'm a part of something like this, now. Me the nervous mess that can't even remember her own name sometimes.

The screaming stopped, but Shin continued to mutter under his breath and rub his elbow.

"Where'd you get her?" Rika was awake now, curiously examining me.

"I woke up on the road and found Ichi-kun. Than Kurosaki-san sent out a message that said where I was," I explained, as childishly as I could muster without sounding stupid.

"Where were you before that?"

I ducked my head a bit, giving a shy smile, "Ah, amnesia. That's what Kurosaki-san said, anyway."

Dad cut in with a bit grin and a huge bowl of strawberry ice cream, "Which means we're going to do everything we can to help my little girl remember who she is, who we are, and what her place is in our lives."

I smiled shamelessly back at him and hugged his outstretched arm, enjoying the warmth that emanated from him.

I don't feel too good all of a sudden, but I can't tell if it's because I'm still guilty or because I willingly ate onions- of all things- for dinner.

In chorus as dad kissed my hair, everyone spoke with a smile, "Welcome home."

I ignored the pang in my chest as I saw a shadow of my old family behind them and replied, "I'm home."

*-(O_O)-*

Three years later, I was sitting on a bench with my sister beside me. We were idly licking ice cream cones after practice at the dojo. As per usual, my entire body hurt, but that was just what it takes to be good at fighting. Hard work, determination and some kind of strategy.

Rika was just as tired as myself. She would be fine if she could get the technique down that we were learning, but she was self-taught to fight, and honed her skills in street fights where anything goes. She tended to resort to downright dirty tactics when she came close to winning. This ended up with her getting more work than strictly necessary.

She was far ahead of me physically, but I learned that if I used my brain and predicted her next moves, I could beat her in a fair match when she didn't cheat with a weapon.

Still, though, she had almost four years of a head start on me in professional training, not to mention she was- like- born to fight everything that can talk back to her and get in her way.

She heaved a sigh and turned to lean her back on the bottom of the bench- taking up the rest of the space on it- and swung her legs onto my thighs, ignoring my grunt when she "accidentally" hit me in the stomach.

"Why do you do this to me?" I moaned letting my head fall over the back, trying in vain to ignore the pain coming from my pressured, sore thighs.

She just snickered and purposefully kicked me in the stomach again. Another place that was sore.

It would be so nice if she could remain in a quiet, non-threatening mood for more than half an hour on end while in public. There's no need to glare at every other child she sees with their parents.

Our parents were absolutely busy. Mom got a massive promotion, which meant she had to be away for more hours every day. Dad was on a case ninety-percent of the time, and his job didn't care about holidays like mom's. It was a change from when I was still Ria.

My mom used to be home almost all the time, because she worked from home, and dad would only be gone for about nine hours everyday but Saturday.

This time around, I spent a lot less time with my parents, but I loved them just as much (even if I still felt a bit guilty, that would unfortunately never change). I hadn't met any grandparents, and it felt like something was missing because of that, but I just had to remind myself I had who I had and I was fine again.

Even though it had been three years- which was pretty hard to believe- I felt like I had left only a few days ago. This feeling contradicted the fact it was getting harder to remember my elders. I ould still freshly remember the voices and faces of my siblings, but momma and dad were sinking away.

Despite my own feelings, my plans for the canon of where I now resided were already being put into action. I was too hesitant and unclear of how to change things directly to do anything but prepare. The question of my sight was answered when a translucent menace had floated into the house one day we were all at home at relaxing.

I had been in the dining room, minding my own business as I drew flowers as I watched the television that was running in the living room.

Imagine my surprise when I looked back down at my drawing to find a head sittting there, staring at me.

I screamed and threw my pencil at it before running into the living room to hide behind my sister.

The rest of my kin had been in there, by coincidence as a few were moving around instead of being lazy in front of a screen. The figure came floating into the room through the wall. This was the day I learned all of my family could see spirits.

Mom "eep"ed as dad stared at in disbelief. Rika was asleep while standing up again and Shin had dropped his phone from his startled grasp. I pointed at it, screaming to knock them all out of their funk, "Ghost!"

The man floating there looked very offended, "It's rude to point, you know."

Only when the floating thing had spoken did the household begin to freak the hell out. Shin got away with screaming cusswords in a different language, German I think it was, and Rika- surprisingly- didn't get immediately in trouble for belting out a few obscenities herself before quickly changing into fake curses.

Even dad dropped an f-bomb before mom went into action and ran at the specter with a picture frame that had been in her hands at the time.

We didn't actually affect the being with the objects that were chucked at him, but he did eventually leave in annoyance. I, unfotrtunately, had to help clean up the thrown objects (that were dead-on in accuracy, I didn't want to fight dad in a knife-throwing battle) even though I had just cowered behind Rika the entire time.

When the hype from the chaos had ended, I went back into the kitchen to finish my drawing with a yawn. I found myself staring at the picture of a flower I'd drawn, before I flipped it over and started drawing a person instead.

That was when I was eleven. There hadn't been any occurances since, and I was a bit frustrated by the fact I had almost literally hit a brick wall in my progress to trying to unlock soul reaper powers in some way or contact my Zanpakuto if possible. I decided I wasn't able to contact my inner self until I becam a soul reaper, and I couldn't become a soul reaper until my soul was knocked out of my body.

I didn't want to see how to do as such. I was feeling selfish and happy to just waste away the time getting there with my new family.

I hadn't quite given up my hopes of changing things, but without a constant reminder that I was supposed to help, it was easy to forget it would happen and just sink into what I was doing here with my family.

My mind couldn't stay where it was, though.

As I shared a wordless moment with my big sister, a roar shook the very ground beneath us. I shoved the last piece of cone into my mouth and shoved my sister's legs off of me, rising to my feet before she even knew what was happening.

I widened my stance, looking around for the source of the pressure that pounded on my shoulders painfully. The normal people had cleared away, probably becasue it felt like damn explosion when that roar ripped through. I turned my head left and right, up and down, searching for the monster that I could feel nearby.

A drop kick to the back and a shout of, "Look out!" Alerted me that my sister was perfectly aware of the danger we were currently in.

On instict, I rolled to the side and avoided a heavy hit that sent me flying. I landed in a skid with my arms in an X in front of my face so I could somewhat protect my face and reach out in a punch if need be while I examined the field of the current scuffle. I gave a strangled gargle when something slammed into my back and sent me towards the ground forehead first.

My vision went temporarily black before I climbed back to my feet and lunged forward just barely avoiding another blow.

I took that chance to look at something other than the dust and whipped towards my attacker. The creature before me was a shining example of the typical hollow. It was humanoid with blades for arms and had a large hole straigt through its chest.

"Holy crap!" I screamed before running as it gave terrifying chase.

Well, running wasn't exactly a good idea, because I felt a sharp pain in my back and chest before I hit the ground face-first again.

I clambered to my feet, shaking violently. I was suddenly very cold. My eyes, as if controlled, looked downdowndown until they saw and acknowledged the form bleeding out on the ground. I was staring at a purple-haired tween whose red eyes were wide and dulled, staring at something far into the distance, who just so happened to have a massive crimson hole where her heart should have been.

Crap.

*-(O_O)-*

Well, that went longer than I anticipated, but once she gets thinking, she just doesn't stop until something that was supposed to happen next chapter pops up ahead of time.

Review, maybe? It would be pretty nice to know what someone who's reading the words from my head thinks.

Stay awesome!^^