Chapter Two: Family Heritage can be a Bitch!
Buru awoke to a stark white room, his eyes opening slowly in order to adjust to the bright light. He was lying on his back, changed out of his school uniform and wearing a hospital gown. Raising his hands up to his face to examine them, to check that he was still him, he let his mind wander to the recent events that had befallen him.
He remembered being taken away from his apartment by a man that walked through doors and on air; who fought Hollows with a frightening ease. Buru had fainted after being taken away but was it all a dream? Maybe, just maybe, he had dreamed all this up, that there had been a gas leak on his block to explain his hallucinations and the explosion. Yes, that fit in perfectly. He just wondered if his friends had been there. Were they alright?
"Oh goody, your awake!" a chipper voice greeted him, taking him out of his hand staring and he turned his head to the side fast in excitement.
"Hima-chan-" but the words died in his throat as he got a good look at the girl that was now approaching him and found it wasn't his friend. "Who are you? Are you my nurse?" he asked, confused.
The girl in front of him had long brownish orange hair and an ample bust which her clothing did nothing to hide. He quickly shifted his eyes to her face, blushing slightly and tried to ignore the jiggle of her chest as she clasped her hands in excitement.
"You could say I'm your nurse. I'm Orihime Inoue," she introduced herself and Buru found her clothing weird for a nurse. It was white but with puffy sleeves that covered her whole arms and the front had an opening where her, um, her- Damn it Buru was blushing again.
"Where am I?" he asked sitting up and trying to get his thoughts away from the nurse's most visible asset. His headache was completely gone and he felt full of energy for some reason. This strange nurse had done wonders but he was fearful of how much the hospital would cost. Probably more than he could afford. He tried not to let the thought of being even more in debt depress him.
"Your in soul society." Orihime said jumping up from where she had momentarily sat down by Buru's bed and revealing a long white skirt covering the bottom half of her body.
"So it wasn't a hallucinations caused by gas?" Buru fretted, feeling tears form in his eyes as his voice got whiny and high pitched. What was he going to do? What was he supposed to do? His life was a mess now, not that it had been any good to begin with.
"Nope." The girl cheerily said clearly not noticing his gloom. "But don't worry I like to make up fantasies too. Like there's this one where I'm in a race running to the save the life of the president when an evil alien pillow descends to vanquish the Earth and I have to eat it before I launch into space and-" Buru's head was spinning as she talked animatedly and he had no idea where the story was going when a light cough stopped her. "Oh right, sorry." She blushed and brushed her skirt. "Ichigo, he's up," she announced and Ichigo who had been standing in the doorway of the room walked in. "Thanks Orihime," he nodded and she left the room.
"So how are you doing?" Ichigo asked and Buru shook his head trying to gather the strength for his voice so to speak. When it still wasn't strong enough he dropped his head into his hands. "What am I supposed to do now?" He asked in a broken whisper.
Ichigo sat in Orihime's seat and crossed his arms over his chest. "Well all you can really do is become a soul reaper now."
"What?" Buru asked in shock removing his hands from his face and staring at Ichigo who was sitting laid back in his chair.
"You don't have to be dead to be one. I'm still alive after all." Ichigo explained.
"But I don't wanna be a soul reaper."
"You have no choice but to be one. Otherwise the monsters will kill you."
"But I can't stay here. I have to go back to my friends. I have to go to school. I need to give Hime-chan my homework!" Buru protested realizing that Hime had asked him the previous day for help on her homework. Without him there, who would help her now? He had no clue where in the world he was but he knew he wanted to go back home.
Ichigo frowned down at him. "I'm sorry," Buru started feeling as maybe he sounded bratty. "I don't mean to sound ungrateful, but thanks for saving me and all. I appreciate it. I really do but now that the monsters haven't attacked me could I go home?"
Ichigo shook his head. "You can't because those monsters won't stop attacking you. You'll be attacked for the rest of your life unless you stay here."
Buru was speechless, his mouth gaping open. "But then..but then..."
"Look I know its a lot to take in, but trust me when I say you need to stay here for your own safety. Your friends will be safer off with out you being there. As long as your in the human world the Hollows will come after you."
"But why will they attack me.."
"It's because of your bloodline. Your descended from the most powerful bloodline we've ever seen. You have soul reaper, quincy, arrancar and some other families blood running through your veins. Once you turned fourteen all that would be unlocked and the monsters would come after you and wouldn't stop until who knows what would happen."
Buru felt his head spinning. He was descended from these powerful bloodlines? But why and how?
"Quincies? Arrancars?" he whispered and Ichigo nodded his head.
"Yea I forgot you don't know what those are. Quincies are like the enemies of soul reapers and arrancars are individuals who have the ability to hollowify or use the powers of hollow to fight."
The power of hollows? Buru clutched his bed sheets for support as he felt the room spinning beneath him. So those monsters blood ran in his veins? No wonder his parents had left him.
"Those three bloodlines aren't too big of a concern, its the fourth one we don't know that worries us. We have never seen the likes of it before and it's quite powerful."
But Buru was having a hard time concentrating on the words. He was feeling faint.
"Eh? Buru. Buru? Buru!" Ichigo's cries faded to a whisper as Buru slipped into darkness.
He awoke to find himself in the same room. He sat up, a bit dizzy.
"Are you okay? You had us worried there." Orihime was back by his side, earnest and concerned eyes gazing down into him.
"Uh, yea." he mumbled.
"You must have fainted from shock." Ichigo was also there. "It's understandable given how much stress you've been under."
"How long was I out?" Buru felt embarrassed and pulled the covers up to hide his face as he laid back down again.
"Only five minutes," Orihime informed him and smiled.
"So this is the guy Ichigo brought?" a loud and abrasive voice filled the room and Buru peeked out from the covers to see what new person had entered the room. A man in the same black garb as Ichigo walked in, his collar pulled down low to reveal a toned chest. He had red spikey hair in a ponytail and tattoos on his brow.
"He fainted? What a wimp," he jeered stopping at the end of Buru's bed. Buru hid under the covers once more, feeling even more and more ashamed by the minute.
"Renji don't be mean to him. Not everyone's like you and is too stupid to not give a fuck about their life's worth." Ichigo's voice had taken on a mix of defensiveness but playfulness.
"Hey, no cursing, Ichigo," Orihime reprimanded.
"Yea no cursing Ichigo, for fucks sake we have a little kid here."
"You too Renji!" Orihime raised her voice.
"Anyways what are we going to do with the kid?" Renji asked and scratched his head. "We gon train him?"
Ichigo shook his head. "Yea we have to. Only problem is he doesn't want to." As the two men discussed how to overcome this issue, Orihime peeked under Buru's blanket. Her pretty face lit up with joy. "Everything will be fine. Just watch."
"Everything is not fine!" Buru whined as he ran for his life from the crazy people that had suddenly appeared in his life.
"Buru wait!" Ichigo cried out before appearing in front of Buru and catching him from going any further. "I promise it won't hurt." he said as he placed Buru down in front of the soul reaper Buru had just meet and who would now kill him. "Rukia here is just going to help you onto your first step of becoming a soul reaper."
Rukia nodded her head. "It is quick and painless process." she reached out her hand towards him that was covered in a fingerless glove with flames riding up and down it.
"No, I don't wanna!" Buru squirmed and yelled frantically as he tried to escape Ichigo's grasp. The orange haired boy was just lightly holding onto his under arms but it was enough to prevent the smaller boy from running anywhere.
"It'll be over before you know it."
"No!" Buru howled like a madman and started kicking at Rukia who dodged each and everyone of his kicks without batting an eye. "Maybe we shouldn't have told him he had to die so to find his soul reaper form."
"You think," Ichigo muttered in annoyance. "That's not even how it works. The soul just gets pushed out of the body is all. But no you had to explain things in a dramatic way and now he doesn't want to do it. I swear it's worse than those pictures you used to explain to me on how reaping works, back when we first met."
"Hey, don't make fun of my art!" Rukia yelled as Ichigo finally let go of Buru. Buru, no longer being held down felt himself propel forward. Rukia was behind him in an instant and she plunged her hand into his back. He didn't feel any pain and wondered if it hadn't worked when he hit the floor. He got up, massaging his sore head when he saw his body, still clad in it's school uniform lying unconscious to his right.
"My body!" he shuffled over to it. "I'm dead! I've died!" he cried out and proceeded to wail over his corpse. Rukia and Ichigo both stared at the wailing boy in silence before glancing at each other uncomfortably.
"Whelp," Rukia threw up her gloved hand. "He's your issue now. I've done my part."
"Wait come back here!" Ichigo cried out angrily but Rukia was already gone.
Gritting his teeth in annoyance he waited for the crying to stop.
An hour later when Buru had finally subsided Ichigo knelt down to him.
"Look Buru let me explain something to you. You see your not dead-" at this Buru started crying again. Ichigo again waited for the boy to stop before he began.
"Your not dead because-" at this the boy started crying again and Ichigo hung his head in frustration. This pattern proceeded until Ichigo eventually avoided the word dead as he found out it was a trigger for the tears.
"So basically your body is just unconscious while your soul, which is the you you right now is free to go slay hollows. In this way you can fly and pass through walls and such. Also once you turn into your soul reaper form you gain a weapon."
"A weapon? You mean like those big scary swords and guns." Buru asked through a heavily stuffed nose. His face had swollen up dramatically because of all his crying and his eyes could barely see.
"Yea," Ichigo gave Buru a once over. "Huh, that's weird, I don't see any."
Buru felt relieved. He was scared of those giant weapons. He didn't want to hurt himself or others with it. "Wait, did you say slay hollows?"
"Yea, your gonna be fighting those things." Ichigo stated and Buru felt his bottom lip tremble. "But their scary"
"Anyways we have to get a weapon for you. I don't understand why you don't have one."
Ichigo motioned for Buru to follow him but Buru glanced down at his unconscious body. "What about me?"
"I'll get Orihime to look over it. You'll be fine. Now come with me. The way to getting the sword won't be easy." Ichigo wrapped a special quilt around himself and Buru. "We're going straight to the top to squad zero, to meet the number one zanpak-to maker."
"Zanpak-to maker?"
"A sword maker," Ichigo answered and soon they were in the middle of the sky floating up.
Meanwhile back in the human society a man wearing a cloak and a hat stood where the apartment complex had once been. Police tape criss crossed the scene forbidding from anyone going in but the man didn't need to go in to know that this was were Buru had lived. He sniffed and took a deep breath in. Yes, Buru had been here, and with him had been the legend of years past, Ichigo Kurosaki. The man smiled. This would be interesting.