"I'll be King!" = Dark Ichigo/Shiro/Hollow speaking

"Never hesitate." = Old Man/Zangetsu speaking


Chapter Two

After that, Ichigo and Ishida started to spend more time together. They went to the clearing two or three times a week where Ishida kept to his promise of teaching him and after he told Chad, he came as well. Although Chad couldn't see ghosts or what Ishida called Hollows, he was quiet and unobtrusive and when Ichigo got frustrated with his lack of progress, Chad would calm him down.

Ichigo found that he liked their presence. He liked spending time with them in the woods, even though it irritated him every time he failed to blend his reiryoku with the reishi around him. It had taken him almost no time at all to learn to sense the reishi in the atmosphere and he was getting better at keeping track of his sisters using it, but for some reason when it came to actually mixing it, it just wasn't working.

Every time he tried to take it in, it would just slide through him like water and come out on the other side no worse for wear.

It was frustrating.

A few weeks after they started training together, he was pulled into his mind again.

By now, Ichigo was used to it and was no longer surprised when he felt the strange vertigo that signaled that he was being pulled into his mindscape and the following rush of a peculiar sort of excitement when he opened his eyes and found himself in the sideways world he called his mind.

This time, it was the Old Man that stood in front of him when he opened his eyes.

"You are having problems." the Old Man stated in a deep stoic voice.

Ichigo didn't bother denying it and just nodded his head.

The Old Man stared at him and said, "You will figure it out. For now, I will teach you swordplay."

"Wh-what?" Ichigo found himself speechless.

The Old Man nodded and continued, "Like Shiro said, you are not only a Quincy and so cannot depend on it solely. You will learn swordplay and once you are strong enough, you will be able to purify the souls when you kill a Hollow. As Shinigami and Quincy are enemies, too many destroyed souls will gather their attention and will only result in you and your friends death and so you need to learn how to purify them and send them on to Soul Society."

Ichigo only nodded as he listened to the Old Man talk more than he had ever heard him speak before.

After that, Ichigo continued to be pulled into his mind every evening as he practiced swordplay with the Old Man and Shiro and each time got his ass soundly handed to him. It seemed neither one of them knew the concept of going easy on someone. They expected Ichigo to get better and power through it and before he knew it, several months had passed with this schedule.

He learned to take in the reishi around him and had finally started to be able to mix it in with his own and make it his. Each time he fought with Shiro and the Old Man, he lasted a little longer than the last time. The big cleaver like sword with a black and red hilt was finally starting to do what he wanted it too and it no longer looked like he was just randomly swinging it around and hoping he would hit something with it. Rather, he was starting to learn how to block and defend, how to redirect and attack and when he should just dodge instead of trying to stop a blow. Regardless, it didn't change the fact that they were brutal in both the methods and expectations.

Somehow though, he didn't want to stop. The feeling of getting stronger was something he needed, the knowledge that he could protect his sisters from Hollows finally allowed him to start sleeping without nightmares every night of them dying. Things were getting better.

When his father hit him and kicked him around in the name of training, he found himself hitting him back on reflex. For some reason, this made his father overjoyed and going crying to the poster of his mother on the wall about how he was finally growing up. This in turn only made Ichigo even more determined to avoid him and his craziness.

Another year passed and Ichigo started seeing a black dressed spirit running around among Karakura who Ishida explained was a Shinigami. He finally managed to make a crude bow with his reiryoku and he and Ishida started following the Shinigami—something that was ridiculously easy as they appeared to only be a foot soldier with no particular sensing abilities—around and watch as they purified Hollows and sent spirits on to Soul Society, something Shiro had finally explained to him as being the good afterlife while a place called Hueco Mundo was the afterlife for Hollows and then there was of course Hell for wicked souls that've sinned before their death. A Shinigami's sword—which are called Zanpankuto according to Shiro—can only purify the actions a soul has taken after death and not before it.

Karin started to see ghosts as well and Ichigo found himself terrified that something was going to happen to her as he had learned that Hollows were attracted to the ones with the most reiryoku which a human had to have more than usual of in order to see ghosts. Thankfully she didn't seem to be able to notice more than an unpleasant sensation when a Hollow got too close to her but Ichigo still threw himself into training with a renewed vigor with the realization that it wasn't just a waiting game anymore.

And then came the day that he killed a Hollow for the first time.

— —

It wasn't a special day.

It wasn't raining, but it wasn't particularly sunny either and neither was it very cloudy. It was just another ordinary day.

Ichigo went to school, met with his friends (and he was still kind of in awe at the fact that he had friends) and when he got home, he helped his sisters with their homework. He avoided his father and once the evening started setting in, he left the house and made his way to the park where he had agreed to meet with Chad and Ishida. They sat down on one of the benches and talked about nothing and everything. They laughed and joked (ok so he did but whatever) and generally just had a good time. Through their time training together, although Chad usually just watched and made observations in the event they missed something, they had grown closer and Ichigo thought that if his mother could see him having friends as great as this, she's be happy for him.

But yes, it was a good day.

And then the Hollow roared and Ichigo could feel it, that terror that went to his bones and made his face pale to the color of death and the complete and utter shutdown of his thoughts. The only thing repeating in his mind was the image of his mother dying.

Next to him, Ishida cursed and leapt to his feet, a bow made of reishi already forming in his hands. Chad was looking around in silent confusion, not being able to see anything wrong but nonetheless trusting his friends to not deceive him. Ichigo found himself frozen on the wooden bench, not able to move a muscle even as the Hollow got louder and therefor closer.

Then the Hollow was at the opening to the park, a dark figure against the mellow setting sun and with a grinning white mask covering what could be its face, if it'd looked even remotely human. The monster was covered in spikes, even its mask, and was walking on all four, a grotesque tongue occasionally rolling out of its mouth and reaching the ground. The black holes that should be eyes were staring fixedly on the bow in his friend's hands, an almost hungry look twisting its otherworldly features into something gruesome. Ichigo stared, the image in front of him overlapping with the one from years ago and he couldn't move.

There was a pressure in the air, something he had never felt before, once because he didn't know how and then because he was never close enough.

His heart beat erratically in chest, a pace so fast he thought it was gonna burst out and kill him. His eyes couldn't move, he found himself staring into the eyes of the beast and no matter how much he wanted to, he just couldn't get his gaze to shift. The coldness of the evening set in and Ichigo was sure he could feel his soul freeze from the sheer dread he was drowning in.

The monster took a step forward and then another. Ishida let out a curse and fired off the blue arrow that formed in his hands. The Hollow ducked and let it fly over its body as its mask opened and let out another roar, this one deep enough that even Chad could hear a trace of it.

From Ishida more arrows flew but none of them hit the target, and as Ichigo finally managed to tear his eyes away from the terrifying visage in front of him to the person he was tentatively starting to call one of his best friends, he could see the sweat on his brow and the way his hands were subtly shaking, a determined expression on his face despite the way his glasses were gradually slipping down his nose. The Hollow got closer to them with every step it took and all Ichigo could think about was his mother. His mother who died to protect him. His mother whose ghost he had never been able to find and when Ishida had told him about what Hollows did with the souls they captured, he had despaired in a way he had never felt before.

His mother who was gone and wasn't even in heaven.

Ichigo turned his eyes from Ishida to the Hollow and stared at it again, noticing the way it seemed to be ignoring him. Apparently the training to pull in his reiryoku and hide it had been more successful than he thought if he was being ignored together with Chad. But he didn't want to be ignored, he didn't want to be overlooked if it meant Ishida wasn't. He didn't want to lose his best friends in a mocking parody of the loss of his mother.

He didn't want to lose anyone any more.

"So fucking do something about it, kid."

The fragile control he had over his powers broke along with Shiro's voice. With a torrent, it left his body and pressed back on the reiatsu attempting to overpower it. It rose and rose and rose in power without Ichigo doing anything and he found himself grateful as he realized Shiro must have control over it. He climbed to his feet, the Hollow now staring at him with a distinctly hungry look on its mask and though later he'd wonder how a mask could show anything at all, now all he could think about was the fact that once again his loved ones were being threatened by a monster. That once again, he stood at the chance of losing something that grounded him.

He strode forward and when the Hollow rose its spirit power to force him down, his own rose in response and the foreign energy just slid right off him. Ichigo took a deep breath in and pulled in as much reishi as he could at the same time. With a crinkle and sizzle, a black bow formed in his hands, the energy burning so hot he doubted anyone else could touch it without being burned to a crisp. He lifted it up and steadied his form like Ishida had taught him.

The Hollow let out another roar and started gathering more speed in its spindly legs. Ichigo dragged in another deep breath and let it out at the same time as an equally black arrow formed on the bow, a color so dark it looked like all the light around it was being sucked into it.

Even as the Hollow charged formed and jumped up, Ichigo stood stil, his eyes narrowed and seeing nothing more but the mask.

Another breath in.

He breathed out and let the arrow go just as the Hollow was about land right in front of him.

It hit the mark without any fanfare.

The Hollow disintegrated in a show of dark light, vanishing right before his eyes. The reiatsu in hands dissipated and he let out a huge breath, his strength leaving him with it. Before he could fall to the ground, Chad was there catching him, gently lowering him down.

"Are you alright, Ichigo?" Chad asked in his quiet voice.

Ichigo couldn't bring himself to answer so he nodded and hoped it was enough. Like always, Chad knew him well enough that it was.

Ishida ran up to them, a panicked look on his usually stoic face. He dropped to his knees in front of where Ichigo was sitting on the ground, a question on the tip of is tongue that he never asked. Instead he stared at Ichigo for a few moments before he let out a sigh that managed to convey his exasperation with him and Ichigo only gave him a sheepish smile in response. "Are you okay?"

Ichigo found that he was starting to feel better, and the shock of what he had done was starting to wear off. "Yeah." he answered, inwardly amused at the worry he could see easing in Ishida's eyes.

Ishida and Chad exchanged a look above him and somehow that was enough to get to him laugh, a small quiet thing that only made them communicate even more with their eyes. That only made him laugh more and before he knew he was laying down and laughing his heart out, the relief he felt at knowing he could beat them—that he could kill his demons—enough to make everything worth it. The relief at knowing that if he became strong enough, he would never have to watch another person he loved die in his place again.

Above him, Chad and Ishida exchanged another look.

— —

That night, instead of sleeping, Ichigo was in his mindscape in the company of his two soul companions.

When he had arrived home, his father had flown at him with a kick that made him duck and kick back out of reflex, which in turn only made Isshin crawl to the poster of his mother and cry about how he was growing up. Ichigo had dutifully ignored him and made his way to his room after he ate dinner with his sisters. In his room, he climbed into his bed and pulled his covers up to his chin, still shaken by what had happened but determined not to worry his family.

He squeezed his eyes shut and prayed for silence and solitude.

A breath in and another out and he was in his mindscape, a steady beat of rain falling from the sky. He didn't open his eyes.

A rustle of fabrics sounded close by. Footsteps approached him. Finally, a hesitant voice said, "That went well."

Ichigo let out a mocking laugh in response and answered, "I thought it would be harder. I thought... I thought killing something was supposed to be harder."

"Well, that's the thing about having so much power," Shiro began, "killing is easy. It's stopping yourself from killing things that's hard."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" Ichigo asked.

"Fuck no! Look, all that shit about feeling bad about killing shit is for humans and beings with hearts. I don't know what the fuck you're angsting about. That Hollow was going to kill you and your friends so you killed it instead. That's natural order, kill or be killed. It ain't nothing to feel bad about."

Ichigo slowly opened his eyes as he felt the rain start to slow down. "You really aren't human, Shiro. I know I did what I had to do, but that doesn't change the fact that I killed someone. That Hollow used to be a normal soul right? And I killed it."

"All you did was send it straight back into the reincarnation cycle." Shiro snapped with a heavy scowl on his face.

"What?" Ichigo sat up with a start, "I thought you said that when I killed Hollows the Quincy way I killed the souls permanently."

"Yeah, well a Quincy isn't all you are and you're the first Shinigami-Quincy hybrid in existence. To get some things wrong is to be expected." Shiro grumbled and continued speaking, "If you want to blame someone for getting it wrong, blame the Old Man, he's the one with all the Quincy powers around here."

"Wait, you don't have any Quincy powers?" Ichigo asked Shiro, astonished.

"No," Shiro growled. "And I don't want any. All souls that Quincy kills are completely erased from existence. It upsets the balance, that's why the Shinigami were so eager to kill them all instead of making honest attempts at negotiating. Not to mention it's a bitch to heal wounds from a Quincy's weapon. Not that it'd be a problem for me, but you know, in general."

Ichigo nodded in acceptance of his words. So the Old Man had Quincy powers. Did that mean that Shiro had Shinigami powers? Somehow, he got the feeling that Shiro would try to kill him for even suggesting it. He probably wouldn't actually kill him, but he'd sure as hell put him in a world of pain.

"So then when I kill Hollows with my Quincy powers, they won't go heaven?"

Shiro turned back to him and stared at him with wide golden eyes for a moment before he burst out laughing. He laughed so hard he fell down on his face and even with the wall muffling his giggles, they could still be heard. Ichigo frowned and glared at him before asking in a harsh voice, "What's so funny?"

"Nothing, nothing," Shiro managed to get out in between his uncontrolled cackling. "it's just that sometimes you're so fucking naïve, it's freaking hilarious."

— —

Time passed. Another year went by. With the knowledge that using his Quincy powers were possible in actual combat, he trained even more with Ishida and Chad had started to take a more active role in their training, not only pointing out mistakes but striving to learn from them too. On their first time training after the death of that Hollow, Chad came to the clearing in the woods with a list of questions prepared. He had a notebook and everything and asked him and Ishida to answer as many of them as they could. Sometimes, Shiro or the Old Man would even jump in and add their own explanations.

They trained together and helped each other study and met up just because. When Hollows got too close because the Shinigami wasn't doing their job, they killed it. More often than not, it was Ichigo that made the final cut to ensure that the souls that made up the Hollows didn't get erased entirely and the Shinigami came looking. Slowly but surely, Chad started to be able to see the Hollows and ghosts as well and his punches could affect even a Hollow.

Ichigo spent hours every evening before he went to sleep in his mindscape, letting Shiro and the Old Man torture him in the name of training. While it notably improved his sword-skills and he got better at hand-to-hand combat as well—because Shiro was the kind of paranoid shit with a superiority complex that demanded he learned all there was to know about fighting—it also left him exhausted in the mornings, as the time he had to sleep was never enough. He got by in school with his grades intact thanks to the help of Ishida and Chad, who were kind (sympathetic) enough to let him constantly borrow their notes.

(Ishida's notes were scary. He had diagrams and illustrations and bullet-lists and key words and underlined sentences. There was a different notebook for every class and they were all equally used and crammed full of as much information as he could squeeze into them. Honestly, Ichigo felt kind of bad for his own in comparison.)

In his mindscape, he fought with a huge khyber knife that when not used was covered in bandages. Likewise, so did the Old Man and Shiro when he fought them. And somehow, despite the fact that Shiro was clearly the more insane one of them, the training with the Old Man was always harder and more life threatening. Sometimes, Ichigo was legitimately afraid that he'd die.

That fear never really went away.

At home, he took care of his sisters. While Yuzu could at most see a faint fuzzy image, Karin could clearly see ghosts. Of course, this was negated by the fact that Karin was very vocal about the fact that she didn't believe in ghosts and therefor they didn't exist, even if she could clearly see them. Shiro always got a morbid kick out of seeing the ghosts deflate when she told them that to their faces while walking right past them like they weren't there. As much as Ichigo pretended otherwise, so did he.

Because Isshin was a useless old man that still cried in front of a poster every time something even remotely interesting happened, Ichigo was the one that took them to school. He dropped Karin off at soccer practice and watched her games when she had them and cheered her on. He taught Yuzu how to cook and he did the laundry or it would never get done while Yuzu took care of the vacuuming. He made bentos and breakfast with the help of Yuzu and made sure they always got their allowance from their father. When Isshin attempted to surprise him by kicking and punching him, he kicked back and despite the fact that it probably didn't make him a good person, he felt no guilt in doing so. Isshin shouldn't dish out what he couldn't handle.

His fiery orange hair gradually got longer, past his shoulder blades, as Ichigo was always occupied with one thing or another and the end result was that he simply didn't have the time to get it cut. From time to time, when the ends were frayed to the point that it caused him physical pain to watch it, Uryū would cut off chunks of it, leaving it uneven in certain places, but still long enough that he could easily drag it into a pony tail keep it out of his face. Unlike other people, he had two younger sisters and knew well how to twist his hair to make braids and other shit he never thought he'd have to worry about.

When Ichigo wasn't paying attention, his eyes slowly took on a more golden hue. They were still mostly brown, but if the light hit them right, they glowed unmistakably golden.

Then High School started and saying that things went weird, was an understatement.

It started very simple.

A girl dressed as a Shinigami entered his bedroom through the wall and didn't even bother to knock.


A/N: And this is the second chapter! Yay! Next chapter is the start of canon. Let's look forward to it!

Also, leave plenty of reviews so I know what you think of this, please. :D

-FantasyDeath