Welcome back to another chapter of A Gray Spirit... —_— Yeah, that's not going to work for me. Note to self: Never say "Welcome back to another chapter..." At least my friends can't say that I didn't try to make things interesting. I need someone to recommend a good introduction. Ooh! Maybe... Crap! I have no more creative juice to make an interesting introduction. Oh well. Maybe the next chapter's intro will be much more—What's the word? Intriguing!
Anyways, I do not own any of the characters from either series, but my own.
Enjoy!
Chapter 2: Homecoming
The mysterious shopkeeper hums happily to an old tune while another man with white hair wearing a pair of glasses looked at the unconscious girl with worry. Right beside the unconscious girl is an unconscious man clad in a black shihakushou with a white haori and a sword strapped to his waist. The two of them continue to wait for something to happen between the two bodies.
The male shinigami continues to struggle against the spirit of the hollow inside the girl. The girl could do nothing as she watches the shinigami take blow after blow from the hollow that is threatening to eat her alive. The male shinigami struggles to lift himself off of the nonexistent ground. The girl quickly runs over to him giving him concern look. The male is battered, bruised, and bleeding all over, but she could do nothing in her state to save him. For she has no weapon to use and only her savior could save her, but one look at him and she knows that he is losing strength.
"Leave me, and save yourself," she says to the shinigami. He ignores her and pushes her back before charging again at the hollow spirit. The hollow overwhelms him once again, but this time the shinigami has no strength left to stand and welcomes his death. He can hear the girl crying for him to leave. He closes his eyes and waits for death to swallow him up, but it never came. The shinigami taichou opens his eyes once more, only to see a sixteen-year-old male teen with black wavy hair that stops slightly above his shoulders. His skin is dark and ashen, and he wears a noble Victorian style clothing. His eyes are covered by the black top hat that his wearing, and a red scar running down the left side of his face. However, what really caught the shinigami taichou's attention was the white cloak that was somehow holding back the hollow, and his left hand.
"I have subdued the hollow for you. Now, you just need to do the rest," the boy said to the shinigami, and it is an offer the shinigami will not refuse. The shinigami gathers his remaining reiatsu into his sword and unleashes it upon the subdued hollow. With the hollow finally vanquished, the girl runs over to the two male figures.
"You're the shinigami that saved me the other day, right?! Are you alright? They didn't scold you too hard, did they?" The dark skinned boy chuckles at the shinigami's predicament. He turns around and begins to walk away as a weird portal materializes out of nowhere.
"Wait!" The boy halts at the girl's command and turns his head slightly around, eyes still being hidden by his top hat: "Who are you?" she asks him, wanting to thank him for saving her and the shinigami. The boy ponders before giving her a gentle smile.
"You may call me… Noah," he answers and finally walks through the strange portal. Once "Noah" had passed through the portal, the portal, itself, disappears.
He watches the two of them safely wake up into the waking world from within his ark. The boy places his top hat on a small table right next to him, but his golden eyes never left the screen. The dark ash skin slowly begins to recess back to his normal fair skin, his black wavy hair turns completely white, and the color of his eyes turn to a beautiful amethyst purple. The stigma across his forehead disappears completely.
Eight-year-old Kurosaki Ichigo goes completely still as his mother is lying on the cold, wet ground of her own blood.
"Kaa-san?" There were no words coming from her lifeless body as the little boy gently shakes his mother as if she were asleep.
"Kaa-san?" he said, still trying to "wake" her up from her eternal slumber. He repeats kaa-san over and over as his voice becomes louder and louder to the point of screaming his lungs out. Ichigo's tears would not stop coming, still shaking his mother but with more force each time he calls her. The pitter patters of the rain continue on, his body now drenched to the core and his mother's lifeblood still running out of her body from the deep and nasty gash. Ichigo sobs over the corpse of his dead mother.
The rain suddenly stops hitting the small boy. The Kurosaki boy looks up to see who had stopped the rain from falling onto to him. A dark-skinned, sixteen-year-old male wearing gentlemen-like clothing and a black top hat. The hat covered the mysterious teen's eyes from others. The young man also had a black umbrella covering the little boy from the rain. The stranger stretches out his right hand to him.
"Saa, kaerimashou. Your father is worried about you," When Ichigo doesn't reply, the stranger carries him and walks over to the Kurosaki clinic. The stranger knocks on the doors of the clinic, and the father, himself, opens the door. The teen raises the umbrella, so the father knows who they are. The former shinigami recognizes the male stranger carrying his only son, covered in blood, in his arm. Ichigo is then past into his father's arms. The teen pulls his top hat lower as tears begin to flow.
"I'm sorry," The former knew what the stranger was talking about. His wife is gone.
"I didn't make it in time. By the time I got there, the culprit had already left, and your wife was dead when I found him," The teen looks at Ichigo before turning around.
"Ichigo-kun, no matter what happens don't stop, keep walking," the stranger said to the little boy and walks away from the Kurosaki clinic.
"Tou-san?" Ichigo whimpered.
"Hm?"
"Who is that man?" Ichigo asked, wiping the tears that stained his cheeks.
"He calls himself Noah, and he is a friend of mine and your mother's. Now, let's get you warmed up with a nice warm bath and warm clothes," said his father, tending to his child now that his wife is longer with them. The former shinigami can only wait for "Noah's" next homecoming.
Translations:
Kaa-san: mother/mom
Tou-san: father/dad
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Preview to the next chapter:
Somewhere nearby, a large puddle of blood drips from the mouth of a large skeletal creature. The dead girl cries out for help, but no one comes for her as the large creature proceeds to eat her head first.