Alright, I've finally got the next chapter completed. Now Ichigo takes center stage, the enemy has begun to reveal itself.

Chapter 2 – Souls Burned to Ash

-Late Afternoon- Karakura Town

The sun had already fallen behind the houses, casting long shadows. The last rays of golden orange sunlight gleamed over the quiet streets where the young man with bright orange hair walked. Ichigo Kurosaki slowly walked down the familiar streets on the way home after another long day of school. It had been a nice day at school and the best part had been that not a single hollow had appeared; in fact not a single hollow had shown up in Karakura Town for days now. The funny thing was Ichigo was actually depressed about this, he knew he should feel glad about not having to deal with any soul reaper related problems, but he wasn't.

"Man, what is wrong with me? You'd think I would be glad not to have to fight since Aizen got locked up," Ichigo moaned. Yep, he was officially bored out of his mind.

It had been almost a full two years since that faithful night when a lone shinigami following a hollow, walked through the wall of his bedroom, and was kicked by Ichigo in the back of the head. The shinigami, or soul reaper, was Rukia Kuchiki and during their first meeting the hollow attacked Ichigo's family. During the middle of the fight, Rukia was injured and the only way to slay the hollow was for Ichigo to become a soul reaper, which he chose to do without a second thought. Unexpectedly though his spiritual power caused Rukia to lose all of her powers, making Ichigo a full soul reaper who could wield a zanpakuto that was a large as he was.

From that point on Ichigo suddenly found his whole perspective of the world turned upside down. Sure, he had always seen ghosts, but now he was fighting hollows (giant monsters that were really souls that had lost their center), and was soon clashing with the Soul Society. From there, things only got crazier. Within a period of six months, he gained soul reaper powers, lost them, got them back, learned his zanpakuto's name, mastered bankai (a soul reaper's ultimate power), discovered he had hollow powers, learned to control a hollow mask, and finally mastered the final release form of his zanpakuto. His rate of growth was beyond anything ever seen before, but in part he had been spurred on by many enemies.

His visit to the Soul Society had also exposed a massive conspiracy surrounding Rukia's execution for giving him his powers. Aizen, one of the captains of the Soul Society, was discovered, not only to have been a traitor who was secretly looking for a way to become greater than any shinigami or a hollow, but also planned to destroy all of Karakura Town so he could create a key to enter the spirit king's domain and kill him. Why do you ask? Because he believed that if one has the power to change the foundations of the universe, he should.

I still can't believe that bastard thought Ichigo as he reached the street where his house was, he nearly killed Rukia, kidnapped Orihime, threatened the lives of my friends, all because he could.

"Well, at least I took him down in the end."

It's been five months since that day but it still gives me nightmares thinking about what would've happen if Urahara's sealing hadn't worked, he mused as he opened the door to the Kurosaki Clinic.

"Now at long last there've been no major conflicts and I've gotten re-" he quickly ducked down low as a large dark shape flew at him.

"WELCOME HOME ICHI-" yelled Isshian Kurosaki as he flew towards Ichigo, but was cut off quickly with a sudden mid-air leg kick to the ribs, as Ichigo flipped onto his back and sent his old man spinning a good inch into the wall.

"Ugh, honestly dad you never learn" Ichigo stood up, unsure if his old man was still conscious. "You're never going to beat me, so cut it out already!"

"…yes…kick…good" Isshian almost blacked out.

"Jeez, I can see why you retired."

"Hi Ichigo, I'm glad you're back. Dinner's almost ready" said the young girl sweetly with short dirty-blond hair and wearing an apron.

"Okay Yuzu. I'll just drop my bag off" Ichigo replied to his sister.

"Oh, I almost forgot. Ichigo, Rukia came by this afternoon" Yuzu continued. "She said she was doing some patrolling this evening so she wanted to let you know and then headed off to Orihime's place."

"Right, I'll go visit them after dinner. It'll give me something to do."

He took two steps, and then side-stepped and swung his book bag into Isshian's face with a distinct crunching noise as he attempted a sneak attack, who immediately crashed to the ground unmoving.

"Well, at least your strength hasn't weakened over the last month. Goat chin still can't lay a hand on you" said Kairn dryly as she walked over to the now unconscious man twitching on the floor.

He headed upstairs to drop off his book bag. Yuzu and Karin seem to have finally come to terms with all that's happened, along with the recent attack on the town. After he had used final Getsuga Tensho to overcome Aizen he had decided to tell everyone the truth about what had been going on.

It was also at this point, because he had used the final Getsuga, he would lose all his spiritual powers. At first it seemed he really had given up all his powers, and then the unexpected happened. A few days after he had recovered from the end of the Winter War; he was surprised to find his sword Zengetsu standing upright in the ally next to his house in its bankai form. When he retrieved it he heard Zengetsu's voice: you're quite the crazy one Ichigo, you fought so hard to gain all that power and at your peak you threw it away to take out one guy. It seems however, that fate does not feel we should give up. I was somehow able to keep my consensus together so I could reform myself. I'm warning you though, we barely have any strength right now and it'll take a while to get it back. Don't do anything stupid from now on, okay.

"Yeah, such thing Zengetsu, the problem is there hasn't been anything happening to actually get myself into trouble with" mumbled Ichigo to himself.

Still, all this down time had allowed him to start recovering his spiritual powers. He could now reach bankai again and all his normal shinigami abilities were restored, but he was nowhere near his strongest. That said, his powers placed him somewhere just above a captain's level and no hollow could hope to cope with that.

He opened the door to his room and dropped his bag on the desk and sat down on his bed. Then he noticed that things seemed a little too quiet. "Hey Kon, come out already it's me" said Ichigo gruffly. No response.

"Great, I bet he ran off again to be with Rukia. That stupid stuffed animal is going to get himself in trouble one of these days if he keeps walking around like this." He laid down looking up at the ceiling, never realizing just how true his words would become later.

-Karakura High School-

The last rays of light receded from the school grounds as a small stuffed animal lion sneaked through the front gate.

"Stupid Ichigo, leaving me alone all day, constantly having to hide from the monster (aka Yuzu), and now Rukia is back and you hog up all of nee-san's time," whined Kon as he hurried to the front doors. "This time though, I'm going to be the one with Rukia and finally show her my complete devotion." He started fanaticizing about Rukia hugging him and saying how happy she was to see him followed by Orihime crushing him to her chest. "Ahh yeah."

"Are you sure they were here?"

"Huh?" said Kon as he heard a voice from the top of the school.

"Of course I'm sure, you just had to be the lazy bitch and make us late. Now they've already left."

"Oh please, you were so busy trying to make that gigai look pretty you made us late."

"Hey! I could take you any day slut."

"Sure, if it doesn't mess up your skin."

"Gerrr…"

The voices belonged to two figures standing on the roof of the school looking out toward the city. One was obviously female, Kon could definitely tell from her incredible size cleavage and slim figure. I bet they're even bigger than Orithime's! This was impressive to Kon since he never thought someone could top his idol.

The other figure with the bitchy attitude was male, but other than that it was hard to identify (no breasts). He did however have a serious twitch, like he wasn't in full control of his body. The thing that made Kon suddenly wary however, was the spiritual pressure coming from these two. It was huge, but more importantly, full of malevolence that felt like a thick sludge. Whatever these two were after, it was not good.

"So what do we do now?" asked the male.

"My favorite pastime: soul hunting. And I think we'll send the death reapers to that Ichigo brat first, he's got the most power of the lot" replied the female.

Crap! These guys are after Ichigo, which usually means that they're after Rukia and Orihime too! I've gotta warn them! He turned and started to head for the gate at top speed.

The woman noticed a small shadow headed out of the school groups. "It appears we had a visitor. I'll go meet him" she said.

Kon had only gotten about ten feet outside the gate before a large shape landed in front of him. "Well, well what do we have here? It appears someone's teddy bear ran away from home" the woman said seductively. "You should know little one, it's not safe to be alone outside in the dark" she continued maliciously as she approached. "You never know what might crawl out of the shadows."

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Screamed Kon in terrified panic, knowing very well what was probably in store for him: pain, lots of it.

And that was the last sound Kon made that night.

-Kurosaki Clinic-

Ichigo paused as he looked up from cleaning the table from dinner. Strange, I could have sworn that I heard a high girly scream.

"Hurry up Ichigo, are you zoning out?" asked Yuzu who was washing dishes.

"Oh, sorry. Here are the last plates."

Setting the plates on the counter he headed towards the stairs. "Ok, I'm going over to Orihime's place now to see how their doing."

"Try not to be too late tonight, it might be a weekend but I don't want you useless tomorrow" Yuzu said worriedly.

"Right, right. There probably won't be any hollows even out tonight."

He started up the stairs to go retrieve his shinigami badge. That sound earlier was probably nothing, but I do wonder what happened to that perverted mod soul. He was about to open the door to his room when he heard a sudden explosion downstairs that shook the whole house, then followed by a terrified scream from Yuzu.

"What the?! What happened" yelled Ichigo as he tore down the stairs skipping the last three in a jump. Standing up from landing in a squat he took a look around the living room. What he saw gave him a slight sensation of Déjà vu: the front of the house had a huge hole in the wall opening out onto the street; wood splinters and dust covered everything, and something terrifying was attacking his family again. The change this time (other than his old man being unconscious during the middle of the attack) was that it was not a hollow going for his sisters, rather some strange cloaked figures all carrying long scythes.

"Hey! Who the hell are you guys!" yelled Ichigo in rage.

One of the figures turned toward him, a pair of glowing red eyes and a white toothed grin stared back. It opened its mouth and let off a giggling laugh and charged with its scythe raised high.

Ichigo smoothly dodged the swing and returned with a solid punch to the freak's face, sending it flying out the hole his partners had made, and an inch into the wall on the other side of the street.

Any laughing the creatures were making stopped in surprise. They knew their target was a soul reaper, but there was nothing about a human who could actually hurt them. Instantly, six pairs of angry eyes turned in unison to the orange-haired teen. "Get the hell away from my sisters" he roared as he shifted his stance to a more combative pose.

All the death reapers charged at once, just what Ichigo wanted. He side-stepped the first two, evading their swings, punched the third one from behind into the floorboards, and charged up the stairs. Thinking their prey was running, the death reapers regrouped and glided up the stairs, craving the blood-bath to come. Suddenly, a flash occurred at the first door on the landing, followed by an explosion knocking all the hooded demons back down to the first floor. Standing on the top stair was Ichigo, but his clothes had changed: he now wore a black kimono with a white in-shirt and a red strap across his chest holding a sword to his back. Reaching back, the wrapping covering the blade uncoiled revealing the sword, and what a sword it was; a massive cleaver-like blade that was as long as he was tall and a good two feet at its widest point.

"I don't know what you guys are, or why you're here, but when you attack my family you are asking to get destroyed," Ichigo declared addressing them and then blasted off the landing and into the group. He effectively cut the one still stuck in the floor and the guy at the front of the pack in one swipe before any of them could react. The remaining reapers jumped back, one went to the left and another went right in an attempt to encircle him. Grabbing the loose wrapping off the handle Ichigo released his blade and started swinging it like a chain mace, catching two more reapers and reducing them to black vapor. The fifth reaper swung its blade at Ichigo's side, but Ichigo had already retracted his blade and blocked with a scrapping of metal. A flick of the wrist and his blade slipped past the reaper's thin blade and sliced right through its side, cutting it in thirds.

The last death reaper had finally come to the conclusion that they had no chance against this powerhouse. It turned and fled out the hole they had made and reached his slowly recovering fellow reaper.

"Must flee. No chance. Must run," it spoke to its comrade in the crackly voice.

"Sorry punk, you don't get to retreat," Ichigo had appeared in front of them with his classic frown on his face.

"Getsuga Tensho!" A massive wave of spiritual power in the form of a massive blade strike of blue energy crashed into the reapers, effectively obliterating them. The attack left a huge gash in the ground a good meter deep and no remains of the death reapers.

Quickly Ichigo returned to the house and checked on his old man (still out cold, I wonder if he's been out all evening) and walked over to his siblings. "Yuzu, Kairn. Are you two alright?"

"Y-yeah Ichigo we're alright" replied Yuzu shakily.

"Well, they didn't have much of a chance, especially with you bringing the walls down around them" Kairn mentioned in a dry tone looking at the deep gouges in the walls.

Ichigo had the care to at least look shocked at the damage. Crap! I've got to not fight in the house in soul reaper form. He walked over to the remains of one hooded figure as it faded away. What were those things? They looked like what you would expect soul reapers to look like with a name like that. Then he thought of something worrisome: what if he wasn't the only one attacked?

"Yuzu, Kairn. I'm going out to check up on the others. There's a good chance that they've been attacked by these freaks too.

"Ok, be careful" whispered Yuzu.

With a shift of movement Ichigo disappeared in a flash as he raced towards Orihime's place, hoping nothing had happened to them. Knowing his luck, that was very unlikely.

End Chapter…

I hope all you Bleach fans liked this chapter, I tried to make Ichigo as accurate as possible. Next chapter will have his friends enter the fight with mixed results, and later, Moka shall return to continue her chase. Please review as much as you want, any ideas or support is appreciated.