Chapter # 1: Prologue.
Ichigo was lost, completely and utterly lost. He wondered how long it had been since he started floating in this void. He really didn't care anymore. He couldn't move his body, with his eyes barely moving inside his closed eyelids. In his mind, his life was constantly being replayed from start to finish. When this had started, he had thought that this was his punishment for failing. He had raged, he had cried, shouted, lashed out but to no avail. There was no one here besides him. This was his personal hell. He didn't even know how he was still alive in this void, but then realized that he was soul and didn't exactly have a physical body that needed to eat or breathe.
The only thing keeping him from ending himself was the final memory that he had seen hundreds of times by now, that being the world around him being destroyed as he was flung away. At first he didn't know who did it but after seeing his entire life a few hundred times and living the final moments of his world again and again, he saw the small things.
As he had landed the final blow on Yhwach and Zangetsu had broken, the world around them had also started disintegrating. He had realized after sometime that even though he had defeated the one causing the damage, that didn't repair the damage already done and clearly the damage was bad enough that the others couldn't keep everything together. He was rushing towards wherever his friends were when he was flung away. After some replays, he saw Orihime from the corner of his eyes, her arms outstretched towards him, while her body disintegrated with the world around her. He didn't even know that she was so close to him during the fight. It didn't take much to connect them together. It was clear that Orihime had used her powers to save him.
He couldn't off himself due to this. His life was saved by someone else so he couldn't waste their sacrifice. He didn't know if everyone else was alive or not, but he had little hope for that. As he lived his life again and again, he started to notice the little things that he was too angry to realize the first few times. He saw the little changes happening around him. He saw what his stubbornness and bullheadedness did to those around him. There were many things he could have done better if he had paid more attention, especially to his friends and family.
First of all was of course his mother. If he had stopped at her call, she would probably have survived that night, even if she would had then died due to Yhwach. At the very least, he wouldn't have lived with the guilt and feeling that he was the cause for her death. Then his father, someone who had lost the love of his life and was forced to raise three children by himself. His father, someone who had known very little of the human world and was still learning how to live like a human had done his best to open a clinic to support his children without his wife, children who could barely survive without a mother.
The man had done all that while still appearing as a goofy father so that they wouldn't feel the absence of their mother too much. As he had lived his life over and over again, he had started to see the sadness and grimace that crossed his father's face every once in a while before he quickly masked them so that they wouldn't notice.
Then came his sisters. He had created a habit of keeping his troubles to himself and bottling his emotions, rarely showing anything besides aggression. That had seemed to be a constant cause of frustrations to everyone around him but especially his sisters. He had friends that he had gone through a lot with and yet he tried to move his troubles away from them. He realized how much it would have hurt them, since he would be pretty angry if they tried to push him away and would have barged in regardless of their feelings.
The more he saw, the more he realized his own stupidity. He was willing to hurt himself to save others not realising how much that hurt them. He ignored a lot of things in his pursuit for strength and answers. While in the end he may have gotten his answers and calmed down, just knowing how much he had hurt others on the way was not very fun.
As he was thinking, he realized that his thought process was also slowing down. His vast amount of spiritual powers were finally near exhaustion. After some time, his soul may also disintegrate. He was ready to accept his end. He had held on to his life as long as he could since this life was saved by another but he was tired, his power was exhausted and his sanity barely intact. As he finally let go of any power left in him, he felt a strong jerk and then pain. His mind couldn't keep up with the suddenness and shut down.
Ichigo woke up from what he felt was the best sleep he ever had. He slowly came to himself and sat up with a jerk as the last feeling he felt came back. He opened his eyes and for the first time in what felt like hundreds of years saw something. He looked around and saw sand all around him and then realized that he was in a crater that he probably made himself. He slowly got up and tried walking up the crater but he felt very weak and had to sit back down. His spiritual powers slowly started to come back and he felt better and better as his reserves filled up.
The moment he felt good enough to stand, he went straight up. He kept going up until he reached the clouds and started looking around. He looked as far as he could but still only saw yellow sand. He decided to go even further up and looked around and finally saw something other than yellow sand but as he looked further and further away, he couldn't the horizon or the curve of the planet he had landed on. Either the planet was impossibly huge or the less likely possibility was that he had landed on a flat landmass of some sort, in the end, it didn't matter to him where he was, he had a feeling that he wouldn't be here for long.
He came back down and made his way to the green hills that he saw. It didn't take him long to enter a forest. While he didn't need to eat or anything like that, he did feel like taking a bath. Following any sound of water, he came across a small pond of clear water. He looked at himself and saw himself still wearing his tattered Shihakusho with dried blood covering parts of his body. He looked at his right hand and saw a black chain wound tightly on his forearm.
"Is this all that's left of Zangetsu?" Ichigo asked no one in particular.
He looked around and after seeing and feeling no one close, quickly took of his tattered clothes and entered the body of clear water. After cleaning himself, he also washed his clothes as best as he could with just water and hung them to dry. He sat down at the shallowest part of the water and decided to enter his inner world. What he saw was not very encouraging.
The buildings were finally right side up but none of them were intact and everything was fully submerged in water. There was barely any light in his inner world and he was only able to see due to his enhanced eyesight. The sky was covered with clouds and it was still raining. He moved around slowly to find any signs of Zangetsu, he felt like if he did anything more than that, he might destroy his inner world completely. He came back outside after some more time looking around and saw that the sun was starting to set. He got out of the water, shook off any water and wore his clothes.
As he was walking around thinking about what to do with his life he remembered something he learned from the Fullbringers. He knew that they could manipulate any matter containing a soul. He also knew that Zangetsu was a part of his soul given form, so could he manipulate the chain around his hand?
"Well, I don't have anything else to do." Ichigo muttered to himself.
He remembered that he had to interact with the soul of the matter he was trying to manipulate and since Zangetsu was a part of his own soul, it shouldn't be that hard. He focused on the chain on his right hand and tried to just move it around before changing its shape. Moving the chain around was easy, it felt like it was a part of himself but changing its shape was difficult. He tried just willing it to change into a sword but that didn't seem to do anything. Next he formed a detailed image of a sword similar to his first Bankai and willed the chain into that shape and it worked. One moment he was holding a chain and the next he was holding a sword similar to his first Bankai with the only difference being the guard, it was a simple rectangle.
As he was admiring the feeling of holding an actual sword after what felt like a thousand years, he heard a sound some distance away and quickly made his way towards it. What he found was a large spider, large enough to reach his knees, attacking a sheep. He looked at the spider and the sheep for a few more seconds feeling that there was something wrong with the picture. The large spider was not that surprising, he had seen stranger things, but there was definitely something wrong here, he just couldn't put his finger on it. He looked at the spectacle until the spider killed the sheep and shook his head before deciding to go up a tree and rest for the night.
He was in a completely new world without a goal or anything to do for however long he was here, he still had the feeling that it wouldn't be long but nonetheless he rather think about that in the morning without the strange creatures that had suddenly appeared. He closed his eyes and fell asleep easily but it was a restless one. He kept hearing Zangetsu in his dreams, calling out to him. Telling him to find all the pieces. He woke up the next morning without a problem, well rested but Zangetsu's words still ringing inside his head.
It didn't take him all that long to figure out what he had to find. Most likely the pieces of Zangetsu were also flung with him and he supposed that he had find them. With a goal to strive for, he felt a bit better. First he decided that he had to find some intelligent life on this planet. He jumped off the tree and started walking around. He spread his spiritual senses as far as he could and started to feel for any other spiritual signs around him. It didn't take very long to find a few dozen signs together in a single place. He quickly made his way to it and found a quaint yet strange little village. Why strange? Because all the people in the village were identical, near perfect copies of each other. All of them had big noses, green eyes and were wearing the exact same brown colored clothes. There were only minor differences between them. He looked for a few more minutes before deciding against asking them anything.
As he was walking away from the village, he came across another person. This one was different. First of all, he was covered entirely with shining blue armor and was also carrying a sword made of the same material. The only thing visible were the forearms and the lower part of the face. Before he could say anything, the person in front of him asked him a question that genuinely confused him.
"Hey, what kind of mod are you using?"
Ichigo tilted his head to show his confusion.
"You don't know?" The man asked.
"No, not really." Ichigo shook his head.
"You new or something?" The man asked again.
"Yes, I arrived yesterday. A friend sent me here." Ichigo decided to tell some of the truth.
"So completely new huh. Wanna come with me? I'm going to kill the Ender Dragon." The man said with a smirk.
When the man said the word Dragon, the chain on his right hand vibrated. Well, now he had to go and see this dragon.
"Ender Dragon?" Ichigo still asked.
"Yeah, you know, the final boss. Damn you really are completely new." The man started walking after telling him to follow.
After nearly an hour of trekking through different terrains and the man following a green crystallized eye, of all things, they came upon a fortress of some sort.
"This is a stronghold. Inside is a portal that requires 12 Eyes of Ender to open it. Once you enter the portal, you have to find the Ender Dragon. There are many strategies on how to defeat it safely but this time I want to try to fight it head on and see if I can do it..." The man kept on blabbering as they walked but he wasn't really paying attention to what he was saying. He was so engrossed in looking around and tuning the man out that when he came to himself, they were standing in front of a shifting black portal.
"Man, we were lucky this time, very few mobs and it seems your mod is very powerful. None of the mobs did anything to you. But that's for later, for now let's go and defeat the dragon." Saying that, the man jumped into the portal. He looked at it for a while before shrugging and following the man.
There was complete blackness for a while then he was suddenly standing some distance away from some towers. The man was nowhere to be seen but he didn't have time to ponder over that as he suddenly heard a loud roar. The chain on his hand started to vibrate. He looked towards where the roar came from and saw a large black dragon with shining purple eyes and white horns and white highlights along the spine. He wasn't given any time to admire the beast as it quickly took to the sky and threw poison? at him. Ichigo quickly held his breath and jumped back. He once again transformed the chain into a sword and jumped up to attack the dragon. His sword met the long neck of the dragon. What happened next was once again genuinely confusing. His sword passed right through and separated the head from the body. He landed softly on his feet while the body of the dragon fell right behind him.
He changed the sword back into a chain and made his way towards the decapitated head. The chain started to vibrate more and more the closer he got to the head. Suddenly one of the horns on the head separated and flew towards the chain and quickly merged with it. With that as a signal, the entire body and the separated head started to light up and exploded into motes of light. He closed his eyes for a moment before opening them and was fascinated to see yellow and green orbs of light scattered around him. The orbs started to move towards him and were quickly absorbed by him.
He kept looking with surprise as all the orbs were absorbed by him and his body was quickly being surrounded by a cocoon. Once his body was completely encased, he had a feeling of going up. He decided that it didn't really matter and just sat cross legged to focus in to see if something had changed after absorbing a piece of Zangetsu.
As soon as Ichigo was out of sight, the man that had helped him reach the Dragon showed up at the sight looking slightly worse for wear.
"Damn those Ender Men are annoying and where the hell is the new kid? Don't tell me he died. Humph doesn't matter. He knows how to get here, he should really start from zero though, that friend of his was a real troll." He made his way towards the towers and saw an egg in the middle of the nest.
"Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu..."
A/N : Not my first FanFic but I can't get access to the first one I wrote and so I decided to try again on a different platform. English is not my first or even second language so please point out any mistakes you find. Finally there's not really enough for a proper review or anything like that so please stick around?