Chapter # 2: A New World.
He will end up in DxD World, after this. And yes, the first version is on Webnovel, with the same name, it's quite different from this one but I'll be using many of the same elements.
Ichigo was still in his inner world looking for any changes that had occurred. The most noticeable being the clear sky. While everything was still submerged in water, it was no longer raining and it may have been his imagination but it also seemed like the water level had decreased. He felt like the number of details had also increased, like there were proper streets and sidewalks, trees, buildings other than skyscrapers, but it could also be the fact that before this he hadn't really paid such close attention to his inner world. As he was trying to find anymore differences, he felt a jerk. It seemed like his body had finally landed somewhere.
Ichigo came to the real world to find the cocoon around him slowly dispersing. He got up and stretched his body to venture out into wherever he had landed. It only took a few more seconds for the cocoon to fully dissolve and for him to find himself in the middle of a dense forest. He spread his senses as far as he could but didn't feel any large presence around. Everything alive around him was small probably forest critters. There was also a strange energy flowing through the forest. He was attracted to this energy but at the same time felt that it would be bad if he absorbed it in large quantities.
He tentatively allowed a small amount to be absorbed and waited to see the result. Nothing strange happened. He felt a bit more invigorated than before but otherwise there was nothing different about him. He tried once again but this time didn't absorb any of this strange energy but connected his spiritual energy with it. What happened next was amazing. He felt with wide eyed amazement as his spiritual sense was magnified by the hundreds and eventually came to cover the entire forest. Suddenly he could feel all the living beings that resided in the forest. What they were doing and what they were feeling. If he focused, he could even picture them.
He knew if his mind wasn't so much beyond a normal human's, it would have been destroyed by the sudden burst of information. As it was, his mind was slowly processing all the new information it had gained so suddenly. Slowly but surely a map of the whole forest was being created in his mind. He was understanding every nook and cranny of this place. Every hidden cave, underground water supply, hollow tree, birds nest, ant hill, and so much more. Frankly, it was a bit too detailed but he let it run its course. As the map was being created, he was suddenly bombarded by negative emotions. The feelings of greed, lust, anger, hate, helplessness, despair, all of it from the same place. It didn't really take him all that long to decide on what to do.
He quickly made his way to where he had felt the emotions from, following his new map, and soon came upon a very cliché sort of situation. As he was standing on a tree, he saw a large group of bandits surrounding a dozen or so horse drawn carriages with a few dead bodies scattered around and the some bandits holding few of the young females. He really didn't need his more than human mind or his newest ability to sense emotions to guess where this would go next. But even with all that, knowing where this would go and what the bandits would do to the young ladies and the remaining people, he felt... nothing, barely a trickle of anger. If he had witnessed this in his own world, before living his own life countless times, before nearly losing his sanity, he would have been furious. He would have gone down screaming and swinging, maiming the bandits, saving the damsels and leaving before they could say 'thank you'.
But not now. Now he had gained a bit of wisdom, wisdom at the cost of most of his sanity, but wisdom nonetheless. Right now he knew his situation. He was in a completely different world, with who knows what kind of culture, what kind of creatures, what kind of powers and what kind of rules. So, he decided to use some of that hard earned wisdom to try to gain something for himself in this messed up scenario. Not very Ichigo like but who said that wisdom made one better? In his opinion, it made them more practical. It made them see the whole picture. If he saved them and left, he would have to find another source of information, a source that may or may not be friendly. In this case, at least the source would be thankful. He had to make himself more human though as showing his full powers would more than likely terrify them.
Ichigo came up with a quick plan to act as if he was struggling and eke out a win sustaining 'minor injuries'. It would be a bit difficult since nearly every, if not all, the fights he had been in were life or death scenario, where he had to try his best and hold back nothing. Nonetheless it was doable. After that, they would help him treat his 'injuries' and he would ask them a few questions, acting as a young man who was venturing outside his home town for the first time. Not the best plan, but Ichigo had already accepted that he was not one for planning. As he was ready to jump down, he came to a realization that all the 'plans' he had come up with had him helping the strangers, not one plan had him simply leave them to their fate.
"Guess some things never change." He said to himself. To be honest, he liked helping others. It was a part of him, a part of him that he'd rather not change.
First of all, he changed his chain into a sword and jumped behind one of the bandits holding a hostage and cut off the arm around the girl right from the shoulder. He came to another quick realization, 'Still rather not kill. Good to know.' He had killed before but he'd rather not do it if he didn't have to.
As the bandit screamed, he pulled the girl behind him and went to next one. He made sure to keep his speed below a certain level which allowed some of them to react but he was holding a sword and most of them had knives? No, kunai, the weapon ninjas used. He had longer reach and quicker strikes. He had freed the last hostage when one of the bandits finally landed a hit on him. He allowed the hit to land of course, he wanted to see if they could cut through his defenses. Apparently they couldn't. When the strike landed on his back, sparks flew, his tattered robe had another cut, but he didn't even have a scratch. By this time the other people from the caravan realized that he was there to help them and that they should help him before he got overwhelmed, from their perspective, that is.
They jumped the bandits nearest to them and quickly put them down since they not paying attention to them. For Ichigo, he saw everything, every movement done by everyone. During the following chaos, he compressed and pulled his powers in as tightly as he could and let a few more attacks land on him to cause a few shallow cuts but just in case, he was going to let an arrow hit him in the shoulder, well, he was going to but someone from the caravan took it for him. Like literally jumped in front of the arrow to take it. He didn't expect that, he saw it but still didn't think someone would actually do it. The others quickly took the archer out and soon all the bandits were rounded up. Tied and maimed, but still alive. The shallow cuts that he got were already healed a few seconds after he got them. His passive healing was not something he could just turn off. The people around him weren't surprised by that, so maybe fast healing was common?
He was standing a bit away from the others as they cried and consoled each other. Now that he was seeing them from up close and giving them his attention, he could see that most of them were not in a good shape. It seemed like they hadn't eaten for weeks and only a few of them were able bodied enough to do any actual work. 'Refugees maybe?' Ichigo thought to himself. As he was lost in his thoughts, one of them, the healthy looking ones, broke away from the group and made his way towards him looking nervous.
"This... thank you for saving us savior, but we don't... we don't have anything of value besides some food and a small amount of Ryo to give you." The man finished, fidgeting in his place. Seeing a man fidget in front of him like that was just... just wrong.
"Ah, I don't care. I will take what Ryo you have but other than that, I need some information... and clothes if you have any extra." Ichigo said with a shrug and added the last bit as an afterthought, looking down at his own clothes. The man nodded and quickly made his way back to the group.
It seemed that altruism was not a very common thing in this world. They fully believed that he helped them because he wanted something from them in return. 'Well, they aren't exactly wrong.' The group seemed to discuss for a bit before the same man came back to him with a small bundle. Ichigo opened the bundle and looked inside. Inside he saw a small bundle of green bills and some clothes. He took the bills and looked at them thoroughly, making it seem like he was counting them, all the while the man in front of him fidgeted nervously. He shrugged before looking at the clothes and saw a plain pair of black shirt and pants. The man in front of him sagged in relief as he nodded.
Seeing the man not going back to his group Ichigo raised his eyebrow. Taking the hint, the man quickly asked,
"We... we wish to know what kind of information you want. We are refugees, so we don't really know much."
"Where are you from and where are you going?" Ichigo asked before he jumped to any conclusions.
"We are from the Mist and were hoping to seek refuge in or around Konoha." Ichigo didn't know either of those, so he kept quiet and stared at the man.
"The... there was another massacre, so we decided to leave before we were killed as well." The man didn't disappoint.
"Another?" Ichigo was just surprised and vocalized it, but the man took it as a question and started talking again.
"Y-yes. No one is happy with the fourth Mizukage's rule so some of the ninja clans gathered for a coup but were massacred in return without much damage on the Mizukage's forces. Many civilians who helped were also killed to make an example." The man kept saying a few more things but he had already understood the main points. There was a tyrant ruling over them with a bloody fist and they wanted out. Now how to gain general knowledge from them without sounding too suspicious. 'Let's go with bullshitting.'
"Hmm, that's interesting and all but you see I just came out of secluded village with little to no information of the outside world. What I want to know are the recent events that happened in the last 10-15 years." That should be believable enough.
"That's... alright." The man clearly wanted to say something but was still afraid of him. He didn't bother asking. He was led back to the group as they once again started walking and one of the older men in the group was decided to be the one to give him the explanation.
And so began a rather short explanation. He learned that there was a war less than a decade ago that lasted for nearly a decade in this world. A few noteworthy characters that appeared during the war. All the main players in the war that were in turn the main powers in this world. The ranking of said powers in terms of their, well, prowess and a few other things. There was one word that gained a reaction from his chain though, the word 'Tailed Beasts'. He tried asking a bit more about them but only learned that there were nine, from one tailed to nine tailed. Nothing else on these beasts. 'It seems like these beasts are a close kept secret of the powers that be in this world.' He wondered how he could learn more about them and decided not to think about it for the moment. As the old man finished his explanation, he started hesitating.
"What is it?" Ichigo asked after waiting for a while.
"Are you willing to protect us on this journey? We promise to give you adequate compensation for it." The old man said quickly and closed his eyes, seemingly waiting to be hit? How bad was their situation and for how long for them to behave like this? He decided that it was not his business, but he was still curious about how they would pay him.
"How will you pay me?" Ichigo asked.
"We sent people in small batches so we wouldn't be discovered. But the situation was too bad to take it slowly. We have communicated with the first few people sent and some of them have sent letters that they have saved some money to help us settle. We will give you some money from that." The old man answered. Ichigo answered after thinking for a while.
"Sure, why not." The old man sighed with relief. The old man went back to join the group while he stayed at the back of the group. He called one of them out to tell them he was going to change his clothes and went behind some large trees to change. As he was changing his clothes he realized that he was still a soul, a spiritual entity. He knew that they could affect the physical world easily enough, but the people shouldn't have been able to see him, at least not all of them. Either the people of this world were fundamentally different, or there was something different about him. He hadn't felt any different, a bit more powerful maybe, but even then nothing substantial.
Maybe his powers had increased by so much that it didn't really matter what he was, or maybe it was something else. While on that topic, he knew that once spiritual pressure reached a point, it would simply crush any other soul in the vicinity. He also knew that his power was far beyond that point, 'So why aren't these people being affected?' Or rather why weren't they affected when he compressed his powers. He thought for a while before shrugging and decided that he didn't really care and would rather not worry about something he may never understand. Right now his goal was to gather all the pieces of Zangetsu and deciding what to do with his life. He sighed before rejoining the group, putting everything behind for now.
A/N: Right now I'm basically experimenting with this story. I am writing whatever I like without thinking much about it. I do research, but currently I'm trying to improve my writing and storytelling. You can expect a lot of holes in this story because of that. If you find an extremely obvious one, please tell me. While I may not necessarily change it, I will try my best so that something similar doesn't happen again. Thank You.