Author's Note: My interest in Bleach has been revived since the anime is restarting very soon. I will be working on this new story as well as my other story, The Price of Power. For this story, I have taken many liberties with the canon. Many characters have been altered in minor to major ways, but they should still be recognizable. The Bleach universe for this story in general is much more gritty, grimdark, and lewd.

In summary, this story will be a complete rewrite of Bleach starting from the beginning.


Heavy rain and car exhaust fumes made Ichigo Kurosaki question if this Saturday job was worth the pay. Pushing trolleys at a downtown supermarket was work fit for only those unskilled like himself. A fifteen-year-old high school student, he was technically under the legal working age, but his height, lanky build, and "bleached" unruly hair gave him the appearance of a troubled young man fresh out of school. He only lacked gang tattoos and violent scars to match the look.

Pushing a dozen trolleys up the parking lot, Ichigo held his breath as a black car sped toward him from behind. Its driver-side mirror nearly hit his elbow. The windows were tinted, though judging from numerous dents and scratches, one could guess what kind of person the driver was. Hoodlums and criminals often roamed this part of town. Ichigo was long used to it. He could handle them.

Ichigo steered the trolleys into a side entrance and parked them next to the others. He glanced at the clock above the checkout lines, saw that his hour of overtime was already up. 5:13PM. His family was already preparing dinner at home. They wouldn't wait for him.

One of his co-workers, probably a student from Karakura University, was lounging on a bench, exhausted only an hour into his shift. He was as skinny as Ichigo, but his physical endurance was not as comparable.

Ichigo threw back his raincoat hood and sat next to him. "Tough day, eh?"

His eyes widened as though in surprise. After a few seconds, he found his voice: "It's hard pushing trolleys uphill in the rain. I don't know how you do it so easily."

"You'll get used to it."

His head shook. "And some asshole broke bottles of vinegar in aisle six."

"That explains the smell." The lingering odor barely affected Ichigo. With conscious effort, he willed himself to disregard it, and his mind seemingly was able to erase the odor from his sense of smell.

"He said it was an accident, but I saw him do it on purpose."

Ichigo almost didn't care. "Tell your shift manager."

"She knows, but the guy bought two trolleys worth of groceries, so they let him go without a warning."

That sounded about right. No surprise. Ichigo shrugged. "Then forget about it. Don't let it bother you."

"Yeah, yeah, of course." His head lazed to the side. He scratched his neck. In the action, the clink clink clink of metallic chains was a tad startling.

Under dim light, Ichigo hadn't noticed there was a chain attached to a semi-transparent chest. This was a ghost.

Ichigo tried to smile. "My shift's up. I'll talk to you later. Seeya tomorrow." This was all he could do for them—friendly company. A promise of company to curb their loneliness. Only he could see and hear them. Eventually this one, as with all other ghosts, would pass on to the afterlife. Maybe tonight. Maybe next week. Maybe in a year.

"Seeya."

Ichigo stood and headed off, quickly signing his name on the employee registrar on his way out through the back where forklifts waited for overnight deliveries. His boots left grimy prints on the floor. A middle-age man in overalls yelled something vile. Ichigo ignored him and scowled out the back entrance at the drizzle. He briskly walked on, hood up.

As he came by an alley between apartment blocks, loud voices pulled his attention. Could be trouble.

It was a group of young men, early twenties, four of them. One was tall and fat, wearing a thick fur coat; he looked like a bear, a gang leader. And the other three were his lackeys: one skinny man with arms covered in colorful tattoos, an ordinary-looking man with square glasses, and another tattooed man of bulky toned physique, but he was the shortest of the four.

"Oh, I know what you want, wearing something like that here," the gang leader said.

Someone else scoffed.

Ichigo walked closer. The sight wrenched his gut in furious disgust.

They were pestering a woman. More than pestering. They trapped her in a corner. And she was young. Very young. A teenager. Her damp white T-shirt stuck to her petite frame, her pleated miniskirt was a little too short for polite company, and her sandals were centuries out of fashion. She wore her short blonde hair in adorable pigtails. Her pearly skin was flawless. Her face was pixie-cute and feisty. She was ready to put up a fight.

"Hey!" Ichigo bellowed, his knuckles cracking, his deep roar echoing back at him. "What the hell are you doing?! Get away from her!"

Heads turned.

Then it all happened in an instant.

The gang leader drew a small knife from his pocket, but the moment he pointed the blade in Ichigo's direction, he dropped the knife and fell onto his knees as though pushed down by an invisible force. His eyes bulged. He wheezed for air. His lackeys were in similar submissive positions. They palmed the ground until their elbows gave way one by one, their cheeks slapping onto wet concrete.

And although Ichigo tried best to spare the girl, his control over his secret power was sloppy at best. Directing this force was like wrangling a high-pressure hose, and she was standing far too close to the spray. He was going to run in to help, but it wasn't needed. She was still standing, somehow.

Ichigo brushed aside his surprise and weakened the downward force just enough for the four men to breathe. "This is your only warning. Get the hell out of my sight—or we're going to need four ambulances. Do you understand me?"

They whimpered and nodded. The fat gang leader grunted in agreement.

Ichigo reigned in his power by concentrating on the center of his body and willing the invisible force to collapse back on himself. The feeling was somewhat akin to pushing two magnets together, north-to-north, and once the magnets touched, they clung to each other instead of repelling.

Like rats released from cages, they bolted in opposite directions, abandoning each other.

The girl stood still. There was bleak surprise in her light-brown eyes, which quickly became recognition. She pointed at him. "I know you! You're Ichigo Kurosaki. You look exactly like Shiba."

He was close to losing balance. "How do you know my name? And who's Shiba?"

She blinked, once, twice. Then she was smug. "Nevermind, I must be thinking of someone else." She crossed arms under her small breasts, looking away slightly. "Well, what are you waiting for? A naughty reward? I don't think so."

"Naughty?" His voice was ten notes higher. He caught his eyes before they dipped to her skirt. His face was warmer by a few degrees. "No, I'm going to take you home."

Her eyes narrowed. "And do what exactly?"

He didn't blame her for being so untrusting. "Nothing. I only want to get you home safely, kid. Are your parents home? What's their number? I can call them with my cell phone."

Now she was glaring. "Just because I'm short doesn't mean I'm a child, dumbass! And the name's Hiyori, not kid! I don't need your help!" She closed the gap between them with impossible speed. Suddenly her wooden sandal was in her grasp, and she slapped him across the jaw with it.

He felt the force of a speeding tanker truck before he felt the pain. He was sent hurtling backward. The back of his head hit the ground. White blotches filled his vision for a moment. He pulled himself onto his feet, snarling, "What the hell was that for?!"

Hiyori was gone.

Ichigo's scowl fell away as he looked around. He had heard no footsteps. The only footprints on the concrete were those of the gangsters on top of his own. It was as if she had vanished into thin air.

"Hiyori?" he called.

No answer.

"Hiyori?!" he shouted, his voice echoing.

He sprinted down the alley, glanced right and left, saw only passing traffic.

He exhaled and shook his head. Annoyed and tired and hungry, he couldn't be bothered searching for her. Whatever… She was most likely fine, especially when she was able to stand under the force of his secret power. She had to be like him. Maybe she had a special vanishing ability as well—teleportation powers like those from anime. It wasn't so astonishing to finally encounter someone else like himself; he had long reasoned that he couldn't be the only person out of billions to posses these powers. The chances were too slim for him to be the only one.

As Ichigo headed off toward the subway station, he noticed a minor ache from deep in his nose. Salty wetness touched his lips. He wiped away the trail of blood, used to it. This was the after-effect of using his secret power. Surface blood vessels were flimsy things and tended to burst in the outpour. His own body was too fragile to withstand his own power for extended durations.

But at least this time it wasn't a bloody eye or worse. A shiver broke out at the thought.

He cleared his mind meditatively and walked faster.

For once, both he and the subway train was on time. As usual, it was packed full of evening commuters. Most were salary-men in suits. Ichigo kept his eyes closed while shoulders and arms continuously rubbed and bumped against him. If only he could teleport.

I have to find her and learn how she did that, he thought.

Hiyori. It wasn't an uncommon given name. He made a mental note to look in phone books.

Thirty minutes later, he was walking down suburban streets, still pondering. He must have replayed the encounter in his mind a hundred times already. Each replay of their conversation he stumbled on something she had said. She knew who he was, and he looked exactly like someone called Shiba. Who was Shiba? His best guess was some obscure celebrity. The only person of similar looks that Ichigo knew of was his own father, Isshin Kuosaki. However, the resemblance wasn't very exact. Discounting the hair color difference, Ichigo's face was leaner, shaper, more angular. But if one were to squint under a dark night sky…

No, this all made no sense.

But then how did she know his name?

Was she spying on him?

Damn, it made no sense.

A girl's scream tore into the night, "Help! Help! Someone help!"

Ichigo was already running. "Yuzu!"

Then there was a shriek. It wasn't Yuzu's. This was a distorted shriek, ten times louder, a thousand wine glasses shattering combined with a wolf's howl. It was layered and guttural, reverberating his Ichigo's chest cavity, resonating with something within in. And the closer he ran, the heavier his body became, a pressure in the air weighing down on him. He realized what it was.

It was the same as his power.

For the first time in years, fear pulsed through him.

He skidded to a stop before a beast not of this world. The thing—he could only call it a thing—was a fifteen-foot-tall beast, roughly humanoid, with flailing elongated arms that ended in disproportionately large hands. Its legs were short while its torso was long. The moon shone through a gaping circular hole in its chest. Above all, it wore a white mask, decorated with red and yellow spiral markings at the sides.

The thing was holding Yuzu like a doll.

"Let her go!" Ichigo yelled.

The thing's jaw unhinged, showing blocky teeth and a long tongue. Its breath reeked of mold and rotting meat. It greeted him with that horrible distorted shriek.

Ichigo unleashed the full weight of his secret power, but it was useless. Panic boiled in his stomach. He picked up the first thing he could, his neighbor's rake, as if it would help in this situation, and ran at the thing. He swung the rake in a trained diagonal slash.

Yuzu was tossed aside as the thing balled fingers into a giant club-like fist. The speed of its punch was a blur of leathery black skin.

Ichigo ducked and rolled.

The thing was already on him, seized him in a crushing grasp.

Crack, his right arm broke. The pain was overwhelming. He blacked out for a split second while the thing kept squeezing, snapping bone after bone, blood gushing from his wounds.

The thing's head turned. Again it shrieked, threw Ichigo down the street. He rolled and flipped over half a dozen times before crashing into a tree trunk.

Suddenly the pain lessened many fold. He became light headed. He was looking at his own mangled body, at a trail of his own smeared blood mixed with freshly cut grass and dirt. A long chain hung from his chest.

He was dead.

He was a ghost.

The thing had killed him.

And something else had killed the thing. Its body was in two pieces on the ground, clean-cut from shoulder to hip. The pieces began disintegrating, slowly then rapidly until nothing remained.

Ichigo didn't breathe while he took in the scene of destruction. Yuzu, karin, Dad, they were unconscious but not badly injured. It looked like the thing had attacked their barbecue dinner. Steaks were burning on the grill, which was unharmed unlike everything else.

Over the dining area, on an oak tree's high branch stood a figure. She loosely held a katana in one hand. Her short black skirt was paired with a baggy robe-like shirt that left her midriff exposed, way too much skin exposed for a battle attire. Her hair was raven-black, shoulder-length. She was quite short and petite like Hiyori. Her face was just as cute but much more stoic. Her brilliant violet eyes were pitying—pitying him.

Her body fuzzed and disappeared, then her slender legs appeared in front of him with a scratchy sound. "You don't seem surprised to see me; in fact, you're relieved that I'm here. Do you know what I am?" Her sad voice was regal. Like a princess.

He looked up at her. He caught a tiny peek of her panties. Lacy white. A teenage boy's smirk took over his expression.

She also smirked. She didn't cover herself. "Answer my question, Human," she said, a playful lilt in her tone.

Maybe this was all a dream. Maybe he was going into shock. But the fact that he was now a ghost didn't bother him as much as he had imagined, merely slightly. Seeing he had died for his family, bought enough time for this sexy stranger to kill that thing, he was comfortable knowing his life had come to an end. He would rather himself be dead than his sisters.

"I said answer my question," the strange sword-wielding girl said, a touch irritated. Her stance shifted, her legs a couple inches wider, which gave him a better view up her skirt.

His face heated. Good to know ghosts could blush. His ghostly body felt just like his living body except lighter in a way. He wasn't tired anymore, though he was still hungry.

The girl's eyes widened in such a crazy way. "Answer me and I'll take off some of my clothing. How about it?"

This was not the time for teenage lusts to ignite. His mouth watered as he said, "You're like me. Or what I was before I died just then. You can see ghosts, and you can exude a special power that's an invisible force. I can't disappear and reappear like you though. I don't own a real sword either."

Her face went blank. She was silent for a dozen seconds. Slowly her eyes widened in marvel. "Yes, you are speaking the truth. I can sense your spirit energy. Your spiritual pressure is suppressed, but it's not perfect. I can't believe a mere Human could have…" she trailed off in unreadable thought.

He couldn't stop himself from saying in a high-pitched voice, "I answered your question." His face was on fire. He hadn't been so forward with a girl before. He wasn't quite sure why he was acting this way. A stupid hooligan.

Her eyebrow arched. "Oh, right. Forgive me." She stepped out of her Geta sandals. "There, as promised. Satisfied?"

Part of him wanted to scream at her. He bit his tongue, scowling at her panties.

"Anyway," she said, "I must take you to the Seireitei."

"The what?"

"The Seireitei. Soul Society capital city. I, Rukia Kuchiki of Squad 11 of the Gotei 13, am a Shinigami. It is part of my duty to guide deceased souls in the living world to the other side before they turn into Hollows, monstrous beings like the one that murdered you." She pointed at his chain with her katana. "See how that link at the end is breaking away and turning to dust. When your severed Chain of Fate is all gone, you will turn into a Hollow. If that happens, I will have to cut you down to release your soul."

He assumed she was joking.

She wasn't joking.

"So," he coughed. "So you're also a ghost?"

"A soul, yes. It will all be explained once you arrive in the Soul Society. I will send you there with a Konso. Don't worry, it is painless. Someone will be waiting on the other side to guide you." She knelt and presented her Katana's hilt. "Tell me—"

"Wait," he almost shouted.

Facial muscles around her eye twitched in annoyance. "What?"

He looked at his family one last time. Goodbye. "Turn off that grill when you're done. It might start a fire."

She chuckled. A lovely sound. "I will. Now, tell me your name."

"Ichigo Kurosaki."

"I will give your name to my superiors. I will see you soon, Ichigo." There was a lot of expectation in her tone. She pressed the Katana's hilt against his forehead.

A sense of peace overcame him as the world faded to white.