A/N: Hey, all! Here's to my first chapter of my first fanfic ever! Enjoy, and pleaassee review.
A girl sat among many students in the large lecture hall. Her chin was propped up on her fist and an annoyed scowl was painted on her features.
"…and then you evaluate the anti-derivative of the integral by…" droned the voice of the stout professor in front of the hall.
The girl's scowl on her face was not there because of the professor's dull instructing, but rather from the continuous criticisms from a figure floating near her shoulder. The floating figure looked like a balding old man with mini spectacles perched on his large nose. None of the other students around the girl seemed to notice that a floating ghost was sitting on the air near her head, nor seem to hear his nonstop comments about the living professor talking in front of the class.
"Now, I wonder where universities are hiring their professors from. This one hardly fits the profile required of a knowledgeable instructor. Universities must be getting quite desperate to employ someone as incapable as him-" the floating figure said.
On the girl's armrest sat a younger-looking ghost around the age of 10. The young ghost tilted her head in evaluation of the living professor. "I thought he was a good teacher…"
The girl in between the two transparent figures closed her eyes in frustration.
I can't even get peace when I'm in class. Ridiculous…
Ever since I was a child, I've been able to see and talk to ghosts. I had been a mediator of sorts, being their only connection to the society they did not belong in. They came and went, depending on their situation when they died. More than a sort of "unfinished business" that the living understood ghosts to possess, the spirits who had a strong attachment to the living world would be the ones who stayed around. Some ghosts refused to wander far from their place of attachment; others would follow me around to enlighten me with their death stories or seemingly just to annoy me like the old man and little Kara who were with me now.
As the minute hand neared the hour, the students in the lecture hall gathered their belongings to go to their next classes. The girl gratefully sighed as she grabbed her books from near her feet, walking out of the lecture hall as quickly as she could with her ghostly friends following behind her.
"I feel terrible for you, dear Isis. Having to put up with that bogus professor for the rest of the semester…"
The girl, Isis, carefully schooled her features into a nonchalant expression as she walked along the sidewalk that passed through many restaurants and occasional abandoned warehouses.
Isis, intent on ignoring the chattering dead professor, didn't notice her other ghost friend, Kara, get distracted by flashing lights coming from one of the abandoned warehouses. It was not until a few minutes later when the dead professor gave up talking to Isis and instead turned to talk with Kara, who was nowhere in sight.
"AHH! My dear student is GONE!" he shrieked in horror.
Isis tilted her nose up in annoyance. "Quit your whining, old man," she started, "Kara's a ghost. What can possibly happen to her-?"
And it was at that moment Isis was interrupted by a little girl's shriek in the distance that sounded distinctly like Kara's voice.
Isis spun around. "Kara!" she gasped.
The dead professor grabbed the few hairs on his head in alarm. "Ahh, Isis! You must save my pupil!"
"I'm on it, old man." Isis bolted in the direction where she heard the scream, throwing the textbooks she was holding at the dead professor. "Take care of these," she called out over her shoulder, not noticing that the textbooks flew right through the dead professor.
Two boys from the same university stared at the textbooks near their feet, stunned that a girl had suddenly thrown them on the floor and ran away, asking no one in particular to take care of the books.
"Hey, did that girl just drop her books and run?" asked one of the boys.
The other chirped, "Looks like it. Hey, are you in need of any textbooks?"
Both of them approached the two books on the floor, studying the titles. They were oblivious to the fact that a dead professor hovered over them, malice glinting through his spectacles.
"Math and chemistry? I already have books for those classes."
"Well, we could always sell them…"
The dead professor growled in anger. "If you take those textbooks with you I will haunt you forever," he hissed.
A strange look passed over the boys' faces as they felt a chill wind.
One of them cleared their throats and muttered, "You know, I think we'll be late to our next class. We'd better get a move on if we don't want to get kicked out..."
The other boy nodded emphatically and they both walked swiftly off to their next class.
Isis panted heavily while running past the busy restaurants on the street.
Where is she, where is she… I've never been able to feel a ghost's presence that well… Maybe if I try harder…uhh…over there…?
Isis looked towards an alleyway in between two restaurants skeptically when a sudden scream sounded to her left where a deserted warehouse stood.
She bolted through the oblivious crowd to the side of the building, hidden from view. Isis approached a side door that was boarded up, the planks loose from many sneak-ins. She yanked the boards off the door and bounded through, straining her eyes to look for moving figures in the dark.
A maniacal laughter sounded to her left. Isis's eyes slowly adjusted to the dark, and she gasped when she saw a large demonic figure with an ugly mask clutching her unconscious ghost friend in his claws.
"D-demon?" she croaked.
"You pathetic human! Come to save your little ghost friend, have you?" The demon with the mask shrieked with laughter.
Isis bent to pick up a long plank behind her. "Yeah, and to kick your ass!" she yelled with more gusto than she was actually feeling.
She charged at the demon with the plank held in both her hands. When she neared him, the demon swiped his arm at her head. Isis instinctively ducked and grabbed his wrist as it passed over her head. She kicked her feet up at his chin, holding his wrist still in her free hand. Her feet made impact and the demon's head knocked backward.
This girl's strength and speed are too fast for a human…but…
"…It's not enough!" the demon shrieked.
He grabbed Isis's leg that was still up in the air and chucked her towards the wall of the warehouse. Isis grabbed her head in her hands to protect herself for the impact and hit the wall with a loud bang. She groaned as she slid down the wall and shaking, looked up at the demon who maliciously chuckled at her helpless state.
His laugh was short-lived, however, as a blurry figure behind the demon jumped into the air and slashed down his sword which sliced cleanly through the demon's head.
The demon disintegrated quickly, a dumbfounded expression on the face behind the mask. Kara dropped to the floor as the demon's fist around her disappeared.
Isis incredulously looked at the short figure who was dusting off his clothes in a casual manner. It was a boy who looked to be around 16 years of age with strikingly white, gravity-defying hair. He had bangs that fell across his left eye and a seemingly permanent scowl painted on his brow. What Isis found the strangest about this boy were his clothes. He had on black robes with big sleeves that looked like a dress at first, but Isis realized were large pants after longer inspection. Over this, the boy wore white sleeveless robes and a green cloth was draped over his shoulder which seemed to serve the purpose of holding his scabbard for the sword on his back. Isis raised an eyebrow when she saw that he wore strange socks under funny sandals.
Who wears socks with sandals these days?
"Who the hell are you?" Isis blurted, narrowing her eyes after finishing her inspection of the boy.
The boy abruptly stopped brushing dust off his funny robes and turned his eyes towards her. Raising his eyebrows, he looked around him to see if she was talking to someone else, and then slowly raised his hand to point at himself.
"You talkin' to me?" he asked. He walked over to Isis who flinched when he put a finger on her forehead. "You can see me?"
Isis swatted his hand away. "Yes, I can see you. I'm not blind!"
The boy narrowed his eyes, a frown settling back into his features. "But you'rehuman."
"So is everyone else on this planet, you freak. Well, except for those demon thingies and ghosts…" Isis retorted, but her eyes went wide when she remembered her ghost friend. "Kara!"
Isis scrambled to her feet and ran to her ghost friend, slowly lifting her dainty head up. "Kara," she called.
Kara suddenly opened her mouth in a wide yawn, stretching her arms out. "Mm? Isis? What's going on?"
Kara turned her head to see the boy standing over them. "Who are you, mister?"
"I am a Death God," the boy replied.
Kara innocently asked, "Have you come to take me away?"
The boy nodded.
Isis blanched at the boy's words. Death God?
A peaceful smile appeared on Kara's lips. "I see. I'll be ready to leave with the old professor, then."
"I have already sent him to Soul Society after I promised that I would return some books to the owner," the boy said calmly.
"Okay, then," Kara said cheerfully. She clasped her hands together as she turned to Isis. "Thank you, Isis, for taking care of me and the professor."
"S-Sure," Isis replied, an astonished expression on her face.
The boy stamped the end of his hilt on Kara's forehead where a symbol appeared. All of a sudden, Kara was enveloped in a flash of light and left in her wake was a black butterfly that gently flew out of the warehouse.
Isis immediately turned to the boy after Kara was nowhere in sight. "Alright, brat, who are you! First, you slay that demon with one slash of your sword. And then you make Kara disappear with that symbols you stamped on her forehead…WHAT are you!"
Isis stood up as the boy rose. He scowled at her with indignation.
"FIRST of all, brat! I must be older than your grandma's grandma. Second, that demon is actually a hollow. Hollows are lost souls that gradually transform when they are in anguish or other hollows change them. Third, the stamp that I placed on your spirit's forehead allows for her to return safely to Soul Society. And as you already heard me tell that spirit, I am a Death God," the boy retorted with his arms crossed over his chest.
Isis's stubborn expression fell as she tried to absorb everything he said. "Older than my grandma's grandma?...What the hell is Soul Society?"
"It's…sort of like a Heaven for souls. It's where you go after you die. Souls usually find their way there, but if they don't, they stay among the living until they become a hollow or are taken over by them."
"Ah, I see. So the work of a Death God is to…hmm…show the wandering souls the way to Soul Society?" Isis pondered the new information she received.
The boy harrumphed in indignation. "I am the Captain of the 10th Division. My rank doesn't require me to do minor jobs as that. I was merely taking care of businessnearby when I sensed a hollow in the area."
He swiftly turned around and walked off. "Which reminds me; I'm running a bit late. You're a strange human to be able to see us as well as souls and hollows… I don't think it so important that I must report it back to my head captain. Just keep low and don't interfere with any Death God's work if ever you come across another one."
The boy suddenly stopped. "By the way, I assume you're the owner of those textbooks? I left them on top of the roof. Have fun retrieving them."
Isis stared at his retreating back and blinked as he suddenly moved so fast he seemed to disappear.
'Wow. What an arrogant little brat,' was all that went through Isis's mind as she shook her head and grit her teeth to prepare herself to climb up the building to get her books back.