I sat on my bed staring out the window. I hadn't gotten any sleep last night due to what happened. My brother found out my secret and became a Soul Reaper, thanks to that girl. When my alarm went off, I just continued to let it try and wake me.

"Ayame." I turned to see Yuzu, uninjured.

"Yuzu? What happened?" I asked her.

"A truck hit the house, but we're all okay," she said smiling.

"A truck?"


We went outside, and I stood next to Ichigo staring up at the boarded-up portion of the house in shock.

"What a miracle!" Dad started saying. "A truck crashes into our house, and nobody gets a scratch!"

"Double miracle, none of us even woke up!" Yuzu added. "Oh! Breakfast is ready, Ichigo! Ayame!"

"Some miracle," Karin sighed. "The jerk left us the repair bill. This family, geez..." Why don't they remember what happened?

"It's okay! He'll show up to apologize someday!" Dad told her.

"No, he won't!"Karin yelled at him.

"You guys are going to be late if you don't eat fast," Yuzu told the rest of us, and I looked back at the three of them. Their wounds have vanished, and they think a truck hit the house? My mind flashed to that girl who'd been here last night. Was it her? She mentioned something about a division. Did she go back to where she'd come from? Damn... I was hoping to ask her questions about what had happened to Ichigo and me. I glanced at my brother from the corner of my eyes. I was glad he'd lived, don't get me wrong, but...

"Ayame." I turned fully to look at him. "We have to talk about last night later."

"Ok," I agreed.


"A truck?!" We heard one of our friends, Tatsuki, shout out from the classroom. "So?! Are they hurt?! Or maybe dead..." Ichigo hit the back of her head with his bag to stop her talking.

"Alive," he corrected her. "Sorry to disappoint you, we all survived."

"Ichigo! Ayame!" Orihime, Tatsuki's best friend, said with slightly red cheeks and a large grin on her face. "G-Good morning!"

"Huh? right..." Ichigo said getting sweat drops on the back of his head. "You're happy as usual, Orihime."

"You're here," Mizuiro said as Ichigo, and I sat down. "Weren't you fixing your house?"

"Yeah," Ichigo sighed.

"What's third period again?" I asked him.

"Contemporary events."

"That's Miss Ochi," I sighed.

"She won't ask annoying questions, at least," Ichigo reminded me.

"True."

"Are you the Kurosaki twins?" I heard from behind me. My eyes widened before I turned to see the girl from last night. "Nice to meet you!"

"Oh!" Mizuiro said, remembering something. "This is Rukia Kuchiki. She started here this morning. It's an unusual time to transfer, but her family had to move."

"Why are you..." Ichigo tried asking, but couldn't seem to get the words out.

"What?" Mizuiro asked confused.

"Ichigo, I don't have any textbooks yet," Rukia told him, holding her hand out. "Do you mind sharing yours with me?" I glanced at her hand and read: Make a scene, and you're so dead. What the hell was going on?


We walked with Rukia behind us to where the three of us could talk alone.

"How far are we going?" Rukia asked us. "Such a secluded place. What's on your mind, big boy?"

"Don't say stuff like that, it's disgusting!" he yelled at her.

"Disgusting?" Rukia asked. "How rude. I spent the whole night learning colloquialisms! Not bad, eh?"

"Maybe you shouldn't have skipped the lesson on when to use them right," I told her.

"Explain why you're here!" Ichigo ordered.

"Explain?"

"That's right! Isn't your work here finished?! Why are you sneaking into my class? Why didn't you go back to the Soul Society or whatever?!" he fired off at her.

"What's the Soul Society?" I asked confused.

"It's where Soul Reapers train and live," she told me. "And I'd have to be a Soul Reaper to return to the Soul Society! I can't go back."

"Huh? Why not?" Ichigo asked her.

"Because I lost all my Dark Force!"

"What..." Ichigo asked confused. "You lost your powers? What are they socks? Where did they go?"

"Where do you think, idiot?!" I asked him.

"Inside you," Rukia told him. "Not in your body, but your soul. You've become a Soul Reaper, like your sister."

"But how did she become one?" Ichigo asked her.

"I don't know, but I plan to find that out while I'm here," she told us, and I nodded before she turned to Ichigo. "Last night, you stole all my powers from me! I can only do a few Demonic Spells now, and I have to rely on this Gigai!"

"What's a Gigai?" I asked her.

"A temporary body we Soul Reapers use in emergencies. Disempowered Soul Reapers inhabit Gigais until their powers return," she explained.

"That's a Gig-thing? It looks human," Ichigo commented.

"It has to. I'd be easy prey for a hollow without my power, so I have to disguise myself as a human," she told him.

"So?" Ichigo asked her. "What does a powerful Soul Reaper want with me?"

"Here it is! The point!" she said, and I felt sweat drops go down my head. "Until I regain my powers you two have to do the work of a Soul Reaper!"

"Huh?!" Ichigo yelled at her.

"What's the problem?" Rukia asked her. "You have the powers of a Soul Reaper now. And I'll help you. You have no choice; this really is all your fault."

"I've been doing this for months already," I reminded her.

"And I'll train you on anything you need improvement on," she said.

"No way!" Ichigo said, crossing his arms in front of his face.

"Excuse me?" Rukia asked him, not having expected Ichigo to decline her order.

"I said no way!" Ichigo repeated. "I don't want to face any more of those monsters."

"Wait a second!" Rukia said stopping him from leaving. "You..."

"Yesterday?" Ichigo asked anticipating her words. "I fought that thing yesterday to save my family! I'm not gonna fight those things for total strangers! I'm not that self-sacrificing! Sorry to disappoint you."

"Ichigo!" I yelled at him. "You can't just leave people alone like that! They need help just like our family did last night!"

"Very well..." Rukia said pulling our attention back to her. "You leave me no choice!" She slipped on a red glove with what looked like a skull sitting in a black flame.

"What are you..." Rukia rushed him and hit his chin. His soul separated from his body and came out looking as he did last night. A Soul Reaper. She quickly turned and hit my chest, forcing my soul from my body. "Whoa! Dude?! That's my soul?!"

"What the hell did you do that for?!" I asked her.

"Hey! Wake up, me!"

"You two." We both calmed down before turning back to her. "Come with me."


We followed her all the way to a park, and I got even more confused.

"You..."

"Just wait," she ordered. "It won't be long."

"What won't be long?!" Ichigo asked her.

"It's already been 20 minutes," I sighed leaning on the fence behind us.

"Do ghosts come to this park?" Rukia asked us.

"One does," I told her. "Five-year-old boy who plays in the park around noon every day. Guess that's when his mom used to bring him."

"A friend?" Rukia asked us.

"We've seen him a couple of times, that's all," Ichigo told her. "I've never even talked to him. So, what's the big deal?" She pushed a cell phone in his face.

"A cell phone?" I asked confused.

"My orders from the Soul Society came in on this phone," she explained. "12:00 p.m., plus or minus 15 minutes. Within a 20 meter radius of Yumizawa Children's Park. A hollow will appear. Probably, it will attack the child." I snatched the phone from her hands and read the words she had just said. We heard someone screaming, and we all turned to see the five-year-old running from a large spider looking hollow. Ichigo and I immediately jumped the fence and started for the boy, but... "Wait!" We turned to Rukia confused. "He's a complete stranger, isn't he? Are you really going to help him?"

"Are you crazy!?" Ichigo asked her.

"We can't just stand here and watch that kid's soul be eaten!" I told her.

"Before your eyes, or out of sight they're going to be attacked either way!" Rukia explained. Behind us, the kid fell, and I went to help him again, but Rukia stopped me. "Don't help him! Even if you save him now, he'll just get eaten later unless you do my job! You'd save him just because you happen to be nearby?! That's not how it works! A Soul Reaper must be fair to all ghosts! Only saving them when it's convenient won't do! So don't help the child unless you can commit! If you are going to save him now, you must try and save them all! Be willing to go anywhere! Even be willing to sacrifice yourself for them!" Sacrifice ourselves, huh? I remembered she nearly died to protect us last night. Ichigo gripped his large sword and ran up to the hollow and cut off its leg. I jumped up, and place ran my sword through the hollows head as it slid on the ground away from the kid. "Ichigo... Ayame... you made your decisions?" Ichigo slammed his sword down in front of the kid.

"I don't buy all the self-sacrifice and commitment crap!" Ichigo told her. "I helped him because I was here! So what are you gonna do about it!"

"What?"

"What about you?" He asked her. "You sacrificed yourself that night to save me! Was that just your duty as a Soul Reaper?!"

"Duty is no reason to sacrifice your life!" I added. "There's never a reason you should ever sacrifice something so precious to others with that on your mind! You can't tell us you were thinking of your duty when you protected us!"

"I'm not ready to commit to this," Ichigo told her. "I might just run next time stuff gets hectic. I can't always promise I'll always be willing to risk my life for a stranger, but I know I owe you a large debt! And I'm not a total scum bag!"

"We'll help you out as much as we can," I told her. "But we also have normal lives to live here. So, we'll do what we can with this Soul Reaper job."

"Alright," Rukia said smiling at us. "Good luck then."