"I'm not really sure where to begin." Ichigo said hesitantly, already semi rethinking everything that she'd just said and fervently wishing that she could rewind time so that she could not say those damned words. But Rimuru had already gotten comfortable so that he could listen to her- so not telling him something was unthinkable.

"Why not start with the place that you feel is the best to start." He suggested helpfully as he continued to wait patiently.

"Uh...okay." She said and then took a second to collect her thoughts and chew on her lower lip before finally saying, "Okay, I think I know where to start. I'll start with a proper introduction."

"Oh? But I already know your name though."

"Hush, it'll help you understand better." She said as Rimuru merely smiled at her and shrugged and then fell silent again as she started speaking. "First off, my name is Ichigo Kurosaki. I'm the daughter of two nobles. A human one...and one that isn't quite as human as he seems. I have two twin younger sisters, Yuzu and Karin. And for a majority of my life- I've lived in two worlds-"

Rimuru didn't say anything, but she could tell by the inquisitive tilt of his head that she had definitely piqued his interest.

"I'm from a place called Karakura Japan," The mere mention of the word Japan caused a strange reaction in him. But she didn't bother to stop and question him about his reaction. "Karakura isn't well known to many people in Japan because it's oddly isolated despite its size. But more than that, the few people who do know about it- also know that it's a hotbed of odd happenings. Mysterious disappearances, deaths, random and unbelievable almost apocalyptic events tend to happen pretty frequently there."

"The first thing that you need to know is that, before I turned fourteen- I was pretty sure that I was just a normal human girl with some...unwanted psychic abilities. Things like being able to see spirits, ghosts, demons, cracks in the fabric of reality itself. But after I met a Rukia...my abilities sort of morphed a bit."

Rimuru raised a brow at her and mouthed the word morphed back at her with an almost questioning look on his face. She paused for a moment and just nodded her head before continuing, "Rukia, isn't a human. She's an apparition. A Reaper to be completely honest. And at the time of our meeting she was attempting to track down a hostile entity that hunted and devoured souls. More specifically, the souls of humans with some sense of spiritual awareness."

Rimuru's jaw dropped open a bit in stunned disbelief for a moment. But he quickly shook his head and wiped that look off of his face and replaced it with a determined look.

"My younger sisters and I, at the time seemed to be the only people in the immediate area with any sort of spiritual awareness. Mine is stronger than theirs. But...they are in some sense able to hear or sense apparitions and ghosts. I'm the only one that could see, hear, touch and interact with them up till that point. And because my abilities were the strongest- I unwittingly attracted the entity to my home."

"Rukia had been looking all over for the stupid thing when we met. To be honest it was dark, but I'll never forget the way she just appeared out of thin air in my bedroom. She freaked me out pretty badly since she was armed with her sword and all. She was mumbling to herself and wasn't paying any attention while I tried to tell her to get lost, and finally after being ignored for too long I just decided to kick her and remind her that she wasn't alone in the room. I could see her. That kind of shocked her. But not nearly as much as the fact that a human had managed to actually physically kick her in the back."

Ichigo giggled as she recalled their first meeting. Rukia's expression had been so confused, shocked, and utterly bewildered that it was almost impossible not to snigger at the mere memory of that night.

"It's practically unheard of for normal humans to be able to physically touch apparitions. And for good reason. Most people simply don't have the courage, strength or even the will to remotely try. I didn't realize it then, but I had used a bit of my spiritually power to touch her. And most people with abilities can't really do that either. Mostly because doing so can go very wrong, really quickly and adversely affect their health."

Rimuru nodded his head in understanding at the small explanation about how using spiritually ability in certain ways can do harm to a person's wellbeing if they weren't careful.

"She called me defective, and we wound up arguing a bit until she finally decided to explain just why she was in my home, disturbing me. She explained everything, including stuff about the entity that she was looking for. It was called a Hollow- a formerly human soul that had transformed into a creature that was devoid of humanity anymore. They devour the souls of the dead and living alike."

"But more than that, they like people with a higher concentration of spiritual abilities. Apparently, they are..." she struggled for a moment before finally settling on her next words. "Considered to be delicacies. Though living souls aren't half as favored as such as Reapers are. There's a different taste and texture to them both that Hollows really love."

Rimuru blinked at her, his expression all kinds of horrified to even hear such things about the tastes and textures of souls. It was unfathomable to him that such things even existed in the first place!

So much so that he almost told her to stop talking- he got the picture already. Except deep down, he knew that he really, really didn't get it.

"The Hollow that Rukia was trying to find was being shielded by some sort of interference, which actually turned out to be my fault since my abilities were far stronger than its own. But by the time either of us realized that both of my younger sisters had been attacked." She stopped talking for a moment so that she could fidget for a second or so.

A means to distract herself a bit before continuing.

"I managed to save them, but not before I made a mistake and Rukia got hurt and to save all of us- she lent me her Reaper abilities." Rimuru's brows disappeared beneath his bangs and it took more restraint than he would have liked for him could do not to comment. But he did. And he listened intently, his mind soaking up every bit of her story and filing it all away in the back of his mind for future reference. "After that...my life changed. I had no choice but to help Rukia do her job since I had accidentally taken every ounce of power that she had as a Reaper. So, I had to take her place for a bit."

Her story picked up a little bit after that as she told him about, she and Rukia and their many misadventures over the years. And gradually, over the course of an unknown stint of time- he started to understand her a bit better. The more that she talked about the things that she had done- the battles, the weirdness, her friends and family- the more that he understood that Ichigo wasn't quite as human as she pretended to be.

Far from it.

By the time she told him about the Winter War he had a pretty good picture of what she was, and why she was so cautious about others finding out about her.

She was a girl that had slayed a God.

And not just one of them either. When she had told him about the guy, Aizen and how he had achieved Godhood and the power to unmake all of creation- and defeated him easily- he'd been stupefied. Completely and utterly so. It had occurred to him then that if she could surpass someone who had become a God... Then what the hell did that make her?

Needless to say, that by the time she finished speaking, Rimuru was totally floored.

Holy hell, why was it that the weird crap always happened to him?!