A/N: Entirely optional piece, more of an addition to the first chapter than anything. I will be uploading on a weekly basis and will attempt to warn you if I have reason to believe the next week will either contain more than one chapter or for some reason will not have one. As this is an optional piece and not a chapter in itself, this does not count as this week's chapter. On a side note, I am finally back from my work-related trip that I went on immediately after posting the first chapter, and I am somewhat disappointed by the fact that nobody else has yet released a crossover of Bleach or DTB.

Disclaimer: Neither Bleach nor Darker than Black belong to me; this story does not produce any form of money or profit for me.

PRELUDE PART 2 – Ichigo's Point-of-view, Timeline: First Meeting

...

"Geez, that hollow last night was a pain in the ass. Bladed fingers, envenomed prehensile spines, and a larger than average reiatsu makes for a long fight."

"Shut up, Kurosaki. You didn't even show up until I had already been fighting it for twenty minutes; the only reason you were able to finish it off was because I already wore it down."

"Well you didn't do a good job of it, considering we kept fighting for another half hour Ishida!"

At this point, Orihime Inoue attempted to step in and calm the two down; "There's no reason to fight each other over this, we still defeated it in the end and nobody got hurt too badly, right?" Needless to say, she was not very successful – not for lack of trying, but because they immediately started blaming each other for the few injuries they had gotten (despite the fact that Orihime had healed each of them while the other distracted the hollow).

Chad, whose actual name was Sado, suggested they continue the argument another time. "We should not be talking about these kinds of affairs in public; people might start to wonder what's going on."

"...I suppose he has a point, Kurosaki. Let's just find a place to sit and order our food. That is, as soon as Kuchiki gets back from wherever she went."

"She said she needed to use the restroom." Ichigo was amazed at how easily the Quincy, Uryu Ishida, could forget something he heard a few minutes earlier considering he was widely considered the most intelligent person in their school.

Approximately fifteen minutes after they received their meals, Orihime pointed out a black-haired young man at another table who seemed to have ordered Chad's weight in food – and didn't seem to be slowing down or believe he would not be able to finish it.

"Hey Rukia, do you think if you ate that much you would finally be able to grow taller?" (This statement resulted in Ichigo getting smacked in the head with his own plate.)

...

Later, the group was preparing to leave, and they heard the roar of a hollow – normally loud enough to be heard at great distances (provided you have enough reiryoku, or Spiritual Energy, to hear it), this one was just outside the restaurant, announcing its presence by destroying the wall. Ichigo and Rukia reacted quickly, the former using his badge to forcibly eject his soul from his body while the latter swallowed a Gikongan, or artificial soul, to do the same with her gigai without it looking as if she had a sudden heart attack. Chad brought up his arm, preparing his armored right arm; Uryu summoned his bow; Orihime called out her fairies from her hairpins, ready to attack, shield, or heal as necessary.

Before any could actually attack, however, the hollow that was somehow capable of masking its presence despite not being a high enough level hollow to speak, had already made its move and grabbed the black-haired young man from earlier. As it attempted to eat him, it suddenly roared in pain and dropped the man before lashing out and striking him hard across the head. The group began to despair as they heard the crack of bone upon the man being hit, and witnessing his soul get ejected from his body, Chain of Fate already broken. As they began attacking the hollow, trying to destroy its mask prior to any other possible destruction or deaths, they were quite shocked to see a chain wrap itself around the hollow's head and mask before the locations it was touching began to smoke. Roaring in pain, the hollow went into convulsions and tremors before finally disintegrating.

Ichigo looked around for the source of the hollow's demise, but the only person who could have even seen it who wasn't of the five was the young man, who had begun to pull his Chain of Fate back from the area the hollow had been. None of the five had any clue what was going on, but the same question was running throughout each of their minds. Ichigo was the first to be able to voice this question. "Did that plus just- WHAT THE HELL?!"

Of course, having never experienced any part of the afterlife and what happens after death, the young man's question was reasonable, perhaps even predictable: "Excuse me, but what's a 'plus'?"