Disclaimer: Someone once threw a water balloon filled with Bleach at me, it ruined my clothes. Does that count? No? Maeh, whatever.
EDIT: Chapter edited and fixed as of the 12/16/12 update. Probably missed stuff, looking for a beta reader.
This chapter is brought to you by my amazing ability to be selectively blind!
The First Guardian
Chapter one: Ladies and gentlemen, our damsel in distress!
Ichigo felt the unknown presence first, it was hard not to, it was like feeling himself outside of his body, yet not entirely similar.
He sat up on his bed, wincing as his wound reminded him that he wasn't entirely healthy, au contraire, he felt very sick, probably burning up, and as weak as a child.
He kept his senses trained on the approaching presence, forgetting to hide his own at the same time; he was in too much pain to give a damn at this moment.
Sword was strangely silent the whole time.
Then the presence stopped, seemingly outside of the wall of his room, as if waiting for something, this was only for a couple of seconds before the presence moved through the wall, and he did no longer need to stretch his senses to see what, or rather who, it was.
It was, surprisingly, a girl, seemingly about his age, with a petite figure, black hair and a face that managed to somehow look pretty while remaining resolutely serious. The girl stepped into his room, she was wearing what Ichigo recognized from the descriptions he had read as a Shinigami attire, complete with a sword tied to her obi sash.
The girl then started looking around his room, as if feeling for something, and muttered something he couldn't quite make out.
"Hey, you, the intruder." He didn't feel particularly welcoming right now, whether it was because of the fact that the girl came into his room entirely uninvited or that he was still in horrible pain he wasn't quite sure.
The girl completely ignored him, as if she didn't hear him and instead kept muttering while apparently trying to feel for something.
Ichigo now felt particularly offended, he wanted to get up and put a hand on her shoulder, or talk directly to her ear just to get her attention, but he didn't feel like straining too much so he just sat up on the side of his bed, stretched his right leg just a bit, then with careful aim and with considerate restraint on his strength, he kicked the girl's ass.
The girl fell forward, landing squarely on her face, sprawled on the floor of his room, and she sat and turned around quickly with a look of utmost surprise on her face.
"Y-you can see me? And beyond that, you kicked me?" The girl spoke, further demonstrating her surprise. Ichigo decided he liked her voice.
"Yes, I can see you, sorry about the kick, but I was trying to get your attention and you ignored me completely. Very rude, if you ask me." Ichigo spoke with a raised eyebrow and a look of mild amusement, he made to get up and help the girl get back to her feet when she suddenly did it herself and got all over his face.
"You're a human, you don't seem strange, you're as normal as it gets. How can you see me? You must have a high Spiritual Energy if you can see me. Can you see other ghosts too?"
Ichigo was, once again, amused, this girl just kept talking and shooting questions about the situation, he decided he would try to enjoy the moment as much as he could.
"Yes, I've been able to see ghosts my whole life."
"Amazing, do you know what I am?"
"I do, in fact, but let's play with you for a little bit."
"You are a…" The girl's face became more curious, and she started to get closer to him to hear his answer "… very cute girl."
She nearly fell on her face when heard that, instead, she sputtered and got all red in the face as she tried to come up with an answer to that.
"I haven't had so much fun in months. Wish I could laugh out loud without hurting, though."
"I am a Shinigami, my job is to…" She went on to describe, in a very abridged manner, things that Ichigo probably knew better than her about. Still, he humored her, as she seemed to enjoy explaining things, as evidenced by the sketchbook and crayons she produced from somewhere in her Shinigami uniform, and proceeded to explain the basics of Shinigami, Plus souls, and Hollows.
The best part? All the characters drawn were bunnies, cute little white bunnies; she drew the prettiest Hollow that Ichigo had ever seen.
"Can I keep her?"
He nodded as he analyzed the situation, of all places a Shinigami, even better, this petite, amusing, and pretty Shinigami ended up in the bedroom of probably the only Pureblood around.
"Either this is a huge-ass coincidence, or something's up."
Sword, once again, remained silent, but before he could wonder or ask the other part of him what was up, he felt another presence.
Or rather, a bunch of presences.
He interrupted the girl mid-speech as she was about to ask if he got it all, grabbed her small – and light figure, and jumped out the window.
It was an entirely reasonable idea, but his knee-jerk reaction to danger did not take into account his wound, so when he landed, it took every single ounce of his willpower not to show any pain.
The girl in his arms started flailing about, so he set her down before she could make his wound get worse, and looked in the direction of the disturbance he felt. It was too close, far closer than he had ever allowed a Hollow get to his home.
His father had left earlier that night, something about an emergency appointment and said he probably would be back in the morning.
His sisters, however, were still in there, and he found the fact that the Hollows were as close as they were to be unacceptable.
"Hey, what's the big idea?" The girl looked like she wanted to hit him, which wasn't something Ichigo particularly wanted at that moment.
"Can't you feel them? They're getting close; I can't let them get this close."
"What're you talking about-" Then Rukia felt it, the pressure of a Hollow, no, Hollows, approaching their position.
"How did he feel them before I did?" She didn't have much time to ponder that as the Hollows came into view, and she sprang into action.
She jumped the distance between herself and the first Hollow, and with a swift draw, managed to slice its mask off.
Ichigo was feeling it, the excitement, this was the first time he saw a Shinigami in action, with their sword no less! He wanted to join in and help, but he decided he should watch and learn whatever he could about, and from her.
"Bakudō #4: Hainawa!" The girl yelled as she pointed her hand at the closest Hollow, and it suddenly and its arms entangled by ropes of light. She then moved to another Hollow while the second one was incapacitated, and disposed of it just was quickly as the first one.
By the time the one she had bound released itself, she had already felled two more.
Ichigo couldn't keep watching however, as a group managed to flank them and moved closer, too damn close to the house, and his sisters.
So he moved, as fast as his wounded, tired and feverish body allowed him to intercept the attacking group, he dodged a strike from one of them, moved under the clumsy claw strike of another one, and finally got to the front and between the Hollows and the house.
His senses were already failing him, as he was unable to notice the Hollow jumping at him with its jaws wide open and ready to bite.
He registered the blood, the jaws, but the pain never came, unlike with the incident earlier that day.
In of him, and between the jaws of the monster, was the Shinigami girl, who had just taken the attack in order to keep him safe.
Ichigo moved, he moved fast, his screaming body be damned, he grabbed the girl from Hollows maw and shot a wide wave of lightning from his right hand, a combination of the pale lightning and something else, not properly done but served the purpose throwing all the Hollows several yards away.
He suddenly felt his body and his tiredness catch up and fell to the ground in a sitting position with the girl on his lap, so he quickly put her against the wall of his home and checked her injuries.
The girl wasn't quite sure what was going on, but the orange-haired boy had an abnormally high Spiritual Energy, and she knew of one last move they could try in order to come out victorious.
"Hey" Ichigo looked up from her wounded body to her face, and then she saw it, she didn't need to ask more, his eyes conveyed everything she needed to know about the boy in order to trust him.
"My sword - put it through your heart, I can give you a portion of my power, you're in better condition than I am to fight, and it's our only chance." She spoke in the tired voice of the badly wounded, but she tried to give him an encouraging smile.
Ichigo saw the chance for what it was, and quickly aimed the sword she was holding towards his heart.
"Kurosaki Ichigo" He spoke as he gave her a nod to signal he was ready.
"Kuchiki Rukia" The girl answered with her own name before thrusting her blade forward to initiate what she knew was a wild gamble.
She expected to feel a bit drained, Reiatsu-wise; she was near the limits of her power, well rested and ready, but her body was the one thing that failed due to the damage she received.
She did not expect to have all of her Reiatsu drained, and completely lose her powers.
She did not have even a second to ponder the situation, as she saw something that took the breath away from her.
"Where am I?" Ichigo wondered as he stood up from his prone position, he looked around; he seemed to be in a rooftop.
"You've been here before." A distinctly male voice spoke, in a smooth, kind baritone, from seemingly everywhere around him.
"… I have, haven't I? This is my inner world, it just never took on a form like this, and it's actually the first time it takes on any form… This is the true form of the place where I found you, isn't that right?" Ichigo spoke to the air, smiling slightly as he realized the situation.
"Always quick of mind, aren't you, Ichigo?" The voice now spoke from directly behind him, and Ichigo decided to throw all preamble and building up to the wind and turned around faster than any person with a weak stomach should.
Before him stood a man, slightly older than Ichigo, with a dark, tattered (or so it seemed, the way its form shifted around the man) coat, long, wavy black hair that looked ridiculously classy for how messy it was, sunglasses adorned the young man's face, sporting a smile – a proud one, perhaps?
"So you finally took form, eh, Sword? No, I guess I can't call you that anymore."
"You can call me whatever you want, you've certainly earned that privilege, so long as I get to call you moron."
"You didn't change at all, did you?"
"Sorry to disappoint, but no."
"So, what am I supposed to call you now?"
…
The silence stretched for half a minute, and then Ichigo narrowed his eyes at the man before him.
"What is it now?"
"I was trying to come up with something witty or wise, give you a philosophical talk that would end with you coming up with a life-changing epiphany that would make you worthy of knowing my name."
"Wait, I'm not worthy of knowing your name? Now that's some bull-"
"You are worthy, you know your purpose, you know why you will wield me, and what to do with my power, but I still wanted my dramatic speech followed by an equally dramatic moment."
"Why?"
"It would be amusing."
"Now you're just being an asshole."
"There you go with the name-calling; I guess you really don't want to know my name." With that, the man shook his head in exasperation and turned to walk to the boarder of the rooftop, seemingly intent to leave.
"Bullshit, I'm calling your bluff right now. You know as much as I do that you want nothing more right now than howl your name to the winds, you're anxious, you can't wait to tell me, you're just playing the part of an asshole to piss me off."
The older guy sighed, turned around, this time shaking his head in real exasperation "I forget that you and I were initially the very same, very well, if you must take all the fun out of it, my name is…"
Ichigo opened his eyes and immediately spun around, swung his right arm in an arc, slicing at the foe that was about to jump him, he turned to the right, and the next foe was immediately cut in half, the following four fell even faster, and to the untrained eye, in one move.
Kuchiki Rukia's eyes weren't untrained, she knew what had just happened, what bothered her was that even though she knew Ichigo had used Shunpō to eliminate in one step all of the Hollows that were left, even though she knew exactly how he most have done it, she still couldn't see it.
Ichigo finally stood before her once more, he was wearing the typical Shinigami garb, except his seemed to be missing its right sleeve, and then she looked at what he held in his right hand.
That had to be the biggest sword she had ever seen.
It was a double-edged sword, about six feet in length from hilt to its point, the guard wasn't so much a guard, it was just a wide square of black steel ornate with gray shapes that connected the pommel to the enormous blade. And Ichigo held the behemoth as if it was lighter than the air around it.
He smiled at her, and bent down to help her stand up, her black garments had become white, a sign, he recalled, that she had lost her powers. To his eyes, this girl had now become his responsibility; she had just given him her powers, and took a big hit for him. So, she would now be under his protection, there were other things to consider, Kuchiki Rukia had broken a couple of laws just now, granted, she could be exonerated if circumstances were taken into account, but Ichigo was not about to put his fate on his possible opponent's mercy.
He'd probably face more Shinigami, and the law of the Seireitei, if things didn't go as smoothly as they should. He'd have to get stronger, a lot stronger, if he wanted to protect the girl he now owed so much to, and he was perfectly okay with that.
She was also a very pretty girl, but that had nothing to do with his decision, not at all.
For a second he thought he heard a snort, but dismissed it as his own imagination.
He noticed the girl wince as she tried to stand, and he realized that she was still wounded.
"Wait, don't stand just yet" He told her, and the girl wasn't quite sure what he was planning, until he sat down next to her and pulled her onto his lap.
"W-what do you think you're d-" She felt it then, and looked down; the boy had a hand under her white kimono, just above her breast.
"I hope you don't mind, but I have to keep my hand as close to the wounds as possible for this to work properly, I'll be respectful of your modesty, right now, I'm your healer." Ichigo spoke in a soothing tone, as he then moved his hand from above her breast to behind her shoulder, lowering the girl's Kimono to show the full shoulder as he did so.
Rukia didn't know what to feel at the moment, she had felt healing Kidō before, so she knew this was healing Kidō, but just how the hell did this human boy even know what Kidō was?
"I haven't told you everything or anything at all, for that matter, you just kept on talking and talking and I didn't get the chance to get a word in, we'll talk later, I promise, but first I have to finish fixing you up and running damage control around here." Ichigo told her when he saw her confused look
He kept at it for a few minutes, it was actually a lot harder than he made it seem like to heal her, the limit of Reiatsu her body could take was drastically reduced to that of a normal human, and Ichigo just had his Reiatsu skyrocket to levels he didn't even think existed, so it took every ounce of control he had earned over years of practice on fortunate (or unfortunate) 'volunteers', to heal the girl properly.
Once he finished up, he covered her shoulder once again "And that's that, it should be as good as new after a couple days' rest, just make sure not to stress yourself too much during that period unless you want it to open up again, and then I won't be so nice about it." Ichigo told her, finishing with a joking tone.
Rukia had heard a similar speech about half a dozen times before.
From the fourth division healers.
From the fourth division Shinigami.
How did he do this? How did he know how to do this? Once again, her questions were interrupted by the increasingly mysterious young man.
"We have the neighbors of two houses, there and there, who just witnessed part of it all, and we have to stick to protocol, don't we? I assume you have a memory modification device with you?" Rukia, once more, looked at him with wide eyes and nodded with a dumbfounded look. "Good, take it out and come with me, I'd rather you use it, I've never actually seen one of those things."
So they did just that, they went into the homes of the people who had seen the fight, modified their memories, and then looked around to see if any noticeable damage was done to the street. Once they verified everything looked alright, Ichigo picked up his body (that felt strange), and invited the girl into his house, and up to his room.
Rukia spoke first.
"You lied to me."
"Huh? I don't think I did enough talking to manage a lie."
"You told me you didn't know what I was."
"No, I told you that you were a very cute girl, I didn't lie to you."
Three, two, one… RED. Rukia's face once more heated up when his words sunk in, and Ichigo did not stop the chuckle that came out this time.
"Stop laughing!"
"I'm sorry; you just look even cuter that way, all red and flustered."
"Just – Argh, who are you, no, what are you? Just how did you-"
"Calm down." Ichigo held a hand up "One question at a time, take a deep breath, relax, we have all night, and all your questions will be answered as straight as I can."
Rukia did visibly seem to calm down, took a few deep breaths, and started.
"Who are you?"
"I am Kurosaki Ichigo, fifteen years old, High School student and I work part-time in this house's clinic."
Okay, that was a good answer, and he could tell he wasn't trying to hide anything; she just had to ask the right questions.
"What are you?"
"A Shinigami."
"You weren't when I first met you a while ago."
"I wasn't then, or at least, not in your definition of the word."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean that, before you gave me the means to awaken to my true powers, I had the potential to be a full-fledged Shinigami, even if I was a living, breathing, human."
"Humans aren't like that."
"That's right, they aren't."
"Are you saying you're not human?"
"Not entirely, I guess."
"So what were you before I gave you my powers?"
"A Pureblood."
Rukia's brain came to a screeching halt, that term rose a few alarms in her brain, she had heard it before, she knew it meant something important, but she just could not come recall it right then.
"Pureblood?"
"The son or daughter of a Shinigami parent, born with Shinigami powers."
"Your parents are Shinigami? But how can you be human, then."
"Only one of my parents is Shinigami."
Rukia put some thought into that, and came to the obvious conclusion.
"But that's illegal! A Shinigami cannot have that sort of relationship with a human! Seireitei would have caught any Shinigami doing that and had them exec-"
"I am well aware of the fate that my father would face if Seireitei brought him to justice."
Once again, Rukia was embarrassed, she spoke without thinking.
"Sorry."
"No need to be."
"So your father, huh? I'm guessing there must be some kind of story behind that."
"There is, want to hear it?"
"Not if you don't want to tell it."
"Au contraire, I am quite proud of the tale."
"Alright then."
"My father… my father was a very strong Shinigami who was sent on a seemingly dangerous mission to eliminate some unnaturally strong Hollows that had suddenly sprung in this town, Karakura.
"He came into town, and as soon as he reached one mile into it, he felt the presence of the Hollows."
"What did he do?"
"What any Shinigami with his mission would do, he went after them. Moved as fast as he could, and soon spotted them huddled around something, he jumped in the middle of them and made quick work of the group with just a few moves."
"He must have been very strong."
"He was, anyways, his whole mission came to a catastrophically abrupt halt when he saw what the Hollows had been huddling around. It was a woman, the most beautiful woman he had ever laid his eyes upon, and the woman just looked up at him, smiled as she stood up on shaky knees, and asked him if he had been hurt.
My father was taken aback tremendously, this woman who had been about to get eaten by a platoon of unnaturally powerful Hollows, had just asked her savior if he was alright.
To him - and perhaps for her as well, it was love at first sight."
Rukia was looking at him with focused eyes, completely enraptured by the tale, so he continued.
"It only took about two minutes for my father to decide on a course of action, he took some Hollow bait that he had acquired from… a vendor of Shinigami goods in Karakura, and lured as many Hollows with it as he could. I am not quite sure of how he pulled it off, but he managed to fake his own death. He got himself a Reiatsu-suppressing gigai so that Seireitei would never be able to track him, and married Masaki, my mother, a year later."
Rukia now felt even worse for condemning the man that had done all that out of love, and now understood the tone of pride that Ichigo used with her.
"Your father is an amazing man."
"I know."
A comfortable silence settled around them, while Ichigo seemed to ponder something, he then spoke again.
"Don't say a word about this to anyone, not even to my father."
"Why not him?"
"He doesn't know that I know all of this."
"What? How is that possible? If he didn't tell you, then how did you know-" Ichigo gave her that look again, and she made a conscious effort to calm down.
"Explain."
"I assume my father has his own reasons, he will tell when he feels its right, and if he doesn't, then I can respect that too, I'm sure he has good intentions."
Rukia couldn't help but smile, it seemed it wasn't just the father that had a good heart, and the son also was very mature for his age and with a good head over his shoulders.
"How did you find out?"
"My mother, Masaki, was murdered by a Hollow six years ago."
Rukia was taken aback, the reason a man did all he did and the woman that raised such a formidable son was dead?
"My father tried to pass it off as an accident, as if she had drowned trying to save me from drowning myself. But I had seen and heard the beast, it had fooled me, using bait to make me think someone in the river was in danger, and when I got close, well, I'm not exactly sure what happened, but my mother saw it all and somehow got between me and the Hollow, so it took her instead.
"Later, I heard my father speak to other people I didn't know, I now assume he met them while he was still a Shinigami, but they spoke many terms that I had never heard before, like 'Hollow' and 'Shinigami'. I later searched my father's things to find more information, and found his old Shinigami Academy books, as well scrolls and books on several subjects, such as history and the Seireitei science, I committed all the academy material and the rest of the scrolls and books to memory, I have a perfect memory recall, anything I learn just once, I memorize and can recall without missing any detail."
"That's how you know all those things! But it doesn't explain how you could do healing Kidō, you also used a form of Shunpō I don't even think some seated officers can see, and before I gave you my powers, I could swear I saw you use Hadō."
"With all the knowledge I acquired, I trained myself hard, everyday from then on, on all the subjects, even as a human, I could use Shunpō, some Hadō, healing Kidō, and I am pretty sure I mastered Hakuda."
"That's… that's just – I don't believe it! Why did you even go through that? You were just a kid!"
"I have things I must protect."
That last sentence, spoken with as much calm as he had used throughout the entire conversation, held the fiercest backing of will Rukia had ever felt, it was almost as if he had spoken an absolute, like saying that the time flows or that there is day and night.
"Protect?"
"I wish to protect everyone that needs it, with my own hands, and for that, I have to strong enough, I cannot afford to fail again, never again."
She saw how his fists tightened, and she couldn't help but won-
Ah, his mother.
Ichigo had blamed himself for the death of Masaki, and he considers it his first failure to protect someone he loved, which is why he now swears to himself that he will never again fail, no matter the cost.
Rukia now respected the boy- no, man in front of her. He had gone through great lengths just so he could safeguard what he felt was important. She had to suppress a laugh; she now realized what he was named after, not the fruit, not the numbers, but the First Guardian.
"It's late, we only have a few hours until the morning, we still have much more to discuss, but that can wait until we wake, I'll let you take my bed, I'll lie down on the floor – don't worry, I don't mind at all."
"Thanks, Kurosaki-san."
"Ugh, hell no, that's my father, call me Ichigo."
"Very well, as long as you call me Rukia."
"Alright, go to bed Rukia, I'll just get back to my body and get some sheets to get more comfortable."
Rukia nodded and then took Ichigo's bed, she hadn't realized how tired she really was, and fell asleep in seconds.
Ichigo couldn't help but smile when he saw her like that. This girl had just come into his life and changed it drastically, hopefully for the better, at great cost to her, yet she didn't seem to be angry about the whole thing, he'd have expected someone in her position to demand that he help them.
He was indebted to her, so he would protect her no matter what.
"Indebted, my newly-formed ass! You've been acting like a – like a teenager since you saw her, just admit it, you like the girl. You better start making some moves, Ichigo, you have a good chance, you're a good-looking fellow, and-"
"You talk too damn much."
Ichigo got back into his own body, it was much like entering a suit that covered your whole frame, and immediately noticed something amiss.
"I could swear I had an enormous wound both in my back and my stomach."
"Oh, that, well, your will to protect, which was the most overwhelming emotion coursing through you as I was taking form, gave me, your gallant, amazing, incredible Zanpakutō, the ability of extremely fast tissue regeneration."
"How come?"
"Well, the way your heart sees it, you will protect even at the cost of hurting yourself badly, so, in its own twisted, backwards logic, came to the conclusion that the more damage you could take before you fell, the more you could protect, so there you go."
"... You mean-"
"Yes, apparently your soul desired the most generic hero power ever. Or maybe you're a bit of a masochist?"
"I'm… I'm not sure what to feel about that. Whatever, can you wake me up in four hours? I'd rather be awake so that dad doesn't think about dive-bombing through my window and into my bed, boy would that be a nasty situation."
A chuckle was his answer, so he took it as an affirmative and closed his eyes, sleep only took one minute to claim him.
Or it would have, if he hadn't felt yet another presence just outside his house.
"I can't get a break, can't I?"
"Not all days can be good. Keep your presence hidden and look out the window.
Ichgo managed to do the first - he was already doing it, the second was slightly trickier, seeing as the only window in his room was set to the wall his bed was against, and the bed was currently occupied by a certain girl.
He looked outside, while making sure not to move much, and saw a figure, a man, it seemed, wearing green clothes, geta sandals and a bucket hat-
"Wait a second... I know this guy. He was at mom's funeral, an old friend of dad's, if I'm correct."
"Are you going to talk to him?"
...
Ichigo kept his eyes and his senses trained on the man who was seemingly looking for something outside of his house, then he came to a decision.
"No."
"Why not?"
"This man is part of my father's past, something he hasn't talked to me about. If I go out there right now, there will be questions that I wouldn't be able to answer without revealing what I know. I feel bad enough about not telling dad everything I'm up to, I'd rather not make it worse by creating more secrets unless it's inevitable."
"I understand where you're coming from, yes. But this man, as you heard, is Urahara Kisuke, who used to help your father study, if the numerous notes in your father's textbooks are any indication. He could help us in the coming storm. You do know that the worse is yet to come, right?"
"... Yeah. I'll think about it later. Right now, we should focus on our plans. I'm not going to be able to sleep any time soon anyways."
...
"So all I get is regeneration? Don't get me wrong, I think it's cool, but I can't help but find it underwhelming."
"Does it make you feel better to know that I call it the 'Restoration Factor'?"
"Not really, no."
"Well, there's always our other passive ability."
"I have another ability?"
"Oh, I didn't tell you? Oh man are you going to flip out."
"You're setting me up for disappointment, aren't you? I've done this before, you'll make it look like it's a big-"
"Now you're talking too much."
"Fuck you."
"I call it 'Number Zero'."
"And why's that?"
"Well, it's extremely fitting, and Zero is a pretty cool name for anything."
"It's moments like this I remember you were born from my soul."
"I like you too, moron."
"So... what does it do?"
"Nope, not this time. You're figuring this one out on your own, I've already given you too much. Heroes of the brand you fancy usually get their abilities in the last moment."
"You don't give a damn about any of that! You're doing this just to piss me off!"
"Maybe."
"It wasn't a question you asshole!"
"Let's focus on what matters now! A load of things are about to come, and we need to start planning ahead otherwise we'll be caught with our pants down."
"I can't plan this by myself, it affects her, too."
"I know. And to think all it took was a goddamn Shinigami girl falling practically onto your lap to get your hormones running."
"You're not going to let that go, are you?"
And – cut!
This one could have gone on for longer, but I felt this was a good point to end it. I was also a bit on the fence about posting it so soon after the first one, but one particular reviewer pointed out it was a bit of a dick-move to give you people only a prologue and leave you starving for the actual story.
Some of you may be wondering what this Ichigo looks like, since I've previously mentioned that he got the idea to grow his hair.
Well, he did, think of his current haircut as an Ichigo-orange version of Kratos Aurion's haircut. If you don't know him, he's from the Tales of Symphonia videogame for the Nintendo GameCube, look him up if you need to. It seems a little bit over the top, but it was done through a careful elimination process that ultimately yielded those results.
Ichigo's Zanpakutō: Appearance-wise, it's Tensa Zangetsu, except I gave its younger persona the older's sunglasses. Name and ability-wise, well, it's different, and the changes are justified in that this Ichigo is more in tune with his own Zanpakutō than the canon one. Perhaps more than any other Shinigami, as evidenced by the fact that he does not need to use Jinzen, the proper method of meditation to converse with a Zanpakutō. So him and his Zanpakutō are way closer than in canon.
- Flameal out.