"How may I help you, officer?" The doctor who had been tending to Ichigo was a middle-aged man, slightly overweight and with the general aspect of a sleepy, friendly bear. He adjusted his glasses, blinking at the police officer in front of him owlishly.

"What can you tell us about this boy? I'm told he has amnesia?" The officer sounded skeptical. He was a much younger man than the doctor, but he'd seen plenty of criminals conveniently forget their crimes.

"Yes, and I'm afraid it appears to be genuine." The doctor knew where the police's thoughts were going, and his reply was regretful but firm. "We managed to rush the blood tests, so we know the blood on him was, in fact, his own." That made the police officer blink and frown. "Our best guess so far is that it was some kind of internal hemorrhage, but he's fortunately showing no signs of distress."

"I see." The police officer mused. That changed things. Given that the boy was unmarked but covered in blood, they had suspected him of perpetrating a crime. But if the blood was his own, it was either a medical issue or the boy was a victim. Faking amnesia made a lot less sense. "We have his name. Does he have any identifying marks? And what does he remember?" He asked and the doctor hesitated.

"He… has some extremely unusual features." The doctor said carefully, and then sighed. "This is a bit of a touchy subject." The officer frowned, wondering where this was going. "I've been referring to the boy as 'him' because that's how he identifies himself, but from our examinations he's actually a pseudo-hermaphrodite."

"A what?" The police officer exclaimed, then lowered his voice as the doctor gave him a scorching look. "I'm sorry. But what is that?" He knew what a hermaphrodite was, of course, but he didn't understand the pseudo part. The doctor sighed before explaining.

"A pseudo-hermaphrodite is someone who possesses organs associated with both genders, but only one or none are actually functional. In this boy's case, only his female aspects appear to be functional." The doctor's tone was clinical as he discussed Ichigo's condition. "Technically, he is more female than male, but sexual disorders can be difficult to quantify. Mentally, he has indicated that he is male." The police officer swallowed, writing everything down.

"Well, that should make him easy to find, unless some idiot left it off the missing persons report." Unfortunately, the police officer would not have been surprised if they had. Admitting that a child was transgender would be difficult for some people. "Is this a birth defect? Or an operation?" He sincerely hoped it was a birth defect. They had tentatively placed the boy's age at fifteen, if someone had done this to him… but the doctor shook his head.

"It is certainly a birth defect. No medical intervention could give him a functional womb." That made the officer relax a bit, until the doctor's next words. "From our x-rays and examinations, we believe he may have carried a child fairly recently."

"I… see." Mentally, the police officer added possible pedophilia to the things that needed investigating. Although perhaps the boy was on the older end of their age estimates. "And what does he remember?" That information might help. The doctor grimaced, shaking his head.

"He says he remembers red sand, pillars of stone and pretty birds." He said frankly, and the officer frowned. "Nothing of use, no names or places. I can't think of any place near here with red sand." That was an understatement. Red sand was not exactly common, and a bit of time with google had only turned up a few deserts that might match the descriptions.

"No. Interesting." The officer sighed, putting away his notepad. "We'll have to wait to see if someone has reported him as a missing person." If they had, though, they would be answering some questions. "Now, I'll need to speak to the girls who found him." He doubted they would have much to add, but it was better to be thorough.

This boy was quite a puzzle.

"Mom?" Karin said as she looked at her food.

"Yes, Karin?" Masaki smiled, bringing out a carrot dish. It was a rather interesting concoction that she'd made in little ramekins. Karin and Yuzu both took one. They knew that anything their mother made would be delicious, no matter how odd it looked.

It was just the three of them, living in a too large house in the middle of town. Masaki had never been married to their father, but only because he'd died during the engagement. It had been a great tragedy, but she'd taken his name anyway and made certain they knew his family. Masaki worked as a teacher at the local high school and was a very compassionate person, which made Karin hope that she might be receptive to her thoughts.

"You know that boy we found, covered in blood? Ichigo?" She asked and her mother nodded as Yuzu dug into her carrots before eating a bit of roast beef. "I, um, I've been keeping track of him." Karin admitted. She was looking to become a paramedic someday, and she was already trained as a field medic for the sports team. She knew people at the hospital and while they wouldn't give her confidential information, they would keep her generally informed. "No one's come forward to claim him, so they're talking about sending him to a group home." Karin couldn't help the anxiety in her voice. "Mom, I don't think that would be good for him. Can we take him?" Her mother and sister were both looking at her in astonishment and she dropped her eyes, flushing.

"Honey, teenagers are expensive." Masaki said gently and Karin bit her lip. "Why wouldn't he be fine at the group home?" Karin winced. She wasn't supposed to know this part, but she had managed to listen in on the doctor and the police officer.

"Mom… he's sort of a girl." They both stared at her and Karin looked down at her carrots. "The doctor said he's a pseudo-hermaphrodite. You know how teenagers can be. When the kids at the group home find out…" Karin was sure that wouldn't go well at all. And there would be no hiding it, not in a group home. They were sort of like dorms, with communal showers. And the sexes were usually split in group homes. Where would they put Ichigo? Probably with the girls, since he could become pregnant, but Karin was sure he wouldn't be accepted.

"I… oh dear." Masaki muttered and Karin could see she was thinking of the same things. Her mother knew all about group homes. Several of her students came from them. "Would he receive a per diem from the state? Maybe we could see…" Karin felt her heart lift at that. Money was always tight, with only a teacher's salary to support them, but as an orphan Ichigo would have some kind of state support. "I'll go speak to the doctors about him." She said, suddenly decided, and Karin smiled in relief. She knew that when her mother decided to do something, she decided very quickly and then made it happen.

Ichigo would probably be staying with them before the week was out.

"Nnn." Ichigo muttered as the sun touched his face, rousing him from dreams of sand and pretty little birds that tried to spit something on him that burned like fire. Then he sat up, yawning and rubbing the back of his neck.

Since the day he'd woken up in the hospital, he'd felt like a blank slate. His memories were terribly hazy and seemed to revolve around sand and violence. He hadn't told the doctor about the memories of eating things that weren't human, though. He hadn't thought they would understand. Ichigo didn't understand, so how could he explain?

Not for the first time, he tried to remember. The doctor had told him he probably had a child, and encouraged him to try to remember. But as much as he tried, he couldn't. It just wasn't there. Sighing, he pulled away the blankets and stumbled to his feet, stretching.

"Another day." He mumbled to himself before stripping off his shirt. Ichigo paused to look at himself in the mirror for a moment. He knew he looked good because several of the girls at school had told him so, when he'd torn off a shirt in gym class. Apparently, his well-defined build was a bit unusual and definitely attractive.

Not that he was interested in the girls. Ichigo was already slightly interested in one of the guys in class, although he wasn't sure Ishida would return his feelings at all. It was only a vague interest, anyway, so they were just friends.

Shrugging aside any concerns about his future love life, Ichigo put on his school uniform. Masaki drove them all to school, since she worked as a teacher there, but that meant he needed to be on time. They had to arrive early, since a teacher could never be late.

Breakfast was chicken liver and onions for him and Masaki, and scrambled eggs for the girls. Ichigo dug into it immediately, enjoying the velvety taste of the liver and the spices Masaki used to flavor it. He couldn't understand why Karin and Yuzu didn't like it. What could be more heavenly than a bit of liver in the morning?

"Good morning, Ichigo. Would you like some tea?" Masaki asked and he looked up from his plate with a smile.

"I'd love some, mom." Ichigo felt a bit of pleasure every time he called her that. The words seemed to fill an ache in his heart. "Thank you." He said after she poured him the tea, taking a sip. It warmed him and he cupped his hands around it. This place was not cold, but he had a feeling he'd lived somewhere hotter. He craved the heat of the tea.

"So Ichi, how's gym class going? Killed anymore shirts?" Karin asked and Ichigo blushed lightly at the reminder. He still wasn't sure how he'd managed to rip his shirt to shreds. It had just… happened.

"Ah, stop it Karin! I'm being careful. But my gym teacher thinks I should concentrate on my sprinting." Ichigo excelled at almost everything physical, but he was terrifyingly fast on his sprints. "She thinks I could go to the national level someday, if I work at it." And from there, the next step would be training for the Olympics. Ichigo wondered if someone would make an issue of his gender, but he doubted it, not if he competed with the men.

"That would be wonderful, Ichigo. You can get scholarships, you know." Masaki encouraged him and Ichigo nodded. Right now, he was getting a huge amount of tutoring to catch up with his classes, but the teachers were hopeful that by next year he'd be average for his age bracket. Eventually, university would be on the table.

But he was only fifteen, or at least, that was what they'd labeled him as. So Ichigo was not going to worry about it. He listened to Yuzu's enthusiastic comments about her dance teacher as he finished his tea, and then he stood up, going to the sink to rinse out his dishes and put them in the washing machine. As they finished, everyone else followed suit and soon they were in the car going to school.

Ichigo looked out the window of the car, marveling at Karakura town. He'd seen it plenty of times now, of course, but it never seemed to get old. When he'd first gotten out of the hospital Ichigo had been absolutely certain he'd never seen anything like it, but everyone told him that was silly, he'd just forgotten. Somehow, he couldn't make himself believe that. He didn't know how it could be true, but he knew towns were new to him. So many things felt new to him.

Ichigo whistled to himself as he put his bag into a locker, pulling out his math textbooks. It was math early in the morning, which suited him just fine. Mathematics was not his best subject and his mind needed to be alert for it. He looked up with a smile as someone beside him cleared his throat.

"Good morning Ishida!" Ichigo said happily, and Ishida smiled as he adjusted his glasses. "Are you going to be tutoring me during rest period today?" He asked and Ishida nodded.

"If you don't mind." He said. Rest period was used for homework, so giving it up for tutoring was a small sacrifice for them both. Ichigo shrugged, not minding it a bit. "I'm afraid you really need a lot of work on this."

"I know. Thanks, Ishida." Ichigo said as he closed his locker, snapping the combination lock into place. "I really appreciate you doing this for me." He said, although he knew Masaki was paying the other teen a bit to tutor him. Ishida shook his head as they walked to class.

"It's nothing." When they reached the classroom, Ishida immediately went to his seat. Ichigo paused, though, as he saw a bouquet of flowers on the teacher's desk. It was huge and he couldn't help but go over to it, looking intently at the blossoms.

"Good morning, Ichigo!" She said with a smile before frowning. "Is something wrong?" Ichigo stared at the flowers, feeling like something was stirring in his mind. Something to do with flowers.

"Pansies?" He muttered, getting a brief flash of a man with a straw hat and kind brown eyes. "No… these aren't pansies." The memory faded as quickly as it had come and the flowers were nothing but flowers. "Sorry, ma'am. I… almost remembered something." He struggled to find the memory again, but it slipped away even as he tried. She blinked, then smiled sympathetically.

"Keep trying, Ichigo. You'll remember someday." She said encouragingly and Ichigo nodded, glancing at the flowers one last time before he took his seat. Unlike his dreams of sand and blood, the flowers felt… good. Positive. Sighing to himself, he took his seat and devoted his attention to the complexities of mathematics.

He wished he could remember.

Byakuya gently bathed Sojun, smiling sadly as the baby bubbled with happiness.

It had been almost two months since Ichigo had been lost, and Soifon had broken the conspiracy that had kidnapped him. Although calling it a conspiracy was, perhaps, too grandiose. Several young and not so young nobles had decided that a half-demon was simply too much, and they had included a few shinigami who had fought the demons. Using their knowledge of demonic reiatsu, they had crafted a non-lethal but very effective trap for Ichigo.

The only credit Byakuya could give them was for a bit of common decency. They had planned to eventually kill Ichigo, but not until Sojun was old enough to survive without him. They had been unable to stomach the death of a child, so they had planned to place him with a peasant family or in an orphanage after the death of his hybrid parent.

But everything had gone wrong for them, rather quickly. The kidnappers could shed no light on Ichigo's disappearance, because they didn't know how it had happened. The seki stone they were keeping him in should have prevented the use of focus, but somehow Ichigo had ignored that. The flare of power had sent the captors running to him, but they had arrived to find nothing left but bloodstains. Byakuya wondered if Ichigo had sacrificed his life to send Sojun to safety. That was something the hybrid would do, but from the descriptions, the amount of blood had not been enough to be definitely lethal. It was possible Ichigo was alive.

But where? As far as they could tell, he had completely vanished from Soul Society. Soifon was still searching, utilizing her spies and informants, but there was no trace of him. His reiatsu was distinctive, and Yamamoto himself had tried to seek it out, but he'd found nothing. Could the hybrid really be dead?

Byakuya shook his head. He wouldn't believe that until it was absolutely confirmed. He gently rinsed Sojun off, smiling as the child laughed. Security on his son was tighter now, and he was careful to make time to be with him, despite his duties.

If they never found Ichigo, Sojun would need him to be there.

"Hey mister, you can see me?" Ichigo blinked, then glanced around to see if there was anyone else the girl could be talking to.

"Of course I can see you. Why wouldn't I?" He asked the girl. She had short brown hair and was wearing a white and purple shirt, along with jean shorts. It looked a bit cool for the weather, but maybe that was just him. The only odd thing about her was the chain connected to her chest, that trailed away into nothing. She laughed at him, sitting down on the step beside him.

"I'm a ghost, mister." She said, leaning back against the stone and Ichigo blinked. He hadn't heard that term before.

"What's a ghost?" He asked and she looked at him in disbelief. "I have amnesia." He said defensively. She blinked at him, then shrugged.

"I'm dead. I'm trying to keep a watch on my sister." She said and Ichigo winced before nodding. That made sense to him, he'd seen at home how much Karin and Yuzu cared for each other, even if they did often drive each other crazy. "I've never met anyone who could see me, though. How can you see me, mister?"

"Call me Ichigo. And I have no idea." He shrugged. "Amnesia." Ichigo was fairly certain that if he could remember, he'd know why he could see this girl. But he didn't and couldn't, so life went on. Or, well, perhaps it didn't, given that his new friend was dead. "How'd you die, if you don't mind me asking?"

"I was riding my bike home and someone hit me." The girl said briefly and Ichigo winced at the pain in her eyes. "It didn't hurt really. He drove off, though, and just left me there. Or she, I didn't really see." Ichigo reached over to pat her shoulder and she looked at him wide-eyed. "You can touch me! How'd you do that?"

"No idea." He said again, looking at his hand. Somehow, touching the ghost had seemed completely natural to him. "Hmm." He flexed his hand, clenching and unclenching the muscles. He examined it closely, and began to get a strange feeling. "Is this even real?" He murmured to himself, then shook his head. "Huh." He abandoned the examination of his own body and turned his attention back to the ghost girl. "I know you want to care for your sister, but I'm pretty sure you should be going somewhere." He had no idea where, but he sensed a kind of danger in the ghost. She scowled at him.

"I'm not going anywhere!" She said and he considered it for a moment before shrugging. It really wasn't his business. "I'm Francesca, by the way."

"Nice to meet you, Francesca." He offered her a hand and she took it in genuine pleasure, smiling at the feel of being able to touch someone. A woman walked by and they both fell silent until she was gone. "I hang out here a lot, but if you ever really need me I live just down the road, at the house with the bright red car and the marigolds in the yard." Masaki was very fond of marigolds, and the flower beds were full of them.

"I might. There's something really nasty wandering around lately." She shivered as Ichigo tilted his head. "I don't think it cares about me, but it's really scary. It feels like it might be searching for something."

"Well, we'll just have to keep our heads down, eh Francesca?" Ichigo said with a smile. He wasn't too concerned about something searching Karakura town. Aside from his birth defect, there was nothing at all special about him. What could something that scared a ghost want with an amnesiac boy?

"I guess. Well, I better go see if my sister is okay. See you later Ichigo." Ichigo watched her leave, feeling vaguely unhappy. The chain on her chest wasn't very long, and that made him uneasy, although he couldn't have said why.

"Oh well. It really isn't my business." He pushed himself to his feet, but an uneasy feeling in his chest made him wonder. Were ghosts really not his business? He could see them and touch them. Ichigo shook his head, adjusting the strap of his school bag before walking home.

He couldn't remember, so it wasn't worth worrying about.

Ichigo sucked on the end of his pen, looking at the sheet in front of him in puzzlement.

It was a creative writing assignment. Ichigo was very good at English class, and vastly enjoyed writing. Unfortunately, he wasn't very good on the whole rough draft, finished draft thing. What was the point if everything came out perfectly to start with? And when he used the computer, he just fixed things as he went along. But since his English teacher seemed to be obsessed with rough drafts, he'd started writing in pen then typing it up later. The inability to go back and correct made his handwritten work look suitably like a rough draft.

Unfortunately, his assignment now was to write a story from his childhood. That was obviously a problem, but the teacher had told him to just make something up if he couldn't remember. Ichigo sighed and decided he would try to capture his dreams in a story. Maybe it would help him remember. Setting pen to the paper, he began to write.

I can't remember my childhood, but I am trying. I remember red stone, hard and hot even in the shade. I remember red sand that burned my feet yet felt so right when I took a handful and used it to scrub myself. Ichigo's eyes glazed over as he recalled that sand, and the words began to flow more freely. I remember so many scents. The reek of old blood, the sickly sweet smell of rot, the earthy smell of mushrooms. The stale tang of old sex. The hot, dusty odor of the desert and the heat of the sun on my skin. I remember the taste of blood and the feeling of power flowing through me like a fine wine. Death stalked the sands, and I was one of the death bringers, alone and lonely yet unable to find any companionship. The others that walked the sands were evil, but I was different and I knew it. There was no one else like me. I am alone yet not lonely now that I have friends who can accept –

"Ichigo!" Yuzu opened the door with a smile and he started, the pen dragging across the paper and leaving a trail of ink. "Mama's cooking, she wants to know if you would like spaghetti for supper?"

"Sure." Ichigo said, not entirely truthfully. Spaghetti was not his favorite dish, but he wasn't going to ask Masaki to make something different for him. His body knew that meat was the only proper fuel for him, but it could be a touch expensive. At least there would be some ground beef in the sauce.

"Wonderful! What are you writing, Ichigo?" She'd noticed his pen and paper. Ichigo looked down at the tiny bit of writing and winced. It was an accurate representation of his feelings, but…

"Nothing." He crumpled up the paper and threw it into the waste bin. "My teacher just asked us to write a story of our childhoods. I don't think mine's appropriate, so I'll just make something up." Really, the smell of sex? What had he been thinking when he wrote that? Yuzu giggled and left the room as Ichigo started a new story. This one was a complete fabrication, although he kept the red sand, imagining a beach on the ocean with that hot, burning sand. It was a lie, of course. Ichigo couldn't remember but he was somehow sure that water had not been a part of his life when he'd lived in the sands. Why else would he have used the sand to bathe himself? "I must have stunk so bad." He muttered to himself, then grinned.

If that had been his life before, perhaps he was glad that he couldn't remember.