A Black Heart

Not a bad response if I do say so myself and certainly better than I was expecting for this spur of the moment idea. Now then the only question that needs to be answered right now is the pairing…yeah good luck guys and girls, because that's still in the murky confines of my mind and even I can't make out the end result yet. Think of it like the Protector's Temptation, I'm going to drag you along with me until we finally have something that can work. Until then, I'm just going to tease you guys along the way (Hmm, could do a Tatsuki pairing, or my first Rukia pairing. A Ryo pairing would be rare. Oh I know! How about a fem-Hollow Ichigo pairing? The insanity would be entertaining, yes? No?).

Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach.

"Normal speech"

'Inner speech/thoughts'

"Kido/Zanpakuto Attacks/Quincy Techniques"

"Zanpakuto speech"

"Hollow speech"

XXX

Chapter 2:

"W-What do you mean?" Rukia stuttered out as the green robed man glared down at her.

"Just look at yourself and see what I mean," he replied, gesturing at her. Looking down at herself, she gasped as she was clad in a simple white yukata, indicating that she had, had her powers drained. "While his treatment of the hollow was distracting, that should not have distracted you enough to cover the complete loss of your powers. Now you're no more powerful than the very souls you swore to protect," he chided her, before turning his back on her and heading towards Tatsuki and Ichigo's unconscious forms, where a large, dark skinned man was tending to them.

"How are they Tessai-san?" the blonde man asked the other as he stood over them.

"They'll live boss," the man replied as he finished bandaging Ichigo's head wound. "Once we get them home, we should be able to leave it at that."

"Very well then, you would know best," the blonde replied, scratching his chin as he observed the pair. Looking over his shoulder at Rukia, he called out to the powerless girl. "You'll need a gigai if you want to recover your powers without leaving here. Come along now, it's not very often that I feel charitable after all."

XXX

The following morning, Ichigo woke with a groan as his mind flashed through the various dreams he had from last night. Nightmares of a monster of immense size, watching helplessly as it crushed Tatsuki in its grip, to finally the overwhelming sense of power he got when the girl stabbed him in his chest with her sword. Running a hand through his hair, he froze as he felt the bandage wrapped around his forehead. Jumping out of his bed, he rushed to the bathroom, staring at the white cloth in disbelief. Spying even more of it at his neckline, he tore his shirt off and stared at his chest that was wrapped up tightly with white cloth. 'It wasn't a dream!' he thought in disbelief as he gently probed his chest. 'But then…what happened to the girl…the monster…TATSUKI!' he mentally screamed, tearing out of the bathroom and crashing headfirst into said person.

"Ouch!" she shouted as she fell backwards onto her rear, rubbing her head to soothe it of the bump. "Watch where you're going Ichigo!" she groused as he held a hand out to her and pulled her up. Despite catching a glimpse of her white cotton panties, an event that would have led to him teasing her mercilessly only yesterday, his mind was drawn to the hint of white cloth peeking out of the top of her school shirt. Seeing where his gaze had been drawn to, she sighed and let her hand fall to her side. "Hard to believe that we let our guard down enough that we were ambushed huh? At least there was someone passing by that was able to scare the thugs off."

"Thugs…?" he asked in confusion, watching her brow furrow at him. 'It was a monster, a hollow if I remember correctly, not a bunch of lame ass thugs!'

"Yeah gangbangers, thugs, bitch ass pansies as you like to call them," she said with a hint of irritation. "Don't you remember anything from last night? Or did that metal pole to your head do more than we thought?" she asked in concern, fussing with the bandage on his head.

"I…I just…I'm fine," he stuttered out, still in disbelief that she couldn't remember the same version of events as him. 'Maybe it was just a vivid dream and it really was just a bunch of guys.'

"Well if you're okay you should get ready. The teachers aren't going to go easy on us, even if it's not our fault that we only got in late last night," she said as she headed for the kitchen, the sound of the kettle boiling echoing through the apartment. Eyes widening at her words, he poked his head back into his room to stare at his alarm clock and cursed at the fact that he had less than ten minutes to get ready.

XXX

"GAH! Ichigo-kun what happened to you?!" a young brunette girl shrieked as he and Tatsuki walked onto the school grounds thirty minutes later, drawing the attention of everyone in the school yard to the pair's arrival. As cries of "Are you alright Ichigo-kun?!" and "Do you need some help Ichigo-kun," echoed through his ears, Ichigo watched as Tatsuki smirked at him, before leaving him to be mobbed by his well-wishers. Scowling inwardly, he plastered a small smile on his face and raised his hands for silence.

"Girls, girls calm down," he said soothingly as he tried to calm the mob down. "It's just a small cut and I'm fine. There's absolutely nothing for you to be worried about," he said, a roguish grin on his face as he finished.

As if mesmerised by his smile and charisma, all the girls smiled back at him, stars in their eyes as they parted before him like the sea. "Hai Ichigo-sama!" they called out, watching with dreamy expressions as he walked past them and disappeared into the building proper.

Ambling over to his classroom, he greeted most of the other students as they called out to him, while avoiding the more spirited greetings of class idiots like Keigo Asano. Finally reaching his classroom, he ignored the soft chatter as friends caught up with one another and settled into his seat, leaning back into it with his eyes closed.

"Ohayo Kurosaki-kun!" Orihime Inoue's voice rang out, causing Ichigo to frown internally in annoyance. It wasn't that Orihime was ugly or unpleasant, in fact she was far from it as she undoubtedly the girl from almost every guy's wet dream, what with her large breasts, impressive curves and friendly demeanour, but none of this could overcome the fact that she seemed to have an unhealthy obsession with him. If she had been any other girl, he would've shown her the real Ichigo and seen whether she still idolised him, but considering she was Tatsuki's best friend, it meant that he had to spare her innocence.

"Hey Inoue-chan," he greeted back with a smile, leaving her blushing and sputtering incoherently for a moment before she recovered.

"Ah my Hime sounds so cute when she stutters like that!" a girlish voice said as a pair of hands reached out from behind Orihime and began to fondle her breasts unabashed.

"A-Ah Chizuru-chan!" Orihime moaned in protest, just as a speeding heel connected with her would-be molester and sent said girl tumbling over Ichigo's desk and into the now scowling boy's lap.

"Leave her alone you damned pervert!" Tatsuki yelled as she stomped her foot down threateningly, her eyes filled with rage as she stared at the red-headed lesbian.

"You can't deny that my love enjoyed my actions!" she shouted back, struggling to right herself and causing Ichigo to cough uncomfortably at she brushed up against his crotch, while half the class sweat-dropped at her delusions.

"Settle down munchkins, settle down," their teacher Misato Ochi called as she walked into the room, her signature register book in her hands. "Arisawa stop trying to pummel Honsho and Honsho…stop straddling Kurosaki, he's starting to look uncomfortable."

Freezing at her teacher's words, Chizuru peered slowly over her shoulder and promptly paled at the glare Ichigo was directing at her. Jumping almost a foot into the air, she quickly hurried over to her seat, amidst the chuckling of the class.

"Oi I said settle down!" Misato called out, tapping her book on her desk to silence them. "Now then, we have a new student joining us today. She's all the way from Osaka so make sure you guys treat her well…understand?" she said in a low threatening tone, her eyes boring into the majority of the male population and causing them to shudder and nod. "Good, come in now please!"

His interest piqued slightly at the thought of a new girl transferring to their school, Ichigo watched with a bored expression on his face, only to have it wiped away as he stared in shock at the girl from last night, standing in front of their class, in their school uniform.

"Hello, my name is Rukia Kuchiki," she said with a bow, a smile on her face. "It's a pleasure to meet you all." While the majority of the class exchanged greetings with her, Ichigo's mind was racing as he fought to keep himself calm. Images, no memories of last night played over and over in his head as he remembered both her and the monster they fought, before his mind drew a blank as to how the fight ended.

'It was real! There was no gang, but then what happened to the monster? Did she end up killing it and then patching us up? Why's she here now then? What does she want…or rather…who does she want?' he thought with a frown, missing the fact that Rukia was walking over to the unoccupied seat next to him. That is, until she stopped in front of him and held out a hand to him.

"Rukia Kuchiki, a pleasure," she said as she continued to hold her hand out to him, before turning it over slowly. Seeing that there was writing on her palm, he narrowed his eyes at what he read. Make a scene…and I will kill you! Looking up at her with a smirk, he took her hand, turning it back over again and kissed the back of it, startling her and the others in class.

"Oh believe me…the pleasure's all mine," he finished with a grin.

XXX

When the bell rang for lunch, Ichigo hid his amusement at how his classmates swarmed Rukia, cutting her off as she tried to make a beeline straight for him. Hurrying away so that neither she nor the others could bother him, he headed down a secluded hallway, yawning as he walked. As he passed the door to the empty art class though, he almost yelped as he was yanked back by his collar, before being slammed back into the wall as a pair of lips claimed his own in a heated kiss. Catching a whiff of the perfume the girl wore; he smirked and let his arms drift down to her waist. Moaning into the kiss, the girl in front of him pulled back for air, panting as she recovered her breath.

"You know… if this is what I can expect to happen after I get injured, I might just get into trouble a little more often Ryo," he joked, hissing in pain as a fist collided with his bandaged chest.

"Sorry, sorry!" the now named Ryo whispered quickly, running her fingers over his chest gently, whilst he smirked back at her. Being one of the tallest girls in the grade, she was just slightly shorter than him her forehead being level with his jaw.

"Tch, you'd need to use a lot more force if you really wanted to hurt me," he said gently, running a hand through her long black hair.

"Evidently someone did," she murmured into his shoulder, her fingers slipping through the buttons of his shirt to caress his chest. "I was worried when you were late this morning and it only got worse when rumours spread through the school that you were injured."

Nodding his head as she spoke, he continued to thread his fingers through her hair as she vented at him, knowing it was what she needed at the moment. "And what's going on with you and the new girl, Rukia I think her name was? Do you know her?" she asked, causing him to chuckle again.

"She's not my type believe me. I just felt like teasing her at the time. The last I saw of her, she had to answer a veritable avalanche of questions from the rest of the class." Feeling her nod her head, he glanced at the hands of the silver wristwatch he had given to her last year for her birthday and smirked. "You know…we have 30 minutes before lunch is over. So if you want…" he tried to say, only to find himself silenced as she attacked his lips again, all the while grinning devilishly at her.

A little over twenty minutes later and Ryo tentatively poked her head out the classroom door, only to let out a high-pitched squeal and leap out into the mercifully empty hallway as Ichigo's hand slipped under her school skirt and gave her derriere a squeeze. Chuckling at her outburst, Ichigo slipped out after her, doing up the last button of his shirt and tucking it back into his pants, before leaving the track and academic star blushing at him.

XXX

The day passed in an absolutely chaotic fashion for Rukia, despite her attempts to remain unnoticed and unimportant. After the fiasco that was her greeting, she found herself the centre of attention thanks to Ichigo. If she was completely honest with herself though, it was as if Ichigo's class mates were sheep and the boy himself was the shepherd, but it would be far more accurate to say they were the puppets with him as the puppet master.

Regardless of his role in the school, she blamed him for her predicament of hiding away in the branches of a large tree, observing the orange-haired enigma as he and his teammates warmed-down after practice.

While his past was a an unspoken subject, a topic that had earned her several glares whenever she asked, she had been surprised to find out that while he had always been an impressive track athlete, he had only as recently as last year broken into the Top 10 academic ranks and, if rumours were to be believed, was set to rise even higher in the coming months. Adding this into his social standing, she couldn't fathom why he seemed so merciless and cold when dealing with the hollow yesterday. Then again, considering that his life and that of his adoptive sister was on the line, she could almost understand where he was coming from.

Hearing the shrill whistle from the coach, she looked over to see the team beginning to disperse and quietly slipped down from her perch, shadowing Ichigo as he disappeared into the school building. Hurrying to catch up with him, she broke into a jog, catching glimpses of his orange hair as he rounded corner after corner. Huffing in exasperation, she sprinted around the last corner, letting out a strangled yelp as a hand covered her mouth, while another wrapped around her neck and dragged her back into a deserted classroom. Struggling to break free of her captor's grip, she found herself abruptly thrown into a chair, wincing as her ass connected painfully with the seat.

"What the hell do you want?!" she yelled, glaring up at her attacker and finding Ichigo staring down at her with an impassive mask on his face.

"That's my line Kuchiki," he spoke coldly. "What are you doing at my school? You killed your monster so why don't you head home now?"

"I can't you idiot! You took all of my powers last night!" she shouted back at him, causing him to arch an eyebrow at her.

"What do you mean I took all of it? And what powers do you mean exactly?"

"It's understandable that you don't know much about it, especially since we were pressed for time and there was no time to educate you," she said with a tired sigh, smoothing out her skirt and making herself more comfortable. "First off, you need a brief overview of the spirit world. There are two kinds of spirits in this world; plus souls, which are your normal everyday ghosts and hollows, evil souls that consume the souls of both pluses, both living and dead." As she spoke, she walked over to the blackboard and began to draw cartoonish rabbit-like figures to illustrate it to him. While he remained neutral on the outside, he was inwardly cringing at the childish drawings and trying his best to wipe them from his mind.

"As for what I am, well I'm sure you've guessed by now that I am also dead. I am what you would call a soul reaper. We are normally invisible to the average human, unless we us a gigai or false body, like the one I am in now. We are responsible for maintaining the balance by helping plus souls pass on to heaven and purifying hollows that would feast on them," she said, drawing his attention to a new set of drawings, involving what looked like her with her sword hilt pressed against the forehead of a plus and another with her cleaving a hollow in two.

"And that's where you come in. Since you now have my powers, you're going to have to take over my duties and take care of any pluses or hollows from now on."

"And what makes you think that I'll do this? Last night was a one-time deal and I really don't feel like being at someone's beck and call like that to take care of monsters and ghosts," he said with a callous wave of his hand.

"I was afraid you'd want to do it the hard way," she said with a sigh as she reached into her shirt and pulled out a red glove with a black and white skull, surrounded by blue flames, on it and pulled it onto her hand. Before Ichigo could react, she had rushed at him, slamming her palm into his face and pushed him back. "Now that, that's sorted, we can…" she started to say, only to gasp and wince as she was grabbed around her neck yet again and slammed into the wall with bruising force. Looking back at Ichigo, she felt a shiver of fear run down her spine at the look of intense rage in his eyes.

"What did you do to me?!" he hissed through gritted teeth, pointing to his now lifeless body with his free hand.

"I…I just…freed your soul…from your body," she wheezed, struggling even harder as his grip around her neck tightened even more and making it even more difficult to breathe. "You need to do this Ichigo…you're responsible for the well-being of others now."

"What part of "I won't do it" don't you understand?" he spat at her, lifting her up a little higher so that her feet dangled uselessly in the air. "I've got my own life to live and as for the souls of the dead…let them fend for themselves; they've done nothing to help me in the past."

"But, but you have the power to help them…" she gasped out, feeling herself become increasingly light-headed. "It's your duty…" she was cut off as he dropped her to the ground, where she proceeded to take great, heaving breaths.

"You're exactly right about that Rukia, I have the power…and you don't," he said as he crouched down to be eye-level with her and held her chin in his hand. "And that means that I have the final say about what I do and don't do with these powers. So let me promise you this…you try and force me into doing this and I won't think twice of killing you and ridding myself of this problem you're giving me." Watching her grow pale at his threat, Ichigo smirked and made his way over to his lifeless body.

"Why?" she whispered softly, causing him to look at her over his shoulder at her. "Why are you so warm and friendly to the living, but so cruel and heartless to the dead? Don't you care that they used to be alive just like you?!"

"You think I care about the majority of the people in this world?" he asked incredulously. "You think that I'd doing this because I'm kind? Take a look around you Rukia, the students at this school practically worship me, would do anything for me. They believe what I want them to believe and allow me to reap the rewards of such devotion. Tell me then; what reward could I possibly get from helping the dead?" Waiting for her to reply, he scoffed when none was forthcoming. "If there's no reward for helping them, why should I bother risking my own skin for them?"

"What…what if there was a reward?" she said slowly, uncertainly, watching his ears perk up slightly in interest.

"I'm listening…"

"Soul reapers sent to the Living World for long-term deployment are offered a bounty on each of the hollows they kill. It's enough to keep them supplied while here and there have been cases where they saved up enough to use the leftovers to indulge in their own wants," she explained, earning his full attention again. "If I help you claim those bounties, will you keep the town safe from hollows?"

"Well we'll just have to see how much you're getting paid for killing them now won't we," he said with a smirk, walking over to her and pulling her to her feet.

"There's a hollow that's supposed to appear at a park nearby in fifteen minutes, you can find out there."

XXX

Fifteen minutes later and the pair of them were at the park mentioned in her report, waiting for the arrival of the hollow. Looking at him out of the corner of her eye, she could see a change come over him. Instead of the cocky attitude she expected and the one he used on a regular basis, or the cruel, heartless gaze he had last night, it was instead a completely blank look, devoid of all emotion. 'Typical of a mercenary I suppose,' she grumbled internally. She still couldn't believe that he was motivated by an emotion like greed; it just didn't tie in with anything she knew of him so far. Hearing her cell phone chime, she pulled it out and looked at the screen. "It's here," she murmured, just as a bug-like hollow barrelled out of the trees, howling as it pursued a little boy ghost.

"Guess I'm up then," he replied monotonously, pulling the large blade from his back. Unlike last night when he was so consumed by his hatred for the hollow that attacked them, Ichigo was surprised at the feeling he got from simply holding the blade. It seemed to actively be calling out to his soul, energising him beyond the adrenaline rush of battle and released an almost anguished cry as it begged to be allowed to cut something. Shaking his head to clear the battle haze that threatened to claim him, he rushed at the hollow with his blade held high. Ducking under the swing of its claw, he brought his blade down on its mask, cutting it in half with ease and causing it to disintegrate. Raising his blade to his eye-level, its cries seemed to diminish, almost as if it was satisfied for the moment.

"And it was worth ¥18900(1)…congratulations," she said in a whisper, staring at the tracker on her phone.

"You know Rukia…this really might not be so bad after all," he said, shouldering his blade and giving her a wicked grin.

XXX

Well that was fun. Now I know Ichigo may seem OOC, but I plan to reveal more life changing events as we progress, so please bear with me. In fact here's a little teaser. Do you remember the knife Ichigo had on him in the first chapter…what event do you think prompted him to carry it around? If you get it right, I might PM you with more hints, or maybe a teaser extract. Yeah I think that sounds like fun. Till next time boys and girls.

1 - ¥18900 – Is approximately $200