Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach or any of the plot and characters associated.
Prologue
A bright day in Karakura town. At this time, kids are just arriving home from school. However, of these kids, one Ichigo Kurosaki was not included.
The seven year old boy was still home, lamenting the events that had taken place almost a full month prior. Ichigo remained in his room, hardly ever going outside of it unless it was to eat or use the restroom, but even those occurrences were extremely rare now.
Ichigo's younger twin sisters, at two years old, were too young to understand the events that had occurred, and Ichigo's father, Issin Kurosaki, was depressed himself at the loss of the love of his life, Masaki Kurosaki.
It was a rough, deprave time for the Kurosaki family.
It was dark outside, and most people in Karakura town were sleeping right now. But not Ichigo Kurosaki, the nightmares that haunt his daily sleep were too much for the young boy. Ichigo was at his desk studying over everything he had missed in school over the past weeks, an easy distraction for his ailing mind.
However, he was becoming more and more irritated because of that stupid bug that was flying around his room.
… buzzz...
In a move of great agility, Ichigo picked up his school math book and slammed it on the annoying bug that had landed on top of his desk, hollering out a miniature war cry for added effect.
Ichigo looked under the math book, to find that the bug had indeed been squashed by the book. However, further inspection was impossible.
"Ichigo?" the named boy turned to find his father opening the door of his room. "What are you still doing up at this time of night?"
Not wanting to worry his father, Ichigo replied with his next best excuse, "I was studying, I was just trying to not fall behind in class."
Issin clearly didn't buy it. But then he smiled, a cheesy smile that shocked Ichigo since he hadn't seen his father smile like that since the incident.
"My boy Ichigo! So brave, we are going back to school! I want to see you up early tomorrow. If not, I'll kick your butt out of it!"
Ichigo looked at his father shocked. Then the father walked out of the room with that grin still in place.
Ichigo sighed, he wasn't willing to argue with his father.
Early morning appeared in the Soul Society, the home of some of the most powerful beings in known existence.
But this morning light did not reach the depths of the secret laboratory of the fifth squad captain, Aizen Sosuke.
The said captain was currently befuddled, looking over the last recorded events before the spy-fly was squashed by the human book, an object that shouldn't have been capable of keeping up with the agile insect-robot.
Aizen couldn't help it, he sighed.
"Oh my, the great Aizen is exasperated. Something not going to plan?" a certain squinty eyed captain made his appearance from the hallway.
"It would seem so. I'll have to make a minor detour to the human world to watch over the human boy. In the meantime, have another fly made. I'll have to reprogram it to stay further away from its subject... as well as these human textbooks."
"Why not just stay in the blind for a while? The fly would be easily completed in a human month or two."
"Yes, but the boy is in a time of high emotions and instability. Something could happen any day now that could change everything with him, and I have to keep watch at all times."
"And how would you keep this event out of the eyes of the Soul Society? A trip to Hueco Mundo is one thing, since no soul reaper can detect traces of other trace reiatsus in Hueco Mundo. But in the human world, there's nothing to hide your trace reiatsu there."
"My reiatsu will be masked by the Kurosaki boy's latent power, it should be strong enough to mask whatever little that makes it past my suppression and the limiter."
"If you say so, captain. But why not send me or Tosen for such a long term mission?"
"Because Tosen is blind, reiatsu sensing or not he requires more reiatsu in the environment to see moderately well around him, very bad for a stealth mission. And I need you to go on a trip to the Rukon districts to scout out potential threats to our plan."
"Ahh, well. I suppose I should start that tonight. I guess you still have everything planned out, don't you captain?"
"We'll see..."
Aizen arrived, luckily without any commotion in the Soul Society as a result of his departure. But a large portion of that could be contributed to his zanpakuto.
Arriving at the Kurosaki household, he'd arrived just in time to hear a loud noise.
"Dad! Why'd you kick me!"
"I told you, if you didn't get up, I'd kick your butt out of bed!"
"But that was my face!"
"Was there ever a difference!?"
"Dad!"
"Hurry up son! You want to make it to school on time, right?"
Aizen was amused at the charades of the father. A large difference compared to what he'd been seeing from the fly, had he already missed something important? He hoped not.
Aizen watched from afar, looking at the boys life. It was almost tragic to watch.
It began about a few minutes after Ichigo left the safety of his house, three school bullies showed up, looking almost twice the age of Ichigo.
"What are you doing out of your house squirt, done crying over your stupid mother already?" said the bully Yamaya.
"Hey guys, I think he spent his whole morning dying his hair, look how orange it is now!" said the second one, Kira.
By this time, Ichigo was preparing to make a run for it.
"I think he's going to run boys, lets show him what we do to freaks who don't know their place." The front boy and leader of the small gang, Ouji, called out.
Not a moment later, the two older boys grabbed the child as he was about to bolt off. Then they took him over to their "leader".
Minutes passed of the three tormenting the child with words, pokes, prods, even some punches to the gut, until another adult was heard coming down the street. The three boys made a break for wherever their "safe house" was, leaving a crying Ichigo on the ground.
All of this was observed by a frowning Aizen.
-Break-
Ichigo's day got worse from there. Ichigo hardly made it a few minutes without a push, or someone laughing at him. Ichigo cried in the bathroom, wished his mother was still there for him, that he had some help.
By the end of the day, he couldn't find any of his friends, only more and more people that bugged him.
Days went by like this, a week by, and then the next, things only got worse. Ichigo's father tried cheering Ichigo up, tried defending him all the way to school, finding different ways to go to school. It turns out that Issin didn't have Masaki's abilities to cheer Ichigo up, and all attempts to help Ichigo only made matters worse, whether in school or on the streets.
Aizen watched all of this with a sorrowful gaze. Looking from a third person perspective was difficult, what the child must be going through...
Aizen was done watching. He knew what he could do. It'd be illegal, but it would also be merciful.
Research wasn't worth Ichigo's suffering.
Exactly a month after Ichigo began leaving for school, Ichigo felt different. It wasn't just his spiraling depression, or the bruises he had on his body. It felt like a premonition, that something different was going to happen today.
Ichigo was walking to school, using a pathway he'd found was a lot safer than most others he'd used before, it involved going through a few back alleys, but thugs don't use those anymore... right?
Turning the corner to go through one of these alleys, Ichigo was immediately impaled. A coldness swept through him as he felt himself growing limp on the end of a sword.
A calmness washed over Ichigo, an acceptance of what was happening, that he was going to die and finally be able to see his mother again. Ichigo gripped the blade and looked up to see the eyes of his murderer.
"Th-tha-thank... y-you..." Ichigo stuttered out, accepting the blade into him.
A burst of light and the sound of a shunpo, a body hits the ground. Hours later, an ambulance is heard arriving on scene.
"What are you doing back here captain? I thought you'd wait the full two months to wait for the fly to be done?" questioned the third division caption.
Aizen looked back at Gin, "The plan... has changed."
A/N: I apologize for the extremely short chapter. But this prologue was mainly to get the creative juices flowing. Hope you guys liked it!