A/N: Hmm... Not quite as long as I would have liked, but it will have to do for now. Sorry it took me so long to update, I've just been really lazy. That's quite normal for me after all I am a procrastinator at heart. -_-

Chapter 4: Shinigami

Akira snarled. Just like he had thought, Soul Society had sent one of their nasty people to scout out the area. There had been more and more hollows gathering around the Kurosaki house with each passing day and Akira supposed that one of the residents might be awakening their spirit powers. It was most likely the boy, who was getting his powers, as Akira had seen him talking to various ghosts on his way to and from school. Akira just hoped that the boy would not become a shinigami, because then Akira might be forced to kill him. It was not as if he enjoyed killing, it was just his duty to protect his brother and the citizens of the town he lived in.

A cool morning wind swirled around Akira blowing strands of hair into his face whispering that the shinigami was nearing his position, he peeked out from behind an ugly orange house to see the shinigami approaching. The shinigami was a short female with black hair and sparkling violet eyes. To most she would look like a normal human but Akira knew better. She was a demon in disguise just like the one that had let his grandfather die and tried to kill him and Uryu. If he let her get close to him and his brother or stay too long she would turn on them giving them to soul society and leading them to their deaths. He would not trust her, and until she left he would always be watching her to be certain that she wasn't going to do anything.

One dark night while Uryu was at home studying for a math test that he would be having the following day; Akira was out watching the Shinigami. The wind ruffled his hair as he watched the shinigami in the pale light that was coming from the moon. She was searching for the huge snake-like hollow that she had let escape the other day. She had been being careless and let a plus get in the way of her fight and she saved the child as the hollow ran away. She had probably only saved the brat because he had a chance to become a soul reaper like her. Akira narrowed his eyes as the shinigami walked in to the house of a small family of four people.

The shinigami walked into the teenage boy's room. This boy had short bright orange hair that was a shocking shade even in the darkness of night and plain brown eyes. If Akira remembered correctly, he was in Uryu's class and his name was Ichigo Kurosaki, strawberry what a strange name for a boy. Akira made sure to know all of the names of Uryu's classmates. No, he was not a stalker. To him there was no such thing as being to cautious, especially when it came to the safety of his little brother.

Akira had always sensed a high level of spirit energy coming from Kurosaki and had saved him from quite a few hollows over the years. Since boy was able to see and speak with spirits Akira had always wondered if the boy was able to see hollows but it would be too risky to let one come close to his house. It could kill one of the boy's little sisters or father, although Akira sensed something strange about Isshin Kurosaki, who knows, the man just might be able to defend himself. But now that the shinigami was there it would be the perfect time for a hollow to attack. A few seconds later, as if by magic, a hollow headed towards the Kurosaki house. Akira settled down to watch the action that was about to take place.

The soul reaper noticed the hollow coming so she bound the orange haired boy and headed outside to fight, although she neglected to think about how powerful one could be while trying to protect their family. Akira knew that while he was protecting his family he became much more powerful because of his determination, so why would it be different for anybody else? The boy fought his binds frantically as he heard his sister's frantic screams for help he let out a huge burst of power, for someone who was untrained, and freed himself several seconds later proving Akira's point right. As Kurosaki reached the battle he succeeded in catching the shinigami's attention, giving the hollow a perfect opening. Akira cackled madly as the shinigami flew through the air, courtesy of the hollow's fist, well not quite a fist as Akira didn't think that snakes had fists. While Akira sat still hiding he reasoned that it might have been more enjoyable if the hollow had cut off the girls head instead. He hated all shinigami and enjoyed watching them get hurt. Although his laughing was stopped immediately as he watched the boy shove the shinigami's sword through his chest gaining shinigami powers. As power flowed out of the orange haired kid, power that might even surpass his own one day, Akira knew what it meant. This was bad, not only was there another shinigami to worry about, but they also had to worry about soul society sending down more!

As he was their enemy, Akira studied the soul reapers every free minute when he wasn't resting or conversing with the wind. He knew that the boy wasn't supposed to gain that much power from what the shinigami had done and he also knew that there would be shinigami coming down to investigate the soul reaper's disappearance, as she wouldn't be heading back any time soon without her powers.

There was nothing else that he could do here and if the boy's power was any hint, he wouldn't have any trouble beating the hollow. That power made him think. The boy shouldn't have had more power than the shinigami that they received their powers from, but the boy's power was far superior to the female shinigami's. The only thing Akira could think of was that the boy must have had some sort of shinigami powers before he had become a shinigami. If that was true it meant that either his father or his dead mother had been a shinigami. It seemed more likely to be the mother as she wasn't there any more, but you never knew. It could just as well be the father, and he was hiding his powers from everybody, that might even be the cause of the strange feeling that Akira received when he was close to the man. Whatever, nothing stayed hidden from Akira for long, he would find out the answers in time.

Akira turned and left deciding to warn his brother about this new addition to their long list of enemies. He made his way down the rows of houses that all looked the same to get to the room that he and his brother had shared for years. As he entered the room he saw his brother asleep with his head on his desk, work scattered all over the floor. He smiled fondly; the news could wait until tomorrow. His brother was always overworking himself to get good grades in school so his father would not kick Akira out of the house. Akira knew that he could survive on the streets if he had no other choice but he was sure that his brother would not let that happen to him. Sometimes Uryu was too kind hearted for his own good.

Akira gently picked up his brother and carried him over to his bed, this was easy for him because Uryu was so skinny and Akira worked out at the gym or with his powers daily, giving him plenty of muscles. As he placed his brother onto his bed and pulled the covers over him he wondered if they would always be together. Right now he would say yes but he had no clue what life had in store for him and if what the wind was telling him was true, which it always is, then he and his brother were heading towards troubling times. Akira rubbed the sides of his head before heading outside and hopping onto the black roof. He felt more at home when he was outside where the wind could ruffle his hair and whisper little bits of the future to him.

As he lay back and watched the stars he wondered why he felt that he and his brother would be separated soon. He truly hoped his feelings were not right, but he had to be prepared. Would his brother side with the soul reapers? And if so what would he do? No, that was silly. He would always be by his brother's side, even if Uryu didn't know it.

---

Akira found himself woken by sunlight streaming through his closed eyelids. He must have fallen asleep on the roof again. Sighing he opened his eyes and stretched all of the kinks out of his back. It was a lovely day. The sun was twinkling in the clear blue sky and the birds were chirping happily. The wind pulled at his hair and told him that his brother was waking up. Akira jumped down off of the roof to land in the bright green grass springing back up as to not hurt his legs; it would not do to have an injury with all of those enemies about. He stretched once more, cracking his back with a loud snap, before heading inside to speak to his brother. As he entered the room he saw that his brother was still in his blue and white pyjamas. Uryu never wore anything that didn't have at least one speck of white on it; he thought that the color white represented the Quincy just as the color black represented the shinigami.

"Hey Uryu" he said, walking over to his bed and sitting down as he waited for his brother to finish getting dressed. His brother wasn't paying much attention to him. He was waiting to hear what Akira had to say about last night. It was a routine by now. Uryu had to do his school work at night because he spent his days training, so as Uryu worked, Akira would take care of the town. When Akira came home he would find Uryu asleep as his bed or desk and would have to wait until the next morning to tell Uryu if anything important had happened. "The soul reaper gave her powers to the Kurosaki boy." Those words made Uryu spin around wide eyed. His hands were still working on buttoning up his shirt but Akira now knew that he had his undivided attention.

"Are you sure it was Kurosaki?" Uryu asked. It would not be helpful to have a soul reaper in his class, not at all.

"Umm…let's see," Akira thought "He has bright orange hair and brown eyes. That's him right?"

"Yes." Uryu agreed emotionlessly as the gears in his mind started spinning wildly. What would he do about this shinigami?

---

Akira sighed as he ran his fingers through his silky blonde hair. This was just one more of the many days with no Uryu. He went through this every day when his brother went to school. There was never anything to do, not now that the shinigami had come to town. Usually he could spend a good part of the day killing hollows to drive off his boredom, but now those damn shinigami were killing off all of the hollows and there was none left for him so he ended up spending the days walking around Karakura getting into trouble. He would sometimes bump into random people on the streets just to start a fight. One time he had bumped into this guy who he swore was at least eight feet tall. That had been a good fight. His opponent had even gotten in a few good hits!

Akira found himself wondering around the deserted streets yet again. He had already been to almost every place in the whole damn town and knew where everything was. He made his way over to one of the parks and sat down on an old wooden bench that was painted the ugliest shade of green he had ever seen. He watched some birds hop around in search of worms. Even the damn birds had something important to do! If he didn't find something to do soon he was going to crack!

He tugged at his pale yellow hair in frustration, nearly pulling some of it out by mistake. If he couldn't think of something to do he could always follow the wind, so he closed his eyes and focused. For several seconds there was nothing but then the wind gave him a push to the right, not strong enough to knock him over but not too gentle to feel either. Akira got up and started walking through the streets, following the directions that he wind gave him. As he walked he wondered where the wind was going to take him, hopefully somewhere exciting. Soon he found himself in front of a large run down building. The empty spaces where windows had been at some point in time were filled with pointy shards of broken glass and the old white door was stained and at a strange angle, it seemed to have been broken off of its hinges. Akira walked inside, feet crunching on glass that was strewn all over the floor. The inside was not much better than the outside, the sky blue paint was chipping off of the walls and several desks and chairs were broken or laying on their sides. It must have been a place where something was taught because the desks were made so you could place binders or books inside and there was a grimy chalkboard hanging on the wall. The worst thing about the whole place was the smell; it was rank just like a sewer, but something about the smell seemed almost familiar to Akira. Could it have been something from his life as Naruto that he was remembering? But no, even with all of the different places he had hidden in, he had never been inside of a sewer.

Several minutes later, Akira walked out of the building frowning. His thoughts were now focused on an old village surrounded by trees. Why did everything he saw bring his thoughts back to that place? His life as Naruto and the want to be a ninja was over. Now he was Akira, the proud Quincy and brother of Uryu, there was no need to think of that place any longer. He would forget about it and block it out of his memories just as he had been trying to do since he met Uryu and his grandfather.