A/N: Hello! This is my first time writing fan fiction so I would just like to say thank you in advance to anyone who chooses to review this. The first four chapters were all written at the same time to get the story moving.

Bleach and all products thereof are copyright to Tite Kubo, et al.

Tuesday, February 11, 2003

Ichigo walked along a sidewalk in what counted as Karakura's downtown (in as much as anything did in proximity to Tokyo) toward the café he'd agreed to meet Alan at. He'd called the man during lunch and agreed to meet him immediately after school. It was another chilly afternoon and what few people he passed were bundled up in winter gear. There was little to any great evidence of it being National Foundation Day. Ichigo cared about neither. He found himself instead realizing he was very close to the place where he'd first seen a Hollow…and Rukia, and that steeled his resolve to hurry on.

He pushed such thoughts from his mind with consternation as he found the café in question. It was decently upscale—not the kind of place he really went to—and quite lively, the weather seemingly having compelled people to seek warm drinks and socialization indoors. Upon entry he was struck both by the warmth, the appealing smells, and by the degree of chatter going on. It wasn't really loud, but loud enough to conceal the particulars of any one given conversation handily. He didn't miss the fact that it was the perfect public place in which to not be noticed. Looking around he quickly spotted Alan. The man was situated at a table next to one of the café's windows, drinking what appeared to be coffee.

His appearance was completely different from the previous day. He had on relatively non-descript clothes: a long-sleeved black shirt, khaki slacks, and a dark blue jumper. He blended in well and had apparently been there long enough that no one was paying the foreigner any mind, if anyone ever had to begin with. Ichigo went to the counter and ordered a cup of tea, waiting for it before adopting a hard expression and walking over to Alan's table. He put his tea on it and sat down opposite him, looking out the window. Neither said anything to the other for some time. "So, what am I supposed to call you, Alan Hayward?" Ichigo asked at last, glancing at him.

"Ordinarily it would be Hayward-sama, Hayward-senpai, or Hayward-sensei to you, but we both know you're not big on authority," Alan replied. His expression had a certain wryness to it; he was noting the fact without really caring about it. "You can stick with Alan, or you can call me," Alan paused as if considering, "Hayward-san, Hayward-chūsa, or just chūsa." He added, matter-of-factly, "If you call me 'Al', I'll break your nose."

Ichigo neither said nor emoted anything in response but decided to just stick with calling him Alan. He did take note of the fact the man had no problems being addressed by his rank rather than an honorific, but wasn't fully sure what it meant, although it reminded him of the more laid back taichō of the Gotei 13.

"And what do you want me to call you, Ichigo Kurosaki?" asked Alan. His tone was plain.

"You know, despite how good you are at our language, the way you keep saying names in Western order is weird," said Ichigo.

"Consider it an eccentricity," Alan said, smiling cryptically.

Ichigo pursed his lips somewhat before shrugging and giving a snide smirk, "Since we're on a first-name basis already I guess you can just call me Ichigo." Ichigo usually cared little for appearances but the illusion that they were equals when the man continued to have him at such a disadvantage suited him fine.

"Fair enough; so, Ichigo, what do you know about the Cold War?" asked Alan. He had a lot of ground to cover and wasn't in the mood to waste too much time.

"Tch," Ichigo sneered, turning his head fully to the man "What the hell kind of question is that? I thought I was done with pop-quizzes for today. What is this, a game show?"

"Humor me," Alan said, the recurring smirk playing on his face.

Ichigo furrowed his brow more than usual. Later 20th century history had been skimmed over in High School almost as much as in Junior High School. Although he was nearing the end of his second year, he still only had a passing knowledge of it beyond the outlines. "Wasn't it about conflict between America and Russia?" he ventured.

"The Soviet Union," Alan corrected, wagging a finger, before adopting a poignant look upwards, thumb and index finger to his chin. "Such a shame to know so little about something you lived through the end of!"

"I was like, 5 or 6 years old," muttered Ichigo. He couldn't remember exactly when it was reckoned to have ended and it had never meant much to him.

"But yes," Alan continued, ignoring him, "A 44-year geopolitical struggle between the USA and USSR, at their peak, respectively, having a strength of 3.5 and 5.3 million men and women under arms, and 31,700 and 40,700 nuclear weapons, each on average anywhere from as-powerful-as to a-thousand-times-stronger-than those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Those are anachronous figures, of course, and don't reckon for their proxies, such as Japan—"

"So what?" Ichigo interrupted, his scowl deepening. Alan was transparently not a historian, and the relish with which he discussed such an obscure topic was frankly unnerving.

"Let me ask you a different question," said Alan, redirecting, "Do you know how many people the Yakuza employ?"

"Do you always answer questions with weirder questions?" Ichigo deadpanned, before sighing, "I have no idea."

Alan spared him a rhetorical guessing game and moved on. "Somewhat more than 100,000 people worldwide," he said. "As you may or may not know the Yakuza are interesting as compared to say, the Italian Mafia, because they have a semi-official status within Japan. Their predecessors achieved recognition under the feudal power-structure of the Edo period, and this carried forward after the Meiji Restoration. By and large their presence is tolerated by the authorities provided they keep their activities in check. In exchange, although the Yakuza engage in illegal enterprises such as racketeering, extortion, prostitution, narcotics, and human-trafficking, as a semi-open organization they also interact with average citizens, sometimes to their mutual benefit; consider their aid they rendered during the Great Hanshin earthquake." Alan paused and took a sip of his coffee, before looking Ichigo directly in the eyes with a sudden intensity "Does this sound like any other organization you know?"

Ichigo blinked. Although he wasn't an intellectual, he wasn't dumb, and Alan's implication was obvious even if he hadn't followed the logic train's tracks precisely. "Are…are you saying that the forces of Soul Society are like the Yakuza? That doesn't make any sense."

"Do the Yakuza run Japan?" asked Alan.

"No."

"The National Police Agency employs some 280,000 personnel. Do you think the Yakuza could beat the police in a straight up fight?"

"No…"

"Do you think the Yakuza could beat the Japanese Self-Defense Forces?"

"Definitely not."

"And do you think the Yakuza would stand any chance at all against the United States military?"

"None…But what does this have to do with—"

Alan held a hand up and gestured outside to stop him and draw his focus. "A Hollow walks down a street in a town and leaves footprints in the concrete and asphalt, it takes some swipes at buildings and leaves claw marks, it breaks things in such a way that they seem to explode even though there are no explosions. In a 'spiritually active' place like Karakura, multiple Hollows can attack in one day. Why has nobody ever noticed? Could it really just be ubiquitous use of kikanshinki memory modifiers? How many Shinigami do you think are in the Gotei 13, Kidō Corps, and Onmitsukidō altogether?"

Ichigo frowned. The fact it seemed like Alan knew what he'd been thinking before he'd walked inside didn't fill him with any cheer. "Maybe a few tens of thousands?" he replied.

"More like less than 7,000. Something like between 100 and 150 billion people have lived and died during the existence of anatomically modern humans, most of those being during the past several tens of thousands of years. Do you think Rukongai's 320 districts hold even 100 million people, let alone a mere billion?"

"But, wouldn't a lot of those have been consumed by Hollows?" Ichigo said. He wasn't sure of the math himself, but…

"Speaking of that, if the Shinigami are the only force to go around purifying souls and Hollows, why are they so bad at it? Why are there so many Hollows running around to begin with? Why are there so many Pluses wandering the earth? Perhaps you're thinking they're just outnumbered and understaffed. Isn't it strange then that most of their duties seem to revolve around paperwork? Why would a horribly overworked and absolutely critical organization be mostly occupied with pencil-pushing? What is their paperwork even about?" Alan's gaze was cool as he asked Ichigo each question.

Ichigo felt that the man could surely produce a thousand more similar questions even as he knew all the answers, and stared at him for more than a minute without saying anything, his mind working over everything that had been said. This was all being done for his benefit, and the picture he had was increasingly clear. He didn't like what he saw. At last he said "So, what you're trying to tell me with all this is…Soul Society is a fraction of the afterlife, and the Shinigami aren't the biggest gang in it."

Alan just smiled. It was very different to the one from the other day, and appeared quite ordinary, which if anything made it more unnerving.

Ichigo felt a corner of his lip twitch and looked down at his tea. He wondered how quickly someone like Ishida would've put it all together—or Rukia. At least now that some of the pieces were in his mind, they were coming together very quickly and he realized the full magnitude of what this conversation was about. He looked up at Alan. "You work for the biggest gang, and you want me to join."

Alan's smile didn't change in the slightest. "Close enough."

Ichigo frowned and drank the tea in a single slow swig before turning to look out the café window, saying nothing for quite some time. "How do you know so much about Soul Society?" Ichigo asked at last. That was perhaps the surest indicator that what the man was saying was true.

"Sources and means," Alan replied, his tone now much more businesslike.

"Eh?" Ichigo looked at him with confusion.

"That means I can't tell you…yet."

"…Okay. Well, shouldn't they be monitoring me? They haven't sent anyone to check up on me but it seems weird that they wouldn't—"

"Yes, they've tasked people with watching out for you at times," Alan said, before seeming to weigh things he clearly knew, choosing what to reveal. "No, Kuchiki-san was not among them; no, she didn't have a choice in the matter; no, they are not watching us right now; yes, that's because they're distracted; no, no one is in danger as a result of it."

Ichigo flinched slightly at this new, very direct form of exchange. He was by now already somewhat used to Alan behaving oddly and cryptically. He began to suspect the man had been putting on a kind of theater for his benefit. Some distant memory of "the Socratic method" flickered on the edge of his awareness but he paid it no heed. "So, you want me to—"

Alan leaned forward and looked him square in the eyes with the cold intensity he had observed the prior day, as if resolving to destroy his questions in a single blow. His voice had a brutally honest frost to it: "The United States government has been aware of Hollow and other supernatural and paranormal activity for a very long time. At present, operations to contain and control it are handled through US Special Operations Command, with representatives from all four major branches of the US military taking part. Together with equivalent counterparts in allied and affiliated nations, we keep this activity largely in check around the world. Sometimes things slip through the cracks, and that's the kind of activity you're familiar with. The Shinigami are one group allowed to deal with these comparatively minor affairs freely in exchange for not meddling in greater ones. As of this moment we are understaffed and underfunded in dealing with threats due to ongoing events in the world and are looking for reliable outside contractors to augment our efforts. You were the most promising one available to start with and the Japanese government offered no objections."

Ichigo found himself a bit wide-eyed at Alan's sudden frankness.

Alan sat back a bit and let both his look and tone soften. "You work for us and we get you back up to speed and a lot more besides. You'll work in six-month contracts, extended in the event you happen to be engaged at the end of them. You'll be given an acting-rank and pay grade commiserate with your duties. After a contract ends, it's up to you what you want to do. No obligations. Most if not almost all of your work will be local for at least the first contract. We won't ask you to do anything you might find truly objectionable. There are other benefits that can be discussed later. I'll spare you the details of the paperwork at the moment." The man's voice went comparatively quite quiet before he asked "Are you in or out?"

Ichigo found himself mentally returning to the previous day's exchange, and this time allowed himself to remember the long series of promises he had made all the way back to when Rukia had turned him into a Shinigami. He found himself grinning at Alan with newfound confidence and purpose. "When do I start?"

Alan brought a hand up onto the table and slid what appeared to be a pair of rather contemporary-looking sunglasses with silver frames and yellow-tinted lenses across to him. As Ichigo caught them Alan replied "Right away."

Ichigo picked them up curiously and blinked, looking at Alan in confusion. Alan set a small gym bag down on the table between him and likewise pushed it over, before listing off its contents to the teenager.

It was nearing sundown when Ichigo slid open the door to the residential half of the Kurosaki Clinic. "I'm home," he said lamely.

"Welcome home, Ichi-nii!" Yuzu exclaimed from off to one side, in the kitchen.

Karin looked up from the dining table "Ichi-nii, welcome—what are those?"

"Eh?" said Ichigo. He was partially feigning ignorance, and partially still taking in what he could see. Karin looked normal, but she was outlined in a translucent, moderately bright, fuchsia aura. Wisps and strands floated up along it and curled back toward her, like the corona of the sun. It seemed to suddenly become more agitated.

"The things on your face, stupid!" she immediately replied, "Why are you wearing sunglasses inside?"

"Oh, these," Ichigo said, reaching up and touching the frames, "Anti-glare glasses. I've been having mild headaches and thought it might be eye-strain. When I stopped by an optometrist today she recommended them." It was a cover-story, but it had been plausible enough when Alan had told it to him. They looked the part, and they could also double as sunglasses. They had come with a receipt and prescription for the same function, seemingly entirely legitimate.

Karin blinked, and tilted her head slightly before starting "You never said anything about headaches…"

Ichigo held his hands up defensively with a sheepish smile "Ah, I didn't want to worry you guys!"

"They don't look bad on you, Ichi-nii," Yuzu offered.

Ichigo turned to her and saw her smiling at him. She had a relatively much dimmer aura about her than Karin, although it was of the same color. He faintly smiled back "Thanks, Yuzu!" It was then that he noticed Karin and Yuzu share a glance. He was astute enough to figure out they thought he was acting weirdly. He forced a scowl onto his face "Anyway, I'm pretty tired, so…yeah, goodnight," he said, immediately turning and going upstairs to his room. The performance would keep them off-guard at least.

He shut the door behind him and dropped his bags, getting onto his bed and looking outside through the window. Everything was bathed in gold as the sun slid below the horizon. Alan had told him that they were fifth-generation detectors designed to identify reiatsu sources (he had hesitated before using that particular word as if there was more to it than that) and translate them into a visually intelligible format. They would assign different colors to different kinds of reiatsu sources of origin. Alan had clarified that Shinigami would appear as red, Hollows yellow, hybrids like Visored and Arrancar as orange, Quincy as blue, and spiritually active humans as white. Other possibilities and the particular shades involved had been left up to his imagination at the time.

The fact that Karin and Yuzu were a light shade of purple immediately opened up several questions that he decided to put off considering until later. For now he watched various colors, almost all white, flit about his vision. The glasses were quite sensitive and capable of detecting anyone not squelching their reiatsu out to a rather fair distance, on the order of a kilometer. There was a red signature moving around in the distance in front of him, rather bright compared to the white ones. He'd overheard Ishida complaining about Imoyama-san's abilities but the Shinigami did at least appear to be trying.

"Just be glad they've managed to figure out how to fit these into something smaller than a Starlight scope or night vision goggles," Alan had told him earlier. He had mentioned something about them utilizing a set of sealed kidō-treated optics hooked to microprocessors, but the explanation had again felt like it was leaving something out. Ichigo hadn't pressed him on the specifics both because he knew he was unlikely to understand them and he also honestly didn't care.

He did know four things about them though: first, the glasses themselves were supposed to appear mundane to anyone themselves sensitive to reiatsu—the kidō was not detectable; second, they could flag specific individual signatures with IDs for easy reference and tracking; third, they could display a radar-like overhead view of the signatures within view; fourth, they had a simplistic heads-up display that related information about the local spiritual environment. The HUD currently showed nothing of great interest to him, although he still found it strange it was in Japanese. Presumably these had been customized just for him.

Turning back toward his door he saw the two fuchsia signatures downstairs through the floor and another red one where the clinic proper would be. Alan had demanded he turn over his cell phone and had done…something…to it to connect it to the glasses wirelessly. By centering a signature in his vision and using a particular app on his phone, he could flag it for the system to recognize by name. He immediately added his family before taking off the glasses and flopping onto his bed. He decided to completely ignore the gym bag for now. He suddenly felt exhausted.

"Information is power," Alan had said, "Awareness is the first step in resistance…Hard to fight what you can't see." Ichigo felt his consciousness starting to drift away from him.

"So what are you guys called?" he had asked.

"Our entire group only has an informal code name, Nightmare Eclipse," Alan had said. "As you might imagine, we're usually identified as either Nightmares or Eclipses, depending." There had been an ominous gleam in his eye as he had said it.

Ichigo fell asleep, and for the first time in a long time slept without remembering any of his dreams.

A/N: The glasses Ichigo has can be reckoned to be sort of vaguely similar to those Renji wears when he and Byakuya take Rukia back to Soul Society.