2: On the NEW WORLD'S EDGE - [Here to Stay] (Original or Orchestra)

"Y-you can see me!?" Summer Rose gasped, holding her palms flat against her face.

"How-" she stilled, as if getting a closer look at the stranger who vaulted over the cliff's edge for the first time.

She scanned him up and down with her silver eyes, from his pale clawed feet, up the ripped black trousers of his shredded, now-sleeveless, shihakushō, where the white shitagi undershirt was torn wide open exposing the vacuous hollow hole straight through his chest!, to the massive, body-length sword sheathed in white bandages flowing in the sea breeze behind him, then the contrasting black stripes leading out from the hole across his bone-white chest to his exposed arms and up to finally his head. The ghostly pale head with an ethereal golden-yellow iris and two angular sharp horns jutting out from it.

Her demeanour shifted from one of startled confusion, to one of horrified recognition. No. Not here. Not Patch. Not Tai, not home...

Her stance switched. Her right foot laid flat against the gravestone, and she pulled her left leg behind her.

Her body language was now completely different, tense like a coiled spring– she's about to pull something.

She locked eyes with him and the entire coastal cliffside flashed white, before she pushed her leg off of the stone and lunged at him in a blur. A storm of white rose petals trailed behind her, engulfing her target with an opening blow, before she twisted her body as it fell to the ground and pushed with her hands over her shoulders to vault her into the air upside down behind the creature barely even posing as a young man, whirling into a bicycle kick as her red-tipped hair whipped about her—

"What the heck was that for!?" she was halted in mid-air, the white rose petals washing over them both and forming a thinned-out cyclone around the two of them.

Her leg... the limb was seized in his ivory fingers. They clasped over her high combat boot's leather ankle. He was still rubbing his mismatched eyes with his ashen left hand, yet his right was extended over his striped shoulder, behind him. She hadn't even forced him to turn around. Petals swirled and slowed in the soft morning wind.

"Why are you here? What are you doing here? What do you want?" she spouted as she lined up her other foot to kick at his pale hand, then she could get her leg free...

"I already told you I was just passing by, you psycho!" he brought his hand away from his striped face, and swung the leg he was holding onto beneath her before he let go, sending her spinning away from him with just a finger, in a cloud of ghostly petals to land on her feet. For only an instant, space itself took on a static buzz across the rocky cliff and it looked as though the world itself was seen through an unstable filter. All of the airy ethereal petals around the two dropped to the ground as fast as stones would.

For only an instant, was this heavy weight felt, but it was more than noticeable for Summer.

"You... you can touch me..." she breathed.

"Of course I can. Why're you so surprised? Didn't you just try and hit me?"

"Oh, well, ah, it was instinctual! Because you look like them!" she gestured at his ghostly form with frantic waving hands.

"What I look like?" he paused, "Aha... sorry about that. I get it, sorry for startling you, Ma'am." The ashen pallor to his skin faded away, the colour of the living bleeding back in to his flesh, and the hole through his chest encroached in on itself. The black stripes across his body retracted, and the talons on his feet disappeared. The sharp horns, however, they remained on his head, as did the black-and-yellow eye. Now, instead of the monstrous male facsimile of the witch from before, it was a young man standing before her, casually waving disarmingly with one hand. A faunus? What was he?

"What- what are you?" she asked, tensing and untensing her hands over and over. Her oh-so-coveted eyes had done nothing against him, and she wasn't in possession of her weapon. Perhaps if she tried her semblance...

"Ichigo Kurosaki, Deputy Soul Reaper." He held up a pentagon on a chain that he uncovered from his tattered black cloak with his right, decidedly human-looking hand. Within the shape was a stylised skull in a diagonal cross.

"Reaper...? As in you're the grimm reaper? Death himself?" she shook her head, utterly baffled. "You're barely even an adult."

"A reaper," he corrected, "and death isn't any one person, it happens to all of us." A fact that had become all too real in the last nine days. "Mrs Rose, right?" he motioned at her gravestone behind her, and his eyes noticed a silver ring on her finger in a clenched fist.

"You're serious? You're acting way too familiar for someone who's come to take my soul..." she stood up straight as she crossed her arms, brows drawn tight.

"Is it that hard to believe? This can't be that unexpected compared to other stuff you've seen, considering your position. Aren't you literally a ghost yourself?" the newcomer jabbed. "Watch." he then proceeded to turn, step over a blooming dandelion, and waltz straight off the grassy cliff. ...What? However, instead of falling to his gruesome death, he simply kept on walking as if the seaside air itself was inexplicably an easier foothold than the mossy crags. What!? before pivoting on his bare heel once more and striding right back to where he started, in front of her grave, with his hands in the pockets of his frayed trousers. He had a very small smile, as if he was trying to avoid appearing on the outside as amused as he obviously was on the inside. "See?" What!?

"What!? But—" she closed her loose jaw– when had it fallen?–, considering the oddities she had experienced in her lifetime.

A reincarnating wizard, an undying witch, fairy tales being realised and magic. "—Okay fine, I guess I should've expected this at some point after a decade hovering over my own grave. But why did you look like the one who... who killed me? Is that just how your... kind looks? Can you shapeshift, or something?" she leaned her head forward expectantly.

Ichigo frowned. "That's... complicated. Listen, I'll give you a Konsō, because if I don't then your chain of fate will... wait a minute... where's your chain?" Was this just how fullbringer spirits worked?

She did mention that he looked like the thing that killed her when in his hollowfied form, so she might've been able to see hollows before one killed her. Or was he actually in the Western Branch and their system was entirely different? "Actually, I don't know if I have the jurisdiction to perform one here... that wouldn't bother me usually, but it might send you to the completely wrong place on accident... what hemisphere is this? Longitude wise. That means East and West, by the way."

"I know what longitude and latitude are, thank you. In my line of work you have to... had to navigate well. We're in the Western Hemisphere... you don't know where you are, do you?"

"Not really, I'll admit, but that's a big help, thanks." So he was in the Western Branch's territory... maybe that explained her lack of a chain, and the weird giant hollow-squid thing he ran– swam into earlier that lacked any spiritual presence. It could be that the West wasn't just a second half of the Eastern Soul Society; but that everything, including its basic mechanics were entirely different on the conceptual level. Oh man, he really hoped he hadn't done anything too bad by splitting that menos-sized creature in the ocean with his zanpakutō earlier... the last thing the Seireitei needed now was an international incident.

"Sorry, but it's probably for the best that I don't try and make you pass on. I don't know where you'd end up, as I said, and even if it sent you to where I'd expect, that's not ideal for the moment. It's kinda in a rough shape right now." 'Rough' was an understatement. The Seireitei was devastated; hell, the sheer ambient reiatsu would probably vaporise her on arrival. It wasn't a good idea to send any spirits there for a while, honestly. He'd need to contact the Court Guard squads and send a message over a Hell Butterfly demanding an extended suspension on Soul Burials. They'd probably already set one in place from the moment the Wandenreich declared war, but he never asked, so it couldn't hurt to check.

"Oh thank goodness," Summer choked, sliding down to her knees in the moist grass soaked with the morning mist. "I'm so glad, thank you, thank you, I still need to see my babies grow up before I pass on..." she held her face in her hands.

...So she was a mother, then. Ichigo made a shallow frown at the thought.

That must've been why she was a lingering spirit in the first place. Only those with proper regrets were the kind of souls who wouldn't, or rather couldn't, pass on automatically after death, and had to be extracted personally by a shinigami's konsō. What was the plan now, then? He was in the Western Branch's territory, on an unknown island, and badly needed to recuperate. He couldn't even raise the attention of any of the local Western equivalents of soul reapers; being transcendent and all, so they wouldn't even be able to sense him anyway.

Maybe he could try lowering his spiritual pressure instead... he glanced down towards the sombre woman near him, Summer, and thought of how Aizen's very presence could disintegrate people entirely. Nope, bad idea. Although seeing her on the damp green ground, on the verge of tears, gave him an idea for what he should do first.

"Tell me their names." He held his hand out to her seated form.

"Huh?" She looked up at his hand, eyes wide like pools of mercury.

"Your kids. Tell me their names, Mrs Rose."

She took his hand and pulled on it. "Call me Summer. You're making me feel old, besides, you're probably like two hundred years yourself, anyway. That's how these things work. You might look like a teenager, but you were actually born before the Great War or something." she pointed at him with a finger gun animatedly.

Ichigo blinked, staring at her narrow wobbling fingertips. "I'm about nineteen, actually. Most of the people I know are over two hundred, though."

Ichigo gazed up to the squawking seagulls in the cloudy early air as he recalled the general ages of the shinigami he knew. If even Rukia was over a hundred and fifty years old, then most of the Gotei 13 were assuredly well over two centuries of age, far older than World War One and Two. Were those the wars she was talking about? Or was it the Thousand -year-Blood-War? How informed were these people about the world at large? He noticed as he looked up, there were still some stars out, some pinpricks of light holding out as they faded away from the purple-orange sky as the sun rose over the pelagic horizon.

"N-nineteen? You're half my age and you're a reaper of souls?" she exclaimed.

And a war veteran. Though he didn't see the need to divulge that. "I was born a sort-of-human, more or less. I only became one because I had to. It's really not quite that important, anyway." Ichigo closed his eyes as he reached up to languidly run his hand through his bright hair. Wait a moment, why is—

"Human? But you look like you're a faunus right now. What with the horns and eye and everything." she clarified as she held her hands to the sides of her head, making little pointed shapes for reference. Just in case he missed where they were, of course. The guy apparently hadn't noticed them yet all this time, after all.

"Huh?" Ichigo grasped the sizeable horns still jutting out from his temples. Why were his horns still there? And his left eye too, seemingly? Didn't he dispel his hollowfication? He didn't really mind them truthfully, they were a part of him after all, as much as his ears and nose. Privately, he kinda thought they made him look rad. As confusing as it was, his horns weren't really an issue, especially right now.

"I'm not too sure why they're there, honestly. What did you call me? A faunus?" Ichigo rubbed at the horns with his hands as he spoke, glancing up, then left and right to try and see them from his perspective. It was proving to be a futile effort.

"You don't know what faunus are? They stand out pretty clearly with their animal traits and everything. How can you not know?"

"I'm... not from this side of the spiritual branches. I don't really know how things work over here. Be honest, how 'out there' do I look?" Ichigo covered his right eye and stared past her distractedly as he explained, trying to see as far as he could over the oceanic horizon with his golden eye. Another type of people huh? Like Quincies and Arrancar, but in the West? Or was that just the proper name for what Captain Kommamura was? It did sound animailian.

Summer seemed exasperated, yet amused by Ichigo's cluelessness concerning apparent basic knowledge around these parts. "I'm gonna pretend I know what you mean by 'spiritual branch'. How you look, huh? Well, you might turn some heads like that, but a lot of people wouldn't bat an eye."

Ichigo raised an eyebrow at that. "Really? Most people wouldn't even be able to see me, anyway, but that still sounds a little absurd."

Summer rolled her silver eyes. "Yes, really. You wanted to know about my kids, didn't you? Well, the older one is Yang. She's my stepdaughter, but she's still mine, 'course? She's my daughter as much as she is Tai's. She's so direct and driven... and passionate." She smiled a halcyon expression as she reminisced on her eldest. The bittersweet nostalgia of the loving warmth she could still see and bask in, yet never again embrace.

"Yeah."

"She has a temper, but that's simply because she cares so much, and she'll definitely sort that out as she grows up. She's just so protective of her little sister, it's adorable."

"Yeah."

"And the little one, Ruby, has always dreamed of being a hero. She's just so kind. She knows exactly what she wants to do with her life, the hero she dreams to become—"

"Yeah."

"...which at such a young age is the best thing— are you even listening!?" Summer twisted around to see Ichigo sitting at the very edge of the cliff facing the turbulent sea hundreds of metres below, running his fingers over his horns with his feet dangling over the rocky precipice. He was seated on a soft mossy mat that had grown over a particularly flat stone.

"Yeah."

"You weren't listening at all! Explain what I just said! You're the one who asked!"

"You have two kids. One's a brash hothead with a short fuse and the other's a naïve well-wisher." Ichigo turned his head back over his shoulder with a sarcastic half-smirk. "Cut me some slack, gaining new body parts takes some getting used to." His smile turned more genuine, and melancholy. "Scolding me like this, though? Geez, you really are a mother. They must've loved you a lot, especially one willing to rush what she thought was a hollow on sight to protect her home town." His eyes took on a distant glaze as he finished his last sentence, as if he was lost in someplace, sometime else. In a ways he was.

Summer's lip began to tremble. "Thank... thank you... it's nice to talk to someone properly for the first time in over a decade... my family still visits me, hell even my old friend who ran out on us all years ago dropped by here to pay her respects a few times, but they can't hear me..." a hand grasped her shoulder. Her breath caught. When did he...?

A stronger gust of wind blew in from the sea, ruffling the grass as it moved inland and making the trees of the coniferous forest rustle as their needle-like leaves rubbed against one another. The morning mist began to clear, ever so slightly.

"Don't get too caught up in what you can't do. I understand that it's painful to have a cherished someone whom you can see yet can't speak to. Someone you can no longer embrace. But don't despair. Appreciate that they live their lives in memory of you, and that they'll always hold you in their heart. You don't need to be able to tell them you love them, they already know. They always will. You're their mother, after all."

Summer closed her eyes and shed a lamentful tear as she clasped her hands to her chest, and opened them to Ichigo reaching over his shoulder for the massive sword on his back— "Oh gods what the fff—" –she cut herself off, too used to refraining from swearing– "—are you doing!?"

Ichigo paused, then blankly stared over his own shoulder at his right arm holding the blade's wrapped handle as if he only became aware of his actions right then, at her prompting. He slowly, carefully moved the hand that wasn't still on her shoulder back down to his side without so much as a twitch.

"Sorry about that, force of habit. Usually I give a real deep and profound speech like that about moving on before performing the Konsō, I guess it was just muscle memory at that point, though I'll admit I've never done it in bankai before. I wouldn't have cut you, I'd have just used the hilt." he reasoned.

"That pommel is made out of solid metal, without any guard! It would crack my skull if I wasn't a huntress! You're lucky I have aura!" she sprang away from him now, pointing and yelling in a frenzied manner.

Ichigo's eyebrow twitched as he smiled just a tad too broadly for it to be sincere. "Hey... I've never had that issue before... my bankai right now actually looks kinda like my old sword, actually. I'm sure you'd have been fine, you said you were a hunter, after all, no? You can quit bugging out now." he could tell she wasn't referring to herself as the ordinary animal-catching kind of hunter; her deft movements when attacking earlier spoke of her combat training, and her utter lack of hesitation in battle spoke of her extensive experience.

Ichigo tilted his head. "Is that what they call the equivalent of fullbringers or of shinigami here?"

"Are you a reaping intern or something?" she flapped her arms wildly at the apparently ridiculous question, her red-lined snow-white cloak billowing with the motion. "I thought I was supposed to be the one here asking a grimm reaper questions about super-duper esoteric arcane knowledge, not you with your questions about everyday common sense! How do you not know what Huntsmen are? Are you not meant to visit the living world or something, or did you just never pay attention in school?"

"Hey! I graduated in the top twenty of my high-school! I studied real hard for that, take that back!" Ichigo growled. He meant it; it had been incredibly difficult for him, with the Xcution situation in his final year. He still ended up delaying his University application by a year because of it.

"Then how did you miss the very existence of the most important job in our society entirely? There's literally a major prep academy for Huntsmen right on this island, on the way to this cliff even!" Summer just looked frazzled now.

Ichigo glanced back to the dense forest, then back to the frenetic form of Summer dryly. "Oh, I didn't walk here. You saw me come up the cliff, right?" he stuck his thumb backwards, over his shoulder towards the ocean; she nodded, "Well I swam here."

"No, really."

"Really. I swam here, and killed some giant bony squid hollow thing I met." Ichigo held his chin as he realised something. "Which is weird now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure they're invertebrates, so squids shouldn't have bones... unless that was some kind of exoskeleton? But yeah, I swam here from the open ocean actually."

Summer looked out to the nautical horizon, the disc of the sun had risen a ways into the sky and the atmosphere was a cool, full cerulean now between the fluffy white clouds.
Summer looked out to the open ocean, and its boundless saline waters.
Summer looked down to the crashing waves breaking against the rocky shelf of the cliff face.
Summer looked back at Ichigo, and swallowed. This was probably the most eventful day of her afterlife since her own funeral.

"Y-you said you killed something down there? A giant squid?" She smiled shakily with a gaping mouth, drooping her index quaking finger straight down at the roaring tide.

Ichigo nodded nonchalantly, his hands in his pockets. "Yeah. Giant is understating it. Its tentacles were wider than a car. I didn't get that good of a look at it, since its main body was pretty far down, so I just chucked Zangetsu at it." He jerked a thumb over his shoulder as he mentioned his sword. "Is that how menos here work?" Ichigo didn't really think it was that big of a deal, menos grande were small fry to anyone with a lieutenant-class level of spiritual pressure and above.

"That was a Kraken! Only Leviathan-class grimm like Monstra and... um, Leviathans are bigger!"

"Leviathan-classes like leviathans, huh?" he couldn't help but smirk at that. Whoa, she's actually shaking now, Ichigo duly noted. It was kinda funny to watch.

"What were you thinking? Actually wait, grimm never attacked me as a ghost before, so why would they attack you?" She stepped forth and latched onto his exposed arm in her rambling, "Seriously, you can't take those things alone! It's foolish to try, and I know from experien—" a hand was held in her face, and she sputtered.

"Hold it. Thanks for caring enough to worry, you're very kind for that, but don't question my strength. I don't fight out of a hero complex or anything self-sacrificing like that. I fight because I like to fight. Not for anything too grand as 'the greater good', just my little corner I want to protect." his voice took on a more wistful tune. "I promised someone important I would fight for myself." he pulled his hand back down. "Grimm, huh. Is that what you call hollows here? And going back to before, you said there was an entire academy for huntsmen, and it's located on this island. Is this some kind of secret place?"

"What? This is Patch, in Sanus, it's pretty close to Vale actually and– you still have no idea what I'm saying, do you?" she just seemed resigned to it at this point, and slouched over. "There isn't just one academy for Huntsmen and Huntresses, they're all over Remnant."she scanned his features for any sign of recognition. Instead, there was a face of someone deep in thought.

Was this like when Quincies and Arrancars had their own terms for everything? Or... was he possibly somewhere else entirely? No... it was unlikely for now, and he couldn't afford to entertain such a harrowing thought.

Summer turned back to look down at her own grave. "Actually, I'm a bit concerned about the exact academy my daughters are going to now." she thought she might as well vent her recent concerns to the only one she could talk to, even if the guy seemingly possessed no comprehension of what she was talking about. He seemed like a nice young man, at least, whatever he was.

"The man I was working for when I was... killed a decade ago is their headmaster, and Yang was supposed to be the only one who was set to start there this year. She's the only one who should start this year, at seventeen. A few weeks ago, however, Ruby came rushing up here to my gravestone all giddy telling me she got accepted early and was set to start an entire two years early. I think he wants her in the field as soon as possible, but she's only fifteen. She's got... a special ability, which not even she's aware of yet. I don't think she fully understands what she's getting into. She was so proud though..." Summer sat down on her grave again, with her hands beneath her chin.

"That's not right. Her naïvety is getting her taken advantage of– wait a minute, you said she was fifteen?" Summer nodded. "Huh," he thought of how he invaded Soul Society at fifteen, and coughed awkwardly, a fist brought to his mouth. "Well, unless it's necessary, it's not right. Mrs Rose, you told me this guy was the headmaster of what academy?"

"Beacon." Summer tilted her head at him as he responded. He used her surname again? Although she did tell him to call her Summer...

"How important is it? For hunters as a whole?" Ichigo looked out to the horizon, and not to her as he spoke.

"Huntsmen." she corrected. "It's the most important. To the general public, after graduating from four years in preparatory combat schools, there are four possible destinations, each of them equally as prestigious. Beacon in Vale, Haven in Mistral, Atlas in well, Atlas and Shade in Vacuo... okay, so three equally prestigious academies," she shook her hand flatly side-to-side, "Shade is just kinda there as a backup option, not to throw Shade on it or anything, ha-ha." Ichigo tried to smile awkwardly, but it quickly died on his face and decayed into a flat deadpan stare. Summer continued as if nothing had happened.

"That is, from the general public's perspective. In reality, the most important of the academies is Beacon, because the headmaster there not only has links with every other Kingdom, but because he plans against the lynchpin of the very creatures of grimm themselves." Kingdoms? "You go there to train for four more years, and are given a specialised education until you graduate at the age of twenty-oneish, give or take. See, we don't use child soldiers, because even the enrolment age itself is pushing into adulthood. You're not expected to engage in active combat until you begin at a proper academy. What the head of Beacon is doing with Ruby, means she'll be put out on the field right now. Huntsmen don't just hunt grimm, you know. They have to stop criminals too. You see some horrible things on the job, and I just want her..." Summer trailed off and sighed, having no words to explain what she wished to say.

"To savour her innocence?" Ichigo suggested. "I understand, but if she chose this path, and chose that career, then she'll experience these things on her own terms too. You said that her older sister will be starting at the same time as her, yeah?" Ichigo turned towards her as Summer nodded from her seated position. "Then they'll have each other. That might honestly be better than waiting two years and not having anyone close enough to rely on."

Summer chuckled. "You know, for a nineteen year old, you're pretty savvy."

"I've had to deal with similar things as they came, from when I was fifteen myself." Or eight, if you count mom. "It made me grow up a bit too fast, I used to be a pretty big hothead, actually. I like to think I've learned from all those trials." he halted as he thought of White Zangetsu. He glanced at his zanpakutō's bandage flowing in the coastal breeze, "...Although a large part of me also enjoyed it all the way through, deep down."

Ichigo pivoted on the balls of his bare feet and looked at the cliffside forest. There were songbirds chirping in the branches of the conifers, the sun having fully risen over the course of their conversation. It was late morning now, and approaching noon. Butterflies of orange, blue and white fluttered about the thick tree trunks, none of which were species he recognised from home. The dense foliage towards the base of the woods consisted of mostly ferns and shrubs in the underbrush. He couldn't see many flowers, but that made sense, it was Autumn after all. What he did see, instead, was movement.

A large, hunched over, scaly black and white bipedal shape was slowly, deftly stalking through the forest towards him. It stopped to sniff at the air, as if it couldn't see him. Could it not see him? Wasn't this a hollow? He couldn't sense its reiatsu at all, just like with the squid prior, he only noticed it from it approaching him. Was this a similar case? That would be quite a hassle, if it turned out that Western hollows couldn't be sensed by his abilities. Ichigo furrowed his brows at the thought. Suddenly, the creature stopped sniffing the air and turned its white masked head towards him, before rushing forwards, snarling and snapping. Bursting onto the cliff's edge, he finally got a good look at it.

It was... a dinosaur? With six lambent red eyes, a solid osseous mask that encased its entire upper oversized jaw and skull, two bipedal scaled legs with ankle barbs, and spikes that ran down its entire back to the tip of its lizard tail, it actually looked pretty gnarly in Ichigo's book. Like something ripped right off the cover of an early 2000s punk album.

"A Creep?" Summer was stumped as to why it wandered here. Grimm couldn't even see, sense or touch her, after all, no matter the negativity she put out, and vice versa. She was answered when it leapt at Ichigo, its keen jaw held wide open. She gawked with a face of pure bewilderment as the beast closed in. She would've attempted to intervene, but before she could blink, the grimm's clamping jaws that tried to bite into the young man had dematerialised completely.

Vaporise, no; disintegrate, no; those would have implied that even dust or sublimated gas was left over afterwards. That which was, had simply become that which was not. Its very state of existence in reality had been rescinded. The grimm's jaws, and now its entire head, was just completely erased; it ceased to be upon contact with the orange haired reaper. And a reaper he was; the doubt that Ichigo was what he claimed to be disappeared along with the grimm he has just made vanish from merely touching him.

Ichigo's doubts on the other hand, were only mounting. A creep? Where was its hole? Did it even have one, or was it just hard to find? That wouldn't be new, he never found out where Nel's hollow hole was, for example, and he had a feeling asking to see it would... get kinda awkward...

At least his spiritual pressure test worked, even if on accident. He really could effortlessly erase weaker things with his reiatsu alone. Guess that's what it means to be transcendent. He would try not to use that ability if he could help it though, it wasn't clear if he purified that hollow or just straight up obliterated it.

"Why did you get attacked by a grimm?" Summer jerked her finger at him confusedly. "I thought that the way these things work is that you're supposed to be all" she put on a deeper voice, " 'oh we aren't supposed to interfere with the lives of the living', I know how these things go! It's like that in every story!" she held her pointed hand out at him, accusingly.

Ichigo just gazed at her sideways, perplexed. "It's my job where I'm from. Although the biggest threats aren't really them, though. Are you saying you've never had your side's hollows attack you as a spirit? Do they not do that? Besides, I thought I told you I'm actually alive and human. Sort of human, legally anyway. I live in a normal house and everything."

"So you're allowed to interfere in mortal affairs?"

"Don't put it like that. I'm not some eldritch 12th-dimensional being." 7th dimensional at most, really. "You sound like you want me to do something, now, don't you..." Ichigo gave her a knowing look of mild annoyance.

"Well... can you tell your reaper bosses not to take my daughters' souls?" Summer appeared hopeful in the sunlight.

Ichigo shook his horned head. "It doesn't work that way. We don't kill people ourselves, it's only after they're a spirit that we get involved." He crossed his arms. "Besides, I don't work for anyone, I'm more of a... freelance agent if anything. The first time I met other shinigami, we tried to kill each other. I'm on good terms with a bunch of them now, I'd fight to protect my friends, but I don't have much of a say in their government." Or fondness for it. Everyone just rolled with the execution of Rukia, except for Ukitake, Shunsui and later Kenpachi's squads. Not to mention what Aizen and Yhwach mentioned to him.

He didn't want to believe it, but it wasn't a possibility he could ignore. He only knew the Zero Squad for what, a few days? And Central 46 would definitely approve of something like that, those fed drones loathed the idea of someone as strong as him roaming around without being under the thumb of the Thirteen Court Guard Squads. What would the new Head Captain Shunsui have to say about that? Did he approve? Old man Yamamoto wasn't on bad terms with Ichigo per se, but he just thought he knew Shunsui better. He couldn't have allowed such a decision, could he?

Should he even be opposed to becoming the new Soul King? Was an eternity of suffering worth preserving the worlds? He knew it might have been the 'right' thing to do, something equally as heroic as it would be tragic, but he just didn't want to. He knew it wasn't something either Zangetsu could ever get behind, and therefore he also hated the idea of it, deep down too, in his heart. He wanted to live a normal life, have a house, have kids, at least before he considered what he'd do in the afterlife he knew of. Aizen said there were alternatives, didn't he? Couldn't they just use Yhwach's body? Anything but him. He'd saved the Soul Society, hadn't he? It wasn't... he needed to talk to someone he knew he could trust. He needed to talk to his dad, or—

"Are you okay?" Summer asked. She could see the conflicted emotions on Ichigo's face from where she sat.

Her motherly tone reached him, and he turned to her. She patted the turf next to her, the rocks behind encrusted with lichen. "Sit."

It was funny; it was the first time she actually got to act like a mother again since she last spoke to her children, and it was to a reaper of souls. He really was just a late teenager, after all. Only a couple years older than her eldest. She didn't know what his problems were, but she wouldn't pry. She didn't need to, to comfort him as he sat down and laid his bandage-shrouded blade on the ground. She draped an arm across his bare shoulder let it stay there, listening to the songbirds inland competing with the chorus of gulls of the coast, and the waves breaching at the base of the cliff. She would've rubbed at his head, but his horns were in the way.

It was strange, but oddly comforting. Ms. Ikumi had acted like a surrogate mother to him before, and he still wasn't used to it. Now this woman he literally just met was acting like one too. She must've been a good mom. Weird how he was getting comforted by a ghost at her gravestone, but he didn't let that bother him.

Slowly, as the sun rose in the azure sky overhead, Ichigo gained a new resolve, and a new plan. It probably wasn't the best idea to return to the Seireitei just yet, then. Even though, if he truly needed to, he could fight for months straight without stopping, (underwater, even) he wasn't taking any chances. He hoped he wouldn't, but if he got into a confrontation with Squad Zero, even with the backup he knew he could rely on, he wanted to be at his absolute best. He stood up, Summer's arm falling from his shoulder, and gazed at the now far less cloudy sky above the verdant forest.

"Mrs Rose..." Ichigo called again, without turning back. "Do you have any family on this island?"

"Only my husband, Taiyang. He got a dog too, I think, a few years ago." She said hesitantly.

"Which direction does he live in?"

"Down the path near the northern end of the island. It's a big log cabin a bit further away from the rest of the village, but it's fine because we can all protect ourselves. It's closer to here, actually. Why're you asking?" The sea breeze picked up again, she had to bring a hand up to keep her mid-length hair out of her face.

"I need somewhere to stay, to rest for a little while. I can check on your daughters for you afterwards, actually. You said the guy who runs the most important of these academies is the headteacher of your daughters' boarding school, isn't he? I'm hoping if he's important enough here he might be able to get me in contact with the Eastern Branch. Do you think your husband would let me stay?"

"Of course he would. He's kind like that, why do you think I married him? Although if you really need to, you can just say you have my permission." Summer sounded proud as she said so, hands on her hips.

Ichigo opened his mouth, then thought better and closed it. "Let's... not do that. I'll think of something if he asks, ma'am." Was this lady really a mother of two? She acted just as scatterbrained as Orihime. Ichigo reached under his horn to scratch at his right ear. He looked back to the forest, and saw a reddish squirrel run down a tree trunk with a nut in its mouth. He'd rest at this hidden coven of fullbringers for only a little while, then he'd get going.

"I said you can call me Summer. Your name is Ichigo, right?" Summer had used his name for the first time. Ichigo turned around in surprise. "The name of the man who runs the academy is Ozpin. He truly wishes to protect us all, but he needs to have his methods scrutinised. He sent me on a mission with minimal information, and to my death effectively. He wouldn't have planned for it, never, but he did still gamble with my life, and lost. I don't want the same to happen with Ruby and Yang. Make sure you spill his coffee on him, from me."

Ichigo turned back around, and nodded his head. His horns pointed to the sky, white in the sunbeams they caught between them.

"Alright, I'll be on my way then." She beheld him now, the pale cloth tail of his body-length blade billowing in the soft oceanic breeze. She was thankful to speak to this young man, regardless of what fantastical being he was. The first real conversation she had in years, and it was a pleasant one by her standards. She hoped Tai treated him well. She also hoped he would be able to knock some sense into Ozpin, if he could see him.

"And Summer?" Ichigo looked back at her one last time, stood on the precipice of the cliffside grave site. "Thanks."

His form blurred, and vanished. "Wha—!?"

Ichigo blurred as he leapt off the ground, several hundred meters into the air. There was a sizeable town in the centre of the island, and the whole isle was a whole lot larger than he expected it to be. He couldn't actually see the opposite edges of the island, even as high as he was. He did know what he was searching for, though. He closed his heterochromatic eyes, and tapped into his hollow side to pass out a pequisa, feeling the spiritual flares of all the souls nearby. There. It was the place with the second most residual reiatsu on the island, after the big academy he knew was there to the south. That place was lit up like a signal to him.

In a large open clearing on a path though the evergreen woods, was a roomy three-story log cabin, with lite casement glass panes, a wide fence and even a balcony. Oh, they've gotta have room for me to rest in there. He dove towards it.

As he passed over the town, he noticed that none of the residents noticed him, even the ones looking up. So they couldn't see him, then. It seemed they didn't possess much reiatsu, unlike the concentrated gathering of fledgling... Huntsmen at the large castle-like academy in the distance, as the lady at the grave-site called them. They would definitely be able to perceive him, if he was to go there. Not that he was planning to, though.

He glanced down towards the town again, appreciating its old European-styled architecture. The roofs were pointed and tiled with slate, the houses painted quaint pastel colours, and there wasn't a squat rectangular nor flat building in sight.

The street itself was cobbled, even, but it was far smoother than any cobbled road he had ever seen before. It would have to be, from the steady stream of people he could see pottering down it. There were black-painted metallic streetlamps, resembling old gas-powered ones, but they were sealed completely so they must've been electric. Overall the area held a idyllic rustic charm to it all, but was underlaid with a touch of modernity too. He was almost disappointed to leave it behind as he passed over the coniferous forest to approach the Rose household.

Ichigo touched down on the flat gravel land outside the house, inside its fencing. He could sense a similar sort of spiritual pressure as the did with the spirit earlier, of something with more reiryoku on the outside and less on the inside, like a shell around the soul. The fair amount of reiatsu he perceived meant they should be able to see him, even if they were human. Was this structure of spiritual energy what Summer meant by her aura? It felt different to a hierro, it was far more liquid in its nature.

He began walking towards the house, his hierro keeping his bare feet comfortable even on the sharp pebbles. Their reiryoku meant they could see him too, so he wouldn't be able to just walk in and take a bed. Hopefully what Summer said was true and they wouldn't get too freaked out by his horns. Luckily he could tell these people had no idea what shinigami were from the encounter on the cliff, so he had a plan. Nothing Aizen-tier, but he liked to think he was pretty smart in his own way.

He reached the entrance, stepping up onto decked porch and promptly knocking on the solid dark wooden door, using the brass knocker a ways up above the centre. He crossed his arms and looked around the decking. There was a pot of lilac flowers in the corner. They looked a little like lavenders slightly, but Ichigo couldn't recognise them. After several moments without response, Ichigo knocked again with more force, louder this time, and began tapping his foot impatiently. It took a little while, before he heard movement– followed by something falling and crashing behind the door. He winced.

It opened to a dishevelled looking blonde man in garishly bright yellow shorts with a loose half-unbuttoned white shirt on him. "You know, you just made me drop my lunch, what do you want?" he demanded.

"Mr Rose? I'm carrying very important information, that I risked my life to obtain." He gestured to his shredded shihakushō. "I need somewhere to rest for just one day, could I ask you spare me a room?"

The softwood door slammed shut in his face, almost spearing itself on his horns.

'Kind like that' my ass.

Then again, could he blame him? It's not as if he wouldn't turn away a stranger in ragged clothing claiming to carry an important message and asking to stay in his home himself. That Quincy guy who showed up in his bedroom right at the start of the war was far better dressed, and he still kicked him out the window immediately. Should he actually announce to this Taiyang guy he got his dead wife's permission? No way, that was asking for trouble. He thought of what he'd learnt from speaking to Mrs Rose, and what he could use as a pretext. Next idea. He rapped the brass knocker against the door once again. It opened ajar much slower this time.

"It's for... Ozpin. It's need-to-know intel, and he really needs to know." Ichigo put on his most disarming smile.

"For Ozpin, eh? You're serious?" the man opened the door fully.

"Yep, trust me, it's about... them." Ichigo feigned checking left and right, before leaning in conspiringly, his left hand held up to shield his mouth from all but Taiyang's ears.

The man paled significantly, his ocean blue eyes wide. "...Them?"

"Yes. It's regarding the matter of them." Ichigo was making this up on the spot, and prayed he wouldn't be asked who they were. No wonder Aizen rolled like this, this was actually kind of funny.

The man yanked him inside by the arm.

Ichigo stumbled over the doorway, and noticed he was wearing white bobbled socks and blue flip-flop sandles. There were family photos on the wall, of the man, the Summer lady from the cliffside grave, and two little girls that got progressively bigger with each photo. One looked like a smaller version of Summer, and the other looked like a female version of the man he was being dragged around by. There were some letters addressed to the man in the foyer, and Ichigo realised he'd messed up by referring to Taiyang as Mr Rose. Hopefully he hadn't soured things immediately over whatever undoubtedly complicated reason he had for having a different surname than his deceased wife.

Tensa-Zangetsu's handle bashed into a ceiling light, sending it jerking around.

He took his zanpakutō off and set it in the corner, near where he was directed to sit on a padded chair at a rectangular dining table. The walls were painted a deep blue, and there were wooden cupboards and shelves with various knick-knacks and familial paraphernalia spattered about. There was a bowl of spilled pasta upturned on the floor near a dark wooden breakfast bar. It was a mix of homely and fairly modern styled furnishings. As he entered the room, a fluffy black-and-white corgi ran past his legs and darted out behind him.

"You can't just talk about them openly like that! Especially on my front porch! What if a Seer was nearby!" the man seemed panicked by the mere mention of the topic, eyes wild. As much as Ichigo wanted to pry more details about whatever issue he had inadvertently brought up, he knew he'd be risking exposing his fib. It wasn't as if he was doing anything truly wrong, as per se, he'd actually got permission to stay there after all, just not from a living member of the family. So what if he fabricated a little bit to make his stay easier for everyone?

"Sorry, sorry. Do you have any spare beds? The sofa is fine, too." Ichigo waved his hands in a placating way. "I'm Ichigo Kurosaki, by the way."

"Upstairs, closest to the bathroom is the guest room. By the way, if the toilet's button gets stuck whilst flushing, push it down completely and it'll spring back up, got it? Push down completely. You can call me Tai, good to meet ya. Go ahead, eat up. It's the least I could do for someone in the know risking their life out there." The man gave him a thumbs up, and pushed a glass of water as well as a ceramic floral-patterned bowl of steaming pasta towards him that he had scooped out from a cast-iron wok on the stove. It looked to be a gas cooker.

"Riiight. Thanks... Tai." Ichigo accepted the food and the metal fork he handed him, eating straight away. Hey, food is food. He'd take a meal when he got it, especially as he was planning to travel as soon as possible after waking up.

"Don't mention it. It saves me on the water bill." He toothily grinned at him.

Wasn't this the same guy who slammed the door in his face five minutes ago? How did he switch so quickly?

"I meant thanks for the room and food, but that too I guess. I'll wake up on my own, don't worry." Ichigo got up lazily as he finished, placing the empty bowl in the metallic sink across the room, before taking Zangetsu and going down the wallpapered corridor. He passed the closed doors into what was probably the sitting room, walking up the lightly-creaking wooden plank stairs. He stepped into the bathroom, leaning his sword against the white door as he twisted the lock behind him.

It was probably for the best to keep his conversations with this guy minimal, he really didn't want to have to explain the true reason he was at his house, at all. He seemed decent enough, but he couldn't imagine even mentioning his wife over on the cliff just to the south of his house. He felt bad enough for calling him Mr Rose.

The taps were quite simple to figure out. One shower and bathroom break later, Ichigo pulled open the door to his temporary abode, setting Tensa-Zangetsu aside on the cream-carpeted floor. There were floor-to ceiling cupboards on the far wall, with metal handles and mirrors set in their doors. The walls were plastered, and painted a faint off-white, with a small square window covered by a purplish curtain set in one wall. There was an empty bedside table next to the bed's painted wooden frame. He didn't need to do much more than pull off his shihakushō's now-sleeveless black kosode top and the white shitagi, before he laid in the soft white bed, pulling the red duvet covers over himself. He could only lie on his back, because his horns would get in the way otherwise. Luckily that was how he naturally slept, oddly enough. Ichigo intended to rest until he naturally woke up, however long that would be. His gaze on the cream-coloured plaster ceiling, he closed his eyes.

It was after a few hours of dreamless slumber that Ichigo opened his eyes, to a sideways city of gleaming skyscrapers.

NEXT: 3 - WAKING UP ON THE WRONG SIDE - [Swinging The Sword]

Author notes:

YES YES YES, they did The Blade Is Me justice in the 1st cour's finale. That is, by far, one of my favourite animanga scenes. Feels good to be a Bleachad.

Onto the other good news, 120+ follows already? That's amazing, really. Thank you all. One hundred is a lot of people, especially for my first work ever.

The image I'm referencing for the cliffs (just replace DOT with full stops):
[staticDOTwikiaDOTnocookieDOTnet/rwby/images/f/f7/RWBYV3MainMenuDOTpng/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20160411055126]
(Sorry, I forgot to describe the giant floating letters and red menu boxes).

Now, about the actual story. I did a little fight sequence here, but nothing too crazy. I'm more proud of the underwater colossal squid thing that I came up with last time. I mean, Ichigo fought underwater for three months straight at one point, but you don't really get to see aquatic fights that often, even in fan stories like this one. I thought I might as well throw in some action here, and a simple misunderstanding brought on by his hollow form baring a vague resemblance to the witch that killed Summer was the perfect chance for a scuffle. And yes, I know it's debatable whether his hybrid form actually makes his skin white, but I just think it looks cooler that way. Hopefully they animate it like that... in four years time. There's a reason his horn stayed there, too.

Writing dialogue is surprisingly dangerously easy to get lost in sometimes, this is literally the first long conversation that I've ever written and it naturally went on for 5,000ish+ words. That's probably because this is the dead ghost of a mother and this is a ghost-reaping boy who lost his mother, so the conversation already has a general framework and chemistry, though. The pacing might have slowed a bit, but that's because this is a lull, so to speak. I purposefully didn't mention Masaki by name, but hopefully you can tell Ichigo's thinking of her from his responses when he comforts Summer. I wasn't really sure how he'd refer to her, as informal as Ichigo is, he still refers to the likes of Ikumi as 'Ms', after all, so I settled in a little midway between 'Mrs Rose' and 'Summer'. I made sure to give them body language queues, and made Summer's lines and actions a bit more animated than Ichigo to convey the energetic demeanour she gave to Ruby. Sure it might have been a long conversation, but you don't really get to see her that often in stories after all, especially as a ghost. She won't be left behind, either- she will come up again at a later point. I like to give general descriptions, refreshing the scene's setting every now and then mid-story to let your imagination fill in the rest. (Yeah, I realised that the canon cliffside forest isn't actually coniferous and loses its leaves in Winter, but er, screw it, let's just say in this story it is one).

Also, it was a puzzle to make sure Ichigo didn't find out too much about the world immediately. To that end, he's only seen individual grimm so far, so he thinks they're just unique like hollows are and are divided into types of classes that are named stuff like creep, leviathan, etc, though he's growing increasingly suspicious of their lack of reiryoku... The Western Branch thing I brought up last chapter is heavily relied upon here, he just thinks so far this is a secret coven/society sort of deal, not an entirely new world, and I made sure to get him to avoid entering the sitting-room and seeing a scroll TV, or any unrecognisable devices). I mean, look at how different the actual West Branch is. If Kubo never outright showed that Burn The Witch was set in the Western Soul Society, I wouldn't have gotten it, because everything so far was so utterly different- but it's still part of the same continuity. Trust me, I'm not painting him as some sort of idiot, I even brought up how he canonically did better than almost everyone else in school and everything, y'know. The mindf[]ck when he realises where he is is coming very soon, and it's gonna be a big one.