Hello! Hope you're all having a nice day.
So I decided to be an idiot and start yet another fic even though I already have 6 in the works, all because I just wanted to see Gen Z Ichigo. Thus, this was made. If you spot any errors, please tell me, because I did not get anyone to beta this and the copying from AO3 to here made stuff a bit wacky and I know I missed stuff.
I hope you enjoy the trash fire that is this chapter I spent a good 5 hours on. :)
Word Count: 4008 (I think)
Ichigo expected his afternoon to be pretty normal. Just going home, casually beating up some thugs on the way, sitting down and doing essentially nothing until dinner (which of course didn't happen because he got home when dinner was already out, but oh well), shower, and then sleep for a good 9 hours. The usual routine with some homework usually put in somewhere. What he didn't expect was for a spirit chick in a samurai get-up to walk THROUGH HIS WALL, start pulling out an honest-to-god katana, and start blabbering some shit about "it's close". Was she a burglar or something? A spirit burglar? A samurai spirit burglar?
Glaring at the woman standing in the middle of his room - who he belatedly realised was the one from earlier that day - Ichigo sat up and groused, "What's close? The safe?"
Unexpectedly, the woman ignored him completely, as if he were invisible. Funny, that's probably what she thought she was.
"Oi! Who are you and what do you want?"
Again, ignored. With an irritated roll of his eyes, Ichigo stood and promptly kicked the woman in the rear, causing her to yelp and stumble to the floor. Not the nicest way to get her attention, but oh well. She was the one trespassing in HIS room. He was justified in his actions.
"If you think you're a burglar, you're not a very good one! For starters, you shouldn't talk to yourself!" he snapped, hands on his hips.
The woman stared at him in utter bafflement from the ground, violet eyes wide. "You- you kicked me. But I can't be seen by ordinary humans. Are you saying you can see me?"
Ichigo watched with boredom as the woman stood. "Well, given that was my foot I just planted in your behind, you tell me."
The woman - and woah was she short. She was probably barely even hitting 5 feet - frowned. She strode over to him in a few quick steps and raised a hand to grasp his chin, tilting it left and right with a calculating gaze.
"How very strange. You look normal, but you must be defective in some way," she muttered, thoughtful.
"Defective?!" Ichigo batted her hand away and took a step away, now thoroughly irritated. "Whaddya mean, defective? And who are you, anyway?"
The woman disregarded his first question completely, instead answering the second. "You want to know who I am? Fine, I shall tell you. I am a soul reaper."
Ichigo blinked. "A what?"
"A soul reaper. I was sent here on a mission by the Soul Society to vanquish a malevolent spirit, the same kind of the one that was chasing the spirit girl you were with on the street earlier today," the woman explained, tone cool and formal.
Ichigo sat down on his desk chair, crossing his arms and leaning against the desk casually. "So lemme get this straight. You are something called a soul reaper."
She nodded.
"And you got sent here by some society of souls on a mission."
"Mhm."
"To kill demons like the one who was chasing that girl today."
"Mhm."
A small irritated smirk formed on his lips. "Well that's all perfectly believable to me… Along with flying pigs and the tooth fairy!"
The alleged 'soul reaper' gaped in disbelief. "You don't believe me? How dare you. How can you not believe in soul reapers when you just admitted that you can see spirits!"
Ichigo snorted and rolled his eyes. He stood and walked to the woman, placing a hand mockingly atop her raven hair. "Yeah, spirits. Not some wacky samurai version of the guy from Death Note. Frankly, your story is a whole bunch of BS. Besides, I don't believe in anything I can't see. Now why don't you go play your little soul reaper game somewhere else? Find a fellow spirit to annoy."
A violet eye twitched, and a creepily gleeful grin overtook her face. "Game? Is that what you think this is? We'll see what you think after this... Bakudō 1: Sai!"
She put her index and middle fingers together, the rest of her fingers curled in her palm. She held her arm vertically and swiped through the air to the right. Ichigo immediately felt his arms snap together behind his back, and as a result of the sudden harsh movement, his balance was thrown off and he consequently fell to the floor, landing on his tailbone.
Ow. That was definitely gonna bruise.
"What did you do to me?!" Ichigo demanded, teeth grinding together as he stewed in his frustration.
Smirking, the woman replied haughtily, "Paralysis. I've used what's called Kido on you: it's a high-level incantation only high-level soul reapers can cast. It's-"
Ichigo, bewildered, cut her off before she could continue. "So you're a ghost wizard, is that what you're saying? Because this is some Harry Potter-ass shit right here."
She raised an eyebrow, puzzled. "Harry Potter? Is this some modern-day thing you humans have?"
He squinted at her, baffled. "Modern? Harry Potter was made in like… the 1990s! When the hell did you die, the Edo Period?"
"Meiji Period, actually."
"How flippin' old are you?!"
"10 times your age, likely. So respect your elders, brat." The woman placed a hand on the hilt of her katana, eyes shadowed as she looked down at him menacingly. She unsheathed the blade with a smooth, resonating metallic tone, and Ichigo's eyes widened in panic. Was she going to kill him for his comments? Was he really going to die because of a midget?
"Whoah, whoah, hey! Put that thing away!" he stammered frantically, inching away.
He screwed his eyes shut as the woman raised her katana, expecting the worst. Much to his confusion, he only heard a dull tap and a soft gasp from beside his head. Tentatively, he cracked open his eyelids and set his gaze upon the middle-aged spirit laying on the ground beside him - the one from dinner a short while earlier. The woman's expression had softened considerably and she was crouched beside the spirit, the pommel of her sword on the spirit's forehead. The spirit was trembling, eyes blown wide with terror.
"No, please don't... I don't want to go to Hell," he whimpered quietly with a faint hitch in his voice on the last word.
"You need not worry, for you are not going to Hell. You are bound for a better place, the Soul Society. There, your soul will be at peace," the woman murmured reassuringly, watching as the spirit's face relaxed and he dissolved into floating blue molecules that quickly dispersed.
"What did you do to him? Where did he go?" Ichigo asked.
The woman stood, sheathing her katana in a fluid motion. "I sent him to the Soul Society. Here, you would call it 'passing on'. It's one of the most important jobs of a soul reaper. Now, I'll explain why I'm here; in more simple words so you can understand."
Pulling out a pack of pens and a notebook from god knows where, she knelt on the ground and started drawing on the notebook as she spoke.
"There are two types of spirits in this world. The first kind are the normal spirits called Wholes. The ghosts you see are usually this kind."
On the page, a very badly done bunny was drawn with a happy face.
"Then there are the second kind, evil spirits known as Hollows. Hollows attack people, living or dead, in order to devour their souls."
A second bunny was drawn on the other side of the page, this time with a malevolent expression and a black circle on it's torso.
"Any questions before I go on?"
Ichigo looked at the drawings, pushing down his chuckles as best as he could. So, there were normal everyday ghosts like the girl he helped at the corner that day, and there were... zombie ghosts? That was actually kinda cool if he was being honest. But, there was one thing he just had to know. "One question... why do your drawings suck so bad?"
A moment later, he found himself with a swirly moustache drawn on his face.
He spluttered indignantly, thrashing against the invisible forces binding him. "HEY! You took advantage of my helplessness!"
The woman smirked evilly and tossed the pen in her hand. "Let us continue our lesson, monsieur général. There are two main jobs for soul reapers. The first is to guide Wholes to the Soul Society, as I just did. The second is to exorcise Hollows whenever we find them."
"Right. So that Hollow earlier today, why was it chasing the soul of that girl?" Ichigo asked, wiping his pen moustache off on the wooden floor.
"I'm not entirely sure. We are yet to understand the motives of Hollows in full," she answered.
An ear-shredding shriek suddenly echoed in the quiet night outside, and Ichigo's head snapped towards the window. "What was that?"
The woman, seemingly oblivious to the noise and his question, kept talking. "One thing we do know, is there's still a Hollow prowling around somewhere nearby."
Ichigo realised that shriek he had heard was from the Hollow she was talking about, and he quickly said, "Well then what the hell are you waiting for? Go out there and kill it!"
She sighed. "I would, but I can't seem to sense it's location. Usually I have no problem with sensing Hollows, but here, it's like my senses are being jammed by some powerful force."
Ichigo's scowl deepened. "What are you, deaf? There's something huge howling out there! It must be a Hollow."
She made a noise of confusion, raising a raven eyebrow. "Howling? What do you mean?"
The loud shriek from a few moments before resounded in his ears once again, and this time the woman heard it as well, as she looked to the window in shock.
"Now I hear it. That's definitely a Hollow," she muttered.
"That's what I've been telling you!" Ichigo snapped.
A shrill scream from downstairs made Ichigo's eyes widen in panic. "That was Yuzu!"
This spiritual pressure is amongst the strongest I've ever felt. How did I not sense it earlier?she wondered in shock.
The woman jumped into action and ran to the door, where she skidded to a stop as Yuzu appeared in the hall, eyes weary and droopy with exertion, her body laying prostrate on the ground as she inched towards the door.
"Ichi… go…"
"Yuzu!" Ichigo yelled in worry. "What happened?!"
Yuzu groaned and looked towards her brother, tears gathering in her eyes and pouring from them as she let out a distressed sob. "Ichigo... Karin's bit. You've got to save her."
With a wheezing breath, Yuzu passed out on the hallway floor, and the woman ran out of the room. She vaulted over the railing of the stairs, wasting no time in getting downstairs where the Hollow and the rest of the family was and ignoring Ichigo's panicked yells behind her. She gasped as she took in the sight before her, wondering fretfully how she let this happen. A man with swept up black hair laid against the back wall, thick crimson blood oozing through the back of his shirt and seeping onto the ground to form a slowly growing puddle, edged with with an eerie silver from the moonlight leaking through the gaping hole in the opposite wall. Debris, wood, and scattered miscellaneous items lay on the ground haphazardly, showing the sheer destructive force of the impact that had broken the wall.
"Oh no..."
A sudden grunting and the sound of something tumbling down the stairs drew her attention back to the corridor, and she watched in bewilderment as the boy from upstairs crashed to the ground with a heavy thump.
Ichigo stood on shaky legs, and whipped his head towards the devastation in the living room. He looked from the shattered bowls, toppled table, and jagged pieces of wood spread on the ground, to his father, unconscious on the ground and bleeding heavily, to the opening torn in the wall leading to the street. And then, he saw it. A huge, hulking, horrid figure looming in the street outside his house.
Now, he was by no means easily scared. He fought gangs and thugs on a daily basis, and had been in his fair share of life-threatening situations. But NOTHING. Absolutely nothing. Could prepare him for seeing what he did at that moment.
Bathed in the shadows of the night, the creature had an appearance only his nightmares could conjure. It's face bore an intimidating white bone mask with blunt teeth made to brute force through bone and flesh, and glowing from behind the two holes in it's upper half were sickly yellow orbs that shone with nothing but primal, animalistic hunger. It's lanky limbs were disproportionate to the rest of its slouched body, with its long arms reaching to the bitumen and hands as big as tractor wheels scraping the ground. Its feet were 3-toed and webbed like a fish's, with a narrow protrusion sticking out of both heels for stability. Sticking out from its back were large spines forming a dorsal fin that made it look like even more like an odd, deformed land fish. Its pasty grey skin had red upside-down teardrop shapes decorating its body, and a bowling-ball sized hole in the centre of its torso that went straight through to the other side of its body.
He thought that the sight of it couldn't get any worse, but oh was he wrong, because there, weakly squirming in distress, was Karin. Her skin was pale and her breaths came in short strangled pants.
"Karin!" Ichigo shouted.
"Put me down!" Karin yelled at the Hollow that she likely could barely see, kicking and trying to get away.
"Dammit, I gotta get free!" Ichigo muttered as he began to strain against the invisible forces holding his arms together.
"Stay out of this, kid! Just stay back and stop struggling, you'll only get in the way!" the woman scolded, an attempt to dissuade him from struggling further.
Ichigo sent her a venomous glare. "Shut up! My family is in danger, I'm not just going to stand by and watch!"
With a resolute huff, he closed his eyes and started to focus on breaking whatever wacky spirit wizard spell got used on him.
The woman's eyes widened. "Stop! The Kido is too strong for a regular human to break! If you keep trying, you'll cause damage to your soul!"
Ichigo ignored her. He tuned out the rest of the world, his mind and body fixed on breaking the spell. He pulled his arms apart with as much intensity as he could, and after a few moments he felt the hold the invisible force had on him weaken. He kept pulling, and before long he heard a crack and felt a whoosh of air as his arms broke apart, now free. He opened his eyes to see the woman's shocked expression, and then turned his attention to a folded metal chair lying on the ground on the way to the Hollow. Without a second thought, he dashed forward, picked up the chair, and ran outside brandishing the makeshift weapon and preparing to strike.
He never hit his target, and instead was smacked away with little effort half way down the street.
The soul reaper dashed out of the house after him, and with a finesse only years of training could produce, leaped up as she unsheathed her katana and sunk it into the Hollow's arm that held Karin. The Hollow roared and its hand loosened as it staggered back, and Karin began to fall to the ground.
Ichigo quickly scrambled up and ran back over, transitioning into a slide to catch his sister before she hit the ground. "Karin!"
"Take her to safety!" the woman ordered, taking on a defensive stance between him and the Hollow.
Ichigo nodded and rose, carrying Karin away behind a car and carefully setting her down, heart beating out of his chest and gut churning. The soul reaper followed soon after, coming to crouch beside him with her eyebrows pinched.
Seeing his worry, she spoke reassuringly, "Don't worry, she'll be okay. The Hollow left without devouring either of your sisters' souls."
Ichigo looked to her. "Really? Are you sure?"
"Yes. It seems to be seeking a specific soul to eat, one with a much higher concentration of spiritual energy. In fact, the Hollow from earlier today was looking for that soul as well, not the girl's."
Ichigo frowned. "What do you mean?"
The woman sighed. "For some reason, most of your spirit energy was hidden deep within you until now, when you needed it to save your sister. That's why I didn't sense anything unusual about you when I arrived. It also explains why the Hollows haven't come after you before now. The spirit energy you have bottled up inside you started to pour out when you made contact with that young girl's ghost today. As a result, your soul became exposed. Which means this whole time, the Hollows have really been after you."
Ichigo wanted to burn himself alive. "Those things want me?"
The woman's head turned to look behind her as she heard the distinct sound of the Hollow returning. "The Hollow's back, get out of here before you get hurt!"
Ichigo shook his head firmly. "Hell no! If what you're saying is true, then this is my fault! My sisters and idiot dad could end up dead because of me, I'm not just going to sit here!"
Gritting his teeth, he made his decision and stood, running over to the Hollow standing in the middle of the street. He stood about 10 metres away from the Hollow, trying not to let his deeply-ingrained fear show on his face or in his body language.
"Coward! Quit attacking others! If it's my soul you want, come fight me one-on-one for it, you ugly bastard!" he yelled tauntingly at it, having second thoughts about his decision as the Hollow shrieked and charged at him like a raging bull.
Time seemed to slow down as he watched the creature run forward, arms reaching for him and jaw opened wide to bisect his body and devour his soul. This was the end. The very pathetic and stupid end via fish Hollow. His gravestone would say "Ichigo "Strawberry" Kurosaki, eaten by giant land fish". He would be mocked by his descendants for centuries to come. Or that was what he thought, until he saw the woman jump in front of him and get bitten by the hollow on the shoulder instead, katana wedged in its mouth.
Well damn.
"Soul reaper!" he exclaimed, watching helplessly as she grunted painfully and used her katana to slice between two of the Hollow's gums just enough to make it recoil with a loud screech.
After the Hollow had retreated once more, she let out a quiet groan and staggered, falling to the ground beside the car he had set Karin behind. She pushed herself up to lean against it with a pained noise, and looked at him through half-lidded eyes.
"You fool. How could you have possibly thought-" She paused to cough wetly, blood landing on the bitumen and dribbling out the corner of her mouth. "…that you were any match for a Hollow? Did you really think that it would be over if you gave it your soul? One human soul doesn't satisfy them for long. It will just keep hunting the next strongest soul, which in this town would be your own sister or myself. If you don't stop interfering, we're all going to end up its food!"
She lolled her head to the side and glanced at the Hollow from her peripherals as it roared and looked dead at them, recovering from its wound and seemingly pissed. With a slight hiss, she shifted to sit up straighter, and looked back at Ichigo. "I am too injured to fight. Do you want to save your family?"
Ichigo nodded, feeling insanely guilty. He was willing to do literally anything to get them out of this situation. "Of course I do! If there's a way, then tell me how!"
The soul reaper smiled weakly. "It will only be temporary, but nevertheless. You must become a soul reaper."
"What?"
She lifted her blade and pointed it at his chest. "You must take my Zanpakutō and run it through the centre of your being so that I may pour my powers into you. I can't guarantee that you'll live, but even if it doesn't work, it won't matter."
Ichigo barely even considered the risks. If there was even a slight chance that he could save his family and the soul reaper, then he'd take it. He placed his hands on the blade of the sword. "Then give me that blade, soul reaper."
She chuckled. "My name is Rukia. Rukia Kuchiki."
He gave her a wry smirk. "And my name is Berry. Strawberry."
The Hollow, now only a mere 4 metres away, lunged at them and as they plunged the sword through his chest, Ichigo quickly added, "Just kidding it's actually Ichigo Kurosaki so just in case I do die you know who I was before I became a corpse!"
A massive burst of yellow energy blasted outwards from them, kicking up a cloud of dust and pushing the Hollow back a significant distance. It roared in agony as its arm was chopped clean off, stumbling back a few steps.
"Alright, asshole, this ends now!" Ichigo declared from the cloud of dust.
The cloud slowly dissipated to reveal Ichigo's (badass, in his opinion) new appearance. He wore the same clothes that Rukia had worn earlier, probably a soul reaper uniform, with a thick brown leather strap crossing across his left shoulder and right hip around his back to hold his Zanpakutō's sheath. And then, to the Zanpakutō itself. It was at least 3 times as wide as Rukia's, and was only about 8 inches shorter than him. Its cord wrap was a neutral crimson, and two blue tassels attached to the pommel swayed in the wind caused by the earlier energy blast.
"You tried killing my family, which in my books is deserving of a good kick in the nuts and the beat down of your life. But, you don't have nuts, and I have a sword unlike earlier when I just had fists, so instead I'll just chop you into pieces and watch you fade away into nothingness," Ichigo continued, scowl set firmly in place. "Now get fucked, bitch!"
He shot forward, leaping into the air above the Hollow and cleaving through its mask as easily as a knife goes through butter. With a forward flip, he went over its profusely bleeding head and landed crouched on the ground behind its disintegrating body, slightly cracking the ground beneath his feet. He watched over his shoulder as the Hollow's remaining flecks floated away into the night, a wide, victorious grin on his lips as he panted for air.
"Well that was an experience," he commented bluntly before exhaustion caught up to him, and he passed out on the street.
Rukia was completely and utterly shocked. This boy, whatever he was, not only had taken all of her powers instead of the half she intended to give him, but had defeated a Hollow in only 2 strikes despite being a complete newbie to even the mere existence of Hollows.
Well, I guess it makes sense why he was able to break my Kido before. It also explains what was jamming my senses,she dryly observed in her mind.
At the sound of wood clacking against concrete, she looked beside her to see a green-clad blonde man standing above her, a fan waving lazily in front of his mouth.
"Well, it looks like you're in a bit of a bind here," jovially quipped the man, sounding immensely gleeful for some odd reason. "Want a gigai?"