Chapter 2: The new soul reaper

Just to clear up some confusion, Ichigo in his soul reaper form will be referred to as 'he' and 'Ichigo' for now. Enjoy.

The sun rose up over the horizon and into Ichigo's room. He shielded his eyes and moved his body to avoid the light and continue to sleep, thinking about letting his mind wonder and body rest. Everything seemed fine in his own mind, that is until he suddenly remembered everything that had happened last night. His eyes flashed open and he rose up from his bed, feeling a bit stiff and constricted in the process. He got out of his bed and felt unbalanced a bit, but put that off as fatigue. Once he regained his balance, he made his way down to the living room where he saw his family staring at a large hole in the wall.

"What the hell?" Ichigo said more to himself than to anyone.

"Apparently a truck hit the house then drove off." Karin said to him while having her arms crossed. "Kinda strange none of us heard it last night."

"A truck?" Ichigo spoke up. His mind started racing.

Was last night real or just a bad dream he had? It wouldn't make any sense if some tall monster just attacked them and he changed that soul reaper girl to kill it. Would it? Ichigo shook his head of it all and decided to get ready for the day. He went back up to the bathroom and got himself ready. While he was doing that, he felt off a bit. Like he was too tall for some reason. He put that thought to the back of his mind and got ready like always.

As Ichigo was walking down the street to get to school, he kept thinking about last night. That soul reaper, Rukia Kuchiki. What she explained about hollows and wholes. The hollow that was after him for his soul. And then he destroyed the hollow with a large blade. The last thing he remembered before blacking out was Rukia saying something along the lines of why he looked like her.

"Ichigo?" A voice spoke to him. He looked up to see that it was none other than his childhood friend, Tatsuki, speaking to him.

"Hey Tatsuki." He waved to her as they made their way inside. "What's up?"

"'What's up'?" She started as she gave him a pretty hard look. "I heard a truck hit your house last night. Is everything alright back their?"

Ichigo could hear how worried she was and smirked a bit. "Yeah, yeah. Nobody was hurt."

That seemed to be enough for Tatsuki and the two made their way inside the school. The morning went on like normal what with Keigo's attempt at getting the drop on Ichigo, meeting up with Chad and Orihime and getting to class. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary as Ichigo sat down in his chair, still feeling stiff for some reason or another. Maybe he just had a bad nights sleep or something. Everything was fine until the door opened and a new girl introduced herself to the group.

"Hello there." She spoke in a sing-song like tone and did a little curtsy at the end.

Ichigo looked over to her since she was mainly speaking with Keigo and Tatsuki, and right when he made contact with her lavender eyes he jumped up from his chair and pointed at her, mouth agape. It was the same girl from yesterday that told him all about soul reapers and hollows to begin with. This time though she was dressed in the standard school girl's uniform and everyone could see her easily.

"You know her Ichigo?" Keigo asked his friend.

Ichigo retracted his hand and scratched his head sheepishly as he stammered out. "W-well. About that..."

"I met him yesterday and he helped me with directions." Rukia spoke up as she went over to him and extended her hand to him. "It's nice to know we're in the same classroom, Ichigo."

Ichigo was hesitant at first. That sharp look she gave him was throwing him off, but he decided to reach out and shake her hand. As he was close to shaking her hand, he noticed something was written on it.

'Make a scene and you're dead.'

Ichigo immediately retracted his hand from her out of fear and she smiled innocently to him. Just as Orihime was about to ask why he did that, Rukia grabbed him by the hand, told some quick story about how she needed his help for something, and dragged him out of the room. Ichigo protested at first, obviously, but relented after a while. They stopped a little ways off from any wondering eyes and Rukia pulled out a phone.

"Oy!" Ichigo yelled out to her. "Just what in the hell was that all about?! How are you still here?! I thought you'd be back in this soul society place by now!"

"Right now that's not important." She started as she put her phone away and pulled out a red glove with a skull inside a blue flame on the back of the hand. "There's a hollow sighted that you need to take care of."

"Take care of?" Ichigo questioned. "I thought that was your job?"

Rukia gave him a hard look. "A little difficult to do that when you have all of my power." She wasted no more time as she rushed him and brought her gloved hand to his chin.

To her surprise, Ichigo's head came flying out of his body around his chest and the rest of his soul followed after. Ichigo landed hard on the ground and Rukia had to do a double take once again like last night. Ichigo was an exact copy of Rukia now, with the biggest difference both metaphorically and literally being his zanpakuto. It as massive and looked like some variation of her own zanpakuto. Rukia looked at him and felt as if she was looking into a reflection of herself. How exactly did this happen specifically anyway? She shook those thoughts from her head as she remembered the hollow sighting.

Ichigo shook his head and quickly stood up to face her and yell, but once he stood up, he felt a large amount of weight on his back pulling him down. He tried to keep his footing as he stood there for a bit and was finally able to relax a bit.

"Just what the hell was that abou-" Ichigo started only to stop half way at hearing his voice and seeing his body laying on the ground. He pointed a shaky hand at his body laying there as he got a good look at his slender arm. "What the hell?" He said in a whisper to himself as he looked to the rest of his body and saw that he was the exact same as Rukia was in her own soul reaper garb. He felt his face and hair and was in absolute shock when he felt features that were definitely not his. Ichigo even, though he was blushing madly, opened up his shihakusho to get a look at his body.

Rukia got a tick mark and blushed from that since technically he was looking at her body and shouted at him. "WILL YOU STOP BEING A PERVERT AND LET'S GO TAKE CARE OF THE HOLLOW!"

Ichigo stopped and looked to the blushing and angered Rukia, realizing what he had just done and blushing himself. The two looked away from each other for a moment before Rukia told him to follow her to where the hollow was. As she ran, Ichigo had to get used to his new body and lack of strength when it came to carrying the large blade on his back. As he ran, he was trying not fall over, but as he continued on, he felt a little more comfortable with the weight. What was really weird to him though was the fact that he didn't feel tight or stiff like earlier. Ichigo felt a bit free for some odd reason.

"There." Rukia spoke as they stopped in a playground entrance to see a kid running away from a spider like hollow. Ichigo wasted no time in wanting to rush in and help him, but that was when Rukia spoke to him. "Where do you think you're going!?"

Ichigo stopped and turned around to her. "Saving that kid, what else?"

"The responsibility of a soul reaper is to help all souls no matter the cost." She started in a stern tone, which for her was weird basically talking to herself. "To simply to this one time and claim to be done with it is a fools errand. The battle between soul reapers and hollows will never end, and as long as their is a single soul reaper alive, their duty will always come first, Ichigo."

Ichigo stood there for a moment. Motionless at her words. Was he really willing to take that responsibility? Was he even worthy of doing such a thing? He didn't know, but what he did know was that when that boy fell to the ground, he had an answer for her. Reaching for the handle of his blade, he pulled it out with no trouble as he leaned forward on instinct to take it out of the sheath and cut the arms off of the hollow. The hollow fell to the ground but wasn't beaten yet. Surprisingly enough to Ichigo, the blade wasn't too heavy for him at the moment. Maybe it was just the adrenaline kicking in. He turned to Rukia and his dark hair covered his eyes.

"I don't give a damn about any sort of duty." He started as the hollow stood back up. "If I see someone in trouble, no matter if they're a soul or a living person," The hollow rushed him. "I will help them." Rukia gasped as the hollow was right behind Ichigo now, but that was turned to shock when she saw Ichigo pierce the hollow's mask and shout out. "NO MATTER WHAT!"

The hollow disappeared and Ichigo relaxed a bit as the weight finally got to him. His right arm drooped down but he saw that he still needed to deal with the boy. Mustering up his strength, Ichigo lifted his blade onto his shoulder and kneeled down to the soul. He pressed the bottom of the handle on the boy's forehead to perform the konso and sent him on his way.

Rukia was surprised by this. She didn't expect him to be able to take down this hollow and perform a konso on the first try. She expected him to be inexperienced in using a sword, yet he showed skill right then and there. Maybe the transfer of her powers and soul also transferred some of her swordsmanship as well. It would take Rukia a while to figure that out, but for now they had to head back to school.

As the days came and went, Ichigo was getting used to his soul reaper body slowly but surely. He had found a simple way to reduce the weight of his zanpakuto by just working out in his soul reaper form and continuously fighting hollows. Rukia did explain to him that the technique she used on him the first night was a forbidden technique. It was forbidden for reasons she didn't know up until recently when she talked to an old shopkeeper that she got her supplies from.

He explained to her that the transfer of ones soul to a human body doesn't just transfer a soul reapers powers, it also imprints that soul reapers soul onto the humans soul. Meaning that Rukia's soul is copied to Ichigo's soul, giving him her look, strengths, weaknesses, and relative spirit energy. Though he did admit that the fact that Ichigo's spirit energy was already pretty rampant beforehand, it was no surprise that his own zanpakuto would be so large.

It also explained why every time Ichigo was in his regular body he would always say that he felt stiff and tight all around. His soul originally was for his body, but now that he had Rukia's soul as his own meant his body would feel uncomfortable for him. True, his soul was smaller than his body physically, but his spirit energy wasn't a match for his body anymore, causing him to feel uncomfortable all the time.

For now, he had to bear with it.

Ichigo had to admit though, something just felt off to him. He felt as if he was being watched several times by different people whenever he was in his soul reaper form. He couldn't really shake that feeling that something bad was gonna happen, and soon too.

Soul Society, squad 6

"Are you sure she's there Renji?" The stoic voice of a man spoke to another.

"From what the reports are saying, she's somewhere in the area captain." The other answered as he bowed to the first man. "But something is very different about her spirit energy. It's wild, unchecked and rampant. It feels completely different than hers yet is the same somehow."

"Hmm." The first man thought as he placed his hand on his chin in a thinking pose. "We will give her a few more days, and if here energy remains this way, then we shall intervene." He started as he looked to the second man. "Is that understood, Renji?"

Renji nodded. "Understood, captain Kuchiki."

Gonna end things here. Next chapter will start the Soul Society arc. Hope ya'll enjoy that.

Would ya'll like to see lemons in the future? I think that would be interesting for a story like this. Lol.

You guys are awesome ans always,

PEACE!