Chapter 1: Prologue.
No matter who you asked, if they knew Ichigo, they would say that he was an active individual, quiet but active. He didn't like remaining still for long. He had a lot of excess energy and his body demanded that it be used. That is why he was always irritated, why he did so many different sports in high school and why he got into so many fights, there were other reasons of course but that was the gist of it, he had too much energy due to his unique nature.
Now such a person lay defeated, floating aimlessly in a dark void, unmoving. His only company being his sword spirit who had long since entered some state of hibernation to preserve his energy. Zangetsu would wake up once in a while to check on him and then go back to sleep. While he had a lot of spiritual energy, there was no way to replenish his reserves in this empty void. He didn't know exactly how long he had been floating around but it should have been a few years at the very least, it certainly felt like a few decades. He didn't have much energy left now.
He tried his best to hold on after the first few hours of venting but it didn't matter anymore. He would soon be dead and would hopefully end up wherever his family was. How did he end up in this situation? He didn't know but after such a long time with only his thoughts, he had come to his own conclusion. He killed Yhwach, but at the time, Yhwach was acting as the lynchpin connecting the worlds and was forcing them to crash into each other. By the time he defeated Yhwach, it was too late. The worlds were already crashing into each other. No one could possibly stop such a thing.
In his final moments, as he saw the world around him crashing and crumbling and the people simply dissolving into energy, with nothing holding them together, they simply vanished. In the end, Orihime most likely saved him because the last image in his brain was Orihime's crying yet smiling face as she was pointing her hands towards him. From what little he understood, she must have rejected him from the very 'reality' that was crumbling around them. When he first arrived here, he was shocked, so shocked that it took him some time to react. He tried to go back of course, tried to get Zangetsu to open a Garganta to Hueco Mundo, but it didn't work.
Then he got angry because everything was pointing towards the fact that his family and friends were dead. He shouted and vented and thrashed around and finally he cried. He cried and kept on crying, calling out to his family and friends, hoping, no, 'begging' that someone else also survived but to no avail. Soon he had to stop crying because it also wasted his energy. His life was saved by another. He had to live on. He had to make sure that they weren't just forgotten. All of the fights, the struggles, the blood and tears that they had shed, he had to live on because of them. Who knew, maybe he would find someone else who had survived.
While the chances of that happening were practically nil, but hope was a strong thing, it kept him from going insane. Even though he had seen the people around him breakdown into motes of light, he held on to his sense of self and sanity by thinking that someone else might have also survived.
Not being able to talk to him after Zangetsu entered his sleep, the only thing Ichigo could do was think, think about his life and the people that occupied it. He started to realize a few things. One of them being that he had barely lived life for himself after his mother's death. He had lived his life protecting others, oh he didn't regret any of it, not one bit, just that the more he lived for others, the more they seemed to be sad. Not that he brought them bad luck or pain or something like that, but the fact that they didn't like him not living his own life.
Other was the fact that he had kept most people in his life at arms length. His school friends didn't really know about his extra activities. When they came to know about it, he still didn't tell them the full extent of it. Those who knew everything, didn't fully know about his inner problems. In the end, when he was starting to move on, leave the past after getting his answers and finally letting people in, this happened. He didn't tell them anything because he thought that the truth will hurt them but at that point he hadn't yet realized that not telling them was even more painful, for both parties. But there was no point to all of these thoughts now.
'There's no use thinking about all of this. I have at most an hour before I, myself start to disintegrate.' Ichigo thought with a defeated sigh.
As he was getting ready to meet his end, his body was violently jerked. He opened his eyes with a startled expression and finally 'saw' something in what felt like decades. Granted, what he saw was a strange sight but nonetheless, it was beautiful. Different colored lights were swirling around each other, twisting and turning, expanding and contracting, spontaneously coming into existence and being destroyed just as quickly. It was like a kaleidoscope but it was as dangerous as it was beautiful. He felt the rate of dissipation of his spiritual energy increase exponentially.
What previously felt like an hour of energy was being... destroyed, not dissipated or dissolved, but destroyed and it was being destroyed quickly. Suddenly the feeling of hopelessness in him vanished and in its place was anger and a fierce will to live. He had made it so far, relatively okay, so he was not going to keel over after finally exiting that void. He was in a new place, he wanted to survive and possibly even thrive in this place. Before he had given up hope of ever leaving that void without dying, but now there was a chance. There was a chance that he could find a new place.
He had defied and won against impossible odds before and he would do it again. No! He HAD to do it again! If for nothing else but to make a grave for his family and friends.
He had such a strong will to live that something connected to him responded. A connection he believed to be temporary and had forgotten about it, a connection that was 'supposed' to be temporary, was once again re-established. Something so powerful and so terrible that every existence feared it, something that represented the 'Ultimate Retribution', answered his will to live and gave him just enough energy to survive and enter a new world.
Just enough, to leave a permanent mark.
Ichigo, on the other hand, didn't feel this connection, so busy he was trying to hold himself together. He just felt that he had crossed a barrier and entered a new place. He exited a crack in space and saw a blue sky with white clouds, he was relieved and the fatigue finally started to catch up. There were different forms of energies floating around him, one of them being spiritual energy. All of it in the surrounding area rushed towards him. To him, who was basically starved of spiritual energy, the sudden rush was too much and combined with the relief, fatigue and the feeling of triumph from surviving such a near death experience, he lost his consciousness.
He had lost consciousness but Zangetsu had already awoken due to the sudden extreme changes. He waited for a while for the energy to gather before quickly taking over and stopping Ichigo's free falling body. Standing still on air, he started to focus on the euphoria that came with once again having excessive energy. He also kept an eye on the surroundings. Such a huge displacement of energy couldn't have gone unnoticed... and well, the sudden thunderstorm in the middle of a hot day was bound to attract attention, the place looked way too habitable for there to not be any native species.
He had to make sure that the natives of this world would not harm his king. And indeed, only after a dozen or so minutes, he felt a few energy signals rushing towards him. They were not very fast but one of them had truly massive amounts of energy inside them. It was similar to Ichigo's around the time he was fighting Aizen. But even if all of that was released in a single attack, to the current him, it would only leave a scratch. Of course, Zangetsu's definition of a scratch was quite different from others. He was a Hollow after all, creatures that could reattach cut off limbs, if not regrow them outright and Ichigo was also getting closer to such a level.
As he waited for the party to come to him, the energy swirling around him finally started to calm down. Zangetsu started to stretch and work out any kinks in the body, it was inactive for a long time. It had at most been half an hour since Ichigo fainted but his body was already in a good enough state to fight. As Zangetsu was stretching, the other party arrived at his location. When he saw who had arrived, Zangetsu was surprised for a second.
Ichigo and by extension, Zangetsu, had seen quite a few strange things and people in their short life. Humans with animal features, animals with human features, humans turning into animals and vice versa but still, the people that arrived still surprised him.
Most of them were humans with animal features, cat ears, dog ears, wolf ears, some of them had heads and wings of a crow. The strongest one had fox ears and nine tails. As a part of Ichigo, he also knew of the nine tailed fox that was a legend or a myth in their own world, so was this the same legendary fox? Oh the woman was beautiful and all that and the vixen also had bigger mammaries than any other Ichigo had seen but he didn't care about that. He just wanted to fight that vixen and see how strong she was. He was getting a bit twitchy after coming out. He didn't get many chances to come out and play after all.
The other party was also getting ready. It seems that him wanting to fight had shown on his face, but Zangetsu stopped and thought. Should he fight? He really, really wanted to, but his first priority was Ichigo's safety. This group wouldn't be able to hurt him but what about others. They didn't know anything or anyone in this world, so they shouldn't go around making enemies.
That sounded right and not to mention how irritating Ichigo would get when he woke up and found himself in a middle of a fight. He wouldn't let him come out to play at all.
With extreme reluctance, Zangetsu put the sword on his back and showed the other party his empty hands. They approached him with caution after a bit of back and forth amongst themselves. The fox lady was in the front and asked him a question with a frown.
"Who are you and what are you doing on our land?"
He had a feeling that she meant 'my' land rather than our land. Some sort of royalty, Zangetsu decided. He wanted to reply with 'None of your business' but he had a feeling that it would lead to a fight. While he wanted to fight, Ichigo needed a place to rest and decompress. So, once again visibly restraining himself, he answered.
"A straggler."
He didn't know what he should say and what he shouldn't, so he decided to not care about it, Ichigo could deal with that himself. The people in front of him were surprised after hearing his voice.
The animal people... or rather now that he was not thinking about fighting, the ones with crows head and wings, their appearance was similar to the Karasu Tengu from the myths of their world and combined with the nine tailed fox... he was talking to freaking Youkais, not only that but Youkais told in Japanese myths. He had a hard time holding back his laugh at such a strange development. The Kyuubi seemed to notice his amusement and asked with a frown,
"And why is a straggler like you on our lands?"
"Not by choice, I'll tell ya. We just ended up here after that colorful shit." Zangetsu replied with a sneer. He wasn't sneering at the Youkais, but at how close Ichigo had come to dying.
The Youkai didn't know about his thoughts and thought that he was sneering at them, so they got angry. As the minions were readying their weapons with anger, the Kyuubi stopped them and asked a question that once again surprised him.
"You... are not the owner of that body are you? I will ask you once again spirit! Who are you, why are you here and why have you possessed that young man's body?!" While the one standing in front of them seemed human, the feeling was completely unnatural not to mention the voice and the eyes. Youkais were beings close to nature, especially the Kyuubi since it was connected to the land they were standing on.
The Youkais once again started to prepare for a fight and quickly surrounded Zangetsu. He let them because he was surprised at how quickly she came to that judgement. He was a part of Ichigo, a part that was with Ichigo even before his birth. To those who didn't know Ichigo personally or were meeting him for the first time, it shouldn't have been easy for them to distinguish between the two of them. But it took the lady only a few minutes after meeting him to come to that conclusion. He was intrigued.
"Why do you say so?" Zangetsu asked with even more amusement. He didn't want to start a fight but if they started it, he was allowed to defend himself and his King right? He still didn't pull out the sword though and kept smiling at them, urging them to make the first move. Just as they were going to move in, Zangetsu clicked his tongue and said with great dissatisfaction,
"Now you wake up." He clicked his tongue again before his shoulders slumped.
The atmosphere around him completely changed. If before, he was a predator ready to pounce, now he was a hunter cautiously surveying his surroundings. The feeling of danger was still there, but the blood-thirst suddenly vanished. The Youkais were also able to sense the change and looked towards their leader. After taking a deep breath, the Kyuubi asked the same question for the third time.
"Who are you and why are you here?"
Ichigo felt a bit lost but Zangetsu explained the situation roughly. The ones in front of him were very similar to Youkais of the legends, he was the sudden uninvited guest on the lands of these creatures and the Kyuubi seemed to their leader and royalty of some sort. Ichigo decided to trust Zangetsu feeling and after thinking for a while, answered truthfully with a shrug.
"I haven't a single clue on how I got here."
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
DrDreams
DrDreams I want to write more, I really do, but I found out the original Mangaka of Bleach, Tite Kubo, is writing a few more chapters. The chapters are a one shot and contain Hell, so Hell will officially be canonized. I'm way too excited to write anything. We may finally get some answers that we didn't get because of the extremely rushed ending. So, I'll give you this one, tell me what you guys think and I'll start working on the next one but don't expect one anytime soon.
Review please.
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