Author's note: This is a reupload of a story I started a number years ago and left unfinished after 10 chapters. I had meant to come back, but things came up, and the email address I used at the time no longer exists, so I had to make a new account to continue the story. This story is meant to explore the idea of what would happen if Toshiro Hitsugaya was the main character of Bleach instead of Ichigo Kurosaki. I have left the original chapters as they were originally uploaded.

"I'm going to see the new Godzilla movie this weekend! Wanna come?"

"Of course! I've been trying to get my parents to let me see it for weeks now! Maybe they'll let me go if it's with a friend."

"Let's get to my house! I've got the latest Monster Hunter!"

"Man, that stuff never gets old!"

"Did you read that issue? That manga's terrible now. I'm not buying another issue."

"I'm going to stick with it for a while. Maybe it'll get better again. Remember how amazing the first arc was?"

The students filed haphazardly out of the middle school, talking excitedly with their friends. When it appeared that the entrance had emptied one final figure emerged.

Shorter than all of his classmates, with his head held low, the boy had a shockingly white head of hair.

It was not Toshiro Hitsugaya's hair, however, that was the strangest thing about him. Any observer would have thought that unlike the other children, Toshiro was walking alone. He was not.

In fact, a girl was talking into his ear, speaking words of gossip that were beginning to drive him mad.

"And then Lisa-"

"I don't freaking care!" Toshiro yelled, finally at the breaking point. "Why do you keep hanging around me?"

"Because you're the only one who can see or hear me. Who else can I talk to?"

The girl, Makoto, had been one of Toshiro's classmates until her death in a car accident two months earlier. Unfortunately, her love for spying on others and telling stories about everything she saw had not died with her.

Toshiro pulled some of his hair in frustration as Makoto continued to recount a conversation she had heard in the girl's bathroom.

For as long as he could remember, Toshiro had been able to see ghosts, those beings who had chains sticking out of their chests who had not yet passed on. It was not an ability he was fond of showing off. People thought of him as freaky enough as it is.

Each year his teachers insisted that he stop bleaching his hair so white, not realizing that it was just his natural hair color. And for some reason, the other children always seemed afraid of him.

There was no reason for anyone to fear him. Toshiro was short even for his age and had skipped two years of school, making him a midget compared to his classmates.

Toshiro was halfway home when Makoto finally stopped talking.

"Oh, thank god." Toshiro said, hoping to savor at least a few minutes of silence.

Boom!

A building in front of Toshiro collapsed in a heap, as if a cannonball had hit it. All around, people began to scream and panic, but none more so than Makoto.

She screamed in such terror because she could see the cause of the destruction, a green, bug-like monster, two stories tall and wearing a strange, white mask.

"Such spirit energy." it breathed. "Let me taste you..."

Toshiro was frozen in place. He could see the beast as well as Makoto could, and was almost as frightened. "That... thing... can...talk...?"

As the monster bared down on the frozen youngsters, a figure in black appeared between it and its prey. The newcomer was a teenage girl with black hair and a long katana. Without a word, she stabbed the monster through its mask. The creature dissipated in front of their eyes.

"You're late!" Toshiro's father, Ishin Hitsugaya yelled when Toshiro had finally made it home.

"Sorry." Toshiro muttered, looking down.

"'Sorry?' Is that all you have to say for yourself?" Ishin pointed to the table in the kitchen. "You made your sisters sick with worry!"

Toshiro looked up at the table. Sure enough, the nine year old twins Karin and Yuzu looked like they were about to have an anxiety attack.

"Um," Yuzu said, "dinners getting cold, Toshiro. I can heat it up again if you want."

Toshiro started to head upstairs. "No. That's all right. I'm not hungry."

"Hold it!" Ishin yelled. "Are you going to bother to explain why you're so late tonight? It's not like you."

Toshiro spun around. "A building almost fell on me, okay?"

Ishin and the twins stared open mouthed. "What?"

Toshiro turned around again to go to his room. "Turn on the TV. It's gotta be on the news."

A half hour later, Ishin knocked on Toshiro's door.

"Can I come in?"

"Sure." Toshiro said, rolling over in bed so that he faced the other way.

Ishin put on his best daddy smile. "We did check the news. You had a really tough day."

"You could say that."

"Do you feel up for school tomorrow?"

"I'll see in the morning."

"Okay. Get a good night's sleep." Ishin turned to leave.

Toshiro rolled over again. "Dad?"

"Yes?" Ishin asked, stopping at the door.

"Tell Karin and Yuzu I'm sorry for worrying them. That's the last thing I wanted to do."

"Of course. Pleasant dreams."

Toshiro stood in the middle of a dark, frozen plain. A loud voice thundered from the distance, bringing with it a great wind. Toshiro held his arms in front of his face to shield his eyes.

"I can't hear you? What are you saying?"

The voice thundered louder and the wind increased in intensity. The gust knocked Toshiro over.

"No!"

Toshiro sat up, covered in sweat.

'I thought those dreams had stopped. Why would they start again now?'

Toshiro looked out of his window. For just an instant, he thought he saw a dark outline of a figure running across a nearby roof, sword in hand.

He rubbed his forehead. 'Monsters, girls in black with magic swords. Wasn't seeing dead people enough?'

One week later

Toshiro blinked as the bell rang to signal the end of the class. He had taken in almost none of the lesson. Hastily, he gathered his things to leave.

"Would you please stay behind for a few minutes, Toshiro?" the teacher asked.

After the other students had left, Toshiro went up to the teacher's desk.

"What's been happening with you these last few days, Toshiro?" she asked. "You've been dozing off in class a great deal lately."

"I'm not sleeping well."

"Not sleeping well?"

"Since the accident last week I've had this same nightmare every night."

"Hmmm. I understand. You should speak to your father about going to therapy is this lasts too much longer. I'd hate for one of my top students to start failing over something that's not his fault."

Again, Toshiro shot up as he fell in the icy plain.

"What...is...that...voice?" he breathed.

Toshiro again looked out the window. Over the previous week he had not seen any monsters or people in black, and that night the moon was full and very beautiful.

But it was overshadowed by a sudden blackness. Toshiro gaped as a figure passed through his window, over his bed, and landed on his floor without making a sound.

"Who-what are you?" Toshiro stammered. "Are you a burglar?" He almost froze when the figure's hand grasped the hilt of a sword sheathed at her side.

'It's the same girl from last week!' he realized.

The girl did not seem to hear him. She closed her eyes in concentration. "Yes. That power is close."

Toshiro growled in frustration as he leapt out of his bed and shoved the girl to the floor. "I asked who you are, burglar!"

The girl moaned then looked up at Toshiro.

"You pushed me."

"You broke into my room!"

"You can see me?"

The stupidity the girl showed was beginning to get to Toshiro.

"Of course I can see you! You're solid!"

The girl rose, dusting off her kimono. "Humans aren't supposed to be able to see us."

Toshiro's eyes narrowed. "You're not...human?"

She turned to him, smirking slightly. "No. I'm a Shinigami, a god of death."

Toshiro frowned as he listened to the girl's explanation of what Shinigami were: beings from a place called Soul Society whose mission it was to shepherd lost souls there and cleanse corrupted ones called hollows.

Her explanation was not helped by the pictures she drew to accompany them, pictures in which all characters were modeled after Chappy the Bunny.

"And why would you be willing to tell a human child all of this?" he asked incredulously. "You don't go around just telling 'humans' this stuff."

"That is true. I was unprepared for finding a human that could see me."

Toshiro looked at the nearest drawing of a happy Chappy character. "You really expect me to take you seriously as a god of death?"

The girl glared at him. "You want proof, little boy? Here." She raised a finger.

"Bakudo Number 1! Sai!"

Toshiro's arms moved of their own accord and came together behind his back. He fell forward, hitting his chin very hard. He groaned as he rose, trying to pull his arms apart.

"Don't bother resisting." the Shinigami said with an air of triumph. "No human can break a bakudo spell. You only risk injuring yourself."

"Why you-" Toshiro growled, but the Shinigami raised a hand to cut him off.

"I've wasted too much time with you. I've got to get back to tracking that hollow I was after." She turned around. "Something's interfering with my senses tonight. That's why I came here-"

She spun around again as they heard a loud crash from downstairs.

"What's that?" Toshiro yelled. "What's happening to my house?"

The Shinigami ignored him. "Looks like I found my hollow." She raced out of the room. 'But's reiatsu is so strong; how did I not sense it before?'

She stopped at the bottom of the stairs, facing the front door-or rather, the street through a giant hole in the wall where the front door should have been.

'The hollow was attracted to this house just like I was.' she realized. 'But why?'

A series of crashes behind the Shinigami caused her to reflexively move to the side, making room for Toshiro to painfully finish his roll down the stairs. His arms were still bound by her spell.

"Stay back." the Shinigami warned.

"What...is that thing?" Toshiro asked, finally getting a look at what was causing the destruction of his house.

In the street stood another monster, not as large as the one from a week earlier, but still a good sixteen feet tall. It hunched over like a thin frog and had a fish shaped mask covering its face.

"It's the hollow I was talking about." the Shinigami said.

They looked up as they heard a scream from the direction of the hollow. It was holding a young girl in one of its clawed hands.

"Karin!" Toshiro screamed, struggling harder against the binding spell.

'The girl must've come downstairs for a late night snack.' the Shinigami thought. 'I've got to kill it before it eats her!'

She began to draw her blade, but a small disturbance of spirit energy to her right distracted her. She turned her head to see Toshiro, his face red as he put all of his strength into freeing his arms.

"Stop that! At this rate you're going to kill yourself!"

But Toshiro did not stop. He screamed louder, and the air around him began to glow.

'Impossible! No human can break a kido spell!'

The Shinigami was proven wrong as, with a final yell and an impossibly loud sound of cords snapping, Toshiro's arms burst from their restraints, freeing him completely from the spell.

Though her attention should have been completely on the hollow, the Shinigami just stared at Toshiro, stunned.

'How can a human have that much spirit energy? He's what was clouding my senses. He must be!'

"Stop!" she yelled as Toshiro rushed at the hollow. It swatted him away like a fly. He bounced along the street, somehow avoiding serious injury.

"I found you." the hollow said through its mask. "The great source of spirit energy. You'll be a much tastier morsel than this little girl."

Toshiro screamed again as it dropped Karin, but the Shinigami appeared out of thin air to catch the unconscious child.

Toshiro's relief was short lived, as the hollow lunged at him mouth first, attempting to eat him.

Toshiro covered his eyes, believing death to be imminent. He felt the hollow's breath, heard a terrible crunch-

-but felt the exact same amount of pain as before.

Toshiro lowered his arms. The Shinigami stood in front of him, having blocked the hollow's attack with her own body. Her sword had cut part of its mouth, but many of its teeth had torn deeply into her flesh.

The hollow, surprised by the sudden wound, pulled away as the Shinigami collapsed to the ground, bleeding terribly. She struggled to rise, but could barely manage sitting up. She gave Toshiro a grave look.

"I'm too injured to fight anymore. I'm afraid it's up to you, boy."

"What can I do?" Toshiro asked frantically.

"I can give you part of my powers. That should be enough to allow you to defeat the hollow." She held out her sword.

Toshiro stood up, matching her seriousness. "What do you want me to do?"

"Stab yourself with my sword."

"What happens then?"

The hollow roared, and the Shinigami winced in pain from looking at it too quickly.

"You'll either get my powers or you'll die! Hurry and make your choice! It's coming! Do you want to save your family or not!"

Toshiro looked at Karin lying on the ground. "All right, Shinigami."

The hollow began to lunge at Toshiro again.

The Shinigami smiled. "My name is not Shinigami; it is Rukia Kuchiki."

Toshiro gripped her sword. "Toshiro Hitsugaya."

He plunged the blade into his chest just before the hollow reached him.

The street was bathed in a blinding white light. When it faded, one of the hollow's hands had been severed completely.

Rukia Kuchiki, now wearing a white kimono instead of a black one, looked at her hands in shock.

'I only meant to give him half of my power, but somehow he took it all!'

She looked at Toshiro, who now wore a black kimono just like hers. His head was bowed down and his right arm was outstretched, gripping the hilt of a sword.

'That Zanpakuto is huge!' Rukia thought. 'It's longer than he is tall!'

The sword was different from Rukia's in more ways than just its length. It had a distinctive four pointed guard and a blue handle.

"I'm going to kill you for threatening my family." Toshiro hissed, his head still lowered.

He leapt into the air and brought his sword down onto the hollow's head. It screamed as he split its skull open. At first blood gushed everywhere, but then the hollow and its blood began to evaporate into nothingness.

Rukia continued to stare in awe.

'Whatever you are, Toshiro Hitsugaya, you are no normal human.'