Ichigo Of The Second Division
I thank The Original writer of this Izanagi7 up to the end of chapter three it will remain the same then it will head off in the direction i think it should.
Disclaimer
I don't own Bleac Tite Kubo does.
Chapter 1: The Final Confrontation
High above the desolate wasteland of what was once the peaceful town of Karakura, two worriers prepared to finish a war that had brought the world to ruin, taking billions of lives and leaving the world a barren wasteland in its wake.
The first was a tall orange haired man who was slowly preparing his final charge on his hated adversary. His body was covered in countless scars acquired through the many battles which he had taken part in during this never ending war. His amber eyes were tired, weighed down by the sorrow of everyone he had lost in this endless battle. However, though he was haggard, his eyes still held the light of hope that all his struggle would not be in vain. This man was named Kurosaki Ichigo.
Across form Ichigo stood an equally as tall brown haired man who's very body trembled with rage and the utmost contempt for the boy that stood before him. Gone was his cool composure, gone was his seemingly peaceful nature, and in its place stood a man who's only purpose was to annihilate his adversary. His eyes, which once held the an air of absolute confidence, now freely displayed the psychotic monster that he truly was. This man's name was Aizen Souseke.
These two men faced each other, preparing to make the move that would decide the fate the last two beings in existence.
"Its over Aizen. No matter what happens here today, you will lose," stated Ichigo in a calm voice.
"What are you going on about Kurosaki. You say that I will lose? Ha! You have become disillusioned boy! Today you will die, and when you do, I will finally stand atop the heavens!" ranted Aizen with an insane edge to his voice.
"Stand atop what? This?" asked Ichigo as he swept his hand over the barren landscape.
"There is nothing to rule over, don't you get it? You and I are all that's left. Whoever wins here today will be forced to face this hell alone. Don't you see Aizen? There is no reason to fight anymore," Ichigo said in exhaustion.
"SILENCE! You worthless little insect! I am god! I will simply create the world anew, and than I shall be worshiped for all eternity as I rightfully should be!"
"And you call me disillusioned. YOU ARE NOT GOD! You, are simply a sad little bastard with a god complex," said Ichigo in irritation.
"SHUT UP! You know nothing about me. Besides, you forget, I still have this," he said while holding up the Hogyoku with a sadistic smirk in his face.
Ichigo instinctively returned to his battle stance. However, all of a sudden, Aizen saw him with a cocky smirk plastered on his face.
"You know Aizen, its ironic how our roles have been reversed," Ichigo said cheekily.
"What are you talking about Kurosaki?" Aizen said annoyed.
"Well at the start of this, it was you who stood with the calm composure and I was the brash hothead, and now..."
"ENOUGH! I will not be lectured by the likes of you. Now, I think its high time that we finally ended this battle," said Aizen while taking a battle stance of his own.
"I couldn't agree more," said Ichigo as he readied himself.
And they were off.
The two charged at each other with everything they had. Ichigo with the black steel of Tenza Zangetsu, and Aizen with the blade of illusions that was Kyoka Suigetsu.
"DIE KUROSAKI!"
"IT ENDS HERE AIZEN"
And it was over.
End Chapter 1
Chapter 2: A New Beginning
The Dust began to settle from the backlash sent forth from the titanic clash between the forces of light and darkness. The two warriors stood locked together high above the skies of Karakura in the aftermath of their battle.
Aizen for one was ecstatic, he had done it, he had finally defeated the only obstacle stand between him and the throne of the world. He was about to gloat, that was, until he saw the face of his opponent.
Despite the sword in his chest, Kurosaki Ichigo was smiling.
"What's so funny Kurosaki? You've lost, don't tell me that your so blind that you can't see that."
Ichigo's smile turned into a full grown grin.
"Oh I know I've lost, however, so have you!"
"What are you talking about Kurosaki? You didn't even touch me," said a confused Aizne.
"That's because I wasn't aiming for you genius," said Ichigo smugly.
"What?"
"Look down."
Aizen looked down and paled, there, embedded within the Hogyoku, was Ichigo's Zanpaktou.
"YOU FOOL! WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?" screamed Aizen in absolute horror.
"I decided that actually defeating you wasn't worth everything that I've gone through. My only goal was tomake sure that you didn't win," said Ichigo solemnly.
"Do you realize what you've done! The Hokyoku bends the laws of both space and time. If something like that were to be destroyed, do you realize what could happen?" Aizen said, looking at Ichigo as if he were the dumbest thing on Earth.
"Has to be better than what's already happened," Ichigo deadpanned.
And than the orb cracked.
The explosion which fallowed shook the very foundations of the universe. It was so powerful that it blew the two warriors apart with the force of a supernova .
Aizen, refusing to relinquish his power, held steadfastly to the Hogyoku.
However, the power ended up being to much for him, and the power which he craved so much ended up burning the skin from his bones.
"If I'm gong down, than I'm taking you with me KUROSAKI!" shouted Aizen as his skeletal figure reached for Ichigo. Unfortunately, before he could reach the orange haired Shinigam, his bones were burnt to ash and his soul was scorched into oblivion.
And Aizen Sousuke was no more.
Ichigo watched as he was blown further and further from where Aizen once stood. Than, with one final flash, everything went black.
XXXXX
"Mister?"
"Mister?"
"Hey wake up Mister?"
These were the words which brought Ichigo from his deep slumber.
His eyes fluttered open, showing him a view of a bright blue sky, which was partially hidden behind the branches of some overhanging treetops. As he began to observe his surroundings, he saw that he was currently in a forest, and to his great surprise, it was a very familiar forest.
As he began to sit up to get a better look at his surroundings, he heard a small "eep" sound coming from his left. His gaze shifted in that direction, and was met with a very odd sight.
There, hidden behind a tree, Ichigo made out the visage of a small girl, who in Ichigo's mind, could be no older than about five years old.
Seeing that she was obviously frightened, Ichigo dropped his trademark scowl, and replaced it with a more gentle expression, one lacking any malice or ill will.
"Hey Kid? You can come out. I'm not going to hurt you," said Ichigo gently.
After about a minute of waiting, the little girl finally stepped out from behind the tree. She was about 3ft tall, with long bowl shaped raven black hair, with two small braids hanging from either side of he heart shaped face. Her eyes were coal black, and her skin was porcelain white. And she stood before Ichigo wearing a jet black kimono.
However, it was her face which held most of Ichigo's attention.
Her tiny innocent face was currently marred by a look of great fear, much caution, and extreme curiosity.
She began to approach him slowly, cautiously. Ichigo could tell that she was scared, however, it seemed to him that her curiosity seemed to be overpowering any fear that she might have had.
Ichigo waited patiently as she approached. Letting her come to him at her own pace. Than, when he deemed that she was close enough, he began to speak.
"Sorry if I scared you Kid, I really didn't mean to. My name is Kurosaki Ichigo, and um, do you have any idea where I am?" he asked her while looking around.
"Strawberry? That's a funny name," commented the girl as she turned her head to the side.
At this, as small tick mark appeared on Ichigo's head. However, he opted to let it slide this time.
"Actually, my name means 'One Who Protects', but back to my question, do you know where I am?" he questioned again.
The little girl took a minute to look at him strangely before answering.
"This is the forest on the outskirts of the 2nd Division barracks. I was walking along and I saw a bright flash. I waited until the bright light dimmed down, and when I came over to see what happened, I found you. Now what I want to know is, who are you? Your wearing the standard Shinigami robes, so your obviously part of the Gotei 13. But what Division are you from? And how did you get here?" she said as suspicion became evident in her voice.
Her questions puzzled Ichigo. This was motly due to the revelation that they brought him. He was obviously in Soul Society, that much was certain. However, this was not 'his' Soul Society. His Soul Society was a desolate wasteland, which had been brought to ruin during the war with Aizen.
However, he did recognize this forest now. This was where Yoruichi-san and her apprentice, the 2nd Division Captain Soifon had trained him in hado during the course of the war. Of course by the word 'training', what he really meant was 'kick the crap out of him until he was fast enough to defend himself'.
Ichigo shuddered at the memory.
'But it did pay off,' he thought to himself as he flexed one of his arms.
Than something donned on him. His wounds, they were gone.
The gaping hole in his chest where Kyoka Suigetsu had been imbedded not to long ago was now completely healed.
'What the hell?' was all Ichigo could think.
"Hello?" came the voice of the little girl, obviously trying to get his attention.
"Ah sorry there, dazed off for a minute. Anyway, do you have a name? It feels kind of weird simply calling you Kid" said Ichigo while scratching the back of his head.
"Oh! My apologies Kurosaki-san was it? (Ichigos fine) OK Ichigp-san, my name is Fon Shaolin.
Ichigo paled.
End of Chapter 2
Chapter 3: Memories and Explanations
Ichigo paled.
'No way, there's no way that this kid could be Fon Shaolin because that would mean…'
(Flashback)
Yoruichi, Soifon, and Ichigo had just sat down to relax after a full day of training.
"You have come very far sense we had first began Kurosaki," commented Soifon as she leaned against a tree.
"Ichigo," said the Substitute Shinigami as he leaned against his giant cleaver like blade.
"Huh?" asked the 2nd Division Captain in confusion.
"Even if you do not see it this way, I consider us friends. I have gotten very close to both yourself and Yoruichi-san in our time training together, and all I ask is that you drop the formalities and simply call me Ichigo," said the Orange haired boy as he gave one of his rare smiles to the petit Shinigami.
As ichigo looked to Soifon, he could easily tell that she was obviously stunned by his words, and clearly had no idea how to respond to them. In desperation, she looked to Yoruichi for support; this was met with just a simple warm smile from the golden-eyed goddess, which was quickly followed by a nod of her head, encouraging the young Captain to do what her heart told her. This action caused a ghost of a smile to play across the young woman's lips as she turned back to Ichigo who was patiently awaiting her response.
"Fon Shaolin," she said simply.
Now it was Ichigo's turn to say "Huh?"
"My name, its Fon Shaolin," she said again, only this time with a hint of annoyance.
"But I thought that your name was Soifon?" questioned Ichigo, who was now very confused.
"No, Soifon was my grandmother's codename which I took when I joined the stealth force," she explained, a lot more patiently then she probably would have back at the start of their training.
"I am telling you this because, after getting to know you, I have deemed that you are a much better person than I initially made you out to be, as a result I must admit that too see you as a friend, Ichigo," said Soifon as she looked at the Substitute with a smile on her face.
In response, Ichigo simply smiled back at her as the two fell into a comfortable silence.
Looking on at their conversation, Yoruichi cheered in her head at the fact that, after all her hard work, her two apprentices had finally become friends.
So, for the next ten minutes, a comfortable silence enveloped the three of them.
However, this silence only lasted until the slave-driver that was Yoruichi decided that it was time to get back to training.
And thus the day continued.
(End Flashback)
Ichigo just stared at the little girl completely stunned.
'She looks just like her, only much younger, the hair, the eyes, everything. But if this little girl is actually Soifon, than that would mean…'
"And now you get it king. The reason that everything is all green and leafy again is because you aren't in your time anymore, you're in the past, WAAAYYY in the past by the looks of it," this revelation came from the voice of the very familiar Hollow that resided in the back of Ichigo's head.
'THE PAST?' thought Ichigo in complete and utter shock.
/Correct Ichigo, it would seem that when the Hogyoku exploded, it propelled you back through time itself/ commented the voice of Ichigo's Zanpaktou from inside his mindscape.
'You mean I'm stuck in the PAST?' mentally screamed Ichigo, still unable to get over the shock of the revelation.
"Man your slow; YES YOU ARE STUCK IN THE PAST! Just be glad that you weren't the one holding the Hogyoku, remember what happened to Aizen?' the Hollow asked with an evil smirk.
Ichigo shuddered at the memory.
'But wait, if I'm stuck in the past than that would mean…' Ichigo's brow furrowed in irritation, 'that means that I have to fight Aizen ALL OVER AGAIN!' he raged in his head, furious that he had to go through the hell that was the war with Aizen for a 2nd time.
"True king, but this time you're stronger than he is, which means, you can totally kick his ASS!" shouted the Hollow, taking sick satisfaction in all the way he was thinking about killing the traitorous bastard.
/However Ichigo, I warn you not to alter the timeline to much, as it may cause adverse effects in your future/ said Zangetsu, offering his wisdom on the situation.
"What the hell are you talking about old man? The king's time period is shit, that's why I say do whatever you want, cause anything could be better than that wasteland," argued Hollow Ichigo, wondering why the old man would ever want to go back there.
'I have to agree with the Hollow, anything has to be better than that shit-hole,' thought Ichigo with a shudder, remembering his own time period.
/You may have a good point, however, I would at least make sure that nothing effects the meeting of your parents so that you actually EXIST!/ emphasized Zangetsu, still trying to get his point across.
At this realization donned on both Ichigo and his Hollow as they nodded their heads vigorously.
/For now Ichigo, I would suggest simply following young Shaolin here and just see where you path takes you/ Zangetsu advised as Ichigo prepared to leave his mindscape.
Ichigo simply nodded as his body began to fade from his inner world, and as he left, it was as if someone had just pressed 'Play' on reality, as no time had passed sense he had descended into his mindscape.
As such, young Shaolin was still staring at his paled face with concern in his eyes.
"Um Ichigo-san, are you OK?" Shaolin asked.
Hearing her concern, Ichigo's features quickly changed from pale shock into a warm smile.
"I'm fine Shaolin-chan, in fact, I feel great!" cheered Ichigo as he pumped his fist in the air.
Shaolin simply sat there and giggled at his antics, which in response, made him smile.
"Hey Shaolin-chan (hm) would it be okay if-"and that was as far as Ichigo got until a bone-chilling screech erupted from somewhere nearby.
Instantly on guard, Ichigo pulled the giant cleaver that was Zangetsu from its wrappings situated on his back. Just as he did so, a giant spider-like Hollow came swinging into the clearing from a web that Ichigo didn't even want to imagine where it came from. The Hollow obviously sensed that Ichigo was the stronger of the two, and after doing so, broke into a full on charge straight at him.
For his part, Ichigo simply stood there with his Zanpaktou in hand, he could easily tell that this Hollow was strong, the ones who have the strength to break through to the Soul Society instead of the human world normally are, however, he could still tell that he would be able to deal with this one relatively easy (he'd obviously faced opponents who were a lot stronger than this guy). So he simply waited, not even bothering to take a defensive stance as the Hollow continued to charge.
As for Shaolin, she was both shocked and scared out of her mind. She was shocked because in all the time she had spent talking to Ichigo, she hadn't even noticed the giant cleaver that was his Zanpaktou. Shaolin knew enough about Shinigami to know that ones rietsu level is what determines the size of their Zanpaktou, and by looking at the enormous blade in Ichigo's hand, the little girl couldn't even fathom how mush spiritual pressure he was containing. As for the reason that she was scared out of her mind, that was pretty self-explanatory. She had never seen a Hollow before, she had heard stories about them from her older brothers, but she had never actually seen one until today.
The two watched as the Hollow continued to speed toward them, emitting a feral growl as it did so, and just when it was only a few meters away from them it pounced. The Hollow soared high in the air, baring its fangs at them as it came speeding towards the two of them, and even though it was heading for Ichigo, it was so massive that it cast a shadow over both of the two other occupants of the clearing.
This only heightened the fear of young Shaolin as she could only watch as her death came rocketing towards her, so she did the only logical thing that she could think to do in this kind of situation, she screamed.
However, just before the monster could make contact with its victim, in one fluid motion, Ichigo cut right up the center of the Hollow's spider-like mask, completely annihilating the creature in one stroke.
As the last bits of the Hollow fell to the ground in front of them, Shaolin's facial expression was that of complete shock. He killed it with one slash! Was all her mind could process at the moment. Very slowly, she turned her head to get a glimpse of the Orange haired Shinigami and watched as he looked to make sure that they were no longer in any danger, once had finished assessing their surroundings he turned back to her and gave her a wry smile.
"You okay Shaolin-chan?" Ichigo asked, still smiling at her as he rubbed the back of his head.
"H-hai," was the girl could muster as she simply continued to gawk at the man standing in front of her. Only now did she notice the waves of spiritual energy that just seemed to poor off of Ichigo, she had no idea how she didn't notice it before. It was so strong that it not only made it hard to breathe, but it physically weighed her down as well.
Young Shaolin could honestly say that in her entire life, she had never met someone so powerful, Ichigo was obviously at least Captain Class or higher, and when he readied himself to fight it was truly a sight to behold. The air around her seemed to radiate his power, and the killer-intent was almost overwhelming, Shaolin found her extremely thankful that it wasn't directed at her, or she most likely would have fainted in fright. In the end, Shaolin could only ask one question.
"Who are you?" she asked, still in awe.
However, this simple question presented a big problem to Ichigo, as he really didn't want to lie to the first person he had met in this time period, especially sense, in his time, this little girl was one of his good friends. However, he couldn't exactly tell her the truth either, not just because there was a large possibility that she wouldn't believe him, but also because, in his opinion, she was too young for such a brutal story.
"Well Shaolin, like I told you, my name is Kurosaki Ichigo, and was once a human who had received the powers of a Shinigami while trying to protect my family," said Ichigo deciding to simply give half-truths for now.
"A human gaining shinigami powers, isn't that illegal?" asked Shaolin, now very interested as she had never heard of a human gaining Shinigami powers before.
"Yes, as a human, I had always had a lot more spiritual pressure than most other humans, which I had no idea about at the time. All I knew was that, for as long as I could remember, I was able to see the souls of the dead. One night, both a Hollow and a Shinigami, sensing my abnormally high spiritual pressure, made their way to my house. The Shinigami made it their first and ended up trying to convince me the she wasn't just another spirit stalking me, which happened a lot. Anyway, once the Hollow arrived she trapped me in a binding which I later learned was Kido, however, because of my overwhelming desire to protect my family, I ended up breaking the spell through sheer force of will, which greatly surprised the Shinigami. After I was free, I charged passed the Shinigami, ignoring her warnings and went to confront the monster that was attacking my family, having no idea that, in my current state, I was no match for the Hollow. However, I quickly learned my lesson, because not soon after I had started to fight the creature, it broke into a dead run at me, and would have killed me, except that the Shinigami I had met threw herself in front of me, defending me from being eaten alive by that thing. However, in defending me, the Hollow had ended up injuring her to the point where she couldn't fight anymore. So in desperation, she offered me one final chance to save my family," Ichigo paused to take a breath before continuing.
"What she offered was to give me a portion of her power so that I might defeat the Hollow. Accepting her offer, I took her Zanpaktou and stabbed it through my heart, this was only supposed to give me a portion of her power, however, because of my overwhelming spiritual pressure, and I ended up taking almost all of it. Not knowing that, I went and easily destroyed the Hollow, however, because of the stress of the whole ordeal, I quickly passed out after that. The next day I met with the Shinigami again, and she explained to me that, because I had taken almost all her power, it was now my responsibility to defeat the Hollows in my area, and although I was reluctant at first, I soon grew to accept my role. Over the next few months she stayed with me, trained me, and taught me all there was to being a Shinigami, and in the end we grew quite close. However, one day I came home to find that she had mysteriously disappeared, all I found was a message from her telling me not to fallow her, which of course only made me fallow her anyway. When I eventually did catch up with her it turned out that she was being taken back to the Soul Society to be executed for the crime of giving a human Shinigami powers," this caused Shaolin to gasp, as she had no idea that the repercussions for such an action were so high (which their not, the only reason that Rukia was taken to be executed in the first place was because of Aizen's meddling).
"However, once I leaned of the situation there was no way that I was just going to stand by and let them drag the woman who had changed my life off to be executed, unfortunately for me, both of these Shinigami were high ranking officials, and though I was able to take fight one of them easily enough, the other one took me out in less than a second," said Ichigo, the memory still making his blood boil as he recalled how weak he had been.
"When you say 'taken out', what do you mean?" asked Shaolin, wondering what had happened.
"Well…" began Ichigo, clearly uncomfortable with telling her the gruesome way in which he was dispatched. "What happened was that the Shinigami quickly appeared behind me, a technique that I later learned was called 'Flash Step', and quickly plunged his Zanpaktou threw my chest," this made Shaolin wince at the mental image that it gave her.
"After that they left me for dead, and I would have died to if I weren't found by another Shinigami. However, he wasn't a normal Soul Reaper, he was an exiled Shinigami who took me in and not only helped me get my Shinigami powers back, but trained me in both Shikai and Bankai as well," this made Shaolin gape at the fact that he knew Bankai, she had never met known anyone other than a Captain to possess the second release of a Zanpaktou.
"How long did it take you, my brothers have told me that it takes decades of training to finally achieve Bankai?" Shaolin asked.
"Three days," Ichigo answered with a smirk.
Shaolin was in shock.
"You must be joking Ichigo-san, there is no way that someone, especially someone who had only received Shinigami powers just months before could achieve Bankai in only three days," Shaolin said, still not being able to believe that it was possible.
"Well I think that the reason was that I had something to fight for and only a limited amount of time to accomplish it, so I pushed myself farther than I had ever gone before," said Ichigo.
Shaolin was still skeptical but she had to ask.
"Can I see it?" she asked hoping beyond hope that he would show her.
Ichigo thought about it for a moment before nodding his head. He stood up end performed a quick high level Kido spell (he had also become a lot better at kido, sense he had been trained by both Hachi and Tessai respectively) which erected a barrier around their small clearing (I don't know if this would actually work, but I'm guessing that it would considering that the Vizard have one around their hideout to suppress their spiritual pressure to avoid being found).
"This will make sure that no one senses us when I release my Bankai, don't want to be attacked by a bunch of angry Shinigami now do we?," Ichigo asked, to which Shaolin just shook her head.
"Alright, here we go!" exclaimed Ichigo as he brought Zangetsu in front of him, " BANKAI!"
After that the entire clearing exploded in a white flash.
It took a few minutes but when Shaolin could actually see again, she had to say that she was truly disappointed. She had heard that when a Shinigami achieved Bankai that their Zanpaktou was supposed to manifest into a giant form of itself, however Ichigo's Bankai did little save for changing his appearance a little and shrinking his Zanpaktou down to the size of a small black katana. She chose to express these feelings to Ichigo who simply chuckled in response.
"My Bankai isn't like that of most shinigami, while it does enhance my power significantly, my Bankai is mostly built for speed. What it does is compress my enormous amount of spiritual pressure into the blade, this allows to move at speeds unmatched by most Shinigami, here let me show you what I mean," said Ichigo as he took off.
Shaolin was yet again awestruck at the speed she saw him moving at, he was everywhere and yet, he was nowhere at the same time. Being raised in the stealth force where speed was a lot more prized than sheer brute force, this made her change her opinion of his Bankai, now thinking of it as the ultimate power for any stealth force operative.
When he had felt that he had shown off enough, Ichigo stopped and brought his Zanpaktou back to its Shikai state as he sat back down beside Shaolin.
"You happy now," he asked while smiling at her wryly.
"Wow!" was all she managed to say.
"Yeah well I worked my butt off to get it, sadly I didn't get it on time," said Ichigo as he stared off into the distance.
"What do you mean?" asked Shaolin worried.
"By the time I had achieved Bankai, the sentence had already been carried out," Ichigo said sadly as he put his head down.
'This is killing me, I don't know how much longer I can keep this up,' Ichigo thought, being extremely uncomfortable with the lie he was telling.
"Hang in their king, you almost done," encouraged the Hollow from the back of his head.
/Yes I know it's hard, but the Hichigo is right, just a little bit more and you can move on/ said Zangetsu, also trying to get Ichigo through this story without losing his nerve.
"I'm so sorry," said Shaolin, unaware of his inner turmoil.
"It's okay, it happened a long time ago," said Ichigo who went back to staring off into space.
"It seems to me that you have been through a lot, but I have to ask, why are you here now?" Shaolin finally asked the question that had been bugging her throughout the whole story.
"I'm actually not quite sure of that myself, I was training to perfect the last aspect of my power, but when I had finally achieved my goal, the world went black and I woke up here," said Ichigo, who because he wanted to as honest to Shaolin as he possibly could without going into the whole time travel thing, had decided to tell her about his Hollow powers.
"But I thought that Bankai was the last part of a Shinigami's training?" Shaolin asked, now curious again.
"Normally it is, however, the man who helped me get my Shinigami powers back tricked me. What he did was cut my chain of fate, bind me, and throw me in a hole that was so steep that there was no way I could climb out, and I had to a way out in three days or else I would be completely Hollowfied," Ichigo explained, which horrified Shaolin at the thought that someone would do something so horrible.
"Needless to say I made it out; however, from that day on I had what is called an 'Inner-Hollow', which is pretty much a crazy bloodthirsty albino version of me that lives in my head. Originally I despised it, however, throughout the time I've had him, he has proved to be more friend than foe, plus having an inner Hollow, gives one access to the whole spectrum of Hollow powers as well as their Shinigami powers," said Ichigo.
Shaolin was stunned at all the things that Ichigo had told her in their time together. He had gone through so much, and in her opinion he was the strongest, coolest, and nicest person she had ever met. Now she just had one more thing to ask him.
"Um Ichigo-sama?" Shaolin asked innocently.
"Yes Shao-did you just call me Ichigo-sama?" Ichigo deadpanned.
"Yes…please don't be mad Ichigo-sama, it's just that…you're the strongest person that I've ever met, and you're some that I think that I can learn a lot from. I want to be as strong as you so that when the time comes when I have to take my test to get into the stealth force, I won't fail and be exiled from my family. So I beg of you Ichigo-sama, please teach me," said Shaolin, eyes begging.
"But…But why would you be kicked out of your family if you don't get into the stealth force?" asked Ichigo in shock at both the request and the sudden change in demeanor the Shaolin was expressing.
"It is the way that things have always been in my family, if you are not strong enough to protect the noble Shihoin Clan than you are cast out," Shaolin said sadly as she looked down.
"I see," said Ichigo just as sadly.
Then he looked at her, and as he looked, he compared her to the Soifon of his time period. Shaolin was sweet, innocent, and just starting to experience the cruelty that this world had to offer. Soifon however, was cold, ruthless, obedient to a fault, and the only person that she truly seemed to value was Yoruichi.
Then he thought about why Soifon became so cold, and her character in general, this information he had learned from Yoruichi herself in one of their spars together.
'Hm, the reason that Soifon became so distant was because she felt betrayed when Yoruichi left her behind when she aided Urahara in escaping Soul Society. She said that Soifon is an extremely loyal person, and breaking her trust literally broke and froze her heart. The fact that she's treating me like this means that she hasn't me Yoruichi yet. If I do take her on as my student I can ensure that she never has to go through that loneliness this time around,' thought Ichigo happily as he stared at the young girl.
"Very well Shaolin, I will teach you," said Ichigo finally coming to a decision.
Shaolin who had been waiting patiently (but nervously) for his response, nearly shot into the air because she was so happy.
"Oh thank you Ichigo-sama! I promise that I will not fail you," she said happily as she gave him a deep bow.
"Alright, enough of that," said Ichigo, already getting annoyed with the fanatical loyalty that she was showing him.
"Okay, I think that we've been sitting here long enough don't you think, I think we should be getting you back home before your parents get worried" said Ichigo as he pointed out how the sun was starting to set.
"As you wish Ichigo-sama," said Shaolin, still bubbly from being accepted by her new sensei.
"AND WOULD YOU STOP WITH THE 'SAMA' CRAP!" shouted Ichigo, annoyed at her constant praising.
"Hai Ichigo-sama," Shaolin said with a smile.
"Oh just forget it," muttered Ichigo in exasperation.
The two stood and began their trek out of the forest, with Ichigo eager to explore the Soul Society of the past and little Shaolin thinking over all the things that Ichigo had told and showed her that day, and as she thought, she was sure of one absolute fact.
Her life would never be the same.
End Chapter 3