This idea's been in my head long enough that I think it's good enough to be put on paper. Well, not on paper, but I think you get what I mean. Enjoy! (And please review, because as much as I enjoy writing and giving others something to enjoy, I like it even more when I learn how I can improve!) Oh, and just so you know, this fic doesn't really contain any ships. They're too controversial in the fandom. I personally ship IshiHime, RenRuki, YoruHara, and HitsuKarin, but I read for other pairings too and I hope you'll like this enough to read it for the story and not for your preferred couples.

Note: This first chapter takes place prior to Ichigo meeting Rukia, and will involve characters who don't have powers in canon getting them because frankly, they deserve powers. Oh, and some aspects may be dropped or changed due to the premise of the story. For instance, Soul Society is a place where many yokai live and work secretly, and the Gotei 13 is a government organization made up of yokai. Hollows are yokai who have been corrupted through various means. Those who in canon are humans that manifest spirit power will be humans with yokai ancestry who later become yokai.

When Kurosaki Ichigo opens his eyes in the morning, he immediately wants to shut them. Mornings are too bright and busy, too many people and noises disrupting his thoughts and making it hard to just think. For a second, he does close his eyes, but just for a moment, because suddenly he hears light, gentle footsteps and the creak of his bedroom door. Yuzu, probably, but right now Ichigo doesn't care and wings a pillow at her head.

Hearing a squeak and the sound of his door closing, the orange-haired teen knows that it's found its mark. He also knows that it must've taken her plenty of courage to check up on him in the morning. But really, who wants to see their younger sister struggling to conceal her instinctive uneasiness and fear when it's their own fault?

See, a bunch of people are monsters in the morning. Only they're only monsters figuratively. Kurosaki Ichigo's quite literally a monster when he wakes up. Whenever he's unconscious, really, but he's been able to fight well for years, so no one's ever knocked him out, and Ichigo isn't all that clumsy.

Even his sisters, much as they try to conceal it, are scared by his appearance. Karakura High's most famous 'delinquent' isn't sure if that's his real form or just an alternate one that he changes into involuntarily. He's determined to think of himself as human, regardless of how he looks.

Grumbling, Ichigo rolls over and heaves himself out of bed. As soon as his feet hit the floor, the teen starts walking around, humming to himself as he shifts into his human form. Digitigrade feet, bull-like horns, white-patterned-with-red-and-black scales, wickedly sharp claws, lizard-like tail, fangs and yellow-on-black eyes, all vanish until the only strange thing about Ichigo is his orange hair- which, blessedly, is much shorter in human form too. As long as the teen is changing back from an involuntary transformation, aka when he's just woken up, it doesn't insist on staying ridiculously long.

By the time the transformation is complete, Ichigo's pulled a shirt over his head and begun to work on underwear. It's far too much of a pain to try to modify clothing to suit his other form, so the so-called 'Strawberry' sleeps nude. Any pajamas he owns are just to give the impression of normalcy or for days when he doesn't have school.

That's how it's been for as long as Ichigo can remember. His father's annoyingly frequent attacks- which only let up when his son is asleep or has just woken up for obvious reasons- began to give the teen practice at staying in human form when startled or attacked. It's an all-too-common occurrence for someone to decide to pick on him for his unusual hair color. After Ichigo perfected staying in human form at all times, the 'training' served to teach him the ability to fight back without revealing his inhuman strength. The fact that it gave his human form muscles, making his power much more plausible, is an added benefit.

Running a comb through his spiky hair, the teen finishes his morning routine and heads downstairs. A yawned greeting in the form of "Yo" provides this morning's first attempt at social interaction. Technically, he's conscious, but that doesn't mean Ichigo's awake. Anyone who wants to say anything that needs to be remembered has to say it at lunch at the earliest.

This morning's breakfast, prepared by Yuzu as usual, is miso soup and rice, making Ichigo very grateful that his human form is omnivorous. A breakfast that consists only of meat is an expensive and time-consuming one. He isn't exactly sure if his other form is allergic to anything that isn't meat, or if he just can't process it. The only time he ever tried eating vegetables that way, he threw up.

Having devoured his portion, Ichigo rushes to be ready for school, taking time only to clean off his plate and brush his teeth hurriedly before grabbing his book bag and dashing out the door with a goodbye yelled over his shoulder. With teachers already on his case, the last thing he needs is tardiness.

The orange-haired teen has a bunch of things to be worried about when it comes to school. If it isn't teachers punishing him at a moment's notice for being a supposed delinquent, it's the actual delinquents who try to start fights with him, constantly hurling insults like 'yokai-fucker.' It's one of the worst insults, one used generally for anyone considered to be a freak. It makes Ichigo very, very grateful that they don't know he actually is a yokai.

Yokai are stigmatized in most places, to the extent that he's heard adults talking about how they're happy to live in a town without yokai. It's supposed to be illegal to discriminate against them, and a few celebrities and such proclaim that they're friendly to yokai- a couple are registered yokai themselves- but it's obvious to everyone that that isn't the case. You can get fired if people find out you're yokai, or passed over for a job, or bullied relentlessly- in some places, they're hunted down as abominations. Plenty of places tout themselves as being 100% human, and you have to register as yokai and wear a bright red armband if you're discovered to be one. It's illegal to hide or remove the band, and the things are practically impossible even for a yokai to destroy.

On one level, it makes sense to Ichigo. People should be able to tell at a glance if the sweet-looking old lady asking you to help find a pair of earrings she lost in a dark alley is actually a centuries-old onibaba who wants to eat your liver. Thing is, the armband doesn't tell you what kind of yokai the person is, and there's no guarantee that a member of a given species—the government calls them races, but it's not fooling anyone— has a temperament anywhere close to how the species is portrayed in legend. Most yokai are ordinary people who don't look human sometimes. But then you get the yokai who abuse their powers or are absolutely depraved, and that makes every single one look bad.

Yeah, if Ichigo has to choose between getting taunted for his hair color and being ostracized and feared for his whole life because of something he can't help, he'll choose the former any day. Consequently, no one outside his family knows his secret.

"Hey! Ichigo!" A loud voice jolts him out of his thoughts, and the orange-haired boy blinks as he finds that his feet have carried him to school. A girl with short, spiky black hair dashes over to him and thrusts something at him. "I brought back that Bad Shield United DVD you lent me a while back." Tatsuki explains breathlessly, hair still wet from showering after early-morning karate practice. "Turns out it was under my bed the whole time."

Ichigo rolls his eyes at his oldest childhood friend. "Told you you hadn't given it back yet." He replies, taking the DVD and stuffing it in his book bag. "Hey, did you make a study guide for that science test? There were a bunch of patients yesterday and I didn't have time to study." Ichigo doesn't actually help out with patients— torn, bloody flesh and vulnerable invalids make his instincts, even weakened in human form, go crazy—but the noise his family makes is enough to make it impossible to study.

"Ah, shut it." The black belt grumbles, but she fishes around in her backpack and pulls out a few sheets of paper. "Here ya go. Orihime helped me on it a bit, so it should be helpful." She hands the papers over.

Ichigo scans them a few times before grinning at Tatsuki. "Thanks, Dragon Girl. Keigo here already?" Tatsuki's not yokai, as the exhausted ends of her frequent bouts of insane martial arts training have confirmed time and time again, but the characters that make up her name and her fittingly fiery personality make the nickname obvious.

She slugs him in the shoulder. "Stop calling me that. And yes, the sugar-crazed squirrel on drugs is here. C'mon, idiot. I've been waiting for ten minutes to hand you the DVD."

The two head for their homeroom, completing the morning ritual of clotheslining Keigo in the process. Tatsuki parts ways with Ichigo to join her group of friends as he walks over to his own friends.

Keigo, still clutching a tissue to his bleeding nose, is there, giving the orange-haired teen a strangled greeting while the quiet Mizuiro gives him a much more intelligible hello. Chad grunts in acknowledgement. Coming from him, that's a fairly normal and friendly action, so Ichigo relaxes his constant scowl slightly for his friends.

A few minutes later, four pieces of chalk fly through the air to strike each teen in the head. Chad and Ichigo barely notice it, durable as they are, but Mizuiro winces and Keigo overreacts wildly to it with flailing arms and tears glistening in his eyes. The orange-haired teen thinks as he takes his seat, Ochi-sensei bellowing for the four to sit down, that his neurotic friend should get an award for acting. There's no way a person can genuinely be that hyperactive.

The day goes pretty much as it normally does. Lunch outside- Yuzu was kind enough to leave some beef tongue left over from last night- with Chad, Keigo, and Mizuiro is interrupted only by some gorillas who still didn't get that they were far outclassed by Ichigo alone, let alone Ichigo with a giant half-Mexican friend backing him up. They slink away after having their faces beat in, pausing only to snarl the usual epithets:

"Foreign devil! Yokai-fucker!"

Pretty normal for them.

At the end of the day, Ichigo bids Tatsuki goodbye as she heads off to after-school practice at the dojo- training for a tournament, apparently. He quit karate a while ago- it's one thing fighting largely untrained idiots at school, but there's too great a risk that people who've actually been taught martial arts will land a lucky blow. Even in school, the 'strawberry' tries to keep fights short and never goes for blows that might result in him taking a hit to the head.

Mizuiro heads off to Keigo's house with said nutcase, saying that all his girlfriends have obligations today and Mizuho's cooking is better than nothing. Ichigo isn't sure if he should be appalled that the young Casanova admits to using and manipulating his friends without any sign of remorse, or grudgingly appreciative that at least Mizuiro is honest.

Chad has a gig with his band today, so that leaves Ichigo walking home alone. He catches sight of the similarly-colored Orihime out of the corner of his eye as he exits the schoolyard and briefly considers making sure she's okay to head home by herself- after all, ever since her brother Sora died, the ditzy yet brilliant girl has no one but the ever-vigilant Tatsuki. But no, Ryo, Chizuru, Michiru, and Mahana have persuaded her to join their study group. From the faint snatches of conversation his enhanced hearing picks up, a karaoke club is in the future too.

Ichigo is just about to make it home without trouble when he sees some thugs cornering a small family- a mother and father with their little girl. Even across the street, the orange-haired teen can feel the almost static-electricity-like sensation that means the three are yokai. He doesn't have to see the red bands that each one wears.

"You freaks think you can just come into our town? We don't want monsters like you in it!" The ring-leader, a wiry man, shouts at them. Ichigo tenses, not sure if he should step in.

"W-we just want directions!" The mother whimpers. "Please don't hurt us!"

Sounding close to tears, the little girl adds, "My mommy and daddy didn't do nothing to you! Leave us alone, bullies!"

The ring-leader leans in close to her and sneers. "They came into a human town, demon-spawn. And you, you just disrespected us."

"Yeah!" One of his cronies blurts. "We ain't gonna let yokai scum like you talk to us that way!" He snatches the little hard-backed book she's carrying and hurls it at their car's windshield, making an audible crack.

That decides it. Crossing the street, Ichigo calls out, "Hey, dumbass. Maybe they came into a human town, but you came onto my street. Meaning I get to break some arms for you deciding that you can just terrorize a little girl and her family. And they aren't gonna be yokai arms I'm breakin'." The teen cracks his knuckles for emphasis, mentally praying that they'll heed his reputation.

"Th-they aren't even human!" The leader blurts, even as he and his friends take a few steps back.

"And you don't deserve to be called human, scum. Get out of here before I decide your heads are too thick for words to work and start cracking 'em." Ichigo takes a deliberate step forward and they run, practically tripping over themselves in an effort to get away.

With that, he releases a frustrated sigh and turns, scooping the book off the windshield and crouching down to hand it back to the little girl. Big brown eyes look up at him in awe, and she takes it with a nervous smile. Ichigo straightens to see her mother looking just as surprised.

"I didn't think you'd stand up for us," She says. "People haven't bothered before."

The orange-haired teen rubs the nape of his neck sheepishly. "I didn't think I'd have to fight, really. They know my rep. 'Demon of Karakura High' and all." He chuckles. "Though most of the time they just settle for 'yokai-fucker.'" The orange-haired teen winces. "Ah, sorry for my language."

She brushes a strand of black hair out of her face, frowning. "You're a delinquent? I figured yokai-blooded or something, but maybe we've just lived in a yokai-only neighborhood for so long that I'm used to that."

"Nah, everyone just picks on me for my hair. Besides, I'm human. Maybe a god mixed up the kids and I was meant to born in Ireland or something." Ichigo shrugs, shifting from foot to foot uncomfortably.

The father looks unconvinced, but he nods anyway. "Well then, nice to meet you, 'Demon of Karakura High.' I'm Horigoshi Masaaki, by the way. This is my wife Aiko and my daughter Mizuki." He gestures to each of them in turn.

Their unexpected savior gives them one of his rare smiles, seeing a matching one appear on the little girl's face. "Nice to meet you all" Eager to change the subject, he adds, "So, you needed directions? I wouldn't recommend staying around here too long- some idiots are bound to take things into their own hands again."

"Oh, yes. We're visiting some relatives in Musashino..."

Soon enough, the family is on their way, waving off the dent in the windshield as something that'll get fixed later. Meaning he'll find a yokai mechanic or a really tolerant human one.

His arrival at home is met with the expected "IIICHIIIGOOOO!" and wild charge from his father, naturally. Does the guy think he's some kind of comedy relief in an anime or something? Maybe that kind of thing was okay years ago when he still scored nearby surfaces with his claws accidentally when angry, but by now it's just annoying.

A kick to the face later and the old man is lying on the ground moaning. "Flexibility!" Isshin calls wearily from his place on the floorboards.

"Whatever!" His son yells back, though he files the reprimand away anyway.

Being yokai has a couple perks. His sight and hearing are a bit sharper than normal, as are his reflexes. Ichigo hasn't been sick once in his life, though he fakes it every so often in school and acts as if he's just forcing himself to come to school to keep his grades up. Of course, there's his physical strength, speed, and flexibility too, which are well beyond normal for his age and size. The Kurosaki family's eldest son tones all his superhuman abilities down as best he can and tries not to react when he sees or hears things that a normal human wouldn't notice.

It's not so much the fact that he isn't a normal human that he hates as much as what everyone else's reaction to it would be if they knew.

Heading up to his room, Ichigo spends most of the evening on homework and studying like any good student. He isn't real eager to give people more chances to jump down his throat, and despite his father's assurance that it's fine for him to resume extracurriculars, the orange-haired teen is still cautious. Mostly just irritated by his classmates, but caution sounds a lot better to parents.

Dinner is Korean-style barbecue, which Ichigo scarfs down as quickly as possible before leaving. The way Karin and Isshin carry on with their chopstick battles is enough to drive him through the roof without even being in the same room. Still, he's sure that he'd strangle them both if he actually did stay there, so the Kurosaki family's eldest child gets out while he still can, narrowly dodging a piece of food.

Flopping back on his bed, Ichigo sighs. Even as a freak, he's out-weirded by his own family. He'd laugh if they didn't do this kind of stuff so regularly.

Dropping into a light doze, designed to give the illusion of sleep without making him change form, Ichigo lies there for a few minutes before hearing the sound of his window sliding open, a buzz of yokai energy that gives the feeling of suppression and concealment following it.

What the hell?

So there you have it! Believe me when I say I'll continue it without reviews, unlike the authors I've seen who promise to write more chapters if they get more reviews.

Guess who appeared at the end?