I DON'T OWN BLEACH OR NARUTO or Burn by The Cure

I have never done a fic like this and I really love a challenge. Be kind ok? I haven't read a single Naruto fic. But I felt like this pairing could actually work. So please give it a chance^^ Thanks and I hope you enjoy-joy^^ Fuzzibunniez

Beta work by Kaiken Collison; THANK YOU!

Burn

"Don't look don't look" the shadows breathe..."

Chapter 1;Karasu (The Crow)

Blood was running down her forehead coating the right side of her face the first time she noticed it. The black bird perched stoic and unmoving on the tall metal fence guarding the entrance to the old Matsukura Hospital like a sentinel. "Karasu?" Ichigo cringed bracing for impact as her body was flung against the cold steel of the padlocked gate shattering the heavy chain laced through the entrance. Her next thought jolted her wandering mind back into focus. "Getsuga Tensho!" The black arc of reiatsu slices through the large white mask arrancar causing it to dissolve.

"Ring, Ring! Kurosaki-san~ ." Her cell chirps out the call making her eyes roll. Flipping open the pale blue phone she growls into the receiver. "Stop messing with my ring tone damn it!"

"Kurosaki-san, I'm so thrilled my voice got such a rise out of you. Could this be the start of true love between us?"

"Hell no!" Ichigo's head lifted up to the bent gate, her amber eyes focused on the crow turning it's head sideways in curiosity. "It's staring at me."

"What is staring at you?"

"This crow." Taking a step forward the birds wings ruffle out a warning. "How strange."

"If I was there I would stare at Kurosaki-san too."

"S-Shut-up!" She felt like ruffling her own feathers (if she had any) after hearing Urahara's phony pass at her. When will he quit doing that? Ever since the winter war ended and her father vanished inside the Dangai Walls, Kisuke has been keeping track of her location with this ridiculous two way radio phone. "I mean it has-"

Ichigo barely blocked the long arm of the red skinned arrancar trying to swipe at her neck. "Oi! Coming at me while I'm distracted isn't cool!" Her right foot slid across the dry ground, her left knee bending to accommodate the shift in her weight. "There is another."

Blocking the next attack Ichigo quickly rethinks her position. Lifting up from the ground she rises up in the dark skyline for a better look around the old hospital grounds. With the crescent moon on her back, her vibrant orange hair fanned out the small red hair tie drifts away in a wild gust of wind. The second arrancar comes into view moving quickly, keeping to the shadows, concealing the bulk of it's snake like body.

"I thought so..." Furrowing her brows together her jaw clinched as the arrancar 's wide mouth opened, it's barbed tongue wrapping around the small crow. "Yo! Why you going after the appetizer when you have a nice juicy main course here?"

"Your stench is unbearable."

"What?" She sniffs at her armpits curling her upper lip. "I do not stink!" Ichigo smells herself again, her right eye twitching in annoyance. "Oi! I smell like Spicy Vanilla!" Pulling out the tiny bottle in her pocket, she waves it in the air with a grumble. "Shower Work's latest spring fragrance!"

"Not human enough for us, shinigami." The massive red claws reach out shoving her away. "Get lost."

"Human?" She looks at the bird about to be swallowed and quickly intervenes firing a dark blast from her blade. Flash stepping under the hollows to catch the bird before it hits the ground, she tucks the wounded creature into her robes and turns to finish off the enemies. "I hate it when strong ones pick on the weak." She slices through the red one with ease then grabs the snake-like one by the tail before it can escape.

"SSSStupid ssshinigami... that one is stronger than you."

"Whatever..." Ichigo cuts the snake in two with a light grunt. "Never tell a woman with a sword she stinks!" Pulling the crow from the pocket in her robe she dashes toward the Shoten feeling the blood dripping through her fingers. "Urahara-san!"

"Kurosaki-san are you injured?" Kisuke shoots into the room followed by Karin and Yuzu.

"Not me the bird." Ichigo still has trouble adjusting to Karin and Yuzu being at the Shoten. After their dad vanished Urahara insisted they live with him. She thought it would be for the best at least until she could get through college and get a job paying enough to support the twins. The arrangement does have it's drawbacks though...

"Ya got hurt by something that weak?" Renji appears with a wide smirk lifting his black eyebrow up at the bleeding bird in her hands. "Eh, just let me snap it's neck. It's probably the kind thing to do."

The girls all turn to Renji with their hands on their hips. "NO IT'S NOT!"

"Women..." Renji wonders out the front door mumbling about saving a stray bird being stupid.

"Urahara-san, will you help it?" She lifts up the animal with a sad expression on her tan face.

"Of course, Kurosaki-san." Kisuke takes the bird and immediately walks into his laboratory and shuts the door behind him. Setting the bird down on the center of his desk he takes off his hat tilting his head eye level with the still creature. "What are you?" Kisuke face is dead serious as he lifts his cane up to the black feathers. "You have too much reiatsu to be just a bird."

"Oi." Ichigo steps into the room watching the strange standoff between man and half-dead bird. "Is it really necessary to threaten a dying bird?"

"I do not think this is a bird at all." Kisuke replies just about to push his cane against the crows chest when another person walks into the room. "Oh, Tessai-san."

"Karin-san said someone is dying and that my help is required." The tall dark-haired man turns to Ichigo bowing slightly. "She is having a severe headache and is asking for you Kurosaki-san."

"Oh, shit." Ichigo runs down the hallway to Karin and Yuzu's room to find her sister curled up in a ball in the farthest corner shivering. "Karin... another migraine?"

"Ichi-nee, that bird... he is dying."

"I'll set-up the futon for you to lay down." She moves fast snapping off the light to ease the pain on Karin's eyes. "She is getting worse... This is the third migraine this week." The pang in her heart lessens only slightly even as Karin lays down on the unfolded bed. This is getting out of hand, but what can she do? Urahara-san assures Ichigo that it is only a mental illness. It doesn't make it less worrisome to her. Even after all the M.R.I.'s and C.T. Scans nothing is helping. It's escalating! "It's my fault. If I had been able to find Dad and bring him home... Karin wouldn't be in pain."

"Ichi-nee, please don't make that face."

"Oh!" Ichigo quickly grins at Karin. "I was thinking about how Mom used to read a new story to us every Sunday. That last one. We never got to read it. You probably don't remember that-"

"The Giving Tree." Karin's voice croaks as a stabbing pain shoots through her skull. "I remember everything about Mom."

"How about I find that book and we read it?" Ichigo pulls the covers to Karin's chin so the soft blanket touches her cheek the way she likes. Karin's head nods and Ichigo smiles hiding away the real worries with a reminder to herself not to show her fears in front of her sister.

"I'd like that." Yuzu appears with Karin's medicine on a tray with a glass of water.

"It's settled then." She stands up flicking the long orange braid laying on her shoulder behind her back. "I'll stop my the clinic and go through some of the boxes after classes tomorrow." Turning toward the door she watches Yuzu place a wet wash cloth over her sisters eyes.

"Ichi-nee... don't let him die."

"Who Karin?"

"The crow."

"Oh, yeah... I'll go check on it." Ichigo slides the door shut, the pleasant smile on her face vanishing as her hand lifts away from the door. "What do I do Dad? What would you do?" The faint picture of her father headbutting Karin flashes in her mind. "Stupid old man... How would that FIX anything?" Clueless how to solve her problems she wonders back into Urahara's lab to find Tessai and Kisuke looking pale staring at a black clad man. "Where the hell is the bird?"

Fingers lift shaking to the man sitting against the wall with a shredded black high collar cloak. His face is obscured by the cloak but Ichigo can tell something is off about the man.

"Urahara-san..." Ichigo elbows Kisuke in the side. "I'm tired of your practical jokes! Where is the bird. I promised Karin I would-" She is suddenly grabbed by the man, yanked toward him and a small knife put to her neck.

"Come no closer or I'll slit her throat."

"Ooooh, Kurosaki-san has been captured~!" Kisuke pulls out his hand fan flicking it open in front of his face. "I'm afraid..." His voice drops lower, his face taking a serious expression. "I can not allow that." The fan in his hand snaps loudly, Kisuke uncurls his wrist sending the shut fan to bounce against the wall on the man's right but he moves left in a heartbeat wrapping his hand around the blade. In a swift movement he pushes Ichigo away and presses a fist to the stranger's stomach knocking the man out cold.

"Y-You could have gotten me killed!"

"I doubt that." Kisuke takes a closer look at the crumpled man on the floor. Pulling a small light from his pocket he edges open one eye of Ichigo's attacker. "It's as I thought. This man is blind."

~/~

"I'll pick you up at the train station on Monday." Ichigo's voice is quiet as she leans her head in the doorway. "Thanks Inoue." Snapping her phone shut she turns her head to look at the dark haired man resting on the futon in the center of a barrier.

"Inoue-san is coming for a visit?"

"I promised Karin I would help him." She answers without turning to look at Urahara-san standing just behind her. "Inoue's powers might be better on this type of injury."

"Is that really a good idea?" Kisuke takes a step forward so he is within an arms reach of her. "Helping someone who tried to kill you?"

"Did he?" She moves inside the green barrier to watch him closely. The dull flickering of his soul's power is almost filling the protective shield around him. "My gut tells me... if he really tried I'd have one hell of a fight." Her hand lightly touches the towel on his forehead. "His fever is worse. With Karin resting and Yuzu curled up next to her I'm not needed. I'll stay up with him tonight." Ringing out the cloth she lays it back on the man's forehead noticing the pronounced crevasses on each cheek. "Those make him look as if he is in a constant state of sadness."

"If anything happens... I'm just a room away."

She pulls out a textbook from the small shelf and sits down at the desk near the bed. "I'll be fine." Snapping on the small lamp Ichigo opens her textbook to study.

"I-Ichigo... san." Kisuke takes a tiny step passing through the barrier to reach out and touch her shoulder.

"Don't." She warns before his fingers can caress her dark-green sleeping robe. "I know the difference between affection and guilt. You can stop pretending. I have known you too long to think you actually are in love with me." There it was... spoken into the aether. "Don't turn around. Don't look at his fucking sad, sad face and try to comfort him!" The harsh truth of their strange relationship isn't so simple as forgiving or accepting. To her it's more about resigning to her fate. "I'm grateful you allow us to stay here Urahara-san but, I don't need your pity and I am not... lonely." She prays that her voice sounds strong, that the pain in her heart won't betray her resolve. "I'll say this one last time. I do not blame you for Dad."

"I will say this once more also." Kisuke kneels down placing his hat on the floor next to him. "I will never give up trying to find away to bring him back."

"Just don't blow yourself up, or stay up all night working." Ichigo stubbornly folds her arms in front of her chest. "Yuzu worries, and when she worries I get pissed."

"Hai, hai." He stands up putting his hat back on his head with a small smile. "Kurosaki-san is concerned for my well-being? Oh, I'm so happy!"

"Get out!" She bellows pointing a finger to the door. Her frustration turns to a frown as the door slides shut. "Stop tempting me... to give into you please. It's not real." Setting her head in her hands, Ichigo bites at her lower lip pushing back the tears. Denying the burning comfort they give. "Love is when you have absolutely no reasons, no obligations, and no logic... you just love them. I'm sorry Kisuke, but I'd rather be alone for the right reasons than with someone for the wrong ones."

He is awake listening to her struggling to reaffirm her determination. His eyes may not work but his ears are fine. He is certain she is lonely... he can hear the sounds of her trying desperately not to weep.

After a few moments the faint sounds of her sadness vanish as she hovers over him. He could take her life quickly and silently if he needs to. However, before he decides to reach out for her neck he feels her hand lift away the cloth on his head replacing it with a cooler one. A few stray drops run down his cheek and it occurs to him they might be tears. Feeling her wipe them gently away, he refuses to reveal he is awake, instead keeps his breathing steady despite her closeness. That's when the unusual aroma of her skin reaches him. He has never breathed in such an interesting scent from a woman. Curiosity wraps around him, not that it matters but this woman is full of contradictions.

The hours pass quickly as he drifts in and out of consciousness. He wakes again to hearing the sounds of her turning pages and scribbling notes.

"Why am I pre-med?" She changes the rag on his forehead pausing to takes his temperature. "If I go into law enforcement I'll be making enough money to support my sisters in four years." Ichigo exhales a deep sigh. "You know Karasu-san, I want to take over my Dad's clinic but it looks like that dream is a bit unrealistic." She smooths away a stray lock of black hair from his face. "I never thought once about my future while I was fighting the Winter War. Looks like I should have."

"Kurosaki-san, did you rest?" Urahara slides open the door with a careful eye on the sleeping man inside the barrier.

"Yeah, I was just about to go to class." She frowns at the thermometer. "His fever is worse." She checks his blood pressure touching his wrist lightly. "Karasu-san, You need to wake up so I can give you something to make your fever go down."

"Go on to class I'll keep an eye on him."

"Thanks." Ichigo picks up her book bag loads it with textbooks and darts out the door. "Later!"

"Making a woman worry isn't very cool." Kisuke says lifting up the brim of his hat.

"I have never been concerned with being cool." He sits up slowly in the bed sensing the man coming closer. "The woman... what's her name?"

"Kurosaki Ichigo." Urahara pulls out a change of clothes. "And yours?"

"Her name is a fruit? That's... sort of interesting." He considered lying. He was a known criminal and couldn't tell where he was, but guessing from the sounds he was far away from anywhere familiar. "Itachi."

"Well, Itachi-san please do not cause me anymore trouble." He sets the clothes on Itachi's lap. "Kurosaki-san has sent for a companion of hers to heal your injuries. Can I trust you to be good?"

"How long until this medic arrives?"

"Inoue-san isn't a medic she is more of a... well she specializes in returning things to their original state."

"She can give me my eyes back?" Itachi is definitely interested in getting his chakra and his vision restored.

"I don't foresee her having a problem." Kisuke moves to the door as Tessai appears over his shoulder. "Tessai-san, could you guide Itachi-san around the layout of the shop and answer any questions he might have?"

"Of course Urahara-dono." Tessai steps inside the room lowering the light green barrier.

"I have a question for you Kisuke Urahara."

"Pardon?" The blonde blinks turning back to Itachi's standing form.

"Why is that woman's chakra so different than anyone else here?"

"Chakra? Looks like we have a lot to discuss."

Ok so here goes my new fic. I have complete writers block on DF so I thought I'd upload this while I'm trying to write that Kisuke/Ichigo lemon that plagues me so much. LOL! Hope you like and review! HUGS Fuzzi