A/N: I ship these two almost as much as I ship Percabeth. First Bleach fanfic, hoping I did well. Sorry I haven't updated some of my other stories, I've been busy. Please review and tell me if I should continue!

I don't own Bleach, or any of the characters.

Karin Kurosaki was no ordinary kid.

To put it plainly, she was dead.

It was a beautiful day outside, perfect for soccer practice. She walked along side the river, supposedly where her mother died. She should have been bitter about it, but for some reason, she wasn't. Maybe it was fate; meant to happen. She could accept that. Her mother... her mother was gone, along with Ichigo. Where was he?

As her thoughts turned to her brother, she screamed out, "Oh, man!" in frustration. She wasn't supposed to worry about him. She swung her soccer ball around in frustration, and the net that held it slipped, sending it soaring out. She made a sort of "Mnyah!" sound of distress, and she sprinted after her escaped ball. "No!" she called as it rolled down the hill.

She wove in and out of the railings, trailing after her beloved ball. She ran down the hill, unable to stop her momentum as she soared into traffic. Her ball was forgotten as she focused on stopping herself. Somehow, she managed to get a grip with her sneakers on the hot pavement. She looked up just as the car honked and collided with her body.

It was short, mostly painless.

A young man sat in a nearby tree. He sat up, sensing her intense spiritual pressure. Then, it spiked. What the hell? he thought.

Karin gasped as her soul was knocked from her body, the chain breaking. The car stopped, brakes squealing. A man climbed out, dark hair and eyes. He looked normal.

Whipping out his cell phone, he dialed 9-1-1. He spoke garbled words into the small machine, and Karin heard the sirens start up in the distance. The man turned his gaze to her still body. Her dark hair was spread over the pavement, and her dark eyes looked up unblinkingly at the sky, hand still reaching for her ball.

The boy, perhaps her age with bleached white hair and intense blue-green eyes ran up to the empty shell. There was something different about him, almost other-worldly. He crouched down and checked for a pulse. Finding none, he turned to her, cold eyes looking straight through her soul.

"I'm so sorry," he said, still looking at her, not at the body.

"You can see me?" Karin asked him. He nodded and shut the eyes on her body. The man behind him clamped a hand over his mouth. I wonder what happened, the boy thought.

"Oh my God, I just killed someone."

"It wasn't your fault," the boy said standing up and walking over to him. The boy looked up as the paramedics arrived. He turned away from them and walked over to where Karin was standing, stunned. "Come with me," he commanded. For a kid, he was awfully bossy.

Karin grabbed her soccer ball and followed him, unsure of what else to do.

They walked in silence. It was killing her.

"So, what's your name, Bleachy?"

"Bleachy?!" he said in disbelief. Is she referring to my hair? How could this human child manage to aggravate him saying only five words?

"So it is your name?" she said sarcastically. "Or is it shorty?" That was the last straw. Nobody insulted his height and got away with it. Who does this girl think she is?

"Let me just say, look who's talking. You're not any taller than me," he said haughtily.

"At least you've got a big ego."

"Shut up!"

"Make me," she said. He was right up in her face now, and she was getting a kick out of it. Karin's mouth twitched up into a smug grin, and the boy's expression faltered. "Are you really that not used to people disobeying you? I knew you were bossy, but not spoiled too."

The boy's tanned face turned beat red. He took something out of his pocket, swallowed it, and separated from his gigai. Karin's eyes widened. The boy grabbed his sword that hung by his side, and flipped it so she was looking at the bottom of it.

It began to glow blue, and Karin would have fainted if she could have. "You... you look like a soul reaper!" The boy stopped as suddenly as he had started.

"How do you..." The girl wasn't even looking at him, the insolent brat! She was looking off in the distance. Just then, his soul pager beeped. The boy swore, and his gigai took out the small device, showing it's master the screen. This girl sensed it even before my soul pager did. Interesting... he thought.

"A hollow," the boy said under his breath.

"A- a hollow? Is that what's giving me this headache?"

"Spirits can't have headaches!" Could they?

"Tell that to my head!" The screech could be heard from miles around. The hollow, powerful, but nothing a normal soul reaper couldn't handle, jumped out of the shadows. It completely ignored the boy, opting instead to go for the weaker of the two.

Karin frowned at the monster. "What a weakling." Does she call that a weakling? It's not exactly a Menos Grande, but it certainly isn't weak!

The strange girl set down her soccer ball and backed up a few paces. "You're going down!" The hollow continued to charge her, and Karin kicked the ball with such force it was just a blur. Said blur was surrounded by a strange blue glow. Could that be spirit energy? the boy wondered.

The glowing soccer ball connected with the hollow's face, and the mask shattered. Karin smiled smugly, and her ball faithfully bounced back to her. The hollow screeched in agony and evaporated.

"Good ball," she said, picking it up and giving it a loving pat, brushing hollow dust off of it. The white-haired boy just stared at her, Zanpakto still hanging in the air, ready to use. She glanced at him, and cracked a smile.

"Just who are you?!" he asked.

"My name is Karin Kurosaki."

I am the queen of cliff hangers. BWAHAHAHAHA!

Review if you want me to continue this story!