“Broken Innocence” Chapter 5

When the pair reentered the room, the majority of the class was eyeing them suspiciously. Keigo, however, jumped up to greet them.

“Way to go Ichigo!” he said, “Who knew you had cojones like that, man.”

“What the heck are you talking about, numb-skull?” Ichigo replied sourly.

“Dude, you snaked Orihime’s panties! Don’t you remember?” Keigo replies.

“W-what the?!” Ichigo shouted. Keigo leaned in close, as if to tell Ichigo a secret.

“Think you can snag me a pair? I mean, we’re buddies right?” Keigo whispered.

Keigo never known for his timing and this was no exception. Unbeknownst to him, Tatsuki was standing right behind him, eyes blazing with protective indignation.

“You…PERVERTS!!” she screamed, swinging deadly, honed fists wildly.

Ichigo managed to duck under the barrage of personified doom at the last possible moment, but Keigo was cold cocked and knocked out cold. While Tatsuki took out her righteous fury on Keigo’s seemingly lifeless body, Ichigo slipped away to his desk next to Rukia, who seemed transfixed by the horror of the sight in front of her.

“That girl is scarier than any hollow,” she said blankly.

“Hollow?” asked Orihime, now wearing her PE uniform thanks to Kon. Rukia seemed to snap out of her trance.

“It’s a, it’s a… um… a…” she stammered. Ichigo quickly covered her mouth with his hand and looked at Orihime with an embarrassing grin.

“It’s a, um, video game monster!” he explained loudly, so he was heard over Keigo’s screams of anguish. “Yeah, that’s it, from that new game- uh- ‘Soul Reaper Plus.’” He laughed a hideously fake laugh that made Rukia wince.

“Oooooh, ok,” responded the ever-gullible Orihime. “Sounds scary.”

“Oh yeah, really scary,” said Rukia.

Across the room Tatsuki stood up, seemingly satisfied. She wiped the sweat from her forehead and let out a heavy breath.

“There, still want Orihime’s panties you pervert?” she asked smugly. The black and blue mangled lump that used to be Keigo groaned something unintelligible.

“What was that?” Tatsuki cupped her hand around her ear mockingly. “You’ll have to speak up.” The lump shuddered.

“Yeshth,” it said. Tatsuki’s expression turned sour and a vein stood out on her temple.

“Now you’ll die,” she screamed. She pulled her right hand back for another punch. The lump whined. Suddenly something caught her arm. It was Uryu Ishida.

“Don’t you think you’re being a little cruel?” he said with a stony expression. Tatsuki whipped around to face him.

“Are you actually defending this pervert?!” she shouted in his face. Uryu rubbed the inside of his ear with his little finger to make sure his eardrum was not ruptured.

“Not at all, I’m saying it’s cruel to the rest of us. Please take him outside. I’d like to learn something before the end of the period.” Tatsuki’s face softened a bit. Then she grinned a horrible grin at that thought. “This could be fun,” she said to herself as she looked down at the lump at her feet.

“You’re right,” she said. She looked over to the podium behind which her teacher was huddled.

“Sorry teach I’ll let you get back to teaching class.” She then grabbed the lump and dragged it, twitching, out the door.

It was sunset in Karakura Town. Yoshiro Kazekawa stood in front of an abandoned house at number four Moku Street. The mailbox said Tanaka.

“Hideo!” he screamed at the darkening sky.

Perhaps it was a trick of the light, but around him was an electric blue aurora, seeming to burn the surrounding air. A leaf drifted gently on the wind towards him. When it came in contact with the aura, a loud snap blasted the now smoldering leaf away from the boy.

The boy could not have been more than 12 or 13 years old. His bright orange hair blew in the wind sweeping it across his steel blue eyes.

“Where are you hiding you traitor?!” he screamed again. The blue fire leapt higher. In that instant, Ichigo, Rukia, Uryu, Chad, and Orihime all looked west toward the disturbance. If they had they been closer, they would have seen the tears running down Yoshiro’s face. He dropped to his knees on the doorstep of the rundown house.

“You let Grand Fisher kill my mother,” he whispered. Hideo looked down at him from his hiding place. His eyes were stone cold as the wind swept through his hair. An enormous yellow moon rose up behind him, turning him into a living shadow.

“Then suffer as I have suffered, you fool,” Yoshiro shouted into darkness.


“Did you feel that?” Ichigo said looking over at Rukia, no longer concerned with his homework.

“Yes. That was an enormous spiritual pressure just now.” Rukia replied from Ichigo’s closet, where she had been sleeping since she lost her power here in the human world.

She looked down at the floor. “What concerns me though is that that pressure was identical to yours,” she said. Ichigo’s faded blue eyes widened. Then he smiled and scratched the back of his head, ruffling his orange hair that had earned him the nick-name strawberry.

“C’mon, it’s not like I have a long lost little brother or something,” he said. But some part of him believed that it was possible. Even so, there was no way he would let Rukia know that.

“Stranger things have been known to happen,” Rukia replied. Then she closed the closet door and laid down on her futon. She stared at the wall for a while, remembering the story of a rogue Soul Reaper who had a taste for mortal women. She decided that she would go see Urahara the next day and get a little more information. Then she rolled over and went to sleep.

Rukia was gone when Ichigo awoke Saturday morning. No big deal, it was not as if he cared or any thing. He sat up and stretched, yawning as he swung himself out of bed.

“Yo, Kon!” he said loudly, scratching his backside.

“What do you want, strawberry?” irritably replied the mod soul, who now occupied a stuffed lion. Ichigo walked over, stretched, yawned and scratched again, then picked up the ragged feline body, who now also occupied his room. He lifted the resident pervert up the face level, Kon began to shiver.

“I still haven’t beaten the stuffing out of you for humiliating me yesterday, have I?” he said menacingly. Kon’s demeanor quickly snapped from tired and agitated, to fearing for his life.

“N-no, no, I’m pretty s-sure you did already I-Ichigo-s-s-sama” he said stuttering. He was already looking for a way out. Ichigo leered at him maliciously.



Broken Innocence Chapter 6