Ichihime CH 1- the hidden war

I don't own any rights to bleach; all credit goes to the creator Tite Kudo

It was mid afternoon when Ichigo started to head home when he got a call from orihime saying that a hollow was tearing apart her neighborhood, Ichigo ran into a nearby ally way where he used his badge to pull out his soul for battle. He appeared in her neighborhood in mere minutes but to his discontent they hollow was gone and that orihime was running in his direction from something but he couldn't tell if it was a hollow or not, "Where's the hollow inou-san, and why were you running in my direction?" Ichigo said before fragments of the hollow started to appear from her neighborhood rubble. A strange human looking creature came walking out from the rubble yet it had neither the feeling of either a normal soul or a hollow soul, "What the hell is that thing? Is it an arrancar?" he said before the creature started to run towards him with its claws out and its white skin tightened aiming to slaughter Ichigo when he used his bankai to try and defeat the creature but instead the blade couldn't even leave a scratch on it which lead to an incisive beating that broke most of the bones in his body and left him bleeding heavily. When Ichigo showed no sign of fun anymore, it turned to orihime with the same disgusting look that it had when it started to attack Ichigo. "Don't you dare touch her, I'm not finished yet you ugly son of a bitch." Ichigo said trying to stand up and feeling each broken bone scrape against one another, running to his side orihime put up her healing shield and tried to heal him somewhat before he rushed into battle but it failed for the creature moved using flash step to beat Ichigo all over the place.

Nearly two more hours passed and the creature showed no sign of tiring but both orihime and Ichigo were nearly at the end of their limits and on the verge of death. Before long chad and uryu came to try and help but they soon found themselves to be overwhelmed and sent to the nearest hospital with their skeletons ninety percent damaged and leaving them clinging to a slowly breaking thread, "What the hell is that thing? It has the appearance of a hollow yet it holds the power of a soul reaper but it's not either of them, it's like a whole new species!" orihime said before the creature used a bala to punch her and knock her out causing her shield to go down and expose Ichigo who was only seventeen percent healed. "Orihime!! Speak to me com on sp—"the creature had used sonido to grab ichigo's leg and dragged him through the rubble of orihime's neighborhood, blood started to slowly run down his back as he got back to his feet and as he pulled the pieces of rubble out of his back and spat blood towards the ground around the creature who was acting like a three year old who just broke open a piñata. Thinking fast he pulled out zangetsu and used it to slash the ground causing a huge dust cloud in hopes of blinding the creature temporarily so that he could run over to orihime to protect her, as soon as he reached her side he sent a getsuga tensho towards the creature hoping to at least protect orihime for as long as possible and even fearing death as long as it was to protect one of his friends. "I will not allow you to harm anymore of my friends so long as I've got life in my lungs so come on and fight me!" he placed his hands on his sword preparing for a battle that he felt would claim his life, then he stood there waiting to see the white of its eyes. His waiting only lasted for no more than seven minutes when the dust started to clear and the creature just stood there scratching its head like it was clueless until it turned to face Ichigo then running at top speed to take him down when suddenly an enormous amount of spiritual pressure behind the creature.

Standing on top of a street light stood a woman with night black hair in a ponytail down to the middle of her back, black boots up to her shins, black pants, a skin tight dark gray vest that covered a black shirt (Tang top), a light gray cloak, black leather gauntlets that had small strips of leather strips buckled to it and she had a hollow mask that had green slash marks on the left side and black marks on the right side, sharp teeth with three horns on the forehead in the form of a triangle. She stood there staring at the creature who turned and roared at her then charged at her, in the blink of an eye she was behind the creature with her left hand on her right side of her stomach in a form that looked like she was about to give Ichigo the finger. For some reason the creature froze like something was holding it in place, she simply twitched her ring finger and for some reason the creature's right arm was sliced off like a blade just cut it off without any issue. "What the hell, how did she do that and what did she do?" Ichigo said putting zangetsu down and picking up orihime to protect her from this new possible threat. It was nearly awe inspiring watching as she just waved her hands and fingers like she was using magic to attack the strange creature, in mere second she was causing ten times the damage to the creature based off of the damage done to Ichigo. Blood was splattered all around the rubble and this time it wasn't ichigo's or any of his friends but still the area looked as if there was a huge massacre, before long the woman just toyed with the creature but Ichigo could tell that she was just toying with it and was getting bored fast so she chose to end it in one move. In mid charge she grabbed the creature by the throat, threw it into the air and used a cero blast so huge that the fabric of reality vibrated to it, when the ashes came falling to the ground she started to use her spiritual pressure to crush each and every flake before it could even touch the ground.

Seeing her work was done with the creature, she moved so fast that it wasn't considered flash step or sonido. "What are you going to do to us?" Ichigo said with his hand on zangetsu in case she was going to attack but to his surprise she got up turned around, placed her hand in the air in front of her like she had her hand on a wall then without warning, she jammed it into something with a stabbing motion and turned it like it was a key. Without warning the sky opened vertically then a door came with a strange symbol on it, the strange woman then turned around and tried to pick orihime up but Ichigo didn't trust and refused to hand her over. "Follow me if you want to be healed and if you want to save this woman." Said a voice not heard in his head but from the pressure surrounding them, "W-w-what the hell was that, D-d-did you just speak through your spiritual pressure?" she didn't answer but merely grabbed ichigo's leg and dragged him to her and made him look into her eyes. "Okay, but will you at least give me a hand up, because I think you broke my leg even more?" she didn't answer but instead put a leg brace on both his legs out of broken pieces of wood and some curtains she found, Ichigo got up and carried orihime through the strange gate following the strange woman who in turn waited for them to enter before she shut the door to their world. The room they entered was barley  lit and had a table that was surrounded by five tables with roman numeral numbers on them, they passed that and headed through a small hallway which opened into a room that looked like judgment hall but had the feeling of being in the roman coliseum for deaths. "Hello there Ichigo kurosaki, welcome to the realm of the no Maris, and the home of the last of the ultimate beings that once stood by the creator of everything in the universe." A strange male voice said from the darkness above, "Whose there? Show yourself!" a small laugh came then doing as he said a light lit the entire upper area revealing two more strange women and three strange men sitting in chairs smiling at them, each wearing hollow masks and some gray clothing. "No need to be defensive Ichigo, we're not going to kill you, just heal you and explain ourselves to you then of course answer any questions you have." The man in the center said with a small smile."But first, tatsuki please take them to the medical center to heal their wounds okay." The woman sitting in the chair on the far left jumped down to them and asked them to follow her.

When they reached the room they needed, Ichigo saw ten medical tables and ten tanks that had a strange lime green liquid in them. First let's take care of your lady friend here, could you please go to one of the tables for your treatment while I prepare her for full body healing?" doing as the woman said, Ichigo went to the table to wait but when he turned to look back at her, he saw that the strange woman was placing clothing in a plastic bin and that she had some panties and a bra in her hands. "Gyaaah! What the hell are you doing?!" he said turning around as fast as he could trying to hide the fact that he was blushing. "Well I have to strip her naked to place her in the healing tank here, the healing compounds have a nasty habit of staining clothes so I'll be as polite as possible when I say that you shouldn't look at the woman that loves you when she's out cold and naked." The woman said behind her hollow mask yet she gave the feeling like she was smiling at him. "Did you just say that orihime loves me? Oh boy, I-I-I'm just lost for word but I just thought that she didn't think of me in such a way." Soon he heard a glass container slide shut and fill with a somewhat thick liquid, he saw that the woman walked over to him and examined him thoroughly and began to mix up some weird looking liquids in a pitcher then she handed to him telling to drink it. As soon as it went down his throat he felt as each injury healed ten times faster than orihime's healing shield, "Gyaaah, what the hell is this stuff? It feels like my body's trying to expel it from my soul!" His pain ended and suddenly he felt as if nothing had happened, like he refreshed and reborn, "Now that your healed please follow me to the conference room, where we'll answer most of your questions and tell you of us." She gestured toward the hallway and told him to keep his eyes forward since the tanks are close to the door.

"Welcome back Ichigo, feeling better now that your wounds are gone and that your revitalized?" the same man who spoke earlier, "What the hell are you guys, what was that thing that attacked us and most importantly where the hell am I?" Ichigo said with a calm tone but feeling the urge to shout it at them for what's happened yesterday. "First off the thing that attacked you is called a forgotten, a creature that's made when a blank soul falls into a huge mass of raw reishi. They're complete monsters who are more savage then any hollow could ever be plus they have the intelligence of a three year old child. Second, you're in a world I was given by the master creator for serving him and for being completely faithful to only it and finally we're creature I called the no Maris meaning "never more" they're being made from the rarest being in the entire spiritual world, the nugoros blank. A soul that was made from raw reishi and continues to grow through absorbing it from the surroundings everywhere no matter where they are even in the human world.  I created each of them because like any being, I got lonely so I gathered six nugoros blanks and placed the power individuality into each of them and here is the result. From my left and in order of birth are reaper, acid vire, tatsuki, dead wire, and phoenixia, each of them has a power that aizen could only dream about." The man in the center said before he stopped to take a drink of water but the one called acid vire continued at what he was saying. "As for him the man you've been talking to, he's not a no Maris but a being that holds no name, we all call him by the label he was given by our masters' master. We all call him master rogue, since as you can see we have no obligation to either hollows, soul reapers, or vizards and because of that we dwell in this world."

Ichigo found himself lost for word and was just trying to process all the new information he just heard, taking a deep breath and getting up he replied to them all " okay, now could you explain to me how you all know me and that we were being attacked by a forgotten because this is just hard to understand." They all talked for hours explaining everything when suddenly, a woman wearing a metal gauntlet came in and told them that a small group of forgotten have started an attack in the European area oh and I found that tatsuki's doppelganger has sustained a broken arm in a karate match again. "Wait, what do you mean doppelganger?" Ichigo asked them even more confused than when he was fifteen and a new soul reaper, "Oh, yes I forgot to tell you that acid vire and tatsuki wanted to have a taste of being mortal so I made them some demi versions of themselves made from a small portion of their power but in any case acid vire's died in an accident and became a hollow who activated the items that I discovered to be too dangerous to be owned by any normal soul." Rogue said to Ichigo who was in the middle of figuring out what he said, "You mean to tell me that orihime's brother was a demi version of that guy but does that mean that tatsuki is the demi version of her?"  When rogue nodded yes to his question, Ichigo nearly went into a fit of rage but suddenly the woman named tatsuki came up to him and removed her mask to reveal a similar face to the tatsuki back in the world of the living except that she had earring that looked like hollow eyes and that she had a scar going across her right eye. "Look Ichigo, just because my demi version exists don't over react, if you know her then you know me because we're the same person okay and when she dyes me and her will become one again so please calm down or else I'll have to break your limbs again." She then walked back to her chair and waited for rogue to issue out his orders in what to do about the forgotten.

Deciding to wait till orihime was healed, he lied on the bed of a guest room thinking over everything he learned and about orihime's feelings towards him, "So that night when I was healing from my second fight against grimmjow wasn't a dream, she really was there centimeters from kissing me." He tossed and turned trying to think until he fell asleep over everything. Back with orihime, she started to regain consciousness to notice that she was in a container in a strange substance and naked of all things. "What's going on the last thing I remember is trying to protect Ichigo from that thing and then everything going dark." She thought until she saw a woman wearing a hollow mask with spikes covering both sides and an open mouth come to her tank and check a small box. "Looks like your done healing orihime inou, time to get dressed and get ready to meet up with Ichigo kurosaki." She then pressed a button and soon the liquid in the tank drained then started to spray her with water removing any excess substance, the final thing that happened was that the container blew dried her and straighten her hair. "Here are your clothes miss orihime and don't worry, we fixed the damage done to them." From there orihime just followed what the strange woman told her and went to see Ichigo, but on the way she stumbled onto a hidden room that was opened when she stepped on a bug that appeared as a decoration. Inside she saw four containers similar to the one she was in except that it was covered with more strange pipes and tubes, there was a sky blue liquid in each of them and that there were small tubes inside for the people within them to breath, eat and empty themselves of waste. Looking closely, orihime saw that within the first three containers were three of aizens arrancars

She backed away in shock of the fact that they were there and that rogue was busy healing them back to health, in the final container stood the only female member of the espada during the war. "What's she doing in a place like this?" the liquid in her container bubbled and then settled down to show that espada three Tia harribel had a hard time taking in the food that was going down her throat. "Miss orihime, please step away from our masters future students, they still need to heal since the first three of them suffered from third degree burns while the espada there suffered from three stab wound, five slices, and some internal bleeding." Tatsuki came to tell her and just guided her to ichigo's room though tatsuki told her that her room was down the hall from him, she quietly opened the door and found Ichigo dead asleep on the bed looking so peaceful, that she couldn't help but go up to the bed, crawl in next to him and wrap her arms around him. "If only you knew how I felt toward you Ichigo, I love you with all my heart just because you are the most honest, trusting, honorable, and caring man I have ever met. Since we met in your family's medical center, I've felt a strong attachment towards you and soon I started to see you around school where I learned more about you and the pain within you. The day that when my brother came to kill me, you came and saved me and you even saved my brother from eating me. From then on I promised to help you as much as I could if it meant that I could be closer to you. But then that day came when aizen kidnapped me and took me to huaco mundo, you followed after me even when the soul society branded me a traitor, you knew and went after me even when you had to nearly die twice and then you did die plus you went hollow destroying everything in your path even uryu suffered that day. But over all you came back to us and that's all that matters.' Orihime said with tears streaming down her face and squeezing Ichigo closer to her like she was afraid that he would disappear once she let him. Unknown to orihime that once she put her arms around him he woke up, he lied there on the bed and listened to her speak, he felt as she buried her face in his back and let her tears be absorbed into his clothes and he felt from her touch like his mother was filled with her feelings that she really did love him.

When orihime finally cried herself to sleep, Ichigo placed his hand on hers then he rolled over to face her and pulled her in to hold her tight just like how she held onto him but then he did something he never did before, he kissed her on her forehead then just laid there enjoying the feeling that was surrounding them. Back with rogue and the no Maris, acid vire sat in his chair watching the mortal realm watching orihime's past and feeling his doppelganger's emotions but overall he felt such happiness that orihime was happy and healthy. "Master rogue will you please tell me what the future holds for the mortal woman called orihime inou? My doppelganger wants to know if she'll be with the man she loves or at least be with that mortal man dead wire brought here by your orders." Rogue shut his eyes and went into a meditative state for a few seconds then opened his eyes smiling at acid vire then said "I can't tell you directly but here's a riddle to answer your question, orihime will marry a soul that once was a nugoro blank that gained the power of individuality on its own, it now has the power of both the powers of soul reapers and hollows plus it will go by the label as the strawberry. She will also be the proud mother of a healthy baby boy who has his father's orange hair and his  mother's beautiful eyes and for some reason his dad's fighting spirit that caused all of those injuries in that high school." Rogue then got up from his seat and went to see dead wire who was at the time training her powers while also staring at the scar on her face from a past battle. "You know if you keep messing with your scar it will reopen and be infected, but please keep the mask off your still beautiful but now you just have that cute little claw mark over your left eye." Rogue then brushed a bang she had in front of her eyes to the left side of her face. "I know master rogue but I choose to hide behind my hollow mask, because it hides my shame and reminds me of my mistakes including the one that caused us to lose your adopted son. I still can't believe that he used me just to try and destroy the human world." She turned to a mirror and forced her reishi to make a mask out of thin air and go to her quarters to rest and clean her body of her sweat, sighing in a sad demeanor rogue crossed his arms and walked to check on Tia harribel, "I really hope you wake up soon, I saw as aizen betrayed and then tried to kill you, it was only luck that you survived and to show that we want you around we brought your subordinates and heal them." Rogue then checked her states in health and left, "God night my demon of the sea."

The next morning, orihime awoke to find Ichigo holding her to his heart and holding her with emotions she felt from her brothers touch before he became a hollow, the touch filled with love. "Does this feeling from his touch mean he's willing to gives "us" a chance even though he rarely showed any emotions remotely close to love?" to test him she gathered all of her courage and kissed him on the lips, to her they felt like some dry sushi but the feeling of her first kiss over whelmed her to the faint where she was blushing bright red. The sound of orihime falling to the floor was loud enough to wake him and get defensive, "What the hell, is a hollow attacking?" but saw that it was just orihime who he thought just rolled out of bed. Ichigo got out of the bed and picked orihime up and placed her on the bed then he left to see if rogue would take them back home to avoid any damage or missing persons report plus he had to check on his body, he knew that if it was left for too long in that ally someone would think he was dead since kon disappeared when after Ichigo lost his soul reaper powers. "I'm praying to god that my body is still there, I'd hate to have to search for it." "No worries, I sent dead wire control your body before she arrived to save you and orihime to go to your home and lock your body in your room on the bed to make it look like you're just sleeping. "Rogue then took a sip of tea, "Also I had a few of my subordinate's rebuild your neighborhood so if you want you can revisit your home and get cleaned up properly instead of being rinsed off." Acid vire said before he opened the door to the mortal world and escorted them both through the door to watch out for any forgotten.

"So orihime, if you're not busy tonight would you be interested in going out on a date?" Ichigo said to her when she got to her front door, "Sure, I mean just to say thank you for protecting me from that thing called a "Forgotten" but well sure could you pick me up around six or seven tonight?" Ichigo felt joy for the first time in seven years. "I better prepare for tonight, I mean this is our first date and I want to make sure she's okay with me. What am I saying, I've known her for more than ten years and she's never complained about anything I've done." He thought the entire home where he climbed back into his body then for some reason, started to cough up blood. "What the hell, Did something happen to my body? Wait this feeling isn't pain it's like my body's adapting to something new. GYAAAH!" in the end, he found that zangetsu had become materialized in the living and it still had all of its powers. "Holy shit, how did this happen? Wait this must be a side effect from that strong medicine that the tatsuki in rogue's world gave me but what exactly did it do to me?" Ichigo said examining zangetsu to see if it was real. "Ichigo will you please be careful with me, I'm feeling like I'm not fully part of the human realm." Zangetsu said to Ichigo, from there Ichigo suddenly felt as if a lot of his spiritual pressure was going into zangetsu.  Choosing to ignore what happened; Ichigo went into the shower and cleansed his body of the feeling that was left behind from that adaptation. He then started to get ready for his date with orihime; he went to the bathroom to clean his teeth, brush his hair to its normal somewhat spiky ways, going to his bedroom he pulled out his top shirt and pants. Right before he left to go get orihime, his father and younger sister yuzu come up to him and congratulate him on going on a date for the third time in his life and that he should come home without having that same grumpy face, "Look It's just orihime, and we're just going to have dinner, a movie, a walk through the park and for some reason she wants to go to her old house that she lived in while we were in high school." In sheer joy, ichigo's father ran up to him and handed him an orange envelope that said "Ichigo's future wife kit" slowly opening it, he found a map to a sweet hotel, the best restaurants to orihime's taste, a key to a motorcycle, a mystery box labeled "For future wife" and three bricks of bills (Money). "What's all this for and why is it made for orihime specifically?" Ichigo said with a weird expression on his face, "Well seeing as how orihime's been here so frequently, I figured she was your girlfriend." Hearing this Ichigo left and found behind their home was a sleek black and white motorcycle with both the soul reaper symbol and the hollow symbol on the sides then just drove to orihime's house.

Orihime was coming straight out of the bath feeling refreshed and born anew, she dried her hair to the best she could; she then pulled her best dress and held it to her heart thinking of what Ichigo will say once he sees her in such a beautiful dress. "(Giggle) I can't believe he asked me out, oh my god this is like a dream that finally came true." She then returned to getting ready for her date by putting the finishing touch on her outfit by adjusting her hairpins to make her eyes be more visible to the beautiful moon light. Around six thirty Ichigo parked his bike in front of Orihime's house to pick her up and once she opened that door, Ichigo lost every ounce of breath in his body and just stared at how beautiful she looked as she stood there. "Shall we go kurosaki-kun?" The two of them drove off into the night and enjoyed their date, the dinner was delicious to orihime but strange to Ichigo, the movie was both scary, romantic and funny which made them get closer to each other but the date hit a snag when the park was closed for some maintenance so they just went to the house that was destroyed when orihime's brother attacked them which brought tears to her eyes but Ichigo held her as she cried at the thought of losing him (Brother) then Ichigo opened the envelope and followed the map to a hotel where the two of them could get comfy and where orihime and him could just be alone.

Back with rogue and the no Maris sat there watching Ichigo and orihime as they drove to the hotel when acid vire said "Should we allow for them to get this close" "Do you doubt master rogues judgment acid vire?" rogue responded with "It's all going as I saw in the future and soon they will be one of us."

To be continued when I'm satisfied with the comments and viewers.