Soul Society, Magnolia Branch

Chapter 1 : Setting Up

"What's the problem with you?!" yelled an irate Substitute Soul Reaper as his father once again woke him up using his own brand of wacky violence. For his efforts, Isshin Kurosaki was rewarded with a strong punch to the cheek and a straight kick to his back, launching him out the window.

"Your reflexes have gotten much better than before, daddy is so proud of you! But that doesn't mean I'm going to go easy on you from now on." hollered a hanging Isshin. "Now help daddy back up please!" he pleaded.

At this point the grumpy orange head put on his shirt and made his way down for breakfast, coldly ignoring his father whose grip was loosening with every step.

"Ichigo..Are you there?...I'm starting to fall!..Please!" and those were his last words before the man-child lost his grip and crashed onto the ground below, breaking a flowerpot with his head.

Upon hearing the resounding crash and pot break, Ichigo allowed himself smirk to form on his face. He went down the stairs, only to be hit by the aroma of Yuzu's cooking. 'Smells like bacon and eggs, this should be good' he thought to himself.

A loud "Morning Ichi-nii!" from Yuzu and a softer and uncaring mutter of "Mornin' Ichi-nii" from Karin greeted Ichigo as he showed himself to the kitchen, eager to get some food to settle his grumbling stomach. Settling down at his chair he was served his breakfast by Yuzu.

After a thanking Yuzu with more gratitude than usual, he dug into his meal. However his morning meal was interrupted by a banging on the door. "Ichi-nii, where's dad? Usually he'd be here by now.." questioned a curious Yuzu.

Karin opened the door, only to have the urge to slam it back as she was greeted by a dishevelled Isshin with a huge bump on the side of his head, dirt in his hair and some leaves sticking out from his hair and clothes.

"Ah my sweet daughter Karin, I knew you would come to daddy's aid! Unlike your delinquent brother who kicked his own poor father out a window" Isshin dramatically sobbed as he made his way to the poster of Masaki Kurosaki. "Masaki! What ever shall I do? Our son is doomed to be a failure. I hope you forgive me for failing to bring him up the proper path.. He doesn't even have a girlfriend!" whined the man of the household as he tried to hug the poster.

Only a harsh kick to the side of his head snapped him out of it, courtesy of the other male in the house. "Stop doing that you creepy old man! That poster isn't your goddamn therapist! And will you stop going on about my love life?!" yelled a furious and blushing Ichigo.

"But other than Orihime and Rukia have never been seen with a girl, and I really want my grandchildren. Don't tell me that you're gay?!" was the horrified reply from Isshin.

"I'm not freaking gay! I just haven't had any time to pursue a relationship. Especially with that!" That being Ichigo and Isshin's way of mentioning the war against Yhwach in front of the girls at home. Even with Karin's strong spiritual pressure and her knowing about the spiritual world, and Yuzu's slightly weaker but still strong spiritual pressure, Ichigo deemed them unprepared to know everything about the spiritual world. Especially the wars that he'd been participating in.

"By the way Ichigo, Kisuke asked me to tell you to meet him at the shop later. He didn't say for what though" Isshin whispered to Ichigo.

Now that intrigued Ichigo by quite a lot. They had only just won the Blood War three weeks ago. Soul Society should still be recovering and rebuilding, and so should the inhabitants. So the chances that Ichigo would be fighting once more with the Soul Society was slim, and anything else would also be unexpected since Ichigo knew he was really only brute force. He wasn't good with admin work and he sure as hell can't heal people.

Finishing up his last bit of food, he went back to his room to get changed and headed out of the house to the Urahara Shouten. Wondering just what Kisuke wanted with him.

"Do not fret so much Ichigo, you have been through so much already. I doubt fate can throw anything at you that you cannot overcome." Was Zangetsu-no-ossan's input.

"Besides King, you can always just stab and slash at anything that's in your way. Just like how you've done all the time up until now." Was his hollow's morbidly cheerful input.

'I just have a feeling that whatever Kisuke's planning now does not bode well for me.. Just a gut feeling I guess' was Ichigo's internal reply. With a long sigh he stepped out of the house, slowly making his way to the Urahara Shouten to find out just what the madman wanted with him now.

Ichigo slid open the doors to the shop and made his way down the candy aisles, greeting Ururu on the way, as he made his way into the back of the shop where the bucket hat wearing ex-captain was awaiting him.

"So good to see you again Kurosaki-kun, you don't keep in touch anymore, don't tell me you hate me now?" was the loud greeting by the resident scientist.

"Shut the hell up Hat-and-clogs, last time we spoke was only three weeks ago when the war ended. My dad told me you wanted to see me, why is that?" Ichigo yelled back, clearly annoyed by the goofy man's antics.

"Always straight to the point as usual.." pouted Kisuke, unhappy that his usual antics were always cut short in their conversations. "The Soutaicho requested to see you actually. It's something that is quite important"

"What's so important that he would contact you directly instead of sending a messenger? I thought he hated you…" Rightfully so, since the head captain did not take treason lightly. And what Kisuke had done, or more accurately been framed for, was indeed treason. It would not have been so bad had Kisuke returned to the Soul Society after he was pardoned, but he chose to stay, grating on the Soutaicho's nerves even further.

"See, I have been tinkering with a new machine I had built. The results I found were astonishing, unfortunately after a week or so of me finding it, so did Mayuri. Boy you should have seen his face when I told him I had found it a week earlier than him." Laughed Kisuke

"What the machine does, is scan over dimensions, in particular Soul Society, Hueco Mundo and the Living World. But as I was scanning through them, I noticed an anomaly. It was sudden. A portal had appeared out of nowhere, and life forms were detected on the other side."

"After that I reported to the Soutaicho and he told me to keep quiet about it, researching it in silence so it would not cause panic. At first I thought it was a one-time thing, but a week after that, a second portal opened, which was picked up by both Mayuri and myself. That's when the Soutaicho told me to gather people to investigate this anomaly, myself included of course. He mentioned you as well." Finished Kisuke with a grim underlining in his words. As expected since if this new anomaly proved to be a disturbance to the balance that the Soutaicho desperately wanted to maintain, he would no doubt give an order to annihilate the life forms that caused said disturbance.

Ichigo was pondering to himself during the entire explanation, whether or not he wanted to be roped into another situation again. And if he did get roped in, who would he bring along?

'I guess the usual Karakura four would be fitting' he thought to himself, smiling a little at the name that was affectionately coined for their arguably strange group of four by Orihime. The Karakura four was quite a fitting name after all, since it was him, Chad, Uryu, and Orihime. 'I wonder if Yoruichi is going too, it would be nice to have more fire power if we're potentially going to be put into another life threatening situation.'

"I hope she's going, her and the princess would definitely be eye-pleasers, especially if our last moments might be looking at one of them" was the Hollow's ever-morbid commentary.

"Quiet Hollow, Ichigo does not need your pessimism or your perverseness" Zangetsu-no-ossan scolded before he and the hollow retreated back into Ichigo's inner world.

There was also the issue of Ichigo's human life, was he really ready to abandon it once more? Even though the Karakura Four needn't worry about living expenses since the Soul Society generously offered to supply them with money on a monthly basis as a thank-you for their contributions. It was the general daily life he would miss; waking up to Yuzu's cooking, kicking Keigo in the face at school, hanging out with friends in a café after school and many more things. But if he could be what prevents the Soul Society from massacring another bunch of people, then he wasn't really left with a choice.

He was brought out of his thoughts by Kisuke. "What's your choice Kurosaki-kun? No one would blame you for not accepting this." The shopkeeper offered the teen a cup of tea.

"I guess I don't have much of a choice do I? I'll do it, and I'll get some people to go along with me" Ichigo downed the warm tea. Strange…was green tea supposed to taste like that? It was almost as if it had a hint of strawberry. His vision was fading to black and his peripheral vision was getting blurrier.

"I'm so glad you accepted Kurosaki-kun, I do hope you forgive me for drugging your tea. I had to come up with a contingency plan in the case you didn't accept. Truth be told we don't really have much of a choice. Now, now don't look so angry, I'll wake you up once we're in Soul Society." And with those parting words Ichigo's eye-lids shut completely as he fell into unconsciousness, but not without uttering a final phrase. "Hat-and-clogs, you asshole.."

Soul Society, Magnolia Branch

All around him was black, an unending void of darkness that he floated around in, barely aware of himself. He heard his name being called, bringing him out of his comatose state.

"Kurosaki-kun…Wake up…Kurosaki-kun you need…Wake up please…Kurosaki-kun you really have to wake up now please!" the final shout was what got him to finally wake up, bolting upright he rubbed his eyes to clear his vision to see that he was in the captain's meeting room, with all their eyes glued on his sitting form. He spied Kisuke out the corner of his eyes and stalked over to him, a dark aura cloaking him menacingly

"Kisuke you bastard!" Ichigo smashed his elbow into the ex-captain's nose. "Why the hell did you drug me even after I agreed?!" This time he launched a roundhouse kick into his side before punching him in the gut for good measure.

"Had…to…make sure…you'd come" was Kisuke's pained response as he lied prone on the floor.

"Enough of this foolishness. I trust that you have been briefed on why you have been summoned here, Ichigo Kurosaki?" boomed the Head Captain, wanting to get this meeting over with as efficiently as possible.

Ichigo turned to the Head Captain, straightening his posture before replying. "Yeah he gave me the gist of what you need me to do, I will accepts on one condition."

"And what is your condition boy?" The Head Captain raised a brow, usually the Substitute rarely asked for conditions to be met before fulfilling a given task.

"I want to choose the people that accompany Geta Boshi and I"

At this, the Yamamoto widened his eyes, before relenting to the boy, but not without his own conditions.

"Very well, you shall be able to pick who accompanies you, however, you can only pick those that are not a part of the Gotei 13"

Ichigo tensed up at this, he had originally planned to bring along some of the people he knew in the Gotei 13, mainly being Rukia, Renji, Ikkaku, Yumichika, Toushirou, Matsumoto, and the Vizard crew. Now his options were cut down significantly and he wasn't exactly comfortable with random people to accompany him. He supposed that this would be as far as the Head Captain would allow him to go, so he accepted it without any argument.

Perhaps he could ask Nel and Harrribel, maybe Grimmjow if he was up to it.

"Fine, I accept. Now where's this anomaly that we're supposed to be researching?"

At that moment Kisuke bounced back into the conversation stuffing Ichigo's face with his favourite paper fan. "I can open up a senkaimon into the coordinates that I received from the anomaly, so we will be going in and hoping everything turns out fine"

"What else did I expect..." with a sigh Ichigo and the others were dismissed.

Soul Society, Magnolia Branch

It was a full week after the meeting, and Ichigo once again found himself back in the Urahara Shouten. This time with the friends he had gathered to come along with him. Which unsurprisingly were the rest of the Karakura Four, Nel, Harribel, and Grimmjow.

As the group made their way to the Senkaimon they were greeted to the sight of over 50 people. They were all from different divisions within the Gotei 13. The only explanation for this would be that the Head Captain wanted to build up a branch of the Gotei 13 in the new dimension, fully intent on supplying it with enough manpower to sustain itself indefinitely. It was no mere scouting outpost, they looked like they were prepared to build and maintain a fortress.

"Ah welcome Kurosaki-kun and company. Give me just another 15 minutes, it takes quite a lot of time and energy to allow this many people to pass through." Greeted the Kisuke from behind his computer.

"The Gotei 13 sent scouts from the 2nd division to get knowledge on this dimension before we enter a few days ago, so once we get through I will have to brief you all on it." Kisuke typed the final word on his computer and all around his lab energy was rising. He stepped to the middle of the room and he stabbed his sword into the air and slowly turned. The gateway formed, its heavy red doors opened to show the Precipice World.

"Well what are you waiting for? Get going!" with that he shoved the group into the Senkaimon.

"What the hell is this…It's different from a Garganta" was Grimmjow's exclamation as he traversed through the portal.

"Well duh, of course it's different…" was Ichigo's deadpan reply.

"I think it's kinda cool, it's all oozy and stuff. It reminds me of red bean paste" Orihime stared at the walls, a slight hunger in her eyes.

"This place scares me Itsygo! Hold me!" Nel attached herself to the unsuspecting Soul Reaper's arm, making him light up like a bulb.

"Idiots…" were Harribel and Uryu's only way of describing the situation around them.

They only got a grunt from Chad who had no problem traversing the Senkaimon at all.

They finally reached the end of the Senkaimon and busted through to be see grassy hills, forestry, and a city not far off. And then they realised they were plummeting to the ground as per usual when they travelled by Kisukue's methods.

The loud cursing of the group as they landed scared off the wild animals in a large area around them.

"Oops, maybe I calibrated the Senkaimon wrongly? I'm so sorry" apologised the shopkeeper from above them. But everyone could see the humour in his eyes.

"Yeah right the super scientist that created the Hogyouku somehow messed up a Senkaimon"

"Now, now Ichigo. People make mistakes, you just have to accept that"

"God you piss me off so much…"

"Happy to be of service" Kisuke bowed, pulling his hat to his chest.

"For now we have to make our way to the city, apparently in this world, things called Guilds are extremely popular, and it doesn't take much to open and operate one. So that will be our main base of operations."

"Hah I bet I can reach the city faster than you Kurosaki, I'll race you there. If you lose you have to give me a good fight." Taunted the blue haired arrancar.

"You're on, if you lose you don't bother me for fights for a month" was Ichigo's reply. Fully aware that his speed was almost unrivalled, the only one that could potentially beat him in speed was Yoruichi, even then in Bankai he was pretty sure he could go faster than Yoruichi. But that would be quite a close call to make, since he would have to combine all three forms of movement; Shunpo, Sonido, and Hirenkyaku to beat her slightly. She really was quite a terrifying thing to race.

"Rule is that you can only use Sonido." Now that evened out the playing fields, it would be hard to see who was faster in pure Sonido only.

"On three … One"

"Two…"

"Three!" they shouted simultaneously before they both sped off.

"I guess that leaves us to take a merry walk to the city" Kisuke addressed the remaining Arrancars and Humans as well as the group of Shinigami, before starting to walk down the forest path to the city.

Soul Society, Magnolia Branch

As Kisuke and company walked up to the entrance to the city they spotted the two orange and blue headed rivals arguing.

"I got here first and you know it, shitty Shinigami!"

"Screw you, I got here first and you know it, you're just jealous I beat you so easily"

"Like hell I am, who would be jealous of a loser? Especially one that prides himself on speed but lost at a speed competition."

"You lost and you know that you blue haired freak of nature"

"Fuck no I didn't, I got here two milliseconds before you did."

"Hah I was already waiting here for your slow, blue, arrancar ass to get here."

"That's it, I'm gonna beat the shit outta you to prove whose faster" Grimmjow started charging up a cero, pointing his palm at the Substitute.

"Fine by me, we both know I'm gonna win anyway" Ichigo unsheathed the bigger Zangetsu and pointed it skywards, charging it with spiritual pressure, making it glow blue.

"Hey, hey, hey stop that now boys, you don't wanna accidentally destroy the city do you?" Kisuke's hands were glowing bright with the promise of a binding kido.

"You stay outta this you shitty, ugly-hat wearing, fashion disaster of a shopkeeper!" yelled the two rivals before their heads snapped back to each other.

"Don't copy me you freak!" They said simultaneously.

"No you!"

"Stop that!"

"You bastard!"

"Screw this!"

"Getsuga Ten-"

"Ce-"

"Bakudo 61: Rikujokoro"

The binding spell slammed into the midsections of Ichigo and Grimmjow. "Chad, sorry to bother you but could you carry these two along?"

"Sure" was the brief grunt/reply from Chad

"Hey let us go!"

"Get these things off me you stupid shopkeeper!"

"Chad c'mon help me out here!" Ichigo pleaded.

"Yeah c'mon big guy help me out here so I can go beat that dumbass Shinigami to death!"

They were promptly silenced by another flash of kido, binding their mouths. Chad picked up the two arguing rivals and put them on his shoulders before stepping into the city to find the location they have to build the guildhall. The rest of the group had their hands firmly planted onto their faces, unable to believe that an ex-espada and the two time war hero of the Soul Society could act so childishly…

Soul Society, Magnolia Branch

"Welcome to Magnolia, are you new here?" the guards at the entrance of Magnolia questioned Kisuke, slightly weirded out by the large amount of people with swords and the huge man carrying to smaller men that were squirming around in his grip.

"Ah yes, we're here to open a new guild! May we know if we are gonna have any competitors here?" Kisuke was never one to let an opportunity to learn more about a potential foe pass.

"Oh well welcome to Magnolia then, I wish you all the best. Just don't cause trouble here and you should be fine. As for competitors you have two major ones; Fairytail and Phantomlord. I'd watch out if I were you, those are two really strong guilds and they're not to be messed with."

"Thank you, I'll keep your advice in mind. If that is all we should best be on our way." With that Kisuke and the rest made their way to the designated location to build the guild as advised by the scouts.

"So what do you plan to do about these rival guilds?" Harribel asked the shopkeeper.

"Well they shouldn't pose much a problem, as far as reiatsu, there are two large concentrations of it in the city, which I assume to be the two guilds the guard mentioned. One seems much stronger than the other though. The stronger one has a maximum reiatsu that almost reaches up to mine. The weaker one reaches up to Grimmjow's. So all in all we should be pretty safe. Even if everything goes wrong I'm sure we can count on Kurosaki-kun, after all he is quite a monster."

There wasn't much of an exaggeration there either, Kisuke knew Ichigo's power at this point after everything he's been through could potentially rival or outright beat the Head Captain's. And he was still young too, it was a terrifying thought to think what kind of power he could possess in a century or two, his growth rate is unparalleled. "I'm sure you have felt how vast Kurosaki-kun's reiatsu can be at times?"

Harribel looked away from the shopkeeper, determined not to show her face and the slight blush that crept up to her cheeks.

'Is that a blush?!' thought Kisuke. 'It can't be…She's known for being stone cold, I must be seeing things' rubbing his eyes he looked at her again, only this time she was facing forward with no indication the previous blush was even there at all.

'Huh, strange…perhaps I'll keep a closer eye on her' thought the shopkeeper mischievously with a grin on his face.

The group walked up to the empty plot of land, just a mere few metres from the town centre. The streets were bustling with activity. Ichigo spotted an unusual sight as they started building up the guild hall. He saw a woman with red hair dressed in full plate armour ordering something from a bakery with a look of excitement painted on her face.

'That's strange, I wonder why she wears that, no one else wears full armour like that around here that I can see…maybe she's one of those guards.' Thought Ichigo.

"I don't really care what she is, as long as she shows more of her herself. That armour covers up too much" a perverted grin stretched across the Hollow's face in Ichigo's inner world.

"Must you always be such a depraved pervert hollow?" was the old man's only reply, having been exposed to the hollow for long enough to be unfazed by his perverseness. "Besides, Ichigo already has women that are interested in him, having more could prove to be difficult for him"

'Could you two please shut up about my love life?! And I do not have women interested in me!' Ichigo yelled in his own head.

"You really are a dense dumbass king…why did I have to be stuck to such a dense wielder…"

'Shut the hell up! You and I are practically the same being, so if I'm a dumbass, doesn't that make you one too?!'

"Touché"

When Ichigo came back to full awareness his eyes nearly popped at the sight he was seeing. The guildhall was fully built up and functioning, with a sign on top of the entrance that read "Soul Society, Magnolia Branch"

Soul Society, Magnolia Branch

[A/N] Hey there! Parting here. This is my first ever story, wooh! Now it could be kinda confusing at first to those that were expecting it to be a lot more canon-like. As a fanfiction writer I took some liberties in changing up the events a little. So yes this is going to have quite a lot of A/U elements.

Why? Well no other reason than some of the characters that died were my favourite ones. :D

Plus I think the dynamics between the groups of characters will be much more interesting and funnier to read, especially Grimm and Ichi.

The reason for some of them being here and alive when they shouldn't be alive will be explained in small flashbacks throughout the story. I do hope you guys won't mind

As for updating this story, I plan for it to be on a weekly basis, so every 7 days you can expect to get a new chapter of around this length or more.

I do tend to switch between the Japanese way of saying things and the
Western way and that is because I read a lot of stories on this site of either style and they kinda got mashed into one for me, I hope it's not too confusing.

Next chapter you can expect to see the Fairytail bunch :D

Reviews do help quite a bit since I am a new writer, so constructive criticism will help, especially from any established fanfiction writers out there.

Till next time~

Parting Gift