Chapter 7 – Level One

Ichigo never had any desires of being a parent. Kids were disruptive and required a higher degree of care and acknowledgment that he could not guarantee. Ichigo preferred a life of solitude than a life with the "joys" of parenthood.

Which completely contradicted what Ichigo did with Rin, the little homeless half-demon he met on the way back from work. Despite him not liking children in the slightest, he couldn't just let the girl go hungry in the rain. And she really didn't have anywhere to go to...

Ichigo, staring into the void of night, knew that what he was about to do could end up being one of the absolute stupidest moves he may ever make. He had a mission, a mission that did not take account of a child. But the remains of his conscious screaming at him compelled him.

He was going to keep her. Let history be his judge.

"So good!" Rin cooed, scooping a clump of rice into her mouth, followed quickly with a small fried sausage, "Ichigo, you're so good at cooking!"

"I wouldn't say," he replied, with a coy smile on his face, "Anyway, eat up. We have a lot that needs to be done today and we might not have time for a solid meal for a while."

"Okay!" Rin entered a zen-like mode and with a snap of your fingers, her plate was cleaned. Ichigo stared in astonishment.

"Can I have some more, Ichigo!?" she asked, excitedly. Ichigo blinked, before nodding softly.

"Yay!"

It was a very good thing that she was eating, seeing how malnourished she was. She likely survived off of single meals a day for a while, if even that. He definitely needed to get her to a doctor to see if she had any health problems that he needed to take in mind.

"Can I have another plate?" Rin asked, holding a cleaned plate out, with outstretched hands.

"Jesus...Sure, go ahead," Ichigo said, struggling to choke back a laugh.

"Yay!" she exclaimed, victoriously, as she scooped up another plateful of rice, with a side of tiny sausages. Ichigo simply did not understand how a girl so little could throw down as much food as she could.

"Maybe she has a tapeworm or something," Ichigo mumbled under his breath.

"Major Thomas, I know it's really last minute, but I need the rest of the week off," Ichigo said, pleading his superior officer, "Probably next week as well. She...She needs some help." The smaller woman sighed.

"Normally, I would be quick to say no and tell you to do things the proper way," she started, "But, I don't recall you ever seeking time off. And there is a child involved." Major Thomas looked around her office, with a small look of confusion.

"Speaking of which, where is she?" she asked.

"She's in my office," Ichigo replied.

"You don't think she's going to wander around?"

"Not really. She's still in the terrified of everyone and everything phase."

"Ah."

In fact, I probably need to get back to her, before she starts to panic," Ichigo said, "Thank you for letting me have some time off. I greatly appreciate it."

"No problem."

Ichigo entered his office, to see Rin cuddled up in his chair, frozen.

"Hey," Ichigo said, shutting his door, "We got about two weeks to work with. In that time, I hope to get you into a school program to catch you up to your age group next fall. Should not be a massive issue. We're just going to have to work extra hard." Rin simply nodded.

"Are you okay, Rin? You have been a bit tight since we got here," Ichigo said, "I know you are a bit overstimulated by all the new faces, but they're good people. You can trust me." Rin nodded again, this time muttering a small, "Okay."

"Great. Anyway, we aren't going to be here much longer. We are going to get you some care."

Rin looked at her new haircut, a simple, short bob, that framed her face, with intrigue. The stylist told her and Ichigo the bad news; there was no savaging her mane. Her hair was far too matted and untamed. Ichigo's hair treatment was good enough to make it manageable to cut, but not enough to keep. Rin was disappointed at first until she was allowed to pick haircuts out of a brochure, in which her brief depression was replaced with pure bliss. Luckily for Ichigo, she picked a sensible one, because he wasn't sure he had the heart to deny her such joy.

"Ichigo! How does it look!?" Rin asked, excitedly. Ichigo smiled.

"It's suits you perfectly," he replied. Rin squirmed in her seat.

"I'm glad you like it so much," the stylist said, "And if you ever want to grow your hair back out, now you know how to take care of it." She led the girl out of her seat and started to walk her to a different part of the salon.

"Now, let's take care of those nails of yours," she said.

"I don't mean to rush you, but how long is this going to take? She has a dentist appointment in about two hours," Ichigo said, crossing his arms.

"Ah, don't worry about it. We'll be quick."

Note for the future, manicures and pedicures are a lot longer than you think they should be. The appointment left Ichigo just about fifteen minutes to whisk Rin to her appointment. Luckily, the salon was a couple of blocks away from the salon.

Amenities like these were very rare in Hell. The majority of the human workforce lived in the world of the living and used gates to access the realm, leaving the rest to the demons and the damned. Ichigo, chose to willing stay, knowing that no matter how far away from Karakura Town he goes, there was always the opportunity that someone would find him. He needed to stay away until the job was done.

Then he would go back...

Until then, keep moving forward. And right now, he needed to take care of the little girl that he had taken in. That was at least some form of positive energy he could give back. Affairs back home didn't matter right now.

...He really wished that he believed that. He knew things were dicey back in Karakura. His friends were being watched by multiple angles. The Shinigami. The Horsemen. The Royal Family. The Wandenreich. Hayato. He knew that if they were to take a single step over the imaginary boundary, that they would be slaughtered without a single regard to optics. They were threats, even if they didn't know it. And he hoped that they knew that.

The best precaution they could take at this point was to prepare for chaos to strike at any moment. Ichigo couldn't blow his cover to protect at the moment, so he just needed to trust in their abilities.

Oh well. He would adjust accordingly with the happenings of the future. No reason to fret out against something that he was unable to control at the current moment.

Similar to her nails, her teeth were mangled beyond repair. Her fangs were blunt and while she had avoided cavities, her teeth were soft and covered in plaque. Luckily, these were her first set of teeth and her new ones would give her a new lease at life. The dentist showed her many techniques to take of her teeth in the future and sent them off. There was no need for any real work.

Rin was cooperative throughout. She winced throughout the entire procedure, most definitely due to the sensitivity of her teeth, but all in all, it was a quick and painless hour-long check-up. She was easy to work with, even if she was terrified out of her mind.

She did refuse to cooperate if he wasn't in the same room as her, however. While she seemed to trust Ichigo unconditionally, the same could not be said for those operating on her. Of course, that made sense. She was a survivor. That automatic fear of others kept her at distance and prevented her from bonding with others. Ichigo broke through, but of course, he had significantly more time to do so and was not above bribing a child with food.

"Rin, your day is almost done," Ichigo said, "We're just going to see a doctor. Those are people whose job it is to make sure that you are healthy." Ichigo learned that breaking down a job to a simple sentence made Rin a lot more comfortable with whatever they were going to do next.

"Is there something wrong with me?" Rin asked.

"As far as I can tell, no," Ichigo replied, "But I'm not a doctor. I wouldn't be able to tell you."

"Is the doctor nice?"

"I've never met them, but they went above the norm to fit you into their schedule. I know you'll like them."

Soon after arriving, Ichigo was whisked away into a separate room, as Rin was examined. Rin almost immediately locked up, but after being assured that this was for her own privacy and that Ichigo was just a room away, she eased up. After the medical examination, she was moved into a room that looked like a children therapist's office and was talking to an aide.

Ichigo, reading news articles on his phone, sat impassively. There wasn't much he could do at the moment but wait for her to be done.

"Hello, Mr. Kurosaki?" a woman, who looked as if they were in their mid-thirties, wearing a long white lab coat, said, "Hi, I'm Doctor Reynolds. We just got done looking at her physicals. She's pretty lucky to be in the condition that you found her."

"Nothing long-lasting?"

"She's just underweight and has some nasty rashes that can be cleaned up quickly."

"Did you get an age?" Ichigo asked, opening a notebook and jotting down the information that he was told.

"DNA samples point to Rin being approximately five-years-old," Reynolds said, "She doesn't know her birth date, so I guess it'll be the date of adoption, whenever it's made official."

"Any news on her nan? She was in that park for a while."

"We found three cases of dead homeless women matching the description given to us by Rin. We zeroed in on a Yamada Suzu, eighty-eight. She was found at a campsite, about six kilometers from where Rin was found, approximately six days after passing on. That was about two months ago."

"Rin has been on her own for two months?" Ichigo asked.

"Yeah, she's a scrappy one. For someone lacking the ability to write, read, and count, she's insanely intuitive. Bless her demon heritage for also keeping her alive as well. She would have been in an infinitely worse state without it, despite the prejudice for half-demons."

"I guess...She wandered pretty far as well." Reynolds chuckled softly.

"She told us that she got lost and didn't know her way back. Poor girl."

"So what's next?"

"Just make that she eats a well-balanced diet and that she uses the lotion that we are prescribing her daily. Easy as that."

"Okay. I can do that."

"You know, Mr. Kurosaki, you don't have to do this." Ichigo did not react.

"You're still young. You have a promising career going with the militia. You're already ahead on many social curbs. So you don't have to do this. A child could get in the way of your future."

"While it would be infinitely easier for me to try and find a family for her, I know that I wouldn't feel good about that. I'm capable of handling her, along with the responsibilities of my duties. And I want to do this...Not just to make myself feel better. I feel like I owe it to Rin to provide her with a stable house that she has never had." Reynolds smiled, nodding her head.

"Aren't you a noble spirit. Well, I can give you some tips, being a parent myself," she said, "There are times where she's going to frustrate you. And there are going to be times where you're not going to have the patience to deal with her. But you have to be calm and understanding. You are now her father and even if she doesn't act like it some days. She's going to need you to be there for her. I hope you can."

"I see," Ichigo simply stated, "The only thing I can do now is try."

"You'll be fine, Mr. Kurosaki. I know you'll be the best father that she could have ever asked for."

Ichigo was never fond of children. He was never around them too much, luckily. His former bosses brat and the shopkeepers weird...adopted children were the only ones that he spent any kind of time with. Due to the fact that his father was a shinigami separated from his family and his mother was a Quincy that was pretty much sold into a marriage to become some kind of Quincy baby factory, he didn't know too much of his family. There was one woman on his mother's side that he could vaguely remember.

He actually would have preferred to ship Rin off to another family and save himself the headache of raising her, but he did gain her trust. If he did all that he did and then sent her away would have been beyond cruel. The girl deserved some form of stability in her life. And he, somehow, was going to provide that for her. First, he needed her to learn basic functions.

"Rin, starting tomorrow, you're going to a special class that's going to get you ready for school," Ichigo said, "They're going to teach you how to read and count."

"Is it going to be hard?" Rin asked, nervously.

"I'm not going to lie. It's going to be tough. They have a month to teach you before you start kindergarten. There are going to be days where you're not going to understand things and I'm not going to be able to help you until you get home." Ichigo crouched down to her level, looking at his newly adopted daughter face-to-face.

"You're a very smart girl, Rin," Ichigo said, softly, "You managed to live on your own for a whole two months. I know you aren't going to be beaten by some words or some numbers. And I know that there are going to be some new faces that you might be afraid of, but they are there to help you. No matter how hard it may be, they will help you every single step of the way. And so will I, when we are home."

"...Really?" Rin asked. Ichigo chuckled while nodding.

"Of course, of course. And if they don't, they'll have to answer to me." Rin smiled brightly.

"That's a good sign," Ichigo exclaimed, "Now, are you hungry?"

"Yeah!"

"Level One" by Danny Brown

Sorry for the long delay. There were...things that happened that kept me from writing.