Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to JKR and all her people. Bleach belongs to Kubo Tite and all his people. (How... mundane. Where has my sarcasm gone off to?)
AN. 1.) This is my first venture into the realm of crossovers, so don't kill. 2.) If you don't know Bleach, you are liable to be very lost. 3.) I think I suck at fight scenes. You be the judge. 4.) Yes, kido incantation are corny. I didn't come up with them. 5.) On second thought. Kill (or try to) if you like. Should be humorous.
Fukutaicho
"Ms. Rukia, why can't Aunt Petunia see you?"
Rukia smiled, softly but a little strained. "There are very few people who can," she explained. "You know what I am… only those with extremely high reiatsu can see me."
Harry smiled back, the familiar smile eerie on a child's face. "And Mr. Taicho? He's the same?"
She nodded.
"Potter, get moving! I want those dishes done and dried by 8:30!"
Harry jumped, scrambling over to the sink where the dishes were piled twice deep. "Yes, Aunt Petunia!"
Rukia growled under her breath as Harry pulled the trash bin out from under the sink to dump the leftover food in, glaring darkly past the door to the living room, where all three Dursleys sat watching the television. Fifteen minutes? He'd be lucky to get them done in under an hour!
"Ms. Rukia, will Mr. Taicho be coming to visit any time soon?"
She looked back to see him scrape a plate mostly clean and then scrub off the reminder in the sink all in a few seconds, showing long experience in dishwashing; though even so there was no way he'd be done in time. "I don't know," she answered awkwardly.
And she didn't. Ukitake-taicho made a point to attempt to visit Kaie - Harry as often as he could, but his illness and his condition rarely let him. It left her, Kuchiki Rukia, as his primary keeper.
Rukia wasn't sure why Yamamoto-sotaicho had actually allowed their watching Harry. It certainly wasn't normal - well, it wasn't normal for shinigami who died in the line of duty to retain their reiatsu in their reincarnated forms either, though Kaien had done it. She wasn't sure, though she had never bothered to ask for fear that the sotaicho would change his mind and leave Harry defenseless. With such high reiatsu, he'd be eaten in days.
They shared a few moment of silence, broken only by the chink of dish upon dish. This incarnation of Kaien was quieter, she reflected. Much quieter. He could be as loud and raucous as the Kaien she knew, but it was rare.
A long, high-pitched howl bit through her thoughts, and Harry started again, dropped the glass he had been washing to the floor where it shattered.
"Potter!" Movement in the living room.
Harry stared at the shattered glass, white-faced. Swallowing as the howl sounded again, he murmured with a slight shake in his tone, "You ought to go see about the Hollow, Ms. Rukia… before it hurts somebody."
Rukia glanced back and forth from Harry to the direction the howl came from as stomping footsteps approached the door. She didn't want to leave Harry, but she couldn't help him and there was the Hollow.
Eyes filling with tears, she rocketed through the wall toward the fallen soul, and pretended she couldn't hear and didn't know what was going to take place immediately behind her.
Sometimes Harry hated having so much reiatsu. True, if he didn't he wouldn't be able to see Rukia and Taicho, but he got tired of constantly being chased by Hollows until either they gave up or Rukia came to his rescue. Like now.
Only, this Hollow didn't seem to be giving up, and Rukia had been called away for the day. She'd told him to stay inside of the house, but Aunt Petunia had decided to send him out for groceries. He couldn't very well tell his aunt no if he planned on eating tonight (or tomorrow morning), so he'd crossed his fingers and hoped maybe Rukia would come back early.
"You're not gonna get away..." the Hollow sing-songed, and Harry gritted his teeth.
Why did being on his own with no zanpakuto feel so much like déjà vu?
Because I was lost to you…
Harry froze in shock, and the Hollow seized the chance to latch out with its tentacles and send him flying through the air landing hard on the ground. He rolled several feet before trying to stand, dazed.
…when you most needed me….
He regained his bearing at the Hollow's roar of shock. "Shinigami!"
What? Harry looked down at his clothing - black shihakusho, shinigami sandals and zanpakuto - and at his body, several feet away, and at the charging Hollow. Bounding out of the way of its assault, he gripped the zanpakuto's hilt, determined to fight even if it only delayed the inevitable. Even if he didn't know how he knew how to fight, because it felt natural.
Would you… let me…
Harry leaped out the way again, slightly distracted by the voice in his head that sounded sad, pleading.
"Can you only dodge?" the Hollow demanded with a snarl. "Attack from the back… Like the cowards you Shinigami always are!"
Harry saw red and would have dived in wildly had it not been for the soothing "hand" he could almost feel on his shoulder.
…fight alongside you once more?
In answer, Harry gripped the hilt still tighter, knowing now who - or what, depending on your point of view - spoke to him. The words came to him as from a distant memory, near-forgotten but still vaguely known -
"Rankle the seas and heavens!" he shouted, drawing with all the speed he could muster, this time not moving as the Hollow bore down on him. "Nejibana!"
In an explosion of reiatsu the blade morphed under his fingertips, taking a form that felt so very familiar, and he sprang forward, slashing down through the bone white mask. It split cleanly, and began to break apart into a multitude of bright sparks, dissipating.
"Harry!"
Rukia…? Harry's legs gave out beneath him and he collapsed to his knees, clutching Nejibana to his chest like an old friend he'd finally been reunited with.
"Harry, are you alright?" Rukia demanded, checking him up and down for wounds.
"I'm fine." He smiled to reassure her, then focused on his body, lying prone of the other end of the park. "Only…" He paused. "How do I get back in there?"
"Merlin, Harry, it seems almost like the ghosts are afraid of you," Ron marveled, staring in fascination after where the entourage of Hogwarts ghosts had vanished through the wall after a second of wide-eyed incredulity.
And fear. They recognized the distinctive red of a Shinigami's reiraku, despite hundreds of years in the Living World past death without meeting one. It was the only excuse for their lack of color.
Harry grinned at the redhead, tipped his head to the side and adopted a nasal tone. "Of course. Because I am so utterly terrifying, ne?"
Ron snickered. "Oh Harry! I tremble before-"
The doors chose that moment to open, cutting the redhead off in mid-sentence and admitting the forbidding McGonagall. "We are ready for you," she announced. "Form a line and follow me."
While absurdly simple, forming a satisfactory line actually took several minutes. Harry ended up beside not only Ron but a tall black boy who introduced himself as Dean Thomas. Hermione Granger, the bossy girl from the train, was a few places in front of both Ron and Harry.
McGonagall led them out of the antechamber and into the Great Hall, where the rest of the school was congregated. There were five long tables, four nearly filled with students and overhung with their respective House banners. The fifth, the staff table, was slightly elevated and perpendicular to the other four, and all but two of the seats were filled.
As Harry watched, Hagrid crept around back and sat in one of the available seats, impressing him slightly; for his size, he could be sneaky.
McGonagall stopped in front of the staff table, beside a three-legged stool and an old wizard's hat, and the hall grew quiet. Most of the students seemed to be staring at the hat for some reason, so Harry did too, and could not prevent his jaw from dropping almost to the floor when a rip opened near the brim and the hat began to sing:
"Oh, you may not think I'm pretty, but don't judge on what you see! I'll eat myself if you can find a smarter hat than me!"
Harry, trying to adjust to the idea of a singing hat, missed most of the song, but got the gist of the houses: Gryffindor the bold, Ravenclaw the brainy, Hufflepuff the loyal, and Slytherin the "cunning folk use any means to achieve their ends."
If that didn't fit Ichimaru Gin, Harry didn't know what did. Ironic that the symbol of Slytherin House was a serpent.
Harry paused, frowning, as McGonagall explained that they were to come forward when their name was called to be sorted. Just who was "Ichimaru"?
"Abbott, Hannah!"
"HUFFLEPUFF!"
"Bones, Susan!"
"HUFFLEPUFF!"
Harry sighed. "This is going to take forever," he whined.
Yeah," muttered Ron unhappily. "And I'm starving." As if to punctuate his statement, the redhead's stomach chose that moment to growl and he blushed.
"Brown, Lavender" went to Gryffindor after several minutes' deliberation, and Harry sighed a second time before closing his eyes and attempting to recall his list of kido.
Let's see… The first bakudo is Sai… and the incantation…
Harry's zoning out was missed by Ron, who watched in boredom, applauding half-heartedly when Gryffindor was called out. Only when "Granger, Hermione!" was called out did he perk up in slight interest, jabbing Harry in the ribs.
"I hope whatever House I'm in, she isn't," he muttered, as the bushy-brown head dashed up to the stool and eagerly jammed the hat down on her head.
After a moment's deliberation, the brim opened, and "GRYFFINDOR!" echoed through the hall.
Ron groaned, and Harry hid a grin.
The ninth bakudo: Geki. It had something to do with dogs of Rondanini… whatever that is….
"Greengrass, Daphne!"
Wait, I remember! "Disintegrate, you black dog of Rondanini! Look upon yourself with horror and then claw out your own throat!"
"SLYTHERIN!"
And so he zoned out again.
The names flew by. Longbottom, the boy who had lost his toad; MacDougal; Macmillan; Moon; and two twins Patil. Ron elbowed him after "Preks, Sally-Anne," realizing he wasn't paying attention, and he came to just in time for "Potter, Harry!"
As he stepped out of line, the hall broke out in whispers.
"Did she just say Harry Potter?"
"The Harry Potter?"
"The Boy Who Lived? He's at Hogwarts?"
Harry ignored them, strolling up to the stool as if he hadn't a care in the world but inexplicably nervous. Perhaps it wasn't so inexplicable; after all, this ancient, dirty old hat would decide his fate for the next seven years. Seven years of a person's greatest development, if Rukia's lessons were to be believed.
He sat down on the stool, and the last thing he saw before the blackness of the hat was the hall full of students craning to get a good look at him.
"Interesting," a voice said in his ear, sounding muffled. "But it will be hard to sort you with your protections forcing me out."
Protections?
If this sorting requires invasion, then it can be done without.
Harry blinked as the usually warm voice of Nejibana sounded out in his mind, chill and tight with anger. Anger on his behalf, he recognized, though still surprised that she had gotten so upset. She was remarkably calm, even in situations that made him want to throw caution to the winds and attack indiscriminately.
"A second?" The hat sounded surprised, and understandably so, but shook it off with the ease that he supposed came from a thousand years of eleven-year-old minds. "Sadly, it is necessary. I cannot do my job if I cannot read the student's attributes."
And what is done with the knowledge you gain from the students' minds?
The hat was silent, and Harry's eyes widened, a flame of anger lighting in his chest. His anger seemed to trigger Nejibana's calm, and the normal level tone replaced the chill one, though it was still tight.
Go ahead. Sort him. But if any harm comes from what knowledge I allow you to gain, or any knowledge of me slips past your brim, I will not be the one to calm either Harry or his friends.
The hat was obviously intimidated, and the searching feeling was hesitant. "Plenty of courage here, plenty of loyalty. A brilliant mind when you feel the need to put your mind to it, but without the motivation to use it unless those you would protect are threatened. You're no Slytherin, that's for sure."
He'd never gotten along with Ichimaru anyway. Now if only he could figure out who Ichimaru was.
"You'd make a decent Ravenclaw, but you're not really into learning for learning's sake. You have to have a reason. That one's out. Hmm…"
This was weird. Of all the things he'd expected from he got his letter to wizarding school, it hadn't been to get a psychological examination from a talking hat.
"Hufflepuff's a possibility, but you'd prefer to lead rather than follow. Therefore, you'd be best in GRYFFINDOR!"
He heard the hat shout out the last word to the Hall, and it was pulled from his head, allowing him fresh air again. Shakily (as he was still fuming), he walked over the leftmost table, hardly realizing he was getting the loudest cheer yet, with Percy Weasley actually standing up to shake his had and the Weasley twins Fred and George chanting, "We got Potter! We got Potter!"
Despite this, he still had enough presence of mind to sit down beside the ghost floating at the Gryffindor table.
Rukia told him not to act on his own against the demi-Hollow Voldemort.
Harry acted anyway.
Part of him felt guilty that ignoring Rukia's directions had resulted in Ron being deck by a giant stone chess piece and Hermione… well, she was okay, even if Harry was dead certain he would have a lot of explaining to do once he got out of here. Perhaps it hadn't been a good idea to use the Shakkaho to drive off the Devil's Snare…
He really didn't want to take his body into a fight - there was the possibility that it might be damaged by the spells Quirrell would doubtless use. On the other hand, he couldn't not take it, because Snape's black fire might harm spiritual entities, and even if it didn't he didn't want Dumbledore mistaking him as dead by seeing it.
Well, if all else fails I might be able to get a gigai….
He swirled around the liquid in the glass, before tipping his head back and downing it in one gulp. Hermione had been right, it did feel like ice.
"Here I come…." He stepped forward into the flickering black.
Surrounded on all sides by flames, it was like in a different world. Sound was muffled, the floor had virtually disappeared, and he felt nothing, like swimming through air, only he wasn't certain he actually was moving. The air on the other side was a blessing.
Quirrell stood with his back to Harry, staring into a tall, claw-footed mirror, blazoned with the carven words across the top: erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi.
The Mirror of Erised, he recognized, remembering his meeting with it and his own desire. Shaking himself out of his stupor, he painstakingly forced his spiritual body out of his physical body, and lunged, ripping Nejibana from her sheath.
"Move you fool!"
Quirrell leapt to the side, whirling around and drawing his wand as he did so. "Master, what-?"
"Hado, the fourth: Byakurai!"
"Protego!"
The concentrated white lightning destroyed the magic shield but dissipated, power spent.
Instead of returning a spell, Quirrell looked around aimlessly, squinting at the approximate area Harry stood. "Master, what is-"
"A Death God…," was the answer that came from what must have been Voldemort, before an explosion of Hollow reiatsu knocked Harry backwards into a pillar.
"Potter...?" Quirrell breathed, eyes fixing onto his spiritual form at last.
Harry's eyes narrowed. Surprise was not on his side and power… Quirrell could only use so much Hollow reiatsu before it killed him, and it was twisting and warping his body already. Neither did he seem to know how to use the reiatsu in any manner.
He doubted he could finish Voldemort. Wound him, maybe, but at this point, the demi-Hollow was too strong. But he could get rid of the vessel, and this was the key moment. With Voldemort lending Quirrell his reiatsu, Quirrell's death and passing would weaken him severely.
"Rankle the seas and heavens, Nejibana," he murmured.
"Attack! Now!"
Despite Voldemort's order, Quirrell merely stood slack-jawed as the flare of clear blue reiatsu revealed the sword had transformed. Four foot long, the weapon was half hilt and half blade, like some demented halberd; down the hilt were delicate vines, twisted around and around until they found his arm and looped the wrist and forearm loosely. Harry adjusted his grip to get a better hold, leaving his other hand free incase he decided to use kido.
He smirked. "Let's dance."
Quirrell made the first move, backing away, slashing his wand in an arc. "Acidis!"
Harry ducked to the ground and rolled under the curse, and fired a second Byakurai in the direction Quirrell had began to dodge. The professor skidded, trying to reverse his momentum but losing his balance in the process.
"Bakudo, the ninth: Geki!"
Quirrell froze in regaining his equilibrium, surrounded by a nimbus of red. As Nejibana came down with all the force Harry could muster with one arm, a second eruption of reiatsu left Quirrell with the zanpaku-to halfway through him and Harry several feet away.
And Voldemort….
…was fleeing.
Harry wouldn't be able to get to Nejibana and to the demi-Hollow in time, not unless he could use shunpo (which he couldn't). But he'd be damned if he let Voldemort get away unharmed.
With a snarl, Harry raised his empty hand, and called out, speaking quickly: "Sprinkled on the bones of the beast! Sharp tower, red crystal, steel ring. Move and become the wind, stop and become the calm! The sound of warring spears the empty castle! Hado, the sixty-third: Raikoho!"
The mass of yellow concentrated so thickly on Harry's hand it burned, then rocketed outward at the retreating Voldemort. Grinning fiercely at the howl of pain and rage the demi-Hollow emitted, he struggled to his feet, stumbled over to what was left of Quirrell, and pulled Nejibana free.
Panting over to his prone body, Harry noticed two approaching spiritual pressures. One was Dumbledore, and the other….
He groaned. Rukia will going to kill him. Maybe overloading that Raikoho hadn't been as good an idea as he'd originally thought….
Exhausted, he fell back into his body unceremoniously, and out of consciousness, thinking that at least he would have a few days of reprieve before Rukia's lecture.
END
And hereby I return to the land of mono-fandom writing. I'm sure everyone will be relieved.
For those who wondered why a vice captain couldn't take out Quirrell at least more easily, remember that Harry is only eleven, and it's not like he really remembers much. Quite frankly, I think I may have overdid it with that Raikoho. Kaien wasn't really a kido person in my opinion either, or he'd have managed to kill that Hollow even without his zanpakuto.