Good morning, afternoon and evening to all you beautiful guys and dolls, I'm back with an update for this story. I felt it best to leave it for a month or so and see how the story was received and it seems to be going well so far.

There's obviously going to be timeskips in this story as I don't fancy chronicalling the whole upbringing of young Ichigo. I'll explain things later on because I'm not gonna spoil the story in the authors notes like Jesus cheeky swine's.

Anyway, on to the story.

Disclaimer: I own none of Bleach, nor do I own the real teams or players in this story.

June 15th 2008

Light shone over the town, illuminating it with the glow of the sun shining most importantly in this instance on a patch of green in a city of grey. Two posts stood opposing each other looking either way at the ends of the park, and at the entrance was a figure in shorts and a hoodie, bag clasped in his right hand surveying the area.

"Hmm, everyone must still be asleep" the male voice spoke

It looked around 8 o'clock, the field was dry due to the lack of rain recently and the pitch was clear, well what did he expect it was early and most kids were still in bed due to the fact it was a Sunday, but he knew he wasn't like the other boys, not as incredibly academic as the rest of them, not to say of course that he wasn't smart. He was near the top 5% of his class but he didn't believe he was that smart, he didn't work for any tests and just sat them. No, he believed that he was destined for greatness in a vastly different area to the bookworms at school. He was athletic. He was fast. And he couldn't half play football

The sun was high in the air and heating the air from the relatively cold night. It was summer now, he was almost 11, he'd decided long ago this was the path he wanted to go down and believed that this was the right choice more in the last few years than he ever had beforehand. The 5'1 boy walked from the edge of the large park, traffic non existent, he flung his bag against the post and opened it. From the bag he removed a ball, some cones and a bottle of water, taking a sip form the bottle before taking down the hood that covered his face and head.

From under it the face of Ichigo Kurosaki peered, open to the elements for the first time since he had left his house in the suburbs of the city almost an hour ago. Sure their were paces to train closer to home, but they were further away from his friends and he'd rather he had to walk to get to them, than they have to walk all the way out to him.

He set up the ball outside of the box and looked at the net, he took a short run up and shot only to see the ball go flying to the left of the post. Letting out a huff before going to collect the ball and set it up again Ichigo shot again this time the ball not leaving the floor and trickling into the net at a snails pace. Groaning again, Ichigo looked at the ball resting in the net.

"Perhaps it's probably best to stretch and warm up first" he got out disgruntled.

As the boy stretched he looked at the time, about 10 past 8 now, so he had around another two hours before the rest turned up. Yeah he turned up two hours before everyone else, he believed that the more he practiced and tried the closer he could get to his dads level and potentially get scouted by some club in Japan for their youth system, the only issue was he didn't play for a u12's team like other kids, mainly due to the stigma he received for having his father's name.

Isshin had eventually been cleared of having involvement in the matchfixing as were most of the team, but the head of the world governing body FIFA Yamamoto-san had upheld the bans on Urahara and tsukabishi as there needed to be someone held accountable and Urahara and Tessai had been more than willing to be the scapegoats instead of the rest of the team. Isshin had been resigned by Dortmund soon after he was cleared and had linked up dangerously with Tomas Rosicky in the attacking half of the field and had been linked with the assistant job with Jurgen Klopp coming in in the summer and Isshin teetering on the brink of his career. Masaki had once again become a team doctor and was working with Leeds in the English second division, two below the premier league, even if Isshin hounded her to try and join him at Dortmund yet she believed he would only get in the way of her job with his childish antics. The family still met up during the close season and international breaks, with the twins living with Masaki and Isshin choosing to live in Dortmund and live with his close friend and colleague Shunsuke Nakamura who had also been cleared of his part in the scandal and had a transfer from Celtic in the Scottish league to Dortmund for the final years of his career.

Ichigo, however wanted to stay in Japan with his friends and had been allowed to do so under his guardian, Tia hallibel. The woman had become a sort of second mother after her retirement from the game in the wake of the whole scandal involving Ichigo's father and even chose to return her name back to it's original, being sick of writing out Odelschwanck when Hallibel was more natural she felt it'd make he lover smile down at her for getting flustered at such a small thing. Nel was something of a little sister and Tatsuki was his closest friend, coupled with new people he had met, including but not limited to the tall and intimidating, yet gentle, Yasutora Sado or Chad as Ichigo took to calling him alongside Orihime Inoue who Ichigo had met through Tatsuki, the two were friends but no matter how hard Ichigo acted like he was as dense as a rock he could see that the red haired girl harboured feelings for Ichigo, tatsuki however tried to stop Orihime from ever admitting this due to the fact that she could tell Ichigo did not share her feelings. The group also included Ichigo's cousin Uryu who had joined the group after his grandfather revealed that he had won the world cup with Germany in 1954 when it was still all men and Ryuken, Uryu's father had done the same in 1993 in one of the first Jules Rimet cups and believed he should cap the lot off and took it as his blood sworn duty to do so.

It'd be another hour yet before the group arrived so the young boy decided it best to do some laps of the park until he either couldn't run anymore or the rest of the group turned up.

As Ichigo started to run he began to daydream thinking about a universe of possibility's of what could happen at any given moment, he thought about the future, about him winning the cup with Japan and giving his medal to his goofy dad and seeing the grown man cry. He dreamed of playing alongside all of his friends and them dominating the world at a club level. He then saw a little version of himself and abruptly came to a halt.

Why was he thinking about a child? I mean he was still only 11, even if he always said he was closer to 12 most of the time he didn't want to think about that sort of thing, or girls either for that matter given that he had no romantic interests in his mind, even if Orihime did in hers.

He picked up his pace again this time thinking on news and the growth of the two future starts of football in a young Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi. The two were unparalled in their abilities even if the two were barely in to their 20's, coupled with the rise of the biggest female footballer of the current era in Sui-feng. The girl had appeared from relative nothingness as china's first major female footballer having been found by the former female footballer of the Yourichi. The Brazilian was the first major female signing of the galactico era at Real Madrid joining for shave under 37 million pounds back in 2002, after helping Brazil win the Jules Rimet in 1999 alongside the best Brazil team since Pele had graced the game. However her work ethical was a step above awful and after her team fell apart at the 2005 Rimet cup she retired much like Tier had, yet she went scouting for the next big player and her prodigy was Sui-feng. She got her a contract with Sao Paolo in Brazil and let her earn a relatively quick transfer to Barcelona for £4 million a year later, now forming a deadly partner ship with Henry and Messi in la liga and in Europe no worth ten times what Barca had paid for the 19 year old the year previous.

It was at this point that Ichigo went tumbling over an object that had not been there the last 30 times he had rounded the field, yet this one was particularly strange because he could swear he could make out the silhouette of his closest friend and the pressure on his back only seemed to further that interpretation of his current situation.

"Wakey wakey Captain Daydream we've been sat here ten minutes watching you do laps with your eyes glazed over, completely impervious to outside influences so I decided to get to you the only way I know how." The voice of Tatsuki spoke, even if Ichigo couldn't see her from his position face down in the dirt he would have known that none of his other friends would do that to him, so he was ever being attacked for hi hair colour again of Tatsuki had sent him rolling...Unfortunately it was the latter of the two.

"Yeah tats I know, now can you let me see who's here." Ichigo requested, and the removal of the pressure on his back meant that Tatsuki had accepted, although begrudgingly knowing her.

As Ichigo got to his feet he noticed that everyone was there, even Orihime despite the fact she was more adept at being a doctor than actually playing. It's what she specialised in, and only really played so the team looked more complete and gave more of a game like atmosphere. The teal haired girl that stood amongst the group had come along leaps and bounds since playing with Ichigo after the final of the cup. She had been honed into a deadly striker with the ability to know when to shoot and when to pass and look for another option that many pro's lacked.

Chad, had offered to be the groups goalkeeper, obviously aided by his giant stature and his relative quickness for a big man and was a test to get around for anyone be them par of the little group or anyone that challenged them to a spontaneous game in the middle of training. Uryu was a masterful creative player being able to see passes that the likes of Pirlo would be proud of, with as good a accuracy from a dead ball situation as the midfield maestro. Tatsuki was perhaps the most unsurprising of the lot. She was the centre back, and she was as hard as nails and as likely to get the ball in a tackle as she was to annihilate you in the process which happened a lot. Her ferocity was only matched by her loyalty and love of her friends, willing to beat the living crap out a 16 year old who tried to make moves on Orihime.

"Right guys have you all warmed up?" Ichigo asked the group, receiving a unanimous nod of the heads from them."Right then I want you all to start passing the ball between you all with Tatsuki trying to win the ball from you, this should help you all with your passing and speed to find said pass, and will also help Tats with her tackling and interceptions. Ready? Go." With that the group took up their positions on the field and Tatsuki reached to touch her feet and stretch, when Ichigo crouched down besides her.

"Don't go hell for leather here Tats, I don't want you hurting anyone yeah?" He looked at her whilst she was still pretty occupied with the floor, she looked at the person who she saw as her brother and let out a small smirk.

"Fine then, but you're telling me what you were so concerned with whilst you were running because you stopped for a moment, I saw that I got here about half an hour after you did. You looked mortified so were talking after practice." Ichigo only returned the same smirk Tatsuki gave him before running to the others.

The fifteen minutes that followed we're a good training exercise, for everyone except Ichigo. See when Ichigo said not to hurt anyone, Tatsuki perceived that as you can still try and kill Ichigo just not everyone else. He wasn't the teams best player for no reason though, many no look passes and flicks over the raging centre-half led to her building up all her adrenaline and accidently going in on Chad in a challenge, toppling the giant.

"Oh my God Chad I'm so sorry!" Tatsuki pleaded with the gentle giant begging for his forgiveness only for the large boy to send a thumbs up her way before saying.

"Well done you got the ball, you'd have scored from that it of you were actually challenging the keeper, just make sure you stop people doing it to me in a game yeah?" He concluded smirking before rising to his feet. Following this the group began doing physical training involving running and improving the groups agility, concluding with the group having shooting practice against Chad. During a quick interval for a water break Nel walked over to Ichigo as he sat by the post.

"You know my mum doesn't like you leaving so early Ichigo, I understand you're still annoyed that Isshin and Masaki-san are still in Europe but you almost gave her a heart attack when you disappeared this morning. Imagine how id feel if you just vanished one day, you're my best friend Ichigo and I'm worried that something might happen to you one day" tears were in Nel's eyes by this stage, she loved Ichigo but she was a damn sight better at concealing it than Orihime was, but Tatsuki saw it and noticed that Nel had feelings for The orange haired prodigy of the game.

She had confronted the teal haired beauty about the boy in question and she had not denied it, the three of them had been friends since that day in the park, and with Tatsuki pretty certain that her best male friend wasn't really her type she had no issue with Nel potentially pursuing a relationship with their friend when they were older, as if they started dating now they would inevitably separate and in turn separate the group, plus with the red headed bombshell lurking around Nel had to be careful to keep her feelings to herself about Ichigo, until they were both old enough to have a serious relationship.

As the group got up to keep training a new figure walked to the group. She was female, that was certain, but she had sunglasses blocking out her face, alongside rather casual attire including a blue hoodie, black jeans and some white vans (Don't even fucking dare say damn daniel) and a white hat with a purple Y on it hat keeping the majority of her hair in side, bar a few purple strands that dared to poke out form underneath. The youngsters looked in awe, half unsure of what they were looking at, whereas Ichigo, Tatsuki and Nel had all seen this person before and despite the woman's best attempts to hide her appearance, the brown sin, coupled with the purple hair and logo adorning her hat were dead give aways.

"So you lot" she spoke, a single tooth poking out of her relatively small mouth."I've ben watching you all train fro the last few weeks and I must say that you all have decent ability, except, unfortunately for the redhead over there." She pointed at Orihime as the girl in question looked down at the suddenly rather interesting floor. "But I don't doubt you all already know that, you see my name is -"

"Yoruichi, we know you're the most expensive female transfer of all time." Nel finished for the big breasted woman, who retorted with only a smirk.

"Wow a fanbase all the way out here, who'd have thunk it hmm?" She smiled at the group "I also know who at least three of you are, the children of Isshin Kurosaki, Tier Hallibel and Ryuken Ishida all friends who'd have thought it? All friends and all very good at their parents sports." She turned to the other three present. "You lot however I have no idea about, may I be so bold as to ask your names?" She requested of the three she was not familiar with pointing first at the giant with the goalkeeping gloves.

"Yasutora Sado, but I go by Chad." He answered short and snappy.

"Ah short nickname's very Brazilian of you " she giggled before pointing at the redhead she had insulted earlier.

"O-Orihime I-I-Inoue" she forced out

"Don't worry young one, everyone excels in something others do not, you just drew the short straw." She rustled the girls hair, before turning to an enraged Tatsuki, who had been seething with rage since the woman had first had a dig at her friend.

"Tatsuki Arisawa, and I don't care who you are you do not talk to our friends like that!" She yelled, face red with rage.

tt,"Tatsuki Arisawa, and I don't care who you are you do not talk to our friends like that!" She yelled, face red with rage.

Ichigo motioned to get in between the two, before the older woman placed a hand on his shoulder. He looked up at the older woman only for her to shake her head at him.

"Don't worry Ichigo I have a solution to your little friends problem." She lightly motioned for Ichigo to move out of the way of the pair. "Now Miss Arisawa I'll make you a wager, I'll take back my comment on your friend if you can tackle me before 5 minutes is up." Tatsuki smirked at the proposition, the possibility to annihilate the woman was too much to turn down, she walked to the ball and passed it to the woman expecting the whole affair to be astoundingly easy. Yoruichi was known for being lazy and was past her prime, tatsuki on the other hand was raring to go and filled with the energy of youth.

As yoruichi received the ball she just placed it under her foot and beckoned for the girl to get her. Tatsuki responded whole heartedly, rushing the former galactico and sliding in for a challenge...Only for yoruichi to have got the ball between her ankles and leap over the outstretched legs of the girl, leaving her astounded by the simple elegance the woman had used to evade her.

Tatsuki turned slightly more angry than she was previous and went in for a scissor tackle on the purple haired maestro only to once again see yoruichi flicking the ball up in the air this time just with her right, and weaker foot. The ball came to a rest a top the woman's head with her balancing it in between her forehead and nose. The group just looked on amazed at what the woman could do with the ball.

"You don't become a galactico and a Rimet cup winner without being one of the best, especially as a woman in this game." The purple haired trickster spoke before letting the ball roll over her head, down her back and then trapping it in between her left calf and thigh. "Look Orihime-chan I'm sorry for what I said but unfortunately we both know that that is the case don't we?" Orihime looked down at her feet again and nodded to the purple haired woman, only for her to place her hand on the young girls chin and lift it up to stare the girl in the eye's.

"Don't worry little one, Ichigo's mother was initially trying to become a footballer as well, if what Ichigo's dad tells me is right and she decided that since she knew she wouldn't make the cut that she'd instead become a team doctor." Seeing the shocked looks on the orange haired, unofficial leader of the little group, Yoruichi then remembered that she hasn't totally explained why or even how she had found the little group of what were merely children considering that they hadn't been previously scouted and didn't play for a club so their coach couldn't vouch for them.

"Oh, Isshin told me about you when we were at a club in Berlin, weird night, lots of crossdressers and the such, probably why Berlin has such good nightlife. Anyway I'm getting sidetracked here, what I'm trying to say is I could get you contracts with a club at the click of my fingers." As if to further illustrate her point, the purple haired woman clicked hers. "Now I already have permission from all of your parents to go and talk to clubs about you all but I won't get you one at a team where you've got no chance of playing so they'll be relatively small when compared to most teams. The only question that remains is which team to talk to. " the brown skinned woman tapped her cheek as if pondering what Ichigo would call a relatively easy decision.

He was either picking his fathers Dortmund with its already rather large Japanese youth system and fan base. Or to go with his mother's Leeds United who, although in a lower league, would have can higher probability of playing the youngsters due to Its famed youth system that had brought along many great products over the years. But it also involved choosing one parent over the other.

If he chose his dad then he'd have the tutelage of a great and would feel more at home on the pitch, yet he wouldn't feel that family environment due to his father's living arrangements, not that he didn't like Nakamura-san it was just that he wouldn't be the family he'd need so far from home . But if he chose his mother then he may not have the guidance of his father on the pitch but he'd have a much better atmosphere away from the pitch, especially with being half way across the world and away from what he would call home with having his mother and twin sisters there.

For Ichigo though one of those stood head and shoulders above the rest.

"Leeds...I'd like for you to talk to Leeds." he answered clear as crystal before turning to the rest of the group for their input.

He received; a nod from Nel, a smirk from Tatsuki, a thumbs up from Chad, an affirmative grunt from Uryu and Orhime's frantic nodding, before he turned back to the purple haired ex-pro.

"we'd like for you to speak to Leeds please." He smiled as he finished, they had all understood his choice, and although some may have preferred to go to the countries they would represent at international level, such as Chad and Mexico as well as Uryu and Germany they sided with him because he was their leader and because they knew what this opportunity meant for him, hell for all of them and that being with his mother would help him astronomically in keeping on the right track as most young footballers struggled to do. Plus a happy Ichigo meant a happy group. Yoruichi returned the boys smile tenfold.

"Already done, remember I've spoken to everyone here's parents about the whole thing and they are all on board with the team I chose for you, even if some parents took more convincing than others." With this she looked at Uryu, it had been no secret that his father was against the idea of him becoming a footballer and even more so against the idea of him playing for the same nation he had done long before uryu was even born. Thou he had no issue with the boy training when he saw the commitment that he had to the game and, in turn, to his friends.

"I'd already picked Leeds anyway, more chance of getting in the team this way, plus it has a very well revered youth academy so the raining should be adequate to your needs." The purple haired woman finished before walking over to the ball and flicking it up in the air, before kicking the ball over her head and in to the back of the goal from just outside the box. "But remember the better you play, the more chance there is of big teams coming calling for you." She started to walk away placing her hat back on her head that had fallen from its perch atop her head after the overhead kick.

"I've made arrangements for you to all get to London from there you'll get a flight to Leeds-Bradford after that Ichigo's mother will pick you up and take you to the training ground to meet the youth team coach. I'd recomend going home and saying your goodbye's, your flights leave tomorrow evening afterall."

So what did you all think, I liked writing this it seems to flow more than a long forgotten king and that makes it so much easier to get ideas for.

No idea when I'll next post a chapter though as it's now the run to exams so I'm gonna need to finish my coursework for history

So expect updates to be slower than normal... If that is even possible.

See you round family x