Disc: Bleach is the intellectual property of Tite Kubo.

"Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind."
-John F. Kennedy

Bleach: Spirit Eater

Part 1- Unforgiven

He had become a Shinigami, a God of Death.

He had fought a hundred battles against ruthless enemies beyond anything most humans dreamt of, and won most of them.

But still, Ichigo Kurosaki felt more than a few jitters as he stepped out onto the staid stone platform of the 'Old' Karakura station.

Flanking the single track on both sides, the place's iron framework spoke of times gone by. Trains were few and far between; Karakura Town was no great hub of commerce. Its biggest factor would be lost on the living- a high concentration of spirit energy, or 'Reiatsu' to go with its far higher-than-average concentration of ghosts... and to go with that, a higher-than-average population of their evil inverse, the Hollows.

Brushing his orange top back, the teen did not sense any Hollows at all right now. A welcome time of peace had descended on his home town for the moment, or perhaps even they had sleeping patterns. This early in the day only a handful of people were at the platform, most of them commuters trying to get out to some other city with more jobs.

And that was to his regret, for he had only just bought his own ticket and stepped through the turnstile when a familiar voice called to him: "Kurosaki-kun!"

He could see her waving from there, long hair nearly same shade of orange as his own, and a mauve T-shirt that did little to hide a 'pronounced' chest. Beside her was a hulking teen with a mop of dark brown hair across his wary eyes and toned skin suggesting Spanish ancestry somewhere along his line.

Damn. Not for the first time he found himself torn between annoyance and admiration for his friends. On one hand, this was something he'd wanted to do alone from the start. On the other, how dedicated did they have to be to get up this early and follow him to the station? "You guys..."

"You cannot go alone", the brown-haired teen spoke as they also stepped across the 'stile, sounding strangely intense compared to his usual. "This is a big problem. Isn't it, Ichigo?"

"That's right, Chad", he admitted, calmly fishing out the money to pay for two more tickets. His family's clinic didn't exactly pay huge, but his lifestyle wasn't expensive- he'd saved up allowance money until something like this happened. "I wouldn't go running off to Naruki City like this if it wasn't important."

"Without us?", Orihime Inoue asked, sounding hurt in that special way that may have been the only way to make him regret his decision. "Tatsuki-chan's our friend too! That's what this is about, isn't it? She wasn't in school for three whole days! So I went over to her house and no one was there. Then I checked her fridge, and it was full of uneaten food! So?"

"That's exactly right", he sighed. "Geez... I can't hide anything from you, can I?"

"You should not have to, Ichigo", Chad insisted, stretching one beefy arm in support, the arm that in battle would be cowled in a powerful gauntlet. "We are friends. You should not hide this from us. You say it's a big problem? Then let us help."

"Alright", he threw up his hands in surrender. To his left, the warning whistle of the train drew everyone's heads for a moment. "I guess I should start from the top. Because it's my fault that Tatsuki's disappeared."

"From the top", Sado 'Chad' Yasutora nodded in the morning sunlight once they had settled into a car, and everyone- everyone being Orihime for now- had ordered a large breakfast. "What makes you say it is your fault?"

Ichigo palmed his hair again, and both his friends exchanged alarmed looks, both beginning to realize that this was much more than just their friend's usual resistance to talking about things that were bugging him.

"It's been coming down for a while now. I just didn't want to face it. Ever since we started making up excuses for when we had to go defeat a Hollow or something like that, Tatsuki knew something was up. Time after time she asked me to tell her what the hell was going on, to let her help..." He broke off sardonically, watching the eyes of his friends for recognition. "But I didn't."

This wasn't news to them. All three remembered well the fiery, marine blue-haired girl who had played the unofficial 'anti-bully' of Karakura High whenever Ichigo wasn't around, even if only he had known her since preschool. They had all seen how frustrated and broken-up she had been whenever they ran off to deal with some Shinigami-related crisis, without telling anyone why.

"Tatsuki was sad", Chad noted dourly, perhaps regretting not telling her himself.

"But didn't she figure it out?", Orihime asked. "Don Kanonji told me about that 'Karaku-Raiser Team' that she was part of..."

"Kanonji-san told her", Ichigo explained, remember his last conversation with the 'spirit medium'. "A total stranger treated her with more trust and respect than we did. After that... she just stopped asking. In fact, she barely even spoke to me after that. I wanted to try and apologize to her, but I..."

They both understood at once. No matter how powerful their friend became, human nature was human nature- it was like walking through burning coals to approach a friend and ask forgiveness, whether you were a guy or a girl, a human or Shinigami.

"And then Tatsuki-chan disappeared", Orihime picked up. "With no sign of where she went?"

"One sign. She has relatives living in Naruki."

The two mulled that over. Neither needed to point out how thin a lead it was. "And you didn't ask anyone else for help? Come on."

"We don't know if it's something related to Hollows or Shinigami", he pointed out. "She might have just run away from home- she did that one time. Almost got across the town border too. There's only one person outside of Karakura Town who's close enough to take her in." Reaching into his considerably lighter wallet, he produced a low-quality photo of a balding man with a crisp silver mustache and a large chin. He shared the same sharp eyes as Tatsuki though. "Matoba Arisawa, her uncle."

"Looks friendly", Orihime offered tenderly. They all shared the same suspicion that this man would have something to do with it. "What's he do? Is he a chef? Is he a mail man? A mechanic? A TV Star? A-"

"He's a doctor", he cut her off before she could go on to list her other favourite careers. "Or was. He's semi-retired now, just sits around his home in the Bashi district."

"Don't, Ichigo", Chad looked at him. "You want to confront him about this. You are still angry. You'll smash Dr. Arisawa's door down, yell your questions in his face, and get nowhere."

He wished he could have laughed at that crazy picture. Were the situation not pressing down on him like a great anvil, he would have laughed. "What makes you think that?"

"Because", his friend said simply. "I have the same desire."

Orihime Inoue hated silent tension, particularly between friends. Desperate to break it, she threw one hand up. "Uhmmm. I still have some tasty apple cinnamon cakes here Kurosaki-kun, would you like to have...?"

"You can't take this on yourself, Ichigo", Chad cut in. "The people who took Tatsuki are the ones to blame. Not you."

"Yeah", he scratched his hair absently. "I guess you're right. Let's get them. Together."

The first jolt threw Ichigo from his seat, spilling apple cakes everywhere along with everyone's bags. It had come so suddenly and so strong he doubted even his Shinigami reflexes could have saved him. On that note, he reaching into his pocket for the special badge that was the key to those powers- looking for it in combat and coming up empty would be as embarrassing as it would be fatal.

Craning his neck, he realized the car had been tilted at an angle. Everyone was in a panic about the sudden jolt that had brought the train to a halt, and he could see the way several of the windows had cracked from the strain. Damn... What the hell was that?

The second jolt blew the entire car wide open. It also dashed any hopes he might have had that it had been a mere accident. No- this was an attack. With the car now nearly at a 90-degree twist, he made sure to clutch his Shinigami badge before leaping up through the shattered window above. For the first time in a while he felt the strange tingling that meant his soul was leaving his body behind in the car, where hopefully Orihime and Chad could keep anyone from freaking out over it.

Actually... That had been more than a little odd that he hadn't felt anything at all. Any Shinigami or Hollow could assault the train like this, but with both of those he would at least feel the surge of spiritual energy before it hit them. He hadn't felt a thing. None of them had.

There was no time to dwell on it now. His target was before him. The culprit was a young man with dusty hide garments that fit much better in the deserted countryside than Ichigo's own black Shinigami coat; leggings and a zipper jacket connected by shades of teal. Skin the same approximate shade as Chad's made his braided white hair stand out even more than normal. The man's eyes, however, would never be seen on his friend Sado, so sharp and cruel were they.

"Damn", the attacker surmised in an Osakan dialect. "Off by only one. Not my lucky day. Zatsua's gonna have my head for this."

"Shut up!", the Shinigami barked from the dislodged car, already irked by the man's callousness. He did not need to look to the train car which had actually been hit to sense the damage- there were a half dozen souls in the smoking wreckage ahead of them that were already going from fear to acceptance to quiet to nothingness. "You killed those people just to get us?"

The attacker shrugged at the damage- none of the cars had escaped unscathed. "One in six. A bet worth taking, I'd say. It'll save my friends a lot of stress down the line. Thanks for coming out of there, by the way. Makes things easier."

"Yeah right", he scowled, already grasping Zangetsu's bandaged hilt. "For you and every other pathetic punk who picks on the weak. What the hell are you anyway? Arrancar? A Bount?"

The thug only looked more amused. "Not much use in tellin' someone who's gonna be dead soon, odds are." Grasping his right arm with his left, he spread that dusty palm before Ichigo as delicately as a sword master's own weapon. "Here... This is what I am."

Fire swept out from the palm, too fast to dodge and too hot to be anything but Hell's own.

A/N: I suppose I should outline the history of this for anyone who cares. A few months ago I tried my first multi-chapter Bleach fiction, Bleach Millenium, dealing with a future Soul Society and a war between two factions of it. It was also my first attempt at including reviewer-submitted OCs but lack of interest and submissions has led me to delete it and replace with this one. It is closer to home so to speak, using the original characters though I might be able to use a few submissions yet for both good and evil characters.

The same ideas and themes I had planned for Millenium will appear here. As such, the JFK quote I put at the top might not seem to have any connection to the story yet, but that will change as things get crazier and the new enemy is revealed. Hope you enjoy!