Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach or Star Wars, they belong to their respective owners. I make no money from this story.

AN: Lately I took a good look at all my stories and decided that my fist Fanficiton work needs a serious rewrite. Here is the result.

PS: I need a beta for this story!

Chapter 1 : Awakening

=KoSS=

It is a familiar story, the tale of Kurosaki Ichigo. A mortal with unexpected heritage. One who would have gained and inner hollow while awakening his Shinigami powers within the Shattered Shaft. In that reality he would have awoken his Zanpakuto, named Zangetsu shortly thereafter. However, that is in another timestream. Another universe altogether. Because, Kurosaki Ichigo in this dimension is different, though no one, even himself knows it. Though the orange haired teen at least suspects it.

To quote said teen:

"I'm Kurosaki Ichigo. Age fifteen. A High School student in Karakura High. I can also see ghosts... and dream of other worlds..."

Ever since his mother was murdered by a hollow in front of his eyes, something within Ichigo changed. Perhaps it was an unexpected side effect of his unusual heritage. Or something else, unforeseen. But ever since that day, he would occasionally dream of distant stars, of impossible worlds and people... Of wonders and horrors beyond belief... Yet, those half-forgoten dreams would feel as real as his memories from the previous day.

Until he attempts to awaken his own Shinigami powers, that would be just one amongst the many strange things surrounding Ichigo. No more important than all the rest.

That is until one day everything changed. And the fate of three dimensions would be forever sundered...

=KoSS=

Urahara's shop training area

An incorporeal being was looking at the bottom of a deep, circular hole. Within, it could clearly see a young, orange haired teen, whose hands were tied behind his back. The youth was laying on his side, his body rocked by convulsions. The shaft channelled his painted screams, which in turn echoed around the training area.

The being, which existed in a realm beyond the perceptions of humans and shinigami alike, channelled a small amount of its power, gently brushing Ichigo's Soul Chain. That was the finishing touch of a plan it had conceived millennia ago. The creature, that many would have called a god and would have been right, was doing only what it saw as it's duty. What honour demanded from it, nothing more, yet nothing less.

A thug here, a push there, a gentle slice and shove... and it was done. The last loose end was handled. If it could, the being would have let out a sight of relief. It had finally cleaned up the last piece of collateral damage from a war that lasted eons and engulfed countless dimensions and realities. It had done its duty long time ago, when it preserved the souls of the beings that became unintentional casualties of the war. Now, at last it satisfied the requirements of its honour too.

Perhaps the being didn't care about the consequences of its actions in this realm, or simply they too were tiny cogs in some kind of plan. After all, it had been an architect in a conflict where plans within plans had been dancing in an endless cycle of deception...

"And so it begins..." whispered an ancient voice.

Invisible hand brushed the soul chain of one Ichigo Kurosaki. One endless moment, which looked like it was forever frozen between the present and the future. For those who had the senses to feel it, it seemed that the multi verse itself stopped to take a deep breath.

For a single moment, an instant between what it was and what would be, Kurosaki Ichigo was whole, complete. In that eternity which lasted forever he became the Avatar of the Force, the first force sensitive being in this universe. Reality froze, shattered and rewrote itself in an instant - a mirror image of what happened to the tortured teen. The dawn of a new era was at hand...

The instant passed, time resumed its normal course. Kurosaki's soul chain, which was deteriorating way too fast, faded, its last link becoming dust.

The universe changed, though neither Ichigo nor any other being that existed within noticed. He was simply relieved. The pain - the agony which should have shattered his conscious mind and paved the way for his transformation into hollow faded away. A brief reprieve of blessed oblivion followed, before he awoke.

However, Ichigo found himself away from the accursed hole. Instead, he was laying on a cold metal floor. Kurosaki's first thought was 'Whats the number of the train that hit me?'.

He stretched slowly and looked around. The sight left his jaw hanging open. Kurosaki, the substitute Soul Reaper of Karakura town, was in an empty cavernous room. On his left the expanse was shrouded in darkness, making it impossible to judge how big it was. To his right however, he saw an awe-inspiring sight. The room on that side ended with enormous window, showing a beautiful blue sphere, which was sprinkled with green and covered with patches of white clouds.

Ichigo was looking at Earth from orbit.

"Took you long enough", a gruff male voice startled Ichigo, who jumped and turned around, ready for a confrontation. Behind him was a middle-aged, woman wearing midnight black armoured robes. The stranger was almost two meters tall, with short black hair. Her piercing grey eyes were boring straight at the young Shinigami's soul.

"We finally meet my friend", said the Echani woman.

Ichigo finally got out of his stupor and asked "Where am I?", before adding almost like an afterthought "And who are you?".

"An old and dear friend" came the answer. "As to where we are, it should be obvious. We are in your inner domain, your mind scape. At least what's left of it. I am ..."

'I couldn't hear her name' thought Ichigo. The last words of the stranger flew just out of the range of Kurosaki's hearing, making them gibberish of maddeningly familiar sounds.

"Ahh, never mind. We need to have a little chat, young man," the female waved her right hand and they were standing in a balcony over-looking a vast park.

Ichigo scowled at the stranger. "What the Hell!?" She waved him to a nearby comfortably looking armchair. It was situated on the other side of a table made of bland metal, which had two steaming cups of tea on it. "Sit and calm down. This conversation is long overdue. You may as well make yourself comfortable."

Ichigo huffed, but sat in the armchair throwing a glare at his hosts. "Hmm, some things never change." the woman looked over the trees and inhaled the scent of fresh rain and greenery coming from the various plants in the park. She quite enjoyed the scent when it mixed with the gentle aroma of the tea.

"Tell me Ichigo, what do you know about the Soul Cutters which the Shinigami use? What are they?"

The young reaper looked a bit confused at the question. The Zanpakuto were tools, right? "Weapons which purify hollows and can perform konso in order to send spirits to Soul Society" was his expected answer.

"Think!" came the curt reply from the woman across the table.

Flashback

Ichigo was back on a rain-soaked street, facing a sneering, tattooed shinigami. "You don't even know the name of your Zanpakuto!" growled the tattooed shinigami in front of him.

Flashback End

'One of the men who took Rukia had given a name to his Zanpakuto ...' Or had he? Sudden thought struck the substitute Shinigami and comprehension dawned.

"You are my Zanpakuto!" Ichigo exclaimed. The wonder in his voice was plain to hear.

"Good! I almost thought that you really had become just a loud idiot!" the woman in black remarked.

Ichigo scowled, an angry retort on the tip of his tongue, but before he was able to say a word, his Soul Cutter was in front of him. Kurosaki never saw her moving form her seat, much less placing her hand on his forehead.

"Its time to remember who you are, Ichigo!" the words were said in a sad tone.

A moment after hearing those words, Ichigo's world exploded.

Flashes of light and darkness. Shattered pieces of memories long forgotten. Fragments of a personality that was long gone... shards of a broken man. Who was Kurosaki Ichigo?

A son, a proud brother, a friend... A high school student, a Substitute Shinigami.

Protector.

All those and many more were just facets of his being. In hindsight it was obvious. He is the same man. Always the same at the core. Protector to those precious to him. A monster for those who would harm them.

A hero and a villain. The two sides of the same coin. So simple explanation, and yet complex. He was incomplete, in many ways.

There were shards of his very being absent, the lack of one of which eclipsed the rest. A large piece of his heart was missing. Not because of a physical wound or the near transformation into hollow. No. It was something else. Someone else. More important than his friends. Someone who he had failed, the same way he failed his mother.

Ichigo's thought process ground to a halt remembering Massaki's fate.

There was always a part of him that knew he should have been able to save his mother all those years ago. That even as a little kid, he had the power to protect her. That was the same part of his consciousness that Knew, he had the power to save Rukia, when those two Shinigami came to arrest her.

And the worst thing - it was not a mere denial or illusion. That power has always been part of him, yet buried deep within the depths of his soul. Dormant. Forgotten.

When it mattered the most, he was unable to access or even remember it. Even now, when he was finally face to face with his Soul Cutter - it was just out of reach, taunting him. It was a whisper, a brush of cold yet warm wind passing through his bones. That caused no mere frustration. It was maddening, enraging. He should have been able to protect them. It was his purpose, right? His thoughts were interrupted by the now a comfortingly familiar voice.

"Ichigo, I can't bring back your memories. They were burred too deep for too long. All I could do right now is to give you only glimpses of the past. However, I can help you remember who you are. Tell me this: Who is Rukia to you? A Fellow shinigami? A friend?Or..." the soul cutter trailed off. " It is always the same question when you two are concerned. What is she to you?" The last sentence was delivered with a different tone. Much softer, almost pleading. Ichigo looked lost for a moment. And then, a memory which couldn't be his, yet felt more real than almost everything else he had ever experienced, struck him like an overloaded freight train.

=KoSS=

Flashback

Time Unknown

Location Unknown

He was kneeling in a field littered with broken bodies. Twisted lumps of metal smoked where myriad of vehicles were shattered to pieces. Acrid smoke was searing his lungs, causing sporadic coughing fits. Twin suns barely broke the low cloud cover, bathing the graveyard of men and machines in ghostly haze. Thousands upon thousands of dead littered the vast valley.

And for what? A hollow "victory", tasting of pain and ashes.

It was all for nothing. The woman he loved, his reason for existing, was dead. One moment she was there - proud and magnificent, leading platoon of troopers. In the next, a flash of artillery and not even ashes remained. Just a patch of rock turned into magma from the strike.

It was inconceivable. Impossible.

He received no warning whatsoever through the Force. The sudden roaring void that had replaced his bond with Rukia had driven him to madness, deep into the seducing corruption of the dark side. Just like that his world had crumbled.

Jedi Master Rukia Kurosaki was dead.

There were no words to describe his anguish and heart - wrecking pain. Only terrible howls of pain. He had left himself to the dark side. For once, he didn't care about the consequences of listening to her seductive whispers. Only the sour, numbing embrace of the Rage, which deadened his pain mattered.

Like a berserker, fuelled by boundless hatred, he had thrown himself against the enemy until there were none left alive.

And now, as he lay dying, Ichigo Kurosaki ... no he was Darth Revan again, had a moment to think about his past.

An ex Jedi knight, once upon a time a hero of the Republic, later a traitor and the Dark Lord of the Sith. A man who had returned to the Light, because of his feelings for a woman.

It didn't real matter. This was his end. He was hollow inside, and somehow he knew, that he wasn't going to be part of the Force once he passed on.

There was something darker awaiting him. Somewhere on the edges of his perception, strange forces were moving. He was startled by a revelation – whatever, those things were, they were dead to the Force. He could barely make their outlines by the void in the energy field that the Force was. His mind was racing. In his last moments, Ichigo believed that those forces somehow blunted the precognitive abilities granted by the Force, making this tragedy possible. Swaying in delirium he sensed his heart stopping.

Heh. He was totally loosing it. Ichigo thought that there was a crumbling chain attached to his chest, fading and ripping a hole where his heart used to be. Darkness enveloped him and Revan knew no more.

Flashback End

=KoSS=

Two yellow eyes looked at the woman in black. There was a sour expression on the youth's face, morphing into his usual frown. The Zanpakuto stared back. Ichigo's eyes were no longer the innocent ones of a teenager.

"Well, that's unexpected," Revan looked at the female standing few paces away from him. The part of him that was the young Ichigo was literally gob-smacked from the flood of remembered memories. The Force Adept on the other hand was incredulous at the world in which this Kurosaki Ichigo had been born. Granted he had been well acquainted with the phenomenon of Force Ghosts, so the idea of life after the death was something he was well aware of, but this whole Shinigami/Hollow mess was a bit of a stretch even for someone as open minded as him.

"So any idea who's being playing god so I could end up in this reality? With the apparent intention to save someone who is the splitting image of my deceased wife?" Revan asked aloud.

Shifting through the memories of his younger self, Revan reached the conclusion that the Rukia he knew in this time and age, did not remember their previous lives. If she was the same person/soul at all. On the other had he found the interactions between her and his younger self quite amusing.

He shrugged. It didn't really matter in the short term. Revan simply couldn't take the chance, because Rukia could very well be his wife's soul reincarnated, and even if she wasn't he still owed her a debt for saving his sisters and him from that hollow. Besides, with him now apparently being Substitute Shinigami, Revan just had to know more about the Soul Reapers world and government. It was the prudent thing to do.

"I will save her!" he declared. The Substitute Shinigami looked at his Zanpakuto spirit and smirked. "Once again we have a damsel in distress to save, partner. At least this time she isn't a brat of a Jedi who can't keep track of her lightsaber."

"Oh, please! It wasn't Bastia's fault. Not fully at least. Let's hope that there won't be any rackghouls this time! I hate those critters!" the spirit murmured.

"Yeah," Ichigo shuddered.

Those things gave him the creeps. He hoped that by now the damned monstrosities were wiped out. He would never know what possessed the ancient Sith to create those things. Then again on second thought, they were probably more or less unhinged.

Revan closed his eyes and concentrated, For first time in eternity he could sense the Force. It was different. It felt wild, untouched. As if no one had ever reached and tried to channel it. 'Yet another challenge to overcome,' he thought.

"We still have few days. Unfortunately, there are huge blank spots in my memories as Revan. To make matters worse, now that I can finally sense the Force again, there is a raw feeling to it. I believe it will be much harder to use," Revan looked at his Zanpakuto.

The spirit nodded and smirked at him. " So this time might take you much longer to fully restore your connection with the force. Further you'll need to learn how to use Reiatsu. And all the little things that make someone a competent Shinigami," she grinned at him.

Ichigos eyes became cooler, calculating. "Unless you are somehow able to restore most of my memories, especially when the use of various force techniques are concerned, I'll have to rely a lot on whatever training Urahara manages to give me. And lots of improvisation."

"The last part is SOP when you are concerned," the spirit quipped.

"Hush, you!" Ichigo smiled for the first time in days. "Plus whatever instinctive knowledge left from my time as hollow, if any," Ichigo scowled. "That bastard Urahara threw me in the Shattered Shaft without telling me the possible consequences. The possibility of me becoming a hollow wasn't important enough to mention. Bloody Hat and clogs!

"To be fair, you would have gone in any way," stated the woman.

"That's not the point!"

"Oh, I agree. You'll just have to rely on my to deal with him!" she grinned viciously.

"Time to go Sith Lord on his ass!" Ichigo chuckled evilly and drifted out of his mind scape.

=KoSS=

Urahara's shop training grounds

Urahara Kisuke was nervous. It should have taken tree days for the kid's soul chain to deteriorate. Instead, it took a mere ten hours.

In hindsight it was probably a good thing that the kids went for a snack half hour ago. Tessai was unable to contain the transforming teen and now was exhausted after using most of his Reiatsu in futile attempt to bind Kurosaki's hollowficating form. So, now Urahara would have to finish the job. He couldn't let the hollow which his student turned into to roam free.

Kisuke shuddered at the thought what Issin and Youroichi would do to him when they find out about this debacle. Surviving their wrath wasn't likely.

The smoke and dust caused by the failed sealing attempt were clearing enough to show a masked figure in black armoured robes, which were decorated with eye-catching flowing red pattern. The mask was made of a dark metal polished almost to the point of shining. It's lines had vague resemblance with that of the helmets of the clone troopers in the new Star Wars movie.

This wasn't a hollow mask.

Urahara raised an eyebrow at that thought. The figure removed the mask, stashing it in the folds of his robes, revealing the scowling face of Ichigo. A face unmarried by even a fragment of the bone like substance which made a hollows mask.

Urahara let a sigh of relief.

"Maa,maa...Ichigo good work! You got back you Shinigami powers I see! Lesson two is now complete!"

Ichigo just smiled sweetly. Something in his tone made the ex captain's spine shiver in distress.

"Urahara, did it just slip your mind that the Shattered Shaft could have turned me into a bloody hollow?" the substitute shinigami asked, making air quotes while speaking. "Or did you, in your unrivalled wisdom decide that this was a minor detail, not worthy of my attention?"

"Don't be rash Ichigo..." Urahara smiled nervously. There was something different in the kid. Something that was keeping the ex-captain on edge.

"Hat and clogs, I'll kill you!" the smile never left Ichigo's face as he made the declaration, while pulling an ebony coloured katana hilt from his robes.

Urahara would have shaken his head looking at the "weapon" in the kid's hand. However, there was something in the way Ichigo spoke. That wasn't the boisterous declaration of an un-blooded boy. On the contrary. It was a matter of fact statement, a promise made from an accomplished killer.

Something Ichigo had no business being.

Kisuke was about to retort, seeking information when a silver energy blade extended from the hilt in Kurosaki's hand. Suddenly a sense of foreboding engulfed the ex commander of the R&D division of Seireitei. At the same time Ichigo's smile became feral.

AN: Please read and review! Constructive criticism is appreciated!