Of Angels and Demons

Prologue: Rain and Reflection

...Prologue: Rain and Reflection...

It was days like this that Ichigo really started to question his life decisions. Why did he even bother, he still had schoolwork to do?! Yet here he was, sitting in Urahara's shop, helping Renji with his chores when he should have been studying. He had finals, dammit!

Renji's baritone broke him out of his thoughts, "Ya know, ya don't have ta help me, Ichigo. I'll be fine on my own," he said, leaning on a broom handle.

Ichigo sighed, dropping the feather-duster to his side, "Yeah, I know. I have no idea how I got suckered into this." Noticing Renji's smirk he turned on his heel and continued dusting the next shelf, which held bottles of some liquid he wasn't sure he wanted to know the effects of. "But I'm already here, so I might as well help finish up," he said stubbornly. With his back turned he couldn't see Renji's silent chuckle, head shake, or eye-roll. Both went diligently back to work, Renji humming a meaningless tune to himself.

It was done. It took two and a half hours, but it was done. The shop practically sparkled, perhaps even more than a gleeful Yumichika. Proud of his work, Ichigo stood hands-on-hips with pink feather-duster still in hand. Renji snorted at the odd sight. "What? You got somethin' to say to me?"

"Nope, not a thing." Sarcasm dripped from the redheads voice.

Ichigo rolled his eyes and turned back to look at the clean walls, neat shelves, and glossy floor...

And promptly deflated when a muddy pair of children scurried in the door and to the back of the shop, leaving a trail of brown footprints in their wake. Ichigo groaned and leaned against the central support, thoroughly spent. Now he really just wanted to go home. He glanced at the clock hung on the wall to see the time was just past 6:30 pm. The sky had long since gone dark. Seeing his friend's slight panic, Renji said, "Why don't you just head home? I can clean this mess on my own, man."

"Yeah... whatever, see ya tomorrow." Ichigo said as he tugged on his sweatshirt over his long sleeved tee-shirt and trudged to the door, stepping into his shoes and dropping the duster on a counter as he went.

"Sure thing!" Renji replied just as the door shut.

Hearing a steady patter, Ichigo looked up from his sneakers to see a wall of rain.

Ichigo hated the rain. Had for a long time. It wasn't just any rain, either. It was that mid-Autumn rain that was icy-cold and piercing, and left you soaked to the bone. And now he had less than thirty minutes to get home, and he had to run through an increasingly heavy rain storm. He was pretty sure life hated him. Pulling his hood up, he stepped out from under the store awning into the downpour. For the next fifteen minutes he speed-walked past empty shops, brightly lit houses, and the occasional person sprinting home under an umbrella.

He stood under an awning for some unknown store, waiting for the light at the intersection to change so he could cross, and then he would be home-free. He jumped a little when he heard a door a little ways down the street close with a bang.

"Aw, damn." a female voice said, and Ichigo saw a tall figure run from the house twenty feet to the left, arms above its head, and stop next to him. When she was safely under the awning, she dropped her arms, her long hair and thin shirt soaked through. Sizing her up, Ichigo saw she was almost as tall as him, maybe the same height as Rangiku, had black hair with dip-dyed red tips down past her hips, long, sweeping bangs angled across her right cheekbone, and pale brown, almost amber eyes ringed with dark kohl. She didn't look Japanese, but was pretty obviously at least half-Asian. And she was shivering like a dry leaf in a stiff wind. Ichigo looked away when he saw her going through the same process on him. She also turned away, leaning against the wall of glass behind them, and continued to shiver.

"So, um... Weren't expecting rain, were you?" He couldn't help it. The manners his mother taught him took over.

The woman, who looked a few years older, gave him an odd look out of the corner of her eye. Oops. Maybe she doesn't speak Japanese we-

"No, I wasn't." She spoke with a perfect Tokyo dialect. "It was sunny when I left, so I thought I would be fine." She sighed. "How wrong I was."

"Well, uh," Ichigo wasn't really sure what to say, then heard her teeth start to chatter. "How much farther do you have to go?"

"I'm staying on the other side of town, why?"

"Then here." He slipped off his sweatshirt, still mostly dry, and handed it to the incredulous woman.

"Wha-, wait, I-I couldn't, you'll freeze!"

He shook his head, "I'll be fine, just take the jacket."

She hesitated, then reached out and pulled the warm, black sweatshirt on over her wet clothes. She looked at her sneakers, refusing to meet his eyes again. "Thanks."

Out of the corner of his eye, Ichigo saw the light change and the walk signal switch on. The pair sprinted across the street, stopping again at the opposite side. "Don't mention it."

"Well, guess I'll see you around." She took off down the street to the right, pulling the hood up as she went. Ichigo heard something clatter to the sidewalk, and leaned down to pick up a small metal rectangle. On one side of the silver object was a red dragonfly in a vaguely Celtic design. He realized it was probably the girl's.

"Wait, you dropped-!" she didn't turn around at his yell, "This..." He sighed through his nose, the rain matting his oddly-colored hair to his scalp. Well... I'll just give it to her if I get my jacket back...

Shaking some of the water out of his hair, he turned on his heel and ran the short rest of the way home. He walked through the door with three minutes to spare.

"WELL, LOOK WHO FINALLY SHOWED UP IN TIME FOR DINNER!" Isshin shouted from the general direction of the dining room.

"Aw, shut up, old man! I was helping out a friend with some work, okay!" Ichigo yelled back as he entered the main area of the house, leaving his sopping shoes outside.

"Just ignore him, brother." said Yuzu from where she was setting the table. When she looked up, her expression was thoroughly puzzled. "Where's your jacket? I saw you leave with it on."

Ichigo pulled out his chair and sat down. "I ran into a girl who didn't have one, so I gave her mine."

"Aw, isn't our son sweet?" Isshin asked the poster of Masaki, the others in the room completely ignoring his antics. Yuzu set the last dish on the table as Karin and Rukia descended the stairs, Rukia casting Ichigo a searching glance as she sat down. He shrugged, and she didn't ask anything out loud.

Dinner had been, surprisingly, somber, no one really wanting to strike up a conversation with anyone else. After eating his share, Ichigo went up to his room to study for finals. He tuned his radio to a soft rock channel and ignored everything else around him but his books. That is, until something dug into his backside. Pulling the offending object out of his back pocket, he was met once again with the sight of the strange metal rectangle. But now, in better light, he could see a thin line running around one end, and pulled. The thing separated into two pieces, and he could now see that it was a flash drive. He weighed his options for a few seconds before curiosity won out against common courtesy.

He pulled over his dad's laptop that he had been borrowing for an English paper, and plugged the drive into the side. He just hoped it didn't have a password on it.

Okay, new story! Who was it that Ichigo ran into? What's on the flash drive? Stay tuned to find out! Please leave a review, and feel free to give constructive criticism!