Shadows spread across an eerie landscape. Two dark shapes descend down onto a sleeping town. They land together with a loud bang, but when the smoke clears they have disappeared.
A black butterfly is fluttering through the sky, against the backdrop of a full moon. Suddenly a woman dressed in dark robes is where the butterfly was, standing on a telephone pole looking down on the town. She has a serious expression on her face. “As I thought… I sense high spiritual pressure…” Then she jumps from pole to pole, robes fluttering as she moves. She seems to heading for the middle of the town.

In the orange glow of sunset, several skateboarders are gathered in an alleyway. One of them is lying on the ground. They are all looking towards a teenage boy with orange hair, he is dressed in a grey school uniform. It seems that the teenager attacked the skateboarder. One of the other guys attacks him, and is rewarded with a foot in his face. Then the teenager continues to beat him up. The other guys look on with surprise and fear, when the teenager points to a vase of flowers that has been knocked over. He demands to know what happened. As the other three guys each get beat up, they confess to knocking over an offering for a child that died there while they were skateboarding.
Seeing the anger in the teenager’s face, they run away. The teenager turns to the little girl’s ghost and promises to bring fresh flowers in the morning. She thanks him for scaring the ruffians away. Before he leaves he sets the vase with wilted flowers upright.

As the teenager is walking home he introduces himself.
“I am Ichigo Kurosaki. 15 years old.
Dad’s the town doctor…Saving lives of people, and yet not saving their lives.
I don’t know if that’s why, but for a very long time now…
I’ve had the ability to see ghosts.”

When he arrives home Ichigo is attacked by his father for being late for supper. During the fighting another ghost arrives. Ichigo’s two sisters, Karin and Yuzu, discuss the fact that they all can see or sense ghosts except for their father. After the fight with his dad Ichigo goes to his room. Karin comments that Ichigo has been seeing a lot of ghosts lately.

Next morning, the news program shows the aftermath of an explosion that occurred that morning in front of Karakura Town’s train station, not to far from Ichigo’s house.
On his way to school, Ichigo passes the scene of the explosion and he turns down the alley to replace the flower vase for the little girl. Ichigo hears something, it is an eerie sound. He turns and runs towards the sound. There is a loud explosion and a large creature with a white mask appears. Ichigo has no idea what this creature is. The ghost of the little girl runs past Ichigo, obviously terrified. Ichigo follows the ghost, away from the creature. The huge buglike creature chases after them. As they are running, the little girl trips and falls. Ichigo turns to help her and the creature opens its enormous mouth. Just then a black butterfly flutters in front of Ichigo. The woman in black robes appears where the butterfly was, flying through the air towards the creature. She draws her sword and slices the creature. She lands in front of Ichigo and the girl’s ghost, and then she quickly leaps back into the air. This time she cuts the creature completely down the middle, destroying it.

Ichigo calls out a muffled “hey” but the woman turns away and then disappears.
Later that night, Ichigo is relaxing on his bed trying to figure out what happened earlier that morning. He sees a black butterfly fly in through the window and the woman in black lands on his desk. He questions her but she seems to ignore him. She reaches for her sword and steps into the middle of the room. Ichigo, still sitting on his bed, calls out again. The woman in black has the same expression on her face as she had earlier “It’s near...” Suddenly, Ichigo kicks her from behind and starts yelling at her. She is surprised that he not only could see her but that he could hit her too. She asks Ichigo if she had seen him earlier, to which he replies sarcastically. She reaches up and examines Ichigo more closely, commenting that people are not usually able to see her. Ichigo slaps her hand away and angrily states that he doesn’t understand what she’s talking about. He tries to kick her, but she easily jumps up kicks him in the head as she goes over him and he falls to the floor. He curses her. She calmly explains that she is a Shinigami. (This is translated as either a Death God or a Soul Reaper. I prefer to use Death God.)

In the meantime, the little girl’s ghost is being chased by another creature.
Ichigo is now sitting in a chair, going over what he was just told. This strange woman is a Death God, she is from a place called Soul Society, she is there to wipe out some bad spirits, the explosion earlier was caused by a bad spirit, and it attacked that girl (ghost).
The dark woman nods to each of Ichigo’s statements. After the last statement Ichigo angrily gets up yelling that he doesn’t believe her.

After a brief argument the woman has had enough and uses a binding spell on Ichigo so that he can’t move. Then she takes out her sword and swings it. Ichigo closes his eyes, thinking that she is aiming for him. When he opens his eyes, she has the handle of the sword on a ghost’s forehead. She reassures the ghost and sends him to soul society. Ichigo asks what she did, she explains with the help of drawings. She explains that there are two kinds of spirits in this world. The most common is a Plus (good spirits), what we call ghosts. The other is called a Hollow (evil spirits), they attack the living and feed off their souls. When Ichigo insults her drawings she draws a mustache on his face. Then she continues with her explanation. The Death Gods have two duties. The first duty is to get the Pluses into Soul Society. The second is to wipe out the Hollows.
Then Ichigo asks why the Hollow was chasing the little girl’s ghost. The woman replies that she doesn’t know, they don’t have a complete understanding of them.

The scene changes back to the little girl’s ghost being chased by the Hollow. She trips and falls, but as the Hollow is reaching for her it sniffs the air. It has noticed the scent of an exceptional soul and a Death God. It turns and leaves the little girl’s ghost untouched.

Back in Ichigo’s room, Ichigo is still bound by the spell, and can’t move. He hears something and urges the woman to go and kill the second Hollow. She looks down as she answers him. She tells Ichigo that the presence of the Hollow has suddenly vanished, as if something is blocking her senses. Ichigo insists that heard a loud voice just then. Then the Hollow calls again, they both hear it. They hear Yuzu screaming, the woman runs out of the room. Ichigo is lying on the floor, still unable to move. Yuzu comes down the hall and collapses in front of the door. She asks Ichigo to help Karin, and then she collapses again. Karin’s scream can be heard coming from downstairs and the woman runs quickly to help. Ichigo struggles against the binding spell and manages to stand up.

When the woman reaches the bottom of the stairs she sees a large hole in the wall. Outside is the Hollow with Karin in its hand, lifting her up of the ground. Karin is struggling, screaming for it to stop. With an angry sneer the woman draws her sword. Just then Ichigo lands at the bottom of the stairs after having fallen down them. His hands are still bound by the spell and he struggles to get to his feet. His only thoughts are to save Karin. The woman is amazed that he is moving at all. In his struggle Ichigo pushes the woman aside and she tells Ichigo to stay back, that he is in the way. He tells her to shut up. Then he sees Karin in the firm grip of the Hollow. Angry, he struggle against the binding spell with great urgency. The woman warns Ichigo not to try to break the spell, that a normal human can’t break it without it ripping its soul apart. But Ichigo continues anyway and the binding spell shatters with an explosion.

Immediately Ichigo runs to save Karin. He grabs a chair and swings it at the Hollow. Karin sees him and tells him to run away. When Ichigo hits the Hollow with the chair he is thrown down the alleyway. The Hollow looks at Ichigo and says “Found it.” Then the Hollow tries to grab him but Ichigo gets out of the way in time. While the Hollow was distracted with trying to get Ichigo, the woman slashes it in the arm in an effort to free Karin. The Hollow drops Karin and Ichigo catches her. Then the Hollow disappears. Ichigo is now holding an unconscious Karin. He is calling out her name in an effort to wake her. The woman takes a defensive stance, her back towards Ichigo. She reassures him that Karin will be ok, that her soul is still with her.

She seems to recognize the Hollow and mentions that it is attracted to souls of high spiritual density. Thinking out loud the woman realizes that the Hollow was not targeting the little girl. Surprised Ichigo asks what she means. The woman states that until now Ichigo’s spiritual energy was extremely lowered. This is why she did not sense anything from him until he started fighting the Hollow. Perhaps his spiritual energy also released into the material world when Ichigo was talking to the girl’s ghost. The Hollows sensed him then. The woman turns slightly towards Ichigo and tells him that the Hollow’s aim is him!

The Hollow reappears. The woman faces the Hollow and Ichigo stands up behind her. Ichigo blames himself that the Hollow attacked his family in order to get to him. Ichigo runs past the woman, towards the Hollow. She calls out to stop him. He stops in front of the Hollow and tells it that if it wants his soul it should fight him. The Hollow screams and dives for Ichigo. But before it reaches him the woman jumps in the way. She has her sword lodged in the Hollow’s teeth, but the Hollow has severely hurt her. The woman falls to the ground, bleeding from several wounds. She is unable to fight and tells Ichigo that they will all be eaten by the Hollow. The woman crawls away to rest against the wall.

She asks Ichigo if he wants to save his family, that there is only one way to do it. He has to become a Death God. And to become a Death God he has to put her sword through his heart. By doing this he will receive half of her power. The Hollow is now closing in on them, there isn’t much time. Ichigo is standing in front of the woman and says “Lend me your sword, Death God.” To which she replies “It is not Death God, I am Rukia Kuchiki.” As the Hollow races towards them, Ichigo grabs the blade of the sword “and I am, Ichigo Kurosaki!” and then he plunges it into his heart.

There is a blinding flash of light and then the sound of a blade slicing flesh. Blood appears on the Hollow’s arm then the arm falls to the ground behind Ichigo. Ichigo is now wearing black robes and the sword in his hand resembles the one Rukia had. Rukia is still sitting by the wall, but she is wearing white robes now. She looks down and realizes that while Ichigo was supposed to receive only half her power, he has taken all of it! “Who in world is he? Never have I witnessed a person with such high spiritual density to even bewilder the senses of a Death God. Never have I seen a person who actually broke through the Demon Path. And finally, never have I seen the Zanpakutou… grow to be so huge!” (Note: Death God’s swords are also referred to as Soul Slayers. Each one has its own name and abilities. The size of the sword is in direct proportion to the spiritual energy of its owner.)
Ichigo tells the Hollow “If you mess with my family, prepare to get your ass kicked!” Then he swings the sword at the Hollow. “Eat this!” And with one swipe, the Hollow is defeated!
ICHIGO KUROSAKI/15 YEARS OLD
HAIR COLOR/ORANGE
EYE COLOR/BROWN
OCCUPATION/HIGH SCHOOL STUDENT… DEATH GOD