First Commission.

------------(Ichigo's-POV)------------

Thor was loud but he was surprisingly gentle, extremely straightforward and of course, powerful. He reminded me a bit of Chad, a gentle giant, but where Chad was quiet and mostly kept to himself, Thor was loud and outgoing. He liked to party, to share his stories, to eat and drink, to dance and just have fun basically. He was also like Chad in the sense that he stood up for the weak. He used his powers to protect and that was always a plus.

Over my time in this new world, I found out one thing that I realized in my previous world was the same, and that was the fact that the ability to protect your loved ones was also a privilege, a privilege that only the strong had. The weak could only rely on people like Thor to come and protect them and if someone like Thor didn't make it in time, they could only die a miserable death. It was another reason why I ran after strength so vehemently in my last world. Thor understood this and did as much as he could to help the weak, he was not omnipotent but he didn't let that get in the way of his own happiness.

On the other hand, I was a bit more selfish and rather only protect the people I love. I would of course help someone in need if they right in front of me but otherwise I wouldn't go out of my way to find people and help them. Not like Thor at least. Nonetheless, we became fast friends. He liked me simply because I didn't abuse my powers and I liked him because he reminded me of Chad. That also became a ticket for me to enter Asgard whenever I wanted and an invitation to find him if I was ever close by. After that though, we didn't stay for much longer. Thor did invite us to a party but I declined and Azazel followed suit. Before we could leave Asgard, Odin came to us with his bodyguard and what he said was surprising. Well it definitely surprised me, but Azazel seemed to have predicted that already, because he was smiling.

------------(Odin's-POV)------------

The young man with Azazel was terrifying. He went head to head with Thor, who alone, could be considered around seventy percent of Asgard's entire strength, and didn't even use half of his powers, if what that crow said was true. According to Azazel, the boy was a swordsman first and foremost. Most of his stronger attacks were also done with a sword. A sword I only saw because I was looking for it. It was on the boy's back the entire time. Such a large weapon and I wouldn't have even seen it if I wasn't sure it was there. If what Azazel said was true, the boy could singlehandedly destroy all of Asgard and we wouldn't be able to do anything.

The only other person who could possibly match the boy would be Shiva, but Shiva also had Indra and Indra's army of millions of gods to stop him if he ever went rouge. This boy was not affiliated with anyone and so much power concentrated in a single person that had recently gone through an experience like losing his family, it was a recipe for disaster. A bomb just waiting to go off. Worst of all, they couldn't even do anything about it. Hence Azazel wanted Thor to befriend him so he wouldn't do just that, but if that was all true, it meant that I, and the entirety of Asgard was indebted to Azazel. I didn't need to think all that much to understand that Azazel had orchestrated this entire thing to create that sense of debt in my mind. Little bastard.

All that aside, I could at least attach someone else to him permanently, to not only keep me updated on the boy but also form a stronger bond with him. He was still young, so it was the perfect time to create such things. From what little I understood of him, he was a straightforward man, similar to Thor but with a slightly meaner bone in him. If I tried to trick him or lie to him and he found out, I would probably be beaten black and blue. He might not kill me due to Thor, but even Thor wouldn't stop him from beating me if he knew that I deceived the boy first.

The first and only one to come to my mind for such a task was Rossweisse. Young, talented, beautiful and most importantly, loyal to Asgard but also a good scapegoat. She wouldn't like it, Gondul wouldn't like it, but they would follow orders. The only problem was Azazel. The boy seemed to trust the crow and if the bird wanted to mess with me, he would just tell the boy about my intentions. But it didn't seem like he wanted to and it was a risk I was willing to take, so before they left, I told them about my 'idea'.

------------(Ichigo's-POV)------------

The perverted old God came to us and presented us with an idea. Apparently Rossweisse was from a family that primarily used spirit magic. And clearly, Azazel had told quite a bit about me to Odin, which I didn't like, so that was another two months I would help Shemhazai tie this asshole down. I sent him an angry scowl and he quickly held up his hands and started to shake his head.

"So, what do you want?" I asked Odin impatiently.

"Take this girl with you. She might not be attuned to spirit magic but she has enough knowledge to teach you a few things." Odin answered me curtly, seeing my impatience. He was pointing towards a slightly sullen looking Rossweisse.

I didn't like it, it smelled fishy to say the least. From what I'd heard, she was one of the most talented Valkyrie and he was just going to give her away? Probably not. He obviously has another motive.

"And your real reason?" I asked him with a mocking smile.

"To form closer ties with someone of immense power." The old God said bluntly. That was at least a positive but that just cancelled the negative, so he was still sitting at zero. All this distrust was similar to what I had to go through when I first came in contact with the Soul Society. Even though I had helped them, they were still skeptical of my motives. I understood later that it was because I got strong way too quickly and easily in their eyes and I didn't have any connections with them to stop me from going against them. I had given them a chance, as well as some of the other people in this world, so I was willing to give this old God a chance as well.

"You have one chance old man. One chance." I said to Odin with a glare.

"Don't worry. I'd rather Asgard not be destroyed." Odin said with a deadpan.

"Tch. Why would I do such an annoying thing? You, on the other hand, I would like to see if a god can survive a cero up their ass." I said with a smile. The image that sentence conjured up was funny.

With that out of the way, I had to ask the Valkyrie if she wanted to come with us or not.

"Your name was Rossweisse, right?" Seeing her nod I continued.

"Do you 'want' to come with us?" I asked her with a frown.

"It's an order." She answered curtly.

"I asked what you wanted." I knew I was being an asshole. She didn't really have a choice in it, but I wanted to see if she had even a slight interest in this. If not, I would refuse this 'offer'.

"I-I was told that you have an extreme affinity with spirit magic. You have to know that affinity with spirit magic is rare, even in our family, which specializes in it. To hear about your talent from both Odin-sama and Azazel-sama, I-I want to see where my teachings and your talent would lead." By the end, her eyes had a similar glow to them that Azazel had when he first met me. Like she had found something, or someone, extremely fun or interesting to play with. I couldn't really find any other reason to blow her off, if she wanted to come willingly. I could still reject it, but I had just said I would give Odin a chance.

"Fine. You can come with us." I said with a sigh. She looked at me hesitatingly before opening her mouth.

"Umm, shouldn't Azazel-sama be here to give his input as well?" She asked, meekly.

I looked back at that and couldn't see Azazel anywhere. He probably ran off when he realised that I was annoyed with him. I took a deep breath and said to Rossweisse.

"Let's go find that slacker." I said, moving towards what I remembered as the entrance to this realm.

------------(Break)------------

It didn't take all that long to find Azazel and give him a few punches and kicks, enough to get rid of some of the irritation at least. After that, Rossweisse started to tell me about the basics of spirit magic. There were a lot, and I mean 'a lot', of different types of magic in this world. From elemental magic, which was further divided into all the elements, fairy magic, holy magic, devil magic, so on and so forth. So many that I had to stop her from explaining every single one of them to me. That would take days, just for the basic introductions. So much technical knowledge and to think that she was around my age. I just told her to go straight to the spirit magic.

She pouted at that but got to the main topic. Spirit magic was quite different from others besides that it used spiritual energy rather than elemental or holy or demonic or whatever. I was technically made of extremely concentrated spiritual energy, so it made sense that I should be able to use spirit magic, right? Eh, somewhat. Spirit magic was basically summoning spirits that actively helped you in a fight. It didn't affect you or your enemies directly. It summoned another being to help you. But apparently, you had to have high enough affinity to spirits for one to answer your call. It didn't require much complicated calculations, just a specific method of doing the ritual.

When Odin said that she would 'teach' me spirit magic, I thought that it would be similar to what Azazel tried teaching me. All those calculations went completely over my head. But this, after the ritual, would there be any need for me to learn anything else? I asked Rossweisse that, and short answer to that was, yes. I had to learn about the spirit that appeared, how to properly use it, how to take care of it, the benefits and the demerits of whatever answered my call and whatnot. Not just that, but every ritual was different. It required different materials, different incantations, different drawings and all that. Because spirits came in all shapes and sizes, as well as elements and even personalities. Most common were the elemental spirits, but I doubted that I would be able to call one of those. Why was I even doing all this? Meh, it seems interesting and I want to know what kind of spirit would answer my call.

The best method would be for me to gather all the materials and set everything in place myself. It would be far more effective that way, so for now, we stopped on that.

I had to ask Azazel to give me a commission so I could start to earn something and go back to Yasaka and also start looking for these materials. Of course, Rossweisse would be following me on these commissions because she had also experienced little of the outside world and Azazel thought that it would be better for both of us. Though his face looked suspiciously giddy when he suggested that. That also reminded me that I had to deliver this asshole to Shemhazai and tie him up to do his work, so that's what I did next. As we were going who knows where, I went ahead and pulled him in a head lock.

"Now, Azazel, don't think I've forgotten about you playing around without telling me." I said with a smile.

"Ah, that! You see Ichigo-kun, I was trying to help you. I knew you were getting frustrated, so I set up a fight where you could have some fun." He said with mock cheer.

"Rossweisse, you can use teleportation magic, right?" I asked Rossweisse and she nodded.

"Do you know where Faroe Islands are?" I asked again and she nodded once again. I had to marvel at how much knowledge she had. Faroe Islands were a bunch of small islands in the middle of Scotland, Iceland and Norway and not very well known. That's where Azazel had set up his headquarters in the human world. The main headquarters was of course in the underworld. I told Rossweisse to teleport us there and waited for Shemhazai to show up, and he showed up in under a minute. Azazel was still in a headlock.

"Shemhazai, I thought I would deliver this wayward leader to you. He has had a bit too much fun. Do you have anything to tie him up with?" I said the moment I saw him. He was a nice yet strict man that tended to follow rules a lot. I could admire that, but I would never be like that, so we hadn't really gotten to know each other besides introducing ourselves.

"Thank you, Ichigo-san. We have quite a few things we need him for. Can I do anything for you?" He asked professionally.

"Any commissions that I can do? Anything related to fighting would do. Something that pays well already." I asked the man who usually ran the Grigori. He though for a while before nodding and telling us to come with him to the main headquarters. After resting for a day, he gave me a task.

That's how I finally got my first commission. It was a simple extermination. A few dozen strays had banded together to wreak havoc on an innocent town somewhere in Africa. The only thing I had learned during the 'training' trip was that I had to be mindful of the collateral damage and any unsuspecting spectators, but with Rossweisse going with me, the latter didn't matter all that much. If there were any spectators, she could remove their memories. She was also the one who teleported us to the place.

Africa had many local deities and guardian spirits at some point, but nearly all of them had died in the great war. The few left didn't have enough power to look over the entirety of Africa, so they usually requested help in return for the natural resources that were abundant there. Few of those materials would be helpful in the summoning rituals I had to go through at some point.

Finding the strays didn't take long either, about two days. When we found them, I told Rossweisse to create the strongest barrier she could make and completely isolate us from the outside world. She had seen what I could do, so she didn't argue. They couldn't put up a fight or do anything really, all I had to do was fire a few ceros and they were dead. Rossweisse asked me a question after we were done.

"What was the attack you did Ichigo-san?" The only thing I did was fire ceros, so she must be asking about that.

"It's called a Cero." I answered with a shrug.

"Zero? It felt like concentrated spiritual energy." She mumbled.

"That's basically what it is." I said with a nod.

"You can control the ambient spiritual energy?" She said with some shock. I thought for a while before answering.

"Not really... well, no harm in telling you that. To me, spiritual energy is similar to breathing. I 'inhale' it, some of it remains inside me, but most of it is exhaled out. Whatever remains inside me, I can control it. The cero you say was the weakest, I can easily power them up." I told her some of the whole truth.

"Then you should be able to use the body strengthening technique. I think the Youkai call it Touki. It's basically your fighting spirit made manifest. It's difficult to actually perform it, but it vastly increases what someone can do with their bodies. They become faster, stronger, more durable and all that. If you can control the spiritual energy inside you, you should be able to use it." And she kept going on for a while longer. She did that once in a while. Dedicated, hardworking and professional by training but clumsy by nature, that's what she was.

I didn't want to tell her that I was a spiritual entity yet, so I let her carry on. She started to explain how Touki worked and how I could possibly achieve it. Just to humour her, I tried following her instructions. Releasing your spirit, but containing it around you, keeping it tight. It should appear in the form of visible glowing aura around the body, unlike spiritual pressure, which was invisible. To my surprise, it worked. Well, not exactly, but I did start glowing. But that was it. I didn't feel stronger than before. It basically just created a barrier around me, not very effective when my body was tougher than most barriers.

"We will find something you can do Ichigo-san!" Rossweisse said suddenly. She looked like a teacher encouraging a student to do their best.

Our conversations were usually awkward. Either she explained something to me and I answered with a nod or a single syllable, or vice versa. She was doing her job, doing her best to remain professional and that created a lot of awkwardness after we were done for the day. We both knew why she was here and it got uncomfortable very quickly. It has only been a few days and I have had enough of this. We were sitting in a hotel with a barrier surrounding us, when I started the conversation with a sigh.

"Rossweisse, let's get this over with." She stiffened for a moment before forcing herself to calm down.

"We both know you are here to observe me on the orders of Odin. Why he did such a thing, I don't know and I don't care. I gave him a chance just like how I gave others one as well. Why he chose you, again, I don't know nor do I care. I have been through this nonsense before but at least they used a device to keep an eye on me." I stopped with a scowl. She was giving me all her attention so I had to keep going this.

"Haah, what I want to say is, you can give him reports on me, but only on my powers, nothing about my personal life. So, let's leave all that aside and start over again." I finished with a frown.

"My name is Ichigo Kurosaki. I'm a Shinigami."