Fifteen-year-old Ichigo Kurosaki has the uncanny ability to see ghosts, but that seems pretty run-of-the-mill once Rukia Kuchiki enters his life. She's a Soul Reaper who helps lost souls find peace, and when she transfer some of her powers to Ichigo so he can save his family from an evil spirit called a Hollow, he becomes a Soul Reaper too!

Ichigo runs into Rukia at school, where she's posing as a transfer student. Now that he's got most of her powers, she wants him to take over her Soul Reaper duties, but Ichigo turns her down, just as a mysterious shadow begins to follow Orihime, a cheerful classmate with a sad past.

Not all souls pass peacefully to the Soul Society. Some linger, only to become Hollows. In the process, they seek out those they loved most in life. For Orihime, this means that her brother, who's becomes a Hollow, wants her soul for his own.

Chad, Ichigo's friend and classmate, brings a cursed bird to school that is really the soul of a young boy who lived a tragic life. Rukia wants to help the troubled soul pass on, but she and Ichigo will have to fight the Hollow that's hunting the boy first.

Rukia and Chad take on Shrieker, a vicious Hollow who's beaten many Soul Reapers and committed many crimes. But with Rukia's diminished powers and Chad's inability to see Hollows, they haven't got much of a chance without Ichigo.

At a Soul Reaper supply shop, Rukia picks up a modified soul to take over Ichigo's body while he's pulling Soul Reaper duty. But the mod soul takes off with Ichigo's body, determined to have a little fun!