A/N: Okay some things you need to know before attempting to read this fic. One: This is my first bleach fic, therefore constructive criticism is welcome. Two: This story starts just before the heuco undo arc. So Ichigo and co. are in Soul Society and are preparing to battle Arrancar. So.. without further adieu enjoy the story.

Pain...... That was the first coherent thing to register in the young boy's mind.

Despite the near mind-numbing pain that was pounding in his head, the pale boy attempted to open his eyes. The first thing he noticed was the two narrow walls on either side of him, and seconds later the blue thing that could be glimpsed through the space between them.

It wasn't long before words began to enter into his mind. Words like 'dirt' and 'sky', and although he had thought the words himself, he found himself grasping for their meaning.

After a few seconds of racking his brain for answers he determined that 'sky' was the big blue thing he was staring up at, and that 'dirt' was that thing he felt under his body.

Assured by this sudden success he tried futilely, to remember where he was or how he got there. However he found that this knowledge did not come to him quite as easily as the previous things had.

After a few more moments of musing, the boy felt the pain in his head begin to ebb slightly and; deciding that now was as good a time as any to move he began to sluggishly rise to his feet.

However despite managing to rise to his full height, when he tried to raise his head to look around a wave of disorientation washed over him and he stumbled a few time before succumbing to the dizziness and falling to the ground. However this time he found himself face down on the ground.

For the first time since he had woken up, the boy felt something pierce the dreamlike haze that clouded his mind. The feeling that had done this was simple frustration. Now that his head was beginning to clear, the boy finally noticed something strange.

There was an item clutched tightly in his right hand. 'Sword' One thing he noticed was that although the previous words that entered unbidden into his mind, had a sense of familiarity that this one was decidedly lacking.

Although he was rather confused, he decided that first; he would stand up; then he would worry about everything else. So leaning on the wall to his right for support with more than a little effort, the boy slowly, and painfully rose to his feet, and this time he didn't fall.

Once up he began to slowly make his way to the light that pierced the shadows of the alley from the small opening to his right. Each step was a hell, mixed with a slice of heaven. Each time his foot met the ground pain racked through his entire body; and every time the pain racked his body his mind became a little clearer.

Soon he was at the very edge of the alley; where he would be seen, if anyone cared enough to look that is. The boy was confused. More at the people walking around than the exotic buildings gathered around him.

The people, both men and women, young and old, all wore a strange black.....'kimono' his mind eventually supplied. However the thing that truly disturbed was that some of them wore swords on their waist. A quick glance to his right hand confirmed that they were almost the exact same as his own sword.

Wait......his? How did he know that? He couldn't remember anything, and yet..... Something about the sword seemed to....Resonate with him, and suddenly he knew; beyond a shadow of a doubt; that this, was indeed his sword.

Slightly reassured by this one certainty, the pale boy stepped from the shadows into the open. This he soon discovered; was not a good idea. Although he had studied these peoples clothes carefully, he had neglected to look at his own clothing even once!

He found that this revelation caused him to be inexplicably furious with himself. The fact that he had been half out of his mind with pain and dizziness, did a little to help ease the blow to his pride, however he suddenly knew that if he had been in his right mind he never would have been so careless.

Now that he did look down at himself he found that he was wearing a plain black long-sleeved shirt, coupled with a pair of black jeans. It was obvious that he would stick out like a sore thumb in this outfit.

He was quickly proven correct as the passers-by began staring at him in open disbelief at his appearance. It was clear that they were begging to move towards him and; not wanting to be backed up into a corner he move into the center of the street.

By the time he was there there was a couple dozen people crowded in a tight circle around him. He heard whisps of hushed conversations, "Those clothes.." said one. "Has a Zanpukto.." said another. "....Ryoka.." Eventually a few of the men wearing swords stepped forward.

The one who spoke was a tower of a man, the boy had to look up to even see his chin. "Who are you? And where did you get those clothes..? What is you're name?"

The man's tone was so demanding that the boy considered not answering him simply out of spite. However he did not allow his emotions to control him while he was in such a delicate position. "My name is....." It was the first time the boy had stopped to think about it.

And he realized with steadily growing horror that something his mind should have supplied as naturally as breath, simply refused to come. However where a lesser man may have allowed him mind to shut down the pale boy never stopped thinking; not even for a second.

The first thing he considered was the obvious choice; he had amnesia. Or perhaps he didn't have any memories of his past because he had no past. However the second option was far to unlikely for his logical mind to truly give any great consideration.

After so many theories in a single second he suddenly came up with a plausible idea; perhaps his face would jog his memory?

So, with this in mind he snapped his head to the right to look at the window of the building he was standing next to. The reflected image was that of a boy. He was quite handsome, with high cheekbones and long dark hair the reached his shoulders and covered his right eye.

The eye that was uncovered was a deep blood red; a sharp contrast to the strangely dark near black one that his hair covered. It was ridiculous! The boy in the reflection couldn't have been older than sixteen. 'fourteen' A voice in the back of his head corrected.

Despite the sense of familiarity the face gave him, the person reflected was indeed a stranger to him.

'I don't recognize the face! …........I don't know who I am!'

Suddenly the reflection was scowling darkly, and the man beside it's owner spoke again. "What's yer name?" He repeated. When all he received in reply was a threatening stare, he drew his sword.

For a few moments the giant man simply stared at him. He was obviously thrown of balance by the fact that the young boy's eyes held not a hint of fear in boy's eyes never once strayed from the giants. It was obvious that the man, despite his enormous stature, was seriously unnerved at the lack of fear he was seeing.

Hmph... He was afraid. He was afraid because the boy wasn't; so pathetic..

"H-how dare you! You dare to mock me!? I am the Jirōbō Ikkanzaka, also known as wind scythe! I assure you, you will pay for you're insolence!" The man raised his sword with a speed that should have been impossible for a man of his size, and with equal speed brought it down in a vertical slash.

If the boy had been surprised, when Jirōbō unleashed his speed, then he was positively thunderstruck when he drew his own sword. It flew out of it's sheath with such speed that even his own eyes could not follow it. Even more surprising than that was that was that when Jirōbō's sword met his own, despite the obvious strength behind the blow, the boy's arm did not so much as tremble.

For a split second, no one even so much as breathed.

However; the sudden silence was short lived. Shock slowly turned to outrage on Jirōbō's face in a very amusing display of expressions.

With a cry of fury Jirōbō leapt backwards, and; with a flourish, charged at the pale boy, sword a mere blur of motion. however each strike the big man made was intercepted by the pale boy's sword.

The boy's sword moved with an almost lazily grace through the air, moving only enough to block each attack targeted at him.

Despite the dire situation the boy knew he was in, he found that he wasn't panicked in the slightest. His mind was working quickly and efficiently, and he took the time to notice a few things that did not make any sense.

For one, his body should not be reacting to Jirōbō's slashes so quickly; there was no conscious thought behind the movements, it was just pure base instinct. And; more noticeably; His body should not be so strong nor so fast.

It made absolutely no sense. Jirōbō was much larger than he was, and so; logic would determine that the weight behind him would grant him much greater strength than the young boy's smaller body.

It completely defied all logic! And yet...there was no denying it. Jirōbō was clearly giving it his all and the young boy was overpowering him with ridiculous ease!

After a few seconds of pointless slashing Jirōbō obviously saw the futility of his efforts, and reluctantly, slowly backed away from the young boy.

Now that there was some distance between the two, the boy took a minute to observe his opponent. His muscles were trembling from his efforts and sweat poured down his bright red face.

However despite his obvious lack of breath he still somehow managed to begin ranting between his puffs of breath. "Impressive. I must commend you for lasting as long as you have against me 4th seat, of squad 7, the greatest projectile weapon's user in all of the thirteen court guard squads!"

'A 4th seat? Is that some kind of military rank? If so, then how high is it?' As he looked up at Jirōbō's face again he realized that the windbag was still talking. Not only that but the surrounding crowd had begun whispering amongst themselves. However the boy was far to caught up in his thoughts to hear what was being said.

'Not only that but he said he belonged to squad 7. Out of thirteen? How is the ranking for squads then? Is his the 7th strongest? Or the 7th weakest?' He let out a grunt of frustration. So many questions, without any answers. Not a god-damn one!

It was clear that Jirōbō was just about done with his little speech, so the boy shook himself out from his thoughts and brought the entirety of his attention down on the big man. "So you see, you have no chance of survival whatsoever. Now behold as I reveal to you; the true form of my Zanpakutō! Flap Away, Tsunzakigarasu!"

For the first time since he woke up, the boy felt his expression change dramatically and violently. What was once a face of impassive near boredom, suddenly became one of open shock and disbelief.

Impossibly; Jirōbō had somehow placed his palm down the point of his sword; and, without the slightest hint of hesitation, pushed down hard.

However, despite the shock the action itself caused the boy, he practically forgot about it, when the sword suddenly vanished into thin air. The sheer impossibility of the situation caused the boy to blink once, twice, and suddenly, when his eyes opened there were dozens of flying shuriken surrounding his opponent.

Although the first thoughts that entered the boy's mind were ones to prove that what he was seeing was some form of trick, he found himself disproving them as fast as he thought them up.

Although difficult; the disappearing sword could be explained by some form of optical illusion, however the dancing blades in the sky were completely impossible to explain. There was no way that they could be held up by wires etc. If that was the case the randomly directed spinning of the blades would surely cut any wire.

So then...how.....

'where.............?'

The boy's head snapped up, and began looking from side to side carefully. He was sure he had heard a voice, a second ago.. It had felt like something that had come from deep inside him, and yet, it was so quite.. like a dozen tiny whispers at the edge of his mind.

Tch...He must be losing it. The voice was clearly his imagination. With a grunt he drew his attention back to the matter at hand.

It seemed that while the young boy had been busy thinking, his bumbling oaf of an opponent had been ranting on and on about his glorious title, or some ridiculous triviality like that.

"And it is with great honor that you should-"

"Hey!" It was the first time the boy had truly spoken. His voice, though deep sounded oddly melodious, and calm.

Jirōbō turned his head to the boy with disdain. "You dare to interrupt!?" With a red face and heaving jest Jirōbō raised the hilt of his blade-less sword sliced the air in front of him. For one tense moment the boy believed that nothing would happen.

However in the split second the thought passed through his head he found his arms moving on their own accord raising his sword to block one of the many shuriken that now surrounded him. Somewhere in the back of his mind the young boy took notice of the fact that the audience that had amassed around him had ceased their chuckling and where looking at him mouths agape.

Secretly he couldn't blame them. Although he was indeed blocking the dozens of deadly blades he had no idea how he was doing it. His eyes couldn't even follow the damn things, and yet his arms blocked each and every one of the shuriken before the could get close enough to cause him harm.

'Am I'

At the whispering voice in his head again, the young boy's concentration broke and one of the flying projectiles slipped through his defenses and sliced across the right side of his cheek. The wound was shallow and more superficial than anything, however the boy found himself overcome with white hot rage.

The very small rational portion of his mind was reeling. He had no real reason to have gotten so angry, however there was no denying the urge to kill that had overcome him. Before he knew what was happening he was standing behind Jirōbō, his sword bloody.

Once he had sufficiently calmed down the young boy turned to look at his opponent. He was shocked to find Jirōbō lying faced down on the ground, his arms sprawled out his entire body covered in slashes and blood. He also noticed that the many shuriken had disappeared and Jirōbō was now holding a regular sword once again. Raising his head the young boy saw many of the strangely dressed people either running away in panic or drawing their own swords.

Despite the curiosity to know if their swords had the same abilities as Jirōbō's the boy knew that escape was by far the most logical course of action.

So with an unnatural speed the boy dashed past the sword wielders and lept onto the roof of a nearby building, taking only a second to realize that he shouldn't be able to jump that high. Regardless he pushed his doubts aside for the moment and began running.

After a half an hour or so of running and jumping they young boy finally deemed it safe enough to stop and give his burning lungs a short rest. As he stood there panting he began mulling over all the impossible things he had seen. 'Obviously not impossible' his mind corrected.

After all he had seen it with his own eyes and had been unable to come up with any logical conclusions.

Looking around to make sure he was safe the boy felt his breath catch in his throat. He was on top of a tall building and as far as his eyes could see there were old style buildings in every direction.

Feeling suddenly faint the boy lay down on his back and closed his eyes.

'Who....are you?'

A/N: So; think this story is worth continuing? Bear in mind that this is an introductory chapter and is shorter than future chapters would be. Be sure to review! No further chapters will be written until tow reviews request it.