Chapter 1 One Hero's Death Leads To A Hero's Rebirth In Afterlife
[MISSION START!]
In the mid 1940s June 24th a hot summer day in Florida every thing seems nice well in till a certain gang hits a bank where one of are one are protagonist is at"Okay everyone get down!"said one goon with a m1911 shooting in the air scaring the crowd of people while the rest of gang moves in to get the money and some women
'Oh crap if they continue like this someones going to get hurt maybe even killed ive gotta do something!' The man rises to his knees in a crouched position and starts to hurriedly yet stealthily crawl toward the nearest man picking up a broken pipe along the way
the guy who with a tommy gun looking around slowly yet lazily and doesn't notice the guy getting behind him
'Ohmanohmanohman that settles it last time i get student loans from this bank' man continues to make his way slowly getting behind the man inching his way while hearing his heartbeat in his eardrums until finally the tommy gunner is only a foot away from him he slowly raises his pipe above his head rising from his crouched spot but only a by a hair and just when the man was about to turn around he slammed the lead weapon crashing down on the mask wearing robber causing the man to crumple like a sack of potatoes however also alerting everyone else to his presence
'Ooh God at least i called 911'
The rest of the gang turns around and sees him"HEY HE GOT RICK!"said the one with the shotgun aimming at the man"Well shoot him then!"said the guy who shoot the handgun in the air and after saying that the two hoodlems pull the triggers repeatedly at the kid who got they're partner
Said kid quickly ducks behind cover muttering a prayer to himself and a string of curses cringing when he notices a sharp pain in his side he looks down heartbeat loud in his ears eyeswidening at the increasing pool of crimson in his shirt
Hed been shot
Gathering his strength he grips his pipe with renewed purpose resolving that he had no regrets before jumping into the fray zigzagging all the while and cracking his pipe on the heads of all the gun wielding men who got in his way him running gave them a good look at him he was of good build not too strong not to weak, tall about 6 ft 2 in he wore a plain white shirt that did nothing to hide the shocking color of crimson that was increasing he had reddish brown hair a rough beard that while rough looked well maintained and his most shocking feature were his purple eyes he wore cargo pants and a black pair of shoes
All the gang members are down and out cold blood flowing out there heads but after i are hero does a head count for them he has forgoten that he had miss all but one guy who wen in the back to get in the vault too get the cash but came running out and seeing his compliances on the ground out cold and looks at him with rage"You basterd!"says the second tommy gun holder and aims at are soon too be gone hero and pulls the trigger which time slows down around him as the bullets fly towards him at high speeds
A thousand Thoughts go through his head a mile a minute his life his friends his family all of his crushes and all his memories go through his head from when he first started school to dating to his time at college when he started at 18 to now when he was nineteen getting blown away by a tommy gun his last thoughts ran through his mine as a smile touched his face '...worth it'
At that last thought for the nineteen year older the bullets finally make they're mark and go through him like pencil stabbing into a peice of paper but with only fifty pencils instead of one after all the bullets been fired red hair studdent falls down with a smile on his face with blood pouring down every hole the bullets had make after that before the last gang member could reload the police had come and shoot down the man who had killed the boy who saved many lives but at the cost of his own but his story doesn't end here though this was just only...the beginning
He woke up in a cold sweat completely immersed in what only could have been a nightmare before He looked around and with the feeling as if an anvil had just dropped in his gut realized this was not his home he started coughing after inhaling so much air after his fit stopped he got up and looked around seeing he was wearing what he was before-only now his shirt was in tatters-and saw he was relatively unharmed "where...am I?"
"Ah so your wake boyo i was wondering if you were going to wake anytime soon",says the old man wearing some old clothing that looks like some japanese old torn kimino"its good thing you finally woke up i was thinking you might have gotten into coma to what ever made you died"
"Oh well im glad im fine noWAIT WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN'DIED'?!"
"Well what i mean is kid your a spirit and seeing how your a spirit that means you died on what ever killed ya"
His eyes widened to the point where eyelids were obsolete before going to a downtrodden look " so...it wasnt a nightmare..who are you?"
"Well my name is Charles but you can call me old man if you want to what's your name?"says the old timer as he smiles
" my name is...was...whatever its Cole Knight, what am i supposed to do now? Where are we?"
"Well for one thing your at the ryoko district where all spirits come when they die and what we suppose to do is live here in till something good happens to us or something i don't know it changes time to time...anyways are you hungry? I got some fruit if want it"
"Sure and thank you this is very disorienting, i mean there wasnt any warning you know? I must sound like a jackass saying that since you know...hey isnt there supposed to be some sort of i dont know judgement? What happens now? im so confused."
"Well happen to us now is well we decide or the shinigamis/"Lords"/Soul Reapers/noble higher ups try to get us for a crime we don't commit yet or do but some turn a blind eye"sighs the old man while getting up to get the bowel of fruit"anyways that's how life is right now its ether we fight each other times for survival or the "Lords" come and try to take us away because some have high spiritual power and will corrupt the young ones to their laws and lives"walks back to brown hair boy and hands him the bowel of fruit and sits down
Nodding his thanks and takes a piece of fruit-an apple- and begins eating before passing the basket of fruit back to charles "You dont like the way they do things i take it?"
"Yes"takes the basket and puts down next to me and takes his walking stick and drags it on the dirt floor and draws a big circle then a smaller in the middle then draws line from the bigger circle to smaller one then finishes"okay you see the small cirlce and the bigger circles with lines? The big circle with the lines is us the souls who are weak and not so powerful and there is 320 districts on the west,north,south and east each have eighty districts in total the north district is semi normal and controled a bit"says Charles"you still with me here kido?"
"Yep" said cole motioning for him to continue
"good now the west side is crazy and full of blood thristy people who like to battle out the littlest things I used to live there while i was younger and got few scuffles but got out there as soon i can when i got older ahem"coughs in his hand"anyways the east side is a bit stable
like the north but instead of having good money we having products like food and medicine that we try to make and finally the south side is poor and distraught and picked on the west side a lot and some rich basterds at the north take peoe feom the south to fight in they're illegal stadiums"uses his walking stick to tap on the smaller circle"now here sonny is where the soul reapers live called Seireiti its more lively,clean,stable,and where they hold more power then anyone here in the Rukongai"
"Hmm what do you mean when you were young we age here too? And are you all right?"
"Yes i am alright and yes we do age here but slightly less then when we used to be human but retain the age we died if we die at age of 40s to 100s we revert back to are twenty year old selves back in the day but if we die as kids we stay the same physical age we were and slowly age through the years"says the old man as he takes an apple from the basket and takes a bite
"...?! Huh?! But then how wait so...this ISNT the real afterlife?!"
"it is in some sense it is kid but this like your second life though"
It was then that for the first time again in a long time the word 'kid' seemed to be exactly what Cole felt like "Then...where do we go when we..die again?"
"In till you reach 1,000 years old i guess or when get by the people here or the creatures called hollows"
A perplexed look took its seat firmly upon coles face furrowing his brows " a hollow? Whats a hollow ?"
picking up his stick again starts drawing on the ground what a hollow he has seen looks like"hollows are creatures who like us are also spirits but saddly though these sipirts have been destroyed by darkness of they're hearts,staying in the human world to long or,being eat by a hollow themselves the reason why they are called hollows is because they eat spiritual energy that fuels on us to "relive" again and want to become whole once more"taps the drawing of the hollows hole in it's stomach to further make sense"now the masks they wear defines on what they are and what they're true emotions are like and also these hollows have many different forms they can evolve into and before you ask no we can't not do this only hollows can for some reason"
"...thats sad...is there any way to i dont know cure them?" The old mans reply was to shake his head slowly " I see...Hey whats gonna happen when the soul reapers find out about me?"Cole said both curiosity and desperation for a new topic fueling the question
"nothing besides they have already know you are here because they have devices to sense spirit energy and figure where it is and how strong it is so relax your safe as long you don't cause a lot chaos though and break one they're rules you'll be fine"smiles the old man
Cole released a breath he didnt know he was holding in" Thats a relief hey one more question why dont you like how the soul reapers manage this place?"
"Simple i to used to be a soul reaper and read the laws and seen how we supposed "help" the lost spirits find good home so i came here at times when receiving missions at times and help the people here and at times i would help some lost sould find they're family members at the time of there deaths...now though it's difficult too be done but i get from some the mayors in these districts" laughs a bit at the boy's expression when he tells him that he was a soul reaper
"H-Holy...wow thats..you must be very experienced sir and wise, Im honored for your help, but what should i do now?"
"well for one..."bonks Cole on the head with his walking stick"don't call me sir just Charles or old man would do second i think you should stay with me for awhile and learn about this place and things work around here"
Rubs the newfound soar spot on his head. " ha fine then whats the first order of buisness...old man"
smiles a bit"well first thing is to get you some new clothes at least some that look beter then your shredded clothes then i'll take you around the district and get aquatinted with the people who live here"
"All right then lets go" a little while later we find them at the market place cole looking around in wonder
the market vendors selling foods,medicine,clothes many other things as kids younger looking run around happily
"This place is amazing" cole said contentedly "where we going for clothes?"
"Right there" points to a store that has japan words on them that spell out Silver's Baine"come on now"starts walking to the store with Cole following in tow
"Wow ive...never been in a japanese clothes store or even seen their style of clothing
"The clothes are good but i'm sure we can find something you might like Cole"
"Oh its nothing like that just...things..you see we were about to enter a war with japan back on earth"
"Oh really? That sounds terrible i hope nothing to serious happens"
"Its...already pretty serious lets hope it doesnt get worse, anyway this solves nothing lets GET SOME CLOTHES!" Cole shouts exuberantly
Charles chuckles lightly and nods while walking into the shop
"Hmmm now where should we start? How about you go first you know this shop better than i do ill go look for some clothes."
"Okay then take all the time you need then i'll be chatting with an old friend of mine"walks off towards cashier who looks almost the same age as Charles but a bit younger and the two of them chat
Cole goes to one side of the shop where he sees something that catches his eye he takes it and some other clothes and changes where he looks at himself in a mirror he is now wearing a red sleavless vest that looks like it could pass for a jacket gray jeans black fingerless gloves underneath the vest he wears a long sleave black shirt with dark green stripes and on his feet he wears black steel toed combat boots he comes out and goes to charles "hey im done what do you think?"
"you got a good eye for clothes there kid isn't that right Tenzo?"says Charles as he looks at his old friend"that he does Charles"smiles the shopkeeper"anyways don't worry about paying kid it's on the house"
Cole is at first perplexed by the shopkeeper before remembering where he was "Oh yeah thanks...I promise once i got everything down ill pay everytime i come here!"
Tenzo waves off the boy lazily while chuckling"hey its alright no need be so serious all the time i trust ya"
Smiling cole chuckles and replies "sorry its just something to get used to you know? Any way we should go yeah Charles?"
"yes we should if i want you at least know a quarter of this district before sunsets"says Charles
"Alright then take care tenzo" the shopkeeper waves again this time in farewell as they make their way across the district and theyve explored a good portion of it cole asks "hey charles? How..do you know you have high spirit energy?"
"by doing this Cole"raises a hand up and makes blue sphere of energy"by concentrating your spiritual pressure into this ball of energy now after making it try slowly making it bigger in till the point you can't no longer"demonstrates it by making ball of spiritual energy get bigger slowly then makes it disappear
Nodding cole continues walking before noticing charles stayed in place "whats wrong why are y-" cole stopping himself, realization dawning in his eyes, said "wait you want me to do ..that?"
Facefaults to the ground anime like when Cole realized it"yes i want you to do it because you are curious aren't you?"
Rubs his head smiling sheepishly "s-sorry it slipped my mind" cole drops the bags to the ground after getting closer to the old man and holds out one hand "...a-alright, what now?"
"Okay you must close your eyes and relax your thoughts and try to find a fuzzy tingle of energy within you once you do try making that energy circle around your body and then try releasing that energy from your hand and form it into a sphere and keep it like that"
Taking a deep breath and following all charles' instructions as he said them and finding his center cole relaxed after what seemed to be hours but was only minutes cole was about to give up when he felt it
And boy did he FEEL it
It was like a sledgehammer to his senses outlined by this layer of warmth and...for lack of a better word fuzzyness he immediately tried to control it and snuff it out before remembering charles words and calmed down again before guiding the energy to what he felt was his palm and imagining it as a sphere once that happened cole heard a sharp intake of breath from who he didnt know whether it was charles or someone else he was too busy focusing on this sphere it was like if he didnt focus on it it would spread and engulf anything almost like a...a fire he then took a minute to gather himself before carefully expanding it until he felt if he continued it would end him...a thought then occured to him:... what did it look like? Mustering up his courage he opened his eyes and saw a sphere of pulsing white with an orange outline it seemed his simile was correct about a fire it was about as big as a baseball whilst charles was like a soccer ball he couldnt help but feel a pang of disappointment and released it "Im...sorry it wasnt bigger that was as big as i could go"
"actually you did really well it takes people a weeks to get it that size so in all you really did great Cole"smiles at him and pats the boy's back
Cole is surprised at this and feels a swell of pride and happiness at his apparent accomplishment...only for it to be squashed and stomped out by cold fear " C-charles...does this mean i have...high spiritual pressure?" Cole asked the fear in his eyes evident
"Well in a sense a bit high but don't worry about it Cole the soul society won't take you in unless the power hungry central 46 tries to"sighs Charles at the thought"but don't get work about it's a good thing kid"
"central 46 is the councel who control on what certain things can happen and also the ones who give the laws and invoke them if they choose it"
"Why would they want me? You said it was only a little high."
bonks him in on the head with his stick lightly"as i said earlier they are power hunger at times and want power and if they can't control it they will ether exile soul reapers to here and seal there power or hold them in a sealing prison"
Confused cole raised an eye brow before picking up his clothes and catching up to his elder who had started walking "'ill see one day?' What do you mean?"
"now that you must find out your self anyways its getting dark soon let's head back"
Still confused cole shakes it off and continues to his apparently shared house wondering whats to come
[MISSION END]
