The Broken Bow
By: Chris Harrington
Chapter one: decisions
They existed for thousands of years and then two hundred years ago, and then in a mere two hundred years they were wiped out by the Balancers for offsetting the balance of trade between soul going from the world of the living and the Soul Society. They were lessening more and more over the period of time that the Quincy began to thrive. Finally when they were gone did the souls begin to flourish once again, this is the story of what went wrong and why it was necessary for the Quincy to face destruction.
In a room filled with white clothed people there stood one who was a Balancer he was the only one who carried a sword in a room filled with bows of raishi, pointed right at him.
He was very nervous as he stood there waiting to see the head of this tribe, "You know that I am not here to harm any of you, I'm just here to talk to your sensei, so you can put the bows down."
They just stood there as solid as stone, not even batting an eye. Then only seconds later a man in white with a hood on his head and a veil.
"My apologies for keeping you, balancer." The man said as he bowed and the balancer bowed as well.
"It isn't a problem sir." He said looking the man in the eyes.
"What is your name, I can't keep calling you balancer all day?" the Quincy asked as they began to walk down a long hall to a better chamber.
"My name is Dengon Teishoku, and may I ask yours?"
"My name is Ametatsu, Ametatsu Oken, it is nice to meet you Dengon." He said as they entered an outdoor training area with hundreds of children pulling back arrows from their raishi bows of light and firing with success in hitting the targets they aimed at.
Dengon starred at these children with amazement in his eyes as he looked at the determination of these children who were working so hard to hit targets that were very far away, and in his head he was reminded of his time at the Soul Reapers Academy.
"Dengon…Dengon will you come with me?" Ametatsu said as Dengon noticed that he had stopped walking and was just starring at these humans and their power.
As he ran to the door he noticed that the Quincy were in a castle, and a rather beautiful one at that. He then noticed a small child maybe five or six years old playing at the top of the castle. He then noticed that the child was climbing rather high on the walls that stood in the way of a long drop to your death. The child slipped and was barely holding onto the ledge which began to give way. The child fell but never hit the ground. He just disappeared in the middle of his fall. Ametatsu looked over where Dengon was and noticed that he wasn't there, and then in seconds he reappeared with the child in his hands. Dengon let the child go and walked closer to the door that Ametatsu was leading him to.
"Why did you save him?" asked Ametatsu with the presence of great thanks in his voice.
"Cause I didn't see anyone else about to do it."
Ametatsu bowed once again to him and let Dengon past the door.
"So whose child was that?" asked Dengon as he stopped abruptly in the hall with Ametatsu behind him.
"Mine." He said quickly and with a slight smile under his veil.
Ametatsu then took the lead and led Dengon to a room barely lit by candle light with many other Quincy dressed in spectacular robs much like Ametatsu, but it was clear that one of them was a female. They sat at a rounded table and Dengon sat at the opposite end of were Ametatsu sat at the head of the table.
"So Balancer why have you come here?" asked an old man seated not far from Ametatsu.
"The Soul Society has sent me to be a negotiator," Dengon said as he pulled a small round device from his Shihokusho and threw it in the middle of the table.
As the device hit the table it made a 3-D image of the Head Captain and the others standing in their usual spots during such meetings.
"Hello Head Captain Yamamoto it is good to see you again." Said Ametatsu.
"Hello Ametatsu I am here to inform you of the dangers of your practice." Yamamoto said in that official voice of his.
"Dangers what kind of dangers Head Captain?" another Quincy asked.
"Your techniques involve the destruction of hollows, and although I understand where you are coming from with the continued usage of these powers of yours I must ask you to discontinue your mass hunting of hollows." Yamamoto said as bluntly as possible.
"Discontinue our mass hunting of hollows! How can you ask that of us? We destroy hollows because they don't deserve the peace of the Soul Society, yet you welcome those monsters in with open arms! How do you have the right to decide whether or not we use our powers, to vanquish hollows!" yelled another Quincy closer pounding his fist on the table with every sentence in anger.
"It isn't their fault that they became hollows and what gives you the right to decide who gets into the Soul Society and who is to vanish from the face of the earth?" asked Captain Kuchiki of squad six as he opened his eyes from his wrinkly old face.
"That isn't the point!" yelled the same Quincy as he stood up from his seat waiving his fist at the image in front of him.
"Sensei, please take your seat, there is no need for this to be an unpleasant meeting." Ordered Ametatsu as he man reluctantly took his seat once again, "I apologize for my clan sensei Homusho, as you can see, isn't a fan of Balancers."
"Regardless to our disagreements over who has what right, I must warn you, if you continue to do this to your world and ours we will soon exist no more. Before that happens we would rather see the destruction of one clan than the annihilation of both worlds, don't force us to take such drastic measures." Yamamoto said as the transmission ended and the device lay on the table lifeless.
Dengon got up from his chair and spoke "I have been ordered by the Soul Society to act as guardian to Ametatsu, and I will also be living here as of now." Dengon said as some of the Quincy became angry at the Balancer.
"So you expect us to let a simple Balancer to watch over us like we were mere children!" yelled the Quincy who was angry before.
"Yes!" Dengon said as he became angry at the name Balancer.
"I would rather be dead before I allow my Sensei being watched over by someone like you!" he yelled as Dengon drew his sword.
"Don't make offers you don't want fulfilled Quincy, I dislike the idea of being away from my home enough as it is don't anger me further!" he yelled as he put back his sword and Ametatsu calmed the table down.
"Now, now, now there isn't any call for such violence, I have no trouble with having a Balancer bodyguard." Ametatsu said as he got up from his seat and motioned the others to take theirs.
"This is preposterous sensei! I swear by the honor of the Quincy that if you lay one finger on Ametatsu body with intent to harm I will kill you." Said Homusho as he stormed out of the room followed by some other Quincy, until eventually all Quincy left except the female Quincy and Ametatsu.
"I must say I didn't expect such hostility towards our guests Dengon please except my apologies." Ametatsu said as he stood up from his seat.
Ametatsu showed Dengon a place to stay whilst he was here and left the room for him to do with is as he wished. Night came and Dengon heard a knock at the door. He answered it and it was the female Quincy that was at the meeting.
"Hello Balancer." She said as Dengon said hello back.
"What is it that you want at this hour of the night miss?" he asked.
"I just want to know what our killing of hollows is doing to the Soul Society that is so bad?" she said not bothering to get invited in.
"Well it is my understanding that the Dangai presuppose world thrives on the passage of souls between the two worlds in the cycle of death and rebirth. You take thousands of those souls away and the worlds collide because of the collapse of the Dangai presuppose world." The words he spoke rang out as if they were weights on her shoulders.
"I can't believe that, it just can't be true!" she said as if he had told the biggest lie in the world.
"Ma'am, believe as you wish, but that is the information that the Soul Society has found as a direct study of your powers and the destruction of souls. Now if you'll excuse me I would like to get a few hours sleep." Dengon said as he shut the door in her face and laid down to go to sleep.
The next morning Dengon awoke to the distant sounds of footsteps creeping up on him from the next corridor, he flash stepped to the ceiling and hung there from the rafters above the door and concealed his spiritual pressure. The door opened very sheepishly but Dengon was still unsure of who was on the other side until it opened all the way and a little boy in a Quincy outfit came through the door.
"Hello…hello Mr. Balancer?" the little boy began to say in a cute tone.
Dengon flash stepped behind him, "What is it young Quincy?" asked the Balancer as the child jumped forward in excitement, with a small scream.
"Sensei Ametatsu wishes to have a conference with you sir." The little boy said as he didn't even look at Dengon for what seemed to be out of fear.
"Alright, and young one please call me by my name or at least a soul reaper."
"Okay sir." He said still not looking at Dengon's eyes or even his face when he talked to him.
Dengon followed the little boy to Ametatsu's chambers and walked inside and found Ametatsu standing at a window. Dengon bowed and Ametatsu turned and did the same.
"Well Dengon what is your business with my clan today?" Ametatsu asked as he noticed a great deal of confusion in Dengon.
"What do you mean sir; you called me down to your chambers?"
"That is true but I find it hard to believe that the soul society sent you here simply to keep an eye on me, what else did they say for you to check on secretly or otherwise?" he asked with a smirk on his face and for the first time Dengon got a look at his face, he had black hair that was fairly short and a slight scar on one of his eyes, but his eyes were the most shocking feature of him because they were gray on the outside and a dark blue on the inside of the pupil. He had to be at the age of at least twenty six or so, about mid life for people back then.
"You are much wiser than you look sir, yes they asked for me to examine your training grounds, weapon storage, and they also wanted a rough estimate of how many Quincy live in this area."
"Well the training grounds you have already seen, I would be happy to show you our weapon storage area, but for the amount of Quincy living here, that's where the main problem is." Ametatsu stated as he placed his hand behind his head and closed his eyes.
"Why is it hard to determine the amount of Quincy that live here?" asked Dengon shocked at Ametatsu's calm domineer as opposed to the other Quincy.
"Well this isn't a place where Quincy tend to stay, this is mainly a training facility for young and new Quincy that's about it. Most of them leave after training is complete to go back to their families, or go off to kill hollows alone, or even in their own little group they create themselves." He said as he heard a knock on his door, "Come in!" he said as the door slammed opened to reveal the Quincy woman who visited Dengon before in a hysterical state.
"Sir one of the young ones has gone into the forest and we believe that there are hollows in that forest!" she yelled as Ametatsu darted out of the room.
As he ran he noticed that Dengon was following him very closely with his hand on his zanpakuto. Ametatsu smiled at the sight of this comrade offering to help without being asked. Ametatsu used Hirenkyaku and Dengon used flash step to get to the forest much faster than the rate they were traveling. They appeared at the forest to the sounds of a child screaming and above the canopy of trees they could see the wild fire of raishi arrows into the air. Dengon also noticed the Quincy woman right behind them. Dengon then heard the sound of a hollow behind him but before he could move he heard the sound of a bow drawn and fired and the ashes of a hollow floated to the ground, he smiled at the woman Quincy as she nodded back.
"So I guess that I have to bring my A-game, Howl into the dead of night…Shiroi Okami!" he said as his sword took shape. The blade became serrated and the hilts cloth turned white. And at the end of the hilt there was what appeared to be a mammal's coat with long hair that was half white and half gray. The guard was the only thing that stayed the same round shape that it was but it had a hole in the sides that resembled a crescent moon.
They continued into the forest until they found the child surrounded by hollows. The woman Quincy readied her bow and was about to fire but Ametatsu stopped her.
"He is too close to the hollows to use a bow." He whispered to her as he took some type of rod from behind him. It had a hole in the top of it. He then disappeared and reappeared next to the hollows in a matter of seconds they were gone and the rod that Ametatsu held had a raishi blade to it. In no time the female Quincy get over there and was holding the child close to her chest crying as the child cried as well. On the child's arm was a brose that looked almost like a burn, which could only have been left by a hollow. The next thing that they knew was that many more hollows surrounding them.
"Get her out of here!" he said as she disappeared with the child in her arms. The Quincy and the soul reaper then went back to back.
"So how in the hell do we get out of his Dengon?" asked Ametatsu .
Dengon raised his sword into the air and launched a blast of energy that was white but it also had two red marks in it and when it got away from the sword it took the shape of the head of a wolf and when it hit the hollows it bit down on them and they were no more.
"I like that idea." Ametatsu said as he made his bow come forth, but this bow was like no other it was not made of raishi it was a solid bow.
Ametatsu fired one shot into a group of ten hollows and in seconds they disappeared into ash that floated away. Dengon looked at this in amazement because only milliseconds before the arrow hit any hollow it split into ten arrows that hit each hollow square in the forehead.
Soon many other hollows began to swirl around them and finally began to outnumber them a hundred to two some attacked and some just stood there. Ametatsu then found one that only had its torso and he took one foot and stomped on its shoulder and held it there with the bow at the hollows mask.
"By the honor of the Quincy, I'll kill you!" he said with anger and launched an arrow in its face and behind it there was a large crater were it once laid.
And all of a sudden many of the hollows began to go towards the castle and soon there were only one wall of hollows then not twenty feet away in the direction of the castle many Quincy aiming not just raishi bows but cross bows made of some kind of stone.
"Dengon stand perfectly still," said Ametatsu as he looked at the Quincy ahead of them, "Fire now!" he yelled as arrows rained down on all of the hollows and went past them headed for Ametatsu and Dengon as Dengon closed his eyes from the pain that was sure to come.
When Dengon opened his eyes he saw all the arrows suspended in the air not moving what so ever. He then looked at Ametatsu and his hand was up in the air.
"Is he controlling the arrows?" Dengon asked inside his head.
Ametatsu then noticed some hollows so he moved his hand and all of the arrows followed the hollows and obliterated them. Ametatsu then looked at Dengon and smiled, "You see this is how our powers work Dengon, we take raishi out of the air and use it to attack the hollows, the bow is just a conductor to amplify the raishi but those who have the ability to freely control raishi are made into sensei and in my case the leader." He said with a sad tone in his voice, "This is all the power we humans can have Dengon, and we won't give that up, we will always destroy hollows because you Balancers don't have the power to get rid of them all."
"This isn't your decision to make us stop killing hollows it is ours and as you can see we have made our decision, I'm sorry." He said as he walked away to the castle and Dengon followed him into the corridor and back to the organized training of the Quincy.
END OF DECISION