A New Tale of Power:

I have one thing to say about all of this, I don't think I will ever get used to standing air. Jumping through it, fine, did that all the time in gymnastics. Or can I say do? But I'm getting ahead of myself. My name is Sanju Roku, and I'm half dead. And no thanks can be said to Ichigo Kurosaki for it.

My life had been fine. Sure, I was an obvious lover of all things manga and anime, but this didn't keep me from gymnastics. I even had a close group of friends who shared both my passion for the gym and manga. Then they died, and so did I, but only almost. We were on our way home from after school practice, when I suddenly heard a loud "THUMP!" from behind us. I whipped around immediately, but saw nothing but a swirling dust cloud.

"What's wrong dude, think you have a stalker?" and they all snickered. "Didn't you just hear that, like something huge just landed behind us?"

"Oh come off it, you're imagining things now."

"Yeah, maybe you guys are right." And we all had a laugh, until two of them had to stop due to the giant holes in their abdomens. "What the…" was the last thing both of them said, before they slumped over, dead. The three of us were scared. "What just happened, where did their entire middle just go!" said my friend to my left, just before his head fell off. The two of us ran. We ran like we were the best on the track team, but we were only good at short distances. That's when I heard from behind us "so one of you two have the delicious one then, hmm?"

I didn't know who or what had just said that, but we both kept running, until both of our legs were ripped out from under us. My friend tried to ignore the pain and keep crawling foreword while I succumbed to it. All I could do was turn over to at least see who was going to kill me.

Turns out not who, but what. It was at least twice what my height used to be, rust red, with a white mask that looked like a praying mantis. Its limbs were almost exactly like one to, it was standing on two needle like legs that pierced the sidewalk, while each of its five 'fingers' were actually like barbed spears. I had one thought, 'Get out of there, no matter the cost.'

So I got up and ran again. I ran right past my friend who was still crawling without his legs, which reminded me, weren't my legs gone to? I looked down, but sure enough, there they were, along with a chain coming out of my chest.

"So it's you then hm?" I heard the weird voice again, this time realizing it was coming from that strange thing. As looked back at him, I realized something I didn't before, he had a huge gap in the middle of his chest. "Well crap, if this thing on me is related in any way to that hole, then I would rather die!"

I heard my friends finally scream as he died as well and I heard the being behind me again. "Didn't you realize it, hm? You already are." I whirled around and actually saw it standing right in front of me. "What do you mean I'm dead? I'm still running and breathing, away from you no less."

"Oh-ho? Well, let's se how you feel after this." And he brought his hand scraping across the chain that had fallen on the ground from my chest. I gasped in pain and at the sudden feeling of not being able to breathe. "What… What did you just do!"

"I just made sure you're truly dead." It said as it stepped aside, and there I saw my body, without any legs, lying there. "Now, I'm done playing, goodbye, strong soul." With that, it opened its jaw, and just beyond that I saw a pair of teeth, and beyond that, nothing. I raised my arms to stop what would happen next and closed my eyes. But nothing happened to me; in fact I heard the thing scream. I opened my eyes and saw the last of the thing disappearing, and in front of me I saw Ichigo and a black haired woman. But they were both in some sort of weird black garb. Ichigo then knelt next to his HUGE sword, where the hell could he have gotten that?

"Rukia, this is just getting harder and harder to do, maybe you should take the next one on your own."

"No, you're doing this until you can't do anymore period."

Man was this woman bossy. Wait, Rukia? Where had I heard that name before? Oh right, she was in Ichigo's class since she had transferred in the first year. Wait, first year, but didn't she come in… awe this was all confusing, there were to many conflicting memories to get it straight. Unluckily for me I didn't have time to focus on that because I felt an agonizing pain from the plate on my chest, and I screamed.

This made both of them whip around and see me. Well great, at least they paid attention now

"Oh man, he didn't eat all of them, at least we can save one." Ichigo said

"Look again Ichigo, his Spirit Chain is severed, he is truly dead."

"But wait, if he's dead, shouldn't his chain just hang there until we come then? It shouldn't be causing him pain."

"That's only when spirits don't have the potential to become Hollows. Honestly, don't you pay attention to my drawing?"

"No, because they suck."

"HEY! Dead guy in pain here, mind explaining that to me real quick here?" I snapped

"Oh, you can actually talk in your situation, I'm impressed." Rukia said, "Well, I don't have my pad here, so here's what's happening, you remember the thing that just killed you?"

"Yeah, what of it?"

"Well, you are currently becoming one of them."

"WHAT!"

"Now now, hear me out, since you are becoming one, it means your soul is strong enough to do it, this also means we can take that power."

"How?"

"By doing this." Ichigo said as he stepped in front of me, and stabbed me right in the heart.