A/N: So, hello.

If you a new reader, please don't worry about this Authors Note. To those of you who have been with me since this fic began last year and have not seen the notice, I am restarting Behind the Mask. This is due to many things, including gaps in the 'plot' I had going, along with my OC, who was a Mary Sue. Not only that, but I just wasn't satisfied at how many gaps there were in Tarena's past, along with various other minor details I won't make you listen to.

I will be keeping all of the events that occurred in the previous eighteen chapters, and although they will be rewritten, they will be kept. This fic will basically follow all of the events of Tarena's life in Soul Society before the whole Aizen fiasco. The chapter below starts off with Tarena right after she graduates from the Shinigami Academy, and will basically go from there.

Remember: This fic is rated M. There's a reason for that. Abuse, Torture, and Hints/Mentions of Rape.

I hope you all enjoy, and please review at the end of the chapter. It is greatly appreciated.

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Prologue

She wasn't all that special.

She was just another soul, from just another district, who happened to have high reiatsu levels.

That was it.

Hair a mix of copper and white blond strands fluffing out slightly, hanging just past her shoulders, tied up with a crimson ribbon. Her body was thin beneath the Shihakusho she now wore, the kosode loose around her hips. Her face was elegantly angled, with high cheekbones and graceful brows that arched over her eyes.

Her eyes.

The things that had started all of this.

They were an ice white with a blue shade, dark blue outlining the pupils and adding to the mystery of their depths. At times, the woman in the mirror appeared to be much older with the pain and suffering that lingered deep within.

Though she was calm on the outside, serene even, almost every Shinigami in the Academy knew that she would randomly lash out for what seemed to be no reason, using her words and her fists causing damage and unrest in the ranks. Not only this, but the first time her zanpakuto materialized, it was larger than most people had seen. However, she easily adapted and carried it on her back, sheathed in dark brown with crimson ribbons woven around the swords frame.

Which is why she was somehow chosen, no, recommended, that she take the entrance exam for the Gotei 13, and from there be put into the Eleventh Division.

No one understood that she had no love for fighting, as she'd heard her teachers say, repeating the same lines over and over until it became a chant. That was the Eleventh Divisions specialty. Their love of fighting and their skills in zanjutsu made them infamous in the halls of the Academy, her classmates boasting and preening that they would go into the bloodthirsty squad that did just as much damage to themselves as they did to their enemies. She'd learned it from the mouth of the kind Taicho of the Fourth Division, Unohana Retsu, after being rescued from a Hollow attack a few years ago.

"Those men are in here just as often as they are out. It's in their nature. They have a love of battle that not many possess, and that is what makes them so crucial to Soul Society." she'd explained patiently. "If Soul Society lost the Eleventh Division, we would lose any battle afterwards. They are the primary source of our soldiers and comrades."

And it had been true. Not long after she'd been released from the Fourth Squad to go to the Academy, the news that the former Kenpachi had been killed and replaced by another. Kenpachi Kiganjo.

The news had startled her; what kind of man would purposefully kill another for a rank?

The law in the Eleventh was different, she later learned. To become Taicho, rather than performing Bankai or any other tests, had to kill the current Taicho in front of two-hundred witnessess.

At the time, she had been slightly disgusted, but later, began to ponder the reasons behind it.

It made sense. Because the squad itself was composed up of so many bloodthirsty members, they had to establish some kind of balance that would allow them to remain in a kind of harmony with one another. And what better way than to have the strongest battle each other, winner taking all?

The only problem was..

Women were considered weak in their squad, and rarely was one ever accepted into their ranks without a good reason.

Like now.

Just because she had abnormal spiritual pressure, a large sword, and a 'violent nature', she was being placed into a certain place so no one would have to deal with her anymore.

It was the same story every time. People making excuses, covering up their mistakes, trying to hide an outcast into the one place they thought they wouldn't last, knowing that finally, they would be rid of them.

If only they all realized the blatant truth right in front of their blind faces.

She wasn't violent. She wasn't bloodthirsty.

She was scared.

A/N: I hope you will review.