'Atone, Minazuki'

By xxx_ArtaHolic_xxx

Feel free to skip the Prelude, not overly important. As well as the three paragraphs below. Also not important. I would like to mention that though this has a lot of Unohana Retsu in it, she is not in the spot-light all the time. In this Chapter, the 'Prelude: Rin' has been combined with 'Part 1: Five Hundred and One Years Later'.

Disclaimer: It is unfortunate, but I do not own 'Bleach'. That would be awesome, because then I would make sure the Espada did not have such ridiculous outfits or clothing. Again, that is unfortunate. I give all the credit to Tite Kubo for being such a amazing genius. Moving on, this is purely a 'fan-fiction'; using character names, backgrounds, and setting to create something I wish could be true.

Author's Note ( It is traditional ): This is my first. I do not expect to be gone on easy. The first person to comment that this is gross, disgusting, or needs work, will get the world's biggest face-palm. No really. I understand this needs a lot work and that it is somewhat, kind-of disgusting- but it's writing, right?

Warnings ( Please read, I do not like complaints ): This story may contain lemon/lime in the near-future. Do not read if that upsets you. This writing will contain spoilers as well, newbies please read at your own 'risk'.

Also, I may change several character outfits, because in my judgement I think we can all agree that as genius as TK is, he could have done a better job on some of the outfits, amirite? rhetorical question Think Barragan. Now think about Omaeda. Yeah. I'm not an Omaeda lover. Sorry.

-Prelude: Rin-

"Rin is dead." A teen girl with porcelain skin and dark almond hair stepped into the room, accusing Retsu with lurid cerulean eyes. The cheeks below her blood-shot eyes were smooth, round, and glistening, as if she had just finished crying.

"Kazuko." Retsu murmured, coughing into her sleeve. Her back was turned away from the girl, letting raven hair cascade down her spine. They could be twins, with the exception for the difference of length and color in their hair. Yet, it was still evident that Retsu had to be older than Kazuko.

"Rin is dead." Kazuko echoed vacantly.

"I am aware."

"You knew!" The girl roared, out of the blue. Her hollow eyes suddenly filled with a deranged rage. "You..."

"Naturally." Retsu said cooly, sorting her supplies. "It was entirely inevitable."

"H-How can you say that? You didn't even show up for her when she was dying-!" Her fists shook with fury at her sides. "Can... Can you not feel anything?"

"I had a patient to perform an emergency operation on." Retsu continued, maintaining her composure.

"So you chose the life of a stranger over Rin?" Kazuko asked incredulously.

"In reality, it is better to dispose your time over the life who may actually live- over the life that is certain to die."

"She was your friend! She's bloody dead now because of you... You... You... Oni-yaro!" Kazuko screamed, tears rolling down her cheeks. "I hate you! Every piece of you is disgusting! How can I even be related to you?! I hate you! The gods have mercy on you!" Her eyes were ablaze, smoldering with a bizarre, despairing lunacy.

"I suppose it is meaningless for me to explain it to an individual like yourself." Retsu sighed. Then with a cheerless laugh, "You, the you that depends solely on your discovered family, could never quite comprehend it. I apologize." A unbroken silence waved over the two.

"You know what? I get it. 'It is entirely inevitable' you say? Kirinji Sensei could do a better job than you. I should have realized that." Kazuko chuckled glumly. "Is that it, Re-chan?" She whispered weakly.

Retsu's eyes fluttered up, swarming up Kazuko's trunk like a knotted horde of ravenous snakes. Her usual air had suddenly changed from stable into irked. She pinned the younger girl with pure loathing, biting her lip in her anger.

Nobody had ever said that before.That was a topic not to be discussed with any captain. In fact, He- Kirinji Sensei, was not a topic to be discussed around Retsu at all. That was not something to push on her.

And that- was unforgivable.

Her oceanic eyes seemed to spear Kazuko with abhorrence from within a deeper ground. It could have been an old vendetta of some kind.

"Will I have to offer some retribution to you?" Retsu whispered threateningly, as she silently placed down her horsetail brush.

"Do you have any?" Kazuko mocked, stretching her arms out and leaving her torso exposed to Retsu's glaring daggers.

"More than you could understand." Retsu said, venomously, her jaw clenching.

"Well great, I have plenty of crap to get out of my system right now. Give me your best." And with that, Kazuko's hand went to her blade, a murderous look in your eyes. "Isn't it ironic though? The healer draws her fangs. I never understood why Rin adored you so much."

"When I said 'retribution', I didn't mean an affair of your 'honor'. I meant simply what I said. 'Retribution'." She said, icily. "This is punishment; not a duel."

-Part 1: Five Hundred and One Years Later-

"Kuchiki taichou. Your injuries . . . Let me take you to the Fourth Barracks to treat them." Captain Unohana prompted gently from the other side of a veil of dripping water. A cup of steaming liquid was held in her tender hand, bombed with raindrops descending from the sky. The tea mingled together with drops, doing somersaults in the opposing liquid.

Despite the berating of the rain, Unohana's shoulders held their distinctive, elegant frame. She was different than the others. She could be mistaken as a twenty year old human possibly. However, in truth, she was at least thirty times older than that. Then again, that was the rule for just about everybody in this world . . . who was dead at least.

The Kuchiki had been nailed into a deteriorated wall, sopping with his own blood. He had been bashed into it so hard that the 'crack' had become a cavern, overflowing with the Kuchiki's precious blood. For long moments Retsu stared at the Kuchiki from the opposite side of the waterfall, waiting for an answer.

"No. Let me die here and give me tea." A tear welted out of his eye, rolling down his cheek and blending into his crimson fluids. "I have nothing left to say to Ichigo Kurosaki. Nor to you." He spewed weakly.

"I insist." Unohana dictated, unfazed.

"No."

"Byakuya taichou, let me take you to the Fourth Barracks." The older woman repeated, "Please, do not cause any more trouble for me."

"I will not be assisted."

A sudden burst of energy weighed over the Sixth Division noble, hanging the air and beating down on his shoulders. He gasped under the spiritual pressure, sinking down the crumbling cave wall. An aura of sickly green light drew out of the lady-captain. They could be compared in someway or another as tentacles exploding unexpectedly y on the oceans' surface.

"That was not an offer, Kuchiki taichou." She spoke solemnly as she eyed her debilitating subordinate with a hint of annoyance . There was only a trace of discomfort in her eyes, but scarcely any other sentiment.

"Kuso-You bitch. I am The Head of the Kuchiki household, a mere healer cannot subdue me!" The Sixth Division captain uttered, his grey eyes becoming desperately wild as he sank to the ground, barely on his feet. The lady-captain curved her smooth lips in amusement. "Why do you smile?" He gasped.

"I find your arrogance quite endearing." She said pleasantly, honey coating her words. She increased the weight of pressure in the air nearly twenty times effortlessly.

Almost immediately, The Kuchiki's breath grew heavy, wheezing louder with every passing moment. Clearly, the reiatsu was taxing him. Scarcely a second had passed, and he collapsed under the weight, drowning in the debris.

"You cannot-!" He choked, only to fall to his knees. His eyes rolled into the back of his head, revealing only the whites of his eyes as he fainted.

"It pains me so." She apologized softly, drawing something from beneath her uncomfortably drenched robes. "Atone, Minazuki." She drew a unusually long blade from a sheath hidden beneath her captain coat. The blade dissolved, becoming a toxic -looking green cloud.

Note: Unohana's shikai command: 'Atone, Minazuki' was made by myself. It has not yet been revealed what her shikai command actually is in the manga series. I figured it was befitting for her since we know hardly anything about her past other than the fact that she was the first Kenpachi.

It eddied around her in such a strangely beautiful way. She was the tree and the mist was the red maple leaves that blew through the sky, winding around the bark bole in the mid of fall.

For a moment, it wavered in the air, disrupted by the bullets of water droplets plummeting from the sky. The mist danced through the inclement air, guising into the shape of a ray. A silhouette appeared in the poisonous fog, slowly solidifying.

And behold, before Unohana, stood something that resembled a manta ray. The only difference was the one glowing eye in the smack center of its' head and its' special tail. It actually had two, you see. They came out of its' behind and adjoined together into one, refined, tail. This was Minazuki; the flying, healing, almost two-tailed, manta.

Ending Note: Thank you for reading! I will continue... soon?