* A mythical Japanese sword said to have been found in the stomach of a giant snake
*Wooden sword used for training
The Asauchi
An Asauchi. A Zanpukto that does not have a name, wielded by those Shinigami which never managed to join one of the thirteen squads. This the story of one such Asauchi, and its wielder, a young Shinigami named Nero. He died aged seventeen and lived in soul society for seventy years before deciding to join the Sereitei, but for some reason his sword did not acquire a name, and so he was not accepted into the squads. This is the story of his search for the one who, legend says, can give names to swords, a man who lives on the very edges of the soul universe, a place were no Shinigami has ever tread. Were it is said that beings far more powerful and more ferocious than any hollow dwell. It is a journey that will test his resolve to it's very limits, will either make him stronger or destroy him. This is the the story of Nero Kusanagi*.
Nero ducked below the bokken*, bringing his own up in a diagonal arc aimed at the left side of his opponents head, but was deflected as Aiden moved the hand guard of his wooden sword the small distance needed to intercept. Instead of pulling his sword away from the block Nero pushed forward, using his strength to push Aiden backwards. Spinning to the left Aiden broke away from the lock, he kept spinning until he was behind Nero, and whipped his bokken at his head, but Nero anticipated the blow and bent over, ducking the blow as he lifted his rite leg and kicked Aiden in the stomach, forcing him back two steps. As he straightened up Nero spun, so that he was facing his opponent and leapt forward before he had time to recover his balance after the kick, and cut at Aiden's left knee. Aiden tried to block but the attack was too strong, and he had not recovered his balance enough to put any real effort into the block, the attack connected and he was sent crashing to his knees. Not giving his opponent time to recover, Nero whipped his bokken forward at Aiden's own weapon, knocking it out of his momentarily weakened grasp with the force of the blow. The bokken bounced twice on the Dojo mat as it skittered away, into the crowd of onlooking classmates. Aiden made a move to jump for it, but received a kick in the chest that sent him sprawling before he could move as much as an inch. Nero stepped forward over his prone opponent, and put the blunt tip of his weapon at his throat "Surrender." Aiden looked about him for an escape route, but saw none through which he could escape without receiving a winning blow from his opponent. No matter what happened here he would lose. He decided to take the option that would hurt least "I surrender." Nero grinned at his friend before he stepped away from him and offered his hand.
Nero helped Aiden to his feet, childish grin plastered on his face "I always win" he said simply, but not maliciously. Aiden looked at him with fire in his eyes "I will win one day! Anyway I would win with real Zanpukto, since mine has a name!" indignant at losing as he was Nero let that snipe slide. It was true though, his British best friend would most likely win, should the two ever cross swords in a real battle. Because, no matter how hard Nero tried, he just could not discover his swords name. It was the blade of a trainee, an Asauchi, a blade that does not have a name. But Nero was not a trainee, he was skilled enough to enter the ranks of the Shinigami as, according to his Sensei, a third seat at least, if only he could name his Zanpukto. Nero looked at his best friend, really taking him in for the first time since he had become a Shinigami. He had his black robes on, as was the law, and was in the process of strapping his Zanpukto, Miasashi, to his hip. His hair was black and hung straight at his shoulders. His eyes were dark, almost black, and he had light stubble on his chin which, not matter how much he shaved, he could not get rid of. "We are what we were when we died" he had once explained to Nero when he had asked about it "And when I died I had stubble." Nero stood at about 5'6, and had white hair which hung to his hips, and was tied back in a pony tail. He had pink eyes and pale skin. Nero was an albino.
After collecting his own weapon Nero and Aiden walked out of the Dojo without another word to each other. The soul society sun shone on the pairs exposed necks as they made their way towards the Sereitei gate together, quietly contemplating how to begin the next awkward conversation, each hoping equally that Aiden being a Shinigami would be conveniently forgotten. To say it had caused bad blood between the two would be an understatement. "So...what will you do now?" Aiden hazarded at Nero, hoping he would not misconstrue it as a question about his plans for the future and rather take it for what it was, a question about how he would spend his day. "I don't know. I'm meeting Sakura in the library later but I don't know what we're doing after that. You?" Nero breathed a sigh of relief. "I have the entire day off today. I should be using it for training, but I'd rather the two of us hung out, you mind if I come to the library with you?" Nero grunted his permission.
The Soul Society Library is a giant, building, it has one main, square shaped room stretching for a mile in every direction, and instead of a roof there is a brilliant glass dome that causes the light to scatter as it enters the room, giving the effect of a disco ball in some areas. Book shelves are lined up in neat rows of one hundred left too rite, then each stack in the front row is proceeded by one thousand going backwards. The library is far too large too move around on foot, it would take days to find the general area of the book you are looking for, and then possibly the same time again to actually find the thing, and so the floor is a web of tracks, thousands and thousands of miniature train tracks, upon which glide small two seater chairs, simply called convoy chairs. As you sit down there is a keyboard in front of you, and on this you type the book you wish too find, or area of the library you wish t go. The problem with books in soul society is that, though it is easy to conjure books from the living world to the spirit one, disposing of them is somewhat more difficult, seeing as everything destroyed in soul society becomes spirit particles if you was to continually destroy conjured books it would have a serious, but as yet unknown, affect on the place. So this room was created, and it grows one book larger every time an author has his or her works published.
Nero had always been fascinated by the library. Even in life he had had a passion for literature, and this place with near enough every book ever written in it was better than sex to him. On more than one occasion, before he began to feel hunger that is, he had been known to spend days, even weeks here at a time, sleeping little and talking even less, He had drunk in thousands of books, short stories, comics, and even the bible. It had become a mission to him that he would read at least one million books before...well not before he died, seeing as he was dead already. He had yet to decide what the time limit would be. The two entered the Library through the main doorway and instantly jumped into the last empty convoy chair. "Were are they gonna be waiting?" asked Aiden "They said they'd be in the relaxation centre." The relaxation centre was a place for readers to sit and read, it was simply a clearing in the shelves that had four twenty seater sofa's and a few bean bags littered about the place. And as the two arrived, the hum of their chair announcing their arrival to the small group gathered, they spotted the girls sitting on a collection of bunched together bean bags. The two waved as they noticed the boys, and they waved back. Sakura was Nero's girlfriend, she had long blue hair, which was equally as long as Nero's, she wore Shinigami robes like Nero and Aiden, as did the girl she was with, Tatsuo Nakamura, Nero's "sister". She hadn't been his sister in the real world, in fact they'd never even met. But when someone comes to soul society it is rare for them to find their real families again, so they form family units of their own. And Tatsuo was his. She looked a lot like Sakura, except she had red hair. Nero had a belief that if it wasn't for their strange hair colours they would have nothing in common at all. Both had been obsessed with Nero's white hair when he had arrived in Soul Society.
As he approached Nero noticed that the girls were both leaning over the same book, muttering quickly, glances darting at the two approaching boys every few seconds. When he was close enough to talk without having to shout Nero asked "What's going on? Why are you whispering?" the two looked at each other, Sakura nodded and lent back on her bean bag, a sad look on her face, as if she had conceded defeat to an unworthy opponent. "Well?" he prodded "Yea you're kinda worrying me" added Aiden. Tatsuo looked at Sakura one more time, again seeking confirmation, and when she received none spoke anyway. "It's this book" she handed it to Nero as she said it. It was a big dusty old tome, with crinkled and eroded pages. The spine seemed to have some green mould covering the name of the book. Nero tried not too touch that bit. He looked at his sister, puzzled. "Read that page idiot" Nero looked down and was instantly hooked.
The Name Giving Hermit
In the farthest Eastern corner of the Soul Universe there lives a man.
His name is unknown even to me. But he is there, I have seen him in
my dreams. He is a man born with an extraordinary ability.
He can give nameless swords names!These blades are
commonly known as Asauchi, and are used by trainee Shinigami.
But it is not uncommon for those who train with these blades to be
unable to name them. It is not through weakness that this
happens, but a phenomenon known as "Nameless bonding."
This is were the user becomes too powerful in the use of the Asauchi
and due to it's bond with it's powerful master, the blade never feels
the need to develop an identity of it's own. This man,
whom I simply call Hermit, can break this bond,
and force the blade to form an identity. Enclosed is a map to his home.
It is not exact, for I have never travelled there, but I have never dreamed
something that turned out untrue. However I implore the reader, do not
travel there unless out of absolute necessity. It is a dangerous realm,
through which no Shinigami has travelled. It is fraught with master hollows.
Hollows as yet unknown to the wider population of Shinigami,
but I assure you they exist, and their power is exponential. And beyond them..
are the things of which Nightmares are made, worse than hollow. Worse than
Espada. Again, go ONLY if all else is lost, and his power is needed.
"What the hell's an Espada?" Nero heard Aiden ask the girls "No idea" he heard them reply. He read the passage again. And again, and again, until he had it memorized. All the time he was reading not one person tried to speak to him, but the group seemed to sense when he was done despite still not taking his eyes off the page. It was Sakura who spoke first "I think it's fake, probably just some human who has experience with Shinigami and thought it would be a good way to earn some money" Nero shook his head "No. it's real. I know it" "How do you know?" it was Tatsuo now "For one look at the state of the book. It's a mess! Look around you, the books from the human world don't age, but the ones written here do. And if it was a Shinigami what would he get out of this? Except punishment if he was discovered before the book was read. Probably death if it was read and the reader went looking and this turned out to be a hoax." Nero looked at the gathered group, he turned the page and, sure enough, there was the map to the man's house.
The scale of the map was huge, Soul Society measured at roughly one thousand miles in distance, and on this map registered as only a small dot. Laying the map down, Nero grabbed a piece of paper and pencil from the table beside him, and drew a small line the same length as the representation of Soul Society, then he moved it along, and counted the amount of times he could fit it into the gap between Soul Society, and the dot marked HERMIT. It fit into it seventeen times. "So if this map is to scale, then this hermit is about....seventeen thousand miles away. I should be able to run five hundred miles a day easily, so that means it should take at least thirty four days, providing I don't run into any trouble. Easy" he had been talking to himself, in a daze, and had missed the astonished gasps of his small group of friends.
Now he looked up to find a look of horror on both girls face, and Aiden shaking his head, an almost disappointed look on his "What?" he asked no one in particular. "You can not seriously plan on going there!" exclaimed Sakura Nero thought about the question for a moment, confused by it. "Well....of course I'm going. I thought that was why you showed me"
"No! Of course not you idiot! We just thought you'd be interested in it"
"Well....you were right, I am interested, very interested. In fact I'm gonna leave tomorrow"
"No! You can't go Nero! If you do.....I'll tell captain Kenpatchi" it was Aiden talking now, by his tone it was obvious that he found his threat childish, but the determination in his eyes showed he was serious. "No you wouldn't Aiden, because your my friend, and you know that becoming a Shinigami is everything to me. I refuse to give up on my dream! I would die for it. And if you go to Kenpatchi then...well I guess you were never the friend I believed you to be" that did it, a look of defeat came over his friends face so fast that Nero began to wonder when it was that the guilt of becoming a Shinigami before Nero had broken his best friend's spirit. "I have to tell him Nero. But....I will wait two days, if you can run at the pace you say that will give you a one thousand mile head start. If your lucky Byakuya won't chase you. With his flash step he would catch up to you in hours, instead of days" Nero nodded at Aiden, then turned to look at his girlfriend and sister "Will you tell your captain?" both girls were in squad four. Sakura held up her hands, as if doing so would make the rapidly escalating situation slow down "Hang on, how did this happen so fast? You've been here what ten minutes? And already you're talking about leaving to go on a suicide mission? Were where the preliminaries? The self debate about weather it would be a good idea?!" Nero took his girlfriends hand in his and looked into her beautiful blue eyes "There was no self debate because I have no self doubt. I know that this is the right thing for me to do. It's instinctive. like how you Shinigami know the names of your swords" the last part of his sentence was said with a bitterness that made Sakura snatch her hand back. "I'm sorry Sakura, I don't blame you for this, but you have to allow me to do this without interfering. I would rather die on this mission than not become a Shinigami. The shame of such a failure would be....too much" and with that he climbed to his feet and moved towards the convoy chair. "I'll leave tonight instead, that will give me a bit more than a thousand mile head start on the Shinigami, as long as you keep to your promise Aiden. "Of course I will" Aiden answered, slightly indignant at the implication in the sentence. "That's good then. With any luck I should see all of you in about..two and a half months, three tops. Please don't follow me or try to talk me out of this. And with that he climbed into the chair, and entered the code to leave the library.