I'm back! AND JUST WROTE 50k words for a month long challenge! –dances- AND THIS TIME! I'M PUBLISHING IT! Yeah, online in Amazon, I'll fill you guys in with the details once everything is hammered out. I still need to get it edited and such.
Give it a read, I'm the author, and I say it's pretty good. :)
Enough advertising, I own nothing except my poor drawing of Lou in a shinigami uniform. And of course, my novel, "The Great Cookie of Life" coming to an Amazon shopping cart near you!
Lou's spirit seemed to be traveling at the speed of light towards a light, how cliché that he was heading towards the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. His spirit came to rest in a huge line of other spirits.
A small slip of paper appeared in his hand and he barely got the chance to look at it before he was whisked away once more. But what he saw was a number, the number 30.
Suddenly, he was in this Edo-era looking town, he saw many men and women talking and wearing clothes that obviously were showing that they were of a peasant class. Lou felt out of place, as he was still in his SRU uniform, many people blatantly stared outright at him as he walked through the market place. "What is this place?" he asked in wonder and awe.
"You are in district thirty of the Rukongai," someone said behind him, a woman in her late fifties stood behind him, "Not the best, but not the worst either."
"What does that even mean?" Lou asked as the woman approached him, he was on his guard, wary of the stranger.
"I'm not going to hurt you," the woman answered, as she stopped, Lou noticed she was slightly taller than Jules, much older looking too, but still in her early fifties. Her likeness to Jules was almost uncanny, it was almost as if . . .
"Who are you?" Lou asked, something stirred in the pit of his stomach.
"Isabel Callaghan," the woman answered, "You?"
"Lewis Young," Lou answered, he took a deep breath, he had once heard Jules talking about her mother, Isabel Callaghan, could this just be a coincidence? Or could this seriously be Jules's mother, the likeness was too similar to be a coincidence, the name was even the same. "I worked with your daughter."
"Julianna," Isabel said softly, her voice choked a bit as Lou nodded, "How is she doing?"
"She's fine, she's a beautiful woman," Lou said kindly as Isabel Callaghan, Jules's mother, hugged him and wept. Lou hugged her back, feeling at peace with himself and happy that he had just made someone's afterlife.
*~*~*~*~*
Lou spent years in the Rukongai, working along side Isabel.
He felt hunger pains, something most people he asked, never experienced. Some offered that he could have spiritual pressure, but when grilled about that, they offered no worthwhile information.
So, Lou went on living his afterlife, eating when ever he got hungry and facing every day as it came, that was, before the hollow attack.
He was with Isabel and a few people that he came to view as friends, they were working on getting food and selling merchandise to people in the market, quite a few soul reapers had gathered in the area as well, mainly lower ranking shinigami looking for a good bargain.
It was a nice day in District 30, the weather was warm, the air was not too humid and the sun shone brightly. It was almost always like this in the Rukongai in the spring time. He took a small break, walking through the market place and then in a more secluded section of town near the forest.
He noticed the atmosphere was getting heavy, almost dark, and he looked up to see if a storm was blowing in. What he didn't see was dark storm clouds heralding rain, he saw a large gash open up in the sky, and out came the most hideous thing he had ever seen in his existence. A giant monster came out of the crack but monster was too kind a word for it.
It was an abomination, an ugly thing, a sneering white mask in the shape of an animal skull, like a moose or a stag deer. It's body was scaly, like a reptile, an over sized dinosaur moose.
It shrieked a blood curdling scream and glared down at Lou. Lou stepped back hesitantly and the monster pounced as Lou sprinted away. He may not have been in the SRU for several years, but he still could out run almost everyone in District 30.
The monster seemed to have disappeared from behind him, only to reappear seconds later in front of the former officer. Lou pulled up short, and stared at the thing. How did it do that?
"HAH!" the monster screeched with the sound akin to scraping sharp steel nails down a chalkboard, "You can't outrun me! You can't fight me! You look like a tasty snack, just sit there and let me eat you!"
Lou glared at the thing, he stood at a ready stance. He wasn't going down without a fight . . .
But he never got the chance to even throw a punch, because right then and there, a dark shape materialized in front of him, a billowing captains haori rested on the shoulders of a young woman with brown hair, Lou had a feeling he knew who she was, but wasn't exactly sure.
The woman had a sword already drawn and aimed at the thing, she stood at a ready stance in front of it and glared.
"A captain level shinigami!" the thing screeched, sounding like an old and rusty door opening slowly, "It must be my lucky day!"
"Not so cocky you third rate reprobate," the captain muttered and then said in a commanding tone, "Strike! Hayato!"
Suddenly, Lou was literally floored by an immense force, he backed up several steps and the captain noticed him out of her peripheral vision, "I suggest you move," she said coldly as she turned her attention back to the thing.
Lou backed up a few feet, but he stayed in the area, he couldn't help but watch the strange visitor fight the monster.
A large, white bolt of electricity jumped from the blade that was already shrouded in lightning and hit the monster straight on. It screeched and clawed at a giant burn on its chest.
"Now you know who you are dealing with," the captain stated, "Saki Hayashi, Captain of Division 5."
Lou started, he knew that name and the memory of his death and entrance to Soul Society came flooding back.
Saki had meanwhile, struck with a deadly battery of slashes that hit the monster and rendered it incapacitated and electrocuted. The thing slowly faded away in a purple cloud.
Lou's legs finally buckled and he fell to the ground, whether from the immense pressure that was released from this woman or the fright of nearly dying . . . again, he'd never know. The next he did know though, was a hand being offered to him by the captain and he took it.
"Hey," she said after Lou stood up and dusted himself off, "You have a pretty good amount of reiatsu."
"What is that?" Lou asked, he had heard the word thrown around with spirit energy, spirit force and even someone said "the Force" while making sounds that a light saber could make.
"It's a power that people can harbor," Saki explained, "It's the energy your spirit releases. And you have a significant amount."
"What does that mean?" Lou was really confused now. Not everyday you get that sort of information.
"It means that you can become a shinigami," Saki said, "That's who I am, a soul reaper or shinigami, it is our duty to guide souls to the afterlife and to protect Soul Society from attack."
"Like the thing you just killed now?" Lou asked looking at where the body of the monster was lying just moments ago.
Saki nodded, "Yes, that was a hollow, a soul that had not made it to Soul Society by a soul reaper and thus was dragged down. It's a sad thing really, but inevitable without a proper guide."
"Captain Hayashi!" a young female voice shouted over and a young woman with her long black hair in a bun ran up.
"Lieutenant Hinamori," Saki acknowledged, "I just cleared things up over here."
"I'm sorry Captain Hayashi, I could have handled it," Lieutenant Hinamori said.
"It's okay, I needed some light exercise anyhow," Saki smiled at her subordinate.
'Light exercise,' Lou thought flatly, never in a hundred years could he fight that thing.
"Well, I best be going now," Saki said and turned away, "I hope you think about becoming one of us."
Saki and her subordinate left. Lou couldn't help but think that she looked slightly heroic walking away with an air of confidence, her haori billowing in the wind.
"Lewis!" Isabel ran up, looking after the shinigami captain, "Who was that?"
'My future,' Lou thought cryptically but said out loud, "A shinigami captain."
Isabel nodded, that seemed to settle her questions, all but one. "Are you okay?" she asked.
"I'm fine," Lou said as he turned away.
The next spring, Lou stood at the gates of the Spiritual Arts Academy, his new uniform on, a blue hakama (trousers) with a blue shitagi (undershirt) and a white kosode (shirt). There were two circular symbols over his chest. They were the emblems of the school. It hadn't been easy finding the place but it had been easy to be admitted.
The proctors had asked for Lou to recite and cast a simple binding spell, his had been so powerful, one of the proctors actually got bound and had to go to a higher level soul reaper to unbind his arm.
It was safe to say that he got in.
Lou looked at the sprawling campus of the Spiritual Arts Academy and stepped inside the gates and into the courtyard. Here was his future.
Hope you liked :) Saki beat someone u-up~ ^^ Saki and Ichirou are OCs btw, not actual characters from the Bleach universe. Umm . . . let's see what else. Merry Christmas? Oh, yeah, sorry about last chapter, hakamas are trousers apparently xD.