I do not own the characters, ideas, and/or places from either Bleach or World of Warcraft and their respective universes. Tite Kubo and Blizzard® own them respectively. Any original characters in the story belong to me. Any comparisons to other fan fiction or series characters are entirely coincidental and not intentional.
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Hello - Demons / Titans/ Inner Hollow/ Dragons / Arrancar Released Form
Hello – Thoughts of Demons / Titans/ Inner Hollow/ Dragons / Arrancar Released Form
Notice #1: Some liberties were made in certain character's backgrounds in this chapter in order to make the flow work. Please work with me.
Here is Chapter 2, Please enjoy this new retelling of my classic story, Bleach Into Azeroth. And just remember, everything has a purpose
Update 7/27/12: I have rewritten some of this chapter to include new information that I presented in later chapters but have forgotten to put in here. I have also taken care of a lot of the grammar and plot issues that may have made this chapter confusing. Please enjoy and review.
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Chapter 2: The Arrival Arc: Renji
Tanaris
To the various species native to Azeroth, the deserts of Tanaris have always had one of the harshest natural environments. Apart from the stubborn native trolls and ogres who foraged for scraps and the occasional lost explorer, nobody could survive the extreme temperature shifts from night to day, the strong winds that could tear unprotected flesh, and the lack of food or water. Even with all the dangers the desert provided, many adventurers and goblins have come and gone in search of the treasures and secrets buried beneath the ever shifting sands.
Somewhere in the center of this desert a figure dressed in black can be seen walking through the sands, the trail of footprints highlighting his abrupt entrance into the desert. Reaching the bottom of yet another dune, Renji let out a cry of exasperation.
Calming himself, Renji proceeded to climb the dune cautiously, unwilling to risk falling backwards. Wiping off the sweat from his forehead, Renji couldn't recall ever being this hot and exhausted at the same time.
"Jump into the vortex guys," Renji said, in a relatively accurate mock voice of Ichigo as he stumbled up the dune. "It will be totally safe and won't kill you or anything. Yeah, that's a load of bull." Looking up and squinting to keep out the glare, Renji was happy to see he was almost at the top of the dune.
"Why couldn't that vortex just kill me and be done with it? At least if it did then I wouldn't be so damn hot. Better yet, why couldn't I end up somewhere really nice…like a beach?"
Renji's self-loathing ended as he reached the top of the dune. Instead of just climbing another dune like the many before it, he noticed that there was something unique on top of this one. Resting on the very top of the sand were the large remains of a creature that had to be at least 200 feet long.
He whistled in awe as he took a step back to try and view the entire creature, "Holy crap. I wouldn't like to see whatever managed to kill this thing."
His interest in finding out about the creature was short-lived once he realized that the large bones provided ample amounts of shade. Walking over, Renji sat down with his back against one of the bones and sighed in relief, "Finally, a break from that damn sun. I don't know how much more of this heat I can take. Even as a shinigami, without any food or water I'm going to die soon." Closing his eyes now that the sun wasn't beating down on his neck, Renji tried to think of a plan to get out of there alive.
"How can I get out of this fucking desert without dying?" he thought, "Something is messing with my ability to use spiritual energy to fly and I can't use shunpo since it drastically tires me out for some reason." Leaning his head back against the relatively cool bone, Renji groaned, "This would be so much easier if I had a map or even a phone."
Renji sat there resting against the remains of the creature for a while, using the shade to regain some of the energy that he lost walking through the desert. Suddenly Renji angrily slams his fist into the side of the bone, cracking it with the sheer strength behind the blow. "What a load of crap this whole rescue is turning out to be. Here I go offering my help to rescue Orihime and the next thing I know I'm lost in the middle of a damn desert without food or water."
It wasn't long after that outburst that Renji sat up and groaned as he picked himself off the ground. He dusted the sand off his uniform and readjust the sheathe holding his zanpakuto onto his back for convenience. "Well," he said as he stretched his cramped limbs, "Sitting down and feeling sorry for myself isn't going to help me get out of this place. I need to make a plan to figure out how to get out of here."
As he walked out of the protection from the sun the bones gave, Renji became aware of just how hot it really way. "Holy," he exclaimed, "Was it always this hot?"
Standing at the edge of the dune, Renji lifted one hand up to his cover his eyes from the sun's glare. Looking around, all that Renji could see was an endless sea of scorching hot desert sands. Cursing silently, Renji let his hand drop to his side, "This would be so much easier if I had somewhere high to climb to." Blinking a few times, he craned his head back and remembered where he was. "Oh, right."
Reaching the top of the remains, Renji was surprised just how much more he could see from up there. "Huh, didn't think it was this big," he admitted to himself
"Ok" he thought as he took in the landscape, "Let's see what we've got here,"
To what appeared to be the south, Renji could see the outline of what appeared to be ruins half-buried in the sands. Narrowing his eyes, Renji could almost make out the hazy image of a mountain range far behind the ruins. Turning west to the way he walked from, Renji wasn't surprised to see that sand stretched as far as the eye could see. In fact, he couldn't even see where he landed.
"I know which way I am not going,"
The north was a lot like the south, with a mountain range far into the distance. However, Renji thought he saw what appeared to be smoke rising. Initially hopeful of civilization, he quickly calmed himself as he thought about it, "Don't get too excited Renji, it's probably just a brushfire or something. I mean really, it's probably hot enough to spontaneously combust."
Slightly disappointed, Renji turned to the only remaining direction he had yet to look in, "Ok, door number four. Let's hope this is a good one. I would hate to have to pick one of the lesser prizes."
At first Renji thought it was just another expanse of sand with a few mountains clustered together in the middle, but a slight change in the color of the haze on the horizon forced him to take a closer look. Squinting as best as he could, Renji could almost swear the sand looked bluish. The gears in Renji's mind did not click for a few seconds and when they did, a hopeful grin spread across his face.
"Wait a sec, could that be water," shaking his head, Renji couldn't believe what he was seeing. "Nah, it couldn't be; I'm not that lucky. It's probably a mirage or something."
Renji closed his eyes and counted to ten, thinking that when he opened them again, the mirage would be gone and all that he would see is sand, some mountains, and most likely more sand. When he finally opened his eyes, the mirage of the ocean was still there and Renji was starting to become convinced that it was probably real. Jumping back down to the sand and landing in a small cloud of dust, Renji walked back into the shade and started pacing as he thought over his travel options.
Ok, let's think this over. There are mountains to the north and south and certain death to the west. There is something causing smoke to the north but it is probably naturally caused. The only viable option for now is to head east to what appears to be water. If I'm lucky and I come across an ocean, I could follow the coast and avoid this damn heat."
With his mind made up, Renji began to make his way east when something sparkling nearby caught his eye. Walking over to see what it was, Renji's expression grew somber when he realized just what it was he saw. Leaning against one of the bones just out of sight from where he rested earlier was an unfortunate soul like him. Clad in a tattered and old purple and black robe that seemed to have several patches torn out of it, whoever it was that died seemed to have fought something before expiring. Renji was about to walk away when he noticed something in the skeleton's arms. Clutched furiously against its chest was an old and worn brown knapsack.
As he attempted to pry the bag from the skeleton's grip, Renji began to lament on the similar situation he shared with the skeleton, "I see that I'm not the only one to make it this far into this damn desert." As he managed to pull the bag from the skeleton's hands, break them off in the process, Renji turned back and finished softly, "I wonder if I should consider you lucky that you managed to find a way to escape this oppressive heat."
Taking one last look at the unfortunate remains, Renji opened up the top of the knapsack, "Ok pal, let's see what you were dying to protect so badly." Inside the bag was were some preserved pieces of what appeared to be leather, a couple of empty bottles, some colored rocks, a sealed flask, and a bundle of papers crumbled together along the side of the bag.
Brushing years of dust and sand off the flask, Renji was barely able to read what was printed on it, "Ok, let's see what we have here. It says Alliance Issue: Footman's Waterskin. Magically preserved for up to 50 years after sealing." It took a moment for Renji's mind to catch up to what was printed on the flask and when it did, it hit him hard.
"Magically preserved for 50 years. Wait, real magic? I don't know what the hell it means but I hope for my sake that this guy hasn't been dead for longer than that."
Twisting the cork out of the flask with a little effort, Renji took an experimental sniff of the liquid inside just to make sure it was still good. Smelling nothing wrong with it, he took a small sip and swished it around in his mouth tasting it. After swallowing it and feeling nothing wrong, he took a larger drink and almost choked on it.
"Wow," he coughed out as he pounded on his chest to clear his throat, "That has to be the best water I've ever drank." Closing the flask up to save what was left for later, Renji searched through the pack for anything else of value but found nothing except a strange bundle of papers.
He picked up the bundle of papers and held them in his hands, careful to prevent any damage to the obviously old parchment. Pulling the string binding the papers together, he slowly unfurled the pages and noticed that they were all part of the same document. What caught his eye, however, was what was written on it.
Renji could admit that he was astounded when he was able to read what on the flask. So when he couldn't make heads or tails of the scratch marks and weird letters on the papers, he wasn't all that surprised. As he was finishing flipping through the papers and was about to throw them back into the knapsack, Renji noticed a hastily written message on the bottom of the last page. He could see handwritten copies of some of the marks alongside recognizable letters.
Grumbling, Renji tried to read the badly eroded handwriting, "Hmm, what does this say…Damn, it's faded away too badly here to read this part…I have no idea what this says…ok, this part is somewhat clear: 'T_i_ i_ a _st _c_p_ of _e n_n_ c_p_e_ o_ _r_co_i_ _o_ _u_m_s. H_ t_i_ a_ a_ c_st_!'" Renji focused on this one section for a few minutes, hoping to be able to read whatever was missing. When it appeared he wasn't going to be able, he folded up the pages and tucked them into his white kimono for safety.
"Whatever it says, it was important enough for this guy to die over, so I am willing to bet my life that it is worth keeping until I found someone to translate the rest."
As Renji finally walked away from the remains he took shelter in and down the other side of the dune, Renji couldn't help but feel as if this was all Ichigo's fault and that if he ever meets him again, he will kill him twice just to make sure he did a thorough job.
...
In the Caverns of Time
Anyone who has ever met a bronze dragon would say that they are always absent-minded and out of touch with any current events. But no one ever gets truly upset or angry at them for they are the appointed guardians of the timeline. They protect the time stream from those that would seek to rewrite events in their favor and unknowingly doom the entire planet. They are also known to be extremely calm in situations that would cause the most iron-hearted of men to quake in fear and others to collapse. The number of times in history that a fully-grown bronze dragon has been seen to panic could be counted on one hand and for each of those times, terrible or earth-shattering events have occurred soon afterwards. So it can be said with great certainty that anyone visiting the Caverns of Time would be witness to a very rare event indeed.
Over the last several hours the guardians of the Caverns of Time have remained in a perpetual state of panic with the level of fear rising as time went on. As several drakes and dragonspawn hurried about, one of them broke off and ran as fast as her four legs could back towards the central chamber. When she reached it, she was slightly out of breath and was forced to wait a couple of seconds before she could start to mentally summon her superior.
A brief moment passed before a swirling portal popped into existence in front of her and a large bronze dragon walked out. With a swish of his tail, the portal closed behind the dragon. Turning his attention to the kneeling dragonspawn in front of him, his deep voice spoke, "You are not required to kneel in front of me. I get no satisfaction from such as act."
Rising back up onto her four feet, the dragonspawn patiently waited as the dragon continued to speak, "What do you have to report? Have you managed to find any ways to observe the causes of the anomalies?"
The dragonspawn seemed to hesitate before answering, "No lord Anachronos. We have been unable to locate the source of the intrusions in the timeline."
Anachronos, son of the Aspect of Time Nozdormu, seemed to think for a moment, "I expected as much. Inform me when-"
"Wait my lord, there is other news." Bristling at the interruption, Anachronos nonetheless turned his full attention back to the dragonspawn. While other mature drakes would take offense at being interrupted by a dragonspawn, he knew that she would not do so unless she absolutely needed to.
"Go on."
When the dragonspawn motioned for him to follow instead of talking, Anachronos quickly shape shifted into his favorite mortal form of a high elf in order to fit through the narrowing cavern tunnels. It was not long before he was brought before a large glowing model of Azeroth. Every member of the bronze dragonflight knew of this treasure, it was their secret gift from the Titans themselves. The artificial globe was bathed entirely in red and when intrusions and invasions of the timeline were detected, the points at which they occurred would be highlighted as green points.
As they arrived, the dragonspawn turned to him and asked, "How was your excursion? Have you managed to locate any information concerned what has happened."
"The excursion has been a failure much like the dozens of other trips my brethren and I have taken. Whatever is here has managed to elude us somehow, "Anachronos answered with no small amount of anger in his voice.
The dragonspawn seemed to shift on her four feet for a second before seeming to remember why she was here. "As you are already aware of lord," she said as she controlled the model to shift, facing Tanaris towards them, "the first intrusion occurred here, about a dozen miles west of the Caverns." With a few motions, she was able to make the model zoom one, where several other green points where highlighted, "After you left to investigate, three new anomalies were detected in short order. The first one appeared on the northern half of this continent near the Night Elves, the second near the eastern edge of Northrend, and the third on the north coast of the Eastern Kingdoms."
After the dragonspawn finished updating him on the situation, Anachronos could not help but rub his hand through his hair in frustration. It had always confused and fascinated him how whenever he took the form of one of the mortal races he would pick up some of the nervous habits as well. He could remember the time during the War of the Ancients when, during a particularly bad event, he had twisted the ears on the female night elf form he was disguised it. As time passed and his duties of protecting the timeline increased, he found that his nervous twitches simply went away on their own.
For the first time in what seems like an eternity Anachronos had no ideas on how to proceed and that greatly bothered him. He was a bronze dragon, a guardian of the time stream and of the events that unfold within it. He was supposed to know exactly when and where an event was going to occur before it did even if he could not act on it or tell anyone about it. These…anomalies as his brethren have come to call them potentially threw out tens of thousands of years of work and beliefs. Thinking back, he remembered that while many beings and creatures have suddenly and inexplicably appeared on Azeorth throughout time, he knew the exact time and place each of them would appear.
These anomalies springing up across Azeroth went against everything that he had been taught. When they started appearing several hours ago, he and several other dragons attempted to figure out their cause by reaching back through the time stream to a few minutes before they appeared. However every time they did so, something would prevent them from viewing them by kicking them back to the point in time from which they traveled.
Anachronos knew that everything leaves the temporal equivalent of a 'finger print' on the time stream. Whenever someone does something or an event occurs, that act leaves a ripple in the time stream that the bronze dragons can trace back. When compared to normal events the anomalies were practically invisible and that made his heart shake in fear. Something that could evade the gaze of the watchers of the time stream and even prevent them from interfering is a cause for great concern.
He was brought out of his thoughts when he realized the dragonspawn in front of him was beginning to nervously wring her claws together, "I want you to personally send the following message to Chronormu in the current time period. Tell him to suspend his investigation of Anderhal and to instead focus on the anomalies. I do not want him to figure out how or why they opened. I want him to study what they released onto the world. I also want you to inform me if any further anomalies appear. I will remain in the caverns in this time for now in order to stay on top of events."
The dragonspawn bowed slightly and ran off down a tunnel.
After the dragonkin left, Anachronos turned as he heard the familiar flapping of Nozari's wings approaching him.
Nozari circled around and landed gently at Anachronos's side, "While you were gone, I enhanced the defenses near the entrance to the caverns and stationed several veteran guardians to patrol just outside the entrance. We can consider ourselves lucky Anachronos; whatever is approaching us is doing so at a slow pace. We can use that to our advantage. If we cannot fight them throughout the timeline, we can fight them much like the other dragonflights do."
"Good, good. We should not take any chances. However, someone has volunteered to go and greet the closest anomaly personally."
Puzzled at his reaction, Nozari shifted to the form of a dark haired human woman and voiced her disbelief to Anachronos, "Who could have volunteered for such a potentially dangerous mission? We have no ideas of what the anomalies are capable of since we cannot observe any of them in the time line. We have to destroy them before they have a chance to destroy us"
Instead of answering right away, Anachronos turned to look at the model of Azeroth. Folding his arms behind his back, he told her just how dangerous these anomalies are, "Consider the following scenario Nozari. How would you fight something whose very existence rewrites time?" When she did not answer, he pointed to the model of Azeroth, Nozari could see that around where the anomalies landed, green coloring has replaced the red. "Their very existence is causing events around them to unfold differently and there is nothing we can do to stop it at the moment."
Nozari nodded her head in agreement, "I agree with your conclusion Anachronos. That is why I believe it is best to attack and destroy them as soon as possible. If we can eliminate the anomalies quickly enough, we can limit the spread of the changes to the timeline."
Anachronos slowly shook his head as if scolding an ignorant child, "In most other cases, I would agree with your statement. However we must consider all the possibilities when dealing with a threat as potentially dangerous as this. We don't know how attacking the anomalies would impact the timeline. Attacking one of them could erase you from existence and we both know you still have important missions in the future to deal with. For all of our knowledge of time, when faced with such a threat we are but newly hatched drakes in the midst of a hostile environment."
"If all of that is true, who have you decided to send?"
Laughing, Anachronos responded, "It was not I who sent someone. Rather, they sent themselves."
...
Several Hours Later…
Renji stared at the two moons, one white and the lazily hanging against the colorful backdrop in the evening sky.
"I guess this really isn't Earth after all."
Pulling his eyes away from the sky, Renji looked back at the ocean stretching across the darkening horizon in front of him. He had smelled the first hint of the sea over the wind that constantly blew in from off shore not too long ago and while he was upset it wasn't drinkable he still preferred it to the hot desert sands. After all, it should be easier to travel along the relatively temperate coast.
As he got closer to the ocean, Renji had also noticed the large dunes starting to level off. So while he was relieved that he did not have to do any more climbing and his calves thanked him in spades for that, he was more than surprised when he first saw the ship in the rocks.
"Ok, what the hell?" were the only words out of his mouth that came close to breaking down what he saw.
Appearing to jut out of a large boulder near the top of the group of mountains he saw earlier was about half of a large old-fashioned wooden ship, mast and all. Renji could see from where he was standing that it wasn't the result of a shipwreck. First of all, the ship was hundreds of feet in the air and second, it looked brand new. If it was a shipwreck, Renji could have found evidence around the base of the mountains like wood, bodies, and even the other half of the ship; but he could see nothing that hinted at that.
Renji rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. He was convinced that what he saw was the result of exhaustion and hallucinating from the long trek through the desert, "If I'm starting to see crap like that, I must really be losing it." Dragging his hands down his face, Renji continued towards the beach.
"I can hear waves, so at least I'm close to the beach." A new smell wafted through the air that caused Renji to pause in his walking for a second. His mouth began to water as he realized that what he smelled was cooking meat.
"This is good news," he thought as he jumped over a rock, "The smell of cooked meat means a fire and a fire means someone or something lives around here. I just hope that they whoever lives in this desolate world is friendly."
After a minute or so of running, Renji turned a corner and discovered the source of the smell was a small campfire nestled against a group of rocks near the beach. There was a small sleeping bag on one side of the camp near a rock, a bag of items with some of them tossed haphazardly around the general area and what appeared to be a crocodile cooking over the fire.
Gingerly picking up the stick the crocodile was skewered and roasting on, Renji turned it over and inspected it. Finding nothing wrong with it, he shrugged and brought it up to his mouth, "I never had crocodile before but at this point I'm too hungry to care."
"And just what are you doing?"
Too hungry to pay attention, Renji responded, "I'm about to eat this food."
"You mean my food?"
"Huh?" was the only thing his starving brain could think to say after finally snapping to attention. Reluctantly lowering his meal from his mouth, he turned around to see who was talking to him. What he saw was nothing like he expected.
When he first fell out of the portal face first into the sand, Renji thought he arrived in a place devoid of human life…well, any life in general. When he found that text with the obviously English letters on it he was mildly surprised but thought somehow someone from his world ended up here a long time ago. But actually meeting a human being went beyond coincidence into the realm of creepy. He was reminded of what he was doing when the woman standing by him began to tap her food impatiently.
"I believe you are about to eat my dinner."
Renji's eyes drifted from the woman in front of him down to the piece of meat hanging only a few inches away from his watering mouth. Looking a little embarrassed, he grumbled and put it back on top of the fire where he first found it. "Sorry about that, " he apologized, "I'm just really, really hungry."
The woman's facial expression didn't change as she walked past him and sat down on the opposite side of the fire. Reaching for the meat, she picked it up and with more strength than he expected tore it in two. Handing one half to Renji, she smugly smiled as he graciously took it and began to rapidly devour it.
Taking a small bite and stoking the embers of the fire she asked, "So what brings you all the way to the Tanaris desert with so few supplies?"
Swallowing the large chunk of meat in his mouth, Renji responded, "So this place is called Tanaris? Well, to be honest, this was really kind of a sudden trip. I didn't really expect to come here."
"So did you arrive here through a erroneous mage portal or perhaps you tried using some type of goblin transporter?"
Renji was about to take another bite when he stopped and said, "Whatever you're talking about it was neither of those."
The woman's eyes narrowed at his reluctance to answer her, "One does not simply walk into Tanaris haphazardly. This is a desert after all."
Biting off the last bit of meat, Renji responded with his mouth full, "Yeah well, after what I went through I could care less about your opinion of me."
With the conversation turning into an argument, the two of them sat in relative silence for what seemed like hours. As the sun finally set behind the horizon to the west, the light reflecting off the two moons bathed the shore in an eerie blue and white glow. Shivering slighting from the dropping temperature, Renji held his hands closer to the fire. After a few minutes he solemnly said, "Look lady I hate deserts, cannot stand them whatsoever. I always get sand in my clothes, hair and even my mouth so I try and avoid them like the plague. So finding myself here in the godforsaken place was not high my list of things I want to accomplish."
"I suppose I was a little hasty in my earlier judgment of you," the woman confessed.
"Yeah well, it wasn't a big deal," Renji dismissively said, "I'm sure you had your reasons and all."
"Hmm," the woman hummed as a small smile graced her face, "We have been sitting here for the last few hours and neither of us know the other's name."
"I suppose," Renji confessed, "My name is Renji."
"Renji huh?" the woman asked, "I do not believe I have ever heard of a name quite like that."
"Really?" he asked amazed, "It wasn't that popular back where I'm from either. What about you?"
"That is an interesting question," the woman said, "My name is quite unique to myself in the sense that I have yet to meet someone else with it."
"So what is it?"
"Coridormi."
...
Well, here is Chapter 2 of my revised story and the first chapter of the Arrival Arc. As you may have noticed, Renji's arrival location is entirely different than in the first story and I feel that the interaction he has are more human, flow better, and allow for a greater deal of character development.
Note 1: I will be using the English vernacular when dealing with names. So instead of the Japanese Abarai Renji, it will be switched to Renji Abarai in order to fit in with the naming of Azeroth
As always, reviews are appreciated.
~Bahamut_Reshiki
