Disclaimer: Bleach is written by Tite Kubo and published by Shueisha. I do not own Bleach or any of the characters, settings, plots, or any related merchandise, advertisements, etc. This is a not-for-profit fan-written fiction story. Please support the official Bleach manga and its related products.

All other elements not derivative of the official product are original ideas, meaning original characters. I do not waste time reading other people's fanfics.

Chapter 3

After a brief, long flash of light I arrived in Soul Society. The air was clean so I took a deep breath. Miko did the same but she started choking.

"Oh…*cough*…I should stop smoking." She said.

Serves her right. Smoking is bad for your health. It can lead to lung cancer and other cancers. Cancer killed my parents so I hate cancer.

"You should quit or you'll get cancer." I said to Miko.

Miko looked at me sternly. "Onigiri-kun, I have to tell you something important. It has to do with your parents' deaths."

"No!" I shrieked. "My parents were not killed by hollows!"

Angrily, I walked to a corner and drew circles on the wall.

Miko sighed and said, "Then let me tell you the truth."

*Flashback*

It was a bright summer day, a warm, but still comfortable, day among many others in Japan. The cicadas cried their songs to the cloudless blue skies, the joyful yells of playing children melded flawlessly with the crickets' melodies into a wondrous chorus of life. This was the essence of the mortal world, an ephemeral miracle, yet beautiful in its short-lived brilliance. After all, the poets say that one cannot value life unless it can be lost.

Such was the case in Kawakura Town on that day which started like any other but which ended, etched forever into the collective memories of the transient inhabitants of the town.

"Cogito, ergo sum. Wherefore art thou…Descartes? The noble savage may yet be civilized. We the People…the King rather. They are restless, and there is no cake for them to cool their greed in this fountain of youth. From Atlantic to Pacific, this land crosses all. Weep, Pizarro, cry, de Vaca. Your treasures have long since slipped your grasp in this all-knowing throne of immortality. The thinkers have retreated, taking their spawn, the unholy stone, away, locking the secrets for eternity.

"Throw away your prejudices, believer of injustice. Your allies do not yet reside in the hearts of Aristotle's students. No conquest can be so great as to make the world bow in devastation before the one true ideal. Four-score and many millennia ago."

Such was the nature of the spiral that binds all mortals, winding up the stairway to transcendence. A single origin spread as ripples across the world absent of light, for none could be created out of nothing. This was the primordial form of that without form, a silent chord in the fugue mourning the sky's demise.

Iron-clad will, seek the rain from which you were exiled. One day, his golden army will do battle with he who is most radiant in light, the rusted hearts will become silver under no man's abhorrent moonlight. Such be the price of knowledge, O tainted sage, wisest among fools!

They will believe what they want

Never seeking; Though never wanting

For her greatest armor be ignorance

And divine is the sanctuary

That only in truth resides.

*End flashback*

"Do you understand now?" Said Miko. "Your parents were killed by hollows, not by cancer."

"I can't believe this!" I screamed, as I pushed away Miko, who had been rubbing her butt against my crotch while telling me the confusing flashback. "But I have decided, Miko. I will become the greatest shinigami in history to avenge my parents' death to cancer and hollows!"

Miko smiled and said, "Onigiri-kun."

To be continued…