Er… four-legged flight mammals fighting humans with swords is kind of hard to think of how that works… But Nel is a goat, what else can I do? There will be arrancars soon, so don't worry. This is getting a little bit out of the day-to-day account and more of the "here's something important that happened within this span of X years / months" also I'm just getting lazy and I'll choose a title for this chapter later P


Dondo Chakka and Pesche grew on me to be the best friends I have ever known. They were a little weird, but I never knew such awesome people when I was alive. But alive is also just a label and doesn't mean what it sounds. It was during those times when we were having fun and laughing together, I felt more 'alive' than I ever had living the daily grind in high school, my previous life.

By the time October came and went, I could already fire off a small cero. It only took me a short while to perfect it.

It also took quite some experimentation oand practice with my new body. I didn't have claws or sharp body parts, and biting wasn't very practical. Actually most of my teeth were pretty flat (because I'm an herbivore! ). I mostly stuck to kicking and skull-bashing, which were surprisingly effective. My skull mask was hard and thick. The coarse, bone-like material and thick horns made it an especially good weapon against creatures with soft skin. My hooves, on the other hand, were surprisingly hard and heavy, as if they were made out of lead. But overall, my body as a hollow was really not very good for combat. I mostly relied on cero and my spiritual pressure, which I soon learned was way above the normal range, and it continued to increase as I grew stronger as well.

As hollows, life was hard and brutally unfair at times, but from the perspective of active young people like us, it was also exciting! Definitely not a lifestyle for the faint-of-heart and weak-of-mind. Anyone without the will to fight and keep living, even at the expense of other's lives would never survive what we have. On average, we encountered aggressive hollows 2-3 times a week. We were as careful as we could be in avoiding Shinigami, but we did occasionally have a knock-in with them. Usually I just defeat them and we run away, so if they call in re-enforcements, by that time we are long gone.

We were having fun some dry December afternoon, setting off fireworks in the park. Suddenly, I felt a reiatsu (by this time, I had learned most of the conventional names for things) different than a hollow's, and more similar to a human's, but much stronger.

My companions noticed it right away and looked up to the same building that I was. And at the top of the 20 story hotel, on the edge of the roof, there was a figure, silhouetted black against the bright, sunny sky.

"N-nel, that's—" Pesche started.

"What? What is it?"

"It's one o' dem Shinigamis!" said Dondo Chakka.

"Come on, let's get out of here!" said Pecshe, but I already knew it was too late.

As soon as we turned to leave, the Shinigami was suddenly in front of us. It was a young girl with dark skin and curly bouncy hair up in two buns. She looked actually a bit younger than me, and a little shorter than me, but she had a hard, determined look in her large, bright eyes. I wished for a moment that I didn't have to fight her. I had a fleeting notion of how nice we might have been as friends, if we weren't destined to fight one another. I quickly locked away such feelings.

"Pesche! Dondo Chakka!" I shouted commandingly. "Please leave this to me," I said.

"Ya sure?" asked Dondo Chakka, and Pesche seemed unsure.

"Yes. I'll handle this."

"Don't worry!" I said, smiling. I turned my attention to my confronter.

"Who are you?" I demanded.

"Yeesh, a talking goat!" she exclaimed.

"So what?!" I shot back proudly.

"Look, I don't have time to deal around with freaks like you. But, since you're going to die soon, I may as well answer your question," she said with a smirk, placing a hand on the sheath at her waist, and the other on the handle of her zanpakutou, gripping it tightly. The way her fist closed around the hilt told me that her confidence was in part an act—part of her method of dealing with the emotions of battle, something every warrior develops in some form.

"Nakashima Jean, of the 10th division… Now, die, hollows!!"

All three dispersed as she struck the ground where I was just standing with her sword. I tried to hit her as she was getting up, but she was quick. She kept me moving around in circles while dodging stabs and swings. She back up and chanted something: "Hadou no 4 [shi Byakurai!" (A/N I know that's wrong, someone please correct me...) The bolt hit me square in the chest, knocking me down, but I got up quickly and dodged as she came back around with her zanpakutou.

My body was all tingly feeling from the lightening, and being furry did not help too much. I jumped back to show her a piece of my own "magic". I charged up a cero inside my mouth and opened to release it at her.

Jean was not at all expecting me to be capable of cero, and since I didn't let her see me charge it until it was done, I was able to hit her full-blast. She fell to one knee, panting with burn marks all over her skin.

"H-how! How can you do cero?!" she gasped.

"Dunno. I'm just special, I guess," I said. "But if I defeat you, it won't matter."

"Heh, don't talk as if you know what you are up against," she said, gripping her zanpakutou tightly with both hands, supporting her body off of the ground. I could vaguely sense that she was gathering light reiatsu around herself.

"Nel, be careful!" yelled Pesche. "She is going to use her shikai!"

"Shikai? What—"Jump, Shirappon! [白本, source of white

I was blown back by a white explosion, although it had a large area but was relatively weak. I stood firmly on the ground and felt as if my fur stood on end. She came at me slashing and swinging furiously with her blade charged with electricity.

She didn't land a single hit on me, but I got shocked whenever I stepped on metal places on the ground. I started charging up a cero, and shot it at her. But instead of trying to dodge, she put her zanpakutou straight out and absorbed the entire energy! I caught on quickly to what she might do next. I side-stepped smoothly as she flung my attack back at me, but I realized she was gone. I reacted immediately when I felt a sharp pain in my side, but did not move quickly enough to avoid being wounded.

Well, Jean got a lucky hit on me that one time. She was a little bit faster than me, overall, and she sometimes used an annoying ability to disappear like a flash (which Pesche later told me was called Shunpo, a shinigami footwork technique).

But she was predictable, and didn't have a very large variety of attacking styles. I was pretty quick to catch on, and once I could tell just when she was going to be open, I hit her with a cero, and bashed her with my horns when she was recovering.

Nakashima Jean fell down unconscious, with blood seeping out of a wound on her head. As the active hormones of battle faded from my system, I realized a more fearsome warrior might have used his hoof to crush her skull and finish her off, but I felt no such desire. The thought of becoming that kind of person was scary. We three quickly bound her worst wound, so she wouldn't bleed to death. Maybe it was naïve and foolish, something a young fighter feels and learns to shake off as battles harden her soul. Well, if being that kind of person makes me a newbie, I am just fine with that. So long as I can still face my friends without shame, and look at myself without regret.

Dondo Chakka and Pesche assured me that Jean would be alright, because the shinigami function as a military force, very organized, and they would find her and send help quickly. For the same reason, we left the scene quickly before we were found and destroyed by a dozen more like her. Because what we grudgingly admitted to ourselves was that she was only a foot soldier, and the shinigami were truly capable of continuing to send people to wipe us out, and eventually we would be facing opponents that were way beyond our level.

That was the first shinigami I ever fought. We did encounter several others, and sometimes making it out alive required some dirty tactics. I didn't fight them all by myself. Actually the three of us often fought as a team, but I kept growing in power at a calm, but rock steady pace. We tried to move around a lot, so we wouldn't become known (that one group of hollows that no one has managed to kill yet. The deadly trio! Can anyone defeat them?). We really didn't feel like dealing with that sort of infamy.

We still had much to learn, and the main goal was where to go next. I soon learned that Dondo Chakka and Pesche had a good start on the answer, and it was only a matter of progress.


And this one was 3 pages. I know length doesn't mean anything to you guys probably, but to me it's interesting to look back quantitatively and say wow that's how much I wrote. This story I really intend to finish, I hope anyone who is reading it will not give up on me and yes, it is really necessary for me to show the way the zanpakutou's name is written and create a Japanese name that has a meaning.

oh, and apparently the site engine has something against closing brackets.