A longer chapter this time! Featuring another transition for Chizuki. Yes, it's ridiculous. Blame the main character for canon-Bleach.

Disclaimer/Warnings: (No additions, see first chapter)

(Edited 25th September 2018: Thanks to a guest reviewer, I have been alerted to a mistake in my writing. Sorry for those who got confused with/by me. I sometimes have trouble figuring out the first and last names of some of the Bleach characters because some places write their names with their surnames at the back when it should be at the front. It's been corrected now).


Chapter 12: Flip of a Coin


"Things turn out best for the person who makes the best of the way things turn out."


The first thing Chizuki did when she was startled awake by her alarm clock was to eliminate the source of annoyance. The alarm clock did not survive the hit.

Then she stared at the crumpled lump of plastic pieces and metal on the floor. It was an alarm clock, of course. Or at least it was one up till the point where she'd thrown it against the wall. In her defence, it had been a while since she came across a time-keeping device, let alone one that made a godawful sound in the morning, never mind the fact that she had been the one who had set the alarm the night before.

Chizuki turned to squint at the bright sunlight streaming in through the window. She'd seen the sun the day before, but this was the first morning she had witnessed in a month.

It took her all of three minutes of just dazedly soaking up sunlight like a plant before she realised the reason why she had an alarm clock.


"We thought you weren't going to show up today either," said Tatsuki, when Chizuki materialised in their classroom.

"I nearly overslept," Chizuki admitted as she dropped herself into her seat with a sigh. She scrubbed her eyes, just to make sure she wasn't dreaming up her classroom.

Inoue whirled around and let out a small high-pitched sound. "Chizuki-chan! Since when did you get here?"

"Just," said Tatsuki. "Moved like a ghost." She turned to Chizuki who had her face planted on her desk. "Say, did your legs grow longer?"

"No, I don't think so?" came the mumbled reply.

"Oh," Tatsuki frowned, wondering why the distance covered by each step her friend made seemed longer now.

"You're better now?" asked Inoue. "Did you go through the stuff I brought over yesterday?"

Chizuki looked up, stared at her unblinkingly for a long moment before grinning, "Yeah, thanks Inoue-chan."

"It's Orihime," the other girl chided. "We've known each other for how long now?"

"Three-four years?" said Tatsuki, then amended, "Well, three or so years for me and two years for you."

Chizuki had met Tatsuki when they were around nine or ten, where they practiced karate with some other kids. She then met Orihime by coincidence after her parents' deaths and began staying over at her place on occasion due to her brother's mother-hen-persistence. She stopped after Sora died the year before, though Orihime would sometimes still invite Tatsuki and her over. Chizuki would always decline if it was near any mealtime, solely because Orihime had very questionable taste in food.

"How were your holidays?" Chizuki could not help but ask, wondering what everyone else had been doing while she was trapped in a whole different world.

"Uneventful," said Tatsuki. "Where were you? We were going to the beach last Saturday, but you weren't in when we came by."

"We had lots of fun, you should join us next time," Orihime chirped. "Pity you missed it."

"Ah, I was out of town visiting a distant relative," Chizuki replied with the answer she had prepared the night before. She didn't actually have any distant relatives she knew of, her school funding coming out of whatever money her parents had left behind. But no one actually knew if she had living relatives somewhere out there, so…

"Was there a lot of sand?"

"It's the beach," said Tatsuki dryly. "There's a lot of sand and water."

Chizuki decided not to mention that she had seen a lot of sand while she was 'out of town'… lest they ask if her relative lived in a desert. No, better to ignore the past month and enjoy this surreal daydream of ordinary life while she could.

It was good to be back.


Ordinary life, as it turned out, was not easy to have, not after being turned into a Hollow, it seemed. Or perhaps it was simply because the Shinigami in Karakura Town appeared to have gotten worse at their jobs—not that she was complaining.

"Hey, Fat Piggy!" Chizuki yelled and waved. The boar-like Hollow let out a bellow and turned to charge at her.

Chizuki was not a reckless person by nature, and after her experience as a Hollow, her sense of self-preservation had increased further. However, this Hollow was of such a low level that it could only be considered a side-dish for an Arrancar. Not that Chizuki was hungry—human food tasted a lot better—but she was restless.

Ordinary life did not agree with her.

Wake. Breakfast. Class. Lunch. More classes. Homework. Sleep.

By the end of the first week of school, Chizuki had begun to feel an itch. She hadn't even been the type to seek fights, unlike Jaegerjaquez, but she did get a lot of exercise back in Las Noche, running around repainting rooms or training with her friends. She tried working out in her human body, and for a while, it seemed to help. But that only lasted for another week or two before Chizuki saw a Hollow destroying public property and the itch was back tenfold.

And that was how she ended up desperately trying to antagonise a Hollow.

It turned out that getting out of her body was a lot harder than getting back in. Perhaps it could be said that her body had an… attachment to her soul, or rather, it was attached to living. It would not let go of her when she tried to leave it, but all too eagerly welcomed her back in when she so much as touched it.

However, Hollows appeared to have the ability to separate a soul from its body. Evidently, it did not work when Chizuki was trying to do it on herself, but it did work when a Hollow attacked her. The only mildly difficult part was not attempting to dodge when anything leaking killing intent is aimed in her direction.

But once she was free—a strange term to use, perhaps, but appropriate, because while being human had its perks, her human body could be rather limiting—she'd swing her Zanpakutō and the poor Hollow would not have a chance.

Sometimes, Sangre would toy around with the Hollow before she'd kill it. She enjoyed moving about in her spirit-self. Her spirit body felt stronger and lighter and generally more comfortable. But she also did not like risking getting exposed to any nearby Shinigami, even though she was confident in her ability to hide her reiatsu. With a Hollow around just… doing Hollow things, she felt safer because the Hollow's reiatsu, no matter how weak it was, would get sensed first, which meant that she would be able to sense the Shinigami before the Shinigami sensed her, and make a quick escape by returning to her human body.

That was one of the upsides of having a human body—the change in her reiatsu. Her physical body seemed to act as a filter, and while she did not know exactly what her own reiatsu felt like to others, she knew it did not feel like a Hollow's when she was 'human.' She had tried and tested this out with whichever Shinigami was in charge of looking after the town, none of whom had given her a second glance whenever she passed by them.

Shinigami.

They were a strange bunch, and while Chizuki had basically spent three months in their presence now, she was still no closer to figuring them out.

The first thing she was sure of was the existence of a Soul Society. And an Academy for Shinigami, according to Ichimaru.

The second thing she was sure of was that there was always a Shinigami watching out for Karakura Town. The Shinigami may not always be the same one and while some stayed in town for a week, some may stay up till a month. And these Shinigami were always completely robed in black… In other words, none of them were Captains.

The third thing she was sure of was that there was a different Shinigami who was permanently staying in town. This Shinigami was the one who had picked up her body after she became a Hollow, the one she stole her body back from—was it considered stealing if it belonged to her in the first place? However, even though Chizuki could sometimes sense this Shinigami at the edges of her perception field, he never approached her, and she had never seen him deal with Hollows. It was always the other ones, the temporary ones, who would respond to a Hollow attack.

So, the question was, who was this Shinigami who lived in Karakura Town like a human? What was his role? And what had Ichimaru Gin, a Shinigami Captain, been doing in town on That Night?

One possibility was that the Shinigami-in-charge has asked for back-up from a Captain since the Hollows on That Night were not the ordinary low-level type. But the Shinigami-in-charge had been missing from that particular incident, which either meant that they'd been attacked prior to the Hollows breaking into her apartment, or they'd been sent back to Soul Society after it had been establish that the Captain would be able to handle everything. Or so she assumed.

There was still the fact that there should not be any Adjuchas in the human world, and the fact that Ichimaru had not been able to handle everything, though these facts Chizuki would ignore for now, shelving them in the section of her mind labelled 'Blame Aizen.'

Regardless, if the Shinigami were the police, she was now the vigilante. A Hollow-killing vigilante who wore the uniform of a group of advanced Hollows under a Shinigami Captain.

There are so many things wrong with that, thought Chizuki, when she reflected on it. But then again, most things Aizen-related were rather questionable.


There were other things that had apparently gone wrong, as Chizuki soon found out.

Sangre had noticed it the first time she killed a Hollow with her Zanpakutō, but it was only one month after observing the Shinigami in charge of Karakura Town that she began to realise that there was something… not quite right.

When a Shinigami dispatches a Hollow, the Hollow would supposedly be purified. The indicator for this was the disintegration of the Hollow into shimmering light. Perhaps 'light' was not really an accurate term to describe it, in the sense that the purification of the Hollow was not necessarily a bright and shiny process. But it was more of a feeling of the Hollow's reiatsu fading into something… else, before disappearing entirely.

Sangre knew what a Hollow killing another Hollow felt like. It felt the same as a Hollow consuming a soul, really. Reiatsu… poof. Gone. The end. Well, not the end, if what she heard about reincarnation was correct, but nonetheless, the end for now.

The point was, purification of a Hollow had a distinct feel. And Sangre had this same feeling whenever she killed a Hollow. It was entirely absurd, since she was no Shinigami, unless of course, by some mistake of Aizen's—though knowing the Shinigami, there was always a chance that it was really on purpose—the process that turned her into an Arrancar also gave her access to actual Shinigami powers instead of just making her similar to a Shinigami.

That is… not entirely wrong but not entirely correct either, said the voice. 'The' voice, because there was only one other voice she'd ever heard in her head though this was the first time she had heard it speak in a very long time.

Sangre rubbed the space between her brows as she crouched behind a wall, ignoring the other Hollow for now.

Would you like to elaborate on that? She asked wryly.

What do you think you're holding right now? The voice replied, because of course it would answer with another question.

A… glaive? Pole-arm? Zanpakutō?

Mmm… What kind of Zanpakutō?

What do you mean what kind of Zanpakutō? Are there differences other than the form of the weapon?

Do you think the Zanpakutō of a Shinigami and the Zanpakutō of an Arrancar are the same?

Oh, probably not. Ours is from our hearts, right? Or something like that, Sangre said, tapping the edge below her Hollow-hole. And… who knows where the Shinigami get theirs from, since they've still got their hearts in the correct place.

The voice laughed. Sangre decided it did not like the sound of the laugh because it sounded like it was mocking her, which was frankly, more insulting than anything else because the voice was in her head.

And what's the difference you can perceive between a Shinigami's Zanpakutō and that of an Arrancar?

Purification of the killed Hollow, Sangre replied, as she recalled one particular hunting trip when her hunting partner—some Números—killed the Hollow instead of bringing it back alive for the Chefs.

Then the voice was silent, as it let the implication sink in. The only sound in the night was the screeching metallic sound of the Hollow ripping out a nearby street lamp.

When Sangre finally processed what she'd said and what the silence meant, she nearly dropped her weapon.

Are you saying my Zanpakutō is a Shinigami's? Where the hell did you get this thing from?!

Your Zanpakutō is not a thing and it was not stolen from another Shinigami, if that's what you're implying, said the voice, a scowl evident in its tone. But yes, it is not an Arrancar weapon. Do you know what that means?

No, said Sangre, slumping back against the wall. By then, she had a feeling that the voice was not the previous owner of the Zanpakutō or something, but rather, there was a high chance that it was the Zanpakutō itself, no matter how ridiculous it sounded for a weapon to not only have sentience like some tsukumogami, but to also have telepathic abilities.

You are not a proper Arrancar.

Sangre sat up. Excuse me?

Your Zanpakutō is a Shinigami weapon. You currently do not have access to your own Arrancar Zanpakutō. Hence, you are not a proper Arrancar at the moment.

Okay, that's wonderful. Aizen promoted a not-quite-Arrancar to Segunda Espada. Good for him. Except now I'm exiled so I guess it doesn't matter. Is that another reason why he exiled me? Because he realised something was wrong? Is this why I have no idea how to activate Resurrección? Well—

Stop rambling. You don't have time for this.

Sangre was about to ask why she didn't have the time to question her very existence when there was a high-pitched scream. The Hollow had found a soul.

Do you remember the name I gave you?

Kagerō?

Yes. The command is now "Brillar."

"Brillar, Kagerō," said Sangre aloud. She wanted to ask what that foreign word meant, because it sounded suspiciously like Spanish, and the voice had previously implied that it did not know Spanish, but now was not the time.

The moment the words left her mouth, the glaive she was holding transformed into a straight double-edged sword with a 70-centimetre-long blade and a two-handed hilt. In other words, its appearance reverted back to how it was the first time she wielded it, some months ago, back when she first encountered Baraggan Louisenbairn.

She used sonído to step between the Hollow and the soul of a screaming man, swung the sword and decapitated the Hollow.

Oh, and… tear off your mask.

Sangre, who had been in the middle of marvelling at the purification process (again), froze, frowned, then closed her eyes with a barely audible groan.

I don't know if you've realised, but 'Arrancar' means the verb 'tear', and we're named as such because of our torn-off mask.

Tch. Why are you like this? The voice demanded but did not wait for Sangre to reply. I meant, tear off the remaining part of your mask. The bit in your hair.

Sangre thought the voice was crazy, which goes to say how much one should listen to a random voice in their head which may or may not belong to a random weapon that may or may not belong to them.

You won't die from tearing it off, the voice grumbled, sounding as if Sangre was kicking a fuss out of nothing. She felt she was entitled to feel worried, however, considering how the mask was supposed to be a part of her heart.

You didn't die from having part of it torn off, you won't die from having all of it off.

Sangre would later say that the only reason why she decided to go against her better judgement and listen to the voice was because she could sense the Shinigami-in-charge coming and it made her panic. In truth, it was a terrible excuse, not least because her body was near enough for a simple sonído to be sufficient for her to return back to being 'human.' And she had done this so often, it should have been a natural action to do even if she had panicked… But panic, she did not.

(The truth she denied was that her curiosity won over her self-preservation. Fortunately for her, it did not kill her).

The voice was right, Chizuki realised after tearing off the remaining fraction of her mask from the side of her head, because she was still very much alive. In fact, she was so alive that her Hollow-hole had disappeared and that annoying emptiness she often pushed to the back of her mind was gone.

However, she was still a spirit, that much she gathered, when she realised her body was still lying some metres away. And she was wearing clothes she never thought she would wear—a loose black kosode over a white undershirt, black billowy hakama, white socks and straw sandals. There was even a sheath—finally!—for her sword, strapped to the back of her waist in a horizontal position.

Oh good, it worked, said the voice, sounding pleased. Chizuki ignored it and swiftly ducked into the nearest alley and pressed herself against the wall, lowering her reiatsu even further than it usually was—which was a considerable feat, since her reiatsu was almost always held lower than that of a weak unevolved Hollow—letting herself blend in with the shadows around her.

Why do I look like a Shinigami?! She demanded as the Shinigami-in-charge stepped into view, looking like he had dashed here all the way from the other side of town. All that was left on the scene was a broken lamp post, shattered glass and a cracked road. The soul that had been targeted by the Hollow was hovering nearby, out of sight, but his reiatsu indicated that he was still somewhere in the area.

Well, congratulations. Your spirit and Zanpakutō type matches now.

Chizuki wondered if the other Shinigami had annoying voices in their heads as well.


Time passed, and Chizuki grew her hair out. She had noticed that having short hair allowed people, especially those taller than her, to ruffle or mess it up. So, she let her hair grow and kept it from annoying her by tying it back and plaiting it up, fringe and all. And when she needed further ease of movement, such as during Phys-Ed, or when facing a Hollow, she would either twist and coil the braids before pinning it up or loop them around her neck.

Tatsuki felt that Chizuki looked ridiculous whenever she tied up her braids or looped them like a scarf, but Orihime enjoyed playing with her hair, and would try to see what elaborate designs she could tie Chizuki's braids up into.

But Chizuki's new life was very soon turned around again, except this time, it was all due to her own curiosity-fuelled choices.

It started with her tailing the Shinigami-in-charge, just to test out how long it would take for him to notice her stalking him. This was on hindsight, not such a great idea, which she only realised when she found herself with a tail—the Shinigami shopkeeper. This was the first time she had actually sensed him close enough for her to be tempted to look around to see if he was in sight.

Later on, it was just one impulsive decision after another.

On that particular day that Chizuki had chosen to shadow the Shinigami-in-charge, said Shinigami was finishing his assignment. This meant that after the latest Hollow was eliminated, the Shinigami checked his cell-phone-like device and stabbed the air in front of him with his sword. Half of the Zanpakutō blade seemed to disappear, as if the sword had actually pierced through a cloaking material, and when the Shinigami turned the sword like a key in a keyhole, the air twisted and opened up a glowing gate.

It was really a set of shōji rather than an actual gate, and it seemed to open up into a bright waiting room, but simple as it may be, it certainly looked more elegant and sophisticated than a Hollow's rough tear of the fabric between dimensions that was more like a domesticated black hole than anything else.

When the Shinigami stepped through the sliding doors, Chizuki, sensing the watchful presence of the Shinigami shopkeeper and not wanting to be left alone with him, quickly dashed in through the doors before they closed behind her. But even though she was, at that moment, practically an inch away from the Shinigami in front of her, he didn't seem to notice anything wrong.

Such easy prey, Chizuki could not help but think. And she wondered if most other Shinigami that were below Captain-class were this oblivious. Sure, she knew her skills at sneaking could be considered as one of the best in Las Noche, carried over and honed further from her time as an Adjuchas, but she also knew that there were Shinigami who were still able to find her, such as Aizen and that mysterious Shinigami shopkeeper.

Then, in the span of a blink, the Shinigami before her disappeared along with the bright space that resembled a traditional waiting room. In its place was a strange dark tunnel with walls covered in some strange dripping substance. For a moment, Chizuki leaned close to a wall and stared at the substance. It seemed to be concentrated with reishi, but it felt nothing like Chizuki had sensed before, and she didn't dare touch it.

That was before she realised that the dripping substance could flow fast and suddenly, all the walls seemed to be pouring with this substance, as if the place was alive and could sense an intruder. She did the only sensible thing and ran.

Chizuki thought she was fast even without using her time-freezing technique, and even though she was now a Shinigami, their technique for high-speed movement was similar enough to a Hollow's sonído that Chizuki took to it like a fish to water. But the waterfall of that weird substance could keep up with her, and she was worried she might get swept up by it sooner or later.

Just as she was about to draw her sword, the voice spoke up, Don't. This place seems to have detected your reiatsu. Using that technique might aggravate the situation.

However, she did not have many options left. If she couldn't use her Zanpakutō, and Shinigami-sonído did not seem to work, all that was left was to use a Cero or to open up a Garganta, and she wasn't even sure if she could still use those techniques when she was supposed to be a Shinigami now.

A Cero is essentially concentrated reiryoku, said the voice. The Shinigami may have a different term for their version of it though. But we don't know if this whole place will collapse on us if you fire anything of the sort so please don't do it.

Chizuki was about to shriek because what else could she do, when she saw a bright light ahead.

An exit, finally!


Chizuki shot out of the exit like a comet and created a mini-crater when she landed right behind the Shinigami she had been following earlier. It was the flashiest entrance she had ever made and now that she was standing face-to-face with a stunned former-Shinigami-in-charge and a taller scarier-looking Shinigami who was most definitely wearing a Captain's haori, she felt it was likely going to be the last flashy entrance she'd ever make for a very long time.

"Hi, I come in peace?" she tried, raising her hands in surrender. Not that being empty-handed and holding her hands away from her body could stop her from harming anyone, but it was the intent that counted.

"A ryōka?" the former-Shinigami-in-charge said.

"But wearing our uniform," observed the scary-looking Captain who had an eyepatch but looked a lot more like a pirate than Nnoitra. "Did you steal it?"

The first Shinigami approached her even as she gave a negative answer. Chizuki wisely decided against mentioning that getting so close to her, a stranger, and trusting her not to attack him was an incredibly stupid decision. No Arrancar would do that unless they were very sure of their ability to crush her. Those were the arrogant ones, and this Shinigami didn't seem like the type. He was just… oblivious.

"Her clothes look like ours, but it doesn't belong to any Division," said the Shinigami, tugging at the back of her robes' collar as if she were no more dangerous than a rabbit. Or perhaps he was just confident in the Captain's ability to stop her if she tried anything. "She's got a sword though."

"Who are you and where are you from?" the Captain asked.

"Um… Karakura Town? Where are we?" Chizuki replied, feigning ignorance, and glanced at the traditional buildings all around them. "I was… There was this monster, and his tail whacked me out of my body, and there was a voice in my head and I obeyed its instructions because, well, there was a monster and I didn't want to die. And then there was a flash of light and I was… holding a sword and dressed like this. When he—" Here, she pointed at the Shinigami. "—came, I hid, because I didn't know what was going on, but he killed the monster, so… good guy, right? Then I wanted to ask him what was going on, but he went through this door thing and I tried to follow but I ended up lost in some weird dark tunnel that tried to eat me."

The two Shinigami stared at her.

"Repeat the first part," said the Captain.

"Which part?" Chizuki asked, scratching the back of her neck in a show of nervousness. "Where are we? Um, there as a monster and his tail whacked me out of my body?"

"It's not possible," said the former-Shinigami-in-charge with a frown. Chizuki didn't think he was referring to the out-of-body experience.

"Well, it's happened, so it must be possible," said the Captain and huffed. "Let's just bring her to see the old fart. He'll know what to do."

To Chizuki, he said, "I'm Zaraki Kenpachi, Capatin of the 11th Division. You'll be coming with me."

Then he turned on the spot and began striding away, white ragged haori fanning out behind him. Chizuki gave the other Shinigami an uncertain glance. He looked at her unconcerned and waved her along.

Bristling inwardly, she could only sigh and follow the Captain like an obedient dog. She wondered if all Captains were like that and was thankful Ichimaru hadn't tried that with her… yet.


So, how was it? Feel free to leave a review or PM me about anything!

Next chapter will take a while longer, but should be up by the end of May.