I own nothing.
A six year old Ichi Guo was crouching in a tree around three meters off of the ground, a blind fold placed over his eyes. Eyes would only deceive him, out in the elements everything had evolved to protect itself from wondering eyes either through camouflage or hiding within the bushes. Even the chattering calls of birds, meant to grab attention, were hard to follow as they echoed around the dense trees, making them hard to spot.
But Ichi Guo wasn't out there at the edge of the woods for the birds. He expanded his search until he found what it was he was looking for, a fat rabbit. With Fall coming to an end all the animals were preparing for winter's unforgiving season, fattening themselves up. This rabbit was a good fifty four meters away. But Ichi Guo had already decided on it.
Slipping out of the tree, he fell the three meters to get to the ground and landed lightly on his feet before rapidly accelerating forward at a speed that would make most people go slack jawed in amazement. The Shunpo felt sluggish to the ex-Soul Reaper who couldn't help but remember the days when he could cover an entire kilometer in a single step, but it was more than enough to catch the rabbit as he covered the ground between him and his target in three quick steps, getting to the rabbit before the leaves from the tree could even reach the ground.
His fingers wrapped around the scruff of the rabbit's neck and he pulled it up out of the bush where it had been hiding. The rabbit barely had enough time to be shocked before Ichi Guo quickly twisted his fingers around the neck. It didn't feel any pain. "Sorry little guy. But a man's got to eat." He said gently before putting the now dead rabbit into a bag he had been carrying with him and heading back towards the village.
It had been four years since he started to live with the elder of the village, and almost no one knew that it was Ichi Guo who was providing for the old man more than the other way around. He had started hunting early, using it as part of his training. His spiritual energy was one of the strongest in the village, with only the actual Spirit Master ahead of him in raw power. But the young boy had found that he seemed to have hit a dead end and that his power wasn't getting any stronger no matter how hard he trained it.
Within this world one had to unlock their essence spirit in order to go any higher.
So with power hitting a dead end, it was technique that took up priority. His Shunpo had progressed pretty well, as had his ability to channel spiritual energy to other parts of his body to increase durability and strength. But even so, without his old raw power to back them up, their uses were limited. He could only do around twenty Shunpos a day before he was bled dry of power, though his six year old muscles wanted to give up after around seven.
Coming out towards the edge of the village, Ichi Guo could feel her even before she started shouting at him. "Ichi-nii!" Rukia shouted as she ran out next to him and threw her arms around her brother's shoulders. "How's your training been going, Ichi-nii?" She asked in Japanese.
Ichi Guo had taught it to her and they remained the only ones in the entire village, perhaps the entire country, to know it. It was their secret code, where they could say anything they wanted without the adults understanding. She picked it up faster than Ichi Guo would have believed, but that was kids for you.
It infuriated her father how much time she spent with her half-brother, and the fact that she refused to answer to anything but Rukia, though they had named her Lang Mei. It was clear who she was choosing, and the fact that they had their own language to make fun of him with was the icing on the cake.
"It's going alright. How about you?" Ichi Guo said giving his little sister a grin before ruffling her short raven black hair. Originally, it had been long, in the style of the region, but after someone said that the girl looked like her mother, she had taken scissors to it herself. Now it was short and had a sort of controlled chaotic look to it, surprisingly making her actually look like Kuchiki Rukia, only with silver eyes instead of purple. That, and the grin that was always on her face. You rarely saw Kuchiki Rukia grinning, unless the hundred year old soul was plotting something or performing one of her famous 'human' acts.
Rukia smiled back up at her brother as she tried to swat his hand off of her head. "I'm getting better, want to see!?" She said, pulling a long wooden stick off of her back. She looked around and saw a downed tree and walked up to it.
Ichi Guo felt her starting to channel energy into the wooden stick, making it harder and giving it a slight edge like force. It still wasn't sharp or as hard as good metal, but when she brought it down on the partially rotted log, the fallen tree splintered a bit around the point of impact. A good, solid hit that would have been able to break bones.
"I'm creating a monster." Ichi Guo chuckled as his sister gave him a huge grin. "But you aren't focusing your power enough. Watch." Ichi Guo said as he walked up to the log, pulling out his own wooden sword. He channeled his energy, and struck. The blade passed right through the dead tree, cutting it clean in two. Rukia clapped at the display. "Did you see the difference? I didn't use any more power than you did, but I controlled it a bit better. Remember, a sword is meant to cut, not just make an impression."
"Let me try again!" Rukia insisted, pushing forward and holding up her sword. Her second attempt was the same as her first. Her shoulders sank a little.
"Don't worry. You'll figure it out with time." Ichi Guo said, patting her on the back. "You just need a bit more experience." Then he looked off to the east a little. "Speaking of which, do you sense them?"
Rukia blinked and then closed her eyes, focusing. "Yeah... essence monsters. Just a small group and they're young."
"How many, and how young?" Ichi Guo tested his sister.
"Um... four? And I don't think any of them are older than twenty years." She said, screwing up her face in concentration.
"Alright, I'll give it to you, though I'm pretty sure that they're all only twelve years, so your second answer was a bit on the far side." Ichi Guo said, praising the girl with another pat on the head. "So, how about some practice then?"
Rukia looked at him in surprise. "You mean, against essence monsters?"
"I'll be right here if anything goes wrong. But I doubt you can't handle a group of such weak monsters." Ichi Guo said encouragingly. Rukia seemed a little nervous but nodded anyways. It was natural to be nervous when trying new things. But that was why training was important, to internalize the needed response to the situation, to calm the mind and keep the body from freezing up.
The two approached the monsters quietly, better to get a feel for the situation before diving right in. It was four little monsters alright, ghost wolves. The hounds were only around half a meter tall and a meter long, their black coats covered in white lightning shaped patterns along their bodies and tusk like teeth growing out at an awkward angle for actual use. Like all monsters, even though they were around twelve years old, like Ichi Guo had guessed from their essence levels, they were nowhere close to full grown.
Monsters were not like humans, they didn't grow old and die, they simply grew more powerful with age, though their growth was really slow when compared to humans.
A ten year old monster was a joke to deal with, and could probably be handled by someone with no spirit essence at all, though a child without any would be pushing it.
A hundred year old monster was more of a challenge, requiring at least some level of spirit power to take down or some clever tactics.
Once you get to a thousand you need some heavy duty power to help you out, and passed that were the ten thousand and hundred thousands. In his mind, Ichi Guo equated a thousand year old spirit with a Gillian type Menos, with a ten thousand being an Adjuchas and a hundred thousand being a Vasto Lorde level.
So far, Ichi Guo could handle a lower hundred year by himself, but he was pretty sure that if he ran into a thousand year, that he would have to turn tail and run.
The ghost wolves had taken down another ten year type spirit monster, this one a prussian claw, a sort of black cat like monster, and they were at work eating their kill. "The poor kitty." Rukia mumbled sadly. But then she started to move in, using their distracted state to get the jump on them.
Unfortunately, she forgot to take into account the direction of the wind. The wolves smelled her long before she was ready to strike and the ghostly wolves faded into the tall grass, showing that their name was well earned as they seemed to disappear from sight.
Rukia realised her mistake and quickly tried to find their spiritual presence, frightened when she found that they were trying to surround her. Feeling the first approach, she turned towards it and got it in the head the moment it became visible with a two handed swing. The wolf yelped and fell to the ground, unconscious, but not dead.
It was to be Rukia's second mistake as the others now had a clear shot at her back. Her footing had been good for a one on one fight, but to battle groups, you needed to be lighter on your feet and the two handed style required one's feet to be planted. The three hounds jumped at her as she tried to turn around, but before they could reach her Ichi Guo was at her side and pushed them all back with one swing, catching each of them and knocking them through the air.
"Don't focus too much on any one enemy. Parry and try to get outside of their ring, only commit if there is nothing at your back." Ichi Guo instructed his little sister as he moved back behind her and let her take over again.
Rukia nodded and stepped forward as the wolves got back to their feet. They were too close to fade into the background, and even if they had, Rukia was now locked onto them, so they ran forward in a group.
She sidestepped the first one, hitting it with a swipe to its stomach as it went by, but never leaving the ready sword position. She cracked the second on the head while in a jump to the side to get out of the way of the third and to put the first and third back in front of her again.
Taking a calming breath, she waited for the wolves' next move. But seeing how quickly their brothers were dealt with and how it was now two on two, the wolves turned and ran into the bushes, abandoning the fight.
After they had moved a safe distance away, Rukia let out a sigh and lowered her wooden sword. She nearly jumped when her brother started to pat her on the head again. "Not bad little sis, you're getting better. At this rate it's only a matter of time before I need to worry about my status as the strong one." Ichi Guo joked as his sister tried to get away from the hand that was determined to mess up her hair.
"What are you talking about? I messed up. You had to save me." She pouted angrily.
"Small mistakes, ones that you won't make again. More important was the fact that you recovered after those mistakes and kept moving." Ichi Guo said giving her a short pat on the back to push her towards the village. "Speaking of moving, it's getting late. You wanting to have dinner with uncle and me or are you heading back to the old farts place?"
"I'm going with you and uncle. I don't want to be around mean old farty face." Rukia said, puffing out her cheeks and starting to run back towards the village with her brother moving a short distance behind her.
"She's going to be a monster, just like her namesake, just in a slightly different way."
"No, don't go, Ichi-nii!" Rukia cried in Japanese as she grabbed onto her older brother, not wanting him to go towards the wagon that had come to take all of the six-year-old children to the temple to have their spirits awaken and to see if they would be worth training. "I don't want you to! If they find out how strong you are, you won't be allowed to come back!"
Several other people were crying similar things to their beloved children, in fear that the son or daughter might never come back home to them. In the mess Rukia's cries were hardly noticed, nor was Ichi Guo's calm demeanor.
"Come on, Rukia. I'll come back." He said patting the girl's head. "I promise you that I won't leave this place until you do. If they're going to get us, then they're going to have to take us as a pair."
Rukia sobbed as her brother helped to wipe away her tears. "But they won't let you come back, and I'm four, so they won't test me yet." She said miserably.
"Rukia, I won't let them take me. Just take a deep breath and try to focus. Can you feel me?" Ichi Guo asked his sister. Rukia breathed in a few times and started to check her spirit sensing ability. Ichi Guo could almost see the shock crossing her face as she shook her head. "See, they won't know, so they won't take me. I'll be back tonight and then we can go play together some more. Alright?"
He blinked as Rukia lifted up her hand, her pinkie extended. "Do you pinkie promise?" She mumbled, giving him her puppy eyes. Ichi Guo gave a small smile and hooked his pinkie with hers.
He didn't care what happened, he wasn't going to leave his new little sister.
The temple was a grand place, in other words, huge. The thing was probably as big as the entire village the kids grew up at, making the knowledge that the rest of their lives were on the line even more intimidating. Though that wasn't the thing that had Ichi Guo himself worried.
Twelve, there were twelve Spirit Masters of varying ranks inside of the building. He wasn't sure if they would be able to sense him if he let his guard down for a second or not. Keeping his power low was hard, he had never been good at it. So not knowing if these people would be able to sense him or not was unnerving.
Your average Soul Reaper grunt couldn't sense spiritual energy, so perhaps it would be the same with Spirit Masters. But he couldn't risk it. Fighting his way out against all of these Spirit Masters would be next to impossible at his current level, and even the addition of Zangetsu wouldn't change that. But if it did come to that, he would put up one hell of a fight.
There were about three hundred children there from the nearby villages. They had all been gathered to the city in order to be screened for possibly gifted children. Any that were found would be sent away to academies to train to become Spirit Masters.
Among peasant villages, the birth rate of gifted children was roughly one in every hundred or so, as spirit power was largely hereditary and only a random mutation could change that. These mutations were rare, and the odds that the child would become even a half decent Spirit Master still wasn't very good, but they did the screenings anyways.
There was a long line up to the alter where a magic circle had been drawn on the floor. The circle that would release the latent essence spirits within the children. Ichi Guo watched as the line slowly went forward and one child after another breathed a sigh of relief as the tests returned negative and they started to actually become excited about their awakened spirits.
Though the spirits were not exactly what Ichi Guo would call interesting; a bowl, a bottle, spoons, a carrot, it all seemed like random clutter to him. After each child stepped on the circle the Spirit Masters would force the child to touch an orb, one that would tell them the child's spirit power rank. Each and every child Ichi Guo watched go up there all had the same rank; zero. No spiritual talent what-so-ever. Though one of the children had been found to possess a rank of four and was dragged off crying.
Whenever the essence spirit was first activated, the highest a person could have was a spirit rank of ten, meaning they only needed to collect a spirit ring from an essence monster in order to become a real Spirit Master. Otherwise the child would spend his time training until he was rank ten before continuing on.
The process was fast, each child taking only about twenty seconds a piece and Ichi Guo found himself standing at the front of the line soon enough.
'Zangetsu... please, don't appear in your full form. Please...' Ichi Guo thought to himself as he stepped on the magic circle.
He felt the power working its way inside of him and forcibly awakening his power. A mark started to burn onto the back of his right hand, the spirit mark that would be the symbol of his essence spirit. The mark was black and looked like a crescent moon. It heated up as the circle tried to force him to summon his spirit item.
"Looks like it's another junk spirit." The Spirit Master in charge of the circle said with a sigh as Ichi Guo held up nothing more than a tassel. "Move along, get your spirit level checked out."
Ichi Guo gave a sigh of relief as he stepped out of the circle and the pressure trying to make the entire sword form disappeared and the tassel along with it. "Put your hand on this." A second Spirit Master said, holding out an orb. Ichi Guo nodded and lifted his hand up, placing it on top of the orb.
His heart sank as it gave off a very light glow. He had been suppressing his power as hard as he could, but the orb was still getting a reaction. For some reason he felt like Uryuu was giving him a smug look somewhere. Damn he wanted to punch that glasses wearing ass in the face.
"What do you know, a rank two. Guess that means you're coming with us kid." The first Spirit Master said. Ichi Guo tensed himself, readying himself to call Zangetsu out in his entirety.
He could probably get the two close-by Spirit Masters before the others realized what was going on. It might be enough of a window for him to Shunpo away before anyone could record who he was.
But before he could take any drastic measures, the two Spirit Masters started to laugh. "Yeah right, a trash spirit like his is worthless, I doubt he could ever become a real Spirit Master. He'd just be another waste of time. Get a move on." The second spirit master said before pushing Ichi Guo towards the group of processed kids.
Juo Shin looked surprised when Ichi Guo came back into the village with the other children. "You... they didn't take you?" He said to the boy.
Ichi Guo smirked in a not-very-six-year-old manner. "Can't get rid of me that easy, Uncle."
"Ichi-nii!" Rukia shouted as she ran up to her brother and put her arms around his waist. "You really did come back."
"Of course I did." He said, patting the girl on the back. "Come on, I promised you we'd play some, didn't I?" Screaming with delight, they went off towards the edge of the village, out of sight in their own little world. The village elder smiled as they went.
"What did you get, Ichi-nii? Come on, show me." Rukia said, hardly containing her excitement.
Ichi Guo smiled and raised his hand. Spiritual particles started to condense and the long metal sword started to form in Ichi Guo's hand.
Zangetsu looked the same as he had when Ichigo had first become a Soul Reaper. The guard still attached and the tassel from before on the bottom of the hilt. The blade alone was over twice the size of the six-year-old's body. Rukia was looking at the sword with wide eyes as Ichi Guo grinned. "It's good to have you back, old man." He said to himself, even though Zangetsu had not responded to him since he had gotten the sword. He supposed he would have to regain contact all over again, but he had time for that.
He was slightly less happy as he removed his right hand from the blade, turning it over so that he could look at the palm.
Right on the opposite side of his hand from the spirit symbol for Zangetsu was another black symbol, one of a skull like mask with three red lines. 'Looks like you came along for the ride too. Just remember who's in charge, you stupid horse.'
I'm divided between sending IchiGuo and Rukia to Shrek Academy with the rest of the main characters of the comic, or if I should send them somewhere else and have they join them before the continent wide tournament.
Zangetsu is a Tool Type Essence Spirit, while the Hollow Mask counts as a Beast Type Essence Spirit.