Chapter 12: The boy that saw and the man that regrets.

Zaraki stopped talking and I was frozen in shock. Everything around me spun and echoed – nothing made sense to me. Everything that I was told when I was a child was…a lie? For 200 years I believed a lie? How…why….why was the truth kept hidden from me? Something tingled inside me and I shivered. Nothing felt right anymore; the cold lumpy stone felt smooth and warm and the baking sunlight felt as cool as the snow in winter. I could feel Zaraki's gaze baring into me as I paled and looked down at the waterfall. Every sound had dimmed – every light had become dull and everything that touched me was not there.

"Zooi? Please, look at me…" Zaraki said quietly. I slowly turned to face him and my neck creaked as though it had not moved for a hundred years. Tears spilled down my cheeks unconsciously as I gazed at him with unseeing eyes. His voice sounded like…like…I don't know. Nothing could describe it, but I came back to reality as I felt something grab my arm. I looked down and saw Zaraki's hand clamped round mine and he looked at me with fierce eyes.

"Listen to me, you must know this. I'm sorry, but it was me that day who was with your mother when she uttered her final words, it was me who stayed with her until she died. I didn't do anything – I couldn't even alert anybody, I was useless." Zaraki facial expression changed and he looked so pained, it didn't look right on him though. His eye reflected nothing as mine burned in shock and anger, and sadness and confusion.

Minutes passed as I stared at him and he gritted his teeth as he remembered and reflected on what he should have done. My heart felt heavy at the thought of my mother, whose last moments were spent with Zaraki. My heart…my hand reached up to grab my chest to feel the rhythmic thumping of my heart but it felt hollow and dull. However, the thought of this man who stayed by my mother's side until the end lifted me slightly somehow and the anger inside me slowly died away.

Clouds appeared. Before we realised it, it was mid-afternoon and clouds sailed across the endless sky, briefly covering the sun. Thinking back on the story that Zaraki told me, sudden realisation hit me; a mask that half-covered my mother's face? What did that mean? My head flung round to where Zaraki was.

"Zaraki?" he looked up. "What do you mean by 'the mask fell off'? My mother never wore a mask." I asked as his face tightened and gulped.

"Ha, I knew you'd ask at some point. I don't know if I'm the right person to tell you that, but you'll find out soon." He answered and stood up. He grabbed his sword that was sticking out of the ground and sheathed it. I looked away again before standing up and grabbing my sword as well…but something felt as though it hit me and I saw a something lunge at me in my mind – something that wore a funny white and coloured mask…I gasped and stepped back. My breathing became shallow as I felt something cold slither up my back.

"Ready to go?" Zaraki asked me as he walked up to me and stood next to me. I nodded and turned round to leave. "Where are you going? We're taking a shortcut." He chuckled as he looked down the vast waterfall. I looked at him unsure but agreed all the same. What am I doing? I'll end up killed if I become too reckless, I've only been out of prison 4 weeks. Oh well, anything's better than that dingy place. Zaraki grinned at me wildly and took a run up; I did the same and we both ran off the edge whooping as we went. The waterfall was apparently around 160m – it would take us a long time to reach the bottom…out of the blue a blood-curdling howl sounded behind me. As I looked, a Hollow was diving down as well and screamed at Zaraki to stop.

"ZARAKI! THERE'S A HOLLOW!" I screamed over the noise of the waterfall. Another came out of the waterfall just I front of me and I was forced to stop. Zaraki grabbed the nearest branch of one of the trees that grew next to the waterfall and swung himself up the tree. Meanwhile, I whipped Taura through the air and sliced down the waterfall, causing the water to turn to ice and make a platform for me to slide on. As I slid my way through the Hollows grips and flipped in the air to confuse them, Zaraki stood by at the ready if anything went wrong. It seemed that I was using Taura unconsciously and attacked using my senses. As I leapt through the air once again, I brought Taura above my head and sliced the first Hollow. That was easy, but the second Hollow was slightly trickier, it had wings and could dodge some of my attacks. I touched the water again with Taura and felt the water flow into me and swung it round as the Hollow attacked. I swooped down and up and finally managed to force the Hollow to come diving straight down; I shunpo'd above it and landed on its head. Before it had time to realise i cracked the mask and the job was done…almost. I wasn't touching the water and fell towards the ground. Luckily I regained my balance and nimbly jumped to the ground. A soft thump beside me realised that Zaraki had landed. He was smiling and holding his sword in his right hand.

"Nice work, definitely some skills you have." I thanked him and we both set off towards the Seireitei. Whilst we were in a hurry back to the Squad headquarters, we failed to realise the person who was watching us…a boy with electric blue and subtle purple hair like mine…

As soon as we arrived, Yachiru flew down from the building and grabbed onto 'Kenny's' left shoulder.

"Hi Ken-chan!" she squealed. "Did you have fun? Did you fight?" I sat down on the wall and stared at the ground while Yachiru plagued Zaraki with questions and details about the fighting. I looked back on what Zaraki said to me about my mother and felt pained. I last saw her when she came out of an assistant captains meeting about the situation with the Quincy's. I don't really remember her that well since I was still fairly young. However I just couldn't stop thinking about the mask that Zaraki briefly mentioned and pondered it; what could it be?

As I sat on the wall thinking about this, several fairly young soul reapers walked past, avoiding Zaraki and Yachiru's gaze but stared at me avidly. In the end I got fed up with it and looked up to glare back at them. One of them suddenly collapsed and the others froze to the spot. Zaraki walked over and placed his hand on my back and bent down to whisper into my ear.

"Zooi, be careful. Your spiritual pressure's seems to come across as dangerous and extremely sharp," he whispered as the younger soul reapers ran away. "You don't realise it, but it sometimes has the same effect as the Captain-General's. One glance and she could reduce even a grown man to tears. Of course, it doesn't usually affect me but Yachiru finds it a bit difficult sometimes." Ending on that, Zaraki grinned and stood up straight. As soon as he saw the look on my face he strode towards his room and left me sitting on the wall.

Kenpachi Zaraki

Staring at the mountain of paperwork I'd neglected to spend time with Zooi, I realised that I was maybe wrong to tell her so soon…though she'd find out sooner or later. What happened that day has never left me, never been forgotten as though it happened just yesterday. Was I wrong to leave Zooi's mother, 'R', to die? Though, she'd have died anyway and she wouldn't have had time to talk to me. I regret not being strong enough to do anything. If I wasn't such a coward I would've saved her from those blasted Quincy's and killed them with my bare hands and sword; she would've had time to get away and save herself instead of worry about me. What was i? I was just a little runt from North Rukongai, District 80 with no name – it didn't matter if I got killed, nobody knew who I was…except Miss Unohana. She rescued me from the deepest pits of hell and awoke my senses…that's it. I'll help Zooi, just like 'R' said…no, TOLD me to and I'll never let her get hurt. I'll explain to Yachiru too, and we'll help Zooi together. I see so much of 'R' in her, it's uncanny but so little of Old Man Yama; except her spiritual pressure. Could she really grow to be so strong in future? I hope I can fight her soon…Damn it! I want to fight! I slammed my hand on the desk and it cracked right the way down. I shut my eye and let my head fall forwards. Fighting like that earlier today brought me such joy, and watching Zooi, I know she can grow to be stronger than me – now that's a thought to savour.