Yo everybody! Sorry it took so long. But I rewrote much of this chapter and decided to wait until I had finished chapter four.
Disclaimer: Don't own Bleach. Don't own Naruto.
Chapter Three: The Shikais Part Two
Ninth Division Training Dojo
Five Months Later
Slice...Stab...Block...Slice...Parry...Thrust...Dodge...Slice...
"Not bad, Third Seat. Your definitely one of the better swordsmen I've faced, though you're not as good as me."
Stab...Parry...Slice...Slice...Sidestep...Stab...Block...Parry...Dodge...Sidestep...Block...
"Arrogance like that will get you and your comrades killed." the Third Seat of Squad Nine replied as he swung his sword at him.
Kenshi smirked as he sidestepped the blade. "It's not arrogance if it's true Kaname." he said as he grabbed his opponent's right hand and pushed it down, before thrusting his own blade up against Kaname Tosen's neck.
A few seconds, Kenshi smiled and let go of Tosen's hand and lowered his own blade.
"Another round?" he asked.
"Yes." Tosen replied.
The two soul reapers backed away about ten feet away from each other, raised their wooden practice swords and attacked. Kenshi had to admit Tosen was a formidable warrior, and he respected the man's stance of avoiding bloodshed at all costs. For the most part, he agreed with it.
"Do you still believe that one should take the bloodstained path, just because they disagree with the end result of the clean and pure one?" the blind man asked as he parried one of his strikes.
It was when he didn't agree with it, that two often argued. If given the choice of walking a path free of bloodshed that lead to something he viewed as wrong and a path filled with nothing but bloodshed that what he viewed as right, which would he walk? "It's not any choice at all, Kaname." Hawk answered as he blocked one of Tosen's swings and countered with a punch to his face. "I would always walk the bloodstained path every time and without a trace of doubt or hesitation."
"The blood-soaked path always leads to nothing but more bloodshed and pain. That it isn't the path of justice." Tosen replied.
"Let me ask you this Kaname, what truly is justice? Is justice decided by the Captain-General and the Central 46? Sure, they decide on and create the laws. But where do they come up with the laws? The laws are born from their own codes of justice and honor. Who's to say that theirs' is better than ours? Because they were appointed to their positions by the Spirit King? That's why I have always followed my own code of justice and honor over the laws imposed by others."
"That makes you sound more like a criminal than anything else."
"Not really." Kenshi replied with a shrug. "I'm more than happy to follow the laws of the Soul Society. But if the laws and my own code of justice conflict, I will always chose my code over the law. As I have always done."
"That makes you sound like you believe that you are above the law."
"No." Hawk as he paused for a moment. "I'm not above the law or even my own code. I've broken laws plenty of times. I've even broken my own code once before."
"I did not think that was even possible."
"It is. I'm as imperfect as everyone else. We've all broken some law at one point or another. And I'm still torn between feeling shame and sorrow over what I did and accepting as the only necessary choice I could have made."
"And what was this act?" Tosen asked.
"That's my secret and it will remain my secret. After all, what good is secret that has been spoken?"
The Training Dojo door suddenly opened and a unseated soul reaper entered.
"Third Seat Tosen, Tenth Seat Mitsurugi, I'm sorry to interrupt you but Captain Muguruma is calling all seated officers for a meeting immediately." the man said.
"Looks like we'll have to this finish later." Hawk said, removing his headband and wiped the sweat off his forehead as Karasu landed on his shoulder.
"Our debate or our sparring match?"
"Both." he replied.
Kenshi and Tosen returned their training swords to their place on the shelves with the others left the dojo.
A few minutes later, they arrived at the meeting room. They were the last ones to arrive.
"Aright, now that everyone's here, I can tell you all what's going on." Kensei said to his gathered officers. "As most of you already know, over the last two weeks, there's been a string of hollow attacks all over the Rukongai."
Kenshi had heard about the recent increase of hollow attacks in the Rukongai. But these attacks were beyond bizarre. It was uncommon for a hollow to attack the Rukongai, even rarer for hollow to repeatedly attack the Rukongai for more than a few days. Usually, the hollow was either destroyed or fled. And the frequency of the attacks and the locations of the attacks, all pointed to at least a few hollows responsible for the attacks. It raised the question, how were these hollows still in the Rukongai after two weeks?
"But what you don't know is that the hollows responsible for these attacks are impossible to detect beyond a radius of approximately seven feet."
"What?! How is that even possible?!" Toudou, the Sixth Seat asked. "There's never been a hollow that could even partially mask their reiatsu. Now you're saying that there's at least several that can."
"By the looks of things, yes." the captain replied. "Over the past week and a half, four teams were sent out to deal with the hollows. The first three teams didn't return. The lone survivor of the fourth team reported in yesterday. That's how we know that these hollows can avoid detection and are extremely dangerous."
"What are our orders then Captain?" Eishima asked.
"We're working with the Twelfth on this one. The Captain-General wishes for them to try to determine the cause of this sudden mutation. Teams for the Twelfth will be studying the areas of the most recent attacks for any clues that may help us better track these hollows. It's our job to protect these teams in case these hollows are still in the area and decide to attack. And should the hollows attack, destroy them."
"Aw...Why do we have to babysit a bunch of nerds?" Mashiro whined.
"Because the Captain-General ordered it!" an annoyed Kensei replied.
The captain of Squad Nine cleared his throat and continued, "Now, this is what's gonna happen. There's gonna be six teams of eight. Four from the Twelfth, four from our Division. Three of the teams will be in the North Rukongai while the other three will be in the West. Mashiro, Kaname, Eishima, Kasaki, Toudou and myself will each lead a team. I posted the team rosters on the door. We leave in one hour. Dismissed."
The gathered slowly filed out of the room, glancing at the posted note on door. Hawk was on Toudou's team, one of the teams going to the West Rukongai. And Sakura was one of the members of Squad 12 that part of his team.
'Hn...This is a first. Sakura's actually doing something outside of a lab.'
West Rukongai District 78
An Hour and a Half Later
The trip through the Rukongai towards the areas where some of the hollows had been last seen, had been quiet. They had been searching the 78th District, the District were the last team had been attacked, when they discovered something. In a clearing in the middle of a forest, they found a small group of half-eaten bodies. Both soul reapers and ordinary souls.
"I think we found the last team they sent out." a member of the Twelfth Division said.
"Alright, Kenshi, do that bird thing of your's. Everyone, spread out and keep an eye out." Toudou ordered.
"Sir." the three members of Squad 9 said as they carried out his orders.
Karasu flew off Hawk's shoulder and spawned a dozen clones. All of which flew into the trees, waiting and watching. Hawk couldn't help but feel a sense of dread crawl into his stomach. Something he rarely felt. In fact, he hadn't felt this way since...well, the day they died and ended up here. Worse yet, his intuition was never wrong. Every time he had this feeling, something bad always happened.
"You Twelfth Division guys, see what you can find out from the bodies." Toudou said.
"We know what we're suppose to do. You don't have to tell us what to do." an arrogant Squad 12 member shot back.
"Just get to work." Toudou grumbled.
The members of the Twelfth Division went to work. Examining the bodies and the area around the bodies. Minutes passed. Nothing happened. But Hawk's sense of dread didn't disappear.
Suddenly, screams and bird calls from the west, filled the air. Everyone turned to the west, swords drawn. The screams grew louder and louder, but they couldn't sense any hollows.
"Monster! Monster!" a red haired boy screamed as he and three other children ran into the clearing.
And they would have kept on running if he, Toudou and several of the others hadn't stopped them all. But nothing else emerged from the woods.
"Calm down. You're safe now." Hawk told the red haired boy. "We're not gonna let the monsters get you or your friends."
"But...But...But the monster-" red haired boy stammered.
"No buts. It's our job to slay monsters. Don't worry..." Hawk paused and glanced at the direction the children had come from.
'Why hasn't the bird calls stopped? The hollow should have attacked us by now. So where is it?' Hawk's eyes widened. 'Wait a minute!'
He turned his head to where Toudou was. "Toudou! Look out!"
But it was already too late. A hollow had emerged from behind Toudou as he was turning around and tore his head off. The hollow resembled a large, skinned dog with a pair of clawed, arm-like appendages sticking out of it's shoulders.
"Clever little beast. Chase a bunch of kids into us, distracting us and then sneaking up on the strongest one here." Hawk commented.
The hollow simply chuckled.
Suddenly, more bird calls filled the air. Hawk, in one fluid motion, pushed the red haired boy away from, spun around and swung his sword in a downward arc.
The right arm of an ogre-like hollow fell to the ground. Hawk didn't stop there, he angled his swung after it passed through the arm and into it's right leg, slicing it off and then decapitating it as it fell to the ground. Hawk turned to the dog hollow and said, "You're turn."
The dog hollow started laughing. "You think that just because you killed the weakest of us, that you win, soul reaper."
The air suddenly filled more bird calls. Coming from all directions. They were surrounded.
The arrogant Squad 12 member started panicking. "We're surrounded! They're gonna kill us all! We have to get out of here!" he shouted before running to the trees.
"NO REY! Don't do it!" Sakura shouted to her squadmate.
But her plea fell on deaf ears, as her squadmate, Rey, disappeared into the trees. A moment later, his bloodcurdling scream echoed through the trees. A scorpion hollow emerged from the trees, holding what was left of Rey, his legs. Three more hollows emerged as well. One that resembled some kind of beetle, a demonic-looking bull hollow and the last one appeared to be a gorilla covered in scales with a crocodile-like face. Wicked grins spread across their faces.
Hawk glanced at Sakura. She glanced back at him. They doomed. They both knew it. The hollows knew it. The question was, how many of these things were they gonna take down with them.
"Everyone! Get the children in the middle of the clearing." Hawk ordered. "We have to protect them over our own lives. Karasu! Get out of here and tell the captain and the others!"
All of the ravens flew from the trees and towards the other teams while Sakura and the remaining soul reapers followed his orders as the hollows watched on in amusement.
"Ha ha ha...Yes, try to protect those brats. Your pathetic attempts will only make devouring your souls all the more delicious." the scorpion said as it rapidly clapped it's pincers together.
The kids were quickly huddled into the middle of the clearing with the soul reapers surrounding them in a loose circle. Hawk glanced at the kids one last time. The red haired boy stared back, looking absolutely terrified. "Don't worry kid. You and your friends aren't gonna die today. I swear it."
The hollows laughed at his comment as they charged the group. In the first two minutes of fighting, their number was cut in half as the two Twelfth Division members and the Thirteenth Seat of Squad 9 died at the hands of the hollows. And they weren't faring any better. Hawk, Sakura, and the Ninth Seat of Squad Nine, Zane, all had a number of wounds on their bodies.
"Things aren't looking good for us." Sakura said as she swung her sword at the bull hollow, slicing off it's left horn.
"No. It doesn't look like it." Kenshi replied.
"AAAAARGH!!" Zane screamed as the scorpion's stringer impaled his left thigh.
Zane suddenly spasmed and fell to the ground. But he wasn't dead, just paralyzed.
The scorpion hollow than launched it's tail at Hawk as he fought the gorilla hollow. But luck was on Hawk's side, as at the moment it attacked, the gorilla hollow tackled him, pinning him to the ground and putting itself in the way of the scorpion's attack. The stringer tore into the hollow's head, killing it instantly. And before the scorpion could retract it's tail, Hawk attacked, impaling the tail with his sword and almost completely cut it off. The hollow howled in agony as it pulled it's tail back. The tip of the tail hanging uselessly by a thread. Hawk pushed the corpse of the gorilla hollow off him and quickly climbed to his feet. Even with the one hollow dead, things were still pretty grim for them.
The dog hollow slammed into Hawk from behind, knocking him to the ground, it's clawed arms raking in across his back. "HAWK!" Sakura shouted.
That moment of distraction was all the bull hollow needed. It rammed Sakura, sending her flying backwards into a tree. Fortunately of her, it's remaining horn didn't even touch her body. Unfortunately, she had consciousness in process. The beetle hollow advanced on her, a feral grin of satisfaction on it's masked face. Unless there was a miracle, they were all dead.
"No...Sakura. Dammit! It can't end like this." Hawk weakly said as the dog and scorpion hollows advanced on him.
The scorpion raised it's right pincer, ready to strike.
"It doesn't have to Kenshi." a polite and noble voice said.
Suddenly, everything froze as the world turned black and white, and darkness descended on him.
Sakura groaned as she opened her eyes. The last thing she remembered was being hit by the bull and sent flying. Now she was lying up against the base of a tree. She noted two bizarre and impossible things. First, wounds were gone. Not heal but completely gone. Second, the forest was made up of her namesake, cherry blossom trees.
A woman appeared before her. A most unusual looking woman. She wore robes akin to those worn by priestesses. Expect hers were always changing colors. There was also pictures on her robes of various things. Animals, plants, landscapes, basically, anything and everything. And like the colors on her robes, they too changed into different images. The woman's face was beautiful, like a princess from a fairy tale. Her long, flowing hair and her eyes also randomly changed colors constantly. Ranging from common colors to more exotic colors. "Hello Sakura." the woman said.
Sakura said the first thing that came to mind. "Are you the spirit of my zanpaku-to?"
The woman smiled and extended her hand to Sakura, helping her back onto her feet. "Yes, I am."
"And that means that this is my mind, right?"
"Correct again Sakura. Now do you now why you're here?"
"To learn your name I would assume." Sakura replied.
"You already know my name, you just haven't realized it yet."
"What? I thought I was suppose to learn your name."
"As I said before, you already know my name, you just haven't realized it yet."
"How do I do that?" Sakura asked.
"Simple. As I have listen to you talk to me, you must listen to me." the woman replied. "Clear your head, focus on nothing, let the world speak to you."
Sakura closed her eyes and cleared her head of all thoughts and waited.
"..."
Sakura's eyes shot open. She had heard something...a whisper. However, she couldn't make out what it was. "I heard something!"
"Shh...Listen...Listen to the world."
Sakura closed her eyes again and listened. The voice returned, first as a garbled whisper but it grew louder and clearer. Until...
"I hear it! I hear your name!"
"Good. Now I despise violence but you need my power to protect yourself and your friends. Use my strength. Defeat these hollows. Protect your friends!"
The darkness faded from Kenshi's eyes, revealing a sprawling city before his eyes. The architecture of the buildings seem to be mixture of the architecture of the buildings from the Seireitei, the Rukongai, as well as buildings from Konoha, Suna and other places from his own world.
"Well, now that we are somewhere quiet, let's talk Kenshi." the voice said.
Kenshi turned around. Behind him was man in the most unusual outfit he had ever seen. He wore an outfit similar to a soul reaper's uniform...expect it was like someone had taken two uniforms, cut them in half and sewed two of the halves together. The right side of his outfit was a standard soul reaper uniform with white trim and a white, long-sleeved captain's coat. The left side was similar but the colors were inverted. The kimono and hakama were white with black trim. And the captain's coat was black and sleeveless. The two sides of uniform also differed in quality and physical state. The right side was clean and meticulous, like a freshly sewn uniform. While the left side was rather ragged and damaged, like it had just seen an intense battle. Then there was the man's hair. Like his uniform, it was two different colors and styles. The right side was short, snow white hair, nearly trimmed and slicked back. The left side was long, wild black hair that looked it had never seen a comb. The man's irises were a mixture of black and white Toping off the man's attire was something hauntingly familiar to Kenshi, Heishiro's metal mask. The mask was a simple, round metal mask with two angular eye holes, two narrow slits for nostrils and a grinning mouth opening. Though there was one difference between Heishiro's mask and this mask. Heishiro's had been an unpainted, dark gray color. This mask was painted white on the right and black on the left.
The mere sight of that mask brought back some bad memories. Images filled his mind. Images of his first encounter with Heishiro just before the preliminaries of the Chunin Exam started, Heishiro's obsession with him, their battles during the Finals and the Sasuke Retrieval Mission, fatally wounding Heishiro, his last words and their shocking secret and finally removing that mask and seeing Heishiro's face for the first time...
Kenshi shook his head, clearing head of the memories. He had buried all that in the past. There was no reason for him to look back on such things.
"You don't seem that fond of my mask Kenshi." the man said in a completely different and darker voice.
"I brings back a lot of painful memories." he commented.
"Is that all?" the man asked in his dark voice.
"Yes." Kenshi sharply replied.
A slight grin crossed the man's lips but he didn't say anything about his answer. "You know why I have brought you here. To earn the right to use our power." his voice changing back to the original version.
"Our power? But there's only one of you." Hawk said.
The man chuckled. "We are one, yet I am many." he said, not in one voice but with both voices talking in unison.
"..."
"I am night. I am day. I am good. And I am evil. I am war and peace. Life and death. The sword and the spell. What am I?"
"So...My zanpaku-to was two spirits in it?"
"Yes and no. We are neither one spirit, nor are we two. Yet at the same time, I am both single being and two beings. What am I?"
"The spirit of my zanpaku-to." Hawk replied.
"Yes, but we are more than just that. What am I?"
'A riddle. That's what he's asking me. But everything he said was a contradiction. He's claiming to be two polar opposites at the same time. And that's impossible. So what is he? C'mon! Think Hawk! What could he be?! Night and day, good and evil, war and peace, what do they have in common? They're all opposites. No...They are all opposing forces. Opposing forces together. Kinda like Yin and Yang. Wait...He is just like Yin and Yang.'
"You're like Yin and Yang." Kenshi said to the spirit of his zanpaku-to. "Two opposing forces together in harmony."
The man smiled. "That I am. That I am. Use our power. Destroy the hollows and those that dare challenge us. Protect those you care about and those that are unable to."
The man turned into a ball of white and black fire. The fireball spread out, surrounding him and then it enveloped him.
Sakura opened her eyes. The beetle hollow stood over her, it's mouth opened and lunged at her. Sakura rolled out of the way just in time while the hollow received a mouthful of bark.
"Shape the world, Tsukurite!" she shouted as she slammed the tip of zanpaku-to into her left palm.
The blade shattered and turned into pink reiatsu. The reiatsu gathered around her hands, forming a pair of black and pink leather gloves with a pink flower on the backs of the gloves.
"Gloves? What can a pair of gloves do against us?" the beetle said in amusement.
Sakura replied by punching it in the face. The force of the reiatsu gathered in her fist was so great, it created a hole in the beetle hollow from it's front to it's rear. A moment later, what was left of it's body collapsed and faded away.
"Ironpincer! You bitch! DIE!" the bull shouted as it started charging Sakura.
Sakura started gathering reiatsu from herself and from the air. White and pink reiatsu (1) gathered in her hands. Sakura, using knowledge and skill she didn't know she had, created a white wall in front of her with the reiatsu. The bull hit the wall dead center. The hollow stood there for a moment. Then it collapsed, followed by the wall.
The hollow was somehow still alive but out cold.
The scorpion's right claw lunged at him. Kenshi felt a sudden burst of energy flood his body. He swung his sword, slicing the scorpion's claw in two. The hollow howled in pain as Kenshi scrambled to his feet. He held out his zanpaku-to in front of him and twirled once in his fingers. "Inverse Awaikuro!" he shouted.
The blade became engulfed in a white energy for moment. When it faded, Kenshi's zanpaku-to had changed. It was now a white and black long blade katana with guard in the shape of angel wings. The blade started to glow as well.
"C'mon ya ugly hollows, hit me with your best shot." he taunted.
Both hollows roared at him before charging. Hawk, his sword his out in front of him, said, "Awai Senkou."
There was a blinding flash. The hollows stopped dead in their tracks, clutching their eyes and howling. Before they could regain their sight, Kenshi struck. Leaping on the back of the dog hollow.
"Get off me, you damn soul reaper!" it shouted.
It tried to grab him with it's arm appendages. Kenshi pinned the left one with his foot and cut the other one off. Gripping Awaikuro with both hands, Kenshi raised the glowing blade over his head. "Awai Kire!"
The blade dropped. There was a flash of light. The hollow split in two and the halves collapsed. "That's takes care of th-"
A loud roar interrupted him. He had forgotten about the scorpion hollow. Hawk spun around and raised his sword to block whatever attack it was about to throw at him. Suddenly, the bull hollow landed on the scorpion.
'What the...'
Hawk glanced in the direction of where the bull came from. Sakura was standing there with black and pink gloves. "Thought you could use some help." Sakura said.
He nodded. "Thanks. Wanna finish these hollows off together?"
"Yeah."
Hawk held out his zanpaku-to and twirled it again. "Inverse Kuroawai!"
A dark energy covered the sword for a moment. His sword changed again. What was white before was now black and vise-versa and the guard was now a pair of demon wings. He took a moment to touch the blade. His fingers passed right through like it was nothing. Somehow, he knew that Kuroawai's blade was ethereal, just like he had known those attacks for Awaikuro. It was kinda creepy having that knowledge just placed in his mind like that.
Hawk drew the word knife in the air, leaving a black kanji in the air. A barrage of black knives flew out of the kanji and at the two hollows, cutting up their bodies. The scorpion screamed in agony as he tired to shake the still unconscious bull hollow off his back. The second it did, Sakura's fist collided with the side of his head, destroying it's head. At this point, the bull hollow finally regain consciousness. It instantly spotted Sakura and was about to try to gore her with it's remaining horn, when a giant black hand grabbed it, half crushing it as the hand lifted the bull up in the air before slamming it into the ground. The force of the impact, killed the last hollow.
The two of them resealed their zanpaku-tos. "Damn. That takes a lot out of you." Hawk said as leaned up against a tree. "You okay Sakura?"
Sakura pulled out a small black bag from her pocket, pulled out what appeared to be a pill and shallowed it. "Here." she said as she tossed him the bag. "Shallow one."
Kenshi opened the bag and pulled out a small round pill. The pill was pink with a black cartoon skull with heart-shaped eyes. "What is it? And why does it have a skull on it?"
"Don't worry about it. It's basically a soldier pill for soul reapers." Sakura explained. "It's the latest project I've been working on."
"It's been tested?"
"Yes."
"No nasty side effects?"
"Nothing serious. Just take one."
Hawk reluctantly complied and shallowed a pill. The moment it hit his stomach, a surge of energy flowed through his body, revitalizing him. "Wow. This is one effective pill." he commented.
"Yeah. Though it has been known to cause sterility and impotency in some men." Sakura causally said.
"WHAT?! And you decided to tell me this now!!" he shouted in horror.
Sakura started laughing. "Gotcha!"
Hawk stared at her in disbelief for a moment before shaking his head in annoyance. "Just patch up Zane."
Sakura nodded as she tried to silence her laughter. She grab the bag of supplies she had been carrying for the mission as she walked over to Zane and started treating his leg wound. There wasn't much she could do for the paralysis at the moment. While Kenshi walked to the children they had protected. "Is anyone injured?" he asked.
They all shook their heads.
Hawk smiled. "That's good."
He then reached into his pocket and pulled out a bag of candy. He had a sweet tooth and frequently carried candy with him. "Here." he said as he handed the bag to the kids.
All of their faces lit up as they opened the bag and started eating the candy. "The monsters are gone, so why don't you kids head home now." Hawk said.
The kids nodded and began to leave the clearing.
"So Kenshi, have you thought of your next tattoo yet?" Sakura asked she finished treating Zane's leg wound. "Every time you accomplish something big, you always add a tattoo to your body. When you graduated and joined Squad 9, you had that 69 tattooed on your left shoulder. So what's it gonna be this time?"
The tattoos were an old tradition of his clan. Every time a Mitsurugi achieved something, like graduating from the academy and becoming a genin, they had a tattoo painted onto their bodies. Like a badge of accomplishment. Some of the oldest members of his clan had their bodies almost completely covered in tattoos.
"I don't know. It'll be something grand though. After all, it's only once that a person achieves their shikai." he replied.
"I bet will be." Sakura said as she walked up to him. "Here, let me treat your wounds."
"Treat your own first. I'm fine."
"Listen your doctor Kenshi" Sakura replied. "Sit down and take off you kimono or I'll be forced to make you sit down."
"Yes ma'am." Kenshi said before sitting down on the ground and pulled off his kimono.
Sakura knelt down behind him and started treating the worst of his wounds, the claw marks on his back. "You're quite lucky, the hollow damaged one of your tattoos back here and missed your spine."
"Which one was damaged?"
"The ends of the wings of the large hawk on your shoulder blades." Sakura answered. "It's actually not that bad. Once the wounds have fully healed, you should be able to get it fixed."
Suddenly, Karasu, Captain Muguruma and his team emerged from the trees, zanpaku-tos drawn.
"It's alright captain. The hollows are gone." Kenshi said Karasu returned to his perch of his right shoulder.
Kensei surveyed the area, noting the bodies of the fallen soul reapers. "What happened?"
"The hollows set a trap for us sir. But we managed to destroy them. Though not without losing most of our team."
Kensei nodded. "Good work." he solemnly said.
The captain turned to his team. "Gather up the remains." He then glanced at Zane and added, "Is it safe to move him?"
"Yes Captain Muguruma." Sakura said. "I've stopped the bleeding and bandaged the wound but he needs to be taken to the Fourth for proper treatment."
"Okay then, let's head back to Seireitei. I'll have the remaining teams recalled."
He watched as the group of soul reapers left the clearing. He had never seen soul reapers before in life. Now he just seen a group of soul reapers in combat. Fighting and dying to protect him and his friends. Never in his life had someone, other than his friends, helped him. Maybe one day...
"Hey Renji! Are you coming?!" one of his friends shouted.
"Yeah!" he yelled as turned and ran back to his friends.
Captain Muguruma's Office
Two Days Later
Hawk opened the door to the Captain's office. "You wanted to see me captain?"
Captain Muguruma looked up from some paperwork. "Yes. Come in."
Hawk entered the room and sat down on the chair in front of Kensei's desk. "I've been reading the reports from Zane, Miss Haruno as well as your own." the captain said. "You handled yourself quite well in an extremely difficult situation. Your quick thinking and skill saved, not just your life, but the lives of your teammates and a group of children. As well as destroying most of the hollows that have been plaguing the Rukongai."
"It wasn't quick thinking. If had been, the others would have survived." Hawk replied.
"Don't sell yourself short, Hawk. Most people would have fled, sacrificing the lives of those children for the lives of his team." Kensei replied as he stood up and started walking towards a closet near the desk. "And that's why you're here. I'm gonna be honest, with Toudou dead, I need a new Sixth Seat."
Kensei opened the closet and pulled out one of the white coats worn by the high-ranked officers of the Division. He tossed it at Hawk. "You're it until you die or I find someone better to replace you."
"I...I don't know what to say." Hawk said as he stared at the coat.
"Say 'Thank you sir.' and join me for a drink to celebrate." the Captain replied as he pull out a bottle of sake and two cups.
"Thank you sir." Hawk replied as he stood up and put on the coat.
Grinning Cat Restaurant West Rukongai First District
Four Days Later
"Whoa! What's with the coat Hawk?" Naurto asked as Hawk arrived at the table were he, Sasuke Sakura were waiting.
"You're looking at the new Sixth Seat of Squad 9." Hawk replied as he took a seat at the table.
"Wow. Congratulations Hawk. That means you're buying dinner." Naruto said with a grin.
"Congratulations sir. Remember, I'm your superior now." Hawk said nonchalantly .
"What?!" a dumbstruck Naruto said.
"Well then, all of you should be calling me sir as well, as I'm the Fourth Seat of Squad 12 now." Sakura said with a grin.
The male members of Team 7 all stared at her in disbelief. "Excuse me. But I don't think heard you correctly. I thought you just said something crazy like you were the Fourth Seat of Squad 12." Hawk said.
"You heard me correctly. I'm the new Fourth Seat." Sakura said. "What that last mission and the success of the soldier pills, the Captain decided to promote me. If fact, I'm now in charge of a group of researchers dedicated to trying to convert ninja jutsus, medicine and the like from our world into kido spells and medicine that soul reapers can use."
"Well then, this calls for a round of sake. On the new Fourth Seat of course." Hawk said as he signaled for a waitress.
(1) White reiatsu is the reiatsu in the air while the pink is Sakura's reiatsu.
Next Chapter: the Beginning of Turn Back the Pendulum.