Tattered sandals crunched over crushed rock and shattered wood. A narrow figure moved cumbersomely over the rough terrain that had once been rows of impoverished housing. It looked like fire had ravaged much of the area, but something worse had moved through, trampling anything that had been left standing, and worse, devouring anyone left alive.

The man shivered at the thought and rubbed his bare arms fiercely, trying to warm up. It was cold, and the cut of his worn and dirty uniform was not helping him keep warm. He stopped his motions when his fingers slid smoothly over his bicep. He looked down where a band should be wrapped tight around his arm. He touched his neck then and felt the band there was also gone.

Shit. He'd already known his zanpakuto was missing but the bands would have offered at least some protection.

He shook his head. How had he not noticed earlier? Oh right, he was still very confused and finding it hard to keep his thoughts straight. That was why he had trouble believing what he'd seen a few hours ago in another deserted village. His stomach clenched then, remembering the wet sound, the stringing fibers dripping with blood…the crunching. He'd stared for a long time at the hunched figure, eating away at sticky, fresh, flesh. Though cowardly, he'd only been able to run away, the shock of it too much.

He stopped when his foot connected with a piece of metal. He wasn't sure what it was from but it caught the sun's reflection and he wondered if it would catch his.

It was dirty and distorted, but he made out his face. The 69 tattoo was covered under a layer of grime. He hadn't realized how dirty he was and took a moment to wipe his face clean.

It was while doing this he heard the clatter behind him, and the smack of hungry jaws. He turned slowly, now turning the piece of metal over in his hand, aiming the broken, sharp end outward as his only weapon.

It came at him the moment he set eyes on it. And he froze up. It flashed through his mind that he was being a disgrace to all his training as a soul reaper, and yet, the image before him was so shocking he couldn't get himself to move for several seconds.

He stared into crystal eyes—milky and lined with what looked almost like cracks. The jaw was slack and crusted with dried blood. Teeth were yellow and black. And its skin…that must have been the worst of it. The skin was dark beneath the arms, sagging with fluid, almost blue or purple tinged, but the skin on top was pale and dried. His arms and legs moved stiffly and strangely but still fast enough that it was closing the distance quickly.

"AH!" He threw up his makeshift blade at the last second and felt it sink into the bloated belly of the beast with little resistance. His hand sank in too. And then the weight of the creature crashed into him and he fell back onto the broken ground behind him.

It smothered him in the scent of decay. Its stiff hands groped at him, trying to get hold as its teeth sank toward his shoulder.

He dragged the blade across its stomach and felt a cold wet mass of intestines spill over him. He screamed again, disgusted and panicked. He got the blade free from the mess and brought it sideways into the creature's neck, right at the base of its skull. It sagged then, and finally stopped moving.

He let go of the piece of metal and frantically tried to extricate himself from the mess. An intestine was caught around his wrists and he dragged some of the innards with him as he escaped from beneath the mass. It trailed after him as he distanced himself until he managed to get his hand free. He stood there panting, staring at the dead creature—clearly having once been a civilian by the look of its clothes. Had a hollow infected it? Had some dark power infected everyone?

But the thought lost to the scent that now covered his uniform and the sight of the mangled corpse and he dropped to all fours as he vomited.

There was nothing in his stomach. Only yellow bile splashed before him but his gut kept clenching and his arms started to shake where they supported him. His vision was spotting. Shit, he was going to pass out, right here, in the open. He'd be exposed to whatever came his way. He fought it back, forced himself up, but his knees gave once again and he realized it was more than the shock of what he'd seen. He was weak, his body was succumbing to fatigue and hunger.

He was going to die.

He sank forward but still fought it, leaning on his elbows, trying to keep his head up. Then he heard movement, footsteps, coming his way. He shook his head. No please, don't let it end like this. Don't let some terrible beast eat him alive.

But instead of teeth he felt the sharp tip of a sword. It pressed into the back of his neck, enough to draw blood. He waited in silence, unable to turn his head, and still fighting to stay conscious.

"Yo Kurosaki!" Called a gruff, unfamiliar voice. "Got a live one."

"Who is it?" Came the cry from far off. How could they be so careless, making their presence known like this? But if it was Kurosaki Ichigo, then maybe he wasn't about to die after all.

"Dunno, one of yours."

He waited, tensed, as footsteps neared. They halted just next to him. The sword pulled away and fingers fisted in his hair, forcing him back up to his knees.

His eyes bulged, seeing the face of an enemy before him. That unmistakable bone jaw and burning blue gaze of the sixth espada. He tried to shake out of his hold but it was iron. Then the other figure moved around and stood staring down on him.

"I-Ichigo…" he breathed, seeing his dirt streaked face, mess of orange hair, and a hard, unfamiliar frown on his young face. His expression changed though, to one of shock, his eyes widening at the sight the espada's prisoner.

"Shuhei Hisagi…" Ichigo gasped and Shuhei started to let out a sigh, thinking everything was going to be alright.

But the substitute took a step back and looked to the espada. He gave a short nod and the next thing Shuhei saw was black.

"I don't see why we're fucking camping out here with dead-heads when we have a perfectly good place to sleep."

"Shut it, Grimmjow. I told you I don't want to take him back until we get some answers."

"Don't you fucking tell me to shut up, Kurosaki. If you're so fucking freaked out by him then I'll solve your problem with Pantera."

"No. Not yet anyway. We need some answers from him first."

Shuhei lay where he'd been left in a heap on the ground. His face was turned away from the fire and the pair sitting next to it. His hands were knotted together at his back, his ankles also bound. What the hell? Why was Ichigo teamed up with an espada and treating a fellow soul reaper like this?

"Just let me do the interrogating this time. I don't want a repeat of last time," the espada went on.

"I thought we'd decided to let that go."

"No, you just wish I would."

"Fuck you."

Shuhei couldn't see them, but he heard a can strike a rock and then there were curses and more objects being thrown. Did these two not realize there were other creatures out there who might hear them?

After a few moments, he could hear them settling down again. Ichigo was the first to speak.

"We'll have to decide how to play this. He knew who I was after all. Maybe he's—"

"Don't fucking start that shit again. You know what he is. Besides, we ain't playing at anything. He's been awake for the last ten minutes."

"Fuck." There was movement then, and Shuhei tensed up as his shoulder was grabbed and he was forced onto his back, then up to his knees. It was Ichigo himself, manhandling him this time. He stared at the teen soul reaper, bewildered. In the firelight, his brown eyes were dark and hard. His face was cut in black shadows. It might have been the lighting but he looked older, harder, his face well defined by sharp cheekbones and a hard jawline.

"Ichigo, what's going on?"

"Don't try to mess with me," the teen warned in low, threatening tones. "I want the truth. Anything else, and it won't end well for you."

Shuhei stared at him, still at a loss. He glanced toward the espada who still lounged at the fire, watching on as he picked at something beneath his fingernails. Ichigo's grip in Shuhei's hair tightened, forcing his gaze back to him.

"Forget him and look at me. Tell me how you are here, like this."

"What? What does that mean? What's going on, Ichigo? What happened to Soul Society?"

If possible, the fingers in his hair dug in more. He winced as Ichigo leaned in even closer, watching his eyes.

"Last chance to tell the truth."

"Ichigo I am. I don't know what's happening. The last thing I remember, I was fighting the Vandenreich, and I wasn't doing so well. I must have blacked out in battle. And then I wake up and find myself in the Rukon districts which all seem to be destroyed and these fucked up people trying to eat me!"

Ichigo watched him for a long, long moment. Then his fingers left Shuhei's hair and he stepped back.

"Your turn."

Shuhei shook his head in protest as the espada stood, cracking his knuckles and smiling.

"No, Kurosaki, what are you doing? You're the substitute soul reaper! We're allies!"

But Ichigo ignored him and he found himself staring up at a face even colder and harder. The espada no longer worse his uniform—in fact, neither did Ichigo. They both wore clothes they'd likely salvaged from the Rukongai, boots, pants, thick coats against the cold. Grimmjow stared down at him, eyes shifting over his body in thought, considering how he was going to approach the situation.

"Tell me what you know about him, Kurosaki."

"Ninth division lieutenant," Ichigo answered from where he stood back a few paces, arms folded over his chest.

"Did he have Bankai?"

"I don't know. I never heard of him using it."

"Well what about his strength? Would it be enough?"

"Maybe. Maybe not."

"What are you talking about?" Shuhei pressed.

Grimmjow's eyes just narrowed as he stared at him. He seemed to take in the scars and tattoos on his face.

"And his pain tolerance?" He looked back at Ichigo at this, and the teen reaper gave a shrug. Grimmjow turned back with a smile. "Oh well, I guess we'll just have to find out."

He drew his sword but did not aim it for Shuhei. Instead, he dropped the blade in the fire. Shuhei watched it as it began to glow. Grimmjow watched it too and began to speak.

"I want the real truth and not some bullshit story. That is your only way out of this, understand?"

"I am telling the truth."

"The fuck you are." His hand collided with the side of Shuhei's head and forced him face down in the dirt, near the fire. He felt the heat of it against the side of his face and tried to shirk away but Grimmjow kept him pinned there. Sweat beaded up quickly, the heat slowly building in his skin. But this was only a taste of what was to come.

"How did you get here?"

"I've just been wandering around. I woke up in a different district of the Rukongai this morning!"

"Bullshit! Give up the act. Are you working for that little fuck?"

"Who?"

"Gigi!"

Shuhei stiffened at the name, but he didn't know why. He didn't know who that was, but there was something teasing at the back of his brain, something that felt dark and painful. He shut his eyes a moment, trying to shake the feeling. When he did, he tried again, breathless now, the heat of the fire really starting to hurt his skin.

"Who is that?"

"Enough of this." Grimmjow dragged him back from the fire and flipped him onto his back. Shuhei heard the blade drag out from the coals and tried to sit up and get away but Grimmjow's foot slammed him back down onto the ground. The orange glowing tip dangled above him. Grimmjow seemed to consider his options a moment then he bent in, now using his knee to press Shuhei down while his free hand gripped his head. With horror, Shuhei felt his fingers slide across his face and then Grimmjow's thumb and forefinger pried his eyelid open.

Shuhei swallowed frantically.

"Don't. I swear I don't know!"

"I don't believe you."

The tip came in closer. Shuhei struggled desperately. "ICHIGO! I don't know what's going on! I'm telling the truth!"

He felt the heat radiating from the blade. He saw only the orange steel and waited for the pain.

"Grimmjow."

The blade came to a stop just before it burned away his sight one side. Grimmjow drew it back and dropped it on the ground.

"Yeah, yea, I know," he grunted, backing off. "He ain't lying."

"You sure?"

"I can tell."

"Good." Ichigo relaxed his stance a bit and stepped past the cooling sword on the ground. He bent and knelt next to Shuhei who was fighting to control his breathing.

"What the fuck, Kurosaki? What the Hell is going on?"

"Don't untie him yet," Grimmjow barked. "Just because he doesn't remember doesn't mean he's not still being used by Gigi somehow."

"I know." But Ichigo took Shuhei's shoulders and got him sitting. He pulled something from his back pocket and Shuhei saw it was a flask. "Water," he said and pressed it to his lips. Shuhei drank what was offered, feeling like he hadn't had any water for weeks. Ichigo capped the bottle again and then settled back, sitting relaxed by the flames next to the man he'd just threated to torture.

"So if you really don't know, then there is a lot to catch you up on."

"Please," Shuhei urged. "I want to know what's happening."

"Well, the end of the world, more or less."

Shuhei stared at him. He looked to Grimmjow and remembered how fiercely the two had fought in the past. Their alliance certainly suggested it might really be the end of the world.

"The last thing I remember," he prompted, "was fighting this fatass Vandenreich. Then nothing."

"Well that was two years ago," Ichigo said bluntly. "That was probably the same day the zombies overran Soul Society."

The words came out calmly, but seemed to scream as they bounced around in Shuhei's skull, sounding just as nonsensical there as they did hanging in the air between them.

"Oh don't act all shocked," Grimmjow grunted from the other side of the fire where he tilted something back from a flask that definitely was not water. "You nearly got eaten by a dead-head today."

"Grimmjow doesn't like the term zombie, but that's what they are. They're dead, but they want something from us—blood or nourishment. If they don't get it, they'll eventually waste away."

Shuhei was still confused. Ichigo sighed as if the conversation was a major inconvenience to him. He seemed nothing like the hot-headed but good-hearted teen Shuhei remembered.

"Okay. It started with this Stern Ritter, Giselle something or other—Gigi for short. She or he or whatever it is, had the power to use those killed as resurrected soldiers. They weren't entirely mindless because they followed Gigi's commands and fought us. But then some of them weren't dead either…" Ichigo paused to try to come up with a better way to explain things but Grimmjow interrupted, giving his own blunt explanation.

"The Vandenreich had the power to turn anyone into a zombie, living or dead. The dead ones are like the one you saw today, walking corpses."

"But the others are worse," Ichigo continued. "Because they aren't mindless. They are still alive, but they are under her control. The reason we were wondering about your level or powers, is because anyone of captain level under her control takes on a darker tinge to their skin. It's easy to spot them, but lower level soul reapers or vandenreich can be deceptive. They don't change colour and they can talk like regular people. But usually they just start trying to kill you so it's easy to identify them."

"But they aren't dead? It's some kind of mind control?"

"Don't even bother," Grimmjow stopped his thoughts in their tracks. "If they could have escaped the mind control, they probably would have done so before two years went by."

"They will change you into one of them, if they get their blood you. And if you die, you'll become one of the mindless ones."

"Ah, but that one today, its guts got all over me."

"But they were dry. Two years—their blood is all dried up, only some fluids from their rotting skin and organs. They can't change you, only eat you and drain your own blood."

"They're the dead-heads," Grimmjow said. Ichigo rolled his eyes and Grimmjow chucked a rock at him. "You're the one who explained to me what a fucking Zombie is. By your definition, a zombie can change you into them, so the only zombies are the ones that are still alive!"

"A zombie is also dead by definition," Ichigo growled out. Now Grimmjow rolled his eyes but he just sat back and took another drink. "Then things got even more complicated," he went on. "Kurotsuchi got involved."

"Oh no…" Hisagi knew this couldn't be good.

"He started turning zombies into his own zombies with some injection. They weren't saved, they just became his army. He used his own fellow captains and made them do his bidding."

"To win the fucking war." Grimmjow never seemed to understand the disgust Ichigo felt.

"Other captains?" Shuhei prompted.

"Yours was one of them," Ichigo replied, the words cutting deep into Shuhei, but he just listened. "And Otoribasihi. They're still out there, along with soul reapersm but I haven't seen them, I've only heard rumours. I don't know if Kurotsuchi still controls them, I think they just kill whoever gets close to them."

"Don't forget that little white haired bastard," Grimmjow interjected.

"Not Captain Hitsugaya?"

"Yes. He's the worst of them all. He was the first one changed by Gigi and the first one changed by Kurotsuchi. Kurotsuchi had him captive for a long time, trying to figure out a solution to all of this. That was the last time we saw Kurotsuchi. Since then, Hitsugaya escaped and he's worse than ever. He has no loyalties and hates anyone who was involved in his experimentation, ie, all soul reapers. We assumed he killed the captain of the eleventh but then there have been rumours…we're not sure. But now that you're here, I'm starting to think he might be alive."

"What? Me? Why?"

"Because, Hisagi, you were also one of the first ones turned into a zombie by Gigi's power."

I was struck by inspiration from the most recent Bleach chapter! I would like to keep writing this one but I haven't figured out the entire direction of it yet. I really wanted to try writing Ichigo and Grimmjow in this setting but then I thought it would be a repeat of the themes in Apocalypse so I wondered what it would be like to write following a different main character, in this case Shuhei. He's a character I like but don't write much and I would really like to try writing Grimmjow and Ichigo from this perspective.

So far the idea for this story includes a band of survivors, (the members of which are yet to be determined) evil Hitsugaya, kick ass-action, Shuhei trying to figure out what happened to him and everyone searching for a way to end the zombie apocalypse, maybe even find a cure.

Riza