Disclaimer: The ideas and concepts used in BLEACH belong to Tite Kubo, as well as any regular characters. Most of the characters in this story belong to me. Thank you.
Shin and Hoji walked down the dusty road, with Shin in the far front and Hoji trailing behind, eyeing the dirt as he walked on it. Occasionally, he would dart his eyes up to make sure Shin wasn't walking in another direction or trying to kill him. So far, Shin was just walking ahead with his sword in its sheathe, slumped on his shoulder. Hoji was thinking about his own sword the whole walk.
Did you try to speak to me back there? He held his sword sheathe up to his eyes, trying in vain to communicate with it on a mental level. If it couldn't hear his thoughts, maybe it could hear his words.
"Who are you?" Hoji whispered dryly at his sword.
"I'm Shin Kenpachi" an eerily close voice answered. Hoji darted his eyes up yet again and was within centimeters of Shin's face. Hoji screamed out of terror and fell backwards, trying to shuffle away in panic. Shin straightened himself out, then turned around and continued walking. Hoji wasn't as amused as his new master obviously was.
"HEY! You promised me endless carnage, you know!" Hoji said, wagging his sword by the hilt at Shin. Shin threw up his hand and motioned Hoji to follow. Angrily and hesitantly, Hoji rose up to his feet and jogged up alongside Shin. He glanced to the side to try and get Shin's attention, but without result. He asked hesitantly,
"Do you know your sword's name?"
"No," Shin casually replied, still walking down the road. Hoji faced forward and walked to Shin's pace for a while.
The Shinigami guard was forming a line in front of a checkpoint where a group of travelers was detained and under heavy security. Word had it that Shin Kenpachi would be passing through the area soon. As luck, good and bad, would have it, two figures appeared on the horizon. A quick telescopic reconnaissance confirmed the good part of their luck: it was indeed Kenpachi, as well as another unknown man with a sword. The bad part was confirmed as well: they were indeed heading this way.
"Alright men," a large and rather plump man in shinigami robes announced in the back-most ranks, "our target has been confirmed and is coming this way. Ready your zanpakuto, and prepare an attack on my order!" Each of the shinigami in the line drew out their swords and held position warily. Some were shaking, others praying, and a minority were just staring with contempt at the two shadows in the distance. All of them, however, feared for their lives.
"Oh," Shin grunted, "looks like they found us out." Shin put his hand on his sword and began to draw it out. Hoji did the same, but more stylistically, spreading apart his feet and holding his sheathe to swing out his sword. Then, with both hands, pointed it over his shoulder at the unfortunate guards. They couldn't see the whole thing, but they knew they were in trouble.
"Wait for my signal, then charge." Shin said. He eyed the line carefully, picking out whom he was most eager to test, but found no one that would be a good fight. He eyed the middle, thinking that his best hope for a challenge would be to fight as many at once that he could. Hoji could pick off the stragglers as they ran away screaming. Shin took a step forward.
"Kill 'em"
Shin was at the front of the battle in an instant. While still in mid-flight, he swung his sword in a circle towards the unprepared soldiers to make a corkscrew looking slash while still moving forward. Hoji arrived relatively late to the battle, but soon enough to stab most of the stunned guards who had dropped their swords. Throughout the whole bloody romp, Hoji was smirking evilly. Shin's tactic drew on less of a challenge than he had hoped, but he was having fun. One cut would send some shinigami flying backwards.
Hoji's excitement peaked when he got disarmed. Though, he had really thrown his sword and killed someone with it, but he called it being disarmed. Even without his sword he was killing the shinigami that charged him. Most attacks were either completely negated by his sheer power or ignored due to the blood rush as he punched and kicked the poor outclassed fools into and through the checkpoint walls and barricades. The large commander was trying to run away from the whole ordeal, but Shin jumped in front of him with a maleficent look in his eyes.
"Where are you going, my round little friend?"
The commander reached for his sword, but couldn't find the time to grasp it after his arm was sliced off. Shin sighed lightly and jumped back to where he was before, cutting and slashing away at the shinigami that had given up hope of survival long ago. The commander slowly bled to death just outside the checkpoint entrance. Hoji had reclaimed his sword and cut open a hole in the wall of the rest stop, to find a family cowering in the corner. His wild impulse was over ridden by Shin's words from earlier:
"The first tact of warfare I want you to follow is this: don't kill anyone that can't kill you. There's no challenge in that."
Hoji snarled and ran out of the building in an attempt to rejoin the battle. He had arrived to a blood soaked war field, with Shin Kenpachi standing in the middle. Shin took his blood soaked hand and ran it across his robe, staining his otherwise dirty coat. Then he sheathed his sword and walked past the twitching body of the former commander. He looked down on the cowering vermin, and with a look of pure disgust, kicked him squarely in the stomach, sending the poor dying man flying into a tree. That man was now dead.
Hoji stared half amazed and half terryfied.
"Did he really deserve that?"
"Yes," Shin answered as his sword clicked to a close against its sheathe. Hoji twirled his sword around once before sheathing it, then walked up to Shin as he was pacing down the road again. Hoji kept his hand inclined on top of his sword's hilt and walked with his head held up high with delight.
"That was pretty fun" he said with a hint of laughter.
"It was okay." Shin replied dryly. "I just hope we caused enough trouble to fight a real opponent." Hoji looked at him quizzically.
"What do ya mean? Those guys were real, right?"
Shin looked back at the blood-colored walls that were once white to see a family scurry out and run with full speed down the road. Hoji looked back to the same sight, the family he had left alive. Part of him felt angry for letting them all go so easily, as he could just barely make out a sword hanging loosely from the thread of a belt.
"Those were nobles," Shin said still walking, "and powerful ones, I'll bet. If we have any luck at all, they'll tell their friends about you and me." Hoji looked back at his now grinning companion in carnage. The grin was becoming more and more fierce with every step they took.
"They'll send an assassin, may be more than one, after us. That will be an interesting fight."
Hoji looked surprised, but then when considering the aspect of fighting a man trained specifically to kill, he joined in Shin's smile. The two deadly phantoms strode down the road with a murderous gleam resonating from their eyes. From any distance, one could make out that they were killers, and drawing a sword to them meant death.
