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.


The loud clashing of metal rang out loudly throughout the halls of the estate. Suichi, barely alive, was attempting to draw his target out into the open where he would have an advantage. Maybe. At this point, getting away from Netami alive would be a suitable victory for the dying assassin. Suichi whipped his damaged chain furiously, trying to hold back his advancing adversary. It wasn't working.

"Poor little man" Netami said mockingly as he walked slowly down the hall, deflecting to quickly to follow with his sword. "So inexperienced, and still you think you can take me on." Netami slashed powerfully, blowing a current of air down the corridor. Suichi kicked the wall to his side and shot into an adjoining room, dodging the lethal wind not a moment too soon. He could feel the gaping and bleeding wounds start to catch up to him already.

This is…good Suichi tentatively thought between his breaths. He's actively pursuing me. I can lead him out now and hopefully he won't catch on to where I'm taking him. The only problem now is how to get out alive…

"I can still feel your flicker, Suichi" Netami said teasingly as he very slowly peeked his head around the corner. "You can't run from me…" Netami stopped short as he looked into the room. There was no Suichi, only a doll that resembled him. In an added insult to Netami's pursuit, this doll was giving him a dejecting middle finger up. Netami approached the doll with a disappointed face. He lopped its head off with the dull edge of his sword and pushed back his hair.

"Really, Suichi. You're supposed to be a master assassin? You can't even make an elegant esca--" There was a bomb inside the doll that was set to go off. Netami noticed it only too late and twitched his eyebrow in anger.

"Bakudan: Kumokoori!" Suichi quietly incanted under his breath a fair distance away. The room his explosive double had been placed in became visibly coated with ice, inside and out. He smiled and fled, slowly enough to make sure he was leaving evidence of his presence for his unwitting prey to follow.

Netami stood, nearly frozen, with a steely glare. His perfectly soft hair was coated with a fine frost that would take hours to successfully get out and he couldn't fell anything past his waistline. The word 'BITCH' was spelled plainly in solid ice from where the bomb had been, at the steaming epicenter of the blast. Netami's face crackled as loose ice and frost started falling off, his face twisting into a furious and enraged shape.

"You are dead, Suichi…" Netami said plainly and calmly, despite his psychotic face. "You are…Dead."


The celebrated heroes of the merchant caravan were busy working up their appetites so they could continue to guiltlessly pilfer from the gracious citizens they had saved. Shin's robe was being washed, forcing him to spar with Hoji topless. The girls didn't mind at all. In fact, the people of the caravan were all taking a break from their regular chores to watch the impressive sight of the two monsters fighting each other.

As always, however, Shin was schooling Hoji on how to use a sword.

Hoji growled as he glared at an unwavering Shin across from him. The audience would be a much better addition to their practice if they weren't silently laughing at him.

"Make a move, man." Shin mumbled to Hoji. Hoji bursted forward in a blur with his sword pointed at Shin and ready to thrust. Shin stepped to the side to dodge the sword and leaned back to avoid Hoji's mid-air spin kick. As Hoji spun, he let his sword follow him and took a swing at Shin, who blocked it and pushed Hoji back into the air.

"Tch!" Hoji yelled as he floated away. "You just made this easier!" Hoji shot forward an open palm and began gathering energy. "Senkou no Shikyo!" The red lightning blasted out of Hoji's hand and into the ground where shin was. Shin was already in the air with his sword in both hands. "AGAIN!" Hoji yelled. A smaller burst followed after and Shin deflected it, being pushed to the side as he did.

"The same tactic only works so many times, Hoji" Shin instructed as he continued to deflect the shots. Suddenly, a puff of smoke replaced Shin, and was just as soon dissipated by the rush of red lightning. Hoji perked his eyes and looked around warily. First to the left, then the right, and as he turned to look behind him a specter appeared in the corner of his eye. Shin lunged, white eyed, with his sword ready to split apart Hoji's skull.

"…Two." Shin said as he stopped his hand just short of Hoji's extended forehead. Hoji sighed as they both fell back to the ground.

"Yeah, two-to-one. I still won once, y'know!" Hoji proclaimed.

"Yes," Shin said calmly, "I know. You're getting better." Before leaving completely toward the applauding crowd, Shin turned around and said one last quip. "But I'm still the best." With that, Shin started walking. Hoji gave a short 'Tch' and walked after him, slinging his sword over his back. After their little power display, the citizens got a second wind to accomplish all that needed to be done without asking their shinigami guards and the caravan was off once again.


Shin slept far apart from Hoji at Hoji's request. The peace of not sleeping next to the obscenely loud Shin gave him a gratifying comfort that he could easily sleep with. Even in his private cart, bordered with preserved meats and various strong drinks, Hoji twitched and writhed in his near sleep. There was a foreboding in the air that he couldn't shake, a pressure that was building and descending form the sky, like rain.

Then he slept, and dreamed. His dream started careening out of control for a fantastic surrealism into a prophetic vision. There was the smell of fire and death, the sounds of ripping flesh, and the echoing laughter of one Shin Kenpachi. A devious man's face with flat, long hair went from innocently menacing to bloody and terrified. Faceless soldiers bled out fountains around a feminine figure sporting talons on each finger. A lanky looking man with knives cut into himself and his eyes lit up with surreal backgrounds and disgustingly gory images.

Then Hoji's mind stopped. It was as if he stepped from reality and into his own dream. There he knelt, on the ground, and looked up at the sky. A man stood floating on air, facing an unimaginable demon of gigantic size. On the man's back was a symbol of a perfectly equal cross, with hooked angles that went apart in all different directions. A 'manji', a symbol meaning final. Hoji stared for a few more moments before everything faded away into a dank mist and he awoke with wide and fearful eyes.

"…What the hell?" he mumbled out. Deciding the dream was nothing but, Hoji drifted off to dream of the day his head would be full of hair.


Bakudan: Kumokoori (Bomb: Ice Cloud)
Manji (Japanese word for a ninety-degree, right facing swastika. Considered holy by Hindu cultures and is the first kanji in the word 'Bankai')