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.
An old farmer was walking alongside his ox-driven cart full of fresh vegetables when he saw them. From the highlands came three curious strangers. His curiosity came from the way the walked, and the way two of them didn't walk. It was Shin's new training method to prepare he and his comrades for the fight ahead of them against the Kyuuhiouto officers. One walks with his arms extended out straight while the other two stand on his arms and alternate between upside-down push-ups and weightless squats. The strangeness of this impossible looking exercise prompted the old man to run back to his home past the warriors who didn't notice him. Hoji was currently carrying his friends on his arms.
"Is there a town ahead?" Hoji asked with strain. Suichi stopped his push-ups and settled cross-legged on his perch.
"It should be" he said panting.
"It is" Shin said, seeing the smoke rising up from the furnaces that a town would most certainly have.
"Good" Hoji grunted. "The sooner I get food, the longer I can keep...this..." He fell into the dirt but let his arms hover shakily above the ground.
"Oi, Hoji" Shin complained upside-down, "don't shake so much. It's hard to balance like that."
"Sorry" Hoji mumbled, muffled by the dirt. He did his best to raise himself up onto his feet with two men on his arms. He didn't make it far, and fell completely on his face.
"I guess it's your turn, Suichi" Shin said, hopping down onto the road.
"Wait a sec" Suichi begged. "I don't think I can--" It didn't matter Shin jumped up and Suichi caught him on his arm. Only a second in and he couldn't take it anymore, falling to his good knee. "Fine, then" he grunted out. Shin didn't do anymore squats out of kindness to his weaker counterpart. Hoji was crawling along after them in the dust as they crested the hill, their destination in sight. Burgo, a dainty little Hamlet situated between the rolling plains that led to the mountains and a carved forest path that led to the city.
"Good" Shin said. "It looks like there's plenty of turmoil down there, too."
"What makes you say that?" Suichi painfully asked. He shook a little when Hoji grabbed onto his leg.
"The air" Hoji said weakly. "It's all...heavy." Suichi raised a brow to the testimonies being given, because he couldn't safely move anything else without falling backwards. Then, he felt it. Upon approaching the outermost marks of the town's road, a pressure started building. A spiritual pressure. Suichi was forced down to his hands and knees while he produced a counter-balance to the presure around him.
"Training's over" Shin declared, marching forward with no problem at all. "Let's go." Even Hoji was able to stand up, much to Suichi's surprise.
That's amazing Suichi thought as he stomped after them. I can barely keep my pressure up against this force, but these guys barely notice it. As they walked into town they were greeted with a familiar feeling of alienation and terror. What people were in the streets quickly darted into nearby buildings, hid behind what they could find and sprinted out of view. This pressure field must have been up for quite a while. All these normal people are already so used to it.
"Huh" Shin grunted. "The pressure's coming from the town square. Weird." Shin said that like he had said it before, like this kind of bizarre force wasn't out of the ordinary. Hoji was even walking like nothing was wrong. Being wanted bandits for resisting imperial arrest as long as they have been, Suichi brushed his curiosity off that this was normal for them. As the pack rounded the corner led by Shin, they stopped at an abnormal sight. In the center of town was a wide circle of citizens sitting in meditation positions, facing away from a tent. From within the tent, there was almost no pressure, but there were many moving shadows. Shin glared over at the tent and decided for himself.
"They're in there" he said. "Let's go."
"Wait," Suichi pleaded, "are you sure?"
"Hey, Ugly!" a boisterous young man shouted across the tent to an attractive young woman. "More sake! NOW!" The woman winced, poured the drink and rushed it over, delivering it on her knees with her head down. The man was quick to guzzle the drink down and slam to cup onto the floor just in front of the scared woman.
"Get out of here!" he shouted. This young man with the shaved head and spiky red goatee was Shigu Wrobackental, a native 'Soul Reaper' of this land. "Ah, that was good."
"You're disgusting" a woman's voice said from a dark corner of the tent. Shigu looked over with his head low and face angry.
"Yeah? Well you're a bitch" he retorted under his breath.
"What!?" the woman snapped. This woman, with her black hair in a bun and narrow eyes behind glasses held by a straw band around her head, was Ryoko Usamari, one of the Kyuuhiouto from the neighboring region of shinigami. Shigu hung his head down in shame and turned not to face her.
"Nothing...ma'am..." he mumbled. Ryoko huffed and went back to her book on bounty hunters. Suddenly, the air became disturbed. The pressure wall erected outside the tent had been dissolved.
"What happened?" she demanded. The women in the tent went running out without anything to fear anymore to stop their escape.
"Hey!" Shigu shouted. "My bitches are getting away!" Ryoko took her sword in its sheathe and hammered Shigu on the head with it. The force was enough to force him off balance and he slipped to the floor.
"Concern yourself more with the wall!" She ordered. Shigu rubbed his bruised head and ran outside, where he was met with an unwelcome sight.
"Tch." Hoji grunted with his sword drawn in his slacked wrist. "That wasn't interesting."
"I thought it was funny" Shin said. "You just drew your sword and they all ran."
"It was" Suichi said between panting breaths, "kind of funny. Huh?" Now, the assassin took notice of the strange looking young man in shinigami garb, scowling and jutting out his jaw wildly.
"Hey, hey, hey now!" Shigu shouted. "What's up with this crap? You jackasses scared away my flock of birds!"
There was a brief, but blank, silence from the three intruders.
"Enh?" Hoji insistingly grunted in question.
"Birds, you know" Shigu started, sleazily. "With legs for struttin' and an ass for shakin'. Chicks. Bitches. Hot girls!" His breath seemed to be wasted, as were his emotive stroking and squeezing motions. The invading swordsmen just kept staring at him, this time with embarrassed looks.
"I feel...uncomfortable around this guy" Shin said, quivering his mouth with disgust.
"He's a pervert" Suichi said.
"That was just," Hoji started in disbelief, "wrong. So wrong to say..."
"What's wrong with you guys?" Shigu insisted. "Don't you like women?"
"Strong ones, yeah" Shin said. "And then, only if they can fight."
"I don't mind 'em" Hoji added. "I like anyone that can fight, I guess."
These guys are weird... Shigu stated internally.
"Underling!" Ryoko shouted as she emerged from the tent, sword drawn and ready in hand. "Who are these people?"
"Uh..." Shigu wanted to stall, since he didn't get any names out of these guys yet.
"I'm Shin Kenpachi" Shin announced, "and I hope you have some good news about the Kyuuhiouto."
"...I'm the head of the Spiritual Research department for the Kyuuhiouto" Ryoko said with distrust. Shin drew out his sword and held it in front of his face, the deadly edge staring down Ryoko. Ryoko looked wide-eyed at the man threatening her silently, steadying her own sword in preparation for him to charge her.
"I take it you know about me?" Shin asked, faking a modest tone. Ryoko didn't nod, she just held her sword in a strange way. Shin could see the energies of her and her sword start to mix and converge. She held it straight up, handle parallel to her face and hands gripped tightly. She raised her sword up slowly, the rocks and debris nearby picking up as she prepared her shikai.
"Press forward and destroy, Shirushienko!" With a hard swing down, the sword transformed. No longer just a standard, nameless katana, the sword had lengthened and broadened. From the hand guard extended an elegant, tribal series of strange runic symbols that were symetric in design. Some of them weren't even connected, at least not well, to the rest of the structure, but they still floated in mid-air uniformly following like a solid metal construct. She kept her blade down, facing slightly forward with her feet shoulder-length apart. Her icy gaze shone through her glasses at the smiling Shin Kenpachi, who started drawing his blade in a slow circle. With a whip of air, he slashed down his sword to face it at her.
"Interesting" Shin said. "What do those marks mean?" His honest question prompted no answer from his opponent. She dashed forward, making a huge sweep at Shin, who tilted his sword down in time to intercept and block the massive clash. His blade didn't touch the prominent, black marks in the air, it just stopped before them. "Above that, the blade is invisible!" Shin remarked. Ryoko was shocked that he discovered her sword's secret so quickly, and her shock gave way to anger as Shin kicked her across the town square and flashed after her. While still in mid-tumble, Shin made a wicked, dropping stab for her which she blocked with her sword that was wider than her body.
"Good timing" Shin praised, caught up in the heat of battle. He powered his stab and jumped off of her blade and went into the air. Ryoko kicked herself up and adjusted her glasses with one hand, her other holding the sword up effortlessly. "Binshoraiko" she shouted. Her hand flew up and shot out a bright streak of white split through the sky. Hoji stared up at it, hoping that Shin managed to dodge or deflect it in time. To his dismay, he heard a crash across the town.
"Shin!" Hoji shouted in concern. He went to dash off, but his way was blocked by the assertive young man's sword. "Tch" he angrily grunted.
"Woah, man, slow down" Shigu said. "I ain't letting you get away!" Shigu made a wild, unaimed swing at Hoji, who hopped away and over to Suichi who was leaning against a wall.
"I'll fight him!" Suichi demanded. He was cut off from saying anything else by Hoji's upper robe getting tossed onto his face. The shirtless Hoji crouched down and took his sword's handle into his mouth, letting his hands stabilize his upper body while his legs were spread out and weighted on his toes. Suichi pulled off the smelly, sweaty robe in time to gag and look on quizzically.
"Trust me, Suichi" Hoji said effortlessly, despite the sword in his mouth. "I'll let you know when we need an assassin, but until then Shin and I are warriors. We fight like we're about to die all the time!!" Hoji's steely resolve and crazed accusation gave Shigu an uneasy sense of dread. Even Suichi hesitated before he was sure about his comrade's survivability, but he nodded and jumped away to the roof of a nearby house to watch.
These men Suichi thought to himself, are mad! In another block, Shin was emerging form the ruined hole he made in a house when he blocked the streak of lightning.
"That was strong" he commented. "Insanely strong! She's dangerous."
"Binsho..." Shin heard in the distance. He knew now to move out of the way, so he did and let her say the remainder of her spell and level the house in a single blast.
"Close range" Shin said, readying his sword to fight in both hands. "That's where I can win. Okay..." His eyes closed and he could see His opponent coming up over the nearby houses with her sword ready to cleav down powerfully on top of him. He took his sword, held it tight, and raised it above his head to block.
"Die, Monster!" Ryoko shouted, jumping down from the roof and pressing Shin down. The force from her sword coupled with Shin's unmoving stature created a shattered crater around him. Ryoko was scared. Shin looked up through his darkened brow with a smile of great malice at her.
"I'm a monster am I?" Shin asked, lowering his sword. "Then I shall fight you like a MONSTER!" He swung upwards, very hard, sending Ryoko into a blurry spin through the air and into the smoking pile of broken housing she created with her lightning. Shin took a pause to push his hair back and let it spring back forward as his hand passed over it. "This will be a great fight, I'm sure..." Ryoko pushed her way out of the rubble and staggered back into a fighting pose, just in time to see Shin dashing forward with his sword in a ready-to-slice position.
Shirushienko: Symbolic Flame.
Binshoraiko: Quick Lightning
