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.


"So you appear" Shin lowed.

"Yeah, pretty much" said the man that appeared. His steps were heavy, though his frame was not. He wore a robe with tattered sleeves and an exposed chest. Over his eyes were curiously crafted glasses that were tinted black and edged as sharp triangles that pointed out towards his temples. His head was bald and his skin was dark, a person Shin hadn't encountered before. He was obviously a man from another land in the living world that made his way from there and became a shinigami here. "My name is Mann Aulder. I am one of the Kyuuhiouto heads."

"How uninteresting" Shin said. "What department do you head?"

"Uninteresting!?" Mann yelled back. He cleared his throat and adjusted his shades while his fellow guards kept their swords half-drawn in threat. "I'm the head of the security division for the main house."

"Oh?" Shin grunted. "So you're the strongest under the General?" Mann's eyebrows went up.

"How did you know?" Mann asked.

"How isn't it obvious?" Shin said, getting in a more lex, standing position. "So far, all the people from this organization have been strong because they had things to protect and uphold. Taxes, property, scientific research: all of these things of varying importance to your little group as a whole. However, your General lives so far away, in the middle of nowhere. It would only make sense that the most important asset of your organization is not its goals or its ambition, but its selfless leader. Therefore, only a guard of the highest elite order could be his personal wall of defense, especially since he knew that I was on the move to kill him..."

Mann stood silent and stern for a moment, then broke out in a chuckle. His guards lowered their own swords into their sheathes and looked at him nervously. "Yeah" Mann said, "that's true. But, you can understand, he's an old man. He's got no fight left in him. I got no choice but to guard him with my life, and that's what I'll do."

"Why?" Shin asked.

"Why not?" Mann responded. "Why do you want to kill him?"

"I got bored" Shin explained.

"That's it!?" Mann shouted in outrage. He calmed down and cleared his throat again. "I'm not doing this out of respect or duty or intimidation either." His guards looked at him in an even stranger way, so he cut them down without moving, without even registering a twitch from Shin's observant eye. They both went flying away, their bodies becoming blurs of spraying blood as they crashed into the nearby empty houses. Shin took up his sword with a serious glower. "I'm doing this so I can fight the strongest of the strong!"

"Well" Shin said, bending his back and parting his feet, pointing his sword at Mann's face, "here I am."

"Yeah?" Mann said, chuckling a bit more. He unsheathed his own sword and pointed it with his back straight and feet together. "We'll see how lucky we are." Shin exploded forward and clashed swords. He put his whole body behind his right arm and pushed with all the force he could gather against Mann's guard. Mann had his sword in one hand, crossing with Shin's, and his feet were firmly planted in the ground. Shin landed form his dash and swiped Mann's feet away. Before Shin could complete his maneuver and recover, Mann caught the ground with his hand and used all the massive strength in his arm to rotate his entire body and kick Shin with both legs. Shin stumbled to the side, keeping his guard up, as Mann pushed up and prepared to attack.

He's uncoordinated Shin realized but efficient. He doesn't know how to fight like an expert but he knows what his limits are...and I'm not above them. If I can get him to release his sword then I'll be winning this fight...but that sword could kill me just a fast. I'll have to take a more tactical approach to this than I thought.

"Come on!" Mann shouted. He was airborne, his sword high overhead. Shin side-stepped the attack, but the force and speed of Mann's strike blew apart the impacted ground and threw Shin through the air as well. Mann was quick to close on Shin before he could recover and the crossed swords in the air. Shin was pushed away. As he was about to hit a building he flipped and landed on his feet, standing on the wall and pointing straight up and Mann.

"You better start praying" Shin growled. The spirit pressure he emitted began to exponentially rise. Mann was daunted to the point where his slender shades couldn't contain his widened eyes. "I'm gonna make you hear the angels and demon sing!" Shin, unmoved at all by his own pressure, shot forth like an arrow, straight in the air, and swung with all the strength his body could muster into Mann's block. It held steady for a second, but once Shin was on the ground the block was shattered. Shin reeled up his foot and kicked Mann away. Letting his pressure drag him across the ground as he rolled and tumbled. Once he stopped, Mann glared up with a devilish smile. Shin was dashing forth again.


"..." Suichi now hid. His inner assassin's instincts were ablaze with paranoia. He wasn't the only hunting in the area anymore. He could still hear Hoji's ravaging in the tower and Shin's apparent fighting from the other side of the massive crater. It was both affirming and terrifying to him that they had both found someone to fight in the chaos. It meant that their defenses were indeed as Suichi predicted, but that his fight would ring across the strange atmosphere as well.

I can feel Shin's pressure from here Suichi thought. It's daunting. Hoji's energy is more uplifting, if that's possible, but he's using more kido than Shin is. There are others, though. That guy was only one of nine. Counting the ones so far, that means there's a possible three members that are here in town and stalking me...

Again, the high-pitched pinging rang out in his head. Suichi started moving, blindingly darting from house to house in search of a unique energy as he went. He kept low, almost parallel with the roofs he ran across, keeping his wits at full attention.

"I know you're following me" Suichi half-muttered to himself. "Why not just come out?" Sure enough, his request was answered. In his path, several blocks down, a figure appeared and he stopped moving. Suichi stared across the expanse at what he saw as his opponent. He was a slender, menacing man, tight black ninja-esque wrappings covered him from head to foot. On his legs were formal shinigami pants that were tucked and phased into his wrapped stockings that were heavy with black-tinted knives. His face was hidden by black velvet wraps, not even the slightest sliver of white for his eyes or ears to come from. He wielded his sword in the open, with no sheathe to be seen on his person. A minimalist appearance in terms of assassination.

"Who are you?" Suichi whispered. Suddenly, the figure was gone. Suichi's instincts kicked in again, just in time to tell him that his perceptions were wrong. The man at a distance looked about the same height as Suichi. That was an illusion. Suichi could feel the wind being blocked from behind him by a massive figure with a sword raised above his head. Suichi flashed away at the last second, the house that he stood on not a second before erupting with a plume of dust from the strike.

"What are you!?" Suichi now yelled. The manic assassin appeared before him instantly, his sword once again looming in the sky. Suichi panicked, unable to move away in time and he knew it, so he made a drastic maneuver.

"Amatsumamori!" With Suichi's incantation, a solid sphere of hexagonal tiles containing symbols formed around him. The other's sword was stopped on the sphere like a wooden sword against a steel mountain. He bound off, disappeared, and reappeared across the street on top of another house. "Well that worked" Suichi noted.

"Who...?" the maniac man hissed loudly. Suichi undid his shield and prepared his shikai for attack. "What...? I am neither. It is where I am that matters to you. I am Odo, the phantom warrior of the Kyuuhiouto! The legendary assassin from lands far away! I-"

"Save it" Suichi said from behind. "I really don't care." Odo felt a sharp pain in his neck where Suichi's Haganerensa wrapped around. "Lift" Suichi commanded. His weapon whipped up, lifting its held target from the ground as Suichi's arm made its circle. "Smash!" The chain straightened, following the arc Suichi traced and threw Odo into the building across the street. Then the chain retreated back onto Suichi's arm, ready to fight again.

"HRUUUUUU!!!" roared Odo. The wave of energy from that roar, which amplified the sound waves that already raked at Suichi's ears, blew away the debris and Suichi.

"Gah!" Suichi gasped. "What is this thing!?"


"Tch!" Hoji snidely grunted. "You guys are weak!" The guards who groaned and gurgled on the ruined floor of the tower couldn't argue against him. "WEEEEAK!" Hoji growled again. "What's a guy gotta do to get a good fight around here!?" He huffed and placed his bloody sword on his shoulder, completely adamant on leaving and ripping around town with Shin or Suichi, when a wafting scent caught his attention.

"That's booze" Hoji said. He noted where the heavenly smell of liquor came from, a set of stairs he neglected to destroy, and started sprinting up them. "Sweet booze!" Hoji happily cheered. Tears were forming in his eyes. He thought it was from the overwhelming joy, but really the atmospheric pressure from rushing up the tower so quickly had messed up his facial glands. His nostrils were overrun with liquid and his saliva was seeping out already. Once he reached the aroma, he was in a garden with the stormy sky from earlier overhead. He was at the top of the tower, walls reaching high up on either side, and surrounded by menacingly dark trees.

"Welcome, warrior!" a gentleman's voice called out. Hoji whipped his head around rapidly, letting the various liquids from his face fly about with great apathy. "Please, pull up a chair and have some sake!"

"Who's there?" Hoji growled. "More importantly, where's the sake!?"

"Why it's right here!" the voice called again. Two glimmers appeared through the trees. Hoji's sharp eyes caught them just in time and his reflexes kicked in not a moment too late. Two sharp knives flashed at him which he blocked with his sword in reverse 'guard' grip. The force of them both first knocked him backwards at the back, sending his torso perpendicular to his legs and parallel to the ground, then blew him away with the second.

"Ah! What an impressive block!" the voice said once more, coming through the trees at last in physical form. Hoji loudly cracked his back and got back up to gaze at his newest adversary. He was a regal looking man with a harmless face, shinigami robes and blond, wavy hair. "I welcome you to the residence of me, Norbel C. Rieltruque. Please, make yourself at home! Enjoy the fine wines...and breathe the air while you can..."

"Tch" Hoji sneered. There was a certain menace, an arrogant tone in his final words that made Hoji keep his guard up. He kept low, bending his already far-spread legs with one arm in front of his mouth just in case. "We'll see who enjoys what..." Hoji growled threateningly. He realized how stupid his comment sounded a second too late, as he was already charging forward with his sword drawn far back for a debilitating blow!


Amatsumamori: Imperial Defense