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.


Now it was Suichi's turn to fight, a position he was uncomfortable with in his new duds. Okay, it's just like regular sparring with Shin...but much much easier. And I most likely won't die if I don't fight exactly like them. Great.

"Die, assassin!" the group leader shouted. He made a slice and hit air. Suichi was ducked under the entire group, sprinting away under and through their legs until he came upon one guard too fat to maneuver through.

"Heh heh" chuckled the fat man. "Nowhere left for you to run!"

"Who's running?" Suichi said. "You've got the most muscle here, so I'm killing you first." Before the fat man could retaliate with a 'you wish' or equivalently snappy comeback, Suichi was stabbing at his mirth with his blade as a sort of long tonfa, using his arm and shoulder to carve his name into the man's stomach before jumping away and over the legion of men. "I poured a good bit of energy into that attack. You should explode soon."

"Wha...?" the fat man gasped. Unfortunately, Suichi's technique came through before he landed, and an icy-blue eruption replaced the fat man who just blew up.

"Next!" Suichi sighed. The men were already upon him, slashing and hacking madly away at him. He made the most conscious effort to deflect their attacks and defend from all sides as he could, however the honor-glorified Shin and Hoji never gave him practice as to how to block attacks from behind. That being the case, Suichi just did his best and stabbed anyone behind him with his short blade. His sword traveled much faster than anyone else's, but his feet were squared up defensively.

"Keep going!" the leader yelled, frantically and sloppily cutting away. "He can't have much stamina left after fighting Odo!" The men yelled and continued to attack. Suichi started to get rather angry at his own poor performance.

What the hell am I doing!? Suichi asked himself. I can actually release my sword. At the risk of a few minor cuts, I think it's the safest thing to do right now... So he let all the swords lock onto him and push him down. Once he was crouched down far enough, bearing the weight of ten different blades, he punched up and jumped away. No cuts or scratches from his escape, and he was safe to release his sword at leisure in the air.

"Shoot!" Suichi called. "Auto-fire, Haganerensa!" With only one extension of his arm, his chain shot and reloaded on its own. Without the extra incanted verve of each separate shot, the piercing power was a bit weaker, but the serrated edges of the chain head still tore apart whomever it hit.

"Block it!" the leader shouted to his company. The chain ripped past whatever got in its way, bouncing past the blades and ripping the soldier's flesh. Five good men had their arms cut down to the bone and hanging muscle chunks in that attack.

"Reload!" Suichi now shouted. His chain came back to him as he landed, but the surviving soldiers wouldn't let his skill intimidate them. One soldier in particular, a top-heavy looking man with a large chest and a wide jaw, was rushing in faster and more chop-happy than his comrades, and Suichi decided to focus his play on him now.

Fanatics can get dangerous quick Suichi reminded himself. That man delivered a strong blow to Suichi's forearm, which was blocked due to the tightly coiled chain around it. The spiked end of the chain stuck out from his middle finger like a dagger as he prepared to stab.

"No way!" the man yelled. He wrenched his sword in under Suichi's chain and, using his superior strength, forced Suichi to retreat a few steps and kept his arm up. Suichi strained to stay on his feet as the soldier's weight started to bear down on him. "You're not laying a hand on my brothers!"

"Yes I am" Suichi said. He unclenched his straining hand and pointed his middle finger at his aggressor's chest. "Shoot!" The chain exploded out like a shot and pierced through his ribs. Three more men, two of them already nearly dead from the metal hail earlier, got cut. His chain returned, scraping through the innards of the man who held him down still with a bloody mouth.

"I will defeat you" the man growled, although his pressure and force began to falter. "You cannot...kill us all."

"Sure I can" Suichi calmly said, pushing him lethargically to the side where he fell and shuffled into place. "Wanna watch me?"


Up on the high tower's regal rooftop, Hoji and Norbel's fight had been reduced to a game of hide-and-pray not to get hit. The attack and defend was switched from time to time between them both.

"Tch" Hoji angrily grunted. "I'm getting beat up here! I've got to turn the tables quick!" After a grueling sprint for cover, Hoji was now hiding. He kept his pressure under complete control, repelling whatever kido-influenced object came at him without a sound. Norbel paced through the hedge maze like a hunting lion searching for an injured zebra.

"Come out, you" Norbel said. "I'm sure a nasty brute like yourself would like a free cup of sake or two. If you come out, I can promise you'll get more alcohol than you'll know what to do with." Norbel stopped and listened. Hoji's breath was unheard, his pressure impalpable, and his sword unseen. This was because Hoji was a master at trickery in the refined arts of hand-to-hand combat, and was already upon Norbel like a shadow. Moreover, he stood directly in his shadow, glaring down at Norbel from behind. "Come now, I'm becoming bored!"

"KRRRAH!" Hoji roared, shocking Norbel's spine with fear. A swift and stunning elbow to the back, the a low kick through the feet and, keeping the inertia of his spin to let him continue spinning, another kick to the mid-section. That kick sent Norbel into a vine-covered stone pillar. Hoji stopped on the balls of his planted foot with his other leg drawn up to hip level. His sword clacked from the sudden motion as he tilted out to his side in preparation for an attack. He flashed forward as Norbel swung his blade into knives.

"Ito!" Norbel shouted. All the knives lined up end to end in a straight line, forming a razor rope of knives. "Prepare to become a pile of string!" Norbel shouted. He swung his hand and, like a piece of long wire, the knives whipped after his motion. Hoji leaned back and dodged it, but he was out of his flash step as Norbel attacked again. From the pillar, he started swinging and stabbing with his finger rapidly and the knives were erratically moving about.

"Dammit!" Hoji shouted. He raise up his sword and blocked when he could, but each block let the knives coil around his sword and got a debilitating attack closer and closer to his vitals. At one block the knives started sandwiching him, so he flipped his entire body and followed through with his slash downward, shoving the string of knives into the ground where they disappeared and returned to Norbel as light in the clear stone pathway.

"You can't escape!" He held up his sword in a sort of triumph, pointing to the stormy sky as a crack of lightning streaked through smoky sky. "Wana!" The blade exploded into knives, but Hoji didn't see where they went. Assuming it was a trap, he stayed back and held out an open palm where energy gathered.

"Senkou no..." he began. Norbel's open hand lowered from the skyward point and went palm-side up as Hoji finished. "Shikyou!" and Norbel's hand closed. The red lightning arced wildly across the way, then crashed into the ground at Norbel's feet and sent him flying. The knives, however, came from all possible directions and closed in around Hoji. His body was now full of holes and cuts, but his trust in his instincts hadn't failed him. With his massive pressure spike he activated when he saw Norbel's hand close. The tension from his energy only allowed the knives to go through his first layer of skin or so, so he was only covered with minor wounds now.

"Gattai!" Norbel called form the trees. The knives sped out of Hoji's body, creating actual, serious wounds as they left and leaving Hoji better for dead. He refused to give up, however, and stayed barely standing on his toes as his back wavered. "Are you ready to submit yet, beast?" Norbel called as he exited the thicket.

"Tch" Hoji weakly scoffed. "You haven't won yet..." He swirled a bit of bloody spit around in his mouth and lurched forward. What was a stumble became a desperate rush with sword drawn across his chest.

"Always the dramatic death with you" Norbel said. Hoji snorted up more spit and started concentrating on his mouth.

"Chitantou!" Hoji shouted as he opened his mouth. With immense spirit and water pressure, he shot out a piercing bullet of blood that drove through Norbel's collar bone like a spear and splattered who-knows-whose blood on the trees behind him. Norbel fell back and clutched at his wound as Hoji drew closer. Although his spirit remained steel strong, his body was ready to give out and Norbel knew that. He tucked and rolled away from Hoji's first slice, then ducked under the next and let his sword get stuck half-way into a tree. Then, crouching low with his sword pointed up, Norbel lunged forth for a stab!

He missed and the sword went passed Hoji's right shoulder. Both men smiled nefariously at each other, and now the true strength contest began. Hoji summoned up the last of his body's natural strength and yanked his sword from the tree, raising it high above his head. Norbel prepared his muscles to push down through Hoji's chest and open up his body so he could kick freely at his guts. Fear overcame them both for the loss of their lives, but both kept smiling. Then, the blood started to flow and the muscles moved!

What!? Hoji desperately shouted to himself. His smile went away and his body was frozen. I...can't move? Why!? I'm not done yet. I'm not dead yet!! Now, however, it seemed he was. Norbel's smile didn't leave. In fact, his eyebrows rose up and made his grin all the more cocky as his sword neatly sliced a clean, diagonal line across Hoji's entire torso. From shoulder to hip, the last of Hoji's blood started pouring out...


A bloody scene to end the apex of a bloody battle. Mann lay on the ground, breathing labored and lung partially visible, as the blood continued to pool around him. Shin, completely exhausted of all energy, sat against the remains of a broken house. His victory was considered already but his sword was still unsheathed.

"Great fight" Shin said. "Unfortunately, my realm is still too much for you to enter and expect to leave right now..." Mann's only response was to gurgle. "It's like I said, my friend. You must block out the impossibilities of the world and enter a world where only you and your opponent exist. My life didn't matter when I charged you. My feint getting discovered early didn't matter. As long as I could get above you to perform my one attack, I knew I would win. You were far too concerned with cornering me and overpowering me to see how easy it could have been..."

"Huuhhgg..." Man groaned. "You're not very modest...are you?"

"I'm honest" Shin said. "That's why most people don't like me anymore. I scold them without saying anything nice. I'm a bad teacher..." a short silence persisted through the broken and utterly torn town square. If Suichi would look from where he was, he could see the damage Shin had caused. "...I just thought, that if a huge downpour would come, would this village get drowned?"

"No" Mann panted. "The base of the tower has a huge drainage well that supplies all the homes. It's like an underground river with...I don't know...giant stone pillars holding the ground up..."

"That seems a bit fantastic" Shin said. "Wish I could move and go down there. If your general's in this village I could just destroy everything with a few well placed attacks."

"Of course he's not here" Mann said, nearly chuckling. "He hightailed it out of here when he knew Ryoko and Shigu got their asses kicked..."

"...'s that so..." Shin muttered. His entire battle, aside form a great fight in itself, was all for nearly nothing now. A fleeting feeling of darkness came to him. That's when the nightmare of his started. From the corner of his fading vision, Shin saw Mann actually stand up and heard his wheeze out a laugh. Mann's chest was closing up with a horrid but quick;y spreading sort of scarring welt of pulsing red. It truly looked like a nightmare from Shin's perspective, his dead opponent up and reeling back with echoing guffaws.

"For all your strength" Mann started in a healthy voice, "for such a small thing to upset you! It's hilarious! Here I thought you were an emotionless specter of death, walking across the world and killing for no purpose!"

"I kill for purpose" Shin argued, "...sometimes. Mostly, I just like to fight."

"Then you should love me" Mann said. "Now that you're in my world, a fight is all you'll get!" Shin realized the crazy glower in Mann's eyes was a battle-cry. Mann took up his huge weapon and charged forward with it held right where the guard met the hilt for maximum maneuverability.

Come on! Shin chided to his body. Move! Surprisingly, a tingling sensation went through his body and he was up at full energy. With both hands, he blocked Mann's swing and was sent skidding through the rubble from it. Mann continued to charge, roaring, leaving his skin in a messy patch where his sternum was still open and exposed to the air. If he can feel that it has to be a world of pain I can't imagine. The fact that he can keep fighting through it is frightening.

"Die, Shin KENPACHI!!!" Man shouted. Another monstrous swing came at Shin who defensively raised up his sword. In mid-swing, where the air still struggled around the huge, blunt edge of Mann's exaggerated hammer, another hand came and clutched the handle. With two hands worth of power, Mann's weapon hit Shin's blade and sent a shock of indescribable terror through Shin's body. Shin was sent tumbling away and quickly recovered. He took a disbelieving gaze at his sword, eying down the deep and many cracks that were in it.

"No" Shin lamented hotly. "This can't be happening!" Mann was coming again, both hands wielding and spirit afire.

"GGRAAAAAAHHHHH!!!!" Mann roared. Regardless to the world's cruel rules, Shin raised up his breaking sword to defend. He called upon every spiritual cell in his body to throw out as much pressure as possible. The clouds far above him started moving to his uncontrollable influence.

"YeeeAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!" Shin roared back. He took his sword up, sending a wave of utter destruction out, and clashed it down hard on Mann's blade. The force blew apart that entire quarter of the crater city and sent shakes through the tower at the center.


So this is my end. My story is over. My journey has ended. I came here with no purpose and now I leave the world with no purpose. I suppose I shouldn't have as many regrets as I do, but I can't help my own cowardice towards Death. All things face death, even we spirits in this realm of death. I wonder what Hell will be like...or perhaps I'll travel to the place where Hollows live and become one myself. No, that's unlikely. I wonder though, how could this battle have changed if I were stronger?...If I were just a little stronger, I could have won. My bones wouldn't be broken and my muscles wouldn't be torn apart, and I would have won!...oh well. Maybe in my next life I'll win another impossible fight like this one...

And so Shin prosed to himself in stalled fall. Mann's final attack shattered his ribs and pelvis, so now he couldn't move. Mann's wound was closed into a disgusting scar and he swung his sword down from overhead to his side in slow motion. All the world moves slowly, even the morphing clouds as they formed the face of a sinister skull overhead.

"So that's it?" rasped a deep voice. Shin's senses picked up the same jolting shock that allowed him to stand earlier. "You accept death already? Well let me tell you, boy..." And as Mann's sword hit the ground, the dust it kicked up stopped as well. Shin was able to see the phantom appear from behind Mann's sword like a curtain unveiling a villainous player in a tragedy. There hovered the black-cloaked skeleton Shin dreaded and anxiously awaited so much. Unaffected by the halted time, it lurched forward with its scythe full of runes and carved with skulls to whisper through nonexistent lips,

"Death doesn't accept you!"Ito : String
Wana : Trap
Chitantou : Blood Dagger (Tantou also means to charge in)