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.
Out in the deathly wastelands that bordered the mountains in Soul Reaper country, a fleet of angry Hollows were fighting a group of menacing shinigami.
"RAAAAAWWWGGH!!!" Roared the loudest and strongest one. "You puny little pukes are no match for the might of BARUK!!!" The bulging muscles of the Hollow rippled out equivalent pressure around it. The force of miscellaneous other Hollows, with snake-like bodies and strange animal-like masks, swarmed around their leader and roared with him. The shinigami at the front glared down in the dark light of the covered moon and grabbed his sword. Right hand over left, raised up to head level, set over the right shoulder and pointed down to the target, which was Baruk.
"Careful, Baruk" called the effeminate voice of his companion, Liera, above. "The silk-haired one is attacking."
"His power is weak!" Baruk declared. "He can cut as much as he wants, but I will block it with but the batting of my eyelashes!!!"
"But Baruk" one random Hollow pointed out, "you don't have eyelashes!" Baruk grabbed the rude snake and threw him at the shinigami. The clouds skipped a second of movement and the Hollow was already split apart, divided where the shinigami stood, and dissolved into darkness.
"Prepare to die, shinigami!" Baruk shouted. "Charge!!!" At his command the snake Hollows flew forward, all of them howling with bloody murder in their golden eyes. As soon as they came into the shinigami's reach, they died. There was no readable motion from the dreaded swordsman, not even a wave of sudden pressure. They were dead and dissolved into the darkness just the same. Baruk growled and clenched his fists in anger.
"What's wrong, big guy!?" one of the other, shorter shinigami shouted from behind the leader. "You look like you're gonna crap yourself!"
"Leave him be" a larger, darker-skinned and orange-haired man chided quietly. "It is no one's fault that the Hollows cannot stand to our strength."
"You need to work out, monster" another arrogant, shirtless man said with a flexing pose in the dark. "You'll never beat the Tenshioni with puny muscles like those!"
"Tenshi....oni...?" Baruk slowly repeated.
"Never mind their titles" Liera said as she swooped and flew far above, "I have discovered the secret to his technique!"
"Whatever" Baruk grumbled. He blindly rushed in, regardless to Liera's information, and started swinging his fists at the shinigami who dodged effortlessly without ever breaking his stance. "I'm gonna get you eventually, shinigami!" he roared. "You can't fight me without swinging your sword or kicking your feet!" The shinigami defied his taunt and continued to shift around without moving his feet from his stance. He was like a statue being moved along the ground by some arcane force.
"I don't even have to bother" the shinigami said. Baruk planted his feet and drew back a heavy swing, but froze up. A slim sliver started making a vertical cut on his mask. He watched the shinigami with the heightened awareness he had in death, unable to act at all, and only saw his venomous glowing eyes as he withdrew and sheathed his sword. There was no warning, no build up for Baruk. There was just death, and then Hell. "A weakling like you is of no concern to me..."
"Netami" the large dark man shouted. Netami was already starting to walk away, in the direction the Hollows had once blocked, but glanced back over his shoulder. "What of the flying one?"
"Do as you wish with it, Kakugari" Netami called back. "I'm going ahead."
"Wait up, Captain!" Horoshi called. Senshi followed behind while Kakugari drew out his sword and prepared a release.
"Baruk, you fool" Liera somberly chided. She started ascending in a steep arc to the sky towards a gaping, toothy hole in the air. "I'll have to tell the others of your demise...first Danzig and now you. I think the others will begin to lose heart soon." Liera suddenly snagged in the air, stopping her ascent dead. She was quickly dragged down to the ground by a mysterious force that gripped her at the breast and in her beaked mouth. "What...!?" Soon, a black aura engulfed her and she lost consciousness. Kakugari deactivated his sword and sheathed it once more. It bundled into the sheathe as a dark mass of odd energy that ended eventually in the hilt and hand guard.
"There we are" Kakugari announced. He paced himself to catch back up to his traveling brethren and walked with them once more. They were bound for the mysterious mountains that until now held the border between their homeland and the unknown of their imagination. Beyond this short range of rolling mountains was Netami's target, the object of loathing that drove him to continue blindly forward...Suichi.
Elsewhere in the spirit world, more specifically in the Seireitei, troubled news was brewing up. The news of Shin Kenpachi's epic campaign against the notorious Kyuuhiouto of the neighboring region had finally reached his homeland. The slum goers and the random bandits of the Zaraki district were abound in cheer as the criers and heralds from the inner sanctums of the citadel reached them. The more notorious gangs took those newsmen hostage, of course, but they celebrated their local hero anyway.
"Hail, Shin Kenpachi!" one rough thug roared.
"The baddest of all our asses!!!" another added. Parties started spontaneously breaking out. Sword fights and the rarer death in the streets were everywhere. Surprisingly, this was a peaceful scene in the edge area. The families all hid inside from the happy thugs with their children and the merchants sold record wares to the grateful maniacs and slumlords.
"There's news that that Shin guy's being hunted now" one shinigami said to another.
"Really?" the other said. "I heard he singlehandedly wiped out all the Bloodbane bandits out in the Blood Plains!"
"No way" another disagreed. "That couldn't've been him!"
"I think it was one of those weird assassin groups I heard about" another shinigami pointed out.
"Who knows" one drunk man said. "It's better for all of us if we think it was Shin! Come on, let's celebrate our brother's triumph over the...deh...yeah!"
"RAAAHHHH!!!!" they all roared!
"SHUT UP!!!" screamed a little girl. Cold and painfully cynical Atsuko had been awakened from her sleep by the terrible bandits and was not happy about it. "Take your partying somewhere else if it has to keep happening. I'm trying to sleep."
"Awwww" a bandit cooed. "Poor little girl. Does you mommy know you're up?" He wheezed out some devious laughter with stingy breath while all the local warriors just hung back and watched with fright.
"Don't tease her, dude!" someone shouted. "That kid ain't right." He leaned in anyway, far too close to her, and continued to spout drunken nonsense.
"Oes da babee wan huuu miwk?" he gibbered. Then he laughed uproariously, making Atsuko silently seethe. She stealthily reached into her robes sleeve, pulled out a sword and stabbed the drunken bandit through the nose. His face was stunned in fear and distress until she pulled the sword out and sheathed it inside her robe. Then he went screaming off through the street in terrible pain.
"Sorry kid" one bigger bandit said. "We'll keep it down. You get some sleep." Atsuko shuffled back across the street to her home and the bandits continued to offer their blind praise to Shin and his company. Quietly, of course.
Elsewhere still, in the prestigiously isolated and secluded foothills away from the Seireitei, in a mansion befitting the most supreme of royalty that lived in the forest, news of Shin Kenpachi finally reached one of his youngest and most esteemed fans during his ritual bath with his father.
"WOAH!" Sensuke exclaimed. "That's awesome! Those guys are so cool!"
"Sensuke, sit down" his father, an aged and royally framed demanded. "I don't want the names of those villains coming up in this home!"
"I'm sorry, sire" the reporting butler apologized. "I thought news of the Kyuuhiouto would concern you a little more. They were clients of yours, after all."
"Be that as it may" the royal Mokojiro man said, "our business with them is now over. I don't want to hear anymore concerns about those murderers or those damnable criminals. I'm forever done with them!"
"Well" Sensuke huffed, "I'm still glad to hear something more about Shin and Hoji. At least they're still alive and kicking!" Sensuke's father responded to the rebellious thoughts of care for killers by taking his son's head and dunking it in the mineral water. The butler and the washing maids present backed away and watched with mixed humor and fear for the young master's health. In the next room, Aya was practicing her formal tea-preparation for the regal events she would attend in the distant future as Sensuke's wife. She also heard the news, which made her excited in her own way as well. She cracked the slightest smile as she ground the leaves in the mortar at the fine table she sat at.
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Tch. Now what...? The echoes in his head were almost painful. The light came pouring into his vision. His sides hurt. His skin hurt. His muscles were still burning unimaginably. Hoji was awoken to a world of pain and confusion, a world of black with building red. He finally escaped his vacant world and opened his eyes to the blinding flash of daylight. How long have I been out...? He asked. As his eyes adjusted and his ears came to, he saw the finely carved ceiling of wonderful wood. The rice-paper doors and walls shone in a soft-white light. The floor around him was barren except for his comforting, bulky blanket and the bucket of water next to him.
"Tch." he grunted aloud. He tried to sit up but found it difficult. Then he reached for his sword at his waist, but felt nothing. This re-awakened his body into a painless panic as he felt around frantically for his sword all over his body. "What the hell!? Where's my-" it was on the floor across the room, he saw, perched on a sort of stone shrine. Incense burned around it, and the sheathe had a mysterious glow that Hoji never noticed before. It looked beautiful in its oddly peaceful place. "Where am I...?" Hoji stood up, then fell down softly in pain, then stood back up slowly and walked to a sliding door. He would see just where he was and lessen the burden of panic.
More importantly...where's Shin...?
So he opened the door and let the glaring light come at him. He squinted hard and used a hand to visor his eyes. Stretched before him was a beautifully landscaped garden of so many herbs and flowers that his eyes needed to adjust to each row of plants separately. A small, luxurious fish pond was dug in the far corner, right against a high-rising wall of white plastered stone. There was golden dust of pollen that blew up in the odd breeze that made the air radiant with unknown glory. Rows of stone paths for walking and strolling, whole sakura trees and other breeds with swings and logs hanging from the stronger branches.
There were only small clouds spotting the sky, creating rolling shadows in the light breeze. Hoji could see a white figure far away, in the center of the garden sitting on a stone bench, and he squinted to make out the form at a distance.
That's where this leg of the story ends.
