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.


Shin and Unohana stood and faced each other down in the mid-sized sitting room. They prepared themselves mentally and physically for their duel. She was expecting quite a challenge, and Suichi was dreading just how challenging Shin would decide to be until he realized that enough would be enough. Hoji was still out.

"Are you ready?" Rei asked. She was in her rather relaxed, maidenly stance and waiting for Shin to stop cracking his neck. After his neck, Shin stretched out and somehow cracked his legs, then he drew out his sword.

"Let's go" Shin said. His legs were facing away from Rei with his right in front, and he held his sword in his right hand with a very controlled but relaxed grip. His face was very plain in terms of emotional value. He didn't look too happy or dutiful or excited to fight. Suichi had a sense of hopelessness when he fought, Hoji was exhilarated, but Shin had nothing. He was just an empty-faced man at the moment.

"You may come at me" Rei offered "in whatever way you wi-" and suddenly a massive blast of pressure started barreling down on everyone. Rei's body was paralyzed from the pressing energy and her sword sank into the wooden floor of her own mansion. The walls began to peel, the floor began to creak and Rei could feel her joints rubbing and squeaking against each other uncomfortably.

This... she thought, this is unnatural!

"Alright" Shin said, somehow leading his voice over the pressure. "I'm coming now-" Upon his first short step forward, Shin's foot broke the wooden floor and started sinking down. He retreated his foot and drew it in closer with his other one so the weight distribution wouldn't catch him off guard again and looked at the floors. "What kind of mansion has such shoddy floors?"

"It's not the floors!" Suichi shouted. "It's the pressure!"

"Really?" Shin asked. Rei had finally gotten a progressive balance with her own pressure worked out and was standing normally, but with a much more serious demeanor. She was no longer a smiling, gentle woman. She looked like a soldier ready to fight for her honor against an overwhelming opponent. "Alright" Shin said. He started running forward, ignoring the floor he broke, and took hi first swing against Rei. She was able, just barely, to block. Then, just as she recovered from the first swing, Shin threw the next. She caught the blade with her own and held it for a moment before Shin drew back and came in wit ha thrust. She made a desperate swipe with both her arms to push away Shin's sword and was just narrowly missed. Her robe got cut, however. That scared her.

"HAH!" Hoji suddenly shouted. He tiredly sat back up now that his wound was better and looked around. "Tch. It feels a little heavy in here. Is it raining outside or something?"

"Shin's dueling Rei" Suichi explained.

"Oh" Hoji said. "Did he win yet?"

"They just started" Suichi said.

"Tch" Hoji scoffed, "I know that, dammit. Why hasn't he won yet?" Shin continued madly hacking away at Rei's defense, forcing her to retreat into a corner. He backed out of her effective range and waited for her to recover.

"Come on" Shin said, holding his sword down. "I won't force you into a corner, metaphorically or literally, just to win."

"Very well" Rei said. "Thank you." After she thanked Shin she promptly attempted to kill him by making flash-speed stabs at him Shin deflected and dodged them easily enough, but still leaned away out of instinct. After one particularly strong push, Rei's sword was brought out of her left hand over to her right side. Shin drew his sword arm back around his neck and brought his left arm around his back as well. Rei struggled to bring her sword up to block, and as a result her feet were weak on the floor. Shin's massive swipe that ended with his left hand curled in front of his face, sent Rei through the wall.

"Damn, Shin!" Suichi shouted in shock. "It's just a friendly duel! No reason to seriously try killing her!"

"Meh" Shin grunted. He otherwise ignored the worried mumblings of Suichi and continued through the wall to find Rei once more.


The blast Shin made sent Rei all the way out into the garden. She knew he was coming, as the black and unnaturally strobing sky overhead still resonated menacingly with his pressure. Rei quickly healed herself of all her internal ailments and warily prepared for Shin's next deadly move. She brought her sword up next to her right shoulder in both hands, a more traditional pose, and waited with a furrowed brow.

"This is unlike anything I've ever seen before" Rei told herself. "This scale of power, this absolutely conquering pressure, it's so deadly. So fierce! And yet, there is something calming about it as well. I dare say, Shin Kenpachi, his aura may in fact be-"

"Be what?" Shin asked. He flash-stepped into scene, and his pressure distorted reality so much that there was a delay between his arrival and his actual presence beings seen. Rei was so shock that she jumped back and readjusted her own pressure to counter Shin's. At last everything was balanced out, which meant that everything appeared subject to a silent but powerful gale in gray-scale. "Moreover, what's an aura?" Shin brought his sword up to his eye level and held it sideways, as if blocking his eyes so they couldn't meet Rei's.

"I can certainly answer that" Rei said, "but I doubt this black-and-white world is the proper place to do so."

"Agreed" Shin agreed. He extended his sword out in front of him and pointed it at her again, forcing a lump in her throat. "We'll discuss this stuff once we're done here." Shin dashed ahead and began attacking again. First he simply repeated quick horizontal swipes that Rei either blocked or dodged, then started making descending and rising cuts as follow-throughs to the horizontal attacks.

"I am curious, though" Rei said while blocking. "What style is this?"

"If you can talk while blocking" Shin said "I'm not throwing enough shots." Shin started going faster, throwing with his back and his hips together with his already powerful arm at the frantically blocking Rei. She seemed to be trapped, so she made a very desperate move. She forced Shin away with a kick to the stomach. "Oh, we can use our hands and legs to fight too?" Shin asked. Rei's kick did nothing but give her an opening. Shin pushed down on her leg and made sure it was on the ground before he grabbed her face and threw her across the garden in one swift motion. As she flew through the air, she regained her control and stayed in one position instead of flipping hap-hazardously. Shin was fast approaching, weaving between the increasing amount of growth as he got closer.

"You don't have a style, do you?" Rei asked on her way down. Shin came up under her as she descended with her sword pointing down. Shin caught it by pushing high over his head in an uppercut fashion and balanced her on his sword, but that proved to be a folly on his part. Rei took advantage of Shin's confusion and just stood on his sword with no intent to make an attack. "You just swing away, hoping you'll hit your target. But honestly, unless your target happens to be a Gillian or above-average sized person, they'll just keep dodging you."

"Then I'll switch up my game" Shin said. He dropped his sword and Rei in the process. Then, with a powerful kicking start, he lipped backwards and shot out both his legs to kick at Rei on top of his sword. Of course, she was gone and back on solid ground, but the gesture still served to intimidate her. Shin caught his sword as his body came back to the ground and pulled it in close with his right arm. His stance was reversed now, with his left leg and arm forward and his sword arm back. "If my opponent can dodge like a god I'll find a way to cut their legs. If they have impenetrable defense I'll wear them down and attack when they;re tired. If they're overwhelmingly strong then I'll outwit them. Any god who wants to fight me will have to face the reality that there are no gods in this world."

"Really?" Rei asked, regaining her controlled and calm attitude at last. "What makes you say that?"

"Because we're all technically 'gods' here" Shin explained. "There's no unreachable limit for any shinigami in this world, so we're all on an equal level of potential. We're all the same creature, and all of us just happen to be gods. There's nothing higher than a world full of gods, is there?"

"I suppose not" Rei quietly agreed. They went back to fighting now, but with a much better mood. Rei was back in her maidenly manner of defending and aiming for the throat, and Shin was smiling. His grin was halfway between crazy and pleasant, which forced Rei to stay on guard even more than just a crazy one for the uncertainty of just where his emotions would sway at such a point. Shin dug his feet into the ground suddenly and started whipping his arm around madly, creating a sort of slicing shield that forced Rei away. She bounced away, unaware of Shin's true speed and power. He flashed out of his blade barrier as it was still slashing with his sword wound tightly past his neck and eyes empty. He made a huge swing that scraped the edge of Rei's blade and forced her into a spin.

"This was fun" Shin said. "Let's do it again sometime."

"We aren't done yet" Rei said, braking her spin with a kick and a skidding landing. Suddenly, she got the cold and terrifying feeling that she was completely alone, not just on the battlefield, but in the world. It felt like she left the world and entered another, more intense one.

"Yeah we are" Shin said. He stood far away from her, cradling the handle of his weapon in his right hand and letting the rest of it lay on his shoulder. The scythe Shikei extended past his head and filled Unohana with dread. Suddenly, Shin was upon her with his normal sword, but the blow was powerful enough to knock her out anyway. "In truth, Rei Unohana, we were done a while ago..."


After the fight the pressure lifted and the men and women of the mansion were able to move freely once again. Most of them had something broken from the sudden force that Shin unconsciously produced, but it didn't keep them from running around to find their mistress.

"Tch" Hoji scoffed, "I know they're outside, guys. Just head that way!"

"Let's go ahead, Hoji" Suichi said.

"Well we aren't medics" Hoji said.

"Lady Unohana can take care of herself and Shin" Suichi said.

"Not really" Hoji said. "If she's out of commission then she won't be taking care of anyone at the moment." Suichi, for some reason, held Hoji's assumption with a bit of merit. Shin definitely wasn't a push over, and he certainly had no tacts against fighting a woman. There was the very good possibility that Unohana was in a critical condition, but the way Hoji was leading Suichi through the halls, he may not be able to find out soon.

"Hoji, are you lost?" Suichi asked.

"Tch" Hoji scoffed. "If you don't start trusting me my foot's gonna get lost up your ass!"

"It was just a question" Suichi quietly said.

"There you are!" a medic girl called from down the hall. "Lady Unohana and Master Shin are in the garden. Please, come quickly!"

"Why us?" Suichi asked.

"Well..." the medic girl started embarrassedly, "none of us are quite brave enough to approach Master Shin to retrieve Lady Unohana's body."

"She was defeated!?" Suichi gasped.

"Tch" Hoji smirked, "I knew that bastard would give her a good fight! Where'd he get her at? The stomach? The sternum? Did he lop off an arm or a leg?"

"She's just out of it" the medic girl said. "There aren't any visible wounds on her, possibly because she healed herself already, but she won't wake up regardless of what Master Shin does!"

"Let's hurry, Hoji" Suichi ordered. Hoji nodded and they both flashed through the halls until they found a way into the garden. They threw open the doors and started for the most menacing patch of ground they could feel, and there they were. Shin with his sword sheathed in his lap and Unohana with a huge hole in the mid section of her robes and an exposed but perfectly healthy abdomen lying on the ground.

"Stomach" Hoji noted. "I'd've cut her through the chest. She's got a lot of meat there to dampen the blow, anyway." Shin sat sleeping with his eyes half open, staring constantly at the backs of his eyelids but still casting a demanding shadow around Rei. He won, but the effort he unknowingly pushed on himself so soon after waking from near death caused him to fall asleep. Suichi couldn't help but smile, for he knew somewhere in the world his true foes were encroaching upon him and when he was finally found they would only meet the cold, deadly steel of Shin and Hoji's swords, as well as his own.

"Damn, Shin" Suichi praised. "You've got some wicked strength in those arms, don't you?"