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.


One day passed. Now it was Rei's turn to be bed ridden from Shin's overwhelming power. She survived the attack, of course, and now that her mind was clear she was her normal and gentile self with everyone else. Suichi still felt bad about not warning her properly before she fought Shin without expectations or preparations, but she argued that it didn't really matter that much. Hoji was very proud of the victory, but he was being rather stoic and hung around the crowds of servants in the corner of the room. Shin, of course, did his part by avoiding most of the staff by training outside with his scythe. No one would watch out of respect...and fear.

"Hey Shin!" called Suichi. Shin stopped in his practice and turned his head. "Lady Unohana wants to see you."

"Good for her" Shin replied. "She must have gotten stronger in that coma."

"No" Suichi said, "not to fight..." Eventually Suichi convinced Shin to sheathe his weapon and meet with Rei in her room. Shin found her room a bit too luxurious for someone of her standing. A humanitarian, he thought, should live in the same conditions as her people. Shin entered the room following the nervous Suichi with a slight scowl on his face.

"Hello, Shin Kenpachi" Rei greeted.

"Yo" Shin greeted back with a friendly hand wave.

"Please find a seat" she offered graciously. She threw off her covers and sat neatly on her own bed, facing her guests. Hoji walked over and sat next to Shin on the comfy floor-rug. "I want to thank you all for agreeing to duel me yesterday. It's been a long time since I could get some practical fighting in, and your input really helped me measure my own abilities."

"But you died against Shin" Hoji pointed out. "You died bad."

"Indeed I did" Rei admitted. "Shin Kenpachi, there is something incredibly off-setting about you. Upon meeting you I was able to discern that you were a terrifying person with a sword. Yesterday you proved it, you are frightfully powerful. I was certain, at many points in our duel, that you would kill me."

"I'm not sorry" Shin said. Hoji started sputtering laughter at the randomness of Shin's aside. "It was a duel. You were asking us to fight you within an inch of your life. Granted, I fought myself dizzy too."

"That is a concern of mine" Rei said. "Are you aware of your aura, Shin?"

"I don't know what that is" Shin said. "I assume it has something to do with pressure."

"Auras are elemental" Rei explained. "All things, even Hollows, have certain auras that incline them towards certain aspects of natural magic. Suichi, for instance, your aura is Ice, therefore you are more inclined to using Ice-based spells."

"Tch?" Hoji grunted.

"I mainly use Ice techniques" Suichi said "because they're easy for me. If I used a fire kido attack, like a Fireball or something, it would most likely blow up in my hand or shoot off in some random direction."

"That makes sense" Shin said. Hoji nodded as well, agreeing with Shin even if he didn't entirely understand the concept. "So what's Hoji's?"

"Wind" Rei said. "That goes almost without saying. His sword even has the word wind in it."

"You're right!" Hoji said. He took out his sword and stared it down. "That makes total sense! I can rip the wind like paper and create vacuums and crap. Cool! But, how does that explain my use of other kido spells that work just fine? Like Senkou no Shikyo?"

"That's just a destructive spell" Shin said. "I don't think it has an element. If it does, it must be lightning."

"Lightning and wind are on the same spectrum" Rei said. "The one thing you may not use as well would be earth-based kido or healing spells, as those are generally aligned with a water element."

"Cool" Hoji said. "I wonder why Torakaze never told me what her element was..."

"Her?" Shin repeated. "You're inner soul...is a woman? My, that speaks leagues about you, doesn't it?" Shin and Suichi started snickering away from Hoji who glowered back at them.

"Well what's Shin's element then?" Hoji huffed. Rei became very grave all of a sudden, which quickly wiped the smiles from the boy's faces and forced them to sit upright.

"It's difficult for me to say" Rei admitted. "There are elements that don't fall into any real realm of logic or spectrum like natural elements do. Shin Kenpachi's element seems to be something much less...solid. It is abstract in its spiritual form. It is an element that does not immediately exist in the natural world..."

"Hmm" Shin grunted. "So...you don't know?"

"I think I know" Rei said. "It's only a theory, a vague one at that, but it is plausible. Shin Kenpachi, I believe your aura is that of total darkness. A depth of pressing doom unlike any other in the world. You element is Death." This came as a slight surprise to Hoji and Suichi, who leaned away from the newly defined air around Shin. Shin himself wasn't too surprised, but he wasn't totally unmoved either. He drew out his sword just enough to look at its metal and see his reflection.

He saw a skull, not a face.


The three mighty fighters continued to lodge at the Unohana manor for a few more days. They used the facilities to their fullest, gained a rapport with the staff of medics and waiting women, and above all they left their significant impressions on everyone. It may not have been the first time that Shin gave others a sense of extremely cautious hope, but it was a very significant affair. Out in the garden, a few days after learning of their respective auras, Shin and Hoji were sparring. Now, they used their shikai weapons, and the fight was tremendous.

"Hoji!" Shin shouted. "Get down from there! I can't hack you to slivers of meat if your all the way up there!" Shin swung his scythe in vain from the ground while Hoji, high up in the windy sky, held fast to the whipping currents of wind that passed by. The claws of his gauntlets, Torakaze, let him tear into the wind and treat it as a huge wall he could scale at will. So long as there was moving air, Hoji could manipulate it.

"Screw you!" Hoji shouted. "You need to learn to dodge somehow, dammit!" Hoji, with his arms straight out and claws extended, dipped his chest down at Shin and threw his arms together with a metallic clap. The wind blew hard, then stopped for a moment. Shin propped his scythe up on his shoulder and tapped it impatiently, then flashed away as the ground ruptured and blew apart from the vacuum of destruction Hoji released. Hoji started slashing and rending the air with his claws, and the air followed through with many bladed waves of air that all went barreling at Shin.

"Don't worry" Telli said to the scared Natsumo, "we can regrow all that in a matter of days."

"Bu how long will it take to rebuild?" Natsumo said with a heavy degree of hopelessness. Shin flashed very close to them, then sped away, and the blades followed after him in a near-hit brush with the girls. "I'm just relieved that we don't have to try and fight these two" Natsumo admitted. "I don't think we could handle it..."

"Not even Lady Unohana could take a serious fight with Mr. Shin" Telli pointed out. Shin was running out of stable ground, and thusly he stood fast in one place and started spinning his scythe overhead in a circular motion. He used both his hands to keep the speed of his whirring scythe up and started rotating very slightly with his hips in the opposite direction his scythe spun. This created a sort of vortex that the air blades avoided and fell off of, and that forced Hoji down from the sky he inhabited.

"Oh damn" Shin groaned. Hoji dropped down to the ground before Shin could get out of his pose and clawed through the air to punch Shin in the gut. It moved him back, but didn't knock him away. Hoji was left wide open for Shin's attack, a quick jab with his scythe handle into his back and a knee to the solar plexus. Hoji stumbled away and started falling to the side, while Shin stood firm with his scythe in hand and shade over his eyes.

"Tch" Hoji grunted breathlessly, "you're good with that thing!"

"I should be" Shin said. "I wasn't just slacking off in my coma, you know. Some of us like training whenever we can because it makes us stronger, Hoji. I suggest you try it."

"Who're you talking to!?" Hoji shouted.

"Honorable shinigami!" a young man called from the manor. Shin and Hoji turned, curious to see if he was actually referring to them. "Lady Unohana request your presence for a special audience!"

"...huh?" the simple Hoji grunted.

"The chick wants to see us" Shin rephrased. Hoji had no trouble understanding that and deactivated his sword. Both he and Shin had gotten into the courteous practice of keeping theirs swords sheathed inside the manor out of respect for everyone's fear of them with their swords out. They walked the now familiar winding halls of wood, passed by many rushing young men and women, and eventually came to Rei's room in the center of the labyrinth mansion. Hoji opened the door and Shin entered, then Hoji shut the doors behind him.

"Hello?" Shin called. For some odd reason, Reis' room was devoid of life. She was not there.

"She must be waiting somewhere else" Hoji pointed out.

"Really?" Shin asked honestly. "Maybe she's turned invisible and is trying to ambush us, or perhaps she was revently dragged to Hell by some angry specter." Although Shin hid his sarcasm well behind a wall of apathy, Hoji couldn't help but nod and agree with total honesty.

"You really think so?" Hoji said. Shin slapped his bald head and started out of the room.

"I can sense her presence somewhere near the front of the mansion" Shin said. "Let's head there."

"Don't hit me like that" Hoji said. "It's demeaning!"


Hoji followed Shin closely through all the halls as the jogged until they came upon the opening corridor that led into the outside. Shin's first notice was that the sky far away was very dark, and the winds were blowing the clouds towards the manor. Then he saw Unohana and Suichi standing at the open front gate, looking outward. They stood just before the elegant white stone wall that surrounded the entire palace and the wooden gates that took five strong men at each door to open. Rei had her hands folded inside her sleeves, and Suichi stood on the balls of his feet with his arms crossed, a serious pose for him to take.

"Howdy!" Hoji greeted with a wave. "Say Rei, what'd you need us for? And Suichi, how'd you beat us here?" There was a very uncomfortable silence just then, the only sound being the wind as it swept over the flat stone flooring of the estate's inner grounds. Shin took the first daring step to break the tension.

"Something is wrong" Shin noted. Rei nodded. "You need our help with something, don't you?" Rei nodded again. "Regardless of the work, we will accept it."

"You're always too hasty Shin" Suichi said. "At least hear what you have to do first."

"I don't need to" Shin said. Rei and Suichi both slowly turned to Shin with very demure and serious faces. "I can tell when someone is truly troubles, as I have cause such trouble to many people. Unohana, you have a distressed air about you, one that cries out helplessly. You look like a mother watching her sons go out to a war they can't win...knowing you won't see them again. Someone is lost...correct?"

"Dude!" Hoji exclaimed. "How do you know all this stuff!?"

"You're even less patient!" Suichi pointed out. Rei sighed and tried to make herself comfortable enough to talk. She turned away from her huge gates and looked at Shin in the eyes.

"You are right, Shin Kenpachi" she said. "Someone close to me...someone I consider to be a son...he is in great danger. Please, if you can, bring him back." The sound of metal scraping and wind whipping briefly was heard. Shin and Hoji already had their swords out and ready, Shin's on his shoulder and Hoji's pointed at the ground with his free hand crossing over the other with curled fingers.

"Sure thing" Shin said. "What's the name?" This resounding courage and tenacity actually took Rei by surprise.

They're so eager to help me? She thought. Regardless of the reason, or lack thereof, that they may have to help me they still will? I haven't offered them anything and they haven't asked for anything in return...but these men will still help me. Shin Kenpachi, Hoji Araijin, Suichi...how can such good men exist in such a cruel world? Rei's emotions swelled up inside and she started to weep, but with a maiden smile on her face.

Oh great Suichi thought, now I feel bad for wanting to stay behind. I guess I'll have to go with them... Suichi made a mental sigh and turned with a forced smile to his friends. They looked ready...but ready for what?