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.


Suichi entered through the delicately patterned sliding door and held it open for Shin, who followed after him. His cold, deadly gaze entered the room before him, cooling off the heated tension of the room so lavishly decked from wall to wall in silken strands. Grand tapestries, gallant and graciously colored, hung by notches in the walls from the ceiling to the floor. The tatami mats were soft to the touch of the foot, woven from special reeds that never lost the feel of their liveliest state. In the center of the room were three seating cushions whereupon Rei Unohana in the most diligent and serious manner, sat facing the entrance to the room. Shin took the seat on the right. Suichi sat on his left. Rei waved he hand in the air and, from the corners of the room, her servants fled and shut the door behind them, chased down by Shin's gaze.

"Huh" he said. "I didn't even notice those guys." Suichi tapped him. No wasn't the time to be ungrateful, he knew. Shin turned back around and sighed. They both bowed to Rei in respect and she bowed back.

"Gentlemen" Rei began, "I have a very grave request to ask of you. It is not grave in any sense that can come to my mind. In my own terms and understanding, it is a grateful, charitable task, but to men like you, Shin, it is something that I'd dare not ask under ideal circumstances." Shin took his sword, still in sheathe, from his hip and slammed it to the ground beside him. Rei followed his actions closely and curiously. Shin folded his arms inside the sleeves of his robe and gripped them tight.

"Go on" Shin said.

"What are you doing?" Suichi asked. "She hasn't even requested anything yet."

"Depending on what she asks" Shin said "I may have to hit something, and I'd rather not strike at a woman unguarded with my sword, no matter how outraged I am. Therefore, with my arms like this, I'll have to tear the sleeves off my robes before acting, which should give you or her enough time to subdue me." Suichi's face went pale and his eye twitched.

Is he serious!? Suichi thought. Can he not see the woman he's addressing sitting in front of him, right there, in plain sight!? Is he stupid!? Suichi looked at Rei, who was glaring at Shin, an uncomfortable look for her to have towards another. Shin wasn't fazed. He glared right back, matching her intensity without the slightest increase of pressure palpable. Suichi sat rigidly, stunned by the sheer emotional tension in the air, and gulped. Maybe I'm the idiot....for not already leaving....

"It regards Jin" she said. "The orphan boy I asked you to rescue for me."

"You sure he's a boy at all?" Shin asked with an uneven cock of his brow. "He's pretty big, even for a man."

"What is physically ailing him" Rei said "is but a byproduct of a much greater problem, one that I wish for you to correct." Shin braced himself and took a sharp breath in. "I want you, however you can, in whatever way it would be possible, to separate Jin from his sword forever." Shin tore his sleeves and shot up to his feet. Rei stayed seated but clutched her hands in her lap. Suichi shot up and drew his sword with a leap in Rei's direction to defend her.

"Calm down, Suichi" Shin commanded. His sleeves fell in piles to the floor, leaving his bare, muscular arms exposed and his robes ripped at the shoulders. "Just doing that was enough to calm me down past the point of needing to punch her. I'll be fine, if a bit mad." Suichi wasn't in any place or mood to argue. He just nodded, sheathed his sword, and returned to his seat silently dreading the coming exchange. "You were right in being protective. There's no way in all total hell I'd carry out such a request."

"I understand your position" Rei said as she slowly rose to her feet to meet Shin on equal standing. "I can't agree with what you represent as a warrior, Shin, but can you at least listen to my reason for my request instead of calling it off as a trivial plea for peace?" Shin lowered his shoulders and straightened his back. Suichi hadn't even noticed how far forward he had been leaning until he was standing erect again.

"Jin is still a boy" Rei said "mentally. Physically he has outgrown himself which was enabled by his runaway spiritual pressure intensity. He manifested a sword at a very early age and never got control of it. The spirit in his sword overtook him and drove him mad as a child. He was brought to me far too late to recover fully so I did all that I could to simply seal away the power deep inside his body. I amplified his aura through a meditative ritual and sealed his sword inside his own chest so that it would no longer influence him to destroy as it had."

"That makes sense so far" Shin said as he crossed his arms. "That also explains why his body acts like mud, I think."

You either understand or you don't! Suichi thought. Quit being confusing, Shin! Depth doesn't suit you!

"Still" Shin continued "I can't see the benefit of asking a warrior like me to do what a genius like you couldn't do. How are you so sure that I can silence the destructive voices in his head without killing him?"

"Faith" Rei answered. Shin scoffed and grinned at her. He took it outright as a joke. "Besides that, regardless of the strength of Ishin's aura, yours can cancel it out and force him to submit."

"Ishin?" Shin said. "You mean Jin? His real name's Ishin?"

"Yes" Rei said. "His willingness to accept something so foreign as a new name and position is worrying me. I feel that his capture and subsequent brainwashing have impacted him in dire ways that I cannot hope to correct."

"So don't try" Shin said. "Just let him live like this. Have you seen him? Has he tried to destroy anything out of madness with his swords inside him? He's fine. He's happy. Let him be and be glad he isn't so beyond hope that he tried to kill you and everyone else in a nostalgic fit of sudden memory re-surge."

"What?" Rei said in disbelief. "How can you not see the obvious problem? He shouldn't have to suffer through this. He's an innocent boy, manipulated by forces beyond his control. I'm only asking you to reign in the power and control it for him so that he can break away from the control of his madness and regain his regular self again!"

"You're asking me" Shin said, leaning in, "to take away a part of his soul that is built within him already. You're asking me to uproot the source of his power and stability and expect him to be fine afterward. That's like asking a gardener to trim away all the roots of a tree and expect it to flower next spring." Rei drew back and turned her glare away, down to the floor. "Isn't it possible that you can't handle letting go of a child once he gets enough power to break away? Are you scared that he'll find a greater purpose in fighting than in peacefully living his life at a complacent level?"

"Hey, Shin" Suichi said, shooting to his feet. "That's enough. You've given your point already." Shin turned to him and went back again with a sigh. He scratched the back of his head and shut his eyes tight to rub them.

"He's right" Shin said. "I'll shut up now...." Rei turned back to him as he took his hand from his face and saw his eyes open again. The coldness returned. A gripping hand of death extended from him and grabbed at her chest, pulling her fears and chilling her spine. "But I won't do it. Not for you...." With that the meeting was over. Shin turned and left quietly, taking his sword from the floor and laying it across his shoulders while resting his arms on the scabbard like a rack. Suichi sighed and picked up his sleeves, bowing apologetically to Rei as he left. Rei sank down into her seat and lowered her head.

I knew he would do that she thought. I knew, and yet, I still just had to be sure....Shin Kenpachi, regardless to what you say or do, I retain what I said. I have my faith in you.....


Shin patrolled the halls for a while, in a hot, slowly venting pace of anger. People naturally stayed out of his way for fear that his blade may come singing out from its sheathe to cut them down in some needless act of pure malice. Shin eventually tied his scabbard back to his waits and drew his robes out from his sash so a sleeveless coat billowed behind him as he walked. His shadow trailed along the walls like a long, bustling black fire surrounding a skeletal frame, like a dark-skinned monster made of nothing with shining white eyes peering through the ever-moving tattered cloth and flames of death. Shin slowed his pace as he neared the garden and walked out onto the porch of the manor to sit and admire the distant, overcast sky.

"It's gonna rain" Shin said. He wasn't assuming or predicting. His tone was commanding, and he further elaborated it by holding his arm up to the sky and grabbing at the clouds. "Now, come forth....I summon rain!" He threw his arm down and waited silently. Nothing transpired. Just a cool breeze rolled past and billowed the torn fringes of his coat. Shin returned his arm to his lap and leaned his side against a supporting pole to keep the awning roof up. "Nothing, huh? Guess my power is really limited after all...." Shin rested his back to the slender column rod and relaxed. For once he was as relaxed as he had ever been. No thoughts of violence stirred in his docile mind. Shin smiled in peace, even as the silent footfalls of a master assassin approached.

"Shin" Suichi called. Shin opened his eyes and looked up at Suichi who was standing firmly and sternly with a resonating aura of purpose he hadn't seen before. Suichi threw down Shin's torn sleeves and forced him up with the draw of his arm. Shin slowly recovered to his feet and brushed off the back of his pants to face the oddly serious Suichi with a glare just as commanding and powerful as his. "I feel you're being too rash in your decision not to help Jin."

"I feel like killing someone" Shin said "because I was interrupted in the most calm and meditative moment I've had in ages."

"Try it" Suichi said. "Find out just how much I've been holding back from you, if you want..." Shin and Suichi glared powerfully into each other's eyes. Shin's deathly, fear-provoking gaze was met with an icy, uncaring, unbiased nerve that was frozen harder than steel. Shin scoffed the stare off with a grin.

"I can find that out in better ways" he said, admitting defeat. Suichi kept his glare to keep Shin in place. He wasn't moving. He wanted to listen to suddenly-serious Suichi talk.

"Think about it rationally" Suichi said. "Rei is concerned for Jin's health because she doesn't see the same warrior that you and Hoji do. She sees a little boy who she raised and healed and protected and she can't get over that. She doesn't see him as a fighter. She can't see how he can benefit from gaining control of his own power now that it's a part of him."

"I know" Shin said. "That's why I'm outraged."

".....really?" Suichi asked. A silence passed and a cool wind blew. Shin turned fully around and tilted his head.

"Looks like rain, huh?" he said. Suichi pulled his shoulder and spun him back around. Still, he couldn't help but smile, because he knew that he had Shin totally cornered against the edge of his own mind.

"She's asking for your help" Suichi said "because she knows that, in refusing to help in the way she sees as right, you'll find a way that will actually work! You don't understand the subtleties of what mind-games she's trying to play."

"Obviously not" Shin said. "If there's a game to play that I can't act as a war there's no way I can win it. War and fighting is all I'm good at, Suichi. I'm a warrior, blind to anything that isn't holding a blade."

"So you can see Jin's problem" Suichi said. Shin shut up though his mouth stayed open. He shifted his eyes back and forth, trying to find an appropriate way to respond to such a rhetorical remark. "The problem is he can't hold the blade at all. The blade holds him. He has no control over it. It's spirit overpowers his and makes him insane when he fights. Surely you noticed that."

"That could be a good thing" Shin said. "Sometimes it's better not to be held back by common sense..." Suichi saw how shallowly Shin was trying to turn a problem into a positive just to avoid the problem altogether. Suichi made a brash assumption and backed a step away from Shin just in case a face-punch was his immediate response.

"You have no idea how to help him, do you?" Suichi asked. Shin looked away and sighed.

"I have an idea" Shin admitted "but it isn't the best one..." Shin looked back and grabbed his sword at his side, palming the handle, tapping the sword hilt rhythmically. "When I fought Jin before, somehow, I was able to disengage that guy's hypnotic sword-possession that he used to control him. I thought it was Shikei, acting independently, using some new skill I hadn't been aware of before. I think, by hitting with the blunt side of my sword, I can cancel the effects of shikai or at least the effects of kido. Effectively, I can bring death to spirit pressure by hitting it...."

"You think you can do that to Jin" Suichi asked "and separate his conscience from his sword long enough to teach him control over his sword's influence?"

".....I didn't even know I could do it" Shin continued, still talking about his first discovery of the technique. "I haven't tested it out lately, either. Suichi, if I didn't know I could do that, how did Rei?Did she just know, or is she really a genius?"

"You thought she wasn't a genius?" Suichi said. "Of course she's a genius. No one else in the world has her capacity for reading the invisible aura of a shinigami or Hollow."

"Huh" Shin said. He crossed his arms and stared at the floor between his feet strangely. "I just thought she was being flattered for being rich."

How stupid is he going to get!? Suichi demanded. Like, really stupid? Does he have a limit? Am I going to have to stop him myself!?!?

"What the hell" Shin said, brushing past Suichi. "I'll see what I can do to get as close to right as possible..." Suichi turned and watched him walk away, down the hall after the fleeting pursuit of a mad an unstable, childish energy. Eventually, just before Shin went out of sight around a corner, Suichi followed after and joined him.


Hoji walked through the halls topless, as usual. He was so proud of his body that he couldn't help but show it off every once in a while, and now was one of those whiles. He strut, leaning deep back as he walked, nodding to the men who passed him and waving at the girls with sparkles in his eyes. He could tell already. The girls wanted him. It was a majority of the girls he wanted that wanted him, and all for the same reason. He saw no problems in dealing with women if he had the physical capability, but the only thing holding him back was honor. It wasn't even his honor, but the drastic sense of impeding that Shin's honor cast on him.

Damn it Hoji thought as he straightened up in an empty hallway. He brushed his thumb against his nose and snarled. I don't think there's a woman here besides Rei who can take me on in a fight, and she's out of my league! Tch. Stupid principals, always getting in the way of p- Hoji was distracted by his thoughts to the point where he bumped into someone. It was a light brush for him but Natsumo was shocked and jostled back a few steps.

"You alright?" Hoji asked. Natsumo corrected her glasses and tilted her head up at him as she breezed past. "Tch, Oi!" Hoji shouted. "Hey, don't be bitchy just because I bumped into you! I asked if you were alright!"

"I am fine" Natsumo called, not breaking her gait, "now please watch your mouth. In case you forgot, children sometimes roam these halls."

"No they don't" Hoji said, though he was now alone, "kids aren't even allowed up here, are they?" Just then Hoji turned around, and from around the corner came Telly guiding a small group of jumpy, excited children. She caught sight of Hoji, who to her looked sparkling and bright with a manly aura of raw power and confidence, and she waved with a discrete blush.

"Hello, Mr. Araijin!" she called. Hoji waved and grinned, nodding at her and smiling to the kids. "Children" Telly said, stopping the group, "this is one of the men I was telling you about. His name is Hoji Araijin. Could you all greet him, please?" All the little boys and girls, so young to be witness to the horrors of war and abandoned by those who had died in the ceaseless conflicts, all looked up to Hoji with the same neutral respect that was expected and taught of them by the diligent workers of the Unohana manor.

"Hello, Hoji Araijin" they all greeted.

"Hello, children" he said back. "Say, Telly, what's going on?"

"I'm taking some of the younger children to the garden" she said. "Rei wanted them to get out of the orphanage wing while they cleaned up the main entrance after...you know."

"The fight?" Hoji said. Telly shushed him and drew in close.

"We don't want the children to know there was a fight" she whispered. "It may end up in a wide-spread panic and epidemic of bed-wetting." Hoji cringed. He forgot that kids sometimes do that when they're scared. He rubbed the back of his neck and grinned away.

"Well, don't let me keep you" Hoji said as he started past the group. "You've all got your places to be, I'll just be off for my next-"

"Hey Mister" a boy said. Hoji, not one to deny anyone's call of his attention without proper reason, stopped and turned around. The boy was small and young and sucked on his finger as if trying to savor a flavor to a meal he had not too long ago. Hoji turned on his heels and crouched down to the boy's level with a sincere smile hurting his jaws. "You gots no hair" the boy plainly said. Telly jumped. She had seen the way Hoji exploded before. She treated bruises and cuts that he made on the drunken men that insulted his head, and she cringed to think of the child's fate. She horrified herself with the image of an animal-bodied Hoji ripping the boy apart like paper in his mouth, then eating him and becoming a Hollow with a bald head and a tail on his chin.

"Hehehe!" Hoji chuckled. He held his pigtail in front of the boy and waved it in front of his eyes. "I don't have much, no, but I do have this!" The boy followed the whipping pigtail and made a grab for it, but Hoji let it go and whipped it back behind his head with a quick jerk of his neck. He then stood up with a mighty fist planted at his hip and pointed to himself with a pump of his strong arm. "This hairstyle and the secrets behind it were inherited by me from as far back as my great-grandfather. All the great, super-strong men in my family had their hair exactly like mine! This pigtail symbolizes how powerful and strong and awesome I am!" Hoji then leaned back down and pat the boy's head a few times. "When you become a man like me, a powerful, decisive man, I'll let you wear this pigtail with the honor and pride of an Araijin man!" The boy's face lit up. All the boys of the group cheered as Hoji waved away for his final depart, his pigtail trailing after him and whipping on its own like the black tail of a proud tiger.

Thank goodness Telly thought with infinite relief. I thought he was going to flip out! Hoji's composure didn't break a bit. Backed by the cheering of admiring boys, he turned the corner of the hall and carried on with wings on his heels.

I am so very awesome Hoji thought with his head held high. So awesome am I! Hoji piled chest-first into Shin and was knocked down to the floor. Shin just stood, treating the bump as a breeze, and looked around for what caused it, finally spotting Hoji on the floor.

"Oh, there you are" Shin said. "Come on. We're going to see Jin."

"Tch?" Hoji grunted. Shin grabbed his hand and pulled him up, then walked with his cape billowing behind him. Hoji hadn't seen his robe torn so stylishly and became almost instantly jealous. "Hey, no fair! I can't always be shirtless! Don't take all the good looks for yourself, man!" Shin raised his arm up and threw it forward, beckoning Hoji to follow. With a "Tch" he obliged and ran after him, out of sight from the kids and towards the main gate. Suichi followed behind as well, passing under Hoji's radar and then apathetically into it as he pulled forward to march by his side. Shin's duteous march increased in the pressure of each step as he neared the doors to the front court. The guards standing at attention drew the doors open for him, seeing full well his intent to kick them down.

Shin and company stopped just outside the gate, where Jin was standing staring at the huge wooden blockade doors, his mouth agape in awe. Shin placed a hand carefully on the hilt of his sword. A stoic and uncertain strain flashed in Suichi's eyes. He wasn't sure what was about to transpire, but he trusted Shin.

Faith Suichi thought is all you've got right now, Shin. Don't waste it, don't discard it; make it work.

Are we having a picnic or something? Hoji thought. Man, I'm hungry. I don't know why but I'm hungry for fish....