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.
In the orphanage wing the kids were all playing and talking and playfully running around the floor inside. The outside was still too dangerous for them to wander out into right now. Who knows what Hollows may be still stalking the forest border, waiting for an easy meal to fill their guts and increase their power? The kids were upset over being held in on such a nice day, but they didn't complain. They just played, like kids do, the way Rei wanted them to. No force or power or anger at all, just joy and happiness. A circle of twelve were kicking around a leather-bound ball in their sleeping hall when a man entered the room, initially ignored.
"Get it!" the long-legged girl called as she kicked it clear across the room. A young boy stepped back to get it but he missed and it bounced right between his legs. He froze and let out a relieved sigh as the ball rolled behind him. Then, in his relief, he grabbed between his legs and grinned.
"Thank God!" he exclaimed. "That could have been bad!" The children were laughing as he got the ball back. The girl who kicked it scoffed and waited impatiently. The boy picked the ball up and kicked it off to the side. Another boy intercepted it and kicked it across the room. A girl kicked it gingerly and it rolled across the circle where another boy punted it. Across the circle the previous girl flinched away from it while another boy made a daring head-height interception and kicked it again to the long-legged girl.
"It's mine!" she shouted. She jumped up and kicked it into the ceiling. It bounced down and was on course to slam into another smaller girl's face. "Ah! Watch out!" she called. The girl flinched and ducked down, quivering under a long shadow. The rest of the room moved away in a sudden panic. All of them but the long-legged girl, who was in a dreadful shock. He mouth was shaking in fear as she tried to form words to express what she felt, trying to push past the lump in her throat.
"Caught it!" Jin announced. He held the ball over his head, just under the ceiling above, and grinned as he balanced it perfectly atop his blood-red woolen hair. The kids were initially shocked, and afraid, but at his innocent expression and perplexingly humorous stature, they eventually warmed up enough to approach him. Jishida, a young boy with his head shaven and his eyes beady, grabbed Jin's pants and tugged at them. Jin lowered himself and came face-to-long-and-narrow-face with the boy, smiling until he smiled, then smiling wider.
"Mister!" Jishida said with a grin. "Mister, are you a shinigami like Mr. Shin is?"
"You mean Death?" Jin asked. Jishida shrugged. "Yeah, I'm Death too!"
"Ooooooo!" the kids awed in admiration. The long-legged girl had fallen down. Her legs rested flat on the floor and her arms braced her body from tipping full forward. "Wow! That's amazing!" a boy called.
"Have you fought lots of Hollows?" a girl asked.
"Mister! Where's your sword?" a boy eagerly asked.
"He must kill them with his bare hands!" another pointed out, stirring up more awe. Jin just bashfully grinned and laughed with them, a giant to them all. The girl still sat in the corner, doubled over with a sickness of fear. Jin noticed her and flattened his smile without losing the observant wideness of his eyes. He got up and paced the four steps across the entire room to her. She looked up, started silently and moved her arms behind her to keep from falling back. Jin grinned down at her sympathetically.
"It's kinda scary in here sometimes" Jin said. "I remember there was an opening in the wall I used to use when I got really scared. Sometimes taking a walk outside alone calmed me down. I wonder how long it's been though...." Jin walked over to the wall where he had appeared the night of the Hollow invasion and placed a steady hand upon it. He tapped the wall with gentle pats, shaking the loose boards of wood next to the window. His face lit up and he crouched down, further and further until he was on his hands and knees, then his chest and toes with his chin just above the floor. He smiled and slid a board out of place on the wall, then slid the entire wall back like he was opening a door.
"There it is!" Jin said.
"He broke the wall!" Jishida exclaimed. "Wow! He's super strong! Even stronger than Hoji is!"
"Hoji?" Jin asked. He rolled onto his back and leaned his chin onto his chest to look up. "The bald one?"
He said it the kids thought, having heard the rumors of what the words would provoke in the shinigami. He's brave! His admiration only increased.
"Hey!" the long-legged girl shouted, stomping her powerful foot to the floor. "I hope you're planning on fixing that wall, you jerk shinigami!"
"Ashina" Jishida said with worry, "don't be so mean. He's not a bad guy, right?" Jin rolled his body back, placed his palms flat beside his head, poised his legs high up in the air, then gently rolled onto his feet with a forward lean.
"I remember that wall" Jin said in a blank daze "being like that all the time. It was like that when I was a kid, you know."
"What?" Ashina scoffed. "No you weren't! You're a shinigami! Why would you ever be here?"
"I used to be a kid" Jin said. He moved his hand to her forehead, freezing her with a deathly worry. "I was about that tall. A little shorter than you, actually. I wanted to take a walk but the guards wouldn't let me out, on account of Hollows in the area...but I didn't care. I knew what they said about me. That I was a monster. That I was a freak too strong to handle. If they couldn't handle me, all those tater-robed minions of death's hand, then what good could a Hollow do? I was safe with myself. He even agreed. So I loosened the boards and slid them out every night I needed a walk and no Hollows ever bothered me. Because they knew." Ashina was shaking. Jin was so close his rice-scented breath was bearing down on her and forcing its way into her lungs. His eyes had gone white and wide and his lips parted like the slit of a fish mouth as it filters through the water.
"Knew what?" Jishida asked. Jin turned around with a happy smile and shrugged his shoulders.
"That I was too strong" he said. "Hollows scare just like anything else, it's just harder to get them scared!"
"Well how do you scare them?" A boy asked.
Blackness.
A sudden wave of pressure came into the room, rolling across the floor like a wave of pure dark energy. With it came the retreat of the floor's slight dust, accumulating at the far wall and splashing up against it and outside. Jin looked over with a wide-eyed expression. All the kids were shocked still. In the doorway stood three men, all next to each other in a small line, blocking the whole door to the wing dorm. On the right was Suichi, leaning against the wooden frame. On the left Hoji, standing with his fists on his hips. Both of them smile, keeping their moods jovial and carefree in face of the children.
Shin wasn't. He simply stood, the most pale-inducing apathetic glare across his features, and gazed at Jin.
"Jin" he began, a voice as cold and hard as steel, "come with us for a sec. We need to talk." The sudden wave was directed solely at Jin, who ignored and smiled at the death-pressure.
"Okay" Jin said. He was up with a bound which tipped his head against the ceiling, startling him a bit, and strolled over to Shin and his crew. Together they marched out and closed the door gently behind them, letting a cold afternoon breeze sweep into the room and knock some poor, feint kids over.
Shin and company escorted Jin to the front gate. There they stopped, and with a sigh, Shin began.
"...wait" he said, "where's Hoji?" Suichi darted his head around, searching for the furious shinigami, then rolled his head on his neck in frustration.
"He got lost" Suichi said in a dull expectancy. He turned and ran back inside to search. A cool breeze drifted past Shin and Jin, who now stood opposite each other in the courtyard of the front gate. Jin was smiling and slouching forward, carefree and happy. Shin had his arms crossed and was coldly pondering to himself the words that would allow him to manipulate fate most efficiently.
"Nice day, huh?" Jin said, awing at the sky.
"Jin" Shin began. Jin lowered his head and stared intently at Shin, ready to absorb his every word. "You may not want to hear this, but I'm not the kind of guy who considers other people's feelings when I talk. Rei wants me to cancel out your swords somehow and nullify their hold on you. She says your swords make you aggressive and, well, crazy. After a failed attempt to force you to learn to control them by sealing them inside your body, which was apparently another experiment that amplified your natural Earth aura to the point where your body imitated Earth physically, she gave up hope of you becoming a non-hostile little boy for her to dote on."
"....Rei did that?" Jin asked. He pressed his hand to his chest and passed it through into his body to touch the end of his butchery blade. He felt the twinge of violence hit him, just the residual feeling of aggression and anger that he felt when he prepared to grip the blade whole and let flow the rage and innocent malice through his veins. He drew his hand out and looked it over. The tips of his fingers were becoming red in expectation.
"Seems she did" Shin said. He drew his sword and brought a great wave of worry to Jin's face. The scabbard clattered to the ground and Shin held his sword, blunt side inward, pointing at Jin. "My sword has the ability of Death. It can cancel and end anything, including the effects of kido and even the release of swords. Since your swords are constantly in release state, hitting them with the blunt side of my sword would revert them back into their regular form...." Jin slowly descended onto his knees and placed his palms on the ground. He was near prostration but kept his head up and his hands very tense, balancing most of his eight through his arms. Shin spun his sword around and stabbed it into the ground at his feet. Jin looked up in confusion as Shin crossed his arms once more.
"Here's the deal" Shin said. "I'm looking for fights no matter where I go. If I can fight Rei one-on-one I'm going for it because even if I don't win it'll be the greatest fight I'll get to be in. I'm constantly on the search for fights like that. I live to die, that's the entire creed of my existence. That's why I train. That's why I'm strong. It's the sole purpose of my sword to cut down the weak, and the only reason of my body to fall to the stronger. I'm willing, and ready, to fall to anyone who can outdo me in every way possible. Therefore, in my travels, there's a sufficient chance that all with me will die. That being said, will you still follow me?"
"Sure" Jin said. "Can I get up now?"
"I wouldn't" Shin said. Jin lowered his head and his back, going low to the ground in a pounce-ready crouch. "Rei wants you to be safe. She still seems to think that you're a weak, undefendable, impressionable little kid. What do you think of that?"
"I understand her" Jin said, his tone entirely changing, "however, I know that I'm strong, and that's all that matters." Shin stared deep into the abyss of Jin's eyes. He saw many things, many swirling patterns and colors and emotions swimming around. He could also see the tension in his stance. He was like an animal on the defense, ready to counter, not directly attack. Shin kept himself static, not moving towards his sword as he wanted to do, and considered whatever alternatives he may have to act upon. Jin pushed himself up and stood straight, smiling down at Shin with a shade over his gently curved brow.
"It's alright" Jin said, tilting his head. "If I'm following after Death, I can't expect to live forever, right? Even if someone dies, it's alright. I'll be fine with it. I mean, even if I die, Death wouldn't stop and weep for me. He'd just carry on and fight harder and harder! So that's what I'll have to do, isn't it?"
"And you can handle that?" Shin asked, gripping his sword again. Jin nodded excitedly. Shin grinned and retrieved his sword from the ground. He picked up the scabbard and sheathed it back against his hip. "Well, that's your choice. You're going to have to stick with it. I'll help you learn control if you can make me stronger. Let's bleach the world with our enemies blood, Jin Ishin." Jin grinned wide and brightly.
"YAY!!" he cheered, throwing his arms up with a little jump. Shin smirked and turned for the gate. Mystery surrounded him as he kicked open the wide, thick wooden barricade, leading out to the wide path that led through the forest. Jin followed promptly after. Suichi and Hoji arrived a bit too late and ran to catch up.
"Where we going now?" Hoji asked as he ran.
"Somewhere horrible" Suichi said with a grim, tired look. "Just like always."
"TCH!" Hoji scoffed with a wide, excited smile. He smacked Suichi on the back, nearly throwing away his balance and laughed. "That's the spirit, man! Think positive! Who knows what great fights are out there? The beasts to kill? The bastards to cut down? Tch, I'm already excited!"
"Don't get too excited now" Suichi said. "We didn't bring any food..." As the four left the manor behind them once more they were observed intently from the window above the main entrance. In that window, watching intently and judging silently, was Rei. Behind her, standing guard, was Telly.
"Shin has left" Rei said. "Prepare an emergency warning for the on-duty guards. Lock down all the dormitories at once......"
"Yes my lady" Telly said with a bow. Rei sighed and turned away from the window.
Has he done this intentionally she thought just to strike against my trust? I placed my faith in him. Is this his way of turning it down?
"My Lady" Telly said, seeing her obvious worry. "Is something the matter?"
".....No" she said, determined to keep the matter private. "Seeing Ishin after so long, only to see him depart so readily for the battlefield again. It is upsetting. You would understand if you knew the child...."
"He's a child?" Telly said in surprise.
"No older than Shin, I suppose" Rei admitted, "but I have known him for a very long time. My mother knew his family, when she was alive. To see any of those who I have taken into my care be forced out into the world like that, only to die and kill...."
"Excuse me, my lady," Telly began, "but I don't think Ishin was forced just now. I read Shin's lips from the window before you arrived to see them leave. He said that it was 'his choice', so in the end, I can only assume that Shin gave him the choice between either option." Rei was frozen. She had never taken the consideration of such a possibility, but now she understood. Just as quickly as she had been fallen with depression, she recovered with a graceful smile. "Milady?" Telly asked. "Should I go to give the orders?"
"Yes" Rei said. Telly bowed and flash-stepped away, her pace urgent. Rei walked calmly through the halls, taking graceful, slow steps, in high spirits. She rose her head to the rafters and saw through time to her past, to the smiling child that Jin had once been and the fields of grass where she had seen him play. A tear streaked her face.
"I suppose" Rei said "I am my mother's daughter...." She brought her sleeve up and wiped the tear from her face to balance on the black of her robe. "I simply can't let go of something I love...."
"Uhhhhhhh" Shin groaned. The first obstacle had been reached in his senseless, aimless new journey: a fork in the road. Two paths diverged, one leading right into the forest and the other left into the forest. The only real choice was the forest, but the indecision of which foot-trodden meander of dirt to take had left the company at an utter stall. Suichi stood atop a tree and looked longingly back at the barely visible manor that hid behind the foothill. He scanned the distance and saw the scar of a healing crater high in the hill that had been made the in the nights previous.
"That was a good one" Suichi said. "Who knew we had that kind of power with us all along?"
"Tch" Hoji scoffed impatiently. "Come on, Shin. What's the hold up? We've done this before, remember?"
"Yeah" Shin agreed. "Still, somehow, my brain seems frozen. I can't decide which way is the quickest to get somewhere that I don't know."
"Maybe we should walk through the forest in between" Jin said.
"We're bound to run into another road eventually that way" Shin argued. He crossed his arms and dipped his head in intense thought. "What to do...." Suichi landed beside him with a pound.
"I've got an idea" Suichi said. "Release your sword."
"Okay" Shin said. He drew his sword and held it, right hand high on the blade and left on the grip. "Reaping time, Shikei!" His sword erupted in a black fury of light that spiraled and twisted upward and formed a thick, black scythe blade. His weapon was revealed and transformed in the awing presence of young, innocent Jin.
"Amazing!" Jin said. "That weapon suits Death the most!"
"Meh" Shin said. "It's harder to fight with than you think." Shin leaned away and measured up his weapon, taking it in with new perspective as a weapon of death, a reaper of souls. He could see the bony hands of its inner spirit coming out of thin air from behind the shaft and the flaming, moving cloak of darkness the beastly skeleton wore. Just as he moved his eyes up to stare into the dark holes of his bone-white inner spirit, the entire thing disappeared and the air was still and void once more.
"Now set it straight up" Suichi said "and spin it in place. Whichever way it falls, that's the way we'll take." Shin grabbed the shaft with both hands in the same place and torqued his shoulders up to spin the weapon with a jerk.
"I like that idea" Shin said murderously. He grunted and let loose his force, powering the weapon to spin in place until a twister of dust kicked up under it. A second into the spin the shaft began to waver to the weight of the blade, but it corrected itself and kept spinning, moving towards Shin who backed straight away. The scythe stopped and stood perfectly straight up in the air. Time passed. Uneventful moments of watching the static blade that seemed stuck in the ground went on. Jin got bored and drew lines in the dirt. Hoji scratched his forehead on his red X and scoffed.
"Tch" he began. "I think it's messing with you, Shin." Shin had an angry, pulsing vein on his forehead just above his temple.
Son of a bitch he thought. Finally a fated wind blew. Shin spun around too quickly and couldn't judge its direction, but he knew its feeling! It was a divine wind of fate, guiding him to the strong, to the elite, to the fighting! The scythe fell down, towards Shin, pointing through the short of woods that led back to the manor. Shin and company stood still as the wind continued to blow silently. Shin's face was clouded with a shade of grim, twisting rage. Shin stomped on Shikei's blade.
"Are you screwing with me!?" he demanded as he ground his heel into the metal.
"Don't overreact or anything" Suichi said.
"Pardon!" a voice called. Suichi turned to see the man of bandages, the assassin-styled scout of the Unohana Manor, perched on a tree branch with a scroll in his hands. Shin turned to him with his rage still spilling over and picked up his scythe.
"What's up, guy?" Shin asked. The man hopped down to the ground in a bow and rose up to toss the scroll Suichi's way. Suichi caught it and unfolded it with a flick of his wrist, catching the unfurling paper in his other hand.
"Sorry to impede your journey so early" he said graciously, "but we've just been informed of a situation that may interest you sirs very much."
"How so?" Shin asked.
"Not that we had much a journey to impede...." Hoji said aside. Shin jabbed him with his scythe shaft.
"It seems" the man continued "a group of men from the Seireitei territory are inquiring as to your presence in the outlying areas. They seem to be on a sort of man-hunt, as the witnesses who brought this to my attention described, and the leader was very particular in nervously handling his sword in its sheathe when he spoke of you. Traits, I'd imagine, to be lent to a hunter rather than an admirer."
"My admirers are mostly hunters, it seems" Shin said. Moved behind Suichi, sending a slight chill through his spine, and read the scroll over his shoulder. It read of the detailed report taken from the speech of a villager in Xierd Leek, the nearest major settlement, who described the four men traveling together searching for Shin. One was young with rusty brown hair and followed closely after the leader of the group, who was menacing with long, straight black hair and orange eyes. Two others seemed to follow in their own smaller group. One was large with dark skin and red hair who spoke in a very proper manner. The other was very muscular with a blond mustache and was very loud and verbose about himself. A vain man, he was plainly described as.
"Huh" Shin grunted.
"Seems like a dangerous group, eh?" Suichi said. Shin took the scroll, rolled it up and tossed it back to the messenger.
"No names?" Shin asked.
"One was mentioned" the man replied "but to whom it refers is a bit of a mystery right now."
"What was it?" Suichi asked.
"Netami" he said. Suichi's throat closed up in an instant and he found himself teetering on a precipice of unconsciousness. He was about to faint, but the presence of Shin kept him awake. The constant, demanding pressure of Shin's deathly aura kept him alert, as alert as he ever was when his life was at the risk and mercy of any pursuers who caught him in his deadly acts of assassination. That same pressure seemed to spike upon hearing that name and the trees quivered, shedding leaves in fear. Jin caught all the leaves he could before they hit the ground and placed them carefully in the boughs of the trees that he could reach. Hoji was just confused.
"Well, well" Shin began. He swept his scythe across the ground and rested it gently on his shoulder. No dust kicked up. It was all too heavy from his extreme pressure to move anymore. "Suichi, looks like your reunion is a lot closer than you thought it might have been! Where are they now?"
"Not sure" he said. "All that I know is they were last seen in Xierd Leek, approximately two days ago. No one was able to give any information as to where you had gone, however, so it is possible that they are still wandering about, looking for you, assuming that you would be close by."
"Or" Suichi said, now lifted from the extreme nervousness that had paralyzed him, "they know where we are, and they're on their way here as we speak. In which case, the best course of action to meet them would be to go on the road to Xierd Leek again."
"Not sure what to say here" Hoji said. "I guess, if it's up to me, we should go meet them head on and see what we can do for them. They came all this way, it's be rude just to leave them hanging, right Shin?" Shin was smiling. A frightful darkness came overhead. The rainy clouds were moving in from the distant horizon, rolling across the sky and threatening all below with their dark shadows. The ground beneath Shin became dark with their shade as the sun was blocked from view, but even then Shin's shadow seemed to stand out as a separate, all-black entity with a bustling cloak of flames in the dirt. In the darkness, Shin's eyes shone brightly, as did his anxious smile. He swung his scythe and pointed it down the road that had once been taken to Xierd Leek and sheathed the weapon once more.
"Let's go" Shin said. "Death can't wait forever..."
"Ideally" Suichi moaned "I think it can." He began to sulk off after Shin, with Hoji towing Jin by his thick arm coming soon after, but he stopped for a moment and turned to the bandaged man who still stood in the middle of the road. "Just who are you? I know you work with Lady Unohana, but I never got you name."
"Ah, that" he said. "Let's never mind that for now, Suichi. I'll tell you who I am when it's more proper for you to understand..."
"I see" Suichi said.
"And then later" he continued "you can tell me your real name as well."
"That may never happen" Suichi said with a shake of his head. Then he was off, a flash step to down the road until he was caught up with Shin and company. Death stalked down the forest path and into the darkness of the trees, after another unknown soul.
But is death ready to accept such a soul this early?
Out in the wilderness, for the umpteenth night after countless days and weeks of pursuit, after so many sleepless days of harnessing contempt and destructive will, Netami and his company were finally upon the final leg of their journey. The end was in sight. Death darkened the skies, doom surrounded the clouds, a lining of pure oblivion bordered all the land. Netami could feel the pressure blooming in the distance. Horoshi softly wiped his blade with a swab of fluffed cotton. Kakugari laid back against his hands and listened to the grass grow around him. Senshi stood with his chest flexed and his arms tight against his hips.
"It is getting dark" Senshi said. "Perhaps finding some shelter would be a good idea."
"Indeed" Kakugari bellowed out. "Would it not behoove us to place a shield above our heads? Cold is the last thing we'll want to slow us down once we meet this nefarious lout Kenpachi."
"There's bound to be caves in the hills" Horoshi said. "Netami, what do you say?" Netami didn't speak. He just sat, on a rock, looking over the rolling distance of hills and plains and the distant forests, the glowing lights of Xierd Leek far behind him. His eyes shone out a murderous red glow from beneath the black silk curtain of his hair. A rain drop fell and landed right beside him. He glared at it and looked up. The rain began softly but picked up harshly and beat down on the grass and rocks of the plains. Netami just sat and let the rain cut away from him, his presence so utterly powerful that only the droplets produced from the raindrops that exploded over him would fall and wet his hair with glistening beads of water.
"Netami!" Horoshi called. Netami turned and saw Horoshi running for him with an umbrella fashioned out of bamboo and a thick patching of leaves. "You're still out here? We've found a cave and built a fire! Kakugari and Senshi will eat all the food if we don't hurry back!"
"So hurry" Netami said. He turned back and remained silent. Horoshi sighed and stepped back, watching Netami for a signal of remorse in his decision, any sign that his mind would soon change and he would follow, but nothing occurred and he continued to sit silent and stoic, perfectly patient and anticipatory of the immense power coming his way. "It's been too long since I felt this....the strength, the drive. Pure power. Pure killing intent. It's truly been a long time since I had a fair fight...." Netami smiled. His eyes shone black and orange. The sky over him turned a dark black. The pressure of a genius shinigami, a prodigy killer, the highest angel of the Tenshioni, obliterated the rain and surrounded him in the cool swirling mist that the shattered droplets produced.
A man who knows not of Death. Death itself. They will meet and the skies will tremble. The skies will fall! In this, the Golden Age of shinigami power, such meetings can guide the paths of war and reshape the world of the Feudal Era of the Spirit Realm. This time there will be no territories or distant respects at stake. Two men will meet, their swords will clash, their blood will spill, and a victor will walk away. The loser will not. Such a meeting will guide the hands of the few, strongest men, but the cost of life may be too great for the victor to bear....The powers continue moving forward, unafraid of the end of their roads, seeing nothing but the infinite sky overhead. They reach for the sun to blot it out! The darkest warriors shall meet!
A destined fight is coming!!!
