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.


Upon reaching the first leg of their journey through the very same woods, the shinigami group had realized something they thought they had never truly forgotten. The woods were full of demons. Hollows attacked in groups at every peaceful clearing, under every suspiciously clear sky between the storming clouds of rain. They sprang from every cave, every deep pool of water, from behind every thick tree and from the oddest heights of the trees, completely unnoticed until their first attack and encroaching of spiritual pressure gave them away.

Just as quickly as they appeared to fight the powerful Shin and company, however, they were dispatched just as fast and either retreated to nurse their wounds or fell into silent darkness before the shinigami blades. One thing had changed, however, and that was their endurance. In a combined effort the shinigami had only totaled up to a few bodies over their questing trek. Out of all the ambushes, attacks and random encounters, only a few Hollows were dead and the four were exhausted. After clearing out a suitable resting place, Shin and his group sat around a dim, sudden fire and waited for the stern shinigami's next word. Shin leaned over himself with his sword scabbard resting in a lazy grip across his chest and shoulder.

"They're getting a lot smarter" Shin declared suddenly. "They've figured out how to fight us evenly. They aren't trying to actively kill us out there. They just want us to try. They're gathering information, scouting our capabilities, measuring our power and our style when we fight, and above that they're tiring us out and giving us nowhere to rest for too long."

"You saying these stupid things" Hoji blurted "are actually smart!?"

"Well" Shin said "they can talk, can't they?"

"Tch" Hoji scoffed, cupping his chin to think with an angered brow. "Good point."

"You can't say you don't have enemies" Suichi said. "Remember El Diablo?" The air suddenly became heavy. Shin and Hoji's greatest loss at the hands of so embarassing a foe still sat unwell in the pits of their stomachs. Shin turned and made a guttural groaning while Hoji clenched and shook his fists.

"That bastard Hollow" Hoji growled.

"I'll tear his body apart and throw him across all four corners of Hell next time we meet......" Shin lowed.

"Yeah" Suichi said with an awkward shifty glance. "That's...probably why you have so many enemies. Not from the Hollow himself, but from the stories that already circulate about you. Hell, the Unohana manor was even attacked in our absence because the Hollow's thought you were there!"

"No" Shin said. "According to Rei, it was because they knew I was gone, but your point remains valid nonetheless. Hollows have at least an equal sentient grip on society and the ways of things in this world as most shinigami do. How far the breadth of their knowledge truly goes as beasts from another world is beyond me, but I do know that rumors, regardless of the method, can spread rapidly. Like a plague. I don't at all doubt that Hollows in....Hollow-world know about me and actively hunt me down based on whatever stories they hear from other Hollows..." Shin rose his head up and scratched his chin. "Actually, that's the only way to explain what's happening right now, isn't it?"

"Hollow's have funny faces" Jin said.

"Yeah" Hoji said with a combative vigor. "And you like ripping them off, don'cha!?" Jin grinned childishly and nodded while Hoji gave him an appreciative sneer.

"Sometimes" Jin said, sitting up, engrossed by conversation, "when I rip off their heads, and when I look in their mouths, I can see another face! It's like they have two face! You know, more than one!" His overdramatic emphasis carried over to silence as all three men glared at him to shut up. He put up two fingers and pointed at his face. Shin sighed and turned to the forest beside him. The fire crackled with odd fanning strength. Shin and Hoji stood up and gripped their swords, ready to draw. Suichi did the same and stood on his toes in a knee-bend crouch on his stump. Jin just looked around. He didn't feel the pressure coming at them.

"One" Shin said. Hoji stepped forward. "It isn't attacking, even though it's in range."

"Tch!" Hoji scoffed. He began slowly drawing his sword out, the sound of metal against the scabbard whispering into the air. "He's probably on patrol to look for us on the main path!"

"No" Shin said, releasing his grip from the hilt and stopping Hoji's draw with a stern palm. "He's close enough to attack, just not powerful enough to make a difference....he knows we're here. He's looking for us..."

"Quite right" the Hollow called from the other side of the trees. Out from the dark border of the forest, accompanied by an ominously deep, hollow, distant roll of thunder was the Hollow. He stood no taller than Shin with double-jointed knees and tripod toes to stand on. His arms were long and lanky, bent back behind him and still scraping the ground with his calloused, three-fingered knuckles. His body was not that of a Hollow which fought often. It had a pot-belly and a skinny chest. Its thin, bony neck protruded up between his rounded shoulders and supported his head which was decorated with two horns tipped with spheres at the crown of its head. Its mouth was small and its chin was narrow. It had sullen, deep-set eye holes and dim blue lights shining from within them. His voice was calm and breathy as he talked to the shinigami, keeping an utmost respect for the infamously powerful men.

"TCH!" Hoji shouted. He was set to charge when a chop to the back of his neck sent him falling to the ground. The shock of hitting cold grass woke him back up. He looked to his side immediately and saw Shin's foot and straw sandal stomped on the ground just beside his head. Shin took command and glared down the Hollow, keeping a field of pressure that crackled with a rare stream of visibility around him. It was enough pressure that Hoji was used to it, but enough also to threaten the Hollow to keep his distance.

"What are you here for?" Shin asked. The Hollow clasped its thick fingers together and wrung his hands thoughtfully.

"Well" he began, "it seems that I was sent to deliver to you a message from my master, but in the frantic worry over our inevitable encounter, said message has suddenly slipped my mind. I'm afraid I simply cannot bring myself to recall what I was to deliver unto you....."

"Shock took the memory from you" Shin said as he advanced a step. He drew his sword half from its sheathe and held the cool blade right next to his face, a skull reflection shining back out. "You think shock can bring it back?"

"I dare say!" the Hollow exclaimed, waving its hands above its head. "Anymore shock and, surly, I will faint here and now!" Shin sheathed his sword and deactivated his pressure field. He walked forward, towards the Hollow. Hoji pushed himself up and glanced back at Suichi and Jin. They were calmly observing beside the fire. Hoji crossed his arms with a 'Tch' and watched as well.

"Take your time" Shin said as he got within the Hollow's arm reach. He crossed his arms and looked the Hollow right in his eyes with his flat brow and void expression. "Unless you've got friends en route, I've got all day to wait." Shin could see the nervous way the Hollow's eyes seemed to curve within the dark impressions of its skull. Shin stared into its frightened soul and the Hollow stared back, ever frightful of the dark death that stared him down, the power that stood before him, and the shocking truth of the message he had never forgotten in the back of his mind.

If I tell him the Hollow thought, who knows what he'll do to me!!! And thus a stalemate was reached...


The Hollow, begrudgingly, joined Shin's campfire and used its pressure to ward away the patrols and scouts still seeking to ambush Shin's group as they sat in peaceful negotiations. Hoji sat on the stump next to the Hollow, keeping a careful watch on him out of the corner of his eye. Suichi sat next to Shin on a log while Jin sat on the ground, staring at the flying embers of the fire.

"So" Shin began, "what do they call you?"

"All sorts of things" the Hollow said with a sweep of his hands in the air. "Grub, runner, worthless, scum-crap, hornless-head.....pitiful mule. That's the most stinging of them all to me."

"So you're a messenger, primarily?" Shin said.

"True" the Hollow said. "I've taken a liking to the name 'Rinoire', if it makes a difference."

"It doesn't" Shin said "but if you have a preference I'll go with it. So, Rinoire, what message did you have for me? Can you remember it?"

"Ahhhh" Rinoire sighed. He placed his fingers to the temples of his narrow skull and blackened his eyes. His pressure waved out in wide ripples through the air, like a signal. Shin countered with a controlled burst to stun him out of his meditation. "Ah! I apologize for that. The Hollow's aren't using me as a beacon. In truth, only those who sent me from Hueco Mundo know my pressure. Al the other Hollows hunting in groups are blasting their pressure to keep other groups away."

"Not unlike animals" Suichi said "howling to mark the range of their territory."

"I thought animals pissed to mark their territory" Hoji said. "Hey, Rinoire, do you do that too?"

"No" Rinoire said. "We just build to mark our territory in Hueco Mundo. Out here each nest that hunts together uses different signals, waves, methods, formations; we are very much a tribal collective..."

"Neat" Shin said flatly. "Quit stalling. I know you have the message for me in your head."

"Yes" Rinoire admitted. "In truth, I was so scared of encountering you and your group that I had withheld it from you since before we met. I must have your word, as a man and shinigami of honor and integrity for the love of combat, which I cannot give, that you won't murder me upon my delivery of this message...." Rinoire waited for what seemed too long as Shin thought in a stoic silence. Jin awed at the embers as they flew from the dim fire and watched them fly over to the border of the forest. There he saw two embers that refused to fall, or move at all, staying still in the air before the forest's darkness. He reached out for them and refocused his vision, seeing two bright orange eyes peering through the darkness at him. Hoji's ears perked and he stood up, drawing out his sword and walking over to Jin.

"You two keep talking" Hoji said as he posed with his sword drawn back over his shoulder and aimed down the nails of his extended forward arm and flattened palm. "Me and Jin will take these guys down."

"We will?" Jin said as he stood up. "I guess we should, right? Hehe...." His goofy laughter trailed off into his deep breathing as his bangs fell unevenly across his forehead. He reached into his chest and took a solid grip of the metal handle of his blade hidden within his body.

"Alright" Shin called. He turned eye-to-eye with Rinoire and grinned. His fingers all wrung around the hilt of his sword in its scabbard. He gripped it with sudden tightness and the metal of the blade rattled within its own casing. "So, who wants me dead?"

"A Hollow" Rinoire began "known as El Terror." The name rung on a terrible familiar note with the shinigami. Shin felt like, just by the name, he could see this Hollow in all its powerful destructive form standing just within the shadows of his mind.

"What's he look like?" Shin asked.

"Um...." Rinoire hummed, confused over Shin's bluntness and disposition against an obvious death-threat. "He's a tremendous Hollow compared to me. As tall as your red-headed friend over there. His back is wider, though, and he is much stronger in both appearance and practice. His arms are short compared to his body, though, and only have as many digits as I do. His legs are thick as the log you're sitting on and equipped with tremendous, powerful, obsidian talons. Muscular feet, like thick tree branches..."

"One sec" Shin said, holding up a finger of intervention. "Is this thing a tree-Hollow? Is he supposed to look like or represent a tree in any way?"

"No" Rinoire answered. "If my memory of the living world serves me correct, he more resembles a giant lizard. His mask, however, is easily distinguishable. It is crowned with horns with two thick, curling horns protruding above his narrow, reptilian eyes. His teeth are as sharp as sabers and thick as my arms, just as long as well. The maw stretches from end to end of his jawbone which can distend far enough to swallow a shinigami without once touching them with his fangs. He is a terrible monster that comes every full moon to this realm to feed on the souls of all those he sees in the Blood Plains and outlying areas, but now he plans to come with a more solid purpose. You, Shin Kenpachi, have awakened his wrath after you disgraced the name of the nest which he patriarchs by dishonoring his fellow Hollow!"

"Which one?" Shin asked.

"El Diablo" Rinoire said. Shin's lower lip descended while his teeth stayed grit. His eyebrows rose as high up as they could while his eyelids stayed half-drawn over his placid, emptied eyes. He groaned out dryly in great exasperation. "You do remember him, don't you? He is one of our nest's most powerful Hollows, next to El Terror himself, due to his ability to manipulate himself and the pressure of others."

"Yeah" Shin growled. "Yeah he is, isn't he?" Shin shook his face off and resumed his calm stoicism. He leaned forward and shifted his glance to the forest borders where the sounds of Hollows made their presence obvious before their pressure. "So El Terror wants to fight me, eh? Does he know where to look?"

"I was sent primarily to find you" Rinoire said "so that I may arrange a meeting place. He's not as barbaric a Hollow as you may think. He's actually quite civil at times. He's just.....ferocious in battle and loses himself to his namesake and despicable wretchedness which made him a Hollow to begin with."

"His inner human" Shin said. Rinoire backed away. "Fair enough. I'll arrange this with him. Tell him that, in the likeliest of scenarios, I can be found at the Unohana Manor. He can ask a Hollow named Garuda where that is if he doesn't know, or just follow the sky until the blackened edge of the world. That's where I'll be waiting..."

"Garuda...?" Rinoire repeated quizzically. "I've heard that name....but any image escapes my mind. Most Hollows know the general landmarks of the shinigami realm. I can impart what knowledge you have given me and inform El Terror of your plans."

"Great" Shin said as he stood up, scythe in hand. "Now, unless you think you can survive the crossfire, I'd suggest you leave. You're here as a messenger, and I don't kill people who bring me bad news from others. I kill the others, more often than not, but never the messenger. Beat it. Get back to Hollow World and rouse up that lizard-bastard nice and good. Tell him I want a fight both of us will lose hope in winning at some point during...Tell him I'm looking to die swinging!"

".....I'll be sure to relay all that" Rinoire said. As the shinigami prepared to fight he swung his long arms and gripped at the air. Hoji sensed a disturbing tear in the winds from his honed spiritual senses and glared over his shoulder as the Hollow's long arms opened a gaping hole in reality, a yawning void that groaned as it stretched and led to foggy darkness.

"What....the...." Hoji articulated. Rinoire glanced over his shoulder, his eyes now red, and let go of the maws of the Garganta he had opened, shutting it behind him with a slam. ".....that was....odd?"

"Eyes forward, Hoji!" Shin ordered. Hoji scoffed and took his blade in its release pose.

"Rip and Tear, Torakaze!" he called, prying his hands apart and whipping the winds that were his sword around his forearms, calmly forming his shining golden gauntlets with bladed inner-finger claws.


"What are we looking at here, Shin?" Suichi asked. Shin breathed slowly. His group was circled around their campfire, their only means of living warmth at the moment, one watching each corner of the rounded forest edge with their weapon drawn and fully activated.

"These are misinformed Hollow" Shin said. "They're geared up for a full ambush, no survivors. They want us dead."

"Tch" Hoji scoffed. "Looks like they didn't get the battle plans!"

"No" Shin said, "thay're here on a different errand. They aren't after us, they're after anyone. I can even smell the dried shinigami blood on their teeth from their last attack. These are mad, hungry beasts we're dealing with." Shin stepped into his pose and pushed his blade toward the ground in a sudden swing of his arms. "Kill with insane amounts of prejudice."

"Just how I like it!" Hoji sneered.

"I'll make myself scarce" Suichi said as he flashed away. Jin had one blade out and his head was shaking on its unsteady support of a neck from the overflow of spiritual madness.

"Take it easy, Jin" Shin said. "Concentrate on controlling the actions of your blade, don't let it enforce its will on you. Just swing only when you feel like swinging."

"Riiiiiight" Jin lowed in a shaky, mad way. The first Hollow stepped out from the forest, crawling low to the ground with a long, tube-like tongue flicking in and out. It had no eyes on its smoothly ridged mask. This was more like a lizard that Shin had expected. It sought the shinigami on scent and taste in the air. Shin waited for the tongue to shoot out like a piston and stomped on it. The Hollow screeched before Shin could decapitate it.

"I declare this battle begun!" Shin shouted as he spun his scythe around his body perpetually. "Come one, come all! No soul shall escape dying today! AAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"

"Tch" Hoji scoffed. "Pompous bastard." A Hollow pounced from beyond the trees right into Hoji's bladed hand. Its mask split and bled before Hoji even applied pressure, which when he did crushed and destroyed the Hollow's mask entirely. A screaming face covered in black blood fell before Hoji and dissolved into darkness once more. "Huh. There was another face under there...." Hoji blocked the swing of a Hollow's strong arm by raising his then snaked his fingers around the Hollow's wrist and cut off its hand. He stepped forward with his palms open and made rapid jabs, carving his five-clawed prints bloodily into the Hollow's skin with every jab and hit.

"Get a life!" Hoji shouted as he kicked the Hollow in the gut. All the blood came gushing out and Hoji got out of the way, letting it pool on the ground while he stood on one leg with his arms flexed and flared out, waiting for more to come at him as his latest victim dissolved. Jin was having less luck. His attempts to control his rebelliously overbearing blade were becoming less and less effecient. His method of attack had been reduced to short chops with his blade and powerful kicks with his legs while both arms tried to steady his hand.

"Urrgh!" Jin groaned as a Hollow clawed and snapped at him with its long snout of fangs. "I can't! I can't! It's no use!"

"Keep trying!" Suichi called from high above.

"!?" Jin gasped. He looked to the sky and pushed the Hollow away with another solid kick. "Death descends from the sky now!?"

"I'm on your shoulder" Suichi said, revealing himself from under a thin silken veil. Jin looked onto his broad right side and grinned at Suichi. "Shoot! Haganerensa!" Suichi's chain snapped into the ground with a punch of his arm, piercing through the Hollow's thick mask and killing it instantly. "Reload!" The chain spun back around his arm.

"Ooooo!" Jin awed.

"I'll give you back-up for now" Suichi said. "You focus on learning to control your sword and I'll fill in where I can."

"Alright!" Jin said. Now that his fears of loss in battle had been alleviated he advanced, taking on a full flight of four Hollows at once with his powerful body and arrogant sword.

Well, that may be a stretch.... Suichi thought. Shin was faring much better comparatively. All the Hollows that came at him after the lizard were of strong, thick-armed humanoid variety. Shin's scythe spun ever around him in a tight protective guard of powerful slashes and singing metal swings. His hands moved so gracefully on the shaft, pushing and pulling and acting as pivots to keep the rotation and kinetic energy prime. The Hollows that charged stayed just out of Shin's range but were killed or sliced open painfully when Shin leaned and extended his arms for a proper swing, going straight back to the rotation and gathering of energy.

"This style" Shin explained as he killed "is the result of our combined efforts. Both I and my sword, Shikei, have trained ourselves and each other in mastering this art of 'lethal movement'. I call it Saishuu Serifu. The Last Word technique of constant weapon movement to store and constantly use the power of inertia and weight mechanics of movement to deliver incredibly over-powered attacks as I move freely in battle. It is, thus far, unbeatable. The only force that can get through is sheer power..." Shin brought his scythe blade from behind his feet, with both his arms pulling and his body leaning forward, across his body in a wide, long reaching arc upwards and cleaved a Hollow in half from groin to forehead. He stopped with a group of startled and terrified Hollows just outside of his range with his scythe pointed up and his body crouched so far forward that his hand met the ground in an animal fashion. Shin glared his cold, dark eyes across his shoulder and began spinning the scythe again. He simply swung it across his back and handed it off to his other hand as he stood up, then passed and passed the shaft from hand to hand across his body until it spun freely and constantly around his one finger.

"Any brilliant last words from you?" he asked. The Hollows became furious and roared, rushing in again. Shin grinned. He swung out his arm and his scythe followed, cutting a deep gash through a Hollow's face. He then ducked a swing from behind and swung his scythe into the Hollow's arm, his body following as the arm flew off. Shin was spinning with his scythe now, adding to its gathering power, and knelt down to end a twist of his waist. His scythe swept across the ground and with raising straightening of his legs and an erect stance upward he carved off all the Hollow's legs in a bloody mist. It splattered on the bodies of the other Hollows and the ground all around them, but Shin stood dry with a manic grin and wide, battle-crazed eyes. He rushed one of the Hollows and cut his scythe deep into its shoulder. Then he pressed his shoulder high on the shaft and kicked his legs from the ground, forcing his body's weight onto the blade and powered it into the ground. He recovered instantly, ran across the gap with his blade dragging in the ground, and whipped it straight up, again vertically slicing a Hollow in two.

Hoji got to glance at Shin's fighting for but a moment and smiled.

"Tch" Hoji said as he crushed another Hollow's face in his deadly grip. "Now that's impressive. Legitimately..." Hoji turned with a growling sneer to the Hollows that had yet challenged him. With a new absorbed sense of vigor and blood-lust he jumped from his high stance on the stump and ran across the bloody grass, staining his white socks red with each furious stomp. He punched a dent in one Hollow's mask then blocked the attack of another with his left gauntlet. He stepped in and kicked that Hollow under its ribs, kicked it again to keep it down and pressed his fingers together to form a golden hand blade. He sliced the Hollow's head off and then cut it into many shrapnel pieces. He extended his arms out, palms open, chest relaxed, and walked very casually around with a flat expression.

"Well?" he said with his open, welcoming gesture. "Who's next?" None of the Hollows wanted to be the first to answer, but they found a second later that it wasn't their answer to give as Hoji wound his body with a step across his legs and slashed five mighty blades of wind into the air that cut deep into the Hollow's in front of him. Hoji ended with his right arm swung and his hand over his left shoulder, so he turned to his right and backhanded the head off another Hollow. His area had the most painful screaming and roaring of the others. Compared to Shin's effective, bloody massacre Hoji was simply messing around. His attacks were powerful without being lethal, where Shin was being both. Suichi and Jin, on the other hand, were silently dispatching their Hollows while Jin continued to learn his own control. He made simple chops and short slashes with his blade, not afraid to step into his attacks for more power, and managed to kill several Hollows without Suichi finishing them off. Suichi was, however, still doing the brunt of the work.

"Shoot! Coil! Snare! NOOSE!" Suichi's commands came in short yet rapid bursts that demanded so much his chain would loop around multiple Hollow necks and wind back so rapidly that their necks were merely gashed rather than severed from their bodies. Upon his reload he pressed his hands together and breathed out a chilling breath.

"Bakudan: Chibi Kumokoori!" Suichi opened his palms toward a group of rushing Hollows and blasted out a ball of ice. It exploded in a powdery fog that frosted the ground and froze the moisture on the leaves in the trees into ice. The Hollows were likewise chilled and drastically slowed in their attacks. "Practice all you like" Suichi said. Jin grinned, both happily and madly, and went to work attacking.

Such arrogant power in the face of adversity. I wonder how your next battle will go... So spoke Shikei as both he and Shin stood in an empty ground, the mounds of Hollow bodies dissolving into blackness. Shin scratches his nose and shook his head to mess and style his hair. Then, with a grin and a tap to his shoulder, he replied.

"Don't go getting gloomy already" Shin said. "Even if death is the solution I still intend to keep winning and winning until I can take the sun from the sky. Even if I die, I intend to win!"

Of course you do......


Bakudan: Chibi Kumokoori; Bomb: Small Ice Cloud