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.


"Rain" said Shin, "to cleanse the field of our enemies blood..." He held up a palm cupping in it a dark mound of matter and let the rain drops wash it out in a running mess of water. He held the hand high up so the rain could get to it faster and sat against the mound of endless destruction at his back with his scythe rested across his chest and on his shoulder. His sky was overcast with cackling skulls that spat rain from high above. Shin was within his own mind, his spirit within his sword. He sat waiting for Shikei with a loose mound of rubble in his hand symbolically draining away with each sharp drop of rain that hit it. The dark rain stained the white walls and dead ground around him with sinister blackness. The long ground at the mountain base had more sword marking graves as well as white, fragile crystal growths of crystal weeds.

A single sword stood out from the rest. A broad, rust-colored paddle stuck in the ground like a tombstone. Around it, at a distance, were many swords chipped or broken and some distance behind it was a spear driven with the tip into the dirt. Shin's graveyard had grown since he last got a good look at it and his mountain had added to its already cloud-scraping summit.

The substance had drained from his hand and left it pitch black. He swept his hand from his chin and across his face, streaking his skin black and pushing his hair up. The billowing dark fires of Shikei's robe bustled up behind him and encircled him. There stood the skeletal monster with his skull face surrounded by a hood of moving shadows and a cloak draped over his shoulders leading down to his waist where more shadows had wrapped around his waist and legs imitating a shinigami style of garb. His skin was bone white and its features were fiercely human, muscular and immense, arms thicker and body taller than Shin could hope to be. He was as tall as Jin at a glance. In its thick hands with black nails and black veins just under the surface of its rice-paper skin it held weapons. Two scythes, the same length as Shin's, one in each hand.

"Yo" Shin said as he stood up. He turned and stepped up the mountainous pile around him to stare Shikei in its dark voids of eyeless holes. Shikei looked down over its skeletal face at Shin, whose face was streaked with black water that ran down his face in the cleansing rain from the sky.

"Rain" Shikei said in its booming, pronounced voice "to bleach the world of your enemies. Rain to cleanse the blood from the grass. Rain to keep life in the dying world. Do you worship rain, Shin Kenpachi?"

"No" Shin said. "I worship myself. That's the only thing I'm able to place enough faith in to believe without reason." Shin smiled. He could sense the humor in Shikei's huff. Both mighty beings descended the mountain and set foot on the ground of piled dead grass. Shin kicked around until Shikei joined him, floating down on dead air with the billow of shadows coiling around his feet. The grass dried and became dust at the touch of his bone-white feet. "So the effect hasn't been completely killed, right?" Shin said.

"That man's sword" Shikei said "attempted to invade your own soul and corrupt your spirit. I had to fight it off, and that's exactly what I did. The foremost priority I had was protecting that field of swords you've gathered."

"What's so important about it?" Shin asked.

"You will find out" Shikei said "should you ever need to find out."

"It's that bad, huh?" Shin said. "I'll believe it. In the mean time, what am I here for?" Shin walked forward and observed his world, leaving Shikei with enough time to take a stance with both scythes armed. He hissed a low and hollow hiss and forced Shin to freeze in place with his murderous intent. Shin smirked and turned around, spinning his scythe over his head and catching it with a rest against the length of his forearm, the blade pointed away from his body, gripped high on the shaft with only his right. His left arm was flexed forward neutrally, a counter-balance to his weapon's pose. He smiled.

"You can't get stronger alone" Shikei said. "Why else would I bother to help you unless it meant you were weak?"

"Is that all we boil down to?" Shin asked sarcastically. "Partners, fellow soldiers, in a maddening race towards the highest reachable limits of power?"

"No" Shikei said, pointing one of his pure black weapons Shin's way. "That is what you are for. I'm here to make sure you don't screw up and die!"

"All means with no end" Shin said. He started spinning his scythe, going from hand to hand and letting it coil from forearm to forearm in a building speed and rapidity. His Saishuu Serifu style was at work. Shikei just stood firm with the scythes tight in hand. He wielded them like swords, though they were weighted more like axes and functioned effectively as neither. His skeletal mouth opened and growled out a low and powerful howl. Shin tried the same, emitting a guttural growling. A black space grew between them where everything down to the ground died, and a deadly higanbana grew in the black dirt between them.

Shikei swung in for Shin's neck with both blades in a slicing guillotine fashion. Shin blocked, punching his shaft vertically in his hand and into the path of the blades as they swept together. They pressed their weapons together with increasing force and intensifying murderous glee. The flower wilted and the demons parted. Shin's face was streaked still with black but the pale of his face was outlined between the streaks of dark. Now the white of his skull under his flesh was shown. They looked almost exactly alike for an instant. Shikei's dark circles of eyes filled with a glaring white and steam hissed from his lowing mouth. A black ink leaked down from between his teeth and streamed to the center of his chest where it formed a circle.

Shin rushed in again, his scythe spinning, and made a powerful slash across Shikei's gut. Shikei spun away from it and attacked in succession with each blade. Shin's constant scythe motion blocked both attacks and kept him protected. Shikei stomped on the ground and broke the dry, dead tiles of rock under his feet. Shin was forced away by his sheer power and landed from the leap of retreat with his scythe circling his body. Shikei rushed in with a shout and started stabbing the scythe blades into the ground with far-wound punching stabs. Shin dodged the attacks with his scythe held in front, then suddenly stopped and jumped forward with a flying knee to Shikei's face. He stomped on the skull head with his other leg and flipped himself in the air. While upside-down, he lodged his scythe blade into the front of Shikei's left shoulder, carved into it with a slash as he fell and then jerked with his whole body to carve Shikei's entire left arm from his bleach-white body.

"We're just getting started!" Shin growled as he hopped away. Shikei emitted no sounds or signs of pain at losing his bulky arm and other scythe. He dropped his remaining weapon, picked the arm up and ate it. From out of Shin's vision the demonic spirit beast swallowed its own arm and promptly regrew it from the stubbed hole in its side. Shikei sighed.

"That's one victory for you" he said. "One. Out of the hundred you and I are about to fight, do well to remember that you've won only one fight thus far."

"You trying to make fun of me?" Shin said, still high and ecstatic from beating his own behemoth form. "I just lopped your arm off, dammit! Get serious!" Shin rushed in, his scythe high and the tip poised for Shikei's throat. Shikei thrust forward his knee to stop Shin with a stern kick in his chest. Shin ignored the pain and swung. The arc merely grazed Shikei's neck and opened Shin up to death. His arm holding the scythe from the far-wound and carried attack was far to his side. He jerked his hips and brought it back with the shaft held above his head. Shikei's blades both drove through Shin's back and out his chest. He gasped in pain and coughed out hot blood. His scythe dropped. Shikei withdrew his blades, kicked Shin away and then kicked his scythe near to his limp, twitching body.

"Now we're tied" Shikei said. "If we remain tied through all of this training I will consider abandoning you. Pick yourself up and fight. I can wait." Shikei posed himself again, his body open and scythes held by the middle of their shafts for better manipulation of trajectory. Shin rolled onto his shoulders and kicked himself up, his stomach marked with a deep black mark. He was fine, not to his surprise, and without hesitance he picked his scythe up and took a stance.

"We're going to be here for a while" Shin said. "I hope someone feeds me...."


"Is Shin alright?" Jin asked.

"He's training" Suichi said.

"He's fine" Hoji said. "I wish I had that kind of ridiculous concentration sometimes..."

"Really?" Jin asked. "Wow. He's aaaawesoooome!" Shin sitting with his legs folded and his sword held with both hands gripping the hilt before his chest, perfectly centered with his body. His face was calm and in a meditative trance. He stared into the blunt edge of his sword and it stared back. His living and fighting souls were connected, allowing him to train with the very spirit of his sword, a technique he had developed within the Unohana Manor along with Hoji and Suichi some time ago.

"I couldn't do it at first" Suichi said, marveling at Shin, who was being carried in his meditative pose on Jin's dragging robes. Though they were now covered with dust and small tears, Jin didn't mind. He was helping Death, his idol, so all worked out well. Besides, it was under Shin's orders that they lose no time in their quest for his challenger, and so his meditation was made mobile.

"Neither could I" Hoji admitted "but eventually I grew a pair of balls, became a man, learned that men don't complain all the damn time, and found out that my sword's spirit is a girl that can kick my ass with a limp damn wrist...."

"Ah, the good old lazy training days" Suichi said with a sigh. "I can't believe our venture is already close to an end."

"Tch" Hoji scoffed. "Have some damn faith in Shin! So what if this Netami's a tough guy? Shin's tougher!"

"Netami" Suichi began "is stronger than the archaic translation of 'tough' you seem to be associating him with. Have you and Shin ever fought a man who had access to Bankai?"

"I think Shin did" Hoji said. "Before I met him, that is."

"Have you ever faced a man with his Bankai unlocked?" Suichi asked. Hoji faced forward with his arms crossed, his face neutral and thoughtful.

"Nope" Hoji finally answered.

"Netami unlocked his Bankai" Suichi explained "in the shortest time anyone's ever known. He's famous in the Seireitei and his own homeland to the north. He's a genius swordsman and kido-user. His blade is so infamous that no one has ever been able to learn its name in a fight because they never survive the fight. He's killed armies alone with his Bankai. He's a monster of power, more so than Shin by a long shot." Hoji just whistled.

"So he's Shin after Shin take him down?" he said. Suichi smacked his forehead and rubbed his temples.

"You're oversimplifying things" Suichi said. "Kido-wise, how strong to you think Shin is in a fight?"

"Come to think of it" Hoji said, thinking again, "he mostly just trains his fighting and physical abilities. We haven't had any meaningful kido-sparring in a long time. Before we came to Rei's in fact!"

"My point exactly" Suichi said. "I'd be a bit more faithful in Shin if he was more balanced, but he's not as proficient as Netami is in kido. Physically, however, if it gets down to hand-to-hand combat between them, Shin's going to win. Sword on sword, Netami has the advantage. You see?"

"Yeah" Hoji said distantly. He turned to Suichi with wide, learned eyes and continued in an entirely serious voice. "Shin just has to disarm him!"

"And he'd do that why?" Suichi asked. "Shin isn't a man who fights in terms of survival statistics. He just....fights." Hoji looked back as he walked. He saw that Jin was listening intently with glimmering eyes and that Shin was still lost within his own world, a vague reflection of a mobile darkness shining in the reflective surface of his blade.

"Death is a very agreeably honorable man" Jin said. "He never even attack's a man's back, isn't that right?"

"That's true" Suichi said. "Netami just attacks without regard for honor at all. He fights to kill, sometimes for no reason at all."

"Man" Hoji said. "Shin just kills when it's somehow justifiable or when he's under attack. He's let plenty of people who lost to him live. He ain't that brutal of a man."

"I don't doubt" Suichi said "that he can become that brutal when matched with a brutal sort of personality like Netami has. It's all in his own skill. I can't tell him anything that he won't figure out on his own, and understand better than I do." Hoji nodded in agreement. Suichi turned to him ti try and search for sympathy but he just got a curious glance from Hoji in return, who was wondering why Suichi was looking at him. The curiosity wore off and the party marched in silence down the road again. Jin kept carrying Shin with the robe tied around his waist and smiled between his two traveling companions, deep in his own train of mad thoughts.

I could kill one before the other acted a dark and sinister voice thought in Jin's mind and then kill Shin to distract or shock them off their guard. Then I kill them too. I'd have to kill Suichi first, though, as he is an assassin and knows more than enough ways to kill a man instantly when provoked. Then...I.......FLowers! Jin stepped off the beaten track and leaned down to look at flowers breezing in the wind.

"JIN!" Hoji shouted. Jin picked up quickly and brought himself back to the others with Shin close behind, not that he had a choice. Jin stood tall behind them with a bright smile and distant eyes as he watched the thundering clouds roll over the horizon. The sky over them was an overcast gray with planes of soft white all blocking the sunlight. A dark and dreary day.

"How long will we be walking?" Jin asked.

"Another day this speed" Hoji said. "It all depends on how close to the town this Netami is camped out."

"Far enough" Suichi said "so that no one will notice him fighting, but not so far that he can't easily get back when he's done."

"What for?" Hoji asked.

"Post-kill celebratory slaughter" Suichi said. "He's that kind of maniac."

"Tch" Hoji scoffed. "Showoffy bastard, eh? If Shin leaves anything left, I'll have to give him a hell of a beating."

You never listen, do you? Suichi thought with beads of sweat forming. Netami's not a man to be taken lightly. He's.....he's too much for us all right now. Even if it's four against one, we'll all just drop dead...his sword, it's nearly unbeatable!!!


Netami sat on the ledge of a cliff path that ran around the high top of a hill. The lights of Xierd Leek shone out in the soft rain, clear as a dark and clear night would have them shine. He sat in the rain, his sword rested on his lap, his eyes dull and dazed into an fathomless distance. He was within his released sword, communicating with it, talking to it, training his power. Inside the encampment, a shoddy cloth that was over-worn from its constant use as a tent in their travels, hung by long poles of bamboo against the steep carve in the hill recently dug with a floor of woven reed tiles.

The other three were in their resting from their travels and hiking of the day. Horoshi sat at the edge of his shelter, where the rain fell down in gathered drops, watching Netami for signs of movement. Senshi was meditating with his sword, keeping it in its sheathe, holding it in a tight grip near the middle of the scabbard, hands close together, and eyes shut tight. Kakugari played Go by himself to the face of the rock wall and pretended that he was calmly battling nature. He won, all tiles black, and chuckled.

"Hahaha! Well played, earthen mound!" he said, patting the solid wall of wet dirt in front. "I've never misjudged the utility of our grand spectral plane of life! The reiatsu that composes all within this realm, who can say that it carries not the intellect of all its creatures as well? We are of the same earth, the same sky and air, the same vast oceans at The End of the World, who is to say that all which encompasses this place does not share in the glorious richness of our own intellect as well? Such thoughts, powerful and provocative, who could dare to venture their answers I wonder?"

"That old man?" Horoshi asked. "What's his name?"

"Yes!" Kakugari said, grinning widely. "Yes, Horoshi, yes! Once Netami has had his fill of vengeance and rampage, I shall venture forth to the mountains once again and call upon that mighty hermit for his grand, learned ways! Ah, the answers I will attain!" He stood up in his grandiose vocation and wrung his fists up to the low hanging, wet roof of his shelter. "The answers, I can feel them! The slithering silken strands of all energy, the force of life-after-life, I can feel it snaking through my hands! I can feel it! The manifest greatness that fills this void of souls!!!" Kakugari's fingers suddenly burst with blood fro mthin cuts and his orange-haired sideburns were cropped close to his jaw. As he reeled his hands down in horror the roof split and burst open above him into a rain of cloth scraps, letting a flow of water ruin his Go board and a battery of rain soak his robes. As he recovered slowly, absorbing the reiatsu through meditation and calm, controlled breathing, he turned to Netami who had swung his sword his way.

"Shame, shame" Kakugari said. Strands of hair fell from Horoshi's brown head. His face was plastered with terror and shock. Senshi remained in his controlled state. "Shame, Netami. You attack the entirely wrong man, you know. Despite my best efforts to remain calm, you continue to antagonize me without a purpose!" Kakugari stepped out into the rain and swung his arms out to his sides prophetically. "Why is that? What grudge do you hold against us, Netami, that every table meeting we hold must be about the inability for you to release your past aggressions and live your life properly!? Oh, I and many others have remained calm about it for quite a while, I can assure you, so you can understand that it is with no abhorrent singularity that I speak from. Your constant greed and pride has led to the inevitable slaughter of too many of our former members! Our organization was founded for a reason!!!"

"What?" Netami asked, turning and standing with his sword gripped in his hand. His soaking hair fell over his eyes and barely hid the killing orange light in his eyes. "To give the world something to flinch in fear over? To wreak havoc for a man that's never been there before? To destroy without aim? To win wars in the shadows? We're not about anything anymore, Kakugari. You're too old to see what the world's become."

"What?" Kakugari demanded with a snarl. Netami imitated his previous pose, his raw, defined arms held straight out to the side, his sword held down in his fist, and a wild grin peeking through the thick black curtains of his hair.

"An aimless world. A perfect world. A world for the manzenryuu to flourish in!" Kakugari drew away at the word. Netami lowered his arms and pointed his empty hand at his retreating ally. He jerked his head back and let his long hair fall over his back. "This Shin Kenpachi, no matter where we've gone, from the Seireitei to this rustic little town of impudent weaklings, is hailed and feared as a god of men who walk no path. He is the Manzenryuu. Even those before him acknowledge his wealth of power and might and pure stopping power. If he were to find all the power he's let lay latent in the world, acknowledge his place as a king among all the bandits, disheveled thieves and vagabonds who lose their lives in the forests, he could win this war alone! I'm not about to let that happen! Kings and emperors and the leaders of all the regions that outlay these let their efforts fall to a prince of thieves that works to kill when my prices are more than negotiable!!!"

"Is that what this has all been about!?" Horoshi demanded, suddenly flustered and enraged. "You wanted to find Shin and kill him because he was a threat to you....business!?" Netami turned to Horoshi and gave him the same wild murder hiding behind his shallow apathy that he gave to nearly everyone else.

"What good is genius for free?" Netami asked. "Regardless who wins this war and rules the world, I'll still be as I am, a man apart, an island in the sea, solitary and stoic, able to impart my skill to whoever best benefits me, unhindered by loyalty or the grip of a distant, invisible hand. I will always be a free man, free to act as I wish, and free to refuse to be free in a world of men desperate to kill those whom they can't!"

"Your mind is sick" Kakugari said. "You find a perverse glee in the slaughter of innocents who can raise neither a sword nor a purse of coins to stop you, yet you will only act in any manner that resembles purpose when you've been bought! What manner of man are you!?"

"And what about you?" Netami asked, pointing accusingly with his sword. He spoke low and sure. "Kakugari, why do you raise sword to the world with us?"

"Out of prestige" he said. "I was invited among the first ring of the Tenshioni and have stayed on with Kingo, Sousuke and Koumoto since this group was created! Our purpose was always firm, to be upstanding warriors without service but to protect. Police against the crimes of war committed by the desperate, crimes such as you, Netami!" Netami sighed and turned his blade to Horoshi.

"Why do you fight, Horoshi?" Netami asked. Horoshi froze up for a moment. His fists were shaking at his sides. He wrung his fingers and tried to stop them. He bit his lip and looked to the ground.

"I want" he began in hesitance "to become stronger. I know that being here makes me strong, and that people recognize my strength....but that isn't enough. I want to be strong. I want to know what that kind of strength I can achieve with powerful people! I want to see true power, then attain it, own it, perfect it! I want power, so that when I go into the world of my own accord I won't be looked at like a kid out of place. I want power! That's what I want!" He roared "I WANT POWER!!!" His pressure suddenly erupted and crushed Senshi under the feeble hut. Netami's sword was even lowered by the blast and Kakugari was hunched over as if a rock had fallen onto his back. The rain resumed shortly after and frosted Horoshi's short brown hair with dew.

"Then I'll help you get power" Netami said. "I'm eager to see what you do with it...As for you, Kakugari." Netami paced over while Kakugari was still hunched in shock and drove his knee into his chest, forcing him to the ground with pain. Then he kicked him onto his back and softly stepped on his throat. "Unless you can define a use that I'm unaware of for you, I'll kill you here and now." Kakugari was shocked silent. Horoshi was weakened and still fuming with a dim smile on his vacant face. Netami's sword drew ever higher in his flexed grip. Senshi was the only one left to stop Netami, and he was buried.

"STOOOOOPP!!!" called a boisterous voice. Senshi erupted from the rubble and cloth with an explosion of muscular power, flexing and brushing the blond tuft of hair on his head back as he walked to Netami's side. He gripped the man's forearm and bent it. Netami flash-stepped away, his arm normal again, and glared down the already glaring Senshi. "Let's all stop this trivial nonsense and talk things out. The tension here isn't unrepairable, but it is quite counter-productive to our means. We can quarrel at the next table meeting. Until then, Netami, it seems your challenger and unwitting rival shall not arrive this day. It is best to wait until tomorrow to fight, don't you agree?" Netami glared at him. He glared back. The pressure between them cracked the ground. Netami yielded and swung his sword to his shoulder.

"Very well" Senshi said. "There's a small grove of trees down this road and up the hill. I suggest, if we want to stay well for tomorrow, we go there and form some shelter once more." Netami was already walking. Horoshi caught up to him and walked three paces behind respectfully. Senshi helped Kakugari up with a groan from both of them and they glared down the road at the mad, black-haired man.

"That fiend" Kakugari lowed.

"Relax, friend" Senshi said. "We only need to tolerate him for so much longer, a day at the most." Kakugari rubbed his neck and shook his head.

"We should have killed him long ago" Kakugari said.

"The past is past" Senshi said. "What can we do that death won't do for us in due time?" And so the group headed onward, down the path, to lay in wait yet again for death to come walking over the hills....