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.


At the peak of the evening horizon, and in all 10 directions, and on all fronts the land was calm. The world of spirits, the wide and infinite afterlife, extended on forever from the Unohana, which seemed to be a focal point for all that world to start at for its many inhabitants. The wounded soldiers who still laid and recovered from past wounds, the orphaned children raised against the tragedies of war and to hone their gifts of power positively when they emerged, and all those who believed in the efforts the estate made saw this place as their unequivocal home, the only place in any war that truly mattered to them at all.

At it's epicenter was the womanly, gentle, caring, gracious, all-around sublime Rei Unohana, the Lady of the House of Unohana, a philanthropist across even the broadest spectrum separating shinigami from Hollows. The only being in the world who sought to understand the monsters rather than outright participate in their apparent genocide, Rei Unohana was renowned lands over as the foremost authority on the demons to anyone willing to listen to her. The fanatics and states built around their slaughter were opposed to her and those who supported her, and called many a thing by the regal authorities and sentenced to death for the conspiracies against a free agent of the Empire or State or Land in general...

And yet, over this pristine place with its pristine leader, the epitome of a polite and well-versed woman of high-status, there hung a cloud of darkness that never left. The powers that recently gathered left a lasting and powerful impression upon not just the manor but all of its land. Their names were known across many lands, at least one of them, and signals were sent out from word of mouth, passed through forests by rumor and legend, that an infamous man held quarter at the house of Unohana. Thus, the land became soon infested with wandering bandits in search of the regal abode to seek their immediate gratification of fortune in slaying the man, a famous shinigami with the renown of a bandit king. The specter of grim death, Shin Kenpachi, had a bounty on his head and an enormous weight to his name, and most everyone who lived willingly by the will of their steel sword knew it. Even Rei knew it, and still never denied that Shin did in fact lodge there.

However, he had not yet returned. That one day he left with Jin and hadn't come back in nearly a week. Becoming concerned as the caring woman she was, Rei called upon a one-man guard to go out and search the nearby forests for signs of them. Then left the man cloaked in wrappings, long and winding bands and bandages to hide all his true form layered underneath a short-sleeved shinigami's garb. He had barely left when he returned an hour later, guiding a tired and red-eyed Jin who carried on his back all three of his comrades. Being the only one still awake and able to talk, Jin was taken in immediately and healed personally by Rei. The other three were tended to by all of the staff of nurses and waiting girls and guarded by Natsumo and her small but strong company of warriors, including Katana Netami as well.

"These guys are inhuman, eh?" Katana said. "Are we sure they're even really shinigami? And not just....gods?"

"That's absurd" Natsumo said to chide him. "These are men who take up foolish lives. An assassin, an animal and a wayless fighter. There's nothing good about them....and yet, they manage to survive well enough to fight again, time after time and battle upon battle. Their scars compile rapidly and their bodies always seem to come back from the imbalanced brink of being totally broken....yet somehow...."

"They're a lot stronger than any of us" Katana said. "I mean, that's obvious just looking at them. Still, it's hard to believe they aren't already dead yet."

"...." Natsumo stared down at them, particularly at Hoji, who looked the better out of all of them but was still fast in a comatose of self-recovery. Suichi had a peaceful expression on his face to at least cover the wear and the terrible wounds that had to be healed. Shin, however, looked dead. There was no color to him but black and white after they cleaned his wounds, and he had amassed many more scars than he had left with. Who did these men fight exactly? Natsumo wondered.

Back in a more tranquil area, in a room hidden off from the rest of the major estate that extended from Rei's personal manor, the graceful woman cleansed and healed Jin's much-damaged body by having him soak in a purification spring while she combined her aural healing properties with the water itself. Jin's body started to regenerate on its own, using the pure reiatsu of the water around him as his regrown skin and muscle.

"What happened, Jin?" Rei asked.

"We all fought different enemies" Jin explained, sounding innocent and somewhat bragging, "and in the end, Shin won! Cause he's amazing!"

"Is that so?" Rei said, responding to his obvious childish virtuoso to keep him comfortable. "Did you win your fight?"

"No" Jin said. "I tried really hard but.....well, after I took both my swords out, I don't remember everything that happened. I was fighting a man who could clone himself, so there were always two of him, and in the end he left and I was missing a lot of skin. But you know, I remembered something from a long time ago that you told me! About my body!" Rei's eyes went wide in shock. "You said my body was made out of 'pure and innocent creation' or earth, so I took a bunch of earth from the ground and patched myself up with it so I wouldn't be all hurt and in so much pain when I came back. Pretty smart of me, huh?" Despite him saying that, and Rei's best efforts, when he rose his arm out of the water to poke at his skull, his arm was missing large patches of skin that were barely grown over with a thin and transparent membrane of flesh. His body was still in such disrepair that Rei couldn't believe he was still alive.

"You poor boy" she said, unable to hold back her emotions. She took him by her arms around his neck and hugged him from behind. Jin leaned back a bit and went into the embrace, not knowing how to respond. "You've chosen such a dangerous life...I wish you hadn't. I wish you were still that boy, that clumsy and aloof young man with such an honest and humble heart....I wish I could have helped you better back then...."

"Rei" Jin said, startling her yet again by remembering her name. "Miss Rei, when did you ever fail at helping me?" Jin turned around in place and faced Rei, whose eyes were brimming with tears, and he smiled a wide and childish smile at her. "Miss Rei, you always do the right thing! You're a great person!" Rei slowly held her hand up next to her mouth, then had to bite her lip to keep from crying. She touched her forehead to Jin's shoulder and silently started sobbing into him while he looked at her, happy and clueless. "I just don't know of a time when you haven't helped me, Miss Rei!"

No Rei thought, unable to talk. Jin...it's a lie. I swear I tried my best, but I.....everything I tried ultimately failed you, and now look what I've done! She leaned back and saw that the part of his body she had leaned against was one without skin, and the terrible sight of his bare muscle and the white of his jutting collar bone proved too much for her to handle. She stood up and turned around so that Jin wouldn't see the tears streaming from her eyes, then spoke very calmly and in as composed a manner as she could.

"Please stay in the bath until your skin has been fully healed. It will take some time, so I will have food brought to you, and feel free to sleep if you get tired....just don' sleep with your head below the water."

"Okay!" Jin said. "Miss Rei, will you come back later?" Rei started walking away, leaving Jin leaning with his arms out of the water and cradling his head against the hard ground, but before she left she did turn and nod with a pleasant and maidenly smile. Jin smiled back, turned and slid down deep into the water. Rei left the cave with a grim expression, one of great depression and anxiety, and at once she fell to her knees in an open hallway. Two waiting women rushed to her aid and caught her before she fell.

"Lady Unohana, are you alright?" one of the girls asked.

"I'm fine...." she answered. "Please, help me to my room, if you could. I am feeling slightly lightheaded at the moment."

"Of course, my Lady" the girl said. The two took Rei up in a two-person maiden carry and sped her to her room while Rei was swept in her own sorrow and held her hands up to her face to hide the shame of her tears and biting lip.

Oh why!? She thought with a shout of her mind's voice. Why must it have been!? Why him, and why me? Why must I have failed him!?.... Her thoughts all culminated in a powerful guilt, and her mind trailed back to some day years ago, when she was younger and a more inquisitive mind about other things...back when things were right in the world she ventured to make better.....


In the past of a century or so, young and vibrantly maidenly Rei Unohana was tasked with tending the estate that her mother left to her in her death. Already a prodigy healer and adept at wielding her brilliantly strong sword, young Rei Unohana quickly rose to a seat of influence over the neighboring lands and gained a peaceful state of neutrality with the endless feudal warfare that went on throughout the world. She had turned the enormous research estate into one of shelter for all those who could no longer fight, or who had lost too much to fighting, or to those who had nearly lost it all and were alone. She took in everyone that came to her, no matter what their story was, and was regarded as a saint in a world of nothing but soldiers.

One day, a day she vividly remembers, an astute and regal looking family came to the manor, out of the way of their home, to talk of the business of having their son and only heir become a working part of the estate. The father was a stern man with a long beard that grayed at the sides and a thinning head of hair. Still, he looked powerful and threatening at most times. His wife was no less intimidating with a flat and mostly expressionless face that only stared forward and a voice just as stern as her husband's was. They sat in private in a guarded room to drink tea and discuss their business.

"Lady Unohana" began the man, "first I would like to extend a thank you for accepting to meet us here today."

"The pleasure is mine" Rei said, her voice soft and charming voice. "Please tell me, sir, what deal you have that you wish to be made with me."

"Yes, of course" the man said. "We have come across a young man, a soldier, stricken ill on the battlefield. He was brought to our care. We are among the many medical supervisors of the Seireitei, you understand, and we usually don't have the luxury of time to devote to each and every patient. But this man was....special. You see, he's incredibly tall, taller than anything I've ever seen before. He doesn't know his name or his age or any basic detail about his life. It's all quite baffling to us, honestly." Rei took a calming sip of her tea, and invited the two to do the same. The woman took a sip but the man did not. "Lady Unohana, we'd like you to take him under your care and do what you must. For the sake of the Seireitei, we must know what kind of illness he possesses that makes him forget everything about himself!"

"I shall certainly try my best" Rei said. "The research that I have made in recent strides with Hollows has translated surprisingly well into the treatment of beings from our world, particularly the enduring shinigami."

"That is reassuring" the man said. "Truly, you are the only person to be sought on such a matter." Rei took another sip before speaking.

"However" she began, "I am not so boastful as to take on any request and assure perfect results. Even I cannot perform miracles, and so, I shall honor your request to take this man in to study, but I cannot guarantee you the results that the Seireitei would seek."

"We can pay if we must" the man said. "The sooner we learn about it...well, then the sooner we can put this to rest." Rei took a brief moment of reflection to stare into the tea still in her cup. "If that would be a problem, I'd have no trouble paying it myself, right now if I must!"

"Is this important" Rei said "for the sake of helping others, or do you simply wish to know if this illness can be used?" The couple's eyes flashed with surprise. They retained their shock and sat perfectly still while Rei took a brief but delicate sip. "The Seireitei is losing the war on their main front, am I wrong? Any opportunity to use decommissioned soldiers for their advancement would be their top priority. To sap away all the strength left in fighters who have finished fighting....what a crude mission they have."

"Lady Unohana" the man began, "I am a patient man, but I must warn you against speaking ill of the Seireitei and its people. We do everything we can to ensure the safety, prosperity and unity of all the people under the sun!"

"So you must keep others down to do so?" Rei asked. The man was quickly shut up. "Don't take me for a fool, I humbly ask. I know more about this war than even you do. I will take this man in and examine him with the intention to enable him to lead a healthy and pleasant life outside of fighting war. Beyond that, I shall go no further. Even if the possibility would exist to maintain or potentially harvest this illness of his, you wouldn't know of it as I wouldn't act upon it."

"Now see here!" the man said, slamming his hands onto the table and pushing himself up with them. The guards just outside snapped to attention. "We are dignitaries and representatives of the Seireitei! Are you trying to extort us!?" Rei just stared coldly at him until his rage gave way to his tamed fear, and he slowly sat back down as Rei stood up to address him before leaving them outright.

"This is a house of charity" Rei said. "It has always been that way. Bring the man to me, if you may, and let our business be finished." Rei then bowed politely and left. Two guarded entered after her, soldiers from the war who had regained the will to fight as payment for their stay and care, to safely ensure the two got back to their own guarded transport outside the main gates without incident. The nobles were delivered into the custody of their personal Seireitei shinigami while leaving behind the man in question, resting inside a transport that looked like a huge portable shrine. It took ten men of great condition to move it into the manor. When they set it down, Rei went to open it and felt a terrifying force on the other side.

"Seal off this room!" she ordered. Her loyal guards moved out and latched every door and guarded every corner of the room. Rei had to cover her mouth and nose with the sleeve of her kimono as the reiatsu was like some strange, invisible miasma that clouded around the outside of the cart. Rei backed away and placed her free hand on the hilt of her sword. "Please, everyone, protect yourselves. Remember that this man has been taken from the war. Fighting may be all he knows." Three guards came up suddenly around her in a protective formation. The one furthest forward stepped up and opened the sealed carrier. The miasma thickened and started to pour out, a gaseous, manifested mass of pure, mad spirit pressure.

A low groaning came from within the shrine, and then out stepped an Earthen God. A man with rough and war-colored skin with a myriad of scars across his body and a long gash running horizontal across his forehead. All of him was a war-torn machine, sleek and beutifully crafted for the art of killing but so far worn that he was barely a full human anymore. He was indeed as tall as the man had described, over seven feet, at the very least! Around each wrist was a thick, metal shackle which a chain was attached to, and either chain was dragging behind him and into the interior of the shrine he stepped out of. The man lowed and glared down at the gathered people, centering his glare at Rei, the coldest and most pitying one out of the shinigami facing him, and he snapped.

He jerked his arms forward and swung the chains at the guards. Two of them blocked but couldn't resist the force of power that the chains hit them with. They were pushed back as the chains continued to whip into them, right into the wall far behind them.

"Get away, Lady Unohana!" the guard at her front said. "This guy's too strong to peacefully subdue!"

"Is he?" Rei said. The man dashed forward with his sword drawn up, the intent to slash and attack in his motion. The tall, monstrous man just looked down with a glowering grin and wound his arm up across his body, too fast to follow, and smashed the blunt metal shackle on his wrist into the guard's side. The poor soldier's shoulder was broken and his hand became completely limp as he was thrown through the wall that he hit. Now it was the beast and Rei, the two other guards too far intimidated by his fearsome strength to approach. Seeing no recourse, Rei drew her sword and held I over her head.

"Please, do not resist it" she said. Her sword began to slowly shatter and dissolve into a wide-spreading mist that sparkled and shone in the air. "I will not harm you."

!!!!!! roared the monstrous man. He grabbed the chain of his left hand from off the ground and yanked it forward. It coiled and flew out from within the shrine until, at its end, a sword emerged and he grabbed it by its handle. A vicious curved butchering blade it was, almost as wide as Rei's own body and shining with an untouched and perfect condition, as if it had never seen a battle as hard-fought as its owner's body. He rose his arm up to strike and projected all his implicit evil, all his rage and intent of murder, out powerfully on Rei whose sword was all mist. She gathered it together in a bright, shining light and blocked his blade with her holy sword. The man looked down in confusion as a woman blocked his broad and powerful blade with only a shining stick of a sword.

"Cease fighting" Rei said. "There is no war to be fought here. You are only wasting your energy." The man furiously drew his sword away and stomped back. Rei positioned her blade down at her hip and flashed forward. The man swung to counter and froze after his attack had fully wound forward. Rei stood at the top of his shrine encasement with no sword in her hand and turned back to look at the man again. "Such unguided rage will get you nowhere now. To live without your killing intent is the first step towards leaving a war. If I must, I will help you learn it." Rei reached out and took the hilt of her sword. The blade had half-sunken into his head and was cleansing his very mind. The deft stroke through his throat blessed the peace within him and removed the lust and fear of bloodshed and death. The gash on his forehead also quickly healed and closed up, completely gone, and his eyes went white. He fell with a thud to his knees and a smash onto his face, unconscious and defeated by Rei's own passive healing powers. The elegant young woman then raced to find the soldier that had been punishingly hit by the raging man.

"Are you alright?" Rei asked the crippled man.

"Urgh" he groaned. "Ah, I think I'll be okay....sorry, Lady Unohana. I failed in protecting you....and myself."

"The only thing that matters to me" Rei said "is that you are alive, and you can be healed in time."

"Right" the man said. "That is good. Please, let me take my time healing, then. There's no longer a rush for me to be back in fighting condition."

"I'm glad you can say that" Rei said. She turned back and watched the other two guards begin to subdue the maniac man with strong kido barriers forming one over the other. "It's never easy to admit that a war is over for a soldier...."


Some time later, when the mad young man was subdued and contained within a kido barrier room, Rei returned to begin her procedures on him, despite the hot protest of her more worried guards.

"Lady Unohana" a rough ex-soldier began, showing the utmost respect for her, "I understand your position. Please, if you must treat him, do not do it alone! Take a few of us in there with you in case he snaps and attacks you again!"

"I will not" Rei said in a polite yet stern way.

"That's stupid!" the man said, lacking all respect entirely.

"Are you insinuating right now" Rei began "that I cannot use my sword to defend myself?" The soldier froze up. Of course she could, he knew, and she wouldn't be afraid to demonstrate her skills either. "I will be fine. This man's mind is in a dangerous state. His constant presence in a never-ending war has left his mind and body as direct reflections of one another. He is a creature reduced from humanity for his past deeds, a man who has lost his mind to his swords. However, I have already observed that he is not beyond hope."

"What do you intend to do?" the soldier asked.

"I will keep him in a stasis" she said "and attempt to strengthen his natural aura over his sword's aura to balance his mind. Right now, the aura of his sword's is something that I haven't been able to decipher. Its effects have fluctuated the natural emanations of his body into something chaotic and mixed, but among all the different feelings, Earth seems to be the strongest of his body. I will attempt to amplify that aural pattern in the hopes that it will take hold over the chaos and then I will work on sealing the constant projection of the swords."

"And he won't be mobile for any of this?" the man asked finally. Rei opened the door to the room and a dull, green light shone out from the sheer strength of the kido barriers. Rei turned back and smiled at the man before moving away, leaving his final concern unaddressed in as maidenly a way as possible. "I feel....like I've failed somehow" the man admitted.

Inside the room, Rei entered the barriers unaffected, and walked up to the man who was laying on his back propped up on the widest and longest table that could seat him comfortably. He was grinning and staring wide-eyed up at the ceiling.

"Man" Rei asked, "you can not move, can you?"

"....No" he said in mad glee. "I suppose you wouldn't want me to move, would you?"

"Your time of fighting has come to an end" Rei said. "I am going to attempt to reorganize your chaotic spiritual aura and manipulate your body into a direct reflection of it. As your strongest affinity is Earth, that is the element that I shall focus on."

"I don't know what you're talking about" the man said with a dry laugh. "There's never an end to fighting, for anyone! Every day becomes a struggle for one's life in some time. Every day is a push through time, through hardship, through pain! If you can't fight off your adversaries then you'll be killed in cold blood by your own family or brothers-in-arms!"

"Do not think about war anymore" Rei said. "This is a place free of war. There will be none of it here."

"I've never heard anything so stupid....." the man said. "War is everywhere. It is inside of us!" Rei closed her eyes and started a meditative breathing.

"Stay silent" Rei instructed "and breathe." The man, having no recourse, did so and breathed with Rei. An hour of their breathing became like a minute to him, and he opened his eyes in deep relaxation. "What is your name?" Rei asked.

"....Ishin" he said. "That's the only name I know anymore...."

"You are a man with the dignity of a soldier, aren't you?" Rei asked.

"......No" Ishin admitted. "Honor has never stopped me from fighting. That is why my body is covered with scars."

"Look down at your body now" Rei said. "There are no more scars." Ishin was able to raise his head up just enough to look down at his exposed body. All the scars and marks, all of them still shaded like blood and deep enough to scrape at his muscles beneath his skin, they were gone, all healed and his skin perfectly restored. Ishin's mind registered a blank. He had no emotions that he knew of to express what he felt, a serene yet anxious feeling of sudden and uncomfortable peace overflowing him. "For the day" Rei said "I'd like you to rest. I will have food brought to you, and then tomorrow we will begin adjusting your aura." With that Rei began to leave, with all she could do then done.

"Wait" Ishin said, weakly calling out to her. "My swords....where are they? You haven't destroyed them, have you?"

"I would not do something that dangerous" Rei said. "Your swords are safe and sealed in another place. It'd be best for you not to take them up until my healing processes have been completed. Ishin's worry started to come back. He felt defenseless and afraid without his swords nearby, and Rei understood his emotions from across the room. "When all is said and done, you will be able to wield your swords without them wielding you. That is but one goal that I will accomplish."

"Can you?" Ishin asked. Rei just smiled and nodded before leaving the room. Ishin's worry was absolved, for then, with the promise of revelation that Rei had given to him. Even with the best intentions to set his mind at ease, Rei still felt uncomfortable. She left his room and went straight to one across the estate as quickly as possible, the sealed room that held powerful barriers where his swords were kept, one at each opposite wall. Rei took her position between them and began her meditation to channel the spirit of Ishin's blades.

Where are you? She asked, hoping the swords would hear her call. Tell me, what is your name, and why do you dwell in this state all the time? She was not answered, but she was unwilling to stop and tried again. I wish to speak to you on equal terms. Will you not meet me? Again, only silence. Rei drew out her sword and held it straight up in her lap, using it as a beacon and a conductor to the dual-blades spiritual pressure.

Are you there? She asked. Can you hear me? Suddenly, from every corner of the room, and echoing throughout her own mind, she heard a blowing wind as it escaped from some unseen, dark cave. She opened her eyes to the world of the sword's spirit and saw herself standing at the entrance of a great, black cave burrowed out of the skyline itself. Rei took a single step forward into the darkness with a small aura of light surrounding her, and began her journey into its depths.

"Who are you?" she inquired. Suddenly the darkness intensified and she looked behind her to see the mouth of the cave start to close. She leaped out and onto an invisible ground of blue sky just before the jaws were closed completely and the skyline was restored. Rei stood up and looked off in all directions, feeling innumerable amount of individual presences. "Tell me.....what is your name!?"

"My name" she finally heard in reply "is not your concern." She turned around with a start and saw herself, standing opposite her with eyes closed and cast to the ground. Rei understood the illusion at play but couldn't see past it. Then, her double opened its eyes, and from the darkness where eyes were absent black insects began crawling out. As its mouth curled up in a grin a thick miasma of poison started hissing out. Everything about this spiritual creature seemed evil and foreboding as a wave of purely undirected and unguidable pressure blasted Rei out of her meditative state and back to reality.

Rei gasped and fell back onto her hand. She held her sword hilt up to her head to quell the great migraine that was sweeping through her head, and she looked at each sword in turn to see their reflective surfaces staring back at her.

You can't reach me a hissing voice echoed into her head but I have already reached you!!! Rei felt danger all around her. Paranoia built up within her. Her first experience of the Madness Aura forced her to make herself unconscious by stabbing her own healing blade into her stomach, forcing her to pass out from its effects of over-healing. The guards outside came in to retrieve her some time later and took her to her room. The process of purification would continue regardless, but the swords were taken to an even deeper section of the estate where they could reach no one at all.


This is but the first part of the history of when Ishin became the childish and Earth-embodied Jin. The whole of the tale will be continued another time...