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.

Just for now, all references to Cowboy Bebop belong to Sunrise and the affiliated people. Thank you.


A hard rain. A soft rain. The sky was dark and the droplets fell. The city streets began to soak with the falling sky. The hard stone-paved streets ran with the fresh rain into the grated gutters under each curb. The earthen brown of all the houses and the tarred black of their roofs drained the color from the already dim, gray sky. Light was sealed behind the dark clouds, a somber scene. One place in the city still stood out. In the towny expanse of houses and cobblestone streets, one modern bastion seemed to stand apart from the rest.

The chapel, glistening with its own aura in the rain, as holy as it wanted to be. Its perfectly smooth walls from outside were white and sanctified. A tall steeple seemed to scrape the very sky as it met all welcomed parishioners with its high-borne golden cross. Even in the rain this one place shone like a sun and cast shadows into all the alleys that led to it. It laid at the crest of a hill paved over with a myriad of stones. A walkway of stairs was widened from the base of the slope up to the wide wooden arch that welcomed all men in with doors that never closed.

From the dark alleys of the buildings nearby came a soul sprinting under the cloak of the shadows. He ran through the darkness and stopped at the edge of the church's basking light. Behind him came another man, brandishing anger in the form of a knife. With a monstrous growl he descended upon the other and was overtaken in an instant by the sheer power and spectacle of his enemy's power. The man with the knife had his weapon stolen and used against him, stabbed deep into his chest and with such force to push him clear back into the shadows once again. Then entered the victor, a man who had overcome the darkness, yet still wore it over his body as a shroud.

A proud man who knew his power and boastfully wore a long coat of pure black in the light of the mighty, holy pillar. A black leather coat that covered his arms and flowed down his back. Pants hemmed close to his legs and hard leather shoes bound up with wet laces. A black cotton shirt under the coat without any print or pattern but with a heart-side chest pocket. Around his waist was latched a leather belt and equipped to that belt was a sword in a black scabbard. Its hand-guard was shaped like a skull, vertical with the hilt. The man with black hair and worn face looked up to the height of the church and heard its bells, heavenly signals to his arrival, and the doors opened. With a sigh the man stepped forward and began his slow ascent to the welcoming archway of the holy ground.

There was no rain inside the church. It was a safe-house from the sin and darkness of the outside world. But even here there were shadows. The light from outside was only a mask hiding the true darkness within. More darkness was hidden under the rows of pews and behind the stone columns that lined either side of the holy hall to support the upper story of the room. The man in black walked forward, out of the rain and into the suspicious dark, down a row of light that shone in from the high glass window behind the altar. He took careful steps, hearing his shoes hit the floor, but even they were muted out by a consuming presence of sound. As he looked around, many more men dressed in black coats with black shades and short-cut hair rose up form the shadows, all holding their hands together with swords sheathed at their hips.

"What a welcome reception" said the man. He turned to the altar with a grin and watched as another shadow slowly rose up from the darkness, one with long black hair hiding its face. "You plan quite the party, Netami." The hair slid away from the man's face revealing a murderous orange eye. He grinned back and brushed his bangs all to one side, letting them fall back across his face lazily.

"It's the best I could do on short notice" Netami said "but I hope you find it fitting, Shin Kenpachi." The men standing in the shadows moved out and held their swords as they crept in slowly. Those in the balcony level drew their swords and hopped up onto the stone railing. Shin looked around and saw himself well surrounded, but they hadn't yet made the move to attack.

"What good will killing me do?" Shin asked. "You have what you want, don't you?"

"One life for another" Netami said. "That seems fair, doesn't it?" From the shadows at the side of the pews a door was thrown open. Two men walked out holding the arms of a woman in white. She struggled against them as they forced her to walk forward. Shin turned and saw her, dressed in a gown of white with fair and maidenly skin. Her black hair was parted down the middle and came down at the back of her neck in sharp curls. She caught sight of him and was stopped by her forced escort.

"Shin!" she shouted. "What are you doing here?" Shin turned back to Netami. The murderous man was grinning.

"Let her go" Netami said. The men obeyed and forced her away as they drew their swords.

"Shin, run!" she called. "Don't fight! You can't win under these conditions!" Shin looked down at his hand. It was not moving, not shaking from fear or from tension or excitement. He took a breath and took the grip of his sword. "You mustn't fight, Shin!" she called again. "What will your death accomplish?"

"Perhaps nothing" Shin said. "But, then again, I don't plan on dying." Shin drew his sword and swung it to point toward Netami. The men all leaped forward to attack at once with their swords overhead and wound at their sides. Shin uttered a swift, mute incantation and swung his sword in a full-arc swing at the ground. A huge blast of power blew out from Shin's feet and blasted the airborne men away. Shin dashed forward as the gust continued and stabbed a sure-footed man through his chest. Then, when the wind stopped, Shin turned and blocked four downswings at once. He was pinned in place, with his back to Netami, and both hands holding his sword against four others.

"The syndicate does not tolerate rogues like us, Shin" Netami said. "You should have done the right thing and confessed. Now they want you back, dead or alive, and I happen to know how you hate to be taken anywhere alive."

"Screw the syndicate" Shin said. He stepped back, dropped his guard and let the swords follow through onto the ground. With a swift motion, Shin cut two of the men in the chest before they could retreat. He finished them both with one shoulder-to-hip slice each, then turned and blocked an incoming swing from another man. Shin spun the man's sword away with one hand, growled some words, and held out an open palm. The man was stunned with his mouth dropped wide open and his body slowly numbing itself. Shin cut his throat with such power that he spun in place before landing. Then Shin made a blind swing in a turn around and cut a man's legs. Blood started to surround him, dark and flowing like a deep, liquid shadow, staining the holy ground he fought in. "I don't care about that crap anymore, Netami! You can go barking to them like a dog, but I'm not like you..." Shin turned and saw Netami still standing, watching the fight, with his sword unsheathed and on top of the altar. "I'm a monster!" Shin kept fighting under the glaring apathy of Netami, thinning the guards down to nearly nothing while the concerned vision of Rei stood in the corner away from the battle, watching Shin slaughter left and right with glee.


The rain poured outside the church. The streets were a rush of running water. It seemed like a deluge that would never end. A holy cascade of rain from an eternally dark sky to flow through the dark streets and bring a cleansing light. But the shadows were thick and powerful. The rain only traveled through them, like a river in a cave, bringing no light but instead the sound of shallow rushing water. At the peak of the holy ground, where the rain fell from, the first place it hit but the last place it could reach, the rain continued to flow out from the awnings of the church roof and invaded the bell tower as it trickled down to the mossy floor far down below. Inside, a rain of blood continued to fall as Shin Kenpachi fought for his life in an endless battle against a constant horde of sword-wielding men.

To Shin, the simplicity calmed him. It was as if the splatter of blood and the echoing drops of dark red that fell into the gathering puddles was as natural as the rain outside, and in his fervent fighting Shin found a certain peace. What was a slaughter to others was, to him, a blessed practice. He swung his sword as if it weren't there, as if he was merely swinging his arm to the orchestral rhythm of a divine, natural symphony. The men around him were instruments for his opera, all played by the edge of his careful bow. A symphony of massacre. Soon the men stopped coming and the battle had ended, leaving Shin half-entranced by the song he had strung together with only one foe remaining.

"You and I" Netami said as he picked up his sword and gazed down its edge "are men that this world does not appreciate."

"Oh?" Shin said.

"We are fanatics" Netami continued "for war, war that the people don't want. We appreciate our duties far too much, and we expect honor for it. Honor for pointless blood. Hmph." Netami started down the hall, toward Shin. He took his sword in his right hand, reverse grip, with the blade pointing out from his arm. "Tell me, Shin. Do you remember where we went wrong?"

"I can't recall ever being wrong" Shin said. "So far, all the choices I've made have been right enough to keep me alive. That's more than I can say for some others..." Netami smirked and held up his sword in a fist. He spun the blade around and lowered his grip on the handle. Then he took the sword high on the hilt with his left hand and turned his right hand over as he positioned the blade aiming at Shin from his shoulder. Shin took a step back and held his sword up in his right hand, facing Netami with only his blade and a single arm of power.

"What will you do for the dead?" Netami asked.

"Probably nothing" Shin said.

"What will you do for the living?" Netami asked. Shin glanced back at Rei, standing in the doorway far away from the carnage with her hand to her chest.

"Probably...just let them keep living" Shin answered.

"So where will you go?" Netami asked.

"Anywhere" Shin said "without you." Shin dashed forward and swung into Netami's block. Netami pushed him back and charged in, swinging his sword down with such force that the pool of blood they fought over rippled away and cleared a bare spot on the stone floor. The cracks were quickly filled by blood and the floor was once again covered as the two men stood against each other in a stalemate. "As long as I have the power to move, I will keep moving." Shin kicked his knee into Netami's side and parted their blades. Netami swung down again, following through with his sword, but Shin evaded and came in from the side with a powerful slash. Netami rolled under it, dirtying his coat with blood, and ran forward again with a stab. Shin leaned away from the stab and tried to counter, but Netami's sword was too long and each thrust required Shin to retreat a step to avoid. Shin managed to parry one of Netami's stabs and rushed in to try and attack. Netami held their swords together and forced Shin to get both his hands on his hilt again. As their blades met and pushed against each other, blade on blade, Shin and Netami held fast their ground with their shoes sole-deep in the pool of blood. Rei watched no longer, taking a final farewell glance over her shoulder as she ran out into the rain to escape.

Shin grinned. "Now we can fight" Shin said. He pushed his sword further ahead by pushing his shoulder into the blunt edge of the blade. Netami slid back across the soaking wet floor and tripped over a fallen body. As he fell he kept his guard up and backflipped to his feet again before Shin could attack. Shin stood dead-center of the aisle of pews, in the middle of a bare spot where the blood had all been pushed away, shining in the light. In his hands he held a glorious weapon, a mighty scythe with a cross-like pattern. The blade was as straight and long as the arm of a holy cross, ending in a flat edge like a razor ax. Shin held his weapon behind his back, hands held at low and mid positions on the shaft, and swung it forward. With a clashing sound the metal arms bent, and reformed the holy cross into the shape of a swastika with each arm bent toward the next at perfect 90 degree angles.

Shin's lips moved in announcement with a grin, but no sound came from them. He started spinning his mighty weapon over his head and the blood was all blown into the dark shadows under the pews and behind the pillars. The bodies disappeared completely, leaving Shin and Netami alone within the church. Shin stopped his scythe and pointed the head notch at Netami. "So tell me, even if I let you kill me, what difference will it make to you?" Netami's humor left him and a scowl replaced his arrogant smirk.

"To erase you" Netami said "is the only way to rid myself of the memories."

"What memories?" Shin asked.

"The ones that made me like you!" Netami shouted. He dashed forward and hit Shin's scythe down with his sword. Still rushing forward, with his blade behind him, Netami swung up from the floor, leading a trail of blood from the tip of his sword. Shin spun around to the other side of his scythe's shaft to dodge it and rammed into Netami's side. Netami staggered away and brought his guard up. Shin's scythe came swinging in from the side, then quickly spun around to the other side, faster than even a sword would have gone, and locked Netami in place with a rapid flurry of swings. Shin silently uttered another phrase as he spun his scythe after each hit, letting the deflection carry it in a new direction which he followed through.

"Are you that weak?" Shin asked. "The only way you can forget your past is to kill it?"

"You are something that I should have never known!" Netami said. He finally countered by deflecting Shin's scythe to bounce against the floor and lose its momentum. Then he leaned forward and cut Shin's shoulder with a running stab. Shin shrank to the side before Netami could follow through and swing through Shin's body from the point of contact. "If I'd never met you...If I'd never met you!" Netami kept coming, in a blind rage, chopping and swinging wildly into Shin's guard. Shin caught Netami's sword in the head notch of his scythe and twisted to pull the sword away and lead Netami around by it, as if he couldn't detach himself from the hilt. "My life would be exactly as I want it to be if I'd never met you!"

"You were bound to meet me" Shin said. "That's just the kind of luck you seem to have." Shin jerked his scythe to the side and pulled Netami's sword right out of his hands. Netami was stunned as Shin took his scythe blade to his neck. "You and I are similar, I'll acknowledge that. We blindly seek power. The syndicate promised you that power the same as me, but when I saw a better way to get it I was shunned. The only reason you bothered to go with me was to become powerful. So in the end, whether you and I were destined to meet or not isn't the question. In seeking power, eventually we would have to fight each other to grasp the power the other person holds." Shin hit the shaft and blade of his scythe against Netami's neck and threw him to the side. His skin was too tough, his body to thick, to cut with such a lack of power, but the blow to his pride on being used so easily was a wound cut deep. "If you were a different man, who didn't care about power, then we may never meet. However..." Shin looked up at the stained glass behind the altar. A brighter light started to shine in and his senses seemed to return from the warring purgatory they had been tossed into.

The rain outside had stopped and light returned from behind the oppressing clouds. Shin glanced down at Netami and then jumped from the floor to the upper level railing.

"I'll show you my dream of power" Shin said. "Follow me." Netami picked up his sword and glared at Shin. He jumped to the opposite side and made a run for the steeple door. Shin went for the same door and they ran up together, both bound for the same bell-tower where their fight would conclude.


In the streets, the rain had stopped. The water ran loudly through the open grated gutters that were on every curb. The houses had lost their demure hue and resumed a brighter, more lively earthen color. Rei ran through such streets, where the darkness hid from the light high in the sky behind thin and moving clouds, searching for a way to exit the mad place. The roaring of a monster started to come from ahead and Rei attempted to double back. She found herself surrounded by the guterral noise of a monster growling from all directions. From the shadows, from the sky, and even from the ground that shook with such a lowing roar. She heard it approaching from all corners, faster and faster, and turned around to the way she was heading before. From out of a dark alley, a man in a long black coat with a round helmet and glossy visor sped out riding a two-wheeled mechanism of chrome pipes and strong metal pillars. He stopped and lowed the roar of his autonomous steed to a lowing purr beside Rei. He was a large man, taller than any man should be, and offered Rei a ride with a quick tilt of his head. Rei nodded and climbed up behind him, wrapping her arms around his broad waist to keep from falling off, and the man cranked the throttle to speed down the street once more.

Up on the roof of the church, the first place where the rain had stopped falling and the first place where the bright sun light had hit, Netami and Shin met. Shin had taken a route that led him to the end of the church rood opposite the bell tower where Netami had come from.

"Your dream?" Netami asked. "Is a man like you capable of dreaming anything other than blood and murder?" Shin pointed up to the sky, to its shining center, the sun.

"One day" Shin said "such a power will be mine that shall destroy even the light of the sun and make it black. That is my dream, to conquer light itself with my power."

"Hmph" Netami scoffed. "Such fantasy. I never thought a man as serious as you would be into such poetic thinking. Are you really the man I once fought?"

"You are still fighting me" Shin said. He armed himself with a quick spinning of his scythe and let Netami charge on him. The precarious battle on the foot-wide flat of the church's roof between the steep sloping broke out with a banging clash of metal. Netami's offense was relentless as it was enraged. He swung his sword with both hands but followed through on contact with only his left. Shin spun his scythe to block and stopped it from moving when Netami tried to power it away. Shin managed to tap Netami's sword in mid-swing and throw his balance off. The power through the swing went to Netami's feet and nearly forced him off the precarious ledge he was fighting on. Netami stepped back rapidly while Shin powered forward, swing his scythe and following each swing through to keep the weapon's momentum constant. Netami reached the end of the roof and jumped up onto the wall of the bell tower. He jumped over Shin with his sword held in a downswing position. Shin swung up at him, deflecting his blow and forcing him to fly even further along the flat line they had to walk. Netami landed gracefully and let his bangs flow down to hide his face. He charged forward again, thrusting and forcing Shin to go off balance to avoid his sword.

Shin used the notch at the bottom of his scythe shaft to grab Netami's ankle and force him to trip. Netami, however, just kicked Shin's scythe and forced him off balance. Shin dove off the side and swung his scythe into the side of the church roof. His momentum carried him into a swing back onto the narrow ledge with scythe still in hands as Netami approached with yet more power in his swings. He swiped his sword through the air, hardly reaching Shin's block in some swings, but still he kept up his blind, powerful offense. Each hit jolted Shin's scythe and forced him to regather his grip to keep his scythe from spinning clear out of control. Netami prepared a shoulder-aimed stab. He slid forward with a lunge and stabbed past Shin's scythe. His blade sank just into Shin's stomach, enough to cut into the muscle. Shin coughed at the pain and wound back his scythe for a counter attack. He swung hard and heavy into Netami's neck with all the intent to kill that had rushed his mind to such power before, but his attack did nothing. It hit against Netami's neck like a statue and shook Shin's body off balance.

"What power are you trying to find?" Netami asked. Shin regained his balance and slid back, holding his scythe out like a spear and waiting for Netami to attack. "You're not willing to go into the true realm of monsters, are you? Are you willing to take innocent, harmless life in order to further your own goals?"

"What kind of power is that?" Shin asked in a harsh growl. "The path of cowards only leads to a cowards level of power. Why would I want that?"

"Are you so certain about that?" Netami asked. "Such cowards, as you call them, are more powerful than you already."

"Then it's useless" Shin said. "I'll find that kind of power and destroy it!" Shin wound back his scythe, stepped forward and swung hard. Netami caught the blade right at its tip and held it. His hand started bleeding. He peered with one eye out of the shadows that his bangs cast over his face.

"Are you scared of true power?" Netami asked. "Or is it monsters that you fear more? Which is it? Those that can gain power faster than you ever will, the true monsters, or the power that they gain?"

"I don't fear the dead" Shin said. He pushed his scythe even harder, twisting his torso at his hips while keeping his feet heavy on the rooftop. "I only fear that I won't be able to find strength fast enough. Those that are strong will surely start to avoid me when they discover my intentions. However, keeping nothing but weaklings around is itself a consequence. My fear is limited to death and the lack of power."

"Then go out" Netami said, "and seek power. Seek a way to obtain that power faster than anyone else, and damn the expense!" The curtains of black hair parted from Netami's face revealing a bone-white skull staring at Shin with glowing red eyes. Shin was stunned. "Go, Shin Kenpachi, and find a power that succeeds even that of Death itself!" The beast threw Shin from the roof. After tumbling against the awning, Shin let go of his scythe to slowly fall through the air. He saw, on the roof, the figure cloaked in shadows regain his face and smile down at him. An expectant, warring smile. He could tell what the message truly was: Become powerful, Shin, to defeat me. To defeat one as powerful as Netami, Shin's own mind had called him into his dreams to tell him the truth about his power. It was enough, but it wasn't. As men they are classless, they are separate in all possible means. However, as warriors, their power is mismatched. Netami has more power, more strength and the capacity to obtain more power using whatever evil means possible. In the end, power was the only answer.

The sky lit up in a great, mute flash of light and fire. Shin saw as the roof of the church exploded in a great plume of fire, taking with it Netami's dark form. Shin fell down and down, almost endlessly to the street at the bottom of the holy hill. He looked to the side where his scythe fell beside him, spinning through the air as if on a natural whim to spin. Then, far off behind the scythe, speeding through the street, Shin saw a ghostly being riding away on a machine that defied definition carrying on his back a huge, wide cylinder with a smoking top. On its side were white letters reading 'R.E.I.'. Shin could see what it was, even through its helmet's visor. He looked into the dark eyes of Shikei and felt an eerie coldness staring back...

Then things went dark. Shin's dream seemed to end, but his sleep did not. As his body recovered, Shin's mind continued to race in preparation for the next dream to sharpen Shin's fighting mind as he slept. Even in sleep he found no peace, but in fighting Shin felt like he was in a dream. An endless cycle, like that of the rain.