Chapter 17

"Ichigo Kurosaki? That kid I fought with years ago? How did he get so powerful? He's clearly at the level of a cap- wait? Ain't he supposed to be dead?" I thought.

"What's wrong? You look like you've seen a ghost."

"Uhh... Yeah. Aren't you supposed to be dead?"

He gave me a puzzled look. "What? Me, dead? Are you kidding! I'm obviously alive, aren't I? I just saved your ass."

Maybe it was possible the memorial had a typo.

"Then tell me, what are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same question. I mean, you do know this is hollow territory, right?"

"Well.. it's a long story." I guess it wouldn't hurt to tell him; he was supposed to be on my side after all.

I put on a bold face.

"I was sent here to touch a building."

I stretched out my bandana. "Blindfolded."

Right then he started to laugh wildly. I could tell he hadn't laughed for a long time. He then noticed the dead body of that arrancar. For a minute, he stood in absolute silence, shocked!

"You- You killed the Hollow Lord!"

What! The Hollow Lord! The demon that caused this whole war! Him? He punched me in the face.

"Damn you, whoever you are!" He walked off angry. It seemed that he had wanted to be the one who killed him.

Still, I was excited! I was the one who ended this whole fiasco! There were still the Deadly Sins (the lesser hollow lords) to deal with, but hey, I killed their leader!

"That has to be something. I mean, I just avenged thousands of lives, maybe millions! Who knows?"

I ran up to Ichigo to apologize.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to rob you of your revenge."

"It's all right, its just, I wanted to be the hero this time you know. Bastard killed too many of my friends."

I then remembered why it was he fought hollows in the first place: his mother was killed by a hollow, a really ugly one, if I remember right.

"There is still the Sins to deal with, you know?"

He began to laugh. "Yeah, I guess you're right. I'll have to settle for those guys." He rubbed his head. "Oh I forgot."

He stretched out his hand. "What's your name?"

"So Ichigo doesn't remember me then. It's been more than ten years, so I can't blame him."

I introduced myself to him.

"So Saidō! Where are you off too? Is there some safe place I'm not aware of?"

"Yeah, its called the Soul Sanctuary. I'm heading there now. Care to accompany me? I'm still pretty weak from that last battle."

"Eh... sure. Its not like I have anything to do. You just killed my reason for living." He joked, but I still detected a note of seriousness in his voice.

And so we went, me leaning on his shoulder for support. After a while, walking became a chore as my wounds took their toll on my body.

"It sucks that Ichigo has no skill in healing kidō! I'm about to lose conscious-" He threw me over his shoulder before I fell.

"Don't die on me, jackass! We're almos- uh, hey Saidō, where is it?"

"Hey, he remembers my name... good memory..." I thought hazily. I weakly lifted my hand and pointed towards the mountain.

"Umm, it's a pretty big mountain."

"Yeah I know. The entrance is well hidden."

"Ok then, what are we waiting for?"

Ichigo then began toting me up the mountain. I tried to talk to him to stay awake.

"So where'd you come from Ichigo?"

He stopped and his face turned somber.

"I've lived here ten years, fighting hollows relentlessly, ever since that damn war started."

He looked me in the eye.

"You must be thinking that I'm fighting for a dying cause. Don't you?"

I tipped my head; he may be powerful, but we had already lost too much. Even if we won this war, our world was nearly destroyed. There is no way to start new, unless...

"You're right Ichigo! It's not worthless! I can turn this whole thing around!"

He looked at me like I was a lunatic.

"What do you have in mind Saidō?"

I had to tell him. We were about to reach the entrance. I had enough strength to walk.

"My zanpakutō allows me to go back in time! Maybe if I can go back, I can stop whatever caused this war!"

It took him a moment to register, for some reason, he believed me.

"You mean, kill the Hollow Lord. Again."

"Yeah, it wouldn't be too hard." I laughed. "I did it before."

He smiled diabolically the instant I said that.

"Saidō. You-"

"SCREAM! BENEHIME!"