I closed my eyes and focused my attention inward. I found quickly that it was a lot harder to do when you were mortal than when you were in the spirit world. There were a lot more distractions, my legs cramped up and my body felt the discomfort of the stone floor a lot more immediately, my feet went pin-tingly and my stomach kept growling. I was a real effort of will to isolate the distractions one by one and set them aside. When I could finally concentrate I did that particular mental twist that sent me into my own internal world and immediately felt the difference in it.
The foliage around me was in disarray, like someone had sent a hurricane through it. The trunk beneath my feet was... solid. Before it had felt real enough but there had been that faint under-scent to it that revealed its true nature as being entirely of the spirit. Now everything around me had an immediacy to it that was disconcerting. I could smell scents and taste the heat and humidity in the air. But that wasn't what really through me for a loop. Instead of lounging around in the tree branches at the far end of the massive trunk, Zabimaru was sprawled out at the base of the fountain. He looked half dead to me, like someone had just laid him out flat. I rushed to his side.
"Zabimaru!" I called, kneeling down at his enormous white side and gently shaking him a little. "Hey, c'mon, speak ta me buddy!"
The Baboon King cracked a weary eye at me that barely even glowed with inner light. Every line of his face and form were written with exhaustion. Snaketail didn't even open an eye, he just looked dead to the world.
"So you have come," he rasped out weakly.
"Yeah," I said, trying not to sound as frantic as I felt. "Yeah I'm here. I'm gonna getcha more power, so don' worry. Yer gonna be fine buddy, yer gonna be jus' fine."
He closed his eyes, his face looking a little bit relieved as he lay his head back down. I sat down beside him on the edge of the third basin and looked into it, the bottom was clogged up with trash and debris but it seemed to me that there was a little bit less in this one than there were in the others.
I was surprised to note, when I looked down at myself, that all of my tattoos were back where they had been on my chest and arms (and I assumed on my forehead though I couldn't see to be certain). Those tattoos were the manifestation of the marks that bound my chakras so it made sense that they would be there on me, I guessed. I peeled the waistline of my shihakushou pants away ( iwas in my proper uniform here in my own inner realm too) and looked down at my bared hip to see with satisfaction that the interlocking knotwork of curling tiger-stripes that had been on my hips and waist were faded almost to disappearing. They were just the faintest etchings of grey on my skin. I smirked a little to myself, satisfied. Now that I had unbount the lower two chakra around those areas the Binding Marks were fading on their own.
Zabimaru rested a moment and then, with a voice weak with weariness said
"The third chakra is located in the solar plexus, and it is the source of your willpower," Zabimaru advised me.
I looked over at him in puzzlement.
"Why is that one blocked?" I asked, confused. "I have no problems with my will power, it's my greatest strength."
Zabimaru and I had made it so far so fast because I had a strong will to grow more powerful so that I could finally beat my captains ass for taking Rukia away from me.
"And your greatest weakness," Zabiaru replied. "Your will is exemplary but you easily become so mired in your guilt and regrets that you loose your way. You must clear away your blocks in order to cleanse and unbind your chakra. This is how you will gain a resolve that does not waver."
It often hurt to hear the truth. I was just barely honest enough with myself to be able to admit that even when I felt my will was at it's strongest I often felt a small sense of hesitation as I doubted my resolve, my ability, my worthiness. Usually I went ahead and did it anyway, but there was always this voice in the back of my mind that reminded me of all of the other times I had failed.
"I've got asses to kick and nameless-names to take," I said. "Let's do this."
"... I was the one who didn't go after you..."
I was standing in a world of greyish mist, watching myself see Rukia, in her red and white academy uniform, run further away from me. I watched my younger self restrain himself from following his heart, telling himself that this was for the best and it was for her best interests. I watched as my younger self's shoulders slumped down more slowly, posture becoming one of defeat as the single thing I loved and cared for most in all the world walked out of my life. The loneliness and solitude of my future without the star that told me where my home was in it hit me and I nearly lost it... but I didn't stop her either.
The scenes around me sped up like a motion picture put on fast forward. I trained and pushed myself but at the same time I kept an eye out from afar, trying not to be too obvious about it, keeping a concerned, shadowed-watch the girl I'd let go to live with the Kuchiki's. I watched helplessly as they'd taken her from the rambunctious little tearaway I knew and loved, and molded her into someone else, some-one quieter and more dignified, with a cool sort of poise and elegance. I didn't like it, but she was part of another world now and I was in no position to object. I told myself that even if she was a little different now, there was nothing I could do about it as I was. I was the one who had let her go in the first place so there was no point in complaining about it now. The only thing I could do was keep my distance until the time was right. Guilt over throwing her to the wolves overpowered my will to be part of her life no matter what. I kept my eyes low and my head down, hoping for a glance of her but at the same time ashamed to meet her eyes, knowing that I was reason she was what she'd become. I could sense how unhappy she was deep down She was alone and Rukia hated to be alone, but I was too guilty to comfort her.
"Sheesh, aren't you two a fine pair?" my voice came from behind me.
I turned away from the scenes playing out before me to face myself. My guide for this chakra was finally approaching adulthood. He was dressed in the blue and white uniform of the academy, a young and unawakened Zabimaru slung at his side and a few small binding marks on his forehead. That was me just before I'd graduated, at about the same age as I had let her go, in fact.
"I've wasted so much time and so many opportunities on this," I said sorrowfully.
"Yeah, you are a prize idiot," my younger self agreed with me. "It's dumb to blame yourself you know. I mean, it is true that ya didn't go after her, but the same could be said about her too. So if you think about it, there's enough of this nonsense to go around. Besides, what's done is done, ya can't change the past. I don't see why you insist on beatin' yerself up over it."
"I could have stopped her and I didn't," I said. "It's my fault she's unhappy. I could have told her how I felt about her, maybe if I had she wouldn't have been so eager to go off an' join someone else's family. I'da still been family enough fer her."
"Lemme tell ya sumthin'," my younger self said.
"What's that?" I asked dully, shoulders once again slumped in defeat.
This mess was all my fault. If she hadn't been so unhappy... maybe she wouldn't have been so quick to give her powers away to a human, if I'da helped her train more over the years, maybe that Hollow wouldn't have taken her by surprise. Pain and regret twisted up inside me, and I felt even worse.
"Regrets are a waste of your time," my younger self said, glaring at me. "They're just the past crippling you in the present. How are you ever going to move forward if you keep dragging yourself down with guilt and regret?"
I looked listlessly over at him. Couldn't he see I was wallowing here? Without my conscious approval, several chains appeared from out of the mist and solidified, wrapping around me like a cocoon, trailing off into the mists. They felt heavy, so heavy that I could barely lift my head and I knew instinctively that the chains represented every regret I'd ever had, and all of the things that I blamed myself for.
"There, ya see? That's exactly what I mean!" the just-past-adolescent me snapped at me in frustration. "You're wallowing in your own sense of pig-headed, self-absorbed anguish and guilt and regret. You're so frozen up by it that it makes you hesitant and indecisive. Now you can't even raise your head. What kinda wuss gets defeated from within before he ever even steps on the battlefield?"
This kid was seriously starting to annoy me, not the least because he was right.
"If you think you'll ever have the true strength to move forward like this, then you're dumber than everyone else thinks you are."
I frowned. Granted, I wasn't a genius or a child prodigy or anything like that, but I'd been clever enough to hold things together even before Rukia came along and became the brains of the opperation. I might not be much in any other feild besides the battelfeild but I wasn't an total moron either, no matter how I got a kick out of letting people think that's all I was. His remark stung. His next one hurt worse.
"If you keep holding yourself back, you'll never defeat him. Every time you face him don't you doubt yourself, just a little? Doesn't your sword waver, just a little? You're your own worst enemy, you know... weighed down by guilt and regret, the battle is already half lost and you haven't even lifted your sword. Study him and his moves and rhythms all you want, the truth is that you lack the resolve deep deep down where it counts. Your will wavers and your sword is dull and heavy."
dammit. The damn kid was right. It wasn't easy to hear or to face, but there had been nights when I'd played the two great fights I'd ever faced off against my Captain in, move by move, trying to figure out where I'd went wrong and what I could have done differently to make the battle turn out otherwise. No matter how many times I replayed it in my mind, I could never figure out how I had failed. Now that he'd blatantly pointed it out to me however, the truth became glaringly obvious. I'd failed because the battle was already over before I drew my sword. I'd only thought I'd had resolve and focus, I'd certainly had a strong desire to win, to defeat him...
"But it ain't the same thing," I acknowledged.
There was a subtle distinction between willpower and desire, a kind of nuance that had completely escaped me before this. Desire came from outside of me, making me chase after things. But Willpower came from within me, a strength that supported me in my drive to move forward.
Guilt and regret would cut of my will and keep me from moving forward. If I wanted to gain a will that wouldn't waver I had to release their hold over me. I had to acknowledge that there were things in this world, actions I would take and actions I wouldn't take for whatever reason that I was going to blame myself for, or regret... but I couldn't let them stop me from moving forward because if I became frozen then nothing in my life would ever change.
"Ain't it better to try and fail than it is ta do nuthin' at all?" my younger self asked. "Ain't the world you live in shaped by your will?"
The will to endure. The will to keep moving forward. The will to strive and improve. The will to face the future. The will to fight. Resolve.
"You know that people shape the world by their will. It's the single strongest force in the whole universe," the younger me said. "So what are you going to do with yours?"
I held my hand out in front of me, picturing the shikai form of Zabimaru there in my hand and it did seem like there was a little glimmer, but it was just a regular blade, him in his sleeping form.
"The world I live in comes with it's share of things I'm gonna regret," I said out loud, ackowledgeing the truth of my words as I said them.
"But I won't let what I've done and what I've failed to do retain the power to slow me down when I walk into the future. I'll face it head-on, without flinching back or doubting myself."
It felt something slowly loosen inside of myself, my chest seemed to expand outward and I drew in a deep breath, my flickering ghost of a sword solidifying even more. I looked at the strange ephemeral chains that surrounded me and slashed out with the quiescent blade.
"I will break the bonds I place on myself," I said firmly, lashing at them one by one as they broke with a swing, the scenes they were tied to disappeared. Not being able to save my friends... smash. Not telling Rukia how I felt about her... smash. Letting her go... smash. Not being her friend even though she needed one... smash. Not being able to save her from her execution... smash.
I was here now, and I was going to keep moving forward.
"By."
Slash.
"My."
Slash.
"WILL!"
Zabimaru let out a howling roar that shook the air and earth around me. Suddenly the world was flooded with golden yellow light, like the sun had been born inside me. I felt flooded with confidence and resolution, like I did at the height of a really good battle and all I could see was the enemy before me, and I felt that there wasn't anything I couldn't smash my way through. The flickering familiar plain blade of Zabimaru in my hand solidified into a blade within my grip. Then the blade changed as he formed his shikai.
"Z...Zabi--" I stared hesitantly at the shikai in my hand.
There had to be some mistake. My soul felt that it was my Zabimaru but my eyes were telling me otherwise... because he wasn't someone I recognized.
Instead of the widening, segmented and serrated form of Zabimaru in his coiled position of shikai, I was faced with a stranger. The hilt was strangely ornate with curling sharpened spikes twisting in intricate knots that reminded me of my tattoos. They coiled in sharpened curled points and joins like smoke from incense, twining around the hilt and guard, spiraling down the handle and twisting into a cage around a fang with a baboons face carved on the end of it. The ornate hilt was strange enough. The blade was...
:Huge,: I muttered to myself.
I was surprised at how very put-out and mildly insulted I found myself feeling about that. I loved Zabimaru's versatility and elegance, the way he could twist and shape himself to suit nearly any need, the way he was a poetry of beauty when he flew through the air. What was this thing doing here?
The blade wasn't serrated, it was all one smooth piece. It shot straight out from the ornate cross-piece into a double-bladed flat-blade. It was widened slightly at the base and then the edges curved slightly inwards at the middle then flared out into a neat diamond-shaped head, giving the blade a faintly elongated hour-glass shape. There were slight etchings of the knotwork striations chasing down center (or the tang, if you prefer) of the blade in subtle matte-silver-on-silver patterns near the hilt. Those only served to draw the eye down the elegantly smooth line of the blade. The edges and tip winked dangerously up at me, promising that I would see some excellent battles with him. I stuck the tip in the ground before me and stepped back, frowning, to examine him. He was tall enough to nearly reach my neck and the gracefully sleek line of the blade, contrasting with the ornate style of the hilt, stated even more boldly the fact that the blade, was over half a foot wide!
"Who the hell are you!" I demanded, irritated.
Zabimaru didn't answer directly as I was cast out of the world of golden light and back into my little side-ways tree garden. I was standing in the middle of the basin but there was no key in my hand this time, instead there was a wide thin slot in the center surrounded by an ornate circle in the stone at the bottom of the basin. Taking the silent hint, I slid the strange Zabimaru, point down, into the slot and turned. Golden liquid power flowed into the bottom of the basin, and a strange pattern with a circle, surrounded by three other circles connected on one side looking like three half moons one inside the other flared up and disappeared as the basin filled itself.
I stepped out of the basin and knelt next to Zabimaru, the shikai of the strange blade pointed downward. Zabimaru looked up at me, his eyes glowing with their usual lambent light. He looked better too, though Snaketail didn't seem to be awake yet.
"Hey, what the hell is this?" I demanded, pointing to the offending sword as he flicked an eye my way.
Where in the hell was my Zabimaru and why was I expected to weild that... that club?
"This is Baboon King, Zabimaru," the Baboon King said to me with pride and a touch of smugness.
I stared back at him blankly.
"I've been fighting side by side and as one with Zabimaru for the last forty frickin' years," I said in hot reply to his little story. "I think I know what he looks like, better than I know the back of my hand, an' this guy..." I pointed at the massive pointy straight thing.
"Ain't him!"
Unblocking that yellow chakra seemed to have made him feel a lot better because Zabimaru got up (though Snaketail was still out of it) and regarded me steadily.
"Sixty-three years in the world and he thinks he knows everything," he said to the silence of the forest at large.
I frowned, I hated it when Zabimaru acted all old and wise an' crap. Treatin' me like I was just some pup.
"What the hell's goin' on?" I demanded next. Where was my Zabimaru so we could get back to the kicking of ass and the taking of names.
"Well Renji," Zabimaru said in a tone of slightly condescending patience, like he was findin' somethin' damn funny.
"We have gone far in our first form. Even without mastering and unbinding your chakra, you've managed, through sheer stubborn perversity and bull-headedness to master the Snaketail all the way to Bankai. But in order to unlock my true form, and thus, our true power, you needed to become much more than you were settling yourself for."
Wait, wha--?
"I put those binding marks on you when you were still young," he explained. "Because if you had attempted to use all of your power to your full potential while you were still so unstable on the inside then you would have burned yourself right out and I would have had to wait centuries for a new wielder who suited me so well as you do."
"Why now all of a sudden? Why not when Rukia--"
"You were too tangled up and desperate then. You were so full of fear and desperation you would never have made it past the first chakra," Zabimaru replied. "In a way it is fortunate that Rukia chose another when she did--"
I stared, unable to even begin to voice all the objection I felt to that bullshit.
"By doing so she cut enough of your ties to her to enable you to take your eyes off the star and look inward for a change. But enough of that. You asked why the Shikai of Zabimaru is different."
"Uh, yeah," I said, my head still spinning a little.
"Well, there are two forms of us, are there not?" Zabimaru asked archly.
"Uh.. yeah, I guess," I said.
There were sort of two forms, I mean, if you counted the Snaketail and the Baboon King as two separate and distinct personalities housed in the same body and they certainly seemed that way most of the time. But I'd never even imagined that there would be--
"So... this huge sword right here is... you?" I said, in surprise.
I looked again at the sword. A lot of swords in the Soul Society had strange and unquantifiable released forms, forms where it was hard to tell just exactly how large or small they really were. My boss' sword was a case in point; you couldn't take one good look at that cloud of metal petals and even begin to guess how much metal they were made of, let alone how powerful the reiatsu was that held them all together. My own shikai of Zabimaru started out pretty good sized, but then extended into a form that was quite large. But other swords came with forms where you could take one good look at them and know (if they were a tank and not a ki-dope) how exactly much power they were packing. The brat's sword was a good case in point, you could take one look at Ichigo's sword, for instance, and tell he could pack a punch just by the size of it alone. I'd always sort of contented myself with the fact that at least he could only basically swing that thing around like a cudgel and mine was far more versatile. Well, it had been... until clubby here had shown up.
"You don't look pleased," Zabimaru said. "I had thought you'd be very happy to see that you have a sword that more directly fits your straightforward style of fighting. Now you can hack and bash away to your hearts content."
"Well, don' get me wrong or anything, it's great an' all... but what about my buddy?"
I liked fighting with Zabimaru, and it was a little annoying to think that, after finally having made it to Bankai I was going to have to spend another forty years mastering a new weapon.
"Snaketail Zabimaru is still there for you Renji, we both are," Zabimaru said, sounding almost fatherly. "He's just out of commission for a little while. That being bound to mortal bones has come as a shock to us both, but he seems a little more susceptible to it than my part. You're powerful enough and centered enough to handle my shikai now."
Sheesh, Zabimaru made it sound like I was a kid ready to have his training wheels taken off.
"Why don't you give it a try?" he encouraged. "It's still us, fighting together, it's just a little different that's all."
A little reluctantly, I wrapped my hand around the hilt of my new sword and pulled it out from the ground. It felt light in my hand but solid. Despite the differences in size and weight and balance, it still felt like Zabimaru.
Baboon King Zabimaru gestured with one hand and in front of him a faceless little manikin of about my size and weight with a sword appeared before me and held his sword out. It looked a little creepy, the faceless little humanoid-looking thing, but I shrugged and brought the massive new Zabimaru up before me in a guard.
:Geeze, this thing's big enough to be its own shield,: I grumbled to myself.
Without any further hesitation I charged at my opponent, who tried to doge to the right. I swept the blade to the side, the edge impacting with his. I pivoted automatically and tried to press in. The opponent leapt back to gain some space. It was annoying that I couldn't extend Zabimaru out to follow him, but it was unneccssary since he came to me. I swung, upwards and out, missed, and he passed me but I pivoted and chased him down. My body was slowly starting to adjust to the new style of combat, it wasn't terribly different from what I was used to. In some ways, Zabimaru was right, it did suit me better. I could charge and swing and feel the impact shake down the length of Zabimaru and it did feel pretty good. Maybe a little too good though, I really didn't want to admit that I sort of liked this form a little bit better. When it came to fighting (and in most other things) I was as straightforward as they came, having a blade that was a direct as I was was just adding cocoa to chocolate.
The three strikes that the manikin tried to make at me were easily blocked and even though this form of Zabimaru wasn't as flexible as the other there was a strength in its rigidity that the other form didn't quite manage. It wasn't terribly difficult for me to hound the little bugger down and dispatch him. Sure he put up a fight but I had him. The sword started to feel real nice in my hand as the battle went on. There was something elementally satisfying about bashing away at a target from close range, something about being close up and watching it go down.
"It's not so bad, I guess" I said a little grudgingly.
Zabimaru gave me a wry knowing glance.
"You liked it," he scoffed.
I grinned. Well, yeah.
"The Baboon King form is closer to your inner nature," the Baboon King informed me. "That is why you had to master the snaketail form first."
I supposed I could see why that would be; if I had been able to access this form first I would likely have never taken the time to get to know, much less master, the occasionally difficult, twisty ways of the Snaketail.
"Now that you have," Zabimaru continued. "And have gained more mastery of your inner self, then you are free to fight with my true strength."
He got stronger? Really?
"If you choose, you may go further down the path and unlock a few more of your chakras, though... not the last one."
"Why not the last one?" I asked him, a little miffed.
What, he thought I wasn't strong enough to or somethin'?
"The last Chakra is the one that deals with the universe and a soul's place in it. In order to unlock the chakra a person must relinquish all of their attachments in order to become one with the universe. That means everything you place value on you must let go; love, family, duty... As a Soul Reaper, you cannot relinquish your duties and become one with the universe, you must remain attached to what holds you."
"Why's that?" I asked, more out of curiosity than because I wanted to try it out. Give up Rukia? Give up bein' a Soul Reaper? Was he nuts?
"If you give up your attachments and attain a higher state then that means my connection to you would be severed as well. I would be forced to return to my quiescent sleep and sleep until the next soul I sensed a connection with had taken up the duty to be a Reaper."
Give up Zabimaru? No way in hell!
"Yeah, okay, so... last one's a no-go then," I agreed.
"However, I would like to encourage you to unlock the heart, throat and brow chakras," Zabimaru said.
Three more? Wasn't I self-aware enough dammit!
"Why is that?" I asked wearily. Just thinking about it made me want to crawl under a rock and sleep.
"Firstly, because it will be good for you. In the immortal words of Sun Tzu... "The man who knows not himself and knows not the enemy will never win a battle. The man who knows not himself but knows his enemy will be sometimes triumphant. But the man who knows himself and knows his enemy will not need to fear ten thousand battles." It will make you a better man and a better fighter."
I raised my brows, intrigued, despite the fact that this journey was far from being comfortable for me in a lot of ways. You try having to face every dark, cowardly, stupid, and irritating aspect of yourself that no-one ever really wants to know about and not only accept that they are part of you but accept that in order for you to be a man you have to then try an' change them... yeah, not exactly easy. And if I didn't unbind the chakras once I took up the task I stood a real chance of remaining locked inside myself forever.
"What's the other reason?" I asked.
"Well..." Zabimaru smiled, and looked a little embarrassed.
"More power," he said. "I want to see how truly strong we can become together. The more chakras you unlock, the greater your power will grow."
Hm.
"Isn't that the same as getting greedy?" I asked uncertainly.
"Is it selfish to want to live up to your fullest potential?" he countered.
"Nah, I don' think so," I said.
I hadn't really thought about it before. No-one had ever really told me I had potential. Usually it was more along the lines of 'yer an idiot' and 'who the heck would do things that way?' and stuff like that. Even Rukia was quick to pick a fault and rag me on it.
"Aren't you curious to see what kind of a man, what kind of a warrior, you could be if you unleashed your true power?"
"Well, yeah, I guess I am," I said.
I liked getting stronger. I'd trained for all this time with that goal in mind. Still, all that training had been hard, difficult, often life-threatening work and training. Suddenly getting a whole new kind of power suddenly offered to me seemed just a little too easy somehow. The Rukon brat in me kept looking for the worm in the apple.
"What's the catch?" I asked him finally.
"What catch?" Zabimaru asked me.
"There's gotta be a catch. Nothing in my life has ever come easy, y'know."
"Are you saying this is easy?" he countered.
I paused. He had me there. I was accustomed to hard manual labor and steady work to gain any sort of edge. (Unlike some people I didn't come with a family built-in, and I couldn't pick up a sword and master it in three frickin' days. I had to work hard for whatever I got.) This new sort of work with the chakras was hard but in a different sort of way. It involved having to look hard at what was already in my soul and acknowledge the bits about myself that were weak and difficult to face. I supposed that anyone who had done the same thing would know that it wasn't nearly as easy as it sounded, if it sounded easy at all.
"No, I guess it isn't. So what's up next?" I asked. "What's the next chakra?"
"The heart chakra," Zabimaru replied. "It is the center of love and emotions and it's blocked by sorrow and grief."
Oh, was that all.
"Looks like I'm done here," I said.
If he was asking me to face down love then there was no way that chakra was getting unlocked.
"Giving up so soon Renji? That isn't like you," Zabimaru said.
"It's love," I said, as if it should be obvious. "Most of my issues seem to stem from it."
I'd just recently gotten to the point where I found myself worthy inside of receiving love, I shuddered to think of what other new kinds of twisty little bonds and mess ups awaited me in that chakra.
"All the more reason you should try for it then," Zabimaru said. "Strength in adversity. You don't become stronger by challenging weaker opponents. Besides, this can only help you. If you resolve many of the difficulties you have with regards to love, think how much easier your life will be, how much lighter your heart will become."
I eyed him dubiously. Painful as it was, I kinda liked being in love. Sure, it seemed like it was entirely one-sided, but it gave me a perverse kind of strength and tenacity to draw from it. If I gave up that source of strength wouldn't I be weaker for it?
"I don't want to give up love," I stated.
"No-one's asking you to give it up," Zabimaru replied. "Just release the parts of it that seem to be holding you back."
I thought about that for a long minute, Zabs seemed to making another of those nuances again, and he had not led me wrong so far. It was scary and even thinking about it made me want to find someplace else to be, but maybe that's why i had to just go ahead and do it. I was tired of running from what was inside of me, it only exhausted me and made my sword weaker. It was time to face it, face it, accept it, defeat it, and grow truly stronger. There wouldn't be a better time than now. I shrugged, might as well try it as not. I hated giving up anyway and admitting that I couldn't do something when I hadn't even tried it was not my style at all.
Zabimaru blinked slowly at me and I found myself back in the mist world again. The mist seemed a little lighter than before. My self was standing there waiting for me, wearing the uniform of a full-fledged Soul-Reaper. The tatoos on his forehead were the same as the ones I'd worn for many years, still there was a strange, indefinable sense of youth around him, a lightness to him that suggested that he hadn't seen as much of the world or the battlefield as I had.
"You ready fer this?" he asked me.
"Not really, but let's do it anyway."
Thank-you every-one for the wonderful and encouraging reveiws. I seriously could hardly wait to share this with you all. I really want to hear what everyone thinks of the new form of Zabimaru (and if anyone out there is any good with artwork... hint hint) I can't draw worth a darn, my stupid brother got all the massive heaps of talent in that department. But yeah... anyway, old sibling jealousy there. I hope you all enjoyed this, look forward to the next chapter in which he will take on the Heart chakra, perhaps the most difficult one for a man like Renji, and look forward to future chapters where we get to see just what the true strength of Zabimaru's other form is.