The Heir Apparent
Interlude: Forced Choices

One century ago

Ajmer Khaan was bored. He sat on a boulder overlooking one of the districs of Rukongai, he couldn't be bothered to find out which one. 'Find strong recruits', Lord Bismark had said, 'But make it discreet, we don't want the Shinigami to know we still exist.' So they had to search in the most forsaken places where strong people were even more rare. It was looking for the proverbial needle in a hundred haystacks.

'Another wasted trip,' he muttered, and got up to leave. Even though he wasn't the most skilled at sensing reitsu, he was still a Quincy and specialised in the manipulation and control of spiritual energy. If there had been anything of note, he'd have sensed it a long time ago.

Then he felt a flicker.

He stopped and turned back. Where was it coming from? No, not from the town, there was nothing there, but it had seemed to have been from that direction. There it was again, he delved quickly before it disappeared. It was coming from the town's direction, but far beyond it and well outside Khaan's sensitive range. Someone powerful must be there, maybe a shinigami. A good chance to make a kill. He flash-stepped away, smiling darkly.

x

'No, Renji, like this,' said Rukia, focusing her energy in a instant. The small pile of sticks burst into flames.

'Why're you so good at this?' Renji complained, glancing at their three friends who were quickly piling more twigs on.

'Well, one of us has to be,' she said with a smirk.

'Wow, Rukia-chan. That was so cool!' said Shinta, pushing his spiky hair out of his eyes for a better look.

'Yeah, super-dooper,' Aki added.

'Now we can eat!' said chubby Tanto, punching the air.

'Hey, don't forget, I caught the fish,' said Renji.

The others payed him no attention, and began taking the small wriggling fish out of the material sack and sticking them live between half split pieces of bamboo; three a stick. Renji gave an exaperated huff and joined them, propping the ready ones next to the fire. They stopped moving soon enough. As he watched them cook, he reflected on the fish traps that they had set. Anything smaller than Rukia's hand would have got through the spaces, but they didn't seem to have any much bigger. Probably they were being fished out upstream, he thought sourly.

Aki was telling Tanto and Shinta about the one time he'd impersonated a shinigami to steal some barley-rice. This time his embellishments had gone even further; now he was stealing a 3-course meal, complete with a fruit basket, whilst pretending he was a captain. The other two guffawed and, laughing, pointed out his inconsistencies; while Rukia smiled in the background. There was nothing new that they could tell each other, they'd been together that long. Though they had no blood relation, they were family.

Still, becoming a shinigami. The idea had been stuck in his head for more than a decade. Rukia would certainly do well, she had far more spiritual energy than him. Renji was fairly sure he'd get in too. That would be a perminant pass for them, out of the muck and danger and hopelessness that was Rukongai. But they couldn't leave behind their family. Aki, Shinta and Tanto all had spiritual energy; evidenced by the fact that they needed to eat; but they couldn't use it. Yet. When they all could-

'Renji!' Rukia cried, cutting through his thoughts like a katana. He knew that tone; danger, terrible danger.

He was on his feet just in time to see a man appear, appearently out of thin air (which must have been some sort of illusion). The man was dark skinned and solid, in fairly nondescript clothing though he wore it like a uniform.

'What the- Who the frek are you!' he shouted.

'Not shinigami,' said Khaan, ignoring him, 'But some excellent potential here. Hah, probably the best potential I've ever seen; the boy is find enough, and the girl...

'I don't know who you are,' said Rukia, rising carefully, 'But if you don't leave now, there will trouble. As you can see, we have nothing of value.'

'Oh, but you do. What I want is you and your red-head friend.'

'Eh?' said Renji, 'Sorry, but I ain't into guys.'

'No way you're taking Rukia-chan away from us!' Tanto exclaimed, rushing between her and Khaan. 'You'll have to go through me, UAGH!'

'Gladly,' smirked Khaan, withdrawing his bloody fist from Tanto's chest.

'TANTO!' screamed Rukia.-

'YOU BASTARD,' cried Renji, rushing at him. Shinta and Aki took up the cry as they fell in behind him.

'Not you, I need you alive,' said Khaan, throwing a tiny tube at him. Some strange force gripped him, slamming him to the ground and pinning him there. Khaan then caught Aki and short Shinta by the necks and lifted them easily into the air. 'You, no, it's too soon to train you.' He tightened his fists until blood was dripping down from them. The luckless two stopped moving in seconds.

Renji screamed with mindless horror and rage, pulling furiously at his unyeilding bonds.

'Why?' said Rukia softly, shocked beyond anger, 'They did nothing to you. Why would you do such a thing?'

'No witnesses,' said Khaan, shrugging, 'It would be a while before they'd have be worth the effort anyway.'

'And you murdered them. I'll kill you, I'll kill you,' she said, without heat. The air around her started to glow.

'Already this far advanced? What a find!' Khaan half laughed.

'I'll kill you,' Rukia said again like a woman possessed.

The glowing air suddenly burst around her, hitting Khaan and Renji with an blast of freezing cold air. Something insubstantial had formed in Rukia's hand, it looked like a blade. Meanwhile cold glowing air continued to swirl around her, like a tiny hurricane.

Then it stopped. Rukia fell to her knees, her eyes glazing, before toppling facedown into the ground. The man who had appeared behind her lowered his war hammer, he had struck her in the back of the head with the handle. He was pale, almost skeletal, with a greasy black mop of hair.

'RUKIA!' Renji cried.

The newcomer disappeared and reappeared again in front of him. The back of the hammer coming towards his head was the last thing that he saw before everything went black.

x

'There's no way I'm letting you share credit for this,' said Khaan as Marx walked up to him.

He was totally unprepared when the other man backhanded him, hard enough to send him spinning to the ground.

'You damned-' he roared, surging to his feet. But Marx grabbed him by the collar, and the look in his pale eyes cut him short.

'Did you even think to take even basic precautions? There are two shinigami captains in the area, and thanks to your little display, they're coming.'

Khaan desperately wanted to hit something. But that would have to wait. 'You carry the girl, I'll-'

'We can't take them, they'll track their energy signitures. As it is we might be followed. Go, now! I'll run diversion.'

'Then we should kill them.'

That earned him another cuff. 'Just go, you imbecile.'

'Uuurrgh,' Khaan growled under his breath, then flash stepped away. A second later so too did Marx, after first taking the cuffs off Renji.

And less than a minute after that, two new faces entered the area.

x

'What happened here?' said Shihoin Yoruichi, taking in the small area around the still-burning fire.

'Something terrible,' said Urahara Kisuke, nodding at the bodies. 'I can sense the energy of those who did it, though it's nothing like I've dealt with before.'

'You can't go after them. We don't have time.'

'I know,' he sighed, 'We have to get Hirako-taicho and the others to the material world, where Soul Society won't find them. Even so, I'd like to find out who did this, and why.'

'Someday, perhaps. These two kids, I suppose they didn't kill them to lower the chances of us investigating. Not that we could have done it anyway, in our situation. Do you think they're strong enough?'

'Both are, without a doubt. I suppose it would be more chivilrous to use the boy.'

Yoruichi rolled Renji over, frowning at him, and then gasping aloud. 'Kis, I know this one. He's Nagai Kenpachi, the former captain of the eleventh. Or at least, he was.'

'Must be a rebirth. Still, it would be bad to deprive Gotei thirteen of someone who could reach that rank again. The girl, do you know her?'

Yoruichi went up to Rukia and examined her face, 'No, but her face reminds me of Kukaku and Kaien, for some reason.'

'That's interesting,' said Urahara absently, pulling out a small metal box from his cloak. 'We're out of time, she'll have to be the one.'

He opened the box to reveal the Hougyoku.

x

Rukia stood in front of the three graves. The souls had disappated long before, but it felt proper to have a remorial site for the only family they'd ever known. Renji sat on the grass behind her, silent and lost in his own thoughts. He'd described to her many times what had happened over the last week, but still she had no memory of it. She felt so drained, physically and emotionally, even mentally. Who would have known that strong grief could cause so much to go wrong with her body, she even felt like her spiritual power had been halved or worse.

'Renji,' she said suddenly,

'Hai,' he said after a moment.

'What do you think happens after we die?'

'Who knows. Some say we just disappear forever. Some say that we go to Earth, to live lives of happiness. I hope that's true.'

'We didn't have the power to protect them,' Rukia said softly. Now there was nothing left for them in Rukongai.

'Yeah,'

They lapsed into silence. Then Rukia said, 'Renji, lets become shinigami.' When he didn't say anything she continued, 'If we become shinigami, we can live in Seireitei. I hear it's pretty good there.' And nothing like this would ever happen again.

'Yeah,' said Renji, his expression unreadable, 'Let's become shinigami.'

x

A/N: Wowee, it's been a long time since the last update, hasn't it? 11 months to the day to be precise. I do apologise, I had a bug on my old computer that made the writing point go back at random times to where the mouse was. Naturally this made writing so stop-startish and generally frustrating that I gave up entirely. Then I got a new computer on a trip home to South Africa. After which I came back to Thailand and, shortly after getting settled in a new place and job, I was in a bad motorcycle accident. I was lucky to get out of with nothing more than a body covered in scrapes and a fractured (left) wrist. I couldn't do anything with my hand for a while, and 2 months down the line I'm considering having a follow up x-ray; to see if I can get back into Muay Thai. But now I can write, and I'm itching to complete this.

Apologies again that this chapter isn't a direct continuation, more like a quick flashback, but I did feel it was neccessary. Not only for storyline, but to get both you the reader and me the writer back into the game. The next chapter will be back to the action.

To summarise, I'm back from the dead, BWAHAHAHA. KotW out.