A.N. Thanks to Jon and Pai for content help. CeeBee and Vorpal for volunteering to do edits.

District 80: Zaraki

It was colder than I thought it would be. Rangiku looked warm in wrapped up head to toe. Only her nose was peaking out of the great burlap blanket she’d made of my cloak. I envied her; I don’t think I could’ve slept even if I was warm. I had been up since early night after having enough of tossing and turning.

It was quiet except the beating of my heart. It was pounding in my head; a constant ba-dum ba-dum making me think of the men whose hearts and torsos I’d blown a hole through. My eyes burned at the edges from staring unblinkingly in the distance. I was at once aware of every sensation…and numb. They were muggles; cruel but just muggles. I couldn’t forget the look in their eyes; the way their lines had changed from vicious joy of anticipation at raping Rangiku to eyes widening and faces going slack.

I remember telling Remus I wouldn’t kill. I remember his look that said I wasn’t in touch with reality. I’d felt so righteous then. Sitting in a cave on the fringe of Rukongai I didn’t know who or what I was anymore, but ‘righteous’ was the furthest thing from my mind. I could have used a binding spell, I could have disarmed them, I could have…

Ba-dum Ba-dum Ba-dum

It felt like my heart wanted to jump out of my chest. Why wouldn’t it just shut up?

(----)

Morning came and with it the realization that Rangiku would be waking soon. I didn’t feel like talking to anyone, being with anyone. I thought about getting away from her for a while, going ahead to scout out a little, and then coming back for her. But my body couldn’t give a damn.

I heard her wake up; she yawned loudly and cracked something when she stretched. She mumbled something to me that vaguely sounded like a greeting, I grunted back in response. She came over and spread the cloak around me. Then she sat next to me touching me shoulder to leg as if she’d always been this familiar with me. She pulled the cloak around us both; luckily there was enough of it to go around. She was very warm.

After watching her a few seconds out of the corner of my eyes I realized that I was the only one hyper aware that we were touching. I scoffed softly at myself. There I had been sleepless and sick because I’d killed people, and having a girl sit next to me was enough to distract my mind. It wasn’t as if she was a veela. Unwashed orange-red hair fell about her dirt smudged face. Not something to swoon over. Though, she was warm.

Suddenly she hissed, “Why are you so cold?”

“It was cold out,” I said evenly.

She shuddered then hummed as if she’d thought of something. “Don’t think I’ll change my mind about true love just because you gave me your cloak. You’re clever as a fox, but I know men.” She smiled at me and winked.

I snorted. “You’re welcome. C’mon let’s go.”

(----)

District 74 was our first from the town by the outlands. I didn’t know we were so close to Zaraki and mentioned that to Rangiku. She gave me an amused glance and said, “Only the number 74 is close to the number 80. We could fit the first 14 districts inside 74 alone. It’s going to be a long time before we get to Zaraki, Potter-kun. Isn’t that great?” She smiled at me. I didn’t answer her, I didn’t know if it was great or not. Sure, it gave me more time to work on Hohō and my sword meditation, but I wanted to get away from this world…away from what I’d done.

Rangiku took the lead, my cloak dusting the road around her legs like the trail of a gown. It wasn’t that she was much smaller than me; she just didn’t wrap the damn thing around her enough times to keep it off the ground.

The edge of District 74 wasn’t far from the town in the hill pass, and so it wasn’t full of people like the ones I had known. It didn’t have the same smell of too many living and dying together. The road was clear and sturdy buildings stood where the rock cropping didn’t make it impossible. Small, mean bushes peppered the landscape. The town was touched with only a little more green than what we had seen on our way. Rangiku knew the way apparently, she walked purposefully to a nondescript building. It looked like a log cabin, one window, and one door thrown open. From the outside I couldn’t tell what it was for until we entered it and I was surprised to find a shop. Big bag of grains were lined up in a row in front of a slightly raised platform where a man sat. Dark hair and beard on him matched the dark look he gave both me and Rangiku. I paused in the doorway but she kept going ignoring the shopkeeper. I gave him my best polite British smile and scuttled after the girl.

There was a clothes section in one corner of the shop. That is where I found her. It didn’t make much sense to me, it looked like he was selling just the cloth to make clothes. I wondered of Rangiku could make her own clothes. I left her to her business and began looking around. There were unlabeled packages in brown wrapping. I couldn’t tell what they were. A couple of overpriced tea sets. Some jars of spices, also very expensive. Then there was a shelf of the kind of sandals I had seen people wear in Rukongai. My boots were scratched up bad and getting worn, but even after all the different places I had walked the last many months they were pulling along. I smiled feeling unusually fond of them, maybe it was just the weird sandals on display, but I was glad I wouldn’t have to wear them. But soon something did catch my eye, weapons.

On a round table there were short blades of different lengths and curves. Against the wall swords were propped up. Very aware of the shopkeeper’s stare I handled the daggers inching closer to the swords. I tried to look like I knew what I was doing. I didn’t think just picking up a sword and swinging it around to get a ‘feel’ for it make the shopkeeper happy. There was a longer sword there than the katana Unohana had given me; I thought I might like the reach of it better. Pulling out the sword I realized it was less curved than my katana, but it was hard to wield one handed. I was tempted to swing it but then Rangiku showed up at my elbow holding a brown paper wrapped package.

I slid the sword back in the scabbard as I watched her. She had a slight frown on her face. She put down the package on the round table with the knives and kneeled in front of the swords leaning on the wall. Her fingers ran over the swords from left to right, longest to shortest. She picked a fairly short blade and drew it. Holding it underhanded she swung it around then changing the grip made some hacking motions.

The man coughed and cleared his phlegm loudly. I cringed, it was disgusting.

“Mr. Shopkeeper!” Rangiku called cheerily. “Can I return my kimono for this?”

“Girls don’t need swords,” the shopkeeper grunted.

Rangiku was running before I got the word “What?” out of my mouth. She jumped the low platform and kicked the man in his sour face with her wooden sandals. He fell back with a shout. By now I’d run up to catch her, but I was too late. She unsheathed the short blade and pressed the edge between the man’s lips. He went very still, but was still breathing hard. There was a cut on the bridge of his nose where her sandal had struck him.

“Rangiku-chan?” I called.

“Potter-kun,” she said with a smile. “I did hear him say that girls don’t pay for swords, didn’t I?”

“Uh...” I took a look at the man’s eyes that were showing a lot of white, and his very red face. “Yes, that is what he said. You should thank him and then we should go.”

Rangiku pulled back suddenly and bowed deeply. “Thank you for your kindness, Mr. Shopkeeper,” she said demurely, and then ran out the store.

The man rolled to the side and shot his hand under a low table. He pulled out a sword of his own. I swung my katana still in its sheath like a bat across his face. He dropped back unmoving.

Shit! I swore, and climbed the platform to check on him. My hands glowed yellow where I put them on his neck and head. I breathed in relief, he was just knocked out. I hadn’t broken his skull.

Feeling a little shaken and getting pissed I left the shop. Rangiku wasn’t in sight so I started walking in the general direction we were going before. I looked down streets and inside open doors of buildings as I passed them getting more and more angry. What the hell was she thinking? It was evening when we’d entered the town, and I wanted to stay the night. But now we’d have to get away before the shopkeeper woke up and caused trouble.

After a while I’d walked my anger off and wondered about Rangiku. It was just my luck I’d ended up attaching myself to someone with the moral standards of someone raised in Rukongai. I could get mad at her for stealing, but, hey, this is how things happened there. Common decency was a joke, there were only those who walked on others and those who were trodden upon. She was just surviving.

Besides, I was going all the way to Zaraki district to look for trouble, why should I be fuming that she found it for me so early?

It was nearly dark when I found her. She was at the other end of town, waiting by the road that led out. Merlin, I had to talk to her about staying with me or telling me where she was going. It was lucky we were in a small town but we wouldn’t always by.

She was leaning against the side of a building and waved me over. She was wearing her new clothes and she had cleaned up somewhere. I finally saw her grime free face for the first time. Dusk made her hair look dark; her grey eyes reflected the silvery moon. She looked forlorn for some reason.

“They haven’t grown,” she told me quietly.

The tone of her voice worried me. I squeezed her shoulder and asked, “What hasn’t grown?”

She sighed and grabbed her chest, lifting up her breasts. “They are the same size since I bathed the last time.”

My face heated up, I pulled away my hand from her shoulder. I glanced and looked away sharply. Yeah, they weren’t too big but a handful isn’t bad…I think.

“They will grow… I mean, you’re still growing up. I have a friend and she got bigger every year, so, I mean…” I trailed off when thought my tongue would tie itself.

“Really?” she asked hopefully, her eyes suddenly bright.

I didn’t answer her. It was physically impossible. “…about that sword, I could’ve paye-”

She cut me off, “Oh! Yes!” She spun around and picked up the sword from the ground holding it in both hands like a price. “Wasn’t it lucky that guy was such a bastard? I didn’t have money for a kimono and a sword.” She beamed at me.

I couldn’t help but laugh. Yeah, she was Rukongai’s child after all.“Um, Potter-kun, we should go!” she said with alarm.

I looked where she was looking to see men with swords and spears coming at us.

“Damn it,” I swore. “Hold on to me,” I told her and picked her up before she could say anything. I thanked Merlin I’d practiced running on air and took off with Rangiku’s scream ringing in my ears.

(----)

The scenery hadn’t changed much outside of the first town in district 74. The same bare underbrush and rocky rolling lands watched us pass them by. I’d run for an hour as fast as I could go, somehow taking a cruel pleasure on how scared I could make my new friend. When I stopped I crashed from exhaustion. Controlling my reiatsu while running at Nimbus speeds on air devastated my body.

I was lying at the foot of knoll away from the main road. Rangiku rummaged in my bag and brought me food. I ate slowly, feeling my hands tremble from how drained I was. She didn’t eat and when I asked she said she wasn’t hungry. It was too dark for me to really see her face but I thought she was a little shocked from the trip. I was too tired to help her get over it. It was fun anyway.

“I’m sorry about the sword, Harry-chan,” she said.

I’d explained to her my first name was ‘Harry’ and not ‘Potter.’ I didn’t say anything, it sounded like she had more to say.

“We’re going to District 80. You’ll need someone to watch your back. That’s what I thought, but you can move like the wind,” she laughed, but it sounded forced. “I thought we could get away before the shopkeeper would come for us.”

I shrugged, but lying down in the darkness, she probably couldn’t see it.

“You want to be a shinigami too, Rangiku. I’m glad you took the sword. But next time, wait for me before you start running.” I saw her head bob.

“And you should know that if you can’t find me I will be at the end of town. I thought everyone knew that. Why do you think the bastard and his friends came there?” she scolded.

“How was I supposed to know?” I was a little nonplussed.

“Rule number 1 of Rukongai urchins. When you get separated from your friends in a strange town, go to the gate out of town… or really the rule is when you steal from someone run to the gate out of town so you can escape. Since all the urchins know the rule, they know where everyone is heading and meet up. See?”

I guess there was a lot I didn’t know about Rukongai still. I laughed, “You stuck around for a long time for me, didn’t you? Why didn’t you run away? Didn’t you think something had happened to me?”

She stood up and walked around me to lie down behind me. She threw open my burlap cloak she hadn’t given up even after getting new clothes. She covered me and herself in it, nudging me to turn on my side away from her. I could feel her warm breath on the back of my neck but nothing else touched. The cold wind was drying my sweat and giving me a headache, so having the cloak back even if I had to share it was wonderful.

“So?” I prompted, wondering if she’d answer my question.

“So, now you know I’m hard to get rid of,” she said seriously behind me. But then she poked me and said, “As if I was going to go to Zaraki district by myself. Stupid.”

I grinned and fell asleep, the murders of the day before far from memory.

(----)

It had been a few weeks, we were getting very close to Zaraki district. The last time we weren’t walking through a forest was two districts ago. Twisting lanes formed the main roads, small clearings housed the important businesses: a bar, an eatery of some kind, a brothel of course. All got cheaper and seedier as we got close to Zaraki. Rangiku was a blessing in disguise… sometimes that blessing was disguised too well. She knew more of these towns than I could hope to.

The kimono looked good on her, but it made her stand out too much in the areas we passed through. Her orange-red hair and shiny blue kimono wasn’t subtle, and she was cute when clean and not whining.

Fighting while trying to protect her was difficult. She became a burden, but not for the lack of trying not to be. I had magic and Kidō on my side, and with Hohō I learned to move fast. She was still developing her reiatsu. I was getting edgier; I couldn’t use the sword because my ineptness would hurt not only me but also Rangiku. She had no trouble with her sword. It was a perfect fit for her. She slashed and hacked whenever she got an opening, as in whenever I distracted the mob and she moved behind them. In a straight one on one fight with sword we both barely survived; she because with a shorter blade she was quicker, me because I used my reiatsu to be faster and stronger. So when I hacked, I hacked like a bloody human propeller.

We hadn’t attracted anyone’s notice that was really bad. I was getting worried I’d run into someone who could use reiatsu as well and then we’d be royally screwed. I would have looked for more trouble, but, hell, with Rangiku I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t have her life on my conscience just because I was bent on becoming a sword master.

Rangiku was trailing behind me, cursing every now and then about the roots tripping her up. I was amazed at her; she really could go on whining as long as she pleased. We’d been in these forest districts for at least two weeks. She should have been used to it by now.

“Rangiku…” I said tiredly.

“Can’t you just carry me and jump over trees to get there?” she asked for the…I l’d lost count.

“Why don’t you do it. As soon as you can control your reiatsu we can both go faster,” I said patiently. Of course, I wasn’t doing it because I was trying to teach her. In my heart of hearts I knew I was afraid of reaching Zaraki district. Even if I didn’t have her with me the plan was to use my sword there to learn how to use it. I couldn’t go on relying on Kidō. And I would have to hurt people more than I did with magic, binding Kidō, banishing spells, disarming charms. Even just punching someone in the face with my reiatsu hardened fists was much easier on my conscience. But once I got to Zaraki, I would have no more excuses to not use the sword.

Would I be able to survive just with a sword? I didn’t think so. I would still use magic. I consoled myself thinking that I’d use magic only if things got out of hand. But the voice in my mind that doesn’t lie snickered and told me that it was precisely for things ‘to get out of hand’ that I was going to Zaraki.

I sighed, frustration with myself. The sigh made Rangiku shut up her whining behind me. I paused but then decided not to ask and continue. If she thought I was ticked off at her and that made her quiet, great.

The trees were tight together. It felt like the air pressed on me from all directions. The sun peaked through the tree cover every now and then, but we were mostly in this hazy half light, walking through thick and unforgiving foliage. The soles of my shoes had cracked a long time ago. They creaked every time I stepped over a root; it was beginning to get to me. I took a deep breath; I was getting pissed at things that had nothing to do with the actual problem. I didn’t think I could protect Rangiku and learn to live by the sword at the same time. Sure, she was a fighter, she tried to give as good as she got. The first night hadn’t been the only time I had to heal her hands because she had hurt herself fighting someone by my side. But it was one thing beating off thieves in the night or the random person who wanted to take her to his brothel. It was another to pick fights with killers…and that is what we were going to do in Zaraki district.

“Harry- kun, look!”

I looked back and a smile broke over my face. Rangiku was standing very still on one foot six inches off the ground in the air. She had a look of intense concentration on her face mixed with happy disbelief. I stepped in front of her and held my hands out to steady her. She shook her head refusing my help. She gingerly put her other foot down, successively standing with both feet off the ground. I stayed quiet as she slowly walked up as if she was climbing a stairway to the tree tops. Thirty feet off the ground she reached a bough and stopped to breath. I jumped up to a bough next to her watching to make sure she didn’t fall. Her face was calm, the frown of concentration was gone. She was moving her reiatsu, I knew because I could feel warmth come off of her.

Very shakily she brought her hands together, a blue sphere of light winked into existence between them. It began to grow like the hope inside me. Yes! If she could be faster than the average thug, she could save herself.

“Those awful roots, I couldn’t stand it anymore,” she whined.

I rolled my eyes. How could this girl act spoiled after accomplishing such a feat was beyond me. It was as if all the effort so far hadn’t worked because nothing had annoyed her enough to motivate her.

She looked at me, her eyes dancing and lips pulled back in a small smile. “Race you to Zaraki!” she said and started hesitantly running in the direction we were going.

She didn’t have a chance. I didn’t even move. Ten seconds later she ran straight into a branch, lost her concentration and fell on a thicker bough under it.

She moaned, lying on her stomach holding the bough with her arms and legs wrapped around it.

“Rangiku-chan, you’re brilliant, I never would have thought to keep looking at my feet while running on air around trees,” I said with mock awe.

“Idiot,” she snapped. “You…flying pig!”

“Hey!”

“Whatever, I don’t eat in a week how much you eat in a day.” She sat up and crossed her arms trying to look down her nose while looking up at me.

“Don’t change the subject! Who just fell on her ass?”I yelled down.

She gave me her big round innocent eyes. “If I only had a teacher interested in giving his wisdom to a shy and distraught maid like myself instead of a flying pig I could become a great shinigami,” she said sadly.

“Yeah, ‘shy and distraught,’” I scoffed. It wasn’t my fault I liked having three meals a day. It’s normal!

“Oh, but I must not be ungrateful.” She gasped dramatically. Clasping her hands together in prayer she bowed her head. “Heavens let me see the blessing in the teacher you have sent me, though he is a surly, gorging, uninspired, insensitive, indelicate, boorish-”

I held my head in my hands. The only thing she could do longer than whine was come up with how many ways I was a failure as a teacher.

Was this learning the sword? I wondered, as I knocked aside the blade swinging for my neck. I kept spinning with that inhuman speed using my reiatsu, blocking the blade and cutting him shoulder to hip in one unseen three-sixty arc.

He fell; his mates yelled bastard and rushed me. They were so slow. I lunged forward, knowing the nameless thug wouldn’t see me and pierced my katana through his shoulder. He didn’t even realize he’d been cut and struck thin air. I watched him quietly as the pain registered on his face as he clutched his shoulder. The third and the last looked at his fallen friends and ran but Rangiku was waiting for him.

He hacked at her wildly just so he could get away from me. She ducked in time and came off her heels putting the power in her legs and reiatsu behind her thrust. She was aiming for his stomach but he turned away just in time to only have his side torn through. Her short sword peaked out over the hipbone. Rangiku was forced to leave her sword in him to get away from his maddened attacks. The man screamed in rage again and again as he swiped at her with his katana.

I could have helped but I didn’t. She’d already won; the only thing remaining to be seen was if she let the man stumble away with her sword still in his side or if she took it back. She grabbed a rock and swiftly moved behind him. She slammed it on his head with a scream of her own.

The dirt covered rock, stained with blood, fell from her hands as the man fell to the ground. She pulled her sword free from his side and came to me breathing hard. That’s when I noticed I hadn’t even broken a sweat.

I sighed in disappointment. One week into District 80 and I had been up to fighting three swordsmen without trouble. If there was any disadvantage I had, it was covered by my ridiculous speed. The one I had pierced in the shoulder had already run away as fast as his wound allowed him with the one whose torso I had sliced leaning on him, but the one Rangiku had beaten would die without help. Here, like most places in Rukongai, someone like him was not going to get any help.

I didn’t want to see Rangiku’s disapproving look when I healed him so I didn’t look at her. I sat down by him to cast healing Kidōu. I worked on him with a frown; he had little spiritual strength. If I didn’t meet anyone with strong enough reiryoku I would probably not be challenged.

“Harry-kun, the other two got away, they’ll bring their gang. You can let this one die,” she said, trying to guess the reason why I was healing him.

I’d already used that excuse once so I had another one in the same vein ready. “I think this is their boss. If he goes he’ll be able to tell whoever his boss is. We might have people who actually make us break a sweat,” I said.

At the edges of my hearing there was a sudden whispering. My blood rushed as I tried to focus on it. I had started hearing the whispering for a few weeks, as Retsu’d said I would when my sword began responding to me.

“You will never get stronger without knowing my name and I will never tell you that if you keep befouling me with weak blood, o’ Master of Death,” I heard a disgusted voice.

“What?” I gasped, never expecting to hear ‘Master of Death’ in the strange world I’d landed in.

“I didn’t say anything,” Rangiku said, sitting down beside me and kicking her feet out. Her face was flushed and serious. “Harry-kun, I think the exam for sword fighting might be harder than this,” she said. Even with the little speed she’d gained from understanding her reiatsu better made her too quick for the thugs we were fighting.

I didn’t answer her because I felt a surge of heat from my katana. I stared at it and said in my mind, Was that you?

I could ignore you while you didn’t draw me, but now that you have I will not let you degrade me, the sword, she, said.

I was excited that my sword had finally spoken and anxious because I’d offended it. I am sorry. I have to learn to fight with you, and I don’t know how to use a sword, so I am practicing. But now that I have you, you can teach me, right?

She laughed in my head as if I had said something really endearing; it sounded disturbingly familiar. You do not have me, o Master of Death. You have not even found me. Her voice began to fade away.

I panicked; worried that she was going to disappear. Wait, how do I find you? Tell me what I have to do!

Blood, she said. You will find me in blood. Isn’t that always the way with you?

“What?!” I shouted out loud, startling Rangiku.

“What’s wrong, Harry-kun?” she asked, shaking me when I stayed clutching the katana and staring at it.

“My…zanpakutō just spoke to me,” I said in disbelief.

Rangiku smiled. “That’s great! I can’t hear anything from mine,” she said with irritation. Then she hissed at me like a cat.

I was shaken out of my worry at being called Master of Death at that. “What?” I asked, wondering why she’d hissed at me.

She gave me a nonplussed look. This time a growl came from her, but she hadn’t moved her lips.

“Sorry,” I said. Thinking I was imagining things.

“It’s fine. I guess hearing a sword is strange,” she said happily. “So what are we going to do? You’re too fast for anyone here.”

I nodded, what she said made sense. I was wasting time on the border of District 80. “Are you ready to go on? You’ve gotten faster.”

She shrugged and absently rubbed her left arm. In a fight she’d instinctively raised her arm to shield herself and been cut deeply. If I wasn’t there to heal her, she would have lost it. Now there wasn’t even a scar. I felt she’d learned more than I had about sword fighting; her fights lasted longer than mine.

“I’m afraid,” she said without much feeling. “So if I don’t go on now, I’ll go back. I don’t want to die, but I’d don’t want to go back more. You understand, Harry-kun?” she looked to me, her grey eyes as always betraying her feelings.

I nodded. All of Rukongai and no friends waited for her the way we came. I understood completely; she was like me, looking for a way out. I just intended to go a lot further than she did. Her quest to escape would be complete when she reached the Shinigami Academy, mine would only be starting. I was glad to think that I’d see someone happy along my way. But I hated this place, where I was forced to hurt people just to escape.

(----)

Rust skies seemed to reflect the bloodied earth and humidity suffocated me as sweat literally streamed down my face. I pulled deep breaths to steady the shaking in my arms. It was as if the vibrations of clashing steel with my fallen foes hadn’t worked out of my system.

There wasn’t a fleck of blood on me that was my own. Dozens of them had come at me, maddened by battle lust, uncaring that I was walking through reaping anything in my way. At the end of the third week in District 80 my area of influence had extended from the south entrance to nearly halfway to where I was told the north gate was.

I didn’t understand this place. I’d spent so much time in Rukongai as a beggar, skittering around, while trying not to be noticed. All so I could find out what I needed to do. I thought I couldn’t go lower than throwing out my hands for someone’s charity or stealing, but picking my head up in this hell of an afterlife meant becoming lesser than what I ever thought I’d be. I hardly felt anymore when my sword sliced through skin and flesh. I made my face dead, so what I felt inside would be dead.

Blood was what I was supposed to find my sword in, and blood was the way to the Shinigami Academy. So be it. Maybe when I get back to my world I can be the person I left it as. In this hell where people don’t give a damn about dying, I had to be the same. Funny how instead of a wise old wizard like Dumbledore my new moral guide was a fifteen year old scared but stubborn girl. She understood what it meant to hold your head up in the forsaken place, better than what I had learned with the eyes of a thief and a beggar.

That day I won the best bar and brothel in town. The town was halfway point in District 80 and a place held by a powerful gang. They were the ones we’d cut through. Of course, we couldn’t stay long; the gangs we’d run through behind us always regrouped. Two people were not enough to take on District 80 and hold it.

Rangiku sat on the steps of the brothel cut up from her fights. She’d fought at my back like she had meant to ever since stealing her sword. But once I started my propeller attack she had to move away to save herself. Around me there was a chorus of moans and curses. I’d cut them up but left them alive. I was too tired to heal them, even though by now it was just a practice in reminding myself what I believed in and not so much that I cared. Of course, one remaining benefit was learning to heal some terrible wounds.

I was too tired from the fight, and the many more before it. Every day and night we moved and attacked. Everyplace we went I routed through, but they would gather more and follow us. It was like moving in a sea with water closing around you, no matter how hard you swam. Even winning felt like defeat; I was that weary. So I dragged myself to Rangiku and crashed on the steps below her.

She scooted down and put her arm around my neck. She was fairly trembling. It always took her a while to get over the adrenaline rush. She’d fought every day bravely without making a single noise of pain and without giving much mercy. She didn’t care to leave people alive. When I’d yelled at her about it, she’d told me to go to hell and that she wasn’t powerful enough to be as arrogant as me.

I’d understood but didn’t like it; not the least because it was my fault she’d learned that lesson the hard way. A healed gash on her stomach was both evidence of my foolishness and the trust I had in her. She’d paid the price for my reluctance to kill the first strong fighter I came across in District 80. After I’d beaten him I left him on the ground and turned away to others. It was Rangiku who saved me from that fatal mistake. She blocked the sword coming at my back with her body and short sword. He was too strong for her; his sword had ripped across her belly as it pushed aside her sword.

I can never forget the cry of pain that tore out of her throat. With a sob caught in a scream of rage she killed him; lunging forward and gutting his stomach, faster than I had seen her move ever before. I almost lost her that day, and if it wasn’t Retsu’s lessons on managing my spiritual power and how magic worked inside me I would never have been able to save her.

So I knew she couldn’t afford for someone she’d cut down to get up and slash at her back while she fought another. She wasn’t going to make the mistake I made, especially since she’d paid for it.

I grabbed her hand when she set her chin on the top of my head and began casting Kidōu healing spells. I was worn out but she was wounded, without me she would be in pain for a long time. She sighed as I dampened the pain. She moved her sword so that it was guarding both her and me while I concentrated on her. I tried to ignore the oaths and promises of revenge from those who were getting away while tightly controlling my reiatsu to help her.

“That’s enough,” she whispered after a few minutes. “Don’t exhaust yourself. It won’t be long before the stench of blood reaches the north gate.” She pulled back from me and stood up. “Hey, wenches! You can come out now. Get us some food and move fast.”

I glanced back to see the faces of the working girls pressed against windows of the brothel. I smiled a little as they jumped at Rangiku’s orders and started running to do what she said. She was much better at playing the crime lord than me. Merlin, people in every place we’d taken over briefly thought she was my boss considering the way she imperiously ordered them around. And those who didn’t listen had welts from the dull end of her sword.

(----)

That night they put me in a room with a bed in a brothel. I rolled away the mattress, feeling disgusted by what fluids must have been on it. Instead I lay down on the floor even though the bed’s promise of comfort was still a little tempting. It was nice to be by myself. Traveling with Rangiku meant sharing my cloak and keeping a pious distance between us; the cloak wasn’t big enough for her true love fantasies. It was trying at times to share.

I was well fed and warm and soon drifted off to sleep. It wasn’t too much later the door slid open. My sword, which was always unsheathed at night, was in my hand and pointing like a wand in a two handed grip at the intruder. She stretched, yawned, and crumpled next to me, ignoring the naked sword. Then as was her habit she spread my worn cloak, smelling of blood and dust, over us both.

“Thought you’d want to sleep by yourself. Pretty sure the…women have a lot of rooms,” I said to Rangiku.

“The whores are planning on a surprise orgy for you.” She yawned loudly. “They think you’re powerful enough so if you stick around no one would bother them.”

I was a little shocked and repulsed. They were not exactly my type, any of them, and I didn’t even know what my type was. Except it wasn’t what you’d expect to find in the worst part of hell. “Oh,” I said finally.

“Hmm, so I thought, I’d come by, watch and learn,” she said, poking me in the shoulder to turn me on my side, so I’d take less of the cloak.

“Go to hell,” I cursed quietly, irritated. “You’re not learning anything.”

She laughed behind me and I felt her breath on my neck. I rubbed the skin and pulled up my collar; it is very annoying to have someone breathing on you when you’re trying to sleep. Then she said, “As if I’d let them.” She snorted. “Also they were planning on killing me, since I am standing in their way to you. If I am sleeping with you they don’t get to fuck you or kill me. Bastards.”

I rolled my eyes to myself. I saved these women from predators and they wanted to trap me and kill my friend. I went to sleep thinking that if I ever found my way out of wherever I was I’d take Rangiku with me.

(----)

The screams woke me up and in another second smoke filled my lungs. I rolled to my feet with Rangiku only moment behind me. Grabbing my glasses I saw red light flickering behind the door.

“Fire,” Rangiku said, slipping on her sandals and throwing the door open. I followed her into the hallway running from room to room checking for others. I did not find them. She’d gone ahead and ran back, her grey eyes tearing from the smoke and angry. “Those disease ridden bitches put the stairs to the fire. The whole first floor is burning. We don’t have a way out.”

“Merlin’s balls in a vise, I hate this fucking shithole.” I burst into the room closest to me, sliding over the cheap and gaudy throws. I was coughing by the time I thrust my hand out at the back wall. I incanted with all the fury inside me, "Ye lord! Mask of flesh and bone, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! Truth and temperance, upon this sinless wall of dreams unleash but slightly the wrath of your claws." Blue fire in the shape of lightning shot in six lances from my hand. It struck out wildly at the room and the back wall, destroying everything in its path with a roar louder than the fire set to burn us.

The floor shook beneath our feet. I jumped into the air and yelled at Rangiku to do the same when I saw she was too shocked by me to move. Half the roof had blown away including the whole back wall of the second floor. The rooms to the side of the one we had been in were enflame in the blue fire of my spell, now raging far more greedily than the red fire we were escaping from.

I took a few quick steps in the air to get us away from the billowing smoke and heat. Far under me with a river of lit torches were a hundred or so men. So they finally caught up to us while we slept, I thought to myself. A half ring around the brothel the whores were kneeling, swords to their necks.

A gang lord I recognized because of his fancier clothes raised his sword to the sky at me. “This is what you get for helping the Shade of Zaraki!” he shouted down at the woman in charge of the brothel.

My reiatsu burst as I saw his sword coming down and those of his men on the women. The world blurred in black of night and red of fire as I moved, but when I got to the ground it was too late. He had only cut halfway through her neck. She was at his feet, twitching like a slaughtered animal, left to bleed out her life’s blood. She was far beyond my skill. I looked to my right and left; no, I hadn’t been fast enough to stop the blades that cut through the necks of the other whores either.

The corpulent man who had killed the brothel mistress swung his sword at me and cut through the cloth before he struck the steel of my skin. The spiritual energy I had kept such a tight leash on for months tore through its bonds. The fat gang boss fell to his knees with his men feeling my reiatsu. I was cold inside and something hard had settled into my throat. I felt as if I breathed too deeply or spoke I would shatter. For a brief moment I remembered Retsu Unohana, that sweet young woman who had been my only hope and light in whatever circle of Hell I was. I thought of her and knew I was going to betray all her lessons and admonishments, and worst of all ruin her hopes for me. She would just have to forgive me this moment, or I would just never tell her.

It was too hard control the tempest, now burning, now chilling, inside me. I let my reiatsu go, and the hundred torches they had come to put me to fire with, died.

I could have used magic, I could have used the Kidōu spells I knew, but my mind was blank of any incantations. The sword was already naked in my hand. I raised it in a two handed grip and brought it down on the man who had killed the whore. It was quick for him.

“Harry,” Rangiku’s voice rasped behind me. “Please,” she said, unable to stand by my side because I’d lost control.

I couldn’t say anything, past whatever was stuck in my throat. I didn’t think I wanted to ever speak again, especially not then. Not when there were a hundred or more ghouls cringing and moaning in terror around me.

I walked, and I slew.

(----)

Every time the blood sprayed from one of them I thought of the old whore’s dying fit. Every time they ululated in agony before the killing blow I thought of the silence of the whores now dead for having me under their roof. It was too dark, I couldn’t see anything, but I didn’t need to see anything; I felt them, my reiatsu told me where each breathing, sweating, pissing devil crawled on its belly.

“Oi, oi, so you’re the one they call the Shade of Zaraki? They say no one can see you when you fight. I see you just fine,” a deep and bored voice broke through my steady extermination of the filth of the afterlife.

A wave of power buffeted me and a strange feeling of boney fingers skittering over my skin followed. I was jolted from my morbid thoughts, knowing for certain that someone with immense reiatsu was ahead of me. The night was darker and had become inky black because of my reiatsu flowing wildly, so I couldn’t make him out.

I was standing on someone’s dying body, so I moved to the ground for better footing. I breathed deeply, binding my reiatsu so that whatever starlight was there showed me who I was facing. He was a very tall man, over six and half feet at least. His hair was cut as if with a hatchet and fell unwashed around his head. The shirt was sleeveless, and whatever he was wearing under ended at his knees. He was shoeless and held a jagged sword taller than me. He was a brute amongst brutes.

“I didn’t know they called me the Shade of Zaraki,” I said in a whisper, realizing my throat was still tight from the unquenched wrath inside me. “Who are you?”

He shrugged and scratched his chin, looking away from me. “I don’t have a name,” he said, sounding a little sad. “But one day they will call me Kenpachi, once I have killed every swordsman worth killing in Zaraki.”

I snorted. “So who do you work for, someone in the south or the north of Zaraki district? I’ve probably already killed your boss. You don’t look like you’re a gang leader yourself, most of them are soft. “

He barked out a laugh and grinned at me like a lizard. “I don’t care about bosses or gangs. I’m only here to kill you or be killed by you.”

Yet another lunatic, I thought. But I was wary, I hadn’t met a single person with as strong a reiatsu as him by far in my fights. “Let’s see if you can see me when I am really fighting then,” I said.

I controlled my reiatsu, hardening my skin, breathing speed and strength to my body. And then I rushed him planning to slice him in the middle. At the last moment I changed my weapon’s direction to block overhead where his sword was about to cut me head to waist. His strength made me stagger, but in the same movement as blocking I pivoted on my hip to strike his side.

He wasn’t nearly fast enough to block me. I anticipated the feel of muscle and bone parting at the edge of my sword but it glanced off his body, sending a jolt of pain through my arms. It had never happened to me and I was off balance for a second too long. My shoulders and back burned when his sword cut into me tearing out chucks of flesh with its jagged edges. I disapparated away from him.

I wish I could say I didn’t let the pain show on my face, but when you have felt parts of your flesh tugged right out of your body, you can’t act unaffected. I swore and cursed. With it the outrage simmering under my consciousness at the murder and wildness of Rukongai exploded in hate for the tall thug in beggar’s clothes.

“They’re right, I didn’t see you. But I can guess where you are. Wish you were stronger.” He said sounding deeply disappointed.

I cried in animalistic fury and attacked him spinning in the air so that my sword would strike at him a hundred times a minute. He laughed and blocked me, while the wound he left on me burned. My reiatsu grew with each clash. I could sense it running down the steel between us until it felt like every hit was an earthquake.

But I was weakening, I needed to get away to heal myself. The pain and the spinning were making me dizzy. His laughter was an enraging soundtrack, egging me on to finish him. This whole damn afterlife was just a mocking laugh ringing in my ears.

It was stupid and I should have known better. No matter which way I spun, how fast I lunged, I could not bleed him. I landed more strikes than he could block. I was faster but he was stronger, and his skin was impenetrable.

I stumbled in my jumping and spinning, he took the advantage and caught me by the throat. He shook me in the air. His hand was big enough to wrap all the way around my neck. I raised my katana one handed aiming for his head but he brought his sword up faster than a snake strike and cut my arm off over the elbow.

He threw me to the ground, sword less, arm less. I thought it would burn. But I didn’t feel anything. I just stared at the stump, watching blood pump out of it with each heart beat. It was cold, like rivulets of ice water were crawling up my back to the base of my head and making my mind numb.

Take my name, o’ Master of Death. If you still have the will to fight. Or will you die in this place you’ve been thrown to? Call me. Your blood is spilled and it is mine, she spoke to me after weeks of silence.

“Heh, you were amusing for a while. But you couldn’t cut me, no one can. Never saw anyone move like you though,” the man with the lizard grin said and flicked my blood off his sword, giving me a sad look.

I smiled, and I didn’t know why. I stood up, still numb, but suddenly excited, even aroused; a state that worried me later. The whispers from the sword were growing louder.

And then I heard her name. I shouted, “Slake your thirst, Goddess of Death, Izanami!”

My cut off arm and sword began to glow, surrounded by a pulsating green and black miasma. My spilled blood on the earth began to rise and undulate in the air like a living thing. The sword changed shape. It became shorter and straighter, still looking vaguely like a katana but with the curve at the tip of the sword. My cutoff arm still holding the sword rose in the air, it was connected to my stump by the blood writhing in the air. It shot back to me as if I had summoned it and knitted itself to my body. The pain on my back and shoulders disappeared soon after that as well.

I held the sword out, somehow knowing what it wanted. Everything was awash in the green and black light of my reiatsu; in it the blood flowing from the dead bodies could be seen clearly rushing to my sword. It pooled at my feet and leapt at the tip of the sword, running up the engraved blood groove in the outline of many threaded veins on the blade.

The bodies of the scum shrunk as Izanami drank them in, they became husks within moments. But my eyes were stuck on the tall swordsman in beggar’s clothes. His smile had fallen and he was seeing me as if for the first time. As if a muggle had seen magic.

I have had your blood and those of your foes. Cut down that arrogant cur now, o’ Master of Death, she said, as always mockingly calling me that name.

The barefooted man suddenly started laughing maniacally. “This is great. You were hiding your power! Finally you’re serious. I wonder if you can cut me now. Come on Shade of Zaraki!” he chortled and raised his sword.

“I will more than cut you, Kenpachi of Zaraki!” I disapparated to him, appearing in the air and bringing down the much shorter sword than I was used to. He didn’t see me or sense me. The sword’s tip sank into his forehead and sliced down through the brow to his face and stopped in his chest. I pushed down, burying it deeper in his chest.

He swung at me with an enraged oath but his sword bounced off of me. I stayed in the air pushing on my sword while he rained his blade on me. I could feel Izanami pulling his blood into the leaf like veins on her blade. The brown skin around the wound began to gray and crack. I couldn’t push the sword in anymore. It was as if he had steeled his insides with his reiatsu not just his skin.

You will dishonor me by losing to this refuse of a man again? Izanami asked with disgust.

Her ire turned to my hate, and I cursed, “Crucio!”

The dark magic shook him and for the first time I heard a moan of real pain escape him. I held the curse, riding him down as he fell. I kept him impaled as he thrashed on the ground. One half of his face was washed in blood from the wound that I was sure would leave a scar if he didn’t die.

I don’t know how long I sat on him fueling the curse. The curse only died when I felt my rage die suddenly. It was when I saw a sign on the blade collar at the base of the sword. It was a triangle, with a circle in the middle, and a line bisecting it; the symbol of the Hallows.

I stood up and pulled my sword, watching it morbidly as the blood it had spilled ran up the blood groove instead of down. Izanami was still drinking. Around me the husks of the fallen had turned to dust, but the tall thug was somehow still alive, if passed out.

“Harry,” Rangiku’s voice made me spin around. She was looking around in horror. “Are you alright?” she asked.

Izanami started laughing, and a moment later my laughter mixed with hers. After all that it was the last thing I expected to hear.

“Rangiku,” I said, giving her a hug because I felt alive again. “I think I’m done in this fucking place. Let’s go to the Shinigami Academy.”

She didn’t say much, just gave me a nervous grin, but she did quietly bring my scabbard and sheathed Izanami.