Adalric Bardawulf - Die Siegend Glanz [0-5]

August 23, 1942 to February 2, 1943 Many years before Hitoshi was born, a man known as Adalbert Bardawolf, a Quincy by craft was taken out of his home in Germany in order to fight for the Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, strengthening the Nazi forces for the battle of Stalingrad. Back then, he did not know what he had to expect from all of this, just that he had been chosen to protect his country and spread peace and equality across the planet. As a Quincy, he had very little trouble with dispatching the Russians, though the problem was that he was surrounded by his own soldiers as well, keeping him from releasing his full power in battle. With his personal weapon, an upgraded M1911 standard issue handgun, his power was concealed quite a bit, despite firing glowing rounds that seemed to lacerate it’s targets. Then again, the Nazi’s were known to be much more advanced then other armies of their time, so no one bothered to ask any troublesome questions as to what his secret was. At the time, he did not know anything about the prosecution of the Jewish community, and wanted only what was best for his family and his country, believing that Hitler was the answer for all the problems in the world. It was the way for him to show that he had a great deal of pride in his country and those leading it, and it could ensure the survival of the steadily growing clan of Quincies, using the skills he learned there in the war as to ensure victory.

As the Wehrmacht made their first attack on Stalingrad, the 4th division, as well as the 6th Panzer division was sent into battle, meaning Adalbert had also been sent to fight. As a disposable soldier, Adalbert was put in the front lines, though that was in fact the way he liked it, fighting with Reishi bullets that utterly destroyed those shot with his Ace of Judgement. He named it the Ace of Judgement because they passed judgement on all of his opponents in a rapid motion, and it did not need to be loaded with bullets, using only his own energy compressed into bullets. Hundreds of people fell around him, both the enemy and his allies, though he did not care about this, he could not afford to care about it, or chances were that he too would get caught in the gunfire of the enemy. In the war, many souls had been completely eradicated by the gun, believing that it was not right to completely destroy them, though at the time, he viewed them all as enemies, and the realization did not come until it was much, much later and the fighting had already ended for him. Surviving several months of fighting, he was eventually on the point were his state of mind was beyond keeping secrets. In every army, people had spies that watched soldiers and survivors, and this had been no different. Someone had seen his abilities being used several times, and reported this to the group of people that had been shoulders deep into the occult, who of course wanted to learn much more about his powers.

After the fight, men came to his barracks and pinned him to a wall, putting a needle into his arm and causing him to pass out due to a certain drug. When he woke up, he had been taken to Berlin, where he had been put into a room with the greatest man of Germany at that time, Adolf Hitler himself. Not just that, but many others belonging to the SS had been gathered in the room to see the “Ubermensch” of the 4th division that had killed so many with bullets of pure light. It did not take long before the secret of the Quincy was put on the table by Adalbert, not through torture, but through the fact that he himself had willingly explained what he could do. He made it so that they believed him to be the only one, and of course, they saw something beneficial in having him on their side, promoting him and sending him on a short vacation with his family. This came at a price though, one he would not realize for a couple of months, but was something that would define the future of his son.

July 5, 1943 to July 13, 1943 The time he had on a break was not that long lived, as he had been sent out soon after that to fight at the battle of Kursk, a battle that turned out to be one of the most gruesome and large scale Tank battles in the history of the world. Now that the higher ups of the Nazi’s had figured out his secrets, Adalbert had been promoted to the rank of General, a rank he did regard as an honor, though it did not change his fighting style at all. Even now, he was one of the first to enter the battlefield, and one of the last to leave, though this did mean that he had the idea to show others that he was a Quincy, believing his secret to be safe with the SS. Several days had gone by as he was fighting on the frontlines, though a call came in rather soon that a large amount of tanks had been sent out across the border to stabilize the situation at Kursk, for they could not risk to lose yet another battle against the Russians. As the days went by, the Russians and the Nazi’s started putting in large amounts of tanks, changing the battlefield greatly for both sides, making it much harder for Adalbert to hold on to his own life without showing his own powers to those around him. Watching many good man die from gunfire or from losing limbs to bombs, some even died from being crushed under tons of metal as tanks drove over those that had been shot down by the enemy. It was a horrible sight to see, though it was all for a good cause, or so he still believed at this point.

At a certain point in time, the enemy had surrounded a small battalion of soldiers under his command, a group that tried to make a hole in the enemies defenses, though that unfortunately did not work out as he had hoped. When all hope seemed to have gone to hell, he unleashed the power of his Sanrei glove, using the power of Letzt Still in order to utterly destroy the enemy, as well as several tanks, creating a gap for him and his men to get out. There was not much to say about that day, other then the fact that he had lost all of his powers in the process, which was the price he had to pay for survival. As a result of losing his powers, people no longer had any interest in him, and he was stripped from his rank rather quickly. For survival, he had been forced to give up everything, though he had been allowed to go home to his family, from where he safely looked over the end of the war with his wife, and made plans to have a child together.

The end of Adalbert: Many, many years passed, and he learned that a lot of Nazi’s had been hunted down over the years by the Mossad to make them pay for the horrible things they had done upon the world, something he figured would be done to him soon enough. Being in his fifties, he was awaiting the birth of his son, and hated not being able to be there if things kept up this way. Realizing that his days would soon come to an end if the Mossad would find him, Adalbert left his wife and unborn son before they too would become the target of the Mossad, and he cared too much for them to let such a thing happen. As such, he left in the middle of the night, and was never seen or heard of ever again, successfully erasing himself from history. It was not that much later that his wife was hospitalized, and was preparing to have a child on her own. Luckily for her, there were no complications during the birth of the child, and had a beautiful young boy. As a testament to her husband, she called her child Adalbrecht, Adalbrecht Bardawolf.

February 23, 2010 to December 5, 2060 Up until his thirties, there had never been anything notable about Adalbrecht’s life, for it was during his late thirties that he found out about his Quincy heritage when he found the gun that used to belong to his father. Having the natural skills to work the gun, he started looking for other people in Germany who had the same kind of powers, looking for a group of people called the Quincy. It was hard to find these people, seeing as none of these words seemed to mean anything at all to the population, and it was not long after that point in time that Adalbrecht chose to just give up on his search, and make due with the things he did have around him. Having been able to see spirits all of his life, he had also been able to see masked demons, not knowing what to call them other then that. When on one day, he used the gun on several Hollow that had been raiding parts of town, he had found out that back-up came from a source he no longer expected, from other Quincy that had sensed him using his powers. As another Quincy in the city, he was asked to become part of the order, just like his father before him.

Now being one of the Quincy in the order of Germany, things soon got a whole lot more clear to him, and he decided to write down everything he learned about Spirits, Hollows, Soul reapers and other kinds of apparitions, even objects holding a certain power. Writing everything down in a black notebook, he made sure that he had enough room to archive everything he could possibly run into, making a personal archive to fall back on if he was ever at a loss. Everything he figured out was written down, and it would most likely be the best way to keep the members of the order up to date with his findings. While most of his time was spent within the order’s headquarters working on polishing his skills or spending time with his soon to be wife, many wanted him to update the data within the order as well. It never stopped being weird to him, knowing about the life his father had led before he was born, and that these Quincy so eagerly adopted him into their order, though he also knew that these people were very smart, and had Intel everywhere, so it would work out for him for sure, and he was not wrong. Meeting a lovely young woman, he had a strong faith in marrying her one day, if he got to live that long at least.

In the order, Adalbrecht spent tens of years working on increasing the databases of the order, while also spending a lot of time on a weapon, and not just any weapon, but the Ace of Judgement. It was a weapon that had seen a lot of history in the making, and had destroyed a lot of souls that belonged to both humans in the war and Hollow in the cities of Germany. It was time for him to figure out if there was a way to save the souls of those hit by the weapons of Quincy, though it seemed like a nearly impossible task for him. Due to the limited amounts of knowledge and experimentation on the area of Soul Purification, the many years he spent on it turned out to be rather futile, having nothing to test it on, and having nothing to base his tests on. Luckily for him, there had been a great war with the people of the Vandenreich and the Soul society, and a certain item called the Bankai Ensnaring device was made to use the Shinigami’s own weapons against them. Taking one of the many captured Bankai for himself, he used it to experiment with the Konso, getting incredibly far, though it never got to the point where it truly worked out for him. What did work out for him was marriage, and the fact that he got a

Having a relatively long life, Adalbrecht would not die until he turned eighty, meaning he became quite old for someone who had been spending his life fighting Hollows and other evil beings. At the end of his life, the gun and the notebook were passed on to his only daughter, Elise Bardawulf, a kind young woman who had the blood of the Quincy inside of her. With the Ace of Judgement and the notebook, she would one day become a strong Quincy like her parents, maybe even stronger if she would keep working on her skills. Entrusting his teachings and his studies upon her, hoping that she would be the one to figure out the secret to Soul Purification, rather then Soul eradication, something he had hoped to one day end, but unfortunately never got to in his lifetime.

Living within the boundaries of the Quincy order of Germany, Elise was one of the less promising Quincy on the battlefield, not really having what it took to be as skilled as her parents once were, something that was rather awkward for her. Her parents had left her with quite the legacy to live up to, yet she was not capable of doing anything, and that would be the driving force pushing her to take action and find something she was good at. This was not easy, for the Quincy had a lot of areas of expertise, but had little to nothing to do for someone that had no abilities in combat. For her combat problems, it did not take long for all the other Quincy to start seeing her as an inferior person, and a weakling that had no place in the Bardawulf family like her father, and her grandfather before him. On one faithful day, Elise ran into the work her father had been working on for a very long time now, and believed that this could be something to put her time into, something she could try to perfect for those in the order. Still, there was a side of her that did not want to do anything for the order, and would rather do this to prove to herself that she was far from worthless, that she had what it took to be useful to the world.

Starting her own experimentations on Haruichi, the stolen Zanpaktou deep inside of the orders laboratory, continuing with the one thing she could do, to continue the work her father started so many years ago. With the stubborn Zanpaktou and the information gathered by her father, she had a lot to work with, and figured that this could be her great breakthrough in the soul purification field. Placing the device in her hand, she activated the mechanism, forcing the blade to manifest itself for her, even though it did not want to be used like this by an unfit person. Elise did not care for the wishes of the Zanpaktou, and simply forced it out like one would force a slave to work against her will, a dreadful thing to do. Showing no mercy, she started a very rough experimental program, running by the blade and it’s structure, trying to figure out how they could work out something similar to the Shinigami purification process. It would make the relationship with the Soul Society a lot more peaceful if they managed to pull this off, so this would take priority to everything else going on in her life, even her husband and child.

It took her several months, though through her use of the Bankai ensnaring device and Haruichi, it was the woman that seemed to have no skill as a Quincy that figured out how to work the Quincy weaponry into a new system, capable of purifying the souls that it kills, thereby contributing to the spiritual balance in the world. Her research was wanted by many, though it was not perfected yet, and could not be handed out as a prototype. Untested systems often led to great trouble that could have been helped simply by testing it, rather then jumping the gun and just going at it right away. For now, testing would have to wait, due to her pregnancy that started nearing it’s final weeks. Placing the gun in a hollowed-out book, she would keep the prototype hidden until she could work on it again. Unfortunately, the poor woman never truly got what she had aimed for, the gratitude and renown she so desired, for it was during her child-birth that she ceased to live as a result of a problem existing when the child was born. Having to choose for either her own life or the baby, she chose for the baby, naming it Elric before she passed away.

Non-Quincy: As the child to Elise and Lukas Bardawulf, Elric grew up as a child without a mother, meaning his education was slightly different, raised like a real man, the kind that threw a punch before asking questions. Unlike his parents and ancestors, Elric seemed to have no skills as a Quincy whatsoever, being incapable of things such as Spirit perception, meaning that he could not see spirits or hollows like all the other Quincy could. His case was even worse then with his mother Elise, for she had spiritual awareness, something he completely lacked. To the entire Quincy community, this was a very peculiar case, though they did not want to shun him for lacking the required skill, because he was still family by blood. Elric did not much care for their claims, and stated that unlike his father and his ancestors, he had no right to live among the Quincy, and would not want anything along the lines of charity or pity from them. Several hours after he had said that, he had packed his bags and left the order, never to return to the place he grew up in, not even showing his face around the city again.

Never looking back once, Elric went to Japan, a place of opportunity for people like him. Having only some luggage filled with keepsakes and clothes, he started a new life in a place called Karakura Central, a large city full of people with spiritual awareness, though he did not know about this himself, and just went by what he had heard. In this city, he met a girl called Hana Hikaru, someone he did not know at first, but got drawn to when he saw her on the street, and decided to just approach her and talk to her. She was into the Lawyer business, which was something Elric himself had a diploma for, and as such, asked her if she could help him get a job at her company. As it turned out, they could use one more person on their floor, and he was soon taken in by the company as one of their own, something he was very grateful of. It would not come as a surprise that it was for this reason that several years later, the two would get married and bought a house in Karakura. For a couple of years, their life was perfect, though it was not long lived, for she had some secrets of her own, and something was about to happen to their family.

After several years of living in their house, people started to wander around the house at night, taking picture of the house and stalking them during the day. Unsure what this was all about, they chose to inform the police that something was going on, though they had nothing to go by, and chose to ignore it. This however did not mean that things suddenly stopped, as pictures started coming in about his wife and himself on the street at point where they were all alone. They sent letters, asking for money if they wanted to stay safe, which was by all means a threat to their very lives, and because they had no idea who to look out for, there was no other way to go by this then to just pay the money they asked, which was not even that much. Dropping the money off every day at the docks in the early morning, Elric caught a glimpse of the people picking up the money, and kept them in his mind. When the time came, he would take matters into his own hands.


Early Life of Adalric (2389): Born in Karakura Central, Adalric Bardawulf was born to Elric Bardawulf and Hana Hikaru, Adalric was born in a rather safe environment. Belonging to a family that had achieved rather legendary features in the field of Reishi manipulation and soul purification, he would be more or less forced to grow up to the point where he would become a great Quincy like his ancestors. He was just a baby, but even now, the world needed people that could protect it, and the people living in it. Elric and Hana believed that it could be their boy who would bring them honor and even peace, as unlikely as it might have been. Still troubled by the same people that had threatened them in the past, their acts against the Bardawulf family in Karakura became worse after the baby had been born. With him in the picture, the thugs had so much more to threaten, and if they somehow got their hands on the baby, who knew what the extents of money they’d ask for his safe return would be. Ever since the police got involved, nothing changed for them, in fact, it had even gotten worse when the thugs caught wind of them involving the police, and demanded even more money every month, which was not a reasonable amount of a couple with a new born baby.

On one day, Elric could no longer handle it, and decided to take matters into his own hands, knowing pretty damn well that the police had nothing to go on, and they would never be safe from these awful people. Taking a gun with him, he headed down to the docks where he had to drop off the money, looking all over the place to find the people that had been pushing them for so long, draining their money for about as long as they had lived in the city, to make them pay for the things they had done to them. Murder was not the answer, but this time, there was no other alternative. Reaching warehouse 56, he opened the door and saw several people inside, people he recognized as the ones that had been taking his money for years now. Pointing his gun at them, it was time for retribution, and just like that, he realized that the only thing he could do now was to fire at the thugs, killing several before they could reach for their arms. Taking down three of the five in the first barrage, he hid behind a crate as he reloaded, waiting for the other two to show their faces.

In a flick of rage, the last two came running at him, allowing him to shoot one in the chest and the other in the lower abdomen. This was not enough to stop him, for he rushed onward and plunged a dagger into Elric’s chest, leaving a deep wound that bled like a pig. With the last of his strength, Elric put the last bullets in his mag inside of the thugs body, making sure he would soon bleed out from punctured lungs and torn organs. With the cut in his chest, he too was in grave danger, and not being able to die without seeing more of his son as he grew up caused his adrenaline to rush even faster. Getting the phone, he called an ambulance to pick him up, knowing that this would cause him to go to jail, if he managed to survive this whole ordeal, and likely face trial and get put on death row. When the ambulance arrived, Hana was picked up by a relative and brought to the hospital. Thanks to the doctors at the hospital, Elric was saved from the brink of death, but was sentenced to life in prison for the murders committed.

Thanks to police evidence against the thugs, the judge and jury decided not to go with the death sentence, because he had in fact done the entire community a huge solid by getting rid of these people, and because he still had a new born that could use a father, even if it was one that was behind bars and away from home.

Growing up: Growing up without a father was hard, though they had no other choice but to make the best of what their father and husband had given them, the freedom they had desired for so long. Hana felt every day that she had not done enough to ensure their safety, and had not done enough to help out her husband during all of this. She felt this way for a reason, because there was something very special about her that she had managed to hide from her husband for all of these years. Ever since she was young, roughly around the age of sixteen, Hana had been a Substitute Shinigami for the Soul society, tasked with protecting Karakura like others had done in the past, and still did up to this day. As such, Adalric had the genes of a Quincy and a Shinigami, things that would help him out with a lot of things in the future, though he would not know about any of this for a very long time. His mother had a feeling that in some way or shape, there might be something wrong with him that would only come to affect him later, if it affected him at all. With the things his father left him, Hana sewed up a new outfit that went with the time much better, having a great deal of fashion.

With his mother being the only one that could pay all of the bills, Adalric had to pitch in at a very young age himself, being only ten when he started picking pockets on the street. He was great at it, having great spiritual perception and agility, allowing him to dash off into areas that had little to no people in it, allowing him to get away like a falcon. He could not go on doing this the entire time, and there would be a day when he would have to actually study and earn money the right way, that much was clear to him. Over time, he came to figure out by himself that his mother had some kind of inner power that she was hiding from him. When he confronted her with it, she explained to him that his father came from a long line of Quincy, and that she was in fact chosen to be a Substitute Shinigami that would keep an eye on the city. She explained to him that there had been some artefacts that she found in her fathers stuff on one day, including a spirit powered handgun and a glove with a small badge. She explained to him that the glove held a power similar to her own, though the means used to obtain it were awful. One day, he would have to take care of it so that he could free it and truly make it his own.

From his twelfth birthday, Hana started training Adalric in using his weapons and making use of his skills. He was not sure why she suddenly decided to train him, though it most likely had some sort of purpose that he did not get at the time. Asking his mother about it, she explained that spiritual aware people would be a target for Hollows, creatures praying on the souls of humans. There was little to explain about them, but she explained the basics of a Hollow to him, and gave him a very old black notebook that had been written in 1943, and had been kept up for all of these years, containing massive amounts of knowledge for the boy to read up on and make his own. It was what his family had left him, and would surely be made good use of, for that was the way in which Adalric did things. He spent time on everything, considered it and then made work of it, putting the different kinds of knowledge to use. With the note book, he could start training on his own when his mother was at work, and use the skills of the Quincy during his pick pocketing crusade on the streets.

Haruichi’s taming: On his thirteenth year, it was time for Adalric to learn how to use the device that had been used so many years ago to capture a Shinigami’s Bankai. Before he did, he took the trouble of reading through all the notes on the Zanpaktou called Haruichi, learning that it had been hurt by the Quincy that captured it, and was forcefully wielded in order to kill the Shinigami it once belonged to. He could not imagine what it must have been like to kill a being that is part of your own soul, believing that it must be like having to kill your own mother, father or siblings, the very thought of which made him tremble. With this thought in mind, Adalric put on the glove that had been made especially for the device, allowing the user to quickly and easily bring out the Zanpaktou sealed inside of it. Focusing on the glove, the device would simulate a situation similar to a Shinigami entering their Inner World. Within seconds, Adalric stood inside of a large, fairy like forest made out of purple and blue leaves, rather then the green scenery he was used to in the real world. It was hard to grasp the concept, since this was not something inside of himself, but something inside of Haruichi.

Walking around the place, he could see small stone shrines and several trees that reached high up into the sky, higher then his eyes could see. Adalric knew that Haruichi had been broken and forced to submit over a hundred years ago, though that was not what Adalric wanted from the sword, he wanted to make some sort of a friendly relationship with it, and truly believed that as long as he would work towards this, he could pull it off. Simply biding his time and showing that he had patience, he waited by the stone shrine, doing nothing but looking around for any sight of the Zanpaktou, his ears pitched for any sounds they might catch on to. As the minutes passed by, he soon found himself to have nearly fallen asleep after spending over an hour waiting for the spirit to come to him, refusing to use the device to forcefully bring it out. It was rather tiring to find out that no matter how hard he tried to keep his composure and wait it out, the spirit did not seem to have any intention of willingly showing itself to him at all.

When Adalric was about to give up on the peaceful methods and break off the connection to the spirit, a soft breeze flowed through the forest, touching his skin and leaving a rather warm feeling as it passed. As the wind seemed to thicken and take form, a mysterious looking woman stepped forth from where there was nothing, walking towards him with her hands on her hips, looking at him with a questioning gaze. As she spoke, it seemed like she believed him to be different, capable of telling that he was thinking in a different manner then the other people that had forced their way into her world and enslaved her. When he told her that he wanted to learn how to use her powers out of her own free will, she laughed at him, and asked him why he would not just force out her powers, to which he replied simply with the phrase “Because it would not be the right thing to do”. In that moment, it seemed that Haruichi saw something in the young boy, and told him that he could leave now.

Unsure of what she meant, he left the inner world and told her that he would see her some other time. Truth be told, Haruichi was the only person he knew now that had not been killed yet, and maybe she knew that this was what led to her showing compassion in these dark times of his life. After this encounter with the Zanpaktou spirit, not much would really change for him, though it made quite a difference for his future, capable of relying on his Bankai weapon as if it were truly his own, rather then one that had been stolen hundreds of years ago. None of this would show itself for several years, though it was worth the effort he put into it, that much was certain. Waking up from his trance, the glove on his hand somehow felt warmer, as if the thing inside of it had more or less made peace with the person holding on to it. Feeling less alone now, Adalric pressed on, not going to be held back by those that had killed his family, but set on delivering judgement to those that had wronged him and so many others.

High School: By the time he turned eighteen, his mother was sent into the hospital, for she seemed to have picked up some sort of disease no one could truly explain. It was so bad that even his father was allowed to leave prison for a while, just in case his wife was going to die after all. As it seemed, Hana had picked up some sort of Hollow when out on the road from work to home. This hollow was growing inside of her, feeding on all of her energy until she would have nothing left, and would make his way out of her as a mature monster. When both Elric and Adalric waited next to the bed for her to eventually stop breathing, neither of them knew about what was going on right now, and they had no way to prepare for what was about to happen. Saying goodbye to a mother and a wife, she started bleeding heavily, and a moment later, bits and pieces just shot through the room, leaving not a single piece of her that could be identified. In the moment, the monster lashed out and grabbed his father by the waist. Biting into his shoulder, he took his arm off before Adalric could reach for his gun and fire several reishi bullets into it’s chest. Ripping his father in two halves, the final bullets he fired took the Hollow out, causing it to disintegrate. Taking his leave through the window, he could not face the hospital staff and explain what had just happened.

A few days after he had ran away from the hospital, he saw a piece on the television about how the Bardawulf family had supposedly all died in the hospital. This meant that he could not go by his real name any longer, and could best go with a name he had not used in many, many years.. Now that he was truly on his own, it was time for him to finally start school, even though it was rather late. He had his reasons though, because with the whole Haruichi problem, the Quincy training and the things he had to do on the side to make sure his mother had enough money to go by. Signing up under the name his mother had given him at birth, Hitoshi Hikaru was now a student on the Karakura High school, a place where he hoped to blend in without people finding out too much about his powers. For now, he would keep to himself and not talk to too many people, that being the best thing he could do so that he would not become a target for any bad people that might want to harm him or take things out on his family. When he felt like he could trust people, he would have time to open up to them, but that would not be happening for a long time, that much was certain at this point in time. No one seemed to like the Quincy, so he would only explain himself to people that he could truly trust, to people that did not have the bias towards Quincy and them being solely evil and out to destroy the spiritual balance.

As usual, the world of Hueco mundo was dark, one of the things that seemed to never change. It was the one thing Shizuminoru would never want to get used to, because he liked the way day and night shifted, switching places every couple of hours so that the both had an even amount of time of the day. The way things where now, life was just boring, and the only thing that changed was the person entering through the cave entrance in search of a meal that could boost their ranking within Hueco mundo. Not too long ago, Shizuminoru had become the thing some called a Vasto lorde, though most people did not really have a name such as that for them, and just considered them to be the Gods of the white desert. Now that this state of being had been reached, Shizuminoru’s power leaked out of him like some sort of personal odour that lured other Hollow into the cavern he had made into his home. Every day, several would try getting into the cavern in order to kill him so they could take over his power, though they had all failed miserably so far. Anyone that wondered past the cavern could smell the reek of death in the air that came out of it, as well as bloody trails of those that tried getting out when wounded, or tried to pull out some of the flesh that was left for them to feed on. For lesser Hollow, the cavern would be a paradise, for Shizuminoru no longer had to feed on Hollow in order to get stronger, though he did not mind taking a couple of bites every now and then when he got hungry. For a Hollow, Shizuminoru had reached the end of the ladder, and had reached the highest possible point for a Hollow, and no longer had to fight the fear of regression, for his being would never be erased.

His grotesque body sat on a pile of corpses, picking his teeth with a bone as his undying, yet bored gaze stared blankly out of the cavern, as if he was waiting for a certain someone to find him. Back in the time when he had found his end, both he and his sister had been locked inside of a burning building where they suffocated, his sister being the first to pass away in his arms. After they died due to a lack of air, their bodies where burned and nothing remained, as their souls where forced to wander, waiting for someone to save them, though the only thing that came for them was a group of hollow that fed on their souls. His entire life, or Afterlife, had revolved around getting his younger sister back with him, though this had been a hard task, for Hueco mundo was massive, and she was a gentle soul. Chances where that she would never have gotten the chance to become a Hollow, or a leader in one of the weaker minded Gillian, meaning her soul would have gotten lost in the endless waves of Souls these Hollows fed on and stored inside of them. As probable as this was, he would never accept the fact that his sister was gone, and would stay inside of the cavern as long as he had to, unless the right person would step in. Letting out a loud, low bellow, the inside of the cavern seemed to shake, as the empty void of the cave amplified the sound, allowing people within several hundreds of meters to hear it and get the chance to check out it’s source, or simply wander on. Most where wise enough to just run along and not even get close to the place, though curiosity was a strange thing, and there was no telling who might come in to seek out the source of the loud bellowing sound that had echoed through the forest.

A couple of months ago, Souren had commissioned for a group of Archaeologists and people skilled in foreign languages and history in order to find out more about the Ruins he had found when he was still a child living in times of war. Back then, it had been hard to get enough people who had the time and the skills to go down into Ruins that had not been properly excavated or checked for traps. At first, the people he interviewed only seemed interested in whatever riches the ruins would hold, and they had been sent back home soon after. Souren needed loyal people interested in learning more about their lands, and finding riches taking a second place. After a few weeks, Souren found the right group of people that had spent their lives diving into other tombs and tunnels made by an ancient race that lived before the formation of Tsurugakure, the war and most likely even before people started thinking about a war. No one knew what happened, all they knew was that these people suddenly disappeared from the face of the earth. Ever since he was a child, the ruins had interested him, and it was almost like some unknown power was drawing him to get closer, to get to the bottom of things by himself.

Today would be the first day since hiring the Archaeologists for him to go back to the site of interest. Checking out the ruins before entering, he could see small tents set up all over the place, and many civilians, as well as Shinobi working on things like dusting off old artefacts, deciphering pages of text that had been brought up from the ruins themselves, as well as Genin walking in and out with cages and traps set for rodents. When he looked around at the amount of people that had been gathering in order to help out with the digging and unearthing of ancient artefacts and texts, it truly made him feel like he had done another thing that would make his village great. After a few minutes of looking over his latest project, he set out to find the man in charge, a man known as Yanagi. He was wise, something he had gained over the years. He had been living in the country before the war began, and had been studying ruins and other related things in the country of Jungles. This made him the leading authority on Kusamura’s History, and the leader of the current project. Souren was very happy with this man, for he took things very serious, and people followed his example, even his Shinobi.

So far, a large hall filled with depictions of events that had taken place in the past and a great deal of text no one truly understood. Next to that, a place had been uncovered that they thought was used as a place of religion. Many statues had been uncovered so far, and the entire thing had been restored, the statues put back in the places they used to stand. One of these statues was made in the honour of the God Trasim, a god that had fallen from grace, and had taken his place in the centre of the earth. Not much was known about him next to this, though people had been starting to figure out more about him as they uncovered more in the Ruins. Everything that had been prepared so far had been sealed in several scrolls, scrolls that had been made ready for shipment to Tsurugakure. These scrolls had all been for Souren to read and uncover, for it was his money put into the project, and his Shinobi helping out during the uncovering of the ruins. Over the coming months, more and more would be uncovered, that much was certain. For now, he would just take the scrolls with him to the Senju clan hideout, the one place where they would be most protected and kept safe from the public.

"Today might be a fun one"


That was the thought in Chikizu's mind, and it was a good one for once, which was an achievement in itself. He was usually quite bored, did not look forward to the rest of the day, and hoped night would fall as soon as possible, but not today. He could always smell it, smell the scent of battle in the air, though it was usually not around in the peaceful village. Stepping out of the seaside cavern, he went along the shore and passed through the jagged rocks of the Kishinyama until he got into the forest. From that point, it would take quite some time to get to the village, so he tried moving as fast as he could, avoiding the Marshes and the main traveling route, having no time to be held up by travelers that needed help. Today was his day of, and he did not want to spend it looking after people, but by looking after himself, fulfilling his own needs. Getting closer and closer, he made his way to the stone stairs that led one past the waterfall, up to the village of Sanringakure.

Running up the stairs of stone, his sword that was covered in red bandages was hanging near his hip, ready to be taken out and cut someone up good. Stopping for a moment inside of the market district, he took it to himself to buy some Onigiri, a kind of food that became an addiction to him thanks to his former master. It was his favorite food, and they ate it almost every day, causing it to grow on Chikizu too. Having three of the rice balls stuffed in his mouth at once, he took another one with him in his hip pouch while continuing his journey. Moving from the street onto a rooftop, and from that into the nearest tree, he made his way to the lake placed in the center of Sanringakure, most likely being the best place to meet people for a good old sparring contest.

Arriving at the lake, he waited around for people to come by, looking for a good spar. He would only ask people to fight, or accept a fight if someone looked at least a little bit interesting. After all, people who looked interesting usually had some strange powers at their disposal, or at least that's what he grew up believing. In his case, he looked like a human shark, having a blue skin and pretty long blue hair. He had teeth that resembled those of a shark, as well as gills near his cheeks. His power was the use of powerful Suiton Ninjutsu, Dagereza and some close combat skill with his hands. Being quite tall and muscular, he could easily knock someone right out by hitting them in the face. "If there is ANYONE out there that wants to have a go at me, then feel free to move on up. I will take you all on at the same time!" he yelled, his hands aching for a good old fashioned fight.

"True, some of them are haunted by the others inside of their bodies, though back in the days, I was capable of holding them down and blocking them out. By the sound of it, you may have had trouble with the other people, though I can assure you, plenty of us Arrancar have had similar problems, while some of them, including me, have learned to force the voices out and take a hold of the body for their own. To most of us, both Hollow and Arrancar, self preservation is the most important thing, to some more then to others" Shizuminoru said about the topic of the Adjuchas and their intelligence, sharing a bit of his personal experiences yet again. When he spoke about self preservation, he spoke about himself, though Tori would most likely not be able to figure that much out. His aspect of death was Pride, the sole reason why he was so self obsessed at times, was also the reason why it was incredibly hard to let go of his sister, thinking that he could take on the world by himself. Some would like to see his personality as that of a person who strives to become stronger in order to reach for the horizon, though it was actually just the mentality of a broken and scarred person that at times, just wanted enough power so that he could just go up and set the world on fire, just to watch it all burn down to the ground.

From what I have seen, I would have to both agree and disagree with you. I heard the Quincy can only control the Reishi around them to create arrows or fuel their Swords, something I would not really call all that diverse, though the Fullbringers seem to be very diverse indeed. Some have gained Vampiric powers, others gained wolf like powers, soul weaponry and even strange forms of armors or terrain controlling abilities. I would say that they are at least as diverse as us Arrancar and the Shinigami, maybe even more diverse then us. Some of the Zanpaktou I have seen seemed to be rather boring, though I guess not everything can be as interesting as the other, while the meaning of the word also differs from one person to the others. It only made sense, because Fullbringers got their powers from the Hollow in the past, thus mixing their powers into a new form of power. As such, there was no limit on how many different kinds of Fullbring might be out there in the world, and how many where still coming. The attacks of Hollow on humanity would never truly end, meaning the forming of children born with the Fullbring power would also continue until either their attack on humans ended, or when Humanity would somehow be wiped out entirely, two things which would never happen.

In a way, all of us are bent to go to hell for the sins we committed as Hollow. None of us can say that they did nothing wrong, while the fact of the matter is that we have been killing our own kind knowingly, just so we could survive and grow stronger. To most, it is one of the two, though for me it was for both reasons, though I also wanted to be returned to my body and get the power to find out for myself if my sister was still alive somewhere, in some way or shape. I know that, no matter how many good things I do, it will never make up for all the souls I destroyed as a Menos. I am going to hell, like I think all of us are. As a former Vasto lorde, the amount of souls I ate and destroyed far outstretches those of most others, seeing as only a very small percentage of Hollow gets to become a Vasto lorde Menos. The amount of people I singlehandedly destroyed reached over 36,000,00 something that took me almost nine hundred years. Despite the amount of people that I have killed, in the end, it was never enough, and I kept on hunting with the hopes of becomes stronger and stronger. I do not believe in redemption of ones soul, and I do not really look down on the knowledge of me going to hell, because I believe that wherever I may go next, I deserved it. However, I do not want my sister to share that fate. She deserves to go to a better place, and as much as it pains me to say it, I do not want her to accompany me to hell he explained in complete honesty. Maybe by doing so, Tori would get to look further into his mind, and figure out more about his reasons for saving his sister. It was both brotherly love, and a form of personal insight into his own being.

I am sorry, but I have no time left to go and see her. It is very important that I head back to the Material work and round up my work there. Once I am done there, I will be right back here in order to see how things have gone between the two of you. Just tell her that you met me, and that I told you to come see her because I thought the two of you might hit it off, and might be able to become friends. As long as she does not figure out the real reason why you are there, I am sure that everything will work out just fine he said, showing that he both trusted and had faith in Tori's abilities to a certain degree. If anyone could change the young girls mind about her twisted sense of faith, and might destroy the fake god that she had created in her years of being on her own in their family estate. He did not blame her for thinking up someone to talk to during her loneliness, though things had gone way too far when she was claiming to marry a non existent person, and did not mind, but rather welcomed death with open arms so she could be with her god. What had helped her in the past had to be destroyed, or there would be no future for her to look forward to. If she welcomed death now, it was certain that whatever kind of good still lived inside of Shizuminoru would die out forever, and would be the final push he needed in order to just cut loose and live like the other Arrancar, killing all those who stood in his way just for looking at him the wrong way. But thoughts like that did not make things better, so he shoved those back as far as he could, trying to keep his thought with the conversation. Walking off into the background a bit, the opening black void allowed him to pass into the darkness. Turning around to face Tori for the last time, he had very little left to say.

Thank you very much for all of this, I really appreciate that you are willing to do this for me and my sister. If you ever need help with something, you will know where to find me, so don't be afraid to ask me. Even though I am not the strongest person out there, I can still help you out with most things, that's what friends are for right?" he said, wondering if Tori considered him to be a friend after all of this. To him, it had already reached the point of a shallow friendship, which in the end was friendship none the less. "Now then, I bid you farewell Shizuminoru said, showing a short salute as the Garganta closed itself, and all that was left around him was total darkness. It was always this way, whether he was in Hueco mundo's deserts, in the Material world or in whatever kind of place he could imagine, it was always dark around him. This time however, he felt like he had made a friend, something that was always important and useful, no matter what race one belonged to. Creating a path of glowing Reishi, he walked down the road that would lead back to the Material world, back to Karakura town where he could finish his research that had been interrupted by the pair of Shinigami.

Konohagakure no Sato, the hidden village of the Fire country, a place that never managed to bond with Yoroi, or maybe it was Yoroi that never managed to bond with the village. For years now, Yoroi had been living in the forests of the fire country, not needing any humans around him in order to survive. In fact, he did his best to avoid people without knowing it, the first human he had even met being by accident. He had been following this woman for quite some time now, and due to some stupid mission, he had been left behind to wait for her in the village. Yoroi had, due to a past event, taken on quite severe abandonment issues, and as such, did not think she would ever come back to pick him up. His parents had abandoned him once, his friend the Tiger had abandoned him once, and now his new friend had left him behind in Konohagakure. Villages belonged to the list of things he considered as pointless wastes of space, for nature was all people needed to survive. Hell, he had been living on his own, without the luxuries of proper clothing and shelter for years. Even now, he had only one pair of clothes that had been sown back many, many times already, for it was not Yoroi’s thing to just sit there and do nothing. He protected Hani, meaning he needed to be strong enough to do such a thing in the first place, and to those that did something, things could go wrong. Rubble could fly, bones could break and clothes could rip, nothing about this being out of the ordinary, though it was his bones that got fixed sooner then his clothes.

Looking out over the treetops, he wondered what it would take for him to get back to Hani. Sitting on one of the large skeletons located on the mountain, he thought about the kind of animal that would leave skeletons as big as these. It was very interesting to him, for he had only hunted Deer, Wild Boar, had fought wolves and even killed bears, eating their flesh and using their pelts for warmth at night. For years, he had been the apex predator that would kill anyone who would try to kill him or steal his food, but when seeing bones as big as a house, it seemed that he was not the greatest hunter out there after all. If he would have met the owner of this skeleton, he would have been gone in a single bite, something that brought his spirit down a bit. Still, there must have been a reason why this massive creature had died, and he had survived all those years. Size did not always matter, and even though the creature had bigger bones, his had proven to be stronger, for he got to live, adapt and grow stronger so he could one day become the world’s apex predator once again. For this reason, he refused to be trained by other people, seeking out his own path and gaining strength in his own special way. He did not have to fight others in order to prove himself worthy of being a predator, because he had proven to be a warrior and a predator by the time most other kids of his age took baths, shopped for clothes with their parents and got nice cooked food, sleeping in the safety of a home.

This all paled in comparison to what he had been through, and he loved Hani for finding him and taking him with her, though at times it seemed like she’d rather be alone. This did not matter, because Yoroi believed that he could change her, and make her love having him around as much as he did with her. Despite all of that, he still missed living in the forest, for it was a simple life that was free from politics and war. The animals did not judge him, and he did not judge them, for all he could do was bide his time and strike when the time was right. That life however, was over, and he had sworn to himself that he would protect Hani wherever she went. Despite his beliefs in her never coming back, he would still stick around and await her return, hoping she would be different then his parents and the one responsible for raising him as a warrior, who strange enough was actually a tiger. This did not mean that he would just sit tight like a trained dog, waiting anxiously for her return to the village. Oh no, he would just head out and do the things he liked to do, be outdoors, explore new places he had not seen before, and even catching prey that he could cook on a fire. While Hani was gone, he could live like he used to, at least until she came back, or something else came up.