Chapter 1 - Tsubasa

A tall shinigami stood in a gated pavilion above a high school, watching through the chain links. She is definitely late. Humans were expected to be late. They couldn’t be punctual at such an age as 16. He felt her spiritual pressure getting closer though, so he shrugged and sat down heavily, considering how his gigai looked. The uninhabited body lay next to him, arranged as if it was sleeping. The school uniform adorned it, and Isredel sighed at the sight. But it didn’t breathe. By his standards, he should definitely not be here. He was a captain from the Gotei 13! He was supposed to be investigating an arrancar presence. Why would an arrancar be in a high school? But if he could find it, it shouldn’t matter.

He caught sight of a girl running towards the school building from across the field. Her shoulder length brown hair swayed side to side with her gait. She looked panicked. Isredel knew that he had asked her to be quite early, but he had shrugged, figuring if he could be here, she could as well. She might be able to help him find this arrancar, since she had a high spiritual pressure comparative to other humans. She could notice something like an arrancar.

“I’m really sorry Isredel-kun! I almost forgot,” the girl exploded when she reached the top of the stairs. With unsure steps she came closer. She panted and smiled, dropping her bag next to Isredel. She then flopped down beside her bag and brushed off her school uniform. It consisted of a grey skirt and a white blouse; both now speckled with dust. Her black shoes had been turned light brown.

“Good morning, Katya.” Isredel spoke coldly, his words sharp. “You’re exactly twenty-one minutes two seconds late.” His eyes were riveting around, only barely settling on his watch for a moment to tell the time. He sensed something, a reiatsu spike, a strong, harsh reiatsu. Was this what an arrancar reiatsu felt like? Was the arrancar close? What was the sinister reiatsu in the background, constantly there? Why couldn’t he trace it? Why did it seem to block every one of his senses? Did it know about him?

Isredel didn’t notice the random chatter that poured forth from Katya’s mind as she talked to make herself less anxious. Her tone changed again, and she seemed mad. Then she was happy, after that it changed to irritation.

Katya rolled her eyes and sat up. “People are going to think I’m talking to a sleeping person if you don’t get in your body. Or maybe they’ll think I’m talking to thin air. Please do try to act alive, okay?”

“So what? It won’t change anything. I’m not here to just talk with you about gossip, Katya.”

“This is my first day of high school! It determines my reputation for the next three years today!” Katya hissed.

“You’ll most likely do something else that gives you that insane or crazy reputation. The sooner you get it over with —” Isredel started to reply in a matter of fact voice.

“How dare you imply that! I am most certainly not crazy!” Katya nearly screamed at him.

“I was in no way implying anything. It was a cold fact.”

The angry wail uttered by Katya was punctuated sharply by the sound of someone slipping down the stairs and tumbling to the landing below. Isredel shrugged and replied nastily. “They probably can’t see me anyway, so there’s no point in me trying to help.”

Katya jumped up and ran over, to look at a mess of books and papers, as the bag that had held them continued to roll down the stairs. As the last papers settled, Katya started picked them up, practice of doing so showing clear on her face. Soon, most of the pathway had been cleared down to the fallen girl, and Katya was careful to pick up any stray papers. The books had gone down farther since they had stayed in the bag, and she leapt down the stairs to pick up all of the heavy textbooks. When Katya started replacing everything inside the bag though, she found it peculiar that the girl before her didn’t have a lunch with her. Maybe it had fallen out too! Katya went in search of the missing food, happy to be helping.

Kiptcha came around a few seconds later, and noticed a girl hovering about making sure everything was in order. She stood up slowly, and looked up at the top of the stairs. A presence with high spiritual pressure. Katya rushed to the top of the stairs.

“Get over here, since I can’t carry her myself!” Katya yelled. She turned back to Kiptcha, and she was obviously surprised that she was standing. Isredel appeared next to her, ready to help. However, he had not gotten into a gigai, so he presumed he couldn’t be seen.

Kiptcha forced herself not to look at the shinigami when he came, since she was supposed to be human. Normal humans can’t see shinigami. But her efforts not to look at Isredel were too obvious.

“You can see me, can’t you, human?” Isredel asked, gliding down the stairs as if he was a feather on the wind. He reached Kiptcha, but she was still pretending, although badly, to not see him.

Trying to get a response, Isredel touched her arm, just barely. Kiptcha’s gaze snapped over to him and she flinched, drawing her arm away by impulse. Her face was apathetic, but Kiptcha allowed their eyes to lock.

Isredel smiled. “I thought so.” His expression suddenly changed and he frowned, thinking deeply. “This reiatsu — it’s . . .”

Kiptcha put on a pretend smile, and she turned away. “I’m really sorry to bother you two, I’ll just go then!” With that Kiptcha allowed herself to dash frantically away. Her gliding down the stairs almost matched Isredel’s, but she had to hit more steps because of her bag.

Once she made it to the next level down, Kiptcha ran through the door and she spared a quick thought to dropping off her books and stuff in the classroom. She decided this was a good idea, and she ran down empty corridors to the classroom. She then entered, choosing a desk that sat against the windowed portion of the classroom, where early morning light streamed in. It was just now dawn. Kiptcha spared no thought to this though, and she emptied her bag, except for a few things, into her desk.

“Damn it! If that shinigami tries to get me to fight, Aizen-sama certainly will be more upset with me. This is unauthorized as it is — I’d better finish this up and leave . . . ”

“Aizen?” Isredel asked. He stood at the door, blocking exit. He smirked, taking a few steps across the classroom. His black hakama swished around him, reminding Kiptcha painfully of her comrades. Yet her comrades were so unlike this boy shinigami.

Kiptcha looked at him, and she tightened her jaw. “You shouldn’t eavesdrop.” She walked to one of the windows and looked out, ready to jump if he should try and attack.

Isredel came closer trying to make sure that she didn’t take it as a threat and run. He needed to talk to her. What does she know of Aizen?

She considered how far it was down and how hard it would be to land in this school uniform. She finished her calculations and opened the window, glancing behind her at Isredel. She smiled. Then she jumped, landing safely on the ground. Without another glance back, she began to run.

Isredel had a second to make his decision. A second before she could hide herself and all traces of her reiatsu. He watched her run, and he suddenly realized that all of her books had been stored away, that her bag would be almost empty and light. He watched her, and he noticed that her movements were jerky. She wasn’t meshing well with her gigai. That explained the stairs earlier.

“No choice, huh?” Isredel said slowly. He walked over to the open window and perched on the sill.

“Where are you going, Isredel-kun?” Katya asked, halting Isredel. She stood in the doorway, where Isredel himself had been moments before, addressing Kiptcha. Katya stared at him, her expression worried.

“There’s not time for me to explain. I’m sorry, Katya. I’ll talk to you later at the same place we always meet, if I can get through this,” Isredel reassured her. Then he vanished, from the sill, dropping to the ground below. He then started to catch up to the running girl, using shun-po. With practiced steps he made his way across the field toward her.

“What do you mean—?” Katya asked, but he was gone. She didn’t ask fast enough. “If you make it through what?”



Kiptcha sensed him, and she could see his darting movements behind her. She tried to speed up, but she realized with disgust that she was going as fast as her human body would allow. Sonido was not an option. Her gigai jerked randomly again. Kiptcha felt herself lose balance and start to fall. With a quick hand to catch herself and propel her faster, Kiptcha regained her balance, but she was going to fast. Her leg wouldn’t catch her in the next step. She flew, tumbling to the ground, helpless against the shinigami’s decision. Her breath was labored, and her body scraped up badly.

Isredel arrived less that a second after the girl fell, and he judged her movements carefully as she struggled to regain her breath and get up. He felt a small spike of reiatsu, which only solidified his opinion that this girl wasn’t human. He unsheathed his zampaku-to and he aimed it towards her. “What’cha runnin’ from, girl?”

Kiptcha looked up at him, her body was strained for oxygen and her vision kept blurring. Her arms felt numb and useless. Her side ached with pain that she couldn’t place at all. She couldn’t even sit up in this state. She saw the blade point suddenly come into focus, right under her chin. Kiptcha moaned, thinking about what Aizen was going to say to this.

“I’m late for something,” Kiptcha muttered dimly, her excuse too obvious.

“Likely. An appointment with death, perhaps?” Isredel snarled. The blade nicked the side of her neck, drawing a bead of blood. Kiptcha gritted her teeth and glared up at Isredel. “Most human girls would have screamed.”

“Should I scream then?” Kiptcha asked, her words bitter.

Isredel removed his sword from her throat and leaned down, resting one knee on the ground. Kiptcha looked at him carefully, taking into account everything. He had a handsome face with short, unruly, light colored hair. His black shinigami and captain cloak fluttered slightly in with the breeze. His zampaku-to was slender, but not long, not as long as her own. The hilt looked like a depiction of the sun or an explosion. She frowned, looking squarely into his deep blue eyes.

Isredel also examined his captive, but he began to wonder as he felt her reiatsu. It felt distinctly human. Did that spike really happen? Did he imagine it? No! Isredel bent further sown to grab hold of her shirt collar. “What do you think you’re doing here in the human world?”

Kiptcha laughed, finally getting her arm to come up. She placed a hand on top of his, grabbing at his thumb to try and pull the hand off. “What do you think I’m doing? I’m living my life as normally as possible here!”

It was Isredel’s turn to laugh. “What are you then?”

Kiptcha smiled, and she focused her thought, pulling herself from the gigai. She fell out of it, and she jumped away, leaving the gigai. “So be it.”

Isredel now looked at the real Kiptcha, though the gigai looked much like her it was not exact. There was a blue mark on her forehead like a diamond, and a red mark under her left eye. Her long hair had been pulled over her left shoulder. He didn’t know that her Espada number was hidden under it. Her uniform was a pure white, and he instantly knew what she was. An arrancar. The arrancar who he had been ordered to find and kill. Her eyes were blue-green, and her flesh was pale. Poking out of her hair were two white horn-like ears, presumably the remaining bits of her mask. The cut of her uniform was strange, as it left her abdomen exposed. Black sleeves covered her arms down past her elbows, since the actual top piece had no white sleeves. With it there was a white, knee-length skirt and the traditional black sash.

“An arrancar, huh? Pleased to meet you,” Isredel said, dropping the gigai. He unsheathed his zampaku-to again, and started to walk towards her.

“What a perfectly horrible way to welcome somebody,” Kiptcha scolded. She then turned, giving Isredel a full view of her long zampaku-to that she slung on her back. “But let’s see how well you keep up, shall we?”

Kiptcha used Sonido, easily getting farther away from Isredel. Her steps were large, and she was in the town proper before she knew it. She then doubled back, going around Isredel and leaving a confusing trail of reiatsu. With a light noise, Kiptcha landed back at the school.

With darting movements, she sailed down the stairs and into the classroom that Katya stood in, watching the events.

“A white girl . . .?” Katya muttered. She walked closer to the window, looking out. She tried to search for Isredel with her eyes, but he was gone. “Where?”

Kiptcha sat down on a desk behind Katya, and she spoke up, her voice silken smooth and carefully calculated to be reassuring. “He’ll come back here after he figures it out. You shouldn’t need to worry about him.”

Katya spun, and her eyes widened when she saw the white uniform and the dark hair that was draped down Kiptcha’s back. “You’re the white girl. The one who fell down the stairs?”

Kiptcha smirked. “I am Kiptcha Munae, Segunda Espada. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Katya looked at Kiptcha. “Are you . . . are you like Isredel-kun?” Her eyes were open and innocent.

“No. We’re kind of like rivals, I guess,” Kiptcha replied hesitantly. “Say, even though you’re human, do you possess any powers?”

Katya looked shocked. “Isredel-kun and I talked about that once. I have one.” She paused. “I can bring little origami creations to life to do certain tasks, like exploding, or creating a long slashing cut, or the shield. I developed a new power to surprise Isredel-kun with. I did that yesterday. And I was so tired I accidentally slept through my alarm.”

“What is it?” Kiptcha asked impatiently.

“I can heal things,” Katya grinned.

Kiptcha smirked and sighed heavily. “I’ll tell you a little about myself then, until Isredel — presumably — gets here.”

Kiptcha looked at Katya, wondering if she could handle the information. “Have you seen those monsters that occasionally come to this world? They come from my world, the dimension that I permit myself to call ‘home’. I think you should try to defeat one of these monsters yourself. Some are stronger than others, granted, but you should be able to. All you have to do is slice their mask in half.” Kiptcha paused again.

“I have told you that I am Kiptcha Munae, Segunda Espada. My only loyalty lies with Aizen-sama, my father and master. The world that these monsters known as ‘hollows’ reside in is called ‘Hueco Mundo’. I however, do not reside in Hueco Mundo, but in the ‘Las Noches’ Palace. I am known as an arrancar.

“Arrancar are created by Aizen-sama using the Hougyoku. The Hougyoku is also known as ‘The orb of Distortion’. Aizen-sama uses it on the menos—” Kiptcha was cut off in her explanation by another voice, completing it for her.

“To make them a combination of hollow and shinigami. Menos are extremely powerful compared to the normal hollows. The menos are thousands of hollows folded into one being. There are three classes of said menos,” Isredel interjected.

“Your friend, Isredel, is a shinigami. I am only half shinigami, that coming last. However, arrancar cannot be easily mistaken for shinigami because they have remnants of their mask, from their time as a hollow. All arrancar have them, but they are not the same. Arrancar are also not guaranteed to look human, as I so do.” Kiptcha said, trading off with Isredel again. She didn’t know how it was working so well between them, but for now she would go along with the flow.

“In the arrancar ranks there are the Numero. These are the weaker arrancar, given a two-digit number in correspondence to their birth. The oldest would be given 11, while the youngest 99. There are many different ranks other than the Numero, but they are of no consequence, except the Espada. This arrancar would better explain the inner workings of Aizen Sosuke’s army of arrancar than I.”

“True, shinigami. The Espada are the top ten fighters. We are given a rank pertaining to our strength, and that number is tattooed onto our bodies by Aizen-sama. We are the strongest of the arrancar as a whole. The only one who is above us is Aizen-sama.”

“The King of Bastards,” Isredel swore quietly, still standing behind Kiptcha.

“Aizen-sama is our God. We will die for him, as it was him who gave us this gift of life. He is our father, our idol, our god, our master, and our executioner. There are other groups or arrancar, but it is not necessary that you know them.” Kiptcha paused, carefully spinning in the correct direction as to flop her hair over her number. “If I were here with Aizen-sama’s permission, I would make your head roll in the dust. As it is, I can ill afford to provoke Aizen-sama.”

Isredel snarled, and he lunged, but Kiptcha daintily moved away. Her movements were perfect, unlike her gigai. She then turned around and laughed, her blue-green eyes dancing with light. “But be careful, human, if you ever enter Hueco Mundo. Because things aren’t as they may seem.”

Isredel made another swing, and Kiptcha seemed to reappear behind him. She waited for him to make another slash with his zampaku-to, and she moved slightly to the side. She placed a light hand on his arm, and she smirked when he attacked more, missing each time.

“You’ll never catch me, shinigami, not at that speed,” Kiptcha taunted, diving through the door and out into the corridor. She raced back to the roof, using fluid motions. Isredel was in hot pursuit, but Kiptcha was drawing away.



Isredel panted, slowly. His energy was almost gone. The arrancar had almost gotten away, but he had finally found her, inside a small apartment. He stood outside the door, preparing himself for the battle he was sure to follow his entrance to the room.

As he glided through the solid wall, classic shinigami style, Isredel was shocked at what he found on the other side. Kiptcha was leaned against the wall opposite the door; four tiny kittens curled up beside her. Kiptcha herself was not asleep, rather she stared at Isredel.

“Long time, no see,” she remarked jokingly, not moving. Her hair was still hiding the number, which didn’t perturb Isredel in the slightest. He didn’t even know it was there.

“This will be your last day in the human world, arrancar.”

“Oh why do you go have to spoil my mood?” Kiptcha said, slowly standing. Her face was emotionless, and her voice was flat and monotonous. It was unreal.

“It is my mission. You need to die!” Isredel hissed, angered by her indifference.

“And you’re going to kill me?” Kiptcha asked, putting feigned surprise into her words.

Isredel hesitated. Is that what he wanted? But Kiptcha continued before he could speak.

“You’re friend, the girl—”

“Katya!” Isredel interjected.

“—quite a special human. And she even possesses some powers. Do you value her at all?” Kiptcha finished.

Isredel looked horrified. “What have you done to her?!” Isredel couldn’t see where this was going, but he couldn’t believe that this arrancar had already gotten Katya.

“Nothing. She’ll do it all herself,” Kiptcha replied. She glided towards Isredel, but she made no offensive move. A crane drifted through the air close to the shinigami, and Isredel snatched it. He opened the paper, but Kiptcha needed no explanation of what was happening. Katya no longer resided in the human world at this moment. Isredel ripped the note to shreds.

Isredel easily jumped forward and pinned Kiptcha to the wall she had just been leaning against. The kittens had scattered. Isredel looked at the arrancar, confused. She wasn’t struggling. He tightened his grip around her throat slightly, causing Kiptcha to gag. She gasped for breath, fighting his hand. Isredel blinked. Her zampaku-to wasn’t on her back. Isredel looked around the room and spotted it through a doorway. Too far to reach. She had planned this through . . .

“What do you want to accomplish here?” Isredel demanded angrily. He stabbed his katana into the wall behind her, cutting part of her neck and shoulder. Kiptcha gasped and she reacted with lightning speed. Her hand clamped over the wound, not allowing any of the blood to spill. Her expression went from blank to pained in an instant. Her emotionless mask was broken.

“What – what do you want from me?!” Kiptcha responded. She cradled the right side of her neck, but she carefully kept her Espada number covered. “I’m not even supposed to be here!”

“Not supposed to be here—?” Isredel repeated. He looked at the arrancar. She seemed to be fading. “I’ll see you later, on my terms. My blade has the property of numbing anybody it cuts, so you’ll be out cold in a few moments. Maybe when you wake up you’ll be more reasonable.”

“If you think that, I see you’ve never really encountered any of the Espada, hmm-m-m-m-ah?” Kiptcha returned, lifting her face. She released her reiatsu, the sheer force sending Isredel back. He took his zampaku-to with him, though. Kiptcha swung her hair back, and she released the right side of her neck where it had been cut.

Isredel gritted his teeth. Here was his fight. He looked at his opponent, and for the first time, he saw her Espada number. Aw, shoot.



Katya screamed at the building crumbled around her. A shinigami with bright orange hair leapt past her, attacking the offending hollow. Katya knew him – Kurosaki Ichigo. She blinked with surprise as someone touched her arm, an unspoken command for her to turn and run. Katya looked back, meeting the gaze of another girl. She had short black hair – Kuchiki Rukia. Then the girl dropped out of her gigai, and she also lunged forward. Another shinigami? Katya’s head spun.

She turned and ran, fleeing with only the most important possessions. With all the adrenaline, she moved quickly, leaping down the stairs. When she reached the ground level, she joined the other screaming people in streaming out the door. As she emerged outside, she saw another hollow. She bit her lip, drawing blood.

“This is my turn, huh?” Katya asked herself aloud. She withdrew a piece of origami paper. Her fingers flashed as she folded, creating a swan. With a breath on it, the swan came to life in her hands, and it flew behind her, then pulling Katya up. She whipped out another piece of paper and folded another. She looked at it, making slight modifications. It was supposed to be a bomb this time.

She threw it, and Katya happily noted that the hollow was injured severely as it exploded. She got the crane to drop her on its back, where she folded her last origami, a butterfly. It would slice the monster in half.

Katya smiled, thinking back to the person who had told her how to control her powers – Isredel-kun. Then she thought of the girl who had been dressed in white, with two cat ears, who had told her about the hollows. The ears looked very much like horns as well, but the girl had told her how to kill these monsters. She had told her all about them.

Katya gasped as she realized what was happening around her. The hollow was returning to its own dimension, and it was going to take her with it. All she had a chance to do was send the crane that had carried her to find Isredel before she was pulled into Hueco Mundo.



Katya looked over the wide expanse of the desert. This must be the “Hueco Mundo” that the girl had spoken of. A palace sat on the edge of the horizon, and Katya instantly knew she had to get there. The girl had also spoken of it. It was call “Las Noches”. There must be someone there, if that girl had known about it. She had said that was where she lived.

Katya looked up at the sky, seeing only the crescent moon. This whole desert was bathed in its light. She looked around, not seeing any other life. Skeletons of plants scattered the landscape, but Katya knew that they were long dead. She began to get worried, so she started off towards the palace.

Even as she crossed the dunes, she could see everything that she had first spotted fading into the distance. A cold, sharp wind blew past, putting sand in her mouth. She spat it out and kept walking, running at times. The palace wasn’t getting any closer.

Katya began to wonder how far away she really was, and how big the sprawling complex was. She slumped down in the sand, wondering when dawn was. She had been here for a few hours, yet it seemed that the moon hadn’t moved. Would there ever be a dawn in this wretched world of shadows? Katya vaguely remembered the girl warning her about letting the hollow take her to the other side.

“But be careful, human, if you ever enter Hueco Mundo. Because things aren’t as they may seem.”

The palace must be one of those things.



“I am Kiptcha Munae. Segunda Espada.” Kiptcha said, looking majestic. She was powerful, yet she did not want to fight this shinigami in any way.

Isredel raised his sword, stepping into an indiscernible fighting stance. He started to analyze. Just when he was about ready though, he saw Kiptcha start to walk towards him. He raised his katana a centimeter higher and tensed, ready to react.

Kiptcha grabbed the blade, feeling it against her skin. Now that her reiatsu was back, it didn’t cut her at all. Moreover, it felt blunt. “Put this away, someone could get hurt, Mr. Shinigami.”

“Well, arrancar, I’d say it have to be you that was getting hurt then, not I.”

“But, if I am hurt, I shall refuse to take you to Hueco Mundo to save your little human friend,” Kiptcha pointed out.

Isredel’s eyes widened. “How do you know about that, arrancar?!”

“Please. Call me Kiptcha,” she replied, ignoring the question.



Isredel sat across a small table, staring alternatively at Kiptcha, then the tea she had prepared. He finally picked up the tea, but he discovered that it was truly better warm. He sipped it, but instead of being revolted, he found it quite nice.

“Did you expect me to poison it?” Kiptcha chided.

“You might have!” Isredel snapped without a second thought. Kiptcha looked hurt.

Instead of snapping back at him, she sighed quietly. “So let me get this straight. You came here to kill me, correct?”

“Yes.”

“And you met Katya along the way, and you hoped she would be able to tell you about me, correct?”

“Yes. Bu why do you care?”

“I’ve been here for two weeks, scouting out these kittens.” Kiptcha gestured to the cats. “They will become my personal honor guard.”

Isredel looked a bit shocked, but he decided it would be best that he didn’t say anything about it.

“So, do you have a place to sleep? Because I certainly won’t be returning to Las Noches tonight,” Kiptcha pointed out.

Isredel looked at her strangely, but he shook his head. “I only got here yesterday, and I slept on Katya’s roof.”

“You can the futon in the other room, since I’ll just sleep somewhere else, not that I really need to . . .”

“I couldn’t take your bed!” Isredel exploded, his anger obvious. “It would be – impolite, to say the least.”

“Then I’ll stay up after all. I might be able to train my pets. Goodnight to you, Shinigami-kun.”

Isredel looked up, suddenly uncomfortable. “I’m Isredel Shimazaki, Captain of the 5th squad. Please call me Isredel.”

“Alright then, Isredel. Off you go. I promise I don’t bite, for now at least,” Kiptcha said tauntingly. She stood up and walked around the table. Her hand brushed his shoulder, but she then swept out of the room, gathering the kittens. She went into a small room that wouldn’t shed light into the only bedroom. She turned back once more, and her gaze met Isredel’s. She held it for a few seconds before going about her task.

End of Chapter 1: Entitled “Tsubasa”
All credit is Kalliel’s. Except for the whole Bleach idea . . . you get it.
Please Comment!

You are not authorized to comment here. Your must be registered and logged in to comment