1 Death

The streets were bustling with the sounds of cars driving past and the crowds of people moving like tidal waves from one point to another. Never-ending, always flowing. And yet for a single moment when the lights switch on the traffic signs. In that small window, the world becomes quieter.

That is what he is waiting for at this moment as well as all the people around him.

Standing close to the Shibuya crossing, our main protagonist lighted up a cig and let the smoke travel upwards. Some faces around himself moved in his direction and glared at him with a contemptuous expression, and some distanced themselves while others tightening their white mouth protectors. And others just ignored it not even caring.

This bustling, overcrowded city had its charms but also its drawbacks. He still remembered the time when he moved to Japan. His excitement was overflowing just like this massive amount of people around him. But even that little enjoyment dampened down after living here for a while.

So much had to change. Rules over rules, and he still was not completely integrated into this culture at all. Every time you looked at him, you would see an outsider.

Well, he was a caucasian born in Europe. With his tall stature alone, he was like a sore thumb already. Then there are his steel-colored blue eyes. The only thing that matched up with the Japanese people here would be his black hair on top of his head.

Sometimes he wondered if it was such a good idea to come here. Sure, he loved the culture, and it was precisely the reason for his move to this country. But besides that and his love for manga, he didn't like this country otherwise. It was a very complicated feeling he had about this topic.

But right now, he had other things on his mind. One being this orderly fashion of moving. It started to irk him from one day to another. It was his way to work and the way back home. To get a little bit of calmness in his mind, he even started smoking.

´I am probably going to be late again. Today the crowd is smaller than usual but why do I still get the feeling of getting suffocated?´, Ryan thought and looked upwards to the lights illuminating from the buildings. It was getting darker by the minute, but the giant screens on the Tsutaya building still pushed out commercials.

Right, he was at the famous crossing. A slight smile appeared on his face. This was a thing he still loved about this city. The nightlife was gorgeous in it, and when he came here for the first time, he was amazed by it. He wouldn't forget about it for sure.

Still looking at the screen, he noticed people pushing from behind and passing by him. The crossing lights changed, and the people could move now. So Ryan did the same and scrambled along the crossing to the other side.

While generally walking on the left side to avoid a collision, someone still bumped into him. Oh, boy. Was that a difficult thing to get used to at first. But it looks like he always seemed to bump into people from time to time. because of his habit from childhood.

So Ryan looked in the direction of the person who he bumped into him and tried to apologize but couldn't see anyone. It confused him somewhat. The crossing was not that crowded today that you could lose sight of someone that hit you just a second. So where was the person in question?

He shrugged it off and continued walking. What happened immediately after surprised him even more. An earthquake started, and all people surrounding him began to get somewhat panicky. Some even fell to the ground.

Seeing that he helped someone up and hurried up to get to a safe place.

Ryan had a very surprised expression on his face. Not because of the earthquake itself, but because of the strength, this one had. Since he already had experience with many others, it probably was a seven. Even standing was painfully hard right now.

Good thing that it seemed to have faded as quickly as it burst out from nowhere.

Ryan looked around and sighed in relief. But that was only shortlived. Right after that, the earthquake started again, and it became even stronger than before.

´Shit gotta keep moving.´

He was trying to move forward while staying on his feet and at least get to the other side of the crossing. While doing that, he collided with a lot more people. He even lost the person he tried to help. Just a little bit and they would have reached the other side.

But something suddenly hit him, and he got flung back on the street.

Groaning in pain, he looked what hit him but couldn't see anything. The only thing he saw was a cracked road at the place he stood prior.

The shock still in his system made him somewhat afraid now. This earthquake was no joke! He needed to get somewhere safe right this instant.

When he tried to stand up, he could feel intense pain from his abdomen. Looking down, he could see blood flowing and his clothing being dyed by it.

The person that he lost also saw it and started screaming. A few other people became frightened because as well after even seeing him being hurt. The earthquake was still ongoing.

´What the hell!?´

Ryan tried to feel where the leaking blood was coming from and when he came close to the wound and scrapped away his clothing he could see that he had a hole in his body now.

Coming to this realization, blood clogged up his throat, and he coughed it up.

´Shit! What hit me?´

Trying to put pressure on the wound, he placed a hand near the injury. But to his surprise, he could not reach the wound at all.

Something was blocking his hand from closing it and putting pressure on it. Something hard enough and invisible at the same time. Because he didn't see anything.

With a distressed and confused look, he felt and grabbed whatever seemed to be blocking him. Doing that gave him another wound on the palms of his hands. Blood started to run down the object that was stuck inside him.

Everyone in a normal state of mind would feel being cut, but right now, the pain from the wound in his abdomen overruled every other pain.

Slowly his blood that came out from the freshly cut hands ran along the object inside him and as if being revealed to him showed its true shape and form.

´Sword?´ That was the only thought in his head while his eyes glared at the object that penetrated him. And the more he focused, the clearer the sword became.

It didn't take long, and he could see it completely. It was a freaking katana.

´How the hell?´, he thought while coughing up another blood clog.

"Dammit, Aiko. We need to cooperate with this one! Get your weapon back!" These words were so loud that they even overplayed most noise in the surrounding.

"Lieutenant, I hit a civilian when I lost my weapon! What should I do!?", Asked a female voice now. It was so close by that Ryan turned his head slowly and looked into the direction from where it came. What he saw made his eyes go wide. At least as wide as his tired state let him open them.

"Ignore him! Pull it out! If we don't stop this fellow, there are going to be more casualties.", Answered the loud voice again. While that happened, another earthquake occurred, and with it, a shrill shriek that nearly shattered Ryan´s eardrums could be heard. Then the buildings around them started to explode. Starting with a lot of windows being shattered.

The female person frowned and nodded. Grabbed the hilt of her katana she tried to pull it out. Or should he say Zanpakuto? What Ryan was looking at was a woman that was wearing a black garment of dead souls. A Shihakusho for short.

There was nearly no one that would wear something like that unless they came from a particular world. It was the attire and uniform of soul reapers or death gods. It was the uniform of freaking Shinigami!

A lot of questions appeared in his mind while looking at her, but when he saw her grabbing the hilt, he became scared and grabbed the blade with both hands and applied immense pressure — not even caring about the fact that both started to bleed even more and the blade made contact with his bones.

If she pulled out, he would die because of bleeding. He couldn't let that happen. That was his only thought at this moment.

Ryan´s action surprised the female Shinigami. She looked at him with curiosity at first, but when she saw his eyes, there was already only a fading light inside them. With a saddened sigh, she continued to pull.

And contrary to her belief that it would be easy to pull out the sword, it remained stuck. Not only that, but she felt the gaze of the nearly dead person increase in sharpness.

When she looked into his eyes again, she got shivers down her spine. That slight little moment showed her a ferocious tenacity not to die. His eyes changed entirely from the last moment.

"Let go. You don't need to fear death. If you die, I will make sure you go to the cycle of resurrection.", She mumbled to him. Not that she expected an answer.

"Fuck that shit. Don't expect me to go and die.", answered Ryan slowly with the little strength he had.

Those words now clearly shocked the female shinigami. She looked at him for a while and sighed once more. "I understand now. You can see me. But that only shows your fate. I am sorry, but I will need my Zanpakuto back."

With her last words, she released some white energy from her body and started to pull out the sword. It did start to move this time.

Ryan´s mind went blank. He felt despair. Dying was not his wish, and if he could help it, he would not let this happen.

´No, no, no, no, no, NOOOO. I DONT WANT TO DIE HERE! GRAAAAAAH!´ His state of mind warped, and something started to change inside of him.

The energy the woman was releasing suddenly was pulled away from her and inside Ryan´s body. Her Shihakusho was starting to lose its black color and became snow-white like a blank slate.

"What? My powers!? What did you do!?", asked the female shinigami now in utter shock. "Did you steal my powers!? No, I will take them back!"

With her last shout, she pushed the katana inside Ryan up to the hilt, and her powers slowly started to return a little.

But that action let Ryan cry out a shriek. The pain completely wrecked his last bit of consciousness.

And because he was already in such state of despair that he would do everything, he instinctively grabbed onto his last remaining grudges and tried to actually kill this shinigami together with himself.

What he didn't know at the time was that his body was already dead. And the only thing that attacked the woman was his soul. It was already warped enough that it left his body and attacked her.

Tiny little fragments of bone started to form on his cheeks and formed canine fangs.

"You..." The female noticed what happened but couldn't do anything right now because if she lost concentration, he would steal her energy again. He was still absorbing it forcefully from her.

Ryan opened his mouth like a beast and bit the woman in front of himself with every bit of strength his body could muster at that moment. His human teeth as well as his new formed canine shredded the clothing of the woman and pierced her tender flesh around her neck.

"Urgh..." With a groan, she was stunned by his attack. Because of the pain, she lost concentration and her powers were all gone again. What made matters worse was that her Zanpakuto was now broken after Ryan pounced at her. She only held her hilt in hand.

Breathing heavily, she didn't know what to do with him on top of her. She was also losing her consciousness.

Maybe because she was drilled into it but somehow out of pure habit, she used her hilt and performed Konso on his forehead. Since Konso was a technique used to send souls to the afterlife it would make sense to send this freshly killed soul to be sent there, right?

Weirdly enough, Ryan let go of her, and his state of mind became calm again. He straightened himself up and looked back to where he was sitting previously. What he saw there was his slumped corpse lying on the ground.

In disbelief, he dismounted from the female and moved back to his body. Trying to touch it after kneeling, he could not feel any resistance at all.

His hand moved right through it. It just showed him that he was dead now. Looking down at his ghostly body, he also could see the severed soul chain at his chest.

That made him sad, but in the end, its how it is. He even started to fade away slowly. The calmness just began to sink in even more.

´Oh well...´

Looking back at the shinigami woman, he could see she would probably die as well. He felt slight guilt now.

He smiled wryly and sighed. "I am sorry.", he said.

He expected her to answer something but what he didn't expect was that before she could say anything, he saw a monstrosity jump on top of the woman and rip her apart beneath its legs.

It grotesque face already had another corpse between its hideous teeth.

Ryan´s eyes widened. Somehow he felt fear again and the guilt became greater. What was this monster? Was this a hollow? Was he at fault for them dying? He remembered someone else shouting. But It didn't matter since he would vanish soon, right?

His state of mind was in utter confusion even with the Konso. Despair even started creeping in once more.

The Hollow that now had found another victim beneath its feet started to look at Ryan. It´s tongue lashed out in anticipation, signifying its hunger.

Was this bastard still trying to eat him? Was he safe or not? He guessed not since that Hollow still dashed forward and attacked him.

When the hollow reached him and came into contact, the air started to throw sparks around both of them, and space started shifting and distorting. Weirdly enough, the Hollow still managed to chomp down on him, but nothing happened. Both of them just froze and began to fade into nothingness.

When both were gone, a figure dressed in a white haori appeared out of nowhere. "Damn it. Looks like I am too late. And where did that Hollow disappear to? Don't tell me it was smart enough to flee?"

The figure looked around. "What a mess." It said with a sad and grieving voice.

The destruction that could now be seen was beyond a simple earthquake. This accident was already on a catastrophe-level. So many dead souls were standing around and moaning in pain from their fresh deaths.

"Looks like I have a lot of work to do. Explaining our loses will be the hardest part.", mentioned the figure and began to fix everything that it could. Starting with performing Konso on everyone that still lingered around after death.

Many died that day. But two Reapers, one Hollow, and one Plus were missing in that count.