Bleach: Enosichthon - CH1 (Patreon)

I never believed in life after death. No heaven, no hell, no grand cosmic scale balancing our sins. For me, once the lights went out, the curtain just drops. We are here for a season so we might as well enjoy it, and that’s it. 

People spend their entire lives terrified of the punishment that awaits them or desperate for a reward that validates their good deeds, always thinking about the next step, but I always found a strange sort of freedom in the finality of it all, you know? I know some might think that's a bit morbid. And honestly? Maybe it was. But the entire concept, well… it was never a bleak thought to me. If anything, knowing the clock was ticking and that every day could be my last made every single second taste that much sweeter. I loved it all, the good and the bad, because that was life, give and take, tears and laughter, it was the greatest thing ever and the worst shit ever at the same time, and I made sure to squeeze every last drop out of it with open arms. 

So, when friends asked me what I thought about death, if I would be scared or not when my time finally came. My answer was always the same. “When my time comes, I won't be begging for an encore, I'll just tip my hat if I have one, and embrace the end of my season.”

And when the day came for me to go, I did just that. I welcomed death like an old friend, taking solace in the fact that I left this life without regrets, just good memories. But instead of the complete darkness that I expected, instead of just ceasing to be, I once more began to… breathe.

There was no sudden, violent gasp for air, no dramatic awakening like you see in the movies or read about in books. My eyes simply opened, and instead of the quiet, empty void I thought there was after death, I found myself looking up at a sky so blindingly blue that it had me hypnotized.

I didn't move for a long time. I just lay there, perfectly still, watching the clouds drift above me in the sky. My mind is entirely blank, trying to… rationalize against a reality that shouldn't exist or maybe it was against a reality I thought impossible to exist. 

I knew I had died, I was certain of it, I was supposed to be a memory for my friends, ashes or compost for the earth. Instead, my back ached, and my eyes hurt from watching the sky.

"Well," I muttered. "So much for the big sleep."

My entire belief system had been shattered into a million pieces, and I couldn’t help but… smile, I guess it goes to show how human it is to be wrong.

I pushed myself up, rubbing a hand across my face. I wasn't broken, bleeding, or wrapped in a hospital gown. I was sitting in a bed of dry grey dirt and gravel, wearing a loose, coarse robe that looked like it had been spun from sackcloth, a used one at that.

The scenery around me looked like it had been ripped straight from an old feudal story, which on its own was pretty weird if you asked me, I mean, the idea of an afterlife was already something hard to grasp for me, but the fact that it was this? It brought a lot of implications, did this mean the Japanese had a closer understanding to well… all of this?

Taking a deep breath, I looked around. Low-slung houses built of weathered wood crowded the sides of a wide dirt road. Roofs were thatched with dried straw, everything looked… old, very old. If I didn’t know I had died, I would’ve thought I was being pranked or that I had time traveled.

People were drifting past me, they wore the same drab, grey robes, moving with a slow, heavy lethargy that felt entirely devoid of purpose. Nobody stopped to look at the guy on the ground, and the few who did merely cast hollow, indifferent glances my way before continuing on, their bare feet scuffing against the dirt.

I stood up, brushing the dust off my knees, and caught the eye of an old man leaning against a crooked wooden fence post. 

"Hey there," I said, offering a small shrug as I approached. "I think I am a bit lost. Where exactly are we?"

The old man didn't move. He just looked up at me like I posed some kind of danger to him, before he let out a dry, raspy breath. "You’re new, huh? District 79, Kusajishi," he said, pointing a gnarled finger down the road. "Welcome to the Rukongai, kid. A piece of advice. If you value your life, I suggest you find a place to hide before the sun sets."

I blinked, processing his words as he turned away, dismissing me just as easily as everyone else had. 

But if I'm dead, how... value your life? There's death in death? Man this whole thing is getting confusing.

A quiet laugh escaped my lips. What kind of joke was this? Was there a second death waiting around the corner? A death-after-death? Death to the power of two? If a bullet pierced through this worn sackcloth robe, would I just die again and wake up in an even more dilapidated afterlife?

District 79, Kusajishi, Rukongai…

I rubbed the back of my neck, letting out a soft, breathy whistle. The name told me nothing, other than confirming this place was very Asian in nature, beyond that, well… the heavy, volatile tension in the air was easy enough to read, which made it clear I had walked or rather dropped into a rough neighborhood.

Who would’ve thought that people had to deal with this kind of thing in the afterlife.

Right on cue, a massive, violent rumble echoed from my stomach, breaking  the moment. I blinked, looking down at my stomach. Dead people shouldn't be hungry, right? And yet, the ache in my gut was very real, and very demanding.

So… death is just life? Man, I was wrong about everything. 

“I guess this means I need to find some food,” With a slow, unhurried stride, I started walking down the dirt road, drifting with the crowd. I had been wrong about a death it seems, and if this was the encore I didn’t ask for but was given anyways, I might as well enjoy it, right?

This place didn't seem to offer much in the way of hospitality. The further I drifted into this town, the more the dilapidated shacks seemed to lean against one another, looking just as tired and depressed as the ones occupying them. Eyes tracked me from the gaps in the wood and the narrow, shadowed alleyways. They were hollow, predatory looks… I had the distinct feeling I was being measured up, for what exactly, I didn’t have the slightest idea, but it didn’t seem like it was for a good thing.

I kept my hands tucked loosely into the folds of my robe, keeping my posture relaxed. The old man hadn't been exaggerating about the neighborhood, the tension in the air was so thick you could cut it with a knife, the entire place had a heavy suffocating atmosphere that promised violence. 

But worrying about getting stabbed wasn't going to help me or my empty stomach, so I just kept walking. But I was starting to notice another problem. 

Even the worst slums had a pulse. You’d hear people haggling, screaming, fighting, the smell of cheap grease frying, or at least see a stray dog digging through garbage or taking a shit.

But here? Nothing.

There were no shops, no discarded scraps. No smell of food drifting from the windows. It was a dead town in every sense of the word, but with people in it. 

My stomach rumbled again, a sharp, twisting cramp that made me wince. 

I turned down a narrower dirt path between two sagging houses, figuring I might as well see how the layout of this place worked. The shadows were lengthening as the sun began its slow dip toward the horizon, the tension in the air was shifting into something much more active.

The hollow stares from the main road turned into the soft sound of shuffling footsteps behind me.

I didn't need to look back to know I was being followed. You don't live a full life without picking up a little situational awareness, especially in bad neighborhoods. Up ahead, the path was suddenly blocked by two men stepping out from the gap between two fences. They looked rough… and perhaps that was an understatement, their eyes held a desperate, animalistic edge, a very human tone of desperation. One of them was holding a heavy piece of splintered wood like a club.

I stopped, letting out a soft sigh, and glanced over my shoulder. Two more guys had closed in behind me, cutting off the exit.

So far the afterlife sucked. 

"Well, hello there," I said, with a sigh as I turned back to the guys blocking my path. "Look, guys, I’ll be straight with you. I just got here. I don't have a wallet, I don't have a phone, and I’m very hungry… If this is a welcome committee, you’re about to be really disappointed, because I don’t have the patience for it."

The guy with the club stepped forward, unfazed by my little speech. He didn't look at my face. He looked at my robe, which, while cheap and coarse, wasn't nearly as ragged and bloodstained as theirs.

"The clothes," he growled, his voice sounding like he had been smoking forty packs an hour. "Take 'em off."

I raised an eyebrow, looking down at my robe. "This? You’re mugging me for a potato sack? Jesus, how bad is this place? I mean, honestly."

"You heard the man, get naked kid," the second man up front said as he pulled a rusted, chipped blade from his waist. "And you’ve got a good pair of sandals. Hand them over."

I looked at the four of them. They were malnourished, shaking slightly, but they had the cornered-rat look of people who had absolutely nothing left to lose, and that was exactly the kind of people you needed to be careful about, as grandpa used to say, beware of the man that has nothing left to lose, because he has nothing to lose.

I let out a slow, tired breath, scratching the side of my head. "Listen, I'm all for charity, and I can tell this side of town is rough, but I really don't feel like walking around bare-ass naked in a place that already looks like it wants to eat me, I don’t wanna make it more enticing you know? So, how about we just skip this part?"

The guy with the rusted blade didn't appreciate the humor, instead, he lunged at me. It wasn't a trained strike, just a desperate, feral thrust aimed right at my gut.

Mind you, I wasn't exactly a professional fighter, but I had been in enough scraps to know how to read a wild telegraph strike like that, though it was the first time I did so with a knife. I shifted my weight, letting the rusty blade fly past my hip, before bringing my hand up to swat his forearm away.

The moment my palm connected with his arm, something weird happened.

It wasn't just the physical impact of bone hitting bone. There was a strange, heavy pulse that traveled up my arm, a dull, rattling thrum like the vibration you feel in your chest when standing too close to a massive bass speaker.

CRACK.

The man screamed, a wet, agonizing sound that cut through the dead silence of the alley. He dropped the knife instantly, stumbling back and clutching his forearm, which was now bent at an ugly, unnatural angle, completely shattered.

I stood there, blinking in shock. I hadn't hit him that hard… I had barely put any weight into it, just enough to redirect the knife away from me. But even if I did hit him hard, I didn't… I don’t think I could do that, like normally… Now that I think about it, my knuckles feel… weird, like they are incredibly dense, and… humming in a way?

The remaining three men froze. The desperate look in their eyes was instantly swallowed by fear as they stared at their friend writhing on the ground, then slowly looked back at me.

I looked down at my hand, slowly flexing my fingers. The strange humming sensation faded into the background, leaving me with a whole lot of questions.

"Well," I said as I looked back up at the guy with the splintered club. "I don’t know you guys, but I would prefer to avoid repeating that, I’m not really a violent guy, you see."

Thankfully, the guy with the club didn't need to hear it twice. The heavy piece of splintered wood slipped from his grip, hitting the dirt with a thud without a single word as he just backed away, step by slow step, before turning on his heel and sprinting down the alley like the devil himself was chasing him.

The other two weren't far behind. They didn't even bother trying to help their friend on the ground. In a place like this, I supposed it was every man for himself. As for the guy with the shattered arm, he seemed to finally realize he was alone. His screaming hitched into a wet gasp as he scrambled backward through the dirt like a terrified animal, clutching his twisted limb to his chest, as he stared at me in fear, his eyes wide and completely unblinking.

"Hey, take it easy," I said, taking a half-step back with my hands raised. "I told you, I'm not looking for a fight."

Alas, he let out a strangled yelp, managed to get his feet under him, and bolted in the opposite direction, stumbling blindly around the corner of a sagging mud shack, and just like that, the alley was completely empty. 

I let out a long breath and looked down at my right hand again. I curled my fingers into a fist, half-expecting to feel that weird, heavy hum return, but nothing… 

"Weird," I muttered, shaking my hand out. 

I glanced down at the dirt. The rusty, chipped knife was still sitting there. I wasn't exactly thrilled about carrying around a tetanus hazard, but considering where I had just landed, and how little time it took the people around to try and mug me, well… I might as well, I mean, leaving a perfectly viable tool on the ground seemed like a bad idea considering the situation. I scooped it up, before tucking it securely into the coarse folds of my robe.

The brief dump of adrenaline began to fade, and right on cue, my stomach let out another demanding rumble. “I should’ve asked them where to find some food…” 

I sighed, dropping my hand from my stomach. Hindsight is 20/20, I guess. I didn’t die… again. 

I wandered out of the alley and back onto the main path. The sky was already shifting into the night, with the sun dipping fast behind the uneven line of sagging rooftops, and as much as I wanted to find something to eat, I wanted to avoid another encounter like this one.

So, I just kept walking, checking a few of the buildings as I passed, looking for any sign of an empty one. Most were boarded up tight, the suffocating silence inside telling me the occupants were holding their breath, waiting for me to pass or waiting inside for me with a knife.

Eventually, near the edge of the street where the dense cluster of houses started to thin out into a rocky terrain, I spotted a shack that looked significantly worse off than the rest. Half of the thatched roof was completely caved in, and the front door was hanging diagonally off a single, rotted hinge. But unlike the others, it didn’t have barricades or hushed whispers.

“Well…” I sighed looking at the place, it was… awful, but… Beggars can't be choosers, especially dead ones.

I pushed the door open. It scraped loudly against the uneven dirt floor, resisting the movement to the point I had to force it a bit. The inside was small, smelling heavily of damp earth, dust and I wanted to say… rotten wood. There was absolutely nothing inside, just a lot of debris, and a small pile of dry, brittle hay in the corner that looked like it had been there for a long time.

"Home sweet home," I said, stepping inside and pulling the broken door shut behind me as best as I could.

I walked over to the hay, testing it with the toe of my sandal to make sure nothing was living in it, I mean, I didn’t die so that I could die again due to a rat or a snake, before lowering myself down. It wasn't exactly a memory foam mattress, but it was infinitely better than sleeping in the middle of the street waiting for round two of the local welcome committee.

I leaned my back against the drafty wooden wall, stretching my legs out, and pulled the rusty knife from my robe. I turned it over in my hands, letting the dull, chipped metal catch the faint moonlight filtering through the collapsed roof, and as I did so, I couldn’t help but go back to the guy's arm. To the way the bone had just… snapped under a casual shove.

I held my empty hand up in the dark, curling the fingers into a fist and releasing them, over and over, wondering… what had happened. I didn’t feel any different, but it seems I was…. this place… it clearly operated on a different set of rules. And apparently, so did my body, I guess that’s the afterlife for you.

"Alright," I murmured to myself, letting my head thump back against the drafty wooden wall. "Time to sleep."

When morning finally rolled around, it didn't come with chirping birds or the smell of fresh dew or a newly brewed cup of coffee. It came with a sharp, twisting cramp in my gut that practically folded me in half, if I was hungry yesterday, today I was starving. “I would kill for a bagel man.” I groaned, rolling over in the dry hay and clutching my stomach. 

I pushed myself up, stretching my back and brushing the dust and hay off my robe. The morning sun was filtering through the caved-in roof. Yawning, I made sure the knife was securely wedged into the folds of my clothes, before pushing the broken door open, stepping back out into my new hometown, which… wasn't any more welcoming than it had been at night it seemed. 

I could see a few people glaring at me, some with fear, others… well, with not so good intentions.

“Now… where to start?” I muttered, ignoring the looks I was getting.  Wandering aimlessly wasn't going to cut it today, not unless I wanted another encounter like the one I had yesterday… no, if I wanted to eat, I needed to figure out where the food actually came from in a town that looked like it hadn't seen a single supermarket in the last three centuries. 

I started down the same wide dirt road from yesterday, keeping my pace slow and my hands tucked into my robe. And as I walked, I noticed the dynamic had shifted. Yesterday, people looked at me like I was fresh meat, which I was. Today, a few of those hollow, predatory stares flicked down to my hands before quickly darting away, hell… even the groups lingering near the alleyways went completely silent as I passed, tracking my movements with a very different kind of tension.

“Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit…” Word traveled fast in a place with zero entertainment, it seemed. The guy whose arm I had accidentally twisted around must have told his friends, or maybe the other three guys hadn't kept their mouths shut after they ran. Either way, people were giving me a noticeably different… approach.

It was great for personal space, and security I reckon, but terrible for asking directions.

"Excuse me," I said, pausing near a scrawny guy leaning against a crooked fence post.

He flinched like I had just pulled a gun on him, before scrambling backward in the dirt, and practically dove into the nearest alleyway without a single word.

"Alright," I murmured, scratching the side of my neck. "Guess we aren't doing small talk."

My stomach twisted again, a sharp, angry spike of pain that made me grit my teeth. I leaned against the fence the guy had just abandoned, taking a slow, measured breath.

‘Okay, think,’ I told myself.

If this place operated like a standard slum, which it looked like it did… resources didn't trickle down; they flowed up, that’s how all slums operate, in any part of the world. The weak stayed on the streets, and whoever had the muscle hoarded the goods and anything of value. If there was any actual food around here, it wasn't going to be sitting out on a friendly market stall, no, it was going to be guarded by the biggest, meanest people in the neighborhood.

If I was looking for top dogs of this place, my search criteria needed to change, and so did my area of search. 

I drifted further down the main road, following the natural curve of the town. The deeper I went, the more the atmosphere seemed to change. It was hard to explain, but I suppose the fear was thicker here, I wasn’t sure if I was going in the right direction, but I had a feeling I was, seeing as the foot traffic was significantly lighter here than it was in other places. It almost seemed as if people were actively avoiding this section of the town.

After about forty minutes of slow walking, the sprawl of leaning, rotted shacks opened up into a slightly wider dirt clearing, where sitting at the far end of the square was a building that actually looked like a building building. The wooden planks were in a good state, the roof was… well, mostly intact, and instead of a broken door hanging off its hinges, there was a heavy, relatively clean canvas curtain draped over the entrance.

But the real giveaway was the two men standing out front. Which basically screamed something was inside.

They were broad-shouldered and heavy-set, lacking that sunken, street rat look that defined the rest of the neighborhood. They wore thicker, dark colored robes tied at the waist, and to top it off, they were holding actual weapons; one had a thick wooden staff banded with iron, and the other had a rusted, but very real, katana resting on his shoulder. They looked bored, comfortable, and unequivocally fed… one of them looked like they had eaten a quarterback.

I stopped at the edge of the clearing, letting out a soft whistle.

"Well," I murmured to myself. "Looks like I found the grocery store."

I didn't bother trying to sneak around or observe from the shadows, as cool as it sounded, this wasn’t a videogame, and I had no experience in that. Besides, if this was where the local warlord or gang leader of this crappy town hoarded their supplies, they were probably used to desperate people trying to scheme their way in, so I figured the most unexpected thing I could do was just walk right through the front door.

I kept my hands tucked loosely inside the wide sleeves of my robe, which I was starting to appreciate. It looked terrible but it was comfortable enough, as I strolled straight across the open dirt square toward the entrance.

The guards noticed me immediately, and the guy with the iron-banded staff narrowed his eyes, standing up a little straighter, while the guy with the rusted katana slowly lowered the blade from his shoulder, resting his hand on the hilt, they didn’t look particularly angry, just looked mildly annoyed, like I was a stray dog wandering onto their porch and they wanted to shoo me away.

"That's close enough," the staff-wielding guard growled, glaring at me. "Turn around and walk back to whatever hole you crawled out of. This building is off-limits."

Why is everyone so rude in this place…

I didn't stop walking until I was about ten feet away, close enough to clearly see the grease in their hair and smell the faint, glorious aroma of cooked rice wafting from behind that canvas curtain. My stomach gave a loud, treacherous growl in response.

"Morning," I said, offering a lazy, easygoing smile as I stopped and shifted my weight onto one leg. "Look, I'll keep this short. I just got to this town yesterday, I have absolutely no idea how the local economy works, and I am starving. I figure you guys are the ones holding all the cards, and the food at that, so I came to ask what it takes to get breakfast around here."

The two guards stared at me for a long, silent moment. Before one of them spoke. “You’re hungry?”

"Yeah…" I said, blinking at them.

"Boss is gonna want to see this," he grunted, nodding toward the dark interior. "Get inside, new blood. Keep your hands where I can see 'em."

I raised both eyebrows. I had expected a shakedown, maybe a threat, or at the very least a long negotiation. I didn't expect this to lead me to the VIP lounge, but I wouldn’t complain.

"Well, alright then," I said, pulling my hands out of my sleeves and holding them up loosely by my sides to show I wasn't reaching for anything. "Lead the way."

I stepped past the guards, crossing the threshold and leaving the bright morning sun behind. The inside of the building was very different to the district outside. It was dimly lit by a few oil lanterns hanging from solid wooden beams. The floor was actually made of polished wood rather than packed dirt, and there were crates stacked along the far walls; crates that smelled heavily of dried fish, grain, and other stuff I couldn’t quite recognize.

My stomach let out another aggressive, echoing rumble as the katana guard stepped in behind me, cutting off the exit.

"Keep moving," he ordered, gesturing down a short, wide hallway with his chin. "End of the hall."

I just nodded, taking in the sights with an unhurried stride. If they were going to kill me, they would have done it in the dirt outside, this place didn’t strike me as one where criminals would have to hide their crimes. Bringing me inside meant they wanted something, what exactly, no idea but I would found out soon enough, besides… right now, I wanted something they had and I probably had something they wanted even if I didn’t know exactly what, either way, it was the foundation of a perfectly good business relationship.