Bleach: Enosichthon - CH4 (Patreon)

I had been walking for seven days, give or take, and this was assuming the sun in the afterlife operated on a standard twenty-four-hour cycle, which was hard to figure out without a clock, or the necessary survival skills to deduce, like using the shadows and the rocks to do, which would’ve been cool, but I had no idea how it worked.

Yawning, I sat on a flat rock, and pulled off my left sandal, shaking out a small pile of rocks and dirt that had accumulated inside, watching as the little stones hit the dirt, while letting out a slow, heavy sigh.

"Well," I murmured, looking at the empty wasteland. "I think it's officially time to admit I am lost."

The little girl had pointed me in a direction, and I'd followed said direction as best as I could, which at the time seemed like a solid, foolproof plan, because I had no idea where to go, so any direction seemed like a good direction. And, well, I kept walking in that general direction until everything faded away completely, giving way to… well nothing but, deep ravines, scattered trees and such...

I really can’t complain though. The first few days weren't actually terrible, to be entirely honest, I had put enough distance between myself and the previous district to the point that the possibility of getting chopped to pieces by a passing lunatic dropped significantly. The problem was that everything else dropped, too… the good and the bad.

The clusters of run-down houses or buildings had disappeared completely as the dirt paths faded into nothing. The stray wanderers and hollow-eyed locals thinned out until I was walking for entire days without seeing a single soul, and yes, at first, I considered the isolation a win… I mean, my interactions with the locals so far had been less than welcoming, with the only one that didn’t try to kill me being a kid, so less people meant less possibilities for pointless violence. But as day five bled into day six, and day six dragged into day seven, the quiet stopped being peaceful, because it was revealing the glaring flaw in my newfound peace…

I was going in the wrong direction and if I didn’t find the right direction soon, I could very well die out here. And without people or anything to guide me, that was my fate.

Taking a deep breath, I pulled my bag off my shoulder, setting it down on the rock next to me, before I untied the string holding it shut to take inventory.

I was running short on everything. There were maybe two or three tough pieces of dried meat left; enough to keep the worst of the hunger cramps away for another day if I paced myself; and enough water to last two days, three if I really pushed it.

I let out a soft chuckle, scratching the back of my neck. “Not ideal.”

Panic would be the standard response here, I suppose… Normal people would likely start stressing, or at least break a sweat over the fact that they were out of food, out of water, and wandering aimlessly in a barren wasteland… But honestly? It was hard to get too worked up about it, I was already dead, after all, I mean… What was the worst that could happen? I’d just be a very hungry ghost for a while? Would I die again? None of those options seemed particularly haunting.

"Right," I muttered to myself, tying the bag back up. "So, where should I go next..."

I stood up, dusting off the back of my robe, and looked around. North, south, east, west, it all looked exactly the same for me, it had been quite a while since the last landmark, so every direction felt the same.

I guess it was time for eeny meeny miny moe.

Smiling, I reached down, picked up a branch from a dead bush, before balancing it vertically on the flat rock, letting it go. It clattered against the stone, the tip pointing slightly to my right, toward a cluster of particularly dangerous-looking ravines.

"Right it is," I said, offering a small, two-finger salute to the stick for its service. "Lead the way, captain~"

The afternoon stretched on as I made my way towards the path the stick had chosen, hoping it was the correct one. The heat was slowly becoming a problem, but it wasn't unbearable yet, so I could shrug it off for the time being. I kept my pace steady, while watching the world around me, keeping a hand of my sword, mostly just to keep it from bouncing around too much which I found rather annoying after days of walking.

I had to admit that as much as I wanted to find my way to where I wanted to… there was something strangely liberating about having absolutely nowhere to be. I was lost, running out of food, and wandering through a post-apocalyptic looking world, but in a weird way, I was having fun, I felt like Indiana Jones.

As I walked, I passed the hours by whistling a few old tunes I could remember, most of them MJ songs, I loved his songs, while testing out different grips on my sword hilt, and occasionally trying to replicate that heavy, rattling pressure in my knuckles again, nothing happened, and I felt like a kid again trying to replicate the kamehameha, but it was something to pass the time.

As the sun began its descent, painting the sky in shades of orange, the terrain finally started to shift to a colder look.

Ahead of me, the hard-packed yellow dirt began to give way to softer, sandier soil as the path sloped down into a wide, shallow basin between two large ravines, I was just looking around for a decent overhang to set up camp for the night when something on the ground caught my eye.

“Well, what do we have here?”

Right in the middle of the soft dirt, partially filled in by the dry wind, was a footprint, a big one at that. Scratch that, a giant one… The print was twice the size of my foot, and I had a big foot.

I crouched down, resting my forearms on my knees, and tilted my head to get a better look. It didn’t look like a panicked print like someone running for their life, and it wasn't a chaotic mess of scuff marks from a fight. Meaning that as far as my untrained eye could tell, someone had passed through this place rather recently and at a steady pace.

I looked up. A few feet away, there was another one. And another. A steady, unhurried trail marking a clear path through the sandy basin, heading in the exact opposite direction I had been walking.

"Well," I murmured, a slow, amused grin spreading across my face as a thought occurred to me. "Looks like I’m following the giant, that sounds fun."

I stood up, brushed the sand off my knees, and stretched my back until it cracked a few times, and yeah, sure I didn't know where the footprints led, and I didn't know who—or what for that matter—could leave an impression that large, but a path made by a person or beast was infinitely better than wandering aimlessly.

I adjusted my grip on the bag, turned my back on the ravines, and started following the trail as the sun finally dipped below the horizon, plunging the wasteland into a cool, shadowed twilight.

The tracks were easy enough to follow, because whoever left them was incredibly big and heavy, so nature couldn’t really fill their tracks fast enough, meaning it didn’t take a lot of detective work. They led me out of the sandy basin and toward a towering wall of sheer rock that curved inward, creating a massive natural ceiling.

As I got closer, the faint and unmistakable smell of a small fire drifted on the wind, which at the very least told me that whoever was behind these prints was smart.

I didn't try to sneak around, for many reasons… First of all, I was terrible at it, and second, sneaking up on someone who left footprints the size of watermelons felt like a fantastic way to start a fight I would lose, so instead, I kept my footsteps heavy with the sole intent of being heard and my hands entirely away from the katana on my hip so that whoever was behind this, would see me as an non-threat.

"Hello?" I called out, keeping my tone relaxed and conversational, letting the echo carry against the rock wall. "I don't mean to intrude, just a friendly guy who is hopelessly lost looking to share some camp space."

The glow of the small fire flickered near the back of the alcove. For a second, nothing moved… Then, a literal mountain stood up.

I stopped in my tracks, my eyebrows shooting up. The man rising from the fire was easily pushing eight and a half, maybe nine feet tall, he was draped in a massive cloak that hid most of his body, and on his head rested a wide, woven bamboo hat that cast his entire face in deep shadow, which almost seemed intentional.

"Halt," a voice rumbled from beneath the bamboo hat. It was deep, resonant, and carried a gravelly weight that vibrated in my chest. "Do not take another step."

I froze, leaving my hands raised in a lazy, non-threatening gesture. "Alright, no problem, man. I'm stopping. Like I said, I'm just passing through. Been walking for a week and you're the first sign of life I've seen that didn't immediately try to stab me."

"Leave this place," the giant warned, his massive, wrapped hands clenching into fists at his sides. "If you value your life, human, you will turn around and walk back into the wastes."

"Human?" I repeated, letting out a soft chuckle. "Well, technically speaking, I think we're both dead souls here, right? Unless you know something about this place that I don't."

The giant didn't even say a word, he didn't even shift his stance, instead he reached up with one enormous, bandaged hand and tilted the rim of his bamboo hat upward, just enough for the light of the campfire to catch his features.

I blinked.

He didn't have a human face, no… under the hat was the broad, fur-covered snout of a massive wolf, his glowing eyes staring down at me, narrowed with a mixture of fierce pride and a bitter, and absolute expectation of rejection, looking at me, as he bared his teeth slightly, letting out a low, warning growl that rumbled in his throat.

I could see in his posture, his eyes, everything, that he was waiting for me to scream, to draw my sword, or to turn and run in abject terror.

I stood there for a long moment, not being entirely sure how to react before I let out a slow, tired sigh and let my hands drop to my sides.

"Man," I said, shaking my head. "The afterlife is weird as hell."

The growl in his throat caught, stuttering into a sudden, confused silence as his golden wolf-like eyes widened just a fraction. "...What?"

"I mean, first I wake up in a Japanese slum, then I get attacked in an alley, then someone tries to enslave me, then I get attacked by a guy with a bone cleaver, and now I'm talking to a giant wolf-man, which somehow is the most normal interaction I have had so far," I listed off on my fingers, before giving him a relaxed smile.

The giant stared at me, completely thrown off balance by the reaction. His hands slowly uncurled. "You... you do not fear me? You do not look upon my visage with disgust?"

"Disgust?" I raised an eyebrow, stepping a little closer to the fire. "Why?"

I believed that hate, just as love, was something to be earned on a case by case basis, there was no point in fearing someone or loving them without really knowing them. And until you know someone, the least you could do is be friendly, whether they earn your love or hate, that’s a different matter altogether.

I stopped a few feet away from the fire, pulling my bag off my shoulder and dropping it onto the dirt with a soft thud as I sat down cross-legged across the fire from him, making myself at home.

"You seem friendly enough," I said, reaching into the bag, pulling out one of my last two pieces of dried meat. And sure, what I was about to do, was probably a terrible strategic move for my survival, but the guy looked like he was sad and carrying a lot of emotional baggage, and if there was one thing I believed in, it was sharing a meal to make things better, and this was all I had to share, so I tossed the jerky across the fire.

The giant wolf-man caught it, looking down at the small piece of meat in his massive palm as if he couldn’t understand what was happening.

"I know it's not much," I added, offering an apologetic shrug. "But it's the thought that counts, right?"

He looked from the meat to me, his eyes searching my face for any hint of mockery, deception, or hidden malice. Maybe he expected the food to be poisoned or something, I wasn’t entirely sure, but when he seemed to find none of that in me, the tension finally bled out of him.

“So… wanna eat?”

He gave me one last look before sitting back down, the ground actually trembling slightly under his weight. Then he pulled the bamboo hat off his head and set it beside him.

"You are a strange… soul," he rumbled softly, his deep voice lacking the sharp, defensive edge from a moment ago.

"Thanks," I chuckled, taking a pull from my nearly empty water skin. "I'd tell you my name, but I haven't picked one yet, so call me whatever."

The giant looked at the small fire, his expression unreadable, though the bitter sorrow in his eyes seemed to soften just a fraction in the warm light, which told me a lot about him… he was probably an outcast of some kind, that much was obvious, and it seemed his time in this world… had been probably worse than mine by a wide margin, I guess discrimination extended even to the other side, which when you think about it it’s kind of stupid.

"Sajin," he said finally. “That’s my name.”

"Sajin," I repeated, offering him a smile. "It's nice to meet you, Sajin… so… any chance you know the way out of this place?"

Sajin looked at the tiny piece of dried meat in his massive hand, turning it over once with a nail before popping it into his mouth, it was probably the equivalent of a single tiny peanut to a guy his size for a caloric intake, but he seemed to enjoy it, closing his eyes for a brief moment as if he was savoring the best thing ever.

"You are walking in the exact wrong direction," Sajin finally said, looking at me. "If you seek the inner districts, or the Seireitei itself, you have firmly turned your back on them."

I thought as much… no surprises there. The stick and the girl have betrayed me.

"Figures," I groaned, leaning back on my hands and stretching my legs out toward the warmth. "A little kid pointed me this way when I asked her where to go, she said we were in District 80, and that I had to follow this path to reach where I wanted to go… Guess she just pointed me to the middle of nowhere."

Sajin’s ears twitched, rising slightly. "District 80? Zaraki?"

"Yeah," I blinked, tilting my head. "Why?"

Sajin looked at me like. "You wandered into that lawless pit... and survived?"

"I did, but with a lot of luck," I chuckled, tapping the crude bandages around my wounds. "As you can see, I got a few new decorations in me along the way, thankfully enough, I only encountered one crazy bastard..."

Sajin shook his head as a low, breathy sound escaped his snout, one that might have been a scoff of disbelief. "That you didn’t die in that place is a miracle. That district is a graveyard for the mad, the sick and the foolish, to survive it, and then wander these wastes for a week without wasting away into dust... you must be strong."

"Strong?" I laughed, waving a hand dismissively. "I don't know about that, though I do have a strong right hook, but other than that? I think I'm just a guy motivated to find a soft mattress and a place that actually has a roof, and an actual bathroom, you know? That’s why I want to become a Shinigami."

Sajin tilted his head, the firelight catching the genuine confusion in his eyes. "You wish to become a Shinigami... for comfort?"

"Yeah, from what I hear, they're the only ones around here with actual resources," I said, leaning back and resting my hands behind my head. "If putting on a uniform, following some rules, and learning a few things gets me a steady paycheck and a quiet place to sleep, sign me up! I'll play the dead cop, I mean… It beats sleeping in the dirt and dodging lunatics."

Sajin let out a low breath, his gaze drifting back to the crackling fire, and I could tell that he didn't seem to know what to make of my complete lack of noble ambition, he did seem like the honorable type, the kind of guy to die for a cause and all.

"The Seireitei is indeed a place of order and provision," Sajin said slowly with a nod. "But the path there is long. And I cannot walk it with you."

Well… I hadn’t invited him, but that sounds like the comment that someone that wanted to be invited would say, but wanted to say no before actually saying yes, and considering he’s the only positive interaction I have had so far, I might as well play the game.

"Did I actually ask you to walk it with me yet?" I asked, a lazy, teasing smile spreading across my face.

Sajin blinked, his golden eyes widening just a fraction. His ears twitched as he processed the question. "I... well, I… you did not."

"I see," I said, shifting my weight so I was leaning forward, resting my elbows on my knees. "But since you brought it up, I might as well."

I pointed a finger at him, keeping my tone completely casual. "Here is the situation, big guy I have absolutely zero sense of direction, which means if you leave me out here, I am probably going to end up walking in circles until I die, again. You know the way around, and between you and I… Well, you don't strike me as a guy who actually wants to spend eternity hiding in a cave."

Sajin’s ears flattened slightly, his gaze dropping to the dirt between us. "You underestimate the length of my condition. To travel with a beast is to invite their scorn upon yourself, they will look at you differently, they will treat you as an outcast by association."

"Outcast by association?" I echoed, letting out a short laugh as I waved a hand in the air. "I’ve been here for… like a little over a week, and people have been trying to kill me at every interaction I have had so far, except for the little girl, but that might be because I fed her, the point is… I don’t really care."

The giant wolf-man remained perfectly still as he studied my eyes, his gaze heavy, probably searching for the catch, the hidden motive, or the eventual twist or betrayal. But there was no catch in my words. I just wanted to get out of the dirt and find a comfortable place to sleep, and he was the only guy I'd met so far who didn’t immediately said: fuck it, let’s kill you, so befriending him seemed like a good call.

"I'm not asking you to walk me all the way to where I need to go," I offered, giving him a relaxed, open-handed gesture. "Just be my compass for a while. Let's travel together, save the trouble of creating an imaginary friend named Wilson, what do you say?"

"I say that you are a very foolish soul," Sajin murmured.

"Maybe," I grinned, crossing my arms behind my head. "But that’s not an answer… So, do we have a deal? Are you going to be my tour guide? Don’t let me die out here man."

Sajin looked down at his bandaged hands for a second, then back up at me, before he gave me a single nod. "I will show you the path. We will walk together... until you reach the borders of the inner districts, then we will part ways."

"Perfect," I said, letting my eyes drift shut. "Wake me up when the sun comes up, boss. We've got a long walk ahead of us."

"Morning," I yawned, pushing myself off the hard dirt and stretching until my spine popped.

Sajin gave a slow nod, his golden eyes shadowed beneath the wide brim of his hat. "The sun is rising, if we are to make good time, we should leave before the heat peaks."

"Lead the way," I said, grabbing my bag and falling into step beside him.

Traveling with a nine-foot-tall wolf-man brought a few logistical challenges. For one, his casual stride meant I had to take between two and three steps for every one of his just to keep up, but at least I wasn’t alone anymore, and had someone who knew where to go, instead of me just guessing where to.

"So, I have a question," I said, breaking the long silence as we navigated the wastelands. "Do the Shinigami have hot water? Because if I have to take ice-cold baths for the rest of eternity, I might just walk back to the slums and take my chances."

Sajin glanced down at me, his ears twitching slightly under his hat.

"The… the Seireitei has bathhouses," Sajin replied. "Fed by natural hot springs. As far as I’m aware, this is a luxury usually reserved for seated officers and captains, though regular Shinigami have adequate facilities."

"Hot springs," I repeated, a genuine smile spreading across my face. "Now that’s enough of a reason to enlist. See, that’s exactly what I’m talking about. Motivation."

"You possess a high amount of spiritual power," Sajin replied, looking back at the horizon. "Many would use it to seek honor, to protect the weak, or to carve their name into the history of the Soul Society. Yet you seek… comfort."

High amount? Well that’s good to know.

"Yeah, I do," I said, not missing a beat, as I shifted the strap of my bag, my stomach letting out a perfectly timed, hollow rumble. "I mean… It's really hard to have grand, noble goals when your stomach is eating itself and you're sleeping on rocks. For now, my ambition starts and ends with my comfort. Once I have that, maybe I'll figure out the rest, you know?"

Sajin kept walking, his eyes fixed on the horizon, and for a long moment, the only sound was the heavy thud of his steps and the wind sweeping across the dirt, that was until a deep sound rose into his throat, escaping his broad snout as a low, breathy chuckle. "I suppose one cannot help others without first helping oneself."

Height Difference

The protagonist is 6'2 and Sajin is 9'0

Notes: This is before Sajin meet Yamamoto, who gave him the surname Komomura and invited him to join the Seireitei.