*9 Months Later*
1st PoV
He always dreamed of things like waking up in one of his favourite world where he could wield supernatural abilities and gain the affection of hot females along the way.
He knew now that was just a pipe dream. Dreaming and living the moment were two different things. This realisation had hit him in the few months that he had been in soul life in which he was now living in saw that he did nothing except helping the old woman who had hired him to sell what was a sorry excuse of fruits trying to gain a living may be learn where he was in the timeline and it was boring.
"Better living like this rather than nothing I guess." I said to myself internally as I woke up and prepared for my morning routine.
Of course after I learnt that I was reborn in Bleach I did not sit idly. I knew that in order to not be a victim of stronger people.I should try to gain more power in order to survive.
First of all I analysed what I needed. I knew that in any physical requiring activities such as fighting I needed stamina that's why every morning I woke up early and sprinted towards the forest which was at the edge of the district to gain some training in.
I stood up from the floor I was sleeping on and moved out of the hut within which I lived together with the old lady. The hut consisted of four rooms where I slept, where Mikasa slept, where we dined and where our stock was kept.
I walked through the district and greeted some passerby. I had come to learn that every district was atleast the size of a medium town and it was rare to see people moving from district to another except maybe for some shinigami but they rarely ventured far off to this district. So that's why souls in the same district somehow knew if a person was newbie in a district.
I continued to walk and arrived in a small field of field was located in the middle of the forest which separated the 50th district and 51st district.
Arriving at my pseudo-training ground I first did some light warms and streches.
*30 Minutes Later*
*pant
*pant
I was tired after having run across a field equal in size to a football pitch with full speed and sometimes altering to a jogging state then accelerated.
I had planned this training route with the objective in mind that maybe my speed, stamina and acceleration would increase with the exercise.
In my previous, I had played in a football academy and those were some of the drills we did. So I had adopted them thinking that maybe they could be beneficial in the afterlife also.
I straightened my back and took a boxing stance that I had seen on tv in my last life. I first started with a punch straightforward and a kick. Then I would block or duck in between the punch and kick.
*punch
*duck
*kick
*block
I repeated this simple moves for at least 15 minutes then I took a push up position.
*Some Minutes later*
"...27,28,29 and 30." I finished while panting and immediately laid down to take a least, there was some improvement from my past as before I had started to work out doing 10 push ups was exhausting by itself but now I had multiplied that by 3.
I stood up again again restarted the punching and kicking routine for another 15 minutes. I took a sit up position.
*Some Minutes later*
"...41, 42, 43, 44 and 45." I finished while sitting up and hunching over to wipe some sweat falling in his eyes.
"At least I am making some changes during this time." Due to this routine I had seen some improvement in my physique. When I had come to this world I was skinny but now I had gained some muscle no matter how little the gain was but I could see some gain even though my height did not change at all. I was a little bit also faster and I could feel the strength of my arms had somehow improved.
"I can't wait to enter the seireitei and gain proper training where I can learn to do some cool stuff from the show." I thought with some glee. Even though I knew Bleach was one of the most chaotic worlds with some messed up people (*cough Mayuri *cough Aizen*cough)who wouldn't hesitate to use you to obtain scientific data.
I still wanted to learn how to fire magical beams such as that 88th Hadō and even travel through towns with just two steps. I was a great fan of magical things.I had to stop myself from experimenting on my reiryoku in fear of may be affecting it's normal growth after learning that a soul did not immediately have shinigami-like reiryoku amount when transmigrated. I had still done some meditation exercise in the evening before sleeping and I could feel some changes.
When I had started those exercise I had found a small blue ball with the size as the same as that of a tennis ball in the middle of darkness but now that ball had grown to match that of a volleyball had started starving for food recently which was a great indicator of possession of reiryoku.
I stood up and did some streches to cool himself down and started to move back towards the district. I arrived to see that Mikasa was wide awake and was beginning to set-up the stand.
"Good morning Obaa-san." I had also learnt that in soul socisety people spoke in a weird mix english and japanese but they wrote in pure japanese along with this I had learnt that I was capable to understand japanese somehow but I was still learning how to write the different kanji and let me tell you something it was a pain in the ass.
"Good morning kaito-kūn."The old lady responded back with a smile on her face. During the unknown amount of time that I had been in soul society, I could say that she was the only person that I ever interacted with for a long time that is why I had come to see her as a grandmother and she saw me as a grandson.
"I see that you are finished with your training." Mikasa said as she was returning to the hut. "Today, I will be travelling to the 49th district to get some food, so you'll be staying here managing this stand today. Will you be able to manage alone?" Mikasa asked with some worry due to the fact that it was my first time managing the stand alone.
"Don't worry, I will be able to manage the stand alone." I reassured Mikasa while striking a thumb up pose.
Mikasa smiled and took an empty bag while walking to the north. She could go without worry as it was rather peaceful in this district and there was almost nothing that could happen.
She didn't know that she had just jinxed fate.
*Some hours later*
I was bored out of my mind. Running the stand was easy but they were not many people to talk to. It was so boring that my eyelids were almost dropping until
*Roarrrrrrr
I was immediately wide awake after that roar.
"The hell, that sounded like a tiger." I looked frantically around himself seeing also that other souls had also stopped and they were all nervous.
That's when I felt a sudden pressure which felt like 20 stones dropped on my head and back. I dropped on my knees and I could see even the air waving.
*Roarrrrr
In the far forest I was using to train emerged an 8ft tall tiger-like beast with a black skin and the white masked with yellow string directly above and below it's eyes.
"Wallahi, I am finished." I thought with trepidation as I felt myself being paralysed and unable to move.
The beast immediately lunged itself towards the nearest person and tore through his fresh with just its fangs.
This act of gore had awakened everyone and people started running and screaming their lungs off while I finally had recovered the strength in my legs and stood up to attempt to run.
I started running quickly towards the next district while feeling that the beast was attacking the people in the district behind me.
While running I passed by a boy of maybe 5-6 years old that had tripped himself and fallen to the ground and the beast was approaching the child.
"Fuck me and my big soft heart." I said to myself in frustration as I couldn't let in good conscience a boy be killed while I could do something.
I turned around and picked the boy up on my shoulders and attempted to run but my speed was reduced due to the weight so the beast was catching up. I decided to apply a technique that I had thought about but never tested.
*Flashback*
"If this is my spiritual can't I use like some sort of power up to enforce my strikes and defence." I was deep in the woods in the evening after few minutes of meditating.
This idea had come from the various anime works I had seen where they used their inner source of power to boost their stats for a few minutes.
*End of Flashback*
I closed my eyes and started searching for the familiar sense of warmth and it took a few moments to manifest outside as a blue aura surrounding my body.
That is when I could feel my speed increasing and the distance between myself and the beast elongating.
The beast gained an aggreviated look on its face and increased its speed easily reducing the distance between me and the beast to 5ft distance.
I saw this and dropped the kid.
"Run brat. Go far away from here." I yelled to the kid and concentrated my power to my right foot and took a leap.
I descended to the hollow mask.
*Booom
My fist connencted with the mask of the beast and I released the energy I had gathered all at once causing the hollow to be pushed and skid for like two meters causing dust to rise in the and cover the beast.
"Damn, this all I could gather." I was already panting with exhaustion as I felt that I remained with a quarter of my full energy.
"aaarrrrrr." The hollow released an unusual sound which sounded like it was in intense pain.
The sound also cleared the dust to show that only a quarter of tiger-like mask had been broken with a human-like face behind it.
"Shit it looks so pissed off." The beast proceeded run towards me and pounce while I stood between path of the kid and the beast while crossing my arms Infront of my face.
I screamed as I had never felt the level of pain I was feeling now as I was flung and broke into a nearby hut.
I just wanted to lay there all day as I felt the taste of a iron liquid on my lips and I could feel my mouth full of blood but I remembered that I was in this situation because of a boy I wanted to protect.
"No good in playing the hero if I we both die and no one survives." So I forced myself to stand up but my vision was blurry and my legs were almost giving up.
I could make out that the hollow was standing over the kid as raised it's paws ready to strike the kid.
"Noooooo." I screamed to the whole world. As though the world had heard me. I saw the offending limb of the beast being sliced off.
*swiiish
A figure appeared infront of the beast with a katana drawn out.
"Thanks soul king that I arrived on time." The clearly male unknown shinigami said with relief in his voice.
"aaaarrrr."The hollow again shrieked due to the pain as it looked at the cut off limb and turned towards the shinigami with a pissed off look.
*swish
*slice
There was silence after that as the shinigami sheathed his katana and the beast's body was cleanly cut in half.
"Finally, it's all over." I could not help myself but breathe a sigh of relief. I tried to stand up but
"Urggh." I vomited blood and soon I felt my world tilt itself upside down and there was darkness.
*Unknown Shinigami pov*
There had been sightings of a massive colony of hollows in the east of rukongai that's why my division was called upon even though they had other duties.
We had travelled to that district but we had arrived to the district to see that it was only lesser hollows but we had still killed some of the hollows. Though some had escaped so we had dispatched our strongest seated officers to track down those hollows who were running rampant in soul society.
Tracking lesser hollow was not a difficult thing for me as I had access to shunpō but the hollows had run rampant in small groups of five and each of them were separating in different direction from that group when they arrived in some district. It was as if they were buying time for there comrade to get near seireitei which was suspicious as lesser hollow never worked this well together unless they were being commanded by a menos grande which in itself was terrifying to think there was a possibility there was a menos grande.
I had put that aside for my report and continued to pursue while killing those left behind. After slaying the fourth hollow I had sensed an explosion of reiatsu in the nearest district which had me alert that there was a battle between the hollow and a soul capable of utilising its reiryoku in that district.
*Swiiish
I arrived to see a hollow standing over a child and I immediately got into action by appearing near the offending limb of the hollow.
*Swoosh
*Slice
I stopped infront of the hollow to examine the kid and I saw no traces of battle.
"aaarrrr." The hollow shrieked in pain and I saw that its mask was quarterly shattered thus I decided to end its misery by fully slicing it off.
*Slice
I watched as the two parts of the hollow fell to the ground and I sheathed my zanpakūto to turn to the kid.
That is when I saw someone hitting the ground and I turned around to see a young man in late teen years unconscious to the ground.
I sensed that his reiryoku was depleted to almost zero and I immediately knew that he was the cause of the explosion of reiatsu from earlier due to the familiarity of his reiryoku and the earlier released reiatsu.
*Some hours later*
1st PoV
"Ughh man, that was such a weird dream." I woke up with a splitting headache which felt as though a hammer was being brought down to my head by a bodybuilder.
"I see that you finally woke up." A unknown voice sounded to his right.
"Ehhhhh?" I will never admit but I knew that if I had gone an octave higher in my scream even a girl would be unable to compete with the high note.
"Ohh kaito-kun, you are finally awake." I heard a coming outside of the two room hut and I saw Mikasa and the kid from earlier in the fight with the hollow enter the hut.
"I was so worried after I learned that you had fought the hollow that had attacked our district." Mikasa siad with a warm smile as she hugged and I returned also returned the hug with a smile.
"So it was not a dream, I did fight a hollow."I could not believe that I had my first fight against a being who was equal to the bottom of the cannon folder class and I was handed my ass thoroughly.
"Damn, talk about trying to survive cannon when I can not even survive this fight." I knew I could not blame myself but this reinforced my wish that I had been reborn in the far past in order to properly prepare myself for all the future catastrophe.
"Yes and I am impressed you managed to injure the hollow with no formal training." The unknown voice said again and he turned his attention to him again.
He looked like mature version of someone I should know but with a spicky black hair standing at maybe 5ft 10 wearing aregular shikahushō and a katana was sheathed at the left side of his waist with a rectangular cross guard with smooth rounded edges and a dark blue hilt.
"It was nothing and it did not lead to anything in the grand scheme of thing bu a broken mask." I responded with hint of sorrow at my inability to even defeat what I considered the bottom of the food chain.
"Do not underestimate yourself, you defended someone's life and you also bought time for me to arrive.You also fought something above your weight class with zero formal training." He said with an encouraging smile as he looked at the little boy who was looking at me with a smile on his face. "You probably are more of a shinigami than some of the people I know." Even Mikasa nodded to that with a proud smile.
"A shinigami, what is a shinigami?" I repeated the name as though questioning it but I knew what it was. I just wanted to gain information on them to eventually enter their academy.
"Well for short, shinigami are powerful souls who maintains the balance of souls among the three worlds." The shinigami responded with a finger on his lips as if he was contemplating saying more than what he had said but he stopped himself.
"Can us normal souls obtain the power of a shingami?" I asked while looking at my bandaged hands.
"Yes normal souls can become shinigami when they develop enough reiryoku which you have already developed as I can you are interested in becoming a shinigami?" The shinigami asked with a knowing smile on his face.
"Yes." I responded while looking up from my hands to the shinigami.
"That's good. In three months the academy will be recruiting rukongai citizens to be part of the Gotei 13. So be ready in 3 months to travel to the 1st Rukongai district as it will be there that the academy will start recruiting." The shinigami said with a smile as he turned around ready to leave.
"So I will take my leave as you have already recovered Kaito-san." The shinigami prepared to leave as he bowed to Mikasa and the child.
"Hey wait isn't it rude to no tell me your name? If you know mine." I asked with some annoyance at someone knowing my name while he knew nothing about them.
"Oh sorry, my name is Kaien Shiba." He said with a smile as he vanished immediately after that.
*Swish
"Of course how could I not see the fabled resemblance between him and the protagonist." This was in and itself a hint he should have caught on from the beginning as many people in the show had already pointed it out.
"Atleast this means that I have at least more than 50 years of preparation." This was some good knews to the already bad day.