Introductions

Duality

A/N: currently this is in a book of mine by the same title, but considering it's all I have at this time, it goes here.

Duality - A Bleach Fanfiction: Beginning

That one day, 334 years ago in Rukon District #72, is when it began.

A girl, no more than 11 in age yet quite tall, with lively ocean blue eyes and brilliant orange hair not unlike a certain human boy that would eventually be born, ran through the streets as though her very life depended on it. She carried a basket of brightly colored apples in her long, slender arms. It wasn't as if anyone needed food, considering they were all souls, but those to whom the apples were being delivered needed something to distract them from the harsh reality that was Rukon District #72.

The girl, Mizugo as she was called, was quite adamant when she stood up in her little group's hideout and proclaimed she would, from then on, get everyone whatever they needed. The smiles her statement brought to her friends' faces brought a smile to her own, and she knew she hadn't made a mistake.

An apple fell from the basket when she tripped over a small rock interrupting the otherwise smooth street (as smooth as a dirt path can get, anyway). It got placed back in its home, and Mizugo was quickly right on her way to her hideout.

When she arrived, the basket, and her heart, fell. There was no way. She'd done what any other desperate soul would've done, why was this happening? She frantically looked around for something, any kind of sign to—

A trail had been left, so it was followed.

She raced past buildings, whizzed right by people, barrels, bamboo, trees, rocks.

If you're still out there, I'll find you. I'll bring you back. That's all that matters: my friends. What else do I have?

The hour was at hand.

As she approached the trail's end, the pit of her stomach dropped to the ground. Not only did the monster have her friend, there was a near-dead soul reaper in a heap not far. She was about to drop straight to her knees and beg for the monster not to kill her friend, but something stopped her. Words repeated in her head again, telling her to not give up, to stand by her promises no matter what. They were the words spoken by the very boy whom was being held, in front of her and about to be killed, and whom still had this look of hope in his weak eyes.

"Put him down!" She shouted.

"What's this?" The monster asked, "A little girl who believes she can make demands of me? How pathetic."

Time seemed to slow as the monster began its strike. Words were uttered by the boy, who now seemed to accept his fate. Mizugo reached out in a desperate, last-ditch attempt to save him, but she was too late.

He was gone.

"REO!!!" She yelled at the top of her lungs, before collapsing into a heap, crying her insides out.

She stayed like that for what seemed to her as an eternity, contemplating. Is this what all her kind deeds earned her? To be plunged into the depths of despair; to have what she cares about taken from her, to bear witness to her greatest friend being removed from the world?

No. That is not the extent of what they earned her. They earned her a right to be the one to stand up for someone, no, for everyone else. She felt an inferno blaze to life within her. She shakily stood up, to which the monster raised a brow, stumbled over to where the soul reaper lay and picked up his sword, to which the monster let out a laugh.

She held it very elegantly, for an untrained 11-year-old. She'd seen the soul reapers many times: how they held their swords, how they practiced. How they fought and defeated the same variety of monster that stood before her now. If they could, she figured, why couldn't she?

She screamed and ran straight for the monster, sword at the ready. She, at that moment, truly believed she could at least do something. If not, well, it's not like she had anything else to lose.

She pierced the monster, she knew she did, but all she felt was an encroaching darkness. Voices echoed from somewhere, getting louder as the seconds passed; there were people coming.

She blacked out before she could make out any words or view any faces.