(Spirit Power please. Thank you judges)

Kaito had been gone awhile so Society had seemed to be a different place to him once he had returned from his self-inspired hiatus from the role of being a shinigami. Sighing, the young shinigami stared thoughtfully as he walked through the Senkai gate that took him from the Material World where he had been hiding out to the Soul Society once more. Although he was feeling a bit more stabilized since the last time that he had been in the area it bothered him how much everything had changed since he had left, although it wasn’t as if he could notice any particular change. The breeze that rushed past him was laced with an exuberant amount of reishi particles that reminded him how much better he felt when he was in Soul Society. With his hands in the pockets of his robes, Kaito surveyed the land to see where he had ended up since he had only managed to hack into a stray Senkai gate that was never really registered in the Bureau of Research’s database.

Brushing away a few strands of dust that had flicked onto the shoulder of his clothing when the wind had picked up and brushed past him, but before swatting it away, Kaito examined it resting upon his shoulder. “They never tell you how quickly little commonplace things can suddenly become so mysterious when you’re gone…” he whispered to himself. After a couple of moments dreamily staring at the small speck of dust Kaito decided that it was time to move on and find out exactly where the gate had dropped him in the Soul Society. Before long Kaito found himself in the midst of desert that seemed to be familiar to him, but he couldn’t quite place where he had remembered it from as he took several steps into the sandy dunes. While he was trying to figure out where he was, he knew enough to be cautious even in such an area which was what caused him to place his hand upon his zanpakutou as he continued to try finding his way.

As the sun began to beat down upon his tired bones, Kaito wondered exactly what he had expected to happen when he took such a suspect means of transportation back to Soul Society. “…In the end I outsmarted myself…” Kaito said with a weary look on his face as he raised his hands over his eyes so that he could block some of the blinding sunlight from his eye, which was for the most part ineffective anyway. Struggling to push one foot in front of the other, the shinigami could feel as his mind began to lose focus causing his vision to wobble ever so slightly as he trudged through the sand. Each time he took a step into the sand it seemed to swallow his foot up causing it to weigh about five more pounds than it had when he had initially taken the step forcing him to use his stamina much faster. It seemed as if the desert stretched on forever as he stared out over the horizon searching for some kind of hope that would allow him to continue on, but as far as he could see there was only sand greeting him as he continued his journey.

Beads of sweat dripped into his fox-like eyes causing them to sting even though they continued to hold their closed appearance, “Why couldn’t I have simply just requested a gate from the Soul Society?” Kaito reprimanded himself. Although he was questioning his decision now, he knew all too well the reason for his reluctance to involve the Gotei 13 in his return back home. When he began to think about the reason his disposition darkened and his body became heavier, this time it wasn’t from the sand sucking away the little energy that he had left in his body. With a grim look on his face, Kaito began to picture the little girl’s face; this little girl that he was thinking about shouldn’t have meant anything to him, but he knew well that she couldn’t have been any less important in his life. Sweat even began to inch slowly towards his ears where the two earring still swung true, dangling in the brutal sun while shining as if the harsh environment could never touch the meaning behind what they stood for.

As hard as the desperate shinigami tried he could no longer force himself to place one foot in front of the other anymore as the effort had simply become too costly for his body to continue. Without warning or even so much as any time for him to plan out what course of action he would take, Kaito fell face first into the sand with the heat continuing to beat down on his already tattered robes. Shifting his face so that it faced up, short breaths escaped his parched lips as the sand dunes in front of him began to swim in his head until he finally lost consciousness and passed out from exhaustion. With his thoughts swirling senselessly about in his skull, the young shinigami tried to focus his efforts and energy into rising to his feet once more before he ended up dying in the sand. Scenes of his past began to flash in his head as he began to wonder where his origins as a young soul of the Rukongai area came crashing back into the forefront of his mind and in his weakened state he had no choice, but to acknowledge them.

+1.5 spirit power ^^

(Spirit power please.)

Kaito woke up with sand sticking to his eyebrows and every other part of him that had touched the sand, but now he had a new sense of revitalization after he remembered all the hardships he had endured. As he rose to his feet the sand dripped off his body in waterfall fashions causing a small cascade of noise in the soundless desert in which the young shinigami had found himself in. With his eyes only half open he focused his mind so that he could gather energy within his being so that he could make the journey back to the Soul Society. It burned his lungs to have stood up when he was really in position to walk when he had completely run out of energy, “This is kind of sad…I have no control over how much reiatsu that I can squeeze out of my body at this point” he told himself. The only thing that Kaito knew for sure was that he needed to do something drastic or he would find himself a dead soul within these sands that he had survived once before just to get to Rukongai.

Sweating was no longer among his worries now since he had excepted that it was inevitable that he was going to sweat in such a heat wave, but there no had to worry about the fact that he couldn’t catch his breath. Each step he took seemed to suck air out of his lungs and even worse was after a five minute interval Kaito had to hunch over so that he could regain composure once more. He knew that it was because the heat made it hard to take in any oxygen because the humid made the air movement much less than it would be on any other day. Kaito breathed out in exasperation as he thought about the manner in which he had found himself and he couldn’t understand it as he looked down at his feet as he saw the sand stuck to his robes. “I wonder what kind of life, Jimbei-fukutaichou is living now…For that matter I wonder what she’s doing…” he wondered in daze as he stumbled through the sand.

As he continued to struggle through the sand he wondered whether or not he was really ready to go back after things had gone so sour with his existence in the Gotei 13; didn’t he have other plans anyway. When this thought crossed his mind, the young shinigami stopped where he was standing as memories of all the people that had tried to reach out to him when he in the Protection Squads. Even all though he was happy that these people took an interest in his life he couldn’t shake the feelings that even those people had wronged him somehow. He dropped to the ground onto his knees as he couldn’t summon the strength to take another step, but at the same time he refused to give and fall on his face once again. Panting even when all he had done was walk told Kaito that this was an ill-planned trip on his part and that next time he would have to come up with a more elaborate means of transportation.

This didn’t distract his mind for more than a few seconds from the thoughts that he had been thinking prior to his drought of energy became apparent, “The first thing that I have to do is head to Rukongai once again…” he laughed to himself. While he knew that he might get in more trouble than he already would have been he didn’t care since he had to know how things turned out. He struggled with the idea of what he would have to do once he went back to Rukongai area to see the girl that he had been thinking about since he left the Soul Society area. With the sand in his hair, the young shinigami decided to drop to all fours as he thought even more about the things that he done since he left the area. He hoped that the girl that he had wanted to see was still okay since the thing that he had promised himself that things would be different once he came back to the world of spirits, but he hadn’t exactly clarified what he wanted to change.

“Either way…” Kaito chuckled to himself as he rose once more despite the lack of any reserve energy flowing within his body, “…either way I have to change something or else I failed myself, right?” he said as he stared into the blazing sun. While Kaito was not someone who abided by codes such as honor as a friend he used to know did, he did understand the importance of taking action based upon one’s own desires. It was while he was in the Material World hiding out that he discovered what it was that he truly wanted to protect most in this universe. As he remembered what that thing was he lifted his foot towards the direction that he knew the Rukongai area that he had once lived in existed so that he could return to the place where he could once again become strong enough to do what he must. With all odds against him, Kaito continued to press his beaten body through the sand that threatened to swallow him alive and the sun that seemed to never run out of malevolent rays until he reached the place that he had been searching for. Thus a new chapter in the young shinigami’s life began as he reflected on scenes from his past to push him into an entirely new future.

+2 Spirit Kaito...