---
The mission was simple. Too simple.
A routine patrol into the western edge of Hueco Mundo. Recon only. Report any Hollow gatherings. Return.
Kuro accepted it before the sentence was finished.
He preferred these solo assignments. Bleached skies. White sands. No superiors breathing down his neck. No squadmates slowing him down. Just the howling silence of a dead world and the promise of something worth fighting.
He walked for hours across the dunes. The sky never changed. The horizon never ended.
But something pulled at him.
A hum in the air. Familiar. Cold. Like claws brushing the back of his mind.
Not a Hollow.
Not exactly.
He followed it.
---
It led him to a canyon of bleached stone.
Deep cracks spidered into the sand, glowing faintly with spiritual energy. He dropped down, reiatsu suppressed, hand on the hilt of his zanpakutō.
Then he heard it.
Clapping.
Slow. Sarcastic.
"Even in Hueco Mundo, the dog of Soul Society comes sniffing."
Kuro turned.
A man stood at the far edge of the canyon — tall, lean, cloaked in black-gray robes with a torn Shinigami insignia across his chest. His reiatsu coiled like smoke: corrupted, unhinged, but precise.
A rogue Shinigami.
But more than that — something else.
"You're not just a defector," Kuro said. "What are you?"
The man smiled. "Someone who remembers what you've forgotten."
---
Kuro didn't wait.
He moved in a blur, blade drawn, slicing forward with a burst of white flame. The rogue sidestepped lazily, palm raised — catching the attack with a bare hand.
The air snapped with pressure.
"I know that flame," the man said calmly. "I felt it once. Long ago. When you were still bleeding between worlds."
Kuro narrowed his eyes. "I've never met you."
"No," the man said. "But you met him. Or rather… you were him."
Kuro's hand tightened on his blade. "Speak clearly."
The man chuckled. "You're not the first soul to burn with that fang-shaped flame. The last one died in a war you don't remember. A war that never made it into the Gotei's records."
Kuro's pulse spiked. Not with fear.
With recognition.
A dream he'd had for years. Fire, blades, screams. A battlefield under a black moon. A woman with golden eyes dying in his arms, whispering something he never understood.
A memory that didn't belong to this life.
"You were reincarnated," the rogue said, stepping forward. "Into the Soul Cycle. But your soul resisted. You carried pieces of your old self. Strength. Rage. Instinct. And they feared what that would mean."
Kuro's voice came low and cold. "Who feared it?"
"The Central 46."
---
It hit him like a whisper through steel.
Of course they knew. They'd been watching him since the Academy. Not just for his talent — but for what he might become.
"What was I before?" Kuro asked.
The man tilted his head. "A captain. Stronger than most. One of the few who questioned the foundations of Soul Society itself."
"And how did I die?"
"Protecting what shouldn't exist."
---
The rogue drew his blade — a massive cleaver-like sword that hissed with Hollow energy.
"I'm not here to lecture you, Wolf. I'm here to test you."
"I'm not here to be tested."
"Too bad."
The canyon erupted.
---
The battle was brutal.
Kuro fought with perfect, silent aggression — his Shikai already active, blade glimmering with serrated white heat. The rogue was faster than expected, weaving a mix of Kido and Hollow attacks in unpredictable rhythms.
For every strike Kuro landed, the rogue answered with two. The canyon walls shattered. Sand turned to glass.
Still, Kuro pressed forward — not with rage, but with focus. With clarity. Every move stripped away something uncertain in his soul.
> "You've been told to stay leashed," the rogue hissed between clashes. "To hide your instincts. But the world doesn't need another obedient weapon. It needs a truth."
Kuro dropped low and struck upward — a perfect arc of flame that cleaved through the man's shoulder.
The rogue staggered, bleeding. Smiled.
"You've grown," he whispered.
Then he vanished in a swirl of smoke.
---
Kuro stood alone again, chest heaving.
His blade retracted, flames vanishing.
But his mind burned.
---
That night, back in Soul Society, he stood on the highest roof in Seireitei. Alone again, as always. Wind tugged at his cloak. Moonlight bathed his scarred knuckles.
He remembered the rogue's final words before fading:
> "If you want to know who you were — if you want to understand what was taken from you — look beyond the walls. Beneath the records.
Look in the mirror, and ask:
Why does the wolf howl if no one ever taught it to?"
---
He unsheathed his blade slowly.
"Kōten no Ōkami…" he murmured.
The spirit didn't answer.
Not in words.
But he felt it — a presence at the edge of his soul. Watching. Waiting.
"I'm not afraid of what I was," he said.
Silence.
"I'm afraid of what I might have to become."
Still silence.
Then, faintly…
A howl in the wind.
---