Announcement

If you care about this story than I would advise reading all of this!

Now then, I already know what you're thinking. 'Oh god here it comes, Vertius is announcing that he's abandoning this story.' And you'd be right.. sort of.

Let me explain.

Its been nearly three and a half months since my last update for the story and that's been for a couple reasons. The first of which is a combination of a couple things, some of which was mentioned in the recent re-upload of 'In Darkness, Reborn.' To sum it up I've been working on other projects, I have other hobbies asides from writing and recently it was Christmas and I got Red Dead Redemption 2 and Battlefield 5 which are both really awesome and have been eating up my time since.

The second and larger reason is that I've been sort of unhappy with the story since honestly the beginning. The largest reason being Ichigo's Zanpakuto. I never really wanted to give him Ryujin Jakka, I just had no other option either than letting him keep Zangetsu which defeated the whole purpose of the story.

So I could either a) not write the story. b) give him Ryujin. or c) pull some randomly created sword out of my ass and poorly translate it with google translate. Option b was that only choice at the time and I was kind of okay with it.

It's been nearly two years since I posted the first chapter – which is crazy, I had to double-take the first time I saw that little tidbit, time sure flies – and in those two years I've grown and matured a lot, not only as a writer but as a person. My tastes have changed since I embarked on this journey and looking back on it there are many little things and some major that I don't agree with now or just don't like anymore.

That isn't to say I'm not proud of the story, that couldn't be further from the truth. This was the first major project I not only started but actually stuck with, and now look at us. Twelve chapters, a hundred and forty-four thousand words, nearly two thousand favourites and over two thousand follows. And the craziest thing of all? Guardian of the Dead is on page three of Bleach crossovers. Not just Bleach/Highschool DXD, out of ALL Bleach crossovers we've made it to page three.. that's insane.

But, as proud as I am of the story, as happy as I am with all of the support it has received, I don't really want to continue it, not in its current state at least.

So, long story short what the hell am I getting at? A re-write and revamp starting with Ichigo's Zanpakuto which still won't be Zangetsu but also won't be stolen from another Shinigami. The sword he will be getting has never had an owner and is one of- if not the coolest I've ever seen and has a seriously cool backstory.. like really really seriously cool. Those of you who have read whats thus far been translated of 'Can't fear your own world' may know which sword I'm referring too. If not well you'll find out eventually.

I've already started planning the re-vamp because it was an interesting idea to toy with even before I made the call to actually go through with it. And, looking back on my notes for the twelve chapters of this story it was really fascinating seeing the butterfly effect of changes that all sprung up just from changing the sword he wielded.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't going to be a completely different story the second time around. It will be different, there's no denying that, but it's still going to be the same GOTD with many similarities that you originally liked, just better.

So look, I know there is going to be a mixed reaction to this. Some of you are going to say to hell with it, you don't have time for a re-write and you'll be done with this story permanently. Some of you will give the new version a try and either like it or not. And some of you will simply read it because you like what I post. I'm fully expecting to lose some followers with the re-write but that's okay because its what I want to do, what will make me happy.

So, before I call it a wrap for this version of 'Guardian of the Dead,' I'd just like to give a quick thanks to everyone again who has supported me thus far, it means more than you'll ever know. I'd also like to give an extra shout-out to AlbatrossWearer who I've talked with recently. While our conversation wasn't overly long he/she did help me make this decision by just letting me talk about it with someone and sort of get it off my chest.

Anyways, thanks again to everyone who has supported this and I look forward to hopefully seeing you in the new version.

(I won't be deleting this version, I want to keep it as memories. I will be uploading the new version separately.)

- Vertius