With the white cloth wrapped firmly about his knee, Hibiki Gorou finished his preparations. His lieutenant said nothing as his old captain carefully tucked away the last of the thin cotton under the overlapping layers and slowly stood to his feet. The skeletal chair creaked and groaned in relief as its burden was lifted. With equal patience the old man made his way to the other side of the Spartan room the fabric was so worn and soft that it seemed to fade to his touch as he held it. A single, massive meditatively traced the worn kanji of "11" on the back of the haori before the garment was placed over the Hibiki's naked back, leaving his broad chest still open and visible.

"You'll be sure to help Kaede now, won't you." It was not a question, merely a statement. "You know how much trouble the young ones give her."

"I will, sir," the lieutenant replied, his voice hinting at a slight uncertainty. Hibiki Gorou's lieutenant was a good deal younger than his captain, but he too was still far from the days of his youth. His black hair, slicked back to the nape of his neck, was no longer as thick and lustrous as it once had been, while the thin moustache he carefully trimmed every morning, had, in its turn, become sprinkled with the odd grain of salt; his rakish face, the scourge of many a lady's heart, was growing worn and furrowed. A long time ago, Makizou Aramaki had come to Hibiki Gorou as a fine young man, but a thousand battles and cares had inevitably aged him, as they had his captain.

Together, as by unspoken agreement the two left in unison out through the shoji screens of the office and walked down the deserted hallway, Hibiki in the front and Makizou back to his left. The long corridor of the 11th division passed by slowly as their idle pace was dictated by Hibiki's slouching march. His tread was heavy, despite his bare feet, while his lumbering movements made it appear as if the weight of his muscles was too cumbersome for his frame to bear. Other than the faded haori which waved idly about his broad shoulders, Hibiki Gorou wore nothing save for loose pair of black sparing pants, shabby, but well kept, and his zanpakuto, Okuri, which appeared as a simple blade in the pattern of a Chinese broadsword.

However, it was not his garments, but his face that gave away his true nature. It was the face of a man who had made his living in the hard halls of violence and strife. A wealth of curling gray hair, which fell straight down his chest in a long beard, and about his back in a rough pony tail covering much of his face and gave him something of a venerable air. But it could not hide the brutishness of his knotted brow, the crinkled nose or the cauliflower did it hide the jagged blotches of old scars nor the slow, sleepy gaze that seemed to give nothing attention and yet saw everything. It was the face of a man that nature would say one should be very much afraid if encountered alone on a dark night. Yet Hibiki had never been a man given to, as he saw it, pointless violence. His fists were his hammers, his limbs his anvil and lave, pain and destruction wares to be traded and sold. Hibiki was a professional and he treated himself and others as such. When he'd fought Sato Shiba for the right of the Gorous to enter into the clan counsel six decades ago, he'd known that Sato was nursing a leg injury from a previous duel with a Kuchiki. Hibiki had not hesitated to exploit this weakness and swiftly ended their bout by circling 'round Sato's weak side to deliver a kick that had snapped the other man's leg like a twig. He had born Sato no ill-will, despite the fact that the man was an obstacle against his and his family's ascension, and neither had Sato held any hatred for him because of it. Likewise, he held no animosity towards hollows: they were sick animals to be dispatched. For their cruelty and endless hunger he held them in no grudge – he blamed them no more than he blamed a wolf.

The long corridor of lacquered maple ended as the final shoji screen was thrust open and the roar of the mob engulfed them. Before the two veteran shinigami lay a great courtyard crammed with the members of the Gotei. Though it was square nature, the courtyard was nonetheless named The Ring of Decision, after the structure it enclosed. The Ring itself was a sparse, commanding affair. Thirteen rows of thirteen enormous blocks of cut sandstone made up its perimeter. This square was then superseded by another in the form of a wide swath of grass and maple trees which was, in its turn, surrounded by the walls of the 11th's compound. Every available place to stand, even the roof, was packed cheek to jowl with the ranks of the 11th and curious members of the other twelve divisions. The air about them was full of chaos as a thousand different voices, all trying to drown the others out in an attempt to be heard. The atmosphere was electric. Almost in spite of himself, Hibiki felt the old charge surge as a great river of molten led surging through his veins, while Okuri eagerly rumbled his approval within. Here, amidst the rough sandstone and bloodied dirt was his home.

But the brief ghost of old fire guttered out and died almost as soon as it had come and Hibiki knew that he had not prepared for this. Standing on the edge of the Ring, awaiting his challenger, he glanced morosely down at his hands; fingers swollen and knotted like old tree limbs, the knuckles long broken over the skulls of old foes. Dark veins bulged along the course of his arms and legs, badly distended from too many heart pounding fights that had pushed his heart to its breaking point and bled youth from him, drop by drop.

He wasn't like the Captain-General or even the sickly Jyuushiro, whose spiritual powers were so great that they overpowered any amount of bodily weakness. Gone were the days when he could land blow after blow, hammer and tongs, fight, fight, fight! His muscles were knotted and thinned; age adding to the tax applied by decades spent in sleepless nights and long, weary days as he fought for his clan... for the Gorou's were an ancient clan, almost as old as the Kuchiki, but they had always been mired in poverty and scandal as far as anyone remembered.

A little over two millennia ago, shortly before the Academy, they had been finally cast out into the Rukongai where they had fallen prey to all varieties of opportunists and petty monsters among men. It was into this that Hibiki had been born, the younger of two sons and the only one to survive to manhood. He'd grown from a wild young boy into a driven young man whose obsession was to restore the family to honor and end its sufferings in the Rukongai. He'd latched on to a widowed near cousin, Kaede, and made her family his own. They would become the seed that he would protect and his opponents the earth which he would till. Through his own exploits in duels, and later, through the Gotei's wars against the hollows and other threats to the Balance, he'd slowly won renown and the political clout to make his dream a reality. His family had been returned to Seretei and honor, however tenuous.

The price, however, had not been light. Hibiki had sacrificed his youth to the struggle. The bones of his wrists and elbows ached with arthritis and his heart and lungs were no longer what they once were. The injuries he'd built up over the years made themselves known in a thousand little weaknesses. But worse than all that had been the wear on his spirit.

To carry his family to the top, he'd had to shoulder more than the physical burden. Countless meetings and ceremonies with the puffed up aristocrats of the inner court wore him down, as they each took delight in chipping his pride away with one small humiliation after another. Security was a long forgotten dream in a landscape where there was no true friendship, only temporary alliances of convenience and character assassination. In order to survive, hard decisions had to be made with no clear answer. Inevitably, most times, someone suffered. As he rose in power, that someone was less often him and Hibiki suffered all the more from it so that he hated his very self. He felt as if his spirit were a tightly drawn string or perhaps a child's sand castle slowly washing away with the tide. And as the foundation of his being was weakened, so the house of his body fell into disrepair as well. He no longer knew true peace, only the brief repletion of exhaustion. He could not stop worrying, only distract himself. An ulcer plagued him, insomnia haunted his nights and he was so utterly tired.

"Ah, now that's the rub: sleep," Hibiki thought as he looked out upon the strangely muted crowd. Though they shouted and waved to herald a great spectacle, he could barely hear them. They and their wild passion existed in a foggy haze, a separate world that he gazed into from a great hung all about him, like a great woolen coat over a small boy. What he would give for four hours of truly restful sleep!

His musings were interrupted when the first traces of the reiatsu hit him like the faint traces of a burning sirocco. As his opponent drew closer, Hibiki could make out the magnitude of it. It was immense, like an immense storm, or rather, a constant explosion; a fire raging out of all bounds to consume everything in its path. Hibiki felt a trace of annoyance rise up in his belly: only the needlessly prideful and arrogant fools walked through the general public with their auras flaring like that. But mixed in with the annoyance was a small trill of fear: it was so monstrous, so out of control!

"By the gods…." Makizou breathed out in awe as the crowd parted like stalks of rice to reveal Hibiki's challenger, the man Zaraki who had the hubris to claim the title of Kenpachi. The Zaraki's appearance was a true reflection of his reiatsu, a nightmare. Greasy black hair fell from his head in untamed snarls while his frame looked like a wood carver had tried to craft a man using only a blunted axe. Despite the cadaverous appearance given to him by his leanness and scarring, Zaraki was no weaker in body than he was in reiatsu. His muscles were dense and corded, and his chest broad. Though rough and gruesome in appearance, Zaraki seemed the personification of youth with his wild and unburdened spirit: all perfect traits for one who would claim the title of Kenpachi. Yet, Hibki knew with the eyes of long experience that, for Zaraki, the title Kenpachi was merely a name that he'd picked, another meaningless conquest driven by the hunger of ennui. The younger man could not be content in the world, no more than the ravenous wolf or the brewing storm. But for Hibiki, the claim to Kenpachi's legacy was the only bulwark against his family's ruin.

"Will the combatants please step forward." The judge for the match was an old hand, Hidekei Soryu. Hibiki took a small comfort in that he would have an understanding eye in any indecision.

Zaraki stalked forward quickly, his eager tension thrumming about him. Hibiki, meanwhile, took his time to saunter over. Years of stress-induced abstinence from a regular training schedule and a week of poor eating because of his ulcers was no way to begin a fight for his life. Yet here he was. He would need to conserve every joule of energy he possessed.

The two fighters met in the center of the ring, blades were raised and crossed.

"Ya' better make this interesting, old man." Zaraki gave Hibiki a crazed leer. Hibiki returned a small grin, but he did not truly feel anything. He was already falling into that zen-state of hyperawareness and mere words didn't interest him.

Hidekei's hand slashed down.

Bay, Okuri.

Hidekei's signal had been like the small pressure that sets off the release of a steel trap. Okuri became a pair of black plated gauntlets with short, slanted razors running along the outside of their midlines. The metal shrieked as Zaraki's still unreleased blade crashed into them. Zaraki was all over Hibiki's defenses in a maelstrom of flashing steel, burning reiatsu and cackling laughter. The giant stomped forward even as a swung his sword about single-handily with enough force that small shock waves of dust leapt from the ground about the combatants and swept over the ring. The crowd roared in approval.

Hibiki wasn't overawed though. He'd fought too many fights with men who had burned with a lust for life as he once had. Hibiki knew the blows for what they were: wild sledgehammers that were easily redirected. Their speed and power was incomparable, but there was no design to them, no consideration for the natural forces at work. For a technician of Hibiki Gorou's ability, all it took was the proper turn of a wrist here, the twist of the hips there, to blunt the force of the Zaraki's strikes. The man was obviously not taking his time and that was to be expected of someone who still had a lust for life. Zaraki shattered all of his boundaries, his wild love and emotions burning along his arm to power his blade, while Hibiki did the only thing he could do: endure. He needed to endure as a tree before a thunderstorm and wait for Zaraki to blow off his headwind, before making his own move.

The first few minutes were clearly Zaraki's as he hammered in blow after blow, while Hibiki stolidly planted himself, keeping movement to a minimum while still maintaining close enough proximity to ensure the greater agility of his gauntlets could keep Zaraki's blows from achieving their full potential momentum.

"What's the matter, old man? Can't ya' fight?!" Zaraki's remarks echoed the feelings of the crowd who were struggling to outdo one another with bets against Hibiki. Two-to-one on Zaraki! No, I'll give three-five-to-one on Zaraki! And so it went, even with the men of the 11th. But there were some who had known Hibiki Gorou of old time, the one before the endless tense nights and days spent behind shuttered windows. It was those men who saw beyond the immediate scene of a slaughter waiting to happen and covered what most considered easy money.

By the eighth minute, Hibiki's body was laced with half-a-dozen shallow, but impressive looking cuts. He appeared dazed and almost helpless with his heavy lidded gaze and tucked, defensive posture. Scenting the kill, Zaraki let out and reared back for a killing blow. For a moment, the storm had to abate before it could explode and in that stillness, Hibiki struck.

Bankai

Hibiki's reiatsu exploded outward as the black gauntlets of Okuri were joined by additional plates of steel over his chest, back, and legs, to finish with a solid helmet that encased his head in as much protective steel as was possible with full vision still maintained. He flashed forward and delivered a straight kick to Zaraki's knee. There was dry crunch, and the giant grunted in pain as he bent over slightly, where his jaw met Hibiki's metal reinforced uppercut. Massive as Zaraki was, the colossal man was physically lifted to the tips of his toes before he crashed down to the dusty sandstone. Hibiki leapt forward to smash a metal-clad boot into Zaraki's exposed cranium, but even as he began the motion, his fallen opponent blurred off the ground with the speed of shunpo.

"That was pretty good. Looks like ya' got some fight after all." Hibiki placidly looked up to where Zaraki stood - ten meters off to his right. The insanity in the giant's leer remained undimmed and he took a moment to send a giant gob of bloodied spittle flying off into the crowd before he stalking forward again, his love of battle enabling him to feel no pain. Okuri snapped with frustrated intent, but obeyed when Hibiki let his bankai fade back to shikai, as he again assumed a fighter's stance and waited. He had no intention of wasting a single iota of energy. Though his opponent did not yet slow him down, he could feel the lack of training and sleep lurking at the edge of his perceptions and in that moment, Hibiki allowed himself to regret that his punch had not been a little higher and to the right along the jaw line. Zaraki could have been stronger than the Captain-General himself and the neural shock of that blow would have still felled him.

Zaraki charged in, his bright yellow aura flaring about him, and all regrets and rationale fled.

Five more minutes passed where Zaraki's efforts were prodigious and Hibiki's were parsimonious in comparison. The former kept trying to press forth with his immense strength and vitality, but Hibiki stolidly refused to allow his dogged efforts to break down. His feet firmly planted, he took the minimum number steps, ruthlessly conserved his strength and used every bit of his knowledge of the body's kinetics to fully utilize his armor and make the most of his defense. Twice more, Okuri was called into bankai and twice more Zaraki was thrown to the ground. The last time, Hibiki managed to get in position to break his opponent's sword arm with a lateral arm-bar, but Zaraki's reiatsu flared so powerfully and chaotically, that Hibiki was physically blown off his opponent. When he stood back up and again faced Zaraki, Hibiki noted with surprise that the reiatsu had been corrosive enough to eat away a good portion of his chest plating, like acid splashed over flesh. Hibiki again released bankai and turned his examination back to his opponent.

Zaraki no longer had the air wild enthusiasm that he'd entered the ring with. He moved with an almost undetectable limp on his right side. His craggy face was severely swollen on the same side and his moves had lost their wild abandon. The crazed love of battle was still there, but it was focused: the gaze of a hungry predator that knows it must make this kill or perish in starvation. Once, he'd only known that Hibiki was tired old man who'd lost his blood lust. Zaraki, like of all his kind, held those who didn't wish to fight in contempt. But now he was faced with the knowledge that the desire to fight could be superseded by a higher goal. Furthermore, enthusiasm didn't equate to competence: Hibiki Gorou was a cunning warrior who gave no quarter and asked none; that rare fighter who could not be intimidated or otherwise coerced into abandoning his control over the fight, a warrior whose every limb held a potentially lethal blow. Yet Hibiki dared not hit often. The only way to hurt a monster like Zaraki was to push himself into bankai and his body and spirit, tired and worn as they were, could only give so much.

By the twelfth minute, the fighting had become more vicious. Zaraki continued to charge in wildly, but he added in strikes with his free hand and limbs as well. Once, Zaraki caught Hibiki with a knee to the gut and four times he struck him across the face while the captain's arms were busy guarding against Zaraki's sword. It looked devastating and the crowd roared and moaned with each blow, anticipating Hibiki's collapse; it never happened. The stalwart old brawler just grinned, tucked his chin down and brought their bodies in so close that Zaraki could never gather the momentum necessary for a proper hit.

Once Zaraki tired of his close range tactics and attempted to grapple him. Though the fearsome man's strength was terrifying, Hibiki was too seasoned a fighter. Any attempt to pin the man resulted in him slithering out of grip and retaliating with a vicious straight punch into the monster's wounded side. Each time, Zaraki's whole frame was shaken, but each time he would come back again as strong as ever. Hibiki likewise continued on, persevering with the intractable resilience of a man who knows he can do no better. It occurred to the captain that if one were to somehow combine his expertise and experience with Zaraki's joy and power, they would have a champion fit to surpass Yamamoto. Yet that would never happen; Zaraki's very power and love of carnage blinded him to wisdom, while Hibiki had seen his own vitality slip away in the wake of too many pointless and bitter struggles. Once, he had been somewhat similar to this monster. He might have started fighting to elevate his family, but though professionalism and detachment hadn't allowed the same depth of emotion, the intoxicating glory of it all had still held him in thrall all the same.

He remembered when sometime many years ago, midway through his rise to prominence, that he'd put away old Rokuro Nobuyuki. For Hibiki, their match had only been a stepping stone on the path to glory that happened to also include saving his family from bitter squalor and debt. Hibiki remembered the day when he'd beaten Rokuro, and watched with uncomprehending disapproval as the old man wept where he lay defeated. The next day, he'd learned that Rokuro Nobuyuki had killed himself to save his honor. Hibiki had shaken his head in dismay over the senseless waste of it, but now, looking back, he felt as if he understood poor Rokuro a little better. Zaraki fought because he was bored. Hibiki fought because his adopted family depended on him, would probably die without him. He'd fought and lived to see himself become the old man, whose muscles were thinned and whose spirit was spirit worn from too many tragedies. Even if he'd been given Zaraki's reiatsu and physical body, he still wouldn't have been able to wield it.

By the fifteenth minute, Zaraki had developed a wild bull rush where the giant tried to almost physically tackle Hibiki to the ground. He'd swing that massive sword of his to get Hibiki off balance then leapt forward, his great chest absorbing a strike to the solar plexus that would have crippled any other man. The force of the impact reminded Hibiki of being hit by one of Jyuushiro's mythical tidal waves, so unstoppable was the force. Yet the hastily summoned armor of Okuri's bankai could not be undone by physical force alone, and Hibiki allowed himself to be carried to the ground. He did not fight it anymore than he would one of Sogyo no Kotowari's waves, but rather he rolled to ground, hitting first with his calves, rolling up through his thighs, lower, and upper back, bleeding off their momentum. Before he'd even fully settled, Hibiki had Zaraki locked between his legs in a basic guard position. Enraged, Zaraki tried to knock Hibiki's brains out through the old captain's own helmet, using the hilt of his sword as if he were some inhuman monk come to sound the gong of ceremony. Again and again his efforts were thwarted by Hibiki's quick hands and their proximity. When Zaraki tried to get up away from the downed captain, Hibiki stayed latched on to his waste by squeezing his legs, rising with the giant and pounding him in the face as he did so. Zaraki shook his head like a great bull and again dove to the ground, again smashing Hibiki underneath his great bulk and restricting his movement with his powerful arms. This time, Hibiki made no move to stop his opponent. Tough Zaraki could easily crush a tree between his great limbs, Okuri still withstood him, and though Zaraki's hold kept Hibiki from moving, all he truly accomplished was wasting more of his own energy and allowing the old the captain a moment to catch his breath.

For all the move's tactical foolishness, Hibiki knew that he hadn't really gained anything. Despite his iron-fisted conservation of strength, he was wearing down, while it seemed that the more Zaraki attacked, the more the man healed. Hibiki had badly weakened the giant, but he couldn't go on any longer. His breath was coming in great, gulping gasps and he could feel himself about to hit the limit of his energy reserves. It was time for the final rush.

Okuri's bloodthirsty howl ripped through the hair, causing many in the audience to fall over themselves and blanch in primal fear. Zaraki's eyes went wide as he was sent flying head first over ground and towards the onlookers. He might have bowled a dozen of them over and gone through the walls, but with a blur of motion, Hibiki blocked his path and brought his hands down in a double-fisted hammer blow. He caught the fighter over the forehead; the force was so great that the forward inertia of Zaraki's soaring flight was instantly halted and redirected downwards. The sandstone cracked and cratered under the impulse of the collision, but Hibiki didn't let up. Like a dog that has crippled its prey, Hibiki leapt onto Zaraki and sank the entire weight of his body and reiatsu onto the broad chest of his nemesis. Again and again, his metal-clad fists smashed into Zaraki's unprotected face, each strike accompanied by guttural howl and an explosion of blood and gore as if unseen jaws bit with every fist. Again and again he struck: he struck to maim, he struck to kill! The crowd was going wild. It would be the explosive finish that they'd come to see in all the lusty futility of their youth.

At last, Zaraki's monstrous reiatsu began to flicker and die - a roaring furnace that inexplicably finds itself short of coal. But though he was receiving no more punishment, Hibiki's strength was dying just as fast. He crashed through the wall of his energy reserves and his muscles shrieked in their need for fuel, while his soul buckled under the weight of his bankai. With a last burst of savage effort, Hibiki hit Zaraki across the head with a vicious backhand before he grabbed the giant's own sword in both hands, and, rising up to his full height, brought the blade down to impale its master through the heart. A cloud of bloody mist exploded from Zaraki's open surprised mouth as the monster thrashed in sudden convulsion before collapsing back into utter stillness. No man could possibly rise.

Hibiki knelt on both legs over his fallen opponent, his hands limp by his sides and his back bowed as if under a prodigious load. Mortal weariness was upon him. The clamor and color of the crowd blurred in and out. His chest heaved and sweat ran down his arms in a thousand little rivulets. Hidekei Soryu walked out, his hand raised to declare the victor.

…

…

…

Somewhere in the background, a little girl was crying.

…

…

…

The spiritual scream of reiatsu was so loud that Hibiki was physically deafened. For the second time of the match, he was thrown bodily from his position on top of Zaraki. Dumbly, the old captain watched as the nameless thing inside of Zaraki howled and screamed power. Slowly, his aura burning a brighter gold than the sun itself, Zaraki sat up. Only an immortal a man with a will beyond death could rise and rise he did: slowly, laboriously, the man rose to a knee, then to booth feet. A bestial grunt exploded out of his chest as he slowly pulled the sword from its resting place in his body. Instinct took over Hibiki and he was upon Zaraki once more. The giant made no move to block him. A stiff right to the gut, a left cross. Zaraki reeled and staggered, but did not fall. Hibiki knew a moment's rage – he knew that he was losing, even though he'd completely out maneuvered the other man, but the fleeting thought was gone before it ever fully came. In the throes of his exhaustion, all that was left was his mind, but even that was clouded by fatigue and despair. In a final epiphany, Hibiki knew then with the fatal surety of his expertise that he could have taken Zaraki if only he'd had those four hours of good sleep. But he'd had no rest, only oblivious exhaustion and he watched in with detached sadness as Zaraki's jagged sword reared back for a final time. There was a blinding flash of white and a bolt of fire pierced him through the stomach. A black veil fell over his vision.

When Hibiki regained consciousness, he was lying on his back. In the back of his mind, he thought he heard Oruki whine piteously and he felt the light warmth of a tongue lick over his bloodied face. Wearily, Hibiki opened his eyes and beheld Zaraki looming over him, an indomitable tower holding firm despite the bruising all about the arms and utter mutilation of his face. His conqueror gazed down at him somberly before hollering crudely for the medics to come over. When he turned his eyes back to Hibiki, they widened slightly as the old man seemed to wither before his eyes. His spirit was at an end and the old captain had no will to live on, if life meant he would bring disgrace to his family. He'd lost the title of Captain of the 11th division and that of Kenpachi. Better he died so that, though their honor be destroyed and the family cast again from Seretei, they might still survive. And maybe now, as his life fled away on Zaraki's bloody sword, did he understand why old Rokuro had wept.

And he was so tired.

Zaraki sneered.

"Coward."

And as Zaraki Kenpachi stood and turned toward the men who were now his, and to the girl to whom he belonged as father, he set his back against the man he had slain and the pitying glance of his dead eyes.

A/N

This story was written in homage to Jack London (January 12, 1876 – November 22, 1916), author of The Call of the Wild, White Fang, and The Sea Wolf, among others. Specifically, this is a tribute to A Piece of Steak, my favorite short story of all time. I basically ripped the story line-for-line and stuck it in the Bleach universe. If you liked this story at all, do yourself a favor by Google'ing A Piece of Steak and reading it for yourself. And if you didn't like my story, read it anyway. Seriously, it's like ten times better.