Disclaimer ~ I don't own Bleach. Have any of you had someone tell you that you're spelling prolog wrong and that it is spelled prologue? I have, twice. The funny thing is, both spellings are correct.

Breath of Life
Prolog~

A beeping sound came in a steady rhythm accompanied by a pinking sound and air moving in and out of something. At first the vision was fuzzy, but then a series of blinking lights came into view. A breath of air could be felt going into the lungs. The eyes darted to the left and noticed a man standing over him. The man's face was painted up and he grinned so that his teeth showed to the gums. "He's awake Nemu."

"Yes Master Mayuri." The eyes then darted over to the other voice and saw a dark haired female. "The recorded memories we found are working quite well on the subject."

"Memories? What memories? Who am I?" A flash of memory came to the person, only to be pushed away in a violent manner mentally. A sudden surge of energy came to the muscles and the person was moving and sitting up. A hand reached up and pulled things from his body despite the pain involved.

"Hey! What do you think you're doing? You're a test subject so lie back down already! You aren't allowed to do that!" The eyes turned to look at the man, before he instinctivly moved away and out of the room with good speed. He could hear this Master Mayuri person screaming his head off. "Damn it! I should have made sure he couldn't move! I had better catch him before someone outside of the division finds out."

He however found himself hiding a certain feeling to hide himself as he ducked behind various walls. The hiding of said feeling came to him instinctively. Glancing down, he could see that he was dressed in black traditional clothing, along with tabi socks and sandals. Carefully, he moved through the building in an attempt to look for an escape.

Finally, he came to the outdoors and breathed in the fresh air. He paused only for a few minutes before taking off away from the buildings. He somehow managed to jump over the wall that surrounded the place and was taking off. He found himself heading for a particular direction and found himself in front of a rather large gate that was being guarded.

Again, instinct kicked in and he quickly knocked the guards unconscious and headed through the gate. He found himself in a tunnel that had strange substance dripping from the wall. His feet however kept hurrying along and he sped towards the entrance that he hoped would be on the other side. His body kept surging forward. The feeling that it was dangerous to let that man capture him wouldn't leave him mind alone.

When he came out of the tunnel, the first thing he felt was the sensation of falling through the air, as he hadn't expected there to be no ground below his feet. He smashed into the ground hard, but for some reason his body was still able to move. "A normal human wouldn't be able to do these kinds of things."

Glancing around, he found himself in a place where the style of buildings were modern compared to what he had seen before. A light drizzle fell down and he headed out towards the street. He turned to speak to one of the people out walking on the side walk. "Hey... can you help me. I seem too..."

He found himself suddenly staring ahead as the person walked right past him as if he wasn't there. The rain then began to pour down harder and he stopped trying to hide that feeling as he felt he had finally gotten far enough away. That, and he started to feel a chill run through his body as the rain poured down, the feeling being so familiar and dreaded.

Clutching his arms to his chest he carefully stepped away and simply kept walking, not knowing where he was going to go. He kept his eyes to the ground, bumping into a few people. While they noticed that someone was physically there, there response when they looked was of absolute disbelief. His nose began to drip and the energy that coursed through his body to escape was suddenly fading.

His head was drawn up as he heard a loud howling noise and his body became more chilled, this time with a fear he couldn't place. Carefully, he turned his head to look in the direction and saw a monster that only he could see. The thing licked its lips. "I can't believe my luck, I happen across a shinigami to eat. One with a great deal of spiritual pressure I might add."

"Shinigami? I don't..." The monster however lunged at him and he found himself dodging to the side, his hand going to his side to grab the hilt of a blade he hadn't known was there. He brought the blade up to make contact with the mask that the monster was wearing, only to find himself being pushed back in his weakened state. He also knew he was becoming weaker.

"I don't want to be eaten again. What the hell do I mean by again!" He made another instinctive parrying, but the third caused him to find himself being thrown to the ground, landing hard. Letting out a deep sigh, he found himself covering his face, only to find a black flash in front of him destroying the monster."

The man that now stood in front of him was dressed similar to the man he had been trying to run from and instinctively he stood up and prepared to run again. However, when the man turned to look at him, he found himself looking into a familiar face. A memory then flashed for him, one that he didn't try to push away.

The room he was in was an old traditional style, and the door opened and a younger version of this man appeared before him. He found himself getting up from a kneeling position to greet the man. "Nii-sama. You're home."

He then found himself falling forward into the man's arms, not noticing the startled look on his face. Before blacking out, he found himself uttering the name he knew that man by from the memory. "Nii-sama..."

Author's note – Sometimes when one reads badfic one gets inspiration for goodfic. Yesterday I cam across a fanfic featuring the pairing Kaien/Rukia. It was written by someone who felt Kaien shouldn't have died the way he did. They also felt that his wife wasn't good enough or hot enough for him, but Rukia was.

As for the fanfic, the writer randomly had Kaien come back to life after the evens of the Winter War instead of passing into the cycle of rebirth. On top of everyone brushing his reappearing in front of them way to easily and it only being a plot point to get Kaien and Rukia together, the writer created two Mary Sues to pair with Ichigo and Byakuya.

Anyways, I was thinking to myself, "If I were to bring Kaien back to life I would at least think of a way to do it without breaking canon." I then remembered one of the Espada did experiments and Mayuri found the specimens. I then thought to myself, "Bingo." A couple of notes for this fanfic. While I have Kaien dying before Isshin left Soul Society in Admiration, in this fanfic it happens afterwords. This also takes place after the fullbringer arc and runs AU from there.