Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach!

Prologue

He leaned forward to pat the midnight black stallion's thick neck. The breeders had claimed the horse was a thoroughbred but it could double as a plow horse or a cart horse what with its thick body. There had to be some draft horse in there somewhere. Maybe even Clydesdale. He cooed encouraging words to the huffing horse and was given a meaningful look from the beast's brown eyes. It tossed its head and he glanced to the score boards. He had won again. He collected his ribbon and urged the horse back to the stalls.

"Come on Zangetsu," he whispered, tapping his heels against the horse's sides. "Let's go rest."

The horse walked off the course, head high, and then into the stalls that had been set up for the competitors. Two girls moved to him quickly. They caught the horse's reigns and he slid off the English saddle smoothly. He smiled at them.

"Great job," the boyish one said as she led Zangetsu to his private stall. Karin Kurosaki was her name. She was about thirteen like her sister Yuzu who was skipping to keep up with them.

"You looked like you were flying over each jump!" Yuzu gushed. His smile widened a bit.

"Thanks sis," he whispered. The girls smiled at him and then went to un-tack the snorting stallion. He moved away to another private stall that held an Arabian horse with eerie black-gold eyes. He smiled at the horse and it seemed to sense his presence for it began to paw at the ground impatiently. He chuckled and went to look over the Western tack despite the fact that he knew he was the only one who used the saddles that were put on his horses.

He was about eighteen. He had a lithe muscular form due to all the exercises he did to remain in good enough shape so that he would be less sore after a good ride. His two horses were as important to him as his little sisters and his idiotic father though he would always make it seem like the horses were more important. To everyone who watched him ride he was Shiro Zangetsu, a young rider who was better than his years. The fans all thought he was around twenty but oh how wrong they were. He was a teen who had learned how to ride at a very young age. He had been found to be a natural.

He had saved up his money to buy the two horses that he was named after for he had never given his real name to anyone outside his family or fellow riders at Seireitei Stables – a stable that was very famous yes but was kind enough to never say he housed his horses there or trained there. As far as he was concerned, he did not want anyone but his friends to know who he really was because of how high he ranked in the horseback riding world. He was dubbed one of the greatest riders but he didn't care about titles. All he cared about was riding and it would take a very horrible circumstance to make him stop doing what he loved. He felt that even if he did stop riding he would still work around horses.

Horses were his life. They were the air he breathed and the wings he needed to feel free. He could not let them out of his life completely.

The Arabian caught his attention again when it let out a shrill neigh. He laughed at the horse as if it had told a great joke. The horse snorted at him as if joining in on the jibe.

"Ready to jump Shiro?" he asked as he reached for the horse's bridle. Shiro threw his head up and down happily. He smiled and traded the rope halter for the black leather bridle with silver stitching. The horse took the bit with a bit of resistance but he passed it off as excitement. He loved the jumping courses but he really enjoyed them when he had to ride in Western tack. The bulky Western saddle was easy to ride in on a trail but competitive jumping was another matter. Very few people entered this event. He was one of the best. He had won many first and second place ribbons in this event. It was probably one of his best events.

He looked over the saddle again, absently tracing the Celtic knots that were stamped into the leather. The saddle weighed nearly as much as he did but Shiro could still jump in it with ease. He had no idea where Shiro got the stamina to do so but he was glad that the horse was good for the event. Zangetsu was not as enthusiastic a ride in this kind of event. Shiro however was like a kid with candy on Halloween night.

"Hey Shi-Zan!" Renji, one of the many stable hands of Seireitei, said enthusiastically. He turned to look at his good friend and bobbed his head in a slight bow. Renji smirked.

"Hello Renji," he said calmly. Outside he was the essence of calm. Inside, he was hopping up and down madly with anticipation. Renji knew this but had learned to say nothing.

"Shiro seems excited," Renji laughed. "You looked great on Zangetsu."

"Thank you Renji. Shiro loves this event. See you afterward."

Renji nodded and watched as the younger man led the Arabian to the ring entrance. Renji undid his ponytail and then retied it. That was his way of showing worry. Once his red hair was back in a ponytail, he let his mind wander a bit. He wondered when Shiro Zangetsu would reveal who he was.

The audiences that watched the young man all only saw a well trimmed rider whose helmet always hid the top half of his face in shadow. Shiro Zangetsu never looked up to greet the cheering masses but he always kept his head high. No one bothered looking for matches with only the half of his face that was always visible. No one saw the bright orange hair that was hidden under the black plastic that protected the teen's head. No one saw the honey brown eyes that could clam a horse in seconds.

There were reasons Shiro Zangetsu was nicknamed "The Horse Whisperer."

Renji had seen the teen calm the craziest horses and then ride them as if he had trained the beasts for years. All of it happened in a matter of minutes that were filled with encouraging words that were cooed to the horses and absolute calm on the teen's part.

No one saw the big brother that was willing to beat people up if they dared to hurt his family or friends. That was what hurt Renji the most. The fact that so few people really saw the teen as anything besides what he was in the arena. No one ever would see that unless the teen let them.

Shiro Zangetsu mounted the Arabian when he neared the gate to the course. He cooed relaxing words to the horse. Then, he hummed a song softly to himself. This was his ritual. It was what calmed him down. He would calm his horse and then hum the lullaby from Pan's Labyrinth softly to himself. He knew that some found that song eerie but it calmed him greatly. As he relaxed, he let himself fall into his own little world. He would see nothing but the course and what was on it. He would only hear his name be called when it was his turn.

His turn came and he nudged Shiro forward. He urged the horse into a trot and was rewarded automatically. He soared over the jumps with ease, standing in the stirrups to ease each jump. Shiro reacted to each cue immediately; lead changes came smoothly and quickly, every gate change was a smooth transition, and every slight nudge acknowledged. He smiled at the ease of it. He loved riding just for the feel of the wind against his face and the horse's movements. The competitions he could do without but was willing to use them as practice.

The last two jumps were what he really concentrated on. A double combination of ascending oxers. They were about ten feet apart and were three feet high. He calmed Shiro down to a trot then urged the horse towards the jumps. As Shiro got closer, he got faster. He was about to urge Shiro to take the jumps when he saw a little toddler stumble between the jumps completely oblivious to everything that was happening. The child plopped down onto its butt right where Shiro would canter through to the next jump.

He sat deep in the saddle and yanked back hard on the reigns. Shiro skidded to a stop, head falling to the ground between his front hooves. With a sickening lurch, Shiro suddenly reverted to his past as a bucking horse and he lifted his back legs. The horse remembered that his rider had retrained him not to do that but it was too late. With the lurch, the horse sent Shiro Zangetsu over its neck. The teen flew head long into the jump. The bars gave out as they were designed to do under his weight and he landed hard on his back. His head pointed toward his horse and his eyes, he noticed were still hidden by his helmet's visor.

He felt nothing. He had felt something pierce his side when he'd landed in the arena sand but now he could feel nothing. His heart rang in his ears, drowning everything else out with the help of his lungs gasping for the air that had left them due to the fall. He barely registered Shiro nuzzle his neck. He definitely did not register the tot bumble over to him giggling as if it had won a great victory. The horse bumped the kid away with his long nose as if the kid had taunted its victory to the proud white Arabian.

"Shiro!" Karin cried before catching the horse's reigns. She pulled and yanked the horse away from her brother as Renji ran over with the medic. The red haired stable hand called his nickname multiple times as the medic looked the teen over.

"Ren…ji," the teen gasped. Feeling was returning to his body. He was in pain. "My…side…hurts."

"Which one?" Renji asked but before the teen could answer the red head saw a dark pool in the sand. His eyes grew wide and he told the medic, panic seeping into his voice. The medic had him help turn the teen onto his left side and found that a piece of the jump had broken into a large, jagged piece and had stabbed into the teen's abdomen. He was bleeding profusely. He was rushed to the hospital.

No one was told of which hospital he was put in. They only know that he had been sent to heal up from bruises. The time Shiro Zangetsu stayed in the hospital though was much longer than just the simple healing of bruises or even cracked ribs. His family and friends were the ones who all knew that he had been in surgery and had been in for hours. Five and a half long, excruciating hours. The recovery took months to even really take any real root. It would take months physically at least.

Mentally however, he kept going over the course and kept reliving the fall in his dreams. He awoke more than once and had repeatedly reopened his stitches. He kept seeing the last two jumps and the child between them. An obstacle that he could not over take. He could no longer take it though. He hated the images that kept returning to his head.

At one point, when his injury had become a scar that would hurt every time he woke from a nightmare, he got onto Shiro again and tried to do a small course. He then suddenly saw a child bumble into the course right where he needed to be. Shiro felt him tense and stopped slowly not wishing to repeat what had caused his rider to leave for months. The teen slid off the Arabian, un-tacked the horse, and housed the creature in its pen with Zangetsu. The teen shook horrified at the vision. It was as if the experience had been caused to happen to get him to stop riding.

"I'll never ride competitively again," he whispered. "Never."

He left the competitive world then. He left his horses to his sisters and left Seireitei Stables much to his father and the senior riders' horror. Without him, competitions would be much harder to win than before but they all respected his wishes. After all, they had all had falls like that at one point or another but none of them had been injured the way he had. None of them could blame him for running from fears that came like rabid dogs in the night.

He was no longer Shiro Zangetsu. He hated that name. He never wanted to hear it again. From now on, he was himself and only that. From then on, he was only known by his real name. He never wanted to be called anything else. He made himself look like a somewhat skilled rider who had never been good enough to be a competitive rider. He flitted from one job to the next. He was a teacher at one farm, a volunteer at another, and a stable hand at others.

He was Ichigo Kurosaki. No one else.