Transmigrated into Bleach

Wait... why can I still think?

After being shot, he was still conscious.

Had the bullet miraculously missed his brain at that distance? That seemed unlikely, because everything around him was pitch-black.

He seemed to be suspended in a void. All sensation had vanished, even the pain of the gunshot.

Something was wrong—he could feel it in his bones.

[Character "Cangya" created.]

An all-too-familiar floating window appeared in the dark space.

Character? Is this a system?

It was that overused reincarnation trope, where the protagonist was given godlike powers for no reason.

He didn't like systems, because they always forced unreasonable tasks on their hosts.

Not to mention that most systems were part of some ultimate boss's scheme, or were given to the protagonist by a parallel version of himself.

As he puzzled over it, sensation returned to his body.

He felt himself bouncing up and down, as if he were riding a horse.

When he blinked away the last traces of sleep, he saw jagged peaks, rugged summits, and snow-covered ridges before him.

There were no stars in the pitch-black sky, only a half-moon steadily losing its struggle against the darkness.

"Has the moon always been this close?"

"Hey, you. You're finally awake."

...Before Cangya woke up.

Emilou Apache was an Adjuchas with great power, but she chose to survive on the Reishi around her rather than devour other Hollows.

It was an easy day for the peace-loving little deer.

She moved gracefully through the vast, moonlit desert, her hooves treading lightly on the pristine white sand.

The pale moon hung low in the sky, casting an eerie light over the barren land.

Suddenly, she stopped, her heart racing. Two sky-blue legs were sticking out of a nearby dune.

Apache narrowed her eyes and scanned the desolate horizon, her senses on high alert as she tried to detect the evil Hollow that had set this trap.

"I'm not an idiot."

As an Adjuchas, her keen senses could even faintly detect Hollows invisible to the naked eye.

The result, however, shocked her.

"What? There aren't any Menos Grande here?"

Her curiosity piqued, she gracefully turned her neck and looked around again. Then her gaze returned to the two slender legs, which remained motionless and unchanged.

"What's it to me?" she muttered, turning and striding away.

A minute later, however, she found herself back beside the mysterious legs, unable to help herself. They still hadn't moved.

"What in the world is going on?"

Unable to contain her curiosity any longer, Apache took the blue cloth wrapped around the legs in her teeth and pulled their owner out of the sand. At last, she got a good look at the strange Menos Grande.

To her surprise, this Hollow was unlike any she had encountered before.

Everything about his appearance, from his ragged clothes to his disheveled silver hair, suggested humanity.

His mask, adorned with twisted horns and sinister teeth, revealed his true identity as a Hollow.

And she couldn't help noticing the striking black wings on his back.

"A male..."

Apache's past experiences with male Hollows in Hueco Mundo had been terrible. Those males had genuinely wanted to eat her.

This Hollow, however, seemed different.

His calm, graceful face showed no sign of aggression, and his faint Reiatsu made her hesitate. She began to consider whether to kill and eat him.

"He's unconscious... and his legs..." Her eyes widened in shock. "That's really unlucky."

A distant howl sent a chill down Apache's spine, and her body tensed with fear.

A powerful predator—an Adjuchas that preyed on weak Adjuchas like her—was nearby.

"I have to go."

She glanced quickly at the unconscious man, seized his shirt in her teeth, and tossed him into the air.

When he landed on her back, she raced across the moonlit sand.

"I'll just use him as bait," she said, making excuses for the sudden sympathy she felt for this stranger.

As she saw it, without help, he would surely die in this merciless world.

"Hey, you. You're finally awake."

If the voice speaking to him hadn't been female, Cangya might have mistaken this for the opening of "The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim."

"Ah, it wouldn't be bad to become a dragon knight."

Cangya shifted into a more comfortable position on his unexpected mount, a deer-like creature with brown fur on her back and gray skin at the front. Two striking white antlers grew from her head.

As he looked around, he realized there was no rider guiding the creature—only himself.

Apache turned her head and caught sight of Cangya out of the corner of her eye.

"Are you a Vasto Lorde?" she asked in a slow, raspy voice, noting that his size matched that of the powerful Hollows she'd heard about. "But your Reiatsu doesn't match."

"Vasto Lorde?" Cangya frowned, trying to remember where he had heard the term.

It was familiar, hovering at the edge of his memory, but the details were frustratingly elusive.

He dug deep into his memory. Uh, where did I hear that word?

Hearing his murmured question, Apache stopped, her ears almost melting at the sound of his pleasant voice.

His voice is so nice... What am I thinking?!

She snapped out of her daydream and shook her head hard, her ears slapping against her cheeks.

"You don't know what a Vasto Lorde is? Did you just arrive in Hueco Mundo? That can't be right. Menos Grande aren't born as small humanoids like you."

As Apache explained the nature of Hollows and their various forms, she wondered whether she had misread the man's Reiatsu.

After all, Cangya was much smaller than an ordinary Gillian, and he lacked the wildness of an Adjuchas.

Behind his mask, Cangya narrowed his eyes in thought.

The mention of Hueco Mundo and Menos Grande cleared the fog over his memories, and he looked around in disbelief.

The barren white land, dotted with bare trees and massive rocks among rolling dunes, was both surreal and vaguely familiar.

The sand looked lifeless, and the air was still and clear, as if it were made of glass.

It was as though he had stepped into a vivid world that corresponded to his own reality.

Suddenly, it dawned on him that this place matched the world of an anime perfectly.

"Ah."

Cangya barely suppressed the urge to scream at the top of his lungs, because his current situation did warrant such an extreme reaction.

Somehow, he had been transported to a world of Soul Reapers, Hollows, and Quincies—the world of "Bleach."

He had been shot in the head, but had finally escaped his grandfather's control.

"Is this my reward for putting up with so much shit?"

He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with cold air laden with Hueco Mundo's dust.

This was neither a dream nor a scene conjured up by his dying mind.

Once he had accepted the reality of his situation, he let out a long sigh.

"Dear little deer, may I ask your name?"

When he didn't know what had happened, it was important to be polite.

A little respect went a long way toward building trust and avoiding unnecessary conflict.

The owner of the voice considered his request for a few seconds. "...Apache."