Who Am I?

In an unknown town within the Fiore Kingdom...

Warm sunlight shone soothingly upon the earth, while a gentle, fragrant breeze drifted through the air, bringing a trace of refreshing coolness.

"Ah, another boring day..." With a blade of unknown grass hanging from his mouth, the boy lay on the soft lawn and muttered, "Forget it. I should go back and eat, before that weird girl comes looking to make trouble for me again..." As he spoke, an adorable, mischievous smile flashed through his mind. He unconsciously sighed. That eccentric girl left him both helpless and thoroughly exasperated.

Getting up, he patted the dirt off himself, lazily stretched in a huge yawn, then swayed his way back toward where he lived.

The boy wore a moon-white robe. Its long hem completely covered his feet and trailed a lengthy tail behind him. At the top of the oversized robe was an enormous hood. Given the boy's build, if he put it on, it would probably cover his entire head, wouldn't it? Haha~

Not only were the hem and hood oversized, even the sleeves were abnormally wide! If he let his hands hang straight down, the extra length was enough to match his arms. If he wore the hood, held up the hem, raised his hands, and came out at night, people might very well mistake him for a ghost...

Of course, do not think the boy actually wanted to wear such clothes. In his words, wandering around in such an absurd outfit was utterly humiliating! Anyone who did not know better would think he could not afford clothes and had put on an adult's clothes from home instead~

In truth, the only reason he wore this outfit was because he had been forced into it. If that strange girl had not insisted on using her status as his savior to make him wear it, he would never have gone out of his way to make himself uncomfortable!

Though he had tried to resist in the beginning, every attempt had been ruthlessly suppressed by that strange girl through methods that were incomparably bloody and cruel...

By now, while he still occasionally found the outfit inconvenient, he had gradually gotten used to it.

When he reached the mountainside and looked at the oddly designed little manor before him, the boy could not help muttering to himself. Though that girl was a little strange, he had to admit that she truly possessed artistic talent far beyond ordinary people... Well, perhaps "beyond human" was more accurate!

The manor was not large. Calling it a courtyard would have been more fitting than calling it a manor. The boy himself had complained about this countless times, but that girl insisted on calling the tiny courtyard a manor and had even given it what he considered an utterly ridiculous name—Dancing Manor!

Though he grumbled endlessly inside, the boy did not have any other thoughts about it. At most, he would bring it up and complain whenever he was bored.

Pushing open the wooden courtyard gate covered in vines, the boy slowly walked into the courtyard—cough, the manor. As he looked at the three-story wooden villa standing at the very back, he could not help taking a deep breath. Though he had seen it countless times already, every time he laid eyes on the villa, overwhelming admiration rose within him. It was so beautiful!

Yes, beautiful! The entire villa had been built from a kind of wood that emitted a fresh, pleasant fragrance. A faint aroma constantly lingered in the air, refreshing anyone who smelled it, as though all their worries and irritability had vanished!

Not only that, countless emerald-green branches and vines, along with beautiful flowers of every color, wound around the wooden villa. Together with the flowers, grass, and trees throughout the courtyard, it looked like an otherworldly paradise!

"What a beautiful sight. Say, why didn't that strange girl inherit even a little of her mother's fine talent..." the boy muttered again.

With that thought, he prepared to walk toward the villa. Yet just as he had made it halfway, an enormous Man-Eating Flower suddenly burst out of the ground!

"Aaargh—" The Man-Eating Flower let out an unbearably ugly shriek, then bared its fangs and claws as it ferociously lunged at the prey that had dared disturb its pleasant sleep!

"Hmph—" Snorting coldly, the boy watched the Man-Eating Flower's enormous, drooling mouth pounce right before him. Unhurried, he casually flipped the left side of his robe behind him with his left hand. As the breeze blew, a magnificent moon-white longsword appeared at his left waist. He tilted slightly downward, gripping the sheath with his left hand while his right hand lightly rested on the beautiful hilt.

"Ding-ling—" As the two long, hollow silver wind chimes tied to the end of the hilt collided with a crisp, melodious ring, the boy drew his blade!

"Clang—" Standing behind the Man-Eating Flower, the boy half-closed his eyes and slowly slid the longsword in his hand back into its sheath, producing a faint metallic scrape.

"Splash—" Behind him, accompanied by the sound of juice spraying out, the enormous Man-Eating Flower slowly split into two from top to bottom!

Turning around, he looked at the Man-Eating Flower's corpse, which he had cleaved into two huge halves, and the green fluid spilling across the ground. While feeling disgusted, his face also darkened. There was no need to say it—this had to be that girl's handiwork again! Last time had been Bloodthirsty Vines, the time before that a Flesh-Eating Tree, before that Biting Grass, and now she had even brought out a Man-Eating Flower?! Damn it! At this rate, who knew what kind of freakish thing she would come up with next?!!

Fine, she could make whatever she wanted, as long as it had nothing to do with him. He did not care what dangerous things she created, but—

At that thought, the boy's face began twitching uncontrollably. Gritting his teeth, he roared inwardly, Why do you have to use me to test the power of these creepy things?!!

That was right. The main reason the boy harbored such deep resentment was that whenever that strange girl mastered some new magic, she liked using him to test its power! In the year since she had saved him, he had already lost count of how many times he had been attacked by those bizarre wood-element spells...

This had also given the boy the habit of slipping outside to pass the time whenever it was not time to eat or sleep. In his eyes, anywhere that girl was present was a danger zone! Staying at home when there was nothing to do was simply far too dangerous! Though he was confident in his own strength, there was no guarantee that he would not let his guard down one day. He could capsize in the gutter at any moment, so it was safer to stay outside whenever possible!!!

After becoming even more determined about the major decision to wander around whenever he had nothing to do, the boy rather flamboyantly tossed his messy black hair and sauntered toward the villa.

"Creak—" He gently pushed open the villa door, stuck his head inside, and cautiously looked around. Once he had confirmed there was no danger, the boy finally walked in.

"Phew... Looks like that girl isn't here~" Letting out a breath, the boy relaxed somewhat after reaching that conclusion. He walked into the hall, then flopped sideways onto the soft fur sofa.

The boy was thirteen years old. Ever since that girl had saved him by the seaside one year ago, he had remained here. A full year had passed since then.

He did not know why he had been severely injured and unconscious on the beach back then, nor did he know anything about his past or background, because he had lost his memory...

That was right. Ever since he had awakened after being saved that day, he had discovered that he had amnesia. Though it sounded clichéd, it was an indisputable fact! If he had amnesia, then why did he still remember his age? Please, had anyone ever seen someone lose their memory so completely?! If a person truly lost every memory, would they not lose language, knowledge, and everything else, reverting directly to the state of an infant?!

In fact, almost everyone with amnesia retained some basic common sense, and many even remembered much of their previous knowledge! What people commonly called amnesia was merely partial memory loss. Those who completely lost their memories and reverted to infancy were not nonexistent, but they were exceedingly rare!

After saying so much, the point was that aside from some basic common sense, the boy still remembered certain things about himself! Such as his age, his magic, his gender, and so on...

Because he did not know his former identity and could not remember his past, he had spent an entire year in this place.

It could be said that aside from knowing his magic seemed to be "somewhat" unusual, he had almost no useful information that could connect him to his former identity. Even after studying the magic he possessed for over a year, he still had not made any sense of it! The only thing he knew was that, aside from allowing him to Requip weapons he had stored in his Requip space, his Requip Magic seemed to possess some strange summoning ability—summoning weapons known as Zanpakutō from some unknown space? Though he had only succeeded in this strange summoning a handful of times so far, every success had occurred under certain specific circumstances...

He did not know why he called these weapons Zanpakutō. It was simply that whenever he saw them, an inexplicable impulse surged up within him, as though a voice in his heart were constantly shouting that these weapons should be called Zanpakutō! And so, that was what he called them...

Not only that, every Zanpakutō seemed to have its own unique name. Whenever he grasped one, its name would naturally emerge in his mind. He did not know why, only that whenever he called out its name, it would undergo some strange transformation. After transforming, each possessed its own relatively independent, peculiar ability and became even stronger than before!

He called this transformation "Shikai." This was not a name he had thought up either; it was simply a term that naturally surfaced in his mind.

"Say..." Lying on the soft sofa, the boy stared blankly at the ceiling and murmured, "Who exactly am I?..." As he thought, he slowly drifted into sleep.

In his dream, a hazy figure seemed to be constantly telling him something. Yet strangely, he could not hear a single word...