Light and Dark; Heaven and Hell.

Both exist in a fragile balance with one another. Without Darkness, the Light has no place to triumph and without light, darkness has no place to lurk...

As the Armies of both Heaven and Hell grew, It was but a matter of time before War came. But the gathering storm did come as many had expected; with tactical moves and shifts over broad areas, no indeed, instead the Hammer fell hardest against the anvil in a place once called Elysia; but now is known only by the name "Blódendeneland" (The Bloody Valley). Now longer is this place accessible on any plane of existence, and little is known of the warriors who clashed here. Some were able to return, others have clawed there way out of it's abyss.

As scribe I would like to take this moment to clarify one thing; as you will learn from the description, the war as it is known is really no more than a single battle, yet the choice to use the word war to describe it is due to the fact that this single battle was fought in many waves across a broad valley plain, and lasted for many years. Popular belief in mythology is that even today, many centuries later, this war is still being waged in the sealed valley; the place that only Illumination may see.

It was in the fall of the 47 year of the second age of the world when this battle begin. It's opening was of little notability. Fearing the growing power of the shinigami that were the soldiers of Heaven, the demon king devised a wicked plan by which to capture the power of a single shinigami for himself.

The unfortunate victim was a man named Kiyoshi. A great and powerful sorcerer with a powerful zanpakuto, Kiyoshi was a force of nature to behold in battle. His great skill and unrivaled use of Kido, the magic given to Shinigamis by the Spirit King, made he a fierce and terrible foe for the hollows to face in battle. But for all his skill and ability, the one weakness Kiyoshi held in his heart was his own pride.

To Kiyoshi, simply being the greatest of shinigamis was not enough. he had surpassed his peers in all aspects and was the unrivaled greatest warrior of seireitei; yet his ambition could not be sated so easily. having a great knowledge of arcane lore, Kiyoshi knew well of the Kami and their powers and secretly in his heart, he desired to have the same power.

It eat and eat at his heart to know that there were more powerful beings then himself, and it was this weakness which led to his corruption.

Approached by a servant of the Demon king, named Masumi, Kiyoshi was offered a chance to attain the powers of a true kami. The price for such gift was to commit himself to the cause of the Demon king, and share his secrets of Zanpakutos. Finding the offer to good to pass up, if for no other reason than his own ambition, Kiyoshi accepted. He was brought by Masumi before the Demon Kings throne in hell. It was here that drawing his blade from his scabbard, he presented it as a token to the demon king.

Accepting the gift, the demon king granted Kiyoshi the powers of a Kami, making him chief among his army of demons. This is all that is known of the process by which he was changed, but what is documented is that over time Kiyoshi grew to love his new powers so much, that his heart lost all contact it once had with humanity, and slowly his mind forgot everything it once new.

As for the Zanpakuto, it went down with a fierce fight. being of purity and light, the demon king could not unlock the core of the spirit own his own. for years he sought to corrupt it to his cause, but through screams and howls the spirit held on, refusing to submit to the will of evil. But alas it was a truly hopeless cause; for as Kiyoshi was lost farther and farther to the darkness, his connection with the part of himself that was the zanpakuto was slowly weakened, until eventually it would no longer exist.

Realizing the end was in sight for itself, the zanpakuto spirit, a great serpent by the name of orochi, refused to let itself become part of the demon kings plan. In a final act of defiance, orochi turned his head on himself and began to consume himself by the tail. This process utterly destroyed the spirit of orochi, but could not completely erase his power. Being the great serpent of dreams, one final dream lingered in orochi; the dream to be free of his fate with Kiyoshi; to find himself a new host.

Upon his death, the former weapon underwent changes; it became a shining glass orb which held the last wish of orochi. But for all his bravery, it was in the end only a temporary set back. For as his will was to find a new host, his powers lingered. Taking the orb in his hand, the demon king realized what he held. Though it was only the remnant of orochi, it was still possible to retrieve much of what he desired from it. In his mind the line between the shinigami and his hollows were finally becoming distorted, thus choosing an appropriate name he called the orb the Hōgyoku, the distortion orb.

In many trials and errors working with it, the demon king learned that only truly strong hollows could survive the process, yet these early ones who did still seemed incomplete. This is how the process of a hollows evolution came into being. Those affected by the Hōgyoku began to behave differently. Hollows had always feed on one another when other souls were unavailable, but these new breed had a strange side effect; they began to crave feeding on other hollows more; and as they did their strength grew and grew until it began to manifest itself in physical ways, with the hollows changing their shape to new forms and gaining new powers.

these new creatures were pleasing to the demon king. He named them arrancers. These arrancars were powerful beings, slowly becoming more and more like shinigamis.

It was from them that the demon king exposed more to the Hōgyoku. This time, his desire was completed. The hollows took on human forms, and gaining leaps and bounds in strength and power. Finally the demon king had his own shinigamis; his own swords; his Espadas.

The Espadas had all the attributes of shinigamis, down to zanpakutos of their own, but due to the nature of their zanpakuto, having come from orochi's self-consumption, the zanpakutos worked differently; they sealed away the true powers of an espada, and when released instead of becoming a separate weapon, the released the espada to his or her true form, releasing their powers. The downside was that upon completing his work, the demon king found that there was a limit to the power of his orb. He was able to create 10 of these espadas before the orb finally cracked and shattered; being then lost to the pages of history and myth.

Over the coming years, the espada and shinigamis fought many great skirmishes, with losses on both sides.

It was then that the demon king made his move, gathering an army of 10,000 hollows led by the 10 Espadas, he marched to bring the war to an end, to bring a strong, decisive blow to the shinigamis.

Having knowledge of hell's armies march, as a force that size is impossible to hide, the spirit king began to muster his own forces, raising an army of 8,000 trained shinigami soldiers. But numbers where not enough; he needed elite warriors to combat the espada that were marching with the hollows. Seeing the best option lay in the elite warriors of the Noble families, The spirit King approached the four Noble families of seireitei; The ōmi clan of the west; The Minamoto clan of the east; The Genji Clan of the South; The Yukimura Clan of the North.

From each clan 3 members were choosen to make up the generals of heavens armies. These names are listed below by Clan:

The ōmi:

Ookami ōmi
Khia ōmi
Dark ōmi

The Minamoto:

Emma Minamoto
JuJu Minamoto
Saito Minamoto

The Genji:

Kentakeo Genji
Kambly Genji
Cantin Genji

The Yukimura

Takehiko Yukimura
Tadakatu Yukimura
Hajime Yukimura
Hinamori Yukimura


The Number of the generals was to be 12. But fearing the loss of her father Hajime, and being of age and exceptional talent, Hinamori refused to stay behind with her mother and newborn brother. Taking her place at her fathers side she rode into battle and legend.

With the number now being 13, The spirit king bestowed special titles upon the warriors of great power, naming them Taichō, or captain.

The 13 warriors set out at the lead of the army of heaven, each being fearful of what may come, but with resolves of steel.

With both armies marching, the field of battle where they met was Elysia. As mentioned before, little is none of the battle itself except that the fighting was fierce with the shinigami ripping into the hollow armies which were less structured and organized. With the pitch shifting back and forth, the battle would rage for hours and stop, then resume. For months this went on with both sides taking heavy losses.

The battle produced so much spirit energy that it threaten to throw off them balance of the universe. Both the living and dead realms suffered for many years because of the fight. It was only when moved to grief, Illumination once again stepped into the world.

Creating a seal around the field of battle, Elysia was removed from time and space and sealed away into a realm of its own, where only the strongest and pure of intention could ever hope to find their way home.

To date only one case of this is known; Following the death of his daughter and Father, Hajime Yukimura could no longer be contained. His rage torn into the ranks as he craved death after death of his enemy, even cutting three of the espada generals down alone. Moved by pity for the anguish that his soul felt, the spirit king made a plea to Illumination to return Hajime to this world, and let him find peace. Seeing the love the king held for this young man who had suffered more than most should ever know, yet never wavering in his duty, Illumination removed Hajime from the seal and returned him to the fields of Rukongai, which at this time was uninhabited. As for the espadas; none escaped the field of battle, thus as time passed the knowledge of them and their creation vanished, until soon it was only a whisper of truth. And as so many things which are lost, they and their tremendous abilities were forgotten, becoming no more than stories of legend, of great evils that once lived but passed, until no longer did any even believe in them.

To those left behind, peace was finally brought between the realms, partially out of exhaustion, partially out of fear of the source.

The war had torn much apart, and out of sadness, the Spirit King decided that no more would his people need to be raised to send to war. In his wisdom he established a military academy to train souls willing to volunteer to serve and protect the souls of seireitei.

This force would be divided into 13 separate units known as divisions, in honor of the 13 warriors which fought to hold back the darkness.
To this day in the great hall of records in seireitei, the statues of these 13 warriors still stand, in hopes of their return or that they may find peace. Though Hajime returned, his statue is also there, next to his father, his left hand resting on the shoulder of his lost daughter's statue.

Given the title of Shogun, Hajime was placed in personal command of the spirit King's armies, as the first acting commander of the Gotei army. And thus from the sacrifice of the 4 great clans, the gotei was born, and a new era was born; a dynasty.

As time passed the Gotei grew until the 13 divisions were filled with many warriors, and it was then that Hajime, acting on authority of the king, established the Gotei as a stand alone force, making it separate from the army of Heaven.

In doing this he appointed a general to administer the day to day running of the Gotei, a warrior of great value who had full control of the gotei and answered only to the Shogun himself. The first captain Commander was a trusted peer of Hajime's known as Ootori Hanzo.