New Beginning

Chapter 4

It's mid dawn the sky just now being painted with the blue hues of light when the sound of hooved feet echoes through the first gate that lead into the capital, the Crown Prince Kaien and his little brother Prince Shiro rode through followed by their honor guards and escorts. With the exception of the escorts the rest of the group were all banged and bruised from an earlier ambush. The Princes finery was covered in dust, spots of blood, and tears from close calls by their enemies' swords.

Kaien's group had suffer heavy losses and he had to fill his ranks with volunteer Vizards. Right now his second in command was Shinji, a flamboyant man with short blond hair cut in a bob and a piano tooth smile that seem more mocking then anything. The blond had made his mission to keep an eye on Kaien after the loss of his brother, and Kaien couldn't blame the man for that action. Two weeks after his brother was buried Kaien had got drunk and destroyed his room before impaling a wooden pillar with his trident in one of the ball rooms. Castle staff had stayed far away from the royal, more out of shock then fear, until Shinji had come in drag the drunk out to one of the training arena's and had beaten the living daylights out of him. After that it was another two days till Kaien had went to find the blond and make him an offer to be his second. Quietly chuckling at the memory and drawing a questionable look from the blond had Kaien snickering more, waving the other off Kaien looked over at his younger brother.

Prince Shiro was almost an exact look alike of Kaien but the fact that he was shorter and younger plus he was completely white were all moot points since he really didn't care. His Espada's hadn't suffer the heavy losses as Kaien's did but Shiro only had two Espada's left a fact that he hated because it meant that he would have to do more recruiting, and this time he couldn't pawn it off on Grimmjow like last time. His long white hair was shorten by a bandits sword so what was once two tails trailing down his back was now shoulder length locks left loose to fall over his shoulders and back. The now twenty year old was still his sarcastic self but much of his personality had been muted since his twin had died. Mugetsu was his calmer half that would pull him back from going overboard with anything and everything. Losing him had caused the younger Prince to almost lose himself, if not for Grimmjow taking the brunt of his anger Shiro might have been lost for good. That's not to say that Grimmjow could ever take the place of Mugetsu but he came a close second that Shiro depended heavily on him when it came to watching his back during patrols.

"Ah it's good to be home, no bugs, lovely ladies, no bandits wanting to take pieces of our hides, and the best thing great food." Kaien waved towards the large town the circled the castle careful not to jostle his injured arm.

"Ha, that's rich you seem to enjoyed the food at that inn brother and I might point out since when have lovely ladies caught your attention." Shiro teasingly shot back.

"Hmm, I love both genders and it doesn't hurt to be polite when eating another's cooking little brother." Kaien said smiling over his shoulder at his brother.

Shiro gives his own smirk back, he had missed his elder brother's smile. It has been too long since he seen a real one upon his brother's face. "Yeah well it ain't like I said anything about how bad that cooks pie was unlike somebody we know." Looking pointedly at the blue haired man beside Shiro.

"What? It tasted horrible." Grimmjow said not really caring about the subject.

"You're lucky that we were with the Princes, if not, we most likely would've ended up on our asses out in the streets." Shinji shouted from the far back of the column. "But I'll say that at least their booze was top notch." This earning several laughs from the surrounding men plus one woman.

Their laughter is stop when the closer they got to the castle the more they saw of guardsmen standing at attention at certain points throughout the city. The ranks formed around the two Princes, Grimmjow and Shinji taking point while Neliel and another Vizard had taken the rear. Kaien had his trident shorten for close quarter combat while Shiro had his hand on his white slim blade. They really don't expect trouble but one can never be too careful.