When an animal dies, where does it’s soul go? Does it cease to exist or does it get put directly back into the soul stream to be reincarnated? The answer may not be readily apparent. However, what actually happens is that they are sent to a different realm than Humans, though this was not always the case.

 

Long ago, Soul Society was much larger than just the Rukongai and the Seireitei. Lush forests, rivers, vast plains and mountains all ranged around the area, filled with many of the souls of animals that had died. Depending on the age of the animal’s soul, they would begin to gain more humanoid-like features anthropomorphizing them after they gain enough Reiryoku that their animal body can not handle on it’s own.

 

These anthro-beasts created their own hierarchy system among themselves, separating the two governments between what was the Humans and the Beast Kingdoms. Among the Beast Kingdoms were five archetypes that ruled together to assure fairness for their own kind: The Woodlands, The Mountains, The Rivers, The Caves, and The Plains.

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For the longest time, the beast kingdom was looked down on by those within the Soul Society. Seeing them as merely beasts that were nothing more than manual labor for the humans. Pets and the like. This angered the Plains King, Saja, the most out of all the other Beast Kingdoms. He raised his army and roped the other Beast Kingdoms into revolting against the human Soul Society.

 

The war was long and brutal, while they were trying to combat the already rising Quincy threat, the Shinigami now had a new threat in their homeland of the Beast Kingdoms! Though the Beast Kingdoms’ fighting prowess and technology severely lacked compared to that of the Shinigami of the Seireitei. They were handedly defeated, and brought to the brink of full on extinction with only a handful of them left along with their respective kings.

 

Feeling sorry for his creations, and not wanting to see them completely destroyed, the Soul King divided the two realms of the Beast Kingdoms and those of the Humans. Leaving the surrounding area of the Soul Society a barren desert and transporting the Beast Kingdoms to their own dimension, a branch off of the soul stream leading to them from the World of the Living to collect and reincarnate animal spirits.

 

Those beasts that decided to stay within the Soul Society were allowed to, but under the stipulation of not being able to be reincarnated anymore, were they to perish. Few took this, opting to go with their own kind.