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Chapter 36: Hollows II
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Akashi finished the Hollow with a downward cleave.
Another drop in the ocean.
As the night deepened, he met Hollow after Hollow. None were strong. But each taught him something new.
The third was a bat-like creature with long arms and tiny wings that flapped uselessly.
It shrieked when it sensed him and attempted to flee, another issue Akashi had to deal with.
The hollows seem to be very sensitive to Reiatsu, 'I should ask Captain Soi Fon some questions about that when I got back.' He mused.
He chased it across rooftops, using his Shunpo to appear in front of it, testing its reaction time.
It tried to blindside him with a sonic burst; an ear-splitting scream; but responded with a quick Kido.
"Bakudō #8: Seki."
The forcefield deflected the sound like a shield of air. He followed up with a flash step and jabbed Kurayami into its chest.
The devouring began anew.
Each Hollow contained darkness, but their flavors were different; rage, lust, despair, sorrow.
It's as if they do not have different flavors mixed in, but only one of those flavors prevailed, seemingly making most of the hollows' being.
Kurayami drank them all, filtering them into Akashi's inner world, rebuilding the ocean drop by drop.
It was, however, his fourth encounter with a hollow; that made Akashi feel something other than interest and curiosity.
It was something he'd never seen before, and he had seen a lot of dark shit... It made him feel creeped out.
He first sensed it in the stillness; no screaming, no rushing Reiatsu; just a soft, gurgling echo, like something wet dragging across glass.
He followed the trail of darkness until he found it in the alley behind an abandoned laundromat.
He didn't see a hollow, but Kurayami allowed him to see the darkness enveloping the area.
Without Kurayami, he'd only see a pile of shapes; limbs, and torsos.
Then the shapes moved.
It rose like a collapsing tent, wet fabric peeling away to reveal a single hunched mass of fused bodies.
Dozens of limbs jutted out from its sides, twitching independently. Faces; human faces; were fused into its skin, mouths open in eternal screams, eyes rolled back or wide in shock.
Some whispered. Some cried.
The Hollow's mask resembled a doll's face; cracked porcelain with a childlike grin carved into it.
But from the mouth of that mask came a voice; dozens of them speaking in disjointed chorus.
"Mommy… help… ha ha ha… where's your God now?... don't leave me…"
Akashi stopped dead, one hand tightening around Kurayami's hilt.
He even had the illusion that the blade pulsed in discomfort, and for once, he agreed with the voices in his head, 'Why do hollows even exist?'
He knows it's because the world needs balance, but how broken must a world be to require such a twisted sense of balance?
The… The thing before him… It wasn't strong. But it reeked of darkness. A festering well of rot and hatred.
A Hollow born of something dreadful and sick; a predator that seems to feed not for survival, but for the joy of desecrating the innocent.
It dragged itself forward with the limbs of the dead, leaving a thick trail of slime behind.
"Kurayami," Akashi said under his breath, eyes narrowing, taking a deep breath to calm down his emotions, "I now see why you are my Zanpakuto."
It was a confusing point to him. No matter how he looks at it, his Zanpakuto is purely evil, but he never felt so evil.
Akashi is certainly no good person. What he had experienced made him too numb to care for others, and even disdain humanity in some ways.
Just because he experienced darkness doesn't mean he should unnecessarily inflict darkness upon others though the word unnecessarily was doing quite the heavy lifting there.
After all, he had done a lot of dark things in the name of necessity and survival, for Akashi, most of all, cares about himself more than any else.
The Hollow laughed, bringing him out of his daze, its many voices overlapping like a broken record.
"Stay! Play!! Pray!!!"
It launched forward, propelled by a surge of muscle and bone.
Dozens of limbs clawed the air as its central mouth opened wide; far wider than anything should be able to, revealing rows of teeth made of fingernails.
Akashi moved.
Shunpo.
He reappeared above the creature, inverted midair, and slashed downward.
The Hollow screeched, not in pain, but joy. "Yes! Yes! Hurt me!"
Kurayami sliced across its back, black ichor spilling; not just blood, but emotion, a wave of putrid delight mixed with torment.
Akashi landed a few paces back, eyes confused. The devouring was different this time.
He didn't feel resistance or fear… he felt obsession. Madness. The kind only a truly broken soul could radiate.
This Hollow was made from something cruel; perhaps a serial killer in life, or a predator that feigned innocence before feeding. Its darkness was thick, sticky, and suffocating.
"Bakudō #30: Shitotsu Sansen!"
Three beams of light formed in the air and slammed into the Hollow, pinning its arms and core to the alley wall.
Its dozens of limbs flailed, some cracking at unnatural angles, but its mask still grinned.
Akashi approached slowly.
Akashi took his time and studied the thing.
The souls in its body writhed. Some were still partly aware. He could hear their whispers beneath the Hollow's louder mockery.
"Please… let me go…"
"Make it stop…"
That was when Akashi understood.
This creature didn't just kill. It imprisoned.
It devoured souls but didn't fully consume them. It kept their agony alive inside its own body; tormented echoes trapped in a prison of flesh.
Therefore, as much as he wanted to study the abomination more, he felt it necessary to quickly give the poor souls some peace.
He raised the sword and slashed horizontally.
Akashi watched as the hollow slowly dissolved into nothingness.
Limbs peeled away like petals from a diseased flower.
The faces melted, some sighing in relief before dissipating, others still screaming.
The mask cracked, and with it, the chorus fell silent as the last fragment of its body dissolved into the air.
He glanced down at Kurayami. The blade shimmered blacker than before, its edge gleaming with stolen misery.
"Hah," Akashi let out a chuckle, feeling like his understanding of Kurayami had risen, 'I would never wish darkness upon the world, so let me have it all for myself.'
That's the perfect description of Kurayami, and as a Zanpakuto spirit is created by the essence of one's soul, it's safe to say that the phrase describes Akashi as well.
Shunpo.
Soon, Akashi; after a long fruitful day; sat on a rooftop lazily, Kurayami across his lap.
The blade was darker now. He could feel its inner world. He could feel the ocean of Ink growing inside him, refilling bit by bit.
It was, however, far from enough
"Just how much darkness do I need… To complete Cthulhu?"
The image of Cthulhu flashed in his mind. The vision of the behemoth kneeling before him, powerful, but an incomplete god nonetheless.
Akashi leaned back against the edge of the roof and stared at the stars, thinking about whether he should even attempt completing the behemoth anytime soon.
It feels like he'd need a world's worth of darkness to awaken Cthulhu's abilities... That's probably an understatement.
'Hm, it's decided then, I should call forth new horrors... Focus on all-roundness perhaps? Some life-saving horrors.'
He mused, his eyes soon lighting up, 'My basics are still a bit poor, so what if I call forth that specializes in Zanjutsu for example? Will their expertise remain? Can I learn from them?'
Akashi was curious, 'But is it worth doing now? Hmm, no, I should learn all I can from Seireitei before trying such a thing. For now, my Zanjutsu is okay.'
Zanjutsu was his most honed skill, sharpened through endless sparring against Eleventh Division maniacs who cared more about blood than breath.
Kido comes second, especially Bakudo, although his small energy reserve makes it difficult to reach for high-numbered spells.
Even his Hadō, though secondary... Is still in the mud playing with ants. That's the only thing it can affect.
But it was Kurayami that changed everything, "Thank you for being by my side." Akashi murmured with a gentle smile as he traced his fingers across the edge of the blade.
That moment of pure affection was broken as Akashi's movement halted, his face turning instantly to eye the roofs in the distance.
Akashi frowned. He could've sworn he'd sensed a hint of maliciousness from there, 'I must be imagining things...'
Shunpo
'Fuck no I don't,' Akashi leaped to his feet and flashed away, escaping to the end of the world... God, this world is making him feel so insecure and unsafe.
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