Whole World Stopped [TBTP/Dew/CLOSED]

His room was black. Not because the door was closed. No, that had been pulled off it’s hinges soon after discovering that the room even had a door. No, the room was black because all of the light that entered was swiftly siphoned down and away from the room’s only occupant to join a slowly groping marble that sat at his side. He’d been doing this for some time. No particular reason other than he could and he wanted to. Maybe if someone shone a flashlight into the room, they’d have a few milliseconds to glimpse the boy. Clad in the gray clothing of his school, though not the sort of clothing a male would want to be caught in. At least, most people were sure he was male. the way the skirt suited him might have shaken a few beliefs, but that wasn’t the point. Again, he was doing this simply because he had the ability.

He had closed himself off to the outside world. Not physically of course, but a monster like the king of hueco mundo could have been three inches from him in that blackness, and Dew would not have known. Not through sight or sixth sense at least. But there were still ways for him to know that someone was there. When he ended that isolation, he froze. Speak of, no, even think of the devil, and he shall appear it seemed. He was nearby, and it seemed like he had been for some time, but Dew’s isolation had of course made him oblivious. The fullbringer was pissed. A third of his capture had been through belief that maybe that monster would make him stronger. Of course it was a lie, but only now did he say it. He was just a trophy. Something to be caught, and then locked away. Who wouldn’t be pissed at that? No one in their right mind. He couldn’t confront the monster who pretended to be a man. That might be tantamount to suicide. There was no use for him after all. He could be more permanently discarded.

It was a curious thing.

The last time he had encountered the monster, he had always been on the move. From the exact secondd he had set foot in the human world, to the moment he entered Dew’s house and stole him away. He only paused when he was waiting of something he wanted. But this was hue mundo. This was his own domain. What could make him stop? What had the power to make him wait?

He had to be some sort of idiot. But still he left his room. The instant he stepped over the threshold, his room was flooded with light. The little black marble flew across the room to land in Dew’s hand. It had about the diameter of a quarter. That was to be expected. Several hours of absorbing the mager light to trickle into his room meant slim pickings. As Dew stared at it, the edges of the sphere grew more defined, the details around it ceased to blur. He’d turned off it’s active absorbing of light. Any light that it it wouldn’t escape, but it wouldn’t pull away the light reflecting off the things around ti. It was simply a void in the world. Created by a force outside of science and physics, the little black marble looked innately unnatural. Perfect blackness like this shouldn’t exist.

Dew almost dropped it before remembering that skirts didn’t come with pockets. He had to tuck it into the breast pocket on the upper portion of the uniform. A uniform worn by the female students of Karakura High School. The only uniform that probably still existed. Stolen some time before the tragedy of KK Town, worn on the day, and kept clean as best as one could since then. Not consciously, but he always dealt with the arrancar in less than bloody ways if he could, and never in a manner that would drip onto his uniform.

The sudden flash of white hair in front of him brough hit steps to a sudden halt. The arrancar knew to keep away from him after the fans of the first five to annoy the silver fullbringer. But this wasn’t an arrancar. Her sudden appearance did create the same hallucination as before though. One that took several blinks for Dew to get rid of. Eventually he was just going to stop looking at her immediately when he sensed her. A hardened heart was a fragile thing, and he didn’t need to be reminded of a tragedy every time he saw a friend. At least, not that particular tragedy.

“I haven’t seen hide or hair of him since that day. And now he’s just standing up there like he’s waiting for something. Why wouldn’t I be heading out?”

That came off harsher than he probably intended. Especially speaking to Sekai. A sweet little thing, that inexplicably held more power than him. It was more than likely his wish, but he still couldn’t truly point out how her power had corrupted her. And he wasn’t going to go poking around either. Who stomps about to find a land mine? Her offer was stuttering, and almost flew through Dew’s ears entirely. His eyes had drifted to the ceiling, but now focused back on her. After a few moments of thought, stretched to an eternity by the presence waiting above them, Dew nodded.

“If you know a way out, lead on. I was just going to try and bust through these walls until I hit open air.”

___________________________________________________

Word Count: 932
Gp Gain: 18
Gp Total: 18
Written to the tune of: No Church in the Wild

Dread from the weaker. Anxiety.

Anticipation.

The Black Moon rose.

Disappointed was a word. And it was perfect for describing the faint reaction in his companions face. What reason more did she have to seek out the king of the monsters? Was it really any better than his? Still, it wasn’t something he really wanted to argue bout right now. The both of them wanted to know what was going on, and they were both willing to go outside and find out about it.

Still, it looked like he would have to wait for a moment for Sekai to think up just how they were going to get out of the tower. Dew was ready to start busting though the wall like he had suggested. She was taking far too long for his liking. If the king was waiting for something, then if they continued to dawdle, they might miss their chance. He was angry, and rightfully so at the monster and he wanted some damn answers. Just as he opened his mouth to say something, Sekai pressed her hand to the wall and did…..something to it.

“How did-?”

He couldn’t even finish the question because he still wasn’t entirely sure what had been done to the wall. Was it something she could do because she was stronger than him? Or something that was unique to her abilities? He was really hoping it was the latter, because if it was the former, he would just bemoan his lack of strength all the more. But still he followed the woman through the hole she’d made, looking back at the entrance of it just long enough to give a little wave. The hole might not have made any fuss to create, but that didn’t mean someone wasn’t going to come wandering along and see it there.

Actually, the closer he got to the outside, the more he noticed how unnaturally quiet the world was. The hiss of their shoes on the stone floor was the only thing he could pick out. Usually there was at least a low hum of something just out of sight whispering to itself. Some hollow that wanted to eat the humans that lived in it’s home, but knew they were far too big of a bite to swallow. Dew’s isolation had cut him off from more than it really should.

They all must have been sensing the same thing. All dreading from what was going on just above their heads. And now he couldn’t help but wonder if it was a smart idea to approach the source of all this fear. If it would have been better to just leave him alone. This was the creature who laid waste to karakura just by existing. And they actually wanted to see why he was waiting on the roof like he was waiting for something?

“Yeah, he is.”

What could he say to that? The man was waiting in one place, unmoving. There wasn’t any actual weather in this realm. Even the sunlight they stepped into was artificial. There for some stupid sense of decoration. An illusion there to make it seem like they were back home. Like they weren’t in a world of monsters. Like he wasn’t somehow home.

Dammit, he needed to stop thinking of this world like home. No matter how much it resonated with him, no matter how natural it felt here, this was not his home. His home had been destroy-

“How the fuck are there two of him?”

He didn’t even take notice of the words leaving his mouth, he just stared. There were two kings. Two absolute monsters, except for…..one didn’t feel like a monster. He felt like nothing. Not human, not monster, not spirit, not anything. There wasn’t even the faintest of traces like one could find in a normal person. The background noise that the power hollows produced. Just nothing. And the twins weren’t alone. Dew couldn’t make out the face perfectly, but the third figure, something about it was familiar to him in th most unsettling way possible.

“I think I do. I met him one night in Karakura. He pretended to be one of my teachers. I think.”

Was this really the same person who’d snuck into Karakura High once before?

They were all monsters, the lot of them. One was a monster of knowledge. Humans feared the unknown, but they could also fear what they did know. But the others, they tapped into that dark place of the human mind. Dew knew nothing about these guests that the king of monsters had been waiting for. Even if they did hold familiar faces, faces he’d only needed to see once to understand. And that frightened him the most of all.

“I’m getting tired of being scared.”

He didn’t say it loud enough to be heard, he didn’t dare. He’d come out here to confront the king of monsters, but this gathering was even worse than Karakura. At least then he had some sort of hope that he would be able to fight. Be able to resist. But with all three of these creatures present, he knew he didn’t even have a chance. His leg lifted unconsciously, almost taking a step back, like somehow that was going to save them from what was happening.

Of course they weren’t human. Not human, not hollow, not shinigami. Not anything if his sixth sense was anything to go by. And yet there they were. Something wreathed in fire, an angel, and the monster that brought him here.

Finally he took notice of what Sekai was doing. He didn’t remember her being quite so close to him. He could have sworn he felt her shivering. She was just as scared as he was, if not more. What was about to happen to them?

The sound of Tova shouting brought his eyes back up to the sky.

A black moon hung above Last Noches.

This time Dew did step back. The presence that had snuffed an entire town out of existence in a single second, the one that had put him on his knees almost and near killed his family. It was nothing compared to this. Dew’s sixth sense didn’t penetrate that orb, and he didn’t want it to. It would only lead to despair and fury. He’d pointed a bow at that thing. No wonder it hadn’t even flinched. How it had stood perfectly still with a dagger his throat. Dew was nothing to him. And here he was acting like some damn jealous girlfriend at being forgotten. It was a heaven send that this thing had forgotten about him.

“What are we doing out here?”

___________________________________________________

Word Count: 1105
Gp Gain: 22
Gp Total: 22

Not knowing.

The souls of Las Noches answered.

Again.

Again and again and again.

So many times over and over, the world just love showing Dew that he knew nothing about how it worked. That there was no such thing as normal, because as soon as he decided on what was normal, then the rug was swept out from under his feet again. He knew absolutely nothing, and the world wanted to make sure he knew that with every breath. So the monster that had come for him wasn’t even the real king of the hollows. He was nothing but an imposter. A pretender. An overpowered jester borrowing the crown of the real king. And the real king was an even greater monster than him it seemed. Why else would Dew’s senses refuse to acknowledge him? Refused to acknowledge both him and the one that stood nearby.

Dew’s mind turned to the little black sphere in his pocket. The ball that shouldn’t exist, shouldn’t be in the world. That’s what he thought about as he stared at the black moon the hung in the sky. Even now he couldn’t keep himself from wondering about the power that created it. That was what he’d come here for. Part of what he’d come for. He’d wanted that sort of power, been promised it. But did he still want it? Did he still want to be a monster like that?

He couldn’t dwell on the question long. Otherwise he might actually decide on an answer.

He grimaced a little when she grabbed onto his arm. Hard. How did someone as small as her have so much strength?

It didn’t take him long to correct his assumption. After all, he was a contradiction himself. His form held no more right to such strength than her own. If she could do it, then so could- For fuck’s sake! She was going to break his arm at this rate. Sure the pain went away fast, but she was still gripping just a little too hard. It was like she had him there as some sort of stress toy. A stress toy being dragged around since he could barely pull his eyes away from the black moon to follow the girl. It didn’t matter where she was leading them. They were still in a world of monsters. If she was seeking safety, sanctuary, then this was the wrong place for it. Even a hollow wouldn’t be safe here tonight.

Out here was better than in the tower? At least in the tower he wouldn’t be staring at this thing, drawn to it like a moth to a flame. At least inside he wouldn’t be wondering what would have happened had he tried to run. At least inside he would have been oblivious. Would have remained oblivious that is. He could have-

“Come again? The unfriendly members of the population?”

Hollows. She meant the hollows. Stop and think for a second. Listen to h- Keep your damn eyes away from the fucking moon!

Brilliant, gleaming light streamed off Dew’s wrist and into his hand. With one flick, it chose a shape. With another, the shape was finalized. The large curved blade of his axe gleamed in the corner of his eye as Dew rested it on the ground.

“Let them try. I could do with a snack.”

He’d neglected to bring any o the junk food he’d kept in his room. And all this stress was making him hungry and anxious. Did that make him a stress eater? Probably. Though his metabolism wasn’t going to allow for him to gain any extra weight while he was staying here.

Her voice startled him. The silence seeped through his ears and into his brain, and was creeping in on his other senses when she broke the stillness. His eyes had traveled up to the ball in the sky once more, and he forced himself to look down and away. Towards her, where he wouldn’t go crazy. He’d already had his flashback for the day. He wasn’t going to see his mother’s face while he looked at Sekai anymore.

“I figured that much. What else is there for monsters to do? They don’t share very well, so if there are too many in one place-“

He couldn’t finish the thought. Didn’t even have time to comment on Sekai’s blade or the hollows milling about nearby. That pressure, even dulled by distance, he found himself being made weaker by it. How far would things have gone if this had been unleashed in Karakura? How many lives would have been lost? Would his father and cat have survived? Would he have been conscious? He couldn’t know, couldn’t look anymore. He just had to focus on his companion, and at least look like he was still strong. The hollows didn’t seem too affected by the pressure, so a couple of humans just wandering around might have seemed tasty after all, making the two of them the snacks rather than the other way around.

The river of souls rising towards the moon might have been beautiful, in it’s own way. The souls of ghosts, ripped from their incorporeal bodies and pulled up towards the black moon. A black moon in a shattered sky, fed a steady river of souls. And to accompany it, the most demonic pf symphonies, played out by his own soul. The hum that this world gave him had been amplified. The song was in full swing now, and barely, ever so slightly, he resisted. He held on just enough to, what? To avoid joining the river? Yeah, the river meant death, and he couldn’t die here. But the song was so beautiful.

Dew looked around, and noticed the cold stone beneath him. He was sitting, his legs resting on either side of him. So he’d fallen at this power. Even his axe couldn’t hold him up anymore? Lovely. The graying of the world around him, no wait. Was it graying? Even in the false sky, the buildings were white. There were no other colors. Certainly not any on him.

“We need to leave.”

He couldn’t hear himself. Had he even said anything worth hearing?

___________________________________________________

Word Count: 1025
Gp Gain: 20
Gp Total: 42

Rejection

Not one of his.

Family and friends, laughter and sorrow.

This was not their end.

The sky remained torn

He'd played with them.

The wet sounds stopped.

Fear

Silence.

Something was quieting the song. He could feel himself reach out, not physically. He couldn’t even lift his arms. No, his soul reached out for that symphony, trying to capture it again. Such a beautiful sound, but he couldn’t get a hold of it. It was like trying to catch smoke with his bare hands. He could surround it, make movements towards it, but the moment he thought he could get anything definitive, it was gone. Death and destruction. Violence and consumption. Absolute power. The song promised it all. But the words faded away. The melody returned to a hum, and was then smothered.

A new song was taking it’s place. Life, vibrancy. What was he se-

Oh.

That was earth.

His soul hummed for this world, but only in part. Only half or a little more. The rest of him, the rest of his soul and the whole of his form, that hummed along with this new tune, reminding him where he’d spent most of his life. He remembered why he’d held on even that much. To return to earth. To see his family again. And to face these monsters and crush them on his own turf. Yes, that was what was waiting for him back home. He couldn’t join the-

The what exactly? He blinked, and his eyes saw nothing. It took him whole seconds to even remember what he had been looking at. A river of souls? That made some sort of sense. The souls of hollows, all being pulled up towards he black moon. But where had it gone? Maybe if he stood, he would have an answer. He could feel his legs again. Hell, he could feel his body again. There was no hole in the black moon. The pressure of the world was only enough to annoy. Not to shake or crush. He still had a hand on his axe. He could use it to stand.

He could, but something else kept him on the ground. A hand wrapped around his ankle. A hollow? An arrancar? He followed the arm up to it’s owner, and his grip relaxed from the axe. Just her. No, not just her. She was helping him? The song of earth was still damnably loud in his brain. Her hand was on his skin. There was no place for logic in a world like this, but it still demanded he acknowledge there was every chance of this new song coming from her to suppress the old. Why would she bother though? He wasn’t that important. He hadn’t been particularly nice to her either.

“Sou desu ka.”

Words without comprehension. An automatic response that he couldn’t piece together immediately. He understood her, what she’d said. They’d stopped fighting. Somehow she knew this. But what had he replied?

He couldn’t be bothered to respond to her remiss words of caution while he tried to turn his brain back on all the way. Sounds to concepts, concepts to understanding. Understanding to…

“Is that blood?”

There we go. He could understand himself again. Didn’t stop him from looking looking confused at the blood falling all around them, and above them on a dome. Nor did it stop him from almost swinging on the golem that sprouted from beneath them. Why was it staring like that? Better yet, why was such a thing kneeling for them? Sekai must have summoned it. She had a thing with stone, but it should have been staring at her while it was kneeling like this. Twice now people, if a golem could be a person, were treating Dew like he was something important. He was just an idiot who made a deal with the devil and got burned.

His axe returned to a bracelet, and Dew stepped gingerly into the empty stone palm.

“Can you tell him to stop staring? Leave it to a man made of stone to make me feel self conscious for once.”

He didn’t think about protecting his eyes from the light. It just happened. The marble, right out of his pocket. Dividing and cupping before absorbing the light that sought to burn his eyes from existence. It fell finally and returned to a ball, about as big as an egg now. Dew caught it and returned it to the pocket. There were bigger things to worry about. The pressure was null. He could feel the pressure from other things, other hollows somewhere in this world. Ones that resisted the call of the song earlier. But the biggest? The worst? The one that had turned a small town on it’s head?

“Where the fuck did that asshole run off to?”

___________________________________________________

Word Count: 775
Gp Gain: 15
Gp Total: 57

Approval.

This thing. This hunk of stone in the form of a large man. Him, it, whatever, was looking at him in approval? Dew didn’t want it to be looking at him in approval. In fact, he still didn’t want the thing to be looking at him at all. Just how creepy was it to be stared at something that for all intents and purposes shouldn’t have eyes at all. It was beyond the uncanny valley. It was deep in the straight up unnerving valley, and Dew wanted it to stop.

It didn’t listen? That meant it could listen. That meant it was sentient. That it had thoughts and feelings of its own. That it wasn’t Sekai making the thing stare at him further, just to be an ass about it. What was this, a giant stone man, or a giant stone cat? It was starting to lean towards the second option. He was tempted to slap it, but sekai got to that first. But still, yeah. There was a second sound of flesh on stone, shortly after the first, followed by a small puff, the barest hiss of pain. It did sting, but hopefully it would get the message across. Both of them wanted it to stop staring, so it should stop staring already.

Whatever thoughts Dew had of the golem being cool were bled away in quick order when the thing had started staring at him.

The answer to his question. The answer of gone. That silenced Dew. It made him stop, look up towards the sky, search the heavens for any sign that she might be wrong. That her senses were off.

Yeah, that the senses that had penetrated the black moon were wrong.

Well? It was something to hope for. Because the alternative? The fact that she might be right? That was something that Dew just couldn’t stomach right now. But with each passing second, with each failure of his senses to grasp something that quite simply wasn’t there, that knot in his stomach grew. Even the there-not-there people were gone. The men with familiar faces who seemed all the more alien for it. The men who left no mark on the world, as if they were the world itself. They were gone. Where sight, visible light had captured them before, not event that remained. For all Dew knew, they had been a figment of his imagination, somehow shared with Sekai. For all he knew, the entire scene had been a fraud. Some elaborate trick that both of them had fallen for.

But that didn’t explain the blood. Not like his mind cared.

Focused on the sky, Dew couldn’t guard his thoughts. Couldn’t guard his emotions. It was a whirlwind. His heart would bounce from one to another, then a third and fourth, then back again to go for a fifth or sixth. Fear at the things that had erased such a powerful presence from the world. Anxiety that the job hadn’t been done right, and that Tova would be back. Relief that for a time, he was out of their lives. Anger that he hadn’t gotten even one punch in on the guy. Guilt from the continued delusion that Tova had been there for him. Conviction that if he didn’t exist, Karakura would still stand, and Sekai wouldn’t be in this nightmare.

And yet, there was still something under that if she cared to look just a tiny bit deeper.

Something was broken. Hidden under that maelstrom,  something was broken. No, not broken. Cracked. That was the word. But why was that the only thing about him that felt right? It played like a midnight breeze,  a song that resonated with what had kept him from joining the river. Something his tools captured and amplified for the full melody could not be heard on its own.

Shrouded, captured, surrounded by the shadow that Tova had pulled on. That Tova had summoned. It gave the light definition, gave it strength while still threatening to smother the one thing so definitively Dew. The disparity was unnatural.  The balance weighed too heavy to be called such. Something restricted that light, muted that song.

Who would do something like this to little Dew?

Was he alright? The answer was no. But he would smile. Play his part for this person acting as mother in both brief vision and in action. It was the least he could manage for her. The least that would keep her out of a path that would end in him harming her.

"I'm fine. Just a little hungry."

___________________________________________________

Word Count: 763
Gp Gain: 15
Gp Total: 72

Dew really couldn’t help it. After all that. After all that emotion roared through him, he was left feeling distinctly hungry. Maybe because he was surrounded by blood, which he’d taken to snacking on once more. Maybe it was because his body couldn’t possibly take all the excitement without more energy. Whatever the reason, the hunger was gnawing at him. And the more annoyed he became, the more he became aware that he just couldn’t shake this hunger.

A distraction in the form of Sekai shouting was just what he needed to break from the hunger trance. He had a stockpile of snacks in his room. He’d even found some jerky the other day. He could inhale a few bags, and then he would be fine. For now, just what was his companion screaming about? Eating someone? Taku-san? Was that some other human that had been captured in the karakul town incident? Sekai seemed pretty attached to him if she was so upset about-

Wait, she was talking to the golem like he was talking back. She did say that the golem didn’t listen, but she hadn’t thought to assume she was having actual conversations with the golem. Just that she would tell it things, and then it would emote. He was curious now. Was it actual speech, or was the big rock just showing her images? Images seemed more likely. If the thing could use actual words, why not just give it a mouth?

Actually, on second thought, that wasn’t an idea he would entertain. The golem made him uncomfortable enough with just staring. Giving it a mouth and words would raise the creepiness factor by over ten.

She was screaming at the golem again. Dew hid a small giggle at that. They were in the home fortress of a race of beings that were unmitigatedly hostile to humanity. And she was worried about blood and sand being tracked into the fortress. Could she not instead think about the fact the golem had just pulled them through a solid stone wall? Because that’s what Dew wanted to focus on. Making the stone part was one thing. Moving through it like it’s not even there was just a whole other level of cool. A level that made him rather jealous of the powers of both sekai and the golem. He could do pretty cool things with light, but working with stone was a far more tangible power. Manlier really.

As if Dew knew anything about what was- Oh, wait, he did. He had Matthew for a father after all.

When the golem looked back at him, Dew leaned back on a boulder that was probably a bicep and looked off to the side. Utterly unconcerned with the stone man’s plight. Maybe if he would stop staring, Dew would be nicer to him. Maybe. Wait, they were being let down already? Dew thought the golem was going to stay with them the whole time. If it was just gonna be there to keep them from stepping on the blood, they would have just walked on the air.

Silver orbs followed the golem, then returned to the golem’s master.

“So, does he have a name? Seems too human to not have one.”

Wow. So that was a thing to say after all that happened to them. It worked to calm Dew down somewhat though. The storm of emotions turned to more of a brisk wind, chiefly dominated by annoyance. Annoyance at the situation. annoyance at still being trapped, and annoyance at the fact he was still hungry. Dew looked around, trying to get his bearings. They had moved at some point during the fight, yes? If he couldn’t get to his room, he couldn’t snack. If he couldn’t snack, he would probably break something to let off some steam.

“Are we in a different part of the tower? I’ve got something to eat in my room-“

He had to stop short of that. His room? It wasn’t his room, it was his prison. And he’d grown attached to it somehow. What kind of sick joke was that?

“I’ve got something to eat. And you look like you could do with some food too. We can’t get weak from hunger in a place like this. Might make us look more appetizing to them, rather than less.”

___________________________________________________

Word Count: 723
Gp Gain: 14
Gp Total: 86

She hadn’t found a name for that thing yet? So she still had to name it? Dew thought the golem would have named itself. It was willful enough to do so. And he was also willful enough to wait on his master to do it properly. Not like it mattered all that much to Dew. The question of if he had any experience with….quasi- Golems. If he had any experience with golems. Now that was something that mattered to him. Even if it was only because he decided he needed something to lighten the mood just a little. He was still pissed, and annoyed, and his head was spinning from everything that had happened. The situation was too serious, and thus it needed to become less serious. It was a simple prank really. A trick of the light. A trick of the light that made it look like another golem walked right from the rippling stone of he wall ahead of them, turned to look with eyes of pure obsidian, then walked right into the opposite wall.

Dew didn’t expect his trick would fly all that well, but it was worth a shot. He couldn’t make sound though. That was sure to give it away.

“Sorry, no experience with golems. Well, unless you count my dad. He’s about as silent as your friend. My cat on the other hand is a little closer to his personality.”

Dew immediately turned and set off in the direction of his room. He’d been trying to keep the mood light after all. Him almost starting to cry because he thought about his family wasn’t going to help anything. Though his reiatsu was still probably as easy to read as a book with inch tall font. It swirled in grief for only a few moments before turning back to anger. Not at Tova for being responsible for the attack on karakura. At the stupid non existent things that stole a chance of eventual revenge from him. Things were going just perfectly. Dew was still alive and going to get stronger and-

Walk into a door.

He’d left his door open, and in the white halls of Las Noches, it was hard to tell a bit of wall from a door. And he just wasn’t used to seeing the door in the first place. He left his room open and stole all the light that creeped inside it. When you had that, what use did you have for a door? He would sit in the darkness because he wanted to be in the darkness. Not because some stupid king who falsely promised the moon had decided to shut him up in there.

When the red mist finally cleared, Dew was holding the door by it’s handle, but standing a good foot from the hinges. Quickly the fullbringer dropped the item and walked into his room as if all was well.

“That door’s been bothering me for a few days now.”

His room still looked bare on first glance, but Dew made his way to the back and pressed a little on the wall. A panel pushed in, then popped back out and swung open to reveal a series of shelves from ceiling to floor with snacks scattered among them.

“This was probably some sort of store room before I got tossed in here. My old room was better. Had a bed and table. Even a damned window. Just no door.”

He didn’t really have anything he would consider light snacking. Just a few bags of potato chips that were low in sodium. Or maybe fat. Wherever they’d been obtained, he couldn’t recognize the writing on the front. It looked like english letters, but sounding it out made absolutely no sense to him. What he did know was one of them was definitely honey barbecue. That was for himself. Sekai was treated to plain chips. He concluded it would be low in fat because a scan of the nutrition info showed just as much sodium in them as in his honey barbecue.

“Sit wherever you like. Itadakimasu.”

So he said. But something kept nagging him about the whole situation. Maybe because it was so dreary in this storeroom? As his eyes slipped around the cube of space he currently called home base, the view shifted. The walls turned beige, a light fixture appeared on the ceiling, floor boards crew from the walls, and the ground beneath them came to resemble hardwood. Still not much, but better than what he usually ate in. He had to maintain some pride in front of his guest.

“I manipulate light. Bend it, break it, redirect it, weaponize it, or use it for illusions. Not as cool as making a tunnel out of a wall, but I’m not helpless. Stick around long enough and a new delivery of snacks will come from an rancor that learned life comes from not trying to eat me.”

Now he could devour his honey barbecue chips in the peace of a storeroom near the former king’s tower.

Wait, Dew had already torn the door to this room off the hinges. And yet he just ran into one. Who had been in Dew's room while he was gone? And why had they fixed the door?

___________________________________________________

Word Count: 842
Gp Gain: 16
Gp Total: 102

Dew smiled a little and watched how Sekai reacted to his illusion. It would have been nice to give the things he made texture. To give them some more form to work with. But as it stood, the only things he seemed to make out of light were weapons. So for now, this was all he could do. Still, he thought about it a little. If he warped the structure of an object, like a ball of frozen light, to make it elastic and bouncy, would it be any different from rubber? He could make it look like the real thing. A mockery wrapped in an illusion. Would it be any less real?

A stupid question. There was still the smell of the thing, the sound it would make upon hitting something, and the fact it was made of light and not rubber. It would be less real, but not until you took the closest look you could at it. That was a project for another day. He was being praised for his abilities. And he hadn’t even been purposely fishing for compliments. It was true he wasn’t helpless thanks to his powers, but he still thought the ability to warp stone to your will was cooler. Stone was heavy, solid, and often associated with strength. Light, you got maybe it’s speed in an association, but that was about it.

“Earth bending maybe? I think that’s what one anime I watched called the ability to manipulate earth and stone. Though, your skill with it goes beyond that of the people in the anime. Earth benders always have to use big, strong movements to make the earth do what they want. Like swinging their arms or leaping high and landing hard. You hardly moved while creating that tunnel.”

Her next question felt a little accusatory. Dew scooted back a little so he could have the cool wall of his cell against his back. His head hadn’t been exactly cool since he left this room, and he’d already freaked out on one of his only friends in this place. And Sekai looked much closer to the sort of person you could frighten if you raised your voice too loud. Cool stone, deep breaths, honey barbecue chips.

“Luckily enough, not all of the monsters in this place are as strong as they’d like to believe. All you have to do is find one weaker than you, and you could bully it. Of course I can’t get one to free me from this place, or trick it into going to get the snacks right in front of me, but arrancar have the doors in and out of this place. It’s trivial to send them to the human world for something when I’m getting hungry.”

Otherwise, Dew might use one of them for a meal. He wondered if there were rumors. Little huddled circles in corners far from his room where arrancar talked about the boy who threatened to eat them. The opinions of monsters hardly mattered so long as they remained afraid of him. If they tried to gang up on him, it was going to be a tough scrape to get out of, if Dew could get out of it at all. Hollows hunted based on the strength of their target after all. A human strong enough to bully them would be a delicacy. Only the fear kept them back from that. And maybe the threat of their king getting mad if his pet was harmed. That was the case, but it looked like the throne was currently unoccupied.

“It’s not nice, but it gets results. Besides, hollows have been messing with humans for who knows how long. This could just be their karma coming back to bite them. Like losing their king to something none of them could even sense. I wonder how noisy it’s about to get around here. As soon as they realize the crown has no head beneath it, I imagine the strongest of this world are going to scramble to become the new head before a rival chops it off.”

___________________________________________________

Word Count: 681
Gp Gain: 13
Gp Total: 13

Dew just nodded at Sekai’s recognition of the show. It was american made, but if you dubbed the thing, you really wouldn’t be able to tell. As far as Dew knew, it had it’s basis in a lot of chinese ideals, and thus was a pretty interesting watch all around. Turned out the americans knew how to make decent cartoons after all. Though Dew was hesitant to give Sekai ideas from some of the things done in the show. It was pretty impressive the things the masters could do after all, and if she could do all that without having to resort to the kung fu movements of the cartoon benders, she’d become something really scary. In spite of, or maybe because of her otherwise harmless appearance. Seriously, how did Sekai get a power as cool as earth bending in the first place?

“I’ll have to look it up. I can’t actually remember the name of it at the moment. Just the names for the different types of powers they showed off. That’s one of my favorite things about anime. The powers. If it’s something close to what I can do…”

Dew sighed and stretched a little while he considered Sekai’s proposal. That mangaka and writers were spiritualists. That would make some sort of sense, but Dew shook his head. If they were like him and Sekai, then they would probably all include elements of hollows, shinigami and the like. At least in some semblance. Like a hidden signal that there as more going on behind the scenes than you really thought.

Dew looked up from his snack to see a frown on Sekai's. What had gotten her all huffy? He’d been doing his best not to say anything he thought was going to offend her. He was working on having the hollows fear and dislike him. He didn’t want to include the only humans around here in that mix. Otherwise who was he going to talk to now and again? If not for Raph, Dew might have gone crazy in that cell with no doors. He opened his mouth to ask just what she was annoyed with, only to fall silent as Sekai finally said what was on her mind. Was it about the hollows? She couldn’t feel sorry for them, right? No, no. Sekai wouldn’t be that foolish. Whatever circumstances brought someone as innocent looking as her to this plane of hell, she wasn’t catching stockholme. Not for hollows.

“I was kidnapped rom my living room and transported a whole plane of existence away from my home. While here I discovered that my home had been leveled and that my family, who were unconscious when I left, are quite possibly dead. I wasn’t about to give the hollows a chance to try and bully me. If nothing else, despite my powers, I’m not a ray of sunshine when I get hungry.”

He spoke with anger, but not hostility. Nothing was directed at her, noted with how he was very pointedly avoiding any sort of eye contact. He was just venting because as the words tumbled out of his mouth, the reality of the situation fell back upon his shoulders and he felt like ripping someone’s throat out. A feeling he needed to counteract. Happiness. He wasn’t supposed to let it show when things bothered him. If he couldn’t be happy, then he should at least be indifferent. Something in him crowed at letting his anger get the best of him, but he crushed that down and forced a smile onto his face.

“At least they got me decent food. I’d really have to get rough with them if they tried to bring me cheap generic stuff.”

Every cloud had a silver lining. But at the same time, they also had dark hearts. And damned if this woman didn’t have to bring up those things again. Dew’s smile wavered, as did the illusion of a warm room while he thought about those things he could see but couldn’t feel. Aliens with faces he thought he recognized. Tova had wiped a town off the map sheerly through the weight of his existence, so what did it mean when something without weight killed him?

“I don’t know. I almost don’t want to know. And yet, the scary thing is I thought I recognized them. One of them I saw a while back, while I still let my dad patrol with me. Not that notable really. Unlike his girlfriend. They were shinigami, so she actually asked if she could kill me to make me her lab assistant.”

Dew shook a little as the memory passed through his head. As good natured as she might have said it, that was probably one of the few times he’d feared for his life. The girl had looked half ready to do it too.

Yeah, the smile wasn’t going to stay.

“And the other… Let’s not talk about the other. Or either of them if it’s all the same to you. Let me phrase it this way and maybe you’ll be just as creeped out as I am. What does an ant know about a boot until it looks up to find the shadow coming down for it?”

It was a pretty simple comparison in the full bringer’s mind. Nova outclassed them. Those things outclassed him. He dare not let his thoughts take him any further up that road because there are some things that the human mind is simply not built to comprehend. What he could comprehend was that the door was off the hinges and across the hall when it might be better for them to go unnoticed for the next few hours. Or days. However time worked here.

“You would’t happen to be a carpenter, would you?”

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Word Count: 954
Gp Gain: 19
Gp Total: 32