Post by Deleted on Mar 15, 2016 16:07:23 GMT -5
Darkness was all that surrounded him, the only thing giving off any light being the path that formed beneath the soles of his feet as he pushed forward. His short trip to the Sereitei, while more fruitful than all of the weeks he had spent on earth, should have been an excruciatingly painful one. Still in his released form, the still smoldering armor that was once ivory color had turned to a deeply charred black and charcoal grey. Concealing the flesh beneath it and protecting it from external sources, the excess energy forced from inside of his body had created something similar to a crab or a lobster boiling inside of its own shell. Even though it was only visible through some of the larger cracks and dents in his armor that had formed during the explosion, Shizuminoru could clearly sense that his body had been damaged to the point where he should not exert himself any more than he had to, which included walking or other forms of physical exercise. Unfortunately for him, he could not just sit down and wait for his body to heal itself while still passing through the void between dimensions. The only place where he would be able to get some rest would be on the other side of the passage he had made, in the Hollow home world of Hueco Mundo.
Striding at the same solid pace, one might even believe that the wounds that had been inflicted upon the Arrancar had been entirely on the surface, that it truly did not bother him much. In truth, every step he took tore his flame-touched skin and flesh open, keeping his natural healing abilities from doing anything, thus creating the need for spirit particles from an external source. The strange thing about it all, and most likely the one thing that kept him going at this point was the fact that he felt no pain whatsoever. Aside from the fact that he felt no pain, he experienced blurry vision and had trouble controlling the road beneath his feet. To him, it proved that there was more wrong with him than just that which could be seen, more than the physical damage he had sustained in the Sereitei. Had it not been for this realization, he would not have returned to Hueco Mundo so soon as he would have made sure to finish off the Shinigami that had made such an effort at putting the Arrancar in his current predicament. When he thought about it, the fact that he could still control himself so easily even after releasing his Zanpakuto was probably in the same category of strange as him feeling no pain while his entirely body was in shambles.
"You're doing well, just a few more steps and Hueco Mundo will provide us with the building blocks we require to undo the damage inflicted upon our body.".
Though the charred armor kept his face from showing expressions such as surprise, that did not mean Shizuminoru was not experiencing it. As far as his memories went, the first time he had heard the voice that seemingly came out of nowhere had been after falling from the sky and meeting Sekai in the material world, telling him he had to return to Hueco Mundo and feed. Hearing it again later that day after he met with the fullbringer called Dew to spell out the same message again, he had been able to actually feel another presence close to him shortly after Sobek had created the elixir that was meant to return Shizuminoru to his original form. As he started putting things together, Shizuminoru deducted that this presence was stronger in Hueco Mundo than it was on earth, though that did not present him with any answers in regards to the faceless voice at all. What he did know was that this other entity seemed to know an awful lot about him, his powers and his weaknesses. With every step he took towards Hueco Mundo, Shizuminoru felt like he had been played for a fool by something he could not even see, telling him to do one thing after the other as a means of keeping himself alive. It was at that point that he realized that the entity was not something that hid around him, it was inside of him this whole time.
"Well, it seems you finally figured it out, haven't you. Yes, I am inside of you. Before your minds drifts towards it, I have to inform you that I am not like the spirit of a Shinigami's Zanpakuto and an extension of yourself. If anything, I am like the darkness hiding inside of them that manifests as their very own Hollow side, though even that is not accurate enough to describe our current predicament.".
Hearing the words inside of his head far more clearly than he had in the material world, he made no attempt at talking... or thinking back in response. Knowing that the entity had the ability to read his mind, asking any questions would be entirely futile as it would know what Shizuminoru wanted before he could even properly formulate the words. Using what he knew right now, Shizuminoru stopped in his tracks. While he would likely die if he remained inside of the black void instead of going to a place rich with spirit particles he could use to restore his body, it was for a similar reason that he chose to stay away from it. The closer he had gotten to Hueco Mundo, the more clear and booming the voice in his head had become. Perhaps even more accurate was to say that it had been getting stronger whenever he did not find himself on the material world called Earth. Thinking back in order to figure this out, the entity started acting as a guide ever since he had fallen from the sky and lost his memories. After that, it became stronger after Shizuminoru had ingested Sobek's elixir, acted as a Beacon once the strange portals appeared during his fight with the Quincy in Karakura to guide him away from further harm and get closer to regaining his full power. Shortly after taking back the means to becoming whole again, a field siphoning reishi from his surroundings popped up out of nowhere, drawing the energy and the building blocks he required to tie up all of the loose ends.
Right now, the field was not drawing in any particles, simply because there were none for him to take. Even now he could feel how the field was still there like a sphere created solely to protect and nourish the host. Had it been the kind of thing Shizuminoru could control, it would have been about the best thing ever, though the opposite had been realized at this point. While he still had no idea in regards to how or why, the Arrancar knew that the field was a construct of the entity inside of him, meaning it needed him to stay alive. Like a parasite needed the host to survive, so did the entity need him. Standing still inside of the void for some minutes now, he could feel how his legs wanted to keep to press on and get to Hueco Mundo. The bad part about that feeling was that he could not tell whether these were his survival instincts kicking in, or if the other entity was trying to force him towards Hueco Mundo. As the insecurity started eating him up, he put a lot of effort into remaining stationary, something that brought the voice out again to continue his meddling.
"Look, you can't stop here or you'll kill us both. Mostly because I know you have a strong will to live, I know you won't do anything as stupid as killing yourself when you have a clear way out, though I will humor us both by sharing a thing or two about us. This body of yours? it does not belong to you, it belongs to me. To prove me right, the only reason why you are not in excruciating pain right now is because I have taken away your ability to feel. Just to make a point, let me prove to you that I am not lying.".
Not a second after the entity had finished speaking to him, his legs gave in as every fiber in his body felt like it was on fire. While some portions of his body had their nerve endings destroyed by the explosion, the vast majority had not met such a soothing fate. As his legs gave up, Shizuminoru could not even muster the strength to move his arms and break his fall, causing him to fall flat on his face. For a few minutes, he just laid there, stretched out on the floor. He felt pain throughout his entire body, though that was not nearly as potent as the intense shame he experienced. The thought of something else claiming his body as his own to such an extent was unforgivable, but not nearly as unforgivable as him not noticing it until the damage had been done. While on the floor, he thought back to the events in which the entity had showed itself, or rather, made its presence known to him. For something to take over his body like this, there must have been some instance in which he had allowed it, a moment of weakness. Once his mind made it to that topic, it immediately drifted off to the moment where he had almost been killed by the Shinigami. When it spoke to him at the time, it told Shizuminoru that he had to release his Zanpakuto if he wanted to survive. Even though Shizuminoru knew that he lost control whenever he released Chrysalida, he had allowed the voice to talk him into it. At the time, it seemed like the only decision he had to go with, as doing nothing would have resulted in him burning himself out with his own energy until he died an incredibly painful and honorless death. Perhaps that was why he had not lost control, because he had sold his soul to the devil right then and there.
"Everything you own, and with that I mean this body, is a lie. Nine hundreds years ago, I entered into the final stages of Hollow evolution. During that moment of weakness, a single soul of the millions I had devoured managed to topple me, sending me into a black abyss from whence there was no escape. You had something I did not have, a purpose, something you wanted to protect, something you cared for more than your own life. Your sister. It was thanks to that, that I lost everything. For nine hundred years, I was forced to slumber as you did whatever you wanted with my body and my power, claiming it as your own. You even had people worship you like a king, you megalomaniac prick!.".
After that came a silence, almost as if the entity needed some time to regain its composure. During that time, Shizuminoru had no option other than to wait for it to continue as he tried his best to move his body in spite of the pain. Moving his fingers, toes and eventually the limbs they were attached to, he fought through the pain and rose to his feet. It was as the voice had said, there was a time where he had been worshipped by Hollow and Arrancar as a king, and a king had no place laying on the floor like a cheap slave. One way or another, he was going to get rid of this imposter that claimed the body he had worked so hard to get back was his own. On one hand, he could stop channeling his energy into the bridge and thus letting himself plummet into the same void where he had once been in for an undetermined amount of time. One the other, he could move forward into Hueco Mundo, hoping that his body restoring itself would allow him some sense of spiritual control as well. It was at that point that he had to make a decision between certain death or doing what the entity wanted, hoping that he might become strong enough to expel it once his body started regaining strength. Going with what he deemed the only plausible decision, he put every ounce of strength he had into moving forward. Hueco Mundo would either become his salvation or his undoing, he would not pass away inside of a Garganta, he still had his pride after all.
"Excuse my vocabulary, several hundreds of years of solitary confinement tend to stir up feelings of anger. Where was I... ah yes, the ownership issue. When you let a human kill your sister, you went on that beautiful rampage, murdering Hollow and Shinigami alike, thirsting for the kind of power that would allow you to overthrow the golden court. Believe it or not, it was through your attempt at devouring the Kikõõ and failing as miserably as you did that a crack appeared in my prison. When you were flung through the portal and into the void between dimensions, you were only awake for a day, where as I was awake for the entire year we spent in there, exerting every ounce of my willpower into creating an exit where there was only a crack.".
Having no choice but to listen, he took the final step needed to leave the Garganta behind. Jumping out like someone trying to escape an exploding building, the Garganta slammed shut behind him as the Arrancar fell into the white sands of Hueco Mundo's desert. As soon as he did, the field kicked in and started turning grains of sand into spirit particles. Drawing them in through his skin, the first thing being fixed was the internal damage, or so it seemed when the wounds on the surface remained the same. While it made him feel better, he still experienced the same weakness throughout his body and still had incredibly blurry vision that felt like it had gotten worse. Hueco Mundo was supposed to be the place where he could heal up and enjoy having his body back, which served to make the current situation all the more upsetting. Once the pain started to disappear, the Arrancar rose to his feet, started to focus his energy and prepared himself to take care of the intruder inside of his body. Shizuminoru knew what his powers were capable of, and since the entity was a spiritual being just like himself, chances were that he would be able to direct his abilities and break it down. Working with precision, just pin-pointing the entity was an awful lot of work, though it was not something he couldn't do. Directing his reishi destroying powers inside of his own body, his control was suddenly broken off. Angrily trying to channel his powers again, it seemed that he had been completely cut off from them.
"You most likely see me as an intruder, though ask yourself this. Whenever you devoured a soul, it was dismantled and became a part of you, yet I alone have been spared from that fate. You must have wondered as much by now, and have likely come to the conclusion that my own power can't do me in.".
With that, the realization set in that he was not going to be able to make this problem go away like had done in the past. There had been times where he had killed those stirring trouble, times where he had ripped out a portion of his own soul in order to get rid of certain emotions and the problems that came with it. Hell, he had even turned off pieces of his own personality and went into a state of hibernation, hoping his problems would be gone by the time he woke up. None of that would work, not anymore. Things had progressed too far, for now that his powers had been taken and his control over his own body was likely to follow soon, the only two things he could do were struggle or come to terms with what was going to end up happening. When he lost feeling in his fingers, he knew that the second part of the take-over had started. Even though he tried, there was nothing he could do as the loss of feeling spread up from his fingers into his hands and eventually into his shoulders. With the control he still had over himself, he pushed against that which tried taking that same control away from him. The more his body healed, the more the pain disappeared, taking what control he still had over his body with it in time. Fighting to maintain control in the parts of his body that were still his, he could feel how the entity taking over everything he owned was merely allowing itself to be held back, building itself up like a tidal wave that would wash away every last shred of control he had left.
"Ever since we fell into the Onose river, I slowly spread my influence throughout this body, almost like a cancer. At first, it felt like the kind of process that might have taken years, but luckily for me, there were other factors in play. The year we spent between dimensions allowed me to communicate with you, while you losing your memories and your powers allowed me to greatly accelerate my plans. As you got stronger, so did I. As you got closer to become whole again, so did my reservoir of power. Eventually, all it took was you releasing my original Hollow powers. The moment you released My Zanpakuto, I used every ounce of power I had stored to force you into a regressing state. Even now, you are barely holding on and you know it.".
It was true, he did know it. From the first word the entity had spoken, not a single word had been a lie, it couldn't have been. No matter how badly Shizuminoru wanted to believe that everything it told him was but a bunch of stories and lies, he had not been raised as a fool. Any minute now, what defenses he had to keep the tide from washing him away would break down, taking everything he had with it. Even as the entity prepared the final push to take back Shizuminoru's body, the Arrancar could not stop himself from thinking that it might never have been his body to begin with. Thinking back all the way to the day he and his sister had been eaten by different Hollow, he knew what it felt like to be stuck in a dark place with no way out. Shizuminoru had been locked in such a situation for a few months before he saw a chance similar to what the entity had described. When he saw a bright light shining through the darkness, he had not wasted a minute to rush towards it, just to escape the maddening darkness that seemed to swallow up everything that got close to it. When his body felt like it was about to burst, Shizuminoru stopped trying to hold back the tide, allowing the inevitable to happen. As he did so, he could feel his grip upon the world around him fade away, his already blurred vision turning to darkness as he drowned in an ocean of all-consuming blackness.
Striding at the same solid pace, one might even believe that the wounds that had been inflicted upon the Arrancar had been entirely on the surface, that it truly did not bother him much. In truth, every step he took tore his flame-touched skin and flesh open, keeping his natural healing abilities from doing anything, thus creating the need for spirit particles from an external source. The strange thing about it all, and most likely the one thing that kept him going at this point was the fact that he felt no pain whatsoever. Aside from the fact that he felt no pain, he experienced blurry vision and had trouble controlling the road beneath his feet. To him, it proved that there was more wrong with him than just that which could be seen, more than the physical damage he had sustained in the Sereitei. Had it not been for this realization, he would not have returned to Hueco Mundo so soon as he would have made sure to finish off the Shinigami that had made such an effort at putting the Arrancar in his current predicament. When he thought about it, the fact that he could still control himself so easily even after releasing his Zanpakuto was probably in the same category of strange as him feeling no pain while his entirely body was in shambles.
"You're doing well, just a few more steps and Hueco Mundo will provide us with the building blocks we require to undo the damage inflicted upon our body.".
Though the charred armor kept his face from showing expressions such as surprise, that did not mean Shizuminoru was not experiencing it. As far as his memories went, the first time he had heard the voice that seemingly came out of nowhere had been after falling from the sky and meeting Sekai in the material world, telling him he had to return to Hueco Mundo and feed. Hearing it again later that day after he met with the fullbringer called Dew to spell out the same message again, he had been able to actually feel another presence close to him shortly after Sobek had created the elixir that was meant to return Shizuminoru to his original form. As he started putting things together, Shizuminoru deducted that this presence was stronger in Hueco Mundo than it was on earth, though that did not present him with any answers in regards to the faceless voice at all. What he did know was that this other entity seemed to know an awful lot about him, his powers and his weaknesses. With every step he took towards Hueco Mundo, Shizuminoru felt like he had been played for a fool by something he could not even see, telling him to do one thing after the other as a means of keeping himself alive. It was at that point that he realized that the entity was not something that hid around him, it was inside of him this whole time.
"Well, it seems you finally figured it out, haven't you. Yes, I am inside of you. Before your minds drifts towards it, I have to inform you that I am not like the spirit of a Shinigami's Zanpakuto and an extension of yourself. If anything, I am like the darkness hiding inside of them that manifests as their very own Hollow side, though even that is not accurate enough to describe our current predicament.".
Hearing the words inside of his head far more clearly than he had in the material world, he made no attempt at talking... or thinking back in response. Knowing that the entity had the ability to read his mind, asking any questions would be entirely futile as it would know what Shizuminoru wanted before he could even properly formulate the words. Using what he knew right now, Shizuminoru stopped in his tracks. While he would likely die if he remained inside of the black void instead of going to a place rich with spirit particles he could use to restore his body, it was for a similar reason that he chose to stay away from it. The closer he had gotten to Hueco Mundo, the more clear and booming the voice in his head had become. Perhaps even more accurate was to say that it had been getting stronger whenever he did not find himself on the material world called Earth. Thinking back in order to figure this out, the entity started acting as a guide ever since he had fallen from the sky and lost his memories. After that, it became stronger after Shizuminoru had ingested Sobek's elixir, acted as a Beacon once the strange portals appeared during his fight with the Quincy in Karakura to guide him away from further harm and get closer to regaining his full power. Shortly after taking back the means to becoming whole again, a field siphoning reishi from his surroundings popped up out of nowhere, drawing the energy and the building blocks he required to tie up all of the loose ends.
Right now, the field was not drawing in any particles, simply because there were none for him to take. Even now he could feel how the field was still there like a sphere created solely to protect and nourish the host. Had it been the kind of thing Shizuminoru could control, it would have been about the best thing ever, though the opposite had been realized at this point. While he still had no idea in regards to how or why, the Arrancar knew that the field was a construct of the entity inside of him, meaning it needed him to stay alive. Like a parasite needed the host to survive, so did the entity need him. Standing still inside of the void for some minutes now, he could feel how his legs wanted to keep to press on and get to Hueco Mundo. The bad part about that feeling was that he could not tell whether these were his survival instincts kicking in, or if the other entity was trying to force him towards Hueco Mundo. As the insecurity started eating him up, he put a lot of effort into remaining stationary, something that brought the voice out again to continue his meddling.
"Look, you can't stop here or you'll kill us both. Mostly because I know you have a strong will to live, I know you won't do anything as stupid as killing yourself when you have a clear way out, though I will humor us both by sharing a thing or two about us. This body of yours? it does not belong to you, it belongs to me. To prove me right, the only reason why you are not in excruciating pain right now is because I have taken away your ability to feel. Just to make a point, let me prove to you that I am not lying.".
Not a second after the entity had finished speaking to him, his legs gave in as every fiber in his body felt like it was on fire. While some portions of his body had their nerve endings destroyed by the explosion, the vast majority had not met such a soothing fate. As his legs gave up, Shizuminoru could not even muster the strength to move his arms and break his fall, causing him to fall flat on his face. For a few minutes, he just laid there, stretched out on the floor. He felt pain throughout his entire body, though that was not nearly as potent as the intense shame he experienced. The thought of something else claiming his body as his own to such an extent was unforgivable, but not nearly as unforgivable as him not noticing it until the damage had been done. While on the floor, he thought back to the events in which the entity had showed itself, or rather, made its presence known to him. For something to take over his body like this, there must have been some instance in which he had allowed it, a moment of weakness. Once his mind made it to that topic, it immediately drifted off to the moment where he had almost been killed by the Shinigami. When it spoke to him at the time, it told Shizuminoru that he had to release his Zanpakuto if he wanted to survive. Even though Shizuminoru knew that he lost control whenever he released Chrysalida, he had allowed the voice to talk him into it. At the time, it seemed like the only decision he had to go with, as doing nothing would have resulted in him burning himself out with his own energy until he died an incredibly painful and honorless death. Perhaps that was why he had not lost control, because he had sold his soul to the devil right then and there.
"Everything you own, and with that I mean this body, is a lie. Nine hundreds years ago, I entered into the final stages of Hollow evolution. During that moment of weakness, a single soul of the millions I had devoured managed to topple me, sending me into a black abyss from whence there was no escape. You had something I did not have, a purpose, something you wanted to protect, something you cared for more than your own life. Your sister. It was thanks to that, that I lost everything. For nine hundred years, I was forced to slumber as you did whatever you wanted with my body and my power, claiming it as your own. You even had people worship you like a king, you megalomaniac prick!.".
After that came a silence, almost as if the entity needed some time to regain its composure. During that time, Shizuminoru had no option other than to wait for it to continue as he tried his best to move his body in spite of the pain. Moving his fingers, toes and eventually the limbs they were attached to, he fought through the pain and rose to his feet. It was as the voice had said, there was a time where he had been worshipped by Hollow and Arrancar as a king, and a king had no place laying on the floor like a cheap slave. One way or another, he was going to get rid of this imposter that claimed the body he had worked so hard to get back was his own. On one hand, he could stop channeling his energy into the bridge and thus letting himself plummet into the same void where he had once been in for an undetermined amount of time. One the other, he could move forward into Hueco Mundo, hoping that his body restoring itself would allow him some sense of spiritual control as well. It was at that point that he had to make a decision between certain death or doing what the entity wanted, hoping that he might become strong enough to expel it once his body started regaining strength. Going with what he deemed the only plausible decision, he put every ounce of strength he had into moving forward. Hueco Mundo would either become his salvation or his undoing, he would not pass away inside of a Garganta, he still had his pride after all.
"Excuse my vocabulary, several hundreds of years of solitary confinement tend to stir up feelings of anger. Where was I... ah yes, the ownership issue. When you let a human kill your sister, you went on that beautiful rampage, murdering Hollow and Shinigami alike, thirsting for the kind of power that would allow you to overthrow the golden court. Believe it or not, it was through your attempt at devouring the Kikõõ and failing as miserably as you did that a crack appeared in my prison. When you were flung through the portal and into the void between dimensions, you were only awake for a day, where as I was awake for the entire year we spent in there, exerting every ounce of my willpower into creating an exit where there was only a crack.".
Having no choice but to listen, he took the final step needed to leave the Garganta behind. Jumping out like someone trying to escape an exploding building, the Garganta slammed shut behind him as the Arrancar fell into the white sands of Hueco Mundo's desert. As soon as he did, the field kicked in and started turning grains of sand into spirit particles. Drawing them in through his skin, the first thing being fixed was the internal damage, or so it seemed when the wounds on the surface remained the same. While it made him feel better, he still experienced the same weakness throughout his body and still had incredibly blurry vision that felt like it had gotten worse. Hueco Mundo was supposed to be the place where he could heal up and enjoy having his body back, which served to make the current situation all the more upsetting. Once the pain started to disappear, the Arrancar rose to his feet, started to focus his energy and prepared himself to take care of the intruder inside of his body. Shizuminoru knew what his powers were capable of, and since the entity was a spiritual being just like himself, chances were that he would be able to direct his abilities and break it down. Working with precision, just pin-pointing the entity was an awful lot of work, though it was not something he couldn't do. Directing his reishi destroying powers inside of his own body, his control was suddenly broken off. Angrily trying to channel his powers again, it seemed that he had been completely cut off from them.
"You most likely see me as an intruder, though ask yourself this. Whenever you devoured a soul, it was dismantled and became a part of you, yet I alone have been spared from that fate. You must have wondered as much by now, and have likely come to the conclusion that my own power can't do me in.".
With that, the realization set in that he was not going to be able to make this problem go away like had done in the past. There had been times where he had killed those stirring trouble, times where he had ripped out a portion of his own soul in order to get rid of certain emotions and the problems that came with it. Hell, he had even turned off pieces of his own personality and went into a state of hibernation, hoping his problems would be gone by the time he woke up. None of that would work, not anymore. Things had progressed too far, for now that his powers had been taken and his control over his own body was likely to follow soon, the only two things he could do were struggle or come to terms with what was going to end up happening. When he lost feeling in his fingers, he knew that the second part of the take-over had started. Even though he tried, there was nothing he could do as the loss of feeling spread up from his fingers into his hands and eventually into his shoulders. With the control he still had over himself, he pushed against that which tried taking that same control away from him. The more his body healed, the more the pain disappeared, taking what control he still had over his body with it in time. Fighting to maintain control in the parts of his body that were still his, he could feel how the entity taking over everything he owned was merely allowing itself to be held back, building itself up like a tidal wave that would wash away every last shred of control he had left.
"Ever since we fell into the Onose river, I slowly spread my influence throughout this body, almost like a cancer. At first, it felt like the kind of process that might have taken years, but luckily for me, there were other factors in play. The year we spent between dimensions allowed me to communicate with you, while you losing your memories and your powers allowed me to greatly accelerate my plans. As you got stronger, so did I. As you got closer to become whole again, so did my reservoir of power. Eventually, all it took was you releasing my original Hollow powers. The moment you released My Zanpakuto, I used every ounce of power I had stored to force you into a regressing state. Even now, you are barely holding on and you know it.".
It was true, he did know it. From the first word the entity had spoken, not a single word had been a lie, it couldn't have been. No matter how badly Shizuminoru wanted to believe that everything it told him was but a bunch of stories and lies, he had not been raised as a fool. Any minute now, what defenses he had to keep the tide from washing him away would break down, taking everything he had with it. Even as the entity prepared the final push to take back Shizuminoru's body, the Arrancar could not stop himself from thinking that it might never have been his body to begin with. Thinking back all the way to the day he and his sister had been eaten by different Hollow, he knew what it felt like to be stuck in a dark place with no way out. Shizuminoru had been locked in such a situation for a few months before he saw a chance similar to what the entity had described. When he saw a bright light shining through the darkness, he had not wasted a minute to rush towards it, just to escape the maddening darkness that seemed to swallow up everything that got close to it. When his body felt like it was about to burst, Shizuminoru stopped trying to hold back the tide, allowing the inevitable to happen. As he did so, he could feel his grip upon the world around him fade away, his already blurred vision turning to darkness as he drowned in an ocean of all-consuming blackness.