REBIRTH

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The trees were definitely larger than two decades ago; then again, two decades of time to grow, especially in the emotional turmoil Hidane had been in, would do that to one’s inner world. When a Shinigami finds themselves in despair, the world that they retreat to to confer with their Zanpakutõ suffers all the more. Once again he found himself unable to use his Shunpo here, as he should be able to. Why not? He moved through the trees, staying low to the ground and walking calmly, following the sounds he was sure were coming from Kurosenkō. However, as he grew closer, he began to be concerned once more; whereas before simply the split voice of Kurõsenkō’s new Hollow form concerned him, it became even more twisted; the two voices split off, the softer voice of the Kurõsenkō he had known almost all his life drifting off and continuing the melancholy melody she’d been humming, while the more brisk, nasally voice the Hollow had added broke off into maniacal laughter, both of which echoed and reverberated throughout the forest.

It didn’t take long for Hidane to become lost in the sound, no longer could he determine which direction it was coming from as both seemed to be coming from all directions now. But, despite the overgrowth of trees and vines and moss and weeds, he still had some idea where he was, and he knew where he was going. He tried to ignore the cacophonous sound and move forward, noting the occasional chunks missing from trees where bark had seemingly been torn clean from the trees in one fell strike each. He wondered what had happened, if this had been before or after the fusion. Perhaps this was a part of the forest he hadn’t been to since then, perhaps this was a result of the battle between Enadih and Kurōmitsukai. Surely there must have been a battle, right? There had to be… but that didn’t matter now. She was gone, and Enadih had fused with Kurōsenkõ. All that was left was to deal with the aftermath.

“So, you’ve come of your own choice this time,” the softer voice spoke behind him as he’d just about reached the bloody tree. He quickly turned around and saw Kurō peeking around a tree, only the right half of her new form visible as she clenched the tree tightly with her right hand, delicate features and a soft smile accompanying the voice. He noted that her eye appeared normal, unaffected by the Hollow.

“You’ve come at last. But are you ready for the task before you? Things didn’t go so well for you last time,” the scratchier voice spoke behind him. He turned again and found the left of Kurō peeking out around another tree, claw-like nails digging into the bark, a strained grin revealing sharp teeth under a Hollow eye. “Big bro.” He turned back to where the normal Kurō had been, but she was gone.

“Looking for me?” He turned back to where the Hollow Kurō had been, but now there was the right half of the normal Kurō peeking around the other side of the same tree. She closed her eyes, her hand tightening on the tree. When she opened it, it was a Hollow eye again. “How funny of you.”

“We’re one and the same, Hidane-kun,” the softer voice called from behind him. He turned, and found the whole of the Hollowfied Kurōsenkõ standing before him, leaning in, unusually tall, her face right in his with the sharp-toothed grin, almost as if she was ready to snap and tear off his face. “I think you’ll come to know that very quickly now, won’t you, big bro?” The doubled voice took over again. It was true, as he’d already known. He didn’t know what she had intended to do by tricking him like this, but whatever it was, it had worked; the old Kurō was gone, as he’d already come to accept.

“Oh, I already know,” he said calmly, offering a gentle smile, “I just figured I’d come back and properly meet you in a less… volatile situation.” The spirit leaned back and cackled loudly, before raising her hands in front of her, as if holding something up, grinning wide as her sharp teeth clenched together.

“And what makes you think this will be a less ‘volatile’ situation, big bro?” There was a curious mixture of playfulness, concern, and threat in her voice as her nails seemed to grow longer and sharper. “You have a lot to learn, and I fear for what will happen if you can’t handle it. But… that is yet to be seen.” She lowered her left arm, turning her right arm and pointing with one longer fingernail at Hidane’s right arm. “We’ll start there.”

Suddenly, the arm exploded in pain as he saw blood spray out to his right, his arm feeling like it was twisting in tens of hundreds of different, unnatural directions all at once. He screamed out in pain, but it didn’t stop.

“Oh dear, that won’t do,” Kurō said calmly, stepping closer to Hidane and resting her left hand on his back as he doubled over in pain, still screaming as his arm bulged and buckled out to his side, spraying blood with each new movement as skin tore and twisted. “Looks like you have a long way to go before you can fully control us again, big bro. But we’re here to help… as long as you don’t die first.” The pain stopped, and when he looked at his right arm it looked normal, as if nothing happened. He looked up at Kurō to find a concerned expression. It only took a moment for it to turn into a sadistic grin, however, as she seemed to see his thanks and hope that it had ended. She leaned over and tapped his left leg with her nail. “How about here next?”

And as if on cue, the instant she fell silent again his left leg exploded in pain.

“Perhaps we should being with something a little… easier.”

Kurosenkou stepped closer, circling Hidane slowly as he struggled to his hands and knees, breathing heavily. The pain was just… gone, as were all the mutations he had suffered all over his body. Of course, he should’ve expected this; despite them being more Hollow-focused powers, they were still a part of his Zankaputo now. Things in this world could change at a moment’s notice. By the time Kurosenkou circled back around in front of him, he pushed to stand up. When he looked up, he found Kurosenkou with her right arm outstretched, upwards, with his Zanpakuto’s jet black blade handing overhead. She brought down her arm, and the blade bit deep into him next to his shoulder, cutting down into his chest before she drew the blade out. Blood sprayed everywhere and the pain he felt started anew, though it was nothing akin to the pain of having his entire body twist and tear out of control.

He hunched over again, blood pouring out onto the ground below him. He clutched at his shoulder, but there was no way he could hold a wound like this shut so simply. He breathed heavily; obviously, Kurosenkou intended this to be a final stand where he was supposed to prove he was worthy of her new powers… but so far, he had done nothing but fail at every turn. And now, as he began to feel light-headed at the blood loss he was witnessing, how was he supposed to overcome this? Was this where he died?

“Are you scared, big bro?” Kurosenkou asked, leaning in, the blade trailing to her side. Unable to speak, the Visored offered a shaky nod in response. “Why? Do you think you could die from a wound like that?” What was she talking about? Of course he could die from a wound this grievous. He’d killed with wounds half this deep before. “Do you fear the blood draining from your body? Then simply stop the blood from flowing out.” How could she say that like it was that simple? He did not know any recovery techniques since he’d lost Kido in Enadih’s takeover, and if he had access to any sort of Hollow methods of recovery, he had not known of them yet. “No, we’re not using that parlor trick, High Speed Regeneration. I said stop the blood, not seal the wound.”

Suddenly it occurred to him what she expected him to do; based on this method and the mutations he’d suffered earlier, he felt confident in coming to the conclusion that the Hollow Kurosenkou’s powers revolved around shapeshifting… or general, minute control over bodily functions in general. She’d tried to introduce him to limiting or taking control of the mutations from earlier, but he’d barely been able to keep his body from tearing itself apart. So now she was starting simple; she had taken away the external modifications, and was aiming to teach Hidane to more accurately control his blood as it flowed through his body.

“Correct,” Kurosenkou confirmed, swinging the black blade up diagonally across his stomach, fresh blood spraying out, “if only partially. But we’ll start with that.” He wasn’t sure what she meant by that, but somehow he had a feeling this time he wouldn’t be getting saved if he felt too much pain or lost too much blood, so he knew he needed to act quickly. He started by simply focusing on the wounds, willing them to stop bleeding… but quickly realized such a simple solution wasn’t likely. Instead, he closed his eyes, shut out as much of the stress and pain as he could, and began to stir his Reiryoku throughout his body; starting as a whole, he thinned it out until it seemed to reside only within the pathways where his blood would flow, and then he tried to meld the two together, Reiryoku and his blood, to see if he could control them together more freely.

And suddenly, as he willed it to be again, the blood stopped. Kurosenkou, even with her Hollow eyes, grinned at the Visored as he realized he had been triumphant.

“That was good, big bro.” She sounded almost pleased, but there was an edge to her voice that suggested they were far from done. Suddenly she drew the blade up again, slicing upwards along the center of his abdomen and chest, catching his chin a little. “For a beginner. Now do it again.”

How many hours had they been fighting now? How many days, or weeks? He’d only intended for it to take a few hours to finish this, maybe a few days, but he’d seen countless suns and moons since Kurosenkou had first crossed blades with him. The light of the sunlit sky had died out what felt like hours ago once more, the forest of the Visored’s inner world plunged into darkness once more, illuminated only softly by the glowing purple crystals growing here and there between or from trees. He landed on a particularly thick branch, feet firmly planted, breathing heavily. His eyes blinked rapidly; he was tired, but this feeling was nothing new to him. Early on in the past two decades he’d hardly been able to sleep at all, plagued by constant nightmares; he’d learned to deal with them, however, but not before learning to deal with staying away for countless hours on end. On top of that, he was still struggling to keep all of his wounds from bleeding out, but now that he could use Sonido, he was gaining new wounds far less frequently. Despite his weariness and the condition of his body, he was holding his own far better than before.

“Oh, so the child still wants to play, eh?” Kurosenkou’s voice rang out through the forest, accompanied by the softer half of her voice humming an eerie tune that echoed from tree to tree until it sounded like a choir of her, a flowing, dark melody. She appeared behind him, but he was quick to turn on his heels and parry the attack, driving the point of his sword forward, only to find her gone again. He’d been far out of practice when their fight had begun, but he’d slowly been remembering his training, and he felt like he had regained all of his prior ability at this point. Kurosenkou appeared above him, her blade pointed down as she fell, but the Visored rolled out of the way of the attack. Her blade sunk into the branch of the tree, and it cracked where it hit, shattering, causing the branch to fall, but not before Hidane’s Sonido carried him to another. Kurosenkou fell with the branch, but at the last moment before it crashed against the ground below, her Sonido brought her clear of the branch, though she seemed ot make no attempt to climb back up to him. “And yet he still runs, even with so much power brimming at his fingertips.”

She was taunting him, and he knew it, though for what purpose he didn’t know. Maybe she wanted to draw him out into a trap. But, at this point, did it matter? For countless hours the situation had not changed; she endlessly attacked him, and he blocked, and retaliated to no effect. The only thing changing was that his body and muscles were becoming comfortable with more complex combat once more, but that didn’t seem to be what Kurosenkou was after; he wasn’t even sure if he wanted to know that that was.

But she’d been occasionally taunting him like this for at least three moons, so he finally decided to give up and take the bait. His Sonido carried him down into the small clearing where she stood, her blade held to the side against the ground, his raised high and falling. However, to his surprise, she made no attempt to block it; for a moment he considered pulling back and retreating, thinking of her safety, but then he remembered that she was also part his Hollow, and holding back could prove devastating for him. So he let his blade sink in, cutting between her shoulder and neck, watching blood flow and spurt from the wound… before it suddenly moved in the air as if alive and formed a small dagger that flew back towards Hidane. It struck his chest, near his left shoulder, before melting away into blood and splattering on the ground. He gritted his teeth to block the pain, willing his blood to stay in the wound and flow as normal.

Kurosenkou grinned at him, and suddenly he realized; she hadn’t been trying to trap him, and that counterattack hadn’t been pointless. This whole time he’d been focusing on using the ability she’d shown him to keep himself alive; had she just shown him that there was more to it than that? Suddenly she disappeared, appearing behind the Visored once more; however, in addition to a blade being swung at him from the right, he saw blood trail out of the wound she’d allowed to be inflicted and form into four more daggers to be hurled at him. He blocked the blade with his own, but saw no way of dodging the four daggers; so, now was a better time to test his theory than any. He focused on the wound her blood dagger had just opened, and let the blood flow out quickly, using his Reiryoku to spread it in the air into a thin wall an instant before Kurosenkou released hers to fly at him; they hit the thin wall of blood and exploded into blood in the air, as did the wall. He felt light-headed from the exertion.

“Now you’re getting it, big bro,” Kurosenkou said, her doubled voice noting some sort of… approval? That was new. He hadn’t expected that at all… the spirit seemed to be proud of his realization, though he was sure she wasn’t too happy about how long it had taken. “However, that was some really sloppy work. You’ll have to do much better than that before I’m satisfied.” She pushed off of the ground, flipping forward, bringing her right leg down hard toward Hidane, but he blocked with his own arm. She twisted in the air, hooking his arm with her foot and hunching in, thrusting her blade towards one of the open wounds across his chest; but with his other arm he brought his Zanpakuto in and diverted her attack. She let go of his arm and crashed down to the ground, rolling to her knees, but from her wounded shoulder blood suddenly sprayed and swirled, forming into a large blade that swung down at Hidane. He swung his blade up to meet it, and they locked. It hadn’t dissolved as her previous creations had upon contact… so the hardness could be retained.

“You know, it would be a lot easier to focus on this if I wasn’t trying to keep so many wounds from bleeding out,” Hidane commented, though his tone suggested he wasn’t expecting to get anything out of it. Kurosenkou simply grinned at the comment before pulling back her blade. She disappeared, but reappeared in front of him again, only having closed the short distance between them. Her blade pierced just above his stomach, and he felt the blood seeping out of the wound, of all of his wounds. He felt the strength begin to leave his body; he tried to focus on drawing the blood back, but his head was spinning and he couldn’t focus enough to draw it all back, so he gave up on that. But if he was going to go down now, after all the fight he’d put up, he wouldn’t let it be simple.

He focused his Reiryoku into the blood flying from the wounds on the front of his body, and willed them into action, watching as it suddenly shot out in seven long, thin streams, around Kurosenkou, curling back and shooting with pointed tips at the Zanpakuto-Hollow hybrid. She smiled, unusually sweetly, and it was the last thing he saw as the blood spears closed in and his vision blacked out.

Try again.

The words kept ringing and echoing in his head, in hundreds of voices and hundreds of dialects and hundreds of inflections as he fled through the forest, holding the bleeding mess where his right arm was a few minutes ago. He dodged behind a tree as the monster flew past, seeming to not notice him, though he knew she was only playing with him. Breathing was paradise when he could manage it, and he felt like he could pass out any moment. How many days had he been chased through this forest now? Time seemed an illusion, as the sun hadn’t risen here since the first time she chopped off his arm. Since then, how many holes had she blown in him? How many limbs chopped off? He’d lost count, and had fallen unconscious several times, always waking up fully restored, only to find that it was so that she could repeat the process.

He’d successfully regenerated his arm once… well, if that could’ve been called a success. It was twice the size and malformed compared to the original, with paper-white skin, but it was something. It was better than nothing. But it wasn’t enough.

He knew Kurosenko wasn’t trying to kill him… that she wasn’t going to kill him. But what was her goal then? She acted like she was teaching him, but she wasn’t actually telling him even the beginnings of how to do anything. All she was doing was repeatedly chasing him down and chopping him up until he passed out. Even when he tried to fight her, it was a hopeless battle. She controlled the playing field; with no weapons and the very world they were in on her side, there was no way he could win.

Try again. Try again. Try again. Try again. Try again. It rang in his head like a broken record. Try again. Try again. Try again. Try again. He wanted nothing more than for it to stop. Was that his voice? Hers? Which one of hers? Try again. Try again. Try again. Try again.

“Found you.” The voice from outside of his head caught him off-guard, and he realized almost too late that Kurosenko was right next to him, the only recognizable feature being her face, the rest grown and distorted into some horrific monster. A huge arm with scythe-like claws swept along the ground towards him, but he jumped and used Sonido to get up to a larger branch in the trees. That was something he was getting used to, at least.

Try again. Try again. Try again. Try again.

“Aww, still running, big bro?” She was mocking him. “Why don’t you just regrow your arm already so we can really get started!”

Try again. Try again. Try again. Try again. Suddenly, she was behind him again, and he felt a monstrously huge palm smack him down toward the ground. When he bounced back up after the impact, he coughed up blood. Nothing escaped from his many wounds, though; in however long she’d been pursuing him through these woods, controlling his blood had become second nature, at least enough to only release it from wounds when he wanted to.

She appeared in front of him as he lifted his head, struggling to get to his knees.

“I thought you wanted power. I thought you wanted to overcome me, to save your precious ‘friends’, to keep that glorious destiny of yours at bay.” A sharp heel dug into his back, and he realized she’d returned to her normal form in a mere instant. “Is this all you can do, big bro? Maybe I got my hopes up too much.”

In that moment, something snapped in the Visored’s mind. He wanted nothing more than for this to stop. He wanted to destroy her. He wanted to go back to how things were, before his deal with the Hollow. He wanted the old Kurosenko back. He wanted to get rid of the Hollow from her. He wanted to be in control again. His eyes glowed red as he felt the Hollow’s energy flow through him. Suddenly a sharp pain rang from his right shoulder, and when he looked over, a monstrous arm with armor-like blades adorning it pressed against the ground with clawed fingers. He pushed himself up to his feet, stumbling while trying to get his balance. So that was it? All he had to do was will power into himself and he could take this form?

It was off-balance though. But that was a simple fix, right? If he could grow this from nothing, surely he could modify the rest? He looked to his left arm, and it was then the same, and he found balance. Why was he thinking so clearly of this? It felt like there was another being in his head, controlling all of this. But everything made so much sense now. He lifted his right arm and thrust it forward, but Kurosenko seemed to be surprised by the sudden development; his monstrous palm caught her and slammed her to the ground, and though she struggled, she couldn’t seem to get up.

“Well, well, how the tables have turned now,” a voice spoke from his mouth, “is this the power you wanted to see, bitch?” What was he doing? “This is what you wanted, right? You wanted me to give in to the beast, to become the monster that you are now?” There was a sort of panic in her eyes, but she seemed too focused on trying to escape to speak. His mind was filled with rage, but he could no longer say it wasn’t his. She had been torturing him for a time he couldn’t even say how long, and he wanted nothing more than for it to stop. He hated her for it. Was this what he truly was? “This is the monster you want me to be, isn’t it!?”

Suddenly he fell into darkness, and seemed to be in his normal form, before the mutilations, before the transformations.

“No.”