Part 3 - Recovery 1.0

On the other side of the room cut off from Gage and the exit a single kid sits, his face struck with horror as his father chokes on something in his mouth and his head slams forward into the table in front of him with a resounding thud. Another shrill scream escapes the boy, him having been the source of the last scream that drew them in so quickly. All at once the hollows turn their heads slowly, like a field of gofer heads to face the child. "Oh good, Gage places a hand on the chest of the man. Pushing him backwards out the door Gage closes the door behind him with a small pull of soul communication.

From outside the bar the man hears Gage causing a commotion similar to five lions going crazy in a cage. The man moves around slowly to get a better view through one of the windows, looking into the room to see Gage standing in front of the boy one hollow in a head lock under his arm while he punches another hollow square in the temple, the mask on it face cracking. Gages body is bleeding from two places, one being a bite that stretches from his shoulder to his diaphragm. The second one is a trio of long deep cuts down the front of his thigh, blood spreading quickly though his robes.

Tucking and rolling mid air Gage looks behind himself, his whole body upsidedown, a hollow stuck halfway out the window with its shoulders too wide to get out the window frame. Gage builds up a ball of green soul communication energy into the tip of his foot, his skill with Soul Communication beyond that of anyone else that he has met. Kicking his foot out towards the window Gage threads the needle hole through a small gap in the corner of the window frame above the shoulder of the hollow and detonates a massive blast of fire in the room with all the hollow.

Falling the twenty feet to the ground Gage flips, landing flat on his back, a single shard of glass in his back driving itself home so that it slides in over three inches to peirce his lung. "Gauuuhhh..." Gage loses all control of his lungs, the boys body rolling over as he stands up and begins crying, staggering to his feet and running towards his home. Gage could feel his vision fading, numbness rolling up his fingers and toes until it reaches his knees and elbows. One eye began to flood red, his bloodflow slowing as he can feel it filling his lung, drowning him in his own fluids.

Thoughts of all the things that he has done with Elan flood his mind, the time that she trained him at the 'Polarity' research and development building. The time that she had twisted her ankle in the mountains and he had to carry her through the tunnels to somewhere dry. The time that she had come over with some brownies to see how he was doing when he had caught some kind of flu. It was all flooding his mind at once, the scenes flashing from one to the next so quickly that thy begin to blur with the only thing that is the same being Elan saying his name.

"I am sorry, I know that we did not know each other well Gage. You could have been an amazing Shinigami, your devotion to the cause of Soul Society being more than most have in their whole lives. They are losing a good soldier by having you go pass. All that I can offer you is a quick death and hope that you go with peace. Perhaps in this you will not turn, the bite in your shoulder seems to already shifting, turning you now. Go now with my blessing young man. Peace be to you and yours. I hope that one day we should meet again," Gage can hear the sound of a blade unsheathing, the sound sending a shiver down his spine to his feet so strong that he can feel it even through the numbness of blood loss.

The white energy kicks up a swirl of dust, thick and wild like a tornado, it block all vision of Gage and his body from view to anything or anyone that would be nearby. Gage struggles to his knees, his mind aching like an earthquake is hitting him just behind the eyes. Well there you are... The pain vanishes in an instant, his mind flooding with endorphins so strong that his eyes begin to water and his nose begins to run. I was wondering if you were ever going to get the ability to talk with me. I figured with enough time you and I would meet eventually but I never expected that it would be through the power of a Zanpakto. Gage opens his eyes, his mind in pure confusion as he looks around.

He was alright, his chest was unmarred by the blade that Gilly had used on him. In fact Gilly himself was gone. The only thing left of Gilly in fact was the Zanpakto laying on the ground, sheath crossed over the blade. Gage feels everything leave, the world going blank around him as if he were floating through the air. The world around him seemed white, a blanket of light coating his eyes. Raising his hand to his face he realizes that the white isn't a light, the intensity still enough to make him wince to keep it from hurting, but a thick thick fog. Flipping his hand over he looks at the back of it, to thick that when he extends his arm all the way out he loses sight of his hand, his arm fading away into the fog.

The fog, while it was slowly drifting away, was still thick enough for him to not really make out the details of the man. The only thing that he could see was that this man was taller than Gage was, his height being at most three or four inches taller than him. His shoulders were broad but not too broad making Gage look small in comparison, not like he was not big enough but like he did not hit a growth spurt yet. "Who are you?" Gage tilts his head slightly as the fog begins the finally clear the rest of the way out, metal shining off the body and face of the man in front of him.

"I am your Zanpakto Doyoko, you should know that already. If I am aware of it then you already know it, whether or not you accept that it is true or even if it is real is up to you." Gage starts towards the man slowly, stumbling on a rather large rock on the ground that stubs his toe. Looking up a thick wall of fog rolls in between them once more blocking the view to the man one more time.

"My Zanpakto? I don't have a zanpakto. I have that fake sword, the one that I got from Elan's grandfather but I don't have a..." Gage goes silent as he begins to remember the events of the last few minuets, or perhaps they were hours and he couldn't tell. He remembered the he was dying, there was no way that he would have survived that fall and that glass. Then there was Gilly, his voice trying to console him for his death and that perhaps that they would meet in...

Gage stops and begins to feel his chest, searching for the wound that he had received from Gilly's blade peircing his heart but he finds nothing. Feeling his back he searches for a scar, something that would tell him that maybe he was alive and that he did not just die and that he was in Soul Society with a new 'Spiritual' body. "Now now, calm down Doyoko, we are not dead. You are just in my world with me now. I have given you enough energy to get your body back to at least its most functioning state. You will be fine but we need to talk."

"Are you done yet?" Gage stops and looks the man in the face, he seemed tired and old but somehow happy and pleased. Removing his hand he comes to the conclusion that this is either a dream, he is dead or that this might possibly be true. The likeliness of each happening in his eyes being in order. Clearing his throat he nods,"Yes I am done, I didn't mean to be-" Waving him off the man turns and begins walking into the fog.

"Nonsense, I would be surprised in your position too. Now come here. There is something that you must see," Walking into the fog Gage follows, the white mist rolling around him being as if he were wearing a blindfold. Staggering through the fog he feels a stern hand on his shoulder pull him back. "Around here you have to keep your eyes open," The metallic man points to the ground, gesturing to a ten foot deep trench that extend from directly in front of him out until it vanishes in the fog. The ground underfoot is uneven and covered in natural rock and gravel so the site was not man made but some kind of formation.

"Tell me Doyoko, what do you see?" the man raises an arm to the fog and signals all around him. Gage looks everywhere but see's nothing, the world too white to make anything out. A small drop of water falls and lands on Gages arm making him look up just to catch the lightest sprinkle of water hit his skin. A rumble over head makes him look around, the sound being close, so close that it shuddered in his chest.

"I suppose I would move the person out of the way, get them to safety. Then I would try to get you to stop throwing rocks." The man reaches down and picks up another rock and tosses it up and down in the rain, catching it in his palm.

"And how would you get to them in this fog? You don't know where they are or what they look like. All you know is the general direction that I am tossing this rock in. And even if you move that one person out of the way then you have to deal with the next person standing there. No matter how many people you move out of the way there will always be another. So what is the best thing that you can do?" Gage looks into the fog picturing all his friends and family.

"Step in front of the rock?"

"No you self sacrificial twit," the man seemed to get a bit irritated at the thought of his response. "You need to see. You cannot will this fog away. You cannot push it or use your Soul Communication to force it to leave. It is here and like all things in nature it is natural. You need to accept it for what it is and know that sometimes the world is going to be foggy and that you need to let it be. Not repress it and pretend like it doesn't matter and just do what you have to around it or through it."

"K'vothe," The old man nods. It had to be. Nearly five months ago a friend of his sealed his 'rage' inside himself, changing his release from being a monster to that of a leashed dog. He was able to control himself because of what K'vothe had done.

"Yes, K'vothe. That day he sealed your 'wrath' inside you leaving you blinded by the rage that you were never allowed to feel," Gage looked back on it. It wasn't like he didn't notice it after all. He seemed more...content with everything. There was even a time where to took a job to capture a woman, a human woman, and turn her over to her overpaid father and he took the job. That kind of thing would normally have made him level entire buildings in frustration with how the world is but he took the job.

"Okay but how do I do that?" Gage looks around at the fog and wonders what there is that he could possibly do that would get rid of a giant fog cloud.

"You don't have to do anything crazy, you just have to want it to be gone. You have to be able to understand that while being angry is not inherently good it is natural and as such you shouldn't feel the need to hide it from everyone. Yourself included." Gage thinks it over, how could he possibly want to just let his anger back out. The reason that he put it away in the first place was because he had a 'monster' in him. But the monster was gone. It was not him that he was sealing away, it was the mask, the anger that the mask brought him.

Turning slowly Gage finds himself facing the man again, his back to a massive black rod reaching into the sky nearly nine meters, the thickness being similar to that of a telephone pole. It was not as light as the fog had been, the clouds overhead still sprinkling down on him and making him soaked to the skin all over. All around him the ground was wet, soaked down to the soil under the rocks, small streams of water running down the edges of the mountain into their own respective rivers.

Gage stops at the base of the pole though, his eyes locking with another man. Another him more accurately. His eyes were black, a deep black that would make any full grown man shiver with bright yellow eris that seemed defeated and tired. His face was worn, pale and blackened under the eyes so that it seemed that he had been awake for days. His body though showed signs of heavy lifting, the muscles all rippling and tight against the skin. He must have been at least ten pounds heavier than Gage but only about five percent body fat.

As soon as Gages opposite spots him it perks up a bit, struggling from the kneeling position to its feet. Around its feet massive steel boots are locked into place with huge chains running to a bolt in the ground. His hands are the same, giant finger-less gauntlets that cover his hands from the elbow down, large chains running from the tips of the hands to the toes of the boots. Across his mouth a large metal mask, formed to the jawline, is held in place with a piece of rope that wraps around the head and binds behind the neck.