Yeah. This is my first Bleach/FMA crossover, so I'd appreciate it if you don't criticize me too much. This is a pretty boring chapter I think, but it's just the prologue, and it kind of explains the background of the main character that this is about. I purposely made it anonymous, so that it'll be a slight surprise when he reveals himself in the next chapter. But I'm pretty sure that you all guessed who it's about. I've made it pretty obvious.
And as for how I spell the names in Japanese and stuff, I'm going with what I've read with the manga, and online spellings. I don't know Japanese, besides some phrases and how to pronounce it, so my translations are probably going to be wrong. I'd appreciate any corrections.
I don't own anything.
Italic is thoughts (usually).
Bold is usually the name of an attack or Zanpakutou.
Bold/italic is the Zanpakutou speaking.
The cherry blossoms were gone. They only came for a short period of time, but while they were there, they were beautiful and brought out the best in people. It was much like life. Life was ever fleeting, and while you were living, you had to live and bloom to the fullest. For every fallen petal, a memory to replace it, to form ties with the tree, to make room for another season of blooming blossoms. Every connecting branch formed a friendship, connecting even the smallest twig to the heart of the tree's world, the trunk. One minute the world was as simple to describe as a tree, and the next it was as complex and hard to understand as the magic that made the tree know when to bloom and when to let the petals fall. The cycle of life, another rule that governed the existence of the entire world, applied to the tree as well.
It was all he knew, rules that formed the world, that formed his ideals, his thoughts, his actions, his powers, and rules that formed who he was personally. He couldn't shake it off, the weight of the world's rules resting on his shoulders. Ever since he had died, it wasn't the same. Nothing was ever the same after that. He was happy that the world didn't need him, of course. But he was deeply lonely. He absorbed the world as he walked through its vast corridors, and he watched the world through a film, like he was watching a movie, and couldn't change what was happening. He felt like every day he stood there watching, his resolve and willpower wasted away. He would eventually become an empty shell, because he was lost. He couldn't find the strength to change the world he was stuck in.
But at the times when he'd fall to his knees after standing there watching for so long, he'd think of his past life, and the people that he'd given up so much for, and what they'd given up for him. He knew those people would look at him in disgust. Why was the great person they had known giving up for such a petty reason? He owed them to be stronger than what he was now. And the only way he could do that was to fight back. To stop the decaying soul that he had become, and reform into somebody that could be worth something. It was useless to fight against the truth—pun intended. He would eventually succumb to the grim world that he was rooted to. But if he didn't fight, he'd never be satisfied in his final moments. Maybe it was just the effects of being left to his thoughts for so long, but he was sure of the fact that he wanted to be happy in the end. He had never had the chance to be happy, and here he was, just giving up, and not trying. It was sickening. So he had to keep walking, to drag his feet from the holes in the ground that they had become stuck in, and fight. Every step he took was a punch thrown at an invisible enemy.
He would make it right. He would keep walking until he had run a path into the ground, until his feet legs had worn away; and even then, he'd crawl until his arms were gone. It was what he needed, and what he deserved.
Over the years, he had changed. At first he was just a vaguely humanoid shadow, nothing more than something you'd see with your peripheral vision. The world changed too. He was sure it wasn't the same place as where he had lived. The world of the dead, he had come to call it, but the wind whispered something else in his ears, a deadly sort of name for the place that he ruled in his loneliness. He saw other shadows, although they were of different forms and always glowing white instead of his inky obsidian black. The world he walked through was full of lower life that he held in the same respect as the ones of his intelligence. They were the plant life forms, the beautiful trees, the blooming flowers, the tasty fruit, the prickly bushes, and they made beauty a thing of reality in his bleak life. It made him smile. The white souls that approached him would always lower into a bow, offering their souls to quench a hunger burning inside of him. He took their kindness with gratefulness. He vowed to get stronger and to live longer—equivalent exchange, of course.
His favourite part of the world was the field of cherry blossom trees that went on for miles, impossibly majestic. There were mountains and fields, and rivers, and lakes. There were lush forests, but no animals to make it a habitat. But it was his habitat. For years, it could have been thousands, he didn't know, he lingered in the haven that he had started calling home, letting the souls give themselves to him, and storing their energy inside of him in return. When the day came that he had enough, he would evolve into something that could get stronger. And the debts that he owed the souls would be paid.
A new soul had just been absorbed when he had felt a shift inside of the murky darkness that was his entire self. He knew it was time. A black light enveloped him and squeezed him tightly, like a bandage wrapping around him. He roared with strength as he felt his body change. After the light had finished wrapping and puncturing him, he felt himself twist and turn, with a weird popping noise making him aware that something solid was forming. He would become the first creature in the world he was occupying.
With a terrible yet satisfying screech, he had formed into the first of what the future generations would call a hollow. He grinned with enthusiasm. This was great.
His body was about the size of an apartment building, with his mask a terrifying sight. His mask looked much like a cat's skull, with long canine teeth, and menacing pure gold eyes staring out through the slits. A mane of golden locks flowed from around the skull-like mask, with two caramel-gold cat ears poking out from the fur. The rest of his body was still very much like a lion, but also more like a lizard. His skin was a scaly dark green, with flowing sinewy muscles underneath. His long legs ended with huge clawed feet, and his long tail that could touch his mask had the head of a snake hissing menacingly at the surrounding area. His forked tongue peeked from the mask that covered his face. He was impressive and would have scared anybody to death who dared to earn his wrath.
He trained until he learned of what he could do in that form, and for thousands of years continued to gain strength. His form slowly changed. He grew smaller, knowing that it was not a decrease in strength, but showing his control. As more souls started to convert, he watched the world that he had come to love turn into a desert, with nothing to make it beautiful. The colours faded to a dark sky and a sandy brown. He hated the world that somehow had swallowed his old one. This was not the world of the dead anymore. This was Hueco Mundo now. He missed his old kingdom. He slowly drew away from the other souls, letting their instincts overtake them. He drew away to the farthest he could get from them, right to the edge of Hueco Mundo. He trained there, absorbed too much to notice the carnage, the creatures that were rampaging.
He soon changed shape again, this time with a stunning golden light. But he lost himself to darkness. The pit swallowed him up, leaving him unable to climb back out. The world had finally caught up with him, and he succumbed to the eternal slumber that he had been trying to run away from. He was so exhausted from the training, from his world changing so much, from he himself changing so much.
While he was sleeping, many things changed. The original hollows evolved into the first Menos Grandes, and then a select few became Vasto Lords. The world shifted in and out of focus, and Soul Society formed not too long after. The castle-like fortress formed in Hueco Mundo, and the hollows slowly got stronger, but couldn't come close to where he was in strength. Stories of a hollow of all hollows, the hollow of all hollows, were lost to the desert. He slowly became forgotten, nothing more than a buried body without a tombstone to mark its existence.
Thousands of years passed, and rulers over Hueco Mundo changed from time to time, while the Seireitei dwellers grew in power and number. It was many centuries before a man by the name of Sosuke Aizen came to rule over Hueco Mundo. He was the ruler in secret, while keeping the façade of a nice Captain in the Soul Society. He felt himself stir as the events unravelled, as new spiritual pressures made an impact in the spiritual world. He felt the other dimension—Soul Society—gain power, and he felt the shifts in the world as it changed. He felt the human world develop into a technologically savvy place, leaving his world in the dust.
And then he felt a big spiritual pressure suddenly condense, with others slowly coming into existence after a while. It was a change in the system—a flaw—that had allowed it to occur. So his Zanpakutou—a part of him that he had not communicated with since his sleep induced demise—sought to wake him from his sleeping stupor. After sleeping for so long, it was easy for his Soul Cutter to slip him into his own inner world, seeking to make him realise what he had to realise.
And so it began... the story of the first spiritually connected soul; the first hollow to grace the land; the first ruler over Hueco Mundo; the first to have become a solid being; and the first to awaken from a hibernating state that nobody else knew of. It was his time. His Zanpakutou knew him better than anybody else—as he was him.
A shockwave resounded through the entire world of Hueco Mundo, scaring even the most demonic of hollows to their cores.
He was back.
And nobody could get in his way.
Okay. Hope you liked that. I love reviews. Seriously, review, even if you have nothing to say but "Please update soon!" Although, I'd appreciate you saying a little bit more than that... like "I loved it so much!"
The other chapters will definitely be longer than this prologue!
Even if you don't want to review, please put this on your story alerts!