Author's Notes: This will no doubt be just a one shot, although i have ideas for one more chapter, possibly two, but nothing more than that. I promise i'll have chapter 8 of "Dude, Where's my Y Chromosome?" up soon!
Disclaimer: I don't own bleach, but i bloody wish i did!
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The Espada drifted towards the meeting room at their own pace. Their purpose: A simple message had been passed down by the Traitor-Captain Aizen:
"Come and welcome a new sibling to our brotherhood."
The ten most powerful of the torn masked warriors of Hueco Mundo entered the vast chamber, now devoid of the long table that usually occupied its centre, and took up places around the transparent box and the heavily bandaged occupant within.
To one side stood Aizen, his features painted with his usual slight smile and piercing eyes, with his hand settled on a perfect cylinder that arose from the ground.
"Please, come in and make yourselves comfortable, my Espada." He said with a welcoming tone that carried through the otherwise silent chamber.
The Espada stood around the glass box, each one feeling some varying mixture of boredom fuelled curiosity and eagerness to evaluate a possible rival.
They had all heard of this particular hollow that now shifted restlessly inside of its small prison. They had all heard of the unprecedented speed with which it had risen through the dog eat dog ranks of the Hollows and Menos, and of the bloody swathe it had cut through their own Arrancar. A true achievement for any hollow, despite the fact that the Arrancar that had been put to the sword had only been of a lower rank.
Now it knelt before them in voluntary bondage. The penultimate step set in motion by a simple choice between death and advancement that was laid before it in exchange for the discontinuation of its one man war on Las Noches.
'A decision well made.' Aizen thought.
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It had taken only a day for the lowly hollow to butcher its way into Hueco Mundo and then cause enough of a stir to bring about the blood frenzy among its brothers that would inevitably cause the creation of a mighty Gillian, a process that non-surprisingly led to the howling berserker which had been the epicentre of the fray, becoming the dominant psyche within the tall Menos Grande.
The new Gillian was immensely strong, rivalling even the Adjuchas for strength and sheer brutality, but such an increase was not enough for the hollow prodigy, and so its war began a new, and its rage built to greater heights, and its hunger for Menos flesh drove it once more into a rage of biting teeth and snatching claws and the flare of crimson energy that cleaved flesh as easy as any blade. All of which was accompanied by a maniacal laugh that carried through the barren landscape of Hueco Mundo for uncounted miles.
A mere month in the distorted time of Hueco Mundo passed and the Gillian had shrunken, its figure compressed into the deadly form of an Adjuchas with strength to challenge some of the Vasto Lorde, and challenge them it did, for the flesh of other Adjuchas was tasteless to one as ambitious as he.
The hollow had become angry when there were few Vasto Lorde to be found, and no other Adjuchas could stand more than a few blows, yet alone provide entertainment, but then word of something interesting had been passed down to him from a hollow in a settlement before he devoured it whole.
There existed even tastier flesh than that of a Vasto Lorde! Surely such a creature could prove to be more entertaining than the common filthy that walked the dead sands.
Half Masks, as they were called by some, Arrancar by others, hollows that had shed their masks to turn the hated Shinigami's weapons against them.
The prodigy found one out in the desert, he had been sent to find the Vasto Lorde, he had confessed before he was eaten. He had fought well, but not well enough.
The best thing the Arrancar had told him was where he could find more of his kind, and so he hunted.
Another month passed and much Arrancar flesh had been feasted upon and many wounds had been inflicted to his body, many had nearly cost him his existence, but none had taken him fully beyond the border of unlife, but one thing he had gained from all his scars and those who had inflicted them as they passed into his stomach.
He had taken their strength, and from that strength he forged himself into a new weapon.
His body and shrunk again, this time into the lithe form of a great Vasto Lorde.
The moment that he had awoken from his changing trance, the prodigy felt that something had changed in the still air of the desert. He was no longer the hunter but the hunted.
It was not long before Arrancar came in droves, some came to talk but they were met only with brutal force, he didn't care to talk, he cared to fight, but none could resist him.
Eventually he got bored of waiting for them to come to him, so he strangled the information out of one 'emissary' of where they came from, and he decreed that Las Noches was to be his hunting ground from now on, but things became both more interesting and more annoying as he drew closer. He found the fights became more challenging, but after a point he stopped fighting for fun and started to fight for his life, but he refused to admit that journeying there was folly; instead he turned his fear to aggression and battled on.
The day he breached the gates of Las Noches the prodigy felt such elation that he laughed long and hard atop the bodies of the fools who had defied his entrance, but his way ahead lay blocked by a single man.
This man was not a hollow, nor was he Arrancar, instead he was a Shinigami, and that alone was enough to send the prodigy into a flying rage, but his attacks never struck home, the Shinigami was too fast, and if he got close he felt the Shinigami's reitsu drive the breath from his lungs and weigh down his limbs until he couldn't move.
For once the hollow could say that he was face to face with a truly unbeatable opponent.
"You are very strong," the Shinigami said with a slight smile as he stood over the bloodied Vasto Lorde, "I have need of strength like yours."
The Shinigami extended his hand to the downed hollow as he spoke, and stared at the creature with his piercing gaze.
"Join my Arrancar and serve me, and I will forgive your invasion of my city and grant you power greater than you can even hope to obtain in your current state. Refuse and I will kill you before you can draw your next breath."
The hollow stared at the hand in front of him and he contemplated his options.
Resist and die: As much as it annoyed him to admit it he realised that the Shinigami was not lying when he said he could kill him without pause.
Serve and live: He hated the thought of servitude, but the promise of power was too great to ignore. He could swallow his pride this once.
"I can get up on my own!" growled the prodigy as he slapped aside the Shinigami's hand and stood when he felt the man let up on his reitsu, "I'll take off my mask… but not for you… I'll do it for the power."
"Whatever pleases you." The Shinigami said with an indulgent smile, "I am Lord Aizen, and welcome to Las Noches."
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Aizen tapped the flat surface on top of the cylinder, and section by section it dismantled and curled away to reveal the walnut sized black orb within its crystal prison.
The Espada watched as their leader slowly walked over and placed the Orb of Distortion into a recess within the transparent holding cell of the mummified Vasto Lorde who writhed impatiently under their probing gaze, and slowly Aizen reached out towards the tiny obsidian ball which reached out in return, and in that instance of contact a pulse of reitsu flashed through the room and then was drawn back inwards like a vacuum into the glass case which shattered under the force in a cloud of glass, dust and shredded bandages.
"Do you think you could tell us your name? Comrade." asked the watchful Shinigami as he waited for the dust to clear.
The shape in the debris shifted, and after a moment of silence it began to laugh, slowly at first, but the sound quickly rose to a maniacal crescendo as it cackled that had a distorted ripple to the sound that made it seem almost as if it came from underwater.
"Name? HA!" it managed at last between bursts of laughter. Slowly it began to stand, moving above the dust cloud and into clear sight, and more than one face among the Espada turned from bland curiosity to frightened confusion.
"W-what?! How is this possible?!" exclaimed Grimmjow as he went for his Zanpakuto, but Aizen, who was as shocked as the others but much better at disguising it, motioned for him to stop.
"Yes, your name, what is it?"
The porcelain-white figure casually flicked some of the torn bandages from his equally white hair and grinned widely as he looked at Aizen with bitch black eyes and piercing yellow irises.
"I ain't gotta name…" he smirked, "But I suppose if you have to call me something… you can call me… Kurosaki Ichigo."