So yeah. I recently started buying the Bleach 3-in-1 English Manga, and after basically reading all there is about the visored, I fouind myself thinking what a shame that there wasn't more. What about their hollow fights, and coping with it? It must have been traumatic. Hence, Visoreds, origins.
One by one, the story will detail the eventual rise of the Visoreds, how each one mastered their Inner Hollow, learnt to use their masks, and so on. Since there are appearances from Zanpaktou spirits we haven't seen, namely all of the Visoreds, I've had to make them from scratch based on their names. Aside from that, it fits perfectly into canon.
Enough boring stuff. Please enjoy, and review. It's important to know whether I captured the character's personality well or not.
"You are lying on that floor because you didn't get to know me, Captain."
Bastard.
"Farewell. You all made wonderful pawns."
No, this couldn't be the end. He wouldn't let it be the end.
"Urahara Kisuke."
"Why the ugly mask?"
"This is Hollowfication."
Shinji opened his eyes, blinking against the bright light. It had been night time a moment ago, with Kisuke and that bastard AIzen. As things came into focus, he groaned, body stiff. He didn't want to be here, he hated this place, and he didn't have the time to talk to Sakanade.
"Good thing she isn't here, then" came a reply to his thoughts, the cold, high voice making his ears hurt.
The Shinigami looked around for the speaker, slowly adjusting to his inner world. He lay on an endless floor of mirrors reaching further than he could see, reflecting the sky above. Except it wasn't a sky, but a vast mirror, overshadowing everything.
Below, the surface was transformed in the above reflection, revealing the gaping chasm of a thousand identical levels, the depths of his world only seen in reflection. Shinji forgot not to look up, and saw himself below, looking at him. A thousand Shinji's stepped back/forwards, reeling around.
He had to focus, to concentrate. What was it Sakanade had said? Beside him, her faint form put a hand on his shoulder. Dark skinned and lithe, her playful smile recited the poem she'd first told him. 'There is only one of me, and one of you. Although reversed and multiplied, this remains true. To find the real us, among the fakes, you must face yourself, and understand the stakes."
Shinji lifted his arm, seeing the reflections follow him. He lowered it, and posed, reaching for his sword. The Captain drew Sakanade, a thousand others sliding out of their scabbards, but only one felt solid in his hands. Swung across, Shinji took note that, yes, they were just copies. One reflection was no more of a threat than a thousand.
Oriented, he slowly walked along the glass, looking for his Zanpaktou. A shape appeared in front, and Shinji bumped into it, stumbling. "Sorry I didn't see you" he muttered out of reflex, then looked up. An identical reflection stared back, and when Shinji passed his hand through, there was nothing.
Sakanade was fond of hiding, but at the moment he couldn't sense her at all, only see the countless Shinji's that appeared in three dimensions. He had touched something, though. Wait, why was he here, he had to get out. He had to stop Aizen. He willed himself to leave his inner world, and noticed a different reflection from the others. Almost identical, the colours looked paler, his skin almost white.
"How long are you going to keep staring?" it asked, startling Shinji. "Boo!" He stumbled back, the fast movement of his other reflections making his head spin. Sakanade's blade just missed his torso, Shinji turning so it just scraped his front, pushing away the reflection with a palm strike. It was then he noticed his sword was gone, along with his reflection
"Who are you?! Where's Sakanade, you bastard" demanded Shinji, searching around for the figure. With a sense of dread, the Shinigami looked down into angry eyes.
"She's right here" laughed Mirror!Shinji, hurling the blade up. "Catch!"
The mirrors shattered, Shinji falling to the first level, then the next, stopping only when he'd fallen to the bottom one, suspended over a yawning void. He groaned, looking up into the sneering as it held the sword upside down. It wasn't done; you didn't hold a Shinigami's sword that wasn't yours. "Look, you've found her! Sakanade, dear, no more hiding! We belong together!"
Shinji gasped, feeling a piece of his soul come apart, manifesting into his Zanpaktou spirit that materialised underneath his opponent like a mirror image. He reached up a hand, seeking comfort from the familiar; her blue clothes lined with gold, her bare midriff, the dark red hair that reached past her shoulders. God, he wanted just once more to run his hands through it, seeking comfort in her embrace.
Usually so coy, so playful, her tearful expression stirred painful feelings inside. Standing with her hands on the ceiling, his sword's released form held by her toes, Sakanade slid up through the glass, joining with the laughing figure as her gold bangles jingled. Then she was gone, the familiar sound and sight taken. The sword in his hands transformed then, becoming longer and gaining five holes in the blade. It spun around the pale hand, and then everything went to hell
"Hado 58, Tenran!" cried Shinji, coming back to his senses. Spinning his now sealed sword in a circle, he gripped the handle, sending out a tornado to blow away the invisible fog that would invert his senses.
"Too late!" cried his opponent, appearing upside down, then beside Shinji, then above him, the Shinigami unsure where to look. Feeling a burst of Reiatsu from below, he rolled back to his feet, Sakanade slicing down against the glass. Trying to reorient himself, countless reflections made his eyes hurt. The Shinigami couldn't focus, and a foot kicked him away. Shoved back, Shinji saw his opponent charged straight at him, Sakanade held up to skewer.
The Captain did some quick thinking; it seemed his opponent was using Sakanade's attack, which meant he'd come from behind. Yet, that was obviously a bluff. It could also be a double bluff, but he would still have a 50 percent chance. Shinji would never leave it at that in a fight, as once you factored in a 360 angle of attack the odds multiplied exponentially. He knew this; he assumed so did the other Shinji.
In that case it would come from the side, and his right side at that since his left was a weak point. His opponent vanished with a Shunpo, but that was window dressing, causing Shinji to sidestep and strike his right side.
Empty air met his blade, the Shinigami spinning in a circle rapidly to recover. His instincts yelled at him to look up, a choking Reiatsu overpowering his senses. The Captain slashed up, meeting his opponent as in slow motion, faces reflected in the blade.
Shinji jumped back to make more space between them, something niggling at the back of his mind. Reflections in the blade. Blade. Singular.
Where was the other Sakanade?
He looked down, the Zanpaktou shattering the floor below as it spun up his left side, ripping through skin effortlessly. Shinji collapsed on one side, Hollow!Shinji appearing above him to grab the sword, then in front of him.
"That was fun. Let's go again!" it cried, hurling the sword backwards with a spin. Almost a circle of red and silver, the thrown weapon sang through the air towards his head, appearing all over the place.
Shinji stabbed down, breaking the floor and falling into the void. The Shinigami briefly saw his sword grabbed once more. Relying purely on instinct, he parried the first, second and third sword attacks, scabbard in hand to help defend. His foot struck out, kicking away the scabbard his opponent had thrown, wildly slashing at nothing to deflect the attacks that came at him.
His opponent's Reiatsu came from his left, so Shinji struck at the right, sliding across a shard of glass held by the Hollow!Shinji, an ecstatic expression on his face.
Throwing his gaze around, Shinji saw a scabbard thrown down at him. He swung up, clanging off metal, Sakanade swinging around his the sealed sword to stab the Shinji's shoulder. 'Oh shit' thought the Shinigami, pushed over so the scabbard, the real scabbard unaffected by Sakanade's power, came from below to hit him in the face. His body's momentum meant the attack sent Shinji spiralling through the darkness.
Pain. So much pain. This wasn't how you used Sakanade, not with all this sadistic glee. She wasn't just a weapon: she was his only family. Tears dripped into the air above him, the bastard laughing. "This was inevitable, Hirako Shinji! You always treated everything like a game, and look where you've ended up!"
"Bastard…. tell me who you are!" yelled Shinji, unable to suspend himself in the air.
"Better question! What's the last thing you remember?"
Images flashed rapidly in his mind, followed by pain, distress, sadness.
Despair. A despair so deep it made him hungry, hungry for revenge.
"Yes… now, who caused that?"
Shinji saw himself in the past, recruiting Aizen as his Lieutenant, giving him power. Those little nuances, the hints of suspicion. Aizen's smirking face dominated his vision, Shinji's mind focusing on the rage, the embarrassment, the sheer gall of what happened.
Kensei punching his friends across the ground, and Mashiro flying down with a kick to counter their attempts. Confused voices, panicked commands, and a silent abyss that sealed their doom, senses lost to something eldritch.
Tears streamed up now, tinged with blood from Shinji's wounds, the Shinigami hurting inside. All of it was because of one person, all of it the fault of that bastard.
"Aizen… you bastard… Sosuke Aizen. SOSUKE AIZEN!" shouted Shinji, enraged, and gripped his sword. Reiatsu exploded, flinging the Hollow away.
"What?! No, you caused that!" exclaimed Hollow!Shinji, stepping back while Shinji stopped his freefall with new resolve.
The Captain didn't hear the protests, the attempts at breaking his spirit. There was no room with the red mist filling his eyes, his mind a pool of hatred, a dull roar building in the Shinigami's head. "Kensei. Lisa. Rose. Love. Mashiro. Hachi. Hiyori. What happened to us. What… DAMN IT!" he shouted, Reiatsu ripping the air in chaotic torrents.
"Impossible! You… you can't… no!"
"I will never forgive you. I will never stop. Bastard. Bastard. BASTARD! Show yourself!"
As if by magic, his opponent transformed, revealing the source of his hatred, Aizen's face grinning as he held Sakanade to make a fool out of the Shinigami. Well, no more. Hirako Shinji would show the traitor what it meant to betray him, to mock him, to hurt his friends. He'd lost them all, let them die, but he would never give up fighting.
Blood trickled down his hand from the tight grip on Sakanade, sword and wielder's sorrow causing reality to falter, Reiatsu propelling the Shinigami up.
"Wha-" began his inner hollow, unable to use Sakanade's power against the powerful Reiatsu and feeling the sealed sword stab his chest. Shinji ploughed them both through the layers of his inner world, all the way to smash his opponent against the giant sky mirror. A million cracks marred the surface, and it shattered.
Amidst the raining shards of glass, he saw a ghostly dark skinned figure pass something down. Watching it pass into his sword, a surge of power filled his entire body. "Don't worry, Sakanade. I'll rescue you from Aizen!" yelled the Shinigami, feeling his mind fall apart as he raised the blade.
Released without a name, the invisible mist turned into a cloying red smoke that billowed to fill the environment, filling their lungs with an acrid taste.
Always he'd worry, always he'd be afraid of what could happen when he released his sword's second stage, but not any more. If it took his life to destroy Aizen, then he would give it, and found a sadistic glee in his opponent on both knees, choking.
"BANKAI!"
TO BE CONTINUED.
Very fun. I went through a few versions of Shinji's inner world, and eventually decided on this. Next, Kisuke and Tessai have their hands full containing Shinji!
-WT