Notes: Requested by CottonballLOL. From the August 25, 2005 prompt for the lj community 31_days.
Eating Metastacia was the best thing he'd ever done. At first, feasting upon other hollows had been a last resort, necessary to avoid starvation and to climb to a higher plane, to gain the power of a Gillian and later, he hoped, of an Adjuchas and a Vasto Lorde.
Death had been, thus far, not altogether different from life. He was still relegated to the role of despicable vermin, running away from those who would squash him, clawing his way to the top. Ripped in two by two voices, both his. He needed both, thrived on contradiction and consumption, for as surely as the voices belonged to him, they were consuming him.
Later, he would come to enjoy the rancid taste of hollows. Only hollows could bring the sharp snap of bone and oozing hatred, the keening howls of horror as the monsters realized they were being eaten alive. The ones that gave him a fight, as Metastacia had done, tasted fuller, sweet and thick with the souls of shinigami, humans, and hollows alike. An electrifying jolt of power on his tongue, he chewed and crunched, chewed and crunched.
He lazily savored the meal; he was sated from the fight and his fill of the fresh, bloody meat. This was surviving; this was living. The only hierarchy that mattered was the food chain. Absorbing abilities had been fun, the clamor of souls trapped within him concerned him very little. He had two voices already, what were a few thousand more?