Corona Hueco

(Hollow Crown)

Prologue: It Begins

"Whether we fall by ambition, blood, or lust, like diamonds we are cut with our own dust."
-John Webster

There is a legend about the creation of the worlds. Of how the four realms came into being. The land of the living, the land of the death, the land of the damned, and the land of the hollowed.
Today, they are know by these names; Earth, Souru Sosaeti (Soul Society), Hell, and Hueco Mundo.
But above them all is the world of the gods, the place in which the Soul King resides. This was the first realm. It has always been, and will always be, just as the Soul King himself.
For many years, the realm of the gods was the only plane of existence at all. Within it lived dozens of deities, all created by the Soul King. Gods of laughter and wealth, of love and fertility, of speed and wind. Gods of animals and plants. Gods of fire and ice and water.
Leading them all was the Soul King and his wife. The King's wife was the goddess of birth and death. Together they had three sons and a daughter.
The daughter was the goddess of the earth. And above all else she loved beauty. So for her, the Soul King created another world in which she could create her own beauty.
As such, the mortal realm was born.
In it, the moon goddess created plants and animals fashioned after the creatures found in her world, as well as beings like never seen before. The other gods marveled at her creativity.
Her world was soon filled with mountains and rivers and forests. But she felt like something was missing. Then she realized her world needed someone to look over it. So she make a man in the image of her eldest brother, the one she was closest to. But she soon realized that the man she made was lonely, so she made a woman to be his companion.
Together they cared for the world she made.
But as the beings began to multiply, death would occasionally take them. So the earth goddess created the spirit world for them to go afterwards. Yet as the years went on, many humans became greedy and selfish, which bred theft, fighting, then murder and rape and wars and genocides and all the evils of the world.
The earth goddess was destroyed as her precious creations tore each other apart.
Her eldest brother decided to do something to punish the wicked ones, and created Hell.
It pained the earth goddess to see her children suffer in such a place, but the threat of such a place made the evil lessen.
Years passed, and the gods realized the human souls were having trouble finding their way to the afterlife. So the Soul King created the shinigami, beings sent to fairy the dead.
Around that time, two more gods were born, the god of the moon and the goddess of winter. The to gods became extremely close, closer than any of the others. And truly, the two were in love with each other, but they were both too stubborn to admit it.
Unfortunately, the second son of the Soul Kind, the god of the sun, fell in love with the winter goddess.
The Soul King wouldn't deny his four children anything, so when the sun god demanded the goddess of winter marry him, the Soul Kind declared it to be so.
The goddess was furious to be sold to someone like property.
She ran away with the moon god, but the Soul King's soldiers caught them. Enraged that the sun god would take away his beloved, the god of the moon attacked him and the guards. He slew them all.
But in the madness, his beloved was slain as well. He wept over her body for days on end, his screams echoing through the passage between worlds in which they were caught.
The sorrow of the god was so great, that his very presence changed the world around them.
The small pocked of space between worlds was torn apart and reformed over and over again, until it became a realm of its own. The barrens of his soul left the world a desert, and it remained in eternal night, for the god hated the sun. Only a great white moon hung in the sky, forever a slim crescent shape, a representation of the piece missing within him.
But the winter goddess refused to leave her love. Her soul remained stubbornly beside him.
The god's grief became too much, and the hole where his heart once was became a literal thing. The pain was so great, that he became the very first of the hollows, beings born of pain and tragedy.
In his new state, the Hollowed God could see the spirit of his love, remaining dutifully by his side.
Using a power that had come with his transformation, the Hollowed God transformed her into the same creature as he.
Empty hearted spirits who had once had no where to go suddenly began to appear in the desert realm. The creatures became known as hollows, their world Hueco Mundo.
The Hollowed King found he had the ability to transform normal hollows into something akin to he and his love. Maskless and human.
The Ice Goddess named them the arrancar.
With the arrancar he created, the Hollowed God built a massive city for his subjects to live in.
He declared himself the hollow's king, and them his people. The city filled with newly made arrancar.
The King married the Ice Goddess, and the two ruled their people justly and with care. The two were loved by all.
A thousand years went by before the Soul King realized his son's killer still lived, and that he had not only wed his son's intended, but had created a realm all themselves.
A war was started, in which many gods and hollows died. After many years of bloodshed, the Hollowed King and Queen were killed.
Or so the Spirit World believed.
The two indeed died, but the cycle of rebirth returned them to their people only a century later. In that time, Hueco Mundo had fallen into chaos.
But when they were reborn, they no longer looked the same, and they were no longer gods.
Still, they returned to their city. No one recognized them as the former gods, but the arrancar were grateful to have leaders once more.
Rather than declaring themselves the former gods, the King and Queen created new identities as very powerful arrancar.
The peace didn't last long. Shortly after their return, something changed with how hollows were born.
No longer did sorrowful souls immediately arrive in Hueco Mundo. Now, any soul who remained in the living world would become a hollow. These new hollows did not appear in their world after their birth. Instead, the remained in the living world until they opened a portal to do so themselves.
These new hollows were ravenous. No longer were they filled with sorrow. Now, all they felt was crippling hunger,
Worst of all, these new hollows ate souls.
The Shinigami realized something was wrong before the Hollowed Rulers. A young Shinigami had been attacked by one of the first of the new hollows, barely making it out alive.
Soul Society went on the offence. Nolo her did they simply ferry souls. Now, they killed hollows.
Shinigami were fought combat, and no longer did they use soul stamps to send away souls. Suddenly, the tool became the handle of a sword.
The zanpakutou were born.
Hollows began to die in droves.
Worst of all. The Hollowed King couldn't return these new hollow's sanity by transforming them into arrancar. They remained mindless beasts until they evolved into beings who became known as Vasto Lorded. But even then, the hollows would be savage. At least the King could use his powers to return their souls and remove their masks.
Throughout it all, the Soul King didn't care. The First Hollow War had left the soul kingdom in shambles, and the King himself callous and cruel. He stille cared for the soul kingdom, but now ignored the other four realms.
The earth goddess had died in the war, so there was no one to look after the living world. The god of the damned remained deep in hell, twisted into a monster who enjoyed the pain around him.
The afterlife was left to the shinigami. In the absence of a ruler, a powerful shinigami rose to become the leader. A stern but fair commander.
Fewer and fewer hollows grew to become arrancar, while more and more were slain by shinigami.
The only consolation the rulers had was that the hollows would be reborn if they were nor wicked in life.
Determined to find a way to protect his people, the King searched for a way to rid the hollows of their hunger.
He found nothing.
Desperate for a solution, the Hollowed Queen went to the shinigami against her husband's wishes.
She was not met with meeting of the afterlife's leader like promised. The commander had declared hollows the enemy, their leaders most of all.
With his three pupils, the commander attacked the Queen. She fought valiantly, but the four reapers proved to strong.
She was slain as the one known as Kenpachi.
When the Hollowed King hears of his beloved's death, he declared war on the Shinigami. Enraged by their queen's death, the people of Hueco Mundo gladly fought.
The Second Hollow War was even more bloody than the first, for now the hollows wanted revenge.
Wary in the war, the King created a royal force. He gathered the nine most powerful and most trusted of his arrancar and granted them power trice as strong as before. Each were ranked from one to nine in defending order of their strength, with the Ling himself being ranked at zero.
The Espada were born.
The war lasted half a century, but after decades of violence, it finally ended on the top of a high hill overlooking all of the spirit world.
There, the remaining Espada were slain one by one, until all but the King lay dead.
The hill burned with hellfire as the King and the Commander battled.
It was a battle like no other. The two combatants were slowly tearing each other apart.
But in the end, the Shinigami proved to be stronger than the once-god.
A crescent light hung in the sky as The Slaying Moon was slain himself.
The Hollowed King Zaibatsu was dead.

A.N. Wow, that was intense for me to write. So, prologue of yet another story. Ok, just to let you guys know, I'm working on rewriting both Still-Born and What the Mirror Saw. Already doubled chapter one of Mirror. That'll be out soon I hope.
If any of you are in the Tokyo Ghoul fandom, I have a TG fix up as well called Count One Thousand Legs (and break off seven).

Well, let me know what you think of this monstrosity. Just a warning, this will be very AU.

I'll go ahead and spoil this. Ichiro is being kicked out of the picture pretty early on. If you don't like that, the. Don't read it. Changed my mind. Ichigo's staying, but he'll be a minor character. Sorry if I gave anyone a heart-attack. :P
Now, why am I'm using Ichigo's zanpakutou's name? Cuz I'm too lazy to come up with my own, and the name actually works with this story. Zangwtsu was originally the god of the moon, and he becomes known as a vicious warrior who had no qualms about slaying anyone in his way.
Why Ichigo's zanpakutou has the same name… that'll be explained later.