Hello, readers. Instead of spending all my time editing A Book of Blackened Tears, I decided to also start a new project on the side. This will follow the 100 themes challenge writing prompts I ran into on the net. This will feature Hichigo and his dear King, of course (OTP time!), and will follow the prompts as most as they can. But I have a tendency to interpret things my own little twisted way, so before. ;D Please enjoy, fave, and review.
1. Introduction
I: Fear
It was dark.
There was only a massive abyss of black beneath and above him.
He would be lying if he said he wasn't scared.
He would be lying if he said he wasn't absolutely terrified of the threatening mist of shadow that threatened to engulf him, the black pool of pure, unadulterated fear that grasped his body in a vice grip.
It would not let go. No matter how hard he thrashed, no matter how much he howled and shrieked his rage so that it resounded through his own soul and jarred him out of his own mind.
It would not let go, no matter how much he longed for a body of his own, no matter how much he longed for a breath of hope.
For freedom.
II: Emptiness
To be held in the clutches of something so horrifyingly empty, something with no name, something he couldn't even comprehend, was enough to shock him to his core and bring immediately forth the wakings of his essence.
He had no memories. He became astutely aware of this as his senses sharpened and he was able to take in the feel and the sensation of the black substance that surrounded him.
He had no consciousness. This was changing by the moment, because with each passing second he felt something form inside of him, something physical and constantly changing: a shape to fit the slowly coming-to that was his mind.
He was alive.
He was waking.
He felt the first stirring of life in newly formed veins and a mist that took shape and rose in the wisp-like form of what he could only feel could be properly called... a body.
Is this... real? Or is it all an empty illusion?
III: Alive
He was alive, and he was conscious.
He felt that life in his blood, the black blood that had risen into his new form from the very depths of the dark pool of emptiness that surrounded him, and brought his near-solid hand before his face.
I am alive.
The hand was pale beyond reality, white and completely devoid of colour. It was the stark contrast that made him so strikingly real compared to the pitch black waste that gathered in a liquid-like pool at his feet and bathed his incredibly human body in its inky nature.
He was held captive by a hell that had been created exclusively for his own soul.
IV: Forgotten
My... name...
He had no memories... but somewhere, far off in the distance, there was a ringing trill in his ears that heightened his awareness and woke up something inside of him. Something that was closer to a real memory than he would ever have.
Vaguely he could just remember... he had a name.
... He could not remember it.
He reached up with a single hand, extended the first pale digit in hopes of penetrating the seemingly unbreakable darkness before him. It gave way to the colourlessness of his flesh, but gushed back in almost immediately, overwhelming and destroying the smallest of pathways he'd just cleared.
V: Name
He wanted to scream.
He wanted to tear his own fingernails through the flesh of his pale chest and hear his own rippled cries of anguish at the devastating pain that would rush through his new body.
If only he had a voice; if only he had a determination that would allow him to rip apart the surface of his flesh so easily.
My name... my name...!
He heard it. Somewhere, off in that far distance that seemed even further away than the black sky that swallowed him.
It's... it's...
He couldn't hear it. It was muffled, nothing more than a simple garble of a voice that was quickly blocked out by the imminent ebony of this cursed hell.
Call me. Call my name... set me free.
And then, loud and clear as the night that cracked before him:
"Zangetsu!"
He rose from the ebony Tartarus that had once grasped his soul.
He embraced the warmth and the bright light that suddenly cascaded in from a cracked night ceiling as the familiarity and relief of life flooded through him.
My name is Zangetsu.
VI: Memory
When he next woke, it was in a world with sideways clouds drifting across that bright blue expanse of sky in garbs of white and with real, wholesome memories.
Memories of a boy with orange hair and the saddest brown eyes he'd ever seen.
"That's..."
The boy. The boy he was now attached to, the one who had grasped the hilt and drawn the blade from his little box of personal hell.
The boy with the brightest smile he'd ever seen and yet somehow seemed never to find a reason to laugh, to show that delightful grin of his.
The boy who was his master.
"... My..."
He clenched a fist and felt black fingernails dig into his palm.
He'd never seen a more miserable boy.
"... King."
The hollow stood, upright on the glass building that stretched lengthily across midair, in this salvation from that black world of his, and looked up towards the sky.
The bright white clouds had darkened, and the blue of the sky had dimmed.
Rain is coming.
VII: Rain
The rain splattered upon the glass in intricate patterns of sorrow and seeped into the skin of the hollow, drenching his hair and clothes.
He glared down at it and spat in disgust at the coolness and the wet of it soaking into the fabric of his Shihakusho.
I hate how weak it is.
The rain was like tears. Tears pouring from the heavens, splattering against the glass and against his slumped form. He lay back against the side of one of those wretched buildings, eyes closed and heart pounding with the adrenaline rushing through his veins.
I want to kill something.
His fingers curled against his palm in a tight fist and drew blood.
The rain was his master's tears. And tears were weak.
... I hate it all.
That was the day he learnt to hate the rain.
VIII: King
He pressed a finger against his chin in pondering, running a hand through his colourless hair.
Countless hours spent in this timeless world had given room for much thinking.
"... King, eh..."
He scoffed. It was a watery sound, rippling through the air in tremors of shakiness and echoing right back to him. What a miserable little inner world this was; suited perfectly for a miserable little king.
"... I won't stop." He took a step forward-his very first step in a world that was practically his own. "I won't stop... King..."
I won't stop until you learn to smile again.
I won't stop until this pathetic rain stops.
Because, all I want is to make you happy.
To make this rain go away.
My King...
... my Ichigo.
OWARI
End of chapter one! *floats away*