Author's Notes:
My first Bleach fan fiction dealing with my favorite member of the Espada.
Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach. It is the property of Tite Kubo, and everyone else associated.
Beyond Reach
A wolf was resting atop a high dune in the deserts of Hueco Mundo. He had grey fur legs, with two black bands coming out of his legs and into his back, a white hierro hide like many of the other Adjuchas, a mane of wavy brown hair, and his mask was in the shape of a wolf's head with a flame mark etched around the left eye.
He looked at the crescent moon lazily, and howled at it. The wolf stared at the white curve of light, expecting an answer of some kind. After what seemed like hours, the wolf laid back down, a visible look of disappointment and rage in its eyes.
In Hueco Mundo, there were only three things that existed: hollows, the desert and the moon. The hollows would devour anything, even one another if weakness presented itself, and the desert was harsh and unforgiving with frigid nights eating away at all forms of warmth and plunging all entities into despair. As terrible and savage as it was, to the wolf it was at least an honest danger. In his opinion, the moon was both a friend and an enemy. It was the hollow's constant companion, and it gave hope to them. It's light and position in the sky inspired them to become something greater. If they could become gillian, then adjuchas, and finally vasto lordes, they too could be like the moon. However that hope came at a price: devouring one another, and the constant struggle to stay alive. But even then there was a chance that the all the hollow could achieve was, at best, the Gillian status. It was a fool's hope, given by the only comforting light in the dismal world.
To the wolf, a hollow could grasp the moon, but never touch it. It could run toward it, and it would never get a foot closer. The moon, the hope, it was all a facade to the wolf.
The wolf simply whined. He had devoured souls and hollows for centuries, and still he was in the form he was in now. He was tired of it all. Tired of devouring his brethren, tired of running from powerful shinigami, and most of all, tired of the moon's grin, it's silent mockery.
Enough was enough.
The wolf simply chose to wait for some other adjuchas to devour him, or even better to revert back to gillian status. He didn't care, he just wanted to sleep, and let it all end. But just before he could rest, he heard a screech. The wolf lazily opened an eye, and looked over the dunes. He saw another adjuchas coming straight for him. It had a long dinosaur's neck, a thick heavy tortoise shell, the legs and claws of a crab, and like all hollows, a ghastly mask.
Using its sonido, the adjuchas leapt above the wolf, and landed on top of him. He was about to devours his prey, when it felt a presence behind him. It looked behind, and saw the wolf crouched.
"Just when I thought, I had an easy meal," hissed the new adjuchas.
"…I see," said the wolf lazily before giving a sigh, "You know… I was planning on letting you eat me, but something must have kicked in… Sorry."
"You can apologize in my belly!" screamed the adjuchas.
Suddenly the attacking adjuchas saw a powerful blue light. The cero shot through it's neck and the wolf immediately used sonido and bit a sizeable portion of it's hunter's mask and devoured it.
"What I meant was… sorry for ending your hopes," replied the wolf as he finished his meal.
"You bastard! I'll kill you!" shrieked the hollow.
The wolf simply stood there, and unleashed another cero, and this time, it completely engulfed the hollow, and disintegrated it. The wolf simply laid back down, and tried to resume it's plan.
However, something happened that made the wolf get back up. He began to convulse, and become rigid. From time to time he would howl at the moon, and snarl at the nothingness of the desert. He began to feel a powerful rip in his soul, and the tearing was slow and painful. His body began to crack, and his reiatsu seeped and burst from within him.
The wolf gave on final howl…
xXxXx
The cool air of the never-ending nights of Hueco Mundo pieced his skin.
'It's cold…'
He opened his eyes slowly, seeing the moon come into focus. He cringed at the sight of the moon looking down on him. It was in it's crescent shape and it seemed like it was laughing.
"What a pain," he said, and he hung placed his arm over his eyes.
'…wait… an arm?'
His eyes shot open, and he found himself sitting upright. He looked around and saw feet, and two legs. The only thing was there was no fur, there was skin. He looked further in, and saw two large rags of cloaks that felt like his old adjuchas hide lying across a pelvis. He continued, and saw an abdomen, then a chest; his eyes went right and left and he saw arms and hands.
"…Are these… mine?" he said to himself in genuine amazement.
He felt something weigh down on his neck, and he lifted his hand to feel it.
"My… mask…" he said.
Last time he was awake, he was a wolf, but now he was human in shape. He managed to move his legs, and put one of the two rags around them with his hands. He had never had arms and legs before, and instead of hands, he had paws but somehow he knew exactly how to use them, as if he had bee using them all of his life.
It was fascinating, and frightening to him to experience these new feelings, both the external and the internal. While he was fascinated with his new physical form, he marveled at his change from within. He no longer had his savage hunger, his primal instincts seemed to have vanished, and he could think in ways he never could before. As he let his mind wander, he suddenly felt a deep pain in this body and mind. It grew, and the same pain from before he awoke was coming back. He screamed in pain as a white horn burst from his abdomen, followed by a hand, and then before he knew it an entire body burst from him being and flew not too far in front of him.
Two things from the event shocked him. The first was that something just ripped itself away from him, and the second was the fact that there was no blood. He looked cautiously at the new entity, trying to hide his tired features as he sweat profusely. It was a little girl, a child with green hair and a white hollow mask in the shape of a broken horned helmet.
"Do you… have a name?" he asked the child.
"Lilinette," she answered as she faced him.
He looked into the light purple eyes of the girl, and felt a sense of intimate familiarity with her. It took him a moment to remember that it was because she came from his body.
"Do you have a name? You were once me, after all," she asked him, snapping out of his thoughts.
He let out a confused sigh, unsure what his name was. Could he really say he was the same being a few moments ago when a part of him split away? A name popped into his head, but he couldn't tell if he remembered or if he was just making it up.
"…Stark," he said as he tossed one of the unused rag to the naked girl.
She caught it and wrapped it around her body.
"Stark…" she repeated.
She turned around to face the crescent moon in the sky.
"What should we do now?" she asked.
Stark looked at the moon as well.
"We can do anything," he answered.
"Then where should we go?" she asked.
Stark was quiet for a moment. He didn't know. He was free from everything that he once was. He was no longer a beast with partial intelligence. He was now a thinking, self-conscious entity, but he couldn't figure out what that meant to him. He had never really thought before, let alone chose out of his own free will.
"Anywhere," he said.
He felt the girl looking at him in confusion, but he couldn't blame her. He felt lost; it would take time to get used to intelligence.
"Let's be together," he said.
He felt the girl's smile, and it brought an unknown sensation to his mind, and he wondered what it was. He thought about his words, and wondered why he said that.
'Do I need help figuring this out, or am I just afraid to be alone?' he thought.
He closed his eyes.
"Until the very end," he added solemnly.
Stark opened his eyes again to the moon before he got up onto his "feet." He didn't know what was going to happen next, but he and Lilinette would figure something out together. He looked up again at the moon as Lilinette got up. He stretched out his hand as if to reach for it, but he still couldn't grasp it. Even though he had taken a step closer, it was still the same. He simply could not reach the moon. And still the moon both smiled at him in encouragement, and mocked him with ridicule.
Thank you for reading, and please review.