BLEACH 暗黒の神話
Bleach: Creatures of the Night
I do not own Bleach. It belongs to Tite Kubo, Shuukan Shounen Jump, Shuueisha, VIZ Media, Studio Pierrot, T.V. Tokyo, and Cartoon Network.
3. 病魔を崇めよ
3. Blessed are the Sick
Rangiku couldn't take her eyes off the hole in María's chest. A hollow. All this time María was really a hollow.
But how could that be? If María's an arrancar then there should be some remains of her hollow mask. I don't see any sign of her mask.
María took a step back. She glared hatefully at Rangiku, clutching at her hollow hole. "Now you know what I am," she spat, "and your true nature will surface. Reveal yourself as the cold-blooded murderer you really are, shinigami!"
"María," Rangiku said softly, "even if my duty is to cleanse hollows, I don't have a right to cleanse you if you didn't mean any harm in coming here."
"Liar!" María drew her zanpakutou from its sheath and pointed it at Rangiku. "You just want me to drop my guard long enough for you to kill me! I'm not gonna fall for your tricks! Dig, Fenmuji!"
María's zanpakutou began to glow brightly. Its shape morphed from a katana to a pole, one end transforming into a flat spade-like blade, the other becoming a smaller crescent-shaped blade. Simultaneously, María's fingertips split open, and curved bone-white talons emerged. She swung the released zanpakutou, Fenmuji, pointing the sharpened spade at Rangiku.
"María!" Rangiku said. "I don't want to fight you! I'm willing to let you go peacefully, but if we fight other shinigami will notice and they won't hesitate to cleanse you when they find out you're a hollow!"
The realization of this dawned on María's face. She now looked unsure of herself.
Rangiku smiled. "Okay; now please reseal your zanpakutou before anyone notices and then we can just leave peacefully." She spoke as soothingly as possible. It was it a little difficult to keep her cool given how strange the situation was, but Rangiku wasn't one to loose her head easily.
María stared at her with disbelieving eyes. "You…really don't want to kill me?" she asked.
"I don't know if you've done anything to deserve that," Rangiku answered. "But you if you were telling the truth about coming to Seireitei by accident and just wanting to leave then I think you're innocent enough."
The two watched each other wearily for a few tense moments, and then Fenmuji reverted back to its sealed form. María's talons retracted too. She pulled her shishakushou back up to cover her hollow hole.
"There we go," Rangiku said. She took a step toward María. The hollow girl flinched away. Rangiku spread her arms reassuringly. "It's okay, María."
María looked at her with wide eyes. Tears formed in them and María began to sob shudderingly. She fell to her knees and buried her face in Rangiku's stomach like a frightened child would with a parent. Rangiku let her cry.
They were there for a long while.
Rangiku opened the door to her room, stepped inside, and then closed the door behind her. She had a new bottle of sake. Sitting morosely on her futon was María, now dressed in her original clothes.
Rangiku smiled. "Feel better now, María?"
María nodded her head. "I think so. Rangiku? I'm sorry I called you a murderer. It's just that I grew up fearing shinigami. I was raised to think shinigami were monsters that did nothing but kill hollows."
"That's understandable; most shinigami were raised to think the same way about hollows."
María nodded again.
Rangiku said beside her and took a drink of her sake. "María, if you don't mind me asking, what are you really? You're not a normal hollow but you don't look like an arrancar either."
"I'm actually an arrancar variant," María answered. "A 'heipomian'; an arrancar artificially evolved when exposed to an'uuto essence. A heipomian loses the hollow mask entirely, unlike normal arrancar."
"An'uuto essence?" asked Rangiku.
"The essence of the World of Darkness," María said. "An'uuto are beings born of darkness, and their power can evolve non-an'uuto to stronger forms. Hollows evolve especially well when exposed to an'uuto essence, so some an'uuto came to Hueco Mundo to experiment. I'm a product of those experiments."
"Really?" asked Rangiku. It was incredible to hear that a force totally unknown to her was operating in Hueco Mundo now. She made a mental note to find out if there were any records on the an'uuto or World of Darkness. "María, is a shinigami named Sousuke Aizen involved in these experiments?"
María shook her head. "No, no one by that name was present. There is a shinigami involved though, a woman named Tara Niou. She's one of the leaders of the experiments."
"I've never heard of a shinigami named Tara Niou," said Rangiku.
"That bitch is the reason I ran from them," María muttered darkly. "She's the one who turned me into a heipomian. She told us she wanted to help hollows find a new life free from shinigami threat. But she just wanted to make herself stronger with an'uuto power and overthrow Soul Society with an army of heipomian. Don't like being used like that, so I stole their source of power."
María produced the black crystal and held it up for Rangiku to see. "The 'heidushuijing', or 'black poison crystal', is a condensed form of tremendous amounts of an'uuto essence used for evolving hollows into heipomian and enhancing an'uuto powers in general. Since heipomian use an'uuto power I was able to shoot straight from Hueco Mundo to Seireitei with this."
"Amazing," Rangiku whispered. Now she understood the unease she felt when she saw the crystal earlier. "How powerful is that thing?"
María casually turned the heidushuijing over and over in her finger. "Oh…about powerful enough to completely annihilate Soul Society."
Rangiku paled. "Completely annihilate…"
"If used correctly, it could tear a hole to the World of Darkness open and call countless an'uuto to it. An'uuto can be just as ravenous as hollows. But even if they aren't summoned, a hole to the World of Darkness could rend Soul Society to pieces if opened here. Normally such holes are stabilized by an'uuto to keep other people from learning about them, but an artificial hole that appears very suddenly might not be stabilized in time."
"That's really scary," Rangiku said. "Do you really want to carry that thing around?"
"I need to get rid of it, but I don't know how," said María. "I can't risk letting it fall into the wrong hands, and it's resisted all my attempts to destroy it."
"Looks like we have a real problem then," said Rangiku. She set her sake aside. "Well, I dunno what to do with you. It's not safe for you to be running around with the heidushuijin, but if you stay here your secret's bound to be discovered sooner or later. Where did you plan to go?"
María looked away. "I don't know; I don't belong anywhere now, really."
Rangiku smiled and hugged María. "Aw, don't be like that. As long as you need my help you belong with me. Let me be your protector."
María seemed a little surprised, but then she smiled and returned Rangiku's hug. "Thank you, Rangiku. It's such a relief knowing you want to help me. For a while it felt like everyone was out to get me."
"Hey, I'm not squishing you with my boobs, am I? These things sometimes make hugging troublesome."
"No, it's not problem," said María. "You feel so warm and nice. I like hugging you."
Rangiku ran a hand playfully through María's hair. "Why don't you stay here and sleep in my futon. I sleep on my couch all the time, so it's no problem."
"Really? Thank you."
Rangiku got up and moved to the door. She opened it and gave María one last smile. "Good night María."
María tucked herself into the futon. "Good night Rangiku."
The shinigami left, leaving María alone with her thoughts. She definitely liked Rangiku now, no doubt about it. She's so much like Alba it's almost frightening, she mused as she drifted off to sleep.
Tara Niou was losing patience.
It had been three days since that little traitor María had run off with the heidushuijing, and none of the other heipomian were able to find her. Tara swore that when she got her hands on María she would slowly have her body parts chopped off and feed them to the an'uuto soldiers. Why did the girl have to steal the heidushuijing anyway? Couldn't María see that they were going to create a better world with it?
Prince Resu entered the tent. Tara was about to snap at him for not announcing himself first, but the satisfied smile on his face told her something had changed.
"Well, what is it?"
"I've been able to determine that the heidushuijing is no long in Hueco Mundo," the an'uuto prince said in his usual soft tone.
"That doesn't help us very much," Tara said irritably.
"Oh, but I've also determined that the heidushuijing is now in Soul Society."
Tara couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Soul Society? María brought the crystal to Soul Society of all places?"
Resu pulled off his furry hood and shook out his luxurious mane of white hair. "At least I found it. We just need a way to reach it with a minimum of trouble. Would anyone still recognize you if you went up there?"
"Good question," said Tara. "Yamamoto would, but I don't know about the others."
"Well I'm sure we could work out a solution if we just put our minds to it," he said.
A smile spread across Tara pale face. "You know, I think I have an idea already…"
To be continued…
Bleach: Creatures of the Night Data File
María Susana's zanpakutou
Name: Fenmuji (墳墓姫 (フンムージー) Funmuujii, lit. Grave Princess)
Fuhuo: Fenmuji is transformed into a Chinese monk's spade and María grows long talons. It is activated by the command "dig" (掘れ hore).
Abilities: The talons on her left hand can be extended further then the ones on her right hand, effectively giving her a secondary weapon. Welding the released Fenmuji with her right hand, she can block and follow up attacks with her clawed left hand.
Author's notes: I didn't like how quickly María gave up against Rangiku, but I had no other choice; Rangiku was right about what would happen if they fought right there. Other than that I really like how this chapter came out. Thus I tie yet another story into my "an'uuto mythos". It's like I'm compelled to write about them.
