Disclaimer: I wish I owned Bleach, but I don't. The owner is Tite Kubo.
What the young street urchin, known only as Sosuke, found out from the shinigami's interrogation of the hollow was more than interesting; it answered many of the questions that plus souls could only dream about knowing while producing more. He had thought that most hollows would be little more than dumb beasts, hardly unfamiliar to simple grunts or phrases, but this one was different.
Having recovered with his earlier engagement with the beast, the youngster plopped himself down to listen in on the conversation, but it was an exercise in frustration as the voice of the shinigami came out in lower distorted tones as she poked and prodded the hollow with her reiatsu. It put up as much of a fight as it could after taking the shinigami's paralyzing blow, so it flared some of its' own reiatsu to offset the pressure it was under, but eventually the hollow cracked.
The young man strained to hear what was being said only able to pick out maybe half of the conversation after the hollow finally decided to talk, which was better than some of the other members who were also trying to listening in, but it was more than enough to realize what was really going on.
He pieced together that a pack of hollows had come forth from the woods in the area and brought down their reiatsu on the unsuspecting villagers. Apparently, there was a leader among them who had used the reiatsu induced deaths from their arrival as leverage in order to force the villagers to abandon their homes before he marched them into the woods. They would find about eleven more of them in the back of the village, probably fighting over dividing up the spoils, if they ventured deeper. It chuckled at the last bit, carelessly letting drool escape from its' mouth, probably imagining a bloody scene only hollows would find appealing.
The hollow in question had stayed behind as a lookout after invading the village, but it seemed that his hunger had gotten the best of him when the shinigami appeared. Either way, it looked like the squad would have to move quickly before the hollows got over whatever little dispute they were having and turned their attention towards the Aizen villagers. The officer seemed to have also come to the same conclusion as she knocked the hollow out and walked over to the on looking militia members lounging about.
She appeared before the group with a satisfied gleam in her eye.
"Our enemy has revealed itself in a failed ambush and I was also able to extract the current location of where the rest of its allies are located."
The tension seen on some of the faces of the militia members eased as the idea of walking into an ambush was discarded. The shinigami further strengthened their resolve after noticing their much more confidant faces.
"They failed to ambush us, and we'll turn this opportunity right back on them. We're going to lure them all in a trap of our own,"She said, with the same smirk from earlier forming.
A female militia member to the young street urchin's right spoke up in a confused tone after the shinigami gave out her new orders.
" Um, how are we going to lure them into this trap?" she said, her voice held steady as the shinigami directed her undivided attention towards the female militia member.
"Don't worry about it just yet ; some of them are on their way here. I just need you all to get to the roofs surrounding us as fast as possible," she said, watching with an unimpressed glance as all the militia members snapped up with great urgency after becoming much too lax watching her interrogation.
Finding himself just as hurried as the others were in getting their gear in proper order, Sosuke was startled as he felt a hand grasp his right shoulder. Turning around to view the hand in question, he was slightly taken aback as he was looked up at the face of the shinigami officer.
"You did good back that there, kid. Did you know you managed to injure the hollow's throat? I would've stopped it from calling on backup myself, but good work," She teased.
"Thank you, Officer," he said in deep gratitude, slightly reddening at the praise.
"Don't mention it. I saw that you handled yourself pretty well. In fact, I think you can handle doing a separate assignment for me,"she said.
She continued to carry on the conversation as her tone shifted as low as possible so that the two of them could not be heard by the others. The young man listened in silent curiosity as the shinigami began to tell him of the separate mission she had in mind for him; a plan that was daring and dangerous, but still unarguably ingenious.
She turned directly to him, asking the question he'd been waiting to hear.
"Are you up to it?" she asked, silently waiting without an ounce of judgment leaking into her voice as she noted his widened eyes.
However, before he could even think about giving her an answer, a blue haze quickly clouded his vision. Try as he might, he could not wipe the haze away from his eyes, futilely looking to rid himself of the hallucination engulfing him. He quickly gave up only to notice the newly sea-blue tinted world that seemed to be completely silenced. Everything was frozen in place , even sound it seemed. He quickly started to panic as he noticed he was looking at the disorienting scene in front of him from an elevated position.
Quickly looking down, he noticed that somehow he had left his body behind, staring into the face of the shinigami. Confusion overtook his panic as he tried to think of a solution for his ridiculously strange predicament until once again, he experienced the sound from earlier.
DING -DING !
Optional Mission Available::
Side-Quest: Family Rescue
Do you accept the 'Side Quest: Family Rescue'?
YES/NO
He floated down next to his now static body as words appeared in front of your face out of thin air once again. He had no idea if he was losing his mind, but he saw that not a single militia member was moving nor were there any others floating around like him, so he hopelessly theorized that it could have been all in his head. he surmised that maybe that maybe he'd had a mental break down of sorts, but he doubted that he'd failed to notice that he'd been under this much pressure. Hoping to take his mind off the depressing conclusion, the young man started glancing back to the words in front of his physical form, deciding that instead of touching one of the two words presented, he should look for any signs of help on how to proceed. It was currently his best course of action, all things considered. He slowly drifted around for any clues he could gather for a few seconds before another sound went off.
He looked around frantically about for more words to appear before being struck by a strong urge to sleep. As he slowly started to lose the fight to stay awake, he saw a small, bright ball of light appear. He wasn't completely sure it was safe, but it felt strangely familiar.
Before losing consciousness, he was able to make out a confidant sounding female voice call out to him.
"We meet again, old friend," it said, before the young man finally lost the battle with slumber and knew consciousness no more. His last thought was centered on the one word that had kept him alive this long as he mentally chanted 'survive' right up until he fell into unconsciousness.
Unaware of the static sea-hued world around him, the young man gently floated in silence.
Still floating in mid air before his face, the small ball of light moved over to the floating disembodied body of who it recognized as a much younger version of a man it knew as Aizen Sosuke, before it began moving over his body then abruptly stopping at his head.
"Now, how will I play this?"the same female voice from earlier whispered, drawing closer to his forehead.
The ball of light flickered quickly, synchronizing with young Sosuke's breath as it slowly descended down to make contact with his forehead.
This meeting between the ball of light and the young Aizen Sosuke held a despicable air of mystery to any would-be observer, but what was certain was that the air shifted with the amused laughter of that unseen female voice as their unknown intentions and schemes were set in motion.
What mischief this entity was up to was something only time would reveal, which for those involved, would hopefully come in great haste.
Author's Note:
Hope you like the update. I'm planning on going slow with the introduction of the game mechanics that Sosuke 's going to see.I want to make sure there's some good world building going on before I put in the meta-gaming aspects in. Also, if it isn't quite clear, this world is going to be based off canon, but its' going to be a lot more darker real soon.
Enjoy.
