Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach or Soul Eater or their characters, all of which belong to Tite Kubo or Atsushi Okubo respectively. OCs and anything original from these is my own work.

Brief: After the Kishin was revived, the Madness Wavelength was released to the world and a new form of Black Blood was made that found it's way into the realm of the hollows. Lord Death decided to act by sending to Meisters to investigate, but they soon end up with more than they had bargained. Contains swearing, slight romance and potential gore/shocking imagery.

Pairings: IchiRuki, KaiHime, SoMa, potential others.


Bleached Souls: Black Bloodlust

Chapter 9: The Creatures of Blood

Kai gazed around the sand dunes as the group walked across Hueco Mundo, his brow furrowed somewhat. Ichigo looked over to him, noticing this, and nudged his friend in the ribs.

"What is it?" he asked. Kai shrugged.

"I'm not quite sure," he admitted. "Something doesn't feel right, though. It's too quiet for my liking."

"I agree, but we can't be sure of what is in store for us until we reach it," Ichigo replied.

"I was afraid you'd say that," Kai commented dryly. "It's also the Sanctuary." Ichigo sighed, making Kai's gaze snap to him. "What?" His voice had an edge of hostility but mostly was friendly curiosity.

"The Sanctuary," Ichigo replied. "You mean the bastards that don't believe that you didn't kill your commanding officer and turned against you, right? But that's behind you; you shouldn't dredge up the past so much or you'll never move forward."

"I know that," Kai snapped irritably. "I was actually wondering what they've got in store for us; I spoke with Ed after the wedding, and he said that there's something going on in Alkahmia, and it's got me thinking what JX is doing."

"What do you mean?" Ichigo frowned.

"I mean that bastard is almost certainly still working with the Zempaki, and if that is the case, they might have helped him grow stronger somehow." He touched his scar over his heart. "I can still feel him here; wherever he is and whatever he does, I feel it in my body too. Sanctuary scientists thought it was something called 'subconscious imprint', a link between beings which split from one. I know he won't rest until he's in control of both dimensions, and he probably won't stop there either." Kai's eyes fell on Ichigo once more. "I want you to help me defeat him, Ichigo. I don't think I could take on everyone by myself, even if my friends from the Sanctuary were to help."

Ichigo smirked and patted his friend's shoulder.

"You got it, Kai," he replied. "We've got you back with this one."

"Thanks... And promise me one other thing," His voice had turned darker as he spoke. "I may have to change to take him on. I want you to promise me that if I show any signs of turning, no matter how small," His eyes were hard and cold as he said this. "I want you to kill me." Ichigo looked shocked by this, but listened on. "If JX kills me, then it would just mean that he outmatched me, but if I join his side, he could become unstoppable; imagine our reiatsus merged and our weapons fused too; it would spell the end for Alkahmia and for the World of the Living, and I can't allow that to happen, so promise me you'll do me that one last service."

"I will," Ichigo replied solemnly. "If it happens."

"Thank you. You'll find my fighting style protects my neck and my left-hand back; these are my weak-points."

The conversation was abruptly ended as a loud roar echoed somewhere ahead of them.

"Can anyone see it?" Rukia asked, her hand tightening around the zanpakuto at her waist, but Kai fully unsheathed his.

"I'll check it out with my wings," he said, donning his mask. "Hopefully that'll give me that surprise element I need to kill it if needs be."

He unfurled his wings in a flurry of red reshi and took to the air again, quickly spotting the creature. It was a dark teal colour with a dripping black mask like the one in Karakura, its green eyes resting on Kai quickly. Before he could react, the creature had revealed two tube-like appendages sheathed in its back and fired two streams of a black tar-like substance. The winged Vizard dodged left and swooped downwards, using a Shunpo to abruptly change his attack direction as the attack was repeated. His blade sliced through the beast's back, leaving a wound with profusely oozed the substance from before, but his second attack missed, instead hacking through the tubes. A spray of its ammunition hit Kai in the face and he backed away, gagging as the foul stench and god-awful taste impaired his fighting ability. He tore the lower jaw of his mask away and spat the gunk from his mouth, but he had left himself open and took a heavy-handed punch to the chest, sending him back a few feet.

Uryu took the opportunity while Kai had the beast's attention to fired a barrage of arrows at it, but they barely pierced the skin and the wounds were quick to heal. Ichigo roared, focussing his energies into Zangetsu.

"Soul Resonance!" he yelled, the cleaver taking on its more powerful, blue state.

He ran at the creature, but it used the openings in its back to form wings of black blood and take off, escaping Ichigo's gasp. The Captain fired a Getsuga from his Resonating zanpakuto, but a ball of black blood plummeted onto it, causing it to prematurely explode. Rukia was also in Resonance, her icy blade firing a jet of freezing snow at the hollow, but the attack missed. The creature roared again and the ground shook around them.

"What the-" Soul started, but a huge grey hand emerged by his Meister's feet and gripped the sandy ground, pulling itself up. "Maka, watch out!"

The girl leapt away as another hollow appeared, this one with yellow eyes and the same mask, but it also had a pair of cuts in its forearms, from which it managed to muster a pair of blade made of black blood. The floor opened up and revealed four more of the creatures, each sporting a mask and various attributes of its own; one had four arms, one had six tubes which could be summoned from its back to fire black blood, the fifth one had small pores in its back, shoulders and fists from which it could fire bloodied needle-like projectiles and the last one was fairly large compared to the others and had a large tail, wings and three heads, giving it a dragon-like look about it.. The group gazed at the five hollows, deciding what to do.

"Rukia and I will take that one with the blades," Ichigo said firmly. "Renji, you and Chad deal with the four-armed one. Maka, Kid, that one with the tube things on it. Uryu, your bow skills would be best against that one with the pores, so you take care of it. Grimmjow, your lot should deal with the last one."

"What about the one that's flying?" Maka asked, her head turned to her left and away from the winged beast when an explosion echoed behind from the sky.

Kai stood with his Resonating Frenzy mode ready, smoke emanating from the blade from under the flames. He grinned to them before pulling on his mask again.

"He's mine!" he shouted, springing up at the creature and flip-kicking it in the face for effect. Ichigo shook his head.

"Show off," he muttered, tensing up. "Go!"

The two Meisters leapt forward, the scythe catching the hollow in the ribs while it was off-guard, but it quickly recovered and extended a tubular appendage towards Maka, launching a torrent of black sludge at the place she had been standing moments before. Kid used the time to form his Resonance.

"Noise level 1.7%" Liz informed Kid before he fired the twin cannons at the creature.

The dual strikes in the face did little but disorientate the beast, and even that was brief. It reared up and launched three blasts of black blood at Kid, but the Grim Reaper was prepared for this counter attack and sprung away from the creature at the last minute, firing a couple of blasts at the creature to preoccupy it and draw its attention away from Maka while she resonated with Soul.

Meanwhile, Renji and Chad were having slightly worse luck with their target; the hulking four arms of the creature meant it had no need for weapons. A punch came at Chad, but his shield-like right arm blocked it with a grunt. The second came at his left, his more vulnerable side when he was blocking a frontal attack, but the huge bone snake Renji wielded head-butted the hollow in the face and sent it backwards a few feet.

"Thanks," Chad said gruffly.

"No problem," Renji replied. "But we need to think of a way to defeat this guy!"

The serpent lunged forwards at its master's command, lashing forwards and biting down on the top-right arm. The hollow reared up and tried to crush the snake's skull, but it moved too quickly.

"Renji," Chad said abruptly. "Distract it and wrap your zanpakuto around it, then I can use La Muerte on it."

"I like your style, Chad," Renji replied, grinning."Let's go!"

As they put their plan into motion, Ichigo and Rukia were having a much tougher time. The hollow they had chosen to fight was far from weak, utilising not only a great deal of strength but also the speed, stamina and focus of a master swordsman, making it a formidable opponent. It's long, arm-mounted blades thrust towards Rukia's chest, but she used her resonating zanpakuto to parry the first quickly while Ichigo slashed with Zangetsu, deflecting the second from her. The creature used a Sonido to avoid the counter-attack Ichigo had lunged with, getting behind and firing a Cero at the Captain. He cut downwards, severing the beam of red which engulfed the area around his body and keeping himself alive, then he rushed forwards, the Cero finished, and rose his weapon to cut through the beast's mask, but it launched a projectile of reiatsu with so much speed it took Ichigo by surprise and sent him hurtling backwards, Zangetsu falling from his hand in the process.

"Ichigo!" Rukia screamed out, but the creature was on her again.

She lashed out with a stab as the twin-bladed attack the hollow had planned missed, piercing the beast's hierro and drenching the sand and her crystalline blade in the murky black torrent which was its blood. Satisfied she had damaged it significantly, Rukia went to pull her blade from the body and slice through its mask, but she found that the wound had sealed around her weapon and it refused to be removed. The punch caught her off-guard and knocked her away, the sword out of her grip and lodged in the beast still. She coughed, spitting out the scarlet venom in her throat, and backed away as the hollow reared up and went to bring its blade down upon her, but something flew just passed her head and struck the beast in the chest, knocking it away. Rukia turned to see Ichigo, his resonating sword slung onto his shoulder.

"You ok, Rukia?" he asked calmly.

"Baka!" she barked angrilly. "What the hell were you doing firing that thing so close to me, Strawberry?"

"It's called saving your butt, midget! Maybe if you hadn't lost your sword I wouldn't have had to do that!"

"I did NOT lose it! It's in that hollow's body. AND DON'T CALL ME MIDGET!"

Kai rolled his eyes as the two argued.

"They can never be quiet, can they?" he wondered aloud, jumping up to dodge the hollow's attack and punching it in the face.

The creature whimpered and went to attack again, but Kai was using the power of the Madness Wavelength all too well for it to stop him with its claws. He swung his blade in three quick arcs and summoned three Madness Waves; the first was dodged, the second cleaved the beast's right arm off at the elbow and the third took it by surprise, the left wing turning to liquid as it tore through. Seizing the opportunity to take it out, Kai threw his sword out to his right and swung it in a massive arc. The hollow, as if sensing the impending attack, leapt backwards and flew higher, but Kai never launched the vast Madness Wave. Instead, he grabbed his sword and leapt into it, the blade becoming a dark red pulsing colour inside the flames and electricity around it. Kai lunged upwards, focussing his sights on the hollow and kicking it downwards, another unexpected strike, before he raised his blade and pointed it at the creature as it plummeted.

"Dragon's Madness," he murmured, the blade's colour returning as a ball of red enshrouded in black and red flames appeared at the tip. With a single movement of his muscles, the simple tightening of his grip, the ball exploded downwards in a beam with tore downwards and vaporised the falling body. The beam slowly reduced in size until all that remained was a single strand of red lightning which soon fizzled out to reveal that the creature was indeed dead. "Tough luck, hollow. You were no match for me."

Meanwhile, the large creature Uryu had been fighting had halted its attack, seemingly exhausted by the massive output of projectiles it had summoned, and the archer took the opportunity to regain his focus and get a plan forged in his head. The sheer number of projectiles the creature could produce at once meant the Quincy was far outmatched, but he was not beaten yet.

I can't get up close to cut it with my Seele Schneider, he thought quickly. Perhaps using Sprenger will sub due it so that I can-

An explosion tore through the air and distracted the hulking creature, giving Uryu the perfect moment to unleash the trap. He fired the special arrows into their places, but the third barely missed the hollow and it turned, firing another barrage of projectiles as he loaded the fourth into his bow. Cursing, Uryu almost had to dodge, when something stabbed through the ground before him, a a huge pulse of reiatsu forming a makeshift shield, enraging the beast when it could not force the energy to yield. Following the chain, the hollow opened fired with all of its pores at once on Kai, but he pulled the mighty sword back and sustained the Chaos Wave around the no longer resonating form of Supernova to defend himself as he leapt this way and that.

"Hey, Ishida!" Kai yelled. "Hurry up and do what you're doing while I've got the bastard distracted!"

Nodding, Uryu fired the fourth and prepared to stab the fifth bladed arrow into the ground.

"Get him to move left a little, Friel!" he ordered, to which Kai saluted with two left fingers and the Neo-Vizard released the stored up Chaos Wave, using it as coved to force the creature into the centre of the pentagram. He leapt upwards and out of the way just in time as Uryu completed the star and added the contents of a ginto to the nearest blade. "Sprenger!"

The pentagram exploded upwards, tearing apart the futilely struggling hollow. To ensure it was dead, Kai had launched a Chaos Wave through its body, destroying it fully and beyond recovery. He grinned.

"Nice work... For a Quincy." The two chuckled a little at Kai's playful comment, when a sullen roar caught their attention.

The three headed beast had fallen, its body badly scratched up and two head lopped off altogether. The three Espada-class arrancar had torn it apart with little trouble or even having to release their zanpakuto. Around the same time, Renji and Chad had totalled their opponent with little more trouble, their plan successful. The Meisters too had managed to sever the creature's head through use of repeated blasts from Kid making a cover for Maka's strikes. The only one that remained was the one Ichigo and Rukia were fighting, but it was fighting relentlessly.

Rukia had to hold back, her weapon still firmly lodged inside their opponent's abdomen, so Ichigo had had to use his Resonance form to fight on par with the beast. He had successfully sliced through the upper arm of its left arm with the use of a Getsuga, cauterising the wound and stopping any reconstruction through the appendage where the arm was missing, but it had used the excess blood to increase its right blade, making it harder in some respects. The Squad 5 Captain roared as he clashed with the creature and locked blades with it, trying a point-blank Getsuga, but the attack did little but stun the opponent. He saw an opportunity to grab the sword hilt which protruded the hollow's stomach and was amazed when it reacted to his touch. The hollow shrieked as the icy sword blackened slightly under Ichigo's control. He smirked and pierced the hollow's flesh with his own blade, still gripping Sode no Shirayuki, before he let out a growling roar as he focussed his immense reiatsu into both swords at once. The resulting explosion covered Ichigo and the swords in black blood, much to his distaste, but at least the hollows were killed. He handed Rukia her sword and she grimaced at it.

"Gross," she muttered, shaking the muck from the weapon. Ichigo grinned at her then turned to the others.

"Looks like that was all of them."

"We must be on the right track," Grimmjow purred, satisfied that this was proof. "Aizen wouldn't make these things and put them in pointless places, therefore they were guarding something."

"And I think I see what," Kai called, gesturing over a sand dune. Far away across the white ocean of sand stood a replica of Los Noches before it was damaged, but it was a darker colour than before. Kai pointed his blade at the domed palace. "That's where he is, I can feel it."

"No sense wasting time, then," Ichigo grinned. "Let's get this over with!"

The group ran towards the huge palace, unaware of the danger that lurked beneath their feet as they pounded across the desert.


Alright, so this one is both shorter than usual and also a bit rushed at the end, but big deal.

The reasons for that are that it was getting long winded (its not exactly a big fight, so why make it like one?) and I actually had another story, which I posted a few days back, which took my mind off of this one, so I'm sorry for that.

I'm also sorry to anyone who liked the Language of the Heart fanfic, but it's being redone as I type this and the old one is going to be scrapped.

If that or my other story catches your attention, please be sure to read them, but for now please review this and thanks for reading so far.

Next time, another assault on Los Noches!