Shock and fear spread through Rukia's veins, every cell in her body feeling like lead. Time seemed to slow down as the Cero sped towards her, golden energy radiating from the powerful beam. All her effort was concentrated on her legs, eventually allowing her to leap away from the oncoming energy just in time to avoid being incinerated by it. She landed a few meters away and looked over at her assailant.
It was clearly an Arrancar of some sort, a bipedal humanoid with the features of a Hollow. Its skin was black with a scaled texture that seemed more like carbon fiber than any reptile, a long thick tail coming from the base of its spine and sporting a scythe on its tail made of bone. Despite its black, scaly skin, its face was hidden by a white mask of bone, shaped like a dog's head, orange eyes glowing beneath their openings. It had a head of hair that went down passed its shoulders like a headdress, alternating between gold and blue horizontal stripes. On its chest was another bony structure shaped like an ankh, with the creature's cylindrical Hollow hole in the opening of the loop.
"Rukia, run! Get as far away from here as possible!" Unohana shouted from within the pillar. Despite her status, she was not doing anything to try and break free, merely standing there worrying about Rukia.
It was something the petite Shinigami could not understand; Unohana was one of the strongest Shinigami in the Seireitei, yet she was not even trying to escape the encapsulation. Even if she were more worried about Rukia than her own safety, she would be able to do more to protect her if she escaped her pillar. Not that Rukia was unable to protect herself, but it seemed that Retsu did not want her to confront their attacker, at least.
The Shinigami reached for her zanpakuto instinctively but her hand met only the material of her shortalls. Her panic increased at the absence of her sword, but she quickly calmed herself down as she remembered that the blade was sitting in its sheath on the picnic tarp. A quick glance told her that it was about ten meters from her current location, at two o'clock relative to the Hollow at twelve.
"Yes, run…" The Arrancar snarled, "A pitiful Shinigami such as yourself would make naught but a small snack compared to the bountiful feast of this caged rat."
"Hado number seventy-three, Souren Soukatsui!" She shouted, anger growing as the monster claimed to want to hurt Unohana.
Blue energy welled up in two of her fingertips, pulsing as they hit full power. With the pushing of her palm, the energy burst forth in two beams of spiritual energy that combined into one for extra potency. However, instead of aiming at the Hollow, she instead aimed for the golden pillar, a bit above Retsu's head. Yet, her attack burst harmlessly against the pillar like a fly against a windshield.
"Rukia, it is no use." Retsu said, "None of your attacks can pierce this field…it is a Negación."
The Arrancar smiled as Unohana explained her prison. Rukia's eyes widened, now understanding the woman's lack of action. A Negación was a powerful technique unique to the Hollowkind, allowing them to generate barriers that were utterly impenetrable to any attack whatsoever. The pillars separated those inside from the dimension they were currently in, unaffected by any outside force. She had not seen one since Aizen and the other traitors made their departure from the Soul Society. Not even the Captain Commander himself bothered to attack the pillars at that time, it would have been just as useless as the Kido she just tried.
"A Negación?" He questioned, "You fool, it is the Negación. The progenitor of all other Negación in the Hollows that came after!"
"No…but then, that would make you…"
"Nizhet." Both the Captain and the Hollow said the name at the same time.
"I see my reputation precedes me…" He said, fanged mouth twisted into a cruel smile.
"Rukia! Leave. Now!" Retsu intensely shouted at her.
Rukia's body nearly obeyed the terrifying woman on its own, but she managed to stay put. She would not just leave Unohana to the whims of this monster; they were far away from the Soul Society and even further from the Seireitei, so by the time she found other Shinigami strong enough to assist her and brought them back, Nizhet could have done any number of horrible things. Granted, Retsu was in a Negación, so Rukia was sure she was as safe from the beast as possible, but there was also a ceiling on this pillar that she did not remember being present on the ones Aizen used to escape, so for all she knew, the Captain only had a limited supply of air. Regardless, she was not going to take the chance and let the Arrancar have free reign.
"Who…who is Nizhet?" Rukia found herself asking.
"He was a powerful Hollow who used to wreak havoc through the Soul Society. I have never encountered him myself until today, but he was infamous for the bodies he would leave in his wake." Retsu began, "It was thought that the Captain Commander had defeated him in an intense battle three hundred years ago, but it seems we were mistaken…"
"That old bastard wounded me quite severely, but I managed to get away amidst the charred carnage your supposed hero left behind and go into a hibernative state." The Hollow explained, contempt dripping from his voice.
"But…how were you able to hide here without being detected?" Rukia asked, using her stalling questions to inch closer to her sword.
"You Shinigami are not as perceptive as you think…" He smirked.
"Rukia, do you not notice anything odd about his spiritual pressure?" Unohana asked.
Prompted by the question, Rukia tried to think about it, before a staunch realization struck.
"He…he doesn't have any…" She muttered, not fully believing it.
"I alone among the Hollows possess the ability to completely seal my own spiritual pressure." Nizhet snarled, still smirking.
"Not completely…" The Captain rebutted, "A couple of weeks ago, we detected an immense blip of spiritual pressure. No doubt your awakening from your hibernation."
"I suppose you Shinigami have improved in my absence…though certainly not enough."
Rukia was only a meter from the tarp at this point, inching closer and closer to her weapon.
"Don't underestimate us, Arrancar." Rukia said.
"Arrancar?" The Hollow questioned, "I am no Arrancar, you pitiful whelp."
That was not something Rukia expected to hear. While it was true that he seemed to be missing the zanpakuto—as well as having a complete Hollow mask instead of a broken fragment—he fit every other description of an Arrancar. He was bipedal, humanoid and average human height. Regular Hollows were large, hulking beasts, so if he was not an Arrancar, then what was he? Unless…
"I am Nizhet, the first and strongest of the Vasto Lorde!" He shouted, swinging his scythed tail at Rukia.
She did managed to dive out of the way, the pile of splinters that used to be the picnic basket not quite as lucky, but was unable to grab her zanpakuto. Most important, however, was the news that she had just received. Vasto Lorde were the final and strongest of the natural Hollow evolutionary states. They were incredibly rare and powerful; even Aizen's Espada, the ten Arrancar made of the strongest Hollows Aizen could find, only contained a couple made from a Vasto Lorde, both at the top of the ranks.
"Now that you know what you are up against, perhaps you should listen to your elder and flee this place. Your weakness bores me." Nizhet taunted.
Ignoring his words, Rukia quickly held up her hand. "Carriage of thunder, bridge of a spinning wheel. With light, divide this into six! Bakudo number sixty-one, Rikujoukourou!"
Six wide but paper-thin beams of light collided into Nizhet's midsection, pinning the Hollow in place. Wasting no time, the Shinigami ran towards his tail, leaping over it to grab her sheathed zanpakuto. Despite the fact that the Vasto Lorde was currently immobile, Rukia noticed a golden light wash over her as she realized that a Cero was headed her way. It was the only attack that he perform do while imprisoned by the binding spell and also one of the more powerful ones. She leapt away, giving herself a decent amount of distance between her and him. Whether his tail could extend or was longer than he had made it appear, it was still valuable information she would need to safely avoid his attacks. As if on cue, the Bakudo spell holding him at bay shattered from the sheer strength he possessed.
"If that was your best, Shinigami, then you are even more pathetic than I thought." The Hollow snarled.
Rukia once again ignored his taunting; she had her sword now so she could show him her true strength. She grabbed her sheath and tugged it off her sword, met with a sight she could not comprehend; her zanpakuto was covered in nicks, scratches, chips and even a bit of rust. It was as if it had been used for a hundred years without an ounce of repair or restoration made to it.
"Wh-what…but how…?" She muttered to herself, completely befuddled.
What could have possibly happened to her sword? She had last used it just days ago against the Hollow at the mall, yet here she was holding a battered sword. Zanpakuto were not supposed to retain damage like this, no matter how badly they were damaged in battle; all it took was a bit of time and they would be good as new. In fact, it was not even a matter of retaining damage in this instance, as her blade had not suffered damage like this to be retained. As confused and worried as she was, though, she had no time to contemplate this any more; a powerful enemy was close and willing to kill her.
"Dance, Sode no Shirayuki!" She shouted her shikai's release phrase, holding up her sword.
Yet, nothing happened; her sword remained in the same shape, same state of disrepair. It might have grown slightly lighter in color, but it also might have just been her imagination. Her hilt remained free of the long ribbon that was supposed to grow from it in its shikai form, as well, leaving her dumbfounded. Her mind ran through any possible reason why her shikai would fail but nothing came to her. It was the worst possible time that this could happen, leaving her with naught but a damaged sword to fight off a Vasto Lorde.
"Come, Shinigami, show me your power…" Nizhet growled.
With a deep breath, Rukia gripped her sword and ran at the Hollow. Once she got close, she began swinging at him. However, her blows merely bounced off his flesh harmlessly; she might as well have been using a toothpick sword for all the good it was doing.
"Pathetic." He smirked, "My turn…"
The Hollow quickly slashed his clawed hands at Rukia, who had to jump backwards to avoid being sliced to ribbons. However, she was only fast enough to avoid the brunt of the attack, wincing as the dagger-like claws ripped through her left shortall strap and shirt, lacerating the skin beneath in three long gashes.
"If that is your best, you should save us both the trouble and let me skewer you." He mocked, licking the blood off his claws.
"Rukia, I am ordering you to run before you are severely injured!" Retsu shouted from her cell, "You cannot beat him alone!"
Perhaps that was true, but Rukia was not going to run away like a coward. If it were true, she was going to find out firsthand. She slid her damaged sword back into her sheath and began to focus her energy.
"Bakudo number seventy-nine, Kuyou Shibari!"
Around the Hollow, eight black points of energy appeared, growing in size and gaining a purple outline. Nizhet looked at them and prepared for an attack. Yet, they remained in place, as a ninth one suddenly grew in the space occupied by his chest. He grimaced a bit as the Bakudo immobilized him with much more force than the previous one.
"Foolish Shinigami…You know that I do not need to move…to use a Cero…" He managed to get out.
Golden energy began to well up in front of his chest, breaking through the edge of the black hole. Rukia, expecting this, held out her palm, gripping her wrist with the other hand.
"Hado number eighty-eight, Hiryuu Gekizoku Shinten Raihou!"
An enormous beam crackling with electricity burst from her palm, lighting the entire area in a light blue aura. It collided with the oncoming Cero, but ripped right through it as if it were just a beam from a flashlight. The bound Hollow could do nothing as the beam of spiritual energy struck him in a tremendous burst of energy.
Rukia was breathing heavily as the smoke began to clear; she had never used such a powerful Bakudo or Hado before, so using one right after the other was exhausting.
"For a moment there, I thought I would actually have some injuries from that. Disappointing…"
Rukia grimaced as the Hollow spoke, seemingly no worse for wear. Sure enough, as the dust cleared, he looked virtually untouched, no longer even bound by the Bakudo. Without wasting a moment, he swung his tail towards the petite Shinigami. Her reaction time was reduced due to how much energy the last attacks took out of her, but she managed to leap out of the way of the bony scythe. However, that just put her in the perfect place for his next attack; from the loop of his chest ankh, a barrage of Bala launched. They were fist sized bullets of energy, faster but weaker than a Cero beam. In the air, she had no way to dodge the bullets, like baseballs hitting across her body. The combined force of the energy bullets knocked her to the ground, pain emanating across her body.
She got to her feet slowly, her legs weak. One of the Bala had shattered the plastic buckle on her surviving shortall strap, causing the front to droop down from the lack of support. The slightly loose garment, now free of the straps holding it up, began to slide a bit down her legs. It was not all that far, but it was proving to be a distraction, and certainly would be a significant one if it fell any further, as movement would cause. As much as she wished that modesty was important at the moment, it was not. With a sigh, she quickly tugged the shortalls off to get them out of the way. Her face reddened for just a moment before the magnitude of the current situation came back to her.
"Rukia, if you do not leave here immediately, I will prolong your punishment until the sun dies out!" Unohana shouted, clearly looking worried for the struggling Shinigami.
"I can't leave you!" Rukia shouted back, unable to ignore her commands any longer, "You are too important to me to just leave you here!" The truth felt nice, even with the pain she was experiencing.
"I…thank you." Retsu responded, "But I do not want to see you get hurt anymore."
"Please, I've endured a spanking at your hands." Rukia said with a smirk, "Compared to that, this is nothing."
A small smile managed to break through Unohana's alarmed countenance for a moment. "Yes, well, just promise me you will be careful."
"Don't worry, I'll have you out of there soon." Rukia replied.
Despite her bravado, the battered Shinigami was not sure what she could do; her body was running on fumes, her zanpakuto might as well not even be her. Her strongest attack had not even scratched him and she had no further ideas to even attempt.
"Surely that is not all you have?" Nizhet mockingly questioned, "Weak attacks, a bizarre outfit and useless sentiments?"
Rukia had not even a moment to feel embarrassment at the comment about her outfit, as the Vasto Lorde launched another volley of Bala towards her. Her body was too sluggish at the moment to avoid this barrage, so she held out her hand and hoped for the best.
"B-Bakudo number…thirty-nine, Enkousen!"
Yellow energy emanated from her hand, spinning in a circular fashion around her. The Bala pellets bombarded the energy shield, each impact causing her to wince from the exertion it took to keep the shield active. With each strike, it became harder to hold it together, until the final energy bullet managed to break through the shield and hit her right in the ribcage.
"Gah!" She fell to her knees as she felt the bone crack, just short of breaking. "B-Bakudo number tw-twenty-seven, Jirenmaku."
From her location, smoke billowed out of the ground, forming the visage of a skull, just enough to obscure her. Nizhet quickly swung his tail at the smoke, but only served to disperse some of it, his target already gone.
"Hiding, Shinigami? Or perhaps running with your tail tucked between your legs?" Nizhet loudly asked as he looked around, "Either way, I'll tuck mine right between your eyes!"
From within the same alcove that she hid from Unohana, Rukia tried to slow her deep breathing. She had made some good distance between her and the Hollow, but if she was not careful, he would be able to detect her. Her ears searched for even the slightest of sounds, anything that could tell her how he was moving and if he was coming close. She could hear the rustling of grass, the crunching of leaves and, suddenly, the rending of wood into splinters as Nizhet destroyed a tree just meters from where she was.
"You are lucky my senses are still dulled from my hibernation, foolish girl, or you'd be dead by now." He snarled.
It had been a desperate gambit by someone running out of options, but by some stroke of luck, it was working. He was getting closer to her hiding spot, dangerously so, but it had bought her some time, at the very least.
Suddenly, the sounds went quiet, nothing but the slight breeze and her own beating heart. She held her breath, waiting for any sign. However, all she felt was the warmth of her currently swelling diaper, her bladder releasing on its own. It annoyed her that she once again had a lapse of control, but having her diaper grow damp would at least mute the crinkle of her every motion.
As if on instinct, she rolled as far to the side as she could in the small alcove, holding in a yelp as the Hollow's tail sliced through the tree trunks making up her hiding spot, just missing her by inches. Wasting no time, Rukia rolled to the other side, still not fast enough to avoid getting nicked as the scythed tail tore through where she just was. The fallen trees creaked and groaned as the weight shifted, the separated pieces slowly succumbing to gravity around Rukia.
Nizhet pulled his tail back, looking over the trees he just sliced through. He turned to move to another area, before he noticed a tiny spot of red along the blade. With a fanged smirk, he turned back towards the alcove and gathered his energy. The tree trunks exploded in a thunderous shower of splinters as the Cero collided with it. Amongst the rubble, Nizhet noticed a scrap of cloth he recognized from the Shinigami's colorful top.
"You should be proud, Shinigami." He taunted, "I have killed much stronger of your kind while using much less stamina. Killing you almost came close to slightly tiring me out."
"Hado number seventy-seven, Kouatsu Tsuzuri Raiden!" Rukia shouted from above, noticeably missing the sleeve of her shirt.
The element of surprise allowed her the opportunity to plunge her sword through the gap in his mask where his left eye was, just as her blade crackled with powerful electricity from her Hado spell. Nizhet had been caught by surprise and unable to protect against the attack, yelling in pain as the electricity wracked every nerve in his body.
However, despite her seemingly successful attack, Rukia was even more worried than she had been before. She had plunged her blade directly into his eye, and yet all the damage she had caused was from the electricity of her sword passing through his eye; the metal of her blade had not even been able to pierce the jelly of his eyeball. It was either a testament to how strong he was or how weak her zanpakuto had mysteriously become, or perhaps both. Either way, any confidence built up from outsmarting the Hollow faded as it came, leaving her with even less hope than she had before.
Still though, Rukia held her position, continuing to pour electricity into the foe's body. He writhed, both from the pain and to try and get her off, but she held on tight. That is, until he managed to use his tail to wrap around her body. He was in too much pain to try and slice her with the scythe, but he could muster enough dexterity to wrap it around her. With a quick motion, he swung his tail, pulling the Shinigami and, most importantly, her sword off of him and throwing her against the ground.
"A lucky shot, Shinigami." He snarled, righting his posture, "An opportunity you will not get again."
Rukia got back to her feet, nearly having to use her sword as a crutch to support herself. With no further ideas and even less spiritual energy at her disposal, Rukia fell back onto one last desperate cause of action: she held out her sword and willed her legs to run towards him. It was doomed to fail, but there was no other option she had.
She did not even reach Nizhet himself before the scythe on his tail blocked her path. She tried to swing her sword to knock the bony appendage out of her way, but that turned out to be a fatal mistake. When the blade of the scythe met the blade of her zanpakuto, bone won against steel, cleaving the sword near the sword. Rukia's eyes widened as her once-faithful sword broke, her very last, desperate hope of surviving this encounter.
"That's game, Shinigami." He calmly stated, clenching his fists.
Rukia's body betrayed her as she stood, not a single muscle moving as the Hollow rushed towards her. His fist painfully crashed into her gut, breaking the rib that had merely cracked before, along with a few others. The force rocketed her body away from the scene and through the air, her hand somehow still gripping the hilt of her broken sword.
Her back joined the chorus of pain as it impacted with a solid object, the cold moisture telling her it was one of her ice pillars. Her body slid out of the crevice it had formed and slid down the pillar to the snowy ground below. The world around her began to grow dark, consciousness beginning to fade. The last thing she saw as she passed out was he silhouette of a person, feeling the touch of oddly cool hands against her skin.
