Chapter 15: The Core

That sound of screaming was loud enough to resonate back to the Soul Reapers, who were still tending to Alma and Rachel. Unohana instantly recognized the loud scream as her son's voice and started to panic at what might be happening to him. She wished she could get through the barrier to help him in anyway she could, but that was an impossible task right now.

"Dammit." Unohana said in a low tone.

She was worried for her son, obviously, but the fact that she could do nothing to help him was what was really making her panic.

"Don't know much about him," Yoruichi started as she placed a hand on Unohana's shoulder. "But I'm sure he'll be fine. Hopefully."

String's POV

Holy crap that hurt! My bodies aching all over. Whatever the walking fart cloud did to me, it was hella painful. After grimacing for however long I was, I stood up slowly. The scales were all over my arms and legs, making my pants rip little holes in themselves. Surprisingly enough my sweater was still in one piece despite the scales in my arms and back tearing out of me. I wish I had a mirror to see myself but it looks like all I really can use right now is my swords reflection. I grabbed my blade off the ground and looked at my reflection. I recognized the hair from earlier, but the eyes and the scales under them was really new. As a matter of fact, I felt like I should've recognized this new look as a hollow, but I couldn't feel any of my faint spirit energy. True, even though I mainly rely on my natural senses and ninja training, I still do use my spirit energy to detect hollows and soul reapers like mom. And that's when it hit me hard.

"Oh shit."

I'm no longer a hybrid, just another Greater Fiend.

General POV

String didn't know what to think at that point. He had always been what he was born as, but now to only be one, a Greater Fiend at that since he still had his soul. The mere thought of it made him shiver. He didn't know how he was supposed to tell Unohana, if he could even sense her anymore.

At that moment, the pillar keeping the exit blocked lowered and String had only one last thing he had to do, hybrid or not. Kill the Vigoor Emperor and stop all this crap.

He went through the opening and found himself at the side of Zarkhan. He looked at the old building and wondered just what exactly was so menacing about it before he looked down and saw the bottom. A large tower that stretched to an abyss of some sorts. Without hesitating at what he saw, String made his way over to the front of the temple and saw a bridge that was doing a loop. Not wanting to test his wings at all, String cautiously took a step onto it and started to walk. To his surprise and probably because he was a full fiend now, he was able to walk the loop and get to the entrance of the Core.

"Man, talk about some weird type of vertigo." String said to himself. His voice had started to change and become raspy and demonic sounding. "Crap."

When he headed toward the door and tried to open it, he found that it was locked. String cursed to himself and left the area. He traveled the loop bridge again and decided to head to his right down a path. For some reason he felt a presence that shouldn't have been there. He went across an opening until he found a familiar door.

"That's the door to the stairs." String said to himself again. "Someones on the other side that shouldn't be here."

He went to the door and opened it from his side. When he went through, he saw a Black Spider clan ninja struggling to breathe and move slowly inch his way to the door. He was carrying some kind of key with a black heart on it in his outstretched right hand. The moment he saw String he sighed in slight relief.

"So it is you who will end this." He said in a weak tone. "Take this key, and stop this, so my death is not in vain."

String grabbed the key from his hand and saw him die as soon as the key left his hand. String didn't know what to think of this one Black Spider ninja. String has killed many of them before, so why would this one risk his life to help his enemy?

"I'll end this then." String said to himself.

He stood up and that was when he saw everyone down at the bottom of the steps. Unohana and her group along with Rachel with Alma holding onto her for support. They all got a good look at String's true fiend self and they were in shock and slight awe. He could tell from their faces that they had no idea what to think of his transformed look and neither did he, until his mother looked at him with her deep blue eyes. She didn't need words to let String know that he was her son no matter if he was a full fiend or hollow. That look was all he needed to give him his confidence again. She nodded to him and he nodded back.

"I'll be careful, mom." String said in his demonic voice that startled the others, but not Unohana. He went back through the door and went back to the entrance where he used the key.

"What he discover at the end of his journey?" Ayane said from afar outside the dome. "Appeasement for his vengeful heart? Or something else,the true battle is only just beginning."

String went inside and was immediately attacked by the exact same dragon type fiends as before. He dealt with them quickly and ferociously with his new fiend strength and speed. When he did he saw a pedestal with an image of a Raptor on it.

"Looks familiar." String said as he placed the Raptor deity statue on it.

The door unlocked and he went through it. He did this three more times, placing the Wolf statue on the second floor, the Devil statue on the third, and finally the Serpent statue on the forth. He made his way to the very top of the tower where a large door was and a portal was. Another pedestal was there, but it had a demon image on it.

"I'm assuming I need to go through this portal." String said as he sighed in annoyance. He stepped into the portal and warped back to the fiend realm where the Greater Fiend (AN: Who Is A Total Wimp On Any Difficulty On This Game.) waited.

The moment he saw String, he sent some regular fiends to engage the full fiend. String made short work of them and Marbasu teleported him to an open area where another fiend was being teleported to him.

"My servants, return from the Underworld, and take care of this puny insect once and for all." Marbasu said.

"Oh great, the hentai monster again." String said as the Hydrocubus appeared for the umpteenth time.

String took care of it almost instantly, using his speed to destroy it easily. He was teleported back in front of Marbasu.

"Hm, you're not as weak as I thought." Marbasu said to him.

He summoned more weak fiends to attack String, only this time he used his wings to cut them down almost instantly. String threw up his hands in annoyance to what he was doing.

"That's it?" He asked the Greater Fiend.

Marbasu teleported him to another open area where another familiar fiend was being summoned.

"How do you like this?" He said as the ice fiend from the caverns appeared in front of String.

"Dude." String said as he gave a nonchalant shrug at the fiend that he beat so easily it wasn't even mentioned in a chapter. Sighing in annoyance once again, String made quick work of the fiend before it could even touch him. String was teleported back to Marbasu and the Greater Fiend looked at String's bored look in rage.

"That's it, it's time for me to take you on personally." Marbasu flew down and was about to fight String personally.

He fired several fireballs at String that were too easy for the full fiend to dodge. String didn't even draw his sword as Marbasu dove straight at him. String dodged his dive and drew his blade to cut the Greater Fiend down with ease.

"Well that sucked." String said to himself.

A pedestal appeared with a statue of a demon deity on it. He grabbed it and ran to another portal that took him back to the original pedestal. He placed the statue on it and the door opened to reveal a spiraling staircase that went up, or in this case down. String took a deep breath and went up the stairs. As he went up, he saw that the stairs were breaking apart and coming down to him.

"Seriously!" String said as he tried to outrun it, but he was too late. String fell down to the tower, but then, almost as if gravity turned back on, he started to fall down to the abyss.

String's POV

I was falling for what seemed like an eternity with only darkness covering my vision. Then everything got brighter and full of color. After I could finally see again, I saw that I wasn't falling into some sort of never ending abyss of darkness, but a seriously beautiful meadow of colorful flowers. I landed in them almost as if I was landing in the arms of my mother. It was soft and held me in such a protective way. I felt almost as if I was in the safest place in the world and that I could stay there forever, until I saw it standing off in the distance. The Vigoor Emperor.

A giant looking statue with massively gorgeous wings, a detached head with wings on the side of it as well, and its hands her clasped together almost as if she was praying. I got up and walked over to her as slowly as I could. I seriously didn't want to rush a giant without a plan. I walked over until I finally saw just what I had been searching for, the Dark Dragon Blade hovering over her.

"Found you." I said.

Suddenly, the statue started to move and jewels started to glow as its skin changed to a weird kind of flesh. She stood and the beautiful flowers started dying around her and soon everywhere else. The ground shook and the entire plain we were standing on turned to an erupting hell fire of lava. She stood up fully and looked down at me with the same look as when she was a statue, blank.

"So you got wings too huh?" I said in a cocky and arrogant tone. I started to float in the air before simply just flying up to her. "So do I."

She reached her hand toward me and I drew my blade, ready to finally end this whole thing. "Lets do this you tall bitch!"

She swung her long arm at me in a rage, I'm gonna assume she really doesn't like being called that. She flailed at me and missed, but her attacks were strong enough to push me back from the sheer force of it all. I couldn't believe how strong she was, and she's not even using the Dark Dragon. I rushed to her and tried my absolute ass off to cut her down, but nothing was working. Her skin was way too tough and I couldn't hit her at all.

She tried to swing at me again and this time I flew in between the gap in her fingers an stabbed at one of the glowing blue jewels on her arm. It shattered and her arm was no longer moving. Now I've got her, I went to her other arm and shattered the jewel in it as well as the one on her chest. That one made me feel like a pervert since the jewel was in between her breast but whatever. She fell in pieces in the lava and I landed near a landing on the ground. It was easy since I had wings now, I might get used to this whole Greater Fiend thing. Almost as if whoever is up there heard my thoughts or whatever, as soon as the Vigoor Emperor's head was engulfed in lava, making her head turn to a skull, my scales were starting to fall off.

"Am I changing back?" I asked as the scales fell off of me.

I looked at myself on my blade again and saw that my eyes were going back to normal. The wings were slowly breaking apart and I could feel my spirit energy return to me. I was about to go back to normal again. But then almost as if the same guy upstairs saw my happiness, the scales came back and so did the wings. It wasn't as painful as before, but it still hurt a lot. That's when I found out why I was going back to that form again.

"ENOUGH OF THIS, YOUR INSIGNIFICANT LIFE ENDS HERE!" The Vigoor Emperor was still alive and rose out of the lava in a new form. She was now some sort of four legged giant made of skulls with her large horned skull at the top.

"DAMMIT!" I shouted in that demonic voice once again.

I couldn't believe it. I can change back by killing her, and that's what I intend to do. Fortunately for me, she was really slow and vulnerable to my arrows. I fired at her with extreme accuracy and didn't stop firing until she started sending those skulls at me. I stopped and cut them down when she came at me. She tried to eat me but I kept myself safe by using my Inferno ninpo against her. Thanks to my new power as a fiend, the fireball was ten times more powerful than before. I easily hit her and sent her back.

"Eat dirt and die you freak!" I shouted as I flew at her with intense speed.

I drew my blade once again and this time I stabbed her right in her head. I have no idea what was going on, but I felt a surge of power wash over me. Was it the eye in my sword? It gave me its true strength and I poured it into finally destroying the Vigoor Emperor. Her skull cracked from my blade and she screamed in pain. I knew she was probably begging me to stop, to let her go so she can attempt this same crap again, but I wasn't going to let that happen. Never again.

"Goodbye." I said to her pleading screams as I forced that energy out and shattered her completely.

I jumped from her shattering pieces and landed on a high platform to watch her fall. As I stood up, the scales were falling off of me and my eyes changed back to their normal color. My hair even changed back to blue with black highlights. My spirit energy was back to its regular form, and I could sense several spirit energies high above me. I could even hear that voice in my head again, only this time I was pretty relieved to have it back.

"Won't lie dude, it's good to be back." It said to me. It took me awhile to figure out that he was a part of my true hollow instincts after I became a full fiend. It felt great to have him back now.

As I looked around, I saw that the place was coming down all over me. But I also saw the Dark Dragon Blade planted high above on a ridge.

"Finally have you now." I said in my normal voice.

"That's cool and all dude but one quick question." My inner hollow started. "How are we gonna get out of here after you get the Dark Dragon?"

"...Oh crap."

Only One Chapter Left. I've Had So Much Fun Writing This Story For The Past Year. Even If I've Had A Few Hiatuses In That Year. I Will Be Doing The Second Game After This With Some OCs Helping String Out To Deal With The Greater Fiends. I Can't Thank You Guys Enough For The Views And I Hope You'll Like Ninja Gaiden 2:Retold Whenever I Can Put It Up.

Anyway, Hope You Guys Enjoyed This Long Chapter. I Didn't Expect To Put It Up This Early But Whatever. As Always To You Awesome People,

Stay Sexy Out There, PEACE!