Summary: An unusual Vasto Lorde ponders the emptiness of his existence when an eerie Shinigami entices him with the promise of more.
It stretched out endlessly before him. White dunes sprawling over a perpetual night. Unchanging, it called to him, this lifeless desert of broken things. The watery light of the moon spilled over him, highlighting the bone white of a horned helm and deepening the shadows on his face.
Endless. Perpetual. Was this all there was to eternity? This aimless wandering?
Something… Something was missing. An ache blistered in the cold night. Sharp. Forceful. Undeniable. It echoed through him like words unspoken, an elusive and all encompassing sense of loss. Of emptiness. Void and yet wanting. Was this his fate? To wander this desert eternally consumed by a grating hunger? Tortured endlessly by this icy fire?
It was meaningless.
A creature attacked him. Only a lowly adjudas, effortlessly vanquished. Trash, he thought, they were trash, and yet the taste the blood lay on his lips, sickeningly metallic and curdling like sour wine in his stomach. The ache remained.
Cold. Crushing. It sang through his bones stealing the flavour on his tongue and rendering everything as pale and lifeless as the sands which tangled in his hair and scraped against steely skin. Futile. No matter how much trash he consumed it would not die. The insistent sense of something. As though somewhere, somehow, something had been taken from him and he could no longer recall what or when.
Long dark hair ruffled in the mournful wind, struggling against the hold of bone. How long had he wandered this cold and empty world? How many had he devoured? How manyhad it taken to create something new and whole and utterly different? So different he no longer remembered who he had been or if he had been at all and instead recalled only the endless, maddening hunger that characterized his earliest memories?
Decades perhaps? Centuries? It was inconsequential. Time had no significance in this world.
Another hollow. Too consumed by its greed to take heed of his unfathomable power. A claw struck and he could feel the heat of blood dripping down his digits. Pathetic. They were all pathetic. Another adjudas, another hollow, each more pathetic than the last. It seemed this time they decided to confront him as a group, too lured by the promise of power to be deterred by the risk.
Chiropteran eyes glowed from the dark hollows of the mask. If he allowed himself to be eaten would he find it? This elusive something that tortured his existence? Or would one of these be the one? The creature capable of answering his unanswerable inquiry? If he devoured them would he finally reach it? That ineffable something?
Cool eyes accessed them, feeling the sting of a cut quickly healing as they struck in unison, still not powerful enough to do true harm. A red eyed hawk, a monstrous centipede, the sharp claws of a bear… He could see the spark of greed consuming them, the lust for power fueling them beyond reason and something in him curled in disgust. Weak. Pathetic. Trash. He would not fall to them.
It was…undignified.
He released it, the crushing weight of his reiatsu, watching coldly as one by one they fell, struggling against the weight of his power. Useless. Black tipped claws struck again, tearing into a chest. He repeated the action, surveying, with revulsion, the mutilated remains of some dozen hollows, their bodies still twitching. Those glowing eyes closed. With a burst of black energy so intense the flames burned white, he felt them crumble into ash. Their reiatsu faded into nothingness.
Would he too become nothing but ash in the wind?
"Impressive." He turned the white material of his pants swishing with the movement to observe his applauding audience. Shinigami. Would this one have what he desired? The integral missing something? He did not think so. Hope had long proved futile. "How would you like to join me?"
Those glowing eyes narrowed. "Ridiculous…" Hollow and shinigami did not work together. The fool was not worth the effort of killing. Better to leave before the foolishness infected him too. He ran. The ribbon of his hair streamed behind him, dancing with the speed of his retreat from that oddly smiling man.
"I have what you desire…" That voice slithered past his defenses, enticing. The hunger, barely sated, roared. He glanced back. Stopped. The man was close. Too close. No one had ever matched his sonido.
Who was this man?
"Impossible." He was not sure why he was wasting his breath to answer. This insignificant creature, remarkable though his speed, could surely not be worth the effort. Yet he found himself intrigued. The hunger demanded he listen. Demanded he learn what exactly this creature could offer beyond the scope of a meal.
Swaggering closer, the shinigami moved his hand. The naked length of the blade glittered in the feeble glow of the crescent moon. He tensed, power already collecting between his horns. "Not at all," the smiling man continued, completely unconcerned, "would you like to see?"
He had no time to answer. Suddenly he was drowning. Something engulfing him. Filling him. A power so pure, so radiant his eyes grew wet. If he reached, he could take it. Could consume it. Taste it. The aching hollowness growing to a fevered pitch. He needed to take it. Needed to consume it. It was close. So painfully close. If only he could just open his mouth and drink…
And then it was gone.
The light. The warmth. The everything. Gone. Wetness leaked from his eyes. His body swayed. Collapsed. The world was suddenly too silent. His body was suddenly too small. Too empty. Shaking, his hand stole to the hole sitting high in his chest. The space pulse with agony. The hunger, darker and deeper, grew ravenous.
Sandaled feet drew into his sight. He looked up. The shinigami still smiled that uncanny smile. Those dark eyes glittered with a mocking light, as though beneath them hid all the secrets of the world. He could muster no anger. No violence. No feeling. It was as though the experience of that moment had robbed him of all sensation. Yet questions burned through his mind. So many, so quickly, he could barely make sense of them.
Who was this strange Shinigami?
What had he done?
…Could it be done again?
"What do you say? Will you join me? I could give this to you. If only you agree to follow me…"
As though from a distance he heard his voice, soft, rasping, reply. "Yes…"
The shinigami's smile grew wide. "Welcome then my quatro espada."